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How the Ontario Conservatives Can Win the Next Election – Education

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One of the impressive accomplishment of the once-mighty Ontario Conservative Party over the past decade has been their knack for losing eminently winnable provincial elections against a wasteful, corrupt and incompetent Ontario Liberal government.  With that in mind, the fact that recent polls show the Tories with a healthy (but not enormous) lead doesn’t exactly instill great confidence (particularly given how disastrous the last 14 years of Liberal rule has been for the province).

This post is the first in a series outlining how the Tories can win the next provincial election. Today:  Highlighting the abject failure of Liberal education policy.

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This is Why No One Takes the Toronto Star and the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives Seriously

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I know I shouldn’t read the Star.  Especially not when it’s reporting on the latest report from the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives (the “CCPA”).  Not because I don’t agree with them (it’s no fun reading people you agree with), but because the degree of stupidity and ignorance which oozes from their writing is just traumatizing to the brain of a thinking person.

Consider this story from today’s Star about the CCPA’s latest report about the ‘eye-popping’ shift to “low-wage” work:

The research compiled by the left-leaning think tank shows that the share of Ontario workers labouring for the minimum wage is now five times higher than in 1997. It rose from less than 3 per cent of all employees to about 12 per cent in 2014.

The share of low-paid work has also ballooned: almost a third of all employees in the province are now making within $4 of the minimum wage, compared with less than 20 per cent of the workforce in 1997.

Oooh, that sounds bad, the number of people working for minimum wage has increased 5-fold, surely this is the end of capitalism.

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A Couple of Thoughts on the Media and the Michael Brown Shooting

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So, a Missouri grand jury decided not to indict officer Darren Wilson for shooting Michael Brown, an unarmed black teenager, last summer. I  confess that I hadn’t been closely following the circumstances of the Michael Brown shooting in Ferguson Missouri over the summer.  Sure, I read a few articles about the incident and subsequent protests in the August, but I hadn’t been paying close attention.  But, with the release of the evidence presented to the grand jury, I thought it would be interesting to see what the basis of the grand jury’s decision was (as an aside, the evidence is fascinating, and from what I’ve read so far, provides a far more nuanced and subtle portrayal of the incident then has been broadly reported).  There’s a lot of evidence, which I’m still sifting through, but what really strikes me, so far, is how different the evidence is from the impression one would have formed from intermittently following media accounts (as I had done).  Consider two examples.

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If the case against TWU law school is so strong, why do its opponents have to mistate what the law actually is?

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I’m not sure why I actually care  about the Trinity Western University (“TWU“) law school (which I’ve written about ad nauseum, here, here and, most recently, here) or whether or not it gets accredited by the provincial law societies.   I went to a proper law school (UofT) and frankly would rather spend my weekend at the local gay pride parade than at bible study with the TWU grads. Yet, here I am, defending TWU.  In part, though, I think its the fact that, as a lawyer, I’m offended by the by shabby, misleading, and plain stupid legal arguments being made against TWU.

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Iran, Canada and the Alleged VIA Bombers

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Yesterday, the RCMP arrested two alleged terrorists for attempting to to attack a VIA train travelling between Toronto and New York.  Details of the plot are still sketchy, but according to at least one account, the two alleged terrorists intended to derail VIA train 97 as it crossed the Whirlpool Bridge, near Niagara Falls – plunging the train and its passengers into the Niagara Gorge.  Interestingly, in light of Canada’s recent diplomatic history with that country, the RCMP also alleges that the two alleged terrorists  received support from “Al Qaeda elements in Iran“.

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Notes On The Gaza War Part I – War Crimes and the Killing of Civilians

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This morning’s bomb attack on a bus in Tel Aviv – for which Hamas’ military branch has claimed credit – drives home the fundamental moral distinction between Israel and Hamas in their ongoing war in Gaza.

For many of Israel’s critics, the death (or wounding) of civilians in Gaza is prima facie evidence of Israel’s evil and a war crime.  Mind you, those critics were notably quiet in response to repeated Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel over the past 4 years or, to the extent they do condemn such attacks, their condemnations are sotto voce and rather late in the day. But today’s events underscore the false equivalence between Israel and Hamas.

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The Republicans Need The “Rubio Rules”

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In a recent interview with GQ Magazine, Marco Rubio was asked how old he thought the Earth was.  His answer is an object lesson in how not to answer stupid questions. 

I’m not a scientist, man. I can tell you what recorded history says, I can tell you what the Bible says, but I think that’s a dispute amongst theologians and I think it has nothing to do with the gross domestic product or economic growth of the United States. I think the age of the universe has zero to do with how our economy is going to grow. I’m not a scientist. I don’t think I’m qualified to answer a question like that. At the end of the day, I think there are multiple theories out there on how the universe was created and I think this is a country where people should have the opportunity to teach them all. I think parents should be able to teach their kids what their faith says, what science says. Whether the Earth was created in 7 days, or 7 actual eras, I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to answer that. It’s one of the great mysteries.

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