COMMENTARY: Do Canadians want Indigenous partnership in energy production? It’s complicated

globalnewsdigital 

The relationship between energy production and Indigenous Peoples in Canada has long been a sensitive topic, while the debate over Canada’s energy future has further been amplified because of the ongoing crisis in the Ukraine.


A decommissioned pumpjack is shown at a well head on an oil and gas installation near Cremona, Alta., Saturday, Oct. 29, 2016.© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

In light of Canada’s National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on Sept .30, Canadians have been thinking about how their own energy sources should be developed, used and sold, and who should be a part of that discussion moving forward. The question of what stake Canada’s Indigenous Peoples should have in Canada’s energy development has never been more pronounced. The short answer, according to Ipsos’ research, is that it’s complicated.

Read more:

‘We want to be at the table’: Indigenous leaders call for more partnerships after Enbridge deal

Canada produces a variety of energy sources from its natural resources, such as oil, natural gas and renewables like wind and solar power, and Indigenous communities have become more and more involved in Canada’s energy development. According to a recent Ipsos poll, almost three quarters of respondents (72 per cent) say that Indigenous community involvement in developing Canada’s natural sources is an essential part of the broader reconciliation process. Two-thirds (66 per cent) go on to say that Canada owes Indigenous communities a financial stake in the development of its natural resources. A more moderate position is taken when it comes to including Indigenous communities in Canada’s oil and natural gas development, with support for that dropping to 47 per cent.

So, where does Canada draw the line in its support for Indigenous involvement in renewable energy on home soil?

Establishing sustainable relationships with Canada’s Indigenous communities and ensuring their involvement in renewable energy development has been substantial in advancing the Indigenous reconciliation process.

The Canadian government has provided $300-million worth of funding for developing clean energy projects that involve Indigenous land, as well as rural and remote areas across the country to support community priorities. Moreover, in March earlier this year, a historic partnership was formed between Indigenous groups with TC Energy regarding the Coastal GasLink pipeline, an issue that previously drew much scrutiny and attention during the Indigenous protests in February 2020, protests that only ended because COVID-19 overtook everything else.

Related video: How Indigenous ownership can be part of Canada's energy solution

Duration 6:02 View on Watch

Read more:

Pipeline divides community as Coastal GasLink prepares to resume work in B.C.

But progress around this budding partnership between Indigenous communities and Canadian energy corporations didn’t come without pushback. The same GasLink pipeline project brought international attention when solidarity blockades from the Wet’suwet’en Nation in British Columbia opposed the construction of the pipeline.

Video: B.C. First Nations urge Canada to cease pipeline construction

At that time, an Ipsos poll found that 61 per cent of Canadians said the protests and demonstrations were unjustified and illegitimate. Yet three quarters believed the Canadian government must act now to raise quality of life for Indigenous communities. This gap between what we think is best for Canada and its inclusion of Indigenous communities in renewable energy projects in the reconciliation process, and the reality of such a partnership highlights the lack of certainty around a principal issue in this country. Has Canadian opinion changed since those events in 2020?

The answer is, not really. When asked if Canada’s natural resource development should proceed without Indigenous involvement in the most recent Ipsos poll, more than half of Canadians said it should not. On the flip side, three in 10 believe that Indigenous engagement is not paramount for Canada to proceed with the development of their natural resources. Six in 10 (58 per cent) go on to say that Canada requires Indigenous involvement to ethically develop its natural resources, while 27 per cent say that Indigenous engagement is not necessary in this regard. It seems as though Canadian perception towards Indigenous involvement hasn't shifted much since COVID began in 2020.

Canadians remain lukewarm towards Indigenous involvement in renewable energy projects.

A 2021 Ipsos poll highlighted the importance of such a partnership in providing economic support and independence, as well as offering employment benefits to Indigenous communities. Six in 10 said the government has been doing a much better job working with Canada’s Indigenous communities than it was 10 to 20 years ago, although less than half said that the government and natural resource companies could be doing a better job of consulting and engaging Indigenous communities in projects relative to their land.

The same study, however, revealed that when it comes to ownership, only half of Canadians say that Indigenous communities should have more control over any natural resource project within their territories. A 2021 paper revealed that there has previously been little to no Indigenous ownership of renewable energy projects, as Canadian corporations and government initiatives merely consult with Indigenous communities.

Video: Alberta’s economy looks to transition to renewable energy

While Canada has taken diligent steps in fostering a stronger relationship with its Indigenous population by collaborating on clean energy projects to help build their economic independence, Canadians seem uncertain about where energy fits into the reconciliation process, and whether it helps account for Canada’s colonial past and making amends.

Although Canadians share moderate support for Indigenous engagement in Canada’s energy development sector, there is noticeable opposition regarding the extent to which Indigenous communities are involved and whether their involvement should be required to develop Canada’s energy resources.

While Indigenous equity ownership has undoubtedly increased over time, Ipsos’ research highlights a potential gap in how much Canadians might support this equity ownership.

Read more:

Ukraine war, energy crisis has Canadians more supportive of oil and gas: poll

If Canadians are serious about reconciling with its Indigenous populations, addressing its colonial legacy, and taking steps to take accountability, their support is vital in ensuring this partnership comes to fruition in its truest form, without complications.

Maybe it’s not that complicated after all.

Lisa Byers is an account manager with Ipsos Public Affairs.

External audit describes 'anxious and fearful' employees at immigration call centre

Darren Major -CBC - Yesterday 

Employees at the federal government's immigration call centre are struggling under a demanding workload while dealing with "strict and unfair" evaluations from their superiors, according to an external audit.


A young new Canadian holds a flag as she takes part in a citizenship ceremony on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on April 17, 2019.© Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

The audit by Charron Human Resources, released Friday, says employees at the Montreal call centre for Immigration Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) reported having little time between calls, insufficient training, limited career development and a "strict" evaluation process that leaves them feeling "anxious and fearful."

It found the turnover rate at the centre is as high as 30 per cent, with 11 per cent of employees on leave without pay.

IRCC hired the company in March to conduct the workplace audit. It is the department's only call centre and fields immigration-related calls from across Canada and the world.

Former employees who had previously spoke to CBC News on condition on anonymity described an office of overworked staff constantly being monitored by management — where the pressure to field as many calls as possible affected everything, even bathroom breaks.

The audit follows a damning report released last year, in which IRCC employees complained that their racialized colleagues faced repeated use of offensive terms from supervisors and other staff, and had limited opportunities for advancement.

Union concerned

The union that represents employees at IRCC, Service Canada, Employment and Social Development Canada and the Immigration and Refugee Board says it's concerned about the audit's findings.

But the Canada Employment and Immigration Union (CEIU) also says the audit did little to look into the previous reports of racism and discrimination.

"CEIU has reason to believe concerns related to racism and discrimination in the workplace were improperly addressed in the report and that additional steps need to be undertaken to have a clear and honest portrait of the situation," the union said in a statement.

The only mention of racism and discrimination in the audit is a recommendation to provide training about unconscious bias.

CBC News reached out to Charron for comment but didn't receive a response at the time of publication.

Other recommendations included introducing technology and strategies to ease the work process, providing leadership training to supervisors with a focus on employee well-being and evaluation, and establishing a staff development plan.

A statement from IRCC praised the "courage" of employees who participated in the audit, but did not explicitly indicate if it would implement the recommendations.

"The department agrees with the recommendations and is committed to providing a safe, diverse, equitable and anti-racist workplace," it said.

The union says it was not consulted by Charron about the recommendations.

Rocket man: It could take a long, long time, but startup has lit the fuse for a NASA north

Former U.S. space agency engineer on a mission to build a commercial spaceport in Nova Scotia

Author of the article: Joe O'Connor
Publishing date: Oct 07, 2022 • 

SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket lifts off in Cape Canaveral, Fla. carrying a satellite on its first deep-space mission in 2015. SpaceX was founded by Elon Musk. 

PHOTO BY NASA /Getty Images

LONG READ

Fin Armsworthy was driving back to Canso, N.S., on a mid-September afternoon, negotiating the twists and turns of Route 16 in a passenger van while mapping out the future he envisions for a mostly forgotten corner of the province that has been consistently gripped by stories of loss, outbound migration and economic despair.


The 65-year-old was born and raised in “Irishtown” — local speak for Canso — and he has witnessed the losses firsthand. Sometimes he will flip through his high school yearbook and see friends who moved away from the fishing village he still calls home.

Reminiscing can be a depressing exercise, but the Guysborough councillor isn’t wallowing in what once was. Instead, he’s brimming with optimism about what could be. And what he sees on the winding road leading to Canso are better days ahead, with good paying jobs, young families moving to town and tourists galore. Prosperity is at hand. You just need to believe in it.

“I tell you, it is a big thing,” Armsworthy said. “Launching rockets is the kind of game Steve has been playing all his life, just about, and I know there are some naysayers — hell, I have been one myself at different points in my life — but this is for real.”

Steve is Steve Matier, an American dreamer, former National Aeronautics and Space Administration engineer and rocket launch test site manager from White Sands, N.M., who moved his family to Halifax four years ago to build a commercial spaceport on the edge of the Atlantic Ocean, a seemingly far-out-there idea that might just get off the ground.

Steve Matier, a former NASA engineer, is the founder of Maritime Launch Services Inc., near Canso, N.S., a company looking to mimic the rocket launching services of the likes of SpaceX but from Canada’s Atlantic coast. PHOTO BY HANDOUT

Construction is underway at the Maritime Launch Services Inc. (MLS) site near Canso, a tentative first orbital launch date is set for summer 2024 and prospective customers, keen to have their satellite clusters hitch a ride to the heavens, have inked non-disclosure agreements stating their intentions.

And Matier is now chief executive of a publicly traded, penny-stock rocket-launching entity in what a recent Citigroup Inc. report projects will be a trillion-dollar industry by 2040.

“There are a lot of things that can still go wrong with the project,” he said. “We still need more financing. We still need permissions, and rockets and everything else, but we are past that maximum dynamic pressure.”

Maximum dynamic pressure, or MAXQ, is NASA-engineer-speak for the moment during launch when a rocket hasn’t yet reached space, but has passed the point where everything mechanical can blow apart in a blink.

Reaching MAXQ doesn’t mean no more risks are ahead, but it is the Hollywood moment when all the rocket scientists at mission control pull their headsets off and cheer.

MAXQ is also Maritime Launch Service’s ticker on the neophyte NEO exchange, which speaks to its CEO’s endearing, unflinching, space-loving geekiness.

Of course, there have been more days, and nights, than the 64-year-old cares to count when he was close to throwing in the towel, as the investors he figured would be banging on his door weren’t knocking, and the number of seabird studies undertaken to show blasting rockets into space eight times a year wouldn’t cramp its feathered visitors style exceeded two dozen.

A $10.5-million private funding round in May 2021 followed by a public listing this past April has eased Matier’s existential angst about getting to the initial launch stage, but it hasn’t eliminated the competitive pressure the company faces.

Building and launching rockets was once a government preserve, but the ground has shifted, with officials ceding turf to commercial space ventures underwritten by private billionaires: Elon Musk’s Space Technologies Exploration Corp. (SpaceX), Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Holding Inc. and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin LLC.

Billionaire Richard Branson with crew members Beth Moses and Sirisha Bandla on board Virgin Galactic’s passenger rocket plane VSS Unity after reaching the edge of space in July 2021. 

PHOTO BY HANDOUT VIRGIN GALACTIC /Reuters

There are other established players with proven track records, too. For example, Colorado-based United Launch Services LLC has 150 successful launches to its credit, which is exactly 150 more launches than MLS.

Matier remains undaunted, because none of his competitors possesses a chunk of land on the ocean’s edge in rural Nova Scotia that gives his spaceport a clear shot at putting satellites into polar orbit.

“This is where the industry wants to put its satellites,” he said. “Because of our location, with thousands and thousands of miles of open ocean to the south of us before you hit South America or Africa, we have a real advantage.”

Long before Canso was a gleam in Matier’s eye, he and his wife, Anne, got hooked on genealogy, and discovered she had an ancestor — last name, McLay — who worked in the Cape Breton coal industry. They may have been living in New Mexico, but the Maritimes was at the top of their travel bucket list.

Now, the couple own a home in Halifax, are in mid-application for permanent residency papers and are considering becoming Canadian citizens.

“I am not allowed to screw up this project because of my wife’s heritage,” he said.

Building a spaceport, with all the state-of-the-art doo-dads, could cost more than $200 million. Matier said MLS doesn’t need to build a “field of dreams” to get to that first launch, but he still needs more money for the company to truly take flight.

Among those helping him find investors is Sasha Jacob. He is chair of MLS’s board and bought into Matier’s vision early on to the tune of a $500,000 stake. He also runs Toronto-based Jacob Capital Management Inc., and he is a space nerd whose great-uncle, Josef Blumrich, was a NASA engineer.

“Instead of becoming a smart, science-based person, I became an investment banker,” he said.

Jacob also knows people who know people.

Onlookers watch as Blue Origin’s New Shepard flies toward space. The December 2021 flight was the third human space flight for the company which is owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. 

PHOTO BY MARIO TAMA /Getty Images

Years back, former Ontario premier Ernie Eves was executive chairman of Jacob Securities, the renewables-sector focused investment bank Jacob launched in 2007. The firm later ran afoul of the Investment Regulatory Industry Organization of Canada, post-Eves era, netting its namesake a $100,000 fine in 2017. However, the regulator noted Jacob did not appear to have acted “maliciously” and no evidence was presented “that any clients were harmed.”

“It was a supervision citation,” he said, from Bora Bora, where he was vacationing with his wife.

Jacob has long been a player in the penny-stock realm, a dicey arena, but sometimes those bets pay off. What appealed to him in this case was Matier’s NASA pedigree, the projected growth of the space industry, the evolving regulatory environment around it and the big picture notion that Canada as a country is going to want to, well, reach for the stars, so why not start that journey on the East Coast?

“We see opportunities to get involved in things before they are effectively owned by the bank,” he said.

Jacob isn’t the only person Matier has made a good impression upon. Another board member, François Desjardins, is the former chief executive of Laurentian Bank of Canada.

A big part of the pitch involves the company’s location. No one had been talking about Canso as a town with a future until Matier appeared on the village’s doorstep five years ago. Lately, he has been talking about launches as major potential tourist draws; how space industry-related companies tend to cluster near launch sites; how the operational nuts and bolts of a spaceport rely upon the trades — electricians, pipe-fitters, technicians — and not a bunch of PhDs.

“We don’t need 30 different geeks with slide rules in Canso, that is not how it is done today,” Matier said.

Lest it be overlooked: the Maritime provinces have a long history of so-called smokestack chasing. (Anybody out there remember Malcolm Bricklin and his eponymous sports car?) A red carpet gets rolled out, industry players are wooed to consider opening the next big thing, and the hypothetical project gets touted by its champions for the jobs, spin-off industries and taxes it will surely create.

“It’s a strategy that does not have a very good track record,” Karen Foster, Canada Research Chair in Sustainable Rural Futures for Atlantic Canada and associate professor of sociology at Dalhousie University in Halifax, said. “People are right to be skeptical.”

What, perhaps, is different about Matier is that he was just about the only guy doing the wooing for years. Banging on doors, cap in hand, asking for money, asking for people to see what he so clearly could: a unique opportunity for Canada to have a domestic commercial spaceport, instead of forever having to hitch a ride with someone else, someplace else.

“People need to look at whether they believe we are for real or not,” he said.

Councillor Fin Armsworthy has done his share of looking, and he sees a village drained of its youth.

“We have missed so many chances,” he said. “I think we got to take the game the way it goes, and this spaceport is the perfect opportunity.”

Let the countdown begin.

• Email: joconnor@nationalpost.com | Twitter: oconnorwrites

NFL-League, players agree to enhanced concussion protocols

The National Football League (NFL) and its players' association have agreed to enhanced concussion protocols after a head injury suffered by Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa prompted widespread concern.

Reuters | Updated: 09-10-2022

The National Football League (NFL) and its players' association have agreed to enhanced concussion protocols after a head injury suffered by Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa prompted widespread concern. A joint statement from the two parties on Saturday said ataxia - which includes abnormal balance, motor coordination or "dysfunctional speech" - would be added as a "no-go" symptom. Players diagnosed with ataxia during a game will not be allowed to return to the field.

Tagovailoa was carried off the field last week when his head slammed into the turf as he took a sack during a game against the Cincinnati Bengals. Fans and armchair experts alike questioned why he was allowed to play against the Bengals as four days prior he looked disoriented after hitting his head to the ground during a game against the Buffalo Bills.

Miami coach Mike McDaniel defended his decision to allow Tagovailoa to play against the Bengals, saying "several layers of medical professionals" had cleared the quarterback. The NFLPA initiated an investigation into the incident.

"While the investigation determined that the team medical staff and unaffiliated medical professionals followed the steps of the Protocol as written, the NFL and NFLPA agree that the outcome in this case is not what was intended when the Protocols were drafted," the joint statement read. Tagovailoa will not travel for his team's Sunday game against the New York Jets.

Tua Tagovailoa injury: NFL and players association agree to enhanced concussion protocols
"While the investigation determined that the team medical staff and unaffiliated medical professionals followed the steps of the Protocol as written, the NFL and NFLPA agree that the outcome in this case is not what was intended when the Protocols were drafted," a joint statement read

Miami Dolphins Tua Tagovailoa was taken to hospital with head and neck injuries after being forced out of the game against the Cincinnati Bengals but should he have taken the field in the first place after being concussed four days earlier?

The National Football League (NFL) and its players' association have agreed to enhanced concussion protocols after a head injury suffered by Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa prompted widespread concern.

A joint statement from the two parties on Saturday said ataxia - which includes abnormal balance, motor coordination or "dysfunctional speech" - would be added as a "no-go" symptom. Players diagnosed with ataxia during a game will not be allowed to return to the field.

Tagovailoa was carried off the field last week when his head slammed into the turf as he took a sack during a game against the Cincinnati Bengals.

Fas and armchair experts alike questioned why he was allowed to play against the Bengals as four days prior he looked disoriented after hitting his head to the ground during a game against the Buffalo Bills.

NFLPA agrees to concussion protocol changes; wants approval by Sunday

Ward: Tagovailoa 'could have died' | Joe Burrow: Head injuries part of NFL

Dolphins QB Tagovailoa ruled out of Jets match due to concussion

Miami coach Mike McDaniel defended his decision to allow Tagovailoa to play against the Bengals, saying "several layers of medical professionals" had cleared the quarterback.

The NFLPA initiated an investigation into the incident.

Miami Dolphins head coach Mike McDaniel described Tua Tagovailoa's collision as 'scary' after the quarterback was hospitalized against the Cincinnati Bengals

"While the investigation determined that the team medical staff and unaffiliated medical professionals followed the steps of the Protocol as written, the NFL and NFLPA agree that the outcome in this case is not what was intended when the Protocols were drafted," the joint statement read.

"As such, as has been done in previous cases, based on the advice of the parties' respective medical experts, the Protocol will be modified to enhance the safety of the players. Specifically, the term "ataxia" has been added to the mandatory "no-go" symptoms.

"'Ataxia" is defined as abnormality of balance/stability, motor coordination or dysfunctional speech caused by a neurological issue.

"In other words, if a player is diagnosed with "ataxia" by any club or neutral physician involved in the application of the Concussion Protocol, he will be prohibited from returning to the game, and will receive the follow-up care required by the Protocol."

Tagovailoa will not travel for his team's Sunday game against the New York Jets.

Ward: Tagovailoa 'could have died' | Joe Burrow: Head injuries part of NFL

Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa "could have died" as a result of the mismanagement of a concussion, former rugby league player Stevie Ward has told Sky Sports.

Ward, who was captain of Leeds Rhinos before he was forced to retire from rugby league at the age of 27 due to concussions he suffered on the field, said: "We need to sit with the understanding that people are getting really ill, whether that's short-term or long-term."

Former Leeds Rhinos forward Stevie Ward, who retired aged 27 due to long-standing consequences of a concussion injury, says Tua Tagovailoa could have died, after re-entering the field against the Buffalo Bills following a concussion.

Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow described Tua Tagovailoa's injury as 'scary' after he was taken to hospital with head, neck and back injuries

"I saw that injury, the first one on the Sunday," Ward said. "And the way that he got up, then stumbling to the floor - his team-mates holding him up, knowing it's not right - there's fundamentally something wrong.

NFL, NFLPA agree to parameters of updated concussion protocols

Published: Oct 01, 2022 
by Ian Rapoport & Tom Pelissero

The NFL and NFL Players Association have agreed to parameters of updated concussion protocols that will rule out players who exhibit gross motor instability as Tua Tagovailoa did during the Dolphins' Week 3 game against the Bills, regardless of any possible contributing factors, sources informed of the talks told NFL.com on Saturday.

The agreement is subject to formal approval, including from the NFLPA's health and safety committee.

NFL chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills told NFL Media on Sunday morning that the NFL's head, neck and spine committee and the NFLPA's Mackey-White health and safety committee are still in discussions about the final language and unintended consequences of the new protocol, but if approved, changes could take effect in Week 5.

Sills also emphasized that team physicians, unaffiliated neurotrauma consultants and certified athletic trainers will need to be educated about how to apply updated protocols to make sure it's consistent across the league before anything goes into effect.

In a joint statement on Saturday, the NFL and NFLPA said they both agree that changes are needed "to enhance player safety."

"The joint NFL-NFLPA investigation into the application of the Concussion Protocol involving Miami Dolphins' quarterback Tua Tagovailoa remains ongoing," the joint statement read. "Therefore, we have not made any conclusions about medical errors or protocol violations.

"The NFL and the NFLPA agree that modifications to the Concussion Protocol are needed to enhance player safety. The NFLPA's Mackey-White Health & Safety Committee and the NFL's Head Neck and Spine Committee have already begun conversations around the use of the term 'Gross Motor Instability' and we anticipate changes to the protocol being made in the coming days based on what has been learned thus far in the review process.

"The NFL and NFLPA share a strong appreciation for the unaffiliated neurotrauma consultants who contribute their time and expertise to our game solely to advance player safety. This program has made our game safer for the athletes who play it for the past twelve seasons."

While the updated protocols aren't yet in effect, Saturday's statement puts all parties on high alert as Week 4 continues with 14 games on Sunday: If there's any doubt, get the player out.

The league's concussion protocols have become a widespread point of debate the past week in light of two incidents involving Tagovailoa: Doctors clearing him to return last Sunday against the Bills after he hit his head and stumbled after getting up, saying it was caused by a back injury; and then Tagovailoa suffering a frightening concussion four days later in Cincinnati, during which his arms locked and hands twisted in a fencing response before leaving the stadium in an ambulance.

Because Tagovailoa's stumble last Sunday was attributed to his back, and not due to neurological issues, that was not considered a "no-go" under the existing, jointly negotiated concussion protocols -- a conclusion disputed by the NFLPA and union president JC Tretter, who issued a statement Friday saying players were "outraged" by what he called a failure in medical judgment.

Tagovailoa was discharged from the hospital Thursday night in time to fly home with the team and, he released a statement Friday, saying he's "feeling much better and focused on recovering so I can get back out on the field with my teammates."

Tagovailoa has been in the NFL's concussion protocol since Thursday's game, and he's also been dealing with a sore neck. As a precaution, his neck was immobilized on the plane. He's had follow-up CT scans and other tests, with an MRI coming on Friday. According to a source, all those tests have come back clean.

The updated protocols will essentially close the loophole that allowed Tagovailoa to return to the field against the Bills, eliminating any subjectivity about the cause of a player's instability and simply ruling the player out. The league said Wednesday it believes the protocols were followed; under the updated protocols, doctors will not be in position to make a judgment on why a player was unstable.

The NFLPA initiated an investigation hours after the initial incident on Sept. 25 into the handling of Tagovailoa's concussion evaluation. Under the collective bargaining agreement, that investigation is conducted jointly by the NFL and NFLPA with a resolution expected in the next week or two.

On Friday, those conducting the review interviewed the Dolphins' team physician and the unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant who were involved with Tagovailoa's concussion check last Sunday in Miami. On Saturday, the union exercised its right to terminate the UNC, citing several factors, including his failure to understand his role and hostility during the investigation process, sources say.

Sideline UNCs are assigned by the NFL head, neck and spine committee and approved by Sills and the NFLPA medical director.

Sills deferred questions about the termination of the UNC to the NFLPA, which made the termination decision. He also declined comment on the investigation into the handling of Tagovailoa's concussion evaluation but reiterated that there will be full transparency once the probe is complete.

According to the 2020 collective bargaining agreement: "The Sideline UNC may present his/her own questions or conduct additional testing and shall assist in the diagnosis and treatment of concussions. Regardless, the responsibility for the diagnosis of concussion and the decision to return a player to a game remains exclusively within the professional judgment of the Head Team Physician or the team physician assigned to managing TBI."

In an emotional press conference on Friday, Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said he had "100 percent conviction in our process" and repeatedly saying the doctors' conclusion was that Tagovailoa didn't suffer a head injury last Sunday.

The Dolphins' next game is Oct. 9 against the Jets -- 10 days after Tagovailoa's injury in Cincinnati, where Teddy Bridgewater replaced Tagovailoa in a 27-15 loss, Miami's first of the season. There is currently no timeline on Tagovailoa's return.

NFL, NFLPA Agree To Amend Concussion Protocols

October 1st, 2022 

 by Adam La Rose

In the wake of the controversy surrounding Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa and the team’s handling of his injuries this week, the NFL and NFLPA have agreed to make changes to the league’s in-game concussion protocols.

A joint statement released on Saturday reads, “The joint NFL-NFLPA investigation into the application of the Concussion Protocol involving Miami Dolphins’ quarterback Tua Tagovailoa remains ongoing. Therefore, we have not made any conclusions about medical errors or protocol violations.”

While that remains true, the investigation has already led to the unaffiliated neurotrauma consultant involved in Tagovailoa’s case being terminated by the player’s union. A number of “mistakes” were cited as the reason that action was taken; adding more detail on that front, Ian Rapoport and Tom Pelissero of NFL Network report that the UNC was fired due to “his failure to understand his role and hostility during the investigation process.”

At the center of the controversy is the fact that, under current protocols, the matter of “gross motor instability” being showed by players is subject to interpretation with respect to its cause. In Tagovailoa’s case on Sunday, his notable stumble after taking a hit was ultimately deemed a back injury, rather than a concussion. After the amended protocols come into effect, however, any player demonstrating a similar loss of balance will automatically be ruled out, regardless of team medical staff’s determinations on the specifics of an injury.

“The NFL and the NFLPA agree that modifications to the Concussion Protocol are needed to enhance player safety,” the statement continues. It adds that the league and union “share a strong appreciation for the unaffiliated neurotrauma consultants who contribute their time and expertise to our game solely to advance player safety. This program has made our game safer for the athletes who play if for the past twelve seasons.”

The amendments are expected to be formally ratified in the coming days, and could take effect in time for Week 5. Over the course of the remaining games on this week’s slate, though, teams will no doubt proceed with enhanced caution in the event of any head injuries which take place.

Rapoport and Pelissero add, meanwhile, that Tagovailoa (who has been in concussion protocol since being carted off the field on Thursday) has undergone a series of tests, all of which have “come back clean.” By the time he is cleared to return, new regulations will likely officially be in place to try and ensure a repeat of his situation does not occur.

'People are going to be offended': Ontario companies brace for new era of employee-monitoring rules

More businesses are using monitoring tools to track productivity in a remote-work world


Author of the article: 

FP
The Logic
Kelsey Rolfe
Publishing date: Oct 06, 2022 

Employees of medium-sized Ontario companies will soon learn if their employer is monitoring them. 

PHOTO BY GETTY IMAGES/ISTOCKPHOTO
Article content

Andrea Panagopoulos’s employer knows the length of every customer call she handles and can listen back to any of them. The company knows if she pauses before accepting another call. It knows how much time she takes for her allotted daily breaks.

Panagopoulous, a remote employee for Air Canada’s customer-support call centre in Toronto and who has worked for the airline for 28 years, said she understands why the company uses monitoring and measuring technology—but it still has her on edge.

“It’s a little nerve-wracking. … (I check my stats) every day … I need to know in my head that I’m doing well and I won’t lose my work-from-home (privileges),” she told The Logic in an interview. “They’re definitely using them to make sure you’re utilizing your time like you’re supposed to. And I get it.

“If you’re sitting there for half your shifts doing nothing, there has to be a way to monitor that.”

Employees of medium-sized Ontario companies will soon learn if their employer is monitoring them in similar ways. As of Oct. 11, employers with 25 or more workers will need to have a written policy on electronic monitoring that outlines how and why staff are monitored, what the information will be used for and to disclose that policy to employees. The rule was enshrined in the provincial Employment Standards Act in April when the government passed the Working for Workers Act.

Employee-monitoring tools, long common in jobs such as delivery drivers and call-centre employees, began seeping into other levels of work during the pandemic as employers sought to track the productivity of remote staff. Privacy and employment experts in the province told The Logic they expect unintended fallout from these new rules, and that employers themselves are bracing for impact.

If you’re sitting there for half your shifts doing nothing, there has to be a way to monitor that

ANDREA PANAGOPOULOS, AIR CANADA CALL-CENTRE WORKER

“Imagine (your employer) says, ‘This whole time you’ve been working from home, we’ve been surreptitiously taking screenshots of you in the background of your house … because we had a right to do that. We’ve been listening in to all your calls, just to make sure you’re not doing anything wrong,’” said Lauren Reid, president and principal consultant at The Privacy Pro. “People are going to be offended, rightfully so … that they haven’t been trusted and this has been happening without their knowledge.”




Reid said she wouldn’t be surprised to see a wave of investigations and complaints following the introduction of disclosure requirements.

Andrew Caldwell, an HR advisory manager at Peninsula Canada who has been helping Ontario employers prepare for the new rules, said there’s “nervousness” about how employees will react.

While Ontario is the first province to enact a disclosure requirement on electronic monitoring, the rules don’t grant workers new privacy rights.

Most Ontario employees don’t have any such protections. The current Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act only applies to federally regulated employees. The Digital Charter Implementation Act, which is making its way through Parliament, would replace part of PIPEDA with the Consumer Privacy Protection Act, which has the same limitations, and the province doesn’t have any private-sector privacy legislation.

However, Lisa Stam, an employment lawyer and the founder and managing partner of Spring Law, said case law in the arbitration space has baked privacy-law principles into collective agreements, giving unionized employees in the province better protections.

To date, just British Columbia, Alberta and Quebec have their own private-sector privacy laws. But Reid said the legislation in both Western provinces employ an outdated consent-based approach to privacy. This framework, which requires employers to seek employees’ consent to collect their data — ranging from the personal information they need to issue biweekly payments or the ability to read their work emails on a company device — doesn’t recognize the “power imbalance” between the parties that makes consent more like coercion, Reid said.

The framework in Europe’s General Data Protection Regulation, which deems employers must have a “legitimate interest” for gathering and processing any personal data on employees, is more protective of employees by recognizing them as a vulnerable group, Reid said.

She said the federal draft legislation, while imperfect, gets closer to this approach. Quebec’s legislation, passed last September, will require employers to have a specific purpose for the data they collect from employees. While it will continue to allow employers to use surveillance technologies, by Sept. 22, 2023, it will require them to have a serious and legitimate purpose for their use, as well as to disclose any monitoring to employees and allow them to opt out. Both B.C. and Alberta are currently reviewing their laws.

Last September, Ontario’s information and privacy commissioner Patricia Kosseim responded to a provincial government white paper on the issue, urging the province to develop privacy laws for employees. Kosseim specifically cited employee-monitoring tools as a concern, and proposed moving toward requiring employers to justify what they collect. Despite holding consultations on privacy reform in 2020, Ontario hasn’t moved to develop new legislation for the private sector.

During the pandemic, the use of employee-surveillance technologies increased significantly in Canada, according to a September 2021 report from the Cybersecure Policy Exchange and Toronto Metropolitan University. Companies are offering a range of surveillance tools, from Indiana-based, Netsoft Holdings LLC’s Hubstaff’s time-tracking of employee’s work tasks to Florida-based Teramind Inc.’s real-time streaming of desktop activity, or a feature from Sneek, where employees can choose between being on video or having their webcam take their photos at regular intervals.

Joe Masoodi, a co-author of the report and a senior policy analyst at TMU’s Leadership Lab, said monitoring tools aren’t inherently bad and can be used for professional development.

Liam Martin, the Montreal-based co-founder of Time Doctor, a B2B time-tracking software company, said such tools can help companies meet compliance requirements for workers handling sensitive data. They can also be a “third-party source of truth” between employees and managers in disputes over productivity, Martin said.

Everyone at Martin’s fully remote company — including himself and other executives — uses Time Doctor at work. The firm also employs a policy of “radical transparency,” where everyone has access to their colleagues’ and managers’ data. He said the company doesn’t care when or from where employees work, just that they’re accountable to their work.

Martin said technologies such as Time Doctor enable a remote-work future, of which he said he’s a major proponent, and empower employees “to be a lot more autonomous.”

But Masoodi said he’s concerned some of these tools fail to capture intangible elements of work like person-to-person interactions that require empathy and compassion. They can also have “serious consequences” for employees, such as being held back from a promotion or facing disciplinary measures for not meeting company metrics.

An April Ontario Superior Court decision involving Air Canada and the union representing its call-centre employees highlighted these potential risks. At the onset of the pandemic in early 2020, the airline determined employees’ eligibility for telework using a combination of seniority and key performance indicators (KPIs), as the number of headsets were limited.


Air Canada declined to comment to The Logic.


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Unifor Local 2002 filed a grievance against the airline for the policy, arguing that using KPIs to determine remote-work eligibility was discriminatory and violated a letter of understanding in the collective agreement, which has been in place since 1985, said Leslie Dias, Unifor’s airlines sector director.

The letter says technology like call monitoring is only meant to be used for analysis and training purposes. It includes a clause stating that employees must be told in advance if and when their recordings will be reviewed — with the goal of reducing “any stressful effect” of monitoring on employees — and the data can’t be used in a discriminatory or disciplinary way. While a provincial arbitrator found in Air Canada’s favour, the Superior Court overturned the decision and award, and referred the case back to arbitration.

“I don’t feel the company is unfair with their KPIs. They outline … what (they) expect of you,” said Panagopoulos, who began working at the call centre in 2021. “But I don’t think KPIs should hold someone back from getting their work-from-home (status). … You shouldn’t have to be a gold, stellar employee to get to work from home.”

Caldwell said he believes the Ontario rule will ultimately be a positive change, because it will prompt employers to justify why they want to surveil employees. “If it’s just an easier way to manage where you don’t have to have hard conversations, that may not work,” he said. “It doesn’t mean you can’t have (monitoring software), but what’s your business reason?”

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'Pushed to the back': First Nations women under-represented as chiefs in Canada

More than a year after Sheila North unsuccessfully ran to lead one of Manitoba's largest First Nations political organizations, the Cree leader and journalist is ready to try again.



The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs is preparing to host a byelection later this month to fill its top position after it removed Arlen Dumas as grand chief over harassment allegations, which he has denied.

Elders and chiefs urged North to run again.

"Ultimately, it's being asked of my community to do this," North said in an interview. "I feel I still have enough energy to respond to the call."

In North's home province, and across Canada, women have long been under-represented among First Nations chiefs.

If elected, North would be the first female grand chief the Manitoba assembly has seen in its nearly 35-year history

She's no stranger to the title of "first" — she was also elected the first female leader of the Manitoba Keewatinowi Okimakanak, an advocacy group representing northern First Nations in the province, in 2015.

North, who is from Bunibonibee Cree Nation in northern Manitoba, held that position until 2018. She then launched a campaign to become the Assembly of First Nations national chief and finished as runner-up to Perry Bellegarde. Had she won, she would have been the group's first female national chief — a title now held by RoseAnne Archibald after her election win last year.

North, who was most recently a broadcaster with CBC Manitoba, said she's keenly aware she's running at a time when the reputation of the Manitoba assembly is being questioned. But she hopes to bring back a sense of unity between chiefs, staff and the grassroots.

"I can help with restoring the reputation that it had of being inclusive and protective of all people and advocating for all people, while not harming anyone," she said.

In the years since North last held a grand chief title, the number of female chiefs has gone up slightly in Manitoba, but women are still under-represented. Out of the 63 First Nations in the province, 11 are run by women.

Canada-wide, the number of women occupying these roles in the last 15 years has virtually stayed the same, said Cora Voyageur, a sociology professor at the University of Calgary and a member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in Alberta.

Voyageur's research focuses on tracking the number of women who are chiefs.

"There was between 15 and 18 per cent of the chiefs being women, and that's been pretty constant over the last 15 years or so," she said.

She said any female politicians who choose to do this work "have a hard road to hoe."

This was seen this past summer when the Assembly of First Nations executive council suspended Archibald while it launched an investigation into four complaints against her by staff. Archibald said she was suspended for trying to investigate corruption within the organization and called for a forensic audit. Chiefs ultimately decided to reinstate her.

Voyageur said it was heartbreaking to watch how those events unfolded.

Indigenous Services Canada said from 2012 to 2022, the number of female chiefs has gone up to 24 per cent from 18 per cent and the number of female band council members has risen to 31 per cent from 29 per cent. It says the numbers are an estimate based on what's reported by electoral officers and does not include First Nations councils that govern themselves outside the Indian Act.

Many First Nations communities are matriarchal and were historically governed by women, but some say colonization and the Indian Act disrupted these ways.

"I think that there's been the attitude or thinking that leadership is only for men … it stems from colonization and the way that all unfolded in our country. Our women were pushed to the back rather to be seen and not heard," said North.

She added male and female leaders are trying to correct this imbalance.

In the summer, the Nisichawayasihk Cree Nation in northern Manitoba elected its first woman as chief.

Angela Levasseur decided to take a break from her burgeoning law career to run after community members and elders encouraged her.

In the colonial chief-and-council governance system, Levasseur is considered the first. But she says in a historical context, there have been many female leaders before her.

"We were always the leaders as women. In order for our communities to heal, and in order for Indigenous people to move forward in a good way, we need to restore the balance."

Since being elected, Levasseur has heard from other First Nations women interested in running for chief or council.

"I would strongly encourage them to go for it — to not be afraid, to have courage and to call upon the wisdom of our grandmothers and our ancestors to support them."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 8, 2022.

Brittany Hobson, The Canadian Press

Nearly half of the world's birds are on the decline, which experts say is a serious threat to ecosystems

Nicole Mortillaro - 3h ago

It might be one early morning, after a particularly long, dark and snowy winter, that you first hear it: The call of a robin. A signal of spring.

Or it might be a walk through a park or forest where you hear a particular bird call and look up, hoping to identify it.

Birds are all around us, every day, and they play a crucial role in the health of our planet.

But in the past 50 years nearly three million birds have disappeared across North America and the European Union alone, a recent report noted. And experts are worried that it could be a bigger sign about the health of our ecosystems.

While it's been known for quite some time that the planet's birds are in danger, it was highlighted again by the recent BirdLife's State of the World's Birds 2022 report, something that they call a "biodiversity crisis." It also notes that 49 per cent of the planet's birds are in decline.

"In the 2018 report only 40 per cent of the bird species were found to be in decline. So in four years, we've had this huge jump in the number of birds that are at risk," said Sam Knight, a program manager at the Nature Conservancy of Canada.

"And they've shown that one in eight are actually threatened with extinction. So it's really concerning tat in such a small time period this is what's happened, and the pressures these birds are facing, and biodiversity overall."

Birds in North America

"I study birds, I love birds and I'm really concerned that I won't be able to go out for a walk and just hear birdsong in the same way," Knight said. "It's such a great mental health benefit to have these birds and species around; you don't even have to be a bird watcher, I don't think, to really appreciate what birds add to our lives."

Birds serve as pollinators, predators, seed dispersers, scavengers and, as the report noted, "ecosystem engineers." Because they are mobile, they traverse vast distances, linking different ecosystems.

And their losses are considerable.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species has found that 1,409 bird species are considered threatened; 755 are vulnerable; 423 are endangered and 231 are critically endangered.

And since the year 1500, at least 187 species of birds have gone extinct, mainly those found on islands.

Why is this happening?

Related video: A Wilder View: Why are some birds smarter than others?

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The threats to our feathered friends are numerous, ranging from agriculture, logging, invasive species and hunting, to birds flying into homes and buildings, and climate change, only to name a few. And our furry cat companions are a big one, with an estimated 100 million to 350 million birds being killed across Canada each year by outdoor felines, according to a 2013 study.

"Invasive species are another huge threat to birds, and cats are the most invasive species, or the most threatening invasive species that we have in North America," Knight said. "There's no doubt that habitat loss is the biggest threat, but it's really hard to measure what habitat loss looks like when it comes to birds because they move, but cats … that is the biggest number of deaths that we can calculate in North America."


A hatchling Piping Plover and its mother is seen on a beach. The species is considered endangered by the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada.© Randy G. Lubischer/Shutterstock

But she noted that there are some solutions available to cat owners who still may want their cat to enjoy some fresh air.

"What we need to do is keep our cats on leashes and keep them tethered when they're outdoors, or in a catio or that kind of thing. So people can still have their cat, enjoy the outdoors, but not be taking out birds," she said.

When it comes to habitat loss, it's grassland birds and insectivores that are most vulnerable, in particular because of the loss of grasslands in place of agriculture, which, Knight said, is understandable since we need to feed people.

"But we also have to kind of think about this balance of how we can also keep grasslands and restore grasslands. And that has knock-on effects on not just birds but other species," she said. "And one great thing that this report highlighted and reminded us is that birds are really good indicators of what's going on with other biodiversity."



The Florida Scrub Jay, seen here, is listed as vulnerable on the IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species.© Tommy Daynjer/Shutterstock

And then there's climate change, which is throwing off the timing for some migrating insectivores, as warmer weather is starting earlier in the year, which means insects come out earlier as well.

By the time the birds arrive, most of the insects' numbers have been reduced.

Need for more protections, big and small

Earlier this month, Birds Canada — an international partner of BirdLife — officially launched its Key Biodiversity Areas (KBAs) in an aim to protect not only birds, but other species, such as insects, frogs and turtles, who are facing numerous threats.

These areas require strict criteria to be designated a KBA. At the moment there are roughly 75 in Canada, with 900 in progress or being evaluated, said Andrew Couturier, senior director of landscape science and conservation at Birds Canada, who was not involved in the recent report.

"The [BirdLife] analysis shows that one in eight [birds] are threatened with extinction. That obviously varies geographically. Canada's birds aren't doing nearly as badly as that. But we still have a lot of a lot of work to do here," said Couturier, who was a co-author of the 2019 report on The State of Canada's Birds.

No surprise to Couturier, the 2019 report found that grassland birds in the Prairies were most at risk.

"There's hardly any native grassland left in Prairie Canada, and that's always under threat to be converted to some other use such as row cropping," he said. "But we do have good partnerships with the cattle industry, because those lands are actually providing good habitat for grassland birds and they're actually able to coexist with ranching."

Couturier said there are ways to reverse the trend of the loss of habitats and bird species. These can include individual efforts, such as putting stickers on big windows around our homes and planting bird- and pollinator-friendly gardens. On a larger scale, efforts can include office buildings turning off their lights at night to avoid migrating birds from crashing into them, the development of further KBAs across the country, and better land-use management.

And the report, which also outlines some of these steps, is something Couturier said he sees as positive.

"If you talk to people in the charitable sector, you know, there definitely is a fatigue associated with depressing news all the time, when you're working so hard to try and make a difference," he said. "And then you keep seeing things going down and you wonder what else can we do? What can we do better to reverse this problem?"

But, he notes, "There are signs of hope."

A US Study Finally Shows Just How Much Deadlier COVID Has Been for Republicans

Donald Moynihan - Yesterday -SLATE

An anti-vaccine protest in Boston in August 2020. 

Scott Eisen/Getty Images© Provided by Slate

This essay was adapted from Donald Moynihan’s newsletter, Can We Still Govern? Subscribe here.

For at least a year now, there has been strong but largely circumstantial evidence that right-wing anti-vaccine rhetoric was having deadly consequences in the United States.

Despite early wide-scale access to COVID-19 vaccines, the U.S. has outstripped its peer countries when it comes to the all-important measure of mortality known as “excess deaths.” Meanwhile, U.S. life expectancy has continued to drop dramatically due to the coronavirus even as longevity measures have begun rebounding elsewhere.

One seemingly obvious explanation for this grim piece of American exceptionalism is that Republicans, egged on by right-wing political and media elites, have been avoiding simple public health measures to protect themselves like getting vaccinated, and dying at elevated rates as a result.

This problem wasn’t exactly hard to pick up on just by paying attention to social media or reading the news. But the story appeared to be borne out by more careful data analyses, too. Some of the key clues:

• When it comes to the public’s beliefs about the pandemic, such as whether there should be more or fewer COVID restrictions, the gap between left- and right-leaning voters has been much higher in the U.S. than elsewhere.

• COVID cases and deaths are higher in more Republican counties.

• Republicans are more likely to believe misinformation about vaccines.

• Republicans are substantially less likely to get vaccinated.

• Researchers have found that exposure to conservative media, particularly Fox News, made people more vaccine hesitant.

This body of evidence had some limitations, though. For instance, the fact that red counties tended to have higher death rates than blue ones might not mean that conservatives were more likely to die from COVID if lots of Democrats who happened to live in right-wing parts of the country were perishing too. Or, if more Republicans were dying, it might also be because they were different from Democrats in ways that affect COVID outcomes but were not directly driven by ideology. They might just be older, in worse health, or in a community with poorer health resources, for example.

Recently, however, a new working paper by three Yale public health and economics researchers—Jacob Wallace, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham, and Jason Schwartz—is offering the most definitive and direct evidence I’ve seen yet confirming that Republicans have indeed been more likely to die because of COVID. The study, released by the National Bureau of Economic Research, also confirms the scale of these deaths and points to the central role vaccine hesitancy has likely played in the tragedy.

Much prior work on this topic relied either on surveys of beliefs or evidence about vaccination rates and deaths at the county level. The new paper, in contrast, uses information from voter registration files in Florida and Ohio to connect individual-level data on the political affiliation and age of people who died during the coronavirus crisis. Using this information, it calculates and compares excess death rates of Republicans and Democrats in 2020 and 2021—meaning it looks at how many more people in each party died during the pandemic above what you would ordinarily expect based on their demographics and historical trends. Because they’re using a measure that takes the age of population into account, the researchers’ results shouldn’t be affected by the fact that Republicans tend to be a little older than Democrats.

Technically, excess deaths measure how many additional people have passed away from all causes, rather than just COVID. But public health experts like to use them to track the virus’s toll because causes of death aren’t reported uniformly everywhere, and it avoids the issue of whether coronavirus fatalities are under-recorded in some places but not others. (In studies like this one, it also spares researchers the task of tracking down how each individual died, which isn’t feasible.) It’s a standard and sound approach—unless you think something else besides the global pandemic has been causing a big spike in deaths over the past couple years.


So, what did the authors discover? “Overall, the excess death rate for Republicans was 5.4 percentage points, or 76 percent, higher than the excess death rate for Democrats.”

The figure below illustrates the key finding of the paper: It shows a spike in excess deaths around the time of the pandemic, and then a growing difference between Republicans and Democrats in the rate of excess deaths.



Wallace, Goldsmith-Pinkham, and Schwartz© Wallace, Goldsmith-Pinkham, and Schwartz

Crucially, the graphs also show the gap between Democrats and Republicans turned noticeable only after vaccines became widely available. In other words, absent the vaccines, the effect of partisan ideology was not very large. But once people could choose to protect themselves with a shot, Republican and Democratic outcomes diverged.

The figure below reiterates this point. Before vaccine availability, excess deaths are similar for Democrats and Republicans. After vaccines become available, the two groups separate: The excess death rate gap between Republicans and Democrats increases from 1.6 percentage points to 10.4 percentage points.



Wallace, Goldsmith-Pinkham, and Schwartz© Wallace, Goldsmith-Pinkham, and Schwartz

The paper does have a few limitations. First, it’s still a draft that has yet to go through peer review. However, NBER working papers tend to be high-quality, and absent some glaring data error, it’s hard to see the key findings being reversed. Second, it only uses data from two states, Florida and Ohio; in theory, it is possible that death patterns in the rest of the country are different (though it’s not immediately obvious why that would be the case).

Most crucially, the study also does not include data on whether individuals who died were vaccinated. As a result, the authors cannot quite prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that COVID was deadlier for Republicans specifically because fewer of them chose to be inoculated against it.

But, combined with what we know from other sources, the paper certainly points very, very strongly toward that conclusion. After all, why else would the death gap between Democrats and Republicans only have opened up after vaccines became available to the public? Notably, in counties with the very highest vaccination rates, the study’s authors find almost no difference in excess deaths between Republicans and Democrats. One plausible, if ever so slightly speculative, interpretation of this finding is that in places where conservatives acted more like liberals and actually got their shots, they were less likely to die.

As the authors write, their overall “results suggest that the well-documented differences in vaccination attitudes and reported uptake between Republicans and Democrats have already had serious consequences for the severity and trajectory of the pandemic in the United States.”

Now about the political implications of all this.

The U.S. government’s response to COVID was far from perfect and deserves to be scrutinized. But public health is a coproduction between a country’s citizens and government, which relies on ordinary people to follow official guidance. Most other developed countries did a lot better with that task than the United States.

At this point, it seems safe to say that one of the key reasons why the U.S. failed where other countries succeeded is because right-wing leaders and media sought to sabotage the effort—in particular by casting doubt on the effectiveness and safety of vaccines.

After all, vaccine hesitancy was a fringe position before the pandemic, found both on the left and the right. It only became mainstreamed as a conservative view during the pandemic.

Once Joe Biden became president, Republicans amplified the claims that vaccines posed a threat to freedom and aligned themselves with anti-vaccine activists. In some cases, state lawmakers discouraged outreach efforts. And as Matt Gertz of Media Matters has documented, the right-wing campaign against vaccines is still ongoing. Fox News is still raising doubts about vaccinations because, as one insider told the Daily Beast last year, “it’s great for ratings.” The midterms haven’t forced the most prominent vaccine-skeptical politicians to change their tune, either. Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson has pushed doubts about the shots despite being up for reelection in November.

Indeed, embracing vaccines has become politically risky. One of the Trump administration’s most positive achievements was in pushing for rapid vaccine development. But Donald Trump himself has struggled to take credit. When he mentioned he got a booster shot at one of his rallies, he was booed. It turns out that when you plant the seed of anti-science doubt—recall Trump giving credence to the false claim that vaccines cause autism—it is hard to reap the benefits of science.

The fact that an audience full of Republicans was ready to boo Donald Trump, of all people, for saying a kind word about vaccines brings up one hard-to-answer question. Did Republican voters turn against vaccines because their favorite politicians and talking heads told them to? Or did Republican politicians and talking heads turn against vaccines because that’s what their audience already wanted to hear?

In all likelihood, the answer is a bit of both. One way to think about this issue is to look at how liberals versus conservatives differed in public health attitudes around the world. What we find is that conservatives are indeed more skeptical about public health measures than liberals in lots of countries. But the gap between liberals and conservatives is much larger in the U.S. There is also some evidence that Republican voters were more attentive to partisan cues about the pandemic than their Democratic peers. In the end, the rhetoric of Republican elites and the appetite for it from voters probably created a terrible feedback loop.

Even if we believe that right-wing elites were merely responding to, rather than cultivating, the preferences of their audiences, this hardly absolves them of blame. People in positions of power and trust raised questions about vaccines while protecting themselves by making sure to get their shots. By lumping vaccines into their steady stream of fear-based political messaging—about the dangers of immigrants, “critical race theory,” or crime—they were the ones actually putting their own supporters at mortal risk. Just imagine the segment on Tucker Carlson if Democrats did something similar to their own voters.

The people who encouraged vaccine hesitancy probably won’t face any sort of reckoning for the role they played. But we need to be honest about the reasons why these deaths happened. Right-wing elites made a choice to engage in rhetoric and feed conspiracies. Some may have truly believed their own words. Some did it for votes and ratings. The consequences for their supporters were deadly.

South Star Battery Metal secures construction permit for graphite mine in Brazil

Cecilia Jamasmie | 

Aerial view of the Santa Cruz graphite project. (Image courtesy of South Star Battery Metal.)

Canadian junior South Star Battery Metal (TSX-V: STS) (OTCQB: STSBD) is moving ahead with Phase 1 construction of its Santa Cruz graphite mine in Brazil, after receiving the permit from the municipality of Itabela, in Southern Bahia.


The company said it had also held talks with the State of Bahia development agency, the Bahia industrial confederation and representatives from the port facilities in Salvador, Bahia, to update them on its growth plans.

“We presented additional details about Santa Cruz and our planned growth through Phase 2 (25,000 tonnes per year of concentrates) and Phase 3 (50,000 tpy of concentrates),” chief executive Richard Pearce said of the meetings.

South Star, which aims to start production at Santa Cruz by the end of 2023, said the mine will be the first major industrial facility in the municipality and one of the largest in the region as it scales operations.

It added that its Santa Cruz graphite project was the first of a series of industrial and battery metals projects that plans to bring into production.

The Vancouver-based company also noted that its next project in the pipeline is a development project in Alabama, United States, located in the middle of a developing electric vehicle, aerospace and defence hub.

Underestimated

Demand for graphite, an overlooked mineral that is a key ingredient for the electrification of vehicles, is expected to soar.

The lithium-ion battery used to power electric vehicles is made of two electrodes — an anode (negative) on one side and a cathode (positive) on the other. The resistant material, an excellent conductor of electricity and heat, is the only one that can be used in the anode, there are no substitutes.

It is also the largest component in lithium-ion batteries by weight, with each battery containing 20-30% graphite. But due to losses in the manufacturing process, it takes 30 times more graphite than lithium to make the batteries.

According to the World Bank, graphite accounts for nearly 53.8% of the mineral demand in batteries, the most of any. Lithium, despite being a staple across all batteries, accounts for only 4% of demand.

Consultancy Benchmark Mineral Intelligence (BMI) sees a roughly 20,000 tonne graphite deficit by the end of 2022, versus a similar-sized surplus in 2020.