2020-08

Thursday March 5, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 5, 2020

I’m An Ontario Teacher But I Chose To Go Where Teachers Are Respected

February 4, 2020

“One of my kids threw a chair today.”

“My kid locked himself in the classroom at lunch and then threatened to run away.”

“A parent told me I should have noticed the signs of her daughter wanting to self-harm.”

It was 2018, and my college classmates and I were swapping horror stories as the final year of our teacher’s program came to a close. Tales like ours were the norm — 70 per cent of educators see or experience similar situations  in their classroom — so I would often think of the teachers I’d admired in my youth and wonder, “Were we this difficult for them?”

May 6, 2015

I always hoped I’d be like those teachers, one day: kind, fun and respected by all. But, I realized that I would not be able to start my mission to be that kind, fun and respected teacher if the drama outside the classroom continued to escalate in Ontario’s education system, year after year.

For all its prestige, I knew I couldn’t root my career in Ontario.

A job there didn’t always seem undesirable. I’d accepted my offer to a concurrent teacher’s college program straight out of high school in 2013, with the intent of graduating and immediately securing a job teaching French in Ontario. It was an easy decision: I loved working with kids, I wanted to use my French at work. I even dreamed that I’d teach at my old elementary school.

May 26, 2015

Yet, over the course of teacher’s college, I saw the reality facing Ontario teachers.

My mentors were burnt out from dealing with a lack of funding, administrative miscommunication, overly demanding parents, and governments that didn’t value the students’ opinion in their education. They arrived at school in the morning dreading the day ahead, tired from the work they took home the night before.

They often said that their work outside of the classroom detracted from their job inside of it. Even as a student teacher, I felt the same — and I didn’t even have to take the lead in all of it. It affected my mood  and the atmosphere in the classroom, and I knew that was no good. I would not be able to teach my students well like this.

Despite the challenges, the public expects teachers to be complacent when the government wants to make cuts that hurt the kids more than they do us.

August 20, 2012

Teacher contract negotiations always blow up into a province-wide scandal. It happened when teachers went on strike in 2003, and again in 2012 and 2015. Each time, I had to hear my family members and the public voice their discontent.

Naysayers drag the profession through the mud and harp on the pay, benefits, retirement packages and vacation time that teachers earn. What isn’t considered as often is how much of their own money teachers all over Canada spend  on their own class supplies and resources, and how many of the activities they do are voluntary.

November 13, 2019

In the latest strikes, Ontario teachers are once again taking action with students in mind. Since Premier Doug Ford assumed his role in 2018, the changes to the education system have been moving the province backwards: increasing class sizes, reducing funding for school programs and moving away from a much-needed inclusive curriculum. A student-teacher ratio reaching as high as 40:1 and e-learning won’t set students up for success.

I’ve seen this drama play out over and over again in Ontario, and I decided I wasn’t going to be part of it. After graduating in 2018, I moved to China instead. (Continued: Huffington Post) 

 

Wednesday March 4, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday March 4, 2020

Ex-PM Joe Clark campaigns for Security Council seat in Africa, Persian Gulf

Former prime minister and foreign minister Joe Clark faces a tough slog during his travels to the Persian Gulf and Africa to campaign for Canada’s bid for the United Nations Security Council, analysts said Monday.

Joe Clark

Clark began a one-week trip Monday as “special envoy” to Algeria, Bahrain, Qatar and Egypt to campaign for Canada’s bid for a temporary two-year seat on the UN’s most powerful body.

If elected, the Trudeau government says Canada will continue to work to strengthen multilateralism, foster peace, address climate change, promote economic security and advance gender equality.

Bessma Momani, an expert in Middle East affairs at the University of Waterloo, says Clark may not get a very receptive audience to Canada’s push for women’s rights among some of the government representatives he will be meeting.

“The people certainly hold Canada in high regard, regardless of what the governments may think,” Momani said. “People are still queuing to immigrate here so clearly we are still doing something right.”

“Certainly our recent emphasis on human rights and women’s rights is probably not received that favourably in that part of the world, which tends to have more conservative values and are part of the global autocratic turn.”

February 8, 2020

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau visited Ethiopia and Senegal in February as part of his government’s campaign for the council seat. Several cabinet ministers have also been visiting countries across Africa in recent months.

The secret ballot at the UN General Assembly takes place in June for a two-year term starting next year.

Africa, with its 54 voting countries, is a key voting bloc in the tough fight that pits Canada against Norway and Ireland for two available seats. Both countries spend more per capita than Canada on foreign aid, which is seen by many analysts as an impediment to Canada’s chances to winning the competition.

December 10, 2003

Clark is an appropriate choice to campaign in the region, but he will have his work cut out for him, said Fen Hampson, a Carleton University expert who wrote a recent book on the foreign policy of the ex-prime minister Brian Mulroney. Clark served as Mulroney’s minister of external affairs.

“African leaders with long memories will recall the important role Joe Clark and Brian Mulroney played in the Commonwealth in helping to bring an end to apartheid in South Africa and also stepping up to the plate in the Ethiopian famine crisis,” said Hampson. (CTV News) 

 

Tuesday March 3, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday March 3, 2020

Here’s What’s at Stake in Super Tuesday States

Sketch from the CBS News Democratic Party Candidates Debate, Charleston, South Carolina, February 25, 2020.
Michael Bloomberg, Joe Biden, Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Pete Buttigieg, Amy Klobuchar, Tom Steyer

The contests on Tuesday may be the single most important day on the primary calendar, with the potential to elevate one candidate as a decisive front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination.

If one Democrat — most likely Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont — builds a wide lead of several hundred delegates over the rest of the field, it could become exceedingly difficult for other candidates to catch up over the remaining three months of primary elections.

But it is by no means certain that Mr. Sanders or anyone else will establish a controlling advantage on Super Tuesday, and former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. is hopeful that a late surge of momentum will keep the final margin close.

The vast diversity of the country and the internal divisions of the Democratic Party will be on display across a landscape of elections that covers the swollen suburbs of the Mid-Atlantic and the Sun Belt; traditional Democratic strongholds in New England and the Upper Midwest; the booming cities of the upper South and the interior West, and large rural stretches across both regions.

For any one candidate to dominate that map would be an extraordinary show of strength.

Super Tuesday 2012

It is the closest we will get, in this long campaign season, to a national day of voting in the nomination race. But the balance of influence on Super Tuesday is weighted toward the West, represented by huge states like California and Texas. Other big population centers in the country — electoral prizes like Florida, Michigan, New York, Pennsylvania and Illinois — are still weeks from voting.

Mr. Sanders is highly likely to come out of Super Tuesday with a lead in the delegate count. But the size of that lead is a big question mark, and so is the number of states Mr. Sanders might win outright.

July 31, 2019

There are few states out of reach for Mr. Sanders. In theory, he could win virtually everywhere on Super Tuesday, except perhaps Alabama, where moderate African-Americans who lean toward Mr. Biden make up a huge share of the primary electorate.

The Vermont senator has even been showing strength in Massachusetts, the home state of his rival, Senator Elizabeth Warren. He also has a chance of capturing Minnesota, which is now up for grabs after Senator Amy Klobuchar decided to exit the race on Monday. Mr. Sanders won the state in 2016.

The most important target for Mr. Sanders is California, where his campaign hopes not just to win, but to win by such a dominant margin that he captures a vast majority of delegates. If Mr. Sanders managed that feat, he could open a nearly insurmountable delegate lead.
 
Yet Mr. Sanders’s strength depends on his political opposition staying fractured. If moderate voters or African-Americans coalesce around just one or two other candidates — Mr. Biden may be the likeliest rallying point — then Mr. Sanders could end up with a shorter list of victories, concentrated in Western states where his coalition of young liberals and Latinos is strongest.
 

February 11, 2020

The race began to take a dramatic turn on Sunday after former Mayor Pete Buttigieg dropped out, clearing the way for moderate voters to coalesce around candidates who may be better positioned to stop Mr. Sanders. The exits of both Mr. Buttigieg and Ms. Klobuchar could lift Mr. Biden’s political fortunes on Tuesday, but might also benefit Ms. Warren and Michael R. Bloomberg.

Mr. Biden received the big victory in South Carolina that he was looking for, but it remains to be seen how much of a lift he will get heading into Super Tuesday. One problem: Until this past weekend, he had not campaigned in a Super Tuesday state in over a month, aside from fund-raising.

May 11, 2012

After his fourth-place finish in Iowa and his fifth-place finish in New Hampshire, Mr. Biden planted himself in Nevada and then in South Carolina — and he achieved the results he was looking for in those two states. But that came at the cost of campaigning elsewhere. He visited North Carolina, Alabama and Virginia this past weekend, and he is campaigning in Texas on Monday before heading to California.

Mr. Biden’s team is focusing on congressional districts that play to his strengths, such as those with large numbers of black voters.

Mr. Biden’s operation on the ground across the Super Tuesday states is also conspicuously thin. He has only a single office in California and four in Texas. By comparison, Mr. Bloomberg’s campaign says it has 24 offices in California and 19 in Texas.

February 6, 2008

Still, Mr. Biden has some significant advantages heading into Tuesday’s contests. He emerged triumphant from the South Carolina primary, which provided him with a burst of positive attention, and the endorsements from Ms. Klobuchar and Mr. Buttigieg offered a signal to moderate voters to embrace his candidacy. Mr. Biden already had a long roster of prominent endorsers in Super Tuesday states, which has grown even larger in recent days.

He is also relying on his status as a household name and the goodwill that remains among Democrats from his time serving as President Barack Obama’s vice president. (NYTimes) 

 

Saturday February 29, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday February 29, 2020

Blockades have exposed the contradictions of Justin Trudeau’s ambitious reconciliation agenda 

The on-again-off-again rail blockades in support of a handful of Indigenous hereditary chiefs have demonstrated how easy it is to bring Canada to a halt. They have also underscored the contradictions of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s ambitious reconciliation agenda.

June 3, 2015

Trudeau came to power five years ago vowing to make reconciliation with Canada’s Indigenous people his No. 1 priority. And to some degree, he delivered.

Under his Liberal government, more (but not all) First Nation reserves gained access to potable water. A commission of inquiry was set up to look into why so many Indigenous women and girls went missing or were murdered in recent years.

But the centre point of the reconciliation agenda was political. The Trudeau Liberals vowed to establish respectful nation-to-nation relationships with Indigenous peoples, one that would eventually redefine their legal relationship to the Crown.

July 13, 2017

Among other things, the Liberals promised to write the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, which in its present form is an unenforceable statement of general principles, into Canadian law.

However, exactly what was meant by a nation-to-nation relationship was left unclear. Did the Liberals mean nation in a vague cultural sense, in the way that Quebec is viewed as a nation inside Canada? Or did they mean something more substantive?

More to the point, with whom would the federal government have this political relationship? Elected band councils? Hereditary chiefs? Or both?

July 23, 2019

In much of Canada, this question is moot. But in British Columbia, Southern Ontario and Quebec — where traditional clan-based governments remain strong — it is not.

In B.C., there is a second wrinkle. Unlike the rest of Canada, few treaties have been signed with First Nations in that province. To whom then, does the land not covered by treaties belong?

Many First Nation leaders, including the hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en, argue that since this land has never been ceded, it belongs to them.

If that were true, the argument goes, then the hereditary chiefs alone have the right to decide who enters this land and who, if anyone, polices it.

For the governing Liberals, committed as they are to respectful nation-to-nation relationships, this is a hard argument to counter.

But if the Wet’suwet’en have the right to keep outsiders from their traditional lands, then surely so do other First Nations — including the Mohawks of Tyendinaga near Belleville, Ont.

February 13, 2020

That, at least, was the logic behind the decision of some Mohawks and their allies to block the CN Rail main line for days on end, an action that threw much of the country into an economic tailspin.

The Liberal government tried to resolve that blockade by sending Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller to Tyendinaga to engage in a respectful, nation-to-nation political relationship.

That took nine hours and accomplished nothing.

Eventually, with Ottawa’s implicit blessing, the Ontario Provincial Police went in and arrested protestors. That, in turn, provoked more rail blockades. (Toronto Star) 

 

Friday February 28, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday February 28, 2020

If the coronavirus hits America, who’s responsible for protecting Americans?

The outbreak of the coronavirus — and Covid-19, the disease it causes — in mainland China has provoked a response the likes of which the world has never seen. Hundreds of millions of people in the country have had their travel restricted; many have not even been allowed to leave their homes. All of this is aided by the vast Chinese surveillance state.

Coronavirus cartoons

Meanwhile, though the number of new cases in China dropped to 406 on Wednesday, bringing the total to 78,000, China is ramping up capacity to treat tens of thousands of sick people, with new hospitals going up nearly overnight. Many people still haven’t returned to work, though some of the restrictions are being eased.

Draconian restrictions on movement and the intensive tracking of people potentially exposed to the virus are just some of the ways China — a centralized, authoritarian state — has responded to its outbreak.

April 30, 2009

What would have happened if the outbreak had started in the US — or if it comes here next?

The number of confirmed cases in the US is small: just 14, and 12 are related to travel. An additional 45 people who were sickened with Covid-19 abroad have returned to the US for treatment. On Tuesday, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shifted its message on the likelihood of the coronavirus spreading in the United States. “Ultimately, we expect we will see community spread in this country,” Nancy Messonnier, director of the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters in a press call. She said it’s a matter of “when,” not “if,” and that “disruption to everyday life might be severe.”

October 14, 2014

There’s still a lot we don’t about the virus. It’s a novel, fast-spreading disease to which people have no known immunity. So far, no vaccines or drugs to treat it exist, though both are being developed. That said, many of the cases of Covid-19 are mild, as Vox’s Julia Belluz reports. The fatality rate — which remains an early estimate that could change — is hovering around 2 percent. A virus of these parameters could spread very quickly.

While there’s much we don’t know about how this could play out with regard to how many people will get sick and how sick they’ll get, what we do know is the United States has dealt with outbreaks — polio, tuberculosis, and H1N1 flu, for starters — before, and many health officials have been anticipating a new one. There are lots of professionals at the federal and local levels who stand ready to try to stymie the spread of coronavirus in the United States.

August 3, 2016

That’s not to say our system is perfect, or even necessarily prepared for this incoming novel virus. But it’s worth thinking through what responses are possible in the United States and how they might become politicized. There are a few really important things to know.

The biggest one: Public health is a power that’s largely left up to the states, which introduces flexibility into our system. But it also introduces inconsistencies, local politics, and laws, with varying protections for civil liberties. The biggest question remains: Can our health care infrastructure handle an influx of thousands of new patients? (Continued: Vox)