Mid-Week Post

 

Top of the mid-week to ya!

 

In case anyone has forgotten the real reason for the day ... 

 

We can always trust the government, no matter how stupid it is:

Who solicited Mr. Trudeau as a huge draw and speaker for so many WE Day rallies, and who billboarded his presence? Who invited his mother, Margaret, and his brother, Alexandre, to your WE days? Who paid out fees and expenses of close to $300,000 to them? Who drew Mr. Trudeau’s wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, to act as one of your charity’s ambassadors?

The point of all these questions, just to be clear, Marc and Craig, is to point out the fact that you invited, and most times paid, members of the prime minister of Canada’s family, to boost your WE day pitches and add credibility to them. And it is as near to certainty as we can hope for in the vale of tears, that the frequent presence of Justin Trudeau, before and after he became prime minister, along with his family members, must have been a very strong asset in getting schools to go to WE Day, and corporations and media to support it.

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Barely two percent of Canadians infected with Covid reported the fact using a costly federal tracing app, says the Public Health Agency. Only a fifth of mobile subscribers downloaded the app in the first place despite repeated appeals by the Prime Minister: “This is an approach we are confident is going to make a big difference.”

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It's like people object to rape hotels or something:

Cabinet faces a Charter challenge of its $225 million Covid hotel program. A media company Rebel News Network Ltd. seeks confidential documents used to justify mandatory quarantine at federally-approved hotels for all returning air travelers: “It is clear there were many other alternatives.”

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Federal officials have been told multiple times since 2014 that the office of the military ombudsman was not the proper venue for probing sexual misconduct in the Canadian military.

But still, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and Liberal MPs on the House of Commons defence committee probing misconduct allegations argued that it was the ombudsman, not the minister, who failed to act on a 2018 allegation against Gen. Jonathan Vance.

 

If dear Miss Meng was in China, her liver would be on the open market now: 

Her lawyers are expected to argue today that Meng’s rights were violated when she was held for three hours by Canada Border Services Agency officers before being informed of her arrest and her right to a lawyer.

Get rid of the CRTC and start opening up the market.

But that would just make sense:

Opposition MPs yesterday ordered Commons industry committee hearings into a proposed $26 billion buyout involving two of the nation’s four largest telecom corporations. “Frankly the status quo is unacceptable,” Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre (Carleton, Ont.) told reporters: “We have a protected, regulated oligarchy.”

 

But without the precedent, how could future Liberal governments ruin things for everyone else?:

Pierre Trudeau’s last finance minister Marc Lalonde warned cabinet that federal overspending was a looming disaster, like “keeping its finger in the dike,” according to declassified records. The Parliamentary Budget Office has calculated current deficits are running at the highest rate to GDP since Lalonde’s era: “Bad as it is, it could easily become even worse.”

 

What could go wrong here?:

A Liberal appointee in the Senate yesterday introduced a private bill promoting decriminalization of heroin. Senator Gwen Boniface (Ont.), a former Ontario Provincial Police commissioner, said simple possession for hard drugs should be a ticketing offence: “Substance use disorder is a public health issue.”

 

It's safe, they say:

Global health experts came under increasing pressure on Tuesday to clear up questions over the safety of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 shot, as Sweden and Latvia joined countries suspending their use in a further blow to Europe’s vaccination rollout.

The European Medicines Agency (EMA) said it was investigating reports of 30 cases of unusual blood disorders out of 5 million recipients of the AstraZeneca vaccine. In total, 45 million COVID shots have been delivered across the region.