war

Thursday August 27, 2020

August 27, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday August 27, 2020

Doug Ford praises appointment of ‘amazing’ Chrystia Freeland as federal finance minister

“Amazing.”

“Incredible.”

November 21, 2019

Those were just two of the adjectives the Progressive Conservative premier of Ontario used to hail the new federal Liberal finance minister.

“I absolutely love Chrystia Freeland. She’s amazing. I’ll have her back, I’ll help her any way we can,” an elated Premier Doug Ford said Tuesday.

As first revealed by the Star’s Susan Delacourt in April, the COVID-19 pandemic has forged a close friendship between Ford and the deputy prime minister.

The premier was visibly delighted that Freeland, who represents University-Rosedale in the House of Commons, is succeeding departing Toronto Centre MP Bill Morneau as federal treasurer.

December 11, 2019

“I want to congratulate my good friend Chrystia Freeland. An amazing person. I actually texted her this morning to say congratulations. I don’t know how she’s going to do it. She’s working around the clock now,” Ford told CityNews’s Jamie Tumelty in Scarborough.

“There’s no one that would be better in that role than Chrystia Freeland,” he said, pointedly declining to comment on the WE Charity scandal that triggered Morneau’s resignation.

“I’m not going to get into that federal politics. That’s up to the prime minister to deal with. We’ve been working very collaboratively together.”

The premier predicted Freeland would be a good partner for Queen’s Park, which is seeking additional federal funding for infrastructure projects.

“If there was one person, I have confidence in, it is Chrystia Freeland. She’s going to do an incredible job,” said Ford. (Toronto Star) 

March 27, 2020

Now this just in: With less than two weeks to go before most schools are set to welcome back students for the fall term, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau today announced more than $2 billion in funding to help provinces and territories re-open their schools and economies safely.

The announcement comes as some provinces are reporting increases in the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases.

The funding is meant to allow provinces and territories to work with local school boards to implement measures to protect students and staff from COVID-19. The money can be used to help adapt learning spaces, improve air ventilation, increase hand sanitation and hygiene and buy extra personal protective equipment (PPE) and cleaning supplies. (CBC) 

Thursday January 9, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday January 9, 2020

2020’s Horrible First Week

Students, professors, newlyweds, friends and family members died in Wednesday’s crash of a Ukraine International Airlines flight travelling from Tehran to Kyiv.

The disaster that killed 176 people, including at least 63 Canadians, reverberated around the world and across Canada, with vigils taking place in cities with significant Iranian-Canadian communities last night.

Speaking to reporters in Ottawa on Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said a total of 138 people missed a connecting flight from Kyiv that landed in Toronto on Wednesday afternoon, suggesting there may be more Canadians killed in the crash.

As a nation continues to grieve, attention will inevitably shift to how exactly the Boeing 737-800 commercial jet crashed just minutes after taking off.  (iPolitics)

President Donald Trump on Wednesday tempered days of angry rhetoric and suggested Iran was “standing down” after it fired missiles at U.S. forces in Iraq overnight, as both sides looked to defuse a crisis over the U.S. killing of an Iranian general. (Reuters)

Two thirds of Puerto Ricans remained without power and nearly a quarter lacked drinking water on Wednesday after earthquakes battered the Caribbean island, including the most powerful to strike the U.S. territory in 102 years. (Reuters)

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison was corrected by locals on Kangaroo Island on Wednesday after telling them he was thankful nobody died.

Morrison told a group of residents of the fire-ravaged island: “Well thankfully, we’ve had no loss of life”.

“Two,” one person responded. “We’ve had two.”

Looking to another person for confirmation, he quickly backtracked, claiming he meant first responders, not locals.

“Two. Yes, two, that’s quite right,” he said. “I was thinking about firefighters firstly.” (website 10 Daily)

 

Wednesday January 8, 2020

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

The Trump We Did Not Want to See

Much of the work of H.P. Lovecraft, an American horror and science fiction writer who worked during the first decades of the 20th century, is defined by individual encounters with the incomprehensible, with sights, sounds and ideas that undermine and disturb reality as his characters understand it. Faced with things too monstrous to be real, but which exist nonetheless, Lovecraftian protagonists either reject their senses or descend into madness, unable to live with what they’ve learned.

June 25, 2019

It feels, at times, that when it comes to Donald Trump, our political class is this Lovecraftian protagonist, struggling to understand an incomprehensibly abnormal president. The reality of Donald Trump — an amoral narcissist with no capacity for reflection or personal growth — is evident from his decades in public life. But rather than face this, too many people have rejected the facts in front of them, choosing an illusion instead of the disturbing truth.

The past week has been a prime example of this phenomenon. On Thursday night, the United States killed Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani of Iran leader of the Islamic Republic’s Quds Force and one of the most powerful military leaders in the region. The strike was sudden and unexpected. The White House notified Congress only after the fact, with a brief, classified document.

May 11, 2018

The assassination of Suleimani was tantamount to a declaration of war and has escalated tensions between the United States and Iran. Tehran has already promised “harsh revenge” against the United States, while Trump said he would  “HIT VERY FAST AND VERY HARD” if Iran made good on its threat, vowing an attack on “52 Iranian sites” including locations “important to Iran & the Iranian culture.”

This standoff, which in its latest incarnation saw Iranian missiles sailing toward bases in western Iraq on Tuesday night, is so consequential that it’s been hard not to impute some logic to the president’s actions, even as many observers acknowledge the lies and dysfunction surrounding the attack. It’s only natural. As humans, we want to impose order on what we see. As Americans, we want to believe our leaders understand the gravity of war. Traditional news outlets published detailed descriptions of the president’s decision-making process. Sympathetic observers, like Matthew Continetti of the Washington Free Beacon, hailed the strike as a “stunning blow to international terrorism and a reassertion of American might.” Cable news analysts spoke as if this was part of a considered plan for challenging the Iranian government. (Continued: New York Times) 

 

Thursday August 29, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday August 29, 2019

Ontario students deserve better than the blame game

August 16, 2001

It’s that simultaneously wonderful (for parents) and terrible (for kids) time of year again.

Normally, back to school is a bit like Christmas for parents who, by now, have run out of ways to keep young kids busy and are seriously starting to wonder if their teenagers remember how to write without emojis and add numbers greater than their social media followers.

But thanks to the Ford government, this year’s return to school is also a time of concern and confusion.

Just days before students trot off in their first-day outfits with backpacks full of new school supplies, there’s more that’s uncertain than certain about what this year and beyond will look like for them.

September 3, 2013

What changes are being made to Ontario’s math curriculum, and will it do anything to raise math scores? Will the new mandatory online high school courses be innovative or simply a cheaper and lesser alternative to traditional classes? How big will real classes be, not just the “average” size the government likes to reference? How reduced will the options be in art, music, science and other electives?

And, of course, what will happen when contract negotiations really ramp up?

Teachers’ contracts expire three days before students take their seats. Negotiations on new contracts could, in theory, go smoothly or be lengthy, contentious and, in the worst-case scenario, result in the withdrawal of extracurricular activities or a strike before deals are struck.

June 25, 2015

So, amid all that, Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce stepped up last week to “reassure students and their families.”

He announced that class sizes wouldn’t be much larger this year. At 22.5 students in that famously average high school class, that’s up just half a student from last year.

That’s fair enough. But then Lecce suggested that the planned increase to 28 students within four years might not be needed because he’s open to “innovative ideas” that unions could bring forward to save money in other ways.

That’s not about reassuring students or giving parents and educators “predictability” – another of his claimed motives.

Lecce is doing nothing more than trying to shift the blame for the school changes that students and parents aren’t going to like from the government to the unions.

August 21, 2015

It’s a typical, if not very successful, negotiating tactic.

But students and parents know well that the reduction in teachers, increased class sizes and, worst of all, more limited course options are a direct result of the Ford government’s education cuts.

Last month, Lecce blamed the reduction in course options for high school students on school boards. Now, he’s hunting for a new target: teachers.

But this isn’t about teachers, it’s about students. And it’s about this government’s decision to save money in ways that will hurt struggling students, gifted students and generally make school a lot less interesting for everyone.

January 25, 2019

When Premier Doug Ford’s government first unveiled its education overhaul, it claimed it was “modernizing” the system. Then the first education minister said increasing class size was about making students more resilient. And now, with the new education minister, we’re to believe it’s suddenly all negotiable.

But it’s not.

Not so long as the government is determined to reduce its deficit through school cuts that risk the vital education gains that have been made in Ontario.

Ford and his education ministers are fast running out of excuses and ways to sell the unsellable. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Thursday March 28, 2019

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday March 28, 2019

Fact-checking Lisa Thompson’s controversial comments on class size in Ontario

Bigger class sizes make students more resilient.

That was just one of several eyebrow-raising claims that Ontario Education Minister Lisa Thompson made during an interview last week. Her comments quickly provoked a deluge of criticism from many members of the public, educators and the opposition parties.

In an interview with CBC Radio’s Metro Morning, Thompson said that businesses and post-secondary educators relayed to her during recent consultations that students are “lacking coping skills and they’re lacking resiliency.

“By increasing class sizes in high school, we’re preparing them for the reality of post-secondary as well as the world of work.”

Thompson was defending the government’s recent decision to increase high school class sizes in the province from 22 students to 28. Since that’s a board-wide average, some classes — especially important pre-requisites — could swell to as many as 38 or 40 students, educators have warned.

Grades 4 to 8 will see a more moderate average increase of one student per class, while earlier grades will remain the same.

So does the government’s plan make sense? CBC Toronto took a deeper look.

The impact of class size on students has been debated for decades, both in the halls of academia and among policymakers. Numerous studies, conducted worldwide, have produced varied results.

Generally, there is scholarly consensus that smaller class sizes improve academic achievement, particularly among vulnerable student populations. But the extent, scope and ultimate value of those improvements is limited, and the benefits diminish as students get older. And it is far from a magic bullet.

In her interview, Thompson said: “The biggest factor in student success is actually how effective the teacher is” — and there is research that supports this assertion when it comes to high school-aged children. (Source: CBC)