Terror attack in Boulder, taking politics out of schools, and Carney's big test...

How long until what happened in Boulder or D.C. happens in a Canadian city?

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I had planned on opening this morning’s newsletter with either the meeting between Mark Carney and the premiers in Saskatoon or my column on education reform in Ontario.

Then I saw what happened in Boulder, Colorado.

I checked out on Sunday afternoon, like many people do, and missed this heinous act until hours after the fact. A group of people were gathering in downtown Boulder calling for the hostages seized by Hamas on October 7, 2023, to be released.

Last Wednesday was the 600^th day since the hostages were taken and I attended a gathering at Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto and said a few words. No one attacked us on that day, but what about next time?

As I said after Elias Rodriguez was arrested in the shooting deaths of Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, this is what globalizing the intifada looks like.

Now we have Mohamed Sabry Soliman, a 45 year-old Egyptian national who is in the United States illegally arrested for setting people on fire. As he terrorized the people in Boulder, he yelled about freeing Palestine and “How many children have you killed?” while brandishing Molotov cocktails shirtless.

How long before that happens here in Canada?

We already have people here in Canada defending both the shootings in Washington and the attack in Boulder. We’ve had Jewish schools shot at, synagogues and community centres shot at or firebombed, and day care centres and seniors’ homes targeted for nasty protests scaring the most vulnerable.

Our police and governments at all levels have taken a far too lenient approach to the hate protests in our streets; this will come here, including deaths, unless they act.

Taking politics out of schools...

The issue of Israel vs Hamas is very present in our schools and while it is not the purpose of the legislation the Ford government has introduced, hopefully they use it to stamp out the insanity in Ontario’s schools. There is plenty of insanity to go around, from crazy politics to out of control spending.

One of the big takeaways from this is that school boards won’t be able to spend a lot of money to rename schools named after historical figures like Sir. John A. Macdonald.

“I am, frankly, as done as all parents are, and teachers are, with a school system that has turned into a political battle zone,” I quote Ontario’s Education Minister Paul Calandra as saying in my latest column for the Toronto Sun.

Calandra, who took on the file somewhat reluctantly after the election in February, seems to be leaning into the role. There is a lot to be done in cleaning up the education system which always seems ready to fall to the radicals.

Over the years, I’ve covered the teachers who claim that 2+2=4 is racist and the pathetic response of the Halton District School Board to the “big boobed” teacher who was punking the system. Former Education Minister Stephen Lecce told me that dealing with the radicals was like a game of whack-a-mole.

In my experience, most teachers and most school board employees - I may be related to a few of them – are good people who want to just do their jobs. The radicals though are everywhere and trying to insert themselves and their ideas into the classroom.

“The trouble with socialism is that it takes up too many evenings,” Oscar Wilde famously said.

The radicals are always organizing, they don’t sleep, they don’t take time off, this is their life. Sadly, that means it must be the life of those who stand against them to be on guard.

Thanks to this legislation, which is sure to pass, the renaming of schools will require the minister to approve, and it will be easier for the minister to intervene when school boards start going sideways.

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There is smoke, but is there fire...

In Saskatchewan there are out of control forest fires right now, and the smoke is wafting across much of the province. As friends and family are dealing with the fall out of the forest fires, the province has declared a state of emergency.

For federal political watchers though, the question is whether Mark Carney will bring the fire or just the smoke.

Carney is meeting with the premiers in Saskatoon on Monday, and it shouldn’t be lost on anyone that the PM agreed to meet the premiers on hostile territory. He could have agreed to meet with them but demanded that they all come to Ottawa.

The meeting location is the smoke, and forgive the ill-timed metaphor, every premier wants to see if there is fire.

Will Carney deliver for them? Will he deliver enough for them? Will there be regional or political favourtism based on voting patterns?

What he delivers, or whether he delivers will determine if Carney has fire or just smoke.

What to read today...

Lorrie Goldstein takes a look at Mark Carney’s fiscal plans and finds them wanting. Seems the man who criticized the Trudeau government for spending too much wants to spend more.

We all saw Justin Trudeau’s shoes at the Speech from the Throne, but did you see Trudeau chatting and laughing with Stephen Harper? Warren Kinsella pulls back the curtain on how friendly former political foes can be with each other.

The consensus in the media seems to be that Jenni Byrne must be fired as the Conservative campaign manager after the election loss. Michael Taube takes the opposite and less popular view; it’s also the one I’ve heard expressed by many MPs.