Be Careful What You Wish For

Now that the U.S. has announced its land borders will be open to vaccinated Canadians sometime in November, many, especially snowbirds, are exultant. There are, however, numerous reasons to temper that enthusiasm, including the poor rate of full vaccination south of us (only 57%), the ever-present threat of violence, and the other perennial American pandemic, hatred and racism, the latter of which I shall turn to in a moment.

Edward Keenan suggests the need for caution in his column today. He cites Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland on non-essential travel:

“I’m going to quote Eileen de Villa, the Toronto Public Health officer, who offered some really good advice,” Freeland said. “She said, ‘Just try to do the things you need to do, and maybe hold back on doing the things you just want to do.’ And I think, if you just keep doing that a few more weeks, Canada can really fully put COVID behind us.

The key medical authority in her government, Health Minister Patty Hajdu, said over the weekend that Canadians should travel to the U.S. only when it’s “absolutely necessary,” specifically warning against going to some U.S. states where COVID-19 is “very, very out of control.”

But as I suggested above, there are other reasons to avoid unnecessary travel to the U.S., including its twin plagues of violence and racism. It is the latter I will examine next, and I have to warn you, it gets ugly.

There is a man named Michael Slawson who has been exposed on Twitter for what he really is, and what follows is somewhat hard to watch:

H/t Danesh and Michael Mc

It also appears that Slawson has an unhealthy interest in young girls:

I am happy to report that Slawson's Twitter account has been suspended. I am sure I'm but one of hundreds who lodged a complaint about him, so can hardly take credit for his removal. And one would be foolish to think that there are not countless others like him still spewing their hatred on various social media platforms. 

My admiration and respect go out to Danesh and Michael Mc for exposing this dangerous malefactor whose hatred and perversion is but one of the many reasons I cannot see myself ever returning to the United States.

 

 

A Meme For The Times

This particular meme has been around for awhile now. If you haven't seen it, I think you will agree that it is particularly germane to the times in which we live.

And this seems an appropriate accompaniment to the above:

H/t Graeme MacKay

This Is Not A Parody

A little something for those Canadians who pine for the re-opening of the border to Amerika. 

Rarely have I seen such a sterling expression of commitment and leadership:

Star Readers Weigh In

I like to regularly post letters-to-the-editor that hit targets concisely and precisely. The following meet those criteria.

On the subject of the Pandora Papers, her is what one writer thinks:

Naive to think any changes will come of Pandora Papers

• Toronto Star
• 10 Oct 2021

Re Opening the Pandora Papers and what they reveal, Oct. 4

As your research on the Pandora Papers shows, Canada has been and continues to be a tax haven for laundered money on both the provincial and federal level with its lax laws. Provinces don’t require residency or even basic identification to register a company, and the end result is millions of illicit money is placed in real estate.

It is not surprising that, on the federal level, billions are placed into offshore accounts.

Much of these activities can take place because of the legal loopholes that allow criminals, millionaires, and corporations to stash billions in offshore accounts around the world.

Since the publishing of the Panama Papers in 2016, not a single charge has been laid.

It would be totally naive for anyone to think that those identified by the Pandora Papers will face consequences.

Canada and the rest of the world needs to close loopholes that allow billions to be stashed in offshore accounts, leaving hard-working Canadians and citizens of other countries shouldering the bulk of the tax burden.

These loopholes allow the rich to continue becoming richer while the rest pay the price. 

Sheila Gaal, Toronto

 A flurry of letters attest to the public reaction of disgust over the insane opposition to vaccines and certificates:

Freedom comes with obligations

• Toronto Star
• 9 Oct 2021

RICHARD LAUTENS TORONTO STAR

A vaccination protester was arrested after refusing to leave nurses alone as the Ontario throne speech was delivered.

Is there no end to anti-vaccination characters complaining about tyranny and coercion of people to get vaccinated?

One argument turns on being forced to get vaccinated or losing their job; if I lose my job, who is going to put food on my family table?

The question they should be asking is: if I don’t get vaccinated and contract the virus and spend weeks or months in hospital or even die, who is going to put food on my family table?

The part that anti-vaccination folk are missing is that, with freedom, come certain obligations. The society you are part of is asking you to step up and join your fellow citizens in an effort to quash the pandemic that has cost thousands of lives in Canada and millions worldwide.

Don’t complain that restrictions, such as the requirement to show a vaccination certificate, make you a second class citizen if you are not vaccinated!

If your definition of freedom is “I do what I please and to hell with everyone else,” then you are a second class citizen all of your own making.

Francis Zita, Scarborough

Venues that follow vax rules deserve support

Re Ontario must enforce its Covid rules, Oct. 2 

Eighty-three per cent of the population has stepped up and been doublevaxxed. It’s time for the majority of us to enjoy our freedom.

And it’s time for the 17 per cent to endure the restrictions that their ignorance has caused.

Stop pandering to the minority! We’ve been a divided community since the vaccine became available.

A vaccine certificate didn’t suddenly become the cause for division in our society.

It’s too bad our premier doesn’t recognize this; so many deaths and hospitalizations could have been prevented.

I am proud to support venues that follow the rules, and will certainly avoid those that flout them. I am certain I am not alone.

Linda Saxe, Toronto

Following COVID-19 rules good for business

No one wants to see businesses like gyms and restaurants suffer any more unnecessarily, but the requirement for proof of vaccination for entry is a necessity, and any owner who openly declares that the rules do not apply at their establishment needs to pay the price

And this disregard to the rules demands a big price be paid.

The unvaccinated are many, but still a minority, so, if the owner feels motivated to cater to the minority of his clients, the majority of them who are the vaccinated will likely stay home.

How is that good for business, never mind the obligation we all have as part of society to protect each other with every tool available against the scourge of COVID-19?

Margaret Perrault, North Bay, Ont.

Kids routinely vaxxed, so why raise objections?

Go to school? Get your shots!, Sept. 26

The problem with this selfish, misinformed bunch is that they are too young to remember all the previous health challenges their ancestors had to live through, and defeat.

Smallpox, diphtheria, polio, not to mention measles, rubella, mumps, all of which are controlled by … vaccines.

All school children get their measles, mumps and rubella vaccination and diphtheria, pertussis (whooping cough), and tetanus vaccination.

These anti-vaccination people all had these when they were children.

Yet they insist on listening to the those who spread unscientific misinformation and blame the various governments with infringing their rights.

The only right, when it comes to pandemics, is the right to do the right thing to protect themselves, their kids, their parents and their neighbours.

Roll up your sleeves and help defeat this disease!

George McCaig, Kitchener

Ontario needs system for reviewing exemptions

Re NDP leader calls out PC vaccine exemptions, Oct. 5

The recent furor over medical exemptions given to two government MPPs reminded me that, according to the news, medical exemptions in PEI must be approved by that province’s chief medical officer. Granted, there is a huge difference in scale between PEI and Ontario, but it illustrates the need to have those exemptions vetted by someone other than one’s own family doctor.

This is a matter of public health, and should be reviewed accordingly, with questionable exemptions reported to the Ministry of Health as well as to the College of Physicians and Surgeons.

The knowledge that such decisions of family doctors would be reviewed would ensure exemptions would only be granted for specific and relevant medical conditions.

Doug Lewis, Clarington

The View From Olympus

 

As I tried to suggest in my post the other day, rich people really are different from us, and people like Justin Trudeau, part of that rarified group, have no desire to really disrupt their status quo. 

While it might seem reductionist, in my view that fact goes a long way toward explaining the inability of the Canada Revenue Agency to recoup taxes that have been sheltered in off-shore havens. If you believe that the CRA acts without political interference, you need only remember how Harper sicced them on non-profits that were active on environmental issues, often embarrassing the prime minister in the process. The same thing is happening under the Liberal administration; it is just taking a different form.

And people are noticing the CRA's apparent impotence:

Five years, 200 audits, zero charges, Oct. 5

Aside from hearing how the wealthy continue to evade paying taxes in this country, what is even more infuriating is reading about how the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) does very little to recoup this money or charge these people for this kind of criminal activity … all the while charging hundreds, even thousands of dollars in penalties and fees to small businesses or average citizens for filing our taxes late or not making our payments on time.

Heidi Bigl, Toronto

Heidi Bigl is not the only one. Writes Terry Glavin:

As for Canada’s diligence in capturing tax revenue — it’s not much to boast about. It was only after the ICIJ’s Panama Papers bombshell in 2016 that the CRA dropped a court fight intended to prevent the Parliamentary Budget Officer from releasing estimates on how much the treasury was being effectively bilked out of revenue by individuals and corporations resorting to secret offshore accounts. That was just one minor impact the Panama Papers had on government policies worldwide, but Canada remains a laggard in corporate transparency.

And the same laxity seems to apply to money-laundering:

For years, Transparency International Canada has been campaigning against what it calls “snow-washing,” a kind of money-laundering that allows foreign investors to hide dubiously sourced capital in Canadian assets, notably real estate. It was only earlier this year that the federal government promised to introduce a searchable “beneficial ownership” registry in the House of Commons.

The adverse impacts of snow-washing in real estate is most noticeable in British Columbia, where a provincial expert panel reckoned in 2018 that in that year alone, money-launderers had sunk $5.3 billion into real estate investments, mostly in Metro Vancouver. It’s a racket that’s been going on for years, causing dramatic distortions in the city’s house prices, and it has spurred B.C. to introduce a beneficial ownership registry of its own.

The promise of a federal registry to identify the real owners of corporations investing in Canada was made in the Liberal budget that was introduced in the House of Commons last April. The registry is supposed to come into effect within five years. But a federal election has since come and gone. So will Ottawa finally act to clean up Canada’s reputation and start collecting taxes on the super-rich with the same rigour the CRA applies to the rest of us?

We’ll see.

The view from Olympus can be dizzying, and it is a great height to fall from. Hubris and nemesis, anyone?

Just A Quick Note

 If you saw yesterday's post, you might want to go back to it for some updates. The tale is not quite as straightforward as originally reported, but, I think, still quite indicative of the fraught society known as America.

You Can't Keep A Good Man Down - UPDATED

…especially a man like restauranteur Jody Pendleton, who so loves his freedom that he exercised it by firing all of the staff from his four eateries who have been vaccinated against Covid-19.

God bless Amerika.

UPDATE:

Well, the story now gets a tad murky. According to Jody, this was all a joke, an attempt at satire. But is that all there is to this tale?

Then there is this:

One thing emerging from this imbroglio is certain: in the corrupted currents of American society, all things are possible.