We Still Have a Government, Right?: Canadian Politics 2020

The @RCMPNS spokesperson on damage to property, threats, assault, vandalism, arson: "We don't see this as a police issue, but we understand both sides."https://t.co/r5IbODLjQZ

— David T.S. Fraser (@privacylawyer) October 17, 2020

Under 700 cases for the first time in a week in Ontario, but looking back a few weeks, Sunday numbers are always lower.

Sunday numbers are always lower.

Same in Quebec fwiw.

The saga of UOttawa and why everything and everyone is garbage in 2020:

When discussing queer theory in an English-language class on art and gender at this bilingual university, Professor Verushka Lieutenant-Duval (originally from Quebec, possibly francophone, which has become important to some) gave examples of slurs that have been reclaimed by minority communities, including "queer", "crip", and a third one that has been reclaimed by some within the African-American community, which she pronounced in its entirety (possibly related to a second language/culture misunderstanding??): https://thefulcrum.ca/news/professors-use-of-racial-slur-sparks-outrage-on-social-media-faculty-looking-into-the-matter/. After significant outrage on social media, the university condemned her choice and suspended her. She has not been teaching for two weeks: https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/2020-10-15/l-etudiant-a-toujours-raison.php. The story has afaict been covered significantly in French-language media and barely in English-language media, despite it happening in Ontario in an English-language classroom. 30 of her colleagues, predominantly francophone afaict, wrote a letter condemning this suspension and expressing support for her academic freedom; afaict this was only written in French, unusual at this university where typically everything is done in both languages and takes twice as long: https://www.tvanouvelles.ca/2020/10/16/des-profs-de-luniversite-dottawa-denoncent-la-suspension-dun-collegue. (As it happens, my own sympathies are with the faculty; the prof made a mistake but the punishment seems v disproportionate to me.)

Some anglophone students (and trolls?) on social media have taken this as an opportunity to slander francophones as a group, ironically labelling a whole group as bigots, with calls to target professors who signed their names to the letter:

Oh, oh. Les profs qui ont signé une lettre d'appui à leur collègue de l'Université d'Ottawa n'ont pas fini d'en entendre parler... pic.twitter.com/CniVZ0hbIv

— Isabelle Hachey (@ihachey) October 18, 2020

French whiteness is its own special brand of racist.

— BDF (Black diaspora faggotry) (@blacklikewho) October 17, 2020

In response, a look through the responses to Hachey shows plenty of quasi-alt-right nationalist victimized sentiment, no doubt from queer theory aficionados:

Est-ce que c'est être blanc ou francophone qui est pire, ou le combinaison est exponentiellement pire? Je suis tellement mélangé par ceux qui ont toutes les réponses.

— JF Prieur (@AdmiralHackbar) October 18, 2020

Ces termes néo-marxistes ne font qu’empirer le tout.

C’est cette idéologie créé cette fragilité/incapacité à négocier avec la dissidence par le politiquement correct.

— Guillaume FB (@FbGuillaume) October 18, 2020

Even recently, I would have written off idiots on Twitter as just being idiots on Twitter but afaict Twitter is what got Lieutenant-Duval suspended in the first place.

I mean, French whiteness is its own brand of racist. That tweet is accurate.

I don't think the prof deserves the recrimination or suspension, however.

It’s a bit more complicated than that. Quebec is not France in that its majority is a minority within the Canadian federation, and there is a history of discrimination towards francophones in this country. While claims of Quebec bashing have and are indeed still used by some francophones to outright justify racist discourse, this does not preclude the existence of actual francophobia in English-speaking Canada, which makes these kinds of statements hurtful and counter-productive.

I'm not even sure what it means to have one's own brand of racism, esp in this context, or even what 'French whiteness' is supposed to be? There are real issues with racism in the context of Quebecois nationalism, for instance, but it seems fairly unlikely that that is mostly what is going on with French-speaking professors at University of Ottawa, at least one of whom is African. The basic issues of racial sensitivity and academic freedom shouldn't be French vs English matters.

A few stray thoughts:

It would be nice to see some interrogation on the left of the connection being reinforced between being morally correct and the right to keep one's job, a conflation of Self and occupation that is deeply conservative (and/or neoliberal if you like) imo. Plus I find in academia especially, students don't really understand the implications of demanding dismissals or other reprisals, since they tend to not understand the exigencies of the (academic) labor market. The fact this professor is part-time, unlike the USC prof discussed in another thread recently, means the consequences here could be severe. But more generally the fact that "getting an individual person fired" has become a focal point for enacting social justice is depressing. That uni administrations are now quite willing to go along with these kinds of punishments should really give the game away.

This is a general comment and not tied specifically to this incident where I don't know the details, but it is a little depressing to read someone suggesting that those three slurs have all been "reclaimed" in a similar or analogous fashion. I mean, given the outcome here, clearly they have not. But also given that the term "queer theory" or even "queer person" can be used by straight people without giving offense (IME; and I think "crip" is being mobilized to serve a similar function—again, the n-word clearly is not) should make the difference obvious. I'm sure you all can think of the homophobic slurs straight people should avoid using—and are never appended before the word "theory"—that people within the community would use among themselves. Anyway, sorry, you all probably know that, I just felt it needed to be noted.

I also think the time has passed for claiming ignorance about these dynamics in Canada. Just two months ago a somewhat similar incident happened at Concordia: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/concordia-film-professor-use-of-n-word-in-class-1.5676992. At some point, professors have a duty to stay abreast of their fields.

I don't feel at all qualified to comment on French or Quebecois whiteness, but I don't think it's that weird to suggest there are locally specific dimensions to whiteness and/or racism. For example, the racism I observed in Georgia was different in some ways from the racism I observed in Chicago. That said, the particulars of those differences suggest that ranking them, which is maybe what that tweet is trying to do, is pretty foolish.

Update:

https://thefulcrum.ca/news/u-of-o-president-breaks-silence-on-n-word-incident-involving-faculty-of-arts-professor/

Whole situation still seems v strange, but I suppose they (eventually) came up with a solution that lets her continue teaching and accommodated students who were unhappy. I do agree that if you're going to be lecturing about the linguistic nuances of the reclamation of slurs, you should be aware of the linguistic and cultural nuances involved. I've had my own (milder in consequences) run-ins re academic freedom at this institution in the past and can confirm that admin can be spineless and craven. Incidentally, they have actually repeatedly stood by this lady's academic freedom and right to a platform: https://twitter.com/janicefiamengo

That said, the particulars of those differences suggest that ranking them, which is maybe what that tweet is trying to do, is pretty foolish.

Yes, I could maybe see the value if it was an effort to bridge gaps in cultural understanding. NB also that we are talking about people who are not only in the same city but at the same institution, one whose mission and core values including the promotion of bilingualism. It seems very odd that Lieutenant-Duval was attacked almost entirely in one language and defended almost entirely in another: I can't think of a better illustration of how 'bubbles' are not just failing to engage in productive dialogue but seem to be actively avoiding it.

There was a pretty good episode of the Canadaland podcast a couple of weeks ago about "the two solitudes" and how cultural differences affect movements like me too and black lives matter. There was a fun bit where the person being interviewed remarked that discussions about this stuff often just devolves into white anglos and white francos arguing with each other about which side is actually more racist or intolerant.

OTM

Heh, yeah, that's a good way of putting it.

An open letter signed by more than 600 uni and cégep profs (the counter is not up to date) from Quebec, defending the U of Ottawa lecturer. They partly echo what rob was saying – 'more generally the fact that "getting an individual person fired" has become a focal point for enacting social justice is depressing. That uni administrations are now quite willing to go along with these kinds of punishments should really give the game away' – which is very much otm.

https://www.ledevoir.com/opinion/idees/546909/il-faut-defendre-la-liberte-academique-des-universitaires

Isabelle Hachey has also brought an interesting detail to light. Said lecturer had specifically cancelled class on Sep 9 to allow her students to attend a BLM event:

https://www.lapresse.ca/actualites/2020-10-20/je-suis-prof.php

Between this and the highly contrasted responses to the murder of Samuel Paty in France, it really does feel like the two solitudes are a cross-border concept.

Seeing what I wrote again, I should clarify that there are work-related behaviours that make being fired a just response, e.g., sexual harassment, discriminatory hiring/promotion/supervision, and more direct or recurring racist speech (I'm not sure how lawyers define a "hostile environment," but that's what I have in mind). Sorry if obvious—just worried I was overstating things.

No worries, I very much agree and never assumed anything else.

Incidentally, I feel that something that gets lost in the two solitudes back-and-forth on this is that many, if not most, of the black people I know in Ottawa are francophones. Not sure what the % of the community is but we do know that 76.6% of francophone visible minorities in the city are black: https://www.clo-ocol.gc.ca/en/publications/linguistic-portrait-ottawa .

Interesting.

Fwiw Dominique Anglade, who is the current leader of the PLQ and of Haitian descent, sided with the lecturer. Likewise Dany Laferrière.

Anti-'lockdown' protests in Toronto and Vancouver on Saturday:
https://toronto.citynews.ca/2020/10/17/two-protests-take-over-downtown-toronto/
https://bc.ctvnews.ca/anti-mask-protesters-conspiracy-theorists-march-through-downtown-vancouver-1.5149905

When Ontario releases their daily COVID numbers, are new cases and testing related? Are x number of cases each day based on the x number of tests done that day, or are the two numbers on separate tracks. If they're related, yikes. 821 cases today--high, but within the range of the past couple of weeks. But now that appointment-only testing is in place, there were only ~24,000 tests done. That'd be a 3% positivity rate, much higher than when we were doing 40,000 tests a day.

Is there a way that they could be unrelated?

My guess would be that are somewhat distinct, but I'm not sure...That the results of testing aren't necessarily 100% in sync, so each day's cases are based on reporting that covers a two or three day window, while the total number of tests is for that day only.

Oh I see what you mean.

The protests in vancouver were on both Saturday and Sunday, was a two day thing. I walked past it on saturday - inadvertently- and it was quite big. They were showing some english covidiot's prerecorded speech on a big screen

Ugh.

not surprisingly, the homophobic preacher who used to show up in the westend until he broke a guy's leg, and the idiot behind the transphobic jkr billboard were there as well.

Everything I hear about the lobster fishing situation is making me so angry, when are we going to let the FNIM just be.

globe and mail editorial page comes very close to endorsing the NDP in BC, thought this was unpossible

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-in-bcs-pandemic-election-the-liberals-and-ndp-have-reversed-roles/?fbclid=IwAR3tGPmOFf5v_Zda6vzYAwWnXZegJlK4-wxxiOBO_h-ubMaWsJOnQyAv4aY

Ha wow

NDP and Greens back Grits in confidence vote, unsurprisingly. No election.

slimy to use it to protect themselves from WE oversight. smart manoeuvre I guess, but slimy

Agree

le plus ça change

Just shy of 1,000 cases in Ontario today. I hardly ever see anybody without a mask (although this morning two separate people came into Tim Hortons without one). I don't really get it. If it's "small gatherings" now that are the problem, how does that jibe with people doing what they're supposed to be doing when they're out in the world?

I wrote a longer reply that disappeared, but I’ll just say that you might be surprised by how many people are still doing things together behind the scenes. Large gatherings are apparently still happening in the hot spots too, but enforcement has trouble because attendees are doing things like Uber-ing in to disguise the numbers

Looks like Halton is next on the Phase 2 list.

The gamble pays off - according to cbc ndp win 55 seats in BC

\m/

jim in vancouver's prediction was a lot more accurate than mine and everything's

so great to see richly deserved defeats for some of those liberal MLAs

55 out of 87?: https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/elections/british-columbia/2020/results/. Wow. Is this the best the BC NDP has ever done?

BC's COVID management seems to have been much more successful than ON/QC - what was done differently?

1991 NDP got 51/75 seats, which percentage-wise is better than 55/87? The NDP have never been anywhere near 45% popular vote in their wins, and they've never won by ten points or more. In this election there are still another 500k mail-in ballots that won't be counted for two weeks, and I would not be surprised if those ballots heavily favour the NDP and get them another 1-3 seats, and also expand their popular vote margin significantly.

https://globalnews.ca/news/7085828/bc-coronavirus-strategy/

These seem key:

“They were very, very quick off the mark to take advantage of the publication in China of the genetic composition of the virus and to develop tests locally that could be produced and used locally,” he said...

In Quebec, massive outbreaks in long term care facilities contributed to the province’s high case numbers and death rates, Buckeridge said. Policies like allowing staff to work at multiple facilities just facilitated the virus’ spread in vulnerable populations, he said, and it was allowed for a long time. B.C. issued an order in March to stop this, although it took some time for the practice to end.

I don’t really want to call the response any kind of disaster, because I don’t think it is. But I have to admit that the mess with testing and especially the constantly changing recommendations is getting very frustrating. They’ve changed our school attendance criteria enough times now that I’m literally confused as to what we’d need to do in different scenarios. That said, our particular school seems to be managing things very well.

The second wave following school reopenings is p close to disastrous imo.

which province? ontario?

i feel so lucky to be living in BC through all this

Ontario, yeah.