Tuesday, May 02, 2023

Opinion: Science alone won't save us from climate crisis

Opinion by Stephen Cohen, Special to Montreal Gazette
 • Yesterday 9:13 a.m.

At last month's Earth Day rally in Montreal, this protester's message — fear for the future — reflected a common sentiment among young people, writes Vanier College professor Stephen Cohen.
© Provided by The Gazette

The recent Synthesis Report at the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change painted a grim picture, but it surprised no one who has been paying attention. Will it be possible to engineer our way out of global warming using advanced technology? Well, no.

We will not be capable of controlling our planet with science for the foreseeable future. If we wish to have a foreseeable future, we need to model our behaviour after civilizations that have lived in harmony with the sustaining features of Earth for hundreds of years: namely, Indigenous people. This does not mean we must abandon science and technology. It simply means we must refocus it.

We must rethink our socio-political and economic systems; they must have sustainability sewn into their fabric. This echoes the federal government’s April report: What We Heard: Perspectives on Climate Change and Public Health Canada. In a finite system, growth is madness. Perpetual growth is suicide.














Recently, a physics colleague at Vanier College taught a sustainability course. The experience left him disheartened because the students did not believe humanity had the wherewithal to change. They lacked faith in our species, and who can blame them? In their lifetimes, we have taken as many steps back as we have forward.

I understand my colleague’s sadness. As a teacher, I know the students’ morale is our morale. And frankly, if today’s young people have thrown in the towel, we are indeed a lost species.

One shining light has been our response to a very different existential crisis: COVID-19. We saw a threat, and pivoted. It was not pretty, and not without hardship, but as a species confronting a dangerous threat, we made sweeping changes to adapt to the situation, for better or worse.

Perhaps you have heard of the frog-in-the-pot analogy. In March 2020, we were frogs dropped into a pot of boiling water. Like frogs might, we managed to escape, albeit with burns.

Our current situation, where the problem of our finite resources is being exacerbated, represents a different threat. In this one, we are frogs in warm water that is getting warmer. It will eventually boil. In this scenario, a frog would likely meet its demise. It would not instinctively react and jump out of the pot.

But we have an advantage over the frog. We have tools, like thermometers, and we understand the reasons for the warming of the water. We can forecast, with limited but reasonable accuracy, the rate of warming that will occur if conditions go unchanged. Armed with this, we can be smarter than a frog. We can evolve our thinking, act responsibly, and earn the right to wield the powerful tools that science has unleashed.

It is essential that we react to our biosphere crisis with the same resolve as we did the pandemic. But a sweeping response will happen only if a critical mass of people at all levels of society truly understand the severity of the situation. The solutions to this threat are less scientifically complex than engineering a vaccine. We just need to learn to get out of the way. We need to exist within nature rather than attempt to manipulate it. It is less about new science than it is about smart design.

Perpetual growth of a species is impossible in a system with finite resources. One way or another, our population will plateau and then decline at some point this century. But how will that journey look? Will the descent entail pain and hardship? Will it end at zero? Or will we allow Earth’s natural mechanisms to stabilize before it is too late?

Will today’s children come to know a world whose balance has been restored? Countless humans today have not given up. Please be one of them.

Stephen Cohen teaches physics at Vanier College. His first book, Getting Physics: Nature’s Laws as a Guide to Life, was published this year.
FAA sued over SpaceX Starship launch program following April explosion

Story by Lora Kolodny • Yesterday - CNBC

Environmental and cultural-heritage nonprofits sued the Federal Aviation Administration on Monday over the agency's dealings with SpaceX.

Among other things, the five plaintiffs allege the FAA failed to conduct an appropriate environmental review before authorizing SpaceX to move ahead with its Starship launch plans in Boca Chica, Texas.

SpaceX conducted a test flight of the largest rocket ever built on April 20, resulting in extensive launchpad damage, and hurling heavy debris into sensitive habitat nearby.



The SpaceX Starship explodes after launch for a flight test from Starbase in Boca Chica, Texas, on April 20, 2023.
© Provided by CNBC

Environmental and cultural-heritage nonprofits sued the Federal Aviation Administration on Monday, alleging the agency violated the National Environment Policy Act when it allowed SpaceX to launch the largest rocket ever built from its Boca Chica, Texas, facility without a comprehensive environmental review, according to court filings obtained by CNBC.

SpaceX's Starship Super Heavy test flight on April 20 blew up the company's launchpad, hurling chunks of concrete and metal sheets thousands of feet away into sensitive habitat, spreading particulate matter including pulverized concrete for miles, and sparking a 3.5-acre fire on state park lands near the launch site.

The lawsuit against the FAA was filed in a district court in Washington, D.C., by five plaintiffs: The Center for Biological Diversity, the American Bird Conservancy, SurfRider Foundation, Save Rio Grande Valley and a cultural-heritage organization, the Carrizo-Comecrudo Nation of Texas.

The groups argue the agency should have conducted an in-depth environmental impact statement (EIS) before ever allowing SpaceX to move ahead with its Starship Super Heavy plans in Boca Chica.



"The FAA failed to take the requisite hard look at the proposed project and has concluded that significant adverse effects will not occur due to purported mitigation measures," they wrote in the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs argue the agency waived the need for more thorough analysis based on proposed "environmental mitigations." But the mitigations the FAA actually required of SpaceX were woefully insufficient to offset environmental damages from launch events, construction and increased traffic in the area, as well as "anomalies" like the destruction of the launch pad and mid-air explosion in April, they said.

The plaintiffs also are seeking to force the FAA to revoke the launch license they previously issued to SpaceX and require an EIS before issuing another one.

In their complaint, the attorneys note that the FAA's own chief of staff for the Office of Commercial Space Transportation in June 2020 said the agency was planning an EIS. Later, "based on SpaceX's preference," the lawyers wrote, the federal agency settled on using "a considerably less thorough analysis," which enabled SpaceX to launch sooner.

Despite the particulate matter, heavier debris and fire, SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said this weekend on Twitter Spaces, "To the best of our knowledge there has not been any meaningful damage to the environment that we're aware of."

The exact impact of the launch on the people, habitat and wildlife is still being evaluated by federal and state agencies, and other environmental researchers, alongside and independently from SpaceX.

National Wildlife Refuge lands and beaches of Boca Chica, which are near the SpaceX Starbase facility, provide essential habitat for endangered species including the piping plover, the red knot, jaguarundi, northern aplomado falcon, and sea turtles including the Kemp's Ridley. Kemp's Ridley is the most endangered sea turtle in the world, and the National Wildlife Refuge contains designated critical habitat for the piping plover.

Boca Chica land and the wildlife there, namely ocelots, are also sacred to the Carrizo-Comecrudo tribe of Texas.

As of last Wednesday, researchers from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had not found any carcasses of animals protected by the Endangered Species Act on the land that they own or manage in the area. However, the researchers were not able to access the site for two days after the launch, leaving open the possibility that carcasses could have been eaten by predators, washed away or even removed from the site.

Access to the state parks, beaches and the National Wildlife Refuge area near Starbase, by tribes, researchers and the public, are of particular concern to the groups challenging the FAA.

The plaintiff's attorneys noted that in 2021, Boca Chica Beach was closed or inaccessible for approximately 500 hours or more, based on the notices of closure provided by Cameron County, with a "beach or access point closure occurring on over 100 separate days." That high rate of closure, which the FAA allowed, "infringes upon the ability of the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas to access lands and waters that are part of their ancestral heritage," the groups argued.

The FAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Environmental groups sue FAA over SpaceX Texas rocket launch




CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Wildlife and environmental groups sued the Federal Aviation Administration on Monday over SpaceX’s launch last month of its giant rocket from Texas.

SpaceX’s Starship soared 24 miles (39 kilometers) high before exploding over the Gulf of Mexico on April 20. The rocket’s self-destruct system caused the nearly 400-foot (120-meter) rocket to blow up, as it spun out of control just minutes into the test flight.

An attorney for the Center for Biological Diversity, one of the plaintiffs, said the groups are suing over what they consider to be the FAA’s failure to fully consider the environmental impacts of the Starship program near Boca Chica Beach in South Texas. They asked the court to throw out the five-year license the FAA granted to SpaceX.

The FAA declined comment, noting it doesn't comment on ongoing litigation. The agency is overseeing the accident investigation and has ordered all SpaceX Starships grounded until it's certain that public safety will not be compromised.

Over the weekend, SpaceX founder and chief executive, Elon Musk, said his company could be ready to launch the next Starship in six to eight weeks with the FAA's OK.

No injuries or significant damage to public property were reported from any of the rocket wreckage or flying pad debris. A large crater was carved into the concrete pad, as most of the rocket's 33 main engines ignited at liftoff.

The launch pad is on a remote site on the southernmost tip of Texas, just below South Padre Island, and about 20 miles from Brownsville.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reported last week that large concrete chunks, stainless steel sheets, metal and other objects were hurled thousands of feet (hundreds of meters) from the pad. In addition, a plume of pulverized concrete sent material up to 6.4 miles (4 kilometers) northwest of the pad, the service noted.

It was the first launch of a full-size Starship, with the sci-fi-looking spacecraft on top the huge booster rocket. The company plans to use it to send people and cargo to the moon and, ultimately, Mars. NASA wants to use Starship to ferry astronauts to the lunar surface as soon as 2025.

Joining the Center for Biological Diversity in the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, are the American Bird Conservancy, Surfrider Foundation, Save RGV (Rio Grande Valley) and the Carrizo/Comecrudo Nation of Texas.

“It’s vital that we protect life on Earth even as we look to the stars in this modern era of spaceflight,” the Center for Biological Diversity's Jared Margolis said in a statement. “Federal officials should defend vulnerable wildlife and frontline communities, not give a pass to corporate interests that want to use treasured coastal landscapes as a dumping ground for space waste.”

Over the weekend, Musk said changes are being made at the launch pad to avoid what he called a dust storm and “rock tornado" at the next launch.

“To the best of our knowledge there has not been any meaningful damage to the environment that we’re aware of,” Musk said.

Musk has promised to make improvements to the next Starship before it flies. The self-destruct system will need to be modified, he said, so that the rocket explodes immediately — not 40 seconds or so afterward, as was the case with this inaugural run, he said.

His remarks were made to a subscriber-only Twitter chat Saturday night that was later posted by others online.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Marcia Dunn, The Associated Press




Godfather of AI' quits Google to warn of the tech's dangers
Story by AFP • Yesterday 

AI pioneer Geoffrey Hinton has quit his job at Google and is now warning of the dangers of the technology used by apps such as ChatGPT

A computer scientist often dubbed "the godfather of artificial intelligence" has quit his job at Google to speak out about the dangers of the technology, US media reported Monday.

Geoffrey Hinton, who created a foundation technology for AI systems, told The New York Times that advancements made in the field posed "profound risks to society and humanity".

"Look at how it was five years ago and how it is now," he was quoted as saying in the piece, which was published on Monday.

"Take the difference and propagate it forwards. That's scary."

Hinton said that competition between tech giants was pushing companies to release new AI technologies at dangerous speeds, risking jobs and spreading misinformation.

"It is hard to see how you can prevent the bad actors from using it for bad things," he told the Times.

In 2022, Google and OpenAI -- the start-up behind the popular AI chatbot ChatGPT -- started building systems using much larger amounts of data than before.

Hinton told the Times he believed that these systems were eclipsing human intelligence in some ways because of the amount of data they were analyzing.

Related video: Google's main issue is not productizing their AI capabilities like their peers, says Richard Kramer (CNBC)    Duration 6:06  View on Watch


"Maybe what is going on in these systems is actually a lot better than what is going on in the brain," he told the paper.

While AI has been used to support human workers, the rapid expansion of chatbots like ChatGPT could put jobs at risk.

AI "takes away the drudge work" but "might take away more than that", he told the Times.

The scientist also warned about the potential spread of misinformation created by AI, telling the Times that the average person will "not be able to know what is true anymore."

Hinton notified Google of his resignation last month, the Times reported.

Jeff Dean, lead scientist for Google AI, thanked Hinton in a statement to US media.

"As one of the first companies to publish AI Principles, we remain committed to a responsible approach to AI," the statement added.

"We're continually learning to understand emerging risks while also innovating boldly."

In March, tech billionaire Elon Musk and a range of experts called for a pause in the development of AI systems to allow time to make sure they are safe.

An open letter, signed by more than 1,000 people including Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, was prompted by the release of GPT-4, a much more powerful version of the technology used by ChatGPT.

Hinton did not sign that letter at the time, but told The New York Times that scientists should not "scale this up more until they have understood whether they can control it."

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Mind-Reading Technology Can Turn Brain Scans Into Language

Story by Dennis Thompson 
 by HealthDay


MONDAY, May 1, 2023 (HealthDay News) -- A mind-reading device seems like science fiction, but researchers say they’re firmly on the path to building one.

Using functional MRI (fMRI), a newly developed brain-computer interface can read a person’s thoughts and translate them into full sentences, according to a report published May 1 in Nature Neuroscience.

The decoder was developed to read a person’s brain activity and translate what they want to say into continuous, natural language, the researchers said.

“Eventually, we hope that this technology can help people who have lost the ability to speak due to injuries like strokes or diseases like ALS,” said lead study author Jerry Tang, a graduate research assistant at the University of Texas at Austin.

But the interface goes even further than that, translating into language whatever thoughts are foremost in a person’s mind.

“We also ran our decoder on brain responses while the user imagined telling stories and ran responses while the user watched silent movies,” Tang said. “And we found that the decoder is also able to recover the gist of what the user was imagining or seeing.”

Because of this, the decoder is capable of capturing the essence of what a person is thinking, if not always the exact words, the researchers said.

For example, at one point a participant heard the words, “I don’t have my driver’s license yet.” The decoder translated the thought as, “She has not even started to learn to drive yet.”

The technology isn’t at the point where it can be used on just anyone, Tang said.

Training the program required at least 16 hours of participation from each of the three people involved in the research, and Tang said the brain readings from one person can’t be used to inform the scans of another.

The actual scan also involves the cooperation of the person, and can be foiled by simple mental tasks that deflect a participant’s focus, he said.

Still, one expert lauded the findings.

"This work represents an advance in brain-computer interface research and is potentially very exciting," said Dr. Mitchell Elkind, chief clinical science officer of the American Heart Association and a professor of neurology and epidemiology at Columbia University in New York City.

"The major advance here is being able to record and interpret the meaning of brain activity using a non-invasive approach," Elkind explained. "Prior work required electrodes placed into the brain using open neurosurgery with the risks of infection, bleeding and seizures. This non-invasive approach using MRI scanning would have virtually no risk, and MRIs are done regularly in brain-injured patients. This approach can also be used frequently in healthy people as part of research, without introducing them to risk."

Powerful results prompt warning that 'mental privacy' may be at risk

Indeed, the results of this study were so powerful that Tang and his colleagues felt moved to issue a warning about “mental privacy.”

“This could all change as technology gets better, so we believe that it's important to keep researching the privacy implications of brain decoding, and enact policies that protect each person's mental privacy,” Tang said.

Earlier efforts at translating brain waves into speech have used electrodes or implants to record impulses from the motor areas of the brain related to speech, said senior researcher Alexander Huth. He is an assistant professor of neuroscience and computer science at the University of Texas at Austin.



“These are the areas that control the mouth, larynx, tongue, etc., so what they can decode is how is the person trying to move their mouth to say something, which can be very effective,” Huth said.

The new process takes an entirely different approach, using fMRI to non-invasively measure changes in blood flow and blood oxygenation within brain regions and networks associated with language processing.

“So instead of looking at this kind of low-level like motor thing, our system really works at the level of ideas, of semantics, of meaning,” Huth said. “That's what it's getting at. This is the reason why what we get out is not the exact words that somebody heard or spoke. It's the gist. It's the same idea, but expressed in different words.”

The researchers trained the decoder by first recording the brain activity of the three participants as they listened to 16 hours of storytelling podcasts like the "Moth Radio Hour," Tang said.

“This is over five times larger than existing language datasets,” he said. “And we use this dataset to build a model that takes in any sequence of words and predicts how the user's brain would respond when hearing those words.”

The program mapped the changes in brain activity to semantic features of the podcasts, capturing the meanings of certain phrases and associated brain responses.

The investigators then tested the decoder by having participants listen to new stories.

Making educated guesses based on brain activity

The decoder essentially attempts to make an educated guess about what words are associated with a person’s thoughts, based on brain activity.

Using the participants’ brain activity, the decoder generated word sequences that captured the meanings of the new stories. It even generated some exact words and phrases from the stories.

One example of an actual versus a decoded story:


Actual: “I got up from the air mattress and pressed my face against the glass of the bedroom window expecting to see eyes staring back at me but instead finding only darkness.”

Decoded: “I just continued to walk up to the window and open the glass I stood on my toes and peered out I didn’t see anything and looked up again I saw nothing.”

The decoder specifically captured what a person was focused upon. When a participant actively listened to one story while another played simultaneously, the program identified the meaning of the story that had the listener’s focus, the researchers said.

To see if the decoder was capturing thoughts versus speech, the researchers also had participants watch silent movies and scanned their brain waves.

“There's no language whatsoever. Subjects were not instructed to do anything while they were watching those videos. But when we put that data into our decoder, what it spat out is a kind of a description of what's happening in the video,” Huth said.

The participants also were asked to imagine a story, and the device was able to predict the meaning of that imagined story.

“Language is the output format here, but whatever it is that we're getting at is not necessarily language itself,” Huth said. “It’s definitely getting at something deeper than language and converting that into language, which is kind of at a very high level the role of language, right?”

Decoder is not yet ready for prime-time

Concerns over mental privacy led the researchers to further test whether participants could interfere with the device’s readings.

Certain mental exercises, like naming animals or thinking about a different story than the podcast, “really prevented the decoder from recovering anything about the story that the user was hearing,” Tang said.

The process still needs more work. The program is “uniquely bad” at pronouns, and requires tweaking and further testing to accurately reproduce exact words and phrases, Huth said.

It’s also not terribly practical since it now requires the use of a large MRI machine to read a person’s thoughts, the study authors explained.

The researchers are considering whether cheaper, more portable technology like EEG or functional near-infrared spectrometry could be used to capture brain activity as effectively as fMRI, Tang said.

But they admit they were shocked by how well the decoder did wind up working, which led to their concerns over brain privacy.

“I think my cautionary example is the polygraph, which is not an accurate lie detector, but has still had many negative consequences,” Tang said. “So I think that while this technology is in its infancy, it's very important to regulate what brain data can and cannot be used for. And then if one day it does become possible to gain accurate decoding without getting the person's cooperation, we'll have a regulatory foundation in place that we can build off of.”

More information

Johns Hopkins has more about how the brain works.

SOURCES: Jerry Tang, graduate research assistant, University of Texas at Austin; Alexander Huth, PhD, assistant professor, neuroscience and computer science, University of Texas at Austin; Mitchell Elkind, MD, MS, MPhil, chief clinical science officer, American Heart Association, and professor, neurology and epidemiology, Columbia University, New York City; Nature Neuroscience, May 1, 2023

BM to pause hiring, plans to replace 7,800 jobs with AI - Bloomberg News




(Reuters) - International Business Machines Corp Chief Executive Arvind Krishna said in an interview the company expects to pause hiring for roles as roughly 7,800 jobs could be replaced by Artificial Intelligence in the coming years, Bloomberg News reported on Monday.

IBM did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.




Canadian academics, graduate students walk out, demanding increased federal funding for researchers

Story by CBC/Radio-Canada • May 1,2023

Canadian academics and graduate students from across the country came together on Monday to call on the federal government to increase financial support for graduate and doctoral students out of concern talented young researchers may leave the industry.

Led by the grassroots organization Support Our Science, hundreds of students, professors and supporters walked out of their classrooms and labs May 1 at dozens of postsecondary institutions in cities across the country, including Vancouver, Calgary, Regina, Toronto, Montreal and St. John's.

The organization has previously penned an open letter calling on the federal government, specifically Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and François-Philippe Champagne, the minister of science, innovation and industry, to boost graduate student funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC).

A Canada graduate scholarship from one of the three federal research funding agencies is $17,500 per year for a master's student or $21,000 per year for a doctoral student.

Those amounts have not changed since 2003, despite increased inflation and cost of living over the past 20 years.



Students say they're living below the poverty line on the current amount provided by the federal government.© Ben Nelms/CBC

Luis Ramirez, a master's student at Simon Fraser University (SFU), says the amount he is afforded is barely enough to cover his rent, tuition and food.

"We're getting less than $30,000 [per year], even the PhD students.

"We have to pay rent, we have to pay tuition, and we have to pay groceries and clothing and so on. So it's almost impossible to continue with this. We are on the poverty line right now."

UBC graduate student Katrina Bergmann says the low scholarship amounts are "unacceptable."

"We are the major workforce for Canadian science and innovation," she said.



Katrina Bergmann, a graduate student at the University of British Columbia, said the amount of the current scholarships for student researchers is 'unacceptable.'© CBC

Lisa Koetke, who is with CUPE 2278 union representing teaching assistants at the University of Northern B.C. in Prince George, said that federal research stipends are lower in smaller regions — which made the spike in the cost of living difficult to deal with.

"Proportionally speaking, graduate students and post-docs here have all the same struggles when it comes to getting paid quite low relative to the cost of living," she said.

Students using food banks

Nancy Forde, a professor at SFU, said federal funding is not meant to make anyone rich but is instead there to ensure researchers can focus on their work without worrying about finances.

But, she says no one can survive on the amount provided in these scholarship funds, adding that many are using food banks to get by.

"I have students in my own research group who are leaving research because they can't afford to live," she said. "They came into the program with savings, and they've depleted their savings."

"Only the privileged can survive."

She worries that as the cost of living continues to increase, more students will be forced to leave their fields, leaving gaps in Canada's research community.

"We're losing amazing talent who could be responsible for the next big scientific breakthroughs and discoveries, help us through the next pandemic and help us figure out climate change. These people are leaving."



Hundreds of students showed up at the walkout at the University of B.C.© Ben Nelms/CBC

In December, Champagne said he was aware of the call for more funding for graduate researchers and that it would be part of discussions with the finance minister.

"It's clear that if we want to own the podium, we need to do more to support the researchers, the students and the scientists," Champagne said.



The students at the protest said that the money committed to student aid in the 2023 budget did not come close to meeting the needs of students.
© Ben Nelms/CBC

In a statement, a spokesperson for the federal Science Ministry said it had provided $114 million over five years in the 2019 budget to granting agencies to create 500 master's scholarships every year, in addition to an $813.6 million increase to student grants in the most recent budget.

The 2023 budget also included commitments to raise the student loan limit from $210 to $300, as well as to waive the requirement for mature students to undergo credit screening before applying for a federal student grant.

"The government remains committed to investing in Canadian research and is focused on how it can continue to support Canada's world-class researchers, scientists and students," the spokesperson said.

The spokesperson did not specifically respond to a question about whether the scholarship amounts would increase.









Research awards pay scholars less than minimum wage: U of M protesters

Story by The Canadian Press • Yesterday 

Graduate students and post-doctoral scholars abandoned their labs at the University of Manitoba Monday, calling on Ottawa to top up prestigious research awards, the majority of which have remained unchanged for 20 years and are now the equivalent of poverty-line salaries.

Support Our Science, a national advocacy campaign, has formed out of academics’ building frustrations about stagnant scholarship dollars and inflationary pressures.

“It’s a struggle. I worked it out and if I was to work a 40-hour week, it would be equivalent to making about $10 an hour,” said Levi Newediuk, describing his PhD salary via the sum he won to do research at the U of M.

“But, of course, we don’t work 40-hour weeks — we’re working more than that.”

On International Workers’ Day, researchers at more than 40 universities held simultaneous walkouts to draw attention to their concerns that current funding levels are making higher education inaccessible and causing brain drain.

The campaign’s demands target Tri-Council, an umbrella term that refers to the three main granting agencies: the National Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Canadian Institutes of Health Research and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.

Recipients of the Canada Graduate Scholarship Masters and Postgraduate Scholarship Doctoral receive annual sums of $17,500 and $21,000, respectively. Those allotments have been intact since 2003.

The highly competitive awards, which are meant to cover a recipient’s tuition and living expenses for an entire year so they can focus on their research, set the benchmark for research funding across the country.

Citing that reality, organizers are demanding increases to the value and number of Tri-Council scholarships and fellowships, which they say will trickle down and result in hiked ceilings for other awards, and raise related research grants so professors can offer higher wages.

Associate professor Colin Garroway noted members of his current research team earn the same amount of money as he did when he started pursuing graduate studies. The cost of living has increased about 50 per cent during that period.

“It was great in 2005. It’s below the poverty line today, and it’s really, really difficult to attract students within Canada and to Canada with this pay because other countries are paying more than double, in some instances,” said Garroway, who was one of more than 150 individuals who rallied at U of M’s Fort Garry campus Monday.

Federal politicians’ claims that the 2023 budget will drive innovation and research “ring entirely hollow,” given it does not address the dollars that support the scholars who are almost entirely responsible for producing research at universities such as U of M, he added.

Scientists rallied on Parliament Hill in support of the cause before the 2022-23 school year got underway. The group later submitted a petition outlining their demands.

In October 2022, the government launched a panel to probe ways to modernize the federal system that supports academic research. Ottawa recently released the final report, including the authors’ conclusion that the future of Canada’s research landscape is bleak in contrast to the commitments that peer countries and competitors have made.

“While Canadians can be rightfully proud of their country’s achievements in science, technology, research and innovation, we currently find ourselves in a precarious situation,” the report states.

It recommends core funding for granting councils be “significantly increased” to address the growth of graduate students, the effects of inflation and “the importance of nurturing a globally competitive research and talent base.”

“Canada wants to be on the forefront of science and research, and all of these students and post-docs standing here are the ones who are putting those papers out, who are putting in the work, and we should be supporting them so that we can be (there),” said PhD student Teassa MacMartin, surrounded by protesters Monday.

MacMartin said prestigious prizes may look great on a resumé, but the reality is that they do not currently allow students to “put all of ourselves into our work.”

The U of M researcher, who is the primary caregiver of her 10-year-old, currently works as a tutor and teaching assistant to supplement her income.

The office of MP François-Philippe Champagne, the federal minister of innovation, science and industry, did not respond to a request for comment Monday.

Maggie Macintosh, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Winnipeg Free Press
PSAC deal to cost $1.3B a year, ‘less than half’ of union’s original demands
Story by Eric Stober • Yesterday 

President of the Treasury Board Mona Fortier speaks with reporters in the Foyer of the House of Commons, Monday, May 1, 2023 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld© Provided by Global News

The federal government's deal with the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) will end up costing around $1.3 billion a year — less than half of PSAC's original demands.

That's according to Treasury Board President Mona Fortier, who gave an update on the deal announced overnight Monday.

"This wasn't easy," Fortier said to reporters Monday afternoon. "We negotiated, we compromised, and we found creative solutions. And after many long days, nights and weekends of hard work, we've reached a fair and competitive deal for employees."

The deal involves a compounded pay increase of 12.6 per cent over four years, retroactive to 2021 — below PSAC's requested 13.5 per cent over three years — and a one-time payment of $2,500 for workers. While the deal involved all four bargaining units of PSAC, totalling about 120,000 workers, negotiations are ongoing for CRA workers as the tax filing deadline hit on Monday.

PSAC said in a statement Monday that workers on strike would return to work as of 9 a.m., while Fortier said the government is working to resume normal activities "as fast as we can."

PSAC said that the deal is a fair contract that exceeds the government's original offer before the launch of strike action.

“This agreement delivers important gains for our members that will set the bar for all workers in Canada,” said Chris Aylward, PSAC national president, in a statement.

The agreement also laid out a clearer process for handling requests around remote work.

Under the terms of the deal, managers will need "to assess remote work requests individually, not by group, and provide written responses that will allow members and PSAC to hold the employer accountable to equitable and fair decision-making on remote work."

Video: PSAC deal reached, CRA employees still on strike

"It will also result in the creation of joint union-employer departmental panels to address issues related to the employer’s application of the remote work directive in the workplace," the union said.

Fortier noted that because the wording, however, is contained in a separate letter of intent and not in the main collective bargaining agreement, public service workers will not be able to grieve complaints about remote work requests being denied.

"Remote work won't be a grievance," she said.

Fortier said negotiations, which had been at a standstill for about two weeks, began to shift when the federal government recently said it had a final offer.

"We have a really good deal on the table," she said.

Tentative agreement offers a PR win for PSAC, but unlikely to spark copycat strikes: experts

Story by Taylor Blewett • Yesterday 

A labour relations professor thinks PSAC was sending a message to its members Monday, saying, 'Look, your sacrifice over the last couple of weeks was worth it, right?'
© Provided by Ottawa Citizen

Labour relations professor Jason Foster noticed something telling in a chart PSAC released Monday, showing the scale of the wage offer it secured after 12 days of striking.

Though they were outlined elsewhere in the release, the union opted not to label the chart with the individual percentage increases, proposed for each year of their new tentative agreement — 1 .5 per cent for 2021; 4.75 per cent for 2022; three per cent plus a wage adjustment for 2023; and 2.25 per cent for 2024. Instead, the union took the compounding approach to its math. The 2023 year on the bar graph, for instance, shows a 10.1 per cent increase, climbing to 12.6 per cent in 2024.

“ That’s an effort in spin, I think, which is fine. I mean, that’s what you do, it’s called public relations,” said Foster, an associate professor of human resources and labour relations at Athabasca University.

The chart also compares the tentative-agreement wage proposal to the compensation offer from Treasury Board before a strike mandate was activated. It puts both of these figures beside a third set of data, which it says represents the settlements achieved by other bargaining agents in the federal public service for the same time period. The chart depicts that these, too, were lower than what PSAC brought in for its 120,000-plus striking members.

“I sense that they’re wanting to, sort of, maximize the sense of what they’ve achieved and what they’ve accomplished,” said Foster.

Part of PSAC’s Monday messaging on its new tentative agreement was that strike action led to an improved wages offer by the Treasury Board.


“Partly a message to their own members to say, ‘Look, your sacrifice over the last couple of weeks was worth it, right? Let’s look at what we got because you were willing to take that action.’

“But I also think it’s trying to just send a message generally that PSAC is strong, our members are united, and that when workers are united, they can achieve gains.”

To Robert Hickey, director of the employment relations program at Queen’s University, PSAC’s Monday presentation of the message that “strike action improves final wage offer” seemed more about securing ratification of the tentative agreement by PSAC members than any call for labour stoppages elsewhere.

“Strike incidence has increased, but I think it will be more of a function of high inflation than inspiration from this particular dispute,” Hickey wrote via email.

While he imagines PSAC’s new contract will inform the bargaining strategy of other public-sector unions, Foster also wasn’t expecting to see additional strikes, prompted by the one that just concluded, that wouldn’t otherwise have occurred.

“Unions take going on strike very, very seriously. And they do it only very reluctantly. And it takes a lot of work and a lot of energy and a lot of mobilizing.”

It’s also a decision with high stakes, for the relationship between a union and its members. The 1991 PSAC strike ended with back-to-work legislation after three weeks , no movement on a wage freeze that year, and many workers feeling bitter towards both the government and their union.

It’s a very different picture in 2023. After fewer than two weeks of lost wages, striking workers are now back to work with a new and improved contract on the table.

“ We know the research really does show that when workers perceive a strike as having been successful, that can spur them in terms of … greater activism in the union, greater support for the union for even a couple of years,” said Foster.

— With files from Joanne Laucius



PSAC tentative deal: The wages striking workers asked for and what they got instead


Story by National Post Staff • Yesterday 


FILE - PSAC workers and supporters walk a picket line in Halifax on Monday, April 24, 2023.© Provided by National Post

More than 120,000 federal government workers were expected to return to work today after the Public Service Alliance of Canada reached a tentative contract agreement with the Treasury Board, ending one of the largest job actions in Canadian history.

According to the union, the new agreement will see workers receive a 12.6 per cent wage increase over four years in addition to a one-time lump sum payment of $2,500, representing an additional 3.7 per cent of salary for the average union member in Treasury Board bargaining units.

The union also says the agreement also provides “significant” new protections around remote work for PSAC members and protections related to contracting out, among other measures.

“During a period of record-high inflation and soaring corporate profits, workers were told to accept less — but our members came together and fought for better,” PSAC national president Chris Aylward said in a statement. “This agreement delivers important gains for our members that will set the bar for all workers in Canada.”

What does the PSAC, Treasury Board tentative deal include?

The deal must still be ratified by PSAC members and, countrywide, strike action continues for 35,000 Canada Revenue Agency workers.

Heading into bargaining, PSAC had sought a salary increase of 13.5 per cent over three years, backdated to 2021, when the contract for PSAC’s main bargaining unit expired. That annual increase of 4.5 per cent was at odds with Treasury Board’s offer of less than eight per cent over four years.

Workers hit the picket line on April 19, disrupting services ranging from Agriculture and Agri-foods Canada to Veteran Affairs.

PSAC said they were seeking raises that kept pace with inflation, noting that the sector hasn’t received a raise in line with inflation in more than 15 years. A recent report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives found that the average federal public sector worker’s wages have not improved since 2007 once adjusted for inflation.

A day before the strike action began, Treasury Board offered a nine per cent increase over three years, which it called a “fair, competitive offer” while also noting that it had “responded to all demands” concerning remote work, shift premiums and measures to support employment equity and diversity and inclusion, among other measures.

A week into the strike, PSAC had said it would not accept the nine per cent offer, even if the government opened up on everything else.

CRA workers, meanwhile, had reportedly been offered the same nine per cent wage increase over three years but countered with a proposal of 22.5 per cent over the course of three years, including a market adjustment of two per cent.

Last year, the government had offered a roughly two per cent annual wage increase over a four-year period, accounting for increases of 1.5 per cent for 2021, three per cent for 2022, two per cent for 2023 and 1.75 per cent for 2024.

“ In this tentative agreement, PSAC has secured a fair contract for members that exceeds the employer’s original offer before the launch of strike action, and provides wage increases above the recommendations of the Public Interest Commission as well as those negotiated by other federal bargaining agents,” PSAC said in a statement.

On social media, responses to the announcement of the agreement ranged from congratulatory to confusion, with some taking issue with the reported wage increase.

“ We were fighting for 13.5% wage increase for the next 3 years, but we only got 10.5% for the next 3 years. Why just didn’t you agree with the initial offer, which was 9%? You wanted us to fight for 1.5% more?” noted one tweet.

In a statement, PSAC said CRA negotiations had resumed with a “new mandate to reach a fair contract,” but disputes over telework, wages and job security remained sticking points.

“We are seeking compensation that will address the cost of living and inflationary pressures. We are also looking for wage adjustments to bring our wages in line with our fellow public service employees,” PSAC said . “The employer’s position for compensation does not provide for such a wage adjustment and is far below inflation, which is unacceptable to us.”



PSAC deal: What the tentative agreement says about remote work

Story by Saba Aziz • Yesterday 

Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) striking government workers protest on Parliament Hill, in Ottawa, Wednesday, April 26, 2023.© THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

Atentative agreement with “new protections around remote work” reached between the federal government and the Public Service Alliance of Canada could set a precedent for working from home in the country, experts say.

PSAC and the Treasury Board came to an agreement early Monday, putting an end to a nationwide strike for over 120,000 union employees after nearly two weeks of picketing.

As of Monday morning, Treasury Board workers were required to go back on the job, PSAC announced in a statement. Canada Revenue Agency workers are negotiating their own deal and remain on strike.

According to PSAC, the deal provides “significant new protections around remote work” — which was one of the main sticking points in the labour dispute.

Treasury Board President Mona Fortier said at a news conference in Ottawa on Monday that the agreement supports “fairness, equity and modernization” when it comes to remote work.

Alexandra Samuel, a digital workplace expert, said details of what was exactly agreed upon will shape the future of remote and hybrid work, not just within the federal government, but for the whole country.

“The most important part of this agreement is the idea that we are returning to a model where individual teams, individual managers, individual departments will be able to have specific agreements rather than a single one-size-fits-all policy across the government,” she told Global News.

In December, Fortier announced that public service workers will spend two to three days per week in the office starting in January, to be fully implemented by April.

As it stands, that flexibility remains for public servants to continue, where applicable, having the option of working up to three days from home per week.

Under the tentative agreement, managers will be required to assess remote work requests on an individual case-by-case basis — not by group — and then provide written responses.

This will “allow members and PSAC to hold the employer accountable to equitable and fair decision-making on remote work,” the union said.

This could inspire other unions who are currently negotiating their own deals to ask for similar provisions, said Christina Santini, a senior policy analyst with the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.

“It can be a concern if it sets a precedent and … (puts) pressure on other employers to do the same who don’t necessarily have the capacity to do the same,” she said.

Some jobs are more efficiently done in person, so it is important to treat this on a case-by-case basis, Santini said, adding she would like to see more clarity on the number of federal workers who will be heading back to the office so that it can inform business decisions.

Video: PSAC ends strike as union reaches tentative deal with Treasury Board

PSAC had been pushing for more transparency around remote work policies with the ability to negotiate remote work written into its collective agreement.

While the full details of the tentative deal have yet to be released, the language around remote work is not part of the collective agreement but is instead stated in a separate letter of intent.

This means the union won’t be able to voice any grievances, Samuel said.

As stated in a letter of intent outside the collective agreement, a joint review will update the Directive on Telework that was agreed upon during the COVID-19 pandemic, according to the federal government.

Video: Canadians split on PSAC strike — but most aren’t paying attention: poll

An additional mechanism with departmental panels will also help address individual employee concerns, such as around cultural or management issues, Fortier said.

This does raise hopes of a more equitable and fairer approach and increased transparency around who's getting remote work opportunities and why, Samuel said.

“We want this to be the new normal, frankly, in lots of organizations,” she said.

Samuel said the panel on telework may provide a “hugely useful template for other organizations who want to bring employees back to the office.”

However, much still remains to be seen how all of this will be implemented.

Samuel said she would like to see some guidelines at the government level and departmental level about the circumstances in which it makes sense to have a team or an individual work remotely.

Wage increases secured by striking workers shouldn't be seen as 'fat cat': experts
CHEERED AS COVID HEROES
JEERED BY RIGHT WING OVER STRIKE
Story by The Canadian Press • Yesterday 


TORONTO — Labour experts say the wage increases the country's largest federal public-sector union secured Monday are far from the hefty gains some might perceive them to be.

The experts say the 12.6 per cent wage increase over four years brings the salaries of 120,000 striking workers represented by the Public Service Alliance of Canada more in line with the annual inflation rate, which peaked at 8.1 per cent in June last year before sliding to 4.3 per cent in March this year. The union has said inflation has pushed the cost of living up by 11 per cent since 2021, the year its collective agreement expired.

The deal offers as little as a 1.5 per cent increase in one year and as much as 4.75 per cent in another, but Jim Stanford, an economist and director at the Centre for Future Work, argues it shouldn't be seen as "fat cat" because average wages are growing at more than five per cent a year in Canada.

"This cannot be described as a gold-plated public sector wage deal. It's far from it," he said.

"In fact, the wage increases in this I would say are modest given the times."

The majority of the striking workers that were on strike since April 19 — a group which includes staff at the Canadian Transportation Agency, Global Affairs Canada and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada — earn between $50,000 and $75,000. About three per cent earn less than $50,000.

If the deal is ratified, the 12.6 per cent increase will also come with a one-time, pensionable lump sum payment of $2,500 that represents an additional 3.7 per cent of salary for the average union member in Treasury Board bargaining units.

The gains do not apply to 35,000 Canada Revenue Agency employees, who are still on strike as a separate agreement is negotiated for them.

However, Charles Smith, a political studies professor with the University of Saskatchewan, pointed out the offer the rest of the workers received is less than the 13.5 per cent the union originally sought but higher than the nine per cent the federal government was once offering.

"It still has not matched inflation at its current rate, but it's much closer than it was in the initial offer," he said of the wage increase.

"But what it does say is, 'hey, listen, we're closer to parity than we were in 2023 and I think that's a victory given that...the past decade we've seen lots of mandated zeros and even cuts by governments, so this gets these workers much closer to cost of living."

Whether other workers facing contract talks will follow PSAC's lead and strike is difficult to predict, but Smith said times of inflation and economic uncertainty have historically led to more labour conflict.

"I don't think it sets the tone and this will be the benchmark that every union will be asking for, but I think it changes the dynamic in terms of how different public sector unions might contemplate their upcoming negotiations and potential job actions," he said.

However, he and Stanford agree the gains will not go unnoticed by workers, especially those who have seen wage increases of only one or two per cent in recent years.

"The people saying I got one per cent are not being treated well and they should demand something better," Stanford said.

"And if there's a lesson in this experience, it is that if workers get together and stick to their guns, they can win something."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 1, 2023.

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press
Government keeps remote work rules out of public service collective agreement

Story by Special to National Post • Yesterday 

The Public Service Alliance of Canada and the government reached an agreement with compounded wage increases of 12.6 per cent over four years late Sunday night, settling a dispute with 120,000 federal workers.© Provided by National Post

OTTAWA – Striking federal public service employees left the picket lines with a commitment from the government to review remote work policies, but it will not be enshrined in their new collective agreements.

The union and the government reached an agreement with compounded wage increases of 12.6 per cent over four years late Sunday night, settling a dispute with 120,000 federal workers.

The ability to work remotely, a key sticking point throughout negotiations, was not included in the collective agreement, but the two sides agreed through a letter of understanding to address the union’s concerns on the issue.

Currently, the federal government has a hybrid work policy which allows employees to work from home for up to three days a week.
Jesse Kline: Trudeau Liberals buy labour peace with other people's money
PSAC tentative deal: The wages striking workers asked for and what they got instead

According to a statement from the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), remote work requests must now be addressed on an individual basis. Union-employer departmental panels will also provide workers with additional protections when it comes to remote work decisions.

John Hyde, a specialist in labour law, said the agreement on remote work was an ideal middle ground.

“It’s going to be a lot more work for management, but I think it’s reasonably fair under the circumstances,” Hyde said.

Speaking to reporters Monday, Treasury Board President Mona Fortier said the government will also be reviewing its directive on telework, which hasn’t been reviewed since 1993.

Remote work arrangement a 'major gain' for public servants, union president says
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Despite the increased involvement of the union in decision making, Fortier said decisions on remote work will not be grievable by employees and managers will have the final say.

Patrick Groom, another specialist in labour law, said this was a great deal for both sides.

While the decision to assess each case individually could be an administrative burden, it will give the union more involvement while protecting both sides from expensive litigation costs, he said.

“Every work-from-home assessment, should it have gone to arbitration, would have incurred hundreds of thousands of dollars in litigation costs,” Groom said. “Both sides have found a way to administer this without great expense and without a huge administrative burden.”

The new committees’ roles, Fortier said, will be to see how they can “improve” the government’s current teleworking directive.

“We’re going to create an external mechanism that will allow a union representative and a manager to discuss specific cases, so that we can give an opportunity for people to discuss options before management makes a decision,” Fortier said in French.

But assessing remote work requests on a case-by-case basis could also lead to potential conflicts, Groom and Hyde said.

Groom said he can see conflicts over the number of days employees can work from home and the kind of work that can be done remotely.

Hyde, on the other hand, said managers could make their decisions based on the overall performance of employees, or how much they trust the individual making the remote work request.

Unless there are mechanisms in place to address these concerns, there could be greater issues, he said.

Including the remote work agreement in a letter of understanding rather than the collective agreement means it can be more easily revisited in future rounds of bargaining, but Hyde said he foresees no major conflicts “if everyone plays by the rules.”

Although the deal did not meet all the union’s demands, Groom and Hyde said the addition of some language around remote work sets a precedent for other labour negotiations across the private and public sectors.

“You’re going to see other unions pushing for it. The question ultimately is whether or not unions will go on strike over this one issue,” Hyde said.

The government’s success in ultimately maintaining control over location of work, however, could also be a major factor in negotiations.

“The level of control that an employer will have because it’s not enshrined in the collective agreement is also an important element that is going to translate across all sectors,” Groom said.

CANADA
35,000 CRA employees still on strike

Story by CBC/Radio-Canada • Yesterday 

The national strike is over for Treasury Board employees, but 35,000 Canada Revenue Agency workers remain on strike.

Early Monday, the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) reached a tentative contract agreement with the Treasury Board covering more than 120,000 federal government workers who have been on strike since April 19. They're back at work today, or on their next scheduled shift.

"In the end, we reached fair, competitive agreements for employees that are reasonable for Canadians," reads a Monday statement from Treasury Board attributed to president Mona Fortier.

But contract negotiations for CRA workers are ongoing, according to the Union of Taxation Employees, which is a segment of PSAC.

In Ottawa, they were back on a picket line in the rain at the Canada Post building on Heron Road starting at 7 a.m. ET.

Telework, wages, job security still an issue

In a statement Monday, PSAC said some issues relating to hours of work and information management have been resolved. But telework, wages, improved job security and better protections against jobs being contracted out are some of the key issues still at play.

The union continues to push for telework agreements to be enshrined in the collective agreement.

The tentative deal reached for Treasury Board workers, meanwhile, doesn't include any such language in the collective agreement. Instead, the two sides agreed to a review of the directive on telework, and departmental panels will be created to advise deputy heads about employee concerns.

As for wages, as of April 19 CRA said PSAC was asking for a bump of 22.5 per cent over three years.


Canada Revenue Agency workers continued to strike on Monday as in-person negotiations with the union resumed.© Mateo Garcie-Tremblay/Radio-Canada

The last public offer from the Canada Revenue Agency was a nine-per-cent wage increase over three years, which mirrors the recommendations of the third-party Public Interest Commission.

Government services including passports and immigration were disrupted over the course of the strike, and concerns were raised over filing taxes as well.

Marc Brière, the national president of the Union of Taxation Employees, declined an interview with Radio-Canada on Monday. In an emailed statement in French, he said the union would be in negotiations all day, and that he didn't want to interfere with that process.

In a statement CRA said in-person negotiations with the union resumed Monday aiming to reach a new collective agreement that is "fair to employees and reasonable for taxpayers."

Despite the strike, CRA said the tax filing deadline has not changed, meaning returns should be filed and any balance owed should be paid by May 1.