Wednesday September 19, 2018
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday September 19, 2018
Toronto
Friday September 14, 2018
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday September 14, 2018
Why would Trudeau leave it to Mulroney to defend the Charter of Rights?
When one Canadian province decides to opt out of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, you expect prime ministers to speak out strongly.
February 3, 2018
But it probably tells us something that the most spirited words against the use of the “notwithstanding” clause this week have come from a former prime minister, not the current one.
It was Brian Mulroney who came out swinging on Tuesday against the idea of provinces sidestepping the Charter — “how the hell did this thing get in our Constitution?” — while the current prime minister seemed to be trying to say as little as possible.
While Justin Trudeau can be hard line about people adhering to the Charter of Rights when it comes to summer-job applications or candidacy for the Liberal party, it took the prime minister more than a day after Premier Doug Ford’s staggering announcement on Monday to say anything publicly. And when Trudeau did speak on Tuesday, he chose a relatively mild adjective: “disappointing.”
Mulroney, on the other hand, seems to feel fewer constraints, despite a potentially awkward family conflict.
September 7, 2009
In a free-wheeling conversation at the National Library and Archives on Tuesday, Mulroney made abundantly clear that he has never been a fan of this opt-out provision in the Charter — and he’s no more fond of it now that it’s being used in a province where his own daughter, Caroline Mulroney, is the attorney-general.
“Everybody knows I’m not a big fan of it and I never have been,” Mulroney said, while sidestepping any direct criticism of his daughter’s government. “Look, to me, the backbone and the enormous strength of Canada is the independence and the magnificence of our judiciary. … That is a major thrust of our citizenship.”
Mulroney said he hasn’t discussed this with his daughter, but she probably already knows how he feels, since it’s also in his memoirs, as “the most abject surrender of federal authority in our history.”
That’s a shot at former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, who put the clause into the Charter to win a deal with the provinces nearly 40 years ago. He’s also the father of the current PM, of course — all this proving that constitutional dramas in Canada are also historical family sagas, minus the lush scenery or film deals. (Source: Toronto Star)
Tuesday September 11, 2018
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday September 11, 2018
Ford plans to invoke notwithstanding clause for first time in province’s history
Premier Doug Ford is taking an unprecedented step, invoking the province’s powers and using the “notwithstanding” clause to override a court decision that shut down his plans to cut the size of Toronto’s city council.
July 28, 2018
For the first time in the province’s history, Ford says he plans to use a rarely reached-for tool in the Charter to allow the cut to 25 wards from 47 for the upcoming election to continue — and warned he will use it more than once if he has to.
He said his government is also appealing a court decision released Monday morning and will resume the legislature this week to reintroduce the bill that forced changes to Toronto’s ongoing election.
“I believe the judge’s decision is deeply concerning and the result is unacceptable to the people of Ontario,” Ford said.
Ford made the announcement at a news conference Monday afternoon just hours after a bombshell ruling that shut down his government’s plans to align city council wards with provincial and federal ridings.
“I was elected,” Ford told reporters, while saying the judge “was appointed.”
The actions of the Ford government were harshly criticized in the ruling by Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba, who said the province’s Bill 5, the Better Local Government Act, infringed Charter rights and deemed it unconstitutional.
The judge called that move “unprecedented” and ruled it “substantially interfered with both the candidate’s and the voter’s right to freedom of expression” guaranteed by the Charter.
In doing so, he ordered an election continue on the basis of 47 wards, returning the campaign to a state before Bill 5 was tabled at Queen’s Park. (Source: Toronto Star)
Saturday July 28, 2018
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday July 28, 2018
Doug Ford defends unilateral moves to slash Toronto council, axe regional chair elections
There’s a new sheriff in town.
November 20, 2013
Brandishing his political clout, recently elected Premier Doug Ford is unilaterally slashing the number of councillors at Toronto city hall and cancelling democratic elections for regional chairs in Peel, York, Niagara and Muskoka.
Ford’s disruption of civic elections on Friday triggered an eruption in municipal politics across the GTHA. In one surprise development, Jennifer Keesmaat, Toronto’s outspoken former chief planner, entered the city’s mayoral race and will take on John Tory.
Tory, for his part, is calling for a referendum on the size of Toronto’s city council.
from 47 members to 25 and is dealing a body blow to a political enemy, Patrick Brown, his predecessor as Progressive Conservative leader, who was a front-runner for the Peel post.
Those hopes dashed, Brown immediately registered to run for mayor of Brampton against Linda Jeffrey.
But Ford, who never discussed his plans during the June 7 election campaign, signalled that he is more powerful than any municipal leader and suggested civic governments could effectively be run from Queen’s Park.
June 22, 2018
“We’re going to get things done. We’re going to run city hall a lot more efficiently than before,” the premier told reporters 12 hours after the Star revealed his sweeping changes.
“No one has ever said to me: ‘Doug, we need more politicians,’ ” said Ford.
“In fact, it’s the opposite. People tell me that we have too many politicians making it harder to get things done, making it harder to get things built, making it harder to deal with the real problems we face,” he said.
Ford, a one-term Toronto councillor while his late brother, Rob Ford, was mayor from 2010 to 2014, said he was fed up with the “hours and hours of endless debate . . . all of it taking place on the taxpayer’s dime.”
“It’s clear that the size of government is just too large.”
City wards will mirror provincial and federal riding boundaries if the legislation, which will be tabled Monday, is passed. (Source: Toronto Star)
Thursday April 26, 2018
Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday April 26, 2018
‘Raw hatred’: why the ‘incel’ movement targets and terrorises women
October 22, 2014
When a van was driven on to a Toronto pavement on Tuesday, killing 10 people and injuring 15, police chief Mark Saunders said that, while the incident appeared to be a deliberate act, there was no evidence of terrorism. The public safety minister Ralph Goodale backed this up, deeming the event “not part of an organised terror plot”. Canada has rules about these things: to count as terrorism, the attacker must have a political, religious or social motivation, something beyond “wanting to terrorise”.
Why have the authorities been so fast to reject the idea of terrorism (taking as read that this may change; the tragedy is very fresh)? Shortly before the attack, a post appeared on the suspect’s Facebook profile, hailing the commencement of the “Incel Rebellion”, including the line “Private (Recruit) … Infantry 00010, wishing to speak to Sgt 4chan please. C23249161.” (“4chan is the main organising platform for the ‘alt-right’,” explains Mike Wendling, the author of Alt-Right: from 4Chan to the White House.)
June 6, 2006
There is a reluctance to ascribe to the “incel” movement anything so lofty as an “ideology” or credit it with any developed, connected thinking, partly because it is so bizarre in conception.
Standing for “involuntarily celibate”, the term was originally invented 20 years ago by a woman known only as Alana, who coined the term as a name for an online support forum for singles, basically a lonely hearts club. “It feels like being the scientist who figured out nuclear fission and then discovers it’s being used as a weapon for war,” she says, describing the feeling of watching it mutate into a Reddit muster point for violent misogyny.
Who are the ‘incels’ and how do they relate to Toronto van attack?
It is part of the “manosphere”, but is distinguished from men’s rights activism by what Wendling – who is also the editor of BBC Trending, the broadcaster’s social media investigation unit – calls its “raw hatred. It is vile. It is just incredibly unhinged and separate from reality and completely raw.” It has some crossover with white supremacism, in the sense that its adherents hang out in the same online spaces and share some of the same terminology, but it is quite distinctive in its hate figures: Stacys (attractive women); Chads (attractive men); and Normies (people who aren’t incels, ie can find partners but aren’t necessarily attractive). Basically, incels cannot get laid and they violently loathe anyone who can. (Continued: Guardian)