Mohawk Judy

Manulife Financial Corp. has added gender-affirmation coverage that pays for some surgeries and other treatments for its transgender employees in the U.S. and Canada, putting the insurer in a select group of companies that offer such benefits. The coverage includes surgeries such as Adam’s apple reductions, cheek or breast augmentation and treatments like voice training, the Toronto-based insurer and wealth manager said Tuesday. The addition of benefits for transgender employ...ees puts Manulife in a rare and shrinking group of employers who cover such procedures. Only about seven per cent of U.S. employers pay for gender reassignment surgery, according to a 2019 study from the Society for Human Resource Management. That’s down from 10 per cent in 2017, echoing a decline in other coverages geared to specific groups such as bariatric weight-loss surgery and in-vitro fertilization, the group said. As the needs of our employees evolve, the benefits we offer have to as well, Manulife chief human resources officer Pam Kimmet said in a statement. Families take many forms, such as single parents, same-sex couples, and transitioning transgender family members. And we look to support these different journeys. In Canada, where health care is publicly funded, most provinces’ and territories’ plans cover some gender-affirmation procedures, though many surgeries aren’t covered and many aren’t available to be performed in certain provinces, according to the Canadian Professional Association for Transgender Health. Canadian insurer Sun Life Financial began selling gender affirmation coverage last year that employers can use to fill in gaps in provincial or territorial plans. https://www.thestar.com//manulife-adds-gender-affirmation-

The COVID19 pandemic and its global response have resulted in unprecedented and rapid changes to most people’s daytoday lives. To slow the spread of the virus, governments have implemented the practice of physical distancing (social distancing), which includes isolation within the home with limited time spent outdoors. During this extraordinary time, nature around the home may play a key role in mitigating against adverse mental health outcomes due to the pandemic and th...e measures taken to address it. To assess whether this is the case, we conducted an online questionnaire survey (n = 3,000) in Tokyo, Japan, to quantify the association between five mental health outcomes (depression, life satisfaction, subjective happiness, selfesteem, and loneliness) and two measures of nature experiences (frequency of greenspace use and green view through windows from home). Accounting for sociodemographic and lifestyle variables, we found that the frequency of greenspace use and the existence of green window views from within the home was associated with increased levels of selfesteem, life satisfaction, and subjective happiness and decreased levels of depression, anxiety, and loneliness. Our findings suggest that a regular dose of nature can contribute to the improvement of a wide range of mental health outcomes. With the recent escalation in the prevalence of mental health disorders, and the possible negative impacts of the COVID19 pandemic on public mental health, our findings have major implications for policy, suggesting that urban nature has great potential to be used as a naturebased solution for improved public health. https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com//10.1/eap.2248 See more

If there’s scientific evidence backing up claims that barren-ground caribou won’t be impacted by a proposed mine expansion on Baffin Island, the mayor of Clyde River, Nunavut, has yet to see it. Jerry Natanine told The Narwhal an absence of available data is stoking concern that increasing the size of one of the world’s northernmost mines could come at a serious cost to the environment and Inuit culture. We just want to hear what the scientists think and there’s been no one ...to answer, he said. Baffinland Iron Mines wants to double iron ore production at its Mary River Mine on north Baffin Island under a second phase of development, which is currently being assessed by the Nunavut Impact Review Board. Part of the expansion project involves building a railway to move that ore from mine to port, replacing a supply road. The mine site is near traditional caribou hunting grounds that residents from Clyde River often use, Natanine said. We go caribou hunting there, and if they build that railroad, we’re thinking it’s gonna block migrations, he said. https://thenarwhal.ca/nunavut-baffinland-mine-clyde-river-/

United Nations humanitarian relief agency UNICEF is looking to recruit some of the airline industry’s biggest operators to help distribute a coronavirus vaccine to the world’s poorest nations. UNICEF, which normally provides aid to children, held a call with about 40 carriers Monday to make plans for the global airlift and to identify what tasks each party can perform, according to Glyn Hughes, head of cargo at the International Air Transport Association, which helped arrange... the meeting. UNICEF, already the world’s largest buyer of vaccines, is leading efforts to purchase and distribute COVID shots to 92 states with funds from the GAVI immunization program, which brings together governments, the World Health Organization and World Bank. Another 80 higher-income countries have chosen it to procure inoculations they will buy, extending the plan to 70% of the world’s population. The summons to airlines was triggered by positive late-stage trial results reported by Pfizer Inc. and Moderna Inc. on two separate vaccines, Hughes said in an interview. Neither has yet been approved for use, but attention is turning toward how a successful shot can be distributed, especially to less well off countries without the resources for mass purchases. About 30 of the largest cargo airlines were invited to participate in the call, Hughes said. They included express-delivery specialists such as FedEx Corp. and United Parcel Service Inc. and dedicated freighter operators like Cargolux Airlines International SA. https://www.thestar.com//un-recruits-40-airlines-to-help-d

Krystyna Kacpura can barely contain her anger as she talks about the protests that have swept across Poland in response to a move to tighten the country’s already strict abortion law. This is war right now, said Ms. Kacpura, the executive director of Poland’s Federation for Women and Family Planning. We’ll not stop. Thousands of people have taken to the streets in cities, towns and villages throughout the country ever since its Constitutional Tribunal struck down a key pa...rt of the abortion law last Thursday. The tribunal’s decision will effectively ban almost all abortions in Poland. The ruling has struck a nerve in this predominantly Catholic country where the populist Law and Justice government has long supported a ban. While few Poles back abortion on demand, there’s a growing sense that the tribunal has gone too far. In defiance of pandemic restrictions, demonstrators have held noisy marches, blocked traffic and staged sit-ins in churches. Many carried placards emblazoned with red lightning bolts and the slogan Women’s hell. The backlash intensified Wednesday when people were urged to stage a national strike and stay away from work and school in support of the protests. I think this is a game changer, said Barbara Nowacka, a long-time abortion rights activist and MP for the biggest opposition party, Civic Coalition. We haven’t seen protests like this. You have on the streets hundreds of thousands of people everywhere, and they are shouting for freedom. Polish law permits abortions only in cases of rape or incest, where the mother’s life is at risk or if the fetus has severe abnormalities. As a result, only about 1,000 hospital abortions are performed annually, and the vast majority involve situations where the fetus is deformed or badly damaged. Abortion-rights campaigners estimate that every year as many as 150,000 women have abortions illegally in Poland or go abroad. The 13-member tribunal narrowed the law by ruling that abortions for fetal abnormalities violated the constitution. It accepted arguments from pro-life campaigners that the exemption allowed for eugenic abortions, in which terminations were carried out where, for instance, Down syndrome had been detected. The tribunal’s president, Julia Przylebska, said the law legalized eugenic practices with regard to an unborn child, thus denying it the respect and protection of human dignity. She added that it also amounted to a directly forbidden form of discrimination. Abortion-rights campaigners argued that the ruling will lead to more illegal abortions and force women to deliver babies who are brain dead or have no chance of survival. This isn’t the first time Poland has grappled with the issue of abortion, but the debate has become more heated as attitudes toward social issues change. https://www.theglobeandmail.com//article-this-is-war-rig/

A portion of a $100-million grant to Nature United from the Bezos Earth Fund has been earmarked to protect forests in B.C.’s Clayoquot Sound and throughout the so-called Emerald Edge region in Canada and the United States. The Emerald Edge is the largest intact coastal rainforest on Earth, according to the Nature Conservancy, spanning 100 million acres through Washington, British Columbia and Alaska. The funds will be used to protect the forest and its capacity to store car...bon and diminish planet-damaging emissions. Nature United the Toronto-based affiliate of the conservancy has said that the money will also be used to support efforts to reduce the carbon footprint of farming practices in Northwest India and curtail agriculture’s contribution to Delhi’s air pollution. Overall, the grant is set to advance carbon sequestration and Indigenous-led conservation work, according to the Monday news release. This funding from the Bezos Earth Fund will further accelerate our work leveraging nature’s potential and catalyzing groundbreaking science to tackle climate change, Nature United executive director Hadley Archer said in the news release. Nature United is thrilled to scale our support of Indigenous leadership, expand the deployment of First Nations’ sustainable land-use vision for Clayoquot Sound, and advance nature-based climate solutions across the Emerald Edge. We’re grateful to the Bezos Earth Fund for their generosity in supporting this critical work. Nature United says it will help permanently protect and advance Indigenous management authority of over 100,000 hectares of old-growth forest, in partnership with First Nations in Vancouver Island’s Clayoquot Sound. Historic anti-logging protests that led to the arrests of hundreds of environmentalists have previously taken place at the Clayoquot Sound rainforest, specifically in 1993. https://www.thestar.com//jeff-bezoss-environmental-grant-t

The Alberta government has banned indoor private gatherings, introduced new restrictions on businesses, and will be moving older students to online learning as part of sweeping new COVID-19 measures. Declaring a state of public health emergency, Premier Jason Kenney said the province will consider taking more drastic measures if the mandatory measures do not reduce the rate of transmission, which is currently 1.12, to below one over the next three weeks. Alberta reported 1,115 new cases, 16 additional deaths and more active cases than any other province Tuesday. https://edmontonjournal.com//alberta-government-set-to-ann

Amazon.com unveiled its biggest push into selling prescription drugs with the launch of a digital pharmacy and discounts for paying U.S. Prime members news that sent shock waves through shares of drugstore chains and distributors. The e-commerce giant on Tuesday unveiled Amazon Pharmacy, a section of its retail website and mobile application that lets people order medication. Shoppers can pay using their health insurance. Prime members who don’t use their insurance are elig...ible for discounts on generic and brand-name drugs on Amazon’s site or at about 50,000 participating pharmacies. Amazon’s new offering comes more than two years after its $753 million U.S. acquisition of PillPack, an online pharmacy known for organizing prescriptions into packets. This expansion puts the Seattle-based e-commerce company into more direct competition with pharmacy giants CVS Health Corp. and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., the two largest chains in the U.S. CVS shares fell as much as 8.5 per cent in early trading in New York, while Walgreens Boots dropped as much as 10.3 per cent. GoodRx Holdings, a digital prescription-drug platform, fell 15 per cent at 9:55 a.m. Drug distributor Cardinal Health Inc. lost as much as nine per cent, and rival McKesson Corp. slid as much as 6.8 per cent. The move also helps Amazon compete with Walmart Inc. and other big-box stores that already sell prescription drugs. https://www.thestar.com//amazon-expands-push-into-health-c

Election officials are warning federal legislators that a national election during the COVID-19 crisis could disadvantage people living in long-term homes, who’ve already borne the brunt of the pandemic. The comments were made at the House of Commons procedure and house affairs committee (PROC) on Tuesday by Kimberly Poffenroth, the chief electoral officer for Elections New Brunswick, and Tim Garrity, who’s running a byelection as the chief electoral officer for Elections P....E.I. Garrity said he personally went to long-term homes to register residents to vote, which was possible only because there’s just one facility in the small district. Going across Canada, with approximately 10,000 long-term care facilities, will be one of the major challenges of the next federal election, he said. Garrity said he wore personal protective equipment to take pre-filled applications to the home in the provincial riding of Charlottetown-Winsloe. Residents signed the applications before he hand-delivered their ballots. Poffenroth said long-term care residents were among the groups that struggled to vote when New Brunswick held a snap election last month, the first vote held in Canada during the pandemic. Elections New Brunswick tried to make the mail-in ballot process as easy as possible, she said, but it largely relied on staff at nursing homes helping residents to fill out their ballots. And, as you all know, during this pandemic, (staff) are quite overworked as it is, she said. Some people didn’t understand what documents needed to be signed; signatures on certificate envelopes needed to match signatures on ballot applications, and those that weren’t signed were disqualified, she said. Sadly, (residents) exercised their right to vote, but by the time the ballot got back, the procedures hadn’t been followed correctly, Poffenroth said. This was the PROC’s second meeting to study the administration of a federal election during the pandemic, as the committee prepares to submit a report to the House of Commons by Dec. 1. Last week, the committee heard from three witnesses at Elections Canada, including: chief electoral officer Stéphane Perrault; deputy chief electoral officer of electoral events and innovation Michel Roussel; and Anne Lawson, deputy chief electoral officer of regulatory affairs. https://ipolitics.ca//voting-could-be-hard-now-for-peopl/

Canada’s oil heartland banned indoor gatherings and partially shut down schools to limit the spread of COVID-19, extending nationwide lockdowns that have already largely closed business in the country’s two largest provinces. Alberta Premier Jason Kenney, a conservative who favored voluntary measures and appeals to personal responsibility, declared a public health emergency in the western province Tuesday after a dramatic spike in cases. He ordered banquet halls to close th...eir doors, restricted most retailers to 25 per cent capacity and halted in-person classes for students in grades seven through 12. The move in Alberta is the latest in a string of hits to the economy, including the temporary closing of many businesses in Toronto and Montreal. The government also said Tuesday the nation will be slower than some others to roll out vaccines, with Justin Trudeau conceding Canada won’t be at the front of the line because of a lack of local manufacturing capacity. With new cases nearing 5,000 a day across the country and warnings they could quadruple, economists are marking down their growth forecasts. Bank of Montreal economists predicted the new restrictions would shave 0.2 per cent off real gross domestic product in 2020, even before Alberta tightened up. In Ottawa, the prime minister is trying to set the tone by governing from home, as he did during the first national lockdown in March. Speaking to reporters outside his residence Tuesday, he touted a new deal with Eli Lilly and Co. for thousands of doses of a promising new coronavirus treatment but offered no timeline for delivery of a vaccine. https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/virus-crackdown-hits-oil-patch-

After more than a year, millions of taxpayer dollars and nothing to show for it, the deadline for reporting back on Premier Jason Kenney’s toxic public inquiry into anti-Alberta charity activities has been pushed back yet again, this time into January 2021. Commissioner Steve Allan was supposed to close his investigation at the end of October. Instead, he’s admitted it isn’t possible to discern if charities have made false and misleading statements. Allan has also asked f...or more time to write a report on which organizations receive funding from sources outside of Canada information that, for the most part, is already on the public record. What’s left is a sham of a process and a drain on public resources that would be better spent supporting Alberta’s schools and hospitals and creating sustainable jobs to help the economy rebound after COVID-19. This inquiry was never a legitimate exercise. That’s why Ecojustice launched a lawsuit challenging it in 2019. From the start, Allan’s task was biased, highly politicized and near impossible: To uncover a network of charities supposedly taking money from rich Americans and using it to spin lies about the oil and gas industry. The reality is much less salacious. Yes, some organizations have donors who don’t live in Canada. But this is perfectly legal, hardly a secret and unlikely to make up a significant chunk of charities’ revenue. Rather than a genuine effort to protect Albertans, the inquiry is an attempt to turn campaign rhetoric into a witch hunt and silence Canadians who voice concerns about the environmental impact of Alberta’s oil and gas development, particularly the oilsands. https://ecojustice.ca/opinion-shut-down-inquiry-on-anti-al/

There are lots of reasons people think of Teara Fraser as a wonder woman. She was a single mom struggling to make ends meet when she decided she wanted more from her life. Now she owns the first female-run Indigenous airline, pilots her plane to remote communities in support of the emerging Indigenous tourism market, actively supports other women and Indigenous entrepreneurs, is working on her PhD in Human Development and, during the pandemic, has begun airlifting essential s...upplies to Northern communities isolated by COVID-19. Open this photo in gallery Teara Fraser is featured in 'real-world heroes' in a DC Comics upcoming graphic novel called Wonderful Women of History. COURTESY OF DC ENTERTAINMENT Fraser’s journey from working entry-level jobs to launching an airline that runs humanitarian flights is the kind of triumphant story that super hero comics are written about. In fact, it’s one of 18 featured in an upcoming graphic novel anthology by DC Comics called Wonderful Women of History, scheduled to be released in 2021. Ms. Fraser says seeing her story chronicled alongside those of women like the late U.S. Supreme Court justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, musician Beyoncé and athlete Serena Williams has left her in awe. Being included in that list of change makers women who are dismantling oppressive systemsI’m still struggling to find words, she says. Born in Hay River, N.W.T., Ms. Fraser lost her Métis father when she was 3 and grew up disconnected from her culture. Later, as a young mother of two, she felt unfulfilled and began exploring her Indigenous roots. When she started reconnecting with who she was as an Indigenous woman she says she began developing the power and strength needed to dream bigger things, I finally made sense to myself. Her dreams took her to Africa, for a holiday that seemed impossible. I had two young kids and very little money, she says, but she managed to fund the trip. In Botswana, she took a flightseeing trip over the Okavango Delta and her life changed. Witnessing the greatness of the land from the air was what first inspired me to fly." In less than a year she had her commercial pilot’s licence, and in 2010 she started her own aerial survey company. A few years later, when Ms. Fraser learned that few airlines provided service to remote Indigenous communities in B.C., she developed a new goal: to boost Indigenous tourism, serve Indigenous communities and shake up an industry that’s not known for diversity and inclusion by launching an airline of her own. https://www.theglobeandmail.com//article-stepping-up-an-/

Salt that crystallizes with sharp edges is the killer ingredient in the development of a reusable mask because any COVID-19 droplets that land on it would be quickly destroyed, says a researcher who is being recognized for her innovation. Ilaria Rubino, a recent PhD graduate from the department of chemical and materials engineering at the University of Alberta, said a mostly salt and water solution that coats the first or middle layer of the mask would dissolve droplets befor...e they can penetrate the face covering. As the liquid from the droplets evaporates, the salt crystals grow back as spiky weapons, damaging the bacteria or virus within five minutes, Rubino said. "We know that after the pathogens are collected in the mask, they can survive. Our goal was to develop a technology that is able to inactivate the pathogens upon contact so that we can make the mask as effective as possible." Rubino, who collaborated with a researcher at Georgia State University in Atlanta to advance the project she started five years ago, was recognized Tuesday with an innovation award from Mitacs. The Canadian not-for-profit organization receives funding from the federal government, most provinces and Yukon to honour researchers from academic institutions. https://www.nationalobserver.com//alberta-researcher-award

More than 10,000 Canadians have died due to COVID-19, a grim milestone reached by a pandemic that is far from over. Twenty-eight new deaths reported in Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba and Alberta pushed the death toll to 10,001 on Tuesday. Canada crossed the threshold of 5,000 deaths on May 12, a little over two months after the first death was reported.... COVID-19 case counts slowed across the country through the summer, but have taken a big jump in many areas this fall, with new daily highs reached regularly in Central and Western Canada. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called the pandemic a horrific national tragedy, and warned that Canadians should brace for more. Families have lost loved ones, been devastated by these tragedies, and we need to know that there are more tragedies to come, he told a briefing in Ottawa. https://www.theglobeandmail.com//article-trudeau-warns-o/

Facing parliamentary pressure to stand up to Beijing’s use of covert agents to target Canadians, Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne says Ottawa is planning new measures to crack down on these kinds of intimidation tactics. Mr. Champagne made the commitment Tuesday during a House of Commons debate over a Conservative motion that calls on the government to come up with a comprehensive plan within 30 days to stop Chinese Communist Party interference in Canada. ...The motion also calls for Ottawa to announce a decision on whether equipment from Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd. will be allowed to be used in this country’s 5G networks. The debate in Parliament comes one week after the Canadian Security Intelligence Service told The Globe and Mail that national security and the safety of Canadians are being jeopardized by undercover Chinese state security officials and others who are trying to silence critics using tactics that include threats of retribution against their families in China. Mr. Champagne told the House that the threat of foreign interference is taken very, very seriously by the government and its security agencies. All our agencies are seized [with] this issue, he said. The Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness will come soon with additional measures to protect the safety and security of Canadians. However, Public Safety Minister Bill Blair made no such commitment when asked about Mr. Champagne’s comments during Question Period. Instead, he said law-enforcement agencies are actively taking steps to protect Canadians from the threat of foreign interference. https://www.theglobeandmail.com//article-canadas-foreign/

Senior members of the UCP as high as Alberta Premier Jason Kenney have been trying to recruit high profile candidates to run against Jeromy Farkas and possibly Naheed Nenshi in Calgary’s mayoralty race, the sources tell the Western Standard. A high-ranking UCP insider who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that Kenney is leery of the conservative Farkas candidacy and wants someone with closer ties to the Tory establishment. The source said former Tory cabinet minis...ter Gary Mar and former Wildrose leader Danielle Smith have been approached and urged to run, with Mar approached directly by Kenney. When contacted Tuesday by the Western Standard, Mar admitted some UCP members have approached him, but denied that Kenney was personally involved. The Tory source said Mar told him that Kenney personally met with him to discuss a mayoral run, but that Mar was uninterested. Lots a people have suggested I run but my time in public life is over, Mar said in an interview. Mar held six different cabinet posts as a Calgary MLA between 1993 and 2007 when he was appointed Alberta’s trade representative in Washington. In 2011, he ran for and lost the Tory leadership. He was then posted to Asia as the province’s trade representative. He was named President and CEO of the Canada West Foundation in April 2020. When asked about being recruited by Kenney, Mar brought up an old quote from American Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman when he was being considered as a Republican candidate for president in 1884. Tecumseh said: ‘I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected,' Mar said of the attempts to woo him to run. Smith served as Wildrose leader from October 2009 to Dec. 17, 2014 when she resigned to cross the floor and join the governing Tories. In 2015, she lost the nomination battle in the riding of Highwood. https://www.westernstandardonline.com//exclusive-tory-ins/

A filibuster at the House of Commons ethics committee that lasted nearly four weeks came to an end on Monday, with the Bloc Québécois voting against a Conservative motion to order the release of documents pertaining to the WE Charity scandal. The motion, introduced by Tory ethics critic Michael Barrett on Oct. 8, did not come to a vote until yesterday, after about 18 hours of debate spanning five meetings. Four Liberal MPs and one Bloc MP voted against it, overruling the thre...e Conservative MPs and one New Democrat MP. READ MORE: Libs filibuster committees despite opposition’s efforts to reopen WE Charity probe Filibustering is a tactic whereby one or more members debate a proposed piece of legislation so as to delay or entirely prevent a decision being made on the proposal. Barrett’s motion would have allowed the committee to obtain a record of Speakers’ Spotlight documents showing speaking agreements between WE Charity and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his family. It requested all materials between Trudeau and WE showing an indication of the fee provided, any expenses that were reimbursed, and the name of the company, organization, person or entity booking it. The documents would have been forwarded to the clerk of the committee and reviewed in camera (behind closed doors). The WE Charity controversy came to light this summer after the Trudeau government outsourced the $500-million Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG) a program to pay students for volunteering to WE Charity, an organization with which his family, and that of then-finance minister Bill Morneau, had close financial ties for years. A similar motion was brought before the ethics committee in July, when Liberal MPs spent nearly four hours filibustering debate before the clock ran out to vote on the motion. The motion eventually passed on July 22 with all Liberal MPs voting against it. https://ipolitics.ca//weeks-long-ethics-filibuster-ends-/

Two Facebook users are seeking damages on behalf of hundreds of thousands of Canadians whose personal data may have been improperly used for political purposes. The proposed class-action lawsuit filed by Calgary residents Saul Benary and Karma Holoboff asks the Federal Court to order the social-media giant to bolster its security practices to better protect sensitive information and comply with federal privacy law. It also seeks $1,000 for each of the approximately 622,000 Ca...nadians whose information was shared with others through a digital app. In April last year, privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien and his British Columbia counterpart, Michael McEvoy, uncovered major shortcomings in Facebook’s procedures and called for stronger laws to protect Canadians. The probe followed reports that Facebook let an outside organization use an app to access users’ personal information, and that some of the data was then passed to others. Recipients of the information included the firm Cambridge Analytica, which was involved in U.S. political campaigns. The app, at one point known as This is Your Digital Life, encouraged users to complete a personality quiz but collected much more information about the people who installed the app as well as data about their Facebook friends, the commissioners said. About 300,000 Facebook users worldwide added the app, leading to the potential disclosure of the personal information of approximately 87 million others, including some 622,000 Canadians, the report said. https://www.thestar.com//canadian-class-action-suit-agains

Lynn Beyak, the Ontario senator who was booted from the Conservative caucus for refusing to remove racist letters from her official website, is now a People’s Party of Canada donor. After years of reliably contributing to the Conservatives, Beyak gave $1,000 last June to the right-wing splinter party founded by former Quebec MP Maxime Bernier, Elections Canada records show. Beyak was appointed to the Senate by prime minister Stephen Harper in 2013. She currently sits in the u...pper chamber as a nonaffiliated senator. Beyak did not respond to voice mails and emailed questions from the Star on Wednesday. People’s Party spokesperson Martin Masse said by email that privacy rules prevent him from saying whether Beyak is now a party member. He noted that Beyak is still nonaffiliated in the upper house and declined to comment on the senator’s controversial statements and actions in recent years. Bernier was a Quebec MP when he founded the People’s Party in 2018 after a failed run for the leadership of the federal Conservative party. The People’s Party styles itself as a right wing populist movement that would impose strict fiscal discipline in Ottawa. It has also called for substantially fewer immigrants and the end of official multiculturalism in Canada. Beyak became a locus of outrage and controversy in 2017, when she claimed that national reckoning with the horrors of government-funded residential schools for Indigenous children overlooked the abundance of good that occurred in the institutions. For more than a century, Indigenous children were taken from their families and home communities to be indoctrinated in the languages and religions of Canadian settler society. In its final report on the government- and church-run schools in 2015, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission concluded the schools represented an attempted cultural genocide. Students were also permanently damaged from sexual and physical abuse. More than 3,200 children died in the schools, where many of them were buried in unmarked graves, the report said. https://www.thestar.com//senator-who-defended-residential-

Labour leaders in Alberta, energized by workers who walked off the job at health care facilities across the province earlier this week, are amping up plans to fight the United Conservative Party on everything from education to the environment. About 2,500 people belonging to the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees marched on picket lines Monday, before the Alberta Labour Relations Board deemed the strike illegal and ordered employees back to work that evening. The wildcat s...trike, which forced Alberta Health Services to cancel all elective surgeries, came after weeks of rising tension between the government and AUPE members in roles such as housekeeping and food services. While the one-day wildcat strike highlighted the fight over privatizing more components of Alberta’s health care system, union representatives hope to capitalize on attention and expand the focus beyond hospitals and clinics. Premier Jason Kenney has a hostile relationship with unions, particularly those in the public sector, and escalating conflict could translate into more job action. Five unions on Wednesday will unveil a new campaign asking Albertans to stand up to Mr. Kenney. Monday’s wildcat [strike] was just the beginning," the Alberta Federation of Labour said in a statement that took aim at the Premier’s policies on health, education, parks, the environment, a program that provides cash to severely handicapped residents, and COVID-19. The health-care workers who walked off the job [Monday] showed us what’s possible. But they can’t do it alone," Gil McGowan, AFL’s president, said in the statement. The fight back has to be bigger and it has to be sustained. AHS said about 157 non-emergency surgeries, most of them in Edmonton, were postponed as a result of the AUPE’s walkout. This is on top of the elective surgeries postponed in the capital as a result of the strain COVID-19 is putting on the system. AUPE is not listed among the unions participating in Wednesday’s campaign launch, but its president expects it will work with other unions to thwart any plans to privatize health care in Alberta. The privatization of health care is probably one of the biggest threats the UCP government is bringing forward, Guy Smith said. I think it is incumbent upon the labour movement, civil society, concerned Albertans, to be involved in this struggle because it is obviously a big part of the UCP agenda." https://www.theglobeandmail.com//article-alberta-union-l/

Adding 11 proposed new communities to Calgary's outskirts would add $23 million in costs for the city annually, a council committee heard Monday alongside arguments for and against the developments. Administration is recommending that council reject all 11 applications given the current state of the market and the diminished demand for new housing. Unsold homes in the city are in the hundreds, nearing a two-decade high. ... "That's actually a lot, considering our net in-migration is negative right now," Calgary Mayor Naheed Nenshi said following the meeting, which ran late into the evening. The first half of the lengthy day for committee saw developers make the case for the new communities like Ricardo Ranch which would be south of Seton, or Caban, west of Livingstone in north Calgary saying that some areas come with no increased costs for the city as they are next to communities already approved, meaning the utilities are already in place. Following the developers' pitches, council heard from a number of concerned Calgarians who cited increased costs, emergency response times and pollution among the reasons to vote no. Matt Osborne with the Calgary Firefighters Association cited worries that the city continues to grow while the fire department's budget shrinks, referencing a fire that destroyed two homes in the suburbs last year when no engine was immediately available to respond. https://www.cbc.ca//calg/calgary-new-communities-1.5768867

In 1933, with the country deep in the Great Depression, the United States government created the Civilian Conservation Corps, a work program that gave young men jobs transforming the American landscape. They built trails and roads, fought fires and maintained critical infrastructure, among many, many other projects. The CCC was absolutely massive, says environmental economist Mark Paul of the New College of Florida. At its peak, it employed half a million workers over its... nine-year lifetime, the total figure was three million, about five per cent of the U.S. male population at the time. So it's really a kind of hallmark program in American history that provided youth with economic opportunity while bringing them close to nature, he continues. In 2020, we face massive unemployment and a host of environmental problems that need fixing: wildfires in the West, flood-prone areas along the Gulf of Mexico, all manner of dams on the verge of collapse. Nearly a century after the original CCC came into being, some folks argue it’s time to bring it back. So say Americans themselves: recent polling shows that 80 per cent of Democrats and 74 per cent of Republicans favour a return of the CCC. Joe Biden has proposed something akin to the CCC if elected: the Civilian Climate Corps. Workers would manage forests, restore ecosystems and even remove invasive species. In September, Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin introduced the RENEW Conservation Corps Act, which would spend US$55.8 billion over five years to put a million Americans back to work, doing things like wildlife surveys and monitoring water quality. And last year, Ohio Rep. Marcy Kaptur introduced the 21st Century Civilian Conservation Corps Act, which has yet to pass the House but proposes rehabilitating environments and updating trails and facilities throughout the country’s natural spaces. Kaptur sees some participants as working in their local communities, while others up for travel might move around the United States. If we give them an opportunity to broaden their horizons, and at the same time restore America in some of its hidden corners and neglected places, what a great gift to the future, she says. I don't know a single person including my own father, who worked for the Civilian Conservation Corps as a very young man who wasn't changed and elevated by that experience. https://www.nationalobserver.com//green-jobs-program-clima

The "60 Minutes" interview President Trump cut short over what he felt was unfair questioning from Lesley Stahl has left her, and her family, in a dangerous situation ... TMZ has learned. Multiple sources tell us CBS is now providing Stahl with around-the-clock security due to a death threat made to the home of one of her immediate family members on the west coast. We're told the network has guards monitoring the homes of Lesley and her family members, and escorting them if t...hey go out in public. Law enforcement sources tell us the death threat call was reported to LAPD around 9 AM Thursday, October 22. We're told the caller directed the threat toward Lesley and her family, and also said something about neo-Nazis. The call came a couple days after word got out the President bailed on Lesley. That's also a few hours before Trump released the full interview ahead of Sunday's broadcast. Stahl's "60 Minutes" interview aired Sunday night on CBS including her follow-up questioning of VP Mike Pence as to why the Prez walked out on her. Pence didn't really have an answer, but it was obvious from his abbreviated interview POTUS felt Lesley was unfairly grilling him. For her part, Stahl accused Pence and Trump of insulting her show. Our sources say the police have an open investigation into the death threat. https://www.tmz.com//lesley-stahl-death-threat-trump-60-m/

The decision may have set the stage for another climate case to head to the Supreme Court, with those backing the youth saying they will appeal. Ottawa is awaiting a separate decision from the country’s top court on whether it overstepped its jurisdictional authority by imposing a carbon price on provinces that do not have an adequate plan of their own to cap emissions. But while that case argues Ottawa has gotten involved where it shouldn’t, the youth case says the feds have... not done enough. The youths alleged an overly broad and unquantifiable number of actions and inactions on the part of the government, effectively trying to subject Ottawa’s overall climate policy to charter review, Justice Manson wrote in the decision. The youths’ lawyers had argued at a pretrial hearing last month that Canada’s actions, particularly its support of the country’s fossil fuel industry, have breached their constitutional rights to life, liberty, security and equality before the law. The case was argued by Tollefson Law Corporation and backed by Our Children’s Trust and the David Suzuki Foundation, and they said they intend to appeal the decision. It's definitely disheartening and it's pretty disappointing that the courts don't see this as an opportunity to recognize how they've been knowingly contributing to the climate emergency and impacting these young people's lives and the lives of future generations, said Brendan Glauser, a spokesperson for the David Suzuki Foundation. We know these kids are on the right side of history, and we know they deserve their day in court, so on to the appeal we go, he said in a phone interview. https://www.nationalobserver.com//youth-climate-case-will-

Transport Canada did not follow up on a number of violations made by companies transporting dangerous items like crude oil, according to the latest audit by Canada’s federal environment commissioner. The report, tabled Tuesday in Parliament, showed that the department had still not addressed all the recommendations from a 2011 audit of the transportation of dangerous products, nine years later. This included fixing the approval process for emergency response plans so that dan...gerous goods are not shipped without the department having a detailed view of what will happen if something goes wrong. Some of those plans are being held up, according to the report by Andrew Hayes, interim commissioner of the environment and sustainable development, because the department had not yet developed national firefighting criteria related to flammable liquids, which was recommended in the aftermath of the 2013 Lac-Mégantic rail disaster. The findings are doubly critical given the two oil train derailments near Guernsey, Sask., in December 2019 and February 2020, said Hayes, which led to a voluntary evacuation order and over a million litres of leaked crude. Transport Canada has more work to do to address problems with inspections and emergency plans that we raised almost a decade ago, Hayes said at a press conference in Ottawa. Accidents can happen. I can’t say that there won’t be another accident that has serious release of dangerous goods ... what I think is important at this point is for Transport Canada to complete the work that it needs to do. The department said it agreed with the audit’s conclusions and would work to improve its oversight for followup activities and update its procedures to assess emergency plans. https://www.nationalobserver.com//transport-canada-dangero

Cenovus Energy Inc. is aiming to cut as many as one in four jobs potentially more than 2,000 workers if it succeeds in its $3.8-billion friendly takeover of rival Husky Energy Inc. The oilsands producer plans to trim between 20 and 25 per cent of the 8,600 employees and contractors currently working at the two companies, said Cenovus spokesman Reg Curren in an email on Tuesday, two days after the takeover was announced. That would equate to between 1,720 and 2,150 workers.... Curren said most of the cuts are expected to take place in Calgary, where both companies have downtown headquarters. As with any merger of this type, there will be overlap and there will be some difficult decisions as we work to create a combined organization best positioned for the future, he said. The estimate is that the reductions will be approximately 20 to 25 per cent of the combined workforce, which is currently about 8,600 employees and contractors. It’s the latest blow to the Calgary-centred oil and gas sector after Suncor Energy Inc. announced three weeks ago it will cut as many as 1,930 jobs over 18 months to reduce total staff by 10 to 15 per cent. Job cuts are also expected in the Canadian operations of Royal Dutch Shell, which announced in September it would eliminate between 7,000 and 9,000 jobs worldwide by the end of 2022, and, to a lesser extent, from BP, which said in June it would cut around 10,000 jobs from its global workforce. This is a sign of the times in the energy industry that companies are having to navigate being more efficient and more productive, said Mary Moran, CEO of Economic Development Calgary. https://www.thestar.com//cenovus-targets-20-to-25-per-cent