@aeolianblues / aeolianblues.tumblr.com
I want to grab a saw and cut my country off and drift away from this madness. As a Canadian I am so fucking scared, and furious. The US simply can’t quietly have a contained election in a corner like the rest of us. GOD, Why can’t the US elections be inconsequential. I’d give anything for Canadian politics to be influenced more by what is happening in Canada than which clown is in the US. Also want to cry.
Also, from one campus radio station volunteer to all the other ones, exceptionally braver than me, putting themselves on the frontlines, broadcasting straight from the protests, getting themselves barricaded into their broadcasting booths overnight and continuing to be the only people bringing you live and on-the-ground coverage of the protests, I love you all.
CKUT, having covered the die-ins, coming live from the protests grounds at McGill, you have all my strength and love.
CJLO, for righting the disappointment we all felt in Concordia after earlier this year, thank you for your coverage of the Concordia protests, and supporting CKUT's coverage in Montreal.
WKCR, bravest of them all, putting themselves on the frontlines and bringing extraordinary coverage from Columbia. You are true journalists.
They're the future of journalism.
(A note about why some of these posts are coming from '[station]music' accounts: Meta, in retaliation to a demand from the Canadian govt to pay royalties for using news on their site (Bill C-18), decided to ban all news for Canadian accounts on IG and FB altogether. Of course, this did not touch commercial radio stations that simply play the same 5 songs over and over their breakfast shows, but every single campus radio station is now blocked in Canada, completely killing their reach especially to a younger, student audience. Many have made new accounts to continue posting about the non-news shows on air. There's never been a more important time to directly go to their websites for updates, and hell why not, throw them some donations if you can. They're the ones doing the good work in this time of need!)
McGill University is considering its next steps to deal with the camp set up by pro-Palestinian activists on campus grounds in downtown Montreal, officials said Monday. In a statement published on its website, the university said the situation has “shifted significantly” and the number of people in the encampment has “tripled since Saturday.” University officials added “many of them, if not the majority, are not members of the McGill community.” A spokesperson for the encampment said members are calling for McGill and Concordia universities to divest from Israel-connected funds. They demand the academic institutions cut financial ties with Israel in light of the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas. Signs at the McGill encampment state “You are funding genocide” and “Free Gaza now” and describe the demonstrators as standing in solidarity with the Palestinian cause and people in Gaza.
Tagging: @newsfromstolenland
“The Palestinian people have the right to a state, and this right is nearly universally recognized at the United Nations. Today, 140 other States (139 UN member states and the Holy See) already recognize the State of Palestine. After decades of the near universal affirmation, including by Canada, that the Palestinian people have a right to self-determination, members of the international community must see to it that this right is finally given effect before it is too late. The United States and United Kingdom have said they are looking into avenues to recognize the State of Palestine and Canada must do the same. For decades Palestinians have been subject to foreign military occupation, resulting in the denial of political and economic sovereignty and the right to move and live freely within what are considered to be Palestinian territories. Canada’s longstanding policy ‘recognizes the Palestinian right to self-determination and supports the creation of a sovereign, independent, viable, democratic and territorially contiguous Palestinian state, as part of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace settlement.’
Tagging @politicsofcanada
I know I’ve got music friends on here—in fact I’ve accidentally become 80% a music blog— if you’re in Toronto, or around Ontario and travel to Toronto for gigs, we’ve had disappointing news about the Horseshoe Tavern and Collective Concerts, who book and promote a shit ton of concerts around the city.
The owner of the Horseshoe, who is also affiliated with Collective seems to have come out as a massive racist shithead, which is a shame given the Shoe’s legacy. There was a Palestinian fundraiser concert scheduled to happen at Horseshoe this week, the nature of which was made clear to the venue, and the bands and organisers were promoting the show as the venue preferred: making it clear that this was a fundraiser charity concert for Palestinian humanitarian aid. The venue was okay with all this until the very last minute, when they phoned, said they received “complaints” (on the details of which the owner did not elaborate), and that they were cancelling the show. He then just hung up.
Obviously, the music crowd is not your usual apathetic crowd as sits in chambers of power, a music promoter and venue should have first hand knowledge that the music scene leans left. The backlash is coming in waves, and the owner has now resorted to replying rudely, doubling down, making lewd remarks at, and obviously (wouldn’t complete the package without it, would it?) making racist and Islamophobic comments at complainants.
I know it sucks because Collective books a bunch of gigs and venues around the city, but give them the middle finger and walk around for a while. Fuck them.
As for the fundraiser, the organisers are encouraging people to donate directly to humanitarian organisations while they potentially work with other venues who have come forward to help host this gig.
Here’s the organiser’s announcement of the gig cancellation, text below the cut.
Contacts:
416-598-4226 Horseshoe Tavern [email protected] (owner) 647-448-3841 Craig Laskey (booker) [email protected]
Rick Mercer gets American university political science students and professors (and lawmakers) to believe lies about Canadian politics with confidence on 22 Minutes in 2001, in a segment called Talking To Americans
Alberta is planning to dismantle its provincewide health provider and may sell off its publicly owned continuing-care facilities, say leaked cabinet briefing documents released by the Opposition NDP. NDP Leader Rachel Notley says the proposal to break up Alberta Health Services would give complete political control over all health decisions to Premier Danielle Smith's cabinet. She says it would also bring chaos to the system and open the door to more privately delivered care. "[The United Conservative Party government] created this crisis, and now they want to blow up our health-care system completely," Notley told Smith and the UCP caucus during question period Tuesday. "What is wrong with you people?"
Tagging: @politicsofcanada @abpoli
the proposal to break up Alberta Health Services would give complete political control over all health decisions to Premier Danielle Smith's cabinet.
Considering that she's a covid and vax denier who loves horse dewormer, and blames cancer patients for being sick, among other things, having her be making health decisions for us is fucking horrifying.
Not to mention, she said she looks up to Ron DeSantes in the states, and with what he has been pulling? You know damn well she will limit or eliminate transgender affirming care in this province for everyone.
Us as individuals and alongside our actual healthcare professionals are the only ones who should be making any decisions related to the healthcare we receive and the choices we make. Not some fucking alt-right extremist.
She is picking fights with the federal government constantly and making huge, long term choices that is going to harm so many fucking people in this province for our entire lives, all because she hates one PM. Trudeau can and should be criticized, however, he is a short term problem, we shouldn't let some covid denier and convoy simp ruin our lives and province because she wants to pick petty fights and posture over our current PM.
We already live in unstable times, we don't need someone who is making things more uncertain, more unstable, and worse for everyone who isn't one of her fucking cronies or TBA.
We need to make her step down. We need to do something before she continues, because she's held these beliefs for at least 10 years now, documented.
Just because maybe she won't be able to completely go through with her plans, the fact of the matter is she shouldn't have free reign to try.
This is a lot of words to say Smith needs to be removed from power, even if she was part of the party I voted for and supported, what she's doing is short sighted, harmful, and petty, and we need stability and a better leader. Which Smith is not. She is going to bleed this province dry and leave us sick, impoverished, without a stable pension, and, at worst, dead.
Besides, she isn't even UCP, she is a puppet of Take Back Alberta, and nothing more. UCP supporters should also be furious that Smith is in office. the UCP isn't even the conservative party that many have been voting for previously.
The union representing 6,000 municipal and library workers in York Region is calling for the chief executive officer of the Markham Public Library to step down following the brief removal of Islamic Heritage Month displays from its branches. CUPE Local 905 released a statement on Friday, saying it has no trust left in the leadership of Catherine Biss as CEO of MPL, and that her resignation would be "a first step towards rebuilding the relationship between workers and their employer." An email surfaced on social media this week in which MPL staff were directed to "take down any merchandising" on the Islamic Heritage Month and not "actively promote" it given the current situation in the Middle East so the library would not be perceived as "taking a particular side."
Tagging: @politicsofcanada
About Bill C-18 and the Meta news blackout, I also wanted to share how this affects not only bigger news outlets like the CBC, CTV, etc., but also hits local journalism, and far beyond just news. All campus and community radio stations are now blocked on Facebook and Instagram. For the campus station I volunteer at, that's 99% of their online presence (save for whatever is left of Twitter/X...). Unlike the CBC, which has spent the last few weeks on social media telling people to instead get their news on the CBC website and apps, no one really goes to campus radio stations' websites, except when sent there once a year during funding drives and donation campaigns. Even if they did, especially for smaller entities like community radio, we just don't have the staff nor budget to maintain a constantly updated website with full, new articles published throughout the day. The best we could do was post updates on social media and link to radio programmes.
It's especially a kick in the teeth considering the NCRA recently carved out grants to support local and community-level independent journalism on radio, and now no one can see us. Of course it's not just about music programming. The news journalists at our station (and others too, I'm sure) conduct interviews with local representatives and candidates, cover local news, updates and elections. Many leading journalists in the country got their start on campus radio at university, too.
Campus and community stations get their licences from the CRTC because their purpose is "to serve the community". Now information about community events, radio programmes, local news, promoting local talent, etc., which used to largely happen through publicising radio programmes and features on social media, is blocked. What will community radio do if it can't be where the community is?
Also, our funding drives are in jeopardy. In Ontario, Ford made all the fees that were included in university tuition optional, and so for the last few years we've been relying exclusively on money coming in from funding drives, and most of that would happen on social media: reaching out to the local community, to alumni, past volunteers, and all of their networks. If our social media presence is blacked out, I don't think our station and many others will even survive this academic year, and we're one of the longest-running radio stations in the world.
All this is to say, write to your MPs, please! Urge them to do something about it! Facebook and Instagram have embedded themselves so far into local community work, that to have local broadcasters locked out of the community would disrupt everything and spell the end for all of us. Find your local MP (https://www.ourcommons.ca/members/en) and send them a letter urging them to reach a negotiation and end the blackout on Canadian broadcasters!
Meta promised to block news organisations across Facebook and Instagram. They’re blocking student and community radio stations. This won’t simply affect broadcasters on the level of CTV and the CBC. Our university’s campus and community radio station, where student volunteers broadcast news, sports, music and community events? Fucking blocked.
The government of Quebec announced that a draft regulation will gradually prohibit, except for exceptions, the use of private agencies and self-employed workers in the health and social services network.
The pre-publication of the draft regulation stems from the adoption of the bill aimed at limiting the use of private agencies in the network.
Minister responsible for Social Services Lionel Carmant added that when the use of agencies remains permitted, regulations containing several new measures will be applied.
Thus, the imposition of certain ancillary charges will be prohibited. There will also be a limit on hourly rates for certain job titles as well as for the increase in fees billed to an organization for overtime or compulsory overtime.
The government also plans to identify administrative measures and criminal offences that may be associated with all forms of contravention of the new measures. [...]
Tagging: @politicsofcanada, @vague-humanoid
On Saturday, a sweltering 118F (48C) was recorded in Phoenix, Arizona.
It means temperatures have hit 110F (43C) for 16 days running, which is almost a record.
Mobile clinics there have reported treating homeless people suffering from third-degree burns.
Meanwhile, Death Valley in California - one of the hottest places in the world - is forecast to reach 129F (54C), nearing the hottest temperatures ever reliably recorded on Earth.
In neighbouring Canada, officials say wildfires stoked by above-average temperatures - which have covered parts of the US in smoke - have now burned nearly 10 million hectares (25 million acres) of land.
Las Vegas, Nevada, may also match its all-time high of 117F (47C) in the next few days.
The NWS also warned that "strong to severe thunderstorms, heavy rain and flooding will be possible in several locations," including America's north-eastern New England region.
Parts of the south-western US have already grappled with intensely hot temperatures over the past week. In El Paso, Texas, temperatures have been in the triple-digits Fahrenheit for 27 consecutive days.
"We're getting a lot of heat-related illness now, a lot of dehydration, heat exhaustion," said Dr Ashkan Morim, who works in the emergency room at Dignity Health Siena Hospital, outside of Las Vegas.
Overnight temperatures were expected to remain "abnormally warm" in some areas, offering little night-time relief from the heat.
The US heatwave mirrors similar searing conditions in Europe, which forced Greece to close one of its major tourist attractions, the Acropolis, on Friday and Saturday.
"We have this event in southern Europe, but at the same time, we're having another major heatwave in the southern US. Recently we had heatwaves in south Asia, India, China and so on. And unfortunately, this is not surprising.
"We have the baseline temperatures shifting upwards, and so you are shifting the odds towards more severe extreme events, and fewer cold extreme events."
Much of southern Europe is baking in extreme heat, with Greece seeing temperatures of 40C (104F) or more.
Italian weather forecasters are warning that the next heatwave will push temperatures back up above 40C next week.
Heatwaves are also being seen in parts of the US, China, North Africa and Japan.
Wildfires have collectively burned more than 7.9 million hectares (19.5 million acres) of land across Canada so far this year.
Canada has surpassed its record for the largest area burned by wildfires in a single year.
The blazes have burned more than 8.1m hectares (20m acres) across the country - 21 times above the average over the last decade.
There are currently 483 wildfires across Canada. More than 250 of those are considered to be out of control.
The wildfires have also produced record levels of carbon emissions, with smoke reaching as far as Europe.
———————
This post is getting too long to include more, these are just a few excerpts from BBC News reports on heatwaves and climate change this week. When do we stop just accepting this? When do we take action? Instead places like Texas are rolling back requirements for water breaks, pretending none of this exists. When do we start taking immediate action? We’re burning, we’re dying.
Article in the BBC from earlier today on heatwaves across the US and Europe reports that, “In neighbouring Canada, officials say wildfires stoked by above-average temperatures - which have covered parts of the US in smoke - have now burned nearly 10 million hectares (25 million acres) of land.”
Why are we still doing this? Is it not bad enough that Canada is burning? Must it be quantified by how it’s affecting the US to really be worrisome?
https://apnews.com/article/university-stabbing-canada-waterloo-2b32c876596c576bb3093c147eb856a3
@politicsofcanada have you seen this shit.
And message to all the TERF and Nazi and other miserable excuse of a human being. That blood is on your hands. I hope you all die.
this was at the university of waterloo, luckily none of the wounds were fatal, but regardless this is awful
Ottawa's police chief is hoping to get more uniformed officers back into schools, two years after the city's largest school board ended its school resource officer program and started requiring police to take off their uniforms when appearing as guests in classrooms.
The Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) made the changes in 2021, after its human rights and equity advisor recommended that police should be allowed in schools only when necessary and that the school resource officer program should cease.
The changes came after racialized and LGBTQ students raised concerns about their fears of police.
A few days after the board's changes, former police chief Peter Sloly announced the force was ending the program across Ottawa. [...]
Tagging: @politicsofcanada
As a Texan, I can assure you that this is a bad idea. More cops in school accomplishes two things exactly:
It doesn't make kids safer, it doesn't stop drugs, it doesn't help with bullying. Remember Uvalde, Texas, and DON'T PUT MORE COPS IN YOUR SCHOOLS.
Ontarians! The healthcare referendum is coming up on May 26th and 27th, the one where we can vote about the privatization of our healthcare that Ford is trying to pass.
You can register to vote or find out more details via this website, you can also vote through the website itself and it only takes a minute or two of your time. I'd really rather not have our core services more gutted than they already are to create a two tier pay to get served system, so.
Voting is closed on Saturday May 27th at Midnight, if you’re an Ontario resident and you don’t want Ford privatizing our public system for a for-profit one, i encourage you all to vote
You can vote online too, it takes minutes. Here’s the link to the online voting page: https://publichospitalvote.ca/vote/pledge
Loud cheers erupted inside a packed high school gymnasium after the Brandon School Division rejected a call to remove books dealing with sexuality and gender identity from libraries.
[...]
The school division was inundated with calls, letters and emails after a delegation at its May 8 meeting, led by former school trustee and grandmother Lorraine Hackenschmidt, called on the division to set up a committee to review the content of books available in school libraries, and remove titles deemed inappropriate, including "any books that caused our kids to question whether they are in the wrong body."
Before the vote, board chair Linda Ross said there were many "errors and untruths" in Hackenschmidt's presentation.
Ross said that by denying the possibility that people could feel like they are born in the wrong body, "you are denying the reality of others. Because it is not your experience does not mean that it is not the reality of others."
Tagging: @politicsofcanada
