All the news you can't avoid
It has been a tough week, so this newsletter is optional.
In this week’s edition of The Sewer Socialists:
The conflict and the #HamOnt response • Sans HATS • An Edmonton avenue • Return of the Blue Jean trustee • The Far-Right Files • Cool facts for cool people
Some programming notes
Sewer Socialist devotees will remember that, way back when, I set out a schedule for what the newsletter would look like over the next while. One of the anticipated topics would be a discussion about the future of this very newsletter. I’m going to hold off on that for a bit for a few reasons. The subscriber count is up (tell your friends!), reader response has been mostly positive, and there’s been so much happening that it feels wrong to mess with the format right now. I may come back to a discussion about the newsletter’s future soon, but, for now, please enjoy a normal edition of The Sewer Socialists! Or whatever normal means these days…
And on that note, I want to let folks know that this week’s newsletter deals with some heavy topics. Right now, tensions are high and anguish is abundant. Please take care and, if you’re not feeling it, don’t read further this week. I won’t be hurt if you close this newsletter right now. A not-insignificant part of me didn’t even want to write any of this and I have plenty of anguish about even publishing this week, as the issues I discuss have the potential to upset people further. I’m also always worried about being “too mean” and souring relations with folks who may have said strange things online but could be perfectly pleasant individuals or, worse, alienating friends and allies because of a particularly salty take. So I apologize in advance if this is the case this week.
I wish this was another fun look at one of my nerdy obsessions like the city’s old streetcar routes, the historic names of city streets, or the long-term impacts of the Hamilton’s historic annexation policies, but this week has had too much news to focus on any of those. Indeed, everything is much like this cartoon from Deliberately Buried:
Please be kind to yourself and only read on if you’re ready.
How to use conflict for distraction and profit
On October 7, fighters with the Al-Qassam Brigades (the militant branch of the political movement Hamas) and other armed groups launched an invasion of Israel from the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian territory on the Mediterranean Sea that is 3 times smaller geographically, but over 4 times larger population-wise, than Hamilton.
The resulting actions have seen thousands of civilians killed and massive political divides widened further.
Every statement about this conflict elicits strong reactions. I will admit that international relations isn’t my forté, so I spent plenty of time these past few days doing some background reading on the topic. As a result, I know that any discussion of this topic has to consider the complex geopolitical situation on the ground in the region, including the violent struggle between the two prominent Palestinian political movements - the religiously-inclined, more militant, and decidedly anti-leftist Hamas and the more secular, leftist, and politically-focused Fatah (which technically governs parts of the West Bank as the “Palestinian Authority”). We also have to look at the Egyptian role in the blockade of Gaza (due to their interest in preventing Iran from exerting influence in the area), the impact of politically-motivated settlement throughout Gaza and the West Bank, the frequent use of Palestinians as pawns by both larger imperial powers (the United States and the Soviet Union/Russia) as well as regional powers, and the increasingly extreme right-wing drift in Israeli politics that has seen left-wing political parties (as well as those groups advocating for Jewish–Arab cooperation) largely excluded from governing for the past 20 years despite the utopian socialist foundations of the State of Israel.
I was honestly hesitant to even discuss this because I know that no words I can write will satisfy everyone, nor can they even begin to address the incredible grief felt by those who have lost loved ones, friends, or colleagues over these past few days and over the past decades of fighting in the region.
There are plenty of people with very, very, very strong feelings on the issue who have come to dominate the conversation. But there are also plenty of others wading in for a variety of reasons.
These are people like Doug Ford who, on Wednesday, called for Hamilton Centre MPP Sarah Jama to be removed from both the Ontario NDP caucus and the legislature (and the province, apparently) for a post on X calling for a ceasefire in the region. Well, more for what he imagined her post said.
Ford wildly exaggerates what Jama said, reshaping her words into a glorification of violence, all to serve his own narrow political aims. And writing “they have no place in this province” seems like he’s coming very close to saying he doesn’t want Jama in this province…read into that what you will.
MPP Jama’s post discussed Israeli actions in relation to Gaza and called for an end to “all occupation of Palestinian land and end apartheid”, but did not include any condemnation of Hamas and the violence they have committed during what is being called Operation al-Aqsa Flood. That seems to be the core of the issue here.
Ford, who, a day earlier, found his government to be the subject of an RCMP investigation into his Greenbelt land swap plans, was all-too-happy to redirect the spotlight away from allegations of corruption and onto a favourite target of the right: leftist infighting. Welcome back, ol’ reliable.
***
There is little interest on the part of these media figures in considering the contemporary politics of Israel or in explaining that the current Israeli government is arguably the furthest right-wing government in the country’s history. Benjamin Netanyahu’s fifth cabinet includes members of violently anti-gay and misogynist parties and a political movement run by a borderline fascist who has been called “the David Duke of Israel” for his extremist views. This current hard right coalition has experienced one of the largest civil society uprisings against their attempts to solidify power and backslide democracy, with everyday Israelis pushing back against Netanyahu’s authoritarian tendencies. Moderate and left-wing parties have also opposed Netanyahu’s policies, as groups like the opposition Yesh Atid party and once-dominant Israeli Labor party (now down to a paltry 4 seats in the Knesset) see the Israeli PM’s adversarial attitude as destabilizing and a threat to long-term peace in the region.
But for Canada’s war-hungry hard right columnists, nothing less than breathless support for the current Israeli government is acceptable at this juncture. These bottom-of-the-barrel commentators enthusiastically use the deaths of thousands of people, just as Doug Ford has done, to advance their angry populist agenda, at the core of which is the goal of dividing people into firm camps of “good” and “evil” for their own benefit.
Speaking of which, let’s chat about The Bay Observer.
***
If you’re unfamiliar with John Best’s Bay Observer, it is an online publication that has been front-and-centre in the War on HATS (more on that in the next story). Their slogan - “A Fresh Perspective” - barely masks the reality of the website, namely that it is a place where the cringiest opinions of the meanest three people in your neighbourhood Facebook group are repackaged as “news” to appear as a content gap between an obscene number of clickbait ads.
Best posted an article on October 8 entitled “Israel-Hamas Conflict lays bare ideological fissures in Hamilton” that both accuses McMaster’s TA union of supporting terrorism and somehow manages to be a profile of the new spokesperson for the right-wing in Hamilton, Victoria Mancinelli of LIUNA.
Mancinelli gets top billing as she attacks CUPE, Sarah Jama, and council’s “radical leftists” in an unprompted reply to fellow Blue Tick X’er, Toronto Sun columnist Brian Lilley.
Classy. Once again, the hard right uses a conflict that has seen thousands die to advance their agenda - in this case, Mancinelli’s War on Cameron Kroetsch (everything’s a “War on something” this week, sorry). Here’s a fun rhetorical question: Sarah Jama has to apologize for calling for an end to hostilities while Mancinelli gets a pass for using the conflict to settle political scores?
I have no idea what the end goal of this #TeamMancinelli thing is for Best and the others in the “I’m not a conservative NIMBY, but…” crowd in town. It might be just a classic case of members of the old bud’s club boosting the profile of one of their new friends. It might be connected to some misguided belief that LIUNA is actually a force for good in this city and not just a shady developer masquerading as a trade union. Or it might be to build Mancinelli some kind of following for a future run for office.
On that note: if I had to bet right now, I’d say that Mancinelli’s name is going to be bandied about as a candidate for mayor for approximately 24 months before the next election (much the same way that Lakeport Brewing’s Teresa Cascioli was Hamilton’s “leading mayoral candidate” in the months before the 2014 election) and ride that high for a bit until something less stressful comes along. I’ll be looking for a front-page Scott Radley advertorial on the issue around this time next year.
***
Oh, and one more thing about this story: Best kinda sorta let his politics slip in the story.
See, he was posting a whole bunch of screenshots of tweets and included this dull post from Sue-Ann Levy (who is the answer to the question “what if a stock photo of an internet bully once wrote for the Toronto Sun?) attacking Ward 2 HWDSB trustee Sabreina Dahab.
Yes, reposting a tweet that will inevitably direct more hate and violence toward Trustee Dahab was dumb (why didn’t you just post the actual tweet you write about in the story, John?), but, from the looks of it, he didn’t get the tweet from Sue-Ann’s own profile.
It would appear from this photo that Best is following/gets updates from “Stop Woke Indoctrination”, a Hamilton-based far-right hate farm account that regularly retweets violent misinformation about what’s happening in schools to rile up Twitter’s remaining users (extremely divorced right-wingers and bots pretending to be MAGA fans in an effort to sell vibrators, get you to download Hentai video games, or boost dropshipping scams). The account is disturbingly obsessed with the sexual organs of children, but also takes time to mock Indigenous people, engage in Residential School graves-denialism, attack teacher’s unions, and post bangers like this:
Ahh, yes, all those kids who love to vap and chill. Getting real big “Eat Hot Chip and Lie” vibes from this one.
***
Okay okay okay, there’s one more thing about this mess of an article that’s great. It has to do with the Lilley tweet that Mancinelli responded to without being asked.
Nothing says “I have absolutely no idea what I’m talking about” louder than claiming “McMaster has been a hotbed for radical, revolting politics.” Dude, really? Set aside the awesome work being done by the thousands of dedicated faculty members, including Nobel laureates literally changing the world, but McMaster’s student politics is notoriously small-c conservative. The ultimate goal of student union leaders when I was involved in things there was either a job with the university’s admin or with the Ontario Liberal Party and then posting relentlessly about it on LinkedIn. Hotbed for radical, revolting politics? Bro, your ill-informed tweet is serving:
The HATS off
Last Friday, the Hamilton Alliance for Tiny Shelters (HATS) announced they would not be moving forward with building cabins in a parking lot on what’s being called the “Strachan Linear Park” which is, in reality, an empty stretch of sod that was once intended to be a freeway from the 401 to the city’s industrial area.
The site was sprung on HATS, Councillor Kroetsch, and the North End a few months ago during the Encampment Protocol debacle. After attempts to find a site during the 2018-2022 term of council resulted in massive community opposition (led by the Furlanites) and local political figures doing what they had always done best (defer, defer, defer), the new council simply instructed staff to find a spot.
When the site was announced, the backlash was swift and organized. Kathy Renwald, a freelance writer, contributed a series of articles to the aforementioned Bay Observer (including this awful "interview" with her neighbours that merely presented upsetting perspectives without context) and did little to mask her own opposition to the project. As editor, Best also did his…uhh…best…to fuel the flames of opposition (while always managing to sneak in a promo for Victoria Mancinelli).
LIUNA got involved, meetings got heated and then violent, and the whole project was poisoned in the eyes of the community.
Let’s face it: communication on the issue was poor. For example, social media and opponents kept demanding that the ideal site was Cathedral Park, the awkward triangle bordered by the rail lines off Dundurn and two highway access ramps that is presently home to a dog park.
It didn’t seem like there was any effort to remind people that those highway access ramps (and the highway itself) are controlled by the Ministry of Transportation, which has buckets of restrictions on what can happen within the vicinity of their precious strips of soul-killing pavement. That spot can’t host HATS for the same reason we west-enders can’t get safer intersections at King+Dundurn/Main+Dundurn: the MTO simply won’t allow it. In Canada, the province is the final boss for municipal decisions, so they hold all of the cards.
And yet, that non-site has been bandied about as a perfect location because, for all that the new council has done to improve communication, city hall still maintains a strong culture of secrecy that hasn’t effectively communicated this reality to the public.
The most upsetting thing about this HATS cancellation is that, as encampment evictions speed up and the weather gets colder, those experiencing homelessness are going to be at greater risk of long-term serious health impacts or even death due to exposure to the elements. Hamilton does not have adequate shelter space, we do not have housing solutions for people, and we have no plan in place to protect the most vulnerable. HATS was not going to solve the problem, but it would have given around two dozen people a fighting chance.
The community response to HATS - the vitriol, the hatred, the stigmatization, the politicization, the violence, and the fact that community members fought community members while wealthy investors stoked the flames of division - will be remembered as one of the darkest points of 2023.
The 411 on the 132
Speaking of the intersection of Main and Dundurn: on Tuesday, there was another horrible accident where two cars ended up on the sidewalk where people could have easily been walking.
This intersection is poorly designed and is intended to do little more than facilitate the easy movement of cars through a dense urban area. In essence, these kinds of accidents are to be expected at this intersection. If I’m walking in the area, I will actively avoid that intersection due to the number of close calls I’ve had as a pedestrian and cyclist there.
But that incident reminded me of an interesting tweet I saw last week, highlighting a road reconstruction project in Edmonton.
132 Avenue Northwest (I still think the Western Canadian street naming convention is both irritating and ingenious) is a fairly standard two-lane road that runs in an almost straight line from east-to-west in northern Edmonton. Google Maps presents a picture of the street that’s both relatable and inhospitable.
The city has really gone all out redesigning the street, creating space for street trees, separated bike lanes, and even a Dutch-style bike intersection that will make the entire stretch safer for everyone. Four lanes are reduced to a manageable two and efforts have been made to provide a safer environment for users, no matter what method of transportation they use.
Edmonton City Council is a pretty forward-thinking body, reflecting the tendency of Alberta’s cities to be far more progressive than the more rural areas in the province. The city’s 2021 election saw an incredibly diverse group of candidates win in wards that has been renamed, with the city abandoning the boring numbering system many Canadian cities use and, instead, giving each ward an Indigenous name.
Just goes to show that a little progressive vision can go a long way.
Blue jeans back on
Way back in July, I wrote about the controversy surrounding Upper Canada District School Board (UCDSB) trustee Curtis Jordan, who had been banned from attending board meetings for apparently, among other things, wearing jeans.
Following that original story, the UCDSB voted to further sanction Jordan for even talking about the original event. It turns out that the original issue stemmed from an allegation of homophobia Jordan levelled at a board employee due to a heated argument about expense reimbursement. The jeans weren’t actually a part of the complaint.
But, finally, in late September, after talking it out, the UCDSB voted to allow Jordan back in and put the whole “violating the code of conduct” thing behind them. After holding a series of meetings to discuss Jordan’s behaviour, the board decided that there had been some miscommunications and some hasty judgements that resulted in official sanctions being suggested, rather than creating space for further discussion.
As Jordan’s lawyer told The Recorder and Times:
“I think that Trustee Jordan has been very courageous being the first person in Canada to occupy elected office who is openly declared that he’s living with autism…I know it’s his hope that this will be a beginning of a greater public understanding and acceptance of the fact that people living with autism do face challenges that aren’t faced by people who don’t live with autism, and it requires a little bit of mutual understanding and accommodation.”1
The big issue here is how local institutions are ill-equipped to deal with conflict. Years of consolidation and HR-ification have resulted in an environment that’s highly bureaucratized and, as a result, less democratic. Rather than have conversations about issues, discussion is squeezed into a corporatized mold that gives consultants and unelected staff far too much power to act as school principals (so-to-speak) rather than advisors to democratically-elected officials.
Yes, it is important to have policies and procedures in place for when trustees do act in unethical ways (Carole Paikin-Miller, anyone?), but these policies can end up targeting a queer, neurodivergent elected official and sweep them up in a process they aren’t prepared to handle.
Anyway, it is great to see Trustee Jordan vindicated in this whole ordeal.
The Far-Right Files
It has been a bumper week for the far-right, so here are a few stories worth noting. The good news: none of these are explicitly based in Hamilton. The bad news: they’re all still very sad.
The Tofino Conspiracy
Last week, we got this incredible story from Press Progress, the media wing of the social-democratic Broadbent Institute. There have been rumblings that a rag-tag group of former Convoyists and other assorted extremists have been trying to stage another Convoy, this time aimed at “saving children” from…something. The whole thing is a little QAnon, a little anti-trans panic, and a little of the group trying to relive the magic of January 2022. They’ve apparently created an encampment in Casselman, a tiny community outside Ottawa, where they’re planning their next moves.
Turns out, these extremists have been angling to overthrow the state this whole time. As Luke LeBrun, an editor at Press Progress wrote, these people planned: “to round-up police officers and Members of Parliament in Toronto and Ottawa, before sending a final convoy to Tofino, British Columbia to ‘take the head off the snake.’”
The whole thing is simultaneously terrifying and hilarious, as these perpetually online far-right weirdos think there’s some Freemason-backed child abduction crime ring being run out of sleepy little Tofino, British Columbia.
The more I read about these folks, the more apparent it becomes that these are people in desperate need of community and purpose who have been sucked into online conspiracies precisely because we don’t have strong IRL spaces for people anymore. Life is hard, capitalism keeps you exploited, we’ve chipped away at the foundations of democracy and gutted community institutions, so random people on the internet who think the Masons eat babies in Tofino become your friends. The whole thing is just so sad.
Waco, Saskatchewan
Moving from sad to dangerous…
Cult leader Romana Didulo, a figure so fringe that she’s actively opposed by other far-right extremists, has led her dwindling band of converts to Richmound, Saskatchewan, where they have taken over a former school and have begun calling for locals to be executed in the streets.
Very neighbourly.
If you don’t know about Didulo, here are the basics: she is, by all accounts, a deeply unwell woman who immigrated to Canada from the Philippines in the 90s. Radicalized by the internet, Didulo became a prominent figure on the Canadian QAnon scene before declaring that she had been named Queen of Canada by an American (who calls himself King of America) after she led an army against Chinese soldiers living in tunnels across Canada who had planned to start World War III to help them harvest “adrenochrome” from children. She claims she’s an alien who has magical healing abilities and has forced followers to abandon their children, stop paying bills, and join her caravan of RVs, in which she plays Boney M’s Rasputin on loop all day.
While all that may seem strange, she has a dedicated band of followers that follow her and to whom she issues directives, including frequent calls to publicly execute anyone she deems an opponent of her and her movement.
After being pushed from one town in Saskatchewan, the cult has embedded themselves in Richmound and has begun publicly naming those they wish to see murdered. The BBC is reporting that there are around 25 cult members in an old school and that Didulo’s followers are planning a mass-migration to the town in the coming weeks.
Didulo is a profoundly ill person who desperately needs help. She has already convinced a man in Laval to make credible threats toward a school and now she’s amassing supporters in a small town while publicly identifying those she wants executed in the streets. Her followers, all folks taken in by right-wing conspiracies, could easily become violent. The RCMP has a chance to stop this from becoming Canada’s Waco, but, more likely, things will continue to escalate, putting more and more people in harm’s way until someone dies.
Down Dirty in Murray Harbour
I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t know where Murray Harbour is. It is a small village on the southeast coast of Prince Edward Island with a population under 300 and a municipal council of seven. Well, technically seven. Right now, there are only five members of council (you have until October 20 to register to run for one of two at-large councillor positions in the municipality’s November 6 by-election!).
But their upcoming by-election isn’t the main thing here. In fact, it is the perspectives of one of their sitting councillors that has caused a stir. Councillor John Robertson put a sign up on his lawn calling the finding of mass graves at Residential Schools a “hoax” and that true reconciliation would be to "Redeem Sir John A's integrity." Despite calls to resign from the members of the Canadian Senate, local Indigenous communities, and his own town’s mayor, Robertson merely took down the sign and told the CBC: “I'm sorry for people who felt upset or hurt by what was on the sign…I hope it is an opportunity for us all to learn.”
The main lesson here is that voting in municipal elections is important because, when you don’t, people might end up electing genocide-denying racists with a Sir John A. MacDonald fetish, and their presence on local councils might, at best, make the whole community look bad and, at worst, traumatize the survivors of said genocide and normalize racist views.
The 15-minute cities conspiracy gets a bump
Finally, as the UK Conservatives lurch toward an election that is almost assuredly going to see them tossed from office, the party has adopted a more welcoming attitude to the most extreme elements of British society.
Most recently, the country’s Transport Secretary has given a little boost to the 15-minute city conspiracy by saying that the whole idea is part of a Labour Party scheme to take away the freedom of car-driving loyalists. The conspiracy has gone mainstream as the UK’s PM Rishi Sunak is trying to divide people into the clearly defined camps of “motorists” and “the woke”.
In one of the very first Sewer Socialist editions, I discussed the 15-minute city conspiracy, noting how the whole thing started in the UK but was amplified by Canadian extremists. I had hoped the whole thing would die down and, for the most part, it had. But now the UK Tories, desperate for every vote they can get, have poured fuel on a fire that was almost out. And we’ll all be worse off for it. Because the ideas I’ve been sharing here - from walkable grocery stores to more dense communities to easily accessible third spaces - are all essential components of a 15-minute city…a city where you can simply walk to the store for a loaf of bread or a tin of cat food or pop down to a local coffee shop to chat with friends.
As our climate crisis worsens, we’re going to need more alternatives to help reduce our reliance on cars. Demonizing one of the best proposed solutions to win some votes is going to do little more than set us all back.
Cool facts for cool people
When I was 17, I served as the coordinator of St. Thomas More High School’s annual Halloween for Hunger event, where we’d get volunteers to go door-to-door on Halloween night asking for donations of canned goods that we’d collect for the mountain’s Neighbour to Neighbour Centre. We broke records in terms of donations that year (2007, he said with a shudder) and that record has been broken year after year as the effort has grown. But now, in a case of truly heartbreaking miscommunication, the event has been cancelled. The Ontario English Catholic Teachers Association (OECTA) is planning a strike vote soon, which prompted the organizing committee to shelve plans for this year’s food drive, as teacher advisors were under the impression they could not engage in after-school activities if the union voted to strike. The head of the Hamilton branch of OECTA said that volunteering with a food drive would not be prohibited, which ultimately means there was no need to cancel the event. As food bank use skyrockets thanks to the ongoing cost-of-living crisis, events like this could have made a huge impact in the community. So if anyone is thinking of donating to help fill that need, you can get all the information needed at this link.
Like any nerd, I follow American politics. Not intently, mind you, mostly because it makes my head hurt. That said, I was thrilled when I heard Dr. Cornel West was running for President in 2024. An incredible advocate for social and racial justice and a deeply impressive public intellectual, Dr. West is someone I really admire. His progressive campaign began with the little-know People’s Party (very different than the Canadian version) but he quickly jumped to the American Green Party. The American Greens are usually seen as a spoiler in their deeply polarized two-party system, but have managed to get a few people elected at the local level. America is weird, in that you need to petition for ballot access, and in 2020, the Greens were only on the ballot in 30 states and ran “write-in” campaigns in 17 more. Dr. West had been working with Greens to expand ballot access, but, last Thursday, announced that wasn’t going anywhere and, instead, he would be running as an Independent candidate. Democrats have been nervous about Dr. West’s campaign, and potential campaigns from Joe Manchin, Tulsi Gabbard, and Jessie Ventura, as they may sap support from Joe Biden. Republicans, on the other hand, are nervous about potential independent/third party campaigns by Liz Cheney and (the now announced bid by) Robert Kennedy Jr. who both might sway conservatives away from their likely nominee, Donald Trump. The whole thing’s a complete mess and just speaks to the need for serious electoral reform across North America. Still, it’ll be interesting to see how far Dr. West’s campaign gets!
Should have listened to the "make sure you're hugging a puppy when you read this" blurb at the start.