One of the quirks of producing a weekly newspaper is that you’re occasionally caught in a time lag between deadline and major news events.
Such is the case this week, as voting was still underway in an American election of truly global consequence when time came to send the Community News to print.
By the time you read this, our neighbours to the south could be celebrating the beginning of the end of an embarrassing and dangerous period in their history, bracing for the sure-to-be jolting impact of a second presidential term for Donald Trump, or caught up in a bitter legal (and hopefully not physical) conflict over who actually won.
While we are somewhat isolated from the political morass that is the U.S., there is no question this election impacts Canadians, as it does citizens of countries around the globe.
Never mind the negative impact another Trump term could have on press freedoms, international trade, climate concerns, global power dynamics and my beauty rest, the actions of Americans will play a huge part in any global recovery from the health and financial impacts of COVID-19. Whether we like it or not, the pandemic won’t be over until the virus has been brought under control worldwide. Canada could bring our case count down to zero, but we won’t want to open the Canada/U.S. border to non-essential travellers in either direction until there’s a drastic reduction of numbers in America, where, under Trump, the government has literally given up attempting to control the spread.
The work of restoring American engagement in a wide range of areas is either about to begin in earnest or soon to be abandoned in favour of an all-chaos approach.
From right here, right now, we can only hope they chose well.
Ron Taverner redux?
Speaking of pandemics (hey, segues are hard, okay), here in Ontario Premier Doug Ford has been getting a lot of kudos for apparently learning that a divisive approach isn’t always best, as his government struggles to deal with the unprecedented health and financial crisis presented by COVID-19.
While it’s true that doing a better job than Donald Trump is the lowest of bars, credit is due Ford for letting health care professionals, rather than politics, guide Ontario’s response.
His newfound consonance with Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and federal finance minister Chrystia Freeland may be largely because the feds are supplying almost all of the money being spent to fight the pandemic and letting much of it flow through the provinces, allowing premiers like Ford to claim credit. Still, the fact remains, he has learned something about playing nice with others.
Questions are being raised now that the second wave of COVID-19 is proving more severe than optimistic projections allowed for, but overall, our response here could have been far worse.
However, it appears our premier still hasn’t so quickly learned the lessons from the Ron Taverner affair. The appearance of an effort to allow Ford friend and supporter Charles McVety, president of Canada Christian College, to transform the institution into a degree-granting university through a legislative back door mirrors his retroactive attempt to alter job criteria to help his buddy become OPP commissioner.
Given that debacle only ended with Taverner withdrawing from consideration, don’t expect a quick resolution to the McVety matter.
The stakes this time are considerably higher – financially for McVety and politically for Ford.
