March 22, 2021 - Loonie Politics

Monday’s decision to

— and lifting some COVID-19 restrictions — was a tricky one for the UCP. It seems to violate the government’s own guideline.

When COVID hospitalizations drop below 300, the guideline says, Alberta can ease restrictions on movie theatres, auditoriums, art galleries, places of worship and more.

Actually, hospitalizations are now below 300. The count was 280 on Monday.

But there’s another, lesser-known part of this guideline to consider. Before moving to the next step, hospitalizations must also be declining.

That’s been in the reopening rules since they were first introduced.

Specifically, the guideline says: “Once hospitalizations are in the range of the benchmark and declining, decisions to move to the next step will be considered.”

“Range” and “declining” are the key words. The government gave itself room to apply the guideline sensibly.

Hospitalizations have steadily increased since the COVID-19 variants started to hit. They climbed for seven days straight.

Then came a slight drop of two hospitalizations on Monday. But AHS still expects the total to top 300 within the next week.

And so, the cabinet committee that rules on these things decided not to further reopen, with no target date for when restrictions would further be eased.

This was surely a painful decision. Many UCP MLAs are eager to get rid of restrictions as soon as possible. The ruling will also devastate some business owners who were counting on the move to the next phase of reopening.

But delaying this phase was definitely the only rational call.

Referring to the likelihood that hospitalizations will climb, Health Minister Tyler Shandro said, “It would be irresponsible and unfair to Albertans to ease measures only to reinstate them.”

More openings at this point would invite a further surge of the COVID-19 variants. That would be a foolish gamble just as vaccines are starting to take hold.

Premier Jason Kenney made that point in the legislature Monday — hang on just a bit longer, put up with restrictions for a while yet, and we may truly have this monster under control.

It has become a weird existential race — the vaccine versus the virus, both struggling in their insensate ways to control the future.

But there are clear signs that the vaccination can prevail.

Infections in congregate care settings are way down. Fewer people are dying.

Although five deaths were recorded on Monday, on one recent day there wasn’t a single death.

As infections and deaths decline among older vaccinated people, the proportion of afflicted younger people swells. Almost 90 per cent of those currently in intensive care units are younger than 65.

But the vaccine is already becoming available to the younger age groups. Chief medical officer of health Dr. Deena Hinshaw said: “In a few months, with widespread vaccination, we will be in a very different place.”

She also warned, “If the variant gets out of control, the vaccine can’t catch up.”

Her description of how the highly infectious variant behaves is alarming. Once it latches onto a person, it can just launch into one victim after another.

And the prime source of spread is people who, fatigued by it all, are simply a bit less careful than they were.

As usual, Shandro spent a good deal of time railing at Ottawa for failing to provide enough vaccine.

In the legislature, the NDP flailed away at UCP efforts, even though the government had already decided not to extend reopening, which is exactly what the Opposition wanted.

And of course, Kenney and Shandro snapped back.

There is no longer any political consensus on COVID-19. The whole we’re-in-it-together thing has collapsed.

The truth is that for several months now, we’ve been in it apart. That’s demoralizing and divisive. Increasingly, people hate it.

Keep your eye on the enemy, political people. It’s the virus, not the humans opposite.

Don Braid's column appears regularly in the Herald

dbraid@postmedia.com

Twitter:

@DonBraid

Facebook:

Don Braid Politics

Click here for more

Members of Calgary’s Muslim community are calling on local politicians and police to increase efforts to ensure the safety of racialized and religiously diverse residents

after a girl was beaten and her hijab torn

while walking in Prince’s Island Park on Sunday.

The attack happened around 1:30 p.m. when two girls, both under the age of 16, were walking along the pathway in the park. Calgary police said a woman approached them and became confrontational, prompting them to begin walking away.

The suspect followed the girls and yelled racial slurs, before pushing one of them, tearing her hijab, punching her face and kicking her stomach.

Two men believed to have been with the suspect at the park came to stop the attack. Both victims fled the area and called 911. A “Good Samaritan” helped them until police arrived.

Officers found the suspect with the assistance of a police helicopter and arrested her. Bridgette Severite, 28, was charged with common assault, mischief and causing a public disturbance.

“The whole community is horrified,” said activist Saima Jamal, who is co-founder of the Calgary Immigrant Support Society.

“Islamophobic attacks, on women especially, is nothing new. It’s been going on for a long time. What’s new now is the level of violence that the attacks carry. Before it would be racial slurs or they might spit on you or say something very offensive. This is full-blown assault.”

Det. Craig Collins, hate crimes co-ordinator for the Calgary Police Service, said the two victims are related, but that only one was targeted by the suspect. Collins said his investigation revealed Severite was allegedly motivated by the targeted victim’s Muslim faith.

He said Severite used certain words during the alleged assault which will form part of the prosecution’s case. But Collins declined to specify what words were uttered.

“They are both very brave young ladies and what they experienced (Sunday), they shouldn’t have experienced,” he said.

Speaking to media on Monday afternoon, Collins also declined to answer whether Severite was known to police prior to her charges.

“I don’t think there’s any relevance in that question,” he said. “I’m not going to prejudice a very complex investigation.”

On Monday, Alberta Justice Minister Kaycee Madu condemned the attack, stating on Twitter that “the promise of our province is to protect all who call our province home, to ensure everyone is treated with respect and human dignity.”

“Those who seek to violently discriminate against our vulnerable populations will face the full weight of Alberta’s justice system,” Madu tweeted. The statement was shared by Premier Jason Kenney, who did not issue a public statement of his own.

The promise of our province is to protect all who call our province home, to ensure everyone is treated with respect and human dignity. Those who seek to violently discriminate against our vulnerable populations will face the full weight of Alberta’s justice system.

â€” Kaycee Madu (@KayceeMaduYEG) March 22, 2021

Mayor Naheed Nenshi said he wants all racialized Calgarians to know “you live in a community of love.” He said all Calgarians should reach out to friends and family members who come from diverse backgrounds to let them know they belong.

“This is a horrifying story,” Nenshi said.

“We’ve let this kind of unacceptable behaviour, this racism and this hatred, go on for far too long. While we have a lot of work to do to attack the issue of systemic and institutional racism, certainly we should be able to make sure that people can feel safe walking down the street or taking the CTrain without being harassed about their race or their religion.”

Dr. Mukarram Zaidi of the Calgary-based Canadian Muslim Research Think Tank said “actions speak louder than words.”

“Condemnation does not do anything. There are organizations in Calgary, right-wing extremist groups, whose intentions are to kill all Muslims and destroy all mosques. Everybody knows about those groups but they’re still able to operate. These groups should be called out and declared terrorist organizations,” Zaidi said.

“I just spoke to a young girl today and she was like, ‘we are not safe anywhere.’ That’s how a young, 19-year-old girl feels.”

Sunday’s incident followed

six hate-motivated attacks

investigated by Edmonton police targeting Black Muslim women since December.

Collins said the Calgary incident was “categorically” separate from protests against pandemic public health rules on Saturday. Officers spotted “offensive messages of intolerance and disrespect” at that rally, which has become a weekly ritual for anti-mask demonstrators who also oppose gathering restrictions aimed to curb spread of the deadly COVID-19 virus.

Despite police presence at those rallies, Collins said the service hasn’t investigated potential hate crimes associated with those events. He said police won’t investigate “until we actually receive a formal complaint” in writing.

Please see our full statement in relation to protests this weekend. As a Service we strongly condemn racism and hate. In addition to speaking out against specific examples, we are committed to ensuring we work every single day to #FightRacism. pic.twitter.com/gZUVq3m9XV

â€” Calgary Police (@CalgaryPolice) March 22, 2021

“To my knowledge … nobody has come forward to the police service and provided a formal statement of evidence of any offence that they suspect has connected to those rallies,” said Collins.

He added CPS “faces a really difficult challenge” in balancing constitutionally protected rights with promoting the law.

“Public opinion is not a basis for a police investigation to start,” he said. “It has to start with somebody coming forward.”

Hate crimes targeting Muslim Calgarians have been on the rise in recent years, according to Calgary police data.

Police investigated a total of eight hate-motivated incidents targeting Muslims from 2012 to 2014. There was an average of 7.4 hate-motivated incidents per year against members of the Muslim community in the following five years, including 10 investigations in 2019.

Fouzia Usman, who serves on the Calgary police anti-racism action committee, said Sunday’s incident shows “we have a long way to go.” She said anti-racism work “needs to continue on a more rigorous level” and that non-racialized people need to be “actively anti-racist.”

“Systemic barriers that are currently in place need to be dismantled for racialized people to feel safe within their community,” said Usman, an equity, diversity, and inclusion educational consultant at the University of Calgary.

“As a city, we have made great strides where now the voices of racialized people are being recognized and incorporated as part of this change. But while the marginalized voices are being given a seat at the table, they also need to be listened to and their recommendations need to be acted upon. This is what an inclusive process entails.”

Jamal said Calgary is a welcoming city.

“But when these sort of incidents happen, it just kills the spirit of everyone,” she said. “We need the greater Calgary community to stand by us and show us support.”

â€” With files from Stephanie Babych and Madeline Smith

shudes@postmedia.com

Twitter:

@SammyHudes

Click here for more

Ed Broadbent is the Chair of the Broadbent Institute and author of the Broadbent Principles for Canadian Social Democracy

As the world struggles back to its feet after the deadly COVID pandemic, there are lessons to be learnedâ€”and inspiration to be derivedâ€”from our past.

In the wake of the Great Depression, people and their governments began to put in place the social systems that support our quality of life to this day. In Canada, and around the world, it was a relatively new political movementâ€”social democracyâ€”that led this charge. In the U.K. and Canada, public health care was established. In the U.S., Roosevelt's New Deal constructed badly needed infrastructure, produced millions of jobs, and established the right of workers to a trade union.

In the same way that previous generations built a better world coming out of the devastation of the 1930s, we now have an opportunity to create a country that works for all Canadians.

The crises we faceâ€”whether unequal economic outcomes, racism and discrimination, climate change and environmental degradation, and declining democratic participationâ€”require for their resolution an activist public sector and a strong civil society. While working with a market-based economy we must avoid a market-shaped society.

In thinking through the critical and complicated work ahead, Canadian social democracy should adhere to the following six principles for ongoing action:

Furthering economic and social rights in addition to political rights.

Social democrats believe that people's rights are not confined to the traditional, though critically important, civil and political rights but also encompass being able to live a life of dignity, a life free from poverty and with access to essential services. It is for this reason that Canadian social democrats have always been at the forefront of expanding rights to include social and economic rights. We have led the struggle for comprehensive health care as a right, with the latest iteration of this multi-generation fight being the campaign for universal Pharmacare.

Creating a green economy that leaves nobody behind.

Climate change is an existential crisis. As the world's economy decarbonizes over the next few decades social democrats must ensure that this process results in good new jobs, and that those in polluting industries receive a "just transition."

The transformative potential of electing social democratic governments responsive to robust social movements.

Lasting societal change can only come about through harnessing the creativity and power of social movements and ensuring progressives are elected so that they can govern for the common good. Social democrats, therefore, work tirelessly for change in and outside of election periods.

Workplace democracy including the right to a trade union and the fundamental role of the labour movement.

The trade union movement is one of the few democratic forces with the heft to push back against the excesses of capital. As such, unions are good for our entire society not just for their members. As workplaces change it is more critical than ever that workers have access to basic necessities like paid sick days to make possible a life of dignity. Social democrats should also make room for other forms of economic democracy such as cooperatives.

The dismantling of structural systems of oppression.

We need to actively dismantle historic and ongoing structural barriersâ€”including but not limited to racism and sexismâ€”that prevent people from having a life of dignity and realizing their full rights. The rise of right-wing populism, and its attendant bigotry, has made the moral case for stamping out white supremacy clearer than ever. The need to address the persistent wage gap and undervaluing of care work and other gendered work was emphasized by the pandemic.

Fully implementing the rights and title of Indigenous peoples and supporting their goal of achieving self-governance.

Canadian social democrats proudly stood in partnership with Indigenous leadership to insist on the inclusion of s. 35 in the Canadian Constitution Act, to recognize and affirm the inherent and comprehensive rights of First Nations, Inuit and MÃ©tis people in this country, including Aboriginal rights, treaty rights, charter rights and human rights. With Canada and some provinces now moving to enshrine the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in law, this is the decade to resolve underfunding of essential services and to finally make good on repeated failed promises.

For over a century, social democracy has aspired to create a better life for all. We have made some progress, but much remains to be done and COVID has clarified the challenge before us. Do we recreate a status quo that left too many people behind, or do we repair the holes in our society that the pandemic has so clearly revealed? We know what the answer must be.

The post The world needs social democracy now, more than ever appeared first on Macleans.ca.

Click here for more

Generally-speaking, when it comes to public affairs, the media tends to focus on what I like to call the "politics of politics."

That's to say, journalists who cover politics love to speculate endlessly on "gossipy" stuff like, who's behind who in the polls, and who's endorsing whom and who's trying to stab who in the back and who is raising money and who isn't.

As a matter of fact, you can see this sort of reporting happening right now with Conservative Party leader Erin O'Toole.

Headlines such as "O'Toole's pitch to get Conservatives to embrace 'change' may be off to a shaky start" and "How Erin O'Toole allegedly sidelined Peter MacKay's plan to run in next election" and "Conservative Party initiates proceedings to dissolve Sloan's riding association" have been splashed across social media.

Why does the media like this sort of stuff?

Well, for one thing, it's a lot more fun and interesting to write about, say, the Conservative Party's internal divisions, than it is to report about O'Toole's latest proposals on infrastructure spending reform.

But more importantly, you need to keep in mind that, above all else, the media likes to create narratives.

After all, at their heart, most journalists are storytellers, they like to spin good yarns.

In the case of O'Toole, for instance, since the polls say he's scuffling a bit and apparently not catching on with Canadians, the media feels it has to come up with an interesting narrative to explain why this is so.

Hence, they focus on the "politics of politics", and spend much time and effort exposing internal Conservative Party conflicts and emphasizing personal feuds and dissecting the party's communications strategy.

For the media, all this sort of backroom stuff is endlessly fascinating.

Yet, for most people, who live outside the Ottawa bubble and who don't dwell within the media's echo chamber, much of this sort of reporting is meaningless.

Indeed, when it comes to political news, you have to assume, as a political consultant friend of mine used to say, that "nobody knows anything about anything."

That's because a huge chunk of the voting population doesn't even follow political news; they don't watch public affairs programs or read political columns or follow media personalities on Twitter.

Such people are likely not concerned too much about O'Toole's standing in the polls or about his relationship with Peter MacKay or about his battles with Derek Sloan.

Heck, a lot of them probably couldn't even pick O'Toole out of a line up.

The fact is, and this is something the media never truly understands, the number of people who actively and intensely follow political news is actually pretty tiny.

So, what does this mean if you want to make a career in politics?

Well, first off, it means if the media is chattering about some negative aspect regarding you or your client, and it's just "politics of politics" stuff, don't overreact, don't panic.

Odds are, ten miles outside of Ottawa, nobody really cares about it.

Also, if you want to catch the media's attention, don't release a 500-page report detailing your planned foreign policy initiatives, as that'll end up on page 75.

Instead, if you want front page material, pitch something to the media that's "politics of politics."

In other words, release a poll or pick a fight or brag about your fundraising prowess or make an endorsement.

In short, find a place for yourself in the media's narrative.

My point is, since you can't change the rules, understand the media's game and learn how to play it.

Photo Credit: CBC News

The views, opinions and positions expressed by columnists and contributors are the author’s alone. They do not inherently or expressly reflect the views, opinions and/or positions of our publication.

Click here for more

The Prime Minister of Canada has abandoned victims of gun violence and their families. Don't take my word for it: just listen to the survivors and relatives of the women killed in the December 6, 1989 Ã‰cole Polytechnique massacre.

Over the years, Trudeau has been an assiduous participant in the December 6 ceremonies to commemorate the 14 women who were killed for being women. He won't be welcome no more. They've had enough of the political theatre.

"Let him not come and cry his crocodile tears by my side anymore, then do his political play to try to get votes", said Jean-FranÃ§ois LarivÃ©e, widower of Maryse LaganiÃ¨re, killed at Polytechnique.

Their families and the survivors are not parsing their words. Suzanne Laplante-Edward, whose daughter Anne-Marie was also among the victims, was crystal clear: "If Trudeau goes ahead with C-21, he will be a traitor to the cause of gun control, a traitor to me and my family, and a traitor to the memory of my daughter and her 13 classmates," she said.

Bill C-21 is the political marketing tool used by Justin Trudeau to pretend he is actually doing something about guns and gun violence. It is weak legislation that doesn't deliver on the hype created by the Trudeau Liberals about gun control. The crux of the issue is that the buy-back program for the identified assault weapons is not mandatory. And if it is not mandatory, it means these guns will remain out there and could be used to kill.

That is a non-starter for Trudeau's former allies. By allowing owners of more than 1,500 military-style firearms to keep their guns, Trudeau is betraying those who believed in his pledge to ban these guns outright.

The notion peddled by the government that C-21 will be effective because the owners of these weapons will be prohibited from using them in shooting ranges, bequeathing or selling them, acquiring or importing them is laughable. Why would that stop anyone motivated to commit a rampage if they still own that weapon? Despite the slogans, no one is safer thanks to C-21.

The coalition PolyRemembers, made up of students and graduates of Polytechnique for gun control, published an open letter from families and survivors on Thursday: "If this bill is not radically changed, if the buyback program is not made mandatory, if a simple decision by a future government can overturn the assault weapons ban, we lose the battle, and we lose faith in you and your government," the letter says.

"If you carry on with this bill, we will never again accept to have you by our side as we mourn the death of our daughters, our sisters, our friends, during annual commemorations." On Friday, Trudeau appeared to be shaken by the virulence of the outburst and said that his government was open to improve the legislation, yet he remained convinced "that the approach we have advocated is the right one ".

That won't be good enough. Unless Trudeau goes all in, it is doubtful that he'll be forgiven. These activists, who have lived first hand the drama of a mass shooting, feel used. The 2019 election promise to ban assault weapons, followed by the freeze on the assault weapons market last spring, gave them hope: "Finally, the Ruger mini-14 used by the Polytechnique killer as well as all military style semi-automatic weapons will be banned from Canada, once and for all!" they wrote.

They believed Trudeau and his "Sunny Ways". They bought his discourse against gun violence. They believed him when he said he would act. And after 31 years of fighting for stricter gun laws, for tougher controls, for real protection against gun violence, bill C-21 made them realize that the fight was far from over.

Photo Credit: CTV News