CANADA

Residential School Survivors' stories and experiences must be remembered as class action settlement finishes

Cindy Hanson, Professor, Dept of Sociology and Social Studies, University of Regina, Curtis J Shuba, Research Associate, Sociology and Social Studies, University of Regina, and Sidey Deska-Gauthier, Research Associate, Political Science, University of Guelph

March 31 marks the conclusion of the largest class action settlement in Canada’s history. After 14 years, the Independent Assessment Process (IAP) — a compensation process established to resolve claims of serious physical, sexual or emotional abuse suffered at Indian residential schools — is officially over.

Students of the Metlakatla Indian Residential School, B.C.
© (William James Topley. Library and Archives Canada, C-015037) 

Despite the fact that it collected claims from more than 38,000 Indian residential school survivors, the IAP remains relatively unknown.

The court-ordered destruction of IAP testimonies and records, the biased and superficial mainstream news media reports and the continued emphasis on compensation and costs ensure that if it is remembered, it will be through a colonial gaze.

This gaze represents the perspective through which the process is framed, what is explicitly valued or absent, and whose story is remembered: the colonial narrative is privileged and the Indigenous voice limited.

Our national study seeks to understand perspectives and the framing of the IAP to create public knowledge, in the wake of the destruction of records. The study analyzes government documents (Hansard Index, the traditional name of the transcripts of Parliamentary debates), national and Indigenous media, along with transcripts produced through interviews and focus groups with survivors, health support workers, adjudicators, judges and lawyers. The results presented here are preliminary.

Read more: Residential school literature can teach the colonial present and imagine better futures

A bit of background

Of the 38,000 survivors who applied to the IAP, almost 27,000 attended adjudications — an out-of-court process. The adjudication gave survivors the opportunity to tell their story of abuse to an adjudicator and government representative, with optional supports including a lawyer, health support worker, elder, translator or family. The fate of the records and testimonies from these hearings — 800,000 documents — was decided by the Supreme Court of Canada in 2017.

The court upheld the position of the Indian Residential School Adjudication Secretariat, the body responsible for administering the IAP, that the testimonies would be destroyed unless individual survivors decided to claim or share their records. Currently only a handful of survivors have requested their transcripts or offered to make (sometimes redacted) versions publicly accessible through the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR). In 2027, any remaining survivor testimonies and records will be destroyed.

In January 2020 an Ontario Superior Court ruling blocked the creation of static reports. These included information the secretariat gathered during the IAP about variables like the child’s age and sex, particularities of residential schools, types of abuses and community impacts. The case was appealed by the NCTR and the Ontario Court of Appeal’s judgment is pending.

Coverage of the IAP: Colonial and wanting

Media coverage of the IAP is sparse. Preliminary results of our study reveal a focus on the trials and tribulations of a bureaucratic process that attempted to combine class action law with reconciliation-based gestures. Lost in this narrative is the survivors’ lived experiences within the IAP and a critical evaluation of the IAP’s overarching goals: healing and reconciliation.

Through our study, “Reconciling Perspectives and Building Public Memory: Learning from the Independent Assessment Process,” we established factors that played key roles in healing: giving testimony, and supporting, believing and validating the survivors. This perspective was largely forgotten by the media and instead reports often focused on the credibility of survivors’ claims of abuse, financial compensations and court cases. It was, however, acknowledged in the IAP’s final report.

© (Bud Glunz/Library and Archives Canada, PA-134110) 

Cree students sit in class at All Saints Indian Residential School 

in Lac La Ronge, Sask., in March 1945.

The dominant narrative conflated success of the IAP with compensation. For example, the secretariat reported success when the claimant garnered a cash settlement (89 per cent success rate with an average of $91,000 in compensation). And although compensation metrics are certainly one indicator of success, the experiences of survivors telling their stories are key to considering the IAP’s larger goals.

The defensive posture of the federal government recently surfaced. An independent review of claims (specifically those from St. Anne’s Indian Residential School) was recently announced following critiques by survivors and public officials like former senator Murray Sinclair and MP Charlie Angus.

Elected officials in the House of Commons had an opportunity to contribute to public memory based on meaningful reconciliation, but it was largely swept away in partisan politics. Looking at Hansard Index debates from 2004-19, we found the IAP was discussed only 28 times.

Read more: Indian day school survivors are seeking truth and justice

The significance of Indian residential school abuses, the damage the system did to families and communities, the litigation and compensation settlements that came after the IAP can only be fully comprehended within Canada’s long history of denial of Indigenous human and gender rights.

The move from explicit systems of violence to concealed structures of domination cannot be mistaken for reconciliation. We must examine the ways in which Indigenous rights are both explicitly and implicitly advanced or denied: this was highlighted in an earlier IAP study that found that although residential schools taught girls domestic tasks, unpaid work caring for children was not acknowledged or compensated in the IAP model.

Remembering for a common future

We fear additional tragedies are inevitable without abundant data regarding abuse factors, or intergenerational and community impacts. These data add a quantifiable dimension to the horrors of residential schools and remind us of the consequences of racist public policy. Such policy is not just about the individuals impacted; it affects the consciousness of collectives and communities.

Public records are valuable for understanding how public memory is created, and who is directing its narrative. Unless attention is paid to the ways in which the media and Canada continue to decentre Indigenous voices and experiences the colonial gaze will endure.

How residential schools and the IAP are remembered is not only relevant to Canada’s identity but for government-Indigenous and public-Indigenous relations, now and into the future.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Cindy Hanson received funding from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council (Insight Grant) for the study this article is based on.

Curtis J Shuba is a paid research associate on this SSHRC Insight Grant (on which this article is based).

Sidey Deska-Gauthier is a paid research associate on this SSHRC Insight Grant (on which this article is based).

Scientists: Grizzlies expand turf but still need protection

The bears now occupy about 6% of their historical range in the contiguous U.S., up from 2% in 1975.

BILLINGS, Mont. — Grizzly bears are slowly expanding the turf where they roam in parts of the northern Rocky Mountains but need continued protections, according to government scientists who concluded that no other areas of the country would be suitable for reintroducing the fearsome predators.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday released its first assessment in almost a decade about the status of grizzly bears in the contiguous U.S. The bruins are shielded from hunting as a threatened species except in Alaska.

BOTH PARKS BORDER ON CANADA BEARS KNOW NO BORDERS
Grizzly populations grew over the past 10 years in two areas — the Yellowstone region of Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, with more than 700 bears; and around Glacier National Park in Montana, which is home to more than 1,000 of the animals.

Grizzly numbers remain low in other parts of the Northern Rockies, and scientists said their focus is on bolstering those populations rather than reintroducing them elsewhere in the country.

The bears now occupy about 6% of their historical range in the contiguous U.S., up from 2% in 1975.

Conservationists and some university scientists have pushed to return bears to areas including Colorado’s San Juan Mountains and California’s Sierra Nevada.

The 368-page assessmen t makes no recommendation on the topic, but scientists looked at the possibility of bears in more areas as part of an examination of their remaining habitat.

That analysis showed grizzlies would be unable to sustain themselves in the San Juans, the Sierra Nevada or two other areas -- Utah’s Uinta Mountains and New Mexico’s Mongollon Mountains.

“They were looking for areas that could sustain grizzly bears as opposed to areas that would continuously need for humans to drop bears in there,” said Hilary Cooley, the Fish and Wildlife Service's grizzly bear recovery co-ordinator.

In each case, officials said, bears would face the same challenge — not enough remote, protected public lands, high densities of humans and little chance of connecting with other bears populations to maintain healthy populations.

An estimated 50,000 grizzlies once inhabited western North America from the Pacific Ocean to the Great Plains. Hunting, commercial trapping and habitat loss wiped out most by the early 1900s. The bears were last seen in California in the 1920s and the last known grizzly in Colorado was killed by an elk hunter in 1979.

Grizzly bears have been protected as a threatened species in the contiguous U.S. since 1975, allowing a slow recovery in a handful of areas. An estimated 1,900 live in the Northern Rockies of Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Washington state.

The Center for Biological Diversity sued the Fish and Wildlife Service in 2019 in a bid to force officials to consider restoring grizzlies to parts of seven more western states. A U.S. District judge ruled last year that the government was not compelled to draft recovery plans for the bears in new areas.

Protections for bears in the Yellowstone region were lifted under former President Donald Trump but later restored under a court order just as Idaho and Wyoming prepared to hold public hunts for grizzlies for the first time in decades. Five Republican U.S. senators from the region this week introduced legislation to strip protection from Yellowstone-area bears and put them under state jurisdiction.

Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso said in a statement that President Joe Biden's administration had missed an opportunity Wednesday to declare restoration efforts in the region a success and lift protections.

Biologists say Yellowstone grizzlies are “biologically-recovered." But an appeals court last year said the government had not done enough to make sure hunting and other pressures don’t reduce the population size in the future to where the bears’ genetic health could be harmed.

Centre for Biological Diversity attorney Andrea Zaccardi said state officials, hunting groups and the agriculture industry had too much influence on decisions about bears made under Trump. She urged officials under Biden to take a “less politically-motivated look at grizzly bear recovery.”

Wyoming ranchers who want grizzlies under state control sided with the government in the legal dispute over where bears should be restored. They would oppose any attempt by the new administration to reverse course, said Will Trachman with Mountain States Legal Foundation, which represents the ranchers.

“We hope they won't roll over on their own victory,” he said.

Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, who oversees Fish and Wildlife Service, co-sponsored legislation while in Congress to increase protections for bears and reintroduce them on tribal lands. Haaland declined to say how she would approach the issue when questioned during her February confirmation hearings.

“I imagine at the time I was caring about the bears,” she said.

Matthew Brown, The Associated Press

A new survey suggests grizzly bear numbers in Alberta's central Rocky Mountains have doubled since 2005.   

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The survey says there are about 88 grizzlies in 7,300 square kilometres of summits and foothills between the Trans-Canada Highway and Highway 11 roughly 200 kilometres to the north. That's up from 42 bears in 2005.

"That population has doubled," said Gordon Stenhouse, the biologist who led the survey done between 2005 and 2018.

The results follow an earlier survey in another region that saw bear populations double. That work, also by Stenhouse, found that grizzly numbers in the northern Rockies had increased to 74 from 36 between 2004 and 2014.

Stenhouse also released a survey of bears in the Swan Hills region in northwestern Alberta. He estimated 62 bears live there — "more bears than we thought were there," Stenhouse said.

The new survey didn't include Banff National Park. Parks Canada says 62 bears live in the park at least some of the time.

Stenhouse's tally was done by setting up scent lures of rotting cattle blood mixed with canola oil and surrounding them with barbed wire. The bears climbed over or under the wire and left tufts of hair behind, which were then subjected to DNA analysis.

Stenhouse credits two main factors for the bruin boom: "Not as many bears being killed and food resources are plentiful."

Alberta ended its grizzly hunt in 2006, which removed a major cause of bear deaths.

Logging has also created a younger, more open forest favourable to bears, Stenhouse said.

"When you have more young forest, you have more young whitetail deer and moose and species that are associated with younger forest stands. Those are prey items for grizzly bears."

Stenhouse credits the industry with logging in ways that are easier on bears.

"Much more attention has gone into road planning and access management. (Foresters) have been using some of the research tools that we've generated."

The younger forest does create problems of its own.

Some species, including caribou and weasels, need old forests. Forestry also creates roads and more access for humans is generally bad news for wildlife.

"But as long as we can keep human-caused mortality down, it looks like bear foods and habitat are doing OK," Stenhouse said.

"This is great news for grizzly bears," said Aerin Jacob, a biologist with the Y2Y Initiative, which works to preserve wildlife corridors from Yellowstone in the United States to Yukon.

But prime bear habitat has to be balanced with other forest stands that support different species, she said.

"We need to maintain natural variability."

Forests are also coming under increased pressure from recreational and industrial users. Permitted roads for coal exploration, for example, already exceed limits in Alberta's grizzly bear recovery plan in some parts of the animal's range.

"Some of the ways we have to focus conservation efforts are about roads and about human-wildlife coexistence," said Jacob. "We know very clearly that more roads is bad news."

Provincial statistics from 2009-18 show that 129 of 208 human-caused grizzly deaths were accidental or as a result of illegal kills — both related to roads.

Jacob said it's also important to keep the big picture in mind.

"This might be good news in a couple of these bear management areas, but let's think about how grizzly bears are doing overall and how much of their habitat has been lost overall."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 31, 2021.

— Follow @row1960 on Twitter

Bob Weber, The Canadian Press

Reversing Trump, Pentagon to release new transgender policy


WASHINGTON — The Pentagon on Wednesday will sweep away Trump-era policies that largely banned transgender people from serving in the military, issuing new rules that offer them wider access to medical care and assistance with gender transition, defence officials told The Associated Press.

© Provided by The Canadian PressThe new department regulations allow transgender people who meet military standards to enlist and serve openly in their self-identified gender, and they will be able to get medically necessary transition-related care authorized by law, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal decisions not yet made public.

The changes come after a two-month Pentagon review aimed at developing guidelines for the new policy, which was announced by President Joe Biden just days after he took office in January.

Biden's executive order overturned the Trump policy and immediately prohibited any service member from being forced out of the military on the basis of gender identity. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin then gave the Pentagon two months to finalize the more detailed regulations that the military services will follow.

The new rules also prohibit discrimination based on gender identity. Their expected release Wednesday coincides with International Transgender Day of Visibility.

Austin has also called for a reexamination of the records of service members who were discharged or denied reenlistment because of gender identity issues under the previous policy. Results of that review have not been released.

Until a few years ago, service members could be discharged from the military for being transgender, but that changed during the Obama administration. In 2016, the Pentagon announced that transgender people already serving in the military would be allowed to serve openly, and that by July 2017, they would be allowed to enlist.

After Donald Trump took office, however, his administration delayed the enlistment date and called for additional study. A few weeks later, Trump caught military leaders by surprise, tweeting that the government wouldn’t accept or allow transgender people to serve “in any capacity” in the military.

After a lengthy and complicated legal battle and additional reviews, the Defence Department in April 2019 approved a policy that fell short of an all-out ban but barred transgender troops and recruits from transitioning to another sex and required most individuals to serve in what the administration called their “birth gender.”

Under that policy, currently serving transgender troops and anyone who had signed an enlistment contract before the effective date could continue with plans for hormone treatments and gender transition if they had been diagnosed with gender dysphoria.

But after that date, no one with gender dysphoria who was taking hormones or had transitioned to another gender was allowed to enlist. Troops that were already serving and were diagnosed with gender dysphoria were required to serve in the gender assigned at birth and were barred from taking hormones or getting transition surgery.

The new policies being released Wednesday are similar to those developed in 2016.

As of 2019, an estimated 14,700 troops on active duty and in the reserves identify as transgender, but not all seek treatment. There are more than 1.3 million active-duty troops and close to 800,000 in the National Guard and Reserves.

Since July 2016, more than 1,500 service members were diagnosed with gender dysphoria; as of Feb. 1, 2019, there were 1,071 currently serving. According to the Pentagon, the department spent about $8 million on transgender care from 2016 to 2019. The military’s annual health care budget tops $50 billion.

All four service chiefs told Congress in 2018 that they had seen no discipline, morale or unit readiness problems with transgender troops serving openly in the military. But they also acknowledged that some commanders were spending a lot of time with transgender people who were working through medical requirements and other transition issues.

Lolita C. Baldor, The Associated Press

WHEN WILL BIDEN #ABOLISHICE

Violations at ICE facility in 2020 threatened 

the health and safety of detainees, watchdog report says

By Priscilla Alvarez, CNN

CHEMICAL WEAPONS USED ON CIVILIANS 

© LPCC/Department of Homeland Security In this image from video surveillance footage, provided by La Palma Correctional Center staff and released in the DHS report, LPCC staff are seen firing pepper spray and chemical agents at detainees in an LPCC housing area on April 13, 2020.

Detainees at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention center in Arizona filed hundreds of grievances about mistreatment, including use-of-force incidents, according to a watchdog report released Thursday, which concluded that violations threatened the health, safety and rights of those at the facility.

During its inspection last year, the Department of Homeland Security inspector general found "serious concerns regarding detainee care and treatment." For example, in one instance, a detainee who is a cancer patient ran out of leukemia medication after the medical staff did not order a refill on time.



Last April, detainees also held a peaceful protest, stemming from the center not providing sufficient personal protective equipment to avoid the spread of Covid-19, according to the report. The facility responded by deploying chemical agents from the ceiling and fired pepper spray from handheld devices, the watchdog report says.

Between August and November 2020, the DHS inspector general conducted an unannounced, remote inspection of La Palma Correctional Center in Eloy, Arizona, as well as viewed surveillance video from areas within the facility, and interviewed ICE personnel, officials at the center, and detainees. At the start of the inspection, the center housed 1,156 ICE detainees.

Last summer, the center, owned and operated by CoreCivic, came under scrutiny when lawyers disseminated a letter from detainees detailing dangerous conditions in custody as coronavirus spread. "We're begging for your help because this is a life or death situation," stated the letter, which was purportedly signed by 70 detainees held at the La Palma Correctional Center.

"Fundamentally, it's time to start closing some of these facilities, starting with the ones with the most egregious track record," Jorge Loweree, policy director at the American Immigration Council, told CNN. "This report outlines the inability of people with chronic illnesses to obtain necessary medication to treat those illnesses. That's inexcusable."

Surveillance footage images included in the report show the pepper spray incident. In one image, detainees are sitting on the floor in an open area. Another image, from the same day, shows the center's staff, outfitted in helmets and all-black gear, firing pepper spray and chemical agents at detainees.

"A detainee told us he suffered injuries from pepper balls fired by facility staff, but felt too intimidated to file a report about the incident through proper channels," the report reads.

Six grievances were ultimately filed over the incidents. The facility denied or rejected them.

In 27 reported use-of-force incidents at the facility between February and August 24, 2020, 11 included facility staff using chemical agents "to gain detainee compliance," according to the report.

The report also details grievances filed by detainees, including an instance of an officer cursing at a detainee, calling him a racial slur, threatening him with pepper spray, then hanging up his telephone call with family. While the center required staff responsible for detainee mistreatment to complete training on professionalism, they returned to their prior assignments.

The inspector general also addressed concerns relating to Covid-19 precautions. While officials took some measures to prevent spread, like serving meals in detainee housing areas and restricting visitation and services, they did not ensure detainees wore masks and were socially distanced, according to the report.

Some detainees said they didn't receive any masks, others said they only received one. ICE guidance from September 2020, however, had said "cloth face coverings should be worn by detainees and staff to help slow the spread of COVID-19," the report said.

There have been 767 Covid-19 cases at the facility, according to ICE data.

The medical unit was also "critically understaffed," the inspector general found, which hindered the facility's ability to provide care to detainees. In a random selection of sick call requests from February to August 24, 2020, detainees waited an average of 3.35 days to receive care, with some requests taking longer than 3 days for a response or treatment, according to the report.

"Nonetheless, waiting days or weeks to provide medical care to detainees for acute sick call issues violates the standard for timely follow-up to detainee health needs. Delayed responses to complaints of symptoms of COVID-19 also risk the spread of the virus at the facility," the report says.

The inspector general's recommendations include action to address use of force incidents and allegations of detainee mistreatment by staff, that the center provide appropriate facial coverings and social distancing, and ensure detainees in segregation are provided required services.

The list also includes refilling and administering detainees' medication, addressing and logging grievances, and providing appropriate access to ICE deportation officers.

In its response to the report, ICE agreed with some, but not all of the recommendations. The agency said, for example, that the report didn't identify whether use-of-force incidents violated guidelines, adding that staff responsible for mistreatment received "remedial action," and said the center is in compliance with CDC guidelines relating to the coronavirus pandemic and increased inventory of personal protective equipment.

"ICE is also concerned that the OIG's draft report omits necessary context in several instances, without which a reader may assume that violations of the standards had occurred, when in fact, none occurred," the agency's response, which is included in the report, reads, citing the understaffed medical unit and noting that the facility wasn't at full capacity.

In a statement, Amanda Gilchrist, spokeswoman for CoreCivic, said: "We agree with feedback provided by ICE that the OIG report has it wrong about LPCC in more ways than it has it right. We operate every day in a challenging environment that was made all the more difficult by a pandemic with which the entire world has and continues to struggle with. We always appreciate the feedback and accountability that our partners provide, and we strive every day to do better in our service to them and the people in our care."

ICE agreed with recommendations relating to medical services.

This story has been updated with comment from CoreCivic.

Nuclear Power/IAEA Fast Facts
CNN Editorial Research

Here's a look at the International Atomic Energy Agency and nuclear power.

© Courtesy David de Rueda "This is inside the cooling tower of a nuclear power plant in Chernobyl that was never completed," explained De Rueda. "Cooling towers are impressive from the outside but even more so from the inside."

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspects nuclear and related facilities under safeguard agreements. Most agreements are with countries that have committed to not possessing nuclear weapons. The IAEA is the verification authority to enforce the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT).

Other Facts

The IAEA has 172 member states (as of September 17, 2020).

Rafael Grossi has been the director general of the IAEA since December 3, 2019.

There are 35 member countries on the IAEA Board of Governors, which meets five times a year.

The IAEA has about 2,500 employees.

IAEA safeguard programs monitor nuclear reactors to make sure nuclear material is not being diverted for making weapons.

The IAEA sends out inspectors to monitor reactors.

The IAEA helps countries prepare and respond to emergencies.


Current status of the nuclear industry

There are more than 440 nuclear power reactors in operation.

There are more than 50 nuclear power reactors under construction.

There are more than 90 operational nuclear reactors in the United States.

France has a 70.6% share of nuclear power to total electricity generation, the highest percentage of nuclear energy in the world.


Timeline

1939 - Nuclear fission is discovered.

1942 - The world's first nuclear chain reaction takes place in Chicago as part of the Manhattan Project, a US research program aimed at developing the first nuclear weapons.

July 16, 1945 - The United States conducts its first nuclear weapons test in New Mexico.

August 6, 1945 - An atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshima, Japan.

August 9, 1945 - An atomic bomb is dropped on Nagasaki, Japan.

August 29, 1949 - The Soviet Union conducts its first nuclear weapons test.

December 1951 - Electricity is first generated from a nuclear reactor at the National Reactor Testing Station in Idaho.

October 3, 1952 - The United Kingdom conducts its first nuclear weapons test.

December 8, 1953 - In a speech to the United Nations General Assembly, President Dwight D. Eisenhower asks the world's major powers to work together in developing peacetime uses of the atom. This is known as the Atoms for Peace program, and 40 countries participate. Also during this speech, Eisenhower proposes the creation of an international agency to monitor the spread of nuclear technology.

June 26, 1954 - In the Soviet Union, the first nuclear power plant is connected to an electricity grid to provide power to residences and businesses in a town near Moscow.

 1954 GODZILLA ARISES FROM  NUCLEAR EXPERIMENT

Godzilla and the Changing Contract Between Science and Society

https://epublications.regis.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1540&... · PDF file

(1954). In the film, Godzilla is an allegorical figure warning the public about the dangers of nuclear technology. Godzilla himself was presented as a product of H-bomb tests, a direct consequence of nuclear technology, and the allegory is clear in the first film. In this context, the film was meant to be a …

• Author: Stefanie T. Maletich

• Publish Year: 2011

Gojira (1954) | Atomic Heritage Foundation

https://www.atomicheritage.org/history/gojira-1954

2018-11-14 · Gojira, or Godzilla, has been one of the most enduring and iconic kaiju (Japanese giant monsters) in popular culture. Undoubtedly, the the monster created from an H-bomb blast has captured the Gojira (1954) | Atomic Heritage Foundation

godzilla | Nuclear Horror History

https://nuclearhorrorhistory.wordpress.com/tag/godzilla

The ultimate political commentary of the film remains unknown, but the trailers show something lacking in the 1954 Godzilla, a nuclear component of the horror. The presence of nuclear horror in Godzilla (2014) shows that American film can discuss the nuclear weapons testing of the 1950s, and that film audiences of the United States are ready to consider their country’s involvement in creating real, nuclear …

How 'Godzilla' Dances Around That Whole Nuclear Issue | US ...

https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/05/16/how-godzilla-dances...

2014-05-16 · After passing a law in 1954 that it would only nuclear energy for peace, Japan enthusiastically embraced a nuclear energy program and now has 50 …

1957 - The IAEA is established to facilitate the peaceful use of nuclear energy.

1950's - Brazil and Argentina begin research and development of nuclear reactors.

February 13, 1960 - France conducts its first nuclear weapons test.

October 16, 1964 - China conducts its first nuclear weapons test.

March 5, 1970 - The NPT goes into effect.

May 18, 1974 - India conducts its first nuclear weapons test.

March 28, 1979 - A partial meltdown of the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant occurs in Middletown, Pennsylvania. It is determined that equipment malfunctions, design-related problems and human error led to the accident.

April 26, 1986 - Reactor number four explodes at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, releasing large amounts of radiation into the atmosphere.

September 24, 1996 - The United States, China, France, the United Kingdom, Russia and 66 other UN member countries sign the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, barring the testing of nuclear weapons.

December 1997 - Mohamed ElBaradei is appointed IAEA director-general.

May 1998 - India and Pakistan test nuclear devices amid tensions between the neighboring countries.

January 10, 2003 - North Korea announces its withdrawal from the NPT.

August 2003 - IAEA inspectors find traces of highly enriched uranium at an electrical plant in Iran.

December 19, 2003 - Libya announces that it will dismantle its WMD program, in cooperation with the IAEA as well as the United States and the United Kingdom.

October 7, 2005 - The IAEA and ElBaradei are named the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize.

December 1, 2009 - Yukiya Amano replaces ElBaradei as director general of the IAEA.

March 11, 2011 - A 9.0 magnitude earthquake strikes near the coast of Honshu, Japan, creating a massive tsunami. The tsunami knocks out the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant's cooling systems. The cores of three of six reactors are damaged by overheating. Resulting hydrogen explosions blow apart the buildings surrounding two reactors.

May 30, 2011 - Germany announces it will abandon the use of all nuclear power by the year 2022. This repeals a 2010 plan to extend the life of the country's nuclear reactors.

November 11, 2013 - Iran signs an agreement with the IAEA, granting inspectors access to nuclear sites.

July 14, 2015 - After 20 months of negotiations, Iran reaches a comprehensive agreement (The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA)), with the United States and other countries that is aimed at reining in Iran's nuclear program. In exchange for limits on its nuclear activities, Iran will get relief from sanctions while being allowed to continue its atomic program for peaceful purposes.

August 11, 2015 - Japan restarts a nuclear reactor on the island of Kyushu. It's the country's first reactor to come back online since the 2011 tsunami.

January 16, 2016 - The IAEA confirms that Iran has taken all of the steps outlined in the nuclear deal, allowing for sanctions to be lifted, as per the agreement.

May 8, 2018 - US President Donald Trump announces that the United States will withdraw from JCPOA and will be imposing "the highest level of economic sanction" against Iran. In Tehran, Rouhani says Iran will take a few weeks to decide how to respond to the US withdrawal, but Rouhani says he had ordered the country's "atomic industry organization" to be prepared to "start our industrial enrichment without limitations."

May 8, 2019 - Rouhani announces a partial withdrawal from the JCPOA.

February 16, 2021 - The IAEA reports it received a February 15 letter from Iran stating that it will stop implementing provisions of the additional monitoring protocol as of February 23. This will effectively limit which facilities nuclear inspectors can scrutinize and when they can access them, making it harder for experts to determine if Tehran is attempting to develop nuclear weapons.

February 18, 2021 - The Joe Biden administration releases a statement indicating that the United States is willing to sit down for talks with Tehran and other signatories to the Iran nuclear deal, before either side has taken tangible action to salvage or return to compliance with the agreement.

February 21, 2021 - In a joint statement, the IAEA and Iran announce they have reached a deal in which Iran will give IAEA inspectors continued access to verify and monitor nuclear activity in the country for the next three months.

Staff shortage amid B.C.'s deadliest COVID-19 care home outbreak: report


VANCOUVER — An inspection of a long-term care home that was the site of British Columbia's deadliest COVID-19 outbreak found staffing levels were low and cleaning was inadequate as the virus spread throughout the facility

.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The Vancouver Coastal Health inspection report obtained by The Canadian Press through a freedom of information request says these two issues were rectified while the outbreak was underway in Little Mountain Place.

Bernadette Cheung, whose grandmother died of COVID-19 at the facility along with 40 other residents, wants more answers, including details on how the staffing shortage and poor infection control potentially worsened the outbreak.

She filed a complaint that prompted the inspection on behalf of several family members who lost loved ones at the Vancouver care home. Cheung said she feels equally in the dark after receiving the report as she did before.

"I feel like the investigation was very much done just to check off a box, as opposed to properly finding out where the failures were and really digging into finding solutions and ensuring that families have some sort of peace that this is taken seriously," she said.

Little Mountain Place referred questions to Vancouver Coastal Health, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

In a written statement released in January, the health authority said it worked closely with the care home to bring the outbreak under control, including by screening and testing staff and residents, promptly isolating cases and employing infection prevention and control practices.

The inspection report says a complaint was received on Jan. 6 and a site visit was conducted Jan. 11.

The inspector found when the COVID-19 outbreak was declared on Nov. 22, staffing coverage was sufficient. However, as more employees contracted COVID-19, staffing levels "fell below facility baseline," which temporarily affected daily operations and staff ability to respond to families' questions.

In response, Vancouver Coastal Health redeployed a significant number of staff to exceed the baseline requirements by 20 per cent, the report says, adding that most of the original staff returned to work and one-third of the redeployed health authority staff remained on site as of the inspection date.

The report does not say how many staff members the facility was missing, how long the understaffing persisted and how it affected the home's ability to limit the spread of the virus. B.C. Centre for Disease Control figures show that 72 staff members contracted the virus over the course of the months-long outbreak. None died.

Cheung questioned what the point was of the "vague summary" of understaffing.

"I would imagine that these processes are in place to learn and understand where problems can occur and find maybe where the breakage point is in terms of understaffing," she said.

The report also says that when the outbreak was declared, Vancouver Coastal Health monitored the facility closely for the rate of transmission and any areas of concern.

"Following this audit period, it was identified that the facility household team did not fully comprehend or implement the intended infection control/enhanced cleaning measures appropriately," it says.

On Dec. 13, three weeks after the start of the outbreak, Vancouver Coastal Health deployed a specialized infection control cleaning team to the facility. Education was provided to the staff and regular audits of enhanced cleaning measures continue to be conducted on a regular basis, the report says.

WERE THEY CONTRACTED OUT? OR UNIONIZED IN HOUSE? I DOUBT THE LATTER

Cheung said she's frustrated that the focus appears to be on the cleaning team not knowing what to do, as opposed to management's responsibility to train them.

She also took issue with the inspector's finding about the care home's communication. The inspector said families were sent letters regularly with updates on the status of the outbreak and weekly Zoom calls were held to answer their questions.

However, Cheung said two weeks passed before the first Zoom call, when families were shocked to hear there were already dozens of positive cases. During the calls, Cheung felt managers were evading questions.

"We felt like we were being kept in the dark," she said.

In its previous statement, Vancouver Coastal Health said it takes all concerns raised by residents and families seriously and any allegations of insufficient care are fully investigated. It also said it shared written communications regularly, in addition to the Zoom calls, and doctors and staff followed up with families directly.

Cheung is still calling for a broader investigation of what went wrong at the care home, where ultimately 99 out of 114 residents tested positive. Cheung also wants to see an oversight board for care homes that exists outside of health authorities.

"I don't feel like anyone has truly taken accountability for what has happened," she said. "I get it. It's a really challenging situation. But at the same time, as family members we would have appreciated forthcoming responses."

B.C.'s seniors advocate, Isobel Mackenzie, is working on a larger review of COVID-19 outbreaks in care homes, which she hopes to publish in July. She said of about 500 sites in B.C., 212 had outbreaks.

Of the sites that had outbreaks, most were contained to staff or a couple of residents. Therefore, her office plans to look at 25 or so of the worst outbreaks, including Little Mountain Place, to understand what went wrong.

The age and size of the buildings, whether residents had shared rooms or shared baths, staffing levels, sick-leave policies, infection control practices and the age and conditions of residents could all be factors, Mackenzie said.

Her office will also undertake a survey of care home staff in B.C. that will hopefully give insight into the training they received, she said.

Mackenzie said she expects the provincial government will face pressure from the public to implement her upcoming recommendations.

"One of the things that's been very heartening has been that the public is very much getting behind the issue of improvements to long-term care," she said.

"They now see what can happen, what does happen and they've said, 'We need to do better. We need to make improvements.' So, I think people will be listening and they will expect their governments to act."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 1, 2021.

Laura Dhillon Kane, The Canadian Press

PRECEDENT SETTING

BC Human Rights Code can't protect 

Anti-maskers making unproven claims: tribunal

"The Code does not protect people who refuse to wear a mask as a matter of personal preference, because they believe wearing a mask is 'pointless,' or because they disagree that wearing masks helps to protect the public during the pandemic," 

ANTI MASKING IS NOT A HUMAN RIGHT

VANCOUVER — A decision by the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal says anyone denied service for refusing to wear a mask must be ready to prove they have a disability if they intend to file a complaint. 

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The warning is contained in a screening decision published Wednesday as tribunal member Steven Adamson addresses what he describes as a large volume of complaints alleging discrimination related to mask requirements.

Screening decisions are among the first steps in a tribunal investigation and are rarely released, but Adamson says he's publishing his findings because there have been many similar complaints since last October.

In his decision, Adamson rejects that an unnamed customer's human rights were violated when a security guard asked her to leave an unnamed store for refusing to wear a mask.

The ruling says the woman claimed the mask order is "pointless" and masks make breathing difficult and cause anxiety, but she would not explain any physical disability that might prevent use of a mask.

In tossing out the complaint, Adamson says although the woman has reported an "adverse impact" regarding service in the store, she hasn't offered any facts about a physical or mental condition.

"The Code does not protect people who refuse to wear a mask as a matter of personal preference, because they believe wearing a mask is 'pointless,' or because they disagree that wearing masks helps to protect the public during the pandemic," Adamson writes.

He says the code only protects from discrimination based on certain personal characteristics, including disability, and any claim of discrimination must begin by establishing the disability interferes with mask use.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 1, 2021.

The Canadian Press

A reply to Conrad Black: On Indigenous history we cannot ignore inconvenient truths

Black’s understanding of Indigenous history isn’t revisionist so much as it is retrograde.

© Provided by National Post A depiction of Jacques Cartier visiting the village of Hochelaga.

As evidenced by Conrad Black’s recent column , there is a gulf between recent scholarship and what the average Canadian thinks they know about Indigenous history. Rather than lambaste the final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for deviating from antiquated nineteenth-century historical narratives, we should recognize the commission was an important effort by a Canadian government to ask, rather than tell, the Indigenous their story.

Black’s understanding of Indigenous history isn’t revisionist so much as it is retrograde.

First, he alleges the “best estimate” of the Indigenous population of Canada at the point of contact to be 200,000.

This is in fact the low estimate and it was made in 1928. A more recent estimate from 1987 runs as high as 2 million . Historians accept that estimates are about as good as it gets given the lack of census information from the early contact era. What is generally accepted, however, is that Indigenous populations in the Americas were devastated by Old World diseases carried by the earliest European explorers. More than a century separates the voyage of Giovanni Caboto in 1497 from the establishment of Quebec City in 1608 by Samuel de Champlain, and there were plenty of moments of contact in between. Whatever the Indigenous population was at the beginning of the colonial period, it was a fraction of what it had been at the point of contact . European explorers caused pandemics in the Americas that decimated Indigenous populations.

Second, Black claims the Indigenous had a Stone Age civilization.

It’s difficult to make much sense of this statement, as the Stone Age spans about 3.4 million years of human evolution and ended around the time of the Neolithic Revolution 10,000 years ago. Civilization is generally taken to mean that which comes after the Stone Age — i.e. complex societies, agriculture, division of labour etc.

Black asserts that the Indigenous were lacking in agriculture, textiles, complex tools and permanent structures, but this is contradicted by the ample archeological evidence held in Canadian museums . Moreover, the archeological evidence is consistent with and confirms written records by early explorers . Jacques Cartier described two Indigenous communities — Stadacona and Hochelaga — from his voyages of 1534 and 1535 that were fortified, featured permanent structures (longhouses) and were populated by sedentary farmers.

Both of these villages are consistent in size and description with Huron settlements dated to the same era. In a typically patronizing manner characteristic of the Jesuits, Paul Le Jeune described the Indigenous people he came into contact with in 1634 as more intelligent than ordinary European peasants. Archeological evidence of civilization, such as agriculture and silviculture (forest management to meet timber needs), dates back to at least 1,000 BCE in Southern Quebec. Native Copper artifacts — such as knives, spear points, arrowheads and bracelets — have been found in archeological sites around Lake Superior dating back as far as 6,000 BCE. The Iroquois had a constitution and confederacy long before the United States or Canada had either of their own.

I could go on.

These facts notwithstanding, the more important question is why Black brings it up in the first place. Are small populations less civilized than large ones? Are people who build sailing ships and stone castles more human than those who build birchbark canoes and pine longhouses?

And what does any of this have to do with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission?

In sum, Black is suggesting there was no civilization among pre-contact Indigenous peoples because it doesn’t fit his narrow definition of what constitutes civilization. And even there his assertions are contradicted by the historical record and archeological evidence.

Much of Black’s argument is based on the notion that European economics — specifically their rapacious appetite for beaver pelts — is what opened the country. Never mind the fact that the country was already populated with Indigenous nations who regularly traded with one another, it was only because of these well-established economic relationships that the fur trade was possible in the first place.

Indigenous nations at the point of contact had extensive trade networks developed over thousands of years. The Paleo-Indian Laurentian culture participated in trade net works that extended to the Gulf of Mexico thousands of years before the beginning of the common era. By the point of contact Indigenous society had aspects of a market economy, and developed complex political, economic and diplomatic relationships to go with them. Moreover, these civilizations were, as celebrated historian Bruce Trigger has amply demonstrated with regard to the Huron, in a state of evolution and flux for hundreds of years prior to European contact.

These are not the hallmarks of static, Stone Age people.

To put it another way, if Indigenous people were at the evolutionary level of the Stone Age at the point of contact, as Black alleges, they wouldn’t have gone out to meet Cartier with goods they wished to trade, nor would they have invited him back to tour the village or have dinner.

The Hochelagans were neither fearful nor aggressive. They were civilized.

Indigenous society and culture was different from European society and culture but it wasn’t any less evolved. They had complex societies and cosmographies, economic and political relationships, the ability to make tools and art. They spoke languages the Europeans could learn and understand.

Europeans no more brought civilization to the Americas than they discovered it.

The key issue here is that far too many Canadians have held on to the belief that some cultures and societies are better than others and therefore have a right to impose their will on anyone they deem subpar. These beliefs resulted in globe-spanning empires, the transatlantic slave trade, the wholesale devastation of Indigenous civilizations in the Americas, Africa and much of Asia, to say nothing of most of the bloodiest conflicts in human history.

Closer to home and the present, these pseudoscientific ideas are at the root of the Residential Schools and genocidal campaigns against Indigenous people since the colonial era.

This is not to say that the child is responsible for the sins of the parent. Canada has collectively made some very modest steps forward in addressing the long legacy of our original sin but our society is so lacking in self-confidence and courage a substantial number of us seem to believe any critical assessment of our history is tantamount to either a personal attack or blasphemy.

Something like a slow-motion genocide occurred here. It happened with the full support of governments from long ago, both foreign and domestic. It happened because of fundamentally flawed and inherently racist beliefs that unfortunately continue to this day.

As a nation and as a society, we’ll have a much easier time achieving a meaningful reconciliation if we abandon obsolete, demonstrably incorrect interpretations of the past, and instead open our eyes and minds. The final report of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has been accepted as a vitally important step forward by scholars from across the academic spectrum and across the country.

Rather than shirk our collective responsibilities and detach from reality to enjoy a fantasyland of historical innocence, we would do better as a nation to grow a spine and shine a light on the darkness from our past.

Taylor C. Noakes is an independent journalist and public historian

SPRING'S THE FOOL VERNAL EQUINOX