Steve Paikin scabs to bully Sarah Jama

If you were on strike and your strike hit the nine week mark, you might be starting to lose a little bit of hope. Maybe this will never end. All you can do is find the solidarity and support that lies in the warmth of your coworkers as you stick it out on the picket line one day longer (one day stronger).

Unless you’re Steve Paikin. Sources say that he hasn’t spent much time on the picket line himself. And why would he? He made $348,614.73 in 2022 alone. He has no reason to engage in collective solidarity. He makes double the average salary of the 42 people who make more than $100,000 at the corporation (of course, management included) and this class of people got 8% more in wages in 2022 — his striking colleagues had their wages frozen by one percent.

And so, it’s no surprise that he’s scabbing with a column that is being published by The Trillium.

(He’s scabbing on the radio too: https://twitter.com/spaikin/status/1709947128100122743)

The column is new. He seems to have started it with the sole intention of harassing Sarah Jama, a Hamilton MPP who keeps getting thrown under the NDP bus for taking principled though basic left-wing stances. His first column is called, “What Sarah Jama tells us about timing and tone in politics.” It takes eight paragraphs before he even mentions Jama and twelve paragraphs before he writes about what Jama tells us about timing and tone in politics.

He doesn’t actually say anything about the tone Jama used though, which was very measured and calm, but he does say that her comments about Palestine were too soon. He asks what the two synagogues near her riding office think about her tweet (I dunno Steve, you’re the journalist with no job right now, why don’t you call them and ask?) and that’s it.

Then, four days later, he goes back to the well. This time, his piece targets Jama specifically, objectifying her and making the reader hypothetically, in the realm of the abstract, feel as if this is a man who uses the n-word in private.

Here is a taste:

“Jama seemed right out of the NDP’s central casting department. She was a disability rights activist who needed a wheelchair to get around, having been born with cerebral palsy. She was of Somali descent, adding another female person of colour to the proceedings at Queen’s Park, where the MPPs are still disproportionately white and male. And she wasn’t yet 30 years old, thereby bringing some youthful vigour to the scene as well.”

A female person of colour, Steve? Are you a robot?

“Jama has had a hard time understanding the unwritten rules of party politics”

“When Hamas launched its sneak attack on Israel, murdering more than 1,200 citizens and taking another 150 hostage, Jama couldn’t resist commenting.” (This one is funny as Jama didn’t comment until Oct. 11, by then, Steve had already RT’d five pro-Israel Tweets).

“Let’s acknowledge a couple of things about Jama. First, she is married to a Palestinian and therefore genuinely feels the hurt of that community all the time. Second, she’s been a rookie politician for less than a year and still isn’t yet 30 years old — two things that suggest she hasn’t quite got the experience or maturity of her new job figured out yet.”

“Stiles inherited Jama as a candidate and had no part in selecting her.”

And then concludes with this question: “Yes, Jama received another dressing down from party elders and, yes, she apologized yet again for her remarkably insensitive tweets. But at some point, New Democrats, who are in the midst of creating the conditions for their best shot at winning an election in three decades, are going to ask themselves: how many more of these screw-ups are we supposed to put up with, before we take some much more serious action?”

And responds to himself with: “Good question.”

(By the way, never apologize. Never, ever apologize when you have done nothing wrong. This was Jama’s big error).

Paikin is a writer — none of this is by accident. He intentionally chose words and phrases intended to infantilize and objectify Jama. And why? Because she’s Black? Because she’s disabled? He mentions both so they’re obviously on his mind. Because she’s a rookie? Because she supports Palestine? He mentions these things too. Because he wants to make sure that it’s so uncomfortable for anyone who is critical of the status quo, that they won’t last more than a single term in the hell hole that is Ontario politics? Yes, obviously. Paikin is a hack and serves power above all else.

But less important than his motivations is his timing. The article came out the same day that an apparent Israeli missile hit a hospital and killed at least 500 people. Paikin couldn’t have known this would happen hours after his article was posted, though the genocidal comments of Benjamin Netanyahu are enough for any thinking person to assume what comes next. But on Oct. 17, the day that the West was jolted out of its fulsome and uncritical support for Israel, Paikin can be happy to know that he used his new, scab weekly column to bully a rookie MPP for daring to say this (this is all that he quoted of Jama’s comments): “I’m reflecting on my role as a politician who is participating in this settler colonial system, and I ask that all politicians do the same.”

On October 13, the same day as Paikin’s first article about Jama, the Twitter satire account CBC Pitchbot broke from its act and tweeted this: “if you're in the media, you have one last chance to speak up before a genocide. how will you be remembered for this moment?” The Tweet quoted a UN announcement about the 24-hour notice that Israel gave to Gazans to flee the open-air prison that they control access from and to. And they were right: the sides of this are easy. Either you’re on the side of the oppressed, or you’re on the side of the oppressor.

Paikin knows that his job as enforcer of Ontario politics is to bully people onto the side of the oppressor. Strike be damned.

Paikin will never look back at his folly for writing this piece. He doesn’t care. But history will remember and because Paikin seemingly has no sense of irony, we can turn to Paikin himself for some parting advice on the choice of his column today: “There are some things you can say one month after disaster strikes that are just really ill-advised to say on the day disaster strikes.”

(Also, factcheck: Jama did not make her comments “the day disaster strikes” .. it was a few days after Hamas’ attack on Israeli civilians)

To support the TVO workers who are on strike and who are not paid like Hydro One officers, check out their website for strike updates: https://cmg.ca/workplace/tvo/