politics

Thursday August 16, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday August 16, 2018

Ottawa to declare federal holiday to mark legacy of residential school system

June 3, 2015

The Liberal government will declare a federal statutory holiday to mark the tragic legacy of the residential school system, fulfilling a recommendation made by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC).

In a statement, a spokesperson for Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez said the department is working with Indigenous peoples to determine the best date for this sort of commemoration.

July 13, 2017

“We have committed to fulfilling all of the calls to action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. Call to Action 80 asks the government of Canada to establish a National Day for Truth and Reconciliation to honour the survivors of residential schools,” said Simon Ross, the minister’s press secretary.

“That’s exactly what we will do, and we will do that in partnership with Indigenous Peoples.”

Canada Day 2017

Two days are currently under consideration: June 21, which is National Indigenous Peoples Day, and September 30, which is named “Orange Shirt Day.” It is named for the bright orange shirt given to six-year-old Phyllis Webstad by her grandmother in 1973; it was taken from her by administrators when she attended the St. Joseph Mission School in Williams Lake, B.C. The date was chosen because it’s around the time Indigenous children were taken from their homes and sent to residential schools. 

It’s not yet clear when the new federal statutory holiday will be implemented, but the official said conversations with Indigenous peoples are well underway.

June 12, 2008

Constitutionally, it’s up to the provinces and territories to determine which statutory holidays exist in their jurisdictions.

Nothing in any federal legislation would force them to follow suit and implement a day to mark the horrors of the residential school system.

So a new federal holiday would apply only to workers in federally regulated industries — like the federal public service, banks, interprovincial and international transportation companies, TV/radio, telecommunications, fisheries and Crown corporations, among others — unless the provinces took action on their own. (Source: CBC) 

 

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Tuesday March 27, 2018

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday March 27, 2018

Experts call for transparency over political parties and data mining

For years, Megan Boler’s research focused on the power of social media as a democratizing force, giving voice to the voiceless and empowering everyday people to come together and participate more meaningfully in how they are governed.

March 21, 2018

But the University of Toronto social justice professor said that even in the heady days of the Arab Spring and Obama’s social media-aided ascendancy to the White House, there were slivers of concern about how the technology might be abused.

“I would have conversations with colleagues who would say things like, ‘These are the halcyon days of the internet and we’re going to look back and wish we had those days back.’”

That future appears to have arrived, as reports swirl about foreign interference in U.S. elections, the micro-targeting of social media users to sow division and mistrust and, most recently, a data-mining firm facing allegations it scraped private information from tens of millions of Facebook users’ profiles for political gain.

“It’s a very sobering moment,” Boler said.

At the heart of the most recent fallout around Cambridge Analytica, the voter-profiling firm at the heart of the Facebook controversy, is a story about the increasing sophistication and secrecy of the techniques political actors and parties have developed to harvest voters’ information in the quest for power and influence.

While some experts describe Cambridge Analytica as “a bad apple” in how it gathered its data, they say the predictive analytics the company employs are industry standard in politics.

Some experts single out political parties, saying more transparency and oversight is needed to get a better understanding of their data practices, which remain closely guarded secrets. (Source: Toronto Star) 

 

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Thursday December 14, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday December 14, 2017

Roy Moore’s defeat in Alabama marks watershed moment for #MeToo movement

Republican Roy Moore’s stunning defeat in Alabama marked a watershed moment for the national movement around the issue of sexual abuse.

November 13, 2017

The allegations that Moore had made sexual advances on girls as young as 14 decades ago, when he was in his 30s, had created a real contest out of what should have been an easy victory for any Republican candidate in ruby-red Alabama.

“Women really do seem to be wanting to make their collective voices heard on this issue, and they don’t want to see it swept under the rug one more time,” said Jessica Leeds, one of those who stepped forward last year to accuse Donald Trump, then the GOP presidential nominee, of having committed sexual misconduct.

With Trump’s election, that kind of reckoning seemed to have been pushed backward.

But the sense of grievance remained, and gained force this fall with the toppling of movie producer Harvey Weinstein and the once-revered figures in media and politics who have been taken down in his wake.

Democrat Doug Jones’ unlikely victory may also be a sign that the formula for winning in a deeply polarized political climate, perfected by Trump, may not be so reliable as it seemed.

As the #MeToo movement takes hold and matures, it is moving beyond the stage of rooting out individual bad actors to “seeking a different level of accountability,” said Fatima Goss Graves, president of the National Women’s Law Centre. (Continued: Toronto Star) 

 

Wednesday December 13, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday December 13, 2017

Liberals’ byelection wins signal problems for Andrew Scheer

Monday’s Conservative loss of South Surrey-White Rock, in a by-election there, combined with the lacklustre NDP scores points to a pattern. The B.C. riding had not elected a Liberal since 1972. And while Trudeau did recruit a popular candidate, the Conservative tasked with holding the riding — Kerri-Lynne Findlay — was a former Harper minister.

May 30, 2017

Buoyed by two upset byelections victories over the Conservatives this fall and with a solid shot at winning back Outremont from the NDP if and when Thomas Mulcair retires in the New Year, few in the Liberal backrooms will lose sleep over the fact that overall, the Conservatives increased their vote share in three of four ridings on Monday.

Scheer cannot win the next general election in the face of a Liberal juggernaut in Quebec and B.C. And he won’t have much of a shot at toppling Trudeau unless the NDP reverses its decline.

The two parties to the left of the CPC are communicating vessels. A lost vote for the New Democrats is almost always a vote gained for the Liberals. It usually takes a split in the non-conservative vote for the Conservatives to win government.

Throughout the fall — Trudeau’s most difficult political season to date — the New Democrats and the Conservatives have been telling themselves that buyer’s remorse was about to catch up to the Liberals.

It seems both opposition parties had been inhaling their own question period fumes.

In the end the only seeds of buyer’s remorse that may have been planted in the mid-mandate byelections would pertain to the opposition’s leadership choices. (Source: Toronto Star) 

 

Tuesday October 24, 2017

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday October 24, 2017

Jagmeet Singh vows to help Horwath topple Wynne

NDP Leader Andrea Horwath can count on some major campaign help from her party’s brightest star.
 

August 3, 2017

Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he will do all he can to ensure Horwath replaces Liberal Kathleen Wynne as Ontario premier after the June 7 election.

 
“I’ve committed to supporting the provincial party. I have a personal reason: these are my colleagues, my friends. I also have a vested interest in the benefit of the province and of the country,” Singh said Monday at Queen’s Park where he bade farewell to his former NDP caucus colleagues.
 
“It’s absolutely clear that the province will be better off with Andrea Horwath as premier and the country will be better off with the New Democratic values of putting people first, of standing up for issues that matter to the lives of people,” he said.
 

June 15, 2017

Singh, who resigned as Bramalea-Gore-Malton MPP on Friday, three weeks after winning the federal NDP leadership, said it’s “very special” to be at Queen’s Park.

 
“This is where my political career began and I’m really honoured to be back here as leader of the federal party,” he said.
 
“Andrea’s been my mentor. She appointed me deputy leader.”
 
Horwath expressed delight that Singh will help her party next spring. (Source: Toronto Star) 
 
 

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