'Old wounds': Descendants of families who lost Indian status launch Charter challenge

Mon., July 5, 2021

Kathryn Fournier wants her three children to be able to reclaim their status.

 (Toni Choueiri/CBC - image credit)

In 1944, Nadia Salmaniw's great-grandfather Wilfred Laurier Bennett faced a choice: send his children to residential school or renounce his Indigenous heritage.

Knowing first-hand the cruelties of the mandatory boarding school system, Bennett chose to give up his First Nation status.

Now, Salmaniw is trying to reclaim her status — which was stripped from Bennett, her great-grandmother and all of their descendants.

"He made, I believe, a forced decision to protect his children because he himself had been forced into residential school and knew of the atrocities and horrors that his children would have endured if they had gone," Salmaniw said.

Salmaniw is one of 16 plaintiffs from three families who filed a constitutional challenge last month in the Supreme Court of British Columbia to end the discrimination based on gender and the process of "enfranchisement" that families continue to endure under the registration provisions of the Indian Act.

Enfranchisement was a process through which First Nations people could obtain Canadian citizenship. By renouncing their Indian status and treaty rights, they obtained the right to vote, own property and keep their children out of residential schools.

The act was considered voluntary by the federal government. The plaintiffs argue their families were coerced into enfranchisement.

'Ultimate act of colonization'

The enfranchisement policy was adopted in 1857 under the Gradual Civilization Act in the Province of Canada and continued after Confederation under the Indian Act of 1876.

Enfranchisement remained in place until amendments were made to the Indian Act in 1985 to bring it in line with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Michael McArthur/CBC

The plaintiffs argue that the consequences of that defunct policy violate their rights to liberty and security under the charter.

Even though Salmaniw has Haida citizenship under the laws of the Haida Nation and is a citizen of the Central Council of the Tlingit and Haida Tribes of Alaska, she continues to be denied Indian status because of the Indian Act's registration provisions.

"To receive a rejection letter saying that you're not Indigenous when you know that's part of who you are is deeply, deeply impactful," Salmaniw said.

"I believe that just opened up the old wounds and continued to reinforce the harm that was inflicted on my great-grandfather at the time of residential school ... What an ultimate act of colonization."

'Plain as day' sex-based discrimination

The court challenge is also taking aim at what the plaintiffs say is a lingering element of sexual discrimination in status law. Under the old Indian Act, when a status Indian woman married, she lost the right to decide what happened to her status.

If she married a non-status man, she automatically lost her status. If she married a status Indian man and her husband was enfranchised, she and any unmarried children were automatically stripped of their Indian status as well.

Ottawa gradually allowed women and their descendants to regain status lost by marriage through a series of legislative changes — the latest coming in 2017 with Bill S-3, An Act to amend the Indian Act in response to the Superior Court of Quebec decision in Descheneaux c. Canada.

But the descendants of women who lost status because their status Indian husbands were enfranchised are still barred from reclaiming status.

"It's plain as day that that's sex-based discrimination," said Vancouver-based lawyer Ryan Beaton from the firm Juristes Power.

"It's being imposed on descendants today in the same way it was imposed on the other category of descendants. It's hard to understand why Canada has not yet decided to address this issue."

Mike McArthur/CBC

The federal government has not yet filed a response to the constitutional challenge in court.

But in a media statement, the office of Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller wrote that it was working with First Nations partners, including the Native Women's Association of Canada and the Assembly of First Nations, on further legislative changes.

"We are aware of the challenge and recognize that residual impacts from years of sex-based inequities continue to be felt in the registration context today, despite the elimination of sex-based inequities in the registration provisions," the statement said.

"Additionally, we are committed to continue to work with First Nations to address the non sex-based inequities that still remain in the Indian Act today."

Indigenous Services Canada is also implementing a 2020 decision by the Superior Court of Quebec, which found a woman could not be voluntarily enfranchised under the 1952 Indian Act.

Ottawa claims it eliminated all known sex-based inequities in the Indian Act's registration, but Beaton insists that several thousand family members could be affected by this case.

Reclaiming Indigenous heritage

As someone who grew up knowing she was Indigenous and that her grandfather had been enfranchised, Kathryn Fournier said she felt like she'd been stranded "between two worlds."

Fournier's grandparents were residential school survivors from Manitoba. That's not why her grandfather Maurice Sanderson applied for enfranchisement in 1922, however; Fournier said he wanted the right to vote and own property, which was forbidden under the Indian Act.

"He made a very difficult choice that shouldn't have been imposed on him in the first place," she said. "I don't in any way judge him for that."

When the law changed in 1985, Fournier and her mom were able to regain status, but her three children could not because of existing registration provisions.

The Indian Act contains different levels of status. Since her mother came from enfranchised parents, her status could only be passed onto her children, not her grandchildren.

David Kawai/The Canadian Press

"One of the things that I'd always hoped for is that my own children would be able to also claim their Indigenous identity and their Indigenous heritage in a formal, recognized way," Fournier said.

Fournier worked at the department of Indian and Northern Affairs Canada for more than 20 years.

"It was a challenge working there knowing that the enfranchisement that my family had gone through was one of the perhaps more egregious things that the Indian Act had done and that there was no recognition of that within the department," Fournier said.

"But I think, as most of the Indigenous public servants who worked there, we tried to focus on what could be changed."

The plaintiffs are not seeking damages. They say their preference is to negotiate ways to resolve the issue instead of having it litigated.

"We are going back to becoming what the government tried to make us not be anymore," Fournier said

"I think that's the important part, and that sense of belonging and being able to say officially and quite formally, 'This is who I am.'"

Quebec woman dead 2 days after lying on Gatineau hospital floor awaiting treatment

Mon., July 5, 2021,

Anne Pommainville had to lie on the floor of the Hull Hospital's emergency department while waiting to be seen by hospital staff because there were no beds available, her family told Radio-Canada. (Supplied by family - image credit)

A Gatineau woman has died after spending several hours in pain, lying on the floor of the Hull Hospital emergency department, leaving her family distraught and demanding change.

Anne Pommainville, 58, went to the hospital in Gatineau, Que., on the evening of June 27, but was unable to sit on a waiting room chair due to extreme stomach pain.

Hospital staff told Pommainville and her husband, Jacques Richard, that her only option was to create a makeshift bed on the floor using blankets.

I will remember that night all my life. I will never forget her. - Jacques Richard, husband of Anne Pommainville

"She did not deserve that," said Richard in an interview with Radio-Canada.

"I will remember that night all my life. I will never forget her."

After she waited for hours on the floor, Richard decided to take Pommainville to wait in the car. He then went back and forth between the parking lot and the emergency department to ensure he heard her name called to see a doctor.

Eventually, she did see a doctor and was later transferred to the Gatineau Hospital for surgery.

However, her family said they didn't know she had been transferred until June 29 — almost 48 hours later — when hospital staff called Richard to tell him his wife's heart stopped and staff could not revive her.

'Ridiculous conditions'

Veronique Richard said her family doesn't blame the hospital workers for how her aunt was treated, but rather the continued staffing shortages at hospitals in Gatineau.

"To see that we have people lying on the floor in a waiting room in intense pain because there is no stretcher, because there is no room, because they are overwhelmed," she said.

"The goal is not to throw stones at employees, nurses, attendants, administrative officers, doctors. ... They work under ridiculous conditions."

Patient advocate Paul Brunet said Pommainville was not treated with dignity.

"I've been a spokesperson for almost 25 years. I've rarely seen that in a hospital in the west, in Canada, in Quebec, that we haven't been able to find a single stretcher and a single bed," said Brunet.

Michel Aspirot/Radio-Canada

Health unit launches investigation

The local health unit, Centre intégré de santé et de services sociaux de l'Outaouais (CISSSO), said it has launched an internal investigation.

"Our thoughts are first with the family and loved ones of this lady," the local health unit wrote in a statement that said they were "concerned about this situation."

"We are doing everything we can to understand what happened and to prevent this kind of situation from happening again."

More than a billion seashore animals may have cooked to death in B.C. heat wave, says UBC researcher

Mon., July 5, 2021


Dead mussels are seen along the shoreline of Third Beach in Vancouver on June 27, in the middle of B.C.'s record-breaking heat wave. (Chris Harley/University of British Columbia - image credit)

Chris Harley walked on to Vancouver's Kitsilano Beach in late June and smelled death.

Carpeting the sea rocks were tens of thousands of mussels, clams, sea stars and snails, emitting a putrid odour that hung thick in the heat.

"I was pretty stunned," he recalled.

Harley, a marine biologist at the University of British Columbia, now estimates that last week's record-breaking heat wave in B.C. may have killed more than one billion seashore animals living along the Salish Sea coastline.

The findings shine on a light on the seismic effects of the heat wave, which has already has been linked to hundreds of human deaths and whose ecological toll continues to be unravelled.

As temperatures cracked 40 C in Vancouver, and several degrees higher in B.C.'s Interior, infrared cameras used by Harley's team recorded temperatures above 50 C on rocky shoreline habitats.

Chris Harley/University of British Columbia

Intertidal animals like mussels, which inhabit the area where land and sea meet, can endure temperatures in the high 30s for short periods of time, Harley said.

But the scorching heat, combined with low tides in the middle of the afternoon, created a dangerous combination for more than six hours at a time.

"A mussel on the shore in some ways is like a toddler left in a car on a hot day," Harley said.

"They are stuck there until the parent comes back, or in this case, the tide comes back in and there's very little they can do. They're at the mercy of the environment. And on Saturday, Sunday, Monday, during the heat wave, it just got so hot that the mussels, there was nothing they could do."

Water quality will be impacted

Tipped off by the smell on the Sunday morning of the heat wave, Harley and a team of student researchers began to canvas multiple coastlines, including those in West Vancouver and on the Sunshine Coast.

They discovered endless rows of mussels with dead meat attached inside the shell, along with other dead creatures like sea stars and barnacles.

Harley calculated the number of dead animals found in small areas and multiplied it by the habitat size in the Salish Sea, which spans from Campbell River, B.C., to Olympia, Wash.

"You can fit about 2,000 mussels in an area the size of your stovetop," he said.

"Imagine how many stovetops you could fit into Stanley Park, and then how many Stanley Parks fit into the Salish Sea. So if you're losing a few hundred or a few thousand mussels for every major shoreline, that quickly scales up to a very, very large number."

Chris Harley/University of British Columbia

The wipe-out will temporarily affect water quality, as mussels and clams help filter the sea, Harley said.

While the mussel bed will likely recover in a year or two, Harley noted that heat waves will happen more frequently and with greater severity due to climate change.

"Eventually, we just won't be able to sustain these populations of filter feeders on the shoreline to be anywhere near the extent that we're used to," he said.

Harley said similar discoveries of dead shellfish have already been made in the Strait of Georgia and Washington state. He plans to visit the Gulf Islands and Vancouver Island to confirm seashore deaths in those areas, with the aim of publishing a peer-reviewed paper as early as next year.

The deaths, he said, are a reminder that the environment is suffering severe consequences from extreme weather events.

"If we don't like it, then we need to work harder to reduce emissions and take other measures to reduce the effects of climate change."

$$$ IN IRVING'S POCKET

Higgs government boosts payments to pulp and paper mills under energy buy-back program


Mon., July 5, 2021

Province has increased subsidies to major pulp and paper mills owned by J.D. Irving Ltd., Twin Rivers Paper Co. Ltd. and the AV Group. (Roger Cosman/CBC - image credit)

The Higgs government has quietly increased subsidies to major pulp and paper mills in the province through a renewable energy buy-back program with NB Power.

The Progressive Conservative cabinet increased the price that the public utility must pay to mills by 12.5 per cent, retroactive to April 1.

That would hand the companies more than $5 million in discounts based on their electricity sales in 2019-20.

The Large Industrial Renewable Energy Purchases Program, put in place by the Alward government a decade ago, requires NB Power buy renewable electricity generated by plants at a set price.

It then sells the electricity back to those same plants at a lower price, effectively subsidizing electricity costs for the pulp and paper mills owned by J.D. Irving Ltd., Twin Rivers Paper Co. Ltd. and the AV Group.

Now the price the utility pays is jumping from $95 per megawatt hour, an amount that has been in place since the program began, to $106.91.

That 12.5 per cent increase was part of a regulatory amendment approved by the Higgs cabinet on May 27 without any public announcement.

The amendment also requires the price to now increase every year in tandem with the consumer price index starting in 2022.

"The program rate had not changed since it was introduced in 2012," said government spokesperson Erin Illsley.

"The addition of an annual escalator based on the percent change in CPI is similar to what other renewable contracts receive."

The $11.91-per-megawatt-hour increase would mean $5.7 million in additional expenses for NB Power based on the 479,000 megawatt-hours the utility paid for under the program in 2019-20, the last year for which figures are available. That could fluctuate year to year.

Logan Perley/CBC file

Illsley did not say why the price needs to increase, given the program is designed to buy and sell enough electricity to reach an overall threshold percentage reduction on power bills.

"It's surprising to me," said Green Party Leader David Coon.

"I don't understand why they're doing this for the pulp and paper industry. We subsidize them already in so many ways. … It would be a great deal to get, if the rest of us could get it."

This year, the Department of Natural Resources and Energy Development has set 14 per cent as the discount that the mills should get on their power bills, based on average industrial rates across Canada.

In 2015, NB Power executive Neil Larlee told the Energy and Utilities Board that he utility buys enough power under the program to get the mills a discount at that pre-set percentage.

"We purchase energy from the participants and that volume is based on the ability for them to achieve the target reduction amount that is in the regulation," he said. "So that volume can vary depending on whether or not they have that generation available.

"They would sell at $95 up until the equivalent credit they got was such that it gave them the posted discount, and that discount, it is adjusted every year."

NB Power spokesperson Marc Belliveau says the utility has four agreements under the program — with Twin Rivers, AV Group's Nackawic mill, AV Group's Atholville mill, and J.D. Irving Ltd.

The Irving agreement involves the company's Irving Pulp and Paper and Irving Paper mills in Saint John and its St. George Power LP hydroelectric dam and Lake Utopia paper mill.

Eligibility 'hasn't changed'

Belliveau referred further questions to the Department of Natural Resources and Energy Development, as did J.D. Irving Ltd. vice-president Anne McInerney.

"Our eligibility to participate hasn't changed," she said.

She did not respond to a question about whether JDI had asked for the change.

Illsley said the department, which drafted the regulation change, "has discussed the rate with those companies involved in the program and felt indexing the rate was warranted."

No one from Twin Rivers or the AV Group responded to requests for comment. The industry lobby group Forest NB had no one available to comment on Friday. Natural Resources and Energy Development Minister Mike Holland was not available for an interview.

U.S. singled out subsidy

At the 2015 rate hearings, New Brunswick ratepayer Greg Hickey argued that if NB Power could afford to spend millions subsidizing large industrial plants, it should not be allowed to raise rates for residential customers.

In 2016, the U.S. Commerce Department identified the Large Industrial Renewable Energy Purchases Program as a potential subsidy to J.D. Irving Ltd. during a trade investigation of Canadian softwood exports to the United States.

Both Irving and the New Brunswick government argued against that position in the case.

Larlee told the EUB that on top of the program giving large mills more competitive power costs, the program also lets NB Power count the electricity generated by the mills toward its own renewable energy targets.

Halifax company building its first commercial Fundy tidal power unit

Mon., July 5, 2021

Jamie MacNeil of BigMoon Power and Joe Hines of East Coast Metal Fabrication look over a steel beam that will be used to build BigMoon's first commercial tidal power unit. (Tom Ayers/CBC - image credit)

A Halifax-based company is building its first commercial tidal power generator in Cape Breton and it expects to begin selling electricity soon after it installs its technology in the Bay of Fundy later this year.

Jamie MacNeil, executive vice-president of BigMoon Power, said the first of 18 units is being assembled at East Coast Metal Fabrication in the Sydport Industrial Park.

Each unit has a large wheel suspended between the pontoons of a 30-metre barge anchored to the ocean floor. The barge can swivel to remain facing the current.

"It's a 21st-century adaptation of very old technology in a Roman paddlewheel," MacNeil said.

The equipment has to be robust to withstand the harsh conditions of a saltwater environment with some of the highest tides in the world, and it has to be protected from debris while minimizing the impact on fish and marine mammals, he said.

The barge-and-wheel system can do all of that and still produce electricity that is affordable, because BigMoon has spent about $20 million on research and development over the last six years, MacNeil said.

Tom Ayers/CBC

BigMoon has been in operation since 2015, testing its theories and prototypes in the Bay of Fundy, and now has a contract to supply electricity to Nova Scotia Power.

The company will receive subsidized rates for its energy, but only at the beginning, MacNeil said. After that, the project will be competitive with other forms of renewable energy.

He said he thinks they can compete.

"We know that we can and we have taken a big step forward in the contracts that we already have in being able to demonstrate that the price of tidal is coming down dramatically."

Over the next three to four years, the company plans to build a total of 18 units, each generating about half a megawatt of electricity, or enough to power about 500 homes.

The infrastructure to get power to shore through a subsea cable already exists, through the Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy, which was set up by the federal and provincial governments to encourage tidal power production.

Several companies have tried and some have failed to produce electricity from the Bay of Fundy.

Tom Ayers/CBC

Earlier this year, a company called Sustainable Marine Energy began testing floating turbines in the area and last year, BigMoon won a contract to remove a failed turbine installed by another company.

MacNeil is confident that BigMoon's engineers have come up with a solution to the difficult operating environment.

"There have been some successes," he said.

"There have been some setbacks, but all of those who now remain in the energy business here in Nova Scotia are all on the precipice of doing something very exciting and that is to actually start producing electrons for the people of Nova Scotia."

Tom Ayers/CBC

Joe Hines, chief operating officer at East Coast Metal Fabrication, said assembling the first unit will create up to 20 full-time jobs for up to six months.

Putting together the other 17 units will add more jobs over time, he said.

"We have hired some already as we've been staffing up for other jobs and we'll be transitioning some of the experienced people over to this project, as well as adding some new to it."

MacNeil said tidal power will be an additional renewable energy source alongside solar and wind power, but its benefit is that it's predictable.

Looking across Canada

He said tidal power will add enough electricity to the grid to allow the province to export energy and will allow the company to build its platforms and place them elsewhere.

"It's not our intention to build nine megawatts and pat ourselves on the back and call it a day," MacNeil said.

"We want to take advantage of the energy that's in the water here in Nova Scotia, but also in other areas like Newfoundland, like in Quebec, like in British Columbia."

Financial troubles hit company involved in proposed Sydney container terminal


Mon., July 5, 2021

Albert Barbusci says shipping lines should find the project more attractive, now that it has a location and funding in place. (Tom Ayers/CBC - image credit)

A venture capital company behind the proposed container terminal in Sydney, N.S., is in financial trouble, but proponents say that will not affect their investments or the project's future.

In addition to raising questions about the proposed development, the issue has provided the first real insight into the port project's financing, suggesting the estimated financial value of NovaPorte LP, the company that is trying to put together a consortium to finance and build a container terminal.

In January 2020, Bridging Finance of Toronto loaned Membertou First Nation $6.8 million to give the band a 12.5 per cent stake in NovaPorte, a limited partnership launched by Sydney Harbour Investment Partners, also known as SHIP.

The financial firm also gained a small interest in the port project, but earlier this year the Ontario Securities Commission found financial irregularities at Bridging Finance and forced it into receivership at the end of April.

Red flag

George Karaphillis, dean of Cape Breton University's Shannon School of Business, said the company's involvement in NovaPorte should now raise a red flag.

"It is obviously a concern that the venture capital firm that's backing the project is in financial difficulties and it's in receivership," he said.

Cape Breton University

It's difficult to know how it will play out, Karaphillis said, but it's possible that the receiver might need to sell the company's stake in NovaPorte or call its loan to Membertou in order to gain liquidity.

On the other hand, depending on what the receiver finds, that might not happen, he said.

The container terminal development has been talked about for a decade or more, but there has never been any public evidence that it is closer to becoming a reality.

Cape Breton Regional Municipality has set aside a piece of land for the proposed terminal across the harbour from Sydney.

The promoter says he has financing, a builder and a shipping line for a customer, but he also recently secured from CBRM a three-year extension on an exclusive contract to get the project going in earnest.

'A billion-dollar deal'

Membertou Chief Terry Paul declined an interview request, but in an email, he revealed the amount of the loan from Bridging Finance and the share that represents in NovaPorte.

"The investment we made in the project remains unaffected by the recent news of Bridging Finance's receivership," he said. "Bridging Finance was a Membertou financing partner, and not one of SHIP.

"Since the announcement of its receivership, Membertou has been working with the receiver, and our investment remains secure."

The project has been touted as a billion-dollar deal, but financial details have been murky since 2015, when SHIP first secured an exclusive contract to market CBRM's land in Sydney harbour.

CBC

SHIP principals Albert Barbusci and Barry Sheehy have said their company is private and that their information needs to remain private to avoid tipping off possible competitors.

CBRM's mayor, councillors and staff also had to sign non-disclosure agreements that they say prevented them from providing any details.

NovaPorte LP is registered in Quebec and lists four shareholders including SHIP, a numbered company solely owned by Barbusci, a numbered company registered to Membertou, and Bridging Finance.

Asked about the venture capital company and how its financial difficulties might affect the port project, Barbusci also declined interview requests.

But in an email, he said Bridging Finance was "not party to any contractual agreement with SHIP. They provided debt financing to Membertou and not to SHIP.

"Therefore, we have no exposure and zero risk to the NovaPorte development and no effect on our ability to advance the project together with our Indigenous partners."

However, when it was pointed out that Bridging Finance is also listed as a shareholder in NovaPorte, Barbusci responded with another email, saying the company's stake "is minimal."

Bridging Finance received a 2.5 per cent share through its agreement with Membertou, he said.

"It has been a passive investment since Membertou became an equity partner in NovaPorte LP," Barbusci said.

Tom Ayers/CBC

Barbusci said last fall he has the financing to build the proposed terminal, has found a builder and has a customer lined up to bring in shipping containers.

But he said Cape Breton's crumbling rail line needs to be revitalized before the container terminal deal can be finalized.

SHIP has launched an effort to press the Nova Scotia government for investment in the railway, but the province has repeatedly said private investors would have to fund the more than $100 million needed to rebuild the rail bridges and tracks.

Membertou's 12.5 per cent stake in NovaPorte at $6.8 million dollars places the value of the company at $54.4 million.

At that rate, Bridging Finance's stake is worth $1.36 million.

Karaphillis said that valuation is about right for what could be a billion-dollar container terminal.

"Big projects of that size, it is reasonable that [about] five per cent of the final project is spent in trying to get the project organized initially, in trying to get it off the ground," he said.

"Yeah, $55 million looks like it's a reasonable amount to be able to get the project to the point where it actually can get started."

Business-savvy investor

With a one-eighth stake in NovaPorte, Membertou is considered to be a major investor.

"It's not the majority investor," Karaphillis said. "I don't know who the majority investor is, but it is a major investment.

"Twelve per cent is significant. It's double digit."

Membertou is known for being a business-savvy investor, he said, but without seeing NovaPorte's financial statements or its agreements with potential partners in the container terminal project, it's impossible to know whether Membertou's investment is a good one.

"That I do not know, because none of us here have the whole picture, the whole information," Karaphillis said.

"We wouldn't know if there is a customer or any of that, but obviously for Membertou to make that investment ... they're aware of some information that gives them comfort in the fact that the project will come to fruition."

CBRM council met privately with Barbusci twice this spring and recently agreed to a three-year extension of SHIP's contract to market the port project.

Warren Gordon photo

Mayor Amanda McDougall said she did not have any concrete information on the container terminal's viability, but voted in favour of the extension because Membertou signed on as a partner and recently led a billion-dollar purchase of Nova Scotia's largest seafood company.

"We've seen what Membertou is capable of doing, in terms of the Clearwater [Seafoods] agreement," she said.

"That's billions of dollars into our fishing industry. That is the only thing that is giving me any confidence that this project is going to move forward, quite frankly."

Bat population in Nova Scotia showing signs of recovery

Mon., July 5, 2021, 

A bat is shown hanging from a twig. Larger bat colonies are being discovered in Nova Scotia, pointing to population growth, after white nose syndrome killed more than 90 per cent of the province's bats from 2011 to 2013. (Rick Whitman/Mersey Tobeatic Research Institute - image credit)

Researchers are optimistic Nova Scotia's native bat population is recovering from a fungus that nearly wiped out the winged mammals a decade ago.

A non-profit conservation group in southwest Nova Scotia is discovering larger bat colonies that point to population growth. Bats are ecologically important animals that have seen their numbers plummet in the last decade.

Lori Phinney, a wildlife biologist with the Mersey Tobeatic Research Institute, said researchers were pleasantly surprised to find the province's largest known colony has grown to about 600 bats.

In 2018, there were about 380.

"Our researchers have been closely monitoring these bat colonies since 2016 and each year we see what the peak number is," she said. "I don't know what's going on this year, but we are definitely seeing more."

Lori Phinney/Mersey Tobeatic Research Institute

At another site, researchers found 157 bats, up from 58 last year.

Phinney said she's hopeful this is evidence of recovery, but acknowledges it could instead be more bats gathering at fewer sites.

"We are excited, but we don't want to get too excited in case it's a bunch of bats travelling from other areas choosing these sites to raise their pups," she said.

White-nose syndrome killed more than 90 per cent of Nova Scotia's bats between 2011 and 2013. It has killed millions across North America.

The fungus causes the mammals to wake up during hibernation, and with no bugs for them to feed on during the winter, they ultimately die.

"They are in this really sleepy, depressed state where their body temperature is lowered, and they are super vulnerable to anything attacking them," she said. "It's horrible because they basically starve to death trying to fight off this disease."

Jordi Segers/Mersey Tobeatic Research Institute

There are three main species of bats in Nova Scotia that hibernate, which are the main bats the research institute is monitoring: the little brown bat, the northern myotis and the tri-coloured bat.

There are also four different species of migratory bats that spend their summers in the province.

Phinney encourages Nova Scotians to contribute to monitoring efforts by sharing sightings of bats.

"With the help of the public reporting bat sightings, we can hopefully figure this out over the next few years," she said. "What we really want is where you saw the bat, the date and the time, and maybe what the bat was doing."

Phinney says bats are fascinating and can eat 1,000 bugs an hour, which can make them extremely valuable to the agriculture industry.

"It's definitely been called one of the worst wildlife population crashes in modern history," she said. "Not only the numbers, but how quickly they dropped off is pretty scary."

Noting fewer narwhal, North Baffin hunters ask Baffinland not to break ice


Mon., July 5, 2021

Hunters from Pond Inlet are asking Baffinland Iron Mines Corp. not to do any icebreaking this year near the northern tip of Baffin Island, saying that mounting evidence shows that icebreaking is harmful to the health of narwhal.

The number of narwhal in Eclipse Sound — a body of water near the port that Baffinland uses for shipping iron ore — is affected by the company’s operations and was nearly cut in half between 2019 and 2020, dropping to 5,019 from 9,931, according to the findings of Golder Associates Ltd., Baffinland’s third-party experts on marine life.

Eric Ootoovak, chairperson of the Mittimatalik Hunters and Trappers Organization, said the decrease is due to the Mary River mine operations. Baffinland ships six million tonnes of iron ore a year from its operations there.

“Science is finally catching up with Inuit Qaujimajatuqangit [traditional knowledge] by recognizing the disturbance to narwhal,” Ootoovak stated in a June 25 news release.

“It’s time for Baffinland to take serious action to stop this disturbance, including cancelling its planned icebreaking.”

The hunters’ group also cited a study that found the stress level in narwhals is increasing and affecting their health, which many Inuit groups say is making the narwhals skinnier and less nourishing.

The Mittimatalik Hunters and Trappers Organization is opposed to Baffinland’s expansion proposal to double its annual ore shipments and build a railway and dock at Milne Inlet.

The proposal is currently before the Nunavut Impact Review Board, which had to suspend its hearing on the project when there was a COVID-19 outbreak in Iqaluit in mid-April.

Baffinland spokesperson Heather Smiles said the company agrees that there are fewer narwhal, but this could be due to factors other than the mine’s operations, such as an increase in killer whales and underwater pile driving in Pond Inlet.

“These factors may have acted independently or cumulatively,” she said. “All of these factors were either unique in 2020 or more prominent than in 2019.”

The company hasn’t decided whether it will send icebreakers this year, Smiles said. But she said a “precautionary approach” will be taken because of the low number of narwhal last year.

Baffinland has adopted “conservative” measures that are a product of feedback from Inuit groups, Smiles said.

She pointed to the company’s marine wildlife management plan, which includes two adaptive management measures that could be used: changing the ships’ schedule to avoid times when contact with narwhal is more likely to happen, and find alternative routes.

But Ootoovak said in a June 25 letter to Baffinland and the review board that the mitigation measures are unclear.

Baffinland can begin icebreaking around July 15, depending on ice conditions, and end around Oct. 15, Smiles said.

David Venn, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Nunatsiaq News

ALMOST NATIONALIZED

Alberta takes 50 per cent equity stake in Sturgeon Refiner


Mon., July 5, 2021

The Sturgeon Refinery is located 45 kilometres northeast of Edmonton.

 (CBC - image credit)

The Alberta government is buying a 50 per cent stake in the troubled Sturgeon Refinery and extending the current 30-year processing agreement by another decade.

The province will share ownership of the refinery, located 45 kilometres northeast of Edmonton, with Canadian Natural Resources Limited.

The government said in a news release Monday the partnership will save $2 billion over the life of the project. Debt refinancing will free up to $1 billion in cash flow over five years due to better interest rates.

Energy Minister Sonya Savage said the government made this deal to make the best of a bad agreement that had iron-clad provisions that were impossible to escape.

"Under the previous deal, we had all the risk, we took all the risk...and we had no ability to control or mitigate that risk to control costs or to have any say in how the refinery was operated," Savage said in an interview with CBC News.

"With this deal, we save $2 billion and we have a seat at the table."

Under the original agreement reached in 2012, North West Redwater Partnership, which was owned equally by North West Refining Inc. and a subsidiary of Canadian Natural Resources, owned and operated the refinery.

The deal announced Monday has North West Refining transferring its ownership stake to the government of Alberta, which gives the province an equal vote in the operations. Officials say taxpayers wouldn't incur additional costs.

The North West Redwater Partnership is paying $425 million to North West Refining and $400 million to CNRL. Under the original agreement, Alberta government had to pay processing fees and profits each month.

Paying this money upfront means the government will no longer have to make these monthly payments, and will save money over the term of the agreement.

Savage compared it to the savings of paying off a credit card balance today instead of incurring interest costs by paying instalments over a longer period of time.

"The owners of the refinery were guaranteed a rate of return by the Alberta government under the previous deal for many, many years," Savage said.

"By paying that out now, it saved a lot of money for the Alberta government. If we didn't pay it out now, we'd be paying it out month-by-month, year-by-year over decades and it would be a lot more."

The Alberta Petroleum Marketing Commission (APMC) had responsibility for supplying 75 per cent of the feedstock for the refinery, which would process raw bitumen into diesel and other products.

The government estimates the refinery will lose $2.5 billion over the life of the project. The province will pay $26 billion to refine the bitumen which it intends to sell for a profit.

Nova Scotia to spend $5.4M to encourage sustainable forestry practices

Mon., July 5, 2021, 

Nova Scotia is trying to create a more environmentally sustainable forestry in the province. (Robert Short/CBC - image credit)

Premier Iain Rankin continued a string of funding announcements Monday, pledging $5.4 million to encourage more environmentally sustainable forestry in the province.

He made the announcement in New Ross.

Most of the money will be used to extend existing silviculture programs that promote ecological management with measures like thinning stands, tree planting or selective harvesting.

"If you do selection harvests, you can now get funding for doing that. It allows for more opportunities," Rankin said in an interview.

"The alternative is to clear cut. Now with more funding provided, landowners have more options to be able to use the ecological model."

Woodlot owner Debbie Reeves said the government money is needed to promote more sustainable forest management.

"The economics plays a part. There's only so much money to put back into the land. So if we don't have some government funding to support this we aren't going to be able to do as good a job as we can, especially with the ecological forestry element that's now coming to the forefront," Reeves said.

Jean Laroche/CBC

The province is also providing $1 million for training to implement ecological forestry practices outlined in an independent review of Nova Scotia forestry sector by William Lahey.

The government is extending a program for logging roads. It has set aside $1 million for private woodlots.

Owners of small woodlots are eligible for up to $5,000, or 75 per cent of the cost of roads on their property. Those are defined as woodlots from 20 to 2,000 hectares.

The program started last year and had five times as many people apply as there was money available. Unsuccessful applicants were put on a list and next in line will be contacted as more money becomes available.

Small woodlot owners to benefit

Jeff Bishop of the industry group Forest Nova Scotia said 125 to 150 small woodlot owners will benefit this year.

"It's a great investment because those landowners will hire people, they'll buy the supplies to do the work to get those roads done. So there's an immediate impact, but it's also looking forward to allowing landowners to manage their land by having the proper access that they need," he said.

Rankin was accused of caving into the forest industry when he diluted elements in his signature piece of legislation since becoming premier earlier this year.

The Biodiversity Act was billed as a way to protect the environment, but was assailed as government overreach on private land in a campaign organized by the sector.

Those fears were dismissed by environmentalists, but Rankin stripped provisions on penalties from the legislation.

'We need to evolve our practices'

On Monday, Rankin again defended the act and said the province is moving toward a more sustainable model of forestry called for by Lahey in 2018.

"I believe that we can grow traditional sectors and at the same time modernize and keep them competitive. And for forestry, we need to evolve our practices. I'm happy that we have industry collaborating now with environmental non-profits and we're moving forward with the report. We've accomplished many of the recommendations that we're going to continue," he said.

The province will spend $2 million for silviculture and $1 million for roads on private woodlots.

It will spend $1 million for silviculture and $400,000 for roads on Crown land.

The Association for Sustainable Forestry will receive $330,000 for training in pre-treatment assessment.

The Canadian Woodlands Forum will get $670,000 to train contractors in new methods and prescriptions associated with ecological forestry.