New parliamentary Speaker tries to enforce rules on decorum

The recently-installed Liberal speaker of the House of Commons, Greg Fergus, annoyed Conservatives who were desperate to get to their favourite pastime of tearing strips off Justin Trudeau, when he interrupted Question Time to give a much-needed homily about decorum in Parliament.

It's ironic that his request for attention was rudely interrupted by - who else? - Pierre Poilievre, who kvetched that the Speaker could have made his point at any other time, rather that eating into the valuable Question Time time that he uses for his ad hominem attacks on the Prime Minister.

As usual, Poilievre missed the point. The point of Fergus's address was to denounce the "boorish and rude" heckling that goes on in Parliament. (If you've ever listened to recordings, you will know exactly what he means - quite frankly, it's embarrassing.) "Latitude in expressing one's point of view will be given", he intoned, "but questionable language and unnecessarily provocative statements will no longer be tolerated". Well, good luck with that, Mr. Fergus.

He also called out the increasing tendency towards parliamentary behaviour that is "unnecessarily personal, and designed to denigrate, bully, elicit an emotional reaction, or to attack the integrity of the person", as well as the growing propensity for shaming Members of Parliament by drawing attention to their absence (Poilievre does this all the time).

Kudos to Mr. Fergus for laying out the rules (which members should already know, but so often ignore) as he starts his tenure as Speaker. It will be interesting to see whether he can in fact hold offending members to account. No other speaker has managed to.

Quebec university tuition hike is self-defeating

The province of Quebec has made news again by drastically increasing out-of-province university tuition fees for the province's three English language universities, McGill, Concordia and Bishops 

Premier François Legault says this will help protect the French language by limiting the number of anglophones studying in Quebec. "It's nothing against anglophones", he assures us, "it's a question of equality for French universities". Equality? Right. Quebec's Minister of Higher Education says that it will "balance" the funding of the English and French universities in the province (in some way).

Tuition fees for these universities will nearly double, from $9,000 to $17,000, for out-of-province students, while overseas students will pay at least $20,000. (For reference, in-province fees for Quebeckers are just $3,000.) This will seriously disincentivize the English universities, which are much more popular with out-of-province and overseas students, as well as much more successful and renowned. It is a tax on language pollution, but it will have much more far-reaching effects than just reducing demand for a few English language universities. The amounts of money involved aren't that large in the context of the provincial budget, but this is a matter of principle for Legault and the CAQ.

In his crusade to boost French in Quebec at the expense of English, Legault seems happy to throw the province's best universities under the proverbial bus. Student unions are calling the move discriminatory and elitist, and are considering more robust opposition. At the very least, it taints the universities' - and Montréal's, and the province in general's - international reputation. Bishop's, by far the smallest of the three, and the most reliant on out-of-province fees, may see its whole business model upended and its very existence may be imperilled, according to its principal.

But, for the CAQ, the French language is paramount, common sense be damned.

Why is the Rafah border crossing closed to Palestinians?

I've been trying to understand why Egypt is keeping the Rafah border crossing with Gaza closed, and the best explanations I have found are this one from the BBC, and this one from Time.

It's hard to believe, but there are only three ways out of the hell that is Gaza: the Erez and Kerem Shalom crossings in the north, which lead to Israel and almost certain death; and the Rafah crossing in the south, which leads to Egypt and a slightly lower certainty of death. Since Hamas took control of Gaza in 2007, Egypt has cooperated with Israel in enforce its blockade of the Palestinian enclave, partly because it feels it is also in its own strategic interests. Israel also restricts access to and from Gaza by air and by sea (not to mention that millions of tons of raw sewage ends up in the seas along Gaza's short coastline since its sanitation system broke down, so it is inadvisable to even try swimming away). Gazans have effectively been prisoners in their own land for decades.

Currently, Egypt is keeping the Rafah crossing closed, and thousands of desperate Palestinians are waiting on the Gaza side hoping to escape Israel's bombardment and the upcoming ground attacks. Meanwhile, there are reports of several Israeli air strikes on the trapped Palestinians waiting to leave. In theory, foreign passport-holders should be allowed to leave through Rafah, but in practice there are many hold-ups. 

On the Egyptian side of the border, hundreds of trucks carrying desperately needed aid are being held up, with many more arriving every day.

The official Egyptian line is that the crossing s technically open as far as they are concerned, and they are blaming the Israeli aerial bombardment for making the crossing too dangerous to allow aid convoys to cross. But the truth is that the Rafah crossing has never been very open, and Egypt has kept very tight restrictions on it for many years, to the extent that they actually seem to be bolstering Israel's blockade of Gaza.

Egypt may be another Muslim-majority country, but there is nevertheless no love lost with the Palestinians. For one thing, they worry that Palestinian insurgents may link up with Al Qaeda jihadists already operating in Egypt's North Sinai territory. 

But, probably more importantly, they just don't want into open up to a mass migration of Palestinians into Egypt, for which they would then bear responsibility for an indefinite period of time. Even less do they want to see a permanent resettlement of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in their land. They certainly do not want to give the impression that Sinai may be considered an alternative country for Palestinians.

Negotiations are currently under way for a deal to open up the border crossing and allow safe passage for many thousands of beleaguered Palestinians (and to allow aid in to Gaza). But don't expect the Egyptians to make it easy.

The irony of dead Canadian birds

In an epic feat of irony and metaphor, Toronto Blue Jay's relief pitcher Eric Swanson published a photo of himself and his kid along with at least 17 dead Canada Geese that he shot recently.

Setting aside the grossness of involving a small child in a scene of such violence and atrocity, the irony of this scene of dead Canadian birds after an underwhelming season end by the much-vaunted Blue Jays team will not be lost on many a Toronto resident.

If the dinsaurs were wiped out, why do we still have birds?

Well, here's something I have never thought about. Although it wasn't the case back in my childhood, it is pretty well known today that birds are closely related to dinosaurs, indeed that they are essentially modern-day dinos walking - and flying - among us. Recent, more careful, excavations of dinosaur remains, show quite clearly that many dinosaurs were feathered.

So, why weren't birds wiped out along with the dinosaurs 65-66 million years ago? Well, it's not the case that birds evolved AFTER the cataclysmic events of 65 million years ago. Neither did a few dinosaurs manage to survive and evolved into birds. 

In fact, birds were a sub-group of dinosaurs. In the same way as some dinos developed hugely long necks, and some developed amour-plating, some developed feathers and learned to fly. Birds were contemporaries of the lizard-like dinosaurs we usually think of, first showing up in the fossil record sone 150 million years ago in the Jurassic period. They flourished alongside T. Rex and Diplodocus, in another branch of the dinosaurs family tree. 

Some of the traits they developed - like feathers, warm blood, egg-laying, air sacs, seed-eating, and parental care - apparently allowed them to better weather the annihilation suffered by their saurian relatives after the ecosystem collapse caused by an asteroid strike (although very many species did NOT make it through). 

So, birds simply got lucky. And they are the dinosaurs that survive to this day.

Is there any way to justify Hamas' strike on Israel?

The rocket attacks by the hardline Hamas leadership of Palestine's Gaza Strip, and the subsequent all-out war declared by Israel in retaliation, has met with almost unanimous condemnation from every quarter of the civilized world. 

Very little of this response has been critical of Israel, partly because it was Iran-backed Hamas' first strike that initially set off the conflagration, and partly because most countries are absolutely paranoid about being branded as antisemitic, which (as I have observed before) the Netanyahu government is all too ready to weaponize whenever anyone criticizes the state of Israel in any way.

The few public statements in favour of Palestine and critical of Israel, such as by the odd trade union and the even odder politician, have been quickly closed down amid howls of outrage and indignation. Even a silence on the issue has been branded as tacit approval of Hamas' actions, which is kind of ridiculous. When Israeli atrocities start to outweigh Palestinian atrocities - and you just know that's going to happen; it arguably already has - will public criticism of Israel become acceptable even then? Hard to say.

But what if the Palestinian strike could be justified? Woah, you say, don't even go there! And I must confess, I am loath to. But let's just see what the justification might be, without making any judgements either way.

Hamas' own official justification for the strike is a bit lame, to tell you the truth. Hamas claims that the attack was provoked by Israeli "settlers" entering the al-Aqsa Mosque on Temple Mount in Jerusalem, a site sacred to both Jews and Muslims alike, in order to pray. Hamas claims this is an inexcusable desecration, and a vindication of their major incursion into Israel.

That said, Hamas and the Palestinians have plenty of other provocations and reasons to hate Israel, going back many decades. Israel has long blockaded Gaza, which has proved economically devastating. Poverty levels are horrendous, unemployment is at nearly 50%, and living conditions are abysmal in this tiny, overcrowded region. Gaza remains effectively under Israeli occupation, and has been described as an "open-air prison" by Human Rights Watch. Long before this conflict, the UN has warned that the area will soon become uninhabitable.  

Although Israel has made fewer illegal settlements in Gaza than in the West Bank, there have still been some attempts to wrest back parts of this tiny little beleaguered enclave. Israel under Netanyahu has turned a blind eye to settler violence in Gaza, as it has in the West Bank, such as the brutal rampage through the Palestinian town of Huwara in February while Israel Defence Forces looked on with equanimity. 

This constant tit-for-tat needling and provocation by Israel must be galling indeed for the Palestinians, and you can see why they might want to up the ante, partly in retaliation, but partly to shift the way the world sees Israel-Palestine relationships, and to send a message to those Arab countries that are making nice with Israel through the Trump-brokered Abraham Accord agreements.

So, maybe there is a strong case for Palestinian anger. But, while Hamas' egregious actions of last week may be understandable to some extent, that does not make them morally defensible. A pre-emptive strike that kills 1,200 Israeli civilians (more recently revealed as closer to 1,400) is hard - no, impossible - to justify or condone, and now the Palestinian people find themselves the target of a raging Israel full of righteous indignation. Thousands more innocents will die as a result of this action, and very few looking on will find themselves looking at Palestine and Hamas more kindly than before.

Israel's much stronger military will wreak much more havoc on Gaza than Hamas ever could. Hamas could never actually wipe out Israel, as they say they have ambitions to do, but Israel could well obliterate Gaza if they had a mind to. With its borders effectively already sealed, Gazan Palestinians have nowhere to go, and hundreds of thousands are already displaced. By all accounts, Israel is planning on cutting off all food, power, medicines, water and fuel to Gaza in a "complete siege", which will make the region even more uninhabitable than it already is (and may amount to genocide and a war crime). It is point-blank refusing diplomatic exhortations to avoid harming civilians, or even to establish safe corridors for refugees.

The whole thing is an ugly and futile exercise on both sides. As Israel prepares for a ground invasion and calls for over a million Palestinians to vacate the region with just 24 hours notice, Hamas leadership may be reflecting on whether their action isn't backfiring badly on the people and the enclave as a whole. Many Israelis believe that Palestinians would be better wiped off the map, just as strongly as Hamas believes that Israel should be decimated. Israel will happily take this opportunity presented it to eliminate the Palestinian thorn in its side.

Most of what is happening is indefensible by normal moral standards. Frankly, if you really want to blame someone or something, then you can lay the blame squarely on religion.

Not all joint statements need to include Canada

Some Canadians, mainly those of the Conservative persuasion, are trying their best to paint a joint statement by the USA, Britain, France, Germany and Italy on the Israel-Hamas conflict as a major slight to Canada, and proof positive of Canada's continued slide into irrelevance. Pierre Poilievre, of course, is blaming it specifically on Justin Trudeau, but then Poilievre blames everything on Trudeau, no matter how improbable, and it is kind of hard to take anything he says seriously any more. 

So, yes, these five countries make up most of the G7 group of influential industrialized nations, which also includes Japan and, for whatever reason, Canada. In terms of GDP, Canada is (just) in the top ten in the world, as are the other members of the G7, although actually below the likes of China, India and Brazil (which are not in the G7, probably because they have chosen to group together under the BRICS label). 

But the US, Britain, Germany, France and Italy are also members of the more informal, lesser-known grouping known as The Quint, which just happens to contain most members of the G7, minus Japan and Canada. The US, Britain and France are all "nuclear weapon states", while Germany and Italy are part of the nuclear weapons sharing program within NATO. 

Whatever the impetus for the establishment of the Quint grouping, there is nothing nefarious or slighting about the fact that Canada is not a member of it. The group is at liberty to make whatever joint statements it likes without having to involve Canada (or Japan). 

There is another informal group called The Quad (technically, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue), which consists of the United States, India, Japan and Australia. Canada is not a member of that either (but then, neither is France, Germany, etc). 

Then, there is the Aukus defence pact (Australia, UK and USA), and there were those who tried to make big deal of Canada's absence from that group too, although it turns out that the Aukus group was established very specifically to enable Australia to build nuclear-propelled submarines, something that Canada is not in the market for. It is not a club or a defence pact or anything of that sort.

There is also the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, and, yes, Canada IS a member of that. Do you think that France and Germany lose sleep over their exclusion from it? Probably not.

So, there is a plethora of these informal international groupings. Some are more important than than others. Some are exclusive, some are mutually exclusive, some overlap like mad Venn diagrams. Canada does not have to be part of all of them, nor is it ever likely to be, there is nothing to say that Canada has to be a member of every tin-pot international grouping that arises. Neither is it the case that we have to be involved in every little thing that the US and the UK gets involved in.

And just because a statement is made without Canada's signature on it does not mean that the country has suddenly become totally irrelevant or an international laughing stock (we have other ways of ensuring that...) Although it sometimes might seem like it, Mr. Trudeau does not direct every little thing that happens in the country. He has a cabinet and a caucus and a whole civil service behind him.

And, if it really needs to be explained to a certain Mr. Poilievre, whatever Canada does or doesn't do does not necessarily have to be laid at the doorstep of the current Prime Minister. After all, Canada was not a member of The Quint under Conservative Prime Minister Harper either. But then, petty point-scoring and disingenuous misinformation is Poilievre's stock-in-trade, isn't it?

Beware, VAIDS is coming (actually, no it's not)

I can't say I have come across it myself, not being in the right social media bubble, but apparently there is an article doing the rounds of the right-wing fringe theory circuit claiming that "74% of triple-vaccinated now have VAIDS" (vaccine-induced immunodeficiency syndrome), and that the Canadian government has even "admitted" it.

If you happen to frequent sites like The People's Voice and The Exposé, you might have come across this claim which is being widely disseminated by the anti-vaccine conspiracy theory crowd. Unfortunately, it is complete bunk on a variety of different fronts.

Firstly, and perhaps most importantly, there is no such thing as "VAIDS": it is a spurious condition made up by the American pseudo-scientific ultra-right-wing group, America's Frontline Doctors.

Secondly, the claim rests on a deliberate misinterpretation of official statistics, and a conflation of "vaccine effectiveness", which does tend to reduce over time, and something the article calls "immune system performance". Yes, the effectiveness of a vaccine does wane over time (this is well-known, and it is why we get boosters), but that is nothing to do with the long-term effectiveness of a person's overall immune system, which is absolutely not compromised by receiving vaccines.

And finally, this is not even a new claim. These same purveyors of misinformation tried the same ploy back in March 2022, when it suggested that "the triple vaccinated have developed AIDS and are now 5.1x more likely to die of Covid-19 than the unvaccinated".

It was not true then, and it is equally untrue now.