Why this business wants you to stop and smell the roses - CBC.ca

Imagine ditching the city, the traffic and the latest Zoom meeting, and heading for the bush. 

"No cars, no high-rises, no phones. Just nature — which is where we're meant to be and what our brains are wired for," said Alexis Ashworth, the founder and CEO of Root in Nature, a new social enterprise in Ottawa, designed to immerse the senses in the healing power of nature.

Horticultural therapy technician Andrea Butt pauses at one of the sensory stations. (Hallie Cotnam/CBC)

Clients walk through a meadow and along a path that threads through birch trees located on the Just Food Community Farm, in Blackburn Hamlet. They're accompanied by trained horticultural therapy practitioners, like Andrea Butt, who help them experience nature with fresh eyes.

"There are ... plants that you've looked at every day ... and you've never noticed before," said Butt, demonstrating how to rub a mint leaf to release its calming scent.

At another point along the pathway, participants are instructed to look up at the tree canopy, and listen for the sounds of birds.

Getting back to nature with sensory walks through the forest

2 hours ago

Alexis Ashworth, founder and CEO of Root in Nature, says the social enterprise offers sensory walks through the woods near Blackburn Hamlet and helps residents rediscover the calming effects of nature. 1:16

"When the wind blows you can see the way the leaves ... dance against the sky," said Butt. "You'd be really surprised the things you hear, that you don't normally hear, when you take a moment to just focus on your listening."

The Root in Nature experience is designed to stimulate the senses, but also to ground participants in the here and now.

That's something Alejandra Vera Villamizar can appreciate. Villamizar is a newcomer to Canada, who came from Colombia two years ago. She's a horticultural therapy practitioner-in-training, and is completing her internship at Root in Nature.

Participants make their way along a path marked with sensory stations. They're encouraged to touch this plant, and sink their fingers in the dirt at its root. (Hallie Cotnam/CBC)

"Horticultural therapy is really good for broken hearts and really tired souls. I'm an immigrant. I was feeling that I didn't belong here," said Villamizar. "When I planted my first tomato plant in my garden, I was like, whoa. I feel like I can be part of this land, too. It was really healing in my soul."

Ashworth built her business plan around people's behaviours during the first waves of COVID-19, which she says proved that nature and being out-of-doors could help soothe frayed pandemic nerves.

"If you looked at garden centres, they were sold out of mulch, sold out of soil. People were getting back into the garden, and growing their own food. Going out to parks because they couldn't go to Cuba. People felt good when they were in nature, and gardening with plants," said Ashworth. "People want to continue that."

Alejandra Vera Villamizar, who is an intern at Root in Nature, demonstrates how she has clients stroke moss at the base of a tree to experience its texture. (Hallie Cotnam/CBC)

 Ashworth herself reached a breaking point early in the pandemic. A mother of two young children, she was also the CEO of Habitat for Humanity in Ottawa.

"I started working with an executive coach [who said], 'go back to a time when you were relaxed or happy.' It was always connected to plants or nature or gardening. I wanted to find a way to make that my career," said Ashworth.

Root in Nature offers two different options: one, aimed at helping youth who were hardest hit by the pandemic restrictions. The other, an employee wellness experience, as people may be uncertain about a return to the workplace. 

Ian Bingeman, a manager at the Ottawa Community Foundation, is considering signing his two teenagers up. He visited the birch walk to get a closer look at what Root in Nature offered, and ended up running his hands through the soil, sniffing herbs, and experiencing the calming balm of nature first hand.

Ian Bingeman on a stroll along the Root in Nature birch path. 'Just focus on where you are, and be in the moment.' (Hallie Cotnam/CBC)

"This is an automatic excuse for you to shut down all that busy work, just focus on where you are, and be in the moment," said Bingeman.

The therapeutic sessions are not free. The six-week, Sunday afternoon program for youth ages 16-24 costs $210. The employee experience package is considerably more, at $1,800 for up to 15 participants. But Ashworth says Root in Nature is offering several spots on a pay-what-you-can model.

Alejandra Vera Villamizar, left, Alexis Ashworth, centre, and Andrea Butt, right, stand amidst the sensory birch walk at the Just Food Community Farm. (Hallie Cotnam/CBC)

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Palliative patient's plea: Stop sending unvaccinated care workers to my home - London Free Press (Blogs)

Author of the article:

Jennifer Bieman

Publishing date:

Oct 01, 2021  •  5 hours ago  •  4 minute read  •  76 Comments

Diane Sims is pushing for mandatory COVID-19 vaccination for home care workers in Ontario after refusing care from unvaccinated staff sent by Cheshire Independent Living Services of London. As a result, she has lost those hours of care and is being forced to rely on assistance from her husband. (Diane Sims/Contributed)

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A Stratford palliative-care patient is pushing for a COVID-19 vaccine mandate for home care workers in Ontario, after barring unvaccinated staff from her home out of concern for her health and safety.

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Diane Sims says she was left with no choice but to refuse home care from unvaccinated workers after the London-based agency of which she has been client for five years declined her request to send fully vaccinated staff only.

“Somebody has to speak for those people who are too afraid or unable to speak out,” Sims said.

“Support work is very up-close and personal work. For some people, care workers feed them. They’re very close. . . . My husband and I have had to make the decision to stop having the unvaccinated workers in our home.”

Sims has multiple sclerosis, is an ovarian cancer survivor and has been dealing with rapidly deteriorating health since late March. She is  receiving palliative care and relies on home care visits from Cheshire Independent Living Services staff multiple times a day.

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Her refusal of unvaccinated workers means she’s doing without the care hours they provide. Her husband, who works full time, is trying to fill the void, she said.

“Right now, my husband is really stepping up to the plate. He has to take care of me,” Sims said, adding he’ll adjust his dinner break at work so he can come home and help her.

“I’m losing support hours at a time when I am more ill than I once was. I need those hours, but somebody has got to speak up for people who don’t want unvaccinated care workers.”

Of the approximately 12 care workers who regularly visit Sims’s home, she said four have told her they are not vaccinated against COVID-19.

Sims – who is fully vaccinated against COVID-19, along with her husband – said she did not pointedly ask her care workers about their COVID-19 vaccination status. Instead, she said workers openly disclosed their status. Some even shared their negative opinions on the shots, she said.

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Her family doctor, Sean Blaine, wrote a letter to Cheshire saying he did not support unvaccinated staff caring for Sims, given her fragile medical condition.

While being fully vaccinated against COVID-19 provides excellent protection against severe disease and death from the virus, the protection afforded to elderly, sick or immune-compromised individuals is lessened.

Sims asked Cheshire not to send unvaccinated workers to her home, but the agency said it could not disclose the health information of its staff to clients or adjust schedules based on vaccination. Cheshire requires regular COVID-19 testing for staff without the shots, in line with provincial guidelines.

Cheshire delivers publicly funded home care services to more than 250 clients in London and six neighbouring counties.

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“Cheshire is continuing to follow all mandates from the province of Ontario, and all directives from public health to ensure both client and staff safety,” executive director Angela McMillan said in a statement.

“We recognize that this is a particularly stressful time for those whom we support, and remain committed to providing a safe, reliable and consistent service, as we have done throughout the duration of the pandemic.”

Ontario’s directive to home care providers does not make COVID-19 vaccination compulsory for workers.

Staff must show proof of full COVID-19 immunization, provide a valid medical exemption or complete an educational session on vaccination. Workers with a medical exemption or who choose not to get the vaccines must submit to rapid testing at least once a week under the provincial rules.

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The province requires providers to have their own COVID-19 vaccination policies in place. Workplaces are free to implement measures that are more strict than the minimum standard set out by the province.

Some hospitals, including London Health Sciences Centre, are not allowing staff who refuse the shots to opt for routine COVID-19 testing instead. Earlier this month, 23 agencies that provide government-funded home care in the province – including VON – announced COVID-19 vaccination is a requirement for all staff.

The Ontario government’s refusal to make COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for health-care workers has led to a patchwork of policies that are endangering the most vulnerable, said Doris Grinspun, chief executive of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario.

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“Enough is enough,” she said, adding palliative patients like Sims shouldn’t have to worry if they’re being put at risk by their care providers.

“The RNAO has been asking, and was first out the door, on mandating vaccination of all health-care workers across all sectors and settings.”

While some hospitals and institutions have the courage to make COVID-19 vaccination mandatory for staff, others are less willing to take a hard line for fear of inviting a legal challenge or harming labour relations, Grinspun said.

The home-care sector in Ontario is critically under-staffed, she said, a factor that may give agencies pause before they implement a vaccination policy that is more strict than the provincial guidelines.

During a global pandemic that has killed more than 9,700 Ontarians, Grinspun said it shouldn’t be up to individual agencies in the health sector to come up with their own rules on COVID-19 vaccination for staff.

“It is outrageous. . . . We need the premier to step up,” she said.

jbieman@postmedia.com

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Manitoba RCMP looking to ID man who helped stop 2020 sexual assault in Dauphin - Globalnews.ca

RCMP in Dauphin, Man., are looking for a mystery man who is believed to have stopped a sexual assault in progress last year.

Police said they received a report of an adult man being sexually assaulted around 4 a.m. at some point between Oct. 7 and Oct. 11, 2020, at the Dauphin Fair Grounds.

The investigation has determined that an unknown man came onto the scene while the assault was happening and put a stop to it, while the suspect fled.

Read more: Arrest warrant issued for Peter Nygard in Toronto for sexual assault, forcible confinement charges

Police said the man spoke to the victim briefly.

Anyone who knows the identity of the man, or has any other information about the incident, is asked to call Dauphin RCMP at 204-622-5020, or Crime Stoppers anonymously at 1-800-222-8477.

0:36 Manitoba RCMP release sketch of suspect in sexual assault of teen girl

Manitoba RCMP release sketch of suspect in sexual assault of teen girl – Sep 17, 2021

© 2021 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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RCMP deny they pointed their guns in traffic stop near North Preston - CBC.ca

More details are emerging of the RCMP's version of a traffic stop near North Preston, N.S. in July.

Dean Simmonds, a superintendent with the Halifax Regional Police, says he was pulled over by the RCMP and ordered out of his car at gunpoint.

He and his wife, who was a passenger in the car, have filed a complaint about the incident. His wife, Angela Simmonds, was elected as MLA for Preston in August.

Shortly after the incident, Insp. Jeremie Landry, the acting officer in charge of the RCMP, emailed some members of Halifax regional council, giving the Mounties' version of what happened.

RCMP denial

In his email, Landry said an RCMP officer drew a gun, but that no guns were pointed Simmonds or his wife.

"Unequivocally, at no time, were any firearms pointed at them," Landry wrote.

Landry's email was the subject of a complaint by Halifax Coun. Waye Mason because the RCMP email was sent to some councillors, but not all. Mason also questioned the appropriateness of sending an email on an incident that is the subject of an ongoing investigation.

Mason raised the issue of the Mountie email with the chair of the Halifax Board of Police Commissioners, and it was brought up at the board's meeting last month.

CBC News requested a copy of the email, but the version supplied was almost completely redacted.

More information made available

On Friday, the city released a more complete version of the email. There are still redactions, but it is possible to make out what Landry is saying.

In the email, he tells councillors the car Simmonds was driving matched the suspect vehicle from a nearby shooting.

Landry also wrote that RCMP have obtained video from a Halifax Transit bus that was in the vicinity of the traffic stop.

Landry concludes his email by saying that officers immediately recognized Simmonds as he emerged from his car, and the high-risk stop was "quickly concluded."

The issue of how RCMP communicated in this case is to be discussed at this month's meeting of the Board of Police Commissioners.

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'Stop attacking our children': Sparta Prague hit back at reports of Kamara abuse - ESPN

8:49 AM ET

Glen Kamara was reportedly targeted with abuse during the game between Rangers and Sparta Praha. Photo by MICHAL CIZEK/AFP via Getty Images

Sparta Prague hit out at "xenophobic" reports that said Rangers midfielder Glen Kamara was targeted by sections of a crowd comprising mainly schoolchildren during Thursday's 1-0 Europa League home win.

In March, Finland's Kamara had complained of being racially abused by Slavia Prague's Ondrej Kudela during a Europa League tie and the continent's soccer governing body UEFA banned the Czech defender for 10 games.

Kamara was jeered throughout Thursday's game at the Letna Stadium, which UEFA had initially ordered closed for the match after Sparta supporters had racially abused Monaco's Aurelien Tchouameni in a Champions League qualifier.

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It later decided to allow 10,000 children to attend the game against the Scottish champions. The jeering reached its peak in the second half when Kamara was sent off, media reports said.

"It is absolutely unbelievable that after a match we have to watch innocent children being attacked and face unfounded accusations of racism," the Czech club said in a statement.

"Insulting children on the internet and in the media is unacceptable, desperate and ridiculous.

"Stop attacking our children! Our club will proudly defend our children -- our future and our pride. Slandering children on the internet is extremely cowardly."

Rangers manager Steven Gerrard initially said after the game that he was not aware of the booing but said on Friday that he heard it when he watched the game again.

"I'm fully aware now, having watched the game back with audio on. I'm actually surprised that I wasn't aware of it during the game," Gerrard was quoted as saying by Sky Sports.

"I have spoken to Glen Kamara, that conversation will remain private. Glen's okay, I'm sure he's disappointed, just like myself.

"I've been told that Rangers are going to take it up with UEFA. I think those wheels are already in motion. I'll certainly be pushing to make sure that's the case."

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Inquiry finds British 'open banking' body failed to stop bullying - Reuters UK

Skyscrapers in The City of London financial district are seen in London, Britain, September 14, 2020. REUTERS/Hannah McKay/File Photo

LONDON, Oct 1 (Reuters) - An organisation set up to promote open banking in Britain had poor governance and failed to stop bullying and intimidation of staff, an independent investigation instigated by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said on Friday.

The Open Banking Implementation Entity (OBIE) was set up in 2017 under the CMA's orders by Britain's nine biggest lenders to share transaction data with new entrants and promote competing services in a sector long-dominated by a handful of banks.

The inquiry was called for by the CMA a year ago and looked into corporate governance, late delivery of accounts, management of conflicts, procurement, value for money and staffing issues.

"It found that inaction and failures by the leadership of the OBIE allowed a culture of bullying and intimidation to prevail," the CMA said in a statement on Friday.

"Separately, it found there was a failure properly to manage conflicts of interest at the organisation and though it did not find any evidence that this was exploited for private gain, there was an unacceptable risk that it might have done so."

OBIE's head, known as a trustee, Imran Gulamhuseinwala, did not ensure that the OBIE was properly managed and had too much power with too few checks and balances, the CMA added.

Gulamhuseinwala has resigned and is being replaced by Charlotte Croswell, who joined OBIE this year, the CMA said. New non-executive directors will be appointed as a priority.

"It has been my privilege to serve in the role of the open banking implementation trustee when I picked up the reins in 2017," Gulamhuseinwala said in a statement.

The investigation concluded that the CMA, and the nine retail banks who set up OBIE, must accept their share of responsibility for not putting in place stronger governance mechanisms from the outset, the statement said.

The CMA must also study lessons from the failings in how OBIE was run, Chair Jonathan Scott said, adding it was therefore launching a review.

Reporting by Huw Jones; Editing by Alexander Smith

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Maybe It’s Time To Stop Blaming Workers For Not Being At Work - Forbes

It’s become popular—even knee-jerk—to write off the difficulty businesses face finding workers as people staying at home, probably sitting around in their underwear, enjoying the munificent benefits unemployment brings. The latest jobless claims numbers have provided room to again bring up the trope.

MarketWatch ran a piece today noting that the number of new unemployment filings—351,000—was a jump largely due to “California catching up on a backlog of claims instead of any deterioration in the U.S. economy.” And then came this statement:

Big picture: The U.S. economy has a lot of demand for labor. What it lacks is enough people who are willing to go back to work.

Ah, so simple. Tell those deadbeats to get themselves back to work. The only problem is that the easy explanation is almost certainly so simplified as to be next to useless.

There are certainly many businesses hurting for lack of workers. In my area, I’ve seen multiple food service places announce additional days closed or shorter hours. They pointed to the lack of necessary workers. If people find that they really didn’t need people, at least the general public, to make a living, they’re not going to keep working at places if there isn’t enough money to make it worth their while.

Call it hazard pay. If you’ve every catered to the public—whether in food service, retail, deliveries, landscaping, newspaper delivery, call centers, or some other variation—you know exactly what this means. Many customers are nice, but if you must put up with the tantrums, attitudes, and ignorance of those who aren’t, you should be paid to do so.

Many people have moved on. I had heard about a local grocery story that was having trouble getting products through its own warehouse and distribution center. As I asked about, someone finally said that the center was shorthanded because about half of the people who had worked there all defected and taken jobs at an Amazon warehouse. The work may have been demanding (then again, that in a warehouse distribution center problem was). And the money was much better.

Too many businesses need help and the number of jobs, which is growing, has been expanding for some years beyond a relatively flat workforce, according to Brad McMillan, chief investment officer for Commonwealth Financial Network. Here’s a graph I had put together in July to show the difference between people available for jobs and positions open:

And here is a graph of the number of jobs available per unemployed person, all based on government data:

The more jobs available per unemployed person, them more opportunity to pick and choose rather than having to accept whatever you might luck out and get when applying.

But as of August, there were still 8.3 million unemployed people. Compare that to the 5.8 million unemployed in August 2019. Now compare it to the 7.1 million unemployed in August 2017, when the civilian labor force was about a million fewer. And, sorry to burst any balloons, but a national economy in which there is a shortage of disposable coffee cups, as outlets like Plastics News has reported, should make you wonder how back in gear things are.

Maybe the labor “shortage” is, in reality, a job “overage.” More businesses, more expansion, more need of workers, and there aren’t enough bodies to go around. Perhaps some are worried about the Delta variant and don’t want to be exposed in those essential jobs that have retired the literal additional hazard pay they had previously offered. Or perhaps the workers, too, are suffering from people who can’t do things for them. There is a childcare worker shortage, so what happens if you don’t have someone to watch the kids so you can go to work?

And then, you have the potential mismatches in geography and demanded skills between those looking for work and employers who have their own requirements for what workers must be able to do.

The longer businesses and politicians point at those “lazy no-goods” living in the lap of (nonexistent at this point) government handouts as the problem and not big systemic issues, the longer the real problems get ignored and nothing improves.

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