Mid-Week Post

Your intermission of the work-week ....




Was it something he said?:

U.S. President Donald Trump says he rejected a request for a one-on-one NAFTA meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau this week because Canada's tariffs are too high and the country's trade negotiators have refused to budge.

Trump made the comments late Wednesday as part of a free-wheeling news conference at the end of the United Nations General Assembly.

"Yeah, I did," Trump said when asked whether he rejected a meeting with Trudeau on the renegotiation of the North American Free Trade Agreement.

"His tariffs are too high and he doesn't seem to want to move. And I've told him, forget about it."

The U.S. president and Canadian prime minister attended the same luncheon at the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday, but it was hardly a warm encounter. The two mingled near each other but didn’t speak before Trump sat down for lunch. Trudeau then approached Trump, standing behind him without the president appearing to acknowledge him. Trudeau tapped him on the shoulder and the men shook hands in a brief exchange. Trump didn’t stand up.

HA!

Canada is certainly way back.

There is no reason for Trump even to acknowledge Justin. Justin has never commanded respect or  pretended that he was in any way a competent leader of note. Even turning to look at him is a waste of time.


Also:

The news for Canada on renegotiation of the North American Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has been bleak, but there is one aspect that bodes well for future and potentially more difficult, trade negotiations: the quiet death of the Trudeau government’s so-called progressive trade strategy.

At the start of the NAFTA renegotiation, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau insisted that the inclusion of progressive elements such as new chapters on Indigenous and gender issues was essential to the agreement, going so far as to say that it was not a frill but a practical necessity.

Yet, in the closing act of the NAFTA negotiations, reality has overtaken rhetoric. The progressive agenda has disappeared from the negotiations as well as the public debate around it — with, it appears, no discernible impact on Canadians’ feelings toward the pact or negotiations. Practical dollars-and-cents, saving-or-losing-jobs issues have crowded out non-critical issues. Progressive trade obviously has not made that cut.

But ... but ... principles!

Knowing full well that a dead NAFTA deal would kill crucial votes, Justin - or at least his handlers - probably thought that the window-dressing that was "gender" could go quietly. Justin can pretend that he fought like a lion later on.

HA! Fought ...


And:

You might not think the Trudeau government’s desperate efforts to win Canada a seat on the United Nations security council, the current stall in NAFTA negotiations and Trans Mountain pipeline construction, our I-hate-my-job governor general and a proposed handgun ban were all related. But they are.

They are all (along with many, many other issues) examples of the Trudeau Liberals’ obsession with symbolism over substance.

The current federal government not only favours platitudes over policy, it can’t tell the difference between the two. It confuses articulation with achievement. By simply expressing its outrage/empathy/understanding, this government believes it is offering solutions.

Because idiots like the Liberals were voted in by equally unserious people who will eventually learn that things like oil are very serious matters indeed.




If one would recall:

“He said, ’Get the bleep out of the way,”’ Ramsey said in the House. An NDP source who spoke to Ramsey afterwards confirmed the MP had heard Trudeau say “get the f— out of my way.”

Brosseau said she was shocked by the encounter.

“I was standing in the centre talking to some colleagues,” Brosseau told the House after calm was restored. “I was elbowed in the chest by the prime minister and then I had to leave.

This:

As grisly details of the rape and death of eight-year-old Tori Stafford were being recounted by a Conservative MP during question period Wednesday, some MPs reacted with gasps of revulsion.

But it wasn't the specifics of the crime that upset members of Parliament. Rather it was the fact these details were being shared in the House of Commons that made politicians and others watching the debate recoil.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau reacted by pleading with the Opposition Conservatives for more decorum.

"I would ask them, please do not continue to increase the level of graphic detail read into the official record here," he said.

"This is not the way this house should be engaging."

But that IS how the House of Commons should be debating.

Just as abortion is a canned hunt that pulls of limbs and collapses skulls and that Yazidi rape victims are being ignored when they identify their ISIS rapists, everyone in the House of Commons should be reminded of how Terri-Lynne McClintock lured eight year old Victoria Stafford from her school from where she was driven to a field, raped and beaten to death with a claw hammer. These are important details in considering how utterly morally decrepit and delusional the legal system in Canada is. Why would a Stone Age culture build spas for women who lure children into fields and watch as they are brutalised and killed? What allegedly progressive system would allow a multi-tiered legal system based on race and allow such a woman to be freed in this way?

Justin, as usual, doesn't want to talk about the big issues.

Pansy ...




Seamus O'Regan is a despicable person:

On Tuesday the minister released a statement that will change how his department deals with cases in the future but he will not revoke Garnier’s benefits.

“Going forward, treatment benefits will not be provided to a veteran’s family member who is incarcerated in a provincial or federal facility,” O’Regan said.

The key phrase here, “going forward.”

It is such a perfect political phrase, one devoid of meaning for most of us but so useful for the politician.

He won’t fix the problem now but will in the future.

“I have reviewed the department’s findings on this issue, and I am directing them to ensure the services received by a family member of a veteran are related to the veteran’s service and where they are not, that the case be reviewed by a senior official,” O’Regan said.

Yes, pass that buck, Seamus.




Sobriety? Nope:

Uncertainty over the future of the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion is be enough to drive any politician to drink, but Alberta’s politicians are hoping for a bit of sobriety in a planned federal overhaul of resource project reviews.

Headed to the Senate this fall, the federal Liberals’ Bill C-69 has been a subject of endless scorn in Alberta politics — especially amid the controversy surrounding Trans Mountain — over fears it will sink future energy projects.

On Tuesday, both NDP Premier Rachel Notley and Jason Kenney, leader of the opposition United Conservatives, pointed to the potential for reform via the red chamber. Given the Senate’s tendency not to adhere blindly to the Liberal government’s agenda, they hope it will provide a way for Alberta politicians to lobby for the changes they want.

Jacking up the minimum wage while also jacking up costs and taxes was a surefire way to keep youth unemployment high and the existence of stable small businesses low:

Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government said it will halt a planned increase to minimum wage that was scheduled to kick in next year, following up on a promise made during the spring election campaign.

Labour Minister Laurie Scott said Wednesday the minimum wage will remain at $14 an hour rather than rising to $15 as planned by the previous Liberal government.

The minister would not say whether the minimum wage would eventually go up, saying only that the government was conducting consultations on the issue.

Ontario’s minimum wage increased from $11.60 to $14 an hour on Jan. 1, drawing complaints from businesses and prompting some to raise prices and cut staff hours and employee benefits.

“The increase of 20 per cent this year was a lot for businesses to absorb so we’re putting a pause on the minimum wage,” Scott said.

It's like people want to go extinct:

Canada has one of the lowest child vaccination rates in the developed world. With about one tenth of Canadian children now going unvaccinated, this means that up to 750,000 young Canadians have no immunity whatsoever against diphtheria, whooping cough, tetanus and measles.

What the South Koreans don't know won't hurt them ... yet:

Even before they came to power, Moon and his allies used defamation suits to suppress debate about their history of anti-anti-North Korean, pro-North Korean, and anti-American views. Now, although North Korea is as totalitarian as ever, the South’s freedoms of speech and press are under an accelerating attack of censorship to silence the ruling party’s political opponents, North Korean defectors, and critics of Pyongyang’s human rights abuses.

This North Korea:

There are two operating reactors at Yongbyon, a 2 MW research reactor that the North received from the Soviet Union in 1965 and a 5 MW graphite reactor that began operations in 1986. 

The 5 MW graphite reactor is reportedly capable of producing 5 to 7 kg of plutonium per year. The regime started building a 50 MWe graphite reactor capable of producing 55 kg of plutonium per year, but stopped construction in 1994.

Afterwards, it built a 100 MWt light-water research reactor, which is expected to start running soon. The new reactor is believed to be capable of producing 10 to 15 kg of plutonium annually.

A radiochemical laboratory that opened in 1989 extracts plutonium by reprocessing spent nuclear fuel from the 5 MWe reactor. It can reprocess 500 kg of spent nuclear fuel per day. 

A nuclear fuel processing plant that began operating in 1987 is supposed to produce nuclear fuel for the 5 MWe reactor, using natural uranium. The plant is presumed to be superannuated now.

The regime has continued running these nuclear facilities at Yongbyon despite a flurry of diplomatic activities this year and vague promises to the U.S. and South Korea to denuclearize.

(Merci beaucoup and kamsahamnida)