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."