 |
| Merry Saint Nicholas' Day! |
Throne speeches are from a time before gradual change when members of Parliament, usually cloth-eared heirs, could buy seats and there was no accountability.
Nothing has changed (indeed):
Historically, the Laurentian Elite were Upper Canadian Anglo-Protestants and Québécois Patricians, and their descendants still dominate the upper strata of politics, the bureaucracy, Crown corporations and agencies, academia and media. Private-sector membership tends toward legacy industries (particularly banking/finance and manufacturing), often dominated by multi-generational families. The media, particularly the CBC, project the “consensus” across the country. As Diane Francis has observed, the elite’s members have remarkable mobility among the upper levels of Canada’s government, business and the bureaucracy.**
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau extended an olive branch in the throne speech — but it was mostly to the parties on the left.
The speech devoted major sections to climate change, reconciliation and pledged to work toward pharmacare. It also held up an NDP platform commitment — universal dental care — as something worth exploring.
**
“We know that we are inextricably bound to the same space-time continuum and on board the same planetary spaceship,” Payette said.
Meanwhile, the country's economy and reputation go down the tubes:
Canada’s job market unexpectedly weakened for a second-straight month, registering the biggest drop in employment since 2009 and casting doubt on the resiliency of the domestic outlook.
The economy lost 71,200 jobs in November, Statistics Canada said Friday in Ottawa, following a decline of 1,800 in the prior month. That pares the total number of jobs added this year to around 285,100.
The report missed the median economist forecast for a gain of 10,000 jobs. The unemployment rate increased to 5.9 per cent in the month, from 5.5 per cent in October, the biggest one-month jump since 2009. The decrease in employment was broad-based among both the goods-producing and service-producing sectors.
**
“Canada could well pay for this,” said Michael Byers, the Canada Research Chair in global politics and international law at the University of British Columbia. “It could have very serious consequences. It sets back years of effort in keeping Canada in a safe and quiet position vis-à-vis Donald Trump.”
Stephen Poloz has decided to
The wisdom of Poloz’s move remains to be seen, particularly with Canada’s current interest rate of 1.75 per cent being the highest among advanced economies.
Meanwhile, consumer debts have continued to rise. Canada’s household debt in 2018 averaged 181 per cent of total income, well higher than the United States (109 per cent), Germany (95 per cent), and others, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
China warns (warns!) Canada not take the side of human rights:
(Sidebar: don't worry. Justin won't.)
China’s new ambassador to Canada is threatening “very firm countermeasures” if Parliament adopts a motion calling for sanctions over alleged Chinese human rights abuses against Muslim Uighurs and pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong.
Also:
(Merci)
This is the same country that allows legalised vendettas:
Legal experts say the justice system is failing Canada’s working poor, many of whom are unable to afford lawyers and end up pleading guilty or representing themselves in court.
In Alberta, legal aid isn’t available to anyone making over $20,000 a year. In Ontario, the threshold is $17,731. British Columbia’s limit is $19,560, while it’s slightly higher in Quebec at $22,750.
The Supreme Court rules that the companies that put mercury into the water must clean it up:
The Supreme Court of Canada says two companies are on the hook for looking after a mercury-contaminated site near Ontario’s Grassy Narrows First Nation.
Eight years ago, the Ontario government ordered Weyerhaeuser Co. and a firm that later became Resolute Forest Products to monitor and maintain a mercury waste-disposal site in Dryden, Ont., where toxic material from a pulp-and-paper mill’s operations entered the English-Wabigoon River system in the 1960s.
Sticking it to the Man when no one is watching:
Ontario’s elementary and secondary Catholic school teachers will be in a legal strike position Dec. 21, although their union has yet to announce any job action.
The Ontario English Catholic Teachers’ Association (OECTA) noted its members voted 97.1% in favour of strike action, if necessary.
Members of the Elementary Teachers’ Federation of Ontario (ETFO) are currently withdrawing from administrative and other tasks, while the Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation (OSSTF) carried out a one-day strike Wednesday.
Education Minister Stephen Lecce pointed the finger of blame at teachers unions for the escalation.
Take a pay-cut. For the children!
When African girls were kidnapped by Boko Haram, all the West could muster was a hashtag. North Korean and Pakistani girls and women are being sold as sex slaves in China and not one white Western feminist has launched a crusade.
But cowardice (typical and even excusable for Canadian "men") is why we have an annual guilt-fest every year.
Whatever:
“The defining image of contemporary Canadian maleness is not M Lépine/Gharbi but the professors and the men in that classroom, who, ordered to leave by the lone gunman, meekly did so, and abandoned their female classmates to their fate—an act of abdication that would have been unthinkable in almost any other culture throughout human history. The ‘men’ stood outside in the corridor and, even as they heard the first shots, they did nothing. And, when it was over and Gharbi walked out of the room and past them, they still did nothing. Whatever its other defects, Canadian manhood does not suffer from an excess of testosterone.”
I'll just leave this here:
Mass deportations soon followed, but Catholics helped thousands to escape and hid another 40,000. Forty-nine priests gave their lives for providing help to Jews. The same story was played out in France and Italy where cardinals, bishops, and priests exhorted the faithful to assist Jews and give them shelter.
Moral subjectivity arguments are invalid.
If these people (among so many others) could risk and even give their lives, why would anyone argue physical and moral capitulation?
And now, some good news:
It was a party for one young boy’s adoption hearing in Michigan on Thursday.
Michael Orlando Clark Jr. was over the moon to be adopted by his forever family.
(Sidebar: isn't that the term used for stray animals? Never mind.)
He was so excited, in fact, that he invited his entire kindergarten class to be there to help him celebrate.**
In video shared by the coast guard, a dog can be seen swimming out in open ocean water. A boat with at least three responders aboard approaches the dog, whistling and clicking at it to come towards them.
After a bit of a struggle to get close enough to the canine, they eventually get him out of the water and into the boat, where he can be seen shaking off the water.
“How are you doing, buddy?” one of the rescuers asks the dog. “You’re the best person I’ve ever rescued.”
No comments:
Post a Comment