Wednesday, July 05, 2023

Mid-Week Post

 Your middle-of-the-week cupcake break ...

 

The Liberals' only thoughts are to control people and use the people's money to pay for it. They resort to deception, lack of knowledge or even outright lie when countered.

It appears to be backfiring:

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The federal government will stop advertising on Meta-owned platforms Facebook and Instagram as the conflict between the company and Ottawa heats up over legislation that would force web giants to share revenues with news publishers.

“Facebook has decided to be unreasonable, irresponsible, and started blocking news,” Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez told reporters Wednesday flanked by Bloc Québécois MP Martin Champoux and NDP MP Peter Julian.

 

No, Google is doing what they said and what you expected them to do after this shakedown: leave. 

Having is not so pleasing a thing after all as wanting.

It's not like they need you.



Bribing Canadians with their own money and reminding them that they are nothing without the government is what an abusive husband might do to frightened wife:

Canadians eligible for the GST credit are expected to receive a special payment today to help with the rising cost of groceries.

The payment, which the Liberal government is calling the grocery rebate, was promised in the spring budget to help Canadians cope with food inflation.

 

What is the government going to do about the monopolies, food boards, inflation and high taxes?

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In its analysis of the Canadian grocery retail market released June 27, the Competition Bureau tried to ascertain why more international discount grocers don’t set up shop in Canada. Unsurprisingly, government regulations that act as barriers to entry into the Canadian marketplace play a big role.

One thing the Competition Bureau heard from some foreign supermarket chains was that “laws requiring bilingual labels on packaged foods can be a difficult additional cost for international grocers to take on.”

This is certainly not the biggest impediment to increased competition in the sector, but there’s little doubt that Canada’s stringent labelling requirements make it harder for foreign goods to enter the country. This results in higher prices for consumers, but can also lead to shortages that are not experienced elsewhere. And it can have deadly consequences.

Last fall, this country experienced a severe shortage of children’s pain and fever medication, which resulted in an influx of kids showing up at emergency departments for ailments that could normally be treated at home. Yet other advanced countries, such as the United States and Australia, had more than enough to go around.

 

This:

Cabinet will decide by executive order which private sector employers must conduct business in French, says a briefing note for Languages Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor. A bill containing a first-ever federal French mandate in the private sector was signed into law June 21: “The new Act will come into force by decree.”

Also:

According to a new study by the fiscally conservative Fraser Institute, Ford and his PC government will spend $12,405 per person in this fiscal year, compared to an average of $11,784 per person annually, adjusted for inflation, during the Wynne years.

Had Ford maintained Wynne’s level of spending, the report says, his government would be spending $9.5 billion less than the amount forecast in its 2023-2024 Ontario budget.

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The central bank said on June 30 that higher interest rates have weighed heavily on the finances of Canadians, with the impact “more acute” for homeowners with variable-rate mortgages, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.
“Interest rates on our variable-rate mortgage went from 2.6 percent to 6 percent,” said one respondent, cited in the bank’s report, titled “Canadian Survey of Consumer Expectations—Second Quarter of 2023.”
“This is a huge increase. We are not able to go out to restaurants anymore or go on vacations because we need to be able to pay for our mortgage.”
Nine interest rate hikes by the BoC have seen the rate surge from 0.25 percent in December 2021 to 4.75 percent this past June, making variable-rate mortgages more expensive.
Conducted between May 8 and May 15, the survey indicated that while most mortgage holders were confident they could still make the higher payments, “they are also more likely than other people to be looking for new or additional work.”

 

 

We don't have to trade with China:

A prominent Canadian-born Hong Kong dissident, one of eight pro-democracy activists targeted this week with cash bounties by the city’s Beijing-backed police force, is urging Canada to cancel its extradition agreement with the former British colony.

Dennis Kwok, born in Edmonton, was ousted from office as a legislator in Hong Kong in November, 2020, after he bucked against the Chinese Communist Party’s interventions in the territory that Beijing had originally pledged would have control over its own affairs for 50 years. He was one of four politicians removed from office for what China deemed as disloyalty to the regime.

Hong Kong Police announced on Monday arrest warrants and cash bounties worth $1-million Hong Kong dollars, or $168,800, for information leading to the arrest of eight prominent pro-democracy campaigners, including Mr. Kwok, who all live in self-imposed exile overseas. The list also includes Nathan Law, a former student leader and legislator.

Mr. Kwok and others fled after China’s crackdown on Hong Kong in 2020 when it imposed a national-security law on the former British colony. Ostensibly to target secession, subversion and terrorism, the law contains vaguely defined offences that critics say effectively criminalize dissent and opposition.

Canada suspended its extradition treaty with Hong Kong in July, 2020, citing the harsh national-security legislation. But it has not abrogated it.

“Scrap it,” Mr. Kwok, who now lives in the United States, advised in an interview.

He said it’s time for Canada and other Western countries to realize there is no returning to previously cordial relations with China. “People who think that things will go back to normal are kidding themselves.”

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Hong Kong national security police on Wednesday arrested four men it accused of supporting overseas dissidents and of advocating for independence from China, two days after issuing warrants and bounties against several foreign-based activists.

The four men "were suspected of receiving funds from operating companies, social platforms and mobile applications to support people who have fled overseas and continue to engage in activities that endanger national security", the National Security Department of the Hong Kong Police said in a statement.

The statement did not specifically link the arrests to eight warrants issued earlier this week for prominent foreign-based dissidents. Local media, citing unnamed sources, connected the arrested men to an online platform known as "Punish Mee" that was allegedly used to provide financial aid to the eight wanted overseas activists.

The police statement cited "suspicion of conspiracy to collude with foreign forces and acts with seditious intent" and said the men were suspected of breaking the National Security Law, imposed on Hong Kong by Beijing in 2020 following an outbreak of democracy demonstrations.

"They were also suspected of repeatedly publishing posts with seditious intention on social media platforms, including content which provoked hatred towards the Central Authorities(China) and the Government of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, and advocated "Hong Kong independence", the police statement said.

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The Office of Elections Commissioner Caroline Simard dismissed 116 complaints of alleged foreign interference in the last two general elections without a single attempted prosecution, records show. Simard’s staff in a briefing note complained investigations were hard: “Investigations into foreign interference will inevitably continue to raise difficult issues.”



Let them fight:

New Democrats will not grant the necessary unanimous consent required to speed any federal legislation to end a strike by British Columbia port workers, Party leader Jagmeet Singh said yesterday. Parliament nine times in the past 50 years has forced an end to Pacific port disputes with emergency legislation: “They should not at all be forced back to work.”

 

 

Isn't this what euthanasia was brought in for?:

The National Institute on Ageing has found that provincial long-term care standards vary drastically across the country and, in some cases, fall far short of new national standards released earlier this year.

The Health Standards Organization developed the standards to boost quality of life and prevent the spread of infection after the COVID-19 pandemic cast a harsh spotlight on conditions in long-term care homes across the country.

Provinces and territories requested a report from the institute to figure out how far they are from meeting the new standards.

The institute’s report found that only 25 of the 117 criteria laid out in the national standards could be found in the policies of all provinces and territories.

 


Remember - "too stupid to do a job" is an excuse now:

Even the head of Canada’s federal prison system appears to have doubts about Marco Mendicino being kept in the dark about Paul Bernardo’s transfer to a medium security facility.

Documents released to the Canadian Press wire service show that there were definitely attempts to make sure the minister knew.

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino has been under fire since the news broke that Canada’s most notorious serial killer was transferred from a maximum to medium security prison. The transfer happened in May, the news became public in June but both Mendicino and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau have said they didn’t know despite senior staff having been informed in March.

Anne Kelly, Commissioner of Corrections Canada, even followed up with Shawn Tupper, the deputy minister of Public Safety Canada, and Tricia Geddes, the assistant deputy minister. Kelly emailed them both days before the transfer.

“I had said I would confirm the transfer with you. It will occur next week,” Kelly wrote on May 26 in an email with “High Profile Offender” in the subject line.

Tupper wrote back minutes later to thank Kelly for the update.

One of the lines the Trudeau Liberals have been using in defence of Mendicino not being briefed that Bernardo’s transfer was happening is that his young staff didn’t know who Bernardo was. The claim has never made sense — now we know that this information was communicated with words like “High Profile Offender” in the subject line.

We also know that neither Tupper nor Geddes are young twentysomethings fresh out of university and working their first jobs. Tupper has been a senior civil servant, at director level or above, since 2000 while Geddes has been in senior positions for a decade.

Does it seem likely that experienced civil servants would know about the transfer of a high-profile serial killer like Bernardo for months, have it confirmed days before it happens and yet never raise it with the minister? Not in any functioning office.

Kelly, who has faced calls for her to be fired over her handling of this transfer, is shown to have clearly followed protocol. After news of the transfer became public, Mendicino blasted the decision on social media and in response to journalists.

 

 

It's called grooming:

Gender Equality Minister Marci Ien’s department spent nearly $82,000 interviewing Canadians as young as 13 for their opinions of menstruation. Researchers concluded the topic doesn’t come up much: “Canadians were asked how often they find themselves talking to someone about menstruation.”



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