Wednesday, October 15, 2025

Mid-Week Post

Your post-prandial post ...

 

Oh, my:

The PCs captured 21 of the legislature’s 40 seats in the Oct. 14 election. The Liberals finished with 15 seats, the NDP with two, and independents took the remaining two.

In the previous vote in 2021, the Liberals secured 22 seats, the PCs 13, the NDP two, and independents three. 

 

Say it isn't so, Newfoundland! 

 

 

The price of not holding our public officials to account:

Forty-three investigations of misconduct from bullying to forgery are confirmed by the Privy Council, Treasury Board and Department of Finance. “We need to hold ourselves to the highest standard,” said Privy Council Clerk Michael Sabia.

 

 

The thing about NOT teaching Canadian history is that one does not need to concern one's self with the amount of white-washing:

These myths cast Ottawa-centric governance as uniquely noble, ignoring the fact that the Prairies were settled not by Laurentian salons but by waves of immigrants—especially Eastern Europeans and Scandinavians—hacking farms out of unforgiving soil. Consensus was not gifted from Ottawa; it was hammered out in prairie municipalities, co-operatives, and churches, far from the capital’s reach. ...

Canada survives not because of a single consensus, but because of successive patchworks—provisional fixes layered on top of one another. It is duct-tape politics: unglamorous, temporary, and never quite satisfying—but it has kept the lights on.  This may not sound heroic. But perhaps that is the point. To insist on myths of noble consensus is to invite disillusion, because the Canada of today bears little resemblance to those fictions. To admit instead that our strength has always been pragmatic patchworks—not sexy, but they work for now—is to tell a story that ordinary Canadians can recognize.

Humility, not hubris, should be our creed. The horse-trading, the duct tape, the messy patchworks: that is the Canada that has endured. And it may be the only Canada that can endure still.

 

 

Whaaaat?:

The Canadian Muslim Lawyers Association is protesting federal restrictions on protests outside synagogues, religious schools and community halls. The measure could lead “to politicized arrests,” counsel wrote the Commons justice committee: “We have serious concerns.” 

 

If Bill C-9 passes, how will Canadian Jews be terrorised? 

 

 

Check the silverware drawer:

The Canada Council for the Arts usually rents artwork to government offices and private businesses at a cost — with rates varying from $60 to $3,600 per year.

However, the Council said it is “unable” to speak on behalf of government departments or disclose contractual details on their behalf and said to contact them directly.

National Gallery of Canada spokeswoman Josée-Britanie Mallet said the Government of Canada first approached the National Gallery in May 2025 and explained “the Gallery offered several pieces to choose from to be showcased in public and official spaces.”

“The National Gallery of Canada offered the artwork on loan to the Prime Minister, who accepted,” specified Pierre Cuguen, spokesman for PCO. “The practice of loaning artworks to Prime Ministers has been a longstanding tradition.”

Carney is, however, known to be an art enthusiast in Ottawa circles and has a collection of modern art at home. His purchase of an oil canvas by Canadian artist Kim Dorland, more than a decade ago, notably led to the firing of former CBC host Evan Solomon.

Solomon is now in Carney’s cabinet as Minister of Artificial Intelligence and Digital Innovation.

 

(Sidebar: Milei would have canned that fake department ages ago.) 

 

 

We don't have to trade with China:

China’s officials are sweet-talking Canadians. Its Ambassador, Wang Di, has given smiling interviews calling for the two countries to “have a correct perception of each other.” His other catchphrases include “mutual respect,” “win-win cooperation,” and “positive energy.” Appearing recently on CTV’s Question Period, he assured that current trade disputes would disappear if only Canada would drop its tariffs.

After enduring several years of China’s abusive “wolf warrior” diplomacy, Canadians — particularly Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand, who is visiting Beijing this week — may be tempted to look for comfort in this syrupy language. But they should be wary, because while the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its envoys have altered their tone, their hostile intentions and harmful policies remain unchanged. Their goals are to enhance economic ties selectively while sowing political divisions, both among Canadians and between Canada and its allies.

 When Chinese officials talk, Canadians should listen closely — and then decode the real implications of their words. Case in point: when Premier Li Qiang met Prime Minister Carney in September, he reiterated Ambassador Wang’s call for Canada to show a “correct perception of China” to “cement the political foundation for bilateral ties.”

The key phrase “correct perception” encompasses political demands rooted in decades of Communist Party discourse: never question the legitimacy of its authoritarian rule; respect “core interests” like the CCP’s entitlement to rule Hong Kong, Tibet, Xinjiang, and Taiwan; stop supporting American measures to constrain Beijing’s drive to dominate East Asia and reshape the international order; abandon the Indo-Pacific Strategy’s core premise that China is a “disruptive power” ; and stop framing the Party-state as a national security threat, systemic rival and violator of international treaties.

This is the language of diplomatic gatekeeping, not reconciliation. You want a meeting with General Secretary Xi Jinping? There’s a price. You know what you need to do.

 When Ambassador Wang complains , as he did in March, of “smearing and attacking on China” about its treatment of Xinjiang, Tibet and Taiwan, and “attacking and hyping up” of its political interference, espionage, and transnational repression directed at Canadians, and goes on to protest that this harms the foundations of friendship, and indeed “hurts the feelings of the Chinese people” — he’s gaslighting Canadians for objecting to injustice, bullying and massive abuses of human rights.

This is rhetorical entrapment, not friendship based on mutual understanding. It’s an attempt to redefine the baseline of the relationship so that criticism is betrayal and the price of cooperation is silence and acquiescence.

 

I'm sure that the Liberals are aware of this double-talk, being so close to the Chinese Communist Party, but why do Canadians insist on trading with such a country? 

 

Speaking of other people who had to wait for Americans to save them

There are moments in history when a government’s actions, or inactions, reveal the truth about its values. For me, as the daughter of the only Canadian citizen taken hostage, who was murdered and whose body was held in Gaza as human currency for nearly two years, that moment came when the Canadian government chose to recognize a Palestinian state in the aftermath of Hamas’s October 7 massacre.

On that day, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and unleashed unimaginable brutality. Over 1,200 people were slaughtered, and more than 250 innocent civilians were taken hostage. The attacks were not just an act of war; they were an act of cruelty carefully designed to break the human spirit. This was not resistance; it was barbarism. Among the victims were eight Canadians, including my mother, Judih Weinstein Haggai, 70. My father, Gadi Haggai, 72, was also murdered alongside her while taking their peaceful early morning walk.

For nearly two years, their bodies were held in Gaza as hostages of terror until June of this year, when the IDF, the FBI and special forces rescued their bodies and returned them for burial.

 

This Hamas:


This America:

Addressing Israeli lawmakers at the Knesset on Oct. 13, Trump said the Israel–Hamas cease-fire was a key development in a burgeoning moment for peace throughout the Middle East.

“Israel, with our help, has won all that they can by force of arms,“ Trump said. ”You’ve won. I mean, you’ve won. Now it’s time to translate these victories against terrorists on the battlefield into the ultimate prize of peace and prosperity for the entire Middle East.”

 

I wouldn't be so bold yet.

We are dealing with Hamas, after all

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said the bodies were those of Uriel Baruch, Staff Sergeant Tamir Nimrodi, and Eitan Levy.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said that Nimrodi was kidnapped alive and killed while in captivity at the age of 18. Baruch and Levy were killed during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, and their bodies were taken to Gaza.

“Following the completion of examinations at the National Institute of Forensic Medicine, the fourth body handed over to Israel by Hamas does not match any of the hostages,” the IDF statement said. “Hamas is required to make all necessary efforts to return the deceased hostages.”

 


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