Your middle-of-the-week intrigue ...
China does not discuss things.
The minister and more than a few media analysts lauded the opportunity (the first by a Canadian foreign minister in almost seven years) for “dialogue” with China’s leadership. But dialogue involves a conversation, a shared approach to illuminate or resolve an issue. It’s what happens when senior officials from normal countries meet. But China hasn’t been a normal country since Xi Jinping ascended to paramount leadership in 2013. Xi’s China doesn’t do dialogue.
In addition to restoring the primacy of the Chinese Communist Party, which had been reduced in scope under Deng Xiaoping’s reforms, Xi has also restored the primacy of the Party’s general secretary — himself. In today’s top-down China, Xi, who is also China’s president, has the last and only word. He has overseen a formidable military build-up, aggressive foreign interference, massive human rights abuses against Uyghurs, Tibetans and human rights advocates, and increasingly direct support for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
For some time now, countries like Canada have been feeling the nasty bite of Xi’s global ambitions. In the recent past, this has included the cruel seizure and imprisonment of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, increasingly sophisticated political interference, and the aggressive harassment, in Canada, of Uyghurs, Tibetans and others who have fled China to make a new life in our country.
China almost certainly saw the visit in historical terms, as the deference shown to the ruler in Beijing by the emissary of a smaller state. And in this particular case such deference will be understood, unhelpfully, as Canada being invited to apologise face-to-face for daring to complain about China’s behaviour.
So, what, exactly, did we achieve? Minister Joly referenced the importance of dialogue on climate change, a hardy perennial among excuses for travelling to China. China is well aware of its status as the world’s largest CO2 emitter, but it will not act until the cost of inaction, in terms of its economy or public discontent, is greater than the cost of reducing Beijing’s heavy dependence on coal-fired power generation.
Minister Joly also talked about encouraging “personnel and cultural exchanges,” which is odd at a time when China is ramping up arrests of foreign businesspeople, and as in-bound tourism to China is understandably collapsing. Canada’s own official travel advisory calls, appropriately enough, for travellers to “Exercise a high degree of caution.” Surely the government should follow its own advice. The minister and her Chinese counterpart also reportedly discussed stopping flows of deadly fentanyl and fentanyl precursors to Canada. What’s deeply disturbing about this is not simply that China has been notably slow to act, but that according to the House Select Committee on China of the U.S. Congress, China is complicit in fueling the crisis by providing tax rebates for the manufacture of precursors — as long as they are not sold in China.
In short, nothing from Canada contained anything of substance.
An unqualified errand-boy issued the usual platitudes for anyone paying attention at home but nothing that give China pause.
Imagine if a visit to China involved arresting the secret police hiding in stations waiting to intimidate dissidents.
That would get China's attention.
But co-ideologues don't do things like that.
The cringing, whinging soy-boy is on vacation and cannot rely on his underlings to defend him:
Liberal caucus members yesterday sat quietly for nearly an hour as Conservative MP Larry Brock (Brantford-Brant, Ont.) repeatedly described Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as a habitual liar. Speaking at the Commons government operations committee, MP Brock said Trudeau was a “very good liar” with a “penchant for lying.” No Liberal MP objected: “What’s the relevance?”
Ouch.
It's like they want the captain to go down with the ship.
The trade minister who handed a contract to her friend decries American complaints about Canada's failure to protect copyright holders:
U.S. protests over the Government of Canada’s poor record on protecting copyright owners is merely a “political tool,” says a staff briefing note to Trade Minister Mary Ng. The United States placed Canada on its 2024 “watch list” over concerns on copyright thievery.
“It serves as a political tool to satisfy domestic U.S. stakeholders,” said the April 25 briefing note. “The United States has strong offensive interests in the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights globally and in this report places countries alleged to have inadequate intellectual property laws in three escalating categories: ‘Watch List,’ ‘Priority Watch List’ and ‘Priority Foreign Country.’”
“Canada is on the ‘Watch List’ for 2024,” said the briefing note Special 301 Report On Intellectual Property Protection. “Canada does not recognize the validity of the report.”
Any complaint that the Government of Canada tolerates copyright theft “relies primarily on industry allegations rather than empirical evidence and objective analysis,” said the note to Minister Ng. “We continue to engage bilaterally and constructively on intellectual property issues with the United States.”
The United States Trade Representative in an April 25 Special 301 Report placed Canada on its “watch list” for numerous shortcomings in protecting copyright. “Levels of online piracy remain very high in Canada,” it said. Court rulings allowing mass copying of literary works had also “significantly damaged the market for educational authors and publishers,” it said.
Canadian authors and publishers have lost more than $200 million in royalties since a 2012 Supreme Court ruling allowed mass photocopying of books under the guise of “personal research.” One institution, York University of Toronto, admitted in Court documents it distributed 29 million photocopies in student course packs without payment or permission.
Department of Justice lawyers weeks after the “watch list” was issued also won a May 31 Federal Court ruling in Blacklock’s Reporter v. Attorney General that expanded copyright theft to include password sharing. The U.S. Trade Representative has not yet commented on the ruling.
Evidence in the Blacklock’s case showed a Parks Canada manager, Genevieve Patenaude, purchased a single password then shared it with anyone who asked, at least nine people. Justice Yvan Roy ruled that while Patenaude made an obvious “mistake” – Blacklock’s terms against password sharing were “plainly visible,” he said – passwords could now be shared by anyone for any “legitimate business reason” where there is “significant public interest in reading articles.”
Neither Minister Ng nor her department publicly discussed the impact of the password ruling. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters June 19 that while she too shared password-protected news articles, “I am a huge believer in the value of the work that all you guys do, the work of professional, salaried journalists.”
(Sidebar: silly peons! Rules are for proles!)
Some things are done in backrooms.
Federal regulators should be wary of meeting privately in barrooms with lobbyists, says the Federal Court of Appeal. The reprimand to the CRTC followed a 2019 beer summit between then-CEO Ian Scott and Bell Canada’s chief executive that was photographed by a passerby: “Why were the two together? What was discussed?”
Who did you vote for, Canada?:
Nearly half of Canadians are teetering on the brink of insolvency, a new survey suggests.
Forty-six percent of Canadians say they are $200 or less away from failing to meet all their financial obligations, according to the MNP Consumer Debt Index survey conducted by Ipsos and released July 22.
While that figure is consistent with the previous quarter, there is an increase among those who were close to insolvency and already not making enough to cover their bills, Ipsos said. Nearly one in three Canadians—29 percent—say they already can’t cover their bills and debt payments, and those who say they are $1 to $200 away from insolvency increased by 3 points.
Much hope has been placed on the vice-president bobblehead Kamala Harris.
She is not going win in November:
Harris had a front-row seat to President Joe Biden’s mental and physical deterioration but never said a word. In fact, she routinely issued statements indicating Biden was fit enough to stay president. ...
One of Harris’ most notable accomplishments is receiving the worst vice presidential rating in the history of modern polling. Her abysmal job approval ratings have only continued, often ranking worse than Biden’s, and do not suggest that she’s up to the task of taking over the presidency. ...
A whopping 92 percent of Harris’ staff left in her first three years as vice president. ...
Harris has tried to come off as inspirational, but her speeches and public addresses are often riddled with jumbled, off-script chattering or unintelligible babble that rivals Biden’s incoherence.
Dozens of Democratic lawmakers planned to skip Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's speech to Congress on Wednesday, expressing dismay over the thousands of civilian deaths and the humanitarian crisis from Israel's campaign in Gaza.
The longtime Israeli leader will make a record fourth speech to a joint meeting of the Senate and House of Representatives at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT), passing British wartime leader Winston Churchill, who made three such speeches.Netanyahu's speech was expected to focus on coordinating the Israeli and U.S. response to the volatile situation in the Middle East, where there is a growing danger of the Gaza war spilling over into a wider regional conflict.He was also expected to call for stronger action against Iran, which supports Palestinian Hamas and Lebanese Hezbollah, both militant groups fighting Israel, and has drawn increased U.S. condemnation over its recent nuclear advances.Republican leaders in Congress orchestrated the visit, but it was likely to be less confrontational than in 2015 when Republicans sidestepped then-President Barack Obama, a Democrat, and Netanyahu used his speech to criticize Obama's Iran policy.
I think that Netanyahu should state his case to the Republicans for support after November.
The Democrats are decidedly indifferent.
Taiwan's Foxconn, the world's largest contract electronics maker and Apple's biggest iPhone assembler, said on Wednesday it plans to invest 1 billion yuan ($137.5 million) to construct a new business headquarters in Zhengzhou, China.
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