January 6 insurrection and Facebook: Internal docs paint a damning picture

Just days after insurrectionists stormed the Capitol on January 6th, Facebook's Chief Operational Officer Sheryl Sandberg downplayed her company's role in what had happened  

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© CNN Illustration/Getty Images

By Donie O'Sullivan, Tara Subramaniam and Clare Duffy, 

CNN Bsiness OCT 23,2021

"We know this was organized online. We know that," she said in an interview with Reuters. "We... took down QAnon, Proud Boys, Stop the Steal, anything that was talking about possible violence last week. Our enforcement's never perfect so I'm sure there were still things on Facebook. I think these events were largely organized on platforms that don't have our abilities to stop hate and don't have our standards and don't have our transparency."

But internal Facebook documents reviewed by CNN suggest otherwise. The documents, including an internal post-mortem and one document showing in real time countermeasures Facebook employees were belatedly implementing, paint a picture of a company that was in fact fundamentally unprepared for how the Stop the Steal movement used its platform to organize, and that only truly swung into action after the movement, which played a pivotal role in the insurrection, had turned violent.

Asked by CNN about Sandberg's quote and whether she stood by it, a Facebook spokesperson pointed to the greater context around Sandberg's quote. She had been noting that Jan. 6 organization happened largely online, including but not limited to on Facebook's platforms, the spokesperson said.

The documents were provided by Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen as evidence to support disclosures she made to the Securities and Exchange Commission and provided to Congress in redacted form by Haugen's legal counsel. The redacted versions were obtained by a consortium of 17 US news organizations, including CNN.

One of Haugen's central allegations about the company focuses on the attack on the Capitol. In a SEC disclosure she alleges, "Facebook misled investors and the public about its role perpetuating misinformation and violent extremism relating to the 2020 election and January 6th insurrection."

Facebook denies the premise of Haugen's conclusions and says Haugen has cherry-picked documents to present an unfair portrayal of the company.

"The responsibility for the violence that occurred on January 6 lies with those who attacked our Capitol and those who encouraged them. We took steps to limit content that sought to delegitimize the election, including labeling candidates' posts with the latest vote count after Mr. Trump prematurely declared victory, pausing new political advertising and removing the original #StopTheSteal Group in November," Facebook spokesperson Andy Stone told CNN Friday.

"After the violence at the Capitol erupted and as we saw continued attempts to organize events to dispute the outcome of the presidential election, we removed content with the phrase 'stop the steal' under our Coordinating Harm policy and suspended Trump from our platform."

Facebook also on Friday night published a blog post by its vice president of Integrity, Guy Rosen, about its efforts around the 2020 election.

"Our enforcement was piecemeal"

Among the tens of thousands of pages of documents Haugen provided is an internal analysis of how the Stop the Steal and Patriot Party movements spread on Facebook, first reported by BuzzFeed News earlier this year.

"Hindsight is 20:20," the author or authors of the analysis, who are not identifiable from what was provided, write. "[A]t the time it was very difficult to know whether what we were seeing was a coordinated effort to delegitimize the election, or whether it was protected free expression by users who were afraid and confused and deserved our empathy. But hindsight being 20:20 makes it all the more important to look back to learn what we can about the growth of the election delegitimatizing movements that grew, spread conspiracy, and helped incite the Capitol insurrection."

The analysis found that the policies and procedures Facebook had in place were simply not up to the task of slowing, much less halting, the "meteoric" growth of Stop the Steal. For instance, those behind the analysis noted that Facebook treated each piece of content and person or group within Stop the Steal individually, rather than as part of a whole, with dire results.

"Almost all of the fastest growing FB Groups were Stop the Steal during their peak growth," the analysis says. "Because we were looking at each entity individually, rather than as a cohesive movement, we were only able to take down individual Groups and Pages once they exceeded a violation threshold. We were not able to act on simple objects like posts and comments because they individually tended not to violate, even if they were surrounded by hate, violence, and misinformation."

This approach did eventually change, according to the analysis -- after it was too late.

"After the Capitol insurrection and a wave of Storm the Capitol events across the country, we realized that the individual delegitimizing Groups, Pages, and slogans did constitute a cohesive movement," the analysis says.

Video: Messages show what employees were saying about Facebook's role in the insurrection (CNN)

This was not the only way in which Facebook had failed to anticipate something like Stop the Steal, or in which its response was lacking.

Facebook has for some time now had a policy banning "coordinated inauthentic behavior" on its platforms. This ban allows it to take action against, for instance, the Russian troll army that worked to interfere with the 2016 US election through accounts and pages set up to look as if they were American But, the analysis notes with emphasis, the company had "little policy around coordinated authentic harm" -- that is, little to stop people organizing under their real names and not hiding their intention to get the country to reject the results of the election.

Stop the Steal and Patriot Party groups "were not directly mobilizing offline harm, nor were they directly promoting militarization," the analysis says. "Instead, they were amplifying and normalizing misinformation and violent hate in a way that delegitimized a free and fair democratic election. The harm existed at the network level: an individual's speech is protected, but as a movement, it normalized delegitimization and hate in a way that resulted in offline harm and harm to the norms underpinning democracy."

The analysis does note, however, that once Facebook saw the results of Stop the Steal on January 6th and took action, it was able to deploy measures that stymied the growth of both Stop the Steal and Patriot Party groups.

Facebook's Stone told CNN, "Facebook has taken extraordinary steps to address harmful content and we'll continue to do our part. We also closely worked with law enforcement, both before January 6th and in the days and weeks since, with the goal of ensuring that information linking the people responsible for January 6th to their crimes is available."


Pulling levers

Haugen began gathering evidence about the company before she eventually left the tech giant last May. To reduce the chance of getting caught taking screenshots of internal Facebook systems, she used her phone to take photographs of her computer screen.

As the insurrection was underway in Washington and Facebook was trying to get a handle on the situation, Haugen was snapping pictures, documenting the company's response.

One of the documents she captured, titled "Capitol Protest BTG [Break the Glass] Response," was a chart of measures Facebook could take in response to the January 6th attack. The chart appears to have been prepared beforehand; at the time Haugen photographed it, a little less than two hours after the Capitol was first breached, the company had instituted some of those measures while others were still under consideration. Among the potential actions listed in the chart were demoting "content deemed likely to violate our community standards in the areas of hate speech, graphic violence, and violence and incitement."

The page labeled these as "US2020 Levers, previously rolled back."

Those "levers," as Facebook refers to them, are measures -- guardrails -- that the company put in place before last year's Presidential election in an attempt to slow the spread of hate and misinformation on the platform. Facebook has not been clear in its public statements about what measures it did roll back after the election and why it did so at a time of tumult when the sitting president was calling the results of the vote into question.

But according to the "Capitol Protest BTG response" document, the guardrails Facebook reimplemented on January 6th included reducing the visibility of posts likely to be reported and freezing "commenting on posts in Groups that start to have a high rate of hate speech and violence & incitement comments," among others.

In the SEC disclosure, Haugen alleges that these levers were reinstated "only after the insurrection flared up."

Asked about the decisions to dial the levers back and then push them out again, Stone said, "In phasing in and then adjusting additional measures before, during and after the election, we took into account specific on-platforms signals and information from our ongoing, regular engagement with law enforcement. When those signals changed, so did the measures."


A through line

When Facebook executives posted messages publicly and internally condemning the riot, some employees pushed back, even suggesting Facebook might have had some culpability.

"There were dozens of Stop the Steal groups active up until yesterday, and I doubt they minced words about their intentions," one employee wrote in response to a post from Mike Schroepfer, Facebook's chief technology officer.3

Another wrote, "All due respect, but haven't we had enough time to figure out how to manage discourse without enabling violence? We've been fueling this fire for a long time and we shouldn't be surprised it's now out of control."

Other Facebook employees went further, claiming decisions by company leadership over the years had helped create the conditions that paved the way for an attack on the US Capitol.

Responding to Schroepfer's post, one staffer wrote that, "leadership overrides research based policy decisions to better serve people like the groups inciting violence today. Rank and file workers have done their part to identify changes to improve our platforms but have been actively held back."

Another staffer, referencing years of controversial and questionable decision-making by Facebook leadership around political speech concluded, "history will not judge us kindly."

A new whistleblower reportedly claimed Facebook exempted right-wing outlet Breitbart from certain rules because it didn't want to 'start a fight with Steve Bannon'

Katie Canales
Fri, October 22, 2021

Then-President Donald Trump and Steve Bannon. Getty

Facebook "whitelisted" Breitbart to avoid angering Republicans, a new whistleblower told The Washington Post.

When an employee questioned the move, an exec reportedly said "do you want to start a fight with Steve Bannon?"

Facebook has long been ensnared in a political war over how it moderates users and content.

Another whistleblower has come forward with claims against Facebook, according to The Washington Post.

The anonymous former employee told the outlet that Facebook's Public Policy team - helmed by the company's now-vice president of global public policy, Joel Kaplan - defended "whitelisting" the right-wing news outlet Breitbart, run at the time by former Trump White House strategist Steve Bannon.

"Whitelisting" refers to exempting certain elite, high-profile figures online from rules that apply to ordinary users. When Facebook defended "whitelisting" Brietbart, an employee questioned the move, the whistleblower told The Post.

Kaplan answered, "Do you want to start a fight with Steve Bannon?" according to the whistleblower, as The Post reported.

The whistleblower is also behind an anonymous affidavit to the Securities Exchange Commission, though their name is redacted, the Post reported. The move is similar to the actions of Frances Haugen, who earlier this year shared documents with the Wall Street Journal and testified before a Congressional committee.

The affidavit alleges Facebook officials regularly deprioritized stamping out misinformation, hate speech, and other content to stay in favor of former President Donald Trump and his supporters, the Post reported. Another reason cited was concern that Facebook's user growth could take a hit.

A Facebook spokesperson denied the firm ever exempted any publisher from its rules and criticized the Washington Post's reporting.

"This is beneath the Washington Post, which during the last five years would only report stories after deep reporting with corroborating sources," they said. "There has never been a whitelist that exempts publishers, including Breitbart, from Facebook's rules against misinformation."

A system known internally as XCheck, acknowledged by the company last month, allows hundreds of thousands of politicians, celebrities, and other individuals who are "newsworthy," "influential," or "PR risky" to be exempt from certain rules, the Journal reported in September. Facebook has said it's trying to eliminate the system.

Many conservatives have condemned Facebook and other platforms for censoring them and favoring liberal views, even as right-wing content flourishes online. The company is aware of scrutiny from both sides of the aisle, but especially from the right.

The company tweaked its algorithm in 2017 but found that the change could slam right-wing publishers, a feat that could have angered Republicans in power during Trump's presidency. To offset the dip, Facebook crushed traffic to progressive news sites like Mother Jones, the publication reported in October 2020.

Alberta government says jobs, economy, COVID to be focus of fall legislature sitting

EDMONTON — The Alberta government plans a busy fall legislature sitting aimed at adding jobs and diversifying the economy while focusing on tamping down the renewed surge of COVID-19.

Government house leader Jason Nixon says this will include proposed legislation on recognizing professional credentials to address labour shortages. The bill will be introduced by Premier Jason Kenney.

“Our focus will be on Alberta’s workforce, a couple of bills around diversifying the economy, a big focus on building infrastructure for our future, (and) growing our resources, particularly on the energy side,” Nixon said in an interview Friday.

There will also be new initiatives on environmental protection and conservation.

Nixon said there will be 18 to 20 bills for the sitting, which begins Monday and is scheduled to run to the first week of December.

“It’s a very robust fall agenda,” he said.

Nixon said the government will continue to take steps to reduce COVID-19 cases, which have severely stressed the health system.

No COVID-19-specific bills are planned, he said, noting they were passed in previous sittings.

“There’s certainly other stuff to be done to manage the pandemic … but we’ll stand ready if Alberta Health needs us to pass any legislation to deal with the pandemic."

He said debate in the chamber is expected to return to some semblance of normalcy.

In the spring sitting, both the United Conservative government and the Opposition NDP reduced their numbers in the chamber to prevent the spread of the virus.

This time, with all NDP members and all but one on the UCP side vaccinated, all will be allowed back in for debate.

The lone UCP member has a medical exemption and will be tested regularly, said Nixon.

He said there are still masking rules and members will try to maintain distancing where possible.

The NDP said it plans to hold the government accountable for what went disastrously wrong on COVID-19.

“This fall sitting of the legislature will be laser-focused on getting answers from the UCP on why they’ve failed Albertans so miserably in managing the devastating fourth wave of the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Christina Gray, the NDP house leader.

“Since July 15, more than 85,000 additional Albertans have been infected with the virus and 700 have died.”

Gray said the NDP will call for an all-party inquiry into the government’s handling of the pandemic with the power to compel documents and testimony.

Nixon said the government will not agree to such a motion. He said it would be wrong to redeploy vital health resources right now and that Kenney has promised an eventual review of how the province handled the pandemic.

Kenney has also promised to bring forward a motion to ratify and act on the results of Monday's provincewide referendum on Canada’s equalization program.

Final results aren’t in from Edmonton, but figures from Calgary and other cities suggest the referendum will pass with about 60 per cent in support of urging the federal government to remove the principle of equalization from the Constitution.

Kenney has said the issue is not about removing equalization, something no province can do unilaterally, but about getting leverage to negotiate other issues surrounding federal transfers to attain a better deal with Ottawa.

Political scientist Jared Wesley said Kenney will likely continue to focus on initiatives such as the equalization referendum, if only to change the narrative on his low popularity ratings.

“The premier will be spending most of his time, if he has anything to say about it, outside the province, stumping for this fair deal,” said Wesley, with the University of Alberta.

COVID-19 numbers have been trending down in recent weeks. But Kenney and Dr. Deena Hinshaw, the province's chief medical officer of health, say the situation remains precarious.

On Friday, there were just over 10,000 active COVID-19 cases in Alberta. And there were 191 COVID-19 patients in intensive care.

Alberta’s fourth wave troubles began after Kenney lifted almost all COVID-19 related health restrictions as of July 1, boasting that the pandemic had moved to the “endemic” phase and there was no need to plan for a renewed case surge.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 22, 2021.

Dean Bennett, The Canadian Press

With more humpback whales in B.C. waters, entanglements are on the rise, too

Roshini Nair 

CBC

© Submitted by Sydney Dixon A mother humpback whale — dubbed Pinky — is a common visitor to Barkley Sound near Ucluelet, B.C., between April and late October.

It takes a village to disentangle a humpback whale — or, in the case of a mother and her calf off the coast of Vancouver Island last week, a community of whale watchers, researchers, Mounties, Parks Canada staff and a team of highly skilled professionals from Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO).

These operations are becoming much more common in B.C. waters as the numbers of humpbacks — and people on the water spotting whales in distress — increase.

"There are so many eyes and ears out there," said Paul Cottrell with marine mammal rescue at DFO and a global expert on whale disentanglement.


The whale and her calf were first spotted entangled in fishing gear on Oct. 7 near Barkley Sound off Ucluelet by Sydney Dixon, research director for the Tofino-based Strawberry Isle Marine Research Society.

"This is a female humpback whale that is really well known and beloved in Barkley Sound," said Dixon, who is also a Zodiac skipper for Jamie's Whaling Station, a tour operator on the west coast of the Island.

The whale, known as Pinky to locals, has migrated to the waters off Barkley Sound fairly consistently since the early 2000s, says Dixon.

"She's brought several babies back to our area to our area as well," she said.

Dixon said she was conducting a whale-watching tour when she noticed floats from what appeared to be a crab or prawn trap following behind the pair.

"I realized that either she or her calf were entangled in some fishing gear," she said.
An increasing problem

Entanglements have become more common over the past decade, says Cottrell.

"In the last five years, we've seen an uptick from three to 10 confirmed entanglements to ...10 to 25 animals a year entangled," he said.

Part of the reason, he says, is because there are a lot more humpback whales in inshore waters. For example, the humpback whale population off northeastern Vancouver Island reached 86 in 2018, up from just seven in 2004.

"Getting these animals back is a great news story, but there are more entanglements because we do have [fishing] gear in the water," he said.

The effects of entanglement on whales depends on how much and what type of gear is involved, and where on the body it is.

Some whales might carry gear for years, migrating across the ocean without great effect. But if it interferes with their feeding or if it digs into a whale's skin and causes infection, entanglement can be fatal.

The type of gear found on Pinky and her calf, Cottrell said, was a polysteel rope — a particularly abrasive type that can cut into the skin and tighten up and cause significant harm.

Cottrell said there is significant work going on to reduce entanglements through gear modifications, ropeless technology and ridding the ocean of abandoned gear.

"It will never stop all of them," he said. "Any vertical or horizontal rope line in the water is a potential entanglement. We've had anchor lines, gillnets, all sorts of fishing gear rope … it really is a lot of different things these animals get caught up in."
Highly skilled, dangerous work

Cottrell is a part of a small group of professionals who are specially trained in whale disentanglement. Cottrell is part of the International Whaling Commission's Global Whale Entanglement Response Network that is working to create training and best practices for whale disentanglement.

"There are not a lot of us around the world that do this. There's probably under 25 folks," he said.

 Submitted by Paul Cottrell The Fisheries and Oceans Canada team pose with the gear they were able to remove from the mother and calf humpback pair on Oct. 13.

The work is highly skilled and dangerous. Cottrell's team deals with some of the largest animals on the planet — many of whom are extremely agitated and distressed by their circumstances. In 2017, a volunteer whale rescuer died in New Brunswick after being struck by the right whale he was disentangling.

"[In my experience], these animals are not aware at all that we're helping. They're trying to get away from us, they're agitated, they definitely do not assist us at all," said Cottrell, who has done this work for the past 15 years.

A mother and a calf present an additional challenge.

"You never know how the mom is going to react when you're working with the calf," he said. "We've had animals where the moms act aggressive and other moms that don't but are usually right there touching the calf while we're rescuing the calf and cutting the gear off."

Gear free and bound for Hawaii

In the case of Pinky and her calf, it wasn't even clear which one had been entangled.

Dixon alerted Fisheries and Oceans authorities through the mammal marine hotline and kept in sight of the pair until help arrived.

But — as whales are wont to do — the pair submerged into the ocean's depths and left her would-be rescuers scrambling to find them.

"It's really important to keep eyes on an entangled whale if you are able to, so that you don't lose them. Because if you do lose them, the chances of them being refound and disentangled goes down dramatically," Dixon said.

It took days of searching by RCMP, researchers, fisheries officers and whale-watching teams before the pair was spotted again and tagged with a satellite tracker. Then, a rescue attempt was made.

On Oct. 13, Cottrell's team were able to free the whales by attaching a drag on the trailing gear which started to pull it loose as the animals travelled.

The mother and calf will now migrate to their wintering grounds in Hawaii.

"The good news is they're gear free and the injuries they have look minor overall in terms of what the damage could have been," he said.

This disentanglement was the 15th occurrence this year, Cottrell says, and one of three that were reported last week along Vancouver Island.

While the work of disentangling itself is specialized, Cottrell's team has been training different groups on how to attach a satellite tracker to whales to save time and allow a specialized team to follow up.

It's part of the collaborative efforts to protect these giant mammals, which can live up to 80 years.

"I feel so lucky to do what I do," Cottrell said. "It really takes a team to do that."

SVABODA

Defence Department vows to examine extremism in Canadian-trained foreign troops


OTTAWA — The Defence Department has vowed to review how the military screens for extremist views in the foreign troops it works withafter a report found that far-right radicals in the Ukrainian army boasted on social media that they received training from the Canadian Armed Forces.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The study this month out of George Washington University in Washington, D.C., found that members of Centuria have accessed training from Canada, among other NATO countries, and taken part in joint military exercises.

Centuria is a group that holds ties to far-right movements, venerates Nazi figures and aims to protect what it calls Europe's "ethnic identity,"according to the report from the Institute for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies.

In response to the study, the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center this week called for an investigation by the Defence Department.

"I think they have to reassess the program, because these are the last people on earth whom you want to train," Efraim Zuroff, director of the centre's Israel office, said in a phone interview from Jerusalem.

"In other words, these are people who might turn those weapons later, not against the Russians but against people among their own population who they don't like or they don't agree with and God knows what," said Zuroff, who also carries the title of the centre's chief Nazi hunter.

The Defence Department says Canada currently relies on the Ukrainian government to vet its security forces.

"If Canadian soldiers suspect that their Ukrainian counterparts or trainees hold racist views, they are removed immediately. There is no burden of proof on the CAF (Canadian Armed Forces) to demonstrate this beyond a reasonable doubt," the department said in an email.

Nonetheless, the study's findings prompted the department to conduct a "thorough review of this report, including whether current policies and procedures in place are sufficiently stringent to flag and prevent the CAF from unwittingly aiding those whose views it fundamentally opposes."

None of the Western governments contacted in the study, including Canada, the United States, United Kingdom and Germany, vet Ukrainian training recipients for extremist views and ties, the report said.

"The upshot of this report is that between these two sides, nobody is actually doing their job," Tarik Cyril Amar, a professor at Columbia University and expert on Ukraine, said in a virtual interview from Istanbul.

"If you're a state or a military who makes your trainers, your facilities, your weapons available for helping somebody how to learn to kill, you are responsible," he said.

Far-right militias played a prominent role in the early days of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict that kicked off in 2014 following the Maidan protests and revolution in Kiev.

Extremist vigilantes associated with the ultranationalist Azov movement and other "volunteer battalions" helped Ukraine's regular army defend its territory against separatist proxies backed by Russia, which annexed Ukraine's Crimea region and supported separatists in the Donbas area.

Since then, Ukraine's armed forces have integrated Azov into their ranks and said that extremist elements have been weeded out, but observers remain skeptical.

"Evidence uncovered in this paper suggests that since 2018, the Hetman Petro Sahaidachny National Army Academy (NAA), Ukraine’s premier military education institution and a major hub for Western military assistance to the country, has been home to Centuria," the report says.

"The group, led by individuals with ties to Ukraine’s internationally active far-right Azov movement, has attracted multiple members, including current and former officer cadets of the NAA now serving in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Apparent members have appeared in photos giving Nazi salutes and made seemingly extremist statements online."

As recently as April 2021, Centuria claimed that members participated in joint military exercises with France, the U.S., U.K., Canada, Germany and Poland, the study says.

"Currently, per the NAA, dedicated permanent advisers from Germany, Canada and Denmark, as well as experts of NATO’s Defense Education Enhancement Program (DEEP), are involved in shaping the curriculum the Academy teaches to its students," the report states.

"In 2018, for example, the NAA unveiled a high-tech 'Delta Classroom' sponsored by Canada."

Ivan Katchanovski, a specialist on Ukrainian politics and history at the University of Ottawa, says Canadian policy turns a “blind eye” to ultranationalist extremism and human rights violations in parts of the country.

“This silence basically is used by the far right in Ukraine and by the Ukrainian government as immunity, as a sign of support, as a green light,” he said.

This would not be the first time western governments have backed security forces abroad while looking the other way on extremist ideologies.

“During the Cold War, in Central America in particular, there were similar kinds of policies ignoring the far-right movements and human rights abuses,” Katchanovski said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 22, 2021.

Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press

PURGE, NEW WOMEN LEADERSHIP ONLY, FLATTEN THE DND 
Taxpayers spent up to $720K on salaries for military leaders sidelined by sexual misconduct crisis

Ashley Burke CBC

© Murray Brewster/The Canadian Press 

Multiple senior military leaders have been placed on temporary leave or permanently moved out of their roles in connection with the sexual misconduct crisis.

Taxpayers have spent an estimated $639,000 to $720,900 on salaries for high-ranking military officers who have been moved out of their jobs in connection with the military's sexual misconduct crisis, according to a CBC News analysis.

CBC News analyzed the pay ranges for eight military leaders and the amount of time that has passed since they were shuffled out of their jobs. Some of them are on leave with pay, some are transitioning out of the military and some have been placed in other positions within the Canadian Forces.

While it's difficult to pinpoint a figure given the information publicly available, the analysis indicates the federal government has spent roughly $639,000 to $720,000 on salaries for these individuals since they were moved out of their leadership roles.

The Department of National Defence says all military members have the right to due process and are entitled to their pay during military police investigations. DND says Canadian law ensures that a workplace cannot punish employees unless they've been proven guilty.

CBC's analysis does not include individuals who retired, were removed from their roles and placed in other staff positions, or used vacation time to cover the entirety of theirtemporary leave.

The former chief of the defence staff, retired general Jonathan Vance, is collecting his pension and awaiting his criminal trial on one count of obstruction of justice. Vance's salary before he retired in July 2020 was $260,600 to $306,500, according to an order-in-council.

The salary figure, and the number of officers under investigation, reflect the scale of the misconduct crisis and its effects on the Canadian military, said Megan MacKenzie of Simon Fraser University.

"This figure is the tip of the iceberg in terms of the cost, both financial and emotional and reputational, for the defence forces," said MacKenzie, the Simons Chair in International Law and Human Rights Security.

"I think it's signaling that we really need leadership on this issue. We need civilian leaders. We need the prime minister and the minister of defence to come to help to solve this issue."

MacKenzie said the true cost of the sexual misconduct crisis goes beyond the salary figure. She said service members are taking medical leave or exiting the military altogether, while the military struggles with the effects on recruitment and the risk of lawsuits.

Eleven high-ranking military officers have been temporarily or permanently removed from their leadership roles since February in connection with allegations of sexual misconduct, or in response to how they handled sexual misconduct claims.

CBC News has a full list of the cases here.

'Case after case'

MacKenzie said she can't think of another defence force in the world that has seen so many senior leaders face sexual misconduct allegations or be placed on leave at the same time. She's been researching military culture for a decade and is leading an international study into military sexual misconduct in Canada, the U.S. and Australia.

In other countries, she said, high-profile scandals erupt and then die down after official reviews or policy changes.

"But what's happened in Canada is that you have case after case, multiple cases at the same time," she said. "There is no recovery. There's no moment between scandals and you have this sort of growing groundswell of calls for serious action."

MacKenzie said it's not unusual to place military members on paid leave while they're under investigation. The problem, she said, is that some of the investigations are taking "a very long time," with service members stuck at home while they wait to learn the outcome.

She said it's been a common tactic for militaries to try to wait out public anger by placing members on paid leave.

"There are so many individuals under investigation, so these investigations have to be handled quickly," she said.

Throughout the crisis, the military has maintained its police are conducting thorough investigations. DND said in a media statement that, as an institution based on the rule of law, the Canadian Armed Forces "must ensure all members are afforded their fundamental rights of due process, procedural fairness."

Admiral McDonald's case unresolved after almost 8 months

Admiral Art McDonald has been paid the most to date while on leave for almost eight months. He was removed from his job as the chief of defence staff in February in connection with a sexual misconduct allegation.

CBC News estimates McDonald has been paid between $149,000 and $176,00 since being suspended.

MacKenzie said she's surprised that the government hasn't been in more of a hurry to resolve McDonald's case, given the fact that he's still being paid while his old job is being done by Acting Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre. McDonald's annual salary is $232,700 to $273,700, according to an order-in-council.

The position of chief of the defence staff is a governor-in-council appointment, meaning the prime minister can dismiss the chief at any time. McDonald's lawyers revealed in August that the military police investigation had wrapped up without charging him with anything. More than two months later, the federal government hasn't decided if it will reinstate McDonald.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau commented yesterday on McDonald's recent public attempts to get his old job back. Trudeau said McDonald's comments were not in line with the government's focus on putting victims first and will be "taken into account as we make a final determination on the permanent post of chief of defence staff."

The Prime Minister's Office said it would not comment further when asked why it hasn't reached a decision yet on McDonald's future, or whether it's waiting until the public's focus on the misconduct crisis eases.

Maj.-Gen. Dany Fortin's lawyers, meanwhile, say he's stuck at home collecting a salary with no work to do. Quebec prosecutors charged Fortin in August with one count of sexual assault; his criminal case is now working its way through the civilian court system.

Fortin denies the allegation. He launched a federal court battle to regain his former position as head of the vaccine rollout, arguing the federal government meddled politically in the decision to sideline him.

He was assigned a new job but his lawyers say he's been sitting at home without any assignments. CBC estimates he's collected between $81,000 and $95,000 since leaving his role with the Public Health Agency of Canada.

In March, the military also placed Vice-Admiral Haydn Edmundson on indefinite paid leave from his role as commander of military personnel following a CBC News report on an alleged sexual assault. A military police investigation is underway into a claim he raped a 19-year-old steward on a Canadian navy ship in 1991 while docked in Pearl Harbour, Hawaii.

Edmundson denies the allegation and has been posted since May as a supported member at the Transition Centre in Ottawa. Since leaving his position in charge of military personnel, he's been paid an estimated $137,000 to $148,000, according to the CBC News analysis.

Edmundson's successor, Lt.-Gen. Steven Whelan, stepped aside from his role last week in response to an investigation into sexual misconduct allegations. The military also postponed last week the appointment of Lt.-Gen. Trevor Cadieu as the next commander of the army over sexual misconduct claims.

Both Whelan and Cadieu are now on leave and their individual monthly pay is estimated to be between $20,683 and $22,392, according to the military's publicly disclosed pay rates.

DND says it has full confidence in broader leadership

CBC News asked DND what it's doing in response to the number of senior leaders currently on leave from their roles. The department said that military leaders are trained to fill in for their superiors.

"As the justice system continues to dutifully proceed, we have full confidence in our broader leadership team to continue to tend to the business of defending Canada," said DND spokesperson Daniel Le Bouthillier.

Retired captain Annalise Schamuhn, who was sexually assaulted by another soldier, said she sees the number of sexual misconduct allegations being reported as an encouraging sign. Schamuhn shared her story publicly, hoping it would help lead to institutional change in the Canadian Armed Forces.

"I think the more stories and cases come out, the more it seems like things are getting worse," said Schamuhn. "But I take it as a sign that things are getting better.

"The fact that people feel comfortable coming forward, I think, is a sign of progress."

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Library and Archives Canada service cuts hindering research, historians complain


OTTAWA — Researchers say recent service cuts at Canada's national archives are making their work — already hampered by COVID-19 — even more challenging.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

In a letter to Library and Archives Canada, the Canadian Historical Association urges the institution to reconsider reductions that have left its archival reading room open just three days a week.

Historians say the move means researchers from across the country, including students trying to complete degrees, must scramble for coveted appointments to view paper file holdings in the Ottawa reading room.

The historical association's letter allows that Library and Archives has doubtlessly struggled, like other organizations, to maintain employment and services during the COVID-19 pandemic.

However, the association says members are "gravely concerned" about the federal institution's limits on public access, which threaten the agency's core mission.

In response to questions from The Canadian Press, Library and Archives says it is facing difficulties meeting client demands, meaning it has had to prioritize some services and reduce others.

Justine Lesage, a spokeswoman for Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault, referred inquiries Friday to department staff, saying the minister's office was in "waiting mode" in advance of a new cabinet being appointed Tuesday.

The Wednesday letter from the historical association is signed by president Steven High, a Concordia University professor, and past president Penny Bryden of the University of Victoria.

"At a time when other institutions and businesses are slowly expanding their availability to the public, it seems that LAC has taken the reverse approach," says the letter, also posted on the association's website.

"How is it possible to continue to make the case for the value of … heritage and history when the key driver of their value — the public — is being kept out?"

The previous system of registering for limited numbers of archival reading room spots, two weeks in advance, was difficult enough, the letter says.

"Spaces for the week were snapped up by researchers within minutes of the portal opening, making research virtually impossible for people outside the Ottawa area."

Nevertheless, the possibility of signing up for a maximum of 12 hours of research time a week was better than the complete lockdown of public access that had characterized much of the pandemic, the letter adds.

"Researchers are desperate to get back to the Archives. The complete closure of the reading room in the summer of 2021, and the retrenchment rather than expansion of its services since then, however, is going too far."

Library and Archives Canada acknowledged that the hours of service at some of its on-site locations have been temporarily reduced and that response times are longer than usual for most of its remote services.

"Although these service standards are temporary and should not necessarily be viewed as the new normal, they provide a realistic approximation of our current level of service," the organization said.

Library and Archives added it is "reviewing the allocation" of its resources. "However, addressing current backlogs and responding to service requests is currently our utmost priority."

University of Toronto historian Robert Bothwell said delving into the past is a time-consuming slog through reams of archival papers, a task that is now even more drawn-out.

"Academic budgets are just not made for this," he said. "I mean, we do subsidize our grad students, we do give them some financial help, but a lot of it they have to budget for themselves. So for these guys, it's just hopeless."

Fellow University of Toronto history professor Timothy Sayle said a lack of funds limits the assistance — or at least the timeliness of help — that Library and Archives can provide researchers who are not in Ottawa, or those considering whether a trip to the Archives is worthwhile.

Sayle noted the main gateway to the organization for these researchers is the "Ask Us a Question" feature on the institution's website, a tool he uses.

"When the responses to my queries do come from LAC, they are excellent. But they do take months to arrive," Sayle said. "LAC staff clearly take these very seriously and work hard to answer them — but my sense is there are very, very few people who can provide the answers to the questions that get asked."

He tells master's students about the tool, but warns they are "unlikely to hear back in time for the results to be useful for the research they are doing as part of their degree."

The federal information watchdog is conducting a systemic investigation of the “ongoing failure” of the national archives to provide timely responses to requests from the public for historical spy files.

Information commissioner Caroline Maynard said earlier this year a chronic concern underlying the probe was Library and Archives' difficulty in vetting decades-old, but still highly classified, intelligence files for release.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 22, 2021.

Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press

Canadian ski resorts face labour shortage, government slow to issue working visas

VANCOUVER — Canadian ski resorts that rely heavily on international workers are steadying themselves for a labour shortage this winter as the visa approval process by the federal government slows.

 

© Provided by The Canadian Press

With international borders reopening to vaccinated travellers and vaccine passports allowing for increased guest capacity, Paul Pinchbeck, the CEO of Ski Canada, said the expected busy ski season is "creating a conundrum" for resorts across the country.

“We have significant demand for our products, which is exemplified by early-season travel bookings and season's pass sales, but we are short many thousands of employees across the country and that’s going to hamper our ability to deliver their services this year," he said. "The magnitude of this can’t be understated."

Michael Ballingall, senior vice-president at Big White Ski Resort in Kelowna, B.C., said about 60 per cent of its staff members were international workers on a two-year International Experience Canada visa before the pandemic.

He said the resort normally has an influx in seasonal worker applications in the fall, but the pandemic is making it difficult for people to acquire working visas. The resort is currently at 45 per cent of its staff capacity and Ballingall said secondary services, like hospitality, will suffer if nothing changes.

Irish visa applicant Lili Minah has already been offered a bartending job at one of the three Mooney Supply Group restaurants in Big White village and is hoping to receive a response from Immigration Canada before her flight to British Columbia on Nov. 20.

"If they don’t issue me an invite to apply for a visa by then, I guess it’ll just be a holiday," she said.

Ana Mooney, who offered Minah the serving job, said 60 per cent of their staff are typically visa holders. She said her restaurants are short about 50 staffers heading into the season and three staff members have already chosen to return home because the visa process took too long.

"Tourism's being hit so hard by COVID and having a second year of this means some people won't weather the storm,” she said. “It’s not just in the ski industry, it's tourism in general. As the borders open, there's going to be more people visiting, but we don't have the workforce to look after them."

Ballingall said only a small number of the visas are being processed, while the permits for those people allowed to work last year are expiring, leaving both workers and resorts in limbo.

"When the pandemic hit, a lot of (international workers) still had their visas going, so they could work for us last year," he said. "This year, most of those people are still in the country but their visas have expired, so we’re lobbying the government to turn visas back on because everyone in this industry is in a similar boat."

Gemma Nicolle, 30, has worked two winters in retail at Big White, and is hoping to have her work visa reinstated in time for ski season.

"I'm going to have to start working again pretty soon to be able to stay here, so around the end of November, if nothing improves, I’ll probably have to head home," she said.

Ballingall said Canada West Ski Areas Association and the Canadian Ski Council have joined Big White in hiring a lobby firm to convince the government to reinstate the expired visas.

"We need more people and we’re asking the government to help us recover our businesses but also to offer recovery for Canadian tourism in general," said Pinchbeck.

"Last year, we didn't have this glaring need because we were heading into the various waves of COVID and were expecting to have reduced operations. This year, we’ve proven that this is an industry that can operate in a safe and responsible manner and because the governments know so much more about this virus and its transmission now, we’re confident we’re going to need those people to increase services."

Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada said in an email that ongoing international travel and border restrictions, limited operational capacity overseas and the inability on the part of clients to obtain documentation because of the pandemic have created barriers in processing, which it says hinders its ability to finalize applications, creating delays that are outside its control.

"Since early in the pandemic, IRCC has prioritized applications from workers in essential occupations in agriculture and health care, where labour is most needed to protect the health of Canadians and ensure a sufficient food supply," the department said.

While it said it is focusing resources on resettling Afghan refugees through existing programs, there has been no pause in the processing of other lines of business, including International Experience Canada, the department said.

"Despite these efforts, we know that some applicants have experienced considerable wait times with the processing of their applications. We continue to work as hard as possible to reduce overall processing times."

Ballingall said Big White administration isn't panicking yet. He said he's hoping to entice Canadian workers this winter as the Canada Emergency Response Benefit ends.

"We'll start panicking around Nov. 1 if nothing changes because there’s just not enough Canadians in the pool right now to satisfy the industry. Something's got to give."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2021.

———

This story was produced with the financial assistance of the Facebook and Canadian Press News Fellowship.

Brieanna Charlebois, The Canadian Press

NEED A NEW EV AUTOPACT

Canada says U.S. electric vehicle tax credit plan could harm industry, violate trade pact


Canada said on Friday that U.S. proposals to create new electric vehicle tax credits for American-built vehicles could harm the North American auto industry and fall foul of trade agreements, according to a letter seen by Reuters.

© Provided by Global News A electric car is seen getting charged at parking lot in Tsawwassen, near Vancouver B.C., Friday, April, 6, 2018. 

THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jonathan Hayward

Separately, a Canadian government source expressed confidence a solution would eventually be reached but said Ottawa might have to launch a challenge through the United States-Mexico-Canada (USMCA) trade deal.

In the letter dated Oct. 22, Canadian Trade Minister Mary Ng told U.S. lawmakers and the Biden administration that the credits, if approved, "would have a major adverse impact on the future of EV and automotive production in Canada."

Read more: Joe Biden looks abroad for electric vehicle metals — including Canada

She said this would raise the risk of severe economic harm and tens of thousands of job losses in one of Canada's largest manufacturing sectors, adding that U.S. companies and workers would not be immune from the fallout. The auto industry in both nations is highly integrated.

Ng said the proposed credits were inconsistent with U.S. obligations under the USMCA and the World Trade Organization.

The Canadian government source insisted Ottawa did not want to mount a USMCA challenge but said "it is entirely conceivable that that's a tool we would look at" if need be. The source requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation.

A U.S. House panel in September approved legislation to boost EV credits to up to $12,500 per vehicle, including $4,500 for union-made vehicles produced in the United States and $500 for batteries made in the United States. Starting in 2027, vehicles would need to be assembled in the United States to qualify for all of the $12,500 in tax credits.

The credits would disproportionately benefit Detroit's Big Three automakers - General Motors, Ford Motor Co and Chrysler parent Stellantis - because they all assemble their American-made vehicles in union-represented plants.

The province of Ontario, home to much of Canada's auto industry, is geographically close to U.S. automakers in Michigan and Ohio. GM, Ford and Stellantis have all announced plans to make electric vehicles at factories in Ontario.

The U.S. arms of foreign automakers have criticized the tax incentive. Tesla Inc has also been critical, though the tax credit is strongly supported by the United Auto Workers union.

The Canadian government source said Cabinet ministers would step up their lobbying efforts.

"I think we will eventually reach a resolution - it just depends on what timeline. Ideally we would be able to change the legislation before it gets passed," said the source.

Read more: Canadian auto industry should be mandated to sell electric vehicles: parliamentary report

Ng said Canada is deeply concerned about the "protectionist elements" of the proposed tax credits, saying they discriminate against EVs and parts produced in Canada.

"Canada is also necessary for the United States to achieve its electric vehicle objectives in the future," she wrote, adding that Canada is the only country in the Western Hemisphere that has all the critical minerals required to manufacture EV batteries.

She said the U.S. and Canadian automotive industries rely on each other for both finished vehicles and components, with total automotive trade averaging more than $100 billion a year.

(Reporting by David Shepardson in Washington and David Ljunggren in Ottawa Editing by David Goodman and Matthew Lewis)

New climate alliance to push for phasing out oil and gas at upcoming climate conference

Christian Paas-Lang 

© Jason Franson/The Canadian Press 

A flare stack lights the sky at an oil refinery in Edmonton in December 2018.

BURNING OFF H2SO4, METHANE, AND OTHER GHG'S

Our planet is changing. So is our journalism. This story is part of a CBC News initiative entitled "Our Changing Planet" to show and explain the effects of climate change and what is being done about it.

A new climate alliance set to launch at the COP26 conference is taking aim at the oil and gas industry, putting pressure on Canada to set a clear date to wind down oil and gas extraction in this country.

The Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, headed by Denmark and Costa Rica, will bring together countries and subnational entities willing to set an end date for fossil fuel extraction. The list of those signing on will be released in Glasgow, Scotland, during the major climate conference starting there next week.

"We think that to be a climate leader you also have to lead on the difficult questions, and ending oil and gas extraction is definitely one of the defining questions of climate action," Tomas Anker Christensen, Denmark's climate ambassador, said in an interview with CBC's The House airing Saturday.

Denmark announced last year it would stop issuing new licenses for oil and gas exploration as part of a wider plan to phase out extraction by 2050. Denmark has been the largest oil producer in the European Union since the United Kingdom left the bloc in 2020.

Echoing the words of his country's energy minister, Christensen questioned how countries can hope to meet their net-zero by 2050 commitments while also expanding oil and gas production.

"It is a paradox. It's hard to envision how you do both," he told guest host Laura Lynch. The International Energy Agency said in a recent report that nations pushing for a net-zero world by 2050 have no reason to invest in expanding oil production after this year.

But it's not clear if Canada will join the nascent alliance, given its status as the fourth largest producer and third largest exporter of oil in the world.

The IEA report suggests Canadian oil production will continue to grow until 2030 under existing policies. Even under the government's proposed policies, Canadian production will fall just 100,000 barrels a day by then, the agency estimates, down from the over five million barrels per day produced in 2020.

Responding to a request for comment from The House, the federal government did not say whether it intends to join the Beyond Oil and Gas alliance but did say climate change was both a "competitiveness issue" and "economic opportunity" for oil and gas.

"The majority of oil and gas companies are already committed to net-zero by 2050, and in order to get to our shared goal, emissions from the oil and gas sector need to go down," said Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson's press secretary, Joanna Sivasankaran, in a media statement.

"We committed in our platform, and have a strong mandate, to ensure that pollution from the oil and gas sector doesn't go up from current levels and instead goes down at the pace and scale needed to get to net-zero by 2050."

Oil and gas extraction has driven much of emissions growth over the last decade or so, going from 63 megatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2005 to 105 in 2019.

The Canadian oil industry has argued that it has a strong commitment to reducing emissions and investing in clean energy technology.

No decision yet from Quebec

Simon Donner, a professor and climate scientist at the University of British Columbia who also serves on Canada's Net-Zero Advisory Body, told The House it's unlikely Canada will join the alliance at this point.

"I think it would be a great signal to the rest of the world for Canada to join an initiative like that. I don't think we're probably ready to do it, though, right now," he said.

But Canada could be pre-empted by subnational groups. California, for example, set a target this year to end oil extraction by 2045.

Closer to home, Quebec Premier François Legault announced his intention to ban any oil and gas extraction in the province.

A spokesperson for Quebec's environment minister, Benoit Charette, did not say whether the province would join the alliance later this month.

"The initiative is interesting but as of now no decision has been made," said Charette's press secretary Rosalie Tremblay-Cloutier in an emailed response. Quebec does not currently have any commercial oil or gas production operations, though it has issued exploration licenses.

An 'awkward' position: expert

Catherine Abreu, founder and executive director of the group Destination Zero, said Quebec and California's recent policy moves "potentially makes them eligible" to join the alliance, which would be "really significant" given the potential for expansion in the oil and gas sectors of both Canada and the United States over the next decade.

In an interview on The House, Abreu said Canada's position on the oil and gas industry leaves it in an "awkward" place in terms of meeting its climate goals.

"We've seen our government's very reluctant to take that challenge on fossil fuels," she said.

COP26 would only make that position more difficult, added Jennifer Allan, a lecturer at Cardiff University and adviser with the Earth Negotiations Bulletin publication.

"Well, one thing that COPs are good at is increasing pressure on countries," she said. "Sometimes it really leads to a lot of pressure being put on governments to start to do, frankly, the right thing."

OPEN AND TRANSPARENT NON

O'Toole's Tories outliers in Canadian politics for keeping vaccination status secret

OTTAWA — The federal Conservatives' refusal to disclose how many of their elected members are fully vaccinated makes them something of an outlier in the Canadian political sphere.

Most federal and provincial parties are open about the immunization status of their members, even though not all legislatures have adopted a rule requiring that members be fully vaccinated.

All government and main opposition members in British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Quebec and Newfoundland and Labrador say they are fully vaccinated.

In Ontario, where Premier Doug Ford made vaccination a requirement to sit in his Progressive Conservative caucus, two of his MPPs say they are medically exempt. All opposition MPPs are fully vaccinated.

A spokeswoman for New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs says all members of the governing Progressive Conservative caucus are fully vaccinated, except for one who is undergoing cancer treatment and had to delay their second shot until later this month.

All but two MLAs in Manitoba's Progressive Conservative government say they're fully immunized. The two refuse to reveal their vaccination status.

Mandatory vaccination rules have also been announced for admittance to Nova Scotia's Province House and Quebec's National Assembly.

A similar policy was unveiled federally this week by the board of internal economy, the multi-party governing body of the House of Commons. It announced a double vaccination requirement for entering buildings in the Commons precinct, including the House of Commons chamber itself.

Nothing has yet been decided for the Senate, which sets its own rules.

The move appears to leave Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole in a predicament: He didn't make vaccination against COVID-19 a rule to run as a Conservative candidate in the recent federal election and he won't say now how many of his 118 MPs are fully vaccinated. At the same time, he wants to return to an in-person Parliament when it resumes Nov. 22.

O'Toole, who contracted COVID-19 and personally promotes the value of vaccinations, says he respects an individual's personal health choices.

The most recent analysis by The Canadian Press found at least 80 Conservative MPs are fully vaccinated, while two said they couldn't be immunized for medical reasons. Two others refused to disclose their status on principle and the others did not respond.

Some in O'Toole's caucus champion the need to keep their vaccination status private, like backbench Saskatchewan MP Jeremy Patzer. He wrote a recent op-ed saying he rejects "bully tactics" to cajole people into divulging private medical information, but then later confirmed he is himself vaccinated.

Similarly, Alberta MP Glen Motz posted on his website: "As strongly as I support the use of vaccines in our fight against COVID-19, I am as equally opposed to coerced vaccination."

Just as the Liberals drove mandatory vaccinations as a wedge during the election campaign, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has continued criticizing the Conservatives. He suggested this week that his decision to wait another month to recall Parliament was to ensure all of O'Toole's team had time to get vaccinated.

Conservative spokesman Mathew Clancy said the official Opposition doesn't believe the nine-member board of internal economy "has the jurisdiction to infringe on a member’s right to take their seat in the House of Commons," but didn't elaborate on whether it would challenge the decision.

Carleton University professor Philippe Lagassé, an expert on the Westminster parliamentary system, said the rules weren't designed to deal with public health, but it's up to MPs to lay down their own laws in their parliamentary house.

“The fundamental principle remains the same — this is a collective right and if as a collectivity the House determines that its safety and ability to perform its function needs to be protected against some external force — a disease, or a police officer, or a court — well, then that’s the way it is,” he said.

“The reality is we’re not a pure democracy, we’re a parliamentary democracy.”

He said the issue some Conservative MPs may raise is whether the board of internal economy can speak for the entire House of Commons.

However, if they compel the Commons to vote on the issue, it's clear the mandatory vaccination policy would easily pass, with the support of Liberal, Bloc Quebecois and NDP members.

Federal parties must also decide whether the Commons should resume all normal in-person proceedings or continue with a virtual component, allowing MPs to participate by videoconference.

At B.C.'s legislature, there is a hybrid option for the assembly itself and a rule that all MLAs, staff and guests must show proof of vaccination to gain admittance to the building.

In Saskatchewan and Ontario, visitors must be double vaccinated or show a negative COVID-19 test result before entry.

In Manitoba, many continue to participate remotely. Speaker Myrna Driedger said in an email that the legislature hasn't yet dealt with the issue of vaccination requirements for its chambers.

In Alberta, Speaker Nathan Cooper said decisions around whether to exclude an MLA from the assembly must be made by the assembly alone.

“This has been a very complicated and fascinating time to see our democracies wrestle with this very foundational building block of our society in terms of our democracy, and the very real and active concerns around public health," he said.

The Alberta NDP, which says all of its MLAs are fully vaccinated, has pushed United Conservative Premier Jason Kenney to ensure the same of his caucus. Cooper said it's been "widely reported" all UCP members are vaccinated, except for one seeking a medical exemption.

Kenney has said he favours making sure all MLAs are either vaccinated, or show a negative result from a COVID-19 test to enter the assembly, which begins sitting Monday.

Lagassé said when it comes to introducing any new set of rules for Parliament, an important question is how long they will last, particularly when it impacts the abilities of the public and parliamentarians to access these spaces.

“We’ve got to be careful with it, but you almost have to deal with it on a case-by-case basis," he said.

— with files from Steve Lambert and Dirk Meissner

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 23, 2021

Stephanie Taylor, The Canadian Press