​The lyric of the song by Southern Spiritual singer Clarence Carter

As told by wonderful singer, Clarence Carter, in his song about a poor U.S. Southern man on his death bed, who told his son, named Patches, “I’m depending on you, son…I’ve tried to do my best…it’s up to you to do the rest.”

​Air Canada’s 10,000 flight attendants were in a showdown with the Carney government and the federal government blinked.

The gutsy Air Canada flight attendants, who refused to end their strike without a fair settlement of their demand for pay for the full hours they work each day on the job, have reached a tentative agreement with the airline.

Federal “Jobs Minister” Patty Hajdu, not new to the cabinet table having been Minister Responsible for Indigenous Services in the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, incredibly took the “hear no evil, see no evil” approach by launching a probe into allegations of unpaid work in the airline sector.

What planet has Hajdu been living on? The flight attendants, 70 per cent of the them female, have long been protesting that they are only paid for the hours they are on board an aircraft, not the hours when they are on the ground preparing to fly, or after a plane has landed and has stopped moving.

While Canada’s next largest airline, WestJet does not provide pay for groundwork the issue is expected to be a key one for its flight attendants when their current collective agreement expires at the end of this year.

Elsewhere in North America, Delta Air Lines, which is not unionized, does pay partial wages for groundwork. Several European airlines also provide pay for flight attendants’ work on the ground.

At a time when Planet Earth is coping with climate change and unprecedented wildfires, it is critical to reduce the use of fossil fuels for electricity production. NB Power’s unfolding plan to contract for construction of a 500-megawatt natural gas-powered plant in the Sackville area is absurd.

Furthermore, NB Power is asking to bypass rigorous review by the N.B. Energy and Utilities Board (NBEUB) for projects costing $50 million or more. NB Power is arguing that the fact that this gas-fired plant will be a “tolling” facility – not owned and run by the utility itself, meaning the project need not go through the normal NBEUB process. As William Shakespeare would say: “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”

A better scent is evident with Saint John Energy’s, Burchill Wind Farm with its 42- megawatt capacity. The number is small, but the direction toward renewables is a good one, and offers NB Power a more enlightened, planet-friendly pathway to the future.

It’s time for Premier Susan Holt and her ministers to state all environmental and Energy and Utilities laws and regulations will be upheld to ensure a proper review of the mammoth gas-fired Sackville area plant which NB Power is now pursuing. Furthermore, all financial details, including the cost of linking any new power plant into the power grid should be open for public scrutiny.

Canada, France and Britain were among the first countries to express their support for Israel in the hours and days after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks by Hamas. Freeing the remaining hostages held by Hamas and the essential return of the human remains is those who died in captivity.

Prime Minister Mark Carney has announced that Canada intends to recognize a Palestinian state at the UN General Assembly in September. Carney has taken a sensible approach:  He says that “the level of human suffering in Gaza is intolerable and is rapidly deteriorating…Canada condemns the fact that the Israeli government has let the situation deteriorate in Gaza to this extent.”

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre, now without a seat in the House of Commons, and embroiled in a complex by-election campaign in Alberta, is a toothless tiger on the Canadian political scene at the moment, and he did not add much to the debate on the Middle East when he said that Prime Minister Carney’s position “rewards violence, not peace.”

The New Democratic Party called Carney’s approach “a welcome step forward.”

Carney is further suggesting that the recognition of a Palestinian state is based on the Palestinian Authority’s commitment to needed reforms, including the holding of general elections in 2026 in which Hamas would not be able to take part, “to demilitarize the Palestinian state.

There is an important degree of nativity in this reliance on the Palestinian Authority, which has been largely ineffectual under the domination of the military strength of Hamas.