Who is Justin Trudeau angering now?

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, December 18, 2012 at 5:33 PM - 0 Comments

Last week, the Liberal leadership candidate was criticized for his decision to speak to an Islamic conference in Toronto.

This week, Mr. Trudeau is being criticized for his plans to speak to a Catholic school in Sudbury. A Sudbury school board trustee has retracted her complaint, but Campaign Life Catholics is apparently planning protests.

‘Cancel Justin Trudeau talk at Sudbury Catholic School’, ratepayers demand as protests planned

Sudbury, Ont. Dec. 18, 2012 -  A campaign stop at a Sudbury Catholic high school by Liberal leadership hopeful, Justin Trudeau, has stoked outrage amongst local Catholic ratepayers as well as Catholics across the country who are calling it a “grave scandal”.  They are calling on trustees to c ancel Justin’s talk at St. Charles College which is scheduled for Friday December 21.

“Trudeau’s virulent opposition to key Catholic moral teachings on abortion and homosexual ‘marriage’, while deceptively calling himself a faithful Catholic, make it grossly inappropriate for the school to give him a platform,” said Suresh Dominic, President of Campaign Life Catholics, a division of Campaign Life Coalition, who is helping organize a protest at the school board to pressure trustees to cancel the event. “The Board may be inviting spiritual harm to children who, seeing Justin’s anti-Christian witness, may come to believe that it is acceptable for a Catholic to support the grave sins of abortion and homosexual ‘marriage’.”

“It’s disappointing to think that he would be invited be cause we all know that as far as the Roman Catholic Church is concerned, it is definitely against abortion, and we know that he is not,” said Nora Ryan, a local Catholic ratepayer and Campaign Life Sudbury leader who will be attending the school board protests.

“All Sudbury Catholics who are concerned about the moral confusion that this supporter of abortion-on-demand will cause in the minds of youth, should join the protest and lobby the trustees,”  said Dominic.

Protests will be held Wednesday Dec 19 and Thursday Dec 20 from 7:15am – 9:30am  and from 2:45pm – 4:30pm at the Sudbury Catholic School Board office, 165A D’Youville St, Sudbury, ON, P3C 5E7. If the talk does not get cancelled, a protest the day of Justin’s talk will take place at St. Charles College High School, 1940 Haw thorne, Sudbury, ON, P3A 1M8.

Mr. Trudeau was criticized a year ago by Dean Del Mastro after Mr. Trudeau was asked to speak to Catholic high school students in Peterborough.

Students go to where the ‘Bucks’ are

By Tamsin McMahon - Wednesday, November 21, 2012 at 9:50 AM - 0 Comments

Cambrian College

Bursaries and scholarships are great when students have already made up their minds to go to college or university. The challenge for Sudbury’s Cambrian College, which serves remote and rural populations in northern Ontario, is how to get students to consider going to college in the first place.

Three years ago, the school launched something called a learning account, aimed at the students least likely to attend college: Aboriginals, those with disabilities and those whose parents didn’t have a post-secondary education. The program offers students credits toward future tuition costs in exchange for attending a series of workshops. Students can earn $70 in “Cambrian Bucks” for attending a conference on coping with learning disabilities, $20 for a science workshop and $320 for a four-day program aimed at Aboriginal pupils. The college also gives $120 to parents who attend a two-day program to learn how to help set career goals for their children. So far, 410 students have signed up with an average of $250 in tuition credits, although they can earn as much as $3,000.

The tuition credits act like a bursary, but with a long-term goal of getting the kids to start working toward college while still in elementary school. “For most of these underrepresented populations, getting them to post-secondary is a long process,” says France Quirion, Cambrian’s associate vice-president of student services. “They don’t live and breathe post-secondary. It’s just a foreign concept. Continue…

A life in politics

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, August 22, 2012 at 9:43 PM - 0 Comments

The CBC has uploaded video of Jack Layton on the National in 1985.

Laura Stone talks to some of those who visited Nathan Phillips Square this evening and the late NDP leader is toasted with drinks in Sudbury and a picnic in Ottawa.

The Globe and Mail editorial board considers his legacy.

With public cynicism running high, the chord that he struck with many Canadians in his final months and in his passing was a reminder that – with the right combination of decency, optimism, perserverence and grace – it is still possible for our politicians to inspire. Without painting over the more worrisome aspects of his record, that is well worth remembering.

The demise of the Police Officer Recruitment Fund

By Aaron Wherry - Monday, July 23, 2012 at 10:00 AM - 0 Comments

There are concerns in northern Ontario about the end of the Police Officer Recruitment Fund—a five-year commitment the Harper government made in 2006. NDP MP John Rafferty is unimpressed.

This past week we also learned of the elimination of the Police Officers Recruitment Fund which was a major federal program designed to help municipalities and provinces recruit police officers. In a backgrounder on the program, Public Safety Canada and Emergency Preparedness Canada offers the following rationale; “The purpose of the Fund is to support the efforts of provinces and territories in recruiting additional front-line police officers nationwide who can target local crimes and make communities safer.” Taking this information into account then, the cancellation of this important fund must therefore mean that the Harper Conservatives have made a conscious decision to eliminate their “support the efforts of front-line police officers nationwide in their work to target local crimes and make our communities safer.“ Seems like a strange decision for a Conservative Party that claims to be the most committed to upholding ‘law and order’ wouldn’t you say?

There were similar concerns raised in Sudbury earlier this year. Alberta Premier Alison Redford called for the fund to be extended when she ran for the Progressive Conservative leadership last year. During the last federal campaign, the NDP proposed doubling the fund and making it permanent.

Ignatieff's pitch

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, April 21, 2011 at 11:55 AM - 29 Comments

I have a story in this week’s print edition about Michael Ignatieff’s position going into the last two weeks of this campaign and the complicated electoral math with which he is presently faced.

On Monday, somewhere between Yellowknife and Winnipeg, we sat for a chat. Some of what Mr. Ignatieff had to say made it into that story, but for your enlightenment—and as a demonstration of what a few days of travel does to my ability to form coherent questions—here is the transcript. Continue…

Just like being there

By Aaron Wherry - Wednesday, April 20, 2011 at 1:42 PM - 10 Comments

Upon safely returning to Ottawa after a few days aboard the Liberal tour, a couple notes for which I did not previously find an excuse to mention in passing.

1. In the wake of Sudbury, Mr. Ignatieff now enters the room to the chorus of Jumpstart by These Kids Wear Crowns. He was previously entering to the upbeat part of Ashley MacIsaac’s Wing Stock.

2. Also since Sudbury, reporters on the Liberal plane have taken to chanting “rise up” as the campaign plane hurtles down the runway for takeoff and then cheering once it takes flight. Mr. Ignatieff seems to take this in good humour, pumping his fist or motioning upward in time with the chanting from the front of the plane.

What it sounds like

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, April 17, 2011 at 10:57 AM - 75 Comments

Last night, preceded to the stage by Paul Martin, Michael Ignatieff addressed a crowd of something a thousand people at a community centre in Edmonton. This was his first speech since the Sudbury outing and among the signs held aloft in front of him was a single one that read, in big, block letters, “Rise Up.”

The Commons: Rise up

By Aaron Wherry - Saturday, April 16, 2011 at 12:32 AM - 205 Comments

Michael Ignatieff had been speaking for something like an hour, without so much as a sip of water, pausing only to let members of the audience pose questions for him. Eleven hours earlier he’d been in Orleans, standing in a family’s garage, between their snowblower and their barbecue, to explain how a Liberal government would help families just like this take care of sick and aging loved ones. Now he was standing in the middle of a hotel ballroom in Sudbury, surrounded on all sides by rows of people—both faithful partisans and the merely curious.

He’d taken 13 questions and offered 13 responses and maybe he’d swayed a vote or two. Maybe he hadn’t. Whatever he’d accomplished, Day 21 of his first campaign as leader of the Liberal party of Canada was nearing its end. After this was a drive to the airport, after that a flight to Regina. By this time tomorrow he’d be in Edmonton, preparing to fly to Vancouver.

Before he left though he wanted to tell these people in this hotel ballroom about this song he’d been thinking about. “While I was on the bus this afternoon I found myself thinking about a wonderful singer called Bruce Springsteen,” he said. “Does everybody like Bruce Springsteen? I like Bruce Springsteen.”

It was not immediately clear where this was going.

Continue…

The Commons: Tough crowd

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, April 1, 2011 at 5:22 PM - 13 Comments

Shortly after Jack Layton entered the room, the crowd rose and applauded. Several began to chant the initials of his party. This was to be a “town hall” with the NDP leader. At least in so far as that gathering in that guy’s kitchen was a town hall on the effectiveness of the Magic Bullet blender.

In the middle of the room were two black leather chairs, a table with two glasses of water between the chairs. On all four sides were neat rows of chairs. On the back wall, the requisite Canadian flag of requisite size. Mr. Layton took one chair, his smiley female host took the other. He had eschewed his jacket and rolled up his sleeves. When he was formally introduced by the smiley female host, many in the audience chanted his first name.

With two small microphones attached to his dark orange tie, he proceeded to first review all of the ways Ottawa was broken and all of the ways he intended to fix it. The crowd, many of whom wore orange buttons, applauded and booed at all the right points.

The floor was then turned over for questions. Continue…

Policy alert

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, April 1, 2011 at 11:16 AM - 48 Comments

Stephen Harper has reannounced various measures from last week’s budget and restated his intent to eliminate the per-vote subsidy.

Michael Ignatieff has restated his commitment to family care.

And this morning here in Sudbury, Jack Layton recommitted to funding for doctors, nurses, medical education and medical school infrastructure ($25-million for training, $20-million to repatriate Canadian doctors practicing overseas, $40-million to recruit and support low income, rural and aboriginal students, $80-million for educational infrastructure, student loan forgiveness for family doctors, streamlining credential recognition and establishing a Health Human Resources Centre). The plan is similar to one announced by Mr. Layton in 2008.

Eight more for the list

By Aaron Wherry - Thursday, August 19, 2010 at 4:29 PM - 0 Comments

For those still scoring at home, the CEO of Alberta Health Services, Charlottetown City Council, the City of Greater Sudbury, Caledon town council, former chief statistician Sylvia Ostry, New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham, Spruce Grove City Council and the Planning Institute of British Columbia oppose the government’s changes to the census.

In such opposition, they join… Continue…

The Commons: ‘This is our game and we need to protect our players’

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 6:11 PM - 34 Comments

“It is high time,” said Glenn Thibeault, the NDP MP for Sudbury, “this issue is taken seriously.”

Shortly thereafter he clarified just how seriously.

“Today,” he said, “we are calling on the government to establish a Royal Commission on violence in sports. We need to look at all aspects and all of the causes, from equipment to social trends, coaching and officiating. This is our game and we need to protect our players.”

Oh, Patrice Cormier, look what ye hath wrought. Continue…

The tally

By Aaron Wherry - Sunday, January 24, 2010 at 1:55 PM - 208 Comments

With 51 precincts reporting specific estimates—restricting the count to media-reported figures and, where available, police counts—it’s possible to account for approximately 21,000 anti-prorogation protestors at yesterday’s rallies. Continue…

Q & A: Bruce Mau

By John Intini - Tuesday, January 19, 2010 at 3:53 PM - 4 Comments

Photographs by Tim Klein/Getty

Bruce Mau, who started out as a graphic designer in the 1980s, uses design principles to develop strategies for a range of major clients—from big businesses (Coca-Cola, MTV) to governments (Guatemala). The 50-year-old, who moved from Toronto to Chicago two years ago, cemented his global reputation as a big thinker in 2004 with Massive Change: The Future of Global Design, an exhibition of the latest innovations in everything from health and warfare to transportation and manufacturing (a follow-up is planned for 2011). Mau, whose theories are the subject of Warren Berger’s new book, Glimmer: How Design Can Transform Your Life, and Maybe Even the World, will be speaking at a symposium associated with Toronto’s Interior Design Show this week about a world less dependant on oil.

Q: So what does Bruce Mau’s world without oil look like?

A: It’s not a world without oil, but a world with an ecology of energy sources, where oil is used when it is the absolute right tool.

Q: How do we get there?

A: We’ve had 50 years of telling people to get out of their cars. In every one of those years the number of cars in the world went up. The idea that we’re going to punish or embarrass them into it has simply not worked. It’s like there was a focus group of six billion people around a table, and someone said, “Hey guys, give up your car” and they said, en masse, “No.” This is where design comes in. Ultimately, the way to solve the problem, and so many problems, is to make things cooler and sexier than the older ones. I have a friend who has a Tesla and a Ferrari. He says the Tesla is way cooler. That changes the game. We’re not telling him don’t. We’re telling him, here’s an exciting way you can do it that ultimately can be sustainable. How do we get to do the things we do without stealing from our kids or leaving a toxic legacy? And at the same time, how do we do them in such a way that is smarter and more fun than the old way?

Q: How far off is this future? Continue…

In case you didn't hear him the first time

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 at 8:06 PM - 11 Comments

The text of Michael Ignatieff’s speech to a Liberal rally tonight in Sudbury, including confirmation of a coming motion of non-confidence. Continue…

Well, Justin is convinced

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 at 2:27 PM - 3 Comments

Martha Hall Findlay uploads Mr. Trudeau’s reaction to Mr. Ignatieff’s speech.

'The Liberal Party of Canada cannot support this government any further'

By Aaron Wherry - Tuesday, September 1, 2009 at 1:22 PM - 43 Comments

So says the official release from the party, issued just now, Mr. Ignatieff still in mid-speech.

And, now, here’s the text of the speech. Continue…

On third thought

By Aaron Wherry - Friday, July 24, 2009 at 3:03 PM - 5 Comments

Tony Clement, July 18. Sudbury is better off now than it was two and a half years ago when Vale Inco Ltd. bought the former Inco Ltd., says Canada’s Industry minister. If the Brazilian-owned Companhia Vale do Rio Doce hadn’t bought it, Inco would “not exist, it would have been closed down, it would have been liquidated if there wasn’t a buyer,” said Tony Clement in a telephone interview late Friday afternoon. ”There was going to be no buyer, there were going to be no jobs, there weren’t going to be any capital investments, there was going to be no employer,” said Clement. ”That was the Valley of Death that Sudbury faced.”

Tony Clement, July 22. Amid a sea of anger, federal Industry Minister Tony Clement stood his ground Tuesday over comments he made about the sale of Inco in Sudbury back in 2006 … ”I think it’s an accurate comment and I’m not sure what all the hubbub is about quite frankly,” Clement said in Calgary.

Tony Clement, July 24. Industry Minister Tony Clement says he made “a pretty bone-headed remark” to The Sudbury Star last week when he said Sudbury was facing becoming the “Valley of Death” if Vale Inco had not purchased Inco … ”Like every other human being, sometimes you say things” that weren’t what you meant to say, said the minister.