moderation

Friday August 20, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday August 20, 2021

Not the Bad Guys Anymore

When the Taliban first sacked Kabul 25 years ago, the group declared that it was not out for revenge, instead offering amnesty to anyone who had worked for the former government. “Taliban will not take revenge,” a Taliban commander said then. “We have no personal rancor.” At the time of that promise, the ousted president, Mohammad Najibullah, was unavailable for comment. The Taliban had castrated him and, according to some reports, stuffed his severed genitals in his mouth, and soon after, he was strung up from a lamppost.

November 14, 2001

The reports from Kabul are probably more reassuring to those unfamiliar with this history. The Taliban has once again declared a general amnesty, and asked everyone to show up for work in the morning and prepare to unite behind a Taliban government that will rule according to Islamic law—but perhaps, the group has suggested, not in the harsh manner that made it infamous during its rule from 1996 to 2001. Women can continue their education so long as they wear the hijab, and the Taliban will guarantee human rights and freedoms of speech and expression, it said, so long as they comply with sharia. (Spoiler: The Taliban does not believe they do.) A Taliban spokesperson consented to an interview with a female television presenter whose face was visible. During the Taliban’s previous regime, it discouraged depiction of the human form, and would certainly not have countenanced the broadcast of a woman’s face to the entire world.

The Taliban now owns Afghanistan, and its first priority is avoiding anything that resembles chaos. In 1996, the group’s leader, Mullah Omar, told residents of Kabul to resist the temptation to flee, that the Taliban would keep them safe. Omar died in 2013, but his successors—who include his own son, the Taliban’s top military official—are saying exactly the same thing now. They have made sure the police phone number works, and they are calling for workers, including cops formerly loyal to the previous government, to report for duty. The Afghans I have reached by phone in Kabul say the same: Taliban are in the streets, acting not as avengers but as guarantors of public order. They are not executing people on street corners; instead they’re watching for looters and troublemakers. (The Taliban has always returned to this core role, since the movement’s founding: In the 1990s, when the Afghan countryside was beset by highwaymen, murderers, and rapists, the group won its first followers by securing the roads and providing order where the worst kind of anarchy had reigned.) (Continued: The Atlantic) 

August 17, 2021

Meanwhile, in Canada, there may be no better example of the unique and difficult challenge Erin O’Toole faces as leader of the federal Conservative Party than his recently announced policy on mandatory vaccinations.

Mr. O’Toole is against measures that force Canadians to get vaccinated, regardless of what line of work they may be in. Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has said federal workers must be vaccinated, as well as anyone who wants to fly or travel by train.

The Conservative Leader says he believes in the power and safety of vaccines, but doesn’t feel people should be forced to take them. Mr. Trudeau doesn’t believe people should be forced to take them either, but nor should the unvaccinated have the right to potentially pass COVID-19 on to others. Thus, the mandate.

July 15, 2021

A majority of Canadians are fully or partially vaccinated. And most of them, polls suggest, support vaccine mandates or vaccine passports that bestow certain rights and privileges on those who have chosen to get jabbed. In his heart, I think Mr. O’Toole believes this also. He just can’t endorse that policy because it would alienate a faction of his base – the libertarians and vaccine deniers – who think the state has no right imposing restrictive measures on anyone. These are voters Maxime Bernier and his People’s Party of Canada are trying to steal away from the Conservatives.

Welcome to Erin O’Toole’s world – or rather, his nightmare. While his central challenger in this election, Justin Trudeau, can be many things to many people, the Conservative Leader does not have that option. He is bound, in many ways, to a segment of the population resistant to change and who are suspicious of government intrusions of any sort into their lives, regardless of the reason. (Continued: Globe & Mail)

L E T T E R S  to the  E D I T O R  The Hamilton Spectator, Saturday August 21, 2021

Letter to the Editor, The Hamilton Spectator, August 23, 2021

Letter to the Editor, The Hamilton Spectator, August 24, 2021

Social Media chatter:



 

Thursday June 10, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday June 10, 2021

What happened in London should be a pivot point for Canada — and its politicians

In a speech in 2015, while reflecting on Canada’s treatment of minorities, Justin Trudeau said that the inclusive idea of liberty that typifies the best of Canada “requires Canadian political leadership to be sustained.”

Six years later, the killing of four members of a Muslim family in London, Ontario is a moment of reckoning for Canadians — but also for this country’s political leaders.

If it’s necessary for Canadians to reflect on themselves and their country, it’s equally necessary for politicians to consider what they could have done better in the past and what more they could do in the future.

In 2017, there was Motion 103. Tabled by Liberal MP Iqra Khalid, it asked the House of Commons to condemn Islamophobia and endorse a study of how the federal government could better combat racism and discrimination. It did not pass quietly or easily. Eighty-six Conservative MPs — including current party leader Erin O’Toole — voted against it.

August 25, 2020

O’Toole’s first response to the attack in London this week described it as an “Islamophobic act of terror.” He used the word “Islamophobia” in his remarks to the House of Commons the next day.

Maybe that counts as some small measure of progress, too. But even if O’Toole appeared to turn a page this week, should politicians ever be allowed to move on so quietly?

Does he regret his vote on M-103? How does he feel now about what the previous Conservative government — which he served as a cabinet minister — said and did in regards to the niqab? What about that same government’s talk of “barbaric cultural practices?”

February 16, 2017

In the 2015 election — during which Stephen Harper suggested he would consider extending a ban on the niqab to the public service — was hardly the last word on anti-Muslim prejudice in Canada.

Trudeau put himself ahead of other leaders on the issue of the niqab when he delivered that speech in 2015. Unfortunately, it was possible then to think he had taken a political risk in so loudly criticizing the Harper government’s ban. New Democrats ended up blaming their losses in that year’s election in part on the fact that Tom Mulcair eventually was compelled to condemn the policy.

October 3, 2019

If Trudeau is ahead of his federal counterparts now on the matter of Quebec’s Bill 21, which would ban public servants in the province from wearing religious headwear or symbols, he’s not ahead by much.

O’Toole deferred to Quebec when he was asked about the so-called “secularism” law last September — another thing he might be asked about now. NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has criticized the bill but has stopped short of saying an government led by him would intervene.

Trudeau has criticized the bill but is still alone among federal leaders in saying that the federal government might someday need to participate in a legal challenge against it.

That wasn’t much — but then Trudeau seemed to move backwards this week. Asked by a reporter whether he thought Bill 21 “fosters hatred and … discrimination,” the prime minister responded, “No.” (Continued: CTV) 

 

Tuesday March 23, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday March 23, 2021

O’Toole’s pitch to get Conservatives to embrace ‘change’ may be off to a shaky start

Erin O’Toole told Conservatives this weekend that their party must change — because if it doesn’t, he said, it won’t be able to win the votes necessary to defeat Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in the next election.

May 2, 2019

And if the Liberals do win, he added, they’ll be able to implement their own changes — changes that O’Toole cast as frightening and potentially ruinous.

But O’Toole didn’t tell Conservatives exactly how they need to change. And then delegates delivered a potentially damaging vote on climate change policy that suggests his party base might not be ready to move very far.

O’Toole is on solid ground when he says the Conservative Party needs to try something different. His own polling numbers make that obvious. But so did the last federal election.

In 2019, Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives ran on an implicit promise to return to the policy agenda of Stephen Harper’s government. Scheer promised to smile more than his predecessor did but stopped short of offering a new approach — particularly on climate change.

June 23, 2020

The Conservatives won 34 per cent of the popular vote in that election. That was two points better than the party’s performance under Harper in 2015, but its national result in 2019 was inflated by the massive Conservative turnout in Alberta and Saskatchewan. In Ontario and Quebec — where 199 of the country’s 338 ridings are located — the Conservatives actually lost ground under Scheer.

A year and a half later, O’Toole’s Conservatives are sitting at 30 per cent nationally. And O’Toole’s personal approval rating might be even more of a problem.

August 25, 2020

According to survey results released by Abacus Data last week, 23 per cent of Canadians are committed to voting Conservative in the next election and another 23 per cent would consider voting Conservative.

But as the Abacus numbers point out, the differences between those two groups are substantial. Compared to those who have decided already to vote for O’Toole’s party, those potential Conservative voters are younger, more diverse, much more concerned about climate change and much less angry about Justin Trudeau.

September 1, 2020

O’Toole said his party must have a “serious” and “comprehensive” plan for climate change. But he doubled down on his criticism of the current federal carbon price and fell back on a framing that casts “the environment” as a discrete issue — as opposed to a broader view that sees climate policy as intertwined with almost all other areas of public policy.

“As important as climate change is, getting our economy back on track is more important,” he said.

In his prepared remarks, he said he wanted to defeat the “lie” that the Conservative Party is a party of “climate change deniers.” On Friday night and then again during a question-and-answer session with party members on Saturday afternoon, O’Toole declared that the “debate” over climate change is over.

But in between those two pronouncements came the news that Conservative delegates had rejected a resolution that would have declared that “climate change is real” and “the Conservative party is willing to act” — while committing the party to targeting high emitters and supporting innovation.

The headlines generated by that vote might be a serious setback to O’Toole’s goal of rebranding his party. Liberals will no doubt be happy to remind him of that vote at every opportunity in the weeks and months ahead. (CBC)

Sketch of being pulled back from the big kids’ pool