Finance Minister Bill Morneau will introduce the federal government's next budget on Feb. 27 as the country faces persistent uncertainty around trade and competitiveness.
This trade and competitiveness:
The Canadian government needs to shave a bit off the corporate tax rate and provide financial incentives for investments in artificial intelligence and robotics following U.S. tax reforms, says a leading tax expert.
**
The effort to rescue NAFTA has made limited progress because U.S. bargainers find themselves hamstrung by the Trump White House and the fact talks are taking place too quickly, Canada's chief negotiator says.
(Sidebar: I am confused. Who was who injected worthless and irrelevant platitudes into a debate wherein one party claims that the two other parties are heavily benefiting from a one-sided deal?)
**
The Canadian jobs market returned to earth with a thud in January, StatCan reported Friday, shedding 88,000 jobs in its worst month since the depths of the recession in 2009. The January drop shows that gushing reports about Canada’s “booming” economy were wildly overstated, ignoring that GDP has been struggling throughout the second half of 2017. GDP growth has slowed from an annual rate of five per cent to less than two per cent as persistent weakness in exports and business investment spread to the housing market.
Also:
Equal pay for work of equal value? In a competitive market, if the work is paid the same, it’s of equal value. If it isn’t paid the same, it’s not. If you really want pay equity, make more markets more competitive.
Election in 2019:
The Liberal government has cut back the wait times for foreign spouses looking to reunite with their loved ones in Canada and has made considerable headway on a big backlog of applications.The average wait is now one year in about 80 per cent of cases, down from the previous two-year wait, according to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada.Immigration officials also have made a significant dent in what had become a vast backlog of files, bringing it from roughly 75,000 files down to about 15,000 in just over a year.Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen told CBC News it was the "humane" thing to do.
(Sidebar: this Ahmed Hussen.)
Oh, my:
In late January, CTV reported that one woman, who is now 29, claimed she was still in high school and under the legal drinking age when Brown allegedly asked her to perform oral sex on him. Another woman said she was a university student working in Brown's constituency office when he sexually assaulted her at his home, CTV reported.Late Tuesday, CTV reported that the first accuser now said she had not been in high school or under the legal drinking age during the alleged incident. The woman said the altered timeline did not change the core of her allegations and noted she had been subject to demeaning and misogynistic comments online since the story broke.
Patrick Brown is a weasel but he is not the only one.
Why would Wynne wish to protect a program co-designed by a convicted child pornographer? :
Ford said parents weren't properly consulted by Wynne's government, and he promised to "take this issue to the party, the parents and to the voters" if he wins the leadership. He took a shot at his own party, saying its "elites" shut down any debate on the curriculum during the policy development process last year.
This might be why the Trudeau government
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland says Canada is contributing another $12 million for reconstruction efforts in Iraq.
She says the money will support the rebuilding of critical infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, power stations, hospitals and government buildings in regions freed from the control of the Islamic State group.
(Sidebar: this would be the ISIS Trudeau doesn't think poses a problem to the public.)
Because cowards who won't stay and fight for their country deserve a foreign-funded break.
Also:
A group of Canadian veterans and their supporters is expected to show up on Parliament Hill on Thursday to protest what they call unfair treatment at the hands of the federal government.
The event, organized by Canadian Forces veteran Colin Saunders, comes after a week of angry exchanges in the House of Commons between Conservative MPs, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Veterans Affairs Minister Seamus O'Regan.
"Veterans Affairs is acting more like an insurance company and less like an advocate that’s there to help our veterans," said Saunders on Wednesday in Ottawa.
"There’s a lot of chaos growing in the veteran community ... quite frankly they’re just tired of being left out in the cold."
Canada is in need of a serious re-haul of its political and legal systems. One should not get be prime minister because an astronaut stepped aside so that a trust-fund brat could get his daddy's job. Either directly elect one's leader (who can only ruin the country for five years as the South Koreans do) or get a guinea pig to run the place.
 |
| This one will do nicely. |
Furthermore, there should be no g-d- way that unelected judges (another problem) get to collude with vote-seeking sludge to change the entire legal system to suit a special-interest group disguised as a welfare-ridden minority.
Cases in point:
Canada will create a legal framework to guarantee the rights of indigenous people in all government decisions, doing away with policies built to serve colonial interests, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said on Wednesday.
(Sidebar: colonial interests? What year is this? 1876, when the Indian Act - Canada's apartheid - was first introduced? How has that worked out, Justin? The "noble savage" remained far away from urban centres where the educational, professional and political opportunities were few and where craven politicians like yourself and money-grubbing chiefs trotted out the welfare-dependent whenever it suited them. Just like now. Justin, you are a piece of sh--.)
**
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he is considering whether his party should push to abolish the use of so-called peremptory challenges in the jury selection process.
The practice, which allows Crown and defence lawyers to exclude jurors without offering reasons, is at the centre of the controversy raging over the acquittal of Gerald Stanley. ...
Singh says peremptory challenges can result in a jury that doesn’t accurately reflect the entire community, and that it’s time to talk about whether they should be allowed at all.
Yes, about that:
Almost half of the prospective jurors in the Colten Boushie case were Aboriginal persons, according to one member of the jury pool.
However, the reason there were no Aboriginal Canadians on the jury in this controversial case is because so many deliberately opted out of the process. Other First Nations prospective jurors, meanwhile, were openly and outwardly biased during the selection process, according to one prospective juror who spoke to the Sun.
Oh, my. That must be a devastating blow to the Narrative.
Rather like this:
The last 5 chiefs of Red Pheasant have been Larry Wuttunee, Stewart Baptiste, Charles Meechance, Sheldon Wuttunee, Clint Wuttunee.
Here are the people in the car:
Kiora Wuttunee-Campbell, daughter of Sheldon Wuttunee.
Eric Meechance, son or nephew of Charles Meechance
Colton Boushie, nephew of Stewart Baptiste
Cassidy Cross AKA Cassidy Cross-Whitestone, Aka Cassidy Wuttunee-Whitstone - Original reporting has him as Cassidy Wuttunee, and initial reporting had one of Clint's kids in the car. People assumed it was Kiora, but it's actually probably Cassidy
Belinda Jackson - seems to be no one.
Each chief mentioned, besides Larry, has been indicted a ton of times. Some of these charges may sound familiar; drunk driving leading to a suspended license, drunk driving on a suspended license, assault, poaching, fraud, and every single one of them has been indicted for corruption while in office, and booted from their position.
And this:
Belinda Jackson, who was in the grey Escape, testified that all were drinking alcohol to excess. She said that earlier in the afternoon, Mr. Cross was driving recklessly, which caused the tire to pop off the rim. She does not recall a firearm in the vehicle and does not recall the incident where Mr. Cross tried to break into a red half-ton by striking it with a .22 calibre rifle.
She does remember ending up on the Stanley farm. She was tired due to her consumption of alcohol and may have fallen asleep, according to her testimony. She said that she wouldn’t say she was aware of what went on but that there are some parts that she remembers.
While at the Stanley farm Ms. Jackson claims that she does not remember anyone tampering with the quad runner. She said that it looked like Mr. Boushie was sleeping. According to her, Mr. Cross was driving. Mr. Boushie was in the passenger seat and she and the other two occupants, Ms. Wuttunee, and Mr. Meechance, were in the back seat.
She testified that someone smashed the windshield and that Mr. Meechance and Mr. Cross ran away.
She testified that after Mr. Meechance and Mr. Cross ran away she heard someone say go get a gun. She says that a younger-looking man went inside the house and meanwhile the person that said go get the gun, got a handgun.
She claims that he came out of the garage after about a minute with his own handgun, came around to the passenger side and shot Mr. Boushie in the head. She elaborated by saying that this person shot Mr. Boushie twice and then fired two more times for a total of four shots.
She was quite definite that Mr. Boushie was shot twice while in the front passenger seat. She further denies that there was a rifle in the gray Escape. She testified that the passenger window was open and that Mr. Boushie was looking out to the right.
This testimony, although this is entirely up to you to decide, is at odds with the autopsy report that definitively states that Mr. Boushie died from a single gunshot to the head and that the trajectory of the bullet was rightward, downward and slightly forward.
It also conflicts with the blood spatter expert who determined, in her opinion, that the deceased was in the driver’s seat at the time he was shot.
The pictures of the scene also show the deceased on the ground, just out the driver’s door. Also, in cross-examination it became evident that she initially told police that she did not know who shot Mr. Boushie or why he was shot and that Mr. Boushie was in the back seat.
She denied that she lied to police but admits she did not tell them the whole truth.
After the shooting, she admits to assaulting the woman, presumably Ms. Stanley. She says that Gerald Stanley, who she says had a handgun, and Sheldon Stanley, who she said had a shotgun, stood by and watched her assault Mrs. Stanley. She says that she stopped when Kiora told her to do so.
Like any other witness it is up to you decide how much or how little of Belinda Jackson’s testimony you choose to rely upon.
Oh, dear ...
Also - if Trudeau's typical uselessness and empty gestures are any indication, this reincarnation of a previous dog-and-pony show will indicate how far he will take his "framework" threats:
The national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women says that reviewing police files is a “centrepiece” of its investigation, but nearly a year and a half into its mandate, many police agencies across the country say the inquiry has not asked them for records.
(Merci)
Unfortunately, it does not stop there:
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s representative in the Senate says he is worried “partisan politics” will interfere in the government’s desired timeline for marijuana legalization — and, if the opposition doesn’t play nicely, he says he is willing to invoke time limits for debate.
Yes, ram drugs through, Justin, but if the stoners who voted you in the first time forget that there is an election, well ... you brought that on yourself.
Also:
The British Columbia public health authorities are making a huge mistake. The province is advancing a series of reckless interventions that are counterproductive in fighting the opioid epidemic. If B.C. continues in this manner, the province is destined to remain in a state of perpetual opioid addiction.
But ... but ... harm reduction!
And - is one sure it is not because taxes are gradually getting higher, more taxes are being introduced, government mismanagement, unnecessarily high energy costs ... ?
Nearly one million Canadians opted for emptier grocery bags and colder homes in order to pay for prescription drugs in 2016, suggests a nationwide study on the topic published Tuesday.
Keeping him in a hospital won't make him crazy in time for the trial:
The man accused in a knife attack on an Edmonton police officer last September will remain in Alberta Hospital for another month while his mental health assessment is completed.
On Monday, provincial court Judge Donna Valgardson adjourned the election and plea for 30 more days to complete the psychiatric evaluation of Abdulahi Sharif, 30, who is also accused of plowing into four pedestrians with a U-Haul van.
"I'm inclined to agree with the defence counsel in this case that it would be beneficial to have the NCR in hand," said Valgardson, referring to the report that would determine whether Sharif could be found not criminally responsible (NCR).
Ahem - Zahra Kazemi:
As Iranian-Canadian academic Kavous Seyed-Emami was buried Tuesday in Iran, the Canadian government drew sharp criticism for failing to hold the Iranian regime to account for his suspicious death.
“They could have played a role in backing up the family’s demands for an autopsy and creating an international environment in which Iran would be accountable,” said Hadi Ghaemi, executive director of the New York-based Center for Human Rights in Iran. “They did none of that, which was highly disappointing.”
Conservative foreign affairs critic Erin O’Toole said the government response is part of “a troubling pattern on Iran” since the Liberals were elected in 2015 with a platform of normalizing ties with Iran. He said the silence from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been “deafening” during the latest Iranian protests and the subsequent crackdown that has led to thousands of arrests.
O’Toole said Canada should be working with allies to denounce Iran’s destabilizing role in the region and to demand a role in an independent autopsy of Seyed-Emami.
“Canadians can’t be lulled into a sense that this is a country we need to do more with,” he said.
“Canadians should be very aware that it’s a destabilizing country and should be cautious about any dealing with it.”
And let's not forget Alexandre Trudeau's work for the Iranian regime.
Good:
A disgraced RCMP officer convicted of torturing of his captive 11-year-old son at their home in suburban Ottawa fully deserved his 15-year prison sentence, Ontario’s top court ruled on Tuesday.
Asians have been waiting since last month for an apology, so cram it:
A group representing black residents in the rural Nova Scotia community of Lincolnville wants the provincial government to compensate them for land that was granted to Black Loyalists in the late-1700s but was later handed over to Acadians.
Oh, the burn!:
Smile Japan scored a historic victory with a 4-1 triumph over Korea on Wednesday in their final Group B preliminary-round game at Kwandong Hockey Centre.
Japan had lost 12 straight Olympic contests going back to the 1998 Nagano Games before notching the win. Japan dropped all five contests in both Nagano and Sochi, and its first two games here.
But ... but ... powers combined!
And now, Saint Valentine's Day may fall on Ash Wednesday this year but is it a problem? :
Lent begins with the most salient point, with the problem that needs to be solved, with the mystery of death that reduces everything to dust. It begins there that we might receive a message of love from God — a “valentine” we might say this year. Amidst the ashes, it is though He says to us: “You are dust, but my love means that you are not only that, and that you are meant to abide, not in the decay of the grave, but in the love of God, manifest on the cross.”
No comments:
Post a Comment