The eve of the eve of the eve of the eve of Daylight Savings Time ...
From the most "transparent" government in the country's history:
Liberal and New Democrat MPs yesterday by a 6 to 4 vote blocked an ethics committee probe of why cabinet concealed a report into Chinese security breaches at the National Microbiology Laboratory. Conservative and Bloc Québécois MPs sought the investigation: “Why?”
When will everyone find everything out? When China develops a biological weapon from the viruses stolen from the lab in Winnipeg?
In October 2022, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) researchers detected seizures as a safety signal for children aged 5 and under who received the mRNA vaccines. A Japanese study that followed 332 people with epilepsy observed seizure worsening following vaccination in 5.7 percent of those who received their first and second COVID-19 vaccines.
Was it something he said and did?
It always is:
The Saturday evening event at the Art Gallery of Ontario was meant to cap off a day of meetings between Justin Trudeau and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Toronto, but it was abruptly cancelled after demonstrators shouting pro-Palestinian slogans blocked entrances to the building and prevented many attendees from getting in.
Trudeau’s office said Saturday neither he nor Meloni were able to enter the venue, which briefly went into lockdown. International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen was seen walking for two blocks with a police escort to find an unoccupied entrance.
Toronto Police Service spokeswoman Stephanie Sayer said police were in contact with the prime minister’s security team, who were told officers were prepared to provide secure access to the building for Trudeau.
How embarrassing!
The woman he showed up before sees more weakness in him.
No amount of hair gel can fix that.
Did he freeze any bank accounts?
**
For the second time in a matter of months, a state visit from a key ally has ended in embarrassment for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, resulting in Canada taking yet another hit to its already faltering global reputation.
It turns out Trudeau’s advance team couldn’t even handle a one-day visit from Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who was in Toronto on Saturday in her capacity as G7 chair for 2024. The visit ended on a sour note when pro-Palestinian demonstrators blocked the entrances to downtown Toronto’s Art Gallery of Ontario, leading organizers to cancel a Saturday evening reception with the Italian premier. (Trudeau’s office later confirmed that neither he nor Meloni were able to enter the venue.)
The shoddy event planning won’t do much to help Trudeau mend fences with Meloni, whom he inexplicably ambushed over her government’s record on LGBTQ issues at last May’s G7 Leaders’ Summit in Hiroshima, Japan — Meloni was none too pleased with Trudeau’s tactlessness, nor, for that matter, was the Italian media.
One can only hope, for Trudeau’s sake, that the few hours he was able to spend with the rising stateswoman earlier in the day was enough time for some of her foreign-policy gravitas to rub off on him.
Outside of splitting from their respective spouses, the two G7 leaders could not have followed more different trajectories over the past year and change. While Trudeau has repeatedly stumbled on the world’s stage, Meloni has steadily, and perhaps unexpectedly, emerged as one of Europe’s biggest power players, restoring Italy’s traditional status as a respected middle power.
In her year-and-a-half at the helm, Meloni has distinguished herself with her resolute support for Italy’s defence alliances with its fellow democracies. She was among the first foreign leaders to visit Israel following the Oct. 7 massacre, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu just two weeks after the attacks. (Trudeau, by contrast, still hasn’t stepped foot on Israeli soil in the near 150 days since Hamas initiated hostilities with Israel.)
(Sidebar: the same Hamas that the UN has come around to thinking that maybe, possibly, might have committed horrific acts against girls and women. How generous of them!)
**
I realized something interesting over the weekend as I watched International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen try in vain, like a bewildered tourist, to find a way to enter the Art Gallery of Ontario. Hussen, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the great-and-good of Italian-Canadian society were to fete visiting Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni at the AGO, but a few dozen pro-Palestinian supporters managed to block the entrances enough to scupper the whole event.
What I realized was that even after a solid decade, at least, of considering Canada’s politics and many of its institutions fundamentally and possibly irredeemably unserious — from our Supreme Court to our National Hockey League franchises — I was still capable of being embarrassed on my country’s behalf.
You and me both!
**
The moron really does believe he has it in him to be the Great Persuader:
Cabinet would be better off if it could spend five minutes with each Canadian to explain the carbon tax, says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. He made the remark after being called a tax grabber while touring a seniors club near Sudbury, Ont.: “If I can only have five minutes to explain it like that to every Canadian we’d be better off.”
And how are over-taxed people better off, Herr Blackface?
HA!:
#BREAKING: Footage has emerged showing that, after years of Trudeau allowing far-left protesters to harass normal Canadians, now they're harassing him. pic.twitter.com/9xXgQBcMyZ
— Canada Proud (@WeAreCanProud) March 6, 2024
Rebel News Network Ltd. yesterday filed a $1 million lawsuit over the January 8 handcuffing of a reporter for attempting to question Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland. Police complained the questions were too “aggressive,” Rebel News’ lawyer wrote Ontario Superior Court: “The questions spoke to the federal government’s foreign affairs.”
Never send a "journalist" to do an economist's job:
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s current deficit will be 16 percent higher than forecast, the Budget Office said yesterday. Freeland last March 28 predicted her deficit would “decline in every year of the forecast.” It didn’t: “I don’t know if they have lost control.”
There is success and then there is "success":
National cheap daycare was promised by the federal Liberals in the 2021 budget, which dedicated $30 billion over five years to bring child-care fees down to an average of $10 per day. Whether the plan actually works is another question.
If the success of a government program is measured by the shortages it creates, then nationwide public child care has undoubtedly been an astounding triumph in Ontario, where waitlists are exploding. In Kawartha Lakes, children now spend an average of 6.4 years waiting for licensed daycare space. In the Region of Waterloo, there are now 9,200 children in line for care, an increase of 115 per cent versus before the announcement of the government’s $10-per-day program (which doesn’t guarantee parents will pay $10 per day).
The government’s child-care plan has not been quite as successful in Niagara Region, where the waitlist has only increased by 76 per cent, but it has evidently worked splendidly for toddlers and preschoolers, for whom the queue has grown by 227 per cent. National child care has also successfully created shortages in Ottawa, where the waitlist has increased by 41 per cent, and in Thunder Bay, it’s increased by 24 per cent.
Also:
On April 1, the federal government is hiking carbon and alcohol taxes. That very same day, MPs will take another pay raise.
Problems with the Canadian navy’s new patrol ships have led to significant flooding causing excessive corrosion while other defects have resulted in mechanical failures involving anchors, sailors have revealed.The flooding is centered around the area where the anchor cable comes into an enclosed deck on the Arctic and Offshore Patrol Ships or AOPS.
Some people are special:
No arrests have been made thus far. Flavio Volpe, president of the Automotive Parts Manufacturers’ Association, who was in attendance, slammed the response to the incident on X.
“Toronto let 100 Hamas-supporters shouting for an ‘intifada’ cancel an event between two G7 Leaders tonight,” wrote Volpe. “For law enforcement to get outmaneuvered by the same people shouting hate every week begs so many questions. Tonight it’s an international embarrassment on this city.”
It was just the latest embarrassment for Canada in recent months.
Since Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on southern Israel, and the country’s subsequent military operation in the Gaza Strip, there have been ongoing anti-Israel protests in Canadian cities that have escalated into disorder. Streets have been shut down, synagogues have been hit with firebombs, threats of violence have been brazenly shouted in shopping malls and now a meeting of G7 leaders has been called off.
Remember - disenchanted truckers were brutalized, arrested, charged, had their bank accounts frozen and were vilified by the government and the bribed press.
But not the Jew-haters or the rapists:
Organizers of a pro-Palestinian protest that disrupted a weekend reception featuring Prime Minister Justin Trudeau say they're being unfairly vilified.
The event, which was to include Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, was abruptly called off as demonstrators blocked entrances to the Art Gallery of Ontario.
Toronto police said there were no injuries arising from the protest of about 400 demonstrators, and no arrests were made, but investigations are ongoing.
Dalia Awwad, an organizer with the group known as Palestinian Youth Movement, accused elected officials of intentionally vilifying protesters in an effort to avoid talking about Canada's position on the Israel-Hamas war.
**
Hamas issued a statement on Tuesday rejecting a United Nations report released the previous day on the Gaza-based terrorist group’s sexual violence during the Oct. 7 massacre and the sexual abuse of hostages.
“We in Hamas strongly reject and condemn the report published by U.N. representative Premila Patten, which accuses the Palestinian resistance fighters of committing acts of rape and sexual violence on October 7,” the terrorist organization wrote.
The terror group called the report’s claims “baseless false accusations” which amounts to the “demonization of Hamas.”
“Patten’s claims clearly contradict what emerged from the testimonies of Israeli women about the good treatment they received from the resistance fighters, as well as the testimonies of Israeli hostages who were released—about the good treatment they received during their captivity in Gaza,” the statement reads.
Except that none of that is true.
I'll just leave this here:
Most important, Ibn Warraq describes the “mind-set” of most Muslims as intolerant, self-pitying, stagnant, and trained to blame others for their own failures. He also sees the Muslim “mind-set” as akin to that of people trapped in totalitarian regimes. The need to control thought and to sacrifice individuality characterizes both Islamic and Marxist regimes. Thus, we understand the affinity that Western “leftists” have with reactionary Islamists. Ibn Warraq contrasts this with a Western “mind-set” which is built upon Greco-Roman, Judeo-Christian, scientific, and Enlightenment foundations and is characterized by intellectual curiosity, genuine interest in the “other,” a sense of irony, the ability to engage in self-criticism, and a concern with finding the truth.
Also:
Briefly: Canada never paused funding to UNRWA after all, and is now resuming funding it never paused, and is boosting UNRWA funds. https://t.co/EJijBYY9pW
— Terry Glavin 格立文 (@TerryGlavin) March 6, 2024
ArriveCan is the new WE "charity" scandal/SNC-Lavalin/Aga Khan ... :
Federal accountants knew of irregularities in the $59.5 million ArriveCan program but were too frightened to speak out, a union executive yesterday told MPs. Accountants feared they’d be “committing career suicide” if they reported the misconduct they see in federal bookkeeping, said Dany Richard, president of the Association of Canadian Financial Officers: “Our members are afraid.”
**
Speaking to the House public accounts committee on Wednesday, federal comptroller general Roch Huppé said he ordered a tally of all contracts given to GC Strategies and its predecessor Coredal — both owned by Kristian Firth and Darren Anthony — following mixed reports by the government and media.
In total, he said GC Strategies and Coredal received 118 contracts worth over $107 million, a number that is sure to raise more questions about the value-for-money offered by the two-person company that billed itself as an IT staffing firm.
GC Strategies is at the heart of the ArriveCan app scandal, particularly following a scathing auditor general report that found the cost of the application ballooned from $80,000 to potentially over $60 million. Part of the issue was a “glaring disregard” for “basic” procurement principles.
GC Strategies received nearly $20 million of that amount, which auditor general Karen Hogan said she could not confirm because the government’s bookkeeping for the project was the worst she’d ever seen.
“I am deeply concerned by the findings of the auditor general’s report,” said Huppé, the head of government’s internal financial management.
In light of the audit’s findings, he said he ordered that all government heads of internal auditing conduct a review of their department’s procurement rules within a year to ensure that they are enforcing all the rules and processes.
But Huppé warned that a key lesson to be learned from the ArriveCan project was that regular procurement rules were not followed, not that there needed to be more or stricter rules.
The rules are whatever the Liberals say they are.
But ... but ... the environment!:
A federal judge has overturned a quarter billion-dollar decision by then-Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act. The Federal Court faulted Wilkinson for “inexplicable” conduct in the 2021 case: ‘It was a matter of common sense.’
A federal program offering free snowmobiles to Arctic residents cost $32 million last year, new records show. The cost was four times the $8 million budgeted in 2022: “Snowmobiles can, yes, be available.”
No one cares about the publicly-funded mouthpiece for the Liberal Party:
Cabinet’s feud with Facebook cost the CBC millions of website visitors, according to financial statements. CBC.ca had been the longest-running, most popular news site in the country with content uploaded from 1,000 staff, by official estimate: “It is Facebook’s decision.”
It's not like viewers could not find the CBC site any other way.
They simply didn't want to.
Because it is all lies.
An arbitrator has ruled that nine Ontario nurses, who were fired because they didn’t get 2 COVID-19 vaccinations, should be reinstated, because their termination was “unreasonable.”
“Nurses intent on remaining unvaccinated are a small minority everywhere but their employee rights may not be ignored" wrote James Hayes, in his decision published March 1
Or is this a way to brush this under the proverbial carpet?
"A post-national state" is a divided one, one in which old hatreds thrive, fragmentation is encouraged and becomes the norm, and where no one can prosper:
HAPPENING NOW:
— Mocha Bezirgan 🇨🇦 (@BezirganMocha) March 2, 2024
Khalistan supporters in Vancouver have gathered to protest India.
Some are armed with swords and have full face coverings.
They’re calling for the boycott of Air India.
Their speeches are not in English.
In Canada Sikhs have a special religious exemption to… pic.twitter.com/TyRcbUku1U
When children get used to the idea of censorship, they tend to outdo the Chinese Cultural Revolution:
Surrey public school educators have pulled four classic books from the recommended reading curriculum over concerns about racist content.
The Surrey school district quietly decided to remove Harper Lee’s 1960 Pulitzer Prize-winning novel To Kill A Mockingbird, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian by Sherman Alexie, John Ball’s In the Heat of the Night, and Of Mice and Men by John Steinbeck from the list of books recommended for students Grade 10 and older.
But the decision has left some questioning the rationale.
Ritinder Matthew, a spokesperson for the school district, said they are not banning the books from classrooms or libraries, but they are no longer including them as part of the curriculum.
“We did a comprehensive review of these resources that determined that the merits of these novels do not outweigh the potential trauma and harm they may cause to some students,” she said.
There's that word - trauma.
Let's talk about the trauma these snowflakes have never endured like being ethnically cleansed or gone days without eating or not having electricity or having their apartment buildings shelled.
The de factor censors will not entertain the idea that removal of certain works will never erase real social ills, and the students certainly won't be prepared for them. They will not enjoy literature on its own merits, or glean whatever messages they can learn from that literature.
But they will be soft, squishy little people who will rise to the occasions of book-burning and bully pulpits.
Because trauma, that ill-defined word for bad, hurty things and now let's be mental midgets about things instead of scholars or citizens.
B@$#@rds:
The people who pushed this need to be in prison. pic.twitter.com/qUPLXKDPR6
— Konstantin Kisin (@KonstantinKisin) March 5, 2024
Nikki Haley has suspended her presidential campaign after a poor showing on Super Tuesday:
Nikki Haley suspended her presidential campaign on Wednesday after being soundly defeated across the country on Super Tuesday, leaving Donald Trump as the last remaining major candidate for the 2024 Republican nomination.
Haley didn’t endorse the former president in a speech in Charleston, South Carolina. Instead, she encouraged him to earn the support of the coalition of moderate Republicans and independent voters who supported her.
“It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him. And I hope he does that,” she said. “At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. And our conservative cause badly needs more people.”
Haley, a former South Carolina governor and former U.N. ambassador, was Trump’s first significant rival when she jumped into the race in February 2023. She spent the final phase of her campaign aggressively warning the GOP against embracing Trump, whom she argued was too consumed by chaos and personal grievance to defeat President Joe Biden in the general election.
Her departure clears Trump to focus solely on his likely rematch in November with Biden. The former president is on track to reach the necessary 1,215 delegates to clinch the Republican nomination later this month.
For those who think that because Vladimir Putin is not Trudeau or Biden he is better, a gentle reminder of what he really is:
Putin, who in recent days has made fresh threats toward NATO, including allusions to nuclear weapons, may rank among the most despised (and feared) men in the world, but there’s no question he has his admirers, even here in the U.S. This misplaced esteem speaks volumes about where we are as a country right now. ...
For some conservatives, Putin merits praise for being one of the few political leaders on the world stage today willing to push back on radical LGBTQ ideology, which often seems like a higher priority for Western leaders these days than democracy or capitalism. And it’s true that over the course of his nearly quarter-century in power (including four years as “prime minister”) he has instituted several pro-life, pro-family policies. These are mostly aimed at reversing Russia’s alarmingly low birthrate, which is in part driven by the fact that Russia continued to have one of the highest abortion rates in the world. Much like what we saw in Carlson’s interview, however, that’s only part of the truth.
While Putin has styled himself as a devout Russian Orthodox believer and a “defender of the faith,” the fuller truth paints a much more disturbing picture of a ruthless leader who has co-opted his church to advance his statist dream of resurrecting “Mother Russia” as an imperial power.
As a former KGB man, he recognized when the Soviet Union collapsed (an event he considers one of the 20th century’s great tragedies) that something unifying had to fill the void created by the demise of atheistic communist ideology. Sadly, the Russian Orthodox Church, which in the Soviet era was at first brutally persecuted and then thoroughly infiltrated, now serves that purpose.
Putin may be a friend to the Russian Orthodox Church while it remains loyal to him, but not to other faiths.
Catholics, Protestants, Muslims and other religious minorities face fines for handing out literature outside their places of worship. They can be more severely punished under vaguely worded laws against terrorism and extremism.
It’s for good reason that the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) cites Russia as one of 17 nations on its current list of recommended “Countries of Particular Concern” “for engaging in systematic, ongoing, and egregious violations of religious freedom.”
Regrettably, Russian Orthodox leaders have remained silent in the face of this repression, just as they’ve been about Russia’s relentless dismantling of religious freedom and other human rights in Ukraine.
Also - what do pundits have to say about this?:
The Conference on Catholic Bishops of Russia has released a statement condemning the blessing of “same-sex couples” as instructed in the Vatican’s December Declaration Fiducia Supplicans as “unacceptable.”
In a Friday statement, the nation’s senior prelates lamented the “misunderstandings that have arisen” as a result of Pope Francis’ document Fiducia Supplicans. As a result, the bishops wrote that ,“In order to avoid temptation and confusion,” the conference “highlights the fact that the blessing of any type of couples that persist in relationships that are unregulated from the point of view of Christian morality (cohabitation, bigamous second marriages, same-sex marriages) is unacceptable.”
On the other side of the world:
South Korea and the United States began large-scale annual spring military drills Monday as North Korea continues to refine its missile and nuclear weapons programs.
The Freedom Shield joint exercise, which features computer-simulated command-post training and 48 field training drills — double the number in last year’s iteration of the exercise — will run through March 14.
The exercise is the first since Pyongyang scrapped a 2018 inter-Korean military accord in November. That agreement was intended to reduce tensions along the two Koreas' border. Seoul said no joint maneuvers have been scheduled near the border during Freedom Shield.
The exercise will simulate a variety of scenarios, including practice detecting and intercepting North Korean cruise missiles, according to the South Korean military.
Pyongyang has launched five known barrages of cruise missiles since mid-January as part of a spate of weapons tests this year. These have included new strategic cruise missiles and submarine-launched weapons, both designed to carry small nuclear bombs.
U.S. and South Korean military officials said at a briefing last week that the drills will be "tough and realistic," and based on scenarios that employ lessons learned from recent conflicts, with the the main focus on multidomain operations utilizing land, sea, air, cyber and space assets to counter the North's nuclear threats.
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