For a Saturday

So much happening in the world ...




Trudeau does not have the luxury of complaining that the House and the Senate have tied his hands with regards to Iran. Having spent his entire career (a term used loosely and for the lack of a better one) being an un-serious fop with a penchant for tolerating and cozying up to dictators, ruining a strong economy and never defending his country's interests, even if he was serious about succeeding to avenge a terrorist wrong where Mulroney failed, who would listen to him? His catty antics may be fodder for Twitter users but embarrassing to an otherwise lenient public who, in spates, realises that this kind of weakness is noticed by the world and is not a source of fun for it.

Should we be surprised when he appears ineffectual in response to Iran's actions?

Canadians gladly voted for this eunuch because he is un-serious and would do well to remember that complaining now is of no use.




A scapegoat takes one for the Liberal team:

Sami Bebawi, a former executive at SNC-Lavalin who was found guilty of pocketing millions and paying off foreign officials, has been sentenced to eight years and six months in prison.

Quebec Superior Court Justice Guy Cournoyer handed down his sentence on Friday afternoon, nearly a month after a jury found Bebawi guilty of all five charges he faced.

In his decision, Cournoyer said the 73-year-old former boss of the Montreal-based engineering company had shown remorse to his other colleagues at SNC-Lavalin.

“Corrupting foreign public agents — and all that fraud that accommodates it — constitutes extremely serious legal violations,” he wrote.

He'll be out in a few months.




Again, who runs this country - China or the UN?:

The UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination is urging Canada to immediately put a halt to the construction of three major resource projects: the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion (TMX); the Site C dam; and the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

Or is it China?:

Beijing's polar strategy is linked to the prospect of finding deposits of "rare earth materials," such as praseodymium, yttrium, and lanthanum, which are used in lasers, magnets, semiconductors, specialty glass, ceramics and nuclear batteries.

China already controls the mining and extraction of most of the world's rare earth materials -- all crucial for the global economy -- and may be in talks with the Taliban in Afghanistan to obtain more: 

Afghanistan's mountains are among a handful of places in the world where large deposits of these materials exist. Unfortunately, the US is largely dependent upon China for these materials, which also lie beneath the huge ice masses of Greenland. This circumstance might well explain China's vigorous effort to conclude major infrastructure contracts with Greenland's government. Beijing is proposing to build several airports, harbors, roads and railways in Greenland, which would facilitate the transport of rare earth materials -- once they are excavated -- to China.

Beijing-administered airports in Greenland, however, could pose a strategic threat to America's ally, Canada. Also at risk under such a scenario would be the US military facility in Thule, Greenland, which serves as an early-warning node for a nuclear attack on the North American continent. To counter this potential threat, the Trump administration and fellow NATO member state, Denmark -- which owns Greenland -- have preempted China's plans by agreeing to finance the proposed airports. But China's drive for eventual primacy in the Arctic region also extends to the Danish-owned, self-governing network of the 18 Faroe Islands, located midway between Norway and Iceland in the North Atlantic Ocean.

**

The Department of Justice says the allegations against Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou would be a crime in Canada and she should be extradited to the United States on fraud charges.

The department says in documents filed in British Columbia Supreme Court that the allegations meet the crucial extradition test of “double criminality,” meaning if they had occurred in Canada they would be criminal under Canadian law.

I'm sure the judicial activists who call themselves judges are ready to release this woman but Iran's shooting down a Ukrainian airliner in which sixty-three Canadians were killed might change things. Justin can suck up to his Chinese bosses or he can hand her over to the Americans so that they can see what she knows about Iran.




Only a person of low intellect and zero self-awareness would suggest that a band that tried too hard to show that they were Canadian ever be on the five-dollar bill as opposed to Terry Fox:

Some of the more popular candidates include Marathon of Hope runner Terry Fox and Tragically Hip frontman Gord Downie, both of whom died after inspiring battles with cancer.

Someone who actually made Canadian history:

John Crosbie revealed in that baptism of fire his most essential characteristic: courage. He (and his family) were scorched and mocked by a master arsonist and virtuoso declaimer. He never flinched. He always returned fire. He was, by the Liberal faithful, hated and despised. He took all that on. The Smallwood machine may have been old, much in need of repair, but it had years of practice, hundreds of hangers-on, people still in fear of “crossing the old man.” It was not going to be tipped-over, stripped of its parts, even by this one herculean challenge.

Why alternative forms of education matter more now than ever before:

Ontario Secondary School Teachers’ Federation members will stage a one-day strike at boards including the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board, Hamilton-Wentworth District School Board, Upper Grand District School Board, Durham District School Board and several across the north.

It also includes the Provincial Schools Authority, which is responsible for five provincial and demonstration schools for students with disabilities.

Union president Harvey Bischof says he’ll call off the job action if the government takes class size increases off the table.

“It’s time for the Ford government to come to the table with meaningful responses to our proposals so that we can work toward a deal that protects the quality of education in Ontario,” Bischof said in a statement.

The strike will be the latest in a series of rotating strikes by the OSSTF and will be one of several job actions by teachers next week.

 Politics red-shirts Canadian patients once more:

Canadian medical schools have not adequately addressed the urgent need for training related to planetary health and climate change, and members of the Canadian Federation of Medical Students say that must change.

Communism ruined North Korea. It could ruin South Korea, as well:

IF ONLY HE’D MASSACRED THEM ON A SATURDAY NIGHT, the metaphor would have been impeccable. But when South Korea’s President, Moon Jae-in, directs his Justice Minister, Choo Mi-ae, to reassign 32 prosecutors as they closed in on political corruption in his office—four months before elections will decide whether his party will have a majority to pass laws or a supermajority to amend the Constitution—it should have been the biggest news since the impeachment of his predecessor, Park Geun-hye. Last night, the “liberal” “human rights lawyer” may have inflicted a death blow to the rule of law in Korea’s “vibrant democracy.” When a government ceases to be accountable, it ceases to be democratic, because the people are denied the knowledge to govern themselves intelligently.

The multiple investigations Moon just quashed center around his long-time confidant, Cho Kuk, a former Leninist pamphleteer and Blue House secretary. For five weeks last fall, Cho also served as Moon’s Justice Minister until public outrage over a series of scandals forced him to resign. The allegations include serious political corruption–that he conspired with other Blue House staff to cover up bribery allegations and rig an election. Those investigations threatened to incriminate people at the highest levels of Moon’s administration. The investigations have resulted in multiple indictments, including of Cho himself; the apparent suicide of a former Blue House staffer; and one case of a politician boarding a boat and fleeing to Japan shortly before he was to be questioned. Prosecutors have searched Blue House offices, the Prime Minister’s office, residences, police stations, government offices, a private equity fund, and universities.

If anyone had tried this crap with Japanese students, there would be H-E-double sipping straws to pay:

In a shocking expose, the Mainichi reported in September how schoolchildren of Brazilian and Peruvian ancestry were being judged as “low-IQ,” thrust into “special education classes” and put to work digging potatoes instead of learning math.

How were IQs determined? Via tests using culturally grounded questions about shogunates and festivals. One school’s vice-principal defended this segregation by alleging that second-language learners “slow the learning progress of the Japanese students.”

When compulsory education is only legally guaranteed to Japanese citizens under the Basic Education Law, odd things happen. Here, a lack of second-language proficiency was deemed an intellectual disability (yet try saying your Japanese students are dim because they can’t speak English, and see how long you remain an educator), not to mention child labor laws being violated. 

But this is not in fact news. The government has been aware for more than a decade that with high rates of non-Japanese children dropping out of school, an uneducated non-Japanese underclass was emerging in Japan. With this revelation in the Mainichi, it seems the Japanese education system simply doesn’t care.