2022-28

Thursday September 1, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday September 1, 2022

Disdained by Putin, Gorbachev walked a tightrope to defend his legacy

Russian President Vladimir Putin has spent his 22 years in power relentlessly hacking down the legacy of the reformist Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev.

August 11, 1999

The two rarely met, and Gorbachev, who died Tuesday in Moscow at age 91, cautiously couched his remarks about the Russian leader, even when they weren’t critical. Unlike Putin’s predecessor, Boris Yeltsin, Gorbachev never requested or received a guarantee of immunity from arrest or prosecution, he said.

Gorbachev’s criticism of Putin was often indirect, as in his 2015 book “The New Russia,” in which he wrote that Putin had taken “advantage” of a flawed constitution drafted on Yeltsin’s watch — for example, by using an imprecise provision on term limits to return to the presidency in 2012.

Wednesday August 31, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday August 31, 2022

Western University mandating COVID-19 booster shots, masking ahead of fall term

Western University is implementing vaccine and masking requirements this September for students, faculty, staff and some visitors. 

October 21, 2020

The London, Ont., university is requiring those returning to campus to be vaccinated for COVID-19 twice with an additional booster. There is also a mask mandate in place in classrooms and seminar rooms for the first five weeks of class followed by a reassessment. 

 “Considering that the general population is at 50 per cent in terms of their booster shot, we think it’s not too much of an effort to get where we want to get,” said Florentine Strzelczyk, provost and vice-president (academic). 

The policy takes effect as of Monday, however the campus community has until October 1 to submit current proof of vaccination to the university.

Tuesday August 30, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday August 30, 2022

Neanderthals and Strong Women

May 26, 2021

From a makeshift studio and with a news anchor’s measured tones, one of Canada’s most familiar faces shocked viewers, created a PR disaster at a national broadcaster and set off intense conversations about how employers treat women as they age.

She did it with a polite, unexpected farewell.

“I guess this is my sign-off from CTV,” the news anchor, Lisa LaFlamme said in a video that announced the abrupt end of her 35-year career at the network.

The dismissal of Ms. LaFlamme, who was most likely one of the newsroom’s highest-paid employees, followed a torrent of layoffs and budget cuts at CTV’s network and local news operations over the past seven years, which were made despite government assistance to news organizations. As in the United States, the internet and years of collapsing advertising revenue have left many Canadian news organizations in dire financial straits. The executive put on leave, Michael Melling, had overseen recent layoffs and cuts at CTV.

Saturday August 27, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday August 27, 2022

Not the new and improved Doug Ford …

August 19, 2022

At minimum, the provincial government has a massive optics and communication problem around its new initiative to try and free up badly needed acute care beds.

By now we all know the health-care crisis is real. And a significant part of the situation is a result of people who need alternate levels of care occupying acute care beds. Give Doug Ford and friends credit for finally trying to do something about it.

But is what they’re doing the right thing?

January 27, 2021

New legislation would allow hospital patients to be transferred to a temporary long-term care home without their consent while they await a bed in their preferred facility. The interim LTC facility would not necessarily be in their community. The law will not physically force patients to move, but it’s not at all clear what will happen if they don’t.

LTC Minister Paul Calandra says people should “absolutely” be charged a fee if they won’t move, but he won’t say how much. It could be $62 per day, or it could be much more. How much more? How far away might people be moved? The government either doesn’t know or isn’t saying, and it is not allowing debate or public input into the new law. This is not the new and consultation-friendly Doug Ford people thought they were voting for. (Hamilton Spectator editorial) 

 

Friday August 26, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday August 26, 2022

Diagolon: What to know about the group whose founder shook Pierre Poilievre’s hand

Conservative leadership front-runner Pierre Poilievre came under fire this past weekend after an image of him shaking hands with Jeremy Mackenzie, the founder of a group known as “Diagolon,” emerged.

August 4, 2022

Shortly after the image surfaced on Mackenzie’s public Telegram channel, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh called on Poilievre to “denounce Jeremy Mackenzie and Diagolon,” who he said are “designated as violent extremists by Canada’s Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre.”

Singh was referring to a report from Press Progress, which last week published a document it obtained through access-to-information from the Integrated Terrorism Assessment Centre, a federal organization that assesses threats of terrorism to Canada.

The document, dated Feb. 17, 2022, classifies Mackenzie as one of the “key anti-government IMVE (ideologically motivated violent extremism) adherents” that attended the so-called “freedom convoy” protests in Ottawa earlier this year.

The Canadian government has not expressed formal concern about Diagolon nor does it list the group as a terrorist entity.

“Over the course of my campaign I have shaken hands with literally tens of thousands of people at public rallies. It is impossible to do a background check on every single person who attends my events,” Poilievre’s campaign team said in response to Global News’ request for comment on Aug. 20.

“As I always have, I denounce racism and anyone who spreads it. I didn’t and don’t know or recognize this particular individual.”

So who is Mackenzie — and what is Diagolon? 

A drug-addled demonic goat named Phillip. A fictional diagonal country running from Alaska to Florida. An alleged plot to kill RCMP officers in Coutts, Alta.

There’s a common thread uniting these topics: they’re all, in some way, tied to Diagolon.

June 30, 2022

Founders of the group say it’s all one big joke, a meme, and they’re just a group of anti-establishment comedians. The demonic goat and fictional country were the product of “several edibles,” to hear Diagolon founder Jeremy Mackenzie tell it.

His telegram channel has more than 13,000 members, and he has at least 10,000 subscribers on YouTube.

But after a patch bearing the group’s insignia was found alongside weapons seized by the RCMP near the border in Coutts in February, some extremism experts say they are concerned about what the multi-hour livestreams could inspire their viewers to do.

“It’s not just an innocent podcast. It’s not just irony,” said Amarnath Amarasingam, an assistant professor at Queen’s University and expert on extremism.

These podcasters are giving their viewers a new “lens” through which to interpret their struggles, he said – one that paints government as the villain and societal collapse as inevitable. (Global)