Amy Hamm: On Feucht and Hockey Canada ruling, ignore the angry mobs
This case does not make a strong hill for the 'believe all women' mob to die on. But then again, mobs seldom make sense. They tend to be driven by emotion, not logic.
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A mob is, at least superficially, motivated by the desire to rectify injustices, stop wrongdoing or protect the vulnerable and innocent. But the examples provided to us by history reveal how angry mobs rarely get things right, and often fail to accomplish justice. They also, naturally, form within a specific cultural context.
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An illustration: the Salem Witch Trials. Between 1692 and 1693 in Massachusetts, more than 200 mostly female victims were accused by the mob of being witches. Twenty were put to death. Public officials performed the bidding of persons blinded by misogynist, religiously motivated fears. Due process was non-existent, and literal braying mobs influenced judges' verdicts.
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Today's dominant (but admittedly receding) cultural orthodoxy is one of reactionary rage against all things white, western, colonial, conservative, traditional, religious and male.
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One look at Feucht, and the exonerated Team Canada players, and it becomes clear that at the centre of both of these very public controversies are persons who can be perfectly vilified within our cultural milieu. And they all have been.
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Whatever our collective anger is over — Trump's tariffs, a recession or violence against women — Feucht et al. comprise the perfect target for the mob's rage.
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Politicians, journalists and judges all have a duty to examine the claims of a mob before falling for its proclaimed narrative — and, more critically, before bending to the will of any irate, pitchfork-wielding folks.
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One of Feucht's songs contains these lyrics: 'There is a name; Who reigns without contention; Whose power can't be questioned or contained; With humble fame; He rules the earth and heavens; His glory knows no measure or refrain; And it's bursting past the border lines of space.'
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Alberta minister threatens to axe bike lanes. Can he make his case?
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Ontario launched its plan to dismantle Toronto bike-lane barriers by stating, repeatedly, that they worsen vehicle congestion by compromising vehicle space. It's the same logic Dreeshen applied last month, ahead of his meeting on the topic with Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek: "While we fund major infrastructure projects, like the Deerfoot [Trail], to improve traffic flow and reduce congestion, some local decisions are moving in the opposite direction, removing driving lanes." Cycle Toronto's court challenge of Ontario's "Reducing Gridlock, Saving You Time Act" got the courts to peel back the advice and research that underpinned Ontario's claims against bike lanes. Or, mainly, the lack thereof. "To the contrary, records produced by the government in this litigation show that the internal advice prior to passing Bill 212 was that protected bike lanes can have a positive impact on congestion and that removing them would do little, if anything, to alleviate gridlock, and may worsen congestion," Ontario Justice Paul Schabas' ruling states. Reaction pours in after Ontario judge blocks Ford's bike lane removal plan 3 days ago The decision refers to an engineering firm the province hired to study its car lane restoration. It reported: "While removing the bike lanes and replacing them with traffic lanes may increase the vehicle capacity along the immediate length of the roadway, the actual alleviation of congestion may be negligible or short-lived due to other confounding factors or induced demand." Induced demand refers to a well-travelled concept in transportation engineering that expanding road capacity will attract more automobiles, and therefore restore any congestion that briefly gets eliminated. (Meanwhile, Schabas also found that the health and safety risks to cyclists if they lost their barrier-protected routes through key parts of downtown Toronto was easily proven.) Would the rise and ebb in vehicle traffic behave any differently if the protective curbs for safer biking were removed in favour of an extra driving lane on 12th Avenue S. or Fifth Street S.W. in Calgary? Dreeshen emerged from his July 30 meeting with Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek pleased that she agreed with his interest in removing problematic bike lanes. "These bike lanes are not fixed," she told reporters after the sit-down. "If a bike lane is causing any concerns with congestion or parking, our traffic team is open to reviewing and making any necessary changes." The question, then, could come down to whether Calgary and Alberta could find a problem that Toronto and Ontario did not. In 2015, the city added its downtown network of temporary barrier-protected bike lanes on a few streets, as a pilot project. City officials measured the change in motorist travel times next to the bike-safety bollards. Along an eight-block stretch of Eighth Avenue S.W., there was no change in westbound traffic during the afternoon peak, and a 15-second decrease going the opposite way in the morning, according to a 2016 city report. What impact did the cycle lanes on Fifth Street have, for their 14 blocks? In the afternoon rush, commutes were up by 10 seconds. Morning travel times rose by 90 seconds along the downtown-spanning stretch of 12th Avenue S., including an added 13 seconds of delay at the intersection of two new bike lanes — but officials in that report pledged to review signal timing and road design before the lane would become permanent. 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Dan McLean has said he wants the Eighth Avenue route axed and others reviewed. Meanwhile, the UCP issued a letter to members this week in Dreeshen's name, urging them to weigh in on a party survey's question about a potential bike lane crackdown — along with other questions inviting supporters to endorse existing UCP policies on taxes, school library content and private surgery clinics. "Of course, not everyone lives downtown. But many of us travel into the city for work, errands, or events, and we feel the impact too," Dreeshen's party email stated. This rhetoric gets at the heart of why provincial conservatives like to make hay about curbs and lane paint in a city's core, where voters tend to skew NDP or Liberal. Their own suburban and small-town base would likely be bothered by road space they can't drive on or park in, especially on a busy game night or lunch hour when they venture downtown. Just as planning the route for the Green Line LRT is supposed to be the city's jurisdiction, so is the addition and subtraction of bicycle lanes — though at least with the LRT, the Smith government can argue they're a funding partner. The Smith government's keen interest in downtown bicycle barriers comes alongside Municipal Affairs Minister Dan Williams' comments this week to Postmedia, about cities' business being provincial business. "Every single municipality in this province from the biggest cities to the smallest summer villages are creatures of legislation enacted by this legislature and this government has authority over those municipalities," he said. Technically, this is true, as it is in Ontario and elsewhere. It's not common, however, for provincial ministers or the premier to state this fact, given all its implications for interventions into the decisions of elected city or town councils. 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How these Toronto bike shop owners tracked down their stolen bicycles
A Toronto couple who owns a bike shop is speaking out about how they tracked down their stolen bikes. CBC's Naama Weingarten has more on how it all went down.
CBC
36 minutes ago
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A theft, a sting and an apology: How these Toronto cyclists got their stolen bikes back
How these Toronto bike shop owners tracked down their stolen bicycles 5 minutes ago Duration 2:37 Social Sharing The thief who cut a hole into Noah Rosen and Suzanne Carlsen's fence to steal their bikes probably didn't expect what happened next. Rosen and Carlsen run VéloColour, a Toronto shop known for painting high-end bikes. The couple says the stolen bikes, which they lovingly modified, have a combined value of more than $5,000. They weren't planning to let them go without a chase. "There is sentimental value, but also just a straight cost. And we weren't prepared to lose that much money and then have to replace them," said Rosen. The thief messed with the wrong cyclists — who set up a sting operation to get their bikes back — a solution police don't recommend, but some Torontonians resort to as bicycle thefts remain a widespread issue. The heist It all began last Friday, when the couple was working at their shop. Outside, a security camera captured the culprit cutting through their fence, where the bikes were locked, and riding away with them. "I just started to cry because it was like my baby," said Carlsen, whose bike carries memories from a recent trek through Kyrgyzstan's mountains. The couple shared the ordeal with their large social media following in the hopes other cyclists and shops would recognize their unique bikes if resold. The first clue of the bikes' whereabouts came on Sunday, when Carlsen spotted an ad on Facebook Marketplace for a Surly Bridge Club that looked familiar. "I clicked on it and it was my exact bike," she says. The couple reported the theft to Toronto police, who they say wouldn't help without proof the bike in the ad was one of the ones stolen. That's when they decided to take matters into their own hands. Toronto police were unable to confirm the couple's account prior to publication. The sting With the help of friends, the couple says they set up a meeting with the seller and hid in an alley until they had a chance to confront him. "I went straight into his face and I said, 'You stole our bikes,'" said Rosen. The couple says they retrieved the bike and quickly snapped a photo of the seller as he ran away. Then they messaged the seller, saying they had his photo and phone number as leverage to get the second stolen bike back. The couple says the seller sent a "heartfelt" response. "I'm truly sorry. I don't want any violence….I left the bike up the street and the key is under the front tire," Carlsen says the seller replied. Carlsen says she is still shocked they managed to bring their stolen bikes home in just 48 hours. More than a thousand bicycles have been stolen in Toronto so far this year, police data shows. The number of bike thefts has gone down gradually over the years but spikes over the summer months, according to the data. Toronto police say they advised the couple against the sting out of concern for their safety as the interaction could become aggressive or violent. "Not everybody wants to meet the person that has taken their stuff. You have to decide where your comfort level is," said Rosen. If your bike is stolen, police recommend reporting it and including the serial number, a unique number usually engraved on the frame that can identify a bike even if it's modified. That's the big takeaway for Carlsen, who didn't have her serial number and couldn't prove to police the bike being sold online was hers since she had no up-to-date photo showing how she modified it.
