Monday, October 17, 2022

HIP CAPITALI$M
UberEats to offer cannabis delivery in Toronto. Here’s how it will work

Irelyne Lavery - Yesterday 

UberEats is bringing cannabis delivery to Toronto, the company announced Sunday.© (AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast)

UberEats indulges in high times, will make cannabis deliveries

Starting Oct. 17, UberEats is bringing cannabis delivery to Toronto, the company announced Sunday.

In a partnership with cannabis website Leafly, this will be the first time in the world that cannabis delivery is available on a major third-party platform.

To start, UberEats will deliver to customers in Toronto from three retailers -- Hidden Leaf Cannabis, Minerva Cannabis and Shivaa's Rose.

"We are partnering with industry leaders like Leafly to help retailers offer safe, convenient options for people in Toronto to purchase legal cannabis for delivery to their homes, which will help combat the illegal market and help reduce impaired driving," said Lola Kassim, General Manager of Uber Eats Canada.

"Over the last few years, we have invested heavily in our delivery business and selection has expanded tremendously. Uber Eats has grown quickly to become a versatile platform usable by diverse businesses large and small."

To order, customers over the age of 19 will have to head to the UberEats app and select the "cannabis" category, or search for one of the cannabis retailers.

Read more:

The order will be delivered by the cannabis retailers own CannSell certified staff.

When the delivery arrives, a customer's age and sobriety will be verified.

"Leafly has been empowering the cannabis marketplace in Canada for more than four years and we support more than 200 cannabis retailers in the GTA. We are thrilled to work with Uber Eats to help licenced retailers bring safe, legal cannabis to people across the city," said Yoko Miyashita, CEO of Leafly.

Almost 57 per cent of cannabis purchased in Ontario between the start of January and the end of March was bought through legal channels, the Ontario Cannabis Store (OCS) revealed last week. The finding is based on data reported by consumers to Statistics Canada, leading many to caution such numbers could be skewed because shoppers are less likely to admit illicit pot purchases to government bodies.

Uber isn't completely new to the cannabis business. Uber Eats users have been able to order cannabis products for pickup from Tokyo Smoke stores since November, but the partnership did not allow for deliveries like the new Leafly deal does.

Deliveries were made possible when Ontario temporarily allowed cannabis stores to courier orders to customers in 2020 as COVID-19 restrictions closed pot shops.

The policy was made permanent in March and came with several stipulations from the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario (AGCO), the province's pot regulator.


Companies operating cannabis delivery businesses cannot operate entirely or predominately through delivery, orders must be placed with and fulfilled by specific stores versus a network of shops and pot can only be dropped off to customers when the shop it originates from is open to customers.

The AGCO does not allow deliveries to be made by third-parties and products can only be couriered by those with a retail store authorization or their employees.

Thus, Uber Eats couriers dropping off munchies won't be making pot deliveries too. Stores will hire and train their own staff to deliver orders placed through Uber's software.

Marissa Taylor, co-owner of Hidden Leaf, wanted to partner with Uber Eats and Leafly because she sees it as another tool she can use to expand the customer base at her North York location, where a loyalty program is already in place.

``We're a small business and really it was just to help be able to get cannabis to a broader number of people,'' she said.

``Accessibility is not always easy for everyone... and then to expand our reach, e-commerce is definitely the way to go.''

-- With files from the Canadian Press
‘No one is really taking care of us’: Little progress made on improving Inuit housing

Yesterday .

YELLOWKNIFE — Meeka Atagootak says the house in Pond Inlet on Nunavut's Baffin Island that she shares with her children and grandchildren is "unlivable" 12 years after a water truck hit and damaged it.



The elder says she has had to deal with flooding, rusty pipes, mould and a deteriorating foundation, which have led to frequent health problems.

Getting help has been slow, she says.

“It’s been a struggle when no one is really taking care of us,” she recently said in Inuktitut before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs.

Atagootak said she had trouble getting federal support because she owns her home, and her insurance doesn’t address northern needs. By the time repair supplies arrived by sealift, she said, they were no longer adequate because problems with her home had worsened.

Atagootak is one of thousands of Inuit facing housing issues in Inuit Nunangat -- the Inuit homeland in Canada comprising communities in Nunavut, Northwest Territories, Northern Quebec and Labrador.

A recent report from Statistics Canada indicates the housing crisis there has improved little over the past five years and, in some cases, has worsened.


Data from the 2021 census show almost a third of the nearly 49,000 Inuit who call Inuit Nunangat home were living in dwellings in need of major repairs, an increase of 1.2 per cent since 2016. Overall, about 53 per cent of Inuit in Inuit Nunangat were living in crowded housing in 2021, a decrease of 1.2 per cent since five years prior.

Inuit have faced housing challenges since the federal government established the first permanent settlements in the North in the 1950s. Issues like overcrowding and black mould have been documented in many homes in recent years.


A 2017 report from the Standing Senate Committee on Aboriginal Peoples detailed the severity of the housing crisis in Inuit Nunangat and called on the federal government to provide stable, long-term funding, among other measures.

In March 2021, then Nunavut NDP member of Parliament Mumulaaq Qaqqaq released a report documenting “inhumane” housing conditions in several communities, including holes in walls, sewage problems and crumbling floors.


Qaqqaq said the fault "lies squarely with the federal government," as the Nunavut Housing Corporation is underfunded.

“My people need help. They need that help now. Promises don’t get rid of mould. Words don’t fix windows and doors. Empathy doesn’t fix leaking pipes,” she wrote.

Living in poor housing conditions has been linked to the spread of disease, chronic illness, poor mental health and family violence, and can contribute to poor socio-economic outcomes. A 2019 study in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health found it to be a factor in the disproportionately high rates of tuberculosis among Inuit.

Housing issues in Northern Canada are made worse by the cold and changing climate, a lack of transportation infrastructure, a short construction season and high costs.

In a 2022 pre-budget submission, Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami, an organization representing Inuit in Canada, said it would take more than $3 billion over the next decade to construct needed new housing and maintain and repair existing homes in Inuit Nunangat.

The 2022 federal budget promised $150 million between 2022 and 2024 to support affordable housing and related infrastructure in the North, including $60 million each to N.W.T. and Nunavut. It also included $845 million over seven years for housing in Inuit communities and plans to co-develop and launch a northern, urban and rural Indigenous housing strategy.

The federal government said that since 2018, Inuit regions have built 120 units with funding through the Inuit Nunangat Housing Strategy. Since the end of 2021, it said, a total of $173.8 million had been invested in creating or repairing 873 housing units in Inuit Nunangat through the National Housing Strategy.

"We recognize there is still work ahead, which is why we are committed to working hand-in-hand with Indigenous partners to ensure everyone has a safe and affordable place to call home," a spokesperson for Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation wrote in an email.

Housing NWT said since it partnered with the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation in 2018, 34 new public housing units have been constructed in the Inuvialuit region. And over the past three years, it completed major repairs and renovations to 56 units. The housing authority and Inuvialuit Regional Corporation are currently working on a housing strategy.

In its mandate released in March, the Nunavut government committed to develop at least 1,000 housing units. A 2020 territorial report estimated 3,545 households were in need of housing.

The 2020-2021 annual report from the Nunavut Housing Corporation says construction on 20 public housing units and 12 staff housing units were completed that fiscal year. Several construction projects, including housing, have since been cancelled due to rising costs.

In an email, it added that it has spent more than $26 million to deal with mould in public housing since 2016, and it added $7 million to manage mould in its 2022-23 budget.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2022.

___

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

Emily Blake, The Canadian Press
Committee hears request to end tax exemptions for Saskatoon religious groups
NEXT TAX THE CHURCHES

Bryn Levy - Star Phoenix - TODAY

Ailsa Watkinson presents to city council's finance committee, calling for conditions on organizations that receive property tax exemptions. 
(Saskatoon StarPhoenix / Michelle Berg)

Ailsa Watkinson said she left Saskatoon’s City Hall building hopeful there will eventually be a provincial conversation about the public money that flows to religious institutions.

“It needs to be looked into, and I think we need to have some say,” Watkinson said after delivering a presentation to a meeting of city council’s finance committee.

Watkinson, a retired University of Regina professor, came with a request that council find a way to set conditions on the property tax exemptions commonly given to groups like churches, schools and charitable agencies.

She called for council to follow “the spirit and intent” of a recently passed bylaw in Iqaluit, which requires institutions to apply for tax breaks, and then prove they operate for the common good in a way that aligns with the city’s long-term plans.

Watkinson said she’d like to see a Saskatoon version include language tying tax breaks to support for the rights enshrined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code.

She pointed to recent controversy surrounding Saskatoon’s Mile Two Church and its affiliated Legacy Christian Academy as reasons for more scrutiny of the community benefit of tax breaks.

A group of former students have launched a class-action lawsuit naming several former staff and officials from the school and church, and alleging patterns of physical, psychological and sexual abuse. These include instances of children allegedly disciplined by being struck with large, wooden paddles despite a Supreme Court prohibition on corporal punishment in Canadian schools.

Watkinson said she’d like to see an end to the public’s subsidy of this type of alleged behaviour.

“It is crazy that we are funding that kind of thing,” she remarked.

In Saskatchewan, the provincial Cities Act largely governs who gets property tax exemptions. During Monday’s meeting, city chief financial officer Clae Hack noted all but two exemptions on Saskatoon’s property tax rolls are mandated by the Act, and the city has essentially no say in their application.

Watkinson said she was aware of the province’s say on the issue, and she hopes the city will eventually lobby for more discretion to tie conditions to tax breaks. She said she’d also like to see tighter wording around who gets to claim status as a religious organization.

“There’s just no transparency. Who gets to decide? They just call themselves a church?” she said.

Coun. Bev Dubois noted she’s had questions from residents since the allegations surrounding Legacy became public. She moved for city staff to report back in more detail on the concerns Watkinson raised about tax exemptions. Mayor Charlie Clark said he’s also interested in getting “some clarity” on the Cities Act definition of a religious organization.

Dubois’ motion passed unanimously. Coun. Randy Donauer was absent in order to attend to work with the Saskatchewan Urban Municipalities Association.

Donauer, a longtime member of Mile Two, has been accused of using a paddle to discipline a child in at least one alleged incident reported to Postmedia . He has denied any wrongdoing, and the allegations against him remain untested in court.

Related
Former Christian school students file complaints against Saskatoon city councillor


Murray Mandryk: Duncan's handling of Legacy Christian worst of bad lot

Opinion by Murray Mandryk - Sept 14

Education Minister Dustin Duncan needed to step up when it came to the government's handling of independent schools and Legacy Christian Academy
.© Provided by Leader Post

Education Minister Dustin Duncan’s handling of Legacy Christian Academy may be the Saskatchewan Party government’s biggest disappointment this summer, which is saying much.

There’s been all too many government disappointments from which to choose.

The summer began with Premier Scott Moe’s assemblage scouring the province to stir up federal government dissent by holding “ economic sovereignty” meetings. So restrictive is Ottawa’s yoke that Moe was handing out $500 to every Saskatchewan adult.

In between the Ottawa crisis and the cheques, there was that other crisis of federal health inspectors trespassing on farmland (or public ditches) to take samples of pesticide levels.

Alas, such pandering still might not be swaying some rural voters enduring the brunt of health-care delivery through closures of X-ray and emergency services in places like Kamsack.

Meanwhile, signs suggest our health system may continue to buckle under the weight of COVID-19. Currently, all 46 residents of one Regina Extendicare facility have been hit.

In fact, wastewater samples suggest it may be a long winter and fall under a government that vows never to reintroduce restrictive health measures.

As such, Health Minister Paul Merriman, Rural and Remote Health Minister Everett HIndley, Justice Minister Bronwyn Eyre and Environment Minister Dana Skoropad have all put in rather disappointing performances this summer, so singling out Duncan may seem a tad unfair.

After all, the problems with Legacy Christian Academy occurred before Duncan’s recent watch as education minister and may go beyond his purview.

As per the reporting of the StarPhoenix’s Zak Vescera, church officials for decades urged congregation members to take out bank loans and sell farmland — $1.3 million in personal loans to support what is now Mile Two Church.

Its pastors received personal gifts, including a Lexus and a $187,000 contribution toward building the then-pastor’s home. But this was not government/taxpayers’ money.

As for the Sask. Party government pumping $4.7 million to the church from 2013 to 2021 to fund Legacy Christian Academy, this was largely before Duncan’s watch as education minister began in November 2020. (But Legacy might have been able to qualify for up to 75 per cent of public students’ funding this year, but the ministry has said it won’t approve an increase pending investigations into the school.)

Similarly, the complaints behind the private lawsuit filed by 30 former Christian Academy students alleging abuse or any findings of the Children’s Advocate also contemplating an investigation may be beyond Duncan’s ministerial scope.

Finally, if there is cabinet blame in this matter, it should likely lie at the feet of Moe, whose immediate response a month ago to calls to freeze funding for the now Legacy Christian Academy was: “ We don’t do that.”

The question now is: “Why the hell not?”

Well, this takes us back to a minister’s role and responsibilities — why Duncan was the summer’s biggest disappointment.

An MLA since he was first elected in 2006 as a 26-year-old, and a cabinet member for the past 13 years, Duncan has long been thought of as one of the brighter cabinet lights; many thought he could be Brad Wall’s successor.

But it didn’t require superior political skills for Duncan to have reacted when the allegations were first raised to him privately months ago.

Surely, Duncan’s interest should have been piqued by stories of potential illegalities like a charitable organization donating to federal and civic politicians — let alone stories the now adult former students are telling of past abuses.

Wouldn’t a minister want to get ahead of these stories?

But this wasn’t about the political gamesmanship we are seeing from other ministers or even the complexities of seemingly unsolvable health problems.

This was about Duncan doing his job, which is to not only protect taxpayers’ money, but, more importantly, the well-being of kids. This is about setting biases and politics aside.

“I don’t know if I really can comment on that,” Duncan recently said, regarding allegations of private schools violating the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code. “People have a right to education. People have a right to faith-based education … I can’t say for sure.”

As education minister, Duncan needs to say for sure. This is massively disappointing.

Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
Are AI-generated drawings real art? Canadian artists say they lack ‘human touch’

Heidi Lee - Yesterday 


When an artificial-intelligence (AI) generated picture won first place in the Colorado State Fair’s fine arts competition in September, debates quickly emerged over whether AI-generated works should be considered art.



'Ai-Da', an ultra-realistic robot paints an image during a photocall in central London, on April 4, 2022. - Ai-Da is the world's first ultra-realistic robot artist, named after Ada Lovelace, the first computer programmer of all time.© BEN STANSALL/AFP via Getty Images

The winner, Jason Allen, said he indicated the work was made by AI when he submitted it to the competition under the category of digital arts/digitally manipulated photography.

“Art is dead, dude. It’s over. A.I. won. Humans lost,” Allen told The New York Times in an interview.

Read more:

 

The painting in question was created with Midjourney, a text-to-image generator that converts a text prompt into digital art. After the user puts in the text prompt, the algorithm generates the assets based on a database of pre-existing images and artwork.

Users usually would type in a few keywords to describe what they want the image to look like. Based on them, the AI creates digital drawings. The images could be further customized by feeding in other detailed commands, according to Midjourney's user manual.

Midjourney is not the only text-to-image generator. There are other programs such as DALL·E, Nightcafe and Starryai that produce similar results. But the controversy over it is thrusting the technology to the front of a growing debate about what it means to create art and most importantly— what is art?

Canadian artists who spoke to Global News said AI still has a long way to go before it might be able to really replace artists and designers, and said while AI-generated images are impressive, they lack “the human touch.”

That’s especially true when it comes to concept art done for companies, said Olivia Hamza, a concept artist at Montreal-based company Panache Digital Games.

“What we do (as concept artists) is actually a lot more complex than just drawing and oftentimes you don't see it from an outside point of view because people only see the final polished version of the product,” said Hamza.

“On a daily basis we have to communicate with different departments and find a way to harmonize every section’s needs into one design, so I don't think the AI is at that point where it can do this for companies.”


Hamza said artists and designers took many years to learn how to organize images to convey a very specific mood or message.

"All of these things take years of practice, it takes at least seven years to learn how to draw, and then you have the painting skills and design skills to add on top of that, and those are another three or four years," said Hamza. "Learning how to make art from scratch takes at least 12 years and at that point, you haven't mastered it."

Hamza said she was previously tasked to look into text-to-image generators to see if they can adapt AI for concept art development for video game designs, but “wasn’t specifically impressed” even though the results are beautiful.




“It has a lot of potential for creativity and brainstorming,” she said. “What I think is more worrisome is that the AI isn't quite as intelligent as we'd like to believe it is, so I think it just mashes up a lot of bits and pieces of pre-existing images.”

Ljubica Todorovic, an artist who also runs a framing business, said there has been fear among some artists that AI is going to take away the work from living artists.

However, Todorovic said she is not worried.

“AI can't generate real physical paintings and there's value in traditional art,” said Todorovic.

Todorovic added that the controversy surrounding AI-generated art is very similar to how artist reacted to cameras when they were first introduced.

“Camera Obscura is one of the first controversial things that was out in the 1600s,” said Todorovic, adding that digital devices like drawing tablets were also in the heat of the debate when they came out in 1990s.

Read more:

Todorovic said there are also concerns over the ethics of creating and profiting from AI-generated art.

She said for the sake of ethics and to be professional, artists who generate images using AI — which build on and adapt pre-existing images made by other artists — need to attribute to the original source and be transparent that their drawing is generated by AI.

Hamza said there are also copyright issues that don’t allow AI to replace real artists in a professional setting.

“This is where the big part of the dilemma in my industry is that we can't really claim these images until we know what the sources are,” said Hamza.

In Canada, creators cannot obtain copyright over a work that is entirely AI-generated since it is not a human-authored work, said Carys Craig, a professor at the Osgoode Hall Law School at York University.

“Copyright law in Canada right now protects only human-authored works as original work of expression,” said Craig.

“This means an author must exercise skills and judgment when expressing their ideas.”




Craig said the AI’s ability to process data and produce digital art is not the kind of authorial skill and judgment that fits the definition of work deserving copyright protection.

Copyright law only protects human-authored works so that authors and artists are encouraged to create cultural products, and to be rewarded by the copyright system, said Craig.

“When we're talking about whether this should be protected by copyright, we're not talking about whether it's good or bad art,” said Craig. “Copyright is about giving individual control, exclusive control over the work so nobody else can make the productions or they can copy it.”

She said although she thinks AI-generated drawings are “wonderful to look at”, the rationale for protecting AI-generated works with copyright law “just isn't there.”

“To my mind, art is something more than the machine-generated image. It's an exercise of human creativity and human expression,” she said. “I think it's very important to recall that what the machine is doing is very different from what human artists and operators are doing.”

Read more:

For Shana Patry, AI-generated images can come in useful for her creation as reference images — images that artists sometimes use to get an understanding of what objects should look like in real life.

Patry, who is a full-time artist in Saguenay, QC, told Global News that she believes AI-generated images can be “a massive time saver” for artists and useful for brainstorming ideas and exploring different compositions.

“Artificial Intelligence can create reference images extremely quickly for painters and artists,” said Patry. “These images will have a consistent light source, color harmonies and an awareness of things like reflections and bounced light.”

Patry has used AI-generated images for one of her traditional oil painting works, in which she said the paint, canvas and the texture are something an AI couldn’t mimic.

She said she believes that there will be always room for artists as the “artwork exists first in the mind of the artist as a concept or an idea before being put onto the canvas.”

“AI helps define that vision into something clearer and tangible,” said Patry. “The artist's mind is still required to create AI images. Generators can't do anything without being told what to do, so it's all about the idea and the artist behind it.”






Sierra Leone buries riot dead amid outcry

AFP - 8h ago


Twenty-seven civilians killed in August riots in Sierra Leone were buried Monday in the capital Freetown following a state-led ceremony, as families disputed police accounts of their deaths.


Nine bodies have still not been identified, a minister said© Saidu BAH

Coffins were lowered into individual graves at the Bolima Cemetery in the Waterloo district of Freetown, following a ceremony at the Connaught Hospital Mortuary.


Families had initially feared the dead would be buried in mass graves© Saidu BAH

"We are sad and devasted for what happened to my brother," said Alusine Koroma, who contests the official account of the death of Hassan Dumbuya, a social media influencer and prominent member of the opposition All People's Congress (APC) party.


Sierra Leone has had a reputation for relative stability since the end of its 1991-2002 civil war© Saidu BAH

On August 10, a protest about the cost of living spiralled into deadly clashes between security forces and young men calling for President Julius Bio to resign.

Violence erupted in several parts of the West African nation, with the authorities imposing an internet blackout in response.

In the days following, police said they conducted raids on "hideouts for perpetrators".

During one of those raids in the city of Makeni, Dumbuya -- alias Evangelist Samson -- was killed in crossfire, a police statement said. His family disputes that, and the APC has called for an independent probe.

"He was shot from the back in Makeni, according to the autopsy report we received from the coroner", Koroma said through tears on Monday.

The family has refused the 20,000 Leones ($1,200) the government offered to each family to help with funeral rites.

Koroma said they had requested and were denied a family burial.

- 'Dignified ceremony' -

Mohamed Rahman Swaray, the Minister of Information and Communications, said the state had "struck a deal" with families in which it would lead the ceremony for national security reasons.

Security is "the only reason" the state was involved, he told AFP, attributing the long delay to the need to reach a consensus with the families.

He also cited the need for relatives to identify bodies and be present for "examinations".

"Some of (the violence) happened in various parts of the country; we had to put out public announcements and family members -- some of them were initially scared", he said. "We had to extend one deadline after another."

Civilians were killed in the cities of Makeni, in the Northern Province, and Kamakwie, in the North West Province, as well as in eastern Freetown.

Swaray said nine bodies had still not been identified.

He said families had initially feared the dead would be buried in mass graves.

But the government said in a statement Sunday that each body would be buried in its own grave "following a dignified ceremony", at the instruction of the president.

"This is a sad day and a loss to our nation," Internal Affairs Minister David Maurice Panda-Noah told mourners following Muslim and Christian prayers at the mortuary.

On August 24, six police officers killed in the riots were buried in a state funeral attended by Bio.

Sierra Leone, a country of about eight million people, has had a reputation for relative stability since the end of its 1991-2002 civil war, which left around 120,000 people dead.

But the economy, heavily dependent on minerals, has struggled to rebound.

sb-prc/lcm
EVERY HOTEL ROOM IN OTTAWA WAS BOOKED
Ottawa, police were warned of plans to jam up the capital before convoy protesters arrived, email shows

Catharine Tunney - 19h ago


Both the City of Ottawa and local police were warned that some protesters planned to stay in the city for weeks and gridlock streets, according to evidence presented Monday to the inquiry looking into the federal government's use of the Emergencies Act to disperse the protests last winter.

Both the city and police went ahead on an assumption that the protesters would pack up after the first weekend, the inquiry heard.

In an email entered into evidence on Monday, Steve Ball, president of the Ottawa-Gatineau Hotel Association, told the mayor's office on Jan. 25 — a few days before trucks began rolling into the capital — that someone from the Canada United Truckers Convoy had reached out looking to book hotel rooms for at least 30 days.

"He basically laid out the plan, which is basically that they will leave their trucks in place, chain them together and attempt to block all accesses to the city," reads an email from a staffer in Mayor Jim Watson's office summarizing Ball's message. The email was entered into evidence Monday.

"What is our level of preparedness to respond to this should it go on for many weeks or months? Who is our lead in responding and presumably liaising with the federal authorities?"

That message made its way to Steve Kanellakos — the City of Ottawa manager who is testifying under oath Monday as part of the Public Order Emergency Commission — and to city police.

At the time, the Ottawa Police Service was signalling that the protest would disperse after the first weekend.

On Monday, Kanellakos testified that he felt "confident" Ottawa police were able to handle the protest.

"I was confident that we were prepared for that first weekend with the assumption that they were leaving after the weekend," he said.

"Police are responsible to keep public order and … they are very experienced at doing it. The first weekend we had no reason to question the intelligence, the strategy and the tactics they were employing."


Ottawa city manager Steve Kanellakos appears as a witness at the Public Order Emergency Commission in Ottawa on Monday, Oct. 17, 2022.© Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

Instead, protesters used their vehicles to block main arteries in downtown Ottawa for nearly a month — and what started as a demonstration against COVID-19 vaccine mandates took an anti-government character. The protest was marked by incessant honking that let up only after a private citizen sought an injunction.

"I've never seen anything like it," said Kanellakos, who serves as city hall's top bureaucrat.

Online posts also indicated that at least some of the protesters intended to stay and disrupt the city in a bid to force the government to agree to their demands. City Councillor Riley Brockington also told city hall that he felt the protesters would stay on after the first weekend.

"The OPS today estimated 1,000-2,000 to protest. No way. Expect many more," he wrote on Jan. 26.

Kanellakos said city hall didn't have the intelligence-gathering capacity to estimate how many people were coming into the city and had to rely on the advice of Ottawa police.

"The only information we could rely on was from Ottawa police, in terms of reliable information at that time," he said. "Ottawa police has extensive experience dealing with demonstrations in the national capital."

Kanellakos testified that the city's lawyers felt Ottawa police were not providing them with sufficient information.

But after the first weekend, Kanellakos said, it became clear that the protest was becoming entrenched and police didn't have enough resources to cope.

Documents entered into evidence Monday showed that, as the protesters dug in, city police felt there was "a potential for violence and weapons" in certain "dangerous and volatile" areas along Rideau Street — where protesters known to police were taking part in demonstrations.



A photo taken by a drone on Monday, Feb. 7, 2021, shows an overview of a logistics camp set up by protesters in an Ottawa parking lot on Coventry Road between the RCGT Baseball Stadium and the Courtyard Mariott Hotel.© Eric Laporte/Ottawa Drones

Kanellakos said Ottawa police reported they also feared that any attempt to clear the encampment set up near a baseball field near Coventry Road — which acted as a supply hub for the protest — would lead to violence.

Mayor Watson declared a state of emergency on Feb. 6, about a week after protesters rolled into the city.

Confusion over resources

Kanellakos said the provincial government made it clear that it thought the Ottawa crisis was a matter for law enforcement, not politicians.

He said that on Feb. 9, the city placed a call to Sylvia Jones, the provincial solicitor general at the time, to ask for more police resources.

"I recall the minister saying that this was something the chiefs should be dealing [with] the OPP commission on and that elected officials shouldn't be involved in this," he said.

On the day the city declared an emergency, Jones said that 1,500 officers from the Ontario Provincial Police, other municipal services and the RCMP were on the ground.



Serge Arpin, chief of staff at the City of Ottawa, appears as a witness at the Public Order Emergency Commission in Ottawa on Monday, Oct. 17, 2022.© Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

"That was inaccurate," Kanellakos said during cross examination by former Ottawa police chief Peter Sloly's lawyer Tom Curry.

Ontario Premier Doug Ford is not on the list of witnesses appearing before the inquiry.

Questioned by reporters Monday, he said he supported Prime Minister Justin Trudeau during the convoy.

"If you disrupt the lives of the people of Ottawa every single day, disrupt the lives and economic flow across our borders, I have zero tolerance for it," he said.

RCMP 'are lying to you,' mayor's staffer says

The confusion over how many police officers were available to respond to the protest made problems for Ottawa police, Kanellakos said.

Serge Arpin, chief of staff to Mayor Watson, expanded on the resources issue during his testimony Monday afternoon.

Arpin said while 250 RCMP officers were pledged, 50 were assigned to the Governor General's home, 50 were assigned to protect the prime minister at his cottage and another 50 were tasked with protecting the parliamentary precinct; those officers were not available to Ottawa police.

In a text exchange presented to the inquiry, Mike Jones, the chief of staff to the federal Public Safety minister, told Arpin that the RCMP said they "sent over three shifts of 70 each."

"They are lying to you flat out," Arpin responds.

Arpin said that text reflects the "extraordinary frustration" he felt while having to tell the mayor that, two weeks into the siege, there was no real movement on securing additional police resources.

Deal to move protesters was about 'relief'

Both Arpin and Kanellakos gave new details Monday about deal between the city and some protesters to move trucks out of residential areas and onto Wellington Street, the street in front of Parliament Hill.

Kanellakos said officials knew the plan was not going to end the protest.

"They planned to stay. This was about relief. It was about relieving those neighbourhoods of trucks and all that came with it," he said.

However, the deal didn't play out as planned.

First — due to what what Kanellakos called "communications issues" — some police officers refused to let more trucks enter Wellington Street. Eventually, about 40 vehicles were allowed onto Parliament Hill.

Second, many of the protesters in pickup trucks and other lighter vehicles refused to move and even blocked the effort to concentrate the protest on Wellington Street, Kanellakos said.

The plan did not sit well with Larry Brookson, acting director of the Parliamentary Protective Service, who sent a message to Kanellakos.

"Quite honestly Steve, I'm at a loss at how this sort of agreement could have been worked out with a clear disregard to security, especially considering we just finished a bomb blast assessment which included a threat of explosives being transferred via large vehicles," Brookson wrote.

During his appearance Monday, Kanellakos said the Parliamentary Protective Service should have been well aware of the plan. He pointed out that by that time, "hundreds" of heavy vehicles already hadbeen occupying Parliament Hill.

"The deal had fallen apart in terms of moving the trucks anyways up onto Wellington Street by Tuesday," Kanellakos said.

The day before, Monday Feb. 14, the federal government invoked the Emergencies Act for the first time in the act's 34-year history.

More questions about what the city knew, what police knew and how they communicated with each other will dominate the coming week of hearings. Mayor Watson and officials from the city's police and the Ontario Provincial Police are expected to testify in the coming days; Watson appears before the commission Tuesday.

The Public Order Emergency Commission is reviewing the circumstances that led up to the government's decision on Feb. 14 to invoke the Emergencies Act. The legislation requires that a public inquiry be held after it is invoked.

The Public Order Emergency Commission is holding hearings for six weeks, sitting every day from 9:30 a.m. ET until 6 p.m. or later, as required.
Canada's ERs are under intense pressure — and winter is coming

Benjamin Shingler - CBC - TODAY

Hospital emergency departments are jammed up in much of the country even before the traditional flu season begins, raising concerns about the winter months ahead.


A paramedic is pictured near ambulances outside St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto on Friday. A recent Ontario Health report outlined the immense pressure on the province's emergency rooms.© Evan Mitsui/CBC

In Montreal, for instance, ERs hovered at about 150 per cent capacity for much of the past week — and some surpassed 200 per cent.

Dr. Judy Morris, head of the Quebec Association of Emergency Physicians, said the sustained pressure on the system from the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent staffing shortages has taken a toll.

"It's kind of unseen to have that over such a long period," said Morris, an emergency physician at Sacré-Coeur hospital in Montreal.

"Certainly the lack of personnel — all types of personnel, but mostly nursing personnel — is hurting us across the health-care network."

Strain by the NumbersLink: https://www.datawrapper.de/_/ejYtz/ Embed:

The situation is also troubling in other parts of Canada, including AlbertaBritish Columbia and Ontario.

"I've been in emergency medicine for almost 19 years now, and I have never seen the waits that our patients have to endure at all," said Dr. Carolyn Snider, the head of emergency medicine at St. Michael's Hospital in downtown Toronto.

"I think what's most concerning about it is that it doesn't feel like there's an end in sight for so many of us."

Dr. Supriya Sharma, Health Canada's chief medical adviser, noted that another COVID-19 wave is beginning in Europe.

"There's concerns that we might see a worse flu season than we've seen from the last couple of years and as well as keeping an eye on COVID cases," she said.

"It's a matter of really being watchful and putting in place as many of our multi layers of our multi-layer public health approach as we possibly can."

Wait times up, rural ERs scaled back

An Ontario Health report leaked by the Liberal opposition last week illustrates the extent of the problem in that province.


Patients in an emergency room waited more than 33 hours for an inpatient bed in August, a 54 per cent increase compared with the same month a year earlier. Ambulance offload times also rose, with patients waiting up to 83 minutes before entering the hospital.

At the local level, authorities are warning the public of a challenging fall and winter ahead and urging residents to get their influenza and COVID-19 booster shots.

In eastern Ontario, Hastings Prince Edward Public Health, which is based in Belleville, issued a statement on Friday pointing to the continued prevalence of COVID-19, along with an expected resurgence of influenza and a health-care system already under strain.

"This year, residents are encouraged to get the influenza vaccine when it becomes available, and to stay up-to-date with COVID-19 vaccines, to reduce their risk of severe illness and to reduce the risk of spreading illness to others," said Dr. Ethan Toumishey, medical officer of health at the unit.

Emergency rooms in British Columbia are also under strain, said Aman Grewal, head of the B.C. Nurses' Union.

She said many hospitals in rural areas have, at times, scaled back services or closed on the weekends due to a staffing shortage — putting more pressure on larger hospitals.

"Those patients that would have gone to that hospital are now having to travel an hour and a half to two hours to a more tertiary site," Grewal said. The staffing shortage will only get worse, she said, if governments don't put money into education programs for young nurses, as well as provide better salaries and working conditions to retain those on the job.

In Quebec, more than 4,000 health-care workers were off the job on Friday due to COVID-19, the highest number in nearly two months.

Morris, head of the province's emergency physicians' association, said the lack of staff, a resurgence in COVID-19 patients and backlogs elsewhere in the system are all contributing to overloaded ERs.

"When patients have nowhere to go, they come to the emergency room, and that's why our numbers are high. But mostly we need personnel in order to open up more beds so that they can be in the right place to get the care they need," she said.

"We're feeling this way going into what is traditionally one of the busiest seasons with flu and another wave in front of us or upon us with COVID as well, and it's pretty worrisome."

The number of Quebec patients in hospital with COVID-19 climbed beyond 2,000 last week for the first time since August, prompting the province's health minister, Christian Dubé, to once again encourage people to get their booster shots.

'Patients have gotten more complex'

Snider of St. Michael's Hospital in Toronto said the problem isn't likely to be solved any time soon. Put simply, the number of patients coming into the hospital is greater than the number going out, she said.

"I think everybody can sort of grasp that, and there's only so many beds in the end," she said.

"As our patients have gotten more complex, as our patients are getting older, we need more and improved care for them when they leave."

In an attempt to free up hospital beds, the Ontario government made the controversial decision to allow seniors to be sent up to 150 kilometres away for long-term care.

Snider said authorities will need to move quickly to free up space in the winter months and should think creatively in doing so.

"Do we need to take over hotels, do we need to take over apartment buildings and ensure that good care is being provided in different spaces than we're used to, because we're at such a crisis state in our health-care system," she said.

"The other very important piece of this is: Who are the humans that are going to take care of our patients and our loved ones — and that continues to be a problem across Canada? I would say that most of our nurses, if not all, are really not paid for the hard work that they do."

‘Real disconnect’: Provinces and feds point fingers as Canada’s ER crisis continues

Teresa Wright - 

Emergency physician Dr. Raghu Venugopal doesn’t mince words when describing the realities his patients have been facing in the emergency departments in which he works in Toronto.



Ambulances are parked outside the entrance to the Emergency Department at Toronto Western Hospital in Toronto, Ontario on July 30, 2022.
© THE CANADIAN PRESS IMAGES/Don Denton

“It's really a dire situation,” he said after a recent shift in the ER.

Wait times are “exceedingly long” for even the most urgent care, with some patients waiting 100 to 125 hours for treatment, he says.

“My trauma victim may stay on a stretcher for four days straight. My elderly senior citizens will easily be on a stretcher for three days, having their entire admission on a stretcher in the ER.”

Venugopal is one of many ER doctors and other front-line health-care workers who have been raising the alarm about a “national crisis” in Canada’s health-care system.

Read more:

For months, these doctors and nurses have used any platform available to them urgently call attention to the situation in ERs across Canada that they say has become unsustainable due to an unprecedented shortage of staff. It is a phenomenon happening in tandem with a recent surge in demand for health services. COVID-19 is partially to blame for this spike, but so too is a national shortage of family doctors that has resulted in many patients without preventative care becoming sicker and in need of more intensive health interventions.

Video: Code Blue: Emergency rooms across Canada struggle with staff shortages

Canadians can be forgiven if they are confused about whether the situation is indeed a crisis, given the lack of urgent response from governments and mixed messaging from some politicians, Venugopal says.

Read more:

For example, last month, after more than 20 emergency departments across Ontario had to temporarily close and divert patients due to insufficient staff, Health Minister Sylvia Jones downplayed the situation, saying that to call it a crisis is “completely inappropriate.”

“What we're observing is a real disconnect on the facts,” Venugopal said.

Read more:

The situation in emergency rooms across this country is “demoralizing,” he says, and many nurses and doctors are speaking out because they see a “a gap in leadership” that is not doing enough to remedy the situation, he said.

“They really lack credibility and they really seem out of touch with the experience of the day-to-day patients and day-to-day nurses and doctors.”

Despite Jones’ dismissal of the term, the Canadian Medical Association (CMA) has repeatedly called the hemorrhaging of hospital and health-care staff a “national crisis.” And while provincial politicians have promised action, all 13 of Canada’s premiers also argue more federal funding is what’s needed.

They presented a unified plea to the federal government to increase the share of health care costs through the Canada Health Transfer from 22 to 35 per cent during a first-ministers summit in July.

Read more:

They say provinces are paying the lion’s share of health costs, despite health-care funding being a shared responsibility between provincial and federal governments, and an influx of cash is needed from Ottawa to “support the reallocation of services,” B.C. Premier John Horgan said at the summit in July.

But Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has repeatedly responded to these demands saying he wants to see “tangible results” from the provinces with the $45.2 billion they will already receive this year for health care.

In the past, “huge investments” by provincial and federal governments haven’t always delivered necessary improvements, Trudeau told reporters in July.

But he has remained vague about exactly what results Ottawa wants to see achieved, saying only broadly that Canadians should have better access to family doctors, mental health treatment and that medical backlogs should be reduced.

Read more:

Federal Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos declined multiple requests for an interview with Global News, but in a brief response to two questions outside the House of Commons last week, he said he wants to respect the jurisdiction provinces and territories have over health care delivery in Canada, while also acknowledging that Ottawa shares the “responsibility of serving the same Canadians with the same (taxpayers) dollars.”

“I'm there to support them,” he said.

“I know their job is difficult and that the health-care crisis is there because it is a health-care workers crisis – which has been and keeps being exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis – and for which we need to do dramatic investments.”

But when asked why Ottawa has not yet delivered on its election promise last year of $3.2 billion for provinces and territories to hire 7,500 new family doctors and nurses – money that was supposed to begin rolling out this year – Duclos walked away without responding.

B.C. Health Minister Adrian Dix says provincial governments cannot be left to bear the financial brunt of what has become a more costly system to manage in recent years. These costs are only projected to rise with Canada’s aging population, he said.

“The federal government has said they expect higher standards in various areas, including long-term care and others, so they've got to come up to the table. And unfortunately, in the last little while, they simply haven't done it.”

Instead of increasing transfers, Ottawa has instead preferred to provide targeted, one-time payments in specific areas, Dix says, such as increasing surgeries or reducing backlogs.

He argues these are “short-term” fixes that don't allow for longer-term planning, especially in staffing.

Read more:

“If you're going to build a surgical team in a hospital, one-year funding doesn't cut it, two-year funding doesn’t cut it,” he said. “It's not that we say no to it when it's offered. Of course not … But they've got to step up.”

So, who’s job is it to fix the problems plaguing Canada’s overburdened health system?

It’s both the federal and provincial government’s responsibility, says B.C.-based health policy analyst Andrew Longhurst.

While provinces and territories are tasked with overseeing health-care delivery – responsibilities that are often split with municipalities and regional health authorities – Ottawa also has a vital role to play in “setting and administering national principles for the system under the Canada Health Act,” in addition to providing financial support, according to Health Canada’s website.

Read more:

But even as the federal government came to the provinces’ aid over the last two years with billions of additional dollars toward the public health response to COVID-19, health care access has declined and premiers have continued to ask for more money, Longhurst said.

“I think in all of this and the federal government is very right to be concerned about continuing to write cheques to the provinces without certainty and accountability of how those dollars are being spent.”

But, he adds, Ottawa should also bear some responsibility in showing leadership and ensuring that accountability is built into funding models, he said.

“This back and forth of playing blame-shifting where the premiers are telling the feds: ‘We just need more money.’ And funding is a big part of that, no question, but a lot of the policy changes aren't about money,” Longhurst said.


“They're about how we organize the delivery of health-care services, how we pay physicians … how do we reform?”

A lack of timely changes in the health system to respond to shifting health-care needs across the country “absolutely falls to the provinces who have not been focusing on the issue,” he added.

But some political leaders are indeed ready to embrace the changes needed to help stabilize health-care services, including the mayor of Perth, Ont., John Fenik.

His town’s hospital emergency department was forced to close for almost a month in July due to critical staffing shortages. This had a significant impact not only on his residents, but also those of several surrounding townships that rely on Perth’s ER, he said.

That’s why he says he’s willing to do whatever it takes to come up with urgent and implementable solutions that will keep health services open and available to patients.

But this can’t happen until all government leaders take responsibility and stop pointing fingers over whose job it is to fix the problems, Fenik said.

“It's time for leaders in the provincial and federal positions, (for) Prime Minister Trudeau to not say, ‘It's your responsibility, Doug Ford,’ or Doug saying, ‘We need more funds.’ It is our issue. We have to collectively sit around the table and solve it,” he said.

“This back and forth does nothing for one of my citizens that needs to get to the ER when the doors are shut. So, the buck stops here with me.”

Even as they call for more federal funds, most provinces have been trying to address the challenges in their health systems in their own individual ways.

For example, Saskatchewan recently announced new investments to bolster health staffing, including a new agency dedicated to recruiting and retaining nurses and doctors, as well as money to increase the number of family medicine residency training seats and nurse training seats.

Manitoba’s budget this year had money for a special task force to address surgical and diagnostic backlogs and is investing in new education and recruitment programs for nurses.

Last month, Ontario announced it would increase the number of publicly-covered surgeries performed at private clinics, as well as waive exam and registration fees for internationally trained nurses and will send patients waiting for a long-term care bed to a home not of their choosing.

Read more:

Prince Edward Island has been trying to adopt more team-based approaches to primary care called “medical homes and neighbourhoods” to reduce a significant number of patients without family doctors.

And Alberta has been investing significant funds and energy into reducing surgical backlogs.

Ronan Segrave, Alberta’s surgical recovery lead, says a task force dedicated to this work has made some welcome progress in streamlining referrals and intake of patients – embracing new technologies to do so – and ensuring operating rooms are operating as effectively as possible.

Major changes in any health system can be “disruptive,” he says, but he believes patients, health-care workers and government alike know that even disruptive change is necessary to make improvements, Segrave said.

“We're starting to embed changes that are more transformational in nature, moving forward to a world where people waiting outside of recommended wait time simply doesn't happen in the future,” he said.

“We're changing processes, changing the pathways, changing how we deliver care, using the right technology and tools … We want solutions and changes that will be sustainable, not just in the short term, as important that is, but in the medium to longer term.”

Read more:

For those on the front lines of Canada’s health care “crisis,” this kind of change can’t come soon enough.

Nurses in particular have been bearing the brunt of patient frustrations over long wait times and lack of timely access to care.

And it’s been taking its toll on the dwindling numbers of nurses who have not decided to retire early or leave the profession entirely, as many across Canada have been doing in recent months, says Jane Casey, a registered nurse and director of emergency at Humber River Hospital in Ontario.

“There have been times where the stress of the moment gets to people and they do raise their voice and are quite concerned,” Casey said.

“So I would say, pack your patience. We're doing the very best we can.”

With files from Global News' Jamie Mauracher
CLIMATE CRISIS REFUGEES IN THEIR OWN COUNTRY
N.S. families who lost their homes to Fiona scramble to find a place to live

Nicola Seguin - 18h ago -CBC

On the night post-tropical storm Fiona hit Nova Scotia, Dana Boutilier woke up at home to water dripping on her face from the ceiling above. She quickly realized something was very wrong.

She jumped out of bed to find herself ankle deep in water.

"As I proceeded to leave the room to go to the washroom, water was shooting out in the washroom walls. My eight year old woke up screaming saying that water was coming in through her light fixtures," Boutilier said.

The storm's high winds and heavy rain pulled shingles and the roof cap off the home, near Truro, N.S., and created a large hole. Boutilier said when she looked around the next morning, she saw "utter devastation".

Because of flooding, most of the house and the family's belongings are now covered in mould. Boutilier said repairs will take at least a year to complete and she's worried about her family's living situation in the meantime.

The Boutiliers are among hundreds of Nova Scotians whose homes were damaged or destroyed in the storm. According to the Red Cross, more than 250 people in the province had to leave their homes and stay in emergency shelters or be placed in hotels in the last three weeks.


A water-damaged bedroom ceiling in Dana Boutilier's home after
 post-tropical storm Fiona hit on Sept. 24.© David Laughlin/CBC

But Boutilier believes the true number of people who need help is higher, because she tried to get emergency support and fell through the cracks.

"When the Red Cross finally called me back, I was expecting, 'Yay, we're gonna have help, they're disaster relief,'" she said. "[But] they suggested that I go to our local homeless shelter and call my food bank and ask them to whip up a hot meal.

"And when I explained that's not what these organizations are designed for, she told me they would call me back, and they never did."

Boutilier is on the board of the Truro Housing Outreach Society, which is where the person from the Red Cross suggested she seek shelter.

She knew the organization didn't have the capacity to shelter families, so she brought her children to family members' homes, and she and her husband went back to their house and camped in their wet living room with no electricity.

For nearly three weeks since the storm, the family has been split up, couch surfing in three different homes.


The family tried to save some of their possessions by stacking 
them in one of the dryer areas of the home.© David Laughlin/CBC

Their insurance company will be paying for an Airbnb while their home is unlivable, but Boutilier said finding a short-term rental was a struggle, and they can't move in until Oct. 25.

"Part of the problem was finding a place in a housing crisis," Boutilier said. "We had to sell off a lot of our animals, our farm animals, because we just won't be here ... we're going to be in an Airbnb using other people's stuff, living in somebody else's house."

Boutilier said she hadn't heard back from the Red Cross or received any emergency funding until CBC News contacted the Red Cross about her situation.

Then she received a phone call from the organization saying she would be receiving financial support. That came on Saturday afternoon when she received an email payment of $500. She doesn't know whether more is coming.

The Red Cross declined to be interviewed about Boutilier's situation due to its rules on confidentiality.

Dan Bedell, the Red Cross communications director for the Atlantic Region, noted that millions of dollars have been disbursed by his organization so far in the region.

"The Canadian Red Cross has already distributed more than $11 million of aid on behalf of both governments and our own Red Cross donors to about 32,000 households across the Atlantic region with various impacts from Fiona," he said. "These figures increase every hour as more households are contacted and their details are verified and we're able to confirm their preferred method of receiving financial aid, such as via e-transfer, a pre-paid credit card or mailed cheque."

Renters worried about low vacancy rate

Alicia Getz and her daughter Mercury lived in an apartment building in Halifax Regional Municipality that was damaged by the post-tropical storm.

When the building's roof was destroyed in the night, they grabbed two suitcases and ended up at a Red Cross emergency shelter. Shortly after, they found out their apartment was condemned and they couldn't return.

"I'm keeping myself strong and not crying, although I feel like just screaming my head off," Alicia Getz said. "Having watched documentaries and news programs and stuff like that with people displaced and not having a home to return to, I never thought that we would be in that situation."



Mercury and Alicia Getz are shown in the hotel room they are staying in for two weeks while they search for a new rental unit.© Brian MacKay/CBC

After a few days sleeping on cots in the emergency shelter, the family was put up in a hotel by the Red Cross, with funding from the provincial government.

Getz said the support from the Red Cross in the provincial capital has been excellent, but the hotel stay is only two weeks and she doesn't know what to do when it ends.

She had apartment insurance and received the $1,000 emergency funding for people who can't return to their homes, but she's still concerned about the low vacancy rate and high rents in the city.

"It's extremely hard to find a new place. We're reaching out to friends and family and they're reaching out to people that they know," she said. "I don't know if I'm going to be able to find a home."



The apartment building on Foxwood Terrace in Spryfield where Alicia and Mercury Getz lived was condemned after the storm.© Brian MacKay/CBC

The provincial department that handles residential tenancies said if a rental unit is damaged in a storm, the landlord has a responsibility to keep it safe and fit to live in.

"If the unit is deemed not fit to live in by an entity such as a fire marshal or municipality, the tenancy is considered terminated under the Residential Tenancies Act," said Blaise Theriault, a spokesperson for the Department of Service Nova Scotia and Internal Services.

Getz said her landlord has been helping her search for a new place to live, but she wonders whether any long-term housing support will be available.

Red Cross not responsible for long-term support

Bedell said the organization will try to extend hotel stays for displaced people as long as possible, but at some point the organization will step aside.

"We're not really involved in long-term housing needs," Bedell said. "I mean we know that that's a massive issue, not just here in Nova Scotia but across the country, involving multiple levels of government and many other organizations with expertise in housing issues. We are not that organization."

When CBC asked if there will be any sort of long-term government-funded housing support for people whose homes or rental units were damaged beyond repair, provincial Department of Municipal Affairs and Housing spokesperson Krista Higdon did not provide specific details.

"We would anticipate people approaching their insurance companies for coverage," Higdon said in a statement. "For people who find themselves looking for housing, we encourage them to reach out to inquire about our rent supplement program and to explain their current situation and need."

More funding for hotel stays

Higdon said the Red Cross and Cape Breton Community Housing Association have each been given $100,000 to fund hotel stays for families who lost their homes. Viola's Place and Pictou County Roots for Youth Society also received funding for emergency supports.

But Dana Boutilier believes the support from the government and the Red Cross should have been more thorough in rural areas, and put in place more quickly.

"They should had something set up when they knew the hurricane was coming, this is their area of expertise. They should have been ready so that when everybody the next day had all these tragedies, people had someplace to go," she said.

"They need to do better. They really failed people in this area."
CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Former CannTrust leaders plead not guilty to securities offences


TORONTO — Three former CannTrust Holdings Inc. leaders have pleaded not guilty to quasi-criminal charges related to thousands of kilograms of cannabis found growing in unlicensed rooms operated by the company.



Peter Aceto, Eric Paul and Mark Litwin, the pot company's former chief executive, chairman and vice-chairman, entered their pleas Monday — the fourth anniversary of the legalization of recreational cannabis in Canada — at the Ontario Court of Justice's Old City Hall court in Toronto.

Aceto, Paul and Litwin are facing charges of fraud and authorizing, permitting or acquiescing in the commission of an offence.

Litwin and Paul have also been charged with insider trading charges, and Litwin and Aceto with making a false prospectus and false preliminary prospectus.

The charges came more than three years after CannTrust announced in July 2019 that Health Canada had discovered unlicensed cultivation at its Pelham, Ont. greenhouse between October 2018 and March 2019, before the five rooms received the appropriate licences in April 2019.

The charges against Aceto, Paul and Litwin were laid in June 2021, after a months-long investigation conducted by the Ontario Securities Commission and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. The regulator and RCMP found the men allegedly did not disclose to investors that about 50 per cent of the growing space at the facility was not licensed by Health Canada.

They allege the men used corporate disclosures to assert Vaughan, Ont.-based CannTrust was compliant with regulations.

They also allege Litwin and Aceto signed off on prospectuses used to raise money in the U.S., which stated CannTrust was fully licensed and compliant with regulatory requirements, and that Litwin and Paul traded shares of CannTrust while in possession of material, undisclosed information regarding the unlicensed growing.

Aceto was terminated with cause by CannTrust’s board in July 2019, around the same time Paul was ordered to step down. Litwin resigned in March 2021.

They maintain they have always complied with the law. None of the charges have been proven in court.

Aceto, Litwin and Paul have already seen some of the charges against them dropped in May, when the OSC withdrew charges linked to making false or misleading statements through press releases.

Quasi-criminal charges, like the ones they are still facing, could result in a jail term of up to five years less a day, a fine of up to $5 million for each conviction, or both.

CannTrust has since renamed itself Phoena Holdings Inc. Following the unlicensed growing room revelations, it was delisted from the Toronto Stock Exchange and filed for creditor protection.

It has since been working to stage a comeback and exited creditor protection in March, after receiving $17 million in financing from a subsidiary of Netherlands -based private equity investment firm Kenzoll B.V.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2022.

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press