LILLEY: Yonge St., Wellesley, Churchill and more on city renaming list
Are we ready to give up Yonge St. in Toronto? The most famous street in the city is on the list of streets and places that should be considered for renaming.
The same city report that pushed forward the idea of renaming Dundas St. said that there were 60 street names, including 12 named for slave owners, which “are no longer considered to be reflective of the city’s contemporary values.”
A recruitment ‘crisis’ threatens the RCMP’s future — the new boss has plans to turn it around
… The Management Advisory Board, an outside panel of experts set up to give impartial advice to the RCMP commissioner, recently reported that the force’s recruitment problem can be described accurately as a “crisis” — one that could threaten its ability to serve as Canada’s national police force.
“If these [regular members] are not replaced by new cadets from diverse backgrounds and with capacity to serve, the RCMP will be even more challenged to meet its service delivery commitments under the provincial, territorial and municipal police service agreements, and to maintain federal policing capacity,” the board said in a report released in May.
Toronto school principal Richard Bilkszto was bullied by an anti-racism trainer over “his whiteness” — his questioning of her assertion that Canada is a more racist place than the United States. In July, he took his own life. The victim here is easy to spot. It’s the dead man.
The suicide of former Toronto school principle Richard Bilkszto, 60, was one that many of his associates believe was prompted, at least in part, by vicious attacks from an “anti-racism” instructor. After he differed on her assessment of pervasive structural racism, she held up his comments as an example of “white supremacy.” In the progressive-dominated education bureaucracy, this stands as among the worst of sins.
Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) trustee Mike Ramsay says he is the victim of a “radical left NDP group of trustees” who don’t like that he was re-elected and speaks his mind.
Mr. Ramsay, a former police officer and military veteran, issued a statement on X, formerly Twitter, on July 31 saying he had just been made aware of another WRDSB Code of Conduct complaint made against him.
An anti-racism instructor was recorded mocking and laughing at a beloved Toronto principal who challenged her teachings — holding him up as an example of white supremacy “resistance,” according to a report.
Richard Bilkszto, 60, later committed suicide.
Bilkszto’s July death came after diversity, equity and inclusion, or DEI, instructor Kike Ojo-Thompson proclaimed Canada was more racist than the United States, a statement the principal pushed back on.
The tragic case of Richard Bilkszto, which shocked Canadians and was publicized internationally, highlights in their most extreme form, the dangers of the militant imposition of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) dogmas. On this occasion, Bilkszto, a well-respected Toronto District School Board (TDSB) principal, attended compulsory DEI sessions in which the lecturer, Kike Ojo-Thompson, upbraided him for disputing her statement that Canada was a more racist country than the United States. She apparently responded unpleasantly that, among other things, ”You in your whiteness think that you can tell me what’s really going on for Black people.” In a second session, she allegedly held Bilkszto’s comments up as a real-life example of being a white supremacist.
His name was Richard Bilkszto and he had a distinguished 24-year career as a school teacher, teaching in both the United States and Canada. Most recently, he worked as a principal with the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) where he consistently received outstanding performance reviews, at least until he ran afoul of the woke ideology being pushed by his employer.
Won’t happen until a new broom sweeps all of the TDSB’s commie trash into the dustbin.
In February, Gov. Ron DeSantis signed legislation creating the new board and abolishing its predecessor, which was tightly linked with the primary business it regulated— Disney World.
The act was part of Mr. DeSantis’s war with Disney after its leaders came out against his Parental Rights in Education bill last year, one dubbed the “Don’t Say Gay” bill by detractors.
Since the district’s 1967 creation, Disney had enjoyed a unique self-governing status, putting it outside Florida county or city governments. It was governed by the Reedy Creek Improvement District, and it appointed the members to it. It enjoyed various tax exemptions.
Kike Ojo-Thompson, a diversity trainer in Toronto, was explaining to her class of 200 or so public school administrators that Canada is a much more racist country than the United States.
“Canada is a bastion of white supremacy and colonialism,” Thompson said to a sea of nodding heads squeezed into Zoom. “The racism we experience is far worse here than there.”
It was April 26, 2021, and Thompson was leading attendees through a session on systemic inequity.
Anti-racism, diversity training under threat, say Black community leaders at Queen’s Park rally
Black community leaders rallied at Queen’s Park on Wednesday to fight against what they see as threats to anti-racism, diversity, and equity training in Ontario schools.
Advocates feel that work is under attack after the death by suicide of a former Toronto District School Board principal last month.
The plot has thickened in the tragic suicide of a school principal, as documents now show the equity and diversity training — alleged to have led to his downfall — was awarded as a sole-sourced contract.
Two related stories hit my desk this week, both about the perils of wokeism and increasing backlash against diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI).
The first, from the Wall Street Journal, chronicled the fall of chief diversity officers, job listings for which plummeted 75 per cent in the United States in the past year. As the article noted: “… DEI jobs were put in the crosshairs after many companies started re-examining their executive ranks during the tech sector’s shake out last fall. DEI work has also become a political target.”
Roland Friesler would be proud.
Traditional Chinese culture, thousands of years old, is filled with beautiful Confucian philosophies, kinship rituals, artistic symbolism, mythologies, and regular devotion to family ancestors. To observe any of these ancient customs in person, however, it is Taiwan — not China — where a visitor must go. When mainland Chinese communists bulldozed over China’s rich heritage and Mao Zedong’s “Cultural Revolution” purged the “Four Olds” — old customs, culture, habits, and ideas — from Chinese society, Taiwan became the de facto last refuge for one of the world’s oldest great civilizations.
TDSB launches investigation in wake of former principal’s suicide
The Toronto District School Board said Thursday it is launching an investigation in the wake of the recent suicide of a former principal who said he was harassed and bullied during anti-racism training sessions held two years ago.
Richard Bilkszto, a 60-year-old retired principal, sued the TDSB earlier this year, alleging that his reputation was “systemically demolished” during two anti-Black racism training sessions in the spring of 2021 when, after he had challenged some of the speaker’s comments, he was allegedly singled out and accused of supporting white supremacy.
