"Kinew’s government, among others, have begun shifting towards progressive carcerality, and the expansion of policing and punishment often hidden behind political figures who are deemed 'diverse.'"

~Black Indigenous Harm Reduction Alliance
deadlycollective.com/2025/11/12/g...

The language barrier also contributed to an almost total absence of substantive debate or disagreement on issues. It's reminiscent of the recent Liberal leadership contest. In such scenarios, the perceived frontrunners seem to thrive, so advantage McPherson and Lewis I suppose

I was a French immersion student—I know it's tough to learn a new language as an adult. But a group of NDP candidates telling a Québec audience how important their language is was embarrassing. Singh, for his other shortcomings, had better command of French than any of this lot

McQuail on what he learned from a provincial NDP victory in Ontario: "If you win government, don't go home and leave the work to the people you elected. Get out in the street the next day and demand more, so the right can't shift the discussion away from the goals of the NDP."

Tony McQuail's French was beyond rough, and he generally ditched it for English.

McQuail did have interesting reflections on how to build up the party in Quebec, based on his experience organizing in Ontario's rural ridings. He was honest about the challenge ahead of the party

The fire that McPherson has sometimes displayed in Parliament was invisible last night. She didn't lean on her obvious advantage: parliamentary experience and an electoral track record. Her lack of a clearly articulated message and vision is a liability if it continues

Heather McPherson's French was poor, a discouraging sign given how long she's known she wanted to run. Her lack of language command made her ideas sound extremely basic, likely more basic than they actually are. It was a bad look for the only elected member of the group

Lewis is a talented communicator in English. He told good stories about Indigenous youth fighting the Northern Gateway pipeline, and labourers building electric buses in Winnipeg.

His French is subpar and must improve dramatically if he hopes to lead a party revival in Quebec

Avi Lewis showed he can read French off a page, but struggled to converse freely and often switched back to English

Lewis repeatedly singled out Loblaws CEO Galen Weston as an avatar of greed. This talking point will resonate with some, but for me it got old with repetition

Similarly, Johnston was convincing and down-to-earth when she talked about defending 2SLGBTQ+ communities from political attacks, and supporting nurses who have been run ragged in recent years. Her inability to speak French really sunk her overall presentation, but she tried

Tanille Johnston's French was poor, and she spent too much time saying that learning French is important (to be fair, most others did the same)

Johnston sounded stronger, in English, when she vowed that a proposed new oil pipeline through B.C. will never be built

Ashton clearly communicates an 'us vs them' posture in defence of working people, but his major ideas about guaranteed jobs for all, and a cap on grocery prices, need to be explained in far more detail than he's offered up till now. His delivery is confident but slogan-heavy

Rob Ashton had probably the most galling line of the night when he said in English, "the language of the working class rises above any language in the world." Yikes.

Ashton said that until a couple months ago he wasn't considering a leadership run, and his performance showed it

The candidates were uncomfortable speaking French off the cuff, and mainly just read prepared statements. They regularly gave up on French altogether and switched to English. There was a grating chorus of 'we need Quebec in order to win power', but little depth on how to proceed

If police had recognized there was no danger that day, who could they have called to speak with Devon and make sure he was okay?

We need to divest from policing and invest more in alternative, non-violent responses

www.thesarniajournal.ca/news/the-dif...

Police confronted Devon after getting a call he had a knife in a park. He did. But when police arrived and realized he was alone with his dog, not threatening anyone, they should have simply spoken to him

They didn't. They almost killed my friend, a Black homeless man living in his car

Even if Davis had gotten an incredibly harsh sentence that included jail time, Devon would still be disabled and suffering the consequences of being shot

This outcome simply illustrates how likely police are to be excused for violence, even when criminally convicted