MONDAY,NOVEMBER25,2019 | THEGLOBEANDMAIL O NEWS | A
For Keith Morrison, the conse-
quences of this fall’s extraordina-
rily warm weather across the
North all came down to an urgent
call for help.
The fire chief for the Arctic
community of Cambridge Bay in
Nunavut was at home the eve-
ning of Oct. 6 when he got word
that a couple had fallen through
the ice near a river mouth.
“It was pitch black,” Chief Mor-
rison recalled. “The only light was
from the machines themselves.
He was standing on his snow ma-
chine and she was on the komatik
[sled], deep enough that most of
their bodies would have been in
the water.
“I took out rope. One of their
grandsons grabbed the rope and
jumped in to get the lady out.
Shortly after, we found a boat and
they used that to get her hus-
band.”
It shouldn’t have been a thing
at all. That stretch of ice is nor-
mally safe by this time of year, but
this fall has not been normal.
“What differentiated this year
was we saw a widespread warmer
temperature anomaly across the
board in the Arctic,” Environ-
ment Canada meteorologist Eric
Dykes said.
“Temperature anomalies that
are five degrees above normal are
happening a little bit more read-
ily than they have in years past.”
Data from around the Arctic
bear him out.
In Inuvik, NWT, temperatures
on every single day between Sept.
1 and Nov. 11 were above normal.
In Nunavut, Pond Inlet had on-
ly one day of below normal, while
above-normal days occurred
about 80 per cent of the time in
the communities of Cambridge
Bay and Pangnirtung.
Not only were temperatures
warm, the amount of warming
was noteworthy.
The Canadian Forces Station at
Alert, on the top of Ellesmere Is-
land, broke a record for Sept. 6
this year by six degrees.Pond Inlet experienced one
day that was 11 degrees warmer
than average.
And not only did Resolute, Nu-
navut, record 68 days of above-
normal warmth, nearly half of
those days were outside the nor-
mal temperature variation.
Kugluktuk, Nunavut, was simi-
lar – 58 warmer-than-average
days, 34 of them outside the nor-
mal range.
The U.S.-based National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Ad-
ministration found that sea ice in
October was at its lowest extent
since records began in 1979.
That’s 32 per cent below the 1981-
2010 average.
“This fall we saw a much more
widespread warming,” Mr. Dykes
said.
“Not only that, the stations
that did warm were warmer than
they had been the previous two
falls.”
Andrew Arreak, who works in
Pond Inlet for a group that helps
people make safety judgments
about sea ice, said there was still
open water near his community
this past week.
“People are usually on it the
beginning of November. Yester-
day, I was finally able to go on it.”
It’s not the only change.
“There have been more sight-
ings of killer whales, increasing
every year,” Mr. Arreak said.
“Insects are being reported
that aren’t usually around the ar-
ea. We don’t even know what
they’re called.”
Things have changed, said
Chief Morrison, who no longer
goes out on his Thanksgiving
weekend ice-fishing trip.
“A lot of people are noticing
the ice is not what it used to be.”
Two days after he helped haul
the elderly couple out of the
freezing river, two young men
went through the ice in shallow
water.
“The route they were taking
was one they’ve been taking all
their lives without much of an is-
sue,” Chief Morrison said.
“The ice was thin and they
went through.”THECANADIANPRESSUnusually
warmweather
createsice
hazardsin
theNorth
BOBWEBERInInuvik,NWT,
temperaturesonevery
singledaybetween
Sept.1andNov.
wereabovenormal.Tylenol and Advil are both easy to buy, sold
in bulk and ubiquitous in Canadian
homes. Prescriptions of antidepressants
have also risen over the last several dec-
ades, making them readily available in
medicine cabinets.
The CIHI numbers group drugs into cat-
egories based on hospital codes and don’t
identify how many overdoses specifically
involved acetaminophen, for example, or
particular antidepressants, but they do
show evidence of a stark increase.
In 2018, for young people under age 19 in
both Ontario and Alberta combined, CIHI
recorded 1,752 cases involving drugs such
as non-opioid painkillers, non-steroid an-
ti-inflammatories and aspirin, up from 935
in 2010. (For children under the age of 13,
there was 99 incidents in both provinces in
2018, compared to 27 in 2010.)
For drugs in the category that includes
antidepressants and sedatives, cases
among those under 19 rose to 1,986 from
- (For children under 13, CIHI record 61
cases in 2018, compared with 16 in 2011. Al-
berta data are not available for the previ-
ous year.)
Acetaminophen can cause acute liver
failure, especially when combined with al-
cohol. The rates of overdose in the Ontario
study were significantly higher among
girls, a worrisome finding given new evi-
dence suggesting that woman are more
vulnerable to liver failure caused by aceta-
minophen overdose than men.
In 1998, Britain restricted the amount of
acetaminophen that people could pur-
chase at one time, to 32 pills in pharmacies
and 16 or 24 tablets in other retail stores.
In Denmark, the sale of painkillers, in-
cluding acetaminophen, is prohibited to
young people under the age of 18. This re-
striction was cited in a recent study as one
reason why self-harm rates have not risen
in the country, unlike the increase observ-
ed in many other Western countries.
Dr. Yoshida argued the harm outweighs
the benefits in selling acetaminophen at
high doses and in large quantities. But bar-
ring a ban, he said, at the very least, extra-
strength versions of the drug should be
kept behind the pharmacy counter, to pre-
vent a young person from buying it and to
ensure a pharmacist can counsel consum-
ers on the risk.
“All it takes is Health Canada to change
the rules about how over-the-counter
drugs can be dispensed,” he said.
In 2016, after a safety review, Health
Canada announced new labelling guide-
lines for acetaminophen and limited the
strength allowed in prescriptions that
combined another drug. The review also
considered reducing the dose available for
sale, but a Health Canada spokesperson
said in a statement that there was insuffi-
cient scientific evidence that this step
would improve safety, citing concerns that
changes might drive consumers to other
drugs.
Barry Power, a spokesperson for the
Canadian Pharmacists Association, said
that restricting acetaminophen “would re-
quire a change in mindset” for Canadians
and would create access issues for some
patients, such as those with chronic pain.He suggested that parents place all their
medications in a secure, high-traffic loca-
tion in the house and resist bulk purchas-
es. “If you are concerned about a child who
may be suicidal, then I would lock [the
medication] up,” he said.
But David Juurlink, a drug-safety expert
at the University of Toronto and a co-au-
thor of the Ontario study, said restricting
access to the drug merits another national
conversation – given its toxicity and ubiq-
uitous presence in Canadian stores and
homes.
“It might seem odd to take a drug that is
used by the kilotonne around the world
every year, and that has been on our
shelves for decades, and suddenly reduce
access to it,” he said. “But if public percep-
tion were aligned with what we know
about the pharmacology of this drug, I
think people would be much more sympa-
thetic to reducing access to higher doses
and large bottles.”
Almost all teenagers who go to the
emergency department for an intentional
overdose survive. (Acetaminophen over-
doses, for example, can be treated with an
antidote if people get to hospital quickly.)
In about half of the cases, they go home
without being hospitalized.
But they often return to the emergency
department and have a significantly high-
er risk of suicide and accidental death
compared with a control group of peers – a
pattern that suggests a clear need for long-
term follow-up care, said Yaron Finkel-
stein, an emergency medicine specialist at
Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children and a
co-author of the Ontario study.Drugs:Almostallteenagerswhogototheemergency
departmentforanintentionaloverdosesurvive
FROMAThe NATO military alliance looked to
space, the final frontier, earlier this week
as members formally recognized the
cosmos as integral to their mutual securi-
ty, agreeing to bolster ways to defend their
satellites and other space-based infras-
tructure from enemy attacks.
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stolten-
berg insisted the measure was purely
defensive and did not include plans to put
weapons into orbit. But it represented a
marked departure from the United States,
which is preparing to fight a future war in
space if necessary. The divergent views of
the alliance, on the one hand, and its
largest and most influential member, on
the other is in many ways emblematic of
the challenge Canada itself is facing when
it comes to working with the United States
on space.
“Because of Canada’s alliance with the
United States, there might be some pres-
sure to adopt or toe a very similar line to
the United States,” said David Kuan-Wei
Chen, executive director of the Centre for
Research in Air and Space Law at McGill
University. “But so far, I think the political
leadership and people at the Department
of National Defence have resisted that.”
The federalgovernment’s 2017 defence
policy laid out a broad vision for the
Canadian Armed Forces’ operations in
space, which recognized its importance to
the country’s peace, security and prosper-
ity – and the need to ensure satellites and
other assets are protected. The policy also
spoke to the need to work with Canada’s
intelligence partners known as the Five
Eyes – the U.S., United Kingdom, Australia
and New Zealand – “with the aim of
strengthening deterrence (and) improv-
ing the resilience of space systems on
which Five-Eyes militaries rely.”
Yet it also called for Canada to work
with other countries to promote “the
peaceful use of space and provide lead-ership in shaping international norms for
responsible behaviour in space” while
supporting efforts “to ensure that space
does not become an arena of conflict.”
“There are members in [NATO] who
are vehemently opposed to the entire idea
of waging conflict in space, among which
Canada is one,” said Mr. Kuan-Wei Chen,
who is overseeing development of a
manual dealing with international law
and the use of military force in space.
The federalgovernment in July called
for new ideas and technology to help
protect Canadian satellites from natural
threats such as solar weather and space
debris, as well as cyberattacks, signal
jamming, lasers and anti-satellite missiles.
But the measure is intended to be defen-
sive in nature and address thegovern-
ment’s stated desire to make Canada’s
military and civilian satellites more resil-
ient to threats.
THECANADIANPRESSCANADA’SNATOALLIESDEVELOPINGDIVERGENTVIEWSONWEAPONIZINGSPACE
However, Ottawa says the solution should
be found at the bargaining table.
Devin Dreeshen, Alberta Agriculture
and Forestry Minister, said a prolonged
strike would hurt grain producers.
“There’s a trickle down effect through-
out the whole supply chain that ultimate-
ly gets paid by farmers,” he said. “After a
very difficult year weather-wise, to have a
rail strike is just another frustration.”
Mr. Dreeshen said he spoke with Marie-
Claude Bibeau, the federal Minister of
Agriculture and Agri-Food, last Thursday.
Mr. Dreeshen said she told him that she
had spoken with Transportation Minister
Marc Garneau about the issue. Their
thoughts, Mr. Dreeshen said, were to wait
on the sidelines to see if CN and Teamsters
can resolve the dispute without Ottawa in-
tervening.
“That was a little disappointing, I
thought, to hear there wasn’t a sense of
urgency,” Mr. Dreeshen said. “I think back-
to-work legislation – that to me is the only
way the trains are going to get moving
again.”
This is peak season for grain prices,
making the rail disruption especially wor-
risome for farmers. Industries across the
country are under pressure as the strike
continues. Quebec is at risk of running out
of propane, for example.
Mr. Dreeshen farms near Red Deer, Al-
ta., and said he had to run some of his
grain through a grain dryer, which is ener-
gy intensive. Natural gas, diesel and pro-
pane are among the fuel sources used to
power grain dryers, and the incoming fed-
eral carbon tax means drying grain is
about to become more expensive for
farmers. Ms. Wieben is racing to dry as
much of her grain as possible before the
tax kicks in Jan. 1.
Alberta farmers have collectively har-
vested 88 per cent of their major crops as
of Nov. 5, according to the latest crop re-
port issued Nov. 12. By way of comparison,
farmers had taken off 81 per cent of their
major crops by Nov. 8, 2016, which was an-
other tough harvest.
The Peace region is the furthest behind
this year, with only about 64 per cent of
the major crops – spring wheat, barley, ca-
nola, dry peas and oats – harvested as of
Nov. 5. Farmers in the northeast had about
87 per cent of major crops off the fields by
then, compared with 92 per cent in the
central region, 94 per cent in the north-
west and 97 per cent in the south.
Meanwhile, Saskatchewan farmers
have harvested 93 per cent of all crops, ac-
cording to the provincial report measur-
ing progress up to Nov. 18. Saskatchewan’s
harvest prediction is more optimistic than
Alberta’s.
“Producers are hopeful that much of
the remaining crop will be able to be taken
off prior to winter, although there are in-
dications that some of the crop will likely
be left out until the spring,” Saskatche-
wan’s report said. The quality of grain,
however, is lower, which translates into
lower sale prices for farmers.
About half of the 360 Prairie elevators
are captive to CN, according to Wade Sob-kowich, the executive director of the West-
ern Grain Elevator Association. These fa-
cilities, he said, are at about 65-per-cent
capacity. That means some farmers may
be able to deliver grain to elevators, but
the industry can not get it to foreign mar-
kets and importers are likely making al-
ternative arrangements.
Empty vessels on the West Coast, Mr.
Sobkowich said, will be fined about
$10,000 to $15,000 a day. Even when the
strike ends, the system will be backed up.
“The longer it goes on, the longer it
takes to smooth out,” he said.Alberta:Duringpeakgrainseason,
railstrikeisespeciallyworrisomeforfarmers
AlbertafarmerBevWieben,seenaboveinspectingpilesofwetgrainthismonth,is
strugglingtomakepaymentsonherbankloanassheandherhusbandtrytodryfrozen
pilesofgraintheyharvestedthisfall.PHOTOSBYCHRISBEAUCHAMP/THEGLOBEANDMAILFROMA