Ugandan president refuses to sign LGBTQ bill, seeks changes

KAMPALA, Uganda (AP) — President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda has refused to sign into law a controversial new bill against homosexuality that prescribes the death penalty in some cases, requesting that it should be amended.

Museveni's decision was announced late Thursday after a meeting of lawmakers in his ruling party, almost all of whom support the bill approved by lawmakers last month.

The meeting resolved to return the bill to the national assembly “with proposals for its improvement,” a statement said.

It was not immediately clear what the president's recommendations were. Homosexuality is already illegal in the East African country under a colonial-era law criminalizing sex acts “against the order of nature." The punishment for that offense is life imprisonment.

Museveni is under pressure from the international community to veto the bill, which needs his signature to become law. The U.S. has warned of economic consequences if the legislation is enacted. A group of U.N. experts has described the bill, if enacted, as “an egregious violation of human rights.”

But the bill has wide support in Uganda, including among church leaders. It was introduced by an opposition lawmaker who said his goal was to punish the “promotion, recruitment and funding” of LGBTQ activities in the country. Only two of 389 legislators present for the voting session opposed the bill.

Related video: LGBTQ Kenyans face backlash after rights group’s court win

(France 24)  Duration 1:43  View on Watch

 The bill prescribes the death penalty for the offense of “aggravated homosexuality,” and life imprisonment for “homosexuality.”

Aggravated homosexuality is defined as cases of sexual relations involving people infected with HIV as well as minors and other categories of vulnerable people.

Jail terms of up to 20 years are proposed for those who advocate or promote the rights of LGBTQ people.

A suspect convicted of “attempted aggravated homosexuality” can be jailed for 14 years and the offense of “attempted homosexuality” is punishable by up to 10 years, according to the bill.

Anti-gay sentiment in Uganda has grown in recent weeks amid press reports alleging sodomy in boarding schools, including a prestigious one for boys where a parent accused a teacher of abusing her son.

The decision in February of the Church of England to bless civil marriages of same-sex couples also has angered many in Uganda and elsewhere in Africa, including some who see homosexuality as imported from abroad.

Homosexuality is criminalized in more than 30 of Africa’s 54 countries.

Rodney Muhumuza, The Associated Press

RIGHT WING POSTMEDIA HAIR ON FIRE
Public Health Agency of Canada report calls for toppling of 'capitalism and liberty'

Opinion by Tristin Hopper •  National Post  Yesterday

The report concludes that climate change and poor public health are caused by many of the same things: “White supremacy, capitalism, colonialism, and racism.”

A new Health Canada report suggests public health officials should be openly advocating for the toppling of capitalism, Western society and even the very concept of “liberty and individualism.”

“Fundamental changes in our socioeconomic structures are needed to rebuild our relationships with each other and with our planet,” reads the conclusion of the April 17 report prepared for chief public health officer Dr. Theresa Tam.

The paper — written by three authors who “identify as white settlers” — also recommended that Canadian public health actions should focus on “decolonization, justice and equity” above all.

The 72-page report, What We Heard: Perspectives on Climate Change and Public Health in Canada, was commissioned to detail the “impacts of climate change on the health and well-being of people living in Canada.” The authors surveyed 30 academics and public health experts for their input.

There are indeed a number of emerging public health issues spurred by a warming climate. One example is an expansion of the ranges for disease-carrying mosquitoes, vastly increasing the number of people potentially exposed to malaria, dengue fever and West Nile virus.

But the Health Canada report is careful not to get into specifics: There is no explicit mention of a condition or infectious illness that is expected to become worse in Canada as a result of climate change.

Rather, the report features Canadian public health professionals explaining how they should focus on “less tangible determinants,” such as “legal, colonial and racist factors.”

“If we don’t address capitalism, if we don’t address colonialism, racism, the patriarchy, et cetera, we’re going to tread water for a long time until we eventually drown,” reads one expert quoted in the report.

“It’s really about the foundations of our society, the capitalist system, the culture of extraction — and we need to change that. How do we do that?” said another.



One respondent delivered a lengthy explanation of why the “core values” of Western society stood in their way, most notably the concept of “liberty and individualism.”

“It advances the individual over the collective, it says ‘as long as I get what I want, bugger you,’ and it leads to a huge number of problems, and it undermines the collective process,” they said.

The report distills the views of 30 Canadian public health officials and academics deemed to “have some understanding of the role of public health systems.”

This includes many already at top levels in the Canadian public health establishment, as well as three Canada Research chairs. Among them are Sandra Allison, formerly chief medical health officer for Northern B.C., and Cristin Muecke, regional medical officer of health for the Northern Region of Nova Scotia.

Also solicited were Trevor Hancock, the first leader of the Green Party of Canada, and Melissa Lem, a Vancouver family physician who pioneered the idea of prescribing nature to patients.

All 30 were asked, either in focus groups or in one-on-one interviews, “what roles should the public health system play and why?”

Ultimately, the report concludes that climate change and poor public health are caused by many of the same things: “White supremacy, capitalism, colonialism and racism.”

The report is clear that its content comes from “uninvited land occupiers.” Yet, the authors say they are sensitive to Indigenous perspectives.

“Collectively, we have a deep appreciation for Indigenous Peoples’ close and continuing relationship to the land and waters that we live upon and we are committed to a lifelong learning journey toward becoming good guests here,” reads an opening statement.

Another theme was that public health officials should be more “courageous” in pushing for policy typically considered outside their purview.

This included promoting “low meat” diets, designing housing policy, and advocating against the extraction and use of fossil fuels.

“Practically speaking, a lot of public health people want to be making the connections, but they are literally not given the mandate or the permission to because it’s not seen to be within their box,” said one.

The report acknowledges that there may be public or official pushback to this kind of “speaking out” from health agencies, and recommends these bodies be insulated against the usual avenues of accountability.

“Health systems should be independently governed or at least arm’s length from government structures to be free of fear of repercussions,” it reads.

Recent polls show that Canadians’ trust in public health agencies remains high in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, even as public trust in politicians has fallen. Polls have also shown that up to 90 per cent of Canadians agree that climate change is occurring, with as much as 70 per cent supporting a move to lower carbon usage.

Nevertheless, one respondent to the report said they believed the exact opposite was occurring on both points.

“Public health is under attack in some provinces … and there’s this climate change denial that we all know is being fuelled by the fossil fuel sector. So, my worry is that with public health that we won’t actually be able to get out there and do what we need to do,” they said.

The report also contained the near-unanimous pronouncement that public health agencies should receive more funding, even at the expense of the primary health care system. The reasoning behind that is if public heath has more money to improve society and fight climate change, fewer people will be going to the hospital.

“Not only would the primary health-care system require less funding but staff would be less overwhelmed in their duties, especially as health issues related to climate change intensify,” it reads.

https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2021/04/collectivism-mutual-aid-life.html

Life satisfaction among young people linked to collectivism

Loyalty to family and mutual assistance are important regardless of culture

NATIONAL RESEARCH UNIVERSITY HIGHER SCHOOL OF ECONOMICS

Indigenous groups going to court over Quebec's French-language reforms

Story by The Canadian Press • Yesterday 

MONTREAL — Two Indigenous groups are going to court over the reforms passed last year to Quebec's French-language law, with lawyers filing a request for a judicial review on Thursday.



The Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador and the First Nations Education Council are asking Quebec Superior Court to look at 14 articles in the Charter of the French Language, which was amended by Bill 96 last June. They have argued the provisions infringe on their rights to self-determination and to teach children their ancestral languages, as stipulated in the Constitution Act of 1982.

"The provisions reinforce, perpetuate and accentuate the disparities between Indigenous students and non-Indigenous people in education, deepened by policies and assimilationist laws implemented historically by the state and the education system towards Indigenous Peoples," read the request for judicial review.

The groups have accused the government of failing to consult them before adopting the law, which reinforces the use of French across several institutions, including the education and justice systems.

“There is no nation on the planet that is going to impose legislation on another nation and their language,” said Chief John Martin, of the Mi'kmaq community of Gesgapegiag and a member of the education council.

Martin said First Nations are best suited to choose which measures are necessary to ensure culturally appropriate education.

Related video: Quebec researchers crying foul after anti-racism training cancelled (Global News)   Duration 2:18   View on Watch

He said the province's language law reform "promotes the exodus of our learners outside of the province." The provisions, which include more stringent French requirements at the junior college level, create another obstacle for those Indigenous communities where the most common non-Indigenous language spoken is English.

“The culture in our communities is not francophone," Martin said. "Indigenous languages are very present and the second language is English (so) when we face a language that we do not hear, to which we are not exposed, it is extremely difficult for our students."

A request from Indigenous communities to be exempt from the language law was refused by the Quebec government.

Chief Ghislain Picard of the Assembly of First Nations Quebec-Labrador said the Quebec government is using methods of assimilation that date from another century.

‘’In the face of the offhand treatment by the government of Quebec, and its indifference to our concerns about a law that will have significant medium- and long-term impacts on several spheres of our development, we have no choice but to assert our rights before the court," Picard said in a statement.

Sipi Flamand, chief of the Atikamekw Council of Manawan, said the law is a direct attack on the languages and cultural identities of the First Nations and Inuit and that it creates "multiple systemic and discriminatory barriers in the educational pathway of Nations youth and jeopardizes the transmission of our languages."

The Quebec government has said it wants to introduce a law protecting Indigenous languages, but Indigenous groups are opposed to the idea.

“It is not acceptable that Quebec wants to do that," Martin said. "These are our inherent rights, these are rights that are protected in the Constitution and we do not accept the fact that another government is going to impose legislation on Indigenous languages here."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 20, 2023.

Pierre Saint-Arnaud, The Canadian Press

ISLAMOPHOBIA IS NOT SECULARISM
Quebec bans use of classrooms as prayer spaces

Story by CBC/Radio-Canada • Yesterday

Quebec's education minister officially prohibited schools from transforming classrooms into prayer rooms Wednesday, as announced two weeks ago.


Quebec Education Minister Bernard Drainville responds to the Opposition during question period at the legislature in Quebec City, Wednesday, March 29, 2023. Drainville says it will soon be forbidden to have prayer rooms in the province's public schools.© Jacques Boissinot/The Canadian Press

"Schools are places of learning, not places of worship," said Bernard Drainville.

The guidelines put out by the Education Ministry say that "the development of places used for the purposes of religious practices" is "incompatible with the principle of the religious neutrality of the state" and "that it is likely to have an impact on the proper functioning of schools."

The minister also says that using classrooms to pray goes against secularism laws, which require that schools respect the separation of the state and religion

The guidelines state that students must be protected "from any direct or indirect pressure aimed at exposing them or influencing them so that they conform to a religious practice."

When an establishment goes against the guidelines, the school's director must take "the necessary means so that the appropriate corrective measures are taken," the document said.

Immediate backlash

Québec Solidaire's spokesperson for education, Ruba Ghazal, denounced Drainville's guidelines on Twitter Wednesday.

"It took [the minister] two weeks to write guidelines that are neither clear nor enforceable," she wrote.

"Are the teachers going to watch the halls and the schoolyards in case [students gather to pray]?"

Representatives from several mosques with the Table de concertation des organismes musulmans expressed their shock and indignation at the decision and said they are looking into legal options to rescind the ban.

The Canadian Muslim Forum (FMC-CMF) said in a news release it "calls on all political parties in Quebec to work together to unify society," and that the prayer-room ban "reinforces the regrettable impression that Quebec students are stigmatized because of their cultural and ethnic origins and that their fundamental rights have been violated."

It stresses that the use of classrooms for prayer has only happened a handful of times and for a few minutes during breaks, outside school lesson hours and with the permission of the administration.

"This approach places the educational environment once again within the framework of political polarization in Quebec and in the circle of societal tensions by imposing on Quebec students a strong sense of inferiority, injustice and double standards, two measures," said the FMC-CMF.

'Pray silently'

In early April, Drainville commented on a story reported by Cogeco Nouvelles that Laval high schools allowed students to pray in classrooms because they were gathering in stairwells or parking lots.

Claiming that he could not ban prayer at school, he invited the students to do so silently.

"There are all kinds of ways to pray. No, I can't ban prayer. I ban prayer rooms in classrooms. Now if anyone wants to pray silently, that's their basic right ," he argued.

The Parti Québécois had tabled a motion affirming that "public schools are not places of worship" and that "the establishment of places of prayer, regardless of faith, on the premises of a public school goes against the principle of secularism." This motion was adopted unanimously.

The office of the minister of higher education, Pascale Déry, specified that contrary to the decision concerning primary and secondary schools, the government does not intend to cease the use of meditation rooms in CEGEPs and universities in the province.

APRIL 24 2013, the Rana Plaza garment factories collapsed in Bangladesh, killing more than 1,130 people

 

On Monday, we mark the tenth anniversary of one of the deadliest disasters in the global garment industry. On that day in 2013, the Rana Plaza garment factories collapsed in Bangladesh, killing more than 1,130 people - most of whom were women - and injuring 2,500 others.

The Rana Plaza disaster was a preventable tragedy that ruined the lives of thousands of people. Many Canadians were shocked to find out that their clothes were being made there. Ten years later, Canada still does not have mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation to prevent a similar tragedy.

Take action now and call on Canada to pass a law requiring Canadian companies and importers to respect human rights throughout their supply chains.

Here's how you can help:

• Join us in Montreal on Monday, April 24 from 12:00-1:00 pm for the 10th Anniversary Rana Plaza Rally hosted by Amnesty International Canada English-speaking section, the Canadian Network on Corporate Accountability and other partners at Phillips Square in Montreal.

• Take action now and call on Canada to pass a law requiring Canadian companies, and companies importing goods into Canada to respect human rights throughout their supply chains. Sign our petition before April 24th.

The Rana Plaza disaster can happen again. Canadian corporations and mining companies have been associated with human rights violations, environmental damage, and attacks on Indigenous Peoples and their territories for far too long. As a result, Amnesty International is calling Canada to pass mandatory human rights and environmental due diligence legislation.

In solidarity, 

Melak Mengistab Gebresilassie
Climate Justice & Corporate Accountability Campaigner

P.S. Take action now in support of a law that stops human rights abuses and environmental damage by Canadian companies abroad. It can’t wait another ten years!

Blue-collar job openings have 'gone gangbusters'—workers aren’t finding them on LinkedIn

Story by Rebecca Picciotto • Yesterday - CNBC


Darren Rambo, a 47-year-old industrial mechanic, says he had built a name for himself in the Illinois construction industry and as a result, never had trouble finding work. Then, at the end of 2019, he moved to Florida and had to "start from scratch." So, he got on LinkedIn.


Engineers having discussion on welding jig design data to improve welding process.© Provided by CNBC

Given that it's the largest professional networking site with over 900 million members worldwide, according to its website, Rambo is certainly not the first to flock to LinkedIn in need of job prospects.

But for him, it was to no avail: "To be quite honest with you, I've had a LinkedIn account and I've never had any success with it," Rambo tells CNBC Make It.

LinkedIn's stated vision is to "create economic opportunity for every member of the global workforce." Lakshman Somasundaram, the company's director of product management, says the operative word in that sentence "is very much 'every.'"

He says that LinkedIn has been making intentional investments over the past couple of years to become more inclusive for all kinds of workers: "For example, if you are a fry cook and you come to LinkedIn, 'fry cook' should be available as a title for you to put on your profile." Currently, "Fry Cook," "Short Order Fry Cook" and "Fast Food Fry Cook" are all available as job titles on the platform.

According to Somasundaram, 155 million of the platform's 900 million users today are "first-line workers," which LinkedIn defines as any job that requires less than a four-year degree: "It's a growing segment for us."

The company has been trying to grow that segment for a while. In 2015, LinkedIn cofounder Allen Blue told The Financial Times there was "a growing number of blue-collar workers on the site."

Even so, blue-collar workers — those in trade sectors like construction who work outside of office settings — say they're not yet seeing the benefits in their job hunts.

The term "blue-collar" is sometimes applied with derogatory connotations, but Rambo says, "To be quite honest with you, I'm proud of that label."
LinkedIn? 'Never gotten a job on there'


Darren Rambo is an industrial mechanic based in Florida.© Provided by CNBC

Rambo says he uses LinkedIn "to read or as something to look at when I'm bored. But as far as finding employment, it's never done anything for me like that." He's not alone.

Sonja Wiltz, a 54-year-old construction safety coordinator, says, "All the years I've been on LinkedIn, I've never gotten a job on there."

Rodney Brock, a 49-year-old pipefitter, says he has a LinkedIn account but rarely uses it: "To me, it's just something different than what I'm used to as far as the hot sheets or something that feels more construction-y to me." Hot sheets are physical lists of jobs and projects that construction workers have historically used to find open work.

Upon moving to Florida, Rambo also signed up for Monster Jobs and Indeed. He found little success on Monster, which he says recommended jobs that were completely outside his skill set like working for the post office.

Fortunately, Indeed turned out to be a gold mine for his job hunt: "Within three days [of making an Indeed account], I had four or five people calling me." Indeed, he says, was more sensitive to his skills and showed him more jobs that aligned with his qualifications.

Who online networking left behind

Professional networking and job searching looks different in the age of the internet, and as Silicon Valley develops more sites and apps for workers to connect online, blue-collar workers have not always been the target audience.

In a 2001 paper on the increasing use of mobile phones, Jacqueline Brodie, an associate professor at Edinburgh Napier University, and Mark Perry, a professor at Brunel University, wrote that research into what tools blue-collar workers need in the digital age "is strange in its absence."

"Perhaps this research is not seen as 'sexy'," they wrote. "This is a worrying trend in the design of technology — not only is it in a sense discriminatory (in that increasingly technological power is invested in the hands of managers, and not the workers), but also because it is ignoring a potentially large market."

LinkedIn was created in 2002 as a platform for people to share their professional credentials and network within industries. It is primarily used by white-collar workers, but as Somasundaram says, the company is trying to change that "perception historically" with "small things that we tweak," as well as foundational changes like trying to improve "job discovery."

Those tweaks appear to be helping some: Somasundaram reports that now 40% of people who sign up for LinkedIn on any given day are first-line workers.

But workers say that for them, LinkedIn is primarily a social network or, in Brock's words, "a chat room," not a place where they find jobs.

And those jobs are still very much abundant, even in today's tenuous job market.
Where blue-collar workers are finding jobs

So far this year, according to a report from outplacement firm Challenger, Gray & Christmas, there have been over 270,000 job cuts, which is a 396% increase from the same period a year ago.

But amid the flurries of layoff headlines, "Construction, on the other hand, has gone gangbusters," says labor economist Marianne Wanamaker of the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The Department of Labor reported last week that the construction industry added about 129,000 job openings in February, despite the overall rate of job openings declining 6%.

That resilience might be drawing young workers seeking job stability. A report from the National Student Clearinghouse found that in 2022, enrollment at two-year trade schools increased dramatically. Though all schools took a hit during the pandemic, mechanic and repair schools saw enrollment numbers jump nearly 12% last year while construction increased 19%.

Blue-collar work, which Wanamaker defines as work in the construction, oil, and gas sectors, does have a different cycle of hiring than white-collar industries. They are project-based and therefore, once a project is complete, workers must seek a new position.

Workers like Rambo, Wiltz, and Brock use a variety of platforms to find work including grassroots Facebook groups and even TikTok (some have taken to short-form videos to post construction job openings, according to Wiltz). They also use BoomNation, which, according to CEO Brent Flavin, officially launched last fall and is trying to fill the blue-collar gap in online job hunting.

"It's been historically an archaic word-of-mouth network," says Flavin. "Sometimes they find [jobs] relatively quickly, but it's at least days and most times weeks and in our opinion, that's unacceptable."

Based in Baton Rouge, BoomNation is an online platform and app that provides blue-collar workers with available jobs, allows employers to post openings, and has a messaging platform and newsfeed for people in the industry to stay in touch. In other words, it's LinkedIn but built with blue-collar workers as the target demographic.

"This isn't new technology we're talking about. This is just kind of matchmaking and transparency of opportunity," says Flavin.

"White-collar workers have had that for a very long time," says Wanamaker, who is also a BoomNation board member. "All you have to do is open LinkedIn."

Flavin says that even as LinkedIn tries to pivot to be more inclusive, "We could seriously compete, because we're built for the worker."

Rambo says that BoomNation is where he goes when he needs to find work fast: "There's a running joke from construction workers in my field anyway that if you get mad at one job, just jump on BoomNation and you'll be working somewhere else tomorrow."

Check out:
Hiring is still booming in some industries, but falling in others—and job seekers are worried

Canada short tens of thousands of oil and gas workers, government says

Story by Bryan Passifiume • Yesterday -  National Post

Despite industry transition plans that advocates fear will eventually phase out Canada’s oil and gas industry, government projections show the sector is short tens of thousands of workers.

Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan speaks during a news conference, 

Wednesday, October 19, 2022 in Ottawa.

Those numbers were contained in a response to an order paper question submitted by Bow River MP Martin Shields, who asked Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan to elaborate on comments made earlier this year to senators saying Canada “needs more” oil and gas workers, not less.

During the red chamber’s Feb. 9 question period in which O’Regan was invited to take part, Newfoundland and Labrador Senator David M. Wells asked the minister how the government’s “just transition” strategy to shift away from carbon-based energy would impact his province’s energy workers.

“Can you tell us how that phasing-out of the oil and gas industry is ‘just’ for the Newfoundland and Labrador workers on all our offshore rigs, all our on-shore suppliers,” Wells asked O’Regan, adding that workers have invested in education to “learn about their craft,” and are well-paid to do so.

“I can’t stand the phrase ‘just transition,’ I’ve said this for years,” replied O’Regan, who represents the Newfoundland riding of St. John’s South—Mount Pearl.

“‘Just transition’ is a word that workers hate and my constituents don’t like, so I don’t like it either.”

O’Regan countered that “just transition” isn’t about phasing out the oil and gas industry.

“The oil and gas industry is going to be with us for quite some time, and I would argue proudly so,” O’Regan said.

“I am proud of what we have done in this country and what our workers have accomplished in this country.”

Describing Canada’s place as one of the world’s top oil and gas producers as a “remarkable accomplishment,” the minister admitted that his government’s policies “sometimes, frequently, isolate the very people that we need to lower emissions and build-up renewables, which is the workers of this industry,” he said.

“I need more workers in the oil and gas industry, not less. We need more.”

In the response to Shields’ inquiry, models produced by Employment and Social Development Canada across nearly 300 national occupation groups projected 14,000 job vacancies in the oil and gas extraction industry over the 2022-2031 period.

“These represent approximately 13 per cent of the sector’s employment levels in 2021,” the reply read.

Back in February’s senate proceedings, O’Regan said Canada is on a “mission” because the world’s eyes are upon us due to our abundance of natural resources and a skilled workforce.

Everything we know about Canada's 'just transition' plan for oil and gas workers

Liberals' 'just transition' clean energy jobs plan is a plan for more plans

Senate Opposition Leader Donald Neil Plett asked O’Regan to elaborate on the plans the government has made with provinces — specifically Alberta and Saskatchewan.

“Will you listen to the oil and gas producing provinces, and put this ridiculous notion of ‘just transition’ where it belongs, in the garbage bin,” he said.

O’Regan explained that his pedigree of being a thrice-elected MP from an oil and gas producing province makes him “keenly aware” of both the challenges and prosperity of Canada’s energy industry.

“We will work with industry and unions,” he said, adding that he’d “quietly” embarked on a trip to Alberta to speak with stakeholders, assuring them that the Trudeau Liberals are “on task and on mission” to ensure Alberta and Saskatchewan — as well as Newfoundland and Labrador — will be world leaders in transitioning to a low-carbon economy.

“I can tell you quite proudly in my home province that they’ve gotten the message, and that we are moving forward and are determined to lower emissions where we can find them, as are many, many oil and gas workers who I knew in the industry who know which way the puck is going, and are determined to skate to it.”

Inquires to the Labour Minister’s office seeking insight on O’Regan’s comments were instead directed to Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson, whose office maintained the challenge facing the government is not that there will be too few jobs in 2050, but there won’t be enough Canadians with the skill needed to participate in tomorrow’s labour market.

“This legislation will help to ensure that every region of Canada and every Canadian worker is at the centre of every policy and decision the Government makes,” said ministry spokesperson Keean Nembhard, referring to a 2019 government promise to introduce legislation meant to “support the future and livelihoods of workers” as Canada shifts to a low-carbon economy.

“This approach has been adopted by a number of other countries and jurisdictions, which have embedded ‘sustainable jobs’ commitments within climate legislation, including Germany, Scotland and New Zealand.”

Lisa Baiton, president & CEO of the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, told the National Post that Canada needs to continue building on the expertise of oil and gas workers to ensure the continued production of Canada’s safe, secure and affordable petroleum industry.

“Working in this industry means working with national leaders in clean technology, environmental protection, biology, conservation, data analysis and machine learning in addition to engineering and energy development,” she said.

“We would support every effort to attract, retain and enhance the nation’s energy workforce.”

HINDUTVA IS FASCISM
Recent mosque attacks raise questions about the affinity between white supremacy and far-right Hindu nationalism
Story by Zeinab Farokhi, Assistant Professor (limited term appointment), Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, University of Toronto Mississauga, University of Toronto • Yesterday 2:43 p.m.

During Ramadan, a man attacked a mosque in Markham, Ont. He allegedly yelled slurs, tore up a Qu'ran, and attempted to run down worshippers in his vehicle.


People carry placards and shout anti-government slogans during a protest against Islamophobia in Bengaluru, India in April 2022.© (AP Photo/Aijaz Rahi)

Some people on Twitter have raised the idea that the attacker was connected to Hindu extremist groups; however, the investigation is still ongoing.

This is one of two hate-motivated incidents at mosques in Markham in a week. Although police said they don’t believe the incidents are connected, as a researcher of online extremism I can theoretically link these events to a global trend of Islamophobic violence.
Legal discrimination and violence

From the United States’ Muslim ban, to India’s Citizenship Amendment Act, to Québec’s Bill 21, Muslims face legal discrimination globally.

Read more: Niqab bans boost hate crimes against Muslims and legalize Islamophobia — Podcast


Muslims have faced legal discrimination globally. Here community members gather outside the Islamic Society of Markham in Ontario.

© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Chris Young

Alongside these laws, Muslims face physical violence. This includes: the beating, lynching and burning of Muslims in India, the Christchurch massacre in New Zealand in 2019, the Québec City mosque shooting in 2017, and more recently the murder of the Afzaal family in London, Ont.

Collectively, these policies and killings demonstrate a transnational quality of Islamophobic prejudice and violence.

While the two incidents in Markham may not be directly linked to extremist groups, they have occurred within this global ecosystem of Islamophobia. To me, the attacks indicate that these online conspiracies do not occur in a vacuum and can have potentially horrifying real consequences.

Hindutva-based terrorism in Canada

Over the last several years, I have carefully examined the digital and transnational connections between white supremacists in North America and far right Hindu nationalists in India.

My preliminary findings show how these two seemingly unrelated extremist far-right groups have become increasingly allied on social media platforms as they position Muslims as a “common enemy.”

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the right-wing Hindu nationalist organization, promotes the Hindutva ideology which believes India only belongs to Hindus.

A recent published report by the National Council of Canadian Muslims and the World Sikh Organization documents how this organization has gained ground in Canada. Jasmin Zine is a Canadian scholar whose recent report also outlines a network of Hindu nationalists that aids in the circulation of ideologies that promote Islamophobia.

Governments spreading misinformation

In 2014, the BJP, the most prominent Hindu nationalistic right-wing party in India came to power. Like the RSS, the BJP and other Hindu nationalist parties believe that India belongs only to Hindus.

Since elected, the BJP has actively spread misinformation and conspiracies about Muslims through social and mainstream media, intensifying hostilities between Muslims and Hindus.



The BJP and other Hindu nationalists believe that India belongs only to Hindus, not minorities like Muslims.

© (AP Photo/Ajit Solanki)


The Canadian Press  Officials speak out after alleged mosque attack in Markham
3:15

While seemingly different on the surface from white supremacy, my research shows how these two movements similarly mobilize emotional rhetoric and visual content to spread their influence.

Twitter, as one of the main platforms for both groups, has been used extensively to perpetuate new forms of gendered Islamophobia and to forge surprising alliances and affinities.

The Love Jihad conspiracy

One of the conspiracy theories shared by these groups is called Love Jihad. Originating in India by Hindu nationalists in 2013, this conspiracy alleges Muslim men actively seduce non-Muslim women to marry and convert them to Islam.

The #LoveJihad hashtag was quickly picked up on social media by white extremists and other Islamophobic groups in North America, modulating it to fit their own conspiracies such as The Great Replacement.

This example demonstrates how anti-Muslim sentiment online spreads quickly and transnationally.

Groups I monitor on Twitter from India constantly talk about the perceived threat of Love Jihad. One such Hindu nationalist group, Hindu Jagruti Org, warns Hindu women against “dangerous, sexually aggressive” Muslim men. The tweet below is an example:

These tweets portray Muslim men as “deceitful, sexual monsters” who view Hindu women as “objects to fulfill their lust.” Hindu extremists argue that to combat these “Muslim monsters,” precautionary measures are needed.

#LoveJihad travels to North America

The #LoveJihad conspiracy was quickly taken up by Islamophobic groups in North America. For example, Robert Spencer, who runs Jihad Watch which has a large following among Hindu nationalists, tweeted the following:

The tweet includes an article that claims the Islamic State encourages Love Jihadis to target non-Muslim women and “abduct,” “forcibly convert, and marry” them.

Love Jihad has been proven a farce.

Yet, Spencer continues to claim there are “real cases that show how Muslim men have duped Hindu women into toxic romantic relations year after year.”

Responses from users to Spencer’s post demonstrate his success in establishing #LoveJihad as fact. For instance:

As these posts indicate, Love Jihad easily reinforces belief in Muslim men as “terrorists” and “groomers” — that is, men who create trust with girls and young women in order to exploit them.

Transnational alignment of hate

This shared intense hatred of “monstrous” Muslim men brings Hindu and white extremists into a “transnational affective alignment.” That is, the mutual hate of Muslims and a mutual love for Hindu and white national ideals.

Social media platforms such as Twitter are important in creating these alignments and perpetuating related conspiracies, gaining considerable traction through their repetition.

This alignment is produced through the demonization of Muslim men and extremists’ shared hate and fear of them across borders. Through transnational responses and retweets, extremists forge a layered and cumulatively condensed affective message: Muslim men are dangerous. We fear them. Thus, we hate them.

While it remains to be seen whether or not the recent mosque attackers were directly influenced by online, transnational and affective Islamophobia, recurring incidences such as this should remind us that hate does not abide by international borders.

Misinformation and conspiracies find fertile ground in the echo chambers of social media.

Our response to such crimes — and their online equivalents — must consider that the fear and hate of Muslims does not happen by accident.

As the #LoveJihad conspiracy demonstrates, strange bedfellows are easily made when there is a perceived common enemy. Conspiracies and acts of anti-Muslim hate impact us all.

This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts.

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India court acquits 69 Hindus of murder of 11 Muslims during 2002 riots

Story by Reuters • Yesterday 

An Indian court on Thursday acquitted 69 Hindus, including a former minister from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), of the murder of 11 Muslims during communal riots in the western state of Gujarat in 2002.

The killings occurred in Ahmedabad on February 28, 2002, a day after a suspected Muslim mob set fire to a train carrying Hindu pilgrims, setting off one of independent India’s worst outbreaks of religious bloodshed.

A total of 86 Hindus were accused of the killings in the Naroda Gam district of Ahmedabad, 17 of whom died during trial. All the accused were free on bail.

“We have been saying from the first day that they were framed,” defense lawyer Chetan Shah, who represented 82 of the accused, said. “Some of the accused were not present at the scene on the day of the incident.”

Shamshad Pathan, who represented the victims, said they would challenge the court’s decision in a higher court.

“Justice has eluded the victims once again. We will study the grounds on which the court has acquitted the accused persons,” Pathan said.

Those acquitted include Maya Kodnani, a former minister of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP, who was a lawmaker at the time of the riots, former Bajrang Dal leader Babu Bajrangi, and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader Jaydeep Patel.

Bajrang Dal and VHP are Hindu nationalist groups and have close links to the BJP.

Kodnani was also an accused in a case in which 97 people were killed in the 2002 riots. She was convicted but later acquitted by a higher court.

At least 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, were killed across Gujarat in the 2002 riots. Activists put the toll at over twice that number.

Critics accused Modi, who was chief minister at the time, of failing to protect Muslims. Modi denied the allegations and a Supreme Court-ordered investigation found no evidence to prosecute him.

The acquittal comes eight months after 11 men jailed for life for the gang-rape of a pregnant Muslim woman during the riots were freed on remission, according to Reuters, drawing condemnation from the victim’s widower, lawyers and politicians.

The men were convicted in early 2008 and released from jail in Panchmahals in the western state of Gujarat on August 15, when India celebrated 75 years since the end of British rule.

Panchmahals’ top bureaucrat told Reuters that the district jail advisory committee had recommended the release after considering the time the 11 had spent in jail and their good behavior.

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BECAUSE CCS IS A TECHNO MYTH

2050 a more important climate target than 2030, proponents of carbon capture say

Story by The Canadian Press • Yesterday 

CALGARY — Alberta's new climate plan drew criticism this week for its lack of interim emissions reduction targets, but proponents of carbon capture and storage technology say it's important to be realistic about how quickly major projects can be deployed.



"Whether we like it or not, it's going to take time," said James Millar, president and CEO of the International CCS (carbon capture and storage) Knowledge Centre, a non-profit organization based in Regina.

"It comes down to getting these projects built. And in an optimal world, that will take six or seven years."

Most climate models suggest the large-scale deployment of carbon capture technology — which is used to trap harmful greenhouse gas emissions from industrial processes and store them safely underground — will be necessary if Canada is to have a chance of meeting the net-zero-by-2050 target the federal government has committed to.

There are currently more than 50 proposed carbon capture and storage projects in various stages of development by industry across the country. The vast majority of those are proposed to be located in Alberta, home to Canada's oil and gas sector and the country's heaviest-emitting province.

But while some of those projects could be getting close to a final investment decision, companies have said they need more policy and regulatory certainty before they can pull the trigger on what is expected to be billions of dollars in capital investment.

They're racing against the clock. The federal government's net-zero plan includes an interim target of reducing Canada's emissions by at least 40 to 45 per cent below 2005 levels by 2030 — a goal and time frame that the oil and gas industry has long suggested is unrealistic.

“The question is, how fast do you want us to go?" said MEG Energy Corp. CEO Derek Evans at an oil and gas industry conference in Toronto earlier this month.

MEG is part of the Pathways Alliance, a consortium of oilsands companies that has committed to spending $16.5 billion on a massive carbon capture and storage network to be built in northern Alberta.

Evans said Pathways intends to apply for regulatory approval for its carbon pipeline as early as this fall, but 2030 is fast approaching and building a 400 kilometre-long piece of infrastructure is a heavy lift.

"Do you want me to jam that ($16.5 billion investment) through that knothole in that time frame? Or if we’re making progress on that, is that the key?" Evans asked.

Alberta's climate plan, in contrast to the federal vision, doesn't contain any interim targets. Instead, it asks for proposals for consultants to go through the provincial economy sector by sector and analyze what's achievable.

Millar said he believes industry wants to gets shovels in the ground sooner rather than later — not just to meet the federal 2030 target, but also because the federal price on carbon is set to rise by $170 per tonne by 2030.

But he pointed out that Canada doesn't have a history of building large infrastructure projects quickly, which may mean that making progress towards a 2050 goal is more important than a 2030 target. The industry is still waiting for more policy certainty from the federal government around future carbon pricing, and there are also concerns around how long the regulatory and permitting process could take for some of these projects.

"We'd all like to move a lot quicker, but we just have to look at history, at the length of time it takes to get things done," Millar said.

"So I think it's 2050 for those reasons. This is going to take time."

Jan Gorski, oil and gas director for the Pembina Institute — a clean energy think-tank — said interim targets on the road to 2050 are an important accountability measure. He said the lack of a near-term target without a clear emissions reduction signal could lead to decisions that lock in higher emissions, such as building natural-gas fired power plants to produce electricity instead of investing in renewable energy.

However, Gorski added that targets on their own mean nothing, which is why the federal government's pledge to introduce a legislated cap on emissions from the oil and gas sector is so important.

"What we need is both a target and policy," Gorski said. "The target on its own is only one part of the equation."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 20, 2023.

Amanda Stephenson, The Canadian Press

Report finds Canadian Tire stores violated privacy laws with facial recognition technology

Story by MobileSyrup • Yesterday 

Several Canadian Tire stores that used facial recognition technology have been found to have violated privacy laws.


As reported by The Globe and Mail, British Columbia’s privacy commissioner, Michael McEvoy, published a report revealing that the stores that used facial recognition technology did not adequately notify their customers or obtain consent to collect their personal information.

Further, according to the report, even if the stores using facial recognition technology obtained customer consent, they would still need to provide a valid reason for collecting the information. The report found no reasonable reasons.

A total of 12 Canadian Tire stores used the technology for about three years, quoting precautionary measures against theft and safety. The systems were subsequently removed when Canadian Tire learned that the privacy commissioner was investigating four of its stores using the technology.

The report also revealed that the systems collected sensitive biometric information between 2018 and 2021, and that the stores would have needed to make a compelling case to justify the collection of such information. Further, the commissioner recommended that the stores develop and maintain a robust privacy management plan, while the British Columbia government should change the laws that regulate the sale of biometric technology and create additional obligations for organizations that use it.

He emphasized that retailers must carefully consider the privacy rights of their customers before implementing new technologies that gather sensitive personal information.

Source: The Globe and Mail