First Nations life expectancy plunges by six years
By: Dirk Meissner
VANCOUVER (CP) – Life expectancy for British Columbia’s First Nations people has dropped by more than six years since 2017, says a report tracking Indigenous health issues.
The report from the province’s First Nations Health Authority says Indigenous life expectancy in B.C. fell from 73.3 years in 2017 to 67.2 years in 2021.
“Clearly, this life expectancy data is gut wrenching,” Dr. Daniele Behn Smith, deputy provincial health officer for Indigenous health, said at a news conference. “It is gut wrenching.”
The report released Wednesday found life expectancy for First Nations males declined by 6.8 years, and 5.2 years for females, for an overall decline of 6.1 years, the report said.
Dr. Nel Wieman, First Nations Health Authority’s chief medical health officer, said the decline was largely due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the province’s opioid overdose crisis.
Wieman said First Nations people in B.C. account for about four per cent of the province’s population, but between 14 per cent and 19 per cent of toxic drugs deaths.
B.C.’s Coroners Service reported last month that there had been 1,158 toxic drug overdose deaths this year, a drop of about nine per cent over the same period in 2023 when 1,279 deaths were recorded.
Despite efforts to turn the tide, Quebec’s education system struggling with shortages
By: Maura Forrest
MONTREAL (CP) – Lately, Karine Boudreau has toyed with the idea of quitting. For most of her 18-year career as a school psychologist, the thought of doing something else never crossed her mind.
But in the last four years, she’s been feeling stretched too thin to do right by the students.
As students across Quebec head back to school next week, the province is staring down an intractable staffing shortage: more than 3,800 teaching positions remained unfilled as of Wednesday.
But it’s not just teachers who are hard to find. Special education technicians, daycare workers, psychologists and speech therapists are all in short supply. And while the Quebec government insists it’s taking steps to improve the situation, staff and their unions say the problem won’t be fixed until schools once again seem like desirable places to work.
One-third of Canadians report being personally impacted by severe weather: poll
By: Mia Rabson
OTTAWA (CP) – A new poll suggests more Canadians are feeling the direct impacts of extreme weather, but that has not changed overall opinions about climate change.
The results from a recent Leger poll suggest more than one in three Canadians have been touched directly by extreme weather such as forest fires, heat waves, floods or tornadoes.
When Leger asked the same question in June 2023, around one in four Canadians indicated they had been impacted by extreme weather.
The previous poll was taken as the record-breaking 2023 wildfire season was just getting underway.
The latest poll, which was conducted online Aug. 16-18, comes midway through another above-average wildfire season, and after news that the beloved Jasper National Park was partially destroyed by fire and as residents of the country’s biggest city are living through the rainiest summer on record.
Across the country, a heat wave descended on large parts of British Columbia and Alberta in June and July and drought in both provinces has raised the fire risk substantially.
Alberta saw the biggest increase, with 43 per cent reporting they’ve seen the effects this year, up from 22 per cent in 2023. In Quebec the number rose to 41 per cent from 25 per cent, while in Ontario it was up 13 percentage points at 31 per cent.
Grizzly bear cubs seen on Vancouver Island for first time could have big impact
By: Nono Shen
COURTENAY, B.C. (CP) – When Catherine Babault captured images of a female grizzly bear with two cubs encountering a herd of elk on Vancouver Island last month, she knew she had witnessed something special.
“I feel very privileged — not everybody has the opportunity to see grizzly bears in nature and it was a very rare moment for Vancouver Island,” said Babault, a professional wildlife photographer.
Not only is such a scene uncommon, the likelihood that the cubs were born on the island and didn’t swim there could mean the start of a native-born population with big potential to affect the island’s ecosystem, said Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of the Grizzly Bear Foundation.
Such a population of grizzlies could be transformative, he said.
Scapillati said grizzlies can eat up to 200,000 huckleberries a day and their scat would spread seeds as they wandered the island.
Municipalities say Alberta oilpatch policies harming tax base, public interest
By: Bob Weber
EDMONTON (CP) – Alberta’s United Conservative government is trying to increase production from the province’s declining conventional oil and gas fields at the expense of local tax bases, environmental oversight and the public interest, says the group representing rural municipalities.
Rural Municipalities of Alberta held a town hall meeting earlier this month to discuss the impacts of enacted and upcoming policy changes that they fear will cost them hundreds of millions of tax dollars, weaken rules over failing wells and hamstring regulatory authority.
The group has identified five government policies it fears could harm its members.
It says the relaxing of a ministerial order requiring companies to pay municipal taxes before being able to transfer well licences could see unprofitable wells shifted from one unstable company to another, allowing industry to avoid paying for their cleanup.
Municipalities are also concerned about a strategy to keep older, declining wells in production. McLauchlin said the government seems to believe that municipal taxes and regulatory requirements are what’s keeping those assets from profitability and plans to reduce both.
Tory MP deletes post that claimed cost of living is driving parents to traffic kids
By: Nojoud Al Mallees
OTTAWA (CP) – Conservative MP Michelle Ferreri has deleted a post on X that claimed the affordability crisis has driven parents to traffic their kids.
This comes after The Canadian Press sent Ferreri questions regarding the post, which followed a visit to the Kawartha Sexual Assault Centre in Peterborough, Ont.
In the now-deleted post shared on Aug. 16, Ferreri said there has been a rise in human trafficking and domestic violence and tied those trends to affordability.
“The cost-of-living crisis has driven parents to traffic their own children,” Ferreri said.
On Wednesday, Ferreri said in a statement that the organization shared “deeply troubling statistics and shocking stories” with her.
“I admit my statement posted following my meeting was inartfully worded,” she said.
“While a cost of living crisis undeniably results in increases in a wide array of social problems — from drug abuse to crime to families struggling to afford food and shelter — it is of course in no way an excuse for human trafficking.”
Ferreri’s now-deleted post also linked a rise in domestic violence reports at the centre to the cost of living, saying “survival leads to crime.”
Japanese Canadian paper, pillar for community during war, saved from digital oblivion
By: Nono Shen
VANCOUVER (CP) – More than eighty years ago, Japanese Canadians came together to sustain The New Canadian, the only newspaper specifically for the community that was allowed to be published through the Second World War.
Now the community has come together again — and may have saved the newspaper’s archives from the digital scrap heap.
Supporters say the newspaper that published from 1938 to 2001 was a pillar of the community during the turmoil of the war when Japanese Canadians were interred, stripped of assets and had their patriotism questioned.
The New Canadian’s digital archives had been facing deletion, after Simon Fraser University Library announced recently it would no longer host them on its servers from this fall.
But after the announcement sparked outcry — and more than 3,000 people signed an online petition calling for the archive to be saved — SFU said in a statement on Monday that it recognized the importance of preserving access to sources including The New Canadian, and it would continue to host the archive until an accessible online alternative is found.
