Your middle-of-the-week jam ...
Despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s frequent claim that he had no forewarning of an SS veteran being invited to Parliament, new evidence has emerged to show that Trudeau’s office not only knew, but invited the man to a separate event on the same day.
Trudeau lasted 11 minutes and 10 seconds into Question Period today. He fled after the issue of his personal invitation to the SS Waffen Nazi was brought up. pic.twitter.com/zbE7aszct6
— Josh Ryan 🍁🍎 (@joshryanjames) February 6, 2024
The House of Commons passed legislation today to implement an update to Canada’s free trade agreement with Ukraine that its president signed during a visit to Ottawa last year.
The government bill passed without the support of a single Conservative member of Parliament, despite repeated calls from Ukrainian groups for Tories to change their position.
Tories have repeatedly asserted that they support Ukraine but they oppose the legislation because the updated deal says both countries aim to promote carbon pricing.
Cabinet should suspend the carbon tax on farmers, food processors and retailers, the Commons agriculture committee was told yesterday. Long term impacts of higher fuel charges compared to U.S. competitors are unknown, said the senior director of Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab: “That is why I am recommending a pause on the carbon tax for the entire food industry from farm gate to stores and restaurants.”
A federal climate program to phase out oil furnaces has seen only 80 homeowners convert to greener energy nationwide, records show. Cabinet had pointed to the program as justification for a billion-dollar carbon tax break for Atlantic electors: “It is not slogans, it is solutions.”
Australian government whistleblower completely blows the lid off the Net Zero scam.
— Wide Awake Media (@wideawake_media) February 7, 2024
"[Wind turbines need] coal fired power in order to turn... So there's absolutely nothing about them that works, apart from reaming [$600,000 - $900,000, per turbine] out of the Australian… pic.twitter.com/p9O8zMZfUo
The Canada Border Services Agency asked the RCMP to investigate criminal charges for fraud and bribery related to the ArriveCan application, according to a confidential federal report obtained by a Conservative MP.Conservative MP Larry Brock read portions of the confidential document compiled by Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) management into the record of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates (OGGO) on Feb. 5. The Epoch Times has not independently verified the information.“I have the information right before me. It is very clear,” Mr. Brock told MPs on OGGO, as first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter.Citing the report, he said it alleged “serious employee misconduct, so serious that you [the CBSA] required the RCMP to investigate at least two criminal charges: fraud and bribery.”In addition, he said, the report alleged an ArriveCan contractor “solicited a bribe.”Mr. Brock read out the report during the testimony of Michel Lafleur, the Border Services Agency’s executive director of professional integrity, who investigated ArriveCan contractors. Mr. Lafleur told MPs on the committee that the department found some evidence of wrongdoing to justify further investigation but “no indication of widespread corruption.”For several months, OGGO has been examining how private companies received millions in taxpayer dollars to develop the ArriveCan app. Critics have said the app could have been developed for a fraction of its $54 million cost.A recent report by the federal procurement ombudsman found that 76 percent of contractors hired to work on the ArriveCan application “did no work” on the app. Procurement Ombudsman Alexander Jeglic told OGGO on Jan. 31 that he was concerned with the “systemic non-compliance” that was uncovered when investigating the contract files, including a “high level” of missing documentation.
B.C. Premier David Eby has criticized what he’s calling the “hateful” vandalism of the constituency office of former minister Selina Robinson that came hours after she resigned from his cabinet over remarks that angered pro-Palestinian groups and others.
Her exit on Monday has been deplored by Jewish groups, but wasn’t enough to satisfy some of her critics.
Video on social media showed the office covered in signs calling for “intifada revolution” and Robinson’s removal from the NDP caucus, among other messages and Palestinian flags.
“We refuse to have an MLA that’s a racist,” says a voice on the video, posted on Tuesday morning by an account called Canadian Antifa.
Eby responded with a plea for peaceful protest.
“Selina Robinson’s office was vandalized last night, which included hateful messages,” Eby said in a message posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, the same social media platform where the video of the office in Coquitlam, B.C., was shared.
“This is wrong. Peaceful protest cannot include spreading hate.”
To wit: Gaza is a sh--hole crammed with inbred and violent thugs who cheered when Israeli Jewish women were violated. Where Israel is the desert in bloom, Gaza is run by a criminal gang living it up in Qatar. The only thing that Gazans offer the world is strife and inbreeding.
If Miss Robinson erred (aside from trusting her party to defend her instead of throwing her under the proverbial bus), it was ever in apologising for calling Gaza what the world knows it to be.
How strange yet predictable that she is proven right.
Also - Gaza is not dust. Pourquoi?:
**
What happened on Oct. 7, four months ago this week, was the bloodiest single day in Jewish history since the Holocaust, and by far the worst act of terrorism in Israeli history. The closest comparison is the 1978 Coastal Road massacre of 38 Israeli civilians — a small fraction of the Oct. 7 casualty count. That attack led to Israel’s invasion of southern Lebanon and the deaths of upwards of 2,000 Lebanese, Palestinians and Israelis.
By way of further comparison, the Gaza death toll to date — even taking into account the inflationary unreliability of Hamas health ministry data, and deducting the guessed-at number of Hamas fighters that get rolled into the overall count — is surely approaching 20,000 civilians. This is double the number of the combined Israeli and Palestinian deaths from the First Intefadeh (1987-1993), the Second Intefadeh (2000-2005), the 2008-2009 Operation Cast Lead in Gaza and the subsequent Gaza operations Pillar of Defence in 2012 and Protective Edge in 2014.
The Oct. 7 outrage, carried out by the Harakat al-Muqawama al-Islamiya, better known as Hamas, set off a predictable chain of events that involves much more than the reduction of most of the Gaza Strip to a hellscape of pain, hunger and rubble.
The Hamas offensive has disrupted international shipping, owing to missile and drone attacks on cargo ships carried out by the Houthis’ Tehran-aligned de facto regime in Yemen. Ostensibly in solidarity with Hamas, the Houthis have hit several ships with no apparent links to Israel traversing the Red Sea and the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, the choke-point at the southern gateway to the Suez Canal. Hundreds of merchant vessels have been forced to reroute around South Africa.
**
The Hamas draft document, submitted on Tuesday in response to a proposal negotiated last month in Paris, would see the phased release of the remaining 136 captives being held by the terror group, 31 of whom are dead, according to Israel. Another 20 hostages may also be deceased, according to an internal Israeli report seen by The New York Times.
One hundred five hostages, mostly women and children, were released in November as part of a ceasefire deal that Hamas broke when it refused to hand over the last group of captives. Four hostages had been previously released by the terrorist group, and one was freed by Israeli forces in Gaza.
Hamas took 253 hostages during its Oct. 7 massacre, in addition to murdering some 1,200 people, mostly civilians, and wounding thousands more.
It certainly must be an election:
Residents of the Northwest Territories will soon be exempt from the carbon tax on diesel home-heating fuel, according to the territorial government.
In a news release on Tuesday evening, the government says the exemption comes into effect on April 1 and will last until March 31, 2027. The exemption brings the N.W.T. in line with the federal government's three-year exemption announced in October.
In January, N.W.T. Finance Minister Caroline Wawzonek said the territory's delay in exempting the tax on diesel is in part to consider residents who use other methods of heating their homes, such as propane.
But in Tuesday's announcement, the government said it couldn't "extend the relief" to other heating fuels. It said to do so would make the territory non-compliant with federal carbon-pricing rules.
N.W.T. residents can expect their next cost of living offset payment in April.
Wawzonek was questioned Tuesday afternoon in the legislature about why the territory had not already created an exemption for N.W.T. residents
She again indicated the government was considering how it would affect residents who use other methods of heating their homes, but gave no indication that the exemption would be announced later that day.
The institution too big to fail:
A Saskatoon woman says she was placed in a hospital bed Tuesday morning that partially blocked the main entrance to the emergency room because there was no other space available.
The extreme overcrowding — which also resulted in another patient having a heart attack in the waiting room — forced staff to issue an unprecedented call for help known as the "stop the line" provision, according to the Saskatchewan Union of Nurses.
"I felt really ignored, very scared, really sad," Shaylyn Cowper said in an interview Tuesday afternoon after being discharged. "I've never really felt so exposed just being right in the entry way doors, sitting on a bed, so it was a terrible experience."
Cowper left her two children at home with her husband and drove herself to St. Paul's Hospital just after 6 p.m. Monday. She was vomiting repeatedly and the pain, which has forced her to make several other emergency hospital visits over the past year, had become unbearable.
Cowper says the extreme overcrowding forced staff at St. Paul's Hospital to treat people in hallways. (Jason Warick/CBC)
Cowper says she waited several hours to get a bed as the vomiting continued.
It wasn't a private room, she says, or a share room with curtains or even in the hallway: Those spaces were filled.
Instead, she says, she was put in a bed at the emergency room's front entrance in full view of everyone, and blocking access to the security desk and entrance.
As she waited, she decided to call 911. She told the dispatcher that her bed's location was a fire hazard. She says a fire marshal came early Tuesday morning.
She said she saw several patients turned away by security, and others in the waiting room got increasingly stressed.
"There were a lot of people crying," she said.
Eventually, a student training to be a paramedic came to insert her IV line and administer medication. She was treated shortly after and discharged just before 4 a.m.
"The nurses, I mean they did absolutely everything they could," Cowper said. "They just looked so defeated by the time I left. It was really disheartening,"
Also - Canadians never ask why their MPs go to the US or elsewhere for treatment:
Many Canadians joined their elected officials in sharing positive messages for the King’s deteriorating health, while simultaneously taking a swipe at Ford and Trudeau for the current abysmal state of the healthcare system in Canada.
“Good thing he’s not seeking treatment in Ontario. Costs would reduce him from King to pauper. He’s also 75 so he doesn’t have time to wait for specialists and treatment,” replied an X user to Ford’s post.
Classless and clueless.
Keep voting Liberal, Canada.
When will the government allow children to smoke?:
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said he is against the use of puberty blockers for transgender minors, arguing that children should be able to “make adult decisions when they become adults.”
Poilievre made the comment during a press conference on Parliament Hill on Wednesday after facing three consecutive days of questions from reporters on where he stands on Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s recently announced policies on children’s trans and sex-ed issues.
Smith’s proposed policies include banning puberty blockers and hormone treatments for children under the age of 15 and transitioning surgery for those under 17 (although genital, or “bottom,” surgeries are currently only provided for gender dysphoric patients over 18 years old in Canada).
Poilievre has been prudent in his comments about the issue. Until now, he had mostly accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of distracting from his record by spreading “disinformation” about the decisions that provinces and parents are making.
But after facing a barrage of questions by reporters on Wednesday, he said that “we should protect the rights of parents to make their own decision with regards to their children” and that “adults should have the freedom to make any decision they want about their bodies.”
“I think we should protect children. Let them make adult decisions when they become adults,” he added.
When asked specifically if he was against puberty blockers for minors, he said “yes.”
It was once called slave labour:
Canada’s immigration minister is taking steps to curb the country’s dependence on temporary foreign labor and international students, prompting pushback from business groups that say there aren’t enough domestic workers available to sustain parts of the economy.Marc Miller introduced a limit on foreign student visas last month, cutting them by 35% for this year. He will announce further changes soon to restrict students’ off-campus work hours and he’s also reviewing the country’s temporary foreign worker program, he told Bloomberg News in an interview.“We have gotten addicted to temporary foreign workers,” Miller said. “Any large industry trying to make ends meet will look at the ability to drive down wages. There is an incentive to drive labor costs down. It’s something that’ll require a larger discussion.”
Whose fault is that, Marc?
China and Russia sit permanently on the UN security council:
The United States accused Russia on Tuesday of firing at least nine North Korean-supplied missiles at Ukraine, while Moscow labelled Washington a “direct accomplice” in the downing of a Russian military transport plane last month.Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia and deputy U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Robert Wood traded the accusations at a U.N. Security Council meeting on Ukraine, requested by Moscow. Russia invaded neighboring Ukraine nearly two years ago.“To date, Russia has launched DPRK-supplied ballistic missiles against Ukraine on at least nine occasions,” Wood told the 15-member Security Council, using the North Korea’s formal name: the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK).“Russia and the DPRK must be held accountable for their actions, which undermine long-standing obligations under UN Security Council resolutions,” he said.Both Moscow and Pyongyang have denied the U.S. accusations, but vowed last year to deepen military relations. Russia has stepped up ties with North Korea and other countries hostile to the United States such as Iran since the start of the war with Ukraine – relations that are a source of concern to the West.A Russian Air Force Il-76 fell from the skies on Jan. 24. Russia said all 74 people on board, including 65 captured Ukrainian soldiers en route to be swapped for Russian prisoners of war, were killed, and blamed Kyiv for downing the plane.“We possess irrefutable evidence that a Patriot surface-to-air missile was used to carry out the strike, which leaves no doubt the Washington is a direct accomplice in this crime as well,” Nebenzia told the Security Council.Russian investigators said last week that they had evidence showing that Ukraine’s military shot down the military transport plane with U.S.-made Patriot surface-to-air missiles.Russia asked the council to meet on Tuesday after it said Ukraine killed at least 28 people when it used Western-supplied rockets to strike a bakery and restaurant on Saturday in Russian-controlled eastern Ukraine.Senior Ukrainian U.N. diplomat Serhii Dvornyk accused Russia of misusing the Security Council “for disseminating fakes.”Wood said the U.S. was unable to independently verify the information – blaming an absence of independent media reporting – but laments all civilian casualties. He added: “To be clear, Russia is the only aggressor in this war, and the only one that could end this war today.”
When Mount Vesuvius erupted in AD 79, a luxury villa in Herculaneum containing hundreds of ancient scrolls was engulfed, along with the town, in a layer of superheated ash.
About 800 rolled-up scrolls in the villa’s library were buried in a tide of ash and pumice, rendering them brittle and, until now, unreadable. ...
A team of three students managed to read more than 2,000 Greek letters from one of the scrolls with the help of AI.
Youssef Nader in Germany, Julian Schillinger in Switzerland and Luke Farritor in the U.S. won the US$700,000 grand prize of the Vesuvius Challenge, launched in 2023 by Seales.
With backing from Silicon Valley investors, the challenge offered a hefty cash prize to researchers who are able to decipher text from high-resolution CT scans of the scrolls.
The group was able to use machine learning software to recognize faint crackle patterns on the papyrus in the shape of Greek letters.
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