Your leap year post ...
Under the bill, condemning the Hamas massacre of 1,200 people on Oct. 7, could, under some circumstances, be considered “hate speech,” and therefore subject to a human rights complaint with up to $50,000 in penalties. As part of the new rules designed to protect Canadians from “online harms,” the bill would reinstate Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, the hate speech provision repealed under the Harper government.
The new version is more tightly defined than the original, but contains the same fatal flaws, specifically that truth is no defence and that what counts as hate speech remains highly subjective.
Under the new Section 13: “it is a discriminatory practice to communicate or cause to be communicated hate speech by means of the Internet or any other means of telecommunication in a context in which the hate speech is likely to foment detestation or vilification of an individual or group of individuals on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.”
It is distressingly easy to imagine scenarios where everyday political speech finds itself under the purview of the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Criticizing Hamas and the murderous ideology that motivates it could, to some, be seen as “likely to foment detestation or vilification” against a group, especially if the condemnation of Hamas notes that Palestinians generally support the terrorist group or that Hamas is driven by religious fanaticism.
Meaning, if someone views criticism of Hamas as fomenting hatred towards Muslims, or Palestinians or Arabs more generally, they could file a complaint with the human rights commission. Similarly, it is easy to see how criticizing protesters who chant “from the river to the sea,” as advocating genocide against Jews would be viewed by some as hate speech. Same goes for those who advocate for Israel’s right to defend itself, or who point out that Islam initially spread through wars of conquest.
Justin blames people pointing out his numerous failures on conspiracy theories:
Justin Trudeau says “conspiracy theorists” and “social media drivers” are to blame for the declining trust in legacy media.
Where have we heard this kind of thing before?
That was when Trudeau launched a strident, angry, ugly fusillade against “anti-vaxxers” in a French-language TV interview that has now caught the attention of English media. In it, he painted “these people,” the anti-vaxxers, as “often” being women-haters, racists and science-deniers, as well.
He and his lackeys are still livid that there were forced to flee from these "science-deniers" and their bouncy castles.
(Sidebar: sue them personally.)
His modus operandi is always to attack like a petulant teen-ager (like if someone suggests age verification for seamy pictures online, for example).
In a real country, the handlers, the press, the opposition would point out that this unbecoming behaviour and that it would have to stop.
But, like every other tantrum, it is indulged.
Canadians aren't patient or tolerant people.
They are lazy.
No other country would accept this from their leaders.
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Imagine the level of psychopathy and delusion required for Justin Trudeau to congratulate himself on his housing accomplishments every morning with these gaslighting Tweets.
— Amazing Zoltan (@AmazingZoltan) January 13, 2024
Make no mistake: #CanadaIsFUBAR. https://t.co/AY3fkssTy6 pic.twitter.com/a7rmpkMBOL
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It was the Jespersen interview that created the greatest anger among Albertans. Trudeau was at one and the same time arrogant, delusional, dismissive and insulting.
Time and again his answers betrayed his inner belief that his government’s current unpopularity isn’t its own fault. Poor polling has little to do with Liberal policies – carbon tax, EV mandate, inflation, housing and immigration – and everything to do with how others, notably the opposition Conservatives and online journalists, are being mean to them.
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He is too special to be questioned:
The RCMP did not interview Prime Minister Justin Trudeau before concluding that there was insufficient evidence to substantiate a criminal offence in the SNC-Lavalin scandal, top officials confirmed in a House of Commons committee hearing on Tuesday.
In a normal country, this would be front page news every day:
A special committee of MPs tasked with evaluating censored records on the firing of two scientists from Canada’s top infectious disease laboratory – researchers who worked with China – says most of the information redacted from Public Health Agency of Canada documents appears to have been withheld to shield the organization from embarrassment rather than to protect national security.
The committee is recommending the majority of the documents be made public, according to a Feb. 19 letter, obtained by The Globe and Mail, that was sent to House leaders of the Liberals, Conservatives, NDP and Bloc Québécois.
A source with direct knowledge of the material said the information when uncovered would show that scientists Xiangguo Qiu and her husband Keding Cheng provided confidential scientific information to China. The Globe is not identifying the source who could be prosecuted under the Security of Information Act.
The two infectious-disease scientists had their security clearances revoked and were escorted out of the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg in July, 2019. They were fired in January, 2021.
The government said it could not release documents about their dismissal for national-security reasons. The government’s unwillingness prompted a showdown that led to opposition parties voting to declare the Liberals in contempt of Parliament. The government later took then-House of Commons speaker Anthony Rota to court in order to prevent their release – a bid it dropped after the 2021 election was called.
Last year opposition parties and the Liberal government agreed to appoint the special committee of MPs to examine unredacted copies of all the related records and recommend what more could be made public. Three former judges were enlisted to weigh the release of this additional information against the risk of injury to things such as national security.
The letter from the committee determined that the majority of records from the Public Health Agency of Canada related to the firing of the scientists should be released to Canadians.
“The information appears to be mostly about protecting the organization from embarrassment for failures in policy and implementation, not legitimate national security concerns, and its release is essential to hold the Government to account,” it said.
More:
A senior Health Canada official removed the mention of a “high level of impurity” in mRNA COVID-19 vaccines in an assessment destined to Canada’s Chief Medical Advisor, internal records show.The assessment was meant as a brief on recent findings about the creation of unintended proteins by mRNA COVID-19 vaccines.Two senior Health Canada (HC) officials, including the one with final authority on vaccine authorization, expressed concerns about the conclusions written by the HC scientist tasked with producing the assessment.
The Liberals don't care about your dead son:
A man who is suing the government because he says his son died due to taking a COVID-19 vaccine says he finds it “disgusting” that the government wants him to drop the case in return for not having to pay legal expenses.“I’ve never been insulted so bad in my life as that offer. It’s disgusting,” Dan Hartman told The Epoch Times. “It’s insulting and it’s disrespectful to my son’s memory. They’re saying my son’s life wasn’t worth anything.”Following the death of Sean, his son, Mr. Hartman sued the government saying he has evidence it was the COVID-19 vaccine that caused the teen’s death.He said the government is seeking to have the case struck out of court, and that government lawyers told his legal team they wouldn’t seek a court order to have him pay for legal expenses if he dropped the case.“The government gave us an offer last week. If I would agree to drop the lawsuit, they won’t come after me for court costs.”He said he cried after receiving the offer, then the tears turned to anger.“All I ever wanted from the beginning was the truth—before I even had lawyers or a lawsuit, two years ago when I started this. I just wanted them to admit Sean died from the vaccine. That’s it—and change his cause of death.”
B@$#@rds.
Oil and gas work, no matter what its detractors say:
The Alberta government's seven-month ban on new large-scale wind and solar power projects will end this week, but the province is unlikely to return to its previous status as a hotbed of investment.
Alberta is known for its sunshine and strong winds, especially in the southern region of the province. Those conditions combined with a deregulated electricity system helped drive a flurry of activity in the last decade.
In 2022, more than three-quarters of all the wind and solar built in the country was located in Alberta. Solar and wind now account for about 30 per cent of electricity production in the province.
Indeed, why would anyone want something that did not work to heat their homes?
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More funds in Canada’s $2.2 trillion pension sector put exclusions on oil and gas investments in 2023, according to a new report. However, Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health (SHIFT) says the Canadian industry’s “incremental progress” on climate change last year falls short of changes by U.S. and European peers.
SHIFT monitors the fossil fuel and climate-related investments of Canadian pension funds. In its second annual “report card,” the sustainable finance charity reviewed 11 of Canada’s largest pension managers, including the so-called “Maple 8,” which collectively manage retirement savings on behalf of over 27 million Canadians.
“Despite a few encouraging examples of leadership, Canada’s largest pension funds continue to invest their own members’ retirement savings in companies that are accelerating the climate crisis,” SHIFT wrote in the report released on Tuesday.
They know something that you don't want to know.
The federal government’s carbon tax could generate more than $5 billion from the federal sales tax over the next seven years, but none of that is directly earmarked for climate programs.
The latest figures come from the parliamentary budget officer and are based on a private member’s bill introduced last fall by Conservative MP Alex Ruff that would eliminate the sales tax from carbon tax completely.
The revenue from the carbon tax itself is required by law to be returned to households and businesses through rebates and granting programs.
But that does not apply to the sales tax, which is collected on top of the carbon tax.
The PBO estimates that will be worth about $600 million in 2024-25, rising to $1 billion a year by 2030-31 in parallel with increases to the carbon tax itself.
In total, that could amount to $5.7 billion between the beginning of this April and the end of March 2031.
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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told Albertans that right-wing politicians are misleading them on the carbon tax and net-zero targets, and that the transformation of the Canadian energy sector is “not a plot by Eastern bastards” to phase out oilsands.
If this woman smiled, her face would crack:
Though it has not been released publicly and O'Neill said she can't share the details, she suggested it will address online harms.
She signalled it will also include considerations around how climate can affect women's security.
"We're seeing a lot of armed groups around the world taking advantage of climate disruptions to both recruit women into their forces (and) to abduct girls to be, effectively, sex slaves," she said.
She noted that natural disasters and other climate emergencies, such as drought, can cause families to pull their girls out of school so they can work or be part of forced marriages.
It's all cultural, you stupid b!#ch.
Why don't you tell the truth?
We don't have to trade with China:
Police have reportedly arrested over a thousand demonstrators, some of them beaten brutally enough by the police to need medical attention.
The peaceful protests began on February 14 after China announced plans to build a huge dam across Tibet’s Drichu River, which is part of the Yangtze River network. The Gangtuo Power Plant would be the latest in a string of hydropower projects built across the so-called Tibetan Autonomous Region and Sichuan, the neighboring province into which Communist China folded some of the Tibetan territory it annexed in the 1950s.
China’s dam projects have a habit of flooding areas containing historic Tibetan sites and populated villages. The Guangtuo project would wipe out six Buddhist monasteries and two villages, displacing thousands of people.
As one of the prospectively displaced villagers explained to China watchdog group Bitter Winter last week: “Relocation here does not mean that you are transferred to another nice village ready to welcome you.”
“We are told that we will have apartments but they are not ready,” the villager said. “Meanwhile, we are parked in camps that are kept under strict surveillance to prevent protest and are very similar to reeducation camps – although we have committed no crime.”
Other villagers and Tibetan activists accused China of using its billion-dollar dam projects to accelerate the destruction of Tibetan culture.
“Of course it is about making money, and big money at that, but I am sure there is more. Tibetans compelled to relocate are separated from their history, from homes where their families may have lived for decades or even centuries, from all their visible cultural and religious points of reference,” one of the protesting locals told Bitter Winter.
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China's ambassador in Ottawa says he wants Canadian business to collaborate with Beijing on its Belt and Road Initiative, amid scrutiny from Western governments.
Ambassador Cong Peiwu says Canada can use the initiative to reduce global carbon emissions and fight poverty.
He rejects warnings by Canada's peers that the plan allows Beijing to coerce developing states.
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Gordon Chang, CPAC board member and expert on China says that Justin Trudeau is doing everything he can to stop investigations into Chinese interference.
— Harrison Faulkner (@Harry__Faulkner) February 24, 2024
"He doesn't want the Canadian people to know." pic.twitter.com/pccK8vfa8L
Japan is in a desperate state:
The number of babies born in Japan last year fell for an eighth straight year to a new low, government data showed Tuesday, and a top official said it was critical for the country to reverse the trend in the coming half-dozen years.
The 758,631 babies born in Japan in 2023 were a 5.1% decline from the previous year, according to the Health and Welfare Ministry. It was the lowest number of births since Japan started compiling the statistics in 1899.
The number of marriages fell by 5.9% to 489,281 couples, falling below a half-million for the first time in 90 years — one of the key reasons for the declining births. Out-of-wedlock births are rare in Japan because of family values based on a paternalistic tradition.
Surveys show that many younger Japanese balk at marrying or having families, discouraged by bleak job prospects, the high cost of living that rises at a faster pace than salaries and corporate cultures that are not compatible with having both parents work. Crying babies and children playing outside are increasingly considered a nuisance, and many young parents say they often feel isolated.
Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi told reporters Tuesday that the ongoing declining birth rate is at “critical state."
"The period over the next six years or so until 2030s, when the younger population will start declining rapidly, will be the last chance we may be able to reverse the trend," he said. “There is no time to waste.”
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Each year in Japan there are more than 200,000 abortions. Every two weeks, a newborn infant dies of abandonment. And each year, more than 50 children lose their lives to physical abuse at the hands of their parents.
This is according to nonprofit organization Migiwa, based in Nara Prefecture.
Migiwa's mission is to protect unwanted babies, acting as a mediator to help place them with new families through plenary adoption. Such cases often involve birth mothers choosing to give up their right to raise their child with a disability such as Down syndrome.
