emergency

Wednesday January 29, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday January 29, 2020

Bigotry is the virus we should worry most about

Sadly, it didn’t take long for racism, xenophobia and social media idiocy to become part of the coronavirus story. Mere days after the first confirmed Canadian cases were identified, social media content from the wacky to the downright dangerous began making the rounds.

The virus is a U.S.-government patented germ warfare weapon. It can be treated with herbs and spices. It’s a global population reduction tool.

Coronavirus cartoons

But the worst, and the most offensive, social media poison blames Chinese (or Asian) people in general for the virus. It has been linked to hygiene and eating habits and other things that don’t bear repeating.

Viewed in isolation, most of this stuff is just stupid, some is downright laughable. But it doesn’t exist in a vacuum. Thanks to social media, the cranks, trolls and plain evil people in the world live next to a fast-moving river. They can toss their garbage in, and watch it circulate all around the world in no time. Broken telephone syndrome sets in, and then even the most innocuous claims and commentary can get twisted into something much worse. They can even devolve into fomenting hatred.

Bigotry and xenophobia directed at Chinese Canadians is not new. In the 19th century, the racist term ‘yellow peril’ was used to describe the threat posed by the expansion of power and influence of people from Asia. Racism was legislated into Canadian immigration policy.

We might have hoped that Canada had evolved past those offensive views. But the SARS crisis of 2003 proved that’s not the case. Chinese people, and anyone who looked Asian, felt naked bigotry. Businesses went from busy to empty overnight. Toronto lost an estimated $1 billion as tourists avoided the city, especially areas with many Chinese businesses.

As the current coronavirus story gained prominence, some of the same people who experienced all that in 2003 worried publicly that the same thing could happen again in 2020. Amy Go, interim president of the Chinese Canadian National Council for Social Justice, put it this way in an interview in an interview with The Guardian: “I was hopeful it wasn’t going to be like 2003. But it is. It’s happening now and it’s just going to be amplified (by social media).”

A group of Chinese moms worried about the “inevitable wave of racism” that would arrive with the spreading virus. One of them, Terri Chu, said: “My Twitter has just exploded with vitriol since this morning.”

A popular Toronto blog reviewed a new Chinese restaurant on Instagram and the post was drowned in a sea of racist comments. Nine thousand parents at a school board north of Toronto called for kids who have been to China recently to be kept home from school.

Here we go, yet again.

This new coronavirus, like the last one, is a scary thing. But its relative risk to the general population remains very low. In the three cases reported so far, the victims have self-identified, and in two cases have isolated themselves to protect others.

Public health authorities have implemented measures they learned from the SARS crisis. It is too early to call them 100 per cent successful, but so far they’re working. The best advice as of now remains consistent: frequent hand washing, coughing and sneezing into sleeves, reporting symptoms when appropriate and stay tuned to legitimate news sources for the latest updates.

And if you hear or see bigotry or xenophobia directed at Chinese Canadians, or anyone else for that matter, consider saying something. Don’t just scroll by in silence. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial)

 

Media isn’t helping either… from r/Sino

 

Tuesday January 14, 2019

January 14, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday January 14, 2019

Ontario government apologizes for alert about Pickering nuclear plant incident sent ‘in error’

Ontario’s solicitor general has apologized for an emergency message sent across the province early Sunday alerting residents about an incident at the Pickering nuclear generating station east of Toronto.

August 15, 1997

“The alert was issued in error to the public during a routine training exercise being conducted by the Provincial Emergency Operations Centre,” Sylvia Jones said in a statement on Sunday.

The alert system is tested twice daily to ensure it is ready in the event of an emergency, Jones told CBC News. In the course of that testing, she said, it appears someone mistakenly pushed the alert on a “live pathway” instead of a “test pathway.”

Who exactly is responsible for pushing out the alert, Jones said, is part of a larger investigation, which will be carried out by Emergency Management Ontario.

“There was no incident at the Pickering Nuclear Generating Station that should have triggered public notification. Nor was there ever any danger to the public or environment,” Jones added.”The government of Ontario sincerely apologizes for raising public concern and has begun a full investigation to determine how this error happened, and will take the appropriate steps to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”

Later on Sunday, OPG Chief Nuclear Officer Sean Granville said in a statement: “OPG has a sophisticated and robust notification process in place that we would immediately follow in the unlikely event of an incident at the station.

July 26, 2019

“I want to assure the public that there was no incident at the station, and the plant is operating as designed.”

At 7:24 a.m. ET, the alert was issued provincewide, saying an incident was reported at the station. The alert also said it applied to residents living within 10 kilometres of the station.

“There has been NO abnormal release of radioactivity from the station and emergency staff are responding to the situation,” the alert read.

The alert said people near the station do not need to “take any protective actions at this time.”

In a tweet about 40 minutes later, Ontario Power Generation said the first alert was sent “in error.”

“There is no danger to the public or environment,” OPG said. (CBC) 

 

Wednesday September 4, 2019

September 4, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday September 4, 2019

Trump defends weekend of golf while Hurricane Dorian approached and Poland remembered Nazi invasion

President Trump lashed out at Sadiq Khan Tuesday after London’s mayor criticized him for golfing over the weekend as Hurricane Dorian edged closer to the coast of Florida.

April 13, 2018

“The incompetent Mayor of London, Sadique Kahn [sic], was bothered that I played a very fast round of golf yesterday,” said Trump in a tweet that, before being corrected, misspelled Khan’s first and last names. “Many Pols exercise for hours, or travel for weeks. Me, I run through one of my courses (very inexpensive). President Obama would fly to Hawaii.”

Khan, who attended a ceremony in Poland over the weekend commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Nazi invasion of Poland that began World War II, chided the president for skipping the event in favor of golfing at his private club in Virginia.

“He’s clearly busy dealing with a hurricane out on the golf course,” Khan told Politico on Monday, adding that Trump “is a guy who amplifies racist tweets; amplifies the tweets of fascists; says things that are deeply objectionable. If I don’t stand up and call that out I think I’m doing a disservice to Londoners who chose me as their mayor.”

Over the holiday weekend, the president played multiple rounds of golf at one of his properties in Virginia, where White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said he received “hourly updates.”

July 18, 2016

Trump’s golf trips have cost taxpayers over $100 million through the first two and a half years of his term, as he’s spent 227 days at one of his golf clubs as president. Former President Barack Obama did usually spend his Christmas vacations in his home state of Hawaii but did not fly there just to golf.

In August, the president canceled a visit to Denmark because the country’s prime minister was not open to the idea of selling Greenland to the United States. His cancellation of the trip to Poland drew little initial criticism until it was learned that he spent the weekend golfing.

“To ensure that all resources of the federal government are focused on the arriving storm, I have decided to send our vice president, Mike Pence, to Poland this weekend in my place,” Trump said last week. “It’s something very important for me to be here. The storm looks like it could be a very, very big one indeed.”

On Sunday, Trump was asked if he had any message for Poland on the 80th anniversary of Nazi Germany’s invasion.

“I just want to congratulate Poland,” Trump replied, adding, “It’s a great country with great people.” (Yahoo News) 

 

Saturday July 27, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday July 27, 2019

Ontario’s health reforms loaded with risk and reward

This week The St. Catharines Standard and The Hamilton Spectator did something uncommon. The sister news organizations published a joint investigative feature on health-care reform in Ontario.

April 6, 2019

We did it together because the issues and challenges involved are shared by citizens of Hamilton and Niagara. The Local Health Integration Network, to be replaced by a new oversight body, covered both regions. It made sense to share our joint expertise, personified by Joanna Frketich of The Spectator and Grant LaFleche of The Standard.

We’re proud of the series, which is the most comprehensive reporting on the most significant reform to Ontario’s health system in recent history. We explained what we could, and were forthright about what we don’t know — which is a lot given the vagueness and lack of detail in the strategy.

March 19, 2019

That’s the worry. There is great potential in the reform plan. While we are not among those who describe the current system as broken, there’s no doubt it is underperforming, and too often failing health-care consumers. So you cannot fault the Ford government for wanting to improve the system, especially at a time when an aging population will increase use of and stress on health care.

There is also great risk, as there would be with any attempt to change something as vast, complex and critical as health care. If it’s not done right, the costs could be very high. Unfortunately, this government’s track record at getting things right is not stellar. The autism debacle. Public health cuts that had to be temporarily reversed. Breaking a beer company contract that will probably cost millions. Killing cap and trade for ideological reasons, forcing Ottawa to implement a carbon tax, and depriving towns and cities in millions from cap-and-trade revenue.

February 16, 2019

Can we trust the Ford government to get health reform right?

The government’s reform blueprint is called the Connecting Care Act. Read it and you’ll be surprised by the lack of detail. We know that an uncertain number of Ontario Health Teams (OHT) will be put in place. They will be made up of health-care stakeholders — hospitals, primary care (family docs and family health teams), community-based and long-term care providers. They will provide the local input on health care across the spectrum. They will report to a new super agency, called Ontario Health.

In and of itself, this structure is puzzling. Part of the province’s rationale is to reduce bureaucracy. But in the future, instead of having LHINs, we’ll have OHTs, reporting to the new super agency, which presumably reports to the ministry of health. This isn’t a smaller bureaucracy, it’s the opposite.

December 15, 2017

The new system also collapses previously independent health agencies, such as Cancer Care Ontario, under one umbrella. But CCO is recognized as a world leader. Does it really make sense to break what isn’t broken in cancer care?

It’s also the same model Alberta has had in place for years. And health-care costs in that province have not gone down under the super agency system, they’ve gone up to a point where Alberta has higher per patient costs than any other province.

It’s not all bad news. Innovative initiatives, liked Bundled Care, which was developed at St. Joseph’s Healthcare in Hamilton, will be rolled out across the province, promising shorter hospital stays with remote support provided to patients at home.

Once it comes back from its extended summer holiday, health reform will be prominent in the news, and we’ll continue to cover and try to explain it. For Ontarians who care, and we all should, this wave of reform demands close scrutiny and robust public discussion. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Friday July 26, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday July 26, 2019

‘Stop harassing citizens’: Brantford police receive angry response to Amber Alert

Stop unnecessary and health damaging alerts to people asleep. Respectfully, do your job and stop harassing citizens. What in the **** are you thinking?

These are just a sample from the flood of angry messages Brantford, Ont., police have received after issuing an Amber Alert overnight Thursday to help find a two year-old girl who investigators say was abducted by her estranged father.

The child was ultimately found safe in Hamilton and returned to her mother, but the police service says complaints from the public have continued to roll in by email and through calls to 911, and dispatch.

One person has even called them about the alert 11 times and is now being investigated for a potential public mischief complaint, according to police.

The response has been so overwhelming, Insp. Scott Williams with the investigative support branch issued a statement addressing concerns about the use of Amber Alerts. He described them as a way to quickly spread the word about an abducted child who may be in danger.

“The main objective of the Amber Alert is always the safe return of the child,” he explained.

“Time is critical in saving the lives of abducted children, and with time comes a growing geography of concern. Once a child is abducted there is no way to determine the exact location the abductor is headed.”

Williams says the investigating began before the alert went out and continued after it was issued. Police follow strict guidelines that ensure Amber Alerts are used appropriately, he said, adding the decision to send an emergency broadcast to the entire province is never taken lightly.

Backlash has followed every Amber Alert issued in Ontario this year, though the broadcasts also have plenty of supporters.

A petition has even been launched calling for the Ontario government to fine people who call emergency dispatchers to complain about broadcasts of Amber Alerts. (CBC)