Mid-Week Post

Your middle-of-the-week stroll through the rain ...

Justifying wild claims and finding the money for them are for peons:

Social Development Minister Jenna Sudds’ office yesterday would not substantiate claims its school lunch program will save families $800 a year. Advocates have cautioned a National School Food Program would “need billions” to achieve its targets, not the $200 million a year currently budgeted: ‘There is little to no literature available regarding Canadian school food programs’ costs.’

Quelle surprise:

Most Canadian employment growth is now reliant on the public sector. Public sector employment climbed 0.9% (+41k jobs) to 4.45 million in July. Annual growth shows 4.8% (+205k) jobs added, a rate 8x greater than private sector growth. Canada’s now so dependent on public sector growth that government workers represent 1 in 4 employed workers.

A loyal voters block.

 

Also:

Canada's economy shed a net 2,800 jobs in July, as gains in full-time work were offset by part-time job losses, while the unemployment rate remained at a 30-month high of 6.4 per cent, data showed on Friday.

Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast a net gain of 22,500 jobs and the unemployment rate to rise to 6.5 per cent from 6.4 per cent in June. An increase in the unemployment rate was expected due to rapid population growth which the labor market was not able to absorb.

 

The Liberals are utter vote-hunters.

No promise is too outlandish. No crusade is too overwhelming. No cause is too irrelevant or inflammatory.

It certainly beats having to explain one’s failures in governance:

The chart depicting the rate of domestic violence in Canada from 2009 to 2022 is shaped like a very gentle U. Its lowest point? Somewhere around 2014 to 2016. It’s a problem that’s proven difficult to talk about in Ottawa.

An attempt was made on the last day of July, when the House of Commons Status of Women committee chair, Shelby Kramp-Neuman, convened a meeting on the issue — only for it to end in a meltdown. Kramp-Neuman, a Conservative, had called three witnesses to speak on the matter of violence against women, only to be shut down by Liberal and NDP committee members angered by the ethnic and gender composition of those present, and insisted on discussing abortion instead.

Though tiresome and ugly, the exchange was a perfect synecdoche for the formula that Canadian justice policymakers have used for the past eight years: ignore the actual plight of women, decry any attempt to improve the situation as an attack on various narrow identity groups and, of course, utter the word “abortion” in generous quantities.

The committee witnesses, at least, were able to make part of their case before procedural chaos descended on the room.

Cait Alexander, a domestic violence survivor whose ex-boyfriend was accused of attempted murder, only to have his charges dropped for running over Canada’s 18-month trial deadline, held up photos of her horribly bruised body as she recounted the experience. Then she told the stories of others, robbed of justice, whose perpetrators — abusers, rapists, killers — enjoyed soft bail conditions, repeated releases and light sentences.

Another witness, Megan Walker, was a women’s advocate for 30 years. She told the story of Tiffany Gates, a London woman whose murder-suicide at the hands of Christopher Charlton was kept in the dark by police at the behest of privacy legislation, and Breanna Broadfoot, a London teen who was killed by her 18-year-old boyfriend. Broadfoot’s boyfriend was on a no-contact order for a previous attack on her. (Police claimed they could not release his identity and asked the family to keep quiet, though court documents identified the man as one Kuhkpaw Moo.)

After some 30 minutes of testimony and limited questioning, MPs began interjecting. Liberal MP Anita Vandenbeld moved to resume debate on abortion rights (Vandenbeld later took to National Newswatch to lament that “parliamentary institutions are being deliberately dismantled” by “far-right” political traps), and NDP MP Leah Gazan complained that she’d been unable to call witnesses for that particular meeting.

Alexander and Walker turned their backs, and eventually, left. Afterward, they requested an apology for their treatment.

“Here I am, literally baring my soul, holding up naked photos of my black and blue bloodied body,” Alexander told me in an interview Wednesday. “And two people who are supposed to be stand-up women and representatives of the country, (whose) job is to advocate for better, are silencing, further abusing, manipulating, emotionally gaslighting, literally using abusive tactics for their political agenda.”

Speaking to me, also on Wednesday, Walker described the environment as “hostile,” particularly due to the conduct of the Liberal and NDP members.

“I was trying to talk about the record of women killed. There have been 840 women killed … since 2019. It’s a huge number of women; this is a crisis. It needs to be addressed. We need to name it as an epidemic. But all of that was lost,” she said. She felt the committee was being inappropriately made to choose between the murder of women and abortion.

Diversity is our slave trade:

A recently released international report says Canada's temporary foreign worker program is a "breeding ground" for contemporary slavery.

The final report by a United Nations special rapporteur who visited Canada last year says a power imbalance prevents workers from exercising their rights.

A worker's status is dependent on a closed work permit that is specific to their employer. If an individual is fired, they may be deported from Canada.

Workers are subject to a wide range of abuses and aren't always aware of their rights, the report says.

It notes the government puts much of the responsibility for informing workers about their rights on the employer, "despite the obvious conflict of interest."

Special rapporteur Tomoya Obokata cites reports of issues including wage theft, long working hours with limited breaks and insufficient personal protective equipment.

The report also notes allegations of sexual harassment and exploitation, along with physical, emotional and verbal abuse.

Obokata also found that workers have difficulty accessing health care.

In some cases, employers prevented people from seeking treatment, the report says, with some workers denied the necessary time off, encouraged to "take painkillers or home remedies instead" or even fired.

The report notes that rules implemented in 2022 require employers to make a reasonable effort to provide workers with access to health care if they are ill or injured.

It also points out that many employers end up providing housing for their workers. That can result in overcrowding, such as 20 to 30 people sharing a single washroom, it says.

The report calls for Canada to "end labour migration arrangements that foster exploitation by creating dependency situations that tie workers to their employers" and in which employers control the worker’s housing, health care and status.

The number of permits under the program increased 88 per cent from 2019 to 2023, though Ottawa recently indicated it plans to reduce the number of such workers in Canada.

Mathis Denis, a spokesperson for Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault, said the government has increased fines for employer non-compliance under the program. He said the government levied $2.1 million in fines for violating program rules last fiscal year, up from $1.54 million issued the previous year.

He said the minister is considering increasing fees to pay for “additional integrity and processing activities,” and is looking to put in place new regulations covering employer eligibility.

 

Those not in the slave trade find other diversions that the government can give lip service to.

Whatever shuts the masses up, right?

Who did you vote for, Canada?:

The average price of gas in Ontario late last month was $1.66 per litre. Out of that total per litre cost, a whopping 56¢ was taxes.

That means that more than a third of the price of gas is taxes — money going out of the pockets of hard-working families and into the coffers of big government.

A family filling up a Dodge Caravan and Honda Accord once every two weeks ends up paying just shy of $2,000 in gas taxes over the course of a year.  That’s the equivalent of two months’ worth of groceries for a family of four.

Yes, gas taxes have been around for decades. But politicians today, particularly those in Ottawa, keep driving the tax burden higher and higher.

**

The best thing one can do is tell a student to leave Canada as soon as he or she can.

There is no future here:

And the sad truth is we’re starting to believe the answer is ‘No’… If you want to be a winner — someone who bets big, takes risks and reaps the rewards — then Canada is looking less and less like the place to be.

Ottawa’s decision last month to raise the capital gains tax inclusion rate to 66.7% is bad news for all current and budding entrepreneurs. In fact, it’s bad news for anyone who aspires to a higher standard of living.

The announcement came amid a mudslide of alarming economic metrics. The Trudeau government has presided over abysmal growth numbers, weak investment and, most importantly, sluggish productivity.

In March, the deputy governor of the Bank of Canada, Carolyn Rogers, declared a “productivity emergency,” noting that “Canada has seen no productivity growth in recent years.”

Productivity is profit. For a worker, it’s the value they create. It is the main driver of economic growth.

Here at home, a Canadian worker produces US$53.30 per hour, while south of the border, an American worker produces US$72.10. Lower hourly productivity results in lower wages for workers. If we closed this gap with our southern neighbours, a Canadian working full-time would raise their living standards by $31,584 annually.

The problem is that Canada is not attracting the private investment its workers need, which includes cutting-edge technology and machinery.

In 2018, private investment was only $17,389 per Canadian worker, compared to $27,307 per American worker.

Much of this is the result of government policies that scare investment away. Overall business investment has dropped 7.3% since 2014. Trudeau’s tax increase risks slowing productivity growth even further.

Instead, we desperately need policies that create a “more friendly business environment,” to quote Rogers. What we need are tax breaks to encourage investment.

At present, young Canadians wanting to create start-ups likely can’t find the venture capital to do so.

We ought to take this personally. Thanks to our government’s poorly designed policy, we lack access to the tools we need to succeed. Investors don’t think we’re worth the risk.

 

Also – damn straight!:

A federal agency is expanding a program to educate high schoolers on credit, debt and “the difference between needs and wants.” The Financial Consumer Agency of Canada has faulted parents for failing to teach children about basic budgeting: “Parents are the first place where children should be learning something.”

 

Canada the cruel:

Despite promises of a “stringently limited, carefully monitored system of exceptions,” medically-assisted death is now the fifth-leading cause of death in Canada, says a newly-released report.

The report, released this week by Canadian think-tank Cardus, paints a bleak portrait of Canada’s medical assistance in dying (MAiD) regime, which according to the report has seen a thirteen-fold rise in participants since its 2016 legalization.

“In less than a decade, euthanasia has gone from being a rare exception — as was originally intended by proponents, by policymakers, by the courts, by even the lead lawyer for the plaintiff in Carter v. Canada, to a routine cause of death in Canada,” said study author Alexander Raikin, a visiting fellow with the Washington, D.C.-based Ethics and Public Policy Centre.

“We’ve seen that between 2016 and 2022, deaths from euthanasia have grown 13 times higher than when we originally started,” he said. “In short, Canada has the fastest-growing euthanasia regime of anywhere in the world.”

 

Couple this money-saving measure with the complete disregard for the human purpose and one can see how this sort of thing is not too unexpected.

 

 

Canada the bigoted:

Federally-subsidized activists claim a Catholic group is a “hate movement” and that most haters are white people. The Canadian Anti-Hate Network published its blacklist after receiving $640,000 from Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge’s department and others for “research.”

 **

 The Canada Revenue Agency on Saturday stripped tax status from two Jewish charities including one whose fundraising Negev Dinners hosted prime ministers since John Diefenbaker. Litigation is pending: ‘They failed to meet parts of the Income Tax Act.’

 

B@$#@rds:

Explosive Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) documents released to the Gun Owners of America (GOA), obtained by The Post Millennial, reveal how the Biden administration colluded with social media and conspired with the Trudeau government to deplatform and censor the protesting truckers of Canada’s Freedom Convoy in 2022.

The FOIA request was filed by the GOA with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to see if they were being subject to any unwanted federal surveillance. The documents released by DHS and first posted by Ammoland Shooting Sports News revealed this interesting tidbit in an email from Samantha Vinograd to Robert Silvers.

“Next," it reads, "I asked l&A about recent media reports about foreign accounts spreading or generating content associated with the Freedom Convoy (news about Meta taking action to deplatform these accounts broke right before the meeting). l&A had some feedback about its capabilities in this area which I look forward to sharing with you. We discussed whether engaging with Meta and Twitter to share information convoy related matters (inauthentic activity/ violating terms of service) would be prudent. We will circle back with l&A on that tomorrow. CBP is supportive of engagement and is CISA. We agreed that we need to set up a formal structure for these analytic exchanges which PLCY and OGC are working on.”

The correspondence clearly indicates that the Biden administration was colluding with its social media partners to undermine or potentially de-platform members of the Freedom Convoy.

 

I hope that Trump hands Kamala her flabby @$$ to her in November.

 

I was not expecting this:

Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, in a surprise move Wednesday, announced he will not run in the upcoming party leadership vote in September, paving the way for Japan to have a new prime minister.

Kishida was elected president of his governing Liberal Democratic Party in 2021 and his three-year term expires in September. Whoever wins the party vote will succeed him as prime minister because the LDP controls both houses of parliament. A new face is a chance for the party to show that it's changing for the better, and Kishida said he will support the new leader.

“We need to clearly show an LDP reborn,” Kishida told a news conference Wednesday. “In order to show a changing LDP, the most obvious first step is for me to bow out.”

“I will not run for the upcoming party leadership election,” he said.

Stung by his party’s corruption scandals, Kishida has suffered dwindling support ratings that have dipped below 20%.

In order to achieve policies to tackle difficult situations in and outside Japan, regaining public trust in politics is crucial, Kishida said. He called on aspiring party lawmakers to raise their hands to run for leadership and have active policy debate during the campaign.

“Once a new leader is decided, I hope to see everyone unite and form a dream team to achieve politics that can gain public understanding,” he said.

Kishida said he has been mulling his possible resignation for some time but waited until he could put his key policies on track, including energy policy that calls for a return to nuclear power, a drastic military buildup to deal with security threats in the region, and improving ties with South Korea, as well as political reforms.

Speculation on potential candidates has landed on a number of senior LDP lawmakers, including party Secretary-General Toshimitsu Motegi, Digital Minister Taro Kono, Economic Security Minister Sanae Takaichi and Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa.

A winner will replace Kishida as party president, and will be endorsed as the new prime minister in a parliamentary vote soon after. LDP executives are expected to decide next week on the date for the party election.

And now for something completely unusual:

Twenty years after researchers discovered an ancient race of “hobbit” humans on the Indonesian island of Flores, a new team has found fossils that are even smaller and even more ancient.

The original hobbit fossils — named after the fictional race in The Lord of the Rings — date back to between 60,000 and 100,000 years ago. The species was dubbed Homo floresiensis, referring to the island of Flores where they were found, and scientists estimate they stood about 3.5 feet tall. The only hobbit fossils ever found have been discovered in Flores.

The new fossils were found at a site called Mata Menge, about 72 kilometres from the Liang Bua cave where the first hobbit bones were uncovered. These remains date back a staggering 700,000 years.