Federal minister delays 

Baffinland decision by 

another 90 days

Tue, July 12, 2022 

A view of Baffinland Iron Mine's port at Milne Inlet in Eclipse Sound on North Baffin Island. Northern Affairs Minister Dan Vandal has asked for more time to issue his decision on whether a major expansion to Baffinland's Mary River mine should take place. (Submitted by Baffinland Iron Mines Corporation - image credit)

The minister of Northern Affairs needs more time to make a major decision on the future of iron mining on Baffin Island.

In a letter Monday to the Nunavut Impact Review Board, Dan Vandal says he'll need an extra 90 days to decide whether a major expansion of Baffinland Iron Mines should go ahead.

On May 13, after four years of intensive review, the board recommended the proposed expansion not be allowed to proceed.

Normal procedures give the federal minister 90 days to accept, vary or reject the board's recommendation. That would have meant a decision by mid-August.

The minister also has the power to notify the proponent — Baffinland — if more time is needed.

"Given the government of Canada's commitment to renewing the relationship between Canada and Indigenous peoples, the responsible ministers and I want to ensure that potentially affected Inuit have adequate time to consider the board's phase 2 report and recommendation relative to potential impacts on their rights," Vandal wrote in his letter to the board.

Time to focus on production increase

The extension will also "provide Inuit and others time to focus their efforts on the current production increase proposal renewal," Vandal wrote.

Last month, Baffinland submitted a proposal to the Nunavut Impact Review Board seeking approval to continue extracting six million tonnes of ore per year from its Mary River mine. A previous, temporary approval to increase production from 4.2 million tonnes to six million expired on Dec. 31.

In a statement to CBC News, Baffinland spokesperson Peter Akman said the company welcomes the news of the delay, as it will give more time for all groups involved to "make an informed decision."

Akman also noted a second letter that Vandal has issued to the Nunavut Impact Review Board, which asks for an expedited hearing on the company's proposed temporary production increase.

In his letter, Vandal asked that the board deliver its recommendation to him on that request by Aug. 26.

"We have been mining at 6.0 million tonnes since 2018," Akman wrote. "As we have stated previously, without this approval, Baffinland will be forced to drastically reduce our workforce in the fall."

The company has said it's preparing to lay off up to 1,328 employees starting at the end of August if the production increase is not approved.

The company has also said that phase 2 of its operations, if approved, would create about 600 new jobs for North Baffin Inuit in its first three years of operations, and an additional 1,800 jobs overall.

Inuit argued successfully to the Nunavut Impact Review Board that the environmental costs of increasing shipping in the Arctic outweighed the benefits.

Pope’s visit to Canada: Indigenous communities await a new apology — and a commitment to justice


Tiffany Dionne Prete, Assistant Professor, Sociology Department, University of Lethbridge
Tue, July 12, 2022

THE CONVERSATION

Members of the Assembly of First Nations perform in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican on March 31, 2022. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino)

Only in the past few decades have survivors of the residential school system spoken out publicly about the injustices they endured in these colonial school systems.

More recently, governments, organizations and institutions have initiated acts of reconciliation, particularly in light of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and its Calls to Action.

While there have been some apologies issued, many survivors have highly anticipated an apology from the Pope, in Canada.

Read more: Indian Residential Schools: What does it mean if the Pope apologizes in Canada?

Pope Francis will visit Canada from July 24 to 29. Many are hopeful he will issue an additional apology — one that is full of accountability and institutional responsibility, unlike the one issued at the Vatican on April 1.

Years of research

As a member of the Kainai (Blood Tribe), part of the Blackfoot Confederacy, it took years of research before I understood the connection between the strange and heavy silences I recognized as a child but could not name and the devastation caused by colonialism inflicted by the Canadian government and Christian churches through the Indian Residential School System.

Part of my research involved articulating my journey and that of my community in navigating the written records of the Roman Catholic order, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. These records contained information about our people, and we used them to identify our ancestors and to research the colonial education system on the Blood Reserve. The Oblates came to the Blood Reserve and opened a residential school, as did representatives of the Anglican Church. Representatives of Catholic, Anglican and Methodist denominations were involved in running colonial schools on the Blood Reserve.

Earlier statement made in Rome

The TRC’s Call to Action No. 58 asks the Pope to “issue an apology to survivors, their families, and communities for the Roman Catholic Church’s role in the spiritual, cultural, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse of First Nations, Inuit and Métis children in Catholic-run residential schools,” and to do so in Canada.

An apology in line with this call would help demonstrate the Roman Catholics’ responsibility in the colonial education system.

Pope Francis’s earlier apology, in April, mainly addressed the cultural abuse Indigenous Peoples suffered. He said:

“The chain that passed on knowledge and ways of life in union with the land was broken by a colonization that lacked respect for you, tore many of you from your vital milieu and tried to conform you to another mentality. In this way, great harm was done to your identity and your culture … following programs devised in offices rather than the desire to respect the life of peoples.”

A statement like this places the blame on colonization and fails to acknowledge the Catholic Church’s role in supporting these negative colonial outcomes for Indigenous Peoples.

Pope Francis also said, “I feel shame … in the abuses you suffered and in the lack of respect shown for your identity, your culture and even your spiritual values.” This is the extent to which the Pope acknowledged specific types of abuse that Indigenous children suffered at the hands of religious members.

Read more: Catholic Church response to sexual abuse must centre on survivor well-being, not defensiveness

Pope Francis did not address how Catholic-run residential schools negatively impacted generations of Indigenous Peoples through spiritual, emotional, physical and sexual abuse. Nor did he articulate any formal plan for how the Catholic Church would attempt to walk the path of reconciliation.

Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami President, Natan Obed, Inuit community member Martha Greig and bishops Richard Gagnon and William McGrattan attend a press conference in Rome on March 28, 2022. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Truth, justice, relationships

There are many of us who hope Pope Francis’s visit will bring a new and more sincere apology.

The Pope must set foot in our communities and onto our reserves. He must see the lasting impacts the Catholic Church has had. He must have conversations, build relationships and listen to the needs of First Nations, Métis and Inuit peoples. He must learn that healing and reconciliation will look different across various communities.

The Pope must make a plan with us, not for us, in order to walk the path of reconciliation.

If the Pope cannot provide a plan while he is here, due to the short visit, he can set things in motion. Indigenous Peoples need more than words. Pope Francis should commit to timelines for formal actions and plans.

These plans should include commitments for representatives of the Catholic Church with the power to make high-level decisions to work with Indigenous communities, and to fulfil all of the TRC’s Calls to Action related to the Catholic Church and to attend to any additional needs.

How to move forward

As someone who has researched colonial schooling, and who has learned from other experts and Elders in my community, I offer the following suggestions of how to move forward. This is by no means an exhaustive list:

The Catholic Church should work with Indigenous communities to determine if criminal investigations will be made into the abuses Indigenous children suffered at the hands of adults who were in charge of residential schools. Survivors have asked the Pope to acknowledge church failures in reporting abusers, and the church must hold those accountable who are still alive today.


The papal bulls (edicts) used to justify the doctrine of discovery and terra nullius must be revoked.

Catholic records pertaining to the 1870-1990s colonial school systems must be released and copies given to relevant Indigenous communities.

In response to requests from survivors, Pope Francis must recognize that many students were buried in unmarked graves and a plan should be shared to aid Indigenous Peoples while they uncover unmarked graves.

Read more: Indigenous lawyer: Investigate discovery of 215 children's graves in Kamloops as a crime against humanity

Indigenous artifacts at the Vatican must be investigated to determine authorship, and dialogue must happen with the appropriate communities on the fate of the artifacts.


The Catholic Church must live up to the original Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement.

A new apology from the Pope must be issued on Canadian soil.

As Pope Francis declared in his April statement, “Whenever memory and identity are cherished and protected, we become more human.”

Let us see how the Pope will cherish and protect the memory and identity of Indigenous Peoples by engaging in truth and justice. Such actions will help the world see we are human beings, which colonization and the colonial education system stole from us.

If you are an Indian Residential School survivor, or have been affected by the residential school system and need help, you can contact the 24-hour Indian Residential Schools Crisis Line: 1-866-925-4419.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Tiffany Dionne Prete, University of Lethbridge.

Read more:

Indian Residential School tragic discoveries see calls for action, but words can make a difference too

Pope Francis’s apology for residential schools doesn’t acknowledge institutional responsibility

Tiffany Dionne Prete received funding from SSHRC, the National Indian Brotherhood Trust Fund, Community University Research Alliance and Networked Environment of Aboriginal Health Research. She currently receives funding from the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.

Canada’s reckoning with colonialism and education must include Indian Day Schools


Sean Carleton, Assistant Professor, 

Departments of History and Indigenous Studies, University of Manitoba

 

Jackson Pind, Assistant Professor, Indigenous Methodologies, Trent University

Tue, July 12, 2022 

A woman who attended an Indian Day School joins her daughter as they look at the Orange shirts, shoes, flowers and messages on display outside the B.C. legislature in June 2021. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chad Hipolito

Sparked by the locating of hundreds of possible unmarked graves at former Indian Residential Schools across the country, there has been a public reckoning with the ongoing legacies of the residential school system.

Many Canadians are finally coming to terms with the truth that the Canadian government, in co-operation with Christian churches, ran a genocidal school system intended to “kill the Indian in the child” for more than a century.

What most people don’t realize, however, is that Canada’s system of “Indian education” was not limited to residential schools. It also included a vast network of nearly 700 federally funded and church-run Indian Day Schools, which were attended by an estimated 200,000 Indigenous people between 1870 and 2000.

Despite making up a large part of Canada’s system of Indian education, day schools were excluded from the Indian Residential Schools Settlement Agreement. A different class action for day schools closes on July 13, 2022, and so far over 150,000 people have been included.

In recognition of the brave Survivors who have been fighting for justice and sharing their stories, we argue that Canada’s reckoning with colonialism and education must also include Indian Day Schools. If Canada is serious about putting truth before reconciliation, then the history and ongoing legacies of all kinds of colonial schooling need to be acknowledged and addressed.

The history

Day school and residential school systems need to be understood as interrelated and overlapping parts of Canada’s assimilationist education project.

In the mid-to-late 1700s and early 1800s, Christian missionaries started schools for Indigenous people — most without financial support from government — in an effort to gain converts and control.

By the 1870s, the federal government had officially partnered with churches and offered to pay more for schooling as a way of gaining greater influence and authority over Indigenous Peoples.

Each dot represents the location of a day school. (indiandayschools.org)

The new system of Indian education, overseen by the Department of Indian Affairs, had two distinct prongs: day schools, which were often located on reserves where children could return home at the end of the day, and boarding or “residential” schools, where children resided at schools far away from their communities — sometimes children attended both, at different times, during their school years.

The two kinds of schools shared the same goal: to solve the so-called “Indian problem” by undercutting and delegitimizing Indigenous ways of life to better facilitate settler capitalism and Canadian nation-building.

The day school system lasted until 2000 with the Anglican, Roman Catholic, Presbyterian, Methodist and, later, United churches overseeing daily operations of the schools in various parts of the country.

Like at Indian Residential Schools, news stories have also reported deaths, experiments and abuse at day schools that have had lasting impacts.
The reckoning

For more than a decade, day school Survivors have been fighting for truth and justice. Since the settlement was reached in 2019, both of the original settlements’ founders Garry Mclean and Raymond Mason, have passed away.

The Mclean Day School Settlement Corporation was established with a $200 million legacy fund that emerged from the settlement with the federal government and is intended to support “language & culture, healing & wellness, commemoration and truth telling.” The settlement process has had mixed results so far.

Journalist Ka’nhehsí:io Deer found that Survivors have been revictimized by the process and that 85 per cent of the claims that were settled occurred at Level 1 (the lowest amount available, $10,000).

While over 150,000 survivors submitted an application, others repeatedly asked for more time to tell their stories.

Children at Indian Day School in Trout Lake, Ont. 

(Department of Indian and Northern Affairs/Library and Archives Canada, C-068924), CC BY

The recent federal budget saw the government earmark $25 million between 2023 and 2025 for Library and Archives of Canada to “support the digitization of millions of documents relating to the federal Indian Day School System, which will ensure survivors and all Canadians have meaningful access to them.”

This funding is important, but it will come too late to help Survivors with the class action.

Digitization efforts are important because they can generate more awareness and education about the day school system. This is significant because, unlike the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), there will be no national inquiry or final report.

Read more: National Day for Truth & Reconciliation: Universities and schools must acknowledge how colonial education has reproduced anti-Indigenous racism

Murray Sinclair, chair of the TRC, often says that education got us into this mess so education must get us out.

As part of this process then, people must learn more about the history and legacies of residential schools and day schools (and public schools too) and understand their relationship to Canada’s colonial project.

We encourage readers to check out www.indiandayschools.org to find the Indian Day School closest to them and read more about this history.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Sean Carleton, University of Manitoba and Jackson Pind, Trent University.

Read more:

Teaching truth and reconciliation in Canada: The perfect place to begin is right where a teacher stands


National Day for Truth & Reconciliation: Universities and schools must acknowledge how colonial education has reproduced anti-Indigenous racism

Sean Carleton receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Jackson Pind received funding from the Social Sciences Humanities Research Council of Canada and currently receives funding from National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation.

Senate report says government must implement rights-based Indigenous fisheries

Tue, July 12, 2022 

OTTAWA — A new report from the Senate is calling on the federal government to implement Mi’kmaq, Wolastoqiyik and Peskotomuhkati rights-based fisheries on Canada's East Coast and overhaul its approach to negotiations.

One of the report’s 10 recommendations is that discussions with First Nations be immediately transferred to Crown-Indigenous Relations from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans, which is something Indigenous communities have been calling for.

The Senate's fisheries and oceans committee was asked to study the issue in February in response to violence that first erupted in southwest Nova Scotia in September 2020.

At the time, fishers from Sipekne'katik First Nation began hauling lobster outside of DFO's regulated commercial fishing season, claiming they had a treaty right to fish that was affirmed by the Supreme Court's Marshall Decision in 1999.

Local commercial fishers responded with anger, and the report says the public perception of what happened — including that of commercial fishers — was shaped by misinformation and contradictions that at times came from government.

The Senate says future work should be based on "true collaboration and a shared decision-making framework."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 12, 2022.

The Canadian Press

AFN executive will lobby feds on UNDRIP resolutions left unaddressed at AGA

Tight deadlines and lack of sufficient funding to develop a national action plan to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples should lead to an extension of the two-year timeframe set out in legislation, says Terry Teegee, regional chief for the Assembly of First Nations British Columbia.

“In the end with an action plan, there’s a lot of give and take between the two parties. If it requires more time, I don’t see why they wouldn’t want to give it more time. Unless they agree to everything we say, which is highly unlikely,” said Teegee, who holds the UNDRIP portfolio for the AFN.

However, when Justice Minister and Attorney General David Lametti gave his presentation to chiefs-in-assembly on the final day of the AFN’s annual general assembly July 7, it wasn’t to offer an extension.

“As you know, there was a legislative requirement put in the act to give it a two-year time frame to complete the action plan by 2023. So there’s a lot of work ahead of us over the next year,” said Lametti.

Teegee spoke to Windspeaker.com on July 12 to address the situation that faced chiefs last week when three resolutions concerning UNDRIP and the national action plan didn’t make it to the assembly floor because of lack of time.

In fact, Teegee himself didn’t make it to a special session to speak with chiefs about moving forward on UNDRIP scheduled for the day before the formal start of the AGA. Instead, Teegee, like all other regional chiefs, were meeting to discuss the future of National Chief RoseAnne Archibald, who had been purportedly suspended by the AFN executive committee on June 17 for allegedly breaching confidentiality in respect to a workplace bullying investigation against her.

Teegee says that missing that meeting with chiefs and not having the resolutions voted on by chiefs doesn’t mean chiefs’ concerns are not being addressed.

With only five of 48 resolutions dealt with during the three-day AGA, Teegee says the three UNDRIP and national action plan resolutions will be part of the “40-plus resolutions (that) will be brought forward to the executive for approval and we’ll move from there.”

Draft resolution 25 Call for Full First Nations Participation in Implementation of the UN Declaration directs the AFN to “immediately and on an ongoing basis advocate for a meaningful and fully resourced co-development process with the rights holders …”

Funding has been an issue, says Teegee.

The federal government’s first annual report on the progress of the implementation of UNDRIP, released this past June, indicates that 147 proposals of 208 applications were approved for funding.

This funding, Lametti told chiefs, is to “support you in developing your priorities for inclusion in the action plan.”

Budget 2021 allocated $26.3 million to support “Indigenous-led” consultations.

However, the AFN released figures indicating the federal government had received applications asking for more than $98 million.

Teegee says the AFN wants to see the federal government ante-up immediately with the UNDRIP funds promised in the 2022 budget. Those funds total $89 million over five years and are split into three categories: general UNDRIP implementation, the Justice department, and the National Defense department.

“If we want an action plan sooner than later that’s what we require, is more resources,” said Teegee.

Draft resolution 26 First Nations Priorities to Guide the Crown’s Implementation of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples called for the AFN “to establish an ad-hoc National Expert Panel on the United Nation Declaration on Indigenous Peoples Act National Action Plan to support research and analysis for First Nations interested in contributing to the National Action Plan creation and implementation over the next two years.”

Draft resolution 27 deals with First Nations Self-Determination over Citizenship to “affirm and assert First Nations’ inherent right to exercise jurisdiction over citizenship.”

Teegee says the AFN will lobby Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other ministers to assure more resources are brought forward.

Teegee also points to the situation in British Columbia, the only province to have UNDRIP legislation.

“We wanted an action plan here in BC the first year, but it didn’t occur until the second year. I think we all have the aspiration to have a national action plan in the tight timeline but always know that things do happen, timelines can be extended,” he said.

Teegee also noted that he raised UNDRIP at the Council of Federation meeting with premiers on July 11 in Victoria. Also in attendance were leaders for the Métis National Council, Congress of Aboriginal Peoples, and the Native Women’s Association of Canada.

“I met with them and I implored other regions and provinces to start working on adopting in their region UNDRIP like we did in British Columbia. Moreover, it’s going to contribute to the national action plan. We’ll have a number of various perspectives on the national action plan,” he said.

Windspeaker.com

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

Calgary Starbucks location becomes 1st to unionize in Alberta

Tue, July 12, 2022

A file photo of a Starbucks store. Workers at a Calgary Starbucks location in the southwest community of Millrise have voted to unionize. (Eric Risberg/The Associated Press - image credit)

A Starbucks store in southwest Calgary has voted to unionize, becoming the first in Alberta to do so.

A majority of the 32 workers at the Starbucks located at 150 Millrise Boulevard S.W. participated in a mail-in ballot and will join the United Steelworkers (USW) union.

"We are proud to welcome workers from the first unionized Starbucks store in Alberta to our growing union family," said Scott Lunny, USW director for Western Canada, in a release.

Starbucks is facing a wave of union drives. As of late June, half a dozen stores in Alberta were part of that effort.

A Starbucks Canada spokesperson told CBC News that the company respects its employees right to organize.

"From the beginning, we've been clear in our belief that we are better together as partners, without a union between us at Starbucks, and that conviction has not changed," the statement said.

"We will respect the process and will bargain in good faith guided by our principles. We hope that the union does the same."

The USW already represents Starbucks workers in Victoria, Surrey and Langley in British Columbia.

Here's what the 2021 census says about how many Canadians received COVID benefits

OTTAWA — New data released Wednesday provides the clearest snapshot yet of how many Canadians accessed the COVID-19 support programs the government hastily rolled out at the beginning of the pandemic.



Statistics Canada unveiled the information as part of its rollout of findings from the national census taken in May 2021.

More than 20.7 million people received at least some financial support from the government, including 16.9 million who received top-ups from existing programs.

In total, 8.4 million received benefits specifically designed to respond to COVID-19, the agency reported.

Within that category, here's the breakdown of who got what.

Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB)

Who it was for: Workers who stopped working or whose work hours were reduced due to COVID-19, and who had made at least $5,000 in income during 2019.

What they got: $2,000 for each four-week period, for a maximum of 16 weeks.

How long it was available: March 15 until Sept. 26, 2020

How many people received it: 7,621,950

Canada Recovery Benefit (CRB)

Who it was for: Workers who, for a two-week period, were not able to work or had a 50 per cent reduction in their earnings due to COVID-19, and who were not entitled to employment insurance benefits.

What they got: $1,000 or $600 for a two-week period, depending on when they applied.

How long it was available: Sept. 27, 2020 to Oct. 23, 2021

How many people received it before the census was taken: 1,150,575

Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit (CRSB)

Who it was for: Employed or self-employed people who were sick or needed to self-isolate due to COVID-19, or had an underlying health condition that put them at greater risk of catching it.

What they got: $500 for each one-week period, for up to six weeks.

How long it was available: Sept. 27, 2020 to May 7, 2022

How many people received it before the census was taken: 231,456

Canada Recovery Caregiving Benefit (CRCB)

Who it was for: People who were unable to work because they needed to care for a child under 12 or a family member who needed supervised care — either because schools, programs or facilities were closed, or because they were sick, self-isolating or at risk of serious health issues because of COVID-19.

What they got: $500 for each one-week period, for up to 44 weeks.

How long it was available: Sept. 27, 2020 to May 7, 2022

How many people received it before the census was taken: 197,335

Canada Emergency Student Benefit (CESB)

Who it was for: Post-secondary students and recent post-secondary or high school graduates unable to find work due to COVID-19.

What they got: $1,250 for each four-week period, for a maximum of 16 weeks, plus an additional $750 for each four-week period if they had a disability or dependants.

How long it was available: May 10 to Aug. 29, 2020

How many people received it: 732,005

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 13, 2022.

The Canadian Press

Opinion: An obituary for the University of Alberta Ring Houses

Connor Thompson , Sarah Carter - Yesterday

Following a year-long and courageous battle with the University of Alberta administration against their demolition and removal, the four Ring Houses have passed away. We are to be comforted by the fact that their walls will be kept and these skeletons articulated and on display as at a charnel house at some unknown location and time. But this is cold comfort; the buildings are no longer alive. These sentinels of the university’s history will be gone, and their bones placed in storage. Their once-vibrant grounds are derelict, evidence of the slow death by neglect to which the university administration has condemned them.


© Provided by Edmonton Journal

Ring House 4 at the University of Alberta, in Edmonton Monday Feb. 8, 2021.

The houses lived long and illustrious lives with many accomplished inhabitants and organizations that helped shape the university we have today. They could have continued to live on but were diagnosed with being too expensive to maintain, of no use to faculty and students, and in too deteriorated a state to save. Despite a team of specialists who disagreed with this diagnosis, and the loving support of over 2,600 citizens who lent voice to their cause, they have been allowed to die. All of these mourners believed there were new ways to breathe life into these houses in situ.

The eldest and most venerable of the four sibling residences was Ring House 1, built in 1911. It was home of the founder of the U of A, Henry Marshall Tory, and four subsequent presidents. This was the oldest presidential residence on a Canadian campus. Yet, this was not enough to save it; it was treated as purposeless and valueless scrap by administration.

Ring House 2 also had a venerable history beginning with the U of A’s first engineering professor Muir Edwards and family. He died in the Influenza epidemic in 1918 while volunteering to help the afflicted. Later residents included the Van Vliet family for many years. Maury Van Vliet was the former head of the physical education department, and an Order of Canada recipient.

Ring House 3 was occupied by a cast of interesting and influential characters, including the dean of arts in the 1940s, as well as the first kindergarten in Alberta (the Child Study Centre, run by the Faculty of Education from 1969 to 2010).

Ring House 4 was home to the first dean of law, John Alexander Weir, in the 1930s and was long the home of artist Henry G. Glyde, who was a multi-decade leader in the painting division at the Banff Centre of Fine Arts. The U of A Press, art museum, UAlberta North, and the Canadian Encyclopedia were also residents of the Ring Houses.

As the current U of A Administration pursues its goal of “building on our history” (in the words of President Bill Flanagan), the void where the houses once were will be converted to green space while administration “considers future development.”

Ring Houses 1, 2, 3, and 4, were beloved by many who learned about the vibrant and complex past of the university through their presence on campus. As historian Ellen Schoeck has put it, they contain the very DNA of the U of A. Among the chief mourners are the thousands of people — U of A students, faculty, alumni, donors, and staff, but also concerned Edmontonians, Albertans, and Canadians — who lent voice to their cause. Also mourning their loss are members of the Ring House Coalition, who fought for over a year to keep these brick-and-mortar teachers on campus.

Despite their honoured status as great-grandparents of the U of A landscape, they died long before their time.

Connor Thompson and Sarah Carter on behalf of the Ring House Coalition.

J.D. Irving's efforts to demolish Saint John heritage building one step closer to reality

Tue, July 12, 2022 

The five unit apartment house owned by J.D. Irving dates from 1941. A 2016 application to demolish it was rejected by Saint John's Heritage Review Board. (Hadeel Ibrahim/CBC - image credit)

In a marathon session, Saint John City Council tentatively agreed to allow three J.D. Irving properties to be removed from a heritage designation.

The controversial properties at 111-119 King Street East include two vacant lots and a large, dilapidated post-war home.

J.D. Irving purchased the properties in the mid-1990s, and they are adjacent to the company's Saint John headquarters.

The company has been seeking the change since 2016, and wants to demolish the building, which has been vacant, unheated and boarded up for six years.

Hadeel Ibrahim/CBC

The company has argued the building, known as the Brown House, does not fit into the streetscape with neighbouring buildings, mostly built in an earlier period, and therefore isn't historically significant.

But, the Heritage Preservation Board did not agree with the argument and refused to make the changes.

In the meantime, the building continued to degrade, and in early 2020, Mayor Donna Reardon, who was then a city councillor, questioned the company's motives.

"My concern is that neglect is happening there." Reardon said.

"The building will be lost over time. It looks like there's absolutely no intention of trying to save it or salvage it or do anything with it."

The public hearing on Monday night was to consider a proposal by the company to turn the site of the building into a playpark in exchange for the removal of the heritage designations on all three properties.

City of Saint John

J.D. Irving would agree to maintain the park for 20 years.

When asked why the company has no interest in selling the property. Irving spokesperson Douglas Dean said it was considered important because of its proximity to its headquarters and the company did not want to lose control of the land.

Public opposition voiced

There were many people who opposed the project at Monday night's council meeting.

Greg Patterson, a resident landlord, told council he pushed the idea of a heritage area on King Street East starting in 1998, until it became a reality.

"Seven buildings specifically were torn down in King Street East in six years. So we designated the streetscape in 2005." Patterson said.

"Since that time, there were no demolitions on King Street East. There's been hundreds of thousands of dollars of historic restorations done to properties in my neighbourhood."

JD Irving

Patterson said, if J.D.Irving wants to build a park, the company could do it on the vacant lot it owns next door and fix the building instead.

"So let's do both. Let them keep the property for the restoration and repurpose. Let them build the park," he said.

John Fraser owns property on nearby Princess Street.

He told council he had spoken in favour of the removal of a heritage designation on two different properties, including his own, and was turned down.

Both of those applicants involved people who restored buildings, people who maintained buildings, people who paid for the electricity, people who kept the heat on, people who housed people who work in the city and pay taxes in the city." Fraser said.

"And now there's a building that someone, because of their own choices has neglected, has become more derelict than it previously was. And they're asking to be let out under special circumstances. To me that is wrong."

The Heritage Preservation Review Board also opposed the project..

Jennifer Brown of Dillon Consulting spoke on behalf of J.D. Irving. Her company was asked to inspect the building.

She said the engineers report deemed the cost of restoration was not feasible, stating the rear section of the building was structurally unsound and the front section, while in somewhat better shape, would have to be stripped to bare timbers to remove mold damage and hazardous materials.

There were others who spoke in favour of the idea, including real estate agent Bob McVicar and historian Harold Wright.

Many councillors expressed concerns and said they could not support the plan.

Coun. David Hickey pointed to a clause in the contract which would allow J.D. Irving to stop maintaining the park if vandalism becomes a big issue.

JD Irving

Council asked staff to take a second look at whether that should remain.

Coun. Paula Radwan said she couldn't support the plan and expressed disappointment at J.D. Irving's handling of the issue.

"You buy a building, you own it, you look after it. If you can't, sell it to somebody who will," she said.

Coun. Joanna Killen, Coun. Greg Norton and Hickey also voted no.

But the slim majority voted in favour.

Coun. Gary Sullivan seemed to sum up what many of the others on that side were thinking.

"We have no power to compel them to do anything with the building except what they are doing with the building right now," he said.

"It's currently a horrible eyesore in a prominent location uptown. Do I as a councillor want to have it sitting there as a dilapidated eyesore for the next X number of years?"

The proposal still has to pass third reading.

Legal expert, Jewish group say Quebec judge should recognize Nazism led to Holocaust


MONTREAL — Prominent Jewish group B’nai Brith Canada and a legal expert are questioning a Quebec judge’s claim that it is not a widely accepted fact that Nazi ideology led to the murder of Jews.



The link between Nazism and the Holocaust is so well-known that prosecutors don’t need to establish that fact in a courtroom, they say, in response to an unusual drama that played out in a Montreal courtroom last week.

"Any reasonable person would take as an undisputable fact that Nazi ideology led to the Holocaust," Lisa Dufraimont, a professor at York University's Osgoode Hall Law School, said in an interview Tuesday. "Entertaining arguments to the contrary is a kind of hairsplitting that goes beyond what is reasonable, it seems to me."

Dufraimont's comments were in reaction to the latest developments in a trial involving a Montreal man accused of wilfully promoting hatred against Jews. Gabriel Sohier Chaput, 35, was charged in connection with an article he has admitted to writing that was published in 2017 on the neo-Nazi website Daily Stormer.

The blog post included racist images and comments about Jews throughout, and the website displayed photos of Hitler and other images associated with Nazism. The accused testified during the trial that the Daily Stormer was a "parody site.''

During the prosecution's final arguments on Friday, Quebec court Judge Manlio Del Negro admonished the Crown for not submitting evidence, such as expert testimony, that Nazi ideology led to the Holocaust — the genocide of European Jews during the Second World War.

Prosecutor Patrick Lafrenière said he expected that the link between Nazism and the Holocaust would be accepted by the judge as judicial notice — a rule that evidence presented in court is not in dispute.

That link, however, was indeed disputed by Sohier Chaput's defence lawyer, Hélène Poussard, who told the court that while the Nazis did kill millions of Jews, the Nazis' murderous antisemitism was not ideological.


Dufraimont said it's appropriate for judges to take judicial notice of facts that are generally accepted and not debated by reasonable people, as well as facts that easily verifiable.

While the Nazi ideology includes other elements, such as totalitarian government, Dufraimont said it's widely understood that Nazism is "centrally about racial superiority of Germanic people and racial inferiority of others, especially Jewish people. That's what the ideology is and I don't think any reasonable person could really deny that .… It falls into the category of a notorious or well-known fact … that's not the subject of debate among reasonable persons."

On Monday, B’nai Brith Canada called for the federal government and provincial governments to ensure that judges have training on the Holocaust and antisemitism.

“Every Canadian should be appalled,” Sam Goldstein, B’nai Brith’s director of legal services, said in a news release. “We don’t expect Holocaust denial and distortion from our courts. The prosecutor does not need to establish that the Holocaust happened. No expert witness is needed. The Jewish community is outraged.”

Dufraimont said the issue of judicial notice has come up in other cases involving allegations of hate speech. In 2005, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that a judge should have taken judicial notice in a case involving four Ontario men and two youths accused of wilful promotion of hatred toward Roma people during a protest.

The defence argued successfully during the trial that the men had promoted hatred toward "Gypsies" but that the Crown didn't prove that the term — which is considered derogatory — refers to Roma people.

The Supreme Court disagreed with the trial judge, ruling that the judge should have known "the fact that the Roma people had been persecuted by the Nazis while a Nazi theme was apparent at the demonstration …. As well, the trial judge should have taken judicial notice of dictionary definitions showing that 'Gypsy' can refer to 'Roma.'"

In 1987, the Ontario Court of Appeal found that a trial court judge properly exercised his "discretion in refusing to take judicial notice of the existence of the Holocaust" during Holocaust denier Ernst Zündel's first trial for spreading false news.

During a second trial in 1988 on the same charge, the judge did take judicial notice of "the mass murder and extermination of Jews in Europe by the Nazi regime during the Second World War" though not of specific details of the Holocaust. The Supreme Court ultimately ruled that the section of the Criminal Code under which Zündel was charged was unconstitutional.

Dufraimont said that one of the reasons that arguments about judicial notice arise in hate speech trials is because the courts want to ensure that everyone accused of a crime has the opportunity to defend themselves, adding that part of that defence, for example, might be questioning the hatefulness of the Nazis.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 13, 2022.

Jacob Serebrin, The Canadian Press

New Brunswick Mi’kmaq chiefs join court challenge to N.L.'s Bay du Nord oil project

Tue, July 12, 2022 

EEL GROUND, N.B. — An organization representing eight Mi’kmaq groups in New Brunswick is joining a court challenge to the federal government's approval of a new offshore oil project in Newfoundland.

Mi’gmawe’l Tplu’tagnn Inc. says a single spill from the Bay du Nord offshore oil development could harm Atlantic salmon.

The group says Ottawa did not fulfil its duty to meaningfully consult with Indigenous communities about the proposed project led by Norway-based Equinor.

The federal government gave Bay du Nord regulatory approval in April, and the project would be located about 500 kilometres northeast of St. John's if Equinor decides to go ahead.

Environmental law group Ecojustice filed an application on May 6 in Federal Court for a judicial review of Ottawa's approval of Bay du Nord's environmental assessment.

The group says Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault didn't consider the greenhouse gas emissions that would be released when the development's estimated 500 million barrels of recoverable oil are burned as fuel.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 12, 2022.

The Canadian Press