Canadian Politics

22 victims now, including a family of three. This is so heartbreaking.

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In some more positive news, $9 billion in financial aid for students has been announced. This will be available to students making less than $1000 a month or taking care of sick relatives, with additional support to students doing Covid-19 volunteering and indigenous students. No word on anything for recent graduates, but it sounds like there is going to be aid available for students starting in September, if anyone here was struggling with their job search after graduation and thinking about going back to school.

I just found some part-time work at a grocery store, but I was already considering going back to get some additional certifications, maybe even grad school in 2021. I wanted to get more industry experience before going back, but hiding out in academia for the economic downturn is looking more and more appealing.

Welp.

Saw some petitions against the new gun bans done by the Liberal Party.

Edited by Ominae on May 3rd 2020 at 11:10:49 AM

How is everyone here feeling about the gradual reopening of the economy? What province are you from? Do you think they’re moving too fast / not fast enough / about right?

I’m in Ontario. In general I think slow-and-cautious is the right mode here; we don’t have a clear, continuous decline in cases here. Though the percentage pf tests coming back positive has been falling (to about 5%), which is a good sign. I would be more comfortable if testing was more widespread (i.e., if we were testing everyone who’s symptomatic).

I’m pretty concerned about Quebec opening up; their caseload isn’t even decreasing yet!

I’m getting pretty annoyed about politicians saying students’ benefits should be limited because “we don’t want to discourage them from working”. They can’t work! There’s mass unemployment and few jobs! Even in a normal year student unemployment is high, i.e. there are more students who want jobs than can find them. Due to the pandemic that’s gotten incomparably worse. You can’t punish people for not having a job in those circumstances!

Edited by Galadriel on May 8th 2020 at 4:19:06 AM

PEI and NB are reopening cautiously, so we'll see how that goes.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Someone covered the firearms that are being banned. Note that they aren't small arms in the sense like assault rifles:

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2020/05/08/heres-some-of-the-historic-heavy-weapons-canada-just-banned/

https://www.thefirearmblog.com/blog/2020/05/07/canada-gun-ban/

BC, and very wary of it. As someone who is at high risk due to lung issues (had an inhaler beforehand, don't have anything like asthma or actual diagnosis).

Here we go with the Meng case.

This was on the US politics thread, but relevant to Canadian politics/media:

Trump threatens social media after Twitter adds a fact-check to one of his tweets: https://www.ctvnews.ca/mobile/sci-tech/trump-threatens-to-close-down-social-media-after-tweets-tagged-1.4956486

It makes me happy with CTV because they’re doing what all media should be doing (and many aren’t): stating in no uncertain terms when Trump is lying.

“The president has long used Twitter as a platform to spread abuse, conspiracy theories, false information and insults to his 80 million followers.”

Several other times in the article they also state outright that Trump is lying or spreading baseless conspiracy theories on several topics.

It stands out to me because even when Trump told people to inject disinfectants some media organizations were putting it in terms like “Doctors disagree with Trump” rather than “Trump suggests people do things that would kill them”.

Edited by Galadriel on May 27th 2020 at 1:00:25 PM

Just read on Twitter that her double criminality argument was thrown out.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Guess this’ll be the part where China’ll see about the two Michaels.

CBC covered Meng's case being thrown out:

Our enemies aren't above taking hostages. Here's hoping Xi doesn't have them killed.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

Yeah. Or Beijing can just keep them longer and use the anguish to force things in Canada.

Went retro to another thread I hang out and some people said that Canada shouldn't have granted the request from the US to detain Meng... 'Cause Trump.

Well and with the drug dealers being given the death penalty at first IIRC.

With all the protesting of police brutality and racism in the States, I have to ask, what is the situation like up here? Do police regularly get away with murdering minorities with no repercussions? Just how bad is racial profiling?

Edited by WillKeaton on May 31st 2020 at 12:37:05 PM

Doesn’t Canada still sterilize indigenous women without their consent?

Disgusted, but not surprised

I mean there is definitely a history of them being violent with Black and First Nations people and them having higher arrest rates. I can't think of exact numbers or stories at the moment.

It's a problem, but I don't have the stats on hand. A related issue is common citizens getting off for killing First Nations people with questionable self defense claims, etc.

And our justice system still protects cops by it's very nature, like most countries.

Not legally, but that didn't stop a few (IIRC) Manitoba hospitals.

Edited by Rationalinsanity on May 31st 2020 at 8:06:03 AM

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

4xThere protest going on in Toronto over the death of a women Regis Korchinski-Paquet. [1] but it's being over overshadow by the protest in the US.

There are major racial disparities in both policing and the prison system - indigenous people make up a vastly disproportionate share of people in prison, and there’s evidence of racial profiling of black, Middle Eastern and indigenous people by the police.

Here’s a couple of articles on the protests in Canada: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-march-demonstration-1.5593041

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/protest-toronto-regis-korchinski-paquet-1.5591745

Here’s one on racial discrimination by police in Montreal:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/montreal-march-demonstration-1.5593041

Here are statistics on overrepresentation of indigenous people in the prison system: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-002-x/2019001/article/00010-eng.htm

The above article notes that in 2017/18, indigenous people made up 30% of new prison admissions (up from 20% a decade ago), whereas they’re about 4% of the Canadian adult population. So not only is it really, really bad, it’s getting worse.

In Alberta and Saskatchewan indigenous people made up fully three-quarters of new prison admissions, compared to about 15% of the adult population in those provinces.

The data don’t include information on race aside from indigenous identity.

Edited by Galadriel on Jun 1st 2020 at 1:38:59 PM

Here is some additional data from CBC news regarding people killed during interactions with police during 2000-2017 (461 people total): https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform-custom/deadly-force

The rate of deaths per year (relative to total population) is rising, and a greatly disproportionate share of the victims are black or indigenous: https://newsinteractives.cbc.ca/longform-custom/deadly-force

For example, in Toronto over one-third of people (19 of 52) killed in interactions with the police are black, although black people make up only 8% of the population of Toronto.

Derek Sloan (who is running for conservative leadership) saying if he was elected PM, he'd designated Antifa as Terrorist Organisation, once again proving that the Conservatives are idiots.

And Sloan is dumb even by their low standards. The two frontrunners are Harper 3.0, and one of the most infamous and blatant liars in Canadian politics.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

CBC news interview with Quebec Liberal leader Dominique Anglade in regards to Premier Legault's denials that there's no systemic racism throughout the province.

Regina Police Association having to walk back their tweet about police defunding that sounds like a threat

They tweeted "Do you support defunding of Police in Regina? If you do, this amazing work by one of our member will be the first to go. Choose wisely" the amazing work pictured is Regina Police's Cultural Unit.

(note that RPA is the Regina Police Union, not that actual police force. That actual police force also did not take well to the tweet)

Edited by Ghilz on Jun 11th 2020 at 3:06:10 PM