Posts with the Donald Trump tag

Barris Beat

Pay more attention to the man behind the curtain

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Like Dorothy in Wizard of Oz, told to “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain,” Ontario voters & media have little or no access to the leader of the Conservative party during this election.

It was Jan. 29, I believe, the very first day of the current provincial election campaign. The London Police Service hosted an appreciation and awards banquet. And wasn’t it convenient for the premier that he was invited to speak to what Mr. Ford considered his peeps.

I guess he decided to take the opportunity to slam federal lawmakers and judges for being soft on criminals such as home invaders. And according to the Toronto Star’s Queen’s Park Bureau, Ford went way off script.

“God forbid they kill an innocent person,” Ford mused in front of a thousand police personnel and guests at the banquet, adding that he’d prefer that judges simply send home invaders found guilty of murder to the electric chair. (more…)

Barris Beat

Cut college funding at your peril!

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Ontario Legislature shut down by winter election, in 2025

Like most, I received my “convincer cheque” from the provincial government a few days ago. It says it’s from the Ministry of Finance. But it couldn’t be plainer that its point of origin is Conservative Party HQ. It’s dated Jan. 29, 2025, exactly 24 hours after the premier visited Lt. Gov. Edith Dumont to dissolve Ontario’s 43rd Parliament for a general election Feb. 27, even though the premier doesn’t need to call an election until June 2026.

“Ontario Taxpayer Rebate,” the cheque is called.

Of greater importance to me that same week, however, I learned that Centennial College, where I instructed for 18 years, had permanently cancelled 49 programs, including 16 programs in its business school, seven at its engineering school and 14 communications courses at the Story Arts campus in East York. (more…)

Barris Beat

O say, can you see…

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They did it in Ottawa. They did it in Calgary. Then, in Toronto. And then Monday night, in Nashville, Americans did it back. First, Canadian spectators booed the The Star-Spangled Banner north of the border. And so American fans in Tennessee booed O Canada right back when the Ottawa Senators came to Nashville this week.

Shouted one irate Predators fan, “You gotta pay!”

Then, Nashville coach Andrew Brunette (who is a Canadian) told the U.S. Daily Mail. “I don’t like it. The NHL has been around 100 years and the U.S. and Canada both share this game. I don’t think there’s a place for booing the anthem.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Entre Amis. Between Friends.

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Canadian and American flags flying near the Ambassador Bridge at the Canada-U.S. border crossing in Windsor, Ont. Cdn Press

It was July 1, back in 1966. I was a teenager working for tuition money at my uncle’s restaurant in Baltimore. I was wearing a T-shirt with the red Maple Leaf flag on it (it had become the symbol on our national flag the year before) and a customer at that Double-T Diner in Maryland asked me, “How come you’re wearing that red Maple Leaf on your shirt?”

“I’m Canadian. It’s Canada Day, our national holiday,” I said, “kind of like your July 4.”

He nodded as if he understood, but I quickly realized he didn’t. (more…)

Barris Beat

“Like-minded” equals “contempt”

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In Canada’s court system what Trump said would be considered contempt and prosecutable.

Outside his residence in Florida, several weeks ago, a former United States president made sure the cameras were running, raised his fist in the air and then verbally slammed Judge Arthur Engoron. The justice of the Supreme Court of New York had just handed down his ruling in the civil business-fraud trial against Donald Trump. The former president reacted.

“A crooked New York State judge has just ruled that I have to pay a fine of $355 million for having built a perfect company,” Trump said, and he went on to call New York Attorney General Letitia James, who initiated the case, “totally corrupt.”

If any politician, no, make that if any individual had said that in Canada, she or he would have been charged with contempt. (more…)

Barris Beat

Anger with no clear target

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In 1976, the movie character Howard Beale epitomized society’s rage.

I had just finished one of my anti-technology rants. I’d complained about something my computer had lost. I was angry that our television service provider had updated all of our access to programming such that I needed an electronics degree just to tune in the news. And I hated the way some of the on-air newscasters mispronounced names and places. My wife patiently waited for me to take a breath.

“Is there anything that made you happy today?” she asked.

And I smiled sheepishly back at her. Then, apologized. (more…)

Barris Beat

Line in the sand

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Carolyn Dunn felt the pressure of convoy demonstrators’ threats.

Until last weekend, I’d become kind of blasé to the words of protest and counter-protest. Every day, I’d read the latest on the demonstrations at Parliament Hill and the border crossings and winced at the deadlock and rhetoric. And, as I pointed out last week, I feared for wider freedom being trampled.

But a TV news story the other night stopped me in my tracks. Carolyn Dunn, CBC’s Alberta reporter, stood adjacent to flashing police cruiser lights, and parked semi-trailer trucks near Coutts, Alta., reporting but also looking over her shoulder anxiously.

Some Freedom Convoy truckers at Coutts, Alta., putting limits on freedom with their taunts.

“Things remain tense for citizens and the media,” Dunn said in her report. She went on to say that some of the demonstrators had directed abusive language at her and other reporters. In other words, in a weirdly Trumpian way, media not just mandates, had become the enemy. And Dunn said she felt uncomfortable having to hide who she was from strangers. “We’ve been told to be careful.” (more…)

Barris Beat

Thinking in herds

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Gatherings such as the Jan. 6, 2021,  insurrection on U.S. Capitol building illustrated all that’s wrong with herd thinking.

It’s human science. We are a species that gathers. We must gather, connect communicate and socialize. It’s quite simply in our DNA. And to our detriment, it’s our gathering in these two years of the pandemic that has been our undoing. And now it’s the fifth wave, the Omicron wave. The number of COVID-19 patients in Canadian hospitals rose 67 per cent last week over the week before, and Ontario is leading the way in high case numbers. So, once again, the Ontario government has decided to lock everything down to prevent us from gathering.

“We face a tsunami of new cases in the coming days and weeks,” Premier Doug Ford told reporters at a news conference on Monday. “The math isn’t on our side.”

But there are, I think, much more dangerous aspects to our species’ gatherings these days than just pandemic viruses. (more…)

Barris Beat

Can we all just get along?

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Rodney King asking what seemed the impossible in May 1992.

It goes back 30 years, but I remember this solemn-faced man stepping toward a news camera in May 1992. He was neatly dressed in a jacket and tie. But he looked drawn, upset and extremely nervous. The man chose his words carefully. He looked into the lens and in the most genuine of expressions offered a simple statement and an even simpler question:

“It’s not right. And it’s not going to change anything. Can we all just get along?” he asked.

The man was Rodney King, the African-American construction worker who’d been beaten by four Los Angeles police officers in what they called an arrest for a suspected drunk driving offence in March 1991. (more…)