For a Friday

So much going on ...




The least transparent, most corrupt and incredibly crippling government ever re-elected:

On Feb. 4, the Federal Court of Appeal dismissed yet another clutch of frivolous claims to try and halt the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, after Indigenous claimants tried to make the case that the years of government consultations over the project weren’t sufficient.

Ironically, the leaders of the country’s 632 First Nations aren’t required to, and often do not, consult with their own band members. This is because Canada has gradually ceded its oversight powers to band chiefs and councils, without checks and balances, or any semblance of accountability — a devolution of power that has worsened since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took power in 2015, according to Indigenous lawyer and activist Catherine Twinn.

In 2015, for instance, Trudeau decided that the federal government would not enforce the First Nations Financial Transparency Act (FNFTA). The law requires Indigenous leaders, often inherited chiefs, to be accountable and transparent by forcing them to publish audits of band expenses, including their compensation.

And this is the result:

High-volume passenger and freight train travel between Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa is at a standstill Friday during a solidarity protest for opponents of a natural gas pipeline being built through Wet’suwet’en territory in northern British Columbia.

This isn't merely geographical ignorance. This smells of big anti-oil money.

To wit:

LeadNow was named in an official complaint to Elections Canada that alleged foreign funding and foreign interference in the 2015 federal election campaign. That report alleged that the U.S-based Tides Foundation donated $1.5 million of U.S. funds to Canadian third-party groups.

The Sun has also learned that Tides Canada will also receive two Canada Summer Jobs grants for its work in British Columbia.

As surely as Justin hates Alberta as his father did (because Justin isn't original enough to hate a completely different thing on his own)  and reduce it to beggar status that still gives welfare to Quebec, no pipeline will ever get built or added to:

Delays and design changes have driven the cost to build the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion up by about 70 per cent to $12.6 billion from the $7.4 billion estimate made three years ago, the company says.

The project has cost about $2.5 billion to date, including the impact of delays and additional regulatory processes, leaving an additional $8.4 billion needed to complete construction, plus $1.7 billion of financial carrying costs, said president and CEO Ian Anderson on a conference call on Friday.

He said the project owned by the federal government is now expected to be in service by December 2022.

Because priorities:

Justin Trudeau has landed in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he will be the first Canadian prime minister to take part in a session of the African Union.

The eight-day trip, which will include an official visit to Senegal, is designed largely to woo support from African nations as Canada tries to secure a seat on the United Nations Security Council in June.

When Trump wins his second term (and he will because he creates jobs which is what the Americans elected him to do), one of his first priorities should be to remove the United States and its precious funding from the United Nations, the same one that allows North Korea-supporting China and Russia to permanently sit on the security council and sat idly by as thousands of Rwandans were hacked to death, not only because it is an insidious step to a one-word government but also because it would screw PM Blackface's chances at gloating and getting paid for it.




I'm sure it's nothing at all to worry about because the Canadian government said so and we all know how truthful they are and fully prepared to handle any crisis that comes their way:

Five more Canadians on a cruise ship that has been quarantined off the coast of Japan have tested positive for the new coronavirus, bringing the total on board the vessel to seven.

The Canadians were among 41 positive tests for the virus identified in the latest round of tests conducted by the Japanese Ministry of Health, according to a statement from Princess Cruises, the operator of the Diamond Princess.

**

The first Canadian rescue plane to depart the mass quarantine zone in Wuhan, a sprawling metropolis about 800 km inland from Shanghai, took off, after several delays, Thursday afternoon EST, according to Canadian government officials.

On board were 176 passengers, including as many as 34 minors, who had all been stuck in the locked-down Hubei province, epicentre of the novel coronavirus, for weeks. Two hundred eleven passengers, mostly Canadian citizens, but also 12 permanent residents and six Chinese citizens with Canadians visas, were originally scheduled to depart Thursday. But that number shrank considerably as the day went on.

At a news conference Thursday afternoon, Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Phillippe Champagne said some passengers might have simply changed their minds. Other may have shown signs of illness and denied the right to board.

Not one of them should have been allowed to return to Canada. Not one.

**

Not bloody likely:

Canadian health officials are escalating their response to the growing coronavirus outbreak, urging anyone returning from the Chinese province at the centre of the outbreak to voluntarily quarantine themselves for 14 days.

Also:

A Chinese doctor reprimanded for warning of a "SARS-like" coronavirus before it was officially recognised died of the illness on Friday, triggering anger at the government.

The death of Li Wenliang, 34, came as President Xi Jinping reassured the United States and the World Health Organization (WHO) of transparency and maximum effort to combat the virus.

As having no law at all extends even to infanticide, one must be appalled at the utter unwillingness to draw a line somewhere:

Health Minister Danielle McCann believes there should be more accessibility to late-term abortions in Quebec, pointing to a study claiming there is not a sufficient amount of late-term abortion services.

McCann points to a recent report commissioned by the College of Physicians by the clinical ethics working group as reported by La Presse, which explains that services for abortions in the third trimester are harder to access than abortions in the first and second trimesters, when most abortions occur.

According to the report, pregnant women have been turned away from hospitals in Canada due to doctors not wanting to abort third-trimester abortions due to the stigma that surrounds them.

When McCann was asked about the study at the National Assembly of Quebec this Wednesday, the health minister said that she was looking into creating what she called an “additional team” that would travel from one establishment to another to conduct the abortions.

What next?  How about being relived of every single penny he has and work from there:

Omar Khadr, who has served out his prison term, and is now a free man in Canada, has lost a pre-trial decision in an Ontario court about whether or not he has to answer questions pertaining to an attempt to collect damages awarded by a U.S. court.

To be precise, an Ontario court has said Khadr must say which items on a 50-point statement of facts — which he signed in 2010 as part of a war crimes guilty plea before a discredited military commission —  that he disagrees with. Khadr maintains he signed the statement after being abused in prison in Guantanamo Bay, and says he did so only to get back to Canada to serve out his sentence.

(Merci and paws up)