Benin: Artists bring voodoo culture back to life
A project in Benin lays bare the mysteries of voodoo culture.
Tuesday, August 02, 2022
Bike-loving Rutte rides to record term as Dutch PM
Tue, August 2, 2022
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte set a new record for time in the saddle on Tuesday, becoming the Netherlands' longest-serving leader with 4,311 days in power.
Rutte, who is famed for riding his trusty bike to work, surpassed the previous mark set by Ruud Lubbers who was prime minister from 1982 to 1994.
The leader of the centre-right VVD party -- dubbed "Teflon Mark" because of the number of scandals that have failed to stick to him -- took office in October 2010.
"I feel like I'm nearly halfway through," Rutte, 55, joked during a press conference last month when he was asked about the 11-year-and-nine-month milestone.
"It's the best job in the world."
The lanky leader was keeping a low profile on Tuesday as he passed Lubbers' previous record, making no official comment.
Rutte is also the second longest-serving European Union leader behind Hungary's Viktor Orban -- with whom he has repeatedly clashed on social and economic issues.
Last month Rutte said he was still motivated to carry on, adding that "the number of puzzles now on the desk is quite large", including inflation and the war in Ukraine.
But an opinion poll carried out for the Dutch public broadcaster recently said that eight out of 10 people believed he had "passed his sell-by date".
At home, Rutte has cultivated an image as a low-key leader who is single, cycles to meetings with foreign leaders, and until recently used an old Nokia mobile phone.
His backroom political skills have seen him navigate his way to the top of four successive coalition governments -- but he has had several close escapes.
His previous government was forced to resign en masse in 2021 over a child benefits scandal, while he narrowly survived a no confidence vote later that year.
Rutte's main challenge now comes from angry protests by road-blocking farmers who oppose government climate plans that could force some farm closures.
In Europe, he has also talked up his reputation as a leader of a group of frugal, northern nations that want to limit public spending.
That earned him the nickname "Mr No" for his opposition to bailout plans for southern states hit hard by the Covid pandemic.
Rutte's predecessor as longest-serving Dutch PM, Lubbers, had a similarly sober and pragmatic style, Dutch commentators said.
Lubbers went on to become the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and died in 2018 aged 78.
jcp/dk/ach
Tue, August 2, 2022
Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte set a new record for time in the saddle on Tuesday, becoming the Netherlands' longest-serving leader with 4,311 days in power.
Rutte, who is famed for riding his trusty bike to work, surpassed the previous mark set by Ruud Lubbers who was prime minister from 1982 to 1994.
The leader of the centre-right VVD party -- dubbed "Teflon Mark" because of the number of scandals that have failed to stick to him -- took office in October 2010.
"I feel like I'm nearly halfway through," Rutte, 55, joked during a press conference last month when he was asked about the 11-year-and-nine-month milestone.
"It's the best job in the world."
The lanky leader was keeping a low profile on Tuesday as he passed Lubbers' previous record, making no official comment.
Rutte is also the second longest-serving European Union leader behind Hungary's Viktor Orban -- with whom he has repeatedly clashed on social and economic issues.
Last month Rutte said he was still motivated to carry on, adding that "the number of puzzles now on the desk is quite large", including inflation and the war in Ukraine.
But an opinion poll carried out for the Dutch public broadcaster recently said that eight out of 10 people believed he had "passed his sell-by date".
At home, Rutte has cultivated an image as a low-key leader who is single, cycles to meetings with foreign leaders, and until recently used an old Nokia mobile phone.
His backroom political skills have seen him navigate his way to the top of four successive coalition governments -- but he has had several close escapes.
His previous government was forced to resign en masse in 2021 over a child benefits scandal, while he narrowly survived a no confidence vote later that year.
Rutte's main challenge now comes from angry protests by road-blocking farmers who oppose government climate plans that could force some farm closures.
In Europe, he has also talked up his reputation as a leader of a group of frugal, northern nations that want to limit public spending.
That earned him the nickname "Mr No" for his opposition to bailout plans for southern states hit hard by the Covid pandemic.
Rutte's predecessor as longest-serving Dutch PM, Lubbers, had a similarly sober and pragmatic style, Dutch commentators said.
Lubbers went on to become the UN High Commissioner for Refugees and died in 2018 aged 78.
jcp/dk/ach
NEWFOUNDLAND
Reinventing the Beothuk narrative: how genetics has raised thorny issues of history, culture and Indigenous identity
Re-examining relationship with Mi’kmaq peoples
Peter Jackson · Local Journalism Initiative Reporter | Posted: a day ago | Updated: a day ago | 8 Min Read
War of words
When Aylward’s documentary first aired on NTV in 2021, it created a stir and evoked some criticism.
Ingeborg Marshall, whose 1996 tome “A History and Ethnography of the Beothuk” has been generally accepted as the most authoritative exploration of the tribe, publicly took issue with its premise that Beothuk people still live among us.
“Despite the extensive claims of possible survival of Beothuk genetic material into modern times, the lesson which the documentary failed to present is the fact that the Beothuk culture is extinct and therefore the Beothuk, as an independent ‘ethnic group,’ are considered to have died out,” she wrote in a letter to The Telegram.
Reinventing the Beothuk narrative: how genetics has raised thorny issues of history, culture and Indigenous identity
Re-examining relationship with Mi’kmaq peoples
Peter Jackson · Local Journalism Initiative Reporter | Posted: a day ago | Updated: a day ago | 8 Min Read
Gerald Squires’ statue "The Spirit of the Beothuk" stands among the trees overlooking the place where the Beothuks lived hundreds of years ago in Boyd’s Cove, - Contributed
One hundred years ago, American anthropologist Frank Speck wrote about his encounter with a Mi’kmaq family who had set up camp near Gloucester, Mass.
Joe Toney, there with his wife, child and mother, told Speck they were originally from Newfoundland. Then he said his late father, Kop, had been a member of the Osa'yan'a tribe at Red Pond. Speck realized it was the Mi’kmaq term for Beothuk, and that Red Pond was Red Indian Lake (since renamed Beothuk Lake).
The American spoke to Joe’s mother, Santu, at length while Joe translated. She said her husband remembered being stained with red ochre as a child, but that the Mi’kmaw had taken him while he was young and converted him to Christianity. She even sang a song, though it's authenticity is uncertain.
When Speck brought the story to geologist James P. Howley — who, at the time, was the foremost authority on the Beothuk — the latter expressed doubts.
“Notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Howley's opinions, based on his extensive knowledge of Newfoundland history and physiography, deserve serious consideration,” Soeck wrote in his 1922 book “Beothuk and Micmac,” “I hardly think, under the circumstances, that the conclusions of one trained in sciences other than ethnology are sufficient to warrant absolutely casting aside information which may be of value, and which on the face of it does bear some semblance of truthfulness.”
Speck was likely the first scholar to document the possibility of Beothuk blood still coursing through the veins of living descendants.
Almost 100 years later, Ryerson film professor Chris Aylward raised the bar again with his hour-long documentary “The Beothuk Story,” which included interviews with Ivy Toney and Ardy Landry, Santu’s granddaughter and great-granddaughter living in Nova Scotia.
Landry has since died.
One hundred years ago, American anthropologist Frank Speck wrote about his encounter with a Mi’kmaq family who had set up camp near Gloucester, Mass.
Joe Toney, there with his wife, child and mother, told Speck they were originally from Newfoundland. Then he said his late father, Kop, had been a member of the Osa'yan'a tribe at Red Pond. Speck realized it was the Mi’kmaq term for Beothuk, and that Red Pond was Red Indian Lake (since renamed Beothuk Lake).
The American spoke to Joe’s mother, Santu, at length while Joe translated. She said her husband remembered being stained with red ochre as a child, but that the Mi’kmaw had taken him while he was young and converted him to Christianity. She even sang a song, though it's authenticity is uncertain.
When Speck brought the story to geologist James P. Howley — who, at the time, was the foremost authority on the Beothuk — the latter expressed doubts.
“Notwithstanding the fact that Mr. Howley's opinions, based on his extensive knowledge of Newfoundland history and physiography, deserve serious consideration,” Soeck wrote in his 1922 book “Beothuk and Micmac,” “I hardly think, under the circumstances, that the conclusions of one trained in sciences other than ethnology are sufficient to warrant absolutely casting aside information which may be of value, and which on the face of it does bear some semblance of truthfulness.”
Speck was likely the first scholar to document the possibility of Beothuk blood still coursing through the veins of living descendants.
Almost 100 years later, Ryerson film professor Chris Aylward raised the bar again with his hour-long documentary “The Beothuk Story,” which included interviews with Ivy Toney and Ardy Landry, Santu’s granddaughter and great-granddaughter living in Nova Scotia.
Landry has since died.
War of words
When Aylward’s documentary first aired on NTV in 2021, it created a stir and evoked some criticism.
Ingeborg Marshall, whose 1996 tome “A History and Ethnography of the Beothuk” has been generally accepted as the most authoritative exploration of the tribe, publicly took issue with its premise that Beothuk people still live among us.
“Despite the extensive claims of possible survival of Beothuk genetic material into modern times, the lesson which the documentary failed to present is the fact that the Beothuk culture is extinct and therefore the Beothuk, as an independent ‘ethnic group,’ are considered to have died out,” she wrote in a letter to The Telegram.
Christopher Aylward is a film professor at the Ryerson School of Journalism.
- Keith Gosse
Aylward replied to Marshall’s letter in kind.
“I was both saddened and perplexed by Marshall’s letter: saddened for the misunderstanding and hurt its opinion has caused among the island’s Beothuk and Mi’kmaq peoples,” he wrote, “and perplexed that such an outdated and misinformed opinion continues to find a voice.”
Reached by phone recently on the north coast of Newfoundland, Aylward was less dismissive of Marshall’s take.
“If you’re trying to get at the truth of history, if such a thing even exists, it makes more sense … to take into account all of the pieces and try to find as many as you can and pay attention to them,” he said.
“I believe you fall into a trap when you believe any one source.”
But he persists in referring to the people he talked to as “Beothuk,” and says the written record of Europeans such as William Cormack and the Peyton family are given too much weight.
“Some academics are very threatened by another voice and are very much in opposition to it. And I would definitely put Ingeborg among those people,” he said.
“If you’re trying to get at the truth of history, if such a thing even exists, it makes more sense … to take into account all of the pieces and try to find as many as you can and pay attention to them."
— Christopher Aylward
Lost culture
At 93, Ingeborg Marshall now lives in a seniors apartment in St. John’s, but the veteran anthropologist is still very much active with Beothuk research.
During an interview, she frequently gets up to consult letters and excerpts from books, some of which challenge her arguments and others that back them.
She says there’s nothing in her research that has been disproven as such, and stands by the central narrative that the last known Beothuk, Shanawdithit, died in St. John’s in 1829 and that her tribe, as a distinct cultural entity, has vanished.
Aylward replied to Marshall’s letter in kind.
“I was both saddened and perplexed by Marshall’s letter: saddened for the misunderstanding and hurt its opinion has caused among the island’s Beothuk and Mi’kmaq peoples,” he wrote, “and perplexed that such an outdated and misinformed opinion continues to find a voice.”
Reached by phone recently on the north coast of Newfoundland, Aylward was less dismissive of Marshall’s take.
“If you’re trying to get at the truth of history, if such a thing even exists, it makes more sense … to take into account all of the pieces and try to find as many as you can and pay attention to them,” he said.
“I believe you fall into a trap when you believe any one source.”
But he persists in referring to the people he talked to as “Beothuk,” and says the written record of Europeans such as William Cormack and the Peyton family are given too much weight.
“Some academics are very threatened by another voice and are very much in opposition to it. And I would definitely put Ingeborg among those people,” he said.
“If you’re trying to get at the truth of history, if such a thing even exists, it makes more sense … to take into account all of the pieces and try to find as many as you can and pay attention to them."
— Christopher Aylward
Lost culture
At 93, Ingeborg Marshall now lives in a seniors apartment in St. John’s, but the veteran anthropologist is still very much active with Beothuk research.
During an interview, she frequently gets up to consult letters and excerpts from books, some of which challenge her arguments and others that back them.
She says there’s nothing in her research that has been disproven as such, and stands by the central narrative that the last known Beothuk, Shanawdithit, died in St. John’s in 1829 and that her tribe, as a distinct cultural entity, has vanished.
Ingeborg Marshall is the author of "A History and Ethnography of the Beothuk."
- Peter Jackson
The disagreement appears to be one of semantics. Scientists have discovered traces of many lost cultures and races in living people, Marshall says, including strands of Neanderthal DNA.
There is some discussion of genetics in Aylward's film, including an interview with Memorial University biologist Steve Carr, who has been hired by Miawpukek First Nations in Conne River to compare known DNA from Beothuk remains with its Mi’kmaw members.
Miawpukek’s Chief Mi’sel Joe says Carr has already found Beothuk markers in two living residents, but adds the study is in only a preliminary stage.
None of that matters anyway, says Marshall. She agrees it’s plausible the Beothuk may have intermarried with other tribes and with Europeans, but the lineage decreases over time.
“Every time they remarry, it’s only half,” she says. “After five or six or seven generations, you (approach) one per cent.”
For Joe, the question is not so much whether Beothuk people are still alive today, it’s more about re-examining the relationship between the Mi’kmaq and the Beothuk through the lens of oral history as well as documented encounters.
The disagreement appears to be one of semantics. Scientists have discovered traces of many lost cultures and races in living people, Marshall says, including strands of Neanderthal DNA.
There is some discussion of genetics in Aylward's film, including an interview with Memorial University biologist Steve Carr, who has been hired by Miawpukek First Nations in Conne River to compare known DNA from Beothuk remains with its Mi’kmaw members.
Miawpukek’s Chief Mi’sel Joe says Carr has already found Beothuk markers in two living residents, but adds the study is in only a preliminary stage.
None of that matters anyway, says Marshall. She agrees it’s plausible the Beothuk may have intermarried with other tribes and with Europeans, but the lineage decreases over time.
“Every time they remarry, it’s only half,” she says. “After five or six or seven generations, you (approach) one per cent.”
For Joe, the question is not so much whether Beothuk people are still alive today, it’s more about re-examining the relationship between the Mi’kmaq and the Beothuk through the lens of oral history as well as documented encounters.
Mi'sel Joe is chief of the Miawpukek First Nation at Conne River.
- Peter Jackson
One of the primary sources suggesting a hostile relationship between the two tribes comes from Shanawdithit herself, as recorded by her captors.
Joe says there would have been periods of both hostility and peace between the two groups.
“If you look at the world today, the fighting that goes on in what you call the holy wars, and back then you got to keep in mind, over 200 years ago, if you found someone on your hunting ground, of course there was going to be a fight,” he said. “It went both ways.”
But he insists the Mi’kmaq’s role in the Beothuk demise has been overstated.
“Our people knew and lived with Beothuk people, and there was intermarriage between the two,” he says.
Read Part 2 of this two-part series in Tuesday's edition of The Telegram.
One of the primary sources suggesting a hostile relationship between the two tribes comes from Shanawdithit herself, as recorded by her captors.
Joe says there would have been periods of both hostility and peace between the two groups.
“If you look at the world today, the fighting that goes on in what you call the holy wars, and back then you got to keep in mind, over 200 years ago, if you found someone on your hunting ground, of course there was going to be a fight,” he said. “It went both ways.”
But he insists the Mi’kmaq’s role in the Beothuk demise has been overstated.
“Our people knew and lived with Beothuk people, and there was intermarriage between the two,” he says.
Read Part 2 of this two-part series in Tuesday's edition of The Telegram.
Related Stories
LETTER: Saddened and perplexed by outdated and misinformed opinions on Beothuk and Mi’kmaq peoples
UPDATED FEB. 17, 2022
LETTER: Documentary suggests Beothuk may not be extinct — but they are
UPDATED DEC. 11, 2021
Medium matters: Ryerson professor assembling pieces of the Beothuk story in documentary
UPDATED MAY. 18, 2021
LETTER: Saddened and perplexed by outdated and misinformed opinions on Beothuk and Mi’kmaq peoples
UPDATED FEB. 17, 2022
LETTER: Documentary suggests Beothuk may not be extinct — but they are
UPDATED DEC. 11, 2021
Medium matters: Ryerson professor assembling pieces of the Beothuk story in documentary
UPDATED MAY. 18, 2021
'Very profound': Hundreds of residential school photos found in Rome archives
WINNIPEG — Raymond Frogner says when he found images of residential school students in the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate archives in Rome, he knew he was looking at something important.
“It did have a very historic feeling to it, very profound," the head archivist for the Winnipeg-based Centre for Truth and Reconciliation said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press.
Few archivists are able to explore the religious order's private records in the Italian city, Frogner said. But he spent five days early last month looking through the archives at the Oblate General House, where photos, personnel files and manuscripts describe the group's actions around the world since its founding in 1816.
That legacy includes a significant presence in Canada.
The Oblates operated 48 residential schools, including the Marieval Indian Residential School at Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan and the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, where the discovery of unmarked graves last year spurred calls for justice and transparency.
Frogner pored through the archives in the former residence of an Italian nobleman. He worked in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary and a large fresco nearby depicted Jesus and the founder of the Oblates, Eugène de Mazenod.
But his interest was sparked by what was inside a set of metal drawers.
"The big find for me was in the photographs."
There were 20 drawers of photos and three of those contained images of the order's missions in Canada. Many depicted children in residential schools in the early 20th century.
Frogner said he suspects there are up to 1,000 photos that could be important to understanding what happened in Canada.
"Not to my surprise, the archivist at the archives there had no idea the significance of what they were holding," he said.
The next step is to work quickly to digitize the photos, the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and Oblates said in a recent joint statement. The images are then to be transferred to the centre in Manitoba.
![]()
"The records we assessed will help compile a more accurate timeline of Oblate members at residential schools throughout Canada," said Stephanie Scott, executive director for the centre, in a statement.
Frogner said the hope is to work with communities to identify the students in the photos.
"For us, as we go through records and try to uncover the destiny of children that have been lost, these are photographs that might indicate at certain points in time where these children were located," he said.
Frogner brought with him a list of priests known to have committed crimes against children.
He looked through personnel files on the actions and locations of priests. While none of those files contained information about crimes, Frogner said they showed priests moving locations frequently, having difficulty working with children or advising a priest to get married and leave the order.
"(Information) was very much couched in vague terms.."
Frogner said he did not have enough time to fully parse those records. After the images are digitized, he hopes to examine the personnel documents more fully.
The order's long-standing practice is to keep personnel records sealed for 50 years after a member’s death. The order has said it is taking steps to accelerate access to the files.
The order's files currently in Canada likely contain more complete information, Frogner added.
The Oblates have already provided the national centre with more than 40,000 records and 10,000 more have been digitized.
The Royal British Columbia Museum received about 250 boxes of materials, a third of which relate to residential schools, from the Oblates beginning in 2019.
There are also agreements between the Oblates and other archives to transfer relevant records.
Frogner said he knows his recent findings are of particular importance as Pope Francis visited Canada last week to apologize for the role members of the Roman Catholic Church had in residential schools.
Throughout the papal visit, Indigenous leaders urged the release of all documents related to the institutions.
The Oblates have previously apologized for their involvement in residential schools and the harms they inflicted on Indigenous Peoples. Rev. Ken Thorson of the OMI Lacombe Canada based in Ottawa said in a news release that transparency is critical to truth and reconciliation efforts.
“While it has been a constructive year of partnership, I know that these steps are only the beginning of a continued journey towards truth, justice, healing and reconciliation."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 1, 2022.
Kelly Geraldine Malone, The Canadian Press
WINNIPEG — Raymond Frogner says when he found images of residential school students in the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate archives in Rome, he knew he was looking at something important.
“It did have a very historic feeling to it, very profound," the head archivist for the Winnipeg-based Centre for Truth and Reconciliation said in a recent interview with The Canadian Press.
Few archivists are able to explore the religious order's private records in the Italian city, Frogner said. But he spent five days early last month looking through the archives at the Oblate General House, where photos, personnel files and manuscripts describe the group's actions around the world since its founding in 1816.
That legacy includes a significant presence in Canada.
The Oblates operated 48 residential schools, including the Marieval Indian Residential School at Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan and the Kamloops Indian Residential School in British Columbia, where the discovery of unmarked graves last year spurred calls for justice and transparency.
Frogner pored through the archives in the former residence of an Italian nobleman. He worked in front of a statue of the Virgin Mary and a large fresco nearby depicted Jesus and the founder of the Oblates, Eugène de Mazenod.
But his interest was sparked by what was inside a set of metal drawers.
"The big find for me was in the photographs."
There were 20 drawers of photos and three of those contained images of the order's missions in Canada. Many depicted children in residential schools in the early 20th century.
Frogner said he suspects there are up to 1,000 photos that could be important to understanding what happened in Canada.
"Not to my surprise, the archivist at the archives there had no idea the significance of what they were holding," he said.
The next step is to work quickly to digitize the photos, the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and Oblates said in a recent joint statement. The images are then to be transferred to the centre in Manitoba.
Related video: Hundreds of residential school photos uncovered in Roman Catholic archive
View on Watch
"The records we assessed will help compile a more accurate timeline of Oblate members at residential schools throughout Canada," said Stephanie Scott, executive director for the centre, in a statement.
Frogner said the hope is to work with communities to identify the students in the photos.
"For us, as we go through records and try to uncover the destiny of children that have been lost, these are photographs that might indicate at certain points in time where these children were located," he said.
Frogner brought with him a list of priests known to have committed crimes against children.
He looked through personnel files on the actions and locations of priests. While none of those files contained information about crimes, Frogner said they showed priests moving locations frequently, having difficulty working with children or advising a priest to get married and leave the order.
"(Information) was very much couched in vague terms.."
Frogner said he did not have enough time to fully parse those records. After the images are digitized, he hopes to examine the personnel documents more fully.
The order's long-standing practice is to keep personnel records sealed for 50 years after a member’s death. The order has said it is taking steps to accelerate access to the files.
The order's files currently in Canada likely contain more complete information, Frogner added.
The Oblates have already provided the national centre with more than 40,000 records and 10,000 more have been digitized.
The Royal British Columbia Museum received about 250 boxes of materials, a third of which relate to residential schools, from the Oblates beginning in 2019.
There are also agreements between the Oblates and other archives to transfer relevant records.
Frogner said he knows his recent findings are of particular importance as Pope Francis visited Canada last week to apologize for the role members of the Roman Catholic Church had in residential schools.
Throughout the papal visit, Indigenous leaders urged the release of all documents related to the institutions.
The Oblates have previously apologized for their involvement in residential schools and the harms they inflicted on Indigenous Peoples. Rev. Ken Thorson of the OMI Lacombe Canada based in Ottawa said in a news release that transparency is critical to truth and reconciliation efforts.
“While it has been a constructive year of partnership, I know that these steps are only the beginning of a continued journey towards truth, justice, healing and reconciliation."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 1, 2022.
Kelly Geraldine Malone, The Canadian Press
Fracking-induced earthquakes possible in these Canadian regions, study says
Isabella O'Malley, M.Env.Sc -
In March 2018, earthquakes caused numerous disruptions across Alberta — the power went out in parts of Sylvan Lake and homes in Red Deer shook as tremors travelled through the ground. This is a familiar phenomenon in parts of Western Canada and Alberta Energy Regulator later confirmed the seismic activity was caused by nearby hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
Fracking is an oil and natural gas extraction process that can cause seismic activity and researchers from the University of Waterloo have now mapped the areas that are most likely to see fracking-induced earthquakes.
“We are trying to better understand and therefore better predict the phenomenon of induced seismicity during sub-surface engineering processes,” Maurice Dusseault, a professor of engineering geology at the University of Waterloo, said in a press release.
The map shows earthquakes related to hydraulic fracture. Major earthquakes are represented with red and white graphics. (Scientific Reports, 2022, 12:11551)
Essentially, the researchers have provided a deeper understanding of the risk the oil industry’s extraction practices — as well as some newer methods of putting carbon back into the ground — pose for the region. The area analyzed in their study, a 130,000 km2 section of western Alberta and northeastern British Columbia, is home to some of the world’s largest petroleum and natural gas reserves and is where most Canadian fracking activity occurs.
Areas in Western Canada have experienced some of the most intense fracking-induced earthquakes that have been reported worldwide. Recently, a 4.2 magnitude quake struck near Fort St. John, B.C. on November 30, 2018 and dozens reported light shaking. Based on the rapid change in underground pore pressure, the study concluded that fracking triggered this quake in Fort St. John.
The researchers revealed that this region will continue to face the risk of fracking-induced earthquakes in the coming years. “Injection-induced seismicity in this region has been increasing since 2010, as well as the rate of seismicity,” Ali Yaghoubi, study lead author and PhD candidate at the University of Waterloo, told The Weather Network.
Medic trucks at entrance of fracking site in northern British Columbia, Canada.
In addition to seismicity concerns, fracking processes are energy-intensive and in some instances have contaminated underground water with dangerous toxins and cancer-causing chemicals. Numerous multi-million dollar settlements have been paid out in the U.S. as a result of fracking activity that led to contamination of private properties and sickness in the occupants.
Environmentalists say that drilling for natural gas, a source of methane and carbon dioxide, is not a viable option as a future energy resource in a warming world. However, some sustainable strategies also involve injecting fluids underground, which could impact the stability of the Earth’s crust, namely geothermal energy extraction and underground carbon storage.
“Any injection project like geothermal and carbon sequestration is the same process. When you inject fluid, you change the stress and the pore pressure. So, if there is a fault in this region, it might be reactivated,” said Yaghoubi.
Grande Prairie, Alta. is home to Alberta No.1 Geothermal Project, which generates 10 megawatts of energy annually while offsetting over 97,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide. The study found that even though over 700 multistage hydraulic fracturing operations have occurred in the region, this city is in an area that is “far less prone” to experiencing significant levels of induced seismicity.
Yaghoubi explained that the research team’s analysis confirmed that the seismic stations have not detected earthquake activity from Grand Prairie drilling, which bolsters the reliability of using this region’s rock formations for geothermal energy extraction.
The researchers conclude that the map and study findings can be used for planning future underground energy extraction projects and wastewater disposal, which is essential knowledge as sustainable initiatives look to expand carbon sequestration and geothermal energy in Canada.
Thumbnail image: Drone view of a fracking rig pad in the U.S. (Joey Ingelhart/ iStock /Getty Images Plus)
Isabella O'Malley, M.Env.Sc -
The Weather Network
In March 2018, earthquakes caused numerous disruptions across Alberta — the power went out in parts of Sylvan Lake and homes in Red Deer shook as tremors travelled through the ground. This is a familiar phenomenon in parts of Western Canada and Alberta Energy Regulator later confirmed the seismic activity was caused by nearby hydraulic fracturing, or fracking.
Fracking is an oil and natural gas extraction process that can cause seismic activity and researchers from the University of Waterloo have now mapped the areas that are most likely to see fracking-induced earthquakes.
“We are trying to better understand and therefore better predict the phenomenon of induced seismicity during sub-surface engineering processes,” Maurice Dusseault, a professor of engineering geology at the University of Waterloo, said in a press release.
The map shows earthquakes related to hydraulic fracture. Major earthquakes are represented with red and white graphics. (Scientific Reports, 2022, 12:11551)
Essentially, the researchers have provided a deeper understanding of the risk the oil industry’s extraction practices — as well as some newer methods of putting carbon back into the ground — pose for the region. The area analyzed in their study, a 130,000 km2 section of western Alberta and northeastern British Columbia, is home to some of the world’s largest petroleum and natural gas reserves and is where most Canadian fracking activity occurs.
Areas in Western Canada have experienced some of the most intense fracking-induced earthquakes that have been reported worldwide. Recently, a 4.2 magnitude quake struck near Fort St. John, B.C. on November 30, 2018 and dozens reported light shaking. Based on the rapid change in underground pore pressure, the study concluded that fracking triggered this quake in Fort St. John.
The researchers revealed that this region will continue to face the risk of fracking-induced earthquakes in the coming years. “Injection-induced seismicity in this region has been increasing since 2010, as well as the rate of seismicity,” Ali Yaghoubi, study lead author and PhD candidate at the University of Waterloo, told The Weather Network.
Medic trucks at entrance of fracking site in northern British Columbia, Canada.
(Aaron Black/ The Image Bank/ Getty Images)
Fracking involves injecting a pressurized mixture of water, sand, and chemicals far below the Earth’s surface to break up the rock formation. The sand helps the rock fractures stay open, which allows natural gas to escape and travel through a pipe up to the surface where it can be used for energy.
Fracking is related to seismic activity because injecting fluid deep into the ground can destabilize fractures in the Earth’s crust and affect other aspects of the rock formation, such as pore pressure and areas of accumulated stress. Eventually, the stress can become too high and force tectonic plates to quickly slide past each. Waves of energy then travel through the crust, resulting in an earthquake and shaking that can be felt on the surface.
Fracking involves injecting a pressurized mixture of water, sand, and chemicals far below the Earth’s surface to break up the rock formation. The sand helps the rock fractures stay open, which allows natural gas to escape and travel through a pipe up to the surface where it can be used for energy.
Fracking is related to seismic activity because injecting fluid deep into the ground can destabilize fractures in the Earth’s crust and affect other aspects of the rock formation, such as pore pressure and areas of accumulated stress. Eventually, the stress can become too high and force tectonic plates to quickly slide past each. Waves of energy then travel through the crust, resulting in an earthquake and shaking that can be felt on the surface.
Watch: Scientists look to Earth’s interior for future carbon capture research
In addition to seismicity concerns, fracking processes are energy-intensive and in some instances have contaminated underground water with dangerous toxins and cancer-causing chemicals. Numerous multi-million dollar settlements have been paid out in the U.S. as a result of fracking activity that led to contamination of private properties and sickness in the occupants.
Environmentalists say that drilling for natural gas, a source of methane and carbon dioxide, is not a viable option as a future energy resource in a warming world. However, some sustainable strategies also involve injecting fluids underground, which could impact the stability of the Earth’s crust, namely geothermal energy extraction and underground carbon storage.
“Any injection project like geothermal and carbon sequestration is the same process. When you inject fluid, you change the stress and the pore pressure. So, if there is a fault in this region, it might be reactivated,” said Yaghoubi.
Grande Prairie, Alta. is home to Alberta No.1 Geothermal Project, which generates 10 megawatts of energy annually while offsetting over 97,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide. The study found that even though over 700 multistage hydraulic fracturing operations have occurred in the region, this city is in an area that is “far less prone” to experiencing significant levels of induced seismicity.
Yaghoubi explained that the research team’s analysis confirmed that the seismic stations have not detected earthquake activity from Grand Prairie drilling, which bolsters the reliability of using this region’s rock formations for geothermal energy extraction.
The researchers conclude that the map and study findings can be used for planning future underground energy extraction projects and wastewater disposal, which is essential knowledge as sustainable initiatives look to expand carbon sequestration and geothermal energy in Canada.
Thumbnail image: Drone view of a fracking rig pad in the U.S. (Joey Ingelhart/ iStock /Getty Images Plus)
Alberta legal aid lawyers threaten job action over 'perpetual funding neglect'
Jonny Wakefield - Yesterday
Edmonton Journal
Alberta lawyers who represent low income clients are threatening to walk off the job over what they call “perpetual funding neglect” of Legal Aid Alberta.
On Saturday, three organizations representing criminal defence lawyers across Alberta issued an ultimatum to Justice Minister Tyler Shandro, saying they will withdraw from legal aid without an infusion of new funding.
On Saturday, three organizations representing criminal defence lawyers across Alberta issued an ultimatum to Justice Minister Tyler Shandro, months after Crown prosecutors made similar demands for additional funding
“The most minimal provision of legal aid services in Alberta is at a breaking point,” states the news release. “While we are prepared to collaborate with other stakeholders to solve this crisis, our cooperation is contingent upon a meaningful commitment by the government to adequately fund Legal Aid Alberta now.
“To ensure the government understands the immediacy of this crisis and the importance of this funding, our organizations are taking steps towards job action.”
The release is signed by the Edmonton-based Criminal Trial Lawyers’ Association (CTLA), Calgary’s Criminal Defence Lawyers’ Association and the Southern Alberta Defence Lawyers’ Association.
Unlike the public defender system in the United States, defence lawyers in Alberta are not employed directly by the government . Rather, they are paid to represent low-income clients through Legal Aid Alberta, an arm’s length organization that receives funding from the federal and provincial governments, as well as from interest earned on their trust accounts.
In July, the three lawyers’ associations sent Shandro letters asking for more funding for the legal aid system, which they say pays about 40 per cent less than legal aid in other provinces.
They are also asking government to revamp the financial eligibility guidelines for legal aid. CTLA president Danielle Boisvert said that in some cases, people on AISH and those making as little as $25,000 a year do not qualify for the program.
“The government must take immediate action regarding the (Legal Aid Alberta) budget,” Boisvert said in her letter to Shandro, noting the government reported a $3.9 billion surplus last fiscal year. “The need is urgent. The time is now. The money is in the coffers.”
The lawyers’ groups added that without more funding, defence lawyers will continue to leave for other provinces or the Crown’s office, hurting the constitutional rights of low-income Albertans and creating a less efficient system.
“The quality of legal services will deteriorate, and the risk of wrongful convictions will grow,” they wrote. “Which means more appeals, more re-trials, more victims returning to court, more waste of precious court time, and more Jordan stays of serious prosecutions.”
The three associations said they did not hear back from Shandro by their July 29 deadline, and that they will meet Wednesday about withdrawing their services from Legal Aid Alberta.
Boisvert said defence lawyers operate as small businesses, and the associations, which are not unions, cannot compel their members to refuse legal aid work.
However, “all of us understand that something needs to be done now, and lawyers are much more willing to act collectively now than ever before,” she said. “I think … we’re going to have almost unanimous support for whatever we decide to do going forward, but unfortunately I can’t say we represent 100 per cent of the defence lawyers on the legal aid roster.”
Judge’s bench at the Edmonton Law Courts Building. File photo.
The threat of job action comes four months after Crown prosecutors made similar demands of the government, saying they were among the lowest paid in the country and that experienced lawyers were leaving as a result.
In April, the Alberta Crown Attorneys’ Association threatened job action, which led the province to bump up their pay ahead of negotiations on a new agreement.
The government also recently added funding for four additional judges on the Alberta provincial court. In an interview, Boisvert compared the justice system to a stool, with the judges, the Crown and the defence as each of its three legs.
“The government has infused a lot of money into the judiciary,” she said. “They’ve now infused a lot of money into the prosecution services. So two of those legs have been propped up, and the other one has been left shortchanged.”
She said funding for legal aid is an access to justice issue.
“When the public cannot access justice to begin with, and the justice they can access is subpar because of an underfunded legal aid system, then the justice they do get is not going to be quality justice.”
In an email, Shandro press secretary Joseph Dow said “contrary to what has been suggested,” the government “is willing to consider” increasing the legal aid operating budget and expanding eligibility for the program.
He said a review of the system is underway to make the billing and fee system less cumbersome. Any changes to Alberta’s contribution to Legal Aid Alberta “must be done after the current review is complete and must be done through the development of the 2023 budget,” Dow said.
jwakefield@postmedia.com
twitter.com/jonnywakefield
Jonny Wakefield - Yesterday
Edmonton Journal
Alberta lawyers who represent low income clients are threatening to walk off the job over what they call “perpetual funding neglect” of Legal Aid Alberta.
On Saturday, three organizations representing criminal defence lawyers across Alberta issued an ultimatum to Justice Minister Tyler Shandro, saying they will withdraw from legal aid without an infusion of new funding.
On Saturday, three organizations representing criminal defence lawyers across Alberta issued an ultimatum to Justice Minister Tyler Shandro, months after Crown prosecutors made similar demands for additional funding
“The most minimal provision of legal aid services in Alberta is at a breaking point,” states the news release. “While we are prepared to collaborate with other stakeholders to solve this crisis, our cooperation is contingent upon a meaningful commitment by the government to adequately fund Legal Aid Alberta now.
“To ensure the government understands the immediacy of this crisis and the importance of this funding, our organizations are taking steps towards job action.”
The release is signed by the Edmonton-based Criminal Trial Lawyers’ Association (CTLA), Calgary’s Criminal Defence Lawyers’ Association and the Southern Alberta Defence Lawyers’ Association.
Unlike the public defender system in the United States, defence lawyers in Alberta are not employed directly by the government . Rather, they are paid to represent low-income clients through Legal Aid Alberta, an arm’s length organization that receives funding from the federal and provincial governments, as well as from interest earned on their trust accounts.
In July, the three lawyers’ associations sent Shandro letters asking for more funding for the legal aid system, which they say pays about 40 per cent less than legal aid in other provinces.
They are also asking government to revamp the financial eligibility guidelines for legal aid. CTLA president Danielle Boisvert said that in some cases, people on AISH and those making as little as $25,000 a year do not qualify for the program.
“The government must take immediate action regarding the (Legal Aid Alberta) budget,” Boisvert said in her letter to Shandro, noting the government reported a $3.9 billion surplus last fiscal year. “The need is urgent. The time is now. The money is in the coffers.”
The lawyers’ groups added that without more funding, defence lawyers will continue to leave for other provinces or the Crown’s office, hurting the constitutional rights of low-income Albertans and creating a less efficient system.
“The quality of legal services will deteriorate, and the risk of wrongful convictions will grow,” they wrote. “Which means more appeals, more re-trials, more victims returning to court, more waste of precious court time, and more Jordan stays of serious prosecutions.”
The three associations said they did not hear back from Shandro by their July 29 deadline, and that they will meet Wednesday about withdrawing their services from Legal Aid Alberta.
Boisvert said defence lawyers operate as small businesses, and the associations, which are not unions, cannot compel their members to refuse legal aid work.
However, “all of us understand that something needs to be done now, and lawyers are much more willing to act collectively now than ever before,” she said. “I think … we’re going to have almost unanimous support for whatever we decide to do going forward, but unfortunately I can’t say we represent 100 per cent of the defence lawyers on the legal aid roster.”
Judge’s bench at the Edmonton Law Courts Building. File photo.
The threat of job action comes four months after Crown prosecutors made similar demands of the government, saying they were among the lowest paid in the country and that experienced lawyers were leaving as a result.
In April, the Alberta Crown Attorneys’ Association threatened job action, which led the province to bump up their pay ahead of negotiations on a new agreement.
The government also recently added funding for four additional judges on the Alberta provincial court. In an interview, Boisvert compared the justice system to a stool, with the judges, the Crown and the defence as each of its three legs.
“The government has infused a lot of money into the judiciary,” she said. “They’ve now infused a lot of money into the prosecution services. So two of those legs have been propped up, and the other one has been left shortchanged.”
She said funding for legal aid is an access to justice issue.
“When the public cannot access justice to begin with, and the justice they can access is subpar because of an underfunded legal aid system, then the justice they do get is not going to be quality justice.”
In an email, Shandro press secretary Joseph Dow said “contrary to what has been suggested,” the government “is willing to consider” increasing the legal aid operating budget and expanding eligibility for the program.
He said a review of the system is underway to make the billing and fee system less cumbersome. Any changes to Alberta’s contribution to Legal Aid Alberta “must be done after the current review is complete and must be done through the development of the 2023 budget,” Dow said.
jwakefield@postmedia.com
twitter.com/jonnywakefield
Meaghan Archer and Craig Momney - Yesterday
Global News
Legal aid has reached a breaking point and Alberta defense lawyers are looking to the province for more funding.
The Law Courts in Edmonton, Alberta. Summer 2014.
Alberta’s legal aid program has been underfunded for years, said Ian Savage, the president of the Criminal Defense Lawyers Association.
“Every now and then we try and get the government’s attention to the crisis and they put some money towards it on a band-aid type solution,” he said.
According to Savage, in 2018, a four-year provincial funding agreement was put in place with Rachel Notley’s NDP government. However, that funding decreased starting in 2020.
In May of this year, the province gave Legal Aid Alberta the green light to modernize its lawyer-building framework. But lawyers are saying that if there’s no money, then there’s no sense in the project.
Read more:
Edmonton court mixes law with psychology to find ‘meaningful resolutions’ for at-risk Albertans
“What legal aid has been given or not been given in terms of what it can work with to revamp the tariffs, as a whole, puts legal aid in a position where it can only do so much,” said Danielle Boisvert, a criminal defense lawyer in Edmonton and the president of the Criminal Trial Lawyers' Association.
Legal Aid Alberta is trying to pay lawyers for longer trials, said Boisvert, but that means taking away money from smaller files which make up about 70 per cent of cases the defense lawyers take on.
![]()
“If you’re getting paid less on each file, what are you going to do if you’re going to keep working in this industry as a defense lawyer for legal aid? What you need to do is take on more files.”
This approach, however, is causing burnout amongst lawyers trying to make a living.
Last month, three senior lawyers, including Savage and Boisvert, wrote letters to minister of justice and solicitor general Tyler Shandro about the issue. They asked him to respond by July 29 or they would consider job action.
There has not yet been a response from Shandro.
Read more:
A ‘broken’ system: Canadians can’t afford lawyers but don’t qualify for legal aid
“When a person who is a lawyer cannot be bothered to even respond in writing or with a telephone call to three senior lawyers representing hundreds of other lawyers across the province who are telling him – point blank – that he needs to act… that is very sad… and a shameful state of affairs,” said Savage.
According to Mount Royal analyst Lori Williams, the situation mirrors what Alberta prosecutors have recently raised. And any job action could have implications on the already-stretched judicial system.
“If the trials are delayed because of shortages of prosecutors or defense lawyers, then they can actually exceed time limits and wind up having the cases dismissed,” Williams explained.
The issue could play a major political role, she added.
“Rural crime has been an issue for some time now. If it looks like those who are trying to defend rural Albertans or trying to support them in their needs or so forth are falling short, that could have implications not just for the leadership race but for the next election.”
The three lawyer organizations will meet on Wednesday to discuss next steps, including job action.
Global News has reached out to Tyler Shandro for comment but had not heard back at the time of publishing.
Legal aid has reached a breaking point and Alberta defense lawyers are looking to the province for more funding.
The Law Courts in Edmonton, Alberta. Summer 2014.
Alberta’s legal aid program has been underfunded for years, said Ian Savage, the president of the Criminal Defense Lawyers Association.
“Every now and then we try and get the government’s attention to the crisis and they put some money towards it on a band-aid type solution,” he said.
According to Savage, in 2018, a four-year provincial funding agreement was put in place with Rachel Notley’s NDP government. However, that funding decreased starting in 2020.
In May of this year, the province gave Legal Aid Alberta the green light to modernize its lawyer-building framework. But lawyers are saying that if there’s no money, then there’s no sense in the project.
Read more:
Edmonton court mixes law with psychology to find ‘meaningful resolutions’ for at-risk Albertans
“What legal aid has been given or not been given in terms of what it can work with to revamp the tariffs, as a whole, puts legal aid in a position where it can only do so much,” said Danielle Boisvert, a criminal defense lawyer in Edmonton and the president of the Criminal Trial Lawyers' Association.
Legal Aid Alberta is trying to pay lawyers for longer trials, said Boisvert, but that means taking away money from smaller files which make up about 70 per cent of cases the defense lawyers take on.
“If you’re getting paid less on each file, what are you going to do if you’re going to keep working in this industry as a defense lawyer for legal aid? What you need to do is take on more files.”
This approach, however, is causing burnout amongst lawyers trying to make a living.
Last month, three senior lawyers, including Savage and Boisvert, wrote letters to minister of justice and solicitor general Tyler Shandro about the issue. They asked him to respond by July 29 or they would consider job action.
There has not yet been a response from Shandro.
Read more:
A ‘broken’ system: Canadians can’t afford lawyers but don’t qualify for legal aid
“When a person who is a lawyer cannot be bothered to even respond in writing or with a telephone call to three senior lawyers representing hundreds of other lawyers across the province who are telling him – point blank – that he needs to act… that is very sad… and a shameful state of affairs,” said Savage.
According to Mount Royal analyst Lori Williams, the situation mirrors what Alberta prosecutors have recently raised. And any job action could have implications on the already-stretched judicial system.
“If the trials are delayed because of shortages of prosecutors or defense lawyers, then they can actually exceed time limits and wind up having the cases dismissed,” Williams explained.
The issue could play a major political role, she added.
“Rural crime has been an issue for some time now. If it looks like those who are trying to defend rural Albertans or trying to support them in their needs or so forth are falling short, that could have implications not just for the leadership race but for the next election.”
The three lawyer organizations will meet on Wednesday to discuss next steps, including job action.
Global News has reached out to Tyler Shandro for comment but had not heard back at the time of publishing.
BC
More than half of Fraser River dikes would overtop in repeat of 1894 flood, new modelling showsLONG READ
Gordon Hoekstra , Nathan Griffiths -
In March 2017, under the then-B.C. Liberal government, the province announced $10.5 million to upgrade the Nicomen Island dikes.
Although the dike is under the authority of a diking district with a volunteer board, the province provided the money to the Fraser Valley Regional District to administer on behalf of the diking district.
Some of the funding is expected to be used to upgrade five pumping stations, while other funds may be used to widen and raise some of the dike system, said Fraser Valley Regional District spokeswoman Angelique Crowther.
A 2015 report estimated the cost to upgrade the entire Nicomen Island dike system to modern standards would be $65 million.
In Delta, there are sections of its dike system in the Ladner area that were found to overtop in various flood scenarios, according to Postmedia’s analysis.
Suman Shergill, manager of utilities and engineering for the city, said due to the community’s proximity to the ocean, its dikes are built to withstand a 200-year winter coastal flood, which produces higher water levels than a spring freshet.
The city did not say whether it had received the latest dike crest-flood scenario information from the Fraser Basin Council and had checked the figures on the ground.
Following last year’s deadly flooding that caused billions of dollars in damage, B.C. municipalities and First Nations have been calling for the province and Ottawa to show more leadership on flood protection.
The November flooding was caused by an atmospheric river, a torrential downpour in a short period of time. This is different than a spring freshet but also expected to increase in frequency and severity because of climate change.
B.C. government officials noted they had funded the latest work of the Fraser Basin Council, saying the information was provided mainly for local governments to prepare for the freshet along the Fraser River.
But Andrew Giles, manager of the River Forecast Centre and flood safety for the province, said the information also supports longer-term planning by dike authorities through the four elements of emergency management: preparedness, response, mitigation and recovery.
“This information also provides a foundation for further dialogue between the province and diking authorities toward flood risk reduction,” said Giles.
The federal government referred questions about the new dike information, and what it meant for its plans, to the province.
ghoekstra@postmedia.com
twitter.com/gordon_hoekstra
Yesterday
Vancouver Sun
This low, overgrown dike, left, in Maple Ridge would be no match for a major flood.
In May of 1894, rapid snow melt triggered a massive flood from the upper Fraser Valley to Richmond. Homes, barns and bridges were swept away and railway tracks were left twisted from the deadly flooding.
The flood was the largest on the Fraser River since settlers arrived. But because the population was so low, the value of property damages was not great, perhaps a half-million dollars by one estimate.
Today, a similar event would have a much different result.
A Postmedia analysis of information recently provided to Lower Mainland municipalities shows more than half of the dikes along the lower Fraser would overtop in a repeat of 1894, inundating homes and businesses in towns and First Nation communities, and vast swaths of farmland.
The data provided to Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley municipalities — and to Postmedia at its request — used the latest dike crest survey information produced by the province in 2019 and 2020 and was applied to five flood scenarios, ranging from the 1894 flood, considered a one-in-500-year event, to a one-in-20-year event.
The data for 100 dikes was produced by the non-profit Fraser Basin Council, which is helping co-ordinate a Lower Mainland flood strategy with municipalities, the province and Ottawa.
The new information is meant to help communities prepare for spring high-water levels on the Fraser, known as a freshet, and to influence longer-term plans to improve flood resiliency as climate change is expected to make flooding more frequent and severe.
“It’s one piece of the puzzle,” says the Fraser Basin Council’s director of water programs, Steve Litke, who presented the information to a recent meeting of the Metro Vancouver flood-resiliency task force.
© Jon Murray Steve Litke of the Fraser Basin Council.
“Obviously, the crest height of the dike is significant, a pretty important part of a dike functioning properly relative to different flood events. … This does reveal deficiencies in terms of height,” said Litke.
The latest information does come with caveats.
The analysis focuses on the spring freshet and does not include potential flooding from coastal storm surges or flooding from other rivers — and as a result does not include all the dikes along the lower Fraser.
The Fraser Basin Council has cautioned local governments the information should be checked on the ground for measurement errors or situations where some feature such as adjacent high ground provides flood protection.
Litke said he believes the biggest limitation is the fact there are other ways that dikes can fail before overtopping, including erosion and seepage. “So, that’s an additional concern that isn’t reflected in these results,” he said.
© G.W. Edwards
In May of 1894, rapid snow melt triggered a massive flood from the upper Fraser Valley to Richmond. Homes, barns and bridges were swept away and railway tracks were left twisted from the deadly flooding.
The flood was the largest on the Fraser River since settlers arrived. But because the population was so low, the value of property damages was not great, perhaps a half-million dollars by one estimate.
Today, a similar event would have a much different result.
A Postmedia analysis of information recently provided to Lower Mainland municipalities shows more than half of the dikes along the lower Fraser would overtop in a repeat of 1894, inundating homes and businesses in towns and First Nation communities, and vast swaths of farmland.
The data provided to Metro Vancouver and Fraser Valley municipalities — and to Postmedia at its request — used the latest dike crest survey information produced by the province in 2019 and 2020 and was applied to five flood scenarios, ranging from the 1894 flood, considered a one-in-500-year event, to a one-in-20-year event.
The data for 100 dikes was produced by the non-profit Fraser Basin Council, which is helping co-ordinate a Lower Mainland flood strategy with municipalities, the province and Ottawa.
The new information is meant to help communities prepare for spring high-water levels on the Fraser, known as a freshet, and to influence longer-term plans to improve flood resiliency as climate change is expected to make flooding more frequent and severe.
“It’s one piece of the puzzle,” says the Fraser Basin Council’s director of water programs, Steve Litke, who presented the information to a recent meeting of the Metro Vancouver flood-resiliency task force.
© Jon Murray Steve Litke of the Fraser Basin Council.
“Obviously, the crest height of the dike is significant, a pretty important part of a dike functioning properly relative to different flood events. … This does reveal deficiencies in terms of height,” said Litke.
The latest information does come with caveats.
The analysis focuses on the spring freshet and does not include potential flooding from coastal storm surges or flooding from other rivers — and as a result does not include all the dikes along the lower Fraser.
The Fraser Basin Council has cautioned local governments the information should be checked on the ground for measurement errors or situations where some feature such as adjacent high ground provides flood protection.
Litke said he believes the biggest limitation is the fact there are other ways that dikes can fail before overtopping, including erosion and seepage. “So, that’s an additional concern that isn’t reflected in these results,” he said.
© G.W. Edwards
The Fraser River flood in Hatzic, B.C., in June, 1894.
Postmedia used the information to estimate how much of each dike would fail in the five flood scenarios, which also include one-in-200, one-in-100 and one-in-50-year floods.
That information was then used to calculate the percentage of all the dikes where at least some section of dike was expected to overtop in the five flood scenarios.
In addition to the more than 50 per cent that would overtop in a flood similar to the one in 1894, the Postmedia analysis showed a section of more than one-third of the Fraser River dikes would overtop in a one-in-200-year flood, 20 per cent in a one-in-100-year flood, 16 per cent in a one-in-50-year flood and more than 10 per cent in a one-in-20-year flood.
Postmedia also examined information on whether dikes met the province’s guidelines for a buffer between the high-water mark and the top of dikes, known as freeboard. The guidelines call for a 0.6-metre buffer for the one-in-500-year flood.
The data showed 83 per cent of dikes had some sections that did not meet this guideline.
Craig Hodge, a Coquitlam councillor and vice-chair of the Metro flood-resiliency task force, said the latest dike crest-flood scenario modelling helps support work on a Lower Mainland flood strategy and underscores the need for funding and the urgency to get started on dike improvements.
During the catastrophic flooding in November, even though Coquitlam was not flooded, the community was affected, for example, by cut off transportation routes and gas rationing. The deadly flooding in the Fraser Valley and B.C. Interior washed away homes, bridges and roads and resulted in the evacuation of 14,000 people.
“We just have to bring everybody together. Certainly there’s a clear need to co-ordinate flood management strategies,” said Hodge. “Now, we know we can’t wait.”
Communities where there are significant portions of dikes that would overtop in the flood scenarios include Maple Ridge, Mission, Delta and Nicomen Island in the Fraser Valley, which includes a community of the Leq’á:mel First Nation.
In the City of Maple Ridge, nearly 90 per cent of the 2.5-kilometre Albion dike would overtop in the one-in-500-year flood, with seven per cent of it overtopping in a one-in-20 year event. Almost all of the dike does not meet the province’s freeboard guideline, according to Postmedia’s analysis.
City officials said the Albion dike is not owned by the city, but it has been carrying out work at the request of the province.
City spokesman Fred Armstrong said the city has the latest Fraser Basin Council figures and had conducted its own surveys, which have helped influence the city’s freshet flooding plan.
“In the event of potential inundation of the areas, the city’s freshet flooding plan has an interim plan to place concrete blocks along the edge of the river to act as a temporary dike until such time as a permanent dike would be completed,” said Armstrong.
The city has said it is willing to take ownership of dikes in the city but not until the province provides funding for upgrades to current standards, which also need to be part of a comprehensive plan along the Fraser River, noted Armstrong.
The Lower Mainland flood strategy was meant to set flood mitigation priorities, costs and a cost-sharing model but is four years overdue. Hodge, the Metro flood-resiliency task force’s vice-chair, said it is still probably at least one year away.
Work carried out earlier for that flood strategy estimates a similar 1894 flood today would cause about $23 billion in damage and result in severe economic fallout.
These latest flood scenario figures underscore the significant undertaking needed to improve flood protection on the lower Fraser — and the struggles local governments and First Nations have to do that.
A recent Postmedia News investigation found that municipalities don’t have the billions of dollars needed to upgrade flood protection after the province downloaded responsibility to municipalities beginning in 2003.
In Mission, analysis showed 16 per cent of one of its dikes along the Fraser River, largely protecting commercial property, would over top in the one-in-500 year flood, 10 per cent in the 200-year event and six per cent in the 100 year event.
More than 20 per cent of the dike doesn’t meet the freeboard guidelines.
City of Mission spokeswoman Taryn Hubbard said they received the Fraser Basin Council data and have used it alongside other reports and studies to influence their work and planning. A recent report on the state of Mission’s dike system found they are “deficient” with issues such as being lower than design flood levels, and pumps not having enough capacity.
In the Fraser Valley, Nicomen Island’s dikes also face overtopping in flood events. About 90 per cent of the 35-kilometre dike system would overtop in a one-in-500 year event, according to Postmedia’s analysis. And none of the dike meets the province’s 0.6 metre freeboard guidelines.
Postmedia used the information to estimate how much of each dike would fail in the five flood scenarios, which also include one-in-200, one-in-100 and one-in-50-year floods.
That information was then used to calculate the percentage of all the dikes where at least some section of dike was expected to overtop in the five flood scenarios.
In addition to the more than 50 per cent that would overtop in a flood similar to the one in 1894, the Postmedia analysis showed a section of more than one-third of the Fraser River dikes would overtop in a one-in-200-year flood, 20 per cent in a one-in-100-year flood, 16 per cent in a one-in-50-year flood and more than 10 per cent in a one-in-20-year flood.
Postmedia also examined information on whether dikes met the province’s guidelines for a buffer between the high-water mark and the top of dikes, known as freeboard. The guidelines call for a 0.6-metre buffer for the one-in-500-year flood.
The data showed 83 per cent of dikes had some sections that did not meet this guideline.
Craig Hodge, a Coquitlam councillor and vice-chair of the Metro flood-resiliency task force, said the latest dike crest-flood scenario modelling helps support work on a Lower Mainland flood strategy and underscores the need for funding and the urgency to get started on dike improvements.
During the catastrophic flooding in November, even though Coquitlam was not flooded, the community was affected, for example, by cut off transportation routes and gas rationing. The deadly flooding in the Fraser Valley and B.C. Interior washed away homes, bridges and roads and resulted in the evacuation of 14,000 people.
“We just have to bring everybody together. Certainly there’s a clear need to co-ordinate flood management strategies,” said Hodge. “Now, we know we can’t wait.”
Communities where there are significant portions of dikes that would overtop in the flood scenarios include Maple Ridge, Mission, Delta and Nicomen Island in the Fraser Valley, which includes a community of the Leq’á:mel First Nation.
In the City of Maple Ridge, nearly 90 per cent of the 2.5-kilometre Albion dike would overtop in the one-in-500-year flood, with seven per cent of it overtopping in a one-in-20 year event. Almost all of the dike does not meet the province’s freeboard guideline, according to Postmedia’s analysis.
City officials said the Albion dike is not owned by the city, but it has been carrying out work at the request of the province.
City spokesman Fred Armstrong said the city has the latest Fraser Basin Council figures and had conducted its own surveys, which have helped influence the city’s freshet flooding plan.
“In the event of potential inundation of the areas, the city’s freshet flooding plan has an interim plan to place concrete blocks along the edge of the river to act as a temporary dike until such time as a permanent dike would be completed,” said Armstrong.
The city has said it is willing to take ownership of dikes in the city but not until the province provides funding for upgrades to current standards, which also need to be part of a comprehensive plan along the Fraser River, noted Armstrong.
The Lower Mainland flood strategy was meant to set flood mitigation priorities, costs and a cost-sharing model but is four years overdue. Hodge, the Metro flood-resiliency task force’s vice-chair, said it is still probably at least one year away.
Work carried out earlier for that flood strategy estimates a similar 1894 flood today would cause about $23 billion in damage and result in severe economic fallout.
These latest flood scenario figures underscore the significant undertaking needed to improve flood protection on the lower Fraser — and the struggles local governments and First Nations have to do that.
A recent Postmedia News investigation found that municipalities don’t have the billions of dollars needed to upgrade flood protection after the province downloaded responsibility to municipalities beginning in 2003.
In Mission, analysis showed 16 per cent of one of its dikes along the Fraser River, largely protecting commercial property, would over top in the one-in-500 year flood, 10 per cent in the 200-year event and six per cent in the 100 year event.
More than 20 per cent of the dike doesn’t meet the freeboard guidelines.
City of Mission spokeswoman Taryn Hubbard said they received the Fraser Basin Council data and have used it alongside other reports and studies to influence their work and planning. A recent report on the state of Mission’s dike system found they are “deficient” with issues such as being lower than design flood levels, and pumps not having enough capacity.
In the Fraser Valley, Nicomen Island’s dikes also face overtopping in flood events. About 90 per cent of the 35-kilometre dike system would overtop in a one-in-500 year event, according to Postmedia’s analysis. And none of the dike meets the province’s 0.6 metre freeboard guidelines.
In March 2017, under the then-B.C. Liberal government, the province announced $10.5 million to upgrade the Nicomen Island dikes.
Although the dike is under the authority of a diking district with a volunteer board, the province provided the money to the Fraser Valley Regional District to administer on behalf of the diking district.
Some of the funding is expected to be used to upgrade five pumping stations, while other funds may be used to widen and raise some of the dike system, said Fraser Valley Regional District spokeswoman Angelique Crowther.
A 2015 report estimated the cost to upgrade the entire Nicomen Island dike system to modern standards would be $65 million.
In Delta, there are sections of its dike system in the Ladner area that were found to overtop in various flood scenarios, according to Postmedia’s analysis.
Suman Shergill, manager of utilities and engineering for the city, said due to the community’s proximity to the ocean, its dikes are built to withstand a 200-year winter coastal flood, which produces higher water levels than a spring freshet.
The city did not say whether it had received the latest dike crest-flood scenario information from the Fraser Basin Council and had checked the figures on the ground.
Following last year’s deadly flooding that caused billions of dollars in damage, B.C. municipalities and First Nations have been calling for the province and Ottawa to show more leadership on flood protection.
The November flooding was caused by an atmospheric river, a torrential downpour in a short period of time. This is different than a spring freshet but also expected to increase in frequency and severity because of climate change.
B.C. government officials noted they had funded the latest work of the Fraser Basin Council, saying the information was provided mainly for local governments to prepare for the freshet along the Fraser River.
But Andrew Giles, manager of the River Forecast Centre and flood safety for the province, said the information also supports longer-term planning by dike authorities through the four elements of emergency management: preparedness, response, mitigation and recovery.
“This information also provides a foundation for further dialogue between the province and diking authorities toward flood risk reduction,” said Giles.
The federal government referred questions about the new dike information, and what it meant for its plans, to the province.
ghoekstra@postmedia.com
twitter.com/gordon_hoekstra
Why carbon markets should focus on funding Indigenous and natural solutions
M.A. Jacquemain - Saturday
A report published last year by the World Economic Forum found that natural solutions to climate change “play a critical role in supporting the future of both climate and nature.”
The research determined that natural climate solutions (NCS) could provide fully one third of the climate mitigation required to meet climate goals by 2030.
Several NCS projects are underway in Canada, many of them run by Indigenous communities, such as the Cheakamus Project, as well as organizations like Nature United, which has instituted NCS programs focused on conservation led by Indigenous groups. The latter established a 6.5-million acre protected area with the Łutsël K’é Dene First Nation.
“Money from the sale of carbon offsets enables the Community Forest to implement ecosystem-based management forestry practices that increase protection around creeks and rivers, protect more old growth management areas and biodiversity-rich areas,” Joseph Pallant, Director of Climate Innovation at Ecotrust Canada, told TWN.
“Without this carbon finance, the forest would have to be logged in a more damaging, status quo fashion,” Pallant added. “Natural Climate Solutions are so clearly integral in beating climate change and sustaining a healthy environment.”
If well-implemented, carbon markets continue to offer much potential in directing the flow of capital away from emission-producing and toward emission-reducing.
Thumbnail image: Sunset in Toronto, Ontario. The characteristic Toronto skyline with the famous CN tower graces the horizon. As seen from Riverdale Park East, Broadview. (Katrin Ray Shumakov/ Moment/ Getty Images)
M.A. Jacquemain - Saturday
The Weather Network
On the traditional territories of the Squamish Nation and Lil’wat Nation in British Columbia, the Cheakamus Community Forest Carbon Offset Project is reducing greenhouse gas emissions by some 10,000 tons of CO2 each year through modified forestry practices.
These practices, like improved logging and increased protection of wildlife habitats, ensure that more carbon is sequestered, and earned the project 12,500 carbon offsets at $25/ton through the BC Emission Offsets Regulation – funds to be reinvested in the forest.
It’s one of many projects that are created and maintained independently through startup funding, investment, and an assortment of government subsidies. One such source of funding comes from the sale of carbon offsets.
“This additional tool allows the Lil’wat Nation a way to balance protecting culturally important areas and serves our people today and for future generations,” Lil’wat Nation Chief Dean Nelson said in a statement.
Carbon markets and offsets can be confusing, and some climate analysts consider them a way for industrial polluters to pay even less than what they shell out for the federal carbon price.
A new national carbon emissions market launched last month, the Greenhouse Gas Credit Offset System, fell under similar scrutiny.
The new system would allow registered participants like farmers or cities to sell CO2 reduction credits to bigger emitters. For every one ton of emissions participants remove from the atmosphere, they would earn one credit to sell to other polluters.
Man looking at beef cattle grazing in a field on a summer morning in southwest Scotland. (John F Scott/ E+/ Getty Images)
The announcement has once again raised questions as to how effective carbon markets are in the fight against climate change.
“The government’s decision to double down on carbon offsets is a major step backwards for Canada’s climate ambitions,” Shane Moffatt of Greenpeace Canada, said in a statement.
“Offsetting doesn’t stop carbon from entering the atmosphere and warming our world, it just keeps it off the books of big polluters responsible,” Moffat added.
But there’s another line of thinking that suggests that carbon offsets could become a way for companies to fund sustainable innovation, rather than a way for companies to get to Net Zero.
A recent Bloomberg Green article suggested that “allowing investments in new, green technologies to count as credit for offsets … would unleash billions of dollars to flow into research and development aimed at reducing carbon in the atmosphere and creating meaningful funding for the expansion of renewable energy.”
New research sponsored by the Institute for International Finance (IIF) determined that demand for carbon credits would increase by upwards of 15 times by 2030 and 100 times by 2050, resulting in a market worth as much as $50 billion in the coming decade.
High-integrity voluntary carbon markets could be an important source of funding to projects designed to fight climate change. A key beneficiary of this funding would be projects involving natural solutions and those in developing countries.
“The reason why this is a great idea is that climate projects cost more in the developed world than in less-developed or developing countries,” Teresa Hartman, Climate and Nature Lead with the World Economic Forum, told The Weather Network (TWN).
How carbon markets are funding the fight against climate change
View on Watch
On the traditional territories of the Squamish Nation and Lil’wat Nation in British Columbia, the Cheakamus Community Forest Carbon Offset Project is reducing greenhouse gas emissions by some 10,000 tons of CO2 each year through modified forestry practices.
These practices, like improved logging and increased protection of wildlife habitats, ensure that more carbon is sequestered, and earned the project 12,500 carbon offsets at $25/ton through the BC Emission Offsets Regulation – funds to be reinvested in the forest.
It’s one of many projects that are created and maintained independently through startup funding, investment, and an assortment of government subsidies. One such source of funding comes from the sale of carbon offsets.
“This additional tool allows the Lil’wat Nation a way to balance protecting culturally important areas and serves our people today and for future generations,” Lil’wat Nation Chief Dean Nelson said in a statement.
Carbon markets and offsets can be confusing, and some climate analysts consider them a way for industrial polluters to pay even less than what they shell out for the federal carbon price.
A new national carbon emissions market launched last month, the Greenhouse Gas Credit Offset System, fell under similar scrutiny.
The new system would allow registered participants like farmers or cities to sell CO2 reduction credits to bigger emitters. For every one ton of emissions participants remove from the atmosphere, they would earn one credit to sell to other polluters.
Man looking at beef cattle grazing in a field on a summer morning in southwest Scotland. (John F Scott/ E+/ Getty Images)
The announcement has once again raised questions as to how effective carbon markets are in the fight against climate change.
“The government’s decision to double down on carbon offsets is a major step backwards for Canada’s climate ambitions,” Shane Moffatt of Greenpeace Canada, said in a statement.
“Offsetting doesn’t stop carbon from entering the atmosphere and warming our world, it just keeps it off the books of big polluters responsible,” Moffat added.
But there’s another line of thinking that suggests that carbon offsets could become a way for companies to fund sustainable innovation, rather than a way for companies to get to Net Zero.
A recent Bloomberg Green article suggested that “allowing investments in new, green technologies to count as credit for offsets … would unleash billions of dollars to flow into research and development aimed at reducing carbon in the atmosphere and creating meaningful funding for the expansion of renewable energy.”
New research sponsored by the Institute for International Finance (IIF) determined that demand for carbon credits would increase by upwards of 15 times by 2030 and 100 times by 2050, resulting in a market worth as much as $50 billion in the coming decade.
High-integrity voluntary carbon markets could be an important source of funding to projects designed to fight climate change. A key beneficiary of this funding would be projects involving natural solutions and those in developing countries.
“The reason why this is a great idea is that climate projects cost more in the developed world than in less-developed or developing countries,” Teresa Hartman, Climate and Nature Lead with the World Economic Forum, told The Weather Network (TWN).
Watch: Enormous carbon capture plant in Iceland opens soon
A report published last year by the World Economic Forum found that natural solutions to climate change “play a critical role in supporting the future of both climate and nature.”
The research determined that natural climate solutions (NCS) could provide fully one third of the climate mitigation required to meet climate goals by 2030.
Several NCS projects are underway in Canada, many of them run by Indigenous communities, such as the Cheakamus Project, as well as organizations like Nature United, which has instituted NCS programs focused on conservation led by Indigenous groups. The latter established a 6.5-million acre protected area with the Łutsël K’é Dene First Nation.
“Money from the sale of carbon offsets enables the Community Forest to implement ecosystem-based management forestry practices that increase protection around creeks and rivers, protect more old growth management areas and biodiversity-rich areas,” Joseph Pallant, Director of Climate Innovation at Ecotrust Canada, told TWN.
“Without this carbon finance, the forest would have to be logged in a more damaging, status quo fashion,” Pallant added. “Natural Climate Solutions are so clearly integral in beating climate change and sustaining a healthy environment.”
If well-implemented, carbon markets continue to offer much potential in directing the flow of capital away from emission-producing and toward emission-reducing.
Thumbnail image: Sunset in Toronto, Ontario. The characteristic Toronto skyline with the famous CN tower graces the horizon. As seen from Riverdale Park East, Broadview. (Katrin Ray Shumakov/ Moment/ Getty Images)
Stephen Harper may have picked the wrong horse – again
Andrew Mitrovica - Yesterday Al Jazeera
I did not know that Canada’s former prime minister, Stephen Harper, read this column.
Stephen Harper gives his concession speech after Canada's federal election in Calgary, Alberta, October 19, 2015 [File: Mark Blinch/Reuters]
Such is, I suppose, the unlikely reach of Al Jazeera. I was unaware that Harper’s reading tastes extended much beyond the ever agreeable opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal or the Jerusalem Post.
In any event, you may recall that a few weeks ago I devoted a column, reluctantly, to Pierre Poilievre, the jejune heir apparent to Harper.
The column was, I thought, a rather tame but accurate portrait of an ephemeral career politician who considers cheap, media-attractive stunts suitable substitutes for serious thinking about the serious challenges confronting Canada and the world.
Given the pedestrian subject matter, I was surprised when the column rocketed to the top of Al Jazeera’s home page – “trending” for a while longer than the usual lifespan of my weekly contributions.
So, thank you, readers.
Still, like all columns, some readers enjoyed my cheeky, if uncharitable, insights, while others did not.
The latter flocked, I’m sure, like a pack of crazed hyenas online to find my Twitter handle, eager to vent their incoherent, phantom grievance-laden displeasure.
Disappointed, no doubt, to learn that I don’t – like most wise people who prefer to read, write or go for a walk rather than tweet – have a Twitter account, the pack migrated en agitated masse to a not-so-secret email address where I can be reached and, happily, block irritating pests.
There, the pack confirmed that they share every juvenile aspect of Poilievre’s inconsequential temperament and intellect in an assembly line of anaemic messages that their authors confused with being cutting or pithy.
Sadly, I suspect the hot tub-wading, wannabe insurrectionists will descend upon me again and insist that I “get out” of the country – with or without various parts of my anatomy – after reading this missive.
Note to crazed hyenas and other easily triggered Poilievre fan-boys and girls: I’m staying put in this lovely, B-movie country I call home.
Apparently, Harper was also moved to come to his protégé’s defence just days after my original column appeared.
Coincidence? I don’t think so.
True to Borg-like form, Harper posted a dour one-minute-and-47-second video on his Twitter page – shot in what resembles a funeral parlour foyer – to endorse Poilievre as the next Conservative Party leader.
Looking as welcoming and charismatic as the exhausted director of the aforementioned funeral parlour on the cusp of retirement, Harper droned on for one minute and 47 seconds too long. More on his sad, perfunctory performance in a moment.
Like many of his predecessors, Harper promptly leveraged his tenure as a poorly-paid, but oh-so-well-connected prime minister to make oodles of money as an “international consultant” and a high-priced “director” of a slew of real estate and investment companies.
That Harper took less than two minutes from his lucrative, post-PM pursuits to back Poilievre’s candidacy with the energy of a dead battery is a measure not only of how irrelevant he has become, but of how cashing in is now the all-consuming priority.
Harper began his eulogy – I’m sorry, rousing endorsement – by telling Conservative supporters who were able to stay awake for a little more than 90 seconds that Poilievre has “garnered disproportionate attention” during the leadership campaign.
Stirring stuff.
I’m obliged to remind Harper and Conservatives touched by his touching rhetoric, that Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert have “garnered disproportionate attention” for years. No one outside what constitutes the seething, fanatical far-right cauldron of today’s Republican Party would deem any of these – to borrow a phrase – “bull**** artists” even remotely worthy of praise, let alone qualified for public service.
I concede, however, that, long ago, standards for high office have slipped. Stephen Harper is proof of that.
Not done rousting fellow Conservatives from their midday naps with take-a-memo-like language, Harper described his effervescent mini-me as a “strong minister” who for the “past several years has been our party’s most vocal and effective critic of the Trudeau Liberals”.
Translation: Pierre was a junior cabinet minister because I didn’t trust him to be anywhere near the Prime Minister’s Office, finance, or foreign affairs. Instead, I named the leader of the anti-science, anti-reason, anti-immigrant [Pestilent] People’s Party of Canada, Maxime Bernier, foreign minister. OK. I and my many admirers in Canada’s dominant Conservative-hugging press want to forget about that. Meanwhile, I had to quit in 2015 after an on-life-support Liberal Party led by a kid who beat up one of my hand-picked senators in a boxing ring walloped me too at the polls. Since then, the party has been reduced to shouting and performing click-bait-driven antics in political purgatory – otherwise known as Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition – with Pierre earning the distinction as Canada’s loudest and most obnoxious member of parliament. Winning!
Building to a stalled crescendo, Harper said that Poilievre’s habit of “talking” about the “issues” set him apart from the other banal Conservative leadership candidates, one of whom has bailed from the final debate since the party refuses to “talk” about abortion or entertain Alex Jones-like conspiracy theories involving the World Economic Forum.
The talkative Poilievre is – irony alert – skipping the last all-candidates debates, as well. Poilievre prefers to do his talking these days in a log cabin where, in a fireside chat without the fire, he tried and failed to convince confused viewers that reclaimed wood is a metaphor for lost “freedoms”.
More gripping stuff.
Poilievre doesn’t “talk” about how and when those “freedoms” went missing or who “lost” them, but, God and Conservative members willing, he’s determined to find them – somewhere and somehow.
While he’s out searching like an eager-to-please Boy Scout with a broken compass, most enlightened Canadians are preoccupied with the existential threat that the unfolding climate calamity poses to Canada today and tomorrow.
They understand that every decision made by a responsible prime minister with a scintilla of foresight and appreciation for why the urgent imperative to prevent – if still possible – the earth from burning up should inform every decision a responsible prime minister makes to address “pocketbook issues”.
Harper and his reckless progeny refuse, of course, to “talk” about that. They’re too busy digesting the trite lessons of Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life to bother with British climate scientist Bill McGuire’s Hothouse Earth, which makes the persuasive case that by virtue of our denial, greed and complacency, we have passed the tipping point into catastrophe.
In the absence of a tangible solution, Harper recycled this hackneyed drivel in response to the seminal test of these perilous times. “[Poilievre] is proposing answers rooted in sound Conservative ideas but ones adapted for today’s realities.”
My goodness.
The Conservative Party is the home of cliché. Devoid of imagination or ideas, it is left to traffic in vacuous slogans and posturing, including standing with scientifically illiterate buffoons who are convinced that a life-saving, plague-blunting vaccine is the devil’s brew.
And yet there is hope.
If Poilievre becomes leader, he will be the third ex Darth Harper cabinet minister to have challenged the synonymous-for-smug Liberals in a federal election.
The two others lost and soon disappeared into obscurity.
Conservatives are either calculating that the third time will be the elusive charm or it may finally register that Harper and his clawing acolytes are a spent, anachronistic force.
Simply put for the simple-minded: Stephen Harper may have picked the wrong horse – again.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
Andrew Mitrovica - Yesterday Al Jazeera
I did not know that Canada’s former prime minister, Stephen Harper, read this column.
Stephen Harper gives his concession speech after Canada's federal election in Calgary, Alberta, October 19, 2015 [File: Mark Blinch/Reuters]
Such is, I suppose, the unlikely reach of Al Jazeera. I was unaware that Harper’s reading tastes extended much beyond the ever agreeable opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal or the Jerusalem Post.
In any event, you may recall that a few weeks ago I devoted a column, reluctantly, to Pierre Poilievre, the jejune heir apparent to Harper.
The column was, I thought, a rather tame but accurate portrait of an ephemeral career politician who considers cheap, media-attractive stunts suitable substitutes for serious thinking about the serious challenges confronting Canada and the world.
Given the pedestrian subject matter, I was surprised when the column rocketed to the top of Al Jazeera’s home page – “trending” for a while longer than the usual lifespan of my weekly contributions.
So, thank you, readers.
Still, like all columns, some readers enjoyed my cheeky, if uncharitable, insights, while others did not.
The latter flocked, I’m sure, like a pack of crazed hyenas online to find my Twitter handle, eager to vent their incoherent, phantom grievance-laden displeasure.
Disappointed, no doubt, to learn that I don’t – like most wise people who prefer to read, write or go for a walk rather than tweet – have a Twitter account, the pack migrated en agitated masse to a not-so-secret email address where I can be reached and, happily, block irritating pests.
There, the pack confirmed that they share every juvenile aspect of Poilievre’s inconsequential temperament and intellect in an assembly line of anaemic messages that their authors confused with being cutting or pithy.
Sadly, I suspect the hot tub-wading, wannabe insurrectionists will descend upon me again and insist that I “get out” of the country – with or without various parts of my anatomy – after reading this missive.
Note to crazed hyenas and other easily triggered Poilievre fan-boys and girls: I’m staying put in this lovely, B-movie country I call home.
Apparently, Harper was also moved to come to his protégé’s defence just days after my original column appeared.
Coincidence? I don’t think so.
True to Borg-like form, Harper posted a dour one-minute-and-47-second video on his Twitter page – shot in what resembles a funeral parlour foyer – to endorse Poilievre as the next Conservative Party leader.
Looking as welcoming and charismatic as the exhausted director of the aforementioned funeral parlour on the cusp of retirement, Harper droned on for one minute and 47 seconds too long. More on his sad, perfunctory performance in a moment.
Like many of his predecessors, Harper promptly leveraged his tenure as a poorly-paid, but oh-so-well-connected prime minister to make oodles of money as an “international consultant” and a high-priced “director” of a slew of real estate and investment companies.
That Harper took less than two minutes from his lucrative, post-PM pursuits to back Poilievre’s candidacy with the energy of a dead battery is a measure not only of how irrelevant he has become, but of how cashing in is now the all-consuming priority.
Harper began his eulogy – I’m sorry, rousing endorsement – by telling Conservative supporters who were able to stay awake for a little more than 90 seconds that Poilievre has “garnered disproportionate attention” during the leadership campaign.
Stirring stuff.
I’m obliged to remind Harper and Conservatives touched by his touching rhetoric, that Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Lauren Boebert have “garnered disproportionate attention” for years. No one outside what constitutes the seething, fanatical far-right cauldron of today’s Republican Party would deem any of these – to borrow a phrase – “bull**** artists” even remotely worthy of praise, let alone qualified for public service.
I concede, however, that, long ago, standards for high office have slipped. Stephen Harper is proof of that.
Not done rousting fellow Conservatives from their midday naps with take-a-memo-like language, Harper described his effervescent mini-me as a “strong minister” who for the “past several years has been our party’s most vocal and effective critic of the Trudeau Liberals”.
Translation: Pierre was a junior cabinet minister because I didn’t trust him to be anywhere near the Prime Minister’s Office, finance, or foreign affairs. Instead, I named the leader of the anti-science, anti-reason, anti-immigrant [Pestilent] People’s Party of Canada, Maxime Bernier, foreign minister. OK. I and my many admirers in Canada’s dominant Conservative-hugging press want to forget about that. Meanwhile, I had to quit in 2015 after an on-life-support Liberal Party led by a kid who beat up one of my hand-picked senators in a boxing ring walloped me too at the polls. Since then, the party has been reduced to shouting and performing click-bait-driven antics in political purgatory – otherwise known as Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition – with Pierre earning the distinction as Canada’s loudest and most obnoxious member of parliament. Winning!
Building to a stalled crescendo, Harper said that Poilievre’s habit of “talking” about the “issues” set him apart from the other banal Conservative leadership candidates, one of whom has bailed from the final debate since the party refuses to “talk” about abortion or entertain Alex Jones-like conspiracy theories involving the World Economic Forum.
The talkative Poilievre is – irony alert – skipping the last all-candidates debates, as well. Poilievre prefers to do his talking these days in a log cabin where, in a fireside chat without the fire, he tried and failed to convince confused viewers that reclaimed wood is a metaphor for lost “freedoms”.
More gripping stuff.
Poilievre doesn’t “talk” about how and when those “freedoms” went missing or who “lost” them, but, God and Conservative members willing, he’s determined to find them – somewhere and somehow.
While he’s out searching like an eager-to-please Boy Scout with a broken compass, most enlightened Canadians are preoccupied with the existential threat that the unfolding climate calamity poses to Canada today and tomorrow.
They understand that every decision made by a responsible prime minister with a scintilla of foresight and appreciation for why the urgent imperative to prevent – if still possible – the earth from burning up should inform every decision a responsible prime minister makes to address “pocketbook issues”.
Harper and his reckless progeny refuse, of course, to “talk” about that. They’re too busy digesting the trite lessons of Jordan Peterson’s 12 Rules for Life to bother with British climate scientist Bill McGuire’s Hothouse Earth, which makes the persuasive case that by virtue of our denial, greed and complacency, we have passed the tipping point into catastrophe.
In the absence of a tangible solution, Harper recycled this hackneyed drivel in response to the seminal test of these perilous times. “[Poilievre] is proposing answers rooted in sound Conservative ideas but ones adapted for today’s realities.”
My goodness.
The Conservative Party is the home of cliché. Devoid of imagination or ideas, it is left to traffic in vacuous slogans and posturing, including standing with scientifically illiterate buffoons who are convinced that a life-saving, plague-blunting vaccine is the devil’s brew.
And yet there is hope.
If Poilievre becomes leader, he will be the third ex Darth Harper cabinet minister to have challenged the synonymous-for-smug Liberals in a federal election.
The two others lost and soon disappeared into obscurity.
Conservatives are either calculating that the third time will be the elusive charm or it may finally register that Harper and his clawing acolytes are a spent, anachronistic force.
Simply put for the simple-minded: Stephen Harper may have picked the wrong horse – again.
The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Al Jazeera’s editorial stance.
KENNEY'S MOUTHPIECE
Dr. Hinshaw sees massive bonus, while healthcare workers continue to struggleTom Vernon - Yesterday
For more than two years, Dr. Deena Hinshaw has been the face of Alberta’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. There’s no denying this role has meant a lot of work and long days. And that has led to a significant bump in pay.
Alberta’s chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw in Edmonton on Thursday, Sept. 23, 2021.
As Alberta’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, Dr. Hinshaw has a salary of more than $360,000, but last year she brought home much more than that.
Alberta’s sunshine list shows additional cash benefits totaling nearly $230,000. All added up, that is more than $590,000 in compensation.
Read more:
Alberta Health Services no longer requires COVID-19 immunization for its workers
The sunshine list shows she did not receive this type of payment in 2020 – the first year of the pandemic.
In a statement, government spokesperson Steve Buick said, “Given the scale of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, an extraordinary amount of additional work was required from Alberta’s top public health doctor,” and that the bonus was “determined using a formula for managers based on additional hours worked.”
In total, 107 government employees were given additional compensation, which came to a total of $2.4 million.
This has caught the attention of at least two UCP leadership candidates.
Read more:
Albertans rally to support public health-care system
“’We’re all in this together’ didn’t mean what we thought it did,’ wrote to her Twitter followers, adding Albertans are stunned and outraged.
“$19,000 a month as the bonus?” added MLA Brian Jean. “This is unsettling, to say the least.
“The healthcare system is in trouble,” said Lori Williams, a political science professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary. “The wisdom of the expenditures or cuts that have been made are being called into question.”
Read more:
Behind the COVID curtain: formerly confidential Alberta government documents made public
Williams said it won’t just be UCP leadership hopefuls asking these questions, but other frontline healthcare workers as well.
“Doctors are still – more than two years later – without a contract with the Alberta government. Nurses and frontline healthcare workers, including respiratory therapists, have been repeatedly asked to take cuts,” she said.
The pandemic persists and Dr. Hinshaw continues her work. And Albertans now know what that work is worth.
Alberta government paid Dr. Deena Hinshaw record cash bonus in 2021
Janet French - CBC - YESTERDAY
Alberta's chief medical officer of health last year received the largest cash benefit payout of any provincial civil servant since the government began posting records in 2016.
Alberta's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, was paid substantially more than many of her counterparts during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Deena Hinshaw's salary last year was $363,634, but she also took home an additional $227,911 in "cash benefits" during the 2021 calendar year, according to the Alberta government's salary and severance disclosure database, which was updated last month.
Hinshaw is one of 107 employees in management positions who received extra pay for their efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic, the provincial government says. The total extra compensation cost Albertans more than $2.4 million dollars.
"The scale of the response to this unprecedented public health emergency required an extraordinary amount of additional work from the Office of the Chief Medical Officer, the Vaccine Task force, the Pandemic Response Team and others, which is reflected in the recent disclosure," Ministry of Health spokesperson Mark Feldbusch said in an email last week.
He said it is a long-standing policy on pay that has been in place during other emergencies, including the Fort McMurray wildfires in 2016 and southern Alberta floods of 2013.
Hinshaw's contract, which is posted online, does not specify the number of hours in her work week, nor does it include overtime provisions.
The Alberta government's extra pay to Hinshaw covers time she worked in excess of 45 hours per week. It was calculated using a formula devised by the public service commission, Feldbusch said.
He declined to say how many hours of overtime she worked.
CBC News compared Hinshaw's compensation for the most recent years available to that of her counterparts in four other provinces, as well as that of Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's chief public health officer.
Dr. Bonnie Henry, of B.C., received $342,292 for the 2020-21 fiscal year. Henry did not receive any bonus pay in that time for pandemic management, a B.C. government spokesperson said.
Dr. Robert Strang, of Nova Scotia, received $305,645 in 2020-21. He did not receive any additional pay for pandemic management during 2020-21 or 2021-22, a Nova Scotia government spokesperson said.
Salaries, compensation of select chief provincial public health officers
Dr. Saqib Shahab, of Saskatchewan, received $411,416 in 2020-21 — about $78,000 more than he received the previous year.
The Saskatchewan government cannot say if Shahab received a bonus, because the law prevents it from releasing more details about civil servants' compensation, a Saskatchewan government spokesperson said.
Ontario's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Kieran Moore, who started in the post on June 26, 2021, received $235,314 in the 2021 calendar year.
The Ontario government could not disclose whether Moore received any bonus pay, a spokesperson said.
Hinshaw's extra pay opaquely justified: bioethicist
Dr. James Talbot, a medical microbiologist, served as Alberta's chief medical officer of health from 2012 to 2015.
Talbot did not discuss additional pay for potential excessive overtime with Alberta government human resources personnel while he was in the role, he said.
The pandemic is an unprecedented situation that required public health officials to work a lot of overtime to properly respond to the emergency, so it's fair that Hinshaw was compensated for additional work, Talbot said.
Hinshaw's total compensation last year — about $591,545 — isn't out-of-line with what many medical specialists earn, he said. But her workload was likely comparable to that of her counterparts during this time, making her pay an outlier.
The Alberta government's justification for the additional pay is opaque, said Arthur Schafer, a bioethicist and founding director of the University of Manitoba's Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics.
Hinshaw was one of the best-paid in the country before the COVID-19 pandemic, and the provincial government hasn't explained why her pay is a national aberration, he explained.
"They're blowing smoke in the public's face," Schafer said. "Top-level officials such as Dr. Hinshaw are not paid to work a 40-hour week. They're not salaried based on the number of hours they work. They're given very high remuneration."
Moving forward, Talbot expects medical officers of health — and doctors applying for those positions — to seek additional danger pay, or assurances of security from their respective provincial governments, given the public outrage and threats Hinshaw and her counterparts have faced.
"The amount of stress that that position was under across the country was also unprecedented," he said. "I was only peripherally involved, and I got death threats."
Since late May 2021, the Alberta government has paid Price Langevin and Associate, a private security firm, more than $262,000 to protect Hinshaw, according to the province's sole-source contracts diclosure database.
Janet French - CBC - YESTERDAY
Alberta's chief medical officer of health last year received the largest cash benefit payout of any provincial civil servant since the government began posting records in 2016.
Alberta's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Deena Hinshaw, was paid substantially more than many of her counterparts during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Dr. Deena Hinshaw's salary last year was $363,634, but she also took home an additional $227,911 in "cash benefits" during the 2021 calendar year, according to the Alberta government's salary and severance disclosure database, which was updated last month.
Hinshaw is one of 107 employees in management positions who received extra pay for their efforts during the COVID-19 pandemic, the provincial government says. The total extra compensation cost Albertans more than $2.4 million dollars.
"The scale of the response to this unprecedented public health emergency required an extraordinary amount of additional work from the Office of the Chief Medical Officer, the Vaccine Task force, the Pandemic Response Team and others, which is reflected in the recent disclosure," Ministry of Health spokesperson Mark Feldbusch said in an email last week.
He said it is a long-standing policy on pay that has been in place during other emergencies, including the Fort McMurray wildfires in 2016 and southern Alberta floods of 2013.
Hinshaw's contract, which is posted online, does not specify the number of hours in her work week, nor does it include overtime provisions.
The Alberta government's extra pay to Hinshaw covers time she worked in excess of 45 hours per week. It was calculated using a formula devised by the public service commission, Feldbusch said.
He declined to say how many hours of overtime she worked.
CBC News compared Hinshaw's compensation for the most recent years available to that of her counterparts in four other provinces, as well as that of Dr. Theresa Tam, Canada's chief public health officer.
Dr. Bonnie Henry, of B.C., received $342,292 for the 2020-21 fiscal year. Henry did not receive any bonus pay in that time for pandemic management, a B.C. government spokesperson said.
Dr. Robert Strang, of Nova Scotia, received $305,645 in 2020-21. He did not receive any additional pay for pandemic management during 2020-21 or 2021-22, a Nova Scotia government spokesperson said.
Salaries, compensation of select chief provincial public health officers
Dr. Saqib Shahab, of Saskatchewan, received $411,416 in 2020-21 — about $78,000 more than he received the previous year.
The Saskatchewan government cannot say if Shahab received a bonus, because the law prevents it from releasing more details about civil servants' compensation, a Saskatchewan government spokesperson said.
Ontario's chief medical officer of health, Dr. Kieran Moore, who started in the post on June 26, 2021, received $235,314 in the 2021 calendar year.
The Ontario government could not disclose whether Moore received any bonus pay, a spokesperson said.
Hinshaw's extra pay opaquely justified: bioethicist
Dr. James Talbot, a medical microbiologist, served as Alberta's chief medical officer of health from 2012 to 2015.
Talbot did not discuss additional pay for potential excessive overtime with Alberta government human resources personnel while he was in the role, he said.
The pandemic is an unprecedented situation that required public health officials to work a lot of overtime to properly respond to the emergency, so it's fair that Hinshaw was compensated for additional work, Talbot said.
Hinshaw's total compensation last year — about $591,545 — isn't out-of-line with what many medical specialists earn, he said. But her workload was likely comparable to that of her counterparts during this time, making her pay an outlier.
The Alberta government's justification for the additional pay is opaque, said Arthur Schafer, a bioethicist and founding director of the University of Manitoba's Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics.
Hinshaw was one of the best-paid in the country before the COVID-19 pandemic, and the provincial government hasn't explained why her pay is a national aberration, he explained.
"They're blowing smoke in the public's face," Schafer said. "Top-level officials such as Dr. Hinshaw are not paid to work a 40-hour week. They're not salaried based on the number of hours they work. They're given very high remuneration."
Moving forward, Talbot expects medical officers of health — and doctors applying for those positions — to seek additional danger pay, or assurances of security from their respective provincial governments, given the public outrage and threats Hinshaw and her counterparts have faced.
"The amount of stress that that position was under across the country was also unprecedented," he said. "I was only peripherally involved, and I got death threats."
Since late May 2021, the Alberta government has paid Price Langevin and Associate, a private security firm, more than $262,000 to protect Hinshaw, according to the province's sole-source contracts diclosure database.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)