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Vaughn Palmer: Selina Robinson decision more about politics than principles – Vancouver Sun

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Opinion: David Eby abandoned Robinson after one weekend because the NDP couldn’t afford the political hit in Surrey, a community whose votes and financial contributions it needs in an election year

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VICTORIA — Premier David Eby tried this week to rationalize why he abandoned his support for Selina Robinson, and instead insisted that she resign from cabinet over her ill-advised comment on Palestine.

He told reporters that Robinson had violated his standards for cabinet ministers by attacking a vulnerable community.

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He had initially thought that she could repair the damage by reaching out and trying to placate those she had hurt.

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But after taking further soundings over the weekend, Eby felt she had too much repair work to do. He believed she couldn’t also fulfil her responsibilities as minister of post-secondary education.

“The math doesn’t add up,” he claimed.

But there are good reasons for doubting the premier’s version, starting with his insistence that he has established standards for behaviour for cabinet ministers that will be enforced consistently.

Take the case of Mitzi Dean, until recently Eby’s minister of children and family development.

Starting last June, she was under fire over the “house of horrors” case. Two Indigenous children were repeatedly tortured by their foster parents to the point where one died and the other endured severe injury.

Dean’s ministry failed to do its duty to check up on the children for months at a time.

There were multiple calls for Dean to accept responsibility for her ministry’s failings and resign. Critics also questioned her competence to carry on.

“We’ve heard from the minister herself,” said Grand Chief Stewart Phillip of the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, whose wife Joan was the newly elected NDP MLA for Vancouver-Mount Pleasant. “She (Dean) has about three or four speaking points and pretty much every time she responded that yes, it was a terrible situation.

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“She will not acknowledge that it was a homicide or anything like that. She just keeps repeating that it is a terrible situation and she’ll do better. That’s not good enough. A child has died here needlessly.”

If there’s a more vulnerable group in the province than Indigenous children in the care of a ministry that neglects to care for them, I can’t think what it would be.

Still, Eby stood by his failing minister and her failing ministry.

“She has my confidence,” he told reporters. He pleaded that Dean herself was “profoundly affected” by the case, as if she were some sort of victim.

Eby’s stance was in keeping with the rule of “no trophies” in politics. Premiers fear that to dump a minister means conceding that the critics are right, whetting appetites for more and acknowledging that the appointment may have been a mistake in the first place.

The premier stood by his beleaguered minister of children and family development through the summer and fall, letting her twist slowly in the wind while under fire in the legislature.

Not until last month did Eby finally remove Dean from the ministry. Even then it was merely a demotion to a junior ministry of state, not an outright firing. So much for the notion that Eby demands high standards of ministers and disciplines them accordingly.

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The premier characterized the Dean downgrade as “a reluctant decision” that he and the MLA “reached together.”

He made the same claim Monday regarding the outright ouster of Robinson: “We reached the conclusion together.”

Alas for the premier, the supposed willing partner in this exercise in joint decision-making, Robinson, was nowhere to be found.

The New Democrats can’t make it through a news conference without lining up a half-dozen stakeholders to thank the government and attest to the wisdom of the day’s announcement.

But there was Eby, justifying one of the tougher decisions of his time in office, and having to do it solo because the minister he had pushed out the door declined to be present to validate it.

The third dubious aspect of Eby’s presentation was his explanation for what changed between Friday — when he was still standing by Robinson — and Monday when he decided she had to go.

Over the weekend, a dozen-and-a-half Muslim leaders announced that New Democrats would no longer be welcome in their communities so long as Robinson remained in cabinet.

The New Democrats were also forced to cancel a fundraising dinner in Surrey, an all-hands-on-deck event in a community critical to the NDP in this election year.

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The mosque boycott and the cancelled fundraiser showed Eby the political stakes of standing by Robinson. It was a “math” problem all right, but one of votes and dollars, not time management.

Eby maintained Dean in her ministry for seven months because it was not in his political interest to hand a trophy to the relatively powerless critics calling for her resignation.

He abandoned Robinson after one weekend because the NDP couldn’t afford the political hit in a community whose votes and financial contributions it needs in an election year.

The premier frames himself as a leader of principle, governing with high standards.

But with the cases of Mitzi Dean and Selina Robinson, he looks more like a politician who makes the decision that suits his political interest, then rummages around for some principles to justify it.

vpalmer@postmedia.com 

Recommended from Editorial

  1. Demonstrators outside an NDP caucus retreat in Surrey on Feb. 5, 2024, after B.C. minister Selina Robinson's comments about Palestine.

    Vaughn Palmer: ‘Math’ didn’t work for Selina Robinson to stay in cabinet

  2. Former cabinet minister Selina Robinson.

    Selina Robinson’s resignation was not a ‘joint decision’ with B.C. premier, source says


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Quebec party supports member who accused fellow politicians of denigrating minorities

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MONTREAL – A Quebec political party has voted to support one of its members facing backlash for saying that racialized people are regularly disparaged at the provincial legislature.

Québec solidaire members adopted an emergency resolution at the party’s convention late Sunday condemning the hate directed at Haroun Bouazzi, without endorsing his comments.

Bouazzi, who represents a Montreal riding, had told a community group that he hears comments every day at the legislature that portray North African, Muslim, Black or Indigenous people as the “other,” and that paint their cultures are dangerous or inferior.

Other political parties have said Bouazzi’s remarks labelled elected officials as racists, and the co-leaders of his own party had rebuked him for his “clumsy and exaggerated” comments.

Bouazzi, who has said he never intended to describe his colleagues as racist, thanked his party for their support and for their commitment to the fight against systemic racism.

Party co-spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois said after Sunday’s closed-door debate that he considers the matter to be closed.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 18, 2024.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Virginia Democrats advance efforts to protect abortion, voting rights, marriage equality

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RICHMOND, Va. (AP) — Democrats who control both chambers of the Virginia legislature are hoping to make good on promises made on the campaign trail, including becoming the first Southern state to expand constitutional protections for abortion access.

The House Privileges and Elections Committee advanced three proposed constitutional amendments Wednesday, including a measure to protect reproductive rights. Its members also discussed measures to repeal a now-defunct state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and ways to revise Virginia’s process to restore voting rights for people who served time for felony crimes.

“This meeting was an important next step considering the moment in history we find ourselves in,” Democratic Del. Cia Price, the committee chair, said during a news conference. “We have urgent threats to our freedoms that could impact constituents in all of the districts we serve.”

The at-times raucous meeting will pave the way for the House and Senate to take up the resolutions early next year after lawmakers tabled the measures last January. Democrats previously said the move was standard practice, given that amendments are typically introduced in odd-numbered years. But Republican Minority Leader Todd Gilbert said Wednesday the committee should not have delved into the amendments before next year’s legislative session. He said the resolutions, particularly the abortion amendment, need further vetting.

“No one who is still serving remembers it being done in this way ever,” Gilbert said after the meeting. “Certainly not for something this important. This is as big and weighty an issue as it gets.”

The Democrats’ legislative lineup comes after Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin, to the dismay of voting-rights advocates, rolled back a process to restore people’s civil rights after they completed sentences for felonies. Virginia is the only state that permanently bans anyone convicted of a felony from voting unless a governor restores their rights.

“This amendment creates a process that is bounded by transparent rules and criteria that will apply to everybody — it’s not left to the discretion of a single individual,” Del. Elizabeth Bennett-Parker, the patron of the voting rights resolution, which passed along party lines, said at the news conference.

Though Democrats have sparred with the governor over their legislative agenda, constitutional amendments put forth by lawmakers do not require his signature, allowing the Democrat-led House and Senate to bypass Youngkin’s blessing.

Instead, the General Assembly must pass proposed amendments twice in at least two years, with a legislative election sandwiched between each statehouse session. After that, the public can vote by referendum on the issues. The cumbersome process will likely hinge upon the success of all three amendments on Democrats’ ability to preserve their edge in the House and Senate, where they hold razor-thin majorities.

It’s not the first time lawmakers have attempted to champion the three amendments. Republicans in a House subcommittee killed a constitutional amendment to restore voting rights in 2022, a year after the measure passed in a Democrat-led House. The same subcommittee also struck down legislation supporting a constitutional amendment to repeal an amendment from 2006 banning marriage equality.

On Wednesday, a bipartisan group of lawmakers voted 16-5 in favor of legislation protecting same-sex marriage, with four Republicans supporting the resolution.

“To say the least, voters enacted this (amendment) in 2006, and we have had 100,000 voters a year become of voting age since then,” said Del. Mark Sickles, who sponsored the amendment as one of the first openly gay men serving in the General Assembly. “Many people have changed their opinions of this as the years have passed.”

A constitutional amendment protecting abortion previously passed the Senate in 2023 but died in a Republican-led House. On Wednesday, the amendment passed on party lines.

If successful, the resolution proposed by House Majority Leader Charniele Herring would be part of a growing trend of reproductive rights-related ballot questions given to voters. Since 2022, 18 questions have gone before voters across the U.S., and they have sided with abortion rights advocates 14 times.

The voters have approved constitutional amendments ensuring the right to abortion until fetal viability in nine states: Arizona, California, Colorado, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Ohio and Vermont. Voters also passed a right-to-abortion measure in Nevada in 2024, but it must be passed again in 2026 to be added to the state constitution.

As lawmakers debated the measure, roughly 18 members spoke. Mercedes Perkins, at 38 weeks pregnant, described the importance of women making decisions about their own bodies. Rhea Simon, another Virginia resident, anecdotally described how reproductive health care shaped her life.

Then all at once, more than 50 people lined up to speak against the abortion amendment.

“Let’s do the compassionate thing and care for mothers and all unborn children,” resident Sheila Furey said.

The audience gave a collective “Amen,” followed by a round of applause.

___

Associated Press writer Geoff Mulvihill in Cherry Hill, New Jersey, contributed to this report.

___

Olivia Diaz is a corps member for The Associated Press/Report for America Statehouse News Initiative.

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Trump chooses anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary

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NEW YORK (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump says he will nominate anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, putting him in charge of a massive agency that oversees everything from drug, vaccine and food safety to medical research and the social safety net programs Medicare and Medicaid.

“For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social site announcing the appointment. Kennedy, he said, would “Make America Great and Healthy Again!”

Kennedy, a former Democrat who ran as an independent in this year’s presidential race, abandoned his bid after striking a deal to give Trump his endorsement with a promise to have a role in health policy in the administration.

He and Trump have since become good friends, with Kennedy frequently receiving loud applause at Trump’s rallies.

The expected appointment was first reported by Politico Thursday.

A longtime vaccine skeptic, Kennedy is an attorney who has built a loyal following over several decades of people who admire his lawsuits against major pesticide and pharmaceutical companies. He has pushed for tighter regulations around the ingredients in foods.

With the Trump campaign, he worked to shore up support among young mothers in particular, with his message of making food healthier in the U.S., promising to model regulations imposed in Europe. In a nod to Trump’s original campaign slogan, he named the effort “Make America Healthy Again.”

It remains unclear how that will square with Trump’s history of deregulation of big industries, including food. Trump pushed for fewer inspections of the meat industry, for example.

Kennedy’s stance on vaccines has also made him a controversial figure among Democrats and some Republicans, raising question about his ability to get confirmed, even in a GOP-controlled Senate. Kennedy has espoused misinformation around the safety of vaccines, including pushing a totally discredited theory that childhood vaccines cause autism.

He also has said he would recommend removing fluoride from drinking water. The addition of the material has been cited as leading to improved dental health.

HHS has more than 80,000 employees across the country. It houses the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Medicare and Medicaid programs and the National Institutes of Health.

Kennedy’s anti-vaccine nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, currently has a lawsuit pending against a number of news organizations, among them The Associated Press, accusing them of violating antitrust laws by taking action to identify misinformation, including about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy took leave from the group when he announced his run for president but is listed as one of its attorneys in the lawsuit.

__ Seitz reported from Washington.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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