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Martin Lukacs and Desmond Cole discuss the Liberal government’s Harper-esque budget
The post A budget for tanks, banks, and oil barons appeared first on The Breach.
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My exhausting experience with the bureaucratic hurdles of long-term sick leave
(thenorthstar.media)
In October 2024, I learned that I would be undergoing open-heart surgery in 2025. It was unfortunate, but I had to go through with it in order to continue living, at least for a little while longer... Wanting to be considerate, and well aware of all the little administrative problems that such a situation can cause, I quickly contacted my employer to let them know. From the outset, I understood that I was dealing with a three-headed machine consisting of my employer, my insurer, and Employment Canada. From the outset, the three of them bombarded me with forms and requirements that would fuel a whole bureaucratic saga of disability. I wrote to one, called the other, and had to wait for certain deadlines. The result? I was admitted to the hospital without the problem being resolved. I called my employer from my hospital bed, then Employment Canada. I spent hours on the phone, having to cut off conversations to make way for doctors and nurses, which meant I had to call back several times and start the process all over again. Yet both form machines have the doctor's note saying that I have to be off work for at least three months and all the forms filled out. I'm going to be cut open, is it possible to have peace of mind? No! Finally, after several attempts, the two opaque entities ended up communicating! It was about time. So now I can rest and focus on the ordeal ahead. Not quite... I have to file reports every two weeks with Employment Canada. Yes, but... I don't know how long I'll be unconscious, what kind of lucidity I'll have after the surgery, I can't guarantee that the first report will be filed on time. Nothing is settled, and the cutting up of my body is coming. On the scheduled date, I lie down on the operating table and fall asleep after a few minutes. I open my eyes after what seems like a moment and see the smiling face of my sweetheart, more loving than ever. I close my eyes, tired, and fall asleep. I am woken up and bombarded with questions: What date is it? Where are you? How many children do you have? The only question I can answer correctly is the one asking me my sweetheart's first name. I am confused, and there are concerns about my cognitive health. If that weren't enough, the medication given during the operation is making me paranoid. The report I have to file with Employment Canada in all this? I'm in no condition to do it. If only it could have been taken care of before... Of course, we can't get any money until the first report has been filed. It'll have to wait... After a week of remission, I leave intensive care. In my new room, I have a phone and can call Employment Canada to make my first report. I call, press the buttons to answer the questions. After almost an hour of going through the same voicemail and robot responses, I finally speak to an agent who allows me to make the report over the phone with him. I begin to make my mandatory claims. For two months, things go pretty well. Then I have to consider a gradual return to work. My employer asks for another doctor's note, which I provide. However, I receive a very unpleasant phone call from the HR lady. She is being difficult about the dates on the notes. I explain that the two documents should be seen as complementary. She insists that the most recent note cancels out the previous one. Due to a difference in interpretation, our long and unpleasant discussion leads to a fruitless dialogue of the deaf. Fortunately, I haven't heard from her since. For a few weeks, things seem to be going smoothly. I receive a little money from my employer and more money from Employment Canada. Suddenly, I receive a letter from the insurer. They tell me that I must provide documents within 30 days, otherwise my disability claim will be canceled. I don't understand anything, and I panic. So I call the Insurer, afraid that I will lose the money provided by my Employer or Employment Canada. The person on the phone explains that after 15 weeks, the Insurer is supposed to take over. I'm not sure why, it's not explained to me, but I tell them I will do what is necessary. I go to the hospital that same day. The doctor's secretary tells me that it could take up to three months to complete. I have a 30-day deadline to meet, but I can't tell a doctor who spends 12-hour-plus days in operating rooms saving lives that she has to hurry up and fill out the little piece of paper, all to satisfy the whims of the insurer. I come home, call the company again, and tell them there will be a delay. The doctor's secretary takes a few weeks to send me the completed document. Of course, throughout this process, the insurer hasn't paid a penny. On the Employment Canada side, I also have to wait; my new status as a worker returning to work gradually requires new information, so nothing is coming in on that front either. At the end of July, I receive a phone call from the insurer. I have to answer a whole series of questions. Once again, the problem of reading medical bills, created entirely by the employer, resurfaces. I re-explain what I already told the HR lady. Unlike her, the agent understands. The insurer will pay from the beginning of June until mid-August. I tell her that this will interfere with Employment Canada. She replies that it is up to me to call the government agency and see what I owe them. According to her, Employment Canada should have stopped paying at the beginning of June. It's now the end of July. I reply, annoyed, that I'm
L’article My exhausting experience with the bureaucratic hurdles of long-term sick leave est apparu en premier sur The North Star.
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Behind Heron Gate’s destruction lies a broader shift in Canada’s housing system—financial firms, pension funds, and private equity investors have transformed rental housing into a speculative asset class, driving up rents and displacing racialized tenants
The post The corporate blueprint behind the eviction of Ottawa’s most diverse neighbourhood appeared first on The Breach.
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Forced expropriation by the CAQ, hazardous waste imported from the United States, and growing public concern: it didn’t take much more for a movement of citizens, unions, and activists to form earlier this year in Blainville. Their initiatives, research, and a damning public environmental report have now shed light on the serious health risks still posed, forty years later, by the Stablex waste disposal site. What does Stablex do, and why is it in the news now? Since the 1980s, the American hazardous waste landfill company Stablex has been importing substances such as arsenic, lead, cadmium, cyanide, and chromium to treat and bury them near a residential neighborhood in Blainville. Around 70% of this waste comes from south of the border. Stablex is owned by the largest waste management company in the United States, Republic Services. Republic Services is 35% owned by Bill Gates’ investment firm, Cascade Investments. The remaining shareholders are trillion-dollar investment giants like Vanguard, BlackRock, and State Street Corporation (Union Bank). In 1981, the Quebec government authorized Stablex to build a sixth landfill cell, increasing its total capacity to nine million cubic meters by 2040. But forty years ago, Blainville was not yet a city surrounded by residential neighborhoods. That’s why, toward the end of the last decade, the company proposed relocating slightly farther from the residential area, in exchange for an extension of its operations until 2065. A new, more remote plot of land owned by the City of Blainville was sold to Stablex for $14 million, on the condition that the company obtain the required authorizations to begin the project. In 2023, after the Quebec public hearings office on the environment (BAPE) released its public inquiry, Blainville’s city council unanimously voted to cancel the agreement with the American company. Stablex responded that the resolution had no legal value, claiming it did not comply with the terms of the contract. In March 2025, Premier François Legault’s government came to Stablex’s rescue, allowing the company to begin “urgent” construction work to avoid a “service disruption.” The CAQ used an exceptional legislative procedure to bypass normal processes and expropriate the Blainville site without any democratic debate. It’s worth noting that Stablex itself admits that without cell #6, it won’t reach maximum capacity before 2027. According to the BAPE report, the company actually has enough space until 2030. A technology that’s neither effective nor safe Stablex’s waste treatment relies on a British process from 1973 called “Sealosafe,” which mixes toxic waste with concrete before burying it in pits lined with clay that is supposed to prevent leaks. Deemed obsolete for more than 35 years in the UK, this method is even less effective in Quebec’s climate. According to biologist Daniel Green, rain and freezing temperatures prevent the concrete from fully hardening, allowing contaminants to seep into the soil and groundwater. A report from Quebec’s environmental police as early as 1990 confirmed that the process was not “inert.” Stablex claims its waste is not only inert but permanently so. Yet, a statement from Solomax, the company that supplies Stablex’s geomembrane liner, says it is guaranteed for only five years. Moreover, according to the BAPE, Stablex has never tested soil or water quality around its site in over forty years, relying solely on laboratory simulations to assess its process. The report recommends that the Environment Ministry require direct analyses of the landfill cells and concludes that the expansion project should not be approved due to the lack of guarantees about its impact on public health and the environment. And this time, the new cell #6 won’t be buried underground like the others: it will be a mountain of exposed waste. A mountain eight storeys tall, or 22 meters high, made of hazardous materials right next to a mostly residential city of just under 60,000 people. So what is the environmental situation in Blainville? Since neither the company nor the Environment Ministry had ever tested the quality of the soil or water near the Stablex site until very recently, about 30 citizens decided to do it themselves last spring, with the help of biologist Daniel Green to ensure the accuracy of the results. The results only deepened residents’ concern. Now organized as the Blainville Citizens’ Coalition Against Stablex Cell #6, they found alarming concentrations of toxic metals: up to 320 times the safe limit for cadmium in water near the plant, 57 times in nearby soil, and unsafe levels of arsenic, copper, chromium, and nickel—particularly in the Lockhead Creek area, close to residential neighborhoods. The Environment Ministry recently admitted it had already conducted sampling of soil and water near Stablex in 2024, but said results would only be made public “later this fall.” Contradicting the citizens’ findings, the government stated that according to its inspection report, Stablex “complies with current environmental standards.” The ministry also published a report on air quality around the facility, saying: “There are currently no concerns regarding air quality.” Yet no study to date has demonstrated that the company’s new open-air waste storage method will not affect long-term air quality.
L’article In Blainville, Quebec government chooses U.S. toxic waste over public health est apparu en premier sur The North Star.
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