Apropos of nothing...
www.politico.com/news/2020/05...

It's such an important point. Few people vote municipally & even fewer of those who come know the policies or the names of the people running for school boards (let alone know their wider aims or values). As you say, it's a huge opportunity for small but focussed groups to get a toehold.

1,000% - Canadians cannot fight what we cannot bring ourselves to name. We have only ever been invaded or seriously threatened by one country; only one country has ever contemplated -& currently contemplates- annexing us. Why shouldn't we see that country as our greatest threat?

Ah, the populist Right....where psychopaths go to feel validated and heard.

Really important. This stuff is being used as a dog-whistle to introduce non-serious, needlessly polarising ideological divisions into really serious discussions about educational policy and funding. its a tactic for allowing small groups of zealots to hijack public spaces that belong to all of us.

Joining the quite long list of other things - COVID, ebola, measles, microplastics, AI, global warming, biodiversity loss, foreign infiltration, rise of fascism, oceans boiling & turning to blood, etc - that we're 'watching closely' (Informed paralysis being so much better than uninformed paralysis)

I agree. He did the right thing - but he did it far too late & should have followed with reforms. You can be sure that police & gov. will decide protests are intolerable & recommit to dispersing them w/prejudice the moment it's environmentalists & First Nations who are in the streets.

I dare say that is true of anybody who supports him at this point

So great to see fascists going back to the Classics to justify their own taste for pederasty.

I do wish Canadians to be more 'Balkan' in 1 way: rediscovering the power of 'No'. The history of the Balkans is replete w/ordinary people confronting imperial demands for submission by just saying 'no' (often w/more colourful wording). It has always been tough, but it has also always worked.

The devil is in the details. Calling for communities to have more autonomy so that power can pass from elites to ordinary people has *nothing* in common w/elites trying to break up states that have become inconvenient or to strip them for parts (I'm preaching to the choir here, I suspect)... 1/2