> I’ve been at this university for the past three years and I’ve been pretty limited in my engagement with other disciplines. I tend to speak to the same people who take the same classes as me. This is one of the first times that I feel myself engaging with the academic community here. I’ve witnessed people put their studies to use: engineering students have stopped our canopies from leaking when it rains, urban planning students organized the setup of our tents, and philosophy and humanities students created a beautiful library space and held reading circles. It feels as if we have taken our classes and put them into practice.

> Being at the Circle is one of the only times on campus I have felt a Palestinian presence. This university has a habit of alienating Palestinians, especially in the last eight months. There is an active genocide going on and academic departments refuse to acknowledge it. I have watched my professors get more and more uncomfortable when people bring up Palestine. They act as if senior administrators will pop in at any time and fire them on the spot.

> The Circle is the only place on campus where I feel we can talk about Palestine for what it is and what it can be.

> Over one-third of Alberta’s school divisions are cutting teachers next year even though classes are already overcrowded and enrolments are continuing to rise.

> Student enrollment and class sizes will meanwhile continue to increase, with the ATA’s data indicating 26,000 additional students are expected to enroll next year compared to last year.

> According to the ATA and public education advocates, the cuts are a result of a funding model introduced by the United Conservative government in September 2022 called the “Weighted Moving Average.” The “Weighted Moving Average” calculates student funding over three years using numbers from the previous year, current year and proceeding year. According to Schilling, this system fails to account for enrollment growth and complex challenges in the classroom. “It’s starting to create a crisis,” Schilling told PressProgress. “Talking to my colleagues across the province, staff rooms are being converted into classrooms, library commons are being converted into classrooms, gymnasiums, wherever they can find space.”

> Bradley LaFortune, Executive Director with Public Interest Alberta, notes the Alberta Government has launched major advertising campaigns to draw newcomers into the province. LaFortune notes that Calgary has only built one new school even though the Calgary Board of Education is expecting 9,000 new students in the next year.

> "What we’re seeing is a cut as a result of a funding formula that’s inaccurate. It doesn’t address new challenges, it doesn’t address population growth. It’s a recipe for disaster. It’s pretty appalling that that’s the state of public education today,” LaFortune said. “We need to stop investing in inaccessible private schools, fund public education, defund private education, and get back to the basics.”

> “Right now, with these electric cars, the dealers have the equipment, they have the parts. They want to get the business and also fix the cars,” he explains. In his experience, and that of other mechanics The Local and The Narwhal visited, EV dealers and manufacturers are charging independent mechanics more and taking longer to supply parts than they do with gas vehicles. This incentivizes customers to go straight to the dealer when they need repairs.

> “They’re taking business away from small brokers, because the parts are not available, and we don’t have the equipment [we need],” he says. “Anything they charge you, you have no choice.”

> But in both the regulatory and commercial arena, EV manufacturers and independent aftermarket (that is, repair and resale) businesses are wrestling over the “right to repair” principle—the right of consumers and independent shops to affordably access the tools or information needed to fix and prolong the life of an object after it’s purchased. In a sector of the automotive industry that is still relatively young and underregulated, mechanics fear being shut out by manufacturers and dealerships that see a lucrative opportunity to establish virtually exclusive access to EV repairs. If manufacturers win the fight over government regulation of the industry, it’ll be consumers and smaller businesses paying the price. Whether these mom-and-pop garages find ways to adapt, or stick to servicing combustion engines exclusively, or decide it’s not worth the cost and effort to stay in this difficult business, the outcome will reshape the automotive landscape of the city, affecting both their clients and the workforce holding up these independent shops.

> The headline says it all, Daniel Vogelbach has been DFAed and Addison Barger has been called up in his place.

> Vogelbach seemed like a great guy, but wasn't hitting, and a DH that doesn't hit isn't of much use.

> Barger is up for the second time. I hope they give him a good amount of playing time this go round.

Off-topic: I'm happy for Cavan Biggio, ending up on the Dodgers. Got a hit in his first game, I think. I hope he gets enough playing time on that stacked team

The trade deadline (July 30) is about 6 weeks away.

The Blue Jays are currently 2 games below .500 and 4 teams out of the 3rd wildcard spot with the Rays only a game behind them. They've got a tough schedule ahead without an easy opponent until the Athletics on August 9th.

If the Jays can get above .500 the next month and get within a few teams of the 3rd wildcard spot, they could potentially be buyers at the trade deadline. Saying this, I realize I'm not exactly sure how much trade capital they can afford to part with. Alternately, they'll probably sell off expiring contracts to try to come back stronger for 2025.

There's a good chance we'll know more about the future of this team a month from now. How's everyone feeling about the team in general, how do you think the Jays will do against this spree of tough teams, and any predictions for the future?

> A foreign multinational company can export Canadian blood plasma products for profit abroad, The Breach has learned. That flies in the face of what’s been pledged by Canadian Blood Services and Grifols, the Spanish multinational corporation that is trying to open private plasma collection centres across Ontario and already operates in some other provinces. But the revelation that they can export products for sale overseas is the first window into a secret contract the company signed with Canada’s blood authority in 2022 to allow them to pay for blood plasma.

> Grifols hit a roadblock on Monday, as Hamilton’s Public Health Committee unanimously backed a resolution from Mayor Andrea Horwath to reject a planned Grifols collection centre and declare the city a “paid-plasma-free zone.” Horwath said that “anything that preys upon the most vulnerable is hideous and doesn’t belong in Hamilton.”

> That deal between Grifols and Canada’s blood authority has accelerated an assault on the voluntarism that has been at the core of blood and plasma collection in Canada for decades, and quickened the country’s shift toward a for-profit system.

> Critics have often invoked the example of the United States, where private centres operate in low-income neighbourhoods, paying poor people to sell their plasma so multinational companies can manufacture expensive drugs for large profits.

> The privatization of blood and plasma collection goes against the founding principles of Canadian Blood Services, a national charity that manages blood supply outside of Quebec. It was created to keep donations voluntary after the “tainted blood” scandal of the 1980s, which resulted in 8,000 Canadians dying from improperly screened, infected blood from paid donors through a for-profit donation system.

> Paying for blood donations remains banned in British Columbia, Quebec, and Ontario. But Doug Ford’s Conservative government quietly gave a green light to Grifols earlier this year, appearing to accept the Canadian blood authority’s argument that the Spanish company is acting as an “agent” of Canadian Blood Services.

I shop at No Frills, a discount chain in Ontario that's a part of the loblaws oligopoly. In the last 6 months, I've noticed more price tags on shelves that advertise sales prices that have expired. This means that after I glance at the tag in the aisles, I will expect to pay the reduced price. However, at the register, I will be charged the full price. If I fail to notice the discrepancy at the register, I will end up paying more than I expected to and more than was advertised. To the best of my knowledge, in this scenario, the company is not considered to be at fault for false advertising. If I say I was charged the wrong price, they can just say they forgot to take down the expired tag and I'm not entitled to the cheaper price or anything related to the formerly called Scanning Code of Practice.

I'm seeing these expired sales tags more and more. At best, loblaws can't be trusted to perform a basic duty; more nefariously, this may be an intentional scam. Word to the wise!

If there's only 1 date (in size 8 or 10 font) on a price tag advertising a sale, it's presumably the expiry date. Some tags may have both start and stop/expiry dates

https://climatejustice.social/@breadandcircuses/112535649882421445

> Liberal health critic Adil Shamji wants the province to ban private-pay nurse practitioner clinics instead of waiting on the feds to do so. His private member's bill, to be tabled Wednesday afternoon, would do just that. The Keeping Primary Care Fair Act would also increase penalties for breaking the law. Shamji shared an advance copy with The Trillium.

> As primary care shortages persist in Ontario, private-payer nurse practitioner clinics have come under scrutiny for openly charging patients fees to access primary care services normally provided by a family doctor.

> Though charging for services covered under provincial medicare programs is illegal under the Canada Health Act, some nurse practitioners say they're exempt because they're not allowed to bill public insurance. Not everyone agrees with that interpretation.

> "The reality is that there's something that can be done right now by the provincial Minister of Health, and she is, in my opinion, refusing deliberately to act," he said.

> Two other Conservative-led provinces, Alberta and Saskatchewan, have taken steps to bring nurse practitioners under the public system, he noted. Ontario also funds some public nurse practitioner clinics that do not charge patients. Shamji's bill would not affect those.

> As the Ford government expands publicly funded, privately delivered health care, Shamji said he's convinced [Ford's Health Minister] Jones has "a deliberate privatization agenda that is communicated, if not by her words, certainly by her actions."

> Major oil companies have in recent years made splashy climate pledges to cut their greenhouse gas emissions and take on the climate crisis, but a new report suggests those plans do not stand up to scrutiny.

> The research and advocacy group Oil Change International examined climate plans from the eight largest US- and European-based international oil and gas producers — BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Eni, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Shell and TotalEnergies — and found none were compatible with limiting global warming to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels — a threshold scientists have long warned could have dire consequences if breached.

> The report’s authors used 10 criteria and ranked each aspect of each company’s plan on a spectrum from “fully aligned” to “grossly insufficient” and found all eight companies ranked “grossly insufficient” or “insufficient” on nearly all criteria.

> The authors also found that the companies’ current oil and gas extraction plans could lead to more than 2.4C of global temperature rise, which would probably usher in climate devastation. The eight firms alone are on track to use 30% of the world’s remaining global carbon budget to keep global average temperature rise to 1.5C, the study found.

> The report, in its fourth annual edition, was endorsed by more than 200 climate groups internationally. Since the first edition of the report in 2020, many oil companies have rolled back climate pledges amid spiking fossil fuel prices.“ The Big Oil Reality Check data illustrates these companies’ dangerous commitment to profit at all cost,” said Tong. It follows a March report from the thinktank Carbon Tracker, which found none of the world’s 25 largest fossil fuel companies’ production and transition plans align with the central goal of the 2015 Paris climate agreement.

> In 2023, a shocking one out of every five people in Canada were food insecure — defined as having a lack of access to food, or concern over lack of food access. Severe food insecurity — when people miss meals and sometimes go days without food — rose by 50 per cent.

> The Globe and Mail reported that Per Bank, the new CEO of Loblaw Companies Ltd., made $22 million from two months of work in 2023 — including an $18 million signing bonus. That’s 500 times more than the yearly median income in Canada.

> Galen Weston Jr., Loblaw’s president, blamed suppliers, who forced “unjustified” price increases on the company. Others, like the Conservatives, blame the carbon tax for raising prices. In a report, the Centre for Future Work found that there is an infinitesimally small correlation between carbon pricing and inflation — just 0.15 per cent.

> When prices spike, corporations take advantage. According to Statistics Canada, food prices were twice as high as the overall inflation rate — which was at its highest level in almost 40 years. Meanwhile, since 2020, Canadian food retailers have nearly tripled profit margins and doubled profits — making $6 billion per year. It’s not difficult to do the math. This is called “greedflation” — companies taking advantage of inflation to raise prices even higher.

> Meanwhile, Canada’s top three food retailers (Loblaw, Sobey’s and Metro) control 57 per cent of food sales. Loblaw alone takes home 27 per cent. Costco and Walmart are next in line at 11 per cent and 7.5 per cent respectively, according to 2022 statistics.

> The boycott has focused the country on the affordability crisis and the role of corporate profiteering. However, the responsibility for change does not fall on the consumer, but rather those in government, who are ultimately the ones with the tools to curtail corporate greed. Reigning in corporate profiteering, curtailing oligopolies, building holistic approaches to food provisioning and supporting incomes to match the cost of living are the real changes we need. On May 30 at 1 p.m. EST, Food Secure Canada is hosting a webinar titled "Greedflation: The role of large corporations in food price inflation and what can be done about it." You can register here.

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> Foreign affairs usually don’t play a role when it comes to voting in Canadian federal elections. But the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza is having an effect on religious voters in this country. That’s the finding of a new poll by the Angus Reid Institute that shows low support for the federal Liberal party among all religious groups, including two groups they have traditionally counted on — Muslims and Jews.

> The poll, which was released in mid-May, shows

• 41 per cent of Muslims support the NDP, 31 per cent support the Liberals and 15 per cent support the Conservatives. By contrast, in a 2016 Environics Institute poll, 65 per cent of Muslims reported voting for the Liberals in the 2015 election, 10 per cent voted for the NDP and just two per cent supported the Conservatives.
• Jewish support for Liberals is also low, with 42 per cent supporting the Conservatives compared to 33 per cent for the Liberals. Liberals have traditionally performed well in federal ridings with significant Jewish populations, the Angus Reid article notes.
• forty-five per cent of Roman Catholics prefer the Conservatives, 24 per cent the Liberals and 16 per cent are for the NDP.
• Among mainline Protestants, 58 per cent are for the Conservatives, 25 per cent for the Liberals and 11 per cent are NDP.
• Seventy-nine per cent of evangelicals would vote Conservative, five per cent for the Liberals and 14 per cent NDP. -Fifty-three per cent of Hindus would vote Conservative, 22 per cent support the Liberals and 18 per cent the NDP.
• For Sikhs, 54 per cent are Conservative, 21 per cent Liberal and 20 per cent NDP.

> Despite its name, the infrastructure used by the “cloud” accounts for more global greenhouse emissions than commercial flights. In 2018, for instance, the 5bn YouTube hits for the viral song Despacito used the same amount of energy it would take to heat 40,000 US homes annually.

> Large language models such as ChatGPT are some of the most energy-guzzling technologies of all. Research suggests, for instance, that about 700,000 litres of water could have been used to cool the machines that trained ChatGPT-3 at Microsoft’s data facilities.

> Additionally, as these companies aim to reduce their reliance on fossil fuels, they may opt to base their datacentres in regions with cheaper electricity, such as the southern US, potentially exacerbating water consumption issues in drier parts of the world.

> Furthermore, while minerals such as lithium and cobalt are most commonly associated with batteries in the motor sector, they are also crucial for the batteries used in datacentres. The extraction process often involves significant water usage and can lead to pollution, undermining water security. The extraction of these minerals are also often linked to human rights violations and poor labour standards. Trying to achieve one climate goal of limiting our dependence on fossil fuels can compromise another goal, of ensuring everyone has a safe and accessible water supply.

> Moreover, when significant energy resources are allocated to tech-related endeavours, it can lead to energy shortages for essential needs such as residential power supply. Recent data from the UK shows that the country’s outdated electricity network is holding back affordable housing projects.

> In other words, policy needs to be designed not to pick sectors or technologies as “winners”, but to pick the willing by providing support that is conditional on companies moving in the right direction. Making disclosure of environmental practices and impacts a condition for government support could ensure greater transparency and accountability.

This is similar to the previous post based on the Toronto Star article, but this press release adds that the unions are trying to directly legally intervene on the matter as well.

> Two of the largest unions in the province and the largest unions at the University of Toronto are seeking to intervene in the injunction application by the university against demonstrations.

> The United Steelworkers union (USW) and OPSEU/SEFPO are seeking intervenor status in the injunction application by the university which would allow administrators to end protests. The unions are working together to protect the freedom of expression and freedom of association by workers at the university.

> “We will defend workers’ right to their freedom of expression. The university cannot deny workers or students their rights as outlined in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms because they are inconvenient,” said Myles Sullivan, USW District 6 Director (Ontario and Atlantic region). “We will defend the right to protest on public property, like the University of Toronto and ensure Charter rights are not trampled. As far as we are concerned, the protest has the right to stay and workers have the right to participate.” The USW represents 10,000 workers at the University of Toronto as well as workers at other University campuses.

> “University campuses are precisely the places where our community debates the most pressing issues of the day. Above all, it’s where we find common ground, and if necessary, we disagree, but we do so without violence” said JP Hornick, President of OPSEU/SEFPO. “So to threaten to forcibly remove a peaceful encampment which is simply an expression of political opinion, where students and workers and other members of the University community are asserting their Charter rights – is an abdication of the University’s very reason for existence.”

> “A ruling like this has the potential to threaten the Charter protected right to the freedom of association (Section 2 (d)) so we take this very seriously indeed,” concluded Hornick. OPSEU/SEFPO represents workers on the University of Toronto campus as well as workers on other University campuses and also represents workers on every public college campus in Ontario.

https://opseu.org/news/unions-seek-intervenor-status-to-protect-the-charter-of-rights-and-freedoms-at-the-university-of-toronto-protests/227836/

https://web.archive.org/web/20240527182453/https://theconversation.com/why-are-grocery-bills-so-high-a-new-study-looks-at-the-science-behind-food-price-reporting-230086

> So, we completed a rigorous analysis of the most prominent reports that shape the narratives around food prices in Canada, including twelve years of Canada’s Food Price Reports and 39 reports from Statistics Canada. Our findings, which are peer reviewed and soon to be published in Canadian Food Studies, were both insightful and concerning.

> Our analysis found that most claims about food prices in these reports lack scientific rigour. Nearly two-thirds of the explanations for price changes given are not backed by evidence. Arguments about the causes of food inflation are frequently incomplete, neglecting to connect the dots between cause and effect.

> These reports also rarely consider the decisions that grocers and other private sector entities have on food prices. Increased consolidation and concentration in the grocery sector is a structural issue that deserves scrutiny.

> The bread price-fixing scandal a few years ago showed how a lack of competition enables price manipulation and hurts consumers. Canada’s Competition Bureau recently announced they are launching an investigation into the owners of Loblaws and Sobeys for alleged anti-competitive conduct.

> With grocer profits expanding in Canada, too, it is fair to ask tough questions about how much grocers’ decisions are contributing to the pain at the till.

> In our analysis, only three per cent of the over 200 explanations for food price changes point to grocer actions or other agency in the private sector as driving price increases. This reflects a tendency to portray food prices as erratic and overwhelmingly opaque.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240527133143/https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/may-2024/tax-the-rich/

> In its 2024 federal budget, the Trudeau government proposed steps that would help equalize the tax rates between the richest Canadians who primarily make their money from passive income, and working people who earn a paycheque. These proposed changes to how capital gains are taxed would only require the richest 0.13 per cent of Canadians to pay more, alongside help to address exploding housing costs.

> Despite the narrow scope of this change, it (predictably) generated outrage among some of my wealthy peers alongside those who seem ready to go to battle to ensure that the very rich continue paying less tax than working people as a per cent of taxes on income.

> It’s not an option available to most people, and yet while working people are taxed on their full paycheque, only 50 per cent of capital gains are currently taxed. I may pay a higher dollar amount compared with some working people, but I pay a much lower rate, even compared to high earning doctors, lawyers and engineers.

> Why should I pay a lower rate just because I was lucky enough to have money to invest, and why should someone who actually works for a living have to pay a higher one?

> As you move up the wealth and income scale, you come across fewer and fewer people who are making most, or sometimes any, of their money from a paycheque. Instead, the rich invest in the stock market, property and other ways to keep their wealth growing. As such, they have enjoyed lower tax rates for decades.

> Meta recently announced the layoff of 11,000 people. This resulted in a 20 per cent increase in their stock price, and a dividend issued to shareholders. I own stock in Meta. If I sell that stock and realize capital gains, I will have directly benefited from an already profitable company that has just negatively impacted the lives of thousands of people.

> At the very least, I should be paying the same per cent of tax on those gains as former employees would have paid on their salaries.

https://web.archive.org/web/20240529042737/https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/we-will-be-your-human-shields-why-unions-are-showing-up-in-force-to-support/article_562a3da0-1c62-11ef-91f5-2f4615a0758e.html

> On Monday, union leaders from across Ontario descended on the University of Toronto campus, vowing to physically defend the students.

> “Our job is to put our bodies in between you and whatever the administration brings to you,” JP Hornick, president, Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union (OPSEU), told a rally by the protesters and their allies. “If the police come, we will be your human shields. We will be your line of defence. And I promise you that we will be here for as long as it takes to make sure that you are safe.”

> Laura Walton, president of the Ontario Federation of Labour (OFL), pledged not only her union membership in defence of the protesters, but her own maternal instinct.

> On Saturday, in response to the university’s trespassing notice, the OFL’s Walton issued a call to all unions to support the encampment, and on Monday she was joined by four past and present union leaders, including Sid Ryan, former head of CUPE; Fred Hahn, current president of CUPE; and Carolyn Egan, president, United Steelworkers (USW) Toronto Area Council.

> Walton said that, in her mind, support for the protesters is undeniably linked to labour issues. “If the university administrators can get away with trampling on your rights to protest and dismissing your legitimate demands, then employers everywhere will feel emboldened to do the same,” she said.

!

https://piped.video/watch?v=5AuLkMBAFZg