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The metaphorical road beckons. See you in a bit.
Reflections, Observations, and Analyses Pertaining to the Canadian Political Scene
-Tourists spend $108.1 million an hour in the USA.
-Tourists spend $2.1 trillion in the USA every year, half of which goes to secondary small businesses like bars, restaurants, theaters, and so on.
-All of this generates $147.9 billion in annual tax revenue at the city, state, and federal levels.
-Travel ranks as the seventh largest industry in the USA.
Granted these figures represent domestic travelers as well as international ones. If you just look at international travelers, they still supported 1.1 million jobs and $28.4 billion in wages in 2015 alone. And in a divided America, will we see less internal travel, too? Almost certainly.
Re: Racism at play in criticisms of Don Meredith, senator's lawyer says, March 19
I am fed up with the cry of “racism,” which is being broken out once again by Senator Don Meredith in the affair involving a minor child.
Our disgust has nothing to do with the fact that he is a man of colour. His confession of “moral failing” does not begin to excuse the use of his positions of power and prestige to engage in the grooming and exploitation of a child.
The sexual exploitation of children is one of society's greatest taboos. In our universal rejection, the colour of the perpetrator has nothing to do with our perception of the grievousness of his behaviour or our concern for the probable lasting effect on the victim.
Senator Meredith's actions are those of a man without any moral compass whatsoever. And we as a community must be clear that our rejection of his actions have nothing to do with his colour.
He has crossed a line for which there is no possible excuse. If he has any honour or courage left, he must resign the Senate immediately
Robert Kent, Mississauga
This saga of indecent behaviour by Sen. Meredith has become utterly disgusting. After the Senator's failed attempt to mitigate his situation by blaming the victim, and by claiming that racism is the reason that he is being scrutinized, his (now former) lawyer has brought the situation to greater heights of disbelief.
Selwyn Pieters equates Meredith's sexual involvement with a 17-year-old girl to Senators Wallin and Duffy being investigated for improper use of expense accounts. They were not forced to resign. So he suggests there is racism at play.
Meredith's behaviour was bad enough. His continued attempt to blame everyone and everything else, and his lawyer's ridiculous statements, have reached a pinnacle requiring the Senate to deal with him.
Mike Faye, Toronto
For Senator Meredith to claim racism is rich. He got caught doing something he knew very well he should not have been doing and now that his world is imploding, he is blaming everyone else.
For him to make this whole thing go away would be to resign, and the fact that the Senate cannot force him to do so is sad. He is an embarrassment to everything that he stands for as a father, husband, minister and senator.
The senate has had enough embarrassment in the past year or so with Brazeau, Wallin and Duffy. That we taxpayers do not have a way of getting rid of them is a problem that has to be fixed.
Allan Mantel, Victoria Harbour, Ont.
One thing for certain, If Meredith was a member of the “old white boys country club,” he wouldn't be able to “play the race card.” Anyone, regardless of race, committing such an egregious act, should not only be thrown out of the Senate, but should also should be criminally prosecuted.
Warren Dalton
Disgraced Sen. Don Meredith’s new lawyer says racism doesn’t play into the widespread condemnations of his client’s affair with a teenage girl, after the senator and his previous lawyer claimed he was being treated unfairly in the wake of the sex scandal.While the Senate ethics committee still faces an uphill battle on ejecting him from the Upper Chamber, at least we now have a small victory for truth and a blow to self-serving and morally reprehensible hyperbole.
“It’s not my approach, nor is it my opinion, that there is any racial bias or issue here in relation to the matter, or how the Senate has been dealing with it,” Bill Trudell, a Toronto defence lawyer, said in an interview Thursday.
to attract private sector dollars at a ratio of $4 to $5 in private funding for every $1 of federal money.While that sounds fine on the surface, the question about the returns that will prompt private investors, including institutional ones, to invest in infrastructure projects the bank will help fund needs to be answered. And it is here that things becoming a tad murky.
Ottawa has said it wants to leverage every dollar it puts in its infrastructure bank into $4 of investment, the balance kicked in by private-sector investors. The government thus hopes to fund $140 billion in infrastructure projects with an upfront Ottawa investment of just $35 billion.Sound too good to be true? Perhaps it is:
The catch here is that only infrastructure projects with revenue streams will attract private investment. To be sure, that includes a lot of infrastructure, including toll roads and bridges; alternative-energy suppliers that reap revenues from power consumers; and water and transit systems that earn back their cost of capital through mill rates and Metropasses.One can't help but wonder, like the idea to sell off our airports, this is just another neoliberal ploy, thinly disguised, that will redirect revenue from the public to the private domain.
This study finds that private financing of the proposed Canada Infrastructure Bank could double the cost of infrastructure projects—adding $150 billion or more in additional financing costs on the $140 billion of anticipated investments. It would amount to about $4,000 per Canadian, and about $5 billion more per year (assuming an average 30-year asset life). The higher costs would ultimately mean that less public funding would be available for public services or for additional public infrastructure investments in future years.The full study, which you can obtain here, suggests there is a better way:
There’s no reason the federal government can’t make the Canada Infrastructure Bank a truly Public Infrastructure Bank, with a mandate to provide low-cost loans (or other “innovative financial tools”) for large public infrastructure projects. The federal government already has banks and lending institutions that provide low-cost loans, financing, credit, and loan guarantees for housing, for entrepreneurs and for exporters. So why not also provide low-cost loans and other financing for public infrastructure projects? This bank could be established as a crown corporation with initial capital contributions from the federal government (and perhaps other levels of government) and backed by a federal government guarantee. It could then leverage its assets and borrow directly on financial markets at low rates and then use this capital to invest in new infrastructure projects.And finally, is it simply a coincidence that one of the government's tools for borrowing at ultra-low rates is ending?
This approach would involve a slightly higher cost of financing than direct federal government borrowing, but it would be considerably below the cost of private finance.
The federal government is phasing out the Canada Savings Bond, a popular savings vehicle introduced after The Second World War.Perhaps it is naive of me to suggest, but wouldn't paying a higher rate of return on savings bonds that average citizens can benefit from also be a source of much-needed cash for infrastructure?
The Liberals’ 2017 budget stated the bond program peaked in the late 1980s and has been in a prolonged decline since.
“The program is no longer a cost-effective source of funds for the government, compared to (other) funding options,” the budget document reads.
Re: What it will take to restore my pride, March 17
On behalf of what I would expect to be thousands of like-minded war babies, I want to sincerely thank Cathy Allen for so eloquently presenting the concerns of “we the forgotten” in the lead letter of March 17.
It’s equally nice to be reminded that much of what is right in this nation today began with Pierre Trudeau and “we the young” who believed in him. But as Ms. Allen suggests, our faith is gone.
I honestly believe Pierre Trudeau’s motivation was essentially a commitment he made to himself to do something special with his life. His son talks as if he has a similar commitment, but instead sings it like a tune while doing the beggar’s waltz for the “bigs” and next to nothing for or about indigenous grievances, refugees escaping the U.S., the environment, unemployed youth, election reform, Bill C-51 vs. constitutional rights, a corrupt Senate, child poverty, housing, child care for single moms or the CRA’s reluctance to enforce laws against or even expose or punish wealthy and corrupt citizens, corporations and banks.
Pierre created Petro-Canada to resist Big Oil, while Justin approves pipelines and further development and transportation (through pristine areas) for some of the dirtiest, most destructive oil on Earth, even as the world is running out of clean air and water. Pierre delivered on promises while Justin chose to simply make them long enough to get elected.
Cathy Allen speaks for many in saying we are disappointed. We miss who and what we were and what our nation used to be. It’s still held in esteem by the world — but it seems because the world has gotten worse, not because we got better.
Like Allen says, at least we’re not American. But that’s not nearly good enough for us or Pierre.
I am disappointed with the leniency your editorial treated the senator by asking him to resign. He should be sacked. His resignation should not be accepted.
How could a senator, an ordained pastor and a married father be allowed to get away with this serious offence by allowing him to resign? First, he denied, then he tried to derail the investigation, and when the report was ready he apparently requested two versions: a sanitized report for public consumption, the other for the Senate.
Is our red chamber so rotten?
Muri B. Abdurrahman, Thornhill
When I was 18, I attended Expo 67 and voted for Justin Trudeau’s father. Now that I am a widowed senior and disabled and I can’t afford to pay my rent without my son’s help, I find that I am not as proud as I once was to be a Canadian.
When will I be proud to be a Canadian again?
When we build more geared-to-income housing and repair the ones we have so every Canadian can afford a roof over their heads that costs less than 50 per cent of their income.
When nursing homes are given more than $8 dollars and change for a daily food allowance and residents can have a bath when they want.
When no one in Canada is homeless and living on the street and we can afford to bring the minimum wage and pensions above the poverty line because we’ve closed the loopholes and made the corporations that do business in this country pay their fair share of taxes.
When we restore the environmental laws that protect our rivers and lakes and enforce them.
When we stop trampling on our indigenous peoples’ sacred sites and respect their culture and land rights and pay them the compensation due them so they can build decent housing and hospitals and recreation centres and libraries, or their children can move anywhere they want and no longer feel they are not part of our society.
When working-class women with children under the age of 3 are not forced to work but may, if they wish, because we have an affordable daycare system up and running.
And, finally, when we stop calling waging war “peacekeeping” and no longer ship tanks and guns and instead send aid.
That will be the day I will be proud to be a Canadian again. Right now, all I am is relieved that I am not an American.
"This is a moral failing on my part," a grim-faced Meredith said in a wide-ranging interview, with his wife Michelle quietly at his side. "As a human being, I made a grave error in judgment, in my interactions. For that I am deeply sorry."But neither his public mea culpa nor his refusal to resign are what set me off. It was this:
Meredith, 52, repeatedly apologized to his wife, children, his fellow senators and "all Canadians" for the relationship that took place with the woman known only as Ms. M.
His wife and children have forgiven him, he said, and he asked for the same forgiveness from his Senate colleagues and Ms. M herself.
"I believe in the power of forgiveness and reconciliation," he said as his Toronto lawyer looked on. "We're humans, and humans make mistakes."
The senator said Wednesday he believes he has been the victim of racism since the allegations about his affair first surfaced in the summer of 2015. Where individuals of colour rise, he said, somehow they're taken down — whether it's "self-inflicted or orchestrated."For Meredith to 'play the race card' not only compounds his moral cowardice, but also indirectly impugns all those who have been actual victims of racism. His claim, in my view, demonstrates not only his unfitness to hold public office, but also his ongoing position as executive director of the GTA Faith Alliance.
"Absolutely, racism has played a role in this," Meredith said. "This is nothing new to me. There is always a double standard that exists in this country."
Pieters said his client was being portrayed as a "sexual predator" because he is an imposing black man — but that clearly was not the case.
When Buffalo, New York couple Akram Shibly and Kelly McCormick returned to the U.S. from a trip to Toronto on Jan. 1, 2017, U.S. Customs & Border Protection officers held them for two hours, took their cellphones and demanded their passwords.But the story doesn't end there:
"It just felt like a gross violation of our rights," said Shibly, a 23-year-old filmmaker born and raised in New York. But he and McCormick complied, and their phones were searched.
Three days later, they returned from another trip to Canada and were stopped again by CBP.
"One of the officers calls out to me and says, 'Hey, give me your phone,'" recalled Shibly. "And I said, 'No, because I already went through this.'"
The officer asked a second time..
Within seconds, he was surrounded: one man held his legs, another squeezed his throat from behind. A third reached into his pocket, pulling out his phone. McCormick watched her boyfriend's face turn red as the officer's chokehold tightened.
Then they asked McCormick for her phone.
"I was not about to get tackled," she said. She handed it over.
"While the United States is a frequent destination for Guiding trips, the ability of all our members to equally enter this country is currently uncertain," international commissioner Sharron Callahan and director of provincial operations Holly Thompson wrote in a joint advisory issued Monday afternoon.This decision comes amidst many other groups and Canadian school boards contemplating trip cancellations for the same reason.
"This includes both trips that are over or under 72 hours and any travel that includes a connecting flight through an American airport," the advisory says.
The statement does not directly mention — but appears to be a reaction to — the executive orders U. S. President Donald Trump has signed restricting travel to the United States.
I've known people like Dennis throughout my life. They are often quite good people, but overly earnest in their pursuit of justice and rectitude. There is little in their lives to leaven the oppression that life regularly metes out. They can be a trial for those around them. Indeed, just reading his umbrage tasks me.
Re: Cartoon, March 8
The Star cartoon by Theo Moudakis depicting a plot to assassinate Premier Wynne is obscene and unforgivable. What was the intention here by the Star to its readers?
Showing her cabinet attempting to hide, with knives, suggesting to do away with the premier, is not what you should be preaching to your readers. Truly, there must be another answer on matters of opinion.
Dennis Dineno, Oakville
The budget is expected to signal the government’s interest in finding a way to tap the value of airports with a process, perhaps led by Transport Minister Marc Garneau, to more formally explore selling them off, the Star has learned.That may be good news for a government with a burgeoning deficit, but bad news for the rest of us:
The potential benefit for Ottawa is huge. One study done by the Vancouver airport authority estimated that the federal government could reap between $8.7 billion and $40.1 billion by selling off the country’s eight largest airports, including Toronto’s Pearson International Airport.
Yet the privatization scheme is ringing alarm bells among airlines, airport operators and some municipalities who warn that handing over Canada’s airports to owners with a profit motive sets the stage for rising fees that will force travellers to pay more.The consequences of such a sale will be far-reaching and costly for those who fly:
Vancouver airport has teamed with those in Ottawa and Calgary on a public information campaign to oppose privatization.
“We think it’s a bad idea,” Craig Richmond, the chief executive officer of the Vancouver Airport Authority, told the Star.
“This idea of a one-time payment, that’s like selling the family jewels and then regretting it forever,” he said in an interview.
... the authority concludes that privatization would add “hundreds of millions of extra costs” that would have to be recovered through cost-cutting, increased fees and reduced investment in airport infrastructure.So while the private sector may salivate over the prospect of windfall profits, as is the norm in the neoloiberal vision embraced by people like Trudeau and his fellow travellers, the rest of us, the mere peons in this 'grand' vision, will be left to pay the price.
“It would be too costly for a for-profit buyer to acquire an airport such as YVR without reducing services and passing these costs on to airport users through higher fees and charges,” the report states.
Re: Conservative MP Leitch runs ads on Breitbart site, Feb. 25The soul of a nation is not something to be trifled with, a fact that Kellie Leitch seems wholly incapable of appreciating.
When conservative leadership candidate Kellie Leitch runs ads on the U.S. Breitbart News website, it is time to screen Leitch for her “Canadian values.”
The ultra-conservative and white supremacist views expressed and promoted by the Breitbart News organization bear no relation to and are not synonymous with “Canadian values.” Since “Canadian values” is what Leitch is claiming to protect, it is only fair — and possibly urgent — that her views be scrutinized, i.e. “screened.”
Peter Krysmanski, Oakville
I am so disgusted to see that Kellie Leitch has bought advertising on Breitbart News. What Canadian values does that organization represent? Absolutely none.
The alt-right is not my Canada and obviously does not represent the majority of Canadians given support for Justin Trudeau. Kellie has no place in my Canada.
Tom Byers, Cambridge, Ont.
Claudia Koonz, a historian at Duke University, wrote a book about how the Nazis prepared Germans to accept genocide.Even though crime statistics show that illegal immigrants are less likely to engage in crime than legal residents, both the inflammatory rhetoric favoured by Trump and the above decisions serve to effectively demonize 'the other' and essentially institutionalize the Orange Ogre's racism.
One of their tactics was portraying average Jews, who were overwhelmingly law-abiding, as a menace to society. In the 1930s, for example, a Nazi newspaper published a weekly list of Jews’ alleged crimes.
In January, U.S. President Donald Trump ordered his government to publish a weekly list of crimes committed by illegal immigrants, who are overwhelmingly law-abiding, in most of the country’s biggest cities.
Trump’s order also established a government office solely dedicated to helping victims of crimes committed by undocumented people. On Tuesday, he promoted the office — VOICE, for Victims Of Immigration Crime Engagement — in a prime-time address to Congress.
“The function of this program will be, one, to further scapegoat immigrants and portray them as deadly threats, and, two, to use the perception of threat to rally and rile the ‘base’ for political gain, relying now the power and prestige of the presidency."And as reported by The independent, the publication of a weekly list of crimes by 'aliens' echoes a prominent feature of Breitbart News, which has a section called
"black crime" ... which publishe[s] a list of offences committed by African-Americans.Given the increasing incidents of hate crimes, including what appears to be the racially-motivated shooting last week in Kansas, I think we can all see where this is going. The question is, are there enough people of goodwill, both inside and outside of politics, to fight this rapidly escalating madness?