Friday Post

Aaaahhhh, glorious June ....





This just in - Justin's friend is granted bail:

Former hostage Joshua Boyle is being released on bail ahead of his trial in Ottawa on charges of assault, sexual assault and more, a judge ruled Friday after a two-day bail hearing earlier this week.

Ontario Court Justice Robert Wadden ordered Boyle to be released on recognizance.

Boyle will reside with his parents in Smiths Falls under strict conditions and will be placed under house arrest with GPS ankle bracelet monitoring.

Since assuming office, Justin has tanked the following:  the cancellation of the Energy East, Northern Gateway, Petronas LNG and the purchase of the long-stalled Trans-Mountain pipeline for $4.5 billion plus costs not revealed to the taxpayers, a skating rink no one used that cost $100,000 a day, carbon taxes and higher business tax rates that have made Canada less welcoming for businesses, environmental assessment protocols that hinder natural resource projects, a widening $2.7 billion trade deficit, a failure to secure NAFTA and then lying about it, a series of failed trade agreements and now a trade row with the US:

Canada is imposing dollar-for-dollar tariff “countermeasures” on up to $16.6 billion worth of U.S. imports in response to the American decision to make good on its threat of similar tariffs against Canadian-made steel and aluminum.

The tariffs, which apply to a long list of U.S. products that includes everything from flat-rolled steel to playing cards and felt-tipped pens, will go into effect July 1, Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland told a news conference Thursday.

“This is $16.6 billion of retaliation,” Freeland said.

Like fun it is.

Considering the above ways in which Justin has tanked the Canadian economy and his complete inability to bargain or at least ameliorate the biggest and most trading partner Canada will ever have, that retaliation means nothing.

Trump knows that Canada has been allowing China to use it to dump Chinese steel into the North American market (if it didn't, then why would Canada initiate anti-dumping investigations against China?). This is why he put tariffs on steel and aluminum. He also believes that Canada have greatly benefited from agreements like NAFTA and that Justin's welcome mat for unvetted persons of all stripes endangers American security.

Has Justin proven Trump wrong?

Not at all.

Instead, he unleashed his pansy anger and put tariffs on felt pens and sleeping bags against the country Canada needs the most to make it more like a functioning economy and less like Juche-prone North Korea.

Smoke and mirrors. As long as Justin gets to hang onto his seat in 2019, what does he care if the Canadian steel industry goes under?


Also:

Most of all, its question was: Was the Liberal government really onside with the pipeline or not? Would the government back it, with full and unambiguous vigour, during the now most crucial stage — the actual construction of the damn thing? Or was the company expected to face intensifying opposition from the feverish enviros, more showdowns and blockades? Would it be with the company when the violence and dangerous confrontation loosely hinted at under the convenient umbrella of “civil disobedience” erupted during actual construction? Or would that be solely the company’s “problem?”

Was Kinder Morgan to face this, all on its own, while the federal government joyfully continued to waltz off with massive delegations to climate conferences, there to proclaim the evils of oil and carbon emissions and deplore those fiendish energy companies that kept insisting on supplying the world with the oil and gas the world depends on?

So Kinder Morgan hadn’t issued an “ultimatum.” Rather, it had declared instead a necessary “time out” to weigh this one question: Is it going to be much more of the same?

Unfortunately, we never got to hear the results of Kinder Morgan’s meditation. Because two days before the 31st the Liberal government stepped in to say it was buying the pipeline from the company. But no genius is required to deduce the conclusion the company had come to. It looked back at what it had already gone through, and looked ahead and saw vividly and to its horror it was only going to get worse.

The India trip that just will not die:

The national security and intelligence committee of parliamentarians has delivered a special report to Justin Trudeau on the prime minister's ill-fated trip to India.

But the public can't read it quite yet, and may never see the whole thing.

(Sidebar: this is allegedly the most transparent government in the country's history.) 

It's just money:

The federal government will provide $50 million to Quebec, Ontario and Manitoba to help pay for some of the costs they have borne as a result of the influx of asylum seekers illegally crossing the Canada-U.S. border.

Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen says this is not a final payment to these provinces for border crosser costs, but is meant to help address some of the immediate temporary housing needs in those provinces.

**

You might pass 24 Sussex Drive and say to yourself: “I wonder what it costs to keep that place running?”

So we found out — and it’s a bundle.

Some ordinary household bills for the official residence of the prime minister, the one that’s not been lived in since the 2015 federal election, were released by the National Capital Commission through an access-to-information request.

They show how the notoriously drafty old house sucks up energy — and money.

The total expenses for the period from November 2015 through March 2016 were $171,376 — for the building alone, not food or staffing. (The dates are approximate. Not all expenses were billed on the same schedule.)

Energy bills alone topped $50,000 for the first fall and winter that the Trudeau family chose not to live there.

(Sidebar: energy, you say ...)

Whatever you say, Mr. Ad-Scam:

Jean Chretien has ignored a letter from Nova Scotia's lobbyist registrar asking if he lobbied the premier about a port proposal during a recent closed-door session that drew a citizen complaint.

The registrar of lobbyists, Hayley Clarke, asked the former prime minister about a March 21 meeting in Halifax with Premier Stephen McNeil and Transport Minister Geoff MacLellan.

Chretien is an international adviser to Sydney Harbour Investment Partners, which has been seeking investor support for the Cape Breton container port project. Chretien is not a registered lobbyist in Nova Scotia, and both McNeil and MacLellan denied he lobbied them or discussed the port project.

Trump is ready to be lied to again:

President Donald Trump said on Friday an unprecedented nuclear arms summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that the United States pulled out of will now go ahead as scheduled on June 12 in Singapore, adding another twist to a high-stakes diplomatic dance.  

Mike Pompeo is a g-d- tool:

"We think that working together, the people of the United States and North Korea can create a future defined by friendship and collaboration, not by mistrust, and fear and threats. We sincerely hope that Chairman Kim Jong-un shares this positive vision for the future."

Kim isn't starving his people because he forgot that humans need to eat to live.

This:

North Korea’s “songbun” system, which classifies people via state-assigned social class and birth, dominates the way in which North Koreans live. Those higher up the class structure live in better places, have access to better jobs, and receive more food – those lower down do not, and face starvation as a result.

Well-fed people with ideas tend to overthrow dictators.




Dreadful:

John Forde stood silently near the body of a dead female black bear as two little eyes stared back at him from a nearby bush.

The bear cub was about the size of a Jack Russell terrier, extremely underweight and very scared.

Forde, who co-owns the Whale Centre in Tofino with his wife Jennifer Steven, had been told the day before about a cub hiding around the body of its dead mother in Ross Pass.

Using a jacket, Forde covered the cub and was finally able to grab it, haul it to the boat and put it in the kennel.

The couple contacted conservation officers and arranged to transport the cub to the North Island Wildlife Recovery Centre.

"It was in really rough shape, very malnourished and to the point where they figure if we hadn't had got it that day, it probably wouldn't have lasted another," Forde said.

Tawny Molland, animal care supervisor at the centre, said the male cub is between eight to 12 weeks old. It will stay at the centre for around 18 months before it is released into the wild.

"Every day we are seeing signs of improvement," she said.

Lions and tigers and bears and a jaguar! Oh my!:

Two lions, two tigers, a jaguar and a bear broke out of their cages in a western German zoo on Friday after heavy rains flooded the area and damaged their enclosures, sparking a massive search by police as they warned local residents to stay indoors.