Mid-Week Post

Five more shopping days before Halloween ...




What Bill 62 actually says:

Under the bill, personnel members of public bodies and of certain other bodies must exercise their functions with their face uncovered, unless they have to cover their face, in particular because of their working conditions or because of occupational or task-related requirements. In addition, persons receiving services from such personnel members must have their face uncovered. An accommodation is possible but must be refused if the refusal is warranted in the context for security or identification reasons or because of the level of communication required.

The bill goes in great detail but the long-and-short of it is that unless one is wearing a surgical or similar type mask in the middle of work when such a mask would be required, one's face cannot be covered if one wants anything from the government.

It sounds reasonable.


But the Fils is not amused: 

Bill 62 requires anyone providing or receiving provincial and municipal public services in Quebec to uncover their faces.

Last week, Vallee said the law would oblige people riding a bus or the subway to do so with their faces uncovered for the entire journey.

On Tuesday, however, she backtracked, saying only those whose fare requires a card with photo ID will need to uncover their faces before riding public transit — and that they can put the veil back on once they've been identified.

Asked Wednesday about Vallee's clarifications, Trudeau replied: "You call those clarifications?"  

(Sidebar: Well, yes, she does, Lord Huffy-Pants, and so does the province of Quebec which you assured everyone was way better than Alberta in leading the country. I'm sure everyone worries about the opinion of a former substitute drama teacher.)


Trudeau, in what he must think is best dramatic performance to date, threatens to put the kibbosh on this bill:

Justin Trudeau has opened the door to federal intervention to challenge Quebec's new law on religious neutrality, widely seen as targeting Muslim women who wear face veils.

Immediately after Quebec passed Bill 62 last week, the prime minister was hesitant to come out strongly against the legislation. He said the responsibility to challenge the law lay with citizens, not the federal government.

But he was considerably more forceful Wednesday, scoffing at the Quebec government's attempts to clear up confusion about how the law will be applied and disclosing that the federal government is exploring its options for protecting the rights of women who cover their faces.

"I will always stand up for individual rights and I will always stand up for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and we are looking very carefully at what tools we have and what steps we have to make sure we make this situation better for everyone," Trudeau said.

Even he must know that if he invokes his father's stupid Charter for this, he'll lose Quebec where a strong majority support Bill 62.

But Quebec has a card up its sleeve:

Despite the musing of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of a possible legal challenge, Quebec’s justice minister says she is convinced Bill 62 will stand up in the courts.

But Stéphanie Vallée has refused to rule out the use of the constitution’s notwithstanding clause, which would allow the government to override fundamental rights to protect the law adopted last week.

At the same time, Premier Philippe Couillard has warned reluctant cities and educational institutions that he expects Bill 62 to be respected.

“That Mr. Trudeau does not share our opinion is his right,” Vallée said. “He has the right to have an opinion on the law. I won’t start having conversations (with him) through the media.

“I would just say I am completely confident in the constitutionality of Bill 62, which was adopted and given royal assent last week. I am persuaded it will pass the test of the courts.

“Quebec has the right to legislate on issues which belong to it, issues affecting diversity and people living together in Quebec. I think it’s important to legislate on these questions.”

I say let the fun begin.

Let Trudeau challenge this if he can. He'll lose Quebec. If he doesn't, though, he'll lost the Islamist vote. And Quebec will just lose because it forgets who now occupies la belle province.

We don't have a justice system in this country:

Two Ontario Liberals were acquitted of Election Act bribery charges Tuesday in a case the party and one of the defendants suggested was only brought to trial because of political motivations.

The judge hearing the case granted a directed verdict application from the defence that called for the charges to be tossed before any defence witnesses were called. Based on the Crown's evidence alone, no reasonable jury could convict the pair on trial, the judge concluded.

So how did this evidence-bare case go to trial then?




Of course Dalhousie University did:

Dalhousie University is withdrawing disciplinary action against a student over a post she made to Facebook in the summer about Canada 150 celebrations.

A complaint was made against student union vice-president Masuma Khan, who posted "white fragility can kiss my ass. Your white tears aren't sacred, this land is."

Khan had been facing possible disciplinary action from the Halifax school over the post that expressed her frustrations with Canada 150 celebrations.

The university's vice-provost of student affairs, Arig al Shaibah, said in a statement released Wednesday the incident "demonstrated the need for an open, thorough discussion on campus about the appropriate policies and processes to support freedom of expression."

Oh, I'm sure it does. 

Miss Khan is more than welcome to express her displeasure about Canada and about living in it. After all, she could be in any Islamist country and be murdered for her beliefs. Why should self-awareness or gratitude get in the way of a good rant? But I think it is only fair for any other student to point out that she is a fat ingrate from a backward culture that uses law-fare and violence to silence its critics:

On Monday, Gazali went further, suggesting that Islamophobia should explicitly be criminalized. The Criminal Code of Canada currently forbids the public incitement or promotion of hatred “against any identifiable group,” and the Canadian Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination on grounds including race, national or ethnic origin and religion.

(Sidebar: I think Jew-hating from mosques should be prohibited.)

What is good for the goose, Miss Khan ...


Also:

Canada already has the world’s most extreme abortion license, with abortion on demand legal for any reason at any time. But the totalitarian impulse seeks to enforce approval, or at least criminalize dissent. How far does Bill 163 reach? The police could arrest you if, a block down from an abortion clinic, you wore a t-shirt saying, “Canada should adopt Sweden’s abortion laws.”

As I said, we don't have a justice system in this country. 




Rachel Notley is a silly woman. That can't be said enough:

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley says an alternative sex education curriculum being crafted by Catholic school officials will never be taught if it arrives as previously advertised.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Notley says the health and well-being of students comes first.

"Nowhere do the rights of religious freedom extend to that person's right to somehow attack or hurt others — and that's what's happening here," Notley said Tuesday. "We will not use public dollars to have sexual health programs that deny science, that deny evidence, and that deny human rights.

"They can continue to work on (the proposal) all they want, but we ultimately approve the curriculum that goes into schools — and this kind of curriculum will not happen."

And the proof that there are several sexes is where exactly? 

Yes, I would say blowing up people is evil:

Agent Tamer Elnoury describes how Esseghaier gave him chills from the first time they met, musing casually about shooting down passenger aircraft.

“The look in Chiheb’s eyes when he talked about killing infidels was something I’d never seen before in my life,” he writes in American Radical, a new book that focuses largely on the Via case. “It was a look of hatred and death.”

Lawyers have suggested that Esseghaier’s 2015 conviction was tainted by the mental illness that seemed to manifest itself at trial, an issue expected to figure prominently in his appeal.

But Elnoury — the agent’s cover name in the Canadian investigation — says the Tunisian-born PhD student from Montreal “absolutely” knew right from wrong as the conspiracy unfolded, offering complex justifications for his planned violence, and removing cell-phone batteries and doing other counter-surveillance to try to avoid police scrutiny.

“That isn’t someone who isn’t aware of what’s happening, who’s ‘out there,’ ” he said in an interview. “That’s someone who’s calculating to commit mass murder.”

But that would mean that the authorities have to take a stronger stance against terrorism. That's not going to happen.




It turns out that resource-based economies reduce poverty:

With the recent cancellation of TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline — after the company spent $1 billion in attempts to jump through ever-changing regulatory and political hoops — it is time to remind ourselves as Canadians where much of our country’s recent economic uptick originated.

Answer: In resource exploration and extraction.

This was illustrated again recently, just before the TransCanada announcement, with Statistics Canada’s recent release of key census data. The data revealed how median Canadian household income rose to $70,336 by 2015, up almost $6,900 from $63,457 in 2005 or nearly 11 per cent.

The provincial breakdowns are even more revealing than the national figure. Median income went up by $20,161 in Saskatchewan (37 per cent), $18,151 in Alberta (20 per cent) and $15,068 in Newfoundland and Labrador (29 per cent).

As Statistics Canada noted, “An important factor in the economic story of Canada over the decade was high resource prices.” The agency further observed how “that drew investment and people to Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador, boosted the construction sector, and more generally filtered through the economy as a whole.”

But why state the obvious?




A North Korean defector describes life for Christian converts in the hermit kingdom:

North Korean Choi Kwanghyuk is one of the lucky ones.

The 55-year-old managed to escape from the work camp where he was sent after being targeted and persecuted by the government for his Christian faith.

“We couldn’t raise our voice during a service, we couldn’t sing out loud during a worship … that was hard,” Choi told Fox News through a translator. “Also, we had to hide so that other people could not see us.”

Despite having to hide his faith in plain sight while living in North Hamgyong province, Choi was still compelled to bring religion to others when he started an underground church.

“There were about nine people,” he said. “I couldn’t do mission work because we had to keep it secret that we had a church.”

“If that information had leaked, we could have faced the death penalty.”

North Korea is officially an atheist state where – except for a “show church” in Pyongyang that tourists are shown -- public worship is forbidden. The country is ranked the most oppressive place for Christians in the world and has had that ignominious status for years, according to Open Doors USA.

“[Choi’s] statements describing oppression, as well as his report of imprisonment for owning a Bible or practicing faith, align with everything we know about North Korea,” Open Doors President David Curry told Fox News. “Rated the worst place for the persecution of Christians, North Korea treats Christians horrendously and registers them as 'enemies of the state' for their faith.”

The totalitarian state forces the estimated 300,000 Christians living there to hide their religious beliefs and fellowship among each other.

“In a nation where the ruling regime demands total control over the general public, anything that challenges the government’s power is seen as a threat, including religion,” Jeff King, president of International Christian Concern, told Fox News. “As a result, the North Korean government does everything in its power to squash the spread of Christianity."

This leads much of the religious population in North Korea to go underground with their worship, much like Choi and his church were forced to do.

Also:

Malaysian prosecutors said Wednesday that they would present security camera video showing two more male suspects at the airport on the day the estranged half brother of North Korea’s leader was killed.

Chances are that they are North Korean agents and may never face justice.




The paper dragon has a new Mao:

“The amendment of the party constitution effectively confirms Xi Jinping’s aspiration to be the Mao Zedong of the 21st Century – that means a top leader with no constraints on tenure or retirement age,” said Willy Wo-Lap Lam, a political expert at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

“The fact that he has become the new helmsman of the ship of state, providing guiding principles for party, state and military, provides the perfect justification for him to stay number one well beyond the normal 10 years,”

The inclusion of Xi’s name in the party’s document makes him only the third Chinese leader to be so honored, with his ideology joining Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory as a “guide to action.” It will now become compulsory learning for Chinese students from primary schools through to universities.

Xi is gearing up for a new and belligerent dictatorship.

It is time to be very concerned.




And now, not sure what to be for Halloween? Fret no more!