Much has been said and written about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s predictably disastrous trip to India for the G20 Summit (including by yours truly; I hope you have read the article ‘PM Trudeau’s India Disaster 2.0). This issue is important enough to keep bouncing around in the public sphere for some time. I will be putting out a podcast episode to sum up my reaction to the responses that I received on Twitter / X to my article.
In the meantime, there are other developments that also merit our attention.
Today, I wish to focus on some of these developments at the municipal level. Before I get to the specific instances, it bears noting that our political system has morphed into something where the credentials required for electoral success are mostly related to activism, rather than any demonstrated ability in the areas of policy making or administration. Nowhere is this phenomenon more visible than in municipal politics.
I consider this to be a ‘foundation crack’ in the edifice of our society; not only do municipal policies affect our lives more directly compared to the policies of the other two levels of government, but also this is the level that shapes the minds of our children and thereby decides what our future is likely to be. Arguably, therefore, our focus needs to be all the greater at this level – which, sadly, it isn’t.
1. A gentler form of book-burning:
As CBC reported, Peel District School Board, which serves Brampton, Mississauga & Caledon, has gone on an aggressive exercise of expunging books from its library shelves. CBC journalist Natasha Fatah posted on Twitter / X that the list of expunged books includes Anne Frank’s Diary (although the CBC report does not include this name). Ms. Fatah is a diligent journalist (a rare luxury at CBC), so I suppose she dug into the list before making that claim. Nonetheless, I have emailed my PDSB trustee to confirm this.
Pending the outcome of my inquiry, this revives the thorny issue of an out-of-control ideology that is sweeping through Canada’s schools that is hell-bent on removing any and all traces of what we used to hold dear and consider valuable – indeed, invaluable – part of education of kids. The sad part is that we (collectively) haven’t tackled this issue even though it has existed for at least 5 years; back in 2018, PDSB kicked up a controversy by mandating that the literary classic ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’ be “taught through a critical anti-oppression lens”.
There is certainly a debate to be had as to whether the position of School Board Trustee needs to be an elected one – but in light of the current social environment and the dominance of this ideology, there is no guarantee that appointed trustees will necessarily be better. Consider that in the Mockingbird case, Poleen Grewal, the then-associate director of instructional and equity support services at PDSB, had said that “the novel will be taught to explore the impact of how racism is portrayed by a white author”. Frankly, I consider this to be absolutely bonkers. The value of Mockingbird is in what it teaches us about racism; making it about the racial identity of the author is diametrically opposite of what we should strive to learn from the book.
In the present case, PDSB has undertaken this exercise according to the directions from the Ministry of Education – but the chair of PDSB is quoted by CBC as saying that “the weeding process itself rolled out wrong”.
There is a possibility here that this statement is in the nature of damage control. If so, it is also likely that Anne Frank’s Diary may get reinstated in PDSB’s libraries – but the battle against this cancerous ideology won’t be over soon.
2. What is in a name after all?:
A few days ago, I came to know that the city council wards in Edmonton have Indigenous names. The name-change happened nearly 3 years back, so we can chalk this belated discovery up to my not keeping up with the news in my country. Mea culpa. However, some of these names may pose a degree of difficulty in pronouncing. While names like ‘Dene’, ‘Metis’ and ‘Nakota Isga’ roll easily off anyone’s tongue, ‘Ipiihkoohkanipiaohsti’, ‘Sipiwiniyiwak’ and ‘Tastawiyiniwak’ may prove a bit too challenging for many.
In fairness, however, it must be said that the City did follow a democratic process for changing the names from whatever they used to be earlier to these new ones. A bylaw approving the proposal to change the names was approved in December 2020, and a Committee of Indigenous Matriarchs approved each of the ward names.
I guess Edmontonians will get used to these names over time – or maybe not, in which case, it may become a divisive issue.
3. The disconnect between actions and needs:
The financial woes of the city of Toronto are well-known, as is their stubborn resistance to change their behaviour – the same behaviour that begat the said woes. In the latest iteration of this (not-so-perplexing-anymore) phenomenon, the recently minted Mayor Olivia Chow has asked the federal government for more money (quelle surprise).
She wants the feds to cough up more money after the City Council “voted on a motion to ask the federal government to reimburse churches and community organizations who have provided funding for refugees to the tune of up to $750,000”. If only we had journalists in Toronto who could ask her why she hasn’t so far spoken about implementing cost-saving measures for the City.
The foundational (but unspoken) assumption seems to be that every cent of spending is (a) 100% justified, and (b) cannot be chopped from spending. I hate to pick a side here, but this is typical of the Left: in their paradigm, the only remedy to shortage of money is to find ways of getting more money from others.
For his part, Immigration Minister Marc Miller responded to Mayor Chow’s demand by pointing the finger at Ontario Premier Doug Ford. It is worth bearing in mind that both the federal government and the Toronto City Council were all very gung-ho about inviting refugees to Canada – but now that the refugees’ needs have to be provided for, both parties are out of ideas (not just money).
The long-term impact of this is a declining quality of life for all Torontonians.
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