Environmental Regulation and the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Review of Regulator Response in Canada

Governments worldwide weakened environmental protection in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, including federal and provincial government agencies across Canada. In this briefing paper, I review and analyze these actions, comparing the types of rules changed, types of changes, rationale and sectors impacted. Results show that Canadian regulators took one of two approaches: enforcement discretion or pre-emptive rule adjustment. Industry, government and public stakeholders all benefited from relaxed rules. Most of the rules relaxed, however, were specific to certain industrial sectors: the oil, gas and coal; mining; fisheries and water sectors. Regulators’ main reason for adjusting environmental rules was to address capacity constraints faced by regulated entities, with limited detail provided to justify the changes in most cases. Over a third of the changes were indefinite with no set end date. I discuss implications of these actions, including increased risk of harm to the environment and human health, budgetary impacts, noncompliance enforcement and considerations for regulatory design moving forward

The Surface Owner’s Burden: Landowner Rights and Alberta’s Oil and Gas Well Liabilities Crisis

Inactive and unreclaimed oil and gas wells pose financial, environmental and health risks to Alberta landowners. The province needs to develop stronger policies that will ensure landowners are fairly compensated and well sites cleaned up.  The law requires Alberta landowners to lease the surface of their land for oil and gas development in exchange for financial compensation and land reclamation at the end of the lease. However, there are approximately 97,000 inactive wells in Alberta that haven’t been properly closed and 71,000 abandoned wells requiring clean-up. Low oil prices have resulted in insolvency for the operators of these wells and the Alberta Energy Regulator predicts 2021 will see another 6,014 wells become inactive. As of March 25, 2021, 54.8 per cent of all currently inactive oil and gas wells on the province’s list have been inactive for more than five years while 29.2 per cent have been so for more than a decade.  When well operators default on their obligation to maintain the wells, landowners cannot collect timely compensation, and are required to apply to the Surface Rights Board to receive fair compensation from the provincial government. Landowners must shoulder the burden of the risks to their properties and livelihoods during this period. The problems are then compounded by increased potential for contamination, unequal treatment as an unintended consequence of site clean-up programs and difficulties seeking a remedy.  Policy responses the province can take fall into two main categories: addressing the root problem of long-term inactive and unreclaimed wells and improving the protections of surface owner rights. To address long-term inactive and unreclaimed wells, the province could impose more severe financial penalties on the owners of incompliant wells, in addition to the interest that has accumulated during the period in which they failed to properly compensate the landowner. Furthermore, new policies on surface rights and liability management, drafted through engagement and consultation with landowners, must provide incentives or disincentives for operators to stop abandoning wells indefinitely, including regulations that should specify a time limit by which an inactive well must be cleaned up, and the land properly reclaimed.  To improve the protections of surface owner rights, landowners need improved access to information on the recourse open to them, including compensation rates and decision-making by the Surface Rights Board, which mediates between well owners and landowners. Landowners also need to have relevant information available to them on the risk status of the well on their land and be provided with a risk assessment framework relevant to their site-specific concerns. Reclamation activities also require greater oversight, to ensure the land is returned to the capabilities it possessed prior to the well site being established. The Alberta Energy Regulator, which oversees surface leases, has reportedly conducted field audits for only three per cent of sites that were certified as reclaimed between 2014 and 2018.  Property development and value, risks to crop farming and an inability to remedy their concerns about orphan wells have forced landowners for too long to live with an untenable situation. With the expected increase in inactive and unreclaimed wells, it is vital that the governance of surface rights and well liabilities be strengthened. The province owes landowners respect for their property rights and timely, fair access to recourse and compensation. Otherwise, Alberta landowners will continue to be unfairly burdened with financial and other costs that affect not only their ability to earn a living from their land, but also damage their trust in industry and government

A Review of Barriers to Full-Scale Deployment of Emissions-Reduction Technologies

     Innovative clean technologies are part of the solution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in both Canada and Alberta, particularly in the latter’s petroleum industry. However, while governments and their agencies may provide policies and financial support, proponents of cleantech still face numerous barriers to full deployment and commercialization.  To navigate the innovation and funding process successfully, it’s crucial for proponents to know the factors that impact the effective commercialization of cleantech innovations. They must also understand the role policies play in either supporting or hindering favourable outcomes.  Start-ups require support that focuses on innovation with a strong commercial potential, while scale-ups need to rely on proven strengths if they want to obtain private sector support for growth. Granting agencies and governments have an important role in supporting innovation. More clearly demonstrating and communicating their due diligence around funding decisions justifies expenditure of public money. Moreover, their decisions can and should send a signal to private sector financiers whether a certain innovation represents a good investment. Due diligence equally works to signal financiers when a specific project does not merit investment.       Innovative clean technologies are part of the solution to reducing greenhouse gas emissions in both Canada and Alberta, particularly in the latter’s petroleum industry. However, while governments and their agencies may provide policies and financial support, proponents of cleantech still face numerous barriers to full deployment and commercialization.  To navigate the innovation and funding process successfully, it’s crucial for proponents to know the factors that impact the effective commercialization of cleantech innovations. They must also understand the role policies play in either supporting or hindering favourable outcomes.  Start-ups require support that focuses on innovation with a strong commercial potential, while scale-ups need to rely on proven strengths if they want to obtain private sector support for growth. Granting agencies and governments have an important role in supporting innovation. More clearly demonstrating and communicating their due diligence around funding decisions justifies expenditure of public money. Moreover, their decisions can and should send a signal to private sector financiers whether a certain innovation represents a good investment. Due diligence equally works to signal financiers when a specific project does not merit investment.    The need to find innovative solutions to reducing emissions may seem pressing, but the race should not be to the swiftest. De-risking for commercialization means that a proponent must firmly establish that the technology works, is economically feasible and can attain sufficient market penetration for a return on investment to the prospective financier, as well as provide socio-economic and environmental benefits.  Trying to simplify or speed up the stages of innovation and the funding process means proponents can be exposed to incompletely proven and riskier technologies, which can damage credibility with financiers. A balance must be struck between the financier’s wish to expedite the de-risking process and the need to avoid inadequate de-risking which can jeopardize the project and its funding at a later stage.  Distinctions must also be made between firm-level support, which allows a company more flexibility in pursuing or cancelling projects, and project-level supports, in which the funding is specifically targeted for use in the development of a particular innovation and has a defined end point.  Cleantech innovation in Alberta faces added hurdles associated with a post-2014 economic downturn that has reduced some firms’ cash flows and has made firms, as well as government, less inclined to support cleantech innovations. This situation makes it crucial for innovation proponents seeking funding to distinguish clearly between a proposed project’s economic and environmental benefits. A technology whose primary benefit is reducing emissions is susceptible to changes in emissions pricing or regulations, and thus is not an attractive candidate for investors. An innovation that primarily reduces costs but offers a secondary environmental benefit is a better investment because it is much less sensitive to policy changes.  Alberta innovators must make sure they emphasize the economic benefits, and do their due diligence and careful de-risking if they want to surmount the added obstacles. Cleantech innovation doesn’t have to become a casualty of the provincial economic environment if the proper steps in the innovative and fiscal processes are conscientiously followed

Candidate risks indicators for bipolar disorder:early intervention opportunities in high-risk youth

Background: Psychiatric illnesses like bipolar disorder are increasingly understood to be neurodevelopmental disorders with clinical, psychological, and biological indicators recognizable long before the emergence of the full-blown syndromes. Methods: This paper is a selective review of findings from studies of high-risk children of affected parents that inform the knowledge of illness risk and development markers of bipolar disorder. We specifically focus on candidate clinical, biological, and psychological risk indicators that could serve as targets for future early intervention and prevention studies. Results: There is convergent evidence from prospective studies that bipolar disorder typically debuts as depressive episodes after puberty. In some high-risk children, sleep and anxiety disorders precede mood disorders by several years and reflect an increased vulnerability. An association between early exposure to adversity (eg, exposure to parental illness, neglect from mother) and increased risk of psychopathology may be mediated through increased stress reactivity evident at both behavioral and biological levels. Inter-related psychological processes including reward sensitivity, unstable self-esteem, rumination, and positive self-appraisal are risk factors for mood disorders. Disturbances in circadian rhythm and immune dysfunction are associated with mood disorders and may be vulnerability markers influenced by these other risk factors. Conclusions: There is accruing evidence of a number of measurable and potentially modifiable markers of vulnerability and developing illness in youth at familial risk for bipolar disorder. Longitudinal studies of multiple biological and psychological risk processes in high-risk offspring, both individually and together, will improve our understanding of illness onset and lead to the development of specific early interventions

ENERGY & ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY TRENDS OUR PLANET IN 2040: COMPARING WORLD ENERGY OUTLOOKS

Comparing the predictions of the latest world energy reports gives insights into the world’s progress towards limiting greenhouse gas emissions and meeting the goals of the Paris Agreement. It gives an indication of just how close — or far — we might be from keeping global temperature increases below 2°C by 2100

The association between self-reported and clinically determined hypomanic symptoms and the onset of major mood disorders.

Hypomanic symptoms may be a useful predictor of mood disorder among young people at high risk for bipolar disorder. To determine whether hypomanic symptoms differentiate offspring of parents with bipolar disorder (high risk) and offspring of well parents (control) and predict the development of mood episodes. High-risk and control offspring were prospectively assessed using semi-structured clinical interviews annually and completed the Hypomania Checklist-32 Revised (HCL-32). Clinically significant sub-threshold hypomanic symptoms (CSHS) were coded. HCL-32 total and active or elated scores were higher in control compared with high-risk offspring, whereas 14% of high-risk and 0% of control offspring had CSHS. High-risk offspring with CSHS had a fivefold increased risk of developing recurrent major depression (P=0.0002). The median onset of CSHS in high-risk offspring was 16.4 (6-31) years and was before the onset of major mood episodes. CSHS are precursors to major mood episodes in high-risk offspring and could identify individuals at ultra-high risk for developing bipolar disorder. None. © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2017. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Non-Commercial, No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license

The association between self-reported and clinically determined hypomanic symptoms and the onset of major mood disorders

BACKGROUND Hypomanic symptoms may be a useful predictor of mood disorder among young people at high risk for bipolar disorder. AIMS To determine whether hypomanic symptoms differentiate offspring of parents with bipolar disorder (high risk) and offspring of well parents (control) and predict the development of mood episodes. METHOD High-risk and control offspring were prospectively assessed using semi-structured clinical interviews annually and completed the Hypomania Checklist-32 Revised (HCL-32). Clinically significant sub-threshold hypomanic symptoms (CSHS) were coded. RESULTS HCL-32 total and active or elated scores were higher in control compared with high-risk offspring, whereas 14% of high-risk and 0% of control offspring had CSHS. High-risk offspring with CSHS had a fivefold increased risk of developing recurrent major depression (P=0.0002). The median onset of CSHS in high-risk offspring was 16.4 (6-31) years and was before the onset of major mood episodes. CONCLUSIONS CSHS are precursors to major mood episodes in high-risk offspring and could identify individuals at ultra-high risk for developing bipolar disorder. DECLARATION OF INTEREST None. COPYRIGHT AND USAGE © The Royal College of Psychiatrists 2017. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Non-Commercial, No Derivatives (CC BY-NC-ND) license

Enabling Partial Upgrading in Alberta: A Review of the Regulatory Framework and Opportunities for Improvement

Alberta’s energy resources are market-constrained. The province has the opportunity to alleviate constraints by partially upgrading its crude bitumen before shipping to refinery: partial upgrading would create new markets for Alberta oil and free up pipeline capacity for all producers by reducing the volume of diluent in the system. The Government of Alberta has taken steps to take advantage of this opportunity through enactment of the Energy Diversification Act (2018) and subsequent launch of the Alberta Partial Upgrading Program to provide fiscal support to proponents of partial upgrading. In addition to financial risk, however, proponents face regulatory risk and there is the opportunity to facilitate the proliferation of partial upgrading at scale by ensuring an enabling regulatory environment. As a new approach to oil processing, partial upgrading may not fit neatly into existing rules and regulatory processes. There is the need for a comprehensive review of the regulatory framework and how it would apply to commercial-scale partial upgrading in order to understand where gaps exist and opportunities for improving regulatory certainty may lie. Here we show several gaps and sources of uncertainty in Alberta’s regulatory framework that may hinder proliferation of partial upgrading at scale. We find that partial upgrading would likely be treated as an oil sands processing plant but the lack of formal delineation between types of processing plants creates ambiguity and inefficiencies. Other gaps and sources of uncertainty are not unique to partial upgrading projects, but are of special importance to this group due to timing, the newness of the technology, and the shifting environmental regulation context in Alberta and Canada in general. Our analysis shows that numerous immediate opportunities exist to improve regulatory certainty for proponents

Development and validation of a risk calculator for major mood disorders among the offspring of bipolar parents using information collected in routine clinical practice.

Family history is a significant risk factor for bipolar disorders (BD), but the magnitude of risk varies considerably between individuals within and across families. Accurate risk estimation may increase motivation to reduce modifiable risk exposures and identify individuals appropriate for monitoring over the peak risk period. Our objective was to develop and independently replicate an individual risk calculator for bipolar spectrum disorders among the offspring of BD parents using data collected in routine clinical practice. Data from the longitudinal Canadian High-Risk Offspring cohort study collected from 1996 to 2020 informed the development of a 5 and 10-year risk calculator using parametric time-to-event models with a cure fraction and a generalized gamma distribution. The calculator was then externally validated using data from the Lausanne-Geneva High-Risk Offspring cohort study collected from 1996 to 2020. A time-varying C-index by age in years was used to estimate the probability that the model correctly classified risk. Bias corrected estimates and 95% confidence limits were derived using a jackknife resampling approach. The primary outcome was age of onset of a major mood disorder. The risk calculator was most accurate at classifying risk in mid to late adolescence in the Canadian cohort (n = 285), and a similar pattern was replicated in the Swiss cohort (n = 128). Specifically, the time-varying C-index indicated that there was approximately a 70% chance that the model would correctly predict which of two 15-year-olds would be more likely to develop the outcome in the future. External validation within a smaller Swiss cohort showed mixed results. Findings suggest that this model may be a useful clinical tool in routine practice for improved individualized risk estimation of bipolar spectrum disorders among the adolescent offspring of a BD parent; however, risk estimation in younger high-risk offspring is less accurate, perhaps reflecting the evolving nature of psychopathology in early childhood. Based on external validation with a Swiss cohort, the risk calculator may not be as predictive in more heterogenous high-risk populations. The Canadian High-Risk Study has been funded by consecutive operating grants from the Canadian Institutes for Health Research, currently CIHR PJT Grant 152796 he Lausanne-Geneva high-risk study was and is supported by five grants from the Swiss National Foundation (#3200-040,677, #32003B-105,969, #32003B-118,326, #3200-049,746 and #3200-061,974), three grants from the Swiss National Foundation for the National Centres of Competence in Research project "The Synaptic Bases of Mental Diseases" (#125,759, #158,776, and #51NF40 - 185,897), and a grant from GlaxoSmithKline Clinical Genetics

Validation of UK Biobank data for mental health outcomes : a pilot study using secondary care electronic health records

The study was funded by the MRC Pathfinder Grant (MC_PC_17215); the National Institute for Health Research’s (NIHR) Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre (BRC-1215-20005) and the Virtual Brain Cloud from European Commission (grant no. H2020SC1-DTH-2018-1). This work was supported by the UK Clinical Record Interactive Search (UK-CRIS) system funded by the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) and the Medical Research Council, with the University of Oxford, using data and systems of the NIHR Oxford Health Biomedical Research Centre (BRC-1215-20005).UK Biobank (UKB) is widely employed to investigate mental health disorders and related exposures; however, its applicability and relevance in a clinical setting and the assumptions required have not been sufficiently and systematically investigated. Here, we present the first validation study using secondary care mental health data with linkage to UKB from Oxford - Clinical Record Interactive Search (CRIS) focusing on comparison of demographic information, diagnostic outcome, medication record and cognitive test results, with missing data and the implied bias from both resources depicted. We applied a natural language processing model to extract information embedded in unstructured text from clinical notes and attachments. Using a contingency table we compared the demographic information recorded in UKB and CRIS. We calculated the positive predictive value (PPV, proportion of true positives cases detected) for mental health diagnosis and relevant medication. Amongst the cohort of 854 subjects, PPVs for any mental health diagnosis for dementia, depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia were 41.6%, and were 59.5%, 12.5%, 50.0% and 52.6%, respectively. Self-reported medication records in UKB had general PPV of 47.0%, with the prevalence of frequently prescribed medicines to each typical mental health disorder considerably different from the information provided by CRIS. UKB is highly multimodal, but with limited follow-up records, whereas CRIS offers a longitudinal high-resolution clinical picture with more than ten years of observations. The linkage of both datasets will reduce the self-report bias and synergistically augment diverse modalities into a unified resource to facilitate more robust research in mental health.Peer reviewe