And the Rest of It

Uh-oh:

Three earthquakes registering between 4.5 and 5.6 magnitude were detected off the coast of B.C. on Friday morning.

The tremors, classified as aftershocks to a Wednesday quake, struck within minutes of each other to the south of Haida Gwaii on Friday — one at 5:51 a.m. PT, another 5:58 a.m. and the third at 6:02 a.m. 

The first was detected with a preliminary magnitude of 4.5, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). The agency said the second quake had a preliminary magnitude of 5.6 and the third measured 4.6.

Any trade deal thought up by yahoos who don't care that child p0rn is being promoted on a Crown-funded network just shouldn't be drafted:

When Canada signed on to a massive Asia-Pacific trade deal last year, the Liberal government faced some mockery for insisting on putting the term “progressive” in the title.

A few months later, bureaucrats were quietly instructed to drop the word in favour of describing it as an “inclusive approach to trade” instead, newly released documents show.

In addition to being stripped from Trade Minister Jim Carr’s mandate letter in August, “progressive” was being scrubbed from internal documents, bilateral statements and meeting notes, too.

“Progressive” was just too “politically-loaded” an adjective, explained one email to Global Affairs Canada officials, which the National Post obtained with an access-to-information request.

The subtle shift in tone followed worries, particularly as a new version of the North American Free Trade Agreement was being ironed out last year, that Liberals were prioritizing “progressive” at the expense of hard economic interest.

Did these brain-trusts think that no one would notice this?





It's an election year!:

Canada's natural resources minister says the government is willing to consider bids from Indigenous groups for a stake in the Trans Mountain pipeline.

But Amarjeet Sohi also says Ottawa wouldn't jump at the first offer on the table.

"We have seen from Indigenous communities that they are interested in having an equity ... in this project," Sohi said Thursday at a business luncheon in Calgary.

"It is a very important conversation to have because Indigenous communities should be benefiting from economic resource development. This will be an opportunity for us to work with them and explore that option."

An Indigenous-led group called Project Reconciliation has announced it could be ready as early as next week to make a $6.9-billion bid for majority ownership of the pipeline.

(Sidebar: what could go wrong there?) 

Indeed, why is it harder to trade within the country as opposed to China?:

If you’re an Ontario trucking company, you need to cover the cost of making different sets of tires to meet the different weight requirements in each province, even if the changes are slight.

Until recently, if you wanted to buy alcohol from other Canadian provinces or territories, you were out of luck.

These are of just some of the restrictive and outdated interprovincial trade rules that clip the wings of good Canadian businesses that want to get their products to market within the borders of our own country.

These unnecessary rules cost businesses time and money and stand in the way of opportunities to grow and hire more people. Some studies show that internal trade barriers cost the Canadian economy anywhere from a whopping $50 billion to $130 billion annually.

Why are we ignoring the huge potential for economic growth that exists in our own backyard?

We have had decades of foreign aid that have not lifted anyone out of poverty. It's time to re-think this strategy:

“Save billions of dollars by phasing out development aid, and focus Canadian international assistance exclusively on emergency humanitarian action in cases such as health crises, major conflicts and natural disasters.”

Viewpoint problems can be sorted out with money. Censorship? No subsidies or donations:

We should all be concerned by the growth of a university ideological monoculture. Scholars in the humanities and social sciences can help us solve real problems. What counts as progress, and are we achieving it? How big is the problem of racism in this country and how should we solve it? What is the best way to foster economic growth for all? How should we understand the gender wage gap and what should we do about it?

Yet how can we trust scholarship to give us useful answers if there isn’t genuine intellectual debate?