Mid-Week Post

 

Your middle-of-the-week act of defiance ...

The left is horrified that the Albertan electorate voted in someone supposedly pro-oil.

Let the Laurentian snobbery run unabated!:

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and her United Conservative Party retained control of Canada’s top oil-producing province in an election Monday, setting up a series of energy-policy clashes with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Smith’s UCP won 49 of 87 seats in the provincial legislature to form a majority government, defeating the left-leaning New Democratic Party. Smith, 52, became premier last fall by winning her party’s leadership after her predecessor, Jason Kenney, stepped down amid dissatisfaction with his handling of the pandemic.

“We have to keep powering and diversifying our amazing economy, and I want to tell every business owner and investor listening tonight — whether doing business inside or outside of Alberta — we are throwing our doors wide open for businesses, large and small,” Smith said during her victory speech.

The victory threatens to complicate Trudeau’s quest to fulfill Canada’s climate commitments. 

Because those plans are insane and unworkable.

Only communists would think that slashing fuel and electricity rates are reasonable.

Melanie puts on her big girl skirt and pretends that she is smarter than black lady:

Events featuring an Israeli cabinet minister alongside controversial Canadian preacher Charles McVety and a Conservative MP are ruffling feathers in Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly’s office.

Joly’s office only learned about Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli’s planned trip to Canada from other Liberal MPs, who raised questions about it when they received an invite to an event with Chikli on Parliament Hill next week.

Normally, visits by foreign lawmakers are arranged through the Global Affairs department or official parliamentary friendship groups, but the Ottawa event was organized via a third group: the unofficial Israel Allies Caucus, run by Conservative MP Leslyn Lewis.

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She’s a long-time ally of McVety, who is hosting his own event with Chikli at the Canada Christian College near Toronto.

“We have great concerns about this visit as facilitated by Leslyn Lewis,” Maeva Proteau, a spokesperson for Joly, told the Star.

Yes, I'll bet you do.

Why should anyone trust an anti-Israel government, anyway?

Justin has unilaterally decided that there will be no investigation into this:

Former Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole says the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) found an “active campaign of voter suppression” by China against him and his party in the 2021 election.

O’Toole made the comments Tuesday from the floor of the House of Commons, within which MPs are protected by parliamentary privilege from civil or criminal prosecution under freedom of speech provisions. His speech comes after a briefing with CSIS last week.

“I also believe my privileges as a Member and officer of Parliament were infringed by the government’s unwillingness or inability to act on the intelligence related to foreign interference,” O’Toole said.

“The briefing confirmed to me what I had long suspected – that my party, several of my caucus colleagues and myself were the target of a sophisticated misinformation and voter suppression campaign orchestrated by the People’s Republic of China before and during the 2021 general election.”

The issue of foreign interference in Canadian elections — chiefly from the Chinese government — has dominated federal political discussions for months. After media reports citing leaked documents by Global News and the Globe and Mail, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed former governor general David Johnston as a “special rapporteur” on foreign interference.

The opposition New Democrats, who have propped up the minority Liberal government, are now calling on Johnston to resign after he recommended against a public inquiry into foreign interference – a decision that has faced intense scrutiny and criticism since he announced it last week.

Indeed:

Dan Stanton, a former CSIS officer and manager, said holding a public inquiry is entirely possible, citing examples such as the inquiries into the Maher Arar affair and the Air India bombing, which took place despite the sensitive information involved.

“You can put all sorts of safeguards on public inquiries. It just takes a little bit of creativity. It’s all legal. It’s been done before,” Stanton told the House of Commons committee on procedure and House affairs on Tuesday.

Johnston’s interim report on foreign interference, released last week, advised against a public inquiry and instead recommended public hearings. Those hearings would not deal with any of the specific claims about Beijing meddling in the last two federal elections that have been revealed in the media.

But Jag will never let it come to that:

Allegations that cabinet ignored misconduct by foreign agents will not alter New Democrats’ pledge to support the Prime Minister until 2025, NDP leader Jagmeet Singh yesterday told reporters. Withdrawing support and triggering a snap election made no sense, said Singh: “I don’t see how it’s logical.”

 

I do, you piece of crap.

You will be homeless and like it:

Many renters in some of Canada’s biggest cities have already been paying record-high amounts to their landlords as of late, but a new report suggests pressure facing real estate investors might ratchet up the pain in the rental market in the coming years.

The report, released Monday from CIBC and Urbanation, shows that for a majority of real estate investors in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA), the business case for their rental properties is falling apart. Industry observers say similar pressures are being felt in other major cities like Vancouver.

While tenants might have little sympathy for the landlords who, in many cases, have been rapidly raising their monthly rents in recent months, experts who spoke to Global News say investors are critical to the supply of units in the rental market.

You will also be broke and like it:

Cabinet’s budget bill last night cleared the Commons finance committee after 29 days and 667 roll call votes in a month-long Conservative filibuster. MPs protested the omnibus bill introduced or amended 51 different Acts of Parliament: “The idea that omnibus legislation is acceptable is simply wrong.”

Also - they asked for far too much:

Over 12,700 members of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) will lose a military housing benefit they previously received once a modified version of the policy comes into force this July, according to recent federal figures.

The Department of National Defence (DND) said in an Inquiry of Ministry tabled in the House of Commons on May 15 that new policies coming into force through the Canadian Forces Housing Differential (CFHD)—which the CAF announced in March—will see a number of military members have their previous housing allowance reduced to zero.

“How many service members or veterans will see a reduction in their housing allowance by the full amount?” asked an order paper question tabled by NDP MP Rachel Blaney on March 29.

The DND responded that as a result of the CFHD over 12,700 CAF members would lose their housing allowance completely, 4,359 of whom are stationed at the Canadian Forces base near Quebec City-Valcartier and 2,810 in Edmonton.

It also said that around 2,420 CAF members would see their housing allowance reduced by 75 percent because of the new policy, while just under 900 will see it cut by more than 50 percent.

The DND also projects that around 11,590 CAF members who weren’t previously eligible to receive the PLD will be able to receive the CFHD as of July due to the policy change.

CAF members have previously received housing benefits through the Post Living Differential (PLD), the purpose of which CAF says is to reduce any negative financial impacts military members and their families might experience when posted to regions with higher living costs than that of the “standard city,” using Ottawa and Gatineau as examples of standard cities.

The CFHD will replace the PLD as of July 1.

DND calls the CFHD “a sophisticated approach … with the goal of assisting CAF members in adjusting to housing costs in different locations within Canada.”

It's a good thing that the governor-general keeps her clothing allowance, though.

Look what Torontonians want to vote for:

Over the past several months, the encampment at Allan Gardens has grown from a few tents in the southeast quadrant to tents in every part of the park. This park, which should be a jewel in the city’s system, is now a homeless shantytown.

By one tent close to Sherbourne St. there are clothes hanging on a makeshift laundry line. There’s a collection of office chairs and patio furniture around the tent entrance, some traffic cones set up as if to mark off territory. ...

In addition to putting up the plaque, city staff have ensured porta potties have been set up and extra garbage and recycling bins have been installed. This is all part of the effort by the city’s Encampment Outreach office to make sure things are running as smoothly as possible.

“Once they have an encampment office, there is no way the city wants to clear this away, they are invested in this,” one local resident complained.

It’s hard to argue with as the city hasn’t been discouraging this encampment at Allan Gardens. It’s been encouraging people to come set up shop here for the free services.

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Meanwhile, despite the increase in services, locals have ongoing complaints. Open drug use and drinking, defecating in the park or on nearby properties, and even the encampments moving into mini-parks and open pieces of land in the residential areas around the park.

The park is currently unusable. While the city is performing a multi-million dollar restoration of the conservatory greenhouses, who will come here when that is complete if the park remains a homeless encampment?

They could have voted for a dog, but no.

The last acceptable prejudice:

Two men have been charged after a Catholic Church was gutted by fire in northern Alberta.

On May 22, the RCMP was called to help with a fire in St. Bernard Catholic Church in Grouard, which is about 360 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.

The church was built in 1902 and is a provincial historic site.

Police say the fire appeared suspicious, and the RCMP put out a media release asking the public for information.

On May 23, the Mounties announced they had charged two men.

Police say 56-year-old Kenneth Ferguson of High Prairie is charged with arson, and break and enter to commit theft. Gerald Capot, 50, of High Prairie also faces charges of arson, and break and enter to commit theft.

Both men have been placed in custody and are due in court on May 29 in High Prairie. Police say no one was hurt in the fire.

The parish priest who served at St. Bernard said it’s a tremendous blow for the whole community.

“This church has been here for 121 years,” Bernard Akum said in an interview. “So you can imagine how it has served the community, sacraments, baptisms, weddings, confirmations, funerals … so the church was like a memorial, an edifice of remembrance of the ancestors.”

The incident occurred as this month marks the two-year anniversary of Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nations saying ground-penetrating radar had found burial sites of 215 children at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. Shortly after, a series of churches were damaged or destroyed by arson across Alberta, B.C., Saskatchewan, and Ontario.

(Sidebar: yes, now, about that, wouldn't everybody want closure as opposed to stopping any forensics experts from proving what only a handful have been saying?)

A police spokesperson told The Epoch Times they could only speak to facts at this point, and not motivation.

Was it something they said?:

A crowd of students recently protesting the LGBT agenda in a Quebec school tore down and trampled a rainbow “pride” flag. 

Last week, a group of teenagers from the Chêne-Bleu Secondary School in Pincourt, Quebec cheered as one of their fellow students tore down a flag representing the LGBT agenda, supporting the act of defiance by trampling the flag once it was no longer flying. 

A 51-second video clip circulated by Neomedia shows a crowd of over a hundred students protesting on the lower level of the school while their classmate tore the flag off a pole from a balcony above them. The incident took place on May 16, one day before the 2023 International Day against Homophobia, Biphobia and Transphobia. 

**

An Ontario Catholic school board just north of Toronto has voted against flying the gay “pride” flag atop its schools during the month of June, as Canadians increasingly protest the LGBT agenda in the education system.

During a May 29 York Catholic District School Board (YCDSB) meeting, trustees voted 6-4 against flying the pro-LGBT flag atop of its schools and other buildings in celebration of so-called “Pride Month,” a move that has been met with pleasant surprise by pro-family advocates. 

How hard is it to do your own damn shopping?:

Living in New York City, working full time and without a car, Jessica Ray and her husband have come to rely on deliveries of food and just about everything else for their home. It has meant more free time on weekends with their young son, rather than standing in line for toilet paper or dragging heavy bags of dog food back to their apartment.

“I don’t even know where to buy dog food,” said Jessica Ray of the specialty food she buys for the family’s aging dog.

There are millions of families like the Rays who have swapped store visits for doorstep deliveries in recent years, meaning that contentious labor negotiations now underway at UPS could become vastly more disruptive than the last time it happened in 1997, when a scrappy upstart called Amazon.com became a public company.

But no one wants to punish her for not reporting child abuse?:

An Indiana board decided Thursday night to reprimand an Indianapolis doctor after finding that she violated patient privacy laws by talking publicly about providing an abortion to a 10-year-old rape victim from neighboring Ohio.

The state Medical Licensing Board voted that Dr. Caitlin Bernard didn’t abide by privacy laws when she told a newspaper reporter about the girl’s treatment in a case that became a flashpoint in the national abortion debate days after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade last summer.

The board, however, rejected accusations from Indiana’s Republican attorney general that Bernard violated state law by not reporting the child abuse to Indiana authorities. Board members chose to fine Bernard $3,000 for the violations, turning down a request from the attorney general’s office to suspend Bernard’s license. The board issued no restrictions on her practice of medicine.

It's a cult.

Everyone loves an underdog:

Following Latvia’s shocking 4-3 overtime victory over the United States on Sunday to secure a bronze medal at the world hockey championship, parliament met just before midnight and declared Monday a public holiday to allow the country to celebrate its national hockey team.

"It is our duty to perpetuate this significant success of Latvian hockey players in the national memory of society,” the parliament said during its announcement. "Celebrating this day together will strengthen the national self-confidence and unity of Latvian society."

Saint Joan of Arc

 

True girl power.

 

It Was Never About A Virus

Which should be obvious by now:

A federal labour board has agreed to hear the case of a government employee denied a waiver from the vaccine mandate on religious grounds. Data show the overwhelming majority of requests for religious exemptions were denied, often with no reason given: “The grievance is neither trivial nor vexatious.”

** 

A COVID-19 outbreak unfolded at a conference held by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) despite most attendees being vaccinated.

About 1,800 CDC staffers and others gathered in April in a hotel in Atlanta, where the CDC is headquartered, for a conference focused on epidemiological investigations and strategies.

On April 27, the last day of the conference, several people notified organizers that they had tested positive for COVID-19. The CDC and the Georgia Department of Public Health worked together to survey attendees to try to figure out how many people had tested positive.

“The goals were to learn more about transmission that occurred and add to our understanding as we transition to the next phase of COVID-19 surveillance and response,” the CDC said in a May 26 statement.

Approximately 80 percent of attendees filled out the survey. Among those, 181 said they tested positive for COVID-19.

Every person who reported testing positive was vaccinated, a CDC spokesperson told The Epoch Times via email.

Nearly all respondents—99.4 percent—to the survey had received at least one COVID-19 vaccine dose. And “there were very few unvaccinated attendees in general,” the spokesperson said.

Officials did not break down the vaccinated between those who had received a dose of the updated bivalent vaccines and those who had not. They were also not able to say how many people among those who tested positive work for the CDC.

“The survey did not ask about place of employment and responses were anonymous, so we are not able to answer this question,” the CDC spokesperson said.

About 360 people did not respond to the survey, so the actual outbreak may have been larger.

Dr. Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, said on Twitter that the numbers made the conference a “superspreader event.”

Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of the Bloomberg School of Public Health’s Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, added that the outbreak shows COVID-19 is “still capable of causing big outbreaks and infecting many.”

A Georgia Department of Public Health spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email that many people who attended the conference were not residents of Georgia, and that many used tests at home.

There were no mask or vaccine mandates at the conference, though many attendees wore masks anyways, according to the CDC.

Economies Balance Themselves

Or some such thing:

Labour shortages in Canada appear to be mostly centred in jobs requiring little education, while employers finding it difficult to fill positions requiring higher levels of education probably aren’t facing challenges because candidates lack the necessary degrees, suggests a new research paper from Statistics Canada.

 

(Sidebar: remember - we were all promised that much-needed doctors and engineers will stroll right in.)

Why would anyone with a STEM degree remain in Canada when he or she can find employment elsewhere?

Canada is averse to capitalism, research, development and growth.

Change my mind.

**

A Carleton University business professor is casting doubt on the number of jobs that will be added to Windsor's economy by an electric vehicle battery factory.

Ian Lee says the country's unemployment level is the lowest it's been since the 1960s and calls the idea that Ontario is desperate to create new jobs as "nonsense," adding the province is already seeing a critical shortage of workers.

Stellantis and LG Energy Solution will draw many of their employees from other plants that are already operating in the region, he says.

"What's going to happen is these companies are going to be — they're not going to admit this publicly — but they're going to be poaching and robbing and soliciting skilled employees from other companies nearby because they need the workers to work there," Lee said.

**

The Department of Finance has asked the Parliamentary Budget Office to withhold public release of in-house data on a federal dentacare program. The Budget Office sought figures on the cost and scope of the plan promised by 2025: “Do not disclose the data publicly.”

** 

Cabinet will not enforce a curb on taxpayers’ use of cheques despite a clause in an omnibus budget bill, says the Department of Finance. Bill C-47 the Budget Implementation Act would mandate electronic payment of taxes over $10,000: “The intention is not to force people to do things.”

** 

No one trusts you, you fat dumpling:

Cabinet seeks to break a month-long filibuster that has tied up Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s omnibus budget bill in the Commons finance committee. One Liberal MP called it “arbitrary filibustering” to upset cabinet’s calendar: “The point is quite clear.”

But Justin can still fly everywhere, right?

Canada Is Becoming More Like North Korea Everyday

This North Korea: 

A toddler was sentenced to life imprisonment in North Korea after the child’s family was found in possession of a Bible, according to a new report by the US State Department.

Although the incident took place in 2009, it has been highlighted in the department’s new report on international religious freedoms this month, citing data from Korea Future, a non-governmental organisation documenting human rights abuses in North Korea.

“One case involved the 2009 arrest of a family based on their religious practices and possession of a Bible.

“The entire family, including a two-year-old child, were given life sentences in political prison camps,” it said.

There are estimated to be between 200,000 and 400,000 clandestine Christians in the North Korea, mainly in the West where many are believed to have settled after an “explosion” of interest in the religion in 1907.

Korea Future’s report was based on interviews between 2007 and 2020 with 244 victims of religious persecution, who had been subjected to arrest, detention, forced labour, torture, denial of fair trial or right to life, and to sexual violence, for practicing shamanism, or Christian beliefs.

**

North Korea has confirmed that it will launch its first spy satellite in June, with a senior official citing a need to monitor the U.S. and its allies "in real time" as they hold a series of ongoing joint military exercises, state-run media said Tuesday.

Japan on Monday ordered the Self-Defense Forces to prepare to shoot down a North Korean ballistic missile or rocket that threatens Japanese territory, the Defense Ministry said, after Pyongyang notified Tokyo of plans to launch the satellite before June 11.

The satellite as well as “various reconnaissance means due to be newly tested are indispensable to tracking, monitoring, discriminating, controlling and coping with … the dangerous military acts of the U.S. and its vassal forces,” Ri Pyong Chol, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission of the ruling Workers' Party, said in a statement carried by the official Korean Central News Agency.

The U.S. and South Korea have conducted numerous joint military drills in recent months, including large-scale live-fire exercises — called “combined annihilation firepower drills” — that will run through June.

The plan to put a satellite into orbit — the North’s first space rocket launch in more than seven years — has been met with condemnation.

"Satellite launches incorporate technology that is nearly identical to and compatible with that used in ballistic missiles, and we believe that, regardless of the terminology used by North Korea, the one planned for this time will also use ballistic missile technology," Chief Cabinet Secretary Hirokazu Matsuno told a news conference Tuesday, adding that the use of such technology violated United Nations Security Council (UNSC) resolutions.

Matsuno said Japan was working closely with the U.S. and South Korea to monitor the situation while urging North Korea to refrain from provocative acts.

Japan is not taking any chances, ordering the SDF to be ready to destroy any rocket or debris that might threaten its territory after the government said the rocket could fly over Okinawa Prefecture.

"If there is a recognized threat that a North Korean missile will fall into Japanese territory, all necessary measures, including interception, will be taken," Matsuno said.

 

 

Indeed:

Parliament must change federal law to permit police, postal inspectors or First Nations constables to open letters in transit, says one of the nation’s largest Indigenous groups. Letter mail is a leading source of narcotics, says the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs: “Postal shipments have become the most common method of distribution for illegal substances.”

**

Cabinet will attempt to reintroduce an internet censorship bill by year’s end. Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez yesterday told the Commons heritage committee he would “have more to announce shortly,” adding: “We have worked a good deal on this issue.”

We Don't Have to Trade With China

Three guesses why ...

Our adversaries understand that Western military superiority over the world’s authoritarians is meaningless if we lack the political resolve to use it, if we think there is no moral difference between free democracies and authoritarian despotisms. That is why China and Russia take aim at our culture, our beliefs and our institutions. Their objective is nothing less than to cause us to lose faith in ourselves and the society we have built. 

There are other ways in which our adversaries are using our own strengths against us.

In the trade sphere, for example, we assume other countries sign trade deals in the same spirit of openness as we do. There can be no doubt, however, that China has used industrial espionage and trade agreements for the explicit purpose of achieving industrial and economic domination over the West, destroying Canadian industrial giants such as Nortel along the way. The result has been the deindustrialization of our societies.

In Canada’s case we have aided and abetted our adversaries’ ambitions by allowing them to launder and then invest money on an industrial scale. We have, moreover, been complaisant in the face of foreign efforts to coerce and intimidate Canadian citizens and residents seeking to alert Canadians to the dangers posed by China, Russia and other authoritarian regimes.

China, however, has the resources and the will to go beyond destabilizing disinformation. They have for years pursued a policy of suborning a wide range of Canadian institutions, from our political parties, civil service and police to our research labs, universities and business leadership. To do so they have employed the traditional tactics for exploiting human weaknesses, such as divided loyalties, the fear engendered by threats and intimidation, the active corruption of institutions by the placement within them of agents loyal to Beijing, and that old standby, greed.

Canada’s security services have been sounding the alarm on China’s growing interference and nefarious activities for decades; indifference and hostility have been Ottawa’s official response.

And while interference in our democracy seems to have captured the public imagination, it is easy to demonstrate that China’s efforts are much more ambitious than influencing voters in a handful of constituencies. Elections, however, are a good place to start inventorying the rot.

**

The federal government gave nearly $160,000 to another Quebec non-profit the RCMP believes may be hosting a secret Chinese “police station,” the second organization to receive funding experts fear may have been used to advance Beijing’s agenda in Canada.

According to a federal government database, Centre Sino-Québec de la Rive Sud, a not-for-profit based in Montreal’s south shore, received over $105,000 in funding between 2016 and 2022 via six grants from the Canada Summer Jobs program.

In its 2018-2019 annual report, the most recent report available via an Internet archiving service after the information was scrubbed from its website, Centre Sino-Québec said it used the funding that year to hire four students of Chinese origin to work at a summer camp for youth from low-income immigrant families.

The data also shows it received over $53,000 via three contributions between 2020 and 2022 from the New Horizons for Seniors program, which funds projects geared toward seniors.

** 

Rather, let's identify the leak:

A former Ontario cabinet minister who has been the focus of intelligence leaks related to Chinese interference in Canada is suing CSIS, saying the spy agency publicly humiliated him because of a “stereotypical typecasting of immigrants born in China as being somehow untrustworthy.”

Liberal Michael Chan, who’s currently deputy mayor of the Toronto-area city of Markham, says persecution by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service began in 2010 and has continued recently with disclosure of what he called unreliable and “frail” intelligence reports.

Chan said unnamed CSIS employees not only broke federal secrecy laws when they gave media such information, they caused him real harm.

“Chan is justifiably proud of his Chinese heritage. But he is first and foremost a Canadian,” says his statement of claim, filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. “He has devoted a good portion of his working life to public service to his country.”

Due to the “misfeasance” of the CSIS leakers working with news outlets, “Chan has suffered pain, embarrassment, humiliation, stress and damage to his reputation, as well as threats to his personal well-being and that of his family,” alleges the document. “It has particularly pained him to know that his family members have had to deal with this matter.”

 **

A citizen petition against a foreign agent registry that was sponsored by Liberal MP Chandra Arya in the House of Commons in April was drafted by Sen. Yuen Pau Woo, The Epoch Times has confirmed.

“At the request of organizers across the country, I helped to draft the petition,” Woo told The Epoch Times in an email.

The petition, initiated by Coquitlam, B.C., resident Li Wang, says “a foreign influence registry poses a serious harassment and stigmatization risk for racialized communities.”

It adds: “A registry is a misleading way to identify sources of foreign influence.”

Like you, for example?

**

A Canadian magazine yesterday defended its publication of a commentary by China’s Ambassador on tea and the wisdom of President Xi. The Ottawa Life article followed Canada’s expulsion of a Chinese spy and Commons committee evidence of threats against an MP: “Just like enjoying tea, let us embrace the spirit of harmony.”

**

As predictable as the NDP's inaction over this and their much-needed interference:

Cabinet’s refusal to hold a public inquiry into claims of illegal activities by Chinese agents was predictable, a Bloc Québécois MP yesterday told the House affairs committee. “The walls are closing in,” said MP Marie-Hélène Gaudreau (Laurentides-Labelle, Que.). “That’s enough.”

 

Also:

NDP MP Jenny Kwan revealed during a press conference on May 29 that the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) recently told her she has been a target of Beijing for several years.

“While I’m not able to disclose the details of how that foreign interference applied to me specifically for national security reasons, CSIS has confirmed with me that I am being targeted for foreign interference and will continue to be a target,” the MP for Vancouver East told reporters in Ottawa.

Kwan said CSIS had contacted her a few weeks ago to “offer a briefing” with respect to foreign interference targeting her and followed up with another classified briefing on May 26.

Kwan, who is the NDP’s immigration critic, said she is being targeted by the Chinese regime because of her “activism in support and to fight for basic human rights for not just Canadians, but for those who are abroad as well.”

Kwan, who was born in Hong Kong, has been outspoken against Bejing’s national security law, which facilitated the erosion of democratic rights and freedoms for Hong Kongers. Back in 2021, she condemned the arrest of six journalists in the city, calling for Canadians to “rally in support of the people in Hong Kong.” Kwan said her outspoken support of the Uyghur minority population who are targeted for persecution by the Chinese regime also led to her becoming a target.

Kwan said she would continue to stand with those across the world fighting for “basic human rights” and that she would not be intimidated or silenced.

“Whoever is trying to put pressure on me—in whatever way that they’re trying to do it—they will not succeed. I will continue to do what is right and what is just,” she said.

While Kwan said she could not reveal the specifics around how she was being targeted—as doing so would reveal classified information and jeopardize the work of CSIS—she said she is an “evergreen candidate,” meaning that she will “forever be targeted.”

**

A Toronto lawyer who assisted David Johnston in his review of alleged misconduct by Chinese agents yesterday would not comment on her ties to the Liberal Party. The advocacy group Democracy Watch filed an ethics complaint naming lawyer Sheila Block: “I retained Sheila Block of Torys LLP to assist me.”

None of this is a concern to uncle David Johnston, whose company Justin enjoyed while eating deluxe chicken nuggets,

Special Rapporteur David Johnston has refused to take questions from MPs on the House of Commons public accounts committee regarding his previous work at the Trudeau Foundation, leading members of the committee to threaten to issue him a summons.

“We have a meeting scheduled for a week today with individuals who have been involved with the Trudeau Foundation,” said Conservative MP and Committee Chair John Williamson at a meeting of the committee on May 29, according to Blacklock’s Reporter. “I regret to inform you all, I have three who have declined, including the Right Honourable David Johnston.”

Trudeau appointed Johnston to be the special rapporteur on March 15 following media reports suggesting widespread interference by Beijing in Canada’s elections. Instead of launching a public inquiry, which opposition leaders repeatedly called for, the prime minister said he would heed the recommendations of Johnston.

When tabling his report on foreign election interference on May 23, Johnston said a public inquiry should not be held, as the classified information informing his decision could not be revealed to the Canadian public. He instead called for a series of public hearings to “hear from Canadians about the numerous policy questions my work has raised.”

Johnston has been criticized in his role as special rapporteur, given his past relationship with the Trudeau family and membership in the Pierre Elliot Trudeau Foundation. When tabling the report, Johnston dismissed the criticisms by saying he has had no interactions with Trudeau “of a friendly kind” since Trudeau became a Liberal MP.

Johnston resigned his membership with the foundation after his appointment as rapporteur.

Johnston is slated to testify in front of the House Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs—which passed a motion on May 26 re-inviting him to appear—no later than June 6. The committee had called for him to testify in March, but Johnston responded that he would only be available after tabling his report.

 

Also - utterly craven:

Malaysia has detained a Chinese-registered vessel suspected of looting two British World War Two shipwrecks.

The bulk carrier was seized on Sunday for anchoring illegally at the site in the South China Sea.

Ammunition believed to be from the HMS Prince of Wales and HMS Repulse, which were sunk by Japanese forces more than 80 years ago, was then found on board.

The UK Ministry of Defence had earlier condemned the alleged raid as a "desecration" of maritime war graves.

Old shipwrecks are targeted by scavengers for their rare low-background steel, also known as "pre-war steel". The low radiation in the steel makes it a rare and valuable resource for use in medical and scientific equipment.

The British vessels, on the bed of the ocean some 100km (60 miles) off the east coast of Malaysia, had been targeted for decades.

The Royal Navy battleships were dispatched to Singapore during the war to shore up the defence of Malaya. They were sunk by Japanese torpedoes on 10 December 1941.

The strike - which occurred just three days after the attack on the US fleet in Pearl Harbour - killed some 842 sailors and is considered one of the worst disasters in British naval history.

**

Daniel Suidani, a former provincial premier of Solomon Islands who was ousted from office for standing up against Beijing’s foreign interference, says countries need to be very careful when dealing with communist regimes as they don’t share the same values as other parts of the world.

“The [ideology] of communism, … these people are atheist. They don’t believe in God. We need to be very mindful of this because we will be having a friendship with somebody with different values and principles. So we need to be very careful and the people need to understand before involving in anything with the CCP [Chinese Communist Party],” Suidani, the former premier of Malaita Province, the most populous province in Solomon Islands, told The Epoch Times.

In October 2019, Suidani issued the “Auki Communique” from the premier’s office, a document issued to fend off interference and influence operations by the CCP. It also affirmed the fundamental rights and freedoms of the Malaitan people, including protection of the law and the freedom of expression and religion, while rejecting the “CCP and its formal systems based on atheist ideology.”

In addition, Suidani’s government barred new investors with any connections to the CCP from operating in the province. The communique highlighted the importance of safeguarding Malaita’s resources and sovereignty from “wilful and exploitive investors” including preserving the province’s natural environment from overdevelopment by CCP-linked companies such as logging from the forests.

But his courageous efforts did not sit well with Prime Minister Manasseh Sogavare’s government, which has adopted a series of policies over the past few years that pivot the country’s foreign policy closer to Beijing.

This includes the decision in September 2019 to cut diplomatic ties with the democratic government of Taiwan—which has historic conflict with the communist regime in Beijing—and instead recognize the People’s Republic of China (PRC) as the legitimate government of China.

The Taiwanese government in return terminated diplomatic relations with the island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, criticizing Sogavare’s decision to disregard the 36 years of cooperation between Solomon Islands and Taiwan.