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.