RCI | English : Interviews

A long time strong proponent of Canada-China relations, has recently changed position.

Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, had almost four decades of service in the upper levels of Canadian government in science and technology policy and Chinese affairs. She is currently a Senior Fellow with the China Institute at the University of Alberta and Senior Fellow at the  Institute of Science, Society and Policy, University of Ottawa.

She feels that China has evolved into a much different country under the current leadership than it was decades ago. She feels the country is lacking respect for international law and conventions. She has joined a chorus of other experts who in varying ways, are saying Canada needs to rethink its policies toward China, getting tougher on one hand, and looking to expand trade to other countries in the Indo-Asian region.

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Recently she wrote an opinion piece for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, an influential Canadian think tank on policy. Her article is entitled, "Dealing with the New China: How Canada can reset its relations with Beijing".

Margaret McCuaig-Johnston, a Mandarin speaker and long analyst of Canada Chinese affairs in science and technology. ( University of Ottawa)

While there has been concern over cyber hacking and theft of intellectual property it was the action of the arbitrary arrest of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, an action she classifies as state kidnapping ,that caused her to change her position. This came in conjunction with the sudden increase to a death sentence for two other Canadians in custody in China, having her locked suitcases secretly broken into and searched, and being told that China had created a long list of Canadians they could detain if it so chose.

RCI: Dec 9/19: Canadian detainees mark 365 days in Chinese captivity

As a Mandarin speaker she notes that the word “han”  spoken to Canadian officials or business persons is interpreted by the Canadians as meaning  the Canadians are nice, open, and friendly, but for the Chinese the meaning is silly, naïve, and of little concern. In other words, she says they smile to the Canadian faces, but denigrate them behind their backs.

Ambassador of the People's Republic of China to Canada Cong Peiwu participates in a roundtable interview with journalists at the Embassy of China in Ottawa on Friday, Nov. 22, 2019. It seems there is no change in the tough talk on issues from the previous ambassador, and no change regarding imprisoned Canadians (Justin Tang/THE CANADIAN PRESS)

While she commends the current Canadian government for getting other countries to indicate their concern over Chinese actions in the case of the imprisoned Canadians, many critics have said this is only an annoyance to the current Communist government, and many are recommending that to earn any respect from the Chinese government,  much tougher actions must take place as well as diplomatic words.

Additional information

TorStar: J. Nutall: Nov 23/19: A ‘friend of China’ no more: Why a longtime Canadian ally has become one of Beijing’s fierce critics

Fortune Magazine: R Hackett: Oct 19/19 Chinese Hacking: The Plane Made from Stolen Tech?

Simon Fraser University: (Youtube): Oct 11/19: Conversations that matter: OpEd; Why the Canada-China relationship needs a reset (w-Jonathan Manthorpe-author) (30 min)

Macdonald Laurier Inst. : The Dragon at the Door-The future of Canada-China relations

Assembly: J. Smith: Oct 24/12: Did Outsourcing and Corporate Espionage Kill Nortel?

Financial Review: J. Kehoe: May 28/14: How Chinese hacking felled telecommunication giant Nortel

Two Tears on the Window:  Julia and Kevin Garrett:  book recounting the experience of two Canadians imprisoned in China

The original concept of artificial turf held a theoretical number of advantages. The tiny pellets of rubber infill made from recycled tires diverted thousands of those tires from landfill sites, while the fields eliminated the need for pesticides, fertilizers and watering.

Crumb rubber is spread throughout the artificial turf as filler and support between the “grass” blades, and as a cushioning for players

Since the arrival of artificial turf however, there have been ongoing concerns about the toxicity of crumb rubber. That concern has been increased through a new study by researchers in Montreal.

Hans Larsson is co-senior author of the study. He is a professor of vertebrate palaeontology at McGill University in Montreal and director of the Redpath Museum. I reached him by mobile phone in the Andes in Colombia where he is on another research project.

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The study was published in the science journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) under the title,  Artificial turf infill associated with systematic toxicity in an amniote vertebrate (abstract here)

Hans Larsson, McGill University Montreal, co senior author of study(via Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Research)

It seems that the finely chopped up tires are full of toxic chemicals, including heavy metals, which leach out in water from a rainfall or as they sit in snow, and get runoff into the environment. In addition, Larsson says there is “offgassing” as the volatile chemicals are slowly released into the air.

While other research has found toxins from crumb rubber leachate, they dealt with lower life forms like algae, and tiny acquatic daphnia, and small zebrafish.  This was the first to study effects on more complex life forms and used chicken embryos.

Tiny pellets of crumb rubber infill in artificial turf. Made from recycled tires, the product has been linked to anecdotal claims it causes cancer in recent years. (CBC)

They found that even moderate doses could result in non viable embryos in some cases, and in survivors, there were both physical and brain deformations.

Larsson points to some studies which have shown a high rate of cancer in soccer goalies whose knees and hands (or gloves) are in close contact with the rubber surface and are more likely to also be touching their faces.

Larsson says this study raises serious questions to be explored in more research, but also the same serious questions about the continued use of crumb rubber on artificial turf and its potential for harm to the environment, wildlife, and humans as well.

Additional information

CBC: M Laanela: Nov 6/15: Artificial turf and cancer in soccer goalies explored in documentary

Center for Environmental Health: A Cocktail of Harmful Chemicals in Artificial Turf Infill

Synthetic Turf Council: Facts about recycled rubber

EPA (US) study vol 1 Jul 2019

EPA study vol 1 part 2

The Guardian (UK): E. Holden: Jun 25/19: US playgrounds: fears grow over health risks from rubber particles

Finally!

A deal--officially--is in place to build a new hockey arena in Calgary.

After years of back-and-forth, the city and the owners of the NHL Calgary Flames and the Calgary Stampede have signed on the dotted line.

The official announcement was made Thursday and ensures that the Flames will remain in Calgary for at least the next 35 years.

This conceptual drawing of a new hockey arena in Victoria Park is from the Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corporation, which owns the Calgary Flames. It shows what a proposed arena would look like at 12th Avenue and Fourth Street S.E (Rossetti/Calgary Flames)

Taxpayers are paying $290 million toward the project; the Flames are paying $275 million.

The two sides had previously agreed to evenly split $550 million in costs, but Calgary Councillor Jeff Davison said Thursday through the negotiating process the city agreed to commit an additional $15 million in taxpayer funding to cover land transfer and demolition costs.

The building replaces the 36-year-old Scotiabank Saddledome as the Flames' home rink and will serve as an anchor of a planned entertainment distinct bordering the Stampede grounds on the east side of the city's downtown district, Victoria Park.

Construction on the 19,000-seat arena is expected to begin in late 2021 and to be completed by late 2024.

The 36-year-old Scotiabank Saddledome, built for the 1988 Winter Olympics, will finally be put out to its proverbial pasture, but not until 2024. (CBC)

It will sit just north of where the Saddledome, which will be demolished, is now located.

The signed agreement ends five years of rancor and heated debate.

Officials said Thursday the agreement does not deviate from a deal reached in July.

Mayor Naheed Nenshi acknowledged that the arena “is not something that has universal support and acclaim throughout our community,” but added that it is “the right thing to do.”

“We’ve got a good deal in front of us,” Nenshi said Thursday. “A deal that makes sense for the public purse, but a deal that makes sense for the future of the community as well.”

Calgary Sports and Entertainment Corp. (CSEC) president and CEO John Bean confirmed the signing of the deal in a statement posted on the Flames’ website.

Author and journalist Bruce Dowbiggin is a long-time resident of Calgary. (cbc,ca)

Bruce Dowbiggin is a long-time resident of Calgary and an even-longer-lover of hockey.

Dowbiggin, who has written numerous books about the sport, its players and its management, currently hosts the Not The Public Broadcaster website.

I spoke with him Friday about what's taken place over the past few years and what the near future may have in store.

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Let's face it, homeless people in Canada and elsewhere don't have a whole lot of people in their corner.

But don't count William Panenka as one of those guys who looks the other way, like so many of us do, when he meets some person on the street, shivering, or maybe in rags, asking us for a handout.

Panenka has credentials to burn and soul to share.

Among other things, he's a physician and researcher with the B.C. Neuropsychiatry Program and the Provincial Health Services Agency in Vancouver.

In 2018, Vancouver city lawyers advised council to not proceed with a shopping cart ban because of the potential of court challenges from homeless advocates which would be a financial burden on the city. (David Horemans/CBC)

And he's just led a study that might go a long way--or, maybe it's just a short way, given the nature of the problem--to helping the rest of us better understand people stuck on the street with no direction home.

The study, published this week in Lancet Public Health, is an analysis of data from 38 other studies published between 1995 and 2018 from six high income countries: Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, the UK and the USA.

It was funded by a Canadian Institutes of Health Research project grant and co-authored by researchers from Simon Fraser University, the Vancouver Coastal Health Research Institute, the B.C. Provincial Neuropsychiatry Program, BC Mental Health and Substance Use Services, and the department of psychiatry at UBC.

The biggest takeaway: the researchers found that one out of every two people who are homeless may have experienced traumatic brain injury.

Dr. William Panenka (above), a physician and researcher with the B.C. Neuropsychiatry Program and the Provincial Health Services Agency in Vancouver, led the study. (bcchr.ca)

Comparing their estimates to studies of the general population, the researchers estimated that the lifetime prevalence of traumatic brain injury in people who are homeless and in unstable housing situations could potentially be up to four times higher than in the general population.

So, you may wonder, what's the big deal?

That's what I asked Dr. Panenka when I spoke to him by phone on Thursday.

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The study by Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia, and the University of Guelph in Ontario is called "Canada's Food Price Report 2020”

Its’ the tenth annual report, and  it notes that climate change, with its accompanying bad weather, is an important contributing factor in the expected increase in food prices.

Sylvain Charlebois is the Director of the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, and lead author of the report.

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While the inflation rate in Canada is around 1.9 per cent the study suggests the food increase will be from two to four percent, but likely at the higher end of that scale.

Sylvain Charlebois of Dalhousie University is lead author of the tenth annual report (Radio-Canada)

This means an average Canadian family of 4 will spend almost $500 more on food this year or about $12,667.

Charlebois expects meat prices to have the most dramatic increase, mostly due to an outbreak of swine flu in China resulting in mass culling of herds. China has been buying up meat in markets around the world to replace their herd loss.

The report also notes the changing climate playing a role in increased prices.

“Canadian food systems will be affected by changing weather patterns including droughts and forest fires, heavy precipitation, reduced freshwater access and rising sea levels. Climate models suggest that Canada’s agricultural regions will subsequently feel the impacts of a drier summer season and increased spring and winter precipitation. Canadian farmers will face challenges in the future dealing with unpredictable crop yields, heat-wave livestock threats, pasture availability and pest and disease outbreaks” Canada’s Food Price Report 2020.

Soybeans are covered in snow on Charles Fossay's farm in the Rural Municipality of Cartier, Man. A wet fall and early winter has hurt crops across Canada's prairie provinces. (Bartley Kives/CBC)

With farmers in Canada hit with an early snow in the west, and less than ideal conditions elsewhere it’s going to be a less than ideal harvest for the market in 2020 in a variety of crop categories.  In the one year period ending September 2019, vegetables were hard hit by climate change resulting in a 12 per cent jump.

Co- lead author of the report Simon Somogyi says Canada needs to promote domestic vegetable production such as in greenhouses. But because of the Liberal government legalising cannabis, some operations are instead getting out of food production instead. In southern B.C, greenhouses once producing food are switching to cannabis. One company alone, Canopy Growth, is planning 275,000 sq metres of production (Lien Yeung- CBC).

Charlebois points out that food is in a world market and what happens in one part of the world affects other parts. Storms can slow down transport creating expensive shortages. Storms, drought or fires can in some cases seriously harm entire crop harvests. Increased warmth in southern markets resulted in more cases of E-coli disease in lettuce creating shortages for the market and increasing prices for alternatives like spinach.

RCI: Aug 7/19 Food or cannabis? Farming questions in Canada

Simon Somogyi, lead researcher from the University of Guelph says Canada should develop a national food policy that promotes greater domestic production of high cost items like vegetables through such things as greenhouse operations and vertical farming.  This would mean reduced disease risk, shorter shipping distances, and potentially lower costs. The alternative he says is leaving the country vulnerable to the vagaries of imports and continued food price increase.

Additional information

CBC: K. Yarr: Dec 4/19: Booming P.E.I. economy could push up food prices more than average

Canadian Press (via CTV): A. Sagan: Dec 4/19: Climate change to push food prices higher, report predicts up to 4 per cent hike in 2020

Global News; H. Jackson: Dec 4/19: Here’s how much more Canadians will...

It is, of course, that most wonderful time of the year...the December shopping season.

Stresses you out a little, eh?

'Tis the season to be jolly, right?

The holiday shopping season is in full swing and the clock is ticking. It may be time to think green. (CBC)

Not feeling it yet?

Here's a shot worth taking, a study well worth reading.

It's from the John Molson School of Business at Montreal's Concordia University, written by Professor Onur Bodur and one his his PhD students, Ali Tezer, who is now an assistant professor at HEC Montreal.

They examined the so-called "greenconsumption effect"--how using a green product creates a "warm glow" feeling in consumers

And guess what?

They found that spending some of that Christmas shopping money on green products makes people feel a whole lot better, particularly the recipients of greener gifts.

The study, The Greenconsumption Effect: How Using Green Products Improves Consumption Experience, is published in the Journal of Consumer Research.

Onur Bodur is an associate professor of marketing at the John Molson School of Business at Concordia University. (Anna Oliinyk/Unsplash)

I spoke by phone with Dr. Bodur on Wednesday at his office at Concordia.

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After the initial enthusiasm of nuclear power starting in the 1950’s, that enthusiasm began to wane a few decades later, especially after the Hollywood film, The China Syndrome, and the almost simultaneous 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear disaster. Now a newer idea is being promoted of these smaller localised reactors. Indeed, three of Canada’s provincial leaders recently signed a deal to develop the technology of SMR’s, or small modular reactors.

Warren Mabee (PhD) explains SMR's. He's the director of Queen's University's Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy in Kingston, Ontario.

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With the SL-1- US Army accident in 1961, the Three Mile Island disaster, Tchernobyl, and Fukashima, and many other accidents and incidents less reported, people began to be wary of nuclear power.

Professor Warren Mabee (PhD) is director of Queen's University's Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy (Queen's U. Youtube)

However, with certain limitations to solar and wind power generation, and with tidal power still in its infancy, the idea of small localised reactors has grown.

Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp.'s Micro Modular Reactor Energy System is designed to fit in a standard shipping container. The company is partnering with Global First Power and Ontario Power Generation, who are in talks with Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. and the CNSC about preparing a site for a reactor at AECL's Chalk River Laboratories. Infrastructure is then added around the reactor, but still at a far far smaller scale than 'traditional' large reactors (Ultra Safe Nuclear)

What are small modular reactors?. These are reactors and accompanying infrastructure that are much much smaller than the typical huge installations usually associated with nuclear power generating plants.  The idea is that these localised reactors could be used to “green” the increasing need for power generation and could provide electricity for entire small towns, or localised sections of a large city.

A further indication of the relative compactness of SMR's. An illustration shows a NuScale Power Module on a truck. NuScale is one of the small modular reactor companies whose designs are going through pre-licencing approval with the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. Many are designed to be small enough to transport by truck or by shipping container. (NuScale Power)

The SMR’s generate less than 300MW, and as little as 5Mw, and are compared to Canada’s current nuclear stations of 515 and 881MW. By further comparison, Fukashima’s six reactors produced a combined capacity 4.7 GW of electricity.

RCI: Dec 2/19: Three Premiers announce nuclear reactor development deal

While there is ample power produced with no real carbon emissions, Mabee points out we still haven’t figured out what to do with the waste fuel and pipes and other parts that wear out and are radioactive for thousands of years.

The CANDU type Canadian design reactors don't require the typical huge cooling towers but still require a huge infrastructure and space. This one at Point Lepreau New Brunswick generates 660MW. (Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission report to INRA, May 17 2018)

However he also notes that while there is electrical power loss as the huge central nuclear stations have to distribute that power over long networks, this would not nearly be the case for the SMR’s and their localised networks, making the system more efficient.

Refurbishing the core at Point Lepreau in 2012. Highly complex and astronomically expensive to repair, the problem also remains with all reactors of what to do with the old/used replaced parts which remain radioactive for centuries. (CBC)

Nuclear chemist and Saskatchewan Environmental Society board member Ann Coxworth quoted in the CBC says there are about 100 possible technological designs it would take years of testing and as many years to build. The first prototype would be ready for trials in Ontario only by 2030.

Most alliances historically don’t last more than a couple of decades, but the North Atlantic Treaty Alliance is 70 this year, and has grown over that time to its now 29 members.

Originally formed as a protection against the Soviets, new and much different types of threats lurk, and there are divisions in the organisation.

Colin Robertson, a former Canadian diplomat and a Vice President of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. discusses the issues.

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U.S. President Donald Trump has been forcefully scolding many members of the Alliance for not living up to defence spending. In 2018, the Alliance widened the rules as to what counts as defence spending.  Canada is among several members, including France and Germany, not living up to the commitment to spend at least two per cent of GDP on defence.

Colin Robertson, VP Canadian Global Affairs Institute, former Canadian diplomat (supplied)

This now includes for example, pensions paid to former soldiers. The Liberal government has been meticulously searching for any expense that might be counted as defence spending including RCMP expenses for members involved in peacekeeping, costs for Canada’s spy agency-the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) and even death benefits for veteran’s survivors. Canada now spends about 1.27 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product on defence.

Robertson notes that the Alliance is burdened with disagreements, but that this is not unusual in NATO’s history.

Members of the enhanced Forward Presence Battle Group Latvia wait for helicopters in the training area during Exercise TOMAHAWK Soaring at the Lielvārdes Military Base, Latvia on Oct. 3, 2018. Canada points to such efforts and training missions of other NATO troops as a demonstration of its commitment, beyond mere dollars. (eFP BG ROTO 10 LATVIA Imagery/CAF)

It now faces new and much different threats from the more simpler Cold War period, such as new state actor threats, social but somewhat fluid and unorganised threats like piracy and mass migration, and non-state actors like Al Queda and DAESH, and a move by Russia and China to militarise space. While it has its hurdles to overcome, Robertson feels the Alliance will remain strong coming out of this week’s meetings.

Additional information

CBC: M. Brewster: Dec 2/19: NATO summit expected to put Canada under pressure on multiple fronts

CBC: M. Brewster: Dec 3/19: How NATO's defence spending benchmark turned into an international PR exercise

BBC: J. Marcus: Dec 3/19: Nato summit: Divisions exposed ahead of meeting

CNN: C. Brown: Mar 14/19: NATO report says only 7 members are meeting defense spending targets

So who's next to go in this National Hockey League public relations nightmare?

One wonders.

Don't bet against Marc Crawford.

Crawford is currently a Chicago Blackhawks assistant coach.

Sort of.

Marc Crawford leads a Colorado team practice in Denver in 1996 as assistant coach Bob Hartley looks on. Crawford led the Avalanche to the Stanley Cup that spring. (Paul Chaisson/Canadian Press)

At the moment, he is away from the team while the Hawks and the National Hockey League investigate some alleged misconduct in his treatment of some players in the past.

And that's all we know for now.

Crawford is a person with whom Canadian hockey fans are well acquainted.

He's been a full-time head coach of four franchises, winning the Stanley Cup with Colorado in 1996, and lest we forget--and thousands of Canadians will never forget--Crawford was the guy who kept Wayne Gretzky on the bench during a semifinals shootout at the 1998 Nagano Olympics.

Crawford, then an associate coach with Ottawa, reacts to a play on the ice in the third period against the Anaheim Ducks at the Canadian Tire Centre on Dec. 22, 2016. (Marc DesRosiers/Reuters/USA TODAY Sports)

Right now, he's more grist for the hockey mill, following departed TV broadcasting icon Don Cherry, former Toronto Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock, and former Calgary Flames coach Bill Peters, all of them forced out into unwanted hockey spotlight.

The Blackhawks are supplying no details about what they are looking into, but former NHL forward Sean Avery recently told the New York Post that Crawford kicked him after he was whistled for a too-many-men-on-the ice penalty when Avery and Crawford were with the Los Angeles Kings during the 2006-07 season.

Avery tempered the charges on Monday.

And Crawford is picking up support elsewhere.

Another of Crawford's former players, Brent Sopel, said last year that Crawford "kicked me, he choked me, he grabbed the back of my jersey and just pulling it back."

Both Crawford and Sopel were with Vancouver at the time.

Where all this is headed is anyone's guess, but questions abound.

Stu Cowan is a sports columnist with the Montreal Gazette. (YouTube)

Is this the way it's always been and where does hockey, a rough-and-tumble sport marked by periods of flowing grace, go from here?

For some perspective, I spoke with Stu Cowan, a sports columnist at the Montreal Gazette.

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With files from CBC, CP, AP, CTV, Global  Sportsnet, TSN

Holodomor - derivation of “moryty holodom” to kill by starvation

Rhea Clyman was her name, a ground breaking woman in so many historic ways, yet few have heard of her, few remember.

Self-taught and absolutely daring, this young Canadian woman from a poverty stricken background, became a foreign news correspondent at a time when such a thing for women was almost unheard of. She was also the first western journalist to expose the forced starvation in Ukraine that killed millions

Jars Balan, Director Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies University of Alberta, came across her remarkable story and is writing a book about her.

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As a very young child, she lost part of her leg in a streetcar accident. Later as a child working in a factory to help support the family, she improved upon a limited school education with self-study. In the 1920’s she moved to New York, then to London, then to Paris always hoping to work as a journalist. In 1928 seeing dissent in Germany as a possible career launch she moved to Berlin and saw Hitler’s first failed power grab.

Jars Balan, Director Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies University of Alberta

Then at age 24, she left for Moscow. Within months she had learned enough Russian to get by on her own and as a freelance correspondent for the London Daily Express and Toronto Evening Telegram.

Two of the rare images of the remarkable Rhea Clyman,(L) Ottawa Citizen , (R) Toronto Evening Telegram, both published related to her expulsion from the the USSR

As with many young journalists at the time, there was an initial sympathy for the Communist ideals of equality and prosperity for all. Unlike most foreign journalists who travelled on whirlwind tours with interpreters who were instructed on what to show and how to explain it, Clyman lived with a Russian family, was able to travel on her own, and quickly experienced the daily hardships and the underlying institutionalised terror of Stalin's regime.

One of her articles of the hardships under the Stalinist regime. The O-Gay Pay Oo referred to is the OGPU secret state police.

Her reports on the terrible conditions and abuse of political prisoners in the Siberian labour camps brought her to the attention of the Soviet leadership. By 1932 her reports on the horrific Stalin-ordered famines in the Ukraine, were often in conflict with the less informed western journalists taken on propaganda tours.

It was those truthful reports that prompted the dictatorship to order the OGPU secret police to arrest and expel her on false charges of being a purveyor of what we would call today “fake” news.

Soldiers confiscate grain from peasants in Novokrasne, Ukraine, in 1932 during the Holodomor. Canadian-born Rhea Clyman is considered the first western journalist to document the deliberate starvation of millions of Ukrainians by the Stalin regime. (Photo: history.org.ua)

Back in London, she was now much freer in writing articles exposing the atrocities of the Communist government and the lie that Communism was creating a new, better, and egalitarian society.

Later this young Jewish woman left for Germany again to document the rise of Hitler lasting through the rising antisemitism there, and the annexation of Austria and of the Sudetenland.

One of her articles again revealing the horror of the forced starvation

One of the survivors of a deadly air crash which was ferrying refugees out of Germany, she moved to Montreal as a Canadian correspondent for the London Daily Express. By 1942 she moved to New York and her story starts to fade. She died there, mostly forgotten in July of 1981.

"She's someone every Canadian should know about,” said Balan. “Hers is such an amazing story. She reported from two totalitarian regimes, was a feminist, a single woman—a Jewish woman reporting from Nazi Germany", adding, "She's a remarkable Canadian, a remarkable woman, a remarkable journalist".