Wednesday, December 03, 2025

Mid-Week Post

https://smarthistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/CloseFranciscus_de_Xabier-copy-scaled.jpg
The original X-Man.

 

I assure you, given the easily panicked nature of the electorate, no one is angry at what they should be:

An egregious case in Ontario involving the rape of a 13-year-old girl by a non-citizen has left a Conservative MP outraged after the accused was given time to weigh how a guilty plea would affect his immigration status.

The case involves a 47-year-old Bradford resident, and non-citizen, who pleaded guilty last week to “two counts of sexual interference, one charge of child luring and another to breaching his release conditions,” local news outlet BarrieToday reported.

The court heard that the man met the girl at a convenience store, groomed her and later raped her, which led to two pregnancies, BarrieToday reported. The girl reportedly ended up carrying one of those pregnancies to term. A publication ban is in place to protect the identity of the girl and her child.

The man ignored court orders to stay away from the girl, whom he raped again while he was out on release, according to BarrieToday. After breaching the conditions of his release for a third time, he was arrested and has been in jail since, for more than two and a half years.

The court also heard that the man had earlier in the case been “permitted an adjournment to explore the effect his eventual guilty pleas would have on his immigration status,” BarrieToday reported. In Canada, a permanent resident or foreign national is inadmissable if they are convicted of a criminal offence that leads to jail time of more than six months.

The Crown told National Post it would be seeking a 10-year sentence. He is due back in court for sentencing on Jan. 29, 2026.

The case was brought up by Alberta Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner during question period on Nov. 27. She put forward Bill C-220, a private members’ bill that is pushing for courts not to take into account the impact that a sentence would have on an offender’s immigration status in Canada.

“A senior Liberal (MP Kevin Lamoureux) -

(Sidebar: f---ing douche-tool) 

- debating my bill to stop leniency for serious crimes said this: ‘If someone is going out raping another individual, do we really believe they’ll get special treatment from a judge?’ The next day, there was a story of a non-Canadian raping a 13-year-old girl and impregnating her twice, and the rapist was given an adjournment to see the impact of a guilty plea on what? His immigration status,” said Rempel Garner during question period on Nov. 27.

“Will the liberals admit they were wrong?

 

No, they will never do that, nor will the electorate expect them to.

It would be a sign or weakness to admit that defending the above (alleged) pervert to spite someone from an opposite party was ever wrong. 

 

Speaking of defending the indefensible:

Hundreds of state workers at the Minnesota Department of Human Services publicly excoriated Gov. Tim Walz for allowing a “massive fraud” scandal to unfold under his watch and retaliating against their whistleblowers.

Over $1 billion in taxpayers’ money was fleeced by dozens of scammers in Minnesota’s Feeding Our Future fraud scandal, the largest known COVID-19 fraud case in the country.

“Tim Walz is 100% responsible for massive fraud in Minnesota. We let Tim Walz know of fraud early on, hoping for a partnership in stopping fraud but no, we got the opposite response,” the Minnesota DHS employees’ X account, which represents over 480 staffers, chided Saturday.

“Tim Walz systematically retaliated against whistleblowers using monitoring, threats, repression, and did his best to discredit fraud reports. Instead of partnership, we got the full weight of retaliation,” the account charged.

“It’s scary, isolating and left us wondering who we can turn to.”

** 

On the surface, the Times story was an acknowledgment that this was a real scandal that the liberal press had missed. But the paper did not address the underlying narrative about why the fraud happened. Yes, the story is about a criminal enterprise, but it runs deeper than that. The story has touched a nerve because it busts liberal myths about immigration, anti-racism, and the welfare state.

Minnesota has long prided itself on its generous welfare programs and reputation for good governance. But after the mass arrival of the new Somali population—many of whom brought with them different attitudes toward government and civil society—these programs became a weak point. George Floyd’s 2020 death in Minneapolis demonstrated that scrutiny could be deflected by making baseless accusations of “racism” against anyone who raised questions about the missing funds.

The uncomfortable truth for Times readers is that all cultures are not equal. Therefore, not all cultures are compatible with all political systems. In this case, the Somali criminal enterprise is incompatible with a generous welfare state, particularly in the context of a racial politics that intimidates whistleblowers and other honest brokers.



Another example of the Liberals' finely-tuned negotiating sense:

Algoma Steel said Monday that it plans to lay off about 1,000 workers due to impacts from tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump.

In an emailed response to Global News, the Ontario-based company said the layoffs will come as a result of a Sault Ste. Marie plant closure being made to adapt to the “fundamentally altered” landscape.

“Algoma Steel has been significantly impacted by the unprecedented tariffs imposed by the United States. These tariffs have fundamentally altered the competitive landscape and sharply limited our ability to access the U.S. market,” Algoma Steel said in a statement.

 

Now, about that

The head of Algoma Steel says the federal government and Government of Ontario knew the company’s business plan included a re-tooling of its Sault Ste. Marie plant that would result in layoffs before they agreed to half a billion dollars in loan assistance to help the company weather the storm of U.S. tariffs.

Canada’s last remaining independent steel producer, which employs about 2,700 people in the northern Ontario town, issued layoff notices to about 1,000 workers on Monday, effective in March.

The company was hit hard by 50 per cent steel tariffs imposed by U.S. President Donald Trump in June.

The layoffs come less than a month after the company said it had completed $500 million in financing agreements with the federal government and Government of Ontario, which had provided loans of $400 million and $100 million respectively.

 

Also - they're just workers:

Maria is among tens of thousands from around the world who come to Canada every year to harvest and process fruit, tobacco, vegetables and other crops, often living in makeshift housing and working long, physically demanding days in sweltering summer heat, mostly for minimum wage.

Last year, nearly 80,000 migrants worked in agricultural jobs under Canada’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program, an increasingly controversial initiative designed in part to fill a labour gap left by Canadians who are unwilling or unable to do farm work.

The program gives foreign labourers access to Canadian jobs that can help them support their families better than they could at home while being a vital resource to this country’s food production system. A very small number will become permanent residents of Canada.

But the Temporary Foreign Worker program is exposing many migrant labourers to health risks, financial exploitation and physical abuse, the Investigative Journalism Bureau (IJB) found. IJB reporters worked in collaboration with Simon Fraser University researchers who were to release a report on Dec. 1 on the experiences of B.C. migrant agricultural workers.

“This is the new slavery,” said a 37-year-old Jamaican father of two who came to B.C. this past summer on a Temporary Foreign Worker contract only to find what he called “deplorable” conditions, including no hot running water. “They’re all using us.”

As with many workers interviewed by reporters, the man’s real name has not been used for fear of repercussions from employers who control the labourers’ work permits in Canada.

 

 

Elbows up:

A new report by the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) says Prime Minister Mark Carney‘s new housing agency is on track to build 26,000 homes over the next five years.

That comes after Carney said during the federal election campaign that his government would double the pace of housing construction to 500,000 a year, but without specifying in that vow whether it would be the promised new federal agency that would do so.

The impact of Build Canada Homes, a new federal agency created in September, on easing Canada’s housing crisis will likely be “modest,” the PBO report said.

The PBO report says the agency is currently on track to increase housing supply by 2.1 per cent over the next five years.

 

That will help people who need a house in the middle of winter!

** 

Canada’s fiscal watchdog suggested to a parliamentary committee on Tuesday that Ottawa should need House of Commons approval to change or eliminate long-held fiscal targets, as the Carney government did just weeks ago.

Jason Jacques, the interim Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO), told the Senate finance committee that Ottawa had used its debt-to-gross domestic product (GDP) ratio as one of its key “fiscal anchors” for the last three decades and that this government had described it as a key gauge for fiscal sustainability as recently as this fall.

** 

One of the most contentious tools available to Mr Carney is the national treasure of Canadian finance: the country’s vast “Maple Eight”pension funds.

Melanie Joly, his industry minister, has told fund providers to invest more of their C$3tn (£1.6tn) of assets at home to help the turn to economic nationalism.

But now, this wave of “pension nationalism” risks spiralling out of control. Cash-strapped Canadian provinces – tempted by the prospect of a new source of much-needed capital – have rushed to copy the approach and invest pensions in local projects, pouring people’s savings into potentially unprofitable ventures.

The embrace of pension nationalism risks getting “very messy” for millions of Canadians’ savings, senators and former Bank of Canada officials told The Telegraph.

 

 


We don't have to trade with China:

Even before the dam collapsed, Lamec did not feel safe working at the copper mine.

"If our work protective gear gets damaged, it is not always replaced," he tells us. "We have to take a risk and use it again."

He is talking to the BBC in a car on a quiet backroad near a village in northern Zambia, too nervous to speak to us in public or to use his real name, for fear that speaking to the press might cost him his livelihood.

When he turned up for his shift one day in February, he tells us, he found that one of the dams at the Chinese-owned mine had been closed.

The tailings dam - used to store toxic by-products from the copper mining process, including heavy metals like arsenic, mercury and lead - had collapsed into a tributary connected to the Kafue, Zambia's longest river and a major drinking water source.

At least 50,000 tonnes of acidic debris spilled out into the surrounding waterways and farmland, according to the government. Some environmentalists, however, claim as much as 1.5 million tonnes was spilled, with one expert saying a full clean-up could take longer than a decade.

The spill has killed the fish around the towns of Chambishi and Kitwe, made the water undrinkable and destroyed crops, farmers have told the BBC.

There are fears that, now the rainy season has started, heavy metals still sitting in the mud will further infiltrate the land and waterways, causing a second wave of pollution. Toxic metals that can cause kidney damage and cancers, as well as gastric and intestinal issues, could be carried downstream to the capital, Lusaka, says Dr Mweene Himwiinga, a senior lecturer at Zambia's Copperbelt University.

The Chinese embassy in Lusaka disputes the scale of the damage and told the BBC it welcomed the establishment of an independent investigation into the incident. The Zambian government, it said, had reported that the pollution was contained to a confined area, water acidity levels had returned to normal limits and that ongoing checks showed no lasting public-health risks.

** 

A Conservative candidate for Parliament yesterday told the House affairs committee Chinese Communist Party agents stalked his campaign. Threats against activist Joe Tay prompted the abrupt resignation of a Liberal MP and a security warning from the RCMP: “Volunteers and I were followed, photographed and had our homes monitored.”

** 

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police is limiting the use of its 973 Chinese-made drones to non-sensitive operations, stating the devices present "high security risks, primarily due to their country of origin."

Chinese drones make up about 80 per cent of the federal police force's fleet of 1,230 remotely piloted aircraft systems (RPAS), which are used to monitor the Canada-U.S. border and in various police operations.

In a written response to the national security committee of the Senate, the RCMP said replacing the drones would cost over $30 million, approximately $35,000 per device. The high cost is related to the fact that non-Chinese drones are nearly twice as expensive, the RCMP said.

The RCMP’s concerns flow from potential risks related to the drone’s communication and data-transmission systems, experts said.

"Any connected device raises questions about security vulnerabilities," said Ygal Bendavid, a professor specialized in operations management at the Université du Québec à Montréal.

** 

Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi’s recent remarks hinting that a naval blockade in the vicinity of Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” — potentially triggering the mobilization of the Self-Defense Forces (SDF) — have caused a diplomatic spat, sending relations with China to new lows.

China considers Taiwan a core issue of national interest, and comments by foreign leaders that involve the democratic island are often regarded as interference in domestic affairs.

Japan, meanwhile, is grappling with changing international circumstances that have prompted a fundamental reassessment of the country’s military posture, and the ambiguity embedded in the country’s recent security legislation continues to fuel misconceptions.

Still, neither Takaichi nor the lawmaker whose questions prompted her response in parliament — the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan’s Katsuya Okada — likely expected their exchange would have such far-reaching repercussions.