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

lol right on time: https://www.blogto.com/eat_drink/2020/11/fundraiser-adamson-barbecue-raises-more-28k/

Agree with your take on supposed vaccine crisis, dyson. I don’t think there’s much that could be done better under the circumstances.

That said, it should now be a given why having air tight supply lines for such things is kind of a big deal. People hopefully will remember these things for future and push for more proactive governance.

Blaming Trudeau for the decline of vaccine creating capacity is sorta dumb, it happened a long while ago, when Trudeau was still a Breboeuf dweeb.

Oh, Tories who do that are ridiculous, considering it was Mulroney who privatized the companies in the first place. No one (including Trudeau and Chrétien but also Harper) has done anything about it in 35 years. Maybe it doesn't matter, as flopson might be saying.

I missed the AOC/Jagmeet Singh Twitch stream. Anyone knows if it will be archived?

There's a VOD on Twitch

I watched some. AOC said that she might be making Twitch a weekly thing. She wound up streaming for 6 hours just because people were donating too much money (200,000 USD by the end - I think for eviction defense and assisting undocumented people).

According to Trudeau, 50% of us will be vaccinated by next September. Not sure if that sounds good or disappointing. It feels vaguely Hunger Games-like, or like Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery." My guess is that teachers will be somewhere in that first 50%, which may or may not include me, a retired but fairly active supply teacher. That I start thinking this way is not ideal.

Where did he say 50%? The reports I've seen say (vaguely) "the majority", e.g. https://globalnews.ca/news/7488324/vaccine-coronavirus-trudeau-nato-fortin/

I heard audio of him saying that on the news yesterday.

Hm, he says "majority" in the clip that comes with the Global piece. 50% would be a weird goal to set or promise to make, for the reason you give.

I went looking for a clip, couldn't find one. I positive I heard Trudeau say this yesterday.

"I'm"

Anyway, whether 50% or a majority--which probably means, I don't know, 55 or 60%; I doubt very much it means 75% and upwards--my original point still holds: I'm left wondering if I'm going to be on the right side of that. (If I weren't still supplying, I'm almost certain the answer would be no.)

Right, I was hoping "majority" meant 70%+ or whatever the threshold is for herd immunity.

50% isn’t half-bad (heh) when you consider that it very likely covers the vast majority of at-risk Canadians.

In terms of elementary schools--this is what I don't like, it gets me thinking "me, me, me"--I have to believe the thinking will be get the teachers vaccinated, and then the kids are near the end of the line.

Jason Kenney is absolutely blunt and gets to the point: https://www.vice.com/en/article/88ax7v/jason-kenney-targets-south-asians-for-covid-says-nothing-about-anti-maskers

Listening to the actual audio from the radio program really does not make Kenney look any better: https://www.facebook.com/watch/live/?v=435088651218061&ref=watch_permalink

There's something slimy about the way he starts out patronizingly 'praising' the "beautiful, wonderful" family- and hospitality-oriented nature of South Asian communities (based on his friends in the community) before working up to announcing increased policing and fines for home gatherings, no doubt targeted towards this community that concerns him. He mostly handwaves away the host's seemingly valid point that the neighbourhood he's talking about contains a lot of frontline workers who are unable to work from home before eventually mentioning that school reopening will be delayed by a week to give kids time to recover from, uh, family gatherings over Christmas.

I didn't realize btw that i) Alberta is taking some weird anti-federalist stand by not letting people use the federal COVID app and ii) their case numbers have gotten so much worse than Ontario's and Quebec's.

I believe that young kids won’t be getting vaccinated at first, but it’s primarily because the vaccine for them needs to be in a slightly different format or dosage or something.

xp. can't help but feel that possibly conservative covid-denialists might be part of Alberta's problem

more of a pressing problem than any south asian cultural issue

Legault still on the fence about Xmas gatherings, says he’ll make a call on the 11th but right now forbidding them seems likeliest.

Also, fuck Jason Kenney.

fuck Jason Kenney

Feels weird to be doing this here, but:

If there are any other Albertans here, there’s a petition going round to allow the use of the federal app: https://www.change.org/p/tyler-shandro-minister-of-health-alberta-allow-use-of-federal-covid19-contact-tracing-app-in-alberta

And I guess another plug, if you’re on Facebook come join us at the PALbertans group for AB progressive memers.

Also, fuck Jason Kenney.

Legault just cancelled Xmas.

That genuinely surprises me.

at least the laicité is consistent

My thoughts exactly.

Pardon my cynicism, but the genuine surprise for me will be if we *don't* get a few stories about CAQ officials violating the ban come January.

I'm really only surprised that it was announced this early, it seemed inevitable.

I still don't understand what the decision process was to arrive at the announcement they made 2 weeks ago that groups of 10 could gather during the holidays when they clearly did not think things through. Were they really expecting the number of cases to go down during late November and December?

Christmas non-compliance with COVID restrictions is going to massive everywhere imo

think every province should be making similar announcements tbh

at least the laicité is consistent

This was part of what surprised me tbh.

London has set daily case-highs for two days running. Still very low comparatively, 40-50 range, but I suspect they're headed for the next level and that'll be it for movie theatres (which are so sparsely attended when I go--from 3 to 10 people per screening--it'd be more symbolic than anything else).

X-posting this from the Politics of Pornography thread:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/04/opinion/sunday/pornhub-rape-trafficking.html

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada calls himself a feminist and has been proud of his government’s efforts to empower women worldwide. So a question for Trudeau and all Canadians: Why does Canada host a company that inflicts rape videos on the world?

That’s quite horrifying. Hard to read. The shot at Trudeau seems a little sideways though - I didn’t really see the supporting evidence in there. Is Canada a primary host or something?

it was founded in Canada, not sure if it is still owned and operated in this country

Pornhub was launched in Montreal and is owned by MindGeek, a Canadian company whose headquarters are also in Montreal. They're legally registered in Luxembourg, however (for obvious reasons).

The CEOs are Canadian and Montreal-based.

https://nationalpost.com/news/how-a-canadian-founded-company-youve-never-heard-of-took-control-of-the-porn-industry

Ahh ok thanks. Ugh.

That said, I'm not sure what the actual mechanics would be for Trudeau to 'do something' in this case. What would be involved with regulating a site like that?

Pornhub’s retort:

https://www.ctvnews.ca/business/pornhub-pushes-back-against-accusations-that-it-allows-child-sexual-abuse-materials-1.5218091

Pornhub is like the main employer for former arts music scene anglos who decided to stick with it in montreal for the long term

montreal is actually apparently a huge porn city historically. one day having a smoke outside a big industrial loft bldg on st remi i used to live in and some guys were delivering a hot tub to a porn studio on the top floor, told me all about it, it was like quebecois boogie nights

Yeah, I have a friend who did cybersecurity or somesuch for Manwin/Mindgeek for a while.

Today: 2031 cases, 48 deaths in Quebec. Part of it is due to playing catch-up with data, but those are some horrible numbers nonetheless.

Short of closing schools and further encouraging WFH, I have no idea what can be done to stem the tide at this point.