Post-Easter Sunday Blitz: the Raw Deal Edition Redux

 Because some people are jerks.



Wynne's minion is proud of his wasting of tax-payers' money and would do it all over again:

During a constituent briefing about Ontario’s new budget, a Liberal MPP said he was “proud” of the province’s high levels of debt and “would do it again.”

“We have tripled (the debt) and we’re proud of it, because we can afford it,” MPP Bob Delaney said in comments published by the Mississauga News.

Ontario’s debt, which currently stands at $311.7 billion, is the most held by any sub-sovereign government in the world. It has also grown precipitously under the current Liberal government, who first took government when Ontario’s debt stood at $138.8 billion.

 
This Bob Delaney:

Premier Kathleen Wynne has told a Liberal backbencher to apologize for calling the police on the mother of an autistic child who had threatened a protest at his constituency office.

Wynne will meet later today with MPP Bob Delaney, but says she told him on the phone to apologize to Melanie Palaypayon.

I bet he's proud of that arm-twisting, too.




Wynne is going to regret her anti-"Buy American" policy:

The Ontario government is pushing back against New York State's Buy American law by limiting public sector procurement with suppliers in that state.

A new regulation that took effect Sunday restricts government contracts with New York State suppliers, specifically when it comes to the use of structural iron.

In a statement Monday, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne said the move is a response to legislation that took effect in New York State this weekend requiring the use of American-made iron in certain government road and bridge construction projects.

Wynne said Ontario's regulation is meant to level the playing field, and will immediately be repealed if New York State abandons its Buy American restrictions.

"I have consistently supported open and competitive procurement because it helps create good jobs on both sides of the border, but it has to be a two-way street," she said.

... says the broad who creates jobs losses. 

It's just money:

The Trudeau government’s trip to this year’s exclusive gathering of global elites in Davos cost taxpayers almost $700,000, with tens of thousands of dollars for pricey accommodations in the swanky Swiss resort, newly released documents show.

The total cost of the three-day trip in January to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland was $678,000, most of that for hotels, office and room rentals and transportation, according to figures recently tabled in Parliament. 

The cost of flying Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his delegation on a government jet from Ottawa to Zurich was almost $200,000, the documents said. The RCMP requires prime ministers to fly on government aircraft for security reasons.

Not all amounts associated with the trip have been publicly reported yet.

No, Andy. ALL of it goes on record:

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer has accepted the Liberal government's offer of a briefing on the Jaspal Atwal affair, but he has some conditions.

In a statement released Tuesday, Scheer said he told the government that he will invite members of his caucus and the media to attend the portion of the briefing dealing with non-classified information.

If the briefing moves to classified details, Scheer said only Tory MPs who are, like him, members of the Queen's Privy Council, will stay in the room for a separate briefing.

This only enables Justin to get away with his wrong-doings, Andy. Step up your grill game.




But that would require humility and empathy. Liberals don't have the capacity for either:

Someone needs to send this Liberal government an urgent message: Stop calling us deplorables!

Environment Minister Catherine McKenna, under calm but persistent questioning from Evan Solomon on CTV’s Question Period, blurted out Sunday that “I have no time for folks who are like, you know, ‘we shouldn’t take action,’ ” on climate change.

She later clarified that she meant politicians, not ordinary folk. But the minister acknowledged ”I get frustrated,” when people oppose the Liberals’ national carbon tax to fight global warming.

This is no way to win votes and influence premiers.

Bill Morneau has much the same mindset as Ms. McKenna. The Finance Minister was testifying before a parliamentary committee last week when Conservative MP Lisa Raitt accused him of hypocrisy for promoting gender equality in words but not deeds.

“I actually find your line of questioning to be offensive,” Mr. Morneau responded, insisting that promoting women was a core Liberal priority.

“We will drag along the Neanderthals who don’t agree with that and that will be our continuing approach,” he concluded.

It’s all reminiscent of Hillary Clinton’s statement during the 2016 election campaign that “you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables,” who were, “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic − you name it.” That sentence helped make Donald Trump president.

That's because the Americans would not put up with a mincing attention-seeker who is prone to anger but Canadians will every time.

Bob Rae may feel perfectly entitled to judge Nobel Peace Prize winner, Aung Sung Suu Kyi, because he is a white liberal who has never had his house of worship burned to the ground but is he ready to grill Malaysia, a predominantly Muslim nation, for turning away the Rohingya, the refugees-du-jour?:

Malaysian authorities said Monday that they have stepped up patrols to intercept a boat thought to be carrying dozens of people from Myanmar's beleaguered Rohingya Muslim minority seeking refuge in the country.

Meanwhile, an expert on the plight of the Rohingya said the sighting of the boat people does not portend a new exodus by sea.

The Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency said it has increased patrols in the Malacca Straits and Andaman Sea, especially near Langkawi island, after hearing of Sunday's stopover of a fishing boat with 56 people at an island in southern Thailand's Krabi province.

The boat stopped at the island because it had been damaged in a storm. Thai officials said it was repaired and supplied with food and fuel, and sent on its way to predominantly Muslim Malaysia, the destination sought by those aboard.

Rohingya, treated as undesirables in mostly Buddhist Myanmar, used to flee by sea by the thousands each year. About 700,000 have fled western Myanmar's Rakhine state to Bangladesh since last August to escape a brutal counterinsurgency campaign by Myanmar's army.

Thailand has an official policy of pushing back boat people from its shores. Those who have landed in recent years — especially during a deluge of boat people in 2015 — have been kept in detention centres . There have also been many cases of Rohingya landing in Thailand being taken by human traffickers and forced into near-slavery, held for ransom or otherwise abused.

Most Rohingya prefer to head to Malaysia, whose dominant Malay Muslim population makes it a more sympathetic destination, although its policy on allowing them in is somewhat nebulous.

What Israel won't take, Justin will:

In an abrupt and startling reversal, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nixed his own deal Tuesday with the United Nations to resettle tens of thousands of African migrants in Israel and other Western nations, caving in to nationalist critics who have demonized the migrants for taking over poor neighbourhoods in Tel Aviv.

If people were truly appalled at what Putin has done, he would have been a pariah since he invaded Georgia, not scorned for allegedly meddling in the American election or  the collateral damage of a failed poisoning:

How far a row escalates between Moscow and the West over the poisoning of a former Russian spy in Britain does not depend on Russia, its Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a news briefing on Monday.

In times of cold war there were some rules, but now Britain and the United States had dropped all propriety and were playing children's games, he said.