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Local 99 ONA group rallies for better care, staffing and wages for nurses

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:20:40 GMT

Nurses, healthcare workers, and allies gathered at hospitals across the province on Feb. 23 to rally for better wages, staffing, and care for nurses. Kingston General Hospital (KGH) was one of these hospitals.Annette Sacoon, bargaining unit president and local coordinator of Local 99 and Region 2 of the Ontario Nurses Association (ONA), was a member of the local group that was rallying.When Ford’s government passed Bill-124 in 2019, the legislation capped wage increases for public sector employees at one percent each year, for three years. As a result, staffing shortages in hospitals across the province have increased. The union is currently in collective bargaining with the hospital, with a 130-page collective agreement document that highlights what the union is bargaining for.CFRC has reached out to Annette Sacoon ask if the rally has had any impacts on nurses since Feb 23.For the full CFRC interview with Annette, listen here:The post Local 99 ONA group rallies for bette...

Martha’s Table purchases additional property to serve more of the community

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:20:40 GMT

Martha’s Table, one of Kingston’s community centres that provides nutritious meals, has recently purchased the adjacent property of the building it currently resides in for a warming centre.The building is a historical one, meaning several repairs will need to be made for it to be fully functional, but parts of it have been opened to the public as a warming centre that provides coffee and tea.In a press release, Executive Director Ronda Candy said that, “the number of people unhoused in Kingston has tripled since the start of the pandemic, and most people walk to reach our facility, so this is an urgently needed service.”Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Martha’s Table had to reduce their services, but hope to open up soon again to serve three meals a day to those in need as soon as resources allow. Currently, Martha’s Table serves takeout meals from 12-2 p.m., seven days a week.Ronda Candy spoke to the purchasing of the new property, what Martha’s Table hopes to achieve in the nex...

Liquor consumption bylaw amended in Gananoque

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:20:40 GMT

A bylaw for consumption of liquor in public places has been amended by Gananoque council.Doing so now allows the organizer of any event the ability to determine if they want public alcohol to be allowed or not.On Oct. 18, 2022, council passed a bylaw to allow the consumption of liquor in public places. Joel Stone Park was the only location cited in the bylaw.On Dec. 6, 2022, council defeated a motion to consider a motion to repeal the bylaw. On Jan. 17, 2023, council passed a motion directing staff to bring back a report to amend the consumption of liquor in public places bylaw to exclude scheduled/booked events in Joel Stone Park to allow the organizer of any event the ability to determine if they want public alcohol to be allowed or not.Event organizers who book events in the park with the intention of selling alcohol must still obtain a special occasions permit and fence the licensed area. This will also need to be properly signed and communicated to attendees. They will also nee...

Analysis: How ‘grade obsession’ is detrimental to students and their education

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:20:40 GMT

By: Nathan Rickey, Queen’s University, Ontario; Andrew Coombs, Memorial University of Newfoundland; Christopher DeLuca, Queen’s University, Ontario, and Danielle LaPointe-McEwan, Queen’s University, OntarioGrading has been central to most education systems for over a century.During the 1800s, students’ achievement in school was communicated to parents through oral progress reports (typically through a visit from teachers to the student’s parents at home). These oral reports were later transformed into written reports and then into grades, first in secondary school, then in the elementary years.Grades were initially seen as an efficient way to communicate student achievement in school to parents. Grades are meant to represent, using letters or numbers, the quality (and at times, the quantity) of student learning in a subject, either on assignments or on report cards.It’s a common perception that students “earn” grades for their achievement at school; in this way, gr...

EU nears deal to restock Ukraine’s diminishing ammo supplies

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:20:40 GMT

BRUSSELS — The EU is finalizing a €2 billion deal to jointly restock Ukraine’s dwindling ammunition supplies while refilling countries’ stocks, according to documents obtained by POLITICO. The plan has two major elements. First, the EU will spend €1 billion to partially reimburse countries that can immediately donate ammunition from their own stockpiles. Secondly, countries will work together to jointly purchase €1 billion in new ammunition — the idea being that together they can negotiate bigger contracts at a lower price-per-shell. EU ambassadors will discuss the proposal — prepared by the EU’s diplomatic wing, the European External Action Service — during a meeting on Wednesday.The scheme — which POLITICO first reported on earlier this month — has come together rapidly in recent weeks in response to Ukraine’s pleas for more ammunition, specifically the 155-millimeter artillery shells it desperately needs to both hold territory a...

Liz Truss is gone. But Tories still dream of tax cuts on budget day

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:20:40 GMT

LONDON — Six months after Liz Truss’ ‘mini-budget’ meltdown, tax cuts remain a highly-prized ideal among U.K. Conservatives. Under the new Tory regime, they look set for short-term disappointment. U.K. Chancellor Jeremy Hunt will give his budget speech Wednesday — the first time there’s been a full-fat budget since October 2021, when someone called Rishi Sunak was in charge at the finance ministry. Hunt will ask the country, and his party, to hold tight in the face of a murky outlook for growth in 2023, resisting all calls for major tax cuts. It was reported by the Guardian Tuesday evening that what small fiscal headroom he has available will be spent on increasing free childcare for working families.That policy will be warmly welcomed, given the U.K.’s painfully-high childcare costs, but it’s not the only rabbit his backbenchers had hoped to see plucked from the chancellor’s hat on Wednesday afternoon. After all, it wouldn’t be budget w...

Europe is out of the immediate energy crisis

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:20:40 GMT

Ben McWilliams is a consultant, Simone Tagliapietra is a senior fellow and Georg Zachmann is a senior fellow in the field of energy and climate policy at Bruegel, Brussels.After surviving the most perilous winter on record without any serious interruptions to gas or electricity supply, Europe’s energy crisis is morphing into a new, less acute phase.In fact, the Continent has emerged from this emergency with very healthy volumes of stored gas — a rather remarkable feat that was grounded by the commitment of governments to allow markets to function. Higher prices drew liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargoes away from Asia and encouraged demand reduction at home.Most significantly, however, Russia has now exhausted its substantial market power over European supply. Over the last 12 months, as Moscow selectively cut exports, intraday price movements were recorded that, in magnitude, exceeded the absolute price pre-invasion. But today, Russian pipeline exports account for around 7 percent of...

It’s just not easy saying goodbye to China and Russia

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:20:40 GMT

Elisabeth Braw is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, an advisor to Gallos Technologies and author of the upcoming book “Goodbye, Globalization.”Saying goodbye isn’t easy.Hundreds of companies have announced they’re leaving Russia since its invasion of Ukraine began — yet many of them seem to have remained there. Meanwhile, when it comes to China, Apple and other famous multinationals have declared they’re friendshoring to countries like Vietnam, India and even the United States — yet trade between the U.S. and China hit new records last year. So, what’s going on?The bottom line is that it’s extremely hard for companies to withdraw from countries — especially from ones that are hostile or unwilling to let go.For example, a much-consulted list maintained by researchers at Yale University reports that over 1,000 Western companies have curtailed operations in Russia. But, in December, trade and business professors Simon J. Evenett and Niccolò Pisani found that le...

Pope John Paul II and pedophile priests becomes Poland’s top political issue

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:20:40 GMT

WARSAW — War? Inflation? Corruption? Nope, the big subject dominating Poland’s politics ahead of this fall’s parliamentary election is the legacy of John Paul II.Although the canonized Polish pontiff has been dead since 2005, he’s become the hottest subject in Poland following an explosive documentary aired by the U.S.-owned broadcaster TVN, alleging that when he was a cardinal in his home city of Kraków, he protected priests accused of sexually molesting children.That caused a collective meltdown in the ranks of the ruling nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party, which is closely allied with the powerful Roman Catholic Church.U.S. Ambassador Mark Brzezinski was even summoned (later toned down to “invited”) to appear at the foreign ministry. In a statement, the ministry said it “recognizes that the potential outcome of these activities is in line with the goals of a hybrid war aimed at causing divisions and tensions within Polish society.”PiS also pushed through ...

Europe’s green dilemma: Mining key minerals without destroying nature

Published Wed, 12 Feb 2025 15:20:40 GMT

For decades, the environmental and human cost of mining minerals like lithium and cobalt has largely been hidden from Europe’s view. That’s about to change. As the EU looks to diversify its supply of critical raw materials away from China, it wants to make it easier to tap into domestic reserves of the minerals it needs to build green technology like wind turbines and solar panels. But locals and green campaigners warn that slashing red tape for extraction projects risks taking a wrecking ball to decades of work to preserve nature and biodiversity, pointing out that mining can cause serious water and soil pollution and lead to deforestation and biodiversity loss.In Tréguennec, a coastal area in Brittany in northwestern France, locals are living above what they say feels like a time bomb. Some 130 meters below their homes lies the country’s second-largest deposit of lithium, a key component of the batteries used to power electric cars. Mining that so-called “w...