Canada

Thursday May 19, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday May 19, 2022

‘Canada is not immune,’ leading Black voices say in response to Buffalo mass shooting

Members of the Black community in Canada on Monday are warning this country is also vulnerable to hate crime as they react with shock and horror to Saturday’s bloodshed in Buffalo that left 10 Black people dead.

October 30, 2018

“Canada is not immune to it,” Velma Morgan, the chair of Operation Black Vote Canada, told CBC News Monday. 

“We’ve seen what happened at different places of worship, we see what happens in London, Ont., we’re definitely not immune to it at all.”

Payton Gendron, 18, is accused of a racist rampage after he crossed the state to target people at the Tops Friendly Market in one of Buffalo’s predominantly Black neighbourhoods. He had talked about shooting up another store as well, Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia told CNN.

Authorities in Buffalo are working to confirm the authenticity of a 180-page manifesto posted online, which identifies the accused by name as the gunman. It cites the “great replacement theory,”‘ a racist ideology that has been linked to other mass shootings in the United States and around the world. 

June 3, 2020

Referring to a Statistics Canada report, which says hate crimes against Black Canadians increased by 96 per cent over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, Morgan says Canadians should “absolutely” be concerned when it comes to tolerance and diversity.

“We definitely have to be very conscious of [hate crimes against Black people] and we have to, I think, pre-empt it,” Morgan said. 

“We need to start doing things to prevent that kind of behaviour here.” 

Bartley says Canadian leaders need to “call out white supremacy … and be much more proactive in addressing hate crimes and far right violence before it even occurs.” 

“It feels like we’re constantly tiptoeing and we’re stopping short of saying that we have a white supremacist problem,” she said.

Birgit Umaigba, an ICU nurse in Toronto, took issue with a tweet by Catherine McKenna, Canada’s former minister of the environment and climate change, who said she was “feeling very fortunate to live in Canada — a diverse and tolerant country that values freedom while respecting human rights.”

February 8, 2022

“First of all, that was very distressing to read because it was so void of any empathy for the people that had just lost their lives,” Umaigba said.

“I’m not sure which Canada they are talking about, because for me and people who look like me, it is daily racism. Canada has this notion of always so tolerant and welcoming. We are diverse but it is so not true. It’s daily racism here, the institutions are steeped in so much racism.”

She too says Canadians “should be worried.”

“There’s so many examples: the London truck attack … A white supremacist ran into an entire Muslim family and killed them,” Umaigba said.

February 16, 2022

“The Quebec mosque shooting happened five years ago, so what are we talking about?” she said, referring to a shooting that claimed the lives of six people during prayers at a mosque in Quebec City in 2017.

“People are flying Confederate flags in their houses as we speak right now.” (CBC) 

 

Wednesday May 18, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday May 18, 2022

Conservative Party leadership race divides along Harper, Mulroney lines

Nov. 12, 2007

Stephen Harper and Brian Mulroney are at war again over the future of the Conservative Party.

While neither former prime minister has said so publicly, everyone knows Mr. Harper opposes the efforts of former Quebec premier Jean Charest to become Conservative leader, while Mr. Mulroney is a Charest supporter.

Mr. Harper speaks to a conservatism that supports lower taxes and balanced budgets, that places a lower priority on fighting climate change than on developing oil and gas. As leader, he paid careful attention to the needs of Western voters.

Mr. Mulroney’s supporters place a stronger emphasis on environmental issues and are less dogmatic on taxes and deficits. As leader, Mr. Mulroney paid careful attention to the needs of Quebec.

March 24, 2022

Mr. Harper and Mr. Mulroney have been battling each other, with the occasional armistice, since the 1980s: over the creation of the Reform Party, the 1993 election that practically destroyed the Progressive Conservatives and saw Reform storm into Parliament, the creation of the Canadian Alliance, and the merger of the Alliance with the PCs into the Conservative Party, which Mr. Harper engineered.

Mr. Mulroney worked in the background to help bring about that merger. But he and Mr. Harper became estranged and remain estranged to this day.

March 10, 2006

Mr. Harper, as prime minister, clashed with Mr. Charest as Quebec premier. Mr. Charest takes a pragmatic, centrist, flexible approach to politics that Mr. Harper considers Red Toryism, or Liberal Lite.

But many Canadian voters like leaders who take a pragmatic, centrist, flexible approach to politics. (Truth be told, on most days that is how Mr. Harper governed.) It is easy to imagine Mr. Charest doing well in the suburban ridings surrounding Toronto and Vancouver that invariably decide the outcome of elections.

May 13, 2022

Conservative leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre, in contrast, is combative, ideological and populist: He cheered on the truckers and their supporters who occupied downtown Ottawa. He is given to simplistic nostrums on such issues as inflation and taxation.

He is also highly intelligent and politically savvy. Red Tories may have no time for him, but red-meat Tories like him fine. And he grasps the social-media component of politicking in a way Mr. Charest clearly does not. (The Globe & Mail) 

 

Friday May 13, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday May 13, 2022

Pierre Poilievre’s inflation disinformation

April 26, 2022

For every serious, stubborn and complicated problem, there’s an ambitious politician peddling a bogus plan to fix it. And if you need any proof, just listen to Pierre Poilievre’s simplistic explanation for runaway inflation, and then his troubling proposal for saving the economy. The narrative being spun by this federal Conservative leadership hopeful is that the Bank of Canada’s leadership is “financially illiterate” and its incompetence punished the country with the worst inflation in three decades. As prime minister, he would sort the bank out, pronto. And to make sure that happens, he announced at a leadership debate Wednesday that if he forms the government, he would fire Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem.

Wednesday May 10, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday May 10, 2022

As cost of living soars, affordability becomes top Ontario election issue

August 14, 2014

In every Ontario election poll that’s publicly available, the number one concern of voters is the rising cost of living. 

Affordability has rocketed past the perennial top issues of health — even after two years of a global pandemic — and jobs, with the unemployment rate at record lows. 

While the Ontario party leaders are often talking on the campaign trail about making life more affordable, it’s a wonder that they’re not hammering the issue even harder, given how strongly it’s resonating with voters.

“The smart politicians won’t just talk about [the cost of living] as an issue, they will understand it’s a character test,” said Greg Lyle, a veteran pollster and president of Innovative Research Group.

Thursday May 5, 2022

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday May 5, 2022

Canadian Conservatives reluctant to comment on report that U.S. Supreme Court will overturn abortion law

September 14, 2021

Conservative MPs and candidates for the party’s leadership were reluctant to talk Tuesday about a leaked report that suggests the U.S. Supreme Court is poised to overturn decades-old case law on abortion.

A decision by the U.S. top court to upend abortion services would have little practical effect on Canadians; some women pursuing late-term abortions go south of the border for care because of limited access here at home. But the political ramifications could be enormous.

Late Monday, Politico published a copy of an initial draft opinion written by Justice Samuel Alito, a Republican appointee, that suggests a majority of justices are prepared to overrule Roe v. Wade — the landmark decision that allowed legal abortions in the U.S. — and return the issue to state legislatures.

The opinion claims the 1973 Roe decision was constitutionally dubious and “egregiously wrong from the start” because its reasoning was “exceptionally weak.”

Alito said that decades-old decision, which essentially found that the right to privacy extended to reproductive choices like an abortion, has had “damaging consequences” by dividing a nation into anti-abortion and pro-choice factions and robbing state officials of the power to regulate the practice.