For A Tuesday

Begin your school year right!



Only in Canada:

The report from Children First Canada and the O'Brien Institute for Public Health says high rates of suicide, child abuse, infant mortality and mental health hospitalization raise questions about the country's reputation as a great place to raise kids.

The report draws on data compiled by agencies such as Statistics Canada and the Canadian Institute for Health Information to examine child welfare in many categories.

It says Canada's infant mortality rate is among the highest in developed countries because of territories like Nunavut, where rates are more than double than the national average.

The report says the number of people between five and 24 years old being hospitalized for mental health concerns has jumped 55 per cent over the past decade, with Ontario recording by far the highest rates.

It also says Canada is in the top five countries around the world for child suicide, which it lists as the second-most common cause of death in the country.

(Sidebar: but ... but ... "universal" healthcare!) 

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The Canada Border Services Agency faced more than 100 founded complaints from travellers last year, including allegations of racism and rudeness — and one instance of a woman alleging a border officer yelled at her while she was in medical distress.

Data provided to The Canadian Press through access to information legislation says that in 2017-18 these were among the 105 "founded" cases of complaints of officer misconduct — about 12 per cent of 875 misconduct complaints filed in that time.

The total number of complaints through the CBSA's online "Compliments, Comments and Complaints" website remains a tiny fraction of the 95 million travellers seen by officers in the past year.

Oh, I'll bet that fraction is a lot larger than what has been reported.

Stick an officious jack@$$ in a uniform and the results will be the same every time.

What can one expect from a country with "no core identity", including courtesy and professionalism?

The mask of Canadian politeness had to come off some time.

The more overfed politicians and teachers do things like this, the more one is convinced that gutting their institutions and thinning out their ranks is a good and necessary thing:

The Doug Ford government has the constitutional authority to order the downsizing of Toronto Council even two-thirds into a municipal election campaign, a court heard Friday.

But opponents of the government’s Bill 5, which slashes council to 25 wards from the planned 47-ward model, argued the legislation shouldn’t trump the Charter right of Toronto voters, candidates and groups to freedom of political expression.

“Bill 5 threatens to invalidate the fairness of this election…and even render it illegitimate,” said council candidate and lawyer Rocco Achampong, who initiated the court challenge to Bill 5, but who was quickly joined by other parties including the City of Toronto and the Toronto District School Board.

Superior Court Justice Edward Belobaba will weigh those arguments and deliver a decision on Sept. 10 or 11 on whether to kill Bill 5 and reinstate the 47-ward option or stick with the province’s 25-ward plan, but he warned the losing side will likely appeal it.

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The Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario says it is seeking an injunction to keep the curriculum in place and to stop what it calls the government’s “snitch line” where parents can report non-compliant teachers.

Telling children not to tell their parents about a program devised by a convicted child pornographer is an awful lot like grooming, which is why some people are terribly miffed at the Catholic Church right now. 

Speaking of which:

First and foremost: Is the church’s teaching on clerical celibacy wrong? That is an important question that escapes the bounds of a Federalist article, but I’ll note this: If we are saying that celibacy is wrong because it causes males to engage in the most revolting forms of sexual assault, then we are really saying something shocking about men. It boils down to the claim that men who do not have sex, including by choice, are essentially ticking time bombs of violent perversion.

To the men reading this article: Do you think this about yourself? For those of you who are married: 

Do you believe, for example, that if some unfortunate accident were to prevent your wife from having conjugal relations with you, your thoughts would turn to how to seduce and abuse minors and how to create a web of secrecy and lies to cover it all up? Whether they intend to or not, that is precisely what everyone who makes the “celibacy equals sexual assault” argument is affirming: If you are not having sex, fellow brethren, you are a moral monster in the making.

This is a bad argument that has no empirical evidence to support it. However, there’s a deeper problem that goes beyond the question of celibacy itself. That is the problem of using hypocrisy as the standard for determining moral truth. Does deviating from a principle in conduct that one otherwise affirms necessarily disprove the truth of the principle itself?

Finally.

The Church's many detractors - leftists and their sectarian book-end, evangelical Protestants -  scream that if celibacy was done away with, these terrible cases of abuse would never have occurred. They fail to explain how people, married or not, who choose their way of life knowing full-well the course of it do not violate their vows, or how celibacy, however it is enforced, results in the abuse of minors.

But their ends are never about ending horrific abuse of children or of power but the collapse of an institution established by Christ.

Skim through their comments riddled with "patriarchy" and "Mary-worshippers" and tell me that I'm wrong.


Back on point:

The latest EQAO results show the continuation of a five-year slide in math results among elementary students.

Only 61% of Grade 3 students and 49% of Grade 6 students met the provincial standard — a ‘B’ grade — in 2017-18 EQAO testing.

So what is the issue here, teachers? Where is the concern?

Where is the ‘we know best, and by god we care so much about the children that we will do whatever it takes,’ attitude?

Is it that you didn’t want to attack the Liberals, so you are letting the failing math program go on, year after year, to the detriment of the kids?

Is it that you hate Ford and the Conservatives so much you will go rogue on sex-ed immediately?

What exactly do teachers care about? Politics over child welfare? Politics over professionalism?

Indeed!



More trouble for Jordan Peterson:

University of Toronto Professor Jordan Peterson launched a $1.5 million defamation suit in June against Sir Wilfrid Laurier, two of its professors and a former staffer for suggesting in a secretly taped meeting he was “analogous to Adolf Hitler.”

The lawsuit revolves around a nationally-publicized discipline meeting at Laurier between the defendants and teaching assistant Lindsay Shepherd in November 2017, called after she played a TVO video clip for a communications studies class showing Peterson debating gender-neutral pronouns.

In a Statement of Defence filed Friday, the University and three defendants deny they defamed Peterson and suggest the U of T prof consented to and profited from the release of the controversial audio recording Shepherd publicly released.

Lawyers Alexander Pettingill and Sean Murtha, representing the university and its former manager of gendered violence prevention and support, Adria Joel, claim Peterson “authorized, consented and/or knowingly acquiesced to Shepherd posting the recording of the impugned words to YouTube.

Accordingly, while these Defendants deny that the Plaintiff has suffered any damages as a result of the recording of the impugned words being posted to YouTube, the fact is that the plaintiff himself and Shepherd are solely responsible for any damages flowing therefrom,” the Statement of Defence says.

Lawyers for the other two co-defendants, Laurier professors Nathan Rambukkana and Herbert Pimlott, have not yet filed a statement of defence.

Peterson’s suit cited 14 defamatory statements spoken, including a comparison of Peterson’s comments to a speech by Adolf Hitler, comparing Peterson’s views to alt-right or white supremacist opinions, comments that Peterson was “academically suspect” and exhibits “charlatanism,” and a statement that Peterson was “spreading transphobia.”

They not only defamed Peterson but now argue that he cannot use their words against him to prove their defamation?

Wow ...



But ... but ... gun control!:

Toronto police have arrested a 20-year-old man in connection with a shooting at Yorkdale mall and charged him with a number of offences including two counts of attempted murder.

Police said they arrested Zion Sankar-Beharry outside of Trenton, Ont., on Monday without incident, following the shooting at the mall last Thursday afternoon. He appeared in court on Tuesday and the case will return to court on Friday.

Sankar-Beharry is facing eleven charges, including attempted murder, reckless discharge of a firearm and carrying a concealed weapon.

Again - how would banning guns have prevented this?

It's just money:

A fight over the federal government’s bill to overhaul the National Energy Board has been playing out away from the public eye but is expected to take centre stage in the Senate in September.

Behind the scenes, lower levels of government, companies and think tanks have been suggesting changes to Bill C-69 — which would turn the NEB into the Canadian Energy Regulator and establish an Impact Assessment Agency for new resource projects with a new scope and timelines.

At a recent meeting of energy ministers in Iqaluit, Saskatchewan’s Bronwyn Eyre said she and her counterparts in Alberta and Ontario raised concerns with the bill, which she called “an existential threat to our competitiveness.” ...

After months of formal and informal complaints, provincial politicians, policy analysts and industry groups are now seeking to propose amendments to weaken some of the bill’s most contentious features.

While energy industry groups have been the most vocal opponents, independent Senator Doug Black, who opposes the bill, said he is concerned it is “so widely cast” that it would affect numerous other industries.

Oh, dear ... :

After a huge blaze engulfed the neglected, 200-year-old National Museum of Rio de Janeiro, it is feared that up to 90 per cent of its 20 million artefacts may have been destroyed. Among the priceless artifacts now lost may be Pompeii frescoes that escaped the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD.

On Monday, officials promised $2.4 million to shore up the building and rebuild it, but locals are raging about the avoidable loss of a huge chunk of the nation’s history.

“The building could be rebuilt, but the collection will never again be rebuilt,” said Luiz Philippe de Orleans e Braganca, an heir to Brazil’s last emperor. “Two hundred years, workers, researchers, professors that dedicated in body and soul (to the museum) … the work of their life burned due to the negligence of the Brazilian state.”