Halloween Week: the Mid-Weekening

(source)

Your mid-week fright ...




Canadians vote with their stomachs. Prove me wrong:

More than one-third of Canadians voted strategically in last week’s federal election to stop another party from winning, a new poll suggests.

Thirty-five per cent of respondents to the Leger poll said their decision about who to support took into account the chances that their vote would prevent another party’s candidate from being victorious.

And almost as many waited until the final week of the campaign to make their choice.

Thirteen per cent made a decision during the last week, six per cent during the final weekend before the Monday vote, and another 10 per cent literally didn’t decide until the last minute on voting day.

 
Granted, none of the political choices were appealing. Some were only less nauseating than others. However, this has been the case since the Sixties. There have been no true fiscally or socially conservative candidates worth considering. The electorate was happy to back someone who vaguely fit the bill and was voted back even when he did not accomplish what he promised to in the first place.

Then there is that whole Marxist/Trudeaumania/Ad-Scam nonsense that dominated the political landscape for forty years.

Because no one has demanded even the most basic scruples or competence (all traded for "free stuff") from their leaders, the skittish electorate, realising that there was nowhere to run, sabotaged the entire litter and still hopes that it will get its "free stuff".




China is Justin's favourite country:

Dressed in the uniform of China’s People’s Liberation Army, the 40 or so singers stood proudly in neat rows and belted out an old favourite.

I am a Soldier talks of defeating the Japanese, vanquishing Nationalist leader Chiang Kai Shek in the Communist revolution and being tested by the revolutionary war. The performance “brought forth a whirlwind of Chinese military spirit in a foreign land,” said a report on the concert.

The recital earlier this month at the Centre for the Performing Arts in Richmond Hill, Ont., was not offered by a visiting martial choir from Beijing.

It was the work of a surprising new Canadian association, dedicated to retired troops of the China’s People’s Liberation Army or PLA — China’s armed forces — who are now settled in this country.

Also:

Authorities on Tuesday barred Hong Kong democracy activist Joshua Wong from contesting local elections, citing concerns that he does not respect China’s sovereignty over the territory, a step that threatens to inflame tensions after months of civil unrest.

Engendering good will wherever they go:

A Manitoba Indigenous community is taking the province to court over a $453-million power transmission project it says it wasn't properly consulted on before construction started last summer.

The Sagkeeng First Nation is to argue in Winnipeg Court of Queen's Bench on Wednesday for a judicial review of the province's decision to give Manitoba Hydro a licence to build a 213-kilometre, 500-kilovolt line to Minnesota.

"When our ancestors signed the treaties, they agreed to share their land, not give it away," Chief Derrick Henderson said in a news release. "Manitoba and Hydro need to learn that they have to treat our people with respect. It is not respectful for Manitoba to treat First Nations as a nuisance to be disposed of in a sham consultation process."

(Sidebar: are you getting paid?)

**

Prairie First Nation leaders say Alberta and Saskatchewan can't separate without their consent because the legal underpinnings allowing Canada to settle the region are based on the signing of the numbered treaties. 

The election of a minority Liberal government led by Justin Trudeau and the dominance of the Conservative party in Saskatchewan and Alberta — winning every riding except one — has again sparked talk of Western separation. 

"This is our land, we are staying here," said Marlene Poitras, Assembly of First Nations regional chief for Alberta and a member of the Mikisew Cree First Nation that is part of Treaty 8. 

Don't stop the gravy train.

Quebec is special:

The Coalition Avenir Québec government will proceed with its plan to impose a values test on new arrivals seeking employment, but unlike its original vision, it won’t be a condition of their permanent residency in Canada.

Canadians will get good and hard the government they voted for:

That $25 billion ballooned to $70 billion. And Trudeau’s promise of a balanced budget has been replaced by a $93-billion deficit over the next four years. The NDP and Green election platforms proposed even higher spending. Yet, despite campaigns featuring such a staggering accretion of our national debt, pollsters found that deficit spending didn’t rank as a major election concern for most Canadians. Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, striving to balance political reality against the dangers of driving the country ever deeper into debt, proposed a $25-billion deficit in the first year moving to a balanced budget in five years. The election results confirm that most Canadians have lost all fear of deficit spending, no matter how large. ...

Canada has seen that cliff before in the disastrous legacy of Justin Trudeau’s father. During the 15 years Pierre Trudeau was prime minister, federal spending rose from 30 to 53 per cent of GDP. Immense public spending overheated the economy, resulting in runaway inflation. By 1981, Canada’s prime lending rate reached an incredible 22 per cent. The inability to meet skyrocketing interest costs induced widespread corporate and personal bankruptcies. Escalating mortgage rates caused many Canadians to lose their homes. With government bonds yielding 19 per cent, accessing business risk capital was virtually impossible. By the time Trudeau-the-elder retired in 1984, Canada’s national debt had grown by 700 per cent and the country’s international debt ratings had collapsed. We were transformed from one of the financially strongest countries in the world into an economic basket case. It would be two decades before tough fiscal discipline overcame compounding interest payments and began to reduce the country’s real-dollar debt. ...

Just as the generation of taxpayers that came after Pierre’s reign ended had to pay for his profligacy, the next generation of taxpayers will bear the burden of paying down Justin’s debt. So why do most young Canadians vote for parties promising increased deficits? As Mark Milke has argued, “every generation has to learn about the consequences of excessive borrowing for themselves.” Building an immense national debt is like taking out a huge mortgage, then leaving it for your children to pay back. But not only will today’s young voters have to pay down Canada’s massive mortgage, they will also foot the mounting cost of caring for the aging people who allowed it to happen. Most young voters are oblivious to this reality.

But there is a group working to educate them. They call themselves “Generation Screwed.” Kris Rondolo, 29, the group’s executive director, warns: “over-spending equals debt, and debt is an unfair tax on Canada’s younger generations and those not yet born.” The Generation Screwed website includes a debt clock that shows Canada’s national debt amounts to $18,700 for every man, woman and child and is growing by more than $54 million a day. A “How screwed are you?” link lets you add your share of provincial debt to the national debt. Ontarians are the most screwed, owing $43,200 each. Quebecers come next at $40,700, followed closely by Manitobans. Albertans owe $34,400, just a little more than British Columbians. And now the debt clock will be going into hyperdrive for the next four years.

Own it, kids.




Justin insulted Indian and black people and Canadians gladly re-elected him:

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer is being called out over a social media post that was meant to mark a Sikh celebration — but used an image of another festival instead.

Was it this one?

Pandering is a proud Canadian tradition and even if it is done wrong, the effort is still praiseworthy. By flattering people who won't assimilate, the Canadian politician can ensure a long and fruitless career and collect a pension at the end of it. It doesn't matter if a country is balkanised and old prejudices cause ethnic and political conflict that could turn bloody or even that sycophancy turns one into a oleaginous husk of a man. Pensions are all that matter.




We can no longer argue that free expression of ideas and congress are Canadian values but merely American reflections of what some would like but never see materialised.

Case in point:

“Feminists built and funded transition houses for women escaping male violence,” she told the capacity crowd of roughly 120, who had come at the invitation of a group calling itself Radical Feminist Unite — Toronto, which rented the venue. “And now we’re being told … that having spaces for women to protect them from male violence is bigoted.”

She was referring to Vancouver city council’s decision in March to strip funding for the Vancouver Rape Relief and Women’s Shelter because it only serves women who are born female. It’s just one example of what people like Murphy warn is the danger of “self-identification” as the standard for gender-based human rights protection.

“On what basis do women’s rights exist,” she asked, “if the word ‘woman’ is meaningless?” ...

For free speech purists, it might be comforting to think the protesters — perhaps 500 strong — represented a fringe group (who were themselves, after all, exercising their right to free speech). But if that’s true, it’s a well-connected fringe. Two arch-progressive city councillors, Mike Layton and Kristyn Wong-Tam, have a motion before Toronto city council on Tuesday asking staff to recommend “strengthening” the library’s room rental policies. Toronto Pride has threatened “consequences to our relationship” — presumably excommunication, which was the Vancouver Public Library’s fate after allowing Murphy to speak on its premises.

No, that must have missed the news cycle:

Did anyone hear about the knife wielding Muslim at the Vatican on Saturday because I sure didn't?🙄pic.twitter.com/AZsYGONGDL

— MICHELLE❤KAG🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 (@Winning45KAG) October 29, 2019

 

(Merci)




And now, the greatest love song in the world: