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"How do you Save 4 Million Canadians From Hunger?"
https://thewalrus.ca/food-insecurity-is-our-new-national-crisis/

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I t's 9 a.m. and the coffee's on at the Bayers Westwood Family Resource Centre. The narrow, two-storey building is nestled in the middle of a public housing project in the west end of Halifax. The front door opens into a crowded sitting room.

A number of single parents have come for the cooking classes and are dropping off their kids at the free child-minding service. Other people are here for company. But a larger group is looking for something they struggle to find on their own: a bite to eat. One of the centre's main draws is a small counter where coffee, tea, and a plate of day-old muffins and bagels are served-regular donations from the charity Feed Nova Scotia. Across the hall is the Trading Post, a small room stocked with packaged foods clients have received from their local food bank but that they can't, or don't, use: cans of Campbell's soup, Aylmer diced tomatoes, Heinz baked beans, and Zoodles line the floor-to-ceiling shelves.

Not all of it is nutritious. Everyone understands that. But it's something. And when you have a community to feed, you do what you can. The predicament weighs on the centre's hands-on, energetic executive director, Donna Sutton. "People come in the morning for a bagel and coffee," Sutton says. "They come back in the afternoon for a muffin. That's breakfast and lunch. Then they just have to worry about dinner." With meager earnings and no access to credit, many of Sutton's clients are facing cold truths. Some weeks, stopping off at Sobeys means there might not be enough left to buy medication or pay rent or put gas in the car to get to work. Because groceries are often the only flexible item in a tight budget, they are what families tend to sacrifice first. Families that have to make these kinds of trade-offs are called food insecure.

Food insecurity is largely about the struggle to afford food. Insufficient social assistance, increases in the number of low-wage, part-time, or contract jobs, and a lack of affordable housing have created financial constraints that make it more and more difficult to eat. Proof, a food-insecurity research group at the University of Toronto, breaks down the problem a few ways. Worrying that you'll run out of provisions before you manage to buy more is "marginally food insecure." According to Proof's analysis of the most recent nationwide data from Statistics Canada, about 580,000 households fell into that category in 2012. If you compromise on the quality or quantity of your portions, you're "moderately food insecure." That category includes 786,100 households. Another 336,700 are severely food insecure-that means they skip meals or spend days without eating. All this adds up to 1.7 million households, which translates to nearly 4 million Canadians. That's a conservative estimate, because some provinces and territories can, and have, opted out of more recent StatsCan surveys. The surveys also miss the most at risk: incarcerated people, remote rural residents, people living on-reserve, the homeless.

It also seems to be getting worse. Comprehensive data has only been available since 2007, when national monitoring began, but even in that short period, the overall proportion of households that are moderately or severely food insecure increased from 7.7 percent in 2007 to 8.3 percent in 2012. Hunger may be linked in the popular imagination with images of destitution, but the food insecure can include restaurant staff, delivery drivers, cashiers, and janitors. They are our coworkers, our neighbours, our relatives.

Lower-income populations are affected more than others: recent immigrants, people of colour, single mothers. Children are especially vulnerable-one in six live in food-insecure households. The problem of hunger is also urgent on postsecondary campuses. Meal Exchange, a non-profit aimed at tackling food insecurity at Canadian universities, published the results of a study in 2016 that showed half of all students "had to sacrifice buying healthy food" in order to pay for books, tuition, or rent. Affected groups will likely have a tougher time in 2019. Canada's Food Price Report, produced annually by Dalhousie University and the University of Guelph, predicts grocery bills this year could spike by 3.5 percent-with the price of vegetables jumping as much as 6 percent. For a Canadian family of four that spends $223 a week on groceries, the higher cost will mean coming up with an extra $33 a month to keep eating the same way. The price increase will likely put the new, healthier recommendations from the updated Canada's Food Guide (more plants, less sugar, less saturated fat) further out of reach as household diets are forced to shift even more dramatically toward cheaper, shelf-stable, processed options-foods with little or no real flavour or nutritional value.

Everyone in Canada will end up paying a price, whether they live in a food-insecure household or not. A 2018 study estimated that the economic burden of Canadians failing to meet healthy eating recommendations is roughly $13.8 billion per year-$5.1 billion of which is directly related to health care spending, and the rest is linked to factors that include lost productivity. The food insecure are at greater risk of chronic, diet-related conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. Health care costs are also between 23 and 121 percent higher in households that struggle to access nutritious food, with costs climbing alongside the extent of the deprivation experienced. Food insecurity is a drain on mental-health resources as well. A 2018 Canadian study showed that the proportion of severely food-insecure adults receiving treatment over the past year for conditions that included anxiety, depression, mood disorders, and suicidal thoughts was more than double that of adults who had enough to eat.

Programs like welfare, family allowance, and employment insurance were introduced, in part, to help alleviate the consequences of being food insecure. But social assistance is no longer up to the task. During the 1970s in Toronto, one in ten people lived in poverty. Today, it's one in five. Vancouver Neighbourhood Food Networks, a collective focused on tracking food security in the city, calculated last year that if the average rent for Vancouver low-income housing ($687 per month) is subtracted from the monthly welfare rate for a single adult ($710), only $23 remains. In other words, a person on income assistance has less than a dollar per day to spend on food. It's not hard to imagine that, as economic trends continue to chip away at stable, long-term employment, food insecurity will soon overwhelm existing social assistance programs. What Canadians need is a food policy that can ensure an adequate standard of living to offset the biggest effect of those economic disruptions: hunger.

Food-security and antipoverty advocates have been working with the federal government to develop such a policy-one that recognizes adequate food as a human right, much like water or clean air. But lack of political will means little progress has been made. The country has ratified numerous international agreements affirming the right to food, and an Action Plan for Food Security was proposed in 1998. But hardly anything from it has been executed. The inaction underscores that Canada has never really strategically addressed hunger as a national issue and has never appreciated food insecurity as a reality within its borders. Instead, we have off-loaded the job of feeding our citizens to food banks, soup kitchens, and charitable efforts such as the Bayers Westwood Family Resource Centre.

W ith nearly 20 percent of its population affected, Halifax has the highest rate of food insecurity among Canadian cities. Some contributing factors are unique to the area: high student numbers, an influx of job seekers from Cape Breton, and nearby rural areas gutted by the shift from small-scale farming to agribusiness and by the decline of industries like coal and steel. But the city is also a bellwether for many changes taking hold across the country, such as the advent of so-called precarious work, which has increased in Canada by 50 percent in the past two decades, and rising housing costs. The jobs Halifax offers are mostly service-sector gigs-often short-term or contract work without benefits or security. About one in three Haligonians lives in rented housing, with 43 percent putting a third or more of their earnings toward rent. All this influences what residents eat or whether they can eat at all.

"I can't afford breakfast," says John Hemr, who lives in the Bayers Westwood housing project. He is sixty-six, and with his red shirt, hazel eyes, belly, and greying beard, looks a bit like a hard-luck Santa. Before receiving old-age pension last year, he lived on a $600 monthly disability cheque from an accident on the job thirty years ago, when he worked as a TV repairman. His arms were elbow deep in the back of a set he was fixing when his colleague plugged in the wrong cord, and Hemr was blown back, electrocuted. It took him months to recover, and ever since, his legs go numb if he does too much activity or lifts even a few pounds.

As a single man without children, Hemr doesn't qualify for extra help, like a child tax benefit. One brother gives him a few bucks now and then. Even with his subsidized rent of $175, Hemr's monthly income disappears quickly. He spends $70 on electricity, $70 on a phone plan, and $100 on high-blood-pressure medication. Last year, Hemr spent $100 a month on cigarettes. He smokes to help himself relax but mostly to curb his appetite. "I tried quitting cold turkey," he explains. "But my grocery bills were too high, and I gained thirty pounds."

His budget left about $20 a week for groceries, depending on the season. "People look at me and think, 'You're a big guy. You're healthy,'" says Hemr. "No. I'm unhealthy. To be healthy, I have to eat three meals a day. I get one meal a day." Usually, that's pasta, white rice, or potatoes, sometimes with a can of soup or a side of packaged breakfast sausages.

Food insecurity can be a hidden problem. "You don't have to look hungry to be hungry," says Catherine L. Mah, a researcher with Proof who teaches at Dalhousie University. Nor is it restricted to the unemployed. According to the data, over 60 percent of the food insecure across Canada actually earn wages. It's just that the money isn't enough to pay for food. Luckily, there's usually some way to get by: a sale on pasta at the local grocery store, a meal at a soup kitchen, a food hamper, a school breakfast program, or a relative's kitchen. But it's "the getting by" that's exhausting. "Food insecurity wears you down because you must constantly cope and manage," says Mah. How people cope and manage-what the individual compromises look like week to week-may vary, but the struggle remains the same whether you're in Halifax, Montreal, or Saskatoon.

Margaret* is a cashier in Toronto for one of the country's biggest grocery chains. She makes minimum wage and works part time. She wants to move to full-time employment, which would automatically qualify her for benefits, but she can never manage to get enough hours. (One of her colleagues suspects the company intentionally hires more people than it needs and hands out part-time schedules to avoid paying for benefits). Margaret is one of more than 850,000 Canadians who are "involuntary part timers"-a group that has become a distressingly prominent fixture in an economy that keeps shedding full-time positions. Margaret also belongs to the hidden hungry-the working poor whose refrigerators are often empty. Because she tries to prioritize eating well, she subsists on strictly rationed portions of fruit, vegetables, and milk. She consumes a cup of soup twice a day. A salad is a single leaf. "My lettuce is four dollars a head," says Margaret. "I have to make it last." She'll snack on an apple for hours or peck at 500 grams of cheddar for two weeks. "I feel hungry all the time," she says. "And I always wonder how I will make it to the next paycheque."

Famished while surrounded by abundant food, Margaret's predicament highlights how proximity to fresh vegetables and fruit won't change anything for someone with little means to procure them. When the University of Winnipeg's Institute of Urban Studies mapped the socioeconomic conditions around seventy-three supermarkets in the city in 2016, it found that, for 60,000 inner-city Winnipeggers, healthy food was within easy reach but was unattainable financially. Low-income residents, in other words, weren't necessarily living in food deserts, defined as communities underserved by affordable grocery stores within walking distance. Nor was it a problem of food swamps, which are areas dominated by fast-food outlets.

What the study identified were food mirages-a relatively new classification that food-insecurity researchers believe can provide a fuller picture of the crisis. Partly a side effect of gentrification, food mirages give the illusion of access to affordable nutritional options. This entrenches a two-tier food system-one for the middle and upper classes and another for the rest. It also reinforces the misconception that eating poorly is a matter of choice or a result of bad habits. But, "as it turns out," wrote Jino Distasio, who worked on the University of Winnipeg study, "far too many live close enough to see through the windows of grocery stores but are forced to walk by en route to the nearest food bank."

"O ur hopes and dreams are that this place didn't have to exist," says Kimberly McPherson, a coordinator at Cape Breton's Glace Bay Food Bank, which she says has many repeat customers, including some whose parents, and even grandparents, used to come. At the time we spoke, McPherson and her mother-in-law, Sandra (who has since retired), split a $23,000 provincial grant as their salary and occasionally ate at the soup kitchen themselves. "You want to help the poor in the community," says McPherson. "But when you're all poor, it's really hard."

Once a thriving blue-collar town, Glace Bay was hollowed out as the economy shifted in the 1980s-three mines and a steel plant closed-and fish stocks dwindled. It lost its town status in 1995 and combined with Sydney and five other towns. The community now has a population of 17,500. Today, the unemployment rate for all of Cape Breton is 15 percent-up 1 percent from last year and more than twice that of the provincial average. The food bank's kitchen serves 1,200 meals per month. On any given day, nearly ninety people show up. Some bring a meal home to a family member. "The younger generations go out west to work," says McPherson. "The elderly and the poor stay behind. The food bank keeps getting busier. If it weren't here, people would be stealing food."

Mary Makiuk is a regular. A forty-seven-year-old Inuk woman from Kuujjuaq, Quebec, she settled in Glace Bay seven years ago with her husband, who has a disability, and four of her children, aged twelve to twenty-one. Makiuk tells me she gets $1,500 a month in social assistance, including a child benefit for her two children who are still under eighteen. She has no car and takes a thirty-minute bus ride to Sydney to go grocery shopping. Food costs leave her with $300 at the end of the month. Mark Leblanc would drop by the soup kitchen as well. The father of a two-and-a-half-year-old boy, he usually eats one meal a day. Leblanc says the experience of spending time in prison several years ago for petty theft forced him to adapt his eating habits. "I don't feel that I'm restricting my calorie intake, but I am." On occasion, he spends most of his grocery budget on food for his son.

The Glace Bay Food Bank works with local farmers and grocery stores to secure donations, which are a tax break for the businesses. But the food bank is also an example of how some charities have adapted to the scale of the problem by become more ambitious and innovative. Along with serving meals, McPherson helps provide a basic breakfast of cereal, milk, and fresh fruit to many Cape Breton schools-part of a provincial program that feeds 12,500 students. It's a much-needed program in the city, where the child poverty rate hovers around 35 percent. Five years ago, McPherson decided to take matters into her own hands and teach her clients-many of whom are second-generation welfare recipients-to garden. "What's happened in Cape Breton is we don't garden anymore," McPherson says. "We always had gardens. We weren't well off, but we were always well fed." She found someone willing to donate plants and seeds, and she organized pickling sessions, showing clients how to make chow chow, a local relish made with green tomatoes. Jars of it lined the shelves of the food bank's basement pantry last November, set to be packed in Christmas hampers.

Community gardens have grown in popularity as a way to alleviate food insecurity. To date, Toronto has about 238 of them, Vancouver over 110, and Ottawa at least 100. Alvero Wiggins, born and raised in Halifax, spent years working two jobs and raising his son. He often ate one meal a day, usually an egg sandwich, at his job in a café. The other option was cheap takeout-a pizza slice for dinner, for example. "Healthy food seemed like a privilege I didn't have time to think about or a right to eat," he says. His low income and busy schedule made it difficult to buy and cook balanced meals. In 2012, he became a coordinator of an urban gardening program for high-needs youth, called Hope Blooms, which today oversees seventy-two gardens that it converted from vacant lots donated by the city eleven years ago. Each month, Hope Blooms uses its own produce to prepare and distribute hundreds of free meals to families in the area. The fresh herbs are also used to make a variety of salad dressings sold through local vendors; profits are rolled back into the program and into scholarships. Wiggins today works at a violence-prevention and harm-reduction program, but it was his time at Hope Blooms that transformed his diet, encouraged him to start his own garden plot, and helped him appreciate the difference between "food you can grow and food you can buy in a grocery store."

Other solutions to hunger can be as simple as starting a cooking club. Back at Bayers Westwood, Hemr and his friend Janice, a single mother thirty years his junior, have formed an extended family along with their neighbour Rudaina, a single mother from Lebanon. "They trade off on meals," says Donna Sutton, "which has benefited them. They have more variety."

Such initiatives shouldn't be over romanticized. No doubt they bring people together and build community, but the food insecure, almost by definition, are often too busy trying to survive-working or looking for work, paying down tuition, taking care of their families, dealing with health issues-to garden, secure a land donation, or launch a salad-dressing business. A cooking club is a good idea, if you can find like-minded people. What if your neighbours are unsociable or don't cook? Most solutions to food insecurity depend, to varying degrees, on the charity of others. If charity isn't the solution, what is?

K atsumi* is the mother of three small children. By 2015, she and her husband, Joseph*, had moved their family to Toronto from Kyoto, Japan, after he was hired at the Canadian branch of a UK-based engineering firm. He loved his job but had an abusive boss. Katsumi worried for her husband's mental health as she watched Joseph come home increasingly dejected. He couldn't transfer to another branch because he and Katsumi had just bought a home- a three-bedroom, $320,000 townhouse. They decided Joseph would quit and look for work at a new company.

He assumed the job hunt would be easy. It wasn't. There was no shortage of openings-in twelve months, he got ten interviews but no offer. Meanwhile, bills piled up: mortgage, cable, phone and internet, gas, car insurance. Life became a struggle. Their eldest daughter missed a school field trip because the family couldn't afford it. And everything cut into their grocery money.

Katsumi eventually got a job at a downtown catering-and-event hall. She commuted each way by public transit to serve hors d'oeuvres to VIPs, while she could barely afford to put food on the table for her family. Soon, Katsumi and Joseph had nothing but pasta in the cupboard. Rather than get rid of their internet or phones, which were essential for finding-and keeping-work, they began using food banks. Katsumi tears up as she recalls the first time she set foot in one. "I was crying in the waiting room because I was thinking about my kids. I felt ashamed."

Most food banks allow households one or two visits per month and give out two to three days' worth of food per person. Katsumi found one bank that allowed a hamper every week; Joseph found another that gave out hampers every two weeks. It wasn't enough. When I met with Katsumi on a chilly Sunday last November, her home wasn't much warmer than outside. She and Joseph had lost their cable, their cell phones, and their internet and hadn't turned on their heat or their lights. Katsumi was relying on a colleague to call her land line with her work schedule.
It's the "getting by" that's exhausting. "Food insecurity wears you down because you must constantly cope and manage."
Valerie Tarasuk is a professor of nutritional science at the University of Toronto and leads Proof, the food-insecurity research program. She calls food insecurity "a very sensitive measure of material deprivation." By the time someone is struggling to put food on the table, "they are struggling to meet all kinds of needs-not just those related to food," she says. That's why, Tarasuk argues, charity can't be allowed to become the default answer to the food crisis. Moisson Montréal, the largest food bank in Canada, is now using digital technology to redirect food intended for the landfill to community organizations fighting hunger. Salt Spring Island Community Services converted a six-metre-long shipping container into a giant fridge in order to rescue soon-to-expire food items from grocery stores and farmers and deliver them directly to low-income families. Vancouver Coastal Health has developed an online map that helps people access low-cost or free meals as well as free or subsidized grocery items. While these initiatives might keep people alive, they are, Tarasuk claims, "a symbolic gesture." Funnelling more and more corporate food waste toward impoverished people does nothing to address the root causes of the crisis.

Graham Riches, who has been studying the efficacy of food charities since the mid-1980s, agrees. "Our perception now," argues Riches, former director of the School of Social Work at the University of British Columbia, "is that, because we have this edifice of food banks, the problem is being solved. But it hasn't been solved. It has merely institutionalized this approach." Eliminating food insecurity requires an appetite for difficult reforms: people need to be paid properly, they need access to good jobs, and they need affordable housing.

In November 2018, Zsofia Mendly-Zambo and Dennis Raphael, two health-policy researchers at York University, co-authored an article they called "Competing Discourses of Household Food Insecurity in Canada." The researchers contend that the public has, for decades, been conditioned to believe that charitable efforts are the common-sense response to hunger across the country. The attempt to position hunger as a matter for charity can be traced back to the 1960s, when American antipoverty activists first debated how to frame the discussion around feeding the poor. Is it about a lack of income or lack of food? Activists chose the latter, reasoning that communities would feel a moral obligation to support charities for the hungry rather than to vote to raise taxes for social assistance. That's what prompted the emergence of food banks, in which church-run donation programs paired with food manufacturers that had a surplus. It was only during the 1980s, when Canada's welfare system struggled to cope with a very difficult recession, that our charitable organizations decided to adopt the US model.

Almost forty years later, more than 500 food banks are dotted across the country. According to Food Banks Canada, on average, 850,000 Canadians are fed through food banks each month-nearly 100,000 in British Columbia alone. The widespread legitimacy food banks enjoy, argue Mendly-Zambo and Raphael, has ended up "depoliticizing" food insecurity, making its solution more difficult. That's because the least-debated fix-government policies that mend our failing social safety nets-is the most effective way of improving access to food.

"Food insecurity is about income," says Paul M. Taylor, the executive director of Foodshare Toronto, a non-profit that operates more than forty-five travelling food markets-basically retrofitted buses stocked with fresh lettuce, okra, onions, berries, and broccoli. Targeting disadvantaged communities in the Greater Toronto Area, it delivered over 2 million pounds of low-cost, high-quality produce in 2017 alone. But Foodshare could distribute three times that and it still wouldn't bring single-parent families and seniors any closer to affording the nutritious food they need. Since May 2010, according to the City of Toronto, the cost of a basic, healthy diet in the municipality jumped 18.4 percent; over the same period, the minimum wage rose only 13 percent. "Folks concerned about hunger," says Taylor, who often sees customers scrounging for small change when paying for fruit and vegetables, "need to be talking about things like universal basic income and increases to the minimum wage."

Those conversations seem increasingly hard to have in politics. Since being elected last June, Ontario premier Doug Ford halved a proposed increase to social assistance rates from 3 percent to 1.5 percent, delayed an increase to the minimum wage that would have brought it from $14 to $15 an hour, and deep-sixed the universal basic income pilot project, which was gathering data from three pilot sites in Ontario to understand whether a basic income could improve the standard of living for low-income people. With the pilot scrapped midway, there's no reliable data for researchers. But we already know that relatively modest increases in income have been found to reduce food insecurity. In Newfoundland and Labrador, between 2007 to 2012, the rate of food insecurity among households living on social assistance was cut nearly in half from 60 percent after the government increased benefit levels, indexing them to inflation.

But if food-security advocates believe tax-based solutions, like better social assistance or a universal basic income, should be part of a coordinated strategy to help Canadians put healthy food on the table, the question of how we will afford them remains. Given the drain that hunger has on health care, mental health, and productivity, says Tarasuk, "We're already paying for it."
*Name has been changed to protect the source's privacy.

Raizel Robin is a journalist based in Toronto. Her recent projects include two cover stories for Toronto Life.

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How Do You Save Four Million Canadians from Hunger? | The Walrus

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I t's 9 a.m. and the coffee's on at the Bayers Westwood Family Resource Centre. The narrow, two-storey building is nestled in the middle of a public housing project in the west end of Halifax. The front door opens into a crowded sitting room.

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Ms. Dorcey: City of Vancouver (no date)  

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Ms. Dorcey: City of Vancouver (no date)  

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"Keeping Honey Bees on your property"
https://vancouver.ca/people-programs/beekeeping.aspx

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Learn about urban honey bees including regulations for keeping your own honey bees, and steps to take if you find a honey bee swarm.

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"Lego pledges to make toys more gender-neutral."

https://vancouversun.com/news/world/lego-pledges-to-make-toys-more-gender-neutral-eliminate-stereotypes-after-global-survey/wcm/725880ce-82ae-4367-a761-bdf456a5bb26

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'It body-shames girls': B.C. teen prompts school district to change student dress code.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/it-body-shames-girls-b-c-teen-prompts-school-district-to-change-student-dress-code-1.5391889

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A Courtenay, B.C., student who spoke up about the outdated dress codes in her school district has sparked a district-wide policy change.

Jaylene Kuo, 18, is being applauded for her advocacy by the Comox Valley School District, which recently announced that it has revised the dress codes at its 20 schools after Kuo presented her objections to some of the language and policies.

Kuo first noticed issues with the district's dress codes when an email arrived in the spring from her brother's elementary school, reminding students to be aware of the school's policy with the warm weather approaching.

She found references to shoulder straps, skirts and dresses. She also looked at other Courtenay schools' dress codes and found repeated references to the words "distracting" and "appropriate."

"It shocked me how much [it was] focused on the way girls can or cannot dress," Kuo said. "It body-shames girls and it's offensive to boys because it suggests they can't control their thoughts."

Kuo started a Social Justice project about the issue in June. She made aand also wrote a letter to school board trustees asking them to change school dress codes. She followed up with a second letter in October.

School board on board

Comox Valley School Board chair Ian Hargreaves told CBC that senior staff started addressing dress code revisions with district principals and vice-principals after Kuo's letter was discussed at their October meeting.

"We recognized all schools needed to update existing language to be more reflective of society's values today," Hargreaves said, noting the district supports students becoming champions of change, global citizens and compassionate young adults who make constructive contributions to their schools and to society.

In particular, Hargreaves singled out Kuo for taking an idea and turning it into initiative that led to action.

"Jaylene Kuo's forthrightness was acknowledged positively at the November board meeting, and thanked for bringing about positive change to the dress code at her school, Mark R. Isfeld," Hargreaves said.

Comox Valley School District assistant superintendent Jeff Manning announced the sweeping change to the district's schools at the November 26 school board meeting.

"They've removed any language that refers to gender-specific clothing items, and they've also removed the term 'distracting' from all of their dress codes," Manning said at the meeting.

While Kuo is pleased she was able to bring about the change, she is modest about her accomplishment.

"I'm really happy my school changed its dress code, and I hoped other schools will do it too," she said.

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'It body-shames girls': B.C. teen prompts school district to change student dress code | CBC News

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Jaylene Kuo, 18, is being applauded for her advocacy by the Comox Valley School District, which recently announced that it has revised the dress codes at its 20 schools after Kuo presented her objections to some of the language and policies.

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(oct. 2021)

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Creating equal opportunity for all British Columbians regardless of their gender.
Resources

As we work to remove barriers, we can also help level the playing field with more opportunities for training, good jobs and inspiring new leaders.
Resources

Tens of thousands of women, men and gender diverse people are directly affected by violence against them just because of who they are.
Resources

What is gender equity?

Gender equity is about removing barriers that stop people from reaching their full potential. Too often, women and gender diverse people experience unfairness. This is especially true when they also struggle with injustices like poverty, racism, ableism and/or homophobia.

When all British Columbians - regardless of their gender, race, class, sexual orientation or ability - can reach their full potential, our communities and economy are stronger, better places for everyone.

Gender Equity Office

Ensure government's commitment to gender equality is reflected in our budgets, policies and programs.

Act as the government's liaison with feminist and women's organizations, and other organizations concerned with gender equality and the advancement of women.

With support from the Minister of Labour, lead work to close the gender pay gap by continuing to address systemic discrimination in the workplace and moving closer to equal pay for equal work through new pay transparency legislation.

With support from the Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General, lead work to develop an action plan to end gender-based violence, including minimum standards for sexual assault response, more training for police, crown council and justices, and establishing core funding for sexual assault centres.

In 2019, B.C. served as co-chair for the National Forum on the Status of Women. After close to two decades without any significant presence at this table, B.C. is proud to once again have a seat and take a leadership role in identifying priorities to advance gender equality across Canada.

In November 2020, Grace Lore (PDF) was appointed Parliamentary Secretary for Gender Equity, reporting to the Minister of Finance.

News

Factsheets & Opinion Editorials

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Creating equal opportunity for all British Columbians regardless of their gender. Resources As we work to remove barriers, we can also help level the playing field with more opportunities for training, good jobs and inspiring new leaders. Resources Tens of thousands of women, men and gender diverse people are directly affected by violence against them just because of who they are.

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"Gender equality report card finds some progress in B.C. but other areas of 'serious concern'"

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/gender-equality-report-card-finds-some-progress-in-b-c-but-other-areas-of-serious-concern-1.4957317

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Gender equality report card finds some progress in B.C. but other areas of ‘serious concern’

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While B.C. has made some steps in the right direction on gender equality and human rights, marginalized women and gender-diverse people are being left behind, a new report says.

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"Women's Equity Strategy."

https://vancouver.ca/docs/council/Women%27sEquityStrategy.pdf

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Isabella Steele: Fund for gender Equality

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Isabella Steele: Fund for gender Equality

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UPDATE: For the full list of awarded grants, please click here. The Fund for Gender Equality offers grants of up to $40,000 to support organizations in BC that are working to advance gender equality through community-level initiatives. Through this Fund, we will deliver $320,000 to support organizat…

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https://globalnews.ca/news/8346968/cop26-pledge-deforestation-canada/

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined more than 100 other nations at the COP26 climate summit in agreeing to end and reverse deforestation by 2030, backed by $19 billion in funds from countries and some private companies.

But what exactly does this promise mean for Canada and how does the Trudeau government plan to follow through on this pact?

The pledge, made late Monday at the climate talks in Glasgow, was signed by the leaders of countries including the U.K., U.S., Canada, Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which collectively account for 85 per cent of the world's forests.

The nearly US$20 billion in pooled funding will go towards ending and reversing deforestation and land degradation while promoting "sustainable commodity production and consumption." Another US$1.5 billion in funding was also announced to help protect the Congo Basin - home to the second-largest tropical rain forest in the world.

Forests are vital in the fight against climate change. Around the world they absorb roughly 30 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions annually, according to the nonprofit World Resources Institute.

Just last year, around the world roughly 258,000 square kilometres of forest - an area larger than the size of the United Kingdom - was lost to deforestation, according to the World Resources Institute's tracking initiative Global Forest Watch.

It's important to note the agreement centres on the international definition of deforestation: forest which is permanently lost to other uses like agriculture, resource extraction, or housing.
READ MORE: Clearcutting B.C. forests contributing more to climate change than fossil fuels
The agreement doesn't appear to include forests that are clear cut and then replanted.

Forestry experts say while the pledge is welcome there are concerns it is a missed opportunity for Canada where deforestation - as it is internationally defined - is minimal.

According to Natural Resources Canada (NRC), the country's deforestation rate has declined from around 64,000 hectares (ha) per year in 1990 to about 34,300 ha per year in 2018, meaning less than half of one per cent of Canada's total forest area was converted for other land uses.

The declaration could have more positive implications for countries like Brazil, where the Amazon rain forest is under threat from agriculture. But it could be less significant for Canada where trees are cut down for pulp and paper or wood-product manufacturing but are then replanted.

Rachel Holt, a B.C. ecologist who has worked on forestry issues for decades, said it is concerning that the new agreement doesn't focus on the impact of clear-cutting, which adds "massive amounts" of carbon into the air. "Clear-cutting" means that all of the trees in an area are cut, not just selected trees, according to the NRC.

"If we are not thinking about managing the whole forest from a carbon perspective, then for Canada this [pact] thoroughly fails, it does nothing," Holt said.

Canada's boreal forest is a critical "carbon sink." Boreal forests, per hectare, stores more carbon than tropical rain forests, and according to the NRC, roughly 30 per cent of the world's boreal zone is located in Canada - 552 million hectares.

Under Canada's sustainable forest management system, trees that are cut down have to be replanted.

But with just a few decades for countries to take drastic action to curb greenhouse gas emissions, Canada's current system of clear-cutting and logging replanting won't help those goals, Holt said.

"As a matter of policy, we cut down large amounts of big, old forest that has been storing carbon for thousands of years," she said. "Half of that storage is in the soil and half of it is in the trees, and we immediately release 60 per cent of it into the sky."
READ MORE: British Columbia moves to defer old growth forests within 2.6 million hectares of land
Holt and other forestry experts have also called for the expanded role of Indigenous communities in the conservation of forests. As more than 90 per cent of forests reside on provincial land, forestry management decisions fall to the provinces.

The B.C. government said Tuesday it has begun consulting with dozens of First Nations about putting a pause to any logging operations threatening thousands of square kilometres of the most vulnerable old-growth ecosystems in the province.

And at an international level, five countries, including Britain and the United States, and a group of global charities also pledged Tuesday to provide $1.7 billion in financing to support Indigenous People's conservation of forests and to strengthen their land rights.

Canada was not a signatory to this agreement.

Several reports over the years have raised questions about how effectively Canada is monitoring its forestry sector and whether it's underreporting its effects in terms of carbon emissions and levels of deforestation.

In 2019, researchers from Wildlands League - a non-profit environmental group from Toronto - revealed the impact of so-called "logging scars:" the temporary roads, pits and landing sites that they say have caused underreported environmental damage to forests.

The study looked at an area north of Thunder Bay, Ont., using fly-over surveys and on-the-ground reporting. Researchers estimated that approximately 21,700 ha are deforested each year in Ontario due to roads and landings from the forestry industry - roughly 40,000 football fields.

Anna Baggio, director of Conservation at Wildlands League, said researchers have followed up on 264 additional sites in the study area since 2019 which have shown similar logging scars.

"We have big blind spots about what's going on in our own country," Baggio said. "These are areas of roads and landings where trees are not growing back. When you start to add them up ... it's quite a significant impact."

According to Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources, an average of just over 650 ha were deforested each year between 2008 - 2018. The Ministry's annual reports note that temporary forest access roads, called operational roads, are not included in the estimate of deforestation.

"Minimizing forest loss from deforestation and establishing new forests through afforestation can help maintain the values from our forests and mitigate climate change," Morgan Kerekes, a spokesperson with the Ministry of Natural Resources said in an email. "Ontario's forest policy framework is an interconnected system of laws, regulations, and policies. It is a robust system, based on the most up-to-date science, continual improvement, and public and Indigenous consultation.
READ MORE: Developing world urges richer countries to keep climate promises at COP26 summit
A report released last week by Environment Defence Canada and several other non-profits ahead of COP26 suggests that pollution from Canada's logging sector is at least 80 megatonnes higher than what the industry reports.

Eighty megatonnes is roughly equivalent to the annual emissions from all the buildings in Canada.

The report said Canada is taking a "biased approach" in its emissions reporting by excluding emissions from logging roads or damaged forests but including emissions reductions from undisturbed forests that have never been logged.

Scott Jackson, director of conservation biology with the Forest Products Association of Canada, said that Canada is a "global leader" in forest certification and sustainable sourcing of forest products.

"We're fortunate that we've been tracking deforestation in Canada for decades," Jackson said. "We have the statistics, the data to show that we've been very successful at reducing the area of deforestation in the country."

Jackson pushed back against suggestions that Canada is underreporting the effects of clear-cutting and logging.

"[Canada's tree harvesting] is a science-based approach that undergoes social filters, and it is recognized as an acceptable harvesting system under all certification systems that exist in Canada. And all of those certification systems are recognized internationally," he said.

"Forestry in Ontario and in Canada is very heavily monitored and reported, and that includes a lot of third-party audits," Jackson said.

Global News reached out to Natural Resources Canada for response to allegations it is underreporting emissions from its forestry industry but did not receive a response.

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Trudeau signs COP26 pledge to end deforestation by 2030. What does it mean for Canada? | Globalnews.ca

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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau joined more than 100 other nations at the COP26 climate summit in agreeing to end and reverse deforestation by 2030, backed by $19 billion in funds from countries and some private companies. But what exactly does this promise mean for Canada and how does the Trudeau government plan to follow through on this pact?

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An 8-year-old girl wasn't allowed to take her school picture because of her red hair extensions

https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/09/us/girl-denied-school-picture-hair-trnd/index.html

Related Article:
https://www.ctvnews.ca/lifestyle/girl-gets-photoshoot-after-being-denied-school-picture-with-red-hair-extensions-1.4693641

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An 8-year-old girl said she felt "singled out" after being blocked from getting her school picture taken because of her hairstyle.

Marian Scott told CNN affiliate WILX she cried after she was told that she couldn't get her photo taken because of the red extensions in her hair.

Ben Kriesch, principal of Paragon Charter Academy, told the station that Marian's red extensions violated school policy.

Marian's father Doug Scott called the incident "upsetting."

"All of this is uncalled for, they didn't even call us," Scott told WILX. "They let her stay in school. ... So if she's not a disruption to the class, then why is she a disruption to the picture?"

The Jackson, Michigan, school's handbook says students' hair color must be "of natural tones" to get their picture taken, WILX reported.

Kriesch told the station that students with a hair color or style violation have a week to get it corrected, which is why Marian was allowed to remain in class.

The girl's family said they don't have plans to remove her from the school, but they said they would like to see better communication from school administrators.

"If they would have reached out to us and say come get her ... she's got a hair issue, we need you to change it, that's not allowed - I would have been fine with why this happened, but they didn't reach out to us," Scott told WILX.

The school sent out a recorded message the Sunday before photos were taken going over the dress code policy that Scott said he never heard nor saw, according to the station.

"Had I seen the email, I probably would have told Marian's mother to not do it, but I guess I think it's good that this happened because now people are going to get the opportunity to see what is really going on," he said.

This isn't the first time a dress code has been criticized. In September, a Texas school district said a 4-year-old boy had to braid his hair or cut it off, saying his long hair is in violation of the school district's dress code. Parents argued that it was discriminatory against black hairstyles.

Action has been taken to stop employers from discriminating against people based on their natural hair.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the Crown Act into law in July, making it illegal to enforce dress code or grooming policies against hairstyles such as afros, braids, twists and locks.

Marian went to school on Monday for the first time since the incident with all black hair. She plans to get her picture taken on retake day, November 12.

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An 8-year-old girl wasn't allowed to take her school picture because of her red hair extensions | CNN

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An 8-year-old girl said she felt "singled out" after being blocked from getting her school picture taken because of her hairstyle. Marian Scott told CNN affiliate WILX she cried after she was told that she couldn't get her photo taken because of the red extensions in her hair.

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'It's sexist': After student sent home, teachers' union president says schools need to be cautious about dress codes

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/it-s-sexist-after-student-sent-home-teachers-union-president-says-schools-need-to-be-cautious-about-dress-codes-1.5325674

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VANCOUVER -- The president of the B.C. Teachers' Federation is speaking out, admitting schools need to do better after a Kamloops teen was sent home from school for wearing clothing allegedly deemed too distracting.

Teri Mooring says school dress codes continue to disproportionately affect girls and women.

Mooring says that's the case for 17-year-old Karis Wilson, who was dismissed from her Grade 12 class at Norkam Secondary this week for wearing a knee-length dress that was layered with a long-sleeve turtleneck.

"School districts need to be really cautious when addressing school dress codes," Mooring said, adding that many school dress codes focus on clothing that's typically worn by young women.

"This is problematic, it's sexist, it can sometimes lead to victim-shaming."

The Kamloops School District told CTV News earlier in the week it could not comment on the allegations but that a review is underway.

"We understand the parent is concerned about what happened to his daughter at school yesterday. We are also concerned about these allegations and are treating them seriously," superintendent Terry Sullivan said in an email.

"Whenever a parent is concerned about their child at school we want to work with them for the best outcome for the student."

Mooring says more work needs to be done to ensure women and girls feel safe, regardless of what they're wearing. She also says there should be "broader education" of oversexualizing of girls, "rather than blaming girls for unwanted attention."

"This is not a new issue. It's a chronic issue. And it's often girls that suffer the consequences of people feeling uncomfortable around clothing," she said.

"If we're actually going to have an equal society where women and girls can feel safe in all environments then we ought to do a lot better job of educating everyone around these issues."

With files from CTV News Vancouver's Sheila Scott

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'It's sexist': After student sent home, teachers' union president says schools need to be cautious about dress codes

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VANCOUVER -- The president of the B.C. Teachers' Federation is speaking out, admitting schools need to do better after a Kamloops teen was sent home from school for wearing clothing allegedly deemed too distracting. Teri Mooring says school dress codes continue to disproportionately affect girls and women.

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https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/with-rainless-days-mounting-what-is-the-city-of-vancouver-doing-to-save-all-its-newly-planted-trees

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City urges citizens to water trees out front of their homes with a slow trickle, away from the trunk under the outer edge of the canopy

If it rains anytime soon, it will be the first time in about 50 days that trees across Vancouver have had a chance to slake their thirst naturally.

The next Environment Canada forecast for rain is a 60-per-cent chance beginning Thursday night.

When the city has weeks of dry summer weather without appreciable rainfall, as Vancouver has experienced since June 15, trees begin to get stressed because of a lack of soil moisture, says Stephen Sheppard, a professor in the faculty of forestry at UBC.

"They can't survive without continually drawing water through their system - that's how they live and perspire and everything else. So, the longer it goes without rain, especially if it's hot or warm, then the more serious it gets.

"They can't find enough moisture to survive if they're not watered regularly."

Young trees are particularly susceptible because their roots haven't spread wide or deep yet. But mature trees also get stressed, as evidenced by their top branches dying.

"We are seeing that because of the effects of climate change and repeated droughts," Sheppard said. "We had (a drought) in 2017 and that caused considerable damage to mature, otherwise healthy trees."

That included premature deaths of several species of conifers, especially native western redcedars, which can grow to 60 metres tall and six metres around.

"They do not like drought, at least not at the level we're getting," Sheppard said. "Many of those have died off."

Metro Vancouver has a list of more than 300 tree species assessed for suitability to current and projected future climate, species such as Garry oak and shore pine that can withstand longer dry periods.

Last year, the city completed a 10-year project as part of its urban-forest strategy to plant 150,000 trees, hoping to bring Vancouver's canopy back above 22 per cent, its 1995 level. It had dropped to 18 per cent, mostly because of development.

But it will take those trees some years to grow before the canopy again reaches a point where it is effective in cooling summer temperatures, cleaning the air and easing strong winds.

On top of that, the city annually loses more than 1,000 public trees on boulevards and in parks through disease, death or infestation, all conditions that drought exacerbates.

Overall, there are about 650,000 trees in Vancouver, including Stanley Park, said Amit Gandha, director of park operations.

The city has five water trucks and has contracted three more, but the ultimate goal is not to keep bringing water to trees but to plant trees that will do better under projected summer and winter climate changes, Gandha said.

In the meantime, he urged residents to water the trees in front of their homes.

"To be honest, that's one of the most important pieces here," Gandha said. "If residents could give trees 10 minutes of water in the early morning or at night, every little bit helps, for sure."

He advised a slow trickle under the outer edge of the canopy where the thirsty feeder roots are, and not at the base where the roots are structural.

"I keep using the term 'We're going to ...' but we're not 'going to,' we're here," Gandha said of more extreme seasons. "The goal in the long run isn't to add more water. The long-term goal is we're planting species that don't need that water, that's what we're moving toward."

Sheppard would like to see city council give more weight to the value and importance of urban forests.

"It's important to give a shout out to what the city is trying to do," he said. "We probably need a more sustained, coherent program for adopting a tree, or citizen charter to water the trees at least once a week during a drought. These kinds of things are probably going to be needed to keep the urban forest healthy and alive."
gordmcintyre@postmedia.com twitter.com/gordmcintyre

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Rainless days taking a toll on Vancouver's public trees

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City urges citizens to water trees out front of their homes with a slow trickle, away from the trunk under the outer edge of the canopy If it rains anytime soon, it will be the first time in about 50 days that trees across Vancouver have had a chance to slake their thirst naturally.

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https://vancouver.ca/people-programs/16-days-of-activism-against-gender-based-violence.aspx

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From November 25 to December 10 every year, we take part in a global initiative to galvanize action to address gender-based violence.

The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence raises awareness of the issue, as well as helping to highlight the steps that anyone can take to help bring an end to gender-based violence.

As part of our Women's Equity Strategy, we're committed to ensuring that Vancouver is a safe city and supporting projects which ensure all women can lead lives that are secure and free from crime and violence.

Case studies

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Forty years ago, five women started Battered Women's Support Services with the hope of making gender-based violence history through cultural change and systemic advocacy.

After four decades, the organization has embedded itself in the community. There are now 25 paid staff, seven board members, and 160 volunteers providing grassroots, frontline support in Vancouver.

"A widespread human rights violation"

"Violence against women and girls is one of most widespread human rights violations of our time and it widely goes unreported due to the stigma and shame around," says BWSS Executive Director Angela MacDougall. "Systemic and institutional barriers prevent the liberation of victims."

For MacDougall, activism against gender-based violence is what she does day in and day out. From BWSS's perspective, this is an issue that touches all areas, whether it be police, the criminal justice system, housing, social services, health, or education.

One step forward, two steps back

MacDougall notes with each advancement made, there is a counter-movement that further entrenches survivors in systems that historically have supressed them.

Roughly 40% of sexual violence reported to police is deemed unfounded. On top of that, MacDougall says the 2016 "Jordan Decision" means cases of domestic abuse, sexual assault, and even homicide are being stayed due to the time between the initial charges being laid and actually going to trial. A lot of survivors are choosing not to have charges laid out of a fear of the systems that are meant to protect them.

That, coupled with a pro-arrest policy, once meant to hold offenders accountable but now being used to charge women with assault for trying to protect themselves, is stalling progress in the realm of fighting gender-based violence.

She adds that the province's lack of affordable or transitional housing is ultimately forcing women to stay in abusive relationships.

A community-focused approach to combatting gender based violence

"Community-based organizations are doing the work. We know that 95% of sexual assaults are not reported to the police, but rather to a close family member or community-based organization."

MacDougall agrees that any investment in fighting gender-based violence is a good one, but says often times the resources are misdirected toward grand plans rather than the community-based organizations actually doing the work and helping survivors.

Community is always going to the place where the change happens and MacDougall sees a model emerging where resources are not being pushed toward that community-based response. "Women's organizations have been on the frontlines for 40-plus years and we need to resource them the same as we resource cancer research, because violence against women is, in fact, comparable to cancer," she said.

BWSS has always been a peer-run organization and the model has been extraordinarily effective in building the matrix of services offered to its connections and community.

A rare space of safety

For the women that the DEWC serves, the Drop-in Centre and Emergency Shelter are among the few safe spaces in the neighbourhood exclusively for self-identified women and their children.

Women who are victims of violence, especially partner abuse and those in sex work, are often not taken seriously by authorities, or are blamed for the assault on themselves. Victims face serious and life-threatening challenges, including stigmatization, racism, stereotyping, arrests, and assault charges being laid against a woman for fighting back, debilitating injuries, and even death.

Women often present at the Drop-in Centre and the Emergency Shelter after having been victims of violence. Staff assist with medical accompaniment, police report filing, liaising with police and medical services, and assistance to find transition housing.

The Centre provides basic necessities including hot meals, free clothing, secure mailing addresses, phone and computer access, and functioning, secure toilets, and showers. The Centre serves over 500 women, children and seniors every day. The Shelter provides beds for 57 women and has housing outreach, hot meals, and much of what the Drop-In Centre provides.

The DEWC assists women with their immediate and crisis needs so they can develop stability and access the resources they need to improve health, family, employment, and housing situations. The Centre promotes positive change by offering individual long-term support, education, advocacy, peer mentorship and exposure to alternatives.

The Power of Women

The DEWC's social justice group, the Power of Women, often contributes to community discussions and events to bring awareness to the violence that women - especially Indigenous women - face on a daily basis.

This group and the centre's group of Indigenous Elders participated in the National Inquiry for Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) and were the main contributors to the publication Red Women Rising External website, opens in new tab . The report features over 100 recommendations to government on the issue of women's safety.

"Working with the Indigenous women who participated in the MMIWG National Inquiry was a particularly moving experience," says Masami Tomioka, Specialized Services Manager at the DEWC. "The women involved showed such resilience and strength during a very difficult time. They contributed to the Red Women Rising report and were empowered, and are now working to ensure that the recommendations to government are realized."

Advocating for a safer future

When asked about trends in the work against gender-based violence, Masami raised her concerns about the lack of consultation with and inclusion of women-only safe services in strategies to enhance safety for women. Women-only service providers such as the DEWC have pushed and continue to push for women-specific health and safety to be included in strategies to enhance safety.

"We need a quicker response by emergency services when a woman has experienced violence, better assessment and care for those who present at emergency departments, and better cultural competency," says Masami Tomioka. "Women also desperately need more coordinated responses from collateral agencies, and more safe spaces for those at risk of violence, including transition homes and safe houses that are low-barrier."
Learn more about the DEWC External website, opens in new tab

Since the 1980s, WAVAW Rape Crisis Centre has been working to not only support survivors of rape and sexual assault but also to shift society's opinions on these issues through education, outreach, and activism. As well as providing a 24-hour crisis and information line, support navigating the medical, and legal system and counselling, WAVAW offers training for teachers and workshops to schools which advocate for change.

Inclusion Project

WAVAW serves all marginalized genders including non-binary people and trans men. In April 2017, WAVAW embarked on their Inclusion Project and became the first organisation in Canada to offer a trans-specific support service. Felix Gilliliand, WAVAW'S Community Engagement and Inclusion Coordinator, explains the need for this: "The trans community has challenged us to think differently about the services we provide to better suit their needs. Trans and queer people experience way higher rates of gender-based violence and abuse but have access to very few services. Previously, non-cis women would be referred to different groups but none of them would serve them so there fell through the gap between services, therefore the most in-need were the most underserved."

Felix says that while progress is being made towards better addressing gender based violence there is still work to do. "We really started our trans work at the same time as the #MeToo movement and since then the conversation has been becoming bigger and starting to shift to shift in different ways but still a real need to include trans people in those conversations."

Challenge transphobia and transmisogyny

In order to keep the momentum going, Felix suggests that the best thing allies can do is challenge transphobia and transmisogyny: "We need people to take on that heavy-lifting and keep challenging organisations like ours to have conversations about who we serve and how that plays out."

A big step forward for WAVAW this year was when they were invited to be the Grand Marshalls of the Vancouver Dyke March as it indicated that one of the key populations they support felt that WAVAW recognized their needs and were serving them well.

WAVAW'S December 6 event

This work continues with a trans-friendly event on December 6 to mark the 30th anniversary of the Montreal Massacre. Previous events on this date have been tough for trans people to access so WAVAW is offering an alternative event which will offer a night of amazing speakers and artists.
Register for the event External website, opens in new tab Find more information about WAVAW External website, opens in new tab

Success story

Shortly after Mebrat Beyene became the Executive Director of WISH, a woman stopped by the Drop-In Centre and shared her story with Mebrat. Twenty years ago, the woman had been a street-based sex worker, and was living under the Dunsmuir viaducts after becoming homeless. Like many others, she feared for her life due to a high number of women going missing from the Downtown Eastside and she turned to WISH for support. With WISH's help and guidance, the woman found safety, managed to reconnect with her family, get clean and move to Vancouver Island where she was able to thrive. She returned to thank WISH for their support, let them know that she is still alive and to give back by donating $10,000 to help other women turning to WISH for support.

For Mebrat, this story sums up the impact of WISH as an organization that is there to support sex-workers wherever they are in their journey. Speaking about WISH's work, Mebrat says: "Many of the women we serve are living in poverty, experiencing homelessness, struggling with mental health issues and substance abuse, are Indigenous or women of colour, and some are trans. They are some of the most vulnerable women in our city and they experience an incredibly high amount of gender-based and targeted violence, much of which often goes unnoticed and unreported."

35 years of operation

WISH delivers two front-line programs and six capacity-building programs that support 300-350 women each day and night. The first is a drop-in centre located on Alexander St which is one of only two overnight drop-in spaces for women in the Downtown Eastside that is open every day of the year. From 6pm to noon, the site offers full meals, showers, an on-site medical clinic, and a learning centre in partnership with Capilano University; all of which provide everything from a host of programs, services, to harm reduction supplies and toiletries.

Mobile work

WISH also operates a van that provides a mobile version of their drop-in centre work. The van is a one-stop shop solution that allows the team's employees to meet women where they are working and serve the most isolated women who are the least likely to report violence they experience.

Helping to create a future

The work of WISH not only helps ensure that street-based sex workers feel safer by recording and sharing the violence and predatory behaviour they encounter, they also seek to create opportunities for women to work towards whatever goals they set for themselves. By providing supportive employment programs and opportunities, for example, WISH also helps women establish viable and tangible economic security for their future.

When asked whether she thinks the situation for women has improved since the Montreal Massacre 30 years ago, Mebrat is hesitant: "We are seeing the same patterns and systemic patriarchal and colonial issues playing out. It is only in last five or so years that I see a little more appetite to discuss systemic violence against women. There needs to be a cultural shift around people's attitudes towards women and the amount of stigma that women - especially sex workers - face. Stigma kills so we all need to examine our biases now in order to ensure women can work - safely - in any profession she chooses.
Learn more about WISH External website, opens in new tab

Women's Advisory Committee

What do women need to be safe in Vancouver? What can the City and other organizations do to help make this a reality?

Since 2009, the Women's Advisory Committee has been advising Council and staff on these and many other questions aimed at enhancing access and inclusion for women and girls to fully participate in City services and civic life. The committee consists of 15 members of the public who identify as women, as well as six non-voting liaisons from Council, the Park Board, School Trustee, and city staff.

Together, the Women's Advisory Committee works to address issues facing women in Vancouver. Their work over the last 10 years includes taking action on addressing the issue of murdered and missing Indigenous women, creating subcommittees on addressing issues such as violence, abuse and battery against women, and contributing towards the Women's Equity Strategy in its first phase of development.

Women's Equity Strategy

The Women's Advisory Committee continues to advise Council and staff on the Women's Equity Strategy as it is developed, implemented and updated, to enable all women to fully participate in the political, economic, cultural, and social life of Vancouver. The strategy addresses issues faced by women in five priority areas:

Applying an intersectional lens to strengthen City processes and inform decision-making

Addressing safety, including violence against women

Accessible, quality childcare

Safe and affordable housing

Women's leadership and representation within the City's workforce

An intersectional understanding

An intersectional lens is particularly important for the Women's Advisory Committee in light of the diversity of women it serves. Recognizing that women with different identities have different experiences of the world around them - because of race, sex, and socioeconomic status - the Women's Advisory Committee endeavours to apply an intersectional framework in all of its work. Using an intersectional lens enables the committee to more deeply consider and understand the many ways in which women experience discrimination and abuse, and to make recommendations for action which are mindful of and beneficial to all women.

Making visible the invisible

Language is an area where the Women's Advisory Committee encourages the use of terminology which provides a more comprehensive understanding of gender-based harms beyond the physical. When violence, abuse, and battery are named together, 'hidden' forms of abuse - such as financial abuse, litigation harassment, and parental alienation - can be made visible.

By using more robust, representative language that reflects the many dimensions of gender-based violence, abuse and battery, the Women's Advisory Committee aims to ensure that all women can be heard in the conversation around women's safety and well-being. The committee is also working to incorporate a thorough understanding of the experience of gender-based power, control and coercion within the intersectional lens it uses.

The Women's Advisory Committee is also looking at how to make childcare spaces safer places for women facing gender-based violence, abuse and battery. Preliminary recommendations include ensuring that all City-licenced day cares have staff trained annually on violence, abuse and battery, including parental alienation and financial abuse. Daycare staff can sometimes bear witness to these issues, and having policies on training would help staff to identify and support victims.

An annual work plan will be published in April 2020 outlining the Women Advisory Committee's current objectives. Learn more about the progress made so far

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16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence

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From November 25 to December 10 every year, we take part in a global initiative to galvanize action to address gender-based violence. The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender-Based Violence raises awareness of the issue, as well as helping to highlight the steps that anyone can take to help bring an end to gender-based violence.

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"Canada must amend its marriage laws to end child marriage"

https://vancouversun.com/news/daphne-bramham-canada-must-amend-its-marriage-laws-to-end-child-marriage

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Opinion: It is hypocritical of Canada to lead efforts to end child marriages unless it bans the practice in Canada

Child marriage is a hallmark of gender inequality and Canada's long-standing and well-funded pledge to eradicate it around the world is admirable.

It's also hypocritical.

Child marriage persists in Canada because it's still legal. The minimum marriage age is 16, which is below the international norm of 18. The best that can be said about Canada is that at least its marriage age is no longer 14, which it was until six years ago.

In 2016, nearly 2,300 Canadian children under 18 were in marital unions, according to census data examined by McGill researchers Alissa Koski and Shelley Clark, whose study was published in Population and Development Review.

And that number likely underestimates the problem because people self-report common-law relationships.

By scouring provincial and territorial data from 2000 to 2018, Koski and Clark found marriage licenses had been granted for "at least 3,687" child marriages. That qualifier - at least - reflects the fact that they were unable to get any data for 2017 or 2018 from Quebec or Newfoundland and Labrador.

Overwhelmingly, child marriages involve girls who mostly married men who were "substantially older".

In Alberta and Manitoba, the incidence of girls marrying was twice as high as the other provinces. Of the recorded marriages, eight girls in Alberta and one in British Columbia were married at or before their 16th birthdays. The youngest was 14.

Let's dispense with a couple of things off the top. There are 6.76 million Canadians under the age of 19, so child marriage is rare.

But think about this. At 3,687, that's roughly equivalent to the population of towns like Port Hardy and Grand Forks, Jasper, Alta., Battleford, Sask., and Swan River, Man. And nobody is quick to write those towns off as insignificant and unworthy of consideration.

Secondly, this is not "others" ignoring societal norms. The majority of children married before age 18 are Canadian born and the incidence of child marriages (number married as a proportion of the group) is higher among Canadian-born than foreign-born children.

More than a decade ago, it was different. Then, foreign-born children were more likely to be married before age 18. Why that's changed isn't clear, but Koski and Clark noted an amendment to Immigration Act made it more difficult to sponsor spouses under the age of 18.

This is a homegrown problem, with Indigenous children eight times more likely to be married than other Canadians.

Koski and Clark suggest it may "reflect different family formation patterns among Inuit" and advised further study to determine whether within Inuit society it's considered a problem.

But it may also reflect government policy. They noted that a 2016 report about Nunavut's critical shortage of social housing hinted that marrying or having children early may "speed the process of obtaining adequate housing."

Small sample sizes for other ethnic groups meant the researchers couldn't determine whether child marriage is more prevalent in other ethnic/religious groups.

But it's well known from evidence in recent B.C. court cases involving fundamentalist Mormons is that child marriages were frequently arranged and even involved moving children across the American border.

And, in Quebec, there have been media reports of child marriages in both Christian and Jewish sects.

What isn't up for debate is that child marriage has long-term consequences for health, education and personal development.

Reams of studies - mostly done in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa - indicate girls who marry early are more likely to contract HIV, have more unwanted pregnancies, face higher risks of dying during or after child birth, are more likely to be suicidal, and are more likely to be victims of domestic violence. For both boys and girls, child marriage is also strongly associated with lower educational attainment and poverty.

All of these reasons have been cited by the Canadian government as it has led in promoting an end to them, including in 2019 when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced at an international women's conference in Vancouver that Canada would increase its funding for women's sexual and reproductive health programs to $1.4 billion by 2030.

Largely left unsaid both at home and abroad is that child marriage remains legal here.

Canada didn't have a national minimum age until the federal Conservatives passed the Civil Marriage Act in 2015, setting 16 as the minimum age. Prior to that provinces and territories set their own minimums and some were as low as 14.

Now, across Canada, 16- and 17-year-olds can marry with their parents' consent. But British Columbia has yet to repeal the section in its Marriage Act that says children under 16 can marry with the consent of a judge.

Koski and Clark point out that for almost every other aspect of "adult" Canadian life - including voting, buying alcohol, cigarettes and cannabis, and joining the military - the age of majority is at least 18.

So, why did the Canadian government settle on anything less than 18?

In an email, Koski said the Conservatives were "certainly aware that the United Nations defines child marriage as any marriage before the age of 18."

"The fact that they still decided to set the minimum at 16 indicates that there were political motivations to shy away from a hard line at 18, but I don't know precisely what those motivations were."

But the lingering and more important question is why hasn't it been changed by a Liberal government and its self-proclaimed-feminist leader?
dbramham@postmedia.com
Twitter: @bramham_daphne

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Daphne Bramham: Canada must amend its marriage laws to end child marriage

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Opinion: It is hypocritical of Canada to lead efforts to end child marriages unless it bans the practice in Canada Child marriage is a hallmark of gender inequality and Canada's long-standing and well-funded pledge to eradicate it around the world is admirable. It's also hypocritical. Child marriage persists in Canada because it's still legal.

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"Opportunities for students"

https://vancouver.ca/green-vancouver/opportunities-for-students.aspx

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CityStudio Vancouver

CityStudio Vancouver is a hub and center for sustainability education.

The goal of CityStudio Vancouver is to directly involve students, professors, and universities in the implementation of Vancouver's Greenest City 2020 goals.

About the CityStudio Vancouver program

Student cohorts target Vancouver's Greenest City goals, such as zero waste, climate leadership, access to nature, and food security.

Through dialogue, community engagement, collaboration across organizations, asset mapping, and demonstration projects, students focus their knowledge and energy on implementing Greenest City goals through coursework.

UBC - City of Vancouver Greenest City Scholars Program

Since 2010, the Greenest City Scholars Program has engaged over 100 graduate students from UBC's Vancouver campus to work and gain experience on a sustainability project with us.

How the program works

The City and UBC's Sustainability Initiative co-fund successful candidates to work with us in support of:

Greenest City 2020 Action Plan

Green Operations Plan

Renewable City Strategy

Healthy City Strategy

Each successful candidate works at the City for a minimum of 250 hours on one project designed to contribute to our sustainability work.

About sustainability at UBC

Integrated into teaching, learning, research, operations, and governance, sustainability at UBC isn't just a word to define - it's a term that defines the university and how it interacts with the world.

UBC embraces sustainability as a societal conversation about the kind of world we want to live in, informed by an understanding of the ecological, social, and economic consequences of our individual and collective actions...

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CityStudio Vancouver is a hub and center for sustainability education. The goal of CityStudio Vancouver is to directly involve students, professors, and universities in the implementation of Vancouver's Greenest City 2020 goals. Student cohorts target Vancouver's Greenest City goals, such as zero waste, climate leadership, access to nature, and food security.

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How Canada's sex traffickers evade capture and isolate victims to prevent their escape

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Sex traffickers are using the country's major highway networks to transport women and girls, taking them to small towns and cities in order to isolate them, avoid police and maximize their financial gain, according to the first research in Canada analyzing how victims are moved.

A report from the Canadian Centre to End Human Trafficking identifies some of the key routes traffickers use to transport their victims, isolating them from family, friends and familiar surroundings that could offer an eventual escape, and making them wholly dependent on their perpetrators. The constant movement also allows criminals to avoid detection by law enforcement and gives them access to more profitable markets.

The research suggests there's a trend in young women being trafficked from Quebec to Alberta, where criminals can make more money selling sex services than in other provinces, according to police officers.

And sex trafficking is so prevalent across Canada that it occurs wherever "there is a highway and access to the internet," the report says.

"I think too many people believe that this is an issue that happens in other countries or that it's an issue of kidnapping and abduction," says Julia Drydyk, the centre's executive director. "And, really, it's far more commonplace."
New Ontario legislation aims to end human trafficking
To compile the report, the centre reviewed academic reports and media coverage, and interviewed police officers and service providers to determine its findings. Most of the victims are women and girls, but the report notes a small number of respondents worked with male or trans-identified survivors. Interviewees said most victims and survivors they encountered were between the ages of 18 to 24, but ranged from 12 to 50.

In Alberta, shuttling victims between Calgary, Edmonton, Fort McMurray and Grande Prairie allows sex traffickers to find plenty of willing customers near oil patch work camps, and exploit the province's online sex markets, too.

"A growing trend in this corridor is the number of victims and survivors from Quebec who speak little to no English," according to the report. "Not only do language barriers serve as another method of control, but it is also believed that sex buyers see women from Quebec as exotic and novel."

Another well-worn route has perpetrators taking victims from Halifax to Moncton. Corporal David Lane, the RCMP's human-trafficking co-ordinator in Nova Scotia, says the province is well known in the criminal and policing world for exporting victims of human trafficking. (Data published by Statistics Canada in June shows that Nova Scotia and Ontario have higher rates of human trafficking than the national average, citing figures from 2009 to 2018.) Some target women and girls from Nova Scotia because they can sell them the idea of giving them a better life, he said.

"If you're from a rural fishing village in Nova Scotia, and someone offers you to go to live next to the Air Canada Centre in Toronto, to go to Calgary or Vancouver, it would probably be pretty lucrative," Cpl. Lane says, "especially when you thought they were someone you loved." That appears to be a common thread among trafficking victims, according to the report: They often know their abusers. It might even be someone they loved or trusted, such as a boyfriend, a family member or friend.

Detective-Sergeant David Correa is in charge of Toronto Police's human-trafficking enforcement unit. Cases concerning victims from Northern Ontario, Quebec and Atlantic Canada routinely land on his desk. Most of them have been recruited by young men on social media, he says.

His job is to investigate the crimes but also to support the victims, who face enormous pressure to testify in court. Det. Sgt. Correa's unit gathers evidence such as video surveillance to help support their cases. He says his unit will also help victims return to their home city or province.

Many victims are hauled across the country along the TransCanada and 401 highways, which are both notorious for sex trafficking. Ms. Drydyk says perpetrators stop at all the large urban centres along the way to make more profit. "They can use cars to travel really quickly between cities, and they can change their rental car in between those areas to avoid law enforcement detection," she says.

Two other popular thoroughfares for traffickers are Ontario's highways 11 and 17, used to move victims from Sudbury and Thunder Bay through Northern Ontario and onward to Winnipeg. Ms. Drydyk says they view the remoteness of these highways as yet another way to avoid the police.

All that moving around can certainly make it challenging to track their movements. "They're gonna stay in a given hotel, probably a maximum of three days, before they start really bringing attention to themselves," Det. Sgt. Correa says.

Police also face the challenge of getting victims to trust them. They can be reluctant to speak to police because they may have had a bad experience in the past, or their trafficker has forced them to commit fraud or recruit other girls.

The Globe and Mail

Karly Church is a human trafficking crisis-intervention counsellor who works with Victim Services of Durham Region and is embedded with Durham Police's human trafficking unit. She's also a survivor of sex trafficking who provides informal counselling and helps connect victims and survivors to services.

When police meet a victim, she often accompanies them to let them know she can help if they don't want to talk to law enforcement. "I'd say every single time, the individual at least takes my phone number," she says.

Sex trafficking doesn't always involve moving victims around the country. A lot of Ms. Church's younger clients were lured by traffickers at school. Sometimes it's a fellow student or someone they met at a party or on social media.

"A lot of them who are under the age of 18, they go to school Monday to Friday, they come home after school, say they're going to a friend's house, and then they're made to work by their trafficker."

The centre's report makes recommendations based on its findings, including investing in more interjurisdictional law enforcement teams and mandatory training for all levels of law enforcement. It urges finding ways to make the legal process less traumatizing for survivors, and encourages stronger partnerships between governments and organizations that work with survivors - as well as sectors used by traffickers, such as hotels and rental car companies.

"We implore all levels of government to work together on this issue and commit to funding anti-human-trafficking initiatives in perpetuity to ensure that programs and services can focus on what matters most: providing exceptional, meaningful and effective supports to victims and survivors," the report reads.

How trafficking affects victims

Nova Scotia and Ontario have higher rates of human trafficking than the national average, with women and girls often lured by people close to them or over social media. Their traffickers then force them across the country. The Globe and Mail spoke with two women who shared their personal experiences being sex trafficked and a third woman who shares her daughter's story.

Vanessa Tynes-Jass

Vanessa Tynes-Jass was a 17-year-old straight-A student when she met the first man who trafficked her.

At the time - three decades ago - she was living in a rooming house in Dartmouth. A group of girls lived in the back of the house, and Ms. Tynes-Jass used to watch them put on makeup and go out at night. But she was busy with school and her job at McDonald's, and didn't think too much about what they were doing.

The girls started inviting her on shopping trips and to restaurants, telling her not to worry about paying because the owner of the house covered the bills. It turned out the man - who lived there with his family - was a pimp. After a few weeks of shopping trips, he told Ms. Tynes-Jass she couldn't stay unless she did what the other girls did. She remembers asking, "What's that?"

That night, she says, "they did me up and took me out, and I got turned out that night. So that's the beginning of it."

Over the course of 18 months, Ms. Tynes-Jass was trafficked by three different men and raped over and over again. She tried repeatedly to escape, but she wasn't allowed to keep any money, and her pimps monitored her every move. She felt detached from her head and her heart, numbing herself to cope with the trauma.

The first time she hatched a plan to escape, her roommate went missing, so instead of making a run for it, Ms. Tynes-Jass went searching for her. The next morning, she heard on the radio that a body had been found in a garbage can. She went to the morgue and still remembers staring into her friend's face.

That night, her pimp made her stand in the same spot her friend who was killed had worked the night before.

She was working up the courage to escape again when she was recruited by a group of girls who promised her their pimp would protect her. Instead, he put her in the backseat of a car and took her to Montreal.

Ms. Tynes-Jass's anxiety swelled as they passed swaths of dense forest, taking her farther away from home. She knew of other girls who'd been taken and never returned.

"I had no say in the decision," she says. "I had no say whatsoever."

In desperation, she jumped out of the car before they reached Montreal and ran to a payphone to call police. But her freedom was fleeting.

She fell into the grips of a third man who sent her all over the country, making her stay with his family members or people he knew, so she was always watched.

"They would just trade girls," Ms. Tynes-Jass says. "It's like you're a thing. You're nothing to them. ... They try to get you pregnant so you're tied to them, so you can't leave. You're like a slave."

After hiding enough money to buy her freedom, Ms. Tynes-Jass rented an apartment in Dartmouth. She remembers lying on the floor, thinking she was free. But the pimp and his friends found her and beat her so badly she thought she was going to die.

"They were kicking me in the head and the stomach, and I was telling myself, 'You can't pass out.' They put me in a basement, and I got raped that night."

She managed to escape again, taking a bus to herhometown of Truro. But when she arrived, the pimp was waiting for her in the parking lot. She refused to get off the bus until someone came to help - armed with a baseball bat.

After she was finally free for good, Ms. Tynes-Jass became pregnant and had a son. She returned to high school at the age of 20, secured a scholarship to Dalhousie University and went on to become a lawyer. She wanted to reach for a career that was beyond her wildest dreams, and strived to take care of her son.

She got married and started practising law in Halifax. But she was constantly reminded of what had happened to her in Nova Scotia. She now lives in Toronto with her family, where she runs a practice focused on family law and residential real estate. She also operates a charity called Survivors Unleashed International, which provides education funding to victims of trafficking.

Ms. Tynes-Jass says governments, schools and parents need to acknowledge the threat of sex trafficking and talk more about how girls are coerced.

"The real issue is these little girls are looking for love, and these pimps are exploiting that for their own greed and financial gain," she says. "But they're ruining lives in the process."

Jennifer Holleman

Jennifer Holleman can never forget the moment she found out her 21-year-old daughter, Maddison Fraser, was dead.

It was July 8, 2015 - a Wednesday. Ms. Holleman and her then-partner were camping in Annapolis Royal, in western Nova Scotia. Her partner's phone rang, and he quickly passed it to Ms. Holleman. It was her other daughter, who had grim news to deliver: Maddison, who had a three-year-old child, was riding in a vehicle with a man believed to have purchased her for sexual services. Around 2:15 a.m., the driver lost control and the car flipped, smashing into an apartment building. Both Maddison and the driver died.

"I just dropped in the trailer," Ms. Holleman says.

Maddison was 19 when she moved to Grand Prairie, Alta., along with her baby and a friend her mother thought was a bad influence. Soon, Ms. Holleman started receiving photos sent by concerned friends - one of Maddison advertised on a website for sexual services, another of Maddison beaten so badly, her own mother didn't recognize her. Ms. Holleman tried talking to her daughter, but the more questions she asked, the more Maddison pushed her away.

Ms. Holleman has since learned that Maddison was sex-trafficked across Alberta and Ontario for roughly two-and-a-half years before her death. In the time since, she has tried to piece together what happened to her girl. She knows her daughter's perpetrators controlled her with violence and took away her ID. They even prevented Maddison from tending to her baby, and in May, 2013, Ms. Holleman travelled to Alberta to pick up her grandchild and bring her back to Nova Scotia.

"I don't know how Maddison lived as long as she did," Ms. Holleman says through tears. "That's probably one of the hardest things for me to say. Because they just put her through hell."

After Maddison's death, Ms. Holleman went through her phone. It held what she thought was an important clue: a voice message her daughter sent to a friend, naming men who attacked her. On the recording, Maddison can be heard saying the men beat her badly, burned her with cigarettes and lit her hair on fire.

Maddison's medical records - which Ms. Holleman fought to access - confirmed that and more: She had been raped multiple times, and had multiple contusions and bruised ribs. She'd had seven abortions in less than three years.

According to doctors' notes, they asked Maddison if she wanted to contact the RCMP. She declined.

The RCMP launched an investigation into the assault in August, 2015, a month after Maddison's death. Corporal Deanna Fontaine, a media relations officer with Western Alberta District RCMP, told The Globe the investigation involved following up on information provided by Ms. Holleman.

By 2018, Cpl. Fontaine says the RCMP had exhausted all investigative avenues. Two reviews of the evidence concluded there were insufficient grounds to support charges, though she says the RCMP identified "a number of subjects of interest." The investigation remains open.

Today Maddison's daughter is 9, and though she now lives with her father, he and Ms. Holleman share joint custody.

"She's going to have a happy life, and I don't care what I have to do to make the majority of it roses and butterflies," Ms. Holleman says. "That's the way it's going to be."

Caroline Pugh-Roberts

Caroline Pugh-Roberts often wakes up to texts in the middle of the night from unknown numbers with the simple words: "I heard you could help me."

Ms. Pugh-Roberts works at the Salvation Army in London, Ont., where she runs a program for people who have been, or are at risk of being, trafficked. That includes providing food and support and, most crucially, help escaping their abusers.

Drive by any hotel in London, according to Ms. Pugh-Roberts, and it's likely someone is being forced to perform sex work there. "It's that bad," she says. The London Abused Women's Centre says it provided support to 1,342 prostituted, trafficked and sexually exploited women and girls in its 2019-2020 fiscal year. Ms. Pugh-Roberts attributes London's trafficking problem to its location along Ontario's 401 highway.

Many of the victims who reach out for help find her through word of mouth, she says, "because ... I have street cred, for lack of a better way of putting it."

Ms. Pugh-Roberts was trafficked for eight years. She was 35 when she met her trafficker - her boyfriend - in London. She'd recently lost her husband, mother and two best friends, and she was vulnerable. He promised to take care of her.

But when they were confronted with being evicted from their apartment, her boyfriend turned on her, she says, and forced her into the sex trade. He told her she had to take care of "the family."

He trafficked her in hotels, strip clubs, massage parlours and parks from Sarnia, Ont., to Toronto, with stops in cities and towns along the 401, including small centres like Princeton, outside of Woodstock.

Ms. Pugh-Roberts lived in and out of shelters before she was finally able to escape. She has never reported her perpetrators because they were associated with organized crime.

Now her mission is to help others. Ms. Pugh-Roberts says the victim stories she has heard through the pandemic have changed. She hears from a lot of girls - some as young as 12 - and increasingly they're being trafficked by their families.

She points to one young woman in particular, whom she met this past spring at a local park. (It's been harder to meet victims in relative privacy during COVID-19, with regular meeting places closed.)

The pair sat across from each other on a blanket. The 21-year-old victim had dark circles around her eyes and red marks on her neck, Ms. Pugh-Roberts says. "She was limp. Her body was just slumped. You could see the dejection, the hopelessness and the despondency. It was so visible."

When speaking to victims, Ms. Pugh-Roberts says she never uses the term "trafficking" - that's just not the kind of language victims use. Instead, she asked the young woman if someone was hurting her. The answer was yes - she told Ms. Pugh-Roberts her boyfriend was forcing her to perform sex acts both in person and via webcam.

During online sessions, he would stand on the sidelines, telling her what to do. When a purchaser told her to strangle herself with a tie, she pretended to pass out. Her boyfriend insisted she strangle herself until she was unconscious.

Ms. Pugh-Roberts says that young woman has not been able to escape her abuser.

She understands just how difficult it can be - it took Ms. Pugh-Roberts several attempts before she finally got away from her trafficker. "People say, 'Why didn't you leave?'" she says. "Oh, my god, there are so many barriers."

What those people should be asking instead is why men continue to do this to women and what can be done to stop them.

"The onus is always on the victim," she says. "It has to stop."

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How Canada's sex traffickers evade capture and isolate victims to prevent their escape

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Sex traffickers are using the country's major highway networks to transport women and girls, taking them to small towns and cities in order to isolate them, avoid police and maximize their financial gain, according to the first research in Canada analyzing how victims are moved.

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"Just the Facts"

https://cwp-csp.ca/poverty/just-the-facts/

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As of 2019, an estimated 10% of people in Canada currently live in conditions of poverty, but the poverty rate is expected to increase with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Poverty statistics exclude people living in hidden poverty, which occurs when an individual earns above the poverty line, but cannot afford adequate food, hydro bills, childcare, or other basic necessities. Hidden poverty also encompasses undocumented people in Canada, and people who are on the brink of poverty.

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Poverty entails more than the lack of income and productive resources to ensure sustainable livelihoods. Its manifestations include hunger and malnutrition, limited access to education and other basic services, social discrimination and exclusion, as well as the lack of participation in decision-making -The United Nations Poverty is a violation of the most fundamental human rights possessed by every person.

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"Clean running water still a luxury on many native reserves".

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For most Canadians, an unlimited supply of clean water flowing freely from a tap and imperceptibly whisking away their waste at the simple push of a lever is a given; for many First Nations, it's a luxury their communities can't afford.

"We have water fountains in the community store; for sewage, we still use outdoor washrooms," said Ian Knott, a band councillor who oversees water and sewer projects for the Wasagamack First Nation in northern Manitoba.

The Cree community, which is on the western shore of Island Lake, about 600 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, built a water treatment plant five years ago and installed water mains in one part of the reserve, but progress since then has been slow, says Knott.

About 60 per cent of the 1,500 residents there still have no indoor plumbing and must resort to using outhouses, slop pails or cisterns, whose contents are periodically hauled away by sewage trucks. Water is retrieved from communal standpipes or delivered to households by truck.

First Nations infrastructure

The CBC News series The Big Fix examines Canada's crumbling infrastructure and what's needed to repair it. Stories that look at infrastructure challenges facing First Nations include:

Infrastructure overview: Shacks and slop pails: infrastructure crisis on native reserves. Read the article

Housing: Nearly half of the houses on Canadian reserves require major repairs, and overcrowding rates are six times greater on reserve than off. Read the article

Pikangikum: Watch Coleen Rajotte's report on the troubled Ojibwa community and visit the 8th Fire Facebook site to get a preview of 8th Fire, an upcoming CBC-Radio-Canada documentary series on aboriginal peoples in Canada.

"The last time we had something done, [federal officials] said in three years' time we'll do more water lines, but it's been five years now, because the money is tied up elsewhere," Knott said.

Money gets diverted to other communities with their own water problems, and projects get delayed, he said. Meanwhile, the price of materials and transportation to get them to the remote fly-in community rises, and by the time the money does become available, it doesn't cover the full cost of the original project.

"Every year, costs go up and, somehow, we tend to lose out," Knott said. "They do less than what was projected."

Health problems

Manitoba reserves have some of the worst water problems in the country: six per cent of homes on reserves in that province have no water service at all. Recent attention from local media and a Liberal motion in the House of Commons prompted Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Duncan to announce that the government would spend $5.5 million to help improve infrastructure in the four communities that make up the Island Lake First Nations, including Wasagamack.

First Nations are responsible for 20 per cent of the costs of maintaining water and sewer systems, and the federal government funds the rest. But in many instances, the federal allocations are not enough to ensure a fully functioning water and sewage system that provides clean, safe water to all homes on reserve.

Even when water is available, it is often inadequately treated or compromised by corroded pipes and aging distribution systems. More than 120 First Nations communities were under a Health Canada water advisory as of Oct. 31.

Attawapiskat, a Cree community on James Bay in northern Ontario, has been wanting to replace its degraded intake system, which draws water from a small local lake to the community's treatment plant, for 10 years but hasn't been able to afford to do so and recently had to suspend water service.

"Right now, people have to pick up water," said Chief Theresa Spence. "They can't use their water tap, because [the water] has a different taste to it."

'I wouldn't agree that the funding has been insufficient.'- Gail Mitchell, Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada

The combination of improper sanitation and bad water quality can lead to a number of health problems, including skin rashes and infections, diarrhea and other gastrointestinal illnesses. It also means infections take longer to heal and infectious diseases spread more easily.

The government says that since 2006 it has spent $2.5 billion on water and wastewater services in First Nations communities, including commitments made through to 2013.

"On an annual basis, the investment is significant, so I wouldn't agree that the funding has been insufficient," said Gail Mitchell, director-general for community infrastructure at Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development Canada (AANDC).

"I would agree that it's always hard to manage and balance the many priorities that governments face, so that's why, when it comes to infrastructure, long-term planning is so key, and we do support communities in developing five-year plans."

Promises, promises

Over the years, successive governments have vowed to improve water quality and access on reserves in the wake of embarrassing crises such as the 2005 E. coli outbreak in Kashechewan, which had to have more than 1,000 residents airlifted out of the northern Ontario reserve after they became sick from high levels of the bacteria in their drinking water and developed skin problems from the excessive amount of chlorine used to treat it.

But a recent government-commissioned assessment of water and sewer services on reserves suggests many communities remain vulnerable to the health and environmental problems that result from poor water quality and inadequate sanitation.

The assessment, which was released in April 2011, looked at the water and sewer systems of 571 First Nations (with a total population of 484,321 and 112,836 "dwellings") and evaluated their water source and how well each system was designed, operated and monitored.

It categorized 39 per cent of the water systems as "high risk," meaning they have "major deficiencies" that pose a high risk to water quality and could lead to potential health and safety or environmental concerns. Thirty-four per cent were assessed as posing medium risk to the quality of water and health and having deficiencies that "should be corrected to avoid future problems."

More than half of water systems on B.C. reserves and 46 per cent of those on Ontario reserves were considered high risk. Ontario also had the highest percentage (36 per cent) of sewage systems deemed high risk.

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Although the AANDC's protocol on drinking water on reserves is based on provincial standards, there is no regulatory enforcement mechanism to ensure those standards are being met. First Nations are responsible for monitoring water quality in co-operation with Health Canada. But the 2011 auditor general's report found that AANDC and Health Canada "do not ensure that drinking water is tested on a regular basis."

AUDIO: Life on reserve

Listen to CBC Radio's Karen Pauls report on life on two Manitoba reserves:

The water problems on the Garden Hill First Nation have caught the attention of the Mennonite Central Committee, which usually works in developing countries. LISTEN

Three generations of the Harper family live in a home on the Wasagamack reserve with no running water and a slop pail for a toilet. LISTEN

The government did introduce a water standards bill for reserves last year, but it died on the order paper and has not yet been reintroduced. Even when the bill does resurface, it will likely be some time before it takes effect.

The Assembly of First Nations (AFN) opposed the first draft of the bill, which it said would give the federal government too much power to unilaterally impose the legislation and override treaty rights and First Nations bylaws.

"One of the principal issues is not only the content of what needs to be done but how it needs to be done," said AFN National Chief Shawn Atleo. "Bringing First Nations as full partners to designing solutions is not simply accomplished by a junior bureaucrat phoning up a chief and saying, 'You know, we have a solution for you, by the way; it's just a matter of you agreeing with us.' That's the pattern that got us in this position in the first place."

A big investment

Even with a water standards act in place, the task of bringing reserves' rudimentary water and sewer infrastructure up to those standards will be a colossal job.

The national assessment estimates that it would cost $846 million to bring reserve water systems in line with AANDC's own policies and $316 million to do the same for wastewater systems.

To meet and maintain all current and future water and wastewater needs on reserves for the next 10 years would cost $4.7 billion in servicing and would require an annual operating and maintenance budget of $419 million.

The Department of Aboriginal Affairs has said it will provide additional funding in 2011-12 to 15 of the communities whose water systems were categorized as high risk in the national assessment and upgrade another 57 water systems by 2015-16.

It's not always practical to hook every resident up to a water main in communities that are remote like Wasagamack or ones with low population density, and often, even when a water main is available nearby, many residents can't afford to pay to be hooked up to it.

According to the assessment, 72 per cent of homes on reserve have piped water service; 13.5 per cent are on truck delivery; 13 per cent have individual wells; and 1.5 per cent have no service. For wastewater, 54 per cent are piped; eight per cent are on truck haul; 36 per cent have individual wastewater systems; and 2 per cent have no service.

"Ultimately, First Nations leadership and First Nations communities are making decisions about planning for the delivery of water services to their members, and they're working with the budgets they have available and making choices," Mitchell said.

"So, there's certainly no question that there's a range of services out there that communities are providing, and the issue of infrastructure planning is, I think, at the heart of it."

Trained plant operators key

Treatment plants on reserve are often aging, deficient or operating beyond capacity, and their lifespan is much shorter than it should be.

"Inadequate operation and maintenance practices or improper operation by poorly equipped technicians have resulted in premature replacement of equipment or system components, and service interruptions," the water assessment found.

It went on to note that many communities rely on outdated treatment technology and old guidelines, and are unable to identify contaminants that have long been treated in other parts of Canada.

A lack of plans to protect water sources is also a contributing factor to poor water quality, although the assessment notes that First Nations can't tackle this problem alone, since in many cases the sources of contamination originate off reserve.

One of the primary obstacles that many First Nations face in trying to maintain a well-functioning water and sewage treatment system is a shortage of technicians who are adequately trained to do the necessary monitoring of water quality.

"Sixty per cent of risk relates to who's operating those systems - how they're doing it and the kinds of record keeping and processes that they have in place," said Mitchell.

Only 54 per cent of water and 49 per cent of wastewater systems on reserve have a fully certified primary operator, the assessment found. In the most remote communities, only 26 per cent of systems meet operator requirements.

The government spends $10 million a year to train First Nations members how to operate their water and sewage systems through its Circuit Rider Training Program. But the demand for such expertise still outstrips supply, and many First Nations end up having to hire experts from outside the community to run their treatment plants.

Such is the case in Kashechewan, which has partially upgraded and computerized its water treatment plant since the 2005 crisis and brought in an outside company, which is subject to provincial water quality standards, to operate it.

"We're training our own to be able to take over that responsibility," said Chief Jonathan Solomon. "That's always been the goal. I'm hoping that within a year or a year and a half or two, we will be in that situation."

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Clean running water still a luxury on many native reserves | CBC News

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An unlimited supply of clean water flowing freely from a tap and whisking away waste at the simple push of a lever is a given for most Canadians - but it's a luxury that many First Nations communities can't afford.

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"The federal government should fast track the Canada disability benefit."

https://paherald.sk.ca/2021/11/05/the-federal-government-should-fast-track-the-canada-disability-benefit/

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Child labour behind every Canadian's grocery haul, and it may get worse: World Vision

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Child labour behind every Canadian’s grocery haul, and it may get worse: World Vision

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A World Vision report warns Canadians could be contributing to child labour with every grocery trip.

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https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/our-natural-resources/forests-forestry/wildland-fires-insects-disturban/deforestation-canada-key-myths-and-facts/13419

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Deforestation in Canada: Key myths and facts

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At 0.02% of its forested area, deforestation in Canada is among the world’s lowest, yet many myths exist about the state of our forests. The reality is that Canada is a world leader in sustainable forest management. Canadian forests are healthy, productive and thriving.

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https://www.vanaqua.org/marine-mammal-rescue

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"B.C. facility aims to make vehicle fuel from carbon pulled out of the atmosphere"

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/b-c-facility-aims-to-make-vehicle-fuel-from-carbon-pulled-out-of-the-atmosphere-1.5624124

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Ian Holliday CTVNewsVancouver.ca Reporter Follow | Contact

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B.C. facility aims to make vehicle fuel from carbon pulled out of the atmosphere

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The B.C. government, a First Nation in the Interior and a pair of Squamish-based companies are working together on a project that they say could revolutionize the transportation industry by all but eliminating its carbon dioxide emissions.

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https://www.wwf.org.au/news/blogs/plastic-in-our-oceans-is-killing-marine-mammals#gs.f0qwml

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This is what plastic can do to the world's largest predator - the sperm whale.

Cause of death? An inflammation of its abdominal tissues caused by the presence of nearly 30 kilograms of indigestible plastic. Among the items recovered in its gut were shopping bags, fishing nets and a jerry can.

Sadly, marine mammals around the world are suffering similar fates.

How does plastic affect marine life?

While it's difficult to know exactly how many marine animals are killed by plastic pollution, it's been estimated that plastic pollution kills 100,000 marine mammals every year. 81 out of 123 marine mammal species are known to have eaten or been entangled in plastic, and all seven sea turtle species are affected.

There are two principle ways that encountering marine debris can be fatal for these creatures: ingestion (eating) or entanglement in plastic-based fishing gear.

Why do marine mammals eat plastic?

It's estimated that 56% of the planet's whale, dolphin and porpoise species have consumed plastic, but to understand why you need to see the world as they do.

A plastic bag ballooned with water can look a lot like squid, or other prey, to the seals and marine mammals that hunt them.

Even species that don't identify prey by sight aren't safe. Toothed whales, and many species of dolphin, use a sophisticated sonar-type technique called echolocation to find their prey. Some scientists believe that unnatural objects such as plastic waste confuse this sonar, and are incorrectly interpreted as food.

It's possible that such a mistake led to the death of a pregnant pygmy sperm whale discovered stranded on a beach near Melbourne. This whale was euthanised after unsuccessful rescue attempts, and an autopsy revealed a stomach clogged with ingested plastic.

What happens when marine mammals get entangled in plastic?

The other way that plastic pollution effects ocean mammals is through entanglement, and one of the worst offenders here is abandoned fishing gear.

An estimated 640,000 tonnes of the eight million tonnes of plastic that enters the oceans every year is so-called ghost fishing equipment, gear that's either deliberately jettisoned or washed from ships or shorelines.

Left to float in the ocean it continues its deadly purpose, ensnaring unwary marine creatures who venture too close.

Just like us, marine mammals can't breathe underwater, and the most common way that entanglement kills is through drowning.

The results from recovered ghost nets are devastating, and show that it isn't only mammals that are at risk. Here are the combined contents of two ghost nets taken from the waters around the Tiwi Islands and Darwin respectively:

Even if the animals are able to move while entangled, their prospects aren't good.

Rare species such as the humpback dolphin, which is only found in waters around Australia and New Guinea, have been observed with marine debris wrapped tightly around their bodies. If the plastic isn't dislodged, it can cut deep into their skin, leaving the animals open to the risk of deadly infections.

How you can you help?

Marine mammals, of course, don't understand the dangers plastics pose to them. This problem was created by humans, and only humans can fix it.

Every year Australia dumps 130,000 tonnes of plastic into its oceans, and this goes on to indiscriminately kill marine mammals, birds and other creatures.

Turning this tide starts at an individual level:

Recycle everything you can.

Use your own cutlery, food containers and KeepCups when getting takeaway, rather than using disposable alternatives.

Participate in beach or community clean-ups.

Tell the waiter to 'hold the straw' when purchasing drinks.

Most importantly, pledge to #ReduceYourUse today.

Make the pledge today

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.keywords[]
marine mammals; great white shark; sperm whale; plastic; pollution; marine pollution; entanglement; plastic debris; marine; ocean; sea; impacts of plastic; toxic plastic; plastic entanglement; reduce your use; apex predator; porpoise; dolphins; sea lions; plastic bag; ghost fishing; fishing; blacktip reef sharks; sharks; humpback dolphin; recycle; straws;

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Plastic in our oceans is killing marine mammals

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This is what plastic can do to the world's largest predator - the sperm whale. Cause of death? An inflammation of its abdominal tissues caused by the presence of nearly 30 kilograms of indigestible plastic. Among the items recovered in its gut were shopping bags, fishing nets and a jerry can.

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Isabella: Sunny Alberta, home to Canada's largest solar farm 

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Isabella: Sunny Alberta, home to Canada's largest solar farm 

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(1 day ago)

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Poverty Reduction Plan
What we heard: Phase 1

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Julia M: cbc, 2021, Premier promises menstrual products in N.L. school washrooms by 2022

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Julia M: cbc, 2021, Premier promises menstrual products in N.L. school washrooms by 2022

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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/newfoundland-labrador/nl-to-offer-free-period-products-in-schools-1.6223978

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Premier promises menstrual products in N.L. school washrooms by 2022 | CBC News

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In front of a few dozen students at Brother Rice Junior High in St. John’s, Andrew Furey pledged $30,000 to ensure at least one bathroom in any school with students in Grade 4 and up would be equipped with period products.

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"The world's plastic pollution crisis explained"

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/article/plastic-pollution

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The world’s plastic pollution crisis, explained

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Much of the planet is swimming in discarded plastic, which is harming animal and possibly human health. Can plastic pollution be cleaned up?

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Khashoggi fiancée presses for UN probe into his killing after damning report

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The fiancée of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi took her campaign for justice in his killing to the United Nations' top human rights body Tuesday and urged the UN to take "the next step" following a key investigator's finding that Saudi Arabia bears responsibility.

Hatice Cengiz, a Turkish citizen, told a Human Rights Council event in Geneva about her grief over Khashoggi's Oct. 2 slaying at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul when he went there to pick up a document for their marriage.

Cengiz said the possibility her fiancé might not really be dead haunts her because his body hasn't been found, compounding her loss with "an unbelievably different kind of trauma."

She appeared at a 90-minute council "side event" organized by Canada and hosted by advocacy group No Peace Without Justice. Cengiz provided one of several testimonials on the theme "Silencing Dissent."

In her testimony on Khashoggi's killing, Cengiz cited many of independent UN expert Agnes Callamard's findings, which were released last week in a 101-page report.

Callamard, a fellow panellist, laid out an excruciatingly detailed account of the Washington Post columnist's alleged final moments at the consulate. She said more investigation was warranted of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman's possible role in Khashoggi's killing.

Callamard said last week that countries should invoke universal jurisdiction to further bring the perpetrators to justice. Judicial authorities in countries that recognize universal jurisdiction for serious offences such as war crimes and torture can investigate and prosecute those crimes no matter where they were committed.

Speaking through a translator, Cengiz said the report needed to be acted upon and noted the crown prince may one day be Saudi Arabia's head of state.

"The report points to the fact that important Saudi officials, big officials, may have been involved," she said. "It says this should be pursued and it says that an international murder investigation should be opened."

Region a 'vicious, hostile place': Trump

Cengiz said the "international public" needs to exert pressure to ensure the case isn't forgotten "and the United Nations needs to take this to the next step."

Cengiz said in a subsequent interview with The Associated Press that she wants U.S. President Donald Trump and other world leaders to press the issue at the G20 summit in Osaka, Japan, where the crown prince is on the guest list.

"Saudi Arabia needs to take steps in order for us to find out the truth about this incident. They have to be punished in some way," Cengiz said. "This incident cannot remain unanswered."

During her comments at Tuesday's panel, Callamard, an academic and longtime human rights advocate, took up broader themes. She decried a trend of violence against journalists and others who speak truth to power.

"The targeted killings of journalists, human rights defenders, dissenters more generally, is on the increase," she said. "The most worrying pattern is that impunity for those killings and the continuation of those killings [has] not gone down."

Saudi Arabia is among the 47 member states of the Human Rights Council, which opened its three-week summer session Monday. Callamard was expected to present her report formally to the council on Wednesday, and the Saudi delegation is entitled to give a reply.

Khashoggi was a U.S. resident with children who are American citizens, but the White House has shown little appetite for pressing the matter of this death further.

"I think it's been heavily investigated," Trump told NBC News in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

Trump and other officials have continually stressed the U.S. economic and military partnership with the Saudis as a bulwark against what they see as Iranian aggression in the region.

"Iran's killed many, many people a day. Other countries in the Middle East, this is a hostile place. This is a vicious, hostile place," said Trump. "If you're going to look at Saudi Arabia, look at Iran, look at other countries."

Trump told NBC's Meet the Press in the same interview that the subject of Khashoggi "didn't come up" when he and Mohammed bin Salman spoke on June 20, the day after the report was released. The State Department also said Khashoggi's killing was not part of the discussion when U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo met with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud on Monday.

Most of the speakers criticized alleged rights abuses in Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Diplomats from Western nations and regional countries like Turkey and Qatar were in the audience.

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Khashoggi fiancée presses for UN probe into his killing after damning report | CBC News

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The fiancée of slain journalist Jamal Khashoggi took her campaign for justice in his killing to the United Nations' top human rights body Tuesday and urged the UN to take "the next step" following a key investigator's finding that Saudi Arabia bears responsibility.

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A Global Tragedy for Our Oceans and Sea Life
https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/ocean_plastics/

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Plastic accumulating in our oceans and on our beaches has become a global crisis, with a direct and deadly effect on wildlife. The Center is working to stop plastic pollution at the source.

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"

Dumped fishing gear is biggest plastic polluter in ocean"

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/nov/06/dumped-fishing-gear-is-biggest-plastic-polluter-in-ocean-finds-report#:~:text=Lost%20and%20abandoned%20fishing%20gear,to%20a%20report%20by%20Greenpeace.&text=The%20world's%20governments%20must%20take,account%20for%20its%20dangerous%20waste.

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"COVID-19: LGBTQ student support groups now connecting online"

https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/covid-19-lgbtq-student-support-groups-now-connecting-online

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Support groups for LGBTQ students across B.C. are now meeting online as schools remain closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Support groups for LGBTQ students across B.C. are now meeting online as schools remain closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

B.C.'s Gay-Straight or Gender and Sexuality Alliances are now meeting virtually for the first time, after educators from 40 school districts, 14 independent schools and two First Nations recently received webinar training to ensure students' privacy and safety are protected while hosting virtual GSA meetups.

GSAs allow students grappling with gender identity or sexuality to seek support in the school community. Studies have shown that the presence of a GSA group at a school for three years or more can lead to lower rates of suicidal thoughts in both gay and straight kids.

Start your day with a roundup of B.C.-focused news and opinion delivered straight to your inbox at 7 a.m., Monday to Friday.

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The groups are student-run and student-led but require an educator to sponsor. Teacher sponsors have faced challenges in getting the word out about virtual GSA meetups, as some students use preferred names and may not necessarily be directly connected with the sponsors otherwise.

"We know that LGBTQ2S+ kids report higher rates of feeling isolated and for some students, their school community was the only place where they could be their authentic selves," said Education Minister Rob Fleming in a statement shared Sunday.

"That's why now, more than ever, it's so important for LGBTQ2S+ children and youth to stay connected and to know that they have safe, confidential outlets to virtually socialize with each other."

Physical distancing guidelines ordered by health officials to stop the spread of COVID-19 has meant many students who participating in GSAs have been disconnected from their support groups and social circles while at home. Officials are encouraging LGBTQ students to reach out to a teacher or trusted person at their school to learn how to join a virtual GSA.
For those seeking supports, here are some resources available to LGBTQ students:
* Erase (Expect Respect and a Safe Education): ERASE.gov.bc.ca
* Provincial crises lines and online support for youth: youthinbc.com
* National call, text, or online support for youth: +1 800 668-6868 or visit kidshelpphone.ca
* Online trans-led organization that connects trans people to resources, including a call-in line: translifeline.org

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COVID-19: LGBTQ student support groups now connecting online

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Support groups for LGBTQ students across B.C. are now meeting online as schools remain closed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Support groups for LGBTQ students across B.C. are now meeting online as schools remain closed during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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https://ocean.org/about/

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We are connected to the ocean. We rely on it for food, water and clean energy. Two of every three breaths we take come from it. The ocean is also our first line of defence against climate change.

Fortunately, we have the power to rebuild a resilient and vibrant ocean. Together, we are shaping a globally sustainable future - for us, our children and future generations.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We are connected to the ocean. We rely on it for food, water and clean energy. Two of every three breaths we take come from it. The ocean is also our first line of defence against climate change. Fortunately, we have the power to rebuild a resilient and vibrant ocean.

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"Why universities are failing to prepare students for the job market".

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.authors[].name
Melissa Gismondi · Posted: Oct 13, 2021 10:02 AM ET | Last Updated: April 11

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Why universities are failing to prepare students for the job market | CBC Radio

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Universities in the 21st century face a host of challenges, from slashed budgets to overworked contract faculty. And in a competitive economy, some students are wondering if a B.A. is still worth the time and money. IDEAS considers the idea of universities in crisis, what can be done to make them be…

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"New mapping shows how climate change could flood low-lying areas in Vancouver and beyond"

https://vancouversun.com/news/national/new-mapping-shows-how-climate-change-could-flood-low-lying-areas-in-vancouver-and-beyond

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The researcher superimposed data on web-based maps to show how much lower-lying areas might be covered by water under various climate change models

Low-lying areas of major cities like Vancouver and Montreal could become inundated with floods in the next 80 years under various climate change scenarios, suggests a floodplains map developed by a Western University researcher.

The maps, created by engineering professor Slobodan Simonovic, are a visual distillation of almost 150,000 reference documents - including current and historical rainfall and snow-melt runoff data, topographic analyses, urbanization factors that impede effective drainage and a range of climate projections.

Simonovic superimposed the data on web-based maps to show potential future flood inundation - how much of an area is covered by water - as well as how often and how significant floods could be.

The maps, which show flood impacts on a Canada-wide scale in a standardized way, identify areas where rivers are most likely to overflow, including the Assiniboine and Red rivers that converge on Winnipeg and the Fraser Valley that runs through Vancouver.

Simonovic said other vulnerable streams are found in parts of northern Ontario, Quebec and British Columbia, the Mackenzie River in Northwest Territories, and much of the island of Montreal.

One of his goals was to show the public the impact of floods resulting from climate change.

"It means basically more land will be flooded, more land will be underwater during these extreme events," he said, adding that 30 per cent more of Canada could be flooded by 2100, with a flood depth increase of up to 60 per cent.

"Obviously, this is not every location within the country. There are some areas higher risk than others, but an overall increase up to that level is a very significant message."

Users of the maps can search by postal code and zero in on neighbourhoods, or compare current 100-year flood zones to those forecast under worst-, mid- or best-case climate change scenarios 60 and 80 years from now.

Simonovic, an award-winning flood expert, said understanding the location and extent of flood risk can help insurers, engineers, homebuilders, conservation authorities and governments at every level plan better policies and stronger flood protection.

He said the next steps for his project are to expand the mapping to include coastal flooding and fine-tune projections to even smaller grids with greater neighbourhood detail.

His mapping work was funded through a collaborative grant from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) and Chaucer Syndicate, a group representing insurers of insurance companies across Canada.

"Definitely the message is we have to rethink, prepare better and re-evaluate the risk at important locations," Simonovic said, adding that approximately four million Canadians now live in flood-affected areas.

"Our work is one step towards better understanding that these consequences of climate change are significant in Canada."

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New mapping shows how climate change could flood low-lying areas in Vancouver and beyond

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The researcher superimposed data on web-based maps to show how much lower-lying areas might be covered by water under various climate change models Low-lying areas of major cities like Vancouver and Montreal could become inundated with floods in the next 80 years under various climate change scenarios, suggests a floodplains map developed by a Western University researcher.

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We are pleased to publish the original press release from the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Center, announcing their ban on the sale of single-use plastic water bottles:
https://plasticoceans.org/vancouver-aquarium-marine-science-centre/

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We are pleased to publish the original press release from the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Center, announcing their ban the sale of single-use plastic water bottles:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 12, 2017

Vancouver, B.C. - The stomach of a sperm whale. The nostril of a green sea turtle. The bloodstream of a Pacific salmon. The gut of zooplankton. Plastics are being ingested by ocean wildlife across the aquatic food chain, from bottom feeders to apex predators. In response, and as part of its ongoing sustainability efforts, the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre has taken a leadership stance and today announced it is the first zoo or aquarium in Canada to discontinue its sales of single-use plastic water bottles. Instead, visitors are being asked to BYOB (bring your own bottle) when they plan their next visit.

Single-use plastic water bottles accounted for 37,000 bottles sold onsite in 2016. These disposable polluters now join a host of other plastic items the Aquarium has removed, including plastic straws, cup lids and cutlery. Diners at the Aquarium have long had peace of mind knowing they are using compostable plateware and cutlery, and can now stay hydrated in a more eco-friendly way. Vancouver Aquarium has taken this latest step to eradicate single-use plastic water bottles to further reduce its ocean plastic footprint and raise awareness about the long-lasting harm caused by these ubiquitous plastic items.

"Humans are producing tremendous amounts of plastic at a time when the problem has never been more pressing. Currently, there is enough plastic in the ocean to cover every metre of world's coastlines. There is a great dependency on single-use plastic water bottles that we must curb and the Aquarium, as an ocean conservation organization, is fully committed to doing our part," said Dr. John Nightingale, president and CEO, Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre. "We encourage our community, stakeholders and followers to join us in this step to reduce the amount of single-use plastic we are all using. There is great power in numbers, and we all have a duty to ensure our practices and choices are sustainable and contributing to the health of our planet."

With this new policy, visitors to the Aquarium are encouraged to bring their own reusable water bottles. Four new state-of-the-art water fountains and bottle fill stations have been installed in the Aquarium's galleries and will soon be outfitted with counting capabilities to track the number of bottles that are being saved by visitors using refill stations. An additional outdoor water fountain will be installed for Stanley Park and Aquarium visitors through a partnership with the City of Vancouver.

In order to draw attention to the issue of marine life ingesting plastic, a creative, new art installation is now on display in the Ocean Wise Art Atrium. Outside, a giant wave made of water bottles represents the approximate number that were sold in the Café from September - November of last year. Inside, a 20-foot model of a humpback whale hangs in the atrium, among waves made of about 1,200 empty single-use plastic water bottles which represents the average amount of bottles that are being eliminated from the Aquarium's waste stream in a two-week period. From April 12 - 17, 2017, the Aquarium is inviting people to guess the number of plastic bottles that are in the outdoor plastic wave. The winner will receive a behind-the-scenes tour for four, and a set of stainless steel, reusable water bottles.

The installation serves to educate guests and Stanley Park visitors about the global impact of plastics. Since 1950, world plastic production has risen from about 1.9 metric tons to 330 million metric tons in 2013. About 8 million metric tons of this plastic end up in the oceans every year, with up to 80 per cent of it coming from land-based sources, such as landfills. Vulnerable sea life, including whales, sea turtles and sea birds, easily mistake plastic items for food and ingest them. The plastic can result in blockages in the animals' digestive systems and can result in injury and death.

Plastics, including single-use water bottles, do not fully break down, and instead break up into smaller fragments called microplastics. Microplastics are an area of focus for the Aquarium's Ocean Pollution Research Program, headed by Dr. Peter Ross. Dr. Ross discovered that microplastics are being ingested by zooplankton, at the very bottom of the food chain, and making their way into larger animals, such as salmon and, eventually, their predators including whales. One of his studies found that , based off the amounts of microplastics in zooplankton, a humpback whale feeding on these microscopic creatures could ingest up to 300,000 microplastic particles per day.

The BYOB policy is part of the Vancouver Aquarium's ongoing sustainability efforts. Since 2009, Vancouver Aquarium has operated an ISO14001 certified Environmental Management System (EMS).The EMS ensures the Aquarium manages its environmental program in a comprehensive, systematic, planned and documented manner. Two areas of the facility, the entrance complex and the Aquaquest building, have also received LEED Gold certification and Vancouver Aquarium was the first zoo or aquarium globally to receive this certification.

The Aquarium was also recently named a member of the National Zero Waste Council, a leadership initiative that brings together Canada's five largest metropolitan regions with like-minded organizations, businesses, non-profits and government to raise awareness and address change for waste generation. The onsite recycling program includes traditional recyclables, as well as more unique items like foil-lined packaging, thin plastic, electronics, and batteries. Food Service operations use 100 per cent compostable packaging and serving ware, and have eliminated straws, cup lids, single-use tea packets in an effort to be zero waste to landfill.

Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science CentreThe Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Centre is a non-profit society dedicated to the conservation of aquatic life. www.vanaqua.org.

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VANCOUVER AQUARIUM MARINE SCIENCE CENTRE FIRST ZOO OR AQUARIUM IN CANADA TO DISCONTINUE SALES OF SINGLE-USE PLASTIC WATER BOTTLES

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
We are pleased to publish the original press release from the Vancouver Aquarium Marine Science Center, announcing their ban the sale of single-use plastic water bottles: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: April 12, 2017 Vancouver, B.C. - The stomach of a sperm whale. The nostril of a green sea turtle.

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https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/prince-edward-island/pei-homelessness-gathering-nov-2021-1.6239057

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‘Enough is enough’: Group gathers to raise awareness about people facing homelessness on P.E.I. | CBC News

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People raising awareness around those facing homelessness on P.E.I. gathered outside the legislature on Friday afternoon.

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New 'pay what you feel' grocery store aims to combat food insecurity in Vancouver

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New 'pay what you feel' grocery store aims to combat food insecurity in Vancouver | CBC News

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More than 35.5 million tonnes of food are thrown out each year in Canada, but one group in Vancouver is hoping to divert some of that to help people who are food insecure. The Food Stash Foundation is opening the doors to the Rescued Food Market for the first time today.

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cbc (2021)

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Our planet is changing. So is our journalism. This story is part of a CBC News initiative entitled "Our Changing Planet" to show and explain the effects of climate change and what is being done about it. This column is an opinion from Thomas Gunton, a professor and founding director of the Resource and Environmental Planning program at Simon Fraser University. For more information about, please see the .
The upcoming UN climate conference, combined with the recent election results, provide the Canadian government with a renewed mandate to tackle climate change.

So where is Canada at on climate strategy?

The good news is that all the parties' election platforms made a strong commitment to addressing climate change and our evaluation shows that Canada has made significant progress in strengthening its climate policies with initiatives, including the new Emissions Accountability Act and higher carbon taxes, and the technologies exist to dramatically cut emissions.

The bad news is that Canada's record is near the bottom of the pack. Our emissions are the third highest per capita among developed countries and we have the second worst record in reducing emissions among the G7 nations.

And the most recent UN Emissions Gap report warns that, even if all countries fully implement their proposed GHG reduction policies, the world is on course for a temperature rise of 2.7 C, almost double the Paris goal of 1.5 C. Clearly, more work needs to be done.

The first component of a renewed effort is to ensure that Canada's climate targets are consistent with the Paris goals to limit global warming to between 1.5 and 2 C. According to the UN, this requires a reduction in GHG emissions of 45 per cent by 2030 and net zero by 2050.

While there is a persuasive case that wealthy countries like Canada that have underachieved on climate reductions should have higher reduction targets, the 2030 target of between 40 to 45 per cent is close to the UN goal.

But as Canada's poor record in meeting past targets shows, targets mean nothing if you do not achieve them. Therefore, the next priority is to develop a plan that is independently verified to meet the targets and one of the steps in independent verification is to direct the Canadian Energy Regulator to model a net zero plan for Canada.

The government's show that the plan released in December 2020 and updated in the 2021 budget could reduce emissions by between 31 and 36 per cent, which is well short of the 40-45 per cent target, and there is no plan to achieve the 2050 net zero target. Canada clearly needs to strengthen its plan.

Although the specifics will vary from country to country, the International Energy Agency (IEA) provides an outline of a plan to achieve net zero that can be a guide for Canada.

The first key component of the IEA plan is to decarbonize the transportation sector by adopting a 60 per cent zero-emission vehicle (ZEV) sales mandate for new cars by 2030 and 100 per cent by 2035, as well as a 50 per cent ZEV mandate for heavy duty vehicles by 2035.

Transportation accounts for of Canada's emissions, so decarbonizing this sector is a priority. The Liberal transportation targets are generally consistent with the IEA proposals. However, there are several serious gaps.

Binding mandates needed

First, we lack legally binding national ZEV sales mandates to achieve these targets. The federal government announced its intention to do this for car sales, but needs to implement this commitment and extend the legislated mandate to heavy duty vehicle sales as well.

The second component of the IEA plan is to decarbonize the electricity sector by 2035. Both the and have committed to this (the NDP by 2030). But our evaluation concluded that decarbonizing electricity is impeded by the replacement of coal with natural gas. The electricity sector can only be decarbonized if coal is replaced by renewables and any natural gas needed for back-up is carbon neutral.

A third component of the IEA plan is for all new buildings to be zero carbon ready by 2030 and 50 per cent of existing buildings be zero carbon by 2040, rising to 85 per cent by 2050. Here again the platforms of the Liberals and NDP are generally consistent with the IEA plan, but the plans for achieving these targets lack necessary details.

The fourth component of the IEA plan is to immediately prohibit development of any new oil and gas fields and coal mines. This is arguably the most challenging area for Canada, given the economic significance and political influence of the fossil fuel sector and the fact that it accounts for just over one-quarter of Canada's emissions.

The Liberal platform promises action, including banning thermal coal exports and new regulations to reduce methane emissions by 75 per cent by 2030. But the overall climate strategy for the oil and gas sector is vague, featuring phrases such as "make sure that the oil and gas sector reduces emissions at a scale and pace to achieve net zero by 2050." There is no plan to get there and no commitment to follow the IEA strategy to prohibit the expansion of new oil and gas fields.

More distressing is that the government has been supporting the expansion of the oil and gas sector by providing of financial support for new fossil fuel pipelines such as the Trans Mountain Expansion.

As this month's UN Production Gap report warns, these policies to expand the fossil fuel sector are inconsistent with the goal to achieve net zero by 2050 and it is critical "that fossil fuel production start declining immediately and steeply to be consistent with limiting long-term warming to 1.5 C."

Therefore, to meet its climate objectives, it is critical that the government set binding targets and eliminate subsidies for the oil and gas sector as well as halt development of major fossil fuel infrastructure projects.

A just transition

Another essential component of a climate strategy is a just transition that protects the most vulnerable from any adverse impacts of climate change and climate policies and addresses reconciliation with Indigenous communities.

This requires passage of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in all Canadian jurisdictions as well as comprehensive transition strategies for workers in sectors such as oil and gas and income support measures for those negatively impacted by policies such as the carbon tax.

The platforms of the Liberals and NDP commit to these strategies and the Canadian government has been returning most of the carbon tax revenue back to Canadians, but more detailed strategies are required to ensure a just transition.
Do you have a strong opinion that could add insight, illuminate an issue in the news, or change how people think about an issue? We want to hear from you. Here's .
A final priority is climate adaptation. Even if we are successful in meeting the Paris climate goals, the world will still experience significant climate change consequences. Therefore, Canada needs to prioritize development of comprehensive climate adaptation plans that identify the risks and develop policies to mitigate the consequences. Some work has been done in climate adaptation planning, but as the recent heat dome impacts and associated deaths show, we are ill prepared for the coming changes.

Climate change is without question an existential crisis that requires urgent action. The election of a minority government with a strong commitment to addressing climate change and the upcoming UN conference provide a unique opportunity for Canada to become a world leader in climate policy. Let's hope the opportunity is not lost.

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OPINION | This is what Canada's climate strategy should look like | CBC News

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Our planet is changing. So is our journalism. This story is part of a CBC News initiative entitled "Our Changing Planet" to show and explain the effects of climate change and what is being done about it. This column is an opinion from Thomas Gunton, a professor and founding director of the Resource and Environmental Planning program at Simon Fraser University.

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B.C.’s unrecycled plastics contributing to ocean pollution, conservation group says

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At the current pace, scientists predict that in 30 years there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish, and a conservation group says its research shows British Columbia isn't helping the problem.

The Oceans Legacy Foundation believes that one million beverage containers and 2.3 million bottle caps go missing in B.C. each day from the province's recycling system.

"That number was staggering to our research team when we put all the numbers together," executive director and co-founder Chloe Dubois told CTV News Vancouver.

The group obtained the data by taking the number of containers purchased each day and subtracting the number that are returned to recycling depots.

The numbers are just estimates, but concerning ones nonetheless.

That's why OLF wants to see the amount money people are paid to return a container go up.

"The rates right now are set at five cents, so we would like a minimum of at least 10 cents," Dubois said. "But you have other jurisdictions raising it in Europe beyond 37 cents."

As far as the number of caps going missing, the company responsible for collecting containers says the OLF's numbers are likely inaccurate.

Encorp Pacific CEO Allen Langdon said his company does not really enforce a no-cap policy, adding that steps are being taken to encourage more recycling.

"We've launched and are launching an express format that allows people to come down, bring their containers in bags so they don't have to spend time in the depot waiting and waiting in line sorting their containers," Langdon said.

OLF said that's a step in the right direction, but still is not enough.

"If Canada is serious about being a leader in terms of ocean plastics and shoreline litter, they need to start putting their money where their mouth is and helping countless individuals keep our planet clean," Dubois said.

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Plastic trash is compacted into bales for further processing at the waste processing dump on the outskirts of Minsk, Belarus on March 12, 2015. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP, Sergei Grits)

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B.C.'s unrecycled plastics contributing to ocean pollution, conservation group says

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At the current pace, scientists predict that in 30 years there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish, and a conservation group says its research shows British Columbia isn't helping the problem. The Oceans Legacy Foundation believes that one million beverage containers and 2.3 million bottle caps go missing in B.C.

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CTV, Anger after 80 Fla. yearbook photos are altered to mask female students' cleavage, May 26 2021 

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CTV, Anger after 80 Fla. yearbook photos are altered to mask female students' cleavage, May 26 2021 

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https://www.ctvnews.ca/lifestyle/anger-after-80-fla-yearbook-photos-are-altered-to-mask-female-students-cleavage-1.5443072

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Flipping open a yearbook for the first time is normally a moment full of excitement -- but at one Florida high school, some students were left in shock after seeing that their yearbook portraits had been edited.

When Bartram Trail High School freshman Riley O'Keefe saw her yearbook photo, she noticed a black bar was added to cover more of her breasts.

"I couldn't believe that they printed the yearbook looking like that," O'Keefe, 15, told CNN. "And then I started to flip through the yearbook and saw more and more girls with their chest edited."

She texted her mother a photo of it on Wednesday from the school in St. Johns, Florida.

"I know she's worn (the outfit) in school hundreds of times because it's like her go-to outfit," her mother Stephanie Fabre told CNN on Monday, saying she believes the outfit had met the district's dress code. The dress code states that girls' tops "must cover the entire shoulder and they must be modest and not revealing or distracting."

There were 80 photos of female students that were altered in the yearbook this year, the district's Chief of Community Relations Christina Langston told CNN on Monday.

"It is disappointing to be addressing the student picture situation in the Bartram Trail High School Yearbook," St. Johns County School District Superintendent Tim Forson said in a statement to CNN. "Certainly, there has never been an intent to embarrass or shame any student for the clothes that they wear. Unfortunately, we are learning a valuable lesson in the importance of process and understanding that the intent is not always the result."

The high school's website has a disclaimer saying that if student portraits in the yearbook did not match the district's student code of conduct, they may be "digitally adjusted."

"The yearbook coordinator made the decision to edit the photos based on her assessment that the females were not in dress code," Langston said in an email to CNN.

The superintendent said there was an insufficient review before the school decided to edit some of the students' images. He called the staff member involved an "outstanding educator" and said there will be changes in how the content is considered in yearbooks to come.

DRESS CODE PROHIBITS IMMODEST CLOTHING

The student dress code prohibits clothing that is "immodest, revealing, or distracting," according to the district's code of conduct. However, each school's principal has the "final authority" over whether a student's dress is appropriate, the code says.

The anger over the edited yearbook photos is part of a larger issue, said Fabre. It's the district's dress code that needs to be revisited for its inequity with how it treats what girls wear, as opposed to boys, the student's parent said.

"It comes on the heels of a much bigger issue of gender discrimination and these girls being targeted and sexualized for being told that their clothes are wrong," she said. "There's inequality within their dress code."

In the section about all students, the dress code says "students are prohibited from wearing clothing that exposes underwear or that exposes body parts in an indecent or vulgar manner."

Under the "All Students" section, it says, "Tank tops and shirts are not acceptable except in physical education classes."

The girls' section says girls cannot wear skirts that are shorter than four inches from the top of the knee. It also says, "Revealing clothing, pajamas and lingerie are not acceptable. Underwear must not be exposed. Hair curlers and excessive make-up shall not be permitted."

While the dress code for girls and boys each have three entries, the list of rules for boys is shorter. The rules for boys include "boy's pants/slacks must be worn at the waist. No boxer shorts or underwear may be visible. Mustaches and beards shall be neatly trimmed." Pajamas and revealing clothing are not permitted.

The district dress code also prohibits attire that displays "profanity, violence, discriminatory messages, sexually suggestive phrases, advertisements, phrases or symbols of alcohol, tobacco or drugs."

SOME PARENTS SAY DRESS CODE IS OUTDATED

Fabre and some other parents are calling for a change in the district's dress code.

"It's antiquated," Fabre said. She referred to the dress code talking about students not being allowed to wear culottes. "I mean, it's 2021," she said.

"It should be equal across the board," Fabre said. "There needs to be a systematic change in the dress code."

Adrian Bartlett, another parent who is hoping the school changes the dress code, said her daughter, 15-year-old freshman Brooke, also noticed her yearbook photo had been altered.

"You're telling my daughter that she should be ashamed of that part of her body, that she should be covering it up," Bartlett said. "I think that's the completely wrong message to give to young teenage girls who are already going through the body shaming era and trying to understand themselves and then be comfortable with themselves."

Brooke, whose last name her mother asked not be used, has struggled with mental health and body image issues, and the pandemic has made things harder, her mother said.

Her daughter was hospitalized and is undergoing treatment for mental health issues, Bartlett said. Brooke's come a long way and only recently started feeling comfortable wearing clothes to school that weren't baggy sweatshirts, she said.

"In Florida, it's hot 90 per cent of the year here," Bartlett said. "But over the past couple of years, we've seen a lot of our kids wearing these big baggy sweatshirts 24/7, whether it's winter or summer."

While Brooke initially laughed at the terrible Photoshop edit on her portrait, it made her mother worry about what this could do to the teens long term, Bartlett said.

"I do worry about some of these other kids who might not be handling it as well as Brooke and how this could be really damaging for their mental health long term," she said. "It's mental health awareness, and they just completely botched that for all of these kids."

Bartlett, like Fabre, finds the school dress code to be too strict for girls, she said. She's found that it's been difficult to find clothing that complies with the dress code and when her daughter does find something, she doesn't always feel good in it, Bartlett said.

"That affects their self-esteem and creates even more body issues," she said. "There's got to be some kind of happy medium where our girls can feel comfortable going to school, feel confident, but yet still appropriate."

SOME STUDENTS ARGUE DRESS CODE PROTECTS MALES

The inequity between the boys' and girls' dress codes is something that some female students and their parents want addressed.

"I'm really hoping that the school takes a long look at how everyone views women's bodies and takes a leadership role in trying to change that view," O'Keefe said.

The issue also goes beyond the dress code, O'Keefe said.

"It's also how people view our bodies," she said. "For example, if a girl has a smaller chest versus a girl having a larger chest, the girl with a larger chest is much more likely to be dress coded and it's not fair. We should be able to wear the same shirts, the same clothing and not fear being dress coded."

Bartlett agreed, noting that it sends "the wrong message."

"We're telling our girls to cover up and dress modestly to protect the boys," she said. "I think that's just the wrong message. Everybody should be responsible for themselves and our girls to be able to dress comfortably, respectfully."

The parents aren't looking for just an apology, they want long-lasting change that will benefit students in the future, Fabre said.

"Everybody is making it sound like all we're looking for is an apology," Fabre said. "While that is absolutely 100% necessary, the key thing here is that there needs to be a systematic change in the dress code and the consistency of how it's applied."

Besides getting the dress code changed, O'Keefe said she hopes the school will educate the staff and male students.

"I hope they teach the boys that there's nothing wrong with our body," she said. "It's natural, just like theirs. There's no reason why our body should have to be censored and theirs are OK."

Fabre said she and other parents attended a school board workshop on Tuesday, where the school code of conduct was discussed.

Changes were proposed to the student code of conduct, which include dress code changes, Langston said on Tuesday.

"There was quite a bit of public comment," she said. The school board chair said he wanted a "committee to be created to review dress code overall," Langston said.

Langston told CNN that no action is taken at workshops, only the school board meetings which happen the second Tuesday of every month. There is a vote slated on the code of conduct for June 8.

"The Student Code of Conduct contains a portion on dress code and there are some revisions to it this year," Langston said. "Every year the Student Code of Conduct is reviewed around this time of year."

The school is offering a full refund to parents who contact the school about the yearbook issue, Langston said. Yearbooks that are heavily written in will only receive a partial refund.

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Freshman Riley O'Keefe's yearbook photo was edited to cover more of her chest. (Source: From Bartram Trail High School Yearbook via CNN)

Brooke, a 15-year-old freshman, saw her photo was also altered in the yearbook. CNN has blurred portions of these images. (Source: From Bartram Trail High School Yearbook via CNN)

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Anger after 80 Fla. yearbook photos are altered to mask female students' cleavage

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Flipping open a yearbook for the first time is normally a moment full of excitement -- but at one Florida high school, some students were left in shock after seeing that their yearbook portraits had been edited. When Bartram Trail High School freshman Riley O'Keefe saw her yearbook photo, she noticed a black bar was added to cover more of her breasts.

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"School dress codes 'demeaning' to both sexes"

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/school-dress-codes-demeaning-to-both-sexes-1.3072711

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Spaghetti straps. Ultra-short skirts. Excessive cleavage. Midriff-baring tops. Shorts with a hem shorter than where a person's fingertips graze when they are standing.

School dress codes across Canada prohibit all young people from wearing a wide range of potentially inappropriate clothes. But lately more girls are crying foul at rules they say unfairly target their wardrobes.

This week, 17-year-old Lauren Wiggins took a stand against "unjust standards" after receiving a detention for wearing a full-length halter dress that she says school officials considered "inappropriate" and a "sexual distraction."

Over the years, many schools have tended to restrict girls clothing to prevent distracting their male counterparts. But that misguided solution sends the wrong message to both genders, social researchers say, painting girls as shameful seductresses that must be contained and boys as aggressors unable to control their primal urges.

"It's demeaning to girls because it teaches them that their bodies are contaminated, distracting and evil," says Shauna Pomerantz, a Brock University child and youth studies associate professor and author of Girls, Style and School Identities: Dressing the Part.

"It's demeaning to boys because it teaches them that they don't know how to take responsibility for their actions."

Girls' clothing dictates morality

Society has often used girls' fashion as a gauge for morality and to maintain social norms, says Pomerantz.

Schools want to churn out good citizens, so young women are expected to be nice, clean and polite. In other words, girls that look like quintessential good girl Taylor Swift and not the more sexually provocative Miley Cyrus.

Pomerantz recalls how her mother, who attended school in the 1950s in Peterborough, Ont., wore jeans on one particularly cold day. She feared getting in trouble because girls weren't allowed to wear pants to classes yet.

People get nervous when girls' style shifts, she says, pegging the advent of the school dress code debate to around the rise of the Spice Girls and a subsequent wave of pop stars like Britney Spears. That early 2000s era of hyper-sexualized celebrity prompted marketers to gear low-rise jeans and crop tops to tweens.

People took this as a sign that society was veering in the wrong direction, says Pomerantz.

"When schools crack down on girls' dress, I think they're doing this out of fear and out of a sense of control," says Pomerantz. "If we can control girls, then we can control sexual behaviour."

'Unbelievably negative' message for boys

School dress codes have existed for as long as schools have, says Gregg Ingersoll, the superintendent of Anglophone East School District, which encompasses Wiggins's Harrison Trimble High School in Moncton, N.B.

"Most dress codes are just designed to try to keep the focus on the learning and not the focus on someone's body that may or may not be showing, or their undergarments or other things," says Ingersoll.

It's distracting to any gender when students see someone wearing something unexpected in school, he says, like pants hanging below a boy's buttocks.

In N.B., each school in a district sets its own standards for its students, Ingersoll says. The rules at Wiggins's school , for example, prohibit pajamas, pants with frayed cuff s, and visible undergarments.

Harrison Trimble High School dedicates a section of the code to "excessively revealing" clothing, which includes shirts that expose shoulders, backs and midriffs.

Schools' codes of conduct often target girls' clothing and bodies in ways they don't address those of boys, says Rebecca Raby, the chair of Brock University's child and youth studies program. They refer to skirt lengths and cleavage exposure.

Raby has been researching school dress codes for almost a decade and has found they perpetuate the assumption that boys are active sexual beings who look at desirable girls, while girls are only passive objects of their affection.

Rarely are boys sent home for wearing tight muscle shirts and distracting girls, she says.

It's a "very narrow and somewhat insulting" mould to fit young men into, she says, and it places the blame for unwanted attention on young women who often dress for reasons other than impressing the opposite sex.

"The message is unbelievably negative," says Pomerantz. "Boys are aggressive. Boys are out of control. Boys don't know how to think. Boys are disrespectful."

Constantly asking girls to cover up creates a society where young boys don't know how to treat girls, says Pomerantz. The more people project that image on them, the more they adopt it.

"Boys are never being asked to think about how they look at, judge and demean girls."

'Nothing will change' without education

While neither Pomerantz nor Raby argue that dress codes should be eliminated, both say schools ought to include students in ongoing discussions about clothing rules.

Ingersoll says all schools in his district should have consulted students and parents when creating their dress codes, which are regularly reviewed. Parents and students can always lodge a formal re-evaluation as well.

Pomerantz also suggests that school curriculums should cover discussions around respect, sexual harassment and rape. While Raby lauds Ontario's controversial incoming sex education curriculum for introducing the concept of consent and what's appropriate in relationships to both genders.

"Girls are held responsible for anything bad that might happen to them because they were wearing ... spaghetti straps or short shorts or showing their cleavage or showing their tummies," says Pomerantz. "If you don't talk to boys about how to respect girls' bodies, absolutely nothing will change."

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School dress codes 'demeaning' to both sexes | CBC News

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Spaghetti straps. Ultra-short skirts. Excessive cleavage. Midriff-baring tops. Shorts with a hem shorter than where a person's fingertips graze when they are standing. School dress codes across Canada prohibit all young people from wearing a wide range of potentially inappropriate clothes. But lately more girls are crying foul at rules they say unfairly target their wardrobes.

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https://www.ctvnews.ca/sci-tech/plant-a-seed-help-a-bee-experts-urge-canadians-to-plant-wildflowers-to-save-bees-from-decline-1.5029805

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Plant a seed, help a bee: Experts urge Canadians to plant wildflowers to save bees from decline

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Experts are once again urging Canadians to help save wild bees after yet another study predicted a dire future for the species crucial to our food system, and they say anyone with a backyard can help the cause.

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https://globalnews.ca/news/7631871/seniors-loneliness-coronavirus/s

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Her mother was diagnosed with COVID-19 and for two weeks, Sardelis would take her blood pressure, feed her and give her medication left by the door.

With Sardelis taking on the role of a nurse, other residents and staff were less likely to get infected, she says.

"What would happen if I wasn't (there)? What's happening to all those other people that don't have someone?" she says.

"It is so heart-wrenching to watch these people - how lonely they are."

The pandemic now means seniors can't connect with friends or family members, whether that be seniors in independent living situations or in care facilities.

According to a recent Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News, 47 per cent of people aged 55 and above feel lonely from physical and social distancing - up 14 percentage points since last November.

Additionally, 21 per cent of people in the same age group report their mental health has gotten worse over winter months.

Loneliness is also linked to higher mortality rates for people aged 65 or older, according to a Statistics Canada health report released last June.

The report found some seniors felt lonely because of ill health, the transition to retirement, the loss of a spouse or family member, mobility problems, low income, or vision and hearing loss.

Ageism can also contribute to feelings of loneliness or isolation - prevalent during the pandemic - says Andrew Wister, the director of the Gerontology Research Centre at Simon Fraser University in B.C.

"There was a lot of news out there percolating that (COVID-19) is an older person's disease," says Wister.

He adds that people experiencing ageism might feel like they've caused the country to shut down.

Additionally, Wister says the fear around seniors' greater susceptibility to the virus and its severe outcomes can result in isolation.

"As if they're incapable of making their own decisions. As if they have special needs, whether they do or not."

VanGorder adds that seniors outside of long-term care are also isolated because they can't have the same social interactions as they did before.

VanGorder says younger family members who would go to their grandparents' place to help around the house are now cautious about visiting because of the risk of transmission.

"(Seniors) can't go to the bridge club, they can't go to the local luncheon, that club that's held at the local church - they can't do any of those things," he says.

The repetition of "stay at home" messaging has been geared especially towards seniors in an attempt to protect the most vulnerable citizens.

Eva Farkas, a 75-year-old Toronto resident, says being confined to her apartment is like being in a "luxury prison."

"It's really a very demoralizing thing to be locked in and to be alone," she says.

Farkas says before the pandemic, she used to go to concerts, live theatre and meet friends for dinner.

Now, she says if it weren't for her dog, she probably wouldn't leave her house.

"I get very frustrated with this whole situation."

Similar to Farkas, Bobbi-Lee Loganberg, a 65-year-old Vancouver resident, talks to her two best friends on the phone every day - something she refers to as "wellness calls."

Loganberg, however, says she isn't feeling lonely.

Since her husband died in 2019, Loganberg has relearned how to cook and during the pandemic, she's been practising yoga and gardening on her balcony.

She says staying at home hasn't made her feel like an outcast since she's always been an independent person, adding that she enjoys her own company and feels more protected.

"I'm not a woman who's gonna sit on my hands and wait for somebody to come save me... I get my sword and kill my own dragon," she says.

Wister says we should be careful not to group everyone as a "vulnerable group" because it's possible some people are physically isolated but not feeling lonely.

He adds that some older adults are active, have resources available to them and are healthy.

"They're able to pivot," Wister says.

B.C. seniors advocate Isobel Mackenzie says there is some evidence that suggests older adults have been able to weather the COVID-19 pandemic better than others because they are psychologically more resilient.

One concern she does have is seniors being fearful of leaving their homes post-pandemic.

"We really have to look at ways to address that and to make (seniors) - when it is safe to do so - feel safe going out and being with other people," she says.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau previously said provinces "failed to support seniors," and Canada had the worst record among wealthy nations for COVID-19-related deaths in long-term care.

There is no national seniors' strategy currently in place.

The letter called for an end to for-profit long-term care and to improve staffing levels and wages.

Since many facilities are no longer allowing visitations due to the risk of COVID-19 transmission, VanGorder, who is based in Halifax, says seniors' mental health has gone downhill.

"Especially for those with Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia, where using their brain, being active (and) interacting with people on a daily basis is really important," he says.

Wister, from the Gerontology Research Centre, says marginalized groups who were already at a disadvantage prior to the pandemic might experience more feelings of social isolation.

"They're experiencing effects on their self-esteem (and) access to resources quite often ... So I would suspect the pandemic is making those things worse," he says.

VanGorder says Canada could benefit from having a minister of loneliness like they do in Britain, a position created in 2018.

Alternatively, VanGorder says the issue of loneliness should be addressed by all the other departments since it's something that impacts finance, health, education and other social departments.

He adds that the issues seniors are facing should also be treated the same.

"A good department of seniors will reach out to all other departments and ... make sure they are aware of the issues and a good department of loneliness - or ministry of loneliness - would do that too."

Stéphane Lauzon, the parliamentary secretary to the minister of seniors, says four of the current ministers address seniors' issues - the ministers of seniors, veterans affairs, families and health.

"We have very good support for seniors and tools that we have to address loneliness are shared between all levels of government," he says.

Wister says we need to look at programs from other communities and countries and see what we can learn from them.

He adds that there is no "one size fits all" solution.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, community initiatives have sprung up across the provinces to aid seniors experiencing social isolation.

Ottawa-based Debbie Abfalter, owner of home care provider Senior Solutions, started the Seniors in Isolation campaign on Facebook.

Letters and photos are collected from participants from around the world and given to seniors in retirement homes or long-term care.

"They're in their rooms and a lot of people don't have anybody - or have nobody - sending them anything," Abfalter says, adding that some participants have become pen pals with seniors.

The free wellness program encourages seniors to be more physically and socially active through Zoom meetings, goal-setting, one-on-one consultations and activities chosen by the participants.

Sardelis, who nursed her mom back to health when she had COVID-19, says allowing families safely into senior homes can be a part of the solution for seniors who are lonely and deteriorating.

She remembers one day before her mom got sick, she wanted to dance with her and some of the personal support workers (PSWs).

She pushed her walker away, grabbed Sardelis's and a PSW's hands, started singing and began awkwardly line dancing using the one leg she could lift off the floor.

Sardelis says since her mom's recovery, she has started singing old Greek songs again.

"When she got COVID-19 I thought, 'I'm not done listening to you sing," Sardelis says.

"You're going to sing a little while longer."
Alone and Apart is an ongoing Global News series tackling issues of loneliness and self-isolation, and creating long-lasting solutions to fight this epidemic within a pandemic. The series will run throughout the month of February. For more visit Alone and Apart. - With files from Katelyn Wilson

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Many seniors struggle with loneliness. The pandemic has only made it worse - National | Globalnews.ca

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Her mother was diagnosed with COVID-19 and for two weeks, Sardelis would take her blood pressure, feed her and give her medication left by the door. With Sardelis taking on the role of a nurse, other residents and staff were less likely to get infected, she says.