Mid-Week Post

 

Your mid-week stroll through the garden ... 




A government too big to fail so they get their real estate partners to do it for them:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government awarded the contract to run the $912-million student volunteer program to a foundation that only received charity status last year and whose stated purpose was to “hold real estate,” newly released records show.

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Another oddity in the Kielburger/WE real estate world is how often properties trade hands among family members and insiders. The home at 212 Carlton was sold by Mingze Li to Yutain Qi, another WE employee, and again it sold more than $250,000 below the assessed value.

The family has traded some pieces of real estate multiple times before transferring them to a numbered company for what is recorded as a $0 transaction.

Roxanne Joyal, CEO of ME to WE and also wife to Marc Kielburger, owned 1792 Lakeshore Blvd E., which overlooks Woodbine Beach, for seven years, starting in 2007.

She sold it to Victor Li and his wife in 2014 for $1.56 million. Li sold it to Fred and Theresa Kielburger in 2016 for $1.62 million.

In November 2018, the Kielburgers transferred the property to a numbered company owned by Kelly Hall-Holland, Craig Kielburger’s mother-in-law, for $0. The home is assessed at more than $1.7 million.

And try as he might, Justin can't deny his connection to the WE scandal or his direct involvement in it:

The federal government’s top public servant told MPs Tuesday that no red flags were raised within government about outsourcing a $912-million student grant program to WE Charity.

Ian Shugart, the Clerk to the Privy Council, also said there were no in-depth investigations into the financial affairs of WE Charity, an organization at the centre of controversy because Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Bill Morneau both have close family ties to it.

Yes, about that:

A co-founder of WE Charity claimed in a June 12 conference call that the Prime Minister’s Office contacted the organization directly in April to help implement a federal student volunteer grant program worth over $900 million. WE Charity is set to collect at least $19.5 million in fees to administer the program, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has faced questions over his and his family’s close links to WE Charity and how the contract was awarded.

Trudeau has maintained that the contract was handled by government bureaucrats. But in a recording of a video conference with various Canadian youth organizations obtained by the National Post, WE Charity co-founder Marc Kielburger told attendees that his organization was asked directly by the Prime Minister’s Office to help implement the new Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG) the day after it was first announced on April 22. When asked about the comment Tuesday, WE Charity told National Post that Kielburger “misspoke” and was never in contact with the PMO regarding the grant program. On Tuesday, the PMO also denied asking WE Charity to administer the CSSG.

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As the Commons finance committee prepares for more testimony on the controversial Canada Student Service Grant, WE Charity says one of the more contentious aspects of the program's design — paying students less than minimum wage for their hours of work — was the federal government's idea.

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WE Charity has received millions of taxpayer dollars from the federal government, dating back to the Stephen Harper years, but the amount of money the charity secured from Ottawa more than doubled after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals were first elected in 2015, according to federal spending reports.

 No one else can get the stink of this off of them, either:

Turns out, Chagger spoke to WE Charity co-founder Craig Kielburger on April 17th. Less than a week later, the Liberals gave WE the huge contract to run a nearly $1 billion taxpayer-funded ‘volunteer program.

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Two groups representing thousands of post-secondary students are calling on the Trudeau Liberals to abandon its troubled volunteer program and push its $900-million funding to other student supports.

The program the Liberals first unveiled in April proposed paying students up to $5,000 toward education costs based on the number of hours they volunteer.

But its rollout has stumbled after the group chosen to run it, WE Charity, backed out amid an ethical uproar involving Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The Canadian Federation of Students and the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations say it's clear the program won't provide the financial help students are looking for.

The CFS warns students may be unable to accumulate enough hours to receive grants because it's almost August and there is no clarity on when the program will launch.

"Students have waited for this program to roll out since April and now they're told they have to wait even longer," national chair Sofia Descalzi said in a statement.

Greasy wheels and so forth ...


The most opaque and corrupt government ever re-elected (headed by a coward who hid rather than show up in the House of Commons and defend his alleged lack of involvement) can hide everything from its involvement to contracts of unknown designs, but it's not like people cannot put two and two together.




Wow, people certainly have a handle on this coronavirus:

A little-known medical unit within Canadian Forces Intelligence Command briefed Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan about the COVID-19 crisis on January 17, 2020, the government confirmed in a document presented to Parliament this week.

The briefing from the medical intelligence (MEDINT) unit came 17 days after the World Health Organization (WHO) China Country Office was informed of cases of pneumonia with an unknown cause in Wuhan, in China's Hubei province.

Between December 31, 2019 and January 3, 2020, 44 patients with an unknown form of "pneumonia" were reported to the WHO by authorities in China. Thousands more such cases would follow in the days ahead.

While the minister was briefed in mid-January about the new virus, the government's incident response group — led by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and composed of cabinet ministers and other senior governmental officials — didn't meet to discuss COVID-19 until 10 days later, on January 27.

But ... but ... Trump is bad!

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The Commons health committee yesterday voted 6-5 to censor release of all records on the Public Health Agency’s management of the pandemic. Conservative and New Democrat MPs sought full disclosure of documents: “It’s just a shame, what we’re doing here.”

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Transport Canada pilots logged thousands of kilometres flying Health Minister Patricia Hajdu back and forth to her riding on weekends aboard a VIP jet.  Liberals in opposition had criticized a Conservative finance minister for using the same aircraft: “It’s a classic case of do as I say not as I do.”

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FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn said in a statement that the agency authorized the self-swab test based on data showing it is “as safe and accurate as sample collection at a doctor’s office, hospital or other testing site.”

But coronavirus home testing kits are not currently available north of the border, as they are not approved by Health Canada.

According to the government website, without the guidance of a health-care professional, there is a significant risk that someone may use the home test kit improperly or misinterpret the results.

(Sidebar: then you probably don't want to hand out abortion pills, either.)

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Americans are considering moving to Canada as the pandemic continues to spread in the United States, with over 3.7 million cases and 140,000 deaths, and nearly 2 million recorded recoveries, reports Global News.

US and Canadian immigration lawyers say there has recently been an increase in Americans looking to move north of the border.

"They’re concerned about the death rate. They’re concerned about the increase in positive cases nationwide," said US immigration lawyer Len Saunders. "They’re looking to Canada as almost a safe haven."

But don't let Canada's 8% mortality rate affect your decisions, guys.




From the most corrupt and deceptive government ever re-elected:

The Liberals have repeatedly denied they have any intention of introducing a capital gains tax when Canadians sell their principal residences.

That means the home where they live, the sale of which the federal government does not tax, as opposed to homes bought for investment or speculative purposes.

But it would be naive to think the Liberals have never considered the idea, or that they would never implement such a tax in future.

After all, they have to find ways to finance the massive federal debt they’ve rung up over the past four months to pay for all the government programs they’ve announced in response to the COVID-19 recession.

There’s only one taxpayer and there is no free lunch.

It's just money:

Nearly half a billion in pandemic relief cheques were claimed by Canadians who weren’t entitled to them, says the Department of Social Development. Opposition MPs have questioned why payments were knowingly made to 221,320 people already receiving Employment Insurance: “When it’s obvious someone is not eligible, they shouldn’t ignore that.”

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Forty-eight per cent of total respondents said the government needs to reduce spending by shutting down CERB regardless of what the impact might be on people.

While 52 per cent of respondents oppose shutting down  CERB, the poll found there is a huge difference among the provinces.

Those who believe it is time to shut down CERB come from Quebec (57 per cent) followed by Alberta (52 per cent) and British Columbia (51 per cent).

However, a huge majority (80 per cent) of people in Ontario were against ending the benefit followed by Manitoba/Saskatchewan (61 per cent), and Atlantic Canada (55 per cent).

CERB provides up to $2,000 per month for self-employed and employed Canadians who have lost work because of COVID-19.

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The Liberal government’s new wage subsidy program was denounced as a “cobweb of complexity” by Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre Monday, echoing concerns voiced by business representatives about the $82-billion program.

 Again, what do we need China for?:

The United States has told China to close its consulate in Houston, both countries said on Wednesday, deepening a deterioration in bilateral relations, and a source said Beijing was considering shutting down the U.S. consulate in Wuhan.

Washington had “abruptly demanded” closure of the Houston consulate on Tuesday, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman said, and the editor of an official media outlet said on Twitter that China had been given 72 hours to do so.

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A majority of Canadians believe the Trudeau government should rely less on trade with China and diversify to other countries, according to a new Ipsos poll conducted exclusively for Global News.

While 82 per cent of respondents said Canada should reduce its trade reliance with Beijing, 38 per cent believed Ottawa should completely sever economic ties with China.

(Sidebar: but this has nothing to do with the two Mikes or Tianemen Square or anything?)

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Already well known as a friend of China — he’d recently said that Canada had more in common with China than with the United States — McCallum listed what he saw as serious flaws in the extradition case.

Some suggested the ambassador sounded as if he were speaking for the government of China rather than defending Canada’s position. In Beijing, the Global Times praised McCallum for his ‘truth-telling’ and reproached Canadians for their lack of ‘moral righteousness’. After widespread criticism of McCallum at home, his former chief of staff characterised his speech as a ‘verbal miscue’ and defended him as ‘a fundamentally decent and optimistic man’, a longstanding Sinophile who’d travelled often to China over three decades — all of which goes a long way towards explaining how the ambassador could have fallen victim to the CCP’s psychological techniques.

A few days later McCallum followed up his advice to Meng on how to fight her extradition by saying it would be good for Canada to release her, thereby privileging the pacification of Beijing over Canada’s legal obligation to the United States. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was forced to sack him, leaving observers to puzzle over how such an experienced politician and diplomat could misfire so badly.

Others like McCallum who are targets of the CCP are wooed not by inducements, but by playing to their vanity and their desire to be agreeable. As one headline writer sardonically put it, ‘I think that Chinese official really likes me!’

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The unvarnished — and horrific — truth is that the Chinese party-state has institutionalized slavery, ramped it up to industrial scale, and offered slaves to foreign companies. Moreover, compounding its crime, China picks its slaves from racial minority groups inside its borders.

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The bottom line is that Nuctech, viewed by the U.S. security establishment as the “Huawei of airport security”, has won five contracts supplying sensitive equipment to the Canadian government (Global News reported on Friday that it has also secured four border security and customs warehouse contracts valued at $6.5 million to supply the Canadian Border Services Agency).

Nuctech is wholly owned by a government that we know spies on us. If it is not our enemy, it is certainly not our friend.

The contracts were won on price alone, under-cutting local companies that are employing Canadians in good jobs at a time of high unemployment. It seems highly likely that the low bidding price was subsidized by the Chinese government as part of a deliberate strategy to buy market share and put western competitors out of business.

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"The participants were ordered to remove crosses, religious symbols and images from the homes of people of faith who receive social welfare payments and replace them with portraits of Chairman Mao and President Xi Jinping. The officials were instructed to annul the subsidies to those who protest the order."

What can go wrong?:

The Federal Court has ruled that the Safe Third Country Agreement (STCA), which allows Canada to send certain refugee claimants back to the United States, is unconstitutional.

Hey, let's defund cops! Oh, wait!:

A New Jersey transit officer performed life-saving CPR on a lifeless baby born moments earlier in a bathroom stall.