Month: August 2020

We would be happy to receive the fallen statue of Sir John A for installation on the grounds of Alberta’s Legislature and I personally will take stewardship of his bronze head.

Sir John A MacDonald is credited with being the dominant architect of Canadian Confederation.

He is perhaps less known for his May 1883 words spoken before the House of Commons referring to the state’s relationship to Indigenous peoples: “When the school is on the reserve the child lives with its parents, who are savages; he is surrounded by savages, and though he may learn to read and write his habits, and training and mode of thought are Indian. He is simply a savage who can read and write … [T]he Indian children should be withdrawn as much as possible from the parental influence, and the only way to do that would be to put them in central training industrial schools where they will acquire the habits and modes of thought of white men.”

“The great aim of our legislation has been to do away with the tribal system and assimilate the Indian people in all respects with the other inhabitants of the Dominion as speedily as they are fit to change.”

 Under his watch as prime minister his racial animus, in addition to supporting the residential school system , extended to the execution of Metis leader Louis Riel, the head tax on Chinese workers and virulent anti black sentiments.

Historian Constance Backhouse has written that Macdonald appealed to anti-black racism and anti-Americanism to justify retaining the death penalty for rape, though unenforced since the early 1840s. She cited a letter to the Chief Justice of Nova Scotia in which Macdonald stated that it was “expedient” to keep it on the books “principally on account of the influx of blackguards of all kinds from the United States”, and “on account of the frequency of rape committed by negroes, of whom we have too many in Upper Canada. They are very prone to felonious assaults on white women”.^[177][178] He stated that were the penalties not severe, “there would be great dread of the people taking the law into their own hands”.^[178] The assertion of the frequency with which black men raped white women is not borne out by the criminal statistics,^[179] and the charade of judges passing death sentences for rape that were always commuted by the Minister of Justice in Ottawa (Macdonald himself, for five years) was ended by an act passed under PM Alexander Mackenzie.^[17

Sources: Wikipedia and other.

In the still of the night,Erin O’Toole has been elected the new leader of the federal Conservatives, Canada’s official opposition, replacing Andrew Scheer.

O’Toole was chosen after running a campaign where he focused on keeping the party focused on its “true blue fundamentals.”

Today the Conservative Party has blown the opportunity of a lifetime by choosing a leader who is not Don Grapes Cherry.

If the suit suits then wear it, an anonymous Liberal source was quoted as saying!

The Liberal 2015 election platform pledged: “We will not resort to legislative tricks to avoid scrutiny. Stephen Harper has used prorogation to avoid difficult political circumstances. We will not.”

“Stephen Harper and the Conservatives prorogued Parliament in order to shut it down and avoid a confidence vote,” Trudeau said. “We are proroguing Parliament to bring it back on the same day it was supposed to come back anyway and force a confidence vote.”

Following a prorogation, Trudeau will face a confidence vote with a new speech from the throne.

Ex- Trump adviser Steve Bannon arrested on charges of defrauding donors to ‘Build the Wall’ campaign

Chrystia Freeland will become Canada’s new finance minister, the first woman to take on the powerful role, CBC News has confirmed.

Freeland, former foreign affairs minister, is now deputy prime minister and intergovernmental affairs minister and in addition to juggling ,tightrope walking, chair balancing and unicycle hijinks she generally bats cleanup for whatever crisis the government finds itself and is often called upon as the designated hitter ! (no hockey analogies were available at the time of posting)

Bill Morneau resigns as finance minister and MP, will seek to head up OECD

The federal  Conservative party will announce the winner of its leadership contest on Aug. 23.

Nearly 269,500 people are eligible to vote for the new leader, which is roughly 10,000 more than the last time the party held a leadership vote in 2017.

Candidates

There are four names on the ballot: Leslyn Lewis, Erin O’Toole, Peter MacKay and Derek Sloan.

Choose the Right Synonym for anticipation:

PROSPECT, OUTLOOK, ANTICIPATION, FORETASTE mean an advance realization of something to come. PROSPECT implies expectation of a particular event, condition, or development of definite interest or concern.   the prospect of a quiet weekend   OUTLOOK suggests a forecasting of the future.  a favorable outlook for the economy   ANTICIPATION implies a prospect or outlook that involves advance suffering or enjoyment of what is foreseen.   the anticipation of her arrival   FORETASTE implies an actual though brief or partial experience of something forthcoming.   the frost was a foretaste of winter