And Now, A Word From Kermit

H/t Greg Perry

Still not convinced? Perhaps these letter-writers can help:

Local governments all over the world are declaring a climate emergency, so stop using the neutral term “climate change” in your coverage. There’s nothing neutral about the looming disaster for our “life support system” (aka the environment). Let’s call it “climate breakdown” or “climate chaos.”

It’s not balmy “global warming,” it’s “critical planet overheating.” The oil and gas industry once successfully lobbied the media to call their nasty tarsands project the cleaner-sounding “oilsands.” Clearly, words matter. The emotional urgency of these words matter. Our future is at stake.

Pike Krpan, Hamilton

There are so many ways in which we need to fight the environmental injustice of climate change, but at every turn, governments in Canada are moving backward on the existential issue of our time.

Bill C-69 is one way to counteract the wave of retreats in the battle against climate change and other potential environmental damage. The fossil fuel industry is well aware that it stands to lose economically from this bill and they have mounted a misinformation campaign aimed at convincing the Senate to water it down or delay it until the federal election.

Canadians expect our governments to act to protect our rights, including Indigenous rights, and to act in the best interests of citizens and residents, not multinational corporations. The Senate needs to do their job and pass this bill, which has already been three years in the making.

Amy Scott, Toronto

Tom Scanlan, Toronto

Rob Strang, Orangeville

Does This Make Me A National Security Risk?

I think this is worth the risk:

via GIPHY

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

But after reading Michael Coren's article and then watching the Mrs. Betty Bowers video, I think you will agree, it is all for the best.



For some context, Michael Coren writes about Franklin Graham, son of the late Billy Graham:

Franklin is president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association and the charity Samaritan’s Purse. For the latter position he is paid $1 million a year. He enjoys enormous support in the conservative Christian world, with more than 5 million Facebook followers, and has many supporters in Canada.

In response to the 2020 presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, who describes himself as a gay Christian, Franklin engaged in his favourite jihad, the one aimed at such 'sinners.'

"As a Christian I believe the Bible which defines homosexuality as sin, something to be repentant of, not something to be flaunted, praised or politicized.”

He continued, “The Bible says marriage is between a man and a woman — not two men, not two women,” and “the core of the Christian faith is believing and following Jesus Christ, who God sent to be the Savior of the world — to save us from sin, to save us from hell, to save us from eternal damnation.”

Some may be forgiven for thinking the good reverend has an unwholesome preoccupation with the sexual practices of others. In the past, he has argued

... that LGBTQ people be barred from churches because Satan “wants to devour our homes.” He also roared that the election of Donald Trump was due to the “hand of God,” has lauded Vladimir Putin for “protecting Russian young people against homosexual propaganda,” and condemned Planned Parenthood as being “Hitleristic.”

If you have the time, please read the entire article, as Coren goes on to write how the Bible has almost nothing to say about same-sex relationships, and the few references there are must be understood in their proper contexts.

And now, for your viewing pleasure and edification, I give you Mrs. Betty Bowers:

According to Facebook, this video reached over 1,500,000 people. I feel almost Russian. pic.twitter.com/ztw2JhpnFf

— Mrs. Betty Bowers (@BettyBowers) April 29, 2019

Speaking of Doug Ford And His Ilk ....

H/t Patrick Corrigan

Paul Rapoport of Ancaster, Ontario, has some advice well worth the consideration of Canada's Conservative premiers:

Keep your Enemies List current. Cut their funding. If you want to remove 50 per cent, make it 100 per cent. In three years, give back 10 per cent and you’ll be ahead and hailed as a hero.

Meanwhile, when you’ve created crises in those enemy sectors, blame them for the bad results.

Go after environmental groups, to keep the big polluters’ donations flowing. Fire anyone who uses the words “climate change.”

Take away women’s rights, because women are smarter than you and must be controlled.

Remember to cut education, because well-educated people tend not to vote for you, and others will more likely believe your spin.

Doctors and nurses are well educated, so cut health care.

What you can’t cut, privatize for your richest cronies. They need more money and power.

If your capital city has called you incompetent, with years of evidence, take over or ruin it.

That’s good for business and “for the people.”

And, given that it is Sunday and you may be in the mood for a parable, letter writer Maurice Sacco of Toronto offers this lesson:

Have we created a new nursery rhyme character complete with a story and moral?

The story of a young man, the Sign Maker’s son, who grew up in a life of unchallenged privilege. He dreamt of one day becoming a king who would ride the subway anywhere in his kingdom and his people stood and applauded him each time he opened his mouth to speak.

He would shower them in beer and they would truly love him. The boy grew to inherit the sign-maker’s business and sold it for a chance to be king.

The people rejoiced at his coronation and sung his praise as cheap beer was now made available throughout the kingdom at every shop at every corner at every hour.

Once crowned, he decided the kingdom’s treasury of health care, education and environmental protection was of little value and traded them for more cheap beer, subways and vanity plates for all in the kingdom to enjoy.

With time, the subways became too expensive to maintain and fell into disrepair, the cheap beer lost its flavour and caused many to become sick and weak and the vanity plates no longer drew attention from anyone.

People became sick and the kingdom was devastated by storms and famine.

Without education the people didn’t know how to change things back to the way they were before. The kingdom fell to ruins.

The king became disappointed with his sick and weak-minded people and eventually abandoned them to return to his sign-making business.

The moral of the story – you get what you vote for.

Who Is Really Running The Show In Ontario?

There is little question in my mind that in the depths of his shallow soul, Doug Ford, like his philosophical father Mike Harris, believes that government 'interference' is what makes the lives of people difficult. Indeed, that could help explain the following remarkable exchange, posted by Daniel Enright on Twitter. As you will see, it appears that within his own government, Ford seems to have contracted out his policy-making. That, of course, begs the question, "Who is really running the show in Ontario?"

Please forgive the duplication of each preceding message, as that is what the Twitter embed codes gave me.

2/ He said he was still at work and that’s why he was getting back to me so late. He said he had been making calls all night and seemed to think I was worried about teachers....(i am, but not why I texted).

— Daniel Enright (@Thisisupcountry) April 26, 2019

3/ He started telling me how great a job “99.99% of the teachers do.” He said there would be an announcement tomorrow (Friday) that would clarify things and he further said that no teachers would lose their jobs.

— Daniel Enright (@Thisisupcountry) April 26, 2019

4/ I informed him that my friend wasn’t a teacher and that she worked in autism service. He told me he “never promises anything 100%” but that he would try and make sure she got a job. I said that the governments cuts feel wide and deep and I asked if things were really that bad.

— Daniel Enright (@Thisisupcountry) April 26, 2019

5/ He told me he was going through the budget line by line. That he’s investing more money here and there and that he’s cutting responsibly (!!) and that it could have been much worse (thanks I guess?) I asked about our social safety net. He changed the subject to the media:

— Daniel Enright (@Thisisupcountry) April 26, 2019

6/ he said that the Toronto Sun gives him shit for not cutting enough, and the Star for cutting too much. I asked about his cuts, like today’s story about cancelling the planting of 50 million trees.... and here’s where it gets strange..... He had no idea. He just like, told me.

— Daniel Enright (@Thisisupcountry) April 26, 2019

7/ The Premier of Ontario told me he saw that story about the trees and called his office to find out what that was all about. He said “my people told me” the best stewards of the environment are the Forestry industry, and they already have 60 million trees scheduled for planting

— Daniel Enright (@Thisisupcountry) April 26, 2019

8/ he had no idea it was happening. Or that people were talking about it. It was the same thing when I asked about cuts to legal aid, “what I was told was that there were less cases, and more lawyers taking fees.” I asked where that # came from, he told me “it’s what i was told”

— Daniel Enright (@Thisisupcountry) April 26, 2019

9/ I asked about saving legal aid as way to save money on the back end by investing in the front end. He said he would be happy to discuss the facts at another time. He didn’t have them at hand. We finally returned to the issue of my friend’s lay off:

— Daniel Enright (@Thisisupcountry) April 26, 2019

10/he asked my name again and what part of town she worked in (?) I told him. He said he would help.... and here’s what he suggests: send a resume to premier@ontario.ca

and this is the insane payoff for Ford Inc.....

— Daniel Enright (@Thisisupcountry) April 26, 2019

11/ Ford inc. picks up votes one at a time. They won’t make sure everyone has a job, or that everyone gets their sidewalk shovelled, they’ll make cuts and handle people who complain one at a time. And it works.
They vote Ford....he fixed a railing, he installed a speed bump.....

— Daniel Enright (@Thisisupcountry) April 26, 2019

12/ when I raised a question on the Conservatives, I couldn’t believe how much effort he put into to distensing himself from “political parties.”
“The people vote for me and they voted for Rob. That’s who we work for.”
He said we’d stay in touch.....

You should call him up

— Daniel Enright (@Thisisupcountry) April 26, 2019

13/ to be clear, I have no idea how or who is running this province. I spoke to a man who didn’t seem to have a grasp of the facts, the effects of his cuts, or how hollow his words sound. I wish I had the energy to keep talking. But it’s all so defeating. Maybe next time.....

— Daniel Enright (@Thisisupcountry) April 26, 2019

The Unkindest Cut Of All

Devolution. Debasement. Depraved Indifference. Apply whatever term you like, but the cuts coming furiously from the Ford government in Ontario surely bespeak a state that no ruling body, and by extension, its citizens, should promote or countenance.

While I hesitate to speculate on what pathology drives Doug Ford to dismantle programs that benefit our vulnerable planet and the people who live on it, it is interesting that many of the cuts target initiatives of the preceding Liberal government. Perhaps the unkindest cut of all is axing our tree-planting program, one that is needed now more than ever:

Rob Keen, CEO of Forests Ontario, said since 2008 more than 27 million trees have been planted across Ontario through the program, which saved landowners up to 90 per cent of the costs of large-scale tree planting.

It was started as a carbon sequestration program, Keen said, but planting that many trees also helps clean the air and water, protect shorelines and reduce erosion.

Meanwhile, as floods ravage Ontario and Quebec, the Ontario government has cut funding for flood management by 50%.

Ontario conservation authorities say the provincial government has cut their funding for flood management programs in half.

Conservation Ontario, which represents the province's 36 conservation authorities, said impacts of the cuts will be felt immediately, particularly in smaller and more rural areas.

"Cutting natural hazards funding is particularly problematic right now in light of the fact that — like everywhere else — Ontario is experiencing stronger and more frequent flood events as a result of climate change impacts," general manager Kim Gavine said in a statement.

"Using a watershed-based approach, conservation authorities deliver effective and cost efficient flood management programs across the province, partnering for many years with the province, municipalities and others."

This morning, I was trying to think of the right word to describe how I feel about what is happening in my home province, and I am still searching. Heartsick, apoplectic, outraged, none of these words seem adequate in light of the ravages being wrought by this renegade and his many enablers, a.k.a P.C. MPPs and Ford Nation.

Thomas Jefferson said, “The government you elect is the government you deserve.” If the citizens of Ontario sit passively by and allow this marauder to continue with his dangerous, short-sighted dismissal of the things that make life bearable, they need only take a daily look in the mirror to affix blame.

Trouble In The Principal's Office

H/t Theo Moudakis

If This Doesn't Enrage You

... check for a pulse.



Most people, I think, understand that proper taxation is essential to a viable society. All they ask is that the burden be shared equitably.

However, the CRA does not appear to share that philosophy of fairness, if the following is any indication:

Sometime in the first six months of 2018, the agency wrote off more than $133 million in taxes owed by one taxpayer. It's not clear whether the recipient of the writeoff was a person or a corporation.

The amount was for unspecified excise taxes or excise duties; the CRA has offered no further details.

The massive writeoff is cited in a Sept. 14, 2018 internal CRA memo to explain a big jump in the total tax dollars declared uncollectible, compared with the total for the same period a year previous.

"The above total amount submitted for writeoff represents an increase of $209M in comparison to the first submission of the 2017-2018 fiscal year," says the memo, obtained by CBC News under the Access to Information Act.

"The increase is attributable to a few large writeoffs, including one for $133M."

The federal government applies excise taxes on fuel-inefficient vehicles, automobile air conditioners and some petroleum products.

Despite the fact that this writeoff is tantamount to a subsidy the rest of us must bear, the CRA will not identify the offending entity, citing confidentiality provisions under the law. Apparently, however, this is not an isolated incident.

The Canada Revenue Agency in 2017-18 wrote off $2.7 billion in taxes owed. That's the largest single-year sum written off by the CRA since the $2.8 billion it abandoned in both 2014-15 and 2013-14.

The agency says that writing off a tax debt does not relieve a taxpayer of the obligation to pay — but it does mean no legal action will be taken unless the taxpayer's situation improves.

Only the very naive would believe that the CRA operates independently of government direction. One has only to recall how Stephen Harper sicced the agency on non-profits whose activities challenged his policies.

Now, all of Justin Trudeau's stout defenders need to start asking some hard questions about their man. His sympathies clearly lie with the corporate agenda, and he has a habit of going to extraordinary measures, both covertly and overtly, to meet his masters' needs. One need only look to the SNC-Lavalin affair to appreciate that sad fact.

For further evidence, consider that since the release of the Panama Papers, $1.2 billion in fines and unpaid taxes have been collected worldwide, while the CRA has revealed it should recoup more than $11 million in federal taxes and fines from 116 audits. In other words, a mere pittance compared to countries like the United Kingdom (more than $252 million), France ($136 million), and Australia (more than $92 million). Even tiny Belgium puts Canada to shame (over $18 million).

The critical thinker must ask why Canada lags so egregiously behind. Some of those thinkers may very well see a pattern of our government running interference for some very powerful interests, as Trudeau apparently did in accepting the word of Edgar Bronfman, a Liberal fundraiser, when the latter stated he never funded nor used offshore trusts. This, despite the fact that an investigation linked him to a $60-million US offshore trust in the Cayman Islands that may have cost Canadians millions in unpaid taxes.



I could go on, but I trust I have provided enough food for thought here.

The play Hamlet states that something is rotten in the state of Denmark. It would seem that Scandinavian country now has ample company in Canada.

Your Monday Morning Thought

So glad that we have our heads screwed on straight.



H/t Greg Perry

Can You Imagine Canadians Doing This?

I can't. I suspect our country would see more turning out to protest the carbon tax than to save the planet from extinction.

“It’s growing at an amazing rate. I think the Attenborough documentary [Climate Change-The Facts] [and Our Planet] lit a fire in people’s bellies,” said one of the activists, who gave only the name Archer. “They are not just the usual dirty hippies either. There are doctors, architects, and the ethnic diversity is getting wider.”

[Emma]Thompson said her generation had failed young people: “We have seriously failed them and our planet is in serious trouble. We have much, much less time than we thought. I have seen the evidence for myself and I really care about my children and grandchildren enough to want to be here today to stand with the next generation.”

Linguist and activist Noam Chomsky is among those who have sent a statement of support. “It is impossible to exaggerate the awesome nature of the challenge we face: to determine, within the next few years, whether organised human society can survive in anything like its present form,” he said. “The activists of Extinction Rebellion are leading the way in confronting this immense challenge, with courage and integrity, an achievement of historic significance that must be amplified with urgency.”

A Good Friday Observation

A friend sent this along. I hope it prompts some sober reflections on this Good Friday.

A Call For Leadership

Jason Kenney's UCP has achieved a majority in Alberta. Proclaiming that Alberta is open for business and that “[h]ope is on the horizon,” he joins Ontario's Doug Ford both in identical sloganeering and rabid contempt for all measures related to carbon taxes or anything else that would discourage the consumption of fossil fuels.

The failure of the political class to confront the world's greatest crisis, climate change, is manifest. It therefore seems an apt time to reproduce the thoughts of a Star letter-writer about our predicament, to which I have added emphasis to underscore key points:

After the last five years of two serious droughts, a spring and summer with twice the normal annual rainfall and this unprecedented winter with wild swings in temperature and weather virtually every week, I’ve become a believer that climate change is largely man-made and very real. While some say that it’s just the vagaries of weather, I suggest that these past five years represent a serious shift in climate trend. I took up farming when I retired from a business career and the last five years have been completely uneconomic. In the farming community, there is an old saying: If it swims like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s probably a safe assumption to say it is a duck! Why can’t Conservatives see this?

Which brings me to my point in this letter, as a lifelong fiscal conservative, I am gob struck by the Conservative party (Progressive in Ontario and God knows what federally) who simply spout “anti” everything when it comes to climate change. At the federal level, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer plays politics on the issue and still has not provided a single shred of a positive, credible climate change plan. Further, Scheer continues to endorse a party-sanctioned candidate right here in Ontario, Cheryl Gallant, who proudly insists that climate change is a hoax. I might add that Gallant was the only MP out of over 300 to vote against the Canadian Parliament sanctioning the Paris climate accord.

Climate change is the issue of our generation and those of our children. Surely, some politicians have sufficient moral integrity to recognize the seriousness of the situation. There are real economic costs to climate change and a price on carbon is the least among these. It’s past time for Conservatives to show some genuine leadership on climate change, otherwise I’ll be supporting the only real agenda for climate change and voting Liberal for the first time in my life.

J. Hugh Brownlee, White Lake, Ont.

Over 300 years before the Common Era, Diogenes said he was looking for an honest man. More than 2300 years later, it seems he is yet to be found.

Sounds Like Corporate Extortion To Me

Given all of the revelations about how the Liberals legislated Deferred Prosecutions with SNC-Lavalin expressly in mind, it is perhaps no surprise that Big Pharma is now attempting to flex its muscles to prevent legislation that would benefit all Canadians. Andy Blatchford reports the following:

Brand-name drug companies could put off introducing new medicine in Canada and scale back research here if the country makes a major shift to cheaper generic alternatives under a national pharmacare plan, according to an internal federal analysis.

The concerns were included last year in a briefing document for federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau that explored the feasibility and costs of a pharmacare program.

For those who pay obeisance to corporate power, the document was sobering:

... the briefing note to Morneau said national pharmacare could influence the revenues of drug companies in several ways. Among the possibilities, it said a shift in favour of more generic drugs, mass-produced after patent protections for new medications expire, could lower costs.

But that could come with a cost for patients.

“For example, brand-name pharmaceutical companies may respond to a broad shift to generic drugs by delaying the introduction of new drugs in the Canadian market or by reducing the R&D activities that they undertake in the country,” said the analysis, labelled “secret,” which was obtained by The Canadian Press under access-to-information law.

To use the old cliché, Big Pharma is threatening to hold Canadians hostage should legislation beneficial to them emerge:

“Innovative Medicines Canada, which represents pharmaceutical patent holders, has warned that a national pharmacare program focused on cost containment may result in reduced access to medicines for Canadians.”

Such a threat, if followed through, would be part of larger pattern of pharma's failure on behalf of Canadians.

The briefing to Morneau said research and development investments by pharma companies in Canada already “significantly lag” spending in other countries in the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, a group of 34 countries with advanced economies.

“Since 2003, industry investment in R&D has been less than 10 per cent of sales — the target that the pharmaceutical industry committed to in exchange for more favourable patent terms in Canada,” said the briefing to Morneau.

Like a predatory beast smelling blood, Big Pharma senses it has a Canadian government captured between its paws.

Time for us to show that we are not such easy pickings after all.

Well, Well, Well

For someone who is 'for the people," Doug Ford has a strange way of showing his fealty to them. Buried in last week's budget bill is a nugget that will further disenfranchise a large number of people.

Premier Doug Ford's Progressive Conservatives are moving to make it harder to sue the Ontario government.

The PCs plan to repeal and replace the long-standing Ontario Proceedings Against the Crown Act — legislation that, among other things, outlines government liability in cases of misfeasance and negligence.

The new law would increase the legal threshold necessary to proceed with civil litigation, including class action lawsuits, against the government. Further, it would considerably limit the instances in which the government could be on the hook for financial compensation to plaintiffs.

A spokesperson for Attorney General and chief Ford cheerleader Caroline Mulroney says there is nothing to worry about, asserting

the legislation will update "outdated procedures and codifies the common law to clarify and simplify the process for lawsuits brought by or against the government."

Others are not so sanguine about the legislation's implications:

"What the government is trying to do is place itself beyond the reach of the courts and make it difficult, and in many cases impossible, to sue the government — even when it acts in bad faith or breaches the duties of office," said Amir Attaran, a law professor at the University of Ottawa.

Perhaps the most significant element of the new legislation, according to Toronto human rights and refugee lawyer Kevin Wiener, is that it eliminates any potential financial liability in most cases where someone is harmed by government policy or regulatory decisions made in "good faith."

"What it means is that the people who exercise power over you can exercise that power negligently and cause you damage and no one will have to pay," said Wiener.

Similarly, the province will not be liable for instances in which a person says there were harmed by the government exercising its authority.

Making this legislation even more dastardly is the fact that it will be applied retroactively, meaning that existing cases, such as the $200-million class-action lawsuit against the government launched by Lindsay Ontario residents over the early cancellation of the basic income project (one that Ford vowed to protect before gaining office) could very well be derailed.

"This a way to wipe the decks clean. And even if the government did something wrong, even if people have sued it already, they're going to shut those lawsuits down," Attaran said.

It is said that we get the government we deserve. Try as I may, I cannot discern the karma that has yielded the worst provincial government I have seen in my lifetime.

Henhouse Alert

Welcome to Ontario, A Place To Grow and Open For Business. Depending upon whether you are a private driver or a commercial operator, you will soon be sporting one of the two new mottoes on your licence plates. A small thing, you might conclude, if you are willing to overlook that the new plates will be sporting a Tory-blue colour, all part of the Ford government's branding and messaging.

However, peering beyond the obvious, these changes convey something that is not altogether benign: Come to Ontario, almighty business, and (cue the wink and the nudge) we will take good care of you.

How? Perhaps a clue is to be found in a detail released in yesterday's provincial budget:

Ontario’s Ministry of Labour will “modernize and streamline” its enforcement efforts by helping employers to “educate themselves” on their workplace obligations, according to Thursday’s provincial budget.

The move to encourage employers to be more “self-reliant” coincides with an $11 million cut to the ministry’s budget from $317 million in 2017/18 to $306.1 million this year.

Apparently, such a move is a good thing:

The ministry will develop “automated digital tools” to help employers educate themselves on employment standards so the ministry can “focus on high-risk, high-impact investigations,” the budget says.

However, Finance Minister Vic Fedelli is so proud of this change that he couldn't help but crow about what this really means:

“Ontario is once again open for business and open for jobs,” Finance Minister Vic Fedeli said Thursday.

In March, the Ministry of Labour announced a new online self-audit tool for employers to replace “cumbersome paper audits” and give “job creators a simple, easy and convenient way to demonstrate they follow the rules.”

Others are not so cheery about the change:

Labour advocates have consistently argued that self-regulation does not work and that proactive workplace inspections are the best way to ensure compliance with the law.

Deena Ladd of the Toronto-based Workers’ Action Centre said that without robust enforcement, workers’ rights are “just words on paper.”

“This is basically saying to employers, we’re not going to monitor you. Employers who routinely violate the law will see this as open season.”

Anyone who thinks industry self-regulation is a good thing is clearly forgetting disasters such as happened at Lac-Mégantic, which occurred under a regulatory approach that leaves responsibility for ensuring safe operations to railroads themselves.

The U.S. has led the way in self-regulation, with catastrophic results. One need look no further than the recent crashes of two Boeing 737 Max aircraft for proof:

The tragic crashes of Boeing 737 MAX airplanes have, once again, reminded the public of the dangers of regulatory capture and industry “self-regulation.” While many were shocked to learn that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), our government’s primary airline safety regulator, essentially handed over its responsibility to certify that airplanes are safe to the manufacturers of those planes, the reality is that this model of industry self-regulation is the norm, not the exception.

The Boeing crashes are a symptom of a much broader problem plaguing our country’s regulatory agencies, which have been entrusted to protect our health and safety. These agencies have been under systemic assault by conservatives and industries that have opposed almost any new regulations for decades. They have pushed an ideology of deregulation and self-regulation that undermines our government’s ability to protect the public – all to boost private profits.

In Canada, we would be foolish indeed to think of this as a problem confined to other countries. Ineed, the new Ford budget shows that the era of the fox in the henhouse has clearly arrived in Ontario.

An All-Out Attack

On the surface, the ructions in education occurring in Ontario may hold little interest to those living in other jurisdictions. However, those residing elsewhere would be well-advised to keep an eye on this province, watching us carefully to see whether the Ford government succeeds in dealing a lethal blow to public education here. If he does, you can be sure such methodology will find its way into other provinces looking for 'new efficiencies.'

Two items in today's Star are worth noting as warnings to all who realize that a healthy, well-supported public education is essential to the present and future of functional, growing societies

Kristin Rushowy reports of distress in the Halton Board:

The Halton public school board is warning that classes could balloon to 46 students as the Ford government cuts the number of high school teachers over the next four years.

A letter sent to Education Minister Lisa Thompson says

... to go from the current average of 22 up to the planned 28, “specialized courses with lower enrolment or smaller classes with students who have high needs that have a 10-to-20-student class size will mean that other courses have very high class sizes of 36 to 46 students.”

... actual class sizes will end up much higher — and 36 to 46, while extreme, is “not out of the realm of possibility,” said Cathy Abraham, president of the Ontario Public School Boards Association.

Halton District School Board chair Andréa Grebenc said the bigger classes will likely be core credits such as math, English, history and geography — “all those required courses that don’t need machinery or anything like that.

Those kinds of numbers would be extraordinarily difficult to work with, both in the allocation of individual time with students and the sheer volume of assignments that would have to marked. In my former life as an English teacher, I had to spend a fair amount of time on each essay I was evaluating. To see numbers go as high as 46 would require substantial cutbacks in the number of assignments given.

Halton is not the only very worried jurisdiction:

Other boards have already written to the province with their concerns over the changes, including recent correspondence from the Durham District School Board that says course option will “diminish drastically — especially in the area of the arts, trades and specialty subjects.”

I will close this post with a very thoughtful letter from a concerned parent who attended the rally for education that I wrote about the other day.

Thousands join rally at Queen’s Park over schools, April 7

My family and I were at Saturday’s rally at Queen’s Park — not because we are puppets of union organizers as suggested by the Minister of Education, Lisa Thompson, and the premier. We were there because we care deeply about education.

Our children are growing up in extremely complex times, facing technological, economic, political and environmental challenges that are unprecedented — challenges that our generation has failed to manage competently — and the Ontario government is cutting education. Our children will be forced to either help solve complex global problems or suffer the consequences of failing to meet the challenges. The government is pulling the rug out from underneath their feet.

What is at stake? Investing in education is about building strong communities and a successful nation, one that can manage change with competence and integrity.

Look at what happens in countries that lack strong social supports like public education — look at Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Sudan, to name just a few. Poverty and violence goes hand in hand with a population that is uneducated.

Couldn’t happen here? Try talking to a family of residential school survivors or Indigenous students today who face violence when they have to leave home to go to high school in Thunder Bay. Come talk to the families in my downtown Toronto community who are refugees, whose children are absent from school for half the year. Talk to the families of children with special needs, children who are frustrated to the point of acting out because they lack adequate support in school.

Too often the choice is to quit school because support for a positive education experience is lacking. The cycle of poverty continues.

When the government cuts education resources, real people in Ontario suffer real poverty and violence. Meanwhile, we make very little progress in tackling other important and challenging issues.

I am there in my kids' school regularly, and it is plain to see that teachers and students need more, not less. That is why I was at Saturday’s rally and I will continue to support teachers as they fight for our children and our future.

Erika Westman, Toronto

I am long-retired from the classroom; however, that does not mean I am retired from the issues that can make or break a society. It is time we understand that this battle to resist the virtual dismantling of public education is everyone's fight. Whether or not we realize it, we all have skin in this game.

More About Bread And Circuses

I expressed concerns in yesterday's post about the cheap, diversionary tactics being employed by Doug Ford to distract the masses as he goes about systematically gutting the programs that make life livable and functional in Ontario.

I see I am not the only one with such concerns. In today's Star, letter-writers offer their views:

Ontario set to allow sports tailgate parties, April 9

Just as Trump encourages racism and white supremacism, Ford is encouraging alcohol consumption. Rather than listen to his (cabinet), he should base his legislation on the years of scientific, evidence-based studies that show lowering the price of alcohol (buck-a-beer), increasing availability (wine in corner stores and longer hours at liquor stores) and public consumption (tailgate parties), that the social and physical harms of alcohol consumption will undoubtedly increase across the province.

James Wigmore, Toronto

Premier Ford makes it known he abstains from any alcoholic beverages, but notice he pushes for others to use alcohol sales anywhere and everywhere and now tailgating booze parties. Isn’t Ford like drug dealers who would never shoot up illicit drugs, but as pushers make their living by selling and exploiting users?

Dorothy Low, Richmond Hill

Tories back ‘high-priced’ beer, wine consultant, April 5

Really with cuts in education, health and minimum wage, the Premier is focused on spending taxpayer money to make booze more available?

I already have two LCBOs and a supermarket that sells alcohol in easy walking distance and now accessible until 11:00 pm.

Granted, I live in Toronto, but I have driven through many small towns that have an LCBO outlet but no supermarket or pharmacy! Does the PC government have a strange policy priority on getting people too drunk to care about everything else they are doing?

GW Byron, Toronto

Clearly, the vox populi is one heard by the Ford government only when it matches their dissolute, diversionary agenda.

Toga Party, Anyone?

The Romans were well-known for their embrace of bread and circuses. Indeed, an excerpt from Wikipedia sums it all up rather nicely:

In a political context, the phrase means to generate public approval, not by excellence in public service or public policy, but by diversion, distraction or by satisfying the most immediate or base requirements of a populace[1] — by offering a palliative: for example food (bread) or entertainment (circuses).

Juvenal, [a Roman poet of the late first and early second century AD ] who originated the phrase, used it to decry the selfishness of common people and their neglect of wider concerns.... The phrase implies a population's erosion or ignorance of civic duty as a priority.

Without question, the age of bread and circuses has come to Ontario as the Ford government fiendishly slashes funding for the kinds of programs that make for a healthy and sane society (more to come after the release of the budget later this week). Education, health care, living wages - all are under attack in the name of 'fiscal responsibility', aka making life harder for the average person and compromising the province's future.

But to distract Ontarians from the true source of their troubles, Doug Ford is about to unveil the answer to all of our problems: tailgate parties at which participants are permitted to bring their own alcohol (could there be anything finer?).

With Ontario government officials confirming Thursday’s budget from Finance Minister Vic Fedeli will pave the way for fans to bring their own beer to party in the parking lot, opposition parties branded the measure a “distraction” from Premier Doug Ford’s political woes over increasing class sizes in schools and changes in funding for children with autism.

“I have no trouble with people enjoying tailgating,” said Green Leader Mike Schreiner. “What I’m more worried about is what this may say about what’s going to be in the budget on Thursday.

“It seems like whenever this government is ready to deliver bad news, they liberate something around alcohol.”

Premier Ford says he wants to treat people like adults when it comes to drinking and tailgating parties. If you start the following clip at about the 45-second mark, I think you will get the full-flavour of 'adult' behaviour at such gatherings:


I cannot help but think that once this kind of activity is legalized and has the effect of cementing Mr. Ford's reputation as 'for the people,' more diversionary tactics will come along. For example, as the Ontario legislature becomes more raucous and fractious, will the solution be found in having Toga Party days at Queens Park?



Ontario - yours to discover, at least for the time being.

Roadmap To Ruin

Heading up Toronto's Bay Street yesterday en route to the massive gathering at Queen's Park to protest the savage surgery the Ford regime is conducting on public education was something of a revelation. Within a half-mile radius of the GO Station, I encountered six people in their sleeping bags, clearly living on the street. It was a jolting scene, one I do not encounter where I live (although I have also seen it extensively in London, Liverpool and even Canterbury). It seemed to me that this major urban artery and its environs constitute a roadmap of our society's descent into indifference, disenfranchisement, even cruelty.

That reality was on my mind as I made my way on a sunny April day to the legislature; I decided to attend the protest for a number of reasons: I am a retired teacher; I wanted to stand in solidarity with my former colleagues; and most importantly, I went because I have long understood that if the poverty and disenfranchisement bedeviling our society is ever to be contained and even reduced, nothing other than education can offer a realistic lifeline.

Which is not to say that path is an easy one, either for the teacher or the student. The effectiveness of classroom instruction is dependent, not just upon the skill, knowledge and dedication of teachers, but also the relationship they are able to foster with the students. Under optimum conditions, the relationship is one that requires daily, hard work. And the primary ingredient of those optimum conditions is reasonable class size.

Doug Ford's cost-cutting regimen, i.e., the slashing of teaching jobs, means class sizes will increase substantially; in high school. it will rise to an average of 28, which in actual practice could mean classes as high as 40. (Remember, non-classroom teachers are part of that average, which includes guidance, resource, and library.) Tell me how the aforementioned relationships can continue to flourish in such fraught and constrained conditions.

As well, many optional courses (no doubt considered frills by the under-educated ilk populating Ford's government) will be jettisoned, the very courses that can give so many students their raisons d'etre: examples range from drama to music to art to shop, classes where passions and purpose are often ignited, thereby providing a solid direction for a life beyond high school. Take away those opportunities and you not only have a more sterile school experience, but, for some, also less reason to stay in school.

Another massive mistake the government is making is the new requirement for students to take four e-learning courses. While such a stipulation must hold massive appeal to the bean-counters ("Think of how many classroom positions we can eliminate!"), it will be disastrous for those whose families can't afford a computer or Internet access, have caps on their Internet usage, are not self-directed learners, or who need the kind of help only a classroom teacher can provide.

The graduation rate will fall; more kids will drop out; as conditions in our public schools deteriorate, there will be a clamoring for charter schools, as one speaker yesterday suggested. Without an ounce of hyperbole, I believe this government has set out to systematically compromise, and ultimately destroy public education, the only real leveller we have in society.

Something wicked has come to Queens Park. It is incumbent upon everyone who cares about their fellow citizens' present and future quality of life to resist and, ultimately, eradicate it.

Christine Elliott's Debasement

There was a time I had a measure of respect for Christine Elliott. She seemed to me to be someone largely above the toxic politics that now ensnares public discourse and office. However, after her leadership loss to Doug Ford, she changed. Now she is just one of the many who are content to march to the discordant music of Pied Piper Ford and applaud his every move as he leads Ontario into division and disaster.

If you start the following clip at the 28-second mark (be sure to expand the screen while watching), Elliott's self-induced debasement is there for all to see.

To attack public education in the way Ford is doing is to show contempt for the future of the province. But I suppose, given his own very limited education and the fact that he could go directly into Daddy's business when academics proved too much for him, this 'self-made' man presumes he is the smartest person in the room, and that book-learnin' is ultimately a waste of time, eh?

Sacrificing Isaac

Yesterday's post dealt with the fact that climate change has thus far resulted in Canada warming twice as fast as the rest of the world; of course, much worse is to come.

Today's post deals with the group who will be most devastated by the catastrophe now enfolding the world: our children. But they are not taking their cruel fate lying down, as you will see in the following report, which starts at the 18 minute mark:



The Mound recently wrote a post called Crimes Against Humanity, about our willful acceleration of climate change. I highly recommend it. All things considered, our species has proven itself to be a short-sighted one. And now we can add infanticide and genocide to our impressive curriculum vitae.

Running Out Of Time

These days, when it comes to issues like democracy's health and catastrophic climate change, I am feeling pretty much spent, so much so that I find it hard to write about them. Therefore, I encourage you to watch the following, which shows how Canada is warming at twice the rate of the rest of the world.

The puny efforts of the Trudeau government to slow the pace of this unfolding disaster should be obvious to all but the most ardent of Liberal cheerleaders. Of the Conservatives, and their political posturing around this issue, I will not even speak:



You can learn more about this sad situation here.