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Waves, river currents, and tidal turbines could help power Canada's clean energy future. Trevor speaks with Elisa Obermann, Executive Director at Marine Renewables Canada, about the promise of marine energy and how countries like Canada are pursuing its potential. They explore how emerging 'blue energy' technologies complement solar and wind, support coastal and Indigenous communities, and move us toward a more sustainable, diverse net-zero grid.   Related links    Marine Renewables Canada: https://marinerenewables.ca/ Fundy Ocean Research Center for Energy (FORCE): https://fundyforce.ca/ canmetENERGY: https://natural-resources.canada.ca/science-data/science-research/research-centres/canmetenergy Yuquot Wave Energy Project: https://barkley.ca/project/yuquot-wave-energy-project/ Blind Channel Tidal Energy Demonstration Centre: https://onlineacademiccommunity.uvic.ca/primed/blind-channel/ European Marine Energy Center (EMEC): https://www.emec.org.uk/ Canadian Hydrokinetic Turbine Test Centre: (CHTTC): http://www.chttc.ca/ Elisa Obermann on LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/elisa-obermann-07469245/    Trevor Freeman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/trevor-freeman-p-eng-8b612114    Hydro Ottawa: https://hydroottawa.com/en      To subscribe using Apple Podcasts:  https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/thinkenergy/id1465129405   To subscribe using Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7wFz7rdR8Gq3f2WOafjxpl   To subscribe on Libsyn: http://thinkenergy.libsyn.com/ --- Subscribe so you don't miss a video: https://www.youtube.com/user/hydroottawalimited   Follow along on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hydroottawa   Stay in the know on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HydroOttawa   Keep up with the posts on X: https://twitter.com/thinkenergypod --- Transcript: Trevor Freeman  00:00 Welcome to thinkenergy, a podcast that dives into the fast, changing world of energy through conversations with industry leaders, innovators and people on the front lines of the energy transition. Join me, Trevor Freeman, as I explore the traditional, unconventional and up and coming facets of the energy industry. If you have any thoughts, feedback or ideas for topics we should cover, please reach out to us at think energy at hydro ottawa.com, hi everyone, and welcome back. I have a really great conversation for you today, but before I get to that, I think it's worth a minute or two of time to revisit some first principles people approach the energy conversation from all different backgrounds and angles, and I think it's good to make sure that we're all on the same page when it comes to some foundational knowledge before we dive into our topic today, the thing that I want to quickly review is electricity generation. Now don't worry, we're not going to get into an advanced physics level of knowledge on this, but I just want to quickly refresh everyone on the basics. And by the same token, to all of you advanced physics folks out there that are listening, please forgive me if I'm slightly off on a detail or two, as long as I don't mess up the core foundational information. So for the most part, the electricity that we use is primarily generated by spinning a coil of wire around a magnet, or inversely, spinning a magnet inside a coil of wire that causes electrons to move, and that flow of electrons is electricity. For the most part, that combination of coiled wire and magnets and a spinning motion is what makes most of our electricity. There is one major exception to this, which is solar power that doesn't involve spinning anything. But other than that, our major electricity sources utilize that spinning motion, and I'm not including hydrogen fuel cells here as a major source of electricity. So let's keep going with this spinning idea. Then the next question is, how do we make things spin? One very common method is heat. Let's say you burn something, coal or natural gas, for example, which creates heat. You then use that heat to boil water, which makes steam, which you can push at high pressure against turbine blades to make them spin. It's as simple as that. The problem is, burning things creates harmful emissions, which are causing climate change. You can also generate heat with non emitting sources, and a major one, especially here in Ontario, is nuclear power, splitting atoms in a controlled environment, a nuclear reaction generates heat and then the process is the same as previously described. So as complex as a nuclear reactor is its main purpose when it comes to electricity generation, is simply making heat so we can boil water and create steam, et cetera, other than heat. The other way to make things spin is to utilize naturally occurring kinetic energy. So that means something that's already happening out there that carries a lot of force that can push a turbine blade. This would include wind energy, so using the force of the wind to turn large wind turbines and hydro electricity, which uses water being pulled downhill by gravity, so a flowing river or a large dam to turn that turbine the same end results that spinning motion, but no need to create heat to get there. We're almost done with the science lesson, so just bear with me for another few seconds as we think about reducing our carbon emissions, finding ways to generate electricity that don't require burning fossil fuels is really important. Solar definitely has a role to play, but we also need more emissions free ways to spin things. I mentioned some of the more traditional ones, like solar and wind energy, but today's conversation is about some lesser known, emerging methods, which are covered by the term marine renewable energy generation. Phew, it was a long walk to get there, but we finally got here. All of that is to tee up my conversation today with Elisa Obermann, the Executive Director of Marine Renewables Canada. Marine Renewables Canada is the National Association for tidal wave and river current energy in addition to offshore wind. But it's those first three generation strategies that I am particularly interested in as non mainstream ways to spin things. These technologies are known as blue energy, but are often overshadowed by the more common renewable energies that we talked about, solar and wind generation. So I'm really excited to chat with Elisa to shed some light on them. Today. Elisa has served as the executive director of marine renewables Canada since 2015 she's a founding member of both the Electricity Alliance Canada and the Canadian Council on Renewable Electricity. She has also worked for several other organizations that focus on clean technology, tidal energy and the broader renewable energy sector, including Sustainable Development Technology Canada, the Fundy Ocean Research Center for Energy. Which you'll hear us talk about today as force and Nova scotia's Department of Energy. Elisa Obermann, welcome to the show.   Elisa Obermann  05:07 Hi. Thank you very much for having me.   Trevor Freeman  05:09 So, let's start off kind of with the basics. Elisa, why don't you tell us a little bit about your background and how you got into this pretty unique space in the energy sector that we're going to dive into a little bit more.   Elisa Obermann  05:22 Sure. So I decided after doing my undergrad, so I'm going kind of way back here, all the way back. Yeah, exactly. I did a degree, a bachelor's degree in English, but I really wanted to get involved in something that would help me do more for the environment, play a role in the future. So I decided to go back to school to do a public policy degree. And the first internship I had was with Nova Scotia Department of Energy, and it was actually on the oil and gas side of things, but my thinking was, well, this will get me eventually to where I want to go and working more in renewables. And that's essentially exactly what happened. And so I started working more and more there on renewable energy. Then started working on the province's marine renewable energy strategy. So it really kind of got me into this kind of path of, you know, working on climate change and renewable energy. And the other thing I will also say is that I grew up in Maine and really close to the ocean, and so after university, I moved to Toronto for a while, and I thought to myself, like, I really just want to do something that takes me back to the ocean. So this really combines both kind of goals I had for myself, in terms of working to protect and help the environment, and then also staying close to the ocean.   Trevor Freeman  06:35 Yeah. I mean, that makes a ton of sense. It's interesting. I talked to a lot of people, obviously, and often the question of career path comes up, and it's funny to see the things that we're passionate about in those early days, no one could guess how that comes to fruition later on in our careers. And you know, I've got some similar stories of wanting to save the world when I was in university and having no idea how the different paths that that would take me on. So great to hear your story. Thanks for sharing that. Tell us now a little bit about your organization, marine renewable Canada, and you know, kind of its vision for how marine renewables will fit into the energy sector.   Elisa Obermann  07:10 Yeah. So marine renewables Canada is a National Association. We're headquartered in Halifax, but we do work across the country, and actually, our beginnings were in British Columbia, really starting around like wave energy, small scale projects. One of our founding members at the time was BC Hydro. We now have over 200 members, and that's really grown just in the past couple years, because our focus is on wave, tidal, river current energy, but also offshore wind. And so there's been a lot of excitement, especially on the East Coast, around offshore wind, but today I'll probably focus mostly on kind of those water resources and how we're working to advance those. Our mandate is really to champion the sector, help with advocacy, engagement, education, and also expand market opportunities. So obviously we do a lot of work around enabling policies that help open up that market, both here, but also globally. But ultimately, what we'd like to see is that marine renewables is playing a role in getting Canada to net zero and right now. I mean, it's a more emerging technology, if you look at wave, tidal and river, but there's a lot of potential for it to play a big role.   Trevor Freeman  08:20 Yeah, so great. And that's a great segue into kind of the next thing I want to talk about on this show. We often talk about, let's call them the more traditional or conventional or well known energy sources, so our kind of traditional fossil fuel combustion, our other renewable sources, solar and wind, and even offshore wind, I think people have a sense of what that is. I mean, wind energy is the same on land as off land. It's just in a different location. But tell us about the types of marine energy that you're talking about. You just referenced some of them here, you know, take us back to basics. What are we talking about when we talk about marine energy?   Elisa Obermann  08:56  Yeah, absolutely. So I would categorize it as four main kinds, but I also will mention that there are some that our association doesn't cover. And I will touch on those, sure, primarily. So we focus on tidal energy. And when I say tidal I don't mean barrages or dams, which were kind of a more prevalent technology, you know, decades ago. What I'm talking about is what we call tidal stream and so essentially, if you think of, you know, what wind turbines look like, it's essentially a wind turbine, but in the water, so it can be developed or deployed incrementally, which is a lot different than what you think of when you think of a dam that has, you know, very long lasting effects. The idea behind title is that you can install it incrementally if there's concerns and with any kind of impacts to the environment, or concerns with, you know, the technology failing, or anything like that, you are able to remove it, or, you know, have maintenance on it fairly quickly. Wave Energy is another one that we focus on. It's the technology is not as far along as tidal in terms of, you know, getting to a commercial state. And there are many different. Different types of concepts, still for Wave technologies, but essentially, they can be placed near shore or further offshore. One of the things that's been, I think, kind of cool to think about is there's discussions around and some prototype type projects around using wave energy to power, for example, oil and gas platforms and doing that kind of, you know, pairing to help decarbonize that sector's energy use, river current. So I will say a lot of people think marine like that doesn't, you know, make sense rivers, you know, not by the ocean. And the reason we look at it and categorize it as a Marine renewable energy is that the technology is very similar to title, and so it's essentially the same technology that's used, except that it is unidirectional. So when you think of the flow of river, it's going one way, whereas tides, the technology would be used as a bi directional because the tides are going in and out. So but otherwise very, very similar. And then we actually also cover offshore wind, which is, of all of those, you know, a more mature marine renewable technology. And as I said, I think probably today I'll talk mostly about some of the earlier stage technologies. Our association doesn't cover a few others, and I just feel like they're worth mentioning, just because they're kind of cool. Also, floating solar is one that is gaining, you know, I think some more popularity, and also people are looking more what you know, how much of an impact it could have, ocean current technology, which would be kind of further offshore, and ocean thermal. And you can imagine, Ocean Thermal hasn't really been talked about a lot in Canada, because you have colder waters. Like, the technology just isn't right, the right fit.   Trevor Freeman  11:35 Got you okay? So I want to, I've got a whole whack of questions I want to understand, make sure I'm understanding the technology correctly. So let's start with Tidal. For Tidal, obviously, just a quick refresher back to, let's say grade 10 science for our listeners. Tides kind of come in and come out. The water moves up and moves down. You're utilizing that flow of water, that movement of water, which happens twice a day. Is that, right? Twice a day, every 12 hours?   Elisa Obermann  12:02 Yep,   Trevor Freeman  12:02 Good, yeah, just making sure I remember my grades and science most part. And you're using that movement of water to turn turbines that are underwater. Describe those for us. Is that, like you kind of related it to wind energy? Is it like a big wind turbine underwater? Does it look the same? Is it similar to that?   Elisa Obermann  12:20 Yeah, I mean, there's still a few different concepts, but essentially, yeah, that's how you could picture in your mind. I will say some are bottom mounted. So as an example, like it might have a gravity base and be anchored to the well, not even anchored. It could just be the weight of it is holding it to the sea floor. Some of the newer tidal technologies are floating. They're kind of like, on a pontoon type device, and they will have kind of the, you know, the turbines connected to that. But essentially, they're, you know, either way, whether it's floating or seabed mounted, it would be capturing the kinetic energy of the tides   Trevor Freeman  12:54 Gotcha, okay. And then for the run of river ones, it's, it's kind of the same thing. Water is flowing. Typically, rivers are flowing downhill, so that water is always moving, and you've got a turbine in there taking advantage of the fact that that water is moving in a situation where there isn't a dam that's using sort of gravity flow. It's, but it's the same idea. It's, it's flowing water that's turning a turbine. Yes, exactly. So then the one that I'm, I'm sort of not entirely clear on, is waves, like, what is the mechanism there? Is it just the same thing? You're just putting it in a location where there's prevailing waves generated by wind or current or whatever.   Elisa Obermann  13:28 Yeah, that one, I will say, is harder to describe, because I've mentioned there's many different concepts for it, but essentially, if you think of waves like so one concept, maybe this will be easy to visualize, would be more of like a buoy type device, and so it's capturing the height of the wave, like that energy coming through. There's some also called like an oyster. So it opens, like the device opens and closes to capture kinetic energy from waves as well. There's a number of different devices when it comes to to wave energy. And I will also say, depending on where, whether it's closer to shore or further offshore, that the strength of the energy from waves is also can be different too. .   Trevor Freeman  14:08 Yeah. So that's actually what, exactly what my next question was is, how far offshore are we placing these things? Are they like, right at the shore's edge? Are they visible? Are they kind of, you know, whatever, 100 metre out? 500 metres out?   Elisa Obermann  14:22 Yeah, in terms of for TIDAL, I mean, it would be closer to shore, but not necessary. I mean, still quite far out. It's not like you're looking at it and you're, you know, few 100 feet away, further. As an example, like in Nova Scotia, the Bay of Fundy has had several tidal deployments, and it depends on where you are. So there was one that was in a area called southwest Nova Scotia, where, if you were in the harbor, there in Briar Island, is where it was. You could see it right there, like it was very, very close, whereas those being deployed further out. So it really just depends on the location, but also potential impacts to other users. You know. Fisheries, all those kinds of things are considered when they're they're just determining location.   Trevor Freeman  15:04 Got you. And one last question, I apologize, I'm totally going off script here, but you've got me all excited about this, and lots of questions. How is this connected back to land? So you must be running cables, you're generating electricity, you're bringing that back to land, and there's some sort of transformation or storage. It's connected to the provincial grid. Like, what's the connection back to the grid look like?   Elisa Obermann  15:28 Exactly, yeah. So you're exactly right. There will be subsea cables that these devices will be connected to. They'll run to shore. Typically, they'll be connected to a substation, which then would be, you know, transmitting that energy electricity, I should say, to a distribution system or the transmission system. So as an example, force has pretty impressive subsea cables that have already been laid about 64 megawatts capacity with those and they built a substation at that site that then connects to the transmission system.   Trevor Freeman  15:59 Cool, very cool, awesome. Thank you for that. Thanks for entertaining my sort of nerdy curiosity there. So tell us about the benefits. Why is this something that the energy sector should be looking at? What are the benefits of this type of generation?   Elisa Obermann  16:14 Good question, and we get asked a lot. I will say, you know, why are we looking at Marine Renewables when we have solar and onshore wind and hydro that are proven and come at a lower cost, but we know we're going to need more electricity, and so the way we look at we can't put all of our eggs in one basket. We need energy diversity. But also marine renewables, such as Tidal and waves, they have some attributes that other renewables don't, so they can be very complementary to other renewable energy, and actually help to bring on other sources of renewables because of that, you know the synergies that they have. So as an example, and you mentioned it at the beginning, tidal is predictable, so we know when the tides are going to come in and out. We can schedule that. I mean, for energy system planning, we would know even 100 years from now, when exactly is that tide coming out? When is it going to be at peak? And so that's one that is very helpful in terms of reliability, predictability, all those things with waves also, I will say, I mean, they're very similar in some ways, because they are created by wind. So it's kind of the same concept, if you think of bringing it onto the grid, but there is an ability to forecast them further out. And one of the interesting things with wave energy, British Columbia had done some work, and I will say, I think it was the University of Victoria A while ago, just looking at the timing of them and when they're the most strong and powerful and consistent. And they found that they were strongest during peak times, like when BC would really need more power, so in the winter, during stormier times, that kind of thing. So those resources can be a very good match with other resources that maybe, you know, sometimes they they're not generating as much power at a given time.   Trevor Freeman  17:56 Yeah, yeah. I mean, that kind of gets into to where I wanted to go next is, how does this work alongside wind and solar and sort of traditional hydro? You kind of answered that a little bit. We know that we need to grow our greater our energy demand is going to grow. You know, here in Ontario, we're looking at a 75% increase. Across Canada, we're looking at sort of two to three times the growth, and especially clean energy. What sort of percentage or how much of a foothold Do you think marine renewable energy has the capability of meeting of that?   Elisa Obermann  18:30 Yeah, that's a great question. So I will tell you now, I don't have the numbers for that, but I will this January, February. We're actually working on a sector vision, looking exactly at that, like the capacity scenarios, what could be feasible, but really trying to take realistic view of you know, this is how much electricity wave, tidal and river and offshore wind could contribute. But what I will say is that when it comes to Tidal, for example, there has been some resource assessments done in the past. Canada has 40,000 megawatts of potential tidal energy, and that's looking at, you know, the best locations. So it's technical potential, but it's, it's also looking at just feasibility in terms of locations, and what might be, you know, close to grids, that kind of thing. Wave energy is between, I think, 10,000 to 16,000 megawatts, looking at both Pacific and Atlantic coasts and with river current still in early phases of doing some of this work. But Natural Resources Canada can met energy, and also the National Research Council did a pretty extensive resource assessment, and it was around 340 gigawatts of river current, I will say, I mean, that's a lot, right? So there's some factors there that are still, you know, they're working on, trying to understand, so ice, for example, because where rivers, you know, some of the strongest river resources are in areas that are in northern Canada, maybe not feasible. So there's still some more work there to determine what's actually feasible for these technologies.   Trevor Freeman  19:59 Are there this kind of just jogged a question for me. Are there other parts of the world where this technology is, let's say, more mature and greater use, or is Canada kind of leading the fray here, like, where are we compared to other parts of the world?   Elisa Obermann  20:15 So I would say Canada has been pretty well known as a global leader in marine renewable energy, and we started this in kind of the early 2000s starting to look at the resources and the technologies and how we could lead. But this was alongside some other countries that have been also doing that work. So the United Kingdom, Scotland, in particular, France and a number of other European countries. The United States has also put quite a bit of investment in R and D technologies, but the UK probably is the furthest along. And one of the reasons for that, and this is different than what we've done in Canada, is they have targeted funding and programs to really support the sector where I find in Canada, there's been, you know, a lot of great supports by both provincial and federal governments, but most of the time we're competing like, there's not a, you know, a specific program for just marine renewable technology. So I think that's had a bit of an impact even on interacting investment here.   Trevor Freeman  21:13 Gotcha, yeah. So you're trying to fit your projects into a bigger project funding envelope that could cover a bunch of different sort of energy related projects, and you're having to say, Yeah, look, ours fits in here too. Is that fair to say?   Elisa Obermann  21:24 Yeah, exactly, exactly. .   Trevor Freeman  21:27 Cool. Okay, I want to shift a little bit here. We often talk on the show about the sort of relationship between energy and society and communities. So what are some community benefits from marine renewable projects. Is this something that sort of has community ownership over it? Does the community get involved in these projects? Tell us a little bit about how that impacts kind of that local level?   Elisa Obermann  21:52 Yeah, I would say, from what we've seen so far, and this is just with, you know, very early demonstration projects, is that the local supply chain has benefited a lot. So there's been some studies showing that for both tidal and wave projects, you would be using probably about 60% local supply chain to build the project. And that's also just because the technology is massive, like you're not going to be shipping this. It's more cost effective to have most of the work done close to the site. And so as an example, again, Bay of Fundy projects that force to date, and the, you know, the research that force has been doing, and some of the R and D, I believe they've, they've used up to 500 local suppliers, or Canadian suppliers, so that's one of the biggest ones. But also just with local communities, there's been a number of things that we've also seen where they've been very engaged in some of these projects. I mean, obviously local businesses have but there are opportunities for local ownership. I think that the challenge right now is that there's still a lot of risk because the technologies aren't as mature as some others, and so some communities are more hesitant to buy into the projects. That said, there is a project in British Columbia, the Yuquot Wave Energy Project, where the Mowachaht/Muchalaht First Nation there is partnering very closely with a wave energy developer to move ahead with a wave technology that can help power their community. So there's all those kinds of things that I think make it attractive to communities, allows them to have some self sufficiency. And in the case of some of these northern, remote and coastal and indigenous communities, there's also that whole, you know, it's potentially displacing diesel in their community. So that's one of the drivers for them, marine renewables. There's been some, you know, studies around this as well showing that it would actually be lower cost than the diesel fuel that they're using in those communities. So there's that benefit as well.   Trevor Freeman  23:42 Gotcha. Yeah, actually, I've got a question here that I wanted to ask you, and so I'll skip to that one about the impact on especially remote indigenous communities that are not connected to the grid. I've had, actually, a few conversations on this show about how, how we go about helping remote and indigenous communities decarbonize getting off of local diesel generation. Are there other projects you mentioned one? Are there other examples of collaboration here? Do you see this as being sort of a relevant tool for that challenge?   Elisa Obermann  24:12 Yeah. So there's another one that I would also mention that I think is a great example again, University of Victoria in British Columbia had been spearheading what they called, it's the blind channel demonstration center. So Initially it started as working to help a, you know, it was like a remote eco kind of lodge become, you know, fully environmentally friendly, using marine renewables for electricity rather than diesel. But since then, they've actually evolved into more of an initiative to test and demonstrate title technologies there, given that it's a remote location, but working very closely with indigenous partners. And so what I think is cool about that is that it's helping indigenous communities to get involved, but not really requiring them to take on. And know, the risk of financing a project, maintaining a project, but it's giving them the opportunity to get the skills and expertise they would need to eventually, you know, bring Tidal or wave energy into their communities at a, you know, at a later date, when they feel more comfortable with the technology and also learn about how that technology impacts the environment and vice versa. Because I have found with communities like that's one of the things that they're most concerned about, is how, you know, how is this technology going to interact with fish or other marine life or the habitat? And so those kinds of smaller demonstrations really help, especially when they're, you know, hands on, and allow community members to be part of the demonstration.   Trevor Freeman  25:40 Yeah, yeah. I mean, you're doing my job for me here, Elisa, you're setting up all my questions perfectly. How does it impact, sort of local marine wildlife? What's the what ecological impact of these we're talking about, fairly complex machinery located in a marine environment. Is there an impact? Has that been studied? Is it comparable it's a sort of a traditional hydro electric dam. What is, what is the impact there?   Elisa Obermann  26:05 So there's been a lot of work in this area, and depending on the location of the project, and that's kind of the caveat I give with us, it can be easier to understand what the impact is. So as an example, in Scotland, I mentioned there's, they've done a lot of work with marine renewables. There's a test center there called the European Marine Energy Center, EMAC, and they have very high flow tidal sites, similar to what we have in Canada. And they're able to use cameras and other equipment to really see exactly what's happening at the site. And so a number of researchers, you know, over the last couple of decades, have been doing environmental monitoring, collecting data, and what we've seen to date is, for the most part, fish and marine life avoid these devices. There's also been research done on electromagnetic fields sound, but I think the biggest concern that people still have is collision with the devices, and what could happen there. Now, coming to Canada, we're in a bit of a different situation. So at the forest site in the Bay of Fundy, you know, there has been quite a bit of environmental monitoring and research done, but the water is very different than what you'd see in Scotland. At this site EMAC, where in the Bay of Fundy, there's a lot of sediment. It's very it's a higher flow site even. So there's, you know, a lot of turbulence, and the environmental monitoring equipment there that you know that exists, it just can't gather all of that information at the site like you can't use a camera and see exactly where fish may be going. So we can't say 100% no, there has been no, you know, fish collisions. What has been happening is that force and government of Canada and the Province of Nova Scotia, and I think also indigenous partners and some of the local researchers in Nova Scotia. So Acadia University, for example, have been partnering, and just recently announced a project to be able to develop those environmental monitoring systems that can work in the Bay of Fundy. And so those will be something, you know, once that's solved, that knowledge and those systems and that technology can be used anywhere in the world to give us a better idea of exactly what are those environmental interactions. But I will say to date, the body of research does show that there hasn't been any significant interactions at this point, but I'm always hesitant to say there hasn't been any, because we can't say that yet.   Trevor Freeman  28:21 Yeah, sure, fair enough. It kind of raises another question in my mind about even just servicing the equipment, or the longevity of the equipment. I mean, in a in a solar field, if you've got a bad panel, you go and you change a panel. A wind turbine, at the very least, is above ground. Not that it's easy to change a blade on a turbine. But what is it like servicing and maintaining the equipment when it's out in a marine environment and underwater? How easy is it? Or is that a challenge?   Elisa Obermann  28:51 Yeah, it's a very good point. It's definitely more challenging than onshore technologies, because you also have, you know, weather windows. So with Tidal, for example, even though you know what stage of the tide is in, plays a huge role in when they can go out and maintain or and service the equipment. And so that's one of the reasons these technologies bring in higher cost for the project overall. Obviously. The other thing I would also mention is just that with both tidal and wave like just depending on what if it's a floating technology versus seabed mounted also makes a difference. So what we've seen is some of these technologies are now evolving to be floating, and again, one of the reasons for that is this whole operations and maintenance piece, because it's obviously a lot easier to bring a vessel out there, get onto the pontoon and be able to service it, versus a whole diving operation, or ROV to go underwater to service it.   Trevor Freeman  29:48 Gotcha, yeah, tow it back to the dock and work on it at the dock.   Elisa Obermann  29:51 Yeah, awesome, exactly.   Trevor Freeman  29:52 Okay, let's switch gears a little bit here and talk about the policy, and let's say regulatory. Worry landscape around this. I've got a question here on funding coming up too, but as our listeners will know, and as you certainly know, energy is a very regulated sector, lots of policy around it. What are some of the policy challenges? Or are there policy challenges when it comes to deploying marine renewables?   Elisa Obermann  30:20 Yeah, I would say, because they're emerging technology, that's actually been one of the biggest challenges. So when we look at legislation in Canada, I mean, it never a lot of it's very old, right? So it never envisioned that there'd be these clean technologies coming up in the market that would they would need to govern and regulate. We have had a lot of challenges with the Fisheries Act, again, just because of that, it never envisioned that it would be regulating an emerging technology. And so, I mean, luckily with that, we did a lot of work with federal and provincial governments, and we have found a path forward that had been an issue in terms of, like the regulatory barriers being created by the legislation. The other one, I would say, is just these projects are small at the moment, right? So we're talking kilowatts, maybe a couple megawatts. And what we found is the, you know, just the regulatory efficiency is not necessarily there. So applying regulation will look at it just as the same scale as any type of project, you know, could be a very large project. So I think what you know, we would ask is that regulators consider the scale of the project and the regulatory processes and requirements should balance that scale of the project, you know, with what the requirements are.   Trevor Freeman  31:34 Yeah. Do you see a world where I'm gonna assume the answer is yes to this, but I'm gonna ask anyway, do you see a world where this is just another option that utilities and energy policy makers have in their toolbox as a way to procure clean energy, that this just becomes one of an item on the menu with solar and wind, et cetera? Are we gonna get to that point? Do you see that happening in the sort of near, medium term future.   Elisa Obermann  32:01 I think we can get to that point. But what it's going to require is that there are more deployments, more demonstrations, and regulators will really need to look at those early projects of exactly that demonstrations, and not treat them as commercial projects. And the reason I say this is because to get costs down so that they can be looked at in comparison to onshore and solar, we need to see a lot more deployment like when you think of a cost curve for any technology, you have to get to that scale and volume before the costs start coming down. It's some time before we get to that point, but it's absolutely possible. It just requires the right supports.   Trevor Freeman  32:38 Got you. On the funding side. We talked about this a little bit earlier, about how you're kind of using existing funding programs. There aren't necessarily dedicated programs for this kind of technology or these projects. Are there other funding sources, like, are you attracting investors into this? Is there, you know, more public money going into this? What's the funding structure around some of these projects?   Elisa Obermann  33:02 Yeah, so,  I think to date, a lot of developers have and when I say developers, I mean the technology and project developers. But with marine renewables, sometimes it ends up being one in the same, because technology developers end up being the ones developing their projects. I think a lot of them are looking for two things at this time, so something to cover capital costs. So grants, whatever it might be, and there has, there have been a number of funding programs that the federal government has applied that have been quite useful for that, and then they usually look for something on the back end of the project once it's built. So what I mean by that is feed in tariff, something to help with their return on investment. And that seems to be kind of the right recipe for investment certainty at the moment, the other thing that I think Canada's recently done that's very helpful for this sector are the investment tax credits. And so our hope is actually that those get extended, because right now, where the sector is, and this also comes into play for offshore wind, is that they end, you know, in that 2033 timeline, 2034 I can't remember, whereas a lot of these projects wouldn't be online at that point. And so we're looking for a bit of a longer runway there. And I think tax credits are a very good tool that can help, you know, with attracting investment for these projects.   Trevor Freeman  34:16 So looking ahead, I mean, you've kind of touched on this in a few different spots, but to sum it up, what's next on the horizon for this technology and these projects? Are we expecting kind of innovation on the technological side, or is the focus still on the sort of funding and regulatory side right now? What can we expect for those of us who are going to maybe keep an eye on this moving forward?   Elisa Obermann  34:40 Yeah, it's a bit of both, I will say. So I mentioned that the tidal sector was having some challenges with the Fisheries Act a number of years ago, and that really kind of created a lull in development, but also in investment attraction. As a result of that, federal and provincial governments established a Tidal Task Force to. Look at the exact issues around you know, where the barriers are with the Fisheries Act, and then the outcome of that has been a new path under the Fisheries Act to support projects. And so there are developers that will be going through that new or revised, staged approach, is what they've been calling it. Time will tell, obviously, if that process works, but from what we've heard from developers, it does give them more certainty, because it essentially covers the entire project, rather than going through a device by device by device approach. And so that's on the regulatory side. I think if that goes well, it will give a lot of confidence to private sector and developers that this can move ahead, but it will also ensure that regulators know that they have an approach that is working, but still having those safeguards to ensure that you know they're protecting the environment and safety of communities and others on the technology side. So it's kind of like they go together hand in hand. So I mean, once we get through that process, I think there'll be more deployments, and we'll see the ability to test more technologies improve them. But to date, and where we are with especially with tidal energy, think the technologies are in, you know, they're in further generation. So we're not first generation technology anymore, and they've come a long way, and some of that's been through deployments and demonstration in other countries, Scotland, for example. So what I would envision happening is seeing some of those technologies tested in Canada, and then being able to, you know, deploy more than one and then, you know, multi device development.   Trevor Freeman  36:31 Great. One fine, maybe final question, although I keep thinking of things as we talk here, but you know, obviously this is very focused on coastal regions. You've mentioned, BC and sort of Nova Scotia where you're based. Do you envision, especially on the river side of things? Do you envision this as a technology that can be deployed kind of even in the interior provinces? Like, are we going to see river marine renewables in Saskatchewan, for example, or Ontario, where I'm based? Like, are you having those conversations? Or are we like, we're not quite ready for that yet, because we're still working on the technology piece.   Elisa Obermann  37:03 Yeah, I'm so glad that you asked that, because that's part I actually have missed in some of this. So there have been river current technologies deployed in Manitoba already. So the University of Manitoba has the Canadian hydro kinetic turbine Test Center. I know it's a bit of a mouthful, but they have been working with a number of river current developers. They've had several successful demonstrations. And there are also some companies that are that have been members of ours, that have deployed in other areas of Canada as well. In the past, even in Quebec, there's been some deployments. And so I think when it comes to river, you know, one of the challenges is there's, well, it's not a challenge. There's a huge opportunity there. It's just not very well known. And there are things like the ice, I think people are concerned about it being potentially closer to shore, just like the navigational issues, things like that, fish passage is different than what you'd see in tidal so there hasn't been as much of a focus on that. So it's earlier stage in terms of kind of that some of those environmental and social questions, but the technology is, you know, very close to where you'd see title at this point.   Trevor Freeman  38:12 Got you very cool we have so as our listeners know, I work for Hydro Ottawa, and Hydro Ottawa, parent company, owns the run-of-the-river generation dam here, right in the center of Ottawa, Chaudière Falls, and it's really fascinating. Now, it's not the same technology, of course. It's a it's a run of the river gravity fed dam, but the complexity around so the North American eel is an endangered species that's particularly impacted by dams and the technologies that we've had to put in place for that. It's really fascinating. Just kind of, I'm rambling a bit here, but all the different pieces that come together to make what should be a fairly straightforward thing, like use water to spin turbine, it's so much more complex than that. So I can appreciate that as you branch out into new areas, new technologies or new deployments of that, all those new complexities have to be figured out and worked on. But glad to hear that that's in the future, that that's on the horizon, because I think this is great, and it'd be cool to see more of this.   Elisa Obermann  39:08 Yeah, agreed. We're hoping we're getting there. It's taken time. I think things haven't gone as quickly as we had hoped. But you know, there's been a lot of learnings, lessons learned that have fed into where we are now, and I think just with what we're seeing, you know, with with government support, but also communities getting more excited about it, we'll see some real progress in the coming years.   Trevor Freeman  39:30 Okay, Elisa, we always wrap up our interviews with a series of questions to our guests. Some people love them, some people feel like they're on the hot seat, but I'm going to dive in anyway and fire these at you. So what is a book that you've read recently that you think everyone should read?   Elisa Obermann  39:45 Haven't read this one recently, but it kind of changed my thinking on everything. And I loved it, "Sapiens", I thought was great just with kind of the, you know, the history of humankind, and just made me rethink a lot of the things that. In terms of how society is structured and why we do the things that we do. Thought it was great, and if people haven't read it, I would highly recommend,   Trevor Freeman  40:06 Yes, very cool. That's a great book, and you're not the first one to mention that on the show. That's awesome. So same question. But for a movie or a show.   Elisa Obermann  40:14 There's probably a few that I would recommend, but really, I think the one that struck me the most recently, and I haven't watched a lot of movies recently, so I'll also say that, but just in the past couple years, was "Barbie". I loved it. It actually surprised me that, like, I had this totally different impression of what it was going to be, and just the kind of, you know, the key messages and things that it brought out, I thought were great. Like it was, it was very well done.   Trevor Freeman  40:38 Yeah, absolutely. It was one of those kind of cultural things that which seemed like it was going to be just another movie, and then there was some buzz behind it. And it got to the point where we, like, we did a family outing to go and, like, watch that movie with our kids, who were kind of at about the age where they can start thinking about some of these things. So it was pretty fun.   Elisa Obermann  40:56 Yeah, we did the same. We all wore pink. We really got on the bandwagon. I but it's great because as adults, you know, there were some really important things in it, but then also kids could relate, like it was a fun movie for them. So, yeah, it was good.   Trevor Freeman  41:09 Yeah, absolutely. My kids spent a long time, and still it'll come up singing the I'm Just Ken song that happens around our house often that song comes up, which, you know, wears on you after a while. Okay, so it sounds like you travel a little bit. So if someone offers you a free round trip flight anywhere in the world, where would you go?   Elisa Obermann  41:28 There's lots of places I would like to go, but I think probably Greece is where I would choose to go. I mean, I've been to Europe quite a bit for work and just also, you know, for fun. But my daughter has been saying for a really long time that she wants to go to Greece. She's only 10, so I've also kind of wondered where she got this idea, but I've also always wanted to go. So I think that would be my, my first choice.   Trevor Freeman  41:51 Very cool. I my wife and I honeymooned in Greece. It's a long time ago, but we had had a great time. It's gorgeous.   Elisa Obermann  41:56 Oh, amazing.   Trevor Freeman  41:58 Who is someone that you admire?   Elisa Obermann  41:59 That would probably be one of the tougher ones of these questions. Well, I'll say so generally, when I think about this kind of question, it's like, what are the kind of characteristics or qualities of someone that I would admire? And so I often look at how other women are, you know, conducting themselves, working in business world or in politics or whatnot. And I think what I admire most in some of those women is just the fact that they lift other women up. They're not afraid to be who they are and take a stand on things they really believe in. I think something I also really admire are women that are willing to take risks to build their business, and also in times of you know, where there's challenges or conflicts taking the high road. And so with all that said, you know, when I think about this, and I don't know if this sounds too cliche, but I think Michelle Obama's great, like when she said, 'When they go low, you go high', I just thought that was such an important message. And I actually share that with my daughter all the time when she's having trouble in school. I'm like, think of it this way. So she is a woman that I really admire. I think she's just done some wonderful things for women and just for people in general.   Trevor Freeman  43:08 Yeah, absolutely. And again, you're not the first one to mention that on the show, and I don't think that's because it's cliche. I think it's because you're right, absolutely fascinating person and leader, and just the strength of character is very evident, for sure. So, yeah, great answer. So final question, what's something about the energy sector that you're particularly excited about?   Elisa Obermann  43:29 Well, I would say, I mean, things are moving quite quickly, but also not never quick enough, yeah, and, but I think we have a lot to be excited about. So when I think about when I started my career in the energy sector, we were literally just starting to talk about renewable energy like it was a new thing, and things have evolved quite a bit since then, obviously, but in Atlantic Canada, where I'm based, so I'm in Nova Scotia, one of the things we've seen just in the past number of years has been An incredible evolution to a lot of projects being indigenous owned, indigenous LED. And I just think that's amazing so, you know, and I think that's going to continue. And it just shows, you know, that these communities are taking a lead. They're interested in ensuring that we're using clean energy, and it's also empowering them to, you know, have that ownership be able to provide investment to these projects, but it's been a big change. And so what I'm looking forward to, I guess, is what I'm saying here is that that continues, and we see more indigenous led projects, more indigenous participation in those projects, whether it be ownership, but also we've been actually working with a lot of indigenous businesses and suppliers that can get involved. And I think that will really change the energy sector. Actually, it's a lot different model from what we thought about, you know, few decades ago.   Trevor Freeman  44:49 Yeah, absolutely, I think. And again, it comes up so often on the show, the idea that there's the technological side of energy, but the societal side, and that interaction with the actual. Well stakeholders in local communities and indigenous communities. And you know, the people who are most impacted by this from a usage of energy perspective, but also a production and generation perspective. And of course, the in between, which is the transmission and distribution side of things, that's where the really interesting stories happen, and the opportunities for better collaboration and improving how we do things certainly happen. So I'm totally on the same page as you.   Elisa Obermann  45:25 Yeah, I think at the end, I always think of this like everything in the end is about people so and there's that factor that we we sometimes lose in all of this, but in the end, it comes down to the people who are involved or impacted.   Trevor Freeman  45:38 Absolutely. Elisa, thanks so much for your time. I really appreciate it. It's been great to learn more about this sector, which doesn't have enough attention on it. So happy to kind of have you explain to us and talk us through some of the exciting things that are happening. Really appreciate it.   Elisa Obermann  45:52 Yeah, no. Thank you so much for the opportunity and the time. And like you said, a lot of people don't know about the sector, so I really appreciate the you know, the time spent with you to chat a little more about it. Thank you   Trevor Freeman  46:02 For sure. We'll check back in, maybe in a year or two, and see kind of how, how far things have come.   Elisa Obermann  46:07 Yeah, that'd be great. I'd appreciate that.   Trevor Freeman  46:09 Awesome. Thanks. Elisa, take care.   Elisa Obermann  46:11 Thank you.   Trevor Freeman  46:13 Thanks for tuning in to another episode of the thinkenergy podcast. Don't forget to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts, and it would be great if you could leave us a review, it really helps to spread the word. As always, we would love to hear from you, whether it's feedback comments or an idea for a show or a guest. You can always reach us at thinkenergy@hydroottawa.com.  

On the phone-in: Energy efficiency expert, Barry Walker and Eric Murphy from Halifax Heat Pumps answer questions about heating systems. And off the top, the CBC's Jean Laroche talks with Scott Tingley from the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources about improvements to the provincial wildfire protocols. And we hear about an Indigenous police officer in Summerside, PEI, who has won an award.

LYNN GALLANT BLACKBURN In December 2005, Paula Gallant, a 36-year-old mother and grade three teacher, was tragically murdered in Halifax. This devastating loss changed the course of Lynn's life. Inspired by Paula's life and legacy, Lynn Gallant Blackburn is determined to find purpose in her sister's untimely death.  Lynn advocates for victims' rights, raises awareness about the impacts of violent crime, and actively works to end men's violence against women and girls. Through her personal experiences, she seeks to offer comfort and insight to other victims of domestic violence, reminding them they are not alone. From a victim's perspective, she provides insight about her experience to politicians, the Nova Scotia Department of Justice, the public, the media and any other forum which gives victims a voice. She has presented her finding and recommendations to the Nova Scotia Department of Justice; The Canadian Criminal Justice Congress and she has been published in the 2009 National Victims of Crime Resource Guide with a feature called "How one victim of murder chose to be a survivor". She has been instrumental in influencing policy and legislative change in Nova Scotia and continues to create awareness about violence against women and the rights and needs of victims.  For almost twenty years, Lynn has carried this story within her heart. On, December 5th, 2024, it would have been Paula's 55 birthday, and the day Lynn chose to release her new book called For the Love of My Sister, which has been published with generous support from Connect Women's Centres of Nova Scotia. Through her book, Lynn not only shares her personal story of loss but also serves as a voice for countless others impacted by domestic violence. Her work offers a unique and in-depth look at the systemic issues that survivors face, highlighting the need for societal change and support. CORA COLE Like many women, Cora cherishes her various roles in life, including daughter, friend, wife and Mum. She has spent nearly 20 years working in healthcare and the non-profit sector. While travel and hiking are favourite pastimes, cooking and baking edible food remain mysterious skills she has yet to master.  Thankfully, her writing is something others seem to enjoy.   For more information visit: https://womenconnect.ca/book-launch-gallant/ TOPICS OF CONVERSATION: The Personal Journey of Lynn and Paula: Exploring their bond, shared experiences, and the vivid memories that shaped their lives together. Transforming Grief into Advocacy: Lynn's strength in pushing for justice and improving support systems for victims' families. The Fight Against Gender-Based Violence: Insights from Cora's work and the broader societal conversation influenced by Paula's story. Justice System Challenges and Reforms: Key obstacles and the changes needed to better support victims' families and prevent violence against women. Paula's Legacy and Looking Forward: How sharing her story inspires societal change and what's next for Lynn in her journey. FOR THE LOVE OF MY SISTER The overwhelming sense of gratitude and love I felt at Thanksgiving, surrounded by my two sisters, their husbands and our five children, allowed me to finally exhale. With a sense of unimaginable contentment I finally let go of the breath I was holding since my parents died. This pure love carried me straight through to Christmas, until murder entered our lives. This is a true story about how love never gives up. This is Paula Gallant's legacy.

The Nova Scotia Department of Education announces a new policy on cell phones in the classroom, starting in September. The CBC's Jean Laroche has the details. Two men from PEI discuss their family connection to D-Day and their trip to Normandy this week. And on the phone-in: Colette Robicheau provides advice on decluttering. Plus, two young students from PEI talk about their D-Day project.

Evening Teatime November 30th, 7 pm EST, joining to share a real-life crime story and trigger warning. T-E-A is the award-winning author Sherri Aikenhead's Author Page". Joining Miss Liz to discuss the life of Karissa Boudreau in her book called "Mommy Don't" Join us and keep this story in the public eyes of how one mother turns into a murderer. How a mother kills her daughter is a question many of us have—Globe and Mail & Toronto Star bestseller in May 2023, a month after its release. LIVE STREAMING TO MULTIPLE PLATFORMS AND PODCAST STATIONS AND APPS. LIVE SHOW ON MISS LIZ'SDon't" YOUTUBE CHANNEL BELOW. Please give it a quick subscription and be notified when the times are live. https://youtube.com/@misslizsteatimes?si=VhVODhNkY__evnOtSHERRI AIKENHEAD is an award-winning communications professional and former journalist who has worked at newspapers and magazines in Halifax, Toronto, and Edmonton. A mother of three boys, she is a recipient of a Canadian Progress Club Women of Excellence Award. She was the communications director at the Nova Scotia Department of Justice in 2008 when Karissa Boudreau was murdered. This is her first book.https://www.sherriaikenhead.com/#teatimewithmissliz #makingadifference #murder #reallifestories #awareness #canada #awardwinning #journalist #communication #newspapers #magazines #globeandmail#torontostar#departmentofjustice #storiesthatmakeadifference #storiesthatimpactlives#likefollowshare #triggerwarnings #joinus #livestreaming #podcastshow #youtubechannel #subscribe #supportforsupport

CBC Reporter Tom Ayers finds out why the Nova Scotia Department of Labour has launched an investigation into the finances and governance of the Cape Breton Injured Workers Association.

Anger still percolates through the community around Bridgewater, fifteen years after the murder of 12-year-old Karissa Boudreau. Sherri Aikenhead was working in the Nova Scotia Department of Justice when Penny Boudreau pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of her daughter. She vowed to someday tell that story and she has in her new true crime book called Mommy Don't: From Mother to Murderer / The True Story of Penny and Karissa Boudreau. This week marks the fifteenth anniversary of the charge being laid. It also gives Penny the opportunity to apply for early parole under the so-called Faint Hope Clause. That is a since released statutory provision that allowed prisoners who have been sentenced to life imprisonment with a parole eligibility period of greater than 15 years to apply for early parole once they have served 15 years. Aikenhead reflects on the writing of the book, the chance for parole and her thoughts on the impacts felt on the community a decade and a half later.

Scott Tingley, a provincial spokesperson with the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources, provides an update on the wildfire burning in SouthWest NS. Hassett resident, Wanda Mullen, shares her experiences today with the fire situation. Some people on PEI are concerned about the threat of fire. And on the phone-in: Lesley Anderson on genealogy.

For further reading, check out the Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture Food Safety fact sheet.Hosted by Jenn de la Vega Research by Alicia BookVideos edited by Chris De PewKnife logo by pixel artist Rachelle ViolaLinksSuggest a wordSupport the show on Patreon!Captioned video versions on Youtube Share this show with your friends Follow CulinaryWoTD on Twitter

Some of the new residents of Nova Scotia may not know that wildfire season runs from mid-March to mid-October. And for almost a decade, there has been a system in place to let people know the risk of fire spreading in wooded areas. Instead of requiring residential permits, people are asked to check the Burnsafe map on the Nova Scotia government website after 2pm on any day they want to burn organic materials on their property. It shows a colour-coded guide to when burning can be done within the rules. If a so-called controlled burn gets out of hand, the property owner could be facing a bill for the crews that show up to deal with it. Kara McCurdy works with the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources and Renewal. As a Wildfire Prevention Officer, one of her duties is to help clarify the rules and the reasons behind them.

Host Brad McCallum, Agri-Commodity Management Association, chats with Dr. Wilma Schenkels, Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture, Dr. Andrew Morrison, Nova Scotia Department of Environment, and Todd Bergen-Henengouwen, Animal Health Emergency Management (AHEM) Project, discussing why an emergency preparedness plan is critical for the farm, as well as how to begin creating this plan. Producer: Ashley Anderson (ACMA) 7 Atlantic Central Drive East Mountain, Nova Scotia, B6L 2Z2 (902) 893-7455 Visit us: agricommodity.ca Follow us: Facebook and Twitter: @MaritimeAgCast Email us at: aanderson@agricommodity.ca or bmccallum@agricommodity.ca Host: Brad McCallum Edited by: Ashley Anderson of ACMA Music: “Neon Lights” by Matt Weidauer and "Smoke in a Box" by Micah Dahl Anderson (ArchesAudio.com)

On the 27th episode of The Career Planning Show, we feature an interview we conducted with Margaret Schwartz in April 2021 while she was serving as Strategic and Youth Initiatives Outreach Coordinator with the Government of Nova Scotia. She now serves as Communications and Community Navigator with Placemaking 4G and TRIBE Network. A natural connector and storyteller, Margaret works with the Halifax-based recruitment firm Placemaking 4G to intentionally connect with communities to share career opportunities, and helps to amplify the firm's story through its communication channels. Holding a degree in Public Relations from Mount Saint Vincent University and eight years of experience across multiple non-profits and most recently, a position with the Province of Nova Scotia, Margaret is guided by her will to unite others on a shared sense of purpose – to create and amplify equitable opportunities for historically excluded groups in the Atlantic region. Through a Cluster Employment initiative, Margaret's time is shared with the Tribe Network, where she helps entrepreneurship and innovation-focused members navigate funding, entrepreneurial resources and programs created for racialized communities. Margaret also serves as a board member at Team WORK Cooperative, fund development committee member at MacPhee Centre for Creative Learning, mentor with EduNova Cooperative's Study and Stay Program, and mentor with Halifax Partnership's Connector Program. In our interview with Margaret, we discussed the importance of tapping into your personal and professional networks for career advancement given that 8 out of 10 jobs that employers hire for in Nova Scotia are not posted online, the fact that it's important to build your self-confidence to reach out cold to employers to express your interest in joining them based on your skills, values and overall fit with the organization, the opportunity to tap into post-secondary career centres and community employment services organizations, the ikigai career planning framework, the importance of finding a mentor and developing the three critical soft skills of collaboration, communication and critical thinking. Connect with Margaret via LinkedIn or Twitter, and see her Amplify East profile. Resources: Placemaking 4G Tribe Network Ikigai framework Government of Nova Scotia Department of Labour programs and services “Humans Wanted” report by RBC Halifax Partnership's Connector Program EduNova's Study & Stay Program OneNovaScotia dashboard NPower Canada To learn more about The Career Planning Show, visit Rascanu.com/TheCareerPlanningShow.

Indigenous author Rebecca Thomas tells us about the Nova Scotia Department of Education stopping efforts to have her book used in classrooms. We hear more about the removal of the Sir John A. MacDonald statue in Charlottetown from Mi'kmaq photographer Patricia Bourque. And, Doug Bethune joins us on the phone-in to answer your car-related questions.

Hey, Cis; Hey, who? Cis = latin preface for 'on the same side as. Cisgender is someone whose gender identity aligns with their sex as assigned at birth.Cisgender is someone who has the ability to make the world safer, brighter and more inclusive for trans people young and old. Cisgender is someone who needs to be an intentional part of the conversation -- so let's talk.Cynthia Sweeney is the mother of three amazing children and lives with her husband and family in Halifax, Nova Scotia. One of her children is transgender.Isaac Cook is a trans and non-binary social scientist, educator and lives with his partner near Truro, Nova Scotia.  For more... see our About page.This podcast is 100% volunteer-based and we appreciate your support and tuning in.In this episode we were excited to be joined by the following guests:Tristan Coolman (he/him)Tristan Coolman is president of a Pflag chapter in York Region in Ontario. Over the last three years Pflag YR has led the efforts in Ontario to lobby the provincial government to revert their curriculum back to a realistic model which begins to better equip our younger generations with the language and confidence to express themselves as they choose without worrying about the pressures of gender norms.​Megan Kean (she/her)Megan (she/her) is a registered nurse with 12 years of experience working in pediatrics and a student in the Master's of Nursing program at Dalhousie University. She is a mother to 8-year-old twins, one of which is a proud transgender girl, Bri.Bri socially transitioned in grade 1 and her peers were very supportive of her thanks to her amazing teacher Mme. Kelsey.  Megan is grateful for the wonderful support of her teachers, friends, family, and the trans community over the past two years and is very proud of her family.  Megan was a guest on Hey, Cis! episode 2, 'What would you want for your own child?'.Kathy (she/her)Kathy is from the Halifax area and a parent of 3 boys. When her youngest son came out in 2016 as transgender it was a blessing and welcome answer to questions they had been seeking for years. Her family could not have made it through 6 years of struggle prior to this without the help and support from his teachers, principals and his mental health team. The support of those folks in the school system are one of the main reasons Kathy's son is with us today. She knows the value of having teachers and school staff who are educated on how to help and willing to help and support  students through some of their most challenging times in life. Especially when not all parents and families are as accepting.Kelsey Myles (she/her)Kelsey is currently a grade Primary/One French Immersion teacher within the Halifax Regional School Centre for Education. She has 10 years teaching experience both within Halifax and abroad in International Schools. Kelsey's been involved in Simply Good Forms Inclusive Reads program for 2 years now. She's an educator who strives to ensure an inclusive learning environment in which all students feel accepted, safe and valued.Maggie Barnhill (she/her)Maggie is a lawyer, turned stay at home mom, turned teacher.  She has 3 teenage sons whom I am (hopefully successfully) raising to be good humans.  She teaches within Nova Scotia.​Overview:Canadian teachers received a deceiving and potentially harmful email this past week. It was written supposedly by 'a fellow teacher' and addressed all Canadian teachers. The widely distributed email from Megan Giacomelli, calls upon teachers to join the project T.R.A.G.I.C. (Teachers Resisting All Gender Ideological Curriculum). It's mandate is simple and extremely dangerous for educators and all students:'...to get teachers in touch within same boards and geographical areas so we may be able to speak up in solidarity and support to effect change at a board level.' 'I feel very concerned about the pressure to teach content regarding gender ideology, which I believe to be a harmful form of indoctrination and completely inappropriate for children.'​The email targets those who are not educated on gender identity beyond the binary and it is well disguised as 'informative' rather than for what it truly is: transphobic and baseless. Is the author really a teacher? We don't know. Do they stand behind their real name? Uncertain.What is their background and their personal agenda?In this episode, our panel of guests, with lived experience, with education and with fact-based, science-based and most importantly with human rights based information are coming together to share their reaction to the email and talk about why it is so potentially harmful.Tune-in as we talk about protecting trans and non-binary children through policy and accountability; and we ask Nova Scotia Department of Early Childhood Education:How can you ensure teachers know where to go to the information they need to support trans and non-binary students of any age? Because, current stats show the majority of Nova Scotia teachers are uncertain and uncomfortable finding these resources. Hey, Cis! is a beyond binary conversation in being a better human.We are about current affairs and gender-based issues affecting trans and non-binary youth, students and adults within our Maritime community.We take on difficult topics; (and this week it is a difficult topic), breaking us out of the binary, smashing stigma and fostering greater connection between our cisgender community and trans, gender creative and non-binary community. Thanks for your support:Hey, Cis! is a volunteer podcast and we'd love your support in producing sustainably high-calibre content. Consider supporting with a ko-fi - it's easy and every sip counts.

Doctor Strang and the Nova Scotia Department of Health and Wellness didn't do much to help us sort out the mixed messages about AstraZeneca and the mRNA vaccines. Telling people to discuss it with their health provider or pharmacist didn't help the two people who died from COVID this week.

Host Brad McCallum, Agri-Commodity Management Association (ACMA), chats with Dr. Wilma Schenkels, Chief Veterinary Officer, Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture, and Jonathan Wort, Perennia, about disease management within sheep. Producer: Ashley Anderson (ACMA) 7 Atlantic Central Drive East Mountain, Nova Scotia, B6L 2Z2 (902) 893-7455 Visit us: agricommodity.ca Follow us: Facebook and Twitter: @MaritimeAgCast Email us at: aanderson@agricommodity.ca or bmccallum@agricommodity.ca Host: Brad McCallum Edited by: Ashley Anderson of ACMA Music: “Neon Lights” by Matt Weidauer and "Smoke in a Box" by Micah Dahl Anderson (ArchesAudio.com)

Host Brad McCallum, Agri-Commodity Management Association (ACMA), chats with Dr. Wilma Schenkels, Chief Veterinary Officer, Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture, and Jonathan Wort, Perennia, about disease management within beef cattle. Producer: Ashley Anderson (ACMA) 7 Atlantic Central Drive East Mountain, Nova Scotia, B6L 2Z2 (902) 893-7455 Visit us: agricommodity.ca Follow us: Facebook and Twitter: @MaritimeAgCast Email us at: aanderson@agricommodity.ca or bmccallum@agricommodity.ca Host: Brad McCallum Edited by: Ashley Anderson of ACMA Music: “Neon Lights” by Matt Weidauer and "Smoke in a Box" by Micah Dahl Anderson (ArchesAudio.com)

Host Brad McCallum, Agri-Commodity Management Association (ACMA), chats with Dr. Wilma Schenkels, Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture, and Jonathan Wort, Perennia, about the importance of having a Veterinary-Client-Patient-Relationship (VCPR) and Herd Health Program on the farm. Producer: Ashley Anderson (ACMA) 7 Atlantic Central Drive East Mountain, Nova Scotia, B6L 2Z2 (902) 893-7455 Visit us: agricommodity.ca Follow us: Facebook and Twitter: @MaritimeAgCast Email us at: aanderson@agricommodity.ca or bmccallum@agricommodity.ca Host: Brad McCallum Edited by: Ashley Anderson of ACMA Music: “Neon Lights” by Matt Weidauer and "Smoke in a Box" by Micah Dahl Anderson (ArchesAudio.com)

Forest fires are a hot topic these days, we get a status report on active forest fires in the province, and find out what the season looks like so far. David Steeves is a forest resources technician with the Nova Scotia Department of Lands and Forestry.

This is the third and final special French-language episodes of the Future Fix, or 'Face au Futur.' Des appareils portables comme les montres intelligentes qui suivent nos pas et notre fréquence cardiaque, des dossiers de santé numérisés, des suivis à distance pour les maladies chroniques; les initiatives en santé intelligente ne cessent de se multiplier. Pour avoir une idée plus claire de ce concept et de la forme que cela peut prendre, nous sommes entretenu avec Dida Berku la conseillère municipale de Côte-Saint-Luc. Elle nous explique en consiste le projet en santé intelligente « VillAGE », finaliste du défi des villes intelligentes d'Infrastructure Canada. Et, afin de de réfléchir plus en profondeur l'avenir de la santé, Jonathan Veale du département de Santé et de Bien-Être de Nouvelle-Écosse nous a accordé une entrevue. Il témoigne de la nécessité de mettre les technologies numériques au profit de l'inclusion sociale et de l'accessibilité pour permettre un avenir de la santé plus prospère. From portable smart watch technology that follows our heartbeat, to distance medical consultations for chronic illnesses, smart health initiatives are on the rise in communities across Canada. On this episode of 'Face au Future,' host Katia Gaid is joined by Dida Berku, City Councillor in the City of Côte-Saint-Luc, Quebec, to explore VillAGE, the smart health initiative that made her city a finalist in the 2019 Smart Cities Challenge. Plus: Jonathan Veale, Chief Design Officer with the Nova Scotia Department of Health and Wellness on new health technology, social inclusion and accessibility.

Why do maritime fish fight currents, waterfalls and man-made barriers to get to inland ponds and lakes to spawn? What barriers do they face? How does that odd behaviour help the ecology of wetlands? And, how can we make their job easier? We talk with Nic McLellan, the Atlantic Science Coordinator for Ducks Unlimited Canada to find out. Plus, we discover what tracking road race runners has to do with counting fish. Did you know ducklings have their own social network? No spoilers, but you'll be amazed by how those little ducks make sure they all share the same birthday, thanks to a quick chat we had with Dave Howerter. He's the Director of National Conservation Operations at Ducks Unlimited Canada. Dave's up on the equivalent of bird Twitter. Listen up. Making ContactLike to learn more about these topics and other aspects of wetlands conservation? You can at ducks.ca. And, you can email your questions and feedback to communications@ducks.ca. Guest Bios Nic McLellanConservation Programs Specialist, Atlantic Canada Nic McLellan grew up in Sackville, NB where he developed a keen interest in biology and the outdoors. Prior to his current job at Ducks Unlimited Canada (DUC), Nic worked on several research projects with the Canadian Wildlife Service (CWS) and the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources. These projects involved a variety of bird species including shorebirds, songbirds, seabirds, and waterfowl. David Howerter, PhDDirector, National Conservation Operations Dave Howerter is an accomplished scientist with a track record of successfully managing a complex scientific program, demonstrated ability to build teams, build consensus, and develop partnerships. Dave is responsible for all programs national in scope related to engineering, education, international partnerships, government relations, research and conservation planning.    

On this episode of Innovating Employment, Amie Haughn, Director of Employment Programs at the Nova Scotia Department of Labour and Advanced Education, joins the program to discuss how they developed a collaborative approach to reforming their employment and training landscape, using an approach that empowered service providers to gather together and determine how to restructure employment services in their community. -------- Amie Haughn, directrice des programmes d’emploi au ministère du Travail et de l’Enseignement supérieur de la Nouvelle-Écosse, se joint à nous pour discuter de la façon dont sa province a développé une approche collaborative pour réformer le milieu de l’emploi et de la formation au moyen d’une approche qui a permis aux prestataires de services de se réunir pour déterminer comment restructurer ses services d’emploi.

Genome Canada names its latest GAPP Recipients, DelMar Pharma lists on NASDAQ, and OPKO health acquires Toronto’s Transition Therapeutics. We have this and more on this week’s Biotechnology Focus Podcast! Welcome to Biotechnology Focus Podcast. I’m your host Shawn Lawrence. Story 1 We start this week’s show in the biotech business world with a longtime player on the Toronto Life Science scene being acquired. Miami based OPKO Health says it is buying clinical stage Toronto-based biotechnology company Transition Therapeutics, in an all-stock transaction valued at about $60 million. Through the acquisition of Transition, OPKO will take over the full clinical portfolio of the company including a treatment for type 2 diabetes and obesity, a treatment for low testosterone and a third neuropsychiatric drug candidate that targets patients with Alzheimer’s disease and Down syndrome. The first product, Transition’s lead metabolic drug candidate TT401, is a once- or twice-weekly oxyntomodulin for type 2 diabetes and obesity that the company calls the most advanced candidate among glucagon-like peptide 1 (GLP1)/glucagon receptor dual agonists. In a recently completed Phase 2 study of 420 patients with type 2 diabetes, subjects receiving the highest dose of TT401 peptide once weekly demonstrated significantly superior weight loss compared with currently approved extended release exenatide and placebo after 12 and 24 weeks of treatment. TT401 also provided a reduction in HbA1c, a marker of sugar metabolism, similar to exenatide at weeks 12 and 24. Transition had regained full development and commercialization rights to TT401 in April of this year after Eli Lilly and Co pulled out of an existing development partnership that had the two companies working together on what they called at the time a next generation diabetes drug. In doing, Lilly opted to not advance the compound into Phase 3. The assets is a fit for Opko as it already has a couple of development stage oxyntomodulin in its pipeline – including MOD-6031, a long lasting version, and TT401 fits nicely as a complimentary shorter term treatment. The second product included in the deal is Transition’s TT701, a once-daily oral selective androgen receptor modulator for patients with androgen deficiency. In terms of its clinical showing, In a 12-week study of 350 male subjects, TT701 showed significantly decreased fat mass and increased lean body mass and muscle strength without significantly changing prostate specific antigen levels. The third product is ELND005, a neuropsychiatric drug candidate that is an orally administered small molecule. It has completed Phase 2 clinical studies in Alzheimer’s disease and Down syndrome patients, however it failed in this trial. This is probably why many news outlets reported that only two products were being acquired in this deal. It will be interesting to see what Opko Health has in mind for its future clinical development. Both companies expect the transaction to close during the second half of 2016, subject to approval of Transition Therapeutics stockholders and other customary conditions. Story 2 Our next business story involves DelMar Pharmaceuticals, a BC-based company developing and commercializing cancer therapies in new orphan drug indications. The company commenced trading on July 12 on the NASDAQ Capital Market under the trade symbol DMPI.In honor of the listing, the company also got to ring the Opening Bell at the NASDAQ MarketSite in Times Square, New York City, on July 14, 2016. Jeffrey Bacha, chairman and CEO of DelMar Pharmaceuticals commented that listing on NASDAQ will better position the company in broadening its shareholder base, increase its appeal to institutional investors, and provide improved liquidity. The company’s lead drug in development, VAL-083, is currently undergoing clinical trials in the U.S. as a potential treatment for refractory glioblastoma multiforme. It has been extensively studied by the U.S. National Cancer Institute, and is currently approved for the treatment of chronic myelogenous leukemia and lung cancer in China. Published pre-clinical and clinical data suggest that VAL-083 may be active against a range of tumour types via a novel mechanism of action that could provide improved treatment options for patients. And now for a quick break, and when we return, and when we come back we’ll talk about Health Canada’s plan to protect Canadians against the increasing risk of antimicrobial resistance. If you could have a face-to-face conversation with government to discuss the life science industry, what would you say? Biotechnology Focus would like to give you the chance to engage with government and have your voices heard via our special “Hot Button Issues survey”. We kicked off the survey June 24, and response thus far has been terrific, so much so that we’ve decided to extend its run time through to Friday July 22. We want to hear from you on such hot topics as reimbursement of new technologies, funding challenges like access to capital, intellectual property, procurement, the state of the industry and more. This survey is open to everyone in the industry, including the business sector, academics, research institutions, service providers and more. It’s also open to individuals at all levels, from the C-level to support staff. The timing for this survey couldn’t be more right as the Federal government has just launched a call to help shape Canada’s “Innovation Agenda”, and, Canada’s Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Navdeep Bains has asked us all to step up and voice our opinions, to help further shape the future of Canada’s knowledge based economy. This survey is your chance to get involved! Your answers will be featured in a special high profile issue that will be sent to Deputy Ministers, Assistant Deputy Ministers, Cabinet, Directors and Generals, working in Health Canada, Industry Canada, Agriculture & Agri-Food, Foreign Affairs & Internationals trade, the Privy Council, as well as other public sector executives in federal and most provincial departments. So, don’t miss this opportunity to participate and have your voices heard. Simply visit www.surveymonkey.com/r/biotechfocus. Remember, Friday July 22, the survey closes. And welcome back to the Biotechnology Focus Podcast, and to get us started on the second half our show we have some exciting funding news related to a partnership between a major charitable organization and an Ontario clinical stage company. Story 3 The funding partnership involves Sernova Corp., a company based in London Ontario that is developing disruptive regenerative medicine technologies for the long-term treatment of chronic diseases including diabetes and hemophilia. They have entered into a research funding agreement with JDRF, a leading global organization that provides funds to type 1 diabetes research and is an advocate of such research. JDRF is providing Sernova up to $2.45 million and these funds will be used to advance human clinical trials of Sernova’s CPS technologies for treatment of hypoglycemia unawareness patients with severe type 1 diabetes at a major transplantation center in the U.S. Type 1 Diabetes is a life-threatening disease in which the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks and kills the pancreatic cells that produce insulin—a hormone that is essential for life because of its role to help the body use glucose. The goal of the study is to provide patients with hypoglycemia unawareness a novel cell therapy treatment utilizing Sernova’s proprietary Cell Pouch System™, a highly vascularized, cell macro-encapsulated implantable and scalable device to reduce or eliminate the need for injections of exogenous insulin. JDRF has previously provided funding to advance the development of Sernova’s technologies through a preclinical collaboration with Massachusetts General Hospital and according to Derek Rapp, JDRF president and CEO, JDRF is excited about this collaboration as well. Initiation of the clinical trial is scheduled for the second half of 2016. Story 4 In an effort to protect Canadians against the increasing risk of antimicrobial resistance, Health Canada is taking the first steps towards implementing a new Federal Action Plan on Anti-Microbial Resistance. Antimicrobial resistance occurs when an antimicrobial drug – an antibiotic, antifungal or antiviral drug – is no longer effective at controlling an infection it was once used to treat. This can cause an increased risk of infection, longer infection times, and a greater risk of death. The decreasing effectiveness of antimicrobial drugs is having a significant impact on our ability to protect Canadians from infectious diseases. It also has profound impacts on our healthcare system, global trade, agriculture, environment and health sectors. As part of Health Canada’s action plan, the department is seeking feedback on a regulatory proposal that it hopes will strengthen rules governing the importation, sale and use of antimicrobial drugs in livestock. This covers Surveillance – Detecting and monitoring trends and threats to inform strategies to reduce the risks and impacts of antimicrobial resistance, Stewardship – Conserving the effectiveness of existing treatments through infection prevention and control guidelines, education and awareness, regulations, and oversight, and finally Innovation – Finding new solutions to counteract loss in antimicrobial effectiveness through research and development. According Canada’s Ministry of Health the proposed changes to the Food and Drug Regulations would restrict the importation of certain veterinary drugs, require drug manufacturers to follow stricter rules, require provision of sales information to regulators to allow for improved monitoring of antimicrobial use, and introduce an easier way for manufacturers to sell low-risk veterinary health products. Consultations on the proposed regulatory changes are already underway, running for a 75 day period, ending on September 8, 2016. The proposal was published in the Canada Gazette, Part I, on July 2, 2016. Story 5 Our final story of the week features Genome Canada announcing the recipients of Round 5 funding under its Genomic Applications Partnership Program. GAPP partners academic researchers with users in the private and public sectors to promote genomics-derived solutions to address challenges or opportunities facing users. The projects are expected to have considerable economic and social impacts in the near term, spurring innovation, commercialization and growth in Canada. Further, through a Genome Canada and Mitacs partnership, GAPP supports training the next generation of graduate students and post-doctoral fellows. Several of the projects announced in this funding round involve research internships, which will prepare Canada’s next entrepreneurs through hands-on experience. As part of the round, a total of $5.3 million in federal funding through Genome Canada will go to five projects, with an additional $11.6 million invested through partners including provinces, private and public sector organizations. The five projects in this round are: Dr. Casey Hubert, University of Calgary, who is working with the Nova Scotia Department of Energy to derisk offshore oil and gas exploration in the province using innovative genomic approaches. Dr. Christoph Borchers, University of Victoria and Dr. Gerald Batist, McGill University, who are working with the pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca to validate new technology that will help healthcare professionals match the right cancer treatment to the right patient. Dr. Charles Goulet, Université Laval, who is working with Vineland Research and Innovation Centre to use variation in aroma-related genes to develop more flavourful tomatoes. Dr. Elizabeth Edwards, University of Toronto, who is working with SiREM to use specific microbes to accelerate the rate of biodegradation and enable less expensive cleanup of contaminated industrial sites. And Dr. Xiao-Yan Wen, St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, who is working with Edge Therapeutics Inc. to develop drugs for preventing intracerebral hemorrhage – a form of brain hemorrhage responsible for 10 per cent of all strokes. You can find out all the details of these GAPP Round 5 projects via a backgrounder on the Genome Canada website. We’re always looking for your feedback, story ideas and suggestions so we’d love to hear from you. Simply reach out to us on twitter: @BiotechFocus

Join us as we explore the apparent increase in challenging student behaviors. Is the rise real or imagine? What is the most current thinking on handling troubling student behavior? Follow: @bamradionetwork @raepica1 @notjstcute #edchat #edreform #ece #earlyed #AskingWhatIf Follow: @bamradionetwork @raepica1 @JustinMinkel @jasonflom #edchat #edreform #ece #earlyed #AskingWhatIf Barbara Kaiser has worked for over three decades as a Director, teacher and education consultant. She is the co-author of Challenging Behavior in Young Children: Understanding, Preventing and Responding Effectively and developed a Provincial Anti-Bullying Strategy with the Nova Scotia Department of Education. Amanda Morgan, MS, has nearly 20 years of experience teaching children, parents, and teachers in a variety of environments. She currently writes at the blog, Not Just Cute.

At the start of this episode Don is very annoyed because he bought a microphone stand, carried it to various continents without using it, and now he cannot find it. In its absence he has resorted to using a hat. The podcast opens with discussion about making podcasts. A listener asked how episode titles are selected in response to the title of Food Safety Talk episode 68: “We found it in Wild Pig Feces”. The process for podcast title selection is to look for random, out of context phrases from the show, text about them 30-40 times to select one, and lastly make sure it isn’t too long. One of Ben’s students, Lily Yang, also expressed interest in podcasting. He advised she can learn a lot by studying other podcasts. Recommended podcasts are Merlin and Dan’s Back to Work podcast on 5by5 and the WTF podcast especially the episode with RuPaul. Another resource is The Podcast Method website. The focus of this episode was professionals making poor risk management decisions. A health inspector from the Nova Scotia Department of Agriculture tried to stop a mother from breastfeeding in her farmer’s market booth despite the fact that she had proper hand washing facilities. The department later apologized. Ben and Don applaud the well-reasoned response the mother, Tanessa Holt gave. Additional excitement brought to you by the 'Theater of Public Health’ includes a middle school in New Jersey was closed because a staff member had C. difficile . Ben provides an historic example of risk management vs. communication virucidal footbaths were installed at airports in response to foot and mouth disease outbreak with the understanding that they were not effective. The guys talk about how there is often a lack of data to inform risk, for example with the proposed use of hand sanitizer between handling money and then food. Or maybe the data does exist, but isn't at the forefront of public health recommendations (the removal of tomato stem scar). Ben and Don talk about gaps existing between regulations and practical ideas for implementation. Don found Rutgers dining hall did not have a vomit clean up plan and the Food Code is lacking specific best practices. One good resource for vomit clean up is here. The conversation turned to public perceptions of food risks. Food safety professionals are perhaps not proactive about correcting public misperceptions. A counter example is South Dakota soybean producers who aim to correct misperceptions people have about GMOs and pesticides through a new advertising campaign. Don talks about an interview question related to safest cuts of meat. Regarding food safety ranking Mike Batz has created a top ten list of food-pathogen combinations. For better or worse, the Mother Jones article is here. In recall news, Chipotle took a pork carnitas off of their menu because they suspend a pork supplier due to animal welfare concerns. Lastly, Don received an urgent voicemail from the department administrator to sign a very important document and stated that 'lack of planning on other peoples part does not does not constitute an emergency on my part.'

In the summer of 1996 I presented a series on CBC Radio’s Island Morning program, produced by Ann Thurlow, called Consumed by Technology. I’ve managed to recover the audio of the episodes, along with the “show notes” and transcripts, from The Internet Archive and I’m posting each episode here for posterity. This fourth episode of Consumed by Technology focused access to information; it aired on July 30, 1996. Karen Mair was the host. It used to be that in rural communities on Prince Edward Island, the local telephone operator was the “central clearinghouse” for all types of information. If you wanted to know what the hymns were for church on Sunday, or whether Mrs. MacIsaac had given birth yet or what the price of apples at the general store was, you’d just pick up the phone and ask. The last rural telephone operator left service almost 20 years ago, but the idea of a “central clearinghouse” for information is still alive and well. Show Notes These are the original links that I released with the episode; each is a link to the Internet Archive’s cache of the site at the time. The Numbers Canadian Social Insurance Number Disclosure Regulations Special Joint Subcommittee Studying State and Commercial Use of Social Security Numbers for Transactional Identification How to get a Second Social Security Number Government and Privacy Federal Information Commissioner Federal Privacy Commissioner Privacy Protection across Canada Information For Sale ServiceOntario Kiosks Internet Department of Motor Vehicles Sherlock International Research Bureau Transcript INTRO: It used to be that in rural communities on Prince Edward Island, the local telephone operator was the “central clearinghouse” for all types of information. If you wanted to know what the hymns were for church on Sunday, or whether Mrs. MacIsaac had given birth yet or what the price of apples at the general store was, you’d just pick up the phone and ask. The last rural telephone operator left service almost 20 years ago, but the idea of a “central clearinghouse” for information is still alive and well. For another in the series “Consumed by Technology,” Peter Rukavina joins me now to talk about this, and to tell us what he found out when he asked the question “What have they got on me?” QUESTION: So the operators are all gone, but their spirit lives on? ANSWER: Well, perhaps a vague shadow of their spirit, a distant cousin, you might say… As you suggested, in days gone by, rural telephone operators played a central role in community life as the chief “keepers of information. “ After telephones came along, pretty well anything important that had to be communicated had to pass through the local telephone exchange. This meant that the operators had a pretty good handle on everyone’s life and goings on, and so if you wanted to know something, there was a good chance the local operator would either know themselves, or could tell you who did. In their own way, they were pretty powerful people in their communities. Today, telephone operators are gone, but what has lived on is the notion that having a central clearinghouse for information makes you a pretty powerful person. In this “wired world,” the place that information gets stored — the clearinghouse — is not in the minds of telephone operators, but in databases in computers. And so today, it’s really the person with the fastest computers and the best databases that holds the most power. Now with all of that in mind, I decided to set out to answer the question “What have they got on me?” I was curious to know how much information about me and my everyday life is sitting out there in the computers of the world, what it’s used for, and who can get access to it. QUESTION: Well… what did you find out? ANSWER: I started by sitting down with a piece of paper and listing out all of the businesses and organizations and governments that I knew had a file on me. I started with things like my driver’s license, my bank accounts, my Social Insurance Number, the credit bureau and continued on to things like the local video store, my Internet provider, and all of the magazines that I subscribe to. And on and on. Now I don’t tend to get surprised about much when it comes to information and technology, but I must say that I was overwhelmed by the size of this list when I was done… in 10 or 15 minutes I came up with almost 50 places that had some sort of information about me in their files. And those were just the places I knew about. Once I had this long list in hand, I decided to zero in on a couple of the items, make some phone calls, and see what more I could find out about exactly how and what was being recorded about me. I started with my driver’s license, which I figured was a good place to start because it has a reputation as being a sort of “universal card” — people ask for it when you want to rent cars or videos or sign up for a cheque cashing card at the grocery store. I assumed that if someone had my driver’s license number they could just phone the driver’s license people in the government and find out where I lived and what kind of car I owned and whether I’d run over anybody lately. QUESTION: And were you right? Well, actually, no. Much to my surprise, when I talked to the Highway Safety people in the Department of Transportation and Public Works I was told that driver’s license information is absolutely, positively confidential. The only people who could get at it were them, me, and the police. I asked them why, if this was the case, people still asked for my driver’s license number when I signed up for things that had nothing to do with driving. They had no idea. If it was useful to others, they said, it certainly wasn’t because of anything they were doing. Now, as I said, this all came as something of a surprise to me; I’d always thought driver’s license information was public. And then I found out why I’d always thought this. Being an Ontario boy, I got on the phone to the Ontario Ministry of Transportation. I never actually did get to talk to a real live person, but I was told by the talking computer that answered the phone that if I sent them $12.00 and an Ontario driver’s license number, they would send me what they call a “Driver Record Search,” which lists the name and address and three years worth of accident and speeding ticket information for the person with that license. And if I lived in Ontario, I could do the same thing simply by walking up to something called a “Service Ontario” machine where I could slip in my credit card, and get the goods on as many people as I could afford. QUESTION: They’re obviously a little more liberal with their information in Ontario… what about closer to home in New Brunswick and Nova Scotia? ANSWER: Again, it seems to depend on where you are. The person I talked to at the Nova Scotia Department of Consumer Services gave me pretty much the same answer as I got from Prince Edward Island: driver’s license information is not public. They seemed shocked that I would even ask. In New Brunswick, however, the Motor Vehicles Branch told me that if I sent $8.00 to their office in Fredericton, I could get the driver record of any New Brunswick driver and I wouldn’t even need their driver’s license number, just their name. I was curious to see what the American take on driver’s license information was, so I headed out on the Internet so see what I could find out. I did a search for the phrase “obtain driver’s license information” and, wouldn’t you know, that first thing that popped up was an business calling itself the “Internet Department of Motor Vehicles.” Just by filling out a form right there online, giving them a state and a name, for some states a driver’s license number, and my credit card number, for $20.00 they would email or fax me back any driver record, for any driver, anywhere in the United States. QUESTION: So it seems that we might be ahead of the pack here on the Island when it comes to protecting people’s privacy… ANSWER: Well of course some people would suggest that we’re actually behind the pack… again, it depends on who you talk to. In fact that brings up one of the Big Issues that surround keeping information about people on file, and that’s the question of who owns the information. Is, for example, my driver’s license file my property or the government’s? Now you might think that someone having access to your driver’s license file isn’t such a big deal. But what if that someone is an insurance company that turns you down because you got into an accident 5 years ago that wasn’t really your fault. Or a local car dealer who just happens to have a deal on the latest model of the car you’re driving now — in your colour! The point is that it’s hard to foresee what others might do with information about you. The situation becomes somewhat more complicated if you start looking at the issue not just of one government database or another being public, but the potential power of several of those databases combined. This is really where the telephone operators got their power: not from just knowing that Mr. Jones wasn’t at home on Sunday night because he wasn’t there to accept a long distance call, but also knowing that he used to be married to a mysterious woman from Toronto, a woman reported to be seen in Charlottetown on Sunday morning. Computer people call this “the power of systems integration.” QUESTION: So it’s not knowing all the little bits of information as much as having them all collected together… ANSWER: Exactly. Now if I continue down my list and just look at the branches of government who have files on me, I see Revenue Canada with a complete record of what I earn and what I spend in my business, the Passport Office with a record of my comings and goings in and out of the country, the Customs Office with information on what packages I’ve received from outside the country. The Department of the Environment knows what size my septic tank is, the Land Office knows what my house is worth. If I owned a dog, I’d need a license and that a record of that license would be in somebody’s computer. Now although I don’t really consider it anyone’s business but my own whether I own a dog or not, or what the size of my septic tank is, I’m not too concerned that information like that “gets out.” Imagine, however, if all of these databases were, effectively, “One Big Database.” What if it was possible to go up to a machine in the mall, slip in a credit card, and for 10 or 15 bucks find out everything that government knows about any person: where they live, how long they’ve been there, what they earn, who they’re married to… whatever. Now I should hasten to add that this is, in fact, not the case at least right now. There isn’t, at least yet, “One Big Database” of government information and, in fact, government’s have been quite strict about how they share their information with other governments. But the potential is certainly there for this sharing to happen. Take the example in Ontario where the provincial government is trying to get access to federal government files to help them track down people not making child support payments. This is another one of those instances where the basic issues themselves aren’t really that new — governments have been keeping track of us for years — but the power that computers bring to the task of collating and sorting and distributing this information changes the dynamic of the issue so much that we all have be a little more vigilant about keeping an eye on what governments are doing with information about us because they can do so much more now than ever before. QUESTION: Now that’s government information, what about information that businesses keep on file about us? ANSWER: I’m reminded of a call that my friend Leslie Niblett got when she was living in El Paso, Texas for a time. A woman from Houston whose name was also Leslie Niblett phoned her up, out of the blue, one day in the midst of a hunt for the Leslie Niblett that was making her life hell. It seems that some other n’er-do-well Leslie Niblett in Texas had skipped out on making their JC Penny Department Store card payments and that this fact had been incorrectly noted on the Houston Leslie Niblett’s credit file. She was now trying to buy a house, and was being turned down for a mortgage because of this. Her only solution was to call every Leslie Niblett in Texas until she found the one who was making her life so difficult. Lord knows if she ever did find her, and even if she did, what she could have said… I’ll be back next week to talk about how this could have happened, how it could happen to you, and generally about how businesses can use the information they have about us to sell more stuff. EXTRO: Peter Rukavina operates Digital Island in Kingston, PEI… he’ll be back next week with another in the series “Consumed by Technology.”