Canada

Tuesday February 5, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday February 5, 2019

Jagmeet Singh questions Canada’s recognition of Venezuelan opposition leader

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is questioning Canada’s decision to recognize a Venezuelan opposition leader as the country’s interim president, after prominent members of his party lashed out at the Liberal government’s foreign policy move Thursday.

March 31, 2018 – retraction

In a statement to the Toronto Star, Singh said it should be up to Venezuelans to decide who leads their country, which was roiled by deadly protests this week as the socialist regime led by Nicolas Maduro tries to cling to power amidst economic collapse and a mass exodus of migrants from the South American nation.

Canada’s foreign affairs minister, Chrystia Freeland, announced Wednesday that Ottawa will recognize Venezuelan opposition leader Juan Guaido as interim president and support his “commitment to lead Venezuela to free and fair presidential elections.” Canada was among the “Lima Group” of countries that called on Maduro to step down earlier this month, declaring that he seized power through “fraudulent and anti-democratic elections” last year.

Freeland’s decision came after U.S. President Donald Trump recognized Guaido as Venezuelan leader, prompting the Maduro regime to cut diplomatic ties with the United States.

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The NDP leader, however, is calling for a United Nations-led dialogue to “avert a disaster” in Venezuela, and said Thursday that all countries deserve to choose their leaders without “authoritative pressure or foreign interference.” He also condemned military action against protesters by the Maduro regime.

“Canada should not simply follow the U.S.’s foreign policy, particularly given its history of self-interested interference in the region,” Singh said.

“The question of who is to lead Venezuela should be in the hands of Venezuelans.” (Sourec: Toronto Star) 

 

Friday February 1, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday February 1, 2019

1,000 Ontario hospital patients a day being treated in corridors: Report

Roughly 1,000 hospital patients in Ontario are getting medical attention in corridors instead of proper treatment spaces on “any given day,” Dr. Rueben Devlin says in his first report to Premier Doug Ford on improving health care and ending “hallway medicine.”

While the retired head of Humber River Hospital notes there is “much to be proud of” in the provincial health care system, his report found it is “too complicated” to navigate after hearing from more than 340 patients.

“People are waiting too long to receive care and too often are receiving care in the wrong place; as a result, our hospitals are crowded,” Devlin, an orthopaedic surgeon, wrote in the 32-page document titled “Hallway Health Care: A System Under Strain.”

“There needs to be more effective co-ordination at both the system level, and at the point-of-care. This could achieve better value (i.e. improved health outcomes) for taxpayer money spent,” he added. “As currently designed, the health care system does not always work efficiently.”

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One problem is people with mental health and addictions troubles often go to hospital emergency rooms when they could get better care from a family doctor or community agency, but wait too long and reach a “crisis point.”

According to one survey last year, 41 per cent of Ontarians who went to hospital emergency departments, and 93 per cent who went to walk-in clinics, were treated for conditions that could have been handled by a family physician or nurse practitioner in a primary care setting. This is often because hospitals are the only health care centre open 24 hours a day. (Toronto Star) 

 

Thursday January 31, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday January 31, 2019

Trump is the most polarizing president on record — and almost nobody’s opinion of him is changing

Gallup’s Jeffrey Jones put things succinctly.

November 3, 2018

“Extreme partisan views of presidents are the new norm in politics,” he wrote in presenting new data on the partisan gulf in approval of President Trump. “The past 15 presidential years account for 14 of the top 15 most polarized years since Gallup began regularly measuring both job approval and party identification in the 1950s.”

The exception? 1996, when President Bill Clinton had an approval rating of 85 percent from Democrats and 24 percent from Republicans. To which the natural reaction is: His approval rating among Republicans was that high?

Since 2010, the average presidential approval rating from an opposing party in a year hasn’t topped 13 percent — and that was in 2010, when President Barack Obama’s approval rating was still slipping from his post-inauguration high.

The gap now is 79 points, 21 points shy of the maximum possible gap.

Who knows. Maybe we’ll get there.

But there’s another interesting aspect to Trump’s approval ratings that is worth isolating. The gap in 2017, according to Gallup, was only slightly narrower. Unlike Obama, Trump didn’t enjoy a period of broader support at the time of his inauguration. Views of Trump have been remarkably consistent by party since he took office.

There’s some movement, but not a lot. Data released Tuesday by Quinnipiac University make that clear. In Quinnipiac’s first poll of Trump’s favorability, taken less than a week after his inauguration, about a fifth of Americans had no opinion of his job performance. In the next poll, taken in early February 2017, 42 percent approved of his performance (including 88 percent of Republicans), and 51 percent disapproved (including 90 percent of Democrats). In Tuesday’s poll? Forty-one percent approve (including 86 percent of Republicans), and 55 percent disapprove (including 93 percent of Democrats).

Polar Vortex Animated Version!

What’s more, we’d normally expect some movement within those groups, as people who strongly supported the president became less enthusiastic or those who opposed him a bit grew more fervent. But while there are some isolated examples of shifts within each group in Quinnipiac’s polling, how strongly people view Trump has been steady over the course of the presidency. (Washington Post) 

 

Wednesday January 30, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday January 30, 2019

Provinces not co-operating to get infrastructure projects underway: Trudeau

Unco-operative provincial governments have been making the effort to get more infrastructure dollars into Canada’s cities a challenge, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday.

Trudeau, whose government has struggled to fulfil tens of billions worth of infrastructure commitments, made the remarks in Ottawa before a meeting with more than a dozen of Canada’s big-city mayors. He didn’t single any provinces out by name.

His Liberal government has been criticized for how slowly federal money has moved for big civic construction projects, despite its big-ticket plan to spend more than $185 billion on them over 12 years.

“It’s not always easy — we understand that the political context varies a little bit from one end of this country to the other and there are provinces that don’t completely have the same attitude when it comes to tangible investments in their communities and in the big cities,” Trudeau said in French before switching to English.

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“We’re having sometimes certain challenges with the provinces in various ways.”

Trudeau called big cities the economic engines of the whole country and argued that investing in infrastructure is one of the best ways to create jobs in the short term and growth over the long term.

Federal Infrastructure Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne, who also met with the big city mayors Monday, said challenges have surfaced following several recent provincial elections.

Champagne, for whom speeding up the rollout of infrastructure investments is a top priority, said the arrival of new governments has slowed down some of the intake, review and approval of projects. He did note these delays are normal when there’s a change in government. (source: CTV) 

 

Tuesday January 29, 2019

Look! It’s animated! Regular version is here.

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday January 29, 2019

‘Debacle’ with China latest foreign policy flub for Trudeau, says Scheer

The “debacle” over the firing of Canada’s ambassador to China is the latest in a string of foreign-policy failures for the prime minister, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer charged on Monday.

January 24, 2019

Scheer also cited Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s controversial photo-op-filled trip to India last winter, said Trudeau made “concession after concession” on the trade front to U.S. President Donald Trump, and frustrated Japan and Australia when Canada didn’t immediately sign on to a rebooted Trans-Pacific Partnership in late 2017.

“It’s clear that the prime minister’s foreign policy is a disaster and Canadians are paying for his mistakes,” Scheer said in the first question of the government in the newly constructed House of Commons in the West Block of Parliament Hill.

The final sitting of Parliament before this fall’s federal election opened with the Liberals on the defensive, following Trudeau’s decision on Friday to fire ambassador John McCallum.

The move came after a turbulent week that saw McCallum — an experienced cabinet minister who was parachuted into a sensitive diplomatic job with Canada’s second-largest trading partner — go off script in Canada’s efforts to win the release of two men imprisoned by the People’s Republic after Canada arrested a Chinese telecommunications executive.

February 22, 2018

“After clowning around in India and inviting a convicted terrorist along with him, he then was forced to take concession after concession from Donald Trump. He even angered our partners in Japan and Australia. And now we have the debacle with China. Why did the prime minister show such weakness and wait so long to fire his ambassador?” Scheer demanded.

Trudeau sidestepped the question and reiterated taking points about how the government is devoted to the rule of law and remains committed to marshalling international support to win the release of the two Canadians and seek clemency for a third man facing a death sentence on drug charges.

Earlier Monday, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland said McCallum was fired because he didn’t toe the government’s line in the current China crisis. (Continued: Globe & Mail)