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Chief of Defence Staff Jonathan Vance watches a news conference from the front row of seats Thursday, May 7, 2020, in Ottawa. The woman at the heart of sexual misconduct allegations against Canada's former top military commander says Gen. Jonathan Vance believes he is "untouchable. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press

We take all allegations seriously the Prime Ministers press secretary assured Canadians yet again last week, in the matter of former chief of the defence staff Jonathan Vance.

The statement came in response to mounting evidence that allegations of sexual misconduct by the nations highest-ranking military officer were not taken remotely seriously by anyone in government least of all by the Prime Ministers Office.

So, business as usual, then.

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Where does one even begin? Begin in 2015, the year the Liberals took power. As it happens, that was the year in which former Supreme Court justice Marie Deschamps issued her report on what she called the sexualized culture of the military and the pervasive sexual misconduct to which it gave rise.

And it was the year Mr. Vance was appointed chief of the defence staff (by the previous Conservative government, we should note), tasked with implementing Operation Honour, the militarys response to the Deschamps report though not before he himself had been investigated, and cleared, on charges of having carried on an inappropriate sexual relationship some years earlier.

So when, in March 2018, the military ombudsman at the time, Gary Walbourne, brought fresh allegations of sexual impropriety on Mr. Vances part to the Minister of Defence, Harjit Sajjan, there was, shall we say, some context. The Deschamps report had been sitting on the Ministers desk for three years. Presumably the previous allegations would have been in Mr. Vances file. The #MeToo movement was in full flower.

A little more context that might also be relevant: Mr. Sajjan, a former military intelligence officer, had served under Mr. Vance. Mr. Vance, moreover, had lately performed a valuable service for the government: dismissing then-vice-admiral Mark Norman, whom it suspected of having leaked evidence of political interference in a lucrative shipbuilding contract.

At any rate, what did Mr. Sajjan do with the allegation that Mr. Vance had sent an e-mail to a female subordinate, years before, suggesting they repair to a clothes-optional resort? According to Mr. Walbourne, he refused even to look at the evidence. According to Mr. Sajjan, he referred the matter to the Privy Council Office. But according to subsequent evidence, it was in fact referred first to an official in the Prime Ministers Office, who then contacted the then-head of the PCO, Michael Wernick.

Along the way, Elder Marques testified to the Commons National Defence Committee that he also told the Prime Ministers chief of staff, Katie Telford. And what did any of them do about it after that? Bupkis, or the next thing to it. The PCO made a few wan inquiries with the ombudsman, who refused properly, according to military law experts to give them the complainants name.

After that, they all seemed to lose interest. Well, there was a lot going on: as Mr. Wernick testified, we had other preoccupations about the senior ranks of the military at the time, by which one assumes he means the laying of charges against Mr. Norman, a week after Mr. Sajjans meeting with the ombudsman.

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Another possible preoccupation: allegations surfaced later that spring that the Prime Minister, also years before, had groped a young newspaper reporter. Perhaps the government was reluctant to take down its most senior military officer over behaviour that, however improper, was much less serious than that of which the Prime Minister stood accused.

Thats a lot more credible explanation, at least, than the ones plural the government has offered. Mr. Sajjan has claimed he could not touch the case, as this would constitute political interference. Nonsense, say the experts. The Minister has the power under Section 45 of the National Defence Act to look into anything he pleases, via a board of inquiry.

Various Liberals, including the Prime Minister, have tried to shift the blame onto the ombudsman. Again, nonsense: the ombudsman is expressly precluded from launching his own inquiries into such matters. Besides, the complainant wasnt looking for a formal investigation: as she later told Global News, she just wanted to give the Minister a heads-up, something to take into account when it came to future decisions about Mr. Vances career.

No such taking into account appears to have happened: Mr. Vance was awarded a pay raise in 2019. When the allegation and others, more serious came to light earlier this year, Mr. Sajjan at first claimed to have been just as surprised as everyone else by them. To this day, the Prime Minister claims not to have known anything until media reports.

Meanwhile, Liberals on the defence committee have done their best to make the whole thing go away: filibustering, refusing to hear testimony from ministerial staffers, even voting to shut down the committees inquiry. If all of this sounds familiar from the tactics, to the players, to the watery half-denials it should: This was exactly the pattern observed in the SNC-Lavalin affair. Well, with one difference. When it came to sparing a well-connected corporation from criminal charges, government officials, from the Prime Minister on down, moved heaven and earth. But when it came to allegations that the chief of the defence staff had engaged in repeated sexual misconduct, Canadas most ostentatiously feminist government was Absent Without Leave.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan says he disagrees with testimony given to a House of Commons committee about how he handled a complaint of sexual misconduct against Gen. Jonathan Vance, the chief of the defence staff, and he's eager to testify again himself to fill in details. Sajjan took numerous questions about the issue in the Commons Monday, from multiple opposition MPs. The Canadian Press

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Opinion: On Jonathan Vance, the Liberals return to form - The Globe and Mail

Americans breathed a collective sigh of relief last week after Derek Chauvin was convicted of murdering George Floyd. The crime was heinous, the verdict just, the moral neat. If you think that systemic racism is the defining fact of race relations in 21st-century America, then Chauvins knee on Floyds neck is its defining image.

But what about a case like that of MaKhia Bryant, a Black teenager who was shot and killed last week by Nicholas Reardon, a white police officer in Columbus, Ohio, at the instant that she was swinging a knife at a woman who had her back against a car?

Ben Crump, the Floyd familys lawyer, accused the Columbus police in a tweet of killing an unarmed 15yo Black girl. Valerie Jarrett, the former Obama adviser, tweeted that Bryant was killed because a police officer immediately decided to shoot her multiple times in order to break up a knife fight. Jarrett wants to Demand accountability and Fight for justice.

An alternative view: Maybe there wasnt time for Reardon, in an 11-second interaction, to de-escalate the situation, as he is now being faulted for failing to do. And maybe the balance of our sympathies should lie not with the would-be perpetrator of a violent assault but with the cop who saved a Black life namely that of Tionna Bonner, who nearly had Bryants knife thrust into her.

Thats a thought that many, perhaps most, Americans share, even if they are increasingly reluctant to say it out loud. Why reluctant? Because in this new era of with-us-or-against-us politics, to have misgivings about the lefts new anti-racist narrative is to run the risk of being denounced as a racist. Much better to nod along at your offices diversity, equity and inclusion sessions than suggest that enforced political indoctrination should not become a staple of American workplace culture.

And yet those doubts and misgivings go to the heart of what used to be thought of as liberalism. The result will be a liberal crackup similar to the one in the late 1960s that broke liberalism as Americas dominant political force for a generation.

Morally and philosophically, liberalism believes in individual autonomy, which entails a concept of personal responsibility. The current model of anti-racism scoffs at this: It divides the world into racial identities, which in turn are governed by systems of privilege and powerlessness. Liberalism believes in process: A trial or contest is fair if standards are consistent and rules are equitable, irrespective of outcome. Anti-racism is determined to make a process achieve a desired outcome. Liberalism finds appeals to racial favoritism inherently suspect, even offensive. Anti-racism welcomes such favoritism, provided its in the name of righting past wrongs.

Above all, liberalism believes that truth tends to be many-shaded and complex. Anti-racism is a great simplifier. Good and evil. Black and white.

This is where the anti-racism narrative will profoundly alienate liberal-minded America, even as it entrenches itself in schools, universities, corporations and other institutions of American life.

Its possible to look at Floyds murder as the epitome of evil and not see a racist motive in every bad encounter between a white cop and a minority suspect, including the recent shootings of Adam Toledo in Chicago and Daunte Wright in Minnesota. Its possible to think that the police make too many assumptions about young Black men, sometimes with tragic consequences, and still recognize that young Black men commit violent crimes at a terribly disproportionate rate. Its possible to believe that effective policing requires that cops gain the trust of the communities they serve while recognizing that those communities are ill served when cops are afraid to do their jobs.

It is also possible to recognize that we have miles to go in ending racism while also objecting to the condescending assumptions and illiberal methods of the anti-racist creed. The idea that white skin automatically confers privilege in America is a strange concept to millions of working-class whites who have endured generations of poverty while missing out on the benefits of the past 50 years of affirmative action programs.

Similarly, the idea that past discrimination or even present-day inequality justifies explicit racial preferences in government policy is an affront to liberal values, and will become only more so as the practices become more common. In Oakland, Calif., the mayor backed an initiative that was to provide $500 a month to low-income families, but not if they were white. In Vermont, the state has given people of color priority for COVID vaccines.

Ibram X. Kendi, the most important anti-racist thinker today, argues that the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination. Some liberals will go along with this. Many others will find themselves drifting rightward, much as a past generation of disaffected liberals did.

Joe Bidens resounding victory and his progressive policies are supposed to mark the real end of the Reaganite era of American politics. Dont be surprised if theyre a prelude to its return, just as the last era of progressive excess ushered in its beginning.

Stephens in a columnist for the New York Times.

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Stephens: Race and the coming liberal crackup - Houston Chronicle

OTTAWA, Ontario--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Canadas largest union, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), is slamming the federal governments decision to introduce back-to-work legislation to end labour action at the Port of Montreal by CUPE Local 375.

Members of Local 375, which represents 1,100 longshoremen at the port, voted 99 per cent in favour of strike action two weeks ago, after their employer, the Maritime Employers Association (MEA), announced that job security provisions in their collective agreement would no longer be honoured. More recently, the MEA imposed scheduling changes including an additional 100 minutes per shift. The union offered to withdraw their strike notice if the MEA agreed to end their pressure tactics but the MEA refused.

On Sunday night, Labour Minister Filomena Tassi announced the government would introduce back-to-work legislation to end Local 375s strike action before it had even fully begun.

Once again the Trudeau Liberals are acting like Conservatives, siding with bosses against workers by meddling in the bargaining process, said CUPE National President Mark Hancock. There can never be free, fair collective bargaining in Canada under the threat of back-to-work legislation.

CUPE is demanding the Liberals withhold their back-to-work legislation, which would infringe upon workers rights to free and fair bargaining. These types of bills have been repeatedly found to be unconstitutional by the courts.

Employers have no incentive to bargain in good faith when they know the government will come to their rescue, said CUPE National Secretary-Treasurer Charles Fleury. This is disgraceful conduct from a government that pretends to be a friend to working people.

Members of CUPE Local 375 have been without a contract since 2018.

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CUPE: Liberals Must Respect Free and Fair Bargaining at Port of Montreal - Business Wire

Did you notice anything different about the latest public-opinion poll in Ontario? It showed something we havent seen in many years.

Ever since the Liberals were crushed in the 2018 provincial election and, actually, for a few years before that, too the party has languished in the polls. Yes, Kathleen Wynne won an unexpected majority government in 2014, but it didnt take long for the honeymoon to end. Skyrocketing electricity prices, fatigue with the Liberal brand after 15 years in power, and the usual scandals that cling to governments like barnacles all combined to relegate the Liberals to the basement of popularity. And thats where theyve stayed until now.

The combination of the Liberals doing some things right and the Progressive Conservatives doing a whole lot of things wrong has put the red team back in the game. After three straight years of the PCs being Ontarians most popular choice, recent events have shaken up the state of play.

The latest Innovative Research Group survey has the Liberals at 30 per cent support, the governing Tories at 26 per cent, and the official opposition New Democrats at 23 per cent.

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The poll is the latest of several to confirm that the PCs are listing badly, the Liberals are gaining traction, and the NDP is capturing no more than its usual base of support.

Its no mystery why the Tories are sinking, and we wont waste your time recapping the extraordinary events of the past week. If you missed it all, just Google Ontario parks and policing.Whats unusual is that under normal circumstances, if the government of the day is in trouble, people start kicking the tires on the official opposition to see whether its a viable alternative. That seems not to be happening for the NDP. For a bunch of reasons, disaffected Ontarians are parking their support with the Liberals at the moment, despite having massively rejected them less than three years ago.

Its a curious development. The NDP has focused on all the issues youd expect an opposition to highlight: a lack of paid sick days, a chaotic approach to school openings and closures, confusion around vaccine rollout, and more. Party leader Andrea Horwath is in the legislature and has been holding the government to account during question period. Shes on television pretty much every day, holding news conferences and suggesting policy alternatives. And the Innovative Research Group poll shows her only three points behind Doug Ford as the leader Ontarians think would make the best premier.

And yet, the NDP has dropped 10 points since the last election, residing for the moment in its traditional third-place spot despite being only 23 seats short of forming a majority government of its own.

The Liberals, conversely, have a leader who doesnt have a seat in the legislature, whos spent the past year unable to campaign normally because of the pandemic, and whos had to fundraise and do candidate searches on Zoom, from the discomfort of his dining-room table. Not only that, but with only eight seats, the Liberals arent an officially constituted party at Queens Park and therefore miss out on millions of dollars they could use to hire more staff and do better research on their opponents.

In addition, leader Steven Del Ducas personal polling numbers arent very good. Hes 10 points behind Ford and seven behind Horwath on the question of whod make the better premier.

Having said that, Del Duca does have some things going for him. The public now seems prepared to let the provincial Liberals out of the penalty box, and who knows how much of thefederalLiberals popularity (theyre eight points up on the Conservatives) is shining on their provincial cousins.

Beyond that, Del Duca has improved. Although hes not able to garner support in crowds, his daily Zoom news conferences (at the dining-room table) convey the impression of an experienced politician whos calm and serious (he had two senior cabinet jobs in Wynnes government).

Hes picked up an old trick from former Liberal premier Dalton McGuinty, who, while in opposition, often reminded people that he wanted to be premier. The theory was: keep saying it often enough, and the public will also entertain the idea, even if theyre not quite sold on it yet.

Im running to be premier of Ontario, Del Duca said during last Fridays Zoom. Doug Ford is out of gas and in over his head. People have lost faith in him.

Del Duca has none of Fords populist brio. While hes a competent speaker and genuinely seems to enjoy people, hell be the first to tell you hes not the most charismatic guy out there. He has a monotone way of speaking, wears thick black horn-rimmed glasses, and sports a Yul Brynner look (totally bald, for those of you too young to rememberThe King and I). Its not a look any previous Ontario premier has had.

But unlike the current premier or opposition leader, Del Duca would bring a lot of political experience to the premiers office, which may be why the public is mulling over his credentials at the moment.

Steven Del Duca, this is your moment, said political pundit Scott Reid on last weeksHerle Burlypodcast. Opposition leaders in their wildest dreams have an opportunity to see a premier performing this poorly, to be judged this unworthy, this widely. Youve got this guy on the canvas. Stand in the middle of the ring with your gloves on. Theres been enough good Ford. There hasnt been enough good Steve.

Now is your moment. Get out there, Reid offered.

Before Liberals get too giddy, lets remember: theres still more than 13 months before the next election. Thats a lot of time for the current government to fix what its botched. And in the nearly 154-year history of Ontario in Canada, only three governments have failed to win a second term. Going from third place to first in one election is even rarer; thats happened only twice (Howard Ferguson in 1923, Mike Harris in 1995).

Watching Del Duca navigate these strong historic currents will be one of the more fascinating stories to watch between now and June 2, 2022, the next grand consultation with the people of Ontario.

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Are the Ontario Liberals back? - TVO

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Janice MacKinnon and Jack Mintz: The program will take too long to implement and fail to meet the needs of Canada's diverse workforce

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The federal governments 2021 budget introduces a daycare program, fashioned after Quebecs, as a $10-a-day, 50/50 shared-cost conditional grant program with the provinces. By adopting a conditional grant program that requires a one-size-fits-all approach without recognizing provincial differences in fiscal capacity, the program will take too long to implement and fail to meet the needs of Canadas diverse workforce.

Daycare regulation is a provincial responsibility and the needed policies to achieve the goal of making daycare more affordable and accessible vary across Canada. What works in Quebec might not work in Nova Scotia or Saskatchewan. The success of the federal daycare initiative will depend significantly on how much flexibility the provinces have to design daycare programs that suit their unique needs.

The federal budget goes over the top, claiming the program is one of the most significant actions taken since the North American free trade agreements to create economic opportunities for Canadians. While it is true that daycare spending brings economic benefits by encouraging both parents in a family to work, it will not pay for itself. And the price tag is high: its annual cost is expected to be $18 billion in five years, including the provincial share and indigenous support and excluding any cost related to Quebecs to-be-negotiated package.

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The programs benefits are being exaggerated in three ways. First, the federal government is relying on the Quebec experience, but there is no reason to believe that the increase in employment seen in that province will hold true for the others. The Quebec daycare plan did produce economic benefits, but a number of studies such as one conducted by Pierre Fortin, which estimated that for every dollar spent on daycare the economy grows by $5 have significantly overestimated the benefit.

Second, as pointed out by economists Michael Baker and Kevin Milligan, there are some social and health advantages with competing at-home care that should be quantified in any economic assessment. Third, daycare could provide some important learning benefits, although the best response might be an expansion of full-time junior kindergarten, as some provinces have done.

The federal budget states that, TD Economics has pointed to a range of studies that have shown that for every dollar spent on early childhood education, the broader economy receives between $1.50 and $2.80 in return. Omitted was the qualifier that followed in the same 2012 report: One needs to acknowledge, however, that quantifying these benefits is not an exact science and a large margin of error likely exists. So, the benefit/cost ratio must be interpreted with caution.

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Significant new federal money to help parents with daycare costs is good news, but at issue is the model chosen to spend federal money in an area of provincial jurisdiction. The federal government could have used a model like the Canada child benefit: a federal program that provides support to low-income families to encourage parents to move from welfare to work. This has reduced welfare costs for the provinces, which used the savings on other social programs.

The federal government could subsidize the cost of daycare by providing tax credits or transfers directly to parents. Spaces could be increased by federal subsidies to operators and provinces could focus on enhancing their own daycare offerings.

Instead, the federal government chose a model reminiscent of the 1960s approach to medicare: a universal program, with federal cost sharing available only to provinces that accept the national standards. The model is outdated and rigid.

In terms of costs, why should provinces move from daycare costs of more than $1,000 a month to $10 a day? What if some provinces want to charge more than $10 a day so that they can afford to fund more spaces?

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Why is it good public policy to provide cheap daycare to wealthy Canadians? What if some provinces want to base fee levels on income, so that upper-income people pay more, and the money is used to expand the supply of daycare? Gearing costs to income and providing more supply to others is arguably fairer than the proposed Quebec-based model. Provinces need the flexibility to decide the parental payment structure and level that works best for their jurisdictions.

Flexibility also means subsidizing many kinds of daycares to meet the needs of todays diverse workforce. The budget commits support primarily for the not-for-profit sector, which would leave out private operators, often small female-owned businesses, that provide daycare to todays workforce, which includes many shift workers, more part-time and temporary workers, and people whose daycare needs vary from week to week.

As two female private daycare operators wrote in the Globe and Mail: Failing to enable diverse care models means only middle-class, full-time, permanently employed parents will benefit from a $10/day model. Surely, we do not want to create a two-tiered system where an elite group of parents are fortunate enough to access not-for-profit, $10-a-day daycare, while leaving many others to pay much more for less traditional but equally essential daycare services.

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What is required is compromise and accommodation, especially since provinces are understandably skeptical about the prospect of another federal-provincial cost-sharing program. When medicare was created, the federal government used 50/50 cost sharing to pressure provinces to support the program. Today, even if federal personal tax point transfers are included, provinces pick up two-thirds of medicare costs (without tax points, the federal share is only 21 per cent).

The same budget that introduced the new federal-provincial daycare plan ignored provincial appeals to make a long-term increase in federal transfers for provincial health-care systems that are overburdened with COVID-19 patients and long-term care facilities, which have been devastated during the pandemic.

It would have been simpler and more expedient for the federal government to directly fund daycare costs through grants or tax credits. Probably, to keep the program targeted, a focus on affordability for parents needing to work would have enabled the federal government to save some money for other health-related provincial transfers.

National Post

Janice MacKinnon is a former Saskatchewan minister of social services and Jack Mintz is the presidents fellow at the University of Calgarys School of Public Policy.

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Opinion: If the Liberals really wanted a successful federal daycare program, this one isn't it - National Post