Saturday Night Special

 

Determined to reduce Canada to a nineteenth century standard of living by the end of the year, the Energy East pipeline has been quashed.


Most affected are the Maritime provinces that voted Liberal in the last election:

At what would have been the eastern end of the Energy East Pipeline, rookie Mayor Don Darling is in mourning.

The veteran businessman, elected mayor just last year, presides over a declining city in a declining province, and had been counting on Energy East to help turn the corner.

"This is a disappointment. It's an economic blow. I'm frustrated," Darling said Thursday.

The $15.7 billion pipeline project would have carried western crude to the Irving Oil refinery in Saint John and an export terminal for destinations abroad. TransCanada cancelled it Thursday, citing "changed circumstances."

While Quebec politicians like Montreal Mayor Denis Coderre and environmental activists celebrated the demise of the project, Darling lamented the loss of jobs and revenue.

"This a huge economic blow to Saint John, to New Brunswick and to the country," Darling said.

The Energy East Saint John Partners Forum had estimated the project would increase the provincial GDP by $6.5 billion, and create thousands of jobs over several decades.

Ian Whitcomb, president of the Saint John-based Irving Oil, called it the loss of a "once in a lifetime opportunity."

Darling said his once-affluent city — the oldest incorporated city in Canada — was looking to Energy East as a source of momentum to get the economy moving.

He said in the short term, the city of 67,000 people is facing a $4.5 million shortfall this year and needs to make tough decisions if it is to avoid raising the city's tax rate — already the highest in the region.

The 2016 census showed the population of Saint John fell by 3.6 per cent over the previous five years — falling from 70,063 to 67,575 — and losing its status as the largest city in the province.

You got the government you deserve, Atlantic Canada.

Eat sand this Thanksgiving.

And Christmas.


Trudeau, in perpetual jack@$$ mode, went about not caring why people might be upset about this:

But karma, she is a patient mistress:

The United States government has hit Bombardier Inc. with a 79.82 per cent anti-dumping duty, just over a week after it imposed a massive countervailing duty that effectively halts its ability to sell its CSeries jet in the U.S. market.

Also:

There’s been visceral outrage across the country – including in Long’s riding – among small business owners and professionals who see the Liberal “reform” as a job-killing tax grab.

Long, a New Brunswick MP, supported a Conservative move to extend the consultation period on the federal government’s proposed tax revisions.

In retribution, he’s been de facto stripped of whatever minimal powers he’d held.

While he hasn’t been booted out of the Liberal caucus, Long – who is not a cabinet minister nor a parliamentary secretary – now has no real government duties aside from being an advocate for his constituents.

The irony of course is that Long voted the way he did precisely because he was advocating for his constituents.

He was being a good MP. And he was punished for it.

Because Trudeau, like his dad, is a vindictive little sh--.



Because Rex Murphy:

Did Trudeau deliver on a new electoral system by getting ride of first-past-the-post? Nein. No delivery there. Perfect failure. As were the vaporous hearings on electoral reform, which were scuttled by the very minister who set them up. 

Has he repaired the country’s relationship with First Nation’s people? Uh Uh. The MMIW inquiry might be compared to a drawing room farce, were the subject matter not so sensitive. It has appalled the very people it was set up to serve, brought tears from many who once saw it as an instrument of mercy, and has lost the best people to conduct the inquiry through their resignations. Huge, messy, sad flop on a very sensitive file. I guess Mr. Barber and the crackerjack wisdoms of Deliverology, here, once again, failed, yes, to deliver.

Tax reform. There is no need to detail this chaos. The video file from the Oakville town meeting with the finance minister provides all you need to see on how well this is not going over. Deliverology failure once again.

Maybe he needs a new pair of socks. 




A "Canadian" has been implicated in a bomb plot in New York:

Experts say the guilty plea from a Canadian teenager who admitted to plotting to bomb major landmarks in New York City underscores the fact that Canada is not immune to the growing global reach of terrorist networks.

Officials in the United States released details of Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy’s guilty plea on Friday, months after it was heard by a New York court.

The 19-year-old from Mississauga, Ont. admitted to connecting with operatives with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, as well as conspiring with associates in Pakistan and the Philippines to build car bombs targeting such critical areas as Times Square and the city subway system.

Court documents provided by the U.S. justice department provided few details as to how El Bahnasawy came to espouse extremist beliefs, but imams and scholars alike say the case is a further demonstration that radical messages are reaching a Canadian audience.

Thanks to M-103, this cannot be discussed at great length (soon, at all).




Oh, gee, what a surprise:

While the heated debate over the government’s proposed tax changes carries on in Parliament, the ethics watchdog is keeping its distance — at least for now — from allegations by Conservative MPs that Finance Minister Bill Morneau is putting himself in a conflict of interest.

The Morneau family business, Morneau Shepell, is one of the major pension management firms in the country. The opposition has been increasingly citing it as an attack line in the tax debate, claiming it will ultimately benefit from the proposed reforms on tax planning through private corporations.

A spokesperson for Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson said they are monitoring the situation, but the office doesn’t see the need to formally investigate the matter.

It wouldn't be the first time an ethics commissioner wouldn't do her job.


Also: 

Statistics Canada released its Labour Force Survey Friday, making special note that Ontario’s employment rose by 35,000 jobs overall in September — the fourth gain in five months.

The province saw an increase in 78,000 full-time positions, offset in part by 43,000 fewer part-time jobs.

However, when probing deeper into the Stats Canada numbers, it turns out that almost half the jobs created in Ontario in September were in the category of public sector employee, 16,300 positions or a 1.2% increase in one month.

Premier Wynne's friend:

His prison sentence runs until May 28, 2018 but that could have been disgraced educator Benjamin Levin you saw walking around in Toronto.

The 65-year-old former Ontario deputy education minister and member of Premier Kathleen Wynne’s 2013 transition team was jailed in May 2015 for sickening and disturbing online child pornography activities.

Levin, it turns out, has been on parole for some time.

That was reported late last week by a group called Parents As First Educators (PAFE), who emailed supporters and posted details about Levin’s release on their Facebook site.

According to Parole Board of Canada documents the group obtained, Levin was granted day parole to a community-based residential facility in Aug. 2016 and full parole on Jan. 10 this year, some 18 months after being sentenced to a three-year prison term.

Levin’s previous lawyers Clayton Ruby and Patrick Barry had no comment on what was in the parole documents, nor did his wife, Barbara, who is mentioned in them.

“I am not aware of anything new and I don’t know if Ben is, either,” she said Wednesday. “I don’t know why are you are doing this now. I mean he’s been out on parole for ages. There is nothing new about any of this. This is like old history.”

Levin, who was a world-renowned educator before his shocking fall from grace, was jailed in May 2015 for creating and possessing child pornography and counselling others to commit a sexual assault.
At the time, Justice Heather McArthur wrote that Levin had a “hidden, dark side” that he had kept the secret from his family and political friends.

That hidden side included visiting chat rooms “devoted to topics of incest and the sexual exploitation of children,” something he’d done for years.

Levin was ultimately nabbed conversing with police officers posing as single moms. He encouraged them to sexually abuse their kids and in some cases shared photos.

In one case, Levin sent photographs to a New Zealand police officer, one showing a “close-up of the face of a crying child, her face smeared with black makeup.” Levin suggested to her the image was “hot,” according to parole board documents. Another photo he sent showed a young female bound and leashed, with a gag in her mouth and Levin commented, “Mmm, so hot to imagine a mother doing that to her girl to please her lover.”

The parole board’s written decision permitting his day parole on Aug. 12, 2016 detailed Levin’s willing and twisted online interactions, noting he had “joined a web site dedicated to child pornography and had conversations with others in a predatory, deviant and sadistic manner.”

The board also noted police discovered 79 files of child pornography on his computers and a word document with 1,750 people “whom you had been communicating online on the subject of subversive sexual interests, primarily related to sexual contact between parents and children.”

In its reasons for denying full parole in at that time, the board expressed “concern” over Levin’s “lack of understanding or insight into the true victims of your offending.”

“You continue to identify your family and social and past political network as victims,” the board decision states. “It was very concerning to the board that you appear to have little understanding that the children in the pornographic images you viewed and shared are the true victims of your offending. That they have been abused sexually, mentally and physically and will bear lifelong scars of this abuse inflicted on them for the sole gratification of people such as yourself.”

At the time of his trial, Levin’s defence lawyer, Ruby, suggested Levin’s “motive was to fulfil his own fantasy,” that he had been role playing and read an apology from Levin.

“I apologize unreservedly. I am deeply ashamed...and appalled every day that my behaviour fell so far below my own standards and previous actions, which led to the loss of my reputation and my livelihood,” Levin said in the statement.

The parole board accepted, as the court did, that Levin experienced and demonstrated remorse. The board also noted Levin was receiving ongoing treatment and counselling, had complied with all aspects of his incarceration plan, had stayed out of trouble in jail and was committed to not re-offending.

“You are considered, using actuarial measures, to be a low risk to re-offend,” and granted day parole.

Five months later on Jan. 10, 2017, having given Levin opportunity to address concerns about his insights into his victims and demonstrate a period of stability, he was granted full parole.

Also - rats know when to leave a sinking ship:

Both deputy premier Deb Matthews and Treasury Board President Liz Sandals, however, insisted that is not the reason for their upcoming departures.

Matthews will remain as the Liberals’ campaign co-chair through the election, saying she has enormous respect for Premier Kathleen Wynne.

“I am confident that, on June 7, 2018, the people of Ontario will give her and her team the mandate to continue to serve,” Matthews wrote in a statement Friday.

Various polls would suggest a different outcome, however, with most putting the Liberals behind the Progressive Conservatives, and one survey even placing them third, behind the NDP. ...

Economic Development Minister Brad Duguid announced last month that he would not run in next year’s provincial election.

Former environment minister Glen Murray recently left government for the private sector, and Speaker Dave Levac, the Liberal representative for Brant, and Monte Kwinter, Ontario’s oldest MPP, have also announced they won’t seek re-election.

 
I would just refuse to give fealty to a bunch of crooks who live in northern ghettos:

The absurd fetishization of "Indigenous" sensitivities swallowed the Dominion's sesquicentennial and turned it into a year-long joyless bummer of interest to no one other than government diversicrats and other professional grievance-mongers. Undeterred, Justin Trudeau has decided to take it to the next level. Ahmed Hussen, appointed by the Prime Minister and Virtue-Signaler-in-Chief as Canada's first Somali immigration minister, has approved revisions to the oath taken by every new Canadian citizen:

I swear (or affirm) that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, Queen of Canada, her heirs and successors, and that I will faithfully observe the laws of Canada including treaties with Indigenous Peoples, and fulfil my duties as a Canadian citizen.

Treaties are between contracting parties, usually nations but, in this case, the Crown and "First Nations". It is unclear to me in what sense an ordinary citizen can "observe" a treaty - even if he knew what the hell was in it, which new immigrants surely don't. Never mind. It cements at the heart of a pledge of allegiance the formal acknowledgment that, in your new country, some groups count for more than others.

And now, who wouldn't want to spend a holiday in a Soviet-era sanatorium? 

Nearly all of the sanatoriums featured in the book still offer a range of treatments—some more unusual than others. One particularly startling entry is the National Speleotherapy Clinic just outside Minsk, Belarus. Speleotherapy is a form of respiratory treatment that involves breathing inside a cave. In this case, that cave is a salt mine nearly 1,400 feet underground. While it does offer some facilities on the surface, the consultation rooms, activity areas, and dormitories are all situated in tunnels. According to the book, more than 7,000 children and adults visit each year.