Tuesday Post

Aaaahhh, glorious December!


But... but... I thought the Tories left the cupboard bare!

Canada climbed out of the recession that knocked the economy into reverse over the first half of 2015 — but the rebound quickly showed signs of lost momentum.

Statistics Canada said Tuesday the country's real gross domestic product grew at an annualized rate of 2.3 per cent during the three-month period that ended in September. The GDP received boosts from improved performances in exports and household consumption, the federal agency said.

But the economy also contracted by 0.5 per cent at a non-annualized rate in September — a decrease largely linked to the country's hobbled manufacturing and natural resources sectors.

 
The Liberals did all of this without even doing anything?

FOR SALE: a magical singing unicorn. Comes with own bridge and swamp land. Inquire within.



In other news, Liberals being Liberals:

Canadian taxpayers are paying the wages of two nannies hired to care for the children of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife, Sophie Grégoire-Trudeau, according to cabinet orders posted online.

The hirings were approved late last week, with cabinet authorizing the appointment of the two women under the Official Residences Act as "special assistants at the prime minister's residence."

They will be paid between $15 and $20 an hour during the day and $11 to $13 an hour for night shifts effective Nov. 4 — the day Trudeau and his cabinet were sworn in.

The disclosure comes after an election campaign where Trudeau repeatedly attacked the Conservatives' enhanced universal child care benefit, or UCCB, and income splitting for families, arguing rich families like his and former prime minister Stephen Harper's didn't need taxpayers' help.

Justin Trudeau was born into wealth and then earned money stammering to enthralled audiences (people will watch anything these days). Am I to understand that he and his opulent woman have no money to pay someone to watch their snowflakes?



Expanding the voter base at any cost:

The law barring Canadian citizens who have lived abroad for more than five years from casting ballots has been on the books since 1993 but it was only under the Conservative government of former prime minister Stephen Harper that Elections Canada began its strict enforcement.

The issue became a flashpoint for many of the estimated 1.4 million expat Canadians who found themselves shut out from voting in 2011 and again in 2015. Canadian business groups in Asia criticized the Conservatives, expats in New York organized a pre-election anti-Harper bash, and one U.S. resident ran as a protest candidate in Harper's Calgary riding — even though he couldn't vote for himself.

"The last government made a hasty decision to limit the rights of expat voters and reinterpret the law," said Bailey, 28, formerly of Brantford, Ont.

(Sidebar: yes, formerly.)

If you choose to live abroad for several years, you cannot just remember that you are a citizen when one government enforces a decade-old law. 

**

The federal government signalled Tuesday that Canada could welcome as many as 50,000 refugees by the end of 2016 as Gov. Gen. David Johnston urged Canadians to embrace those fleeing the conflict in Syria.

Calling Canada's response to the crisis a "defining moment" for the country, Johnston hosted a forum that brought federal, provincial and municipal political leaders together with heads of business organizations and aid groups trying to better co-ordinating efforts to deal with the impending influx of 25,000 refugees by the end of February.

"This is a defining moment for Canada, a defining moment for all of us," Johnston told the gathering.

It won't be a defining moment when this happens:

According to a report out of FriaTider.se, the victim initially refused to report the rape to police because she “felt sorry for him” due to his “difficult situation” and feared that he would be deported back to Iraq.

The train attendant eventually convinced the woman to report the incident and the perpetrator was later arrested and sentenced to one year in prison while also being ordered to pay the victim 85,000 kronor in damages.

It later transpired that the rapist’s refugee status was bogus – he was not in any danger in the region of Iraq he had left and had merely traveled to Scandinavia for economic reasons.

A note from Hillary Clinton reveals (the e-mails that weren't deleted, I suppose) how she and others hated the Harper government:

A U.S. official expressed amazement at how deeply detested Canada's Conservative government was by some employees of the Foreign Affairs Department.

That impression was described in a note sent three years ago to Hillary Clinton, who was then the secretary of state and whose emails are now being publicly released.

It was contained in a message where a U.S. official described how his colleagues across the border pleaded for his help lobbying the Canadian government not to cut a program for Haiti.

The U.S. special co-ordinator for Haiti said Canadians were worried about budget cuts that would have slashed down an operation from 11 employees to four, for a country that was ostensibly a major Canadian foreign policy priority.

"I was a little astonished at how openly the career folks at the foreign and assistance ministries disliked their new political masters and wanted us to convince them not to cut Haiti," said Tom Adams, in a May 2012 email forwarded to Clinton and released Monday.

"In my many years here I have never seen such open disloyalty with a change of administrations. Although the political appointees told me there was no need to have the Secretary talk to Baird about Haiti, the senior career folks, on the margins, implored me to have this done."

The dynamic described in that email was on public display recently after the federal election, when employees at the foreign ministry cheered during a visit from their new Liberal bosses.

Clinton replied that she was happy to call her counterpart John Baird, if necessary. The presidential contender's emails are now being released in instalments, after an uproar over her use of a private home-based server that couldn't be searched for freedom of information requests.

Haiti was a cesspool before the hurricane and a cesspool after. Why throw money into an event horizon?

One word: BENGHAZI.

Quite the albatross, Hillary Quitter.



And now,  assembling a Christmas tree- the Storm Trooper way!