DARN LITTLE SYMPATHY FOR TEACHERS FROM LUISA D'AMATO

Last Friday's Waterloo Region Record carrys this Opinion piece by Luisa D'Amato titled "Teachers, count your blessings". We should not forget that Luisa has many, many years of experience as she covered the Education beat for the Record for a very long time. She has attended countless School Board meetings, talked to teachers and talked to parents at length during her career. Apparently Nancy Hutcheson, a local vice-president of the elementary Teachers' Federation sent the Record am letter criticizing the unpaid day off work mandated by the province in order to save money. Luisa refutes her comments and advises us and teachers as to exactly how fortunate they are compared to the vast majority of workers in this province. This includes both wages and job security that equally educated and trained citizens can only dream about.

PROTESTS AGAINST BILL C-23

Protesters were out in downtown Guelph last Saturday in regards to the proposed federal Fair Elections Act (Bill C-23). Apparently if you're a Harper Conservative you think that shifting powers away from the Chief Electorals Officer as well as raising the limits on both political donations as well as on campaign spending is a benefit to democracy. The protesters as well as opposition MPs believe the typically poorly named legislation is more of a tool to help the Conservatives re-election chances. The title of the article in today's Waterloo Region Record is "Voter "fraud" still not addressed" as this Bill also ignores the Robocalls scandal and others.

SO MAYBE THE PROVINCIAL LIBERALS AREN'T AS DUMB AS WE THINK

Today's Waterloo Region Record carrys this story "Ombudsman powers expanded by province". The so called MUSH sector has been unfortunately exempt from the Ombudsman's oversight forever. MUSH stands for Municipalities, Universities, Schools and Hospitals. Well the barely governing Liberals in a stroke of genius have proposed legislation to bring municipalities, universities and schools under the Ombudsman's investigative umbrella. Further they have proposed a new patient ombudsman for hospitals, lomh term care homes and community care access centres. Unfortunately it also appears that Childrens' Aid Societies are still exempt from the Ombudsman's oversight.

This is a political stroke of genius because what parrty really wants to anger the public by defeating the minority Liberals with this overdue progressive legislation in the works?

WRPS WANT MORE STUN GUNS

A month ago (Feb. 7/14) I posted a piece on the Waterloo Region Police Service and their stun gun acquisiton program. While I am all in favour of less lethal methods of police controlling suspects than shooting them; nevertheless these weapons are problematic. Renaming them by the way to "conducted energy weapons" simply diminishes their lethality to the public. My concern is that rather than taking the time and means in non emergency situations to talk a suspect into compliance, they will simply "shoot first and ask questions later". Our Regional Police unfortunately are not alone in individual officers deciding that because they aren't getting enough respect from either suspects or passersby that they have the right as officers to force compliance or cooperation when they do not have any legal grounds for so doing. In this country if you are accosted by a police officer either in private or public who demands either your name or identification, you have the legal right not to answer and not to provide ID. One exception is when in care and control of an automobile. Then the officer unfortunately can legally insist upon identification.

Therefore how many officers when approaching citizens for information and being rebuffed (disrespected in their eyes) are going to do something stupid and zap the "offender"? How many officers are being taught more than the mechanics of the use of those weapons. They like guns should only be used to protect the life of a police officer or the life of a citizen. Calling them a compliance tool is reprehensible. Compliance to an overexaggerated authority via force is no more than assault. Today's Record story is titled "Police want to step up stun-gun training".

UNPAID INTERNSHIPS

What a country. Minimum wage laws be damned. Working conditions, seniority, benefits and simple human respect aren't necessary. As far as the recent article in the Waterloo Region Record that stated that the federal Labour Department would protect interns; that doesn't even rate as drivel or bullshit. The vast majority of our workplaces are under provincial labour legislation which even if it applies; enforcement is nearly non-existent. This is Canada afterall; the home of more ignored and unenforced legislation than anywhere in the world.

The Record's article dated March 3/14 is titled "Backlash against unpaid internships growing in Canada". Our governments at all levels must love the idea of internships. They provide locations for the unemployed to go. Their "training" costs for the broke and in-debt unemployed are zero. They help reduce unemployment statistics which are a lie anyways. They are a costless partial solution to an increasingly broken economy. Some of the country's biggest and wealthiest corporations have no shame in abusing vulnerable young people. They justify their ongoing theft of labour with right wing Ezra Levant style drivel about "unskilled" Canadians gaining valuable experience. This is what our education and political system have turned this country into. And we look around the world and wonder why human beings are revolting against systems set up to benefit the few at the expense of the many. Canada your turn is coming.

FEDERAL CONSERVATIVES RUNNING SCARED?

According to today's Waterloo Region Record and Geoffrey Steven's article tiled "The truth is, the Tories are worried"; they indeed are. Mr. Stevens suggests that recent petty partisanship by Stephen Harper simply reflects his concerns that Conservative popularity is on the wane across Canada. That this could be so is by all likelihood directly a result of watching the Conservatives in power for the last eight years. Even the faithful eventually get tired of bush league partisan behaviour. Mr. Steven's mentions opposition members being barred from the Conservative mission to the Ukraine and preventing former Liberal Justice Minister Irwin Cottler from attending an Israeli charity event. Issues such as the Senate scandal and the misnamed "Fair Elections Act" are giving the Tories fits. Justin Trudeau attack ads aren't working and the Conservatives are losing in the polls both for preferred party leaders and on economic issues. The final straw may be the poll from the Manning Centre in Ottawa. It seems that fewer and fewer Canadians are identifying themselves as being Conservative. All of this does not bode well for Tory aspirations in next year's federal election.

ONCE MORE A LOCAL POLICE SERVICE STEPS INTO THE NEWS BREACH

This time the Guelph Police have stepped up to take the heat off the Waterloo Regional Police who seem to be under almost constant attack with misbehaviours and improprieties galore. Today's Waterloo Region Record carrys this story "Guelph business owners sue police". The allegations essentially seem to be that Guelph Police were hell bent on destroying a small business owned by a couple of foreign ancestry located on Macdonell St. The owners have sued Guelph Police for "...alleged negligence, malicious breach of duty, trespass, conversion, nuisance, conspiracy, assault and intimidation.'. Guelph Police in response have takern the usual defensive route of claiming that they can't comment because it's before the courts. The defendants' lawyer is Davin Charney of Kitchener who has sucessfully taken Waterloo Regional Police to small claims court over abuses of authority on their part. As is unfortunate in many of these civil suits against police; there will probably be an out of court settlement in which taxpayers dollars will cover misbehaviour on the part of the Police, along with a confidentiality clause preventing the Plaintiffs from going public with the settlement. This is the huge injustice to the public, as police misconduct when it occurs, should be publicized as well as how much that misconduct costs the taxpaying public.