Things Could Be Worse

These days, I take my comforts wherever I can find them. In contemplating the state of my province, Ontario, under the administration of the Doug Ford government, I'm deriving some small solace in the fact that there is a jurisdiction even more ineptly led: Alberta.

The Breakdown

@TheBreakdownAB

WOW! Smith's presser was just completely derailed by protestors condemning Smith's proposal to sell off hospitals! And then the remaining candidates did an excellent job of... standing.

That deer-caught-in-the-headlights look reveals much, doesn't it?

A PSA From The FBI

 I can't imagine living in a country where this kind of Public Service Announcement is necessary.

And on a slightly different note, we now know why "thoughts and prayers" aren't working.

A Brief Programming Note

 

I have been a bit under the weather for the past few days, a bit of a virus that repeated testing has shown is not COVID. (Whew!)

I have also begun work on a new writing project that includes some research, so I expect for the next little while my blog posts will be somewhat sporadic.

Just wanted to let you know.

Demons Among Us

H/t MacKay

History teaches us that the capacity to demonize 'the other' seems almost limitless. Whether it be the Jew, the Black, the Roma, the Indigenous, or any other group, there will always be those who find people unfit to be members of society. Hence the role of propaganda, allegations of the darkest of atrocities and depravities, the subtext being obvious.  After all, if they are not really human, what's to be upset about if we have to wipe them out?

For whatever reason, transgender issues seem to currently feed the bloodlust of the depraved. As a previous post pointed out, Montana recently ejected a transgender legislator for indecorous behaviour, her outrage over an edict under consideration to ban any transgender care to minors her 'crime'.

Not to be outdone, Missouri has upped the ante.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey put forward emergency rules placing barriers to gender-affirming care for minors and adults. The rules are set to go into effect later this week, although opponents filed a petition Monday evening seeking an order to temporarily block implementation.

Bailey says the rules are meant to keep both parents of transgender youth and transgender adults more informed before receiving gender-affirming care, describing them as an "innovative approach" for people to "have all the information necessary to make good decisions."

As always, the devil is in the details (not 'the other'), so feel free to read the whole story in the above link. However, both the reality and the toll of such diseased politics are made abundantly clear in the following video:

Life can be very difficult in and of itself. Is purposely increasing the hardships people bear really something anyone should be proud of?

By Any Other Name

Perhaps it is because I experienced a small amount of peer-bullying as a student. Perhaps it is because I experienced a large amount of both physical and psychological abuse from my teachers, as did many of my fellow students. It was, after all, the Catholic school system, where mistreatment was frequently substituted for the message of love found in the Gospels. Whatever the reason, I ultimately emerged as an adult with much empathy for people being treated badly.

Today's post is about the recent disgraceful behaviour of adults claiming to be parents at a meeting of the York Catholic District School Board on the issue of range the Pride Flag. Here is a brief video  capturing some of the disruption that occurred:

This kind of ugly behaviour has no place in our society, and I am hardly alone in that sentiment. Today, I am taking what is for me the unprecedented step of reproducing in toto a Toronto Star editorial whose points I think most would find a hard time disagreeing with. That will be followed by two pieces expressing letter-writers' views on rabid homophobia. 

Make of all of it what you will:

A shameful scene unfolded recently outside a meeting of the York Catholic District School Board when adults purporting to protect Ontario’s children proved instead to be a direct threat to their well-being.

How else to describe a group of adults, many of them presumably parents of school-aged children, who turned up at the meeting to loudly oppose the possibility that the board will fly the rainbow flag in support of LGBTQ students in June?

How else to describe adults who appeared to hurl insults at those in favour of flying the flag? In a video clip shared widely by various news outlets, shouts of “shame” and “devil incarnate” were hurled at an advocate on the pro side of the flag debate. The scene became so tense police were called and security reportedly escorted some of the spectators away.

Some of these spectators may argue that their objection wasn’t specifically to the Pride flag itself but to what they believe it stands for: in their minds, the corrupting of children who are allegedly too young to learn in school about the diversity of gender and sexuality.

To this odious notion we say: no one is too young to learn that gay, transgender and non binary people exist, just as no one is too young to learn that cisgender, heterosexual people exist. Queer people are not by their mere existence sexually explicit.

 To meet a queer person, to learn what transgender means, to be read a picture book by a drag performer is in no way being exposed to the intimate details of a person’s sex life. This belief is not only nonsensical; it is derivative of hateful, age-old myths about queer people as a perverse influence on children.

It is also derivative of a certain brand of anti-LGBTQ politics we commonly associate with the United States. But if last week’s events at the Catholic school board in York Region teach us anything, let it be that Canada is not immune to public displays of hateful rhetoric. These displays may be less common here but even in small doses they are potent. And it is up to all of us — Catholic school board officials and community members alike not to be complacent in the face of them.

It seems a reminder is in order about why Pride celebrations are necessary in schools. Flying the Pride flag isn’t a hollow act of virtue signalling; it is an official declaration of support for marginalized kids who desperately need it.

 

Dispute at Catholic board meeting over Pride flag, April 27

The group of taxpayers of the York Region Catholic School Board, whose homophobic words and gestures reduced a group of LGBTQ students at the board meeting to tears, have surely provided a very good argument for defunding Catholic schools in the province.

Surely the promotion of such vicious and harmful hatred under the protection of acceptable religious teaching in Catholic schools should have no place in a publicly-funded school system in Ontario.

Joanna Manning, Toronto

When I read this article it reminded me of many of the vitriolic rants in American media that I have seen, directed at advocates of peaceful, progressive change.

What kind of adults would bully and belittle young students, especially those who have most likely experienced serious harangues for parts of their lives?

Because this was a Catholic school board I’m assuming these people consider themselves “Christian.” Outrage and horrible behaviour over the raising of a flag to show acceptance and respect for young people does clearly not reflect Christian beliefs.

These people should remember that Catholic education is paid for by all taxpayers and governments that condemn. this behaviour.

John Morton, Toronto

Hatred, intolerance and bigotry, by any other name, are still hatred, intolerance and bigoty. 

Getting Things Done

                              

Those who prize quick decisions and action will no doubt applaud the likes of the Doug Ford government. As pointed out in my previous post, the premier and his coterie are not very often burdened by critical thinking. And that, as I tried to point out, has consequences.

Star letter-writers also share their misgivings over this kind of 'governance' in the following.

Someone should remove Premier Doug Ford’s supply of napkins and pens before he comes up with another plan to “save” taxpayers’ money, such as inviting 18 year olds to skip secondary education and join the police force right after graduation; knocking down the Ontario Science Centre and build housing on the ravine. So what if they get flooded every spring. Think of the view!

Let Therme Group build a spa on Ontario Place that 99 per cent of Ontarians won’t be able to afford, but won’t cost the taxpayers a dime, except for $200 million to clear the land and $450 million for underground parking. And those are only preliminary estimates.

Cut funding to hospitals so they can’t keep up with the need for cataract surgeries, but pay private clinics more per procedure than OHIP covers.

And those are only the most recent unplanned plans.

I can’t wait to read about his next great idea in tomorrow’s Star.

Carol Libman, Toronto 

Let us examine the Ford legacy 20 years down the road.

The Ontario Science Centre will be no more and Toronto will have lost a significant piece of architecture that could have been adjusted to continue its role in promoting science. In its place there will be a mass of grotty highrises with few if any subsidized units, much to the delight of developers.

On Ontario Place the wonderful spa which took twice as long to build and cost well-over budget failed as a business venture and was converted to a casino after structural additions. Both the spa and the casino were found to have guarantees from the province to cover revenue shortfalls.

Part of Ontario Place was converted to parking for the casino because water seepage made underground parking a non-starter.

RIP Ontario Place.

Peter Anastasiades, Markham

 The Toronto Star correctly points out that most of the Ontario Science Centre land is composed of hazardous and floodplain lands. Good luck to the Doug Ford government and a developer in trying to secure a Toronto and Region Conservation Authority permit for new housing development over these lands!

During Hurricane Hazel in 1954, many houses in the Don Valley were swept away by flooding and hence the conservation authority followed up by preparing floodplain mapping of the Don Valley to ensure that future housing would not be exposed to such destruction. There is also the concept of “setback” zones from floodplains.

Ministers within Ford’s government need to learn how to interpret floodplain mapping before suggesting new housing over hazardous and floodplain lands.

Jim McEwen, retired civil engineer, Bowmanville

In the annals of the oxymoron, known as Ontario Government intelligence, this could rank near the top.

The plan is to build the New Ontario Line subway running from Ontario Place to The Ontario Science Centre. But now, may also include moving the Ontario Science Centre to Ontario Place and building housing in its present location.

The Ontario Science Centre is a gem, nestled in a beautiful valley. By all means renovate it as needed to keep it relevant, but leave it where it is. Why not simply build high density housing above and around the new 2,700 space parking lot at Ontario Place, leaving the new residents closer to downtown.

Ian Alter, North York

Envelopes are best reserved for their original purpose, not as a medium for calculating public policy.  Expect no course corrections in the near- future from this obdurate regime, however.

 

The Burden Of Thought

 

Over the years of writing this blog, I have made fairly frequent mention of  the importance of critical thinking. At the same time, I have usually been quick to add that it is an ideal toward which I constantly strive, one that I frequently fall short of.

There are, of course, many impediments to critical thinking: our values, experiences, ideology and biases, to name but four, can very much get in the way of sober reflection and analysis. No one, to my knowledge, has ever achieved the Platonic ideal of critical thinking. Let's face it: we are all human, and failures along the road are inevitable.

What I cannot abide, however, is a blatant disregard for critical thinking, either through willful indifference or incapacity. When the state is run thus, we are really dealing with a rudderless ship.

Which brings me to the real topic of today's post, Ontario's Doug Ford government. It is one that seems, either by intent or genetic shortcoming, to be headed by a man who displays a singular disregard for, or contempt of, critical thinking. Take, for example, his recent decision to 'repeal' a post-secondary 'requirement' for people wanting to become police officers. In fact, it has never been a requirement (a high-school diploma is all that is technically needed), but the trend for a long time has been to hire people with post-secondary education. 

In response, Ontario NDP leader Marit Stiles had this to say:

“It’s very concerning,”... university and college educations teach a wider view of the world.

“They (police) have a very difficult job, and they require a lot of skills including critical thinking to do their jobs properly.”

The website Indeed notes the following regarding needed police skills:

Critical thinking is an officer's ability to analyze a situation from multiple perspectives and make important decisions within a short time frame. Police officers must have strong critical thinking skills, as their decisions can greatly impact the health and well-being of themselves, their colleagues and members of the public. Critical thinking also allows an officer to examine outside influences that may affect their decisions and actions to remove the possibility of bias and assess a person's conduct fairly.

While it certainly can be argued that having post-secondary education will not ensure critical thinking skills, it at least maximizes the possibility of having/developing them. 

And the decision of  Doug Ford to try to lower the standards is emblematic of the larger problem within his government: it engages in very little real thought when developing policy. A narrow, telescopic lens is applied to most issues. This is most apparent in the building of new houses and new highways that will exacerbate urban sprawl.

""We need more houses."

"Great. Let's open up the Greenbelt."

"People want a faster commute."

"Great. Let's build Highway 413."

Despite the dire implications of paving over farms and wetlands during this time of climate catastrophe, the hammer that is Doug Ford's brain sees nails everywhere. As a consequence, all Ontarians will have to live with heedless decisions that enrich his developer friends and also significantly undermine ways of mitigating that catastrophe.

But let's not lay the blame entirely at Ford's feet. Every member of the voting public who chooses to ignore or have only a passing acquaintance with the problems that envelop all of us are complicit. 

The cynic in me believes this means that come the next provincial election, Ford will return with a majority. And we will have only ourselves and our collective lazy thinking to blame. 

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