Mid-Week Post

Your custard-centre of the work-week ...




Don't worry. The Canadian government has everything under control.

Because priorities and planning and stuff:

Laws vary from province to province, but generally, a health official can legally command that someone comply with the order, for example, by forcing them to stay in their home and not allow visitors, he said.

“The powers can be quite far-reaching,” he explained.

“They can issue warrants to get people arrested if they’re not compliant with orders to isolate themselves. They can force people to be immunized. They can force people to take medication.

“And in rare cases, these are enforced by court orders.”

More frequently, though, patients with possibly communicable diseases are put in “isolation” at a hospital or choose to isolate themselves at home, he said.

And how has that worked?:

Just like that, more than 1,000 people on three flights from China walked into Canada without medical screening.

And there are plans to bring more Canadians home ... at some point:

Speaking with reporters from Parliament Hill on Wednesday, Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said the government is working out the logistics as to how and when to bring home Canadians who want help leaving the country, and has a plane lined up to do so.

And they don't have to be screened or quarantined because if they were sick, they would simply wear a huge sign around their necks.

Everyone knows that.

Right?:

“Of course people are concerned — why wouldn’t people be concerned,” Mike Ryan, executive director of the World Health Organization’s health emergencies program, said Wednesday.

The WHO refused to call China's coronavirus a global concern because they're all about honesty and action.

Meanwhile the death toll (if one can believe the Chinese) has risen. Any vaccine (a notoriously slow process in rationed healthcare Canada) is at least a year out.


Not to worry. Everything is under control because priorities:

Someone needs to tell that to the heads of a school board that encompasses several cities north of Toronto, after they issued a condescending letter to parents chastising them for their concerns.

“While the virus can be traced to a province in China, we have to be cautious that this not be seen as a Chinese virus,” writes Juanita Nathan, a trustee who is chair of the York Region District School Board, and Louise Sirisko, director of education, in a joint letter. “Those who are afflicted or are potential transmitters are not just people of Chinese origin.”

Hear, hear.

Don't castigate the Chinese for the viruses they smuggled out of Canada or their unhealthy habits or their opacity or their unwillingness to co-operate or the other illnesses that originated in China and have killed thousands or millions.




It's just money:

In a little-noticed government news release last week, Industry Minister Navdeep Bains announced a gift of $50 million to MasterCard to help them set up shop in Vancouver.

**

For example, on June 12 2017, Freeland’s limo log shows a 495 km trip . However, on June 12 2017, Freeland’s flight records indicate that she flew to Montreal to participate in the 2017 Conference of Montreal. It’s a roughly four hundred kilometer round trip in a car - Ottawa to Montreal and back. This means Freeland’s chauffeur driven car drove to Montreal without her, only to drive her around while she was there, just to drive back without her, while she flew both ways.

**

The Liberals are looking to New Zealand and Scotland to learn how future budgets could be focused less on national wealth and more on personal happiness.

While traditionally budgets have focused on broad economic figures, like unemployment and gross domestic product, the Liberal could soon spend more time on questions like how much time you spend with your kids, your level of trust in government and, fundamentally, whether you’re happy.

The Romans used to call that bread and circuses.

Canadians would vote for nothing less.

**

A new report by the Fraser Institute shows that any province can force other provinces and the federal government to renegotiate the constitution.

In what will be a welcome report to Alberta Premier Jason Kenney and Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe, the Fraser Institute made a particular note of equalization payments—finding that the payment system could be restructured.

Speaking to the Fraser Institute, Professor Rainer Knopff stated, “If Alberta charts the correct course, it can bring otherwise reluctant governments to the table to discuss fiscal federalism.”

Equalisation payments are welfare. There should be no welfare.




If you are arguing that carbon is a pollutant, you have already lost:

Maritime Iron's hopes of winning provincial approval for its proposed high-emissions iron plant appear to hinge on a federal exemption mechanism that doesn't exist.

Premier Blaine Higgs said Ottawa giving the plant a special pass will "absolutely be the decision-maker" in whether it will be allowed to add 2.3 million tonnes of greenhouse gases to New Brunswick's emissions.

Higgs said if the federal government recognizes that the plant will reduce emissions globally even while increasing them provincially, "we should be good to go," citing what he said was a similar exemption given to a liquefied natural gas plant in British Columbia.

He said his government has been working with the federal government on that possibility.

But the B.C. plant has not received any such federal exemption and there is no mechanism for Ottawa to grant one so a province can get around its own provincial emissions targets.

Also - the hypocrite premier of BC concedes to a court ruling:

Premier John Horgan has linked the battles over two major pipeline projects through British Columbia, saying once the legal fight is over, court decisions should be respected.

Horgan said Wednesday he accepts that the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion has been approved by the courts after the province’s recent defeat at the Supreme Court of Canada.

Earlier this month, the court denied British Columbia the right to regulate the contents of the pipeline. The expansion project would increase the amount of heavy oil shipped to B.C. from Alberta and mean more tanker traffic off the coast of B.C.

“Personally, I am not enamoured with the prospect of a sevenfold increase in tanker traffic in the Strait of Juan de Fuca and the Salish Sea, but the courts have determined that the project is legitimate and should proceed. That’s the Trans Mountain pipeline in the south and I acknowledge that and I respect that,” he told a news conference.

A government panel said this:

A government-appointed panel is calling for the end of advertising on the CBC while also recommending streaming giants like Netflix and Amazon be mandated to contribute to creating Canadian content.

What do you expect from a country that votes according to who will give it drugs?:

A Canadian arrested at Sydney airport on the weekend when a white substance, alleged to be methamphetamine, was found in the lining of his suitcase joins a growing list of recent Australian drug smuggling arrests linked to Canada.

I'm sure it's nothing to be concerned with:

The aging early-warning system charged with detecting incoming threats to North America cannot identify and track long-range Russian bombers before they are close enough to launch missiles at the continent, according to a senior Canadian military officer.