FROLITICKS

Satirical commentary on Canadian and American current political issues

Oct 15

Overriding Canadian Human Rights Legislation Via Use of Notwithstanding Clause 

by bcurry

Section 33 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is part of the revised Constitution of Canada created back in 1982.  It is commonly known as the “notwithstanding clause”, sometimes referred to as the override power and was included at the time so as to have the majority of provinces agree to the new constitution.  The clause allows Canada’s Parliament or provincial legislatures to temporarily override certain sections of the Charter when introducing new legislation.  It is unique among the constitutions of democratic countries and gives federal and provincial governments the ability to ignore most of the constitutional rights of Canadians other than the right to vote, the seating of legislatures and the House of Commons, mobility rights and language rights.  One extraordinary provision is that no explanation for such a move is required.  The U.S, Constitution gives no such powers to the states, but it does authorize Congress to remove jurisdiction from the federal courts.  However, not since World War II has Congress mustered the requisite majority to do so.

For much of our new constitution’s history, it was rarely used by provinces (the federal government has never invoked it) and was politically regarded as an option of last resort.  However, the notwithstanding clause has since been used by Alberta in 2000, and Quebec in 2001 and 2005.  In addition, most Canadian provinces, including Quebec and Alberta, have their own human rights Act, which protects people in a province from discrimination in certain areas, such as employment, accommodation, and access to services, based on specified grounds (‘protected characteristics’).  Recently in 2022, Ontario’s Premier Doug Ford of Ontario threatened to invoke the clause to take the right to strike from teachers but subsequently abandoned his plan due to political pressures and the threat of future court challenges.

More recently, invocation of the notwithstanding clause by provinces has to do with the introduction of so-called “parental rights” legislation, similar to that found in Florida and some southern U.S. states’.  Such laws primarily govern the use the preferred names and genders of schoolchildren.  In June of this year, the premier of New Brunswick, Blaine Higgs, introduced legislation which requires teachers to get the permission of a child’s parents if the child is under the age of 16.  Now the issue has surfaced again in Saskatchewan.  Following the lead of Mr. Higgs, Premier Scott Moe recently recalled his province’s legislature to introduce a similar bill.  If passed, it will mandate parents’ consent for a number of things including the use by any pupil under 16 of a new gender-related preferred name or gender identity at school.

One expert observer noted that provinces tend to use the notwithstanding clause to feed their base the idea that we’ve gone too far in human rights and that the courts have been leading us in the wrong way.  The belief is that elected officials need to capture back their power.  It’s also suggested that its use has resulted in more “wedge politics.”  Remember that introducing such legislation will take away the individual rights of those directly affected, such as in the above cases involving the rights of a child.  Psychiatrists and social workers have noted that there are potential harmful consequences of forcing teachers to contact parents regarding such matters, especially where the child may fear a hostile reaction by their parents to gender-related matters.  Where once before a child could turn in confidence to a teacher or school counsellor for information and assistance, the child may now be much more hesitant to do so.  The detrimental result may be the potential emergence of social and mental health issues.

It has been suggested that in some cases the courts might ultimately end the ability of premiers and prime ministers to preemptively set the constitution aside when it comes to human rights legislation.  This was the most recent case in Ontario over the right to strike by teachers.  Never-the-less, the concern over the use of the Charter’s withstanding clause by provinces should remain a serious concern among Canadians.  After all, who’s next to have their individual rights taken away by a government?  Where does it all end?  The continuing use of this provision will ultimately water down those protections afforded to us under both federal and provincial human rights laws.

Canada Charter of Rights and Freedoms Civil Rights Quebec's Bill 21 US

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Oct 6

Speakers of U.S. House of Representatives and Canada’s House of Commons Resign

by bcurry

Two interesting events happened in the last couple of weeks.  Both speakers of a Congressional and a Parliamentary body were forced to resign in unprecedented ways. 

On September 26th, Anthony Rota stepped down as House of Commons Speaker after inviting a former Ukrainian soldier who fought in a Nazi division to Canada’s Parliament during the recent visit of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy who delivered an address in the House of Commons.  Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made it clear that the Speaker’s mistake was deeply embarrassing for the House, Canada and the Ukraine.  Rota, a Liberal Party Member of Parliament, was pressured by his party and members of the opposition to immediately resign, something very rare in Canada’s parliamentary history.

In the U.S., the House of Representatives voted on October 3rd to oust Kevin McCarthy, a, a vivid rebuke of his leadership and an escalation of the civil strife within the Republican Party.  The so-called band of eight Republicans who rejected McCarthy, most of whom are Republican Party member, as Speaker of the House.  It was the first such removal in American history members of the hard-right Freedom Caucus, were opposed by 210 of their fellow GOP representatives, all of whom voted to keep the Speaker in place.  McCarthy had aligned with the Democrats in the House to pass legislation allowing the government to continue operating until next November, thus preventing an imminent shutdown of federal government services and much of its employee compensation.  What is particularly disconcerting is the current provision which allows any one Representative to call a vote in order to replace a sitting Speaker, as was done in this case by Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida.

In the case of the Canadian Parliament, the Speaker’s resignation was unfortunate but was quickly resolved through the quick selection and appointment this week by House members of a new Speaker, one Greg Fergus who became Canada’s first Black Canadian Speaker of the House of Commons.  His independent role as Speaker, although he is a Liberal Party Member of Parliament, is to maintain order in the House and direct the daily operations of his office.

On the other hand, the House of Representatives has yet to select a new Speaker from the majority Republican Party.  The Speaker’s removal has only deepened the body’s dysfunction, leaving the House rudderless so-to-speak, and with no clear path to effective leadership.  Although a government shutdown was narrowly avoided over the past weekend, another looms next month.  Future assistance to Ukraine as it fends off a Russian invasion is also at stake.  McCarthy has declared that he will not run again for the position and has not endorsed a would-be successor, leaving Republicans to scramble to find a viable candidate.  There are a lot of concerns among experts about the actions of the fringe elements of both parties, and their potential negative impact on the House functioning and the possibility for compromise agreements as to budgets and the functioning of the state.  They have pointed to the troubled tenures of previous Republican speakers of the House such as John A. Boehner and Paul D. Ryan, both of whom struggled with stiff resistance from their right flank.  Indeed, a fundamental role of the House Speaker is to attempt to pursue conciliatory measures between the two parties through negotiations and on-going discussions.  Unfortunately, it appears that the parties themselves have grown weaker because they are increasingly controlled by those on the fringes, as exemplified in this case.  Moderates in both parties have expressed their concerns, but apparently to no avail. 

The increasing failure of Congress to function in an orderly fashion and to represent the interests of all Americans has placed democracy in a dangerous situation.  The on-going haphazard saga of the annual Congressional budgetary review and votes is clearly unworkable under these circumstances.  The sooner that the House can select a new Speaker, the sooner the House can hopefully get back to democratic governance.  Let’s hope for the sake of all Americans and democracy that this will happen in a quick and sensible manner!

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Oct 2

Let’s Go To Live On The Moon or Mars.  Why Don’t We?

by bcurry

Given the progression and severe consequences of climate change over the last decade in particular, there are some scientists who believe that the Earth could become unliveable before the end of this century.  As of today, the Earth’s total population is estimated at around 8.1 billion people.  For whatever reason, there are those who are already talking about and planning for the possible colonization of the Moon or Mars in the near future.

Indeed, one company is looking to having people living on the Moon as early as 2040.  Currently, flights to the Moon by several countries, including India, Russia and China have taken place.  Apparently, NASA’s planned Artemis missions will land the first woman and first person of color on the Moon in November 2024, using innovative technologies to explore more of the lunar surface than ever before.  Artemis will collaborate with commercial and international partners and establish the first long-term presence on the Moon.  Then, they will use what they learn on and around the Moon to take the next giant leap: sending the first astronauts to Mars.  They plan to build an Artemis Base Camp on the surface and the Gateway in lunar orbit.  These elements will allow our robots and astronauts to explore more and conduct more science than ever before.  NASA will return to the Moon robotically beginning next year, send astronauts to the surface within four years, and build a long-term presence on the Moon by the end of the decade.

A raft of commercial lunar missions are taking off in 2023.  The first lander is set to touch down this month, signalling a new era for Moon science and exploration.  NASA will blast a 3-D printer up to the Moon and then build structures, layer by additive layer, out of a specialized lunar concrete created from the rock chips, mineral fragments and dust that sits on the top layer of the moon’s cratered surface and billows in poisonous clouds whenever disturbed.  The Moon shot of a plan has been made possible through new technology and partnerships with universities and private companies.  For example, the School of Architecture at Texas A&M University is working closely with NASA to develop a construction system that can be operated by robots in space.  Some of the 3-D technology involved has already been used successfully to build homes on Earth.  However, doing the same in space is a much more difficult endeavour.  NASA is also working with a handful of universities and private companies to create prototypes for space furniture and interior design.

In addition, from a commercial point of view, there are mining companies interested in potential sources of minerals on the moon.  The moon represents a potentially significant cache of untapped resources, and several nations will undoubtedly be interested in a stake.  India last month landed a spacecraft on the Moon, earning the distinction of the first nation to ever land near the southern polar region, where the most precious of resources — water — is believed to be lying in wait.

The next destination of course would be Mars, already having been explored by robotic surface vehicles.  The Moon is a practical spot for a layover, as NASA believes that the water on the lunar surface could be converted to rocket fuel for a future trip to Mars.  There have already been efforts to vet potential persons interested in helping to colonnade the red planet.  Another company would like to build and sell condos on Mars — an unlikely scenario.  I wonder how much those would cost!

There are those that would argue that we should first apply all of our scientific and technological resources to solving the current environmental problems on earth.  There is no doubt that putting humans on the Moon or on Mars is a very costly endeavour.  The fact is that it will take decades to accomplish what countries want to do in space.  For those of the billions of us left on planet Earth, we will just have to wait and endure. 

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Sep 23

Dispute Between Canada and India Greatly Affects U.S. As Well

by bcurry

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada said on Monday that “agents of the government of India” had carried out the assassination of a Sikh community leader, Hardeep Singh Nijjar (a Canadian citizen), in British Columbia earlier this June.  This of course was an explosive allegation that has further soured relations between the two nations.  India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi called the accusation “absurd.” The two leaders met briefly at the Group of 20 summit meeting in India earlier this month..  Trudeau stated last week in Parliament that Canada had credible information that “agents of the government of India” had carried out the assassination of Nijjar.  A formal investigation is on-going.  At the summit meeting, Trudeau met briefly with Modi and raised the matter with him.  Mr. Modi “completely rejected” the allegations.

Since then, Canada was forced to cancel a scheduled trade mission to India and postponed a possible trade agreement between the two countries which had been negotiated for over a year. 

In turn, the Indian government temporarily blocked the issuance of visas to Canadians wishing to visit India.  This will affect Canadians of Indian descent, Indian students studying in Canada and family members visiting in Canada.  Both countries expelled diplomats from their respective embassies.  India for some time has also accused Canada of providing shelter to “Khalistani terrorists and extremists” who threaten India’s security.  Khalistan is what Sikh separatists call the independent state they seek to create in India.

The situation regarding the Sikh community is an important one given that Canada is now home to the largest Sikh population outside India, with about 770,000 people who reported Sikhism as their religion in a 2021 census.  Sikhs hold a prominent place in Canadian society and politics.  In the federal government, the head of the New Democratic Party, Jagmeet Singh, is Sikh.

The current diplomatic dispute places President Biden in a tough and very sensitive place.  On the one hand, he has to recognize Canada’s right to defend its sovereignty.  After all, the U.S. would do the same under similar circumstances where American citizens are attacked in their country by foreign agents.  However, Biden is being forced to maintain a delicate balance between the interests of two democratic allies.  The White House has declared that it is waiting for the formal investigation to conclude before weighing in, but it pushed back on criticism that the U.S. is trying to avoid antagonizing India because of its important strategic role.  As reported by the Washington Post, India is among the world’s most populous countries, occupies a strategic location in the Asian subcontinent — notably opposite to China — and is home to a growing technology sector. The U.S. and India recently established a high-level initiative on defence and emerging technologies that will, among other things, promote joint production of defence equipment, including military jet engines, long-range artillery and armoured infantry vehicles.  However, the relationship is complicated by India’s poor record on domestic human rights, its reliance on discounted Russian oil and its neutral position vis-à-vis the Russian-Ukraine war.  Biden has raised the issue of Modi’s crackdown on dissent and his persecution of religious minorities in India.  Biden is asking both Canada and India to cooperate in the incident’s formal investigation in order to end the dispute as soon as possible. 

Those perceptions of peaceful Sikh advocacy for independence in India faced a jolt in 1985, when a bomb went off on an Air India flight from Canada to India via Britain.  The explosion off the coast of Ireland killed the 329 people, including several Canadians, on board.  An extremist, a Sikh immigrant, was convicted in connection with the bombing, which came at a time of heightened tensions between the Sikh community and the Indian government.  As in the U.S., Canada will always condemn any extremist activity that results in violence in Canada or elsewhere.  However, freedom of expression and freedom of religion are deeply entrenched in the constitutions of both countries and are fiercely protected.

Hopefully, both Canada and India, with their many other mutual interests, can resolve their differences through the promotion of cooperation in investigating the above incident.

Canada Extremism Extremist Groups Foreign Policy Foreign Policy India India US

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Sep 17

Several American Unions Are Striking Partly Over Technological Change

by bcurry

As one union leader pointed out, we are in a new industrial revolution spurred on by advances in high tech, including in the field of artificial intelligence (AI).

Just this past week, the United Auto Workers (UAW) union in the U.S. went on strike, targeting strikes in three locations against the big three auto makers: General Motors, Ford Motor and Stellantis, which owns Chrysler, Jeep and Ram.  Now, while the strike by the UAW is about the usual contract items such as wages and benefits, there is one additional item — the preservation of union jobs as they ramp up electric vehicle manufacturing and as the industry shifts to batteries.  Because they have fewer parts, electric cars can be made with fewer workers than gasoline vehicles.  Plants that make mufflers, catalytic converters, fuel injectors and other components that electric cars don’t need will have to be overhauled or shut down.

In another instance, back in the spring, the Writers Guild of America (WGA) went on strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers.  Again, the main issues are related to fair compensation.  Shortly after, the Screen Actors Guild (SAG) went on strike in July, joining the WGA.  This is the first time that both the WGA and SAG have been on strike against the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers at the same time since 1960.  Again, technological changes are among the issues at hand for both groups, including changes to the entertainment environment due to streaming and the potential use of AI in screen productions and script writing.

Madeline Janis, executive director of Jobs to Move America, an advocacy group that works closely with the U.A.W. and other unions, noted: “The U.A.W. is really taking a stand for communities across the country to make sure this transition benefits everybody.”  Declaring this as the dawn of another industrial revolution, she highlights that the strike is probably the first of many to come in sectors where unions are faced with significant technological changes, including in mainstream media as regards journalism, the trucking industry with respect to self-driving vehicles, etc., etc.  In the past, robotics and automation dominated many of the unions’ concerns.  Now, a whole new era has begun.  One has to believe that workers are ready to take a firm stand, as well as employers who are faced with stift competition, often from non-unionized companies.  As a result, such strikes could be long and nasty.

There is little that governments can do to prevent the prolongation of strikes during the current environment, especially when it comes to technological changes driven by global market forces.  We have yet to see the full impact of AI on employment and the workplace as it is still in its infancy stages.  There are a lot of difficult questions that need to be asked.  As in the past with respect to technological change, the union movement will be among the first to seek out the answers.  For this reason, I look forward to witnessing and analyzing the outcomes of these confrontations.

Technological Change Urban Issues US

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Sep 7

What’s Going On With All These Pollsters?

by bcurry

Pick up any newspaper today or read news articles online, and you can’t avoid seeing the most recent polls concerning the U.S. presidential primaries or the standings of federal political parties and their leaders in Canada.  The most interesting polls of course have to do with the potential impact of the recent indictments against former President Donald Trump.

However, support for Trump, may obscure a still varied Republican electorate. To better understand the party today, one pollster split Republican and Republican-leaning voters into groups, based on the results of its Times/Siena poll. The groups were defined by how Republican-leaning voters felt on the issues — not how they felt about Mr. Trump.  The results depict a Republican coalition that consists of different six groups.  Their support for Trump varies accordingly.

According to a poll commissioned by POLITICO Magazine and conducted by Ipsos in June, roughly half of the country believes that Trump committed the crimes alleged against him.  What should happen to Trump if he gets convicted?  The poll’s results show that forty-three percent said he should go to prison, but most were willing to spare him jail time.  Nearly a quarter of respondents said that Trump should incur no punishment at all (22 percent), while 18 percent said he should receive probation and another 17 percent said he should face only a financial penalty.  Interestingly, roughly one-third of respondents said that they are not particularly familiar with the allegations in the indictment cases.

Nationally, recent polls indicate that support for President Biden and Trump is about evenly split.  However, analysts note that should Trump win the Republican primaries, he would most likely loose to Biden. This despite voter concerns over Biden’s age and his low approval ratings.

In Canada, the political drama is far less evident than in the U.S.  Recent polls show that the current leader of the federal Conservative Party, Pierre Poilievre, has pulled ahead of Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau.  Moreover, an Ipsos poll in December 2022 indicated that nearly half of Canadians want there to be a federal election in 2023, although the official deadline for the next federal election is 2025.  In addition, the poll indicated that, after over eight years in office, a slim majority of those polled are hoping one politician won’t be running in the next election: Prime Minister Trudeau.  Fifty-four percent of those polled said Trudeau should step down as the leader of the Liberal Party in 2023, although just 27 percent said they actually believe he’ll do so.  The Prime Minister’s approval rating has been coming down when compared to Poilievre’s.  However, with an election still potentially two years away, anything can happen as indicated by recent polls, and much will depend on the regional distribution of votes.

Polls are powerful – they can influence emotions and shape political fortunes. They can be used to drum up support for campaigns and reveal how closely aligned (or far apart) the general public is on consequential presidential or prime ministerial policies.  Recent national elections have reminded us how problematic it is when we think of polls as forecasts of the future rather than a glimpse at where people stand at a given moment in time.  Also, not all polls include a margin of error, including non-probability polls such as those you can opt into online.  According to Pew Research Center, participants for these polls self-select, or opt in, and there is a risk that “these samples will not resemble the larger population”.

Polling is a huge industry.  All political parties and many third-parties, including media sources, use polls to get an idea where the voters stand on certain issues and how much support is out there for parties’ platforms.  Past history has shown that the closer one gets to an election date, the more accurate certain polling can begun.  Unfortunately, polls released just prior to that date can potentially influence the way in which certain voters, especially the undecideds, may consider voting.  After all, everyone prefers to support a potential winner, notably if they are voting as independents.  Prior to the next American and Canadian elections, I’d be closely watching the potential impact of polling and whether the results reflect the final outcome of the election.

Canada Donald Trump Federal Election Presidential Election 2024 Republican Party U.S. Primaries US US Politics

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Aug 24

It’s About Time that Canada Does Something Concrete to Deal With Wrongful Convictions

by bcurry

On Sept. 15, 1990, Tim Rees was sentenced to life imprisonment with no chance of parole for at least 15 years for a ten-year-old girl’s murder in Ontario, Canada.  Rees always denied killing the girl.  However, after serving 26 years in prison for the murder, it was announced that Rees, who is now sixty years old, will have his sentence reviewed by the Ontario Court of Appeal, after Canada’s Attorney General recently ordered a new appeal.  The AG noted in his press release that there is a “reasonable basis to conclude that a miscarriage of justice likely occurred.”  Rees was released on parole in 2016, where he remains.  On the year he was released, Innocence Canada — a non-profit organization that advocates for wrongfully convicted citizens — took his case.  Two years later, an application was filed with the former minister of justice claiming Rees had been wrongfully convicted.  Their strongest argument for the application was an undisclosed “highly incriminating statement” by the landlord of the victim’s family home, which he had made to the Toronto police homicide squad.

Tim Rees case is only the most recent example of someone who was wrongfully convicted of a crime and later could be exonerated due to new evidence.  Many more cases came about in the U.S. and Canada with the arrival of DNA tests used to investigate previous convictions years ago, used eventually to determine the innocence of those wrongfully convicted.  I would highly recommend that one read *Wrongfully Convicted by Kent Roach which highlights several cases of wrongful convictions in Canada to get a fuller understanding of this past and current issue.

As noted, under the current system, it’s the justice minister who decides on miscarriage of justice applications, often a long and costly process.  Recently, the current federal government in Canada introduced Bill C-40 which if passed would create an independent commission to review such applications and make decisions about whether to order a new trial or appeal.  James Lockyer, co-founder of Innocence Canada, said his organization has been pushing for the creation of an independent commission for some 30 years.  The proposed Miscarriage of Justice Review Commission would be an independent administrative body.  It would have a full-time chief commissioner and four to eight other commissioners.  According to background briefing materials, at least one-third, but not more than half, must be lawyers with experience in criminal law.  Such independent bodies and processes already exist in countries such as the U.K., Scotland and New Zealand.  They apparently have seen the appeals system move much more quickly and flexibly with respect to the applications that come forward.

In recent years, there understandingly has been much attention given to the rights of victims of crime.  To have introduced any legislation facilitating the review of potentially wrongful convictions does take a certain degree of political courage as noted by James Lockyer.  However, there has been one too many cases of wrongful convictions to simply ignore the issue.  In Canada, the issue was raised years ago in the sensational case of David Milgaard who was wrongfully convicted for rape and murder in 1969 and spent 23 years in jail.  As Lockyer noted in a National Post article published on February 16, 2023 that: “If this commission had existed back in the early 1970s, it can safely be said it would have saved David Milgaard at least two decades of those 23 years that he spent in prison.”

Everyone recognizes that our justice systems, including law and enforcement, are not always about justice but sometimes about process and political pressures.  The system is not infallible. There needs to be better means for those who possibly were wrongfully convicted to have their cases reviewed in an independent, fair and timely manner.

*Wrongfully Convicted (Guilty Pleas, Imagined Crimes, and What Canada Must Do To Safeguard Justice): Kent Roach (Simon & Schuster, Toronto, 2023)

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Aug 18

Environmental Crisis for Governments Only Heightened by the Impact on People

by bcurry

This has been a summer of extreme weather events followed by natural disasters such as flooding and wildfires — not only in North America but globally.  Whether we’re talking about wildfires near Yellowknife in Canada’s Northwest Territories or the devastation in Maui’s seaside community of Lahaina, everyone agrees that this year so far has been the worst one on record for wildfires.  In addition, one has the flooding throughout the American south and northeast, and the earlier floods that greatly damaged Halifax and its surroundings in Nova Scotia, Canada.  In several cases, we were not adequately prepared for the consequences of such extreme weather patterns involving droughts and severe storms, often a deadly combination.  Severe storms are frequently followed by or include tornado activity, which also has proven to be deadly in many cases.

Those of us who live in regions which for the most part have avoided such calamities should be thankful for what we have, and not complain about poor vacation weather or extreme heat.  Even lengthy periods of extreme heat can be deadly as witnessed in the southern U.S. and west coast of Canada.  Yes, we will complain of smoke flowing in from our wildfires.  However, while poor air quality at certain levels can be hazardous to our health, we can do something ourselves to mitigate the impact.  The same cannot be said for those directly facing wildfires, flooding and tornadoes. 

Then there are the enormous costs to all of us as a result of natural disasters.  In the case of Maui, damage estimates already range in the 6 to 7 billion dollars U.S.  The current evacuation of Yellowknife’s population, some 20,000 people, involves the largest single airlift of people in Canadian history.  Fighting the wildfires across Canada will amount to hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars.  For individuals in high risk zones for natural disasters, the cost of insuring their property has gone sky high.  In some cases, insurers are even refusing to insure many properties in such areas.  Food costs will also increase as a result of the negative impact of climate weather on farming and agriculture in general.  Certain harvests will certainly be affected this year, including grain, fruit and vegetable crops.  Then there is the immediate impact on tourism dollars, such as in Lahaina where tourism represented about 70 percent of their local economy.  Nova Scotia has also seen a significant downturn in tourism as a result of the earlier wildfires and recent floods.

Let’s not forget the physical and mental toll on individuals facing such disasters.  Many are losing their homes and places of employment.  The consequential stresses will increase demands on our health care sector.  Then there are those on the front lines, especially those fighting wildfires.  In Canada, four individuals working in related fire services have already died this past spring and summer.  The health and moral of first responders is probably at an all time low.  There is also the impact on our military, who often are asked to help in rescue missions, flood prevention and with logistics for evacuations.  The Canadian military is already stretched thin because of international commitments, all this adding to additional costs that they have to bear.  

While many of us sit and complain about poor weather for vacations, we should remember that there are our follow citizens who are greatly suffering from the impact of natural disasters on their communities.  As I have argued in the past, governments, industries and non-profit agencies, such as the Red Cross, need to adapt in a timely manner in the face of continuing challenges associated with the eventuality of more extreme weather events.  Failure to do so will only result in more costs, both economically and on a personal level.  For now, affected communities will require our continuing assistance and support.  Those of us who are fortunate enough to avoid such disasters need to stop complaining and find ways to support these communities and their people.

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Aug 14

American Media Under Attack By Local Law Enforcement, Now Physically

by bcurry

In June 2020, the arrest of a CNN news crew live on air in Minneapolis, where unarmed black man George Floyd died at the hands of police, first drew global attention to how law enforcement authorities in the city were treating reporters covering protests that had descended into riots.  At the same time, a reporter from Germany’s international news broadcaster Deutsche Welle was shot with projectiles by Minneapolis police while preparing to go live on air.  In September 2020, Los Angeles NPR station KPCC reporter Josie Huang was forced to the ground and arrested outside the hospital where two Sheriff deputies had been taken after having survived an ambush shooting.  Her press credentials were clearly visible in a recording of the incident.  At the time, the US Press Freedom Tracker, a non-profit project, said it was investigating in total more than 100 “press freedom violations” at similar protests. About 90 cases reportedly involved physical attacks. 

More recently, a small town in Kansas has become a battleground over the First Amendment, after the local police force and county sheriff’s deputies raided the office of the local newspaper, The Marion County Record.  A search warrant for the raid was issued by a judge roughly an hour before the search, which in itself was highly unusual.  As the New York Times reports, the advocacy director at Freedom of the Press Foundation, Seth Stern, noted that federal law allowed the police to search journalists when the authorities have probable cause to believe the journalists had committed a crime unrelated to their journalism.  That exception does not apply, however, in the above case where the alleged crime is simply gathering the news.  The Foundation is a nonprofit that advocates for the rights of journalists and whistle-blowers.  Mr. Stern also noted that, although news organizations are sometimes the targets of legal actions by government officials including subpoenas seeking interview notes and other records, the search and seizure of the tools to produce journalism are rare.  Normally, when journalists are suspected of committing crimes as part of news gathering, the government’s option is to serve a subpoena, which can be challenged in court before it is actually enforced.

For this reason, raids of news organizations are exceedingly rare in the U.S., with its long history of legal protections for journalists.  However, in recent years, particularly those under Donald Trump’s former administration, the mainstream media has come increasingly under attack for what Trump called “fake news”.  If he felt that the coverage was negative towards him, he immediately accused the reporting as being biased and inaccurate.  Often Trump refused to take questions from certain journalists known to report what he perceived to be negative news about his administration.  However, he never had any problem supporting right-wing media sources, such as Fox News, as presenting the truth, including his belief that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and illegitimate.  Conservative authorities appear to have been given the green light to increase their attacks on journalists and news outlets, especially in cases such as that in Marion County.

Whether at the local level or nationally, it is extremely dangerous that legitimate journalists can be attacked or threatened, physically or otherwise.  In addition, it’s becoming very difficult to keep newspapers in businesses and journalists employed.  According to a new report from Northwestern University’s journalism school in 2022, over 360 newspapers in the U.S. have gone out of business since just before the start of the pandemic.  The last thing that journalists need right now is to be threatened with legal action or physically while covering news stories.  What one particularly needs at this time is a strong mainstream media comprised of ethical and credible journalists willing to get the facts by following up and verifying their sources.  They should never be subject to intimidation for simply doing their jobs, which is the backbone of any democracy.

This most recent attack by local authorities on The Marion County Record is just the latest example of the inappropriate use of the judicial system to intimidate publishers and journalists.  It may only be a local incident, but it represents a much greater threat to the free press.  For this reason, it should be taken seriously as demonstrated by national support given to the publisher by more than 30 news organizations and press freedom advocates, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Dow Jones and the publisher of The Wall Street Journal.

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Aug 9

Political Polarizations Has Increased Mistrust in Many of Our Public Institutions

by bcurry

The New York Times in a very recent article (August 7th) notes that Republican (G.O.P.) contenders in the presidential primaries are bent on feeding voter distrust in public institutions such as the courts, schools and the military.  Obviously, most appear to be following the lead of Donald Trump who, for example whenever he has the chance, publicly attacks the U.S. Justice Department and the F.B.I.  During the pandemic Trump even disparaged the Surgeon General, the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the Department of Health and Human Resources.  Now, facing a barrage of indictments by the Justice Department, Trump has further accelerated his personal attacks on these major institutions.  Unfortunately, several other G.O.P. candidates have followed suit in an apparent attempt to appease Trump’s core followers.

All of the rhetoric, including that disseminated by social media and right-wing media, has created an environment where recent polls show that Americans’ trust in their institutions has apparently fallen to historical lows.  Feeding on voters’ already deeply embedded scepticism might have once been seen as politically risky, but social media and the right-wing media have helped change that.  The Republican governor of Florida and a candidate, Ron DeSantis, has led the charge against what he sees as a biased and liberal-influenced education system in his state.  Not to be outdone, another G.O.P. candidate, Vivek Ramaswamy, has gone on record that he would shut down the F.B.I. and the I.R.S. as part of his fight against the so-called “deep state”.

My primary question is what would replace all these important institutions in a democracy that claims to need independent bodies to deal with issues like law and order, public health, the environment, new technologies and the role of the military?  In a modern society, freedoms are important, but there still has to be some oversight of those matters as they relate to the public good.  Campaign rhetoric perpetuating conspiratorial themes does not help to ensure a rational and knowledge-based debate on many of the challenges that, as a democracy, we face daily.  It’s easy to argue that things should be eliminated, but no one Republican has yet rationally put forward any ideas about how one would go about replacing these institutions — and with what.

The Republican Party, just as the Conservative Party in Canada, has long stood for “smaller government in size and role” going back to the days of Ronald Reagan in the 1980s.   However, the current G.O.P. extreme rhetoric goes far beyond the past political stances of Republican presidents, from Richard Nixon to the Bushes.  As the Times article notes: “The proliferation of attacks has alarmed both Republicans and Democrats who worry about the long-term impact on American democracy.  Public confidence in core institutions — from the justice system to voting systems — is fundamental to a durable democracy, particularly at a time of sharp political division.”

Just as I am certain that there are a good number of moderate Republicans in the U.S. and conservatives in Canada who oppose such extreme rhetoric, I am hoping that cooler heads will prevail among our electorates in both countries.  Our democracies are closely watched by countries around the world, and defending our democratic institutions has never been more important in the face of the growth of autocratic regimes globally.  These institutions are essential to defending our democratic values and promoting the public good.  We need to strengthen them rather than knock them down as the result of excessive political polarization.  It’s one thing to push for smaller government influence in our lives, it’s another to suggest that one can simply eliminate or emasculate its influence in highly complex modern societies.  Doing so would just replace democracies with autocracies by centralizing political and economic powers under one regime.  We now have checks and balances, including the courts and justice system, to prevent this from happening.  Unfortunately, the Republicans appear more than willing to minimize such oversight.  Ultimately, the current split in their party, led by Donald Trump’s extremism, could greatly weaken their platform in the eyes of the American electorate, and particularly those of independents.

Donald Trump Judicial System Media Populism Populism in Canada Republican Party Social Media US Politics

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