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It is kind of unclear, but in this case, she is not a regular government employee but rather the political staffer of a minister of the government (who in Canad
by MattGaiser 5y ago
It is kind of unclear, but in this case, she is not a regular government employee but rather the political staffer of a minister of the government (who in Canada is also an elected official that sits in the legislature). So this isn't like the government terminating a bureaucrat, but rather like a member of congress firing one of their staff.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- enkid 5y agoI'm not clear on the process in Canada. Is this like being a political appointee or more like a traditional government employee? I would certainly understand firing a congressional staffer who was working for a democratic senator and donated to defend the Proud Boys, or equivalent or let's say a Rand Paul staffer who donated to Hillary Clinton's campaign. It shows a conflict of interest. I don't think it would be appropriate to do the same for a GS employee unless that group was advocating the violent overthrow of the constitution.
- 542458 5y agoThe person who was fired appears to be non-OPSEU, so she’s not an employee of the Ontario government. My understanding is that she’s the employee of a political organization (in this case, the organization that acts on the behalf a political appointee).
- Scoundreller 5y agoPlenty of non-union workers in government, and (not as many as there used to be) unionized workers in non-government.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- MattGaiser 5y agoPolitical appointee. Her job exists at the pleasure (and continued holding of office) of her Member of the Provincial Parliament. So say this person lost re-election. This staffer would lose her job as well.
- curiousllama 5y agoWould it be fair to say this is like a Democrat house staffer getting fired for donating to the NRA? Or a Tory staffer to an MP getting fired for donating to a Labour candidate?
- MattGaiser 5y agoYes. Those are comparable.
- inter_netuser 5y agoNo. Ontario has a conservative government, and the federal conservative party supported the convoy to some degree, and a few MPs met with truckers. This would be similar to Democrats firing someone for donating to BLM. Is there such precedent?
- sudosysgen 5y agoYou're confusing the federal conservatives with the provincial conservatives. In Canada, the link between provincial and federal parties is quite tenuous - see the Alberta NPD which is radically different from the federal NPD. The Ontarian conservatives as far as I'm aware were always against it.
- gotorazor 5y agoYes, so more like an Oregon Republican party staffer donating to the Ammon Bundy standoff in 2016. And then the Oregon Republican Party ask that person to resign.
- inter_netuser 5y agois Oregon ruled by mostly Republicans or Democrats? I thought it was a Democrat state overall, with some rural parts that vote R. The crucial question, is this the party in power, or not. In case of Oregon, this appears to be solidly Democrats, not Republicans. In the incident described in the article, Ontario is governed by the Ontario Conservative Party, and so for the comparison to be valid, it would have to be against a governing party, in case of Oregon that to be Democrats. Did any Democrat in Oregon fire any staffers, or similar, that donated to BLM? Militants that allied themselves with BLM have murdered people, which AFAIK is something far beyond anything truckers have done. I have not heard about any donors to BLM being fired over that, and if such precedent exists but for some reason was not widely covered, please post examples, tia.
- skrebbel 5y agoI hope this comment becomes the top comment because it de-escalates the discussion. Like most commenters here, i think it's a bad development if people get fired over their political ideas, but getting fired from a political body over political ideas seems less obviously bad. It still hits all my "people get fired way too easily over opinions" trigger points, but it's decidedly less evil than firing a civil servant who disagrees with the current administration's policies, which is how I read the article title.
- tootie 5y agoIt says she specifically works in a law enforcement agency. So her financially supporting criminal activity makes her position untenable.
- romaniv 5y agoMy cynical take is this is exactly why CTV, which was clearly and strongly biased against the protest when it was happening, decided to publish this particular story right now. Normalization aka boiling the frog. You start with a case in the gray area that generally seems okay, allow people to process it, then move to cases on the other side of the gray area, then move outside of (old) gray area entirely. This happened with so many things recently. Social media is making this process a hundred times more powerful.