The federal Conservatives are calling on WE Charity to release a
series of documents the Toronto-based youth organization promised to
hand over to a House of Commons committee before Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau prorogued Parliament.
But WE is pushing back against the Tories' request, with the
organization's legal counsel saying it amounts to "politics, not proper
process."
The Tories’ request is contained in a letter sent Sunday from
Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre and ethics critic Michael
Barrett to Craig and Marc Kielburger, the brothers who co-founded WE
more than 20 years ago.
It represents the official Opposition’s
latest effort to continue digging into the decision to have WE run a
multimillion-dollar student-volunteer program, after Trudeau temporarily
shuttered several Commons committee investigations by proroguing
Parliament on Aug. 18.
In their letter, Poilievre and Barrett
note the Kielburgers and other WE officials committed to provide members
of Parliament with answers to several questions they were unable to
answer while appearing before the finance committee.
A top Democratic operative says voter fraud, especially with mail-in
ballots, is no myth. And he knows this because he’s been doing it, on a
grand scale, for decades.
Mail-in ballots have become the latest flashpoint in the 2020
elections. While President Trump and the GOP warn of widespread
manipulation of the absentee vote that will swell with COVID polling
restrictions, many Democrats and their media allies have dismissed such
concerns as unfounded.
But the political insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity
because he fears prosecution, said fraud is more the rule than the
exception. His dirty work has taken him through the weeds of municipal
and federal elections in Paterson, Atlantic City, Camden, Newark,
Hoboken and Hudson County and his fingerprints can be found in local
legislative, mayoral and congressional races across the Garden State.
Some of the biggest names and highest office holders in New Jersey have
benefited from his tricks, according to campaign records The Post
reviewed.
“An election that is swayed by 500 votes, 1,000 votes — it can make a
difference,” the tipster said. “It could be enough to flip states.”
The whisteblower — whose identity, rap sheet and long history working
as a consultant to various campaigns were confirmed by The Post — says
he not only changed ballots himself over the years, but led teams of
fraudsters and mentored at least 20 operatives in New Jersey, New York
and Pennsylvania — a critical 2020 swing state.
Foreign Minister Wang Yi told
reporters in Germany that Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil’s trip
was a “betrayal” that made him “an enemy of 1.4 billion Chinese people.”
Vystrcil is leading a 90-member delegation to Taiwan, including Prague
Mayor Zdenek Hrib, a Beijing critic who in January made Taipei a sister
city to the Czech capital.
“China will not sit idle and tolerate the Czech Senate leader’s
provocation and the anti-China forces behind him,” Wang said. “We will
make them pay a heavy price for such short-sighted behavior and
political speculation.”
The Czech delegation represents Taipei’s
second high-profile foreign visit in recent weeks, bolstering President
Tsai Ing-wen’s effort to fight an isolation campaign by Beijing. Earlier
this month, U.S. Health Secretary Alex Azar became the most senior
American official to visit Taiwan since Washington switched diplomatic
ties to Beijing from Taipei in 1979.
Vystrcil told an investment
forum Monday that he aimed to deepen trade ties between the two sides,
and that Czech entrepreneurs wanted to make connections with Taiwanese
businesses. He didn’t comment on Wang’s remarks.
The federal Liberal government is facing increasingly frustrated and
worried calls to help people leave Hong Kong for Canada as China
continues to crack down on pro-democracy activists in the former British
colony.
The
exasperation follows Ottawa's suspension of an extradition treaty with
Hong Kong in early July after Beijing passed a national security law for
the territory.
Critics
say the law is being used to crack down on democracy in Hong Kong and
put it more firmly under the communist regime's heel, and violates
Beijing's promise to maintain a high degree of autonomy for Hong
Kong after China took it over from Britain in 1997.
In
early July, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself announced the treaty
suspension along with a ban on the export of military goods before
asserting that the federal government was looking at a variety of
additional responses, including on immigration.
The
hope for activists, human-rights groups and others at the time was that
the measures were the first in a series of actions aimed at supporting
the people of Hong Kong, particularly those trying to fight China's
increasing control of the territory.
A federal judge on Friday rejected the New York Times’ bid to dismiss
Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit over a 2017 editorial she said falsely
linked her to a mass shooting.
U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan said that while much of
Palin’s case was circumstantial, it was strong enough for a jury to find
the Times and former editorial page editor James Bennet acted with
“actual malice by clear and convincing evidence.” in publishing the
editorial.
The National
Research Council of Canada said Thursday the CanSino Biologics vaccine
intended for phase one clinical trials has not been approved by Chinese
customs for shipment to Canada.
Canada’s foreign minister raised the arbitrary detention of Michael
Kovrig and Michael Spavor in a meeting with his Chinese counterpart this
week, but did not warn the Chinese of new sanctions or consequences for
the ongoing imprisonment of the two men.
“I told him that
arbitrary detention was certainly not conducive to relations between
states ever but certainly now,” Foreign minister François-Philippe
Champagne said of his meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.
The number of women coming to Canada to give birth, which
automatically bestows citizenship on the baby, is expanding much faster
in British Columbia than the rest of the country.
Richmond
Hospital is the centre of the trend, often called “birth tourism.” New
data released this week shows one out of four births in the past year at
the hospital in the Vancouver suburb, which features many illicit
“birth hotels” advertising their services in Asia, were to foreign
nationals.
Not that Canadian citizenship even matters anymore.
The Chinese Coast Guard has intercepted and arrested at least ten people
reportedly trying to flee from Hong Kong to Taiwan during a crackdown on
the city’s pro-democracy movement.
The
authorities in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong announced the
arrests on social media, revealing that the boat had been stopped by
coast guard officials on Sunday.
The
South China Morning Post identified one of those on the vessel as Andy
Li, who was arrested earlier this month under a sweeping and
controversial national security law imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong in
June, and which can mete out life sentences for subversion.
Refugees of a different sort but their circumstances are familiar.
... say people who have never left their homes since their idiot government put them under house arrest and are disincentivised to work:
Canadians believe the COVID-19 crisis has brought their country
together, while Americans blame the pandemic for worsening their
cultural and political divide, a new international public opinion survey
suggests.
Fully two-thirds of Canadian respondents to the Pew
Research Center study released Thursday say they believe Canada is more
united as a result of the novel coronavirus, while 77 per cent of U.S.
participants feel precisely the opposite is true south of the border.
The self-consciousness of a country that worked its way from a proud fledgling nation into a pile of inferiority is just astounding.
Restaurant owners issued a stark warning to federal policymakers on
Wednesday, saying that more than half of all Canadian eateries could go
out of business in the next three months as the pandemic continues to
discourage people from dining out.
Restaurants Canada, a lobby
group representing 30,000 firms, has been meeting federal officials and
calling for a range of supports for the food service sector, which has
been clobbered by COVID-19 lockdowns.
The federalConservatives are calling on a speaking agency through which WE Charity paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to members of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau‘s family to hand over all documents about the arrangements.
The
request is contained in a letter from Conservative ethics critic
Michael Barrett to Speakers’ Spotlight on Thursday and comes amid a
brewing battle over the blacking out of thousands of other WE-related
documents released by Trudeau last week.
In his letter to
Speakers’ Spotlight, Barrett notes the agency was first asked by the
House of Commons ethics committee to produce the documents last month.
The initial deadline was July 29 for all records pertaining to
speaking appearances by Trudeau, his wife Sophie Gregoire Trudeau,
mother Margaret Trudeau and brother Alexandre Trudeau at different WE
events dating back to October 2008.
The agency subsequently
asked for an extension and the committee agreed to a new date of Aug.
19. Trudeau prorogued Parliament one day before that new deadline,
ending the committee investigations that were underway into the WE
controversy.
Parliament is set to return Sept. 23 with a new speech from the throne.
**
A non-partisan parliamentary official is pushing back against the
decision by several federal departments to submit thousands of pages of
documents to a House of Commons committee with redactions already made,
saying it’s not up to the government to black out parts of the tabled
documents.
One of the last acts of Parliament allowed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau before ordering it prorogued was for 5,000 pages of documents to be distributed to members of the Commons finance committee, containing correspondence
about the Liberal government’s decision to grant WE Charity a
controversial agreement to administer the $500-million Canada Student
Service Grant (CSSG).
In a letter obtained by iPolitics,
Philippe Dufresne, the law clerk and parliamentary counsel for the House
of Commons, said the Commons and its committees are the appropriate authority to determine acceptable reasons for withholding the documents.
“As my office has not been given the
opportunity to see the un-redacted documents, we are not able to confirm
whether those redactions are consistent with the order of the
committee,” he wrote to committee clerk David Gagnon in a letter dated
Aug. 18.
The Commons finance committee on July
7 adopted a motion calling for any documents between the government and
WE Charity — or from senior officials for cabinet ministers regarding the CSSG from March 2020 — be provided to the committee no later than Aug. 8. The
motion stipulated that any redactions be made specifically by the
Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel of the House of
Commons.
Information appropriate for redaction
includes that which would protect the privacy of Canadian citizens and
permanent residents whose names and personal information may be included
in the documents, as well as public servants who helped craft the CSSG
program.
In his letter, Dufresne said the clerk of the Privy Council, the deputy minister of the Department of Finance, the deputy and the senior associate deputy ministers of Employment and Social Development of Canada, the deputy minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, and the Secretary of the Treasury Board (TBS) provided the committee with documents for their respective departments between Aug. 9 and Aug. 17.
The documents contained letters from each department stating that
redactions had been made: to protect cabinet confidence in accordance
with the motion; to protect personal information in accordance with the
Privacy Act; and to protect third-party information and information on
the vulnerability of their computer or communication systems, or
methods.
In his response, Dufresne said Commons committees have the power to
order the production of records, which supersedes the powers of the
statutory obligations of the departments.
The WE scandal isn't the only pool of slime coming from the Liberal Party and its mincingpuppet-head:
B.C. MP Kerry-Lynne Findlay is facing criticism after claiming that
Canadians should be disturbed by the “closeness” between Canada’s
finance minister and George Soros, an internationally known philanthropist who is frequently mentioned in far-right and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.
Prove her wrong. Any time someone cries about these things, it only makes everyone more interested.
**
Marwan Tabbara, an Ontario MP facing assault and break and enter
charges, made a short appearance in court on Thursday, where his case
was adjourned to next month.
Tabbara, 36, was charged with two
counts of assault, one count of break and enter and commit an indictable
offence, and one count of criminal harassment on April 10.
You’ve probably heard by now that Pam Damoff, Liberal Member of Parliament for Oakville North—Burlington posted a letter this week urging our new leader Erin O’Toole to eject me from the CPC caucus.
That’s right, a Liberal MP publicly briefed the newly minted Conservative leader on what he should do with his caucus. ...
Pam Damoff is typical of the Liberals in her promotion of “diversity”, which never includes diversity of opinion.
In 2017, Damoff was instrumental in barring Conservative MP Rachael
Harder from chairing the House of Commons Committee on the Status of
Women because of Harder’s pro-life views.
Interestingly, Ms. Damoff’s definition of inclusiveness does extend to ISIS militants returning to Canada, as she made clear during a Status of Women Committee meeting in 2018.
That’s when Damoff led the charge to stop a motion to study the
impact that returning ISIS terrorists would have on Yazidi women and
girls who had suffered at the hands of ISIS before finding refuge in
Canada. Damoff chose ISIS radicals over victims of rape and sex-trafficking.
Let’s be honest: MP Damoff’s maneuver is a political attack designed to divide our Party under its new leadership.
This attack was made at the behest of her party, because her
party is afraid. They also hate the fact that I stand up for
conservative principles, without apology.
The Canadian economy suffered its worst three-month stretch on record
in the second quarter as the economy came to a near halt in April
before starting to recover in May and June.
Statistics Canada
said Friday real gross domestic product contracted at an annualized
rate of 38.7 per cent for the quarter, the worst posting for the economy
dating back to when comparable data was first recorded in 1961.
Almost
every single component of the economy used to calculate GDP was at its
lowest point during the three-month stretch — driven largely by
widespread lockdowns in April meant to slow the spread of COVID-19
The unmooring of Canada’s fiscal anchor — an explicit commitment to
balanced budgets — and the failure to replace it with a convincing
alternative contributed to Fitch Ratings’ decision in June to remove Canada from its exclusive club of AAA sovereigns.
The agency reckons
that Canada’s potential growth rate — the pace at which the economy can
expand without stoking rapid inflation — has shrunk to a mere one per
cent, raising questions about whether politicians will be able to rely
on economic growth alone to shrink their COVID-19 deficits.
**
The federal government ran a deficit of $120.4 billion during the
first three months of its 2020-2021 fiscal year as the treasury pumped
out aid to cushion the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The result compared with a deficit of $85 million for the same period in the 2019-2020 fiscal year.
**
Alberta’s estimated massive budget deficit this
year could mark a record for the province and could emerge as the
largest deficit in percentage terms for any province in the country over
the past 35 years.
Alberta’s government
tabled a fiscal update Thursday that showed an expected budget deficit
of $24.2 billion, which is 230 per cent, or $16.8 billion, higher than
its previous budget for 2020/21 announced in February.
The
coronavirus pandemic, related collapse in oil prices this year and
sharp decline in tourism has hit Alberta’s economy particularly hard,
Bank of Montreal chief economist and managing director Doug Porter said
Thursday.
“Let’s face it, every single
budget deficit number (within Canada and beyond) that we’re seeing tends
to be shocking because they’re all numbers we’ve never seen before,”
Porter said, but cautioned that “proportionately, Alberta’s is large.
It’s the largest provincial deficit number as a share of GDP,” he said.
(Sidebar: it must suck when Canada's responsible adult among the provinces is going under.)
A resident at a downtown Toronto
condominium says she’s scared to leave her own home, pointing to a
number of problems resulting from a temporary homeless shelter set up
adjacent to her building.
“The concierge was attacked with an axe a
couple of weeks ago, I personally now choose not to walk on York Street
at all,” says Claire, who did not give her last name and who has lived
at 33 University Ave. for nearly two decades.
She and a number of
other residents have voiced concerns to their property manager about the
Strathcona Hotel becoming a temporary shelter.
They say problems
range from finding dirty needles on the property to shelter residents
urinating on the flower beds and some allegedly accosting those who live
in the condo building.
Ask this concerned citizen if she still has a problem with drugs sites in other neighbourhoods not near hers.
Protesters in Montreal toppled and defaced a statue of John A.
Macdonald at the end of a demonstration calling on cities to defund
police departments.
A spokesman for the Montreal police confirmed
the statue of Canada’s first prime minister was unbolted, pulled down
and sprayed with graffiti at around 2:45 p.m.
**
Maybe the police should be defunded:
I always wonder how people get so far along into this kinda thing without any authorities intervening to stop it. Like, there must have been a good, 10-20 minutes of set-up time, no? https://t.co/vZLB3sDkeA
Chinese prison labour was assigned to work at a Canadian-owned mask
factory in Shanghai, according to the Communist Party press. The
Department of Public Works has said it does not know if it purchased
slave-made goods: “We do the job not for a reward but driven by our
inner eagerness.”
**
A federal mask supplier AMD Medicom Inc. yesterday said it never shipped
any goods made by Chinese prison labour to Canada. Communist Party
authorities in Shanghai had directed prisoners to work at a Medicom
plant in Shanghai, according to the local Party press: “The town
government called for volunteers to help mask maker Medicom.”
So, it was local slave labour, not prison slave labour.
“I would like to stress once again that things between China and
Canada have come to this stage not because of China,” Chinese foreign
ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said during a news conference in Beijing
on Wednesday.
“The Canadian side is well aware of the crux of the
problem. It should take immediate and effective measures to correct the
mistakes and create conditions for bilateral relations to return to the
right track.”
The comments appear to pour cold water on hopes that
Champagne’s meeting with Wang in Rome would lead to a breakthrough for
the two Michaels.
That disgusting bit of extortion would be considered offensive in other countries but remembering that this is Canada and no one has done anything to affect the release of these two men, this is just another day for the Trudeau government and their voters.
In May, Health Canada gave the go-ahead for the Canadian trials
to begin, and the hope was that clinical trials in Halifax could begin
within weeks.
But in late July, The Canadian Press reported that the Canadian-Chinese partnership was on the rocks, saying China had held up shipments the company was supposed to send to the Halifax researchers by the end of May.
In an emailed statement, the National Research Council (NRC)
said the vaccine candidate had not been approved by Chinese customs to
ship to Canada.
The statement said CanSino's collaborators in
the Chinese government — the Beijing Institute of Technology and the
Ministry of Science and Technology, which had provided funding to
CanSino — reviewed the agreement between the NRC and CanSino before it
was signed.
"Subsequent to signing, the government of China
introduced process changes regarding shipping vaccines to other
countries," the NRC said in its statement.
"The process is not clear to the NRC, but CanSino does not have the authority to ship the vaccine at this time."
Had Justin been an actual leader, he would never have let the Chinese military complex develop this vaccine for Canadian use in the first place but instead collaborate more closely with the Americans (gasp!) or the Israelis or simply rely on whatever medical researchers haven't left the country for more lucrative climes. Now, he runs the risk of being humiliated by Chinese snake-oil salesmen who might not be any closer to developing this vaccine than they are embracing democracy. Instead, he is being extorted and bounced around.
Thereupon she said to both of us, “Bury my body wherever you will; let
not care of it cause you any concern. One thing only I ask you, that you
remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be.”
Just about two years ago, the Trudeau government put $256 million from
Canadian taxpayers into the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. That
money has essentially been handed over to a bank controlled by Beijing
to develop projects that would have trouble getting built in Canada
under this government, including ring roads and power plants.
“I won the leadership of the Conservative Party as a pro-choice
Conservative MP, one with a strong mandate. That’s how I’m going to lead
as the leader of the Opposition,” O’Toole said.
Because girls love it when you tell them that they want abortions (well, Canadian girls do).
Way to lose and split the vote there, Girl Name.
Any "male" politician who supports abortion is a pig who looks at women one way.
Leslyn Lewis, who came third place to Erin O’Toole and Peter MacKay
during the last Conservative Party leadership race, will run in the
next election, a senior campaign source confirmed with Global News.
Lewis has not yet determined which riding she will be running for, they said.
“She
is 100 per cent committed to running and helping build the party and
grow the party,” Steve Outhouse, her campaign manager, said to the
Canadian Press.
This means nine out of ten Canadians would prove Darwin right:
More
than 76 per cent of respondents in the Statistics Canada survey
indicated they would likely get inoculated if and when a vaccine is
ready. Yet 14 per cent said they were somewhat or very unlikely to do
so. Nine per cent remained unsure.
Those
who indicated they were unlikely to get a vaccine were asked to
identify the reasons for their reluctance. More than half cited a lack
of confidence in its safety while a similar number said they were
worried about potential risks and side effects.
About one-quarter
of respondents, who were allowed to give more than one answer, said they
did not consider it necessary to get the vaccine while about 10 per
cent indicated they did not believe in vaccines at all.
The dispute began when Cantor posted an essay on the listserv
complaining that “extremists” were unfairly castigating people who
questioned some tenets of the transgender movement, such as that
children who identify with another gender can begin transitioning before
puberty.
The essay referenced Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, who herself drew the ire of many in the trans community when she wrote that sex is undeniably tied to biology.
Some of those who commented on Cantor’s essay accused him of encouraging hatred or even violence toward trans people.
The number of illicit drug deaths in B.C. well exceeded 100 in July,
marking the fifth consecutive month where provincial totals surpassed
triple digits.
(Sidebar: aren't those publicly funded injection sites working?)
People make the choice to ruin their bodies and governments make the choice to enable them.
The Canada Revenue Agency will launch an audit pilot project to see if
fraudulent applications are a problem within the Trudeau government’s
$82.3 billion flagship COVID-19 corporate aid program.
Federal auditors have cited a Crown corporation, the National Arts
Centre, for sloppy budgeting. Directors failed to set aside funds for
necessary maintenance and repairs even after charging taxpayers a
quarter-billion for renovations. Cost overruns at the concert hall once
prompted two parliamentary investigations: ‘It doesn’t match London or
Paris.’
The legal team for a Huawei
executive facing extradition to the United States has lost its battle
to have the contents of six confidential documents released to them.
Meng Wanzhou‘s
defence team argued in Federal Court that the redacted documents would
support its position that Meng suffered an abuse of process during her
arrest at Vancouver’s airport in 2018.
Meng is wanted in the United States on fraud charges, which she and Huawei deny.
In
a ruling dated Aug. 21 but released on Tuesday, Justice Catherine Kane
said the court found the information contained in the documents is not
relevant to the allegations of abuse described by Meng’s legal team.
Canada
is the only member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network that
has not formally blocked Huawei from 5G networks, but it has effectively
done just that, delaying a decision long enough to force telecom
companies to exclude the Chinese gear maker.
The
strategy allows Canada to keep on the right side of both China and the
United States as they tussle over Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, say six
well-placed sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
This China:
Top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi on Saturday
asked national security adviser Suh Hoon for support in intensifying
diplomatic tensions with the U.S.
This South Korea:
The Sarang Jeil Church, which recently emerged as a hotbed of mass
coronavirus infections, hit back at President Moon Jae-in on Tuesday,
criticizing him for making groundless accusations that the religious
group obstructed the government’s antivirus fight.
A woman in a forced labor brigade, or dolgyokdae, working on a
northern section of the Pyongyang-Manpo-Hyesan railway line committed
suicide earlier this month after being repeatedly sexually assaulted by
her superior, according to source in North Hamgyong Province on Friday.
If
properly supported, Canada’s resource sector and Canadian agriculture
will be leaders in the recovery. Our world-class resources, producers
and the tech economy that entrepreneurs have built on their foundations
are creditable reasons for optimism.
A good example of that kind
opportunity comes from Canada’s mining sector and more specifically
uranium. I admit to two conflicts for this brief discussion. One is my
directorship with NexGen Energy, which is currently developing what will
be the world’s largest uranium mine near La Loche, Sask. The second
being that I live in Saskatchewan, the province home to virtually all of
Canada’s uranium supply.
COVID-19 exposed the vulnerabilities of
the world’s uranium supply. The spot price responded with a run, rising
over 40 per cent. This is good for Canada’s uranium producers.
Previously shutdown mines have new hope and the viability of thousands
of good Canadian mining jobs, many held by Indigenous Canadians, has
been greatly enhanced. So is the prospect for new mining jobs in the
sector.
But
it ought not to end with mining. Federal and provincial governments can
support the value added and tech opportunities that can be built on the
primary part of the uranium industry. Credit here to the leadership of
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe who has spearheaded a national push for
Canada to lead in the development of small modular nuclear reactor
technology. His efforts have been joined by Ontario Premier Doug Ford,
New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs and recently Alberta Premier Jason
Kenney.
Nuclear reactors remain a source of reliable base-load
power (hello California) that is emissions-free. What could be greener,
more equitable or more inclusive?
Something similar could be said
for Canadian oil and gas. After all, Canada is still home to the
third-largest reserves on earth. We have a world-leading record in terms
of responsibly developing the resource. As the world reopens, it will
continue to buy oil. A federal government that sought to ensure its
oil-and-gas sector was a priority would, by definition, be taking an
equitable, inclusive and globally sustainable approach to the restart.
It certainly wouldn’t wish the sector didn’t exist at all. This has been
the sentiment betrayed by any number of utterances and Freudian slips
from Camp Trudeau.
Cabinet yesterday claimed labour shortages in waiving a requirement that
jobless migrants leave the country before reapplying for work here. Any
migrant worker with a legitimate job offer may stay, said Immigration
Minister Marco Mendicino: “We have heard from employers who continue to
face challenges.”
Beautiful Maine Lobsters will now move tariff-free to Europe! For first time in many years. GREAT new deal by USTR levels playing field with Canada. Millions of $’s more in EXPORTS...
The Department of Agriculture yesterday paid more than a million dollars
to distribute surplus seafood to Nova Scotia food banks. The initiative
to help processors get rid of unsold stock follows Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau’s appeal to Canadians to aid the industry by eating more
lobster: “Not only will it taste great but it will help people.”
No, the Liberals know how weak the population is and that they can still count on Chinese funds to leak into their coffers. No electoral apple cart will be upset, assuming anyone actually has the will to push it over.
Volunteer groups warned the We Charity program was misguided and badly
drafted, according to internal Department of Employment memos. One
organization refused a $100,000 fee from We Charity in protest over the
program’s design: “They indicated there was a fee.”
**
Federal auditors have cited a Crown corporation, the National Arts
Centre, for sloppy budgeting. Directors failed to set aside funds for
necessary maintenance and repairs even after charging taxpayers a
quarter-billion for renovations. Cost overruns at the concert hall once
prompted two parliamentary investigations: ‘It doesn’t match London or
Paris.’
Canadians get to wear this. They can drone on and on about Trump all day but at least he delivers on his promises and will leave office when his second term expires.
Canada is stuck with the snowboard instructor the way the North Koreans are stuck with Kim Fatty and his wicked sister.
The number of expropriations of private land exploded in Montreal
four years ago when city hall quietly delegated its seldom used power to
take properties for use as streets and alleys to civil servants,
documents obtained by the Montreal Gazette reveal.
For decades,
city departments responsible for real estate transactions and
infrastructure had to obtain approval from Montreal’s top
decision-making body, the city executive committee, to use a section of
the city charter that’s written expressly to enable the expropriation of
private properties for streets, places and lanes.
But
in May 2016, the executive committee under former mayor Denis Coderre
delegated its authority to use Section 192 of Schedule C of the charter
to the civil servants — specifically civil servants at the level of
department director, according to the documents obtained through
Quebec’s access to information law. The power gives the bureaucrats full
control to decide behind closed doors what properties to expropriate
without needing the executive committee to pass a public resolution on
it.
And
after the power was transferred to city employees, the number of times
Section 192 was used to acquire property for the city rose more than
sixfold, the documents show. The city clerk’s office gave the newspaper
the files for every expropriation under Section 192 since 2010 in
response to the newspaper’s request for information for the past decade.
The
files show that between 2010 and May 2016, the executive committee
approved 67 expropriations under Section 192 of the charter — an average
of 10 expropriations per year.
After the power to use Section 192
was delegated to the civil service, there were more than 200 such
expropriations between mid-2016 and August 2019, the files reveal.
Between 2016 and 2019, city employees expropriated, on average, 68
properties per year, which means the city was expropriating the same
number of properties each year that it had taken during all of the
previous six-and-a-half years.
Decriminalizing heroin and cocaine is “something worth deliberating”,
says Health Minister Patricia Hajdu. A private Liberal bill pending in
the Commons would repeal a federal law that criminalizes simple
possession of street drugs: “I hear the calls across the country.”
I hear calls across the country that this plan should only be enacted in front of Patty Hajdu's house.
... because that is easier than stopping all international flights and it also makes everyone think that the government is doing something solid to stop the coronavirus from getting into the country:
Nearly two dozen more flights have landed at major airports in Canada with passengers infected with COVID-19
According to the federal government, more than 55 flights have landed
in Canada between Aug. 1 and Aug. 18 that had passengers who tested
positive for COVID-19 after arriving in the country.
The vast majority of the flights with COVID-19 passengers have landed
in Toronto, but a number of them also touched down in Montreal,
Vancouver and Calgary.
On Valentine’s Day this year, O’Toole posted a video on Twitter accusing the CBC of being “out of control” and promising to slash its funding.
O’Toole
says he wants to maintain funding for Radio-Canada in Quebec and CBC
Radio which “maintains the original public interest mandate” of the
public broadcaster.
“Taxpayer dollars should not pay for things
like a Canadian version of Family Feud. Nor should they fund CBC News
Network, a channel no different from its private sector competitors,”
O’Toole’s platform reads.
If you don't have the intestinal fortitude to get rid of the CBC, MP Girl-Name, then join a party that keeps it going.
Justin's policies of waste and corruption can be interpreted as nothing else:
Venezuela is staggering in the face of a years-long power struggle,
food shortages, hyper-inflation and an exodus of its citizens.
The country’s foreign minister says, Blame Canada.
Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza is part of Nicolas Maduro’s government,
which most Western countries no longer recognize, but it does still
control most of the country’s institutions. He was speaking through Zoom
to a Canadian audience on Thursday, in an event organized by the
left-leaning Canadian Foreign Policy Institute.
It can't be the political and social failure that is socialism, a system embraced wholeheartedly by Canadians and Venezuelans alike.
These policies would end up devastating the economy through a
combination of enterprise-crippling regulation, elimination of market
competition, and the removal of the price mechanism to match supply with
demand and allocate resources efficiently. Like the so-called “market
socialism” of the former Yugoslavia in decades past, the “democratic
socialism” now enjoying popularity is simply an attempt at rebranding
without new ideas or real improvement. Socialist policies inevitably do
damage, even in the oft-vaunted Scandinavian countries, which achieved
economic success before the rise of their welfare states. In Sweden, for
example, out-of-control public spending led to the 1990 economic crisis
and Sweden has since wisely reversed course somewhat. Norway and
Denmark are both currently led by government coalitions favoring more
free-market policies.
We should not ignore the lessons of twentieth-century socialism’s
failures, nor turn a blind eye to what socialism has wrought in
Venezuela—as some socialists, sadly, do. Until the socialist movement
evolves different policies, these failures remain relevant. There is no
reason to think that the same policies that failed in the past will
produce different results in the future.
Anyone who tells one that things can be freely provided and no one has to do any actual work to get anything is selling utter ruin in the form of stupidity and must be stopped for the good of humanity.
If
you move to Vancouver, assuming you have CAD $280,000 of income, you
will pay tax of $104,674. Your after-tax income will be $175,326.
Therefore, the effective tax rate is 37 percent. Every additional dollar
you earn will be taxed at 49.8 percent.
If you move to Seattle,
though, you’re in luck! Washington State is one of seven states without a
state income tax. You only have to pay U.S. federal tax. Assuming you
earn US $200,000 (about CAD $280,000), your total income tax bill would
be US $52,552. Therefore, your after-tax income would be US $147,448 (or
roughly CAD $206,000). The effective tax rate is 26 percent and every
additional dollar would be taxed at $33.45 percent. ...
There are many political groups, think tanks, organizations and
journalists who keep repeating the claim that the rich are not paying
their fair share of tax. Yet today, seven out of 10 provinces have a
combined federal and provincial tax rate of more than 50 percent on the
highest tax bracket.
According to Statistics Canada, the top 10 percent of income earners
earns 34 percent of all income in the country but pays 54 percent of all
income taxes! The top one percent of income earners earns 10 percent of
all income in the country but pay 21 percent of all income taxes. The
top 0.1 percent of income earners earn 3.4 percent of all income but
pays 7.9 percent of all income taxes.
This clearly demonstrates
without a shred of doubt that the richest people in the country are
already paying more than their fair share of income tax. Furthermore,
these figures only include income tax and do not take into account all
the sales taxes and property taxes these people are paying. The
erroneous belief that the rich are not paying their fair share of tax
has led politicians to unfairly and illogically raise tax rates to the
point of confiscation.
If Justin et al really felt that the rich should be heavily taxed, then he should surrender his WE earnings.
I am not afraid to question our government’s response to the COVID-19
pandemic. Canadians are rightly concerned with Canada’s involvement with
Chinese Communist Party-affiliated companies to develop vaccines to
fight COVID-19. They are right to wonder why social media is banning
videos of doctors around the world who are touting alternate, cheaper
and effective treatments to COVID-19.
No one questioned Justin's undying love for China in 2013. Are they willing to question his allegiance to China and his accepting money from those loyal to the communist Chinese and ignore the (as of this writing) 9,064 dead?
Poilievre’s press briefings had to be the dread of the wizards who
practice spin for Trudeau. Their spin was unspun, and the tangled
amateur “explanations” given out by the government about how Trudeau,
finance minister Bill Morneau and Youth Minister Bardish Chagger
variously locked arms and fired (email) billet-doux back and forth, were
both derided and destroyed.
His masterpiece was the very latest,
where he flung, with magisterial scorn, blacked-out page after
blacked-out page of the government’s file on WE Inc., over the press
podium. Most telling was his central point during that conference.
That the government wasn’t “proroguing” to work on a “reset” or
devise a post-COVID “agenda.” It was prorogued to shut down the
committees, one of which Poilievre headed, looking into the WE affair.
It was prorogued to halt the revelations hidden and obscured under black
ink that the government lathered over the documents released.
Prorogation killed the committees. That was its point. Its only point. Parliament had been done already.
It killed further revelations of how interwound Kielburger Inc. and the highest powers in Trudeau’s government were. ...
Another question. Why is there any redaction on a purely internal
transaction between a Canadian organization and the Canadian government?
These aren’t NATO documents. They are not high-level communications
between Canada’s military and the Pentagon. There’s no espionage, no
delicate trade talks and strategy discussions.
Why were there any
redactions? It can only be because between the Kieburger brothers and
ministers, civil servants, the PM, and members of his family, there were
at least more and other communications of an even more fulsome,
embarrassing kind. Displaying their connection, and thus shredding the
idea that the whole deal came about “only because the civil service
insisted that only WE could deliver the program.”
SNC-Lavalin, the company that landed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in
trouble with the ethics commissioner, has been awarded more than 100
government contracts since the controversy.
According to a database from Open Government, SNC-Lavalin received
142 government contracts with a combined worth of about $25 million
between January 2019 and June 2020.
Aaron Wudrick, the federal
director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said he was shocked
SNC-Lavalin was continuing to receive government contracts.
“I
think from SNC-Lavalin’s standpoint these are not giant contracts,” said
Wudrick. “They often deal with contracts that are much larger, so this
is small potatoes for them. But I think a lot of Canadians would be
surprised to know they are active in bidding after the seriousness of
what happened last year.”
In August of last year, Mario Dion, the
ethics commissioner, found Trudeau guilty of breaching ethic rules by
trying to persuade his attorney general to give SNC-Lavalin a deferred
prosecution agreement in relation to criminal charges it was facing.
... The RCMP have been investigating the possibility that someone in the
Trudeau government obstructed justice in the SNC-Lavalin case.
The news was revealed in a bombshell report by the Globe and Mail issued less than 12 hours before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was to visit Rideau Hall and kick off the 2019 election.
The government has made clear
that “decarbonizing the economy” is one of their goals which effectively
means shutting down the oil industry.
“Of course, it has to be
part of it,” Trudeau’s new finance minister Chrystia Freeland said when
asked if decarbonization was part of the government’s economic plan.
Not
surprising given that the Liberals haven’t even walked back from their
promise to ban single-use plastics even as their use has shot up as a
way to deal with COVID-19.
I think we can also expect the
government to lay the groundwork for a universal basic income and pay
people not to work rather than get on with the difficult task of
creating an economy with jobs for all. Liberal-leaning thinkers have
been calling for this to happen since the pandemic broke out.
In a bombshell Vice article,
journalist Justin Ling detailed how Katie Telford’s husband, Rob
Silver, attempted to persuade the former Finance Minister Bill Morneau
into changing government policy. Silver has not registered as a
lobbyist.
**
The federal deficit is near $400 billion, seven times the previous
record, with proposals by cabinet yesterday to extend new benefits to
jobless workers. “Our government has taken on more debt so Canadians
didn’t have to,” Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters.
When
Trudeau was asked about if he stood by his initial statement that he
had first heard about the WE rollout on May 8, despite an internal memo
from the PMO was "weighing in" as of April 20, Trudeau discussed the
importance of the N95 project for Ontario and Canada.
Trudeau then
forgot the question. When asking to be reminded of what the question
was, Trudeau said that it was "something far less important than N95
masks."
"Furthermore, the tracking of hours by a third-party
may be challenging," they added. It may "result in potential integrity
concerns should students not be honest about hours accrued."
These
documents were released as a result of the prime minister's
controversial decision to prorogue parliament, effectively limiting the
ability of parliamentary committees to consider the government's role in
the WE scandal.
Not only did these documents reveal that the
$900 million contract was suggested by the Trudeau government, but it
also details early PMO pressure and the fact that the WE organization
made clear their closeness to the prime minister when they lobbied for a
contract ...
Newly-disclosed records contradict testimony by ex-Finance Minister Bill
Morneau that he had scant personal contact with a federal contractor,
We Charity. The finance department released a series of “Hello Bill”
emails from Craig Kielburger, co-founder of the charity: “They are all
besties.”
(Sidebar: they were totes besties! That's right - the government is run by eight year olds. This Morneau.)
**
Federal employees in internal memos expressed astonishment at the cost
of an untendered agreement to have We Charity manage a student aid
program. The plan was to pay post-secondary students $10 an hour, but
included $500 per hour fees for We Charity lawyers and six-figure
payments to project managers: “Bit of a shit show.”
**
We Charity highlighted Trudeau family members’ paid appearances with the
group in appealing for a $43.5 million grant, according to documents.
Internal memos indicate Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office was
“weighing in” on the grant proposal weeks before the Prime Minister said
he first heard of it: “We have the documents right here.”
**
Suspension of Parliament has delayed disclosure of speaking fees paid to
the Prime Minister’s wife and family. Justin Trudeau as a first-term MP
personally collected almost $300,000 in talent fees from unidentified
sponsors: “That way we could at least limit the damage we’re about to
cause.”
**
The public service did indeed recommend WE. That is true. But WE was
recommended after the Trudeau government — not just the public service,
but cabinet ministers or their staff — was actively working with WE. The
recommendation of the public service, though undenied, did not happen
in a vacuum, nor was it generated neutrally. It took place against a
backdrop of active lobbying by WE and communication about the matter at
high levels of the Trudeau government.
This turns the Liberal
narrative on its head. Trudeau and his senior ministers and aides have
thus far used the public service as armour, putting it between
themselves and the scandal. They cop only to sloppiness. But we know
from these documents — sections of which remain redacted — that while
the public service recommended WE to the prime minister on May 13,
cabinet minister Bardish Chagger was communicating directly with WE as
early as April 17, and that a policy adviser in Morneau’s office was
communicating with WE as early as April 20. Indeed, WE’s Craig
Kielburger even sent Chagger an email on April 22, thanking her for her
“suggestion” of a student support program.
This hubris only works if certain parties forget to bring it up in the fall:
Mr.
Barrett was referring to Mr. Trudeau’s request to prorogue Parliament as
MPs on the House of Commons finance committee gained access to
thousands of pages of government documents on Tuesday regarding a
now-cancelled $543.5-million agreement with WE Charity to administer a
program for students.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is weighing sweeping changes to the
country's social welfare system and a series of economic measures that
will align Canada with ambitious climate goals, according to people
familiar with the matter.
The
plan to bolster the social safety net will especially help those hurt
most by the pandemic and come after Trudeau replaced a fiscally cautious
finance minister.
"The prime minister wants to go big," said a government source, adding that Trudeau, 48, sees the moves as part of his legacy.
(Sidebar: oh, it definitely will be your legacy, along with corruption and arrogance.)
**
With the sudden resignation of finance minister Bill Morneau,
Canadians should be asking a simple question: are the federal Liberals
about to embark on a new spending spree? Differences in views between a
finance minister and prime minister are common, but with Morneau’s
departure the signal seems to be to loosen the belt — which is not easy
when you’re already planning a deficit of $343 billion. Perhaps the new
minister of finance, Chrystia Freeland, will be a stronger personality
with her own ideas of belt tightening. We shall see.
When I say
“spending spree” I’m not referring to the multitude of temporary support
programs that are already producing the gigantic deficit in fiscal year
2020-21. No, I mean permanent public spending, including growing
interest charges. After the WE Charity scandal, rumour has it the
Trudeau government is looking for a magic recovery bullet that will
transform Canada. Two obvious candidate files are climate change and
social policy, both supposedly sources of conflict between the PM and
former minister Morneau. ...
For
$50 billion over five years, the government can implement net-zero
emission building codes and subsidize building and energy retrofits,
clean energy work training programs and electric vehicles, which still
account for less than four per cent of the auto market. These policies
become necessary only because others don’t seem to be doing the trick —
not the federal carbon tax and not new regulations, such as recently
announced resource-stifling Bill C-69 assessment procedures. Subsidies
will widen a federal deficit that has already turned from pink to deep
COVID red.
But
the price tag for climate-change policies pales in comparison to
possible new social spending on health care and income security. Facing
their own yawning deficits, the provinces are expecting more federal
transfers for health care, which takes up half their budgets. The
Liberals promised during the 2019 election to bring in national
Pharmacare. Some provinces may support it if they can offload their
program expenses on Ottawa, while others, most notably Quebec, will
reject federal intrusion but claim compensation. Given our recent
experience with COVID deaths in nursing homes, the Liberals are also
expected to promote a cost-sharing program for long-term care. For
years, the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association has raised
concerns about funding long-term care in our aging society, but little
was done, given the daunting costs involved.
Another major welfare
program would be a guaranteed annual income (GAI) to replace the
temporary CERB. A Senate committee report recently looked at a GAI of
$24,000 per year for couples and $17,000 per year for single people
between 18 and 64 years of age. The payment would be clawed back by
either 50 cents, 25 cents or 15 cents for each dollar earned by a
worker.
**
Media executives divvying up federal grants awarded their own companies
100 percent wage subsidies, accounts show. News Media Canada, a
publishers’ lobby, yesterday did not comment: ‘Helping the press is in
the interests of democracy.’
Now, it can be said that the average Canadian can be bought with as little as a can of beer (SEE: CERB) but even the most ovine can see through the charade played out before them.
This one:
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday prorogued the minority
Parliament, halting for at least a month ongoing committee
investigations of federal contracting, China meddling and We Charity.
Trudeau told reporters if Opposition MPs didn’t like it they could force
an election: ‘We will force a confidence vote.’
(Sidebar: don't tempt them, douchebag.)
**
Jesus, finally. The truth is out:
-Proof that it was the Trudeau gov't & not the public service who first put forth WE for the job.
The idea that working with WE came from the bureaucrats is utter BS and not supported by the facts. Maybe CP should have read the documents before rushing out their copy. Here is one example of WE pitching to senior political figures before bureaucrats decided WE was it. pic.twitter.com/WnbI7X0O0k
Retired Vice Admiral Mark Norman has stepped forward on social media
to call out the Liberal government’s decision to prorogue parliament.
“Leadership means facing problems not avoiding them,” Norman wrote in a social media post
on Twitter Wednesday afternoon. “Wouldn’t it be nice if the millions of
[Canadians] struggling with the challenges of the pandemic could just
hit the ‘reset’ button and ‘prorogue’ their responsibilities.”
It's incredibly important that this is kept in the public consciousness even well after September when Justin finally remembers that the Papineau riding actually expects him to show up for work.
CMHC chief executive Evan Siddall in a 2019 podcast complained Canada
has “glorified this idea of home ownership” and enriched property
holders at the expense of renters. Siddall praised a federal consultant
who advocated federal taxes on “unhealthy home values”. Conservative MPs
yesterday served notice they will summon Siddall for questioning: “The
losers are the people who have won so much already through the increase
in house prices, the owners.”
The World Health Organization will not allow Canadian MPs to question
its officials over dealings with China on Covid-19. The Commons health
committee had issued an April 30 summons for Dr. Bruce Aylward, a WHO
epidemiologist who repeatedly praised Communist Party measures to
contain the coronavirus: ‘China is being successful.’
The results suggest many parents are torn, with 66 per cent of
respondents with children admitting they were worried about children
returning to school but 63 per cent saying they planned to send their
kids anyway.
Yet 69 per cent also felt all classes should be
suspended and learning shifted back to home if there is a significant
increase in COVID-19 cases in their community, with 19 per cent saying
classes should continue and 12 per cent unsure either way.
What is it that we need China for anyway?:
A dissenter within China’s Communist Party has said that leader Xi
Jinping is “killing” China with his one-man rule, and added that many in
the party want him removed as boss, with China “sliding towards
disaster.”
Cai Xia, once a professor at China’s elite Central Party School, told the Guardian
that she was “happy” to be kicked out of Xi’s party after an audio
taping of her, in which she criticized Xi, was leaked two months ago.
She said many in the party are opposed to Xi but fear what will happen
if they speak out — including being hit with corruption charges.
(Sidebar: careful, Miss Cai. Had this been Canada, you would be Jody-ed by now. But China is very different!)
**
The massive $190 million, 470,000-square-foot complex, dubbed the “World Commodity Trade Center,” is a joint venture between a
Chinese state-sponsored company and a local development firm. The
centre, first conceived in Beijing, has four warehouses and two large
exhibition halls — to be lined with Chinese and Canadian flags —
strategically located in the Campbell Heights industrial zone between
Vancouver International Airport and the United States border.
**
Rights activists estimate 40 percent of women have faced sexual
harassment in China, where a patriarchal system, victim-blaming and
conservative attitudes mean reporting sex crimes and securing
convictions can be difficult.
Blind women in the massage industry
are even more vulnerable, says lawyer Li Ying, who warns that the real
number who have faced sexual harassment is likely far higher than the
general population.
Many in the profession have told charities
they endured physical or sexual assault but as such incidents are rarely
reported to authorities there are no official records detailing how
high harassment levels are.
Li was the first lawyer to bring a case under China’s new sexual harassment legislation — which she won.
What can go wrong here?:
North Korea is believed to have up to 60 nuclear bombs and the world's
third-largest stockpile of chemical weapons totaling up to 5,000 tons,
the U.S. Army has said.
Also:
North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party will discuss a “crucial” matter at a
meeting Wednesday that comes as the country battles catastrophic
flooding that’s dealt a blow to its staggering economy and tries to head
off a coronavirus crisis.
**
The neighbour can be heard yelling: “You're an asylum seeker. You're not from this country.”
Mum Myungseo, a North Korea national who lives in Croydon, South East London, took to Facebook to reveal her plight.
She wrote: “It's only me and my children, we don't have any relative
or friend in the UK and this situation is affecting my mental health and
my children's wellbeing.”
Myungseo said she moved to the house with her kids in November 2019 and her neighbour allowed her to share a bin.
Japan,
home to one of the world’s longest-living populaces, is also the grayest
society, with the highest percentage of older people anywhere in the
world.
In 2019, people aged 65 or over made up a record 28.41 percent of
the country’s total population, according to government data released
Aug. 5.
Combined with dwindling numbers of newborn babies, which
dropped below 900,000 for the first time ever last year, the world’s
third-largest economy has a shrinking working population to draw on at a
time when soaring social security spending to cover pensions and
medical care for older people is weighing heavily on the budget.
**
On paper, the nation's low unemployment rate suggests an economy
weathering the novel coronavirus reasonably well, but official figures
belie worsening prospects for the country's army of temporary workers,
who make up about 40 percent of the employment market.
A rise in
job losses would undermine one of the few successes of Prime Minister
Shinzo Abe's "Abenomics" stimulus policies, which has been aimed at
reviving the economy.
The jobless rate stood at 2.8 percent in June, much lower than
the 10.2 percent seen in the United States and the 7.8 percent in the
19-member eurozone.
But a closer look at data shows a rising
number of people are dropping out of the search for work. That prevents
the official jobless rate — the ratio of job-seekers who are yet to
secure employment — from rising much.
Dreams do come true — or at least they do in Switzerland, where chocolate fell from the sky due to a malfunction at the Lindt & Sprüngli factory in the town of Olten.
The
chocolate maker says a ventilation problem launched cocoa powder into
the open air outside its facility last Friday morning. The wind caught
the powder and spread it across the neighbourhood, leaving a fine
dusting of sweet, sweet chocolate.
