Things fall apart

Two federal party leaders and a Reddit post walk into a bar…

Hamilton was graced with a visit by two of the country’s top political leaders last week. Their visit comes at a time when the city is struggling with a crisis caused, in part, by the economic policies both those leaders support.

Judging by the online chatter in the city, things are starting to get really bad. So it’s up to compassionate progressives to provide a compelling case for the future - one that acknowledges people’s fear and works to provide a viable alternative. Because, based on what both leaders presented in Hamilton last week, we’re headed for dark times.

The widening gyre

On May 3, a user on the r/Hamilton subreddit created a post labelled with the “rant” flair, meaning the post will involve them blowing off steam about something that has been bothering them. Recent posts with the “rant” flair focus on people who neglect to clean up after their dogs, noise complaints in Westdale, and the high price of gas.

The post from May 3 was entitled “So I guess we just can’t go downtown anymore”. The original body of the post has since been deleted by the author and the entire thread has been locked to prevent new comments. The post was only up for a short while, but generated plenty of interest. Some of the 264 comments posted under the original post are still there and display a variety of perspectives and anecdotes.

The post expressed a mix of worry and frustration at the increasing frequency with which people venturing into the core are met with challenging situations. People in crisis yelling, darting out into traffic, using hard drugs on the street, or getting close to becoming physical with bystanders.

Reading through the remaining comments gives the impression that a lot of r/Hamilton subscribers feel unsafe downtown right now. Comments come from people who, like the original poster, have been accosted by individuals in the midst of a mental health crisis, who have watched fights break out, who have witnessed open drug use on the street or at bus stops. People discussed how their own mental health has taken a dive after being involved in frightening situations that they do not have the training to deal with or the experience in handling. People - women in particular - shared stories of being harassed by aggressive men while walking down their own streets. People blamed city council, the police, developers, and the people in crisis themselves. People shared links about where to find bear spray and air horns and weapons.

The knee-jerk reaction is to recoil in disgust at these comments. Think about the people actually experiencing these crises or living on the streets, one might think. But even the most forward-thinking person will be taken aback if someone shouts in their face on the street. We’re humans, and the human body’s response to that is to spike adrenalin, prepare a defence, and assess possible outcomes. And watching people do hard drugs on the street is jarring, not only to people with little experience in the field, but also to people who have struggled or who love someone who has struggled with addiction in the past. Combine that with the ability for some substances to make some user’s behaviour more erratic, and people become concerned. These are real worries impacting people who should not be dismissed simply because they have an income, an apartment, and a therapist. We cannot and will not build a more compassionate society if every concern is met with “well at least you have…”.

While a couple hundred anonymous comments on a now-deleted post does not a representative sample make, anyone with the capacity to observe their surroundings can see something is different. It can be hard to tell when the vibe shift kicked in, but people took notice around the one-year mark of the pandemic.

And now, our community is in a bad place. Skyrocketing commercial rents are pushing businesses out of the community, astronomically high residential rents have people on the brink of eviction, shelters are at capacity, mental health services are hard to come by, and we watch helplessly as millions of dollars are funneled to the police despite evidence indicating increased funding as no impact on crime. Real housing solutions aren’t being discussed, with the provincial government enthusiastically letting the suburbs sprawl to enrich developers and calling it a day. There’s little pushback against greedy developers that slap up a cheap condo made of plexiglass, cardboard, and super glue, only for half the units to be bought up by speculative investors and rented out at astronomical prices. People are stretched to the absolute bring and it seems like the guiding emotion of the day is anger, with more and more isolated people looking at everyone around them with suspicion and disgust.

And, on the very same day that thread was posted, two people with the power to actually address some of that marched into Hamilton. But, if anyone was hoping we’d get substantive solutions to these problems from Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre, they’d come away feeling distinctly unsatisfied.

The centre cannot hold

The Prime Minister’s visit to Hamilton was a strange affair - part campaign speech, part funding announcement, part polite appearance to back up his three MPs from one of the largest urban centres in Canada. Surrounded by prominent Liberals - Chrystia Freeland, Filomena Tassi, Chad Collins, and Lisa Hepfner, as well as Mayor Andrea Horwath - Trudeau visited Mohawk College to discuss the housing crisis.

The PM let the media set the agenda, putting him on the defensive and making him seem, if not entirely unprepared for the questions he received, then at least woefully out-of-touch with reality. CHCH acted as the media wing of the Conservative Party, asking Trudeau why he let housing prices rise so quickly and then cutting the tape of his answer short before pivoting to Poilievre. The Spec at least covered the entirety of his answer, which included a focus on the economic crisis (including inflation and a global downtown) caused by the pandemic and poor policies of previous governments.

But, as usual, Trudeau tripped over his words, filling the gaps in his sentences with a billion little uhhs. Before anyone accuses me of focusing on style over substance, it should be noted that now, more than ever, is the time for clarity and a compelling argument from the Prime Minister. His legacy is at stake, and if he is unable to coherently present his agenda, he risks losing it all.

His rhetorical style aside, his greatest crime was being predictably uninspired. The coal in the engine room is running down, the lights don’t work in the grand ballroom, the crew seems to know they’re headed for an iceberg, and the captain can’t even tell us how he’ll rearrange the deck chairs.

The PM was unable to present a single, compelling, unique, stand-out policy his government initiated that didn’t sound like it came from the 154th paragraph of the legal disclaimer stapled to the back of a microwave oven’s user manual. In a room full of enthusiastic young voters, surrounded by his modestly capable team, he played the bumbling technocrat who, in the Aaron Sorkin-directed Liberal fantasy version of the world, always wins out in the end. Overly dull, heavy on the details, always just tweaking the market a little without making any real changes.

Poilievre’s visit was easier. Everything Poilievre does is easier. He’s the leader of His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition. A thoroughly modern Canadian precedent decrees that a leader of the opposition has to do little more than undermine the government, come up with easy slogans, and repeat them until the voting public’s ears bleed. The opposition is only a “government in waiting” insofar as they’re the strongest alternative to a governing party people dislike. The old cliché maintains that Canadians do not vote for a party; they vote against a party.

Poilievre’s visit to a shipyard was met with raucous applause and gave him a chance to get some media coverage in front of industrial equipment, sporting a very stylish hardhat and safety vest. It was at said shipyard that CHCH dragged him out onto the docks to ask him the same(ish) question about housing and let him present his version of events, unfiltered and unchallenged.

In response to the question (“2015, $334,000 for a home. 2024, $850,000. Why?”) was simple, if not mathematically and grammatically confusing: “Two words: Justin Trudeau happened. Justin Trudeau happened.”

To his credit, he also stumbled when answering the CHCH reporter’s question, unable to directly answer if it would take another generation to fix this problem. But a quick pivot back to Justin Trudeau Inflation, Justin Trudeau Costly, Justin Trudeau Tax papered over those little hiccups.

That evening, Poilievre visited the Sons and Daughters of Italy to, again, blame Trudeau for all the problems, real or imagined, anyone could ever have.

Unlike the PM, Poilievre stuck around to go door-knocking in Hamilton East-Stoney Creek with the riding’s Conservative candidate, Ned Kuruc, the next day. The canvass had an impressive turnout, from what the photos show. There was evidently a large, diverse group of people, keen to get out there and talk to voters about how awful Trudeau is for making life expensive. Hell, even former Liberal MP Bob Bratina showed up to support Poilievre and Kuruc.

Despite the fact that the party has averaged 26.6% of the vote since the riding was created in 2004, the Conservatives believe they can win it in 2025. Their best result gives a good indication why; in 2011, the Liberal vote collapsed with the overwhelming majority of it going to the Conservative candidate, Councillor Brad Clark. Key difference here is that, in 2011, the NDP machine in Hamilton East still had some gas left in the tank. Ever since then, the party has performed poorly, steadily bleeding support to the centre-right. If there’s a swing as big as pollsters are predicting (at least 10% away from the Liberals and at least 5% away from the NDP), Kuruc wins. That’s not even counting the massive swing away from the PPC which is inevitable and will directly benefit the Tories.

Of course, Kuruc’s would just be one seat in a slew of seats the Tories would need to win in order to form government. And, when they do, the trouble will begin.

Troubles in my sight

Last Monday, Poilievre gave a speech to the Canadian Police Association. The focus of the speech was bail reform, specifically making it harder for people to post bail pretrial, keeping more accused people incarcerated prior to any evidence being heard in a formal setting to determine their guilt or innocence. There were other tidbits of Tory policy thrown in there (things like keeping murderers in maximum security prisons longer, despite the almost non-occurrences of murderers engaging in wild jailbreaks), but it was all standard, gristly slices of Canada Grade-C Meat for the folks at the Canadian Police Association.

Until, of course, he said all his proposals were constitutional. Poilievre quickly followed this up with: “We will make them constitutional, using whatever tools the Constitution allows me to use to make them constitutional. I think you know exactly what I mean.”1

Exactly what he hints at is that his government, for the first time in Canadian history, would employ Section 33 - The Notwithstanding Clause - at the federal level. That particular piece of the constitution allows a government to legislatively override sections of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms for five-year blocks.

This means that a Pierre Poilievre Conservative Government is prepared to suspend the Charter of Rights and Freedoms when passing criminal justice legislation.

His specific focus last week was on rather conventional, if not still repressive, Conservative policies. But he has other targets.

The reason he was ejected from the House of Commons last week was because he called British Columbia’s experiment with drug decriminalization “wacko”. He’s demanded Trudeau’s government deny Toronto’s request for decriminalization, saying it amounts to a “taxpayer-funded hard drug program” that hands drugs to children.

He’s spoken at-length about strict, zero-tolerance mandatory minimum sentences, especially in relation to two of the obsessive areas of focus for Canada’s media: business extortion and auto thefts. The rash of extortion attempts targeting South Asian businesses in the GTA, Alberta, and BC have garnered a fair amount of media attention, as have the thefts of Canadians’ precious high-end automobiles. Poilievre’s emphasis on forcing judges to impose mandatory minimum sentences on those convicted of these crimes rejects reality and evidence, which shows those kinds of sentences do nothing to reduce crime and may, in fact, increase the chance someone will re-offend once released.

He’s taken aim at encampments where people experiencing homelessness live, saying they’re making Canadian cities look like a “faraway third-world country.” Right now, his plans regarding homelessness amount to mandating cities increase market-rate, for-profit homebuilding by 15% or risk losing federal funds (basically mandating sprawl and condo construction under the guise of getting housing built that will, in reality, only make millionaire developers richer), but it is not outside the realm of possibilities that he ties some kind of municipal crackdown on homelessness to that plan as well.

We are facing the prospect of a federal government that is willing to ignore fundamental human rights to force through a criminal justice agenda that will have no impact on crime, safety, or the wellbeing of anyone involved. Which, honestly, we should have seen coming.

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed

In The End of Policing by Alex Vitale, the author explains how this was almost an inevitability.

Vitale notes that the criminal justice system, as it is presently structured, focuses on punishment over anything else. Because of this emphasis, it is incapable of addressing “the underlying and intertwined problems of homelessness, mental illness, and substance abuse” that drive some of the more visible problems we see in cities today.2

Strikingly, Vitale draws a link between the housing crisis and the rise of conservative politics, observing that the intertwined crises we face lead to more visible homelessness, “disorder”, and interactions with those in need of help who, in a more stable market, would be housed and cared for as required. When people begin to sit up and notice these issues, the backlash begins.

That’s where we’re at now.

The Liberals were never going to meaningfully address this issue. While the Convoyists up to whom Poilievre has cozied keep shrieking on about how Trudeau is a “communist”, the Liberal Party is now, and has always been, an entity fully committed to the corporate market. They are willing to dabble in social programs and very mild economic redistribution, only to the extent that it strengthens the foundations of raw, unfettered capitalism.

When the pandemic hit, their cautious, moderated approach to aesthetic alterations and social tolerance was shredded as the entire economy was upended. We’re still living through the impacts of the disruption, but their tactics haven’t changed.

And so now, in the face of the devastation wrought by their economic policies, Canadians have turned to a party that will pursue a steroid-infused, discompassionate, ideologically-fanatical version of those same economic policies, just with an added focus on repressive and punitive social policy tacked on for good measure. Tax cuts for the wealthy, billions in taxpayer funds for oil companies and developers and massive corporations, gutted and privatized social services, but it’s all okay because they’ve ignored the Charter to give police the power to arrest people for not having a home. The problem’s out of sight and out of mind.

That r/Hamilton post about not being able to go downtown anymore? That’s a local reflection of this shift. Well-meaning liberals encouraged tolerance when the “problem” was small enough to be tolerated. It was never about getting to the root of the issue and investing in long-term solutions. It was about feel-good, surface-level, photo-op-able things to manage issues, not fix them.

But now more and more people cannot find accommodation, support, and a way out. The city’s last Point in Time connection, surveying people experiencing homelessness, revealed that 60% of those in that situation in Hamilton are dealing with a mental health challenge, substance abuse issue, or both. As the numbers of people experiencing homelessness swell, the chances of encountering someone in crisis increases. That’s why those Reddit users are talking about “always” running into someone under the influence or in crisis.

The Liberals come to town and play the technocrat, convinced that their righteousness will save the day and that we can get back to a healthy balance without addressing the structural problems that led to the crisis - structural problems caused, in part, by their economic policies.

The Tories come to town and promise a solution, Charter be damned. They are convinced that Canadians long for, to paraphrase the one-time mayor of Springfield, a cold-hearted Conservative to lower taxes, brutalize criminals, and rule us like a king. Address structural problems? Why do that when we can flash some culture war stuff in front of you (today’s target is “woke paper lids” from Tim Hortons because nothing means anything, apparently) while creating more structural problems?

Some revelation

Pollsters and media analysts have been breathlessly preaching about the inevitability of Poilievre’s ascension for some time now. But it is not an inevitability (despite my unnatural pessimism). As Max Fawcett writes in the National Observer, Poilievre is doing strange things that display a bizarre mix of cockiness and inexperience. “Most politicians would treat a 20-point lead in the polls as an opportunity to step back and let their opponent continue digging their own grave. But Pierre Poilievre is no ordinary politician, as we’ve seen on any number of fronts,” he notes.4 

A Poilievre-led Conservative majority is not an inevitability, but it is likely.

My pessimism stems from an observation of the political landscape in Canada at the moment. As I’ve observed, the Liberals consistently fail to be their former compelling selves. You know, the party that, in 2015, was saved from complete oblivion by Trudeau and a formidable team of strategists who honestly made Canadians believe that sunny ways were here again after nearly a decade of dower Tory rule. Environmentalism and electoral reform and “because it’s 2015” and all that.

But what of the alternatives?

The Greens are still in the midst of their identity crisis, determined to remain, at least for the time being, the Elizabeth May Party of Canada. That outfit presents a cautious centrist environmentalism that is seeming more and more inappropriate for the present moment. Young Canadians, who should, by all accounts, be flocking to the Greens, see them as a party unwilling and unprepared to confront the excesses of the market. Until the Greens can figure out what they want to be - Green Liberals targeting the guilty conscious of older wealthy urbanites, a granola-infused version of common conspiracy movements like their American equivalent, or more like their Nordic counterparts, blending left-libertarianism, a critique of the market, and eco-utopianism - they won’t move past a couple of seats.

And then, of course, we come to the NDP. This is the heartbreaking one. There are New Democrat MPs who are still trying to hold the government accountable with principled critiques. That is undercut slightly by their consistent support for the government’s policies to the point that Poilievre’s main line of attack is against “Trudeau and the NDP”, purposely melding the two to make it seem like Canadians have an NDP government. The polls have reflected that the party’s message isn’t resonating with people. Around 25% of the party’s sitting caucus is not going to run for re-election or has resigned already. And, if the party loses seats, Jagmeet Singh’s time as leader may be up, as NDP leaders rarely stick around for more than three elections and those who have consistent losses under their belts tend to depart after two bad showings.

All that said, there is still hope. Enough Canadians may begin to take notice of Poilievre’s extreme rhetoric and think twice about lending him their protest vote. Enough principled NDP and Green candidates can stand up, focus on local issues, remind voters that they elect a local MP, not a leader, and commit to being passionate advocates for their ridings who will work toward meaningful, structural change. We might see disaffected Liberals and independents run locally-focused campaigns as “teal independents”, a common phenomenon in Australia where centrist environmentalists (usually professional women) target suburban electoral districts in direct opposition to conservative politicians, free from party labels but committed to modest progress. That could help prevent some of the party’s more extreme candidates, now eagerly jumping on the Poilievre bandwagon, from securing victory and then burrowing into their parliamentary seats like malicious ticks.

The most important thing any political figure committed to change can do is acknowledge the fear people have right now and recognize that anyone with concerns isn’t a bad person for not having the skills necessary to tackle every social ill on their own and the cool demeanor to brush off a frightening experience. But, while acknowledging these concerns, we have to remind everyone of the humanity of those who are suffering. Just because someone is experiencing a mental health crisis on the street does not make them less of a human. Recognize the concern, hear people out, work to educate and redirect anger toward real, meaningful, substantive change.

We cannot perpetuate a Victorian conceptualization of morality that maintains an individual’s circumstances are their own fault and their own fault alone. We must remind people that all of this would be preventable if we guaranteed housing, mental and physical healthcare, and a combination of a safe drug supply, consumption treatment services, and affirming, supportive drug treatment programs, to everyone without exception. We could make serious changes if we made full employment a goal. If we provided accessible childcare and family counseling and transit to everyone. If we recognized and supported a variety of family types and living arrangements and parenting methods, with an emphasis on community care and mutual aid. If we deemphasized “property as an investment” and, instead, ensured no one went hungry or missed medications or had to work well into their senior years. If we set the target of building housing, not for profit, but for people, and building it now using the tools available to the state.

That’s the challenge for progressives right now. We need to acknowledge the hurt, fear, and anger people hold and present them with a compelling, coherent, community-oriented vision of a way forward. We have to refocus ourselves on working together to achieve our common goals, rather than letting people retreat into their bubbles to ask people on the internet where they can find bear mace just so they can go downtown. We have to push for proper, sustainable investments in the supports people need so that no one - housed, unhoused, healthy, ill, employed, unemployed - is in an unsafe position.

If we don’t do that, and soon, Poilievre’s Charter-shred, brutalized utopia might become our living dystopia.

Cycles of action and inaction

There was a traffic incident in the east end on Tuesday. A young driver, operating a van, struck a 48-year-old cyclist in the area of Main and Strathearne. The cyclist survived, but required surgery on a broken femur. The area where the cyclist was struck is one without any bike lanes and the closest cycling infrastructure is a “signed” bike route without any on-street protection or markings four blocks to the east on Walter Ave. Indeed, through the four communities that surround the site of the incident - Homeside, Bartonville, Glenview, and Normanhurst - there’s little meaningful cycling infrastructure at all.

The next day, council voted 8-7 to remove the protected bike lanes on Dewitt Road in Stoney Creek as part of the wider road reconstruction happening there. This was an initiative championed by Ward 10 councillor Jeff Beattie, who was backed by 9 written submissions and a petition with 51 signatures that were added to the agenda of Wednesday’s council meeting. In contrast, this move was opposed by local cycling advocates, who recognized the importance of protected lanes for enhanced cyclist safety.

This is a potentially life-threatening step backwards. Given the incident that occurred a day prior, you would think some councillors would stop and reflect on the kinds of danger their actions and inaction has brought to Hamiltonians.

Long live Magnolia Hall

Yesterday, city council did the right thing and voted 11-5 to name the new community centre at the corner of Bay and Hunter “Magnolia Hall”. As Councillor Cameron Kroetsch rightly noted, the building has been without a name since the site’s deconsecration 35 years ago when the St. Mark’s Anglican community was dissolved.

That’s a wonderful name for a great new community space in Hamilton. Well done.

Bad choices all around

After Mississauga mayor Bonnie Crombie won the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party, she stepped down as the city’s chief magistrate to focus on leading the legislature’s third party. Doing so triggered a by-election.

And I am so incredibly happy I do not have to cast a ballot in that complete mess of a vote.

There are 20 candidates for the office of Mayor of Mississauga, including Xiao Hua Gong, the convicted pyramid-scheme operator who poured astronomical amounts of money into his run in the Toronto mayoral by-election last year. Hamiltonians will be excited to know that Nathalie Xian Yi Yan is also running, despite living in Hamilton and running in the Toronto by-election last year as well, placing a respectable 54th. It would appear that Nathalie is taking on John Turmel’s record as the least successful political candidate of all time.

There are, unfortunately, no leading candidates with an explicit progressive bent. Instead, the front runners are four centre-to-centre-right sitting Mississauga councillors: Carolyn Parrish, Dipika Damerla, Alvin Tedjo, and Stephen Dasko.

Parrish and Damerla lead the field, with recent polling giving Parrish 37% support and Damerla 20%.

Parrish got her start as a school board trustee before moving into federal politics as a Liberal MP, where she gained a reputation as a rabid anti-American maverick. Her fame really took off when she appeared on This Hour has 22 Minutes to step on a voodoo doll of George Bush. A fight with Paul Martin had her kicked out of caucus, and she left federal politics in 2006 for Mississauga City Council. She has been on-and-off council since then, jumping between wards as necessary to maintain her place in local government.

A few days ago, at a mayoral debate, Parrish again waded into the leech-filled waters of controversy by, unprompted, making transphobic remarks and declaring: “if we have women’s washrooms and men’s washrooms and if people want to be really generous you have a neutral washroom and people can do in and out of there by choice, and I bet it’ll never get used.”

Cool.

Damerla was also a politician at a different level, serving as a Liberal MPP from 2011 until her defeat in 2018. She immediately ran for Mississauga City Council after that and has served as Ward 7 councillor since then.

Her fun campaign pitch is that she’s going to rip out bike lanes and make more space for cars, because that’s definitely what Mississauga needs.

Double cool.

The rest of the candidates are previous Liberal, Conservative, Canadian Alliance, or Libertarian candidates or party officials, giving the voters of Mississauga little variety. No matter who Mississauga’s next mayor is, expect nothing more than the same pro-sprawl, surface-level politics from partisan stars, both rising and fading.

Cool facts for cool people

• In March, I wrote about the Black River-Matheson crisis, where a number of councillors had resigned and a group of other councillors had been boycotting meetings in the hopes that the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing would vacate the entire council and hold a by-election to get them through a legislative logjam. Well, they got their wish and there will be a by-election held on August 12 to replace the entire council. Until the election can be held, a ministry employee, Kathy Horgan, has become the city’s “acting supervisor”, overseeing all municipal affairs on a one-person basis. Let that serve as a reminder that municipal government in Ontario is basically made-up and can be changed on a dime by the Minister or Premier. Fun!