Mid-Week Post

Your middle-of-the-week frozen treat ...




I will wager that Andrew Scheer has never had an ethics probe launched against him because his company stood to benefit from a pension plan unlike some financial ministers one could mention:

Morneau faced off against Scheer in question period hours after the minister unveiled the pricey deal to salvage the British Columbia pipeline expansion project. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was not in the House of Commons to answer questions on the move.

(Sidebar: a trust-fund slacker whose work experience is almost solely being a substitute drama teacher was not at work during that exchange. How interesting.)

Scheer said the prime minister was cutting a cheque with taxpayers' money for "shareholders in a Texas-based company," while at the same time claiming he wants to attract investment in Canada. Scheer asked how much of the $4.5 billion will be invested back in Canada.

"With no business experience, I understand the member opposite might not understand what we're talking about," Morneau shot back before arguing that the Kinder Morgan assets will create long-term value for Canadians.

But Morneau's personal dig spurred outbursts from the Conservative benches. After House Speaker Geoff Regan asked for cooler heads to prevail, a Tory MP told him to "calm down daddy's boy." 

The remark, which drew applause from Conservatives, was an apparent dig at how the finance minister's former company, human resources firm Morneau Shepell, was founded by his father.

Surely Mr. Morneau would like to apprise the Canadian taxpayer of the mounting costs of this debacle in the interests of transparency.

Nope:

As the Conservatives demand to know how much the carbon tax will cost Canadian families, the Trudeau government claims they can’t release that info until September.

However, that means the Trudeau government is asking Parliament to support legislation before it is even known what the financial impact of that legislation will be on Canadians.

According to the CP, Finance Minister Bill Morneau said “details on how much people will pay will only be determined in September after each province reveals their individual approaches to applying the policy.”

Farmers in Saskatchewan see a twenty-two percent decrease in their income: 

Saskatchewan farmers are seeing less income, according to a new report released by Statistics Canada this week.

The province's farmers saw a 22 per cent decrease in total net income from 2016-2017, with nearly a billion dollar decrease from the previous year.

Canada as a whole saw a 2.5 per cent decline, the first country-wide downturn since 2013 and only the second decrease since 2009.

Four provinces besides Saskatchewan saw decreases: Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Quebec and Ontario.

(Sidebar: the last four provinces were not only the first provinces of the Dominion of Canada but voted Liberal in the last federal election.)




Well, it took him long enough:

In the document, the PCs reiterate a number of promises already laid out by their leader, Doug Ford, including a pledge to cut taxes for the middle income bracket and businesses, reduce the price of gasoline by 10 cents per litre. They also promise hundreds of millions of dollars for various infrastructure projects.

The plan reveals how much each commitment is expected to cost, but makes no mention of the at least $6 billion of "efficiencies" Ford has previously said a PC government would find. It also makes no mention of when a PC government would balance the province's budget.

Oh, that pesky detail.

But it would hardly need balancing if people didn't put Kathleen Wynne into power, so there's that.




Yes, the country's security is for sale. Just ask Justin:

Chinese telecom giant Huawei was founded by a former engineer in the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and has been singled out as a noteworthy cybersecurity risk in Congressional testimony by the heads of the CIA, FBI, National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency in the United States. Of particular concern has been the prospect of Huawei equipment being integrated in the next generation of Internet 5G wireless networks that will be ubiquitous within a few years.

Even with extensive testing, understanding the function of every line of software or every piece of hardware in these systems is difficult. Yet the criticism of Chinese companies – whether owned explicitly by the state or not – increasingly heard throughout Western capitals is that they are not legitimate commercial enterprises, but unapologetic agents of the Chinese state and, even more worryingly, of the Communist Party of China. 

Who knows what surveillance or even sabotage functions might be built into such networks by a Chinese state that must consider that Western governments might eventually become potential or actual military adversaries? 

If an Aecon, under Chinese SOE control, building Canadian infrastructure caused Ottawa national security heartburn, you’d think that having Huawei at the heart of building the backbone of our most sensitive communications infrastructure would cause gastroenteritis.

Instead, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale seems rather sanguine, telling journalists last March that an eye is being kept on Huawei and it does not pose a national security threat to Canadians.

I’m glad he thinks so. His optimism is not shared by Ward Elcock, John Adams and Richard Fadden, all former heads of the main agencies charged with this country’s national security, including CSIS, CSE, the Department of National Defence and others. Every one of them has gone on record warning against allowing Huawei to play any role in the development of this sensitive communications infrastructure. 

I'm sure Venezuela will take another dictatorship's idle threats seriously:

Canada will impose targeted sanctions on 14 Venezuelan officials, adding to its previous moves to put pressure on President Nicolas Maduro’s government, the foreign ministry said on Wednesday. 

When the police arrest someone commenting on the rampant abuse of girls and the authorities' complete refusal to do anything about it, people of any socio-political persuasion should be so appalled that they take to the streets:

One of Britain’s most notorious anti-Muslim campaigners was arrested for disrupting a trial last week and was sentenced that same day to a year in prison, which the judge ordered news media not to report on.

The gag order backfired, turning English Defense League founder Tommy Robinson into a sort of free-speech martyr to conservatives such as Donald Trump Jr. and Roseanne Barr before the gag order was lifted Tuesday. ...

U.S. websites ignored the ban. Conservative outlets and alt-right blogs accused the British media of abetting a coverup. Drudge blasted the arrest across its front page, and 500,000 people signed a “Free Tommy” petition. The movement swelled until hundreds marched in London over the weekend.

“How can we tell you what you’re doing wrong, when we can’t even talk about it?” one protester screamed at a police officer.

Meanwhile, the Independent and Leeds Live went to court to legally challenge the gag order – in part by arguing that their competitors were already violating it.

The newspapers won their challenge Tuesday, the BBC wrote, and everyone is now free to report that Robinson will be serving a 13-month prison sentence for interfering with two trials – one last year and one last week.

The abuse of girls was covered up for years by the same police force that arrested Tommy Robinson. His bluster did not get him arrested. That he exposed the revolting behaviour of the authorities did.

(Insert Title Here)

(Insert witty remark here)




The same government that has a federal budget deficit of  $19.4 billion, a trade deficit of $2.7 billion, a business-averse sector and funded people who stopped the Kinder Morgan pipeline from proceeding has now bought the Trans-Mountain project for $4.5 billion.

What could possibly go wrong? :

Michael Ferguson’s report found there were fundamental failures of project management and oversight in implementing the Phoenix pay system; that Indigenous people had been let down yet again by their government; and that delays in decision-making by the public-private partnership building the Champlain Bridge replacement in Montreal had cost $500 million — money that, it turns out, could have been spent buying roughly 127 km of pipeline for the government.

Ferguson’s conclusion was that Canada has a “broken government system.” Yikes. These are the same people who have just agreed to spend $4.5 billion to buy Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain project — the existing pipeline, the terminal assets, the current management team and workforce and the right to build an expansion that will triple daily capacity to 890,000 barrels.

That price doesn’t include the construction costs — which finance minister Bill Morneau refused to reveal at Tuesday morning’s press conference but which one investor estimated at $6 billion — or the loan guarantees to get the project back up and running during this construction season.

On the additional costs, the government’s logic was that not talking about estimates Tuesday was good for taxpayers, because future investors in Trans Mountain would use them to beat down the price of any potential purchase. But the lack of transparency on the sticker price will make it harder to sell to Canadians dubious about any government getting involved in a business it knows nothing about — far less a government so recently accused of systemic “incomprehensible failures.”

Not that the pipeline will actually get built:

Do you really expect that Justin Trudeau will order the RCMP or military to protect the pipeline and arrest protesters that lay down in the path of construction equipment?

No, as soon as people like that show up, flanked by one of the First Nations groups that opposed this pipeline, Trudeau will cave.

By the way, ever notice that to most of the media, the dozens of First Nations groups that agree with this pipeline and will benefit don’t count?

Why should they? Veterans don't count, either:

When Justin Trudeau told Canadian Veteran Brock Blaszczyk – who lost a leg serving our nation in Afghanistan – that Canadian Veterans are “asking for more than we’re able to give right now,” there was massive outrage across our country.

After Trudeau had spent money so freely, it was absurd for him to all of a sudden get tight-fisted when it comes to helping our Veterans.

After all, Trudeau seems fine spending tons of money on payouts to terrorists, so why would he have a problem giving our brave Veterans what they deserve?

His broken set of priorities and rampant dishonesty is a big part of why he’s losing support in the polls.

And now, more questions are being asked after Trudeau’s decision to Nationalize the Trans Mountain Pipeline.

Justin Trudeau expects Canadians to believe that he could somehow afford to spend $4.5 billion taxpayer dollars (the final cost will be many billions higher) to buy a pipeline, but he couldn’t afford to help our Veterans?

Bullshit.

Even worse, the fact that the government had to bail out Texas-based Kinder Morgan is due to the Trudeau government’s failed policies in the first place. Their ‘social license’ lie has been totally exposed, and their failure to support the energy industry and create a good environment for investment is now costing taxpayers billions.

Yet, Trudeau magically (actually massive debt increases) found the money for a Nationalization, yet refused to find the money to help our Veterans.

Also:

Because instead of having the private sector do it, Canadian taxpayers are now the owners of the Trans Mountain, for an initial outlay of $4.5 billion, with the final cost likely to be around $7.5 billion.

Canadian taxpayers, conscripted by Trudeau, have now assumed all of the risk from Houston-based Kinder Morgan, which halted work on the pipeline last month, threatening to abandon the project by May 31, because it was too financially risky to proceed.

This given the court challenges to stop the pipeline by B.C. Premier John Horgan’s NDP government and Indigenous opponents, along with protests by environmental radicals who want to kill it at all costs. ...


The Trudeau government said it will sell the pipeline back to the private sector once it’s completed and economically advantageous to do so. Right. We’ll see.

In fact, will it even be possible, given this precedent, to build any future inter-provincial pipelines in Canada without federal ownership, as opposed to the United States, where Barack Obama boasted during his presidency that his administration had approved enough pipelines to more than encircle the earth? ...


What all this shows is the abject failure of Trudeau’s and Notley’s superficial and absurd belief that imposing a national carbon price on Canadians would give them the  “social licence” to build the Trans Mountain pipeline, with the blessings of B.C.’s anti-oil government, Indigenous objectors and radical environmentalists.

Exactly none of that has happened, the future of the pipeline is still in doubt and billions of dollars of taxpayers’ money are now at risk.

But ... but ... two stocky white guys! :

One of two suspects wanted in connection with an explosion that injured 15 people at a restaurant west of Toronto may be a woman, contrary to earlier reports, police said Tuesday.

Investigators originally said both suspects wanted in Thursday night’s blast at the Bombay Bhel restaurant in Mississauga, Ont., were men, but new video evidence and witness input suggests at least one of the suspects could be female, said Peel regional police Supt. Rob Ryan.

Police have finished their work at the scene of the blast and are now analysing a collection of evidence that includes fingerprints, DNA, surveillance video, interviews with people present at the restaurant that night and remnants of the explosive device itself, Ryan said.

“Investigators spent hundreds of hours over the weekend combing the scene for every fine detail that might help them to understand what happened that night,” he said.

“What led the two suspects to detonate this device is still not clear,” he added. “We do not have clear motive and no one has claimed responsibility.”

I am willing to wager that, though incompetence is a factor here, the police are disseminating and then withholding all manner of information so that the public will not really know what the truth is.


Also - is he insane enough yet? :

A bail hearing for former Afghanistan hostage Joshua Boyle, who faces several assault charges, will stretch into a second day.

The Ontario court proceedings — likely to conclude Tuesday — are subject to a publication ban.

As a result, Boyle's lawyers declined to comment as they filed out of the provincial courthouse Monday. ...

Lawrence Greenspon, a lawyer for Boyle, told the court in January that an initial evaluation found his client fit to stand trial, but added that he would benefit from a fuller assessment at a mental health centre in Brockville, Ont.

(Sidebar: this Lawrence Greenspon.)




Someone else whose motive may never be known (according to some):

A suspected terrorist on day release from prison executed two female police officers with their own guns and shot dead a trainee teacher before he was killed in a shootout after taking two women hostage at a school in the centre of the Belgian city of Liege.

The bloody rampage on Tuesday morning, which left another four officers wounded, was captured on videos on social media, which showed the black clad man waving a pistol in each hand and shouting “Allahu Akbar” before he was gunned down by elite officers. Belgium's federal prosecutors office has opened an terror investigation into the attack.

The “lone wolf” attacker, 36, was named locally as Benjamin Herman, who was well-known to police for a string of crimes including robbery, assault and drug-dealing and was from Rochefort, a city about an hour from Liege.

One officer was named in local media reports as Soraya Belkacemi, 45, a widowed mother of twins, who are now orphaned. The other was Lucile Garcia, 53, who was described by fellow officers as a "fantastic colleague" who had married her partner a month ago.  

Herman was granted temporary release from prison on Monday night until Tuesday, despite a prison service assessment that judged him “ultra-violent” and that he was on a terror watchlist over suspicions he had become radicalised in 2017.

A mortar fired from Gaza hits a garden outside an Israeli kindergarten:

At least 25 mortar shells have been fired into southern Israel from the Gaza Strip, in the largest single barrage from the Palestinian territory since the war between Hamas and Israel in 2014.

Emergency sirens sounded to urge residents to take cover as Israel’s Iron Dome anti-missile system engaged the projectiles, destroying some in mid-air, Reuters reported.

Several shells evaded Iron Dome rockets and landed in Israeli communities on Tuesday morning, including one that exploded in the yard of a kindergarten.

Poland is willing to pay the US big bucks to have a permanent base:

Russia threatened retaliation Monday after news that Poland wants a permanent U.S. military base within its borders and is willing to pay up to $2 billion for the facility.

The proposal for an American base touched off a rhetorical firestorm between Moscow and Warsaw, as leaders from both sides traded threats and cast a fresh spotlight on simmering tensions in Eastern Europe.

U.S. officials had no immediate comment on the Polish plan, but Moscow seized the opportunity Monday — on an otherwise quiet Memorial Day in Washington — to push back hard against potential attempts by the Trump administration to bolster the U.S. military presence in the region.

But ... but ... sanctions!:

As preparations continue for a summit between President Trump and Kim Jong Un, a hardline North Korean general targeted for sanctions by both the United States and South Korea for acts including terrorism is heading Tuesday to the U.S. on Tuesday.

Seoul’s Yonhap news agency reported that Kim Yong-chol, vice chairman of the Central Committee of the ruling Workers’ Party of Korea (WPK), was in Beijing, en route to New York.

It is quite possible that Sir John A. Macdonald was a difficult man. It is also quite possible that without him, we would be America now:

The main association of Canadian history scholars has voted to remove Sir John A. Macdonald’s name from a prestigious prize, joining a movement to stop celebrating the country’s first prime minister as a hero.

The decision to rename the 40-year-old prize the “CHA prize for Best Scholarly Book in Canadian History” came Tuesday at the annual meeting of the Canadian Historical Association in Regina. Members voted overwhelmingly in favour of the change.

Well, then. God bless America.

Never ask a Canadian literati to wave the flag, even a little. That would be beneath her or him.


Also:

Conservatives do not just tolerate the dynamism of open societies, including staggering nonsense from political quackery to pet rocks. We genuinely foster it, whereas liberalism being perfectionist is liable to veer into stifling political correctness that chants about diversity in grim grey unison.

Given their reaction to it in practice, liberal praise for diversity in theory seems to me to muddy the waters. It diverts debate away from whether things they seek to enforce everywhere are indeed right in principle to who’s the closed-minded jerk.

It might not be who you think.

Oh, how awful.

I'm sure whoever this was never thought that the last thing he would ever see on this planet was a stone hurtling at his head a million kilometres an hour:

Officials at the Pompeii archaeological site have announced a dramatic new discovery, the skeleton of a man crushed by an enormous stone while trying to flee the explosion of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D.

Pompeii officials on Tuesday released a photograph showing the skeleton protruding from beneath a large block of stone that may have been a door jamb that had been “violently thrown by the volcanic cloud.”

The victim, who was over 30, had his thorax crushed. Archaeologists have not found the victim’s head. Officials said the man suffered an infection of the tibia, which may have caused walking difficulties, impeding his escape.

For a Monday

Damn and blast you, seasonal warmth!




Who would want to bomb a Shakespeare festival? :

Opening night of the Stratford Festival’s 2018 season has been cancelled — and the Festival Theatre evacuated just half an hour before a performance of The Tempest was set to begin due to a bomb threat against the theatre.

Ann Swerdfager, publicity director at the Stratford Festival, said Monday that the Stratford police had asked the festival to evacuate the building, 

In a press release, Ms. Swerdfager said that the Festival cancelled the opening performance of The Tempest “on the advice of police” due to a “bomb threat” that was made against the theatre. 

The Stratford Police Service wrote on Twitter that it received a call at 6:45 p.m. Monday evening that said explosives had been placed “at the Stratford Festival.” Both Festival Theatre and Avon Theatre were evacuated.

Officials are on the scene, searching for any suspicious packages. They have asked the public to stay away from the theatres.

Probably the same sort of cretins who would litter a beach with broken glass and sewing needles or who would blow up an Indian restaurant.




This must be dreadfully embarrassing:

A new survey by Mainstreet Research contradicts the findings of an Ipsos survey released earlier today, a sign of the chaos and uncertainty in Ontario.

While the Ipsos poll showed the PCs with a 3 point lead and the NDP falling from the previous poll, Ipsos shows the NDP with a narrow lead of 1.4 points.

Notably, Mainstreet Research hadn’t released province-wide numbers for about 10 days, meaning it may have missed both the NDP surge, and the possibility that the surge has stalled and is receding.

Here are the key numbers:

NDP 39.3%, PC 37.9%, Liberals 16%

As plants close up shop in Canada, all Hair-Boy can waste his time on is "gender diversity":

With the approach of the G7 summit in Quebec next week, Canada’s biggest pension plans are preparing to announce investments in a new sustainability fund.

The initiative, focused on institutional investors in G7 countries, will focus on three themes over three years, a source familiar with the discussions told the National Post — the first on gender diversity in global capital markets, another on strengthening expertise in sustainable infrastructure and a third on financial disclosures to create sustainable change.

 
Is FGM a "gender diverse" thing? Let's ask Ahmed. He'll answer anything:

Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen told a bigger whopper of a lie when appearing on Global’s The West Block on Sunday. He also told a truth the Liberals don’t want out there. ...

We can point to Trudeau’s infamous tweet but that is hardly a concrete action to welcome this “irregular” migration. Putting up a tent city, a refugee camp, on the border with the United States would be a welcoming action. Sending these would be “asylum seekers” to the destination of their choice in Canada after arriving in Quebec would also qualify.

So too would adding $173 million in the latest budget to help process all the people flooding across the border. More recently we learned that more than 800 border agents are being moved from the GTA to the Quebec-New York border. That could result in delays for you if your are returning to Canada but make things speedier for the border jumpers.

Well, almost anything.


Also:

During a recent event in New York City, Justin Trudeau was asked about criticism he is getting from the Opposition (and millions of Canadians) over the escalating illegal border crossing crisis.

For just a moment, it seemed he would refuse to blame the Conservatives, as he started saying that he doesn’t engage in partisan politics outside the country.

But that only lasted a few seconds.

He then proceeded to blame the crisis on – you guessed it – the previous Conservative government, saying they didn’t “invest” enough.

(Hat tip)




There will be no pipeline built as long as Justin occupies his dad's former job:

Finance Minister Bill Morneau will announce as early as Tuesday morning where the government plans to go with Kinder Morgan to ensure the controversial Trans Mountain pipeline expansion will be built.

The Canadian Press has learned there are three options on the table, which include the government buying and building the expansion, then selling it once it's complete; and buying it on an interim basis, then selling it to investors and leaving them to handle the construction.

Morneau has already unveiled the third option: leaving original project architect Kinder Morgan to handle construction, but covering any cost overruns incurred as a result of political interference.

The same China that people believe will rein in North Korea is the same one that censors its own citizens.

Case in point:

Chinese authorities routinely delete and suppress posts made to social media in China by embassies in Beijing, imposing the country’s censorship regime upon foreign governments − and raising fears that those governments, including Canada’s, are adapting by self-censoring.

The problem with Moon's end-run around Trump is that if Trump were to leave South Korea to its own defense devices at a time of an empowered China and emboldened North Korea, Moon would be screwed:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said on Monday there could be more impromptu talks and summits with North Korea’s Kim Jong Un, as U.S. officials sought to revive what would be a historic meeting between President Donald Trump and Kim.

Also - North Korea is back to its old, co-operative self:

North Korea said Monday it will move in accordance with its own timetable to help achieve a nuclear-free world, attaching great importance to the recent destruction of its nuclear weapons test site.

(Kamsahamnida)




What small minds politicise and racialise trees, mountains and flowers?:

Why don’t black people ski? Or hike? Or camp?

They do, of course, but more as the exception than the rule, according to research to be presented at the Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences in Regina.

This observation has troubled Jacqueline Scott, an avid outdoorswoman whose experience of the wilderness in and around Toronto has led her to identify what she calls an “adventure gap,” which is the subject of her doctoral research in social justice education at the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education.

There are many questions in this day and age that require immediate answers and this isn't one of them.

At all. Ever.

A nature trail, somehow a "white space". Or something.

Sunday Post

It's a hot one.

South Korean President Moon Jae-In, once a lawyer with the Pro-North Korean leftist group, Minbyun, and a supporter of former president, Roh Moo-Hyn's failed Sunshine policy and who blind-sided the US prior to the Winter Olympics in Pyeongchang, secretly met with Kim Jong-Un (again) and now the talks appear to be back on - for now:

South Korean President Moon Jae-in said Sunday that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un committed in their surprise meeting to sitting down with President Donald Trump and to a "complete denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula."

The Korean leaders' second summit in a month saw bear hugs and broad smiles, but their quickly arranged meeting Saturday appears to highlight a sense of urgency on both sides of the world's most heavily armed border.

At the White House, Trump said negotiations over a potential June 12 summit with Kim that he had earlier canceled were "going along very well." Trump told reporters that they are still considering Singapore as the venue for their talks. He said there is a "lot of good will," and that denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula would be "a great thing."

I believe that was promised before, Donald.


China (it should be obvious that it pulls Kim Jong-Un's strings) and Kim Jong-Un have decided to play the game a little differently. Instead of letting sanctions carry on for months before returning to the table, Kim allowed his rubber arm to be twisted by China and the leftist South Korean president and jerk Trump back and forth until either he tires of the entire process and walks away or takes a harder line and precipitates conflict.


Many on the left who have never given North Korea or its suffering masses a second thought are pleased to see that Trump has fallen for the same ruses previous administrations had while those on the right feel that Trump has Kim on the ropes.


Both are incredibly wrong.


Nothing coming from Asian communists can ever be trusted. Since 1949, communism has ravaged much of Asia and is still keeping ruling over its populations with iron fists. Xi has assumed total power over China and is extending his influence abroad. While South Korea was attempting to put a close to the Korean War, North Korea was waging cyber-attacks against its southern neighbour. None of that indicates a want for peace or a regime change that could bring about peace. Asking China to rein in North Korea is like asking partners-in-crime for their co-operation. Neither will turn on one another unless they have no choice. North Korea can always rely on China and Russia and China already has one Korea in the bag. Along with the military bases being set up in the South China Sea and no strong Asian power (save India) to stand in its way, China just needs to remove an American obstacle.

To assume that this time will be different is simply another way to maintain a crumbling status quo. For Trump to achieve what others have not, he has to treat each party, even South Korea, as someone who must earn his good will. Trump doesn't have to go to war with China. He just has to raise tariffs on Chinese products (or send some rather impressive looking war ships). He doesn't have to threaten North Korea. He just has to enforce existing sanctions and support dissident groups. He doesn't have to withdraw armed forces from South Korea. He just has to remove THAAD. That is what Trump can do to defend American interests in that region.


Also:

Former North Korean diplomat Thae Yong-ho told the South Korean newspaper Chosun Ilbo in an interview published Friday that Kim regime leaders view Christianity as a true challenge to because “they know that Christianity would hamper the Kim family’s dynastic succession to power.”

He added an urgent plea to the South Korean Christian community to advocate for building churches in the North and fighting against religious persecution there, which is generally considered among the worst on the planet.

Christianity has always been a threat to any dictatorship. Supporting churches will only dilute the Kim regime's influence. Will Trump be on board with that?


(Kamasahamnida)




That's nice, Australia and the Netherlands, but how will you make Russia be accountable? :

A day after international prosecutors said they had unequivocal evidence of Russian involvement in the downing of a Malaysian passenger jet over Ukraine nearly four years ago, the Netherlands and Australia on Friday announced they were holding Moscow legally responsible for its role in the missile attack.

The move puts further strain on already tense relations between Russia and the West and opens a new legal front in the long-running process of apportioning blame for the July 17, 2014, missile strike that blew Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 out of the sky and killed all 298 people on board.

"State responsibility comes into play when states fail to uphold provisions of international law and that's clearly the case," Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte told reporters in The Hague.

On Thursday, a Dutch-led international team of investigators said they had strong evidence that the Buk missile system that brought down the Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur flight came from a Russia-based military unit, the 53rd anti-aircraft missile brigade based in the Russian city of Kursk. It was the most explicit link yet published by the investigators between Moscow and the downing of the flight known as MH17.

Rutte demanded that Moscow fully co-operate with the criminal probe.

Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop called for international support for the Dutch-Australian legal initiative.

"If military weapons can be deployed and then used to bring down civilian aircraft in what was essentially a war zone, then international security is at risk and we call on all countries to inform the Russian Federation that its conduct is unacceptable," she said.

Also -  Россиянине, улыбайтесь:

In light of Russia's near-pariah status in much of the Western world, many Russians are treating the 2018 World Cup soccer tournament as a chance to put a more welcoming face on their country.   

So in a classroom next to noisy train tracks in southern Moscow, language teacher Evgenia Zaborskaya is grilling about 20 Moscow transit staff on how to be polite and helpful — in English. 

"We want to attract more foreign tourists; it's good for our economy," Zaborskaya says as she leads the class through a discussion on how give out directions to popular sites such as Red Square.

Trump's tariffs would cripple the auto industry, claims group:

Donald Trump is considering imposing tariffs of up to 25 per cent on all vehicles imported into the United States — a decision being referred to as "the most outrageous trade action that's ever been taken by the Trump administration."

The Trump administration said Wednesday it had launched a national security investigation into car and truck imports that could lead to new U.S. tariffs similar to those recently imposed on imported steel and aluminum.

Bill Anderson, director of the Cross-Border Institute at the University of Windsor, describes the move as "very, very extreme."

"It would essentially shut down or cripple the industry. And, in this case, you're protecting American firms from themselves because most of the cars are being produced by American firms in Canada and in Mexico."

Too late:

“One stat I read is that 69 times since 2001, Windsor has had the highest national unemployment and we’ve seen that particularly because of the loss of jobs in the auto sector,” he said.

This isn’t about jobs going to Mexico. It’s about us losing jobs and manufacturing to nearby competitors — neighbouring states and other provinces, he said.

Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne promises to stanch a heavily bleeding and fatal economic wound if re-elected:

The Ontario Liberals promised new legislation on Saturday that would reduce the province's debt, saying they were presenting the only realistic financial plan between the three major parties.

HA!


Also - it's just money:

The budget deficit for last fiscal year should have been no more than $10 billion.

And next year, it should have been on the way to being balanced.

Of course, that would only have been the case if Justin Trudeau could keep his promises, and we’ve all seen that he can’t.

Instead, the budget deficit for 2017-2018 is projected to be $19.4 billion, adding even more to our growing national debt.

This was promised in 2015.

I am convinced that if one offered Canadians magic beans for the low, low price of an entire year's salary,  they would take them, plant them in their backyard and watch them not grow.




Jody Wilson-Raybould is a stupid b!#ch:

Wilson-Raybould put out a tweet of her own.

"Thank you, Prime Minister @JustinTrudeau, My thoughts are with the family of Colten Boushie tonight. I truly feel your pain and I hear all of your voices.

"As a country we can and must do better — I am committed to working everyday to ensure justice for all Canadians."

That message prompted a flurry of responses from Canadians to Wilson-Raybould's office. CBC News has obtained more than 500 pages of correspondence through the access to information law.

Almost all of those messages are negative in tone and content, with many writers angrily accusing the minister of undermining the judicial system.

"Your tweet 'feeling their pain' and commenting that 'our country can do better' is inappropriate and serves to undermine the difficult decisions that the jurors faced," wrote one person.

From the same man who refused to answer if the Liberal government would reverse its decision to remove FGM as an intolerable practice in an immigration guide:

As the illegal border crossing crisis continues, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen was questioned for four hours by Opposition MPs.

In all that time, he refused to give any substantive answers as to how the Trudeau government will deal with the crisis.

As noted by the Globe & Mail, “The Immigration Minister is refusing to say whether the federal government will seek the power to automatically turn away thousands of refugee claimants who walk across the border under an asylum agreement with the United States.”

When Conservative Immigration Critic Michelle Rempel asked whether Hussen would take action by declaring the entire border an official point of entry – a common sense proposal which would deal with the loophole letting people enter illegally – Hussen said “Transforming the whole border into a port of entry would be impractical in terms of providing border and immigration services along its entire length, which is 9,000 kilometres.”

Do note that the member of Parliament for the riding of York-South Weston refused, as he has done before, to answer a straight-forward question.