Here's what we know about federal workers pay during the PSAC strike - CTV News Ottawa

As tens of thousands of federal public servants spend an eighth day on the picket line, their union says it could be another two weeks before they see reductions in their pay.

More than 155,000 federal workers began strike action on April 19 to back demands for a new contract. Now, many striking employees and the public have questions about how pay will be administered during the strike.

Federal workers are paid two weeks in arrears. Wednesday is pay day for federal workers, and the pay covers the period March 30 to April 12.

CTVNewsOttawa.ca looks at the information from the Public Service Alliance of Canada and the federal government on employees' pay during the strike.

Strike pay

The Public Service Alliance of Canada says members are expected to attend a picket line for a minimum of four hours per day to qualify for strike pay.

Members who usually work 20 hours or more each week will receive the following strike pay:

• Ontario and all provinces: $75 per day, for a maximum per calendar week of $375
• Yukon: $103.20 per day, for a maximum per calendar week of $516
• Northwest Territories: $117.35 per day, for a maximum per calendar week of $586.75
• Nunavut: $141 per day, for a maximum per calendar week of $705.

Some PSAC components and locals may also choose to top-up members’ strike pay. 

First day of strike pay

PSAC says strike pay will begin to be delivered on Wednesday.

The first payment will cover the first three days of the strike: April 19, 20 and 21.

E-transfers will reach members in the first days as they are automatic, while physical cheques will take a few more days to print and distribute. 

The union says strike pay is not considered taxable income.

Pay during the strike

In a statement dated April 23, the Public Service Alliance of Canada said PSAC members on strike would see their first reductions in pay starting on their May 10 or later pay periods.

The union says based on past precedents and expert advice from its members, they don't anticipate any complications due to the Phoenix pay system.

"Based on past experience, members will most likely continue to receive pay from the employer while on strike and have pay deducted only after the strike concludes and leave without pay requests are submitted and processed," PSAC says in the section about pay during a strike.

"These leave requests are no more likely to be affected by Phoenix than any other leave submission throughout the year."

In the 'Frequently Asked Questions' sections of PSAC's website, dated April 16, PSAC told its members, "Interruptions in pay would be unlikely, although it is possible."

"If we take strike action, past practice shows that the employer would likely recover wages paid during the strike after a settlement is reached," the union said.

"Members will enter any time missed due to job action in their departmental PeopleSoft upon return to office using the appropriate time code."

What the federal government says

Public Services and Procurement Canada says employees in a legal strike position who participate in strike action will be considered as being on leave without pay.

Leave without pay related to strike actions 5 days or less will be submitted directly into the pay system by the excluded manager, and will be reflected on an upcoming paycheque, the government says.

"For departments serviced by the Pay Centre, LWOP for a strike period that is greater than 5 consecutive days will be submitted by the departmental Human Resources sector for onwards transmission to the Pay Centre for processing," the government says on its website.

"For departments not serviced by the Pay Centre, the entry will be completed by the designated departmental Compensation Advisor as per their internal process."

Treasury Board President Mona Fortier told reporters on Parliament Hill that striking employees will not see the pay on their next paycheque.

"If somebody strikes, the person doesn't get paid by the government because they're no longer offering their services, and we respect the strike I have to repeat, but it is important to know that they will see that on their next paycheck, which if I'm not mistaken, will be on May 10," Fortier said.

Essential workers pay

Pay for the approximately 47,000 workers deemed essential will continue.

"Bi-weekly pay continues to be issued to employees whose positions are deemed essential or who are not in a legal strike position or continue working," Public Services and Procurement Canada says.

"While there may be some processing delays and increased wait times in call centres, Pay Centre and Client Contact Centre will work to minimize impacts to service standards and answer client enquiries and calls in a timely manner."

With files from CTV News Senior Digital Parliamentary Reporter Rachel Aiello

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Fatal Attraction and the endurance of the 'bunny boiler', dating culture's most toxic stereotype - BBC

The '80s thriller demonised women seen as a 'threat' to the nuclear family – and gave rise to a particularly harmful phrase. Now as a TV remake begins, not much has changed, writes Leila Latif.

In a world where Super Mario films and sexless Marvel sequels reign supreme at the box office, it's hard to imagine a return to 1987, where the highest-grossing film in the world was a psychosexual thriller about an extra-marital affair. Adrian Lyne, the king of the erotic thriller, directed Fatal Attraction, which grossed $320 million  globally and was nominated for six Oscars. Now Paramount Plus is hoping to replicate some of that success with a new small-screen adaptation starring Joshua Jackson, Lizzy Caplan and Amanda Peet as the central trio.

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In the original, Michael Douglas played Dan Gallagher, a married lawyer with an adorable daughter and perfect wife, Beth (Anne Archer). He meets Alex Forrest (Glenn Close), a successful book editor and they embark on a brief affair, but when Dan tries to end things, Alex does not take no for an answer and, among other things, famously boils the family's pet rabbit in retaliation. The film ends with Beth shooting Alex dead, after she turns up at their family home with murderous intent, but this was not the original plan. The first cut of the film saw Alex kill herself and frame Dan for her murder, but test audiences wanted to see her most resolutely punished, resulting in an ending that film critic Karina Longworth described in the Erotic '80s series of her podcast You Must Remember This as "bigger but stupider". "Audiences needed some kind of big blowout at the end," Longworth tells BBC Culture, expanding on her point. "They couldn't accept a more low-key ending with more empathy for the Glenn Close character.” But as Longworth also explains, some people maintained empathy for her despite the brutal conclusion. "Fatal Attraction almost played like a completely different movie to different people depending on what their point of view was at the time."

The original Fatal Attraction film tapped into cultural anxieties about sex and feminism (Credit: Alamy)

Indeed, the film's ability to inspire many readings was part of its success, says Longworth: "that film that was in the American media for nine months after its release. There was so much debate to be had. Some people saw it as being feminist, others saw it as very anti-feminist." At a time of Reagan, the Aids crisis and a backlash against second-wave feminism, Fatal Attraction picked up on cultural anxieties that sex was dangerous and professional women were a threat to the American family. But as Michael Conroy, founder of Men At Work, a company set up to deliver training to young men that challenges sexism, says, the film also tapped into something "thousands of years old about women being property and about a man having to be the commander of his house and relationships and having the last word". When Dan tells Alex it's over, that is framed as being the definitive end, and when Alex says she won't allow him "to treat me like some slut you can just bang a couple of times and throw in the garbage”, that is ultimately presented as an unreasonable request. "Whether it's Shakespeare or Ancient Greek [drama], throughout history we come back to the same questions of what are the permissions and freedoms for men v women," says Conroy.

The birth of a toxic phrase

One of the most enduring elements of Fatal Attraction's complex legacy has come from the murder of that family pet – with the entry of the term "bunny boiler" into the popular lexicon turning Alex into a punchline. Within dating culture, it has come to describe a woman who is emotionally unstable, obsessive and potentially vengeful towards male romantic partners, bolstering a harmful stereotype and used by those who have never even seen the film. "This victim-blaming idea of 'what's a poor guy to do? she's crazy' is all part of this paradox of belief that women are emotionally and mentally feeble and can't be trusted with positions of responsibility, and men are more stable and static and rational and logical, and at the same time should never be held to account for what we do," says Conroy.

Michael Douglas's Dan ultimately ends up with his life and family (save one fluffy pet) intact. And as the erotic thriller progressed through the 1990s, Douglas would star in other problematic examples of the genre, which positioned powerful, independent women as a threat, including Basic Instinct (1992), in which he played a detective lusting after an enigmatic crime novelist and serial killer played by Sharon Stone, and Disclosure (1994) with Demi Moore. Longworth describes the latter as “a female boss sexually harassing her male underling as part of a scheme to cover up her own professional incompetence. So you get to have it both ways in terms of the panic. To express the fear of the strong woman in the workplace and satisfy people who think that women in a position of power over men must be incompetent and probably did something dastardly to get there.”

But outside of Douglas's oeuvre, the figure of the "bunny boiler" became even more absurd as the culture, and its cinema, did some ludicrous mental gymnastics to cast men as women’s victims. The '90s saw the media cast Monica Lewinsky and Anita Hill as the manipulative obsessive seductresses of a president, Bill Clinton, and supreme court judge, Clarence Thomas, respectively. And Longworth's current series of You Must Remember This, Erotic '90s, will discuss films like Poison Ivy (1992) and The Crush (1993) where grown men face "bunny boilers" that are 16 and 14, respectively. "I have several episodes that I'm doing about what I call the '90s Lolita' which was a really prevalent trend," she says, with a sigh. For Longworth, while the way Fatal Attraction treated Alex left much to be desired, she was at least a 36-year-old adult – whereas, she says, the films of the 90s that followed suggested that "if you are a sexy teenage girl, if you have the power to turn on an adult man, you should be treated like an adult woman."

While this particularly noxious variety of Fatal Attraction spin-off may have been a short fad, the wider concept of the "bunny boiler" endured and has had a pernicious effect on further generations of women. "I do work in the domestic abuse sphere as well and the 'mad ex' is very powerful tool for grooming a new victim," Conroy explains. "Saying, 'oh, you know, I've got this really difficult ex-partner. She's crazy. She just lies all the time.' You see it all the time with multiple abusers." 

A disappointing remake

For those coming to the post-#Metoo Paramount adaptation, thinking that the fact it was developed by and directed by women would mean a new approach to the "crazy ex", and that this time Alex would not be such a "bunny boiler"… well, there is bad news. If anything, from the episodes I have seen, Caplan's Alex is less sympathetic, and more maniacal than her predecessor – while Jackson's Dan is sweeter, more endearing and ultimately painted as even more of a victim of women's wily schemes than Douglas's incarnation. As for that bunny? Showrunner Alex Cunningham has confirmed that while a rabbit does appear, there will be no rabbit murder at any point in the new series, though it does give a nod to that infamous scene.

The new Fatal Attraction TV series doesn't change the regressive gender dynamic of the originals (Credit: Paramount+)

For Conroy, however, this return to a world of crazed women and male victims is worryingly symptomatic of a re-emergence of chauvinism, in a world where someone like self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate wields incredible online influence. "He's just saying the same stuff that Fatal Attraction is, about wanting to be a very infantile man able to do what he wants with no negative consequences," says Conroy. "Dan is like a child who doesn't really know what he's playing with while Alex is a knowing adult in contrast."

That the latest adaptation buys into that gender dynamic is ultimately disappointing, particularly as TV has been the medium in which erotic thrillers, female-led stories, and new visions of female desire have been given room to flourish. In Kristy Guevara Flanagan's recent documentary Body Parts, looking at the evolution of sex on screen, she talked to many TV showrunners already making waves in viewing sex and female desire without a misogynistic lens. "As TV writers and showrunners and directors, [women] have always been more successful. Historically film is more conservative, and making women's stories is considered more risky," she says. She highlights the work of creators like Joey Soloway (Transparent, I Want Dick) and Tanya Saracho (Vida), whose series are filled "with people who are desirous and not just sexually, but [in a way] that leaks out of them in such interesting and flawed ways we can relate to, and ways that relate to the character development and their story arcs. They just really have done an interesting job of kind of reinventing that gaze."

While the latest Fatal Attraction doesn't meaningfully shift the gaze, or risk challenging the "bunny boiler" stereotype, it also buys into a strangely old-fashioned puritanism, which sees sex as ultimately dangerous. Outside the world of sex-positive progress, it seems that many fears around sex and women still abound. Guevara Flanagan thinks that "the culture is very fearful of women's bodies, of women's reproductiveness, and it's still seen as a mystery, and as scary and frightening when it's not contained."  

Guevara Flanagan is broadly heartened by the current "small revival of the erotic thriller" on screen – but says what is regressive in examples like Fatal Attraction is that they feature women that "are powerful to a certain point, and that power is sexual, then ultimately they're either killed or restored to some rightful familial or maternal position and 'cured'." It may be down to the next generation of creatives to really crush the patriarchal norms that have made the "bunny boiler" such a pervading archetype – and Guevara Flanagan has a front seat to their ascent. "I'm also a film professor and [I see] emerging filmmakers who are seeing things differently and reinventing the language, finding new ways to tell these stories."  But even though there are so many more new stories out there to tell, one can only hope that one day, there will also be another Fatal Attraction in which Alex Forrest finally gets justice.

Fatal Attraction premieres on April 30 on Paramount+ in the US and May 1 on Paramount+ in the UK

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Toronto man facing more than 40 charges after woman forcibly confined, sexually assaulted - CP24

Police have arrested and laid more than 40 charges against a Toronto man who allegedly forcibly confined and sexually assaulted a woman multiple times over the course of a year and a half.

Dhrubo Hasan, 29, was arrested on Friday, police said in a release issued Wednesday.

He was charged with three counts of sexual assault, two counts of failure to comply with a release order, six counts of assault, six counts of assault by choking, three counts of mischief under $5,000, two counts of publishing intimate images without consent, six counts of assault, nine counts of failure to comply, one count of assault with a weapon, one count of administering a noxious substance, one count of aggravated assault, one count of threatening death, and three counts of forcible confinement.

The charges have not been proved in court.

Hasan was scheduled to appear at Toronto East Courts on Wednesday

In their release, Toronto police said they are concerned there could be additional victims and encourage anyone with information to contact them at 416-808-7474.

“Furthermore, police would like to encourage all affected individuals to come forward and report human trafficking occurrences to the police,” it read. “We want to ensure everyone has access to support services and an exit strategy, regardless of their decision to proceed criminally.” 

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Four more large breed dogs found abandoned - CTV News Kitchener

The Humane Society of Kitchener Waterloo and Stratford Perth says they have found four more abandoned large breed dogs.

The humane society said on March 23, they responded to reports of dogs running loose in and around Mitchell in Perth County. They said animal services officers attended and were able to safely capture four dogs.

Then, over the course of the following week, they said four more dogs were reported. Officers have captured and brought those dogs into care as well.

Staff suspect all eight dogs came from the same household. The humane society said Ontario Provincial Police is investigating the incident and looking for any information that could help.

“They all do have very similar features, characteristics, they look alike they’re very similar ages,” said Calla James, director of community engagement and outreach for the local humane society.

The dogs were found underweight and with dirty coats. One was also suffering from an ear infection.

The humane society said three have since been adopted, one is receiving medical care for an ear infection and four are now available on the website for adoption.

James said the humane society has programs to support people in times of crisis so they don’t have to abandon their pets. They include a pet pantry program, low-cost spay-neuter services, training opportunities or surrender services.

“People are having to choose between caring for their pets or caring for their family. That’s why we’re really interested in having our programs here to support people in keeping their pets with them, so we don’t have to see them separated in those crisis times,” James said.

The humane society is strongly encouraging community members to consider adopting.

It is also in need of more foster families for big dogs in the Stratford area.

“People may have other pets in the home that aren’t a match, or they just don’t have the setup for a large breed dog. So, we are looking for people who are interested but also have experience with large-breed dog fostering,” James said.

While big dogs come with some extra challenges and can be harder to adopt, the humane society said a home is always more comfortable than a shelter.

“Once they’re in a home and able to have that extra socialization, they get adopted so much quicker, so you’re really helping them out in the long run,” volunteer manager Denise Rowse said. “Big dogs just come with so much personality. They’re just as loving as small dogs. They’re a lot of fun to go out on hikes with. They don’t tire quite as easily.”

The local humane society said they currently have 50 dogs, 71 cats and 40 small animals between their Kitchener and Stratford locations.

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Stocks making the biggest moves premarket: Novartis, First Republic, 3M and more - CNBC

In this article

• NVS
• NOV.N-CH
• PKG
• MMM
• FRC
• JBLU
• GM
• PEP
• MCD
• UPS

Traders wearing masks arrive before the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) in Wall Street in New York City.

Johannes Eisele | AFP | Getty Images

Check out the companies making headlines before the bell on Tuesday.

First Republic Bank — The San Francisco-based regional bank plunged after it said Monday that deposits fell by 40% to $104.5 billion during the first quarter, which came out worse than Wall Street's expectations. First Republic said that its deposit flows have since stabilized. The stock was down nearly 22% in early morning trading and has declined by 86.6% so far this year. On Tuesday, Janney downgraded First Republic to sell from neutral and lowered its price target on the stock to $8 from $10, implying a 50% downside from Monday's closing price.

UPS — UPS shares fell 1.6%after the shipping giant reported quarterly results that missed analyst expectations. The company earned an adjusted $2.20 per share on revenue of $22.93 billion. Analysts expected earnings of $2.21 per share on revenue of $23.01 billion, according to Refinitiv.

3M — The industrial stock added 1.3% before the opening bell. 3M reported $1.97 in earnings per share, higher than analysts expectations of $1.58 from FactSet. The Minnesota-based company announced it would cut about 6,000 positions globally in efforts to focus on high-growth markets such as automotive electrification and home improvement, while prioritizing emerging growth areas such as climate technology and semiconductors.

McDonald's — Shares advanced less than 1% after the company beat Wall Street expectations for the first quarter. The company reported $2.63 in adjusted earnings per share on $5.9 billion in revenue. Analysts polled by Refinitiv expected $2.33 in per-share earnings and $5.59 billion in revenue. The stock was recently up 9.8%.

General Motors — Shares gained 2.1% after General Motors raised its key guidance for 2023 and reported first-quarter earnings that beat Wall Street's top- and bottom-line forecasts. The company reported $39.99 billion in revenue, higher than $38.96 billion according to Refinitiv data. Adjusted earnings came in at $2.21 per share, above the consensus estimate of $1.73. General Motors and Samsung SDI are also expected to announce as early as Tuesday that they plan to build a joint battery manufacturing plant in the U.S.

JetBlue — The stock popped more than 2.3% in the premarket after the airline forecasted a "solidly profitable" second quarter due to strong travel demand. For the first quarter, JetBlue posted a 34 cents loss, less than the 39 cents expected, per Refinitiv.

Packaging Corp of America — Shares fell 6.8% after the company reported an adjusted profit per share of $2.20, which came in below a StreetAccount forecast of $2.27 per share. The company's second-quarter guidance also missed expectations.

Novartis — Shares of the pharmaceutical company added more than 3% after it raised its full-year earnings outlook, saying it expects sales to grow by mid-single digits. Novartis reported earnings per share of $1.71 on $12.95 billion in revenue, topping analysts' expectations of $1.54 per share on $12.52 billion in revenue.

PepsiCo — Shares of the beverage and snacks giant climbed nearly 1.6% in premarket trading after it posted earnings and revenue that topped Wall Street's expectations. PepsiCo also raised its outlook on the full year. The company said first-quarter revenue totaled $17.85 billion, surpassing the $17.22 billion consensus estimate of analysts polled by Refinitiv. PepsiCo reported earnings per share of $1.50, topping analysts' expectations of $1.39.

— CNBC's un Li, YAlex Harring, Michelle Fox Theobald and Tanaya Macheel contributed reporting.

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Children read almost 25% more books last year, UK and Ireland study finds - The Guardian

The number of books read by children increased by almost a quarter last year, according to a report, as BookTok and other social media trends stimulated interest in reading for young people.

The 2023 What Kids Are Reading report, which surveyed children in the UK and Ireland, found that pupils read 27,265,657 books in the 2021-2022 academic year, 24% more than the 2020-2021 academic year.

The researchers found that social media trends such as the BookTok community on TikTok helped children engage with books such as Alice Oseman’s popular Heartstopper series.

The Wimpy Kid author Jeff Kinney and David Walliams remain the first and second most popular authors among primary school pupils, while in secondary school, Kinney was most popular, followed by Walliams and then JK Rowling.

However, the report found that, while average book difficulty rose as pupils became older, this was not in proportion to the rate at which the pupils should have been improving in reading.

Throughout secondary school, pupils were still reading books at almost the same level of difficulty as upper primary pupils, researchers found.

The study, which looked at nearly 1.3 million pupils across the UK and the Republic of Ireland, was carried out by the learning and assessment provider Renaissance and analysed by the University of Dundee’s Prof Keith Topping. Topping said: “Over this long period, we have seen a repeated decline in reading comprehension from primary to secondary pupils.

“To help tackle this, secondary pupils need to be encouraged to read books of increased difficulty, more appropriate to their age.”

The study found that the “striking slump” in difficulty at transfer to secondary school is marked in all regions, including the Republic of Ireland, and that book difficulty usually does not increase after transfer to secondary school.

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Alberta pet shelters seeing more and more pets abandoned at their doors - Global News

More and more pets are being abandoned at pet shelters around Calgary in acts that could face legal consequences.

Monday morning at around 8 a.m., a cat was found outside the door of the Alberta Animal Rescue Crew Society (AARCS) facility in a crate with food and water.

“It’s not very often that that happens here, thankfully. So it’s always a bit of a surprise,” AARCS stakeholder relations manager Rachel Cote said.

CCTV video showed a man dropping off the cat at around 11:15 p.m. on Sunday night.

4:00 AARCS: Adoptable pet of the month

Video footage also showed a man open the door to the AARCS Edmonton location and throw a cat inside the foyer on Saturday.

Cote said while AARCS isn’t an open-intake facility, they have seen a tripling of demand of their by-appointment services in recent years.

“In 2019, we had approximately 275 requests for dogs. In 2023 we had over 900, so a pretty significant increase. And unfortunately, we can’t help them all,” she said.

“We are accepting animals right now.

“We do have the space and we have been kind of making space where we need to, but we’re also stretched pretty, pretty thin.”

4:46 Full of adventure, CAHS adoptable Louise just needs to find her new “Thelma”

The Calgary Humane Society hasn’t been untouched by abandonments, with a cat left under a litter box with a rock on top just last week.

It is also under high demand right now, to the point of having a wait list for their open admission services.

“I’ve never seen levels like this (for) demand. It’s unsustainable,” Brad Nichols, the Humane Society’s director of operations and enforcement, said.

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“Shelters across Canada are seeing huge demand on their services… For what reason? I couldn’t tell you for absolutely certain. But it does seem to be an excess of animals that are unable to be kept by their owners.”

Abandoning an animal can be prosecuted under the Animal Protection Act and Criminal Code, with fines up to $20,000, a lifetime ban on owning animals and the possibility of jail time.

2:14 Dog rescued after falling into abandoned septic tank

“Our abandonment numbers on investigations is up significantly — I think it’s about 10 per cent year over year. So we’ll typically see it’s just over 100 a year,” Nichols said.

Both Cote and Nichols said affordability is likely driving the abandonments. But there could be other reasons.

“I think it’s really just trying to figure out what that person was thinking ultimately and kind of what’s going on in their life that made them get to that point,” Cote said.

Nichols suggests taking the “lengthy” commitment of owning a pet seriously before taking the plunge.

“Abandonment is not an alternative to surrender.”

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