THURSDAY,OCTOBER24,2019 | THEGLOBEANDMAILO A
Hong Kong’s legislature on
Wednesday formally withdrew
planned legislation that would
have allowed extraditions to
mainland China, but the move
was unlikely to end months of un-
rest as it met just one of five de-
mands of pro-democracy demon-
strators.
The rallying cry of the protes-
ters – who have trashed public
buildings in the Chinese-ruled
city, set street fires and pelted po-
lice with petrol bombs – has been
“five demands, not one less,”
meaning the withdrawal of the
bill makes no difference.
Hundreds of protesters gath-
ered peacefully outside the Brit-
ish consulate, waving British
flags, chanting “stand with Hong
Kong” and calling for support for a
British parliamentary debate on
the citizenship status of Hong
Kong people scheduled for Thurs-
day.
Britain has vowed support for
Hong Kong, a former British colo-
ny handed back to China in 1997.
But, given its plan to leave the Eu-
ropean Union, Britain is also hop-
ing for trading and investment
opportunities with China.
Hong Kong Chief Executive
Carrie Lam had said many times
the extradition bill was as good as
dead and that other demands, in-
cluding universal suffrage and an
amnesty for all those charged
with rioting, were beyond her
control.
Protesters are also calling for
her to stand down and for an inde-
pendent inquiry into perceived
police brutality during a long hot
summer of running battles on the
streets.
“There aren’t any big differenc-
es between suspension and with-drawal [of the extradition bill] ...
It’s too little, too late,” said 27-
year-old protester Connie, hours
before the bill was pulled. “There
are still other demands the gov-
ernment needs to meet, especial-
ly the problem of police brutality.”
Most protesters do not give
their full names to avoid being
identified.
Police have responded to pro-
tester violence with water can-
non, tear gas, rubber bullets and
several live rounds.
Demonstrators are angry atwhat they see as Beijing en-
croaching on Hong Kong’s “one
country, two systems” formula
enshrined during the 1997 hand-
over, which permits the city wide-
ranging freedoms not available
on the mainland such as an inde-
pendent judiciary.
The extradition bill would have
allowed defendants charged with
serious crimes to be sent for trial
abroad, including to Communist
Party-controlled courts in China.
The bill was seen as the latest
move by Beijing to erode thosefreedoms. China has denied these
claims and accuses foreign coun-
tries, especially Britain and the
United States, of fomenting trou-
ble in Hong Kong.
A murder suspect whose case
Ms. Lam had originally held up as
showing the need for the extradi-
tion bill walked free on Wednes-
day as the city’s government
squabbled with Taiwan over how
to handle his potential voluntary
surrender to authorities.
China, which views Taiwan as a
renegade province, has offered
the “one country, two systems”
formula for it to unite with the
mainland. Fiercely democratic
Taiwan has rejected the offer,
with Taiwanese President Tsai
Ing-wen saying this month that
such an arrangement had set
Hong Kong “on the edge of disor-
der.”
China, which has many times
expressed confidence in Ms. Lam
and her government to end the
unrest, was drawing up a plan to
replace her with an “interim”
chief executive, the Financial
Times reported, citing people
briefed on the deliberations.
Ms. Lam has become a light-
ning rod for protests and another
of the protesters’ demands has
been for her to stand down.
Over recent months, Beijing
has set up a special team working
from Shenzhen, just across the
border from Hong Kong, to gather
information, and it acts as the ma-
jor communication channel be-
tween Hong Kong and Beijing, ac-
cording to two people familiar
with the situation.REUTERSHongKongformallynixesextraditionbill
Withdrawalofplanned
legislationthatsparked
long-standingprotests
isseenbyoneactivist
as‘toolittle,toolate’
JESSIEPANG
TWINNIESIUHONGKONG
DemonstratorswaveBritishflagsduringarallyoutsideoftheBritishconsulateinHongKongonWednesday.
Hundredstookpartinthepeacefulprotest.MARK SCHIEFELBEIN/ASSOCIATED PRESSWhile federal parties ran a more diverse
slate of candidates than in previous elec-
tions, analysts say a flawed nomination
process means the House of Commons
has a long way to go before it reflects the
country it is meant to represent.
More women, people of colour, Indig-
enous people and members of the
LGBTQ community were on the ballot
than in 2015, but the gains made on elec-
tion day were marginal, if there were
gains at all.
A total of 98 women were elected
Monday, topping the previous record of
88 female members of Parliament set
during the 2015 election. Female candi-
dates won in just less than a third of fed-
eral ridings in this election – a statistic
that just doesn’t cut it for Eleanor Fast.
“Women make up 50 per cent of Can-
ada,” said Ms. Fast, the executive direc-
tor of Equal Voice, an organization seek-
ing to elect more women in Canada.
“That should be reflected in our Parlia-
ment.”
By the calculations of University of
Toronto political scientist
Erin Tolley – based on the
sluggish rate at which
women are being elected
to Parliament – it will be
another 83 years until
there is gender parity
among MPs.
Prof. Tolley said this
election, as with previous
ones, saw the “sacrificial-
lamb theory” play out.
“For women’s represen-
tation, it’s really clear that
parties are running women in ridings
that are unwinnable,” she said.
Fae Johnstone, who uses they and she
pronouns and the honorific Mx., attri-
buted the low number of successful
LGBTQ candidates to the same phenom-
enon. She is a contributor to Xtra, an
LGBTQ magazine.
A record 74 openly LGBTQ candidates
ran for office, but just four were elected –
down from six in the previous election.
“It’s using us as window dressing
when we are counted as part of these
numbers, but not in ridings where these
parties know that they’re going to have
anywhere near a competitive chance at
taking,” Mx. Johnstone said.
All four elected LGBTQ candidates are
cisgender, white gay men, she pointed
out.
“It demonstrates that communities
that are more marginalized are not the
ones who are getting opportunities like
this.”
While the same trend isn’t as clear
with racialized candidates, Prof. Tolley is
reluctant to credit parties for that. Ra-
cialized candidates tend to emerge in
higher numbers in battleground ridings,
such as those in the Greater Toronto Ar-
ea, and usually have to come through a
highly competitive nomination process,
too.
While a final tally on how many ra-
cialized candidates were elected Mon-
day isn’t yet available, Paul EJ Thomas, a
senior research associate at the Samara
Centre for Democracy, is currently ana-
lyzing that data. An early glance at re-
sults suggests people of colour continue
to be underrepresented in Parliament,
he said.
In a previous Samara study, Mr. Tho-
mas found that in ridings where candi-
dates were appointed by the party (rath-
er than being selected through a nomi-
nation process), they tended to be mem-
bers of overrepresented groups: straight,
white and male. The same was true if
nomination periods were relatively
short.
“One of the main challenges is ‘the
usual suspects,’ ” he said. “The less time
there is, the more likely nominations are
to go to those who can mobilize at the
drop of a hat or are more connected.”
The battle to unseat the Liberal in-
cumbent Robert-Falcon Ouellette in the
riding of Winnipeg Centre was a long
one for Leah Gazan, a member of the
Wood Mountain Lakota Nation and one
of eight Indigenous candidates elected
Monday. She said she needed to recruit a
strong team just to win the hotly con-
tested NDP nomination, a process that
got under way at the start of the year and
was followed by 10 months
of aggressive campaigning.
“One of the things I was
most proud of at the nomi-
nation when I looked at
the crowd was that our
electorate, the people,
were reflective of the com-
munity that I wanted to
serve,” she said.
In Nunavut, where 85
per cent of the population
are Inuit, the NDP, Conser-
vatives and Liberals all had
Inuk women on the ballot, including a
former Conservative cabinet minister.
The seat was won by a 25-year-old social
activist and political rookie, Mumilaaq
Qaqqaq of the NDP.
But in the Saskatchewan riding of
Desnethé–Missinippi–Churchill River,
where 70 per cent of the population is
Indigenous, two female Indigenous can-
didates, Georgina Jolibois (the NDP in-
cumbent) and Tammy Cook-Searson,
lost to Gary Vidal, a white male Conser-
vative candidate.
Prof. Tolley said having candidates
from underrepresented groups on the
ballot and eventually filling the seats in
the House of Commons is important,
but it’s not enough – the real test is how
much voice they have after they’re elect-
ed.
Randall Garrison, an openly gay man
and the NDP’s critic for LGBTQ issues,
was involved with two major parliamen-
tary wins for the LGBTQ community:
the passing of Bill C-16, which protects
Canadians from discrimination based
on gender, and a justice committee re-
port on the continuing criminalization
of HIV non-disclosure.
“Representative Parliament does
make better public policy,” said Mr. Gar-
rison, who kept his seat in the British
Columbia riding of Esquimalt–Saanich–
Sooke on Monday. “So the fewer diverse
voices, the more disappointing it is for
me.”LimitedgainsfordiverseMPs
thiselectionpromptcallsfor
changestonominationprocess
KCHOARD
DAKSHANABASCARAMURTY
Women make up
50 per cent
of Canada. That
should be reflected
in our Parliament.ELEANORFAST
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
OF EQUAL VOICEThe sudden death of Saskatchewan curl-
er Aly Jenkins due to an amniotic fluid
embolism sheds light on an extremely
rare and serious obstetric condition that
doctors have no way to foresee.
Ms. Jenkins, 30, died Sunday while giv-
ing birth to her third child, a girl named
Sydney. Her husband told a Saskatoon
radio station she was fine when she ar-
rived at hospital, but began feeling cold
during labour and within several hours,
her heart gave out. Her infant daughter
Sydney was placed in neonatal intensive
care, he said.
Amniotic fluid embolism (AFE) oc-
curs in an estimated one to eight cases
per 100,000 deliveries, but is considered
one of the major causes of maternal
mortality in industrialized countries,
says epidemiologist Sarka Lisonkova, an
assistant professor in the department of
obstetrics and gynecology at the Univer-
sity of British Columbia.
The causes of this condition, whose
symptoms include shortness of breath
and cardiorespiratory collapse, are not
entirely understood. Previously, it was
believed AFE occurred when fetal cells or
amniotic fluid entered the mother’s
blood system, causing an embolism, or
blockage, in the lungs, Dr. Lisonkova
said. However, over the past decade, sci-
entists have challenged this idea, noting
there would be insufficient amniotic
fluid in the mother’s system to create a
large enough embolism to cause a sud-
den collapse, she said.
Moreover, fetal material can enter the
mother’s blood stream in normal preg-
nancy and especially during normal de-
livery, as the barrier between mother
and infant is disrupted, Dr. Lisonkova
said.
Instead, it is now believed AFE is likely
a reaction of the mother’s immune sys-
tem to the fetal material. Thus, calling it
an embolism is somewhat of a misnomer.“It’s still recognized that there’s con-
tact with amniotic fluid and/or fetal
cells; it’s just not an embolism. ... It’s a
hypersensitivity reaction,” said Michael
Kramer, professor in the department of
pediatrics and epidemiology at McGill
University.
Dr. Kramer said it is not difficult to
recognize AFE when it happens, but it
occurs with very little warning, and
there is no way of testing for it in ad-
vance.
Doctors can respond by giving the
mother fluid if her blood pressure is too
low, making sure she gets enough ox-
ygen and giving her clotting factors to
control bleeding, he said. But even so, he
said, “it’s often just catastrophic.”
The fatality rate for the mother is
about 15 per cent to 20 per cent, while the
baby dies twice as often, he said.
Jennifer Blake, chief executive officer
of the Society of Obstetricians and Gy-
naecologists of Canada, said Canada
needs a consistent way of measuring and
reporting maternal deaths.
Some areas of the country, for in-
stance, only report maternal deaths in
the first 42 days after giving birth, while
some provinces report them after the
first three months after giving birth.
The current available data suggest
there are around 11 maternal deaths per
100,000 live births in Canada, Dr. Blake
said, noting the rate appears to be on the
rise, likely owing, in part, to substance
abuse, mental-health issues and superb-
ugs, or multidrug-resistant infections.
However, she said, because of the lack
of solid, accurate data, the true scope of
the problem is unknown.
“When you lose a mother, it impacts
the family, it impacts the community. It’s
the most devastating loss,” Dr. Blake
said. “We strongly believe that there
should be no preventable maternal
deaths in a country with the resources
Canada has.”
But in cases of AFE, she said, “It’s an
unforeseeable complication. It’s a tragic
event, but it can’t be predicted.”Doctorscan’tforeseeamnioticfluid
embolisms,theconditionthatkilled
curlerAlyJenkinsduringchildbirth
WENCYLEUNG
HEALTHREPORTERNEW YORKThree judges on a federal
appeals panel appeared inclined
Wednesday to reject arguments that
U.S. President Donald Trump’s tax
returns can’t be given to a New York
State grand jury because he is im-
mune from state criminal law – even
if he were to shoot someone on Fifth
Avenue.
Chief Justice Robert Katzmann of
the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
told lawyers at the conclusion of
nearly an hour of arguments that the
panel believed the lawyers “may be
seeing each other again in Washing-
ton.”
The U.S. Supreme Court will likely
have the last word on whether Mr.
Trump can shield himself from Man-
hattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance
Jr.’s efforts to explore the President’s
financial records since 2011, including
his tax returns.
The hearing’s most colourful ex-change came when Justice Denny
Chin confronted Trump lawyer Wil-
liam Consovoy over what local au-
thorities could do if Mr. Trump shot
somebody on Fifth Avenue, a refer-
ence to a boast Mr. Trump made in
January, 2016, that doing so wouldn’t
cost him voters.
“Local authorities couldn’t investi-
gate. They couldn’t do anything about
it?” Justice Chin asked.
Mr. Consovoy said that it was not a
permanent immunity and that local
authorities could act once a President
was removed from office.
“Well, I’m talking about while in
office,” Justice Chin said. “Nothing
could be done? That’s your position?”
Mr. Consovoy answered: “That is
correct. That is correct. Yes.”
Mr. Trump’s lawyers say the Consti-
tution prohibits states from subjecting
the President to criminal process
while he’s in office.ASSOCIATED PRESSFEDERALJUDGESSEEMSKEPTICALOFTRUMPARGUMENTSINTAXCASENEWS |