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| “Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread, because it was on this very day that I brought your divisions out of Egypt." |
What a cruel country Canada is:
(Sidebar: more here.)
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The Government of Canada is directing medical professionals to concede to a patient's suicidality as long as the request to die "is consistent with the person's values and beliefs, and is unambiguous, and enduring."
— Amanda Achtman (@AmandaAchtman) April 2, 2023
What happened to suicide prevention?#cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/5AkIhGRBXH
The Liberals can no longer print money lest inflation reach Weimar Republic levels; they cannot borrow it as the country's credit rating has been downgraded.
What does that leave?
Taxes:
The Parliamentary Budget Office yesterday confirmed the carbon tax represents a “net loss” for most Canadians even after federal rebates. The report is the second to contradict cabinet claims that taxpayers receive more in rebates called Climate Action Incentive payments than they pay in tax: “Claims that Canadians get more back in rebates for the failed carbon tax have been proven false.”
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Repeal of tax breaks for real estate investment trusts would save the federal treasury a quarter billion over five years, the Budget Office said yesterday. Figures were requested by Green MP Mike Morrice (Kitchener Centre, Ont.), who blamed trusts for running up housing costs: “It adds up.”
Also:
Consumers increasingly blame inflation on federal deficit spending, not the war in Ukraine, says Bank of Canada research. Canadians surveyed by the Bank said they expected overspending to raise prices overall for years to come: “Most consumers think the Bank’s ability to get inflation back to target is hampered by high government spending.”
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The federal government’s operating spending exploded over the pandemic, jumping by nearly $30 billion since 2019 thanks in large part to “record” growth of the public service, according to a new report.
Yes, people DO need to be educated about EVs:
Canadians need “increased education” if cabinet is to meet its electric car mandate, says in-house research by the Department of Natural Resources. Federal pollsters found stiff resistance to electrics as costly and impractical: “Fewer than one in five, 17 percent, feel there is an affordable zero emission vehicle that meets their lifestyle needs.”
For that matter, reality can impinge in many different ways. Just the other day, I was nearly run down by a stealth Electric Vehicle whose approach I couldn’t hear. I barely escaped this silent assault, which got me thinking about the latest craze favoring EVs—or EVils—as a reliable substitute for vehicles powered by internal combustion engines (ICEs). We know the problems of battery-powered vehicles, which by any scrupulous account are demonstrably intractable. The downsides include:
- limited travel range
- long recharging periods
- a radically insufficient infrastructure to accommodate a growing fleet of EVs
- the complete inadequacy of the electrical grid
- high unit price
- prohibitive cost of battery replacement
- negligible resale value
- and the need for rare earth metals such as lithium, cobalt, graphite, nickel, and palladium that are labor-intensive and exorbitantly expensive to extract.
Furthermore, according to Earth.Org, EV’s are not eco-friendly, as we are regularly pressured to believe. The EV manufacturing process is more energy-hungry than that of an ICE vehicle. A 2021 study comparing EV and ICE emissions found that 46 percent of EV carbon emissions come from the production process, while ICE vehicles produce 26 percent. “Almost 4 tonnes of CO2 are released during the production process of a single electric car; in order to break even, the vehicle must be used for at least 8 years to offset the initial emissions.” We are warned that “quick adoption of EVs by the government could lead to indiscriminate mining of nickel, cobalt, and lithium, which are finite resources, leading to even more environmental harm.”
Of course there was no legal or moral justification for the Emergency Act.
Justin was simply a coward:
The hearing is brought by a group of civil liberties organizations, the Canadian Constitution Foundation and the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, who are arguing that the high threshold of the act was not met and that the regulations enacted under it, including the freezing of bank accounts, were unconstitutional.
Vaguely related - people are reporting misinformation at an alarming rate.
Was it something he didn't want people to say?:
The federal government says it is designing a new “regulatory structure” that could include a commission tasked with enforcing social media platforms to specifically target “harmful content” online.Cabinet said in its response to a recommendation tabled last month by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs that it is exploring legislative changes that would seek to bring social media platforms under tighter federal regulation, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.The committee recommended in November 2022 that Ottawa force online platforms to “collect and make data publicly available about instances of harassment and promoting violence against journalists and other human rights defenders.”Cabinet said in a document detailing the government’s response that it agrees with the recommendations before adding that it is already working on “a new legislative and regulatory framework for online services” that could include the creation of a “Digital Safety Commission.”The new commission would be tasked with enforcing the proposed online regulations, which include new rules that would compel online services to “identify, assess, and mitigate risks on their platforms through their own internal systems and processes.”Cabinet also said that the new regulatory framework would likely include the use of metrics to monitor if online platforms are meeting obligations, adding that the metrics could be measured by the federal government through regular reports and audits.Cabinet said it has not yet set a timeline for introducing the legislation, but added that the Heritage Department and other federal offices are currently working on drafting it.The commission could be given “strong audit and enforcement powers” to ensure that online platforms follow the regulations, the document said.It refers to the commission’s authority as “broad powers” that it could use to compel platforms to release relevant information and data—such as instances of cyber harassment and violence by users on their services—under the threat of “monetary penalties for non-compliance.”
In newly released documents obtained by the National Post via an access to information request, National Capital Commission staff detailed numerous serious safety concerns about the deteriorating condition of 24 Sussex Drive — prompting the decision last fall to close the home and relocate staff still working at the official residence.“There is an important rodent infestation, which can’t be fully addressed until the building envelope issues are resolved,” the note from late June read.“In the meantime, we use bait to control the situation, but that leaves us with excrement and carcasses between the walls and in the attic and basement spaces.”
Speaking of rats:
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on March 31 defended the appointment of Martine Richard to the role of interim ethics commissioner, amid conflict-of-interest concerns over her being the sister-in-law of Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc.“If there is any office in the country that understands how to manage conflicts of interests and ethical perceptions and issues, it is that office, which has always done exceptional work at ensuring the confidence of Canadians,” Trudeau told reporters during a press conference in Moncton, N.B.The prime minister said that Richard had been a senior official in the ethics commissioner’s office for over a decade, having first been hired under former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper. He added that there are “already measures in place to ensure that the work is done professionally and without conflicts [of interest] given the connections.”“I will highlight as well, that the work that the previous Ethics Commissioner did—in which the current interim commissioner was a close part of—was certainly very clearly doing its job in rigorous ways,” Trudeau said.Opposition MPs have criticized the appointment of Richard due to her relationship with LeBlanc, as well as the fact that LeBlanc was previously found to have broken conflicts of interest rules by awarding an Arctic surf clam license to a company linked to his wife’s cousin.
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Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland participated in an undisclosed session on the financing of Ukraine during her visit to the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in Davos earlier this year, an official document shows.The information was revealed in an Inquiry of Ministry tabled by the government on March 29 in response to an order paper from Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis.The private session attended by Freeland was not listed in her public itinerary and neither did it appear in the public program of the WEF.
Canadian troops in Poland are having to buy their own food but aren’t being reimbursed, causing hardships for their families back home.The Canadian soldiers are in Poland to train Ukrainian military personnel but since Canada did not send military cooks on the mission, the troops were told to eat at local restaurants.But there is a massive backlog with the Canadian Forces reimbursing the soldiers for those costs, sending some of them thousands of dollars into debt. Their families contacted this newspaper to complain about the situation they say is causing financial stress at home.After this newspaper inquired about the situation, the Canadian Forces confirmed Monday that there are problems with payments of per diems and the reimbursement of other expenses. The Canadian Forces is now promising to speed up the process.“We apologize to the members and their families for the distress this has caused, and thank them for their patience,” said Capt. Nicolas Plourde-Fleury, spokesman for Canadian Joint Operations Command (CJOC). “We want them to know we have implemented measures to better support them moving forward.”
After a recent spate of murders and other heinous crimes committed by offenders on statutory release, a growing coalition of mayors, police departments and all 13 Canadian premiers have demanded that the Department of Justice implement immediate reforms to Canadian bail. In early March, B.C. Premier David Eby said that tougher bail was needed “now” to spare his province from further violence.To all this, federal Justice Minister David Lametti has said there is no “quick or easy solution” to bail reform, and the House of Commons is slowly moving through a series of preliminary consultations on how it might reform bail provisions in the Criminal Code.But, why can’t the government just … stop releasing violent offenders all the time?
Also - the sickening creature belongs in the ground:
Police announced Monday that transgender shooter Audrey Hale had been planning an attack on the Christian elementary school for “months,” according to a press release.
Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) gave an update to the investigation into the mass shooting at Covenant School in a press release, noting that Hale’s manifesto indicated that she had been “planning over a period of months to commit mass murder.” Hale had also been studying the way other “mass murderers” had committed acts of violence and “acted totally alone,” according to police.
Normally, people who are about to be deported wander into Canada and live off of the taxpayer for a few years:
Florin and Cristina Lordache were ordered by Canada’s immigration officials to be at Toronto’s Pearson international airport last Friday with their two young children, born in Canada, for deportation to Romania.
Instead, to avoid returning to persecution they feared as members of the Roma minority, they are believed to have boarded a small boat in Akwesasne, a First Nations reserve, for a risky ride across the St. Lawrence River on a blackmarket smuggling trip into the United Sates.It was a disaster.The bodies of Florin and Cristina, both 28, and Evelin, 3, were found near a marshy riverbank on Thursday; the mournful bundle of one-year-old Roland’s body was recovered Friday.Florin was carrying the Canadian passports for their children, according to Akwesasne Mohawk Police.They are among eight migrants who died, apparently when the smuggling boat they were in capsized. Along with the Iordache family was a family from India: A father, Praveenbhai Chaudhari, 50; a mother, Dakshaben, 45; and two children, daughter Vidhi, 23; and son Meet, 20.
We don't have to trade with China:
In 2020, a coalition led by Amnesty International Canada warned that Chinese government officials and supporters of the CCP were increasingly resorting to “threats, bullying and harassment” to silence activists in Canada.
Ottawa’s failure to act on the issue had “emboldened” Chinese state actors, the Canadian Coalition on Human Rights in China report said.
Foreign interference in Canada’s politics and banks last week became the target of new spending in Budget 2023.
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Canadian Senator Victor Oh (胡子修) and Ontario former MPP and current deputy-mayor of Markham Michael Chan (陈国治) signed their names in a letter to a Chinese local government, pledging their continued support to the “great motherland”, according to a Chinese-language website in Canada.
As reported by CCmedia.news, the letter was written on April 10, 2020, during the Covid-19 pandemic as a reply to a sympathy letter (‘sympathy letter’) from two governmental officials in P.R. China’s Jiangsu Province (江苏省) two weeks earlier (on March 27, 2020).
The reply letter (‘reply letter’) was written on behalf of all the members of the Jiangsu Commerce Council of Canada (JCCC,加拿大江苏国际商会), a non-profit in Canada where Victor Oh and Michael Chan serve as honorary chairmen.
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MPs yesterday recommended cabinet resume official visits to Taiwan for the first time in 25 years. A Commons committee report praised Taiwan as “innovative,” “progressive” and “a vibrant democracy.”
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Canada has yet to determine how much Chinese steel and equipment will go into its new naval warships, but it didn’t scale back on such products for its Arctic and offshore patrol vessels even though concerns were raised in 2018.
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Canada-Chinese relations have been rocky for several years. In October 2022, Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre told MPs that China considered itself to be at war with the West and that Canada must rise to meet the challenge.
But that hasn’t changed efforts to source equipment and steel from China for the Canadian navy and Canadian Coast Guard’s new Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ships, or AOPS.
Steel for AOPS was bought from European suppliers, with about 17 per cent of that being purchased from China. In addition, other equipment on the AOPS, from lifeboats to pipes and fittings to anchors and towing systems, was also produced by China, according to National Defence documents.
The accounting of Chinese products on AOPS, first reported by CBC in 2018, was done after concerns were raised by the United States about the involvement of Chinese firms in providing products for its defence industries. Despite the inquiries to the Department of National Defence by then International Trade Minister François-Philippe Champagne, there was no change of course on the AOPS program.
Some people are special:
I know of no other comparable historical example by which a nation’s officially sanctioned self-image was altered so completely — from light unto nations to heart of darkness — in the space of just half a generation. In Trudeau’s case, it summons to mind the affable child of wealthy parents who turns thirteen and then suddenly reinvents himself as an angry, sullen goth, fully convinced that he inhabits a world of oppression and injustice.
Much blame for this transformation lies with the rise of social media, which has drawn Canadians into America’s culture war. This immersion has encouraged Canadians to believe — falsely — that their country is afflicted with the same problems (at the same scale) as those bedevilling the US. Thus did the election of Donald Trump lead to hysterical fears that “Trumpism” was taking over Canada. (In fact, Trump has always remained unpopular among Canadians, including among conservatives.)
When George Floyd was killed in Minneapolis, Justin Trudeau took a knee in Ottawa. Earlier this year, CBC’s flagship national news broadcast ran a story titled “Canada had slavery. Now, Black Canadians want an apology.” No one involved with this story seems to have been deterred by the fact that the British outlawed slavery in 1833 — more than three decades before the country called Canada came into existence.
Canada’s newfound penchant for self-flagellation can’t entirely be cast as a United States import, as there’s one important factor that’s very much locally sourced. Since 2017, the sesquicentennial of Canadian confederation, the country has been convulsed by a process of “reconciliation” regarding Indigenous peoples. The record here is damning: Canada’s historical treatment of its Inuit, First Nations, and Métis populations often was marked by bad faith, racism and brutality.
To this day, many Indigenous communities suffer high rates of poverty, suicide and substance abuse. Dozens lack even clean drinking water, a problem that has outlived the best intentions of a succession of federal governments, Liberal and Conservative alike. Even the most patriotic Canadian must admit that our record on this file constitutes a stain on the public conscience.
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Article content
Hence the TRC’s call (No. 49) to “rescind” the “doctrine of discovery,” referring to a supposed papal permission for European crowns to seize Indigenous lands. Much bad feeling has been generated by what is bad history, and the Vatican’s statement is intended to advance reconciliation by stating anew what is very old news.The term “doctrine of discovery” is not a Catholic term; and, as the statement noted, “is not part of the teaching of the Catholic Church.” The term itself was cooked up by the United States Supreme Court in 1832 to justify ownership of “new” lands previously occupied by Native-Americans.The historical context is that in the late 15th century, Spain and Portugal were setting out on the seas, first to West Africa and on to India, and later to the Americas. The papacy, which held international political authority at the time, was, in effect, a referee between the competing interests of Spain and Portugal. It did so partly in a series of three papal bulls — which are legal instruments, rather than doctrinal formulations — in 1452, 1455 and 1493. Columbus only sailed the ocean blue in 1492.Article content
The bulls — from the Latin “bulla,” meaning “seal” — were concerned with avoiding conflict between European countries. At the time, little if anything was known about the Indigenous presence in the various territories. Those earlier bulls, written in the language of the time, “did not adequately reflect the equal dignity and rights of Indigenous peoples,” as the Vatican statement acknowledges.Nevertheless, they were “manipulated for political purposes by competing colonial powers” for their own ends, including “immoral acts against Indigenous peoples that were carried out, at times, without opposition from ecclesiastical authorities.”That manipulation meant that Spain began ignoring those bulls by 1494, thus abrogating their effect. By 1537, when it became known in Rome how the Portuguese and Spanish were treating Indigenous people, Pope Paul III defended their rights. Thus in Catholic terms, the “doctrine of discovery” was a dead letter almost three centuries before the American Supreme Court invented the term.Article content
That was clarified extensively by the Canadian bishops in 2016, after the TRC report, and in a Vatican statement to the United Nations in 2010.
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