Canada’s Jobless Rate Is Now Twice As High As Europe’s. Here’s Why.

Daniel Tencer
2020-06-07

© Provided by HuffPost Canada 

The toll on employment in Canada will be felt for years to come.


MONTREAL ― Since the COVID-19 lockdowns began in March, some 5.5 million Canadians have lost their job or seen hours cut at work. It’s similar south of the border, where an estimated 40 million people had lost work in the crisis as of late May.

Canada’s official unemployment rate has more than doubled, to 13.7 per cent from around 5.5 per cent at the start of the year. In the U.S, the jobless rate quadrupled to 14.7 per cent in April, from 3.4 per cent before the crisis.

It is a stunning toll, one that Canadians and Americans will inevitably feel for years to come, and it’s worse than the unemployment situation in almost all other developed countries.

© Provided by HuffPost Canada Canada has among the developed world's highest unemployment rates amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

In the eurozone ― the 19 countries that use the euro ― the unemployment rate in April was 7.3 per cent, up just one percentage point from before the pandemic. (May numbers are not yet available in Europe.) In Germany, the jobless rate ticked up to 3.5 per cent, from 3.4 per cent before the COVID-19 lockdowns.

And then there’s Italy, stricken hard and early in the pandemic, where the economy minister declared that “nobody must lose their job because of the coronavirus.” The jobless rate there fell to 6.3 per cent in April ― though mostly because many people who were jobless before the pandemic stopped looking for work, not because the country is adding jobs.

So how did this happen? How can Canada be seeing a much worse job crisis than Italy? After all, our government hasn’t skimped on the stimulus programs.


In a rapidly unfolding crisis like a pandemic, small decisions can have ripple effects that can have outsized consequences. And as it turns out, Canada ― along with the U.S. ― took a different approach from European countries, and they got very different results.

In essence, European governments have a tradition of wage support programs for business to prevent layoffs; in North America, governments always focused on income supports for those already laid off.

In Italy, Germany and elsewhere in Europe, governments announced very quickly that businesses would receive wage subsidies to keep people employed during the shutdown. The result is that even businesses that were forced to close entirely often kept their workforce, on the expectation they would need them again after the lockdown.

In Germany, for instance, the existing Kurzarbeit system allowed companies to slash their employees’ hours, with the government covering 60 per cent of the lost income. Typically companies top that up and employees end up getting 80 per cent of their regular pay.

In Italy, the Cassa Integrazione Guadagni includes a program where a company with 15 or more employees can cut workers’ hours, and the CIG will cover 80 per cent of wages for up to a year.

France has a similar scheme to Italy’s, and there, the program is currently keeping 10 million people in their private-sector jobs.

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The result is that European businesses were able to keep their workforce during the shutdowns. In Canada, as in the U.S., the initial emergency measures didn’t give businesses much hope they could hold on to their staff with help from the government.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a wage subsidy on March 18 of just 10 per cent of wages, an amount that seemed more symbolic than useful to the business groups that panned it as inadequate.

The U.S. announced a program of loans to businesses on March 25, some of which would be forgivable if businesses kept their staff. There has been no direct wage subsidy, though it is (still) being debated in Congress.

No doubt hearing the feedback from business groups, Canada’s Liberal government quickly expanded the wage subsidy to 75 per cent on March 29, nine days after the original announcement. But in those crucial nine days, many businesses made fateful decisions about layoffs on the expectation that meaningful wage support wasn’t coming.

“Nothing was announced for several weeks, (and the program) basically just started to deliver money a few weeks ago,” Dan Kelly, president and CEO of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business, told HuffPost Canada earlier this week.

“In that time, most employers had to lay off their workers, they didn’t have cash to hang on. … As a result, millions of Canadians became unemployed that might not have.”
There are many scenarios where you would be better off not opening, where you are better off keeping sales low.Dan Kelly, Canadian Federation of Independent Business

One thing that helped employers make that decision was that, by the time the 75-per-cent subsidy ― known as the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, or CEWS ― was rolled out, the government had already announced the $2,000-a-month Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) for the unemployed.

Knowing the CERB was there “made me feel less awful” about laying off staff, the owner of an independent bookstore in Western Canada told HuffPost, asking not to be identified, out of concern for professional repercussions.

The owner would bring staff back to pre-pandemic levels “in a heartbeat” if the wage subsidy was there ― but it isn’t for their store. That’s because to qualify for the CEWS, a business has to have seen at least a 30-per-cent drop in revenue. If you rise above that level, you no longer qualify for the benefit.

The bookstore owner estimates their business has seen a drop of 26 per cent in sales. The store is operating online and through curbside pickup, but staff have been rehired only at reduced hours.

“I don’t want to put my staff at risk or our families, or some of our customers who are quite elderly and frail,” the owner said. But “it would be nice if we had jobs to come back to after. How do you balance that? It’s really challenging.”

Without financial support, there is little they can do; the owner isn’t even drawing a salary, and is living off their laid-off partner’s CERB payments. Thanks to online sales, “it’s been an easier pivot for us, but for others (in the community) … some of them won’t reopen at all,” the owner said.

‘Perverse signals’

And in its current form, the CEWS could actually be slowing down the return to pre-pandemic hiring levels. As it’s designed, the CEWS creates an incentive for businesses to keep their revenue suppressed, CIBC economist Avery Shenfeld wrote in a report last month.

The cutoff for qualifying “could have a business opting to shorten hours of operation if, for example, sales were about to creep above that (30-per-cent) mark,” Shenfeld wrote.

Kelly said he has been hearing from members that this is happening, and worries the CEWS is sending “perverse signals” to business owners on how they should be operating.

“There are many scenarios where you would be better off not opening, where you are better off keeping sales low,” he said.

But he noted that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appears aware of the problem and has signalled that “during the reopening phase a different approach is necessary.”

© Provided by HuffPost Canada Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau holds a press conference at Rideau Cottage in Ottawa on June 5, 2020.


Kelly is encouraged by the fact the federal Liberals have extended the CEWS to August, as he figures it will be more useful ― and the uptake will be higher ― now that lockdowns are ending and businesses are opening up again. If so, the CEWS could end up helping to rehire some of the people that it arrived too late to help at the start of the pandemic.

“It’s a credit to the government” that it is staying flexible on policy as the crisis unfolds, he said.

Even those who point out the shortcomings in the program don’t lay much blame at policymakers’ feet.

“These nuances aren’t a sign that the initial decisions were flawed,” Shenfeld wrote. “Simple designs were needed to get them up and running in a hurry. But just as a patient has to be carefully weaned off pain medication, policymakers need to adjust their prescriptions as we take small steps towards economic health.”

With files from Reuters

This article originally appeared on HuffPost Canada.

Coronavirus-stricken U.S. faces another problem: A massive dust cloud from Africa

© Provided by NBC News

A massive plume of dust from the Sahara Desert is drifting across the Atlantic Ocean and is expected to blanket parts of the southeastern United States this week.

The enormous dust cloud — which some experts say could be the biggest and most intense Saharan plume in 50 years — could aggravate health problems, including asthma and other respiratory illnesses, and make visibility difficult on the ground.

“Dust particles are what we call particulate matter, and we know that breathing in fine particles of anything is not good for the respiratory tract — especially people who are sensitive to poor air quality,” said Thomas Gill, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Texas at El Paso.

The added dust pollution may be particularly problematic in light of the ongoing pandemic, because COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus, is a respiratory illness.

“There is some emerging information that people who live in places with higher levels of air pollution may be at higher risk” of COVID-19, said Gregory Wellenius, an associate professor of epidemiology at the Boston University School of Public Health, whose research focuses on the impact of climate change on human health. “There may be potential interactions between air pollution and COVID symptoms or progression, but it’s still pretty early data.”

Still, the potential health impacts of the dusty air could add more pressure on the country’s already-overburdened health care system, Wellenius said.

“Things like the wildfire season, hurricane season and extreme weather events, including this dust storm, may be magnified this year because resources are already stretched thin,” Wellenius added. “Just because we’re in a pandemic world doesn’t mean that other hazards that we tend to worry about aren’t happening.”

Part of the dusty veil has already reached the Caribbean, and thick haze was reported Monday in Puerto Rico, Antigua and other islands in the region, according to The Associated Press.

Forecasts project that the dust cloud — which stretches thousands of miles long — could swirl into the Gulf of Mexico and waft over Texas, Louisiana and elsewhere in the Southeast in the coming days.

It’s not unusual for dust plumes that originate in Africa to get carried thousands of miles across the ocean, but Gill said this particular event is especially large and intense. NASA astronaut Doug Hurley, who is currently aboard the International Space Station, snapped a dramatic photo Sunday showing the immensity of the plume over the west-central Atlantic Ocean.

“A dust cloud has to be incredibly large and very thick to be that evident from the space station,” Gill said. “This one literally sticks out like a sore thumb — or maybe like a dirty thumb.”

These types of dust clouds occur every year when a mass of very dry air, known as the Saharan Air Layer, forms over the Sahara Desert. The plumes form when “ripples in the lower to middle atmosphere, called tropical waves, track along the southern edge of the Sahara Desert and loft vast amounts of dust into the atmosphere,” Jason Dunion, an associate scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Hurricane Research Division, said in a statement.

Dusty outbreaks in the Sahara typically peak from late June to mid-August, but Dunion said this week’s event is “impressive for its size and the amount of dry, dusty air that it contains.”

When dust clouds waft across the ocean, they are carried by the same trade winds that blow west off the coast of Africa and can churn up tropical storms and hurricanes, according to Gill.

“It’s all part of the same global circulation of the atmosphere,” he said.

Sahara Air Layer activity coincides with the early part of the Atlantic hurricane season, but these dusty outbreaks typically suppress the formation of tropical storms and hurricanes, which need moisture to develop and thrive.

“That’s the silver lining with these dust clouds,” Gill said. “It has to do with the dryness of the air mass because you need very, very moist air to create things like tropical storms or hurricanes.”

Gill warned that as the dust drifts over cities and towns, the hazy conditions could trigger air pollution alerts and he urged people to heed public health advisories.

“It’s important to pay attention to any alerts or warnings from air quality agencies,” he said, “especially for people directly in the path of the dust cloud.”

NICE WORK IF YOU CAN GET IT

N.B. pension managers net record $5.3M in bonus pay for 2019, despite below average returns

FINANCIAL MANAGERS WIN EITHER WAY 

IF YOU LOSE OR IF YOU GAIN

THEY CHARGE YOU JUST THE SAME

The body in charge of managing New Brunswick government pension plans paid its employees a record $5.3 million in incentive pay in 2019, including $2.1 million in bonuses to its top four executives, despite overseeing investment returns that were near the bottom of major Canadian pension funds.

Vestcor Inc. is the Fredericton-based organization set up to manage what is now $18.5 billion in New Brunswick government pension and other funds. It's jointly owned by the province's two largest public pension funds serving civil servants and teachers but also oversees the retirement plans of hospital workers, nurses, Crown corporation employees, provincial court judges, MLAs and other groups.

Vestcor also manages other investment accounts, including University of New Brunswick endowment funds and nuclear waste and decommissioning funds for NB Power.

According to its latest annual report released earlier this month, Vestcor and had one of its better years in 2019 earning $2.1 billion on its holdings, an investment return of 11.76 per cent.

In a press release, Vestcor called the results "strong," but, according to the Royal Bank of Canada's Investor and Treasury Services office, the result is at the low end of the 119 Canadian defined benefit pension funds it tracks.

 

© Reuters The Royal Bank of Canada said 119 major Canadian pension funds it tracked in 2019 generated average returns of 14 per cent. Vestcor's investment return of 11.76 per cent placed it somewhere in the bottom 30.

The average return among funds in the RBC survey in 2019 was 14 per cent with organizations earning less than 12 per cent, like Vestcor, sitting in the bottom quarter of performers."This was the second highest annual return over the past 10 years, in large part due to an upsurge in Canadian and global equity markets," reported RBC, which noted the top quarter of pension funds earned returns above 15.7 per cent.

Top execs take home almost half of bonus pay

Still, employees at Vestcor earned record bonus pay of $5.3 million in 2019, a $300,000 increase from 2018.

About 40 per cent of those bonuses, and most of the increases, went to four employees at the top of the organization, including $882,721 in bonus pay to long-time president John Sinclair.

© Gary Moore/CBC Vestcor holds $1.2 billion in real estate investments and helped finance the development of Fredericton's 'sexiest building' at 140 Carelton St. It has agreed to occupy two floors in the building when it opens later this year.

That's a slight drop from the $902,438 in incentive pay Sinclair earned in 2018, although an offsetting bump in his 2019 base pay kept his overall compensation at $1.26 million for the second year in a row. That does not include an additional $136,584 in employer contributions made toward his own pension.

Bonus payments to three vice-presidents underneath Sinclair, including Jonathan Spinney, James Scott and Mark Holleran, totalled $1.22 million in 2019, a $304,000 increase from 2018.

Bonus 235% president's base salary

Vestcor is open about its practice of paying bonuses and two years ago issued a statement defending the use of incentives to reward and retain talented employees, especially senior executives.

"Vestcor operates on the general principle that compensation should consist of a base component and a performance-based incentive component," read the statement.

"A pay-for-performance incentive program is typical for our industry. The percentage of compensation that is performance-based is proportional to the level of employee seniority."

Vestcor's board of directors has a published target for bonuses for employees of between 30 per cent and 130 per cent of their individual base salaries, but it regularly exceeds those levels for senior management.

Sinclair's bonus in 2019 was 235 per cent of his $375,047 base salary, while bonuses for the three vice-presidents averaged 170 per cent of their base pay.
President says payments in line with industryIn an email, Sinclair said the board of directors allows bonuses to exceed the upper target of 130 per cent of an individual's base pay for "outperformance." He noted the bonus pools from which payments are made each year each have upper limits and payments made to employees are "rigorously overseen by our board of directors in-line with industry best practices"

The bonus pools are calculated annually from an assessment of how much Vestcor managers have personally added to returns by beating investment targets over a one- and four-year rolling period and by how well they carry out administrative tasks.

© Richard Drew/The Associated Press 

Vestcor has a low-risk investment mandate but did have over $6 billion invested in Canadian, U.S. and international stock markets in 2019 and earned returns of up to 25 per cent on some of those investments as equities rose.

Some of the targets are harder to beat than others and Vestcor claims that in earning $2.1 billion in 2019, $107 million of that was the result of its own "active management performance."

Most of the bonus money is based on beating targets over the four-year period, and Sinclair said it performed much better in relation to other Canadian pension funds prior to 2019.

"(Over) longer term periods Vestcor has solidly outperformed the RBC Canadian Defined Benefit median returns with much lower investment risk while also continuing to add significant value added returns," wrote Sinclair.

New interactive project aims to map the displacement of '60s Scoop survivors


Jessica Deer CBC JUNE 23. 2020

© CBC In our own Words: Mapping the Sixties Scoop Diaspora is an interactive map launched by the Sixties Scoop Network in collaboration with University of Regina Professor Raven Sinclair.

The United Kingdom, Germany, India, the Netherlands and Botswana are just some of the places overseas where Indigenous children from Canada ended up after they were removed from their homes and traditional territories during the Sixties Scoop.

Visualizing the displacement is the idea behind the recently launched interactive map In our own Words: Mapping the Sixties Scoop Diaspora. It's a collaboration between the Sixties Scoop Network (formerly the National Indigenous Survivors of Child Welfare Network), and University of Regina Professor Raven Sinclair, who initiated the Pe-kīwēwin (Coming home) project.

"It's about visualizing our stories and getting our stories out to the world. I want to help those who have been taken away have a voice," said Colleen Hele-Cardinal, co-founder of the Sixties Scoop Network, a grassroots collective of survivors based in Ottawa.

"A lot of people think the Sixties Scoop just happened in Canada. Look at how far they took our children, how far they took us away from our traditional lands. We need to show that visual displacement."

Between the 1950s and early 1990s, over 22,500 Indigenous children in Canada were apprehended by child welfare agencies and placed with non-Indigenous foster or adoptive parents and lost their cultural identities as a result.

© Kate Tenenhouse/CBC 

Colleen Hele-Cardinal is a co-founder of the Sixties Scoop Network.

Canada signed a $875 million class action settlement agreement with First Nations and Inuit Sixties Scoop survivors in 2017 and some began receiving interim compensation from the settlement this month. But unlike the hearings held by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission or the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls, Hele-Cardinal said survivors of the Sixties Scoop have not had any formal processes to share their stories.

"I want the world to know what happened to us," she said.

"People think Canada is this awesome country. It's far from it, from what happened to us."

Survivors who choose to participate in the map can add as much or as little information as they want into the system, including photos and videos, and narratives about their birth, adoption journey, and repatriation. Hele-Cardinal said it will be a powerful tool for survivors to find family, connect with one another, and have their voices heard on their own terms.
Amnesty International to help raise awareness

In April, Amnesty International Canada announced it was partnering with the network to raise awareness about the Sixties Scoop.

Ana Collins, Indigenous rights adviser at the non-profit organization, said the Sixties Scoop is a human rights violation, and hopes Amnesty's network of eight million members can help push for change in terms of reconnecting people with their families, community, and nation.

"It's a way to move toward justice," said Collins.

"When you're talking about Indigenous kids who were removed from their territories and sent so far away, and there's language divides, different media, different governments, it's complicated. To engage a network of millions of people who could potentially spread the word and advocate in their own nation-states, that's the strength Amnesty has in this situation."

Edmonton Public Schools will request an independent review of SRO program, investigate placement of officers with disciplinary history in schools


Lauren Boothby

© Darryl Dyck Edmonton Police Service school resource officer Const. Doug Green retrieves a treat for his one-year-old drug-sniffing dog Ebony after she located drugs hidden in a small electronic device during a demonstration of her skills at Harry Ainlay High School in Edmonton, Alta., on Jan. 10, 2005.

Edmonton Public Schools will request an independent review of the school resource officer program and an investigation into placement of officers with disciplinary histories in the program.

The board unanimously passed the motion Tuesday evening to ask a university researcher to do a literature review, environmental scan and qualitative analysis of the experiences of students and families with SROs and policing, “focusing on the experiences of Black, brown and Indigenous students” and students with disabilities. A motion to suspend the program pending review failed after votes tied 4-4.

The district also voted to ask the province to include anti-racism teaching in an updated curriculum and ask the province to include funds for anti-racism professional development for teachers.

Board chairwoman Trisha Estabrooks said at the meeting the SRO program has not been reviewed since it was brought into Edmonton Public Schools in 1979.

“That there are still so many questions about the SRO program, questions that we as a board are not able to answer, and so that is the reason why we need an independent review to happen,” she said.

“I think it is quite frankly shameful that we have not had an independent review of this program since its inception.”

But Estabrooks voted against suspending the program, saying there wasn’t evidence of wrongdoing, and she wanted to see what the review would find.

Other trustees echoed her views, including Cheryl Johner, who said she supported the review but not suspending it right now.

“In a court of law, you’re innocent until proven guilty,” she said. “It might be racist, I know there is racism, but I just feel that program does a lot of benefit and it’s not all bad … there’s probably some (SROs) that are stellar, and maybe some that are not so stellar. We have a process to determine that, I think there’s value in that.”

Ward G trustee Bridget Stirling, who brought forward the motion, said she doesn’t know that the district would continue working with any other partner if it is known they placed problematic workers in schools.

Stirling said they were made aware of problems years ago in a presentation by advocate and writer Bashir Mohamed. The board faced questions about the program in 2017 when Toronto public schools voted to cancel the program.

“I want to call attention to the fact that failure to act in evidence of harm is harm, and we have evidence of harm. Our communities have been bringing that evidence to us for years, we choose to not listen to them,” she said.

When it appeared it would not pass, she said voting against suspending the program is choosing not to listen to concerns from the community.

“I hope as we grapple with systemic racism, we’re also grappling with how systemic racism works among our own community,” Stirling said. “We’re not trying to be bad people, but it does shape our assumptions about whose stories we want to listen to and whose stories we don’t.”

Other trustees highlighted comments from principals and other educators, saying officers were an important part of schools and keeping students safe.

Of 21 speakers signed up to speak ahead of the SRO motion Tuesday, nearly all voiced opposition to the program, many saying it creates a school-to-prison pipeline , where often poor or racialized children are targeted for discipline , then funnelled from schools to the juvenile corrections and criminal justice system.

Many referred to research by Mohamed, and reiterated calls from Black Lives Matter Edmonton to get rid of the program.

Felice Lifshitz said her daughter, who is on the autism spectrum and struggles with mental health, had a “deeply and dramatically counterproductive” experience with an SRO.

She said her daughter had a meltdown and ran away from school, and the SRO put her in handcuffs and brought her back. She said he also threatened to charge her for assault because she was kicking and struggling while she was being handcuffed.

“But this year, she never attended school once, because she was too afraid that she would be charged by the school resource officer,” she said, later clarifying her daughter attended a few days of class. “She had more and more and more anxiety about the possibility of having to be … handcuffed by him, having to be thrown in the back of the van, or having to be charged by him.”

Edmonton Catholic Schools has said they aren’t currently reviewing the SRO program.

Edmonton Catholic board chairwoman Laura Thibert said Monday “our board is very supportive of the school resource officer program.”

2 Edmonton teachers create Black Teachers' Association of Alberta
CBC/Radio-Canada

© Travis McEwan/CBC Andrew Parker is a high school teacher in Edmonton Public School system, and co-founder of the Black Teacher's Association of Alberta.

Overcome with pride and enthusiasm the day after a massive anti-racism rally this month, two Edmonton teachers wanted to find a way to do more for Black teachers and students in the province.

Andrew Parker and Sarah Adomako-Ansah, each having taught seven years, came up with the Black Teachers' Association of Alberta.

"We felt it was necessary in order to get representation, communication, inclusion, of course racism awareness, providing support and of course networking for our teachers," Parker said.

"We want to see more faces in the classrooms in order to provide more opportunity for our youth and we want to get more youth in the faculty of education."

The association is looking for members from across the province. It has already hosted its first online video meeting with just over a dozen teachers.

Adomako-Ansah, who grew up in Edmonton, says she wasn't taught by a Black teacher until she was in university. She wonders how different her elementary and high school experience would have been if she had a teacher she could have identified with.

"In the school and in the district that I teach in, it's very multicultural. There's a lot of different kids from different ethnic backgrounds, but the majority of the teachers in my district are Caucasian," Adomako-Ansah said.

"So we figured why not be a face for those students that maybe don't have someone that looks like them to look up to."

'Little backhanded comments'

Adomako-Ansah says she experiences racism in the school setting, often subtle, on a daily basis.

For example she is occasionally asked by parents visiting her classroom where the teacher is, she said.

"I find it in little backhanded comments where someone truly doesn't realize that what they're saying is offensive or hurtful," she said. "It's just something that you see everyday unfortunately."

The group also wants to look at curriculum such as history and social studies, Adomako-Ansah said.

"So we're not just learning about the World War; maybe we're learning about the Rwandan genocide for example," Adomako-Ansah said. "Just something to bring to light that there are struggles in every nation and every ethnic group and how we as teachers can provide resources to staff to students to parents."

Many school districts in the province have staff who act as liaisons for Indigenous, Inuit and Métis students, helping them academically, culturally and on a personal level.

Parker and Adomako-Ansah would like to see Black liaison members in schools with larger Black student populations.

"Imagine how many issues we could alleviate right there just by having that support in-house, but we can't get those liaisons if we don't have teachers in the positions to get those jobs," Parker said. "We're trying to carve a new niche inside of the education system."

Parker is also hoping Black students will be inspired to become teachers themselves.

"What we can control is what happens in the future and we're going to do everything in our power to make sure that we do everything we can do for the next generation of Black teachers."

The Black Teacher's Association of Alberta has not worked with any school boards yet. They're planning to have a presence at teachers conventions, to work with non-Black teachers who want to assist.

Boards vow commitment to inclusion

Edmonton and Calgary public school boards issued statements in response to the Black Lives Matter protests.

"We are committed to being a place where every student and staff person feels they belong," Edmonton Public Schools said. "Our commitment compels us to do the work of promoting anti-racism and inclusion."

"Education leaders must disrupt practices and structures that tend to serve some students and not all," said the Calgary Board of Education.

"This work requires each person to confront their own biases and to challenge their beliefs and assumptions.

"Addressing inequality is central to our work. It is about teaching and learning. It is about who has a voice. It is about who gets hired and who gets promoted to positions of responsibility. It is about levelling the playing field so that each student and staff member has the opportunity to succeed."

Adomako-Ansah said she plans to one day be a school administrator, something the first meeting of the association made her feel was actually achievable.

"I've never met them before but they were so encouraging, she said.

"So it was an overwhelming first meeting, but we're looking forward to meeting in person when it's when it's safe to do so with a larger group."

Join CBC Alberta for a personal and in-depth discussion about systemic racism, We Need to Talk, on Thursday, June 25, at 6:30 p.m. MT. Join CBC hosts Sandra Batson and Tanara McLean for a free, public forum discussion that shines a light on systemic racism in the province through the stories of people who have experienced it firsthand, with an aim to put forward potential solutions, concrete actions and examples of success.

Panellists will include:
Adora Nwofor, Calgary comedian and activist.
David Este, professor of social work, University of Calgary.
Ryan Holtz, Edmonton podcaster and marketing expert.
Jodi Calahoo-Stonehouse, executive director of Natamoowin, Yellowhead Indigenous Education Foundation.
Spirit River Striped Wolf, president of Mount Royal University students association.

With special performances from:
Alanna Bluebird-Onespot, poet, Tsuut'ina Nation.
Andrew Parker, Edmonton teacher.

You can watch it live on: cbc.ca/weneedtotalk, cbc.ca/calgary or cbc.ca/edmonton, CBC Calgary's Facebook feed, CBC Edmonton's Facebook feed, CBC Gem or CBC Television.

Have a personal story t

New crowdfunded studio being set up to support Toronto’s Black photographers, videographers

© Vonny Lorde / Instagram Vonny Lorde captures a photo of a protest in downtown Toronto.

\With thousands of compelling images shared on various media across the world recently as part of the Black Lives Matter movement, a Toronto artist is embarking on a new initiative to support fellow Black photographers and videographers.

Vonny Lorde, a photographer for almost 10 years and a creative director, said she recently proceeded with working to open a new, affordable studio called Exposure Toronto after attending a protest through the city's downtown earlier in June.

"I have this online platform ... but how can I utilize this to make something bigger, to make a bigger impact, to help the creatives in the city?" Lorde said during an interview with Global News.

"Overall, I feel like us as Black people, we need to be the ones telling and narrating our own stories."

Lorde, who shoots photos in film, had a roll developed to see if she had images she could sell. She narrowed it down to four to sell, noting the bestselling image was of a protester holding a sign saying "There's not a Black woman I can't thank."


Read more: More than 40 Toronto graffiti artists unite to #PaintTheCityBlack, honour Black Lives Matter movement

So she turned to social media and a crowdfunding site in an effort to see what kind of financial support she could get. The initial goal was to reach $1,000 in order to develop a website for Exposure Toronto.

"I'm hoping that Exposure Toronto can offer a safe space to these creatives and help them amplify their own careers," she said.

"One of the most common comments I got back from people is this is something that's needed in the Toronto arts community."

Less than 24 hours later, Lorde said the goal was met and exceeded thanks to dozens of donations.

"We're in the middle of the pandemic. A lot of people aren't working. But it goes to show you how strong community is, and I just think it's really beautiful."


When it comes to accessing professional spaces and equipment to share messages, stories and images, Lorde recalled her own experience of curating for other artists. She said the cost can be prohibitive for many, and for those artists who can pay, it could have a heavy impact on their finances.

"It made me aware of how expensive it is for freelance artists to actually get their work out there," Lorde said.

"As a photographer trying to book studio space, you think it's affordable, but then there's a minimum of how many hours you have to book and then you have to pay extra to use the backdrops and then you have to pay for extra lighting equipment, and before you know it, you can't afford to use the studio anymore."

She also highlighted difficulties facing Black artists who are aspiring to find work and access industries.


"It's hard being a Black person in the industry, just before — it's either you have the talent but you don't get hired for certain gigs just because of things like race ... a lot of us are aware there are a lot of white gatekeepers in the industry, so it's difficult," Lorde said.

"If you don't know certain people, it's like, 'How do I get my foot in the door?' It's like, 'Hey, I have the talent but nobody wants to let me in.'"

Lorde said she's still working on the finer details of the Exposure Toronto studio but is currently visiting and assessing potential studio spaces. She said the goal is to offer a low hourly fee to Black artists with no minimum booking and no additional charges for extra equipment and tools.

Read more: Toronto bookstore sees spike in demand for works by Black authors, anti-racism titles


"I'm not doing this to make a profit," Lorde said.

"I'm not doing any of this for myself. I'm doing this for the community."

Lorde said the crowdfunding campaign will go toward rent and purchasing needed items such as a full-frame DSLR camera, studio lighting, photo backdrops, stands, a tripod, a fridge to store film and an iMac computer for editing. Exposure Toronto is also accepting equipment donations.

She also said she's looking to enhance the studio's website to allow for e-commerce and for local artists to sell their work.

WE HAVE MADE ENOUGH MONEY TO GET OUR WEBSITE MADE!!! 😭❣️ thank you all to everyone who has ordered— will be keeping these up so additional funds can go to website hosting + getting a mailing list done for us & other start up needs!! https://t.co/iB6CT5GETk


— 🤍 (@LASTNAMELORDE) June 12, 2020


Excuse me if I’m silent/not as vocal for the next couple of days.


Currently working on forming a not-for-profit/charity to help fund black photogs in the city.


I may reach out to some of you for help as this is something I cannot do on my own and I acknowledge that.


— 🤍 (@LASTNAMELORDE) June 2, 2020


The kids are the future. We must feed our future.


— 🤍 (@LASTNAMELORDE) June 2, 2020


.@exposuretoronto hit $1K in only a few hours! I know we can get to $5K before the end of the day. This space is CRITICAL for Black creatives in the city. Let’s support photographers who are tuned into the needs of their peers as they make space to create!!! https://t.co/R1OxiBIv72


— Sharine Taylor 🇯🇲 (@shharine) June 22, 2020

Kosovo's indicted president withdraws from White House talks

© Provided by The Canadian Press

PRISTINA, Kosovo — Kosovo's president pulled out of a White House meeting with Serbian officials set for Saturday following his indictment on crimes against humanity and war crimes charges.

U.S. presidential envoy Richard Grenell, who invited Kosovar and Serbian officials to meet in Washington to jump start their stalled peace talks, tweeted that Kosovo President Hashim Thaci decided to postpone his trip to Washington.

Grenell wrote: "I respect his decision not to attend the discussions until the legal issues of those allegations are settle.”

The discussions will proceed and be led by Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic and Kosovo Prime Minister Avdullah Hoti, the U.S. envoy said. Grenell said.

Thaci and nine other former separatist fighters were indicted on a range of crimes against humanity and war crimes charges by a court investigating crimes against ethnic Serbs, Albanians and Roma during and after Kosovo’s 1998-99 independence war with Serbia.

The Kosovo Specialist Chambers said the indictment accuses them of being “criminally responsible for nearly 100 murders” of political opponents and Kosovar Albanian, Serb and Roma victims.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. AP’s earlier story follows below.

Kosovo’s president and nine other former separatist fighters were indicted on a range of crimes against humanity and war crimes charges, including murder, by a court investigating crimes against ethnic Serbs, Albanians and Roma during and after Kosovo’s 1998-99 independence war with Serbia.

A statement from a prosecutor of the Kosovo Specialist Chambers issued Wednesday said President Hashim Thaci and the others suspects “are criminally responsible for nearly 100 murders” of political opponents and Kosovar Albanian, Serb and Roma victims.

Other charges include enforced disappearance, persecution, and torture. Thaci commanded fighters in the Kosovo Liberation Army, or KLA, during the war.

The president's advisers did not immediately respond to requests for comment from The Associated Press. Before the indictment, Thaci planned to attend a White House meeting with Serbia’s leaders on Saturday aimed at securing a peace agreement between Serbia and Kosovo.

He already has left Kosovo, but it wasn't clear what the charges may mean for his trip to Washington.

Thaci, 52, was elected president in February 2016 and his term ends next year. He previously served as prime minister, deputy prime minister and foreign minister.

The indicted individuals also include Kadri Veseli, former parliament speaker and leader of the opposition Democratic Party of Kosovo. Thaci resigned as the party's leader when he became president, leaving the post to Veseli.

The indictment issued Wednesday was the first by the special tribunal based in The Hague. The court has been operating since 2015 and has questioned hundreds of witnesses. Kosovo’s prime minister resigned last year before he was questioned. Veseli also has been questioned, but not Thaci.

The indictment is being reviewed by a pretrial judge who will decide whether to confirm the charges, according to the statement.

The prosecutor filed the indictment following a lengthy investigation and it reflects his “determination that it can prove all of the charges beyond a reasonable doubt," the statement said.

The prosecutor also accused Thaci and Veseli of repeated efforts “to obstruct and undermine the work" of the tribunal.

“Thaci and Veseli are believed to have carried out a secret campaign to overturn the law creating the Court and otherwise obstruct the work of the Court in an attempt to ensure that they do not face justice,” the statement said.

“By taking these actions, Mr. Thaci and Mr. Veseli have put their personal interests ahead of the victims of their crimes, the rule of law, and all people of Kosovo,” it added.

Kosovo politicians resisted and resented the scrutiny of the war crimes court, repeatedly noting that Serb troops committed massacres and other atrocities during the war that went unpunished.

The 1998-1999 war left more than 10,000 dead and 1,641 are still unaccounted for. It ended after a 78-day NATO air campaign.

Kosovo is a former Serbian province that declared independence in 2008, a move Serbia does not recognize. Tensions between the two countries remain high. European Union-facilitated negotiations to normalize their relations started in March 2011 and has produced some 30 agreements, most of which were not observed.

The White House meeting was set to be the first talks between the two sides in 19 months.

——-
Semini reported from Tirana, Albania. Dusan Stojanovic contributed from Belgrade.
Zenel Zhinipotoku And Llazar Semini, The Associated Press

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=KOSOVO

Seeing the Forest for the Trees
Thesis on The Kosovo Crisis and the Crisis of Global Capitalism
(originally written May 1999, Bill Clinton set the stage for George W. to invade Afghanistan and Iraq for humanitarian purposes.)
http://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2005/01/war-whats-it-good-for-profit.html

EDITORIAL CARTOON, THE TORONTO STAR

Theo Moudakis: The pushover 

https://tinyurl.com/ycglrtym

Tue., June 23, 2020

FLOODS AND FIRES PLAGUE FORT MAC
Fort McMurray looking to revamp flood mitigation plans

Jamie Malbeuf

Less than two months after a massive flood damaged hundreds of buildings in Fort McMurray, the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo is re-examining its current flood mitigation plan and introducing a host of possible options to prepare the community for future floods.


At a council meeting on Tuesday night, Wood Buffalo deputy CAO Matthew Hough introduced several possible new measures including full or partial land buyouts, controlling or limiting development in the flood plain, continuing with current efforts or land swaps with the municipality.

Hough said the new flood mitigation plan could be any combination of these options.

"As our flood mitigation plan is currently designed, we cannot guarantee safety," said Hough.

"The reality is, unless we remove development entirely, there will always be risk."

The aim of the new plan is to protect the Taiga Nova Industrial Park, lthe lower townsite area, Waterways, Draper and Ptarmigan Trailer Park.

But Hough emphasized that he is not looking to implement a single solution for all of the neighbourhoods. Rather, each area will be looked at separately to see what works best for each individually.

"We recognize every community is different. We're analyzing each individually taking cost, risk and community support into consideration."

Hough is asking residents to fill out a survey on the municipality's website to find out what level of risk residents are comfortable with.

But he doesn't just want to hear from residents in the affected neighbourhoods — Hough said this is an issue for the entire community and all Fort McMurray residents are encouraged to fill out the survey.

"The 2020 flood is a catalyst for us to revisit how we enhance our community resilience by reducing our vulnerability to flooding," said Hough.

He said it's important to take steps to mitigate the risk, because although the provincial and federal governments have assisted with disaster recovery thus far, that could change.

© Axel Tardieu/CBC/Radio-Canada Fort McMurrary flooding evacuees line up in April to register at the Casman Centre for accommodations or immediate support.

"As the cost associated with recovery continues to increase, as more natural disasters occur, the appetite from senior levels of government may diminish, and the burden will fall onto local governments and taxpayers in the region," said Hough.

Hough said the current berm system is scheduled to be completely finished in 2022 and the construction plans will remain the same.

Some residents in Waterways were looking to the municipality for a buyout after the recent flooding. Residents have said the flood plain has made their property value plummet and they don't feel the infrastructure is in place to keep them safe.
'We will flood again'

At Tuesday's meeting Coun. Jeff Peddle stressed the importance of finding solutions quickly.

"My… biggest concern is making sure we are ready again, because we will flood again 100 per cent."

Peddle said he wants to ensure "at the municipal level we're doing everything we can to protect the residents and businesses."

Coun. Phil Meagher said he wants to see photo and video reminders of the flood every year so it isn't forgotten.

"We constantly need to be reminded, because the further we get from this flood… we'll forget about it and there'll be shortcuts taken to the mitigation plan," said Meagher. "It's [flooding] always going to be part of Fort McMurray."

He said he'd also like to study options for breaking up the ice in case there is another jam.

Hough will be presenting different options and survey results to council on July 14.

Pasqua First Nation wading through water quality studies to determine toxicity levels

Evan Radford, Regina Leader-Post

© Bryan Schlosser A late night summer lightning storm rolls across the sky on Pasqua Lake in the Qu'Appelle valley north east of Regina August 7, 2014.

A recent University of Regina report about south Saskatchewan’s toxicity levels in its lakes is prompting the chief of the Pasqua First Nation to review his community’s water quality.

Depending what he finds, Todd Peigan says he’ll ask the provincial government to improve the water quality of the First Nation’s adjacent Pasqua Lake.

“It confirms what we’ve been telling the (Water Security Agency) on the state of the Qu’Appelle water,” Peigan said of the 11-year, six-lake study that covered 52,000 square kilometres in the Qu’Appelle River drainage basin.

Designed by the U of R’s Peter Leavitt and conducted by three other water researchers, the study concludes global warming, pollution from urban waste and farmers’ spring run-off are all causing larger algae blooms to produce more microcystin in six lakes: Buffalo Pound, Last Mountain, Pasqua, Katepwa, Crooked and Wascana.

Chief Todd Peigan speaks about recent developments in the Qu’appelle Valley land claim dispute in this Leader-Post file photo.
Microcystin is a chemical that can destroy an organism’s liver and cause cancer, Leavitt said; he told the Regina Leader-Post it’s more toxic than a “dose of cyanide” in a human’s system.

The Pasqua First Nation, which has 2,471 registered members, sits about 65 kilometres northeast of Regina. It borders Pasqua Lake on the lake’s south side, as does the Muscowpetung Saulteux Nation.

Peigan said Pasqua draws its drinking water from the Hatfield Valley Aquifer, underneath the community’s land. He said he and the First Nation’s council can’t conclude anything yet, but the U of R study makes it incumbent to find out if the lake’s toxic microcystin is impacting the underground aquifer.

Studying such impacts “would be some of the next steps we would have to look at, because those studies take financial resources and we would have to seek those (finances),” Peigan said.

For now, he’s in the “review stage,” comparing Leavitt and team’s results with those of a 2013-16 water quality study conducted by Pasqua First Nation, Muscowpetung First Nation and the Water Security Agency (WSA).

Peigan called it a “baseline study.” He wants to determine if the U of R study calls for lower toxin levels in Pasqua Lake than what the WSA-study did.

Called the Qu’Appelle Mass Balance Report , part of the WSA-study examined “phosphorus and nitrogen loads entering Pasqua Lake.” It concluded phosphorus and nitrogen contribute in part to the growth of algae blooms in the Qu’Appelle River watershed.

For example, the report found before Regina upgraded its wastewater treatment facility in 2017, the city contributed “9.3 per cent of the phosphorus and 52 per cent of the nitrogen load entering Pasqua Lake.” The report estimates those values have dropped to six per cent and 15 percent, respectively, after the upgrade.

The U of R researchers say in their report, too, phosphorus and nitrogen promote the growth of algae. But they conclude, “contrary to our hypothesis, temperature but not nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen) had a positive effect on microcystin concentration beyond the seasonal pattern,” attributing temperature changes to global warming.

Peter Leavitt, University of Regina professor, paddles on Pasqua Lake. Photo by Geremy Lague, Faculty of Science, University of Regina.
The U of R team also concluded an increased probability that “microcystin concentration exceeded (World Health Organization) and (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) drinking and recreational water limits” in four of the six lakes.

A graph mapping the team’s data shows that to be true for Pasqua Lake.

Depending on what he finds, Peigan said the WSA “has to do proper maintenance in regards to bringing the water quality back to the minimum of the baseline study.”

In such a scenario, “Our concerns would be identified to the provincial government through the WSA. And we would see what action plan, what best practices, they are going to incorporate to improve the water quality,” he said.

The WSA said it’s aware of the U or R team’s study, but it hasn’t yet reviewed it. The agency intends to do so, saying it’s “looking forward to working with all stakeholders in the Qu’Appelle region to improve water quality as we move forward.”

Related
U of R study says south Sask. water toxicity rising due to algae, global warming, farm run-off

Water's role in climate change, resource extraction examined

Massive water linkage an idea whose time has come: Goodale

*Evan Radford is the Leader-Post’s reporter under the Local Journalism Initiative.

RCMP’s top cop says defunding police is ‘more about funding all social services’
By Charlie Pinkerton. Published on Jun 23, 2020 10:07pm

R.C.M.P. commissioner Brenda Lucki speaks with reporters at a press conference from West Block about the recent shooting in Portapique, N.S. on Apr. 20, 2020. Andrew Meade/iPolitics

RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki says she agrees with calls from activists to better fund needed mental health supports, but argued that stripping resources from frontline police officers is not a solution.

While several high-profile police killings of racialized people in mental distress in Canada have prompted calls for defunding police services, in favour of specialized supports for vulnerable populations, Lucki stressed that police officers are still required as first responders in these instances.

“I have said at three o’clock in the morning when somebody’s wielding a knife, and they’re suffering from a mental health crisis, that is not the time to bring in mental health practitioners,” Lucki said when posed the idea by Liberal MP Gary Anandasangaree, during an appearance Tuesday before the House public safety committee.

“It’s time for the RCMP to go in, get that person calm, get them to a place of safety and get them the help they need.”

READ MORE: RCMP union boss says cops are on board with body cameras plan

Lucki was testifying for the committee’s study of systemic racism in policing in Canada. She said more money needs to be given to have more readily available mental health supports in emergencies.

“So it’s not about defunding, it’s about funding everything that goes along and I think we can work better with our mental health practitioners,” Lucki said.

CBC News published a video earlier on Tuesday, part of a civil lawsuit being argued before the B.C. Supreme Court, that showed an RCMP officer in Kelowna dragging and stepping on a girl who had been restrained during a wellness check. Mona Wang, who CBC says was a student of the University of British Columbia’s nursing program, sued RCMP Cpl. Lacy Browning for physical and emotional abuse. The officer says she only used necessary force when Wang became violent.

The revelation of the Wang incident piles onto a disturbing trend in Canada, in which police across the country have been challenged for mishandling delicate scenarios, often-times by using unnecessary force towards people who aren’t white.

Ejaz Choudry, a 62-year-old man from Pakistan whose family say suffered from schizophrenia, was shot and killed by police in Mississauga over the weekend during a wellness check by police.

In May, Regis Korchinski-Paquet, a 29-year-old Black woman, fell to her death from a balcony in Toronto, after police had arrived to help her.

The provincial Special Investigations Unit is looking into both Korchinski-Paquet’s and Choudry’s deaths. 

Activists PEOPLE angry over allegations of police involvement in the death of 29-year-old Regis Korchinski-Paquet, who fell from the 24th-floor balcony of a High Park apartment building in May, hold a protest and march to Toronto Police Headquarters. Steve Russell/Toronto Star
Two Indigenous people, Rodney Levi and Chantel Moore, have also been killed by police in New Brunswick this month. Levi was shot by an RCMP officer, while Moore was killed by an officer with the Edmundston Police Department. Both of their deaths are being looked into by investigatory bodies outside of the police forces.

The dashcam footage of the violent arrest of Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation Chief Allan Adam was also acquired and published by CBC News this month. Adam, who repeatedly swears at RCMP officers and accuses them of harassing him, is tackled, punched and choked by police in the video.

The incidents in Canada follow a number of incidents of law enforcement violence in the U.S., including the police killings of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor, which have been seen as cause for weeks of anti-racism and anti-police violence protests that have continued south of the border. Likewise rallies have taken place in Canada, albeit less frequent than the everyday gatherings seen in the U.S.

READ MORE: NDP MP Green sponsors petition calling for nationwide ban on use of tear gas

In what’s seen as a response to calls for action, the federal police agency has promised to start a process of outfitting officers with body-worn cameras.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has described that plan as “one measure amongst many” that the government will pursue to push back against systemic racism that he and others in his government say exist within Canada’s institutions.

Systemic racism in the RCMP

During a series of media interviews almost two weeks ago Lucki denied the existence of systemic racism within the RCMP. She rolled back those comments the next day, saying that “I do know that systemic racism is part of every institution, the RCMP included.”

The topic was again brought up at Tuesday’s committee meeting, when Liberal MP Greg Fergus asked Lucki to provide a definition of systemic racism, in the context of how it exists in the RCMP.

Lucki stumbled through an answer, giving an example of a physical test that officers are subjected to.

“We have a physical abilities, a requirement evaluation, it’s an obstacle course. In there, there’s six foot mat, that you have to do a broad jump and when we put the lens on it and reviewed that physical requirements test, evidence told us that the average person can broad jump their height. So, of course, how many six foot people do we hire? And there are people in all different cultures that may not be six feet, including, there’s not a lot of women that are six feet tall,” Lucki said, before she was cut off by Fergus.

“That’s systemic discrimination,” Fergus said, “But I’m trying to think of systemic racism.”

Lucki then asked Gail Johnson, the chief human resources officer of the RCMP, who appeared by video on Tuesday to instead answer the question.

Earlier in her committee appearance, during a portion in which she read from prepared remarks, Lucki defended the police force at large, saying that she believed many officers have been misaligned because of the events of the last few weeks.

“I have listened to RCMP employees and their families who are demoralized by the anti-police narrative that is painting everyone unfairly with the same brush. But acknowledging that systemic racism is present in the force does not equate to employees being racist,” Lucki said.

Lucki went on to talk about how she means for her acknowledgement of systemic racism existing in the RCMP to be interpreted.

“It is about how an organization creates and maintains racial inequality, often caused by sometimes subtle and unintentional biases and police policies, practices and process that either privilege or disadvantage different groups of people,” the commissioner said.

RCMP officers close the road off near the scene of one of the victims of a shooting spree in Nova Scotia. Steve McKinley/Toronto Star

She also said the RCMP is determined to “seek out and eliminate all forms of racism and discrimination” that exist within it.

READ MORE: RCMP plan to buy more armoured vehicles amid new scrutiny over policing tactics

Lucki also said the force needs to “double down” on its diversity hiring efforts, revisiting its relocation requirements for officers and looking to ensure greater place-based recruitment, “so that officers remain in the communities that ties and roots are already established.”

Lucki also said she’s committed to working with the federal privacy commissioner to collect race-based policing data, which advocates have called for to get a better sense of how often police use force against visible minorities compared to white people.

RCMP union says cops are on board with body cameras plan

By Charlie Pinkerton. Published on Jun 19, 2020

A Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) member stationed on Dec. 12, 2018 in Calgary. (Christina Ryan/Calgary StarMetro)

RCMP officers won’t get in the way of a new plan by the national police agency to outfit cops with body cameras, the head of the officers’ union says, as long as careful discussion is had about the privacy concerns that come in tow with collecting the videos.

“(We’re) fully on board, fully aware that things need to change,” Brian Sauvé, the president of the National Police Federation (NPF), told iPolitics in a phone call on Thursday.

READ MORE: Trudeau says police body cameras are ‘what we need to move forward with’

Sauvé said he spoke with RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki about the proposal last week, which was also when she shared publicly her plan to more forward with equipping police with body-worn cameras.

“The commissioner has confirmed that the RCMP will engage in work and discussion with policing partners and the NPF on a broader rollout of body-worn cameras,” Dan Brien, a spokesperson for Lucki, said in a statement on June 8.

Sauvé said he expects the NPF and RCMP to work through issues about when cameras would be required to be activated. One approach for police in other jurisdictions has been to only turn their cameras on when they’re on a call.

“There’s a discussion around, and from our perspective is, do members have them on all the time? Are they allowed to turn them off if they get a phone call from their wife? When they use the washroom or when they’re having lunch – those personal time periods? Do we tie it into lights-and-sirens calls or do we leave it to the discretion of the member to turn on or off?” said Sauvé.

He also raised concerns about how evidence collected showing minors could be shown in court.

“It’s not that we’re against it – it’s just all of these things have never been done before, so it’s a matter of getting it right, respecting the privacy of Canadians, but also respecting the privacy of the members,” Sauvé added.

Some of Sauvé’s concerns about body cameras echo similar points in a report the federal Privacy Commissioner published in 2015 offering guidance for law enforcement that were thinking about implementing the policy.

READ MORE: NDP MP Green sponsors petition calling for nationwide ban on use of tear gas

That report concluded that “the recording of individuals through the use of BWCs (body-worn cameras) raises a significant risk to individual privacy, and LEAs (law enforcement authorities) must be committed to only deploying BWCs to the degree and in a manner that respects and protects the general public’s and employees’ right to personal privacy.”

Sauvé noted that the RCMP and NPF have discussed a committee to establish how body cameras would be rolled out, but that the union hasn’t decided who it would like represented in the group yet.

Earlier in the same day that Lucki announced the RCMP would move forward intending to implement a body cameras in the force, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said they had spoken about it and agreed there was a need for the policy. Trudeau promised to raise the idea to the provinces later in the week. 

 

RCMP commissioner Brenda Lucki speaks with reporters at a press conference on April 20 from West Block about the shooting in Portapique, N.S. Andrew Meade/iPolitics

READ MORE: Toronto police, city bylaw, not collecting data on race when enforcing COVID rules

Equipping federal officers with body cameras was the first policy pushed forward by the federal government in response to weeks of protests in the U.S. and later for days in Canada following the death of George Floyd at the hands of police.

The government has been pressured by protestors across the country to undertake solution-seeking action against racism and police violence. Calls escalated after Trudeau joined a Parliament Hill protest on June 5, where he knelt with anti-Black racism protestors in a show of solidarity.

The statement from the RCMP days later said “the commissioner agrees it is critically important for Canadians to feel protected by the police.”

“(Lucki) is committed to take whatever steps are required to enhance trust between the RCMP and the communities we serve,” Brien said.

Pierre Paul-Hus, the Conservatives’ critic on public safety issues, said he supports the move to have police wearing body cameras, but would prefer to have the cost of equipping RCMP officers with cameras examined before the policy is rolled out.

The NPF is in the early goings of working toward a collective agreement with the Treasury Board (which is responsible for all of the core federal government’s collective bargaining and negotiations) to negotiate things like pay, employee benefits and resources.

(Sauvé said collective bargaining is in the early stages, while Treasury Board spokesperson said negotiations are expected to begin “soon.”)

READ MORE: What the RCMP’s new civilian advisory group will do at a moment of reckoning for police misconduct

The NPF was certified last July after a several-year fight. It represents around 20,000 RCMP officers, which by themselves are 30 per cent of police officers across all forces in

THIS IS A POLICE UNION I CAN SUPPORT AS DO MOST LEFT WING CANADIANS WE CALLED FOR IT TO CHANGE THE RCMP FROM BEING A MILITARY FORCE TO A CIVILIAN FORCE

IMF slashes forecast for the global economy, warns of soaring debt levels and unemployment

Silvia Amaro, CNBC

© Provided by NBC News

The International Monetary Fund slashed its economic forecasts once again on Wednesday and warned that public finances will deteriorate significantly as governments attempt to combat the fallout from the coronavirus crisis.

The IMF now estimates a contraction of 4.9 percent in global GDP (gross domestic product) in 2020, lower than the 3 percent drop it predicted back in April.


“The COVID-19 pandemic has had a more negative impact on activity in the first half of 2020 than anticipated, and the recovery is projected to be more gradual than previously forecast,” the IMF said Wednesday in its World Economy Outlook update.

The Fund also downgraded its GDP forecast for 2021. It now expects a growth rate of 5.4 percent from the 5.8 percent forecast made in April (the positive reading reflects that economic activity will be coming from a lower base following 2020's heavy contraction).

The Washington-based institution explained the downward revisions were due to social-distancing measures likely remaining in place during the second half of the year, with productivity and supply chains being hit. And in those nations still grappling with high infection rates, the Fund expects that longer lockdowns will dent economic activity even more.

“Women are bearing a larger brunt of the impact in some countries,” the IMF said.The IMF cautioned that the forecasts are surrounded with unprecedented uncertainty and economic activity will depend on factors such as the length of the pandemic, voluntary social distancing, changes to global supply chains, new labor market dynamics.

“The steep decline in activity comes with a catastrophic hit to the global labor market,” the IMF said Wednesday, indicating that the global decline in work hours in the second quarter of the year is likely to be equivalent to a loss of more than 300 million full-time jobs.

“The hit to the labor market has been particularly acute for low-skilled workers who do not have the option of working from home. Income losses also appear to have been uneven across genders, with women among lower-income groups bearing a larger brunt of the impact in some countries,” the IMF said.

Looking at country forecasts, the United States is expected to contract by 8 percent this year. The Fund had estimated a contraction of 5.9 percent, in April.

Similarly, the Fund also downgraded its forecasts for the euro zone, with the economy now seen shrinking by 10.2 percent in 2020.

In order to mitigate some of the economic impact from the pandemic, governments across the world have announced massive fiscal packages and new borrowing. As a result, public finances are seen deteriorating significantly as a result.

“The steep contraction in economic activity and fiscal revenues, along with the sizable fiscal support, has further stretched public finances, with global public debt projected to reach more than 100 percent of GDP this year,” the Fund said.

Under the IMF’s base case, global public debt will reach an all-time high in 2020 and 2021 at 101.5 percent of GDP and 103.2 percent of GDP, respectively. In addition, the average overall fiscal deficit is set to soar to 13.9 percent of GDP this year, 10 percentage points higher than in 2019.

There have been more than 9 million confirmed infections worldwide from COVID-19, according to Johns Hopkins University. The United States, Brazil and Russia are currently the nations with the highest number of cases globally.

Exclusive: Women, babies at risk as COVID-19 disrupts health services, World Bank warns

By Kate Kelland

© Reuters/Amit Dave FILE PHOTO: Outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Ahmedabad
By Kate Kelland

LONDON (Reuters) - Millions of women and children in poor countries are at risk because the COVID-19 pandemic is disrupting health services they rely on, from neonatal and maternity care to immunisations and contraception, a World Bank global health expert has warned. 

 

© Reuters/Luisa Gonzalez FILE PHOTO: Outbreak of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Bogota

Monique Vledder, head of secretariat at the bank's Global Financing Facility (GFF), told Reuters in an interview the agency was gravely worried about the numbers of children missing vaccinations, women giving birth without medical help and interrupted supplies of life-saving medicines like antibiotics.

© Reuters/Ivan Alvarado FILE PHOTO: A child receives a vaccination as part of the start of the seasonal flu vaccination campaign as a preventive measure due to the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19)
"We're very concerned about what's happening - particularly in sub-Saharan Africa," Vledder said as she unveiled the results of a GFF survey, one of the first seeking to assess the impact of COVID-19 on women's and children's health.

"Many of the countries we work in are fragile and so, by definition, already have very challenging situations when it comes to health service delivery. This is making things worse."

From late March, the GFF has conducted monthly surveys with local staff in 36 countries to monitor the impact of COVID-19 on essential health services for women, children and adolescents.

Sharing the survey findings with Reuters, GFF said that of countries reporting, 87% said the pandemic, fears about infection or lockdown measures designed to curb the spread of the coronavirus, had led to disruptions to health workforces.

More than three-quarters of countries also reported disruptions in supplies of key medicines for mothers and babies, such as antibiotics to treat infections and oxytocin, a drug for preventing excessive bleeding after childbirth.

The number of GFF countries reporting service disruptions nearly doubled from 10 in April to 19 in June, and the number reporting fewer people seeking essential health services jumped to 22 in June from five in April.

GFF found that in Liberia, for example, fears about COVID-19 were preventing parents from taking their children to health clinics. In Ghana, some pregnant and lactating mothers were opting to postpone antenatal services and routine immunisations for fear of contracting the pandemic disease.

"We are seeing declining vaccination rates among children. We're seeing women accessing services less for ante- or post-natal care. We're seeing a decline in babies being born in health facilities. And we're also seeing a slide in outpatient services - for treatments for diarrhoea, malaria, fever, pneumonia for example," Vledder said.

Rapidly declining access to reproductive health supplies is also a key worry, Vledder added. The GFF estimates that if the situation does not improve as many as 26 million women could lose access to contraception in the 36 countries, leading to nearly 8 million unintended pregnancies.

© Reuters/Ivan Alvarado FILE PHOTO: A child receives a vaccination as part of the start of the seasonal flu vaccination campaign as a preventive measure due to the outbreak of coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in Santiago

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Josephine Mason and Alex Richardson)