Editorials - May 30, 2025

Many of you may have missed your paper last week, and we apologize for any inconvenience. When Canada Post gives a 72-hour notice of an impending strike on a Tuesday, it makes it difficult to plan for the Friday paper. We have to deposit the papers with the local post offices on Thursday, so that mail carriers can sort them and have them ready to go to the rural routes on Fridays. 

 

The idea of the notice may seem to help businesses, but not knowing if a strike is happening for sure or not leaves us to guess. This time, we erred on the side of caution, not wanting to pay for the papers to go in the mail only to have them trapped inside the post office if the carrier went on strike at midnight before the Friday delivery could happen. Unfortunately, we guessed wrong. CUPW decided to do an overtime ban, rather than a walkout. It turns out the mail kept moving, but the local papers were already distributed to the pick-up points. We were able to deposit all papers that are too far for people to pick-up, but it left a lot of confusion for readers wondering where their paper was.

 

Planning business around another’s labour negotiation leaves us feeling a little helpless. We’ve done our best to plan for alternate pick-ups and a free e-dition to keep the news flowing, and we will continue to try to navigate the uncertainty. For the sake of everyone’s sanity, we hope that Canada Post and CUPW can reach a contract soon. – DS

Here we go again. Another government is moving to ban “extremely graphic and age-inappropriate” books from its school libraries. Not many specifics have been given by the government in question, but the Minister of Education and Childcare, Demetrios Nicolaides, has been unequivocal in his government’s stance that, “...this is not a question of banning specific books or specific titles, but rather, establishing clear policies and guidelines for all school divisions to follow.” In which backwards, Trump-loving state is this happening? Alberta, of course.

 

While oversight is always necessary when children are involved, the Alberta Teachers’ Association has pushed back what appears to be clear homophobia. President Jason Schilling says it’s no coincidence that the four books singled out were those that contained LGBTQ stories. 

 

While the banning of books may have been thought by many to be a thing of the past, it is experiencing a renaissance. And, as those on the far right wing of society gain momentum around the world, the list of books being pulled from libraries is growing. Ira Wells recently wrote a piece for The Walrus under the headline, “Book Banning in Canada is Quiet, Systemic, and More Effective than Ever,” underpinned by the deck, “Our libraries are being purged in the name of protecting kids.”

 

As secession talk continues, Premier Danielle Smith continues to prioritize her relationship with U.S. President Donald Trump over her fellow premiers and federal government and Albertans continue to see themselves as different from their fellow Canadians, they are becoming more American by the day. Not only is this misguided, but banning books never makes its way onto the right side of  history. – SL 

Sometimes, a foreign courtroom gives Canadians a clearer view of our own legal system than the institutions tasked with communicating it at home. This month, a preliminary extradition hearing in an Edinburgh courtroom granted the public its first substantial look into the events surrounding the death of Sharif Rahman, an Owen Sound restaurateur who died after an altercation outside his business in August of 2023.

 

Canadian authorities have withheld most details of the case. The names of suspects were not released until December, four months after arrests were made, and the information came not via press conference, but a terse news release offering no elaboration. Ontario court records remain sealed. The Ministry of the Attorney General, the Crown and the courts all maintain there is no publicly-available information.

 

And yet, there it was, in an Edinburgh court: a wealth of documents from the Ontario Provincial Police and Crown prosecutors laid bare before the public, providing a moment-by-moment account of the evening of Aug. 17, 2023, and what followed. This includes allegations that 24-year-old Robert Evans Jr. punched Rahman, causing him to fall backward and hit his head on the pavement. The accused’s father and uncle are now charged as accessories after the fact, allegedly helping him flee and retrieve documents before leaving the country.

 

The court in Edinburgh is doing its job. It is carefully weighing the legal complexities of extradition, including whether the Canadian charge of “accessory after the fact” aligns with the Scottish equivalent of “attempting to pervert the course of justice.” 

There may be reasons for some temporary confidentiality in the early stages of an investigation. But nearly two years later, with arrests made, suspects in custody and extradition proceedings well underway, it is hard to understand why so much remains hidden. – SBS