Mid-Week Post

Your middle-of-the-week moment of clarity ...




NO!:

Christie Blatchford, a powerful public voice through nearly five decades of journalism, has died after being diagnosed with cancer in November.

Blatchford was one of Canada’s most prominent writers, having been a leading journalist at each of Toronto’s daily newspapers, a trailblazer for women in sports reporting, an award-winning war correspondent, and a columnist renowned for her vexing mix of toughness and tenderness.

She was 68.

More of her well-deserved accolades:

She was a real journalist. She loved this sometimes dubious craft and was one of the very few who lent it lustre, lifted its practice and endowed it with trust. She was like that occasional politician of whom we say that he or she provides the rare example that redeems the profession. She was sharp, clear and unbendable on her principles. She courted no group, bowed to no fad, curried no favour and always said what it was she thought should be said without equivocation, always getting straight to the heart of what was at issue.

**

The talents of “Blatch” cannot easily be matched. But what made her truly admirable can be emulated, which was her courage. She told the truth in a profession where that should be the default position. Instead, too many journalists are inclined bleach their copy until it is comfortably bland. Blatch never bleached.

Christie Blatchford was a pillar of sense and reason in a profession devoid of it.

Nothing will ever be the same.

With wankers like these running about, one needs her clarity and steeliness:

The attempted assassin who was invited to a state dinner at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s infamous India trip was arrested in British Columbia on Monday.

Jaspal Atwal, the convicted of attempted murder for his role in the 1986 attempt to assassinate Punjab minister Malkiat Singh Sidhu, allegedly made threats to a former coworker of his.

According to True North, Atwal allegedly threatened a former colleague of his from Media Waves Radio, Ashiana Khan, while having dinner with a small group at the Civic Hotel in Surrey, BC.

According to a source, Atwal threatened the group by telling them that he would “finish them all off.” He then threatened to take photos. Atwal then took photos of Khan’s vehicle in the building’s parking facility. Atwal was then arrested and taken into custody by Surrey RCMP. 

This isn’t the first arrest for Atwal since Trudeau’s disastrous India trip—a trip in which Atwal was an invited guest to dinners, and was even photographed with Sophie Trudeau.

“His Excellency Nadir Patel, High Commissioner for Canada to India, is pleased to invite Jaspal Atwal to a dinner reception celebrating Canada-India ties on the occasion of the visit of The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada,” read an invitation to the dinner reception.

According to a report by the Toronto Sun, Atwal was arrested in April of 2018, again for allegedly uttering threats. Atwal appeared in Surrey Provincial Court in July, 2019.

Atwal was formerly a member of a Khalistani separatist group, the International Sikh Youth Federation. That group was designated a terrorist entity by the Canadian government. 

**

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has run afoul of federal ethics rules yet again — this time missing the deadline for filing a financial disclosure statement with the ethics commissioner.

Every MP is required to file a disclosure statement within 60 days of his or her election being published in the Canada Gazette; in Trudeau’s case, the deadline was Jan. 13.

Of the 338 MPs elected last October, only 13, including Trudeau, had failed to file their statements as of Feb. 5, the last time commissioner Mario Dion’s office updated a status report on members’ compliance with the disclosure requirement.

The Prime Minister’s Office says the failure to file was an administrative oversight that is being corrected.

The compliance status report, available on the ethics commissioner’s website, is to be updated again Wednesday.

There is no penalty for missing the deadline for filing the statements, in which MPs are supposed to detail their own and family members’ private interests, as a hedge against winding up in a conflict of interest.

What country are you living in? Everything in this country is for one politician or another's interest.

**

Why would Justin care? The spoiled trust-fund loser has learned that not only does he not have to feel accountable, he isn't accountable.

Elections have consequences:

Canada is slowly turning from democracy to mobocracy, as the rule of law is tested from coast to coast.

From blocked intersections in downtown Toronto, to journalists and legislators being barred entry to the B.C. legislature; from an obstructed CN line affecting rail traffic out of the port of Prince Rupert, to the barricades impeding Via Rail’s service between Toronto and Montreal, Canada is slowly being choked into submission.

**

Chaos has come to Canada.

If Prime Minister Justin Trudeau does not make the right moves in the next month, the chaos will become more intense and have a different flavour. It won’t only be wild-eyed activists blockading roads, railways and legislature buildings, it will be the people of Alberta rising up against Ottawa like never before.

These protests:

Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was briefly blocked from entering Halifax city hall on Wednesday afternoon by demonstrators supporting the Wet'suwet'en First Nation's opposition to the construction of a gas pipeline through northern B.C.

**

As protests against a natural gas pipeline through the interior of British Columbia continued across the country on Wednesday, two Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs who oppose the project crossing their territory moved to get the federal courts to put an end to construction.

(Sidebar: is Kim Jong-Un a hereditary chief?)

**

It is, in the common man's parlance, known as the truth:

The Alberta government says a First Nation's concerns about the proposed Teck Frontier oilsands mine are more about getting a bigger share of the royalties than about protecting water, bison and other environmental concerns.

Prove one wrong.


(Sidebar: follow the money.) 


As I said before, cow-catchers are in order:

The Regina Police Service (RPS) say no charges will be laid after a vehicle drove through Wet’suwet’en supporters on the weekend.

Several videos posted online showed a blue car driving through protesters who were blocking Albert Memorial Bridge on Feb 8.

Apparently, it's not as bad as the flu or some such rot:

The Chinese province at the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak reported a record rise in the death toll on Thursday, as global health experts warned the epidemic could get far worse before it is brought under control.

Health officials in Hubei province said 242 people had died from the flu-like virus on Wednesday, the fastest rise in the daily count since the pathogen was identified in December, and bringing the total number of deaths in the province to 1,310. The previous record rise in the toll was 103 on Feb. 10.

**

Another 39 people have tested positive for the coronavirus on the Diamond Princess cruise ship quarantined in Japan, with one quarantine officer also infected, bringing the total to 175, the health ministry said on Wednesday.

The Diamond Princess was placed in quarantine for two weeks on arriving in Yokohama, south of Tokyo, on Feb. 3, after a man who disembarked in Hong Kong was diagnosed with the virus.

The epidemic originated in mainland China, where more than 1,100 people have now died of the virus.

It is looking like an increasing economic threat for Japan, where manufacturers are reliant on Chinese companies for parts, and shops and hotels dependent on Chinese tourists.

Well, maybe one should stop relying on China.