NDP and Green leaders cleared to review secret evidence on foreign meddling attempts


OTTAWA — Federal leaders for the New Democrats and Green Party have both received the security clearance they need in order to be briefed on specific allegations of foreign interference attempts in Canadian elections.

Former special rapporteur David Johnston released an initial report on alleged meddling in May, along with a confidential annex of evidence that he said opposition party leaders who obtained relevant clearance could review.

The report found the federal Liberals did not knowingly or negligently fail to act on foreign interference attempts, but serious reforms to the government's handling of intelligence were needed.

Green Leader Elizabeth May said in a press release that she was reviewing the documents in Ottawa and would provide an update to media on Friday.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh's office said he has also received clearance and arrangements are currently being made for him to view the documents.

PARANOID OR WHAT?!!

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet had both rejected Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's offer to see the documents, arguing it was an attempt to trap them into agreeing not to speak about allegations in public.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 16, 2023.

The Canadian Press

First person: The quest for an ancient colossus, in the wild rainforest of B.C.

The Canadian Press
Thu, August 17, 2023


Trees of breathtaking size surround us, draped with moss and lichen, as droplets of water sparkle on the tips of endless foliage.

Decaying fallen trees have created a multi-layered understory that ensnares our group, until a fern-lined stream bed offers a clearer path toward our goal — a mass of silvery wood that vanishes, then reappears, fleeting in the kaleidoscope of green.

Self-described "big-tree nerd" Colin Spratt, 28, has a knack for spotting the shadowy grey bark indicating an ancient western red cedar.

He points out a promising shape.

"That could be it, right? It's giving me that timeless, silver wall," he says. "These little pinholes of light are painting the picture of something incredible."

Ahead of us stands a red cedar of mythic proportions and longevity.

Estimated by core sampling to be 2,100 years old, it is rumoured to be six metres in diameter — potentially the widest of its kind on record, and perhaps the biggest tree in Canada.

Our journey has taken us along a remote stretch of coastline on southwestern Vancouver Island, to a grove of spectacular western red cedars that offers a portal to a distant time.

We entered the forest with nerves jangling from a harrowing encounter with a cougar that approached our tents on a rocky beach the night before. The predator was aggressive, and after failing to scare it away from the camp, members of our group felt there was no choice but to kill the animal in self-defence.

Now the serenity of the forest envelopes us, soothing our nerves and offering a comforting sense of smallness among the massive trees.

But we find that our ultimate quarry, this sentinel of the forest,is nearing the end of its life.

The tree is part of a generation that experts worry may represent the last of the giants as climate change jeopardizes their descendants' ability to survive the centuries to come.

—

"We can still protect something"

Spratt and fellow big-tree seeker Greg Herringer invited The Canadian Press to join their searchlast monthafter hearing that a western red cedar with an estimated six-metre diameter had been spotted by forestry workers scouting the area.

The pair are members of the B.C. Big Tree Registry, which has a mandate to identify, document and conserve British Columbia's largest trees.

"The sad reality is there's so little left. What drives you is this incredible desire to sort of prove yourself wrong, that it's not all gone, that there are still these mythically large trees you're reading about from the 1800s," says Spratt, who runs Ancient Trees of Vancouver, a walking tour that visits old giants in Stanley Park.

"Going to a six-metre cedar, we can say, 'The ecosystem can still sustain this tree,' which is a miracle given climate change, given the state of deforestation."

To find such a tree would "show the world that this is still living," Spratt says. "We can still protect something."

The current record-sized red cedar, dubbed the Cheewhat Giant, grows on the west coast of Vancouver Island, with a diameter of 5.85 metres. While another tree in Washington State is slightly wider, the Cheewhat Giant's height and the spread of its crown make it the biggest-known tree of its species, and the biggest tree in Canada.

Our expeditionto find a cedar crossing the six-metre threshold involves an hour-long boat ride down the Alberni Inlet, before setting up camp for two nights.

After hiking for a couple of hours, a series of markers tied to branches helps guide us to the tree. The pink flagging tape is printed with the words "road location."

Looking through the forest canopy, we see the waters ofBarkley Sound — but also clear-cut logging no more than 100 metres away.

Arriving at the base of the tree, "6 M" has been spray-painted on its trunk.

The group interprets the marking to be the rough estimate of the tree's diameter by the timber cruisers who hadn't had time to properly measure it.

Their account was tantalizing enough to inspire the trip, which also includes a third member of the registry, along with Herringer's wife, Janet, and their two dogs.

Taking in the tree, the seekers realize it appears to be dead.

The trunk bears a vein of reddish bark indicating cambium, the thin living layer of a tree. But there is also rot, and the foliage appears to be huckleberries growing on the tree.

"That cambium is so healthy, but where does it lead to?" Spratt says, peering up.

A few minutes of careful examination bring relief.

A small but spry-looking branch with sprigs of cedar foliage sprouts from the tree before its trunk splits into a silvery candelabra.

The tree is alive, although Spratt says it's "clinging to life."

Herringer wraps his tape measure around the trunk to reveal a diameter belied by its striking presence: 4.65 metres.

Spratt takes his own measurement, positioning his tape lower down around the base of the tree using a method employed by the B.C. Big Tree Committee as well as American Forests, which keeps a registry of champion trees in the United States.

That diameter is closer to five metres. If verified, Spratt's measurement means the giant is among the 15 widest-known trees in Canada, he says.

Still, it's not a six-metre tree. The tape doesn't lie, the group agrees.

Spratt says he thought he'd feel disappointed by a measurement under six metres, instead he feels invigorated and inspired to continue searching.

"There is still a six-metre cedar out there. I am 100 per cent sure of that," he says later.

Indeed, after reviewing his photos in the days after the trip, Spratt has begun to wonder whether the true record-breaking tree may have been hiding in plain sight.

—

Trees so large, "the helicopter couldn't lift them

The colossal size of three trees we measured ensures their protection, along with a one-hectare buffer preserving their surrounding ecosystem.

B.C.'s special tree protection regulation, which came into effect three years ago, states western red cedars with a diameter of 3.85 metres or more are to be preserved in coastal zones. That figure drops to 2.9 metres in other areas.

If not for the regulation, the Barkley Sound giants would likely have been cut when B.C.-based company Interfor logged the area in 2021, says Herringer, who works as a forest technologist with BC Timber Sales, the agency that manages about 20 per cent of annual harvest on public land.

"There's an underlying sense of urgency because they are disappearing. We are still cutting them down," says Herringer, who grapples with internal conflict over his love of ancient trees and his work, which involves scouting areas for harvest.

Clambering through cut blocks, our group saw several wooden platforms for helicopters to land and hoist out massive, felled trees.

On the boat ride from Port Alberni, the skipper told us he'd worked in the same area, and there were "trees in there that the helicopter couldn't lift."

For more than a century, the biggest trees have been "heavily targeted" for logging, the B.C. government says. Big-treed old growth is "now very rare compared to its historic distribution, putting it at extremely high near-term risk," it says.

In November 2021, the B.C. government announced a process to defer harvesting for two years in certain highly productive forests at risk of irreversible loss, while it works with First Nations on long-term management plans.

One of the tools Herringer uses to help preserve old giants is BC Timber Sales' coastal legacy tree program, which covers four species and uses smaller benchmark diameters than the provincial regulation.

"I would like to get the legacy tree program expanded provincewide, and that's where I can be most effective, working from within," Herringer says.

Our first day on the shores of Barkley Sound is spent thrashing through dense undergrowth and navigating two cut blocks littered with stumps and splintered wood to find a 4.52-metre western red cedar estimated to be 2,800 years old.

Herringer says that estimate — based on a core sample and a mathematical formula that considers species and diameter — means the tree is among the oldest-dated western red cedars.

The tree looks healthy, he notes, with plenty of foliage.

With daylight dwindling, we return to camp, a welcome sight after 10 hours of trekking. We eat, stash our supplies and bid each other good night.

After sleeping for an hour or so, an outburst of barking jolts me awake.

A cougar has silently prowledwithin a metre of our tents.

I hear yelling and attempts to scare the big cat away. But it is aggressive and refuses to leave, even after being pelted with baseball-sized rocks.

When I emerge from my tent about a minute later, the cougar is dead, killed using driftwood from the beach.

Sitting in the darkness as our heart rates settle, we try to wrap our heads around the cougar's behaviour — and feel profound relief that none of us have been hurt.

The encounter underscores the risks of venturing to remote areas in search of ancient trees, Herringer says afterwards.

—

Climate change means "uncharted territory" for ancient trees

As industrial logging continues to eat away at old growth, experts and advocates worry that climate change is threatening the next generation of giants.

Judith Sayers is president of the Nuu-chah-nulth Tribal Council representing 14 First Nations on Vancouver Island. She says old-growth forests carry knowledge, and one of their most important teachings is sharing the conditions they need to thrive.

"You can't replicate an old-growth forest, and that's the scary part," she says.

Old-growth forests produce medicines that can't be found anywhere else, and the largest trees are used to build canoes, welcoming figures, totems and long houses, says Sayers, the former chief of the Hupacasath First Nation based in Port Alberni.

Some First Nations can no longer find such trees on their own territories, she adds.

"They'll come into our territory and ask a logging company if they could take a tree, and if they're exercising proper protocol, they would ask us first," she says.

"Retaining enough old-growth trees for our cultural purposes is really important."

Sally Aitken, a professor in the department of forest and conservation sciences at the University of B.C., says "we're entering uncharted territory" with climate change.

"A lot of our tree species are pretty resilient," she says.

"We just don't know where their edges of their tolerance are," says Aitken, whose research examines the capacity of trees and forests to adapt to climate change.

Aitken also co-ordinates the B.C. Big Tree Registry, which is based at the university, and says quite a few of its trees have died over the past two decades.

The biggest trees perform vital ecological functions — from supporting high levels of biodiversity to filtering water to storing carbon —but they're also intrinsically special and valuable as some of the largest organisms on Earth, she says.

"They're just absolutely remarkable, and when they're gone, we don't know that we'll ever see those developing to that extent again," she says.

To give the giants of the future a fighting chance, Aitken says it's important to protect areas where trees have the potential to grow for centuries to come.

"Do we know that they're going to be able to grow into big-treed old growth? Some of them probably will and some of them probably won't," Aitken says.

"But certainly if we don't protect them, then none of them will."

Karen Price, an ecologist based in Smithers, B.C., says no one can predict whether a new generation of trees will continue the legacy of their ancient relatives.

But in a changing climate, "the answer is probably no," says Price, who served on a provincially appointed panel that advised the B.C. government on old growth.

The increasing frequency and intensity of wildfires, droughts, storms, floods and other disturbances show Earth is moving out of a 12,000-year period of relative stability toward a future characterized by uncertainty, she says.

Industrial logging has also degraded soils,fungal networks and other key elements needed to support the biggest trees, Price adds.

"We risk that we're never going to get that productivity back."

Still, old forests are more resilient than younger counterparts, Price says. There may be some coastal ecosystems where future giants have a chance to grow, provided they retain enough moisture and avoid destructive storms and fires.

"If those conditions are all right, we can continue to grow some big trees," she says.

—

The 'art form' of measuring giant trees

After packing our gear and piling onto the boat back to Port Alberni, we look back at the ancient silver spires jutting above the dark green canopy and wonder whether the rainforest holds the next generation of giants.

Spratt intends to return to what he calls a "miracle grove" soon, in part because he fearsthe group didn't have time to properly measure a stunningly large cedar we visited on our way to the "6 M" tree.

Measuring trees is an art form, he says, adding he plans to dedicate a whole day to confirming the tree's diameter, height and crown spread.

It looked healthy, with reddish-brown bark, foliage bursting from a crown of branches, and at least two separate, smaller trees growing from its flared base.

Spratt initially thought the tree could be the record-breaker, but timber cruisers had left a tape around its trunk suggesting it was just over 4.6 metres in diameter.

That measurement was taken above our heads, far higher up the trunk than at breast height, the method used by the B.C. Big Tree Committee.

But our group had limited time and another giant to visit.

Spratt says he later realized the extent to which the base of the tree was obscured by soil and woody debris.

"You could see that we were walking up the tree to get to where the tape was," he says, describing its "skirt" of soils, ferns, mosses and forest detritus.

We needed to return to camp, and Spratt would later lament that "we didn't have time to properly give that tree what it needs."

Spratt says he's only had to carefully clear the base of an ancient tree to measure it once before. He likens the process to excavating dinosaur bones.

"You don't want to disturb the tree or its site much at all. You're moving more minor soils and minor plants," he says. "But it would take hours."

So, is there a six-metre western red cedar in the rainforests of Barkley Sound?

The mystery remains, perhaps until the tree seekers return with brushes and tape measures in hand.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 17, 2023.

Brenna Owen, The Canadian Press

Fires and other disasters are increasing in Hawaii, according to this AP data analysis




KIHEI, Hawaii (AP) — Hurricane-fueled flash floods and mudslides. Lava that creeps into neighborhoods. Fierce drought that materializes in a flash and lingers. Earthquakes. And now, deadly fires that burn block after historic block.

Hawaii is increasingly under siege from disasters, and what is escalating most is wildfire, according to an Associated Press analysis of Federal Emergency Management Agency records. That reality can clash with the vision of Hawaii as paradise. It is, in fact, one of the riskiest states in the country.

“Hawaii is at risk of the whole panoply of climate and geological disasters," said Debarati Guha-Sapir, director of the international disasters database kept at the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters at the Catholic University of Louvain in Belgium. She listed storms, floods, earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanoes.

Hawaii has been in more danger lately. This month alone, the federal government declared six different fire disasters in Hawaii — the same number recorded in the state from 1953 to 2003.

Across the United States, the number of acres burned by wildfires about tripled from the 1980s to now, with a drier climate from global warming a factor, according to the federal government’s National Climate Assessment and the National Interagency Fire Center. In Hawaii, the burned area increased more than five times from the 1980s to now, according to figures from the University of Hawaii Manoa.

Longtime residents — like Victoria Martocci, who arrived on Maui about 25 years ago — know this all too well.

“Fire happened maybe once a year or once every two years. Over the last 10 years, it has been more frequent,” said Martocci, who lost a boat and her business, Extended Horizons Scuba, to the fire that swept through Lahaina.

From 1953 to 2003, Hawaii averaged one federally declared disaster of any type every two years, according to the analysis of FEMA records. But now it averages more than two a year, about a four-fold increase, the data analysis shows.

It’s even worse for wildfires. Hawaii went from averaging one federally declared fire disaster every nine years or so to one a year on average since 2004.

Watching the fires on Maui, Native Hawaiian Micah Kamohoali’i’s mind drifted to 2021, when the state’s largest ever wildfire burned through his family’s Big Island home and scorched a massive swath of land on the slopes of Mauna Kea.

Linda Hunt, who works at a horse stable in Waikoloa Village on the Big Island, had to evacuate in that fire. Given the abundance of dry grass on the islands from drought and worsening fires, Hunt said fire agencies need to “double or triple” spending on fire gear and personnel.

“They are stretched thin. They ran out of water on Maui and had to leave the truck,” she said. “Money should be spent on prevention and preparedness.”

FEMA assesses an overall risk index for each county in America and the risk index in Maui County is higher than nearly 88% of the counties in the nation. The federal disaster agency considers that a “relatively moderate” risk.

Hawaii’s Big Island has a risk index higher than 98% of U.S. counties.

A 2022 state emergency management report listed tsunamis, hurricanes, earthquakes, floods, health risks and cyber threats as high risk to people, but categorized wildfire as a “low” risk, along with drought, climate change and sea level rise.

Yet fire is the No. 1 cause of Hawaii's federally declared disasters, equaling the next three types of disaster combined: floods, severe storms and hurricanes. Hawaii by far has more federally declared fire disasters per square mile than any other state.

For most of the 20th century, Hawaii averaged about 5000 acres (about 20 square kilometers) burned per year, but that’s now up to 15,000 to 20,000 acres, said University of Hawaii Manoa fire scientist Clay Trauernicht.

“We’ve been getting these large events for the last 20 to 30 years," he said from Oahu.

What's happening is mostly because of changes in land use and the plants that catch fire, said Trauernicht. From the 1990s on, there has been a “big decline in plantation agriculture and a big decline in ranching," he said. Millions of acres of crops have been replaced with grasslands that burn easily and fast.

He called it “explosive fire behavior.”

“This is much more a fuels problem,” Trauernicht said. “Climate change is going to make this stuff harder.”

Stanford University climate scientist Chris Field said “these grasses can just dry out in a few weeks and it doesn't take extreme conditions to make them flammable.”

That's what happened this year. For the first four weeks of May, Maui County had absolutely no drought, according to the U.S. drought monitor. By July 11, 83% of Maui was either abnormally dry or in moderate or severe drought. Scientists call that a flash drought.

Flash droughts are becoming more common because of human-caused climate change, an April study said.

Another factor that made the fires worse was Hurricane Dora, 700 miles (1,100 kilometers) to the south, which helped create storm-like winds that fanned the flames and spread the fires. Experts said it shows that the “synergy” between wildfire and other weather extremes, like storms.

Stanford's Field and others said it's difficult to isolate the effects of climate change from other factors on Hawaii's increasing disasters, but weather catastrophes are increasing worldwide. The nation has experienced a jump in federally declared disasters, and Hawaii has been hit harder.

Because Hawaii is so isolated, the state is often more self-sufficient and resilient after disasters, so when FEMA calculates risks for states and counties, Hawaii does well in recovery, said Susan Cutter, director of the Hazards Vulnerability and Resilience Institute at the University of South Carolina. Still, it shocks people to think of disasters in places they associate with paradise.

“Those are places of fantasy and nothing bad is supposed to happen there. You go there to escape reality, to leave pain behind, not face it head on,” said University of Albany emergency preparedness professor Jeannette Sutton. “Our perceptions of risk are certainly challenged when we have to think about the dangers associated with paradise, not just its exotic beauty.”

Maui resident Martocci said, “it is paradise 99% of the time.”

“We’ve always felt secure about living in paradise, and that everything will be OK,” she said. “But this has been a reality check for West Maui. A significant reality check.”

___

Borenstein reported from Washington and Wildeman reported from Hartford, Connecticut. Associated Press reporter Mike Casey in Boston contributed.

___

Follow AP’s climate and environment coverage at https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environment. Follow Seth Borenstein and Bobby Caina Calvan at @borenbears and @BobbyCalvan.

___

Associated Press climate and environmental coverage receives support from several private foundations. See more about AP’s climate initiative here. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Seth Borenstein, Mary Katherine Wildeman And Bobby Caina Calvan, The Associated Press

Air conditioners 'a necessity' as B.C. heat breaks records set almost a century ago

The Canadian Press
Tue, August 15, 2023 



VANCOUVER — When Nicky Fried and her husband arrived in Vancouver from South Africa more than 30 years ago, they didn't need an air conditioner.

Now they have two, she said on Tuesday as she enjoyed an iced coffee and shade outside a Cambie Street café.

“I don’t think it’s that wildly expensive. They do work and you can sleep in comfort, and you can spend your time indoors in comfort,” said Fried.

Her husband, Hirschel Wasserman, added that air conditioning is "no longer a luxury; it has become a necessity."

Most of southern B.C. is broiling in a heat wave as temperatures knock down records in some areas of the province that were set almost a century ago.

On Vancouver's Downtown Eastside, an outreach team for the Union Gospel Mission has been working to ensure people are aware and are prepared to cope with the heat spike.

Mission spokeswoman Nicole Mucci said those who are experiencing mental illness, homelessness or who have chronic health conditions are most at risk of illness and death during hot weather.

She said staff have been handing out water, hats and sunscreen and are encouraging people living on the Downtown Eastside to seek out cooling stations during the day and stay in shelters at night.

BC Emergency Health Services said paramedics were called out to 28 heat-related events on Sunday and Monday, compared with nine on the same two days the week earlier.

B.C.'s Ministry of Emergency Management has said heat wave won't be a repeat of the 2021 heat dome, which claimed more than 600 lives, but it warns people to take precautions to stay out of the heat, drink water and limit activity.

The coroner's report from the 2021 event said most of the deaths happened indoors and were adults above 60 years old who didn't have air conditioning. It said the number of deaths for those living in poverty was "lower than may have been expected."

"It is important to learn from the people living in those areas, such as those living in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver," the report said. "Lived experience must inform community strategies for prevention from planning through implementation."

Mucci agreed, noting it is also important to remember that many people in areas such as the Downtown Eastside live in affordable or "precarious" housing, like single rooms, and don't always have access to fans or air conditioning.

She noted the mission's housing team has worked to ensure its shelters are equipped with cooling areas.

Mucci said they've noticed many groups within the community now watch to ensure residents are prepared and protected.

"Whether that's folks who are unhoused, folks who are experiencing addiction, perhaps those with mental illness, or those who are maybe elderly or disabled, and just letting them know that hot weather is coming," she said.

Environment Canada urges people to be aware of heat illnesses and its symptoms, including swelling, rash, cramps, fainting, heat exhaustion, heat stroke and the worsening of some health conditions.

The 10 hottest communities in Canada were all located in British Columbia on Monday and forecasters expected the sizzling temperatures to continue for at least a few more days across the province's Interior.

The Fraser Canyon communities of Lytton and Lillooet both broke the 40 C mark on Monday, with Lytton reaching 41.5 C and Lillooet slightly behind. On Tuesday, the mercury hit 42.1 C in Lytton.

Environment Canada said more than a dozen daily records were set on Tuesday, including 37.5 C in Port Alberni, breaking a benchmark set in 1933, and 30.6 C at Yoho National Park, surpassing a 1930 mark.

The heat is making the situation worse for about 370 wildfires burning in the province. Of those, 145 are considered out of control.

Sarah Budd, an information officer with the BC Wildfire Service, said the greatest risk to the blazes burning in the province will come Thursday when a cold front moves in from the northwest, bringing strong winds, dry lightning and the potential to start more fires, while making the current wildfires worse.

Provincial power utility BC Hydro said Tuesday that it also set a new record for the highest peak hourly demand in August on Monday night.

BC Hydro said in a statement that consumption reached over 8,400 megawatts, with a heat wave usually adding 1,000 megawatts of power use, equal to turning on one million air-conditioning units.

Bulletins from Environment Canada say much of the coastal region will return to seasonal temperatures by Wednesday, but central and southern regions of the province will endure the heat a day or two longer.

— With files from Brieanna Charlebois in Vancouver

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 15, 2023.

Nono Shen, The Canadian Press

A look at British Columbia's heat wave, by the numbers


The Canadian Press
Wed, August 16, 2023 




VANCOUVER — A protracted heat wave has settled over the southern half of British Columbia, sending temperatures in some places into the 40s this week.

Here's a look at data associated with the hot spell that began Sunday, provided by Environment Canada. Information is correct as of 5 p.m. Wednesday.

Hottest temperature: 42.2 C at the Lytton climate station on Tuesday

Daily heat records set at B.C. weather stations since Sunday: 48

Hottest temperature at Vancouver International Airport: 26 C on Tuesday

Hottest temperature at Victoria International Airport: 30.5 C on Monday

Hottest temperature in Kelowna: 38.6 C on Tuesday

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 16, 2023.

Two decades later, record wildfires in Kelowna, B.C. are dwarfed by current season




Wed, August 16, 2023 

KELOWNA, B.C. — It's been about five years since Jesse Zeman began a summer ritual of boxing up keepsakes and personal effects to ship to relatives because he worried his home in Kelowna, B.C., would burn down.

Eventually, Zeman said he and his wife moved their treasures permanently after the family had to evacuate twice. Now they have a so-called "go box" prepared and they are ready to leave at a moment's notice every summer.

They've had fires start within a few kilometres of their house many times over the years, but Zeman said he looks back to the devastating season in 2003 when friends' homes burned down in what was then considered a catastrophic event, but now is the new norm.


"You only need to get woken up at 11 at night because there's a fire within two kilometres of your house, you only need to do that once to go 'holy smoke, so this is real,'" he said in an interview. "The risk is very high where we live."

As British Columbia grapples with a record-breaking wildfire season, the 20-year anniversary of Kelowna's firestorm brings mixed emotions for those who lived through it, and offers lessons for the present. At the time, the 2003 season was unprecedented in scale, but it has been dwarfed this year by fires that have burned six times more area so far.

On Aug. 16, 2003, a lightning strike sparked a fire near Okanagan Mountain Provincial Park that eventually grew to 250 square kilometres, spurring evacuations of more than 33,000 residents and damaging or destroying more than 200 homes.

Zeman, executive director of the B.C. Wildlife Federation, published a commentary last month decrying what he calls chronic and prolonged underfunding for renewable resource management in the province.

"In 2003, British Columbia got a taste of catastrophic, uncontrollable wildfires and the pall of choking smoke lasting months," Zeman wrote. "We were rightly frightened at the prospect of this apocalyptic new reality."

Zeman said the provincial government has since failed to heed what should have been a wake-up call two decades ago, leading to "fish and wildlife decline, massive uncontrollable wildfires, and widespread drought as the norm."

Retired firefighter Glen Maddess and his wife live in Kelowna, and he remembers seeing the fire as it smouldered in the park that day in 2003.

He recalls going out for a run, struck by how the fire began gradually growing and moving, then later driving down a main street where residents were being evacuated.

"Just seeing the amount of people having to leave and take their belongings with them, the valuable belongings because they couldn't take everything, and it's sort of 'whoa, this is serious,' and I've been in the business for a long time," he said.

Even after decades in the firefighting business, Maddess said he was in awe of the "magnitude of the seriousness" of the fire.

"It's interesting 20 years later that we're facing basically the same problems as we did before," he said.

Maddess was later tapped to help prepare a report on the 2003 wildfire season for the provincial government entitled "Firestorm," authored by former Manitoba Premier Gary Filmon.

"We have learned some lessons," he said.

There's now a greater pool of firefighting expertise to draw from provincially, nationally, and internationally, he said.

Maddess said there's also a greater depth of knowledge about how to respond to interurban wildland fires, where residential development abuts natural landscapes chock full of fuels that feed the now yearly blazes.

The Filmon report said that the 2003 wildfire season scorched over 2,600 square kilometres across B.C., at the time a record amount. So far this season, more than 16,000 square kilometres have burned.

Former Kelowna fire chief Gerry Zimmermann has had a lot of time to reflect on the 2003 disaster, and he's now just thankful it wasn't worse as wildfire seasons have only grown in intensity since.

"When I look what's happening around the world right now like Hawaii and places like that, it makes ours look kind of small," he said.

Zimmermann, who's now retired from firefighting, said it's hard to assess whether the 2003 wildfires were a glimpse into a future with unheeded lessons dooming the province to repeat history.

But he said a few things have improved, especially communications with the public through the media, which at the time was "terrible" before they decided to change course.

"We were giving information out as soon as we had it," he said. "That was very, very successful. That's what got us through."

Zimmermann said "jurisdictional boundaries" were a hurdle back then, too. The fire in Okanagan Mountain Provincial Park was out of the Kelowna Fire Department's purview.

"What we had decided shortly after this fire, one of the main things was that if something came in, it didn't matter where it was, we were gonna go deal with it," he said. "I don't know whether they're still doing that or not, but the secret to these things is hitting it as hard and as fast with everything you can right off the bat and keep it small."

Zimmermann said firefighters were dealing with flames hundreds of feet high at some points, but a miraculous moment from one scary night sticks in his mind.

"We had guys trapped and we were having a heck of a time," he said. "When it was at its worst, the skies opened up and it started raining."

The rain that night, he said, gave firefighters a leg up "and after that, things got progressively better."

"We could have lost a good part of the city and a lot of good people and a little bit of help from upstairs," he said, "got us through this thing."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 16, 2023.

Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press

Feds blamed AFN for delays, slow progress on First Nations policing bill: documents

The Canadian Press
Wed, August 16, 2023 



OTTAWA — Federal officials worried long-promised legislation declaring First Nations policing an essential service was being delayed by Assembly of First Nations hesitations about the bill, newly released internal documents show.

Records obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act also appear to show that one of the sticking points for both the advocacy organization and Ottawa is whether to recognize policing as an area of First Nations jurisdiction — something the government has done when it comes to child-welfare services.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised his government would bring forward a new First Nations policing law in 2020 after years of calls from Indigenous leaders.

The federal government committed to co-develop the law with the Assembly of First Nations, which represents more than 600 communities across Canada.

Last year, calls for legislative change were once again amplified after 11 people were killed and 17 injured in James Smith Cree Nation and the nearby community of Weldon, Sask.

The RCMP was the police service of jurisdiction, with the closest detachment located nearly 50 kilometres away. That prompted the community to call for immediate changes to emergency services in the area, including faster response times.

The anniversary of the tragedy is coming up at the beginning of September, yet the advocacy organization and Ottawa appear to be stalled on what a law around First Nations policing should even look like.

And leaders of existing First Nations police services say their offices are cash-strapped under an inequitable and overly rigid funding program from the 1990s that is cost-shared with provinces.

Some of the trouble between both sides is outlined in briefing notes prepared for the Public Safety Department's top bureaucrat ahead of a pre-budget meeting earlier this year with the then-CEO of the Assembly of First Nations.

The documents show officials were concerned things were not moving fast enough for the government to meet its promise to table a bill before Parliament's summer recess.

"There is a significant risk that (the public safety minister) will not be able to table a First Nations police services bill by June 2023 due to ongoing challenges with the AFN, which limits timely progress," one briefing note said.

It also said the department has "drafted and shared with the organization several products since June 2022," but that the AFN had yet to provide comments or share reports on their "regional engagement activities," leading to "continued delays."

As of January 2023, the organization had not provided comments on draft principles for the bill.

Regional Chief Ghislain Picard, a member of the AFN's executive who handles justice matters, said communication with the federal government is difficult because they are not aligned on what the bill should look like.

"We're very much interested in seeing a bill that acknowledges or recognizes First Nations policing as an essential service," Picard said in an interview.

But where the First Nations organization and Ottawa go separate ways is in terms of who would have jurisdiction: the provinces or the First Nations.

The federal government enshrined rights recognized by Section 35 of the Constitution — which reaffirm inherent and treaty rights — when it passed Indigenous child-welfare legislation, giving First Nations jurisdiction over those services.

Picard suggested they should do the same for a policing bill.

"The UN Declaration (on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples) has the right to self-determination right in it," he said.

"That's certainly, in our view, the right to be establishing our own institutions."

Trudeau has repeatedly said that the federal government's relationship with Indigenous Peoples is charting a new course — one that respects rights in the spirit of reconciliation.

But the newly released documents show Ottawa is reluctant to go all the way when it comes to jurisdiction.

Speaking points for the deputy minister of public safety in one briefing note say Ottawa believes existing provincial policing laws allow for "effective" services, as they already include standards and processes for public complaints.

"We expect that First Nations police services continue to be regulated by provincial policing legislation following the passing of the federal legislation."

Public Safety Canada has not responded to a request for comment.

The assembly's lawyer, Julie McGregor, spoke about the recognition of rights in the bill being a "sticking" point in negotiations at a gathering last month in Halifax.

She told the organization's general assembly that the Department of Public Safety had provided a written explanation of its plans for the legislation — and "it advised it does not have the mandate for inclusion of First Nations jurisdiction or rights recognition."

Picard said it has proven difficult to organize a meeting with the federal government, especially given last month's cabinet shuffle.

Dominic LeBlanc took on the public safety portfolio from Marco Mendicino, who has been dropped from cabinet altogether.

Before the shuffle, the AFN had scheduled a meeting with Mendicino, Picard said. Now, it is waiting for LeBlanc to get fully briefed on the issue.

The organization has called on LeBlanc to prioritize First Nations policing and promised it will "continue to pursue a true co-development process."

But Picard said that with a "less that certain" future ahead for the Liberal government and the potential for an election anytime under a minority Parliament, there's "a lot of considerations to be had" about the future of the bill.

And the discussions must recognize that the federal government has a role to play on the money side, he said — not just provinces and First Nations themselves.

"First Nations policing has to not only be recognized as an essential service," said Picard.

"It should be funded as such."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published August 16, 2023.

Alessia Passafiume and Stephanie Taylor, The Canadian Press

Analysis-Russian raid off Turkey's coast tests Erdogan's resolve

Jonathan Spicer and Ece Toksabay
Wed, 16 August 2023


Cargo ship Super Bayern, carrying Ukrainian grain, is seen behind cargo ship Rider in the Black Sea off Kilyos near Istanbul

By Jonathan Spicer and Ece Toksabay

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Russia's raid on a ship just off Turkey's coast brings the fallout from the Ukraine war to another NATO frontier and raises the stakes as Ankara seeks to coax Moscow back to a grain-export deal that would restore some calm to the Black Sea.

Armed marines raided the Turkish-based vessel via helicopter on Sunday some 60 km (37 miles) off Turkey's northwest coast, in international waters but near Istanbul, in what Moscow called an inspection before it sailed on to Ukraine.


Turkey, NATO's second-largest military, has made no public comment on the incident that occurred far south of the war that has raged for a year-and-a-half in the north Black Sea.

Analysts said it tests President Tayyip Erdogan's resolve to maintain good relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin, whom he has invited to Turkey this month to discuss resuming the UN-brokered deal that had protected grain exports from Ukraine.

"This type of aggression being exercised so close to Istanbul went unchecked and doesn't respect Turkey's overall rights," said Yoruk Isik, an Istanbul-based geopolitical analyst at the Bosphorus Observer consultancy.

"Ankara's silence is strange but shows it is still counting on Putin to visit and return to the grain deal."

Since Russia exited the agreement last month, both it and Ukraine have issued warnings and carried out attacks on vessels off their coasts, stirring worries that commercial-shipping could grow riskier across the entire sea.

While Ukraine and some other Western states have promoted alternative routes for Ukrainian exports, Ankara, which also has good relations with Kyiv, quietly opposes them on safety grounds. It wants the West to accept some Russian demands, and for Russia to drop others, to restart Ukraine grain exports under UN and Turkish oversight.

On Wednesday, Russia struck more Ukrainian port facilities even as Kyiv announced that a container ship departed Odesa under its own "humanitarian corridor", one of the alternative options.

Rebeca Grynspan, Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, said on Wednesday it is in contact with all sides to return to the table though it was "difficult" partly given the recent bombardment of grain infrastructure.

FINE BALANCE

The Black Sea and Turkish straits are the main route Ukraine and Russia - two of the world's top agriculture producers - use to reach world markets.

Since the year-long grain deal collapsed, boosting global commodity prices and raising UN concerns over world hunger, Russia and Ukraine have said they will treat ships approaching the other's ports as potential military vessels.

Aydin Sezer, a former Turkish diplomat and Ankara-based foreign policy analyst, said Russia's inspection of the Palau-flagged Sukru Okan vessel technically took place in a war zone, given Moscow and Kyiv's warnings over ships.

Given Turkey has sent armed drones and other weapons to Ukraine while also claiming to be neutral in the war, "it is very challenging for Turkey to find its voice on this matter," he said.

Turkey has positioned itself to facilitate any peace talks between Ukraine and Russia. It has opposed the Russian invasion but also the Western sanctions on Moscow, and ramped up economic cooperation with Russia through the war.

A Turkish defence ministry official, requesting anonymity, said Ankara was looking into the Black Sea raid but gave no more details. The vessel has since sailed on to Romanian waters, according to Refinitiv Eikon data.

Russia has not commented on a potential visit by Putin, though Turkey has promoted it repeatedly including in a leaders call on Aug. 2.

Russia has said it would return to the grain deal once the West fulfils obligations meant to ensure the smooth export of its own grain and fertilisers, including payments and logistics.

Sezer said its two key demands are including a Russian bank in the global SWIFT payments system and allowing it to import agriculture-related goods.

"Therefore Erdogan should negotiate and try to convince Western countries, not Putin, for the reinstatement of the grain deal," he said.

(Additional reporting by Huseyin Hayatsever and Gabrielle Tétrault-Farber; Editing by Kirsten Donovan)

UK

INJUSTICE
Police and CPS had key DNA evidence 16 years before Andrew Malkinson cleared of rape

Emily Dugan Senior reporter
Tue, 15 August 2023 

Photograph: Jordan Pettitt/PA

Police and prosecutors in the Andrew Malkinson case knew there was another man’s DNA on the victim’s clothes in 2007 – three years after he was wrongly convicted of rape – but he remained in prison for another 13 years.

Malkinson was cleared by the appeal court last month after spending 17 years in prison for a 2003 rape he did not commit. His exoneration came after fresh DNA testing linked another man to the crime.

Case files released to Malkinson as he fought his conviction, and now seen by the Guardian, reveal that police and prosecutors knew forensic testing in 2007 had found a searchable male DNA profile on the female victim’s vest top that did not match Malkinson’s.


They decided not to take further action, and there is no record they told the body responsible for investigating miscarriages of justice, though Malkinson’s lawyers were notified.

The Criminal Cases Review Commission declined to order further forensic testing, or refer the case for appeal in 2012, with the files showing the CCRC raising concerns about costs.

The DNA discovery was made in 2007 as part of a nationwide review of the forensics used in historic rape and murder cases called Operation Cube.

Malkinson, 57, was convicted of a stranger rape in Manchester in 2004 on the basis of witness evidence, with the prosecution arguing he left no DNA because he was “forensically aware”. He always maintained he was innocent.

Yet the discovery of another man’s DNA – which was not that of the victim’s then boyfriend – in a “crime specific” area of the victim’s clothes did not result in the CCRC referring his case for appeal. During the attack, the victim suffered a bite that partially severed her left nipple, meaning saliva staining on the vest above the left breast was considered “crime specific” by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).

A log of a meeting between the Forensic Science Service, the CPS and Greater Manchester police in December 2009 reveals that the CPS was aware of the potential enormity of the discovery.

Its then head of complex casework in Manchester said: “If it is assumed that the saliva came from the offender, then it does not derive from Malkinson. This is surprising because the area of the clothing that the saliva was recovered from was crime specific.”

However, he said “he did not see that there was a need to do any further work on the file” unless the case was brought to appeal, and then his focus would be on “bolstering” the case against Malkinson.

The CPS is supposed to write to the CCRC at the earliest opportunity about any case in which there is doubt about the safety of the conviction.

An internal log of Malkinson’s first application to the CCRC in 2009, in an attempt to appeal against his conviction, shows the body raised the cost of further testing and argued it would be unlikely to overturn the conviction.

It took three years to reject his application, and did not request the full police file or conduct new forensic tests.

Emily Bolton, Malkinson’s lawyer at the charity Appeal, said: “The documents are a shocking chronicle of how Andy was utterly failed by the body, which should have put an end to his wrongful conviction nightmare, but instead acted as a barrier to justice. An overhaul of the CCRC is needed to prevent it failing other innocent prisoners.”

By relying only on the CPS file, the CCRC missed the chance to identify disclosure failures so grave that senior judges have since ruled they would have rendered his conviction unsafe.

It was left to Appeal to uncover disclosure failures and commission more forensic tests. Without the CCRC’s automatic access to police files, they had to take extensive legal action against Greater Manchester police to access them.

Refusing to refer his case for appeal in 2012 and explaining why it would not conduct further DNA testing, the CCRC told Malkinson the cost of forensic investigation was not its “overriding consideration”. Yet the internal case log reveals the CCRC made comments including “the cost cannot be ignored” and “further work would be extremely costly”.

Malkinson has called for the head of the CCRC, Helen Pitcher, to resign and a petition urging her to apologise has more than 100,000 signatures.

Malkinson said: “If the CCRC had investigated properly, it would have spared me years in prison for a crime I did not commit.

“I feel an apology is the least I am owed, but it seems like the very body set up to address the system’s fallibility is labouring under the delusion that it is itself infallible. How many more people has it failed?”

The CCRC has previously argued that the science to exonerate Malkinson was not there when it considered his two earlier applications to appeal. While science has advanced, basic testing that isolates the male chromosome, similar to that commissioned by Appeal in 2019, existed when the CCRC was first considering Malkinson’s case and was widely used from 2003.

This testing could have been used on fingernail scrapings taken from the victim. Internal records show this was suggested as an option by a forensic scientist to the CPS in a 2009 meeting after the vest-top DNA discovery.

Internal logs from 2009 show a CCRC worker being “bemused” at the fresh application, writing: “Just because it appears there is someone else’s DNA on the complainant’s vest … cannot surely produce a hope of a successful referral in view of all the other strong ID evidence.” The comment appears to ignore the location of the DNA.

Malkinson’s lawyers say the characterisation of witness evidence as “strong” was questionable, given it was already known that Malkinson did not match the victim’s description of her attacker in key ways, including having no scratch on his face when she recalled causing “a deep scratch” and the fact that one witness picked out a different person in the identification procedure.

Refusing to refer the case for appeal in 2012, the CCRC said there was “no realistic prospect” that further testing would yield a searchable profile “capable of being compared with the national DNA database”.

Yet the CPS had already been told by scientists that the database was searchable. Part of it had been searched in 2007, without any matches identified.

A man named only as Mr B has been arrested in connection with the rape and released under investigation.

When the CCRC considered Malkinson’s case again in 2018, presented with new information about witness evidence flaws, it did not undertake a new search on the database with the DNA from the vest. Nor did it carry out its own testing or refer the case for appeal.

James Burley, Malkinson’s investigator at Appeal, said: “The CCRC’s internal comments show that in deciding not to commission any DNA testing, cost was at the forefront of their considerations. That decision may have saved the CCRC some money, but it came at a brutal cost for both Andy and the victim.

“The CCRC has been giving the false impression that a DNA breakthrough could not have been achieved by them sooner. These records show that is nonsense.”

A CPS spokesperson said: “It is clear Mr Malkinson was wrongly convicted of this crime and we share the deep regret that this happened.

“Evidence of a new DNA profile found on the victim’s clothing in 2007 was not ignored. It was disclosed to the defence team representing Mr Malkinson for their consideration.

“In addition, searches of the DNA databases were conducted to identify any other possible suspects. At that time there were no matches and therefore no further investigation could be carried out.”

Sarah Jackson, assistant chief constable of Greater Manchester police (GMP), said: “This was an appalling miscarriage of justice and I am sorry to Mr Malkinson for all that he has suffered, and for any part GMP has had in the difficult journey of proving his innocence.”

The CCRC said: “We note the observations that have been made in relation to Mr Malkinson’s case and are considering the court of appeal judgment. As we have said before, it is plainly wrong that a man spent 17 years in prison for a crime he did not commit.”

 

Inside the mind of King Henry VIII: Ottawa professor makes doodle discovery

1930's ANTISEMITIC RIOT
'Stand up to hate': 90 years since the riot at Toronto's Christie Pits

The Canadian Press
Wed, August 16, 2023 


TORONTO — Today marks the 90th anniversary of the Christie Pits riot, an outbreak of violence following a softball game at a Toronto park that historians have described as one of the worst incidents of ethnically or religiously motivated unrest in the city's history.

The riot on Aug. 16, 1933, began after a group of young men unfurled a banner with a black swastika following the game, which featured a team of mostly Jewish teenagers.

Historians say that during the estimated six-hour brawl triggered by the banner, young people from Italian and Ukrainian backgrounds supported the Jewish side against the apparent Nazi sympathizers.

Cyril Levitt, co-author of the 1987 book “The Riot at Christie Pits,” which helped inform Canadians about the scale of the violence, says it is crucial for the public to remain informed about the incident.

Sam Rosenthal, whose grandfather owned a drugstore near Christie Pits in 1933, has created a theatrical production to educate school groups about the riots and the antisemitism of the era, which he says was a "crazy" time in Toronto.

He says that if a group of young people "didn't stand up to hate on that day," the level of racism and bigotry directed at Jews and other immigrant groups across the city may have been substantially worse.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 16, 2023.

The Canadian Press

Newfoundland hospitals grapple with patients admitted because they have nowhere to go

The Canadian Press
Wed, August 16, 2023 



ST. JOHN'S, N.L. — The woman in the corner of the emergency room still haunts Dr. Gerard Farrell, president of the Newfoundland and Labrador Medical Association. Obviously suffering from dementia, she was impossible to miss as he passed back and forth, always sitting in the same chair in an environment not built to care for her.

"She wasn't there because she needed emergency care. She was there because she needed more care than she could get in the home," Farrell said in an interview. "But there was no place else for her to go."

The woman is the example he provides when asked about his recent experiences with patients that the provincial health authority calls "community emergencies" — patients brought to an emergency department and admitted, despite not meeting the criteria for admission.

"The issue is serious and significant," Farrell said, adding that community emergencies are an example of how emergency rooms are bearing the brunt of health-care staffing shortages.

Documents show Newfoundland and Labrador health officials began tracking these patients in April 2022 after their numbers increased significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly as the Omicron variant began spreading through the population in late 2021.

"Families and personal care home facilities are often unable to cope with care demands," reads a briefing note from January 2022, obtained by The Canadian Press through access to information legislation. "Patients are frequently sent from personal care home facilities who identify the patient as an increased level of care, deemed unmanageable at that facility."

These admissions reduced emergency room capacities by up to 30 per cent on any given day, as the patients waited for "emergency community supports" or other services, the note said. Some waited for weeks.

"The (emergency department) environment is poorly adapted to meet the needs of older, vulnerable adults," the note continued, adding that these patients are more likely to decline or lose their independence. For patients with dementia, the frantic ER atmosphere raises the risk of falls and delirium, which then increases their chances of dying, the document said.

"The phrase 'moral injury' is one that really resonates with me," Farrell said about the emotional impact of trying to care for people in a place not built for their needs amid faltering support systems. The term refers to the particular trauma felt when someone is confronted with a situation that violates their core values.

Officials logged 151 "community emergency" admissions across Newfoundland and Labrador's Eastern Heath authority from April 1, 2022, to March 7, 2023. Numbers before last April were not available. Before the province's four health authorities were amalgamated this spring, Eastern Health was the largest, serving roughly 300,000 people, or about three-fifths of the provincial population, including the capital of St. John's.

Nobody at the provincial health authority was available for an interview on the issue of community emergency admissions.

A crushing sense of moral injury was a common refrain among the doctors and health-care workers Dr. Jasmine Mah spoke to for her research on community emergencies — or "orphan patients" — in Halifax.

"They're trying their best to care for someone in a system that's not designed for that care," said Mah, who is a medical resident at Dalhousie University. Like the woman in Farrell's example, most community emergency patients would be best helped by community supports — a spot in a well-staffed care facility, more access to home care, or help for the family members taking care of them, she said.

Halifax's QEII Health Sciences Centre emergency department recorded 109 community emergencies in 2021 and roughly 120 cases in 2022, according to Mah's research. That was up from 33 reported in 2019. The hospital is the largest in the city, which is home to about 440,000 people.

Provinces track "alternative level of care" patients, who may have needed emergency care when they arrived at the hospital but have nowhere to go once they've been treated. However, community emergencies, also called social admissions, haven't yet been widely researched or documented, Mah said in an interview.

She applauded Newfoundland and Labrador's efforts to monitor community emergencies, since they point out key areas where support systems outside the hospital are crumbling. She also wasn't surprised to hear that numbers surged during a COVID-19 wave.

The pandemic overwhelmed the heath-care system and left behind a critical shortage of family doctors and primary care providers, she said. It also helped precipitate a housing and affordability crisis. Some social admissions are people who've lost their house or can no longer afford their meal or care program, she said.

In Newfoundland and Labrador, Farrell is also pleased that health authorities are now tracking the issue. "The people in the system are doing the best they can to try and fill the gaps, there's no question," he said. "But it is a big problem."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 16, 2023.

Sarah Smellie, The Canadian Press