The Latest on Lucene Charles

While I have written about her a couple of time in the past, the ordeal of Lucene Charles is not yet over.

Because she failed to complete the paperwork to achieve permanent residency status when she married a Canadian 15 years ago, the St. Vincent native, the mother of four children, three of whom were born in Canada, still faces deportation.

Charles is the kind of person we would hope to have in the neighborhood, a productive person who works for the betterment of her community. Employed full time as an assistant to an administrator at St. Joseph’s Healthcare in Hamilton, she was recently honoured as a YWCA Woman of Distinction in May for her extensive volunteer work.

Despite the fact that she would be an obvious asset to Canada, because of an oversight in paperwork, she faces being sent back to St. Vincent, an impoverished Caribbean island where three of her children, born in Canada, will go to for the first time if she cannot find adequate placement for them.

You can read the complete story here, and I will only offer the following observation:

I have come to the point in my life where I strongly believe that so many of the so-called rules (immigration-refugee rules, for example) should only be treated as broad guidelines, and that each situation has to be judged on its own merits, and by that I mean excluding considerations like whether a decision may set an undesirable precedent.

Decency and humanity, two of the surest criteria one can embrace, should and must be the only criteria.

Advice From the World's Richest Woman

Wow! Sounds like this Australian lady really made it 'the hard way'.

Dalton McGuinty: A Man Running Or On The Run?

I have to admit, I find the imagery extraordinarily pleasing.

Like a man on trial for criminal offences entering the courthouse via an underground passage to avoid the media glare, Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty stole through the back door during a Wednesday evening stop at the campaign headquarters of Liberal lawyer Eric Davis, who is vying to give McGuinty his majority as he runs in the Kitchener-Waterloo byelection today.

Davis is trailing the NDP candidate badly, but that was not the reason for the premier's covert entrance. It was to avoid protesters out front angry at plans to privatize the Ontario Northland Transportation Corporation.

A photo showing an agitated electorate would not be consistent with the image the unflappable McGuinty likes to project of competent and trusted leadership.

It kind of reminds me of his school photo-op the other day, when he toured École élémentaire Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau, whose teachers belong to a union that has settled its contract. The potential for unwanted publicity would have been too great had he made an appearance at a school whose teachers are members of either the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario or the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation, given that their collective bargaining rights are being stripped away by McGuinty's government.

It is a fact, among many others, I suspect the voters of Kitchener-Waterloo will keep in mind as they cast their ballots today.

And Yet Another Threat To Beleaguered America

Folks, I merely report these things, as bizarre a commentary they are about our beleaguered American 'friends.' I do not make them up.

H/t Salon

Heather Mallick On The Insidious Nature Of Poverty

The older I get, the less patience I have with government that preaches an austerity that has a disproportionate impact on the poor. Of the right-wing rhetoric and mythology that all one has to do is to work hard to succeed, so evident in last week's Republican convention, I have absolutely no tolerance.

Our government and corporate leaders largely mouth a propaganda that results in a commodification of people as they go about insidiously destroying the sense of community that makes society tolerable, worthwhile, and at times noble.

This is why I was pleased to read Heather Mallick's column in this morning's Star, that is a poignant commentary on both the vulnerability of the poor and the fact that none of us is immune from the vicissitudes of life, no matter how we may think we have fortified ourselves against misfortune.

Thursday's Ontario Byelections -Updated

Compelling reasons to hope that Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty does not secure his majority government via Thursday's byelections:

The Ornge scandal, and his refusal to appear before the Legislative committee to explain his role in it.

The $180 million taxpayers are on the hook for because McGuinty cancelled the gas-fired power plant under construction in Oakville in order to win the seat during the last general election.

His use of bribery to persuade Tory Liz Witmer to vacate her seat in Kitchener-Waterloo so he could hold a byelection for her seat.

His unnecessary and politically-motivated legislation that has robbed Ontario teachers of their collective-bargaining rights.

The Premier has amply demonstrated, from the above and a myriad of other acts, that he neither deserves nor can be trusted with a majority government.

UPDATES: Apparently Mr. McGuinty's refusal to come clean at the Ornge committee hearings is contagious.

Also, it seems like I am not the only one who doesn't believe he should achieve a majority government via unnecessary byelections.

Yet Another Threat To America!

Judging by the discernment levels of many Americans, I guess this dire warning by washed-up action hero Chuck Norris and his wife about the threat to America posed by Obama's re-election will galvanize people: