Mid-Week Post

 Your middle-of-the-week refreshment ...



The most moving moment in last night's the State of the Union address was when Trump recounted the harrowing story of North Korean defector, Ji Seong-Ho's graphic crippling and then escape to freedom:

Donald Trump used the harrowing story of a North Korean defector to highlight the brutality of Kim Jong-un's regime during his State of the Union address on Tuesday night.  

Ji Seong-ho, who was among the guests of honour for the president's speech to Congress, was hailed as "an inspiration to us all" and received a standing ovation from the lawmakers. 

This Ji Seong-Ho:

Ji Seong-ho, 32, who escaped from North Korea after losing his left leg above the knee and his left hand at the wrist, said the disabled are considered a stain on North Korea's image and a "humiliation" to the ruling regime. 

Mr Ji, who is researching a book on the plight of North Korea's disabled, said babies with disabilities are taken away by hospital staff, never to be seen again. He added that children with developmental difficulties are neglected until they die. 

"The regime proclaims: 'There are no people with disabilities under the Kims' rule' and 'everyone is equal and living well'," he said. "And while that propaganda is going on disabled children are being taken away, suffering indescribable things and dying."

There couldn't be a more stirring moment.

Not that the Democrats care or anything. Their bitterness towards Trump was written all over their scowls.

Don't let Mr. Ji's life story move you or anything, Democrats.



In the mean time, is anyone doing anything constructive to stop this regime?

The U.S. military is confident it could destroy “most” of the infrastructure underpinning North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s nuclear missile program if necessary in a favourable scenario, a top American general said Tuesday.

And how would that scenario look?

The Chinese-backed North Korea is perfecting its ICBMs and despite the sanctions everyone is keen on, North Korea is still eluding them, even managing to get its coal to South Korea via another backer, Russia.

I say it's time to sanction some countries other than North Korea.


Also:

Victor Cha, a former White House official who had been the Trump administration’s choice to be the next U.S. ambassador to South Korea, is no longer being considered for the post, U.S. officials said on Tuesday.

The Washington Post quoted people familiar with the matter as saying the Korean-American had raised concerns with White House officials over their consideration of a risky limited strike on North Korea and about the administration’s threats to tear up a bilateral trade deal with Seoul.

One U.S. official acknowledged that there had been policy disagreements but did not offer specifics.

We had an anthem:

The Senate has passed a bill to make the national anthem more gender neutral, fulfilling the dying wish of Liberal MP Mauril Belanger.

The Senate has given its final approval to the legislation, which would change the second line of the anthem from "in all thy sons command" to "in all of us command."

The legislation now only requires formal royal assent before it becomes law.

We also had an Arctic:

China has finally unveiled its official Arctic strategy, and it includes a promise to build a “Polar Silk Road” on Canada’s northernmost fringes. 

“It is interesting they put out something official … China’s strategy since 2008 was to remain low-key and avoid triggering the inevitable alarmism,” said Heather Exner-Pirot, managing editor of the Arctic Yearbook.

The document, published in English by Chinese state media, declares China a “near-Arctic state” and lays out the country’s ambitions to become a major shipping power through an ice-free Arctic. 

“China attaches great importance to navigation security in the Arctic shipping routes,” it reads.

A donation to the Trudeau Foundation can get one a portion of this country.




So what are you saying, Justin?

When asked if any of his past actions could be misconstrued, Trudeau said he didn't think so.

"This is something that I'm not new to. I've been working on issues around sexual assault for over 25 years.

Oh, I'll bet you aren't.




I think what Justin means to say is that confidentiality matters when it's his party that is under fire:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says confidentiality will be a factor in deciding whether to release the findings of an investigation into allegations of misconduct levelled against Liberal MP Kent Hehr.

Also:

Longtime Sen. Colin Kenny is calling it quits months before his scheduled retirement later this year.

Kenny officially notified the Governor General on Wednesday morning that he will leave the Senate at the end of the week, ahead of his mandatory retirement date in December.

 
(Sidebar: this Colin Kenny.)




We don't have elected judges and this is a serious problem.

Cases in point:

A former government communications director has been given a nine-month conditional sentence for using his public job to woo ethnic votes for British Columbia’s Liberal party.

Provincial court Judge David St. Pierre said Brian Bonney made “certain choices” that landed him in court.

**

The Right to Life Association of Toronto has lost a court bid to suspend a federal requirement that groups applying for summer-job grants affirm their respect for a woman’s right to have an abortion.

The Toronto anti-abortion group had asked the Federal Court of Canada to put the requirement on hold while the underlying merits of the case could be argued fully.

In a ruling, the Federal Court says the group has not established that the harm it expects to suffer in the absence of an injunction outweighs the damage to the public interest from a suspension of the requirement.

Harm? Public interest?

No one likes this grants program requirement, not even pro-abortion Canadians (who are - let's be honest - part of the problem. If you support the killing of an unborn person, how hard is it to be a fascist about everything else? You put these people in power. This is an extension of your anti-freedom and anti-life stances. Own it).

Expect to see more of this.




There is a reason why Justin should never be allowed to speak if the Liberals want to be seen as the party of people who are literate:

"I don't think the president is going to be cancelling it," Trudeau said of the decades-old trade deal.

"I've been positive about NAFTA and NAFTA renegotiations from the very beginning. Our message has been consistent, to the president, to our partners and friends in the United States: that NAFTA has been good for American jobs. It's been good for Canadian jobs." 

That's what we call "wishful thinking", Justin.

Do you have a plan B?

Something tells me that you don't.


To wit:

The Senate of Canada is back in session this week, ready to vote on Bill C-25. That’s the legislation introduced by Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains to revamp the Canada Business Corporations Act and inject more social subversion into corporate governance. Part of the bill deals with shareholders’ election of directors. Another tackles the trending topic of diversity in management, on boards and throughout the corporate system.

In December there appeared to be some chance the bill’s more extreme provisions would get amended and the bill returned to the Commons where, perchance, it might meet a peaceful demise. No such luck. When the risk emerged that the focus of the prime minister’s talking points at the World Economic Forum might end up as mulch on the floor of the Senate, the Liberal power machine shut down the banking committee’s review of the legislation. So much for the independence of the newly independent Liberal senators.

Poverty is also diverse, Justin.



Why not price-fix some mansions and yachts? Make things even:

At least $1.50 has been artificially baked into the price of a loaf of bread during a 16-year-long bread price-fixing conspiracy involving the country's largest bakery wholesalers and grocery retailers, the federal competition watchdog alleged in court documents released Wednesday.

The Competition Bureau alleges that Canada Bread Company Ltd. and George Weston Ltd.'s senior officers communicated directly to raise prices at least 15 times — with an average increase of 10 cents per loaf passed on to consumers between about 2001 and 2016. The bureau believes the behaviour may have continued into 2017.

According to previously-sealed information to obtain documents, the pattern became colloquially known as the 7/10 convention — with an average seven cent price increase at wholesale and 10 cent price bump for the consumer in stores, resulting in an average margin increase of three cents per loaf for retailers.

This must be embarrassing:

A Calgary school board trustee candidate who made headlines when she reported being the victim of racist threats has been charged under the Local Authorities Election Act following an investigation.

Nimra Amjad, 32, has been charged with signing a candidate's acceptance form that contains a false statement and making a false statement for a purpose related to an election.

Police believe she was not eligible to run for office when she unsuccessfully ran last fall as a Ward 3 and 4 school trustee candidate.

The seat on the Calgary Board of Education was won by Althea Adams.

The anti-corruption unit began investigating Amjad on Oct. 30, 2017, after a member of the public reported Amjad was not a Canadian citizen and therefore not eligible to run. 

"It is alleged that the candidate filed both a notice of intent to run and a nomination acceptance form, swearing or affirming she had read the eligibility requirements and was legally eligible to run," according to police.

It is a crime for a non-citizen to file either of those documents.

Christ appointed Saint Peter and his successors as guardians of the Vatican, not the Chinese communists:

The Vatican has asked two bishops in China to stand aside or step down at the behest of the Chinese government, reinforcing the impression that senior figures within the Catholic Church are keen for a formal rapprochement between the Papacy and the atheist Communist Party of China, experts said.

But a deal is not imminent, experts said, nor would it be universally welcomed within the Catholic Church — the latest developments have already prompted one retired cardinal to make an emotional appeal to the pope on the bishops’ behalf.

Beijing broke off diplomatic relations with the Vatican in 1951, not long after the Communist Party came to power. Since then, two parallel Catholic churches have grown up in China: the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association (CCPA) run by state-appointed bishops, and an underground church with many bishops appointed by the Vatican.

The Vatican is keen to bring the entire Chinese Catholic community of some 10 to 12 million people back into the fold and talks have been underway since 2014. Yet the question of whether the Chinese state or the Holy See has ultimate authority over appointing of bishops has been a major sticking point.

There are times when there are no words adequate enough to describe something.

For example:

Footage shows the unnamed woman walking through Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey, with the bird sitting calmly on her shoulder as she pushes her luggage.

The bird reportedly had its own assigned seat, but was ultimately denied access as the woman attempted to board the plane.

One bemused traveller is heard to say in the footage: ’What the hell. I’m not kidding, a woman is wrangling her peacock in the airport.’

(Paws up)

A Post of Some Import

Quite a bit going  on ...



Now, who is so disgusted with the Liberals that what is happening now would cause them to never vote for them ever again?

Hey - where did all of these crickets come from?

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said there is no rule book onhow he will respond to cases of members of the Liberal Party who are accused ofsexual misconduct.

The comment comes days after former Liberal Sports and Persons with Disabilities Minister Kent Hehr resigned from cabinet over allegations he made inappropriate sexual comments to women in elevators during his time as a member of the Alberta legislature and groped others since coming to work on Parliament Hill. Trudeau was asked why Hehr can remain in the Liberal caucus while other members hit with similar accusations have been removed.

 

“I don’t have a rule book that’s been handed down by Wilfrid Laurier as leader of the Liberal party on how to handle these situations,” Trudeau said during a press conference Tuesday afternoon in Ottawa.
“Every case will be different.”

Hehr, who won the coveted seat of Calgary Centre for the Liberals for the first time in 2015, resigned pending the outcome of an investigation into his conduct.

However, Trudeau banished or allowed the resignations of four other MPs from his caucus over the last four years after similar accusations of misconduct were leveled against them.

**

And has also changed in last 15 minutes. pic.twitter.com/AMo4V4cdUR

— Les Perreaux (@perreaux) January 30, 2018

**

Open Nominations: “Open nominations, which I continue to be committed to and have always been committed to, is about letting local Liberals choose who is going to be their candidate in the next election….” CTV News, March 18, 2014.

So this was never a promise Trudeau was going to keep, but we should keep a running list of ridings where it was egregiously broken. ...

Vancouver South: Under what looked for all the world to be pressure from Liberal higher-ups, Barjinder Singh Dhahan in favour of serial-exaggerator Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, leading to resignations on that riding’s LPC riding association executive.

Vancouver East: A face-saving “internal investigation” helped to shove allegations of people being signed up a LPC members without their consent or knowledge under the rug.

Ville-Marie–Le Sud-Ouest–Île-des-Soeurs: Marc Miller, buddy to Trudeau, earns votes from people who say they never signed up as members. ...

No Protection For Incumbent Liberals: In 2013, Trudeau was very clear: Sitting MP’s could and would and should be taken down.

“I had to fight a really tough nomination (in 2008), where I wasn’t the candidate that the party wanted to win,” Trudeau said.

“And everything I achieved in the rest of my career, including this leadership run, I owe directly to that nomination race because it taught me about working on the ground, it taught me about organizing, it taught me how to win over people step by step.”

Isn’t that lovely. Well, Trudeau reversed himself and said that the 20-year-old Liberal Incumbent Protection Program is here to stay. 

(Sidebar: read the whole thing.)


As long as people tolerate this, it will continue.

That it does shows an extraordinary ignorance and wickedness on the part of people who think tribally but never ethically.

Who should be surprised?


(Merci to all)



I got the sense that Vic Fedeli was stepping in but did not want to commit to something greater:

The Ontario Progressive Conservatives' newly-minted interim leader is bowing out of the race to replace his predecessor, saying he needs to devote all of his time to addressing a party that is in "much worse shape" than he realized.

Vic Fedeli announced at a news conference at Queen's Park on Tuesday morning that he no longer plans to be a contender in the leadership race, which is expected to take place before the June 7 provincial election. Tory MPPs named Mr. Fedeli interim leader last Friday, following the sudden resignation of Patrick Brown after a CTV news report alleging sexual misconduct involving two young women. Mr. Brown has denied the allegations.

A wise scribe once remarked that the nuclear plant meltdown in earthquake-stricken Fukushima was to be taken care of by the Japanese (read: do not be overly concerned for professionals are on the case) and that Chernobyl was run by the Russians (read: Three Stooges).


Canada is an imminent Chernobyl:

There was a feeling when this process began six months ago that talks would need to end well ahead of Mexico’s presidential vote in July and U.S. mid-term elections in November. The original goal was to conclude by the end of 2017.

That deadline probably would have required Canada and Mexico to cave at the outset. They didn’t, so the safer political play now could be to leave things ambiguous until the votes are over.

Such an outcome would be a win for Trump, and a loss for Canada.

Freeland, the foreign affairs minister, has said from the start that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau won’t accept a bad deal. But neither she nor Trudeau have been especially clear on what would constitute a “bad deal,” outside of suggesting that an independent dispute-settlement process must remain.

You have to wonder whether Trudeau’s red lines are fading as the economic backdrop changes? Hopefully they are. The cost-benefit analysis of holding out for something that looks like a clear win is different now than it was a year ago.

Also:

Canada's plan to include expenses for engineering, research and development and other high-value work to be counted in higher targets for North American content was aimed at safeguarding high-paying jobs in the region, with Mexico calling it "innovative," but declining to offer its own specific position.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said the Canadian idea would allow too many parts from China and other low-cost Asian countries to be included in the autos exempt from tariffs under NAFTA.

"The reality is, you're going to have much, much less regional content, and that's clearly fewer jobs for us, clearly fewer jobs for the Canadians and I believe, fewer jobs for Mexico," he told reporters in Montreal.

Under NAFTA, at least 62.5 percent of the net cost of a passenger car or light truck must originate in the United States, Canada or Mexico to avoid tariffs. U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration wants the threshold raised to 85 percent, with half of the content made in the United States, a proposal that is untenable for Canada and Mexico.

Canadian negotiators presented their so-called creative ideas as a counterpoint to the U.S. demands, but offered no numbers of their own, Lighthizer told reporters.

Canada's back ... and its Arctic is experiencing a fire sale! :

As reported by Reuters,“China on Friday outlined its ambitions to extend President Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative to the Arctic by developing shipping lanes opened up by global warming. Releasing its first official Arctic policy white paper, China said it would encourage enterprises to build infrastructure and conduct commercial trial voyages, paving the way for Arctic shipping routes that would form a “Polar Silk Road”.
The report also notes, “China’s increasing prominence in the region has prompted concerns from Arctic states over its long-term strategic objectives, including possible military deployment.”

Meanwhile, Canada’s icebreaker fleet is so weak that “mechanical problems kept the service from helping a ferry trapped in the St. Lawrence River.”

Now, the government is having to lease icebreakers.

While the city of Halifax is at it, it should remove Pier 21 and any memorial to the 1917 explosion that nearly wiped it from the map. If one is content in wiping out history, do it whole hog:

The Eastern Canada city of Halifax on Tuesday agreed to take down a polarizing statue of Edward Cornwallis, an 18th-century British governor who offered cash bounties for killing indigenous people.

Cornwallis was a British military officer and governor of Nova Scotia who sought to eradicate indigenous Mi'kmaq people in his attempts to establish Halifax.

Indigenous groups last summer held protests demanding that the statue be taken down, met by counter-protests by right-wing groups. Another protest was planned for the coming weekend over the city's inaction on the matter.

"If we want reconciliation, we pull down the statue immediately," said Councillor Richard Zurawski, according to the Toronto Star newspaper. "Let's end the 500 years of broken promises and take away this visual symbol of supremacy."

The city council voted to put the statue in temporary storage until authorities determine how to best to commemorate the polarizing figure.

Appease a pack of malcontents today, they will find something else to be angry at tomorrow.




And whose fault is it that there are still two Koreas, UN?

An estimated 60,000 children face potential starvation in North Korea, where international sanctions are exacerbating the situation by slowing aid deliveries, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) said on Tuesday.

Kim Jong-Un has other things to worry about:

Kim Jong-un has reportedly exhausted his financial inheritance after his penchant for missile tests and extravagant vanity projects left his country’s slush fund dry.

I think you picked a bad week to have a military parade, Jong-Un:

A massive crowd has gathered at a public square in Pyongyang to mark a military parade to be held on the eve of the opening of the PyeongChang Olympics, a US broadcaster reported Tuesday, suggesting North Korea will push ahead with the event despite an Olympic detente and international condemnation. 

The Trump administration has decided not to put any more sanctions on Russia or Putin's wealthy friends:

The Trump administration has released a list of 114 Russian politicians and 96 “oligarchs” it says are linked to Russian President Vladimir Putin, but it’s decided not to issue any extra sanctions for now.

Culture matters:

The Indian government said Monday that there were more than 63 million women “missing” from its population, and that 2 million go “missing” across age groups every year due to abortion of female fetuses, disease, neglect and inadequate nutrition. There are also 21 million unwanted girls, the government said.

The 2017-2018 estimate, released as part of the country’s annual economic survey, reinforced the work of researchers and social scientists, who have argued that decades of son preference in India and its parallel in China, the One Child policy, have produced a man-made demographic bubble of excess males – those now under 25 top 50 million – in the two countries and may have long-term impacts on crime, human trafficking, the overall savings rate and the ability of these excess males to find brides.

“We know that the sex ratio in India is highly skewed,” the government’s chief economic adviser, Arvind Subramanian, said at a news event Monday, noting that the study further showed that Indians have a “meta” son preference, which means that if they have girls, they’ll keep on having children until they get a boy. This has led to an estimated 21 million “unwanted” girls in India, who often get less nourishment and schooling than their brothers.

And now, another unearthing in Egypt:

Scientists have unearthed in a Sahara Desert oasis in Egypt fossils of a long-necked, four-legged, school bus-sized dinosaur that lived roughly 80 million years ago, a discovery that sheds light on a mysterious time period in the history of dinosaurs in Africa.

Researchers said on Monday the plant-eating Cretaceous Period dinosaur, named Mansourasaurus shahinae, was nearly 33 feet (10 metres) long and weighed 5.5 tons (5,000 kg) and was a member of a group called titanosaurs that included Earth's largest-ever land animals. Like many titanosaurs, Mansourasaurus boasted bony plates called osteoderms embedded in its skin.

Mansourasaurus, which lived near the shore of the ancient ocean that preceded the Mediterranean Sea, is one of the very few dinosaurs known from the last 15 million years of the Mesozoic Era, or age of dinosaurs, on mainland Africa. Madagascar had a separate geologic history.

Its remains, found at the Dakhla Oasis in central Egypt, are the most complete of any mainland African land vertebrate during an even larger time span, the roughly 30 million years before the dinosaur mass extinction 66 million years ago, said palaeontologist Hesham Sallam of Egypt's Mansoura University, who led the study published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.

The scientists recovered parts of its skull, lower jaw, neck and back vertebrae, ribs, shoulder and forelimb, back foot and osteoderms.

For a Monday

Starting the work-week off right ...



It's on! :

Doug Ford has announced he’ll be running for leader of Ontario’s PC party. ...

Ford said he was throwing his hat in the ring to save the party from what he called political “elites.”

“The elites of this party, the ones who shut out the grassroots, do not want me in this race,” he said.

“I’m here to give a voice … to the hardworking taxpayers of this province, people who have been ignored for far too long. This is truly a critical moment for our party, for our people and for the future of our province.”

Don't feel badly about things, children with cerebral palsy. Kathleen Wynne doesn't like children with autism, either:

Everybody is doing their bit so Cruz Dillon, 3, and Cameron Imrie, 9, can walk.

Friends, family, schoolmates, strangers, even the Ultimate Leafs Fan, have raised thousands of dollars toward surgery costs. They’ve held hockey and golf tourneys, dinners, coin drives, yard sales, pub nights, raffles, GoFundMe pages and a cupcake crusade.

“We’ve even looked at selling our house,” says Cameron’s mom, Melanie, a Toronto marine unit constable.

“You do anything and everything to make your kid’s life better.”

Wee Madison “Madi” Ambos, 4, a poster child for cerebral palsy, set up a table at her family’s last yard sale – and raised $300 hawking toys, stickers and knickknacks for Cruz.

Yes, everyone is happily chipping in for life-changing surgery for Cam and Cruz.

Except the Wynne government. ...

You may remember Madi. OHIP denied her coverage for a procedure called selective dorsal rhizotomy (SDR) at a St. Louis hospital.

At least it did so until Madi smiled from the front page of the Toronto Sun and someone in Premier Kathleen Wynne’s government said, “Hey, this makes us look bad.”

So Madi got OHIP — and a new life.

“She’s a totally different kid,” her mom, Katherine, tells me. I wrote before Christmas about how Madi took her first unaided steps. The pain shadows are gone from her eyes.


SDR, pioneered by Missouri neurosurgeon Dr. T.S. Park, rewires nerves in the spine to relieve the relentless, crippling spasticity of cerebral palsy. With physio, kids can kiss their walkers and wheelchairs goodbye. ...

Seems a no-brainer for OHIP coverage, right?

Not in Kathleen Wynne’s Ontario. A few kids did get some coverage for the St. Louis procedure after Madi, but then the the door slammed shut.

Why? Because in the wake of the Madi Moment, Premier Wynne’s health ministry announced last month it will offer a version of Park’s procedure at Sick Kids this year.

Sounds great, eh? But wait.

The program will help just 10 kids a year, while hundreds wait. One in 500 children in Ontario has cerebral palsy. Dr. Park’s clinic, meanwhile, has performed 4,000 SDR surgeries.

Worse, only kids ages four to eight need apply to the Sick Kids program — so Cam (too old) and Cruz (too young) and countless others are barred.

Who doesn't want to legalise crystal meth?

The war on drugs may move to a new battlefield in Canada, if Liberal MPs get their way: the 2019 federal election campaign.

They’re pushing the Trudeau government to go much further than legalizing recreational marijuana. In a priority resolution they hope will be adopted at the Liberals’ policy convention in April for inclusion in the next election platform, the national caucus is calling on the government to eliminate criminal penalties for simple possession and consumption of all illicit drugs.

How could this go wrong?


Also - God help us all:

Liberals have said they expect a recreational marijuana market to be operational by Canada Day this year, but whether that date is realistic depends on the upper chamber. The Senate resumes sitting this Tuesday with the framework for legal weed having just begun second-reading debate. A bill amending impaired driving laws is being studied in committee, with two Liberal ministers appearing as witnesses this week. Even as provinces scramble to legislate ahead of July and draft regulations are reviewed, not all senators will be wed to the government’s ideal timeline — many have already said that they won’t be pressured into rushing the process.

If Trump cancels NAFTA, it should send a clear signal to each province and territory that it can't rely on Ottawa:

U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade chief on Monday dismissed Canadian proposals for unblocking NAFTA modernization talks but pledged to stay at the table, easing concerns about a potentially imminent U.S. withdrawal from the trilateral pact.  ...

Heading into Montreal last week, some officials had feared the United States might be prepared to pull the plug on the pact amid frustration over slow progress. 

The mood lightened after Canada presented a series of suggested compromises to address U.S. demands for reform. 

But Lighthizer criticized Canadian proposals to meet U.S. demands for higher North American content in autos, saying it would in fact reduce regional autos jobs and allow more Chinese-made parts into vehicles made in the region. 

He also dismissed a suggestion on settling disputes between investors and member states as “unacceptable” and “a poison pill” and said a recent Canadian challenge against U.S. trade practices at the World Trade organization “constitutes a massive attack on all of our trade laws.”

Budgets don't balance themselves and one-sided trade agreements that benefit China more than Canada don't sway the Americans.



Speaking of the Chinese:

After it was revealed to be false, he refused to apologize, particularly to the many Canadians from an Asian background who are outraged at what took place.

As a result of this growing anger, there are protests taking place across Canada yesterday, today, and tomorrow in Montreal, Toronto, London, Regina, and Edmonton.

The lack of media coverage has been notable, and shows the complicity of much of the corrupt establishment elites in covering up for Justin Trudeau and refusing to share the truth with Canadians – leading many people to wonder what else is being hidden from the people of our nation.

What do they have to do to get some respect around here, Justin? Contribute to your dad's foundation?

Also - Canada's back ... and it's for sale! :

BNN cited billionaire investor Mr Stephen Jarislowsky as saying that he doesn't support the sale of Canadian construction company Aecon Group to a Chinese state-owned firm, warning that the takeover could lead to issues since China "is without the rule of law." Mr Jarislowsky, the founder of Montreal-based investment firm Jarislowsky Fraser, told BNN in an interview on Monday that China shouldn’t be managing Canadian assets due to its international track record.

Mr Jarislowsky said that “I would be against [the Aecon takeover] for political reasons as much as other reasons, because I do believe that China is without rule of law. I do not believe that I would want our assets to be managed by companies without rule of law. But that’s probably not a consideration.”

Aecon shareholders voted more than 99 per cent in-favour of the proposed USD 1.5 billion takeover from Chinese state-owned CCCC International Holding on Dec. 19, setting the stage for a final review under the Investment Canada Act.

The sale of Aecon – which was responsible for building Canadian landmarks including the CN Tower and Vancouver’s SkyTrain – must now get government approval on whether the deal is in Canada’s best interests.

Prime Minister Mr Justin Trudeau told reporters in Burlington, Ont. in October that the deal “will be examined very carefully by the Investment Canada Act to ensure that safety and security is not being compromised and ensure that it is in the net benefit of Canadians.”

Ahem:

Ok, then. Which country’s government does the “future prime minister” most admire?

Answer: “You know, there’s a level of of admiration I actually have for China ….

Wait a minute. China? He was not asked which country he liked a bit, or was doing a decent job — but “which nation’s administration he most admired.”

So here’s the whole answer:

” You know,  there’s a level of of admiration I actually have for China because their basic dictatorship is allowing them to actually turn their economy around on a dime and say ‘we need to go green  fastest…we need to start investing in solar.’ I mean there is a flexibility that I know Stephen Harper must dream about of having a dictatorship that he can do everything he wanted that I find quite interesting.

And:

After winning the Saskatchewan Party leadership race, Scott Moe pledged to stand up for his province and oppose the Trudeau carbon tax as Premier.

Moe said he would oppose “a federal carbon tax that threatens the livelihood of every farmer, every miner, every worker in the energy sector.”

He added, “I will fight for this province, I will fight for our economy to ensure that we do not have a carbon tax.”

Then, he directly addressed Trudeau:

“And Justin Trudeau, if you were wondering how far I would go, just watch me.”

Some people just don't take criticism well:

North Korea has canceled a joint cultural performance with South Korea scheduled for Feb. 4 blaming South Korean media for encouraging “insulting” public sentiment regarding the North, South Korea’s unification ministry said on Monday.  

The North said it had no choice but to call off the performance, which was to be held in the North Korean territory of Mount Kumgang, as South Korean media continued to insult what Pyongyang called “sincere” measures regarding the Winter Olympics Seoul will host next month, the ministry said.

Well, you did invade the south in 1950 and all that other stuff, so ...