Hot Takes: 18 April 2024
What did I say on the radio today?
I joined Jerry Agar’s Party for Two today on Newstalk1010
Doug Ford on Keffiyeh ban. The Speaker of Ontario’s legislature has banned the wearing of keffiyehs – the chequered scarves often worn in desert countries – in the legislature, saying they’re political props which aren’t allowed. Premier Doug Ford has called for the ban to be reversed, saying it’s unnecessarily divisive.
I have a dozen keffiyah scarves which I bought in Afghanistan, where I worked for over two years. They’re cheap. They’re very useful in desert country where they keep your neck warm at night when it gets chilly, keep some of the dust out of your shirt and can be pulled up over your face when the winds whip up a dust storm. They may also be fashionable in some circles.
I wouldn’t wear one here and now. They’ve become a de facto symbol of the pro-Palestinian, pro-Hamas, anti-Israel cause in 2024 Canada. Wearing one here today would signal support for that cause. Which is precisely why some Ontario Members of Provincial Parliament have taken to wearing them – since October 7, 2024. They never wore one before. So, the Speaker is right: they are a political props and should be banned in the legislature.
Premier Ford is also right: the keffiyeh is divisive. Banning it even more so.
Frankly, I’m fine with anti-semitic racists marking themselves for all of us to see. It makes them easier to identify at a distance, so I can more readily judge what
they do and what they say.
Can’t we do anything about these people who stand in the way of progress?
This story is the literal definition of NIMBYism. I’ll bet all of the people upset by the design of this multi-family home would loudly applaud its placement in any other neighbourhood. Just not theirs. They’re right that it will fundamentally change the look and character of their existing neighbourhood. Just like their existing neighbourhood changed the character of the apple orchard or industrial tenement that existed before their houses were built. But, that’s the nature of urban living. We don’t have enough homes for everyone who lives here. We desperately need more homes. It’s a national crisis. And, it’s most acute in Toronto. We need to make big changes, now, here. Neighbourhoods evolve over time and it’s time for our neighbourhoods to evolve again.
If the universities and colleges get provincial money should they get a say in the way they are governed? Some academics are upset with a new provincial law that would give government more control over colleges and universities. There seems to be little real opposition to the mental health aspects of this law. The greater discord seems focused on the law’s requirement that academic institutions enact anti-racism policies. I can understand why. “Racism” is too often not an absolute concept – one professor’s advocacy for innocent Palestinian children, is another’s antisemitic racism. Too many academics at York University, in particular, may side with Hamas terrorists – wittingly or otherwise. They feel this law may target them, because this law should target them.
A minor concern about the law is that it appears to require universities to meet other targets, including employment of their graduates. Universities were not designed to be vocational schools that prepare students for work. Nor, should they be. That is the legitimate and important role of colleges and trade schools. In 2024 Ontario, however, most colleges have aspired to become universities. They shouldn’t. They have a distinct and critical role of their own. Universities exist to teach students a broad, liberal (not the political “Liberal”) education that will stoke their curiousity and equip them to learn throughout their lives, ask questions and find answers to future mysteries. These traits will be important to shaping these young students into our future leaders. But, they won’t equip them to swing a hammer or get a first job.
Who are these people? What do they expect McDonalds to do? For over 80 free coffees? Anybody who has 600 McDonald’s fully-stamped loyalty coffee cards has missed the point of the loyalty program. The program is not supposed to create currency. It’s supposed to reward you with a seventh cup of joe for free. Not create a marketable security backed by a debt owed from the restaurant. McDonald’s is right. These customers are wrong.