For A Monday

On a very sultry Monday ...



Reports of Canada's withdrawal from the pointless Paris Agreement are greatly exaggerated: 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he did not ask German Chancellor Angela Merkel to consider keeping all mentions of the Paris climate change accord out of the upcoming G20 leaders meeting statement to placate U.S. President Donald Trump.

German publication Der Spiegel had reported on a call between the two leaders last week, saying Trudeau wondered about the potential downside of striking mentions of the accord from the communique so as not to further provoke Trump.

(Sidebar: is Trudeau afraid of Trump? Smart money says yes.) 

In the scheme of things, only Quebec has provincial rights (three guesses as to why): 

The Liberal government has signed a national child care deal with the provinces, but Quebec is staying out of the multilateral agreement.

Independents in the Senate are planning on holding a leadership election:

The senator at the helm of an increasingly powerful — and growing — group of Senate independents has confirmed it will hold a formal leadership election this September.

Because 2019 is not too far off:

Canada launched a fast-track visa program for highly-skilled workers on Monday, as it seeks to take advantage of a tougher immigration environment in the United States.

  

Yes, about that: 

According to a January 2017 ministerial briefing document from the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), all Syrian refugees face “barriers to employment” — but the outcomes for different programs is stark.

The document reveals the gap between Syrian refugees settled through the private program compared to those who come in via the government-led program.

The IRCC document — made public through an access to information request and shared with the Sun — states that Canada welcomed 46,321 refugees in 2016. This represents a 136% increase over the previous year.

The document includes a November 2016 impact evaluation of the Syrian refugee settlement program, based on a sample of recently-arrived Syrian refugees.

The survey found that 53% of privately sponsored Syrian refugees had been able to find work in Canada, compared to just 10% of government sponsored refugees.

That means that nine in 10 Syrian refugees sponsored by the Trudeau government are unemployed.

Language skills are often central in finding employment, and a lack of knowledge of the local language creates significant barriers — both in finding a job and integrating into Canadian society.

The Syrian refugee evaluation reveals a significant language gap between privately-sponsored refugees and government-assisted ones.

When it comes to government-sponsored refugees, chosen for resettlement by the Trudeau government, 83% had no knowledge of English or French.

Only 17% of Trudeau’s government-sponsored refugees possessed basic skills in one of Canada’s official languages.

By contrast, 81% of Syrian refugees settled through the parallel private system reported having knowledge of either English or French.

If we're paying for it, then it is the public's information:

An Ontario judge has tossed out a provincial Liberal law that banned access to abortion statistics on the grounds it violated the Charter. ...

The Ontario government had argued disclosing hospital records on abortion “could pose risks to the safety and security of their patients, healthcare providers and other staff,” Labrosse summarized in his ruling.

He rejected this argument, citing lack of evidence.

“Ontario has shown no rational link between general statistical information and safety concerns,” wrote Labrosse.

The government also claimed the Ontario legislature decided safety concerns trumped the public’s right to freedom of information when it came to abortion.

“I disagree,” wrote Labrosse.

Evidence provided by ARPA and Maloney “suggests that there was no such specific debate in the Ontario legislature,” he stated.

Maloney is an Ottawa blogger well known for publishing her in-depth investigations and analysis of abortion statistics on her blog Run for Life.

Most notably, she has documented the number of babies who survived late-term abortion and were left to die.

She’s also the one who discovered Ontario Liberals had passed a law censoring abortions stats, when the Ministry of Health responded to an FOI request she made in March 2012.

In the merry month of Ramadan:

An audio message purporting to come from the spokesman of Islamic State called on followers to launch attacks in the United States, Europe, Russia, Australia, Iraq, Syria, Iran, and the Philippines during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which began in late May.

Also:

Canada hasn’t experienced the same migrant-related stressors as Europe, but that victim’s spasmodic recoil from perceived Islamophobia looks awfully familiar. Case in point: a fascinatingly logic-tortured June 9 Toronto Star column devoted to Islamism exculpation, entitled  “Terrorists are misogynists first.” In the piece, pundit Heather Mallick informs us that “religion isn’t terribly relevant” in recent European attacks. No, the real problem is male misogyny. Mallick knows this because “It is my job to see patterns in events. And we women see different patterns than men do.” (Sigh. Mallick never speaks for me. I wish she’d drop that “we women” shtick.)

 

What is the “pattern in events” that Mallick sees? That all the killers are young males, with a narrow “world view” who suffer from “status anxiety.” The wanton spilling of blood is simply the way they “display maleness.” This is a simplistic theory cut from whole cloth. It completely ignores the role of ideology in terrorism, and the fact that millions of men have status anxiety but do not resort to terrorism to express it.  

From the assertion that misogyny is universal, Mallick irrationally leaps to the conclusion that terrorism knows no particular race or culture. Look, she says, at “the hateful men we have come to know”: here, she lists four Islamist terrorists and five North American, non-Muslim massacrists (only two of whom were motivated by misogyny), implying a general numerical equivalence. But her non-Muslim, North American massacrists were not associated with organized terror movements or with a specific ideology. And her non-Muslim, North American massacrists and their victims are statistically nugatory beside the vast human wreckage that has occurred as a result of individuals carrying out radical Islamists’ apocalyptic vision.

In a further attempt at moral equivalence, Mallick writes, “It’s of no interest to us whether we’re attacked by a men’s rights advocate, the ‘alt-right,’ a Muslim terrorist or an Irish one.” But these are shamelessly misleading comparisons. IRA terrorism is not animated by gender bias, and was territorially and temporally constrained by political ends attainable through negotiation. Islamist terrorism is global and not open to negotiation. “Men’s rights advocate?” A dreadful slur on a civilized movement. To my knowledge, no massacrist has ever cited encouragement to violence from any men’s rights association.

What’s Mallick’s solution? First, she thinks we ought “to discard Muslim or Islamic as an adjective.” (Obama and many other politicians have tried that, Heather. It didn’t work.) Because “why single out Islam,” when “the misogyny of the Roman Catholic church is one of its pillars.” Even if that were true (which I don’t think it is), where is the organized terrorism — or any terror — perpetrated in Christ’s name that Mallick’s reckless equivalency implies?

The column is a sad read, but emblematic of the desperation progressives feel when objective evidence contradicts their beloved multicultural theories, and the intellectual corruption to which they fall victim in their stubborn refusal to acknowledge reality. Mallick’s jejune finale only plunges deeper into polemic bathos: “Let’s tackle misogyny at its source and find a way to raise boys to be more like the studious, gentle girls many of them have been told to despise.” “Let’s”, as in “let us”? As in Canada? Been there, done that, Heather. Any other brilliant suggestions for ending Islam— er, I mean, status-anxiety driven terrorism?

All that’s missing in Mallick’s column is a sincere letter of apology to ISIL for the bad rap they are getting from people less enlightened than her.

Barbara Kay needs her own statue.





Hundreds of Russian protesters have been arrested:

Police detained hundreds at anti-Kremlin protests across Russia, including opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who had called on supporters to defy official refusals to permit the rallies.

Activist groups said more than 1,000 demonstrators were detained at demonstrations in several cities, with the largest police actions reported in St. Petersburg and Moscow. Presidential hopeful Navalny had announced the protests against official corruption for Monday, the Russia Day holiday. Navalny was picked up by police as he left his Moscow apartment. The Interior Ministry said more than 650 people had been detained in Moscow and St. Petersburg.

 
As Democrats cannot link this (or anything else) credibly to the election, they will ignore it.





You see, when Stephen Harper bumps into a celebrity, it's not for a self-aggrandising selfie:

But if a single photo is to be believed, former Prime Minister Stephen Harper and KISS frontman Gene Simmons got along well during their chance encounter in the Air Canada Maple Leaf Lounge at Toronto Pearson International Airport.

 

And now, things one may not know about Anne Frank's diary: