Gordon Prentice at Large - Politics in Newmarket
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- Written by: Gordon Prentice
An estimated 84% of truckers are vaccinated. 
But they don’t get much airtime.
The other 16% of truckers and their camp-followers - who are getting all the attention - claim the freedom to remain unvaccinated. (Photo Downtown Toronto today)
This morning (5 February 2022) the Ontario Government tells me:
89% of people over the age of 12 are fully vaccinated (at least two doses);
3% are partially vaccinated and
8% are unvaccinated.
In the Province’s Intensive Care Units:
174 are fully vaccinated (50.8%)
10 are partially vaccinated (2.9%) and
158 people are unvaccinated (46.1%)
The official figures are constantly being updated but, as of now, 8% of the population at large is unvaccinated yet they, the unvaccinated, occupy 46% of the beds in Intensive Care.
Prioritising the vaccinated
Clearly, the unvaccinated who get Covid 19 are much more likely to end up in intensive care than the fully vaccinated. They put an additional load on a system already under pressure.
Other things being equal, it seems to me the fully vaccinated should have priority over those who deliberately choose to remain unvaccinated.
Heath care is rationed in all sorts of ways. Waiting lists are the obvious example. But rationing happens in more subtle ways every day, all over the country, in a million medical and administrative decisons, rarely made explicit.
At the moment ICUs appear to be coping. But what if a virulent new strain of Covid emerges?
The truckers won't have the freedom to go elsewhere for treatment. No-one else is gonna let them in. They will be stuck here in Canada.
With the freedom to choose to go to the back of the queue.
As if.
Note: There is a time lag between hospital reporting on Covid and the figures appearing on Ontario.ca. Public Health Ontario is reporting 501 patients in Intensive Care today (5 February)
The Provincial Government says of its figures:
This is a new data collection and the data quality will continue to improve as hospitals continue to submit data. Data on patients in the ICU is collected from two data sources that have different extraction times and public reporting cycles. This may cause discrepancies with other hospitalization numbers that are collected using a different process.
Update on 8 February 2022: Toronto Public Health data show hospitalization and death are rare for individuals with three doses of Covid 19 Vaccine.
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- Written by: Gordon Prentice
The Toronto Star’s Martin Regg Cohn reported on Saturday that the NDP candidate for Ajax, former Mayor Steve Parish, was responsible for naming a local street after the WWII German Naval Commander Hans Langsdorff. 
When Parish (photo right) was confirmed last month as the NDP’s “star candidate” in Ajax, Cohn asked the Party for an explanation.
“…the Party referred me to his previous public statements, and those of party leader, Andrea Horwath, saying he meant no offence.”
Cohn goes on:
“As mayor in 2007 Parish hailed Langsdorff as a “remarkable leader”. His town took the name from HMS Ajax, one of the three Allied vessels involved in the fight against the Graf Spee commanded by the Nazi Captain.”
Horwath gets it wrong (again)
Andrea Horwath often gets things wrong. But defending Parish was a serious error of judgement. One of many in her decade at the helm of Ontario’s NDP.
(Last year she said it was a Charter Right for education workers to refuse a Covid 19 jab. This unleashed an immediate storm of protest - from within the Party and outside - and she rapidly back-tracked.)
And now, this morning, I read that Andrea Horwath has decided that Steve Parish cannot be a candidate for the NDP.
“The NDP’s vetting process gave us confidence that Mr Parish does not hold anti-semitic views. However, our Party is committed to naming and correcting injustice, and vowing to do better – and as a candidate he has not met the mark.”
Shelf-life
Personally, I believe Andrea Horwarth is well past her sell-by-date as leader of the NDP. All politicians have a shelf-life and it is not cruel or unreasonable to suggest she should make way for someone else. The NDP is not going to win a majority of seats in the June election under her leadership.
After the Dundas controversy I’ve spent some time thinking about how we should commemorate people – or not.
And the very idea that we should have a street in Ajax named after a card carrying member of the Nazi Party beggars belief.
I spent this morning reading a big chunk of the Battle of the River Plate by Richard Woodman and Christopher Summerville.
Trapped in the River Plate in Montevideo with British and Allied warships waiting for him, Langsdorff chose to scuttle his battleship. He and his crew made it safely to dry land. Three days later Langsdorff commited suicide.
Faith in my Fuehrer
On the evening before he shot himself in the head he wrote that he accepted responsibility for the scuttling of his ship and he was
“happy that I can with my life prevent the casting of any imaginable shadow on the honour of the flag”
and he would
“meet my fate with firm faith in the cause and the future of the nation and of my Fuehrer”.
How did Steve Parish get it so wrong?
And what on earth was Andrea Horwath thinking when she waved him through as one of the NDP’s “star candidates”?
HMS Ajax was commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1935. During the Battle of the River Plate HMS Ajax was commanded by Captain Charles Henry Woodhouse who was promoted to Rear Admiral in 1946. He retired in 1950 and, unusually, was made a full admiral in 1952. After the River Plate, HMS Ajax went to the Mediterranean where she took part in the Battle of Matapan, in operations off Crete and in the Malta convoys. Later she was part of the force covering the D-Day landings in Operation Neptune. In 1944 she provided accommodation for Churchill on his visit to Athens. She was broken up in 1949.
Update on 8 February 2022: Andrea Horwarth was elected leader of the Ontario NDP in March 2009.
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- Written by: Gordon Prentice
The wannabe MPP, Shameela Shakeel, has dropped out of the race to become the Liberal candidate for Newmarket-Aurora in the Provincial election in June. 
Yet again, the local Liberals are fielding a candidate drawn from a pool of one.
Psychologist Dr Silvain Roy will be acclaimed at the nomination meeting at 7pm on 10 February 2022 which will be held virtually by live webcast.
Requirements
The revised notice of the nomination meeting which was sent out to the Party faithful yesterday, 26 January 2022, says
“Only one nomination contestant who has met all the requirements set out in the approved nomination plan for Newmarket-Aurora and remains on the ballot. Accordingly, Dr Silvain Roy will be acclaimed as the candidate of the Ontario Liberal Party in the electoral district of Newmarket-Aurora at the nomination meeting.”
Smear campaign
I have no idea if Shameela Shakeel jumped or was pushed. But she grabbed the headlines when she claimed she was the victim of a smear campaign. She told Newmarket Today on 15 January 2022:
“I know that this happens. That smear campaigns happen. I know that intimidation happens. This is why people who look like me and think like me don’t run for politics.”
The Ontario Liberal Party nomination rules lay out the standards of conduct expected of nomination contestants. Paragraph 25 warns contestants to:
“conduct themselves with decorum and respect for opposing Nomination Contestants, the Ontario Liberal Party, any of its members, or any of its officials”
“refrain from conduct that will unduly and material diminish the chances of any Candidate to win their electoral district for the Ontario Liberal Party in a general election”,
“refrain from conduct that is unbecoming or detrimental to the public confidence in the Ontario Liberal Party or its nomination process”
Untenable political risk
I learn that a Nomination Commissioner may disqualify a contestant if he or she falls short and that the Commissioner
“may rely on any statement on social media deemed to be offensive, inflammatory, controversial or presenting untenable political risk as grounds for the disqualification of a Nomination Contestant or of a nominated Candidate.”
Oh dear!
It looks like Shameela Shakeel is not cut out for the rough and tumble of Liberal Party politics.
Or she could have looked at the rules and walked away.
Update on 27 January 2022 at 10.30am: A top Liberal official in the Newmarket-Aurora Party tells me:
"Shameela was not green-lighted by the Ontario Liberal Party head office. No reason was given."
Update on 27 January 2022: From Newmarket Today: Liberals oust Education Advocate from Provincial Nomination Race