Your Worthless Political Class and You

So much to unpack here:

After the Parliamentary Budget Officer concluded most Canadians will come out behind on the carbon tax, a Liberal MP wants the PBO to take another look.

Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux released a report late last week that found the cost of the Liberals’ carbon tax would not be revenue neutral for most families. While he found most Canadians would receive more in rebates than they pay in carbon taxes, the economic impact of the tax would drive down wages and raise costs.

“We estimate that most households will see a net loss, paying more in the federal fuel charge and GST, as well as receiving lower incomes, compared to the Climate Action Incentive payments they receive,” Giroux wrote.

The Liberals have long argued that most Canadians come out ahead on the carbon tax because of the quarterly rebate payments. The carbon tax applies to purchases for fuel and natural gas in Ontario, Manitoba, Yukon, Alberta, Saskatchewan and Nunavut. Other provinces have developed their own systems and are not subject to the tax.

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The former chief economic analyst of Statistics Canada says the Trudeau government’s failure to control spending as demonstrated in last month’s budget is working against the Bank of Canada’s policy to reduce inflation.

“Until the federal government shows some spending restraint, Canadians may continue to face higher prices for goods and services,” said Philip Cross in a paper for the fiscally conservative Fraser Institute, titled “Canada’s Fiscal Policy Has Undermined Efforts to Tackle Inflation.”

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More than 620,000 people face clawbacks of tax refunds under a federal program to recover Canada Emergency Response Benefit payments from ineligible claimants, records show. The figures were disclosed at the request of New Democrat MP Daniel Blaikie (Elmwood-Transcona, Man.), who has advocated for a CERB amnesty: “I think it is wasteful to chase the poor for money they do not have.”

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It's not healing but a waste of money you know damn well that you do not have:

Cabinet yesterday confirmed it will pay $23 billion in compensation for systemic underfunding of First Nations child welfare programs. Indigenous Services Minister Patricia Hajdu called it “an important piece of healing” with minimum compensation of $40,000 per individual: “It is a total of just over $23.34 billion at this point.”

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French outside Québec “remains fragile” despite billions in grants to promote the language, says a Department of Canadian Heritage report. Rates of bilingualism actually fell in English-speaking provinces over the past two decades: “The viability of francophone official language minority communities remains fragile.”

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Interesting:

After decades of being one of the most reliable voting blocs for left-wing parties, Canadian union members appear to be leaning Conservative for the first time anyone can remember.

A recent poll by Abacus Data found that the Conservative Party under Pierre Poilievre is now the leading choice for unionized workers. 

Among members of private sector unions, 36 per cent declared their intent to vote Tory against the 34 per cent who still supported the Liberals. 

More surprising still, the Conservative showing was even better among public sector workers; 34 per cent supported the Conservatives, while the NDP and Liberal total stood at 26 per cent each.

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Former Prime Minister Jean Chretien issued some sort of garbled gutteral growl that could be translated thusly:

Former prime minister Jean Chretien derided the Alberta UCP for using the federal Liberal government as a punching bag in its provincial election strategy.

The UCP has tied NDP Leader Rachel Notley to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, insisting the three form an anti-Alberta alliance.

But Chretien, who served as Canada’s 20th prime minister from 1993 to 2003, said Alberta has little to complain about under the current federal government, and that assailing it to undermine Notley is misguided.

“It’s always a sport that they do and they should look at the reality,” said Chretien, 89, who was in Calgary on Thursday visiting the Calgary Skyview riding of George Chahal, the only Liberal MP in the city.

 

 It's like the Liberals WANT to lose the West. 

Alberta doesn't like you or you successors for a reason, wolf-man.

 

 

Oh, look - Canada is pretending to hit above its weight with materiel it does not have:

Canada on Thursday said it will deploy a military aircraft to Japan to support implementation of United Nations Security Council sanctions against North Korea.

Deployment of the Royal Canadian Air Force CP-140 Aurora Aircraft was announced by Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand.

For about six weeks, the CP-140 Aurora will monitor for suspected maritime sanctions evasion activities, in particular ship-to-ship transfers of fuel and other commodities banned by the Security Council, the Canadian government said.

 

Still not relevant.

 

 

Her last name is Fuhrer:

Federal Court Justice Janet Fuhrer, a Liberal appointee, maintains Twitter posts in which she praised cabinet and retweeted remarks criticizing a Conservative politician. All judges must halt “partisan activity” following their appointment, according to ethics guidelines: ‘Judges should refrain from conduct with respect to issues that could come before the courts.’

 

That's because we have a legal system, not a justice one, who They Who Trample Grandmothers:

Against a “criminal justice system that renders much of our work pointless,” Canadian police chiefs are demanding an “urgent” meeting with all 13 premiers to address an “intensive escalation” in Canadian violence.

In a Monday letter to Manitoba premier Heather Stefanson, the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police requested a summit with her 12 counterparts to hash out the “urgent and emerging issues” that they said threatened to permanently damage Canadian policing.

In just the last six months, Canada has seen the deaths of nine on-duty police officers, by far the highest rate of police killings in the country’s history. What’s more, almost all of the officers have died in targeted killings.

At the same time, Canada has seen an unprecedented wave of random, unprovoked violent attacks, with almost all the available data showing that the violence is coming disproportionately from offenders who were out on bail or parole.

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This time last year, the B.C. Urban Mayors Caucus compiled data showing that more than 11,000 “negative police contacts” in their jurisdictions had been caused by just 204 offenders who rarely faced any consequences for their criminality.

Last summer, the Vancouver Police released data on its 44 most recent “stranger attack” suspects showing that 78 per cent of them had already been charged in “a previous criminal incident.”

The problem has become particularly acute following the 2018 passage of Bill C-75, a package of Criminal Code amendments that severely curtailed the ability of judges to hold violent offenders in pre-trial detention.

Most notably, the law requires that the top priority at any bail hearing is “releasing the accused at the earliest reasonable opportunity and on the least onerous conditions.” Judges are also told to set aside their usual considerations on public safety if the accused is from a “vulnerable population.”

 

Also - SOB:

An Ontario man who once allegedly bragged he'd moved over 1,000 people across the Canada-U.S. border, is now facing a nine-count indictment alleging he was the "primary organizer" of a human smuggling network using Akwesasne Mohawk territory.

Simranjit "Shally" Singh of Brampton, Ont., pleaded not guilty on Wednesday in the U.S. Federal Court for the Northern District of New York to charges related to human smuggling. He was extradited to the U.S. on Thursday.

The indictment is based on evidence gathered through surveillance, Facebook messages and human sources related to four failed smuggling attempts across the St. Lawrence River between March 2020 and April 2022, according to court records. 

Singh allegedly acted as a broker, charging $5,000 to $35,000 per person to smuggle mainly Indian nationals into the U.S., according to court records. 

He then paid people in the community between $2,000 to $3,000 per person to take them across the river through Akwesasne territory.

Her name was Marissa Shen:

The jury trial of a man accused of murdering a 13-year-old girl in Burnaby in 2017 began Wednesday in the Supreme Court of British Columbia.

Ibrahim Ali is charged with first-degree murder in the death of the girl. He entered a plea of not guilty to the crime in court Wednesday morning. 

The B.C. Crown Prosecution Service informed CBC on Wednesday a publication ban had been placed on the girl's name.

The girl's body was found in a wooded corner of Burnaby's Central Park on July 18, 2017, several hours after she went missing. 

Ali was arrested over a year later, on Sept. 7, 2018.

 

 

The healthcare system in this country is not an efficiently working apparatus; it is an institution too big to fail:

About 2.2 million Ontarians don’t have a family doctor according to the latest data from Inspire-PHC, a health-care research group. That’s up 400,000 from 2020, the last time the number was measured. A new report this week from the Public Policy Forum puts the number of doctorless people at 6.5 million nationally. The Ontario government’s own number is a little over a million adults without a doctor.

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The head of a private surgical clinic in Vancouver has come out swinging against the Supreme Court of Canada for its refusal to hear an appeal of British Columbia’s ban on private surgical coverage.

“Every Canadian knows our health system is in a crisis,” Dr. Brian Day, CEO of the Cambie Surgery Centre, told Global News in an interview Thursday.

“As a result of the supreme court’s failure to even consider the rights of Canadians waiting on wait-lists, this means that Canadians such as the patient plaintiffs in our cases suffered such outcomes as permanent paralysis and death as they waited for care and justice.”

But you voted for this:

A confidential poll last year indicated widespread concerns expressed by Canadians who think the federal government is not leading the country in the right direction.

“Most were of the view the country was currently headed in the wrong direction,” said the Nov. 4 poll, reported to the Privy Council Office, and obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter.

“Many cited issues related to inflation and the rising cost of living including price increases for essentials such as groceries, gasoline and housing.”

The findings were based on focus group interviews held nationwide. The Privy Council Office commissioned the survey under a $2.4 million annual contract with the Strategic Counsel.

The report, titled “Continuous Qualitative Data Collection Of Canadians’ Views,” said participants expressed concerns that affordability is becoming a challenge even to middle-income earners.

“Several felt more could be done to make housing more affordable with many commenting that even for those making middle-class salaries, the costs to purchase a home or to rent were becoming increasingly expensive,” said the report.

(Sidebar: and why does the government have to fix everything, especially this one?)

“Others felt there should be a greater emphasis on increasing benefits and financial supports for middle income Canadians.”

On March 28, the Liberal government released its budget with an emphasis on a “strong middle class.”

 

This middle-class:

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s “strong middle class” budget followed internal polling that warned of widespread grumbling by middle class voters. “Most were of the view the country was currently headed in the wrong direction,” said a Privy Council report: “There should be a greater emphasis on increasing benefits and financial supports for middle income Canadians.”

 

Why act like one has something to hide?:

It is in fact a Big Lie, encouraging Canadians to believe that research into the residential schools is an expression of hatred for indigenous people. And it furthermore implicitly gives licence to those Canadians to feel hatred for those who reject the charge of “denialism,” but who continue to publish the fruits of their research in publications with journalistic integrity, such as The Epoch Times.

Politicians and chattering-class elites who lend support to such demonization are acting irresponsibly. On Canada Day 2021, in response to reports of two church burnings—part of a wave of vandalism that followed the false reports of a discovery of an alleged “mass grave” in Kamloops, B.C.—Harsha Walia, then-president of the BC Civil Liberties Association, encouraged activists in a tweet to “Burn it all down.” Bad enough. Then, in response to criticism, Gerald Butts, Justin Trudeau’s longtime formal and informal adviser, defended Walia, conceding that while her tweet wasn’t “cool,” it was certainly “understandable.”

No, it is not understandable. It is unhealthy incitement, but consistent with a wider progressive trend.