Cycles of inaction

It’s good to be back. I think?

The past few weeks have been very busy. Between work, personal projects, and trying to be a normal, social human, I have barely had time to think, let alone work on the newsletter.

One of the biggest projects I’ve had on the go is a retrospective on the violence at Pride 2019 - how the conditions in the city made it possible for that to happen, what occurred in the immediate aftermath, and how we have not meaningfully addressed what happened in the five years since.

The report is not yet done, in large part because the project is evolving into something I never imagined. That said, I still aim to have some kind of publication for the community in the next while.

One of the key arguments I have been focusing on is the inadequate response from the Hamilton Police Service (HPS) leading up to, during, and after the event. Indeed, there seemed to be a more zealous effort to target members of the city’s queer community and our allies than there was holding violent, far-right extremists to account. Cedar Hopperton was arrested because the HPS said photos from the event matched “the bodily features [of] several people who are part of The Tower…”, but one of the far-right assailants who was filmed using a piece of protective headgear to attack people, was allowed to wander off, allowing him to assault more people in Toronto just days after. He bragged about committing assaults, then was given a suspended sentence, only to quickly turn around and commit a hate crime. A violent anti-Semite itching for a fight was shown more deference than a local resident who participated in anarchist demonstrations.

This, of course, will be in the report. But it ties into something happening presently in the city.

The May 22 attack on a cyclist on the Sydenham Road in Dundas left the community in shock. The driver appears to have purposefully hit the cyclist and had previously posted lengthy videos detailing his harassment of cyclists from inside his pick-up truck.

It took the HPS nearly a month of “investigation” to determine if they would even lay charges. Only after Justin Chandler at CBC Hamilton reported on the issue did they decide to charge the driver. And, in the end, all they’ve charged the driver with is improper passing. The HPS did not inform the cyclist, Matthew Nicholson (who fractured his pelvis after being hit by the truck), or his lawyer, David Shellnutt (aka The Biking Lawyer) about their decision to lay charges.

The folks at Cycle Hamilton are not happy about this. In an open letter to the HPS, Hamilton’s councillors, and all the area’s residents, they express frustration that the minor charge of “improper passing” (which, as they note in the letter, “typically carries a penalty of an $85 to $150 fine”) is inadequate, inappropriate, and, frankly, insulting. As the Cycle Hamilton board notes:

They’ve called for an amendment to the charges and an investigation into how the case was handled.

As well they should. And more. Because the HPS response has been completely unacceptable.

The Hamilton Police Service cannot continue to fail the residents of this city so spectacularly and not allow themselves to be held to any standard of accountability. The single largest municipal expenditure we have should at least pretend to give us value for our money.

The police do not prevent crime. The police respond to crime. If they can’t even do that effectively, then why are we throwing $213 million a year at them?

This is just one more failure in a long, long line of failures to keep anyone safe in this city. Indeed, by their action and inaction, they’ve made more Hamiltonians than ever feel unsafe. If this continues, there will be no more trust left in that institution. And it’ll be a situation of their own making.

Legislate for me

The Midday Train from Toronto

I was scrolling through The Spec’s app while on the GO train home from Toronto after a lovely Pride/Long/Birthday weekend. As we pulled further and further from the joyous revelry of the Church Street festival, time spent with friends on the beach, and the adventure that always accompanies a trip into the big city, I set my mind back to what’s been happening at home.

Not long after pulling away from Long Branch station, I found columnist Margaret Shkimba’s most recent piece on Hamilton Centre MPP Sarah Jama. As the train lurched from Clarkson to Oakville, I read through the piece, which detailed Jama’s plans to run as an Independent if we have an early provincial vote (which now seems only slightly less likely based on polling which indicates Ontarians would punish Ford by reducing his PCs to a minority and punish themselves by elevating Crombie’s Liberals to opposition).

The article made an interesting comparison, contrasting Jama’s quick expulsion from the NDP with Ford’s quiet support for Niagara West MPP Sam Oosterhoff, the youngest and arguably one of most socially conservative figures in his caucus. Rather than punish him for his fervent activism on the anti-choice front, he’s been wrapped up in the PC fold and has been rewarded for his loyalty by being named Associate Minister of Energy-Intensive Industries (whatever that means). He votes the party line and, as a reward, gets to have as much anti-abortion ice cream as he wants. While conservatives always seem better at setting aside their differences than progressives, the implication here is that, while Jama is passionate about the cause of Palestine and Oosterhoff is passionate about the cause of restricting reproductive rights, the latter is more acceptable in contemporary politics.

One of the unspoken elements of the piece is that Jama’s expulsion from the NDP caucus puts the party in a weird position - run a candidate against Jama, splitting the party and handing the riding to the Liberals or don’t run a candidate against Jama, lending her your tacit approval and inviting your opponents to turn the story into a question of why she wasn’t just readmitted to the caucus, hampering the entire campaign. If Jama and the NDP appear on track to fight each other, anticipate some popular figures in the city to eye the Liberal nomination and position themselves as a stability candidate.

Ultimately, Shkimba makes the case that Jama should be brought back into the NDP fold. This would require an apology of some sort, maybe statements about supporting the party line on the conflict, and likely a commitment to maintain a lower profile around that issue for the next while. It would also mean the NDP would need to come into the riding and listen to the concerns of party supporters and activists who felt frustrated when Jama was removed from the caucus. But the door seems like it could be opening. During Marit Styles’ interview with Laura Babcock on The O Show, the NDP leader skillfully handled the question while suggesting that there is the possibility of Jama’s rejoining the caucus maybe possibly potentially in the future.

Activist is a dirty, dirty word

Not long after Shkimba’s article popped up on The Spec’s website, it was posted to the r/Hamilton subreddit.

The r/Hamilton group has a noticeable anti-Sarah bent. Any post about Hamilton Centre’s MPP is usually met with a flurry of vitriol and anger. This piece was no different, though it did highlight one very common complaint among the users of the subreddit: she don’t already done had nothing of herses.

Sorry, sometimes Pride month echoes into July. Can’t turn it off.

The common complaint is that Jama “does not do anything”. This is sometimes added as a statement alongside complaints that she “cares more about Palestinians than her constituents”, that she’s “useless”, or that she “does nothing for Hamilton”. She’s nothing but an activist. Have political opinions on your own time, you politician!

This was echoed in today’s Spec letters to the editor, where someone claiming to be a Hamilton Centre voter indicated Jama had lost her confidence because: “Jama was elected to represent her riding. She was not elected to provide her with a platform to express her views on international politics, specifically regarding Palestinians in Gaza.”

The notion that Jama “isn’t doing anything” or “doesn’t care about Hamilton Centre” likely isn’t confined to the r/Hamilton subreddit or the Spec’s letter’s page. In early 2024, Jama’s office released her “Strategic Priorities” for the year, which include activism on the housing, healthcare, social assistant, and environment fronts. This did not appear in The Spec, aside from once in another Margaret Shkimba column. The next article about Jama focuses on her involvement in a pro-Palestine protest and the next letter about her calls her a “spectacle” and includes the line: “[Jama’s] undisciplined tongue is too much even for the current NDP leader.”

Gross, man. Like, I don’t want to hear about your interest in tongue discipline.

The feeling that our provincial politicians are “useless” seems to represent a portion of the electorate’s feelings - specifically toward Jama, but generally toward all of Hamilton’s opposition MPPs (who are all women…do with this information what you will).

This sentiment unfortunate, but not unsurprising, given the poor state of civic education in this province.

I’ve written this before, but there’s an expectation that our leaders - municipal, provincial, and federal - are a cross between a customer service representative and a supernatural feudal lord. They exist to dutifully and obediently serve and can, with a flick of the wrist, improve the conditions in their fiefdom.

This isn’t anywhere near the case, though. Provincial and federal politicians exist in the context of all in which they live and what came before them.

Sorry, sometimes Kamala Harris month echoes into July. Can’t turn it off.

Provincial and federal politicians work within the Westminster system, meaning there are limits placed on what they can and cannot do, dependent on if they’re in cabinet, if they’re in opposition, or even if they’re friendly with the party leader. It can honestly be harder for municipal politicians, who have to cobble together 50% + 1 votes on any issue because the whole situation is fluid and sometimes a councillor decides to layer on the conservatism because they jumped aboard the Liberal ship, have realized it is sinking, and need to distance themselves before they get sucked into the whirlpool when it finally goes down lest they abandon their mountaintop ambitions.

Sorry, sometimes Mixed Metaphor month echoes into July. Can’t turn it off.

Making improvements to the conditions around us takes time and is made more complicated by the diversity of opinions around the table. And, yet, there’s the expectation that we’re electing people who have the power to unilaterally fix everything, but are choosing not to because they want to focus on other things.

Provincial politics 101

So let’s actually look at what provincial politicians can and cannot do.

A Member of Provincial Parliament, according to the Legislature’s website, is “elected to represent the concerns of their constituency regarding provincial responsibilities at the Legislature and in their ridings.” They’ll speak to those concerns in the Legislature and help constituents with provincial matters from Queen’s Park and from within the riding.

Their compensation for doing so is $116,550 a year and there hasn’t been an increase to that figure since 2008. Fun fact: people think that’s a lot of cash, but if you were a single MPP trying to rent, that yearly income means you’d only be able to rent in about 2.2% of Hamilton’s existing rental stock according to the CBC.

It is a sliding scale from there. MPPs who are “parliamentary assistants” make a bit over $133,200, ministers get $165,850, and the Premier takes home over $200,000 a year.1 Not that it matters for our multimillionaire Premier.

Unlike their federal counterparts, MPPs do not get pensions.

Much of the work regular MPPs do is unseen by everyday folks. They help people navigate the complicated world of provincial bureaucracy, assist people when they need help accessing services, or act as intermediaries when dealing with provincial offices. Hamilton West-Ancaster-Dundas MPP Sandy Shaw has bus shelter ads up across her riding that let people know what kind of services they can access through her office, like helping people access the Trillium Drug Program, student loans through OSAP, assistance through Ontario Works, Service Ontario programs, etc.

Unless you need help with any of these things, you might not see that side of constituency work. But they also have the ability to introduce bills, participate in committee deliberations about said bills, and speak in the Legislature.

Opposition MPPs cannot introduce any bill to the legislature that would see public money spent on anything. Only members of the government can do that. I think this is one of the quirks of provincial government everyday citizens do not realize. If you vote for an MPP and that MPP is not a member of the governing party, that MPP cannot just…make money appear for their riding. This little fact makes comments like the one from the Redditor who said the “downtown core has only gotten worse since [Jama] became MPP” all the more frustrating. Sarah Jama can’t introduce a bill to the legislature that reallocates the $46 million Doug Ford wants to sent to the Toronto Police Service so they can buy four new helicopters to mental health and shelter supports for vulnerable people in the core.

But opposition MPPs can introduce bills that don’t force the government to spend money. And they can speak to the concerns of their constituents in the Legislature. And Hamilton does have two MPPs in the Leg that are members of the governing party - one of whom is a cabinet minister.

How do you use your Hansard?

So constituency work the side of an MPP’s job that we don’t see unless we engage with it. But, when they’re in the Legislature, there’s a formal record of everything they do.

Using the magic of Hansard, I downloaded all the statements and motions made by Hamilton’s 5 MPPs during this, the 43rd Parliament of Ontario, just to give us a glimpse into what our provincial legislators are doing when they head to Queen’s Park.

So, first thing’s first: Bills.

Reminder: any MPP can introduce a bill into the Legislature but only government MPPs can introduce bills relating to expenditures.

There have been 260 bills introduced this sitting. Bills can have any number of MPPs co-sign them. For example, an anti-scab bill was introduced by 5 NDP MPPs, and anti-fracking bill was introduced by 4 NDP MPPs, a right-to-repair bill was introduced by 3 NDP MPPs, etc.

If you noticed a pattern there, good job!

Even though they’re in opposition, the NDP members work harder than all their colleagues. The average number of bills sponsored by an NDP MPP in this sitting of the legislature is 7.3. Parkdale—High Park’s Bhutila Karpoche alone has her name on 24 bills. That’s double the TOTAL number of bills all of Toronto’s PC MPPs have their names on, combined.

The Greens are the only other party that comes close, with their two MPPs introducing 11 bills between them. The Liberals have an average of 4.6 bills per MPP and all the current Independents have an average of 2 bills to their name (the only elected Independent - Bobbi Ann Brady - has her name on 3 bills). To Jama’s credit, she has three bills ready to go, but can’t introduce them because of her censure.

It is the Tories that fall way, way, way back. The average number of bills a PC MPP has sponsored or co-sponsored is only 1.3. A full 32 Tory MPPs - 40.5% of the caucus - have not introduced a single bill into the Legislature. The Premier himself only introduced one bill, and that was just to open the Legislature.

Here in Hamilton, our two remaining NDP MPPs have been diligent, with Shaw putting her name to 4 bills and Hamilton Mountain’s Monique Taylor to 2. Donna Skelly has sponsored just 1 bill - the Croatian Heritage Day Act, 2024. Minister Neil Lumsden has not sponsored a single bill. Jama, again, is banned from introducing bills because of her censure by the Legislature last October.

Okay, so what about just…participating in debates and discussions in the Legislature?

So there are two ways to look at this. First is by volume alone. Namely: how many words has an MPP spoken?

Hansard will record almost everything…sometimes things it shouldn’t record. Like on August 11, 2022, when Taylor was recorded as saying “Take your phone off your desk… Somebody’s phone is buzzing.” And now those words are etched into the eternal record of our provincial legislative proceedings. And so it is spoken, so shall it be done.

The overwhelming majority of words spoken in the Legislature are purposeful, though. Even then, that doesn’t mean they’re always…relevant. Like, during his inaugural address to the Legislature (which constituted 63.4% of all the words he spoke in the Leg through all of 2022), Neil Lumsden said:

Cool.

Still, most of the time, the words spoken are to a specific point, like asking questions during Question Period, debating bills, or making member’s statements shouting out the interesting things being done in their constituencies. In February of this year, Shaw made comments welcoming a young constituent into the Legislature’s viewing gallery, remarked on the anniversary of the passing of Dr. Richard Allen, who was one of her predecessors in Hamilton West, and took the government to task for foisting the Get It Done Act, 2024 on the people of Ontario…all on the same day. On that day alone, she spoke 9,075 words.

Here is a breakdown of the number of words spoken by Hamilton-area MPPs in the 43rd Parliament:

A quick word about Skelly’s count: she’s also one of the Deputy Speakers of the Leg. That means she presides over sessions on occasion. The words spoken while she’s in the speaker’s chair have not been included, as they’re all procedural and not spoken in her capacity as a representative.

Shaw and Taylor are quite close in wordcounts, but Sandy takes 1st prize with nearly 130,000 words spoken during the 43rd Parliament. That’s nearly 3 times as many words spoken as the area’s two government members combined. And, a little fun fact: Shaw is notable for being the only Hamilton-area MPP to also make remarks en français.

One of the most striking things about this is how little Lumsden has said in the Leg. He’s the area’s only minister and, over the 182 days the Legislature has sat, he’s only managed 15,690 words. For reference, the April 19 edition of the newsletter, “High over Clearwater”, has nearly as many words in it.

Holy wow, I could be a minister. I’ll take “Minister for Just Straight Up Havin’ a Good Time”, please.

Anyway, what’s even more striking is that Jama managed 2/3 the number of words that Lumsden has spoken in the 50 days she was allowed to speak in the Legislature.

That actually brings us to the second way we can measure an MPP’s participation in debate: days where the MPP spoke.

The Ontario Legislature does not sit very often. In the 696 days since the beginning of the 43rd Legislature on August 8, 2022, there have been 182 sitting days. That’s because Ontario is a huge province and MPPs are expected to attend events and meetings in their own constituencies before getting back to Toronto for a legislative sitting. Not everyone can drive their SUV 45 minutes from Etobicoke to Queen’s Park, after all.

So let’s take a look at how Hamilton-area MPPs have performed:

This time, Taylor and Shaw swap spots, but they aren’t far off. Taylor spoke on 118 of the Leg’s sitting days while Shaw spoke on 113. Skelly only managed 53 and Lumsden 44.

Jama’s numbers are a little wonky here. There were 59 sitting days before she was elected and there have been 73 since she was censured, barring her from speaking in the Leg. In reality, she only had 50 days during which she could participate in debates.

So, if we adjust the criteria from “percent of sitting days” to “percent of sitting days where the MPP was permitted to speak”, things change a little.

The Blame Game

It is clear that Hamilton’s opposition MPPs have been doing the best they can with the tools they’re handed. They speak in the legislature regularly, they’ve introduced bills for debate, and they participate in all the activities we’d expect a political figure to participate in.

And my look into the data barely scratches the surface.

Shaw has published three opinion pieces in The Spec since the beginning of the year, been vocal on opposing cuts to the Greenbelt, and has recently called on the government to reconvene the legislature to address the high levels of lead in the drinking water at Hamilton-area schools.

Taylor has begun campaigning for the creation of an Amber Alert-style warning for other vulnerable people, continues her relentless work on behalf of families of children with autism, and spent much of last year being profiled by federal leader Jagmeet Singh for her advocacy on co-op housing and universal dental care.

Hell, even without the ability to speak in the Leg or introduce her own motions, Jama has still voted on 15 bills since being elected.

So why, then, are people still saying these figures are “useless”?

Part of it comes down to something the ever-astute Ian Borsuk noted in the replies to the r/Hamilton post about Shkimba’s Jama article (and was mercilessly downvoted for): people don’t really get what provincial politicians do.

Being a legislator means sitting in the Leg and working on bills which might become laws. That means doing your homework, defending your ideas, and making sure your bills get to the right committees. Much of that work is done at Queen’s Park, away from the eyes of the public. They might be present in the community for meetings, attending events, or holding town halls, but between being in Toronto and helping constituents out with one-on-one issues, they’re not always going to be around.

One of the things I’ve been working on through my new contract is collecting resources that might improve voter engagement and citizen awareness of what government is really all about. Because that’s clearly become a problem. When you have people blaming the Prime Minister for increasing interest rates or blaming the mayor for the homelessness crisis, it is clear we have a dismal awareness of what the government actually does. Just because someone is a leader does not mean they have the ultimate authority to improve things, make things worse, or alter your specific circumstances. The things they do can impact it, but they work as part of a larger structure that we are all a part of.

We need to better educate people on the roles and responsibilities of provincial politicians. Hell, we need better civics education overall.

Just because you disagree with a politician’s political stances does not mean it is okay to call them “useless” without having anything to back that up with. All that does is help diminish our political discourse, drive people away from participating, and further erode the foundations of our democracy.

Ask not what your legislator can do for you; ask how you can better inform yourself on what legislators actually do.

The man I’ll never be

I met Naheed Nenshi a few weeks ago. He was speaking at the Canadian Vote Summit, a gathering into which I was quickly incorporated after starting a new work contract through Toronto Metropolitan University. We chatted briefly about his talk, his connection to Hamilton through community advocate and current radio show host Jason Allen, and my past electoral misadventures. I didn’t want to keep him too long; I had been on-the-go for three days straight and he was rushing to return to Alberta to continue the last leg of his NDP leadership campaign.

Still, it was lovely to shake the hand of someone whose political career I had always admired. Nenshi won his 2010 Calgary mayoral race as an outsider, running a campaign focused on stopping sprawl, strengthening communities, and making the city a better place for all. He beat a long-time right-wing city councillor and a popular newscaster - a feat that would baffle those of us in a city where those two job descriptions seem to guarantee electoral victories.

On June 22, Nenshi won the Alberta NDP leadership election in a landslide. A commanding 86% of party members voted for him, which becomes all the more impressive when you realize party membership quadrupled during the leadership race. It is entirely likely that Nenshi’s team brought most of those new members in.

One of the stories Nenshi told during his talk at the Canadian Vote Summit was how, while serving as mayor, he was honoured with a Blackfoot name by the chief of the Kainai Nation. His Blackfoot name is A'paistootsiipsii - “he who moves camp and others follow”. His performance in the Alberta NDP leadership election is just one more piece of evidence to justify that honour. There is something consistently impressive about his ability to lead.

In the hours after his victory was announced, the top story on the CBC was an analysis article by Jason Markusoff. I tend to enjoy Markusoff’s perspectives, which are usually well-researched, funny, and poignant.

But I found myself growing frustrated with the piece, “The newest New Democrat won leadership easily. Nenshi's next moves? Likely harder.”

It laid out the challenging road ahead for Nenshi, who made a political career of opposing political parties and charting a course through the choppy waters of partisanship that allowed people from across the mushy middle of the spectrum (and even some who drift left, as I do) to lend him their support. That was all well-and-good while he was Mayor of Calgary, but might prove to be more challenging now that he leads a political party.

As the piece went on and on, I couldn’t shake the feeling of being frustrated. And then it hit me.

When I hit a line close to the end of the piece, I realized why this was the case. Markusoff interviewed a senior advisor to current Alberta premier Danielle Smith who said of Nenshi: “has a tendency to be isolating and condescending — too academic in nature. Albertans don't need to be lectured on what they'll want.”2

I guess we have that in common.

The egg head. The ivory tower elitist. The overeducated, uncaring, condescending kind of arrogant, pompous, asshole who has the audacity to tell me how to live my own life!?

Except, he wasn’t any of those things. Yeah, he has an eye for policy, but he proved to be a caring, relatable, effective mayor for a large city.

I suppose I admire Nenshi because I always hoped I’d end up like him. Someone who could use their skills and knowledge to make the world around them a better place.

But, despite this, the article also made me realize I’ve already beefed my chance of being like Nenshi.

One of the reasons why this is the case is because I’ve thrown myself into partisanship (or, at the very least, ideological spiciness) with reckless abandon.

Part of my frustration with Markusoff’s article was because I was rooting for Nenshi. Even though Markusoff was writing in a style that could have been lifted from any edition of The Sewer Socialists (detail-oriented, littered with contemporary references, slightly bitchy), I was disagreeing with very valid and funny points because I felt like he was coming for someone I admire.

I do that every week. I’m critical of politicians and political decisions and institutions and ideas and proposals that some folks might really support, which could turn them off or at least get them thinking that maybe I’m not fully worthy of their support. I take stances that some people might balk at or that might concern those people more toward the middle of the political spectrum. I’ve seen newsletter subscriber counts jump up and fall dramatically based on the content I produce.

I mean…this newsletter literally has the word “socialist” in it. Like…come on.

Nenshi was able to create a political movement because he presented himself as “post-partisan”. His signature colour was purple - a colour not used by any major Canadian political party until Bernier took it for his far-right populist outfit. He could blend political ideologies into a coherent, urbanist agenda that appealed to a wide array of people.

Nenshi started off non-partisan and became a partisan because of the circumstances at play in his province, allowing him to build a movement that has roots in the big tent he spend a decade erecting. That’s a door I closed for myself a long, long time ago.

Another reason why I’ve messed up my chances is because I realized I just can’t be like Nenshi.

The Marcusoff article talks about his impressive record as Mayor of Calgary:

I’ve had this conversation with a lot of people, but I believe we ask too much of our politicians. We still treat leaders in a democracy like they’re god-kings, capable of working 26 hours a day, subsisting off of caffeine and the blood of their vanquished foes, unconcerned with the pitifully mortal affairs of the heart.

That’s one of the least healthy things about our democracy, and is a strong candidate for why we’re able to so easily “other” politicians (see the recent “spitting on MP Marco Mendicino” incident). We have feelings and desires and concerns. We have bad days where we feel like we can’t get anything done. We have days where we want to have a few-too-many with our friends on the beach. We have days where we don’t want to talk to another non-feline entity. But we expect people in politics to be polished, fully energized, and ready to serve us without so much as a sigh (see much of the last piece).

That’s in part because some politicians have embraced this unhealthy image. Rob Ford taking out some person’s trash at 3:00 AM. Hamilton’s councillors responding to our emails at 11:30 PM with typo-laden, off-the-cuff, “sent from my iPhone” signatured rants. Doug Ford and his child-sized shovel.

I can’t do that. I won’t do that. I like camping and hitting the beach and getting sloppy at pub trivia. I love spending time with my partner and our friends. Sure, we don’t (and won’t) have kids, but that doesn’t still mean I have all the time in the world. I’m a human being, dammit.

Some people have told me that’s basically disqualifying. Someone who would even dream of seeking public office needs to cram themselves into the mould of the workaholic politician, apparently. Because we still cling to the notion that public service requires exceptional personal sacrifice.

So, I guess I’m not like Nenshi. I admire him, I think he’s an incredible public speaker, and I think he’ll make a wonderful Premier. But, just because I’m not like him, doesn’t mean he can’t still serve as an inspiration in his own way.

I guess I’ll just have to be my own man. And I think that’s a good thing.

Cool facts for cool people

• It might be too late now, but hopefully you filled up the ol’ liquor cabinet because our teetotaling Premier has set us up for a dry summer. Negotiations with Ontario Public Service Employees Union workers at LCBO stores across the province have broken down because they had the audacity to ask for better management of the alcohol sector and to be hired full time. The Ford Government never ceases to give Ontarians things they didn’t ask for while ruining the things we want. Keep riding that 40% polling average into eternity, Dougie.

• Happy UK Election Day! I look forward to watching the results come in from constituencies with fanciful names like Knaresborough, Cramlington, and Wokington. How quaint! You can check in on the results with The Guardian, but be patient; the Britons take their ballot boxes back to returning offices to count them and then just slowly pull them out like they have all day or something. So it might be a day or two before we know the full results.

• New Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish has used her Strong Mayor powers seven times in her first week, including to fire the city's chief administrative officer, Shari Lichterman, just because. Huh…would you look at that…apparently giving near unlimited powers to an erratic career politician who barely won a by-election without any semblance of oversight is a bad idea? Who would have guessed? Good job, Doug!