Erin O’Toole

Friday January 22, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday January 22, 2021

Conservatives have voted to expel Derek Sloan from caucus

August 25, 2020

Conservative MPs today voted to expel Derek Sloan from caucus after the eastern Ontario MP accepted a donation from a notorious white nationalist.

Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole initiated the ouster earlier this week after news emerged that Paul Fromm — whose ties to white supremacist and neo-Nazi causes have long been documented — had contributed $131 to Sloan’s leadership campaign.

Sloan fought against the vote, saying he was unaware of the source of the donation because Fromm used his full name, Frederick P. Fromm.

Conservatives voted by secret ballot today, with the majority of MPs voting to remove Sloan from their benches. 

In a statement issued this afternoon, O’Toole called the donation the “last straw.”

July 16, 2020

“The Conservative caucus voted to remove Derek Sloan not because of one specific event, but because of a pattern of destructive behaviour involving multiple incidents and disrespect towards the Conservative team for over a year,” he said.

“These actions have been a consistent distraction from our efforts to grow the party and focus on the work we need to do. Events of the past week were simply the last straw and led to our caucus making the decision it did today.”

News of Fromm’s contribution was first reported by PressProgress, a non-profit news website funded by the left-leaning Broadbent Institute.

Sloan, who was elected in 2019 to represent the riding of Hastings—Lennox and Addington, argued his team couldn’t vet every donation to his leadership campaign last year. (CBC) 

 

Tuesday January 19, 2021

January 19, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday January 19, 2021

Canadian politicians have been scared straight by Donald Trump’s raging exit. Will it last?

Racism is definitely not a good trait for a politician. Nor is an inability to read the room. 

October 3, 2019

Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet has been accused of both after his drive-by smear of new federal Transport Minister Omar Alghabra. 

The most harsh condemnation came from Justin Trudeau on Friday, pronouncing himself incredulous that a party leader would wade into “insinuations” about Alghabra, who is a Muslim, after what everyone witnessed in Washington last week.

Blanchet, the prime minister said, was “playing dangerous games around intolerance and hate” when purporting to be asking mere questions about Alghabra and Islamic political activism.

Trudeau’s link to events in Washington reflects a larger phenomenon rattling through Canadian politics since the Jan. 6 siege of Capitol Hill.

How long it lasts is anyone’s guess, but that mob scene south of the border has prompted some soul-searching among political types in Canada too. 

Many of the ingredients of Donald Trump’s toxic political brand are now being vigorously disowned in Canada — almost at the same speed with which many Republicans are turning their back on the president in the U.S.

June 23, 2020

Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole has revived a policy of refusal to deal with the Rebel News outlet, which traffics in the same kind of far-right disinformation that feeds Trump’s angry base in the United States. The reassertion of this rule came after a dust-up over O’Toole’s office emailing answers to Rebel questions, which were touted as an exclusive interview. 

Two prominent Calgary women, meanwhile, both from the right of the political spectrum, have publicly denounced Twitter this week — slightly after Trump was banned from the medium, mind you, but in protest against the mob mentality it helps create. 

Danielle Smith, the former leader of Alberta’s Wild Rose party, declared she was walking away from her radio-host job and Twitter, saying: “I’ve had enough of the mob.” 

Meanwhile, Calgary MP Michelle Rempel Garner penned her own takedown of Twitter, describing it as the “biggest culprit of weaponized misinformation, hate, and the death of rational argument.” Rempel’s piece appeared in an online publication called The Line. 

November 12, 2018

Two other MPs, in that exact cross-partisan spirit, also wrote bluntly this week about how the poisonous politics around the Capitol Hill assault required active resistance in Canada. Liberal MP Anthony Housefather and Conservative MP Scott Aitchison collaborated on a National Post article headlined: “As Canadian MPs, we know our opponents are not our enemies. Let’s not become the U.S.” 

Now, it should be pointed out that a week is a long time in politics and the road to partisan hell is paved with good intentions to be collegial. All of these resolutions to absorb the lessons of Jan. 6 in the U.S. capital could vanish like other New Year’s resolutions — most likely within the first five minutes of Question Period when Parliament resumes later this month.

Right now, it looks like some Canadian politicians have been scared straight by Trump’s fiery exit in the U.S. But it’s not enough to denounce their rivals or Twitter or even Trump — the test of any new resolve will be in whether they’re willing to call out toxic politics when it happens in their own ranks. (Toronto Star) 

 

Tuesday December 2, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday December 2, 2020

COVID-19 doesn’t care about politics

Remember the Team Canada approach to fighting COVID-19, the one where political parties would put the collective fight above partisan interests? Remember “we’re all in this together?”

October 8, 2020

That was all so yesterday. Today, there is very little non-partisan co-operation between federal parties. And Canadians, too, have become increasingly partisan and divided. 

It was probably all inevitable, but it’s unfortunate, nonetheless. 

Partisanship has entirely replaced bilateral co-operation in Ottawa. The government stands accused of flubbing Canada’s vaccine program. Because of that mismanagement we are at “the back of the line,” according to federal Conservatives.

It is true that the government, and especially the prime minister, have been unnecessary vague about vaccine delivery and rollout details. It is not true that we are at the back of the pack. Canada was the fourth country in the world to strike an agreement with Pfizer, one of the vaccine producers. It was one of the first to sign up with Moderna, another producer.

December 1, 2020

Moderna co-founder and chair Noubar Afeyan, who came to Canada as a refugee from Beirut before he moved to the U.S., says this country is in good shape. In an interview with CBC News, he said “Canada’s not at the back of the line,” adding “Each of the contracts we negotiated — and Canada was among the first to enter into a supply arrangement with Moderna — is individual, and of course the people who were willing to move early on, with even less proof of efficacy, have assured the amount of supply they were willing to sign up to. I know in the case of Canada their number is about 20 million doses.”

It is fair to criticize the Liberals for their communication to date around vaccines, but it is not factual to claim Canada is at the back of the line. However, that is a good example of how partisan strategy has replaced the collaboration that was a welcome feature of the pandemic’s early days. 

November 28, 2020

It is also true that Canada will not get vaccines as quickly as countries like the U.S. and U.K., where vaccines were developed and produced. This country doesn’t have that production capacity. It did at one point. There was publicly owned Connaught Labs, which was privatized under the Mulroney Conservative government in the ’80s. Later, the Harper government cut research and development spending and other pharmaceutical companies closed shop and moved elsewhere. Now that capacity is largely gone, and it needs to be replaced, urgently.

A similar partisan divide exists among Canadians overall, according to recent opinion polling data. In general, Liberal and NDP voter respondents in several different polls were more likely to be primarily concerned about the health impact of COVID-19, while those who identified as Conservative were more likely to be concerned about the economic and business impact. According to polling by the Angus Reid Institute, 89 per cent of respondents who voted Liberal, NDP or Bloc reported regularly wearing masks, while 71 per cent of Conservative voters reported doing the same. 

May 8, 2019

Interestingly, one poll by Leger suggests many Canadians are not so concerned about getting the vaccine at the same time as the U.S. or U.K., where vaccines are produced. Forty-eight per cent said that they were “not that concerned” and feel “a few months won’t make much of a difference,” while 37 per cent said they are worried that we won’t get the vaccine at the same time. 

The point that matters most is this: COVID-19 doesn’t care about our political leaning. It is an equal opportunity virus. And that should unite us more than anything else. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Thursday October 29, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday October 29, 2020

Hey politicians, if you’re not going to walk the walk, just shut up

Former Conservative leader Andrew Scheer, Health Minister Patty Hajdu and assistant to Ontario’s education minister Sam Oosterhoff have at least one thing in common. And it is not their politics.

All three have been observed doing things in clear contravention of pandemic public safety guidelines. Scheer flew his family across the country so his kids could attend the preferred school when such travel was prohibited for regular citizens. Hajdu was photographed at Pearson International by an Alberta government supporter as she laughed and gestured — sans mask. And Niagara MPP Oosterhoff posed maskless and in close confines with dozens of relatives attending a celebration at a banquet facility.

May 15, 2019

Of thee three, Oosterhoff’s sin seems most brazen, because having posed with his family members for the photo, he or someone else at the gathering then posted it on social media. Doing so caused a firestorm and the post was deleted, but the damage was done by then. 

It turns out the family was asked by the facility’s management to adhere to masking and distancing rules, but they did not comply. Since there’s no way that many people could be from the same social bubble, it’s a particularly egregious and arrogant sin.

By contrast, the photo of Hajdu showed her sitting alone smiling and unmasked. She later said she was eating and therefore allowed to be maskless, but even if that is true, she should have known better. Ministers, in particular the federal minister of health, should hold themselves to a higher standard.

The optics in Oosterhoff’s case are equally bad. The legislative assistant to Education Minister Steven Lecce had to have known ignoring his own government’s public health rules was foolish and high risk. And while Hajdu was exposed by a conservative operative, Oosterhoff basically blew the whistle on himself.

It’s also worth noting that this isn’t his first folly. This is the same MPP who, speaking at a rally, said “We pledge to make abortion unthinkable.” And in the spring of last year, his office staff called the police to report seniors who were holding a “read in” to protest library cuts. How many strikes does Oosterhoff get?

Apparently, according to Premier Doug Ford, lots. For the third day in a row, Ford has defended the MPP, promising “Sam will do better.”

April 28, 2020

The perceived double standard is riling Ontarians of all political stripes. When regular folk convene backyard parties or gather in parks or on beaches, they are called “yahoos” by the premier. He has urged law enforcement authorities to come down hard on the “knuckleheads,” but when it comes to his own MPP blatantly disregarding public safety, Ford is all warm and cuddly. 

The hypocrisy rankles, especially at a time when Ontarians are feeling at the end of their rope about the pandemic and resulting restrictions on their personal freedoms. It’s hard enough to do the right thing for the right reasons, but when authority figures break the very same rules, even the most altruistic citizen can be forgiven for chafing at the bit. 

Politicians at all levels should cut this out, and post it to their office bulletin boards, or the socially distant electronic equivalent. We are in the second wave, and it is worse at this point than the first wave. We don’t know where we will be next month or even next year. We are being told to make those sacrifices in the name of keeping ourselves and others healthy. And the vast majority of us are doing that. 

But do not, under any circumstances, tell us to undergo these hardships and make these sacrifices and avoid them yourselves.

You can talk the talk, but if you’re not going to walk and walk, just shut up. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Thursday October 22, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday October 22, 2020

Canadians don’t need election melodrama

If not for Jagmeet Singh and the NDP and the three members of the Green caucus, Canada would be heading into a federal election today. We are not, and we should be thankful for that.

November 12, 2018

An election campaign, with the federal Parliament adjourned for campaigning, is the last thing the country wants, or needs. The second wave of this pandemic is sweeping across the nation. We need all hands on deck to manage the crisis, and no one needs to be distracted by an election campaign and everything that goes along with that.

But how did we get here? How did we end up on the brink of an election no one wants? 

There’s blame to be apportioned across the board, but the majority of it falls on the governing Liberals and Opposition Conservatives. They joined in a high stakes game of chicken that was not driven by anything other than partisan advantage. 

First, the Conservatives. They launched a motion on Opposition Day that called for establishing a new super-committee to investigate corruption, specifically the WE scandal. It would have had unprecedented power to call not only members of the government and civil service, but people such as friends and relatives. It could have compelled the release of private citizens’ financial records over a 12-year period. That is probably not even legal.

October 23, 2019

It was a massive overreach, especially considering Parliament already has multiple committees that can do that work. And given that this is a minority government, those committees are often dominated by opposition MPs, so the government doesn’t always get its way. 

Further, there is a central hypocrisy in what the Conservatives are saying. They want a committee specifically focused on government corruption, and they publicly declare they do not have confidence in the government. But they also say they don’t want an election. You cannot square that circle.

But the Liberals delivered a surprise — they chose a nuclear response to the Conservatives overreach, saying the motion amounted to a loss of confidence in the government, and therefore would trigger an election. They drew a line in the sand, and they dared opposition parties to cross.

October 28, 2016

There’s no doubt, from a political strategy perspective, that the government outplayed its opponents. But beyond that strategic victory, this brinksmanship isn’t a good look for anyone involved. The government is acting like it has a majority when it doesn’t. The Conservatives wanted to weaponize the committee process for partisan gain. Both were willing to force Canadians to endure an election campaign in a very dangerous time. For that, they should be ashamed.

Thankfully, Singh’s NDP sought middle ground. They proposed a committee that would oversee and investigate all spending and management during the pandemic, including in the WE affair. That is a reasonable mandate for a new committee. We don’t know what the Liberals agreed to in exchange for the NDP’s support against the Conservatives, but don’t be surprised if the end result of this drama fest is something like what the NDP proposed. 

So for now, this melodrama is over. Don’t be surprised when the next game of chicken breaks out, as happened frequently when Stephen Harper’s minority government was challenged repeatedly and dared opposition parties to trigger an election. 

That said, there was ample cynical political gamesmanship on display here. It’s wasn’t pretty. The Liberals and Conservatives should take a long look in the mirror and try to remember what Canadians are dealing with. That’s what matters, not an unnecessary election campaign. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial)