Mid-Week Post

Your epicenter of the work-week ...




"Vigorously defend"? HA!:

Should Canada’s steel industry be gouged again by U.S. trade policies, the federal government would “vigorously defend” its interest.

An official speaking on background confirmed that its defence would include seeking an exemption to Trump’s Buy American policy.

On Monday, U.S. President Donald Trump signed an executive order that would eventually boost the amount of U.S. components in American-made products from 50 per cent to 75 per cent.

The tightened provisions, which fall under the Buy American Act, would also bring the U.S.-made steel and iron quota to a whopping 95 per cent. ...

Canada was relieved of a 25 per cent tariff on steel and a 10 per cent tariff on aluminum exported to the U.S. back in May, clearing the path for a new NAFTA and calming trade war tensions.

(Sidebar: a little recap.) 




Stunned? Why? Stop relying on China for one's economy and stop expecting your "Quebec-only" government to come to your aid: 

Unifor Local 200 officials were stunned Tuesday to learn that 270 employees will be out of a job after Nemak’s surprise announcement that it intends to shut down its Windsor aluminum engine block plant by mid-2020.

The company said the decision was based on ‘an early phase-out of an export program with a customer in China’ that would reduce the capacity utilization of the plant to less than 10 per cent by 2020.

“Shocked,” said Local 200 president John D’Agnolo. “We had no idea this was coming.

“We’d had layoffs and production drop because the two-litre block goes to Shanghai and things have slowed in the Chinese economy.”

D’Agnolo said 90 per cent of what the plant produces is sent to China for use in General Motor’s Cadillac production. The two-litre block isn’t used in any other product.

Currently the plant was operating at about 25 per cent capacity.

I'm sure it's nothing to be concerned about:

The Bank of Canada announced on Tuesday its intention to become the administrator of the Canadian Overnight Repo Rate Average (CORRA), a reference rate for financial market transactions, when enhancements to CORRA take effect next year. 

Again, I'm sure this nothing to be worried about at all:

A researcher with ties to China was recently escorted out of the National Microbiology Lab (NML) in Winnipeg amid an RCMP investigation into what's being described as a possible "policy breach."

Dr. Xiangguo Qiu, her husband Keding Cheng and an unknown number of her students from China were removed from Canada's only level-4 lab on July 5, CBC News has learned.

A Level 4 virology facility is a lab equipped to work with the most serious and deadly human and animal diseases. That makes the Arlington Street lab one of only a handful in North America capable of handling pathogens requiring the highest level of containment, such as Ebola.

Security access for the couple and the Chinese students was revoked, according to sources who work at the lab and do not want to be identified because they fear consequences for speaking out.

Sources say this comes several months after IT specialists for the NML entered Qiu's office after-hours and replaced her computer. Her regular trips to China also started being denied.

And this:

Canadian inspectors intercepted nearly 900 food products from China over concerns about faulty labels, unmentioned allergens and harmful contaminants that included glass and metal between 2017 and early 2019, according to internal federal records.

The document provides an inside look at imports from China that caught the attention of officials for appearing to fall short of Canadian standards — from gum balls with “extraneous” metal, to three-minute chow mein that contained an insect, to spicy octopus feet flagged for a “non-specific hazard.”

Also:

A Falun Gong practitioner says the CEO of Ottawa’s dragon-boat festival ordered him to take off a T-shirt advertising the Chinese spiritual group, citing in part China’s sponsorship of the popular event.

John Brooman also threatened to have other Falun Gong practitioners removed from the public park in which the festival took place last month if they didn’t leave voluntarily, says Gerry Smith, a retired Nortel Networks employee.

His allegations are the latest indication of Beijing’s low-profile campaign to influence Canadian society, even as the two countries remain locked in a tense diplomatic stand-off.

From the most "transparent" government in the country:

Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc, who is fighting cancer, benefited from the use of a private aircraft operated by New Brunswick-based J.D. Irving Ltd. last month to travel to a medical facility in Montreal, records show.

The free flight that originated in Moncton for the Liberal MP for Beauséjour and his wife was preapproved by Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion.

You can't maintain that Canada has a fair and efficient healthcare system (one where people are compelled to pay for things that aren't even healthcare) and then completely ignore that a wealthy and well-connected MP - with the help of an allegedly neutral ethics commissioner - is using his privilege to gain timely access to medical care better than what the average Canadian (who might die covered in bed sores) receives.  

**

Nominations for federal elections are strikingly uncompetitive and opaque, according to a new study, which says that has profound consequences for Canadian democracy.

New research by the Toronto-based Samara Centre for Democracy shows only 17 per cent of more than 6,600 federal candidates from 2003 to 2015 faced competitive nomination races, while 2,700 candidates were directly appointed by parties.

**

The government may be out parading their virtue at the Global Conference for Media Freedom. But at home they’re cracking down on “hate” speech despite the principles of liberty and practical arguments against censorship. Basically if it bugs them, they’ll nail you for saying it. And come to think of it, a lot bugs them, including shooting your mouth off during an election or near one. Who do you think you are?

Also - a little too much transparency:

A recently released – and subsequently deleted – document published by a NATO-affiliated body has sparked headlines in Europe with an apparent confirmation of a long-held open secret: U.S. nuclear weapons are being stored in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.

A version of the document, titled “A new era for nuclear deterrence? Modernisation, arms control and allied nuclear forces,” was published in April. Written by a Canadian senator for the Defense and Security Committee of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, the report assessed the future of the organization’s nuclear deterrence policy.

But what would make news months later is a passing reference that appeared to reveal the location of roughly 150 U.S. nuclear weapons being stored in Europe.

Oops.




I keep saying that one cannot trust North Korea:

The United States looks set to break a promise not to hold military exercises with South Korea, putting talks aimed at getting North Korea to abandon its nuclear weapons at risk, the North Korean Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday.

Japan considers sending its self-defense forces to the Strait of Hormuz:

Officials from major political parties on Sunday debated whether Self-Defense Forces troops should take part in a U.S.-proposed coalition to safeguard strategic waters near the Strait of Hormuz amid reports the government is mulling such a move.

Koichi Hagiuda, executive acting secretary-general of the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, stressed the need to consider a response to the proposal but said the current situation does not require the immediate dispatch of SDF troops to the Middle East.

“We can’t behave as if we are not an interested party,” Hagiuda said during a TV appearance. 

“Cooperation with the international community is important. Some 80 percent of vessels transporting (oil) to Japan pass through the strait.”

What people - Ilhan Omar certainly not least among them - fail to address is the inherent anti-semitism in Islam:

Some of the members of my 2006 AJC audience have asked me to explain and respond to Ms. Omar’s comments, including her equivocal apologies. Their main question is whether it is possible for Ms. Omar to unlearn her evident hatred of Jews--and if so, how to help.

In my experience it is difficult, perhaps impossible, to unlearn hate without coming to terms with how you learned to hate. Most Americans are familiar with the classic Western flavors of anti-Semitism: the Christian, European, white-supremacist and Communist types. But little attention has been paid to the special case of Muslim anti-Semitism. That is a pity because today it is anti-Semitism's most zealous, most potent and most underestimated form.

I never heard the term “anti-Semitism” until I moved to the Netherlands in my 20s. But I had firsthand familiarity with its Muslim variety. As a child in Somalia, I was a passive consumer of anti-Semitism. Things would break, conflicts would arise, shortages would occur--and adults would blame it all on the Jews.

When I was a little girl, my mom often lost her temper with my brother, with the grocer or with a neighbor. She would scream or curse under her breath "Yahud!" followed by a description of the hostility, ignominy or despicable behavior of the subject of her wrath. It wasn’t just my mother; grown-ups around me exclaimed "Yahud!" the way Americans use the F-word. I was made to understand that Jews--Yahud--were all bad.

Can liberals "un-learn" their hatred of dogs and their lunacy?:

Liberal Twitter-user Danielle (@ladypalerider) has a different explanation for people's love for dogs, however. Wait. I should've written: for white people's love for our canine comrades. According to her, "white people love dogs so much because deep down they miss owning slaves. They love the owner and master dynamic, desperate for something to control."

Just in time for Shark Week:

Quebec’s Îles-de-la-Madeleine enjoy an international reputation for their natural beauty and draw tourists from around the world — the most recent being a 2.7-metre-long great white shark named Brunswick.

Ocearch, an American non-profit research organization, planted a satellite tracking chip in Brunswick and have been following his movements since February. The latest fix places Brunswick within the Gulf of St. Lawrence just a few kilometres off the coast of the Îles-de-la-Madeleine.

Ocearch says this is the first time a great white has been tracked so close to the Quebec islands.

(Merci beaucoup)