Who Did You Vote For, Canada?

 For people who waste money and lie as a matter of course:

On the world stage, Canada is one of the few advanced economies that has not recovered its pre-pandemic standard of living, measured by real gross domestic product per capita.

This measure has contracted over the past three quarters, and TD forecasts it will continue to shrink until the end of 2024. More alarming, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development predicts that Canada will place last among OECD members in real GDP per capita growth until 2060.

It wasn’t always so.

At the start of the 1980s Canada’s per capita GDP was almost US$4,000 above the average of advanced economies, but by 2000 this advantage had all but disappeared, said Ercolao. That year U.S. per capital GDP exceeded Canada’s by more than US$8,000.

**

Canada’s “guest of honour” sponsorship of a German book fair with Governor General Mary Simon cost more than $18 million, according to a newly-disclosed federal audit. The event lasted four days in 2021: “Canada assumed significant financial and operational obligations.”

** 

Ontario will join five other provinces in recognizing the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation as a public sector holiday, a labor arbitrator has ruled. The observance September 30 will see the largest shutdown yet under a bill passed by Parliament in 2021: “It ought to have been granted as a paid holiday in 2022.”

 

Entitled to their entitlements, I see.

 

 

She is aiding China just as she aided the Liberals while sitting on the bench:

Even at the time, it struck me as a curious cross-pollination of Canadian jurisprudence with Hong Kong’s intolerance. When I spoke briefly with McLachlin — after she accepted one of the innumerable awards conferred upon her for a distinguished career on the bench — she seemed unfazed by my prediction that she would soon find herself in an impossible position.

I told her I had covered Hong Kong’s struggling democracy movement for seven years, and later watched the narrowing margin of manoeuvre as Beijing went back on its written promises. Did she know what she was getting into?

McLachlin gave me a polite hearing, but she had already reached a career decision. Her verdict was not open to appeal.

The subsequent unravelling of Hong Kong’s system of law could not have been worse. What began as a crackdown followed by a suffocation has become an eradication of democracy.

Yet all these years later, McLachlin serves indefatigably — if not faithfully — on Hong Kong’s highest court, insisting that she is doing her duty to law and order even after the law has been weaponized and distorted into a tool of disorder and repression. Our retired chief justice argues she is a bulwark against arbitrary rule, yet in reality she is a fig leaf for autocracy.

Two other foreign judges recruited to a similar role on the high court have long since bailed out, concluding that the system was broken beyond repair. The two British judges resigned in early 2022 when the writing was on the wall.

McLachlin resisted, persisting in her view that “The court is completely independent and functioning in the way I am used (to) in Canada the courts functioning.”

 

She's a b!#ch. 

"I'm too stupid to do my job" is now "But ... privacy!":

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino, whose handling of the prison transfer has dogged him for weeks, has said that the Correctional Service of Canada, which was responsible for the decision, owes Canadians an explanation given the severity of Bernardo’s crimes.

But he has also said the Privacy Act was getting in the way of transparency.

 “The Privacy Act and other legislation currently puts significant limits on what can be discussed publicly, including information surrounding specific inmate transfers,” Mendicino said in a statement on June 14.  ...

The Privacy Act “currently allows federal government institutions to disclose personal information in the public interest,” and says that such decisions must be made by the head of an institution on a case-by-case basis, the staffer wrote.

Article content

The Canadian Press obtained the heavily redacted email through the Access to Information Act.

 

This Mendocino:

Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino’s wife held shares in a Ukraine war defence contractor as he pledged to be “out front in helping Ukraine with military aid,” records show. The holdings are among an extensive stock portfolio in the Mendicino family: “Canada will continue to be there for Ukraine.”

Why should anyone have faith in the military? 

The government doesn't:

As the military endeavours to boost its recruitment and retention numbers, Canadians say their overall trust in the armed forces’ preparedness is declining, with fewer than 40 percent of respondents saying they have a “high level of trust” in the military, according to internal Department of National Defence (DND) research.

“More than one in three respondents, 37 percent, trust the Canadian Armed Forces while an additional 40 percent were ‘somewhat’ trustful,” reads a report summarizing in-house research contracted by the DND, according to Blacklock’s Reporter on July 14.

The report, titled “Views Of The Canadian Armed Forces 2022-23 Tracking Study,” says that the number of respondents saying they have a “high level of trust” in the military declined from 43 percent in 2021 to 37 percent in 2023.

“Among those who could reflect on the worst aspects of the Forces, many referred to it being underfunded and using antiquated equipment,” the report said.

“However, a few felt that the Forces were receiving too much funding and others referred to scandals, bad press, harassment, bullying, discrimination and abuse of power.”

The report’s findings were based on research conducted across 10 federal focus groups and questionnaires with over 1,000 people nationwide.

 

Canada is no more than a springboard into the US and citizenship into this landmass is no better than ordering from Amazon. 

One is, of course, welcome to prove me wrong:

“There’s something meaningful about becoming a citizen. Citizenship is more than just sort of the paper process of having a Canadian passport and all the rights and responsibilities of Canadians,” he said. “It actually matters to the country. It matters to social inclusion, and I think it matters to all immigrants.”

 

Apparently not. 

Canada is cheap and has been so since the Sixties.

 

 

We imported and kept this violence:

 Signs posted on the gates of a Sikh temple in the shadow of Toronto’s Pearson Airport declared it a “referendum war zone.”

But inside the gurdwara’s perimeter on Sunday afternoon, the atmosphere was festive. Drums beat and children played as hundreds of people formed a long snaking line toward the temple doors. They were waiting to cast ballots on a provocative question: Do you want the Indian state of Punjab to become an independent country called Khalistan?

Prayer and politics intersect at the Sri Guru Singh Sabha gurdwara, where a parked cube van festooned with signs served as a political bandwagon. From it flew the maple leaf banner, flanked by yellow-and-blue flags with the Sikh symbol and its double-edged sword – Canada and the Khanda, side by side.

“We want to have our own country,” said Paranvir Gill, a 22-year-old standing in the queue.

 

You do.

It's called Canada.

Or is it?

Sooner or later, the machine will eat its own:

Tommy Douglas, founding leader of the federal New Democratic Party, is under review as a national historic figure due to “controversial beliefs and behaviour.” The Historic Sites and Monuments Board acknowledged Douglas was an early advocate of sterilizing unwed mothers: “He later changed his views.”

 

And why is this a problem?

Do we not abort and euthanise our way out of our social difficulties?