OPPORTUNIST SILVER LINING

How a corrupt Dominican senator is blocking a Canadian gold mine

Story by Tom Blackwell • National Post

The Canadian mining company Goldquest had just enough money left in 2012 to sink two more boreholes in the southwestern hills of the Dominican Republic. If they turned up nothing, exhaustive exploration efforts would be for naught, similar to the vast majority of such searches worldwide.


Felix Bautista official photo.

Then, on number 14 of 15 holes, the team hit paydirt, literally. The core removed by the drilling pointed to a rich deposit of gold and copper, the estimate later being that it could deliver up to three million ounces of gold alone — about $5 billion worth.

By late 2015, the company had completed its feasibility study, including a plan Goldquest thought would temper any potential environmental concerns, and applied for an operational permit. That would allow it to move to the next stage — an environmental and social-impact assessment that was still no guarantee the mine could actually be built.

Decisions for or against such permits typically come within a few months in Canada.

But seven years and $44 million in investment later, the firm is still waiting for an answer. Two consecutive Dominican presidents have let the application languish on their desks as a vocal protest movement led by environmentalists and politicians turn the mine into a partisan hot potato — before a shovelful of dirt is excavated.

The most prominent face of that protest is the senator for San Juan province, Felix Bautista, once named among the most corrupt individuals in the world and sanctioned under the U.S. Magnitsky law for, among other things, allegedly ripping off Haiti’s earthquake recovery efforts.

He led a protest march against the proposed mine just last month, with another local leader telling the crowd “that Canadian company, Goldquest … is an enemy of this society .”

There’s certainly no shortage of horror stories about Canadian mining corporations in developing countries. But Goldquest argues that its opposition is built on lies — primarily that the company will use cyanide to process the extracted minerals and draw water from a local river, both of which it has stressed repeatedly will not happen.

“In my experience, this is totally unprecedented,” Toronto-based chairman Bill Fisher, a veteran of the mining industry in the Dominican Republic and elsewhere, said of the delay. “In terms of this political hold-up … I’ve never seen it before.”

A local supporter of the “Romero” mine, who asked not to be named because of sensitivities around the project, was more blunt.

“It’s a freaking nightmare,” the person said.

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But an environmentalist fighting the project suggests the alleged misinformation about cyanide and taking water from the San Juan River are in essence red herrings.

The chief issue is situating a mine on top of a mountain range, sucking up rainwater that is crucial to sustaining farms and homes in the much-drier valley below — just as climate change makes that precipitation a rarer commodity, says Ariel Zoquier, president of the ecological society of San Juan province.

“Mining activity would reduce agriculture, which has been the province’s economic engine for more than 150 years, generating more than 28,000 jobs and some 1.7 billion pesos a year,” he said in an interview by text. “The Romero project contemplates about 800 jobs and a durability of 7 years.”

As for Bautista and Manuel Matos — another mine critic and the senator’s rival candidate in the last election — they are just two among countless opponents, said Zoquier.

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The National Post asked the Dominican embassy in Ottawa about the delay repeatedly, starting 10 days ago, but the mission had not offered comment by deadline.

There’s no question that environmental concerns about mining — gold mining specifically — can be very real, including in the Dominican Republic.

The country is home to Latin America’s largest gold mine, Pueblo Viejo , which leached acid into local waterways during an environmentally disastrous period under local ownership from 1975 to 1999. Photographs show rivers tinted an unnatural reddish colour with the pollution.

Canada’s Barrick bought it in 2006 and has spent millions on remediation, boasting that water quality in the area has improved dramatically. But opponents still blast its stewardship of the site, and a $1.3-billion plan to expand the open-pit mine has faced stiff resistance, including from a group of 44 i nternational NGOs who wrote to Dominican officials recently.

For its Romero project in the Central Cordillera geological region, Goldquest developed a plan that seemed to anticipate at least some of the environmental fears.

Cyanide diluted with huge amounts of water is often used to separate gold from the ore extracted from mines, creating potential hazards to drinking water, ecology and farming. Goldquest opted instead for a physical method of isolating the gold that is more costly, but less risky.

The need for water was massively reduced and it plans to rely on rain that would be funnelled into two ponds, the water recycled over the course of the project, needing to be replenished only because of evaporation. The mine would not touch the nearby San Juan River, Goldquest says.

Lastly, it would be underground, not the type of open pit mine that can scar a landscape and feed opposition.

“The design was a good design, it was the right one,” insists engineer Robert Crowley, who was Goldquest’s social and corporate responsibility lead but now heads the RWC Technologies consulting company. “They made a decision to make less money for a better environment.”

The company has also promised to pay for reforestation of local hillsides stripped largely bare by agriculture — and says tax revenue and salaries would effectively double San Juan province’s GDP. The Dominican Republic’s per-capita wealth is one-sixth of Canada’s.

The Dominican mines ministry recommended it receive an exploitation permit that would pave the way for the environmental and social impact assessment. But the president must also sign off, and that’s where the roadblocks have built up.

The previous holder of the top post, Danilo Medina, refused to make a decision before the 2020 election, despite entreaties from Canadian, U.S. and Swiss ambassadors, representing investors from each country, says Fisher.

When he took power in 2020, current President Luis Abinader started the process all over again, with the mines ministry once more recommending he issue Goldquest a permit. But still, nothing has happened.

Meanwhile, the opposition seems to have built up steam, spearheaded now by Bautista, who alleges that cyanide will, in fact, be used.

The merits of the cause aside, the senator does not exactly give the opposition a blemish-free face.

Transparency International named him as one of the world’s 15 most corrupt individuals or groups in a 2014 report. Dominican prosecutors accused Bautista of using a previous position as head of the country’s public works department to award contracts to 35 of his own companies, only for the case to be thrown out by a judge from the same party. Then in 2018, the U.S. imposed sanctions against him under its Magnitsky law, designed to penalize foreign figures guilty of corruption or human-rights abuses. It cited allegations Bautista used connections and bribes to win reconstruction contracts in neighbouring Haiti, receiving $10 million for one project that was never finished.

Goldquest and its supporters are skeptical of Bautista’s motives around their protest. Crowley, who has lived in the Dominican Republic for 40 years, believes he and other local politicians see the proposed mine as a hot-button issue they can exploit to win votes, vowing to fight off the “big, bad” Canadians.

“Mining is unfortunately around globe the lowest-hanging pinata that a person running for office can have,” he said. “A five-year-old can hit it and get the candy out of it.”

Bautista could not be reached for comment.

Zoquier said it doesn’t matter what’s driving the politicians. Located 1,300 metres above sea level, he says, the mine would consume runoff from the rains that are crucial to agricultural land below, as climate change makes precipitation less plentiful.

Luis Carvajal, a biology professor at the Autonomous University of Santo Domingo, conceded to a Dominican news outlet recently that the Goldquest plan would make it relatively safe as such projects go. But he still opposes it, saying previously that green-lighting Romero and other proposed mines in the region would be “opening doors to disaster .”

With another election two years away, it all means Abinader may be hesitant to further stir the pot in San Juan by giving the mine a permit, said Crowley.

Goldquest says it would just like a decision — thumbs up or down. Ten years after that penultimate bore hole came back golden, Fisher is getting inpatient, but isn’t ready to give up.

“The problem is this deposit is so sweet — it’s a beautiful deposit,” he says. “So we’re sticking with it because we’re very proud of it, of our geologists — Dominican geologists — who found it. It’s something the country should be proud of, too.”

CHINA FIRE SALE
RBC raises competition concerns as it strikes deal to buy HSBC Canada for $13.5B

Tuesday 29, 11, 2022

TORONTO — Royal Bank of Canada has struck a deal to pay $13.5 billion in cash to swallow up HSBC Bank Canada, the seventh largest bank in the country by assets and — since the Big Six banks are largely untouchable — the biggest takeover prize around.


RBC raises competition concerns as it strikes deal to buy HSBC Canada for $13.5B© Provided by The Canadian Press

The deal means one less competitor in an already concentrated market, but chief executive Dave McKay said that while it's a big win for the bank, at less than two per cent of market share he doesn't see taking over HSBC Canada as negatively affecting competition.

"It doesn't change any of the market structure," said McKay on a conference call.

"We operate in a hugely competitive banking sector."

The takeover, which would see RBC absorb HSBC Canada's 800,000 clients, 4,200 employees, 130 branches and $130 billion in assets, will need approval from the Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions, the Competition Bureau, and the Ministry of Finance.

The Department of Finance issued a statement Tuesday saying that its review may take into account the rights and interests of consumers and business customers, the impact of the transaction on the level of competition, and its effects on the stability of the financial sector.

While it's a minor player, the loss of HSBC Canada could have some effect on consumer choice, said Robert Clark, an economics professor at Queen's University.

“They're kind of a competitive force in the market, and so they could be exerting pressure on the rates that people get with other lenders."

He said that past bank mergers going back to the 1990s led to some effect on choice in some local markets, but that the market has changed considerably since then with the growth of online banking.

RBC is aiming for cost savings of about $740 million for 2024, or about 55 per cent of HSBC Canada's current expense base, through a combination of integrating technology, potential job cuts and branch closures.

The reduction of branches could still have an effect on consumers, especially older Canadians, who still avoid online banking, said Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch.

“Further concentration in an already very concentrated oligopoly market is very likely to hurt financial consumers with higher prices and interest rates.”

He said he would like to see RBC release data on its lending practices to minorities, low-income clients and small businesses, as banks have to do in the U.S., and for the federal government to use the data as part of its review of the suitability of the deal.

"Why would you allow a bank that serves people poorly to get bigger?"

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh also raised concerns about the deal, saying in a statement that the deal is an opportunity for RBC to make more money while hardworking people can't get ahead.

"Today's news of the potential merger of two large banks is only going to decrease the options for families in Canada and put more money into the pockets of big bank executives."

McKay said the deal will create compelling value for shareholders, but also clients and communities.

"This is good for Canada. This is good for taxpayers in Canada who will receive a lot more tax revenue. This is good for shareholders, which are largely pension funds, and that's average Canadian pension funds."

He said that while the deal could lead to job cuts, the bank does have about 6,000 open positions and it's too soon to say how many will end up staying on.

"Our hope is to accommodate the vast majority of the players, there may be some individuals who choose not to be part of this.”

Overall, the deal gives RBC a chance to add clients in the commercial side, as well to a wealthy client base and to increase exposure to the growing number of immigrants coming to Canada.

"It's a unique, once in a generation opportunity to leverage all the investments we've already made in building a world-class retail and commercial bank," said McKay.

"That we're bringing in, first and foremost, commercial banking capability, globally connected clients, trade finance and multi-currency accounts, and preferential access to the next generation of clients."

Analysts said the deal, which while a higher dollar value than expected, is still compelling.

"We believe that this is an excellent transaction for (RBC) and should garner strong accretions to both earnings and profitability," said Barclays analyst John Aiken.

"While we believe that the deal will ultimately be approved, there is a risk that it may not ultimately be consummated in its current form."

The last time Canada's banking industry saw a deal of this scale was TD Bank Group's acquisition of Canada Trust in 1999 for about $8 billion, which when adjusted for inflation is the equivalent of about $13.1 billion.

TD made the deal after the federal government blocked proposed mergers between RBC and Bank of Montreal as well as between TD and CIBC in 1998, which established a convention that mergers between the Big Five banks would not be allowed to go ahead.

RBC said it expects the deal to close late in 2023, subject to closing conditions and regulatory approval.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 29, 2022.

Companies in this story: (TSX:RY)

Ian Bickis, The Canadian Press

The disturbing links between climate change and modern-day slavery

Opinion by Gary Haugen, opinion contributor • Tuesday - The Hill

On Sept. 12, a disturbing new report by the International Labour Organization (ILO), Walk Free and International Organization for Migration (IOM) revealed that the number of people in modern slavery has risen by approximately 10 million since 2016. Fifty million women, children and men are exploited through forms of slavery like forced labor and sex trafficking on any given day.



The report pointed to climate change as a significant contributing factor to the world’s growing slavery epidemic.

In 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted that the greatest impact of climate change could be on human migration, with millions displaced by erosion, flooding and food system disruptions. Now, forecasts from the World Bank warn of more than 200 million environmental migrants by 2050.

International Justice Mission (IJM), a global organization that protects people in poverty from violence, observed this connection in South Asia where we combat forced labor slavery. The IJM casework data indicated that 78 percent of rescued forced laborers had come from regions where impacts from climate change had placed their fundamental livelihoods at risk.

Additionally, IJM finds that in places where people profit from enslaving and exploiting human beings with next-to-no risk of legal sanction, the same offenders often also profit from exploiting and destroying the natural environment without risk of punitive action. Slavery and environmental destruction flourish where criminal impunity prevails and legal protection for both people and the environment is lacking.

IJM’s 25 years of experience combatting violent crimes and a growing body of outside research tell a brutal story about the connection between the wanton destruction of the environment and the exploitation of people.

The illegal logging industry in Brazil is a powerful example of the way ineffective regulations and an absence of law enforcement enable the cycle of human exploitation and environmental degradation. On Sept. 4, a front-page report in the Washington Post highlighted failures of law enforcement and government intervention to address deforestation in the Amazon. On Sept. 28, a report released by the Department of Labor found Brazilian timber among the list of goods produced with slave labor. And the Department of State’s 2022 Trafficking in Persons Report, released in July, noted that while Brazilian authorities made efforts to reduce the demand for forced labor, “the inadequate criminalization of these crimes hindered efforts to combat labor trafficking.”

IJM has seen similar law enforcement failures in the fishing industry in Southeast Asia, where forced labor and illegal overfishing are pervasive. In the palm oil and cocoa industries of West Africa, the scourge of forced labor and illegal deforestation also thrive in the absence of meaningful criminal sanctions. Modern slavery and environmental destruction remain largely risk-free endeavors for offenders, who stand to make a lot of money from exploitative practices.

At the same time — we now know what stops this high-profit, low-risk exploitation. In multiple projects around the world, IJM has worked with local authorities to strengthen justice systems so they better protect their most vulnerable citizens — and the data is clear. Potential criminals are decisively deterred if there is a meaningful threat of going to jail for operating these exploitative enterprises. This deterrence is not only a sign of an effective justice system, but it is also the core of IJM’s model. We have seen it prove effective in reducing illegal exploitation by up to 86 percent in multiple jurisdictions around the world.

It always made sense that slavery and environmental destruction would thrive if there were massive profits to be made with virtually no risk of punishment. And now for slavery, we have proof of the opposite — that slavery enterprises collapse when there are effective and sustained legal actions taken against the perpetrators. Likewise, we can expect that illicit enterprises of environmental destruction will be dramatically reduced when justice systems are finally strengthened to impose swift and reliable criminal penalties.

In either case, for the pragmatic and profit-focused criminals, the decisive factor is not the mere existence of laws and regulations — it’s whether the justice system has the strength and will to enforce them. The exploiters of humans and the environment always have their eye on the risks of legal accountability. Now is the time for those who want to end these crimes to develop the same disciplined focus.

Gary Haugen is the founder and CEO of International Justice Mission, a global organization that partners with local authorities in 29 program offices in 17 countries to combat slavery, violence against women and children, and other forms of abuse against people who are poor.

CRIMINAL CAPITALI$M
Interpol confirms red notice for Angolan billionaire Isabel dos Santos

Story by Reuters • Yesterday .

LISBON (Reuters) - Global police agency Interpol confirmed on Wednesday it had issued a red notice for Angolan billionaire Isabel dos Santos, daughter of the country's former president, asking global law enforcement authorities to locate and provisionally arrest her.


Isabel Dos Santos, daughter of Angola’s former President and Africa's richest woman, sits for a portrait during a Reuters interview in London, Britain© Thomson Reuters

Dos Santos, who has repeatedly denied wrongdoing, has faced corruption accusations for years, including allegations by Angola in 2020 that she and her husband had steered $1 billion in state funds to companies in which they held stakes during her father's presidency, including from oil giant Sonangol.

Portugal's Lusa news agency reported on Nov. 18 that Interpol had issued an international arrest warrant for dos Santos. But Interpol told Reuters it had issued a red notice instead at the request of Angolan authorities.

It explained that a red notice was "not an international arrest warrant" but a "request to law enforcement worldwide to locate and provisionally arrest a person pending extradition, surrender, or similar legal action".

A source close to dos Santos said on Nov. 19 that she had yet to be notified by Interpol. A spokesperson for dos Santos did not immediately reply to a Reuters request for comment.

According to Lusa, an official document related to the request made to Interpol mentions that dos Santos is often in Portugal, Britain and the United Arab Emirates.

The same document cited by Lusa said dos Santos, 49, was wanted for various crimes, including alleged embezzlement, fraud, influence peddling and money laundering.

Dos Santos has given interviews recently, telling CNN Portugal on Tuesday the courts in Angola were not independent" and judges there were "used to fulfil a political agenda".

(Reporting by Catarina Demony and Patricia Rua; editing by Aislinn Laing and Mark Heinrich)

Opinion: Religion needs to be on Canada's census

Opinion by Joseph Wiebe • Tuesday

On Oct. 26, Statistics Canada released another set of data from the 2021 census which included information on immigration, ethnocultural and religious diversity, and migration. Many have been eagerly awaiting this release, especially those working in the field of religion because the question of religious identity is still only asked every decade in Canada.


University of Alberta students and staff walk through the HUB building, in Edmonton Wednesday Feb. 8, 2017. New census data shows Edmonton among Canada's fastest-growing cities.© Provided by Edmonton Journal

Not only has the available data been outdated by 10 years, some Canadians forget that the 2011 census was erroneously made voluntary under the Harper government.

The skewing of the picture that resulted from having only 68.6 per cent of Canadians turning in the long-form National Household Survey that year is well-documented (and lamented) by policymakers in labour, health, and other fields where a clear data picture is crucial. The choice to go voluntary by Harper’s government led to the resignation of then-head of Stats Canada, Munir Sheikh , who emphasized that the voluntary survey could never replace a mandatory one.

While the move away from compulsory data collection on the census was reversed by the Trudeau government in 2015, the 2011 issue has continued to be a burden for scholars of religion and social policy-makers. A secondary policy of Statistics Canada is to only ask about religious identity every decade, leading to long gaps between particular demographic questions; and this has huge implications on both our shared society and how we understand it.

We currently live in a world where religion and its intersections with public life dominate headlines and have a huge impact on peoples’ lives. In Canada, we have pressing matters of religious freedom like Bill 21 in Quebec, immigration and migrant identities on the topic of integration, and the problems of religious discrimination, hatred, and even violence against religious minorities.

Related video: African students call out racist immigration system in Canada

Duration 2:49

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Let’s not forget that the murder of the Afzaal family in London, Ont., was merely 18 months ago. As political rhetoric here and with our neighbours becomes increasingly divided, oftentimes, claims of racial and religious superiority are used to justify discriminatory rhetoric and policies. Religious data helps us better understand the diversity in Canada and to counter narratives of homogeneity in populist discourses.

And the stats show a telling picture : the majority of Canada’s population remains Christian; however, significant shifts have also occurred. Not only is the Christian share of Canada decreasing, it’s not being lost to the groups that hate-mongers would normally target as the reason.

It is true that Muslim populations in Canada have more than doubled since 2001 (up to 4.9 per cent from 2.0), along with a similar doubling among Hindus and Sikhs; however, in the past 20 years alone, the proportion of the population claiming no religious affiliation has more than doubled and now encompasses one in three Canadians. And immigrants aren’t the cause of this shift either, as some would claim, given that the vast majority of immigrants do have some religion coming into Canada. Rather, it is believed that many who previously reported a religion, now, no longer do.

Indeed, these changes are fascinating and there are numerous other data points for researchers to now explore, with religion as the primary lens. For most scholars of religion, there is little of the artificial separation between religion and public life that so many proclaim, with different religious beliefs and ways of life being carried by the majority of the country’s population, and still others arguing that even secular ways of life still constitute a kind of religiosity with inherited assumptions, myths, and traditions.

The point is that religion has a major impact on society, especially in the diverse religioscape that is Canada and it should not be relegated to the sidelines of our data picture. This is especially true when we consider how central religions often are to the identities of those adhering to them, and how politicians and pundits weaponize that with dire social consequences. Religion is not just “part” of the overall picture; it’s inextricable from the whole of it.

With the release of this critically important data, which does help us understand Canada’s diversity in deeper ways, Stats Canada clearly noted that information on the religion of the population in Canada informs government, organizations, researchers, and other key policymakers for the development of programs, services, laws, religious-building zoning, and other key quality of life factors. With this in mind, our hope is that Canada can include this important question on every census going forward.

Joseph Wiebe is associate professor of Religion and Ecology at the University of Alberta Augustana, and the interim director of the Chester Ronning Center for the Study of Religion and Public Life.

Calls grow to disestablish Church of England as Christians become minority

Story by Robert Booth, Pamela Duncan and Carmen Aguilar García • Tuesday

THE GUARDIAN

Census results revealing that England is no longer a majority-Christian country have sparked calls for an end to the church’s role in parliament and schools, while Leicester and Birmingham became the first UK cities with “minority majorities”.

For the first time in a census, less than half of the population of England and Wales – 27.5 million people – described themselves as “Christian”, 5.5 million fewer than in 2011. It triggered calls for urgent reform of laws requiring Christian teaching and worship in schools and Church of England bishops to sit in the House of Lords.

Across England and Wales, the Muslim population grew from 2.7 million people in 2011 to 3.9 million in 2021. While 46.2% of people said they were Christian, 37.2% said they had no religion – equivalent to 22 million people. If current trends continue, more people will have no religion than Christianity within a decade.

Many of the biggest falls in Christianity were in parts of the north of England, where only a decade ago seven out of 10 people said they were Christian, but now only half do.

The Office for National Statistics 2021 census data on ethnicity, religion and language published on Tuesday also revealed that:

59.1% of the people of Leicester and 51.4% of the people of Birmingham are now from ethnic minority groups.

81.7% of the population of England and Wales is now white, including non-British, down from 86% in 2011.

The ethnic minority population increased from 14% in 2011 to 18.3%. Of these, 9.3% of the population is Asian British, up from 7.5%, 4% is Black, Black British, Black Welsh, Caribbean-African and African, up from 3.3%, and 5% are from mixed and other ethnicities.

Romanian is the fastest-rising language, with 472,000 people now describing the romance language as their main tongue. Polish is the most common main language aside from English or Welsh.

The fastest-rising religious identity is Shamanism.

The ONS census deputy director, Jon Wroth-Smith, said the figures showed “the increasingly multicultural society we live in”, but added that despite the rising ethnic diversity, “nine in 10 people across England and Wales still identify with a UK national identity, with nearly eight in 10 doing so in London”.

The 10-yearly census results heralded a new era of “super-diversity” in some places. Fourteen local authorities recorded more than half of their usual residents as identifying with an ethnic group other than white, with the highest proportion in the London boroughs of Newham, Brent and Redbridge.

Outside London, the highest non-white proportion was in Slough in Berkshire, followed by Leicester, Luton and Birmingham. One in 10 households in England and Wales now contain people of two or more ethnicities, and across England and Wales, the mixed-race population grew by half a million people to 1.7 million, though the rate of increase was slower than over the previous decade.

The plunging figures for Christianity come after King Charles took on the titles Defender of the Faith and supreme governor of the Church of England upon the death of Queen Elizabeth II. They look likely to pose a challenge to how he frames his monarchy, although he has already said he will serve people “whatever may be your background and beliefs”.

The Archbishop of York, Stephen Cottrell, indicated that the Church knows it faces a struggle to arrest the decline, saying it “throws down a challenge to us, not only to trust that God will build his kingdom on Earth, but also to play our part in making Christ known”.

Lynne Cullens, the Bishop of Barking, insisted the church should not feel “defeated”. “We are like the Nike tick,” she said. “We have to go down before we go up. We will evolve into a church more attuned to the worshipping needs of the communities as they are today.”

But secularists and others now want an end to the Church of England’s position as an established church which requires King Charles to make an oath to preserve the Church of England, guarantees Church of England bishops and archbishops 26 seats in the House of Lords, and means state schools can be required to hold Christian worship.

Vernon Bogdanor, professor of government at King’s College London, said the results make the argument for keeping Church of England leaders in the House of Lords “more difficult to justify” and “raises the issue of the disestablishment of the Church of England”.

“Some will argue that there should not be an established church which represents only a minority of the population,” he said. “Others will respond that the archbishops and bishops seek to represent all faiths, bringing a different perspective to the Lords and that the system works​.’”

The National Secular Society’s chief executive, Stephen Evans, said the current status quo was “absurd and unsustainable”, while Prof Linda Woodhead, head of the department of theology and religious studies at King’s College London, said: “The fact that Christianity is no longer the majority religion means policy is out of step with society.”

Dr Scot Peterson, scholar of religion and the state at Corpus Christi College, Oxford, said: “It’s been difficult to defend having an established church since the beginning of the 20th century, but it now becoming a figment of the imagination. The king being the head of the Church of England made sense in 1650, but not in 2022.”

The places with the highest proportion of people saying they had no religion were Caerphilly, Blaenau Gwent and Rhondda Cynon Taf, all in south Wales, and Brighton and Hove and Norwich in England. They were among 11 areas where more than half the population are not religious, including Bristol, Hastings in East Sussex and Ashfield in Nottinghamshire, most of which had relatively low ethnic-minority populations.

The places with the lowest number of non-believers were Harrow, Redbridge and Slough, where close to two-thirds of the populations are from minority ethnic backgrounds.

Shamanism, pagans and wiccans: trends from the England and Wales census


There are more pagans, fewer French speakers and 2.5 million households are of more than one ethnic group

People celebrating the summer solstice, a pagan festival day, at Stonehenge in 2019.

 Photograph: Martin Dalton/Rex/Shutterstock

Robert Booth, Carmen Aguilar García and Pamela Duncan

Tue 29 Nov 2022 THE GUARDIAN


1) Shamanism is on the rise

Shamanism is expanding faster than any other religion, with the number of people saying they practise it rising from 650 in 2011 to 8,000 in 2021 in England and Wales. The result might prove controversial, as the Shamanism UK website asserts “it is not a religion, more an authentic expression of mankind’s spirituality”.

2) Pagans and wiccans are becoming more established


England and Wales now minority Christian countries, census reveals

More established are pagans, who number 74,000 people (up from 57,000 in 2011) and who gather most in Ceredigion, Cornwall and Somerset, and wiccans, who number 13,000. Wicca is sometimes described as a witchcraft tradition whose roots lie in pre-Christian religious traditions, folklore, folk witchcraft and ritual magic.

3) Romanian is the fastest growing language

“Bine ati venit!” Welcome to the fastest growing language in England and Wales: Romanian. 472,000 people now describe the romance language as their main tongue – up from 68,000 in 2011. The centre of the Romanian-speaking population is Harrow in north-west London.

4) There are more mixed ethnicity households

The census recorded that 2.5 million households consisted of members identifying with two or more different ethnic groups – an increase of half a million on 2011. Among individuals identifying as mixed ethnicity the largest increase was among those identifying as “other mixed or multiple ethnic groups” rather than white and black, or white and Asian.

5) Cornish people are feeling more Cornish

In Cornwall 14% of the population (80,000 people) selected only a “Cornish” identity – an increase from 9.9%, or 53,000, in 2011.

6) There are fewer French, Gujarati and Bengali speakers

Languages you are less likely to hear as someone’s main tongue in England and Wales are French, reflecting a fall in the number of people identifying their nationality as French (down from 147,000 to 120,000), and Gujarati and Bengali, perhaps suggesting successive generations after earlier migrations from south Asia are speaking those languages less.

7) Polish is most widely spoken after English and Welsh

On the rise, though, is Polish, now the most popular main language after English and Welsh. To have the best chance of hearing it, head to Boston in Lincolnshire, a hotbed of Brexit support in the 2016 referendum, where 5.7% of the population – about 4,000 people – speak Polish as their main language.

The Polish restaurant in Boston, Lincolnshire.

 Photograph: David Sillitoe/The Guardian

8) Manx Gaelic speakers are in single figures

The rarest language in England and Wales is Manx Gaelic, which is spoken as a main language by just eight people, followed by Ulster Scots (16) and Irish Traveller Cant (36). Those worrying about the demise of Cornish can rest a little easier: 10 more people said it was their main language than in 2011 (567 people in 2021) and Yiddish has undergone a mini-revival, up from fewer than 4,000 speakers as a main language to 5,356 over the decade.

9) There was a small rise in numbers of Buddhists

Despite the growth in mindfulness meditation practice over the last decade, the number of people following Buddhism, from which the practice derives, saw just a modest increase of 0.1 percentage points, from 249,000 to 273,000 people identifying as such in England and Wales. The highest concentration of Buddhists was again found in Rushmoor in Hampshire – home to the Aldershot Buddhist Community Centre – where the census counted 4,732, up from 3,092 a decade ago.

10) There are more British Sign Language users

British Sign Language (BSL) was the main language of 22,000 people – an increase of over 6,000 since 2011. The hotspot is Derby, with 400 users, and much of this is likely to be down to the location of the Royal School of the Deaf.

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2022/11/uk-satanism-and-devil-worship-is-on.html

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2022/11/what-does-end-of-christian-era-mean-for.html

DOWN HWY 93

Banff council given extension to decide on emergency response plan in Kootenay National Park

Google map shows location of Highway 93 in Kootenay National Park.

Story by Olivia Condon • Yesterday - Calgary Herald

The Town of Banff will have more time to decide what type of emergency response service — if any — it will offer along Highway 93 S. in Kootenay National Park, after Parks Canada granted an extension on a contract it had previously terminated a year early.

At a Monday meeting, Banff council heard they’ll have until Dec. 31, 2023, to decide if and how the Banff Fire Department will respond to emergencies on the highway when the current contract with Parks Canada ends.

The contract, signed in 2014 between the town and Parks Canada, was set to expire at the end of next year. Earlier this month, Parks notified the town the contract would be terminated a year early, only to walk that back and grant an extension to the original end date.

Banff’s fire chief and protective services director Silvio Adamo told council Monday that before signing the contract in 2014, the department has been providing emergency services along that stretch of highway in partnership with the Town of Invermere since as long as the organization has existed, without any formal agreement or compensation.

In the past nearly nine years, the department has been compensated by the federal government to provide response services for road rescues and medical emergencies, as well as fire and hazardous material incidents.

One option is to enter an agreement with Emergency Management British Columbia (EMBC), Adamo said, adding he has concerns with this choice because of the specific and restrictive nature of EMBC’s response strategy and compensation.

“EMBC will not compensate a municipality or an agency for responding for medical emergencies, hazmat, fires, and the one thing that dictates their compensation is if someone is entrapped or needs extrication out of a vehicle or structure,” he said.

EMBC will pay $360 an hour only if someone needs to be extricated from a vehicle, regardless of how many apparatus the fire department brings to the scene or the time of day.

“When we set the pagers off for our membership during the day, it costs us somewhere between $1,000 to $1,200 to do that, and after the hours of 11 p.m. to 7 a.m. it’s double that,” he said. “So as far as cost recovery, it doesn’t come even close, and again there’s a large gap in what they will compensate for and what we normally respond to in emergencies.”

The Town of Invermere is also concerned about having to pick up the slack if the Banff Fire Department elects not to enter an agreement with EMBC once the contract expires, after which it will have no legal obligation to respond to emergencies in Kootenay National Park.

Adamo said the choice is between moral responsibility and cost.

“Obviously, we always want to do the right thing, that’s the business we’re in is helping people and we want to do the right thing regardless, but we are doing it at the expense of our ratepayers and it will increase that expense as we move forward outside of this contract and if we enter into an EMBC contract,” Adamo said.

Coun. Chip Olver said Monday that the issue is putting the fire department and the town in an uncomfortable situation.

“I’m concerned for the people on that highway when this contract ends, that if their vehicle is squashed enough that they need to be extricated that they will get a certain level of response but for other situations they won’t, and I think it’s a busy highway and it’s unfortunate that this is changing. Really unfortunate,” she said.

The moral effect of the situation is one Mayor Corrie DiManno said she’s relieved council doesn’t have to make right now, but acknowledged it will ultimately have to be made.

“There’s a real sense of a moral obligation to try and do our best to respond to incidents on that section of highway,” DiManno said. “Those could be visitors to Banff, those could be residents of Banff, and that’s where that sense of moral obligation really comes from.”

Further discussions with EMBC and the town of Invermere are in the works before council will hear back from administration to make a final decision no later than the third quarter of 2023.

ocondon@postmedia.com

‘Silent pandemic’: Antimicrobial resistance a growing threat to Canadians, experts say

Story by Teresa Wright • Yesterday 

Jean Lee, a PhD student at Melbourne's Doherty Institute, inspects the superbug Staphylcocus epidermidis on an agar plate in Melbourne on September 4, 2018.

© WILLIAM WEST/AFP via Getty Images

Rachel Sears was only 17 years old when a simple blemish on her face became a terrifying, painful ‘superbug’ overnight.

She had been working as a cashier at a grocery store and it’s there her doctors told her she must have picked up the antibiotic-resistant bacteria, possibly from some cash handled by an infected person.

She likely scratched or simply rubbed the blemish on her forehead - nothing out of the ordinary - and inadvertently infected herself, she said.

Read more:
Superbugs to kill nearly 400,000 Canadians by 2050, report predicts

“I remember thinking, ‘Oh, it has a weird, swelling feeling.’ And I went to bed like nothing,” Sears said, recalling the hours after her shift.

“I woke up the next morning and it was so swollen. It was humongous.”

She immediately went to the hospital where, 12 hours later, physicians determined it was methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and she was placed on intravenous antibiotics, used for infections that are resistant to oral antibiotics.

Sears, now 32, says the experience was “traumatic,” as she was only a teen at the time.

“My mom was like, ‘What's happening? This is my baby.’ These are like big, scary words,” she recalled.

“Then you do some Googling after and you think, 'what if it didn't work? What if antibiotics didn't work? Then what?' Then I'm screwed because they used the most potent antibiotics,” she said.

“So, that was scary.”

Unfortunately, it was not to be her last time contracting an antibiotic-resistant infection.

Read more:
How antibiotic resistance has an impact on future diseases

Sears says she contracted at least two staph infections from routine abrasions, such as cuts from shaving, in the ensuing years. Then, a year after her son was born, she was diagnosed with the intestinal superbug Clostridioides difficile, better known as C. difficile.

Eventually, she turned to help from naturopathic doctor, which she says has resulted in a marked improvement in her health.

“I just can't help but think that it goes back to contracting that first superbug and then those antibiotics,” she said.

The rising threat of so-called superbugs, or antibiotic-resistant infections, is just one of a number of concerns in what some experts say is a dangerous worldwide increase in antimicrobial resistance (AMR) – a phenomenon that occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi and parasites no longer respond to antimicrobial agents like antibiotics, fungicides, antiviral agents and parasiticides.

It’s a problem that may not receive regular attention in the public or the media, but concerns about this growing phenomenon have become so prevalent, it is being called a “silent pandemic” that is contributing to millions of deaths every year, according to global infectious diseases specialists.

A large group of researchers looking at the burden of AMR worldwide in 2019 estimated that antimicrobial resistance in bacteria caused an estimated 1.27 million deaths in that year, according to their study, published in The Lancet.

Dr. Susan Poutanen, a medical microbiologist and infectious disease physician at the University Health Network and Sinai Health, says in Canada, an estimated 14,000 deaths every year are associated in some way with antimicrobial resistance.

“This is somewhat of an unrecognized, quiet or silent pandemic,” Poutanen said.

“Every year there's increasing resistance, and yet there's not the same face to the problem as you might have with, say, cancer or with heart attacks and strokes and the amazing public campaigns and awareness (of those health risks).”

This lack of public awareness means not only that Canadians are left in the dark about the threats of AMR, but also that investments and research into solutions are also not getting priority treatment, she added.

Read more:
Antibiotic-resistant ‘superbugs’ killed over 1.2M globally in one year: study

The main driver of antimicrobial resistance is the misuse and overuse of antibiotics, both in human disease management and in industrial agriculture and food production, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

And the COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated the problem of overprescription and overuse of antibiotics, experts say.

Early on in the outbreak, many patients admitted to hospitals with SARS-CoV-2 were given antibiotics, even when it was not clear that a bacterial infection was present, Poutanen said.

Antibiotics are not effective against viruses and should only be used in cases of bacterial infections, she noted.

“We know when someone presents with what's most likely a viral illness from the best judgment of a clinician, there's still often a, 'Well, what if? It may not be,' reaction of giving an antimicrobial, even if it's predominantly likely not a bacterial infection,” she said.

“We've certainly learned since some of that data was shared with clinicians that there's very few (COVID-19 patients) that are coming in with a bacterial infection, and that certainly improved some of that empiric choice of using antibacterials.”

But the current surge in respiratory illness across Canada is now also likely sparking “increased use and an overuse” of antibiotics, which only stands to heighten the concerns and prevalence of drug-resistance, she added.

The overuse of antibiotics in Canada is not limited to health care. Producers of major crops like citrus and rice often make heavy use of antimicrobial sprays; antibiotics are often used as growth promoters and given proactively to prevent infection in livestock and antifungals used by the tulip industry and other agriculture crops are also contributing to a growing resistance to fungal infections, says Dr. John Conly, an infectious disease physician and professor in the Department of Medicine at the University of Calgary, who has been working in the field of antimicrobial resistance for the last 25 years.

“We're seeing this huge over-usage of antibiotics and we're seeing ever-increasing rates of resistant organisms,” he said.

For example, in Canada, about 26 per cent of infections that occur are resistant to first line antibiotics, he noted. Experts in this field predict this resistance could grow exponentially in the coming years, with some estimates at anywhere from 40 to 100 per cent resistance to first line antibiotics and antifungals by 2050, Conly said.

Read more:
McMaster researchers want Canada to expedite approval of ‘newer’ antibiotics

“That's a major concern.”

That’s why specialists and leaders from around the globe have been increasingly trying to shine a light on this issue, with the help of the WHO.

Last week, the WHO held its third global "high-level ministerial conference on antimicrobial resistance," where a manifesto was created that set three global targets to tackle this challenge.

The targets include: reducing the total amount of antimicrobials used in agrifood systems by at least 30-50 per cent by 2030; ending the use of medically-important antimicrobials for growth promotion in animals; and ensuring a specific category of 48 antibiotics that are affordable, safe and have a low AMR risk (known as ‘access group antibiotics’) represent at least 60 per cent of overall antibiotic consumption in humans by 2030.

Read more:
Drug-resistant superbugs are the other thing keeping researchers up at night

Conly says more rapid diagnostics in clinical settings – to reduce over-testing and preemptive prescription of antibiotics – as well as digital guidelines on the use of antibiotics in health care would also help to curb the progression of antimicrobial resistance.

Ultimately, if more is not done to address this problem, more superbugs will spread more widely, leading to more preventable illness and death in Canada and around the world, he said.

“It's like a tsunami that's emerging, but it's far out to sea and you don't see it,” Conly said. “And then one day it's just suddenly going to emerge and we're going to say, ‘Did we not see this coming?’”

'Catastrophe of homelessness': Three dead at makeshift Edmonton shelters in early November

Story by Anna Junker • Yesterday - Edmonton Journal

A homeless encampment taken on Sunday, Nov. 20, 2022 in Edmonton

Three homeless Edmontonians died at separate encampments in the city in the first two weeks of November, say police and fire officials.

But outreach workers wonder if the number is even higher due to no official government body publicly tracking how and why the province’s homeless die.

The deaths are heartbreaking and outrageous, said Jim Gurnett, of the Edmonton Coalition on Housing and Homelessness.

“It’s beyond tragic because it’s so preventable,” he said.

The three November deaths were only confirmed by police and fire officials.

In the first case, on Nov. 3, the victim was found dead after a tent fire near 106 Avenue and 95 Street, said city police and Edmonton Fire Rescue Services (EFRS).

Five days later, on Nov. 8, Alberta Health Services responded to the death of a person in a tent, however, a spokesperson could not provide a location.

Then, on Nov. 9, Edmonton police attended a sudden death at an encampment near 106 Avenue and 95 Street. City councillors were later told that on that day, shelters reached 98 per cent capacity when temperatures dropped to -26 C overnight.


Edmonton police and EFRS also responded to a death on Oct. 12 after a tent fire near 157 Avenue and 95 Street.

In attempts to confirm the homeless deaths, Postmedia reached out to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME) to determine whether a medical examiner attended in each case.

But in response, Ethan Lecavalier-Kidney, press secretary for the justice ministry, would only say that the death of any homeless person is a tragedy.

“Our thoughts are with those who may be struggling to find a home or shelter during the cold winter months,” he said.

In a follow-up email, Lecavalier-Kidney added “due to privacy legislation, the OCME is not able to share information, including cause and manner of death, about specific cases it might be, is, or was investigating to anyone except for the next of kin, and, in certain circumstances, third parties such as the police or hospitals.”

Gurnett, meanwhile, says that ECOHH does its best to track such deaths itself, gathering names from organizations that identify individuals they believe died due to not having decent housing for an extended period of time. Gurnett said the group cross-checks the names among people and other organizations to remove duplications.

“In the end, we come up with what we think is a minimal list of people that would probably still be alive if it wasn’t for the effect of homelessness,” he said.

Gurnett said when people die, different conditions can be put on a death certificate, including diabetes, exposure, or an untreated infection. But the underlying point is that homelessness killed those people.

“What they die of in some ways is incidental to that,” said Gurnett. “We believe that most of the people we identify each year who die with homelessness as a major issue in their lives would have lived longer if they had had decent housing. That’s the bottom line.”

Related
West Edmonton eyed for 209-bed, $7.5M winter shelter by council

Clash in Edmonton's homeless, transit security and social disorder goals come to a head this winter

Elliott Tanti, spokesman for Boyle Street Community Services, said when someone dies on the street, they fall in that gap between municipal and provincial health authorities. The lack of data shows those deaths aren’t a priority.

He likens it to the information available for the COVID-19 pandemic, including deaths, which helped make public health decisions.

“If we aren’t even able at this point to get accurate numbers on how many people have died, how can we be making appropriate public health decisions at all?” he said.

Officially tracking deaths could help Boyle Street adjust its services during severe weather, create new programs to help people and show what is working.

“It’s incredibly vital information for an organization that’s looking to find solutions to chronic homelessness like we are,” Tanti said.

Toronto, in partnership with Toronto Public Health, began publicly tracking homeless deaths inside and outside of shelters in 2017. Tanti said if other jurisdictions can do it, it’s “incumbent” on Edmonton to do it, too.

“Our provincial health authority and the city of Edmonton need to be coming together as a sector to be thinking about this challenge so that ultimately we’re using good solid information that’s driving policy decisions,” he said.

In a statement, spokeswoman Noor Al-Henedy said the city’s support focuses on providing supportive and affordable housing. The city does not track deaths or assign cause of death, as health statistics and medical determinations are provincial responsibilities.

“If Alberta Health Services or Alberta Health created a process for collecting this data and sharing it with the city, we would consider making it accessible on our Open Data system or other reporting dashboards,” she said.

Hours after deadline, Chris Bourdeau, spokesman for Alberta Health said the province does not specifically monitor deaths among homeless Albertans and only tracks the cause and circumstances of death.

“Information may be recorded on the death registration such as ‘homeless’, ‘no fixed address’, or address of a homeless shelter,” he said. “However, it is not possible to validate the information for accuracy or guarantee that all homelessness cases will be captured.”

Bourdeau said the province supports a coordinated response with partners like the City of Edmonton, as reflected in the Coordinated Community Response to Homelessness Task Force, where data was a theme from the task force’s findings.

On Wednesday, City Council will debate whether to use $7.5 million from the financial stabilization reserve to fund an additional 209 temporary shelter spaces at a former west-end hotel. The additional shelter space proposal is a partnership between the Tallcree Nation and Jasper Place Wellness Centre.

A total of 1,072 shelter spaces are currently available this winter, but according to Homeward Trust’s By Name List , 1,250 of the 2,650 people experiencing homelessness in the city self-identified as sleeping in shelters or outdoors.

This leaves a gap in available spaces and raises concerns more deaths will occur once temperatures drop.

Gurnett said it’s a good move to increase shelter spaces, but it won’t end people dying from homelessness and is only a bandage.

“We need to do it. I totally support it,” he said. “But don’t let anybody try to tell you that an investment of a few million dollars in shelter space is doing anything about the catastrophe of homelessness.”

— With files from Lauren Boothby

ajunker@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/JunkerAnna

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to clarify that the motion city council will debate is connected to new shelter spaces at a west-end hotel and to add comment from Alberta Health, which responded after deadline.

West Edmonton $7.5M winter shelter gets unanimous council approval

Story by Lauren Boothby • Yesterday - Edmonton Journal

A temporary winter shelter in west Edmonton got unanimous approval from council on Wednesday as temperatures plummeted and snow fell on the city.


A homeless encampment is seen in central Edmonton on Nov. 20, 2022. Another 209 shelter spaces could soon open up in west Edmonton after city council finalized on Wednesday.© Provided by Edmonton Journal

Councillors finalized $7.5 million in funding for the 209 emergency shelter spaces operated by the Jasper Place Wellness Centre just before 4:30 p.m. after being hauled up at city hall for the third and final day of public hearings on the next four-year capital and operating budgets.

After unanimous support from the five-member executive committee last week , city manager Andre Corbould said he would start work on the shelter immediately, which would take about a month to set up.

Once opened, there will be around 1,280 shelter beds this winter, including the 450 spaces funded by the province — some of which aren’t yet operational.

Shelters nearly full capacity

Illustrating the need for shelter spaces, Corbould showed council data on shelter use — full nearly to capacity on extremely cold nights this month. On Nov. 9, capacity hit 98 per cent with a low of -26 C degrees. The same night, 408 people were kicked out of transit stations at closing time.

Corbould told councillors 274 people were evicted from transit stations at closing on Tuesday night. Of these people, 156 took advantage of the free warming shuttle to shelters, but 118 refused.

Giving people more options, and putting the city’s minimum shelter standards in place, would make it more likely more people get the help they need, he said.

“I think we have to have different shelters. I think Hope Mission serves a very good purpose but I think we need alternatives,” he said, adding he thinks the west Edmonton shelter should be appealing.

At least three people died in encampments this month.

Mayor Amarjeet Sohi said the city is in a crisis, and there is a critical need for emergency shelter spaces, and permanent supportive housing.

This also impacts businesses in the city’s core, and transit, because people are finding themselves desperate in -20 C or -30 C temperatures, and may be breaking into cars or buildings to stay alive, Sohi said.

“People don’t have a place to go and they’re dying on our streets, and they’re dying in the encampments without any support available. These are our neighbours, these are our fellow Edmontonians and they deserve to live and they deserve dignity,” he told reporters on Wednesday.

City council will need to dip into its rainy-day funds, the financial stabilization reserve, to pay for the new shelter spaces. Although it isn’t the municipality’s responsibility, Sohi said in the absence of action from the province they need to intervene.

“We should not be looking at 11th-hour solutions to these critical situations, and we see this every winter. This problem is not going to go away. We’re not going to end houselessness in the next year or two years, and we have houseless population doubled during the pandemic, so we will always be in need of dignified shelter spaces and we need more,” the mayor said.

During the meeting, Sohi asked Corbould how they prevent running into this same situation next winter again.

Corbould said the city has good data on the number of people who need help and the spaces, and that impressing these numbers on the government may help.

“We tried to do that this year. I think we did better this year than last year, because the gap we were facing in terms of space was much greater than 209 (in 2021),” he responded. “I think we have to keep on hammering the data.”

Council also unanimously voted to request an emergency meeting with the province on the “winter shelter crisis and shelter space gap in Edmonton.”

According to the motion, the letter will impress that the province needs to act immediately because there are more than 1,250 people sleeping outdoors, 182 cases of shigella primarily in the unhoused community as of Nov. 30, shelter capacity is consistently over 95 per cent on cold nights, inequity between Calgary and Edmonton in the number of spaces, and people are dying in encampments.

Community wants investment in Chinatown

Meanwhile, representatives for Chinatown Transformation Collaborative urged council during public hearings earlier in the day to follow through on the Chinatown strategy approved years ago.

Chair Hon Leong said they have been building their organization up over the past four years and they’re ready for action now, when there is a sense of hope and investment is returning.

He and his group spoke at city hall Tuesday evening and returned the next morning to answer council’s questions. In his opening remarks, Leong said the city needs to show fiscal restraint by separating wants from needs.

“Chinatown needs to change, it needs to be revitalized, and Edmonton needs to support foundational communities, or it will be lost,” he said Tuesday evening.

“Chinatown has been waiting for 20 years. Multiple budget cycles have passed us over. Our alleys, our sidewalks and park, and capital investment in our community is lacking.”

In particular, the group wants upgrades to 97 Street — such as adding new street lighting, temporary festive lanterns, and public art built into the sidewalks — and the underpass, 107A Avenue, and upgrades to Mary Burlie Park. Installing Harbin Gate is already included capital budget draft.

On Wednesday, Leong acknowledged that social issues like mental illness, addictions, drug poisoning, and homelessness are the root causes, but he said his group’s ask now is for council to invest in improving their community through work already identified and approved years ago in the Chinatown strategy.

Other members of the group said some community members and business owners don’t feel safe, but they are trying to change the narrative around what Chinatown is — others see it as a family-friendly place — and greater investment will improve how people experience the neighbourhood.

lboothby@postmedia.com

Organization that works with homeless Edmontonians hearing more bigoted, hateful rhetoric lately

Story by Phil Heidenreich • Yesterday - Global News

]
Boyle Street Community Services (BSCS) shared an angry and hateful voicemail it recently received to the media on Wednesday and said it is an example of what the organization describes as an increase in hateful and bigoted comments it's received from Edmontonians in recent weeks.


Boyle Street Community Services.

© Chris Chacon Global News

The voicemail, which BSCS said it received on Nov. 11, uses coarse language and calls on Indigenous people and the BSCS itself to leave Edmonton, suggesting they go to a First Nation west of the city. The BSCS, which works to help homeless Edmontonians, said it has reported the voicemail to the Edmonton Police Service.

"We reported it to EPS as a hate incident," said Elliott Tanti, the senior manager of communications and engagement at BSCS. "Boyle Street Community Services is disgusted by this abhorrent message.

"I think it demonstrates quite clearly the discrimination that many of our Indigenous folks face in our community. But what's particularly appalling is that this individual levelled these words at the most marginalized in our society, and they did it through an organization that exists to help people... I think that's ultimately what's most troubling about this voicemail that we received."

Global News has reached out to EPS for comment on the voicemail and to ask if the police department is investigating. A spokesperson for EPS declined to confirm if police are investigating but said the recording was brought forward to them and police are "following up." They added it was too early to comment further.

Tanti said discrimination is unfortunately something that is commonly seen in his line of work but said the brazenness of allowing such comments to be recorded in a voicemail, and the recent upswing in such sentiments, is particularly disturbing.

According to Tanti, the increase BSCS has seen in such rhetoric has been noticeable since the organization began community consultations a year ago on a proposal to move BSCS to a new building in the city's core.

Video: City of Edmonton hears appeal of new Boyle Street Community Services building

The organization had been planning a move from 105 Avenue by Rogers Place to a building on the corner of 101 Street and 107A Avenue near Victoria School of the Arts, but the move faced some vocal public opposition.

READ MORE: Boyle Street Community Services' plans for new Edmonton location facing opposition

Last week, the city's subdivision appeal board revoked BSCS' development permit.

BSCS has said its current building is "literally crumbling" and not accessible for all so it needs to move so it can continue to serve the nearly 3,000 homeless people who live in Edmonton.

READ MORE: Edmonton homeless aid centre loses development permit after appeal hearing

Tanti said during consultations with Edmontonians, BSCS has noticed evident discrimination coming up in discussions.

"We don't think this is reflective of the city we live in, but it certainly is reflective of some of the sentiments we've received as an organization over the last two weeks," he said.

"We want to make sure that people are feeling welcome, are feeling heard, they have an opportunity to discuss this discrimination."

--With files from Stephanie Swensrude, 630 CHED

FREEDOM CONVOY INSURRECTIONISTS

Some Coutts protesters wanted to alter Canada's political system, court documents say

Story by Kevin Martin • Yesterday 30/11/22

Protesters involved in the Coutts border blockade discussed “altering Canada’s political, justice and medical systems,” information uncovered during an RCMP investigation says.


Trucks at the Coutts international border crossing on Feb. 3, 2022.© Provided by Calgary Herald

In a sworn Information To Obtain (ITO) affidavit in support of an application for a warrant to seize remand phone records of four named accused, Const. Trevor Checkley outlined where the Mounties’ investigation was as of May 4.

The search warrant requests targeted Anthony Olienick, Chris Carbert, Christopher Lysak and Jerry Morin, who are each charged with conspiracy to murder RCMP officers during their involvement with the blockade.

All four were arrested in February.

In the ITO, a redacted version of which was released Wednesday by Lethbridge provincial court Judge Kristin Ailsby, Checkley outlined police concerns about the protest.

“Carbert received a text message from (a redacted name) and was told to share a message with non-mainstream media and on social media,” Checkley wrote

“The message and a related followup text from (redacted name) stated the protest was not just about ending vaccine and public health mandates but altering Canada’s political, justice and medical systems, including the elimination of a group of people referred to as the professional political class,” he said.

“(Redacted name) also shared the above message from (redacted name) in a group text chat with Carbert, Lysak and Olienick.”

Checkley noted undercover officers who infiltrated the protest had been present when Olienick and Carbert met with Morin regarding the delivery of a heavy package believed to be guns.

“When (an undercover officer) later asked Olienick if everything was delivered, referring to the delivery of firearms, Olienick said not everything made it,” Checkley wrote.

“Olienick told the UCOs if the RCMP came in with force they would be met with greater force and that the RCMP were the enemy. Olienick also said he was willing to die for the cause.”

During a Feb. 14 raid on three trailers in Coutts, Mounties uncovered multiple firearms, ammunition and tactical vests.


Photo supplied by RCMP on Monday, Feb. 14, 2022, shows a large assortment of weapons and ammunition seized near Coutts during a crackdown near the Canada/U.S. border.© Supplied by RCMP

In a subsequent search of Olienick’s rural southern Alberta residence, “police located firearms, over 36,000 rounds of ammunition, tactical gear and two pipe bombs.”

“Olienick described Lysak as a hitman, sniper and gun-fighter,” Checkley said.

“Police seized a handgun registered to Lysak from the trailer where Lysak was staying in Coutts . . . and a rifle with a scope and a range finder from Lysak’s truck parked near the Coutts blockade site.”

The officer said he believed Olienick, Carbert and Lysak, who were arrested with others in the border community, “went to Coutts with the support of (redacted names) to affect political change, as they believed that the Coutts blockade would lead to conflict and were preparing for armed conflict with police.

“For the reasons outlined above, I have reasonable grounds to believe Olienick, Carbert, Lysak and Jerry Morin possessed weapons near the Coutts blockade protest site with the intention of using those weapons against police.”

Related
Coutts mayor says village besieged by 'domestic terrorists' during border blockade: Emergencies Act inquiry

Coutts border blockade grew organically to open communication with Alberta, Fort Macleod councillor testifies

Police feared they were targets of guns at Coutts border blockade, court documents show

Checkley also reviewed police interviews of the four accused following their arrests.

“Olienick believed the government wanted to destroy the middle class and the economy was going to collapse,” he wrote.

He also expected a totalitarian communist regime would be installed in Canada “and there would be executions and gas chambers.”

“Carbert said he was trying to prevent a war and that people can only be pushed so far,” Checkley said.

“The whole point was to get (Prime Minister Justin) Trudeau and (then-premier Jason) Kenney to step down.”

Lysak questioned the validity of COVID-19 vaccines, the officer wrote.

“Lysak . . . said that it was 900 times more deadly for kids to get vaccinated than to get (COVID).”

And Morin expressed contempt for the government, Checkley said.

“Morin said it was World War Three and that stripping freedoms and making everyone slaves was warfare,” he said.

All four, who remain in custody, are set to stand trial next June.

KMartin@postmedia.com

Twitter: @KMartinCourts