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Wednesday April 8, 2020

April 15, 2020 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday April 8, 2020

Self-appointed pandemic police should think before they default to public shaming

The pandemic disaster is bringing out both the best and worst in people. And some behaviours are just annoying.

Coronavirus cartoons

One of the most annoying trends is the emergence of busybodies who are eager to pass judgment on others before they have all the facts. They’re the “pandemic police” — self-appointed vigilantes who are calling out people for not strictly adhering to social isolation protocols.

A mom in Sooke, B.C., was a recent victim of this overzealous reign of terror when she was repeatedly verbally assaulted for taking her two kids, ages two and six, out with her for errands.

Janene Walker says she was stopped in a Lowe’s parking lot changing her daughter’s diaper in her van when a passing man in a truck yelled out at her, “Keep your kids in the house, for Christ’s sake!”

Then, during a visit to a local grocery store, her daughter was strapped in the shopping cart and her son was close to her side when a man called her a “shitty mom” for taking her kids out with her. That confrontation turned into a shouting match that left her in tears.

November 14, 2019

Now, no question it would have been far better if this mom didn’t have her children with her while she bought necessary supplies. But sometimes we find ourselves in difficult circumstances. In her case, she’s managing her kids on her own while her husband is deployed with the military and, with no family nearby, she says he has no one to help her with babysitting.

Dr. Robert Strang, Nova Scotia’s chief medical officer of health, recently spoke up to condemn such public shaming. Community harassment, especially online, is “inappropriate,” he said.

What’s more appropriate is cracking down on people who are obviously flouting common sense — and, increasingly, the law in many provinces and states. 

And then there are the COVID-19 skeptics — yes, believe it or not, they’re still out there. They think all of this is being overblown or even a left-wing conspiracy. They also seem to think they can carry on as before without any consequences. To them, the answer may be not only public shaming, but also the full force of the law.

But what about people like Janene Walker, who just find themselves in a bind and don’t know what to do?

Strang says that rather than harass or shame individuals, people need to offer help and support so the person in question feels able to self-isolate and has the support to see them through the period of isolation.

Walker agrees, arguing that compassion should extend to any single parent who’s struggling to keep their household afloat while maintaining physical distancing and isolation.

“All these people just … think that they know better. And they’re shaming people publicly when they don’t know their situation. We should be helping each other and lifting each other up and showing compassion.”

I suspect that all of us have at some point in our lives felt the sting of being judged by people who seem to be lurking in the shadows waiting for an opportunity to pounce.

I don’t want to dive too deeply into the psychology behind that, but I suspect a lot of these people grew up in very judgmental households. Their tendency to gossip and look down their noses at others apparently gives their egos a boost.

It’s time for those people to show consideration and find out the full story before passing judgment.

I’m left to wonder what might have happened if one of those people who were so quick to denounce Walker had stopped and asked her why she was out with her kids. A little understanding and problem-solving might have made the connection she needed to find some babysitting or discover someone who could bring supplies to her.

Except for a handful for ignorant scofflaws, the vast majority of us fully understand the urgency of maintaining safe social distance. With each passing day, the grim news reminds us what’s at stake.

Rather than assuming the worst, when we see someone who’s breaking the rules, it’s worth asking whether we can help them comply.

We’re in this together — let’s all try to remember that some people just need a helping hand. (Hamilton Spectator) 

 

Posted in: Canada, International, Lifestyle Tagged: 2020-12, busybody, civility, Coronavirus, covid-19, pandemic, shamings ocial media, superhero, Virtue Signalling

Thursday February 20, 2020

February 27, 2020 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday February 20, 2020

Force won’t fix Canada’s blockade problem — but that won’t let Trudeau off the hook

The most evocative image coming out of this week’s protests against the Coastal GasLink pipeline was that of a Canadian flag hanging upside-down outside the provincial legislature in Victoria, with the words “Reconciliation is dead” scrawled across it.

February 13, 2020

Because it’s 2020, that phrase was a hashtag, too.

Between the declaration of reconciliation’s demise and competing claims that Canada has fallen into “chaos” or “mob” rule, there is a yawning vacuum that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau might need to fill — to make the case again for a reconciliation project he embraced of his own volition.

There is more here than can be conveyed in a sound bite or tweet.

“Contemporary events have two-hundred-year-old tails,” Harry Swain, a former deputy minister with Indian and Northern Affairs (as the department was then known), wrote a decade ago in his book Oka: A Political Crisis and Its Legacy.

July 14, 2005

“Flashpoints like Oka occur when Indian people believe that governments have violated treaties or their own laws, when a long struggle to right the wrong has been unavailing, and when a government crystallizes matters by licensing a further insult or alienation,” he added. “Land is always at the heart of the broken promises.”

On those terms, historians might file the Wet’suwet’en protests against the Coastal Gas Link project alongside events like Oka, Ipperwash, Caledonia and Gustafsen Lake.

But those examples also point to the great danger involved in attempting to resolve such disputes with force. In Oka and Ipperwash, people died. Wherever there is violence, there is lasting trauma. And the last thing the relationship between Canada and Indigenous Peoples needs now is more trauma.

September 1, 2006

Even if calls for Trudeau to immediately intervene seem either to understate the difficulty of doing so, or to promote a potentially dangerous course of action (one commentator this week invoked Margaret Thatcher’s handling of the miners strike in the United Kingdom, a violent year-long conflict, as a laudable example of leadership), Trudeau’s government can’t be absolved of its duty to safely end this standoff as quickly as possible.

On Friday, Trudeau said that the government’s focus was on “dialogue” and “constructive outcomes.” A day earlier, his government announced that Carolyn Bennett, the minister of Crown-Indigenous relations, was being dispatched to British Columbia, while Marc Miller, the minister of Indigenous services, will get involved in trying to resolve the blockade in Ontario.

But in the post-conflict analysis, there will be questions about whether the Liberals should have intervened directly sooner. (CBC) 

 

Posted in: Canada Tagged: 2020-07, Canada, Gesture Politics, indigenous, Justin Trudeau, reconciliation, security council, superhero

Tuesday October 29, 2019

November 6, 2019 by Graeme MacKay

October 29, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday October 29, 2019

Ontario will champion a united Canada: Premier Doug Ford

November 20, 2018

Ontario needs to “step up” and help heal a country fractured after a federal election campaign, Premier Doug Ford says.

“I’ve never seen the country this divided,” Ford said in a one-on-one interview Thursday with the Toronto Sun. “I think it’s time that Ontario steps up and unites this country. We’re so much stronger when we’re united.”

Ford said he gets along well with several other premiers, including those in Alberta and Quebec, and strongly believes that the provinces should be competing against the world, not each other.

Ontario does well in a strong Canada, and Canada does well with a strong Ontario, he said.

“I understand their concerns out west; they’re putting $20 billion into the federal government’s pockets and they’re frustrated,” he said. “(Albertans are) upset; they’re really upset, actually.”

March 24, 2009

The same is true for folks he spoke to in Saskatchewan, he Ford.

One of the issues dividing some provinces and the federal government is carbon taxes.

The federal government’s lead voice in favour of carbon taxes, Liberal MP Catherine McKenna, found the windows of her constituency office spray-painted with a vulgar, sexist message Thursday.

Ford said he continues to oppose carbon taxes, believes that they put the province at an international economic disadvantage, but called for political points of views to be expressed peacefully.

“That’s totally unacceptable what they spray-painted,” he said. “I don’t care what political stripe you are.”

His own constituency office was occupied by protesters recently, terrifying his staff, he said.

February 1, 2018

Ford and his government head back to the legislature Monday for the first time since June.

Many have suggested that Ford was keeping out of the public eye for fear of hurting Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer’s chances of winning Monday’s federal election.

Ford said he told Scheer at the start of the campaign that he hoped the Conservative leader won but he was staying out of it, focusing on pressing provincial matters.

Asked if he minded that his name kept popping up in the campaign — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau repeatedly told Canadians they could expect Ford-like cuts from Scheer — the premier said it didn’t bother him.

However, in a phone call with Trudeau the day after the election, he touched on the topic, Ford said.

“I told the prime minister that ‘enough of the politicking now, people expect us to work together and make sure that we build on infrastructure and other areas,’” Ford said. (Toronto Sun) https://torontosun.com/news/provincial/ontario-will-champion-a-united-canada-premier-doug-ford

 

Posted in: Canada Tagged: #elxn2019, 2019-38, Canada, Captain Canada, costume, Doug Ford, Halloween, Ontario, superhero, unity

Thursday May 16, 2019

May 23, 2019 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday May 16, 2019

Freeland renews push to remove steel, aluminum tariffs during Washington trip

July 27, 2018

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland is bound for Washington to meet with Trump trade czar Robert Lighthizer in a renewed push to get punitive steel and aluminum tariffs lifted.

The meeting at the United States trade representative’s Washington office is to take place on Wednesday but Freeland will also venture to Capitol Hill for a meeting with the influential Republican chair of the Senate finance committee, Chuck Grassley.

“We continue to lobby very assertively for the lifting of the tariffs. We’re at a point where we need to do everything we can and talk to everyone we can about why we see these as unjust,” a senior government source said Tuesday, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the ongoing dispute.

June 1, 2018

The meetings come after a pair of telephone calls on consecutive days late last week between President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in which the controversial 25-per-cent duty on Canadian steel and 10-per-cent levy on aluminum was a major subject of conversation.

On Tuesday, Grassley suggested to reporters in a conference call that an end to the tariffs might be close. Last month, Grassley tweeted that Trump must remove the tariffs before the new North American trade deal can be ratified.

Trump imposed them in the first place using a section of U.S. trade law that gives the president powers to put duties on imports on national-security grounds.

Freeland, Trudeau and others in Canadian government have derided the tariffs as absurd, illegal and insulting.

But Freeland has said she’s heartened by the recent comments of both Republican and Democratic American lawmakers who say the new North American trade agreement that includes Mexico can’t be ratified with the “Section 232” tariffs in place. (Global)

 

Posted in: Canada, USA Tagged: 2019-18, beaver, Canada, Chrystia Freeland, diplomacy, Donald Trump, man, steel, Steven Mnuchin, superhero, superman, tariff, Trade, USA

Thursday February 1, 2018

January 31, 2018 by Graeme MacKay

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday February 1, 2018

With Doug Ford joining PC leadership race, all bets are off

Your mom’s basement is a rather inauspicious venue to announce your ambition to become premier of Ontario, but anybody who underestimates Doug Ford’s chances to win the Ontario Progressive Conservative Party leadership does so at their peril.

October 30, 2014

Ford declared his candidacy on Monday to lead a party in deep turmoil following the resignation of leader Patrick Brown over allegations of sexual misconduct.

Ford is quickly trying to position himself as the populist choice in the race, the outsider, railing against the elites.

“Folks, make no mistake about it,” he said in his short statement from the basement of his mother’s Etobicoke house. “The elites of this party, the ones who have shut out the grassroots, do not want me in this race. But I’m here to give a voice to the hard-working taxpayers of this province, people who have been ignored for far too long.”

Ford’s message might just resonate with a good chunk of the PC membership. And don’t forget Ford’s message already has proven popular with no small number of people in Toronto.

When he stepped into the shoes of his better-known brother Rob Ford to run for mayor in 2014, he came second but won 20 of the city’s 44 wards. He trounced John Tory in Etobicoke, Scarborough and North York, the key parts of Toronto that the PCs must swing their way to form a majority provincial government. It`s not a stretch to think he could replicate that success in the 905, the crucial battleground of Ontario politics, and of course in traditional Tory strongholds too. (Continued: CBC) 


Here’s Doug Ford viewing the cartoon during an interview with Cynthia Mulligan, political reporter with CityNews Toronto on March 12, 2018, the Monday after the weekend vote which declared him leader of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Party: 


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Posted in: Ontario Tagged: bus, cliff, Doug Ford, Ford Nation, leadership, Ontario, PC Party, superhero, video, wreck
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