Mid-Week Post

Six more shopping days until Saint Patrick's Day ...




From the most corrupt government ever re-elected:

A parliamentary bid to further investigate the SNC-Lavalin scandal has been shut down with the Bloc Québécois being accused of making a “deal” with the Liberals.

Conservative MP Michael Barrett, who was pushing to deepen an earlier ethics probe, said the move suggests the “return of the Liberal-Bloc coalition” was at hand.

Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, a rookie Bloc MP, voted against a Conservative motion tabled in the House Ethics committee on Monday, which called for further study into the Ethics Commissioner’s report last year that found Prime Minister Justin Trudeau broke conflict of interest laws. The motion, put forward by Barrett, was similar to an earlier motion in February that was also voted down by the Bloc.

**

The Department of Infrastructure cannot account for billions budgeted for public works, the Commons finance committee was told yesterday. The Parliamentary Budget Office said it tried and failed since January to have the department disclose a list of new roads, bridges and utilities financed by taxpayers: “If they know they aren’t telling us.”

**

The Department of Industry says Canadians “gain wealth” from corporate subsidies but can’t explain inflated job claims. The Commons finance committee yesterday opened an unprecedented inquiry on the scope of aid to companies: “Is it true?”

Dogs have been known to return to their own vomit.

Case in point:

After surveying 1,000 Canadians, the Ipsos poll found that Canada-wide approval of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government increased as much as 8 per cent since last week.

Canada’s approval now sits at 48 per cent, with nine per cent indicating they “strongly” approve and another 39 per cent saying they “somewhat” approve of the government’s performance.

I would like to apologise ... to dogs.

It was wrong to compare things as useful as you to Canadians who are too weak to get that a mob held a country hostage and still is:

Theresa Tait Day, a former Wet’suwet’en hereditary leader, told MPs a pipeline project had been “hijacked” by five male chiefs and criticized Liberal cabinet ministers for making a secret deal with them.

Speaking at a House of Commons committee meeting, Tait Day said the decision last month to meet with hereditary chiefs was a mistake.

“The government has legitimized the meeting with the five hereditary chiefs and left out their entire community,” she said. “We can not be dictated to by a group of five guys.”

That's why you deserve to walk to work from Niagara Falls to Toronto and why you deserve shortages and why you deserve to eventually be laid off.

Had this been about beer, donuts or drugs, you would outraged.

I'm sorry, guys.

Also - but ... but the welcome mat!:

The Trudeau government has provided financing for police training and surveillance equipment to at least seven Southeast Asian countries with histories of human rights violations — Myanmar, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Thailand — to intercept irregular migrants and smugglers.

Are the voters blocks too big now? 




But they said this simply could not happen!:

The World Health Organization says the COVID-19 outbreak has become a pandemic.

Its director general says the virus that causes the respiratory illness can still be fought but some countries are struggling with a lack of resources and some with a lack of resolve.

“We are deeply concerned both by the alarming levels of spread and severity and by the alarming levels of inaction. We have therefore made the assessment that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic,” Director General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a news conference.

Don't worry. Everything is under control. 

Thank God money grows on trees.

Oh, wait ... :

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a $1 billion aid package Wednesday meant to help Canadians deal with the coronavirus outbreak.

The money will flow to provinces to help them with an anticipated surge in cases of the virus that has so far made 95 Canadians sick and killed an elderly person in B.C.

The money includes $500 million to the provinces to aid their responses, and additional $275 million for research money to raise public awareness and other measures. There was also $100 million for the federal response, which includes support to national testing labs, Indigenous communities and bulk buying of protective equipment.

(Sidebar: because priorities.)

People are well aware of the coronavirus, Alberta (as usual) gets the short-end of the stick and there is no explanation why flights to China have not ceased or why the ingrates received aid last month.

They gave us this virus, as one will remember.


But that's not all that China does:

Several of the contracts indicate the local institutes must accept the agency headquarters’ assessment of “teaching quality.” One at the University of Waterloo-affiliated Renison College says any disagreements about running the institute should be referred to the Beijing headquarters, called Hanban.

Almost all bar the institutes from contravening Canadian or Chinese law, the latter routinely excoriated for its abuse of basic human rights. They also require compliance with the institute’s own constitution and bylaws. To this day, Hanban’s website says overseas teachers must have “no record of participation in Falun Gong and other illegal organizations,” a clear violation of Canadian constitutional and rights law.

Brock University in St. Catharines, Ont., even pledged to find a “prominent location” to erect a statue of Confucius to advertise the institute’s presence.

“I would say (Confucius headquarters) have absolute control,” said lawyer Clive Ansley  after reviewing some of the contracts. The former China studies professor practiced for several years in the country. “Any decision on what they call teaching quality, teaching materials, it’s all going to be made by Hanban.”

Also:

The University of Victoria has cancelled a conservative activist from speaking at a “free speech club,” because there were "considerable concerns around safety and security for this event."

More people were killed in the bombing of Tokyo than were killed in both Hiroshima and Nagasaki:

Though the Dresden firebombings and the atomic bombs that struck Hiroshima and Nagasaki are much better known, they did not kill as many people as the massive bomber attack on the heart of Tokyo on March 10, 1945.

Curiously, there have been no high-profile public memorials planned in Japan to commemorate what was arguably the most destructive air raid ever carried out.

The Pope needs to be seen by his people:

Pope Francis, holed up in the Vatican by Italy’s coronavirus epidemic, held his first virtual general audience on Wednesday, thanking medical staff but urging the world not to forget the plight of Syrian refugees.

(Sidebar: what about Christians?)
 

Most of Francis’ general audiences are held in St. Peter’s Square and attract tens of thousands of people.

But the square was empty on Wednesday as the Vatican, which is surrounded by Rome, adhered to a national lockdown aimed at stopping the virus by outlawing gatherings in public.

Francis and ten priests, some of whom translate his words into other languages – all sitting in a horseshoe pattern of chairs with space between them – gathered in the official papal library for an audience that was streamed on the internet and broadcast live on television.