Rob Ford’s brother, former drug pusher, has cultivated his white male privilege all the way to the highest office in Ontario. Canada’s most populous province has a new premier, and he spends more time telling us he is for the people than doing actions for the people. The first people
Continue readingTag: Dalton’s Ontario
The Adventures of Diva Rachel: Don’t Break Out The Bubbly! Carding Continues Across Canada :-(
In Ontario (and elsewhere in Canada), race has been a factor in determining who rightfully belongs here, and who is, by default, an intruder to be wary of. Betraying Canada’s mantra of multiculturalism, a constant cloud of suspicion follows dark-skinned Canadian citizens every day. Whether they are walking while Black,
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: Don’t Break Out The Bubbly! Carding Continues Across Canada :-(
In Ontario (and elsewhere in Canada), race has been a factor in determining who rightfully belongs here, and who is, by default, an intruder to be wary of. Betraying Canada’s mantra of multiculturalism, a constant cloud of suspicion follows dark-skinned Canadian citizens every day. Whether they are walking while Black, driving while Black, flying while Black, banking while Black, bussing while black… People who look Aboriginal or Arab tell similar stories of being presumed risky guilty before being proven innocent.
All over Canada (not just in Toronto), police regularly stop law-abiding citizens in the hopes of finding a needle in a haystack gathering evidence or intelligence to supposedly reduce crime. There is no evidence to support this race-based targeting actually works, but the carding custom continues.
Carding is the practice by which law enforcement systematically stop, interrogate and document (mostly) dark-skinned citizens who are committing no crime and display no evidence of having committed a crime.
They coined the practice “stop-and-frisk” in the USA. Whatever the terminology employed, it’s called “racism”.
Notably, Ontario’s “activist” Premier Kathleen Wynne has sidestepped the issue. Wynne’s awkward silence follows a pattern of favouring her fetish demographics. Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau did one better: his cronies recruited former Toronto Police Chief and carding defender Bill Blair to run in the upcoming federal election. It will take tornado of spin for the “multiculturalism-inventing” Liberals to square that circle: Trudeau has been travelling the country while waving a banner of “fairness.”
In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
~Martin Luther King, Jr.
One wonders when these elected leaders will frog-leap onto the right side of history.
Bravely breaking his counterparts’ deafening silence, deputy leader of the Ontario NDP Jagmeet Sing stood up and clearly verbalized his quest to quash carding, province-wide.
At first, former Progressive Conservative party leader and current Toronto Mayor John Tory didn’t seem bothered by bigotry behind the badge. In a stunning about-face enlightened evolution, Mayor Tory announced the end of carding in his city this week. As the congratulatory backslapping spread across the Center of the Universe Hogtown, the rest of the province and the rest of the country is left eating dust. For us, carding carries on.
Never put your hands up until the puck’s in the net and the goal light is on. Let’s see what happens in concrete terms with #carding #tps
— Anthony Morgan (@AnthonyNMorgan) June 7, 2015
Journalist Desmond Cole’s courageous and personal account of unrelenting and unwarranted police interrogations describes incidents in St. Catharines and Kingston. Neither are covered by this week’s partial victory.
THE DOMINO EFFECT
It was in 1956 that Ontario became the first province to enforce the Fairness Accommodation Practices Act, thus granting new equality rights to its Black and Asian residents. For the first time in Canadian history, racial equality was declared a civil right, and “racial discrimination in was confirmed as illegal“. Following Ontario’s lead, legislative civil rights flowed outward from coast to coast.
Today, since our provincial leaders are not willing to defend the most vulnerable citizens and uphold the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, individuals have to band together to force the issue. Just as Rosa Parks Bromley Armstrong and Ruth Lor served as the test cases for racial equality 50 years ago, Rohan Roberts has stepped up to the plate to challenge carding in Ontario. In what could be a landmark case, Roberts filed Human Rights complaint against Toronto Police. The defendants have access to a bottomless till of taxpayer dollars to fund their retort. Roberts is a working class guy. In the pursuit of justice writ large, Mr. Roberts will sacrifice himself and his financial security in a bid to realign law enforcement with the values we hold dear. (I’ve launched a crowdfunding drive to help defray his legal bills.)
To eradicate carding in Canada, this case must be heard in the highest courts. Judges must remind all citizens, including mayors, premiers and prime-ministerial hopefuls that equality and fairness are more than filatures for flowery speeches. Mayor John Tory was pulled, prodded into doing the right thing. The first domino has fallen. But we’ve not yet reached the promise land.
The Adventures of Diva Rachel: Don’t Break Out The Bubbly! Carding Continues Across Canada :-(
In Ontario (and elsewhere in Canada), race has been a factor in determining who rightfully belongs here, and who is, by default, an intruder to be wary of. Betraying Canada’s mantra of multiculturalism, a constant cloud of suspicion follows dark-skinned Canadian citizens every day. Whether they are walking while Black,
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: Les Plumes des Peau-Rouges de Nepean attérissent sur le Rouge-et-Noir d’Ottawa
La région de l’Outaouais va bientôt accueillir un nouveau club de football. Ce sera la 3e fois que l’équipe renait de ces cendres : les Ottawa Rough Riders ont fait faillite en 1996, et encore en 2006, sous le nom «Renegades». À l’époque, les partisans Franco-Ontariens (et Gatinois) s’attendaient à
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: Ottawa’s RedBlacks, Redskins and Blackface
The National Capital Region will soon welcome a new CFL football club. This will be the third time the team rises from its ashes: the Ottawa Rough Riders went bankrupt in 1996, and again in 2006 under the Renegades moniker. At the time, Franco-Ontarian football fans (and those in nearby
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: Harry Potter and the Half-Ass Effort: How The Agenda Can Realign with Real Ontario Viewers
This article also appeared in the Huffington Post Canada. The Cloak of Invisibility is a magical artefact used to render the wearer invisible. It was the only known invisibility cloak that would not fade with age and would provide everlasting protection invisibility to the wearer. As such, it was the
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: Harry Potter and the Half-Ass Effort: How The Agenda Can Realign with Real Ontario Viewers
The Cloak of Invisibility is a magical artefact used to render the wearer invisible. It was the only known invisibility cloak that would not fade with age and would provide everlasting protection invisibility to the wearer. As such, it was the only Hallow known to have been successfully passed down
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: Buh-bye Mark Carney, So Long Ethnic-Friendly Promises -OR- Proof Carney Behaves Like a Liberal
Yesterday, it was announced that Bank of Canada boss Mark Carney was leaving his position at the head of Canada’s central bank for a position across the pond. This came after much speculation as to whether Carney would ascend to the political arena. There was some fodder as to which
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: The Diva Chooses Dalton’s Successor : It’s Gerard!
For the next Premier of Ontario, I chose Gerard Kennedy. The race for leader of the Liberal Party of Ontario has an excellent range of candidates. Gerard Kennedy has a record of inclusion of all Ontarians, regardless of their sociocultural or linguistic identity. For me, Gerard is the candidate best
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: Le choix de la Diva s’arrête sur Gérard Kennedy : candidat pour Premier Ministre de l’Ontario
Comme prochain premier ministre de l’Ontario, je choisis Gérard Kennedy. La course la chefferie du Parti libéral de l’Ontario dispose d’un excellent ventail de candidats. Gérard Kennedy a une passion pour l’inclusion de tous les ontariens, quel que soit leur identité socioculturelle ou linguistique. Pour moi, Gérard est le candidat
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: 85e anniversaire: 1er Nov. 1927. Le Règlement 17 en Ontario
Lettre à l’éditeur du journal Le Droit.Date : 1er nov 2012 Il y a exactement 85 ans jour pour jour, la province de l’Ontario met de côté le Règlement 17 qui interdisait l’enseignement en français après la première année scolaire au niveau primaire. Il y a lieu de souligner cet
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: 85e anniversaire: 1er Nov. 1927. Le Règlement 17 en Ontario
Lettre à l’éditeur du journal Le Droit.Date : 1er nov 2012 Il y a exactement 85 ans jour pour jour, la province de l’Ontario met de côté le Règlement 17 qui interdisait l’enseignement en français après la première année scolaire au niveau primaire. Il y a lieu de souligner cet
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: The leveled playing field of educated workers in Canada
New immigrants are more likely to be unemployed than individuals born in Canada, according to data from Statistics Canada. While immigrants with more education face less unemployment, the disparity between them and individuals born in Canada is far gre…
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: HudaKKK and his all-white jury
Before an Ottawa crowd of about 50 people — most older and all white — Conservative leader Tim Hudak repeated his familiar patter about wasteful government spending and again zeroed in on the tax credit for immigrants, saying it offended Canadian …
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: Xenophobe, Thy Name is Hudak!
Ottawa-Nepean PC candidate Randall Denley: "People who come from other countries, I guess I call them foreigners".Almost 30% of Canadians in Ottawa are immigrants. The 2006 census counted 47% of Toronto as "foreigners". Sir John A. …
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: Has Hudak Had His Heyday?
Last year this time, the provincial Conservatives of Ontario were on a high, if you believe the polls. Well, there's also the matter of the GTA's election of Redneck Rob Ford as Mayor which was months away a year ago.
The reckless rookie'…
Continue readingThe Adventures of Diva Rachel: Reckless Rookie’s Road Map for Ontario Revealed
Redux: the diva loves alliteration. Here’s what the Tim Hudak Tories are promising:• MONEY- Couple income splitting up to $50,000; family earning $70,000 could savealmost $1,400 a year- 5% income tax cut on first $75,000 Does the person making $70k r…
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