It began with a questionnaire sent from CBC to the public email addresses of approximately 22,000 school staffers in eastern Ontario and Atlantic Canada.
It ended with a series of CBC News stories based on the responses of more than 2,000 teachers, many of whom expressed concerns about returning to schools during a pandemic.
But in between, it sparked correspondence — and consternation — among education officials in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Newfoundland and Labrador.
Some of them appear to have been suspicious of CBC’s effort.
Using access to information requests, CBC News obtained more than 300 pages of emails generated by top education and school board officials across Atlantic Canada in the days after CBC journalists sent the questionnaire out.
The documents reveal a flurry of internal consultations and information-sharing among the four provincial governments on how to handle the situation.
There was displeasure expressed by some that CBC reporters had contacted teachers directly, without getting permission from them first.
There were concerns about whether this constituted a privacy breach. Lawyers were consulted. One senior government official somewhat ominously mentioned “other legal options.”
Back-to-school looked a lot different amid a pandemic, and teacher responses to the CBC questionnaire highlighted stress and uncertainty. (Rachael Blakey)
The resulting stories, which ran in late October, provided a window into the thoughts of teachers in the time of COVID-19. Those teachers had been contacted by email, through addresses found on public school websites. They shared feelings of being overwhelmed, stressed or exhausted.
Emails written by education officials as the CBC’s questionnaire was circulated reveal unease that the questions were even being asked.
‘Harmful to intergovernmental relations’
One province initially didn’t want correspondence with other colleagues across the region revealed to CBC at all.
The Newfoundland and Labrador English School District (NLESD) and the province’s Department of Education both invoked sections of transparency laws designed to stop the disclosure of information “harmful to intergovernmental relations or negotiations.”
However, snippets of that correspondence were revealed by other provinces.
No state secrets appeared to have been involved.
The Newfoundland and Labrador English School District and the Newfoundland and Labrador government initially declined to release emails because they could be “harmful to intergovernmental relations or negotiations.” (CBC)
After CBC News raised questions about the redactions, officials in Newfoundland and Labrador ultimately reversed their initial decision to black out the correspondence.
Here are excerpts from some of the emails that had at first been deemed too harmful to release:
“There has been a mass distribution to our teachers.”
“We are working to get screenshots of the questionnaire.”
“Here are the screenshots!”
For some reason, an email from the New Brunswick Teachers Federation to its members cautioning them about talking to the media was also redacted as harmful to intergovernmental affairs in Newfoundland and Labrador.
In an email, the school district said those redactions were done in consultation with the provincial government, and steered inquiries to them. The Newfoundland and Labrador Department of Education did not provide a response before deadline.
Potential legal issues
As news of the questionnaire travelled, education officials across the region zeroed in on two issues: how did the CBC get all of those email addresses in the first place, and what questions were being asked?
“We are looking at potential privacy breaches or other legal options,” George Daley, the deputy minister for anglophone schools in New Brunswick, wrote to his counterparts in the other three Atlantic provinces.
It is not clear what those “other legal options” were, and the New Brunswick government did not directly address that in response to inquiries from CBC News.
New Brunswick government officials worked into a weekend to deduce how CBC obtained teachers emails. They were listed on public school websites. (Rachael Blakey)
Nevertheless, efforts appear to have continued to figure out how the CBC managed to send out all of those emails.
The work in New Brunswick went into a Saturday, two days after the questionnaire first went out. Finally, an answer — nothing nefarious had occurred.
“The majority of our schools have … contact info on their website so easy enough to do if you are willing to take the time,” an internal email noted.
Another email added: “Not much we could do on the IT side to prevent that from happening.”
Asked about those efforts, the New Brunswick Department of Education stressed that information is a “valuable asset that is critical to the delivery of government programs and services,” and teachers are “expected to follow best practice” when it comes to information security.
“This includes not to click links or open attachments unless they come from a trusted source. Similar comprehensive policies are in place at private companies and media outlets for employees to follow,” spokeswoman Tara Chislett said in an email to CBC News.
“It is always suspicious any time a system wide, mass distributed email from outside government is received. They raise concern of a potential breach of the system and the possibility of a breach in privacy of employees.”
Chislett also noted the low response rate to the questionnaire among New Brunswick teachers.
‘Nothing unusual about this practice’
Further east, the English school board in Newfoundland and Labrador was provided legal advice from internal counsel, although that email is entirely blacked out and it’s not clear exactly what the lawyer had weighed in on.
Board officials indicated in earlier correspondence that they believed the CBC emails contravened their policies.
School district brass in Newfoundland and Labrador and the province’s teachers union appeared to be on the same page about the questionnaire — they shared their draft messages to teachers with each other before sending them out.
In a statement, the NLESD said it “routinely consults with the organization’s executive members, relevant public bodies and its educational partners on a variety of matters of mutual interest. There is nothing unusual about this practice.
“Similarly, our in-house legal counsel provides a wide range of advice on matters related to the application of provincial legislation, collective agreements, policy implementation and more.”
The CBC News questionnaire was sent to the public email addresses of approximately 22,000 school staffers in eastern Ontario and Atlantic Canada. (Garrett Barry/CBC)
Meanwhile, civil servants in Prince Edward Island were able to crack the mystery of exactly what questions were being asked.
According to internal emails, a government official logged into the questionnaire and posed as a teacher, so they could complete it — then took screenshots of all the questions and passed them along.
The verdict from P.E.I was split.
One communications official wrote: “Questions seem fair. I think we will come out near the top really.” But those views weren’t shared universally. “Some ‘loaded’ questions for sure,” was the verdict from the deputy minister, Bethany MacLeod.
1 of 4 ministers respond
The documents obtained by CBC News show officials discussing how to coordinate their responses to the questionnaire.
“If it is bigger than one province, it may be good if all [provinces/territories] had the same messaging,” Newfoundland and Labrador’s then-deputy minister of education, Bob Gardiner, wrote to his three Atlantic colleagues.
CBC News obtained 300 pages of emails from education officials in all four Atlantic provinces via access to information requests. (Shane Fowler/CBC)
Cardy’s deputy minister, meanwhile, had a simple solution for his three counterparts in the other Atlantic provinces, as to how they could handle all of this.
“Here you go,” George Daley wrote. “Just go take the survey. Write in the DM [deputy minister] is awesome for the end comments!”
The spokesperson in New Brunswick had this to say about that: “As for the deputy minister, he went to the site to determine if it was a closed site controlled by email credential or a survey that was open to anyone. He found that anyone could access the site and submit a response whether they were a teacher or not, which could call into question validity of the survey.”
After receiving that email, CBC News reviewed the questionnaire responses it received from New Brunswick.
No one replied that the deputy minister is awesome.
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Three NASA astronauts whose prolonged space station mission ended with a trip to the hospital last month declined to say Friday which one of them was sick.
Astronauts Matthew Dominick, Michael Barratt and Jeanette Epps publicly discussed their spaceflight for the first time since returning from the International Space Station on Oct. 25. They spent nearly eight months in orbit, longer than expected because of all the trouble with Boeing’s Starliner crew capsule and rough weather, including Hurricane Milton.
Soon after their SpaceX capsule splashed down in the Gulf of Mexico off the Florida coast, the three were taken to a hospital in nearby Pensacola along with Russian cosmonaut Alexander Grebenkin, who launched with them back in March.
One of the Americans ended up spending the night there for an undisclosed “medical issue.” NASA declined to say who was hospitalized or why, citing medical privacy.
When asked at Friday’s news conference which one had been sick, the astronauts refused to comment. Barratt, a doctor who specializes in space medicine, declined to even describe the symptoms that the unidentified astronaut had.
“Spaceflight is still something we don’t fully understand. We’re finding things that we don’t expect sometimes. This was one of those times and we’re still piecing things together on this,” said Barratt, the only member of the crew who had flown in space before.
Epps said everyone is different in how they respond to space — and gravity.
“That’s the part that you can’t predict,” she said, adding, “Every day is better than the day before.”
Dominick said little things like sitting comfortably in a hard chair took several days to get used to once he returned. He said he didn’t use the treadmill at all during his time in space, as part of an experiment to see what equipment might be pared on a long trip to Mars. The first time he walked was when he got out of the capsule.
The two astronauts who served as test pilots for Boeing’s Starliner — Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams — will remain at the space station until February, flying back with SpaceX. Starliner returned empty in September.
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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Forty-three monkeys bred for medical research that escaped a compound in South Carolina have been spotted in the woods near the site and workers are using food to try to recapture them, authorities said Friday.
The Rhesus macaques made a break for it Wednesday after an employee at the Alpha Genesis facility in Yemassee didn’t fully lock a door as she fed and checked on them, officials said.
“They are very social monkeys and they travel in groups, so when the first couple go out the door the others tend to just follow right along,” Alpha Genesis CEO Greg Westergaard told CBS News.
Westergaard said his main goal is to have the monkeys returned safely with no other problems. “I think they are having an adventure,” he said.
The monkeys on Friday were exploring the outer fence of the Alpha Genesis compound and are cooing at the monkeys inside, police said in a statement.
“The primates are exhibiting calm and playful behavior, which is a positive indication,” the police statement said, adding company workers are closely watching the monkeys while keeping their distance as they work to safely recapture them.
The monkeys are about the size of a cat. They are all females weighing about 7 pounds (3 kilograms).
Alpha Genesis, federal health officials and police all said the monkeys pose no risk to public health. The facility breeds the monkeys to sell to medical and other researchers.
“They are not infected with any disease whatsoever. They are harmless and a little skittish,” Yemassee Police Chief Gregory Alexander said Thursday.
Authorities still recommend that people who live near the compound about 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) from downtown Yemassee shut their windows and doors and call 911 if they see the monkeys. Approaching them could make them more skittish and harder to capture, officials said.
Eve Cooper, a biology professor at the University of Colorado Boulder who has studied rhesus macaques, said the animals have the potential to be dangerous and urged people to keep their distance.
Rhesus macaques monkeys can be aggressive. And some carry the herpes B virus, which can be fatal to humans, Cooper said.
However, Alpha Genesis states on its website that it specializes in pathogen-free primates. Cooper noted that there are pathogen-free populations of rhesus macaques that have been quarantined and tested.
“I would give them a wide berth,” Cooper said. “They’re unpredictable animals. And they can behave quite aggressively when they’re afraid.”
Alpha Genesis provides primates for research worldwide at its compound about 50 miles (80 kilometers) northeast of Savannah, Georgia, according to its website.
Locally, it is known as “the monkey farm.” And there is more amusement than panic around Yemassee and its population of about 1,100 just off Interstate 95 about 2 miles from Auldbrass Plantation, a Frank Lloyd Wright house designed in the 1930s.
There have been escapes before, but the monkeys haven’t caused problems, said William McCoy, who owns Lowcountry Horology, a clock and watch repair shop.
“They normally come home because that’s where the food is,” he said.
McCoy has lived in Yemassee for about two years and while he plans to stay away from the monkeys, he has his own light-hearted plan to get them back.
“I’m stocking up bananas, maybe they’ll show up,” McCoy said.
The Alpha Genesis compound is regularly inspected by federal officials.
In 2018, the U.S. Department of Agriculture fined Alpha Genesis $12,600 in part after officials said 26 primates escaped from the Yemassee facility in 2014 and an additional 19 got out in 2016.
The company’s fine was also issued because of individual monkey escapes as well as the killing of one monkey by others when it was placed in the wrong social group, according to a report from the USDA.
The group Stop Animal Exploitation Now sent a letter Thursday to the USDA asking the agency to immediately send an inspector to the Alpha Genesis facility, conduct a thorough investigation and treat them as a repeated violator. The group was involved in the 2018 fine against the company.
“The clear carelessness which allowed these 40 monkeys to escape endangered not only the safety of the animals, but also put the residents of South Carolina at risk,” wrote Michael Budkie, executive director of the group.
The USDA, which has inspected the compound 10 times since 2020, didn’t immediately respond to the letter.
The facility’s most recent federal inspection in May showed there were about 6,700 primates on site and no issues.
In a 2022 review, federal veterinarians reported two animals died when their fingers were trapped in structures and they were exposed to harsh weather. They also found cages weren’t adequately secure. Inspectors said criminal charges, civil penalties or other sanctions could follow if the problems weren’t fixed.
Since then, Alpha Genesis has undergone six inspections with minor problems reported only once.
In January 2023, the USDA said temperatures were out of the 45 to 85 degree Fahrenheit (7.2 to 29.5 degree Celsius) required range at some of the compound’s monkey cages. The inspection found moldy food in one bin, sharp edges on a gate that could cut an animal and sludge, food waste, used medical supplies, mechanical equipment, and general construction debris on the grounds.
Supporters of medical research involving nonhuman primates said they are critical to lifesaving medical advances like creating vaccines against COVID-19 because of their similarities to people. Keeping a domestic supply of the animals is critical to prevent shortages for U.S. researchers.
Humans have been using the rhesus macaque for scientific research since the late 1800s. Scientists believe that rhesus macaques and humans split from a common ancestor about 25 million years ago and share about 93% of the same DNA.
These monkeys have been launched into space on V2 rockets, used for AIDS research, had their genome mapped and made stars of their own reality television show. They were in such high demand in the early 2000s that a shortage led to scientists paying up to $10,000 per animal.
Outside of rats and mice, rhesus macaques are one of the most studied animals on the planet, said Dario Maestripieri, a behavioral scientist at the University of Chicago who wrote the 2007 book “Macachiavellian Intelligence: How Rhesus Macaques and Humans Have Conquered the World.”
The animals are very family oriented, siding with relatives when fights break out. And they’re adept at building political alliances in the face of threats from other monkeys. But they can be painful to watch. Monkeys with lower status in the hierarchy live in a constant state of fear and intimidation, Maestripieri said.
“In some ways, they kind of represent some of the worst aspects of human nature,” Maestripieri said.
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Lovan reported from Louisville, Kentucky, and Finley reported from Norfolk, Virginia.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland speaks with reporters after chairing a special cabinet committee working on Canada’s plan to deal with the incoming Donald Trump administration. Freeland says she’s stood up for Canadian interests in the past and is ready to go another round. (Nov. 8, 2024)
