Turkey plagued by 'sea snot' outbreak

ISTANBUL (AP) — Turkey’s president promised Saturday to rescue the Marmara Sea from an outbreak of “sea snot” that is alarming marine biologists and environmentalists.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

A huge mass of marine mucilage, a thick, slimy substance made up of compounds released by marine organisms, has bloomed in Turkey's Marmara, as well as in the adjoining Black and Aegean Seas.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said untreated waste dumped into the Marmara Sea and climate change had caused the sea snot bloom. Istanbul, Turkey’s largest city with some 16 million residents, and five other provinces, factories and industrial hubs border the sea.

Marine mucilage has reached unprecedented levels this year in Turkey. It is visible above the water as a slimy gray sheet along the shores of Istanbul and neighboring provinces. Underwater videos showed suffocated coral covered with sea snot.

Erdogan said he instructed the Ministry of Environment and Urbanization to coordinate with relevant institutions, municipalities and universities. Teams are inspecting waste water and solid waste facilities, along with other potential sources of pollution, he said.

“We will save our seas from this mucilage calamity, leading with the Marmara Sea,” Erdogan said. “We must take this step without delay.”

Marine experts say that human waste and industrial pollution is choking Turkey’s seas. They say the rise in water temperatures from climate change is contributing to the problem.

VIDEO

Turkey plagued by 'sea snot' outbreak (Sky News)

The Associated Press

Pipeline foes gear up for large northern Minnesota protests

SOLWAY, Minn. (AP) — Environmental and tribal groups opposed to Enbridge Energy’s ongoing effort to replace its aging Line 3 crude oil pipeline are planning large protests in northern Minnesota as the Canadian-based company gears up for a final construction push

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Organizers say they expect hundreds of people to participate in the “Treaty People Gathering” on Monday, which they are billing as the largest show of resistance yet to the project. They plan to march to the headwaters of the Mississippi River, one of the water crossings for the pipeline, where they will deliver speeches and participate in organized civil disobedience.

Opponents of the project have say they will do whatever it takes to block completion of the project, including risk being arrested. Among those they say will be on hand Monday will be actors Jane Fonda, Catherine Keener, Rosanna Arquette and Taylor Schilling, as well as environmentalist and author Bill McKibben.

Line 3 carries Canadian crude from Alberta. It clips a corner of North Dakota on its way across northern Minnesota to Enbridge’s terminal in Superior, Wisconsin. The Canadian and Wisconsin replacement segments are already carrying oil. The Minnesota segment is about 60% complete.

Project opponents say the replacement pipeline, which would carry Canadian tar sands oil and regular crude, would worsen climate change and risk spills in sensitive areas where Native Americans harvest wild rice, hunt, fish, gather medicinal plants and claim treaty rights.

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz told Minnesota Public Radio News that he doesn't plan to deploy the National Guard during the event, saying he doesn't expect protesters to "interfere with lawful construction or lawful practices.”

The Associated Press

THESE THINGS TOO SHALL PASS

U.S. Treasury's Yellen tells G7 to keep spending, says inflation will pass

© Reuters/POOL G7 finance ministers meet in London

LONDON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen urged other rich nations on Saturday to keep up spending to support their economies even as the COVID-19 pandemic wanes, and said U.S. inflation this year would be elevated but transitory.

Yellen told a news conference after G7 finance ministers met in London that they needed to invest in a fight against climate change and inequality, even after putting their economies "back on track" from the enormous hit of the pandemic.

Her comments placed a different emphasis on fiscal support than the joint statement by the G7 finance ministers, which also stressed the need to ensure long-term sustainability of public finances once the recovery takes hold.

"Most countries have fiscal space, and have the ability to put in place, fiscal policies that will continue promoting recovery and deal with some of the long run challenges that all of us face when it comes to climate change and inclusive and sustainable growth, and we urge countries to do that," she said.

Last week, U.S. President Joe Biden's administration put forward a $6 trillion budget plan that opponents said will fuel higher inflation - something that Yellen on Saturday said was unlikely to be permanent.

She hailed an agreement to pursue a global minimum tax of at least 15% on corporations as a return to multilateralism that would help to stabilize tax systems, while preserving national authority to set tax rates and policies.

"I really consider this a historic achievement, and it shows that multilateral collaboration can be successful," Yellen told reporters.

The United States was still pursuing a 21% minimum for the overseas earnings of U.S. companies even though the G7 agreed on at least 15%, she said.

"We haven't demanded or expressed the view that it's necessary for us to have the same level globally, but we do hope that countries will be ambitious and that the agreement is at least 15%. So we've yet to set the final rate," Yellen said.

Treasury officials have said they believe a higher U.S. tax rate will create incentives for other countries to push higher, otherwise they would miss out on potential revenue from American companies in their territory.

Not all countries would need to sign on to the global corporate tax deal for it to work, Yellen said, as it would allow countries to additionally tax overseas income of companies operating via tax havens, negating that advantage.

"It doesn't require absolute agreement across the board. It has a way of bringing hold-outs into it," she said, adding that she hoped to secure the backing of G20 countries that represent a "very large share" of global GDP at a meeting in July.

KEEPING AN EYE ON INFLATION

Yellen said inflation will remain elevated at 3% on a year-over-year basis until about the end of 2021.

"I personally believe that this represents transitory factors," she said. Production bottlenecks had caused elevated prices in some industries, such as motor vehicles, while other prices, such as airline fares, were rebounding back to more normal levels, she added.

"We'll watch this very carefully, keep an eye on it and try to address issues that arise if it turns out to be necessary," Yellen said.

There is still slack in the labor market, she said, because of people who had lost jobs permanently, and it will take a while to reabsorb those workers into the economy.

"So we shouldn't expect this process to be complete in a month or two," Yellen said. "And while we're seeing some inflation, I don't believe it's permanent."

Yellen said the G7 finance ministers agreed to ambitious commitments to de-carbonize their economies and mobilize public and private finance for action to combat climate change.

"To facilitate the mobilization of private climate finance, the G7 also agreed to take action to improve the availability of consistent, comparable, and decision-useful climate-related financial information to market participants," Yellen said in prepared remarks.

(Reputing by Andy Bruce in London and David Lawder in Washington; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Canada to tax tech giants as planned despite framework G7 tax deal, says Freeland

Canada is proceeding with its plan to tax technology giants next year even as the world's wealthiest democracies proposed a new global tax framework that includes plans to impose a levee on the firms, federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said Saturday.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Her remarks came following a meeting of G7 finance ministers, who hammered out details of the possible global taxation plan during talks held in London.

The Group of Seven wealthy democracies agreed to support a global minimum corporate tax of at least 15 per cent to deter multinational companies from avoiding taxes by stashing profits in low-rate countries. They also endorsed proposals to make the world's biggest companies — including U.S.-based tech giants — pay taxes in countries where they have lots of sales but no physical headquarters.

Freeland said Ottawa will still unilaterally impose its own digital services tax starting Jan. 1, 2022. Similar measures are already in place in Britain, France and Italy.

But Freeland noted countries would repeal their taxation plans following a transition to the new global system, she said after the meeting.

"We've shown today that it is possible to end the global race to the bottom on taxation and this world's leading liberal democracies are able to work together in the common interest," Freeland said in a media call from London.

"Multinational companies need to pay their fair share of taxes. Jurisdiction shopping allows them to avoid doing that."

Freeland wouldn't say if any Canadian companies would face the proposed new tax formula, but said some domestic firms would be subject to next year's digital tax.

Other G7 finance ministers said the framework agreement is not the end of the story. Instead, they said, is meant to propel long-standing discussions among a wider group of countries and signal that taxation changes are necessary.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the proposal "provides tremendous momentum" for reaching a global deal that "would end the race-to-the-bottom in corporate taxation and ensure fairness for the middle class and working people in the U.S. and around the world."

Nations have been grappling for years with the question of how to deter companies from legally avoiding paying taxes by using accounting and legal schemes to assign their profits to subsidiaries in tax havens — typically small countries that entice companies with low or zero taxes, even though the firms do little actual business there.

International discussions on tax issues gained momentum after U.S. President Joe Biden backed the idea of a global minimum of at least 15 per cent — and possibly higher — on corporate profits.

The meeting of finance ministers came ahead of an annual summit of G7 leaders scheduled to take place from June 11-13 in Cornwall, England. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is planning to attend.

The endorsement from the G7 could help build momentum for a deal in wider talks among more than 135 countries being held in Paris, as well as a Group of 20 finance ministers meeting in Venice in July.

"We understand that this whole idea works only if we get the broadest possible group of countries to sign on and for that to happen they need to have a say as well," said Freeland, who is also deputy prime minister.

The framework proposes allocating taxing rights to countries on at least 20 per cent of profit exceeding a 10 per cent margin for the largest and most profitable multinational enterprises. That's something Canada doesn't currently have.

It also commits to a global minimum tax of at least 15 per cent to be levied on a country by country basis.

The framework could force some of the world's biggest companies, including U.S.-based tech giants like Facebook, Google, Apple and Microsoft, to pay taxes in countries where they generate significant revenue but have no physical headquarters.

The U.S. considers those national taxes to be unfair trade measures that improperly single out American firms.

Facebook vice-president for global affairs Nick Clegg said the deal is a big step toward increasing business certainty and raising public confidence in the global tax system, but acknowledged it could cost the company.

"We want the international tax reform process to succeed and recognize this could mean Facebook paying more tax, and in different places," Clegg said on Twitter.

Freeland said it's important to Canada that a minimum floor be established for corporate taxes.

"We're a relatively high-tax country. We need to be because we have a high level of public services and that means that a corporate tax race to the bottom really hurts us," she said.

Conservative finance critic Ed Fast said the party strongly disagrees with Canada's decision to sign on to a global minimum tax.

"We strongly support efforts to make multinational tax avoiders like Facebook and Google pay their fair share, but that doesn't mean giving up sovereignty over our tax system," he said in a statement. "Canadians, and Canadians alone, determine our nation's domestic tax policy and rates."

Britain’s Treasury chief Rishi Sunak, the meeting’s host, said the deal would reform the global tax system to make it fit for the digital age and to ensure "the right companies pay the right tax in the right places."

The global minimum tax rate was backed by U.S. President Joe Biden, who originally pushed for a minimum tax rate of 21 per cent. Biden is proposing a 21 per cent U.S. tax rate on companies' overseas earnings, an increase from the 10.5 to 13.125 per cent enacted under former president Donald Trump. Freeland credited Yellen with proposing a compromise position.

Freeland also said she had a bilateral meeting with Yellin where they discussed Buy America policies, softwood lumber, the Line 5 pipeline, carbon pricing and climate action.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 5, 2021.

— With files from The Associated Press

Ross Marowits, The Canadian Press

Tech giants and tax havens targeted by historic G7 deal

LONDON (Reuters) -The United States, Britain and other large, rich nations reached a landmark deal on Saturday to squeeze more money out of multinational companies such as Amazon and Google and reduce their incentive to shift profits to low-tax offshore havens.

Hundreds of billions of dollars could flow into the coffers of governments left cash-strapped by the COVID-19 pandemic after the Group of Seven (G7) advanced economies agreed to back a minimum global corporate tax rate of at least 15%.

Facebook said it expected it would have to pay more tax, in more countries, as a result of the deal, which comes after eight years of talks that gained fresh impetus in recent months after proposals from U.S. President Joe Biden's new administration.

"G7 finance ministers have reached a historic agreement to reform the global tax system to make it fit for the global digital age," British finance minister Rishi Sunak said after chairing a two-day meeting in London.

The meeting, hosted at an ornate 19th-century mansion near Buckingham Palace in central London, was the first time finance ministers have met face-to-face since the start of the pandemic.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said the "significant, unprecedented commitment" would end what she called a race to the bottom on global taxation.

German finance minister Olaf Scholz said the deal was "bad news for tax havens around the world".

Yellen also saw the G7 meeting as marking a return to multilateralism under Biden and a contrast to the approach of U.S. President Donald Trump, who alienated many U.S. allies.

"What I've seen during my time at this G7 is deep collaboration and a desire to coordinate and address a much broader range of global problems," she said.

Ministers also agreed to move towards making companies declare their environmental impact in a more standard way so investors can decided more easily whether to fund them, a key goal for Britain.

TAXING TIMES

Current global tax rules date back to the 1920s and struggle with multinational tech giants that sell services remotely and attribute much of their profits to intellectual property held in low-tax jurisdictions.

Nick Clegg, Facebook's vice-president for global affairs and a former British deputy prime minister, said: "We want the international tax reform process to succeed and recognise this could mean Facebook paying more tax, and in different places."

But Italy, which will seek wider international backing for the plans at a meeting of the G20 in Venice next month, said the proposals were not just aimed at U.S. firms.

Yellen said European countries would scrap existing digital services taxes which the United States says discriminate against U.S. businesses as the new global rules go into effect.

"There is broad agreement that these two things go hand in hand," she said.

Key details remain to be negotiated over the coming months. Saturday's agreement says only "the largest and most profitable multinational enterprises" would be affected.

European countries had been concerned that this could exclude Amazon - which has lower profit margins than most tech companies - but Yellen said she expected it would be included.

How tax revenues will be split is not finalised either, and any deal will also need to pass the U.S. Congress.

French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire said he would push for a higher minimum tax, calling 15% "a starting point".

Some campaign groups also condemned what they saw as a lack of ambition. "They are setting the bar so low that companies can just step over it," Oxfam's head of inequality policy, Max Lawson, said.

But Irish finance minister Paschal Donohoe, whose country is potentially affected because of its 12.5% tax rate, said any global deal also needed to take account of smaller nations.

The G7 includes the United States, Japan, Germany, Britain, France, Italy and Canada.

(Additional reporting by Andy Bruce, David Lawder, Padraic Halpin, Thomas Escritt, Giulia Segreti, Sabahatjahan Contractor and Mathieu RosemainEditing by Alexander Smith and David Holmes)

INSURER WILL NOT RENEW TRANSMOUNTAIN PIPELINE POLICY

CALGARY — An insurance provider for the Trans Mountain pipeline said it will not renew its policy with the company when it expires in August.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

Argo Group International Holdings Ltd., an international underwriter based in Bermuda, said the project no longer fits the company's risk appetite.

"We currently insure the Trans Mountain pipeline, but do not intend to renew when the policy expires in August 2021," spokesman David Snowden said.

"This type of project is not currently within Argo's risk appetite."

The decision by Argo Group comes after the operator for Trans Mountain received regulatory approval to protect the identity of its insurers.

Trans Mountain had argued that identifying its insurers could make it harder to get insurance at a reasonable price and prejudice its competitive position.

Underwriters such as Zurich Insurance Group AG have also dropped Trans Mountain as a possible client amid pressure from environmental and Indigenous groups opposed to the government-owned pipeline.

Environmental groups, such as the Sunrise Project, have been petitioning insurance providers to refuse coverage for Trans Mountain as a means to prevent its ability to operate.

In a statement, Trans Mountain said it currently has all the required insurance in place.

"Trans Mountain is committed to providing the Canada Energy Regulator with full information about our financial resourcing and ensuring Canadians know that we are sufficiently insured," said a company spokeswoman.

Construction for the pipeline's expansion project is ongoing and the company said it is on track to be completed by the end of 2022.

The federal government purchased the existing line in 2018 from Texas-based Kinder Morgan for $4.5 billion when the company threatened to walk away because of resistance to the project from the British Columbia government, environmentalists and some Indigenous groups.

The expansion will more than double the pipeline's capacity from approximately 300,000 barrels per day to 890,000 barrels per day.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 3, 2021.

The Canadian Pres

U.S. leisure and hospitality pay surges to a record. Now will workers come?

Jonnelle MarteAnn Saphir
June 4, 2021



Restaurant workers are seen inside one of the city's most popular restaurants amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, in El Paso, Texas, U.S. November 15, 2020. REUTERS/Ivan Pierre Aguirre

Hotels, restaurants and other businesses are boosting pay as they try to rebuild their staffs and meet increasing demand from Americans ready to venture out as pandemic-related restrictions are lifted and more people are vaccinated.

But it is unclear if the increases will be sufficient to entice enough workers back to close the employment gap remaining in the sector hit hardest by COVID-19 job losses.

Average hourly earnings for workers in leisure and hospitality rose to $18.09 in May, the highest ever and up 5% from January alone, according to Labor Department data released on Friday. Pay rose even faster for workers in non-manager roles, who saw earnings rise by 7.2% from January, far outpacing any other sector.



That higher pay could be a sign that companies are lifting wages as they seek to draw people back to work after more than a year at home. Some businesses are struggling to keep up with higher demand as more consumers, now fully vaccinated, get back to flying, staying in hotels and dining indoors. Job gains in leisure and hospitality this year have so far outpaced gains in other sectors.

But it is too soon to know whether the boost will be enough to help speed up hiring at a time when many workers are still facing other obstacles, including health concerns and having to care for children and other relatives.

"The fact of the matter is, the pandemic is still going on," said Daniel Zhao, a senior economist for Glassdoor. "The economy is running ahead of where we are from a public health situation."



Some 2.5 million people said they were prevented from looking for work in May because of the pandemic, according to the Labor Department. And just about 40% of Americans are now fully vaccinated, meaning that many workers may still be concerned about the health risks they might face on the job, Zhao said.

STILL IN A HOLE

Employment in leisure and hospitality is still in a deep hole when compared with pre-pandemic levels.

The industry added 292,000 jobs in May, with about two-thirds of that hiring happening in restaurants and bars. But overall employment is still down 2.5 million jobs, or 15% from pre-pandemic levels, more than any other industry.



If job gains continued at the pace seen in May, it would take more than eight months to replace the jobs lost. And it's not yet clear that all of the jobs will be recovered, especially if business travel remains depressed or if other habits change after the pandemic.

Some people who previously worked at hotels or restaurants moved on to other types of jobs during the pandemic, such as packaging goods at a warehouse, and it's too soon to know whether they will switch back as more of the economy reopens, said Zhao.

Some Republicans and businesses struggling to find workers say generous unemployment benefits are slowing down the labor market recovery by making it easier for workers to stay home. Others say the benefits may be helping workers cover the bills while they wait for schools to reopen, receive vaccinations and resolve other obstacles that made it difficult for them to work during the pandemic.


"People were making decisions based on those other factors, but they had the wherewithal to make those choices because of the extended unemployment benefits," Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank President Loretta Mester said during an interview with CNBC.

Either way, any frictions caused by unemployment benefits may be resolved over the next several months as those benefits are reduced. About half of states are putting an early end to a $300 federal supplement to weekly unemployment benefits, winding them down as soon as June 12. The supplement expires nationwide on Sept. 6.

The U.S. poses a serious threat of enticing Canada's skilled workers to move south

Martin Pelletier 

It isn’t uncommon for the average Canadian to have a home country bias when it comes to their portfolio holdings, but that could change given the recent rally in the S&P/TSX composite and a rocketing loonie that makes foreign investments look much more attractive.

© Provided by Financial Post Many younger highly-skilled Canadians are simply priced out of their home markets when it comes to owning a home, but that’s not an issue in most U.S. cities.

But perhaps our wandering eye might go even further given the upcoming immigration changes in the United States. There’s a looming and serious threat of our neighbour enticing Canada’s skilled workers to head south to capitalize on superior opportunities to build their family’s wealth and dramatically improve their current financial well-being.


This week, the New York Times obtained a 46-page draft blueprint — D.H.S. Plan to Restore Trust in Our Legal Immigration System — that really grabbed our attention. In it, the Joe Biden administration is making a 180 on the country’s existing immigration policy, aiming to make it both significantly cheaper and easier for people to move to the U.S.

In particular, we see three factors that may be just enough to tip the scales in convincing Canadians to make such a move when these changes come into effect.
More opportunities

Canada appears to be going all-in on non-producing assets such as real estate, with residential investment accounting for a whopping 54 per cent of GDP growth in Canada in Q1 and 10.3 per cent of total GDP. This surpasses the 9.3 per cent garnered from business investment on non-residential structures, machinery and equipment, and intellectual property.

Other important areas such as research and development are also being ignored. Canada is the only country in the G7 where R&D as a percentage of GDP has been on the decline over the past decade, according to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) data, and that has only gained tremendous downward momentum over the past five years.

Meanwhile, other economies like the U.S. are already seeing the benefits of diversifying their economies into highly competitive and disruptive sectors such as technology, robotics, automation and renewables. Simply look at the number and size of the tech companies within the S&P 500, representing 27.5 per cent of the index, whereas tech accounts for 10.3 per cent of the S&P/TSX composite and is dominated by one company: Shopify Inc.

Unfortunately, instead of encouraging innovation, the Canadian federal government (both past and present) has allowed politics to drive policy by continually supporting poorly run companies simply because of the province they reside in.
Lower taxes

The Biden administration may be increasing tax rates, but it is at a level that wouldn’t apply to most Canadians considering a move south. For example, the highest tax bracket for a Canadian is at an income level topping $214,000 per year, compared to US$518,000 in the U.S. Also, income tax rates are quite similar across provinces, but that is not the case in the U.S., where some states have little to no income tax. Therefore, the tax advantages could be quite significant for high-income earners.

Looking ahead, we think material tax hikes are on the horizon, especially if the Liberals finally get their much-desired majority government, since someone beyond the Bank of Canada has to pay for the record-breaking deficits. Provincial and municipal governments are facing similar challenges, which could result in education and health-care cuts concurrent with those tax hikes. This could make U.S. company private health-care and education plans extremely enticing.
Cheaper homes

I recently read that the city of Hamilton is now more expensive than Los Angeles. Think about that for a second. Many younger highly skilled Canadians are simply priced out of their home markets when it comes to owning a home, but that’s not an issue in most U.S. cities, even those that are booming like Austin, Tex.

For those more established in their careers and with the ability to take that south of the border, the temptation could be to lock in some huge gains on their home and buy an equivalent one in the U.S. for a fraction of the cost, or get a lot more home for the same price. It certainly helps that the Canadian dollar is the top performer in the G7 this year, thereby reducing the foreign exchange hit while offering the chance to get paid long term in the world’s reserve currency.

Portfolio diversification is one thing, but actually moving one’s entire residency is another. Still, we worry that a rocketing Canadian dollar, an out-of-control housing market, massive tax hikes to fund the Liberals’ build-back better agenda and an immigration-friendly U.S. administration might just be the catalyst Canadians need to seek warmer jurisdictions.

Martin Pelletier, CFA, is a portfolio manager at Wellington-Altus Private Counsel Inc. (formerly TriVest Wealth Counsel Ltd.), a private client and institutional investment firm specializing in discretionary risk-managed portfolios, investment audit/oversight and advanced tax and estate planning.

New cross-Canada research highlights an early childhood educator recruitment crisis

Emis Akbari, 

Adjunct Professor, Department of Applied Psychology and Human Development at Ontario Institute for the Study of Education (OISE) and Senior Policy Fellow at the Atkinson Centre, University of Toronto 

As Canada emerges from the COVID-19 pandemic, early education is key to the recovery of not just children and families, but of our social economy.

© (Shutterstock) In expanding early learning and care, Canada must addresses a current crisis is retaining and recruiting educators.

Children have endured learning delays and many have seen worsening mental health. The pandemic has also rocked an early childhood sector that was already unstable and uneven. We must do better.

The newly released Early Childhood Education Report 2020 monitors quality and changes in early child education across Canada, and suggests critical issues to consider. The report is produced by the Atkinson Centre, a research centre based at the University of Toronto that uses best available evidence on early child development to inform public policy.

The report evaluates quality based on analyzing data across all 13 Canadian provinces and territories in five equally weighted categories. It examines how early childhood education services are integrated across ministries, funding in ratio to provincial or territorial budgets, access, learning environments and how governments are being held accountable for policy decisions.

The recent historical federal 2021 budget announcement promised over $30 billion dollars towards early learning and child care with a vow to increase access and drastically reduce costs. It also proposes $2.5 billion over five years to build long-term investments in Indigenous-led early learning programming that parallels the government’s commitment to provinces and territories.

However, as heard in all budget announcements, these are funding and aspirational goals. The challenge lies in bilateral negotiations that successfully support each jurisdiction’s unique needs and ongoing initiatives. We must be careful not to take shortcuts.

Program quality must develop along with the growth of spaces and the capacity to offer more affordable parent fees. This will require using public infrastructure including school boards to expand access to early childhood programs, and a robust workforce strategy that addresses a current educator recruitment and retention crisis.
A comparative look at provinces, territories

The Early Childhood Education Report 2020 is the fourth edition capturing the impact of the 2017-20 early learning and child care bilateral agreements.

The 2017 Multilateral Early Learning and Child Care Framework represented the first time in a decade that the federal government brought attention to early education, followed a year later by the Indigenous Early Learning and Child Care Framework.

These frameworks set the groundwork for provincial or territorial governments to strive towards a common goal to expand access, affordability and inclusion.

Uneven access, curriculum

Across the country, there are both similarities and stark differences in how early learning and care is run.

For example, 75 per cent of two- to four-year-olds in P.E.I. have access to regulated early learning programs, compared to only 27 per cent in Saskatchewan.

The inclusion of children with special needs in early learning programs that receive public dollars are only mandatory in three regions; Alberta (within early childhood services programs that serve children aged three and up with exceptionalities, including kindergarten), P.E.I. (within publicly managed early years centres: these must meet higher quality standards and employ all certified staff) and Manitoba.

Read more: Child care after the coronavirus pandemic should be more inclusive of children with disabilities

In 2011, we reported only eight provinces or territories with a curriculum framework in place to guide educator practice. Our report this year demonstrates that now all 13 jurisdictions have a curriculum framework, however, it’s only mandated in P.E.I., Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Québec, Ontario, Manitoba and the Northwest Territories.

© (Pexels) There are both similarities and stark differences in what we see in early learning and care across the country.

Educator qualifications, salaries

The qualifications of educators vary greatly across the country, as does the ratio of qualified to unqualified staff required in programs. No jurisdiction in Canada requires that all staff be qualified. Alberta only requires one in three staff to be qualified for preschool children.

Salaries of early childhood educators vary across the country. Yet they remain stagnant while related professions such as teachers have enjoyed salary increases. Low and stagnant wages contribute to country-wide shortages in early childhood educators with many leaving the sector.

Read more: Canada's COVID-19 child-care plan must start with investing in early childhood educators

In some places, workforce shortages have led governments to reduce qualification requirements. Alberta no longer administers the child care accreditation system, while Ontario has tabled legislative revisions that would allow people to work with children four years and older who are not certified in early education.
Small federal investments matter

The 2017 federal funding prioritized access, quality and inclusion, and aimed to add 40,000 spaces for children zero to five across the country. We were able to report an addition of over 100,000 new spaces current to March 31, 2020, however, how the pandemic affected access is not yet clear. Many programs have collapsed under the financial stress brought on by COVID-19.

Overall funding allocation to early learning has seen an almost two-fold increase since the release of the first edition of our report to over $14 billion in 2020 from from over $7 billion in 2011.

A 25 per cent increase in overall funding was seen just since 2017, with provinces and territories increasing funding spurred by federal interest and investment. This is a noted difference of only nine per cent increase between 2014 and 2017 when federal interest was non-existent.

This demonstrates that even small federal action can produce significant change, stimulating spending and improving access.

Notable improvements

More than half of provinces and territories have shown notable improvements in the quality of their early learning and child care provisions.

Although our 2020 report does not capture recent changes made in the Yukon, the territory is making notable leaps forward in their programming and affordability, and the territory partially credits the report as a guiding document. Child-care operators now receive $700 per month per child from zero to four years of age, reducing average monthly parent fees to $200. Full-day kindergarten for four-year-olds outside of Whitehorse will start in September 2021.

Educator shortages have been addressed by new wage enhancements with up to a $17.11 per hour top-up, taking the median salary of educators in the Yukon to the highest in the country. The region also has moved oversight of early education into the education ministry, integrating and streamlining services.
Transforming

Transforming services to realize a system similar to public education is vital. Public delivery of early learning and child care is associated with better working conditions and increased compensation for educators, streamlined administrative costs and higher program quality.

School boards play a significant role in educating younger children in kindergarten and pre-kindergarten (junior kindergarten). Full-day kindergarten for five-year-old children is offered in all regions except Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta.

Full-time pre-kindergarten programs for four-year-olds are offered in Nova Scotia, Ontario and the Northwest Territories, with Québec committing to province-wide pre-kindergarten by 2023.

Newfoundland and Labrador and P.E.I. have plans to roll out pre-kindergarten for four-year-olds. Federal funding can be leveraged to support these school-based early learning expansions.

© (Shutterstock) Some school boards offer pre-kindergarten for children.

What children deserve

A skilled workforce, leadership and ongoing professional learning are foundational to high-quality early learning and child care.

As the federal government negotiates funding with provinces and territories, this must be top of mind. Based on Canada’s population and the number of available spaces in regulated child care, we are currently at only 39 per cent access for children between zero and five, meaning we are looking to more than double access.

With shortages of a qualified workforce, we cannot allow expansion to be accommodated by reductions in qualifications or ratios of qualified staff. This will greatly reduce the quality of the early learning environment and rob children of the benefits they deserve.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Emis Akbari does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

With reports of a labour shortage, can the pandemic recovery help raise wages?

... a strong Canadian economy requires that all workers earn something in excess of $20 an hour, wages that allow a Canadian-style standard of living.

Don Pittis  CBC 

JUNE 3,2021

© Mike Segar/Reuters Fast-food workers in Las Vegas demand a $15 minimum wage in 2019. Last month, McDonald's announced it was raising hourly wages at company-owned restaurants from $11 to $17, a move cited as a sign of a tight labour market.

As Canadians wait for Friday's latest jobs numbers, there are growing reports that a shortage of labour will lead to rising wages as the COVID-19 pandemic winds down.

While a renewed lockdown has contributed to a recent slowdown in jobs growth, many observers suggest that just as the Toronto Stock Exchange hit 20,000 in anticipation of an economic rebound, working stiffs will eventually also see the benefits of an economy returning to health.

After last month's sharp decline in jobs in Canada — a loss of more that 200,000 in April that reversed a recovering trend — economists are predicting a better result this week. According to a consensus of economists assembled by the financial news service Bloomberg, Canadian employment is seen to have shrunk again in May, but only by about 20,000 jobs.

The United States also reports its employment numbers on Friday, and after a disappointing April, according to Reuters, economists are predicting job creation in May will more than double from the previous month to 664,000 jobs. But that consensus is based on wildly different predictions from 400,000 to one million.

What killed wage growth?

The predictions for Canadian job creation are all over the map as well, making forecasts unclear, but most suggest the U.S. is leading the way to rising wages. Widely cited is a move by McDonald's to raise wages at company-owned restaurants from $11 to $17 an hour.

In his humorously titled blog, Worthwhile Canadian Initiative, economist Stephen Gordon, an economics professor at Quebec City's Université Laval, has written about what killed real wage growth in the mid-1970s.

© Mark Blinch/Reuters As the TSX hit new highs this week in anticipation of economic recovery, some suggest a new economic boom could reverse a long-term trend toward lower wages.

In general, wages, like prices, rise with inflation. In economics, "real" wages refers to the change in people's incomes after inflation is taken out. In other words, a five per cent increase in your salary doesn't help much if everything else, from mortgage payments to food rises by five per cent or more.

As Gordon and many others have pointed out, a steady rise in real wages ended around 1975. He notes that the change happened just as governments imposed wage and price controls to fight a burst of inflation. Others have blamed the weakening power of the union movement, combined with a long-term transfer of jobs to lower-wage countries.

"Despite some ups and downs over the past several decades, today's real average wage (that is, the wage after accounting for inflation) has about the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago," said a report on U.S. wage trends from the Pew Research Centre that predates the current pandemic. "And what wage gains there have been have mostly flowed to the highest-paid tier of workers."

And according to Jacqueline Best, a political economist at the University of Ottawa who studies inflation, that trend toward wage stagnation has continued to the present. She is concerned that a premature attempt to raise interest rates in order to slow inflation could block a much-needed move toward higher real wages.

Wage hikes without inflation

"You've had CEO [earnings] and stock markets going crazy right now," Best said. "You have a lot of wealth at that end, and you haven't had as much at the working-class, middle-class end, so there is room for wages to go up without prices going up."

She points to U.S. President Joe Biden's recent comment that as governments inject money into the economy for infrastructure and green growth, rising wages are a feature, not a bug.

"People have been talking more and more about labour shortages," Gordon said this week. "That's usually something that would put pressure on wages."

© Mike McArthur/CBC Dr. Bonnie Henry, British Columbia's provincial health officer, announced the province's reopening strategy last month as the NDP government raised its minimum wage to the highest of any province. But is $15.20 enough to live on in places like Vancouver?

Before the pandemic, U.S. central banker Jerome Powell celebrated the fact that wages at the low end had started to creep up as unemployment hit new lows. Last year he worried the pandemic meant that trend had reversed direction.

Statistics Canada data has shown that while average wages have been trending upward, rising employment could have the perverse effect of bringing average wages down.

As University of Waterloo economist Mikal Skuterud explains, the effect makes him suspicious of some of the more optimistic outlooks for wage growth.

False signal

"At the beginning of this pandemic, [wages] skyrocketed," Skuterud said. "Average wages increased like we haven't seen in decades."

As the Bank of Canada and others have pointed out, low-wage earners suffered the most, losing their jobs while better-paid workers continued to work from home.

"It's not too hard to see what's happening," he said. "It isn't that individual workers' wages are going up, it's that the composition of the group of people we are averaging over has completely changed."

While businesses complain about a shortage of employees in certain sectors and wage levels, Skuterud's analysis implies that the return of lower-paid workers in sectors such as retail and hospitality will bring average wages down again.

One economist who remains skeptical that the pandemic recovery alone will reverse the long-term trend and set wages on a rising path is Jim Stanford, director of the Centre for Future Work in Vancouver.

Stanford points out that even before the pandemic when unemployment rates were at 50-year lows, wage rises remained muted — reflecting laws that continue to give too much bargaining power to employers and not enough to workers.

"That suggests that the erosion of institutional supports for wages and for a more equitable distribution of income are the main explanation for weak wages," he said in an email conversation.

Stanford, a longtime labour union economist, insists a strong Canadian economy requires that all workers earn something in excess of $20 an hour, wages that allow a Canadian-style standard of living.

"And to get that, we have to give workers the institutional power to win them," he said. "We can't trust that supply-and-demand forces will do the job."

Follow Don Pittis on Twitter @don_pittis

JBS Canada beef processing facility in Alberta resumes production after cyberattack

CALGARY — The JBS Canada beef processing facility in Alberta has resumed production after a cyberattack that impacted the company’s operations in North America and Australia.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The JBS Canada facility in Brooks, Alta., employs more than 2,800 people.

Some plant shifts in Canada were cancelled Monday and Tuesday, according to JBS Facebook posts.

The world's largest meat processing company was the target of an organized cybersecurity attack, affecting some of the servers for its North American and Australian IT systems.

It said its backup servers were not affected and that it was not aware of any evidence that any customer, supplier or employee data had been compromised.

The company said Tuesday it was making progress in resuming plant operations in the U.S. and Australia. It said several of its pork, poultry and prepared foods plants were operational as well as the Canadian facility.

JBS notified the Australian government the ransom demand came from the ransomware gang REvil, which is believed to operate in Russia, according to a person familiar with the situation who is not authorized to discuss it publicly.

The attack was the second in a month on critical U.S. infrastructure. Earlier in May, hackers shut down operation of the Colonial Pipeline, the largest U.S. fuel pipeline, for nearly a week. The closure sparked long lines and panic buying at gas stations across the Southeast. Colonial Pipeline confirmed it paid nearly US$5 million to the hackers.

JBS is the second-largest producer of beef, pork and chicken in the U.S. If it were to shut down for even one day, the U.S. would lose almost a quarter of its beef-processing capacity, or the equivalent of 20,000 beef cows, according to Trey Malone, an assistant professor of agriculture at Michigan State University.

The JBS plant closures reflect the reality that modern meat processing is heavily automated, for both food- and worker-safety reasons. Computers collect data at multiple stages of the production process; orders, billing, shipping and other functions are all electronic.

It's not the first time a ransomware attack has targeted a food company. Last November, Milan-based Campari Group said it was the victim of a ransomware attack that caused a temporary technology outage and compromised some business and personal data.

In March, Molson Coors announced a cyber attack that affected its production and shipping. Molson Coors said it was able to get some of its breweries running after 24 hours; others took several days.

Following the incident involving Colonial, Canadian pipeline companies TC Energy and Enbridge said they regularly take precautions, including technology and training to protect their operations from cyberattacks.

Cybersecurity experts say a common way for hackers to penetrate security is to trick employees through emails or texts that allow disruptive software into corporate systems.

A Proofpoint survey of 1,400 chief information security officers from 14 countries, found that email fraud was identified as the top cybersecurity problem for the Canadian CISOs.

Other problems cited by the Canadian respondents to the first-quarter survey was the use of unauthorized devices or software, as well as weak passwords.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 2, 2021.

— With files from The Associated Press

The Canadian Press

JBS RESTARTS 
By Nandita Bose and Tom Polansek

© Reuters/Bing Guan FILE PHOTO:  JBS USA Worthington pork plant in Minnesota

WASHINGTON/CHICAGO (Reuters) -JBS SA employees were scheduled to return to U.S. meat plants on Wednesday, a day after the company's beef operations stopped following a ransomware attack.

A notorious Russia-linked hacking group is behind the cyberattack against JBS that disrupted meat production in North America and Australia, a source familiar with the matter said.

Brazil's JBS controls about 20% of the slaughtering capacity for U.S. cattle and hogs, so the plants' reopening should prevent a severe supply chain disruption at a time consumers are already facing high meat prices and general food inflation.

JBS, the world's largest meatpacker, said on Tuesday night it had made "significant progress in resolving the cyberattack."

The "vast majority" of the company's beef, pork, poultry and prepared foods plants will be operational on Wednesday, according to a statement.

The cyberattack followed one last month by a group with ties to Russia on Colonial Pipeline, the largest fuel pipeline in the United States, which crippled fuel delivery for several days in the U.S. Southeast.

The cyber gang goes by the name REvil, the source said.

Cybersecurity investigators have previously said they believe some members of the REvil ransomware team are based in Russia. The prolific ransomware group, which is perhaps best known for attacking an Apple Inc supplier named Quanta Computer earlier this year, has previously posted in Russian on cybercrime forums, marketing stolen data.

In the Quanta Computer case, the hackers sent extortion threats and demanded a payment of $50 million for the company to regain access to its systems.

With North American operations headquartered in Greeley, Colorado, JBS sells beef and pork under the Swift brand, with retailers like Costco Wholesale carrying its pork loins and tenderloins.

U.S. beef and pork prices are already rising as China increases imports, animal feed costs rise and slaughterhouses have confronted a labor shortage since COVID-19 outbreaks shut down many U.S. meat plants.

JBS also owns most of chicken processor Pilgrim's Pride Co, which sells organic chicken under the Just Bare brand.

The company's operations in Brazil, Mexico and the United Kingdom were not affected by the attack, JBS has said.

JBS canceled an early shift on Wednesday at its beef plant in Greeley, but a later shift was scheduled to resume normally, representatives of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union Local 7 said in an email.

A JBS beef plant in Grand Island, Nebraska, told its workers on Facebook it would resume normal schedules in all departments.

Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) cattle futures rose on Wednesday after tumbling on Tuesday as the JBS plant shutdowns prevented farmers from delivering their cattle to slaughter plants.

Over the past few years, ransomware has evolved into a pressing national security issue. A number of gangs, many of them Russian speakers, develop the software that encrypts files and then demand payment in cryptocurrency for keys that allow the owners to decipher and use them again.

(Reporting by Tom Polansek and Caroline Stauffer in Chicago and Nandita Bose in Washingon; editing by Steve Orlofsky and Nick Zieminski)