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Friday February 19, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Friday February 19, 2021

Texas, Land of Wind and Lies

Politicians are neither gods nor saints. Because they aren’t gods, they often make bad policy decisions. Because they aren’t saints, they often try to evade responsibility for their failures, asserting either that they did as well as anyone could have or that someone else deserves the blame.

October 3, 2014

For a while, then, the politics surrounding the power outages that have spread across Texas looked fairly normal. True, the state’s leaders pursued reckless policies that set the stage for catastrophe, then tried to evade responsibility. But while their behavior was reprehensible, it was reprehensible in ways we’ve seen many times over the years.

However, that changed around a day after the severity of the disaster became apparent. Republican politicians and right-wing media, not content with run-of-the-mill blame-shifting, have coalesced around a malicious falsehood instead — the claim that wind and solar power caused the collapse of the Texas power grid, and that radical environmentalists are somehow responsible for the fact that millions of people are freezing in the dark, even though conservative Republicans have run the state for a generation.

This isn’t normal political malfeasance. It’s the energy-policy equivalent of claiming that the Jan. 6 insurrection was a false-flag Antifa operation — raw denial of reality, not just to escape accountability, but to demonize one’s opponents. And it’s another indicator of the moral and intellectual collapse of American conservatism.

The underlying story of what happened in Texas appears to be fairly clear. Like many states, Texas has a partly deregulated electricity market, but deregulation has gone further there than elsewhere. In particular, unlike other states, Texas chose not to provide power companies with incentives to install reserve capacity to deal with possible emergencies. This made power cheaper in normal times, but left the system vulnerable when things went wrong.

Texas authorities also ignored warnings about the risks associated with extreme cold. After a 2011 cold snap left millions of Texans in the dark, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission urged the state to winterize its power plants with insulation, heat pipes and other measures. But Texas, which has deliberately cut its power grid off from the rest of the country precisely to exempt itself from federal regulation, only partially implemented the recommendations.

And the deep freeze came.

January 31, 2019

A power grid poorly prepared to deal with extreme cold suffered multiple points of failure. The biggest problems appear to have come in the delivery of natural gas, which normally supplies most of the state’s winter electricity, as wellheads and pipelines froze. Nor was this merely a matter of the lights going out; people are freezing too, because many Texas homes have electric heat. Many of the homes without electrical heat rely on, yes, natural gas. We’re looking at enormous suffering and, probably, a significant death toll.

So Texas is experiencing a natural disaster made significantly worse by major policy errors — and the officials who made those errors should be held accountable.

Instead of accepting responsibility, however, officials from Gov. Greg Abbott on down, backed by virtually the entire right-wing media complex, have chosen to lay the blame on green energy, especially wind power.

November 29, 2018

Now, it’s true that the state generates a lot of electricity from wind, although it’s a small fraction of the total. But that’s not because Texas — Texas! — is run by environmental crazies. It’s because these days wind turbines are a cost-effective energy sourcewherever there’s a lot of wind, and one thing Texas has is a lot of wind.

It’s also true that extreme cold forced some of the state’s insufficiently winterized wind turbines to shut down, but as I said, this was happening to Texas energy sources across the board, with the worst problems involving natural gas.

Why, then, the all-out effort to falsely place the blame on wind power?

The incentives are obvious. Attacking wind power is a way for both elected officials and free-market ideologues to dodge responsibility for botched deregulation; it’s a way to please fossil fuel interests, which give the vast bulk of their political contributions to Republicans; and since progressives tend to favor renewable energy, it’s a way to own the libs. And it all dovetails with climate change denial.

But why do they think they can get away with such an obvious lie? The answer, surely, is that those peddling the lie know that they’re operating in a post-truth political landscape. When two-thirds of Republicans believe that Antifa was involved in the assault on the Capitol, selling the base a bogus narrative about the Texas electricity disaster is practically child’s play.

And if you’re expecting any change in the policies that helped cause this disaster, don’t count on it — at least as long as Texas remains Republican. Given everything else we’ve seen, the best bet is that demonization of wind power, not a realistic understanding of what actually happened, will rule policy going forward. (New York Times) 

 

Wednesday February 10, 2021

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday February 10, 2021

Rogers, Bell and Telus collected more than $240 million from Canada’s wage-subsidy program — and Bell and Telus raised shareholder payouts

June 18, 2020

Canada’s big three telecom companies have collectively received more than $240 million from the federal government’s wage subsidy program while continuing to pay out billions of dollars in dividends to shareholders.

According to the most recent filings in provincial lobbyist registries, Bell has received $122.9 million, Rogers $82.3 million and Telus $38.6 million in support payments as part of the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS).

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the three companies have continued to pay out regular dividends to shareholders; Bell and Telus have announced increases to their annual payouts. Both Bell and Rogers have also laid off workers at their hard-hit media divisions. 

Other large businesses have also paid out dividends while receiving CEWS support, including numerous companies in the oilpatch, auto-parts maker Linamar and furniture retailer Leon’s. (Torstar, the parent company of the Toronto Star, is among the recipients of the federal wage subsidy.)

April 2, 2020

Economists say the relief payments to large, profitable companies with ample access to credit illustrate problems in the way CEWS is designed, in these cases leading to benefits for shareholders but not necessarily targeted support for workers whose jobs are at risk. One Liberal MP is calling on the government to claw back payments from companies that have paid dividends.

“CEWS is sold as a wage subsidy, but it’s really a business expense subsidy,” said Amin Mawani, associate professor of taxation at the Schulich School of Business at York University.

Mawani has argued that Canada should consider a model where the government pays subsidies only in respect of employees who miss hours of work because of the pandemic. Under the current rules of the Canadian program, businesses with any level of revenue decline are eligible for at least some level of subsidy with respect to all their Canadian employees. 

He said it is understandable that businesses would continue to pay dividends, which he described as a “cost of doing business” akin to paying interest to the bank on loans, but he questioned the need to hike payouts this year. “I don’t think shareholders were necessarily expecting an increase during the pandemic.” (Niagara Falls Review) 

 

Wednesday January 6, 2020

January 6, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Wednesday January 6, 2020

Don’t lump all politicians in with scofflaws

Reading Spectator journalist Katrina Clarke’s report surveying local politicians about their activities over Christmas, you may have been struck first by the fact that one Hamilton-area politician did indeed travel.

Veteran Conservative Flamborough-Glanbrook MP David Sweet acknowledged to his leader’s office that he travelled to the U.S., first on business to deal with a “property issue,” and then later “for leisure.” But Erin O’Toole’s office didn’t know about the “leisure” part. Sweet “resigned” from chairing — of all things — the House of Commons Ethics Committee, the leader’s office reported Monday. And he has said he will not run again in the next federal election. Sweet remains in the U.S. at this point. 

O’Toole had requested, explicitly, that caucus members not take part in international travel over the Christmas holidays, so it’s little wonder Sweet’s career as a Conservative MP was quickly declared dead in the water. It’s an ignominious way to end a 15-year-career in politics. Twitter lit up with reaction, much of it lauding Sweet for his work but even more of it bitterly critical, such as John P. Soleas, who Tweeted: “Why are you still out of the country? You should’ve been flying back yesterday! Your constituents are staying home and abiding by public health guidance. If you can’t stay in the country when it counts why not resign today and relieve yourself of this heavy burden?”

Sweet and other politicians caught up in this angry storm are learning the hard way: This is no minor bit of bad behaviour. Travelling while the rest of Canada is locked down and suffering has tapped a vein of outrage and hurt. Read the letters from Spec readers and others across the country. Read about broken-hearted families who wanted desperately to see each other but couldn’t due to the travel guidelines. Parents of adult children who always see their kids and grandkids at Christmas, but couldn’t this year. People who lost loved ones before or during the pandemic and could not be with relatives for comfort and consolation. People who are used to gathering with families who had to settle for the Zoom equivalent this holiday season.

The collective reaction is not annoyance at the display, yet again, of a double standard between “them” and the rest of us. It’s more like the reaction of people who feel they have been attacked and wounded. Is it entirely reasonable? You can argue either way, but it is what it is. Public reaction on this issue is like a force of nature, and it won’t be dismissed or managed, as so many Canadian politicians have learned.

But here is something else worth considering. For the story mentioned earlier Clarke got responses from something like 20 area politicians, local, provincial and federal. (Several others have yet to respond.) But if they’re all being honest — and they would be very foolish at this point to be anything but forthright — the rest of them spent their holidays season the same way the majority of us did.

They spent Christmas and New Year’s alone, or Zoomed with friends and family. They hosted small outdoor gatherings, masked and distanced. Some had “garage gatherings” which in our view is questionable, but for the most part these elected officials are living with the same public health guidelines we all are.

As we survive this latest pandemic outrage, it is important that we make it entirely clear we expect those elected to represent and serve us to abide by the same rules they levy upon us. And to use common sense. But we should also be careful not to lump all politicians together with those who have abused the public trust. Most are playing by the rules, and the few who are not are paying the price. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial) 

 

Thursday November 19, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Thursday November 19, 2020

The province is dodging the truth on COVID-19 in long-term care

On Monday, Ontario’s long-term-care minister, Merrilee Fullerton, assured Ontarians that in spite of COVID-19 spreading through long-term-care homes, they’re actually doing better than they did in the first wave of this pandemic.

June 17, 2020

Speaking at Queen’s Park, the minister summed up: “There’s no doubt that lessons have been learned from the first wave and the data shows our homes are doing much, much better.”

Really? On Tuesday, 26 of 32 new COVID-19 deaths were in care homes. The province says 678 nursing home residents have the virus. And 100 of the province’s 626 care homes have outbreaks. 

Does that sound like “much, much better” to you? It doesn’t to us, either. And it doesn’t to many health experts. 

Health experts like Dr. Amit Arya of McMaster University, who described the first wave in long-term care as “a horror movie” and who says now: “We really have not done anything close to what we should have done to prepare for the second wave.”

Natalie Mehra, executive director of the Ontario Health Coalition, agrees. She has said in media reports: “It’s devastating … The numbers right now are just exploding.” She also says “we’re shaping up to have a worse second wave.”

Indeed, according to Doris Grinspun, CEO of the Registered Nurses’ Association of Ontario: “The number of residents with COVID is increasing, the number of staff with COVID is increasing and the number of residents who die is increasing. How can anyone sleep well at night with that?”

May 27, 2020

It’s a good question. Notwithstanding Minister Fullerton’s claims to the contrary, it doesn’t seem as if Ontario’s retirement home care system is in a better place than it was during the first wave. It’s clear that the Ford government is concerned and has been trying to put improvements and protections in place, but the reality is that it started too late, and it had repeated warnings during and after the first wave.

The Registered Nurses’ Association, for example, asked the government to make investments in staffing with registered nurses, nurse practitioners, registered practical nurses and personal support workers in homes across Ontario. The government didn’t act. And so when the second wave hit, staffing levels were already at or below operative minimum, and that was before staff began to get sick and be absent. 

The government’s own LTC commission, in its interim report on fixing the system, released a series of recommendations urgently calling for action on things like staffing levels and compensation. Fullerton said her department was “carefully reviewing” the recommendations. 

July 17, 2020

This is all happening at the same time as a Toronto Star investigation revealsprivate LTC operation is such a lucrative business opportunity, private equity funds are being set up to cash in on the potential. That’s not surprising given the shortage of beds that continues to exist and our aging population. 

But keep in mind this is specifically about private, for-profit LTC operations. In Ontario, for-profit homes account for a little more than half of the province’s long-term-care beds. But they also accounted for 70 per cent of COVID deaths in the first wave of the pandemic. According to a Star analysis, so far in the second wave for-profit homes have just under 80 per cent of the deaths.

So if you’re a wealthy investor, there’s money to be made in for-profit long-term care. What is less clear is whether the for-profit model, where the bottom line is always going to competing for the top priority, even over resident care, has a place in the long-term-care system. That the government isn’t even considering that is troubling. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial)

Tuesday October 20, 2020

Editorial Cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday October 20, 2020

Declaration calling for end to lockdowns is about politics, not public health

It’s name — Great Barrington Declaration — seems an attempt to make it sound important, even authoritative. It is neither. Rather, “it’s callous, dangerous nonsense” in the words of American microbiologist and immunologist John Moore.

June 5, 2020

Moore was one of thousands of medical and public health experts reacting to last week’s carefully scripted release of the so-called declaration, which essentially calls for and end to lockdowns and allowing people to be infected by COVID-19, so eventually herd immunity would be realized. The idea is that people most at risk of dying and serious illness would be locked down, and the rest of society would return to “normal,” with people less likely to die being exposed to the virus. 

Herd immunity happens when a significant portion of the population is exposed to a virus, so that it stops spreading because a critical mass of people have become immune to it. 

There are two ways to achieve herd immunity. The first is to administer an effective vaccine. The second, proposed by the three academics behind the declaration, is to basically let the virus run free until enough people become infected.

The first option is what the world’s medical and scientific community is working feverishly at accomplishing. The second is discredited by virtually all credible experts, other than those driven by libertarian ideology, as appears to be the case here. 

August 7, 2020

Consider: Since anyone over 65 is automatically at higher risk of serious outcomes, all those people would need to be locked down. In Canada, that would be about 20 per cent of the population. Try to picture what it would look like if 20 per cent of the population was basically locked away while the virus raged unrestrained in the rest of the population.

Experts say that to achieve herd immunity, 70 per cent of the population would need to be infected. That’s 70 per cent of Canada’s approximately 37.6 million people. That means something like 26 million Canadians would need to be infected in order to achieve herd immunity. To Oct. 15, just under 176,000 Canadians had contracted COVID-19. Even given that many cases have gone unreported, that is an unthinkable rate of disease spread. 

Try to imagine the implications on our health-care system of that many people being infected. It’s true that younger, healthy people generally don’t get as sick as higher risk people, but if only a fraction of those millions became seriously ill, hospitals would be overwhelmed. And imagine how many people would suffer long-term health effects? And how many locked-down at risk people would become sick based on the sheer volume of infected people?

September 24, 2020

All of this is magnified many times in the United States, where the pandemic has been so badly managed and continues to spread disastrously. So perhaps it’s not surprising that this horribly inhumane, destructive approach is popular at the Trump White House. (Britain’s Boris Johnson is also a fan of herd immunity by massive death toll.)

In truth, this declaration has little to do with public health. It’s all about a political viewpoint. It’s a crank, dressed up as in credible clothes. While the authors may be credentialed experts, the work itself is funded by far right conservative interests. The American Institute for Economic Research (AIER), where the declaration was signed, is a libertarian think tank committed to “pure freedom” and wishes to see the “role of government … sharply confined.” So, if this is a crock, why waste time writing about it? Because, it’s a crock carefully disguised to look and feel credible. The world’s science and medical community quickly exposed this attempt, but it won’t be the last, which is why we need to remain on guard. (Hamilton Spectator Editorial)