In remote Indian village, teacher turns walls into blackboards to close school gap

By Rupak De Chowdhuri 

© Reuters/RUPAK DE CHOWDHURI Children use microscopes as they attend an open-air class outside houses with the walls converted into black boards at Joba Attpara village

PASCHIM BARDHAMAN, (INDIA), (Reuters) - In a small tribal village on the eastern tip of India, an enterprising teacher has turned walls into blackboards and roads into classrooms, trying to close the gap in learning brought on by prolonged school shutdowns in the country

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© Reuters/RUPAK DE CHOWDHURI Children use laptops in an open-air class outside a house with the walls converted into black boards at Joba Attpara village

Deep Narayan Nayak, 34, a teacher in the tribal village of Joba Attpara in Paschim Bardhaman district of the eastern state of West Bengal, has painted blackboards on the walls of houses and taught children on the streets for the past year. The local school shut down after strict COVID-19 restrictions were imposed across the country in March 2020.

© Reuters/RUPAK DE CHOWDHURI Deep Narayan Nayak teaches children how to use microscope in an open-air class outside the houses with the walls converted into black boards at Joba Attpara village

On a recent morning, children wrote on one such wall with chalk and peered into a microscope as Nayak watched over them.

"The education of our children stopped ever since the lockdown was imposed. The children used to just loiter around. The teacher came and started teaching them," Kiran Turi, whose child learns with Nayak, told Reuters.

Nayak teaches everything from popular nursery rhymes to the importance of masks and hand-washing to about 60 students and is popularly known as the "Teacher of the Street" to the grateful villagers.

Schools across the country have gradually begun reopening starting last month. Some epidemiologists and social scientists are calling for them to open fully prevent further loss of learning in children

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© Reuters/RUPAK DE CHOWDHURI Children help their teacher Deep Narayan Nayak pull a rack of books during their open-air classes outside the houses with the walls converted into black boards at Joba Attpara village

An August survey of nearly 1,400 schoolchildren done by a scholars' group https://roadscholarz.net found that in rural areas, only 8% were studying online regularly, 37% were not studying at all, and about half were unable to read more than a few words. Most parents wanted schools to reopen as soon as possible, it said.

Nayak said he was worried that his students, most of whom are first-generation learners and whose parents are daily wage-earners, would away from the education system if they didn't continue with school.

"I would see children loitering about the village, taking cattle for grazing, and I wanted to make sure their learning doesn't stop," he told Reuters.

© Reuters/RUPAK DE CHOWDHURI A woman holding an umbrella walks past houses with the walls converted into black boards that children use during their open-air classes at Joba Attpara village

(Writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar. Editing by Gerry Doyle)

Analysis: India may corner nearly half of global rice trade as exports soar to record

© Reuters/RUPAK DE CHOWDHURI FILE PHOTO: A worker collects boiled rice to spread it for drying at a rice mill on the outskirts of Kolkata

KAKINADA, India (Reuters) - India could account for as much as 45% of global rice exports in 2021 as expanded port-handling capacity allows the world's second largest rice grower after China to ship record volumes to buyers across Africa and Asia.

The world's top exporter could ship as much as 22 million tonnes of rice this year, or more than the combined exports of the next three largest exporters Thailand, Vietnam and Pakistan, said Nitin Gupta, vice president of Olam India's rice business.

"Along with traditional buyers, this year China, Vietnam and Bangladesh are also making purchases from India," he said.

India's exports in 2020 jumped 49% from the year before to a record 14.7 million tonnes, as shipments of non-basmati rice spiked 77% to a record 9.7 million tonnes.

India on course to dominate global rice trade in 2021 as new port capacity boosts shipment potential https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/ce/mypmnogrzvr/IndiaSEAsiaRice.png

In 2021, non-basmati rice shipments could nearly double from a year ago to 18 million tonnes, while premium basmati rice exports are seen steady at 4 million tonnes, Gupta said.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture projects global rice exports of 48.5 million tonnes in the 2021-22 season.

LOGISTICAL BOTTLENECK

Indian rice has been consistently cheaper than supplies from Thailand and Vietnam since last March, while global demand for rice has scaled record highs.

India rice export prices sustain steep discount to Southeast Asian prices since early 2020 https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/ce/xmpjoklwmvr/IndiavsSEAsiaRicePrices.png

However, limited infrastructure at Kakinada Anchorage, India's main rice port, led to persistent congestion and lengthy loading delays last year, prompting some buyers to switch suppliers.

India was offering a discount of more than $100 per tonne over other exporters, but much of the discount was wiped out by higher demurrage charges tied to the delays, says exporter Brahmananda Gudimetla.

To ease the congestion, the southern state of Andhra Pradesh in February allowed the use of an adjoining deepwater port at Kakinada for rice shipments.

"Vessel waiting period has gone down after the deepwater port started handling rice. Demand that could have shifted to other countries remained with us," said B.V. Krishna Rao, president of the Rice Exporters Association of India.

India exported 12.84 million tonnes of rice in the first seven months of 2021, up 65% from a year ago, according to provisional data from the commerce ministry.

At least one million tonnes of rice would be shipped from the deepwater port in 2021, said M Muralidhar, chief operating officer of Kakinada Seaports Ltd.

SHIPPING SHAKEUP

Despite extra port capacity, Kakinada's loading rate still lags well behind Southeast Asian ports due to a lack of dedicated rice-handling infrastructure.

"Here in Kakinada, it takes nearly a month to load around 33,000 tonnes of rice from the time we drop the anchor. In Thailand it takes only 11 days for the same quantity," says Fahim Shamsi, caption of a ship that was loading rice at Kakinada this month.

Strain on the Kakinda port has increased after the cost of shipping rice by container surged, forcing rice shippers to switch from containers to bulk vessels, said Gupta of Olam.

Kakinada can export an additional 2 million tonnes of rice if infrastructure was upgraded and the process mechanized, Rao said.

India's exports of non-basmati rice go mainly to African and Asian countries, while premium basmati rice goes to the Middle East, the United States and Britain.

(Reporting by Rajendra Jadhav; Editing by Gavin Maguire, Robert Birsel)

The racial history of the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane


On September 6, 1928, the Okeechobee hurricane formed near the west coast of Africa. The storm ended up being one of the deadliest storms in Atlantic history. Okeechobee set many records, including being the only Category 5 hurricane to hit Puerto Rico. By the time the storm dissipated, it killed more than 4,112 people and caused $100 million (1928 USD, $1.51 billion in 2018) worth of damage.

Overall, the hurricane impacted areas from West Africa to Eastern Canada, including Cape Verde, Guadeloupe, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, Florida and Georgia.

© Provided by The Weather NetworkCourtesy of NOAA

On Sep. 12, Okeechobee's eye moved over Guadeloupe as a Category 4 storm. Apparently, the hurricane hit without warning and killed 1,200 people. It also left around 75 per cent of the island's residents homeless. In the town of Saint-François, only the police station was left standing as it was constructed with reinforced concrete.

Okeechobee destroyed around 85 per cent to 95 per cent of banana crops, 70 per cent to 80 per cent of tree crops, and 40 per cent of the sugar cane crop. After the storm, residents struggled to survive on the island.

© Provided by The Weather Network"Approximate area of the flood. Note: The Palm Beach County label is misplaced. North of Canal Point has been in Martin County since 1925." Courtesy of Wikipedia

In the U.S., Florida was severely hit, with a death toll of more than 2,500 people. Okeechobee also left thousands homeless in the state.

The hurricane got its name from the destruction it caused to Lake Okeechobee. Before the hurricane, the area received heavy rainfall, so when the storm hit, water levels were pushed even further.

The storm surge caused a dike to overflow, resulting in 6m-high floods. The floods swept houses off their foundations and subsequently destroyed them.

Houses were floated off their foundations and dashed to pieces against any obstacles encountered.

Though the hurricane led a path of destruction in Florida, areas in the low-lying Lake Okeechobee ground were the most impacted in terms of the death toll. Approximately 75 per cent of the people who died in that area were Black migrant farm works.

© Provided by The Weather Network"Aftermath of the hurricane in southern Florida." Courtesy of Wikipedia

Black workers also led most of the hurricane cleanup. The authorities in the area reserved the limited coffins for white victims and burned the Black victims in funeral pyres.

After the hurricane, a resident of West Palm Beach, Robert Hazard, started the Storm of '28 Memorial Park Coalition Inc. to establish recognition of the Okeechobee's Black victims.

To learn more about the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane, listen to today's episode of "This Day In Weather History."

This Day In Weather History is a daily podcast by Chris Mei from The Weather Network, featuring stories about people, communities and events and how weather impacted them.

Subscribe to 'This Day in Weather History': Apple Podcasts | Amazon Alexa | Google Assistant | Spotify | Google Podcasts | iHeartRadio | Overcast'

Moroccan cave yields oldest clues about advent of human clothing


By Will Dunham

(Reuters) - People may take the necessity and existence of clothing for granted, from shirts to pants to dresses, coats, skirts, socks, underwear, bow ties, top hats, togas, kilts and bikinis. But it all had to start somewhere.

Scientists on Thursday said artifacts unearthed in a cave in Morocco dating back as far as 120,000 years ago indicate that humans were making specialized bone tools, skinning animals and then using tools to process these skins for fur and leather.

The items from Contrebandiers Cave, located roughly 800 feet (250 meters) from the Atlantic coastline in the town of Temara, appear to be the oldest-known evidence for clothing in the archaeological record, they added.

Our species, Homo sapiens, first appeared more than 300,000 years ago in Africa, later spreading worldwide. The advent of clothing was a milestone for humankind, reflecting cultural and cognitive evolution.

"We assume that clothing was integral to the expansion of our species into cold habitats," said evolutionary archaeologist Emily Hallett of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Germany, lead author of the study published in the journal iScience.

The scientists found 62 tools made from animal bones and also identified a pattern of cut marks on the bones of three small carnivore species - a fox, jackal and wildcat - indicating they had been skinned for fur, not processed for meat. Antelope and wild cattle bones suggested that the skins of these animals may have been used to make leather, while the meat was eaten.

"Clothing is a unique human innovation," said evolutionary archaeologist and study co-author Eleanor Scerri, also of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History.

"We use clothes in a practical sense, to stay warm, for example, or to protect our skin. We also use clothes symbolically, to express something about who we are, and they also meet a plethora of social conventions that articulate with our diverse global cultures," Scerri added.

The cave artifacts date to a time period when evidence of personal adornment and other signs of human symbolic expression appear at various archaeological sites.

Fur, leather and other organic clothing materials are highly perishable over time, and no actual prehistoric clothing was found at the cave. The tools were made during a period when the cave was occupied by members of our species from approximately 120,000 years ago to 90,000 years ago. The nature of the clothes they may have fashioned remains unclear.

Of particular interest were tools with a broad rounded end, called spatulate tools.

"There are striations on the spatulate bone tools that are the result of use, and the sheen on the ends of the bone tools is the result of repeated use against skin. Bone tools with this shape are still used today to prepare pelts because they do not pierce the skin, they are durable and they are effective at removing connecting tissues without damage to the pelt," Hallett said.

Until now some of the oldest evidence for Homo sapiens clothing was bone needles about 45,000-40,000 years old from Siberia.

The researchers suspect that our species had begun making clothing thousands of years before the date of the Morocco artifacts, though archeological evidence is lacking. Genetic studies of clothing lice by other researchers suggest an origin for clothing by perhaps 170,000 years ago in Africa.

It also is likely that Neanderthals, a close human cousin who entered Eurasia before Homo sapiens, made clothing, considering the cold regions they inhabited, the researchers said. They cited evidence for leather-working bone tools made by Neanderthals from roughly 50,000 years ago.

(Reporting by Will Dunham in Washington, Editing by Rosalba O'Brien)

Engels succeeded in showing the dialectical relationship between biological and cultural development. Once it became a part of mankind's necessary lifestyle, labour perfected the human hand and brain. But labour, or social production, also achieved an impetus of its own - an extension of, but a qualitative development from, biological evolution.

Engels and Human Development - In Defence of Marxism

www.marxist.com/engels-human-development150600.htm

1. The Part Played by Labor in the Transition From Ape to Man

   https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1876/part-played-labour/...

   Thus the hand is not only the organ of labour, it is also the product of labour. Only by labour, 

‘Incredible’ giant fossilised penguin found by New Zealand schoolchildren is previously unknown species

Thirty million-year-old remains were found during field trip in 2006

Harry Cockburn
Environment Correspondent

An artist’s impression of the Kawhia giant penguin
(Simone Giovanardi)


The “incredible” fossilised remains of an unusual long-legged giant penguin, first found by schoolchildren in New Zealand, belonged to a previously unknown species, researchers have said.

In 2006, the group of schoolchildren, who were taking part in an organised fossil hunting field trip, discovered the giant set of fossilised penguin bones in Kawhia Harbour, in the Waikato region of New Zealand’s North Island.

The fossils were recovered from the sandstone rock soon afterwards and donated to the Waikato Museum in 2017.

New analysis of the bones, using 3D scanning, enabled the research team, from Massey University in New Zealand and Bruce Museum in Connecticut, to produce a 3D-printed replica of the skeleton, and found the penguin would have stood at around 1.4 metres tall.

In comparison, the tallest penguin species alive today, the emperor, stands at 1.2 metres.

Dr Daniel Thomas, a senior lecturer in Zoology from Massey’s School of Natural and Computational Sciences, said the fossil is between 27.3 and 34.6 million years old and is from a time when much of the Waikato was underwater.

Penguins have a fossil record reaching almost as far back as the age of the dinosaurs, and the most ancient of these penguins have been discovered in New Zealand.

Fossil penguins from Zealandia – the largely submerged continent from which New Zealand now rises above the waves – are mostly known from Otago, in the southeast of the South Island, and Canterbury, in the northeast of the South Island, although important discoveries have recently been made in Taranaki and Waikato, both on the North Island.

The bird’s longer than usual legs influenced how fast it could swim and how deep it could dive, the researchers said
(Simone Giovanardi)

“The penguin is similar to the kairuku giant penguins first described in Otago but has much longer legs, which the researchers used to name the penguin waewaeroa – Te reo Māori for “long legs”, Dr Thomas said.

“These longer legs would have made the penguin much taller than other kairuku while it was walking on land, perhaps around 1.4 metres tall, and may have influenced how fast it could swim or how deep it could dive,” he said.

“It’s been a real privilege to contribute to the story of this incredible penguin. We know how important this fossil is to so many people.”

Mike Safey, president of the Hamilton Junior Naturalist Club, which organised the original field trip, said it is something the children involved will remember for the rest of their lives.

“It was a rare privilege for the kids in our club to have the opportunity to discover and rescue this enormous fossil penguin. We always encourage young people to explore and enjoy the great outdoors. There’s plenty of cool stuff out there just waiting to be discovered.”

Steffan Safey, who was there for both the discovery and rescue missions, said: “It’s sort of surreal to know that a discovery we made as kids so many years ago is contributing to academia today. And it’s a new species, even!

“The existence of giant penguins in New Zealand is scarcely known, so it’s really great to know that the community is continuing to study and learn more about them. Clearly the day spent cutting it out of the sandstone was well spent.”

Dr Esther Dale, a plant ecologist who now lives in Switzerland, was also there.

She said: “It’s thrilling enough to be involved with the discovery of such a large and relatively complete fossil, let alone a new species. I’m excited to see what we can learn from it about the evolution of penguins and life in New Zealand.”

Taly Matthews, a long-time member of the Hamilton Junior Naturalist Club, and who works for the Department of Conservation in Taranaki, said: "Finding any fossil is pretty exciting when you think about how much time has passed while this animal remained hidden away, encased in rock. Finding a giant penguin fossil though is on another level. As more giant penguin fossils are discovered we get to fill in more gaps in the story. It’s very exciting."

Dr Thomas added: “The fossil penguin reminds us that we share Zealandia with incredible animal lineages that reach deep into time, and this sharing gives us an important guardianship role. The way the fossil penguin was discovered, by children out discovering nature, reminds us of the importance of encouraging future generations to become kaitiaki [guardians].”

The research is published in the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Fossil reveals bird with long, flashy tail feathers that lived 120 million years ago

By Ashley Strickland, CNN 8 hrs ago

Scientists have uncovered the fossil of a bird that lived 120 million years ago, and it definitely had flair, including unusually long tail feathers. These flashy feathers probably didn't help the bird achieve aerodynamic flight, but they might have helped him find a mate, according to new research.

© Gao Wei/The Field Museum Yuanchuavis was a blue jay-sized bird that lived 120 million years ago.

The fossil was discovered in the Jehol Biota -- an ecosystem dating back 133 to 120 million years ago -- in northeastern China, and the deposits there have been a treasure trove of fossil discoveries, including examples of ancient flight. The researchers dubbed the species Yuanchuavis after Yuanchu, a mythological Chinese bird.


The bird was likely comparable in size to a modern blue jay. However, its tail reached more than 150% the length of its body. The study published Thursday in the journal Current Biology.

"We've never seen this combination of different kinds of tail feathers before in a fossil bird," said Jingmai O'Connor, study author and a paleontologist at the Field Museum in Chicago, in a statement. O'Connor is the associate curator of fossil reptiles at the Field Museum's Negaunee Integrative Research Center.

"It had a fan of short feathers at the base and then two extremely long plumes," O'Connor said. "The long feathers were dominated by the central spine, called the rachis, and then plumed at the end. The combination of a short tail fan with two long feathers is called a pintail, we see it in some modern birds like sunbirds and quetzals."

Yuanchuavis likely flew similarly to a quetzal, a forest-dwelling bird that doesn't have the most exceptional flight capabilities, O'Connor said. The pintail feathers were large enough to create significant drag, despite the fact that they were lightweight.

Short tails are associated with birds that live in harsh environments, where they depend on their ability to fly as a survival skill, like seabirds. The more elaborate tails are often found on birds living in forests.

"This new discovery vividly demonstrates how the interplay between natural and sexual selections shaped birds' tails from their earliest history," said Wang Min, study author and researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in a statement. "Yuanchuavis is the first documented occurrence of a pintail in Enantiornithes, the most successful group of Mesozoic birds."

Scientists recognized two different tail structures from other enantiornithines that are combined in Yuanchuavis.

"The tail fan is aerodynamically functional, whereas the elongated central paired plumes are used for display, which together reflect the interplay between natural selection and sexual selection," Wang said.

Animals not only adapt to survive but to help their particular species persist. In this case, Yuanchuavis developed tail feathers that hindered its flying abilities and made it more noticeable to predators. The discovery highlights just how important sexual selection is during evolution, O'Connor said.

"Scientists call a trait like a big fancy tail an 'honest signal,' because it is detrimental, so if an animal with it is able to survive with that handicap, that's a sign that it's really fit," O'Connor said. "A female bird would look at a male with goofily burdensome tail feathers and think, 'Dang, if he's able to survive even with such a ridiculous tail, he must have really good genes.'"

Elaborately plumed birds tend to be males. They're so focused on maintaining their feathers that they don't make especially good caregivers to offspring. Flashy feathers would also draw predators toward nests. But the more plain females stick with their chicks and take care of them.

Despite the fact that enantiornithines initially thrived, they did not survive the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. It's most likely due to the fact that they lived in forests, which burned after the asteroid struck, or because they had not adapted to grow quickly.

"Understanding why living birds are the most successful group of vertebrates on land today is an extremely important evolutionary question, because whatever it was that allowed them to be so successful probably also allowed them to survive a giant meteor hitting the planet when all other birds and dinosaurs went extinct," O'Connor said.

Fossils don't always reveal the ways that sexual selection shapes a species.

"The well-preserved tail feathers in this new fossil bird provide great new information about how sexual selection has shaped the avian tail from their earliest stage," Wang said.

"The complexity we see in Yuanchuavis's feathers is related to one of the reasons we hypothesize why living birds are so incredibly diverse, because they can separate themselves into different species just by differences in plumage and differences in song," O'Connor said. "It's amazing that Yuanchuavis lets us hypothesize that that kind of plumage complexity may already have been present in the Early Cretaceous."



a hand holding a bird: Modern sunbirds also have long tail feathers.

3 SLIDES © Jason Weckstein/The Field Museum

Native American Tribe Calls $2M Sale of Ancient Cave 'Heartbreaking'

A Missouri cave with Native American artwork that dates back more than 1,000 years was sold at auction for $2.2 million this week.

According to the auction listing, the cave was an "ancient hallowed site for sacred rituals, astronomical studies, oral tradition, vision quests" and contained more than 290 prehistoric glyphs, "making it the largest collection of indigenous people's polychrome paintings in Missouri" and one of the most significant archaeological sites in North America.

© YouTube/FOX 2 St. Louis The ancient site, known as the Picture Cave, was used for sacred rituals for hundreds of years.

The site, known as Picture Cave, is located about 60 miles west of St. Louis. The $2.2 million sale, to private owners who requested to be unnamed, also includes 43 acres of hilly land surrounding the cave.

Leaders of the Great Plains Native American tribe, who attempted to purchase the land to "protect and preserve our most sacred site," shared with The Associated Press that the sale was "truly heartbreaking."

"Our ancestors lived in this area for 1300 years," the tribe said in a statement. "This was our land. We have hundreds of thousands of our ancestors buried throughout Missouri and Illinois, including Picture Cave."

Previously, the land was owned by a St. Louis family who used it mostly for hunting.

When the Osage Nation learned that the family was interested in selling the land, they tried to work out an arrangement to buy the site directly, according to CNN. They worked in partnership with the Conservation Fund and the US Fish and Wildlife Service but could not come to terms on a price.

The land was valued between $420,000 and $450,000 by real estate appraisers. But when the family presented the land to the auction house, they were told it would likely bring in anywhere from $1 million to $3 million.

However, regardless of the buyer, the cave should remain well preserved. It is illegal under Missouri law to damage a human burial site like the Picture Cave or to profit from any cultural items located there.



Cailey Rizzo is a contributing writer for Travel + Leisure, currently based in Brooklyn. You can find her on Twitter, Instagram, or at caileyrizzo.com.

British Airways operates carbon-neutral flight using recycled cooking oil

BY CELINE CASTRONUOVO - 09/16/21 

© Getty Images


British Airways operated its first-ever carbon-neutral flight powered by recycled cooking oil this week, a major step in the airline’s goal to reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

The plane traveled from London Heathrow to Glasgow Airport on Tuesday and was powered directly by sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) provided by British multinational gas giant BP, according to a British Airways press release.

The flight’s SAF was blended at 35 percent with traditional jet fuel “in accordance with technical aviation specifications,” according to British Airways.

The aircraft, an Airbus A320neo, burns 20 percent less fuel, resulting in 20 percent less carbon dioxide emissions, and is 50 percent quieter when compared to its earlier version.

The company said the flight path replicated a flight British Airways operated to Edinburgh in 2010 in order “to show how far the aviation industry has progressed in its efforts to decarbonise over the last decade.”

“This flight offered a practical demonstration of the progress we’re making in our carbon reduction journey,” British Airways Chairman and CEO Sean Doyle said in a statement. “By working together with our industry partners we’ve delivered a 62% improvement in emissions reductions compared to a decade ago.”

“This marks real progress in our efforts to decarbonise and shows our determination to continue innovating, working with Governments and industry and accelerating the adoption of new low carbon solutions to get us closer still to the Perfect Flight of the future,” he added.

By 2050, British Airways hopes to achieve net zero carbon emissions, meaning that any of its activities release a net zero amount of carbon into the atmosphere.

Other airlines across the globe have made similar environmental commitments — trade organization Airlines for America announced earlier this year that it would work “across the aviation industry and with government leaders in a positive partnership to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.”

According to a March press release, the organization hopes to make SAF commercially viable, with 2 billion gallons available to U.S. airlines by 2030.

O'Toole vow to never challenge provincial laws 'dangerous' for basic rights: expert



OTTAWA — Conservative Leader Erin O'Toole has vowed to "never challenge" provincial laws, a sweeping statement that carries potential implications in areas ranging from abortion access to secession rights, markinga sharp break from the Liberal tack as the federal election campaign enters its endgame.

Building on his pledge to stay out of provincial bailiwicks, O'Toole made the promise last week in the context of a question around a Quebec law banning religious symbols for certain state employees. He reiterated it in the past few days as he accused Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau of "picking fights" with premiers.

"I would never challenge a law passed by the National Assembly of Quebec, Queen's Park or here in Toronto or by any provincial assembly," O'Toole said last Friday.

"I have a very clear commitment to respect provincial jurisdiction and respect the decisions of the democratically elected provincial assemblies across this country," he added Sunday.

Vancouver-based lawyer Michael Feder says the pledge never to go toe to toe with a premier amounts to a "truly remarkable" stance that could encroach on Canadians' rights and allow legislatures to ride roughshod over federal turf, including the Canada Health Act or interprovincial trade and transport.

"One can imagine Quebec purporting to ban transportation of crude oil by rail, for example, or B.C.," he said.

"It's not unimaginable that Quebec under its current leadership might purport to pass legislation governing conditions for secession. And if those conditions were at odds with what the Supreme Court of Canada has previously said … that seems to me to be an extremely ripe subject for litigation."

The question is far from hypothetical.

O'Toole has already promised to steer clear of a challenge to Quebec's Bill 21, which bars some civil servants in positions of authority from wearing turbans, kippas, hijabs and other religious garb.

Trudeau said Sunday the federal government has not "ruled out" federal intervention in a court challenge to the legislation.

The Liberal leader also made a campaign pledge to adopt a more explicit legal obligation for provinces to provide access to abortion services. The statement earlier this month came as New Brunswick continues to prohibit funding for abortions outside of three approved hospitals in Moncton and Bathurst.

O'Toole, who constantly repeats his personal pro-choice stance on the campaign trail, has nonetheless said he would leave it up to the province to sort out provision and funding of abortion procedures.

"This potentially opens up the whole abortion issue that he's desperately trying to avoid," said Errol Mendes, a law professor at the University of Ottawa.

“This is extraordinarily dangerous, if he really meant what he said (on court challenges)."

Areas of past federal-provincial legal wrangling range from securities regulation to reproductive technologies to the colour of margarine.

Earlier this year, the Supreme Court of Canada ended a years-long battle between Ottawa and three provinces over the federal carbon price when it ruled that a national price on pollution is constitutional.

“There’s nothing untoward or anything about those sorts of cases," Feder said.

However, Lori Turnbull, director of the School of Public Administration at Dalhousie University, notes that it's often provinces that challenge Ottawa rather than the other way around.

She said O'Toole's pledge amounts to a political signal telegraphing a more decentralized approach reminiscent of former prime minister Stephen Harper.

"It strikes me more as a value statement than an operational statement," Turnbull said, pointing to O'Toole's no-strings-attached pledge for $60-billion in health transfers over a decade. "It isn't for the federal government to challenge provincial laws."

That's particularly true on issues directly tied to alleged violations of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, she said. It's typically up to affected individuals or groups to launch a legal challenge.

"But if there's an area where the federal government has pronounced that it is incredibly important, they will immediately apply as an intervener," Mendes said, warning that otherwise the country could start down a path of "provincial fiefdoms."

Harper had his limits too. In 2013 he filed a legal intervention in a challenge to Quebec's Bill 99, which sought to cement the right of unilateral secession.

In 1998, Ottawa successfully intervened in a case where the top court ordered Alberta to legally protect its residents from discrimination based on sexual orientation.

"Does he really want to be a head waiter to the provinces?" Mendes asked about O'Toole, alluding to former prime minister Pierre Trudeau's derisive characterization of his Progressive Conservative opponent Joe Clark.

Culinary comparisons aside, O'Toole's "federation of partnership" — a phrase he's returned to frequently in the lead-up to election day on Sept. 20 — echoes Clark's description of Canada as a "community of communities," a vision that saw the provinces taking on greater authority under a more passive gaze from Parliament.

While Trudeau has called out O'Toole on New Brunswick abortion services, the parties have proven reluctant to pounce on the top Tory's hands-off approach to provincial legislatures, with Bill 21 and other sensitive Quebec topics leaving leaders wary of ham-fisted pronouncements that could drive away voters ahead of Canada's 44th election.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2021.

Christopher Reynolds, The Canadian Press

Erin O’Toole: Not today Jason Kenney, not today

Marie-Danielle Smith - 
Maclean's

SEPT 16,2021



New Brunswick. Four days before the federal election. Erin O’Toole is trying to make an announcement about securing the future. His hopes are dashed. Nobody wants to talk about securing futures. Nobody wants to talk about New Brunswick. They only want to talk about the premier of Alberta, who has announced new lockdown and vaccine passport measures to curb a mounting disaster in the province.

O’Toole stares into the camera, steeled to push ahead. Jason Kenney won’t take this day away from him. No. The words “Alberta” and “Jason” and “Kenney” will not come out of his mouth. Not today. Not when he’s this close to securing the future. Nothing will stop him now.

This is roughly how the press conference ensues:

Reporter: Any response to Jason Kenney’s announcement and how he’s done with the pandemic?

O’Toole: Justin Trudeau did a very bad job with the pandemic.

Reporter: Sure, so, in contrast, you said the other day that Kenney had done a very good job. But even Kenney now disagrees with that. Do you stand by your statement?

O’Toole: Here’s what I stand by. I stand by Canadians. I’ve always stood by Canadians. Liberals don’t do that. They just call expensive elections.

Reporter: But what you said the other day…

O’Toole: My answer is clear. I’d stand by Canadians. Trudeau is bad. Provinces are good. New Brunswick, by the way, is a province.

Reporter: Who handled the pandemic better? Justin Trudeau or Jason Kenney?

O’Toole: I’ll tell you who didn’t handle it well. And that’s Trudeau. He handled it badly.

Reporter: Did Kenney handle it badly?

O’Toole: I’ll tell you one thing. Trudeau is spending $600 million on an election.

Reporter: But, like, between the two of them?

O’Toole: I would respect, and work with, every single province. Such as New Brunswick. New Brunswick is the province I am in today.

Reporter: Alberta and the Delta variant—thoughts?

O’Toole: If I were Prime Minister, I would work with the provinces. If I were Prime Minister, the Delta variant wouldn’t even be here.

Reporter: …Okay, what would you have done differently to keep the Delta variant out of the country?

O’Toole: I’d have stopped the flights. And guess what. I’d have worked with the provinces.

Reporter: But back to Jason Kenney…

O’Toole: Trudeau won’t work with every single province like I will. I’ll be a wingman for every single one. A wingman, that’s me. Did I mention I was in the air force?

Reporter: Jason Kenney. Ja-son Ken-ney. Is this mic on?

O’Toole: Did I mention the $600 million? So many taxpayer dollars—600 million of them! You could, you know, work with the provinces using that kind of money! Provinces like New Brunswick!

Reporter: If I ask you about Alberta one more time, are you really going to stand there and tell me, yet again, that you’re going to work with the provinces? Is that really what you’re going to say? Is that—can you even hear me?

O’Toole: Here’s one thing you can take right to the bank. I’ll work with the provinces. You can bet your hard-earned taxpayer money on that.

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