Liberal backbencher pushing bill to make CSIS more forthcoming in its warrant applications

ALiberal backbencher wants to introduce a bill that would set out new consequences for Canada's spy agency and government lawyers who aren't forthcoming in their requests for judicial warrants to conduct national security investigations.


CSIS director David Vigneault holds a press conference on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on July 16, 2020. A private member's bill would require CSIS and government lawyers to be more forthcoming in their requests for judicial warrants.

Catharine Tunney - CBC- June 6,2022

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service has been admonished more than once in recent years for falling short on what the courts call the "duty of candour" — by failing to proactively identify and disclose all relevant facts in support of its warrant applications.

On Monday, Scarborough Centre MP Salma Zahid announced plans to bring forward a bill that would enshrine lawyers' obligation to exercise the "duty of candour" in their dealings with the courts.

Zahid said requiring public disclosure of breaches and actions taken by CSIS and the public safety minister could also help rebuild public confidence in Canada's security and intelligence institutions.

"As a member of the Muslim community who wears a visible symbol of my faith and as a mother who has raised two boys, my family and I are no stranger to being looked at with suspicion and worry when we go about our daily lives," she told a news conference.

"I know how important it is that these institutions be subject to public oversight and held to the highest ethical standards."

Zahid also announced her intention to launch public consultations about the proposed bill with policy experts and affected groups over the summer. She said those talks would help to determine the bill's final form.

Agencies don't 'seem to be there to protect us' — NCCM

The Liberal MP was joined at the press conference by the National Council of Canadian Muslims. The NCCM has criticized the spy agency's opaqueness in the past.

"Actions taken by Canada's national security and public safety bodies have tangible effects on the lives of Canadians, many of them in the Muslim community, which has been scrutinized under the harsh spotlight of national security since 9/11," said the council's CEO Mustafa Farooq.

Zahid's announcement came one year after the Afzaal family was struck and killed by a truck in London, Ont. in what the police described as a crime motivated by anti-Muslim hate. Talat Afzaal, 74, Salman Afzaal, 46, Yumna Afzaal, 15 and Madiha Salman, 44, died in the incident, while the couple's young son survived.

Farooq pointed to other recent attacks, including the deadly Quebec City mosque shooting in 2017 and a 2020 fatal stabbing at an Etobicoke mosque, and called for CSIS to be held accountable for its response.

"We have found again and again the agencies that are theoretically supposed to protect us from terrorist threats do not seem to be there to protect us. Rather, what we have seen is that these institutions not only fail to support marginalized communities but actively target them," he said.

"Until we actually start to see that kind of action, it's going to be hard to actually really believe in this institution, which is an institution we need to believe in."
Justice blames CSIS's 'institutional negligence'

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, whose portfolio includes CSIS, said he'll have to see the details of the bill before offering comment.

"To the extent that Ms. Zahid's private member's bill is an effort to raise awareness about the importance of being transparent, about the importance of duty of candour, I think that is something all Canadians can rally behind," he said Monday.

In a decision released last summer, Federal Court Justice Henry Brown blamed "institutional and systemic negligence" for the latest instance of Canada's spy service failing to explain sufficiently why it needed to intercept the communications of a "group of individuals" deemed to pose a threat to the security of Canada. The specifics of that request were redacted from the public version of the ruling.

A similar Federal Court ruling released in July 2020 said CSIS had failed to disclose its reliance on information that probably was collected illegally in support of warrants to probe extremism.

"The circumstances raise fundamental questions relating to respect for the rule of law, the oversight of security intelligence activities and the actions of individual decision-makers," Justice Patrick Gleeson wrote in that case.

The National Security and Intelligence Review Agency, the main watchdog over CSIS, has been reviewing the "duty of candour" issue.

Another review, completed by former deputy minister of justice Morris Rosenberg, called for improvements such as better training and clarification of roles. That review also said those improvements would not succeed unless the "cultural issues around warrants" are addressed.

Private member's bills rarely pass, although there are success stories.

At the start of every new Parliament, the Speaker of the House of Commons holds a random draw to determine the order of precedence for considering private members' business.

Zahid said she plans to introduce the bill for first reading when the House of Commons returns after the summer recess.

While she is low on the order of precedence for second reading debate, Zahid said she intends to negotiate with her colleagues over the summer to see if she can move up the list to get the bill to second reading.

"I think it's really very important that there is more accountability and more disclosure of any breaches," said Zahid.

"It's a debate that we need to have soon. "

UNANIMOUS!
Edmonton video game workers vote to unionize, an industry first for Canada
Stephen Cook - 

In an industry first for Canada, 16 video game development workers in Edmonton have voted to unionize.

The workers are contracted out to Edmonton-based BioWare, famous for the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series.

Unionization efforts for the video game development industry have been few and far between despite decades of stories of exploitative working conditions. While more common outside the United States and Canada, there are only two unions in North America in video game development.

Now added to that count is a quality assurance team from Keywords Studios, based in Ireland.

The 16 Edmonton workers voted unanimously to unionize through the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 401, the union said in a news release Monday.

"Workplace frustrations are widespread throughout this industry, and it has become clear that workers need to unionize to address those issues," UFCW Local 401 president Thomas Hesse said in the release.

"We are proud to participate in those trailblazing efforts in North America."

Keywords Studios operates in 23 countries and has more than 9,000 employees.

The Edmonton team is contracted to game developer BioWare, famous for the Mass Effect and Dragon Age series.


A statement posted to the Keywords Studios website said the company accepts the vote results.

"We value our people and will continue to constantly strive to be a good employer," it reads. "As an organization we want to ensure an engaging experience for all of our employees, and we take any concerns that our staff have seriously."
Contract negotiations

Felix Martinez, a national representative with UFCW, said the next step will be creating proposals and starting negotiations for the workers' first contract.

"The fact that it's 100 per cent, it's always very exciting and it's also very clear — it gives us a lot of leverage for bargaining," he said.

"The employer knows that the workers are 100 per cent into it so it opens up a lot of possibilities for bargaining."

Employees previously told CBC News the primary reasons for the unionization effort was a substantial wage gap between contracted workers and those employed directly by BioWare doing similar jobs and a mandated back-to-work order that has since been rescinded.

"That kind of resolved itself before the vote," Martinez said. "But definitely putting things in writing as well as codifying existing things that people like is going to be part of [negotiations]."

The Alberta Labour Relations Board is expected to issue a certificate 24 hours after the result of the vote has been communicated to the parties involved.

The first game developers' union in North America was formed just last year at Vodeo Games, a small independent studio whose employees work remotely in both Canada and the United States.

A second union was formed this year for the quality assurance department of Wisconsin-based Raven Software, which has worked on the Call of Duty franchise.

Quebec legal aid lawyers set for four-day strike over equal pay with Crown attorneys

MONTREAL — Quebec's legal aid lawyers are striking this week in protest of the government's salary offer, which they say will lead to an exodus of attorneys who represent the most marginalized.


© Provided by The Canadian PressQuebec legal aid lawyers set for four-day strike over equal pay with Crown attorneys

About 200 legal aid lawyers walked off the job on Monday for a two-day strike, while a separate group of about 210 lawyers are set to strike Wednesday and Thursday. Protests are scheduled across Quebec, including in front of the offices of government ministers and at the provincial legislature.

Legal aid lawyers, who often represent marginalized communities and low-income people, are demanding that Quebec continue the 30-year tradition of paying them the same as Crown attorneys. Quebec is offering legal aid lawyers a two per cent salary increase per year over three years, but it gave Crown prosecutors a 2.5 per cent increase per year over four years starting in 2020.

Daniel Lessard, president of an association representing legal aid lawyers who will strike Wednesday and Thursday, says his members have to fight the government every time their collective agreement expires.

"Crown attorneys get their salary increase and new conditions," said the president of the Fédération des avocates et avocats de l'aide juridique, on Monday. "And us, we always have … to justify the reason why our work is as difficult and important as the work of Crown attorneys."

Legal aid lawyer Fabrice Poirier says he recognizes that the 0.5 per cent difference between what was offered to his group and to prosecutors isn't much, but he questioned why the government won't make up the gap.

"We represent vulnerable populations such as people experiencing homelessness, people with mental health issues," Poirier said in an interview on Monday. "We have a role … we mostly want to be seen and recognized. That's the goal."

Poirier was one of four legal aid lawyers on Monday at the Montreal courthouse who remained at work to reduce disruptions in the legal system. "We're usually between 10 to 15 legal aid lawyers working."

He said at least 11 people had their cases delayed on Monday because of the strike, adding that about 41 people will be affected Tuesday.

"We don't want our clients to be impacted; this is about recognition," Poirier said, adding that the effect of the strike could be substantial because legal aid lawyers are required in most courtrooms across the province.

Treasury Board spokesperson Florence Plourde said Monday the work conditions of legal aid lawyers are different than the conditions of Crown attorneys because the two groups are not part of the same collective bargaining system. Legal aid lawyers, she said, are employees of an agency responsible for applying Quebec’s legal aid legislation.

"Legal aid workers are not the government's employees," Plourde said Monday in an email.

The agency overseeing legal aid workers — the Commission des services juridiques — declined a request for comment on Monday.

Lessard said the legal aid system is facing labour shortages, as several young lawyers switch over to the Crown because of better pay.

"We want a strong and qualified legal aid system," he said. "We want to retain high-quality lawyers in the system and one of the ways to achieve this is with parity."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published on June 6, 2022.

— With files from Lia Lévesque in Montreal.

---

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

Virginie Ann, The Canadian Press

ALBERTA
Black cowboy John Ware recognized as a person of national historic significance


BAR U RANCH NATIONAL HISTORIC SITE — The federal government has recognized John Ware, a Black cowboy in Western Canada, as a person of national historic significance.


© Provided by The Canadian PressBlack cowboy John Ware recognized as a person of national historic significance

Ware's designation was commemorated today with the unveiling of a plaque at the Bar U Ranch National Historic Site south of Calgary.

Steven Guilbeault, the minister responsible for Parks Canada, says in a news release that Ware embodied the resilience and strength of Black Canadians.

Ware arrived in the district of Alberta in 1882 on a trail crew driving thousands of cattle to the site that became known as the Bar U Ranch.

He wrangled herds of large ranching outfits then built his own ranch with his wife, Mildred, and their children, before he died in 1905.

The government says Ware had a successful ranching career despite "racism, rough frontier conditions, and having been enslaved."

The federal government, though its Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada, recognizes significant people, places and events that have shaped the country as a way to help Canadians connect with their past.

It accepts nominations as part of the program.

Janet Annesley, who nominated Ware, said Canadians still have a lot to learn about the experiences of Canada's Black cowboys.

"The National Film Board's John Ware Reclaimed by Cheryl Foggo exposed some difficult aspects of Ware's story, ones we don't like to see because racism is out of line with our western Canadian values of freedom and merit," she said in the release.

"I nominated John Ware as a positive reminder that anyone of any colour or background can have a place in Canada's story. Our rich diversity has never been a threat to who we are. It makes us who we are."

Foggo, an author, playwright and filmmaker, said the acknowledgment of Ware illuminates him and his family.

"It makes his accomplishments in agriculture and his skills as a horseman visible to all who will read this plaque, while honouring the complexity of his life and situation," she said.

"It also simply acknowledges that he was here."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 6, 2022.

The Canadian Press

After years of uncertainty, Falmouth wind turbines to be demolished


Asad Jung, Cape Cod Times
Mon, June 6, 2022

The saga of Falmouth’s largest renewable energy project appears to be finally nearing a close, now that the town has hired Atlantic Coast Dismantling LLC to demolish two wind turbines.

The job will cost $39,950, but the town may have to pay more due to electric work and site restoration, said Town Manager Peter Johnson Staub.

The Massachusetts Clean Water Trust also agreed to accept a minimum payment of $975,000 from the town to resolve its loan. The initial loan the Massachusetts Clean Water Trust gave the town to build the turbines was $4,865,000.

Falmouth's two municipal turbines remained standing near the town's wastewater treatment facility in 2020.

“It’s been a contentious issue for a long time, and we’re pleased to bring it to a closure,” said Johnson-Staub.

A turbulent history

Known as Wind 1 and Wind 2, the turbines were installed in 2010 and 2013, respectively, at the wastewater treatment facility on Blacksmith Shop Road to support renewable energy initiatives. However, once the turbines were operational neighbors began filing lawsuits to shut them down due to noise and what they claimed were turbine-related health problems such as headaches, anxiety, and problems sleeping.

After years of legal battles and town debates, the Select Board voted in July 2017 to shut down the turbines.

More: Falmouth officials take step toward finally dismantling wind turbines

But the difficulties for the town didn’t stop there. Once the turbines were no longer running, the town needed to find a way to dismantle them and either find another use or dispose of them.

The town initially wanted to have the turbines moved and operated elsewhere, though that idea never got off the ground. Falmouth also faced pushback from the state which denied its request to dismantle the turbines saying they were an “energy-efficient project.”

With the recent contract award and loan forgiveness, the town has taken an important step towards relieving itself of the problem. And although the failure of the wind turbines may be a setback for Falmouth’s commitment to renewable energy, officials haven’t given up yet.

More: Falmouth Town Meeting votes push Cape Cod Country Club solar farm project forward

“Obviously it was by far the town’s largest renewable energy project, but with that said there are many opportunities that we can now explore for other renewable energy projects,” said Johnson-Staub. He mentioned a focus on solar and energy-efficiency projects.

The next step for the town will be to finalize the contract with Atlantic Coast Dismantling LLC.

This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Wind turbines in Falmouth will be demolished after years of struggle

Think the Fresno region’s drought is the worst ever? Tree data will make you think again

Tim Sheehan   Mon, June 6, 2022

The San Joaquin River watersed is amid its third consecutive year of below-normal precipitation. But three dry years are merely a drop in the bucket (pardon the pun) compared to a historical record that, thanks to climate reconstructions using tree rings, stretches back more than 1,100 years in the region.

Scientists estimate that since the year 900 – when California was inhabited only by Native American tribes and centuries before it became a land of agricultural bounty – the region now known as the central San Joaquin Valley has endured 35 periods of sustained drought lasting at least four years, according to research studies available on the California Natural Resources Agency’s website.

Researchers base their calculations on precise measurements of yearly growth rings of trees in the watershed that indicate that the river’s historic median annual flow is just under 1.7 million acre-feet. That figure is the threshold for labeling a year as a wet or dry year.

Seven of those sustained drought periods have come just since 1900, and the average length of those prolonged dry spells over the past 122 years is about 5.2 years.

The longest drought period reflected through dendrochronology – the science of tree rings and what they can reveal about weather, climate and fires – was 12 years from 1450 through 1461.

That doesn’t count periods in which a string of dry years was punctuated by a single year of above-average precipitation. The 1450-1461 drought, for example, was followed by a single wet year in 1462 before the Valley was hit by four more consecutive dry years from 1463 through 1466.

“The widths of annual growth rings in trees in many locations closely track variations in moisture. Because of this, tree-ring widths can be an excellent proxy for variations in moisture measured though streamflow, precipitation, and drought indices,” according to the 2018 state Natural Resources Agency guidebook by researchers who studied tree rings in several California river watersheds including the San Joaquin River.

“Thus sequences of wide and narrow rings document wet and dry years for times prior to the recording of precipitation and streamflow through modern gages,” the report said.

“Records of precipitation and streamflow from gages are typically less than 100 years long. While this may seem like a long interval of time, these records capture only a limited number of extreme events, such as droughts,” the authors added.

Similar patterns are revealed by tree rings studied from sites across the system of tributaries – the Merced, Stanislaus and Tuolumne rivers – that feed into the San Joaquin as it flows north to the Delta.

An acre-foot is the volume of water it takes to cover one acre of land under one foot of water. That’s about 326,000 gallons. To think of it another way, an American football field including the end zones is about 1.32 acres, so submerging the turf to a depth of 12 inches would require 1.32 acre-feet, or more than 430,000 gallons.

The following interactive charts show 1,122 years of fluctuations in the estimated annual flow of water in the San Joaquin River, using tree ring analyses conducted for the state Department of Water Resources through 1945, and calculated flows since 1945 based on observations and estimates by the Department of Water Resources and the San Joaquin River Restoration Project.

Estimates for those post-World War II years calculate the river’s natural flow as though unimpeded by Friant Dam, which was built in between 1939 and 1942 northeast of Fresno, and other water diversion projects.

Each of the first five charts covers a 200-year span of time: 900-1100, 1101-1300, 1301-1500, 1501-1700, and 1701-1900. The sixth chart covers 1901 through 2021. Each marker on the charts indicates the estimated flow of the San Joaquin River in that year, in acre-feet.

Millerton Lake, formed by the San Joaquin River behind Friant Dam northeast of Fresno, is shown at full capacity in this 2019 file photo, the most recent year in which the river’s natural flow, unimpeded by the dam, would have been above a 1,100-year historic median.

A cutaway piece of a 1,000-plus year-old giant sequoia tree from Kings Canyon National Park in eastern Fresno County has arrows on its rings to show where fire burned the tree about every 12 years on average. The width of annual tree rings an also show the abundance or lack of water in a given year.

FIFTIES FLASHBACK

Rep. Mike Rogers rolls out measure to withdraw US from United Nations, World Health Organization

Brooke Singman

FOX NEWS
Mon, June 6, 2022, 11:48 AM·4 min read

EXCLUSIVE: The top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, Rep. Mike Rogers, introduced a measure that would withdraw the United States from the United Nations and the World Health Organization (WHO), claiming the bodies have been soft on China.

Rogers, R-Ala., told Fox News that the U.N. has "repeatedly proven itself to be an utterly useless organization."

The introduction of the bill comes after the U.N.'s human rights chief, Michelle Bachelet, landed in China to begin an inquiry into abuses against Uyghur Muslims in Xinjiang last month, but Chinese authorities severely limited the trip with COVID-19 measures.

Prior to her arrival, Bachelet said the trip was not an "investigation," and agreed to visit just two locations within the Xinjiang region where China's human rights abuses against Uyghurs have been widely documented.

"The Charter of the United Nations states the U.N.’s mission to ‘reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations large and small,’" Rogers said. "However, Michelle Bachelet, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, has proven herself to be nothing more than a puppet for the Chinese Communist Party – aiding the CCP in playing down the very real and horrifying genocide being carried out against Uyghurs."

Rogers added that it is "unconscionable that China continues to sit on the U.N. Human Rights Council even as it carries out this disturbing genocide on top of its numerous and daily violations of basic human rights."

"It’s clear the U.N. has abandoned the ideals set in its founding charter and that’s why, among many other reasons, I’ve reintroduced legislation to withdraw the United States from the U.N.," Rogers said.

Rogers re-introduced the American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2022, which would withdraw the U.S. from the U.N., and "the corrupt World Health Organization."

Rogers first introduced similar legislation in 2015. Aides in Rogers' office told Fox News the bill, at the time, was referred to the House Foreign Affairs Committee, but "unfortunately never made it to the floor."

"We believe that the jarring and public capitulations to the CCP by the U.N. and the WHO in the past two years will bring a renewed interest in Rep. Rogers' bill," the aide said.

The new legislation would block funds from being authorized to be appropriated to the United Nations or any agency and commission associated with it.

China has been accused of wrongfully imprisoning up to three million Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region, as well as carrying out forced sterilizations and abortions. Chinese authorities claim camps in the region are "re-education" facilities combating Islamic extremism.

There is overwhelming evidence to suggest China is in fact carrying out a cultural genocide against Uyghurs, and the Biden administration has condemned China for such abuses.

Congress passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act in December, a bipartisan piece of legislation that prevents the importation of goods made via forced labor in the Xinjiang region.

Rogers told Fox News that the WHO "lost all credibility when they chose to put public health second to the Chinese Communist Party by helping the CCP cover up the origins of COVID-19."

Meanwhile, activists and others had called on Bachelet to condemn what the U.S. and others have called the genocide of Uyghur Muslims in the region. China has claimed it is engaged in anti-radicalization and counterterrorism, but activists and governments have pointed instead to evidence of mass detention, forced sterilizations, bans on religious and cultural practices, and torture.

Bachelet touted China's "tremendous achievements" in poverty alleviation and universal health care, as well as China’s "valued" support on the U.N.’s 2030 multilateral Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals.

On the regime’s human rights abuses, she said she had "raised questions and concerns" about Xinjiang as she also appeared to accept Chinese claims that the policies were designed to tackle terrorism and radicalization.

"I encouraged the government to undertake a review of all counterterrorism and deradicalization policies to ensure they fully comply with international human rights standards, and in particular that they are not applied in an arbitrary and discriminatory way," she said.

Even the Biden administration, which rejoined the Human Rights Council this year, expressed concern about Bachelet’s visit – noting the many restrictions placed on the visit by Beijing.

"While we continue to raise our concerns about China’s human rights abuses directly with Beijing and support others who do so, we are concerned the conditions Beijing authorities imposed on the visit did not enable a complete and independent assessment of the human rights environment in the PRC, including in Xinjiang, where genocide and crimes against humanity are ongoing," Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.

Poland, with near-total abortion ban, to record pregnancies


A group of women's rights activists protest against Poland's strict anti-abortion law, outside the top constitutional court, in Warsaw, Poland, Jan. 26, 2022. The government of Poland, where a near-total abortion ban is in place, faced accusations Monday, June 6, 2022, of creating a “pregnancy register” as the country expands the amount of medical data being digitally saved on patients.

 (AP Photo/Czarek Sokolowski, File)More


VANESSA GERA
Mon, June 6, 2022

WARSAW, Poland (AP) — The government of Poland, where a near-total abortion ban is in place, faced accusations Monday of creating a “pregnancy register” as the country expands the amount of medical data being digitally saved on patients.

Women's rights advocates and opposition politicians fear women face unprecedented surveillance given the conservative views of a ruling party that has already tightened what was one of Europe's most restrictive abortion laws.

They fear the new data could be used by police and prosecutors against women whose pregnancies end, even in cases of miscarriage, or that women could be tracked by the state if they order abortion pills or travel abroad for an abortion.

“A pregnancy registry in a country with an almost complete ban on abortion is terrifying,” said Agnieszka Dziemianowicz-Bąk, a left-wing lawmaker.


The matter gained attention Monday after Health Minister Adam Niedzielski signed an ordinance Friday expanding the amount of information to be saved in a central database on patients, including information on allergies, blood type and pregnancies.

The health ministry spokesman, Wojciech Andrusiewicz, sought to allay concerns, saying only medical professionals will have access to the data, and that the changes are being made at the recommendation of the European Union.

The effort, he said, is meant to improve the medical treatment of patients, including if they seek treatment elsewhere in the 27-member EU. In the case of pregnant women, he said this will help doctors immediately know which women should not get X-rays or certain medicines.

“Nobody is creating a pregnancy register in Poland,” he told the TVN24 all-news station.

But Marta Lempart, the leader of a women's rights group, Women's Strike, said she does not trust the government to keep information on women's pregnancies from the police and prosecutors. She told The Associated Press that police in Poland are already questioning women on how their pregnancies end, tipped off by disgruntled partners.

“Being pregnant means that police can come to you any time and prosecutors can come to you to ask you questions about your pregnancy,” Lempart said.

The new system means many Polish women will now avoid the state medical system during their pregnancies, with wealthier women seeking private treatment or traveling abroad, even for prenatal care.

Meanwhile, poorer women in Poland will face an increased risk of medical problems or even death by avoiding prenatal care, Lempart fears.

Lempart also worries that information gained by police could be shared with state media to harm people's reputations.

She already knows how that can happen. In 2020, Lempart tested positive for COVID-19, and the information was reported by state television even before she got her results.

Poland — a predominantly Catholic country — bans abortion in almost all cases, with exceptions only when a woman’s life or health is endangered or if the pregnancy results from rape or incest.

For years, abortion was allowed in the case of fetuses with congenital defects. That exception was struck down by the constitutional court in 2020.

In practice, Polish women seeking to terminate their pregnancies order abortions pills or travel to Germany, the Czech Republic and other countries where the procedure is allowed. While self-administering abortion pills is legal, helping someone else is not.

Activist Justyna Wydrzyńska is facing up to three years in prison for helping a victim of domestic violence access abortion pills. Amnesty International says it is the first such case in Europe.

Not only Putin's war': Why some say the Russian people are also culpable for the Ukraine conflict

Tom Blackwell - Saturday, June 4,2022

POSTMEDIA

People walk past a gift shop in Moscow on May 17, 2022, next to t-shirts showing Vladimir Putin or bearing the letter Z, which has become a symbol of support for Russian military action in Ukraine. Polls suggest that more than half of Russia's population supports Putin's invasion of Ukraine.

When a reporter for the CurrentTime TV channel asked Russians in March about the war in Ukraine, she tried to show them pictures of the destruction wrought by their troops.

They weren’t having it.

“I won’t look at those photos,” said one woman before striding off. “I support Putin in all respects.”

An elderly man was equally dismissive: “No one is bombing Kyiv. I don’t believe it.”

A second woman acknowledged the invasion would probably bring sanctions and hardship but said, “I think Putin is a smart man and he knows what he’s doing…. This is what has to be done.”

When Western leaders clash with misbehaving nations, they’re often careful to declare that their grievance is with the country’s authoritarian government, not its downtrodden people.

But as Russia prosecutes a brutal war of aggression against its neighbour, it seems less than clear if that equation applies.

Polls suggest there’s broad Russian support for what is officially termed a “special military operation.” President Vladimir Putin himself surged in popularity as his tanks rumbled across the border in February, much as occurred when he first attacked Ukraine eight years ago, when he invaded Georgia, and during brutal wars in Chechnya. Meanwhile, low-ranking Russian soldiers have perpetrated random acts of cruelty against civilians, while shipping Ukrainians’ personal possessions back to grateful wives in Russia.

It all raises the question: in this particular conflict are the Russian people — not just their mercurial leader, his close aides and military commanders — also culpable for the death and destruction?

The answer invokes debate about the reliability of those polls and the impact of a repressive regime with almost total information control, but some analysts say ordinary Russians can’t be let off the hook.

The West shouldn’t go overboard in vilifying private citizens, but the people’s longstanding support for their president did, in fact, lay the groundwork for this war, argues Eastern-Europe specialist Robert Austin.

“What always disappointed me about Russia and Russians is how easily they slipped into his dictatorship,” said the professor with the University of Toronto’s Centre for European, Russian and Eurasian Studies. “They really bought the Putin program early on.”

“They do have to bear some responsibility for this…. The easy embrace of Putin and Putinism leads directly to where we are now.”

In what has become essentially a totalitarian regime, it’s difficult to know how important popular backing is to Putin’s decision-making process. But it appears the president is acutely interested in his people’s opinions.

Elena Koneva, who used to be a leading Russian pollster before moving to Cyprus in 2016, said in an interview that insiders have told her that Russia’s state-run polling organization has recently been conducting daily surveys of 1,600 people each, and that Putin demands to see a report on the findings every day.

Many Russians are opposed to the invasion of Ukraine so it would be wrong to say the whole population “has blood on its hands,” says Maria Popova, an Eastern-Europe specialist and professor at McGill University. But the evidence suggests those dissenters account for less than a majority, while Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea and incursion into eastern Ukraine were widely backed, she said.

“It’s definitely not only Putin’s war, it’s wider than this,” said Popova. “Russian society as a whole is responsible, not just Putin .”

Even so, censuring private Russians, as well as the Kremlin and its hangers-on, has proven at times controversial .

When visiting classical musicians were barred from performing with some Western ensembles, like pianist Alexander Malofeev at the Montreal symphony orchestra, critics said they were being arbitrarily “cancelled.”

When the All England Lawn Tennis Club turned away Russian players from this year’s Wimbledon championship, the professional tours cried discrimination and retaliated by saying no one could earn all-important ranking points in the tournament this year.

Regular Russian people are no more culpable for the bloodshed in Ukraine than Americans were for the Iraq war or ordinary Canadians for the residential school system, says Seva Gunitsky, a University of Toronto political science professor. To hold them accountable would be to adopt the thinking of terrorists, who consider it acceptable to attack civilians because of the actions of their governments, he said.

“This is really slippery terrain from a moral perspective,” said Gunitsky by email. “I do hope people don’t associate the Russian people with the regime. Collective guilt is a terrible place to go.”

The level of repression imposed by Putin recently should also not be underestimated, he said, suggesting the country went from “middle-income hybrid autocracy” to something like North Korean despotism in a matter of days.

Political scientist Lisa Sundstrom said she’s also loathe to blame ordinary Russians. It’s exceedingly difficult for them to express dissident views, a challenge that’s prompted thousands to abandon the country in recent weeks, the University of British Columbia professor noted.

But Sundstrom said her opinions are evolving after hearing from Russian opposition activists convinced that their fellow citizens are, in fact, partly to blame. They cite a widespread persistence in believing and backing the regime when alternative information sources are available, she said by email.

Indeed, opinion surveys arguably blur the division between state and population when it comes to the Ukraine war.

In a fairly typical recent poll from the Levada Center , one of Russia’s few independent pollsters, 74 per cent of respondents said they supported the actions of their armed forces in Ukraine.

Putin’s approval rating, just 62 per cent last November, had risen to 82 by April, its highest since 2017, according to Levada polling.

The president’s popularity similarly soared from the low 60s to 90 per cent in the months after Russian troops occupied Crimea in 2014 and backed separatist fighters in eastern Ukraine.

That said, academics argue that fear of retaliation — partly stemming from a new law that punishes criticism of the military by up to 15 years in prison — can affect people’s poll responses, something called “preference falsification.”

To try to filter out that effect, European social scientists Philipp Chapkovski and Max Schaub set up what’s called a list experiment . They asked respondents a direct question about support for the war, and also to indicate how many of a selection of statements — including one about backing the invasion — they endorsed, without having to reveal specifically which ones they chose. By statistical analysis of the responses, they came up with what they say is a more accurate reflection of Russians’ opinions.

The result? Even when they didn’t have to expose their true sentiments, just over half — 53 per cent — of people still voiced backing for the attack on Ukraine, a result the researchers described as “extremely concerning.”

Koneva, the Russian-born pollster, started non-profit ExtremeScan after the war started and has been surveying her former compatriots (as well as people in Belarus and Ukraine), offering them the option of not answering a question about support for the war as a way to identify those afraid to reveal their true feelings. ExtremeScan concludes as a result that 64 per cent of Russians back the military incursion.

More specifically, the research suggests that about 30 per cent are hard-core enthusiasts who understand what’s really happening, while another 30 are “light” supporters who’ve been swayed by Kremlin propaganda and vague beliefs that a Russian victory will improve their lives. About 25 per cent actually oppose the war, said Koneva.

She argues more generally that widespread, deep-seated backing for Russia’s imperialist ambitions make the people “100-per-cent responsible.”

But if the polls are accurate and many Russians do have Putin’s back and may even have given him a mandate to invade Ukraine, it raises another question: Why, exactly? Why approve of an unprovoked military offensive that was designed to topple a democratically elected government — and has been marked by evidence of extensive war crimes?

The Kremlin’s tight control on news about the conflict and misleading rhetoric about its motivations and aims are undoubtedly a factor.

Austin points to a longer-term phenomenon. Putin, he says, has been skilled at exploiting the chaotic 1990s — when post-Soviet Russia fell into economic collapse and disarray — and blaming those ills on the West, while intimating the country is still threatened from outside as Europe and NATO spread eastward.

“He was able … to portray Russia as a country that was under siege and surrounded by enemies,” said the U of T professor. “The notion of revival and undoing humiliation is very important.”

Popova cites the fact that after the Soviet Union fell, Russia never properly confronted its Communist past and the subjugation of Soviet republics and Warsaw Pact nations, the way Germany came to terms with its actions in the Second World War.

Nor did Russia properly dissect its own war history. Just like the Soviets, she said, today’s Russian authorities continue to glorify the “great patriotic war,” while obscuring facts like Moscow’s initial pact with Hitler, the Katyn massacre of Polish military officers and intelligentsia and atrocities the Red Army committed in its sweep toward Berlin.

Putin has extended that popular war narrative with his unfounded claims that he’s battling another “Nazi” government in Kyiv, said Popova. But if Russia had openly debated such issues after the Soviet Union’s demise, it “might be on a different path,” she said.

There remains, of course, a hope that the people of Russia will eventually turn on Putin, whether because of distaste for the war or the bite of sanctions.

Given that support appears somewhat lower than the polls show, regime change “may not be completely implausible,” say Chapkovski and Schaub of the list experiment.

On the other hand, the result could be the opposite, providing Putin even more popular encouragement for his military adventures, said Popova.

“If unity in the West cracks and Ukraine doesn’t get enough support and enough weapons, this war may end with victory for Putin and for Russia,” said the McGill professor. “And then his regime would be strengthened.”

A Cancer Trial's Unexpected Result: Remission in Every Patient

Gina Kolata

NEW YORK TIMES
Mon, June 6, 2022

It was a small trial, just 18 rectal cancer patients, every one of whom took the same drug.

But the results were astonishing. The cancer vanished in every single patient, undetectable by physical exam; endoscopy; positron emission tomography, or PET scans; or MRI scans.

Dr. Luis A. Diaz Jr. of Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, an author of a paper published Sunday in the New England Journal of Medicine describing the results, which were sponsored by drug company GlaxoSmithKline, said he knew of no other study in which a treatment completely obliterated a cancer in every patient.

“I believe this is the first time this has happened in the history of cancer,” Diaz said.

Dr. Alan P. Venook, a colorectal cancer specialist at the University of California, San Francisco, who was not involved with the study, said he also thought this was a first.

A complete remission in every single patient is “unheard-of,” he said.

These rectal cancer patients had faced grueling treatments — chemotherapy, radiation and, most likely, life-altering surgery that could result in bowel, urinary and sexual dysfunction. Some would need colostomy bags.

They entered the study thinking that, when it was over, they would have to undergo those procedures because no one really expected their tumors to disappear.

But they got a surprise: No further treatment was necessary.

“There were a lot of happy tears,” said Dr. Andrea Cercek, an oncologist at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center and a co-author of the paper, which was presented Sunday at the annual meeting of the American Society of Clinical Oncology.

Another surprise, Venook added, was that none of the patients had clinically significant complications.

On average, 1 in 5 patients have some sort of adverse reaction to drugs like the one the patients took, dostarlimab, known as checkpoint inhibitors. The medication was given every three weeks for six months and cost about $11,000 per dose. It unmasks cancer cells, allowing the immune system to identify and destroy them.

While most adverse reactions are easily managed, as many as 3% to 5% of patients who take checkpoint inhibitors have more severe complications that, in some cases, result in muscle weakness and difficulty swallowing and chewing.

The absence of significant side effects, Venook said, means that “either they did not treat enough patients or, somehow, these cancers are just plain different.”

In an editorial accompanying the paper, Dr. Hanna K. Sanoff of the University of North Carolina’s Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center, who was not involved in the study, called it “small but compelling.” She added, though, that it is not clear if the patients are cured.

“Very little is known about the duration of time needed to find out whether a clinical complete response to dostarlimab equates to cure,” Sanoff said in the editorial.

Dr. Kimmie Ng, a colorectal cancer expert at Harvard Medical School, said that while the results were “remarkable” and “unprecedented,” they would need to be replicated.

The inspiration for the rectal cancer study came from a clinical trial Diaz led in 2017 that Merck, the drugmaker, funded. It involved 86 people with metastatic cancer that originated in various parts of their bodies. But the cancers all shared a gene mutation that prevented cells from repairing damage to DNA. These mutations occur in 4% of all cancer patients.

Patients in that trial took a Merck checkpoint inhibitor, pembrolizumab, for up to two years. Tumors shrank or stabilized in about one-third to one-half of the patients, and they lived longer. Tumors vanished in 10% of the trial’s participants.

That led Cercek and Diaz to ask: What would happen if the drug were used much earlier in the course of disease, before the cancer had a chance to spread?

They settled on a study of patients with locally advanced rectal cancer — tumors that had spread in the rectum and sometimes to the lymph nodes but not to other organs. Cercek had noticed that chemotherapy was not helping a portion of patients who had the same mutations that affected the patients in the 2017 trial. Instead of shrinking during treatment, their rectal tumors grew.

Perhaps, Cercek and Diaz reasoned, immunotherapy with a checkpoint inhibitor would allow such patients to avoid chemotherapy, radiation and surgery.

Diaz began asking companies that made checkpoint inhibitors if they would sponsor a small trial. They turned him down, saying the trial was too risky. He and Cercek wanted to give the drug to patients who could be cured with standard treatments. What the researchers were proposing might end up allowing the cancers to grow beyond the point at which they could be cured.

“It is very hard to alter the standard of care,” Diaz said. “The whole standard-of-care machinery wants to do the surgery.”

Finally, a small biotechnology firm, Tesaro, agreed to sponsor the study. Tesaro was bought by GlaxoSmithKline, and Diaz said he had to remind the larger company that they were doing the study — company executives had all but forgotten about the small trial.

Their first patient was Sascha Roth, then 38. She first noticed some rectal bleeding in 2019 but otherwise felt fine — she is a runner and helps manage a family furniture store in Bethesda, Maryland.

During a sigmoidoscopy, she recalled, her gastroenterologist said, “Oh no. I was not expecting this!”

The next day, the doctor called Roth. He had had the tumor biopsied. “It’s definitely cancer,” he told her.

“I completely melted down,” she said.

Soon, she was scheduled to start chemotherapy at Georgetown University, but a friend had insisted she first see Dr. Philip Paty at Memorial Sloan Kettering. Paty told her he was almost certain her cancer included the mutation that made it unlikely to respond well to chemotherapy. It turned out, though, that Roth was eligible to enter the clinical trial. If she had started chemotherapy, she would not have been.

Not expecting a complete response to dostarlimab, Roth had planned to move to New York for radiation, chemotherapy and possibly surgery after the trial ended. To preserve her fertility after the expected radiation treatment, she had her ovaries removed and put back under her ribs.

After the trial, Cercek gave her the news.

“We looked at your scans,” she said. “There is absolutely no cancer.” She did not need any further treatment.

“I told my family,” Roth said. “They didn’t believe me.”

But two years later, she still does not have a trace of cancer.

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