Serena Williams' blunt retirement essay is a warning sign to all women: You'll never have it all

insider@insider.com (Marguerite Ward) - 17h ago

Serena Williams' retirement made many women think: If she can't continue a successful career and raise a family, can any child-bearing person? Robert Prange/Getty Images

Serena Williams announced her plans to retire in a raw and candid Vogue essay.

Williams said that as a woman, she's forced to choose between her career and growing a family.

The US economy relies on women's unpaid labor, and there's no change in sight.

"Believe me, I never wanted to have to choose between tennis and a family."

In a candid Vogue essay, the tennis superstar Serena Williams said it was time to "evolve" away from tennis and focus on growing her family. It's a decision women have been making for decades — and it won't get better anytime soon.

"If I were a guy, I wouldn't be writing this because I'd be out there playing and winning while my wife was doing the physical labor of expanding our family," she wrote. "Maybe I'd be more of a Tom Brady if I had that opportunity."

Her words hit me hard; a sense of despair settled over me. Of course, I support Williams' decision to invest in her family, but this isn't the way I wanted her professional career to end.

I hate that I have to be at this crossroads.

I hate that I have to be at this crossroads.

As a kid, my sister and I used to play tennis, pretending we were the Williams sisters. They were the antithesis of dainty dolls; they were symbols of power. Growing up following Serena's career was magical. There didn't seem like there was anything she couldn't do. But reality says otherwise.

If a woman of Williams' means, talent, and resources has to pick between career and family, what does that mean for the rest of the child-bearing population?

"I hate that I have to be at this crossroads," she wrote. I hate it, too.

Things aren't getting better for women


Serena Williams and Alexis Olympia Ohanian Jr.

 MICHAEL BRADLEY/AFP via Getty Images

I've always been optimistic, holding on to hope that things could change for women. I've followed Sheryl Sandberg's advice to "lean in." But I wonder, am I being naive? President Joe Biden ran on a big promise to establish paid family leave and more affordable childcare. Even Ivanka Trump threw her support behind it during her father's time in office.

Subsequent efforts made an impact but didn't last. An expanded child tax credit that sent monthly payments to families was a godsend for many parents, but the program ended at the end of last year. After that, the childhood-poverty rate jumped 41%, one study found. It was a sign that many families were again struggling, putting women back in the age-old conundrum of choosing between what makes the most sense for their children: paid or unpaid work.

And the recent Inflation Reduction Act — the pared-down version of Biden's agenda that just passed in the Senate — puts $740 billion behind climate and healthcare spending, but there's nothing about paid leave or affordable childcare. Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont has said it "goes nowhere near far enough in addressing the problems facing struggling working families." It feels like many Congress members just don't care.

The pandemic has exacerbated the situation for women, whose domestic labor as parents is not compensated — or societally protected with any guaranteed federal paid leave.

"Domestic labor is labor," Laura Danger, a special-education teacher who dropped out of the workforce because of unpredictable childcare, previously told Insider. "It's like we're pretending that this work doesn't matter."

While the circumstances will likely be different from Williams', many women will run up against a similar conundrum at some point: Do they pursue more high-profile work opportunities or scale back to care for children or aging parents? Do we reach for our own version of the 24th Grand Slam, the accolade Williams desperately wanted? Or do we listen to calls from society, our partners, and even our children to care for our family?

Williams is admitting that, for now, women can't have it all. Evidence supports this. Women are more likely to leave the workforce to care for family responsibilities than men, surveys have indicated. Hundreds of thousands of women have exited the workforce amid the pandemic, many citing a lack of affordable childcare. Many have not returned.

There seems to be little reprieve for women who try to make it work, like we're running up against a wall. Hybrid work is not an option for many, and when it is, it comes with its own challenges, like less face-to-face time with key decision-makers who promote people. Another option, part-time work, is also difficult to come by.

Williams summed up the situation, saying she could pursue her career, "but I'm turning 41 this month, and something's got to give."
America is supposed to be highly modernized. But the continued reliance on women's unpaid labor is anything but.


The US is the only highly modernized country without guaranteed parental leave. 

AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth

"These days, if I have to choose between building my tennis résumé and building my family, I choose the latter," Williams added.

The US economy depends on women making that choice. It's more than frustrating: It's not fair.

"If you want to make the economic, rational decision, it makes sense that the person with the larger earnings goes back to work, so that would, most often, be the husband," Matthias Doepke, a Northwestern University economist, previously told Insider.

Attempts to make paid leave law have failed, including over the past year. Each time, many women, like myself, hope that maybe this time will be different. But nothing changes.

Even for a woman of Williams' enormous wealth — she could easily afford the best childcare — someone has to be involved in the child's life. And there's an expectation in society that the woman fill that role.

As Williams puts it, she needs to be either "two feet in" tennis or "two feet out." And she's making the decision to step out. For many women, it's a decision that's all too familiar.

Insider's Juliana Kaplan contributed to this article.

SASKATCHEWAN

Federal Government gives local First Nation $4.1 million in compensation for withheld salaries


Beardy’s and Okemasis Cree Nation has reached a historical settlement with the Government of Canada for compensation over 66 years of withheld salaries from the community’s leadership by the Crown after they were associated with the Northwest Rebellion.

Minister of Crown-Indigenous Relations Marc Miller announced Monday that the Canadian Government would be giving Beardy’s and Okemasis $4.1 million to reflect the financial value of the funds withheld from 1885 to 1951. ‘

“Canada, I guess they said Beardy’s was part of the Rebellion, so we were stripped of our Chief and our Council members for so many years,” said Beardy’s and Okemasis Chief Edwin Ananas.

Miller said an important part of the reconciliation process was listening to what Indigenous people have been telling the federal government “for ages.” That was a big part of Monday’s announcement.

“This punishment against communities that were a part of the Northwest Resistance, a part of our history and a part of the basis for Canada… It’s a sad element of our history and it’s something that we need to recognize and compensate for,” Miller said.

Anasas said First Nations members will determine where the settlement money goes, but all 3,600 on and off-reserve members of Beardy’s and Okemasis will benefit in some way. Their main focus is on the community’s infrastructure and adequate housing for band membership.

“It’s about financial compensation, but also about respect and dignity,” said Miller. “That’s something that was denied from the community for well over 66 years and even after that… I think this is something we can all agree is a pretty black-and-white violation of treaty.”

According to Ananas, Beardy’s and Okemasis are still fighting to resolve other issues with the Government of Canada, including a Cows and Plows claim that he says will play a huge factor in the community’s future.

The salaries claim was settled in June, but was announced on the morning of August 8 during the opening of the second annual St. Michael’s Indian Residential School Gathering. Survivors will come together for a week-long opportunity to share stories and engage in ceremony on the former grounds of the St. Michael’s Indian Residential School in Duck Lake.

Bailey Sutherland, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Prince Albert Daily Herald

SASKATCHEWAN

Local elders who travelled to Edmonton have mixed reaction to papal apology

A residential school survivor says the Pope’s apology was “not enough” for some elders who travelled to Edmonton from Beardy’s and Okemasis First Nation.

Gaylene Sutherland, Indian Residential School Support Worker at Willow Cree Health Services in Beardy’s and Okemasis and residential school survivor, said she brought forty elders from the first nation to hear the pope’s apology in person on July 25.

Out of the forty elders, only around half were receptive to the pope’s visit.

“Some had mixed emotions, some were angry, some just didn't care too much about it,” Sutherland said. “They are still working on that part of themselves.”

While meeting with Indigenous leaders in Edmonton, Alberta, Pope Francis spoke of his “sorrow, indignation, and shame” over the Catholic Church’s role in the abuse of First Nation’s children in Canada’s residential schools.

Edmonton was the first stop of the Pope’s “penitential pilgrimage”, where he apologized and promised that a “serious investigation” would be conducted into what occurred at the schools.

Sutherland said while many other abuses were mentioned, the unacknowledgement about the sexual abuse that went on in residential schools made many survivors feel unheard.


“It was like it was pushed to the side, [sexual abuse] was a big part of all trauma and the intergerational traumas that have been passed down.”

She said she noticed a lot of elders become disengaged while being faced with the trauma that the visit brought forward.

Sutherland said the apology felt insincere and that more could be done in terms of reconciliation.

“For myself, I’m having mixed feelings. A lot of us felt like it wasn’t from the heart,” she said. “The apology wasn’t coming from him, it didn’t feel genuine. He didn’t acknowledge that the churches were wrong, he was just reading what someone else wrote for him.”

Pope Francis touched down in Edmonton on July 24 where he met with Indigenous leaders, and residential school survivors. He also toured the site of former Ermineskin Residential School, which operated until 1975. He also spoke at Sacred Heart Church in Edmonton, and held Mass in Commonwealth Stadium.

His trip was the fourth papal visit to Canada. The Pope also made stops in Quebec and Nunavut before departing.

Bailey Sutherland, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Prince Albert Daily Herald

Canadian artists may soon receive royalties when their work is resold

The Montreal Museum of Fine Arts is pictured in 2017. 

Photo courtesy of Thomas Ledl/Wikimedia

Aug. 13 (UPI) -- Canadian politicians are drafting legislation that would amend the country's copyright law to grant artists royalties when their work is resold.

Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne and Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez are drafting an amendment to the Copyright Act that would give artists a "resale right," The Art Newspaper reported.

"Our government is currently advancing work on potential amendments to the Copyright Act to further protect artists, creators and copyright holders," Champagne spokesperson Laurie Bouchard told the Globe and Mail.

"Resale rights for artists are indeed an important step toward improving economic conditions for artists in Canada."

The Canadian Artists Representation, a nonprofit that supports visual artists that has proposed such reforms, said in a statement Friday that it was pleased that the Artist's Resale Right is "gaining momentum within the federal government."

"The ARR is a royalty that enables artists to share in the wealth they create," said April Britski, the national executive director of CARFAC in the statement.

"It is particularly beneficial for Indigenous and senior artists, aligns Canada with many of our international trade partners, and it is one of many ways the federal government can help visual artists recover from the pandemic and prosper for years to come."

In an April presentation, CARFAC proposed that 5% of all eligible secondary sales of artwork sold for at least $1,000 should be paid back to the artist, noting that it "is a copyright royalty, not a tax."

"It would not be collected by the government nor would it be spent by government," the proposal reads. "Furthermore, the government would not be involved with collecting, distributing, or monitoring the payment of royalties."

The organization noted that more than 90 countries including Australia, Britain, Mexico and all members of the European Union have similar royalties for the resale of work.

The art news website Hyperallergic noted that attempts to pass similar acts in the United States have failed, including the American Royalties Too Act proposed by Democratic lawmakers in 2014.

The Art Dealers Association of Canada has argued that the royalties would create a bureaucratic burden for small galleries, The Art Newspaper reported, and could raise the price of art and reduce sales.

Today's letters: ER closures should not be accepted as 'normal'

Ottawa Citizen letters - Aug 13,2022


ER closures are not ‘normal,’ minister



Re: Ontario ER closures not unprecedented, health minister says, Aug. 8.

What a relief hearing from provincial Health Minister Sylvia Jones that ER closures are not unprecedented. We’ve failed Ontarians in the past so what’s the big deal if we are doing it again? Very comforting.

The motto in the Ontario Health Ministry must be “Strive for mediocrity.” In order to serve you better, we’ve closed this ER; please drive 80 kms to the next nearest overcrowded ER as it may be open. Best of luck.

True story: a few years ago, the notice on the door of our local bank branch said that exact thing: “In order to serve you better, we’ve closed this branch.” It must be spreading!

Garry Logue, Ottawa

What universe is the health minister living in?

Gee, I didn’t think the nurses in Ontario were all on vacation. I thought they were so overworked and underpaid that nobody wants to be a nurse anymore. I’m so glad the minister has told us the truth as she sees it from the planet she lives on far away.

Jean Currie, Ottawa


Don’t trash the single-payer system

Health Minister Sylvia Jones appears on track to continue underfunding nursing and other forms of health care and promoting private care. Decent health care can never be cheap. Fix the current single-payer system; don’t trash it.

David Palframan, M.D., Ottawa

Paramedic rules are just stupid

The biggest problem with the health-care system is that it is run by the government, which is more concerned about rules and regulations than about efficient and effective service.

Take, for example, the issue of having zero ambulances available. This is because of a stupid rule requiring paramedics (and their ambulances) to sit idle until a hospital worker takes over a patient. In one case I was waiting in hospital with my wife and there were 10 paramedics in the hallway with five patients. They were there for more than two hours. Once the hospital takes over, one or two nurses look after these five patients.

Why not have a pair of paramedics look after these patients until they are handed over? I hope that someone who cares reads this.

Greg Cameron, Ottawa

What will it take to change views on nursing?

I don’t believe many of the registered nurses from the 1980s and ’90s are still practising. So, few will remember when pay equity was the big issue.

We nurses felt we should have pay parity with police officers. No such luck. Word was, we were compared to pastry chefs. Unfortunately, nursing is still female-dominated and I don’t think it is any more valued today than in the 1990s.

I don’t know what it will take to get nurses the recognition on all levels — pay, benefit, equity and respect — they deserve. Perhaps if the whole health system gets nearer to total collapse, views will change among those in charge.

Mary Sue Boyle (proud graduate of Toronto General Hospital 1968), Kemptville

Why people are leaving nursing careers

The Citizen has carried numerous examples of the challenges facing nurses. I heard an example that sets out starkly the choice one nurse made. She left her profession to become a painter with a drywall and painting company. She is happy with her decision. The hours are regular, the pay is roughly what she had been earning and when she finishes her work day, it does not stay with her.

Gerry Van Kessel, Gatineau

Fill health-care gaps with ‘dreamers’

While Canada’s health-care spending is in line with other democracies, our results are not. Only the Americans make us look good.

We spend much more than most on administration, but we penny-pinch with nurses, beds and equipment. Wait times are horrible. ER rooms are shut down. Ambulances line up, unable to drop off patients. Nurses are leaving in droves. Thousands of jobs remain vacant. All the provinces ever do is demand more money from the federal government. But money alone will not bring our nurses back. In the long run, the health system needs a total overhaul.

Ultimately, we need a true national public health-care system, just like most other democracies. They are more efficient, effective and accountable. Of course, that would take years. In the short term, we urgently need more doctors and nurses.

Want a quick solution? In the U.S., some 280,000 health-care workers are so-called “dreamers” — undocumented immigrants. All “dreamers” by definition, have lived in the U.S. for many years with unblemished records. They are losing hope. Canada could offer them what they dream about: a job, respect and fast citizenship.

Patrick Esmonde-White, Ottawa

Related video: ER closures, wait times impacting essential care for Canadians

Duration 2:14  View on Watch

A little context on those teacher comparisons


Re: Letter, Let’s compare teachers, nurses, Aug. 8.

I heartily concur with the writer’s comments about the working conditions for nurses in Ontario. Improvement is essential, particularly in wages. I would like to clarify and add some reality, however, to her comments about the teaching profession.

She stated that teachers have three paid professional days, as if this were some kind of holiday. Not so. Professional days are working days, and they represent a very small part of the professional development that teachers pursue regularly, on their own dime.

Yes, the mandated working day for teachers is five hours, but that is five hours in front of a class, working with groups and individuals, often with very high numbers of students. Readers should have some understanding of the countless hours that go into preparing for the delivery of programs to address the learning needs of diverse students. This requires hard-earned skills and knowledge, and working nights and weekends to meet the needs of students in that five-hour class window. As for accountability, performance reviews are done every year.

The nursing profession in Ontario has been profoundly undervalued and this must be addressed. But please have a more accurate understanding of the workload teachers carry before making comparisons.

Jan Secord, Ottawa

Opinion: Urgent care needed — my week of waiting rooms in Alberta’s besieged hospitals

Calgary Herald - 

On a weekend trip for a wedding in Spruce Grove, I had the usual semi-anxious bouts of overthinking the contents of the first aid kit in the vehicle, the smaller version I keep in my purse. For over two years, I’ve been repeating the same mantra to my sons: Be careful. You do not want to end up in an emergency room right now. I should listen to my own advice.


An ambulance proceeds to the emergency room entrance of the Foothills Medical Centre on Friday, September 24, 2021.

In a thoughtless instant helping with dinner, I pick up a burner under a chafing dish, but it has already been lit. One of the guests is a paramedic and advises me to go to a hospital. My injuries have the telltale signs of third-degree burns. Someone fills a Ziplock bag with cold water and I dunk my burnt digits while my cousin drives to Misericordia Community Hospital in west Edmonton.

The triage nurse tells me the estimated wait to see a doctor is eight to 10 hours. I can’t wait, my kids are back at the wedding. I’m walking and talking so I’m OK, relatively speaking. The nurse turns away from her computer and leans in, like an old friend with a secret. She lists the supplies I should buy and tells me to see a doctor as soon as I return to Calgary.

I slosh my bag of water down the aisles of a drug store, picking up what I need. I wonder what happens to people who can’t wait eight to 10 hours, people who must work, who can’t afford $60 for gauze, ointment, waterproof tape and Second Skin. My cousin takes me back to the wedding and wraps up my fingers. I’ve missed dinner, but I’ve lost my appetite.

Back in Calgary, a volunteer at Sheldon M. Chumir Urgent Care asks me the COVID-19 screening questions and hands me a small, yellow piece of paper. He also carries a stack of red pieces. On the wall above the waiting areas are larger versions of these colours. In the farthest corner, people with red pieces look unwell.

A digital sign announces the wait time: four hours. Monitors share messages about opioid addiction and recovery. This facility is in the Beltline, my old neighbourhood, one with a diverse population including many at-risk citizens. Some patients have their worldly belongings in a shopping cart outside. It’s also sandwiched between downtown office towers and affluent communities. An older, well-dressed woman approaches the security desk asking where the Second Cup coffee shop is located. She’s meeting someone before getting vaccinations for her cruise at the travel clinic upstairs. This is Calgary.

A woman on her phone tells a young child that someone else will pick him up. On another call, she pleads with her mother to stop asking for money. She’s down to her last $40.

A young man introduces himself to the man in the next chair, a new Canadian from India. They talk about hospitals, the Chumir and Rockyview being the two best choices for ER visits, in the young man’s opinion. He’s a cook at a restaurant downtown.

They talk about the Calgary Stampede, how expensive it is, how the city changes for 10 days, and not always in a good way

.
“You don’t want to be in the ER during Stampede,” says the cook.

When my name is called, I explain my situation to a young doctor. I tell him I feel stupid for what happened, but on the upside, I kept my right hand out of the human soup at the World Water Park the day after I injured myself. He laughs and I’m relieved that he doesn’t scold me for taking three kids to a wave pool with third-degree burns on my hand.

He must debride the burnt tissue, which will require freezing the affected fingers first. I feel nauseous.

The doctor suggests I don’t watch the procedure. I look away and he makes conversation to take my mind off what’s happening. We discuss the diversity of the patients he sees, how he’s from Edmonton but studied medicine in Calgary. I say he’s a superhero for doing what he does, under increasingly deteriorating conditions. He says the real superheroes are the social workers.

“I remember the moment I realized how Calgary differs from Edmonton. I was in med school, meeting friends at a craft beer place. It was packed, but I got a table just as people were leaving. A man in a nice suit approached and offered me a 150 bucks for my table.” The doctor shakes his head, “I was a student. I took the money. But in that moment, I learned a lot about Calgary.”

The next day, I take a seat in the waiting room of the burn unit at Foothills Medical Centre. A man waits with both arms, both hands, and all 10 fingers bandaged. Perspective smarts like a needle in the thumb.

Two nurses are in the corner, talking. One of them says she “finally had to call in sick” because she had only slept four hours the past three days. They talk about feeling overwhelmed and stressed out. They’re running on fumes.

I’m taught how to care for the wounds. The nurse is impressed with the bandaging done at the Chumir. She wishes they had the same materials, but supply chain issues are such that they have “run out of almost everything.” She puts breathable pads and little compression sleeves on my fingers. They look like tiny leg warmers.

After a follow-up trip to the burn unit, it has cost me just over $150 to treat this injury, including supplies, a prescription ointment and many hours of parking.

What stands out to me with each hospital is the positivity. You would never guess that these workers have come through 2½ years of unprecedented challenges brought on by the global pandemic or that they’re working without the proper items to care for their patients due to supply chain issues.

Every patient was given the same level of respect, whether they were in designer shoes or wearing their only set of clothes. The waiting rooms held diverse Albertans from eight to 80 years old, and everyone was greeted with caring interest. There was no tone of jaded exasperation or bad morale. There was no evidence of a broken system or a group of workers who, arguably, have few reasons for optimism. I witnessed high quality of care provided by people who have every reason to be angry, frustrated and fed up.

The South Calgary Health Centre has just announced a reduction in patient intake hours for urgent care due to staffing challenges. The Airdrie Community Health Centre recently began weekend overnight closures of the urgent care centre for eight weeks due to a lack of doctors. Rural hospitals around the province are cutting back hours.

We are a province with many financially comfortable citizens, but many of our neighbours are folks who don’t have money for their own medical supplies, people who must decide if they can afford to take a day off work to wait for a doctor. It only makes sense that a province with this much wealth takes care of its most vulnerable to ensure these top-notch health-care workers remain here, caring for the health of all Albertans.

Heidi Klaassen is a Calgary writer and editor.

WHAT UCP STANDS FOR IS OFFENSIVE

Premier Kenney distances government from 'offensive' essay

Dave Breakenridge -Edmonton Journal  


Premier Jason Kenney is attempting to distance himself and his government from a provincial essay contest that produced a racist, sexist third-place winner.

Jason Kenney speaks at an event at Spruce Meadows in Calgary on Wednesday, May 18, 2022.

On his weekly radio show, Kenney admitted the third-place essay, which argued women are “not exactly” equal to men and should be encouraged to have babies to avoid “cultural suicide,” was offensive, but added he doesn’t know “what happened here.”

“There was clearly a breakdown in how they assessed the essays,” Kenney said.

“This is not the government. People in the legislature have different associations and they do different projects. This is one they screwed up. They’ve admitted that, they’ve apologized and committed to ensure that it doesn’t happen again.”

The Her Vision Inspires contest invited women aged 17 to 25 to submit essays in February describing their ideas for the province and what they would do if they were a member of the legislative assembly.

The third-place winner, attributed to S. Silver, contained a passage that states: “While it is sadly popular nowadays to think that the world would be better off without humans, or that Albertan children are unnecessary as we can import foreigners to replace ourselves, this is a sickly mentality that amounts to a drive for cultural suicide.”

The contest was organzied and judged by MLAs Jackie Armstrong-Homeniuk , now the associate minister for the status of women, in her capacity as Alberta’s representative to the Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians Association, an organization Kenney says he had never heard of before last week.

Camrose MLA Jackie Lovely, the parliamentary secretary for the status of women, was the only other judge.

Kenney said on his radio show that he doesn’t know what the judging process was, and is “waiting for a report on that.”

Lovely and Armstrong-Homeniuk, who have both admitted the essay shouldn’t have been chosen, have faced calls for their resignation.

The office of assembly Speaker Nathan Cooper has said neither he nor the legislative assembly office had anything to do with running the contest or picking winners.

One entrant in the contest, Emelia Kazakawich, has said that while she doesn’t feel the ministers should resign , calling that idea “unproductive,” there needs to be a change in behaviour from those in government.

A TikToker Sorted Canadian Provinces Into Hogwarts Houses & There Was An 'Immediate Slytherin'

Katherine Caspersz - Yesterday- Narcity

Do you consider yourself a brave Gryffindor? An intelligent Ravenclaw? A loyal Hufflepuff, or a cunning Slytherin? If you think you have a good idea of which Harry Potter Hogwarts house you think you belong to, this TikTok might just prove you wrong.


© Provided by Narcity

TikToker Lauren Hunter (@thehunterathome) decided to take on the role of Sorting Hat and choose which Canadian provinces belong in each Hogwarts house, and while some choices might be surprising, others are so accurate.

Hunter began by saying there was an "immediate Slytherin that comes to mind."

"Yeah, it's Alberta," she said. "No explanation needed."

She also put Ontario in the Slytherin house, saying that it's because "the politicians and the Toronto Maple Leafs live here." Ouch!

Next, she moved on to Hufflepuff.

"Hufflepuff's known for patience, fair, hardworking and sometimes blandly nice people," she said. "Sounds like Saskatchewan."

"Also, B.C. should be Hufflepuff purely for the reason that they like to 'hufff and puff,' if you catch my drift," she said cheekily, referring to the province's penchant for cannabis.

Moving on, she said the Maritimes are "like a bit of Gryffindor and a bit of Ravenclaw 'cause they're loyal but gosh darn it are people in the Maritimes funny, so definitely Ravenclaw for wit."

Although, there was one province that was an exception to this.

"The Bank of Nova Scotia was started in Nova Scotia," Hunter said. "I feel like anywhere that starts a bank is a Slytherin."

In the second part of her video about Hogwarts houses, Hunter said that, once again, "an immediate Slytherin comes to mind," this time, Quebec.

"If Alberta is Draco Malfoy, Quebec is Lucius Malfoy," she explained.

Moving to Manitoba, Hunter simply said "Hufflepuff."

"I'm sorry, you guys have got real non-main-character energy," she said with a laugh. "I'm sorry, Manitoba."

Returning to the Atlantic provinces, she placed Newfoundland in Ravenclaw, "a house known for wit," because "getting 'Screeched' in is the funniest thing I've ever seen in my life," she said, referring to the process by which a visitor becomes an honorary Newfoundlander, which involves kissing a codfish and drinking Screech rum.

"P.E.I.? Gryffindor," she said, explaining that the province's coastline is "Gryffindor material."

Finally, Nunavut was left in the cold (no pun intended).

"Nunavut I'm not sorting into any house, because they're probably having 'none of it,'" she said (pun intended, here).

Speaking to Narcity Québec, Hunter said that viewers seemed to be divided on her Harry Potter house choices.

"Some people definitely agree with the sorting, others definitely do not," she said. "Everyone seems to agree that Alberta is Slytherin. However, folks seem divided on whether Quebec is Slytherin. Some say it 100% is [...] but Quebecers say they're more like Gryffindor!"

"Everybody, though, seems to agree that Saskatchewan is Hufflepuff!"

DUOPOLY; NDP VS UCP
'Is it a party if no one shows up?': Deadline passes, no leadership candidates revealed for Alberta Liberal Party

After a tumultuous decade that’s seen the Alberta Liberal Party go from the official Opposition to holding no seats in the legislature, there’s seemingly little interest for anybody to take on the task of leading the rebuild.


© Provided by Calgary Herald

David Khan, left, and David Swann were the last two permanent leaders of the Alberta Liberal Party. The deadline for the party's leadership race passed Friday with no candidates coming forward.

The party is in the process of selecting a new leader, but the Friday evening deadline for nominations came and went with no news from officials, or any prospective candidates, as to who might be on the ballot come the September vote.

As of Saturday, the party had not announced any nominees and the link to its “leadership” page had been removed from the homepage of its website.

According to Mount Royal University political scientist Duane Bratt, it could be the death knell for Alberta’s longest-standing political party — one that formed the first four governments after the province’s inception, holding office from 1905 until 1921.

“At what point do you shut down the party? You’re not raising money, you don’t have any MLAs, no one wants to be your leader. At a certain point you just have to wind this up, don’t you?” Bratt said. “Is it a party if no one shows up?”

According to quarterly fundraising reports released by Elections Alberta, the Liberal Party’s fundraising has been minuscule this year.

Through the first two quarters of the year, the Liberals raised just shy of $37,000, while the UCP and NDP raised $1.4 million and 2.5 million, respectively. The Liberals’ fundraising numbers also fall behind the year-to-date amounts raised by other smaller parties like the Alberta Party, which collected about $60,000, and the Pro-Life Alberta Political Association, which raised $162,000.

The Liberals have come back from the brink before. After holding no seats between 1971 and 1986, and winning just four in that year’s election, former Edmonton mayor Laurence Decore became leader in 1988 and breathed some life back into the party.


Under Decore, the party’s headcount doubled to eight in the 1989 election, then quadrupled in the 1993 election — its best electoral showing since it formed its final government in 1917 — grabbing 32 seats and snagging the title of official Opposition from the NDP.

Bratt said he doesn’t see a similar resurgence in the cards, especially without a permanent leader.

“They were never in this bad of a shape,” he said. “They weren’t able to field candidates in every riding in the last election; they’re, I think, hardly even on the radar for fundraising. It’s not just about seats. It’s a whole series of things. Yes, they have come back before but I don’t know where they go from here.”

The party’s popularity has been on a downward trend since Decore’s departure in 1994, holding onto small official Opposition caucuses through 2000s before falling to third-party status after winning just five seats in the 2012 election under leader Raj Sherman — who unsuccessfully attempted to add his name to the UCP leadership ballot this year. The fall continued as the party earned a single seat in 2015 under interim leader David Swann , the last Alberta Liberal to hold a seat in the legislature.

David Khan was the party’s last permanent leader. Elected as leader in 2017, he lost the contest for the Calgary-Mountain View riding in the 2019 election — which saw the Liberals shut out of the legislature entirely — and resigned as leader in 2020. John Roggeveen took the reins as interim leader in March 2021.

“It used to be that the provincial Liberals were stronger than the federal Liberals. That’s not the case now,” said Bratt. “I think what’s happened is the (Alberta) Liberal people have all gone to the NDP.”

The entrance fee for the Liberal leadership nomination was $6,000 — a low entry barrier compared to the UCP contest’s $175,000 entry cost — and was open to any party member in good standing. While seemingly an easy foot in the door into a high-profile position in provincial politics, Bratt said any prospective candidate would need to be in it for the long haul and put in a lot of hours to revive the party.

“Six grand isn’t a whole lot of money, but it would be a hell of a lot of work,” he said. “You’d have to be really committed to going forward and basically rebuilding the entire party from bottom to top.”

Neither Alberta Liberal officials nor Roggeveen responded Saturday to Postmedia’s requests for comment, nor has the party issued a public statement since the nomination deadline passed on Friday.

In June , the party said Sept. 12 was the membership deadline to be eligible to vote and an online vote would occur online between Sept. 19 and Sept. 24, with results announced Sept. 25.

Meanwhile, the campaign for UCP leadership continues with seven candidates in the running to become the province’s next premier and lead the party into an election next spring. The deadline to buy memberships to vote in the leadership contest closed Friday.

mrodriguez@postmedia.com
Twitter: @michaelrdrguez

New species of giant deep-sea isopod discovered in the Gulf of Mexico

Zoe Sottile - 12h ago


Anew deep-sea crustacean that bears a striking resemblance to the facehuggers from “Alien” has been identified off the Gulf of Mexico.



The bathynomus yucatanensis is a species of giant isopod, crustaceans that scavenge for food at the bottom of the ocean. Their segmented, fourteen-legged bodies resemble their much smaller relative, the woodlouse. The foot-long size of the giant isopods has been attributed to deep-sea gigantism, the same phenomenon that leads to giant squids at the bottom of our oceans.

A group of Taiwanese, Japanese, and Australian researchers set out to describe the new species of giant isopod and distinguish it from the bathynomus giganteus, the giant isopods found throughout the tropical western Atlantic waters. Their research was published in the Journal of Natural History on Tuesda

The researchers collected specimens of the newly identified species off Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. By comparing the massive crustaceans to others collected around Taiwan and Hong Kong, they were able to identify distinguishing characteristics, like its creamy yellow color and more slender body proportions.

DNA analysis also showed that the bathynomus yucatanensis is distinct from its close relatives. But because the different species are fairly similar, the scientists acknowledged that “there is a long history of misidentification of species in the genus.”

And there may be more huge isopods to come: the researchers noted that there may be more undiscovered species in the Atlantic Ocean.