Your bleak pre-winter post ...
Justin woke up this morning and chose anti-semitism (for votes), just like his party did:
The Canadian government issued a call Tuesday, in a joint statement with Australia and New Zealand, for a “sustainable ceasefire” in the war between Israel and Hamas.
What would that look like, Justin?
Like the ceasefire Hamas broke, for example?
Or this?:
At a press conference Tuesday, Harel Lapidot talked about his niece Tiferet, who the family initially believed had been taken hostage, but was later identified among the dead from the attacks.
He said too much money from Western countries, including Canada, is still flowing to Hamas and it must be stopped.
“That money is the money with which they bought the bullets, with which they bought the truck that Tiferet was taken with and afterwards she was shot dead,” he said.
Romi Cohen, whose twin brother Nimrod was kidnapped on Oct. 7, said her family has heard nothing since and has no idea what has happened to him.
“We don’t know anything about his condition. He could be injured, if he’s even alive. We don’t know anything,” she said. “It’s the holidays. The world is celebrating and we’re not. Hanukkah is a family holiday and our family is broken.”
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Ambassador Iddo Moed said the UN resolution completely ignores the reality that Hamas is not looking for a peaceful resolution and makes no mention of the horrific attack that Israel experienced on October 7.
“I’m deeply disappointed with the support that Canada has given to this resolution that does not call out Hamas for its horrendous acts of terrorism against Israelis and does not address the root cause of the situation,” he said.
Moed said Canada has previously been an ally to Israel at the UN helping to added needed context to resolutions at the assembly, but he said Canada didn’t do that today.
“Part of the aim of this resolution was to isolate Israel in the UN yet again. Canada made it a point in the past not to allow that to happen.”
Sir, the only surprise isn't how awful Justin is but why Israel is still a part of the UN.
Withdraw today.
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Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly yesterday had Canada’s United Nations delegation vote with Iran and against Israel and the U.S. in supporting a Mideast ceasefire without condemning the killing of Jews. One Canadian Jewish group last night called the vote disgusting: “Canada voted in support of a resolution that fails to hold Hamas accountable for its war crimes.”
Not to worry, however.
Israel’s military has begun pumping seawater into Hamas’s vast complex of tunnels in Gaza, according to U.S. officials briefed on the Israeli military’s operations, part of an intensive effort to destroy the underground infrastructure that has underpinned the group’s operations.
From the river to the sea.
Literally.
This government exemplifies waste at every turn:
He is even promising the perfunctory and utterly useless coats he offered Yazidi rape victims:
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said last month that Canada will be with Ukraine “every step of the way … with everything it takes, for as long as it takes.”
But it will take more than the $25 million of winter clothing donated in October to change the momentum on the ground. “It’s all a bit performative,” said one observer of Canada’s efforts.
And let's not forget the corruption:
Whistleblowers are asking MPs to publicly release hundreds of pages of documents detailing insider dealing at a taxpayer-funded foundation. Some $150 million was paid to friends of Sustainable Development Technology Canada, one witness told the Commons industry committee: “How many board members and executives are in conflicts of interest and are funding companies they have a financial interest in?”
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Sudden Goodbye
— Michael Barrett (@MikeBarrettON) December 12, 2023
After revealing her company received $10 million in 1 year from this Liberal government, Trudeau's former Chair of his $1 Billion Green Slush Fund tried a new obstruction tactic…just walking away from committee. pic.twitter.com/iO2kYapM0V
**
A cabinet appointee under ethics investigation over alleged inside dealing last evening abruptly fled a Commons industry committee hearing while under questioning. Whistleblowers accuse Liberal Party donor Annette Verschuren of having federal employees hunt up grants for her non-profit Verschuren Centre: “Look, we’re entrepreneurs.”
When Justin first threatened to sue a veteran and his fake leg, did other veterans confront him?
No?
Just how low can a Canadian prime minister go when dealing with the needs of military and RCMP veterans?
Certainly, I once thought it was then-prime minister Paul Martin’s decision in 2005 to eliminate disability pensions in favour of meagre lump sum payments. A policy since reversed after much public complaint.
Or maybe Stephen Harper’s choice to continue disallowing disability pensions while closing down Veteran Affairs offices. Perhaps!
Well, there are also Justin Trudeau’s Liberals, the self-styled champions of publicly-funded health care, deciding last year to privatize veteran rehabilitation services to a company owned by Loblaw Companies Ltd.
Already, the Liberal’s veteran health-care privatization experiment is becoming the service delivery disaster that all who truly cared predicted it would be .
But all this pales compared to the Liberal’s latest bureaucratic edition of “disabled veteran beatdown.”
Recently, the Justin Trudeau Liberals chose to go after the one thing that, I’m sure, all veterans hold more precious than any assessed level of disability pension, health care, vocational or rehabilitation services. ...
Yes, you heard me right, it appears that Trudeau and Veteran Affairs Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor think those who were willing to fight for our freedoms should be denied the corresponding freedom, as private citizens, to hire their own lawyer when dealing with the appeals process at the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Frankly, at first glance, I almost did not believe it myself!
But case T -2213-23 May Machoun vs Canada (Attorney General) filed on Oct. 20, 2023 makes it shockingly clear where disabled veteran Charter rights may be heading under the prime minister whose father’s government brought in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in 1982.
The question this disabled veteran, May Machoun, through her lawyers, is bringing before the federal court should be a no-brainer “yes” to anyone outside of Trudeau’s cabinet and veteran affairs executive apparatchiks. It reads: “Do disabled veterans, seeking appeal of a disability benefit decision, have the right to act through legal counsel before VAC/Veterans Review and Appeal Board?” The Trudeau government, it would appear, seems to think we veterans don’t have the right.
Say it ain’t so, Trudeau!
The filing, parts of which I will quote verbatim here so that there is no misconception, reads:
“The applicant is a Canadian Armed Forces veteran with a complex medical history. In addition to other physical injuries, the applicant suffers from a serious brain injury resulting from a major concussion she suffered in 2016. At least nine (9) separate service-related injuries have been recognized and compensated by VAC, who are providing benefits to the applicant in her retirement.”
Wanting to stay in her home as long as possible, Machoun is seeking additional “specialist home care services” which had been previously denied at the ministerial level and at the National First Level Appeal. However, when she chose to further appeal, through legal counsel, to the National Second Level Appeal she was informed by an A. Savoie at Veterans Affairs (who would not give their full name or contact information) that “request for review must be made in writing and signed by clients or power of attorney.” Furthermore, the same unidentifiable, unreachable A. Savoie wrote that VAC will not accept a submission from the applicant’s lawyer.
The Department of Justice has recently moved to strike May Machoun‘s application on the grounds that it was not a decision and that the federal court has no power to intervene and decide on the question. That is, does this disabled veteran have the right to legal counsel?
Say it ain’t so, Trudeau!
Before I go any further, I need to point out, for the sake of full disclosure, that I serve on the board of directors for the Veteran Legal Assistance Foundation. This is a registered charity which is helping May Machoun with part of her legal bills.
What would a government win mean in this case?
In my humble opinion, it may further weaponize Veteran Affairs miserly-paternalistic approach to veterans in need.
Yes, especially the bits where there is no right to property and where the government can suspend all right at a whim:
While one-third of Canadians say they have read the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, many fail to distinguish between its text and that of the U.S. Declaration of Independence, a new survey suggests.
That is simply Canadians not bothering to educate themselves in general.
Do they have a permit to protest?:
Cabinet must give itself new powers to eliminate private sector strikes, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce yesterday told the Commons trade committee. The Chamber suggested compulsory arbitration or some other mechanism to “force a deal.”
Normally, they would have been euthanised:
At least 99 hospital patients in Ontario have been placed in long-term care homes without their consent, the province's auditor general has found.
Opposition politicians and seniors' advocates have roundly criticized a law the Progressive Conservative government enacted last year to enable those moves, which can see those patients placed in homes up to 70 kilometres away, or 150 kilometres if they are in northern Ontario.
The annual report from the auditor general's office this week said the government has not been transparent in implementing the law. It allows hospital placement co-ordinators to transfer those patients to a home not of their choosing, and can see them charged $400 a day if they refuse.
The law is aimed at moving so-called alternate level of care patients, who can be discharged from hospital but need a long-term care bed and don't yet have one, in order to free up hospital space.
The auditor general analyzed the placements of 7,357 alternate level of care patients between the law taking effect in September 2022 and March 31 of this year, and found that about 40 per cent were placed in their first-choice home.
About 60 per cent were placed in a home the patient had ranked lower on their list, a comparable percentage to before the new law was introduced, the auditor said.
But 99 patients were placed in homes that were selected by placement co-ordinators without the patient's consent, the report said.
She betrayed the system too big to fail and now must pay the price:
A South Surrey woman said B.C. Cancer denied her essential support services after she elected to pay privately for chemotherapy in Bellingham.
As a result, Sheila Vicic has been left to be the “quarterback of my own care.”
It was never about a virus:
The Public Health Agency of Canada yesterday acknowledged it had no evidence its ArriveCan app saved lives. The Agency had claimed the $54 million program saved so many lives it justified the cost: “Can you let us know how many?”
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The news comes after Conservative, Bloc and NDP MPs on the House of Commons health committee grilled staff from Canada's procurement department this week over deals the federal government made with Medicago during the pandemic.
The money Medicago received from the federal government included $173 million from Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada (ISED) in 2020 to help it develop vaccine technology and build its Quebec City manufacturing facility.
**
A failed vaccine factory in Public Works Minister Jean-Yves Duclos’ Québec City riding received twice the federal subsidies originally claimed, the Commons health committee was told yesterday. A factory executive refused to release the contracts: “We didn’t deliver anything.”
**
We simply can't have anyone snooping around:
Ottawa Police strategically settle a parental compliant the day before Detective Grus’s Judicial Review Hearing
CBC, Ottawa Citizen, CTV deliberately lied to public, Defamed Detective Helen Grus
**
The Canadian government and media spread fear among citizens about the COVID-19 pandemic while implementing measures to force them into taking vaccines under threat of potential reprisals, according to a report by the National Citizens Inquiry (NCI).“The pandemic was a textbook case of the collaboration of government and industry to subvert the democratic institutions and convince the citizens of the validity and truthfulness of a narrative that was objectively false from the start,” the Nov. 28 report reads.The Canadian government, together with provincial governments and the mainstream media, “embarked on an information campaign designed to instill fear in the hearts of the citizens and ensure that they did not resist any and all draconian measures that were announced,” it states.
The show trial must go on ... eventually:
Thus do the cases of R. v. Tamara Lich and R. v. Chris Barber raise a problem encountered by many accused in Canada’s criminal courts: everything moves so slowly, and sometimes it seems to be that way on purpose, or at least unfairly.The longstanding problem of systemic complacency in the face of trial delay had grown so bad by 2016 that the Supreme Court set a hard limit of 18 months from charge to end of trial, after which delay become presumptively unfair, and has to be justified. If enough lost days can be blamed on the Crown, an accused can simply walk free, as has happened in several high-profile cases, including crimes of violence, and countless more low profile cases, such as breaches of bail conditions.Barber’s defence lawyer has already threatened such an application at the Ottawa trial, referring to the “spectrum” of unacceptable delay, and her own duty to raise the issue at the earliest opportunity. So far, the trial is arguably on pace to be completed without a breach of the defendants’ Charter right to be tried within a reasonable time. But it’s getting tight, and the end is not nigh.Last month, CBC News noted the trial had already lasted longer than the protest itself. Of course, most trials last longer than most crimes, but most crimes don’t last a month. Criminal trials in Canada rarely last more than a few weeks, and are usually closer to a few days. The terrorist murder case, for example, lasted a little more than two months from gavel to gavel (as the American saying goes; Canadian judges don’t use gavels).The convoy trial itself is now in its fourth month, and guaranteed to enter its fifth, and its second calendar year, now that the next court date is booked for Jan. 4. The 18-month range from Lich and Barber’s charges in Ottawa on Feb. 17, 2022, is already well past. But blaming enough of that delay on the Crown as opposed to the defence would take further argument in a special motion. It would illustrate a major aspect of the law on trial delay, which is that in order for delay to count as a Charter breach, it has to be the Crown’s fault.
Also:
Windsor's mayor says the federal government's refusal to cover off the full cost of the municipal response to the Ambassador Bridge blockade is the equivalent of a middle finger to city taxpayers.
The City of Windsor tallied up a $6.9-million bill to respond to the week-long Freedom Convoy protest that shut down international crossings starting Feb. 7, 2022.
Those costs were sent to the federal government who have agreed to pay just over $6-million of the total which did not meet the expectations of council.
"They shortchanged us by almost a million dollars," said Drew Dilkens.
The mayor said reading a letter sent by Ottawa about the spending left him more frustrated than he's ever been as a Windsor politician.
"This letter is a middle finger to the people in our community."
Well, you wanted them removed and Justin IS a prick, so ...
Given how technological advancements are helping police solve decades-old cold cases, families of the missing women could have some faint hope that one day they could get more answers — or that someone might be held accountable — if the evidence is saved, Jeannie said.
“I think how far DNA testing has come,” she said, adding no one can know what might be important down the road. “In case something comes up in the future with a different case, that could trigger a link to what happened at the farm.”
That is crucial to DeVries, as this case has been a constant, terrible companion. “I’ve grown up my whole life with this.”
And she is not alone. Postmedia spoke with relatives of some of the more than 60 women who vanished from Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside before Pickton’s arrest in 2002. They are concerned that the RCMP has asked the B.C. Supreme Court for permission to dispose of 14,000 exhibits seized during the investigation into the serial killer.
There are still so many unanswered questions for these families.
Pickton was convicted of murdering six women at his 2007 trial. He was charged with killing 21 more women, including Sarah DeVries, but those counts were stayed and never heard at a trial. The DNA of another six women was found on his farm, but no charges were ever laid in those cases.
Pickton bragged to an undercover officer in his jail cell that he killed 49 women.
The RCMP insists the evidence no longer has any investigative value. The force said a small number of the 14,000 items, which range from clothing to furniture, belonged to missing women, and will be returned to their families.
Mounties could not determine ownership for many of the objects, so they will be destroyed in a culturally appropriate ceremony planned by a local First Nation.
Disposing of evidence that hasn’t been identified as belonging to someone “doesn’t make sense,” argues Lorelei Williams, the cousin of missing woman Tanya Holyk.
“If they’re not linked to anybody, that’s evidence that needs to be kept. Because if they do come across some (new development), which most likely will happen, they will need that.” ...
In a lengthy interview, two senior RCMP members defended getting rid of the Pickton evidence. They said they “exhausted” all investigative leads for the items, in some cases sending them back to the lab multiple times over the last two decades to be retested for any new clues.
Any DNA collected from them has been stored in a database. And photos have been taken of all the exhibits in case they become relevant to future cases.
“I can sleep at night knowing that we’re not destroying any future evidence,” said Wayne Clary, the RCMP’s former head of the missing women task force who is retired but working as a reserve constable to help with this case and others.
(Sidebar: and you know that how?)
Police will continue to investigate two or three DNA profiles from inside Pickton’s trailer that officers have not been able to identify despite comparing them to every missing women case in North America, said Clary.
RCMP are also still working on the Jane Doe case, he said, despite disposing of the physical evidence collected from the Mission property. “Who is she? And where the heck did she come from? And why wasn’t she reported missing?”
Barrhead RCMP and Barrhead Fire Services are investigating two arson fires that have severely damaged two of the town’s churches on Thursday night.
At approximately 7:52 p.m. police responded to a structural fire at The Glenreagh Church, located on Range Road 40 in Barrhead. At 9 p.m. police responded to a second structure fire at The United Church, located on Range Road 54 in Barrhead, according to a Friday morning news release.
They've done such a stellar job of doing nothing for the other vandalised and burned churches.
Also - so, the police know who did this?:
A Catholic priest in a small Nebraska community died Sunday after being attacked in a church rectory, authorities said.
The Rev. Stephen Gutgsell was assaulted “during an invasion at the rectory” of St. John the Baptist Catholic Church in Fort Calhoun, Nebraska, the Archdiocese of Omaha said in a Sunday statement.
Gutgsell was taken to an Omaha hospital where he died from his injuries, church officials said. Fort Calhoun, with a population of about 1,000 people, is roughly 20 miles (32 kilometers) north of Omaha.
Police received a 911 call of an attempted break-in at the church just after 5 a.m. When officers arrived, they found Gutgsell injured and an alleged attacker inside. Authorities took the suspect into custody, Washington County Sheriff Mike Robinson said in a statement.
“This is an ongoing investigation, and the name of the suspect or manner of death will not be released,” Robinson said.
His favourite thing is making costumes out of boxes. He has a scooter and broke his two front teeth using it. He likes to fold paper into airplanes and build forts using chairs and cushions. There’s an exercise pole in the family living room to help him blow off steam. There’s a lot of steam to blow off.
“He can’t sit still,” said his mother, Roxanne Breau. “All the other kindergarteners would sit still for storytime. Joe could not do that.”
First diagnosed with severe ADHD as a preschooler, Joe was expelled twice from daycare for destroying the place. In 2018, he was diagnosed with oppositional defiance disorder, which is marked by uncooperative, defiant, and hostile behaviour. Last year, he was diagnosed with a moderate intellectual disability. He has been on anti-psychotic medication since he was three.
Joe can be triggered by expectations that are too high, changes in routine or staff, transitions, when other children don’t want to play with him, or when he is refused something.
“Sometimes it’s just nothing. Sometimes it’s just something he’s thinking about,” said Breau. “He just goes off.”
During moments of dysregulation, Joe has punched an education assistant. He has destroyed a classroom by throwing things. He has disrobed, urinated, defecated and thrown feces.
In September, Joe started a new school. Within days, he was barred from school for two weeks in what the school system calls a “pause for safety.” As of early December, he was only allowed to remain in school for three hours a day. So far this school year, he has been in school only four full days, said Breau.
Not every student actually has a genuine identifiable condition for which he needs the appropriate care and attention and schools should not be dumping grounds for such students. Then again, there are teachers who are willing to help students with genuine special needs but have no resources to do so.
I can't really blame schools for not wanting to deal with this little monster.
But I can blame them for this:
This makes sense when one considers that students were never meant to do anything productive in the first place.
Also - is the white liberal establishment accusing black and Hispanic students of fraud?:
On June 30, Antar A. Tichavakunda, an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati (UC), published an article on Inside Higher Ed that argued exam surveillance, zero-tolerance policies, and fraternities and sororities harm “Black and Latinx” students.
On the issue of technology, Tichavakunda claims that “proctoring software built to monitor students during remote exams… perpetuates racial biases and stereotypes.”
Campus Reform spoke with Erec Smith, a professor at York College of Pennsylvania, about the argument Tichavakunda presents.
Smith said that “[a]ssuming the general incompetence of minorities because they are minorities is a violation of… academic integrity.”
I'll say.
They tried to railroad Christmas:
Senators yesterday cited the Canadian Human Rights Commission as incompetent. The $41.6 million Commission was found to mistreat its own Black employees: “These findings call into question the inability of the Commission in respond to human rights complaints in a fair and equitable manner.”
Afuera!:
Argentine President Javier Milei used his first executive action in the top office on Sunday to dramatically rearrange the federal executive branch, reducing the number of cabinet-level ministries from 18 to nine.
We don't have to trade with China:
While the world is distracted by war in the Middle East and Ukraine, a Stalin-like purge is sweeping through China’s ultra-secretive political system, with profound implications for the global economy and even the prospects for peace in the region.
The signals emanating from Beijing are unmistakable, even as China’s security services have ramped up repression to totalitarian levels, making it almost impossible to know what is really happening inside the country.
The unexplained disappearance and removal of China’s foreign and defense ministers — both Xi loyalists who were handpicked and elevated mere months before they went missing earlier this year — are just two examples.
Other high-profile victims include the generals in charge of China’s nuclear weapons program and some of the most senior officials overseeing the Chinese financial sector. Several of these former Xi acolytes have apparently died in custody.
Another ominous sign is the untimely death of Li Keqiang, China’s recently retired prime minister — No. 2 in the Communist hierarchy — who supposedly died of a heart attack in a swimming pool in Shanghai in late October, despite enjoying some of the world’s best medical care. Following his death, Xi ordered public mourning for his former rival be heavily curtailed.
In the minds of many in China, “heart attack in a swimming pool” has the same connotation that “falling out of a window” does for Russian apparatchiks who anger or offend Vladimir Putin.
Since his reign began in 2012, Xi Jinping’s endless purges have removed millions of officials — from top-ranked Communist Party “tigers” down to lowly bureaucratic “flies,” to use Xi’s evocative terminology.
What’s different today is that the officials being neutralized are not members of hostile political factions but loyalists from the inner ring of Xi’s own clique, leading to serious questions over the regime’s stability.
With such a febrile atmosphere in the celestial capital of Beijing, there are fears that an isolated and paranoid Chairman Xi could miscalculate, provoke armed conflict with one of its weaker neighbors or even launch a full-scale invasion of democratic Taiwan in order to distract from his domestic troubles.
A strong Western leader would play on this.
**
Canada has not gained “a single thing of tangible value” for its US$159.2 million purchase of shares in the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, says a Canadian publicist who worked as a senior executive at the Beijing institution. “It is dominated by senior Communist Party members,” said Bob Pickard of Toronto: “I am an eyewitness.”
**
Russia needs cheap North Korean labour:
The official Korean Central News Agency said North Korean officials led by the country’s external economic relations minister, Yun Jong Ho, met with the delegation led by Oleg Kozhemyako, governor of the Primorye region in the Russian Far East, and discussed elevating economic cooperation between the countries to “higher levels.” The report did not specify the types of cooperation that were discussed.
Kozhemyako told Russian media ahead of his visit that he was expecting to discuss expanding cooperation with the North Koreans in agriculture, tourism and trade.
Kozhemyako’s visit extends a flurry of diplomacy between North Korea and Russia this year, highlighted by a summit between Kim and Russian President Vladimir Putin in September, which underscores their aligning interests in the face of separate, intensifying confrontations with the United States.
The U.S. and South Korea have accused North Korea of supplying Russian with artillery shells and other weapons over the past months to help it wage war on Ukraine, although both Russia and North Korea have denied such transfers.
There are also concerns that North Korea is preparing to send workers to Russia to secure badly needed foreign currency, which would run afoul of U.N. Security Council sanctions imposed on the North over its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.
Russia also permanently sits on the UN security council.
Vladimir Putin on Friday moved to prolong his repressive and unyielding grip on Russia for at least another six years, announcing his candidacy in the presidential election next March that he is all but certain to win.
Oh, I'm sure.
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