A Quick Word ...

 A lot going on in the world ...

 

 

Someone other than Justin has to do some actual work around here and that work is threatening the US with as much clout as a pool noodle:

The Trudeau government will respond to U.S. President Donald Trump’s move to again slap tariffs on Canadian aluminum by levelling $3.6 billion in retaliatory tariffs on imports of the metal from south of the border, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said Friday.

Freeland said during a press conference that the federal government will hold consultations with consumers and businesses for 30 days on a broad list of products from the United States containing aluminum, after which Canada will impose tariffs on certain items from that list.

 

Canadians have elected a government that resembles them the most: weak, arrogant, clueless, self-important and with an undeserved sense of entitlement. It is not Trump's nor any other American's job to defend Canadian interests or even to hand it something. That's what Canadian elections are supposedly for: to elect strong and capable horse-traders who not only bargain well but don't flood their ally's markets with inferior metal from China (Canada's abusive boyfriend) nor under-cut Canadian industries and workers. Furthermore, this set of tariffs the deputy prime minister swears to impose would cost Canada more than the US.

So there's that.

Also - how much of that is seasonal work or simply people return to the jobs they nearly lost in March?:

Canada gained 419,000 jobs last month, more than economists forecast, as more parts of the economy were allowed to reopen.

The unemployment rate inched down to 10.9 per cent in July, data from Statistics Canada’s latest Labour Force Survey showed Friday. In June, the jobless rate was 12.3 per cent, and it hit a record high of 13.7 per cent in May.

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Wow. People were totally on top of that coronavirus thing:

A Québec company that won a lucrative ten-year federal contract for pandemic masks repeatedly lobbied Industry Minister Navdeep Bains and his staff, records show. Bains’ department contacted AMD Medicom Inc. within hours of the World Health Organization declaring a global pandemic: ‘The government out of the blue reached to Medicom.’

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The United States is increasingly stereotyped as a uniquely bleak and broken country — particularly by American journalists. A large amount of U.S. coronavirus commentary accordingly attributes the United States’ extremely high numbers of cases and deaths to standard tropes about American racism, inequality, political dysfunction and stupidity. Paul Krugman of the New York Times says it’s the “longstanding anti-science, anti-expertise streak in American culture” that’s made America “exceptional, in a very bad way.”

Canada, by contrast, has received mostly favorable press. A July story from CNN attributes the country’s comparatively low rates to Canadians’ calm compliance with social distancing and mask-wearing (“most see it as their duty”), and their “unwavering deference to science.” The Toronto Star praised Canada’s “national DNA” of humility, trust and compassion.

But neither of these stereotype-heavy theories provide much useful insight for understanding what’s actually going on in North America.

For one, praising Canada’s “success” at keeping covid-19 at bay only works in a binary comparison with the United States. For much of the pandemic, Canada has consistently ranked among the 20 worst-hit nations, having passed 100,000 cases and 8,000 deaths in June. Per capita, Canada has been less successful fighting the virus than Germany, South Africa or Turkey — to say nothing of South Korea, Norway and Australia, whose rock-bottom numbers are legitimately world-class. Likewise, for all the talk of the naturally obedient Canadians, Canada actually has one of the world’s “lower rates of face-mask usage”— ranking behind the United States.

Second, in terms of land area, the United States and Canada are two of the largest nations on Earth. On coronavirus, as with anything, it’s absurd to make sweeping generalizations about how either continent-sized country has “experienced” it.

Quebec has recorded more than 5,600 coronavirus-related deaths, a number higher than all but nine states in the United States. Ontario has had more than 2,700 deaths — higher than 34 American states. If you live in Canada’s two biggest provinces, in short, it’s hardly obvious that things are going swimmingly. Perhaps they have less of that “national DNA”?

Similarly, the disparities between U.S. states — both red and blue — make it difficult to correlate the U.S. experience with any broad stereotype about American political culture. The “mask ban” imposed by Georgia’s Republican governor has been held up as the quintessential example of American right-wing misrule, yet many states run by progressive, science-minded Democrats, including New York, California and New Jersey, have faced considerably higher death tolls. It’s difficult to come up with a clear theory of what talents are lacked by New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo (D) but possessed in Canada by British Columbia’s premier, John Horgan. Yet British Columbia has among the fewest per-capita coronavirus deaths in the entire world. Experts have hazy theories as to why this might be, but they often just descend into vague praise for the communication skills of provincial health officer Bonnie Henry — as though the idea of having a stern authority figure go on television and tell people to socially distance hadn’t occurred anywhere else.

 

(Sidebar: Mr. McCullough's detractors  in the comments section- the soy socialists whose familiarity with Canada can be considered as passing at best - will, no doubt, swear to leave the US after Trump squeaks by in November but - like Robert De Niro - will not. Instead, they will enjoy still wearing their pontificating masks of sanctimony in an economy that works but certainly isn't Canada.)

The Grift Dynasty:

Canada's Ethics Commissioner has had to hire new investigators so to examine the prime minister's and the finance minister's alleged ethics violations.

On Thursday, the office of the Ethics Commissioner posted a recruitment notice, saying that "a new staffing process is now posted for the position of investigations officer."

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The Trudeau government is paying up to $84 million to a company that employs Chief of Staff Katie Telford’s husband as a senior executive to administer its COVID-19 emergency commercial rent assistance program for small businesses.

Due to the ties between Telford and her husband, Robert Silver, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) assures that their chief of staff has recused herself from any decisions that may involve MCAP, Silver’s employer.

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MPs on the Commons finance committee yesterday questioned the scope of a federal grant that would have paid We Charity the equivalent of two-thirds of its annual revenue. Marc and Craig Kielburger, the $125,173-a year co-founders of We Charity, had testified they would not have made any gains on the agreement: “Does that seem to be a bit odd to you?”

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“In the Liberals’ telling, it was all the civil service’s idea,” MacDougall wrote.

“It was a binary choice between WE or no program at all. This might sound plausible to someone with no knowledge of the federal public service, but if you know Ottawa or the public service at all, you are right now laughing through your tears. The only way the public service recommends outsourcing its work to a cult of one-eyed purple people eaters is if the political side asks it to consider only one-eyed purple people eaters.”