We have a series of speakers to speak to you today, and then Connie will do some summing up at the end Connie Sorio our migrant justice program coordinator My name is Shannon Newfield. I'm the member and network coordinator from Kairos and just again so glad to see you all here Yeah, and I have just met Jazer Um Jazer is Hi A health practitioner on an international student visa in canada The registered nurse in the philipines and responded to the call for health practitioners to boost human resources in the covet 19 Affected long-term care facilities.  Go ahead. Yeah, so hi. Good afternoon I'm Jazer Monteliano 32 years old. They came from the philippines. So Back home. I was a nurse and practicing as a nurse so I Make I'm here for father's daddy. So So My class should start like yesterday But because of this pandemic thing it was moved to september. So Basically, I don't know what to do. I have My class being deferred like I can do nothing But stay at home just stay at home. So So I can do work until my classes start because that's what's my permit allows me that I cannot go to work until My classes start because or else I would be illegal So I have nothing but hearing about covet things from my country here in canada in america or everywhere. So Hearing this covet stories. So As a health practitioner I want to help I want to do something but I simply can't because of my My restrictions given with the immigration. So until I hear I read a post from facebook that the canadian government is looking for Every health workers residing now in canada even students or even like Currently in canada that can help in covid inviting the covid so Long story short. I am volunteer without any hesitation. I said How to apply? I volunteered. So In summary, I was assigned to a covid stricken long-term care facility in toronto And the thing there was on my first day Somebody died and I think wow. So this is it. So I did a post mortem care in the first hour. So So that's it. So one thing also I discovered that The staffs are being infected and nobody wants to go to work anymore. So So one thing is after your shift on eight hour shift You are never sure if you can go home because you'll have to wait somebody that Somebody to take over your shift. So On the second day it happened. I worked straight 16 hours. So maybe Oh, so this is the normal thing here. So So On the third day I worked like 12 hours. So Oh, this is bad. So Although that's being as keep on happening I did continue until weeks after I feel like something's happening to me. So The nurse assigned that day Said to me jaser you have to I had to swab you and to be tested. So I Was tested. I was swab. I was positive. So that's so what's that's what's happening to me. So today is my 12th day of isolation two more days I Two more days. It's the 14th day Like this Thursday. I will be swab again. So hopefully for ourselves to be good. So, yes, we have pee pee there We have all sorts of protection In fact, we work as a team. We help each other. We we see each other We we suggest to just to keep things better and better but What I'm trying to say here is the whole system like me as a foreign worker and my and my co-worker is like We are facing the same risk. We are facing the same enemy. We are doing the same work, but the both of us have We don't have equal same protection because I can say that because even I don't have I can't even have a valid health card until now because This immigration thing I can't because there's so many restrictions. I can't I can't I can't get so Now that I'm sick. I don't know if they have something for me, but one thing is for sure because I might have professional wherever I will be I must respond if somebody wants me. So Now on behalf of the international students the impoverished foreign workers I call for Equal same protection because I believe my work in profession is essential. That's it Yeah, that's it. Thank you. Thank you very much jazzer um As soon as I heard that, you know As there was in self isolation I can him and also to ask what kind of support he needs because I know that he's he's here by himself. He has no Uh in nature relatives and and as an international student Uh Responding to a call. It is very important that, you know, we take care of each other So yeah later on we'll you know talk about, you know, what kind of advocacy we should be doing Thanks. Thank you again So we're going to hear a number of stories and then at the At the end after everyone has had a chance to speak There will be an opportunity to ask the the people who have shared any questions you might have And I'd like now to call on Sevilla, a long time personal support worker. Sevilla, welcome here And thank you for being with us Quite healthcare giver. I have more than 12 years experience from UK and Canada I look after client who has dementia Alzheimer's, cerebral palsy Uh with physical needs and others my background is in finance, but what I have But why I have switched my career and became a care giver because I'm proud of of it and Do it with humility respect dignity in its integrity It's an eye opening for me when my mother deteriorated and suffered And my family has no choice. It's heartbreaking But we have to hire a caregiver for her and I saw the love effort hardships and The care and the love that this caregiver showed to my mother and Somehow alleviated her pain And that's why it is a great challenge for me to pursue this career I consider it is extremely important and very essential in our community and society It involves hard work dedication patients With great empathy care passion and be compassionate to do this job At times we've been overlooked harass verbally and physically But we just have to be Have a deep breath and do our duties On the bright side of it our boss and family's client gave us the compliment and appreciated our new job During this COVID time I could just stay home and apply for CERB but because of the demand and needs of clients We can't do it. We have to have the courage to strengthen God's and to continue this Job and pursue our service knowing that there is this very high and the gravity of the situation is Enormous because that part of it we've been discriminated stereotyped labelled mish jobs and is understood Belittled by other people as I myself experienced a month ago. I'm not welcome I'm not welcome By a couple where I used to lead saying that I could bring the virus to them. It hurts me a lot, but I have no choice but to move on From the bottom of my heart. I am pleading to our government that somehow On behalf of my co-caregivers PSWs Have to be acknowledged and consider that they should have the they deserve to have a permanent residence and not just Work and permit alone and the skills And the education professionally has to be acknowledged especially we Uh, Filipinos who's really professionally inclined and we have really the capability to do the job So I'm really asking the government that please reconsider because we are people that somehow I consider caregiver and PSWs or and in healthcare. We are essential and really important in the community and society and That's why I'm here and it's really overwhelming for me. That somehow I'm included in this talk and That's I wish I have a great sense of what I'm saying and thank you for listening Thank you so much, Sevilla. We really appreciate you sharing your story And you'll stay with us, right and maybe people will have questions for you in a little bit. Sure Excellent excellent. Thank you Some others who would have liked to have been here are not able to be here in the middle of the work day and so Um, we have some stories and I am going to read one of them from another caregiver and so in her voice I will read now I'm 45 years old separated with three children left in the care of my parents in the Philippines I was a public high school teacher in the Philippines But my salary was not enough to support my children and my aging parents I was forced to leave teaching and my country to find work that would allow my children to go to school Have decent safe housing and food on the table After eight years in Saudi Arabia I came to Canada in May 2018 as a temporary foreign worker under the care for elderly pilot program I had to pay about $8,000 to an agency who found me an employer and processed all my documents My dream is to finish the 24 month work requirement past the language test and be able to apply for permanent residency in Canada And then reunite with my children My job was going well caring for one elderly woman My employer was happy with my work and the way I looked after her There were only the two of us in the house. We were respectful of each other I learned to care for her like my mother However, this was abruptly disrupted in mid-march when the eldest daughter decided to bring another My employer and I were both shocked and did not know how to react The day my employer was brought to the nursing home. She asked me to accompany her Cannot describe how I felt when we got to the nursing home And leaving her there It was so hard On our way out We were advised by the in-house medical practitioner To follow the public health advisory to self isolate for 14 days Because the facility was dealing with a COVID-19 outbreak As soon as we reached home where I stayed with my employer The daughter told me to look for another employer and vacate the premises in three days I was shocked and devastated Where would I go? Where would I find a new employer at this time of the pandemic? I pleaded with her and explained that I didn't have any relatives or anyone that could provide temporary accommodation But she didn't relent On the third day the daughter phoned me and asked me if I was ready to leave and gave me instructions where to leave the house key Pushed to the wall. I told her I'm not leaving I reminded her of the medical practitioner's advice to self isolate for 14 days I told her that if she forced me to leave I will report her to the authorities Including with the ministry of labor for violating my rights I think she was stunned She could not speak for almost a minute and then she said Okay I felt really good about standing up for my rights Now I'm still living in the same house And I was assured that the family will honor the remaining time of the two-year contract In the meantime my employer Nana I call her Nana for grandmother wants to come home She feels safer in the house with me caring for her than in the nursing home still fighting the virus outbreak I've uh been asked to um Relate the story of Christina. My name is Cheryl McNamara and I work at kairos as the media and advocacy coordinator My name is Christina I am a temporary foreign worker providing care to children under the caring for children pilot program I arrived in canada in 2018 and am about to complete the 24 months work requirement this month april And I will be qualified to apply for permanent residence I worked in hong kong for 10 years as a domestic helper I am married and have four children My husband is a jeepney driver and his earnings are not enough to support us Hence, I was forced to leave my family and work as a caregiver I was a live out caregiver caring for three children This arrangement is very expensive for me as I have to maintain an apartment and pay for my daily transportation But I also like the freedom and having not to worry about work and the children after 6 p.m And be able to take a rest and be ready for the next day's work When the pandemic hit the province and public safety measures were imposed including walking down offices public spaces and minimizing travel and use of public transit My employer paid for my uber ride She felt that it was safer to take the uber Than being exposed in the bus or subway after all she wants To make sure that my exposure is limited for the sake of her children and household This arrangement went for a week and a half Coming back from the weekend off she called sunday afternoon and told me that she will not be paying for my uber anymore That if I wanted to take an uber to work, then I will have to pay for it. I asked her what changed The outbreak was getting worse and more people were getting infected and taking an uber was not only for my safety, but For her family as well Anyway, I said I had to think about it A couple of hours later I received a termination letter It was very harsh It said I was terminated for insubordination And not doing my job to their satisfaction This happened the end of march To date I am still waiting for my annual leave pay the two weeks pay in lieu of notice as per the employment standards act My record of employment so I can file for e i or other benefit packages I recently applied for ser but I don't know if I qualify because i'm still under the temporary foreign worker program And that's christine statement Thanks, Cheryl Sharing that one as well So now I think We may have one more guest if she's able to join us in a little bit later But right now I'd like to turn it over to connie sorio to Give us a little bit of a summary of what she's noticed in these various stories and more that she has heard Thank you shannon and chel for reading those stories Um These are real people and I have contact with them almost every day And it was hard for me to Read the letters And and and I mean the stories because I you know, I I have relations. I've built a relationship with them and I could feel The pain and the injustice that they're facing um Just to mention too that uh, I just got a text from Michelle and she is not able to join us because she Uh, she was called on to stay on judy and she asked to attend to patients Michelle is um, is a registered care facility that you know, uh jasser also worked before And it was her actually that you know, when we were connecting with each other I really felt you know the agency of of you know, the situation at the at the long-term care facility As jasser has mentioned, you know described Workers have stopped coming to work because either they they're infected or they're just scared to to bring You know the infection home So at one point I was talking to michelle and And in between her in between us talking she was also attending to to to a patient. So I um I really felt for her and one of in in one of our discussions She highlighted, you know, the the crisis that they are facing but particularly in a publicly funded Long-term care facilities and I would like actually to to to refer you to a global male article that came out yesterday And the title is it took a pandemic why systemic deficiencies in long-term care facilities post such a danger to our seniors What the article highlighted, you know, um not only the crisis in terms of I wouldn't say overcrowding But the fact that you know the care cuts that we're we're experiencing under the care government Has made it impossible for for long-term care facilities to be able to hire sufficient or enough workers to be able to provide the care necessary Or that's needed in in these facilities and the pandemic has fairly highlighted, you know the shortage The long hours of work that these workers have to to endure And and the not sufficient care that's provided to to the residents And and as we, you know, as we've been hearing in the news most of The facilities are currently, you know Uh suffering from the COVID-19 outbreak And the need for workers is not going to go away. Um, Canada has an, you know, has an aging Opulation and the need for health workers care workers Is very much needed So hearing from jazzer story from zivia and also from carol and christina It really highlighted, you know The need to To overhaul our system or over overhaul our immigration system to make sure that one Workers that we need that are doing essential work should be provided with temperature Accidency because the work they're doing are not temporary. These are permanent jobs And and those, you know, who are coming here as health professionals should be recognized as health professionals There should be, you know, they're foreign training They're they're international training and and profession should be recognized because it's needed so for for for example for jazzer, he's a registered nurse in the philippines and he he came He just arrived actually in february this year as an international student It does not recognize, you know, his profession as a registered nurse in the philippines But responding to the call, you know, he stepped out and said, well, I'm a registered nurse in the philippines. I can I can do the work And the fact that, you know, jazzer is currently infected He isn't a limbo in terms of health coverage His old hip is not valid until the class starts, which is which has been moved to September of this year And and for the meantime, what what is the circuit to do? What are international students who are in similar situations and are coming out and providing service The much needed essential service are going to do So these are the these are the the questions and these are the This is that we're facing today and you know, um despite the fact that the government both federal and provincial have come out with, you know, um aid packages and the c er b and so forth More attention should be given to the international International students who are here the temporary foreign workers are providing essential work That they should be given the same access The same benefits that we all have as Canadians or permanent residents um I would like to Yeah, Shannon, like, you know, let's open it up for question and you know answer in terms of, you know, our our participants Being able and from us Sure connie So we have uh here Sevilla and jazzer and connie are all available to answer your questions. And so I would invite you to simply um take Turns and unmute yourselves um to Ask what's on your mind? I just would start out by saying thank you for the work you're doing It's really essential work and I've actually worked in healthcare and really have a sense of how much nurses and personal care workers do and um You know caring for our loved ones. That's it's so important really The most important work may be I think in terms of question the question I really have is How um, can we step into advocacy? And and support Uh transitions in our immigration program to better support Uh these workers so that healthcare workers can get permanent residency more easily These caregivers who we depend on should not be stuck in the temporary status and then in terms of what's happening now with uh international students and others who um are not able to Benefit from the healthcare supports that our country has how can we advocate for them? Thank you Connie do you want to go ahead and answer that now? um Maybe we should wait for other questions as well if you don't mind Elizabeth because uh later part of you know our conversation will focus on advocacy and mobilizing and engaging our constituents and you know to support that I had a question for jazzer and I I wonder if um How you've been feeling and and if the if you were feeling very ill and if you um Had support during the time of your illness or or now what has your situation been like in the last two weeks? yeah Yeah, and if we're talking about right now, I'm perfectly fine so I'm Last week. I'm just I feel like I I thought it was just a simple flu a simple cold like I have don't I don't I just feel like my sense of smell has gone I have no appetite on eating. I just love to sleep I think oh, well, this is a simple symptoms of flu or whatever like maybe I get the flu but When I was tested and it was positive. So I told to stay here at the basement alone. So luckily I have I have a supportive parents way in in California in America, they are sending me through DHL because I That the public health is like telling me that we have those groups like grocery heroes that Do the do the grocery for me and I will pay them on how much they receive Well Do but when I started to use it They're asking me different questions like are you a worker in these facilities and I Because I'm a temporary worker. I can't give the I can't give the exact things they are asking. So It was a failure. So my help was from America they do it on the DHL like they pay more just arrived my My bread my everything I need the food they want that lasted for two weeks. So That's it. So that's my help It's costly on their side on my side and Thanks. Thanks. Yeah that My symptoms were just like that compared to what we used to hear like you can't I can Have difficulty breathing. No, then there's not something like that for me because maybe because I'm I'm a nurse.  I eat more fluids.  So Everything is good for me now Well, we're glad it wasn't such a horrendous case and that you took care of yourself and that you're feeling better yeah it's It's heart-rending to hear that Even with the volunteer programs like grocery heroes, you still fall between the cracks Yes, I have those that permanent status Yeah, because like they're asking an email that connected Somewhere a facility because we have to make sure that I'm a healthcare worker. I'm a pump liner So but I can't give something like that. I can't so That's a baby Right and there's a question in the chat here Do you know of instances when the support workers in LTC have been given increased pay? Can any of our speakers answer that? So LTC long-term care, right? Do you know of instances when support workers have been given increased pay? To the uh in your in your uh experience as of today we haven't heard anything yet even though the Ford is already saying that there's a kind of increase or something but I haven't heard from our boss yet So it's negative still No Well, if you have to follow up because uh based on the announcements that you know, uh Was made I think it was yesterday Uh that about six dollars increase per hour For long-term care workers, especially those in the front line, you know, you should get this increase So you deserve it severe. Okay. Thank you Connie may I ask a question? Yes, Andrea Apologies for joining late. I wondered are you finding any differences In the experiences of workers From province to province I understand that Program is a federal one, but uh our workers having different experiences in different parts of the country Um, I webinar organized by a group in New Brunswick and this isn't the New Brunswick media co-op and they have That did a research study on long-term care facilities and so forth and what what was brought out, you know, from Conversations that it's it's it's the same experiences Long hours of work Many the ratio of workers to uh to patients or clients is very high um A worker has to has to provide care to 10 15 You know people in that in the facility During during her uh shift, which is normally eight hours But then usually extended to 12 and 16 hours. So workers are feeling burnt out And the pay is still very low. So I'm hoping that you know, um The province New Brunswick follows suit in terms of increasing the salaries of frontline health workers just like what, you know, Ontario had announced yesterday But it's also and and if you read the article that Kathy come in son from global mail, uh I was written they did a very good research and analysis on the the health care and Elderly, you know seniors care and it really showed, you know, how how deficient we are Or how deficient is both the federal and the provincial government in providing The much needed funding to boost, you know, manpower and also the facilities in terms of Access to to medical supplies and and and so forth. So What this pandemic, you know, has brought to light, you know, is how very deficient we are in providing care for our seniors And and you know, we're hoping that before the end of our webinar we'd be able to focus on some advocacy work that we need to do To you know, to make sure that things policies are changing things that are changing to make sure that, you know Our seniors are provided the best care that they they can receive and that our workers are provided, you know Access to benefits and the same The same rights whether you are here under temporary status or as Canadian or permanent residents Yeah There was another question in the chat And Jazzery, I think you referred to this briefly Um, the question was can any of the speakers speak to whether they have enough personal protective equipment Given from the employer Jazzery, do you want to start? Yes Yeah, uh, I'm lucky the I'm lucky that I was assigned to the facility with With complete PPE Everything is given. I thought we're gonna out of stuff but every day when I go there From gowns to gloves to goggles to mask And with the mask with the eye protection. They're all there It's mainly because like the only problem with the the long-term care facilities is the ratio of the patient and the worker because I think it's sometimes like for one PSW we're curing up 10 residents. So at the time we have like We have to take care of them and In that limited time. So that's the challenge there Thank you Sevilla, did you want to speak to that? What about in your situation? Yes on in my experience I'm really pleased with my boss who have a continuous support towards us to make to ensure that The staff has a proper PPE Because otherwise I'm a person that if there's no complete PPE, I'm going to reject the job I'm not gonna do it and I'm not gonna take the risk because that's for my Side that I have really to be careful with it. But so far. I'm so grateful with my boss. Thank you Okay, and Connie are you hearing stories anywhere else? Is that Is it pretty good or are there places where there isn't enough equipment? There are places where you know, they're lacking the PPE the ventilators and the protective masks but Yes, so that's that's you know, that's a fact But also as jazzy pointed out and I mentioned earlier the ratio is very high In terms of residents and workers and so really To be able to do the proper, you know, the proper care sanitation and all that Self-care it's very hard when you're faced to to do To provide service to a number of residents in a very short period of time So again In the article that Kathy wrote based from her interviews with caregivers or healthcare providers Even for self, you know hand washing and so forth sanitation and so forth. They're pressed for time to do that So it goes back to to funding and being able to provide and hire Uh Workers to be able to you know to to do good proper proper job and and not rushed To do this because there are other residents waiting for their care. Yeah Edward here has you know has uh as a point Okay, so beyond the rights and benefits as workers I think the advocacy initiatives may also need to focus on ensuring the temporary foreign workers are doing the job they have been trained and educated to do and not be subjected to any forms of deep professionalization to fill in low paying jobs So just before we go to the advocacy piece I just want to you know to step a little to step back a little bit and talk about the temporary foreign workers program and and and you know why there is this disparity between uh between Those who are coming in to fill in the jobs as temporary workers and those who are here already doing the job first of all um It is very beneficial whether it's an institution enough or a private whole to To hire A registered nurse for example in the Philippines to come as a caregiver. First of all the Canada does not recognize, you know uh international trade and international profession, you know by the workers coming in So even if jazza for example is a nurse and comes here under the temporary foreign worker program She he would be treated as a temporary worker And paid minimum pay which is about 14 75 as opposed to recognizing His international trade profession and being paid 40 bucks an hour or more So that alone, you know, uh What poses, you know, this this this party In terms of benefits and wages, but at the same time He is expected to provide Care and do a job as a as a registered nurse So not only that, you know, the family is saving the government is also promoting this So that they're bringing in low paid low-wage Workers doing the same job as, you know nurses or or healthcare providers And and for the past, you know, um 10 years Canada has stopped bringing more permanent residents To fill in these jobs, but rather has brought in more and more international or temporary foreign workers and and these workers are Income tax contributing to ei and contributing to cpp and yet Not many of them are able to access, you know, any of these benefits that we're paying to So going going to, you know, the work that Kairos has been doing for years. We've been advocating Uh, that the government stopped choosing the temporary foreign worker program But rather bring in workers as permanent residents because we need them And and you know joining, you know, other groups other migrant justice seekers, you know, we've been We've been campaigning that permanent residency should be provided to all workers who are coming into Canada Just very recently We wrote a letter to the three federal ministers who are who have direct oversight to the temporary foreign workers program And this is the minister of Immigration refugee and citizenship Canada to the minister of agriculture and agriculture to the minister of service Canada and employment and development Telling asking them, you know, to make sure that during this pandemic any And all of the benefits aid packages that, you know, both the federal and the provincial government has put in place This worker should be able to have access especially, you know, the likes of of chaser who until now this that have a valid um health insurance and I'm not sure if your sin is, you know Is valid now chaser now that, you know, the the the opening of the class has been extended to september So to be able to apply for CERB or the Canadian emergency response benefit, you have to have a valid sin or Yeah And and this also puts in place or at risk more at risk Already vulnerable workers, especially those undocumented workers who came to Canada legally work just a temporary foreign worker Workers and had fallen in the cracks Uh, and now they don't have legal status. They don't have as I am and now they cannot apply for any of, you know, uh The aid packages So our letter, uh That's addressed to this out to the three federal ministers is calling, you know For them to make sure that vulnerable workers particularly those who have No valid as I am or undocumented refugees and international students should have access to the benefits because we are all in this together We are all impacted but those vulnerable workers have more, you know Are impacted more than, you know, uh than the rest of us The other thing that, you know, we've been calling for is to make sure that the agricultural workers are coming You know to work in the farms because the system is starting that they should be provided All the measures that, you know, uh to ensure their health and And safety to ensure that there's enough space in their accommodation. Uh that would warrant Uh, you know, the physical distancing and that when they are, you know, isolated as soon as they come that they should be Paid for the time that they are in isolation So this are, you know, uh, these are in in, um embedded in the letter that we sent to Uh to the three ministers But as what we are hearing now despite, you know, pronouncements that the packages are inclusive To this workers, to the temporal workers We heard it from Jassler. We're hearing it from other people They are still facing to have access. They are still not included So one of our main advocates to call is, you know, for For the federal government to grant permanent status To all temporal workers international students and refugees during this pandemic So that there's no discrimination So that when someone, you know calls for assistance, they're not Don't have to go through the screening process that Jassler, you know, experienced that despite the fact that, you know, he He contracted the virus while working in a long-term facility.  Um And thank you to all of the people who shared Um I uh We've been working, uh In addition to the letter that Connie referred to, uh, on an op head. Um, and we're shopping that around right now But it looks likely. Um, that the global mail will print a letter that Connie had submitted And the letter calls for two things. Uh, one is for canada to take a page off of portugal's book And grant all migrants, uh, permanents, uh, sorry, not not permanent, but, uh, residence status during the pandemic Um, and that would give, um, all, um, migrant workers access to, um, all social benefits and health benefits And then also calling for, um, permanent, um, residents for all migrant workers And that it not only includes, uh, caregivers, but, um Agriculture workers and meat processing Workers as well So, um, the global mail did give indication that they would be printing it. Hopefully so once that's done, um We're thinking Of, uh, encouraging people to send that letter. Um, which is published in a major Newspaper to their members of parliament, um, and calling for those two things So we'll likely be creating a page, an advocacy page, uh, to provide folks with details on on what to do and how to access their MP's email And hopefully we'll have that done by, uh, this week. Um So crossing the fingers that the global mail will actually print this, but at any rate, we'll we'll have an advocacy call, uh, regardless of whether they printed or not And I'd like to just jump in and remind folks that, um Connie and Cheryl have been sending messages to everyone on our list who has expressed interest in migrant justice And the way you can let us know about that if you are not already on our, uh Email list you can just go to the front page of the kairos website and I can dig up the link in a moment, but and Subscribe to the newsletter and be sure to check off migrant justice under the interest areas And of course anything else that you're interested in as well In terms of the work that we do and that way you'll be sure to get the messages Um, all of the messages that are regarding migrant justice um And of course you can don't need to wait for kairos to take the initiative in terms of letters and petitions, but always letters to your local paper And letters to your local MP in support of these messages are always welcome Connie and Cheryl do you have anything else to add in that regard? Only just the importance of letting your MP know and I know that this is a challenging time and your MP or MPs are very focused on the um the immediate needs of their constituents, but The more they hear um from their constituents on this issue or on any important issue like this one, um the more they will take notice and um Obviously The need is very high right now. Um, and certainly it's appropriate to to let them know that this is this is a very important issue that requires attention immediately um I just want uh You to know that um, I I've spoken to The management of the care facility that uh chaser uh worked up And I told him I I told them that chaser should be treated as one of the staff Of that facility and should you know receive all the support in care That the facility facility has extended to you know to their staff who had contracted or who Who who was who were tested positive? And i'm hoping chaser that you know, they will do this But but again it it it highlights the uh the disparity Uh between those with status and those without and and we have to fight this injustice and and and you know um, we want you to be with us carols has been doing this uh for years now and we are we are quite successful in some of the you know, uh The the issues that we we we face and advocated for example when they changed the the caregiver pilot program From the previous one to a new one that was that has taken effect last june 2019 Caregivers are now those apply after june june 2019. They are now processed as permanent resident applicants And and after completing the 24 months job requirement They will ease in to become you know permanent residents and this also changes, you know the fact that workers under the caregiver program who Who come to kanda Will be able to bring you know their children and their spouses with them through work permits and study permits to to respond to The separation the long period of separation issue so We're hoping that you know Faced with the pandemic and all the issues that you know, it it it it it kind of How do you say that? The injustice issues that we're seeing now that you know They were there before but now it's right in front of us Uh that you know changes will be made and this can only happen with you know With the broadest possible support that you can gather So the letters to the mps that cheryl that cheryl mentioned earlier Um, it's something that we would like to do and we'd like to reach out to you for support For for the participants who are here coming from different places across canada We would like to call on you To support us and you can always you know, call on us to for for resources support and information that you know that you mean Uh, thank you very much connie And everyone for coming. We are planning the next uh migrant justice update and webinar For may 19th and we'll hope you will join us. So we will update our events calendar shortly where you'll be able to get the um We're able to get the registration link as well as Sending an email out to everyone who has registered or Clicked on that migrant justice area in the subscribe. So thanks very much for being with us everyone and Yeah, thank you so much to zivia and to just thank you so much for sharing your stories Thank you. Goodbye everyone. Bye


I love, I love teaching out here. God, your forehead is huge. Nobody cares about what you're gonna say.  Hi, I'm Mike Wesh, and I'm gonna show you how to make a video for your class. Ah, I read it. Can anybody say how other people get over fear?  Hey, buddy, come here. Come get in the YouTube video with me. What do you think about being on camera? Is it weird? Yeah. Why do you think it's weird? Yeah, I think it's weird too. I'm trying to help people be less weird about it. What if you have a job Sunday where you have to be on camera? Sure. All right, don't quit your job. Here are five reasons to get on camera and put video into your course. Number one, because it puts more you and your you-ness into your class, and you matter more than anything. As Karen Costa says in 99 Tips for Creating Simple and Sustainable Educational Videos, more than content, more than course design, you are the factor in an online course that has the greatest potential to help your students succeed. So greet your students at the virtual door with a welcome video. I thought it'd be cool if we all just uploaded a video to start things off. Share something about yourself. I love to run, but I would like to add, I also love to run with my kids. And ask them to do the same. You can just grab your phone like this, just list these three things that you love to do. Number two, it helps build relationships. Hello, world religion class. As the videos came in, I didn't care if they had bad lighting or stumbled over their words now and then. Me and my roommate just read something out of a cat. I am a 24th year senior. I really like to eat, but that's not really interesting. I wasn't just talking to a camera anymore. I was talking to real people. Love the introductions you guys posted. We have so many different perspectives and talents. Number three, use videos to validate and motivate students. Did you guys see Sarah's post on this? Mention great comments and celebrate great work. You guys might have seen Taylor had a really interesting experience. Offer quick words of encouragement. Hey guys, I know this week is super hard. The good news is I love to help people. If you need some help, just reach out to number four. It'll save you time. A simple weekly overview video of big points and videos that clarify assignment expectations allow students to get onto the questions that really matter. And you can also make short explainer videos that answer any frequently asked questions about particular concepts or ideas. Number five, implicit messaging. Video is a great way to get across the most important lessons of a class. The lessons that are better shown than said.  I just wanna show you guys, you can work it into your life. You can work learning into your life. Most of the videos you just saw are what I call super simple videos or what Karen Costa calls simple and sustainable. Simple because they require almost no technology or technology know-how and no editing and sustainable because you might actually be able to do them throughout the entire semester. These super simple videos are also arguably the most effective, even more effective than something you could do with a fancy camera like this here. Technically, making a video like this really is pretty easy. You really just need a big light source.  If you use a very small light, it'll create a lot of harsh shadows on your face. And if you don't have enough light, you can get a lot of grain in your image and it just won't look nice. The second thing you wanna make sure you have is stability. So in this case, I've just duct taped the phone to the window. This is just to show you that you can do this with stuff you already have around the house. And you wanna set this up right about eye height. That'll look the most natural unless you wanna create some sort of dramatic effect. And I'm just using a Google Pixel. This is a 2016 model. It retails for about $65 on eBay. And as you can see, you can actually get a pretty good looking shot even with cheap equipment like this. Finally, you also wanna make sure that you have the best sound that you can have. Just turn off the air conditioner, turn off the fan. Make sure there aren't any really loud noises in your environment or disturbances. And you should be fine. If you really wanna improve your audio though, you can for very little money buy one of these lapel mics. And I'll just give you a quick example here. This is with the lapel mic on.  So it's really up to you to decide if it's worth it or not. Typically you can find one of these lapel mics for about $20 or $30.  And really all that's left is the action. And this is where things get hard. Especially if you're like me and it feels very strange to talk with energy to a little glass dot when you're the only thing in the room. When you're the only one in the room. I should preface this next piece by saying that the only qualification I have for giving tips for talking on camera is that I hate talking on camera and I'm still talking to the camera right now. And I talk to my students on camera. So if that sounds like somebody you wanna learn from, then carry on. Because as much as I hate talking on camera, I do talk to my students and I do make videos for my students and I think they love it and it's super important part of my classes. And I wanna help you do it as well. So here are five things that I do that help me actually get on camera and talk to the camera even though I hate doing it. So number one is I talk back to fear. I have not gotten rid of my fear. I don't know if anybody ever does, but I have learned to talk back to it. And basically I just get this sense of gratitude for fear. I realized that my fear has actually been a major driving force in my life. It's steered me in some ways in really positive ways. It's kept me alive. And so when I start to hear those voices, I just talk back to them and I say, okay, I get it. You're trying to protect me and I appreciate that. I'm glad you're there for me. But right now I need to get to work. I need to reach out and connect to my students. And that's the second thing I do is I think about it as connecting rather than performing. When I think about performing, I get in this perfectionistic mindset and everything has to be amazing and just, it feels really inauthentic in a way. But when I just think about connecting, it's not about me, it's about them.  And the moment I say hi class, I just feel so much better. I remember that there is a class out there and there are people out there who need me. And one of the things that helps me a lot is actually to have a list of comments that they made or something like that. And I can just refer to those comments and then it becomes much more conversational. I like to make the whole thing feel a lot more like a phone call rather than a cinematic production. Tip number three, crank your energy up to about 125%.  It's a weird thing, but when you watch yourself back, even if you think you're being really animated and really in the moment, it'll just look kind of flat. You have to get legit excited. And the best way I know to get excited is basically to get centered in the true purpose of what I'm trying to do. I think about my students and what I want for them. Number four is you gotta relax and just roll with mistakes. I find this really hard to do myself and so I'm probably not the right one to be giving this advice, but I do know that things work a lot better when I do get in that space where I can just relax and roll with mistakes. And for me, what works best is not to talk in an environment like this. It's just so much more relaxing for me to be outside. But I would much rather be outside with bad lighting. And yeah, the image doesn't look as clean and it's not as beautiful as it was inside. But I much prefer this. It just makes me feel a lot more relaxed to be talking out here than talking in there. And that's why I see so many of my little super simple videos are all just outside. So that brings me to the fifth point is the super simple video is definitely the way to start. I started out just going big and the first time, the very first video I ever made for my students, I had this idea that I could go up on top of the biggest hill in town and go screaming down and on my roller blades, lecturing about the acceleration of cultural change. 6,000 years ago, we have the first cities. And then after these cities start to grow as we hit the court of court of history, the population explodes. And the next day I was lecturing about human evolution and again, I went big and I thought, okay, I'm going to show students that we were born to run long distances by running a marathon while I lecture about human evolution. That went okay, but I ended up getting this really nasty leg infection. I ended up in the hospital. That's funny. I'm really kidding. It's very small if you compare it to. Oh yeah. Just not good overall. And the funny thing is when you talk to my students, you know, they thought those really grand videos were fine, but what they liked the most were these super simple ones. What types of videos that Dr. West showed, either one team made himself or like you're saying, he curated a bunch, which did you find most engaging and which contributed most to your learning? I think one in particular that I remember most is, it was really cool because he would directly address specific students. So if I were to ask a question on the board, he would say, so Shaila asked this question and then he would expand on it. And so that like took it to a different level of feeling like you were actually connecting in a classroom space. So just keep it simple, keep it real, and just reach out and connect to your students. They'll love it. How do you like to talk on video? Did you find it weird or are you okay with it? Ah! Nobody likes to talk on video. Anytime a teacher has provided a video of themselves, it just feels much more personal. Even if it isn't like an instructional video, if it's just like introducing themselves or something like that, I think that means a lot on our end of the spectrum. It seeing him on video makes it real because he just talks to the camera like he's talking to anybody else, which I think is a skill. He says he doesn't have that skill, but he's very, very good at it. The most important, just humanizing the space in any way you can, taking away the hardness of being in an online classroom.


America's first identifiably libertarian political movement began as a conspiracy to conquer Tammany Hall. From 1832 to 1834, Jackson's bank war temporarily re-unified the vast coalition that won him the election of 1828. Battles against the National Bank brought together Democrats of all stripes in a single powerful cause. Even the prickly and radical working men and William Leggett's people around the evening post were at home with Jackson during the bank war. By 1835, though, the Democratic Party in New York City again divided in discontent. William Leggett's evening post drove the debate and defined the conflict. His enemy was Tammany Hall, the gentleman's club-like organization that controlled the local party's official processes. Tammany conservatives, Leggett called them the bank Democrats or monopoly Democrats. They opposed national banking but remained friends of state banking. The radicals stayed true to their working men's roots, opposed to all grants of monopolistic privilege and power. They aimed to follow up Jackson's bank war with one of their own making, to root out and destroy the smaller monsters now that the largest was out of the way. Welcome to Liberty Chronicles, a project of Libertarianism.org. I'm Anthony Comegna. The radicals inside Tammany Hall chose William Leggett's twin concepts of anti-monopoly and equal rights as their main weapons. Like mushrooms, sprouting from a fallen log, a new class of aristocratic monopolist capitalists had used state power to sponge the life force of the working classes. To snuff out all these poisonous mushrooms, Leggett's men would have to challenge Jackson's party. They would have to first tackle Tammany Hall, conquer it, and force the democracy to continue the fight for equal rights wherever it might lead. For years, conservative Democrats joined Whigs in slandering William Leggett as an agrarian, a utopian, and extremist who knew no compromise, even on simple matters like the tariff or banks. Leggett was clearly crazy, unstable, unhinged, seized by fantasy and romance. But in the end, it was abolitionism they could not abide. During the August 1835 Males controversy, Leggett's abolition turn allowed the conservative Democrats to draw a clear and dogmatic line of separation around him, a convenient excuse to embargo the radical evening post. The Democrats made Leggett into a martyr, but the radical's numbers were dwarfed by the monopoly dynasty, and most refused to even meet in secret until the excommunication of Leggett was handed down. To avoid scrutiny and detection, the conspirators elected secret delegations, which met at the Broadway House, Constitutional Hall, and the Bowery's Military and Civic Hotel. Workingman's veteran George Henry Evans provided sage advice from his home in New Jersey, including a suggestion that radical Democrats stormed the 1835 Nominating Convention and overtake the proceedings from the usual Tammany conservatives. One of the radicals and the first historian of their movement, Fitzwilliam Birdsall, described the conspiracies early days. The History of the Loco Foco, or Equal Rights Party, by Fitzwilliam Birdsall, New York, 1842. Consequently, the Republican Party became divided within itself. On the one side were the Albany Argus and the New York Times, with those whom the latter affectionately styled the oldest and wisest of the party, together with a majority in each of the general and in most of the ward committees, and nearly all the office holders under the general, state, and city administrations. On the other side were the Evening Post and the Man, with the free trade, anti-monopoly, hard moneymen. But as the latter division was, as yet, the smallest portion of the party, it had to exercise secrecy and caution in its first movements. The despotism of the Republican Party, with its aristocratic usages and organization, was so energetic and pervading in those days, that it required both moral and physical courage to openly attack and established dynasty of monopolies, with its vassal office holders and political committees. Besides, it was held as an indisputable truth that nothing could justify a disorganizer, and that he who attempted, for any cause whatever, to disturb the harmony of the party was a monster to be shunned and hated by every true Democrat. The conspirators fully expected Tammany regulars would play whatever dirty tricks necessary to maintain control over the convention. Each conspirator attended the meetings with pockets full of loco-foco matches and candles. They were a new invention, friction candles ignited by striking a match-tip against the surface. Loco-foco supposedly entered the American lexicon as a bastardization of the Italian words for moving fire. All these people were definitely fireballs set into motion. The indications were now sufficiently plain that the Republican Party had become a monopoly aristocratic party. It became obligatory on the equal rights Democrats to stand by their great leading principle or to abandon it altogether. Accordingly, the ticket of the monopoly Republican Party was duly taken into consideration and, at meetings of the equal rights democracy, it was concluded to strike off five of the candidates and substitute radicals in their stead. The memorable 29th of October, 1835, was drawing near, yet the encampments of the two democracies, that of monopoly and that of equal rights, appeared to be undisturbed. But where was he the fearless knight errant of humanity? Where was William Legate, the herald of truth? He had been beset on all sides until the over-tasked man was exhausted by superhuman exertion and he lay prostrate on the bed of disease. It seemed as if the sun was standing still in the political world. So deep and intense was the interest felt by the friends of equal rights in behalf of the champion of the cause that it threw an aspect of solemnity over their councils, which perhaps induced more caution to their preparations and the more necessity for reliance on themselves in the approaching contest. Even the scheme of going to the county meeting at Tammany Hall with logo-fogo matches and candles, which in other circumstances would have excited merriment, was resolved on in serious earnestness of mind and somewhat of solemn mystery. Finally, on the evening of October 29th, 1835, Tammany Hall hosted their convention. Normally a tame, tightly controlled affair, but this evening was very different. Radicals rushed into Tammany filling the hall to bursting. As people continued filtering in, the party regulars quickly scrambled to take the chair and control the meeting. Without taking a full vote, they installed their man. The radicals protested from the crowd, a floor fight was on, and both factions physically jostled for control of the chair. In the fray of the convention, the emergent loco-focos found themselves, their fire and their fury.  The demon spirit of monopoly seemed triumphant. But they were ready. The radicals lit their second-class convention with second-class illuminance. Locofoco matches from their pockets and candles from the basement. They breathed life and spirit into the movement. The crowd adopted the equal rights ticket as it was called, and passed a series of resolutions and took to the streets to put their message before the people. The procession concluded at the military and civic hotel, and the crowd melted back into quietude. The clock has just struck seven, and the doors of Tammany Hall are opening for the democracy.  Yet they are late for George D. Strong, president of a commercial bank, who came up the back stairs, has already nominated Isaac L. Varian, a bank director, who also ascended by the same way for the chair, and the latter is hastening towards it before the question is heard by a fifth part of the crowd. Joel Curtis is nominated as the room is filling up, and the loud eye of the equal rights democracy calls him to the chair. The honest working man approaches it and now begins the contest between monopoly and its opponents. There is a struggle of gladiators on the platform around the chair. The loudest vociferations are heard, and Tammany trembles with intestine war. The contest at length becomes more furious. Men are struggling with each other as if for empire, while the multitude in the body of the room are like the waves of a tempestuous sea. But who is he, that man of slender form and youthful appearance, the foremost in the struggle? Equal rights men, your chief should be a man of stalwart frame. But there is hope, for your cause is good, and the indomitable spirit of equality is in that slender man. Cheers for Ming! What? Is that the office holder? He who is always up with every rising of the people? He openly dares the majesty of monopoly, even in its temple. He disregards the tenure of his office for the elevating principle of equality of rights. It is so. He is unconsciously, for the occasion and the time being, the natural hero of humanity, striving with all his energy of character to place Joel Curtis in the chair as the representative of the masses. Unquestionably, it is a contest for empire between man and monopoly. Behold, a broad banner is spread before the eyes of the vast assemblage, and all can read its inscription, Joel Curtis, the anti-monopolist chairman. The efforts of Isaac L. Varian and the monopoly democracy are futile to obtain order, or to read their ticket of nominations so as to be heard, or any decision had there on. But behold, there is the broadest banner of all, and it is greeted with cheers. It is the whole of the anti-monopoly ticket for Congress and the legislature, so that all can see and read where none can distinctly hear. The shouts of the equal rights democracy are still more deafening, but heartfelt cheers are given to that banner, which declares for Leggett, the times must change, ere we desert our post, the struggle is drawing towards a close. Isaac L. Varian believes the evidence presented to his senses, and in attempting to leave the chair, to which he is forcibly held down by George D. Strong and a member of the Common Council since dead, he exclaims, Let me get out, gentlemen! We are in the minority here! They held him fast, but there the chair is upset and Isaac L. Varian is thrown from it. Instantly, Joel Curtis, the true-hearted working man, is in it, both by right and fact, while two banners speak to the democracy. Don't adjourn! Sustain the chair. There is clapping of hands and triumphant cheers. What can the discomforted do? They have done it. When they got downstairs, they turned off the gas. It is half past seven, and the darkness of midnight is in Tammany Hall. Nothing but the demon spirit of Monopoly, in its war upon humanity, could have been wicked enough to involve such an excited throng in total darkness. Let there be light, and there is light! A host of firefly lights are in the room. Loco-Foco matches are ignited, candles are lit, and they are held up by living and breathing chandeliers. It is a glorious illumination. There are loud and long plaudits and hazzaz, such as Tammany never before echoed from its foundations. Reader, if this were not a victory over Monopoly, a blow, at least, was struck upon the hydra-headed monster from which it never recovered. After the adoption of the resolutions, a motion was carried at the meeting adjourn to the street, in front of the hall, and form a procession with their anti-monopoly banners, flags, etc. This was accordingly done, and some thousands of the meeting, bearing torches, candles, etc., marched up the bowery, cheering their democratic fellow-citizens on the way, and halted in front of the military and civic hotel, corner of Broom Street, and after giving nine hearty cheers, they adjourned to their respective homes. There were no illusions about whether the Democratic Party was now friend or foe. The morning after the Rump Convention, the radicals were branded loco-focos by the anti-Jacksonian James Watson Webb and James Gordon Bennett in the courier and inquirer. The term was supposed to be disparaging to the outsiders, a slur to marginalize them, like conspiracy theorists or snowflake today. But they took it as a badge of honor, a marker of purity and principle. The loco-foco movement was now an actual thing with a life of its own, a set of libertarian principles, and a founding legend. And at the moment he was most needed, William Leggett's chronic illness rendered him bedridden. His duties at the post fell to a gentile Massachusetts lawyer and close friend of the ailing Leggett, later editor of his political writings, Theodore Sedgwick. His editorials guided the radicals through their political battles and his evening post helped assure that their movement did not live and die with the Equal Rights Party, or even William Leggett. Sedgwick continued pushing the bank war at the state level. He believed any state power over money meant that nothing could escape the influence of government policy. Literally everything about human life, certainly in a place like America at least, everything became subject to state direction and discretion. Americans would end up little better off than Chinese peasants or African American slaves. Beginning with Leggett's conversion to abolitionism and his excommunication from the Democratic Party, the post became a font of anti-slavery within a planter's party. When South Carolina Senator Pickens asserted that the Declaration of Independence was historically naive and that only societies removed from history could endorse Jefferson's universal Equal Rights, Sedgwick said that the Southerners' ideas were too much even for the most bigoted English Tory, the most servile French royalist, the most degraded Russian surf. Pickens' main problem should alarm all Americans. Ultimately, the planters held white-working people in as much contempt as their black slaves. Sedgwick exposed Pickens' real gripe with Northern society, that the working classes of the free states should never have been emancipated. Southerners hated republicanism and individual liberty because those ideas threatened the slave regime.  Their hatred and suspicion of free people was not contained by race and whiteness will not protect you in the end. When Southerners and their Northern allies implemented the gag rule in 1836 that banned any mention of anti-slavery petitions in the House, the post joined former President John Quincy Adams in a war against it. The proposed annexation of Texas sparked the most important debate over slavery that engaged the attention of New York radicals during that important year, 1836. Sedgwick began his commentaries on the Texan Revolution by noting the important role freedmen could play in repelling Mexican armies. Texans' most significant move toward independence could well be liberating and arming their slaves. Texas could not survive without emancipation. That is, unless offered significant help from Americans and their slaveholders' government. Sedgwick favored Jackson and Bamburen's policy of rejecting annexation until Mexico and Texas resolved their differences, a way to avoid war and disorder between the sections. But he saw expansionists poise to seize a vast amount of slave territory and bolster the slave power in the national government. It was a moment with the potential to swiftly and significantly shift political and economic power between the planter class and the northern working man. The post, in a way, went even further by championing equal rights for African Americans throughout the north, including male suffrage, and even undermining the very concept of race. Following Leggett, the evening post did not politically align itself with the Loco Foco Party, though it continued to advertise their meetings and encourage readers to push Tammany to nominate Loco-friendly candidates. One letter to the editor argued that if the mechanics wish to carry out their principles, let them unite and combine to elect men to office who are in favor of equal rights. They have only to say they will do it, and they can do it. Let them rally around the Loco Foco Flag, that name which the aristocracy has given us in derision, just as the British christened us Yankee doodles. After conservatives like Webb and Bennett attached the label Loco Foco to the radicals, the word was used as a broad smear for decades. Whenever conservatives were scared of libertarian victories, they frightened people by describing the secret hordes of horrifying, disruptive, fire-breathing political monsters that lurked in urban polling places. But once activists took Leggett's fire and put it in motion, no one could contain it or predict its path. Liberty Chronicles is a project of Libertarianism.org. It is produced by Test Terrible. If you've enjoyed this episode of Liberty Chronicles, please rate, review, and subscribe to us on iTunes. For more information on Liberty Chronicles, visit Libertarianism.org.


Number one, let's talk about the mellow cactus. The mellow cactus is a genus of cacti with more than 30 species. If grown outdoors or in the right conditions, it can grow up to 90 centimeters in height and 30 centimeters in diameter. When it's ripe, this cactus has a very interesting cephalium, and to some people, this cephalium looks like a fess hat. So it is also commonly known as the terse cap cactus. My cactus here is very young, so it doesn't have this cephalium. But I'm gonna try to give it the best care and if it gets one, of course I will let you know. The care for this cactus is not super difficult, we just have to follow some requirements for it to thrive. So let me tell you how you can keep this cactus very happy at your place. In terms of temperature, this cactus is not frost hardy. So we want to keep it in a place with warm temperatures. A temperature above 21 degrees Celsius will be perfect for this cactus, and it will thrive. And since this cactus likes warm temperatures, try to really avoid temperatures that are below 15 degrees Celsius. So place your cactus away from cold drafts, for example, away from a cold window or far from air conditioners. Humidity should not be an issue as long as you have this cactus in a well-training potting mix. The metal cactus right here needs full sun to thrive. This means that we should be providing at least six hours of direct sunlight every day. This is of course direct sunlight or direct supplemental light. So for example, right now in Berlin, we are in winter. So we don't get so much sunlight during the day. And what I am doing to provide the right amount of light is that I have this cactus right underneath a grow light. This is an LED grow light that provides blue and red light. And it seems to be happy there. In the spring and summer, when temperatures rise, what we're gonna do is we're gonna put this cactus in our balcony. This is a south facing balcony, so it gets lots of bright sunlight. And now that you know how it goes. Only water your metal cactus when the potting mix starts to feel dry. And very important to consider, this cactus is different from other cacti and succulents. We don't want the potting mix to go completely dry in between waterings. We always wanna have a little bit of moisture in the soil. So we want to check the potting mix just to let it dry a little bit in between waterings, but not completely. But very important, the metal cactus doesn't like soggy wet soil. So we want to provide a well draining potting mix and let the soil dry in between waterings. But again, not completely. Also make sure that the pot of your metal cactus has drainage holes. That way you make sure that the excess water can drain down. So the soil is moist, but not wet. Remember, the potting mix here is very important because we want a well draining mix so we can water it and it's not gonna be soggy. And at the same time, always remember not to let the soil dry out completely. And your cactus will thrive. The metal cactus will thrive in a well draining potting mix. So you want to place your cactus in a sandy and rocky mix. You can either use a well draining cacti potting soil, or you can make it yourself, but make sure that you add pumice, perlite, sand, or lava stones so you increase the drainage. This will help you to prevent over watering and to protect the roots. Fertilize your cactus only during the growing season which is spring and summer. And just as an extra note, the blooming season for this plant is in the summer. What I recommend is that you fit your cactus with a well balanced fertilizer for cacti and succulents. As a plant beginner, I like to use organic fertilizers because these are way less concentrated than synthetic fertilizers. And this helps me prevent over fertilizing my plants. And of course, always follow the instructions in the bottle of the fertilizer and observe your cactus just to make sure that you're not over fertilizing it. Do you have any other tips for the metal cactus? Make sure to comment below. I can assure you that the whole community will appreciate it. If you have any pictures of your metal cactus and you have a sephalium, I would love to see it. So make sure to send it on my Instagram account and we can talk there. And as always, I will see you in the next video. Okay, ciao.


You saw Ready to go. Yeah All right Hi, everyone. My name is Arsh. I'm from Intel excited to be here And my name is Quentin. I'm from Red Hat and today we're going to talk about KMM Which is indeed your Swiss Army knife for kernel modules on Kubernetes This is what we're going to cover today We'll start with an introduction about kernel modules what they are what purpose do they serve? Also the pain points in using them in Kubernetes environments, then we'll talk about the KMM operator What it is and how it solves those problems Then up to you Arsh. Yeah So then we'll talk about a real-world use case right enabling Intel GPUs within Kubernetes And we'll follow that up by taking KMM on a test drive and we're going to run a stable diffusion gem Stable diffusion demo text to image with an KMM enabled Intel GPU Back to you Yeah, so stay tuned for more explanations about that that image here then a few words about KMM 2.0, which will be Coming later this month and then finally some Q&A if we if we still have time All right, so let's start with an introduction about kernel modules what they are and and why you you potentially need them A kernel module is C code really that extends the functionality of the of the Linux kernel So you you're likely to you're going to need those functionalities for Anything that's a driver So for example hardware drivers, you know virtual file systems Can and modules can also access calls to your kernel. So so this is where you're going to encounter those modules The thing is the the kernel modules are built for a specific kernel version that technically an ABI but Yeah, you need to build them really against a specific set of headers for for one kernel version In most distributions today the kernel modules can be unloaded From the system. So you will be able to load them and unload them. That's not always the case And finally something important is that the The kernel modules need to be signed on secure boot enabled systems So in short if you've been using any of these things So we have a we have a GPU here. We have a new we have an accelerator We have five systems. So if you've been using any of that, then you're likely to need kernel modules in your setup and So the problem is that using kernel modules on Kubernetes setups has proven quite difficult over the years You know all kernel modules Ideally should be contributed upstream But that that's very often quite difficult, you know, it's a long way To contribute in that to contributing code into the kernel It often takes, you know reviewed times and everything So so usually people resort to using out of three kernel modules To enable your latest hardware to the ABI testing these kind of things You will you will very often require out of 3k modes and load them into your system Another item is that using kernel modules in production can be risky, right? Because you build them against a very specific kernel and for a specific ABI if there is for example a kernel upgrade due to a CVE We might have to change the symbols and if we do that then your kernel module will not load or will not work properly So the problem is yeah each time you have a kernel upgrade pretty much you have to rebuild your your kernel modules and That that really leads us to to the let to the last bullet on that slide and how we deploy how do we deploy? And load those kernel modules on the node So we usually resort to node customization So in some cases you will build your node image and you will have to do that each time you have a new k-mode or kernel version Or you may want to use something like Ansible to deploy those k-modes But that it is usually costly and difficult to maintain So what if we had you know a better a more cloud native way of handling things? for Kubernetes setups so But what we're trying to do with the kernel module management operator which is which is a signal project is That we are trying to bring a standard consumption model for k-modes on Kubernetes Kmm is is it is a signal project that that can build your kernel modules and that will then that can also sign them if you're using secure boot and That will ultimately load them on your on your nodes Kmm does that by monitoring all the kernel module version all the kernel versions that you have running in your cluster and Then it you know it it's then able to load the right kernel module versions on the right nodes and that's the ultimate goal really We also have a feature that Allows you to run your device plugins So whenever you have loaded your kernel module and made you know Whatever hardware or fight system available on your node, then we will be able to run the device plugin as well and Yeah, an essential piece Of all of that of the of Kmm and of that setup is the kmod images So to deploy the kernel modules on the nodes We actually wrap them into a standard container image and a CI image and We add a couple more constraints So the kernel modules need to be in a specific location and contain the mod pro binary That the the cool thing is that you can store You know kmods for multiple kernel versions into one into one image and then we will use one image will use that image To actually load the kmods on the right node Yeah, that's it for the Kmod image really and then about yeah at the center of KMM obviously is it CRD the module CRD The nice thing about it is that We do have a kernel mappings list and so that's how we actually specify that with a certain kernel version We map a kmod image really a kmod image name. And so that is how we really specify that Those kmods should be loaded on that node and I will show an example in just a few slides Like I said because we have this kernel mapping list We can actually accommodate many distros at once so in only one CR you can you know express that With AWS or Ubuntu or Red Hat or whatever, you know distro kernels you should map those with specific images and Finally because you know, I told you that KMM can build your kernel modules. It can also use pre-built Images and so you can mix and match as you please you can pre-build for some kernels and Use pre-built for some others that that's totally fine right And this is I mean at a very high level. This is how the the reconciliation works for the operator So at the beginning, you know, we have to determine that a certain nodes needs a certain driver Or a certain kmod because it's equipped with some hardware or it needs to have some file system available So that's that's on the very you know left of that slide So whenever KMM determines that a node needs a kmod and if we have builds configured in the CRD Then KMM is going to check if the image exists If it does not exist, we are going to create a pod to to build that image more on that in a in a subsequent slide And once that image exists, we are then going to look at whether we need a signed image To be compatible for secure boot If we do need such an image and it doesn't exist yet, then we are going to create a pot to build that finally, you know, we have everything ready and Whenever we have that image Prepared then what we're going to do is we are going to create the actual part on the node That part is going to copy any firmware file if we need to and Ultimately, it's going to load the kmod This is the really the simplest module we could come up with Still it shows the value of KMM, right? So the important bit here would be the Canon mappings list that we have you can see here that we have one entry for federal 37 kernel here and The CRD says that yeah for that very kernel we are going to use a very specific image But but because we we can configure either literals or egg exps Then you can see that at the next entry in that list we address all the federal 37 canals at once and And yeah, because we do variable substitution in the container image field Then it makes really the CRD very flexible Finally at the bottom is a selector here So you can you can you could deploy your kmod just on a subset of nodes as needed Right, that's it for that slide. I think I'll go faster on those. This is an example on how you configure the builds In your module CRD So you would specify you you would need to provide the config map With the Docker file and we would use that, you know as a recipe to build your kmods for that version We are going to to inject the kernel version so that in your config in your Docker file you'll be able to fetch the right headers for the right kernel version and We will run all of that with canico So we will create a product with canico and that produce your produce is your final camera image We do support the build arguments we do support secrets And and a couple of register related settings This is this is about signing really same story very similar you have to you have to provide yourself obviously the keys You have to provide the list of KO files that you want to sign in your image and what we're going to do It's also powered by canico. We're going to download that image extract all the KO files sign them and build a new image and That that that's how we Make those those came out available for secure boots That's it I have here a diagram that explains how it works, so let's consider all those six nodes here We have a six node cluster Three of those nodes are running kernel one two three In pink color right here two of those nodes are running kernel four five six and Note four here is running yet another kernel that we will actually not configure In our can channel mappings list at the very top. We do have you know KMM watching on the module and the nodes Let's say we do not have a came on image yet for kernel one two three, so we may have to build it So what we're going to do is we are going to read the Docker file Create the build pod, you know with the Docker file mounted and that's how we are going to produce that came on image containing all the KO files Once we have everything nice and ready Then we are going to create a demon set that's only going to target The the nodes with the first kernel kernel one two three and that demon set in turn is going to create pods On each node and those pods are going to to load the kernel modules So same story really with the second kernel that we have And finally oh well you will know that on node four. We're not adding anything because because it's not configured in our CRD You know Sierra and then once you know once the came out is loaded on all the nodes that Actually needed then we are going to run the device plug-in and You know KMM manages labels and annotations automatically so it can determine where it should be loading the It should be running the device plug-in. So yeah in a nutshell that that's really how it works So yeah, we have you know, we have way more features We're actually labeling the nodes whenever a node is loaded So that makes you know scheduling your applications using the came out very easily We we do copy binary firmware files from the came out image on to the nodes so that's really useful in for hardware and I mean we have many more features. I'm not going to go into detail some on all of those I believe and About the use case Thank you. Thanks Quentin. That was a great overview of all the features. I'll give you a well-deserved break Sorry, I'll give you a well-deserved quick break. Thank you. Yeah. Thank you So let's shift gears a bit. Let's talk about kind of a real-world use case, right? So, you know taking KMM on a test drive, right? So just a little bit of background on this kind of use case, right? So what kind of environment we're dealing with today where you know, it's a fast-changing landscape that's AI driven and You know what what's coming out of it is it's demanding the latest hardware enabling to run You know some of the most industry-leading workloads, right? And if you kind of step into that a bit One of the fundamental components that enable these devices are the kernel drivers And so you know these latest drivers really need to be used to unlock the optimal workload performance and Then the other thing I want to talk about briefly is kind of the chicken and egg problem, right? So there is always this delay between the hardware and the software being ready And in this scenario we're talking about the drivers that are essentially out of tree And so that essentially prevents Developers customers and partners to leverage the latest and greatest hardware in their workloads the problem today is There's not really a facilitated approach that's scalable, right? So this is why we're talking about KMM. That's what it brings to the table a little bit about the production environment, right? So what are the realities is? Lot of the latest hardware is not really truly enabled on day one There are actually some non-trivial operations that are quite complex This is usually managed through configuration The second point being all the complex node and kernel customization that's required to enable these kind of use cases and the hardware So let's go to the next slide So this is delving into you know, why are we talking about it today, right? Why solve it today, right? So a lot of the leading edge XPU devices. So from that, you know, think of GPUs TPUs, IPUs Networking products, right? All of these devices Lot of them require enabling out-of-tree drivers to use them, right? To consume them and Lot of these kernel drivers are unavailable in OS distributions and there's a two-part story to that, right? One of the challenges is the initial journey to upstream of an out-of-tree driver and That cadence is a relatively long period and it's a sequential process So the second thing that follows it is going into the downstream distributions So the goal here is to really shift left and make sure that the hardware and software is ready on day one So that you know, everyone can consume all the latest and greatest features and technologies that are built into the hardware and So the big impact the thing to leave it today is really, you know KMM is really enabling and accelerating the XPU enabling right and the time to market and thereby it's unlocking all the optimized workloads and use cases that and it's actually facilitating use case to use case driven development by allowing customers to really Shift left and use use these features in their workloads So on another item to talk about is KMM and a driver CI pipeline So actually KMM we have a project open-source project Recently that we've started to essentially leverage KMM and power a driver CI pipeline So what do I mean by a driver CI pipeline, right? Essentially what it is is the ability to build a pre-built K mod image or a driver container and this Pipeline really addresses two key scenarios, right? And it the problem here is much more multi-dimensional than that But these are the fundamental scenarios the first one is the idea of a new driver version being available, right? very common Scenarios to see the second one being you know a new kernel version and that could be due to a Multitude of reasons, right? I think Quentin alluded to some from a CVE perspective Some as an extension that to that some of our future work has been on being able to facilitate seamless driver upgrades and So the value of this pipeline for you know, our customers is essentially it allows them to enable GPUs in seconds With pre-built images as opposed to something. That's you know built-on premise, right? So it goes from minutes to seconds from an enabling perspective And so the flow would look something like this. We have a two-step Flow at the bottom here where we the first step is essentially you deploy the pre-built image with KMM And that essentially allows the enabling of the device and then on the second step here We kind of build it out and leverage the GPU device plug-in to extend the GPU resource to the cubelet Essentially for workload consumption on the user space So this is the exciting part You know, we want to talk about the demo, you know take KMM on a test drive So we're gonna talk a little bit about enabling Intel GPUs with KMM on Kubernetes So just to set the context before we get into the live demo So this demo is running on a single load Kubernetes cluster With our Intel Flex 170 GPU We're running one Jupyter pod with open Vino and the associated runtime libraries You can see some of the resource Limits listed here from a CPU perspective 20 cores and 64 gigs of RAM and The demo fundamentally is the idea of first building and loading the GPU driver with KMM Essentially enabling the device and then following that up with running a real-world text-to-image notebook With stable diffusion and open Vino on both the CPU and GPU to see the advantage of it, right? So let's go ahead and take a look at that. I'll hand it over to Quentin. Absolutely bring on the logos Oh, we have the logos here today. We do have the logo. So that's yeah, we're going to use a variety of technologies today We have mini-cube. We have Jupyter. We have hugging face transformers And finally open Vino the resources are important here because we're like Hirsch said, you know We're just going to run it on CPU see how long it takes then enable the GPU and run the same workload See see how long it takes with the GPU. All right, so let's switch to the terminal I'm logged in on that that the Intel dev cloud VM. It does have the the GPU Let's you know, let's list of the pods here. We don't have anything now. Okay, that's fine So let's now create the Jupyter pod Okay, let's let's just do that All right, we're you know creating a couple of objects. We also need a storage class to persist the data Persistent volumes volume claim, but let's not worry about that. Okay. The pod is running here. I think I think we can now log in Okay, here we are. Let's let's log in here. Awesome and We should have the yeah Jupyter interface Wonderful. Okay. I'll I'll just open the notebook here. I'm not going to go into the details of what the notebook does really Staking a bit longer than usual, isn't it? Had to happen, huh? Okay, let's read out that Okay, awesome. It is taking a bit longer, but patience. I will just clear the output of all cells I think I did that already but yeah, okay So what we're going to do first is we are going to fetch the stable diffusion pipelines. It's actually cached for Because of the demo right to run faster Then you know that by touch model. We are actually going to convert it to and something that Can be run with open vino. Yeah, exactly and then we're going to compile the models first We are going to compile them for CPU and then for GPU But we do not have anything loaded here. I can actually show you that I think yeah, I think I need to do that right around All above selected so yeah, so then I will stop here Yeah, exactly. Okay, so we're going to run everything and Okay, so we do a last mod grep. I am one nine fifteen. So that's the name of the kernel module That's the Intel GPU driver So because we grab here we don't have anything so it's empty module is not loaded, right? And that's what open vino reports, right? The only device available for inference is the CPU right now. Okay, that's fine That's fine. Still we want to generate one image with it. Okay, so all these steps, you know, I'm not going into the details there I think I'm just going to go and to that one and And Yeah, exactly. Okay, I Don't know if that's going to run everything No, probably not. Okay, so we are compiling the models now. This should be really short. Okay, and Already we are generating the first image which should be a valley in the Alps And that's only using the 20 cores of the CPU that we made available to this spot And you can see that this is going to take something like a bit more than I think 33 seconds Yeah, 30 seconds. I think we're already yeah, we're already halfway Okay, this takes a lot of processing power as you know Obviously Yeah, this is this is taking some time in the meantime any guesses for how long the GPU will take You can make your own guess Okay, so this is I Think the Wi-Fi is maybe a bit slower in that room because it should show the image Okay, here we are here. It is indeed a bit slower But nice image right and this was just generated with the with the CPU Okay, but we don't want to stop here obviously we want to enable the GPU You know load load its driver make it available to the notebook Back to the terminal to do that We are actually going to create a config map that contains the Docker file to build the Intel driver We are also going to add a secret that is a pull secret to my query poll because we want to build that image Uploaded to quay.io. So then it's available for KMM to be loaded on the nodes I'll do just that now I think it's mod Exactly, I can I can show you what the module consists in really Really quickly. It's it's very simple. I think it's pretty similar to what you saw on the slides Yeah, I don't know if that's really visible and maybe I'm in front of it, but really so We are mapping that image to just one kernel, which is the kernel that's currently running on the VM And we are you know, we are using the build option here Which means that because the the image is not already available on quay We will have to build it and upload it. Okay. Let's take a look at the logs logs. Yeah. Yes We want to build logs. So they're on the right. Let's see what's going on there Okay Yeah, so we are I think yeah, we're downloading all the packages now No, we did download all the headers and the compilers everything that's needed to produce that came out image right now We're actually compiling the object files. Yes To produce the KO the final kernel module So I think this this machine is really fast. I think this completes within two minutes. Yep Something like that So so yeah, what one good aspect really of this build system that we have embedded in KMM is that If we have many nodes that share the same kernel and we need to build an image for that very kernel We are only going to build once Which is which is actually quite handy In that case really we're not so we're done compiling everything. I think yeah, we're we're actually pushing To quite a tire so within seconds what you're going to see on the right is the the module loader pod The the pod that's actually created by the demon set that came in creates And that pod is going on the node to run mode probe to load the K mod And this should happen as soon as the the push is complete right there It does take a few seconds. I think I'm not sure why because the image is quite small It's only mod probe and a couple chaos. Yeah, I wanted to re-highlight that you know Building once and deploying anywhere given that the node has the same kernel version. I think that's really a valuable takeaway so it is and As you can see, you know we pushed mm-hmm KMM keeps reconciling obviously And you can see that that that very pod actually has loaded the kernel Okay, so let's let's go back to the to the Jupiter notebook So now you're telling me the GPU should be enabled the GPU should be enabled indeed Okay, let's we I think we need to restart the kernel Yes, we do need to restart the kernel and run up to select itself. That's exactly what I want. Okay Okay, let's let's have a look at this cell right here, right this ls mode grep i9 915. Oh, so there's there's some output now So that Intel GPU driver is actually loaded into the car into the the nodes kernel now It's available to the to the Jupiter notebook in the pod and actually open Veno reports that you know It's saying available devices CPU and GPU. That's that's really wonderful and Yeah, the good thing is that we can now select GPU here and and have a much greater performance. Okay, let's Let's run that Now we need to compile the models for the GPU. I think it's still quite short. Yeah, isn't it? It's relatively fast. Yes. Yes, okay, so this this will again take a couple seconds I think I will advance manually now Exactly, so it's it's completing Good good Okay, so let's Let's advance and we are going to regenerate exactly the same image of the Of the alps nice valley in the alps. You can see that it's actually much faster It's three times faster because we're using the GPU and it completes in only 12 seconds instead of 35 with the 20 GPU cores that we had in the pod almost 57 percent faster I can see you've done the math. Yes, I have I have not I just know it's faster. Okay Yeah, the image is it's a bit slow to load in this location. I'm not sure why but here it is Okay, I think we have a couple more that we wanted to show we're in Chicago So we wanted to show the Chicago cloud gate. You may have seen this image before You may have seen this image before if you paid attention The very beginning of the talk. Yeah So it's actually faster to generate the image than to download it from the pod with this Wi-Fi. It's interesting Anyway, again 13 seconds for a completely different image, right? The seat is different the prompt is different And yeah, you know what I should probably stop that one because it takes so long. Yeah, here we are Nice, it's not it's not bad actually. It's not bad and and the final one we want Chicago at sunset And the GPU is only using 16 gigs of memory right compared to 64 gigs from the CPU So you're really seeing how well it can crunch it. That is right. That's right That's right. This doesn't use any any CPU to generate the images now and since we have a bit more time I think I'm going to show you guys. Okay, so here we are again It's I think it's not that bad But that's it. That's it. We went to we went from, you know, zero GPU enabled in the in the pod to You know having the GPU fully provisioned and available for inference In just yeah, probably something like five or six minutes. I just need to compile the image push it And that's it. It's available One thing I wanted to show the audience because we have Some time is okay, if we you want to get some audience input Do we want do we want to do that? That doesn't anyone want to suggest something We can do that. He wants to said Can you get to the microphone? Yeah, because landscapes are super nice, but they are so boring So I would like to see Santa Claus and Easter Bunny at the family dinner I'm sorry. What's that's hold on hold on now. I think we'll stick to Santa Claus Because I'm not sure I've been trying some you know human shapes Not always with you have a favorite number do you? 2023 let's see what happens. Okay generating. I hope it's not too disturbing. All right Let's let's see what happens. Wow. Here we are. I bet it all here. We are and I think he has a full hand not only four fingers. You can Yeah, something's going on near the bird, but but I think this is this is still pretty good Not sure what's happening with the hat also, but yeah, okay. Anyway regardless Yeah, just showing you guys quickly that not only can you load the the canal modules and the driver? I Will clear this So we do have the Jupiter pot here and we have the Module loader pot here if we do LS mod Rep I 9 1 5 then we have you know all the Intel stuff loaded right now We can actually if we kill the workload first, so I will delete that pot here Okay, so we have nothing using the K mod which would actually prevent us from unloading the the the canal module So right now I will actually delete The KMM module resource Okay, it is deleted and When when we delete it actually it kills the module loader pod which in terms, you know runs mod probe dash R again to just Unload the kernel module and now if I if I LS mod grip I 9 1 5 then the module is not there And we have successfully unprovisioned the the kernel module Do we want to take it one step further and deploy the pre-built image? No, I don't think so I think we have a couple more slides Just a few words about KMM 2.0, which we're still you know finalizing this will be out At the end of this month Improvement here is that we're not using demon sets anymore to load the kernel modules on each node We are actually creating short-lived pods that are running more prob once and then exiting This should you know provide a better reliability and a much lower footprint because nothing is running whenever Whenever we have loaded everything We will this will also improve the binary firmware Supports because that the worker pod will be able to load to to set some kernel parameters I'm won't go into details there But yeah, it will be available later this month Wrapping up again KMM is really a Kubernetes operator That is that was designed to load the right kernel modules on the right node It can also build those kernel modules sign them if you want We we really intend it to be a standard consumption model It you know, it has a flexible API you can embed the the module resource in your operator You can have your operator deploy it to load the kernel modules and abstract that away and that is really the goal here The latest available version is v1.1 We're working in v2.0. It should be available later this month and if you want a more really great demos of inference using the Intel GPU provision by KMM, but on open shift because we have an open shift edition of KMM Then please pass by the Intel booth Yeah, yeah those awesome definitely check it out check it out. That's it. Thank you