The Dominion - Nova Scotia

Anti-Fracking Protest in Nova Scotia Draws Hundreds, Shuts Down Highway

Tim McSorley — Mon, 24 Sep 2012 15:04:41 +0000

Protesters want province to halt gas exploration at Nova Scotia's largest lake

AULD'S COVE, NS—Upwards of 200 people, coming from all corners of Nova Scotia, responded to the imminent threat of exploratory oil and gas drilling on the shores of Lake Ainslie, and on September 22 staged an information picket outside the town of Auld's Cove.

Protestors, in this case assisted by the RCMP, created a colourful gauntlet of signs, strings of prayer flags, song and dance, through which passing motorists were directed. The action auspiciously took place on Global Anti-Fracking Day.

Despite the slow-down, motorists responded in an overwhelmingly positive manner to the action; thousands of pamphlets were distributed, and the afternoon resonated with the emphatic staccato of fists pumped to passing car horns. During the third hour of the action, in deference to a Mi'kmaq water ceremony to which all those in attendance were invited, the RCMP fully blockaded the highway—the only roadway on or off the island of Cape Breton—for about 20 minutes.

“I thought this was just going to be a bunch of raggedy-assed Indians,” said Elizabeth Marshall of the Treaty Beneficiary Association, conjuring the memory of Anna Mae Pictou-Aquash. “And you showed us that the raggedy-assed Indians have a bunch of raggedy-assed residents backing us up. We're not going to give up, because we love our ancestors, we love our future generations, and we love our children and grandchildren. And we know that water is sacred. Nothing, nothing can change that. So I'd like [Nova Scotia Premier] Darrell Dexter to tell me how much I should charge for a sacred spirit.”

The focus of the day's action, in a specific sense, was to protect Lake Ainslie, Nova Scotia's largest freshwater lake, from any and all fossil fuel drilling on her shores. Currently, the provincial government has only issued one exploratory well permit to Toronto-based company PetroWorth Resources Inc.; the company has promised no “fracing” [sic] will occur at the drill site.

Most likely the word “fracing” is referring to the technique of hydraulic fracturing, the water-intensive and often environmentally damaging technique of drilling for fossil fuels. “Fracking,” the commonly accepted slang term for the technique, has left a path of chemical pollution, sunken water tables, earthquakes and displaced residents across North America.

It is difficult to take PetroWorth, a company that has made its name fracking Western Canada and Nova Scotia's neighbouring province of New Brunswick, at its word, especially when that word appears to be knowingly misspelled. To Robert Parkins, closest neighbour to the potential drill site on the shores of Lake Ainslie, the question is one of semantics.

“There are three other terms that I've come across—well stimulation, well cleaning and well completion—which all fall under the heading of well alteration, which hydraulic fracturing also falls under,” Parkins told the Halifax Media Co-op. “They all use the same processes and the same chemicals.”

Parkins views the positioning of the site, which has been selected by PetroWorth due to various 19th-century finds of oil and gas in the area, as an attempt by the province and the corporation to force a "worst case" scenario situation. Essentially, claims Parkins, if a drill site can be established on the shores of relatively pristine Lake Ainslie, the province's largest freshwater lake, at the head of the Margaree River Watershed and with some of the last remaining viable Atlantic salmon spawning grounds in the province, then it can be done anywhere.

“It's one of the worst possible locations that you could ever put a drill site. So if they can get away with putting a drill site there, it's going to set a precedent in Nova Scotia that they can place them anywhere,” says Parkins.

It would appear that protest actions, which have included a partial blockade of the same stretch of highway on September 14 and 15, are beginning to have an effect on local Mi'kmaq chiefs.

Initially the chiefs appeared to sign off on PetroWorth's exploratory well permit, after being consulted by the provincial government. But the recent unrest, coupled with the effort of a group of local Mi'kmaq organizers who forced their way into a meeting of the Assembly of Nova Scotia Mi'kmaq Chiefs (ANSMC) on September 20, has caused the chiefs to do something of a public about-face.

A press release, issued on September 21, notes that the ANSMC are “in support of the community's concerns on hydraulic fracturing in the Lake Ainslie area of Cape Breton.” The press release, while cause for some degree of hope, does not demand that PetroWorth's exploratory well permit be rescinded. Nor is it certain that the ANSMC would have to ability, without entering into the legal sphere, to literally change its stance mid-stream on the permit issuance.

Wilbert Marshall, chief of Chapel Island, was the only Mi'kmaq chief to attend the September 22 action. Judging from his response and the escalating public display of Mi'kmaq disapproval, it would appear that the ANSMC may soon be faced with that exact dilemma.

“From day one, we were totally against it,” Marshall told the Halifax Media Co-op. “It's just fighting against the government and all that, it's just kind of back door deals, and we're trying our best to fight it. I remember them coming down the first time, we were totally against it. We are totally against [all oil and gas exploration on Lake Ainslie]. We have to be, because it's going to ruin the water. It's just kind of hard to fight these people. They're always taking the back door, like we said. If it's not one thing, it's the other. It's kind of hard to keep track, but we've got the people behind us, so hopefully we'll fight it at the end of it. We're not going to give up.”

Ginny Marshall, one of the main forces behind the recent Mi'kmaq actions against the potential drill site, appeared willing to ensure that the chiefs don't “give up.”

“[The chiefs] don't have the last say,” said Ginny Marshall. “They work for us, so they better behave.”

Despite the presence of concerned citizens from all walks of life, noticeably absent from the day's action was the mainstream media.

“I'm really kind of disappointed that the mainstream media is not here,” said Emmett Peters, local sweat lodge keeper. “We had, at the peak, probably over 200 people here. And there's nobody to show the rest of Nova Scotia that there's a lot of support for protecting the water. We told them, so they know. They know we're having an event, they just chose to stay away.”

“The one thing I notice that is not standing here with us is the mainstream media,” said Parkins to the gathered crowd. “Why? Because they don't want people to know that there are over 200 of us protesting the fracking that's about to go on in Cape Breton. They want to keep people in the dark. Ladies and gentlemen, we are tired of being mushrooms. No longer can they feed us horse shit and keep us in the dark...This is enough and this is what we're here for today. We have to tell them, even though they say that there is no fracking going on in Lake Ainslie, we know that there's well stimulation, well completion and well cleaning. And we all know it's the same thing...So ladies and gentlemen, from today on when anybody says to you that there is no fracking in Lake Ainslie, you say, 'Of course there isn't, because we're not going to let it happen.'”

It would appear that perhaps PetroWorth, and the provincial NDP government, may well have bitten off more than they can chew in attempting to drill for oil and gas in Cape Breton. Since being taken to court earlier in the year, albeit unsuccessfully, by the Margaree Environmental Association, PetroWorth has seen its stock value nosedive from a November 2011 high of eight cents per share down to a current value as of press time of two cents per share. Resistance to oil and gas drilling in Cape Breton, if the weekend's demonstration are any indication, is riding a surge of energy, and organizers are already talking of following Quebec's recent provincial moratorium on fracking.

“Whatever it takes,” Ginny Marshall told the Halifax Media Co-op. “I'll die. And that's very, very—that's the wrong thing to say to stop an oil company. But if my children are going to get a benefit out of it, then I'm willing to put my life on the line in order to protect them. I'm a mother bear. It's born in me, and I will be doing what I have to do in order to get this done.”

Miles Howe is an editor with The Dominion and a member of the Halifax Media Co-op, where this article was originally published.

Lake Ainslie Fracking II

Lake Ainslie Fracking

Mi'kmaq to Obstruct Traffic to Fight Oil and Gas Exploration at Lake Ainslie

Moira Peters — Fri, 14 Sep 2012 14:14:51 +0000

First Nations call for a complete halt to drilling in Cape Breton

AULD'S COVE, NS—Mi’kmaq people from Cape Breton and the Nova Scotia mainland are preparing to set up a “partial blockade” of the Trans-Canada Highway in Auld’s Cove, on the mainland side of the Canso Causeway, the access point to Cape Breton.

By 1:30 yesterday afternoon, about 25 people had gathered, setting up flags and signs, and organizing a teepee and food for the warriors and their supporters.

The blockade is in opposition to exploratory oil and gas drilling by PetroWorth Resources, scheduled to begin later this year on the shore of Lake Ainslie in western Cape Breton.

"We’re going to be slowing the traffic down to a bare stop," said Ginny Marshall, pipefitter and mother of four from Potlotek (Chapel Island) on Cape Breton. "But we’ll be allowing people to go through," while handing out information and pamphlets, she explained. "We have to make it known why water is sacred."

Mi’kmaq communities—and many non-Indigenous residents around Lake Ainslie—have been clear in their opposition to exploratory drilling around the watershed, saying that no amount of money is worth risking the pristine water resources that Lake Ainslie supports.

"I’m a pipefitter and I would benefit from this type of job," said Marshall, referring to the development the province says is necessary to the economically depressed region. "But...I’ve seen all the damages that it does...I cannot tell my children, my child...I didn’t try. I let this go. I knew they were going to destroy the water...and money was too important."

Emmett Peters of Paq’tnkek (Afton) emphasized the importance of the action for future generations.

"I don’t know if you’re familiar with the 1752 treaty, [which was affirmed in the 1999] Marshall Decision, where we’re allowed to hunt and fish. So they thought about us 300 years previous. That’s how strong that treaty was," said Peters.

"So now what we’re trying to do is leave something for our children...maybe all it could be is fresh water."

A ceremony is planned for this morning at the blockade site, to which all people are invited.

"We’re going to put up a teepee and we’re going to have a fire, drummers are going come in and drum, sing the honour song and we’re going to have one of our elders say an opening prayer just so everything goes good," said Peters yesterday. "We’re leading, but it’s for all human beings."

Organizers of the action are expecting supporters from Paq’tnkek, Eskasoni, Waycobah, Membertou and Potlotek First Nations. They are also expecting non-Indigenous supporters from the Green Party, Protect Lake Ainslie and the Margaree Environmental Association.

Peter Bernard, a Chief of the Mi’kmaq Warrior Society from Waycobah, estimated this action will last two days.

"We’re trying to do this as peaceful as possible," said Marshall. But she, Peters and Bernard added that they will not give up if the partial blockade doesn’t affect the changes they are looking for: a complete halt on any oil and gas exploration or drilling at Lake Ainslie.

"If they do drill that [exploratory] well, what’s going to stop them from fracking?" said Paul. "It’s going to cost them millions of dollars to drill that one hole. And just leave it? I don’t think so."

Marshall said that if the traffic slowdown doesn’t succeed in stopping PetroWorth’s well, a full blockade will be organized.

"We will take your time...we understand your time is your money," said Marshall. "If no other way is gonna put a stop to this, this is our last resort."

"We’re so lucky to have a place so safe in the world compared to other places," said Marshall. "Blue gold is going to be the next commodity...just like oil, it’s gonna be our water, because water is a key element to life."

PetroWorth Resources could not be reached for comment at the time of publication.

Moira Peters lives and bikes in Halifax. Ben Sichel is a teacher and writer, and editor for the Halifax Media Co-op, where this article was originally published.

Ginny Marshall

Causeway Blockade

The Ground Beneath Our Feet

Miles — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 14:24:14 +0000

Despite missing grave markers, lack of map, Dartmouth cemetery is not for the dogs

DARTMOUTH, NS—A small party stands at the northwest corner of St. Paul's cemetery, staring pensively at what appears to be nothing but a grassy knoll.

We are hemmed in by the thick foliage of Giant Knotweed (polygonum sacchalinese) that surrounds the burial ground on three sides. Behind us lean a smattering of aging tombstones from Catholic families.

Here though, 100 feet away in the field next to the grave markers, there is only the whisper-silent undulation of clean-cropped, rolling grass.

A casual observer would likely not conclude that this field is part of the cemetery. But this is what Don Awalt has come today to explain.

“Lewis Benjamin Paul, Mi'kmaw Grand Chief, was buried almost right here,” says Awalt, an environmental planner with a grandfather buried somewhere in St. Paul's cemetery. “In the late 1970s, there used to be a tripod of stones here, marking his grave,” he says.

Bonnie Murphy, cemetery administrator for the Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM), looks on, clutching a rolled-up surveyor's map of St. Paul's. We spread the map, but it gives no hint of Paul's final resting place. Paul, the great leader, upon seeing his people driven to starvation by British colonization, famously wrote to Queen Victoria in 1841:

“I have seen upwards of a thousand Moons. When I was young I had plenty, now I am old, poor and sickly too. My people are poor. No Hunting Grounds, No Beaver, No Otter, No Nothing. Indians poor, poor forever, No Store, No Chest, No Clothes. All these woods once ours. Our Fathers possessed them all. Now we cannot cut a Tree to warm our Wigwam in Winter unless the White Man please.”

Indeed, most of Murphy's map is nothing but blank, white space hemmed in by surveyors’ lines. There are several rows of numbered plots outlined on the map, but no more than two dozen are even named.

Murphy can't even be sure whether the nameless plots contain bodies or not.

“We've only taken it over since amalgamation [of Halifax and surrounding areas to create the HRM], and our records are very scarce,” says Murphy. “We're digging [for information] ourselves. We've contacted St. Paul's to see what we can get. We're trying to talk to people who've maintained it prior and everything's scarce.”

The wind picks up, and the map begins to buckle and crease. The group cannot determine which way is north on the map, and it is decided that an HRM survey team will be contacted to re-determine the boundaries of the cemetery.

Awalt leads the group over to a willow tree.

“This is where Napwisin We'jitu is buried, and there used to be a marker somewhere in the grass,” says Awalt. The group peers amidst the overgrowth.

“He was among the top Mik'maq warriors of all time.”

Despite HRM Parks and Open Spaces’ lack of knowledge, there is no question that this site has been a Mi’kmaq burial ground, as well as a Catholic cemetery, for a long time. It has also changed hands, and fallen into states of neglect, several times in recent history.

John Martin's The Story of Dartmouth notes that the cemetery first opened in 1835, and consecrated in 1845. Awalt says that Mi'kmaq were using the land as a burial ground long before that, and notes that the oral tradition suggests Father Thury, one of the famous French “Warrior Priests,” consecrated the land in the late seventeenth century.

A marble tablet, which still stands at St. Paul’s, was erected in Dartmouth in 1962. The tablet notes that “Hundreds of Indians and Two of Their Chiefs” are buried there—though it also says that, despite an ever-increasing number of Catholic dead in the 1800s, the cemetery was only used until 1865. (Awalt says this applies to “white” burials only, and that Mi'kmaq continued to use the area after this.)

The 1962 monument unveiling also saw an extensive clean-up of the property. A Dartmouth Free Press article notes that “20 truck loads of rubbish were carted away” before Father Michael Laba, of St. Paul's Parish, had the area fenced in.

According to Kenneth Redmond, boyscout leader at St. Paul's parish at the time, Father Laba also undertook an extensive mapping of the area to determine exactly where the “Hundreds of Indians and Two of Their Chiefs” were buried.

“Father Laba asked me to...survey St. Paul's cemetery, like record where the stones were; show where Mi'kmaw people were,” says Redmond. “And so I did that and gave him a plan. Since that time Father Laba has died, and I lost all my belongings, including [the cemetery map] in a house fire.”

That map, of which there is perhaps one surviving copy, is currently in absentia.

“We stood [the grave markers] where they were laying,” says Redmond. “They were a little bit scattered but you could see a pattern to it.”

In 1967, a re-development plan was undertaken to see St. Paul's become an active burial ground once again. But by the late 1970s, the place had become a “jungle.” Cora Greenway, writing in the summer 1980 edition of Canadian Collector, notes that when she walked the area in 1978 she found “no trace” of the shale slabs.

“The place was in a mess,” writes Greenway. “The grass was knee-high, half the stones toppled over and the walking most treacherous due to the rocky terrain.”

In 1979, as part of a neighbourhood improvement program, the City of Dartmouth remodelled the cemetery into its current incarnation. Benches were added, stones were again righted, and a paved walk was laid that connected urban development above the cemetery to Alderney Drive. It became something of a park, with a cemetery in the middle.

In 1994, with space for the deceased again at a premium in Dartmouth, the city cast an eye towards re-developing St. Paul's and expanding the cemetery onto the grassy field next to the tombstones. But a strong campaign, led by then Mi'kmaw Grand Chief Ben Syliboy, halted the expansion plans. A 1994 Daily News article notes that estimates as to the number of Mi'kmaq buried there ranged “into the thousands.”

There are now clear signs that people have been sleeping, drinking and defecating in the thick recesses of the knotweed. The shale markers are long gone, and the paved path between the tombstones and the grass, the same area where Redmond remembers righting the fallen grave markers, has become a popular dog-walking thoroughfare.

Mi'kmaw tradition speaks to allowing a burial site to reconstitute itself with native species, but the knotweed is an introduced, invasive species, and Awalt wants it removed. He also wants the HRM to ensure cemetery bylaws, which include letting no dog walk on grave sites, are enforced over the entire area. (Domestic animals defecating on graves is one of those taboos that transcends cultural boundaries.)

As we stand, a member of [the] Mi'kmaw Warriors Society, one of whose mandates includes protecting the burial places of Mi'kmaq, approaches the group. In a clear voice he promises to return to the cemetery with his Warriors, armed if need be, if the entire area is not given the same jurisdiction as any cemetery in the HRM; meaning no dogs, and no sleeping, partying, or defecating on graves, marked or not.

In 1990, a significant percentage of Warriors at Kanesatake were Mi'kmaq, and the man's words bring a stunned hush to the group.

Two weeks later, St. Paul's cemetery is undergoing another facelift.

Bonnie Murphy's survey team has put down preliminary markers. Rebar stakes, driven into the ground and spray-painted neon orange, indicate that Lewis Paul's grassy knoll, and more, is indeed now considered part of the cemetery. Knotweed is being attacked by a crew of city workers with a small backhoe.

“Since our meeting, we have had the surveyors…lay out the boundaries on the site,” says Brian Phalen, of HRM Parks and Open Spaces. “The preliminary work does show that that area that we were in, up by the steps, is certainly included in the cemetery site...We'll be posting the 'No Dogs Permitted Under The Cemetery Bylaws' signs in that section of the property.

“Certainly there are portions of that property that aren't laid out as grave sites, per se...But certainly we do know and recognize that being a traditional burial site, there were many Mi'kmaw burial sites that wouldn't be marked.”

As for the shale slab grave markers and Father Laba's corresponding map, it remains to be seen if they will ever be found. It may well be a return to tradition—in which Mi'kmaw graves went unmarked—by necessity.

"The important thing here is that a pre-contact burial ground is recognized for what it is," says Awalt. "That the grandfathers and grandmothers buried there finally receive the dignity and respect deserved...and this applies to non-natives buried there as well."

Miles Howe is an editor with The Dominion and is a contributing member of the Halifax Media Co-op

Marker at St. Paul's Cemetery

Food For Thought

Miles — Mon, 18 Jun 2012 14:24:56 +0000

DARTMOUTH, NOVA SCOTIA—As government agencies find themselves unwilling or, more likely, unable to solve Canada’s poverty problems, provincial organizations like Feed Nova Scotia and individual food banks like Stairs United, in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, confront these issues head-on, constantly enlarging and improving as they daily wage one of our nation’s most difficult battles: to keep our poorest and most vulnerable citizens as well fed as possible.

Canada’s first food bank opened its doors in Edmonton, Alberta in 1981. Prior to this, low income people scrounged extra food from a miscellaneous assortment of soup kitchens, churches and charities, or simply went without. Of course, poverty and hunger were not restricted to Edmonton and very soon other cities and towns followed the food bank’s example. Since that time, those providing free food to Canada’s poorest citizens have opened over 800 food banks and now operate more than 3,000 food programs.

In many ways the food bank at Stairs Memorial United Church in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia is a microcosm of the national food bank movement, expanding and modifying its services to meet an ever-growing and changing need.

Martin Walker is the current president of the North Dartmouth Outreach Resource Centre (NDORC), the organization that now officially runs the Stairs food bank. “I’m really impressed by the hands-on attitude of the volunteers here, the get-it-done attitude. They know that people need this and they just do it.” says Walker. “There’s almost no turnover here among our volunteers. Once people come here to help out, even if they didn’t plan a long-term commitment, they really tend to stay.”

Back in the mid-seventies when Stairs first started, it wasn’t really a food bank at all. Parishioners would bring contributions directly to the minister at the time, Reverend Vince Ihasz, who stored the food in his clothes closet and discreetly allocated the donations to those in need.

By 1987, the demand reached such proportions that a Food Bank Committee was established to be directly responsible to the congregation.

The passing decades have seen not only the growth of food banking but constant evolution and adaptation to changing times and needs. Many food banks have expanded their mandate to include provision of other services such as training in food preparation, assistance with job searching and raising awareness of hunger and poverty. Food banks have become one-stop-shops, offering clients resources and referrals to other support services, such as child care and affordable housing. All of this has been accomplished with heavy reliance on volunteer labour: almost half of all food banks in Canada are run entirely by volunteers.

There would appear to be three major factors fueling the evolution of food banks in Canada. First are the basic improvements and efficiencies gained through experience.

Frances Hunter, who has been Food Bank Manager at Stairs for 15 years, remembers driving to several different grocery stores to pick up day-old bread and items from the donation bins. Workers from other food banks would be doing much the same thing in their locale. “It’s just something I was called to do,” Hunter says. She’s very animated when discussing the clients. “Each one is different. They need to feel they are respected. Each one has a story and they want to be listened to. They want to be hugged and see a friendly face and that’s what I do – give them a hug and a big smile. That’s my reward too, the hugs and smiles I get.”

Increased demand in Nova Scotia, like all provinces in Canada, has seen the creation of central collection and distribution agencies. Feed Nova Scotia, a non-profit NGO created in 1984 as a Metro Food Society, now coordinates food bank operations in the greater Halifax area. Today it gathers and allocates food to more than 150 member agency food banks and meal programs across Nova Scotia.

The second factor that appears to be stimulating food bank modifications is contact with clients at the grassroots level, which is bringing into focus previously unrecognized needs. Stairs United, for instance, like almost every food bank in the country, now supplies diapers, dish and laundry detergent and toiletries. The church has also set aside an area for clothing and book donations.

Regular interaction with clients also allows volunteers to get a sense of the extreme social and psychological isolation poverty produces, causing most food banks to invite other agencies to visit during open hours and make themselves more readily available to those in need. Gordon McKeen, president of NDORC for the past ten years, explains the benefits of regular interaction.

“Our clients can be very fragile because of the problems they have and also because of the way that society treats them,” says McKeen. “For many people, it’s not easy to come to a food bank. One woman told me she walked past half-a-dozen times before she came in. For this reason we want to be very gentle in our dealings. We also want to be humble. Any of us can fall victim to circumstance. Finally, we need to be frugal both with our assets and our energy so that we can make sure every client gets help and shares the resources we have to offer.”

Stairs is regularly visited by Dartmouth Family Centre, Dalhousie Legal Aid, the Public Good Society and the newly formed Community Health Team, among others. Thanks to these organizations, clients can get advice and assistance with child-care issues, tenant-landlord problems, education and employment concerns, and questions about medical access and health issues.

The current minister at Stairs, Reverend Sarah Reaburn, remains closely connected with the food bank as well, usually spending the entire morning speaking (and sometimes praying) with clients who otherwise might not have that kind of spiritual connection in their lives.

“People frequently want to discuss their grief, often old grief that hasn’t been dealt with. There are also relationship problems and these often involve addiction issues. Lots of people just want to pray,” says Reaburn. “Of course, some people just want to chat! Since I’ve been doing this for over five years, I know these folks and they know me so there’s always lots of catching up.”

Stairs may be slightly ahead of the curve with one of their client services: transportation. Recognizing that many people have trouble getting their groceries home due to handicaps and other access issues, Councillor Jim Smith (District 9 Albro Lake Harbourview) has been offering rides to Stairs patrons almost every Wednesday morning for the last six years.

Last year Smith invited Ralph MacKenzie to join him and just a few months ago, the two men, along with the Public Good Society, a Dartmouth-based non-profit, obtained the license to operate the first urban community-based van in the Halifax Regional Municipality. The van is available to other charitable organizations and agencies making food bank visits available to those who otherwise could not participate.

“Some people wouldn’t come to the food bank at all without a ride home,” says MacKenzie. “They can’t afford cab-fare and physically can’t carry the groceries home. People talk about what a great thing you’re doing, but I feel really rewarded. I’m building relationships with these people. I know their names, where they live, and what’s going on in their families. I'm making friends. I love it.”

Being face-to-face with poverty is a powerful motivator and food banks like Stairs have responded. With only two paid staff, Stairs makes sure that one of them is an outreach worker, in this case, Tom Clarke. Clarke joined the food bank for what he thought was a one year stint. Fifteen years later he’s still the outreach coordinator.

Stairs also invites another outreach worker, Kevin Little from the non-profit Public Good Society, to attend the food bank to arrange job postings, education and employment opportunities, housing connections, and contacts with other helping agencies. Thanks to their work, clients have improved their education, gotten jobs and training grants, and became acquainted with numerous other beneficial organizations.

Lamont Dobbin volunteers at Stairs United. He lives and works in Dartmouth, Nova Scotia

Helen and Heather prepare client orders in the pantry at Stairs United.

Jeremy’s Case, Jordan’s Principle

dawn — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 14:35:50 +0000

Historic court case in Halifax identifies gap in health services for First Nations children

HALIFAX—In a precedent-setting case that continued in Halifax on Monday, Maurina Beadle and Pictou Landing First Nation took the Government of Canada to court over its failure to provide Beadle’s son the same level of health care that a child living off-reserve would receive from the province of Nova Scotia.

On the fourth anniversary of Prime Minister Stephen Harper's historic apology to First Nations people for the forced separation of children from their families under the residential school system, the Mi'kmaq mother was in court fighting for the health services that would allow her son Jeremy to remain at home under her care.

"All the things that were promised in Harper's apology are things they are not doing for Jeremy," said Philippa Pictou, Health Director for Pictou Landing First Nation, sitting on a bench in courtroom 501 in the Law Courts on Lower Water Street in Halifax on Monday morning. "Kids being pushed into institutions, instead of being cared for at home."

Jeremy Meawasige is a 17-year-old from Pictou Landing First Nation who was born with a complex array of disabilities and medical conditions. His mother, Maurina Beadle, had been providing all of his care without government assistance until a double stroke in May 2010 left her physically unable to meet his needs at home.

When, with help from the First Nation, Beadle applied for funding for home care health services, she found that her family's Aboriginal status caught her son in jurisdictional red tape that prevented him from receiving the same care on-reserve that he would be provided with by the province of Nova Scotia if he lived off-reserve.

With the support of Pictou, Beadle is invoking Jordan’s Principle for the first time in its history. The child-first policy passed unanimously in the House of Commons in 2007. It dictates that in the instance of a jurisdictional dispute over which level of government foots the bill for a First Nations child in need of medical care, the government first contacted must come up with the funds; any arguments over who ultimately pays for the child's care are to be argued later.

Jordan's Principle is named after Jordan River Anderson of Norway House Cree Nation, who lived all four years of his life in hospital while the governments of Manitoba and Canada fought over which level of government was responsible for paying for his home care.

Jordan's Principle has never been implemented in any province or territory.

"Should a disabled First Nations child on-reserve be entitled to the level of care available to any child off-reserve?" asked Paul Champ, the lawyer representing Beadle and Pictou Landing First Nation, in his opening comments.

Provincial governments generally provide continuing care health services in the home. But because First Nations fall under federal jurisdiction, provincial governments do not provide on-reserve health services.

The federal government, either under Health Canada or Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC, formerly INAC), is responsible for allocating to First Nation bands the resources to provide services "reasonably comparable to those provided by the province," Champ told the court on Monday. Bands must "administer program according to provincial legislation and standards."

In her decision to deny Beadle the requested funding, AANDC official Barbara Robinson argued that Beadle and Pictou Landing First Nation were requesting services above and beyond the "normative standard of care in Nova Scotia."

Champ argued that Robinson's interpretation of the normative standard of care in Nova Scotia is flawed. She determined that Jeremy Beadle is eligible to receive $2,200 per month, "full stop," explained Champ. $2,200 per month is the standard respite cap in Nova Scotia, according to a Community Services policy document.

However, a support program available for persons with disabilities in Nova Scotia—one designed to "maintain the integrity of families," including enabling people with disabilities to live at home&mdashincludes a section in which "exceptional circumstances" allow for additional respite funding. These circumstances are defined in a number of points, and all apply to Jeremy.

Upon cross-examination, Robinson conceded that the Beadles meet all exceptional circumstances criteria, but she also said that the "exceptional circumstances" part of the policy doesn't apply to Jeremy's case. Her reasoning, explained Champ, was that she relied on what happens "in practice," not necessarily in policy or law.

According to the Social Assistance Act, the government "shall furnish assistance to all persons in need," and this includes home care. Cabinet can prescribe maximum levels of assistance. No maximum has been legally established; the $2,200 cap is, effectively, arbitrary.

On Monday afternoon, the proceedings turned to Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the equality guarantee that ensures that all people have access to equal benefit of the law. Champ reminded the court that the purpose of the Charter is to entrench the goal of equality, in particular to protect those who have been historically disadvantaged.

"The disadvantage that First Nations have historically faced on reserves has never been resolved," said Champ. "Never. Never. First Nations people do not have equal access to schools, home care, or health."

Robinson, when making her decision in the Beadle case, stated that the Charter doesn't apply. Champ explained the exception to the guarantee of equality that excludes First Nations people who, because of their unique status, are not entitled to the equal benefit of the law.

First Nations people are the only legal group in Canada identified by race; they therefore fall into a "legal no-man's-land" because their situation can't be compared to anything--there is no comparative group with respect to which they can be discriminated. Therefore the Charter, and cases argued on the basis of discrimination, cannot be argued. Champ submitted that this is an improper way to interpret Section 15 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

The services provided by the federal government--either by Health Canada or by Aboriginal Affairs--to people on-reserve, are not provided by legal obligation, but as a matter of policy, based on agreements and programs negotiated with First Nations band councils.

These services are policy, not law, Champ told the court. They are therefore discretionary, and provided according to the government official who interprets the policy. These agreements use such language as "Canada has elected to provide" a given service. These services are therefore a choice, provided at the discretion of the Government of Canada.

One such policy is Jordan's Principle. As an "expression of the House," it is not legally binding, but the federal government is seeking to implement the principle across the country. Where there is no formal agreement, there are dialogues premised on Jordan's Principle, said Champ. He added that in any other case he would not make the argument that Jordan’s Principle legally applies.

"But in this case, there are no statutes. We have policy manuals, funding agreements that change over time in content and funding levels essentially at the whim of the federal government. Do these policies have the form of law? Yes, because there is nothing else," said Champ. "This is, in a sense, is the best that we have."

The animated purpose of Jordan's Principle, he said, is to acknowledge the fact that First Nations people are in a unique legal situation, and also to rectify the historical disadvantage of First Nations people.

A breach of Jordan's Principle is evidence of discrimination, said Champ. "When a child is denied service for one day, as a result of a jurisdictional dispute, that is a breach of Jordan's Principle, and it is always a breach of Section 15 of the Charter."

After the Crown’s submissions and the applicants' responses, Judge Mandimen acknowledged that the case is time-sensitive. Recognizing that the Pictou Landing First Nation cannot continue to provide funding for Beadle’s home care, Mandimen said that he would move his decision through as soon as possible.

Beadle—and First Nations across the country who are watching this case—will still have to wait up to six months for a ruling, although after the trial Champ said he hopes for a ruling by the end of August.

"I know this [case] won’t necessarily change things for Jeremy, by the time it’s over," said Beadle. "But this isn’t for Jeremy. This is for children across the country. They shouldn’t have to wait while the people in power procrastinate."

Moira Peters lives and bikes in Halifax.

A version of this article was originally published by the Halifax Media Co-op as a series, including an introductory article and blog posts about Monday’s morning and afternoon court proceedings. The last post of the series covering Monday’s court proceedings will be published by the Halifax Media Co-op later today.

Maurina Beadle at Pictou Landing

Sloughs of Despond

Tim McSorley — Fri, 11 May 2012 10:29:53 +0000

Fracking wastewater ponds languish in Hants County

HALIFAX—Hydraulic fracturing wastewater shown to contain high levels of radioactive contaminants has been sitting in two open containment pits in Hants County, Nova Scotia, since 2007, the Media Co-op has learned.

A Freedom of Information request has also revealed that the water likely contains a slew of other chemicals, including known carcinogens and endocrine disruptors.

Triangle Petroleum Corporation, the Denver-based company responsible for creating the ponds, announced on April 16, after having stalled on remediating the wastewater for over four years, that it was “contemplating a total exit” from its operations in Nova Scotia. The company’s announcement coincided with the provincial NDP’s announcement that its review of the environmental impacts of hydraulic fracturing, initially slated for a Spring 2012 release, would be extended into 2014.

The first company to explore Nova Scotia’s shale formations for natural gas using the contentious horizontal-drilling method known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, Triangle had been threatening for some time to renounce its 10 year exploration lease on 475,000 gross acres—known as The Windsor Block—spanning Kings and Hants Counties along the Minas Basin.

In an email to Nova Scotia Environment (NSE) dated August 29, 2011—obtained through a NS Freedom of Information request—Dr. Peter Hill, at the time Triangle’s CEO, threatened his company’s withdrawal from the province.

Should the [fracking] Review fail to support deep re-injectivity [sic] of formation waters back to their formation of origin, or ban, restrict or delay shale gas activity for a long period, then we will drain the ponds by the then best method available, remediate all sites, return our licenses back to the Nova Scotia Department of Energy and cease any further investment in the Province of Nova Scotia.

The wastewater comprising the ponds was generated in 2007 when Triangle drilled and fracked two wells in the Kennetcook area of Hants County.

NSE and Triangle have since been at loggerheads concerning the best method of remediation for the 15 million litres of wastewater—the former insisting on trucking the wastewater to appropriate treatment facilities, the latter on injecting the “formation waters back to their formation of origin,” or, namely, drilling an on-site disposal well and injecting it into the earth.

While the deep-well reinjection of fracking wastewater is common industry practice, it runs counter to NSE’s best practices guide.

And for good reason, according to Jennifer West, groundwater coordinator at the Ecology Action Centre (EAC).

“When you punch a hole through the overlying rock formations, which act as seals, and then dump millions of litres of wastewater into that hole, there’s no way you can guarantee that it’s not going to change the quality of the drinking water,” she says. “The practice is appalling given the number of chemicals and anthropogenic contaminants in wastewater.”

Families of chemicals that Triangle used in its fracking slurry for the Kennetcook wells (among others):

Diethylene glycols: An endocrine disruptor known to adversely affect development, the reproductive, cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, respiratory and nervous systems, and to impair function of the kidneys, liver, skin, and eyes.

Isopropanols: Known to have adverse effects on the sensory organs, the liver, kidneys, brain, and blood, and the immune system.

Methanols: A mutagen known to have the preceding effects.

Sodium persulphates: Causes skin, eye, sensory organ, and respiratory, gastrointestinal, nervous and immune system damage.

Trisodium nitrilotriacetate monohydrates: Known to cause cancer, and gastrointestinal, cardiovascular, kidney and ecological damage.

In December 2011, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a draft report on the effects of hydraulic fracturing on groundwater in Pavilion, Wyoming. “Using a lines of reasoning approach,” the study found that “inorganic and organic constituents associated with hydraulic fracturing ha[d] contaminated ground water at and below the depth used for domestic water supply.”

Reinjection has been linked to a marked increase in seismic activity in the American Midwest over the past ten years. According to the US Geological Survey, “the injection of [fracking] wastewater into the subsurface can cause earthquakes that are large enough to be felt…and cause damage.”

Earlier this year, Ohio’s Natural Resources Department introduced stringent new regulations for oil and gas drilling companies after several earthquakes in the state had been linked to fracking-wastewater reinjection.

Although its development plan application, submitted to the NS Department of Energy in 2008, states that Triangle would commit “to safeguarding the environment…through the application of best practices,” the company has been stalwart in its opposition to NSE’s insistence on draining the ponds and treating, rather than reinjecting, the wastewater. The company has stated that trucking the wastewater to treatment facilities would be too expensive and would undermine road safety.

Ken Summers is a member of the Nova Scotia Fracking Resource and Action Coalition (NOFRAC) who lives near the Kennetcook ponds. He believes the lengthy impasse highlights the slapdash nature by which shale gas exploration activity in Nova Scotia has emerged.

“Up until they launched their review [of hydraulic fracturing in April 2011], the provincial government was relying on regulations designed to cover conventional drilling, which are insufficient mechanisms when applied to the so-called unconventional method of hydraulic fracturing,” says Summers.

Summers contends that the Kennetcook ponds are the direct result of an absence of fracking-specific provincial wastewater remediation regulations, and are exemplary of a savvy company taking advantage of the tenderfoot provincial government.

“The industry is so new and has developed so fast that provincial and state jurisdictions are way behind the industry players in terms of knowledge and expertise,” he explains.

According to the Kennetcook drill-site plan Triangle submitted to the province, the pits were dug to hold freshwater to be used during the fracking process.

“NSE notes in its documentation that it didn’t give approval for waste ponds, that no permits were issued,” explains Summers.

In 2008, when NSE realized the ponds were holding wastewater, it issued Triangle a two-year temporary storage permit during which time Triangle was to have the water transported to treatment facilities in Dartmouth and Debert, 20 kilometres west of Truro. When the temporary permit expired in June 2010, with no remedial action having taken place, NSE issued a one-year extension with the proviso that by the end of the one-year term they expected definitive plans for draining the ponds and reclaiming the sites.

In August, 2011, two months beyond the extension deadline, with Triangle still pressuring for reinjection, and proposing they “wait for the decisions and recommendations of the Review Committee on Hydraulic Fracturing that [were] expected later [that] year,” NSE demanded that the ponds be drained before winter freeze, or November 1, which Triangle claimed unfeasible, suggesting instead “the gradual use of the brines as a de-icing/wetting agent on Nova Scotia roads.”

Months later, Triangle agreed to drain one of the ponds before winter freeze, which they began to do on November 21. Shortly thereafter, on December 2, NSE received test results showing the wastewater contained high levels of radionuclides, and consequently, owing to the fact that there is no facility in Atlantic Canada capable of treating radioactively contaminated wastewater, suspended all drainage activity.

Radionuclides are unstable forms of nuclides, a generic term for the atomic form of an element. The most common radionuclides in groundwater are radon, radium, thorium and uranium. Radon and uranium occur most commonly in shale and granite formations, which comprise a significant portion of Nova Scotia’s geology. The EPA states that although “most drinking water sources have very low levels of [naturally occurring] radioactive contaminants,” human activity can incite drinking water contamination “through accidental releases of radioactivity or through improper disposal practices.”

Exposure to high levels of radon and uranium has been linked to bone and internal organ cancers in humans.

“They were trucking water out for less than two weeks in five or six trucks a day to Debert, and part of it is sitting in a pond in Debert, but most of it is still sitting in the pond in Kennetcook,” says Summers.

Compounding the matter, the water that was already drained and trucked to the Atlantic Industrial Services facility in Debert before NSE suspended drainage activity now has to be removed from that location because it cannot be treated at that facility.

“Who’s to say where they’re going to go from here, because now we’re talking about a much more expensive process for the company, so it’s back into limbo,” says Summers.

Meanwhile, one of the Kennetcook ponds is leaking and has spilled over in heavy rain, augmenting concerns within the community over groundwater contamination.

The EPA draft report on groundwater in Pavilion, Wyoming, found that “high concentrations of benzene, xylenes, gasoline range organics, diesel range organics, and total purgeable hydrocarbons in ground water samples from shallow monitoring wells near [wastewater] pits indicates that pits are a source of shallow ground water contamination in the area of investigation” representing “potential source terms for localized groundwater plumes of unknown extent.”

Oil and gas companies are not lawfully compelled to disclose the chemicals they use in their slickwater, the proprietary nature of which can make it notoriously difficult when it comes to delineating which toxic elements have been introduced by industry and which are naturally occurring.

A recent EAC Freedom of Information request has disclosed the group of industrial chemicals that were used in the fracking fluid for the Kennetcook wells (See sidebar).

“Chemicals associated with fracking are just the tip of the iceberg,” says West. “We found dozens of dangerous substances which were used for fracking in Hants, but also for drilling and site preparation. We found these through a Freedom of Information request—they weren’t handing out this information at an Open House in Kennetcook.”

The potential for the contamination of our drinking water is multifold, yet the result is singular, according to West.

“It doesn’t matter if it’s the methane, or wastewater, the natural contaminants, or the chemicals that get into our drinking water, it’s just that something [toxic] can get into our drinking water and that’s not acceptable.”

Despite numerous delays and Triangle’s departure announcement, NSE remains firm that the company will clean up its mess. “They are required to meet the terms and conditions of their approval, which includes draining the ponds, treating the wastewater at an approved facility, and returning the site to its natural state before the end of this year,” says Karen White, NSE Director of Communications.

White further emphasizes that “any materials that meet federal legislation requirements under the Nuclear Substances Act and/or the Transportation of Dangerous Goods Act must be shipped to an appropriate facility out of province.”

West maintains reservations, given that the government, to no avail, has been asking the company for almost five years to comply with regulations. She says more decisive action needs to be taken. "[Triangle] should be forced to immediately clean up the ponds in Kennetcook before drinking water is impacted by these chemicals, and be held accountable if contamination has occurred."

Steven Wendland is a graduate student and contributing member of the Halifax Media Co-op.

This article was originally published by the Halifax Media Co-op.

Tailings in Hants

The Greenwashing of Sustainable Seafood

Miles — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 09:13:01 +0000

The environmental community rejects the sustainable certification of Nova Scotia longline caught swordfish

HALIFAX—Sustainable seafood certification announces to consumers that the fish they are buying is caught using ecologically sound practices that ensure the conservation of the species of sea life in question. But not everyone feels the not-for-profit organization charged with certification process is doing its job in ensuring the sustainability of fisheries.

The not-for-profit Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) runs the world's main seafood certification program with a corporate vision of “the world's oceans teeming with life, and seafood supplies safeguarded for this and future generations.” Various environmental NGOs, such as the David Suzuki foundation, the Sea Turtle Conservancy and Nova Scotia's Ecology Action Centre (EAC) have been sounding the alarm against MSC's certification of one fishery in particular: the Atlantic Canadian pelagic longline fishery for swordfish, which has been regulated through the MSC process since 2009.

“Personally I am very frustrated by the thought of consumers being misled by eco-labels or not being able to trust sustainability certifications,” says Jordan Nikoloyuk, Sustainable Fisheries Co-ordinator at the EAC. “The [longline swordfish] fishery kills two sharks as bycatch for every one swordfish they bring in ... That fact alone should mean that people shouldn't spend more for it at the stores.”

Pelagic longline fishing is a large-scale industrial approach to fishing. Pelagic longlines have upwards of 1,500 individual baited hooks coming off a central line up to 60 kilometres long. The technology is non-selective, meaning that anything that bites a hook will get caught. There are around 20,000 swordfish caught annually in the Atlantic Canadian longline fishery. But the catch of other, incidental, or “non-target” species is much higher.

The EAC and the other NGOs, as official stakeholders in the certification process, recently filed a formal objection against the recommendation that this swordfish fishery receive its MSC certification. “Our objection was very wide-ranging. It was about bad data, monitoring the fishery and very high levels of bycatch,” says Nikoloyuk.

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) estimates that 100,000 sharks and 1,400 sea turtles are caught annually in the fishery. Most sharks and turtles are released alive but approximately 35,000 sharks and 200 to 500 turtles die annually. “Blue sharks are the ones they catch most of ... Do we have to wait for those sharks to be endangered before you can stop catching so many of them?” asks Nikoloyuk.

It is important to note that while the MSC bestows certification and the use of its blue eco-label—an image of a fish combined with a check mark of approval—on fisheries that pass its international sustainable fisheries standard, it does not conduct the certifications. Jay Lugar, MSC Fisheries Outreach Manager for the Americas, says, “The MSC role in our process is to make sure that individual assessments are technically correct. In other words, we review documents that are posted on our website ... for technical correctness, but we don't evaluate the content and the analysis. We don't undertake the scientific analysis, the scientific team does.”

Third party certification firms are hired to conduct fishery assessments for upwards of $70,000, usually paid for by the fishery association benefiting directly from the certification. They are re-assessed every five years.

Fisheries paying for their own assessments can create a catch-22, whereby if the certification company applies the standard stringently and fails fisheries often, they will not be the assessment company of choice by other fisheries wishing to gain certification.

“I am increasingly unconvinced by the third party accreditation model," says Brendan May, CEO of the MSC from 1999 to 2004. "At the end of the day it is the MSC’s brand. There are also big questions about the model in which fisheries pay for their own audits and choose their own auditors. This is a common problem with all major certification systems.”

Intertek Moody Marine, a worldwide technical services firm with its head office in England, is the largest certifier of MSC fisheries worldwide. Moody Marine was hired by the Nova Scotia Swordfisherman’s Association, the organization that represents the pelagic longline fleet in Atlantic Canada, to assess their fishery. Moody Marine then hired a team of experts who found that the fishery passed the MSC standard for a sustainable fishery.

The EAC, on the periphery of this process, provided advice and information and highlighted relevant issues for the Moody Marine experts throughout the assessment. Left unsatisfied by the decision to certify the fishery, the EAC and other environmental groups made an official objection to the MSC directly. This was dealt with by MSC appointed adjudicator, Wylie Spicer.

According to Spicer's decision, he did not see it as his role to give the evidence and conclusions reached by Moody Marine a thorough second look. Rather, he deferred to the authority of the Moody Marine's role as certifier and limited his task to determining whether the organization's decision was “so unreasonable that no certification body could have come to that conclusion.” This limited view of the adjudication meant that there was very little within the objection that Spicer would actually comment on.

“I was surprised that this fishery, with its evidently high bycatch, did not meet the criteria for an objection,” says May. “I established the objections procedure around ten years ago ... It was, and I assume still is, designed to give stakeholders a final opportunity to present their case against a proposed certification. To my knowledge, however, no objection has ever been upheld, which must lead to some asking why it exists at all.”

Nikoloyuk and the EAC are asking question of their own. “It makes us wonder why a group like ours would put all the effort into participating in this if we are not going to be able to affect the outcome at all,” says Nikoloyuk.

The EAC has been involved in other MSC assessments, such as the Atlantic Canadian harpoon swordfish fishery, which was certified in 2010. This fishery targets one swordfish at a time with a modern-day spear. This fishing method has no bycatch and only catches mature swordfish and the EAC fully supports its certification.

Nikoloyuk says “[The swordfish harpoon fishery is] a Nova Scotian fishery that is environmentally sustainable, could be marketed with very high value and be something we could be proud of. I think the [longline] certification diminishes that.”

The harpoon fishery only holds ten per cent of Canada's swordfish quota and the longline fishery holds 90 per cent.

The MSC doesn't see any problem with two fisheries of contrasting scales and impacts both being certified as sustainable under their standard. “All fisheries go through the same process and they have to meet the same criteria in order to become MSC-certified,” says Lugar.

Lugar says the MSC standard reflects global best practices, but Nikoloyuk says that Canada's longline swordfishery is far from a global best and advocates looking at what some other longline fisheries are doing that Canada is not.

“What the Hawaii longline fishery for tunas has done is set a hard cap on the number of endangered sea turtles that can get caught every year,” says Nikoloyuk. “So in Hawaii it is 18 loggerhead and 18 leatherback turtles. Combined with that, they have 100 per cent observer coverage, which is key because when the fishery as a whole goes over 18 it gets shut down for the season.”

Observers are independent fisheries technicians who collect data from on board fishing vessels about what is caught, how much is caught and where it is caught. Canada's observer coverage has fluctuated from five to eight per cent since 2004 and has no hard caps or legally binding limits for bycatch.

Despite the issues with the MSC process, Nikoloyuk says: “We would really like to see a strong viable Marine Stewardship Council labeling system. It's enormously valuable to have one really good, really dependable certification ... I don't think it helps anyone to have a Marine Stewardship Council that got watered down, got some bad fisheries in it and isn't reliable.”

The EAC, David Suzuki Foundation and Sea Turtle Conservancy are currently drafting a formal letter to Whole Foods Market, requesting that it not carry Canadian longline-caught swordfish. Whole Foods is the largest retailer of MSC-certified swordfish and the NGOs hope that the retailer will help communicate the issues with the fishery and the certification process back to the MSC.

It turns out, however, that Whole Foods has already taken longline caught sword-fish off the menu.

“Prior to Earth Day 2011, we eliminated all swordfish and tuna from red-ranked fisheries,” says Carrie Brownstein, Whole Foods’ Seafood Quality Standards Coordinator. Canadian longline-caught swordfish is ranked as red by both SeaChoice and Seafood Watch, two sustainable seafood guides also used by Whole Foods. As such, it would have been removed from the shelves and replaced by other sources of swordfish.

Brownstein says that this move helped to forge longer-term commitments between Whole Foods and smaller niche suppliers of swordfish such as the Nova Scotia harpoon fishermen.

When asked if Whole Foods will re-stock the shelves with Atlantic Canadian pelagic longline caught swordfish once it is MSC certified, Brownstein replied, “Our purchasing decisions depend upon a number of factors and—as with any product—we’ll evaluate all of the science out there before making a final decision on what to sell.”

Brownstein says that Whole Foods considers MSC certification to be the gold standard, so the worry is that once certified it will go back on the shelves even though nothing has changed and it is still ranked as red by these other seafood guides.

If Whole Foods decides to stock MSC-certified longline swordfish, the MSC will have opened the market door for the longline fishery to be branded as “sustainable.” This also stands to decrease the short-lived benefit to the truly sustainable harpoon swordfish fishery.

“I am still hopeful that one day the MSC will take ownership over its brand and remove it from [the pelagic longline] fishery's products,” says Nikoloyuk. “In the meantime we are asking retailers not to carry this product.”

Palmira Boutilier is a biologist and journalist living in Halifax, Nova Scotia

Hector the Blue Shark

The Case of Wally Fowler

Tim McSorley — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 09:05:20 +0000

Racism and possible cover-up in Canadian military see light of day with exclusively released documents

HALIFAX—In 2001, with a wife and her three children in tow, Private Wally Fowler, an African-Nova Scotian, was assigned to Traffic Tech training at Canadian Forces Base (CFB) Esquimalt, on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. It was not an auspicious match by any account, and since then Fowler has clung tirelessly to the assertion that he and his family were the frequent victims of racism and discrimination in Esquimalt.

The experience has cost Fowler dearly. He lost his wife, his career and in 2004, after leaving the military, he became mentally unstable and was hospitalized for an extended period.

Fortunately, an encounter in 2011 with Sergeant Rubin Coward, a military administrative specialist known to some as “the only man who can beat the military,” has given the Fowler case new life and a new direction.

Coward’s reputation can be traced back to 1993 when he single-handedly fought and won his own discrimination case at CFB Greenwood, where he was the first African-Nova Scotian Non-Commissioned Officer to be the chief clerk in 404 Maritime Patrol and Training Squadron. It took Coward over six years to advance his own case and he is adamant that the chips are stacked against anyone who tries to take on the military with charges of discrimination.

Coward's administrative acumen has yielded a trove of documents on Fowler’s case under the Privacy Act. These documents show that Fowler's initial accusations of racism were well known and corroborated by his military superiors at CFB Esquimalt. These documents also point to a series of mishandled opportunities and a possible cover-up that implicates a wide swath of persons, some among the upper echelons of the Canadian military establishment. If the nation had known what some within the military had known, Wally Fowler’s story would have become a national scandal.

In Esquimalt, in 2001, Fowler and his family attracted all manner of attention—but of the negative, racist sort. His daughter was spat on in school. The bus driver called his young son a “nigger.” His wife had bananas thrown at her while walking home from work and was frequently refused service at local stores. For several months, Fowler filed complaint form after complaint form with the military, but nothing came of them.

“He filed these forms with the appropriate military administrators,” says Coward. “As of late 1990, we have a policy of 'zero tolerance' within the military. Several of these instances happened on the base, and involved members of the PMQ [Personnel Married Quarters]. So these should have been investigated.”

Fowler says no resolution ever came.

“It was always just 'being looked at,'” says Fowler. “Even the bus driver was only relocated to a different route. That was it.”

As the racist incidents and the inaction of the military continued, Fowler requested that he and his family be transferred back to Atlantic Canada, where they would have support of the African-Nova Scotian community. In response to Fowler's request, a variety of sources, including Fowler's military superiors at CFB Esquimalt, began to confirm in writing what Fowler had been saying all along. There was racism at CFB Esquimalt and Private Fowler had felt its effects. In a social work report dated May 1, 2002, Captain DH Wong, the base's Formation Social Work Officer, noted:

“Pte Fowler and his family appear to have been victims of racial discrimination on a number of occasions...It is recommended that Pte Fowler be posted to a Halifax area unit and that his employment be restricted such that he be available to provide his family with a stable home environment, and facilitate their attendance in a program which would heal the harm done by the racial discrimination experienced in his current posting.”

In a move request dated May 31, 2002, Commander RK Taylor, the Base Administration Officer, confirmed Captain Wong's assessment.

“[Fowler] and his family have consistently experienced racial discrimination outside of the military workplace. Specifically, his children have been taunted and harassed at school and in the PMQ area where they live...Such unpleasant living circumstances have greatly affected the quality of life of this serviceman and his family...I wholeheartedly support the recommendation that he and his family be posted to Halifax or as a secondary preference another base in the Atlantic region...While he and his family will undoubtedly need to heal and learn coping skills, it is my assessment that the Fowlers will achieve this goal without career restrictions placed upon him.”

Lieutenant Commander DF Ohs, the Chaplain BRT, also confirmed the situation. In a memo dated July 3, 2002, Ohs noted that Fowler had provided him with “ample evidence that this is not just a hunch or a personal feeling, but in fact a reality.” He went on to express his concern for the family's well-being:

“They are not coping well with their present reality. Their trust level with the local community is non-existent and they are truly miserable...For all our good intentions, our national and world image could be deeply stained on just one accusation of failing to take care of one of our own families, facing severe discrimination [to them] because they are from a visible minority, and because 'no one would listen to them.' If the member were to seek the assistance of his racial community, I believe this could be perceived a national scandal.”

David Wong, now retired from the military, does not remember the details of the Fowler case, a case he dealt with 10 years ago. The retired captain does, however, remember what he would have done in order to have written the aforementioned social work report.

“I would have verified the instances of discrimination that he and his family would have reported to me,” said Wong in an interview with The Dominion. “I would have followed up on that, making an assessment on whether they had in fact suffered this discrimination, and tried to assess the impact...that it was having on the family...I would have written that in a report to his commanding officer, with a recommendation in his case of a posting to a community where he could get the support of...a community which was probably more multicultural, more accepting of people of colour.”

When asked if Fowler's case would have been unique in the Canadian military in 2002, Wong replied, “Hardly. That would be naive to say that. There's no doubt that other people were subjected to racial slurs and racial comments, racial insults, and racial discrimination of one sort or another.”

In May and June of 2002, National Defence Headquarters in Ottawa began to take interest in the events unfolding at CFB Esquimalt. On June 24, 2002, Chief Warrant Officer Levesque from Human Resources in Ottawa, sent an email to Captain Wong, asking him if he knew of any “other persons in similar circumstances in the Esquimalt/Victoria area.” That same day, Wong replied:

“I can count myself in that number...How many such people do we have here? I can't give you a number. However, colleagues tell me that they have recently started to take notice and ask the question, and they are alarmed at the high number of people who are reporting having suffered instances of prejudice and discrimination.”

Fowler's original request, dated April 16, 2002, was for a “compassionate posting” and not a “contingency move.” The difference between the two is important. A compassionate posting implies that there may be something wrong with the requester, rather than the circumstances. A compassionate posting risks affecting a soldier's career in that a caveat will be applied to their file.

A “contingency move” is granted when the military acknowledges that the requester is dealing with circumstances beyond the capabilities of the individual involved. So it is telling that when Commander RK Taylor, the Base Administration Officer, made his recommendation, it was for Fowler to receive a contingency move, rather than a compassionate posting.

As National Defence was considering what to do with Wally Fowler, a tangled thread of internal emails circulated. On July 8, 2002, Colonel Wauthier at National Defence Headquarters suggested a half-dozen possible locations available for transfer, including Greenwood, Nova Scotia. In the same email, Wauthier noted that should Fowler insist upon a move to Halifax, “we will consider [it] at that time.”

In correspondence the following day, all but two of those locations seemed to have disappeared. In an email dated July 9, 2002, Master Corporal Guy, stationed at CFB Esquimalt, noted:

“I received a phone call from CWO Levesque [Traffic Tech career manager] and he told me that in regards to Pte Fowler, he did not have any positions available in the East Coast and the only choices are Winnipeg and Trenton...Pte Fowler said that he would not want Winnipeg as he feels he would be harassed again there. The CWO said now that the options are now limited to simply Trenton.”

This transpired in spite of the fact that CWO Levesque was copied in the original Wauthier email. Clearly, as of July 8, Levesque was aware that there were postings available in Greenwood, NS. Levesque would have been aware that Commander Taylor from CFB Esquimalt and others had specifically requested that Fowler be posted to Halifax, or at the very least to Atlantic Canada.

The final decision was made by Fowler's “career manager,” Chief Warrant Officer J. Melancon.

Instead of honouring the recommendation coming from CFB Esquimalt to re-post Wally Fowler to Atlantic Canada, CWO Melancon confirmed that Fowler had only two possible transfer options. Fowler was told to chose between CFB Winnipeg or CFB Trenton, Ontario.

Rubin Coward finds CWO Melancon’s decision troubling, especially considering the extenuating circumstances that led to Fowler's request for a move.

“In totality, the reasoning behind Commander Taylor's strong recommendation to send Wally and his family back east was twofold,” says Coward. “One: to allow the member to be reintegrated with Black people in his own milieu. And secondly: to allow the individual a chance to heal. And I would say, under normal circumstances, having put sixteen years into the system myself, there's no way normally that a Chief Warrant Officer could veto the recommendation of a Commander, unless he himself had an agenda.”

In the summer of 2002, faced with what he perceived as his only option, and wishing to be as close to his support network in Atlantic Canada as possible, Fowler chose the location farthest east: Trenton.

Then something even more curious happened.

CWO Melancon transferred himself from his Ottawa office, and posted himself as Base CWO of CFB Trenton. The former Base Chief Warrant Officer in Trenton transferred into Melancon's position in Ottawa, inheriting Fowler's career file. The logic behind such a transfer, in effect a self-demotion for Melancon, is difficult to understand.

Very little documentation is on hand concerning Fowler's posting at CFB Trenton. Coward suspects that staff at CFB Trenton may have “closed ranks” and that future information requests may yet reveal another series of documents from this time period. The only documentation available is Fowler's own testimony about his treatment, which he describes as “hell.”

“Melancon's puppets were everywhere,” claims Fowler. “I was starting to get written up over everything. They'd keep a log on my actions, sometimes minute-to-minute. They kept me in a basement, ironing flags. Or I'd be driving around, sorting through trash.”

At present, no documentation can confirm these allegations.

Coward suggests that even before Fowler’s transfer to Trenton, Fowler was suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder as a result of racist treatment while at Esquimalt, and he was in an even more fragile mental state in Trenton.

In fall 2002, Fowler began to experience a steady mental break down. In December 2002, he went on extended sick leave. In mid-January he was examined by Dr Bodden, a psychiatrist with Area Support Unit Toronto.

In a consultation report, dated January 16, 2003, Dr Bodden noted:

“Wally identifies a number of problems with his mood. Since arriving at Trenton, he has experienced a number of difficulties which have ultimately culminated in his mood being down most of the time, frequent ruminations about his difficulties, impaired concentration, decreased energy, decreased interest, significant initial insomnia of four to five hours duration...increased appetite with a 45-pound weight gain, and feelings of guilt. He denies suicidal ideation. He feels very helpless and hopeless.”

Notably, Dr Bodden mentioned that Fowler's posting to Trenton, and not Atlantic Canada, was possibly “redressable.”

“In other words,” says Coward, “if Wally were to have the knowledge and had somebody who would assist him in putting together a redress, he could have very easily been moved to Nova Scotia. But being a private, and not having that knowledge, he was subjected to whatever agenda Chief Warrant Officer Melancon had.”

A social work report, dated February 3, 2003, noted that members of the military consulted Captain DN Penley (a Social Worker stationed at Trenton) about Fowler five times between November 2002 and January 2003. In one communique between Penley and the Commanding Officer of 2 Air Movements Squadron, 8 Wing Trenton, Penley notes:

“Several other helping professionals involved in this case were consulted by WSWO [Wing Squadron Warrant Officer]...CFMAP [Canadian Forces Member Assistance Program] counsellor indicated that racism experienced by s/m and family in Esquimalt was highly traumatizing, which may have disadvantaged s/m's introduction to his military career at a critical juncture.”

With his mental state beginning to suffer greatly, and his family becoming increasingly depressed, in early February Fowler requested discharge from the military.

Captain Penley, in a communique written on February 3, again suggests:

“[A] compassionate posting to Nova Scotia could be considered as an alternative in order to attempt salvaging the s/m's career.”

CWO Melancon's motivations in blocking recommendations to post Fowler to CFB Halifax or Greenwood, and then re-posting himself to CFB Trenton once Fowler was posted there, remains a mystery unlikely to be resolved. On February 13, 2003, Jean Melancon passed away suddenly while stationed at CFB Trenton.

Once dismissed, it appears that the loose ends of Fowler's file were quickly “cleaned up.” By April 2003 there was no trace of the original documents from CFB Esquimalt, documents that suggest mistreatment of Wally Fowler and his family, and a subsequent mishandling of their case. In April of 2003, in response to discrimination charges brought to him by Fowler, Lieutenant Colonel Romanow noted in a memo:

“Pte Fowler alleges that he and his family have been subjected to discrimination and racism at each of the postings (Borden, Esquimalt and Trenton) he has had since rejoining the CF in 2000. It is noted that there is no substantiation or evidence supporting his allegations on the file. Consequently, there does not appear to be any immediate risk to the CF of having to respond to a grievance or human rights complaint, based on discrimination...It is recommended that Pte Fowler be released from the CF under item 5d as proposed.”

Romanow's statement that no substantiation or evidence supporting Fowler's allegations flies in the face of what is now known: Captain Wong had undertaken an investigation and came to the conclusion that Fowler was the victim of racism; Base Command had interviewed Fowler, was attempting to resolve one specific incident and was taking steps to “reinforce the Good Neighbour Policy to include racial tolerance” on the base; and, in 2003, the Canadian Forces Members Assistance Program counsellor had found the racism that Wally Fowler had experienced while at Esquimalt was “highly traumatic.” According to Romanow, however, as of 2003, all this evidence had disappeared.

It is troubling to contemplate where the original documents from CFB Esquimalt might have gone. Retired Captain Wong is equally baffled.

“Good question,” said Wong to The Dominion, when asked where the documents might have gone. “I guess it would be relevant to a subsequent investigation, wouldn't it? I couldn't tell you...I suppose as a journalist you can put that question to the Minister [of Defence].”

At press time, neither the Minister of Defence nor the Department of National Defence had any comment regarding the missing evidence.

In June of 2003, with his step-children still attending public school, Wally Fowler was given a 5d dismissal—a dismissal with no pension attached. He was given seven days back-pay, although he had to wait to move until the end of June in order for his step-children to complete their school year.

Three years after the move to Esquimalt, Fowler and his family returned home to Halifax, to the support of his community. For several months Fowler attempted to get compensation or a pension from the military, but to no avail. He solicited then-Minister of National Defence David Pratt. Fowler penned a letter to Pratt on February 2, 2004. Pratt responded on March 12, 2004, saying he was “disturbed” by Fowler's account of the racism he had “allegedly suffered,” and said he had ordered a review to determine if Fowler's treatment by the armed forces negatively impacted his career, and whether this treatment was related to Fowler's “ethnic origin.”

There is reason to believe that a review of Fowler's career would have turned up the original documents from Esquimalt—documents that show the extent of the racism to which Fowler and his family had been exposed. A review would have also found the potentially redressable posting to CFB Trenton, and the decision of CWO Melancon to go against Commander Taylor's recommendation that Fowler be posted to Halifax, or elsewhere in Atlantic Canada.

Nothing was found.

On February 12, 2004, as the military began to search for information on Fowler in response to Pratt's career review, a flourish of internal emails erupted. All of them were written by individuals looking for Fowler's case file, but none of them being able to find it. A message from Captain Jackson noted:

“I looked in NGRS and Excel and could not find it. How about you?”

To which Warrant Officer Laing replied, 11 minutes later:

“Not at this level. Nothing in the “I” drive either.”

Lost files notwithstanding, the case continued, slated to be addressed in the House of Commons on April 19, 2004. That month, another flourish of inter-departmental emails ensued.

On April 5, Lieutenant Navy Green asked CFB Esquimalt:

“Nothing in your records for anything relating to the Fowler family in Mqs out there?”

MWO Ennis, in Esquimalt, the same day, replied:

“A records check does not indicate any investigation files/reports involving Pte Fowler at CFB Esquimalt. As noted below one file was noted CFB Trenton involving a Breach of Probation issue.”

Without the proper documentation, the case before the House of Commons was weak. Fowler, unhappy with the results of the investigation, solicited Pratt once more. Pratt again sided on paper with Fowler; writing to the National Defence Ombudsman on Fowler's behalf, he noted:

“I am informed that your investigator did contact Mr Fowler, but that he may not be prepared to fully support your investigation. Nevertheless, it is requested that your office conduct a viability assessment for the conduct of this investigation and provide your recommendations to me.”

On July 2, 2004, the final results of the investigation arrived in the form of a letter from Captain DJ Kyle, the Base Commander at Esquimalt, to the Director of Military Careers at NDHQ:

“A search of all documents relating to the investigation of racism and/or harassment concerning Private (Retired) Fowler has been conducted with negative results. The supervisor of Private (Retired) Fowler has confirmed that the Private was not involved in any investigation concerning racism and/or harassment during his posting to Canadian Forces Base Esquimalt.”

Every trace of wrongdoing in the Fowler file had vanished.

Wally Fowler then suffered a mental breakdown. In the late summer of 2004 he was found on the highway outside of Halifax, wandering naked. When the police cuffed him, he attempted to gouge his eyes out on the window of their cruiser. He was taken to the Nova Scotia Hospital, where he was kept under intermittent restraint and constant surveillance for the following month and a half.

Without a military pension, and with no income, Fowler's vehicle was repossessed; his mortgage also spiralled out of control. Fowler's partner and her three children, whom Fowler was raising as his own, left him. The psychiatry team at the Nova Scotia Hospital diagnosed Fowler with schizophrenia and asked the Department of National Defence to provide him with a pension. Finally, in winter, 2004, Fowler was granted a limited pension. At this point, having moved back with his parents, his life was in shambles.

Fowler, in a fragile mental state, continued his attempt to get a full medical pension, but to no avail. On July 28, 2005, the Canadian Forces Grievance Board (CFGB) recommended that Fowler's application for redress of grievances be denied. Notably, the CFGB's investigation justified Fowler's 2003 posting to Trenton, as Major Lionais noted:

“[I]did not support a posting to Halifax due to the fact that the city achieved notoriety in the late 1990s for racial conflict issues in one of its high schools.”

What a racial conflict at a high school in Halifax had to do with refusing the recommendations from CFB Esquimalt that Fowler be moved back to his community on a contingency move is not known.

In 2005, Fowler received a letter from the Chief of the Defence Staff, General RJ Hillier; it was a final response to Fowler's application for a redress of grievance. In the letter, Hillier noted:

“In its analysis, CFGB found that there was no substantiated racist conduct or harassment on the part of any Canadian Forces member towards you. I agree with the CFGB. I believe that the CF, given the circumstances, was sensitive and responsive to your situation...I am not prepared to grant the redress you are seeking. I am satisfied that you were not discriminated against and that you took your voluntary release.”

It was the same story as before, now handed to Fowler by the Chief of the Defence Staff himself. Fowler began to vacillate between continuing his pursuit of redress of grievance and giving up on what seemed to be a hopeless endeavour. His mental state again wavered; he suffered another breakdown in 2005. He began to shred much of the original documentation related to his military career, as it made him angry. He took work as a community service worker and drifted between jobs.

Years went by and nothing advanced beyond a bureaucratic shuffle. Finally, in 2011, Fowler met Coward. Coward believed Fowler; with 16 years in the system, Coward says he’s seen it all before.

“[In the military] racism is both systemic and institutional,” says Coward. “And it's clear to see how they operate. What they do at the end of the day, they inundate the individual with a plethora of documentation, in Wally's case some 4,000 pages, and most of it is fluff. And of course, even when Wally took it to his lawyer, the first thing the lawyer said was, 'I can't go through all that,' unless Wally had a quarter million dollars in his back pocket. And the military is acutely aware that there's a significant financial uphill battle to fight these buggers.

“The area where they try to defeat you is in administration. And if you're not as sound an administrator, you're easily defeated. Because you just don't know the system. For people like Wally who don't have that knowledge? They're dead in the water, and the system knows it.”

Armed with the “vanished” documents from CFB Esquimalt, Coward is confident that Fowler's case merits a second look. He wants a Ministerial Inquiry. He also wants a review of the Human Rights Commission, the means by which racism is reported on in the Canadian military. He wants compensation for Wally Fowler, who he says should have been enjoying a long and illustrious career with the Canadian military by now. According to Coward, Veterans' Affairs is now offering Wally Fowler a full medical pension. But at this late date, after years of disappearing documentation, a pension is not enough for Fowler and Coward.

“They're now offering a bun,” says Coward. “And what they don't know is he can get the whole bakery.”

Miles Howe is an editor with The Dominion and a member of the Halifax Media Co-op.

Questions? Comments? Drop us a line: info@mediacoop.ca

Wally Fowler and Rubin Coward

Early Life's Long Reach Forward

stephlaw — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 09:19:18 +0000

Can a parenting co-op in Cape Breton save the economy?

HALIFAX—A report released in January by the Canadian Paediatrics Society (CPS) outlines a simple adjustment in family services that would lead to an economic revolution in Canada, and it’s all about facilitating early childhood development.

The society’s 2012 status report, Are We Doing Enough, showed that for every dollar spent in the early childhood years, the government could see $4 to $8 in return to society. It noted, in particular, the provincially funded early learning and childcare program in Quebec, which undoubtedly played a role in increasing the number of women in the workforce by four per cent, and in increasing the provincial GDP by $5.2 billion.

But the report said that the federal government isn’t doing enough to advance early learning and childcare programs across the country.

A group of young women in Inverness, an old coal-mining town in rural Nova Scotia, are not waiting around for the government to catch on. With the help of a municipal councillor, the women have decided to start the revolution in their town.

“There is a lack of honouring the role of the child and the woman in building a pluralistic, empathetic world,” says Jim Mustard, a councillor for the County of Inverness. There is little in the way of public services aimed at enriching the lives of people ages zero to five, he notes, even though these are the people who determine the health and vibrancy of a community.

In an effort to support the county's population of young families, Mustard, along with seven mothers, formed the Inverness Early Years Co-op.

Inverness, population 2,000, is a little different from nearby villages in that it enjoys a critical amount of built infrastructure: a hospital, an arena, a school, a food bank and low-income housing. “Families don’t need two cars to survive here,” says Mustard. “It’s a nest for people to land in and stay.”

Still, to an outsider, a small town in an economically depressed region of Nova Scotia may not seem like the place such an initiative might flourish, but for Diana MacLellan, a 25-year-old single mother originally from Inverness, and a member of the co-op’s board of directors, it makes perfect sense.

“I always had a baby on my hip,” she says. “I have a large extended family: 22 aunts and uncles, 52 cousins. You know, someone to turn to, everyone to answer to.” The supportive dynamic of a large, tight-knit family was common when she was growing up, but it has faded as families moved away from their rural roots in search of more economically viable livelihoods in urban centres and in oil-rich Alberta.

“We’re trying to bring that [family support] back,” she says.

The Inverness Early Years Co-op is not yet operational, but its board has been meeting since June 2010, and plans are underway to partner with the Inverness Cottage Workshop to build a space for the co-op’s services. The centre will be 11,000 square feet, and “a model of energy efficiency,” says Mustard, using local energy sources such as biomass pellets from naturally regenerating alders and solar power. The town of Inverness has already raised $700,000—one-third of the building's cost—and hopes to raise another third from the province. The board hopes the co-op will be open in eight months.

“We’re creating a platform to grow a community,” says Mustard.

Like many other towns and villages in rural Nova Scotia, Inverness suffers from a constant cutback in support services for families, Mustard says. The obstetrics unit in the Inverness hospital was cut eight years ago. Now, women in Inverness have to drive two hours to the nearest obstetrics unit, in Antigonish, to give birth.

In addition to rural hospitals losing their services for young families, Nova Scotia has also closed dozens of rural schools over the past 15 years. Last year, the federal government further cut five Service Canada offices out of rural Cape Breton.

Because a child's health begins with the mother's, the Inverness Early Years Co-op is geared towards relieving the woman’s financial stress by offering training for employment skills, while providing a place to share childcare. In-kind payments will be an option for low-income families.

“We want to have licensed childcare, an informal drop-in, with prenatal [services], breastfeeding, a playgroup, and a place for families to convene with a specialist,” says MacLellan. “The centre has to be accessible to absolutely everybody.”

The gap in services for the early years of a person's life—from in utero to age five—is a national trend. Canada ranks last among 25 wealthy Western nations in its support for early childhood development policies, according to a 2011 report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and UNICEF. Canada also comes second-last among 34 OECD nations in spending on childcare and pre-primary education.

This is ironic, given the firm Canadian roots of the interdisciplinary research that led to the groundbreaking 1999 Canadian Early Years Study: Reversing the Real Brain Drain, done by the late Dr. Fraser Mustard (father of Inverness's municipal councillor) and Margaret Norrie McCain. The study called on the federal government to establish parenting centres to support families, beginning at pregnancy. Dr. Mustard was a world-reknowned pioneer in recognizing the impact of early brain development on quality of life, and he co-authored two follow-up early years studies; the most recent was released a few days after his death in November 2011.

These early years studies stem from neuroplasticity research, which is based on the principle that your brain is “plastic.” It can learn new things through practice, but it could also lose learnt things when they aren’t practiced.

During the first few years of life, this brain development takes place at an incredible rate; it triples in size by the time a child reaches the age of three. Early years, therefore, present "great opportunities and great risks that set trajectories across a lifetime," according to the Council for Early Child Development (CECD), founded by Dr. Mustard and colleagues to continue the work initiated in the first Early Years Study. The CECD ceased operations in 2010 due to lack of funding.

Dr. Mustard and McCain's first study in 1999 argued that parenting centres would save billions of dollars down the road.

Not only do early developmental deficits, caused by poor health and environment, devastate the lives of the children in question, but they also cost Canada dearly through welfare, health care, prisons and remediation, and result in lower contributions to society, according to six economists writing for the Journal of Public Health in 2010.

"The country now tolerates an unnecessary brain drain that will dramatically deplete our future stock of human capital,” write the economists, of Canada’s lost opportunities for productivity by lack of investment in its citizens’ early years. Over a quarter of Canadian children enter kindergarten not fully prepared to learn, they report.

Early child development programs also significantly reduce the cost of mental illness, the second-leading cause of disability and premature death in Canada. Mental illness costs $51 billion per year in Canada due to costs in health care and loss of productivity.

Canada was on the road to becoming an international leader in early child development programs with a national childcare strategy, to which the federal government committed $5 billion over five years in 2004. Agreements were signed between the federal and provincial and territorial governments, which would receive transfer payments for establishing early learning and childcare plans.

But when Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper came to power in 2006, that plan was scrapped.

The 2004 vision for a national framework on early years development was crucial if Canada wanted return on its investment in early child development, according to Dr. Danielle Grenier and Dr. Denis Leduc from the Canadian Paediatric Society in a 2008 article.

"The belief that such a system can create itself in the absence of national leadership is simply flawed," they write. "At best, Canada's early childhood education and care 'system' is a patchwork of policies and programs—creating geographical and income inequities."

Nova Scotia, says Mustard, falls behind other provinces in its commitment to strategize around the link between maternal health and childhood development—it puts the least resources, out of any province, into early child development. In fact, in spite of CPS's recommendations to invest in early years education, the province's Department of Education announced on February 3 its "Kids and Learning First" plan, which would invest $6.7 million in initiatives such as a Discovering Opportunities for Grade 9, virtual courses and skilled trade courses geared to shipbuilding. But none of the funds will be dedicated to early development initiatives. The department did not respond to requests for an interview.

The Inverness initiative demonstrates an alternative angle on economics in the choice to form a co-op, distinct from a profit-driven enterprise.

“The co-op model is most responsive when trying to develop something as open as an early years centre,” says Mustard. “The model makes sense.”

“This is not about targeting families with problems,” says Councillor Mustard, “but building a centre in the community to support all parents, where all issues are put in a holistic perspective.”

Twenty-five-year-old single mother Diana MacLellan agrees with Mustard and believes the co-op model will work to improve her child’s development and health.

“The community has to have ownership in the centre, and be able to make changes and decisions,” says MacLellan.

With this co-op in place, MacLellan says women might be able to regain the community network that once existed in Inverness.

“If anything ever happened, I could walk into any house for help and support,” she says. “It's about feeling safe.”

Moira grew up near Inverness, and now lives and bikes in Halifax.

Questions? Comments? Drop us a line: info@mediacoop.ca.

Baby co-op

Stern Warning

Tim McSorley — Fri, 27 Jan 2012 10:55:29 +0000

Nova Scotia environmentalists say government must revise lease of public lands to private corporations

HALIFAX—“In 1961 we leveraged a tremendous amount of Crown Land to get a company to come to Nova Scotia,” says Matt Miller, Forestry Program Coordinator at the Ecology Action Centre (EAC) in Halifax. “The focus was only on jobs and wood supply, and we gave them complete and utter control of 40 per cent of the Crown Land in the province, one in nine acres.”

The company in question, Finland-based Stora Enso, has been gone from Nova Scotia for five years, though, having sold its key asset, the Point Tupper pulp and paper mill near Port Hawkesbury, in Cape Breton, to Ohio-based Newpage in 2007. At the time, Newpage inherited the Crown Land along with the mill purchase. Amidst slumping sales and escalating power bills, the mill went into receivership in 2011.

Enter Vancouver-based Stern Partners. Headed by multimillionaire paper mogul Ron Stern, the company is the buyer of choice for the shuttered mill. Details of the purchase are yet to emerge, but Stern has let it be known that the workforce, which at the time of Newpage's demise stood at about 600, stands to be halved. Stern will enter into negotiations with the province to hammer out the purchase, and one of the key items on the table will be the 1961 Crown Land lease, which actually expired in 2011. Many independent woodlot owners, including Miller (who is also an award-winning independent woodlot owner), would like to see the deal revisited in order to better reflect 2012 conditions.

“We are expecting this government to negotiate a new agreement that doesn't sell the whole farm,” says Miller. “That means that one company doesn't have full control over [the crown land].” It would also mean that the company takes on more responsibilities than simply managing wood supplies and creating jobs, he says. Rather, the company would need to uphold the spirit of the Natural Resources Strategy by managing Crown lands to the highest standards possible, and consulting the public on how the land is managed, argues Miller.

Phase 1 of the Natural Resource Strategy (NRS), in 2009, was the last example of public consultation, and the only one ever undertaken by the Dexter government. Many blame this recoil from a decades-old tradition of government-public interaction on the fact that when the Nova Scotia public spoke up—which they did in the thousands in the case of the NRS—they demanded something the Dexter government didn't want to hear: stewardship and accountability of the province's forests, and public involvement in the process. If there were a time to make amends with the original intent of the NRS, Dexter might seize the day and revisit the land lease that now needs their attention.

“The logic of ever-shrinking workforce, ever-expanding, ever-increasing harvesting [suggests that] the government should tear up that old lease, and develop one that's modern and based on current conditions,” including the public's expectations that Crown Land should be managed to the highest level, says Miller's co-worker, EAC Wilderness Coordinator Ray Plourde. “We should not have to compensate any new owner that's going to scoop up that mill for pennies on the dollar in a bankruptcy fire sale.”

Fire sale aside, the provincial government has committed to earmarking 12 per cent of Nova Scotia land, by 2015, as protected areas, under the provincial Environmental Goals and Sustainable Prosperity Act of 2007. This puts the government in a difficult position: if the lease is not revised, the push to protect 12 per cent of the land could end up in direct conflict with Stern's stake, meaning the government would need to compensate the company for the property it would lose. Miller and Plourde agree that protected areas need to be exempted from the land lease before the deal with Stern is finalized.

As well, with the current state of Nova Scotia's “big three” pulp mills, one being in receivership (Newpage), one being responsible for one of Canada's worst environmental disasters (Northern Pulp and Boat Harbour), and one having just seen workers forced to give up many concessions, while CEOs walked away with 8 million in payoffs and the company given tens of millions in taxpayer bailout money (Bowater), it may well be time to give the smaller players in the forestry business a chance at bidding for Crown Land, according to Miller.

“There's already some existing manufacturing infrastructure in Eastern Nova Scotia. There's a series of value-added hardwood mills,” he says. “They've traditionally been shut out of any allocation of wood from Crown Land. This is a perfect opportunity for them to have access to that wood.”

“Smaller lease arrangements could be made for those local industry players that already exist,” says Plourde. “Hardwood mills that are making things like fine flooring, door and wall moldings, wainscoting, trim, and so on and so forth. They employ more people per unit of wood harvested, and they make a value-added product, so it's economically much better for the province. It would also allow for new enterprises to emerge, because they'd have some wood to access.”

Dexter actions have made it clear that the "big three" won't fail. The future of forestry in Nova Scotia suggests that now is the time to set the conditions for "small successes" that don't involve either extreme environmental degradation or a steady, continuous, flow of taxpayer bailouts.

Miles Howe is an editor with the Media Co-op and a member of the Halifax Media Co-op. This article was originally published by the HMC.

NS Jack Pine

Lighter Wallet? Low Wages, Not High Taxes, To Blame

stephlaw — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 10:46:03 +0000

Analysts say "bracket creep" much less of a concern than stagnant wages

HALIFAX—Nova Scotians are going to feel their belts get a little bit tighter this year. And according to some experts, stagnant wages—and not tax increases—are to blame.

“[P]eople can't make ends meet because wages are too low in this province,” said Christine Saulnier, the Nova Scotia director at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

Saulnier pointed to a recent study released by the Atlantic Provinces Economic Council that showed that Atlantic Canada created four times as many low-wage jobs (defined as jobs paying less than $40,000 a year) than high-wage jobs in the past decade.

Saulnier also noted that Canadians’ real purchasing power is down—average yearly wages increased by 2.7 per cent in the past year, which was slightly less than the inflation rate of three per cent.

The plunge in real purchasing power was worse for Nova Scotians than the average Canadian. Their wages increased by just 0.4 per cent, while inflation was four per cent—meaning that buying power actually fell 3.6 per cent, points out Larry Haiven, professor of management at St. Mary’s University.

“The average Canadian earned 15.8 per cent more than the average Bluenoser,” Haiven said.

Some groups, including the Nova Scotia Chambers of Commerce, have been calling for tax cuts to make the province "more competitive" for businesses.

But Saulnier disagrees.

“Cutting taxes by adjusting for inflation or raising the personal exemption or otherwise tinkering with the progressive tax system (making it less progressive), is not the answer,” she said.

Saulnier was responding to recent comments from anti-tax activists like Kevin Lacey of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation about “bracket creep,” the phenomenon whereby workers receive wage increases tied to inflation, but then enter a higher income tax bracket as a result.

“Any such initiatives that are across the board benefit the wealthiest the most,” Saulnier said. “Adjusting for inflation would not benefit those who are far under the bottom tax rate—the same people who need it the most and those who are the most likely to spend it, thus stimulating the economy.”

At a recent public lecture organized by the CCPA, tax specialist Neil Brooks of Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto noted that Nova Scotia currently has the most progressive income tax system in Canada, meaning that the highest-income earners are taxed at a higher rate.

Low wages, and consequent low tax revenues, are also a reason why “the government struggles to pay for needed services” in Nova Scotia, Saulnier said.

“Plus, given how little workers have actually seen their wages increase, I am not sure who we are worried about moving into a higher tax bracket,” he added.

Professor Larry Haiven acknowledged that “as real earnings drop, a cut in taxes starts to look good.”

But tax reductions are a low-hanging fruit that fails to get to the crux of the problem, he said.

“[P]eople don’t immediately think ‘what services will I lose?’”

Haiven co-authored a 2008 study that suggests rising inequality should be of far greater concern than tax increases to Nova Scotians struggling to make ends meet.

Governments “have been cutting taxes frenetically, frantically, for the past 25 years. Governments across Canada are taking in about $250 billion less than they did 15 years ago,” Haiven told the Media Co-op in 2009.

And while Nova Scotia’s economy grew by 62 per cent between 1981 and 2006, according to the report, average weekly earnings actually declined five per cent.

“Where is that money going? It’s obviously going into the hands of a few,” Haiven said.

The CCPA’s national office recently released its annual report on compensation of the 100 richest CEOs in Canada, who last year saw a 27 per cent increase in their average earnings from the previous year. The report notes that this means Canada’s top CEOs made 189 times more than the average worker, and by noon on January 3 that year, had earned as much as the average worker’s annual salary.

This article was originally published by the Halifax Media Co-op.

Ben Sichel is a teacher and a writer and editor with the Halifax Media Co-op.

Empty wallet

It Takes a Village to Raise a Vegetable

hillarybain — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 09:58:54 +0000

Food consciousness coalesces at ACORN conference

HALIFAX—“Farmers need a shitload of support,” says Amy Lounder, an organic farmer who runs Avon River CSA (community-shared, or community-supported, agriculture) in Centre Burlington, NS. “And not just financial support but support in a lot of different ways, like support in information, of learning how to problem-solve.”

The support network of farmers has been continually diminished over the last several decades by the harsh realities of an industrial food system: a depopulated countryside devoid of tightly-knit agricultural communities; a greatly reduced number of public agricultural research stations; and a capitalistic mechanism that encourages competition over collaboration.

The annual Atlantic Canadian Organic Regional Network (ACORN) organic farming conference and trade show, which took place in Dartmouth on November 11–13, aimed to support organic farmers and farming by providing a forum for knowledge-sharing. The conference offered over 40 workshops on topics ranging from pastured pork, permaculture and post-harvest vegetable handling to urban beekeeping, pasture renovation, direct marketing and soil health. The conference brought together a broad range of farmers representing diverse agricultural communities.

“We have more young folks here this year than ever before,” says Lucia Stephen, ACORN conference coordinator. “It’s nice to see a more well-rounded demographic since a new generation of farmers is needed in the Maritimes.”

Statistics Canada data tell us that the average farmer in Nova Scotia in 2006 was 53.2 years old, which is also a rough national average.

The event showcased some of the innovative methods by which a new generation of Atlantic Canadian farmers and organic food producers are bypassing the industrial food system and supplying high-quality products to their communities.

Lounder apprenticed in CSAs in Ontario and New York before returning to her native Nova Scotia, where she has been running her CSA for two years. She has taken an unconventional path to growing that tailors her winter CSA on the Noel Shore to suit her diversified lifestyle. “Distribution starts in the middle of October and runs until the middle of February, so, unlike the classic market garden, I’ve broken up my work,” explains Lounder. “I grow in the spring and summer, harvest in the fall and do distribution in the winter.”

Lounder, who spoke at the conference, is a musician and a civil servant in addition to being a farmer, so finding a balance has been imperative. “Being able to split up my workload has been really beneficial to me. I started my seedlings in March in my backyard in the city...I was able to go to work, come home, check on my guys, water them, and kind of maintain both lives.”

The CSA model, explains Lounder, brings the consumer and grower together, and yields benefits to both parties. “In this type of vegetable system, the consumer invests at the beginning of the season their full dollar amount, regardless of what’s going to happen actually in the season. The grower therefore has so much more support and security; and there’s a social support, people know and they care about the farm and about the farmer.”

“I really think there’s a renewed energy and I think some of the more senior people within the food movement are realizing that maybe we’re getting to a point where we can really start creating some change,” says Av Singh, Organics and Rural Infrastructure specialist at Agrapoint. Singh has attended several ACORN conferences in the past and usually knows most of the people attending; this year he recognized roughly half of the attendees. “The turnout, the energy, it’s helping break that mindset where oftentimes our more experienced farmers are saying ‘Hey, we tried that, it doesn’t work.’”

It’s been working for Jessica Ross, who runs both a bread and preserves CSA in Halifax.

She rents a space from a bakery and bakes in the commercial operation’s downtime—thereby avoiding the need to own her own kitchen and equipment—and delivers her product via bicycle to between forty and sixty homes. She also has a table at the Historic Farmers’ Market.

“I generate about 30 hours per week of bread work for most of the year between the delivery and Farmers’ Market. I’ve avoided having to invest a lot in equipment and infrastructure through sharing and renting; and the bicycle delivery means I don’t have to rely on a storefront or commercial space,” Ross explains.

Ross has also been running a preserves CSA, or CSP, for the past two years with Katherine Marsters, co-founder of the Halifax Honey Bee Society. “We decided to use the CSA model and ask people to pay us $300 and receive in exchange a winter’s worth of preserves come November.”

They collect half the money in July, which constitutes their canning budget for the season; in November each shareholder receives 60 jars of goods, including stewed tomatoes, jams, pickles, fruits in honey syrup, and salsa. They supplied 20 families this year, canning over 1000 jars of preserves made from local fruits and vegetables.

“It’s been a great way to have a food business without having a conventional path, which is, as I mentioned, to have a storefront and a lot of commitments financially.”

Sandie Troop believes the CSA model can significantly lessen food waste. She and her husband Danny run Bruce Family Farm, a beef CSA, in Annapolis County. Through direct marketing and allowing their customers to tweak their monthly boxes, the shareholders receive an amount of product suited to their eating habits.

Food waste is a telltale illustration of our culture’s detachment from our food and farmers. A 2010 study by the George Morris Centre, a not-for-profit agricultural research group based in Guelph, Ontario, estimated that Canadians could be wasting up to $27 billion worth of food per year.

“When we get a new member we try to talk to them and get an eater’s profile—how big is their family and what do they normally eat. Some months we have a couple members that’ll just want six pounds of hamburger [the standard is ten per month] for that month, and I feel we’re better off selling you a bag of what you’re going to eat than a bag of what I want to sell you,” relates Sandie.

The Troops have also introduced a trading system into their CSA that allows members to trade box items to suit their particular tastes or food needs at a given juncture. “If you want four T-Bone steaks but don’t want your four pound roast, you can trade one for the other; four T-Bone steaks don’t weigh four pounds but the value is about the same. We try really hard to work with the members of our CSA to find out the kinds of meat they want to eat and to help them find ways of getting what they like to have.”

The conference, aptly themed Farms and Communities Growing Together, addressed this need for communication between farmers and the communities they serve.

“We’ve seen for the past few decades now that the industrial food system doesn’t work,” posits Singh, who is devoted to revivifying rural communities through championing community-oriented small-scale farming.

“If we continue to use the old models, we’ll continue to see rural exodus. I think we have to start looking at more creative ways of creating different models of retention. So, whether that’s more ownership over farms by community members, or communities taking a more active role, where community members are saying ‘here’s what we value and here’s how we’re going to support you.’ That allows for young farmers to say ‘it’s worth it for me to stay here.’”

“And Nova Scotia is in a good position for small-scale community agriculture because we don’t have a lot of big farms,” he adds.

But we need more farmers.

According to Statistics Canada, farmers constitute less than two percent of the country’s population.

“A food-secure vision, both locally and globally, may require food producers to represent ten or more percent of the population. In some countries, governments are quickly realizing that a cheap urban labour force from a depopulated rural landscape is not as ‘cheap’ as once thought and are now looking at incentives for having rural citizens return to once again produce food,” explains Singh.

Steven Wendland is from Harmony, Nova Scotia. He likes pie.

This article was originally published by the Halifax Media Co-op

Amy Lounder

Beets

It's a Matter of Jordan's Principle

Martin Lukacs — Wed, 05 Oct 2011 10:43:16 +0000

Canada's health care system leaves Native child behind

PICTOU LANDING, NS—Maurina Beadle doesn’t sleep at night. She naps. While her son Jeremy sleeps on a bed attached to her own, Beadle has trained herself to be constantly alert.

“After 16 years, your body gets used to it,” she says.

Jeremy Beadle Meawasige, known as Kicking Bear in his hometown of Pictou Landing First Nation in Nova Scotia, has been diagnosed with hydrocephalus, cerebral palsy, spinal curvature and autism. He needs to be fed, changed and dressed. He can’t walk by himself. He frequently visits the hospital and has undergone numerous operations.

Beadle was always the sole caregiver for the 16-year-old. Their lives changed dramatically last May, when she suffered a double stroke that left her incontinent, in a wheelchair and unable to use her hands. "Doctors said I would never walk again," says Beadle.

"Maurina never had any help," says Philippa Pictou, Health Director for Pictou Landing First Nation, who has known the family for years. She said that after Beadle's stroke, "she worked really hard to regain capacity with writing exercises—hours and hours. She was determined to walk again."

Maurina Beadle walks with a cane and opts for the lighter plates in the cupboard to serve dinner. Her strong features and wit more than compensate for her modest stature.

She now accepts day workers into her home to help with housekeeping and caring for her son, although she says this was difficult for her at first.

"Maurina is committed to caring for Jeremy," says Pictou, but when the stroke made it impossible for Beadle to do so by herself, the health director began the process of accessing an $11 million federal fund for First Nations children with complex disabilities.

The fund was initiated by Health Canada in response to Jordan's Principle, a "child-first" policy designed to ensure First Nations children do not suffer delays or disruptions in essential health services if the funding source for their care becomes unclear.

Pictou’s inquiry was stymied first at the federal level, which is responsible for First Nations health care. Then it was stymied by the province, which controls most of, arguably the best, and certainly the most readily available health services.

In spite of Pictou and Beadle’s diligence, it took five months for any level of government to offer Jeremy health services. Jeremy's case is just one more added to the astounding statistics that show how the most vulnerable people in Canada—First Nations children—have the greatest difficulty receiving the health care they need.

A year-and-a-half later, Jeremy’s future care remains unsettled, and the family has decided to take the federal government to court.

"Through all this," says Beadle, as she lifts her right ankle on top of her left knee and lights a cigarette, "I think about the things that nobody saw, the years of seeing him puke, seeing him take off his diaper and play with his..." She trails off. "And I had to put him in a tub with a little water so he could play around—not too much water—while I cleaned up."

Jeremy sits on the couch, ankle crossed over his opposite knee, balancing his toy piano across his lap, trumpeting his lips to the machine's rendition of "Besame Mucho." A t-shirt holds his arms loosely against his chest—to prevent him from hitting himself—and his long fingers press the toy's buttons. His smile grows wide when George Billington, his evening caretaker, asks whether he wants to go for a cruise. "Socks 'n' shoes on," says Jeremy. "Seatbelt on for safety."

"When I was trained by FNIH [First Nations and Inuit Health], we were given workshops and attended meetings about Jordan's Principle and what it meant," says Pictou, who was also trained in the child-first policy while she worked for Health Canada. "It didn't occur to me that when we ran into a situation that fell under Jordan's Principle that [the funding] would be so hard to access."

Jordan's Principle is named in honour of Jordan River Anderson of Norway House Cree Nation, who spent all his life in hospital while the province of Manitoba and the government of Canada argued over who was responsible for funding the child's care at home. Jordan died at the age of four, having never lived at home.

"To access Jordan's Principle, we had to prove what kind of care Jeremy would get if he were off-reserve," says Pictou. An assessment was required, one that would identify the normative—standard—level of health services any non-status Nova Scotian child would receive.

In the meantime, while Beadle was recovering in hospital, Pictou Landing Band Council hired home-care workers to take care of Jeremy, "without knowing whether we were doing the right thing, whether the workers were able to provide Jeremy what he needed," says Pictou.

Five months after Beadle's stroke, Pictou Landing received approval from the office of Maureen MacDonald, Health Minister of Nova Scotia, for Continuing Care to assess Jeremy's needs. Continuing Care—the provincial service that performs home assessments—uses sophisticated computerized programs and trained staff whose services could weigh Jeremy’s needs against available provincial programs. However, Nova Scotia Continuing Care’s policy does not allow staff to work on reserves—First Nations health care is supposed to be covered by the federal Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development (AAND). However, no equivalent assessment program exists for First Nations in Nova Scotia.

"The Minister's office made it clear that the approval was for one instance only, and that no other services would be provided," says Pictou.

According to a report by an ad-hoc coalition of Aboriginal and social justice organizations, First Nations children receive two-and-a-half times fewer resources than non-status Canadian children. Although AAND (previously Indian and Northern Affairs Canada—INAC) has committed to mirror provincial health care programs for people living on reserves, the relative geographic isolation of reserves across the country means resources for people living on reserve are distributed over greater distances, making specialized services particularly difficult to access.

After months of conferences with the Pictou Landing community health nurse, INAC, Health Canada, Jeremy's school, the tribal council, Band lawyers and the Band council, the provincial and federal governments decided that the funding to be offered to Jeremy for respite (at-home) services would be $2,200 per month—the standard respite cap in Nova Scotia. If Jeremy's care cost more than that—which it does—he would have to be moved to an institution.

According to Nova Scotia’s Department of Community Services, no institution in Nova Scotia can meet Jeremy's round-the-clock needs.

Situations such as Jeremy’s are not uncommon, and they are compounded by disputes between governments over who is responsible for paying for health care for status-Indian children. Research in the First Nations Child and Family Caring Society of Canada 2005 Wen:de Report indicates that these bureaucratic conflicts are common, with 393 cases in 12 sample First Nations in 2005.

“[J]urisdictional disputes continue to have significant impacts on the lived experiences of First Nations children—particularly those with special needs. Although both the federal and provincial governments embrace the principle that the safety and well being of the child is a paramount consideration, in practice jurisdictional disputes often supersede the interests of children," according to the report.

Jordan's Principle was supposed to fill this gap in health services. The bill states, "The obligation to meet the needs of the child first always supersedes government interests to establish jurisdictional dispute processes." Although Jordan's Principle passed unanimously in the House of Commons in 2007 as Private Members Bill 296, it has never been implemented in full, either by the federal government or the provinces and territories.

In 2008, a bill for the implementation of Jordan's Principle never made it through the Manitoba Legislature.

"When the bill comes to be paid," said Manitoba Premier Gary Doer, concerned for the cost to the provincial tax-payer, "the federal government goes to the bathroom."

When asked how Nova Scotia sees the province’s role in providing health care services to children such as Jeremy who fall between jurisdictional cracks, the office of Maureen MacDonald responded, "[W]e support the child-first concept behind Jordan's Principle and recognize the importance of governments working together to ensure that all children, including First Nations children, receive the supports and services they need here in Nova Scotia." While it may support the child-first concept, the province has never implemented Jordan's Principle, which would require services to be provided without delay.

The response from the Nova Scotia health minister’s office goes on: "Fundamentally, we provide the best care we can in circumstances like this and there are negotiations about funds that sometimes follow."

"There's a complete lack of access across the country to Jordan's Principle," says Pictou. "This is a gatekeeper practice. The feds can say there are no jurisdictional issues and therefore the need for [Jordan's Principle] doesn't exist."

Pictou believes political conveniences encourage the institutionalization of First Nations children.

"It's a win-win situation for governments," she says. "Evergreen [Home for Special Care] is the only institution for under-18 children [with complex disabilities] in Nova Scotia. It only has 20 beds, currently four vacancies. If an off-reserve child is taking up a bed, the province pays. If a First Nations child is in a bed, the federal government pays."

In other words, the province benefits financially—to the tune of $350 per day—when status-Indian children are kept in care facilities. AAND, under pressure to deliver health care equal to provincial programs, benefits because it is seen to be providing good services.

According to Pictou, if he is moved out of his community, Jeremy will lose his culture, language and, most significantly, his mother's involvement in his life. "It would be a huge loss for Jeremy. I can't imagine it. The idea is inhumane."

The $350 per day cost at Evergreen is double what it would cost to keep Jeremy at home.

"It would make a lot of sense to have a small-options home in Pictou Landing," says Pictou. "Three to four beds, 24-hour staff. It would create more economic viability in the community.”

Pictou Landing First Nation is a community in pain. The reserve is sandwiched between Boat Harbour and Pictou Harbour, a stunning coastline where doctors and lawyers used to own summer cottages. But in 1965 Scott Maritimes built a pulp millon in Pictou Harbour and began dumping effluent in Boat Harbour via a long underground pipe. For 46 years, pulp waste has been gushing into Boat Harbour at the rate of 50,000 gallons per day. Sulfurous smog lies over the harbour, the beach and the bluffs. Residents of Pictou Landing say there have been no natural deaths in the community in the past four decades. There is no doubt that the reserve could use more health resources.

Plus, for Pictou, the sensible alternative to the expense and emotional pain of moving Jeremy out of his home is to move the services, not the child.

"I've worked in public health and in housing. I've fought for low-income families to get special needs funding," says Pictou. "I really don't think this happens off-reserve."

She began researching other options.

Pictou’s research revealed a bureaucratic gap between respite paid by the province to non-status children, and the at-home care available to on-reserve children through AAND. Nova Scotia offers a support program for persons with disabilities, designed to "maintain the integrity of families," including enabling people with disabilities to live at home and preventing the need for them to be moved out of their homes, according to the 2006 provincial policy document.

For Pictou, the interesting part of the policy is a section titled, "Exceptional Circumstances for Funding over $2,200."

The document outlines six criteria to be evaluated for approval of long-term funding above the $2,200 respite cap, and four criteria for additional short-term respite.

"Maurina and Jeremy fulfill every single one," says Pictou, as she scrolls through the lists and reads them aloud.

When Pictou raised this, AAND said its commitment to status-Indians does not include exceptional circumstances such as those identified by the provincial program.

In March 2011, a few days after AAND refused Beadle's application for extra funding, a Nova Scotian family in a similar situation filed for a judicial review of the $2,200 respite cap. They won. The judge ruled that the cap was an administrative policy designed to save money, and that it contradicted the Social Assistance Act. Nova Scotia Community Services was required to pay for the care necessary to keep Brian Boudreau, a 34-year-old with autism, at home.

The Pictou Landing Band Council and Maurina Beadle have brought the matter to court, challenging AAND, Health Canada and the Government of Canada on its decision to deny the Beadles additional at-home support.

Theirs is the first court challenge to use Jordan's Principle. In their notice of application, Band lawyers call the federal decision "contrary to provincial statutes and policies, Jordan's Principle and the right to equality under section 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms." Section 15 of the Charter says that every Canadian has the right to "equal benefit of the law without discrimination and, in particular, without discrimination based on race."

Pictou expects to be in court by January or February 2012.

"What irks me is I know what we could access if [Jeremy] were off-reserve, and it seems that roadblocks are put in place deliberately," says Pictou. "The same philosophies that drove the establishment of residential schools—that governments can raise children better than First Nations can—are behind the policies that trickle down today.”

The smog rolls over Beadle’s back porch. “No matter how long you live here, you never get used to it,” she says. It’s unclear whether she is talking about the pulp mill’s discharge, or something broader, deeper. An outsider can’t help wondering why the people in Pictou Landing don’t simply up and leave.

"When reporters ask me what I’ll do if Jeremy is moved to an institution, I tell them, 'Over my dead body,'" says Beadle. She watches Melanie Thomas, Jeremy’s day-time care worker, spoon-feed Jeremy his lunch.

"He won’t get no love in an institution."

A rally in support of implementing Jordan's Principle will take place in Halifax tomorrow.

Moira Peters lives and bikes in Halifax.

Jordan's Principle.Jeremy

Jordan's Principle.Maurina

Pulp Dreams

hillarybain — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 05:24:19 +0000

Pictou Mill is Asia Pulp Paper's latest acquisition

HALIFAX—If you thought that the Canadian pulp and paper industry was environmentally irresponsible, you were right. But the new players on the clear-cut block make them look like a bunch of patchouli-scented tree-huggers. This is the story of how Canada hopped into bed with one of Asia's worst environmental criminals, and how for the Pictou Landing Indian Band in Nova Scotia, it's just one more proverbial slap in the face.

Amidst a lack of fanfare from mainstream Canadian media, and encouragement by the federal government, a company known as Paper Excellence Canada Holdings Corporation has lately been buying up Canadian pulp mills at a rapid rate. Paper Excellence is a shell company of global pulp and paper giant Asia Pulp Paper (APP), itself the logging and pulping arm of the massive Indonesian conglomerate, known as Sinar Mas.

In 2001, APP defaulted on $12 billion in bonds, kicking the Indonesian economy, and indeed the entire Southeast Asian economy, into a downward spiral. Three independent audits have never been able to account for between three and four billion dollars, in part because APP simply re-financed itself through the financial arm of Sinar Mas. APP has illegally logged a national park in Cambodia, and makes a regular practice of creating shell companies, illegally logging, and by the time the underpaid forestry authorities figure out who's responsible...POOF! They're gone.

Richard Brooks, Forests Campaign Coordinator for Greenpeace, has spearheaded a global campaign to boycott APP products. Large-scale paper distributors, such as Xerox, Staples, and Target, have heeded Brooks' message, and now refuse to carry APP products. In an interview with The Dominion, Brooks says:

(APP) is on this mission to grow themselves into the largest paper company in the world...They're involved with illegal logging and deforestation in Indonesia, and quite a bit of their pulp and paper production is in Indonesia...These are old-growth, tropical, rainforests that are being cut down, and turned into acacia plantations and eucalyptus plantations, or are being turned into palm oil plantations, which is another division of their company.

Brooks continues:

You've got endangered species habitat that's being wiped out...orangutans, Sumatran tigers, rhinos...a lot of logging that happens outside of their legal concessions. There's evidence of them logging in protected areas...Huge amount of conflict with local communities which they are disenfranchising...basically going in, logging the hell out of the forest, putting in these (palm oil) plantations, and not asking for any approval from local communities.

If Paper Excellence/APP/Sinar Mas get their hands on the Northern Pulp-owned mill in Pictou, Nova Scotia, and all signs point to the deal being finalized shortly, it will be their fifth Canadian pulp mill acquisition in as many years. The other mills are located in Howe Sound, British Columbia, MacKenzie, British Columbia, Meadow Lake, Saskatchewan, and Prince Albert, Saskatchewan.

The Canadian pulp mills in question haven't seen this much attention in years. The mill in Pictou has been surviving on a steady diet of government loans for almost a generation. The Prince Albert mill was mothballed at the time of sale. But China is entering a phase of consumerism known as the "paper-culture," and suddenly pulp is again a very hot global commodity. APP simply can't keep up with the Chinese demand for toilet paper, so it has come calling for the mills, and, more importantly, Canada's forests.

We should note that Paper Excellence is not buying any Canadian paper-making facilities. Brooks interprets this to mean that we are in fact witnessing the death of the Canadian, if not North American, paper-making industry, as Canadian pulp will now travel back to Asia, get mixed up with Indonesian hardwood pulp, be made into paper, and then travel back to Canada.

Ed Roste, Vice President of Operations for Paper Excellence, and former VP at Meadow Lake, Paper Excellence's first Canadian pulp mill acquisition in 2006, claims, in an email interview, that while the majority of Canadian pulp will in fact be shipped to China to make paper, there is still a significant North American client base for Canadian pulp. Roste speaks of the “excitement” of the new market opportunities.

The Harper government has opened the public coffers to pay for upgrades to mills all across the country. Canadian taxpayers are on the hook for the 'Pulp and Paper Green Transformation Program' (PPGTP), in which Canadian mills can access up to $1 billion in grants. If Canadian pulp and paper mills were nationalized, such a program might make economic sense for Canadians. As it is taxpayers are to pay for "greening" the mills, only to have many of them sold off to foreign investors, like Sinar Mas, with problematic environmental and financial histories. Paper Excellence's Howe Sound mill received more than $45 million, and the Meadow Lake mill received $2.6 million.

Not to be outdone, in January of 2011, two months prior to the sale being made public, Peter MacKay, Canadian Minister of National Defense, whose family handily owns sizable woodlot holdings in the Pictou area, announced that the Pictou mill would be receiving $28 million under the federal grant. In a telephone interview, Don Breen, Vice-President of Strategic Planning and Government Affairs at Northern Pulp, noted that the $28 million would be used to “reduce odour at the mill by up to 70 per cent, improve boiler performance, and invest in renewable energy initiatives.”

In Nova Scotia, the Pictou mill isn't just a taxpayer-subsidized employer to 230 mill workers, it's the home of a very dirty secret.

Opened in 1966, it is infamous for its continued use of once-idyllic Boat Harbour, a natural lagoon that is located on Pictou Landing Indian Band reserve lands, as an effluent dumping grounds. As documented by the King's College Investigative Journalist Team in 2009, an estimated 1,000,000,000,000 litres of liquid pulp mill waste has poured into Boat Harbour since then, causing untold environmental destruction.

Indeed, an indemnity agreement was signed in 1995 between Scott Maritimes, original owners of the mill, and the provincial government. The agreement guarantees that the Nova Scotia government (actually, Nova Scotia taxpayers) will swallow the costs of cleaning up Boat Harbour. The agreement is valid in transfers of mill ownership. The current NDP provincial government has no alternative plan on what to do with the mill waste, and the Pictou Landing Band is currently in a two-year-and-counting legal battle with the province to see Boat Harbour closed.

Boat Harbour is now a foul-smelling, foam-encrusted, 142-acre wasteland, largely devoid of life. Don Breen, one of the witnesses to the 1995 indemnity, makes no mention of any of the $28 million going to clean up the Boat Harbour disaster that he personally has helped whoever owns the Pictou mill wash their hands of.

In an interview with The Dominion, Kevin Christmas, Indigenous Mi'gmaw, band advisor to Pictou Landing and long-time activist against the pollution of Boat Harbour, notes that effluent-capture technology has existed for years, and that the dire straits of the Pictou Landing Band could have been avoided from the start.

“Boat Harbour is at the tail end of a beautiful reserve called Canada.” says Christmas. “What happens there is one hundred and ten million gallons of the worst possible effluent is being dumped every day, for the last fifty years, in the middle of this beautiful reserve...It's destroying and killing the people. The children...[they] don't know what's wrong with them. But they are not going to live very long lives, and probably will never have children because of base-metal contamination. It's the end of the generation at Pictou Landing.”

Charlie Parker, Minister of the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources, whose riding is located in Pictou West, site of the mill, unveiled the province's 'Renewable Electricity Plan' (REP) in 2010. The REP considers biomass burning, which can involve large-scale, whole-tree harvesting, to be a renewable source of energy.

The repercussions of this definition of 'renewable' have already been felt in Northern Pulp-owned land. In the summer of 2009, Northern Pulp made national headlines in Canada by decimating a wide swath of land in the Musquodoboit-Sheet Harbour area through whole-tree harvesting. Katy Didkowsky, of the Save the Caribou Committee, and a local tourism operator, called the scene a “purposeful massacre.”

Musquodoboit-Sheet Harbour may only be the start. Frank Magazine (Issue 611) recently reported that over 28,000 parcels of land in Nova Scotia, almost 250,000 acres, are without an original Crown grant. The archaic, neo-colonial law in Nova Scotia states that without an original grant, which may be over 300 years old, the land belongs to, and can revert back to, the Crown. Nova Scotia has one of the lowest percentages of Crown land available. That the provincial government has found this new source of potentially exploitable land is perhaps more than convenient.

In this light, it is no great stretch of imagination to interpret the $28 million grant for odour reduction, improved boiler performance, and "green" energy capture as simply implying that emissions from the mill will smell better, while processing more trees, potentially whole trees, and burning more wood as biomass. Anonymous sources in Pictou confirm the mill's preparedness for increased production, and note that boilers “which have not been active for years” are now operational.

The Pictou Chamber of Commerce has come out in favour of the mill's sale. The Communications, Energy, and Paperworkers Union of Canada (CEP) has also endorsed the sale of the mill in Pictou, as it has done for the other four Paper Excellence acquisitions. Representatives from the CEP were unavailable for comment on whether they knew, or cared, who the actual new owners of the mill were.

The NDP government of Nova Scotia went so far as to engage in a public meet-and-greet with Paper Excellence's VP Ed Roste, and fully endorsed the sale. When Richard Brooks questioned whether the government knew of the links to APP and Sinar Mas, the province pleaded ignorance.

All groups were shamefully mum on addressing the decades-overdue clean-up of Boat Harbour.

For the rest of Nova Scotia, and Canada, it remains to be seen whether we will see the forest for the trees.

Miles Howe is a journalist in Halifax. This article was originally published by the Halifax Media Co-op.

Pictou Mill

When Guns Go Green

hillarybain — Mon, 06 Jun 2011 11:54:21 +0000

Lockheed Martin dives into the "renewable" electricity game

HALIFAX—Tom Rand needs a trillion dollars. With that trillion, Rand, the venture capitalist with an eco-twist, believes he could wean the world off of its fossil fuel addiction, curb greenhouse gas emissions and make renewable energy financially competitive.

Rand sits on the board of several green energy companies and businesses, has designed an award-winning, low-emissions hostel in downtown Toronto and has written “Kick the Fossil Fuel Habit,” a green energy primer. Rand is also an accomplished speaker and headlined April’s “Renewable Energy Conference” in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

The problem, although Rand would not call it that, is that he doesn't particularly care where his trillion comes from, so long as it comes. So while some might cringe at seeing the world’s largest weapons manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, as a sponsor of the conference, Rand lets the money talk.

“The only way we're going to be able to solve this problem [climate change],” says Rand, “is to get the people with the capacity to build this stuff at scale at the table. So, people like GE, Lockheed Martin, Siemens, BP, Duke Energy...these are all companies who could either be friend or foe. The most helpful thing for us to do is to say 'How do I make you a friend? How do I bring you on board?'...It's just not pragmatically useful to have those people not on your side. It doesn't make things any easier.”

“Past sins forgiven,” says Rand. “Come on in, help us out...I think is the approach.”

Tamara Lorincz, of the Halifax Peace Coalition, is not so ready to forgive Lockheed's sins, past or present.

“Anything Lockheed Martin might do on a renewable energy front pales in comparison to the plundering of the climate by its weapons systems,” says Lorincz. “If Lockheed Martin truly cared about renewable energy and a sustainable future, it would stop producing the weapons systems that use so much fossil fuel, and pushing for military spending and war spending that degrades the environment and contributes to climate change.”

Lorincz, the self-proclaimed mosquito in Lockheed Martin's ear, recently drew blood when her Access-to-Information request revealed that the many billions—continuously escalating, according to experts—that the Harper Government plans on spending on F-35 stealth fighters would net them 65 engine-less aircraft. The story went global.

“Each stealth fighter holds 10,000 pounds of jet fuel," says Lorincz. "Jet fuel is extremely carbon intensive and will cause climate change, and will use our dwindling fossil fuels. They have no credibility on renewable energy and they are not needed on renewable energy.”

So, while Tom Rand won't ask the question, I will.

Who the hell invited the war pigs to the table?

“I can say that our presence here is based on our interest in renewable energy, and reducing greenhouse gas consumption and environmental damage,” says Steve Marsden, Lockheed Martin’s representative at the conference. “And to the extent that our activities in renewable energy will accomplish that, I think that's a good thing.”

Things were far more black and white, good versus evil, in the days when Lockheed's F-117s were dropping thousands of tons of ordinance on Iraq, or when their Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense program had the world in American cross-hairs. Then, Lockheed Martin was simply the biggest arms manufacturer and exporter the world had ever known, a peddler of products that caused untold suffering and mayhem.

Lockheed Martin is still the world's biggest arms manufacturer and exporter. The Canadian military still consumes thousands of barrels of oil per day. But the Lockheed Martin website, aside from lauding missile defense systems and F-35 fighters, loudly toots on the suddenly-popular green horn. F-22 Raptor diagnostics systems now have a completely paperless approach, in that no paper will be used when diagnosing what ails the F-22 Raptor. Copper-beryllium, the dust of which can cause severe lung damage, has also been eliminated from the F-35 assembly line.

Lockheed Martin has also been awarded a contract by the provincial government of Nova Scotia, in consort with Irving Shipbuilding and Atlantis Resources Corporation, to build an experimental tidal turbine to be tested in the Minas Passage, near Parrsboro, Nova Scotia. The turbine is expected to cost between $10 and $15 million, and is expected to generate 1 megawatt of power. Lockheed Martin is going green, and coming to the Bay of Fundy.

So, who the hell invited the war pigs to the table?

The NDP provincial government of Nova Scotia, that's who.

The invitation comes in the form of the Renewable Electricity Plan (REP), released by the Nova Scotia Department of Energy in 2010. The REP includes a mandate to create 25 per cent renewable electricity by 2015, and 40 per cent renewables by 2020.

Ostensibly, the REP is meant to wean Nova Scotia off its dirty coal habit. Realistically, it opens a veritable Pandora's box of options that, upon closer inspection, do not appear renewable at all. These include large-scale biomass operations that threaten to decimate Nova Scotia's already fragile forests, as well as an increased interest in natural gas exploration, which most likely would involve the environmentally-catastrophic technique known as “fracking.”

Tidal power, to be gathered from the Bay of Fundy, weighs heavily in the dreams of the REP, and this is where Lockheed Martin's so-called expertise comes in.

The Fundy Ocean Research Centre for Energy (FORCE), a berthing station for turbines in the Minas Passage, can accommodate up to four tidal turbines. FORCE has been built using millions of taxpayer dollars. So far, only one turbine has ever been berthed at FORCE, and the Fundy tides knocked it off-line in only seven days. This is the place where the magic is supposed to happen.

Never mind that the old Annapolis Royal Generating Station has been chugging along in the Annapolis sub-basin, at an output of 20 megawatts, for almost 30 years. The NDP government, and now Lockheed, appear to have their sights set on the Herculean task of harnessing some of the most massive tides in the world. But as they say at FORCE, “One day the world will ask...Is it Fundy-tested?” It remains to be seen whether this line will be spoken as the butt-end of a joke.

The REP doesn't even touch on solar energy, considering it an "emerging" technology. Considering that FORCE has not generated its first kilowatt of energy to the grid, and yet is being offered an extremely favourable rate of return should it ever do so, and considering that the power-generating properties of solar energy have been well-proven around the world, the Department of Energy appears to be flagrantly selective in its use of the word "emerging." REP is also very restrictive on wind projects, another of the areas where smaller players stand to make a go of the energy game.

Neal Livingston, co-founder of Black River Ltd., thirty-year veteran in the solar, wind, and small-hydro installation business, isn't getting swept away by the tidal wave.

“The Premier is 100 per cent in bed with big business and the old boys' network in Nova Scotia in terms of designing this policy,” says Livingston. “And that's why you see tidal being so prominent in their thinking, because they've bought into a whole corporate structure that isn't about you and I having the ability to generate power. It's all restricted.”

According to Livingston, the REP stresses the notion of COMFIT (Community Feed-In Tariff), which essentially ties the hands of renewable energy entrepreneurs, and favors big-time investors. COMFIT has strict rules as to who can sell power back to the grid, and more than likely this isn't you. Communities, co-ops, universities, and Aboriginal groups are fine. But if you can't find 25 of your closest friends to co-sign with you on a small-scale wind farm, forget it.

“It’s going to be a mess in two ways,” says Livingston. “One way is that very, very few people are going to own [renewable energy sources] and thus be able to produce their own electricity. This is much like the current situation, with Nova Scotia Power owning everything,” he says. “And also, if you want to be a smaller player you have to work under a whole set of crazy rules which make it not a very interesting place to do it.”

For Lockheed Martin, however, Nova Scotia is the perfect place to get their feet wet in the renewable energy game.

Miles Howe hails from Ottawa, Ontario, and currently calls Halifax home. He has a Masters degree in Sociology, plays a wicked harmonica, and ferments a mean kimchi.

Green Guns