Canada

Wednesday November 17, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday November 17, 2021

O’Toole kicks senator out of Conservative caucus after she questioned his leadership

Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole has kicked Saskatchewan Sen. Denise Batters out of the national caucus a day after she launched a petition calling for an expedited review of his leadership.

November 9, 2021

“As the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, I will not tolerate an individual discrediting and showing a clear lack of respect towards the efforts of the entire Conservative caucus, who are holding the corrupt and disastrous Trudeau government to account,” O’Toole said in a media statement late Tuesday.

The statement was released shortly after Batters emerged from a virtual meeting of the Senate Conservative caucus. The Conservative leader in the Senate, Manitoba Sen. Don Plett, took no action against Batters on that call.

Instead, Batters said she learned she was out of the Conservative fold through a telephone message from O’Toole.

January 22, 2021

“Tonight, Erin O’Toole tried to silence me for giving our CPC members a voice. I will not be silenced by a leader so weak that he fired me VIA VOICEMAIL,” Batters said in a social media post.

“Most importantly, he cannot suppress the will of our Conservative Party members!”

Batters launched the petition Monday, saying she and other party members have lost faith in O’Toole. She argued the party experienced “significant losses” in the fall campaign after O’Toole flip-flopped on major issues such as carbon pricing, firearms and conscience rights. She said she wants members to have a say on O’Toole’s future prior to the planned 2023 party convention.

September 14, 2021

Party rules require an automatic leadership review at the first national convention following a failed federal election campaign. Batters has said she wants that vote to happen in the next six months.

“Mr. O’Toole flip-flopped on policies core to our party within the same week, the same day, and even within the same sentence. The members didn’t have a say on that, but we must have one on his leadership,” Batters said in a statement announcing the petition.

Under the party’s constitution, a referendum on any matter can be launched if five per cent of Conservative members sign a petition calling on the party to poll the membership on the topic through a referendum. (CBC) 

 

Tuesday November 16, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday November 16, 2021

Ford, Trudeau fight over $10 a day child care heats up

The fight between Ontario and Ottawa over a $10-a-day child-care program seems to be ramping up as the two governments point fingers over which side is holding up the negotiations.

September 23, 2021

On Monday, Education Minister Stephen Lecce said the federal government’s current proposal — $10.2 billion over five years — “short changes families” and doesn’t account for the province’s full-day kindergarten program.

The minister said while the Trudeau and Ford governments “can still land a deal” the federal offer is $3.6 billion short — and the province is working on “detailed modelling” which will make it clear that Ontario isn’t receiving enough of the $30 billion program.

The pressure to sign a deal was amplified on Monday after Alberta signed on with the federal government – making it the eight province to have a formal agreement.

October 28, 2021

“This means that all types of licensed child care for kids up to kindergarten like preschools, daycare, and licensed family day homes will now be supported through this deal with the federal government,” said Alberta Premier Jason Kenney.

While Ontario and New Brunswick are now the only provinces that have yet to ink a deal, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressed confidence that the two sides can come to an agreement.

“It can be done. The federal government is there with the money and the framework to do it, and we’re very hopeful that Ontario will do it,” Trudeau said during a joint news conference with Kenney.

Critics of the Ford government, however, believe the province is attempting to upload portions of the education budget to the federal government by including full-day kindergarten in the deal. (CTV) 

 

Thursday November 11, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday November 11, 2021

Remembrance Day should only be about remembrance

In no small irony in the context of today’s ridiculousness, we owe a debt to the world wars for the advancement of vaccines.

May 5, 2000

Prior to the Second World War, soldiers were as likely to die from disease as battlefield injuries — a five-to-one ratio in the Spanish-American War and a two-to-one ratio in the American civil war, according to a piece on theconversation.com . And then came the outbreak of the 1918 Spanish flu that “accounted for roughly half of U.S. military casualties in Europe.”

By the Second World War, the American army “forged a new partnership with industry and academia” that resulted in the development of the flu vaccine and “targeted influenza, bacterial meningitis, bacterial pneumonia, measles, mumps, neurotropic diseases, tropical diseases and acute respiratory diseases,” according to The Conservation article by Kendall Hoyt, an assistant professor of medicine at Dartmouth College.

This victory in the advancement of science is a lesson that needs to be applied today. However, we also shouldn’t lose sight of the soldiers of days gone by who rolled up their sleeves like they always did in service of a greater good.

They didn’t blink at the notion of taking an “experimental” vaccine that most of them surely would have thought was of less consequence than the bullets whizzing by. As Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe noted this summer while encouraging today’s generation to get vaccinated: “We’re not asking you to storm the beaches of Normandy.”

November 11, 2020

Now, think back to just one year ago when these now 90-year-old men and women — all masked, because this is what we asked them and everyone else to do — stood without complaint in the cold in front of cenotaphs across this nation to honour those who they left behind so many years ago.

They will do the same thing in this second  pandemic  Remembrance Day. They will do this for as long as they can … which, sadly for us, won’t be much longer.

They will soon be gone, but we should always honour their duty and decency on Nov. 11. This day should never be co-opted for some other cause or political message.

August 28, 2021

The thought crosses one’s mind this Remembrance Day for several reasons — the most significant being the disgustingly hideous memes and social media messages floating around the Internet tying the sacrifice of these men and women to the “freedom” of not getting vaccinated.

This is actually the antithesis of the what the greatest of generations stood for when they went overseas and fought and died to preserve our values, freedoms and way of life. Their sacrifices are why idiots of today get to wrap themselves with the flag and say  pretty much whatever they please without repercussion.

But no one gets to say they are doing this on behalf of veterans or those who died for freedom. (Continued: Regina Leader-Post) 

 

Tuesday November 9, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday November 9, 2021

Trained Seals and their Trainers

Impatience was mounting among Liberal caucus colleagues as they waited for the first national caucus meeting since the election in September.

Radio-Canada spoke to several Liberal MPs, on the record and on background, who said they were eager to make their voices heard on issues at an official gathering.

October 26, 2021

Two weeks age, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau met with his newly appointed cabinet ministers, but backbench MPs say they’re confused why the whole team hasn’t met yet since securing a minority government in September.

Quebec MP Alexandra Mendès said she found the wait puzzling, while Ontario MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith said there was no possible reason for the delay.

“There’s no explanation or excuse for not having already had a national caucus meeting,” he said at the time. “I expect we will have one shortly.”

September 11, 2019

Another MP, who didn’t want to be named, acknowledged there was a certain level of frustration in the caucus.

The federal Liberal caucus finally met for the first time on November 8. (CBC) 

Meanwhile, Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole said today he expects his party’s MPs to promote vaccines and leave talk about their efficacy to the health experts — a comment that comes after a Conservative caucus member made some eyebrow-raising comments about COVID-19 shots over the weekend.

October 21, 2021

O’Toole and his team have been grappling with questions about vaccines for months as some of his party’s MPs and senators have spoken out against mandatory shots or have avoided getting vaccinated altogether.

O’Toole has tried to walk a fine line — telling Canadians he supports the vaccination campaign while opposing mandatory vaccination rules for public servants and the travelling public.

O’Toole also has said his party will challenge a House of Commons Board of Internal Economy policy that requires all MPs attending Parliament in person to be vaccinated — but has refused to say how many Conservative caucus members are fully vaccinated.

June 10, 2021

A group of Conservative parliamentarians recently formed what they call a “civil liberties” working group to advocate for the unvaccinated.

While promoting the group’s work during an appearance on CTV, Conservative MP Marilyn Gladu suggested that polio — a disease largely eradicated in Canada through vaccinations — posed more of a threat than COVID-19.

“In terms of the risk, people that got polio, many of them died and many of them were crippled, and that is not the same frequency of risk that we see with COVID-19,” she said in an interview on the network’s Question Period program.

“I’m just receiving the information from medical experts that talk about the relative risk. I’m not a doctor myself.” (CBC) 

 

Thursday November 4, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday November 4, 2021

New net-zero alliance of banks, funds prioritizes green investment, but key emitters are absent

April 6, 2021

As a former central banker on two continents, Canada’s Mark Carney has honed the dark art of haranguing and arm-twisting members of the global investment community better than almost anyone.

But his latest task, as the United Nations’ special envoy on climate action and finance, involved some pretty daunting numbers.

Carney, who headed up the Bank of Canada and then the Bank of England between 2008 and 2020, was tasked to find more than $100 trillion US in capital from the global financial community to help drive the transformation of the world’s economy from fossil fuels to a new age powered by clean energy.

“It’s a mammoth transition,” Carney told CBC News at COP26, the UN’s climate change conference, in Glasgow, Scotland. 

“It’s absolutely enormous. It’s bigger than global GDP.”

May 14, 2019

On Wednesday, designated finance day at the Glasgow conference, Carney announced success, of sorts.

“We have banks, asset managers, pension funds, insurance companies from around the world — more than 45 countries — and their total resources, totalling $130 trillion US,” said Carney, $30 trillion more than the target.

Carney says more than 450 firms — including Canada’s big five chartered banks — have committed to supporting the goals of what’s become known as the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ).

Net zero means countries are no longer adding heat-trapping greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. Some greenhouse gases might still be emitted, but they would be balanced off or “cancelled out” by the removal of an equivalent amount of greenhouse gases. The concept is similar to carbon neutrality but includes more than just carbon dioxide emissions.

December 1, 2015

Firms that sign onto the GFANZ agreement are promising to abide by 24 financial initiatives that will signal to their customers, shareholders and investors that they are making green investments a priority.

The initiatives include climate-related reporting of their investments and transparency about climate-related financial risks.

While the agreement doesn’t compel the financial institutions to invest any specific amount of money or put it into any specific industry, Carney says it creates a new framework for them to make green investments.

September 23, 2014

“It’s about what their clients are doing, what are the emissions of their clients, the people they lend to, the people they invest in,” he said. 

However, there are notable gaps.

Big banks from some of the countries with the largest emissions — China, India and Russia — are not part of the agreement.

Nor does it compel signatories to cease funding projects such as coal mines or other ventures that contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. 

But Carney says if such investments happen they will draw both shareholder and public scrutiny. (CBC)