2022-03

Wednesday January 26, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday January 26, 2022

Organizer behind anti-vaccine mandate convoy says it won’t tolerate extremists as online rhetoric heats up

A key player behind the convoy travelling to Ottawa to protest a vaccine mandate for truckers is distancing her movement from the increasingly extremist rhetoric online being associated with the protest and asking members of the convoy to report any extreme behaviour to police.

February 21, 2019

Addressing her Facebook followers in a video posted on the Freedom Convoy 2022 Facebook page, Tamara Lich said the convoy is expected to arrive at Parliament Hill in Ottawa over the weekend to protest what she calls infringements of personal liberty caused by public health orders.

“If you see participants along the way that are misbehaving, acting aggressively in any way or inciting any type of violence or hatred, please take down the truck number and their licence plate number so that we can forward that to the police,” she said.

Since the convoy of trucks and other vehicles left B.C. and began snaking its way to Ottawa, extremists and fringe groups have taken to social media to encourage their followers to descend on the capital when the convoy arrives, calling on them to destroy property and threaten elected officials.

Tuesday January 25, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday January 25, 2022

More tools needed to fight hate crimes

It’s a sad sign of the times that Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, has taken to telling interviewers that “our clergy not only need to be versed in Torah, they need to be versed in tactics.”

September 13, 2012

The tactics to which Greenblatt refers are those necessary not just to combat hate crimes, but quite possibly to engage in combat with those who are committing them.

Greenblatt made the comments in response to this month’s hostage-taking at a synagogue in Colleyville, Texas. And while we might prefer to think it couldn’t happen here, police and Jewish community leaders clearly think otherwise.

Concerned about a copycat attack, some community leaders have encouraged heightened vigilance, and police have increased their presence in the vicinity of some synagogues.

The concern is understandable given that the Colleyville attack occurred at a time when hate crimes have been increasing dramatically throughout North America. Data from 2021 is not yet available, but Statistics Canada says there were 2,669 police-reported hate crime incidents in 2020, up 37 per cent from the previous year. And while crimes against certain groups, notably Asian-Canadians, increased exponentially during that period, Jews continue to be the most frequently targeted group.

Saturday January 22, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday January 22, 2022

Fears of an Invasion

March 4, 2014

Russia has stationed about 100,000 troops near its border with Ukraine. Vladimir Putin’s government has issued a list of demands that Western powers are highly unlikely to meet. And President Biden said yesterday that he expected Putin to send troops over the border. “But I think he will pay a serious and dear price for it,” Biden added.

Today’s newsletter offers a Q. and A. on the risks of war in Eastern Europe.

“The overall threatening rhetoric from the Kremlin and the movement that military analysts are seeing on the ground give us a lot of ground for concern,” Anton Troianovski, The Times’s Moscow bureau chief, told my colleague Claire Moses. “It’s a very serious situation.”

Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Russia’s foreign minister are scheduled to meet for talks tomorrow in Geneva.

Here are 5 questions on the latest regarding recent events between Russia and Ukraine:

Friday January 21, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday January 21, 2022

Trudeau must keep this vaccine pledge

October 13, 2021

It’s time to jog Justin Trudeau’s memory about a major election promise he seems to have stuffed into a desk drawer and forgotten. Last Sept. 1, at the height of the federal election campaign and while the pandemic was high on every voter’s mind, the prime minister vowed to pass a law that would protect employers from being sued if they fired unvaccinated employees. That commitment, which figured prominently in the Liberal platform Trudeau unveiled the same day, signalled to voters that unlike the Conservatives, the Liberals meant business when it comes to getting as many people vaccinated against COVID-19 as possible.

Whether or not it helped the Liberals at the ballot box, they did win the election. But nearly five months after Trudeau made that promise, he has still not kept it. The government can identify no concrete action it has taken to make good on the pledge. In fact, Trudeau’s mandate letters to his new cabinet last fall made no mention of any such new legislation.

Thursday January 20, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday January 20, 2022

Clown Advice to Boris Johnson from Doug Ford

June 22, 2016

Premier Doug Ford and his Progressive Conservatives have a comfortable lead over their Liberal and New Democrat rivals in a new poll of Ontario voters published Wednesday.

Polling conducted last week by Abacus Data finds 37 per cent of respondents supporting Ford and the Ontario PC Party, with 28 per cent favouring the Ontario Liberals under Steven Del Duca and 25 per cent backing Andrea Horwath’s NDP. 

“If you’re the PCs and you’re looking at this number right now, you’re feeling pretty good, I think,” said David Coletto, the CEO of Abacus Data, in an interview. (CBC News) 

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson defied calls to resign in a feisty performance Wednesday in Parliament — but it may be too little to prevent a push by his Conservative Party’s lawmakers to oust him over a series of lockdown-flouting government parties.