#mp covid-19

[xtruss]

Analysis: Is Canada Really So Immigrant-Friendly?

Trudeau’s ambitious plan to increase immigration is facing pushback from the left and right.

— By Claire Porter Robbins | Foreign Policy | August 28, 2023

A refugee arrives at the Roxham Road border crossing at the U.S.-Canada border in Champlain, New York, on March 25, 2023. Lars Hagberg/AFP Via Getty Images

Canadians like to think of their country as a nation built on immigration. Canada, the story goes, is a bastion of multiculturalism. This narrative has been refined through smug comparison to the United States and other Western countries. At first glance, it may seem that Canada is more welcoming: While other Western nations have faced heavy criticism for their migration policies, Canada has garnered a reputation as being immigrant-friendly. Since 2019, the Canadian government has resettled more refugees than any other country, with little public backlash.

So in November, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a plan to expand immigration, it seemed like a politically savvy move. Since Trudeau took office in 2015, immigration has already increased from around 300,000 to 400,000 new residents per year. Now, Canada plans to welcome 500,000 permanent residents each year by 2025. Laid out as a way to build up the Canadian economy, which faces labor shortages and a declining birth rate, the plan prioritizes bringing in skilled immigrants. It was met with praise from major corporate advocacy groups, such as the Business Council of Canada.

Ten months later, Trudeau’s plan is facing skepticism from both sides of the political spectrum. Criticism from the far right is no surprise. But as the government has struggled to integrate and support migrants, the prospect of bringing in significantly more of them has led immigration experts and advocates to air grievances about what they see as the administration’s failings in related sectors, notably refugee resettlement and housing.

Meanwhile, public opinion on immigration has started to shift. As cost of living and housing prices stay stubbornly high, anti-immigration sentiment—long boiling—may rise to the surface.

In early 2019, controversy arose over billboards put up across the country with the slogan “Say No to Mass Immigration,” which promoted then-MP Maxime Bernier’s far-right People’s Party of Canada in the campaign for the upcoming federal election. Complaints and citizens’ petitions ultimately led the advertising company to take down the signs.

Those who complained about the billboards, including candidates from Canada’s center and left-wing parties, saw their removal as a victory for Canadian pluralism, thrown into relief by then-U.S. President Donald Trump’s xenophobic, anti-migrant policies to the south. On election day in 2019, Trudeau’s Liberal Party triumphed, while Bernier’s party received meager support.

The Liberals’ success, combined with the outcry over the far right’s weaponization of immigration, signaled to Trudeau that most Canadian voters were resolutely pro-migration. Polling seemed to back this up. The month before the election, the Environics Institute for Survey Research found that 85 percent of Canadians surveyed agreed that immigration has a positive effect on the economy, while 69 percent supported the current immigration rate.

Yet these figures obscured Canada’s long-standing challenges with diversity and inclusion. “Because Canada is pro-immigration, there’s a perception that conflates this with Canada being an open society and not being racist,” said Pallavi Banerjee, a sociologist at the University of Calgary who researches how discrimination affects young migrants’ futures.

Canada has a history of racist policies related to immigration, from the late-19th-century Chinese head tax, which forced Chinese immigrants to pay a fee when entering the country, to Quebec’s highly controversial Bill 21, a law passed in 2019 that prohibits the display of religious symbols from public servants’ attire, including crosses, turbans, kippahs, and hijabs. In one high-profile incident in 2021, Bill 21 led to the removal of a Muslim teacher from her classroom for wearing a hijab.

In a 2022 Environics survey, 46 percent of respondents agreed that “there are too many immigrants coming into this country who are not adopting Canadian values.” The term “Canadian values,” though vague, points to respondents’ desire for immigrants to assimilate. The same poll has been conducted for three decades, and while that figure has decreased from 72 percent in 1993, it still indicates that Canada has yet to fully embrace multiculturalism.

Even at current immigration levels, Banerjee said, migrants are segregated from established Canadians, limiting opportunities for them to integrate into the social fabric of their new country and thrive. According to Statistics Canada as of 2021, 41.8 percent of nonpermanent residents and 16.1 percent of immigrants who moved to Canada in the past five years lived in poverty.

The government’s failure to fully integrate newcomers has spurred skepticism of Trudeau’s new program on the left. Columnists for center and left-wing outlets have written that Canada has an “immigration elephant in the room,” referring to racism against newcomers, and that the country is “woefully unprepared for the coming immigration boom” due to funding cuts for newcomer settlement organizations, which are typically funded through a combination of federal, provincial, and private donor funds.

Advocates for refugees and other migrants are some of the loudest voices demanding reform to Canada’s immigration and settlement processes before expansion. Directors of settlement and refugee organizations, who may have otherwise endorsed Trudeau’s plans, say the system is already overloaded. Newcomers categorized as “highly skilled” have publicly complained about being stuck in a bureaucratic limbo with the immigration ministry and not receiving decisions on their residency permits for years.

Public opinion appears to have shifted as well. Even before Trudeau’s plan, anti-immigration sentiment was already worsening online due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Banerjee said, as some Canadians blamed immigrants, particularly those of Asian descent, for the spread of the disease. In July, David Coletto, CEO of Canada’s Abacus polling firm, wrote on his Substack that 61 percent of Canadians polled believe that 500,000 immigrants per year is too high, including 37 percent who feel it is “way too high.” In addition, a July Abacus survey found that four in 10 Canadians polled would vote for a politician who promised to reduce immigration levels.

Now, some Canadians are conflating a different issue with immigration: the housing crisis that Trudeau has been unable to stem in his nearly eight-year tenure. In the many think pieces about immigration, commentators have complained of already overburdened services, from health care wait times to the availability of language lessons. But the most common criticism of Trudeau’s plan to expand immigration is the lack of affordable housing.

“Canada doesn’t have a refugee problem. Canada has a housing problem,” said Francesca Allodi-Ross, who runs Romero House, a nongovernmental organization in Toronto that connects migrants with people who have spare rooms. She worries about newcomers being blamed for a housing shortage that has been a long time coming.

According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, Canada has the most expensive housing market in the G-7. Vacancy rates for rental housing are at a two-decade low, and the Royal Bank of Canada expects the country’s rental housing gap (the difference between available rental units and those seeking them) to surpass 120,000 by 2026—quadrupling today’s deficit. In early August, Stefane Marion, the chief economist of the National Bank, called on the government to revise the immigration target until housing supply could match demand, citing “record imbalance” between the two.

Meanwhile, as housing shortages threaten to affect the coming “highly skilled” migrants prioritized by Trudeau’s plan, social justice-oriented groups such as Romero House have pointed out that the government has so far neglected to provide enough housing for other newcomers who have already arrived: specifically, refugees and asylum-seekers. The government’s failure to arrange temporary housing for them was glaringly apparent over the summer, when hundreds of asylum-seekers camped outside Toronto’s emergency shelter intake center.

The way the government responds to the needs of newcomers, and especially refugees, is “very reactive—and it’s been this way for years,” Allodi-Ross said. It was only after the Toronto shelter crisis, when many media commentators questioned Trudeau’s immigration expansion program, that the municipal, provincial, and federal government committed $71.4 million to housing for refugees and asylum-seekers, and the city freed up more hotels for emergency shelter.

Directors of temporary shelters and refugee settlement programs say there is a chronic lack of state funding and support for recent arrivals. John Mtshede, the executive director of Matthew House, a shelter for asylum-seekers in Ontario’s Niagara region, said his shelter is stretched to capacity. For years, the government has repeatedly denied Matthew House’s requests for funding to develop a plot of land for additional housing. Matthew House has found its most sustainable support through private fundraising and religious groups, rather than government funding.

Like many others who work at refugee and immigration NGOs, Mtshede is frustrated with the lack of coordination between the municipal, provincial, and federal governments about who bears responsibility for housing the government’s target of a little more than 70,000 new refugees each year. “Nobody wants to take the blame for this situation,” he said.

Despite the pushback, the Liberal government appears to be doubling down and ignoring accusations that it has not funded the services required to process and settle newcomers. At a press conference in early August, a reporter asked Marc Miller, the new immigration minister, if the government would reduce the immigration targets.

“Whether we revise them upwards or not is something that I have to look at,” he said. “But certainly, I don’t think we’re in any position of wanting to lower them by any stretch of the imagination.” In the meantime, newcomers will increasingly become the fall guy for the housing crisis that has unfolded under Trudeau’s watch.

— Claire Porter Robbins is a Journalist in Calgary, Alberta, and the Founder of Btchcoin News. She has worked as an aid worker in the Middle East and in Strategic Communications for a United Nations Peacekeeping Mission.

[sophsweet]

Philanthro Capitalism Versus Impact Investing - Results?

i've been working on this timeline a while and may update it

Here is a series of events, which lead up to and surround the coronavirus pandemic, which have far reaching impacts on the stock exchange, personal wealth, corporate practice, governments, media and global health and well being. The positive impacts of the money, time and effort are difficult to find, unlike the harms. There isn’t an easy to find paper trail or outcome from actions taken and…

[chrissterry]

Less than one in five care staff vaccinated against flu or boosted against Covid, figures reveal - Community Care

I would encourage everyone to have both the COVID- 19 and Flu vaccinations to enable them to have the full possible protection possible and in doing so protect others, but I can see the reasons of some not to. This is especially so in Social Care for if they do get a reaction from the vaccinations the loss of earnings they would suffer will be extremely dire to them, especially as their pay rate…

[afeelgoodblog]

The Best News of Last Week - June 20, 2023

🐕 - Meet Sheep Farm's Newest Employee: Collie Hired After Ejection from Car!

1. Border Collie ejected from car during Sunday crash found on sheep farm, herding sheep

Tilly, the 2-year-old Border Collie who was ejected from a car Sunday during a crash, has been found. He was found on a sheep farm, where he had apparently taken up the role of sheep herder. 

According to Tilly's owner, he has lost some weight since Sunday's crash and is now drinking lots of water but is otherwise healthy.

2. After 17-Year Absence, White Rhinos Return to the Democratic Republic of the Congo

The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) recently welcomed the reintroduction of 16 southern white rhinoceroses to Garamba National Park, according to officials. The last wild northern white rhino was poached there in 2006.

The white rhinos were transported to Garamba, which lies in the northeastern part of the country, from a South African private reserve. In the late 19th century, the southern white rhino subspecies was believed to be extinct due to poaching until a population of fewer than 100 was discovered in South Africa in 1895, according to WWF.

3. UK to wipe women’s historic convictions for homosexuality

Women with convictions for some same-sex activity in the United Kingdom can apply for a pardon for the first time, the Home Office has announced.

The Home Office is widening its scheme to wipe historic convictions for homosexual activity more than a decade after the government allowed applications for same-sex activity offences to be disregarded.

It means anyone can apply for a pardon if they have been convicted or cautioned for any same-sex activity offences that have been repealed or abolished.

4. Study shows human tendency to help others is universal

A new study on the human capacity for cooperation suggests that, deep down, people of diverse cultures are more similar than you might expect. The study, published in Scientific Reports, shows that from the towns of England, Italy, Poland, and Russia to the villages of rural Ecuador, Ghana, Laos, and Aboriginal Australia, at the micro scale of our daily interaction, people everywhere tend to help others when needed.

5. In a First, Wind and Solar Generated More Power Than Coal in U.S.

Wind and solar generated more electricity than coal through May, an E&E News review of federal data shows, marking the first time renewables have outpaced the former king of American power over a five-month period.

The milestone illustrates the ongoing transformation of the U.S. power sector as the nation races to install cleaner forms of energy to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels.

6. Iceland becomes latest country to ban conversion therapy

Lawmakers in Iceland on June 9 approved a bill that will ban so-called conversion therapy in the country.

Media reports note 53 members of the Icelandic Parliament voted for the measure, while three MPs abstained. Hanna Katrín Friðriksson, an MP who is a member of the Liberal Reform Party, introduced the bill.

7. The temple feeding 100,000 people a day

Amritsar, the north Indian city known for its Golden Temple and delicious cuisine, is also renowned for its spirit of generosity and selfless service. The city, founded by a Sikh guru, embodies the Sikh tradition of seva, performing voluntary acts of service without expecting anything in return.

This spirit of giving extends beyond the temple walls, as the Sikh community has shown immense compassion during crises, such as delivering oxygen cylinders during the COVID-19 pandemic. At the heart of Amritsar's generosity is the Golden Temple's langar, the world's largest free communal kitchen, serving 100,000 people daily without discrimination. Despite a history marred by tragic events, Amritsar continues to radiate kindness, love, and generosity.

----

That's it for this week :)

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[allthecanadianpolitics]

MPs overwhelmingly voted to kill a bill Wednesday pushed by Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre that would have banned Ottawa from again imposing COVID-19 vaccine mandates on federal workers and the travelling public.

By a vote of 114-205, MPs agreed to drop the private member's bill, C-278, that Poilievre first introduced last year when he was running for the party's leadership.

Full article

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[covid-safer-hotties]

Also preserved on our website

By Jean Shaoul

University College London (UCL) and Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK hosted a screening of The Unequal Pandemic, followed by a panel discussion, to launch the film about inequality during COVID.

The film is now available here: goodguysproductions.co.uk/the-unequal-pandemic/

Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK was formed in April 2020, because its two founders who had both lost close family members to COVID-19 believed that their loss could have been avoided if the government had made different decisions. They are determined to ensure that lessons are learned from their suffering and that others don’t have to go through the same horrible fate that they had. They want to ensure that the lessons learned from the UK Covid-19 Inquiry, which their campaign had been crucial in setting up, are turned into legislation that saves lives in the future.

They were responsible for the creation of the National Covid Memorial Wall, a 500-metre-long mural with over 200,000 hand sized red hearts painted on it to mark each of the deaths suffered at that time in the UK from COVID-19, on the south bank of the Thames facing Parliament.

The Unequal Pandemic film, by Labour MP Debbie Abrahams and Good Guys Productions, highlights the vastly unequal impact of the pandemic on Britain’s poorest communities, often minority ethnic groups. The short film lays bare the long-term institutional, social and government failures that led to one of the highest excess COVID death rates in the developed world. Its testimonies from bereaved families and stark evidence contradict the then Conservative government’s cynical claim that “We are all in it together.” This was a reference to the now infamous statement of the Tory Chancellor George Osborne in 2012 falsely claiming that everyone, and not only the working class, was bearing the brunt of the savage austerity unleashed by his government.

COVID-19 both reflected and exacerbated all the social inequalities prevalent in Britain today.

Sir Michael Marmot, Professor of Epidemiology at UCL and director of the Institute of Health Equity, a leading authority on health inequalities and author of several landmark government reviews on poverty, introduced the film. He told the audience that the UK is a “poor country with a few rich people in it.”

The pandemic killed nearly 250,000 people in the UK, according to the official statistics, with the population suffering the sixth worst death rate in the world due to the homicidal policy of Boris Johnson’s Conservative government, summed up in his infamous outburst at the height of the pandemic, “No more fucking lockdowns, Let the bodies pile high in their thousands!” The number of people infected with the virus—and continue to be infected—is so great that over a million people are estimated to be suffering from the debilitating impact of Long COVID.

The government’s policies were driven not by the fight against a preventable disease to protect public health, but by the impulse to prevent the disruption of global supply chains and financial markets. The ruling class welcomed the death of the elderly and those in need of care as a means of reducing social spending.

The pandemic had a disproportionate impact on black, ethnic minority and migrant communities (BAME). They were more likely to contract the virus, have a higher death rate, less access to sick pay, with migrants having no access to sick pay, under conditions where sick pay rates in the UK are among the lowest in the developed world, less access to adequate support schemes, unequal vaccination coverage and more likely to have inadequate living space. These conditions had a devastating impact on their health and in turn helped to spread the virus throughout the country.

The film opened with Marmot saying, “People said it will be the great leveller. But that’s not the history of mass disease. It will expose the underlying inequalities and amplify them. Professor Clare Bambra, Professor of Public Health at Newcastle University, said her heart sank when she first heard about the new virus because of the knowledge of what happened in previous global pandemics and what it meant for different communities.

Marmot said that BAME communities suffered huge excess mortality rates, much of which could be attributed to where people lived and other socio-economic factors. But there was something else going on as well. Dr. Habib Naqvi, chief executive of the NHS Race and Health Observatory, explained that the reason typically given for why BAME workers suffered such high rates was they were more likely working on the front line in the pandemic, in health and social care, transport and retail. They were also more likely to have to use public transport to get to work, further exposing them to risk. But no one explained why that was the case in the first place, he said, indicating that racism was the unacknowledged factor.

However, the overwhelming weight of evidence presented demonstrates that it is the socio-economic factors detailed by the documentary that overwhelmingly determine the disparate impact of the pandemic, including on black and Asian workers.

Mortality rates were far higher in the north of England, the former industrial—and now poorer—area of the country, than in the south, and far higher in the more deprived areas, highlighting the north-south divide. According to figures produced by Food Aid Network and the Trussell Trust, “By 2019, prior to the pandemic, the UK had more food banks than McDonalds outlets.” Marmot said that health had been deteriorating prior to the pandemic. His earlier report in 2020, Marmot Review-10 years on, revealed that life expectancy had been stalling and health inequalities were widening. Socioeconomic inequalities played a major part in these adverse health conditions in the decade before 2020.

Marmot explained that the UK fared so badly because the government had disinvested in public services in the most regressive way, with the poorest areas bearing the brunt of the cuts. Local government slashed expenditure on adult social care. Healthcare spending failed to rise in line with demographic and historical patterns. There were cuts in public health funding as well as in welfare to families with children, in education spending per school student and the closure of children’s centres. Not only had public services been cut to the bone but the tax and benefit system had been recalibrated to the disadvantage of the lower income groups, with child poverty almost doubling to 4.2 million in 2022 since 2012.

Marmot noted that income inequality led to health inequality. Health had stopped improving, and there was a high prevalence of the health conditions that increase case fatality ratios of COVID-19. The unequal conditions into which COVID-19 arrived contributed to the high and unequal death toll from COVID-19.

Thus, that disinvestment set the UK to manage the pandemic very poorly.

Even after the first case of COVID-19 was announced in February 2020 and the virus was spreading rapidly, superspreader events such as a football match in Liverpool and the horse races at Cheltenham were allowed to go ahead, with the inevitable results. The government was complacent and ignored the lessons of previous pandemics, the healthcare specialists explained. They had totally inadequate protective clothing, masks that did not fit and personal protective equipment (PPE), if it was provided at all and in many cases it was not, was useless, leaving them exposed to COVID and terrified. One healthcare worker was told when she complained to buy her own from Amazon, at a cost of £300! Many hospital workers died as a result.

When the government did try to procure PPE, it turned to its friends to do so without even the pretence of going through the correct procedures for public procurement. As a result, much of it ended up in bonfires. As Marmot said, “Pub landlords might not be the best people to buy our PPE from. So the government’s absolute faith in the private sector led to an incredible waste—£38 billion for the government’s test and trace system. The government stopped funding public health, so we had no capacity. So then it says, ‘Let’s get some capacity, let’s put tens of billions into some new private sector organisation to do.’

“No, how about funding Public Health to do it? That’s what it is set up to do. To work with local government. To work with the voluntary organisations. Do I think that running Test and Trace through local public health services would have been better than the private sector? I don’t think it could have been worse.”

The film’s screenshots show Britain’s deprivation graphically. It gives voice to some of the people who lost family members. Francesca Michaels speaks about her mother, Billie Michaels, who grew up in a deprived, working class area of Liverpool in the north west of England. Billie brought up five children while on benefits and lost her life to the virus while parties were going on in Downing Street: “It was a conveyor belt of death. She was cremated in a body bag.”

Karren Frasier-Knight speaks about losing her twin sister, Paula Greenhough. “I lost half of me – half of me is gone,” she says through tears. Lobby Akinnola, one of the panellists in the discussion after the film, had a similar experience. He says: “When I got the call from my mum that dad was no longer with us, my world ended in that instant. I fell on the floor. Everything fell apart.”

In conclusion, Marmot said that many of the failings before and during the pandemic were clear to see. Poverty is something that “impedes freedom… Don’t get rid of environmental and social protections: get rid of poverty. That way, we will be better prepared to face the next pandemic.”

Following the film, there was a discussion chaired by Delanjathan Devakumar, Professor of Global Child Health and Director of the UCL Centre for the Health of Women, Children and Adolescents. The panellists included: Sir Michael Marmot, Naomi Fulop, Professor of Health Care Organisation and Management and Director of Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, Oluwalogbon Akinnola, a campaigner from Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, Debbie Abrahams, Labour MP for Oldham East and Saddleworth and Andrew Gwynne, Labour MP for Gorton and Denton and Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State at the Department of Health and Social Care.

While the discussion centred on health care inequalities, none of the panellists addressed the central questions: how is social inequality to be eradicated or where is the much-needed funding for healthcare to come from? Much less did they challenge Abrahams and Gwynne over the Labour government’s plans for a budget with at least £40 billion in spending cuts and tax rises that will vastly accelerate the 14 years of brutal cuts already carried out by Conservative-led governments and the continued evisceration of the National Health Service. That this will fall hardest upon the most vulnerable was made clear by the Labour government’s first act—to abolish the winter fuel supplement for the elderly.

Ending social inequality can only be achieved by expropriating the billionaires’ wealth and imposing massive taxes on the super-rich, the financial institutions and the corporations to fund urgently needed social programmes for workers and young people. No solution can be found to any of the problems confronting working people except through the ending of the capitalist system and its replacement with socialism.

[capnsoapy]

congratulations to boris johnson for managing to resign in disgrace twice in nine months

(detailed explanation of Johnson's premiership below if you need to catch up)

After David Cameron resigned due to the Brexit referendum (2016), and Theresa May resigned after failing to enact Brexit (2019), Boris Johnson became the next UK Prime Minster.

Soon after, the COVID-19 pandemic began, and Johnson was in charge of the UK response. Lockdown laws were implemented, so meetings with others were highly restricted and it was an offence to do so; the exact rules changed frequently as the infection spread.

During this period (2020-2021), Boris Johnson held a number of work meetings and parties at Downing Street. When rumours of this circulated (Nov 2021), he repeatedly insisted in parliament that this was not true.

These claims were escalated from rumour with the publication of the "Sue Gray report"; an in-depth investigation into the so-called "Partygate" scandal, which resulted in (amongst other things) Boris Johnson being fined for breaking the law (May 2022).

When this news broke, a vote of no confidence was held in Johnson, and though it narrowly failed to oust him as Conservative leader (59-41), shortly afterwards a slew of Tory MPs began resigning in protest, threatening to collapse the government. His hand was forced, and he resigned as party leader (Jul 2022).

However, he continued as an MP, and so the inquiry continued over whether him lying to parliament should result in him being expelled from the house. During this inquiry, Johnson has claimed that any misleading was due to incompetence and ignorance, rather than intentionally lying (Mar 2023).

Boris Johnson received a copy of the inquiries findings, which recommended he be suspended and that a by-election be held to potentially replace him. After seeing the evidence and conclusions, Johnson immediately resigned (Jun 2023).

The full report will be published to the public shortly.

[head-post]

King Charles III heckled by Indigenous lawmaker in Australia

King Charles III was sharply criticised during a speech at Parliament House in Canberra on Monday by a senator who accused the British crown of stealing Aboriginal land.

Charles III, who is on a five-day visit to Australia with Queen Camilla, addressed MPs and senators in the Great Hall of Parliament on Monday. It was a key moment in his inaugural visit to Australia as monarch.

As he finished a speech in which he spoke about his studies in Australia, the COVID-19 pandemic and Australia’s vulnerability to climate change, Lidia Thorpe, an independent senator from Victoria, took to the stage shouting:

“This is not your country. You committed genocide against our people. Give us our land back. Give us what you stole from us – our bones, our skulls, our babies, our people. You destroyed our land. Give us a treaty. We want a treaty in this country. You are a genocidalist.”

Charles III turned to Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and spoke quietly to him at the podium while security prevented Thorpe from approaching the monarch.

When security personnel asked the senator to leave the room and escorted her to the door, she shouted:

“This is not your land. You are not my king. You are not our king.”

Already in the lobby, Thorpe, dressed in a long possum skin coat, said:

“Fuck the colony.”

Earlier, as Thorpe waited for the monarch among invited guests in the Great Hall of Parliament, she turned away from a large video screen that showed King Charles III standing at attention outside during the official welcome and national anthem.

Before the King’s speech, Albanese and Opposition Leader Peter Dutton welcomed Charles III and Camilla to Parliament House, thanking them for supporting Australians in both good and bad times. Albanese praised the King’s engagement on issues such as climate change and reconciliation.

Earlier on Thursday, Thorpe released a statement arguing that Australia should become a republic and make a treaty with indigenous peoples as part of the process. She said there was “unfinished business that remains that we need to resolve before this country can become a republic.”

Charles III took the throne of Britain in September 2022 following the death of his mother Elizabeth II. On October 18 this year, His Majesty began his first visit to Australia since taking office.

The country has seen renewed debate over its declaration as an independent republic amid Charles III’s trip. The British monarch officially heads each of the Royal Commonwealth countries, which include Britain, Australia, Canada, New Zealand, New Zealand and 11 other nations.

Read more HERE

[ukrfeminism]

An unprecedented number of women are being investigated by police on suspicion of illegally ending a pregnancy, the BBC has been told.

Abortion provider MSI says it knows of up to 60 criminal inquiries in England and Wales since 2018, compared with almost zero before.

Some investigations followed natural pregnancy loss, File on 4 found.

Pregnancy loss is investigated only if credible evidence suggests a crime, the National Police Chiefs' Council says.

File on 4 has spoken to women who say that they have been "traumatised" and left feeling "suicidal" following criminal investigations lasting years.

Speaking for the first time, one woman described how she had been placed under investigation after giving birth prematurely, despite maintaining that she had never attempted an abortion.

In England, Scotland and Wales, abortion is legal up to 24 weeks with the approval of two doctors. However, after 10 weeks the procedure must be carried out in an approved clinic or NHS hospital.

Outside of these circumstances, deliberately ending a pregnancy remains a criminal offence in England and Wales under the 1861 Offences Against the Person Act, which carries a maximum punishment of life in prison.

Dr Jonathan Lord, medical director at MSI, which is one of the UK's main abortion providers, believes the "unprecedented" number of women now falling under investigation may be linked to the police's increased awareness of the availability of the "pills by post" scheme - introduced in England and Wales during the Covid-19 lockdown. Scotland also introduced a similar programme.

These "telemedicine" schemes, which allow pregnancies up to 10 weeks to be terminated at home, remain in effect.

The British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS), the UK's other main abortion provider, says it has received more than two dozen police requests for the medical records of women who have enquired about an abortion.

In March, MPs are due to vote on an amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill that would fully decriminalise abortion in England and Wales.

'I just froze'

File on 4 spoke to Katie (not her real name), who has been under investigation for several years for illegally procuring an abortion.

She says she believed that she was approximately seven weeks pregnant when she contacted a provider and received abortion pills through the post.

After taking the pills at home, Katie says she went into labour and gave birth to a stillborn baby. She later realised the pregnancy had progressed beyond the 24-week limit.

"After I gave birth I just froze - nothing will ever prepare you for something like that," she says.

"I didn't know what to do. I just kept thinking: 'How did this happen? How did I not know?'"

Katie was taken to hospital, where staff called the police. She was arrested on suspicion of self-inducing an abortion illegally and held in police custody before she was released on bail.

MSI's Dr Lord says criminal investigations and prosecutions further "traumatise" women after abortions, and that women like Katie deserve "compassion" rather than "punishment".

"These women are often vulnerable and in desperate situations - they need help, and prosecuting them is not the way to do that," he says.

Katie could face a prison sentence. She maintains that she had no idea that she was over the legal time limit when she took the pills - she says she was still having regular periods and had not put on any weight.

"Being under investigation, it's such a long process and months go past without you hearing anything," she says.

"I have genuinely felt suicidal at times because of it."

Melanie McDonagh, a journalist who has written widely about abortion and believes abortion should not be fully decriminalised, says the rise in police investigations is a consequence of "pills by post" and called for in-person consultations to be reintroduced at clinics.

"If we return to the situation before telemedicine in 2020, then there would be a guard against most of these cases happening in the first place," she says.

'Outdated law'

Abortion providers say the 1861 law that makes abortion a criminal offence is no longer fit for purpose - and the increase in cases being investigated means they want abortion to be fully decriminalised.

In Scotland, abortion is criminalised under common law. Abortion was fully decriminalised in Northern Ireland in 2020.

The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) says prosecutions under the law are rare: "We carefully consider the personal circumstances of those who end their pregnancy outside the legal parameters and address these as sensitively as possible.

"Our prosecutors have a duty to ensure that laws set by Parliament are properly considered and applied when making difficult charging decisions."

Only four women have gone on to be convicted of procuring an illegal abortion in the past 20 years. One of these women, Carla Foster, was jailed in June last year.

Another woman, Bethany Cox, was cleared of the same charge in January. Since December 2022, four more women in England have appeared in court under the law. Charges were dropped against one and discontinued in another case, while two women face a potential trial.

In some cases, women have been reported to police on suspicion of having an illegal abortion by healthcare workers, including midwives.

The Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists (RCOG) issued new guidance to medical professionals in January, urging them not to report women to police if they suspected they may have illegally ended their pregnancies.

RCOG said it was concerned that "traumatised" women were being prosecuted after abortions.

But abortion providers MSI and BPAS say this does not go far enough, because women can still be subject to criminal investigation if they are reported by someone else.

However, Melanie McDonagh says health professionals should not be discouraged from contacting police and that they have a "responsibility" to both the woman and the foetus.

MPs are set to vote on the amendment to the Criminal Justice Bill that would decriminalise abortion next month. It will become law if approved by both the House of Commons and the Lords,

Those who coerce women into abortions against their will would not be protected from prosecution if it passes.

Labour MP Diana Johnson, who tabled the amendment, says it would bring England and Wales into line with Northern Ireland.

But opponents of the proposed law change say it sets a dangerous precedent.

Melanie McDonagh says changing the law would be "disastrous".

She says: "If abortion was decriminalised, we would have more cases of women having abortions beyond the legal limit.

"We should be doing everything in our power to discourage this, and the law acts as a deterrent."

'Treated like criminals'

File on 4 has also found evidence of women falling under suspicion of illegally ending a pregnancy following a natural pregnancy loss - rather than taking pills - or premature birth.

Sammy, who lives with her husband and teenage son in the north of England, says she decided to have an abortion after falling pregnant last year.

But staff at the abortion clinic told Sammy she was over the legal 24-week time limit.

"I was all over the place, I searched for information about adoption and abortion," she says.

Even though abortion pills would not have been medically safe or legal to take, she says she did at one point put abortion tablets in her online basket and researched information about abortion methods as well as adoption.

She says, though, that she did not go through with the purchase of the tablets, deciding instead to come to terms with continuing the pregnancy.

But six days later, she says she started to feel unwell and realised she was going into premature labour.

Her son was born at home over three months premature, weighing only 1lb 5oz (700g).

"He was blue in colour, he wasn't breathing, so I had to start CPR on him," she says.

While she previously had wanted a termination, "that didn't mean I didn't want him to survive" after he was born, she says - and he did survive.

Sammy's husband called 999 and police and paramedics arrived. After Sammy was taken to hospital, her husband was arrested on suspicion of procuring an illegal abortion. She was told she needed to be interviewed at the police station.

"We were treated like criminals from the get-go, but we'd done nothing wrong," she says.

Sammy's husband was released on bail, but they both remained under police investigation for over a year.

Last month, Sammy was told police were dropping the investigation because of a lack of evidence.

Dr Lord said that in another case, a teenager was investigated by hospital staff after a pregnancy loss because she had previously contacted an abortion provider.

He said: "This is a national scandal, which I think we will look back on in years to come and think, how was this allowed to happen?"

The police force that handled Sammy's case said officers who arrived at her house had identified information to suggest that a crime may have been committed and a "thorough" investigation was required.

It said no-one involved would face any further police action.

Sammy says although she is relieved, she is still dealing with the impact of the investigation on her mental health.

"I still don't sleep properly because I'm still constantly worrying about being taken away," she says.

"I think without the support of my family, I wouldn't still be here."

[anyoneknowwhatbrexitmeans]

“It is therefore concerning that Byline Times and The Citizens have found links between COVID-19 contracts and firms connected to members of the House of Lords, current MPs, former political aides, current Government advisors and people closely associated with the Prime Minister’s former chief advisor Dominic Cummings and the Vote Leave campaign.”

[submalevolentgrace]

"The deputy chair of parliament’s intelligence committee has suggested “foreign state actors” may have stoked anti-vaxxer and rightwing extremism sentiment in Australia during the Covid-19 pandemic in a bid to influence the outcome of the May federal election.

“I’m very mindful of the increase in the fanning of rightwing extremism in the lead-up to the last federal election,” the Coalition MP Andrew Wallace told Guardian Australia."

YEAH NO SHIT THEY'RE CALLED "AMERICANS", YOU THINK WE HAVE QANON MARCHERS IN MELBOURNE WAVING THE US CONFERDATE FLAG COMPLETELY ORGANICALLY??? FUCK

[mariacallous]

Figures published on Friday from Albania’s 2023 headcount shows the total population has fallen by around 409,000 people, or some 14 per cent, since the 2011 census, when some 2.8 milion people lived in the country.

“There are [now] 2,412,113 inhabitants, who make up 755,950 families with an average size of 3.2 members per family and who live in 1,082,529 ordinary homes,” the head of the Institute of Statistics, INSTAT, Elsa Dhuli, told a press conference.

The census took place from September to November 2023 after being delayed several times because of the COVID-19 pandemic and an earthquake in 2019.

Jorida Tabaku, an opposition MP, told BIRN that the long delay in the publication of the final results had been “pointless”, noting that the 2011 census did not need six months for the publication of the results, and when the technology has become better now.

“This shows not only a lack of seriousness on the part of the government but also a weak administration. I don’t know why it needed so much time for such a small country,” Tabaku told BIRN.

Tabaku highlighted the migration issue and the clear ageing of the population.

“Unfortunately, Albanians have decreased by 400,000 inhabitants, proving the immigration crisis and the continuous depopulation that has not only increased the average age of our country by two years to 42 years but also the decrease in the number of young people. From the INSTAT figures … young people have decreased by 6.4% while the elderly have increased by 13.7%,; we have more elderly people, and less and less young people,” she noted.

Tabaku said the trend was alarming. “In relation to historical data, the Albania of 2024 is less in number than the Albania of 1976, and this is another alarming sign, not just because we have decreased [compared] to the population five decades ago but because … the aging of the country is [now] inevitable,” she concluded.

Albania’s government has been the target of criticism from the opposition over mass migration, which Socialist Prime Minister Edi Rama has dismissed many times, claiming it is a normal “historical trend”.

In the summer of 2022 alone, some 12,000 Albanians crossed the sea from France to Britain in small boats. According to the Migration Observatory at the University of Oxford, some 16,000 Albanians applied for asylum in Britain in 2022; roughly 12,000 of them arrived irrregularly by small boats across the Channel.

The 2011 census drew widespread criticism for allegedly under-counting the Roma and Egyptian communities in Albania, which had a knock-on effect, as budgetary funds allocated for minorities for education, employment and social welfare are relsted to their overall numbers.

[thoughtlessarse]

Politicians should be subject to stricter rules on spreading disinformation or wild claims for which there is scant evidence, the thinktank Demos has urged, after senior members of the UK government repeated conspiracy theories on 15-minute cities. Parliament’s ethics and standards watchdog should urgently review its requirements to ensure ministers were truthful and accurate in their communications on contentious issues, and avoid spreading disinformation that can polarise debate, the thinktank said in a report on low traffic neighbourhoods (LTNs). Central government had created serious problems for local authorities with its wild swings on the issue of LTNs, Demos added, as ministers first enthusiastically backed such schemes and ordered them to be implemented swiftly during the Covid-19 lockdowns in 2020, then veered away when their unpopularity among some motorists became apparent. The government is now seeking to limit local authorities’ ability to implement the schemes, even though a report commissioned by ministers found they were popular and beneficial. The health minister Maria Caulfield repeated the untrue claim that plans for 15-minute cities – a term coined to describe livable communities where amenities such as GP surgeries, shops and leisure facilities are within walkable distance for most people – would include a road toll on anyone travelling by car more than 15 minutes from home. Mark Harper, a transport minister, went further and endorsed false claims that LTNs are a means to prevent people travelling outside their local area without permission.

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[convertgrapeling]

Why you should consider not voting - UK general election 2024

Overall, voting has limited power. You cannot vote to end capitalism or dismantle white supremacy. Nobody capable of enacting serious change will ever be given the chance to do so by party political systems.

Even within the limited scope of parliamentary politics, your vote has a limited ability to influence anything. This is partly because of the first past the post system and partly because MPs are generally compelled to vote with their party in the Commons. It's also because the options in British politics range from "centrist weirdos" to "openly fascist." There is no genuine choice here.

You should not feel compelled to vote for something you don't want out of a sense of obligation. You have every right to opt out of party politics, especially if you would rather channel your attention to more useful action like protest or direct action. Imagine if everyone who went out canvassing or posting leaflets instead decided to organise for Palestine or the NHS - these are far more useful things to do with your time.

The idea that you cannot do harm by voting is incorrect. A comfortable majority for any party is a bad thing. Labour will win this election but we shouldn't help them get a landslide.

Some people argue that if you can't choose a party you want to vote for, you should turn up anyway and spoil the ballot. Personally, I don't think there's any real difference between spoiling the ballot and simply not voting. Both are valid.

The argument about how people "fought and died for our right to vote" is irrelevant because those people wanted your vote to be meaningful. Under a capitalist system where media owners and right-wing business interests dominate the agenda, your vote is largely meaningless. Pretending otherwise only distracts us from more important actions we could be taking.

If you insist on voting, my recommendation is to vote based on whichever local independent candidate is calling for a ceasefire. It is completely legitimate to treat the genocide in Gaza as the main political issue in this election, because people who cannot be depended on to oppose a genocide cannot be trusted on anything.

"It's privileged people who are telling you not to vote." This is nonsense. Tactical voting is a behaviour predominantly associated with middle class voters, and the most marginalised people in this country are more likely to abstain from voting.

"You clearly don't care about people who will be killed by the collapsing NHS, benefit cuts, transphobic legislation, etc." I do care and that's why I don't wait for an opportunity to vote before taking action on these things. In my experience, people who are most self-righteous about voting are people who don't make an effort the rest of the time. If you feel an obligation to take action, don't wait for an election.

Voting Labour is no different from voting Tory nowadays. They have Rachel Reeves telling us she will be harsher on benefit claimants than the Tories. They have Wes Streeting telling us that he was wrong to say "trans women are women" in the past. They have Keir Starmer telling us that black people in the UK have nothing to fear from the police. Labour have turned down chances to oppose the Tories on so many major issues. They have openly said they will not reverse austerity. They have told us who they are and we should listen.

Over 230,000 people in the UK died from COVID-19 and no politician cares because the media has moved on. That should tell you all you need to know about this system: these people despise you.

Many people are still voting on the same basis they voted on decades ago, whereby they don't like Labour but they think Labour is still preferable to the Tories. This is outdated thinking. Voting for Labour now means rewarding them for their dramatic lurch to the right, ensuring that the country as a whole continues sliding to the right.

In addition to this, Labour have repeatedly said that they don't want leftists voting for them, so that's fine with me. Again: they despise you.

British politics is not going to be pushed to the left. We tried this from 2015 to 2019 and it only resulted in our political centre moving further to the right, with horrible consequences. Stop putting your energy and time into this system.

I am not participating in the pattern of continually getting absorbed in pointless discussions about which politicians are worse behaved, who is least trustworthy, what they are saying in debates, what's in the manifestos, etc. It's all irrelevant. This is all I'm saying on the issue of this election and I've already heard all the counter-arguments, so save your breath.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

MPs on the House of Commons health committee voted Wednesday to launch a study into the more than $300 million the Liberal government paid to a now-shuttered Quebec-based pharmaceutical company whose COVID-19 vaccine never made it to market. Conservative MP Stephen Ellis brought forward the motion calling for the study after reporting by the National Post revealed last week that the government paid $150 million to Medicago in the form of a "non-refundable" advanced purchase agreement. The Liberal government signed that agreement in October 2020 to secure up to 76 million doses of a plant-based COVID-19 vaccine it was developing. The government also provided Medicago with an additional $173 million for research and development and for the construction of the company's Quebec City manufacturing facility. The vaccine never made it to market and Medicago was shuttered earlier this year. "Three hundred million dollars of taxpayer money was wasted and ... was hidden deep in a document," Ellis told the committee. "The sunny ways and transparency of this Liberal government have gone long and far and deep into some dark, dank cave."

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Tagging @politicsofcanada