Sunday Post

 Ora pro nobis ...




The province of Ontario will no longer offer free medications to youth whose families have private coverage:

Ontario's government will no longer offer free prescriptions to kids and young adults with private coverage, the province's new health minister announced Saturday.

In a news release issued a day after the Progressive Conservative government was sworn in, Christine Elliott said the move follows through on Premier Doug Ford's campaign promise to find cost-cutting measures that don't slash jobs.

"Premier Ford promised the people he would find efficiencies without compromising service or jobs, and we are delivering," said Elliott.

Children and youth who are not covered by private benefits will continue to receive their eligible prescriptions for free, the news release said, while those covered by private plans will bill those insurers first and the government second.

The release does not specify when the new system comes into effect, but Elliott said she looks forward to "working with insurance groups to ensure a smooth transition to this updated system."

Well, that's something.




Oh, my. This must be embarrassing:

In a surprisingly critical segment by power & politics, Moneybag’s own words were played back, where he was clear that construction was starting “immediately,” and was moving forward “right away.”

But it hasn’t started.

And when power & politics asked Morneau’s office what was going on, they received a reply that included this:

“Specific details regarding the cost and timing of the project will be subject of ongoing commercial negotiations.”

Public pensions are just another way for the government to steal from one.

Case in point:

The import of the minister’s very public declaration was that the CPPIB’s decisions should be assessed by some other criterion than mere return on investment. The reason she suggested “Canadians can be proud of” the CPPIB’s plans to invest in a range of environmentally-conscious projects of the sort the minister is known to favour — wind and solar energy, sustainable water, and so on — is not because they were likely to make pots of money for pensioners, but because they fit with the Trudeau government’s image of itself as forward-thinking environmentalists.

They might also make pots of money but, if that were all this were about, the minister would presumably not have thought it worth pointing out, still less talked about it in terms of “pride.” The appeal was moral, not mercenary. So the managers of the fund, if they did not know already, would know the kinds of investments that would earn the government’s approval, even if they did not earn much in the usual currency. Possibly this might come in handy one day.

They are after money, Mr. Coyne, otherwise they wouldn't do this. They dress it up and claim that Canadians don't mind the theft.




It's just money:

Canada's budget watchdog will crunch the numbers to shed light on the total costs of a surge in asylum seekers.

In response to a request from Conservative MP Larry Maguire, the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) will take on a global accounting exercise to determine what costs have been incurred to date and how much the stepped-up pace of irregular migration might cost in the future.

"We just need to know, as Canadians, what the costs are and how the government intends to handle it in the future, given that many of our communities are becoming very loaded with the numbers of refugees, coming in to Toronto, Montreal and other areas," Maguire said.

"We need to know from these various departments just what the total costs are going to be."

More than 23,000 people have crossed into Canada outside official border points in the last year, most of them in Quebec and Manitoba. Major cities such as Toronto and Montreal are buckling under the pressure to house and support the new arrivals.

In a letter to the PBO, Maguire said the asylum seeker spike has created "serious financial strains and workloads" on several federal government departments, yet there has been little public reporting on costs.

Adviser to the Trump administration, John Bolton, states that the US has a plan to dismantle the North Korean nuclear program:

John Bolton said top U.S. diplomat Mike Pompeo will be discussing that plan with North Korea in the near future. Bolton added that it would be to the North’s advantage to co-operate to see sanctions lifted quickly and aid from South Korea and Japan start to flow.

Bolton’s remarks on CBS’ “Face the Nation” appeared to be the first time the Trump administration had publicly suggested a timeline for North Korea to fulfil the commitment leader Kim Jong Un made at a summit with President Donald Trump last month for the “complete denuclearization” of the Korean Peninsula.

Despite Trump’s rosy post-summit declaration that the North no longer poses a nuclear threat, Washington and Pyongyang have yet to negotiate the terms under which it would relinquish the weapons that it developed to deter the U.S. Doubts over North Korea’s intentions have deepened amid reports that it is continuing to produce fissile material for weapons.

Yes, about that, Mr. Bolton:

US intelligence agencies believe North Korea has increased production of fuel for nuclear weapons at multiple secret sites in recent months and may try to hide these while seeking concessions in nuclear talks with the United States, NBC news quoted US officials as saying.

In a report on Friday, the network said what it described as the latest US intelligence assessment appeared to go counter to sentiments expressed by President Donald Trump, who tweeted after an unprecedented June 12 summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un that "there is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea."

**

U.S. intelligence officials, citing newly obtained evidence, have concluded that North Korea does not intend to fully surrender its nuclear stockpile, and instead is considering ways to conceal the number of weapons it has and secret production facilities, according to U.S. officials.

The evidence, collected in the wake of the June 12 summit in Singapore, points to preparations to deceive the United States about the number of nuclear warheads in North Korea’s arsenal as well as the existence of undisclosed facilities used to make fissile material for nuclear bombs, the officials said.

The findings support a new, previously undisclosed Defense Intelligence Agency estimate that North Korea is unlikely to denuclearize.

Also:

Megumi’s mother, Sakie Yokota, now 82, hopes the recent meeting between President Donald Trump and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un signals an opening that will allow her to see her daughter again before she dies.

“It’s a race against time,” she says.

Israel will not allow Syrian refugees into its territories:

Israel will not allow any Syrian refugees to enter its territory but will continue to provide them with humanitarian aid, Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Friday.

More than 120,000 people in southwestern Syria have been forced to flee since the Syrian government launched an offensive to recover an area bordering Jordan and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from rebels, a monitoring group said.

The Israeli military said an increased number of Syrian civilians had been spotted in refugee camps on the Syrian side of the Golan over the past few days, and that it had overnight sent aid supplies at four locations "to Syrians fleeing hostilities".

Lieberman remarks on Twitter reaffirmed Israel's stance, and followed Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz saying earlier on Friday that the refugees would not be allowed to enter.

"We are closely monitoring events in southern Syria. We will guard Israel's security interests. As always, we will be ready to provide humanitarian aid to civilians, women and children but we will not accept any Syrian refugee to our territory," Lieberman wrote.

Cue BDS movement.




No, Anchorage Annie, your passport says that you are an American and to America ye shall go:

A First Nations woman working to revive a threatened language in her traditional territory of northern British Columbia says she’s being forced to leave the country on Canada Day.

Mique’l Dangeli belongs to the Tsimshian First Nation, whose territory straddles the border between Alaska and British Columbia. She says Canada won’t recognize her right to live and work in B.C. because she was born on the American side on Annette Island Indian Reserve.

Her visa expires July 1, she said.

This: