“Why I am no longer a tenured professor at the University of Toronto” is the National Post headline for what Jordan Peterson read to YouTube, taking new aim at the focus on Diversity, Inclusivity and Equity. JBP has also been increasingly attacking Canadian pandemic policy, while one of his early American fans deleted their discussions.
The slow roll back to campus
Plans were announced for the University of Toronto to resume in-class learning over the course of February, while other post-secondary schools plan to reopen sooner or later. But it’s not hard to find students arguing that it’s easier to stay virtual for the rest of the semester. McGill University social work students are preferring to strike.
Doug Ford’s shovelling stunt has supplied a week of discussion. Cartooning lawyer Caryma Sa’d tracked down the driver who Ontario’s premier dug out of a snowbank to find Ford didn’t act alone. Meanwhile, reaction to Sid Seixeiro’s initial Breakfast Television rant about DoFo led to a follow-up effort before the momentum melts.
The states of Québécois media
In one corner, Le Devoir openly wonders why Ottawa’s promise to support non-profit journalism with tax receipts is moving at a glacial pace. And, in another corner, there’s been an overload of formal complaints about Quebec TV icon Julie Snyder asking kids about how to punish unvaccinated people in a segment that she’s now apologized for:
“This journalist says Canada saved him. Now he’s saving a 136-year-old Ontario newspaper.” While the prospect of being federally forced to focus on underserved media markets—rather than advertising—loom for CBC News, it offers the tale of Mohsin Abbas rescuing reportage that Postmedia abandoned in the town of Tilbury.
Finally, punks push against 50
Billy Talent recruited Rivers Cuomo for the recent single “End of Me,” as the leader of Weezer garnished it with wisdom on how to translate adolescent angst into middle age. Crisis of Faith is on deck as the first album in six years by the Mississauga band that’s been around for nearly 30, still fighting the man through punk rock typography: