Your middle-of-the-week autumnal sangria ...
Canada, the dolt of nations:
1. Governments hide things by announcing them on Friday afternoons.
— Ezra Levant 🍁🚛 (@ezralevant) September 30, 2023
Last night, Trudeau announced he now requires YouTubers, livestreamers & podcasters (including those streaming on X/Twitter) to “register” with the government.
It’s part of his Internet censorship strategy. https://t.co/UQUSAU4Nng
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Second, the CRTC’s analysis frequently points to this decision as the thin edge of the wedge with the registration requirement being the first step toward a far broader regulatory framework. In fact, the rationale for the CRTC to include many of the services is that without such information it is not well positioned to regulate. This creates an obvious contradiction: the Commission claims that the registration requirement is de minimis requiring the disclosure of only limited information but then also argues that such information is important to future decision making on compliance with the Broadcasting Act objectives.
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The world — especially America — has looked on in horror as the Canadian government has tried to curtail speech in the country, and looked on with ever-more horror as Canadians seem willing to go along with this. It seems to be the view of the Canadian authorities that they are capable of deciding at the merest glance who is and is not allowed to speak, what is and is not acceptable speech, what any Canadians can and cannot read and who is and who is not a “Nazi.” These being the same authorities who apparently cannot even perform the most basic Google searches on their guests.
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The CRTC’s intention to regulate the podcast universe, in response to the government’s Online Streaming Act (Bill C-11), has received negative attention from some high-profile Americans in recent days. “The Canadian government, armed with one of the world’s most repressive online censorship schemes, announces that all ‘online streaming services that offer podcasts’ must formally register with the government to permit regulatory controls,” journalist Glenn Greenwald wrote on Twitter. Elon Musk concurred: “Trudeau is trying to crush free speech in Canada. Shameful.”
Canadians will politely suffer many indignities, but rarely Americans being wrong about something. Many online were quick to note that only streaming services with revenues in excess of $10 million need register with the CRTC — and not content-producers whose work they distribute. Streaming services need only provide the CRTC very basic information about their operations: address, launch date, URL, language of service. (Presumably the commissioners and staff refuse to use Google on principle.)
This is important context, certainly. Unfortunately for the Liberals, “not as unreasonable as Glenn Greenwald and Elon Musk think” is really no defence at all.
The case for the CRTC’s existence rests on the reasonably perceived need to regulate a finite publicly owned commodity, namely airborne radio and television bandwidth. But as podcasting has quite spectacularly demonstrated — not that it really needed demonstrating after, say, 1999 — there is nothing finite about the online bandwidth necessary to disseminate podcasts. And the technical barriers to podcasting fame are marvellously few: One suspects it would boggle a CRTC commissioner’s mind, but two people with a laptop, a couple of USB microphones and a hook can easily make themselves a global hit.
Bandwidth not being a problem, the only argument for the CRTC to get involved in the medium — other than to justify its own superannuated existence — rests on content: It thinks we should be listening to more of something and less of something else.
The CRTC insists it’s not regulating content.
But then it says: “The CRTC is advancing its regulatory plan to modernize Canada’s broadcasting framework and ensure online streaming services make meaningful contributions to Canadian and Indigenous content.”
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It is not about receiving other news; it is about having only ONE official governmental mouthpiece:
Draft regulations the Liberal government had been hoping would convince Google to reconsider a move to block news on its products in Canada won’t do the job, Google said Tuesday.
But the company isn’t expected to pull news from Google Search or its other products right away. A spokesperson said Google would “await the publication of final regulations” governing the implementation of the Online News Act.
The 30-day comment period on the draft regulations has now ended. The government can make changes to what it proposed and incorporate the feedback it received in the final version of regulations.
Google has previously said it would pull Canadian news from Google Search and its other products in Canada over the legislation called Bill C-18.
Remember - this is the same government that feted a Ukrainian Nazi.
Then again, the Liberals never really hid who they were.
Also - what is an "unsanctioned gathering"?:
Police say they've made arrests and issued summary offence tickets after an "unsanctioned student gathering" in Halifax.
City Police issued a release this afternoon asking people to stay away from Preston, Larch and Jennings streets because of the size of the crowds.
While police did not provide an estimate on the size of the crowd or say how many people have been arrested, they say officers were focusing on community safety and quality-of-life issues.
They say neighbourhood disturbances could result in charges, including criminal ones.
Last month, Dalhousie University and the Halifax Regional Municipality announced the launch of a joint task force to address unsanctioned street gatherings in the city's south end.
It isn't about the woeful ignorance of Canadians and the tragedy of the Holocaust or files kept secret (and STILL kept secret) or even Justin's dad finding it hilarious to mimic the Nazis the Canadian armed forces were trying to destroy. It is about the Liberals, so quick to project (and falsely, too), inviting and applauding a Nazi who had no business hiding in Canada and then trying to walk from it:
Cabinet under a 2009 international pact has an obligation to name Nazi fugitives let into Canada, a Liberal-appointed Senator said yesterday. Authorities will not release the confidential 1985 list of 20 suspected war criminals: “They knew.”
A Quebec-based anti-gun group declaring it would disinvite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau from the annual commemoration of a 1989 mass shooting because it disapproved of his latest gun-control measure sent several officials within the Public Safety Ministry into damage-control mode looking for ways to respond, documents released under access-to-information show.
The emails reveal that government staffers reacted with concern to news coverage of a March 2021 letter sent to Trudeau from PolySeSouvient, an outspoken Canadian anti-gun group founded by survivors of the 1989 École Polytechnique shooting.
The letter and subsequent coverage expressed the group’s anger over Bill C-21, which the group described as “lamentable.”
In a March 18 French-language article published by Radio-Canada, PolySeSouvient accused Trudeau of “abandoning” and “betraying” victims of Canadian gun violence over the government’s announcement of a voluntary “buy back” program for certain firearms, instead of mandatory confiscation, which PolySeSouvient had demanded.
If the prime minister refused to change the policy, PolySeSouvient said Trudeau would be declared persona non grata at future commemorations of École Polytechnique victims.
It is not whether the buy-back program was good or bad but Justin not being seen that really hurt.
Never send a "journalist" to do an economist's job:
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s department yesterday said it does not know how many billions it is currently spending on debt interest charges. One senator expressed disbelief: “All the smart people are in the Department of Finance.”
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Department of Finance in-house research rates Minister Chrystia Freeland boastful and self-congratulatory. Canadians also concluded Freeland was disconnected from economic realities on inflation and housing, said a department report: ‘They were somewhat cynical and questioned what had been actually accomplished.’
Who did you vote for, Canada?:
If the federal government is worried about grocery prices now, wait until the global sustainability and climate-related financial disclosures of the International Sustainability Standards Board (ISSB) come to Canada.
Among other things, these standards mandate the use of intrusive, burdensome, and expensive CO2 emissions accounting across a company’s entire value chain. For grocery retailers this includes explaining and accounting for emissions in the production, transport, packaging, refrigeration, consumption and disposal of everything they sell. In other words, your grocery store will need to quantify all the emissions of that hamburger meat you bought: whether in producing it (including all steps from farm to processor), transporting it to the store, packaging and refrigerating it at the store, plus your travelling to and from the store, your refrigeration and eventually your cooking of the hamburger, and your disposal of the packaging and any waste of the food.
Needless to say, doing and documenting those calculations for every product in the store will not lower your grocery bill but instead will increase grocers’ costs and therefore their prices, too. What say do grocery retailers and other businesses have regarding the practicality, burden, and cost impacts of these standards in Canada? So far, it seems, not much.
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More than one-third of working Canadians are financially stressed, according to new National Payroll Institute research. That's a 20 per cent jump since last year.
The annual survey, conducted through Canada's Financial Wellness Lab, reached a sample of 1,500 working Canadians between July 21 and Aug. 1. The findings put 37 per cent in the "financially stressed" category amid rising costs and dwindling pandemic-era savings.
"With interest rates, inflation, and the cost of living all continuing to rise, for many working Canadians, navigating these factors has negatively impacted their financial wellness," National Payroll Institute president Peter Tzanetakis stated in a news release on Tuesday. "The frightening reality of this storm is that the contributing factors to financial stress are becoming more challenging than ever for Canadians to overcome."
Some people are special:
He was given a conditional discharge in 2004 for an assault in Ontario, and was charged with assaulting his partner in 2003. The latter charge was stayed, although his former partner maintains Kinew threw her across the room.
It is not WHAT is done but WHO does it.
Had this been anyone else, certain parties would have used this as fodder.
And people voted for this guy.
That's says a lot about them.
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A new survey found that 48 per cent of Canadians say they won’t be taking any specific action to recognize National Day for Truth and Reconciliation.
Maybe this is why:
The fact that Phyllis Webstad puts nuns at centre-stage on the cover and in the text and illustrations of The Orange Shirt Story contrasts rather markedly with her failure to mention nuns in her other accounts of her year at St. Joseph’s, which, to clarify, was no longer a school when she arrived there in 1973, but a student residence or hostel in which students lived while attending public schools in town in Williams Lake.
As the federal government’s policy of integrating status Indian students into provincial public schools and turning the former residential schools into student residences or hostels progressed during the 1950s and 1960s, nuns were no longer required as teachers, and many had left by the time the federal government formally took over administration of the schools from the churches on 1 April 1969. Thus, if there were still a few non-teaching nuns working alongside lay staff at St Joseph’s residence/hostel during Phyllis Webstad’s one-year stay there in 1973/4, it does seem a rather glaring omission that she never specifically mentions nuns in other accounts of her life there.
Perhaps we should just treat people as people?:
Among non-white Canadians, almost nobody is referring to themselves by the government-approved names for their demographic, says one finding of a sweeping new Angus Reid Institute survey on the topic of racism in Canada.The poll also found that while a clear majority of Canadians think the country is becoming less racist, Blacks and Asians, among others, still report regular run-ins with discrimination.The official term for non-white people used in most Government of Canada communications is “racialized” or “BIPOC” (black, Indigenous, people of colour). “Currently the terms ‘racialized minority’ or ‘racialized groups’ or ‘people of colour’ are preferred by people labelled as visible minorities,” reads one of several “anti-racism lexicons” now maintained by federal agencies.But a mere 12 per cent of non-white Canadians polled used either term (six per cent for racialized, six per cent for BIPOC). Most used the term “visible minority” (38 per cent), a hyphenated descriptor such as Chinese-Canadian (16 per cent) or something else entirely.
We don't have to trade with China:
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According to the Chinese consulate in the city, Adams, New York State Assemblywoman Grace Lee, and New York City Council member Christopher Marte joined a “China Day Celebration Parade Festival” in Chinatown.
Adams’ participation in the events on October 1, the anniversary of the founding of the “People’s Republic of China,” is notable given mounting reports of Adams maintaining close ties with, including reportedly receiving financial donations from, individuals believed to be affiliated with China’s United Front Work Department (UFWD). “United Front Work” is a catchall term the Communist Party uses for foreign interference operations masquerading as cultural outreach, charity, or educational programs.
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Never forget @JustinTrudeau sued the speaker of the house @AnthonyRota for exercising his right and parliamentary privileges.
— Brattani (@Bratt_world) September 27, 2023
Justin was blocking him from releasing any info on the Winnipeg lab scandal.
In 2019 two Chinese spies stole nipah virus from Canadas top virology…
(Sidebar: the new guy merely has a few ethics complaints. He's over-qualified if you ask me.)
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Independent MP Han Dong said on Tuesday that he’s still waiting for word on whether or not he can return to the Liberal caucus, but he hopes it will happen as soon as possible.
The Toronto-area MP resigned from the government caucus in March following allegations related to Chinese interference published in media reports.
Also - then why did you let Chinese soldiers train here?:
Defence Minister Bill Blair says the government is looking at whether to bring in legislation restricting who former Canadian Forces members can train or share information with that they have learned through their service.
It comes as Canada’s top soldier and a deputy minister are warning members of the Canadian Forces against working and sharing information with militaries “whose interests diverge from our own.”
I suppose it doesn't matter seeing as the Liberals are gutting the military - again!
It's just money:
Sustainable Development Technologies Canada (SDTC) is in the middle of a five-year agreement with the federal government to distribute $1 billion to small and medium businesses in the clean tech sector.
The decision to stop the organization from approving new funding was announced on Tuesday by Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne.
The move came after a group of whistleblowers brought a complaint against SDTC to the government earlier this year over concerns about the foundation's management of its federal funding and human resources.
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A new Leger poll finds that a clear majority of Canadians want the carbon tax reduced or eliminated entirely — and that nearly everyone thinks that federal plans for “net zero” are unrealistic.
(Sidebar: these carbon taxes.)
Of respondents, 55 per cent wanted the carbon tax reduced (18 per cent) or abolished (37 per cent), while 27 per cent were fine to keep it as-is. A mere 18 per cent said they agreed with the current strategy of raising carbon levies each year.
(Sidebar: yes, Alberta surely does have its reservations.)
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Bid rigging, crashing a government car while intoxicated and sexually harassing co-workers are just some of the reasons Global Affairs Canada employees were fired or resigned last year, as the department works to tackle misconduct and better protect whistleblowers.
The information is contained in the first annual report titled “Addressing Misconduct and Wrongdoing at Global Affairs Canada” that was distributed to employees Tuesday and obtained by National Post.
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A Canadian mission censured for running a fraud ring has passed a federal audit. Misconduct at the Embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti prompted worldwide audits of Canadian diplomatic offices: “Numerous fraud schemes were discovered.”**
Contractors don’t have to build affordable apartments to qualify for a GST break because cabinet does “not want to be building cheap homes in a bad part of town,” Housing Minister Sean Fraser said yesterday. The tax break will cost $383 million a year by Budget Office estimate: “It is one of the most important things we could do.”
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