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Thursday December 10, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday December 10, 2020

Doug Ford takes an axe to greenbelt protections

First, Doug Ford big-footed environmental protections and local authority. Then he went home early, adjourning the legislature until February. Not a bad day’s work for Ford and friends.

November 13, 2020

Under the cover of COVID-19, the government is hacking and slashing the network of regulations and oversight that for years helped balance the preservation of Ontario’s environment with the interests of voracious development.

Think back to before Ford became leader of the not-progressive conservative party. He was recorded telling a roomful of his development industry friends that he would ensure Ontario’s cherished greenbelt would be opened to allow development.

In case you’ve forgotten, the outcry was immediate and very loud. So much so that Ford had to publicly retract his pledge, and reassure Ontarians that he would respect their will on the greenbelt.

But Ford never said he wouldn’t use a back door to accomplish the same objectives. This week, he demonstrated that he has done exactly that.

May 3, 2018

Schedule 6 may sound innocuous, but it is anything but. Passed this week as part of the government’s Bill 229 — a pandemic recovery bill for heaven’s sake — it neuters all of Ontario’s conservation authorities. Their mandate is now dramatically narrower, and a government minister will have the power to veto conservation authority decisions. 

Ontarians have been able to rely on conservation authorities for years to effectively manage and protect rivers, tributaries, wetlands, forests and local drinking water. CAs are not perfect, but they generally work, and they represent local and regional interests. No longer. 

In another alarming change, the Conservation Authorities Act has been amended to allow the provincial minister complete control over issuing permits, with or without input from CAs. And there is no appealing the decisions.

December 11, 2018

Not satisfied with hobbling conservation authorities, the government is also making increased use of Ministerial Zoning Orders. MZOs allow the provincial minister to override planning and zoning decisions, regardless of local government or public input. Again, the decisions cannot be appealed.

This destruction of local control has not gone unnoticed. Conservation authorities, mayors, the Association of Ontario Municipalities, the Canadian Environmental Law Association, the World Wildlife Fund (Canada), Ontario Nature and Environmental Defence of Ontario have all spoken out strongly against the government’s centralization of control. Countless letters to the editor, columns and editorials have condemned the changes.

The government’s response was to double down and push the changes through, hidden deep in pandemic recovery omnibus legislation. 

All this is part of a disturbing big picture. Remember the Ontario Municipal Board, which provided a flawed method of appealing local planning decisions? The government replaced it with the Local Planning Appeals Tribunal (LPAT) a developer-friendly organization that almost always rules on the side of unfettered development.

Then came MZOs, being used increasingly to authorize zoning and planning changes in the absence of local due process and input. Then came the gutting of conservation areas, with their crucial oversight, including of Ontario’s drinking water.

Does anyone else see a theme here? Ever since Doug Ford blew up Toronto city council to suit his personal whims, it has been clear he is not remotely interested in local decision-making authority. He wants Ontario open for business, regardless of environmental impact. And he’s getting his wish. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Thursday November 26, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday November 26, 2020

‘We took our eye off the ball’: How Canada lost its vaccine production capacity

In the race to develop and produce a COVID-19 vaccine, Canada is on the sidelines despite its once notable status as a global source for life-saving injections.

December 8, 2017

Canada lost that standing long ago, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau explained this week, which means even if the country had developed its own novel coronavirus vaccine, there would be no means to produce it on the scale required.

“We used to have [production capacity] decades ago but we no longer have it,” Trudeau said Tuesday in Ottawa.

How did it get to this point? Canadian administrations simply took their “eye off the ball,” said Earl Brown, an infectious disease expert and a former member of the H1N1 vaccine task group in Canada. After that pandemic, a review found that vaccine production capacity was “right at the top” of the list of problems, he said. It wasn’t always that way.

“We had great vaccine producers in Canada — world leaders essentially — 50 years ago,” he told CTV’s Your Morning on Wednesday. There was Connaught Laboratories in Toronto, which was known for producing insulin to treat diabetes and inoculants for diphtheria and polio, and Institut Armand Frappier in Montreal that produced vaccines, including one for tuberculosis, he noted.

December 17, 2014

“The problem was they had a poor business model,” said Brown. “These were vaccine companies spun off from universities, so there was indirect funding and they had a model of not making so much profit.”

So they were eventually sold, Montreal’s Frappier lab to British multinational GlaxoSmithKline and Connaught, through a series of mergers, to French multinational Sanofi Pasteur  after Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government’s program of privatization . The labs now have a “tighter production line and not so much capacity,” said Brown.

For those Canadian companies to mount production campaigns on their own will take time — and a lot of it, they have said. VIDO-InterVac said it has plans to build a facility in one year, but that it would take another still to get it in operating shape. “That’s not the time frame you like,” said Brown.

December 10, 2015

In the meantime, Canadians will have to rely on speedier countries with approved COVID-19 vaccines to provide doses, but Canadians won’t be prioritized ahead of their own people. “Countries like the United States, Germany and the U.K. do have domestic pharmaceutical facilities, which is why they’re obviously going to prioritize helping their citizens first,” Trudeau said on Tuesday in Ottawa.

The reliance on other countries and private companies is upsetting critics of Trudeau, who said Tuesday that his administration has begun funding domestic vaccine production capacity because “we never want to be caught short again.” 

Pandemic Times

“This is gross incompetence that’s going to cost Canadians their lives and their jobs,” said Conservative health critic Michelle Rempel Garner on Tuesday from Parliament Hill.

But criticism toward one government’s inaction may often easily be directed at another with hindsight, countered Brown on Your Morning. (CTV News) 

 

Saturday, November 30, 2013

Saturday, November 30, 2013By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday, November 30, 2013

The Top Christmas Holiday Specials

In 2011, the website What To Do With The Kids polled its followers and asked them to give their list of the top Christmas or holiday movies or television sShows that the whole family can watch. The list was well-received and judging by the feedback, very popular.

Two years later, however, they decided to go to their followers again and there has been a shift in popularity of some of those classic movies.

Christmas-cartoon

Available for purchase

It seems that black and white movies are now out. Many parents suggested that once the movie started, the kids would complain about the color, or lack of it. Many families have said that although they enjoyed watching the old black and white movies in past years, they tend to agree with their kids that it has very little appeal today.

The Frank Capra classic “It’s a Wonderful Life” dropped from second to third place while “Miracle on 34th Street” went from a tie in fifth to a tie for eighth place. “Miracle on 34th Street” fell off the list.

Animated features are as popular as ever but many adults commented that they were not able to watch them on regular television as they normally would because of their busy schedules so they opted to purchase a copy on DVD. Many parents commented that they had purchased DVD or Blue Ray versions of their favorites but made an effort to only bring them out during the holiday season.

Ron Howard’s “The Grinch” went from honorable mention to a tie for number six faster than a runaway sled pulled by a little dog while “A Christmas Story” was shot off the list (by a BB gun) all together.

Most respondents however had said that they still do get the family together to watch at least one holiday movie.

With over 1,400 entries, What To Do With The Kids® presents the updated Top 10 Family Christmas/Holiday Movie or Television Shows:

1. “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” (1966 – Animated) – (#1 in 2011)
2. “The Polar Express” (2004 – Animated) – (#8 in 2011)
3. “It’s A Wonderful Life” (1946) – (#2 in 2011)
4. “Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer” (1964 – Animated) – (#6 in 2011)
5. “Elf” (2004) – (Not ranked in 2011)
6. “A Charlie Brown Christmas” (1965 – Animated) – (#4 in 2011)
“The Santa Clause” (1994) – (Not ranked in 2011)
“Frosty the Snowman” (1969 – Animated) – (#7 in 2011)
7. “The Grinch” (2000) – (Not ranked in 2011)
8. “Miracle on 34th Street” (1947) – (#5 in 2011)
9. “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation” (1989) – (#8 in 2011)
10. “A Muppet Christmas Carol” (1992) – (#10 in 2011)

Movies that are no longer on the list: “A Christmas Story (1983) – (#3 in 2011); “A Christmas Carol (1951) – (#5 in 2011); “White Christmas” (1954) – (#7 in 2011); “Home Alone” (1990) – (#9 in 2011) (Source: Staten Island Advance)