FRIDAY,MARCH6,2020 | THEGLOBEANDMAILO NEWS | A
I
’m not going to feign impar-
tiality here: I am heartbroken
that Elizabeth Warren has
dropped out of the U.S. Demo-
cratic primary race. Once again, a
highly intelligent, qualified, orga-
nized, thoughtful, empathetic
candidate couldn’t get traction
with American voters – in large
part because she is a woman.
Let’s not pretend otherwise.
Democrats–Iamone, a U.S.
citizen who votes in Pennsylva-
nia – insist they want the oppo-
site of Donald Trump. No one is
more opposite to an ill-informed,
lazy, petulant, divisive, under-
qualified liar than Ms. Warren. So
what stopped voters from em-
bracing her? They call it caution:
“Yes,” goes the conversation I’ve
had dozens of times with dozens
of people in the past dozen
months, “it would be great to
vote for my ideal candidate, but
Trump is so dangerous, we must
elect the practical candidate, the
person who can beat him, and I
just don’t think Warren can.”
Pressed on why that is, they
mumble. She’s too schoolmar-
mish, too lecture-y. Those voters
on the fence, they won’t tip for
her. A female candidate is “just
too risky right now,” for this
make-or-break election.
Meanwhile, the two men who
defeated her are the embod-
iment of shouty, and of risky. To
impersonate Joe Biden, Stephen
Colbert puts on a pair of aviator
sunglasses, tips his head back
and YELLS. To do Bernie Sanders,
Larry David hunches over, waves
his arms, and YELLS. To do Ms.
Warren, Kate McKinnon boundsaround energetically and whis-
pers. But somehow Ms. Warren is
the one who’s too strident.
As for risky, the people I’ve
been talking to admit their fears:
that Mr. Biden is too bland, too
middle-of-the-road to appeal to
young voters; that Mr. Sanders is
too divisive, too polarizing to at-
tract the former Trumpers suffer-
ing from buyers’ remorse. But
they consider those acceptable
risks. We must be honest about
why that is.
Full confession: I considered
not voting for Ms. Warren, too.
For a moment there, I thought I
would have to go for Michael
Bloomberg. I didn’t like it, I’d
hold my nose. But I had to think
about those nervous white men
in the middle, the disillusioned
Republicans, the swayable Inde-
pendents. What would reassure
them? What would make them
feel comfortable?
Then in the most recent de-
bate, Ms. Warren assailed Mr.
Bloomberg, and shook me out of
my fugue state. She called him
out on his specific practices, hisspecific ethos. She critiqued
things he had done and ex-
plained clearly why they were
not acceptable. I actually blushed
with chagrin. The ways I’ve been
conditioned to put men’s needs
first! The things I am willing to
forgive powerful men for! And if
I’ve internalized the patriarchy to
that degree, everyone has.
The spaces of power – the
boardrooms andgovernment of-
fices – were not designed for
women or queer people, or peo-
ple of colour. They’re not set up
for our needs. Some of us get in
there by accommodating, by
contorting ourselves, by lying
low or going high, by pretending
we don’t notice that we’re being
looked through or talked over.
Ms. Warren didn’t pretend to
be less than she is. She is smart.
She is organized. She does know
what she’s talking about. She be-
lieves we should listen to her. She
knows she’s right about a lot of
things, and she doesn’t apologize
for it. That threatens, consciously
or unconsciously, the public’s
comfort level. People love Mr.Sanders’s authenticity, and Mr.
Biden’s. Ms. Warren’s authentic-
ity, however – it’s just a bit too
much.
In the days just before Super
Tuesday, as Amy Klobuchar and
Pete Buttigeig dropped out and
endorsed Mr. Biden, my Twitter
feed filled with last-ditch pleas,
including an exceptional, long
thread by American activist
Charlotte Clymer that laid out
Ms. Warren’s history of being
smart, qualified and correct.
These pleas made a strong case
that Ms. Warren was the candi-
date most able to create a coali-
tion; the one with a clear plat-
form and plans; the one who
could affect the kind of changes
the Democrats keep saying the
United States desperately needs.
Now she’s the one who was
pushed aside. Again.
If we keep cutting and running
from female candidates at the
last minute, we’ll never get the
leaders we want. We’ll just keep
getting the ones we deserve.Special to The Globe and MailTherealreasonWarrendroppedout
Onceagain,we’re
remindedthatthe
spacesofpowerwere
notdesignedfor
women,queerpeople
orpeopleofcolour
JOHANNA
SCHNELLER
OPINIONAlberta Environment Minister Ja-
son Nixon wasn’t available for an
interview, but his spokeswoman,
Jess Sinclair, said in a statement
that the province wants to ensure
it retains control over its industri-
al carbon-pricing system without
interference from the federal gov-
ernment.
Federal Environment Minister
Jonathan Wilkinson’s press secre-
tary, Moira Kelly, said in a state-
ment that thegovernment had
not received a formal proposal
from Alberta about its carbon-
pricing plans, but nonetheless
welcomed the news.
“We are pleased to see that the
Albertagovernment is willing to
put a price on industrial pollu-
tion, as it is an important tool to
drive innovation forward to re-
duce greenhouse gas emissions,”
the statement said.
Alberta has had various forms
of carbon pricing on its emis-
sions-heavy oil sector since 2007,
and Mr. Kenney campaigned on
the TIER system ahead of last
year’s provincial election.
Dale Beugin, vice-president of
research at the Canadian Insti-
tute for Climate Choices, said Al-
berta’s decision to increase the
TIER rate is an endorsement of
the national climate plan.
“We know climate policy has to
get more stringent all across the
country over time, and the way to
do that is to gradually increase
stringency, whether it’s the price
of carbon or the aggressiveness of
regulation,” Mr. Beugin said.
“This feels like a step in exactly
that direction.”
Chris Severson-Baker, of the
Pembina Institute, agreed that
the planned increases are posi-
tive, though he said $50 a tonne,
whether at the federal or provin-
cial level, will not be enough.
The federal carbon-pricing
plan for industry applies in Onta-
rio, Manitoba, New Brunswick,
Prince Edward Island, Nunavut,
Yukon and two sectors in Sas-
katchewan. The federal consum-
er tax on gasoline and other fuels
is in place in Alberta, Saskatche-
wan, Ontario, Manitoba, Yukon,
Nunavut and New Brunswick.
The Manitoba government an-
nounced Thursday that it would
implement a carbon tax of $25 a
tonne on consumers and indus-
try. The price will fall short of the
federal requirements, leaving it
an open question whether Otta-
wa will insist on keeping its own
tax in the province.
Alberta’s decision to adopt the
federal price increases follows
nearly a year of conflict between
Mr. Kenney’sgovernment and Ot-
tawa over climate policy.
In addition to the carbon-tax
court case, Mr. Kenney has also
filed a challenge of federal envi-ronmental legislation that over-
hauled the environmental as-
sessment system and banned oil
tanker traffic off the B.C. coast.
As well, Alberta has a 100-
megaton cap on oil sands emis-
sions, put in place by the previ-
ous NDP government, but no reg-
ulations to enforce it. The Kenney
government signalled it would be
willing to introduce regulations
as the issue became a potential
sticking point for Teck Resource’s
Ltd.’s proposed Frontier oil sands
mine before the company
abruptly shelved the project last
week.
When Teck announced that it
had withdrawn its application for
the project, CEO Don Lindsay told
the federal Environment Minister
in a letter that the decision was
driven in part by the lack of a
“framework in place that recon-
ciles resource development and
climate change.” Mr. Lindsay also
reiterated his support for carbon
pricing and emissions caps.
Alberta and Ottawa are also
negotiating an equivalency
agreement for the regulation of
methane, a potent greenhouse
gas that can leak into the atmo-
sphere during natural-gas extrac-
tion and processing. The two gov-
ernments disagree on whether
the province’s rules are stringent
enough, but the federalgovern-
ment agreed not to enforce its
rules during those negotiations.TheSyncrudeCanadaplantnearFortMcMurray,Alta.,isseenfromtheairin2015.Albertahasa100-megaton
caponoilsandsemissions,butnoregulationstoenforceit.IANWILLMS/THENEWYORKTIMES
Tax:Albertaseekstoretaincontroloverindustrial
carbonpricingwithoutinterferencefromOttawa
FROMAEarlier on Thursday, police discovered the burned-out rem-
nants of a black Jeep Wrangler identical to the vehicle the
teen was seen being forced into on Wednesday morning.
Witnesses told police they saw a teen boy yelling, “Help
me, help me,” as two or three people forced him into a Jeep
Wrangler around 8:30 a.m. Police received a report of “un-
known trouble” from a witness soon after and investigated
for the next nine hours without knowing the boy’s identity.
Staff at Newtonbrook Secondary School missed a morning
deadline to issue an automated absentee notification to
Shammah’s parents, Toronto District School Board spokes-
man Ryan Bird said. The Jolayemi family received a call at
6:09 p.m.
The board has a policy of sending notifications to parents
at 11 a.m. and 6 p.m. when children are absent. Four staff have
been placed on “home assignment” while the board investi-
gates why no morning call went out to the family.
Mr. Bird said his absence should have been noted in an 11
a.m. call. “For some reason it was not.”
The boy’s father called police at 5:30 p.m. after his son did
not return from school. Once Toronto police correlated the
teen’s absence with the morning abduction report, they re-
quested an Amber Alert, issued around midnight.
Toronto police released security camera footage of a black
Jeep Wrangler with oversized tires and a heavy-duty off-road
bumpers. They are looking for two men, between the ages of
18 and 22, who were wearing black jackets and bandanas on
their heads.
News of Shammah’s disappearance came as a shock to Ri-
ta Smith, who helps run an entrepreneurship program for
local high-school students in which the teen has been partici-
pating since October. Ms. Smith described Shammah as an
outstanding participant who never misses a class and always
asks “the best questions.” He is involved with other activities
too, she said, including violin lessons and French immersion
studies at Newtonbrook.
“He stood out in our class like a gem,” she said.
The teen is about six feet tall with a slim build. At the time
of his abduction, he was wearing a grey hoodie, grey track
pants with a thin orange stripe, shiny black puffy coat and
black-and-yellow Air Jordan shoes.WithareportfromTheCanadianPressAbduction:Witnessessay
theysawteencallingforhelp
whilebeingforcedintocar
FROMATorontoboyShammahJolayemiwasabductedonhiswayto
schoolonWednesday,andanAmberAlertwasissuedlater
thatnight.THECANADIANPRESS/TORONTOPOLICESERVICECanada is taking a lead role in
what Transport Minister Marc
Garneau said Thursday he hopes
will become an international ef-
fort to better protect civilian air-
liners around the world from be-
ing shot down over conflict
zones.
Mr. Garneau was in the U.S.
capital to promote what he’s
calling the Strategy for Safer
Skies – a Canadian-led multilat-
eral effort to improve co-ordina-
tion, communication and intelli-
gence-sharing between civil avia-
tion agencies and airlines
around the world.
“As a global community, we
cannot add any more names to
the list of lives that have been
lost, of families whose lives have
been turned upside down,” Mr.
Garneau told an audience of
aviation executives, industry
leaders and experts at a summit
meeting hosted by the U.S.
Chamber of Commerce. “We
must find ways to better manage
civil aviation above conflict
zones.”
Canada has been seized with
the issue ever since January,
when – in the midst of Iran’s bal-
listic-missile retaliation against
Iraqi military bases housing U.S.
soldiers for the targeted killing of
senior Iranian military com-
mander Qasem Soleimani – a
Ukraine International Airlines
flight was shot out of the sky
over Tehran.
Flight PS752 had been bound
for Kyiv, but was laden with pas-sengers destined for a connect-
ing flight to Toronto, including 55
Canadian citizens, 30 permanent
residents and many others with
connections to Canada. All 176
people aboard perished. Iran ini-
tially denied involvement, only
to admit three days after the
crash that its military fired a pair
of missiles at the jet, having mis-
taken it for a hostile target.
After the disaster, Prime Min-
ister Justin Trudeau made it clear
Canada would take steps to pre-
vent such a tragedy from ever
happening again. He cited the
specific expertise of the Nether-
lands, which developed a num-
ber of recommendations after a
Malaysian Airlines flight was
shot down over separatist-held
territory in Ukraine in 2014, kill-
ing 298.In neither case was the air-
space closed to passenger flights,
despite the obvious risk, Mr. Gar-
neau said. “We are not going to
depend entirely on the countries
where this may be happening,
where there may be conflict,” he
said.
“There has to be an intelli-
gence-gathering process, there
has to be a risk assessment fol-
lowing that intelligence gather-
ing and there has to be a sharing
of that information. In the case
of Iran and Ukraine, they did not
themselves close their airspace,
and as a result of that, certain
airlines flew in and out or over
that airspace.”
Canada will lead efforts
among its partner countries, in-
cluding members of a working
group established after the Jan. 8incident, to better share informa-
tion, warnings and directions for
avoiding dangerous airspace,
and to improve airline safety
protocols and day-to-day practic-
es.
The initiative already has the
support of the United States,
where the Federal Aviation Ad-
ministration operates an existing
“Notice to Airmen” system de-
signed to keep U.S. pilots and
carriers apprised of potential
dangers.
In an interview Wednesday,
Mr. Garneau said Canada has al-
ready issued two notices of its
own since the Ukrainian jetliner
was shot down, warning airlines
to avoid potentially perilous
flight paths over Libya and Syria.THE CANADIAN PRESSCanadapushesforeffortstoprotectcivilianaircraftoverconflictzones
WASHINGTON