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Letters: MNAs' salary hike should be sacrificed to fund schools

Letters: MNAs' salary hike should be sacrificed to fund schools

Re: ' Quebec children are paying price for CAQ's reckless spending, English school boards say ' (The Gazette, June 20)
François Legault once criticized the then-Liberal Quebec government for slashing education budgets, saying he would never allow such cuts to happen if he were premier. Well, it's happening and the next generation of children will pay dearly for these impossible cuts to funding.
Why doesn't Legault's government cut 30 per cent from MNAs' salaries? Wouldn't they want to sacrifice that 2023 salary hike to ensure schoolchildren get the best education possible?
Joyce Stempkowsky, N.D.G.
English schools due for reorganization
Badmouthing the Coalition Avenir Québec government for budget cuts to public schools does not address the real issues.
A defensive strategy is essential, as there is no doubt that these budget cuts will have negative effects on the well-being of students by either eliminating or diminishing critical services.
The English sector must confront reality: Its on-island schools are facing dwindling enrolment. The community should consider reorganizing its school network by either closing, merging or transferring underused schools to the French system.
This strategy would enable the community's educational funds to be allocated more efficiently and facilitate the establishment of larger English schools. By extension, there would be more student services, which would prove advantageous for kids.
Short-term pain for long-term gain.
Chris Eustace, Pierrefonds
Foster growth with bilingual designation for city
Re: ' We're unlikely partners with a shared vision of a better Quebec ' (Opinion, June 19)
Frédéric Lapointe and Eva Ludvig underline that the best solution for Quebec is for anglophones and francophones to respect and support each other while working together to build a better, healthier and wealthier Quebec.
Most anglophones realize being bilingual strengthens their ability to help build that Quebec. Political anglophobia, however, must end.
I would like to see a brighter political and financial future for Quebec by Montreal being declared a bilingual city. This would attract new businesses to build up our economy.
Jack Hoffman, Côte-St-Luc
Not all holidays are treated equally
Imagine my surprise when shopping recently at an IGA and seeing a sign on the door informing customers the store would be closed on June 24, but fully open on July 1.
Were they trying to tell us something?
André Bordeleau, Dorval
Shining a light on seniors' concerns
Re: ' A head-to-toe look at keeping an aging body healthy ' (Alice Lukacs, June 17)
As an octogenarian in a society where ageism often plays a major role, I offer kudos to Alice Lukacs for so effectively describing the challenges of life as a senior when 'age takes its toll and even a great doctor can't stop that.'
The fact that space was allocated to address the health concerns of seniors acknowledges that life for them and for all of us is sacred.
Lukacs appears to be on the same page as celebrated Belgian fashion designer Diane von Fürstenberg, who so aptly said: 'Aging is out of your control. How you handle it, though, is in your hands.'
Brahms E. Silver, Côte-St-Luc
Submitting a letter to the editor
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Ontario auditor general has ‘active audits' on special ed, child care: internal docs
Ontario auditor general has ‘active audits' on special ed, child care: internal docs

Global News

time2 hours ago

  • Global News

Ontario auditor general has ‘active audits' on special ed, child care: internal docs

Ontario's auditor general appears to be conducting investigations into special education and child care, according to internal government documents, potentially offering fresh insight into how the province funds and handles the two key files. The information is contained within a briefing document prepared for Education Minister Paul Calandra in March and obtained by Global News using freedom of information laws, which says there are 'active audits' underway on both topics. An auditor general investigation into the Ford government's Greenbelt land swap, published in 2023, turned the controversy into a scandal, while reports into Ontario Place, the Ontario Science Centre and emergency room staffing left ministers with difficult questions to answer. It is unclear when the potential special education and child care audits were started or when exactly they'll be published. The auditor general has far-reaching power under Ontario legislation to compel government documents and dig deep into various files. Story continues below advertisement None of the Ministry of Education, Premier's Office or the auditor general's office would confirm the probes to Global News. 'We have not yet disclosed any of the audits we're working on this year,' a spokesperson for the auditor general's office said, adding they couldn't 'comment on speculation.' View image in full screen A page of briefing notes for Education Minister Paul Calandra says audits are underway on special education and child care. Global News Critics of the government welcomed the possibility of auditor general investigations into both child care and special education, with the latter an area of particular concern for some. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy Educators and parents have suggested that a lack of support for children with special education needs in Ontario's schools has been harming their education and making classrooms less effective for everyone. A report by the Elementary Teachers' Federation of Ontario earlier this year said that English public school boards in the province have, on average, one educational assistant for every 10 children with special education needs. Story continues below advertisement Kate Dudley-Logue from the Ontario Autism Coalition told Global News that an audit of how special education programs are funded and managed is long overdue. 'Delivery of special education in schools is at a crisis level — children are not safe, children are not accessing a meaningful level of education, they're not accessing curriculum, and the most telling factor is so many children with disabilities are just not in school at all,' she said. Dudley said she was concerned about funding, as well as what she sees as a patchwork approach to special education, which can differ from one board to another. A survey conducted by the Ontario Autism Coalition of parents found that almost 20 per cent of the children of those polled were not in school full-time, instead relying on modified schedules. 'This is a very large issue,' she said. 'Students with disabilities have a right to be in school.' The internal briefing documents also suggest the auditor general will be looking into child care, an area where the government has made major changes to attempt to implement a federal vision for $10-per-day care. Ontario was the last province to sign onto a child-care deal with former prime minister Justin Trudeau's Liberal government in March 2022. The agreement was worth $13.2 billion, the two governments said at the time. Story continues below advertisement Operators have since raised concerns about how the deal impacts their bottom line and the viability of small businesses, with some operators shutting down and saying the system isn't viable. In the spring, Calandra wrote to his federal counterpart asking for a renewed commitment to the $10 plan, suggesting prices could rise above $22 per day without a fresh commitment from Ottawa. Ontario NDP MPP Teresa Armstrong said she would look forward to any audit of the child care file, one that she said she felt the government had attempted to make positive changes in without success. 'I think the government is trying to do the best they can, but I think an auditor general report will open up some of the issues where they need to act on that people have been saying that hasn't been happening,' she said. 'We've had a lot of auditor general reports, and they make excellent recommendations, quite frankly.' The Ministry of Education said it could not answer questions about the possible audits. 'As always, the ministry would cooperate with any and all requests from the Auditor and her team,' a spokesperson said. — with files from The Canadian Press

Quebec language watchdog now says it's OK to use ‘go' to support sports teams
Quebec language watchdog now says it's OK to use ‘go' to support sports teams

Winnipeg Free Press

time4 hours ago

  • Winnipeg Free Press

Quebec language watchdog now says it's OK to use ‘go' to support sports teams

MONTREAL – Quebec's language watchdog has changed its tune on whether it's acceptable to use the word 'go' to cheer on sports teams. In a new guideline posted in its online dictionary, the Office québécois de la langue française says that while 'allez' is the preferred term, it's now 'partially legitimized' to use the English word to show encouragement. The flip-flop comes after the office took a hard line with Montreal's transit agency, pressing it for months in 2024 to scrub the word 'go' from the electronic signs on more than 1,000 city buses. The watchdog confirmed it had changed its position after The Canadian Press obtained a series of emails through access to information legislation, revealing it gave the transit agency a green light to use 'go' in June. The reversal followed a public outcry on the eve of the Montreal Canadiens' first playoff home game in April, when the Montreal Gazette reported how the transit agency had replaced 'Go! Canadiens Go!' with 'Allez! Canadiens Allez!' to stay on the watchdog's good side. The revelations prompted French-language Minister Jean-François Roberge to intervene, declaring that the expression 'Go Habs Go' is part of Quebec culture, and that any future complaints about the slogan would be dismissed. That statement verged on political interference and placed the watchdog in a difficult position, according to one expert. 'The office had to respond to a political order,' said Benoît Melançon, emeritus professor of French literature at Université de Montréal. 'The minister said, 'You will accept this,' so the office had to find a way to accept it.' The transit agency says it hasn't decided whether it will put the word 'go' back on its bus displays. On Wednesday, a spokesperson said the agency is now 'beginning its reflection on the subject.' In an April statement, Dominique Malack, the president of the language office, agreed that the slogan 'Go Habs Go' is anchored in Quebec's history. Still, she went on to say that the word 'go' is an anglicism, and that public bodies have an obligation to use 'exemplary' French, which includes using only French words in their signage. Emails released to The Canadian Press show the transit agency asked the watchdog in May, following the uproar, for authorization to start using 'go' again. A month later, on June 6, the language office directed transit officials to its new entry for the word 'allez' in its online dictionary of terminology, a reference guide for the proper use of French in Quebec. The page notes how the anglicism 'go' has been used in Quebec since at least the 1980s and is 'well-established' in common parlance. 'It is considered to be partially legitimized,' the entry says. When asked by The Canadian Press to comment on the newly released email correspondence, the watchdog confirmed it had updated its position. 'The office now considers that a public body can use the interjection go in a context of encouragement … without this compromising the duty of exemplarity incumbent upon it under the Charter of the French Language,' spokesperson Gilles Payer told The Canadian Press in an email. Payer confirmed the entry was newly published on May 30. 'The media coverage of the case concerning the use of the borrowed word 'go' in a sports context led the office to officially assess the acceptability' of the word, he said. Melançon, the French literature professor, said the new rationale – especially the term 'partially legitimized' – suggests the office was uneasy with the change. 'This must have given rise to some pretty intense internal debates,' he said. ''Do we take into account what the minister is telling us or do we not take it into account? If we don't take it into account, what are the consequences? If we do, how do we justify changing our minds?'' At least one transit agency official felt dubious about the original complaint, which related to a bus displaying the words 'Go! CF Mtl Go!' in support of Montreal's professional soccer club. She called the issue a 'grey zone' in a June 2024 email to colleagues. 'We've been using the word 'go' for years without a problem,' she wrote. 'Are we going to change everything because of one complaint?' But by later that month, the agency had decided to scrap the word, which involved manually updating the display on each of more than 1,000 buses over a period of months. The agency has said no further change will be made before the buses undergo regular maintenance in the fall. The language office has received at least two other complaints about the word 'go' in the last five years, according to a response to a separate access-to-information request. In 2023, someone complained about the slogan 'Go Habs Go' appearing on an outdoor billboard. That complaint was dismissed because the expression is a trademark. A similar complaint in 2021 targeted the hashtag #GoHabsGo that appears in oversized letters outside the Bell Centre in Montreal, the home arena of the Canadiens. The person who filed the complaint suggested that to comply with Quebec's language rules, the expression 'Allez les Habitants allez' should appear alongside the English slogan, in larger letters. 'And yes, I'm serious, if the law applies, then apply it! :)' the person wrote. According to the language watchdog, that complaint was resolved following an intervention, though it provided no details. A spokesperson for the hockey team declined to comment. The #GoHabsGo sign remains in place. This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 3, 2025.

Trump, Tariffs and the Australian Federal Election
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Trump, Tariffs and the Australian Federal Election

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In the 2022-25 parliamentary term, international affairs have driven the domestic political agenda so much that by the timeDonald Trump announced Liberation Day tariffs, there was little room left to discuss them. On September 15, 2021, 9 months before the 2022 federal election which ousted him, Prime Minister Scott Morrisonannounced a new treaty agreementbetween Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom (AUKUS), which cancelled orders for French diesel-electric submarines in favour of nuclear-powered submarines to be developed by the three nations jointly. This action was controversial,infuriating French President Emmanuel Macronand attracting the sharp criticism of former Australian Prime MinistersMalcolm TurnbullandPaul Keating. Mentions mostly negative of AUKUS arefar more common in Australia than in America, where it is treated with indifference or in the UK, where the treaty figures mostly as an amusing intrigue at Frances expense. However, AUKUS also revealed that Australias core strategic security relationship with the US was indispensable and exclusive in some sense. Despite the USs deepening political instability and the charge, which ispopular in Europe, that America is no longer a reliable security partner, there remains little to no daylight between Canberra and Washington regarding ensuring Australian and Western Pacific security. Australia remains a key player in the USs plans to constrain Chinese expansion. Likewise, the USs wider protection of Australia in the form of theANZUS treatysnuclear umbrella is worth immeasurably more than the cost of upsetting France. Still, both major political parties support the AUKUS treaty, thus nullifying it as an election matter, though no doubt contributing to voter dissatisfaction in general terms. One area that has divided the major parties for nearly 20 years is climate change and the need for a decarbonising energy transition. The Australian Labor Party (ALP), now in government, favours decarbonisation through renewable energy, while the Liberal Party of Australia, in partnership with the National Party of Australia (the Coalition), seeks a more moderate decarbonisation supplemented by the construction of new nuclear power parties support the expansion of Australias natural gas industry, andcoal remains by far the dominant source of electricity generation. The Coalitionsnuclear policy, launched in late 2024 and gradually de-emphasised as the election approached, was an attempt by the Coalition to align energy renewal policy, an area of political weakness, with an area of political strength: defence and national security. With a domestic nuclear industry, the difficulty of maintaining a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines would be, in theory, reduced. The problem was that both nuclear power and expensive nuclear submarines were not hugely popular policies on their own, and they did not become more attractive in combination. Australian opposition to nuclear energy and weapons has deep roots, beginning withnuclear tests conducted by the British on Aboriginal landand prominent ALP figures such as former foreign minister Gareth Evans and the Midnight Oil singer, who later became government minister, Peter Garrett, haveconsistently advocated an anti-nuclear stance. The Coalition could not undo decades of political consensus by reframing nuclear energy as a security and energy transition two-for-one. Neither, however, is the ALPs choice to favour a renewable and green energy transition geopolitically neutral, despite its apparent electoral success. Solar panels are produced at the lowest cost in China, as are electric vehicles and the batteries that power them and store energy produced by intermittent sources of electricity. The governmentsFuture Made in Australiascheme appears doomed to be outcompeted by cheap international imports. So, by emphasising a renewable pathway to net zero, the ALP deepens its economic ties with Australias principal trading partner and, paradoxically, also its principal geostrategic adversary. Australias relationship with China is, in the words of former Prime Minister Tony Abbott, caught betweenfear and greed, a condition that has permeated the economic and security policy and is now increasingly relevant to the success of Australias energy renewal. During the COVID-19 pandemic, governments worldwide borrowed heavily to support workforces that were not working. Then, rising inflation and interest rates compounded economic pain. No one could pretend that the source of rising interest rates was home-grown, and the government has been at pains toremind votersof Australias strong performance in relative Australian citizens of the costs of living has been the primary challenge of the ALPs first term. The governmentcut taxes, introducedsubsidies on household energy bills, and announced aninvestment fund to increase housing supply. The economy tottered but was held up in part byincreased net migrationand amining boom spurred on by renewed Chinese demandfor raw materials. The Coalition offered few substantive alternatives to this approach. It did, however, seek tohighlight an undercurrent of dissatisfaction with immigration, at a time of soaring prices and a loosening labour market proved to be a sensitive issue, but was still not amongthe top five issues facing Australian voters just before the election. In relying on a perennial critique of the ALPs relatively pro-migrant stance, the Coalition was on safe ground, but it did not translate this advantage to an overall lead on economic management. After several years of adapting Australian policy to international instability, Donald Trumps tariff war on the world came just in time for the Australian federal election and for Canada, another of the USs closest allies. The result on Americas northern border was widely seen as a repudiation of Trumps trade belligerence. The tariffs economic impact was less acute than in Canada. Australia is a net importer of US goods, and the government was quick to assure voters thatit would not retaliateby imposing the costs of tariffs directly onto Australian consumers. Australias broader economic partnership with the United States is also tied to pension schemes, now collectively worthUS$ 2.8 trillion (roughly the GDP of Britain), 1 trillion of which is projected to be invested in US stocks over the next decade. The stakes of economic confrontation with the US could not be higher, and it is not surprising that neither party leader wanted to spend too long discussing the issue. While Prime Minister Albanese said the tariffs werenot the act of a friend, Coalition leader Peter Dutton attempted to pin blame on the ALP for not achieving a carve-out deal for Australian steel, aluminium and other export interests. In the following election debates, both leaders attempted to thread the needle of emphasising the importance of the US alliance while distancing themselves from its leader. Somewhat ridiculously, Albaneseclaimedthat he did not have Trumps number because he believed that Trump did not have a mobile phone. Duttoncriticisedthe Prime Ministers decision to appoint a public detractor of Trump, the former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, to the post of ambassador to the US. At the same time,he claimed not to know the President, a favour returned by Trump after the election whenhe claimed that he had no idea who Dutton was. Whether or not Peter Dutton was strongly associated with Trump during the campaign is unclear, and it is still too early to make definitive statements. Some commentators accused Dutton of being aTemu Trump, withthe instincts of a right-wing populist. While Dutton is certainly right-wing, it is not clear that Duttons personal style muted in comparison with Trump, or years of institutional commitment, first to the police force and then to parliamentary party politics, fit the definition of a populist. What is clear is that the ALPs approach to governing Australia through internationally driven turbulence has been endorsed by voters, with one ofthe most emphatic election wins in Australian Dutton lost his seat as did the Canadian Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre. However, the general dissatisfaction with major party politics continued, with the combined total of major party votes at its lowest level ever, at just under two-thirds. For now, the government has weathered the storm, but increasing international instability will pile on yet more pressure, testing Australias political establishment to its limits. Further Reading on E-International Relations About The Author(s) Patrick Leslie is a Research Fellow at the School of Politics and International Relations, Australian National University. Editorial Credit(s) Ibrahim Atta Tags AustraliaDonald Trump

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