Wednesday, August 02, 2023

Mid-Week Post

Your middle-of-the-week downpour ...

 

Oh, this has been obvious for a long time:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Wednesday he is separating from his wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau.

 

Even she can't stand and she had her rea$on$ for marrying him. 

They were the Barbie couple attempting to recreate the veneer of respectability over the sordidness that Justin's parents had.

They still live large while others struggle to fuel their cars and pay for food.

Everything they (especially Justin) do is surface.

It's insulting:


 

The Canadian economy is the Liberals' to destroy:

A proposed tunnel between Newfoundland and Labrador under consideration by the provincial and federal governments is now expected to cost $4.8 billion, double what was last estimated.

It will also take two years longer to build, cost more to operate and draw fewer paying customers.

**

The government can’t declare victory on inflation — as Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has been — and call it a day. Base effects are distorting the true pain felt by Canadians, especially the working class and low-income earners. Practically every economist predicts the housing crisis will get worse unless drastic changes are made. Wealth continues to concentrate in unproductive areas rather than contribute to economic growth and shared prosperity.

Canada’s overly concentrated industries and oligopolies also negatively impact wages and working conditions, while giving companies little incentive to innovate. Workers can’t easily transition to jobs in other companies if they’re unhappy, or seek wage or career growth elsewhere.

At the same time, burdensome bureaucracy and high taxes make entrepreneurship unnecessarily difficult and expensive. We must reprioritize competition, job mobility and encouraging small business growth.

The federal government should also consider the impact its turbocharged temporary foreign worker program has on low-income workers. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself said in 2014 that the program should be scaled back. Instead, once in office, he increased temporary foreign work permits by a whopping 92 per cent between 2015 and 2017 alone.

The numbers have only continued to surge since then, and been roundly criticized by economists for prioritizing cheap labour while sacrificing good wages, labour rights, worker mobility and investments in innovation. The program, at this scale, is effectively a corporate subsidy with far-reaching negative impacts.

When wages are systemically stagnated, career opportunities limited and gradual improvements in work conditions absent, we inevitably end up with big moments where worker frustration boils over. Frustration, resentment and anger become widespread, replacing pride in one’s job and optimism for growth. This isn’t the basis of a healthy, functioning economy.

The Liberals’ abandonment of the working class and low-wage workers through bad policies on files ranging from competition to immigration, housing and rampant corporate oversubsidization led us to this new era of labour strife. While individual companies must show up at the negotiating table, it’s the federal government that needs to act to bring back normal labour relations to across the country and to prevent further economic damage. 


 

 It's like collecting pennies at this point:

As many as half of all federal office buildings are unnecessary and could be sold at a taxpayers’ saving says the Department of Public Works, largest landowner in Canada. The selloff would take about 25 years, it said: “We are not going back to the way things used to be.”

 

Well, the public sector could always work at home. 



There are plenty of examples of Soviet-style food management in Canada but Jag Singh can't seem to find them:

There is no proof retailers profited from inflation, the Bank of Canada said yesterday. New Democrat leader Jagmeet Singh disputed the finding, pointing to contrary data from another federal agency: “We know this is a fact.”


 

When will you repeal the bills, Pierre?:

Fallout from federal internet regulation is like an Orwell novel, Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre yesterday told reporters. Facebook began suspending links to Canadian news stories in protest over Parliament’s passage of Bill C-18: “I think it is like 1984.”


 

It was never about a virus:

An Alberta court ruling is a step to remedying the “significant injustice” of pandemic mandates, the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms said yesterday. Lawyers successfully argued then-Premier Jason Kenney overstepped his legal authority in imposing restrictions: “Significant injustice has taken place in the past three years under these Draconian public health measures.”

**

Canada’s vaccine advisors are recommending a COVID-19 booster dose of yet another reformulated vaccine this fall. It may prove a tough sell.



Where did these Indian women go?:

Over 1.3 million women in India went missing between 2019 and 2021, according to newly-released data from India’s Union Home Ministry.

The data, compiled by India's National Crime Records Bureau, found that over 1 million adult women and over 250,000 girls under the age of 18 went missing in the three-year span. The highest number of disappearances was in Madhya Pradesh state, where nearly 198,000 women and girls were reported missing in the three years, with West Bengal closely behind with nearly 193,000 cases, NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) data showed. 

The disappearance of women is a nationwide issue in India, as even the capital city of New Dehli saw over 60,000 women and 20,000 young girls go missing in the same time period. Nearly half a million went missing in 2021 alone.



Italy and South Korea see new era of co-operation

The top diplomats of South Korea and Italy held consultations to reaffirm their shared commitment for cooperation in the multilateral stage and discuss cooperation in other areas of mutual concern, Seoul's foreign ministry said Tuesday.

In the meeting held in Rome the previous day, Foreign Minister Park Jin and his Italian counterpart, Antonio Tajani, agreed on the need to closely cooperate within the multilateral frameworks, including in the United Nations and the Group of 20 meetings.

Park said South Korea will continue to cooperate with the Group of Seven countries to tackle pending global issues as Italy is set to host the G7 summit next year.

Park and Tajani agreed to further deepen their bilateral ties as the two countries mark their 140th anniversary of diplomatic ties next year, the ministry said.


Um, Belt and Road project?



This is a thing:

Chinese President Xi Jinping has reshuffled the leadership of the country’s missile forces in an apparent attempt to install trustworthy officials and disrupt corruption in the force, which would play a key role in any attempt to seize Taiwan.

The move earlier this week saw the Chinese leader effectively purge two of the most senior officials in the People’s Liberation Army’s (PLA) Rocket Force, which oversees the country’s land-based missile and nuclear arsenals. Wang Houbin, the navy’s former deputy commander, takes over as the Rocket Force’s new commander, while Xu Xisheng, who previously served in the air force’s Southern Theater Command, becomes its new political commissar, Chinese state broadcaster CCTV reported on Monday.

The appointment of a new commander for the unit ended weeks of speculation over the fate of Li Yuchao, the ousted commander of the missile force. Li, his deputy, Liu Guangbin, as well as his former No. 2, Zhang Zhenzhong, have been taken away for investigation by the Central Military Commission’s anti-graft body, the South China Morning Post reported last week, citing two anonymous sources familiar with the matter.

The CMC, the country’s highest national defense organization, is headed by Xi.

Li, 60, is the third commander of the Rocket Force since it was formally established in late 2015 under Xi’s overall military reforms, and was elected to the ruling Communist Party’s 205-member Central Committee in October.

“The replacement of the commander role in the Rocket Force comes as an indirect confirmation of the investigation launched against Li Yuchao,” said Li Nan, a visiting senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s East Asian Institute.

However, the whereabouts of two other senior officials — Liu and Zhang — remain unclear due to the lack of transparency within the Chinese military, he added. Beijing has not yet made any public announcements of such investigations against the officials and China’s Defense Ministry did not respond to a request for comment by the time of the publication.


 

 

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