Defenestrate Them All: Canadian Politics 2021

The story about emergency services is grim.

joe oliver is a fucking moron

Oh god, I remember that column. The absolute cynicism.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/02/queen-victoria-statue-toppled-in-canada-amid-anger-at-deaths-of-indigenous-children

The ongoing campaign on the right to somehow tar Pierre Trudeau, and by extension his son, because he was PM while residential schools never ceases to amaze; it's like if the GOP kept trying to argue that statues of FDR should be taken down because segregationist laws were in place while he was President. In this instalment, the National Post's Kelly McParland opines that PET should be condemned just as much as John A. McDonald because his government ... published a paper that was withdrawn a year later.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/kelly-mcparland-turning-a-blind-eye-to-pierre-trudeaus-unseemly-indigenous-assimilation-plan

republicans never tire of saying things like "dEmOcRaTs sTaRtEd the KKK" while loudly protesting the removal of confederate statues, so I wouldn't look to the GOP for a model of coherence here

Haha, true enough. "Liberals interned the Japanese" or "PET sent troops to Quebec" would at least make sense. Not saying PET was a hero on this issue but not only did he not begin the programme, his government took it out of the hands of the Catholic Church and began phasing out the schools. The Kamloops school was closed in 78 when he was PM, for instance. It's p obvious that he's only being singled out vs every other pre-1996 PM because he was the father of the current PM.

yeah that headline should be about chretien

has anyone talked abt the bottlemen podcast itt? it's kind of the canadian politics podcast that ive been craving

https://www.ctvnews.ca/politics/mary-simon-named-as-canada-s-first-indigenous-governor-general-1.5498146

https://www.vice.com/en/article/3aqvkw/qanons-are-harassing-people-at-the-whim-of-a-woman-they-say-is-canadas-queen-romana-didulo

Many of Didulo’s followers seem to believe she’s holding tribunals behind the scenes, which are resulting in the executions they’re thirsting for. These followers use extremely tenuous scraps of evidence to prove Didulo is actually in power—including the fact that Romana Didulo is an anagram for “I Am Our Donald.”

Sounds legit.

And the kicker: 'Didulo has said that if the people who received the cease and desist orders from her followers break them, they will be executed.'

Happening in Montreal now too:
https://old.reddit.com/r/montreal/comments/oj2ooa/maskless_karens_appear_to_be_dropping_off_bizarre/

Heh, that's precisely where I got wind of it.

grammar isn't Qanon's strong point

Jmm (anyone else in Ottawa Centre?), have you been keeping up with the federal NDP nomination race in this riding? The virtual meeting is Saturday and votes are being taken in electronically for 24h. We have two candidates to choose from. I just started looking into them today. Right now, I'm strongly leaning towards Lyra Evans (http://www.lyraevans.ca), for whom I previously voted for school board, over Angella MacEwan (https://www.angellaforottawa.ca). I'm not sure I agree with all of her stances (she would definitely be on the left of the party) but some are good and she seems to at least have clear stances and priorities.

I mean, she might just be better at making a website, so I'll keep reading.

I haven't been following it at all! Thanks for the links.

Evans impressed us a lot more at the nomination meeting too, although it looks like my own membership had lapsed. Anyway, MacEwan won; I might actually vote for the federal Liberals for the first time.

Acc to two anonymous sources, the Greens are cancelling the confidence vote on Annamie Paul's leadership: https://www.thestar.com/politics/federal/2021/07/18/green-party-to-cancel-vote-to-oust-leader-annamie-paul-sources.html

yeah that vote didn't make any sense, what would they do if she lost right before an election was called

the two remaining Green MPs have been pretty quiet while about the party collapsing huh? not that Annamie Paul stuck up for Manly or Atwin either

Annamie Paul asked whether @ElizabethMay is involved in what she called a "one-sided campaign" to depose her as Green Leader.
Paul responds that it's a "reasonable question" but that she would never talk about stuff like that in public.

— Alex Ballingall (@aballinga) July 19, 2021

A friend of mine is trying be the federal green for that Fredricton seat. They could do a lot worse.

Glad I’m no longer in Alberta but deeply concerned about my family and friends still there, this is demonic and insane, I fucking hate the people who run things there with every inch of my being

Starting Aug. 16, isolation won’t be universally req’d if you test + except in some high-risk settings. Testing will continue to be important but we will no longer recommend testing for mild symptoms. (10/14)

— Dr. Deena Hinshaw (@CMOH_Alberta) July 28, 2021

Deranged

I first thought the "+" meant "and", as in something like "isolation won't be required as a general rule if you have been tested (and are negative) but distancing will still be required in high-risk settings", which seemed somewhat reasonable. But I was filling in a lot there. I think, based on the comments, the "+" actually means "positive", which seems so inexplicable that I can see why I misread it.

I made that same mistake, but it's definitely positive: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/alberta-covid-requirements-1.6121002

I feel so terrified and helpless, which I guess is the default state of things in 2021

Is any other province doing this? Why must Alberta aspire to be so much like the GOP?

Really disturbing to see a public health leader making "with vaccines, Covid = the flu" official policy

that would make more sense if Alberta didn't have the lowest vaccination rate in the country

For sure, though long Covid + no vaccines for children makes it p bad messaging even if the 12+ rate was ~95%. I get that we will probably need to adapt to a reality where covid is comparable to influenza, but surely we should consider waiting until after children can be vaccinated? (tbc: these points aren't directed at you Murgatroid)

And yeah, I'm seeing a lot of worried UCalgary people on my twitter talking about how effed this will be as there's no campus vaccine mandate

This province is hell of messed up. They scooped out the CMOH’s brains and replaced them with a build-a-bear voice box programmed by Tyler Shandro. Zero emphasis on second doses, all celebrating the return of freedumb, R value 1.5, fun fuckin times.

vaccinate rates must be rock bottom in many areas of alberta also i guess

Wow, this is a weird story.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/woman-body-sherbrooke-police-firefighters-container-1.6122481

Is it weirder than this?: https://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/former-barwin-patients-children-will-share-in-proposed-13-3-million-settlement

Oh Jesus, I didn't read the Sherbrooke story before posting. That's gruesome.

this is insane:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/deena-hinshaw-covid-19-alberta-1.6123181

Alberta fighting hard to take the mantle of worst covid response back from Ford

Looks like we've pulled ahead of the US and UK in both the % of the population that had the first dose and that is fully vaccinated, and are tied with Israel for 11th in the world wrt being fully vaccinated (we're ahead of them for first doses): https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/world/covid-vaccinations-tracker.html

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/hinshaw-covid-apology-confusion-1.6129785

In a column sent to various media outlets Wednesday, Dr. Deena Hinshaw says her words have caused some people to think she believes COVID-19 is over.

Hinshaw says that wasn't her intended message.

She said in the column that lifting precautions, including isolation requirements, asymptomatic testing and contact tracing will support the whole health of Albertans by allowing the province to focus on other health threats, opioid deaths and syphilis.

I want 2 scream

I give up

Ontario NDP Leader @AndreaHorwath doesn't think vaccines should be mandatory. Instead, she says education workers who aren't vaccinated should be required to take rapid tests.

"Unlike @StevenDelDuca, I don't take lightly people's charter rights," says Horwath. pic.twitter.com/Q4rPbd0uNp

— Power & Politics (@PnPCBC) August 4, 2021

why are political leaders so hellbent against learning anything even after [insert timeframe here depending on whether you want to see this as just a single issue or part of a larger thing] of this shit

fuck ford's gonna be re-elected isn't he

he's gonna outlast kenney!

Kenney has been much worse than Ford from what I've seen. Ford is not nearly so overtly racist and has at least consistently been somewhat willing to listen to constituents and moderate his policies; in comparison to Kenney, he also seems like a model of caution wrt COVID. Liberalizing rent control, scrapping planned labour protections, and privatizing home care are still terrible tbc and I'm not voting PC, but I'd take him over Kenney if forced to choose.