Mid-Week Post

 

Your first mid-week post of the season ...




It's an election year and the smell of desperation is in the air:

 

Trudeau: Pharmacare, mental health AND access to family doctors - $6 billion over 4 years.

Eric Hoskins, who Trudeau hand picked to investigate a national pharmacare plan - $15 billion PER YEAR.

And people wonder why the Liberals won't let the PBO independently cost promises.

— G.M. Forbes (@gmforbes35) September 23, 2019

**

At first glance, it would appear Justin Trudeau's Liberals built an electoral fortress in Atlantic Canada in 2015, having won all of the region's 32 ridings.

Four years later, with the party on the defensive over the leader's blackface bombshells, the Liberal ramparts on the East Coast have been shaken, and there are clear indications the Conservatives will make significant gains on election day.

Even before the Liberal leader apologized last week for what he admitted were racist acts from his past, the party was bracing for losses in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, where traditionally Tory ridings will be the ones to watch on Oct. 21.

A few seats in Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador are also in contention, but Conservative and third-party gains in those provinces are expected to be minimal.

"I think there's a consensus that 2015 was one-off," said Donald Wright, a political science professor at the University of New Brunswick.

"There were seats that went Liberal that had no business going Liberal. We'll probably see a return of some of those seats back to the Conservative party."

(Sidebar: cough - Scott Brison - cough)

**

For the fourth straight day of campaigning, the Liberals made bold policy announcements with about as much detail as his answers about his blackface costumes are vague.

“We’ll ban military assault rifles!” declare the Liberals.

Ok, how? The basic answer is that they will get back to us.

“We’ll cut your cellphone bill!” the Liberals announce.

I like that, but how? Well, don’t worry about the details, they don’t have any.

They’ve done the same with their promise to bring in greater mental health coverage, national pharmacare, and making Canada a country with net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

These are all grand plans, but when you ask Trudeau directly — or his Liberal handlers in the background — on how these proposals will be accomplished, they mutter things about consultations and working with the provinces.

Like I said, it’s like asking Trudeau about blackface — it’s all so vague.

As a public servant (a fact of which Justin should be sternly reminded), there should be no call to refuse to perform a public service save critical illness or injury, natural disaster or war.

Hiding from blackface questions and saying: "I don't want to" are not only insufficient reasons but signs of impudence and cowardice:

The cancellation of the Munk Debate on foreign policy due to Justin Trudeau’s refusal to participate denies voters the only real opportunity they had this election to see his foreign policy record challenged in a substantive and sustained fashion. It has also left voters with small beer when it comes to debates during the writ period. The only time they will see Trudeau debating in English is at the single “official” debate cum panel discussion featuring five moderators and six leaders. ...

(Sidebar: the panel with his groupies.)

Yes, it was Trudeau’s choice to skip the Munk Debate on foreign policy. Yes, there still will be one English language debate with him participating. But, let’s not fool ourselves. The emergence this election of a state body to organize debates is the latest sign of diminution of our once-freewheeling democracy in favour of more state control and more regulation that advantage the incumbent party and limit the political futures we can contemplate together.

Scratch an elbower, find a misogynist every time:

In the article ... Nassif says that at the height of the SNC-Lavalin Scandal, she – along with many Liberal MPs – was asked to share talking points praising Justin Trudeau as a feminist and saying he “always listened to the voices of women,” as he faced criticism for his mistreatment of Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott.

She felt it would be disingenous, and refused:

“I was punished for failing to hail Justin Trudeau as a great feminist in the wake of SNC-Lavalin when I didn’t post anything. And I was happy not to post anything because I am authentic,” said Nassif.

Nassif was then told that she couldn’t run again, and was “forced” to give a statement saying she had chosen not to run again, or the party would issue a statement saying she had been “rejected.”

Nassif also says she was subject to bullying, harassment, and intimidation by three MPs.

Try answering that one at a debate, Justin.




Considering that the UN is a useless, toothless organisation that stood by while Rwandans were hacked to death with rusty machetes and rewards tyrants of all stripes and also considering that especially thanks to Pierre's son that Canada is a global laughingstock and could never ascend to a position of power even if it bribed its way to the top anyway, having a permanent seat at the UN is a crack pipe dream:

“For me, today, when the U.N. General Assembly is all together, a Canadian seat on the U.N. Security Council is more important than ever,” said Heyman, speaking at the law school of Western University in London, Ontario.

“The world’s losing its defenders of [the] liberal democratic order of things. And I believe this increases the importance of having Canada’s seat on the Security Council. But it probably makes it harder, [with] President Trump being more transactional in supporting who gets the seat. Canada, are you willing to transact?”

Although Heyman did not specifically mention “a permanent seat” for Canada on the Security Council, his tone clearly suggested that that was his proposal.

(Sidebar: one might add that this is the same country whose government promised transparency but never delivered it. Liberal democracy? Try communism.)




Yes, about that:

During a recent candidate debate on the Prime Asia program, Liberal MP Ramesh Sangha unveiled a unique tactic for trying to evade voter anger over the unpopular carbon tax:

Deny the tax exists.

Sangha outright claimed “There’s no carbon tax.”

** 

End governmental welfare, Andy, and you have yourself a vote:

Last week, before any Canadian was debating dubious prime ministerial dress-ups, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer came out with a pledge to eliminate $1.5 billion in federal corporate welfare spending.

It’s only scratching the surface: by some estimates total annual federal subsidies to business are in the range of $14 billion. But it’s also nothing to sneeze at: $1.5 billion represents the tax bills of 100,000 average-income Canadian households.

But even as a tentative first step, Scheer’s proposal represents a clear break from the comfortable status quo consensus about corporate welfare in Canada. For starters, it’s hard to think of a major party leader openly using the term “corporate welfare” in recent years — even though it has been around since 1972, when during that year’s federal election former NDP leader David Lewis went after “corporate welfare bums” living off taxpayer subsidies.

I doubt that:

Canada's Jagmeet Singh, facing a rout of his left-wing New Democrats in next month's election, may have revived his party's fortunes with his emotional response to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's blackface picture. 

Singh, 40, the first minority leader of a federal Canadian political party, is also running in his first national campaign as head of the New Democrat Party (NDP). 

When the photo of Trudeau in blackface emerged last week, Singh, a practicing Sikh who often pairs bright turbans with stylish suits, won widespread praise for focusing on the potential impact on people who have experienced racism, rather than on scoring points against Trudeau.

"The kids that see this image, the people who see this image, are going to think about all the times in their life that they were made fun of, that they were hurt, that they were hit, that they were insulted, that they were made to feel less because of who they are," he said in a three-minute video posted to social media.

"I want you to know that you have value, you have worth, you are loved. And I don't want you to give up on Canada and please don't give up on yourselves."

Canada is a multicultural country, and more than 22% of the population are members of visible minorities, while another 5% are aboriginal, according to the latest census. 

"Singh was made for this issue," said Ipsos pollster Darrell Bricker. "This is his time. There's nobody else who can speak to this issue better than he can." 

Oh, I'm sure.




Wasn't she shrill enough?:

“Greta Thunberg laid down a clear line in the sand, separating those countries and leaders who are united behind the science from those who continue to place the profits of fossil fuel polluters above the safety of their citizens,” Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement. “Sadly, most leaders from the world’s largest emitting countries failed this litmus test, dodging their responsibility to step up action as is essential to address the climate emergency we now face.”

Altogether, the top three emitters account for nearly half of global greenhouse gas emissions, according to the World Resources Institute. Their national policies are what will have the biggest impact on whether the world can hold global warming below 2 degrees Celsius, which is the goal of the 2015 Paris agreement.

Greta Thunberg is a puppet used by her parents to prop up their flagging careers. She is not a scientist and when people tire of her, they will replace her with another moppet who will also scream out how the waters that were supposed to be over our heads by now will peak sometime in the current year.

There are more pressing environmental problems such as deforestation and water and air pollution that are ignored for the flashier non-emergency:

People are not dying, ecosystems are not collapsing, and human beings are in no danger of extinction from carbon dioxide.

Don’t believe me? Well, let’s see what an actual scientist is saying.

The secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, Petteri Taalas, told a Finnish financial newspaper on Sept. 6 that climate extremists have taken over the debate and their comments in the media have provoked unjustified anxiety.

“It is not going to be the end of the world,” he said in the interview. “The world is just becoming more challenging. In parts of the globe, living conditions are becoming worse, but people have survived in harsh conditions.”

He also said: “Climate experts have been attacked by these people and they claim that we should be much more radical. They are doomsters and extremists; they make threats.”

And finally, “The IPCC reports have been read in a similar way to the Bible: you try to find certain pieces or sections from which you try to justify your extreme views. This resembles religious extremism.”

Indeed. I have seen memes of Thunberg dressed up to resemble the Virgin Mary, with “In Greta We Trust” emblazoned across them.

I do not know what this is, but it is not science.

Shame on the scientific community for allowing it to get this far. They never should have allowed the IPCC report to become a vehicle for exaggerating scientific claims. Now that they have, it is going to require the effort of all the grownups to try to deprogram these school children.

Do not make a deal with any communist:

U.S. President Donald Trump delivered a stinging rebuke to China’s trade practices on Tuesday at the United Nations General Assembly, saying he would not accept a “bad deal” in U.S.-China trade negotiations.

If covering one's face is more important to one than voting, just don't bother with the pretense:

Afghan women’s rights activists have demanded the authorities lift a requirement that all voters be photographed at polling stations in Saturday’s presidential election, arguing that it could prevent hundreds of thousands of women from voting.

Afghanistan’s electoral authorities have decided to photograph all voters using facial recognition software as an anti-fraud measure, after elections in 2009 and 2014 ended in disputes over rampant ballot stuffing.

But the photo requirement could be particularly difficult for women, especially in conservative areas, where most adult women and older girls cover their faces outside the home and do not show themselves to men who are not their relatives.

The election commission says that women voters can have their pictures taken by female election staff. But it acknowledges that at least 1,450 of the nearly 30,000 polling stations employ no women.

Eighteen women’s rights groups have separately written to the Independent Election Commission (IEC) to call for the photo requirement to be scrapped. The letters, shown to Reuters by a senior IEC official, said women in rural areas wanted to vote but believed it was against Islam or culturally inappropriate to allow themselves to be photographed by men.

Rights groups criticized the election officials for not explaining earlier how the biometric system will work, or finding a way to reassure women that it will not breach their privacy.