Is carbon removal a realistic climate solution?


Mike Bebernes
·Senior Editor
Sun, June 5, 2022
“The 360” shows you diverse perspectives on the day’s top stories and debates.

What’s happening

Humans have pumped so much carbon into the air that climate experts now believe even a dramatic reduction in fossil fuel emissions won’t be enough. They say we’ll also have to remove some of the carbon that’s already in the atmosphere if we want to prevent the worst impacts of climate change.

Plants do this naturally, but most scientists say the sheer volume of carbon that must be sucked out of the air means that simply planting more trees won’t be enough. That view has led to huge investment into potential technologies that — if proven effective and utilized at a massive scale — could help achieve global climate goals in the coming decades.

In the past few years, huge sums of money have been invested into what’s known as Direct Air Capture (DAC), a controversial new process that uses giant fans to drive air into facilities that use chemical reactions to pull carbon out of the air and store it — either in the ground or repurposed to create certain products.

There are currently about 20 DAC plants in operation around the world. Together, they are capable of pulling roughly 0.01 million metric tons of CO2 out of the air per year, a tiny fraction of 980 million metric tons that will be needed each year by 2050, according to an estimate from the International Energy Agency.

Last month, the Department of Energy announced a plan to provide $3.5 billion to fund the construction of four new DAC plants in the United States. There has also been massive private investment in the technology, including from Google, Facebook, Tesla’s owner, Elon Musk, and a long list of major investment firms.

Why there’s debate

Despite the dire predictions of what will happen without carbon removal and the potential promise of the technology, there’s deep division among experts over whether Direct Air Capture is a legitimate answer to the world’s climate challenges.

Advocates say that although the industry is in its infancy, DAC is the only proven method we have to pull from the air the carbon that is needed to meaningfully change the course of climate change. They note the huge investment in the development of new plants as a sign that there’s a strong desire from both governments and businesses to rapidly ramp up carbon removal efforts and argue that the process will become more significantly efficient and affordable over time, as more companies join the industry. Others make the case that, even though there are reasons to doubt that the dreams of DAC optimists are achievable, the climate situation is so dire that we need to go all-in on every solution that seems even remotely possible.

There are many skeptics, though. Some scientists argue that it’s unlikely that there will ever be enough DAC plants to make a significant dent in the world’s carbon output — one expert estimated that the largest plant currently in operation can only capture “three seconds worth of humanity’s CO2 emissions” in a year. Another issue, they say, is that carbon capture may never achieve the level of sustained investment that other green technologies have, because it doesn’t produce an end product that can be sold for profit.

Others worry that the promise of carbon removal may be used as an excuse to delay the transition from fossil fuels, which is widely viewed as the single most important step toward curbing climate change. There are also practical concerns about the damage that could be caused to the environment and vulnerable communities by the existence of hundreds of DAC plants around the globe.

Perspectives

Optimists

Carbon removal should be a core element of any plan to meet our climate goals

“Even as we stop making the problem worse, we’ll still need to clean up the mess made so far. Environmentally just carbon removal is a potentially powerful tool that can help stop the worst impacts of climate change by removing legacy emissions from the atmosphere.” — Jasmine Sanders, The Hill

Carbon removal may fail, but we have no choice but to try

“I don't think carbon capture is a silver bullet, because there is no silver bullet. … We're going to need everything, especially because we're already behind on our goals.” — Nadine Mustafa, energy technology researcher, to CNN

The only way to know if DAC plants will work at scale is to build them

“The only way to really know how these systems perform in practice, is to go build them,” said David Victor, public policy researcher, to Grist

Carbon removal will fail if it’s controlled by for-profit companies

“Public carbon removal is the clear choice. The federal government can begin this transition now by ensuring that any infrastructure built using the billions of federal dollars going out the door is owned either by the government or directly by communities. … We can collectively build a justice- and worker-centered public model for deploying this climate-critical infrastructure.” — Andrew Bergman, New Republic

Skeptics

Right now, the business model for carbon removal is unproven

“All these efforts face an acute problem: No one wants to buy this stuff. Philanthropists and government agencies have long offered prizes for various carbon-removal benchmarks. And inchoate efforts are underway to turn stored carbon dioxide into something economically useful. Yet none of these efforts amounts to a sustainable business. That, too, may be about to change.” — Editorial, Bloomberg

It’s dangerous to assume carbon removal will work

“I'm rooting for it, but only a fool would bet the planet on it. … The problem isn't that the technology sucks — it probably gets better (though there are thermodynamic limits as to how better). The problem is that policymakers are including it in climate ‘planning’ as if it already works. That is beyond dangerous.” — Climate scientist Peter Kalmus

Promises of future carbon removal could be used as an excuse to slow the green energy transition

“There will be a risk of fossil-fuel companies and others using carbon removal as an imagined way to not shift their business models as long as we don’t have a mainstream plan for ending fossil fuels.” — Holly Buck, environment and sustainability researcher, to MIT Technology Review

Ending fossil fuel consumption is the only proven climate solution we have right now

“For now, the only guaranteed way to stave off the climate crisis is by preventing pollution in the first place.” — Justine Calma, Verge

Is there a topic you’d like to see covered in “The 360”? Send your suggestions to the360@yahoonews.com.

Photo Credit: AFP via Getty Images

New wave of anti-colonial populism sweeps Francophone Africa

Kémi Séba is a leading anti-colonial figure in Francophone Africa.

By Tom Collins
Published June 6, 2022

When Kémi Séba, a leading anti-colonial figure in Francophone Africa, last attempted to travel from his native Benin to Mali in January 2020 he was prevented from boarding the plane by Malian authorities.

At the time, Mali was under the control of president Ibrahim Boubacar Keïta—a close ally to France who would not have welcomed Séba’s ability to lead large protests against the country’s former colonial ruler.

Two years later and Séba tells Quartz that he was personally invited to Mali by local authorities led by Colonel Assimi Goïta, the head of a military junta that seized power in August 2020, to give a rousing speech against neo-colonialism in the capital city of Bamako.

“The Malian authorities regard me as an ally because they know that I have reignited Pan-Africanism in Francophone African countries,” said Séba who was kicked out of Senegal in 2017 after the government called him a “threat to public order.”

His official invitation is evidence of a new wave of anti-colonial sentiment that has taken hold in several governments across west Africa, which could have far-reaching consequences for other countries in the region and beyond.
Leading the movement

Rising to global stardom as a leading critic of the west African Franc (CFA), Séba has railed against ‘la Françafrique’ and built a grass roots platform to mobilize demonstrations across much of Francophone west Africa.

The controversial figure has over 1 million subscribers on Facebook and hundreds of thousands of followers on other social media channels.

While the international community and the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) have denounced the military takeover in Mali, he praises the armed forces for responding to growing discontent with the former government

“The alliance between civil society and the military forces is a patriotic path forward and it will be the beginning of a new era in Africa,” he said.

“Democracy in the western sense has failed. Mali for me is proof that something can be different.”

Though regime changes are often viewed as self-interested power grabs by disenfranchised military leaders, the sharpening of anti-colonial thought in the region suggests that there is widespread support for undemocratic takeovers.

The rise of ‘popular coups’ in west Africa

A recent poll by the Friedrich Ebert foundation found that 68% of Malians are very satisfied with the coup, 27% are satisfied and only 5% do not support the military (link in French).

Many believe that pro-French African leaders dupe the West with promises of security, stability, and democracy only to extend term limits and use government treasuries for personal enrichment.

Similar events to Mali have unfolded in Burkina Faso and Guinea over the last year, where military leaders ejected unpopular civilian rulers.

Séba, who was born in France, described the new political structures that have taken shape in Mali and Guinea as “a combination of populist civil society groups and nationalist military elements.”

He was personally invited to meet President Mamady Doumbouya in Guinea last year, only one month after the colonel seized power in September.

The outspoken pan-Africanist believes that there will be two more regime changes in the Sahel before the year is over, most likely in Niger and Chad.

Earlier this month, anti-French protests were held in Chad’s capital city of N’Djamena with some protestors holding Russian flags.

He said that his organization, Urgences Panafricanist or Pan-African Emergency, is helping to boost support for protests in countries that are run by pro-French regimes like Niger and to a lesser extent Chad.

This is probably why Séba is public enemy number one in Côte d’Ivoire and Senegal—historic centers of France’s colonial project and the two most important economies in Francophone Africa.

He called Alassane Ouattara, Côte d’Ivoire’s president, a “puppet of French oligarchy” and said that it would be very hard to unseat pro-French leaders in the west African country.
Security concerns in the Sahel

The protests in Chad will add to further concerns by Western policymakers that more Francophone African countries will be taken over by military leaders that prefer to work with Russia rather than the West.

Since the military seized power in 2020, Mali’s government has steadily soured relations with France, culminating in the expulsion of the French ambassador from Bamako in January.

France retaliated by announcing a drawdown of the 5,000 French troops operating in the region as part of Operation Barkhane – a coalition of Mali, Chad, Burkina Faso, Mauritania, Chad, and France to combat jihadism.
Explaining underdevelopment in Africa is very simple. The rules set up by international institutions have put us in a straitjacket.

Richard Moncrieff, interim project director for the Sahel at Crisis Group, a think-tank to stop conflict, said that the antipathy towards France has been driven to some extent by its failure to contain the islamist threat.

“I think we have to first look at that security crisis, and the impact it has had on political thought and political opinions in the region,” he said.

“The perception is that the West and particularly France has devoted a large amount of resources to the region but the situation has become worse.”

Russia quickly stepped in to fill the gap with the ongoing delivery of military equipment and an unknown number of Wagner Group fighters—Russian paramilitary forces linked to the Kremlin—that have started security operations in the region.

The group was implicated in the massacre of over 300 people in the central Malian town of Moura in late March 2022.
Anti-colonial populism expanding elsewhere

The question now is whether anti-colonial populist governments with broad support from their citizens will become a trend that spreads to other parts of Africa.

Séba believes that it is currently mostly isolated to Francophone Africa where it is slowly gaining momentum.

Even the more internationalist regional leaders like Macky Sall, Senegal’s president, have recently suggested that he wants to overhaul financial relations with the West.

The president gave a blistering speech earlier this month at a United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (Uncea) meeting in Dakar where he criticized the IMF for not allocating a fair portion of special drawing rights (SDRs) to the continent during the pandemic.

Africa has received only $33 billion of the $650 billion in emergency and unconditional funding issued by the IMF during covid-19, with much larger sums being allocated to developed economies like the US, Japan, China, and Germany.

“Explaining underdevelopment in Africa is very simple. The rules set up by international institutions have put us in a straitjacket. The rules are unfair, outdated, and need to be disputed,” he told delegates.

“It is time for Africa to speak out. The voices should not just be those of leaders but of finance ministers and others affected by a system that works against the continent.”

The growing dissatisfaction with Bretton Woods institutions adds to the feeling that the West has deliberately short-changed Africa in terms of access to vaccines.

Western drugmakers continue to block African manufacturing plants from producing life saving vaccines due to patent issues and vaccine donations to the continent have fallen well short of the mark.

This may have led to an increase in anti-Western sentiment in other regions outside Francophone west Africa.

Jeffrey Smith, founding director of Vanguard Africa, a non-profit dedicated to free and fair elections in Africa, said that Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has increased anti-Western sentiment in Africa.

Russian flags have been flown in rallies everywhere from Ethiopia to South Africa as many Africans believe that the West’s condemnation of the invasion is hypocritical in the context of Libya, Iraq, and Afghanistan.

Experts also believe that Russia has launched a sophisticated misinformation and disinformation campaign in Africa to create support for the invasion among millions of social media users.

Nicolas Cheeseman, professor of democracy at the University of Birmingham, said that populist policies are on the rise in other parts of Africa but not to the same extent as the Sahel.

“Figures such as William Ruto in Kenya and Julius Malema in South Africa are using populism as a way to try and gain power, but at the minute it seems to be more of a tool of the opposition than the government,” he said.

Still, the populist trend in west Africa could be the start of a wider movement in Africa and activists like Séba certainly hope that recent developments reverberate across the continent.

Unconfirmed reports suggest that the divisive figure has established connections with Malema in South Africa to expand the movement to Southern Africa.

Last week, hundreds of protestors from Malema’s Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) party gathered outside the French embassy in Pretoria, holding signs that had expletives against France. .

For a country which is not linked to French colonization, this could be a warning sign that events in the Sahel may eventually morph into something much more significant in Africa.

India could import even more Russian oil under new agreement as state-run refiners look to load up on discounted crude


Brian Evans
Mon, June 6, 2022

Janos Kummer/Getty Images

India is looking to import more Russian oil on top of already existing deals with the Kremlin.

State-run refiners want to snag more Russian crude at steep discounts from Rosneft PJSC.

Russia is offloading its crude to alternative sources outside of the EU as sanctions mount.

India's state-run oil refiners are in talks to increase imports of Russian crude, Bloomberg first reported.

The move aims to take advantage of cheap oil from the Kremlin in light of its invasion of Ukraine, which is pushing international buyers away from doing business with the heavily-sanctioned country.

  Russia became India's fourth-largest oil provider in April.

Refiners are looking at six-month contracts with Rosneft PJSC, Russia's top state-run producer, on a delivery basis with India handling insurance and shipping. India's state-run refiners include Indian Oil Corp., Hindustan Petroleum and Bharat Petroleum. Rosneft partially owns some of India's private refiners including Reliance Industries and Nayara Energy.

Sanctions from the US and UK have pummeled the Russian economy but have not been able to shut Russian oil out of the market, and India has been able to amass stockpiles at large discounts. The panic over global oil supplies and gas prices has pushed President Biden to plead with Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries to increase output to make up for the Russian embargo.

But Russia still reported a 50% increase in revenues despite global condemnation, signalling the country is still finding ample buyers.

Elon Musk Threatens to “Terminate” Twitter Deal, Shares Silly Reason He Shouldn’t Pay $1 Billion Penalty


Wren Graves
Mon, June 6, 2022,

The post Elon Musk Threatens to “Terminate” Twitter Deal, Shares Silly Reason He Shouldn’t Pay $1 Billion Penalty appeared first on Consequence.

Elon Musk is threatening to “terminate” his $44 billion Twitter takeover, which is a problem, because his original purchase agreement included a $1 billion penalty if he pulled his offer. So the Tesla founder seems to be preparing the argument that the whole deal should be voided. He claims that Twitter is lying about the number of users who are “fake/spam accounts,” which is also a problem, because he already waived his right to due diligence. But since he has nothing to lose but pride, Musk is forging ahead anyway; his lawyer sent a letter to Twitter on Monday accusing them of “actively resisting and thwarting his information rights” regarding spam accounts.

Musk began laying the groundwork for this strategy in mid-May, tweeting that in his experience about 20% of Twitter’s use base are “fake/spam accounts,” and that the true number “could be *much* higher.”

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal responded, “Our actual internal estimates for the last four quarters were all well under 5%.” He added, “We don’t believe that this specific estimation can be performed externally, given the critical need to use both public and private information (which we can’t share). Externally, it’s not even possible to know which accounts are counted as [monetizable Daily Active Users] on any given day.”

Musk’s new letter says Twitter sent him a June 1st message further explaining their methodology. But the billionaire is dissatisfied with the analysis: “Mr. Musk believes Twitter is transparently refusing to comply with its obligations under the merger agreement, which is causing further suspicion that the company is withholding the requested data due to concern for what Mr. Musk’s own analysis of that data will uncover.”

That “own analysis,” is a matter of some contention. Musk wrote on May 13th that, “To find out, my team will do a random sample of 100 followers of @twitter. I invite others to repeat the same process and see what they discover.” When many people argued that this was not exactly scientific, he added, “Pick any account with a lot of followers,” and “Ignore first 1000 followers, then pick every 10th. I’m open to better ideas.”

Evidently he did not think Twitter’s ideas counted. The letter ended on a threatening note: “This is a clear material breach of Twitter’s obligations under the merger agreement and Mr. Musk reserves all rights resulting therefrom, including his right not to consummate the transaction and his right to terminate the merger agreement.”

The number of fake accounts on Twitter is clearly relevant to its profitability, but that makes Musk’s behavior harder to understand, not easier. As previously stated, he waived his right to due diligence in order to close the sale faster. Besides that, for years now Twitter has been claiming in SEC filings that about 5% of its user base are spam accounts.

Twitter did recently revise downwards its estimate of total users. The company said that it had double-counted between 1.4 and 1.9 million accounts after introducing a feature that allowed people to link accounts three years ago. But 330 million people still use Twitter, meaning the company’s estimate was off by about half of one percentage point. Besides this minor correction, nothing has changed since Musk’s offer was accepted.

For that reason, many people have looked elsewhere to explain his sudden squeamishness. Daniel Ives, an analyst with Wedbush, said in a note to investors, “Many will view this as Musk using this Twitter filing/spam accounts as a way to get out of this deal in a vastly changing market.”

That’s a reference to Tesla’s plummeting stock price. Musk is partially financing the Twitter purchase with a margin loan against Tesla, and that, coupled with a bearish tech market and more Tesla recalls, has pushed Tesla’s stock price down by over 30% since the deal was announced. Musk may be the richest man in the world, but as much as 70% of his wealth is in Tesla stock, according to an analysis from last year. He might not be able to afford $44 billion for a social media platform right now, especially one as fitfully-profitable as Twitter.

Even as Musk continues to pursue this fake/spam account strategy, his overall goals remain unclear. While it looks like he’s hoping to void the deal, he might also be trying to renegotiate the purchase price to something a little easier to swallow. It’s unknown if Twitter will be interested in that, or if they’d rather take his $1 billion penalty and go on their merry way.

Regardless of what happens with Twitter, Musk may be facing larger problems. A new report revealed that his company SpaceX paid $250,000 to a flight attendant who accused him of sexual misconduct. If all of his business ventures go south, perhaps he can depend on the largesse of his sister, who recently launched a romance and erotica streaming platform.

Twitter Retreats As Musk Says The Company Materially Breached The Deal



Vladimir Zernov
Mon, June 6, 2022, 

Key Insights

Elon Musk believes that Twitter has materially breached the merger agreement.


Musk wants to see data that proves that Twitter has less than 5% of fake and spam accounts.


Twitter’s losses may be limited as short-sellers could be afraid to aggressively short in the stock in the sub-$40 territory.

Twitter Falls As Musk Demands More Data On Spam And Fake Accounts

Shares of Twitter found themselves under pressure after reports indicated that Elon Musk could cancel the deal if the company does not provide data on spam and fake accounts.

According to the reports, Musk believes that Twitter was in a “clear material breach” of its obligations. In this case, Musk can terminate the deal.

Elon Musk has previously put the deal on hold “pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users”.

As the recent reports indicate, Musk did not receive such details from Twitter, so the deal is in danger. Not surprisingly, traders rushed to sell Twitter stock at the opening.
What’s Next For Twitter Stock?

The near-term dynamics of Twitter stock depend on the market’s perception of the likelihood of the deal with Musk. Traders will ignore financial projections and focus on the fate of the deal.

The deal implies a Twitter stock price of $54.20 per share, which could limit traders’ desire to short the stock at sub-$40 levels.

The key question for traders is whether Elon Musk still wants to buy Twitter and is using the fake/spam accounts topic to get a better price. Another important factor is whether Twitter itself wants to be sold, as the company is not actively engaging with Musk.

Most likely, the stock will remain extremely volatile in the upcoming trading sessions. While the probability of the deal has decreased in recent weeks, the stock may fail to develop significant downside momentum as short-sellers will be worried that they could have to buy the stock back at $54.20 if the deal succeeds.

Texas AG investigates Twitter over bot counts


Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images


Jon Fingas
·Reporter
Mon, June 6, 2022

Texas's Attorney General, Ken Paxton, has launched an investigation of Twitter over concerns of "potentially false" reports related to the number of bots and other fake accounts on the social network. In a press release Monday, Paxton claims inauthentic accounts may be helping to "inflate the value" of Twitter — thus he intends to pursue the investigation under the state's Deceptive Trade Practices Act, which protects against misleading advertisers, businesses and everyday users.

Paxton's office is pursuing the case just as Tesla CEO Elon Musk is seemingly attempting to scuttle his own bid to purchase Twitter. Musk has, for several weeks, been suggesting the platform's bot numbers may be far greater than its current leadership are reporting. It's interesting timing for Musk and Paxton's interests to align: Tesla just opened a Gigafactory in Texas, and is moving its headquarters to the region. That's a lot of potential business, and it comes as the state has offered tax breaks to companies building local facilities. For whatever it's worth, Paxton has previously been accused of abuse of office over allegations of bribery, but was eventually cleared by his own office.

Twitter has been ordered to provide unredacted documents detailing the company's active user counts since 2017, the volume of "inauthentic" accounts over that period and the methods used to calculate the ratio of fake accounts. It also has to outline its advertising model, including the revenue it generates in Texas.

It's also notable that Musk's hopes of boosting free speech on Twitter sync with Republic aims to reverse alleged censorship of conservative viewpoints on the site. Twitter has long rejected claims of ideological bias, and sued Paxton over claims of political retaliation that infringed its First Amendment rights.

We've asked Twitter for comment. The company has previously maintained that fake accounts represent less than five percent of users, but Paxton echoed Musk's currently unsupported concerns that fakes might represent 20 percent or more of all Twitter accounts.

The Attorney General has sued multiple tech companies over their practices, including Google (for its ad business) and Meta (over facial recognition). It's not clear yet if Paxton intends to pursue a lawsuit against Twitter as well.

A timeline of billionaire Elon Musk's bid to control Twitter


Associated Press
Mon, June 6, 2022, 7

Elon Musk threatened Monday to call off his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, accusing the company of refusing to give him information about spam bot accounts.

Here’s a look at some of what’s transpired between the billionaire Tesla CEO and the social media platform.

January 31: Musk starts buying shares of Twitter in near-daily installments, amassing a 5% stake in the company by mid-March.

March 26: Musk, who has 80 million Twitter followers and is active on the site, said that he is giving “ serious thought ” to building an alternative to Twitter, questioning free speech on the platform and whether Twitter is undermining democracy. He also privately reaches out to Twitter board members, including his friend and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.

March 27: After privately informing them of his growing stake in the company, Musk starts conversations with Twitter's CEO and board members about potentially joining the board. Musk also mentions taking Twitter private or starting a competitor, according to later regulatory filings.

April 4: A regulatory filing reveals that Musk has rapidly become the largest shareholder of Twitter after acquiring a 9% stake, or 73.5 million shares, worth about $3 billion.

April 5: Musk is offered a seat on Twitter’s board on the condition he amass no more than 14.9% of the company's stock. CEO Parag Agrawal said in a tweet that “it became clear to us that he would bring great value to our Board.”

April 11: Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announces Musk will not be joining the board after all.

April 14: Twitter reveals in a securities filing that Musk has offered to buy the company outright for about $44 billion.

April 15: Twitter’s board unanimously adopts a “poison pill” defense in response to Musk’s proposed offer, attempting to thwart a hostile takeover.

April 21: Musk lines up $46.5 billion in financing to buy Twitter. Twitter board is under pressure to negotiate.

April 25: Musk reaches a deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion and take the company private. The outspoken billionaire has said he wanted to own and privatize Twitter because he thinks it’s not living up to its potential as a platform for free speech.

April 29: Musk sells roughly $8.5 billion worth of shares in Tesla to help fund the purchase of Twitter, according to regulatory filings.

May 5: Musk strengthens his offer to buy Twitter with commitments of more than $7 billion from a diverse group of investors including Silicon Valley heavy hitters like Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.

May 10: In a hint at how he would change Twitter, Musk says he’d reverse Twitter’s ban of former President Donald Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, calling the ban a “morally bad decision” and “foolish in the extreme.”

May 13: Musk said that his plan to buy Twitter is “ temporarily on hold.” Musk said that he needs to pinpoint the number of spam and fake accounts on the social media platform. Shares of Twitter tumble, while shares of Tesla rebound sharply.

June 6: Musk threatens to end his $44 billion agreement to buy Twitter, accusing the company of refusing to give him information about its spam bot accounts.

RENT INCREASES=INFLATION

‘We’re all afraid’: Massive rent increases hit mobile homes

Park rents are doubling or tripling, as high demand, low inventory and a rise in corporate owners take a toll on one of the nation’s biggest sources of affordable housing


By Abha Bhattarai
June 6, 2022 




Sue Veal, 69, gardens at home in Rochester, N.H., on May 17. She moved to a mobile home park six years ago. She bought the mobile home for $119,000 but says lot rent has gone up from $395 a month to more than $480 since she moved in. 

(Cheryl Senter for The Washington Post)

For nearly 30 years, Virginia Rubio has lived in a trailer park in Forks, Wash., where monthly rent teeters around $350. Now it’s shooting up to $1,000.

Rubio, a retired home-care aide who lives on food stamps and $860 in Social Security each month, says there’s no way to make the math work. She owns the mobile home she shares with her partner and adult daughter but will soon have to give that up if she can’t afford to rent the plot of land underneath it.

“With an increase like this, I don’t know what we can do," said Rubio, who is 75. "We’re all afraid of losing our homes.”

Surging home prices and rents are cascading down to the country’s mobile home parks, where heightened demand, low supply and an increase in corporate owners is driving up monthly costs for low-income residents with few alternatives. At the same time, private-equity firms and developers are often circling nearby, looking to buy up such properties and turn them into more lucrative ventures, including timeshare resorts, wedding venues and condominiums.

A factory-built home as a means to affordable housing

Mobile homes have long been one of the country’s most affordable housing options, particularly for families who do not receive government aid. About 20 million Americans live in manufactured homes, which make up about 6 percent of U.S. residences, according to federal data. Some experts suggest those numbers could soon rise as more people are priced out of traditional houses and apartments.

Mobile homes prices range from less than $25,000 in Nebraska, Iowa and Ohio, to more than $125,000 in Washington state. Overall, they tend to be three to five times cheaper than traditional single-family homes, according to an analysis of census data by LendingTree.

But rising demand for affordable housing has put particular pressure on the market. Nationally, the average sales price of manufactured homes has risen nearly 50 percent during the pandemic, from $82,900 to $123,200, census data shows. Meanwhile, average new home prices rose 22 percent in that period, according to government figures.

However, less is known about how much mobile homeowners pay to rent the land under their homes. Lot rents typically rise between 4 and 6 percent a year, according to industry sources, though there is little data on exact costs or price increases. That lack of transparency is complicated by the fact few cities or states have rules governing rent increases at mobile home parks.

“Land prices are going up, housing costs are going up and that’s spilling into mobile homes,” said Casey Dawkins, a professor of urban studies and planning at the University of Maryland. “There’s also an overall shortage of affordable housing, particularly in cities and the suburbs around them.”

At the same time, park owners and operators are facing higher costs for utilities, workers and property taxes, all of which are likely being factored into higher rents for lots, according to John Pawlowski, managing director at real estate research firm Green Street Advisors.

© Provided by The Washington Post‘We’re all afraid’: Massive rent increases hit mobile homes

In many cases, residents like Rubio said they own the trailer they live in but don’t enjoy the perks of homeownership — like locked-in monthly payments, tax breaks and appreciating home values — or the flexibility or protections associated with renting. They said they often felt caught in a state of limbo: Their mobile home is their biggest investment, yet it’s useless if they can’t afford to rent the land on which it sits. Moving a mobile home — if it is new enough to be moved at all — can cost as much as $15,000, which means residents are often beholden to the parks where they live. Many municipalities also have rules governing when and how trailers can be transported.

“You have a captive audience in mobile home parks,” said Kate MacTavish, an associate professor at Oregon State University whose research focuses on affordable housing and trailer parks. “They may own their homes, but they can’t just pick up and move.”

In interviews with a dozen mobile home residents around the country, all said their rents had risen this year. Most reported increases of 10 to 25 percent, although some said monthly payments had doubled or tripled. Their options were increasingly limited, too: Many said they had bought trailers after being priced out of apartments, homes and condominiums and were now unsure of where to go next. They had used up their savings or taken on high-interest loans to buy manufactured homes with little resale value. Some were considering moving into motels, crashing with friends or living in their cars until they could find a more permanent arrangement.

Rents are rising everywhere. See how much prices are up in your area.

Christy Andrews thought she was making a sound investment when she scooped up a mobile home for $5,000 in Torrance, Calif., six years ago. But now she says it was a big mistake. Her lot rent — the monthly fee she pays for the plot of land where her trailer is parked — has nearly doubled, to $1,700, in the six years she has lived at Knolls Manor and now takes up nearly all of the $1,900 a month she receives in Social Security disability checks.

“It’s horrible,” said Andrews, 43, who left her sales job in the aerospace industry because of kidney failure. “There’s no way to keep up. Do you pay rent or get your medicine or buy gas to take your kid to school?"

The only way to move, she said, would be to give up the only home she has ever owned. Nearby rents are astronomical: Studios can easily cost $2,000 a month, and two-bedrooms are closer to $3,000. Many of her neighbors have been evicted and end up homeless, she said, and she fears she’ll soon be living in her Chevy Tahoe with her rescue dogs, Jozie and Nyah.

Bessire & Casenhiser, which manages Knolls Manor, did not respond to multiple requests for comment.

Private-equity firms including Stockbridge Capital, Carlyle Group and Apollo Global Management have been rapidly buying up mobile home parks over the last decade, often using funding from government-sponsored lenders Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. Once they take over, one of their first moves is to raise rent, said MacTavish of Oregon State.

But industry groups say those rent increases are often necessary to cover the costs of improving and maintaining property grounds, particularly when parks change hands.

“When new owners come in, they’re doing infrastructure upgrades, they’re improving the streets and adding amenities, all of which are very important as these communities age,” said Lesli Gooch, chief executive of the Manufactured Housing Institute. “When a community does change hands, often times it’s because of a significant need for improvement and a lack of capital from the existing owners to make such improvements.”

Many trailer parks dot the countryside around the Greeneville, Tenn., area. 

(Michael S. Williamson/The Washington Post)

Intensifying housing shortages during the pandemic have given park owners additional leverage to increase rents, MacTavish and others say, as rising home prices force renters out of apartments and houses. As a result, many smaller, independent park operators are also finding they can raise rents without cutting into potential demand.

A billion-dollar empire made of mobile homes

“These creditor owners will keep squeezing you and squeezing you until you run out of money,” said Barbara, 78, who lives in a mobile home near Los Angeles where monthly rents went up nearly $200, or 15 percent, as soon as an institutional investor took over last year

Like many others in the 55-and-older community, Barbara — who asked to be identified by her first name because she fears retaliation — lives on a fixed income. She retired in 2014 from a decades-long career in commercial real estate and lives on $1,700 a month in Social Security.

She sold her two-bedroom condominium two years ago and used that money to buy a $295,000 mobile home. Since then, she has spent another $30,000 turning it into her “forever dream home." But with lot rents rising, she says she isn’t sure she’ll be able to afford staying there for much longer. Many others are making similar calculations: There are already 14 mobiles for sale in her park.

“I don’t know what to do, I really don’t,” she said. “I was going to put this up for sale, but then where do I go? I used up all of my cash to buy this.”

Few municipalities and states have rules governing rent increases or evictions at mobile home parks, although that is beginning to change. Vermont, for example, requires that park owners notify residents of plans to sell and allow them a chance to buy the property. Others, like Oakland, Calif., are revising zoning laws to allow manufactured housing in more parts of town.

“Many municipalities continue to ignore mobile home parks, and that, in no small part, has to do with the stigma around them,” said MacTavish of Oregon State. “It is one of the only forms of affordable housing we have, yet we don’t embrace it in ways that would make it work much better for families.”

The circumstances surrounding mobile homeownership are yet another way the housing market has worsened long-standing inequities. While homeowners enjoyed cheaper mortgages during the pandemic, loans for buying manufactured homes often come with higher interest rates, limited opportunities to refinance and fewer protections than those for typical mortgages, according to a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau report. Mobile homeowners are also more likely to fall behind on housing payments than those who own site-built homes, the CFPB found. And because most residents own their homes but rent land, not being able to cover rent costs can often mean losing homes that they do own.

Rents are up more than 30 percent in some cities, forcing millions to find another place to live

“Almost across the board, park residents are renting the land under their homes,” said Esther Sullivan, an associate professor of sociology at the University of Colorado at Denver whose work focuses on mobile homes. “So a missed lot payment puts not only their housing at risk, but can also wipe out their accrued wealth."

In Rochester, N.H., Sue Veal, 69, bought a mobile home in a 55-and-older park for $119,000 six years ago.


Sue Veal lives in a mobile home park in Rochester, N.H., for those 55 and older. She bought the mobile home but rents the land on which it sits. 

(Cheryl Senter for The Washington Post)

Listed rents have risen steadily — 50 percent over six years — even as the park does away with services like recycling collection. But demand is on the upswing: A friend in the park recently sold their mobile home in a day, for $220,000 in cash, nearly double what they paid for it a few years ago.

“Prices are going up, but people are going to have nowhere to go,” said Veal, a retired biotech quality assurance manager who now receives about $2,000 a month in Social Security. “We’re all worried about a future where our money is going to run out.”

Linda denOuden traded in a two-bedroom apartment near Portland, Ore., for a mobile home last year thinking it would be a good way to save money after her husband died. She used money she received from his life insurance policy to buy a $70,000 unit. But her lot rent is going up nearly 10 percent to more than $1,000 a month, making it just about impossible for her to make ends meet on Social Security and a small pension.

The 68-year-old has started putting off routine doctors visits and mammograms to save money. It has been years since she went to a dentist.

“Living on a fixed income means there is no room for extra expenses,” she said. “I am one catastrophe away from losing everything I have left. It’s a never-ending worry I live with every day.”



By Abha Bhattarai is the economics correspondent for The Washington Post. She previously covered retail for the publication. Twitter

Buffalo's East Side was a food desert. 

The shooting made things worse.








Jacob Bogage
Sun, June 5, 2022

BUFFALO, N.Y. - Route 33 tears through the heart of Buffalo's East Side, a scar in a segregated city that nearly demolished a Black community.

The highway devastated the economies of Black Buffalo's commercial centers and sucked value from historic real estate, spitting grime and grease onto the windows of neighboring homes.

The East Side, where the Black population here has concentrated for more than 70 years, is hemmed in by Main Street to the west and Eggert Road to the east. Route 33 cuts a gnarly gash between the two. The effect is a community stuck in what locals describe as a cycle of poverty and neglect.

Then the East Side was attacked.

A gunman opened fire on Tops Friendly Market grocery store on Jefferson Avenue on May 14, killing 10 shoppers and employees - all of whom were Black - and injuring three more. An 18-year-old White man was charged.

A week later, an 18-year-old in Uvalde, Texas, shot dead 19 students and two teachers at an elementary school before he was killed by authorities. Over Memorial Day weekend, there were 15 more mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive, marking a bloody start to another American summer.

Buffalo, locals say, is a poignant case study of some of the worst aspects of the country's gun violence epidemic. Investigators say that the Buffalo slayings here were motivated by racist hate and that the alleged gunman purchased his weapon legally in Pennsylvania.

Locals say the attack feels like a symptom of generations of destructive policies in Buffalo. Now it has worsened another persistent problem: With its main grocery store closed, the East Side is running low on food.

"We like to call this food apartheid because the absence of these grocery stores is reflective of the range of policy choices and decisions that public and private sector leaders made," said Henry-Louis Taylor Jr., a professor of urban planning at the University at Buffalo.

"The consequences of not having this store open," said QueeNia AsheeMa'at, a local activist, "is going to be greater than we can all imagine."

"There is so much need," said Andrae Kamoche, senior pastor at Rehoboth House of Prayer, a Buffalo church. "And it didn't just start with the shooting Saturday."

"There's a quote," said Alexander Wright, who runs the African Heritage Food Co-op in Niagara Falls, "that says, 'The fork will kill you faster than the bullet.' And here in Buffalo, we're experiencing both, both the fork and bullet."

It's a struggle that reveals larger challenges for urban Black communities across the United States, still struggling with the impacts of redlining that often blocked minorities from homeownership and urban renewal projects that tore up existing neighborhoods and depressed wages and property values.

The tough economic conditions led businesses to locate in more affluent areas where consumers had more spending power, opening the door for others that experts consider "predatory." The East Side - a community of about 130,000 people - has four major grocery stores, according to a Washington Post analysis, and a couple dozen smaller stores with more limited selection.

Tops was the only major grocery store within Route 33, and one of few places on the East Side for residents to fill prescriptions - another service it supplied in a chronically underserved area. Weighted by population, Buffalo's majority-White areas have 22% more pharmacies than its majority Black areas, according to The Post's analysis of data gathered by market research firm Data Axle.

Even before the shooting, Buffalo's East Side was a "food desert," experts say, a term used to describe areas that lack convenient and affordable healthy foods, especially fresh fruits and vegetables. Finding nutritious food is so difficult, residents said, that this shock to local commerce could force thousands of households toward hunger.

Elected officials and civil rights leaders here have pledged to hold accountable not just alleged shooter Payton Gendron, but also the right-wing figures who inspired his attack, and the gunmakers and distributors and social media platforms they say enabled it.

But some locals see another accomplice, one that has bolstered Buffalo's racial division: "the 33."

"How did this guy know to come to this grocery store?" said activist David Lewis. "He researched it. He found out we all lived here. And that's because we're segregated."

—

'I live in front of a chasm'

To know Buffalo's East Side is to know its minor celebrities.

In a past life Stevo Johnson, a charter school teacher, helped style Mary J. Blige. Sirgourney Cook, the first lady of Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church, is a trained opera singer and performed backup for Jennifer Hudson.

Cariol Horne, a former police officer, stopped a White officer in 2006 from choking a Black detainee. She was fired for her actions, then beat back her dismissal in a lawsuit that was resolved in 2021.

There's a reason they all live here. The Great Migration brought Black families to Buffalo shortly after the Civil War, then again in massive numbers after World War II. They settled on the East Side, said Taylor, the urban studies professor, because that was the city's industrial hub. They worked and lived alongside mostly White European immigrants, sometimes in the same boardinghouses. There's evidence, Taylor said, that Blacks taught themselves to speak and write German to better communicate with their neighbors and co-workers.

Eyeing the postwar suburban boom in the 1950s, area political leaders planned a highway - Route 33 - connecting downtown Buffalo to a new airport built in the White suburbs. They chose to run it through the East Side because it had the lowest property values, Taylor said, a common metric urban planners use when deciding where to place major infrastructure projects without disrupting civic life.

The choice may not have been racially motivated, Taylor said, but disproportionately harmed Black Buffalonians nonetheless; Blacks were largely concentrated on the East Side because of existing financial and legal restrictions on housing. City leaders dug out part of Humboldt Parkway, a historic and scenic green strip that connected the city's park system, for the highway's route.

"It slices through all of those neighborhoods creating a path of destruction and devaluation," Taylor said.

"The tearing up of the parkway ... would not have happened if that had been in a White community," added New York State Assembly Majority Leader Crystal D. Peoples-Stokes, D, who represents the East Side.

White workers fled to the suburbs: Amherst, Williamsville, Clarence, Orchard Park. Black families faced steep obstacles to move into those areas, either because of the price of homes or discriminatory financial structures. Funding for schools followed White families out of the city. Businesses did, too. Over time, as property values fell around the highway and rose in the suburbs, it became harder for families to sell their homes and buy in more affluent areas.

By 2020, Buffalo was the 17th-most-segregated city in the country, according to data collected by researchers at the University of California at Berkeley.

"I live in front of a chasm," said Emere Nieves, a food security activist whose home borders Route 33. Weekly, she scrapes solidified scum from exhaust pipes off the windows on her oversized porch. "It was colossal what they did, and it was idiocrasy."

—

As food runs low, neighbors mobilize

The morning after the shooting, Buffalo's East Side needed to eat. At a prayer vigil, volunteers arrived with dozens of Paula's Donuts, an iconic sweet treat here. Two neighborhood safety groups, the Peacemakers and Buffalo FATHERS (Fathers Armed Together Helping to Educate, Restore, and Save), started a cookout, flipping burgers and hot dogs on a three-sided grill.

"We'll be here as long as it takes for this supermarket to reopen," said Lenny Lane, a retired firefighter and co-founder of the FATHERS, "and we don't know how long it will take. But we're not going back the way it was. It can't be just a new coat of paint."

Inside Family Dollar next door across Landon Street, the mood was more desperate. One mother looked for milk and eggs and fresh fruit with her children. Another asked a cashier if the store sold chicken or beef; it did not. Another customer asked for help identifying what food items he could buy with money from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps.

"I don't know," the cashier said. "This is not what we usually do."

Neighbors with cars - reliable public transportation is not a given here - took friends to the McDonald's less than a mile away on Main Street.

Tops set up a shuttle to take shoppers from the East Side Tops to another in North Buffalo, but the offer, locals said, was not very enticing. The shuttle ran only a few times an hour, and dropped off back at Jefferson Avenue, leaving customers to haul the groceries back home.

By Tuesday, World Central Kitchen, the food relief agency run by celebrity chef José Andrés, arrived to hand out hot meals on the corner of Jefferson Avenue and East Utica Street, a major intersection.

—

Locals work for long-term relief

Officials have promised relief, and soon. Tops spokeswoman Kathleen Sautter said in an emailed statement that the store was dedicated to resuming service on the East Side as soon as possible, but executives still don't know when that will be. Law enforcement has closed the building indefinitely to investigate the shooting.

"Our engineers and construction management team are working closely with local contractors and equipment suppliers to establish the quickest possible timeline for reopening," Sautter said. "We hope to have a clearer understanding of that timeline in the coming weeks."

But community members have already begun planning for the future. A group of neighbors is petitioning for a second Tops on the East Side.

"Somebody asked me today, what do I want to see in six months?" said the Rev. Julian Cook, the senior pastor at Macedonia Missionary. "I want to see talks of another grocery store, of another grocery option in the community, a viable grocery option. I'm not talking about putting some fruits and vegetables at a bodega."

Others are working with officials to get rid of part of the highway. The 2022 budget proposed by Gov. Kathy Hochul, D, includes $1 billion to cover a portion of Route 33 and lay green space on top of it, recreating a portion of the old Humboldt Parkway.

The project will take years to complete, and New York is competing with other states for funding as part of President Joe Biden's $1 trillion bipartisan infrastructure plan.

But tunneling the highway is only a start, community leaders say. The East Side still needs to attract businesses to the area. To do that, residents need more buying power. That requires generational wealth, Taylor said, which means affordable homeownership on property that can appreciate. Residents are already wary of gentrification.

In the meantime, community members say they'll continue working to help one another, even if government officials and private businesses don't step in.

One recent morning, Andrae and Sharifah Kamoche, husband and wife and the senior pastors of Rehoboth House of Prayer, backed a U-Haul truck into the Family Dollar parking lot and unloaded, by their math, 3,200 pounds of fresh food. A local produce wholesaler donated the items for them to distribute around the city. That afternoon, they had cucumbers, lemons, bananas, oranges and melons.

"The blessings of the Lord," Andrae said to one client, handing her a crate of 36 cucumbers. "Take a whole box."

Americans split on nuclear energy as safety worries linger - Reuters/Ipsos poll


A bird flies over the Three Mile Island Nuclear power plant in Goldsboro

Mon, June 6, 2022
By Timothy Gardner

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Just under half of Americans support nuclear power to generate electricity, a waning industry the Biden administration has been trying to revitalize with billions of dollars in public spending as part of a plan to cut U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, a new Reuters/Ipsos poll showed.

The poll, conducted last week, found 45% of Americans support nuclear power, 33% oppose it, and 22% are not sure how they feel about it. Of those supporting it, 48% cited energy reliability, 43% cited lower overall pollution, and only 39% said they favor it as a low-carbon energy source.

Of opponents, 69% cited the risk of nuclear meltdowns, while 64% worried about nuclear waste.

President Joe Biden's administration believes nuclear power, which generates power virtually free of greenhouse gas emissions, is essential to fighting climate change and boosting the reliability of the U.S. power grid.

The administration is also pushing to expand solar and wind power to help decarbonize the grid. The Reuters/Ipsos poll showed 76% of Americans back solar power, while 74% supported wind power, and 68% backed hydro-electric.

Fossil fuel power stations garnered less support with natural gas plants getting 41% and coal-fired power plants 36%.

The administration is implementing a $6 billion program, with funding from the bipartisan infrastructure bill, to save existing U.S. reactors slammed by high security and safety costs and competition from natural gas and renewable power.

The program's initial phase aimed to keep open two plants that had announced plans to shut. One of those, Entergy Corp's Palisades facility in Michigan, shut last month. It is uncertain whether the other, PG&E Corp's Diablo Canyon plant in California, which plants to fully shut in 2025, will tap the program to stay open.

Even among those who said they oppose nuclear power plants, 56% supported keeping currently operating plants open while not building new ones, the poll found.

The United States currently has more than 90 operating reactors that generate about 20% of U.S. power. The newest U.S. reactor came into service in 2016, the first in around 20 years.

A series of high-profile mishaps over the past several decades, including the Fukushima reactor meltdown in Japan in 2011, has undermined public support of the industry, while high costs for building reactors has slowed investment.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll was conducted online in English throughout the United States. It gathered responses from a total of 1,004 adults, including 431 Democrats and 355 Republicans. It has a credibility interval - a measure of precision - of 3.8 percentage points.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by David Gregorio)

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