Thursday, August 03, 2017

But Wait! There's More!

As usual ...




If one is going to hand out needles at the taxpayers' expense and test illegal drugs before handing them back to the addict, why even bother?

The city’s three new safe injection sites - which will cost taxpayers about $1 million each to operate yearly - will open earlier, according to Tory, although public health officials claim that still means this fall sometime.

There’s also talk of having Toronto police distributing naloxone, a drug which is said to counteract opioid overdoses.

Oy vey. So now instead of arresting people using illegal drugs and perhaps giving them the injection of tough love they need to rehabilitate themselves, police officers will be expected to act as social workers.

Also:

The Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) believes Canada spent approximately $228 billion on health care in 2016. That’s 11.1 per cent of Canada’s entire GDP and $6,299 for every Canadian resident. ...

But per capita is just an average. Not everyone pays the same. And figuring out what any individual Canadian, or even a representative sample of Canadian demographics, pays turns out to be a lot harder than it seems.

This week, the Fraser Institute, a Vancouver think-tank dedicated to small government thinking, took a thwack at the problem. Researchers at the institute used a proprietary system —the same one used to calculate the institute’s controversial Tax Freedom Day — to break Canadians into a host of economic tranches.

They then used their own calculations for the tax burden faced by each of those groups to figure out roughly what an “average” family pays for public health every year.

Their conclusion? The “average” Canadian family, consisting of two adults and two children, earning about $127,000, will pay about $12,000 a year for public health care.




Why did Ryerson University cancel Tarek Fatah's speech? Because universities are not places of higher learning but child-minding centres for larger and more emotionally retarded children. That's why:

Executives with the Canada-India Foundation were dismayed to have had an event cancelled by Ryerson University this week, with no explanation given.

The CIF Speaker Series had booked space at Ryerson to hear a speech from Tarek Fatah, the author and columnist controversial for his statements against Islamist extremism.
Fatah, who writes for the Toronto Sun, is an award-winning author and activist who founded the Muslim Canadian Congress after the events of 9/11 — both to fight Islamism and to alleviate Islamophobia. He is the host of the Zee News TV talk show Fatah Ka Fatwa’ and is a sought-after speaker in Canada and India.
He is a champion of free speech. He is also a frequent recipient of death threats.

On Aug. 10 his talk, which will be held at a location to be announced, will address “Ghazwa-e-Hind vs. the Ethos of Hindustan.”

Fatah speculates that Ryerson cancelled the CIF event because of pressure from various groups who would protest his speech, such as AntiFa Toronto or the school’s Muslim Students’ Association.
Ryerson’s cancellation was last-minute; a permit to use Ryerson University Campus Premises and Facilities was revoked with explanation.

When Vipul Jani, executive director of the CIF, asked why the permit was cancelled, he received a response from Voula Cocolakis, executive director of Ryerson University’s Business Services, as follows:

“We certainly understand your frustration, but as per our Rules and Regulations for Permit to Use Ryerson University Campus Premises and Facilities, Ryerson may revoke or cancel the Permit at any time with or without cause.”

What groups need to do is set up for such speeches off-campus. This is not because one should bend to the whims of censorious mobs but because these speeches will be heard by someone and that really fries them.





If the government wishes to make the rich pay their fair share, start with Trudeau, his father's foundation, Gerald Butts, Aga Khan and whichever Chinese businessman has Trudeau's ear at the moment:

Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau would like Canadians to believe sweeping corporate tax reforms proposed by the Trudeau government are simply about making rich people pay their fair share of taxes.

But judging from the reaction of small business owners and professionals such as doctors, lawyers, accountants and others, the Liberals may be in for a bigger battle than they anticipated, before they introduce enabling legislation this fall.

Sun Media columnist Jim Warren, a long-time Liberal strategist, described Morneau’s proposals as grossly unfair and a danger to the entrepreneurial spirit which creates jobs in his July 30 Sunday Sun column.

Citing the Trudeau government’s argument that allowing professionals to incorporate their businesses under current tax rules gives them an unfair tax advantage over salaried workers, Warren countered that: “Only in Ottawa would someone with a government job, pension and benefits think you can fairly compare these two people.” Ouch.

He said the federal Liberals’ own example of why reform is needed, that a salaried employee earning $220,000 annually pays $35,000 more in income taxes ($79,000 vs $44,000) than an incorporated consultant earning the same amount, is based on a false premise.

The difference, Warren said, is that full-time salaried employees get sick days, vacations, a pension plan and medical insurance, with benefits at least partly paid by their employer.

By contrast, incorporated entrepreneurs and professionals have to provide their pensions and benefits out of their own pockets, as well as the expense of running a business, which is why they have historically received a lower tax rate.


Also:

Dozens of members of Parliament are collecting thousands of dollars a year in pensions — several of them from the same federal government that issues their six-figure paycheques, CBC News has learned.

A CBC analysis of the ethics filings of Canada's 338 MPs found that 36 MPs reported receiving pension income on top of their salaries. Nearly 20 per cent of those MPs were getting pensions from either the federal government or the Canadian Armed Forces.

Most of the 36 MPs are getting pensions from various levels of government or public service jobs. Only two MPs are receiving pensions from private sector companies: New Democrat Scott Duvall, who gets a pension from steel producer ArcelorMittal Dofasco, and Conservative Peter Kent, 74, who gets a pension from Global Communications.

(Sidebar: this Peter Kent. I'm sure that is of some interest to the Liberal party's official mouthpiece.) 






The Liberals set up the Far North Electoral Boundaries Commission in May and asked them to fly around the north consulting on whether to add one or two seats to the electoral map in northern Ontario. The stated goal is to create what Attorney General Yasir Naqvi called “predominantly Indigenous” ridings.

The commission came back with their interim report last month and it states—surprise, surprise—that northerners would prefer adding two new ridings, instead of just one. While the public won’t see the final report until Naqvi makes it public, the plan put forward in the interim report is to chop two huge, far north districts into four, creating four new seats. Two of the seats (Mushkegowuk and Kiiwetinong) would be majority-Indigenous, and one (Timmins) would be about 40 per cent Francophone.

No, they're not trying to cheat at all. 





How could any of this go wrong?

Despite a spike in the number of asylum seekers illegally crossing into Quebec in recent weeks, provincial government officials believe they are equipped to handle the influx.



Quebec Immigration Minister Kathleen Weil said between Jan. 1 and June 30, 6,500 asylum seekers arrived in Quebec – 35 per cent of the total asylum seekers that arrived in Canada.

But citing a similar influx in 2008, when 12,000 applications for asylum were made in Quebec, Weil said the province can manage the present situation.

"We have a public and community network that is strong, competent and experienced that can handle this kind of situation, can take responsibility for these people in a dignified and safe way and provide them with the services that they need during the processing of their claims," she said during a news conference Thursday.

What's notable this time around is the pace of claims, she explained. The number of claims has jumped from 50 a day to 150 a day in the last two weeks.




I'd say everyone needs to worry about what Kim Jong-Un might do:

Former defence minister Peter MacKay says he laments not signing on to the U.S. ballistic missile defence program when he had the chance.

The policy was a matter of intense debate for the former Conservative government, as it was for the previous Liberal administration.

What has changed lately, says MacKay, is the threat from North Korea, which over the last month has demonstrated an increasingly sophisticated capability for launching intercontinental ballistic missiles.
There have been two successful flights of missiles that could potentially reach North America.

"We share a great deal of intelligence with the United States and if they're alarmed, we should be alarmed," MacKay told CBC News. Not being involved in the program is "a huge problem," he added.




And now, ghost-hoaxers of nineteenth century Australia:

In this era, Australia was the perfect location for villains and rogues who wished to imitate apparitions for their own ends. Dr David Waldron, author of “ Playing the Ghost: Ghost Hoaxing and Supernaturalism in Late Nineteenth-Century Victoria,” says that the lack of professionalized police meant that Australia had a particular “lawlessness.” An abundance of leisure time and a lack of affordable entertainment options created an environment ideal for ghost hoaxers who often used their own theatrics to entertain themselves.

In the late 18th century, "ghost hoaxers" donned costumes to terrify unsuspecting victims.



2 comments:

Paul Cerar, Toronto, Canada said...

Regarding Tarek Fatah being banned from Ryerson University, it is not hypocritical for left-wing fascist Communists to collaborate with right-wing fascist Islamites. Hell calls to Hell.

Osumashi Kinyobe said...

They seem to have an affinity for one another, yes.

Cheers.