ConcernedCdn

This ruling exemplifies the logical consequences of the Supreme Court's jurisprudence, particularly on s. 7 and s. 15 of the Charter. The impediment of public transportation policy here is not so much the work of one errant judge, as it is the accretion of legal precedents. 1/

Absolutely insane that 30 people in an encampment (that have been offered alternative accommodation) can hold up construction on a transit hub that will move millions every year. Shame on the Superior Court judge that made this decision.

Another day, another insane judicial ruling, and a good response from Premier Ford. An Ontario court has ruled that the Region of Waterloo cannot clear a 30-person tent encampment from a parking lot it owns to build a major transit hub. Buried in the decision is that the court declared homelessness an analogous ground under s.15 of the Charter. A "constructively immutable characteristic." A "discrete and insular minority." This argument has been tried before and failed, including in this very case, three years ago. If this holds, every municipal bylaw that differentially affects homeless people faces Charter equality scrutiny. The court went further, ruling the region cannot use its own land unless it first provides an alternative legal encampment or "tenting protocol" with equivalent services. Elected officials passed a bylaw, amended it, dropped fines and offered housing plans. None of it mattered. A single judge overrode all of it and made himself the region's chief housing policy-maker. The Charter has become not a shield against state overreach but a sword by which courts dictate municipal governance on questions that belong to elected governments.

This is something that could be debated in the legislatures as we are doing now, and I’d probably be on side if it was framed properly. However, our constitution is paramount and an international treaty does not override it. Our constitution does not recognize this, and explicitly rejected it in its creation. Courts ruled consistently against it, and Abella et al acted as priests rather than judges by “blessing” something that should have been left to legislators.

Gaza was only a big issue online. In the real world it was inflation, immigration, culture war stuff, and Biden covering his deteriorating health.

@MikeFegelman @jackmintz Has Australia learned that lesson? For both Canada & Australia (& the U.K.), it's not about money. It's about having frank conversations about immigration from some Muslim countries (& corresponding policy changes) & the Islamism that's already here. Money won't cut it.

Excellent and deeply troubling analysis from @JackMintz. Australia waited too long to act against antisemitism — but eventually understood that when Jews are under sustained attack, the entire social fabric is at risk. Canada still hasn’t learned that lesson. Jewish Canadians are funding extraordinary security costs themselves while governments issue press releases, normalize extremism, and pretend this is all somehow manageable. Waiting for a Canadian Bondi before acting seriously would be an unforgivable failure. shorturl.at/eRGqf

In 1945, poet Isidor Schneider wrote an essay called "Probing Writers' Problems," where he warned against viewing art strictly as a political tool. Among his criticisms is that doing so leads to shallow, wasted writing that can only age badly. His colleague, screenwriter Albert Maltz, wrote a response called "What Shall We Ask of Writers?", where he took Schneider's criticisms further: Maltz argued explicitly that the intellectual atmosphere of the left actively stifles creativity; that it creates a culture where art is judged not by the merits of the work but on the correctness of its politics; and that it vulgarizes art by turning it into crass political pamphleteering. Were these essays written today the authors would be condemned as "Far Right." But both men were Communists. And their words appeared in New Masses, a Marxist periodical. These guys saw the problems 80 years ago. And now modern pop culture is dying because no one paid attention.

Immigration officials are, again, incentivizing the clogging of the courts and the delaying of deportations theglobeandmail.com/politics/artic…

Our regulators have lost the plot. Literally, figuratively, and metaphorically.

@MarcMillerVM Let us watch what we want to watch when we want to. Stop coercing Canadians to bankroll your loser CanCon lobbyist dinosaurs.

We are reviewing the CRTC decision. As we carefully assess its impacts, it will always be paramount to ensure that Canadians continue to see themselves reflected on screen, hear Canadian voices, and celebrate what makes this country unique.

Oh dear. Ontario needs school choice (yesterday) to give parents the option to affordably shift to another school if they don’t love the direction their local public school is heading. ctvnews.ca/kitchener/arti…

@ParanoidPol More of the respondents to this poll opposed Israel’s actions in Gaza then supported it, which seems inconsistent with most other polls of American Jews on the war. The sample appears to heavily lean left.

I hope Israelis completely disregard any leftist morons regardless of whether they’re Jewish or not - here’s hoping you remember your own history because clearly no one else remembers the 1920s

there’s a non-zero chance this whole CBC dumpster fire was an undercover @ezralevant double-agent op to destroy the CBC. It doesn’t just make the CBC look biased, but also incompetent. No one in the CBC’s bloated corps of producers & lawyers flagged what a disaster this would be. They all thought they would get shiny reconciliation medals. These hacks live in their own little world, completely insulated from normal Canadians (most of whom they hold in utter contempt)

Thanks to harm reduction activists and their incessant push to “destigmatize” drugs, toddlers get to hang out with passed-out addicts on the playground. How wholesome 🙄

“Nine out of ten students at the University of Michigan and Northwestern admit to researchers that they lie in their papers and pretend to be more progressive than they really are in order to get a better grade.”

As a historian, I can tell you that societies that allow Jews to thrive are societies in history that are flourishing themselves. Look at America. It is the center of the most influential, the wealthiest, the most powerful Jewish community that has ever existed in the world, and it is no surprise it is also the most powerful, the most influential, and the wealthiest force for good the world has ever had. We are privileged to live here. But on the other hand, societies that allow themselves to be taken over by Jew hatred are societies that are sick and dying. Look at the Russia of Kishinev in 1903, the worst pogrom of the 20th century before the Holocaust. It was the biggest country in the world at that time. It had existed for hundreds of years. 14 years later, it was gone. Look at the Germany of Kristallnacht in 1938, the most powerful army, the most powerful air force. It was supposed to be the thousand-year Reich. Just seven years later, it was dead. So not because I'm a Jew, but because I am an American who came here from Venezuela with nothing, knowing no one, and who was embraced by this community and this country with open arms, which has given me and my family every blessing and privilege under the sun, I understand that we, each of us, Jew and not Jew alike, have a moral and practical obligation to root out anti-Semitism in our society because it is the moral rot in the wooden framework of our house. If we are not careful, it will bring the entire edifice tumbling down on all of us, not just the Jews.

Woody Allen sobre el antisemitismo hoy 1/2 Woody: «Saben, siempre pensé que la mayor ventaja de Nueva York era que uno podía ser neurótico y nadie lo notaba. En otras ciudades te mandan al médico si hablas contigo mismo. En Manhattan te ofrecen una columna en una revista por ello. Ayer salí a comprar salmón. Por cierto, es la única tradición judía estable que ha sobrevivido a Babilonia, Roma y a mis relaciones con mujeres. Caminaba por Brooklyn pensando en la muerte. No porque sea filósofo. Sino porque ya tengo más de noventa, aunque originalmente había planeado llegar como mucho hasta los setenta. Y de repente —una multitud frente a una sinagoga. Al principio pensé que allí actuaba un famoso psicoanalista. En Nueva York la gente hace cola durante horas para escuchar por qué su madre tiene la culpa de todo. Aunque los judíos eso ya lo saben sin necesidad de conferencia. Pero no. Estaban gritando algo sobre “intifada”. ¿Y saben qué me sorprendió más? La cantidad de energía que tiene esa gente. ¿De dónde la sacan? Yo después de subir dos tramos de escaleras ya empiezo a escribir mi testamento. Y ellos listos para una revolución sin haberse tomado ni un café decente. Un tipo gritaba algo sobre “descolonización”. Dios mío. Cuando yo era joven, “colonización” significaba que la tía Frieda ocupaba nuestro sofá durante tres meses y se negaba a irse. Hoy de repente es una conspiración sionista. En general, el antisemitismo moderno se ha vuelto demasiado intelectual. Antes simplemente nos odiaban. Sin rodeos. Hoy no. Hoy alguien con bufanda, que parece que escribe poemas sobre su propia barba, te explica con ayuda de Heidegger y Nietzsche por qué la existencia de los judíos es una forma de agresión y una amenaza para la humanidad. Y yo estaba allí pensando: antes al menos nos pegaban personas sin título universitario. Hoy los organizadores de pogromos tienen diploma de Columbia University. Luego una chica a mi lado dijo: “Estamos contra el sionismo, no contra los judíos”. Eso es como si mi exmujer hubiera dicho: “No tengo nada contra ti. Solo estoy contra todo lo que dices, haces, sientes —y especialmente contra acostarme contigo”. El significado es el mismo. Y entonces alguien gritó: “¡Los sionistas son nazis!”. En ese momento sentí que mi abuela se habría girado en su tumba tan rápido que podría haber abastecido de electricidad parte de Queens. Mi abuela, por cierto, vivió a auténticos nazis. Se escondió en un sótano en Polonia con un hombre que tosía tan fuerte que los alemanes podrían haberlos encontrado solo por el sonido bronquial. Y ahora un chico de una universidad de élite, cuyo mayor trauma en la vida es un café frío de Starbucks, me explica qué significa fascismo. Realmente vivo en tiempos sorprendentes. Hoy la gente habla como si se hubiera tragado accidentalmente una biblioteca universitaria. Nadie dice ya: “Perdón, soy un idiota”. No. Hoy se dice: “Estoy deconstruyendo el relato dominante”. Escuchen, yo crecí entre judíos. Nosotros no deconstruimos relatos. Nosotros creamos relatos. Llegué a casa y encendí la televisión —porque cuando uno tiene ansiedad, la televisión parece una idea excelente. Es como tratar el alcoholismo con un martini con hielo. Allí Roger Waters volvía a explicar el mundo. Los músicos de rock siempre me dan miedo cuando envejecen y empiezan a hablar como paranoicos que ven conspiraciones al mirar un gato negro. Luego apareció Kanye West. En mi infancia, los locos al menos parecían locos. Pelo despeinado, abrigo, palomas, conversaciones con cubos de basura. Este tipo simplemente se pone una máscara negra y dice que ama a Hitler. Y ahí entendí: la humanidad ha avanzado mucho —de “nunca más” a “discutamos los matices”. ¿Y los políticos? Los políticos dicen: “La situación es complicada”. No. Complicado es explicar a una madre judía por qué su hijo de cuarenta años aún no está casado.

@ELuttwak Yes, but I do think we want to avoid that situation.

The anti-Israel Democrats incl. the local Cong. Ratskin think that they are doing something new by denying weapons to Israel. In 1947 with war imminent & Arab States w tanks & aircraft the US & UK denied ANY weapons to Israel. It defeated all comers w the little that Czechs sold

Remember this when someone tries to gaslight you into believing that judges are not political Yeah I'm sure a training system that is over 90% Left produces politically neutral lawyers and judges

As temps rise, I'd love to take my kids to a local splash pad. Last summer we went--covered in broken glass. Needles all over the grass. Another child stepped on a broken crack pipe. This isn't unique. Hard not to conclude that kids/families aren't a priority in Canadian cities.