Mid-Week Post

Your mid-week folly ... 




I'm sure this is nothing to be concerned about:

A train has derailed pulling several train cars off of the tracks according to Kingston police.

Move along. Nothing to see here.


Also:

Dennis Darby, president and CEO of Canadian Manufacturers & Exporters, said a recent survey of his members found that 92 per cent believed the blockades had damaged Canada’s international reputation.

“Canada has to be predictable and right now up until the last little while we have not looked that predictable,” he said. “When you are an export focused country like Canada, where 80 per cent of it goes to the U.S., you have to have predictable infrastructure.”

Darby said half of his members said in an internal survey they had been hit with extra costs, because of the blockades, and 42 per cent slowed production because they couldn’t get products to market.

He said for manufacturers these blockades came just as supply routes from China were struggling due to the coronavirus.

The trifecta of Chinese, governmental and Big Aboriginal corruption, the tanking economy (more on that later) and the coronavirus originating in a country someone (Trudeau) not only admires deeply but tried to install as a main trading partner instead of the US is the just the thing to precipitate an economic depression that would make the Great Depression appear small by comparison.




I'm sure this is nothing at all to be concerned with:

The Bank of Canada expects business and consumer confidence to deteriorate further.

Canada’s central bank followed the U.S. Federal Reserve’s lead, which cut its rate by 50 basis points yesterday following a meeting of G7 finance minister and central bankers.

Australia and Malaysia’s central banks also cut their rates.

“The Bank continues to closely monitor economic and financial conditions, in coordination with other G7 central banks and fiscal authorities,” said the Bank of Canada.

So goes the US, so goes the floundering Dominion of Canada.


Also - until the Canadian electorate starts tying in MPs' pensions with every single error they make, yes they can shrug off one of our main exports:

For the government of a country that may be on the brink of recession to shrug its shoulders at the demise of its largest export industry – more than twice the value of auto shipments and three times that of base metals – does not suggest stellar leadership, particularly when the integrity of the country itself may be at stake.

Whatever you say, Mr. Ad-Scam:

Jean Chretien scoffs at the notion that Indigenous protests and western alienation are a threat to Canada’s national unity.

Let us know how you feel when Quebec gets cut off, you senile, old  crook.




The most powerful union in the country can get what it wants because no government has seen to hamstring it, Doug:

Ontario’s Progressive Conservative government almost entirely backed down Tuesday on two of the major issues for teachers in a bitter round of contract negotiations that has been marked by escalating strikes and acrimony.

Long before bargaining started last year, the government announced new mandatory e-learning courses and large increases to high school class sizes, angering teachers and setting the stage for tense talks.

Partial backtracks late last year from the government did nothing to quell the growing labour unrest and Education Minister Stephen Lecce on Tuesday announced a near-total capitulation on both fronts.

Ontario is now offering an increase in average high school class sizes to 23 — just one student over last year’s levels, and a far cry from the 28-student average class the province initially announced.

“We have been negotiating for hundreds and hundreds of days with an impasse,” Lecce said at a press conference. “The ball is in their court now. We’ve made a significant move that is in the interest of students.”

**

The Ford government moved further on class sizes on Tuesday, saying that they would agree to an average high school class size of 23, allow parents to opt their high school aged kids out of online learning but otherwise stick to their guns.

That means a wage increase of 1% per year, merit-based hiring for teachers instead of seniority, and putting special education funding to school boards instead of through unions.

In essence, the government is trying to give parents most of what they want while also containing rising education costs.

The late afternoon announcement by Education Minister Stephen Lecce was denounced by union leaders Liz Stuart of the Catholic teachers and Harvey Bischof of the high school teachers union.

Their anger, possibly from being outmanoeuvred, is the only thing that tells me the government may have found a winning formula here.

“The ball is in their court now,” Lecce said during his news conference.

How many teachers, teacher's aides and special-education professionals could be hired if the Ontario teachers' unions weren't as powerful - and greedy - as they are?




What should Canada do about problems in India? Nothing:

Part of the purpose of the protests is also to call on the Canadian government to condemn the violence, which was sparked by a controversial law passed in India in December, making it easier for persecuted minorities from neighbouring countries to gain Indian citizenship.

The bill, however, specifically excludes Muslims.

Residents here can feel free to move themselves to India and deal with those issues as they seem to feel more kinship with the country they left than the one they currently live in.




Wow. People totally have a handle on this coronavirus thing:

Three more cases of the novel coronavirus have been confirmed in British Columbia, bringing the total of people infected to 12 in the province. ...

Canada now has 33 cases of the new coronavirus, most of them in Ontario.

**

South Korea struggled to find enough beds for its sick, Italy grappled with a rising number of deaths and concern grew over an expanding outbreak in the United States on Wednesday as the new virus that tormented China expanded elsewhere.

**

The World Health Organization (WHO) on Tuesday warned of a global shortage and price gouging for protective equipment to fight the fast-spreading coronavirus and asked companies and governments to increase production by 40% as the death toll from the respiratory illness mounted.