Pesâkâstêw Solar Project To Provide Electricity For Thousands

 Category: Local News

 Published: Tuesday, 10 August 2021 

 Written by Denis Conroy

Photo of some of the crew at the Pesâkâstêw Solar Project four kilometres southwest of the City of Weyburn.

 (courtesy of Kathleen Funke from Natural Forces)

Clean energy has become a popular subject in recent times and only a few kilometres from Weyburn a huge solar farm is currently in development to help supply some of that energy to the Saskatchewan electrical grid.

"So far on the project we're having great progress," shared Kathleen Funke, Communications Manager for Natural Forces a clean energy business based out of Halifax, Nova Scotia. "We kicked things off in May and things have been going steady. And we're very excited about installing all of the racking and panels very shortly."

A construction worker drilling holes for fence posts. (courtesy of Kathleen Funke from Natural Forces)

The Pesâkâstêw Solar Project is a 10 Megawatt solar farm being created approximately 4 km southwest of the city of Weyburn on land with low environmental sensitivity.

The plan is to have the farm operational by the end of 2021 is it will be able to provide electricity to approximately 3,367 homes and, in doing so, will displace between 15,246-18,150 tonnes of CO2 equivalent annually.

"Natural Forces has their own construction company that allows us to hire some small local companies that might have not been able to bid in individually," Funke told. "We don't have crews so we make sure to hire as much locally as possible. The Pesâkâstêw partnership is between Natural Forces, George Gordon Developments of George Gordon First Nation, and Red Dog Holdings a development branch of Star Blanket Cree Nation. We are looking at having Indigenous workers on the site and we have at least a couple every week from the local First Nations. So we'll hire some local engineering, definitely construction, we've got people that were out there digging holes for fencing, electrical, all kinds of stuff. It depends on which stage of the project but all kinds of folks from the Weyburn and local area."

This project will require approximately 93.26 acres of land and will connect directly to the SaskPower substation adjacent to the site later this year.

Weyburn was chosen because of the high solar potential that the city has being located in the southern part of the province.

Electrical work, as well as tracker and module installation, are already underway and the commissioning of the project is expected to be in November 2021.

Recent photo of the project. (captured by Glenn Rogers)

The first public open house for the Pesâkâstêw Solar Project was held on March 6th, 2019 at the Captain's Hall in Weyburn and they hope to hold a second open house sometime this year after having to postpone last year due to the pandemic.

"Not only is this a majority Indigenous-owned project but this is one of the projects that going to get Saskatchewan on to their target to achieve fifty percent renewable energy by 2030," explained Funke. "Projects like this one are owned by the community and the money stays in those communities. They really help with community growth and for all of these Indigenous peoples to have their own independent income. That's on top of adding clean energy to the Saskatchewan electrical grid which is incredibly important these days."

The Pesâkâstêw Solar Limited Partnership came to fruition through the First Nations Power Authority and all three partners agreed that there needed to be more support for the Indigenous peoples in the areas surrounding their projects through employment, electricity, and partnerships.

Regular on-site inspections of the equipment, including solar panels, electrical connections, inverters, and transformers will be done on the Weyburn site, and based on these inspections repairs and maintenance will be carried out as needed.

Land inspections will also be part of the maintenance plan, conducted to monitor site drainage, monitor erosion, and assess the risk of grass fires. Land repairs and maintenance will be driven by the results of land inspections and snow removal will be dependent upon the final design of the farm.

"Our crews and staff that we have flown in are absolutely in love with the Weyburn area," Funke expressed. "They love the people, the culture, and the atmosphere. Everyone has really made our folks at home. These are lifelong partnerships and friendships and we're just really excited to be part of the community."

Sheep are being considered for vegetation control around the project area. There are several methods of controlling the vegetation being considered with all of them involving local Weyburn and area workers.

A better look at the sign and all of the partners involved. (captured by Glenn Rogers)

Carbon Capture and Storage in the Bakken Shale 

This is a follow up to my article on Carbon Capture and Storage from Monday, consider it the epilogue or post script. I was researching on the Bakken Shale when I had one of those face palm moments. The Bakken is a massive reservoir of oil that stretches from Southern Alberta across Saskatchewan and Manitoba in Canada to North Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana.

The geology and geography of the regions are similar, the southern prairies in Canada are badlands, arid desert areas from the Rockies to the Dakotas. These are prehistoric regions whose ancient face is for all to see, hoodoos which contain fossils, and thousand year old painting on stone indigenous art, an area that once held oceans, until what is the Pacific Northwest crashed into North America creating the Rockies and folding the earth under the prairies.  The Northern parts of the US states affected are a similar geological and geographic formation. 

The map below shows the extent of the Bakken, the area outlined is the potential Bakken field, the Shale is that area in Saskatchewan yet to be developed, while it is being rapidly developed in North Dakota.,  There is also an Alberta Bakken field which is awaiting development as much as the field in Saskatchewan is.

Last week  Saskatchewan Power announced it was about to put the first North American carbon capture and storage (sequestration is such a mouthful) unit online at its coal fired power plant in the middle of the Bakken Shale.

Since Carbon Capture and Storage is used as a form of fracking by injecting the CO2 into the fractures and depleted oil beds in conventional fields, its use in the Bakken would increase oil

production of this bituminous oil, a form of oil not much different from its oilsands counterpart in Northern Alberta and Saskatchewan.

While we know that CO2 Capture and Storage is used for Enhanced Oil Production (EOP) in old wells, it makes sense for Sask Power to look at getting its final product into the Bakken fields. It  has less bad press than other forms of Fracking have. And don't be fooled by the name  CCS as it is known, full title being CCS for EOP. In this case it would be fracking with CO2 in the Bakken to get the oil out.

With man made CO2 the cost for injection would go down, so that the Bakken becomes easier to access with fracking by carbon dioxide, then with other methods.

WEYBURN-MIDALE CO2 STORAGE & MONITORING PROJECT
SaskPower was a sponsoring partner in the IEAGHG Weyburn-Midale CO2 Monitoring and Storage Project for more than ten years.
This research program, which began in 2000 and was completed in 2012, sought to measure, monitor and verify the CO2 being injected into two depleted oil reservoirs in southeastern Saskatchewan. Cenovus Energy (at the initial time of injection PanCanadian and later EnCana) began injecting CO2 into the Weyburn Reservoir in 2000 to enhance oil production, and Apache Canada began injecting into the Midale Reservoir in 2005.
Both operations have ensured that the injected CO2 has been kept in place; any recycled amounts that come up with the oil are re-injected along with the 8000 tonnes of new CO2 that arrive daily from the Dakota Gasification Company’s coal gasification plant in North Dakota.
Since 2000, some 22 million tonnes of CO2 have been successfully stored underground in these two reservoirs; the research program has successfully demonstrated that the CO2 remains safely underground, and in 2012 provided a publicly available Best Practices Manual to assist other jurisdictions and companies thinking of storing CO2 in similar formations.
Specific data remain confidential to paid sponsors of the Weyburn-Midale Project; however two books are available for scientists and the general public. The first highlights the initial four years of research (2000-2004) and the second is titled Best Practices for Validating CO2 Geological Storage: Observations and Guidance from the IEAGHG Weyburn-Midale CO2 Monitoring and Storage Project. This book examines crucial topics related to CO2 storage including site characterization, measurement, geomechanical and geophysical monitoring, risk assessment, wellbore integrity, and public outreach and communication

 

ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACTS OF SHALE GAS EXTRACTION IN CANADA

The Expert Panel on Harnessing Science and Technology to Understand 

the Environmental Impacts of Shale Gas Extraction

Potential Health and Environmental Effects of Hydrofracking in the Williston Basin, Montana

From Baghdad to the Bakken

By Laura Gottesdiener October 1, 2014 Home from the oil wars abroad, US service members and military contractors are flocking to North Dakota’s emerging boomtown

"Fueled by advancements in horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, the United States has surged past Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the number one oil- and gas-producing country in the world. And perhaps nowhere is this energy revolution more striking than in the dusty North Dakota boomtowns, popularly dubbed 'Kuwait on the Prairie.'"   

Psychedelic Saskatchewan

There are series of new academic papers and a documentary film published by U of A researcher Erika Dyck on the Weyburn Saskatchewan LSD experiments done in the fifties and sixties.

LSD finds new respectability

Old research on LSD treatment for alcoholism gets new look ...

LSD & Alcoholism Treatment: Saskatchewan Alcoholism Treatment with LSD

'Hitting Highs at Rock Bottom': LSD Treatment for Alcoholism

Long-forgotten LSD treatment might aid alcoholics start a trip to recovery


The Weyburn experiments along with later research by Leary, Albert, etc. proved LSD was a useful and safe drug.

It had to be safe or of course the CIA would never have used it. However the CIA planted stories in the press about LSD suicides, LSD users going blind staring at the sun, all of which were fictions like WMD in Iraq.

In Canada and the US counter studies were used to 'prove' LSD was harmful. Of course as most LSD users and researchers know it is all about the 'setting'. If you are in a secure comfortable setting you have a good trip. Being strapped down and tortured of course would create a bad trip.

The Saskatchewan results were soon attacked by institutions including the Toronto-based Addiction Research Foundation. It argued Osmond's research, in which subjects were given LSD in comfy surroundings and stimulated with art or music, was poorly designed and proved nothing. In contrast, the foundation sometimes blindfolded or restrained its LSD test subjects to isolate the effect of the drug. It failed to reproduce the Saskatchewan results, a finding that, combined with growing social concern about LSD, eventually led to the end of research into such therapy.

Well of course they failed, they deliberately did not use empirical research to 'duplicate' the experiment. They used a different technique, one closely resembling torture, to disprove the Weyburn experiments. They of course had an agenda, one that was anti-LSD and thus anti-scientific.



See:

LSD




Find blog posts, photos, events and more off-site about:
Abram, Hoffer, Erika, Dyck, Humphry, Osmond, Weyburn, Aldous, Huxley, L:eary, Albert, Hoffman, LSD, Brave, New, World, Doors, of, Perception, UofA, , Addiction, Research, Foundation, Saskatchewan, CIA, Ken, Kesey, psychedelic, hallucinogen,
alcoholics, alcoholism

Trudeau Likens Bill C-18 Battle To World War Two Fight for Democracy as Government Suspends Meta Advertising (But Not Liberal Party Ads)

Michael Geist

July 6, 2023

The government escalated the battle over Bill C-18 yesterday, announcing that it was suspending advertising on Meta’s Facebook and Instagram platforms due the company’s decision to comply with the bill by blocking news sharing and its reluctance to engage in further negotiations on the issue. While the ad ban applies to federal government advertising, Liberal party officials confirmed they plan to continue political advertising on the social networks, suggesting that principled opposition ends when there might be a political cost involved. At issue is roughly $11 million in annual advertising by the federal government, a sum that pales in comparison to the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s estimate of at least $100 million in payments in Canada for news links from Meta alone.

In addition to raising the economic cost to Meta for stopping news sharing, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau increased the rhetoric, describing Canada as having been “attacked” by Meta and likening the government’s fight over the bill to defending democracy in Ukraine or during the Second World War [at 13:30]:

Facebook decided that Canada was a small country, small enough that they could reject our asks. They made the wrong choice by deciding to attack Canada. We want to defend democracy. This is what we’re doing across the world, such as supporting Ukraine. This is what we did during the Second World War. This is what we’re doing every single day in the United Nations.

There are strongly held views on both sides of the Bill C-18 debate, but the suggestion that stopping sharing news links on a social network is in any way comparable to World War 2 is embarrassingly hyperbolic and gives the sense of a government that has lost perspective on the issue. Canadian Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez has repeatedly described the manner of compliance with Bill C-18 as a business choice for the Internet companies, yet the Prime Minister now calls that choice an attack on the country.

If it were truly comparable to a world war, then surely the Liberal Party (joined by the NDP) would not continue to advertise on the platform. Yet since the 2021 election call, the party alone has run approximately 11,000 ads on Facebook and Instagram. That is separate from individual MPs, who have also run hundreds of ads. The Meta Ad Library provides ample evidence of how reliant the party has been on social media. For example, since the start of the year, Anna Gainey ran over 500 ads as part of her by-election campaign in Quebec. David Hilderley, who was a candidate in the Oxford by-election, ran approximately 180 ads on Facebook during the same timeframe. 

Ultimately, if this is the government’s Plan B to the unfolding mess that is Bill C-18, it is unlikely to make much difference. Government advertising is supposed to be about department communication not subsidy and the suspension may make it harder to reach younger demographics on issues such as summer co-op programs or Canadian Armed Forces recruitment. Regardless, the ad boycott does not alter the foundation of the legislation of mandated payments for links with uncapped liability. Moreover, the costs extend beyond just Canada, as the companies are surely looking to the global market and the potential for billions in liability for linking if others adopt the Bill C-18 approach as their model. Viewed with that prism, a federal government ban that does not even include the governing political party pales in comparison to the risks of the dangerous Bill C-18 precedent.

As I have said for weeks, everyone loses with Bill C-18 and that includes Meta. But it is readily apparent that the Canadian media sector will take the biggest hit with lost links, cancelled deals, and a bill that may not generate any new revenues. The recent experience of the CBC’s Brodie Fenlon provides a vivid illustration of the harm to Canadian media outlets that awaits under Bill C-18. In fact, even if Google finds a compromise position – the government is clearly holding out hope it can strike a deal – the lost revenues from even one platform means this legislation may prove to be a net-negative for the media sector. That suggests that it will soon be time for Plan C, starting with a de-escalation of Prime Minister’s absurd rhetoric of a country under attack.

Editorial: Access to local news in Canada will be hurt

Greg Nikkel
2 days ago

Weyburn Review editor Greg Nikkel hopes that access to the free press in Canada will still be possible with Bill C-18 coming into effect.The Weyburn Review, like all community papers, will soon see all access to news removed from Google and Meta (Facebook and Instagram), in reaction to Bill C-18 by the federal government.

The providers of news to local communities in Canada, including the Weyburn Review and other news organizations, are facing the loss of online availability of photos and stories to the public.

Recommended reads for you:

How did the federal government and Meta reach an impasse over the Online News Act?

Searching for Canadian news? 

Google ready to remove links over Online News Act

This is a major blow for every news outlet, as once again the federal government is enacting legislation that benefits no one, and instead will severely impact the news industry, and will severely curtail the ability of the public to see the news stories about their community.

What is the reason for this major development? This is due to the federal government passing Bill C-18, known as ”The Online News Act.”

Through this act, which has not yet come into effect but will within the next six months, Google and Meta (which owns Facebook and Instagram), will be required to pay news organizations for showing links to articles and photos.

The result is, both of those companies have announced that they will be removing all news content in Canada once this bill comes into effect.

This means that the news stories and photos you can currently look for and read on Facebook or through Google searches will no longer be available to you, the reader.

Google calls this payment a “link tax,” and they refuse to pay it, as will Meta. Their solution is to then deprive all Canadians of the access to current affairs, people stories, photos of news events and happenings in their community and in the world.

The ironic thing with the act is, the government explains that this legislation is in respect of online communications that provide news to the residents of Canada. The result of their bill is to effectively kill access to news in Canada, and they indicate no willingness to respond to the concerns of Google and Meta, not to mention the two companies are abandoning Canadians in response.

The Weyburn Review and This Week will continue to post news and photos from the community on our website, and as readers, you are encouraged to check that out and bookmark the site, as well as following us on Twitter.

The news continues to happen, and we will continue to report on the unfolding of our ongoing history, the accomplishments of residents, and the important events and occurrences for residents and businesses of the community.

In the meantime, people can communicate with the government, and with the two companies, to resolve this major disagreement. No one wins with this situation, and the ones who hold the means to walk back the bill is the governing party of Canada.

Both sides need to know this is hurting Canadians, and hurting the very basic right to a free press, which should never happen in a democratic country.

Justin Trudeau has come out swinging against social media. For a government that's come to rely on it, now what?

With the news that Trudeau’s government is ceasing all advertising on Facebook and Instagram, it appears that social media will soon be wistful for happier times, Susan Delacourt writes.

By Susan Delacourt

National Columnist

TORONTO STAR
Thu., July 6, 2023

Several years ago, legendary Washington Post editor Marty Baron came to Ottawa to speak at Carleton University about the future of journalism.

At a dinner later, Baron was talking about how he had little patience with journalists who kept lamenting how the old days were better. One of the guests, with his own illustrious career in print and TV journalism, replied: “Well they were pretty (expletive deleted) good.”

Journalists do love to tell stories about the good old days — guilty as charged. And yes, they were pretty good.

Now, with the news that Justin Trudeau’s government is ceasing all advertising on Facebook and Instagram, it appears that social media will soon be wistful for happier times. In just under a decade, the political class was whipped into a whirlwind, click-happy romance with the internet tech giants, only to denounce them this week as rich, greedy bullies.

The prime minister himself had fighting words for Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, when he spoke to reporters in Quebec on Wednesday, especially when he spoke in French.

“They made a bad choice in attacking Canada,” Trudeau told reporters. “Canadians will not allow themselves to be intimidated or bullied by American billionaires who simply want to undermine our democracy.” Moreover, he added: “Canada will not be alone. I know that countries around the world are looking at what we’re doing here, and they will refuse to accept that kind of blackmail and those threats.”

Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez cast the escalating tension with the tech giants as a battle against “superpowers,” and he didn’t mean it in a complimentary way. “They’re huge, they’re rich, powerful (with) lots of big lawyers. They can be intimidating,” Rodriguez said at his news conference announcing the ad ban. “But are we going to let ourselves be intimidated?”

Of course, as with many divorcing couples, the relationship between politics and social media won’t be totally severed — their paths will still cross; they may even need each other. But all one needs to do is look back over the past couple of decades of annual government advertising reports to see just how much that relationship blossomed in the internet era, and how much pulling back the government is going to be doing.

It was only six years ago, in the 2016-17 report, that the government reported for the first time that digital advertising had surpassed TV in the proportion of state money spent on ad campaigns. For decades, TV had dominated the ad spending — mainly at the expense of newspapers like this one — but at the same time Trudeau’s Liberals settled into their first year in power, digital advertising became king, racking up 54.7 per cent of all ad spending, and within that, social media represented 23 per cent.

Two years later, the annual ad report breaks down that spending even further, showing how much money went to the individual tech platforms, with flattering explanations for why the government was all into social media such as Facebook — not so much Twitter.

“Social media, such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn, represents the largest part of digital advertising placements this year,” the 2018-19 report states. “As of the fourth quarter of 2016, Facebook had a 75 per cent reach among Canadian internet users, equal to YouTube’s reach, and twice as high as that of Twitter’s. Further, Facebook allows for niche-targeting and it generally has high engagement rates. Twitter, on the other hand, is used more for ‘breaking news’ and has more limited targeting options.”

How big and how large was this leap into the world of advertising through social media? Well, back in 2006, when Stephen Harper’s Conservatives came to power, only six per cent of ad spending fell into what was then called the “web” category. By 2013, the “internet” ads claimed 20 per cent of all government ad spending, compared to just 10 per cent for weekly newspapers and a startlingly tiny 1.7 per cent for daily newspapers. (Yes, we were aware that Harper’s Conservatives weren’t all that into us, the daily print people.)

The most recent report, from 2021-22, shows a bit of a revival for so-called “traditional” media advertising, with 47 of the ad budget spent on TV, print and radio. In 2020-21, in fact, traditional media claimed a slightly larger share of all advertising, with 52 per cent over digital’s 47 per cent, but that is probably a result of all the public-health ads going to old-fashioned outlets in the COVID pandemic.

The point here is that Facebook and Instagram aren’t going to be bankrupted by the government’s ad ban — estimated to keep $10 million a year out of Meta’s hands — while the government has grown not only to love social media, but to need it too.

No question, though, social media is not the darling it once was, thanks to the disruptive Donald Trump and more recently, new Twitter owner Elon Musk. Now we have the threats from Meta and Google to limit their platforms to Canadian news, or cut them off altogether. As Liberals, New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois were saying on Wednesday, now it’s about democracy and the future of journalism.

Last week, as this battle was escalating, I wondered whether citizens would side with the tech giants or the governments trying to rein them in. Neither is particularly popular with the public.

Trudeau’s latest language indicates he’s betting on antipathy to tech giants to keep him standing firm. But somewhere, maybe around the ping pong tables or beanbag chairs or other cool perks of those tech-giant offices, there may well be a glum gathering of people nostalgic for the good old days when everyone loved and needed them. Welcome to what it’s like to be a journalist.

Susan Delacourt is an Ottawa-based columnist covering national politics for the Star. Reach her via email: sdelacourt@thestar.ca or follow her on Twitter: @susandelacourt

Justin Trudeau blasts Meta, says Canada won't be blackmailed | "We're not backing down"

The C-word: firefighters push for better cancer protection

CBC
Wed, April 5, 2023 

Last summer, the International Agency of Research on Cancer (IARC), the specialized cancer agency of the World Health Organization, declared firefighting as a Group 1 carcinogen. (Submitted by Ames Leslie - image credit)

Ames Leslie and his wife were grocery shopping in December when he felt a sharp pain on the left side of his torso. Concerned he was suffering from appendicitis, Leslie rushed to the emergency room.

Doctors and nurses tested him for hours, ruling out diagnoses one by one. Finally, an oncologist walked into the room: they believed he had testicular cancer.

"They say your mind goes blank and you kind of go to a different place — and it's 100 per cent true," Leslie said. "As soon as you hear that C-word, your mind just goes and you don't hear anything after that."

A urologist confirmed the diagnosis the following week. Four days later, he was in surgery getting tumours removed.

At 44, Leslie had been in good health otherwise. Two weeks before his diagnosis, he had passed a physical exam.

But as a firefighter in Battleford, Sask., Leslie had exposed himself to carcinogens almost every day for half of his life.

Submitted by Ames Leslie

Last summer, the International Agency of Research on Cancer (IARC), the specialized cancer agency of the World Health Organization, declared firefighting as a Group 1 carcinogen, meaning it found sufficient evidence to link the job to the risk of certain cancers. It's one of only five occupations to receive this designation.

The announcement was validating for firefighters, who were aware they were at higher risk of cancer but have had to lobby for decades to get presumptive workers' compensation coverage. For some, it still doesn't go far enough.

Firefighters told CBC News they have seen a change in how seriously their peers consider this risk. But as departments implement prevention measures and try to hammer messaging home, finite budgets and resources impede them from taking all of the necessary precautionary steps.

'Cancer on your gear'

Firefighters with ashen gear were once idolized.

"It was a badge of honour to have dirty, burnt, melted gear. It showed you've been to war and you survived — and you're ready to go again," said Tyler Packham, a veteran firefighter and president of the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 181, the Regina firefighters' union.

Kirk Fraser/CBC

"Now, we call it cancer on your gear."

The firefighters who spoke with CBC News described the job as a calling. Most chose the vocation as a way to give back to their community, regardless of the risks that come with jumping into a fire.

But the IARC designation and other emerging research on cancer risk have forced firefighters to reconcile that flames aren't the thing they need to be most concerned about.

Last year, 95 per cent of on-duty deaths among Canadian firefighters were linked to cancer. A 2018 study found cancer killed Canadian firefighters about three times more often than the general population.

Ringing the alarm

Saskatchewan hasn't been immune to this trend.

One in five workers who died from an occupational disease from 2011 to 2020 were firefighters diagnosed with cancer, according to the provincial Workers' Compensation Board (WCB) annual report. From 2010 to 2021, that amounted to 37 firefighters.

Top-5 causes of workplace fatalities in Sask., 2010-2021

In response, WorkSafe Saskatchewan, an organization forged by the WCB and Ministry of Labour Relations and Workplace Safety, brought in Jim Burneka.

Burneka, a firefighter in Dayton, Ohio, founded Firefighter Cancer Consultants in 2014. The organization tours fire departments and develops individualized plans to help with cancer prevention.

In 2019, he visited eight fire departments in Saskatchewan, from city stations to volunteer ones in small, rural communities.

"A lot of the firefighters weren't aware of truly how dangerous occupational firefighter cancer was to them," Burneka said.

Firefighters responding to a scene, particularly structural fires, can be exposed to various chemical and hazardous substances. They're also exposed to things like diesel exhaust from their own trucks.

CBC News Graphics

"A big problem with structural firefighters is we don't know what they've been exposed to," said Nicola Cherry, an occupational epidemiologist and professor at the University of Alberta's medicine department.

Exposure, initially, was believed to occur from breathing in toxins, but further research has shown they can be absorbed through a person's skin, and ingested.

Cherry researched levels of carcinogens in the urine and blood of firefighters who responded to the Fort McMurray wildfire in 2016. She found higher levels in those who didn't have the opportunity to shower and change their clothes during the initial response.

Meanwhile, the gear designed to protect firefighters contains materials that are carcinogenic. Last August, the IAFF alerted its members about manufactured chemicals used in firefighter gear and, according to the United States' Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, some extinguisher foams.

As a result, firefighters wear their protective gear as little as possible. In Regina, they won't even let children pose for photos while donning it anymore, Packham said.

"It's a never-ending battle, and we're never going to get away from all the exposures," he said.

Reducing risk

As a result of the tour around Saskatchewan, Burneka teamed up with WorkSafe to create an educational and awareness campaign that outlines cancer prevention practices. Burneka also drafted an action plan, which lists more than 30 recommendations for fire services.

Most of the departments Burneka visited in 2019 had already started implementing such measures, but fell short in about 10 areas, including annual medical physicals and washing personal protective equipment (PPE) and soiled uniforms.

CBC News Graphics

A follow-up report by WorkSafe Saskatchewan in 2021 "indicated great improvement," but longer-term prevention measures, including backup sets of gear, "remain outstanding."

WorkSafe has highlighted the Weyburn Fire Department, in southern Saskatchewan, as a provincial leader in this area.

Once a fire is extinguished, firefighters will wash down their gear on scene.

When they return to the station, they are to go through a back bay, which acts as a decontamination area and follow a thorough step-by-step process.

WATCH | Weyburn Fire Chief Trent Lee gives tour of the station's cancer prevention measures:

Yet, Chief Trent Lee said the station has yet to implement crucial steps.

"Shower in an hour" is a mantra used across borders to remind firefighters to wash the soot that seeped under their gear off their bodies as soon as possible. But the Weyburn station doesn't have showers. Firefighters have to go home — possibly contaminating their family vehicles — to shower, Lee said.

He's advocating to build an addition to the station to house showers.

The station acquired a washer and dryer, but the latter currently isn't working, so firefighters are bringing their contaminated undergarments home, and mixing them with their family members' laundry.

Firefighters' gear should also be tailored to an individual's size, so soot doesn't sneak onto their bodies in the first place, Lee said. But most fire departments cannot afford that.

Nicholas Frew/CBC

Money constraints

The 2019 tour, Burneka said, highlighted the disparity between the resources available to Regina Fire and Protective Services, for example, and volunteer departments in rural areas.

"Budgets are very tight in the volunteer world," said Ken McMullen, president of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs and chief of Red Deer Emergency Services in Alberta.

About seven in 10 firefighters across Canada are volunteers, according to the association's latest firefighter census. Yet, volunteer departments often have to make tough decisions about how they spend money, McMullen said.

They may, for example, have to choose between purchasing a piece of equipment essential to firefighting, or an industrial washing machine that could better clean firefighter gear, or provide firefighters with a backup set of PPE, he said.

Lee, who once led a volunteer department, told CBC News that volunteer departments often accept hand-me-downs from larger departments. Sometimes, firefighters show up to a scene in street clothes, or without a proper respirator.

Nicholas Frew/CBC

"It's just so expensive," Lee said.

"We do all of these things on pennies, and it's tremendous what these smaller volunteer departments can do with little-to-no budget."

Saskatchewan Government Insurance spent $5.6 million on training and equipment for volunteer firefighter departments last year, according to a provincial government spokesperson.

Even if they were to receive more money or grants, firefighters recognize their risk of cancer can never be eliminated from the line of duty, which is why they're calling for more help for if — and when — they get sick.

Even coverage

Sherry Romanado was a firefighter kid. Her father was a volunteer firefighter in Greenfield Park, now a borough of Longueuil, Que. From a young age, she was playing in the station, learning to roll hose and occasionally sporting her father's gear.

Romanado eventually became the Liberal MP for the Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne constituency. In 2018, a firefighter told her his cancer diagnosis wasn't covered through workers' compensation. Lobbyists brought up the issue again a couple of years later on Parliament Hill.

Simon Martel/CBC

"There was an inequity and it really bothered me," said Romanado, whose husband is a volunteer firefighter. "How could someone who's doing the same job in one province be covered, but not in another province?"

Workers' compensation legislation across Canada has adapted over the years to provide presumptive coverage fir certain types of cancer for full-time and volunteer firefighters. But which cancers are covered and what conditions must be met to be eligible for benefits — such as how long you had to have worked in the job — vary by province.

Quebec, for example, is the only province where firefighters can receive compensation for mesothelioma, an aggressive and deadly cancer the IARC has linked to the profession. But overall, Quebec covers the fewest cancers in Canada.

The Saskatchewan Workers' Compensation Board covers 16 cancers — but not the one that has Packham concerned.

Presumptive firefighter cancer coverage by province, territory

Last summer he attended a conference, where a company was offering free cancer scans. His found an abnormality.

A biopsy later found a mass on his thyroid. He is currently waiting for another biopsy to see if the mass has grown.

"If it actually is thyroid cancer, I'm currently not covered. But if I lived three hours down the road in Brandon, Man., I would be covered," Packham said.

The Saskatchewan government continues to work with the Saskatchewan Professional Firefighters and Paramedics Association and "others," regarding further presumptive cancer coverage, a provincial government spokesperson said.

Discrepancies in coverage for firefighters on First Nations is an ongoing issue, too.

Shane Bair's father died three months after he was diagnosed with colon cancer. He was 62. Randy Bair had served about 35 years as a volunteer firefighter, most of which was spent working in Muskoday First Nation, about 130 kilometres northeast of Saskatoon.

Submitted by Shane Bair

Soon after his father's death in 2021, Shane learned Randy wasn't covered under provincial workers' compensation benefits.

"We're actively trying to change that," said Shane, the fire Chief of Beaver Lake Cree Nation in Alberta. "WCB is working with us to draft a policy to make sure that doesn't happen again."

The legislation in Saskatchewan covers volunteer firefighters, but Shane said it does not recognize First Nations as a municipality, excluding their employees from workers compensation coverage.

The Saskatchewan WCB is in chats with Saskatchewan First Nations Emergency Management, an organization that works to provide all First Nations in the province with emergency services, about presumptive cancer coverage, a provincial government spokesperson said.

Uniformity, in part, is why Romanado introduced Bill C-224, the National Framework on Cancers Linked to Firefighting Act. The bill recently passed the House of Commons unanimously and is awaiting its second reading in the Senate.

The bill aims to raise awareness of cancers linked to firefighting and improve access to prevention and treatment for firefighters. If it receives royal assent, it would promote sharing information across jurisdictions and improve data collection about prevention and treatment, among other things.

"This is about saving lives," Romanado said.

Gaps in the system

Firefighters told CBC News there's a need for health care to catch up. Some have experienced long wait times for tests and appointments, and have had to travel to see specialists. Some have had doctors who did not recognize, or dismissed, the increased risk of cancer among firefighters.

"The process here in Saskatchewan is depressing," Lee said. "It causes a lot of anxiety and mental turmoil."

Many firefighters want CT scans to be included as part of their annual physical exams.

Travis Reddaway/CBC

Leslie is among those calling for early screening, because he's convinced early detection saved his life.

Having recently completed his third round of chemotherapy, he has gone through the stages of grief. When he spoke with CBC News in mid-March, he hadn't suffered from any major physical side effects, such as nausea, but he was still adjusting to being bald and clean-shaven.

He has not started the process to confirm whether his job contributed to his diagnosis but, unable to work, he has spent his days researching cancer and its risk to firefighters.

He has also looked for government grants to protect the trees along nearby walking trails, tackled many crosswords, read books, napped and listened to music. He's now particularly fond of orchestral music — a new bond shared with his son, a music performance student at Western University in Ontario.

Leslie has nine more rounds of chemotherapy to go. His doctors hope to conduct more scans in mid-May, which, he hopes, will give him a clean bill of health.

Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out

This month marked the 100th birthday day of Albert Hoffman the discoverer of LSD.

Father of LSD recalls his famous bicycle trip


LSD inventor keeps on truckin' at 100 The drug was popularized by Timothy Leary, the one-time Harvard lecturer known as the “high priest of LSD,” whose “turn on, tune in, drop out” advice to students in the 1960s glamorized the hallucinogen. The film star Cary Grant and numerous rock musicians extolled its virtues in achieving true self-discovery and enlightenment.

But away from the psychedelic trips and flower children, stories emerged of people going on murder sprees or jumping out of windows while hallucinating. Heavy users suffered permanent psychological damage.

The United States banned LSD in 1966 and other countries followed suit.

Mr. Hofmann maintains that was unfair, arguing the drug was not addictive. He has repeatedly said the ban should be lifted so LSD can be used in medical research, and he took the drug himself, purportedly on an occasional basis and out of scientific interest, for several decades.

And it has been 58 years since LSD was discovered and applied to scientific and psychiatric assessment. LSD - My Problem Child by Albert Hofmann

LSD was studied extensively by Dr. Oswald from Weyburn, Saskatchewan. Boing Boing: Midcentury LSD Experiments at Canadian mental hospital Yep little old Saskatchwan.

Dr. Oswald had done earlier experimentations with mescaline which he had administered to the author Aldous Huxely.

Mescaline, LSD, Psilocybin and Personality Change

Oswald was a pioneer in LSD investigations, he was the originator of the term 'psychedelic'. The experiments conducted in Saskatchewan were the more positive aspect of LSD experimentation during the late fifties and early sixties.

Flashback: Psychiatric Experimentation With LSD in Historical Perspective

In the popular mind, d-lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) research in psychiatry has long been associated with the CIA-funded experiments conducted by Ewen Cameron at the Allen Memorial Institute in Montreal, Quebec. Despite this reputation, a host of medical researchers in the post–World War II era explored LSD for its potential therapeutic value. Some of the most widespread trials in the Western world occurred in Saskatchewan, under the direction of psychiatrists Humphry Osmond (in Weyburn) and Abram Hoffer (in Saskatoon). These medical researchers were first drawn to LSD because of its ability to produce a “model psychosis.” Their experiments with the drug that Osmond was to famously describe as a “psychedelic” led them to hypothesize and promote the biochemical nature of schizophrenia. This brief paper examines the early trials in Saskatchewan, drawing on hospital records, interviews with former research subjects, and the private papers of Hoffer and Osmond. It demonstrates that, far from being fringe medical research, these LSD trials represented a fruitful, and indeed encouraging, branch of psychiatric research occurring alongside more famous and successful trials of the first generation of psychopharmacological agents, such as chlropromazine and imipramine.

During the 1950's and 1960's the Canadian Defense Department, and the American Defense department and the CIA funded LSD research on unsuspecting Canadian subjects. They also did joint secret studies of Biological Chemical warfare weapons on the citizens of Winnipeg, and as we are finding out now, Agent Orange tests on unsuspecting Canadian troops and citizens in Gagetown NB.

Bio-Chemical Warfare and You

The most infamous of the CIA LSD mindcontrol experiments was the work of Dr. Ewan Cameron, but he was not alone. McGill university was also implicated in the illegal and unethical treatment of prisoners and unsuspecting patients by psychiatrists using LSD as well as other behavioral modification drugs and techniques.

Canadian experiments

The experiments were even exported to Canada when the CIA recruited Albany, New York doctor Ewan Cameron, author of the psychic driving concept which the CIA found particularly interesting. In it he described his theory on correcting madness, which consisted of erasing existing memories and rebuilding the psyche completely. He commuted to Montreal every week to work at the Allan Memorial Institute and was paid $69,000 from 1957 to 1964 to carry out MKULTRA experiments there. The CIA appears to have given him the potentially deadly experiments to carry out since they would be used on non-U.S. citizens.

In addition to LSD, Cameron also experimented with various paralytic drugs as well as electroshock "therapy" at 30 to 40 times the normal power. His "driving" experiments consisted of putting subjects into drug-induced coma for months on end (up to three in one case) while playing tape loops of noise or simple repetitive statements. His experiments were typically carried out on patients who had entered the institute for minor problems such as anxiety disorders and postpartum depression, many of whom suffered permanently from his actions.

It was during this era that Cameron became known worldwide as the first chairman of the World Psychiatric Association as well as president of the American and Canadian psychiatric associations. Cameron had also been a member of the Nuremberg medical tribunal only a decade earlier.

Resources on Drug Experiments Performed by the US Government

Letter re: LSD experiments at Prison for Women, Kingston

bioethics

LSD TESTS KINGSTON PRISON FOR WOMEN 1960'S

The Canadian military funded LSD experiments on students and musicians in Montreal

Canada was the one country that was extensively doing scientific and psychiatric studies on LSD, and would later influence the American studies such as those Ken Kesey went through and documented in his novel One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest.

THE USE OF LSD IN THE TREATMENT OF ALCOHOLISM


In fact it was the CIA which popularized LSD in the research community and can be thanked for its becoming the popular hippie drug it would become. The Original Captain Trips

The CIA aghast at the result of its 'experiment' getting out of control later would plant phony LSD fear stories in the press of the day, Time Magazine in partiuclar, about how LSD caused people to stare at the sun and go blind or leap off buildings because they thought they could fly. The incidents may have occured, not during hippie Timothy Leary style 'trips', but when unsuspecting CIA agents had been drugged without their knowing it.

The CIA dropped LSD but continued to practice narcopolitics with guns and weapons for heroin exchanges begining with the Vietnam war and it still continues today. As well as later connections between the CIA and the Cocaine cartels in Latin America. The War on Drugs was really about the war on drugs NOT supplied by the CIA. Always has been.

The CIA and The Politics of Heroin

CIA Hawking Heroin in Baghdad?

And while Dr. Hoffman blames LSD's wayward travels as the popular Tune In , Turn On, Drop Out drug of the Leary hippie era, its scientific banishment was orchestrated deliberately by the U.S. government after MKULTRA and other CIA experiments on mind control proved failures, and the popularity of the drug was getting out of their control.

Scientific research using LSD had to be restricted if not outright banned to cover up the covert studies done by CIA funded psychiatrists or else the scientific community would find out that results of so called benign studies were something more sinister.

The effect of lysergic acid diethylamide(LSD-25) on perception with stabilized images


The Guardian reports on one of the original British scientists who studied LSD prior to the famous Timothy Leary psychedlic revolution, who wants to return to studying its impact on mental illness.

Re-opening doors of perception
Sarah Boseley reports on the psychiatrist who wants to reverse the taboo against using LSD to help troubled patients

The revival of the idea of studying the impact of LSD is because the British Home Secretary has called for an extensive review of the drug legislation in Britain.

Will Clarke go soft on LSD and Ecstasy?

Charles Clarke has ordered a sweeping review of drug laws which could lead to the effective downgrading of Ecstasy and LSD.

The Home Secretary, who caused fury by resisting demands to toughen the rules on cannabis, said the current system of classifying drugs could be torn up.

He is considering a new system which would take into account the 'social' consequences of each drug, including links to muggings and burglaries. Drugs are currently split into Class A, B and C.

In 1972 Canada like Britain plans to do today, did a comprehensive Royal Commission into the use of drugs. The Ledain commission is noted for its work around cannibis and the controversial reccomendation at the time, one that remains controversial, for the decriminalization of cannibis and recreational drugs. The study also included research on LSD.

Canada was the soul source of scientific experimentation on LSD and for access to LSD even after the U.S. banned it.

BC's Acid Flashback

Long before Timothy Leary and the Summer of Love, patients at Hollywood Hospital in New Westminster were being treated with LSD.

To Rick Doblin, New Westminster's Hollywood Hospital was a far-off place of myth and legend. It was 1972, and being a college student in Florida, he was keen to expand his mind. So he wrote to the hospital to see whether he could undergo its most famous treatment; a 12-hour trip into his consciousness, under the influence of pure Sandoz LSD.

"It was the only place left where you could have a guided LSD experience in a controlled setting," Doblin says. But the hospital told him it would cost $600, more than an 18-year-old could afford, and the trip never happened.

He never forgot about that hospital, though. After doing a PhD in public policy at Harvard, he became director of the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a Florida-based research group that designs experiments using mind-altering drugs in psychiatric therapy. Last month Doblin was in the news because the U.S. Food and Drug Administration had approved a MAPS-designed study using MDMA (better known as Ecstasy) for post-traumatic stress disorder. Now Doblin is helping create an experiment using LSD - which, like MDMA, was successfully used by therapists for years before it was outlawed. So he's set his sights once again on Hollywood Hospital - or at least the files for the thousands of patients who were treated there with LSD between 1957 and 1975

Canada remained a source of LSD for drug studies conducted in the late 1970's all were done on animals none on humans after the US Administration banned the scientific use of LSD.

DISAGGREGATION OF BRAIN POLYSOMES AFTER LSD IN VIVO Involvement of LSD-Induced Hyperthermia

RNA Synthesis in Isolated Brain Nuclei after Administration of d-Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) In Vivo


Today a new age of mind explorers, working in the computer enhanced virtual reality of the wired culture have re-discovered the positive uses of LSD. LSD: The Geek's Wonder Drug?

The earlier researchers like Dr. Timothy Leary and Richard Albert (Baba Ram Dass) who used LSD to open the doors of perception ( as Aldous Huxely refered to his experiences on a similar hallucinogen; mescaline) this generation of mind explorers has their work to build on and Dr. Leary's later interest in computers. What goes around comes around and goes around and comes around.

Todd Brendan Fahey made the Digital Leap at the close of 1994.

The synthesis of psychedelic drugs and the Internet has not been widely written of by the mainstream media, but Fahey and others believe the relationship to run deep.

John Perry Barlow remarked to Fahey, in an as-yet unpublished interview: "I'll go so far as to say, if the government succeeds in its War On (some) Drugs--if everyone who used marjiuana and LSD were to really be put in jails--America would not have an operational computer left."

This remark mirrors Timothy Leary's assertion, to Fahey in 1992, that "Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were barefoot, long-haired acid freaks" and that Bill Gates was known to use LSD while at Harvard.

Tags
Canada
Albert Hoffman
LSD
Sandos