#ABOLISHBLASPHEMYLAWS

Pakistan decries EU parliament's move on blasphemy laws

ISLAMABAD — Pakistan on Friday decried a move by the European Parliament, which a day earlier adopted a resolution demanding Islamabad allow freedom for religious minorities and asked the EU to reconsider the South Asian country's preferential trade status.

The European Parliament appealed on Islamabad to free a Christian couple — Shagufta Kausar and her husband Shafqat Emmanuel — who have been on death row since 2014. The two were convicted of insulting Islam’s Prophet Muhammad.

It also urged Pakistani authorities to repeal the country's controversial blasphemy laws, provide Kausar and Emmanuel with needed medical care and “immediately and unconditionally” overrule their death sentence.

It also expressed concern at increasing online and other attacks on journalists and human rights activists and asked Pakistan to take steps to ensure their safety.

Under Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, anyone accused of insulting Islam can be sentenced to death if convicted. Just the mere accusation of blasphemy can cause riots and incite mobs to violence and killings.

The foreign ministry in Islamabad released a statement expressing the government's disappointment at the European resolution, saying it “reflects a lack of understanding in the context of blasphemy laws and associated religious sensitivities in Pakistan — and in the wider Muslim world”.

However, it is unlikely that Islamabad will act on the charged issue. Radical Islamists parties have in recent years held violent rallies to stop the government from making any changes in the blasphemy laws.

Kausar and Emmanuel were arrested in 2013 on suspicion of sending a blasphemous text message to a local cleric in eastern Punjab province, an allegation they denied. The two were tried and sentenced to death in 2014. Since then, their appeals have been pending in the Lahore High Court.

According to domestic and international human rights groups, blasphemy allegations in Pakistan have often been used to intimidate religious minorities and to settle personal scores.

A Punjab governor was killed by his own guard in 2011 after he defended a Christian woman, Aasia Bibi, who was accused of blasphemy. She was acquitted after spending eight years on death row and left Pakistan for Canada to join her family after receiving threats.

Munir Ahmed, The Associated Press

Pope enables Vatican prosecutions of cardinals, bishops


ROME — Pope Francis has sent another message to Vatican-based cardinals and bishops that he intends to hold them accountable for criminal misconduct: He removed the procedural obstacles that had spared them from being prosecuted and judged by the Vatican’s lay criminal tribunal.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

A new law published Friday makes clear that Vatican city-state prosecutors and judges have jurisdiction over Holy See cardinals and bishops and need only the pope’s consent to proceed with investigations and trials against them.

The law abrogated a regulation that said only the tribunal’s highest appeals court, which is made up of three cardinals, could judge cardinals and bishops accused of criminal offences.

The reform is the latest sign that after eight years of preaching about ending corruption and other criminal activity in the Holy See, Francis is taking concrete steps to make it easier to hold his own cardinals and bishops accountable while emboldening Vatican prosecutors to go after them.

On Thursday, he passed a different law forcing Vatican superiors to declare their finances are clean, and set a 40-euro ($48) cap on work-related personal gifts received by any Vatican employee. The gift cap was seen as a way to cut down on the rampant practice of financial gift-giving to Holy See clerics.

Friday's reform follows Francis’ decision last year to strip a senior Vatican official, Cardinal Angelo Becciu, of his privileges as a cardinal in a move seen as laying the groundwork for Becciu to possibly be put on trial.

The allegations against him aren’t clear, however, and Becciu hasn't been charged with any crime.

Becciu has said Francis cited a 100,000-euro donation he made using Holy See funds to a charity run by his brother. Becciu has denied wrongdoing, noting that he had full authority to disburse the funds, the money was destined for the charity, not his brother, and the money never left the diocesan bank account into which it was deposited.

Becciu was also involved initially in a London real estate venture that is now the subject of a Vatican corruption investigation. But the key transaction under scrutiny occurred after he was promoted.

The new procedural law Friday would presumably make unnecessary any move to strip other cardinals of their privileges before an indictment is handed down.

In an introduction to the new regulation, Francis said it was important to make sure everyone is equal under the law.

Within the church’s in-house canon law system for church crimes, cardinals and bishops are judged only by the pope, who is an absolute monarch with exclusive legislative, executive and judicial power in the Vatican. That privilege extended also to the criminal code of the city-state’s tribunal in ways that led to some anomalies in recent years.

In one famous case, prosecutors decided to not even investigate the cardinal whose Vatican apartment was renovated using a half-million dollars in donations intended for the pope’s children’s hospital. The hospital president who diverted the funds to the renovation project was convicted by the Vatican tribunal. But the cardinal who benefitted from the crime wasn’t even called to testify, much less investigated.

More recently, a British judge expressed perplexity that the current Vatican hierarchy had seemingly been spared investigation in the London real estate corruption case. The judge, ruling in a related asset seizure case, questioned why the Vatican secretary of state and his No. 2 hadn’t even provided witness statements about the London deal, when documents and evidence indicated they had authorized it.

The text of the new law was published without comment near the back of Friday's editions of the Vatican newspaper, L'Osservatore Romano.

Nicole Winfield, The Associated Press

Venezuelans celebrate beatification of 'doctor to the poor'

CARACAS (Reuters) - Venezuelans on Friday celebrated the beatification of Jose Gregorio Hernandez, a medic who became known as the "doctor of the poor" while treating the ill during the Spanish flu pandemic in the early 20th century.

© Reuters/MIRAFLORES PALACE Beatification mass of doctor Jose Gregorio Hernandez, in Caracas

© Reuters/CNB.JGB Beatification mass of doctor Jose Gregorio Hernandez, in Caracas

Pope Francis in 2020 began the process of his beatification, which precedes sainthood in the Roman Catholic tradition.

That process was completed on Friday in a Caracas ceremony led by papal nuncio Aldo Giordano and other Venezuelan church leaders.

Giordano called for Hernandez's intervention to help the South American nation obtain coronavirus vaccines for its inoculation campaign, which has been mired in partisan differences.

© Reuters/MIRAFLORES PALACE Beatification mass of doctor Jose Gregorio Hernandez, in Caracas

"May the blessed Jose Gregorio intercede so that access to vaccines can be achieved together, without divisions," Giordano said. "(Hernandez) is able to unite all his compatriots, independent of their social, political and economic differences."

Video: Pope urges countries to speed up vaccinations, share shots with poor countries (NBC News)

Pope Francis, the first Latin American pontiff, in a video released on Thursday said he hoped the beatification would foment solidarity among Venezuelans, who for decades have been bitterly divided by politics.

© Reuters/MIRAFLORES PALACE Beatification mass of doctor Jose Gregorio Hernandez, in Caracas

Hernandez, the fourth Venezuelan to be beatified, was born in the Andean state of Trujillo in 1864. He died in 1919 after being hit by a car in Caracas, and his devotees spent decades petitioning the Vatican to put him on the path to sainthood.

 

© Reuters/CNB.JGB Beatification mass of doctor Jose Gregorio Hernandez, in Caracas

In 2017, the church attributed a miracle to Hernandez for saving the life of a young girl, Yaxury Solorzano, who was shot in the head during a robbery attempt.

Doctors had said Solorzano would be disabled if they managed to save her life, but she recovered and was able to walk just weeks after leaving the hospital, according to church records.

Solorzano's mother had prayed to Hernandez for her daughter's salvation. Both mother and daughter were present for Friday's ceremony.

High ranking government officials including Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino, Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza, and parliament chief Jorge Rodriguez were present for the ceremony.

(Reporting by Mayela Armas, Writing by Brian Ellsworth, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)

B.C. First Nation joins calls for Ottawa to step in on review of Alberta coal project

A British Columbia First Nation has joined calls for the federal government to step in on the environmental review of a proposed open-pit coal mine in Alberta's Rocky Mountains.

© Provided by The Canadian Press

The Ktunaxa First Nation, the first group outside Alberta to ask for Ottawa's involvement, says it has little faith in the province's ability to hear their concerns over Montem Resources' Tent Mountain project. They say it would have effects beyond the provincial boundary, impairing their ability to practice their treaty rights.

"Due to the location, size and lifespan of the proposed project, the (Ktunaxa) consider that it will likely cause significant adverse impacts on the Ktunaxa Nation’s Indigenous rights and interests," says the letter written to federal Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson.

Montem Resources is proposing to resume mining on a site near Coleman, Alta., last mined in 1983. Documents filed with Alberta's regulator say the company would only need 750 hectares.

But the Ktunaxa say those documents gloss over the fact that Tent Mountain would dump waste rock and water in B.C. and needs permits from B.C. authorities. They also point out Tent Mountain would be immediately adjacent to as many as four other open-pit coal mines.

"The potential for the project to contribute to regional cumulative effects is therefore also a deep concern," the letter states.

The letter points out the mine comes suspiciously close to the production threshold that would automatically trigger a federal review.

"This raises the prospect that the project description has been tailored specifically to avoid a federal (assessment)."

The Ktunaxa say their experience in the federal-provincial review of Benga Mining's Grassy Mountain project leaves them with little faith in a review conducted only by Alberta.

"Without a federal environmental assessment, the Alberta government will not conduct any, much less meaningful and legally sufficient, consultation with the (Ktunaxa) to address and accommodate for the Project’s impacts," the letter says.

The Alberta government has announced plans for a series of five regional meetings with Alberta First Nations, but no plans for B.C.

The letter says Ktunaxa people fear losing that land for treaty-guaranteed traditional purposes including hunting, gathering, collecting medicines, ceremonies and cultural continuity.

"These effects will be compounded by the cumulative disturbance to the regional landscape," they write.

Montem Resources did not respond to a request for comment.

The Ktunaxa are only the latest group to request Ottawa join the assessment. The Kainai and Siksika First Nations in southern Alberta, as well as environmental groups and local landowners, have asked for the same.

Montem has stated in investor materials that the federal assessment agency has already ruled that federal participation isn't required.

However, an email from the Impact Assessment Agency of Canada to Montem suggests that's not the whole story. The company was told the minister could still designate the project for a federal review.

"The Minister of Environment and Climate Change (has) the authority to designate the project if, in the Minister’s opinion, the carrying out of project activities may cause adverse environmental effects or public concerns related to those effects warrant the designation," the email says.

Wilkinson has until June 1 to respond to those requests. A spokeswoman in his office said the decision will likely come around that date.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 30, 2021.

— Follow Bob Weber on Twitter at @row1960

Bob Weber, The Canadia

USA
Especially hostile week for abortion rights: Report

Twenty-eight restrictions on abortion were signed into law across seven states between April 26 and April 29, according to a new report, marking an especially hostile week for abortion rights.

ATTACK ON WOMEN'S RIGHTS BY FUNDAMENTALIST WHITE MEN & CATHOLIC PRIESTS

What to know about new abortion restrictions and what that could mean for Roe v. Wade

"The current barrage of coordinated attacks must be taken seriously as the unprecedented threat to reproductive health care and rights that it is," Elizabeth Nash, principal policy associate on state issues for the Guttmacher Institute, which put out the report, said in a statement. "The year 2021 is well on its way to being a defining one in abortion rights history."

According to the Guttmacher Institute, a research organization that supports reproductive rights, the pace of restrictions enacted so far this year puts 2021 on track to see historic high numbers of abortion restrictions. At this point in 2011, regarded by the research institute as the most restrictive year for abortion rights since Roe v. Wade was decided, 42 restrictions had been enacted; this year, the nation is up to 61 restrictions enacted across 13 states

.

© Sue Ogrocki/AP, FILE Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt speaks during a news conference in Oklahoma City, Feb. 11, 2021.

The wave of abortion restrictions on the state level comes as the Biden administration has begun taking steps to fulfill its promise of shoring up abortion rights. It also comes as the Supreme Court has a new makeup with the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and former President Donald Trump's appointment of Justice Amy Coney Barrett, who signed anti-abortion advertisements as a Notre Dame Law School "University Faculty for Life" group member.MORE: Is Ginsburg's death the end of Roe v. Wade? This time, some experts say, it could be.

Nash, of Guttmacher, told ABC News in an email the rise in restrictions this year could be due to "a far more conservative federal court system, backlash to the 2020 presidential election, and more conservative state legislatures that know abortion restrictions play well to the extreme ends of their base."

The laws signed this week include a near-total ban on the procedure in Oklahoma and a ban on abortion after 20-weeks' gestation in Montana.

© Ross D. Franklin/AP, FILE Arizona Republican Gov. Doug Ducey speaks during a bill signing, April 15, 2021, in Phoenix.

Some of the laws, including the Oklahoma ban, are expected to be challenged by rights groups. This is by design, Nash posited, as conservative lawmakers have been pushing laws in the hopes a challenge will make it up to the Supreme Court that could challenge the Roe decision itself. Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that established abortion as a right nationally, was further endorsed by the Supreme Court in 1992's Planned Parenthood v. Casey and 2016's Whole Woman's Health v. Hellerstedt.

Many of the other newly signed laws, however, may go unchallenged, including laws that, in practice, make abortion more difficult to access and require doctors provide medically dubious information.

Filmmaker hopes new doc on Canadian and other ISIS brides will help 'leave hatred behind,' allow repatriation

Desmond Brown
CBC 30/4/20221

© The Return: Life After ISIS Hamilton native Kimberly Polman has expressed regret about being part of the ISIS caliphate, and has been requesting that she be allowed to return to Canada. She's one of the women featured in the new documentary The Return: Life After…

Hamilton native Kimberly Polman is among former ISIS brides featured in The Return: Life After ISIS by Alba Sotorra Clua and her Barcelona-based production company, and the filmmaker hopes the new documentary will give insight into the issues surrounding repatriation.

Sotorra Clua said the documentary, currently one of the films being shown digitally during the Hot Docs Festival, focuses on the plight of Polman and other women from Western countries who joined the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, but then came to regret it.

"This brings a different light on the issues and the question of repatriation," Sotorra Clua told CBC News via telephone from Barcelona.

"Civil society, politicians and policymakers — it can make them rethink the way we are dealing with this issue.

"At the moment, the Western world is rejecting repatriation, and maybe if they watch the film, they can have a different point of view," said Sotorra Clua, of Alba Sotorra Cinema Productions.

Polman, who was raised as a Reformed Mennonite and was the winner of the Women's Opportunity Award in 2011 (Soroptimist International), left Canada and her three adult children in 2015 to join ISIS in Syria.

Sotorra Clua said Polman made that decision for humanitarian reasons, after she saw a Facebook post saying nursing skills were needed in the caliphate.

One year after her arrival, Sotorra Clua said, Polman became disenchanted with ISIS and tried to escape, but was caught and taken to prison, where she was brutally interrogated and raped, and was eventually forced to sign a statement agreeing to face capital punishment if she ever tried to leave again.

Polman finally surrendered to the Kurdish troops in 2019 and has been held in Kurdish detention camps ever since, waiting to come home.

Sotorra Clua said Polman and the other women featured in her documentary have expressed regret and shame, but are also are hopeful about forgiveness and being given a second chance by their countries of origin.

"I was very intrigued and moved by the stories of these women," Sotorra said.

Polman is a dual Canadian-U.S. citizen. In addition to expressing regret about being part of the ISIS caliphate, she has been requesting that she be allowed to return to Canada

In March, Global Affairs Canada told CBC News it is aware of "Canadian citizens being detained by Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria and is particularly concerned with cases of Canadian children in the region."

But the agency said that because of the security situation on the ground, its ability to provide "any kind of consular assistance in Syria remains extremely limited."

The group of Western women in the Syrian detention camp featured in the documentary are from different parts of the world, including Canada, the U.S., the U.K., the Netherlands and Germany.

They include Briton Shamima Begum and Hoda Muthana, both from the United States.

Begum was born and grew up in London, as a British citizen. When she was 15, she and two other girls, Amira Abase and Kadiza Sultana, left the U.K. to join ISIS. Today, Begum, whose three children are dead, is imprisoned in the al-Roj camp in territory controlled by Syrian Kurds.

Begum has failed at the U.K.'s highest court to restore her British citizenship, in a case that's a test of the U.K.'s policy to strip the citizenship of Britons who joined ISIS and are now being detained by Syrian Kurdish groups without trial.

In November 2014, Muthana, now 26, left her home to join ISIS. She tricked her family into letting her go to Atlanta, from New Jersey, for a school field trip, and instead boarded a plane to Turkey and then to Syria to meet with ISIS.

A few weeks later, she married Suhan Abdul Rahman, an Australian jihadist, who died a few months later during a battle. She went on to marry at least two more times, according to reports.

Working with Sevinaz Evdike, a Kurdish women's rights activist, Sotorra Clua said she had "unprecedented access" and spent many hours speaking to and filming some of the thousands of displaced ISIS brides and their children.

While they are deprived of basics, Sotorra Clua said what emerges is the slow growth of a sense of community between the women.

Sotorra Clua said as Evdike puts the "wives" through trust exercises, diaries and letters to their younger selves, the story of the nightmare that was ISIS unfolds.
'Honest dialogue' in wake of ISIS's defeat

Sotorra Clua said the aftermath of ISIS's defeat was devastating, leaving thousands of women and children of more than 50 nationalities with nowhere to go.

"I'd been following the stories of these women who'd made headlines around the world, and branded as traitors. I wanted to hear them first-hand, and what followed was emotionally challenging," she said.

"I myself lost friends in the war, so there was some tension. But as time passed, the walls of fear and pain fell to make room for an honest dialogue.

"The only way out for all of us is to leave hatred behind and start over with compassion, forgiveness and understanding," Sotorra Clua added.

The Return: Life After ISIS is among films available digitally during Hot Docs, which runs through May 9.

Plastic gets to the oceans through over 1,000 rivers

Laura Parker 
NATGEO 30/4/2021


The problem with plastic waste just got more complicated—and so did the effort to stanch its flow into the world’s oceans.

© Photograph by Afrianto Silalahi, Barcroft Media/Getty Images PEKANBARU, INDONESIA - DECEMBER 17, 2020 : Aerial photo shows floating plastic and styrofoam trash polluting a corner of Siak River, Pekanbaru.

Rivers are the primary conduits for plastic waste to the seas. In 2017, two separate groups of scientists concluded that 90 percent of river-borne plastic waste that flushes into the oceans is conveyed by just a handful of large, continental rivers, including the Nile, Amazon, and Yangtze, the world’s three longest rivers. Cleaning up those rivers—10 rivers were named in one study and 20 in the other—could go a long way toward solving the problem, experts agreed.

(These maps show the journey of plastic waste through rivers to the sea.)

New research published today in Science Advances has turned that thinking on its head. Scientists found that 80 percent of plastic waste is distributed by more than 1,000 rivers, not simply 10 or 20. They also found that most of that waste is carried by small rivers that flow through densely populated urban areas, not the largest rivers.

Thus, the Yangtze, which traverses 3,915 miles across China and empties into the East China Sea, and was ranked most polluted by plastics, has been displaced by the 16-mile-long Pasig River in the Philippines, which flows through the capital city of Manila, home to 14 million people.

That’s quite a shift. But it speaks to two important issues key to understanding and solving the plastic waste problem. The research underscores the pervasive spread of plastic waste into literally every crevice of the planet, and the need for solutions far more logistically complex and costly than some of the plastics campaign sloganeering suggests. The study also reinforces what marine scientists and other experts have long argued: that the ultimate solution to protecting oceans and freshwater systems is to contain plastic waste on land, where it originates.

© Photograph courtesy The Ocean Cleanup Las Vacas river in Guatemala

Gary Bencheghib, who heads Sungai Watch, a campaign now cleaning up 45 rivers in Bali, says the research from 2017 didn’t make much sense to him.

“The 10-rivers study surprised me more than anything when it came out,” he says. “It wasn’t reinforcing what we were seeing on the ground in Indonesia in the smaller streams. We live in the tropics in a volcanic region where there are literally rivers every 500 meters and they’re all choking on plastic.”
Better data, big changes

Humans have used rivers since the dawn of civilization to carry away their waste. Yet as the plastic trash issue exploded in the last decade, most of the research focused on plastic in the oceans. Analysis of rivers and other freshwater systems has lagged behind. For example, the first full-scale assessment of plastic waste in India’s Ganges River, conducted by the National Geographic Society, concluded just 18 months ago. A similar analysis of the Mississippi River began last month after 100 mayors of cities along the river corridor joined together to sponsor it as a first step toward reducing plastic waste. Japan is conducting a survey to track plastic in both the Ganges and Mekong Rivers.

The new research was based on new modeling and conducted by several of the same scientists involved in both 2017 river studies. They say the data available four years ago was limited, and led to a heavy focus on the size of river basins and population density. In all, the scientists analyzed plastic waste in 1,656 rivers for the new study.

The new modeling takes into account activity in those river basins, such as the proximity of rivers to coastlines, as well as the effects of rainfall, wind currents, and terrain, including slope, that ease the movement of plastic into waterways. Plastic flows more easily into rivers from paved urban areas, for example, than it does in forests, and travels farther in rainy climates than dry ones. The researchers also took into account the proximity of landfills and dump sites to river banks, and concluded that those within six miles (10 kilometers) of rivers are likely to spill into them.

“One big difference from a few years ago is we don’t consider rivers mere conveyor belts of plastics,” says Lourens J.J. Meijer, the study’s lead author. “If you put plastic into the river hundreds of kilometers from the mouth, it doesn’t mean that that plastic will end up in the ocean.”

The farther plastic waste has to travel along a river, the less likely it will actually reach the seas. On the Seine River in France River in France, for example, plastic water bottles with labels dating to the 1970s have beached themselves along the riverbank.

One of the surprises, Meijer says, is that small rivers on tropical islands carry so much plastic waste, such as in the Philippines, Indonesia, and the Dominican Republic. Likewise, rivers in Malaysia and Central America, which are fairly short, also disgorge heavy concentrations of plastic waste.

“Not always the usual suspects like the Ganges or Yangtze,” Meijer says.

Another finding is how plastic flows into the oceans differ by climate. In tropical regions, rivers disgorge plastic into the seas continuously, while rivers in temperate regions can flush most plastic in a single month, usually August in the rainy season, or single events, such as flash floods.

One storyline from the 2017 studies remains constant: Most of the rivers that transport plastic to the seas are in Asia. Of the first 50 rivers on the new list, 44 are in Asia, a reflection, the authors say, of population density.

“Asia and Southeast Asia are the hot spots, but that could change,” says Laurent Lebreton, a co-author. “I am a bit concerned for Africa for the decades to come. The population is growing, it is really young, and the economy is getting better so people will buy more stuff.”
A focus on solutions

The research, which underwent a two-year peer review before publication, was funded by The Ocean Cleanup, a nonprofit founded by Boyan Slat, the Dutch entrepreneur whose quixotic $30 million effort to clean up the plastic in the Pacific Ocean turned him into an international celebrity. Both Lebreton and Meijer work for the nonprofit.

Slat’s team has since developed a trash-eating machine called the Interceptor to collect trash from rivers. It is roughly a variation on Mr. Trash Wheel, the googly-eyed trash barge propelled by a water wheel that has been cleaning up the Inner Harbor in Baltimore, Maryland, since 2008 and now leads a fleet of four trash wheels there.

In 2019, Slat announced plans to mass produce 1,000 Interceptors and deploy them within five years. The pandemic slowed the pace, but several of the devices are at work on rivers in Malaysia, Indonesia, Vietnam, and the Dominican Republic. The challenge, Slat says, is scaling up to meet such an ambitious goal. “It’s not very difficult to address one river,” he says. “It’s very difficult to do ten or one hundred or one thousand.”

George Leonard, chief scientist at the Ocean Conservancy, who was not involved in the study, says the challenges of cleaning up 1,000 rivers, despite the advancements in equipment designed to handle such a chore, calls attention to the message long prescribed by his organization. “We have always said we need to keep plastic out of the ocean in the first place, rather than relying on cleaning it up as a solution. That means keep it out of the rivers, too.”

2 Edmonton tech companies recognized for environmental innovations
Madeleine Cummings

CBC 30/4/2021

© Anthea Sargeaunt 2S Water CEO Anthea Sargeaunt holds the sensor that earned her company first prize at a recent international mining industry competition.

STEEL TOED RUNNING SHOES!

Two Edmonton companies have impressed mining industry leaders from around the world, taking home two of the top three prizes at a recent clean technology competition.

2S Water and Copperstone Technologies placed first and third, respectively, at the Mining Cleantech Challenge on April 22.

Of the 56 teams that applied, a dozen were chosen to present their technologies virtually to a global panel of mining industry experts and investors.

Anthea Sargeaunt, the CEO of 2S Water, said winning the competition was "an incredible honour."

"Having this validation from big mining companies, that what we're doing is important to them, just means so much to us right now," she said in an interview on Wednesday with CBC Edmonton's Radio Active.

Finding metals in mining water

2S Water has spent the past three years researching and developing sensors that detect metals in water.

The sensors can be put to work in multiple industries, including municipal wastewater and oil and gas.

The company's product resembles a black box and connects to a pipe. Water flows through it and data comes out in real time.

"That lets them adjust their processes so they can make sure the water is actually safe and clean before it passes through their water treatment and into the environment," Sargeaunt said.

Detecting metals in water is important for the mining industry, Sargeaunt said, because metal can cause machinery to peel and corrode. It can also lead to environmental fines, lost revenue and site closures. The Canadian coal-mining company, Teck Coal, recently received a $60-million fine for contaminating rivers in British Columbia. In that case, waste rock had leached selenium and calcite into the water.

Mining companies typically test water by sending samples to a lab, she said, but it can take between 72 hours and 10 days to receive the results. Sensors can speed up that process, saving time and money.

Robots take on tailings ponds

Copperstone Technologies, founded by three graduate students from the University of Alberta in 2014, builds robots for hazardous site investigations.

Like 2S Water, the company's technology has multiple applications. In a mining context, the robots can traverse waste areas called tailings ponds, which can be dangerous for humans to navigate.

CEO Craig Milne said the company's amphibious robots move easily between different types of terrain all year round. They can also carry heavy loads.

More proactive monitoring could prevent environmental catastrophes like the 2014 Mount Polley mine tailings spill in B.C., Milne said.

Canadians 'outperforming' competition

The Colorado Cleantech Industries Association runs the annual competition. Before the pandemic, it was held in Denver.

Helen El Mallakh, the executive director of the CCIA, said the Edmonton companies impressed the judges because they both presented cost-effective products with a wide application and large growth potential.

Canadian companies swept the podium this year, with Richmond, B.C.-based Ideon Technologies winning second prize.

"We're increasingly seeing that the Canadian companies are really outperforming a number of other companies," El Mallakh said.

Both Edmonton CEOs said the recognition has led to follow-up meetings with people they met during the competition and business opportunities.

REZ DOGS A NATIONAL PROBLEM
A Cree Woman's Call to Action on Animal Welfare

Save Rez Dogs is an Indigenous-based, grassroots initiative started in 2016. The founder, Leah Arcand, from Muskeg Lake Cree Nation, began to use the hashtag #SaveRezDogs while working and teaching a land based program in Thunderchild First Nation.

Save Rez Dogs provides resources and information for communities who are dealing with the overpopulation of dogs on reservations, and the subsequent issues that this can cause. The organization is sounding a call to action for communities to gather resources and develop their own dog management plan, as every community's needs will be unique.

Leah shares that this began when she was teaching a land-based program for grade 7 and grade 8 girls at Thunderchild first nation. She began to feed and care for the friendly neighborhood dogs that would hang around the school. Leah Arcand joined SaultOnline to talk more about the initiative.

“Using the land-based program, I was integrating our relationships with the dogs to my girls and role modeling and reframing the stereotypes that we hear every day about, that dogs are pests and all this sort of stuff. I think we've kind of forgotten about how we should be treating animals.”

“I started getting donations, so I started feeding more dogs, and using the hashtag #SaveRezDogs on my social media. I was using my personal Facebook to share stories or situations about these dogs, and that’s when the momentum started for me. I started to become known as 'the dog person' in the community.”

Leah proposes 5 calls to action that all communities should consider:

“We can't wait for the Chief and Council to do something. Even if they do, in most cases that I have witnessed, they authorize to shoot dogs after a community post is up.” Leah continues to state the importance of being a good role model. “It's not right for kids as young as 7 to say that their community shoots dogs.”

Save Rez Dogs has even captured the attention of Buffy Sainte-Marie, showing her support through a Facebook comment and donation.

New Collar Collective is an Ontario-based rescue initiative that has teamed up with Save Rez Dogs to host a webinar happening tonight. Leah will be talking about how Indigenous animal welfare is in crisis, and how colonialism is at the root of these issues. This is to support and empower Indigenous communities and help save the rez dogs and other animals in the process through education and action.

Save Rez Dogs offers information and resources available to communities who are dealing with overpopulation and neglect of rez dogs.

Join the conversation and see how action can be taken in your local community.

Josie Fiegehen, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, SaultOnline.com

ALBERTA

GYPSD will not pilot complete draft curriculum


Teachers within Grande Yellowhead Public School Division (GYPSD) that wish to pilot an aspect of the curriculum can do so with the support of their school and parent community.

“A teacher that may want to pilot a portion of curriculum would need to have the support of the community and the principal to do that, that the will of the community is taken into consideration and as is the community of the school is taken into consideration,” clarified Hinton trustee, Ellen Aust, at the board meeting on April 21.

If a teacher desired to pilot an aspect of the curriculum, they would have to work through the principal, who would work through the central office with the parents and school council, explained Carolyn Lewis, GYPSD superintendent.

“If the community, the parents, were not in agreement with that, then obviously the teacher would not be piloting the curriculum,” Lewis said.

She explained that there are some teachers who have publicly stated they are in support of the curriculum, and the division respects all its employees’ opinions.

“GYPSD is about dialogue, it’s about respect, it’s about coming into a conversation with many different perspectives and respecting all of them,” Lewis said.

A central-office curriculum working group will continue to review the entire draft Alberta K-6 curriculum during the 2021-2022 school year on behalf of GYPSD.

Lewis said the decision to review via the working group pays respect to all parents, students, teachers, and support staff.

Aust voiced her appreciation for the feedback she received before the board made its decision, which came from scientist specialists to early educators to indigenous people who didn’t see themselves reflected in the curriculum.

Trustee Shirley Caputo, also from Hinton, noticed this curriculum drew some attention throughout the community, with many people claiming it is a lot to expect of children.

Caputo trusts that with the experience and expertise of the working group, input will be shared with Alberta Education on behalf of GYPSD.

Jasper trustee, Dale Karpluk added that concerns with the draft include a shift to knowledge from critical thinking, age appropriateness, focus on European history, focus on Christian and monotheistic religions, a lack of indigenous representation, inaccurate outcomes, and Canadian and local knowledge being replaced by American knowledge.

Aust asked if additional staff would have an opportunity to join the working group as there has been renewed interest with the release of the draft.

Carra Aschenmeier, GYPSD’s managing director of learning services, explained that teachers will have an opportunity to share their input but won’t be at the table for every single working group meeting.

“Our curriculum working group will certainly devise a way for our teachers who wish to provide input to definitely do that,” Aschenmeier said. “Collectively we are certainly better experts than in smaller groups.”

The working group has been in place for nearly three years and is made up of teachers and central staff.

“On our curriculum working group we have teachers from kindergarten, elementary, middle school, we also have Indigenous representation and a French immersion teacher,” said Aschenmeier.

Over the next school year, the curriculum working group, which meets multiple times during the school year, will unpack the draft documents page by page, explained Dr. Kelly Harding, GYPSD assistant superintendent.

They will carefully consider each outcome through their lens as learning leaders, subject-area experts, and with their knowledge of students’ abilities at each development stage, she said.

“They will then share that comprehensive review with Alberta Education. Given the expertise and experience of the curriculum working group, no classroom piloting with students is required,” Harding said.

Minister of Education, Adriana LaGrange communicated that she is seeking Albertans’ input on the draft curriculum and identified that School Divisions have flexible options for how they provide feedback.

Aschenmeier and superintendent Lewis both acknowledged the hard work being done by teachers during the pandemic and said the working group allows GYPSD to provide feedback without asking every teacher and school to pilot.

“Board, I know how much you care about our teachers, as do I, and so we thought this action proposal would respect and care for our teachers but still keep us at the table with government. It is really important to be at the table, whether you agree with something or not. You can’t have a say if you’re not at the table and we don’t want GYPSD to be shut out of the government conversations,” Lewis said during the meeting.

Aschenmeier noted that the board would never put staff in jeopardy, but she would have voted to pilot the draft in “regular times.”

She explained that it is important for GYPSD to be heard and provide valuable feedback.

Trustees encourage parents, teachers, and subject matter experts to continue providing feedback on the draft curriculum throughout the next school year.

The Evergreen Catholic Separate School Division (ECSSD) decided not to pilot the draft curriculum in the upcoming school year, mainly due to the lasting impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

To read through the draft curriculum and provide feedback, go to alberta.ca/curriculum.

Masha Scheele, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Hinton Voice