But Wait! There's More!

Often, there is ...




That's not what they said a week ago:

The World Health Organization declared the outbreak sparked by a new virus in China that has spread to more than a dozen countries as a global emergency Thursday after the number of cases spiked more than tenfold in a week.

See. How hard was that?

Then again, the WHO also thought that North Korea had a stellar healthcare system, so ...


Not to worry. The Canadian government has everything under control ... -ish:

The government is sending a plane for the nearly 200 Canadians stuck under quarantine in Wuhan, China, but when that will happen and how those passengers will be dealt with when they arrive is still uncertain.

Health Minister Patty Hajdu said the government is working with Chinese officials to determine when Canada can send a flight for the Canadians, but she said it’s a difficult logistical challenge.

“We don’t have the information yet, so I am not going to stand here and give Canadians misinformation,” she said. “We are flying a non-commercial flight into a new country that is under quarantine, that has some very strict protocols on where planes can land.”

Oh. You mean that you have no idea what you are doing?

Right.

The same government that is scrambling to get idiot nationals out of China (being in China just isn't worth the money) is also saying with the mouth on its other face that this coronavirus (the one spreading faster than SARS - the other illness from China. Two cases were reported in Italy.) is nothing to worry about knows full well that it has been caught with its pants down.




The Canadian government can't manage to restrict flights from China, quarantine the possibly infected or even rustle up one of Justin's jets to bring back Canadian passport-holders but it can mimic China in its early Maoist days:

In a video released on social media, Levant recorded the absurd and disturbing proceedings, where the government agents wouldn’t even tell him the complaint against him. They had Levant in to supposedly ‘defend himself,’ but wouldn’t tell him who the complainant was, wouldn’t tell him who the complainant was, and wouldn’t give him any details. They wouldn’t even show him the documents alleging a complaint against him.

**

Yesterday an advisory panel released a report entitled, “Canada’s Communications Future: Time To Act”, citing” a “crisis in news.” It recommends all media content services fall under the Act and regulation by the Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission.”

These advisors are typically partisan hacks, never mind their claims of nonpartisan independence (e.g. Michael Wernick).

Given the fact that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spent $130,000 trying to bar conservative journalists from covering this past election, and has announced his intention to regulate and censor Canadians’ social media, this is both unsurprising and extremely dangerous for the future of democracy in Canada.

(Merci)




Richard Decarie should run as an independent:

Décarie is backed by a veteran team of social conservative organizers — including Brad Trost and Russ Kuykendall — who plan to use Décarie’s network in Quebec to make him a serious contender for the leadership. In the 2017 leadership race, Trost finished a surprising fourth out of 14 candidates, surpassing many higher-profile candidates such as Michael Chong, Kellie Leitch, Lisa Raitt and Steven Blaney. But after Décarie appeared on national TV and claimed that being gay is a choice, he was roundly condemned by other leadership hopefuls, and many senior Conservatives called for him to be disqualified. “It is an unacceptable perspective for a mainstream party,” said Kory Teneycke, a former senior aide to both Stephen Harper and Doug Ford, in a CBC appearance shortly after Décarie’s comments. “My view is he should not be allowed to run. There has to be a line somewhere…. Nobody wants to be in a party that’s defined by bigotry.” (Members of Teneycke’s consultancy firm are working for leadership candidate Peter MacKay, though Teneycke says he’s staying neutral in the race.)

Any major party that would tow the utterly false line of lifestyle choices being innate and worth pandering to in some delusion that doing so equals managerial competence is not worth supporting.

Not that this country will ever see another election.

Justin's Chinese bosses simply wouldn't allow it.




And people said that there would never be a slippery slope:

As Canada is set to extend medical aid in dying to people who are not necessarily about to die naturally anyway, an expert panel of clinicians and ethicists is recommending the new law not exclude people whose only medical condition is a mental disorder.

Take a pay-cut:

In fact, the education changes the government wants are not driven by Ford’s imagined personality traits, but by the need to modestly constrain education spending and a desire to ever so slightly modernize a school system that is fiercely resistant to change.

To some it’s extremely distasteful to even consider money when talking about children’s education. That’s the kind of thinking that got the province into the financial mess it’s in today. For years, education spending rose sharply even while enrolment declined. That’s not sustainable.

Fat chance of that coming to anything:

The Opposition has voted to pass a Conservative motion calling for the Auditor General to investigate the Liberals $186.7 billion infrastructure plan.


The motion followed a report by the Parliamentary Budget Officer that had revealed the new plan “does not exist,” despite the government having allocated a massive amount of taxpayer money for it.

Despite Liberal opposition, the motion passed, with 166 voting yes, against 152 who voted no.

Not out of the woods, as they say:

Firefighters will struggle to contain deadly fires as soaring temperature and strong winds stoke the threat of more blazes across Australia‘s east coast, authorities said on Friday.

Since September, Australia has been battling bushfires that have killed 33 people and an estimated 1 billion native animals, while 2,500 homes as more than 11.7 million hectares (117,000 sq km) across Australia’s most populous states has been burned.

With temperatures across New South Wales (NSW) and Victoria states set to approach 40 degrees Celsius (104 degree Fahrenheit) on Friday, authorities said several fires could spread despite recent efforts by firefighters to remove flammable fuels.

I'm sure those arsonists did not help.