And the Rest of It ...

First it was the Epoch Times. Now it's something else:

The CBC yesterday corrected a commentary claiming a Blacklock’s story on the federal carbon tax was an “attempt to confuse Canadians.” Max Fawcett, a Calgary pundit who made the claim, had not read the story.

Blacklock’s in a January 5 item “Contradict Carbon Tax Claim” correctly reported the federal treasury in 2019-2020 collected millions more in carbon taxes than it paid in rebates in four provinces, an average twenty percent more. The figures contradicted cabinet claims that households “actually get more money” under the program.

The story correctly quoted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as remarking in 2019, “The average citizens of those provinces will be better off.” Trudeau has said rebates, called Climate Action Incentive payments, exceeded higher fuel costs for most consumers.

“The reality is the Climate Action Incentive and our plan to put a price on pollution actually gets more money in the pocket of middle class Canadians,” said Trudeau.

The story also correctly stated cabinet as recently as last December 7 repeated the claim rebates exceeded taxes for the vast majority of people. “Households benefit,” Liberal MP Sean Fraser (Central Nova, N.S.), parliamentary secretary for finance, said at the time. “Households continue to receive more money in the Climate Action Incentive than they are putting out.”

Cabinet to date has never disclosed any data proving the claim. Nor has cabinet detailed actual figures on higher costs for Canadians as a result of carbon-taxed fuel, home heating, groceries, goods and services.

Pundit Fawcett the day the January 5 Blacklock’s story appeared alleged the article was false and unethical. “This is either shamefully dishonest or shamefully incompetent work,” Fawcett wrote on his Twitter account: “This little episode is going in a future column of mine.”  ...

The Blacklock’s story was paywalled for subscribers. Fawcett is not a subscriber, had no access to the article, and did not answer when challenged. His commentary had no references to elements contained within the paywalled news item.

Instead, Fawcett cited Blacklock’s by name in a Tuesday commentary on a CBC.ca website headlined “Ottawa Needs To Fight More Effectively For The Carbon Tax.” “Lies and deceit keep spreading,’” it read.

“Their latest attempt to confuse Canadians came in the form of a January 5 story in Blacklock’s Reporter, an Ottawa-based subscription news service, which suggested that ‘Canadians paid millions more in carbon tax than they received in rebates,’” he wrote.

Fawcett lamented “an environment where misinformation thrives and where one side has repeatedly shown its willingness to spread it about the carbon tax,” adding: “Equally dishonest was the implication the federal government had promised the rebates would be larger than the total tax paid by all Canadians. That was never the case.”

 

Stephen Harper did not defund the CBC when he had the chance.

Honest mistake or suicidal gesture?

Discuss.

Also: 

A South Korean social media influencer recently came under fire for endorsing messages that Chinese netizens perceived as insulting to China mostly due to a mistranslation and was ultimately dropped from her Chinese management agency.

Hamzy, a South Korean internet content creator who hosts mukbang, also known as an eating show where people stream themselves eating large quantities of food, has a YouTube channel with over five million subscribers and videos each generating several millions of views.

YouTube allows content creators to “like” comments which then get marked with a heart, and Hamzy liked some comments left by Korean viewers that offended her Chinese fan base, reported Taiwan’s government-run Central News Agency (CNA). One of the comments that Hamzy liked claimed that kimchi, a side dish of salted fermented vegetables, belonged to South Korea.

 

Because it does.

Fight a war over North Korea, not kimchi. 

It must be that stellar workmanship I keep hearing so much about!:

An internal memo contradicts federal claims inspectors checked every shipment of medical supplies from China to spot shoddy goods. In some cases inspections were a “paper exercise,” though MPs on the Commons health committee were assured of vigorous scrutiny: “There is a quality check there.”

I'm sure it's nothing to be concerned about:

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) says house prices could fall 47.9 per cent peak-to-trough with an unemployment rate of 25 per cent in its worst case scenario.

** 

Cabinet’s finances as a share of GDP are now in the worst shape of any jurisdiction outside Newfoundland and Labrador, a federal agency said yesterday. Record low interest rates are expected to keep debt interest charges at 7.3 percent of federal revenues this year: “It can be useful to compare.”

 

 

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Hank Aaron: 

Hall of Famer and one-time home run king Atlanta Braves legend Henry Louis “Hank” Aaron passed away this morning at the age of 86. He leaves behind an indelible legacy on and off the baseball diamond.