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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)