'Optimistic' nuclear power advocates see 'baby steps' of progress in federal budget

Ryan Tumilty - Yesterday 
National Post


Ontario's Pickering Nuclear Generating Station is set to close in 2025, but advocates would like to see the federal government help pay to refurbish it instead.

OTTAWA — Advocates say the federal budget is taking “baby steps” toward supporting nuclear power, but they argue the Liberals should be taking major leaps to ensure the industry can grow and reduce carbon emissions in Canada.

The budget last week earmarked $120.6 million for small modular reactors (SMRs), a new type of reactor that is designed to be easier to set up and run, produce less waste and potentially help small communities or mining operations end their reliance on diesel power.

The budget promises $69.9 million for research on waste and another $50.7 million for the nuclear safety commission to be able to regulate new reactor designs.

Dr. Christopher Keefer, president of Canadians for Nuclear Energy, said he was pleased to see a government, which has shown little interest in nuclear, come around.

“We’re seeing baby steps. I’m very optimistic because in my discussions with Conservative caucus members, Liberal caucus and cabinet ministers, there is a huge openness to nuclear in there,” he said. “They’re really coming around to understanding what an underappreciated technology it is and that it has to be a cornerstone of our clean energy transition.”

The government also announced in the budget funding for a new critical minerals strategy, which could lead to more uranium mining, and expanded the Canada Infrastructure Bank’s mandate to allow it to invest in nuclear projects.

Trudeau says possibly expanding nuclear power is 'on the table'

Is nuclear energy green or not? Ottawa sending mixed messages: critics

John Gorman, president and CEO of the Canadian Nuclear Association, said the industry was pleased to see the Liberals are prepared to help invest.

“It clearly indicated that nuclear is going to be an important part of the solution going forward and invested in various segments of the nuclear ecosystem,” he said. “It is a genuine commitment and I think the industry recognized that.”

The nuclear association is holding a sold-out conference in Ottawa this week and Gorman said there is a lot of excitement in the industry. He said they can see there is a clear path for growth from the budget.

“The federal government has recognized that nuclear is going to be needed along with the other clean electricity and energy sources as we go forward,” he said.

As part of Canada’s emissions reduction plans, the country will require significantly more electricity in years ahead to power electric vehicles and eventually heat homes. Gorman said the next step for the industry is a clear understanding of how the government expects to reach those goals and supply all that additional power.

“We’re missing that vision, that end state, of what the 2050 energy system looks like. And as a consequence, we don’t have the architecture of these clean energy sources that are going to have to be built,” he said.

Gorman said such a plan would give provinces and industry a sense of the long-term demands for power and a guide to new reactors that would meet Canada’s power needs. He said refurbishments of CANDU reactors underway in Ontario are teaching the industry a lot and those lessons could be applied to new projects.

Keefer said one sign he would love to see from the federal government is a commitment to help fund the refurbishment of the Pickering nuclear station in Ontario.

The station, just east of Toronto, is set to close in 2025. Keefer said that is a mistake that is only going to lead to the burning of natural gas to make up for the province’s energy demands.

“We’re actually about to lose a vital piece of Canadian clean energy infrastructure, which is the Pickering nuclear station. Its loss will add the equivalent of eight million transatlantic flights of CO2 to the atmosphere every single year,” he said.

Conservative MP Corey Tochor said the budget is just a drop in the bucket for an industry that should be getting much more support.

“This government will spend more on marketing and communication exercises, in this year coming up,” he said. “They’ll spend more money on that than actually on any of the research and development that needs to happen.”

Tochor said the government should be investing in nuclear as a technology that would reduce greenhouse gasses.

“We have a great record and a great story with a supply chain that helps our economy here in Canada, and there’s nothing to encourage more nuclear generation of power in this budget,” he said. “This government hasn’t shown any willingness to lead on this file and promote it. This is great technology that lowers emissions.”

• Email: rtumilty@postmedia.com | Twitter: ryantumilty

CORN IN YOUR TANK MEANS NO CORN TORTILLA'S

EXPLAINER: Why Biden is allowing more ethanol in gasoline

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden said Tuesday his administration will suspend a federal rule that bars higher levels of ethanol in gasoline during the summer. The move, which Biden announced during a visit to Iowa, is intended to tamp down prices at the pump that have spiked during Russia’s war with Ukraine. Iowa is a key producer of the corn-based fuel additive.

A look at how that the decision to authorize year-round use of so-called E15 will impact gas supplies, prices and the environment.

WHAT ACTION IS BIDEN TAKING?

Most gasoline sold in the U.S. is blended with 10% ethanol. At Biden's direction, the Environmental Protection Agency will issue an emergency waiver to allow widespread sale of 15% ethanol blend that is usually prohibited between June 1 and Sept. 15 because of concerns that it adds to smog in high temperatures.

Senior Biden administration officials said the move will save drivers an average of 10 cents per gallon at 2,300 gas stations that sell E15, as the high-blend ethanol is known. Those stations are mostly in the Midwest and the South, including Texas, according to industry groups.

WHY IS BIDEN DOING THIS?

Lawmakers from both parties and ethanol advocates have urged Biden and the EPA to allow year-round sales of E15, calling it a cheaper and readily available domestic alternative to traditional gasoline. The U.S. has banned imports of Russian crude oil since the country's late February invasion of Ukraine, disrupting global markets and raising prices.

“Homegrown Iowa biofuels provide a quick and clean solution for lowering prices at the pump, and bolstering production would help us become energy independent once again,″ said Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, a longtime ethanol proponent. Grassley and 15 other senators sent Biden a letter last month urging him to allow year-round E15 sales.

Ethanol groups called Biden's action a major win for American drivers and U.S. energy security. "It means cleaner options at the pump and a stronger rural economy,” said Emily Skor, CEO of Growth Energy, a biofuel trade group.

HOW WILL THIS AFFECT THE ENVIRONMENT?

Biden administration official say the short-term move will have little effect on the environment and that EPA will work with states to "ensure there are no significant air quality impacts through the summer driving season.''

Environmentalists questioned that, saying ethanol production contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and soil erosion and raises prices for corn and other crops.

“The ethanol lobby will be happy and kids with asthma will be sicker,'' said Dan Becker of the Center for Biological Diversity, an environmental group. “However well-meaning (Biden's action) might be, kids and the elderly shouldn’t pay the price with their health for slight gas savings.''

A recent report in the Proceedings of the National Academy of the Sciences revealed that the federal ethanol mandate inflated corn prices by 30% from 2008 to 2016, made corn-based ethanol more carbon intensive than gasoline and increased annual fertilizer use by up to 8%, polluting waterways.

HAS EPA DONE THIS BEFORE?

The EPA has lifted seasonal restrictions on E15 in the past, including after Hurricane Harvey in 2017. The Trump administration allowed for year-round E15 sales starting in 2019, but a federal appeals court struck down the policy change in July 2021, saying the EPA overstepped its authority.

The decision dealt a significant blow to the ethanol industry and corn farmers who had anticipated increased ethanol demand through year-round sales of the higher blend.

HOW IS THIS DIFFERENT FROM TRUMP'S ACTION?

Senior Biden administration officials said they expected the EPA waiver to survive a likely court challenge, saying that unlike the open-ended Trump rule, the action is limited to this summer and is prompted by a supply disruption caused by the war in Europe.

Greater use of E15 should "help alleviate some of the pain that we’ve seen since Russia launched this war against Ukraine,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan told a Senate committee last week.

But critics said the only emergency is Biden's dropping poll numbers.

Emergency fuel waivers are reserved for acute supply disruptions, such as those resulting from a hurricane, said Chet Thompson, president & CEO of the American Fuel & Petrochemical Manufacturers, which represents petroleum refiners.

“An additional three months of E15 sales won’t do anything to address high crude oil prices, and 98% of retail (gas) stations can’t even sell the fuel,'' Thompson said. “This is politics, not a real solution for drivers.”

WILL E15 HURT MY CAR'S ENGINE?

E15, often sold at the pump as Unleaded 88, for its octane rating, can safely be used in all cars, trucks and SUVs from 2001 on. Those model years represent more than 90% of vehicles on U.S. roads. The ethanol industry says the fuel is one of the most tested in history and has no effect on vehicle drivability. More than 20 billion miles have been driven in cars and trucks using Unleaded 88, a number continues to grow.

WHAT IS THE PRICE OF E15 GAS?

E15, or Unleaded 88, typically sells for 10 cents a gallon less than E10, the standard formulation for U.S. cars. The price difference between Unleaded 88 and conventional gasoline without ethanol is around 40 cents.

WILL I GET BETTER MILEAGE WITH E15?

There is no noticeable difference between the mileage achieved when using E15 and mileage when operating on E10.

CAN I USE E15 IN MY LAWNMOWER OR OTHER SMALL-ENGINE EQUIPMENT?

E15 has not been approved by EPA for use in non-automotive engines such as boats, motorcycles, lawn mowers and other small engines. E10, the standard ethanol formulation, is approved for small engines.

Matthew Daly, The Associated Press

'Short-term thinking': Environmentalists push back on Biden's ethanol expansion

Jon Schuppe - 



President Joe Biden's plan to reduce the price of gas by allowing the sale of higher-ethanol fuel this summer may make corn farmers and their elected representatives happy. But the move also has irked environmentalists who see ethanol as a climate-change villain.

Biden made his announcement Tuesday during a trip to Iowa, where corn — and ethanol — are crucial to the state economy. He said the Environmental Protection Agency would issue an emergency waiver from the Clean Air Act that will permit the sale of gasoline that is 15 percent ethanol, 5 percent more than the typical blend, from June 1 to Sept. 15. The change will lower gas prices by about 10 cents a gallon at the 2,300 gas stations equipped to pump it, the Biden administration says.

To environmentalists, that's a small benefit compared to the damage the decision could do to efforts to reduce the country's carbon emissions.

“What the president is doing is the definition of short-term thinking,” said Carroll Muffett, president and CEO of the Center for International Environmental Law. “The

goal here shouldn’t be to bring gas prices down by 10 cents in the near term by increasing emissions that will endanger large parts of the population.”

Although ethanol was embraced more than a decade ago as a renewable fuel, its green reputation has eroded. Scientists have found evidence that increased corn production for ethanol could increase greenhouse gas emissions; a study published in February said ethanol may be worse for the climate than gasoline.

The reason Biden needs an emergency waiver is that the summertime use of gas with 15 percent ethanol, known as E15, is known to increase smog.

“This is a quick fix that will harm the planet and not do much to support consumers,” said Jim Walsh, policy director at Food & Water Watch, a nonprofit group that opposes the use of ethanol as a climate solution.

Senior Biden administration officials have told reporters that the EPA's own analysis did not indicate that the emergency waiver was likely to harm air quality. They pointed to another study, published last year, showing that ethanol's greenhouse gas emissions are decreasing with improvements in farming and production methods.

Geoff Cooper, president and CEO of the Renewable Fuels Association, an ethanol trade association, said ethanol was "unquestionably a winner when compared to gasoline."

Biden's move also drew criticism from the oil industry. The American Petroleum Institute, a trade association for the oil and gas industries, said that the scarcity of stations equipped with E15 fuel limits the impact of the president's action.

"Americans are looking for long-term solutions, not short-term political fixes that fail to acknowledge the logistical, legal and compatibility constraints that limit the ability of E15 to influence prices at the pump today," Ron Chittim, the group's vice president of downstream policy, said in a statement.

Then-President Donald Trump tried allowing the year-round use of E15 fuel in 2019 but a federal court overruled him following a challenge from oil refiners.

Sheila Karpf, a senior policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonprofit government watchdog group that opposes ethanol subsidies, said she expected Biden's waiver to be challenged in court as well.

"We have seen decades of corn ethanol subsidies, and the handouts to the industry continue to happen," she said.

Cooper, of the ethanol trade group, said that he too expected the oil industry to challenge Biden's expansion of E15 but that it will survive, because it involves the temporary use of emergency powers allowed by the Clean Air Act.

"If war in Ukraine and $4 gas and a shortage in the marketplace don’t warrant an emergency, I don’t know what would," he said.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M

Cryptocurrency expert gets 5 years in N.Korea sanctions case

NEW YORK (AP) — A cryptocurrency expert was sentenced Tuesday to more than five years in federal prison for helping North Korea evade U.S. sanctions.

Virgil Griffith, 39, pleaded guilty last year to conspiracy, admitting he presented at a cryptocurrency conference in Pyongyang in 2019 even after the U.S. government denied his request to travel there.

A well-known hacker, Griffith also developed “cryptocurrency infrastructure and equipment inside North Korea," prosecutors wrote in court papers. At the 2019 conference, he advised more than 100 people — including several who appeared to work for the North Korean government — on how to use cryptocurrency to evade sanctions and achieve independence from the global banking system.

The U.S. and the U.N. Security Council have imposed increasingly tight sanctions on North Korea in recent years to try to rein in its nuclear and ballistic missile programs. The U.S. government amended sanctions against North Korea in 2018 to prohibit “a U.S. person, wherever located” from exporting technology to North Korea.

Prosecutors said Griffith acknowledged his presentation amounted to a transfer of technical knowledge to conference attendees.

“Griffith is an American citizen who chose to evade the sanctions of his own country to provide services to a hostile foreign power,” prosecutors wrote. “He did so knowing that power — North Korea — was guilty of atrocities against its own people and has made threats against the United States citing its nuclear capabilities.”

Defense attorney Brian Klein described Griffith as a “brilliant Caltech-trained scientist who developed a curiosity bordering on obsession” with North Korea. “He viewed himself — albeit arrogantly and naively — as acting in the interest of peace,” Klein said. “He loves his country and never set out to do any harm.”

Klein added that he was disappointed with the 63-month prison sentence but “pleased the judge acknowledged Virgil’s commitment to moving forward with his life productively, and that he is a talented person who has a lot to contribute.”

A self-described “disruptive technologist,” Griffith became something of a tech-world enfant terrible in the early 2000s. In 2007, he created WikiScanner, a tool that aimed to unmask people who anonymously edited entries in Wikipedia, the crowdsourced online encyclopedia.

WikiScanner essentially could determine the business, institutions or government agencies that owned the computers from which some edits were made. It quickly identified businesses that had sabotaged competitors’ entries and government agencies that had rewritten history, among other findings.

“I am quite pleased to see the mainstream media enjoying the public-relations disaster fireworks as I am,” Griffith told The Associated Press in 2007.

Klein previously said Griffith cooperated with the FBI and “helped educate law enforcement” about the so-called dark web, a network of encrypted internet sites that allow users to remain anonymous.

Jim Mustian, The Associated Press

 Life Is Worth Losing - Dumb Americans - George Carlin

Aleksandr Dugin: The far-right theorist behind Putin's plan

In the days leading up to Russia's February invasion of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin gave a televised address that rejected the idea of Ukraine as an independent country. It never had the "stable traditions of real statehood," Putin said. Instead, modern Ukraine was "entirely created by Russia or, to be more precise, by Bolshevik, Communist Russia."


© Francesca Ebel / APAP_16254370676378


Brit McCandless Farmer - Yesterday - 
CBS News


More than prelude and pretext for a bloody war, Putin's words echo the writings of a man who has proselytized this idea for almost three decades: Aleksandr Dugin. A Russian political philosopher, Dugin has been influential with Russian military and political elites — even with Putin himself.

Called "Putin's brain" by some political analysts, Dugin has taught at Russia's leading university, planned courses for Russian military institutions, and appeared on Russia's top television channels. Because of his perceived proximity to the Kremlin, the U.S. government sanctioned him in 2015, following Russia's annexation of Crimea the previous year.

Foreign policy analysts have since looked to Dugin for a more fulsome understanding of Putin's goal in Ukraine. Specifically, they turn to Dugin's magnum opus, a 1997 book called The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia.

Published a quarter-century ago, Dugin's book prescribes that for Russia to rebuild its power globally, it would need to use disinformation, destabilization — and annexation. One of the targets for Russian annexation, he wrote, should be Ukraine. In Dugin's mind, an independent Ukraine stands in the way of Russia becoming a transcontinental superpower.

"Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning," Dugin wrote in his treatise. "It has no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness."

 
DUGIN SPEAKS TO 60 MINUTES

In 2017, 60 Minutes correspondent Lesley Stahl interviewed Dugin in Moscow as part of a story she reported about Russia's disinformation campaign and the 2016 presidential elections. The interview did not make the broadcast.

VIDEO

Aleksandr Dugin: The far-right theorist behind Putin's plan

During the conversation, Stahl asked Dugin to explain his 1997 book.

"I always believed, and I believe, in the future of greatness of Russia because Russia was always and tried to be a superpower," Dugin said in 2017. He told Stahl his goal is not unipolarity, with Russia becoming an unchallenged superpower. Instead, he looks to return Russia to superpower status as one among several countries leading the world order.

To do this, Dugin said, would require more than military strength.

"We need a kind of spiritual sovereignty," he said. "We need to be free and liberated, not only physically as a state, as a people, but as well [a] revival of Russian logos, of Russian spirit, of Russian identity that is much more important."

This Russian identity is a key component of the nationalist ideology called Eurasianism, which Dugin laid out in "The Foundations of Geopolitics." The idea suggests that Russia, uniquely positioned between Europe and Asia, is unassimilable within Western civilization. Instead, Dugin thinks Russia should embrace its geopolitical distinctiveness and dominate both spheres, uniting Europe and Asia into one great empire ruled by ethnic Russians. Dugin has set Eurasianism in direct opposition to liberalism and the whole "Atlantic" world he believes is led by the United States.

Russia analysts have found it to be a philosophy Putin has embraced since taking office. In November 2000, six months into his term as Russian president, Putin publicly declared, "Russia has always perceived of itself as a Eurasian country," according to John B. Dunlop, an expert on Soviet and Russia politics.

How, then, does Ukraine factor into Russia's imperialist dream? It is an obstacle, according to Dugin.

"Ukraine as an independent state with certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is, in general, senseless to speak about continental politics," Dugin wrote in his 1997 book.

Moreover, according to Russian history professor Jane Burbank's translation, Dugin sees total control of the whole north coast of the Black Sea as an "absolute imperative" for Russian geopolitics and thinks Ukraine must become "a purely administrative sector of the Russian centralized state" for Russia's goals to be realized.

Putin clearly agrees. In an article he wrote last year, he declared that "Russians and Ukrainians were one people" who share "the same historical and spiritual space." He claimed their shared "Ancient Rus" lineage challenges the legitimacy of Ukraine's relatively recent borders. During his address ahead of February's invasion, Putin called Ukraine a "colony with a puppet regime."

Since Russia's war in Ukraine began, Dugin has remained steadfast that subsuming Ukraine is the only path forward for Russia. Last month, he posted a video to Telegram, a messaging service that has become the dominant social networking app in Russia, in which he explained why Russia invaded its neighbor. "Without Ukraine, Russia cannot become once more the empire," Dugin said in the video. "With Ukraine inside of Russia zone of control, it will become empire once more."

In her 2017 interview with Dugin, Stahl pointed out to him that Putin seems to have listened to all his recommendations. Not only had Dugin called for Russia to annex Ukraine, which Russia first did in Crimea in 2014, but Dugin had also suggested that Russia make Iran an ally and encourage Britain to leave the European Union.

Dugin rebuffed the suggestion that Putin is following his blueprint. He pointed out that his policy prescriptions were decades old, and that Putin was only just now fulfilling the first steps.

"We demand from him to be much more authoritarian than he is," Dugin told Stahl. "So he a little bit disappoints us because it [takes] too long."

The video above was produced by Brit McCandless Farmer and Will Croxton. It was edited by Will Croxton.

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2022/03/putin-guru-aleksandr-dugin-has.html

GLEN BECK SCOOPS 60 MINUTES

Opinion: How the war on abortion rights is forcing companies to choose

Opinion by Jill Filipovic

 - Yesterday - CNN
© Sarah Phipps/The Oklahoman/AP


American companies should seriously consider how and if they want to do business in states that treat their employees and their employees' families as second-class citizens.

As the Supreme Court prepares to potentially overturn or gut Roe v. Wade, the 1973 case that legalized abortion nationwide, conservative states across the US are ramping up abortion restrictions in anticipation. Texas is so far the state with the most extreme law in effect, having banned abortion after a fetal heartbeat is detected, usually six weeks, before many women know they're pregnant, and implementing a private enforcement mechanism -- incentivizing citizens to snitch on each other, basically -- that could bankrupt anyone who so much as gives a woman a ride to an abortion clinic.


© Courtesy of Jill Filipovic

But Texas isn't alone: Oklahoma has also banned nearly all abortions, and several other Republican-led states are trying to outlaw the procedure at various stages and with various enforcement mechanisms as well.

In red states, it's open season on women's rights. Several Democratic-dominated states, on the other hand, are taking proactive steps to ensure abortion access. In Maryland, a new law means that trained medical professionals other than doctors will be able to legally perform abortions in the state. In Michigan, Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer sued to fast-track a decision from her state's Supreme Court on protecting abortion rights.

Private companies, then, should make a choice: Do they want to invest and operate in states where half of the workforce cannot make their own choices about whether and when to have children -- choices that, from a pure business perspective, fundamentally alter a company's ability to retain talent and a cohesive, healthy staff? Or do they want to take steps to protect their employees -- and take their business to states where women are freer?

Already, women in the US have been prosecuted for allegedly having abortions; around the world, women routinely go to jail for what they say were miscarriages or stillbirths in nations where abortion is outlawed. In Texas, a 26-year-old woman was recently charged with murder over an alleged self-induced abortion. The state eventually dropped the charges, but the message is clear: Abortion is a crime, and in so-called "pro-life" states, women who end pregnancies may be treated like murderers.

Some companies are taking small steps to ease the burden on their employees living in states with these misogynist, reactionary laws. Yelp, for example, only has about 200 employees working in Texas, but will pay for them or their spouses to travel out of state for abortion care. Late last year, the company Salesforce announced that it will do the same. And Citigroup, which has some 8,000 workers in Texas, also said it will pay for them to leave to obtain abortions.

But Texas Republicans are not content with allowing private companies to assist their employees in the face of cruel laws. They're already threatening penalties for companies that pay for employees to end their pregnancies out of state. And have no doubt that abortion opponents are not content at stopping at red state borders.

It's not just abortion rights that conservatives are attacking. In Texas, parents who affirm their trans children may find themselves investigated by child protective services -- a directive that has led many Texas child welfare employees to resign or hunt for a new job. Alabama just criminalized prescribing or administering puberty blockers and hormones for anyone under the age of 18.

This is a risk for companies, too: Do they really want to do business in a state where their employees of childbearing age can't plan their families and may face serious financial or even criminal penalties if they end unwanted pregnancies? Or where their employees who are parents may find themselves under investigation and embroiled in a messy battle with the state simply for supporting their trans kid, or may even go to jail for providing their child with the medical care that a doctor recommends?

It's a tight labor market, and companies are competing for talent. Women now outnumber men on college campuses and in many graduate programs, and make up an increasing share of high-skilled workers. And yet many women don't move up the ranks as swiftly as men, and continue to face discrimination in pay and promotions.

A significant number of women, almost exclusively mothers of young children, found themselves pushed out of the workforce when Covid-19 shuttered schools and shut down childcare options. This is all bad for women, but it's bad for companies, too, when they cannot attract and retain the most talented workers when those workers are female.

Anti-abortion and anti-trans laws only magnify this dynamic. If women can't decide for themselves whether to carry a pregnancy to term, they also cannot plan their work lives. Being forced into motherhood means being forced out of work, or at least forced off one's planned track. Researchers have found that women who are refused abortions "experience a large increase in financial distress that is sustained for several years."

Even highly educated and relatively affluent women -- the type who may be working at a company like Yelp -- may be thrown badly off track by being forced to continue a pregnancy, and will likely face permanent hits to their income, not to mention their mental and physical health (the red states that seek to ban abortion also tend to have high rates of maternal mortality, and researchers have predicted that outlawing abortion could push US maternal mortality rates up by 21 percent).

Every person in the US should have a vested interest in keeping women healthy and free, but clearly anti-abortion lawmakers and the citizens who vote for them prefer to keep women's lives small, constrained and controlled.

Companies that rely on female workers and want not just a diverse workforce but the most talented possible workforce have a choice to make: Support their workers by paying for their full range of health care and any necessary travel to obtain that health care, and seriously consider whether they want to set up shop in states that go after the rights of women and trans people, or see their talent pool shrink along with the basic rights of women.

Disney heir comes out as transgender, speaks out against ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill

Sarah Do Couto - Yesterday 

Global News

Charlee Corra Disney, one of the heirs of The Walt Disney Co., came out publicly as transgender and has condemned anti-LGBTQ2 legislation in the United States.

In a recent interview with the Los Angeles Times, Corra (who uses they/them pronouns) said their speech at the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) annual gala in March was a public coming out for them.

Before the gala, Corra, 30, had been out as transgender personally for four years. Initially, Corra identified as gay before coming out as trans.

“I had very few openly gay role models,” Corra told the Los Angeles Times. “And I certainly didn’t have any trans or nonbinary role models. I didn’t see myself reflected in anyone, and that made me feel like there was something wrong with me.”

At the HRC event, Corra announced their family would match up to US$250,000 in donations to the HRC, the largest LGBTQ2 advocacy group and LGBTQ2 political lobbying organization in the United States.

This amount was later doubled to $500,000 by Roy P. Disney, Corra's father and the grandson of the company's co-founder.


The donation from the Disney family came after the HRC declined a $5-million donation from The Walt Disney Co., in early March. The HRC declined the donation because of the company's initial silence and inaction on the Florida "Don't Say Gay" bill, which has now been made law and bars instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through Grade 3.

Disney CEO Bob Chapek has since apologized for the company's silence

Still, as the Disney company faced public scrutiny and employee protests in regards to its initial silence on the "Don't Say Gay" bill, the Disney family is speaking out in support of LGBTQ2 rights.

“Equality matters deeply to us,” wrote Roy P. Disney in a statement, “especially because our child, Charlee, is transgender and a proud member of the LGBTQ+ community.”

For this reason, the Sheri Disney — Corra's mother — told the Los Angeles Times she was disappointed by The Walt Disney Co.'s actions, "but had no doubt the company would make it right." She hopes the $500,000 donation will be a "bridge" to show the family's commitment to gay and trans rights.

“I feel like I don’t do very much to help,” Corra said. Corra does not work for Disney, but is a high school biology and environmental science teacher.

“I don’t call senators or take action. I felt like I could be doing more.”

Families, doctors contest Alabama transgender treatment ban

The Canadian Press
Monday

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Families with transgender teens sued the state of Alabama in federal court on Monday to overturn a law that makes it a crime for doctors to treat trans youth under 19 with puberty blockers or hormones to help affirm their gender identity.

The two lawsuits — one on behalf of two families and another on behalf two families and the physicians who treat their children— pose legal challenges to legislation signed into law Friday by Republican Gov. Kay Ivey.

“Transgender youth are a part of Alabama, and they deserve the same privacy, access to treatment, and data-driven health care from trained medical professionals as any other Alabamian," Tish Gotell Faulks, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama, said in a statement. Faulks added that lawmakers are using children, as, “political pawns for their reelection campaigns.” Ivey and legislators face primaries next month.

Unless blocked by the court, the Alabama law will take effect May 8, making it a felony for a doctor to prescribe puberty blockers or hormones to aid in the gender transition of anyone under age 19. Violations will be punishable by up to 10 years in prison. It also prohibits gender transition surgeries, although doctors told lawmakers those are not performed on minors in Alabama.

“The level of legislative overreach into the practice of medicine is unprecedented. And never before has legislative overreach come into pediatric examination rooms to shut down the parent voice in medical decision making between a parent, their pediatrician and their child,” Dr. Morissa Ladinsky, a medical provider and a plaintiff in one of the lawsuits, told The Associated Press in an interview.

Ivey signed the legislation Friday, a day after it was approved by the Alabama Legislature. At a campaign stop Monday, the governor invoked religion when asked about her decision to sign the legislation.

“If the good Lord made you a boy at birth, then you are a boy. If the good Lord made you a girl at birth, then you are a girl,” she said. “We should especially focus our efforts on helping these young people become healthy adults just like God wanted them to be rather than self-induced medical intervenors.”

Asked if the law would survive a court challenge, she replied, “We’ll wait and see.”

The two lawsuits were filed by advocacy groups on behalf of families with transgender children, as well as by two medical providers. The children were not identified in the lawsuits because of their age,

“I know that I am a girl and I always have been,” one of the 15-year-old plaintiffs said in a statement provided by the American Civil Liberties Union of Alabama. “Even before I learned the word ‘transgender’ or met other trans people, I knew myself."

In one of the lawsuits, parents described their fears that their transgender daughter, called “Mary Roe" in the suit, would harm herself or try to commit suicide if she loses access to the puberty blockers she began taking last year. “For Mary to be forced to go through male puberty would be devastating; it would predictably result in her experiencing isolation, depression, anxiety, and distress," the lawsuit states.

Similar measures have been pushed in other states, but the Alabama legislation is the first to lay out criminal penalties for doctors.

In Texas, Republican Gov. Greg Abbott has ordered the state’s child welfare agency to investigate as abuse reports of gender-confirming care for kids. And a law in Arkansas bans gender-affirming medications. That law has been blocked by a court, however.

Ivey also signed a separate measure that requires students to use bathrooms that align with their original birth certificate and prohibits instruction of gender and sexual identity in kindergarten through fifth grades.

Kim Chandler , The Associated Press

GIVES LIE TO CFIB CONTRARY ARGUMENT

Raising Ontario's Minimum Wage Was Followed By Rising Employment In The Past & Here's Why

Just as the Ford government announced its plans to increase Ontario's minimum wage in the fall, a recent study has found that more people have been employed after minimum wage increases.


NARCITY
Canada - Toronto Team - Apr 6

On April 5, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a non-partisan research institute, shared its findings of what happened when Ontario bumped up its minimum wage back in 2018.

According to the report, more people became employed across all industries with lower-than-average wages, with the exception of manufacturing and agriculture.

Funded by the Canadian Race Relations Foundation, the study noted a 1.7% increase in employment in 2018 and a rise of 2.8% in 2019, contrary to predictions that raising the minimum wage would be a "job-killer."

"When the $14-per-hour minimum wage was implemented in 2018, business lobbyists made dire predictions that it would lead to massive job losses. That simply didn't happen," CCPA said in the study.

They even found that it reduced the racialized wage gap, especially for women.

"The results are clear: raising the floor benefited all workers and reduced the racialized wage gap—especially for Black women—without lowering employment levels," said Grace-Edward Galabuzi, coauthor of the study and associate professor of politics and public administration at X University in Toronto.

And it's not just teens who stood to gain from higher salaries, the study noted.

"Seventy per cent of minimum-wage workers benefiting from a raise were adults, contradicting the notion that these workers are mostly teenagers at the start of their working lives," CCPA said.

"There was a sharp increase in the share of minimum-wage workers 25 years of age or older between 2017 and 2018, from 41 per cent to 50 per cent. This illustrates the large number of these adult workers just above the minimum wage who benefited from this increase."

The Ford government is looking to raise Ontario's minimum wage to $15.50 an hour, which is scheduled to kick in on October 1. This follows the recent increase to $15 per hour in January.

Pieces of former Brandon residential school left in Rome

The Canadian Press

A Peguis First Nation member honoured the legacy of her grandmother by placing rubble from the former Brandon Indian Residential School in St. Peter's Square after witnessing the Papal apology in Rome.

As part of her journey to Italy and back, documentary filmmaker Jade Harper brought rubble from the residential school to lay at the foot of the Vatican.

"The apology is a moment," Harper said. "A moment that brought some of us to tears, some filled with joy and relief and others with anger and grief. We must keep talking. We must keep singing and dancing. We must forge ahead and continue to reclaim our relations, our space and cultivate joy on the very lands that nourish us."

Harper departed from Treaty 1 Territory North of Winnipeg for Italy on March 24 and returned to Manitoba on April 4. She was part of a crew of three filming the experience of residential school survivors in Italy on behalf of the Assembly of First Nations.

It was a long and winding road bringing the rubble to Italy, as Harper had been holding on to the school bricks for seven years. When the Truth and Reconciliation Commission came to an end in 2015, Harper decided she needed to visit the former Brandon Indian Residential School.

Her grandmother, Ruth Ratt, was forced to attend the facility from the age of five to 15 and perpetually attempted to escape too many times to count.

"Her experience, like many survivors, was awful. It was abusive," Harper said. "Going there was a way for me to acknowledge her experience. It felt empty … I tried to grasp the feeling as much as it felt just really lonely."

It’s believed there are 104 graves at the former Brandon Indian Residential School.

Harper offered tobacco, sang a song and conducted ceremony at the site. Before leaving, she was compelled to take rubble from the walls of the school.

The trip to the site ended up leading to more questions and feelings, Harper said. For the past seven years, she has been navigating her family history and the lasting impacts of colonialism that continues to impact modern-day life.

"Intergenerational trauma amongst our families is something we are still navigating."

When she returned home, Harper placed the pieces of rubble in a cloth bag with medicine: tobacco, sage, cedar and sweetgrass — tucking it away for safekeeping.

It felt like a reclamation being able to practise her culture when residential schools had attempted to strip it away from her ancestors, she said.

The rubble remained untouched, waiting for the right moment to be unveiled.

"A part of me felt a little bit afraid of it," Harper said. "Those walls have seen so much and so I wanted to protect myself from that. I wanted to wrap those pieces in medicine. It was cleansing and healing."

As she was packing for her trip to Italy, Harper decided she had to bring the pieces of rubble with her.

She was unsure where she would place the bricks at first, but she found a fountain in St. Peter’s Square on her last day in Italy.

"Water is our medicine and it’s very sacred," Harper said. "Women, our responsibility is the water and so I felt it was important to take those pieces with a piece of sweetgrass and my tobacco tie and take it to the fountain."

Placing the pieces helped her "feel still" in her heart, as she set down the tobacco and bricks and prayed for children, relatives struggling with the trauma, First Nation communities and others traumatized by residential schools.

"Everyone was bringing gifts for the Pope and I didn’t have any gifts because I didn’t feel it was necessary to be gifting anything," Harper said. "I was there because I wanted to help amplify the voices of residential school survivors and I felt like I was returning something that never belonged to us in the first place."

Harper attended the private audience with the Pope and was able to witness the apology in person holding her phone open with a photo of her grandmother.

The Canadian Press reported Pope Francis made a historic apology to Indigenous peoples for the "deplorable" abuses they suffered in Canada’s Catholic-run residential schools and said he hoped to visit Canada in late July to deliver the apology in person to survivors of the church’s misguided missionary zeal.

Pope Francis begged forgiveness during an audience with dozens of members of the Métis, Inuit and First Nations communities who came to Rome seeking a papal apology and a commitment from the Catholic Church to repair the damage.

More than 150,000 Indigenous children in Canada were forced to attend state-funded Christian schools from the 19th century until the 1970s to isolate them from the influence of their homes and culture. The aim was to Christianize and assimilate them into mainstream society, which previous Canadian governments considered superior, reported The Canadian Press.

The Catholic Church ran many of the Indian residential schools across Canada, including the Brandon facility from 1969 to ‘72. Nearly three-quarters of Canada’s 130 residential schools were run by Catholic missionary congregations.

The papal apology marked a significant historical moment, Harper said, that was only made possible by the courage of survivors who survived Canada’s attempted genocide of Indigenous people, cultures and traditions.

The apology can serve as a launchpad to talk about colonial history and the lasting impacts these actions continue to have on Indigenous communities. As these issues are understood, communities can work towards a healing path.

"Every apology has to have action. They have to take responsibility and those steps need to happen," Harper said. "I think it was important the Catholic Church around the world has seen their leadership [apologize] and acknowledge those harms."

» ckemp@brandonsun.com, with files from The Canadian Press

» Twitter: @The_ChelseaKemp

Chelsea Kemp, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Brandon Sun

KANADA

Uptake slow on governance agreement but not unexpected, says grand council chief

Twenty-seven years of negotiations have resulted in five of 39 Anishinabek Nations signing a governance agreement with the federal government.

The first ratification votes for the Anishinabek Nations Governance Agreement (ANGA) got underway in February 2020 with 14 Nations taking part.

Of the five Nations that signed the agreement with Canada on April 6 —Moose Deer Point, Wahnapitae, Nipissing, Magnetawan and Zhiibaahaasing—only Moose Deer Point and Wahnapitae ratified the agreement with a first vote in February 2020.

Neither Nipissing nor Magnetawan met the voter threshold for that first vote, although those who did vote were in favour. The voter threshold is 25 per cent of eligible voters plus one. In February 2021, with no threshold required, a straight majority vote for both Nations ratified the ANGA.

Zhiibaahaasing held its vote mid-November to mid-December 2020 and ratified the ANGA the first time around.

Anishinabek Nation Grand Council Chief Reg Nigonabe says he’s not surprised the uptake has been slow.

“Considering what the agreement gets into and the issues around the agreement in terms of the four pillars that it takes over from the Indian Act, we always find that there’s always hesitation,” he said.

The ANGA gives Nations the right to make their own decisions and laws about leadership selection, citizenship, government operations, as well as how best to protect and promote Anishinaabe language and culture.

Voting has also been impacted by “outside influences that have made an issue” of the ANGA, said Nigonabe.

The Yellowhead Institute, an Indigenous think-tank out of Ryerson University, has been critical of the ANGA.

Right after the April 6 signings, Hayden King, executive director of the institute, tweeted that the ANGA “formalizes INAC’s custom code process as ‘self-government’ and sets a bad precedent for everyone else.”

In a written review before the February 2020 vote, King said “The self-government provisions are limited to what already exists in federal policy and the resources to implement self-government are few.”

Damien Lee, also of the Yellowhead Institute, was asked by a Fort Williams First Nation Elder to review the ANGA. He said the agreement was for self-government and not self-determination and “‘domesticates’ Anishinaabe sovereignty.”

“I think there’s always more power to be gained especially when you’re a First Nation,” said Nigonabe. “This governance agreement isn’t meant to be a final stopping place for these First Nations.”

He says Nations can develop other agreements or pursue other endeavours within the ANGA framework or change the ANGA.

He also points out that the ANGA opens a direct line of communication between these five Nations and Ottawa.

“(They) also have a relationship with the federal government. They have an implementation table and they have a ministers’ table to do that with the Canadian government now,” said Nigonabe.

The ANGA comes with government funding of a minimum $1.7 million in addition to a one-time implementation amount of $548,000.

This is not the first agreement with the federal government that has been put to member Anishinabek Nations in the past few years. In 2018, 23 Anishinabek Nations signed on to an education agreement and in 2021, 22 Nations signed on to the Child Well-Being Law.

“I think those ones were a little bit more of a high priority issue…There’s a lot of questions around elections and citizenship and management of operations. Those are big issues that people don’t want to rush into and I can totally understand that…until they’re ready. These First Nations found they were and they moved ahead on it,” said Nigonabe. “It’s exciting and an excellent opportunity for those five.”

There are three other Anishinabek Nations in the process of taking steps to ratify the agreement.

The Nations that have ratified the ANGA now need to pass their own laws to create their own governance system. However, says Nigonabe, those laws do not have to be in place before the ANGA comes into force.

It is expected that the federal government will pass legislation to bring the ANGA into effect no later than October.

The ANGA is the first self-government agreement of its kind in Ontario. Negotiations between Canada and the Ontario Union of Indians/Anishinabek Nations began in 1995 and led to an agreement-in-principle in 2007. That agreement was finalized in 2019.

Windspeaker.com

By Shari Narine, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Windspeaker.com, Windspeaker.com