The Liberals will pass two pieces of legislation soon - Bills C2 and C5. Both use legitimate national interests as cover for erosion of civil liberties and federal override of provincial and Indigenous authority. Both will most certainly face court challenges. C-2 gives the federal Cabinet sweeping powers to revoke work/study permits, permanent residency, and visas—without court oversight. I guess you could say it enables our own version of ICE.

These are my comments presented at a conference on airborne transmission and what to do about it this morning. 🧵 The early push to label COVID as “endemic” wasn’t just science. It was politics. It gave cover for institutions to withdraw and seeded public apathy that still shapes resistance to even simple, effective health measures.

Violet Affleck has incisively captured the bind social progressives created for themselves with COVID: failing to live up to the actions their own ideals demand. What she powerfully reveals is that leftism is only skin deep when leftists cut and run simply because they can afford to. If social or political progressivism only advances up to the point where the privileged remain comfortable, then all progress is ultimately doomed.

My take on Carney's platform. 🧵 Leans progressive with commitments to public health care, pharmacare, dental care, mental health funding, and universal childcare. Defends reproductive rights, boosts youth supports, &promises green and Indigenous-led infrastructure investments./1 On equity and culture, promises stronger CBC/Radio-Canada, protections for LGBTQ2+ rights, anti-hate measures, Indigenous economic inclusion, & climate justice. Backs the Charter as protection against rising discrimination and global democratic backsliding./2

This is a MUST READ. The excellent @charlesrusnell does a deep dive into UCP bullying of critics, experts, etc., which started with Kenney and has continued in new forms with Smith. What he shows is that it is intentional and strategic. thetyee.ca/News/2023/05/1… I'm in this story, and it contains an audio recording that took me years to listen to and which still haunts me.

Margaret Atwood equating people challenging her for calling for "reasonable discourse" as a response to fighting against oppression to the right banning books. What a joke. These centrists really think they are onto something.

Oh, fuck off.

https://twitter.com/NYCMayor/status/1619111530120855556

Is there anything more vile than the person who joins an oppressive system "to change it from within"?

The NDP-Liberal coalition. A mega thread 🧵/1 /2

Is it not illegal for a contractor to give you the option of cash & no GST or other form of payment + GST? I get this a lot from contractors and typically treat it as a sign to not hire. Some people seem to be missing the part about giving me the option. If they are collecting GST when you pay by credit card, but not when you pay cash, the intent is clear. I'm only talking about this practice.

I don't think Charter schools are the answer, but it is absolutely not true that public school divisions accommodate marginalized families well. Note that I said marginalized, not choice. There's a difference between special needs programming and I want my kid to wear a uniform. Marginalization is not a "choice". If parents are asking for programming to address that, they are seeking to address a constraint, not exercising a choice.

I just finished reviewing the government's page on "public charter schools". A few thoughts/questions for those more knowledgeable than me on the subject. (1) If it's a public school with a specialized focus, why can't it be part of the school divisions and regulated same? (2) What exactly is the point of autonomy if they are to operate the same as schools within the public divisions? Or is autonomy just a cover for lack of accountability?

JFC. This is so bad I'm getting seizures from reading it. One particularly egregious take is that the police chief was put in an "awkward" position to explain police use of force that killed an innocent bystander and a Black man with mental illness. Yikes. edmontonjournal.com/opinion/column… The police chief SHOULD explain every use of deadly force. WTAF?

The "not living in fear" rhetoric could easily be replaced with "not living in stupidity and mindless bravado" - if only we had a sensible government. To go from "restrictions" to zero mitigation or prevention shows zero lessons learned from the past two+ years. What exactly did the Kenney government learn from two years of "managing" COVID? How have they used those lessons (if they did learn something) to secure near and long term public health?

A pharmacist tried to sell me a homeopathic medicine today. So it's a "her" and it was a small mom and pop Medicine Shoppe on the Southside. It's not worth the trouble reporting anyone. And believe it or not, it is not presently a violation of professional ethics. I know because I am working on a research study on this.

I think some people are confused about the job of a university professor. Among other things, it includes holding the government's feet to the fire. And that can be done with knowledge, sarcasm, parody, and ridicule. We are in fact best positioned in society to do this, especially as the "free press" becomes increasingly constrained by money, politics and actual violence. This is the reason why tenure exists. It's a sacred duty.

I did not address this when it happened but worth my time actually. This tactic of calling me a NDP partisan to stoke hate and attacks is something the government's issues managers have weaponized against me and other academics. Now the Premier himself has got on board. I am going to explore filing an ethics complaint against the Premier for this. The tweet has since been deleted it seems, but it drove a lot of attacks against me in the replies to my tweet.

I have just been informed that I was not elected to the Board of a scientific society. I did not even know until today I was in an election. The really curious thing is I suspect I was used to make a shortlist of candidates seem more diverse. The elected Board is all white people.

It might be time to start theorizing infectious disease management differently from the rest of public health. I don't think the former fits anymore with basic assumptions we make about the latter. Western public health theory generally relied on the notion of primacy of community welfare, captured often by the maxim "salus populi suprema lex" (the welfare of the people is the highest law). No way that applies to infectious disease management practice anymore.

A convoy of death 65km long is heading towards Ukraine. I can't even. For those saying this was mistranslated, I heard the 65km on CTV News, not Twitter, and I just checked their website from where I took this screenshot. It is possible CTV got it wrong, but that's the source.

Watching Trudeau's Emergencies Act presser. cpac.ca/episode?id=5e1… "Measures to counter continuing blockades and occupations in Ottawa and at border crossings will be time-limited, geographically-targeted, reasonable, and proportionate"

Jason Kenney's new book:
"The Canadian Right Have White Nationalism, the Left Have Communism - Same Difference" Sequel to his "White Supremacy: Are We There Yet?"