Archive for the 'Ontario' Category

12
Nov

Harper’s Optics Bode Ill for Toronto

By Cynapse 0 Comments
Categories: Ontario, Politics and Toronto

The dismissal of a federal candidate raises some serious concerns about the CPC’s agenda for cities, and in particular Toronto:

The federal Conservative candidate for Toronto Centre says he is being dumped by his party because he wasn’t “staying on message” with the national campaign strategy.
…
Warner, who has been campaigning for 10 months, said he was trying to highlight the need for better urban and social policies, which wasn’t what the party’s campaign brass wanted.
“I was trying to stay on message in terms of talking about crime and other major issues, but in a riding that is 60 per cent immigrants, that has lots of public housing, and has two universities and a community college, I felt the need to also talk to the issues that my constituents were raising on the door — education, immigration, housing, in addition to environment, health care and crime,” he told CTV’s Mike Duffy Live on Thursday.
-CTV Toronto (Nov 1)

At first glance, the Conservative Party of Canada’s dismissal of Mark Warner seems reasonable – the party and its previous incarnations (The Canadian Alliance, The Reform Party of Canada) have been dogged repeatedly by the controversy of renegade members whose sound bites were picked up by the media and blown out of proportion. Warner spoke to his riding on education issues, public housing and HIV/AIDS – issues important to the Regent Park residents in his riding but not central to CPC doctrine. On the latter issue, the CPC deleted a reference on Warner’s biography citing attendance at a 2006 HIV conference that Prime Minister Stephen Harper avoided.

Mark Warner is also hardly the first CPC member to be removed for defying party policy in support of local interests. Nova Scotia MP Bill Casey was expelled from the Tory Caucus in June for voting against the federal budget. Casey’s objection was an amendment to the Atlantic Accord, which he contends was promised not to be changed. The executive in his riding refused to seek an alternative candidate were also dumped from the party.

Thirdly, Warner’s riding is at best a long shot, as he is running against Liberal big-shot and former Ontario Premier Bob Rae in the cultural nucleus of a city that failed to elect even one conservative party member during the previous federal election. Toronto Center contains some of the nation’s richest (Rosedale) and poorest (Regent Park) residents. The riding has not seen a Conservative in office since 1993 and Warner was expected to run a distant third in the upcoming election. Taken in combination with the previous points, the cost of keeping a renegade candidate in a long-shot riding outweighs any apparent benefit. Removing Warner seems like a logical decision.

Alas, this “logical” decision does not account for optics – how does it LOOK to remove a candidate that isn’t towing the party line? Here’s how it looked to some local media –

Share Magazine Article on Mark Warner
(click to Enlarge)

So again, what was Mark Warner trying to accomplish by diverting his message from black letter policy? Although joining the PC party during the reign of the comparatively Toronto-friendly Brian Mulroney (whose public opposition to apartheid won him some respect among the socially conscious), Warner was going out on a very long limb by remaining in CPC the party under the western-based Harperites. As a Caribbean –a group rarely targeted by CPC supporters except when seeking a scapegoat for violent crime- he probably received a lot of flack from his ethnic community over his allegiance. His best response was to tailor the Conservative message for a region with a long exposure to anti-Conservative fear mongering. Warner’s website lists actual CPC achievements since coming to office and how they have positively affected life for Torontonians. If Stephen Harper wanted to appear less scary to urban residents, “Mark Warner” was the way to do it.

Alas, the 43-year old lawyer was unceremoniously dumped with minimal public explanation and no overture to his riding. Knowing that Stephen Harper was quite happy to dump untold money on Quebec to gain political favour and oblige every Sikh/Chinese ceremony he could fit into his schedule, the message to Toronto is clear: “Go to Hell”.

This message will play well with the many Canadians who have turned their hatred of Toronto into a religion, but the divide and conquer strategy will have long term consequences for a nation that is supposed to be governed as one.

07
Nov

The Folly of Africentric Schools … and Why they Should be Allowed Anyway

By Cynapse 14 Comments
Categories: Ontario, Politics, Society and Toronto

From the Toronto Star:

Admitting it is failing some students of colour, the Toronto public board could open a black-focused school as early as next fall.

Two community meetings are planned in the next week to discuss the idea of an “African-centred alternative school” from junior kindergarten to Grade 8 that would have more black teachers, black mentors, more focus on students’ heritage and more parent involvement.

“Whatever is being used in the system at this moment is failing a lot of students – and more specifically a lot of black students,” said Donna Harrow, a community worker who is behind the push for such a school, along with Etobicoke parent Angela Wilson.

Race-based schooling, despite its good intentions, is a dangerous way to combat academic failure for three main reasons -

Problem #1: Black-Focused Schools are Hypocritical

As some bloggers have already opined, it is sadly ironic that members from the racial group responsible for the biggest civil rights / integration push in North American history now campaign for racially-segregated schooling. Alas, that is not what I was alluding to – rather, Ontario just had an election that focused inordinately on the possibility of public funding for religious-based schools. Ontario Conservative leader John Tory staked his reputation on support for the initiative and Liberal Premier Dalton McGuinty howled in protest. The voting public were equally dismayed with the idea and Tory was slaughtered at the polls (failing to even win a seat for himself). For the McGuinty government to consider race-based schooling barely a month later is a double standard beyond reproach – and a betrayal of the public confidence.

Problem #2: The Segregation Genie

If blacks are allowed to have their own schools, who’s to say that the Portuguese –another group said to be underperforming academically- won’t want their own as well? On the other end of the spectrum, why couldn’t the high-successful Chinese also apply for segregated schooling? Chinese culture is quite unique from the European experience, there are far more Chinese than blacks in Toronto and the Chinese could additionally claim that public schools aren’t teaching their high performing children quickly enough (or at least SOME of them could claim the latter).

An additional wrinkle – contrary to what fund-chasing activists publicly proclaim, there is no such thing as black culture. The “black” population of Toronto comprises of several ethnic groups from four continents. The primary groups are Jamaicans, Trinidadians, Somalis, Ethiopians and Nigerians. Jamaicans and Trinidadians have a somewhat similar culture due to their shared history of slavery and Euro-Centric indoctrination. The East Africans -Somalis and Ethiopians- and somewhat similar, owing much to Arabic influence and the fact that both states have been historically independent as they do to any notion of blackness. Nigerians belong to a third faction (West Africans) and have a different history altogether. Now, if these schools are being justified on cultural and historical relevance grounds, how the heck can you place these three factions of “blacks” together? Jamaicans are the most notorious of the black groups for crime and poor school performance – why would they care about Haile Selassie any more than they would about Winston Churchill? Will the East Africans continue to be isolated if there are no bilingual classes in Soomaali and Amharic? How finely will the school population have to be subdivided to eliminate all of these supposedly incapacitating barriers?

Problem #3: History Classes Cannot Override Social Deficiencies

The most dubious claim by proponents of an Africentric curriculum is that the inclusion of African history will increase interest and subsequently the achievements of black students. If that is the case, how come Asians are doing so well despite little instruction on the dynasties of Ancient China (which would still be of little use to a Vietnamese immigrant)? Better yet, why aren’t Jamaican children as a whole performing much better in Jamaica, where the history classes are heavily oriented towards local culture? The answer lies in both history and economics: except for the rich upper classes, Jamaican kids are doing extremely poorly in school and end up feeding a gang culture far worse than multicultural Canada. Jamaica’s murder rate has consistently been in the top 5 for the world, surpassing considerably poorer states like Zambia and political hot-spots like India (whose students tend to do quite well in Toronto).

More academically-successful immigrants emigrating from places like India and Hong Kong tend to be wealthy and well-educated in their homelands. More recent Jamaican immigrants, by contrast, tend to be from the poorer classes who lived in shanty-towns embroiled in gang wars precipitated by the nation’s two political parties. Education in Jamaica is still largely a privilege of the wealthy.

This cultural disparity was exacerbated by the refocusing of Canada’s immigration point system away from academic traits and in favour of required employment experience, which took place during the late 1970’s. Entry to Canada became more difficult for Jamaican university graduates and much easier for housekeepers. Most Jamaicans –even wealthier ones- were not and are not able to “buy” their way into Canada like their Asian counterparts, causing freshly-educated Jamaicans to look elsewhere for migration. The revised immigration policy also favoured single workers over family units, which caused many Jamaican women to leave their children behind to get a job in Canada. Many applied to have their children emigrate later as direct family members once the rules became more family-friendly.

The social effects of this migration pattern should be obvious – a child that grew up with one or zero natural parents in an unstable environment with poor education would beseverely ill-equipped to handle the pressures of living in Canada. (S)he would have to live in an alien culture with a mildly-educated mother who was never around through the formative years and often still won’t be around due to long work hours, the lack of a father, and a culture of origin that placed little emphasis on academics. In short, many of these kids, by nurture, have no value for learning and become more economically isolated as manufacturing and other low-education jobs cease to exist in Canada’s service-oriented economy.

My question to the Africentric scholars – do you seriously think this social problem can be fixed by teaching more history lessons about Africa?

…

That said, I don’t officially oppose Africentric schools. Why? Because Ontario is already segregating schools, as stated in the article. One cannot seriously oppose Africentric schools without proceeding to oppose native-only schools and the entire Catholic school board. To attack one type of focused school system is at best myopic and at worst biased. Thus, there is no reason why they shouldn’t be allowed – just mind the slippery slope.

10
Oct

Don Valley West – Ground Zero on D-Day

By Cynapse 7 Comments
Categories: Ontario and Politics

So lucky, I should be located in Don Valley West for tonight’s provincial election, which has been unofficially declared the center of the voting universe by Ontario media. This is of course because Progressive Conservative leader John Tory has decided to run in this riding, taking on the powerful and popular Liberal incumbent, Education Minister Kathleen Wynne.

Tory decided to forgo running in a more conservative-safe riding for a riding that has votes traditionally Liberal on both the provincial and federal levels. A recent riding poll published by the National Post stated Wynne as having 52% support in DVW while Tory significantly trailed with 37%. Should the poll prove to be prophetic, Tory will have the dubious distinction of being one of the few party leaders to lose his own riding.

I cast my vote barely and hour ago, and the election process has been greatly refined. I know this because I got to vote on the first try this time around. My last attempt at voting was during the last federal election, and when I arrived I was directed to go to “one” of the desks in the front area. I went to the only open table, where the white-haired gentleman took one look at me and folded his arms in strong defiance. My wife was in shock – we thought we left this kind of bias up north. Before I could get any unkind words out, we were quickly escorted to another table by another polling official who noticed what was about to transpire.

The previous scenario would be impossible under the current voting process – tables were assigned by number and a stern-looking election official kept watch over everyone. The staff also suddenly got diverse – far more diverse than Leaside, at least. Security was also increased – after taking my driver’s license, the lady at the table asked me to state my full name and address. Only after that did I receive the ballots (1 for choosing a minister; 1 for deciding on MMP), and after voting was asked to state my name for a second time before dropping the ballots in the box.

Outcome prediction? Results will be rolling through starting in about an hour, but here’s my predictions:

  1. Tory will lose Don Valley West … Kathleen Wynne will be the victor by a safe margin
  2. The NDP will finish a very distant third since its candidate, Mike Kenny, didn’t even bother to show up for the debate
  3. The Green Party will be fourth, but not far behind the Green Party, since the average Green Party supporter votes on principle rather than on the personality of any one candidate
  4. The Family Coalition party will be lucky to break triple digits. I didn’t even know there was a candidate here until I looked at the ballot
  5. Overall, Premier Dalton McGuinty and his Liberal Party will win a light majority because Ontarians were unable to look past the rather trivial school issue of faith-based schooling
  6. John Tory will step down … eventually. His replacement will be connected in some way to Stephen Harper
  7. MMP will fail because hardly anyone understands what it is. Green party supporters will be crushed.
03
Aug

Should Religious Schools Receive Government Funding?

By Emilia Liz 63 Comments
Categories: Ontario, Politics, Religion and Society

Last week Ontario Progressive Conservative leader John Tory announced that if he were elected Premier he would extend government funding to non-Catholic religious schools in the province. These would include Jewish, Hindu, Muslim and non-Catholic Christian institutions. His announcement, as was to be expected, generated quite a bit of controversy. On one hand, some individuals, particularly those affiliated with the schools in question, applauded his move. It is not right, they said, that one religious group – Catholics – receives government financing for its schools while the rest do not. Others agreed with this reasoning, with a twist: in a secular state, religion should be kept out of government institutions such as schools, and therefore no faith community is entitled to taxpayer support. This is the position taken by among others Toronto’s Eye weekly magazine and by 58% of respondents to a recent poll. The third view amounts to a sort of “The way things are are the way things are” (that quote is from the character of the cow in the movie Babe) approach. It might not be fair that Catholics get full funding for their schools and members of other faiths do not, but this is the law of the land.

A clarification: the “law of the land” is actually the British North America Act. When it was written in 1867, it provided for the establishment of two educational systems in Ontario: the Catholic system and the Protestant system. At the time Protestants and Catholics were virtually the only religious groups in the province, so it was thought that this division would cover every student. The writers of the Act probably did not envision the future mass immigration of members of other faiths to Canada (or the increase in individuals not affiliated with any). Eventually the Protestant system became simply the non-Catholic, or public, system, without ties to any religion. One might thus argue that like laws forbidding people to let their horses copulate in public or requiring that a married woman obtain her husband’s permission to open a bank account, the British North America Act, or at least the portion granting Catholics their own school system, is now obsolete.

The question of school funding affects me both as a parent (albeit of a child too young to attend school) and as a practising Christian. My position on the matter is similar to that of Eye magazine: religious educational institutions, Catholic or non-Catholic, should not receive state funding. (Note: sometimes the drive to eradicate so-called “religion” from the public sphere borders on the inane; witness for example the kerfuffle over the Christmas tree in the courtroom.) The responsibility of raising my daughter in a faith falls to me as her mother. If I want to have formal religious education as an adjunct to her upbringing, I should shell out the money for the appropriate school from my own pocket, not the public purse.

On the other hand, some criticism of full funding for all religious schools strikes me as alarmist. It has been asserted that Tory’s move will isolate children from members of religions other than their own and lead to profound divisions in Canadian society. That possibility seems a bit far-fetched. A number of Catholic schools, for instance, have a considerable percentage of non-Catholic and even non-Christian students enrolled in them. Even working under the assumption that religious schools would accept only followers of their particular denomination, the fact is in today’s world children will be exposed to people of other faiths outside of school, such as on sports teams, in clubs, at part-time jobs, etcetera. Finally, not all parents, even those who go to a church or other place of worship, would choose to have their children attend a religious school. I for one would prefer that my daughter learn about her faith from me, her other family members and our church rather than from a school.

I am not sure that Tory’s position on funding of religious schools will make or break my vote in the next provincial election (I tend to alternate between supporting the Conservatives and the Liberals); there are plenty of other issues to consider when casting my ballot. Some have accused John Tory of using religious schools as a means of courting the ethnic vote. That may or may not be true, but given that over half of Ontarians do not appear to support his idea, he might rethink his plan.

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