News roundup, 3 Dec 2024

- The US has promised another $725 million in aid to the Ukrainian military before the end of Biden's administration in January. Unfortunately at this point it's not so much about saving Ukraine as about making Russia's probable victory more costly to them.

- It now appears that Donald Trump didn't quite win a majority of the popular vote nationally, not that it matters to the outcome. With 96% of the votes now counted, Trump has 49.97% and Harris 48.36%. This remains, however, the highest percentage of the vote that Trump has received. Turnout was about 63.8%, slightly lower than in 2020 but still the second highest in a century.

- In most provinces it is prosecutors, not police, who make the decision to lay criminal charges. In Ontario this is not the case; as a result, the backlog in their courts is considerable. The justice ministry is looking to change this, but not surprisingly the police don't want to give up that power.

- The Manitoba government is considering a ban on disinformation about election workers and the electoral system. Justice Minister Matt Wiebe cites the rise in "deepfakes" and similar AI-driven techniques that have been quite effective in weakening democracy elsewhere. Of course this is double edged (there are grey areas about what constitutes disinformation, not to mention when someone should be assumed to be "knowingly" circulating it), but it should be noted that the provincial Elections Act already has similar prohibitions regarding disinformation about candidates, so maybe a similar prohibition regarding election officials isn't a big step.

- A long-term care home in Windsor, Ontario has barred a man from visiting his mother at the facility; he says that this occurred after he expressed concerns about how his mother was being cared for. The management of the facility claim that this is justified because he had "demonstrated anger" and behaved in a "threatening and abusive manner". Without knowing the specific nature of his conduct it's hard to say if he was actually threatening or abusive. I don't doubt that he demonstrated anger, but that by itself doesn't seem like enough reason. This isn't the first time something like this has happened, either.

- Manitoba has recorded 323 overdose deaths in the first 7 months of 2024, including 105 in June and July alone.

- A woman in Fannin County, Georgia was arrested on a reckless endangerment charge after her 10 year old son walked to a nearby dollar store unaccompanied.

Quebec prosecutors on strike

Quebec's government lawyers, including prosecutors, have walked off the job as of today. Apparently they are paid some 40% less than their counterparts in other provinces; what's particularly interesting, though, is that the government gave them the right to strike in 2003 in order to avoid having to give them binding arbitration instead; presumably arbitration would have forced the government to pay them properly beforehand and the government was gambling that they wouldn't have the nerve to actually walk out. Well, the government has lost its gamble. Amusingly, the radio coverage noted that if the government wanted to fix their mistake now, they'd be out of luck, because along with the prosecutors, the lawyers that would be needed to draft the legislation are themselves out on strike.

Unfortunately, when criminal cases get thrown out due to delay (as they no doubt will) the corporate media and the general public will likely lay the blame at the feet of the union, rather than the government where it clearly belongs. One can see an element of this in the Gazette's article on the issue; it makes no mention of arbitration as the reason they were given the right to strike in the first place.