In a mere 30 minutes, Waterloo Regional District School board (WRDSB) trustees voted 6-3 Monday to sanction the board’s only black trustee Mike Ramsay over a Code of Conduct complaint that has apparently been in the works since February.
Some six of the board’s trustees – all of them left-leaning – appeared gleeful as they voted to apply the maximum number of sanctions available to them.
These include barring Ramsay from all committees of the whole and in-camera meetings until September 30, essentially the end of the current term.
They also barred him from the next board meeting.
In a mere 30 min nasty and petty WRDSB chairman Scott Piatkowski essentially handcuffs/cancels boards only black trustee @_MikeRamsay for some secretive integrity complaint … this is the same chairman who is being sued in a $1.7M defamation case. Disgusting abuse of power.
Ramsay, a six-term trustee and regular thorn in the side of the woke trustees for his common-sense approach, was not permitted to speak in his defense.
Sources say he was chastised very publicly for merely retweeting some of my True North stories on the WRDSB and those of other conservative writers. The complainant has alleged, apparently, that it was “disgraceful” to promote “alt-right” media.
Kitchener trustee Laurie Tremble did not vote, suggesting she was the complainant.
The complaint and the report from the integrity commissioner were kept secret.
Crazy white woke WRDSB Trustees are voting to bar the only black trustee from attending June 27 meeting. This is for some secret Code of Conduct complaint. Suspect this is being Directed behind scenes by radical Ed director jeewan chanicka pic.twitter.com/SnhjqDUHMN
In fact, board chairman Scott Piatkowksi would only say that there was a complaint but provided no details as to what it was about.
Piatkowski is the subject of a $1.7-M defamation suit filed by 20-year teacher Carolyn Burjoski, who was shut down four minutes into her presentation to the board in January when she discussed two highly sexualized books in the board’s elementary school libraries.
She was called “transphobic,” removed from the classroom and subjected to an investigation. She has since retired from teaching.
Piatkowski has made no move to step down from his position, even as chairman, since the lawsuit was filed a month ago.
Eric Roher, the national education lead with the pricey law firm Borden Ladner Gervais was present at the Monday night meeting to answer any questions. The firm was apparently hired to investigate the integrity complaint – an obscene waste of taxpayer money.
Immediately after the meeting, Ramsay issued a statement on Twitter indicating that the lawyers hired by the board have been paid thousands of dollars on a “frivolous complaint” which could have been directed for classroom use.
Dear parents, students and staff: Here is my statement regarding the Code of Conduct Complaint that was filed against me.
He intimated that the trustee who complained was upset that Ramsay had shared stories from journalists which the complainant (Tremble) found “demeaning and disparaging.”
He also called the complaint a “political vendetta.”
Reached after the meeting, Ramsay said he believed the whole complaint and the sanctions were “retribution” because he’d written to the province in February stating concerns about some of the board decisions made in camera.
“They were out for blood,” he said. “They don’t care what’s fair and just.”
The New Blue Party of Ontario says that it is pleased with the results of the 2022 Ontario general election and its leader Jim Karahalios’ performance, despite not being able to obtain a seat.
The Ontario PC Party led by Premier Doug Ford won a second majority government in the provincial election with over 40% of the vote, while the New Blue Party placed fifth with 2.7% or 127,180 votes.
In a statement to True North, New Blue spokesperson Jackie Sallas said the overall results of the election “showed Ontario voters are not inspired by the establishment parties.”
According to Sallas, the New Blue party does not intend to undergo a leadership review.
“We will keep moving forward with Jim Karahalios as leader because he did an incredible job accomplishing more (in our first election campaign) than what any other leader of a ‘new’ party in recent Ontario history was able to accomplish,” said Sallas.
She added that Karahalios was capable of bouncing back following an osteosarcoma diagnosis, repeated political attacks from the Ontario PC Party and what she describes as an “orchestrated and constant undermining of his leadership by those who were under the influence of PC operatives.”
As for what Ontarians can expect in Ford’s second term, Sallas says New Blue sees “another four years like the previous four.”
“That means four more years of the Doug Ford PC Party continuing the legacy of the McGuinty-Wynne Liberals and continuing to govern as the Ontario provincial wing of the Justin Trudeau Liberal Party of Canada.”
The New Blue Party was founded by Jim Karahalios and his wife Belinda in Oct. 2020 amid the Ford government’s draconian lockdown measures.
Belinda Karahalios had been elected as the PC MPP for the riding of Cambridge in the 2018 Ontario election, but was removed from caucus in Jul. 2020 after she voted against the PC government’s controversial Bill 195, which gave Ford emergency powers without the imposition of a state of emergency.
After her expulsion, Belinda Karahalios fought the Ford government’s lockdown policies along with other former PC MPPs including Roman Baber and Randy Hillier. Belinda also fought against Bill 67, an NDP private members bill which experts warned could lead to the entrenchment of Critical Race Theory in Ontario Schools.
In the 2022 election, the New Blue Party promised to end Covid-19 mandates, renew political accountability, defund the legacy media, grow Ontario’s economy, cut taxes, reform education and restore the dignity and transparency in Ontario’s healthcare.
New Blue did however also face controversy after Jim Karahalios accused other right of centre politicians of having “secret deals” with Ford’s PCs.
Neither Jim nor Belinda Karahalios were successful in winning their respective races, with Jim placing fifth in Kitchener-Conestoga with 5.9% of the vote and Belinda placing fourth in Cambridge with 11.1% of the vote.
After the 2021 federal election, the People’s Party of Canada conducted a leadership review and reconfirmed Maxime Bernier, with Bernier winning 95.6% of the vote.
After the Canadian Armed Forces reported Chinese fighter jets coming into dangerously close range of Canadian aircrafts, the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is blaming the Canadian government for an increase in hostility and threatened Canada with “serious consequences.”
According to Global News, Chinese planes were reported buzzing Canadian pilots taking part in a United Nations mission to monitor North Korea. Reports have emerged of Chinese jets flying as close as 20 feet from Canadian military aircraft.
China’s defence ministry’s spokesperson Wu Qian addressed the incident and alleged that Canada has threatened China’s national security by participating in an UN-backed mission enforcing sanctions on North Korea.
“Recently, the Canadian air forces aircraft have stepped up intelligence activities and provocations against China under the pretext of implementing UNSC (United Nations Security Council) resolutions, which poses a threat to China’s national security and also endangers the personnel of both sides,” said Wu.
The Chinese defence ministry did not provide evidence that Canada provoked or has been spying on China. In addition, Beijing has not made it clear whether or not the PRC opposes Canada’s enforcement of sanctions against North Korea.
China has been a long-time supporter of the North Korean regime, as the PRC has a strategic interest in maintaining the totalitarian country’s sovereignty.
Wu added to his comments by saying, “China urges the Canadian side to face up to the seriousness of the situation, strictly restrain the frontline troops and refrain from any risky and provocative acts, otherwise all serious consequences arising from this will be borne by the Canadian side.”
A statement from the Department of National Defence (DND) blasts the PLA for failing to “adhere to international air safety norms” and compromising the safety of not only Canadian servicemen, but also Chinese pilots.
“In some instances, the (Canadian) aircrew felt sufficiently at risk that they had to quickly modify their own flight path in order to increase separation and avoid a potential collision with the intercepting aircraft,” said a DND spokesperson.
China’s People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) warplanes have been harassing the Royal Canadian Air Force’s aircraft over international waters for at least a month now. Between April 26 and May 26, Chinese aircraft buzzed the Canadian plane at least 60 times, according to the Department of National Defence.
The CP-140 Aurora, a patrol aircraft, is being used to conduct Operation NEON – a United Nations-led effort to enforce sanctions imposed against North Korea.
The mission involving the CP-140 Aurora commenced on April 26, the same day the Chinese government began harassing operators executing the Canadian component of Operation NEON.
This latest incident marks a significant increase in tensions between the PRC and the Trudeau government since the detention of Micheal Kovrig and Michael Spavor in 2018 – Canadians detained on bogus espionage charges in China in retaliation for Canada’s arrest of Meng Wanzhou. The two Michaels were eventually freed and returned to Canada in 2021.
Ontario Progressive Conservative Leader Doug Ford won a historic majority last week and will likely govern the province for the next 4 years.
While Ford has governed with more of a centrist approach in his first mandate, that hasn’t stopped his critics from warning Ontarians about Ford’s so-called conservative agenda. Meanwhile, many conservatives are hoping the PC leader governs more like a conservative in his second term as premier.
What do you think? Which Doug Ford will Ontario see in the coming years?
The Crown dropped all charges against former Conservative MP Rob Anders on the first day of what was supposed to be a two-week tax evasion trial.
In a statement emailed to True North, Anders thanked his lawyer and those who stuck with him through the ordeal.
“Thank God, those who pray and my lawyer Paul Brunnen. I know numerous political voices that have been silenced due to overly zealous CRA attacks,” wrote Anders. “There are companies that have been obliterated under the relentless pressure that the CRA should never have brought.”
At the beginning of Monday’s hearing, prosecutor Tyler Lord told provincial court Justice Heather Lamoureaux that all charges were to be stayed, citing unspecified “new information.”
“Last week, new information came to my attention, the consideration of which led me to believe that I no longer had a reasonable prospect of conviction,” Lord told CBC News.
After the charges were dropped, Anders’ lawyer Paul Brunnen said the former MP was “very relieved” about the decision.
“I would also like to thank David Elderfield of Wayfare Identifiers for his inspiring knowledge of CRA protocols, the Taxpayers’ Ombudsperson and the Taxpayer Bill Of Rights,” said Anders. “Mr. Elderfield’s saga with the CRA has been longer than mine.Had David’s technology been implemented the vast majority of sea containers coming into BC would now be inspected for opiates and human cargo instead of less than 5% as it is currently.”
Anders was previously charged with several Income Tax Act violations, for allegedly making false or deceptive statements, obtaining unentitled refunds and evasion.
Court documents alleged $750,000 in unreported income or capital gains as well as fraudulent expenses and hidden deposits.
Anders is a veteran Conservative who helped found the party. He held the Calgary West seat from 1997 to 2015, initially under the Reform Party banner.
He was also a long time advocate of lowering taxes including supporting Stephen Harper’s tax cuts while in power. Additionally, Anders called for the federal government to drop the GST.
Former Pittsburgh Penguins defenceman Ryan Whitney has trashed the chaos at the Toronto Pearson International Airport after being left stranded by Air Canada while awaiting a flight to Buffalo.
In a viral video posted to Twitter, Whitney describes six hour-long line ups with 400 other people. The video has since been viewed by over one million users.
I live at Toronto Pearson International airport. The worst place on earth. I smell so bad. pic.twitter.com/PfdnHcO7Ad
“I (flew from) Edmonton to Toronto yesterday – I landed around 3:00. I then had Toronto to Boston at 8:30. Customs was about three hours. Got through – flight cancelled from Toronto to Boston. At this point now, I go and I see there is a 400 person line with two Air Canada workers. There’s a million cancelled flights,” said Whitney.
“Everyone’s just panicking so I wait in that line about six hours. Near the end of the line they close them. They just said ‘you have to go somewhere else.’ We had to re-enter Canada, we had to go to Canadian customs so by the time I finally see somebody from Air Canada it’s 1:00 AM.”
Whitney then attempted to leave after arranging a ride across the border but was told that his bags could not be retrieved and that he had to wait for a flight the next day.
“I said, ‘Can I just get my bags?’ I had a ride to Buffalo all set up and I had a jet flight from Buffalo. I need to get out of this country, out of this airport. This is the worst airport on Earth. I’m telling you, there’s no other airport like this,” said Whitney. “I’m so shocked at this place, it is the biggest disgrace known to man.”
In a subsequent video, Whitney filmed himself arriving at Boston Logan International Airport which he called “the opposite of Pearson International Airport.”
It’s over. I want to thank everyone for their Ts and Ps and the amazing chiclets listeners who reached out to help. Best fans on earth. The exact opposite of Pearson International Airport. God bless anyone who ever has to step foot in that hellhole pic.twitter.com/zH5tksOFFr
Whitney played for the Pittsburgh Penguins for three-and-a-half seasons. During his time as a defenceman, the team won the 2008 Stanley Cup Finals. He then played for the Edmonton Oilers and the Anaheim Ducks before retiring from the sport. Whitney is now part of the Barstool Sports network where he hosts a hockey podcast called Spittin’ Chiclets.
Various travel industry groups and leaders have called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to end pandemic-related travel mandates, which they blame for the mess at Canada’s airports.
Recently, the CEO of Westjet and the Canadian Travel & Tourism Roundtable demanded that the government put an end to travel-related mandates.
“Vaccine mandate for air travellers and employees needs to be dropped,” tweeted WestJet CEO Alexis von Hoensbroech last week.
The Liberal government has refused to listen to the airline industry and abandon its extreme COVID-19 travel restrictions.
When I spoke with British Columbia’s Chris Elston a few days ago, he was just about to leave on his unofficial Pride Month tour.
First stops after an all-night drive from South Surrey would be San Francisco, Monterey Bay and San Jose where he said he’ll meet up with a woman who, like him, campaigns against the epidemic of gender ideology and the pressure put on young kids to transition medically.
I keep making friends. I’m hanging out with Oakland mayoral candidate Seneca Scott. @Seneca4Mayor
He’s an independent candidate who knows we shouldn’t be blocking puberty in children!
— Billboard Chris 🇨🇦🇺🇸 (@BillboardChris) June 4, 2022
This weekend he’ll be in Kelowna for their Pride parade and on June 25, he said he’ll meet up with some gay men attending Pride weekend in New York City.
The Surrey dad of two girls – known on Twitter as @BillboardChris – said he’ll go wherever it is busy with his favourite sign: “Children cannot consent to puberty blockers.”
He’s targeting Pride events because he says the annual celebration is not about gay rights anymore. Instead, Elston believes gay rights organizations are now fixated on trans rights.
Elston says, and I agree, that gay activists, having achieved their goals, had to find something else to keep the millions of dollars flowing.
“They’ve gone into schools and are indoctrinating kids,” he said. “It (gender ideology) has gone totally insane.”
Egale, once a respected organization advocating for gay and lesbian rights, is a perfect example.
Members of Egale now spend much of their time providing Trans 101 and other gender ideology workshops to kids as young as Grade 3. Recently some parents were shocked to learn that such a workshop was to be given to eight-year-old kids at Toronto’s Forest Hill elementary School, presumably led by their trans vice-principal.
Sources recently told me the Trans 101 workshop was restructured and given to Grade 5 students and up after parents protested the course – which in my view is still too young.
Elston is adamant that gender ideology does not belong in schools at all and he believes children are “never born in the wrong body.”
Elston earned his Twitter nickname in September of 2020 when he put up a giant billboard supporting author JK Rowling, who was bullied incessantly by the Twitter mob and called transphobic and a trans-exclusionary radical feminist (TERF) simply for challenging trans activism.
A Vancouver councillor, Sarah Kirby-Yung, had the billboard removed a day later, calling it “hate speech.”
The more Elston learned, the more he realized he couldn’t keep quiet. He was “compelled to do something,” he said, noting he now scrapes by on donations.
“I see it like a cult which has permeated throughout society,” he said. “It’s child abuse.”
I applaud this. Thank you! 👏🏼
“Hi Chris, I just want to tell you that I spoiled my ballot for the Ontario election tonight. I wrote ‘Children cannot consent to puberty blockers’ across the bottom of it.”
— Billboard Chris 🇨🇦🇺🇸 (@BillboardChris) June 3, 2022
Since he first started on his mission, he says he’s had some 6,000 conversations on the streets of the various U.S. and Canadian cities he visits.
“I’m working 100 hours a week on this,” he says.
He feels the activists and gender doctors are taking advantage of kids who are depressed, don’t fit in, suffer from autism or ADHD.
“They’re told they’re not going to find happiness unless they transition and could become suicidal if they don’t.
Elston has reviewed many studies, and concludes that when gender dysphoria starts at a young age, 86% of the kids grew out of it (without transitioning) and 64% grow up to be gay.
While those experiencing gender dysphoria were once mostly boys, the percentage of girls has just exploded in recent years, he adds.
“Kids are getting indoctrinated online and in some schools,” he says.
While he insists transitioning is not a left vs.right issue, it has now, sadly, become “cool, celebrated” to transition.
“This is a social contagion,” says Elston. “The whole thing has gone totally insane.”
A healthcare law review submitted to the European Parliament in May took aim at the Canadian government for having some of the strictest Covid-19 restrictions in the world.
The report, Right to health, a comparative law perspective: Canada, published by the European Parliamentary Research Service (EPRS) and authored by McGill University law professor Dr Derek Jones, was a survey of the country’s legal system as it pertains to healthcare rights. The EU has published similar reports about other countries.
“Many stringent and invasive public health measures for the Covid pandemic – curfews, capacity-restrictions in restaurants, the closure of bars and nightclubs for months, locking of office buildings, stoppage and restrictions on international travel – have severely curtailed or arrested commercial trade in vital sections of Canada’s economy,” the report said.
The report notes that Canada’s Quarantine Act also empowered the Liberal government to impose “unprecedented travel and isolation” requirements on Canadians.
“(The Act has) served as the legal source of some of Canada’s unprecedented travel and isolation restrictions to combat the spread of Covid in this 21st century,” the report noted. “It has also been the legal authority for stealing Canadian borders or restricting non-essential travel during the pandemic, for vaccination requirements for entry and egress, and for the summer 2021-winter 2022 requirement that Canadians returning by air submit to a Covid test and isolate for up to 72 hours at border quarantine hotels, at the travellers’ expense, while awaiting negative results.”
Several portions of the study also discussed challenges to pandemic mandates.
“By the Winter of 2022, significantly more cases were flowing into the courts. Still, Canada’s relative ‘paucity’ of high court cases contrasts significantly with nations like France, India and the United States, even though some of Canada’s provincial and federal Covid public health measures have been amongst the strictest in North America,” the EPRS report said.
The report detailed how one Newfoundland family successfully challenged their provincial government’s travel restrictions. Taylor v Newfoundland resulted in the provincial supreme court siding with the family who was attempting to attend their father’s funeral on the grounds of mobility rights.
A disclaimer to the report notes that it was “prepared for, and addressed to” members and staff of the European Parliament to “assist them in their parliamentary work” but it does not “necessarily represent” the parliament’s official position.
Canada’s strict Covid-19 measures are being met with increasing international scrutiny. Multiple US senators have demanded that Canada be added to a Special Watch List for countries that violate religious freedom rights.
Additionally, the International Air Transport Association has also demanded that the Liberals immediately drop all Covid-19 pandemic travel restrictions.
Hymie Rubenstein is editor of The REAL Indian Residential Schools newsletter and a retired professor of anthropology, The University of Manitoba
It is difficult to overestimate the importance of the discovery of the fate of Thomas Nepinak, an eleven-year-old Indian Residential School (IRS) student who died in 1944.My preliminary discussion lacked evidence which I have now located: Thomas’s death certificate as well as one for another reputed Indian Residential School student.
Thomas Nepinak’s death certificate
While superficially based on a May 24 CBC news report about yet another ground penetrating radar (GPR) study, this time on the Pine Creek Indian Reserve in Manitoba, and an attempt by a distant relative to find out what happened to Thomas Nepinak after he died at the school, there is far more to this story than meets the eye.
The second missing student is Roderick Charlie. Roderick died in 1941 at the age of 11 in a hospital in Victoria, British Columbia, and was buried nearby.
These two cases go to the heart of the uncertainty surrounding both the thousands of missing children listed on the Memorial Register of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation (NCTR) and those claimed to be buried in unmarked graves across Canada.
These totally different issues have been deliberately or sloppily conflated:
(1) the hundreds of alleged but unproven burial plots “discovered” in mainly named reserve cemeteries by the error-prone technique called GPR have found not a single missing IRS student;
(2) the 4,115 students on the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation’sMemorial Register, all but a handful of whom have a name and date of death attached to them. Invariably, these former students are also referred to as “missing.” But they are not missing because they are known to be dead. Their cause of death, place of death, and place of burial is slowly being revealed by impartial researchers, as shown below.
The sole purpose of this conflation is to imply that many or most named Memorial Register children are lying in the newly discovered GPR soil disturbances and thousands more that are still to be found. This can be gleaned from the following NCTR statement:
The discovery of an unmarked mass burial site at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School [as announced on May 27, 2021] highlights the urgent need for a concerted national response on behalf of all the children who were stolen from their families and who never returned home [those named in the Memorial Register]….
Canada’s failure to properly investigate and protect the sites where our sisters and brothers were buried means that we still do not have the whole truth. Too many of these children have never been identified by name and have never been located….
Claiming that “Too many of these children have never been identified by name and have never been located” implies that the turned earth findings at Kamloops contain such children even though “too many” should be “none” when referring to the contents of these soil disturbances. So does lumping the not-missing children on the Memorial Register with the contents of the soil disturbances in an abandoned apple orchard near the Kamloops IRS.
The interview of one band member in the CBC story claiming that she has been searching for a distant missing relative nicely captures this conflation:
“His name is Thomas and he was 11…. He never came home from residential school, so everyone is looking forward to hopefully getting his remains so they can do a proper burial for him.”
However, Thomas whose tragic death at such a tender age has now been revealed was never missing. His is the last name on the Pine Creek IRS Memorial Register, as mentioned in my previous discussion. At most, he was slowly forgotten over the decades by most of his family after he died, possibly of blunt force trauma. Since the reserve has always had its own community cemetery, he would have certainly been interred there in a grave whose wooden cross has long since disintegrated. He surely had “a proper burial,” as have thousands of his “missing” peers.
His notarized death certificate provides conclusive proof of where he was born and where he died. It gives the date of his death and how old he was when he died. Although his surname was not mentioned by his alleged great-niece, Jennifer Rocchio, it would be past coincidental that an eleven-year-old child by the name of Thomas Nepinak, a student at Pine Creek IRS, listed as having died at the same age and same year, is not the same person.
Thomas is one of only two named individuals on the NCTR’s missing childrenMemorial Register who a named relative is searching for. How can this be so? If there are so many missing children, why are no family members looking for them?
As for the other missing student, Roderick Charlie, a copy of his death certificate was located by the Wall Street Journal on behalf of his great-nephew, Russell Williams, which indicates Roderick died of tuberculosis after nearly a year in hospital. His family suspects he was transferred there from the Kamloops Indian Residential School where they claim he was a student. But his name does not appear on the Memorial Register for that or any other Indian Residential School.
But there is one non-relative — a determined and objective researcher named Nina Green — who has been looking for and finding hundreds of such children for months now. Some of her discoveries are found here and here based on painstaking searches of the relevant archives. These records show that all were buried in named cemeteries mainly on their home reserves.
Murray Sinclair, former Chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, seems intent on erroneously lumping the 4,115 children like Thomas listed in the Memorial Register with the few hundred inconclusive GPR soil anomalies found on several reserves since the end of May 2021. And he is very keen also to grossly inflate the latter by claiming without any evidence that “15,000 to 25,000 … maybe even more” IRS children may be missing.
Thousands more children like Thomas could easily be found where precise information about them is buried, namely in carefully preserved school, church, and government records.
With files from Nina Green.
Hymie Rubenstein is editor ofThe REAL Indian Residential Schools newsletter and a retired professor of anthropology, The University of Manitoba
Canadians aredealing with hunger and food insecurity as a result of skyrocketing grocery costs.
Food Banks Canada commissioned Mainstreet Research for a survey which found that nearly 25% of Canadians were eating less because of inflation. The number of people struggling doubled when taking into account those earning less than $50,000 a year.
When the 4,009 respondents were asked whether they had gone hungry at least once from March 2020 to March 2022, nearly 20% said yes.
The poll was conducted over the telephone from Feb. 25 to Mar. 2.
“Food banks in most regions of Canada are experiencing an influx of Canadians visiting food banks for the first time — a number that’s increased by up to 25 per cent in some regions,” said Food Banks Canada CEO Kirstin Beardsley. “Canadians are telling us that they are running out of money for food because of rising housing, gas, energy and food costs.”
According to Statistics Canada data, Canadians paid 9.7% more on groceries in April compared to the same time last year.
Daily Bread Food Bank recently reported that visits to their locations have tripled in some cities.
In Toronto, 100,000 people accessed the organization’s services. Before the pandemic that number was at 60,000.
According to Daily Bread CEO Neil Hetherington, visits are expected to climb up to nearly a quarter million.
“We expect that number to rise to about 225,000 client visits per month,” he said. “People are in need in the city, and we need to do something about it.”
Food banks are also seeing new clients who have never accessed their services before.
In Calgary, 75% of those visiting Daily Bread were new to the program.
“We know the answers to these social problems. We know the levers to pull. We know the impact that they’re going to have. We just need to have the political will and courage and leadership to be able to make that difference,” said Hetherington.
