The News Rundown

Last week we talked about the premier’s meeting which saw the battle lines drawn on the federal carbon tax.
The provinces that currently support that plan are: Alberta, BC, Quebec, and Nova Scotia.
It’s within the realm of possibility that Alberta and Quebec will ultimately switch to the no side should their governments change next year and later this year respectively.
We saw the alliance form between Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe and Ontario Premier Doug Ford.
Following the meeting Angus Reid, a national polling firm was in the field.. what’d they find?
Sentiment vs. voting intention polls
61% of Albertans oppose a carbon tax.
Overall, 71% of Albertans say the province should have the final say on a carbon tax, 82% in Saskatchewan say the asme thing, while 64% in Ontario and 57% in BC agree with that sentiment.
Nation wide, only 36% of those surveyed want the federal government to have final say.
Where it gets more interesting is that even those who identify as Federal Liberal supporters are almost split (52/48) on who should have the final say.
The news gets worse for the federal carbon tax plan in that 72% of all Canadians support Saskatchewan’s plan to challenge the carbon tax in court. The lowest support comes from Quebec at 65%.
When Quebec agrees that a Liberal government is doing something wrong, there’s an issue.
The top voted comments on the CBC story for this call the carbon tax a “scam” and express genuine frustration at the tax burden being felt in Canada today.
Sentiment vs. voting intention polls
We’re talking about this because most of the talk from the premiers meeting focused around alcohol and the NAFTA negotiations that do ultimately need to happen with the USA.
Finally we’ll just leave this talk on carbon by saying that 57% of Canadians polled are either not very confident or not at all confident that Canada will reach the paris climate accord goals.
Canada agreed to reduce emissions to 30% below 2005 levels by 2030.
According to the Climate Action Tracker (an independent scientific analysis produced by three research organizations) the emissions of China and India continue to tick up.
Justin Trudeau tried to get India to sign on but was unsuccessful.
What’s more, in 2015 the Prime Minister promised $2.65b into emissions reduction projects for developing countries.
That is of course money that could be used at home to reach our reduction targets or spent on other services.
With the general sentiment around the Paris Accord and China and India, it’s no wonder we see Canadians souring on this government’s carbon tax plan.
Supplementals:

The Firing Line

Islamic State claims responsibility for Toronto mass shooting, yet provides no evidence

Last Sunday 15 people were shot on Toronto Danforth in the city’s Greektown neighbourhood.
A shooter made his way down the road firing into restaurants with a hand gun.
The targets appeared to be random but more on that later.
8 women and 7 men were shot. Of those there were two fatalities: an 18 year old woman and 10 year old girl.
The 18 year old woman was later identified as Reese Fallon while the 10 year old was identified as Julianna Kozis.
Other victims included Danielle Kane who as a nursing student ran to help those already under fire, instead she was shot having a bullet enter her T11 vertebra piercing her stomach and diaphragm. She may never walk again.
After the initial shock of the attack wore off talk turned to the shooter.
The talk moved from the act to victims to gun control to mental health. Almost as quick as that sentence was said.
The finger was initially pointed that the gun came from the United States! This would later be proven tangentially true.
The gun was stolen from a Saskatoon break and enter in 2015 and likely came into Canada from the US.
It was at this point a media story surfaced by City News in Toronto saying that 50% of guns used in crime were not from Canada.
In reality of 783 trace requests made in 2014, just 229 could be traced and 50% of these traced were from Canada. That does not mean 50% of guns used for crime in Canada were not from Canada.
So, Saskatoon you say?
It was revealed that the shooter who killed himself, 29 year old Faisal Hussain, had a brother, Fahad.
Fahad is currently in a drug induced coma and had dealings with gangs in Saskatoon.
According to CTV Saskatoon he was released on $3,000 bail after being arrested when police stopped a rental car where they found $2,000 in cash as well as 26 pieces of crack cocaine packaged for trafficking.
After being released on bail he was to live in an apartment in Toronto’s Thorncliffe Park neighbourhood where the shooter lived.
In 2017 Fahad was to appear in a Saskatoon court for trial and was expected to plead guilty, instead he overdosed and charges against him were stayed. He remains in hospital today in that drug induced coma.
While examining the apartment last weekend after the shooting police found ammunition and high capacity magazines for loading the guns in question.
Police are also looking at a possible link between Fahad and the seizure of 30 guns in Pickering, Ontario last year.
The Toronto police also said it looked as though he had experience with a weapon in terms of being able to walk, aim, and shoot at the same time.
They stopped short at saying it looked as though he was a professional.
At this point the conversation turned to the mental health of the Danforth shooter.
The media even went as far as talking with one of the shooters former teachers at the Youth Skills Connection Program in Thorncliffe Ontario.
He was described as “very disengaged, very quiet” and at the end of the program he began to open up and the teacher saw a “full transformation.”
Following the shooting a “news release” was set out on behalf of the family.
The release began with the family offering “deepest condolences to the families who are now suffering on account of our son’s horrific actions.”
The narrative was set by the family saying, “our son had severe mental health challenges, struggling with psychosis and depression his entire life.”
This was quite frankly weird, because why does a family need a publicist after their son engages in a shooting? Why not say nothing?
The statement was crafted by Mohammed Hashim, Hashim is a full time organizer for the Toronto & York Region Labour Council.
Hashim is also heavily involved with the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM).
A bio on Hashim in the 2017 Muslim Awards of Excellence describes “his talking points and media advocacy [as] changing how Muslims are seen in the Canadian identity.”
Hashim ultimately said that he was “just a friend” of the family and wasn’t their spokesperson and was just sharing their statement.
On Wednesday ISIS took responsibility for the attack.
This was reported by CBS, Reuters, the Jerusalem Post, the South China Morning Post, and the Toronto Sun.
The Toronto police said that the shooter had looked up ISIS related materials on his computer but stopped short of making definitive links.
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale echoed this sentiment.
None of the other major media outlets talked about this in Canada.
Global wrote a piece about why ISIS claims should be questioned, and rightly so.
The barbaric savages known as ISIS in the middle east have been beaten to a shell of what they used to be and are eager to claim any attack that can make their reach appear wider than it is.
But the question remains, why not report on this, even if it couldn’t have been corroborated.
You’ll note that I have only said the shooters name once. As with any attack we should not be glorifying murder and in this case suicide as well.
Later this was even mentioned in the New York Times by Rukmini Callimachi, he says that the ISIS release implies self radicalization.
I wish there were a way to know at this point but based on the public information we have, there’s no way of knowing.
If guns and mental health can occupy the Canadian media narrative, it’s fair to say that some investigation on the ISIS angle is warranted.
This is a tragedy like many others where media narrative shifts and shifts. So much so that the victims become forgotten in that narrative.
It’s important that we remember at the end of the day 15 people were shot and 2 are dead. Those lives will never be the same.
The media owes it to these people to examine every angle possible. Questions must be answered rather than pursuing an agenda:

Was the gun indeed his brother’s obtained illegally?
Did he have practice aiming and shooting while walking?
If it was mental health, why wasn’t there an intervention sooner even though it appeared he made progress?
Why would a representative of the NCCM issue a statement for the family?
I hate giving credit to ISIS and further legitimizing the savages but was that angle pursued and examined effectively?

We have many unanswered questions that probably won’t be answered as the media pursues narratives on guns and mental health.
Supplementals:

Word of the Week

union | ˈyo͞onyən |

a club, society, or association formed by people with a common interest or purpose: members of the Students' Union.

• an organized association of workers formed to protect and further their rights and interests; a labor union: the National Farmers' Union.

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Show Data

Episode Title: A Union of News

Teaser: BC government projects requiring unions inflates cost, Canadians are united against the federal government’s carbon tax, and Trudeau’s nanny receive a wage increase. Also, the full story and unanswered questions regarding the Toronto Danforth shooting.

Recorded Date: July 29, 2018

Release Date: July 30, 2018

Duration: 50:07

Edit Notes: Nanny and drug induced coma break.

Podcast Summary Notes

Duration: XX:XX