Mid-Week Post

Your middle-of-the-week diversion ...




While the Americans have formally charged Meng Wanzhou and Huawei Technologies with conspiring to violate sanctions on Iran, Canada is still deciding on whether to anger its longest-standing neighbour and trading partner or its Chinese overlords:

The clock is ticking for Canada to decide whether to proceed with a high-profile extradition case involving a senior executive of Huawei Technologies, which has touched off furor in diplomatic relations with China.

A British Columbia court heard Tuesday that the United States has issued a formal extradition request for Meng Wanzhou, the company's chief financial officer and daughter of its founder. Meng was arrested Dec. 1 at Vancouver's airport on a request from U.S. authorities.

Canada's Department of Justice now has until March 1 to determine whether to issue an authority to proceed, which authorizes an extradition hearing. If Canada issues that authority, Meng would next appear in court March 6 and hearing dates would be set.

B.C. Supreme Court Justice William Ehrcke said proceedings could still take some time.

"I have no idea whether we're looking at months or years," he said. "At this point, that's completely unknown. It will become clearer as time progresses."

Yes, drag that process out! Why make a decision now when tariffs or public opinion can force one's hand?

Also:

We now know that whatever John McCallum was trying to say about the detention of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, he screwed it up. And Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gets to own the whole debacle, even after he fired his ambassador to China.

It left behind a mess on many levels, complicating a high-stakes dispute with China and threatening to blow a hole in one of the best home-turf advantages an incumbent prime minister has: being the leader who deals with the world.

But Justin does not deal with the world. He messes things up. 

Name a trade agreement where he walked away with more than what he walked in with. Who hasn't he angered with his lateness, rudeness or ignorance? Does one have to rehash the India trip? 

Even now, he refuses to accept responsibility for his favouritism towards China as voiced by John McCallum.  If he is not blaming former prime minister Stephen Harper for anything that has gone wrong since assuming office, Justin is blaming the provinces for his failed infrastructure plans, things he promised during the 2015 election.

This isn't a leader who deals with the world; it's a coward who runs away.


Also - don't ever apologise for hurting Justin's precious little feelings. Ever.  Make him apologise being an enormous, unrelenting, country-destroying douchebag:

The mayor of a small town in Manitoba has apologized for telling a yellow vest protest that he’d like to see Prime Minister Justin Trudeau duct-taped to the front of a pipeline pig.

On Jan. 5, in advance of a truck convoy, one of many that have popped up around the country in the past couple months, Mayor Murray Wright of Virden spoke from the back of a flatbed to the assembled crowd, the Virden Empire-Advance reported.

“I know what I’d like to do with Mr. Trudeau but I’d be in jail if I did that,” said Wright. “I’m sure that the first pig we run through the pipeline when we get it built out west that he’s duct-taped to the front of it with that pig behind his ass when it goes.”

A pig is a device that’s ran through a pipeline to perform maintenance. The yellow vest movement originated in France, fuelled by outrage over French president Emmanuel Macron’s fuel tax, but jumped to Canada around early December, inspiring a wide range of conservative protests, from fears over illegal immigration to concern about the state of the oil and gas industry.

While global warming is plunging half of the globe into frigid temperatures, Canada's homeless are playing second fiddle to the illegal migrant crisis generated by Justin and his desperate need for new voters blocks:

The federal Liberals plan to spend an extra $114.7 million to help pay for temporary housing for asylum seekers — a sum Ontario's government criticized as being hundreds of millions short of what is needed.

(Sidebar: it doesn't matter because it's not their money.)

**

The city of Toronto needs a $45-million cheque from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government to cover the costs of refugee resettlement and balance its 2019 operating budget.

If Toronto doesn’t get it, Mayor John Tory and council will have to find other ways to raise the money, because the city can’t run a deficit.

For example, by hiking property taxes beyond the tied-to-inflation 2.55% increase proposed in the city’s 2019 budget released Monday.

Tory remains confident Ottawa will come up with the cash, but Trudeau’s record for paying these costs — the result of his government’s failure to competently address the illegal/irregular border-crossing issue — hasn’t been impressive.

About 40% of the beds in Toronto’s emergency shelter system are now occupied by refugee claimants.

This has already cost the city a total of $64 million in 2017 and 2018, to which the feds thus far have contributed $26 million.

**

On Monday night, the federal government quietly tabled the supplementary spending estimates which included an additional $114.7 million to deal with the illegal border crossers issue. Of that money, $14.7 million will be spent by the federal government on ”provision of interim lodging sites.”

The other $100 million is to reimburse the costs incurred by provincial governments.

That sounds generous until you realize it is a fraction of what the provinces have spent on additional social assistance costs, shelter costs and increased, and therefore unbudgeted, education costs.

All because Justin Trudeau welcomed the world to Canada and won’t stop the influx of people at an illegal crossing on the Quebec-New York border.

Quebec, which has borne the brunt of this crisis, has a bill of $300 million and growing, Ontario is quickly catching up with a bill of $200 million.

So Justin Trudeau is offering a 20% down payment?

Perhaps they can stay in these houses?:

Proportionally fewer immigrants own single-detached properties in Canada’s two biggest real estate markets.

According to new data from Statistics Canada, immigrants own 43 per cent of all residential properties in Toronto and 37 per cent in Vancouver. Immigrants make up 46 per cent of Toronto’s population and 41 per cent of Vancouver’s.

Why not a moratorium?:

A new first-come-first-served online application for immigrants seeking to sponsor their parents and grandparents to come to Canada is being condemned as “profoundly discriminatory” after the program opened and closed in less than 10 minutes on Monday.

All 27,000 openings for the family-reunification program in 2019 were spoken for within minutes of the application form’s going live online Monday, sparking outcry from disappointed would-be applicants.

Today in national acclimatisation:

Demonstrators gathered outside Vancouver's court house Tuesday as Ibrahim Ali appeared in court at a hearing to discuss disclosure documents.

Protesters supporting Marrisa Shen, the 13-year-old Ali is accused of killing, have been outside the court for all of Ali's appearances.

Shen was last seen alive on July 18, 2017 at a Burnaby Tim Hortons. Five hours later, her body was found in Burnaby's Central Park.

"We're not here for any reason other than to remember and honour a little girl: Marrisa Shen," one demonstrator told CTV News.

But the crowds have turned Shen's death into a larger debate about Canada's immigration system.

Holding signs such as "Hold Trudeau Accountable" and "We Want Justice, Law and Order," some demonstrators blamed Canada's immigration policies for Shen's death.

Ali is a Syrian refugee who came to Canada with his family in 2017, four months before Shen's murder.

(Sidebar: insert Trudeau-esque fear-mongering tripe here.)

**

The head of Quebec’s largest school board says she was outraged by a request from the province’s Education Department last week seeking to know how many board employees wear religious symbols.

**

Khadr — who famously received $10 million from the Canadian government for being tortured in Guantanamo Bay — was a member of al-Qaida and admitted killing an American medic in Afghanistan.

Social media lit up in full-throated, red-faced rage.

Joining the chorus was Opposition leader Andrew Scheer.

He tweeted: “Omar Khadr is a convicted terrorist who murdered a medic and blinded another. He is not a victim, nor should he be portrayed in this way alongside real Canadian heroes. @googlecanada: fix this.”

Asia Bibi may be free to leave but where can she go?:

Pakistan’s Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the acquittal of a Christian woman who spent years on death row after being convicted of blasphemy, dismissing a petition filed by Islamists who have called for her execution.

“On merit, this petition is dismissed,” Chief Justice Asif Saeed Khosa said in court, saying the petitioners, led by a village prayer leader, had failed to point out any mistake in the original judgment.

ISIS is reportedly devastated by the media coverage of the capture of one of its "Canadian" cohorts:

ISIL supporters are complaining that reporting by friendly media networks on the capture of a Canadian who was the terror group’s propagandist has hurt their morale because it is being celebrated on social media with tags to the CIA and Mossad.

Because transparency and scruples:

In his statement in the House, Di Iorio said he had announced his intention to resign last April for “serious” personal and family reasons that have never been made clear.

He continued to attend sittings in the House until it adjourned last June but, strangely, did not resign.

He was rarely seen on Parliament Hill after that but did appear in mid-December to defend himself, after Cullen had raised his point of privilege, in which the NDP MP pointed out that one of the few prescriptions in the standing orders governing the role of an MP is that he or she must appear in the House when able.

In his December statement, Di Iorio said his constituents wanted him to find a way to continue his mandate, even if it meant not turning up in Ottawa. He said he cancelled his holidays to attend to constituency matters through the summer and in mid-September it was agreed “at the request of my party” that he keep his seat, even though he had “major reservations” about the implementation of his own government’s Cannabis Act.

**

Although the Department of Justice has been coordinating a massive effort to collect subpoenaed documents, Brison declined to disclose his personal emails to the government. Instead, Brison’s lawyer informed the government in December that he preferred to disclose such documents to the court independently.

**

The Liberal Party of Canada is refusing to release details of a fundraiser held by MP Raj Grewal that amassed hundreds of thousands of dollars at a time Grewal was struggling with millions in gambling debts.

**

The federal Liberal party is looking to turn the tables on the Conservatives over so-called cash-for-access fundraisers.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer is expected to attend a fundraiser at the Toronto home of Sen. Linda Frum, which has been rescheduled from Tuesday to next week because of the weather.

Yes, about that:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was forced to defend his party's fundraising methods in the House of Commons Tuesday after media reports emerged revealing he attended a fundraiser with a Chinese businessman who went on to donate $200,000 to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation.

"The prime minister was the star attraction at this exclusive cash for access event with Chinese billionaires," said Tory MP Blaine Calkins during Tuesday's question period.

"Zhang Bin is a political advisor to the Chinese government, and after attending the event, he and his partner ... donated $1 million ... including $50,000 to build a statue of the former prime minister.

"We know the prime minister's love for the Chinese dictatorship, so what exactly did he promise the Chinese for their million dollar donation?" asked the Red Deer-Lacombe MP.

Of the $1 million donated to the University of Montreal and the Trudeau foundation to honour the former prime minister, $200,000 went to the foundation, $750,000 went to the University of Montreal's law faculty for scholarships and $50,000 went to fund the statue, according to The Globe and Mail.

It's just money:

Unsurprisingly, the inevitable happened in 2018 when Ontario’s auditor-general published a scathing report, highlighting that the Liberals’ OSAP tinkering would cost a staggering 50 per cent more than the government promised and that Ontario taxpayers would be on the hook for over $2 billion a year by 2020 in order to administer the program.

At best, these generous OSAP gifts were championed by a government whose integrity had been undermined by astonishing ignorance around public spending. At worst, the provincial program with the greatest ability to help low-income students achieve higher education had gone rogue, usurped by a government more interested in buying votes than ensuring the viability of the very program it sought to expand.

Presented with this reality, the newly-elected Ford government — which ran on a commitment to restoring balance to the provincial purse — was bound to make changes. These changes, which restored OSAP back to 2016 levels, were a wake-up call for a horde of young Ontarians who were yanked back into a world governed by the realities of how social programs are financed.

The CBC would have covered this, right?:

The U.S. military has said that American and Canadian fighter jets were scrambled after two nuclear-capable Russian heavy bombers entered Canada’s air defense identification zone on Saturday in the Arctic region near the North American coastline.

The North American Aerospace Defense Command said that two U.S. F-22 fighter jets, an E-3 early warning aircraft and two Canadian CF-18 fighters had identified and escorted two Russian Tu-160 strategic bombers after they entered an area patrolled by the Royal Canadian Air Force on Saturday morning.

The Tu-160s remained in international space and did not enter Canadian or U.S. territory, the statement said, and there were no reports of conflict between the Russian and the U.S. and Canadian aircraft.

The Russian bombers’ flight was the first known this year, but a similar scenario played out last year, when Russian bombers escorted by fighter jets flew near Alaska on Sept. 11 before the U.S. intercepted them with F-22s.

Russia and North Korea - a hand in glove:

Russian officials made a secret proposal to North Korea last fall aimed at resolving deadlocked negotiations with the Trump administration over the North’s nuclear weapons program, said U.S. officials familiar with the discussions.

In exchange for North Korea dismantling its nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles, Moscow offered the country a nuclear power plant.

(Sidebar: like Bill Clinton did.)
 

Also:

In an assessment casting doubt on President Donald Trump’s goal of a nuclear-disarmed North Korea, U.S. intelligence agencies told Congress on Tuesday that the North is unlikely to entirely dismantle its nuclear arsenal.

Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats, in testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee, noted that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has expressed support for ridding the Korean Peninsula of nuclear weapons and has not recently test-fired a nuclear-capable missile or conducted a nuclear test.

“Having said that, we currently assess that North Korea will seek to retain its WMD (weapons of mass destruction) capabilities and is unlikely to completely give up its nuclear weapons and production capability because its leaders ultimately view nuclear weapons as critical to regime survival,” Coats said in an opening statement.

But ... but ... they said there would be no slippery slope or mistakes!:

A New York woman sat vigil for days at her dying brother’s hospital bedside, authorized doctors to stop life support and was arranging his funeral when officials revealed it had all been a big mistake. The man wasn’t her brother at all, but a stranger with a similar name.

Melting ice exposes 40,000 year-old plant life:

Melting ice caps are exposing plants on Baffin Island that have been frozen for more than 40,000 years, according to a new study, leading the head author to believe the last century of warming has been greater than any other over the last 115,000 years.

Simon Pendleton, a PhD researcher at the University of Boulder Colorado, started looking into the plants at the base of ice caps in 2013.

Pendleton's PhD advisor, Gifford Miller, was then doing work on the island and noticed that as glaciers melted, they would reveal the ground underneath them, including some plants that were upright and rooted.

And now, Trevor the Duck is no more:

More than 1,700 miles northeast of New Zealand is a small island. Described as “a place where nature hasn’t been broken,” the raised coral atoll is called Niue. Known for its imposing limestone cliffs and pristine dive sites, the island nation is home to about 1,600 people, and as of January 2018, exactly one duck — a mallard named Trevor.

Elsewhere in the world, ducks are a fairly common sight, but Trevor’s presence on Niue was somewhat surprising. Before his arrival, there were no ducks on the remote island, commonly referred to as “The Rock” for its lack of wetlands, lakes, ponds, rivers and streams.

Local officials believe Trevor — fittingly named after the speaker of the New Zealand House of Representatives, Trevor Mallard — ended up on Niue after being blown there by a storm. But unlike other ducks who have made infrequent, and brief, visits in the past, Trevor stayed. ...

But Trevor’s solitary existence, which attracted global attention and earned him the distinction of the “world’s loneliest duck,” has come to a tragic end.

“We’ve had confirmed reports that Trevor the Duck — Niue has died,” read a post Friday on the duck’s official Facebook page, which is run by Finlay. “He was seen dead in the bush after being attacked by dogs.”

He died as he lived: waddling.

(Insert Title Here)

(Insert pithy opening line here)



The story so far ...


Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial office for Huawei, a telecommunications company with ties to the communist Chinese government, was arrested in Vancouver on December 1st, 2018 on charges of violating sanctions on Iran and was being held for extradition to the US. The US has since formally sought extradition of Meng.

From the time of her arrest, China has demanded that Canada release Meng. It has insulted and threatened Canada and held thirteen Canadians in what it calls custody.

In order to pacify the country the current prime minister openly proclaimed that he admired for its "basic dictatorship" and whose money he has no difficulty accepting, the ambassador to China, John McCallum, outlined ways that Meng could avoid extradition to the US:

John McCallum, Canada's ambassador to China, says there are strong legal arguments Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou can make to help her avoid extradition to the United States. ...

Speaking to Chinese reporters Tuesday in the Toronto area, McCallum listed several arguments Meng's legal team can make in her defence.

He said her lawyer could argue that there has been possible political involvement following recent comments by U.S. President Donald Trump. Last month, Trump raised questions about the basis of the extradition request by musing in an interview with Reuters about intervening in Meng's case if it would help him strike a trade deal with China.

McCallum also said she can argue against the extra-territorial aspect to her case and the fact the fraud allegations against Meng are related to Iran sanctions, which Canada did not sign onto.

"I think she has some strong arguments that she can make before a judge," McCallum said during his opening remarks to reporters.

When a confused Canadian public wondered why McCallum was acting like a defense lawyer as opposed to an ambassador who should restrict his comments to Canadian-Chinese relations, McCallum then claimed that his entire strategy was a mere matter of misspeaking:

Canada’s ambassador to China says he “misspoke” when he suggested detained Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou had a strong case to avoid extradition to the United States.

Justin refused to remove McCallum for this public error:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is defending his envoy to Beijing who says Canada now has more in common with China's authoritarian regime than with the United States under President Donald Trump. ...

The envoy said the divergence between the United States and China is a boon for Canada. "In a sense, it's a good thing for me as an ambassador and for Canada with China because, because of these big differences, it gives us opportunities in China. There is no doubt that Canada wants to do more with China, which is what the Prime Minister told me when he asked me to come here."

At a wrap-up news conference Thursday at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Mr. Trudeau was asked if he agreed with his ambassador's outlook. He didn't disavow Mr. McCallum's comments but said his government's approach to foreign affairs is to look for common ground with countries, including China.

Now, instead of standing fast by an ambassador who represented the interests not of Canada of himself and his boss, Justin has removed McCallum and hopes that this entire spectacle will blow over in time for the October election:

The prime minister’s office announced Saturday that ambassador John McCallum had been told to hand in his resignation — just hours after he weighed in on a high-stakes extradition case for the second time in less than a week.

Also - Scheer was right:

After a week in which he twice weighed in on a high-stakes extradition case, John McCallum is out as Canada's ambassador to China — although for Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, the damage has already been done.

"It should never have come to this," Scheer tweeted Saturday, after the prime minister's office released a statement announcing McCallum's resignation at the request of Justin Trudeau.

But McCallum and Justin really want to smooth things over with China more so with the US (see above).


And:

Charles Burton, a political scientist at Ontario’s Brock University who closely monitors China-related rights issues, says one of the United Front’s key goals is to soften opinions around issues like Chinese companies’ acquisition of Canadian natural resources and technology, or the looming decision Canada must make about Huawei’s involvement in building the country’s 5G telecom network. The company, considered to have close links to the Chinese state and having for years faced accusations of corporate espionage, was barred from taking part in 5G trials in the U.S., Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand — the four countries that with Canada comprise the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing alliance.

It’s difficult to map exactly how the United Front Work Department deploys its resources in places like Canada. But Burton argues its influence — helped by immigration in the last two decades made up increasingly of people raised under Communist rule on the Chinese mainland — has been tangible. He believes a “substantial” portion of Chinese diplomatic staff in Canada are likely United Front operatives, interacting with Chinese-Canadian leaders, politicians, students and others.

 And let's not forget FIPA.



Justin, who ran out of the gallery to scream at the Tories were ambulance-chasers for wanting to return a child-murderess to prison, plays a well-worn fear-mongering card:

In response to a Syrian refugee thanking Trudeau during a town hall in Miramichi, New Brunswick, Trudeau tried to cast anyone who could question him as ‘fear-mongerers.’

According to the CP, Trudeau said, “When we’re faced with anxieties, it’s very easy to have those fears drummed up and exacerbated — getting people to point fingers and lay blame. But the kind of fear-mongering, the kind of intolerance, the kind of misinformation going on across the country and around the world is something all of us have a responsibility to engage with a positive and a thoughtful way.”

**

Rather, any questioning of Liberal dogma on these issues during the election will be attacked by Liberal candidates as unCanadian, including Trudeau’s plan to increase the annual immigration target to 350,000 by 2021 — almost 1% of Canada’s population — from the current level of 310,000.

Because it's an election year!:

Recent reports on a group called CorpEthics exposed how the San Francisco-based organization is fighting against Canada’s energy industry.

Now, they’ve been caught trying to scrub the fact that “from the very beginning,” they’ve wanted to “landlock” Canadian oil sands oil.

**

According to a recent Global News Report, the Liberals are trying to use a secretive committee to attack Kenney:

“With the House of Commons set to resume, the Liberals have launched a bid to get a secretive House of Commons committee to investigate UCP Leader Jason Kenney mere months before the Alberta election gets underway. In a letter sent to Speaker Geoff Regan, chair of the powerful House of Commons’ Board of Internal Economy, Jennifer O’Connell, parliamentary secretary to Finance Minister Bill Morneau, asked for support from its members to launch an investigation into alleged misuses of housing allowances by Kenney while he was a Conservative MP.”

Because transparency!



Because ethics!:

Former Liberal MP Raj Grewal says he's staying on as the member of Parliament for Brampton East.

Last November, Grewal announced he was taking a leave to deal with what he called a compulsive gambling problem that caused him to rack up millions of dollars in debt.

Ignoring stop signs has obviously deadly consequences:

A Saskatchewan court has heard that a semi-truck driver barrelled through an oversized stop sign with a flashing red light before the deadly Humboldt Broncos bus crash.

An agreed statement of facts says Jaskirat Singh Sidhu was going between 86 and 96 km/h when he drove into a rural intersection north of Tisdale last April.

The statement says the driver of the Broncos junior hockey team bus hit the brakes and the bus skidded for about 24 metres. It T-boned the truck at an impact of between 96 and 107 km/h.

Crown prosecutor Thomas Healey says there was no way the bus driver could have avoided the collision. The transport truck was fully in the intersection across all lanes of traffic.

"The driver of the bus recognized the hazard as quickly as possible," Healey told the court Monday. 

The statement says RCMP found no evidence that Sidhu had used drugs or alcohol or that he was distracted by a cellphone. The weather and road conditions were good.

The posted speed limit on both roads is 100 km/h.

Sixteen people were killed and 13 others on the bus were injured.

Giving Islamists what they want will still result in death:

Two bombs minutes apart tore through a Roman Catholic cathedral on a southern Philippine island where Muslim militants are active, killing at least 20 people and wounding 111 others during a Sunday Mass, officials said.

Witnesses said the first blast inside the Jolo cathedral in the provincial capital sent churchgoers, some of them wounded, to stampede out of the main door. Army troops and police posted outside were rushing in when the second bomb went off about one minute later near the main entrance, causing more deaths and injuries. The military was checking a report that the second explosive device may have been attached to a parked motorcycle.

The initial explosion scattered the wooden pews inside the main hall and blasted window glass panels, and the second bomb hurled human remains and debris across a town square fronting the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, witnesses said. Cellphone signal was cut off in the first hours after the attack. The witnesses who spoke to The Associated Press refused to give their names or were busy at the scene of the blasts.

Police said at least 20 people died and 111 were wounded, correcting an earlier toll due to double counting. The fatalities included 15 civilians and five troops. Among the wounded were 17 troops, two police, two coast guard and 90 civilians.

For a Friday

It's going to be a long week-end ...



It's an election year!:

The RCMP's national security team has arrested and charged an Ontario youth with a terrorism-related offence, the police force said Friday after an investigation in Kingston, Ont.

Police have laid two charges against the young person — who's accused of knowingly facilitating a terrorist activity and counselling another person to "deliver, place, discharge or detonate an explosive or other lethal device ... against a place of public use with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury." ...

A second individual, an adult male CBC News has identified as Hussam Eddin Alzahabi, was also arrested Thursday, but has not been charged. ...

Earlier Friday, the father of Hussam Eddin Alzahabi said his 20-year-old son was arrested in what he described as a terror-related investigation.

"They tell me they search about him about terrorists. I know my son, he didn't think about that. He like Canada. He like the safety in Canada. How could he think about that?" Amin Alzahabi, who has been in Canada since 2017, told CBC News in an interview from his home Friday morning. ...

The RCMP were supported by both Kingston police and FBI officers.

On Thursday, officers could be seen carrying bags of evidence out of the homes.

By Friday morning, the police presence was contained to just one residence.

"It's fake news about my son," Alzahabi said. "I trust my son. I know he cannot do anything against any human, humanity.

"They inspected everything from my house. They didn't find anything," he said. "I think this is not good."

The family, originally from Syria, has been living in Canada since July 2017, Alzahabi said, following time spent in Kuwait from 2008 to 2017. 

According to a bulletin posted to the website of a Kingston-area Catholic church detailing the journey of the Alzahabi family, an ecumenical group of churches helped bring them to Canada through the private sponsorship refugee program in 2016-17.

The church group established a series of committees, including a hospitality and orientation committee composed of parishioners, and raised more than $30,000 to help support the family's transition to life in Canada. ...

In a statement, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said police took action Thursday "based on credible information, to ensure public safety."

 
See! Ralph may not want to deal with the sixty however many returned ISIS terrorists and rapists in our midst but he does care about public safety. He does! Did the cameras catch that arrest? Did they? Did the popular pre$$ make a note that a church sponsored the accused's family? Was the money they wasted worth it?


Also:

Two Canadian citizens accused of arranging the murder of a Maple Ridge woman in India 18 years ago have been extradited to that country to face trial.

The Department of Justice Canada confirmed Thursday that Malkit Sidhu and Surjit Badesha were extradited to India on Jan. 23. Both Badesha and Sidhu were escorted to India by the RCMP, arriving safely around 6 p.m. ET Wednesday.

Because the courts care about public safety ... during an election year.





After performing for his Chinese overlords and even being defended by their other puppet, Canadian ambassador to China John McCallum now claims that he misspoke when he offered to help spring Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou from possible American custody ... for forty minutes:

Canada’s ambassador to China says he “misspoke” when he suggested detained Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou had a strong case to avoid extradition to the United States.

“I regret that my comments with respect to the legal proceedings of Ms. Meng have created confusion. I misspoke,” John McCallum said in a statement Thursday.

“These comments do not accurately represent my position on this issue. As the government has consistently made clear, there has been no political involvement in this process.”

(Sidebar: bullsh--.)

McCallum’s candid comments this week about the case of Huawei’s Meng raised eyebrows and fuelled speculation they were a political ploy to end Ottawa’s deepening diplomatic crisis with China.

In a Toronto-area news conference on Tuesday with Chinese-language journalists, McCallum said he thought Meng had strong legal arguments that could help her avoid extradition. He also listed several possibilities that could help her with her case.

“As Canada’s Ambassador to China, I play no role in assessing any arguments or making any determinations in the extradition process,” McCallum said Thursday.

One cannot spell treason without M-C-C-A-L-L-U-M and T-R-U-D-E-A-U.


Also - that's nice, Andy, but you are not in charge today:

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer says if he was prime minister he would fire Canada's Ambassador to China John McCallum over his most recent comments on Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.

"I would fire him," Scheer told Don Martin in an interview for CTV Power Play, airing Wednesday evening.

"The situation with China right now is at a very strained point. That goes without saying. We have to be very, very careful as a country and our government needs to be taking this very, very seriously."

They are taking things, seriously, Andrew. Why, Bill Morneau is fretting about this diplomatic fuss between Canada and China an what it's doing to the markets. He is willing to overlook that China is holding various Canadians in prison, including Huseyin Celil, and the nasty things the Chinese press have been saying about his country, like this:

A Christmas Eve editorial described Canada by using a traditional Chinese expression that roughly translates to “the pig looks into the mirror, but both the reflection and the pig do not look human.” Posted in the curated news section of the Chinese instant messaging giant QQ, the editorial implies that the Canadian government is facing dissent both from abroad and from its own citizens, who oppose the “stupid” actions of Ottawa. Western media will often portray the citizens of China and other authoritarian countries as being victims of a government that does not represent them. Chinese media and the Chinese government have taken this same tack, playing up any opposition as evidence that Canadians are in the thrall of a rogue regime. Global Times, a particularly nationalistic Chinese newspaper, said the Chinese embassy in Ottawa is being barraged with gifts, condolences and regretful phone calls. “We are gratified to see that many Canadian people were imbued with a sense of justice, criticizing the Canadian government for its unreasonable behaviour,” Lu Shaye, the Chinese ambassador to Canada, wrote in a December op-ed for the Globe and Mail. Naturally, this argument was helped enormously when Canadian ambassador to China John McCallum expressed support for Meng at an event where English-language media were not invited. In a Thursday tweet, former Canadian ambassador to China David Mulroney said McCallum’s comments were already being “spun” by China. Sure enough, the comments quickly featured in a China Daily article arguing that “Chinese Canadians” were hopeful Meng would be released.

... just so he can get trade with China moving again:

Canadian Finance Minister Bill Morneau said on Friday the economy and business are facing headwinds from the U.S.-China trade dispute as well as his country’s own diplomatic tensions with China. 

Morneau, speaking to Reuters TV on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, said that Canada wanted to ensure that both its central bank and finance ministry have tools to deal with any economic challenges. 

 
Because priorities.


Also fretting - Ontario teachers:

Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan has a long-term plan for China that’s unlikely to be derailed by political tensions, its chief executive officer said.

“China’s a long game from our perspective and while there’s always skirmishes of one kind or another, in the short term, we believe that it’s absolutely necessary to be there,” Ron Mock said in a Bloomberg Television interview Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The fund invests a lot in technology in China which is very different than doing so North America, he said.

It's just a national industry:

Natural Resources Minister Amarjeet Sohi says the federal government won't cut corners to speed up a full review of the proposed Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

The government bought the pipeline for $4.5 billion last summer only to have the Federal Court of Appeal strike down Ottawa's approval of it.

The court said Canada failed to meaningfully consult with First Nations and that the National Energy Board failed to examine how the project would affect the ocean ecosystem.

Ottawa is now consulting with Indigenous groups and the board has been reviewing the marine effects.

The board is to have its report ready by Feb. 22.

There are 565 million reasons why this will not be seen on a national network:

To start, I asked Coleen to describe what she wanted Canadians to know about the Yellow Vests:


She said people need to know “why we’re protesting.” One of the big issues for the group is wanting to “withdraw from the UN Global compact on migration, that’s a big thing. We want Canada’s sovereignty back, not open borders. We want to be able to dictate what’s going on in our country.”

“Another thing is, we’re against the carbon tax. We are also for our pipelines and our energy production. Canada using Canadian resources providing Canadian jobs for our industry, versus shopping outside of the country.”

Coleen also made the important point – often ignored by those who claim to the love the environment – that using Canadian oil is far better for the environment than shipping oil from around the world into our country.

Read the whole thing.




Just like the illusory principles of political multiculturalism and "universal healthcare", the myth of Canadian national unity and courtesy is thin. Paper-thin:

Quebec is the least popular province in Confederation, according to new polling from the Angus Reid Institute.

The survey, part of a four-part series on western Canadian identity, found that, on average, just five per cent of Canadians outside Quebec believe that Quebec is close with or friendly towards their own province; what’s more, 53 per cent believe that la belle province takes more from Confederation than it gives. And, 21 per cent of Quebecers feel that way about their own province, too.

“The other big part of the story is the resentment of Alberta, which is also especially significant in terms of Albertans feeling not particularly close to any province other than Saskatchewan,” said Shachi Kurl, executive director of the Angus Reid Institute. “There is a perception in the rest of Canada, outside of Quebec, that Quebecers are not close, are not interested, are not engaged, with the rest of the country.” ...

Ontarians aren’t fond of anyone; Alberta is the province most-liked by Ontarians, but only 28 per cent of them hold that affection; and 40 per cent of Ontarians don’t consider any other province to be particularly close to them.

Even where there’s some love, it’s unrequited by Ontarians. Forty-four per cent of Quebecers consider Ontario a friend, but just 12 per cent of Ontarians feel that way about Quebec. It’s even chillier in New Brunswick, where just 13 per cent return Quebec’s affection (40 per cent said they felt close with their neighbour).

Just like the barmy idea that America is crawling with neo-Nazis:

A survey released Thursday finds that nearly 5 in 10 Canadians believe the U.S. is home to a significant number of white supremacists and followers of neo-Nazi ideology.

I'll just leave this here:

Nearly half of Canadians cannot name a single concentration camp or ghetto that existed in Europe during the Holocaust, a new study found.

Released in advance of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which falls on Sunday, the study concluded that many Canadians do not know basic facts about the Holocaust, such as where it took place, how many Jews died, or the names of key people and places. Millennials, defined as people ages 18 to 34, were particularly uninformed.

How embarrassing ... for Canada.




And now, the first man to waltz Matilda has been found:

The remains of a noted Royal Navy explorer who led the first known circumnavigation of Australia have been found by archaeologists excavating a burial ground where a railway station is planned.

The archaeologists identified the remains of Captain Matthew Flinders by the lead plate placed on top of his coffin. He was buried at St. James’s burial ground in 1814 but the headstone was removed in the 1840s, leaving the precise location of his grave a mystery.

Flinders made a number of important journeys and was commander of HMS Investigator when he navigated the entire coast of Australia, confirming it was a continent.

Mid-Week Post

Damn your evil heart, global warming!

Since when was giving China everything it wanted a good idea, John?:

John McCallum, Canada’s ambassador to China, says there are strong legal arguments Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou can make to help her avoid extradition to the United States.

Meng was arrested Dec. 1 in Vancouver at the behest of U.S. authorities, who have alleged she used a Huawei subsidiary to evade sanctions against Iran.

Her arrest has put Canada in a deeply uncomfortable position between two sparring superpowers, which are also its two largest trading partners. As a result, the Canada-China relationship has deteriorated in recent weeks and Beijing has warned Ottawa of serious consequences unless she is released.

Speaking to Chinese reporters Tuesday in the Toronto area, McCallum listed several arguments Meng’s legal team can make in her defence.

He said her lawyer could argue that there has been possible political involvement following recent comments by U.S. President Donald Trump. Last month, Trump raised questions about the basis of the extradition request by musing in an interview with Reuters about intervening in Meng’s case if it would help him strike a trade deal with China.

 
Drunken traitor ...


There is no winning for Justin or the Liberals here. There is only losing less.

China is a paper dragon and obviously a cheat and a belligerent. It's bad enough that it has its hooks in Canada as it does but it is not too late to reverse some of the damage.  Driving a wedge between the US, our neighbour and biggest trading partner, will result in things like tougher border protocols and sanctions, things that would affect far more Canadians on a daily basis.


Also:

Still, irreparable damage to China’s reputation in Canada has been done. Any naive assumptions Canadians may have had about China coming into compliance with international norms have been thoroughly dashed. And China’s future ability to co-opt Canadian policymakers have been seriously debased. Future Canadian engagement with China will be guided by pragmatic calculation alone.

Not bloody likely.




Ahmed Hussen should be made to answer on the spot when and where the Tories suggested militarising the Canada-US border. He should be called out for the rotten liar that he is:

“Remember in 2006 when the Liberals were at their most desperate, they put this ad out, which they had to pull? Trudeau’s Minister just did the same thing today. “The CPC would militarize the border”. This is deseparate, unCanadian, divisive fearmongering.”

From the most "transparent" government in the country's history:

Defence department officials tried to blame a clerk for failing to challenge the military’s top legal officials who had claimed a report requested under the Access to Information law didn’t exist even though it did.

 
I'll just put this right here:

Mr Trump faced a storm of criticism after the people briefed on the meeting said Mr Trump had questioned why the US would accept more immigrants from Haiti and "shithole countries" in Africa, rather than places like Norway.

** 

Quebec Premier François Legault says he wants more French and other European immigrants to come to Quebec, despite his government's plans to cut over all immigration levels by 20 per cent.

 

A lot of love for Norway right now.



 
It's an election year and the knives are out:

Alberta’s provincial election hasn’t even been called and already much can be said about it. Firstly, it’s going to get nastier and, secondly, the chances of it being earlier than May is getting slimmer by the day as more NDP MLAs are jumping the NDP government’s sinking ship — two on Monday alone.

First, we’ll deal with the nasty stuff. Bizarrely, Kyle Morrow, an Ottawa lawyer and failed federal Liberal candidate, posted the address of Jason Kenney’s frail, widowed mother online for the world to see and even sent out a tweet with the floor plan of the 80-year-old woman’s former bungalow, which he has since deleted.

It appears that Morrow, 27, has been digging for a long time into Kenney’s living arrangements, saying that because Kenney spent more time in Ottawa than he did in Calgary while he was a senior cabinet minister in Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, it was wrong for him to claim the parliamentary housing allowance for his apartment in Ottawa.

It’s an absurd statement, one that would unfairly penalize cabinet ministers who by necessity need to spend more time in Ottawa and travelling the country and/or world than they can spend in their home riding. It’s something constituents and most reasonable Canadians accept of an MP who gets a senior portfolio, as Kenney had.

Morrow questioned why Kenney’s address at one point was at his mother’s standalone bungalow at a senior’s village. The answer? She had been widowed so he moved in with her to provide support and companionship when he was in Calgary.

The plot, it does thicken:

Soon after Native American activist Nathan Phillips confronted high school boys from Covington Catholic in front of the Lincoln Memorial, he reportedly led a protest of about 20 fellow Native activists, unsuccessfully attempting to crash the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception's Saturday evening Mass.

**

The Kentucky high school student seen in a “Make America Great Again” hat during a confrontation with an elderly Native American protester on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial says he wishes it never happened, but isn’t sorry for standing his ground.

“As far as standing there, I had every right to do so,” Nick Sandmann told NBC’s Savannah Guthrie in an interview that aired on the “Today” show Wednesday. “In hindsight, I wish we could’ve walked away and avoided the whole thing. But I can’t say that I’m sorry for listening to him and standing there.”

Sandmann, a junior at Covington Catholic High School in Park Hills, Ky., was seen in a viral video facing off silently with Nathan Phillips, a 64-year-old Native American protester. Phillips was beating a drum and praying as several students made a “tomahawk chop” gesture that Native Americans consider racist. Phillips said he heard students chant “Build the wall,” although the recordings don’t support that.

“I was not disrespectful to Mr. Phillips,” Sandmann said. “I respect him. I’d like to talk to him.”

(Sidebar: but ... but ... the news said that he was raaaaaaaacist!)

**

The group of six African American men with thick beards and long robes are members of the Black Hebrew Israelites, a group that white supremacists in the United States call their “black counterparts”. The Southern Poverty Law Centre says the black supremacist wing of the group is guilty of racism towards white people, anti-Semitism and homophobia. They are known for aggressive street preaching.

(Sidebar: it should be noted that the $outhern Poverty Law Centre is less than a credible authority on some things.)



 
But ... but ... Singapore:

Days after the White House announced plans for a second nuclear summit between the United States and North Korea, a new think tank report has identified a secret North Korean ballistic missile base about 160 miles northwest of Seoul that is reportedly the headquarters of the country’s strategic missile force.

How could Canada forget New Brunswick, its chubby yet photogenic cousin?:

But despite Campobello’s postcard-worthy attributes, the 23-year-old Matthews has pretty much had it with the place. It’s not that the island doesn’t feel like home. It’s that Campobello makes her feel as though she is a Canadian living in exile — physically, politically, practically, medically and economically separated from the rest of the country — which, more or less, she is since the bridge is the island’s only physical link to mainland North America and it’s not to Canada.

 
The last Canadian veteran of Squadron 617 has passed on:

Canada's last veteran of a deadly Second World War bombing raid has died at age 95.

Fred Sutherland of Rocky Mountain House, Alta., was one of two surviving members of Squadron 617, known later as the Dambusters.

The legendary unit dropped new high-tech "bouncing bombs" in 1943 on a German dam that was a key part of Adolf Hitler's industrial war machine. 

In an interview last spring, Sutherland said that day stuck in his mind for 75 years.

"I was scared, I was really scared," he said. "But you can't say, 'Oh, I want to go home now.' You made up your mind and you can't let the crew down."