News roundup, 8 April 2025

 - Stock markets around the world continue to tank as investors respond to Trump's reckless tariffs. Even CEOs on Wall Street, who usually are reluctant to criticize Trump, are warning of the damage that could result, both in economic and geopolitical terms.

- Not satisfied to fire people currently working on DEI projects for US government departments, the regime now appears to be firing people for past work on such initiatives. 

- Canada has imposed a new travel advisory on the US, warning that "If you are denied entry, you could be detained while awaiting deportation"; this has already happened to a number of people. 

- After killing 15 paramedics and rescue workers in an attack last month, the IDF has admitted that their initial account, which claimed that the victims were "advancing suspiciously", was "mistaken". The "mistake" was corrected only after video of the incident emerged.

- The Yale philosophy professor who moved to Toronto to take a job at U of T was not the only one to do so. Two historians from the same university did so last fall. There are limits to the Canadian university system's ability to take advantage of the troubles in the US, though, since many institutions here are making cutbacks as the supply of international students upon which they depended dries up. In Manitoba, researchers are urging the government to reverse the Tory cuts to Research Manitoba in order to ensure that there's work for these people.

- Canadian retailers are starting to follow the lead of their customers and are turning away from American products. 

- It has emerged that Andrew Lawton, the Conservative candidate for Elgin-St. Thomas-London South, was part of a secret chat group on Signal with "Freedom Convoy" organizers.

- The outbreak of "freedom freckles" in southern Ontario has exceeded 600 cases, and is serious enough that the New York State health department is taking notice.

News roundup, 30 Oct 2024

- The federal government reportedly plans to build a high speed rail link between Toronto and Quebec City, with stops in Peterborough, Ottawa, Montreal, Trois-Rivières, and Laval. Of course, they have little or no chance of being reelected next year, so they don't have to worry about being made to follow through on the plans; instead they presumably hope to blame the Conservatives when the latter inevitably cancel the project.

- Several Liberal MPs are trying to force a secret ballot vote by the entire party caucus on Justin Trudeau's leadership. Such a vote would be non-binding; whether it would have sufficient force to overcome Trudeau's ego is an open question.

- Donald Trump's campaign is disavowing a joke made by comedian Tony Hinchcliffe at Trump's rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, but not the numerous other hateful remarks made by Hinchcliffe and others at the event. The rally is already drawing comparisons with another rally held at the same venue in 1939 by the German American Bund. Some Trump supporters seem to be worried about the optics of the whole thing.

- Japan's ruling party, the Liberal Democratic Party, has lost its parliamentary majority in a snap election on Monday. The opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, the only other party to have ever formed government since 1945, was the main beneficiary.

- Winnipeg police are investigating after numerous Stars of David were drawn on the sidewalk outside the Food Fare location on Portage Avenue. The store owner, who is Palestinian, commented that "If somebody went and drew a Palestinian flag in front of an Israeli or Jewish-owned store or business, I think it would be investigated as a hate crime. So in my eyes, this is definitely [one]".

- The University of Toronto's School of the Environment has announced that they will be refusing donations from fossil fuel companies; this is a positive development, but it's noteworthy that Princeton University, which made a similar move in 2022, reversed this decision earlier this year, saying that prohibiting individual faculty members from accepting such funding could be counterproductive (the U of T's policy does not constrain individual faculty members in the same way). And while Princeton says they will continue to divest from fossil fuel companies, they will no longer track their divestiture publicly.

- The city of Brampton, Ontario is trying to crack down on illegal rentals. Awkwardly, a city councillor is listed as co-owner of a house with a suite that was illegally rented out. When confronted about this, he initially denied ownership, then accused "City Hall insiders" of "leaking" the information.

News roundup, 27 May 2024

- The University of Toronto is warning faculty and staff participating in the pro-Palestinian encampment on campus that they may face dismissal if they do not leave the encampment by Monday morning, the deadline given for the camp to be removed. Meanwhile in Germany, protesters at the Free University of Berlin have faced an aggressive crackdown from the police.

- Donald Trump is doing dangerously well in the polls in several key swing states. Clearly something needs to be done about this, and fast. Bill McKibben thinks Biden and the Democrats need to pull out all the stops to make climate change the key issue. Seems reasonable to me; if nothing else it offers something on which the two major parties fundamentally differ, compared to things like the Israel-Palestine conflict where they're too similar to motivate many younger voters. Plus nature keeps sending Americans reminders that this really is an important issue; some of them might even listen under the right circumstances. And with such a high stakes election, Lloyd Axworthy and Allan Rock are proposing that Canada take the lead in sending election observers to the US this fall. Not a bad idea to be sure.

- Members of the German environmental group Letzte Generation have been charged with "forming a criminal organization", a move some fear could criminalize even public declarations of support for the group.

- A startup in the UAE claims that they will be able to use vertical farming techniques to grow several crops not generally amenable to this, including not only hydroponic standards like greens and tomatoes but also things like wheat, rice, and potatoes. Many are skeptical, however, especially since the UAE has not been above a bit of hype in the past.

- The US military is investing nearly $15 million in mines in northern Quebec and the Northwest Territories on national security grounds, apparently to limit China's ability to corner the market in critical minerals.

- The Competition Bureau is investigating two of Canada's largest grocery store chains for possible anti-competitive behaviour. Strangely, there's no comment from Sylvain Charlebois in the article; perhaps the media are starting to see through him.

News roundup, 24 May 2024

- Nikki Haley now says that she will be voting for Donald Trump, despite having previously called him "unstable and unhinged". Perhaps the fact that many of Trump's supporters are also unstable and unhinged, and moreover have a lot of guns, has compelled her to change her tune.

- Dan Lett argues in this article that the signs of improvement that are showing in the economy could be bad news for the Conservatives. I'd like to believe that this is true, but I seriously doubt it. The thing is, once the masses get it into their heads that it's "time for a change" (and there's no question that this government has had its fair share of disappointments, broken promises, and worse stuff like the Jody Wilson-Raybould affair) it's very hard to convince them to change course. There's a saying, "better the devil you know than the devil you don't know", but most people do not apply that to politics; far too many people figure they're all devils anyway, so might as well punish the current ones. In other words, they vote not out of idealism but out of vengeance.

- The public washrooms installed at Main and Higgins in Winnipeg have gotten national attention as a success story. Keeping them staffed adequately to make them tolerable to use does not come cheap, though.

- It appears that the far right has found themselves a preferred candidate for the byelection being held by the Louis Riel School Division following the resignation of Francine Champagne. They seem to like someone by the name of Sandra Saint-Cyr. So if you live in LRSD Ward 1, you now know who not to vote for.

- Many are worried that the US is falling behind China in the development of clean energy technology. Many others are worried that the American response, slapping punitive tariffs on the imports of such technologies from China, will make climate change worse than it has to be.

- Universities in Toronto and Waterloo are losing patience with the pro-Palestinian protest encampments on their campuses, and are issuing orders to move. The protesters seem to be defiant so far.

- The president of the University of Toronto Faculty Association, Terezia Zoric, is currently being investigated for antisemitism by the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. The accusation stems from a 2021 webinar in which she blamed "an entitled powerful Zionist minority" for blocking the hiring of a critic of Israel. It's an interesting grey area; if she'd singled out organizations (such as B'nai B'rith) for lobbying against the hiring I don't think any reasonable person would call that antisemitic, but the expression she used does sound like a potential dog whistle.

- New rules for bringing dogs into the US are causing alarm among some Canadians who cross the border frequently with their dogs. I'm certainly not opposed to giving snowbirds another hoop to jump through, though it gets a bit more problematic when you consider the fact that it applies to guide dogs and other service dogs.

- Two chaps at a Walmart parking lot in Nanaimo, BC got out the bear spray and tire irons in an attempt to settle the question of who was entitled to use a parking space.

Soft landing for Iggy?

Depends who you believe. There are whispers of a job for him at the U of T:

It’s not a scheduled stop on this summer’s gruelling bus tour but the University of Toronto is looming as the Liberal leader’s final destination. Michael Ignatieff is being touted as an eventual successor to Janice Gross Stein at the university’s prestigious Munk School of Global Affairs.

Returning to U of T where he has strong ties would provide a soft landing for Ignatieff if the next election doesn’t go well for the Liberal party and its leader. The Munk school begins an intense international search for Stein’s replacement this fall. Sources say the university would also welcome Ignatieff’s return if he chooses to fill the post it offered in 2005 to bring him back to Canada from Harvard.

From the Star. Iggy is denying it, of course, but we'll see if he's singing the same tune in a couple of months.