For a Friday

For a warm week-end ...




Oh, dear:

The Alberta government said hot, dry and windy conditions fueling the northern wildfires aren’t going away soon and will make fighting them difficult, so people need to prepare themselves.

“This fight is going to be a tough one,” said Devin Dreeshen, Alberta’s minister of agriculture and forestry. “The weather is not co-operating for the long-distance forecast for the next two weeks. It’s more of the same.”

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

The Canada Revenue Agency has once again made a secret out-of-court settlement with wealthy KPMG clients caught using what the CRA itself had alleged was a "grossly negligent" offshore "sham" set up to avoid detection by tax authorities, CBC's The Fifth Estate and Radio-Canada's Enquête have learned.

This, despite the Liberal government's vow to crack down on high-net-worth taxpayers who used the now-infamous Isle of Man scheme. The scheme orchestrated by accounting giant KPMG enabled clients to dodge tens of millions of dollars in taxes in Canada by making it look as if multimillionaires had given away their fortunes to anonymous overseas shell companies and get their investment income back as tax-free gifts.

It's nothing to worry about, really:

“Two weeks ago we learned that two individuals were arrested in Richmond Hill, Ontario for possessing explosives. We now know that the FBI is involved. Today I asked Senator Harder why the Trudeau Government continues to say that this is a “local matter”.”

**

After serving as a language and cultural adviser to the Canadian Forces in Kandahar, Hamid Alakozai went to work as a Commissionaire at the Ottawa residences of the prime minister and governor general.

But the 47-year-old was removed from his post at Rideau Cottage and Rideau Hall last year at the request of the RCMP, according to interviews and documents obtained by Global News.

The concerns stemmed partly from Facebook friends the RCMP alleged were “supportive of or participants in violent extremism,” as well as online posts, some suggesting Alakozai’s involvement in the politics of Afghanistan.

(Sidebar: but the Richmond Hill investigation is a "local matter".)







China warns its vassal state against helping the Americans:

China warned Canada on Friday that it needs to be aware of the consequences of aiding the U.S. in an extradition case involving Chinese tech giant Huawei that is believed to have sparked the detentions of two Canadians in China.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang’s comments came after U.S. Vice President Mike Pence and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called for the release of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor.

Both were arrested on Dec. 10 after Canada detained a Huawei executive wanted by the United States on fraud charges. While China has denied they were taken in retaliation, it has repeatedly implied that there is a strong connection between the cases.

Korvig, a former diplomat and Asia expert at the International Crisis Group, and Spavor, a businessman, have been accused of colluding to steal state secrets. Canada has repeatedly urged their immediate release, calling their detentions arbitrary. Neither has been permitted access to lawyers or family members.

“We hope that the Canadian side can have a clear understanding of the consequences of endangering itself for the gains of the U.S. and take immediate actions to correct its mistakes so as to spare itself the suffering from growing damage,” Geng said at a daily news briefing.

Also:

To truly grasp the risk of allowing Huawei into our 5G networks, we need to understand what Huawei really is. Huawei is 99 per cent owned by a trade union committee — not by employees, as the company claims. Trade unions in China are controlled by the state.

Huawei’s founder and CEO, Ren Zhengfei, vows that he will “never do anything to harm any other nation.” But all Chinese companies and citizens are bound by the Chinese National Intelligence Law to “support, co-operate with, and collaborate in national intelligence work.” A former People’s Liberation Army engineer and still a senior Communist Party member, Ren’s loyalty no doubt lies with his party.

Thirty years ago in Tiananmen Square, Beijing sent tanks to massacre its citizens. Now, Beijing has imprisoned millions of Uyghur people in concentration camps. Beijing uses hostage diplomacy against Canada, and does not honour international agreements or arbitration rulings not in its favour. Allowing a company ultimately controlled by such a thuggish, dictatorial regime in our 5G is inviting uncountable Trojan horses into our grids and surrendering control of the lifelines of our economy and society.

A Canadian 5G network in Beijing’s ultimate control would result in not just the detention of two Canadians, as in the case of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, but would make all Canadians hostages, in our own country. A Canadian 5G system in Huawei’s hands could allow Beijing to threaten us with massive blackouts causing mayhem and billions in immediate losses, or with small-scale outages, inducing economic hemorrhaging, to bleed us to subservience. By then, it would be either politically impossible or financially prohibitive to rip Huawei out of our networks.

The tariffs could come back at any time and not even Mexico will take a proverbial bullet for Canada. It's got its own worries:

The Canadian government, pressed on a U.S. threat to impose tariffs on Mexico that could undermine a new continental trade pact, on Friday said Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador still planned to push for ratification of the new deal. 

“The Mexican President has said today, speaking for Mexico, that Mexico intends to move ahead with its ratification process,” Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland told legislators.

There is a reason why Justin embarrassed Canadians during a meeting with US Vice President Mike Pence:

If you are wondering what that issue has to do with the new trade deal or even Canada-U.S. relations, the answer is simple, it doesn’t.

And even if it did, there is little the VP could do about those state laws in places like Louisiana or Alabama.

So why was Trudeau raising the issue?

Falling poll numbers in Canada.

Trudeau is hoping that by jumping on an issue that is a hot button in the United States, he can excite his base here in Canada, maybe even win back the votes of women that felt betrayed over his treatment of Jody Wilson-Raybould.

(Sidebar: this Jody Wilson-Raybould.)


There you go.




Stacking the deck is what the Liberals do:

Not only has Trudeau repeatedly quoted Unifor as a government ‘ally’ in the House of Commons, but his actions have also emboldened Unifor head Jerry Dias to double down on his Anti-Scheer campaign, saying he may even make the campaign “worse.” ...

In Question Period, Lisa Raitt slammed Trudeau for trying to stack the deck ahead of the upcoming vote.

If the Liberals could win any other way, they would do so.




Saskatchewan appeals the court's ruling on carbon tax:

Saskatchewan’s carbon tax battle is heading to the Supreme Court of Canada (SCOC).

The province said Friday it has officially filed an appeal notice with Canada’s highest court.

Justice Minister Don Morgan said two questions are being raised by the province.

The first asks is the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act unconstitutional in whole or in part.

Saskatchewan is also asking if Parliament has the “jurisdiction to establish minimum national standards for price stringency for greenhouse gas emissions under the national concern branch of the peace, order and good government power set out in the opening words of section 91 of the Constitution Act, 1867?”

“Our government will continue to stand up for Saskatchewan people against what we believe is an unconstitutional tax on their families, communities, and businesses,” Morgan said Friday in a statement.

Domestic abuse is only bad when some people do it:

A Senate committee has passed amendments to the government’s massive criminal justice legislation, Bill C-75, including changes that would require judges to consider harsher sentences for domestic violence against Indigenous women.

I'll just leave this right here:

However, when Bernard Valcourt — the federal aboriginal affairs minister at the time — said last year that RCMP data shows 70% of murdered aboriginal women were killed by aboriginal men, the Mounties publicly confirmed the number. Some First Nations chiefs balked at the figure and questioned how the data was collected. And there’s been a debate about the veracity of the data ever since.

Also - the genocide of Iraqi Christians and Yazidis was never thing because not election year:

The thousands of Indigenous women and girls who were murdered or disappeared across the country in recent decades are victims of a "Canadian genocide," says the final report of the national inquiry created to probe the ongoing tragedy.

But I thought that Kim Jong-Un was a reasonable fellow:

North Korea executed its former top nuclear envoy to the U.S. and four other foreign ministry officials in March after a failed summit between Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump, South Korea’s Chosun Ilbo newspaper reported.

That must hurt the narrative.


Also:

South Korea offered to North Korea in January this year that it would double the amount (than the value of cash) if it provides rice in lieu of dollars, under the condition that the Koreas resume South Koreans' tours to Mount Kumgang and reopen the inter-Korean Kaesong Industrial Park. However, the North reportedly rejected the offer. This reveals that Pyongyang is taking more seriously a decline in North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's coffers for governing the Stalinist country due to sanctions against the North, rather than food shortages.

(Kamsahamnida)




Pope Francis will beatify seven Greek-Catholic bishops killed under Romania's communist regime:

On Sunday in Blaj, Pope Francis will beatify seven Greek-Catholic bishops of Romania who were killed by the communist regime between 1950 and 1970.

These martyrs “have given all to defend the Church. And at the cost of their lives they did not accept the situation, they did not deny their very faith,” a Romanian Greek-Catholic priest told CNA.

The postulator of the bishops’ causes for beatification and vice-rector of the Romanian seminary in Rome, Fr. Vasile Man, said, “these bishops were already considered martyrs by the faithful for their witness of faith, for their courage, and for their fidelity to the Holy Father and the Church of Rome” and they were “above all pastors.”

Bishops Valeriu Traian Frentiu, Vasile Aftenie, Ioan Suciu, Tito Livio Chinezu, Ioan Balan, Alexandru Rusu, and Iuliu Hossu were declared in March to have been killed “in hatred of the faith” between 1950 and 1970, during the Soviet occupation of Romania and the rule of Nicolae Ceausescu.

Their beatification will take place June 2 during a celebration of Divine Liturgy, presided over by Pope Francis in Blaj in the Transylvania region of Romania.

There is a reason why the government should not be relied up for one's healthcare. Case in point:

A little boy in Georgia gained nation-wide recognition on Tuesday when the media caught wind of some local Home Depot workers making a DIY walker for a 2-year-old in need. But just one day after news outlets began reporting on the “sweet” moment, Americans started responding with outrage over how the heartwarming story actually highlights the country’s healthcare and health insurance failures.

Logan Moore is unable to walk on his own because of a medical condition he has, called hypotonia, which affects muscle tone and stability. However, the family is currently dealing with the long process of trying to get their insurance company to approve a walker for the boy, forcing the father to look into other options.