Look Behind You

Now that I have your attention ...




The truck driver who allegedly caused the deaths of sixteen people pleads guilty:

The driver of a transport truck involved in a deadly crash with the Humboldt Broncos junior hockey team’s bus pleaded guilty Tuesday to all charges against him.

“I plead guilty, your honour,” Jaskirat Singh Sidhu said as he stood before a judge in a court in Melfort, Sask.

Sixteen people lost their lives and 13 players were injured when Sidhu’s semi-unit loaded with peat moss and the Broncos bus collided in rural Saskatchewan last April.

Sidhu was charged with 16 counts of dangerous driving causing death and 13 charges of dangerous driving causing bodily harm.

“His position to me was, ’I just want to plead guilty. I don’t want you to plea bargain. I don’t want a trial,”’ Sidhu’s lawyer, Mark Brayford, said outside court, his client beside him with his head down.

“Mr. Sidhu advised me: ’I don’t want to make things any worse. I can’t make things any better, but I certainly don’t want to make them worse by having a trial.”’

Well, as long as the hostages' welfare is one's primary concern:

The fact the plight of Kovrig and Spavor wasn't on the parliamentary delegation's official agenda was criticized by one of Canada's former ambassadors to China as "completely wrong-headed."

David Mulroney, ambassador from 2009 to 2012, had said he was astounded and concerned to hear that the issue of Kovrig's and Spavor's detentions were not specifically on the itinerary for the  mission hosted by the Canada-China Legislative Association.

Before departing for China on Friday, Day had said the men's detentions are "not on our agenda, but it may well come up." He said the delegates and Global Affairs Canada saw eye to eye on the benefits of the trip. 

"The Chinese, I've learned through my many years involved in Canada-China relations, they build on long term-relationships. Mutual understanding and mutual benefit comes after we get to know one another," Day told CBC News before his flight departed.

Mulroney, now a senior fellow at the Munk School of Global Affairs out of the University of Toronto, said China wants Canada to believe that it's important not to say or do anything that will upset the long-term relationship.

"That's completely wrong-headed ... What we have essentially is a Canadian delegation using China's talking points," he said.

"At a time when we should be saying, 'It's not business as usual. The most important thing for us is to secure the freedom of these two people who have been wrongly detained.' We're saying, 'Well, you know there are these embarrassments that come up every now and then but we have to stay focused on the long-term relationship."

Get with the program, Mulroney. It was always about money.


Also - Justin gets Trump to do his fighting for him:

The leaders of Canada and the United States on Monday agreed to continue pressing Beijing to free two Canadian citizens who were detained after the arrest of a senior Chinese executive in Vancouver, Ottawa said.  

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke to U.S. President Donald Trump on Monday and thanked him for “the strong statements of support by the United States” in response to the detentions of the two men, Trudeau’s office said in a statement. 

“The two leaders agreed to continue to seek their release,” the statement said. 

In a separate statement, the White House said that Trump and Trudeau “discussed the unlawful detention of two Canadian citizens in China.” It gave no details.

If Justin had any backbone or scruples, he would have rushed Meng across the border. He would have closed embassies. He would have frozen accounts. He wouldn't need Trump to pull his fat out of the fire in an election year.

But Justin is loathe to offend his favourite country, China, and the money that comes its businessmen.

And it's not like Justin can react militarily or politically to the paper dragon, anyway.


And:

Canadian diplomats in China on Tuesday met the second of two citizens who were detained last month after the arrest of a senior Chinese executive in Vancouver, the Canadian foreign ministry said.

“Today, Canadian consular officials in China visited with Michael Spavor,” the ministry said in a statement that provided no further details. Officials met Michael Kovrig on Dec. 17. 

Canadian authorities arrested Huawei Technologies Co [HWT.UL] Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou on Dec. 1 on a U.S. extradition warrant. Beijing denounced the move and threatened reprisals unless the case against Meng was dropped. 

(Sidebar: this Huawei Technologies Co. - The U.S. case against the chief financial officer of China’s Huawei Technologies, who was arrested in Canada last month, centers on the company’s suspected ties to two obscure companies. One is a telecom equipment seller that operated in Tehran; the other is that firm’s owner, a holding company registered in Mauritius.)

“The Canadian government remains deeply concerned by the arbitrary detention by Chinese authorities of these two Canadians since last month and continues to call for their immediate release,” the foreign ministry said in the statement. 

Bullsh--.




Speaking of China, Kim Jong-Un visits his boss:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un held talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping on Tuesday afternoon, according to media outlets of the two countries, apparently to discuss a second summit with US President Donald Trump concerning denuclearization.  

This summit:

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed an expected U.S.-North Korea summit in talks in Beijing on Tuesday, Yonhap news agency said, days after Kim warned he may take an alternative path if the United States does not ease sanctions. 

To be helpful, fellow communist country, Vietnam, offers to host the summit, another in long line of political failures:

Vietnam has delivered to both South and North Korea its wish to host the envisioned summit between US President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

Hanoi has told North Korean Foreign Minister Ri Yong-ho during his official visit in late November that it wishes to host the summit.

It's just an economy:

An increasing number of Canadians can’t meet their financial obligations, another sign rising borrowing costs are taking a toll on household balance sheets.

The number of consumers seeking debt relief jumped 5.1 percent to 11,320 in November from a year earlier, the Ottawa-based Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy reported on Jan. 4. October and November combined saw 22,961 consumer insolvency filings, the most for those two months since at least 2011.

It’s a worrying sign for an economy that has relied so heavily on consumer spending and the housing market to drive growth. The Bank of Canada has lifted its key lending rate five times since mid-2017. Policy makers, who meet this week to determine their next move, are closely monitoring the impact of higher borrowing costs on the economy.

“We’re seeing a bump, and in some provinces that bump is significant,” David Lewis, a board member at the Canadian Association of Insolvency and Restructuring Professionals, said by phone from Edmonton. Lewis blamed economic uncertainty, rising interest rates and softening housing prices.

** 

Canada’s trade deficit more than doubled in November as exports declined for a fourth month in a row, dragged down by weak prices for crude oil and lower demand for chemicals, Statistics Canada said on Tuesday. 

** 

According to a recent Ipsos poll, Canadians expect to pay more or the same for almost everything in 2019 compared to 2018 ...

Justin made it clear that he believes budgets balance themselves and promised to run three years of deficit (periods of debt). Couple these public pronouncements with the fact that this frat-boy inherited his wealth, has never run a business and charged charities and schools to hear him stammer. In retrospect, putting the economy in the paws of some fur-bearing creature would have met with more success.

But Canadians can't be told. Justin's dad did the same thing and look where Canadians are now.

If your environmental plan still holds that carbon is a pollutant, then it's not much better:

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer is slamming the Trudeau carbon tax, saying Trudeau “doesn’t have an environmental plan, he has a tax plan.”
 
Scheer also ripped Trudeau for giving big breaks to large emitters (AKA well-connected companies that can lobby for exemptions), while slamming Canadian families with the full cost of the destructive tax.

Here’s what he said on Twitter:

“Large emitters get a special deal on Trudeau’s Carbon Tax, but he’s not giving your family the same deal. You get to pay the full price – and it’s going to be higher than the Liberals are telling you. That’s why Trudeau doesn’t have an environmental plan, he has a tax plan.”

Bernier releases the names of is first two candidates:

The fledgling People’s Party of Canada has nominated their first ever official candidates to represent the party in two upcoming B.C. by-elections.

The announcement of the nominations was made on Twitter:

“The @peoplespca is very proud to announce the nomination of its first ever candidates in the two upcoming BC by-elections.
@LauraLynnTT will represent the PPC in Burnaby South, while @JenniferMClarke will defend our colours in Nanaimo-Ladysmith.
Congratulations to both!!”

Instead of treating this entire business as a shakedown, people tolerate it and I don't know why:

No less than a B.C. Supreme Court judge, Justice Marguerite Church, last month granted the company an interim injunction prohibiting protesters from impeding contractors and from threatening or intimidating them.

The pipeline, which would run from Dawson Creek in the northeast to Kitimat in the west, has been in the works since 2012.

Some of the pipeline will be built on unceded traditional Wet’suwet’en First Nation lands over which, because of a Supreme Court of Canada decision in 1997, no Aboriginal title has been determined.

Coastal GasLink has negotiated agreements with all of the elected bands along the 670-kilometre proposed route, for whom the project promises real jobs and money for people who live without the opportunity, not to mention creature comforts, their non-Aboriginal cousins in southern Canada take for granted.

Last summer, Coastal GasLink also awarded about $620 million in conditional contracts to northern Indigenous businesses, with another $400 million anticipated.

But the Wet’suwet’en First Nation is made up of five clans, with 13 different houses.

And though the elected representatives of the bands most directly affected by the planned pipeline are on board, the hereditary chiefs — or most of them, anyway — who have jurisdiction over clan territories are not.

According to the company, what Coastal GasLink really needs access to is just a bridge. As a spokesman said in a statement issued after the judge’s decision, “The camp established next to the bridge will remain as it is… We see no reason why the camp cannot continue with its activities. We simply need to use the public bridge to access our pipeline right of way.”

The RCMP, which has to enforce the injunction, was equally careful.

Despite media reports on the weekend that rather breathlessly suggested protesters had somehow got wind of the coming RCMP visit, the force actually issued a formal press release the day before to announce that it would attempt to enforce the injunction on Monday.

You never read such a sensitive police press release.

It even cited and summarized the Supreme Court decision of 1997.

It emphasized “the RCMP respects the Wet’suwet’en culture, the connection to the land and traditions being taught and passed on at the camp, and the importance of the camp to healing.”

It alerted area residents that they might see more police around than normal, because the remoteness of the area meant that police had to have backup.

In its second release, issued Monday, the force went some distance to say “This (dispute) has never been a police issue. In fact, the B.C. RCMP is impartial and we respect the rights of individuals to peaceful, lawful and safe assembly.”

For centuries, people have been able to complete an education that prepared them for a job, get married, have children and live out their lives without ever once having to put a condom on a banana.

But, dammit! Now that's not good enough!:

Ontario is asking a court to dismiss a legal challenge against the government’s decision to repeal an updated sexual-education curriculum.

Both the Canadian Civil Liberties Association and the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario allege the Progressive Conservative government’s decision is unconstitutional, saying it puts students at risk.

But lawyers for the government argue in a document filed ahead of a Wednesday hearing that the Constitution doesn’t entrench any particular curriculum or set out what sexual health topics must be taught.

They say the minister of education has the responsibility to set policy in Ontario’s public schools, not the courts or the groups challenging the curriculum repeal.

The previous Liberal government updated the sex-ed curriculum in 2015, including lessons warning about online bullying and sexting, but opponents, especially social conservatives, objected to parts addressing same-sex relationships and gender identity.

The government argues that if the curriculum prior to 2015 didn’t infringe the charter, it can’t be unconstitutional to return to it.