Mid-Week Post

Your mid-week folly ....

When Justin declared his undying love for a country that mowed people down at Tiananmen Square, he bloody well meant it:

Prime Minister Trudeau has ordered the Canadian flag flown on Peace Tower on Parliament Hill lowered at half-mast for Canada Day after the remains of over 1,000 Indigenous children were found at two residential school sites.

Yes, about that:

The Lower Kootenay Band in British Columbia says a search using ground-penetrating radar has found 182 human remains in unmarked graves at a site close to a former residential school.

(Sidebar: not unmarked but abandoned, as are many other graves. This country is awash with forgotten cemeteries.)

Oh, and this:

Cowessess First Nation and the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Regina have partnered to rejuvenate the gravesite, located on the reserve since 1898. The official partnership began last year and last week, the Archdiocese announced a $70,000 investment. Part of the money is for aesthetic upgrades, including trees and fences. It will also go toward identifying graves and creating a map of the site. A central monument for all individuals buried there is also planned, which will be beneficial for people like Lerat, who didn’t have the money to buy headstones.

Justin's contempt for Canada is matched only by his melodrama.

The least-important voters block has taken the attention away from the various other scandals and glaring examples of ineptitude that one can lay squarely at the socked feet of Trudeau and his band of greedy, squealing losers.

Before he goes on a two month holiday (he doesn't hold down a job as other MPs might), he casually muttered some blather about the plethora of arsons he has been ignoring for weeks.

These arsons:

Last week, within six days and an hour’s drive of each other in British Columbia, four Catholic churches in the Penticton, Osoyoos, Upper Similkameen and Lower Similkameen Indian Band communities were lost in suspected arson fires — two last Monday, and another two on Saturday. As of this Monday, RCMP are investigating a suspected arson fire at the Siksika First Nation Catholic Church, about 50 kilometres east of Calgary. (The fire was extinguished without major damage.)

Those are just the most recent. The Catholic church in the St. Theresa Point First Nation, about 500 kilometres northeast of Winnipeg, burned on Easter Sunday. (Police quickly arrested a 32-year-old suspect who was well known to struggle with addictions, Chief Mary Wood told the Winnipeg Free Press.) Just days later, the 104-year-old St. Francis Xavier Catholic Church in Attawapiskat, Ont., on James Bay, burned under circumstances that are as yet unclear.

**

A Catholic church in northern Alberta has been destroyed by what RCMP are calling a suspicious fire.

RCMP say in a release that officers were called to the blaze at St. John Baptiste Parish in Morinville, about 40 kilometres north of Edmonton, just after 3 a.m.

Nothing falling from the mouths of politicians truly matters. They always talk. 

But they also always demonise and divide, too.

Canadians let a snowboard instructor call them racist, claim that Canada was built on genocide and declared Islamophobia to run rampant from far and wide.

Will they now endure a mere "unacceptable"?

Perhaps. 

A country so inured with cultural Marxism that burning down Christian houses of worship seems an acceptable response to injustices real or imagined must suit Sock-Boy down to the ground. He no longer has to cry on command. A little nudge will discredit and remove the last bastion of universal morality from China's North American vassal state.

There is only "transparency":

On June 23, hours before the House of Commons adjourned for the summer, the Liberals introduced Bill C-36 – a bill to crack down on “hate speech” published online. 

The bill would reinstate section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, amend the Criminal Code and Youth Criminal Justice Act to give the government new powers to address hateful content and give the Canadian Human Rights Commission the power to compel citizens to cease online communication.

According to PPC spokesperson Martin Masse, the legislation would effectively criminalize dissent and criticism that doesn’t align with “far left wokeism.” 

**

While the Simons speech raised the big picture questions about the Bill C-10 regulatory approach, Housakos simply destroyed the bill, highlighting the exclusion of important voices from committee hearings and the negative implications of its substantive provisions. At least three elements stood out. First, the impact of removing Section 4.1 from the bill:

The fact that the CRTC doesn’t consider you to be a broadcaster when you upload a video onto YouTube means nothing if they can make YouTube change its algorithms so that next to no one will ever see it. It means nothing if they can instead make people see a video with the kind of content they prefer.

Second, Housakos identified the core concern with discoverability requirements:

by prioritizing some content the CRTC will naturally be de-prioritizing other content in ways that go beyond limiting speech. It will be picking winners and losers.

And who will be the winners and losers? Housakos calls it:

The beneficiaries of that system will be the established well-funded media production companies with the lobbyists and lawyers to work it to their advantage – more gatekeepers – not the independent YouTube performer looking to go viral and become the next Justin Bieber or Lily Singh.

Third, Housakos linked the current success of the Canadian film and television sector with the gatekeepers’ support for Bill C-10:

The problem isn’t a lack of investment in Canadian talent and Canadian stories. The problem, if you see it that way, is that it’s happening without the need for intermediaries like the Canada Media Fund. The middlemen aren’t getting their cut of the pie, and what’s worse for them is that they’re not controlling which artists and which producers are receiving funding. They want to pick the winners and losers. That’s the beauty of the digital age. The success of artists and producers isn’t determined by the gatekeepers.

**

The Senate yesterday referred Bill C-10 to committee hearings as one legislator likened first-ever internet regulations to book burning. “I don’t think this bill needs amendments,” said Senator David Richards (N.B.). “I think however it needs a stake through the heart.”

Oh, you can't be that stupid:

The new hate speech bill introduced by the Liberal government as the Parliamentary session ended helps ensure freedom of expression for those who are disproportionately targeted online, supporters of the bill argue.

Rather, disaffected individuals whose only outlet for expressing their dissatisfaction with Catherine McKenna's incompetence, fluffy-brained tweets and her drunkenness, Maryam Monsef's fluid interpretation of the Afghani identity (and her incompetence), Bill Morneau's calling Lisa Raitt a "Neanderthal" (surely he had to recover at his French chateau), Chrystia Freeland and Patty Hajdu's rape-shaming and - do we have time to cover the Liberal "men's" sexual harassment? - that this outlet must be shut down because words make people cry?

I'm just not going to entertain that complete twaddle that this bill ensures freedom of speech.

What bullsh--.

When you think of COVID screw-ups and outright tyranny, think of Canada:

Health Canada is updating the label for the Oxford-AstraZeneca and COVISHIELD COVID-19 vaccines to add capillary leak syndrome as a potential side-effect.

The agency is also including a warning for patients with a history of the ailment to not get those vaccines.

Capillary leak syndrome is a very rare, serious condition that causes fluid leakage from small blood vessels (capillaries), which can result in the swelling of the arms and legs, sudden weight gain, low blood pressure, thickening of the blood and low levels of the albumin blood protein.

Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada have been monitoring the condition since it was raised as a potential safety concern by the European Medicines Agency in April.

**

Saskatchewan will not require proof of vaccination against COVID-19 in order for people to work or attend events in the province, Premier Scott Moe says.

**

The Trudeau government has now taken the extraordinary step of filing a lawsuit against Speaker Anthony Rota (who is himself a Liberal Member of Parliament) in order to circumvent the Parliamentary orders. The ongoing ordeal raises basic questions about Parliamentary supremacy in our constitutional system.

It’s precisely the sort of issue that ought to animate law professors across the country who can usually be relied upon to issue an open letter of condemnation every time a Conservative government makes a decision they don’t like. Yet there’s been deafening silence in response to the government’s act of executive aggrandizement. No open letters. No protests. No media exposes. Not even the usual snark or incredulity on social media. Apparently academic Twitter has suddenly exhausted its usual supply of indignation.

North Korea's only fat man yells at his underlings for being woefully under-prepared for China's virus:

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un berated top officials for failures in coronavirus prevention that caused a “great crisis,” using strong language that raised the specter of a mass outbreak in a country that would be scarcely able to handle it.

The state media report Wednesday did not specify what “crucial” lapse had prompted Kim to call the Politburo meeting of the ruling Workers’ Party, but experts said the North could be wrestling with a significant setback in its pandemic fight.

Some People Are "Special"

Quite:

Even in a government as imperious as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s, Carolyn Bennett’s cheap-shot attack on former colleague Jody Wilson-Raybould stands out as something special.

There’s such economy to it. So much said with so little. A single word — “pension?” — sent in response to Wilson-Raybould’s reaction to the latest residential schools horror, in seeming mockery of her culture and personal credibility. ...

There’s the arrogance: The idea that Wilson-Raybould might be more interested in cementing a fat Parliamentary pension, when Bennett — safely ensconced on the public payroll since 1997 — had long since stopped having to worry about hers.

 

I will submit that Wilson-Raybould is very much about her pension and her causes but so is that desiccated, racist, old b!#ch  Carolyn Bennett.

Pot and kettle, is my point.

Because Quebec:

Quebec Indigenous Affairs Minister Ian Lafrenière said more reforms to the history courses are underway. “It is an important time to rebuild it and find what is missing and be reassured, in terms of the curriculum and training at school, it will be improved,” he said in a recent interview.

“I would be a liar if I were to say everything is done. On the contrary, it’s a long-term process.”

But Lafrenière provided no detail about the changes or offered a timeline regarding when they would be implemented. The Education Department, meanwhile, didn’t respond to repeated requests for comment.

 

Or, how does Quebec escape whipping in all of this?

History is invariably ugly and riddled with cruelties and bloodshed.

But it also is filled with accounts that challenge a more mercenary narrative: 

In 2015, Tomson Highway told the now-defunct Huffington Post Canada that he spent nine of the “happiest years” of his life at a residential school. The school, called the Guy Hill Residential School, was run by the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate. Born in northern Manitoba, Highway was sent to the residential school at the age of six, and remained until he was 15, going home for the two-month summer holidays. He then boarded with families of European origin while finishing his high school education in Winnipeg.

“All we hear is the negative stuff; nobody’s interested in the positive, the joy in that school,” Highway told journalist Joshua Ostroff about Guy Hill.

“Nine of the happiest years of my life I spent...at that school,” he continued.

“I learned your language, for God’s sake. Have you learned my language? No, so who’s the privileged one and who is underprivileged.”

** 

A 90-year-old Kamloops residential school survivor said she is “devastated” by the loss of Saint Ann’s Church in a suspicious weekend fire near Hedley, B.C.

Elder Carrie Allison of the Upper Similkameen Indian Band (USIB), who has lived in the Similkameen Valley for more than 70 years, said she attended the Kamloops residential school at the age of 8 for three years.

Allison condemns the destruction of the Catholic church, saying in a statement that it was a historical landmark built before 1908.

“There have been many happy and joyful times with marriages from all over the world in that church, and for the couple that was to marry there next week, I am devastated,” she wrote.

 

(Sidebar: I'm sure the official outrage melodrama over these acts of arson is forthcoming. Or not.) 

Also - shut up, China:

In a provocative speech in the upper house on Monday, Independent Senators Group (ISG) Leader Sen. Yuen Pau Woo said Canada should avoid criticizing China for its human rights abuses against Uyghur Muslims because our country has mistreated Indigenous peoples.

 

Yes, about that:

It’s a story so shocking it’s hard to believe. A Canadian politician laundering Asian drug money. A crime boss running Chinese gang wars from his Vancouver home. A local fentanyl super-factory capable of killing scores of Canadians. What they all have in common is their link back to Communist Chinese agents, who use criminal syndicates to corrupt Canadian officials, flood Canada’s streets with dangerous drugs, intimidate local Chinese communities, and buy up vast swaths of Canadian real estate. 

** 

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has come down heavily on independent experts that publicize honestly about the nation’s suspected recent disastrous crop yields and supply shortages. Latest reports suggest numerous industry officials have been detained and their online businesses closed.

Imagine A Boot Stamping On Transparency Forever

The party that promised transparency also demonstrated its obedience to China:

The revelation that Guilbeault had not received any letters of support came from an Inquiry of Ministry, which said that Guilbeault's office "has not received any correspondence asking for more internet censorship or regulation."

**

Senators last night began proposing amendments to Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault’s Bill C-10, the first of two cabinet bills to regulate the internet. Legislators proposed lengthy committee hearings that would slow the bill: “Shouldn’t we ask Canadians if they even want the internet regulated in this way?”

 

(Sidebar: Canadians should also be asking Retirement Barbie where the billions of dollars she lost is.) 

 

Yes, but he also didn't sell off the CBC, either, so ... :

One notable difference is that, at least to my knowledge, he never sued his the speaker. He appreciated that the speaker is the very voice of the House of Commons itself, all of it, the opposition parties and the government and the independents. He keeps order, he protects the dignity of the chamber, he guarantees the rights of all — all — MPs. He or she is not to be derogated. Never mind sued by one of the members of the House over which he presides.

Like, the information that China wasn't the source of COVID-19 when it was, that it was transmissible to humans, that masks don't work and then do, that the Trudeau government had materials and even medicines to combat this when it didn't and even the complications of these flu shots? Like that "misinformation"?:

 

It's not like the government can be trusted:

On June 2, the House of Commons once again passed a motion compelling PHAC to supply unredacted documentation on Qiu and Cheng’s case. This time, Trudeau’s Ministers of Public Health Patty Hadju and Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau both blocked the transfer of documents.

**

Cabinet yesterday said it has “nothing to hide” over the firing of Chinese scientists at a federal lab, but defended a Federal Court reference to seal records in the case. The Court reference seeks to overturn four Commons orders that the files be disclosed to House lawyers under a citation for contempt: “What are you so desperate to hide?”

What Would Canada Do If It Didn't Have An Inflated Sense of Itself?

 

 

To wit:

When it comes to our international political relationships, Canada keeps some exceptional company. As well, Canada scores very high in numerous international studies on quality of life, livability, the strength of our public sector and of our social support programs, our health system, etc.

 

Yes, about that:

Over 2,300 Canadians died while waiting for a surgery last year as much of the healthcare system cancelled non-essential procedures.

According to a report by SecondStreet.org, at least 2,367 people are confirmed to have died in 2020 while on the waitlist for a surgery.

“The most unfortunate part about so many patients dying on waiting lists in our health care system is that many of these tragedies could have been prevented,” said SecondStreet.org President Colin Craig.

1,086 of the deaths reported came from Ontario. The true number of deaths is likely much higher as Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador, and most of Manitoba did not track deaths of patients on waiting lists.

More:

Interestingly, many of the studies in which Canada ranks highest are determined by what citizens in other countries think of Canada. In other words, much of the world outside the country thinks living inside Canada is great.

But how are Canadians feeling about our current environment and their future prospects? Do we recognize and appreciate how well things are going in the country? Do our views mirror the views of those who are looking at Canada from afar?

 

Again: 

Say “Canada” and Italians think of mountains and maple syrup, according to Department of Foreign Affairs research. People in France think of sled dogs and Niagara Falls: “Canada’s image has its strengths and weaknesses.”

 

That doesn't sound like anyone takes Canada seriously.

When one thinks of France, one might think of Claude Debussy or Victor Hugo. When one thinks of the US, one thinks of innovation and military might. Only airheads think of manga when they think of Japan when they could think of industriousness and sculpted natural beauty. The point is each of these countries knows what is is and has something cultural, natural or political to offer the world. Canada is a set of cheap stereotypes with nothing of value to offer.

 

This leads to the second point:

The answer is — not so much. In fact, when we examine the views of Canadians across our monthly 28-country assessment and compare us to the views of global citizens about their own countries, we are downright average.

 

Again, Canadians' inflated view of its domestic and foreign importance and the current state of its own country leads to a rather devastating conclusion: we are so self-important because the self-consciousness we possess is crippling.

Ask a Canadian to define what he is WITHOUT comparing himself to an American he has never even met.

He can't do it, even if he does repeat the same useless, unproveable, shallow platitudes he has been fed since childhood. Without pointing out how bad the Americans are, he is nothing. The country relies on some head-patting from bigger, better countries to make itself feel good when not putting down the Americans.

What a sad way to live.

And the Rest of It

Yep:

The poll surveyed 1,542 Canadians between June 18 and 20. Among respondents, fervent support also came for the Canadian flag. Sixty-nine per cent said they wanted to see the Canadian flag displayed “more often and in more places.” Conversely, a mere 11 per cent said they worried about displays of the flag lest it “offend … marginalized groups.”

 

 

More houses?:

A government-appointed expert panel in B.C. released a report earlier this month imploring all orders of government to collaborate and remove regulatory impediments that have kept housing construction at levels much lower than needed to house the growing population.

The six-member expert panel, jointly commissioned by the Federal and B.C. governments, went beyond the oft-cited demand-curbing recommendations of higher transfer taxes and penalties. Instead, the panel focused on the lack of housing supply in B.C., and the lucklustre efforts to address it.

 

 

She doesn't have to be brought back:

A Canadian woman was released from a camp for ISIS detainees in northeast Syria on the weekend, a lawyer representing her family said on Monday.

The woman, believed to have left for Syria in 2014, has been taken to Erbil, northern Iraq, setting the stage for her return to Canada.

She is the first Canadian adult to leave the makeshift camps and prisons for suspected ISIS members captured in Syria during the conflict.

 

 

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

India has redirected at least 50,000 additional troops to its border with China in a historic shift toward an offensive military posture against the world’s second-biggest economy. ...

Over the past few months, India has moved troops and fighter jet squadrons to three distinct areas along its border with China, according to four people familiar with the matter. All in all, India now has roughly 200,000 troops focused on the border, two of them said, which is an increase of more than 40% from last year.

Both the Indian Army and a spokesman for the Prime Minister’s Office in New Delhi didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Whereas previously India’s military presence was aimed at blocking Chinese moves, the redeployment will allow Indian commanders more options to attack and seize territory in China if necessary in a strategy known as “offensive defense,” one of the people said. That includes a lighter footprint involving more helicopters to airlift soldiers from valley to valley along with artillery pieces like the M777 howitzer built by BAE Systems Inc.While it’s unclear how many troops China has on the border, India detected that the People’s Liberation Army recently moved additional forces from Tibet to the Xinjiang Military Command, which is responsible for patrolling disputed areas along the Himalayas. China is adding fresh runway buildings, bomb-proof bunkers to house fighter jets and new airfields along the disputed border in Tibet, two of the people said. Beijing also adding long-range artillery, tanks, rocket regiments and twin-engine fighters in the last few months, they said.

 

 

There Is No Outrage

But there should be:

A statue was vandalized at a Catholic church in Edmonton on the weekend, one of a string of recent acts against Catholic churches following the discovery of hundreds of unmarked graves at two former residential school sites.

Police in Edmonton say a female suspect was seen vandalizing a statue of Pope John Paul ll with paint outside of the Holy Rosary Catholic Church north of the city’s downtown late Saturday night.

 

(Sidebar: oh, THAT'S why it was done. Sure ...)

**

Mounties are investigating after they say two more Catholic churches in British Columbia’s southern Interior were destroyed in early-morning fires.

RCMP say the Princeton detachment got a report at 3:52 a.m. that St. Ann’s Catholic Church on Upper Similkameen Indian Band land, near Hedley, B.C., was on fire.

Another report came in to the Keremeos detachment at 4:45 a.m. that a Catholic church on Lower Similkameen land at Chopaka, near the U.S. border, was ablaze.

The Mounties say they’re treating both fires as suspicious and looking for possible connection to fires that destroyed two other Catholic churches in the region.

 

 

And for all of those who "left" the Church because they "feel uncomfortable", get over yourselves.

You were waiting for a moment to leave. 

You left the ONE church that has claim to the Revealed Truth not because of any particular person or evil. Stop couching your discomfort in something allegedly noble or heroic. No matter what monstrous acts or scandals occur by the handful, what Jesus started was never wrong and you know it.

And you know that you can always come back.

Retirement Barbie

Her idiocy would have been enough to can her in any other country:

Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna will not be running for re-election, marking the second high-profile Liberal minister to leave federal politics ahead of the next election.

McKenna, who also held the title of environment minister from 2015 to 2019, made the announcement during a press conference in front of press and supporters in her riding of downtown Ottawa on Monday.

 

She can be a joke just like the rest of Canada is. 

 

Today In "The Canadian Government is Disgustingly Corrupt" News

Nice, little items here:

The Canada Revenue Agency in an internal memo said it feared its own employees would help misappropriate pandemic relief money. The memo identified a “moderate” likelihood of misappropriation under one of the costliest pandemic relief programs, the $83.6 billion Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy: “Money has just been going out the door.”  

**

pic.twitter.com/KSXXgLOkFc

— Viva Frei (@thevivafrei) June 28, 2021

**

For those who accuse Canada of being a racist country as we approach our 154th birthday on Thursday, a racist country would not be spending $24.5 billion this year alone to improve the lives of Canada’s First Nations, Metis and Inuit people.

That should be more than enough money to deliver clean water to all Indigenous reserves. ...

The problem isn’t a lack of money, it’s that the money isn’t getting to the people it’s supposed to help.

In her April budget, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said an “historic new investment” of $18 billion over the next five years to improve the lives of Indigenous Canadians, was proof of how much the Trudeau government values its relationship with them.

She said the Liberals have increased spending on Indigenous programs every year since coming to power in 2015, leading up to this year’s $24.5 billion — 87% more than the historical rate of spending on these issues.

But no amount of money will address what Canada’s late auditor general Michael Ferguson described as the “incomprehensible failure” to close the socio-economic gap between Canada’s Indigenous people and other Canadians in a series of reports from 2016 to 2018.

Ferguson said part of the problem was mismanagement by some Indigenous leaders and provincial governments. ...

Instead, Ferguson found programs “are managed to accommodate the people running them rather than the people receiving the services … the focus is on measuring what civil servants are doing rather than how well” Indigenous Canadians, and all Canadians, are being served by this spending.

 

" ... any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred ..."

 (This bit of absurdity)

Below are some of the most offensive things every uttered.

Viewer discretion is advised:

"Slavery is the next best thing to hell." (Harriet Tub to Benjamin Drew, 1855)

 

"O God! Thou art more friend to me than I am to myself." (Abdul Baha, Bahai prayer)

 

"If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, and only one person were of the contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind." (John Stuart Mill, Chapter II, On Liberty)

 

"And it seems to me, as to them, and I think it will so appear to the people of this country that, if we wish to be a great people; if we wish to form . . . a great nationality, commanding the respect of the world, ..." (Sir John A. Macdonald, meeting on Confederation, October 10th, 1865)

 

"Do not be afraid." (Saint John Paul II, October 22nd, 1978)

 

"I believe in God, the Father Almighty ..." (the Apostles Creed)

 

"LIBERTY" (written on a sign in Tienanmen Square, 1989)

All of these things are offensive. All of these things "trigger" people. All of these things cause or caused offense.