Hi, everyone! Welcome back to the happening spot for all things Canadian on the SDMB. Politics, music, theatre, art, sports, food, law - if it’s Canadian, you can talk about it or ask about it here! Pull up a chair, have a double-double and a maple glazed, and laissez les bons temps roulez!
Le Ministre! Bonjour! Comment ça va? Je suis— <thwack>
:: language reset ::
Hi! How’s it goin’, eh? Happy New Year!
I hope things will be a bit less crazy this year… but I’m not betting on it. I will say that it’s giving me plenty of, um, ‘inspiration’ for my stories…
ETA: lnteresting. I had to backslash-escape the angle brackets around “thwack” before they would be displayed.
Nice to see this back. We haven’t had it for the last few years.
The year has gone well so far, but we’re only two days in. Anyway, Happy New Year to all the Cana-Dopers!
Yay! I’ve been away working on a new job and degree but I think I can carve some time to start Doping again!
There was an article today about the sorry state of the PMs residence on Sussex. It seems stupid that this cannot be made livable and ridiculous that it might cost 36 million to renovate.
No one wants to be the one who spends the money and gets criticized. Everyone recognizes that a useable residence where one conducts political business and entertains is needed for a modern nation. Apart from suddenly developing cojones, is there any other solution than an outgoing PM to authorize it just before leaving office so there is no personal benefit? How could it cost so much?
It costs so much because it’s been allowed to decay out of fear of the optics. It’s ill suited to task, from back when homey diplomacy had a place. But the kind of events that it would host today require things like adequate plumbing, room for caterers, security, high tech, etc, etc. none of which could be accommodated without shredding a nearly decomposed, neglected yet still ‘historic’ building.
Consider that Justin wouldn’t move his family in based on how shoddy it was to live in when he was a child there. I recall the manufactured outrage over, ‘how dare he!’ shun the nation’s top residential home!
It was generally agreed the cost, (just to restore, not modernize), would be prohibitive. It was put forth that such monies would be better spent building a new residence with today’s needs in mind, and using it as a showcase of Canadian materials, talent, art, design etc, etc. which is a great idea, to my mind.
Truth is, if they’d made a damn choice back then, they would have gotten whatever they’d have replaced it with, for a fraction of what it will now cost to do the same.
I’m thinking the old place will be dust before any government acts!
Gold again for Canada - the women’s under 18 squad just won 10 - 0 against Sweden. Caitlin Kraemer scored 4 of those goals, finishing the tournament with 10 goals in 5 games. Full story here -
I think it might be time to choose a different place for an official residence, and give the National Capitol Commission time to convert 24 Sussex Drive into a museum.
I personally find it more embarrassing that our national capitol sits on untreatied, unceded, and unsurrendered Algonquin land, a fact I was blissfully unaware of until performing “Louis Riel” in Ottawa in 2017.
I hadn’t realized that yesterday was the 22nd anniversary of the first legal same-sex marriages in the world. The late Rev. Brent Hawkes did this YouTube post telling the story of finding the loophole that reading of banns of marriage did not specify that the couple had to be a man and a woman. Two years after the actual marriage, the law was changed and retroactively made those marriages legal.
Here’s the video - MCC Church - YouTube
Has anyone else been following the Arctic Games? I was quite astonished to see this fellows effort in the ‘knuckle hop’, which is remarkable but looks incredibly painful. Footage at this link - Knuckle hop tests athletes’ strength and endurance | The Moment | CBC.ca
Apparently, this is based on a hunting technique where one pretends to be a seal.
The report we’ve all been waiting for is finally in - Federal government met the threshold to invoke Emergencies Act: Rouleau | CBC News .
Curious to find out how other Dopers were affected by the Freedom Convoy. Here in Toronto, they were surprised and disappointed with how unwelcome they were.
I’m in southern Alberta, and the border at Coutts is only about an hour away. While the border blockade didn’t really affect us directly, it did show up through the produce from the US and Mexico that wasn’t on supermarket shelves for a while. Eventually, the trucks used smaller and slightly remote, but still entirely usable, border crossings.
I’ve been reading the report. It’s quite long, but Volume I is really interesting, with its description of how all this came together, and the complete inadequacy of law enforcement’s response–with so much overlapping jurisdictional responsibilities, nobody knew who could do what about this. I’ll look forward to reading the recommendations as to what to do should this ever happen again.
Here in Toronto, they didn’t stay very long - we went out of our way to make sure they didn’t feel welcomed. There were a few of them interviewed who were disappointed at our response, to which I thought “What the Hell did you expect? We saw what you bastards did in Ottawa!”.
I remember seeing somebody’s tractor parked outside the ROM, and contemplating how badly I could mess it up with a cordless saw. I didn’t - that would have been illegal. But the fact that I was even thinking about it is a sign of how little I wanted to see them in town…
I thought the government response to Covid was adequate. They erred in not maintaining the stockpiles recommended after SARS, discontinuing global disease surveillance, not improving the known disarray of nursing homes, not maintaining Canadian pharmaceutical manufacturing capacity, buying more vaccines per capita than any other country and delays in acquiring product - although their control of the last three things was limited. They did a good job initially educating people on distances, made some tough financial decisions and rolled out the vaccines reasonably well once acquired.
Canada had much lower death rates than the US, perhaps by a 3:1 ratio. People generally complied with distancing and masks. Vaccines were effective. There is little more American, perhaps, then the best minds from many fields coming together to innovate a new vaccine (using more than twenty years of known research)… and a bunch of malcontents claiming their constitutional, God-given right not to take it. I am not going to suggest this was stupid, selfish or short-sighted here.
The truckers had a small point about the timing of new laws requiring vaccines after so long and when incidence was declining. One quarter of truckers in Canada are South Asian. You did not see them protesting. Some say they were not invited, but probably it was due to other reasons including the fact they felt vaccination sensible.
The Ottawa protests were ostensibly about vaccination. It was shocking by Canadian standards to see the reaction of authorities, and could not have happened if they were unsympathetic. Authorities had no trouble removing Occupy protestors. Were a few tow trucks an insurmountable obstacle? I felt the government reaction ultimately reasonable and probably legal but the CSIS Act too defining. The reaction was far too slow, which did not much consider the rights of Ottawa citizens.
Locally, we had a “convoy” of truckers drive through the city waving big flags and Truck Fudeau flags for seven months after the Ottawa protest was disrupted. They made some noise, but were mostly peaceful as far as I know. I presume they relished the social aspect of disrupting traffic and somehow stickin’ it to the lefties. I think their understanding of the constitution and the benefits of vaccine to be somewhat limited.
I support peaceful protest but only for a reasonable enough time to make one’s point, regardless of who is doing it. The Tamils obstructed some 401 ramps for a single day during a protest some years ago and authorities were applauded for their restraint. I did not like the extended protests for Aboriginal rights disrupting train services for more than a day or two. I did not like the truckers convoy inconveniencing others for more than the weekend. Once a point has been made and publicized, let people and businesses get on with their lives. The stuff about overthrowing the government showed some lack of understanding about government and constitutional law.
Less a protest, more a flex, to my mind. When the capital, largest city and busiest border crossing are paralyzed, that’s a seizure, not a protest. Plus they didn’t want a negotiation, they had demands, like a hostage situation.
The National Post is of the opinion that this is not a victory for the Liberals. Although vaccines have been obviously successful, they claim this was in doubt at the time of the protest. I tend to sympathize with truckers who have a tough and necessary job. Trudeau may have been slightly divisive in certain comments, but I suspect most Outouais think authorities showed far too much restraint and divisions left things undone for too long. With our resources, mighty armed forces and American allyship, were a few trucks all it took to stymie things?
From today’s NationalPost.com :
Let us not forget that the trucker convoy was brought about because the federal government could not help itself from unnecessarily sticking its finger in the eyes of unvaccinated Canadians for political gain. While many would agree, myself included, that the truckers should have gone home after one weekend — by which time they had made their point clear — it is also true that they would never have been there were public health, rather than politics, top of mind a year ago.
That citizens should have gotten vaccinated and that vaccines are a key reason we no longer are burdened with the intolerable misery of lockdowns should by now be beyond doubt. Canadians supported vaccine mandates in large numbers and were right to do so. But we should remember that at the time the messaging behind what was useful in stopping or slowing COVID was, at best, haphazard. Masks were alternatively unnecessary, then necessary. Meeting outside was ok, then it wasn’t, then it was again. Vaccines stopped transmission, then they only slowed it. Today vaccine skepticism seems untenable, a year ago it was far less so, if nonetheless unwise.
As such, we should not remember the trucker convoy explosion as an event in isolation. It was the final culmination of COVID lockdown frustrations and — and this is important — a government which despite being initially elected on a promise to unite Canadians has frequently sought every opportunity to divide them. Politics for politics’ sake and at the expense of Canadians was the spark that ignited a powder keg.
Amidst a chaotic last few years, it can be difficult to discern any consistent policy thread or goal within our current government. One element though, has remained intact and strong as ever: that opponents of government policies do not have legitimate objections, but rather are slubberdegullions to be immediately dismissed, ignored and insulted. Indeed, for a government which preaches inclusion and diversity, the Liberals have an unsettling habit of quickly denouncing anyone who disagrees with them as a highly undesirable or unacceptable person.
It seems they are trying to pull an O’Toole type compromise to appeal to many readers. It is perhaps wise they don’t discuss Poilievre here. And impressive they used a six syllable insult.
The National Post is wrong, and is staffed by complete morons. < points at Rex Murphy >
The National Post has done more to divide Canadians than any political party - it’s in effect their raison d’etre.
I read one or two of Murphy’s books at least a couple decades ago. The man used to be fairly sane and succinct. However, it is hard to argue with your current summary.
That’s quite over the top. Imagine a conservative saying the Toronto Star had done more to divide Canadians than any political party. Wouldn’t that be ridiculous?
It’s okay for other people to disagree with you, and it’s okay for some media outlets to have one editorial position while other outlets have a different one.