An Exercise in Futility

That is what tariffs are when the offending party has a population of 328,012,549 and is experiencing an $18 billion trade deficit with you, when you have more Chinese goods in your own market than you do Canadian or American-produced ones and when you've buggered up so badly that a former prime minister has to step in and clean up your mess.


To wit:

Canada struck back at the Trump administration over U.S. steel and aluminum tariffs on Friday, vowing to impose punitive measures on C$16.6 billion ($12.63 billion) worth of American goods until Washington relents.

The announcement by Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland marks a new low in ties between the neighbors and trading partners which have become increasingly strained since U.S. President Donald Trump took power in January 2017.

The Canadian tariffs will come into effect on July 1 and largely target U.S. steel and aluminum products, but also foodstuffs such as coffee, ketchup and whiskies, according to a list by the Department of Finance.

"We will not escalate and we will not back down," Freeland told reporters at a Stelco Holdings Inc plant in the Ontario steel city of Hamilton.

Talk is cheap, Little Miss Cries- A-lot. 

Consider that, due to NAFTA, both Canada and Mexico rely on Chinese-produced goods which are then transported to the US. The US does not need to do this and they certainly have the numbers that Canada and Mexico combined do not have.

No amount of taxed ketchup will change that.

This might have been avoided if Justin hadn't been a douche to Trump and - instead of "growing the economy from the heart outwards" (I swear to God he said that) - tried to build Canada up and make it a co-operative entity with the US and not give it away piecemeal with trade deals he wasn't smart enough to make.

Also:

That has been made extremely clear after a new Ottawa Citizen report which notes that Canada’s new navy supply ships are being built with American steel, not Canadian Steel.

As noted in the report, “The supply ships are being built at the Vancouver shipyards of Seaspan, which is owned by a U.S. company. The Department of National Defence confirmed the steel is being purchased from a mill in Alabama, a solidly Republican state that voted 62 per cent for Trump.”

(Sidebar: why not wave the flag a little bit, Justin?)

**

After Trump signed massive tax cuts into law, Canada lost our business tax advantage over the US. Trump has also removed tons of job-killing regulations, further improving the climate for businesses in his country.

What has Trudeau done in that time?

He’s forced through an unpopular carbon tax that hurts consumers and makes doing business far more expensive. He’s imposed excessive regulations that stifle investment. And he’s hit Canadian family businesses with new taxes, putting a leash on the small business sector.

If I didn't know better, I might think that Justin wants Canada to fail.

(Merci)

It's Official

Wynne is gone.


Doug is in:

Newly-sworn in Premier Doug Ford will bring the Ontario Legislature back on July 9 to begin implementing a plan he promises will make life more affordable for folks.

(Sidebar: one of the promises he should deliver is the cessation of tax dollars to other parties.)

Ford filled his first cabinet with experienced party veterans to deliver on election promises like cheaper gas and hydro.

Ford took on the cabinet portfolio of Intergovernmental Affairs after stating he would be fighting with the federal government to protect Canadian interests in the NAFTA trade war.

(Sidebar: no, private citizen and former prime minister Stephen Harper is going to defend Canadian interests and Justin is not at all happy about it. How embarrassing it must be to have one's rival fix one's mistakes.)

“To the people of Ontario I say this – our government, our team… we will never forget the trust you have put in us,” Ford said in a speech to about a thousand invited guests and members of the public who gathered to watch him publicly reaffirm his oath of office on the front lawn of Queen’s Park Friday. “We will never forget who put us here and who we are accountable to.”

Canadians do not hold their leaders accountable. The consecutive terms of Dalton McGuinty and Kathleen Wynne and the waste and corruption left in their wake are evidence of that (does one need to be reminded of Justin Grabby-Hands?). One would be stunned to see vigilance this time around.

Mid-Week Post

Your middle-of-the-week snack break ...



This case and the case of an acquitted farmer in Alberta may be pointing to the legal system's growing reluctance or inability to try and punish people who use force to protect themselves and their property:

To tears of relief from one side of a small courtroom and muttered profanities from the other, a jury has acquitted Peter Khill in the shotgun-shooting death of Jon Styres.

(Sidebar: this Jon Styres.)

The verdict came early Wednesday here after about eight hours of deliberation.

Khill had been charged with second-degree murder in the Feb. 4, 2016 shooting, but jurors also could have convicted him of the lesser offence of manslaughter if they found he lacked the requisite intent for murder.

Instead, by their verdict, the jury accepted Khill’s explanation that he had shot Styres, an Indigenous man from the nearby Six Nations reserve, in self-defence.

If Khill had fired at a paler-skinned man, would that have been acceptable?




The idiots in charge do not care for parody or satire:

For about the duration of two seconds, I’d thought it was the real deal, until I took a closer look. No harm done. This is of note because it’s pretty much the same experience I had when I first noticed a Twitter account online purporting to be that of Environment & Climate Change Minister Catherine McKenna.

It looked like she was going on about some environmental issue in her now typical over-the-top way and others were calling her out for it. Then, also two seconds later, I realized that despite looking very similar to the honourable minister’s actual account, this one was a parody. How did I know that? There were a number of finer points that clued me in, but the dead giveaway was it had the phrase “Parody Account” on it.

Now, some people did not cotton on to the fact this was bogus and weighed in on the account’s musings thinking they were indeed coming from the minister. That’s unfortunate… for them. They’d be well-advised to take a second look at posts before hastily responding to them. But this is about one person not embarrassing themselves by mistaking a parody account for the real deal, right?

Not so, according to the Prime Minister’s Office. Gerald Butts, Trudeau’s right-hand man, was clearly upset by the account and when he saw celebrity businessman W. Brett Wilson engaging with it thinking it was real, he waded in. “This just goes to show that even the most discerning Twitter users can fall prey to fake accounts,” Butts posted. “Jack you may want to look into this,” he added — tagging controversial Twitter boss Jack Dorsey.

And it looks like Jack did just that. Or someone at Twitter did. Either that or it was pure coincidence that the account was shut down later that day. An account that was, contrary to Butts’ statement, a clearly defined “parody” account. Not a “fake” account.

Looks like the PMO is sticking to its version of the facts, though. “Crocodile tears flowing hard tonight,” Dave Sommer, who is the deputy director of digital operations for the PMO and a former Sun News Network producer, chimed in on social media. “That was in no way, shape or form a ‘parody account’ – it was designed to impersonate & trick. Twitter takes down impersonation accounts of public figures from any party,” Sommer argued.

Perhaps because it is too difficult to understand.




Oh, that must burn:

Conservatives on the Supreme Court said Wednesday it was unconstitutional to allow public employee unions to require collective bargaining fees from workers who choose not to join the union, a major blow for the U.S. labour movement.

The court in a 5-to-4 decision overturned a 40-year-old precedent and said compelling such fees was a violation of workers’ free speech rights. The rule could force the workers to give financial support to public policy positions they oppose, the court said.

Poland has to backtrack a controversial law in which it was illegal to tie the country to the Holocaust:

When the Polish government pushed ahead with a controversial Holocaust speech law at the beginning of the year, the outcry was so swift and intense that even Polish lawmakers themselves appeared surprised. Besides Israel’s strong rejection of the Polish legislation, U.S. condemnations hit Warsaw policymakers especially hard.
 
And yet, for months, there were few signs of backtracking, even as the issue emerged as a key obstacle to Poland’s desire to bolster its security ties to the United States. But after an unexpected intervention by Poland’s prime minister on Wednesday, the law that was never enforced is now being largely walked back.

A North Korean defector relates how she was returned from China:

For many years, Heo and her husband, Choi Seong-ga, and their son, Choi Gyeong-hak, lived in relative comfort in Hyesan, near the Chinese border. Heo, a talented singer, was a professor at the city’s University of Arts. Her husband played trombone in the Ryanggang musical performance group, which appeared at regional festivals. He playfully called Heo “older sister” because she was two years his senior. She once performed in front of the North’s first leader, Kim Il Sung, who would summer in mountains near Hyesan.

During the famine of the 1990s, the family took some solace in thinking that everyone in the country was suffering. To gain a little extra money, Heo began to make home-brew alcohol from rotting corn. The profits would buy rice.

About this time, Heo’s husband stumbled across sheet music for “Danny Boy.” It became their private tune since the song was virtually unknown in the North.

“To others it probably seemed like I was living a comfortable life while there were people starving around me,” she said. “I lived alongside those dying of starvation. So I began to think, ‘How should I be living my life in this type of world?’ ”

It took a sharp turn five years ago. The Ministry of State Security asked her to monitor one of her students, a young woman who came under suspicion because of a sister in China. Heo balked.
“They tried to scare me,” Heo said. “They said, ‘Is your son more important than a student?’ ”

Heo was shaken. She pulled the student aside and suggested she try to flee North Korea. It was only a matter of time before authorities arrested you, Heo confided.

Read the whole thing.




Perhaps they remember  Kim Sun-Il:

With some 500 Yemeni nationals seeking asylum on Jeju Island, many in South Korea say the country is facing its first “refugee crisis.”

Indeed, the influx of the refugees from Yemen has triggered a fierce backlash among Koreans against immigration rules of Jeju Island, where, unlike the rest of South Korea, most foreign passport-holders can stay for a month without a visa.

Many of those who oppose the visa-waiver program say Yemenis will only “create problems” in Korea, especially against local women because “they are Muslims.”

From the Most "Transparent" Government in Canadian History

It's just a loan:

The Liberal government appears to have written off a taxpayer loan to the auto industry in March, but is refusing to say how much the loan was for or to provide any other details.

Ottawa has been carrying large, stagnant loans to the auto sector on its books, and repayments have been past due since at least 2010. That was the year that followed a federal bailout of GM and Chrysler that was made in co-ordination with a much larger cash injection by Washington.

The most-recent public valuation of commercial loans that remain in arrears shows a total of $1.15 billion still owed to the federal government as of March 2017.

It's just foreign investment:

It's just a supply management board that actually inflates the price of dairy products:

A top U.S. trade official says Canada is the stumbling block to a speedy NAFTA agreement, accusing this country of being “dug in” over protections for the dairy industry even as a deal with Mexico appears close.

Canadians should not blame President Donald Trump for their trade woes but allow more open competition with the U.S. in the milk-products market, said Ted McKinney, the undersecretary of agriculture for trade.

”I tell our Canadian friends, ‘Do not lay frustrations with NAFTA at the feet of our president,’” McKinney said at a farm conference in Michigan this week.

“You … decided to dump dried milk powder on the world market at half to two-thirds of world price … Not fair. Not fair,” he said. “It is actually surprising that our friends in Canada are exhibiting this behaviour.”

It's just a pipeline that will never get built:

Texas-based Kinder Morgan made a seven-fold return on the sale of its Trans Mountain pipeline system to Canada's federal government, according to a new report that also warns the federal budget deficit could jump by 36 per cent because of the purchase.

And we get the deficit.




It's just a carbon tax:

Using energy-consumption data from Statistics Canada, and imputing prices from average household expenditure on transportation fuels and provincial gasoline prices, Winter calculated the impact of the carbon tax on a typical Canadian household across different provinces. Far from being painless as advertised, the costs to households will be significant.

Three provinces — Alberta, Saskatchewan and Nova Scotia — will be hit with more than $1,000 of carbon tax per year to comply with the $50-per-tonne carbon tax Ottawa has mandated for 2022. 

Nova Scotia ($1,120) and Alberta ($1,111) will have the highest bills, followed by Saskatchewan ($1,032), New Brunswick ($963), Newfoundland ($859) and Prince Edward Island ($788). The average household in Ontario will pay $707 a year to comply with the carbon tax once its fully implemented.

Who gets the lowest bill? British Columbia ($603 per year), Quebec ($662) and Manitoba ($683). Simply put, households in provinces with the lowest bills will pay just a bit more than half compared to households in the hardest-hit provinces.

But it gets worse, since most experts say carbon prices must continue to increase sharply to effectively lower emissions. At $100 a tonne, for example, households in Alberta will pony up $2,223, in Saskatchewan they’ll pay $2,065 and in Nova Scotia, $2,240. In fact, at $100 a tonne, the average price for households in all provinces is well north of $1,000 per year.

They are just payments from provinces to prop up less successful provinces who won't use their resources:

New Brunswick Premier Brian Gallant is pushing back against calls from Alberta and Saskatchewan to reform Canada’s equalization program, saying changes to the formula would be “disastrous” for his province and others.

“Every province has benefited at one point from equalization… which means that it is a program that has helped all provinces and all Canadians at one point or another,” Gallant said in an interview Wednesday. “It really is built with the idea that we are going to be able to provide all Canadians a better quality of life when we have the safeguards and support of having our federation linked together.”

Perhaps Miss Joly can explain what art is.

I doubt that zero-wit would, however.

Aside from its less-than-practical value (ie - one cannot eat a portrait), who is to say that pop art is better than Post-Impressionist art? These are subjective judgments on things that will now receive official sanction and money.

Besides, aren't there veterans to look after?:

Ottawa is getting ready to invest $125 million over five years for the Canadian arts by increasing existing budgets for domestic programs, expanding the eligible sectors that can receive money and by helping artists export their work internationally, Heritage Minister Melanie Joly said Tuesday.

Calling it a "strategy with teeth and money," Joly told reporters the federal government decided to expand the sectors eligible for arts funding to include industries such as video gaming, design, virtual reality and fashion.

"For the first time in our history, all these disciplines will be supported (financially)," Joly said at the announcement in Montreal.

"Ethics" are for proles, not for Pierre and Maggie's "boy":

It’s taken three weeks, three full weeks, but media outlets are finally starting to address the Trudeau groping allegation.

Funny how long it has taken and how each of the three new takes is very gentle when approaching the topic of the Justin Trudeau allegedly groping a woman 18 years ago. National Post did a long and wandering piece last week, the Hamilton Spectator published a column last night and this morning CBC has a column up.

Canadians don't do any critical thinking or investigate matters on their own otherwise Justin would be on the supply list again.

Surely, they would find Justin's gross behaviour as appalling as Trump's salty language, would they not?

Different standards, one supposes.

As with all leftist "men", the talking points - themselves empty platitudes -  do not correspond to the behaviour they expect from others. Justin has always been a sheltered, pampered brat and behaves as he does because no one has disabused him of the notion that being an @$$hole is frowned upon in most societies.

This is what the country is left with.



(Merci beaucoup)

To Remind One

Prior to his election in 2015, Justin Trudeau offered parkas rather than military or medical aid to children fleeing from ISIS rape gangs and characterised the Tories' prioritisation of the Yazidis and Iraqi Christians as refugees as "disgusting".


After an embarrassing vote that forced his hand, Justin allowed a sliver of a percentage into Canada as refugees.

He did not show up for a photo opportunity.


Over a week ago, a Yazidi refugee recognised her ISIS rapist on a bus in Ontario.


These Yazidis:

Speaking with Gatestone about the situation of Yazidis, Saad Babir, Yazda's media director, said that there are two types of aid urgently needed by Yazidis at Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in northern Iraq: psychological support for the victims of genocide, and basic services such as healthcare, food, water, electricity, heat, new tents -- and even firetrucks and ambulances. Babir explained that many Yazidis have died in IDP camps due to a lack of the latter two. On May 25, for example, a 17-year-old Yazidi girl burned to death, while three of her siblings were severely injured, when the family's tent caught fire in one of the camps.

Dawood Saleh, a Yazidi author and activist who fled, was in Sinjar when ISIS launched the genocide there in 2014. "Yazidis have lived in the camps in Iraq for four years now," he told Gatestone. "Most of the tents they live in are temporary and could not last for more than one or two seasons. These tents could be fully burned in 30 seconds," he said. ...

Both Babir and Saleh emphasized that Yazidi camps are not getting sufficient support. "To the best of our knowledge," said Babir, "although the UN Refugee Agency and some other international NGOs are providing some funding, the camps are not receiving any financial support from the Iraqi or Kurdistan regional governments, except in rare cases." ...

Pari Ibrahim, founder and executive director of the Free Yezidi Foundation, also noted that not enough Yazidis have been recommended by the UN for resettlement in Western countries.

Babir suggested that the US help Yazidi victims through resettlement programs similar to those undertaken by Canada, Australia and Germany. He also stressed the service Yazidis have loyally provided for the American military:

"The US government should help Yazidis because many Yazidis have been kidnapped and murdered by ISIS because of their work for the US army as interpreters. We think that it is time for the US to help us now, when we need it the most."

"They are all in need of urgent psychological treatment," Saleh added. "The US should help Yazidi families to get out of Iraq. For them to have to live in Iraq is like suicide."
As one Yazidi displaced person from Iraq said in an interview with the Ezidi Press in 2015: "No matter what we do, this country is our grave."

Countries like Canada and most in the EU are quite quick to take in and then not vet migrants with questionable identification and then fund their lives at the expense of native taxpayers. Indeed, Canada has only detained 643 illegal migrants out of the nearly 10,000 who entered Canada as of March 2018. Canada and the EU are not as eager when the migrants are Yazidi or Middle Eastern Christian, indigenous peoples who have valid and identifiable fears for their safety.

How can this be construed as anything other than deliberate? Any country that singles out a group with a legitimate fear for its safety while casually allowing in others is guilty of moral and political antipathy.



Also:

An independent review of the Immigration and Refugee Board says there are persistent and systemic problems with the organization that handles asylum claims and appeals, problems it says can’t be fixed without a major shift at the top.

The review released Tuesday is the result of a year-long analysis of the arms-length agency, which manages asylum claims and appeals. It was conducted by Neil Yeates, a former deputy minister of the Immigration Department.

It found a long history of problems in managing spikes in asylum claims and backlogs — and the current influx of irregular migrants is no exception.

Yeates recommended fundamental changes to the way the board operates, including a new management structure that would bring it under the authority of the minister of Immigration, managed by either a new refugee protection agency or an asylum system management board.

“A key observation arising out of consultations … is that the efficiency of the asylum system in Canada has suffered as a result of the lack of active, coherent and accountable management across the entire continuum of its activities,” the report said.

(Sidebar: feature, not a bug.)




(Paws up)

And the Rest of It

News that fits like print ... or something ...


 
Suckers!:

There’s a breaking point coming in Toronto and no one seems to have any idea what will happen when it does.

The city’s shelter system, overwhelmed by a two-year migrant surge, has gone past full and blown through bulging. It exists now somewhere east of burst beyond repair.

The city simply cannot take any more, Mayor John Tory said Tuesday, without significant help from the province and the federal government.

“We have exhausted our available sites, our resources and our personnel,” Tory said. “We need the other levels of government to step up and assist Toronto.”

All of that makes sense. More than 3,300 asylum seekers were spread across the Toronto shelter system as of June 24, according to city staff. The city’s existing shelter infrastructure, threadbare to begin with, was overwhelmed months ago. Today, asylum seekers are sleeping in press-ganged hotels and college dorms. And the latter is where the coming crisis lies.

Centennial and Humber colleges need their dorms back by Aug. 9. By then, the city expects 800 asylum seekers, including 200 children, will be living in those rooms. When that happens, Tory said, those 800 people will have nowhere to go.

“Relocating just this population of 800 would require the emergency closures of multiple community centres across the city and the cancellation of public programming in those centres,” he said. “And this is a step the city is not prepared to take.”

So what’s going to happen? Well, Tory wants Ottawa to step up with more cash and co-operation. He wants the federal government to identify and run its own shelter sites, and to spread asylum seekers out to other Ontario cities.

But the federal government doesn’t seem to share the city’s urgency. And if the city has a contingency plan in case the feds don’t come through, city staff aren’t letting anyone — in the public, or the agencies that deliver services — know about it.

 
John Tory can own this, just as Torontonians will.


 
Churches and other groups should stop wasting time mounting legal challenges they won't win. Instead, they should start raising money to fund their individual needs. Nothing could be clearer to the fascists in Ottawa than people who don't want or need them:

A batch of new and anticipated court challenges against the government’s Canada Summer Jobs abortion clause shows the legal fight over the controversial program is widening, and will likely last years.

The new challenges move beyond the right to advocate against abortion, and more squarely into arguments about religious freedom and compelled speech.

An evangelical Christian organization recently filed a case in Federal Court that marks the first time a religious group has entered the fray. On Tuesday, an Ontario concrete company filed a challenge that argues the attestation illegally forces businesses to take a stand on divisive moral and social issues.

Multiple sources, meanwhile, have told the National Post that more faith-based challenges are coming and the fight is expected to spread over the coming months to provincial courtrooms and human rights tribunals.

The attestation was added this year and required all Canada Summer Jobs applicants to declare that both the job and the organization’s “core mandate” respect reproductive rights (defined as access to abortion), as well as other rights and values underlying the Charter.

Following widespread outcry, the government issued a clarification that “core mandate” refers only to activities, not beliefs — but many organizations still refused to sign the attestation or wrote in their own interpretation. Government figures show 1,559 applications were eventually rejected over incomplete or modified attestations, though hundreds of religious groups were also approved for grants.

 
Why is this woman the science minister?:

(Sidebar: do we need a ministry of science?)

The theory is complicated, the equipment is expensive, the location is offshore and the payoff – if there is one – could be a decade away. But as federal Science Minister Kirsty Duncan prepared to announce $10-million in funding to help retool the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva, Switzerland, she was happy to justify the commitment.

“It’s going to allow our researchers, our best and brightest, to work with their counterparts around the world,” Ms. Duncan told The Globe and Mail in an interview before Monday’s announcement. “This is asking the big questions about the universe.”

More technically, the funding will enable Canada to build and contribute new superconducting cryogenic units to the giant collider, where particles are smashed together at higher energies than anywhere on Earth. When the Canadian hardware is installed, it will help researchers manipulate the collider’s particle beams in new ways that will increase the number of collisions and therefore increase the flow of data from the international physics facility.

 
(Sidebar: this Kristy Duncan.)

That's nice, Kristy, but as neither you nor your bosses are scientifically-minded, this sounds like a puff piece that will end up nowhere, just like a feminism ambassador.


 
The Mali mission is a dangerous waste of time, money and will:

The German helicopter crews being relieved by Canada's peacekeeping mission in Mali say they have struggled with delays in getting approval for life-saving medical evacuations as pennywise UN officials wrangle over cost.

Some of those delays have lasted hours, they say — time that could mean the difference between life and death for injured peacekeepers in Mali's harsh environment and barren landscape.

**

As Canadian General Jonathan Vance said in a recent report, “This is a mission sponsored by the UN, and so think of it as a UN mission, not necessarily a peacekeeping mission.”

The report says,“But the reality has shifted. It is, as he puts it, “far messier.”‘

Even the CBC had to admit that it’s not a peacekeeping mission, though they just ‘had’ to throw in a climate change reference:

“The mission in Mali will not be about two once-warring states asking for UN help to maintain fragile peace. This is about a teetering country besieged in parts by extremists who are not loosening their grip and battling everything from climate change to poverty.”

Clearly, it’s not a peacekeeping mission.

  
Twenty-three years after the UN let his fellow Rwandans be murdered, a Rwandan man meets the Canadian soldier who saved his life:

Sammy Sampson, a former Canadian soldier who served in Rwanda, and Sammy Tuyishime, a 28-year-old genocide survivor, met yesterday for the first time in 23 years.

Sampson was deployed in Rwanda in 1994 when he met Tuyishime, then only four years old, and helped get him into an orphanage.

The two quickly formed a bond, and the boy — whose name at the time was unknown— was renamed "Sammy" after the soldier he so admired.

But when Canada's mission in Rwanda ended in 1995, Sampson was forced to leave him behind.

For more than two decades, Sampson feared the worst. Violence had flared up again after their departure, and he didn't know what had happened to the orphanage or its inhabitants.

Then, early this year, the two finally reconnected over social media, and made plans to meet in person.

Tie that kangaroo down, sport!:

A women’s soccer match in Canberra, Australia, had a surprise visitor on Sunday afternoon — and that visitor didn’t have any intention of leaving the field.

An eastern gray kangaroo found its way into a soccer stadium around halftime of the Canberra Football Club’s match against Belconnen United in the nation’s capital, and was hanging out between the stands and the field.

Then, the marsupial decided it wanted to be part of the action and bounded his way onto the field, delaying the match for more than a half hour.

On the Korean Peninsula

 

You can run to Singapore but you can't run away from the truth:

The North Korean regime continues its campaign to present leader Kim Jong-un as an approachable modern statesman, with an attractive wife on his arm and other photogenic trappings.  ...

  

The TV announcer also reported Kim's praise of his host, Chinese President Xi Jinping, as an "excellent leader," contrary to past practice of making it seem that there could be only one excellent leader in the world. 

Footage also showed Kim casually smoking a cigarette as he chatted with diplomats at the North Korean Embassy in Beijing.

This propaganda makes one forget that he had his family members killed.




But ... but ... I thought that everyone wanted peace:

A North Korean mouthpiece has come out with a worrying outburst against demands for denuclearization as the afterglow of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un's summit with U.S. President Donald Trump fades. 

The propaganda website Sogwang called supporters of complete, verifiable and irreversible denuclearization "traitors of the nation."

"The flunkeys and quislings who are barking out a 'CVID' of North Korea are traitors of our nation," it thundered.

The article is a copy of a story on the summit carried by the Jaju Sibo, a pro-North Korean online newspaper in South Korea. "How many efforts has [North] Korea, or our nation, made to build such a nuclear force?" it adds. "Think about whether the U.S., an arrogant, mean and vicious country, could have shaken hands with [North] Korea if it had not had any nuclear force." 

A former Unification Ministry official said, "The North Korean regime sometimes reveals its motives in a roundabout way by using pro-North Korean people in South Korea and overseas."

 
South Korea and the US will have only minimal military drills:

South Korea and the U.S. on Monday agreed to prevent annual joint military exercises from being scrapped altogether and continue vital bare-bones exercises. 

The agreement came in talks between Defense Minister Song Young-moo and Adm. Philip Davidson, the commander of the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, in Seoul.

It was Davidson's first visit to South Korea since he took the job last month. He also met with Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha. 

A government source said Song and Davidson "agreed to continue small-scale search and rescue training exercises."

 

South Korea, you already have refugees. They're called North Koreans:

The number of refugees who have fled to Korea for sanctuary now exceeds 35,000 including those whose applications are still pending. 

Korea only accepted its first refugee in 1994. Altogether 40,470 have applied for refugee status, and 35,030 are here now, the Justice Ministry said Friday. That means refugees outnumber the 31,500 North Korean defectors living here, who automatically get South Korean citizenship.

Family reunions will take place in August:

The two Koreas have agreed to resume reunions of families separated by the Korean War on Aug. 20-26.

The two sides agreed in inter-Korean Red Cross talks at Mt. Kumgang in North Korea last Friday that the reunions will take place at a dedicated facility there. They will be the first reunions in two years and 10 months.

One hundred participants from each side will be reunited with family members from the other side. Those with limited mobility can bring a relative to help them.

The two sides also agreed that families torn apart by the 1950-1953 war can send letters enquiring whether their family members are still alive and well by July 3. Confirmation letters are to be sent by July 25, and the final lists of participants will be drawn up on Aug. 4.

South Korea will send an advance team to Mt. Kumgang five days before the reunions to make preparations. Another team will visit on Wednesday to see if any repairs to the venue are needed.

But the two sides failed to agree on making the reunions a regular fixture. South Korea proposed letting all separated families exchange letters and visit each other's hometowns, but the North refused.

Secure in that nothing else will be done to either of them, China and North Korea resume being complete SOBs:

Chinese companies are rushing to North Korea to explore opportunities for economic cooperation and investment amid growing signs of China loosening sanctions on the North in exchange for its repeated denuclearization pledges, sources said Friday.

(Sidebar: read - slave labour.)

**

North Korea's state media on Sunday demanded the abolishment of South Korea's human rights act and a foundation dedicated to its enforcement, arguing they only hamper efforts to improve cross-border ties.

The call came weeks after Seoul closed the office for the state-run foundation due to a yearslong delay in its official launch, which was caused by political hurdles. The government, however, pledged continued efforts for the launch.

"The North Korean human rights act, which the cohorts of (former President) Park Geun-hye manipulated, must be abolished, while the North Korean human rights foundation, an institution designed to plot against our republic, ought to be buried away," said Uriminzokkiri, a North Korean propaganda website.

**

South Korean authorities, wary of upsetting a rapprochement with North Korea, are playing down the need to confront Pyongyang’s human-rights violations, worrying defectors and activists who have spoken out against the regime’s repression.

In recent weeks, President Moon Jae-in’s administration closed the physical office of a human-rights foundation that had angered Pyongyang, while a senior presidential adviser said human rights should take a back seat to other matters in discussions with the North.

In addition, while President Donald Trump has raised North Korea’s human-rights record this year, notably in his State of the Union address, a joint statement following his summit meeting with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un this month didn’t mention the topic. Instead, Mr. Trump called Mr. Kim a “terrific” man who cares deeply for his people, and gave mixed messages over how much they discussed human rights at their meeting in Singapore.

 

(Kamsahamnida)

It's Just Money

When Pierre Trudeau was prime minister, Canada had two recessions and high inflation so severe that former prime minister Brian Mulroney had to raise interest rates to pay off the debt which further exacerbated the problems left by his predecessor. His socialism damaged the Canadian political and economic landscape. Trudeau doubled the public sector and instituted an unrealistic unemployment insurance program that raised unemployment.

His son seeks to do the same damage to the country:

The current equalization system is expected to cost close to $19 billion in the fiscal year 2018–19. Federal taxpayers pay for the transfers to the so-called “have-not” provinces, chiefly Quebec, which receives $11.7 billion in equalization benefits, more than 60 per cent of the total. The “have” provinces, Alberta, B.C., Saskatchewan and Newfoundland, receive no equalization payments.

The formula is convoluted. Basically, a have-not province is eligible for equalization when its fiscal capacity, measured according to five per-capita tax bases, is less than the corresponding national average. Transfers via the federal government, raised from taxpayers, are then used to then bring a have-not province’s fiscal capacity up to the average.

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In the face of a growing number of calls for Canada to match a recent U.S. corporate tax cut, Finance Minister Bill Morneau has embarked on a "listening" tour of Canadian businesses and is mulling new measures to level the playing field — which could come as early as the fall economic statement. ...

The administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has cut the top corporate tax rate from 35 per cent to 21 per cent beginning this year.

Canada's combined corporate tax rate hovers above 25 per cent, depending on the province.

(Sidebar: by "listening tour", Morneau means a waste of time that is as opaque and inaccessible as the so-called electoral reforms were.) 

(Merci)

**

The Canadian government is preparing new measures to prevent a potential flood of steel imports from global producers seeking to avoid U.S. tariffs, according to people familiar with the plans. The Canadian dollar weakened and shares in Stelco Holdings Inc. soared.

The measures are said to be a combination of quotas and tariffs aimed at certain countries including China, said the people, asking not to be identified because the matter isn’t public. The moves follow similar “safeguard” measures being considered by the European Union aimed at warding off steel that might otherwise have been sent to the U.S. It comes alongside Canadian counter-tariffs on U.S. steel, aluminum and other products set to kick in on July 1.

(Sidebar: this is the steel dumping Justin denied was happening.)

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Canadian steel producers are pleading with Ottawa for relief from U.S. import tariffs, with some companies saying Canada’s plan to introduce its own levies next month could further diminish their already battered bottom lines.

**

Capital investment is the lifeblood of the economy, and although Canadians like to think they are important, the fact is that Canada is a small fish in a massive ocean full of competitors for that capital.

That means our government has a huge responsibility when it comes to creating an environment that is conducive to risk-taking and attractive to investment, and that our central bank must help back that up by providing an additional layer of economic stability.

Unfortunately, we think that the decisions being made in Ottawa are doing the opposite by de-incentivizing the country’s citizens and corporations from taking risk.

(Sidebar: a lot of Canadians feel that way, actually.)

**

In fact, investment outflows reached a record high in 2017, with Canada losing a record $100 billion in investment.

At the same time, 2017 saw a huge drop in investment entering Canada, falling to just $30 billion.

As noted by the Financial Post, while this isn’t all the fault of the Trudeau government (with factors such as US tax cuts and regulation cuts reducing our competitive position), they certainly bear a large portion of responsibility for it:

As the FP says, “However, much blame for this deterioration stems from recent Canadian policies.”

** 

As reported by the CP, “Until Ottawa clarifies how it plans to account for the spending, there’s a risk the purchase could add 36 per cent to the projected $18.1-billion deficit, according to the study written by Tom Sanzillo and Kathy Hipple. “The principal budgetary action here looks to me like an unplanned expenditure for 2019,” said Sanzillo, director of finance for the institute, in an interview.”

** 

In his end of session news conference last week Trudeau admitted that he had not spoken to Donald Trump since the U.S. president left the G7 in Quebec, threatening new tariffs on Canada, including on autos.

Shouldn’t that prompt a phone call?

But Trudeau said the pair had not spoken and he had no plans to speak to Trump until the NATO leaders meeting that starts on July 11th.

Considering the 160,000 jobs that could be lost if auto tariffs come in, Trudeau should be making this a priority, calling Trump, lobbying him, visiting Washington if he needs to.

Instead, he is acting as if nothing is on the line.

One would think that one Trudeau was enough to ruin Canada.


Canadians, however, are gluttons for punishment and enjoy being penniless.

For a Monday

A lot to talk about ...




If Justin were to call for an early election,  he can no longer pretend that whatever celebrity status he thinks he has will carry him forward. He may have to actually do some work:

Justin Trudeau will skip Canada Day festivities on Parliament Hill this year.

Instead, the prime minister will be on the road, celebrating Canada's 151st birthday in three cities in three different regions.

Trudeau is scheduled to visit Leamington, Ont., Regina and Dawson City, Yukon — all on July 1.

He will still put in an appearance on Parliament Hill, but it will be via video from Leamington.

Spokesman Cameron Ahmad says Trudeau wants to spend Canada day with "Canadians and their families" in parts of the country he doesn't often get a chance to visit.

(Sidebar: what a lying sack of sh--. It's not like he even likes Canada, anyway.)

But in at least two of the three cities, the tour seems designed to reflect the looming trade war between Canada and the United States.

Trudeau will meet steelworkers in Regina, who've been hard-hit by President Donald Trump's imposition of crippling tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

(Sidebar: these tariffs.)

And in Leamington, he'll be meeting workers at the factory that produces the tomato paste used in French's ketchup.

(Sidebar: this Leamington.) 

Also - you disappoint me, Andy:

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer says he’s in favour of Quebecers filing a single tax return to be overseen by the Quebec government.

And:

The Liberals — without consultation or provincial input — extended federal equalization payments to 2024 without a single change to the formula, a decision that will placate Quebec and infuriate the West.

Breadcrumbs would never have led to it because searchers looking through an eye-glazing 369-page budget PDF would have found the word “equalization” only three times and little indication the West was about to be stiffed.

Expect, therefore, that Tuesday’s meeting with federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau and his provincial counterparts will devolve into a verbal dustup, particularly since oil patch hostilities are not exactly subsiding because of the Liberals’ derailment of various pipeline projects.

Expect Alberta and Saskatchewan, both designated as “have” provinces, and again claiming their pockets are being picked by Quebec, to take issue with Morneau.

This is the same Quebec whose ex-Montreal mayor, Denis Coderre, his concern for the environment so deep-seated that he dumped eight-billion litres of raw sewage into the St. Lawrence in 2015 in order to fix failing pipes nevertheless saw the Energy East pipeline too fraught with eco-danger to give his approval.

Ditto with Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard who, despite the tragedy of a runaway oil train killing 47 and almost wiping the town of Lac Megantic off the face of the earth in 2013, wanted no part in helping get Alberta’s oilsands bitumen more safely to Canada’s east coast for refinement.

Yet he’ll take the nearly $12 billion in equalization payments — the lion’s share of the $19-billion assistance program — from the so-called “have” provinces of Newfoundland & Labrador, Saskatchewan, Alberta and B.C.

Oops:

A disturbing moment during a NAFTA roundtable seems to have revealed the true state of NAFTA negotiations.

While the government has been trying to put a positive spin on things, Canada’s chief NAFTA negotiator let slip what’s really happening.

The negotiator was asked, “Do you still meet your counterparts? Do you still have committees that are working? What is the status of the…”

At that moment, the chief negotiator responded and said “We don’t have any active negotiations.”
He added, “I haven’t talked to them in a little while.”

When asked how long it was since he’s talked to the other NAFTA negotiators, he said “since two or three weeks. I’ll have the odd conversation, but no real engagement, no real negotiating session.”

That is huge news, since the Trudeau government has been saying that negotiations are ongoing.

After this was revealed, Chrystia Freeland – showing that usual Trudeau government “openness and transparency” – said in French “We’ll talk later, but not here.”

It's just money:

Trudeau and his family took a vacation there in December 2014. Sophie, her friend and their children took a vacation without Justin in March 2016. Then finally the whole Trudeau clan plus a cabinet minister, assorted Liberal officials and their families all took the infamous December 2016 vacation.

Three vacations to a tropical paradise from a man that actively lobbies for millions and the penalty is what?

A chastising report from the Ethics Commissioner.

Shouldn’t we all be more worried about this kind of thing than  a pair of sunglasses?

**

With well controlled borders, it is possible to provide for social welfare, even with a relatively low tax burden. That’s because a government can raise and lower immigration levels and welcome people based on the economic needs of the nation. That allows a country to ensure that the vast majority of people are contributing to the system.

Additionally, people have a higher willingness to support social welfare programs when they know it’s being directed towards their fellow citizens in need of help.

But with open, uncontrolled borders, that support will evaporate, as people see their hard-earned tax money going towards people who are either in the country illegally, or are unable to contribute for a long time. The patience of taxpayers will not last forever.

As long as the money didn't go to a camp for children with special-needs:

(Sidebar: anyone who voted Liberal, you voted for this and you are horrible. Also, you are an anti-Semite. See below.)

According to a report by Global News, the Trudeau government has given over $50,000 in taxpayer dollars to the Islamic Humanitarian Service in the past two years.

The leader of that group – Sheikh Shafiq Hudda – has made horrendous comments at the anti-Semitic Al Quds Day rally.

At the rally, Hudda called for “the eradication of the unjust powers, such as the American empire, such as the Israeli Zionists.”

He added, “The same body bags that you have caused for the Palestinians, your army, the Israeli Defense forces will leave from Palestine in those same body bags.”

Vaguely related - Prince William visits Israel:

Prince William arrived in Israel on Monday for the first-ever official visit of a member of the British royal family to the tumultuous region London once ruled.

Arriving from neighbouring Jordan, the Duke of Cambridge landed at Israel's Ben-Gurion International Airport and then departed to Jerusalem, where he will stay at the elegant King David Hotel, site of the former administrative headquarters of the British mandate.

Three decades of British rule between the two world wars helped establish some of the fault lines of today's Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and Britain's withdrawal in 1948 led to the eventual establishment of Israel and Jordan.

Britain has since taken a back seat to the United States in mediating peace efforts, and the royal family has mostly steered clear of the region's toxic politics.

For the 36-year-old William, second in line to the throne, it marks a high-profile visit that could burnish his international credentials.

Though the trip is being billed as non-political, and places a special emphasis on technology and joint Israeli-Arab projects, William will also be meeting with Israeli and Palestinian leaders, and visiting landmark Jerusalem sites at the heart of the century-old conflict.

On Tuesday he will visit Jerusalem's Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial, where he will meet two survivors who escaped Nazi Germany for the safety of Britain. The memorial has recognized Prince William's great-grandmother, Princess Alice, as Righteous Among the Nations for her role in rescuing Jews during the Holocaust.

Hudda must be grinding his teeth by now.




By now, it should be abundantly clear to Middle Eastern Christians that no Western power really cares about them and they alone are responsible for their defense.

Case in point:

But when it comes to persecution against other faiths, particularly Christianity, Trudeau is silent.

That was seen once again in Trudeau’s response to a question about why the government is failing to recognize the fact that Christians in the middle east have been subjected to a genocide at the hands of ISIS.

Justin can be the enormous douchebag that he is because people who despise special-needs children, Jews and Christians will keep him in power. These terrible people put this entire country into disrepute.




Because he is an actual servant of the public, Doug Ford declined to watch perverts simulate sex acts in front of children and opted instead to devote himself to the needs of the province that elected him.




Moving on ...




It really is a form of madness to not only decline service (which is a private institution's right, granted) but then follow someone elsewhere:

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders said Monday that recent "calls for harassment and push[es] for any Trump supporter to avoid the public is unacceptable" days after she was kicked out of a Virginia restaurant over the weekend.

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The owner of a restaurant in Virginia who asked White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to leave her establishment on Friday night followed Sanders' family across the street to "harass" them at the other restaurant they went to, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee told conservative television and radio talk show host Laura Ingraham on her radio show Monday.

What is wrong with people? 




How could this go wrong?:

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan won sweeping new executive powers on Monday after his victory in elections that also saw his Islamist-rooted AK Party and its nationalist allies secure a majority in parliament. 

And now, Japan leads by a good and gentle example:

During the 2014 FIFA World Cup in Brazil, Japanese fans attracted international praise when they were seen stuffing trash into large blue bags they’d brought with them after the conclusion of a game. It was a classy example of Japanese society’s value of cleanliness and consideration, and after Japan’s win against Colombia, Japanese fans in attendance started cleaning up once again…but this time they were joined by Colombian supporters.