For a Friday

A lot happening ...




The scandal that just won't die:

The House of Commons speaker ruled Thursday morning that now-independent MP Jane Philpott’s privileges were not breached in her ouster from caucus last week, along with former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould.

Speaker Geoff Regan said it boils down to a jurisdictional issue — the “general restraint on speakers when they are asked to interpret the law,” and his inability to rule on issues outside of the House itself.

(Sidebar: then shouldn't Regan say nothing?)

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Federal Liberals have thwarted an opposition attempt to find out who leaked information about a dispute between Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould over who should be chief justice of Canada’s top court.

It's like the most "transparent" government in the country's history isn't transparent at all.

Perish the thought. 




If one cannot win on virtue, a record of sound, positive accomplishments and reason, just make stuff and insert one's fit in one's mouth:  

Justin Trudeau is now undertaking a desperate distraction campaign.

He’s making unhinged and absurd attacks on Andrew Scheer and the Conservatives, including dividing Canadians by race, while he simultaneously makes the same asylum law changes spent years demonizing the Conservatives for calling for. ...

Trudeau had repeatedly said that neither Jody Wilson-Raybould or anyone else ever brought any concerns to him regarding SNC-Lavalin.


He made that claim one of his key points as he defended his actions.

He said it over and over again.


Yet, Trudeau revealed that he’s been lying the whole time.

Poilievre brought up the fact that Wilson-Raybould’s testimony and audio mentioned that she had brought concerns to the PM in person. In fact, she specifically brought up the concern that Trudeau was politically interfering in a prosecution.

When Trudeau responded, he flat out admitted that the conversation took place.

Oops.

Why are Liberals losing electoral ground in rural areas? Is it because they are elitist douchebags who don't understand the people and the issues and refuse to try? 

Smart money says yes: 

Allan Thompson hopes to land a seat for the first time by telling voters Conservatives aren’t actually in step with rural voters.

“Their definition of rural is somehow different. It’s got a slight anti-immigrant tinge and not as much focus on socially progressive issues,” Thompson said.

Yes, Mr. Thompson, those silly hay-seeds and their members of Parliament are just not Toronto enough.  Call them "deplorable" the way Hillary Clinton did. She won the election on that alone.

Oh, wait ...

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According to the CP, while there were mixed opinions through the in-person meeting process (meetings picked by the government of course, when it came to the open questionnaire proceess, “most people who responded to a questionnaire were against a ban.”

Additionally, “Many participants felt strongly that a ban would target law-abiding owners, rather than illicit firearms, and would not reduce gang violence, the report says. As a result, many called for beefing up police and border services, as well as tougher penalties for firearms-trafficking and gun-related crime.”

In fact, out of 135,000 respondents, a full 80% were against a gun ban.

Also - in 2015, Canadians voted for a drunken frat-boy who has no idea how money is generated or how to run a lemonade stand let alone the second-biggest country on the planet. For Canadians to complain now that they cannot afford the necessities of life is a surprise to no one who could see this coming light years away. Canadians are getting good and hard the government they voted for:

A new survey by Angus Reid shows more Canadians saying it’s getting tougher to afford food.

According to the poll, 47% of Canadians say it’s getting harder for their family to afford food.

47% say it’s stayed about the same.

And just 4% say it’s easier to afford food.


It’s a decisive rebuke to the Trudeau government, who had campaigned on making life more affordable for the middle class, yet have done the exact opposite.

Additionally, 35% of Canadians now say it’s getting ‘difficult’ to afford food for their household.

And - do veterans have the right to housing, too?:

The federal Liberals are using their omnibus budget bill to legislate a "right to housing" in Canada, a pledge advocates worry could fall short of being the historic step the government wants without a few parliamentary tweaks before summer.

The budget bill would set into law rules for the Liberals' 10-year national housing strategy, now valued at more than $55 billion, impose those rules on future governments and create two new oversight bodies meant to make sure the spending reduces homelessness.

A national housing council is to advise the government on the effects of the strategy and a new housing advocate, tied to the Canadian Human Rights Commission, is to report annually on systemic issues preventing Canadians from finding affordable and safe places to live.

 
More bureaucracy! More empty platitudes!

It's an election year!




The Ontario budget stems from a province where the previous leaders thought that, like Monopoly money, they could spend as they wished because money is this illusory thing, anyway:

According to his budget, debt will will rise to $359.9 billion this year, $372.3 billion in 2020-21 and $382.4 billion in 2021-22, where the budget projections stop.

Likewise, annual deficits will continue rising, projected at $10.3 billion this year, $6.8 billion in 2020-21, $5.6 billion in 2021-22 and $3.5 billion in 2022-23. ...

Ford’s budget makes no serious effort to lower the province’s debt-to-GDP ratio, which many economic experts consider a more important measure of fiscal discipline, or lack of it, than deficits and debt.

Ideally it should be about 27%, but Ford is keeping it at Liberal-like levels of 40.7% this year and next, and 40.6% in 2021-22.

If people were Canadian and not off-shoots of past hatreds, three hundred and twenty-nine people would be alive today:

Whatever their reasons for getting involved, Sikhs have traditionally voted Liberal, the party they see as generally more friendly to immigrants and immigration, said Singh, though he adds they are becoming more discriminating. Purewal says the wave of Sikh support for Liberals in 2015 was largely a reaction to the Conservatives’ legislation stripping citizenship from dual citizens convicted of terrorism.

Regardless, the terror report in December was, for some Sikh leaders at least, a rude awakening after a spate of political victories.

“We thought we’d finally arrived,” Balpreet Singh, legal counsel for the World Sikh Organization, told Sunday’s town hall. “(But) what we’ve seen in the last year has been a wound to the Sikh community we haven’t seen in decades.”

The complaints centre around the document’s reference to “Sikh (Khalistani) extremism” — seen as defaming an entire, peaceful community rather than singling out a specific entity — and the lack of any evidence to support the claim of present danger. The report mentions the Air India bombing 33 years ago and two terror groups critics say have long been inactive.

(Sidebar: I'll just leave this right here.)

No, thanks to political multiculturalism and the lust for votes, tribalism carries on with no consequences.

Once again, political multiculturalism is a political, cultural and moral failure.




Scratch an NDP mouth-breather and you will find an insecure little toad every time:

**

Comments Saskatchewan's Minister of Rural and Remote Health made at an anti-abortion event last week were the topic of conversation at the Legislature on Thursday.

Greg Ottenbreit made a speech to an anti-abortion group in his constituency of Yorkton last week. 

The Saskatoon StarPhoenix obtained a copy of the speech and published a story about it on Wednesday.

On Thursday, the NDP asked Ottenbreit in question period about whether his beliefs were preventing easier access to an abortion pill.

NDP MLA Vicki Mowat read a quote from Ottenbreit's speech into the record.

"The minister encouraged them to continue their 'battle' and he told the anti-choice gathering, 'I will continue to do what I can in my professional capacity,' " Mowat said.

Premier Scott Moe responded by saying, "there is a balance for all of us in this house when it comes to matters of conscience. We all have personal beliefs in this house."

People are allowed to have opinions and represent their constituents, b!#ch (your obvious partisanship, not withstanding).

Kim Jong-Un cements his status as a dictator in a way similar to his grandfather and father:

In one of the biggest leadership shake-ups in years, North Korea named a new nominal head of state and a new premier, and gave leader Kim Jong Un a new title, state media reported on Friday, moves analysts said solidify Kim’s grip on power.

In an expected move, Kim Jong Un was re-elected as chairman of the State Affairs Commission at a session of North Korea‘s rubber-stamp legislature that took place on Thursday,Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said.

For the first time, however, state media referred to Kim as “supreme representative of all the Korean people.” That title was approved by special decree in February, according to the Associated Press, but has not been used publicly until Friday.