(Insert Title Here)

 (Insert witty banter here.)




Only thirteen points? :

A new Forum Research survey shows the Trudeau Liberals falling far behind the Conservatives.

Here are the key numbers:

Conservatives 43%, Liberals 30%, NDP 14%, Greens 8, Bloc 4%.

Forum Research says that based on those numbers, the Conservatives would win 207 seats, with the Liberals far back at 100 seats. The NDP would get 23, the Greens 2, and the Bloc 6.

While other polls have shown either a smaller Conservative lead or a small Liberal lead, the trend has been in one direction: The longer Trudeau is in power, the fewer people support him.

Considering that Justin isn't done ruining this country and embarrassing Canadians while abroad, his numbers should register somewhere in the negative spectrum.

I guess Canadians aren't done being humiliated and bankrupt yet.




You know it's bad when even your bosses downgrade your credit:

Reuters is reporting that Dagong Global Credit Rating Co – one of China’s largest credit rating agencies – has downgraded Canada’s sovereign credit outlook to negative.

According to the report, Dagong made the decision “citing a slowdown in the Canadian economy and relatively high risks in its real estate market.”

Additionally, “A persistently high fiscal deficit was also one of the reasons for the downgrade.”

Also - the bosses want to know what is up with this whacky tabacky:

Chinese officials have been quietly grilling Canada about illicit marijuana flowing to their country, prompting Ottawa to agree to work with them on the problem, an internal federal memo reveals.

China has access to Canadian criminal and import records.

Let that sink in.




Given Trump's (appropriate, one could say) distrust of Canada, I would say that Canada will not get the exemption it needs:

Just hours remain until Canada's exemption from steep new American tariffs on steel and aluminum tariffs expires — but there's still no word out of the Trump White House that an extension of that tariff protection is on its way.

U.S. President Donald Trump imposed sweeping tariffs in March of 25 per cent on steel imports and 10 per cent on aluminum, but granted temporary exemptions to certain countries. In the case of Canada and Mexico, Trump's administration tied both countries' tariff exemptions to the successful renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Canada's exemption period officially ends at midnight as April 30 becomes May 1 — and it's not at all clear at this point that the White House will extend the exemption for Canada, the U.S.'s largest foreign supplier of steel and aluminum.

There is an old saying - never send a trustifarian to do an economist's job.


Further - do your own vetting, Canada. You rolled out the welcome mat, after all:

According to The Washington Post, since it's become more difficult to stay in the United States on a temporary visa, Nigerians are requesting tourist visas from the United States, which already require a certain amount of vetting, but before those visas fully expire, the Nigerians are "walking into Canada" where they are requesting asylum.

Now, Canadian officials want the United States — which already vets tourist visa recipients — to kindly ask Nigerian tourists about their Canadian travel plans so that the U.S. can catch potential illegal immigrants at our border.

And:

Roxham Road is such a typical site along the Canada-US border. It is a road that used to cross over without a border guard, a practice long since ended.

But over the last 18 months it has become the focal point of illegal immigration into Canada. I keep hearing from supporters of the illegal border crossers that they are not illegal, they are asylum seekers. Let me correct that false idea.

In order to get into the asylum system after crossing the border at an “irregular” crossing, the person must be arrested. Why are they arrested? For crossing the border illegally.

If they don’t do that, they can’t make a claim.

HA! Suckers! You got what you voted for! :

Canadians celebrating the onset of summer driving season have been dismayed by another spring phenomenon -- rising gasoline prices across the country.

According to GasBuddy.com, the average price of regular gasoline in Canada at noon on Monday was about $1.33 per litre, up 22 cents from the average of $1.11 per litre at the same time last year.

The record high for the same day was just over $1.37 set in 2014.

**

There you have it, he warned us.

Headlines from the time literally included “Harper mocked online” and “Harper’s Netflix tax video lampooned online.”

And yet now we have a second Liberal dominated committee calling for a Netflix tax. Last year the Liberal majority on the heritage committee wanted a 5% tax on your high-speed internet and streaming services to pay for Canadian online media.

 
Oh, it gets better:

The country’s biggest banks began raising key borrowing rates last week, just as the busy season for residential real estate gets underway. In addition, the mortgage market looks set for a particularly heavy year of renewals in an environment where debt-servicing costs are already rising at the fastest pace in a decade.

The audacity! :

An Alberta First Nation that’s suing the province and federal government is asking a court to force them to pay all trial expenses up front to try to stop them from ragging the puck on the lawsuit.
 
“If the Crown has to contribute to funding the litigation, they’re going to want to find the most efficient and quickest way possible,” said Karey Brooks, lawyer for the Beaver Lake Cree, who live about 100 kilometres north of Edmonton near La La Biche.

“Right now, the incentive is the other way.”

The First Nation has filed a request — known as an application for advance costs — for the two levels of government to front all of its legal costs.

 
Also:

Canadians now take for granted the portrayal of Indigenous peoples as conscientious, pacifistic stewards of the earth. But as University of Alberta literature professor Albert Braz has noted, this conception of Indigenous life didn’t become popularized until the early twentieth century. Prior to that, it was just as common to hear tales of Indigenous hunters (and fighters) performing wanton slaughter, annihilating other tribes, or whole species of animals. It was Grey Owl, a white man, who led the campaign to rebrand Indigenous peoples as innocent children of the forest. He even went so far as to suggest that it would be preferable for Indigenous peoples to disappear from the planet rather than be “thrown into the grinding wheels of the mill of modernity, to be spewed out a nondescript, undistinguishable from the mediocrity that surrounds him, a reproach to the memory of a noble race.”

It is a naive fad that has not been allowed to perish.


And:

A controversial membership law that requires residents of the Mohawk reserve of Kahnawake to move out if they marry a non-native violates the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a court ruled Monday.

The ruling by Quebec Superior Court Justice Thomas Davis declares that a 37-year-old rule invoked to preserve Mohawk culture discriminates against Kahnawake members on the basis of family status and civil status.

 
How else would they get votes? :

If you want to make it in big-time politics these days, you have to learn how to give stuff away.

Mostly you have to give away money, though usually in the form of benefits, grants, subsidies, tax breaks, or expenditures forced on private firms whether they can afford it or not. The need crosses party lines. The main difference between left-wing giveaways and right-wing giveaways usually lies in the complexity. Left-wingers like to keep it simple; Conservatives tend to get over-immersed in detail in their desire to meet certain doctrinal benchmarks.

Who gets thrown under the bus for this? :

Now, after nearly seven years of ongoing litigation and less than two months before the trial is set to begin, the company behind the suit — Trillium Power — is making public new evidence it alleges shows staff from the office of former Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty and the office of the Minister of Energy engaged in the destruction of documents relevant to their claim created prior to March 2013.

Trillium alleges this was done to prevent the company from making its argument in court. Trillium says these actions occurred after their lawsuit had begun and in the months leading up to the transition of power between McGuinty and current Premier Kathleen Wynne.

The election is still young and Wynne has many people left to bribe with money the province does not have:

The poll shows the PCs leading in every area except Toronto, where they trail less than 10 per cent behind the Liberals.

(Sidebar: quelle surprise, as they say.)




Well, duh:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Iran had lied about not pursuing nuclear weapons and had continued to preserve and expand its nuclear weapons knowledge after signing a 2015 deal with global powers.

"Iran's leaders repeatedly deny ever pursuing nuclear weapons," said Netanyahu. "Tonight I'm here to tell you one thing: Iran lied."

"After signing the nuclear deal in 2015, Iran intensified its efforts to hide its secret files," he said. "In 2017 Iran moved its nuclear weapons files to a highly secret location in Tehran."

And what a perfect segue into what many people believe will amount to a Nobel peace prize for Donald Trump but what many suspect (for good reason) is just a replaying of past events: 

The two sides “confirmed the common goal of realising, through complete denuclearisation, a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.” Kim has never defined what denuclearization means. Will he destroy all extant weapons and related materials, dismantle all aspects of North Korea’s nuclear program, and open the doors for the West to verify these actions?

** 

If Kim can convince the South Koreans of his sincerity, and get them on his side, then he will have succeeded in driving a wedge between what had been an iron-clad alliance between the United States and South Korea for more than 60 years. That might well change the balance of power in North Korea’s favor.

**

The joint statement lacks any specifics on the question of the future of Pyongyang’s nuclear weapons. A week ago, Kim Jong-Un announced North Korea would shut down his nuclear-testing site and suspend long range missile tests. But a freeze of a nuclear test can easily be reversed. In addition, Chinese scientists confirmed in news report this week that North Korea’s mountain nuclear test site, where the last five out of six nuclear tests were conducted, has collapsed. This is probably why Kim decided to suspend nuclear tests for the time being and use the test suspension as a bargaining chip for a near-term economic relief, which is a very shrewd move.

(Sidebar: further on the collapsed test site at Punggye-ri. Of course that one will shut down.)


In short, vague terms proposed by an embattled communist dictator known for his and his family's lies and belligerence are not things to rest a permanent peace on.

And God forbid that the West make the mistake it did with China and believe that North Korea can remain a communist dictatorship and a source of cheap labour.




A bittersweet ending:

Authorities say doctors were able to deliver a pregnant woman’s baby before she died following a car crash in Michigan.

The crash happened early Saturday in Flint along Dort Highway when one vehicle hit another that had failed to stop for a blinking red light.

The pregnant woman, 22-year-old Mackenzie Ann Monreal, was among three people rushed to Hurley Medical Center following the crash. Flint police Det. Tyrone Booth says doctors were able to deliver her baby shortly before she died.

Booth says the baby is doing fine.

Booth said Monday that the woman’s twin sister was among those injured in the crash.

And now, a feel-good story:

Like so many American soldiers returning home from the Second World War, Bob Barger started working a new job and going to college. Once he settled into his career and raising a family, finishing school was no longer a priority.

Now, 68 years since he last sat in a classroom, Barger is set to graduate from the University of Toledo this week after a review of his transcripts from the late 1940s showed he completed enough courses to quality for an associate’s degree — a two-year diploma not offered when he was still in school.

(Merci beaucoup and Kamsahamnida)

Saturday Post

Alfie Evans, whose parents were prevented by force from leaving the hospital with his misdiagnosed body and whose priest was evicted from the grounds for reminding the slaves of the NHS what hell waits for them, has died:

Alfie Evans, a sick British toddler whose parents won support from the pope during a protracted legal battle to take him to the Vatican children's hospital for treatment, died early Saturday, five days after he was taken off life support.

As with Charlie Gard, the NHS and the British courts have made it quite clear who is in charge of British children's lives and it isn't the parents.




Being a vindictive, partisan, prissy little sh-- is alright when some people do it:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday there’s no problem with a Canada Summer Jobs grant that will fund anti-pipeline activism, arguing his government must stand up for the principle of free expression and advocacy.

(Sidebar: but not if one is a student working at a day camp for under-privileged children.)


Further:

And that returns us to the summer job grant to Dogwood — whose existence has one explicit rationale — to stop the development of Alberta’s oilsands. Why is it getting a federal subsidy to fulfill that grim, ugly, anti-jobs ambition? Especially when so many real charities — charities that practice, you know, charity, not protest — chiefly religious organizations, have been barred from those grants.

The jobs these charities offer are mostly aimed at the truly poor, homeless and displaced — real charity work — but because they wouldn’t sign on to Justin Trudeau’s one-man edict that they have to forswear “anti-abortion” beliefs, they were culled from the list.

By letting the government dictate what one may regard as right or wrong, one has freely offered the fascists in the House of Commons another victory they need in being the plutocracy they've always wanted to be.


These plutocrats:

According to a recent report, “Twenty-seven departments and agencies participated in the bulk order last month, which was valued at $21.5 million, taking into account a $6 million volume discount from Bell Mobility. Android devices, such as the Samsung S7 and S8 smartphones, made up about 80 per cent of the order. About 20 per cent was for iOS devices — Apple iPhones. Three departments — Privy Council Office, Industry and SSC — together ordered 1,800 iPhone 8 models.”

The final order cost $23 million when ‘accessories’ were included.

Also:

Manitoba's premier says the Canadian federation is in a state of "confusion" and "disarray" over the division of powers between the federal and provincial governments, citing the standoff over the Trans Mountain pipeline and interprovincial trade barriers.

"I would say obviously we are in a state of not just confusion but disarray. I would say that we're losing opportunities for growth," Brian Pallister told host Vassy Kapelos in an interview airing today on CBC News Network's Power & Politics.

"I would say that the opportunities that we lose with internal barriers to trade in our country are in the billions of dollars and we need to address that."

Pallister said some estimate the cost to the Canadian economy of failing to build pipelines and rip down interprovincial trade barriers could be as high at $30 billion per year.

(Sidebar: it's just an economy and a country.) 

**

Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna has written an open letter to B.C.'s environment minister proposing the creation of a joint scientific panel to study oil spills and response measures.

"Such a panel would build on our science investments and results, take stock of work on the fate, behaviour and effects of various oil products in different spill conditions and under extreme Canadian climates in order to inform further scientific work under the [ocean protection plan] and spill response modelling, preparedness and response measures," McKenna said in the letter.

(Sidebar: but, Climate Barbie, John Horgan is already down in the polls. How low should he go?)

**

The federal finance department is now under investigation by the Office of the Information Commissioner for their refusal to release data about the financial costs of a carbon tax per household.

Responding to a complaint made by Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre, the office headed up by Caroline Maynard has begun investigating whether the department violated sections 21 and 18 of the Access to Information Act.

Poilievre, the MP for Carleton, had filed an access request asking for government documents that explain the projected annual costs per household of the carbon tax. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau plans to impose a carbon tax on every province in Canada that will be $50 per tonne by 2022.

Documents shared with Postmedia show that while Poilievre received a response, the pertinent information was redacted.

**

The total cost of a carbon tax across Canada will be $35 billion per year, according to a leading expert in the field.

While a recent Parliamentary Budget Officer report stated that a $50 per tonne federal carbon — the mandated price by 2022 — will end up costing the economy $10 billion per year, that’s the eventual negative hit to the economy after certain rebates are applied.

It’s not the raw cost charged on emissions.

The federal Liberals are just keeping in style with their provincial counterparts:

Mandated by law to comment on Premier Kathleen Wynne’s pre-election budget of March 27 as we head toward the June 7 vote, Lysyk said Wednesday its financial numbers are “not reasonable.”

That’s a huge political blow for Wynne.

While Lysyk’s verdict was expected, given that she has been feuding with Wynne and Finance Minister Charles Sousa for months about the true state of Ontario’s finances, Lysyk has now officially said the numbers can’t be trusted just six weeks before the election.

Lysyk said Wynne’s budget underestimates government deficits for the next three years by $16.6 billion, or 84 per cent, for two reasons.

First, it fails to reflect the true cost of its scheme to temporarily reduce electricity rates, known as the Fair Hydro Plan.

Second, the government improperly treated surpluses in the Ontario teacher and civil service pension plans as assets, since it can’t access that money without union permission.

“When expenses are understated, the perception is created that government has more money available than it actually does,” Lysyk wrote. 

“Therefore, more money will need to be borrowed to pay for the unrecorded expenses, even when government reports an annual surplus or a balanced budget.

The Liberals already have their poster-child for not doing drugs while pregnant. He wears stupid socks and gets easily frustrated.

Is that the information they needed? :

Bill Blair said in the House of Commons Friday that the Liberal government has "no plans" to decriminalize illicit drugs, despite overwhelming support for the idea from the party's grassroots.

Blair, the parliamentary secretary to the minister of justice, made the comment after Tories pressed the government to promise that it will not decriminalize crack cocaine, heroin, or any other hard drug.

Reading from notes, he said the government has "no plans to legalize or decriminalize any other drugs" besides marijuana. And despite voicing opposition to the concept, the Toronto MP said the government is still open to reviewing related studies.

Screw you, Toronto. Start billeting these illegal masses you want to much:

The City of Toronto has issued an urgent appeal to the federal and provincial governments for help dealing with the growing number of refugee claimants in its shelter system.

Mayor John Tory said Thursday that the number of refugee claimants in the city’s shelters has grown from an average of 459 per night in 2016, to an average of 2,351 per night this month. He said the latest figure represents 37.6 per cent of those in the system.

Tory said if those levels continue the city will incur $64.5 million in costs related to providing shelter and housing for refugee claimants by the end of this year.

“As is the case with the general shelter population, it would seem that Toronto ends up taking on responsibility for the entire region without the funding support that recognizes that,” Tory said.

Oh, this must be embarrassing:

While the city was reeling from its worst murder spree, the man charged with the gruesome crimes sat in the Toronto South Detention Centre not expressing one ounce of regret for the victims, according to sources.

But Alek Minassian, who faces 10 counts of murder and 13 of attempted murder, did express regret that the Toronto Police officer hailed as a hero didn’t shoot him.

“He wanted to be shot,” said a person inside the jail who had a conversation with him.

The 25-year-old Richmond Hill man told several people that he had researched being taken out by police after committing a serious crime.

The US has Canada and China on a list of countries that do not  adequately protect intellectual property rights or border security.

This might have something to do with it:

Internet servers linked to the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) have been seized in Canada as part of a multinational takedown of the terrorist group’s propaganda network, Europol said Friday.

An important note: do not regard Mao Tse Tung as a disgusting, fat pervert and a tyrant who starved his own people ever: 

China's ruling Communist Party on Friday passed a law that makes criticizing revolutionary heroes and martyrs illegal.

Under the "Heroes and Martyrs Protection Law" it is prohibited to misrepresent, defame, profane or deny the deeds and spirits of heroes and martyrs, or to praise or beautify invasions," according to the official Xinhua news agency's summary of the law.

Those who do so will be punished in accordance with the law and may be investigated for criminal responsibility, Xinhua reported.

Everyone is wetting themselves at the prospect of the Korean War possibly ending but one must be reminded:

Research by Chinese geologists suggests that the mountain above North Korea’s main nuclear test site has likely collapsed, rendering it unsafe for further testing and requiring that it be monitored for any leaking radiation.

The findings by the scientists at the University of Science and Technology of China may shed new light on North Korean President Kim Jong Un’s announcement that his country was ceasing its testing program ahead of planned summit meetings with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and U.S. President Donald Trump.

(Sidebar: there are always other sites.)

**

But nowhere in Kim's announcement was there any mention of nuclear dismantlement. Rather, he stressed that the North is a nuclear-armed state, saying during a Workers Party Central Committee meeting that he had achieved the "historic task of building a nuclear force" and that it was now time to "focus all efforts on building up the economy." North Korea said it will not use its nuclear weapons as long as it faces no threats, but that does not mean denuclearization. Looking at the announcement verbatim, North Korea is saying that it has completed arming itself with nuclear weapons and ICBMs and now wishes to negotiate with the U.S. on equal terms as a nuclear power, while seeking external support to develop its economy.

 

Even that is suspect.

Mid-Week Post

The axis upon which the work-week rests ...




At first, the Canadian popular press would not name the suspect who is responsible (allegedly) for the deaths of ten people. They waited for the Americans to do that:

CBS News sources identified the suspect as Alek Minassian, 25, and obtained a photo of him from social media Monday. Officials announced he's from Richmond Hill -- a town in Ontario, Canada. They said that the suspect was not previously known to police.

Then they rushed to find a non-Islamist reason for this act of terror, no matter how iffy:

 
(Sidebar: this Facebook.)


Now, the gelatin mayor of Toronto is insisting that the actions of a mentally affected suspect are an assault on the "inclusivity" of the city:

(Sidebar: okay, how is that supposed to make sense? Mentally ill people have irrational reasons, not politically motivated ones.)

By many accounts, Minassian acted deliberately but Canadian authorities were discounting terrorism and invoking mental illness as the motive. If the reporting was correct, and there was room for reasonable doubt, this was not a jihadist attack in the style of Sayfullo Saipov. 

Even so, Toronto mayor John Tory said “I hope that we will, as a city, remind ourselves of the fact that we are admired around the world for being inclusive and for being accepting and understanding and considerate.”

Butter that toast, John.

At the end of the day, the popular press has succeeded in obfuscation. All that needs to happen is for this to be swept under the rug and we can forget about this until something else like it happens again.




It's just an entire economy:

A new report by the National Observer quotes ‘government insiders’ alleging that the Trudeau government ‘rigged’ the federal approval process for the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

According to the report, government insiders, “Speaking on the condition of anonymity with National Observer, they say a high-ranking public servant instructed them, at least one month before the pipeline was approved, “to give cabinet a legally-sound basis to say ‘yes’” to Trans Mountain. These instructions came at a time when the government claimed it was still consulting in good faith with First Nations and had not yet come to a final decision on the pipeline.”

The report also notes “Legal experts interviewed by National Observer say these instructions could be a significant matter reviewed by the courts to determine if the government’s approval of Trans Mountain was valid.”

**

According to the PBO report, Canada’s GDP will be $10 billion lower by 2022 than it would have been without the carbon tax.

The report also notes that public debt expenses will increase dramatically from the $24.1 billion recorded in 2016-2017, to $39.1 billion in 2021-2022.

So, that’s $10 billion less in GDP, and $15 billion more in debt as a result of Trudeau government policies.

**

The Saskatchewan government has launched its long-awaited constitutional challenge of the federal carbon price, arguing Ottawa is unfairly threatening to impose a tax on certain provinces.

The provincial government submitted a reference question to the Saskatchewan Court of Appeal on Wednesday morning, asking the court to decide whether the federal Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act is “unconstitutional in whole or in part.”

 **

The world risks a full-blown oil shock within months as three geostrategic crises come to the boil and Saudi Arabia hints at US$100 crude, setting off a speculative scramble by commodity hedge funds. ...

U.S. shale output can no longer keep up with the global shortfall. Although U.S. production has rocketed by 800,000 b/d this year to a modern-era high of 10.5 million b/d in April, a lack of pipelines is increasingly leaving “stranded barrels” in the Permian basin of east Texas. The new infrastructure will not be in place until mid-2019. The logjams are even worse in Canada.

It's just the entire Dominion of Canada:

Trudeau’s father, Pierre, first tried to bring the constitution home from Britain unilaterally, without consulting the provinces.

Eight provinces appealed to the Supreme Court. They won. The constitution was patriated with heavy input from the provinces, except Quebec, which refused to accept it.

Horsman was there for all the meetings. They were intense, complex, emotional and hugely important. One thing that struck him was the acceptance of the final deal, both by politicians and the general public.

Quebec cried betrayal, of course. The separatists were then in power.

But it was remarkable — and quintessentially Canadian — to see how all parties generally respected the ground rules and tolerated key decisions.

Today, that respect is seriously eroded, both by parochial zealots and dithering, confusing politicians.

Spinning in their graves: these guys.

That son-of-a-b!#ch:

Officials now say we could see as many as 400 people a day crossing over the Roxham Road illegal border crossing. Justin Trudeau’s answer, blames the Conservatives.

Also:

Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel accused the government of simply throwing money at the problem of irregular migration rather than coming up with a demonstrable plan to make it stop.

"This is the second summer that we're going into a potential immigration crisis without a plan, and certainly we expect the government to do better."

Last year, RCMP intercepted a total of 20,493 people who crossed the border illegally. So far this year, 6,373 irregular migrants have arrived in Canada this way — more than double the 2,784 irregular migrants who arrived in Canada between January and April 2017.

Oh, dear. This just isn't going away:

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police were aware far earlier than previously revealed that a man once convicted of attempted murder had been invited to a reception in India with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

In a document quietly tabled in Parliament Monday, the government said the RCMP first learned on Feb. 20 that Jaspal Atwal had been invited to two receptions during the prime minister's trip to India.

Why does this sound familiar?

(SEE: swords, falling on)




I would do it. Justin loves terrorists. The sooner you get out of Dodge, the better:

The future of the Canadian Forces counterterrorism base in Ottawa could be decided in the next several months as senior defence officials consider whether it makes sense to follow through on plans to move it out of the nation’s capital.

China scolds Canada for pointing out its war-mongering:

A nonbinding motion by Canada’s Senate calling for an end to Chinese actions in the disputed South China Sea is irresponsible and will “stir up troubles,” a Chinese embassy spokesman said on Wednesday. 

The Senate, whose members are not elected, passed the measure on Tuesday condemning China’s “hostile behavior” in the South China Sea, complicating efforts by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to improve relations with China. 

China’s construction of islands and military facilities in the South China Sea, through which some $3 trillion in trade passes annually, has sparked concerns that Beijing is seeking to restrict free movement and extend its strategic reach. 

Canadian Conservative Senator Thanh Hai Ngo, who sponsored the motion, said he wants Trudeau’s Liberal government to take a lead role in urging all parties in the dispute to recognize international laws and cease all activities that would escalate the dispute. 

“The government cannot afford to ignore the emerging realities of the South China Sea disputes. It must take an active role supporting its diplomatic allies,” Ngo said in a statement. 

(Sidebar: that is not going to happen, Mr. Ngo.)

No, Canada! That's a bad Canada!"

It's just a fraudulent deficit:

Ontario’s auditor general says the Liberal government’s statements on the province’s finances understate its deficit by billions.

In a pre-election report released today, Bonnie Lysyk also says the government has not accurately reflected the true cost of its borrowing plan to cut hydro rates by 25 per cent, and is raising questions about the way it accounts for revenues related to two teacher pension plans.

As a result, Lysyk says the government’s deficit projections are off by 75 per cent in 2018-2019, jumping to 92 per cent in 2020-2021.

How could this go wrong? :

The Ontario Liberals are poised to scrap provincewide EQAO tests for Grade 3 and Grade 9 students if they get re-elected.

They’re also proposing to eliminate mandatory requirements for high school students to pass a literacy test to graduate.

And they’d water down provincewide tests for Grade 6 and Grade 9 students, according to the Ontario: A Learning Province report commissioned by Premier Kathleen Wynne and quietly released Tuesday by Education Minister Indira Naidoo-Harris.

 
If students are going to be functionally useless, shouldn't we fire all the teachers?




In case one still thinks that Putin is an anecdote to any other moron in the West:

Russian President Vladimir Putin has signed new legislation allowing authorities to block websites that publish defamatory information about public figures.

The Internet libel bill swiftly passed the State Duma this month, two years after high-profile court cases ordering news outlets and opposition figures to remove corruption investigations from their websites, although Duma deputies have not explicitly linked the two.

To wit:

According to a recent media report, Trudeau met with top executives at Facebook and told them to fix their algorithms to prevent the spread of so-called fake news.

He didn’t simply ask Facebook to investigate the supposed problem, he threatened action – including stricter regulations from Ottawa – if the social media giant failed to comply with his demands.

If South Korea is utterly convinced that Kim Jong-Un means peace and there will eventually be a glorious reunification of the two Koreas, why shut people up? :

President Moon Jae-in on Monday called for a complete stop to political disputes at home at least until the end of his historic summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un this week.

"Now the South-North Korea summit has come to be just four days away. We are standing at a crossroad to denuclearization not by military measures but through peaceful means and permanent peace," the president said in a meeting with his top aides at his office Cheong Wa Dae.

"The entire world is watching and the entire world is hoping for its success. I ask that our political circles too will halt their political warfare at least during the summit," he added.

**

In a public letter addressed to South Korean President Moon Jae-in, the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) denounced two incidents in which South Korean government agents prevented North Korean defectors Thae Yong-ho and Lee Min-bok from exercising their rights to freedom of expression and freedom of association. Thae was forcibly prevented from giving an interview to South Korean cable TV network Channel A, and Lee was prevented, again with the use of the state police power, from launching balloons over the DMZ, a form of activism he has carried out since 2003. HRF urges the South Korean government to uphold the country’s democratic principles and refrain from curtailing fundamental rights.

**

The end state of Moon’s plans isn’t even hidden anymore: a “new economic community on the Korean peninsula” that would necessarily involve massive tax increases and South-to-North subsidies, and a one-country, two-systems confederation with the world’s most tyrannical system of government. Whether all of this would precede the verification of the North’s disarmament is argued too vaguely and inconsistently to be inadvertently vague and inconsistent. Thus, it’s hard to say one way or another whether this would amount to a proposal to violate U.N. and U.S. sanctions on a massive scale, the expression of Moon’s aspiration to lift sanctions before the North fully disarms, an economic inducement for His Porcine Majesty to disarm, or yet another case of the great legal minds in this Blue House not bothering to read U.N. Security Council resolutions before making policy and promises. To be sure, Moon has paid lip service to sanctions, pressure, and denuclearization, but his mentor, Moon Chung-in, has revealed that under his vision, denuclearization would not necessarily precede sanctions-busting subsidies that would make denuclearization an effective impossibility, and guarantee that Pyongyang would retain nuclear hegemony over Seoul—to say nothing of its conventional, chemical, and biological threats. In any confederation in which one side has everything to lose and the other side has the means at hand to destroy that everything, it is easy to predict which side will emerge dominant. That’s why the sequencing of Pyongyang’s disarmament is everything.

Moon eventually tells Abe that he will mention Japanese abductees during the summit:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in on Tuesday told Prime Minister Shinzo Abe that he will raise the issue of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea decades ago at his historic summit with the North’s leader later this week. ...

Moon is expected to meet with Kim on Friday on the southern side of the border truce village of Panmunjeom. The meeting is to be followed by the first-ever U.S-North Korean leaders’ summit by early June.

This Kim:

The Xi-Kim Summit confirms that people’s basic and fundamental human rights are in even more peril. Both regimes mercilessly repress human rights, and it doesn’t take much more than an internet search–not to be taken for granted in China–to read news about China’s “re-education” camps for Uyghurs, for example.These camps are aimed at squashing political dissent for a leader who has, in effect, already removed voting rights from the people of China. The fact that Xi has clear influence over Kim, who traveled outside of his comfort zone of North Korea, means that human rights considerations are nonexistent, except for a policy of human rights denial, coined by North Korean leadership expert Robert Collins for HRNK.

 (Merci beaucoup and Kamsahamnida)

Monday Post

This just in:

Police have confirmed nine people are dead and 16 are injured after a van rammed into a crowd of people walking on Yonge Street in north Toronto. ...

The suspect attempted to flee and then pointed at what is believed to be a weapon at the police:

A van struck and killed nine pedestrians Monday afternoon in north Toronto and fled the scene, Canadian police said. Sixteen others were injured in the incident. Authorities said the van has been found and the driver was in custody. Police Constable Jenifferjit Sidhu said authorities do not yet know the cause or reason for the collision.

CBS News sources identified the suspect as Alek Minassian, 25.

U.S. law enforcement sources told CBS News that the incident appears to be a deliberate act. 

Minister of Public Safety Ralph Goodale said it was too soon to say whether the crash was a case of international terrorism. He said Canada has not changed its terrorism alert level and he has no information that would suggest a need to do so.

This Ralph Goodale:

On Monday, Conservative MP Michelle Rempel accused PM Justin Trudeau of hiding the number of fighters who have returned, asking for an exact count. Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale stood up to offer the response: “in the order of 60.”

That was the number that hit the headlines and got Canadians talking. But it’s far from accurate. The first clue comes from reading Goodale’s full remark: “As the director of CSIS indicated before a parliamentary committee some months ago, the number of returns known to the Government of Canada is in the order of 60, and they are under very careful investigation.”

Some months ago? Try more than a year and a half ago.

 
Video of the aftermath, including the suspect.

 
More to come.




The Liberals are so arrogant that they don't feel they need to explain to Canadians how much carbon taxes will cost them:

Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre will ask the House of Commons this week to force the government to show Canadians how much more they can expect to pay for gas, heat and groceries once every Canadian will be charged a $50 per tonne carbon tax.

Poilievre says he knows the government has the information because access to information requests he filed produced a finance department memo that says there is an analysis of the potential impact of a carbon price, based on household consumption data across different income levels.

However, he says the actual data from the analysis is blacked out.

From the most "transparent" government in the country's history.




Nova Scotia gave the federal Liberals valuable seats in the 2015 election. That is why it can drill for oil and Alberta and Saskatchewan can't build pipelines or refuse to pay carbon taxes:

Federal Environment and Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna is defending BP Canada’s plans to drill a deep-water exploration well roughly 330 kilometres off the coast of Halifax.

This comes one day after the oil and gas company was granted approval by the Canada-Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board (CNSOPB).

Also:

The federal cabinet gave the green light to both Trans Mountain and Line 3 — the largest project in the history of Enbridge — on the same day in November 2016. And while work on Line 3 has already started on the Canadian side of the border, the regulatory agency tasked with approving construction through Minnesota has so far held off granting necessary permissions amid intense local opposition.

If Enbridge fails to secure a state permit and route approval, Line 3 could join the list of other major natural resources projects approved by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that have failed to launch.

Today in "the Liberals are a bunch of disgusting creeps" news:

Liberal MP Francis Drouin says an allegation has been made against him following an incident at the party’s convention in Halifax this weekend.

Drouin, a 34-year-old MP from eastern Ontario, was described earlier this year as a rising star in the Liberal Party, with a firm grip on the agriculture file and standing as the most-lobbied backbencher on Parliament Hill.

In a statement released to the media and sent to Liberal MPs and staff Sunday, Drouin said he wanted to address “reports of an incident” in Halifax.

“I can confirm that an allegation has been made,” said Drouin. “I believe it is important for individuals to have a safe environment to come forward, share their stories, and be supported. While no charges have been laid against me, I am co-operating fully with the investigation.”

**

The United Nations has launched an investigation after a former senior official with links to a British charity was arrested over serious child sex offences.

Police allege they found 60-year-old Peter Dalglish with two boys aged 12 and 14 in the same room when they launched a dawn raid at his idyllic mountainside home in Nagarkot, near Kathmandu, Nepal, earlier this month. …

Dalglish, whose net worth has been estimated at more than £5 million, has met Canadian premier Justin Trudeau and Princess Anne through his humanitarian work.

(Sidebar: yes, about that ...)

**

Justin Trudeau and Kent Hehr — a former minister who resigned from the prime minister’s cabinet over allegations of inappropriate conduct with women — were among the Liberals who attended a sexual harassment training session Saturday.

The hour-long session, which was closed to the media, marked the first time the ruling party has broached the issue of harassment at one of its national conventions.

Also - knowing full well that he cannot win due to competent and principled leadership, Justin resurrects some tired, old bogey-men tropes all the while forgetting about the pervies in his midst:

In a partisan speech to supporters, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau depicted Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer as a replica of former prime minister Stephen Harper and the Conservative Party as a movement fanning the flames of divisive populism.

Neither Stephen Harper nor Andrew Scheer embarrassed the country while in India, Justin, or fast-tracked illegal migrants to a province that isn't Quebec.

So there's that.


And:

Laughably, Trudeau accused the Conservatives of pushing the “politics of fear and division,” and called Scheer “Stephen Harper with a smile,” adding, “And if there’s one thing — and there may be only one thing — we’ve learned about the Conservative party under Mr. Scheer’s leadership, it’s this: It may be Andrew Scheer’s smile. But it’s still Stephen Harper’s party. The same policies. The same politics of fear and division.”

Trudeau seems to be ignoring the fact that his approval ratings are actually lower than Stephen Harper’s were at a similar time in the previous government.

Then, showing even less self-awareness, Trudeau said he was practicing “sunny ways,” and said “Positive politics means you fight for your ideas – you don’t demonize your opponents.”

They're just voters blocks:

Last year, RCMP intercepted a total of 20,493 people who crossed the border illegally. That means they did not present at an official port-of-entry and instead came across the border through unofficial paths to make a refugee claim in Canada. So far this year, 6,373 irregular migrants have arrived in Canada this way. That’s an increase of 128 per cent over the number who arrived in Canada between January and April 2017, which was 2,784.

It's just money:

But charging Ontarians less for electricity than it cost to produce meant the province would have to borrow billions of dollars to cover the shortfall.

“In order for that to not show up on the bottom line, they created creative accounting to take it off the government’s statements,” Ms. Lysyk said.

Using that new accounting, the government declared it had balanced the province’s books for the fiscal year ended Mar. 31, 2018, just months before a general election. But Ms. Lysyk said that was not true. And the Financial Accountability Office, the body responsible for providing the legislative assembly with independent analysis and advice on Ontario’s finances, agreed: In December, it forecast that the province would actually rack up a deficit of $4-billion – a discrepancy that will grow markedly as the government’s off-balance-sheet borrowing continues. 

Ms. Lysyk said she’s worried that the Wynne government’s success in concealing its borrowing will encourage more aggressive bookkeeping, both in Ontario and in other provinces.

“If you get away with doing something that’s inappropriate accounting, the next time you’ll do it again and you’ll do it again,” she said. “Pretty soon they won’t have any numbers that will have any integrity behind them.”

The gauntlet, it has been thrown:

Lawyers representing former Ontario Progressive Conservative leader Patrick Brown on Monday filed a statement of claim in Superior Court against CTV, which first reported accusations of sexual misconduct levied by two women.

Brown is seeking more than $8 million in damages from CTV, a division of Bell Media. The statement of claim also names several reporters and producers with the media organization.

On Jan. 24, CTV published an online article with allegations from two women that pertained to Brown's time as a Tory MP in Barrie. One of the women alleged that she was still in high school when Brown plied her with alcohol and attempted to coerce her to perform oral sex, details that would later change in subsequent CTV reports.

South Korea has halted its propaganda broadcasts. By this time, I think most North Koreans have seen at least one episode of  "Longing Heart" and are pretty convinced that they have been screwed over.




Trump rejects the idea that he is pushing a potential peace deal in North Korea too quickly. I argue that given that North Korea has lied so many times before, this deal will not materialise:

As negotiations over a summit meeting with the ruler of North Korea accelerate, President Donald Trump on Sunday disputed any suggestion that he had made too many concessions at the outset of an unpredictable and potentially volatile diplomatic exercise.

From his Florida estate, Trump took to Twitter to criticize Chuck Todd, host of Meet the Press, who had questioned on his program whether the president had gotten anything in return for the “huge gift” he had given the North Korean leader, Kim Jong-un, by agreeing to meet with him.

On the show, Marc Short, the White House legislative affairs director, had an answer teed up – that the North Koreans had given the United States “an agreement to stop testing” nuclear weapons.

But from his Twitter account, the president chose to answer Todd directly.

“Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd of Fake News NBC just stated that we have given up so much in our negotiations with North Korea, and they have given up nothing,” Trump wrote. “Wow, we haven’t given up anything & they have agreed to denuclearization (so great for World), site closure, & no more testing!”

North Korea has not in fact agreed to denuclearization. It has told the South Koreans that it is willing to discuss the issue, but Kim has made no such statement to his own people, as he did with his declaration that his country did not need to conduct further nuclear testing.

Experts inside and outside the U.S. government believe that Kim’s ultimate goal is to have his country recognized as a nuclear power even as he offers enough concessions – some potentially largely symbolic – to press the United States into easing crippling economic sanctions.

And now, to commemorate (this past) Earf Day, here are some of Earf Day's greatest apocalyptic hits:

Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make,” Paul Ehrlich confidently declared in the April 1970 issue of Mademoiselle. “The death rate will increase until at least 100-200 million people per year will be starving to death during the next ten years.”

(Merci beaucoup)