Weekend Posted: Some great stories you may have missed

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Welcome to your Weekend Posted. We imagine many of our readers are mourning the death of Rex Murphy. Below, a round-up of stories and remembrances about the National Post columnist, television pundit and incisive wit who loved Canada.

REX MURPHY, 1947–2024

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Rex Murphy, a patriotic Canadian, staunch Newfoundlander and long-time columnist for National Post, has died. With his learned columns and likeable on-air persona, Murphy became well known to Canadians across the country during his more than 50-year career in Canadian media. He died at age 77 after a battle with cancer. The iconoclastic commentator also received tributes from across the political spectrum as his fans — and some detractors — remember him as a man who loved Canada and was never afraid to speak the truth as he saw it. Carson Jerema, Murphy’s most recent editor at National Post, argues that he may just have saved conservatism in Canada. Read National Post columnist Raymond de Souza, who argues that Murphy was the king of Canadian journalism and the true guardian of Canadian identity. And read Murphy’s former CBC colleague Peter Mansbridge on how “no one mastered words like Rex.” 

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CARYMA SA’D DOCUMENTS PROTESTS

Caryma Sa’d, a Toronto lawyer who specializes in landlord-tenant disputes, has become one of Canada’s foremost chroniclers of modern-day protest movements. As National Post’s Chris Selley notes, you’ve probably seen some of her videos from anti-Israel protest encampments. And she’s been documenting and engaging with a variety of protesters and movements in recent years, to the chagrin of all sides of the political spectrum. “At some point, I started seeing that there are recurring faces for different causes in different cities. And why is that?” Sa’d says. She suspects they aren’t as “grassroots or organic” as people think. Outside her work as a documentarian, she’s also notable for her investigations into Diagolon, a right-wing group that has been denounced as extremist. Sa’d, in turn, has argued that police relied too heavily on material from the Canadian Anti-Hate Network to claim Diagolon was some sort of right-wing militia. Read more about Caryma Sa’d’s one-woman crusade to document and engage with Canadian protesters. 

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DEAR DIARY

In the weekly satirical feature Dear Diary, the National Post re-imagines a week in the life of a newsmaker. This week, Tristin Hopper takes an imagined journey into the mind of Canadian drug decriminalization: At no point in this healing journey did we encourage British Columbians to treat the policy as a green light to turn splash parks into open air fentanyl markets or to use their provincially supplied meth pipes as a means to brazenly disregard no smoking regulations at B.C. health facilities.

ET CETERA

• • In its multifaith calendar, York Region District School Board used the menorah, rather than the Star of David, to denote Jewish holidays, saying the latter has political connections to Israel. Deborah Lyons, the special envoy on Holocaust remembrance and combatting antisemitism, called it a “true insult to the Jewish community.” Read more about the controversy and the board’s decision to change the symbol. 
  • Lianne Rood, an Ontario Conservative member of Parliament, has declared war on “woke paper lids” on Tim Hortons coffee cups. “Really, Tim Hortons? Paper lids that disintegrate in your mouth? Come on!” she says in a video posted to X. Read more about why Rood blames the Liberal government for the paper lids.
  • There have been three security incidents in recent days at rapper Drake’s Toronto home. A security guard was shot, a person was arrested trying to climb onto the property and a third person has been injured in an altercation with Drake’s security guards. It all comes amidst a feud between Drake and American rapper Kendrick Lamar. Read more about the strange incidents and the feud between the two here.
    
  • Unlike anti-Israel protests in Ontario and British Columbia, the encampment at the University of Calgary came to a quick end in a barrage of tear gas and flash-bang grenades on Thursday night. The protesters were encamped to pressure the campus to divest from Israel-linked investments. Read more about how heavily armoured police broke up the student encampment.
    
  • Canada abstained from a United Nations vote on Palestinian statehood. The measure passed by a wide margin, with only the United States, Israel and a handful of other nations voting against it. Read more about the vote and why it matters. 
  • Don’t miss your daily round of puzzles from Puzzmo. Test your skills at SpellTower.

SNAPSHOT

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