The transcripts confirm that 911 dispatchers and the Nova Scotia RCMP
knew at least 12 hours before the public was informed that a well-armed
gunman named Gabriel Wortman was driving a lookalike RCMP vehicle,
complete with identical decals and lights. The 51-year-old denturist,
who was also dressed as a police officer, would go on to kill 22 people
in his rampage – the worst in Canadian history. ...
Ms. Blair, who
identified the shooter as Mr. Wortman, was the first to tell a 911
operator that her neighbour was driving a fake police car, and she
wasn’t the last. Her eldest son told another 911 operator about 15
minutes later that his neighbour was driving a vehicle that looked “just
like … a police car.”
“The children indicated the perpetrator would blend in ‘because he has a cop car,’” the transcripts read. ...
The joint
provincial-federal public inquiry, which must submit a final report in
November with recommendations on how to prevent similar tragedies, is
focused on what police knew and when because it’s one of the central
questions of the case. The transcripts show the RCMP withheld for 12
crucial hours information that the gunman was driving a real-looking
police vehicle.
When
they finally informed the public the next morning, at 10:17 a.m., the
RCMP used Twitter, and not the province’s emergency alert system which
sends messages directly to people’s phones. Mr. Wortman killed another
six people after leaving Portapique before the information about the
police car was revealed.
The inquiry is an expensive waste of time as no action will be taken.
The authors claimed that the number of people to suffer a spontaneous
abortion (miscarriage) during the study was 104 out of 827 completed
pregnancies, equating the risk of miscarriage at 12.6%; 7 – 12% lower
than the risk of miscarriage in the general population. ...
However, our analysis proved that these numbers were extremely
misleading due to the fact that of the 827 completed pregnancies, 700 /
86% of the women had received a dose of either the Pfizer or Moderna
Covid-19 vaccine during the third trimester of pregnancy, meaning it was
impossible for them to suffer a miscarriage due to the fact they can
only occur prior to week 20 of a pregnancy.This meant that just 127
women received either the Pfizer or Moderna Covid-19 vaccine during the
first / second trimester, with 104 of the woman sadly losing their
baby. Therefore the rate of incidence of miscarriage was 82%, not 12.6%
as presented in the findings of the study, and the authors of the study
have since admitted that they made a mistake, issuing a correction six
months too late, because the study has been used to justify Covid-19
vaccination of pregnant women and new mothers around the world.
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino says he personally contacted
reporters and “urged them to be very careful” in dealing with the
Freedom Convoy. MPs who voted to invoke the Emergencies Act repeatedly
praised coverage of the political protests against vaccine mandates: “As
for journalists, trust me, I reached out to some of them.”
The man wanted the PM to explain his views on ISIS; “how you’re going to
protect future Canadians like my young daughter 10, 15 or 20 years from
now, when you’re letting in people with an ideology that just does not
conform to what we’re doing here.”
Trudeau then went into his rambling answer about how Canada is a
welcoming country that takes in people from all over the world who are
fleeing persecution and poverty. He then made reference to other groups
of people who came to Canada in large numbers, specifically Greek,
Italian and Portuguese immigrants.
In other words, ISIS fighters are no different than the immigrants who
came to Canada in years gone by from Western European countries.
**
At one gruesome point, Nada told me through an interpreter during our
hour-long interview at an educational meeting on the Yazidi situation
this past Sunday, Nada and her children were forced to watch four men
being beheaded. Eventually, because Nada speaks fluent Arabic and could
pass as Muslim, she was able to escape with her children and contact
family members in Kurdistan, who paid for smugglers to take them there.
Canada
accepted Nada and her children, but not her father or sister. She has
been living in London, Ont., for eight months. Recently, on a bus, she
recognized X — the slave-market boss who had owned her and used her for
months. They got off at the same stop. X saw her, covered his face and
ran off.
A week after the protest in downtown Ottawa was cleared by law
enforcement, the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) announced on Feb. 27 the
arrest of a participant located one hour east of the Canadian capital.
The OPS said Steeve Charland, 48, of Grenville, Quebec, was arrested
by the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) in the Vankleek Hill area.
Charland has been charged with mischief and counselling to commit the
offence of mischief. He was due to appear in court on Feb. 27, said the
OPS in a statement.
As we all embarrassedly witnessed, the prime minister’s handling of
the “occupation” of Ottawa by a few hundred protesting knights of the
road with big rigs—not to be confused with the real occupation of
Ukraine by almost 200,000 Kremlin troops—gave the appearance of a man
who arrives at the highest office in the land each morning in a convoy
of clown cars. The most charitable reading suggested a man deeply out of
his depth.
His rationalization for forcing on Canadians the never-before-deployed Emergencies Act,
then abruptly withdrawing it with a farcical “Crisis? What crisis?”
flourish 36 hours later, was patently false. It was so obviously
fraudulent only certain dupes and stooges in the Canadian media could be
relied on to buy it.
Even the liberal New York Times, never mind the rock-ribbed
Republican Wall Street Journal, laughed up its cross-border sleeve at
the gullibility of northern journalistic confreres swallowing it all.
It’s easy to see why.
The PM claimed only the federal Emergencies Act afforded the
necessary powers to free the parliamentary precinct and downtown Ottawa
from the overwhelming force of truck-driving siege meisters. The premise
was that neither municipal nor provincial laws gave sufficient
authorization to pepper spray protesters in the eyes, use baton-wielding
police to drive the miscreants off, seize their vehicles, and finally
attack their bank accounts, chattels, mortgages, investments, etc.
Only days before, however, Ottawa’s own chief of police lost his job
because, it was claimed, he failed to exercise municipal powers
available to him to stop the truckers’ protest. The prime minister’s
claim and the city’s claim about the police chief’s ouster could not
both be true.
If the chief failed to exercise his powers, then he must have had the
powers to begin with. If the powers were as non-existent as the prime
minister claimed, the chief could not have lost his job for failing to
exercise what he didn’t have. (Note to Ottawa ambulance chasers who take
on the chief’s wrongful dismissal suit: Add Justin Trudeau to the
witness list.)
Earlier minor skirmishes in Toronto and at Windsor’s Ambassador
Bridge made it clear that Ontario law gave ample power for clearing
operations. They were boots-on-the-ground proof that the prime minister,
let us be polite, made the whole Emergencies Act thing up.
H.R. McMaster’s coinage of “strategic narcissism” helps us understand
why. It explains Trudeau’s reluctance-cum-failure to simply go out on
the first day of the truckers’ protest, meet with the gathering lads and
lassies, and say: “Lookit guys and gals (sorry, that’s how scions of
wealthy Westmount families think working class people talk), them
goldurn mandates are droppin’ across our great and glorious land. We
figure she’ll be done by mid-March, or ‘round abouts. Head on home to
your homesteads (Westmount scions think all rural folk in Canada live on
a homestead, and all truck drivers are rural folk) and we’ll get ‘er
done.”
Cabinet has confidential information justifying extraordinary police
powers against Freedom Convoy truckers, the Senate was told yesterday.
Skeptical senators questioned why records could not be shown to
legislators: “The short answer is no.”
The funds donated to the ‘Freedom Convoy’ protest will remain frozen
pending the outcome of a proposed class-action lawsuit on behalf of
Ottawa residents.
The parties in the case agreed to transfer cash and cryptocurrency to
an escrow fund which would prevent the respondents in the lawsuit from
dispersing the funds, court heard Monday.
That means the money, should the lawsuit succeed, could go to Ottawa residents and businesses affected by the protest.
Rather, the unelected judges and various chair-moisteners want to take the money (that is still with Give Send Go) without warrant or cause and collect it for themselves and all for a popular yet embarrassing movement.
Many British Columbians are concerned someone in their household will suffer job loss and be unable to provide for the family.
This is most evident in the western provinces with two-in-five people
expressing this concern. More than half of Canadians feel like they are
being outpaced by the rising cost of living, the new poll finds.
The poll from the Angus Reid Institute
has found 53 per cent of Canadians agree they can’t keep up with the
rising costs, while 44 per cent say they have yet to feel that level of
pressure.
Canada will send at least 100 anti-tank weapons and 2,000 rockets to
Ukraine to help bolster their defence against increasingly aggressive
Russian military advances, said Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. ...
(Sidebar: all of which will arrive late and prove of little use.)
The prime minister announced that Canada would also ban the import of
Russian crude oil going forward, although none has entered the country
since 2019. He did not say that the ban would extend to Russian refined
petroleum.
Canadians are wary of cabinet’s climate change plan to ban the sale of
gas and diesel-fueled cars, pickups and SUVs in the name of “personal
choice and freedom,” says in-house Privy Council Office research.
Cabinet is mandating that all sales be electric by 2035: “There was
anxiety with many believing costs for consumers would go up.”
**
Prior to the shakedown of the NEB, few Canadians had heard of the National Observer
or its sister publication, The Vancouver Observer. Both are on-line
reporting projects of the Observer Media Group. Launched in 2015 with
crowd-funded seed capital, the National Observer calls itself
“independent” and says that it exists “thanks to reader subscriptions
and donations.”
One
of those donors, according to U.S. tax returns, is The Tides Foundation
in San Francisco. Tides has funded Observer Media via Earth Ways, a
charitable foundation in Malibu Beach, Calif. Tides and Earth Ways have a
long history and are funded by some of the same donors.
In 2015,
Tides paid US$21,000 to Earth Ways for re-granting to Observer Media,
US$20,000 for “media reporting” and US$1,000 “in honour of Linda
Solomon.” Solomon is the founder and editor-in-chief of the National
Observer and CEO of The Observer Group. She’s also the sister of Joel
Solomon, a former employee and chairman of The Tides Foundation.
Linda
Solomon did not reply to an email seeking further information about her
publication’s connection to Tides. De Souza responded to a request for
comment, but did not answer questions about funding from Tides.
Given
that the National Observer is partially funded by Tides, it bears
mention that Tides is by no means an impartial bystander in the campaign
against Alberta oil. In fact, Tides is the funding and co-ordination
juggernaut behind anti-pipeline activism. Totaling US$35 million, Tides
made more than 400 payments (2009 to 2015) to nearly 100 anti-pipeline
groups. Without all that Tides money, pipeline projects would not be
facing well-organized opposition.
If Tides funded activists to
act as honest brokers, that would be fair. But that’s not what Tides
does. Tides funds The Tar Sands Campaign, an international effort that
aims to embarrass Canada, deter investment and stigmatize Alberta oil as
the poster child of dirty fuel. The goal of this campaign is nothing
short of stopping the export of Alberta oil by pipeline, rail and
tanker.
**
One of Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau’s star Liberal candidates — prominent Quebec
environmental activist Steven Guilbeault — says it’s unlikely Canada
will ever build another pipeline under legislation passed by Trudeau’s
government.
In
acknowledging this to the National Post’s Jesse Snyder, Guilbeault —
recruited to run by senior Trudeau strategist and fellow environmental
activist Gerald Butts — committed a classic political gaffe.
That is, Guilbeault, who has history of engaging in civil disobedience at climate change protests, accidentally told the truth.
Trudeau’s
official position is that his Bill C-69, which expands and complicates
the already Byzantine process for reviewing and approving pipelines in
Canada, won’t interfere with the construction of new pipelines.
At least beyond the one pipeline Trudeau bought — Trans Mountain — in a bid to get that long-delayed project, which is still stalled, moving again.Guilbeault confirmed the concerns of Canada’s oil and gas industry,
which dubbed Bill C-69 the “no more pipelines bill,” along with Bill
C-48 banning oil tankers from docking in northern British Columbia.
Canada’s multi-billion LNG Canada project is facing fresh trouble, as
work on a key artery linking the export facility near Kitimat, B.C. to
natural gas resources in Dawson Creek area is being halted by First
Nations groups.
Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs, representing all
five clans of the Wet’suwet’en Nation, said over the weekend that they
issued an eviction notice to the Coastal GasLink pipeline company, which
is building the $6.6 billion project.
A group of nearly 120
members of the Wet’suwet’en Nation is calling for an emergency meeting
with hereditary leaders after last Thursday’s attack on workers at a
construction camp for a controversial natural gas pipeline in northern
British Columbia.
(Sidebar: North Korea has a hereditary system, too. Just saying.)
“It
remains very evident that the Nation is extremely divided and that
militant outside influences have created a violent and confrontational
dynamic onto our territories,” said the letter dated Wednesday. Its
signatories includeMaureen Luggi, elected chief of the
Wet’suwet’en First Nation, formerly known as the Broman Lake Indian
Band. She and others supporting the letter say that it’s time to find
ways for reunification amid divisive issues, notably the Coastal GasLink
pipeline.
“One
perceived solution: to make sure that the hereditary and elected
leadership work together in all decision-making processes in recognition
of the fact that both entities provide varying degrees and aspects of
support to the Wet’suwet’en,” the letter said.
Speaking of North Korea:
South Korea on Wednesday test-fired a long-range surface-to-air
missile, Yonhap news agency reported, a month after North Korea tested a
record number of increasingly powerful missiles potentially capable of
evading defences in the South.
An L-SAM was successfully launched
from a testing site in Taean, 150 km (90 miles) southwest of the capital
Seoul, Yonhap reported, citing unnamed sources. The Ministry of Defence
declined to confirm the report.
International tension has been
rising over a recent series of North Korean ballistic missile tests.
January was a record month for such tests, with at least seven launches,
including a new type of "hypersonic missile" able to manoeuvre at high
speed, making it potentially difficult to intercept.
The United Nations’ independent investigator on human rights in North
Korea has called for the international community to provide 60 million
doses of COVID-19 vaccines to the isolated authoritarian nation, which
has recently showed signs of easing one of the world's most restrictive
pandemic border closures.
Tomas Ojea Quintana said Wednesday the
doses would be enough to inoculate North Korea’s population of more than
25 million people at least twice. He said the shots would possibly
encourage Pyongyang’s leadership to open up more after the country’s
self-imposed lockdown of the past two years created challenges for
outside monitors, aid groups and diplomats.
The move could be “the
key to opening (North) Korea's border and resuming its interaction with
the international community and bringing it out of isolation,” Quintana
said at a news conference on Wednesday in Seoul.
Some Canadian political science professors are concerned about their
students’ inability to write good essays due to poor knowledge and literacy and the ideological bent in academia.
Europe handed Russia its business and then it handed Ukraine over to it, as well:
Ukraine’spresident warned Sunday evening that the next 24 hours are crucial for the country facing a Russian invasion that is attacking from “all directions.”
President
Volodymyr Zelenskiy gave the notice to U.K. Prime Minister Boris
Johnson in a phone conversation, according to a Johnson spokesperson.
Ukraine’s
armed forces said Sunday that the day has been a “difficult time” for
the military and Russian troops “continue shelling in almost all
directions,” a description also used by the Kremlin.
As Ukraine battles, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered
his nuclear-armed forces to be put on high alert, escalating fears of a
nuclear war despite Ukraine confirming an agreement to hold talks with
Moscow.
In giving the nuclear alert directive on Sunday, Putin
cited “aggressive statements” by NATO members and wide-ranging economic
sanctions imposed by the Western nations against Russia, including the
Russian leader himself.
Russia vetoed a draft U.N. Security Council resolution on Friday that
would have deplored Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, while China abstained
from the vote - a move Western countries view as a win for showing
Russia's international isolation.
Too little, too late:
Germanywill provide anti-tank weapons and surface-to-air missiles to Ukraine, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced Saturday.
**
Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly announced Sunday that Canada will send an additional $25 million of protective equipment to Ukraine.
“They are extremists who don’t believe in science, they’re often
misogynists, also often racists. It’s a small group that muscles in, and
we have to make a choice in terms of leaders, in terms of the country.
Do we tolerate these people? ..."
It’s a weird thing to do at this stage of the pandemic,
given that many health authorities are now explicitly telling Canadians
not to bother isolating if they’re asymptomatic. With Omicron spreading
so widely, epidemiologists are generally working from the premise that
almost everyone has been exposed to COVID-19 at some point, and to take
precautions only in special circumstances. Ontario’s official public health guidelines
advise people in Trudeau’s situation to continue living their lives,
but to avoid “high-risk settings” such as senior’s homes. Trudeau claims
he is following the guidelines of Ottawa Health, but the health
authority’s public guidelines only advise
a five day isolation period in the case that someone is unvaccinated.
Not only is Trudeau thrice-vaccinated, but a rapid test that he took
after the alleged exposure turned up negative.
**
With the pandemic in full swing, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau urged
Canadians to show support for those helping to keep food on their
tables. “While many of us are working from home, there are others who
aren’t able to do that — like the truck drivers who are working day and
night to make sure our shelves are stocked. So when you can, please
#ThankATrucker for everything they’re doing and help them however you
can,” he tweeted March 31, 2020.
Trudeau had a chance to thank thousands of them personally over the
weekend, as the truckers who’ve assembled what they call the Freedom Convoy to protest COVID vaccine mandates and restrictions cruised into the capital. Instead, he fled — breaking isolation to do it.
Despite the risk, the 44-year-old president has taken his last stand
and has been on the streets of Kyiv in defiance of the Russian troops
that are invading his country. On Friday morning, in a video addressed
to Ukrainians, Zelenskyy said that he has been identified by the enemy
as the number one target and his family as the number two.
This
came after a conference call the night before on which he reportedly
told European Union leaders, “This might be the last time you see me
alive.”
**
Ukrainian PresidentVolodymyr Zelensky
rejected an evacuation offer from the United States and is remaining in
his country as Russian forces capture more ground, Ukrainian officials
said on Feb. 26.
**
Asthe disruptive protest in Ottawa
drags into its second week, some residents of the downtown core say
they've been living a nightmare, under siege and terrified to leave
their homes — except to seek refuge away from the epicentre.
**
A Ukrainian soldier reportedly blew himself up on a bridge to prevent a line of Russian tanks from crossing.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine
announced the act of bravery by Vitaly Skakun, who was part of a marine
infantry battalion aiming to block the Henichesk bridge in the southern
Kherson region.
As the tanks approached, Mr Skakun jumped in to carry out a mission to blow up the bridge.
“The bridge was mined, but he didn’t manage to get away from there,” the military said in a statement.
“According
to his brothers in arms, Vitaly got in touch [with them] and said he
was going to blow up the bridge. Immediately after an explosion rang
out.”
“His heroic act significantly slowed down the push of the enemy, allowing the unit to relocate and organize defense.”
Officials said they were working on awarding Mr Skakun with posthumous honors.
We know the events in #Ottawa are upsetting. Still, we’re asking people to stop calling critical emergency and operational phone lines to express displeasure about the police action to remove an unlawful assembly downtown.
Nick Strachan, a young man participating in the COVID mandate protest,
became unexpectedly famous when video of him being relentlessly beaten
by Canadian police was released on social media. “They were punching my
face. They were kneeing me in the face. And simultaneously that’s when
one of the riot officers took my nylon rainjacket…and wrapped it around
my mouth and my nose and it was cutting off my breathing. I didn’t know
if I was going to get another breath. The last thing I saw were fists
and knees.”
**
Just to be clear, both Canada and the US will continue to import oil from Russia. Because our national governments consider the construction of oil pipelines from western Canada a greater threat than Russia, apparently. pic.twitter.com/dx5XGIjMBd
It
would reduce Russia’s revenues by 36%, but the fact it’s unlikely to
happen is a lesson for Canada about the importance of being energy
independent in a volatile world.
A total embargo of
Russian oil and natural gas exports — called for by Alberta Premier
Jason Kenney last week — is not on the table because Russia supplies 40%
of Europe’s natural gas and 10% of the world’s oil.
Most
of the natural gas is transported through a pipeline that runs through
Ukraine, operated by Russia’s state-owned energy giant Gazprom.
Despite
economic sanctions imposed on Russia we’re told by Prime Minister
Justin Trudeau and other world leaders are unprecedented, no one is
talking about stopping the flow of natural gas from Russia to Europe.
**
In smug Canadian fashion, the federal government announced with great
fanfare that it was following suit in levelling sanctions against parts
of the Russian regime, its enablers and henchmen. The problem is that
Canada’s relations with Russia are already so limited, this announcement
is largely performative. But if the federal government wants to get
serious about effective containment, there are options at its disposal. ...
A week ago, the
federal government was quick to invoke emergency measures to stem
problematic financial flows. While those measures applied to resources
associated with the unlawful occupation in Ottawa, it was business as
usual for organized criminals. If Canada’s federal government were to
adopt Australian-style foreign interference legislation and UK-style
Unexplained Wealth Orders, it could actually start to go after dirty
Russian money that has long sloshed around in Toronto’s real estate
markets. As the Cullen Commission of Inquiry into Money Laundering in
British Columbia is showing, Canada’s financial and privacy laws are
world class at protecting criminals and the ultra-rich at the expense of
ordinary Canadians.
The
federal government could also have an honest conversation with
Canadians about gas pipelines. Putin’s war chest is plenished by
Canada’s European allies that are procuring natural gas from Russia.
Canada has ample supply of natural gas to liquify and export. Yet,
Canada lags way behind in that game because it naively has no sense for
geopolitics. Make no mistake: Canadians who oppose construction of the
Coastal Gaslink pipeline from Alberta to British Columbia, and pipeline
capacity to enable liquified natural gas exports from Canada’s East
Coast to Europe, are aiding, abetting, and condoning Putin’s behaviour.
Those same Canadians are happy to oppose pipelines to sell Canada’s own
oil across the continent and the world because they would rather fill
their gas tanks with petrol derived from human-rights abusing regimes in
the Middle East. Canadians’ cognitive dissonance on pipelines runs
counter to our country’s geostrategic interests. This inadvertent
complicity of Putin’s thuggery is the case in point.
Canada
has a collective-defence obligation to its NATO member allies to ensure
Russia’s tanks do not keep rolling beyond Ukraine, now or in the
future. The federal government talks a good talk about deterring Russia,
but it has little credibility in following through. By way of example,
(thus far) Canada has no fighter jet capable of defeating Russian air
defences. Canada effectively supports and contributes to European
missile defence yet is pretentious in refusing to join with the United
States in ballistic missile defence of North America. Canada is
effectively abrogating sovereign decision-making when it is unable to
defend against a bad actor’s strategic nuclear or conventional assets.
The same morally corrupt, inept, weak and vile plutocracy that tramples protesters underfoot morally postures on Ukraine.
Vodka, anyone?
One more thing:
1/2 I deplore the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But Canada has no business getting involved in this conflict.
China is the biggest threat to our security. Western powers have horribly managed relations with Russia and pushed Russians in the arms of the Chinese.
Nine Chinese aircraft entered Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) in the hours following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Taiwanese air assets were scrambled in response, according to Taiwan’s defense ministry.
Under Sec. 62 of the Emergencies Act such reviews are mandatory and, according to the legislation, held in private.
Now, about that:
Cabinet’s abrupt suspension of Emergencies Act orders yesterday came so
suddenly Liberal appointees in the Senate were continuing to warn of
anarchist plots to topple Parliament even as the threat was downgraded
to an ordinary police matter. “We need the full power of the state,”
said Senator Bev Busson (B.C.), a former RCMP Commissioner: “It is a
national crisis. I am at a loss to understand how we can play politics
with our democracy.”
**
The head of the RCMP says the powers given to her officers through
the Emergencies Act served as "a big deterrent" in policing anti-vaccine
mandate protests that occupied the streets of downtown Ottawa for
nearly a month.
Commissioner Brenda Lucki's remarks before a
parliamentary committee Friday afternoon come during a heated political
debate over whether the Liberal government was justified in invoking the
Emergencies Act.
Earlier this month, the federal government
invoked new powers to address anti-vaccine mandate protesters and
blockades — including the authority to ban travel to protest zones and
prohibit people from bringing minors to unlawful assemblies.
"We
don't have anything in laws that prevent people from coming to protests
and we can't turn them away. So for us, operationally, it was all about
reducing that footprint in Ottawa and the only way to do that was to
stop people from coming in or incentivizing them to leave," Lucki told
MPs on the public safety and national security committee looking into
the federal government's response to the protests.
"We used it as a
big deterrent for people to come into the area. So, yes, in fact, we
did use the measures that were put in the Emergencies Act, along with
other authorities that we had."
Lucki and Public Safety Minister
Marco Mendicino took questions from MPs Friday morning about whether
police had sufficient authority to curb the occupation without having to
trigger the never-before-used legislation.
**
First-ever use of the Emergencies Act to quash the Freedom Convoy
movement will set a federal precedent for years to come, legislators
warned yesterday. Liberal and Conservative-appointed senators called it
government overreach: “The country is deeply divided like I have never
seen it.”
**
A federal bank, Farm Credit Canada of Regina, began blacklisting
customers suspected of sympathizing with the Freedom Convoy. Critics of
Emergencies Act orders targeting bank account holders yesterday called
the measure punitive and unlawful: “Everyone has the right to be secure
against unreasonable search or seizure.”
Banks have frozen nearly $8 million in accounts held by Freedom Convoy
truckers, the Department of Finance disclosed yesterday. Authorities
confirmed even small donations to the convoy, as little as $20, could
trigger retribution if cash was contributed after cabinet declared the
Freedom Convoy an illegal assembly on February 15: “It could be a
savings account, a chequing account, a mortgage.”
**
Police and municipal officials are keeping an eye on rural encampments where apparent
“Freedom Convoy” protesters have gathered after leaving downtown Ottawa.
On
Monday, both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson
said they were concerned about groups gathering outside city borders.
**
"I have been in contact with a reliable source within the Canadian
military, and he told me today by email that if I had any sense I would
take my money out of the Canadian banks because the situation is far
worse than I've been informed. That's one of many such messages I
received on a daily basis."
**
WHAT! Chrystia Freeland says that some accounts will remain frozen in perpetuity depending on who the person was.
TheOntario
Ministry of Transportation (MTO) confirmed that it shut down nearly 40
businesses during its crackdown on Freedom Convoy protesters opposing
COVID-19 mandates and restrictions.
**
Two Edmonton Police Service (EPS) officers who made public statements supporting the trucker protest opposing COVID-19 mandates and restrictions have been suspended without pay.
When Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister
Chrystia Freeland announced they would use the Emergency Act declaration
to target the financial support systems, banks and accounts of the
people who were protesting against COVID mandates, they not only
undermined the integrity of the Canadian banking system – but they also
inadvertently stuck a wrench into the plans of the World Economic Forum
and the collaborative use of the Canadian Bankers Association to create a
digital id. ...
Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland essentially broke the financial code of Omerta,
by highlighting how easy it is for government to seize your bank
accounts, credit cards, retirement accounts, insurance, mortgages, loan
access and cut you off from money (without due process).
The unintended consequence was an immediate and clear reference point
if government did the same action with a digital ID in place.
However, this undermined confidence and faith in the banking system
cannot be restored quickly. The toothpaste cannot be put back into the
tube. The horse has left the barn.
Quickly this becomes a moment for immediate damage control by the
Canadian government. This explains why Justin Trudeau dropped the
declaration of the Emergency Act.
It all makes sense now. All of it.
Personally, I think it was because the Vichy puppet wanted to show who was boss after being publicly humiliated around the world but that's just me.
Some people just aren't buying it:
Moe said the federal government should now end all COVID-19 mandates and restrictions.
“It is past time for the Trudeau government to detail a return to normal for all Canadians,” Moe said Wednesday.
**
Alberta will proceed in its request for a judicial review of the
federal government's use of the Emergencies Act against trucker convoy
protests, Premier Jason Kenney said Wednesday.
Rising in the
legislature to address what he called "one of the most obvious
overreaches of government power in my lifetime," Kenney said the fact
the act was revoked earlier in the day is irrelevant.
"That does
not change the profound concerns of Canadians, of Albertans and this
assembly with this unnecessary, unjustified and disproportionate use of
arbitrary police power in our lifetime with no good reason," Kenney
said.
Kenney said there never was an emergency that justified the act's extraordinary powers.
He
pointed out that the border blockade at Coutts, Alta., was cleared
before the act was brought in. He said Ottawa police had plenty of laws
that prevented semi-trailer rigs from being parked on the streets of
downtown Ottawa.
"We had no shortage of law. What we had was a shortage of enforcement."
"Ottawa Hate Free Zone" came up in response to FreedomConvoy protests because residents of Centretown were petrified of peaceful protestors.Its founder holds a poster calling for "Defund Police,Fund Real Safety" when it was the cops who cleared the protestors. Can't make this up. https://t.co/AqVUS7yfAcpic.twitter.com/MO0pdC4CCU
It's punishment for humiliating an absolutist government led by an inept and divisivecoward. We can stop pretending that this over-reach is anything but:
Even a $20 donation
to the Freedom Convoy after Feb. 15 could result in the donor’s bank
accounts being frozen, a Commons committee heard Tuesday.
As
reports of frozen accounts linked to convoy donations continue to roll
in, members of the Commons finance committee spent Tuesday afternoon
questioning staff from the Canada Revenue Agency and the departments of
Finance and Justice about the controversial emergency measures that
allow police to lock bank accounts of those suspected of funding the
illegal protests without first obtaining a court order.
“Just
to be clear, a financial contribution either through a crowdsourced
platform or directly, could result in their bank account being frozen?”
Conservative MP Philip Lawrence asked Department of Finance Assistant
Deputy Minister Isabelle Jacques.
“Yes,” she replied.
“They
didn’t have to actively be involved in the protest, they didn’t have to
be here in Ottawa at one of the blockades?” Lawrence asked.
“No, not themselves,” she replied.
“It could be indirectly.”
And there one has it.
The protesters, having been arrested, denied bail by a Liberal-friendly, unelected judge, having no financial support and vilified by the bribed press, having been removed from Parliament Hill and were certainly no danger to anyone, are in no position to rebel at the moment.
The government can, at any time, without warning and without consequence can freeze the account of a dissenter (and take that money if they wish. What will stop them?). They can increase or decrease this pressure only to prove their power. It is irrelevant for the poor sucker who finds him or herself in such a state because no bank (even one that has been downgraded - it must be all that freezing) as no bank will ever do business with him again, nor could he sell his house, get a business loan ... nothing.
That's the power of spite, the spite of a shallow nothing of a man so eager to one-up his disgusting dad.
Also:
Conservative MPs want
their colleagues to use more restraint when sharing stories about
frozen bank accounts due to the Emergencies Act.
In an email obtained exclusively by the National Post,
MP Raquel Dancho and MP Dane Lloyd caution their colleagues not to
share stories about constituents who have had their bank accounts frozen
for supporting the trucker convoy without doing further checks.
“In
this charged environment, it’s critical that we communicate in a
coordinated and accurate fashion. Doing otherwise gives the Liberals a
chance to distract from their power grab and attack us instead,” the MPs
wrote to their caucus colleagues Tuesday night.
An independent Senate
might prove to be a challenge for the Liberal government as it is
asking the Upper Chamber to extend the Emergencies Act.
Marc
Gold, the government’s representative in the Senate, faced a barrage of
questions from Senators from all groups on Tuesday about whether the
act was necessary now that the occupation outside Parliament and the
border blockades have ended.
The House of Commons voted
on Monday night to extend the emergency measures that have been in place
since last week. The NDP voted with the Liberals, arguing that it was a
confidence vote and now was not the time to plunge the country into an
election.
But that trick likely won’t work with
Senators, who are growing increasingly frustrated that they feel forced
to rubber stamp government legislation.
Many of them
wanted to know on what basis the government decided to invoke the
Emergencies Act in the first place. That information has not been made
available to Parliament, most notably ongoing investigations and
intelligence information.
I was present during the negotiations around the federal Emergencies Act
in 1987. As one of two full-time lawyers at the Canadian Civil
Liberties Association at the time, I witnessed firsthand how Alan
Borovoy, the CCLA’s then-general counsel, managed to shape the contours
of this scheme. And I saw how the end product was a carefully calibrated
piece of legislation with checks at every turn.
It’s
why I believe the Emergencies Act was not a legally suitable instrument
for removing unwelcome occupiers on Ottawa’s streets.
The
objective of Brian Mulroney’s government in 1987 was to bring Quebec
back into Canada’s constitutional fold by drawing sharp contrasts with
that of his predecessor as prime minister, Pierre Trudeau. There would
be two limbs to this strategy: first, having first ministers agree to a
new constitutional settlement, represented by the Meech Lake Accord – a
colossal failure, it turns out. The second prong was the repeal of the
discredited War Measures Act and replacing it with an instrument better
tuned to addressing emergencies such as the October Crisis of 1970. This
turns out to have been the less troublesome prong.
It was in furtherance of replacing the War Measures Act that
then-defence minister Perrin Beatty reached out to the CCLA to seek its
input into draft replacement legislation. The CCLA’s principal aim was
to curb what Mr. Borovoy called the “power-hoarding fallacy,”
understanding that historically, Canadian governments have preferred to
seize far more power than is reasonably needed in a crisis. The main
thing was to avoid the blank cheque afforded to government under the War
Measures Act. So in negotiations for a replacement act, the CCLA worked
to restrict the government’s ability to manoeuvre in emergency
situations to only what was absolutely necessary and to create
safeguards to prevent the abuse of those fenced-in powers. ...
Justin Trudeau’s
government has not provided compelling evidence that the convoy protest
in Ottawa could not have been adequately dealt with under provincial
authority, with or without federal help, as occurred at the Ambassador
Bridge and at the border crossing at Coutts, Alta. Nor has it been
convincingly shown that existing provincial or federal laws were not
adequate to the task – enabling the co-ordination of police forces, the
seizure of funds or the removal of occupiers, for example. It may be
that the Ontario emergency law
did not empower the province to “require” tow truck drivers to provide
assistance, but that surely is a flimsy basis for declaring a national
emergency.
In the
case of a “public order emergency,” which was approved by a vote in
Parliament on Feb. 21, there is the added requirement that the emergency
must amount to a “threat to the security of Canada” as defined in the CSIS Act.
The statutory definition of a “threat to the security of Canada”
encompasses “acts of serious violence against persons or property for
the purpose of achieving a political, religious or ideological objective
within Canada.” While there is no question that myriad grievances were
voiced in Ottawa, there is no evidence that “acts of serious violence”
were perpetrated for the purpose of achieving the protesters’
objectives.
Taken
together, these two definitions impose a heavy onus on government to
justify the invocation of public order emergency powers – a burden that
has not been convincingly met in the case of the Ottawa protests. It
seems that, despite its creators’ best intentions, the carefully crafted
Emergencies Act remains vulnerable to the urges of power hoarders.
Members of a parliamentary committee set up to scrutinize the
Emergencies Act will have to take an oath of secrecy, but will not be
given access to highly classified material, says the government's
representative in the Senate.
Auditors have uncovered widespread irregularities in misuse of
government-issue charge cards by Canadian diplomats abroad. Records at
the Department of Foreign Affairs showed employees billed taxpayers for
liquor, jewelry and “hospitality” expenses: “Documentation is required
to verify compliance and identify misappropriation or fraud.”
**
Voters in Burnaby South have sent a clear message to Jagmeet Singh over his support of Trudeau's emergency powers, plastering posters and a large tarp on his office to condemn his decision.
"NDP Betrayal on Family Day," reads a poster. "Jagmeet is Trudeau's Lap Dog," reads another. "Burnaby South Deserves Better!" And finally, "JAGMEET: TRUDEAU'S PUPPET," a spray-painted tarp reads.
What exactly did he mean by that usage of “protest”? It was unclear.
The word’s been used vaguely and interchangeably with blockade,
insurrection and siege the past few weeks by police and politicians.
And
that’s a big problem. Whatever happens over the next few months (and
possibly years), as the matters related to the convoy make their way
through the courts, a chilling effect has now been placed on peaceful
protest in Canada.
Proposed hate speech legislation would
allow people to take others to court if they suspect that someone will
post content deemed hateful online.
Bill C-36
states that "a person may, with the Attorney General's consent, lay an
information before a provincial court judge if the person fears on
reasonable grounds that another person will commit (a) an offence under
section 318 [advocating genocide] or subsection 319" [inciting or
promoting hate, promoting hatred].
No one will ever make fun of Justin publicly wetting his pants again!
The Ontario Provincial Police
(OPP) said it has launched an internal conduct investigation after
members of its force appear to have donated to the so-called Freedom Convoy.
The names were apparently released in a data leak, which revealed the
names of those who contributed to the anti-mandate protesters via a GiveSendGo campaign.
A spokesperson for the Toronto District School Board says the students
gave “the Heil Hitler salute” as a French teacher walked into a Grade 8
class at Valley Park Middle School on Thursday.
Islam understands the reality of Commissar
Hall's "social justice": You give 'em an inch, and they'll take the
rest. Following a 1988 cease-and-desist court judgment against the
Lord's Prayer in public school, the Ontario Education Act forbids "any
person to conduct religious exercises or to provide instruction that
includes religious indoctrination in a particular religion or religious
belief in a school." That seems clear enough. If somebody at Valley Park
stood up in the cafeteria and started in with "Our Father, which art in
Heaven", the full weight of the School Board would come crashing down
on them. Fortunately, Valley Park is 80-90 per cent Muslim, so there are
no takers for the Lord's Prayer. And, when it comes to the prayers they
do want to say, the local Islamic enforcers go ahead secure in the
knowledge that the diversity pansies aren't going to do a thing about
it.
Nobody would know a thing about the "mosqueteria" story were it not for the blogger Blazing Cat Fur,
whom I was honoured to say a word for in Ottawa a few months back. He
broke this story and then saw it get picked up without credit by the
Toronto media. He does that a lot. Currently, he's featuring the
thoughts of Jawed Anwar, the editor of The Muslim, a publication for Greater Toronto Area Muslims,
and of Dr Bilal Philips, a "Canadian religious scholar" who was born in
Jamaica but grew up in Toronto and has many prestigious degrees not
only from Saudi Arabia but also from the University of Wales, where he
completed a PhD in "Islamic Theology". Dr Philips is in favour of death
for homosexuals and, as one Canadian to another, Mr Anwar was anxious to
explain to his readers that that's nothing to get alarmed about ...
This Justin:
During World War II, Justin’s père Pierre Trudeau was a “zombie,” one of those who declined to serve though of age and in good health. After the war, as David Frum recalled in
2011, Pierre Trudeau “traveled to Josef Stalin’s Soviet Union to
participate in regime-sponsored propaganda activities. He wrote in
praise of Mao’s murderous regime in China. Trudeau lavishly admired
Fidel Castro, Julius Nyere, and other Third World dictators.” Trudeau
also praised the Siberian city of Norilsk “unware or unconcerned that
Norilsk had been built by slave labor.”
**
TheCanadian House of Commons erupted in shouts of condemnation Wednesday after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau
replied to a Jewish member of Parliament by accusing members of the
opposing Conservative Party of "standing with people who wave
swastikas."
According to the study, nearly 33 per cent of the students felt the
Holocaust was fabricated or exaggerated, or they were unsure if it even
took place. Social media also wasn’t their only source of information.
**
Banks have frozen nearly $8 million in accounts held by Freedom Convoy
truckers, the Department of Finance disclosed yesterday. Authorities
confirmed even small donations to the convoy, as little as $20, could
trigger retribution if cash was contributed after cabinet declared the
Freedom Convoy an illegal assembly on February 15: “It could be a
savings account, a chequing account, a mortgage.”
**
MPs on the Commons finance committee yesterday said they feared cabinet
normalized financial retribution against political protesters. An
Emergencies Act order allows banks to freeze personal and corporate
accounts of Freedom Convoy protesters without a court order or advance
notice to account holders: ‘It is like a no-fly list where someone is
now asterisked for the rest of their life.’
Nazism is alive and well in a country that spent good men to fight it.
Beijing
critics say the judgement — upholding an immigration officer’s decision
on the issue as “reasonable” — represents a rare official rebuke of the
office, now a bureau of a larger Communist Party department.
Despite
its apparently longstanding efforts to influence and monitor Chinese
Canadians, the agency has rarely been publicly called-out by authorities
here, says Charles Burton, a former diplomat in Beijing and senior
fellow with the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.
“I’m thrilled about the ruling,” he said. “I hope it sets a terrific precedent.”
**
Video released by the RCMP shows what officers describe as a group
storming the site of a violent attack at a B.C. camp for pipeline
workers last week.
Mounties published three video clips Tuesday in connection with the
"acts of violence and damage done" at the work camp last week.
In a news release, the RCMP said the videos show a group of people,
some of whom are "armed with axes" approaching the Coastal GasLink camp
on Thursday.
Police describe what's shown in the video as the group storming the
property and attacking a company vehicle. An employee was inside the
truck, they said.
Looming interest rate hikes have Canadians increasingly worried about making ends meet, according to an Ipsos survey commissioned for insolvency firm MNP Ltd.
The Bank of Canada sent strong signals last month that the days of rock-bottom interest rates tied to the COVID-19 pandemic were over. With Canada’s annual rate of inflation
hitting 5.1 per cent last month — a more than 30-year high — most
economists are expecting the central bank’s key overnight rate will rise
steadily over the course of the year, starting as early as its next
announcement on March 2.
The outlook is worrying many Canadians,
who are already grappling with surging prices at gas pumps and grocery
stores, according to the MNP survey.
A coalition of Senate Republicans led by Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) have introduced legislation that would end the Biden administration’s requirement that foreign truckers transporting goods be vaccinated to enter the United States.
In January, both the U.S. and Canadian federal governments instituted
rules requiring that foreign truckers transporting goods over
international lines be vaccinated.
Even though the Supreme Court struck down President Joe Biden’s
controversial private-sector vaccine mandate as unconstitutional in
mid-January, the trucker mandate has remained in effect.
Scott’s Terminating Reckless and Unnecessary Checks Known to Erode
Regular Shipping (TRUCKERS) Act—which is co-sponsored by Sens. Marsha
Blackburn (R-Tenn.), Mike Braun (R-Ind.), Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.), Josh
Hawley (R-Mo.), John Hoeven (R-N.D.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Roger Marshall
(R-Kansas), and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.)—would end the truckers’ mandate.
In a press release, proponents of the bill explained, “The TRUCKERS
Act would exempt non-U.S. citizen commercial truck drivers traveling
from Canada or Mexico who are seeking to temporarily enter the United
States for business through a land port of entry from proof of
vaccination requirements.”
Canada has announced new sanctions on Russia in response to the Kremlin’s deployment of forces into eastern Ukraine and its recognition of two separatist regions.
Say what you will about the autocrat, Putin, but at least he never ran away from truck-drivers.
What began as a
spontaneous, hodgepodge attempt to ape the trucker protests seen in
Canada has turned into something more organized as the crowd has swelled
to around 1,500 people. Herb gardens have been planted, makeshift
showers set up, and free hot meals are served three times a day by
volunteers. There’s even a daycare tent.
The purpose of
the protest has also grown, from discontent with the country’s
controversial vaccine mandate into broader frustration with Jacinda
Ardern’s government for bringing in some of the world’s strictest COVID
measures.
“I know COVID is real and I’m not anti-vax,” said self-appointed “protest peacekeeper” Linzy Noble.
“But
this new vaccine hasn’t been tested properly and that’s why my family
isn’t OK with it. Lots of people here feel the same way. Does that make
us bad people? Do we deserve to lose our careers and be treated like
s–?”
The
57-year-old painting contractor said he and his seven children were out
of work because of the vaccine mandate and that he was more worried
about rising suicide rates, small businesses failing and the long-term
impacts of restrictions on kids than he was about catching COVID.
“We want the mandates gone. They’re hurting innocent people and killing our businesses,” he added. “This isn’t New Zealand.”
Most visitors who leave the National Cathedral in Washington, D.C., via the ramp near the northwest tower don’t realize that evil incarnate is bearing down on them. No, it’s not the devil—it’s Darth Vader.
His stone head protrudes from the edge of a gable beneath the tower’s
middle pinnacle, flanked on either side by two much taller pinnacles.
The Star Wars
despot is quite hard to see without binoculars, and he's also not the
sole sculpture on his gable: The other side hosts a raccoon.
Only sculptures that spout water are considered true gargoyles,
which were originally conceived as a decorative way to drain rainwater
from rooftops without sending it straight down the sides of the
building. Since Darth Vader’s masked mouth has no spout, he’s
technically just a grotesque, not a gargoyle.
