The ObserverDogs
Who’s a good boy? The unbreakable bond between humans and dogs

‘He looks particularly attractive on a plush bed in a centrally heated house very far from the Newfoundland home of his ancestors’: writer Simon Garfield with his beloved Ludo. 

Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Observer


Our centuries old love of dogs has never been stronger. So what does a study of ‘man’s best friend’ say about us?


Simon Garfield
Sun 24 Jan 2021 13.00 GMT


Why is he here? Why is my dog lying at my feet in the shape of a croissant as I write this? How have I come to cherish his warm but lightly offensive pungency? How has his fish breath become a topic of humour when friends call round for dinner? Why do I shell out more than £1,000 each year to pay for his insurance? And why do I love him so much?

Ludo is not a special dog. He’s just another labrador retriever, one of approximately 500,000 in the UK (he’d be one in a million in the United States, the most popular breed in both countries). Ludo has a lot in common with all these dogs. He loves to play ball; obviously he’s an expert retriever. He could eat all the food in the universe and leave nothing for the other dogs. He is prone to hip dysplasia. He looks particularly attractive on a plush bed in a centrally heated house very far from the Newfoundland home of his ancestors.

But, of course, Ludo is a unique animal to me and the rest of his human family. He is now an elderly gentleman aged 12 and a half, and we would do almost anything to ensure his continued happiness. We willingly get drenched as he tries to detect every smell on Hampstead Heath. We schedule our days around his needs – his mealtimes, his walks, the delivery of his life-saving medication (he has epilepsy, poor love). We spend a bizarrely large amount of our disposable income on him, and he never sends a card of thanks. When he’s not with us for a few days (when our children take him for a weekend, say), then the house feels extraordinarily empty. I feel so fortunate to know him. Goodness knows how we’ll cope when he dies.

This strongest of bonds has manifested itself over the centuries, and transformed so many millions of lives, human and canine. If it is at least partially true, as Nietzsche claims, that “The world exists through the understanding of dogs,” then perhaps it is also partially true that a study of dogs may provide a valuable insight into ourselves.

Why is he here? Why is this man doing something that involves a repeated tapping noise and the occasional loving sigh? How many hot drinks can he make to interrupt this tapping? Why is his timekeeping so bad when it comes to my luncheon? Why can’t this so-called memory-foam bed he bought me remember how I curled up so snugly last night? Why do I feel so fortunate to know him?

The anthropomorphism of dogs is not a new phenomenon. I have a photo on my desk of a black Labrador from the 19th century dressed as a lord in a suit and top hat (and smoking a pipe).

Talking dogs have been a mainstay of the movies almost from the birth of talking movies. But the collusion of dog and human has never been so abundant, imaginative and unnerving as it is today. The nature of our bond – our commitment to each other – appears to have deepened markedly in the past 50 years, not least because our scientific understanding of the dog has been enabled by advances in genetics, and our sociological interpretation of a dog’s behaviour has led to more avenues for joint engagement. Like dancers emboldened by drink and tenacity, we are entwined with our best friends in an ecstatic embrace.

Such passion does not always end well, alas. Alongside my Victorian lord I have a photo of a dog in a flat Kangol cap and glasses who looks like Samuel L Jackson. On my computer I have pictures of dogs reading, sailing and riding bicycles. I know there is something morally wrong with these images, but I find it hard to resist adding more to the folder, given their wholly irresistible paws-to-the-floor adorableness.

Every week I get an email from the American magazine, Bark, with the subject line “Smiling Dogs”. Each message contains at least two pictures of beautiful grinning hounds, most recently Baxter (“Baxter has a bubbly personality, loves food, lounging in the sun, hiking outdoors and cuddling”) and Chad (“This handsome boy might come across as a little aloof at first, but that’s what makes him mysterious and charming!”) Appealing as these dogs are, they are not, of course, actually grinning. But the people at Bark know well that the photogenic often get a head start: most of the dogs in the emails are looking for new homes after a harsh beginning.

‘He remembers who has paid particular attention to him in the past and will make sure to greet them with gladness in his heart’: Simon with his dog, Ludo. Photograph: Sarah Lee/The Observer

The names we give our dogs are increasingly names we would give to our children. For every old Fido we have a new Florence, for every old Major we have a new Max. This was not the case 30 years ago. Today the new names are the names of human heroes. Nelson is still popular; soon we will see a lot of Gretas. You have a female dog called Taylor, you will have a male one called Swift. Lawyers like to call their dogs Shyster, and architects favour Zaha, and there are an awful lot of young Fleabags in the parks these days. Only in rap music does it work the other way: Snoop Dogg, Phife Dawg, Nate Dogg, Bow Wow.

We increasingly use dogs to describe ourselves. A tough radio interviewer is a rottweiler, a soft one a poodle (or a puppy). Friendly, faithful characters in novels are cuddly labradors. Venal men in the city are pit bulls. A person who won’t let go fights like a terrier, while a detective pursues her prey like a bloodhound. You get the idea. You get the idea because you are as fleet as a whippet and smart as a sheepdog.

We have long used our canine friends to describe our actions and emotions. After working like a dog we are dog-tired. We get drunk as a skunk, but we drink the hair of the dog. Books containing doggerel get dog-eared. We root for the underdog, we bark up the wrong tree and then we’re in the doghouse. A depression is a black dog, and we’ll sport a hangdog countenance. A dog’s breakfast is followed by a dog’s dinner, but the dog ate my homework so I’ve gone to the dogs. These kinds of lists used to be the cat’s pyjamas, but now they’re the dog’s bollocks. And we have sex in a position so popular among dogs that they have officially trademarked the style.

In lockdown, Ludo is the only presence in our house not looking anxious. Instead, he is exhausted. It has already become a cliché to observe that the pandemic has been perversely kind to dogs: they are seldom home alone now, and they are walked almost more than they can bear. Their companionship is a boost to mental health. Friends and neighbours want to borrow them: if you have a dog, you have a reason to be out. Rescue shelters report a surge in enquiries, and the cost of a pure-bred dog has tripled. And social media is awash with Covid-19 dog videos and cartoons: the sports commentator Andrew Cotter has made stars of his lovely labradors Olive and Mabel as they battle for lockdown supremacy, and the outpouring of grief when Monty Don announced the passing of his golden retriever Nigel was comparable with the death of Princess Diana. But a genuine concern has spawned the “dog is not just for Covid” headlines – many inexperienced buyers are finding the challenges of ownership unexpectedly demanding.

Even if you have never owned a dog, and even if you have only watched Crufts on television, you will know that our relationship with dogs is a rich, diverse, perplexing and complicated one – as rich, diverse, perplexing and complicated indeed as the relationship we have with other humans. Dogs are increasingly not just part of the home but part of the family, the closest connection we dare have with a species not our own.

In lockdown,

 the dog is the only being in our house

 not looking anxious

In many ways dogs have become an extension of ourselves. Albert Einstein once observed that Chico, his wire-haired fox terrier, was possessed of both great intelligence and an ability to hold a grudge. “He feels sorry for me because I receive so much mail; that’s why he tries to bite the mailman.” This approach – only the social scientists persistently call it anthropomorphism; dog lovers tend to regard it as entirely acceptable behaviour – is widely frowned upon by most animal behaviourists as inhumane. But still we do it. In fact, we now do it with such conviction and sense of normality that not to treat our dogs to a diet involving turmeric may come to seem like neglect.

You cannot know a well-mannered dog for any length of time – more than, say, about an hour – and not wonder a little about what he or she is thinking, what makes him or her fearful or happy, and how the two of you may have fun together.

 A dog resides superbly within what the German biologist Jakob von Uexküll called its own self-centred world, or Umwelt. Or, as the primatologist Frans de Waal put it in the title of his book, Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are? If a dog cannot fully comprehend systems of time and money it is not because they are unintelligent; it is because these things are not significant components of their world.

The average dog brain is about one-third the size of an average human brain. But the dog nose has more than 200m smell- sensitive receptors, compared to 5m in a human nose, and these suggest a quite different set of priorities. About a third of the dog’s brain mass is devoted to olfactory duties, compared to 5% in humans.

I can’t help but notice how my own dog, with his proud leathery snout, views the world around him. His exacting sense of smell makes him a very good judge not only of his environment and other dogs, but also of people: he can judge who may be frightened of dogs and keep away; he remembers who has paid particular attention to him in the past and will make sure to greet them with gladness in his heart and a special toy in his mouth; and he knows when his human companions are low and need comforting. I sometimes wonder whether we are treating him and his many friends with a similar level of sagacity and respect.

One of the many things that attracts us to a puppy – beyond their all-round damn helpless cuteness – is their inquisitiveness. Puppies like poking around in things, any thing. This inquisitiveness matures, but it doesn’t depart: older dogs hear an irregular noise and they still want to investigate. Their investigative nature makes us dog-owners curious, too, acting at our most puppy-ish, we want to discover with increasingly forensic precision just what it is that makes a dog a dog, and makes them such mutually enriching companions. And we are strangers only to ourselves: as dog owners and dog lovers we are part of a huge community, and the bond we have with our dog is something that binds us equally to millions of others; a shared humanity. As for Ludo, he is still best at being the thing he was 10,000 years ago, despite everything we have done to make him more like us. He is best at being a dog. He gets very excited about the prospect of lunch, or any food really, and he usually comes running when I call him, and we’re always impossibly happy when we’re together.

This is an edited extract from Dog’s Best Friend: A Brief History of an Unbreakable Bond by Simon Garfield. It is published on 4 February by W&N

Post-pandemic apocalypse

Statistic after statistic points to the debilitating state of commerce in Canada. But what exactly do all those pandemic-fuelled business closures mean for cities like Winnipeg, Vancouver or Toronto?

Data released this week by the Canadian Federation of Independent Business shows the situation is dire. More than one in six businesses — at least 239,000 across Canada and 5,601 in Manitoba — are at the risk of permanently disappearing because of COVID-19, or have already closed.

Economists, public policy stakeholders and municipal planners are split on how exactly this will affect the future of downtown cores and surrounding areas.

In interviews with the Free Press, experts described how jarring shifts in local economies will cause hypercompetition in some sectors, while others might completely disappear. It could also cause fewer jobs overall, less walkable areas, limited shopping options, and a rapid loss of the “biz village” concept, they said, along with severe population declines.

If there’s one thing they can all agree on, however, it’s that Canadians cities will likely never look the same again. And if governments plan on bringing things back to a sustainable “new normal,” analysts believe preparation for it should begin as soon as possible.

“I think there’s an implicit assumption that we’re in a sort of snow globe right now and that everything’s suspended so that one day soon we’ll all go back to normal,” said Vass Bednar, a policy expert who’s held several public and private sector leadership roles, including at Airbnb and Queen’s Park in Toronto.

“Those assumptions are almost certainly wrong,” she said. “The fact is, everyone will quickly notice how different things already are when they go on a walk around their cities to see not just closed signs, but also the larger store or restaurant signs taken off to indicate permanent closures for so many of their favourite places. And it will only get more severe.”

CFIB’s latest figures suggest that at least 58,000 businesses have already permanently closed their doors following pandemic-related lockdowns and restrictions in 2020.

Based on a survey of its members done between Jan. 12 and Jan. 16, the organization now says a mid-range of at least 181,000 small business owners are also considering to close down or declare bankruptcy on top of last year’s numbers, adding up to 239,000 in total. 

But should things remain unchanged, by the end of this year, closures could rise up to 280,117 across Canada. In Manitoba, that’s roughly 6,645 storefronts — with even the lowest estimates suggesting at least six per cent (5,601 businesses) will be lost.

That means more than 2.4 million people will likely be out of work — a staggering 20 per cent of private sector jobs, or just about one in seven of all employment in Canada.

“They’re all very scary figures,” said Jonathan Alward, Prairies director for CFIB. “I really, truly hope we’re wrong on this. But it just doesn’t seem like we are, at least not right now.

“In an ordinary time, businesses would never want to be rescued with help from the government. But right now, I think creating pathways for safe openings by tax breaks, subsidies and other strategies to provide easier access is just as important for communities themselves than the business owners.”

Fletcher Baragar is an economics professor at the University of Manitoba who’s extensively researched how bankruptcies and bailouts affect societies and communities. He said he’s never seen more closures than this past year — not during the 2008-09 financial crisis, or even in his studies of recessions that occurred before the turn of the millennium.

“It’s a common thing to see exits and entries all the time in the market — healthy changes are the whole point of an entrepreneurial marketplace,” said Baragar. “But when that business change happens so rapidly, it certainly affects everything else... and it’s incredibly uneven in the type of areas and sectors it affects when some benefit from it and others die out of it.”

Hospitality and arts are two of the hardest-hit sectors, CFIB data indicates, with 33 per cent and 28 per cent of businesses in those sectors expected to close up shop. In the retail sector, it’s 15 per cent of companies.

At the other end of the spectrum, agriculture and natural resources are the lowest-impacted of any sector — still, with six per cent of businesses expected to close. Next is construction, at nine per cent, and manufacturing, at 12 per cent.

Provincial breakdowns show Newfoundland and Labrador will see the most severe impact, with a high-end estimate of 28 per cent of all businesses to close. That’s followed by Alberta at 25 per cent and Ontario at 24. Manitoba is right in the middle at 18 per cent, and Nova Scotia is least-impacted at 14 per cent.

That’s why business owners have begun to ask themselves tough questions, said Baragar, about whether it’s even worth opening up when they’re allowed to and if it’s something they can afford financially.

“Of the ones remaining, I think there’s going to be a lot more consolidation and amalgamation internationally and from one side of the country to the next,” he said. “And that means fewer buying and service options for quite literally everything — restaurants, clothing, you name it.”

Sylvain Charlebois, a leading supply chain expert, said these shifts will also cause city demographics themselves to change. Pointing to recent Starbucks coffee shop closures, he said food companies are making note of this, and will “always go where the money is” — which he doesn’t believe is in urban centres anymore.

“Of course, the cost of city dwelling is a cruel barrier anyway,” said Charlebois, who’s a professor at Dalhousie University in Halifax. “More than that, there’s other reasons that are also important. When businesses close in areas where they were supposed to be forming villages or walkable communities, it impacts the kind of people that want to live in those cities and how much they actually spend. It’s a cycle.”

Loren Remillard, president and CEO of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce, said that’s something he’s already seen with Osborne Village in Winnipeg before, when storefronts began to abruptly shut down a few years ago.

“We realized during that time, just how much businesses are more than businesses for livable communities — they’re really the fabric of what binds them together,” he said. “You couldn’t have Little Italy or Little India or even Sage Creek without the actual biz village concept thriving for those ethnographic neighbourhoods.”

Remillard said a continuous push is being made to get larger companies to headquarter in Winnipeg, “so that if and when acquisitions or mergers happen during devastating economic periods, we risk little when their main office is here.”

But as a policy expert, Bednar believes messaging from government has been a crucial part of what makes the future for urban business so frazzled. “It was so much easier just to tell everyone to move online and give them some subsidies to string along,” she said.

“Eventually, when this is finally over, what happens when we’re offline again? Can you actually market or promote tourism if you don’t have physical stores? It might be time to start changing how we’re thinking and talking about these things.”

Temur Durrani, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Winnipeg Free Press

Trudeau government considers legislative changes to make public service more diverse

OTTAWA — The Trudeau Liberals are eyeing changes to the law governing public service hiring to help make federal departments and agencies more diverse.

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© Provided by The Canadian Press

They also plan to do further research on the makeup of the federal public service and will try to hire more senior leaders with varied backgrounds.

Treasury Board President Jean-Yves Duclos and his parliamentary secretary, Greg Fergus, are spelled out the priorities Tuesday to foster greater diversity, inclusion and accessibility in the public service.

The government says while there has been some progress for Black Canadians, Indigenous Peoples and others who face racial discrimination in the workplace, too many public servants continue to face obstacles.

The Treasury Board Secretariat has begun discussions about the framework for recruitment in the public service and is specifically looking at "possible amendments" to the Public Service Employment Act.

The act is intended to ensure federal hiring is fair, transparent and representative.

But Chris Aylward, national president of the Public Service Alliance of Canada, says he hears complaints from members about how it works.

"It sounds like everything is there," Aylward said Tuesday. "But in practical terms, the way that it's applied, the way that managers go about doing staffing … it's far, far from perfect."

The examination of the Public Service Employment Act would complement Labour Minister Filomena Tassi's planned review of the Employment Equity Act, a law aimed at protecting workers from discrimination and other unfair treatment.

The government recently released data that provides more detail about the composition of the public service.

Duclos and Fergus say the annual public service employee survey will help the government identify more precisely where gaps remain and what is needed to improve representation.

The government plans to increase diversity through promotion and recruitment, including introduction of the Mentorship Plus Program to allow departments to offer mentoring and sponsorship opportunities to high-potential employees who might currently face barriers.

The government says although progress will take time, the public service can be a model of inclusion for employers across the country and around the world.

"In time, we will build a public service that is the true reflection of our pluralism and diversity," Duclos said in a statement.

Just last week, Privy Council Clerk Ian Shugart issued a call to action on anti-racism, equity and inclusion in the public service, setting out federal expectations for current leaders.

"We must encourage and support the voices that have long been marginalized in our organizations," Shugart wrote.

"We must create opportunities where they have long been absent. We must take direct, practical actions to invoke change. This is a true test of leadership, and one we must meet head on. Now."

The government has also launched the Centre for Diversity and Inclusion, supported by a budget of $12 million, to create an ongoing discussion about change.

"There is much to do before all public servants can feel they truly belong in a public service that values inclusiveness and differences," Fergus said.

"Outlining these key areas of focus is a key step in taking concrete action."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 26, 2021.

Jim Bronskill, The Canadian Press

Bernie Sanders in new push for $15 minimum wage under Biden: 'For me, it's morally imperative'

Bernie Sanders: ‘For me, it’s morally imperative that we raise the minimum wage to a living wage that’s at least $15 an hour.’

 Photograph: Nicholas Kamm/AFP/Getty Images


Leftwing senator tells Guardian the chances of raising the federal minimum are better than ever with new president in White House


Steven Greenhouse
Tue 26 Jan 2021 

Senator Bernie Sanders says the widespread suffering caused by the pandemic-induced economic crisis has made it “morally imperative” to increase the US’s minimum wage to $15 an hour. And in an interview with the Guardian, Sanders and other lawmakers pushing for a higher minimum wage say the chances of enacting a $15 minimum are better than ever before now that President Joe Biden has called for a $15 federal minimum as part of his emergency Covid legislative package.

Raising the minimum to $15 would more than double the current $7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage, but many Republicans oppose the move, saying it would hurt business.

In an interview, Sanders, who championed a $15 minimum wage as a presidential candidate in 2016 and 2020, voiced excitement about the prospects of raising the minimum wage, which hasn’t increased since 2009, the longest stretch without an increase since Congress first enacted a minimum wage in 1938.

“This country faces an enormous economic crisis that is aggravated by the pandemic,” Sanders said. “We’re looking at terrible levels of unemployment. We’re looking at growing income and wealth inequality. What concerns me as much as anything is that half our people are living paycheck to paycheck. Millions of people are trying to survive on starvation wages. For me, it’s morally imperative that we raise the minimum wage to a living wage that’s at least $15 an hour.”

The House voted last July to raise the minimum wage to $15 in steps through 2025, but then Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell blocked a vote on it. With the White House, Senate and House under Democratic control, Sanders said the chances are good to enact a $15 minimum, although he said it would be hard to attract 10 Republican Senators to support it, making it hard to overcome a filibuster.

Sanders, the incoming chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, sees another route to passage, saying it could be done under the “budget reconciliation” – a process where measures deemed to have budgetary impact can be approved by simple majority vote.

“It clearly has to be done by reconciliation. That’s something I’m working very hard on,” said Sanders.

Mary Kay Henry, president of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which played a pivotal role in backing the Fight for $15, sees considerable momentum behind a $15 minimum.

That push has come a long way since the Fight for $15 began in 2012, when 200 fast-food workers in New York went on a one-day strike. “We are incredibly proud that the momentum around $15 solidified as part of the presidential campaign, and that the Biden-Harris administration is so committed to get it done that they’ve put it in the first action of Congress for Covid emergency relief,” Henry said. “There is wind at our backs.”

Rita Blalock: ‘I feel if it doesn’t pass in [Biden’s] first 100 days, it’s going to be swept under the rug.’ Photograph: Fight for $15 and a Union/NC Raise Up for $15

Henry noted that Raphael Warnock and John Ossoff campaigned for a $15 minimum in their successful Senate races in Georgia. Moreover, Florida voters, while backing Donald Trump, voted overwhelmingly – 61% to 39% – to raise that state’s minimum to $15 by 2026.

“A $15 minimum is the single most concrete way to reduce racial inequality, put money in people’s pockets and make material change in people’s lives,” Henry said. The Economic Policy Institute, a progressive thinktank, found that raising the minimum to $15 would help 25% of Black workers, 19.1% of Hispanic workers, 13.1% of White workers and 10.8% of Asian workers.

A Pew poll found that Americans favor increasing the minimum to $15, by 67% to 33%. Henry warned that “any elected official in Congress who dares to stand against us on this is going to pay a big political price”.

Rita Blalock, a McDonald’s cook in Raleigh, North Carolina, prays for a $15 minimum. Blalock, who earns $10 an hour after nearly 10 years at McDonald’s, said she often relies on food pantries and can’t afford her $200 rent every two weeks at a rooming house. “Fortunately, I can eat free at work,” said Blalock, whose work schedule has been cut to 20 hours many weeks.

Asked what a $15 minimum would mean, Blalock, 54, said: “Oh my God, I could afford rent. I could eat a little better. I could finally buy me some clothes.”

Blalock has participated in many of the Fight for $15’s one-day strikes. “I feel if it doesn’t pass in [Biden’s] first 100 days, it’s going to be swept under the rug,” she said.

A $15 minimum faces strong Republican opposition from senators including Pat Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania, who has said that “if the federal government mandates a universal $15 minimum wage, many low-income Americans will lose their current jobs and find fewer job opportunities in the future.”

Michael Saltsman, managing director of the Employment Policies Institute, a corporate-backed research group, also said it would be a bad time to enact a $15 minimum.

“You’ve got a lot of businesses hanging from a thread,” he said. “A $15 minimum is an irresponsible proposal at any time, and it’s particularly so right now.”

Saltsman said the Senate should not vote on a $15 minimum via reconciliation, arguing that its budgetary effect would be minimal. With the Senate divided 50-50, he questioned whether Democrats could muster 50 votes for a $15 minimum, suggesting that centrist Democrats like Joe Manchin of West Virginia might balk at it.

Bill Dauster, a top aide to former Senate majority leader Harry Reid, wrote in a recent editorial that raising the minimum would have clear budgetary effects and could be voted on through reconciliation.

Many Republicans say the federal minimum should remain at $7.25, leaving any increases to individual states. Walmart chief Doug McMillon says that if there is a minimum wage increase, it should take “geographic differences” into account, considering the differing costs of living in, say, California and Mississippi.

Noji Olaigbe, left, from the Fight for $15 movement, speaks during a workers’ strike at a McDonald’s in Fort Lauderdale in May 2019. Photograph: Miami Herald/TNS/Getty Images

The Congressional Budget Office forecast that 1.3 million workers would become jobless due to an increase to $15. That study also forecast that 27 million workers would receive pay increases thanks to a $15 minimum, and the number of people in poverty would decline by 1.3 million.

Arindrajit Dube, an economics professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, said a review of economic studies shows that “more ambitious minimum wage policies have yet to produce any clear impact on jobs, even though it has certainly raised wages and reduced inequality”.

“Overall, the body of literature shows it has very little effect on low-wage jobs,” Dube said. “My work shows it leads to a reduction in poverty and increased family earnings, and maybe 35¢ on the dollar goes back to the government through reduced public assistance.”

Differing with Dube, economists David Neumark and Peter Shirley, in a newly released review of minimum wage research, conclude that “most of the evidence indicates the opposite – that minimum wages reduce low-skilled employment,” with the strongest effects on teens, young adults and the less-educated.

Senator Sanders said it’s outrageous that the purchasing power of the minimum wage has declined 30% since the late 1960s. “The fact that President Biden moved aggressively on this is important to the workers who will benefit,” Sanders said.

“It signals to the entire country that workers cannot continue to live on starvation wages, and I hope that message gets out to employers all across the country.”

Biden signs more executive orders in effort to advance US racial equity

Joe Biden signed four more executive orders on Tuesday, as he aimed to fulfill a campaign promise to increase racial equity in the US

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© Provided by The Guardian Photograph: Getty Images

The orders were the latest in a volley since Biden’s inauguration as president last week, meant to undo the legacy of Donald Trump’s time in the White House. The new orders related to housing and criminal justice reform. Broadly, Biden and his aides framed it as a step in their broader hopes to heal racial tensions across the country. In a speech before he signed the orders Biden recalled the death of George Floyd, who was Black, at the hands of police.

“What many Americans didn’t see or simply refused to see couldn’t be ignored any longer,” Biden said. “Those eight minutes and 46 seconds that took George Floyd’s life opened the eyes to millions of Americans and millions of people all over the world. It was the knee on the neck of justice and it wouldn’t be forgotten. It stirred the consciousness in millions of Americans and in my view it marked a turning point in this country’s view toward racial justice.”© Photograph: Getty Images Joe Biden at the White House with Kamala Harris and the defense secretary, Lloyd Austin, on Monday. Biden has issued a run of executive orders in the first days of his presidency.

He also noted that the mob attack by Trump supporters on the US Capitol was just a few weeks ago.

“It’s just been weeks since all of America witnessed a group of thugs, insurrectionists, political extremists and white supremacists violently attack the Capitol of our democracy,” Biden said. “So now – now’s the time to act. It’s time to act because that’s what faith and morality calls us to do.”

“We’ll hold the federal government accountable for advancing racial equity for families across America,” said Susan Rice, Biden’s domestic policy council director.

Speaking at the White House daily briefing, the former Obama national security adviser and UN ambassador said Biden was looking to address some of the intractable problems facing US society. Throughout his campaign for the presidency, Biden promised to help Americans of color.

“Every agency will place equity at the core of their public engagement, their policy design and delivery,” Rice said, “to ensure that government resources are reaching Americans of color in all marginalized communities – rural, urban, disabled, LGBTQ+, religious minorities and so many others.

“The president has put equity at the center of his response to the Covid-19 and economic crises.”

Biden has issued a run of executive orders in the first days of his presidency, while Congress sorts out the balance of power and settles into its new configuration. On Monday night, Senate leaders announced an agreement over the filibuster, the voting threshold which protects minority rights. The deal allowed the new Democratic majority leader, Chuck Schumer to move ahead with preparations for handling Biden’s legislative agenda.

That agenda will compete for time and space with Trump’s second impeachment trial, sparked by his incitement of the attack on the Capitol on 6 January, which left five people dead. The trial is due to start after 8 February but senators were sworn in as jurors on Tuesday.

Conviction, and with it the possible barring of Trump from running for office again, will require a two-thirds majority, a high bar for a set of Republicans who have mostly voiced opposition to impeaching the former Republican president a second time.

Biden has said impeachment “has to happen”, despite worries it could hinder his push for legislation to tackle the Covid-19 pandemic, the economic crisis and other issues.

On Tuesday, the Senate followed its confirmations of defense secretary Lloyd Austin and treasury secretary Janet Yellen – who were both sworn in to office by the vice-president, Kamala Harris – by confirming Antony Blinken as Biden’s secretary of state.

As part of his attempt to reinvigorate the federal government after the Trump years, Biden picked Rice to run the domestic policy council – an obscure organization the new administration is looking to elevate in visibility as it handles issues like racial equity and immigration reform.

“These [orders] are a continuation of our initial steps to advance racial justice and equity through early executive action,” Rice told reporters on Tuesday. “Beyond this, the president is committed to working with Congress to advance equity in our economy, our criminal justice systems, our healthcare systems, and in our schools.”

One executive order directed the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to look at the effects of Trump administration actions on housing. Any actions that “undermined fair housing policies and laws” will prompt the implementation of new requirements set by the Fair Housing Act.

Another order planned to end the use of private prisons. Specifically, it directed the federal government not to renew contracts with such companies. A third order was concerned with “tribal sovereignty and consultation”, according to an administration handout. It will order the federal government to retain a dialogue with tribal governments.

The fourth Biden order was aimed at fighting xenophobia against Asian Americans and Pacific islanders. The order acknowledged the history of discrimination and harassment against those groups, and said the federal government would recognize “the harm that these actions have caused” and condemn xenophobic actions against those groups.

Biden also ordered the Department of Health and Human Services to weigh whether to issue guidance “to advance cultural competency” for these groups as part of the administration’s efforts to battle Covid-19. The executive order also directed the justice department to work with Asian American and Pacific island communities to fight harassment and hate crimes.

“These are desperate times for so many Americans and all Americans need urgent federal action to meet this moment,” Rice said.

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TELUS International prices public offering in bid to expand digital business

Telus Corp. will hit the road on Monday to try and woo investors for its public offering of subsidiary Telus International, as it spins off its customer experience business from its telecom offerings.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The US$958.3 million public offering for the subsidiary will bring on outside investors to boost its digital and artificial intelligence business, according to documents filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

Telus Corp. is the largest client and controlling shareholder of Telus International, and would own about two-thirds of Telus International after the public offering.

Telus International expects to price its shares between US$23 and US$25 each on the New York Stock Exchange, and the company will keep $493.9 million in proceeds. The IPO money will help it pay down debt, including debt raised to acquire other companies.

Investors would be buying into Telus' business for games, communications, media, e-commerce, fintech, health care and hospitality, as well as recently acquired data annotation company Lionbridge AI.

By opening the business to the public stock market, Telus is drawing back the curtain on a fast-growing part of its business.

Telus says that last year, the Telus International businesses made between US$95 million and US$102 million in net income. Telus International's revenue has grown to more than $1 billion in 2019 from $573.2 million in 2017. (Parent company Telus Corp. has $15.3 billion in annual revenue.)

The Telus International companies have about 600 clients, including Uber, TikTok, PayPal, MasterCard, Wix Fitbit, TransUnion and Zara. Social games company Zynga, initially worked with Telus to do customer support for the game Farmville, and now works with Telus on its current portfolio of games, which includes Words with Friends.

Two of Telus International's biggest customers are Telus Corp. itself, which represented 26 per cent of revenue in 2019, and Google, which was about 12 per cent of sales. Another client, a "leading social media company," represented about 16 per cent of sales in the first nine months of last year.

Telus International lists its competitors as consulting services and IT companies as well as "traditional" contact centre and outsourcing companies.

Lionbridge AI labels text, images, videos and audio in more than 300 languages for social media, search, retail and mobile. In its prospectus, Telus International describes building bots, an engineer-to-engineer support system for Google, moderating social media sites and using "gamer culture" in its customer support for video game players.

"Customers are increasingly choosing experience over product and price, and are willing to pay more for positive customer service experiences," the company says in its filings for prospective investors.

The company, which operates in 20 countries and 50 languages, says it has also bet that some of its services can be provided between "offshore" and "nearshore" businesses. The filings warn potential investors, for example, that it could pose a risk to the business if Lionbridge's crowdsourcing work requires hiring independent contractors as employees.

While the "work from anywhere" model could benefit Telus International, as companies restructure, the filings also warned that clients' outsourcing demands "might be lower in the future, as some of our clients might decide to refrain from offshore / nearshore outsourcing due to the pressures they face from increased domestic unemployment resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic."

The stock would trade on both the New York and Toronto stock exchanges under the symbol TIXT. After the IPO, Baring Private Equity Asia will hold about 31.5 per cent of voting power in Telus International.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 25, 2021.

Companies in this story: (TSX:T)

Anita Balakrishnan, The Canadian Press

Chipotle will air its first Super Bowl ad touting the farmers who supply its food

Chipotle will air its first Super Bowl ad this year to highlight the practices of its supply chain.

The hefty price tag of the airtime and the difficulty in striking the right tone in advertising has led many big brands to sit out the game this year.

But Chipotle is one of the rare winners of the coronavirus pandemic, thanks to its strong digital sales.

© Provided by CNBC A still from Chipotle's

Chipotle Mexican Grill will run its first-ever Super Bowl ad this year to highlight the farming practices of its suppliers.

Big brands like Coca-Cola and Budweiser are sitting out the game this year, freeing up airtime for newcomers like Chipotle. A 30-second commercial during the football game will set companies back about $5.5 million this year, slightly less than 2020′s rate of roughly $5.6 million.

Chipotle is one of the rare winners of the coronavirus pandemic from the restaurant industry. The burrito chain has seen its digital sales more than triple in its last two quarters, and its stock has soared 72% in the last year, raising its market value to $41.9 billion.

However, the pandemic also presents new difficulties to advertisers, who will have to worry about striking the right tone when the football game's commercials typically skew toward comedic and star studded.

Chipotle's ad aims to keep customers coming back to its restaurants by focusing on its "food with integrity" pledge and how it sources its ingredients. In the commercial, a boy asks if a burrito can change the world, from emitting less carbon to making farmers happier, while showing images of peppers and tomatoes being grown, picked and transported.

In a release announcing the news, Chipotle said that it believes that the pandemic has shifted consumers toward a "community-focused society," making them more aware of the impact of where and how they spend their dollars.

"We want to use this massive platform to help shift attention toward creating positive change for the challenges our food system faces and educate consumers on how they can make a difference," Chief Marketing Officer Chris Brandt said in a statement.

On Super Bowl Sunday, Chipotle will donate a dollar from every order to the National Young Farmers Coalition, an advocacy group for young farmers, and customers who order from the chain's website or app won't have to pay a delivery fee.

For years, the company and its foundation have contributed millions of dollars to support U.S. farmers. Chipotle donates 5% of the profits from the Tractor Beverages drinks sold at its locations to causes that benefit farmers.

TC Energy and Alberta face long odds if they sue U.S. government over cancelled Keystone XL

© Provided by Financial Post Some financial analysts believe the best course of action for TC Energy is to abandon Keystone XL after spending 12 years trying to get it built.

CALGARY – TC Energy Corp. is now weighing its options after stopping work on its cancelled Keystone XL pipeline project, but any attempt to sue the United States government over the scrapped project has little chance of succeeding, legal experts say.

Following Joe Biden’s inauguration as U.S. president Wednesday, he took the widely expected step of cancelling the cross-border permit for the US$14.4-billion, Alberta-to-Texas heavy oil pipeline through an executive order.

The decision marks the third time a U.S. president has blocked the Keystone XL pipeline, which requires a presidential permit to cross the U.S. border: Barack Obama vetoed the line twice before Donald Trump issued a permit while in office.

Now, Biden has dealt what could be the final blow for the 830,000-barrels-per-day oil pipeline project that has been in regulatory purgatory and endless litigation since it was first proposed in 2008.

TC Energy in a release Wednesday said it was disappointed with the decision and will consider the company’s options. The Calgary-based pipeline giant also suspended work on the project and announced it expects to record a “substantive, predominantly non-cash after-tax charge to earnings in the first quarter of 2021.”

TC Energy halts Keystone XL pipeline project

Joe Biden's blocking of Keystone XL threatens to end the era of mega pipelines

Trudeau vows to keep up the fight to sway U.S. on merits of Keystone XL pipeline

Some financial analysts believe the best course of action for TC Energy is to abandon Keystone XL after spending 12 years trying to get it built and focus on other growth projects, including those in its natural gas business and power projects.

RBC Dominion Securities Inc. analyst Robert Kwan said in a note that walking away from the project “is likely the best-case scenario,” but attempting to recover costs through litigation is a “free option” for the company.

TC Energy did not indicate whether it would seek damages as it did in 2016 when Obama vetoed the pipeline, but has signalled a willingness to pursue other projects.

“Our base continues to perform very well and, aside from Keystone XL, we are advancing $25 billion of secured capital projects along with a robust portfolio of other similarly high quality opportunities under development,” chief executive Francois Poirier said in a release.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney earlier this week indicated his government would file lawsuits seeking damages from the U.S. for cancelling the pipeline, in which the province took an ownership stake in 2020.

“I believe this is without precedent for an American administration to retroactively seek to cancel a piece of infrastructure, a border crossing, that already exists,” he said.

Energy and international trade lawyers said TC Energy and the Alberta government have a few options if they want to seek damages, including suing the Biden administration in federal court and/or launching a Chapter 11 case under the old North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). Both are widely considered long shots.

A Chapter 11 complaint allows companies to challenge decisions by states and the provision to do so has been grandfathered into the new United States–Mexico–Canada Agreement (USMCA) until 2023, meaning that Alberta and TC Energy will need to file their complaints before then.

“Nothing is ever done in American law. TC Energy has been at this long enough that they should know that,” said Mark Warner, an international trade lawyer and principal at MAAW Law in Toronto. “They could file a complaint under the old Chapter 11 and make a case that this was arbitrary and a denial of due process.”

TC Energy tried both a Chapter 11 challenge and a federal lawsuit the last time the pipeline was blocked in 2016, but both suits were dropped when Trump permitted the pipeline.

“They already have those (lawsuits) drafted. Presumably, they could file the same lawsuit and the same NAFTA claim,” said James Coleman, an energy law professor at Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law in Dallas.

Coleman said both cases would require some updating given the new circumstances and could have their merits, but the odds are against both TC Energy and the Alberta government because the U.S. has never lost a Chapter 11 case and paid damages.

“Even if it’s stronger than the average argument, no argument has ever been successful in winning compensation from the U.S. under NAFTA,” he said.

The language contained in the presidential permit issued by Trump, as well as the weakened provisions for seeking damages in the new USMCA trade agreement, will make it very challenging for Keystone XL proponents to challenge Biden’s decision, said Stephen Vaughn, a partner in the international trade team at King & Spalding LLP in Washington D.C., and previously general counsel for the U.S. Trade Representative.

The amended presidential permit Trump signed on July 29, 2020, specifically states Keystone’s “permit may be terminated, revoked, or amended at any time at the sole discretion of the President, with or without advice provided by any executive department or agency.”

Vaughn said it’s highly unlikely that either legal arguments or diplomatic overtures will change Biden’s position on Keystone XL.

“I think the view down here is that anything the president announces on day one, the president is pretty dug in on that,” Vaughn said. “I’m not aware of any presidents that did something on day one and then 90 days later think, ‘That was a mistake and I shouldn’t have done that.’”

• Email: gmorgan@nationalpost.com | Twitter: geoffreymorgan

Canadian pension funds hunt for pandemic real estate bargains

By Maiya Keidan

© Reuters/CHRIS HELGREN FILE PHOTO: 

The downtown skyline and CN Tower are seen past cranes in the waterfront area of Toronto

TORONTO (Reuters) - Canadian pension funds are seeking to boost their real estate investments, betting the slumping property market will recover as the COVID-19 pandemic recedes and office workers and city dwellers return to downtown properties.

Canadian pension funds held $278.7 billion in property assets in 2019, up 4% from 2018, according to the Pension Investment Association of Canada, making them the country's largest real estate owners.

In a world of slower economic growth, very low interest rates, volatility in equity markets, real estate offers an attractive opportunity for pension funds, which take a long-term investment horizon, say market participants.

"We're looking for buying opportunities," said Hilary Spann, Head of Americas, Real Estate at CPP Investments, which manages $456.7 billion. CPP's real estate portfolio generated 5.1% return for the year ended March 2020.

CPP announced a U.S. joint venture with Greystar Real Estate Portfolio to build multiple separate housing units this month, a deal that was initiated pre-pandemic.

In November, it signed an agreement with Hudson Pacific Properties to acquire an office tower in Seattle. Spann said a lot of buyers that would have been competitive in the Seattle deal were temporarily on the sidelines. "So we were able to step in and pick up that asset at yields that we thought were quite attractive."

OFFICE VACANCIES CLIMB

As the pandemic forced many staff to work from home, the office vacancy rate in Canada hit a 16-year high of 13.4% in 2020, according to data from broker CBRE. Downtown offices were hit harder.

"I think pension funds are very well aware that...there are times when values dip a bit and vacancies go up but overallreal estate assets are a great part of any pension fund portfolio," Paul Morassutti, CBRE Canada Vice Chairman said.

CPP's Spann said while both rental markets and office may suffer in the short-term, it was expected that both markets would return when the pandemic comes to an end.

"Office may fall in the short term but in the long term, as everybody does start coming back to the office, I think it’s fair to say you may see a reversal," she said, adding that the things that made places like New York and San Francisco vibrant will remain.

Kristopher Wojtecki, Managing Director, Real Estate at PSP Investments, told Reuters the fund had been increasing exposure in select sectors including single family rental and production studio real estate during the pandemic.

However, Canada's second-largest pension fund, Caisse de depot et placement du Quebec, is taking a contrarian approach. A spokeswoman for Ivanhoé Cambridge, the real estate subsidiary of Caisse, said the fund is cutting exposure in traditional asset classes and prioritising opportunities in growth sectors which include logistics and residential office buildings among others.

Grant McGlaughlin, partner at law firm Fasken, said he did not see any drastic moves on pension funds getting rid of their real estate portfolios.

"I think that's the right thesis that there is no point selling into a low," he said.

(Reporting by Maiya Keidan; Editing by Denny Thomas and David Gregorio)

Stellantis' Tavares launches charm offensive with Italian unions

MILAN (Reuters) - Stellantis Chief Executive Carlos Tavares is touring the group's Italian plants, getting relations with local unions off to a good start as the newly-formed automaker seeks over 5 billion euros ($6.1 billion) a year in savings

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© Reuters/Regis Duvignau FILE PHOTO:

 Carlos Tavares, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Managing Board of PSA Group, attends the Tomorrow In Motion event on the eve of press day at the Paris Auto Show

The world's fourth-biggest carmaker was officially created on Saturday from the merger of Fiat Chrysler (FCA) and Peugeot-maker PSA, with former PSA boss Tavares becoming group CEO.

FCA and PSA pledged to achieve the savings without closing any plants, and Tavares earlier this week also committed to not cutting jobs.

In a gesture welcomed by Italy's unions, the CEO is visiting some of the group's main production sites in the country: Turin's Mirafiori on Wednesday, Melfi in the south on Thursday and Cassino in the centre on Friday.

Marco Lomio of the UILM union in the Basilicata region, where Melfi is located, said Tavares took time to listen to and answer all questions.

"It had never happened that a CEO had sat down to take questions from representatives at such a grassroot level," he said.

FCA CEO "Mike Manley had never paid us a visit at the plant. Tavares seems to be more in line with the style of former CEO Sergio Marchionne," Lomio added.

Earlier in the week, Tavares held a virtual meeting with the heads of Italy's national metalworker unions. The meeting was scheduled shortly after it was requested and was seen as an "act of respect" by Francesca Re David, who leads leftist metalworker union FIOM.

"It is important that he met all the unions and that he highlighted the need to invest in intellect, creativity and skills of Italian workers," she said.

Italy and France are Stellantis' two main production hubs in Europe, but Italian unions fear that after the merger the group's centre of gravity could shift towards Paris.

(Reporting by Giulio Piovaccari. Editing by Mark Potter)