Mid-Week Post

Before I begin, I would like to thank all the beautiful people who visit this blog, even if they were only looking for a gluten-free carrot cake recipe (by the way, here it is).

Thank you.

Kit Harrington loves you.

At least, I think he does.


Anyway ...




It's just money:

Taxpayers are on the hook for more than $215,000 for the prime minister's jaunt to the Bahamas over the Christmas holidays, CBC reports.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his family were guests of the Aga Khan on his privately-owned Bell Island and was joined by a number of staff.

While Parliament originally said the trip cost $127,187, according to a document the broadcaster obtained through an access to information request, the total cost was actually $215,398. This includes costs to cover RCMP, defence staff, Global Affairs Canada and Privy's Council staff who accompanied the prime minister on the trip.

Also - it's only pandering:

A year ago, Justin Trudeau was pictured in Hangzhou, China with Alibaba Group founder Jack Ma, waving around a Clearwater lobster that had recently been made available for sale on Ma’s e-commerce site T-Mall.

But politics is a fickle mistress. Promoting a growing Canadian seafood producer in Asia was a top priority when the cameras were rolling in China, but those ties have been severed now that Clearwater is an impediment to a project even closer to the prime minister’s heart: Indigenous reconciliation.

Last Thursday, the Department of Fisheries put out an innocuous-looking press release that said it will use 25 per cent of the existing total allowable catch of Arctic surf clams to issue a new license that will be open to expressions of interest from “Indigenous entities” from the four Atlantic provinces and Quebec.

Fisheries minister Dominic LeBlanc said that by “enhancing access” to the surf clam fishery for Indigenous groups, “we are taking a powerful step toward reconciliation.”

But one group’s “enhanced access” is another’s lost business.

Clearwater has, to this point, controlled all the quota available, meaning that its clam business — providing those brilliant red tongues that look so appealing in sushi — is about to shrink by a quarter.

What can one expect from a virtue-signalling douchebag who elbows ladies in the chest?




Oh, this must be embarrassing:

The Liberal government in Quebec is currently working on a bill that bans niqabs from the public service. Jagmeet Singh is 100% against it. However his rivals Niki Ashton and Guy Caron have had more cagey responses. ...

When I first watched the video, I guessed that Singh’s position on the ban was actually what this woman was raving about. And, sure enough, she later posted a video to Facebook confirming this was the case.

This doesn’t make her rude interruption right, and one can certainly take issue with her tone and exaggerated fears.

But it does tell us she had a particular policy dispute with Singh and wasn’t mistakenly launching an anti-Muslim tirade against him as an individual, which bursts a large part of the media narrative.

There’s a bigger question, though: The media act like they’re against any glimmer of intolerance, particularly when it comes to Islam.

So much so that the Conservatives' modest citizenship oath niqab ban was drummed up as a decisive issue in the push to oust them in the last election.

Meanwhile, we’ve got a whole subset of NDP members who support a much broader niqab ban and leadership candidates enabling them. And yet the liberal media have practically left them all alone.

The coverage around this one heckler incident is a media fail - full of misinformation and double standards.

Singh has found a willing partner in deflection in the popular press.




Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne was set to lie testify in court:

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne denied in court Wednesday that she promised a New Democrat MP a cabinet position to get him to leave his party and run for the provincial Liberals.

Yes, about that:

Nov. 30: Premier Kathleen Wynne meets with NDP MP Glenn Thibeault, who agrees to run for the provincial Liberals. Wynne has said she decided at that meeting to appoint him.
Dec. 11: Local Liberal and chair of the Sudbury police services board Gerry Lougheed visits Andrew Olivier, the Liberal candidate in the June provincial election who was seeking to run again. Lougheed asks Olivier to consider stepping aside and nominating Thibeault instead. He tells Olivier "in the course of that deliberation" to consider "appointments, jobs, whatever."
Dec. 11: Wynne phones Olivier, who is quadriplegic and says he tapes conversations as his way of taking notes. He said technical difficulties prevent him from recording that exchange.
Dec. 12: Pat Sorbara, Wynne's deputy chief of staff, phones Olivier and says Wynne is "going to have to make a decision around the appointment," later telling him they should chat about what he would be interested in doing, be it "appointments to boards or commissions," a constituency office job or role in the party executive.
Dec. 15: Olivier goes public with claims that Lougheed and Sorbara offered him a job or appointment to step aside; Progressive Conservatives ask Ontario Provincial Police to investigate; New Democrats ask Elections Ontario to investigate.

Also:

The legal team representing Kathleen Wynne is demanding an apology from Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown over an allegedly "defamatory" statement about the premier's participation in the Sudbury byelection scandal trial.

While speaking to reporters at Queen's Park on Tuesday, Brown was asked by CBC Toronto's Mike Crawley why he did not specifically ask about the bribery scandal during question period.

"I hope that the premier will give us answers, we're not getting them in the legislature, maybe when she stands trial," Brown responded. 

In a letter addressed to Brown obtained by CBC Toronto, Wynne's lawyer Jack B. Siegel took issue with Brown's use of the phrase "when she stands trial."

"Contrary to your statement, Premier Wynne is not standing trial. Your statement is false and misleading and appears to have been made with the intention to harm the reputation of Ms. Wynne," Siegel wrote, adding that Wynne is not subject to any charges in the trial.

Maybe she should stand trial. 

And:

Don’t expect Premier Kathleen Wynne to change course because of Tuesday’s warning from Ontario’s Financial Accountability Office (FAO) that her minimum wage hikes will cost 50,000 jobs, hit groups like recent immigrants hardest and are an inefficient way to address poverty.

Because that’s not how a left-wing ideologue like Wynne operates.

Indeed, her government’s typical reaction to critical, non-partisan warnings it gets from independent officers of the legislature — such as the auditor general and the FAO — is to ignore them, or to attack the messenger.

That’s what Wynne’s Liberal government did when auditor general Bonnie Lysyk criticized its public pension plan accounting and “smart meter” program.

Sure, one could withdraw Aung San Suu Kyi's honourary citizenship but one might be overlooking something:

Burma’s worst nightmare came a step closer to reality when a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban’s most hardline faction called on the oppressed Rohingya to “take up the sword and kill in the path of God”.

Just saying.

(Paws up)




Oh, I wouldn't be surprised if it were:

A plan to increase the price to park at street meters and in Green P lots in Toronto is nothing more than a tax grab, Doug Ford says.

Ford, a former city councillor who has announced that he will run against Mayor John Tory in next fall’s municipal elections, said he believes that this is a desperate move by Tory to find revenue anywhere he can.

“He hasn’t been fiscally responsible whatsoever with the taxpayers money and he wants to tax everything from parking to rain coming off your roof.” Ford said Wednesday. “Anything he can get his hands on, he can tax.”

TPA, which now takes in more than $113 million a year, is considering a plan to bump up rates roughly a-buck-an-hour at many street meters; extend the hours when drivers would have to pay for parking on some streets near downtown Toronto; and increase fees at Green P lots, particularly at high-demand locations.

“A comprehensive review of parking rates at all TPA off-street municipal parking facilities is carried out at least annually to ensure the prices in place are addressing demand patterns such that TPA is delivering its core mandate of providing short-stay high, turnover parking,” a municipal parking report says.

South Korea conducts live-fire tests:

South Korea said Wednesday it had conducted its first live-fire drill for an advanced air-launched cruise missile that would strengthen its pre-emptive strike capability against North Korea in the event of crisis.

South Korea’s military said the Taurus missile fired from an F-15 fighter jet travelled through obstacles at low altitudes before hitting a target off the country’s western coast during drills Tuesday.

What is wrong with people?

California prosecutors say a fast-food restaurant cashier gave birth to a baby boy while at work and then tried to kill him by flushing him down a toilet.

And now, a nun with a chainsaw:

A Florida nun is pitching in on the cleanup efforts following Hurricane Irma by taking a chain saw to downed trees while dressed in her full habit.

Miami-Dade police posted video of Sister Margaret Ann at work on social media taken by an off-duty officer who came across her.

Police say the nun was cutting trees to clear the roadways around Archbishop Coleman Carrol High School near Miami. Sister Margaret Ann is the school’s principal, according to its website.

Police say “acts of kindness” like Sister Margaret Ann’s remind residents that they’re all part of the same community. The department added in its post, “Thank you Sister and all of our neighbours that are working together to get through this!”

That, ye heathen, is not a knife!