sabotabby | Deep breath...screaming

OKAY WHO IS READY TO HEAR THE LATEST BULLSHIT

Premier Drug Fraud has been very busy. No, not governing; he doesn't know how to do that. He just says words out of his massive grinning facehole and assumes that someone else, somewhere, will make it happen. What's he been up to? Read on!

The absolute least helpful thing

You may have heard that on Sunday, a gunman murdered two girls and injured 13 others. Police are still investigating why, but it does seem that he suffered from serious mental health issues and was delusional. This comes at a time when there is a small uptick in gun violence, some of which has migrated from poor, racialized communities, to downtown neighbourhoods where rich white people hang out. Toronto City Council have responded by trying to bring back additional surveillance measures to stomp all over the poor communities, which won't work because c'mon, people.

The mass shooting on Sunday was one of those cases, but unlike the other ones, it doesn't look like it's linked to gang violence in any way, beyond that the gun probably came from the US via a gang member. No amount of surveilling Regent Park or Jane and Finch or Rexdale or Malvern, no amount of carding and beating young black men, no amount of CCTV cameras or unproven technologies, would have prevented Faisal Hussain's rampage. What might have worked was stronger mental health interventions, as apparently this kid was a nonstop desperate cry for help.

So what do our fearless leaders do? Reroute some of the $1.9 billion earmarked for mental health to the cops. Now, while it's important to train cops in de-escalation, having sat through a number of compulsory workshops on mental illness, I can tell you that they are pretty useless. The problem is not a lack of awareness about mental health amongst cops; the problem is that cops are the wrong tool to deal with people having mental health crises. Regardless of how you train them, the people who choose to become cops are not the kinds of people who choose to become social workers, psychiatrists, or paramedics, all of whom manage to rush into the same dangerous situations unarmed. You can train cops to shoot less, maybe, but you can't train them to do a difficult job that other professionals study at college or university. Once again, security theatre trumps useful solutions.

Back-to-work for CUPE 3903

He legislated CUPE 3903 back to work. I mean, he had some problems doing it, because Tories like to use omnibus bills to pass legislation (they don't understand how parliamentary democracy really works; this will be a recurring theme), and he wrapped up the cancellation of the wind farms in the same legislation. The fiscal hawks in the party revolted, since cancelling the wind farms cost more than finishing them, and this was exactly the kind of corrupt, fiscally irresponsible governing that they (rightly) criticized Wynne's Liberals for. But anyway, he managed it.

Problem being—it's late July. Classes were supposed to end in April. York U has had all this time to bargain, or at least come up with a plan, but their plan was basically "cross our arms, refuse to bargain with the union, pull a few dirty tricks, and assume the government will come to our rescue." Which, belatedly, the government did, but there is no back-to-work protocol, which is basically unheard of. Students and TAs found out late at night Wednesday that they had to go back in Thursday morning. That's assuming they're even still in Toronto, which for summer break is a big assumption.

No Child Left Unmolested

The Great Health and Phys. Ed. Curriculum Debacle continues. For about a week, they had Former Goat Farm Manager basically in hiding from the press, with pronouncements coming straight through the premier's tiny, tiny teeth, but they let her out yesterday to make words out of her facehole.

And what words they were!

Please read the whole thing because it is AMAZING. Note, however, that there is no such thing as a 2014 curriculum. The curriculum was written in 1998 and updated in 2015. In 2014, they were teaching the 1998 curriculum. She has invented (or, probably someone has invented for her), an imaginary curriculum that doesn't exist, and for some reason she thinks she'll get away with claiming that we'll be teaching it.

ALSO IT IS NOT CALLED THE SEX-ED CURRICULUM. It is the Health and Phys. Ed. Curriculum. Like most of it is about how to throw a ball or whatever they do in sports class.

I am quite pleased to say that my own board has told the government where it can stick the 1998 curriculum in the politest possible terms. I don't normally have all that much nice to say about the TDSB, but they got our backs on this one.

SO ANYWAY THEN IT GOT WEIRDER. Christine Elliot, the deputy premier and usually the sane one in the party, came out with this incredible statement.

Deputy Premier Christine Elliott said Thursday that if a student asks a teacher questions that aren't covered in the curriculum, educators should have the ability to address them and ensure children receive the supports they need. But those chats should occur in private "rather than a classroom discussion," she said.

"The requirement is that the curriculum be followed," Elliott said. "But of course there's lots of student questions that come to teachers every day. Of course, a teacher is able to have a private discussion with a student to answer the questions."

DEAR CHRISTINE ELLIOT: I realize that you know nothing, squat, bupkis about education what goes on in a classroom, but I DO NOTHING IN PRIVATE WITH MY STUDENTS. EVER. Because it is WRONG and ALSO ILLEGAL. Holy fuck I do not even close my classroom door when there are students in there. I am not going to have private conversations about sex with my students; that is the creepiest thing I've ever heard, even from a party that is willing to allow our children to be vulnerable to sexual predators if it means increasing the suicide rate of trans youth.

But it doesn't end there.

No it does.

These festering cockwombles are just getting started.

Cancelling elections in the middle of an election

Because as I was getting ready for bed last night, it broke that Ford planned to slash the number of councillors in Toronto from 47 to 25. Oh yeah, and cancelling elections for regional chair positions in York Region, Peel, and Muskoka.

I think it's fairly self-evident why this is a huge problem. It came as a surprise to everyone, not least of all the mayor (and fuck you Ford for making me side with Tory, of all people). Also, THE ELECTION HAS STARTED. He just cancelled elections in the middle of an election.

A friend of mine did some number crunching so I didn't have to (I am only midway through my second coffee of the morning, after all). Ford says changes save the city $25 million over 4 years. City's budget is $10 billion, so $40 billion over a 4-year period. Ford will save the city 0.0625 of a percent for almost halving democratic representation. Actually it's even less than that.

The strategy here is to steamroller democracy. Especially in Toronto (which, you may recall, voted NDP and remains a defiant bastion of orange in a sea of blue), but in general. It's governance by tweet—the Dear Leader has ultimate power, he makes pronouncements, and everyone does what he says. Halving City Council will create chaos, but chaos is the MO. He wants you to be too busy, too overwhelmed, and too outraged to fight back. No longer is gentle persuasion required to convince the populace that it's a great thing to funnel public funds directly into the pockets of Ford and his oligarchic friends and cronies—no, we have accepted the far-right consensus. Democracy and elections are just annoying interruptions of our Netflix binging, what with all these people knocking on our doors and asking us to think about issues? So divisive! So partisan! Wouldn't it be better if we all just elected a strongman leader who would make all the decisions from now on?

(And Americans—if you think I'm being melodramatic, think about what will happen if Cheeto Benito decides that his party is likely to lose seats in 2020. Do you think elections can't be cancelled if there's no one to stand in the despot's way?)

Today, your job is to make the demo at 6 pm if you can (I can't), or tie up Minister of Municipal Affairs Steve Clark’s constituency office at 1-800-267-4408.

ETA: Here is a succinct visual to sum up our current political situation: