Sunday Post

Now just in - Alex Trebek:

Alex Trebek, the host of syndicated game show Jeopardy! since 1984, has passed away from pancreatic cancer Sunday, according to various media outlets. He was 80-years-old.

What will the popular press do when it has to walk back on its declaring Biden king?:

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s lead over President Donald Trump in Arizona lessened on Saturday after the reporting of some ballots from several counties.

Biden led by nearly 44,000 votes on Friday morning but had seen his lead dwindle by nearly 10,000 early Nov. 8.

By Saturday night, the lead was down to 18,610, according to unofficial results from Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs’s website.

Biden now leads with 49.5 percent of the vote, compared to Trump’s 48.9 percent.

Libertarian Jo Jorgensen has over 49,000 votes as of the latest count, equal to 1.5 percent.

** 

A Georgia county is rescanning ballots due to an issue related to reporting on the vote-counting conducted on Nov. 6, according to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger.

A monitor and investigators are on-site at State Farm Arena in Fulton County, Raffensperger wrote on Twitter on Nov. 7.

“Fulton has discovered an issue involving reporting from their work on Fri. Officials are at State Farm Arena to rescan that work. I have a monitor & investigators onsite. Also sent Dep. SOS as well to oversee the process to make sure to secure the vote and protect all legal votes,” Raffensperger said.

Raffensperger’s office did not respond to a request for more details about the issue.

 

Somewhat related -

Vote-rigging: 

You never get a 98% or 99% turnout in an honest election. You just don't.

Voting is compulsory in Gabon, but it is not enforced; even in Australia where it is enforced, where you can vote by post or online and can be fined for not voting, turnout only reaches 90-95%.

The main reason that a full turnout is practically impossible is that electoral registers, even if they are recently compiled, can rarely be 100% up-to-date.

Even if no-one gets sick or has to travel, people still die. And when a register is updated, new voters are keen to add themselves to the list.

No-one, however, has any great enthusiasm for removing the names of those who have died, and over time the number of these non-existent voters increases.

 

(Merci) 

 

Vaguely related -

The Speaker of the Senate yesterday banned pandemic masks with slogans. A Manitoba senator was ordered to remove a “Vote 16” mask that promoted amendments to the Canada Elections Act: “This is a new situation. for us.”

**

A taxpayer-funded Canadian Muslim Voting Guide published in 2019 by Wilfrid Laurier University breached federal law, says Elections Commissioner Yves Côté. The Guide that criticized opposition MPs carried a government logo and indicated it was funded by a federal agency: “The Commissioner has determined a violation was committed.”

No, a Biden presidency would not mean stability for Canada. It would mean protectionism. No lumber sales, no pipelines. Further decline for Canada.

It would also mean a reversal of what made the United States economically stable:

President-elect Joe Biden is planning to quickly sign a series of executive orders after being sworn into office on Jan. 20, immediately forecasting that the country’s politics have shifted and that his presidency will be guided by radically different priorities. 

Like increasing poverty, for example. 

In other news:

Cabinet will impose limits on record deficit spending though details cannot be disclosed, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland last night told the Commons. “I am not hiding anything,” said Freeland.

**

The Commons public accounts committee yesterday passed a Conservative motion ordering a 35 percent increase in the budget for federal audits. The Office of the Auditor General for years complained it was so short of funding it delayed investigation of misspending: “The Auditor General’s work is extremely important.”

There is that transparency they promised everyone.

 

 

The timeline for how a convicted criminal will police the Internet: 

Canadian Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault has told the Wire Report (sub req) that he expects Bill C-10, his Internet regulation bill, to pass through the House and Senate by early 2021 and for the CRTC to establish the regulatory specifics within nine months so that the system is in place by the end of next year. Guilbeault says that he isn’t concerned that the process could drag out for years and create significant industry uncertainty, indicating that “I think this is a really high profile issue. I’m not sure that these companies want to bear the public scrutiny of…trying to delay and delay the implementation of this.”

I'm sure that this is nothing to be concerned with:

The Canadian Forces is looking to set up a new propaganda arm to try to influence the behaviour of people in this country.

Unnecessary, really, because Canadians are stupid enough to believe anything. 

Subsidising political parties is an enormous mistake.

Case in point:

UCP MLA Peter Singh has put forward Private Member’s Bill 205, the Genocide Remembrance, Condemnation and Prevention Month Act, which establishes April as Genocide Remembrance, Condemnation and Prevention Month.

The bill would acknowledge the Armenian genocide, the Ukrainian Holodomor, the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide, the Srebrenica massacre, the Yazidi genocide, and the Rohingya genocide,

Alberta’s New Democrats, though, say that the bill falls short, and are demanding that Canada be put on the list for its treatment of Indigenous peoples.

 

This bit of virtue-signalling and inflammatory suggestion that Canada is participating in a slow-moving genocide of one of its biggest guilt industries serve to show that we get the useless governments we elect.

Another reason not to shop at Whole Foods:

Canada’s veterans affairs minister Tweeted Friday that Whole Foods would be allowing its Canadian employees to wear poppies at work, after a move to initially stop the practice received criticism and prompted motions from politicians across the country.

But Wait! There's More!

Other than challenges to some obvious cases of fraud, still no real victor of the American election.

 

 

From the  most corrupt and least transparent government in the country's history:

The federal government is facing strong criticism from Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux for a lack of transparency when it comes to the unprecedented levels of spending during the pandemic.

In a report released on Wednesday, Mr. Giroux and his team note that the Finance Department provided a thorough public accounting every other week until August, but that practice ended when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prorogued Parliament.

The PBO report focuses on the government’s latest request to Parliament for funding approval through a process called the supplementary estimates, but it also discusses spending transparency more broadly. The most recent request covers $79.2-billion in spending. More than 90 per cent of that amount is related to COVID-19, such as income support for individuals, funding for vaccine research and money to buy protective gear and medical equipment.

“While the sum of these measures is significant, the amount of information that is publicly available to track this spending is lacking, thus making it more challenging for parliamentarians to perform their critical role in overseeing government spending and holding it to account,” the report states.

It points out that no public government document currently provides a complete list of all pandemic measures announced to date and their projected fiscal cost.

“This lack of data is not a result of it not being available,” the PBO states, adding that the Finance Department had published this information until August.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has said a fiscal update on federal government spending will be released this fall, although a date has not been announced.

 

**

Because it's (whatever year it is):

Parliament’s Pay Equity Act will cost federally-regulated employers almost two-thirds of a billion, the Budget Office said yesterday. The labour department claimed it could not estimate the cost when legislators passed the Act two years ago: “It’s almost an impossible task.”

 

More:

A new report offers the first-ever cost estimate for a Liberal policy that aims to ensure men and women receive equal pay, after Ottawa declined to provide details on the legislation in 2018.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer estimates that the Liberal government’s equal pay policy will cost taxpayers $621 million per year, covering about 390,000 public servants in Canada. That estimate does not include the additional 900,000 workers who fall under federally-regulated industries like airlines, telecoms, banking, and broadcasting, among other things. ...

Yves Giroux, the PBO, said his office pulled together the estimates without the help of Treasury Board officials, who declined to provide any internal data for the program, citing Cabinet confidence.

 

Yes, that pesky Cabinet confidence.

 

There seems to be a lot of suspension of political things these days:

The Canada Revenue Agency yesterday confirmed auditors targeted small businesses that applied for pandemic wage subsidies. MPs on a 176-152 vote ordered the audits suspended until next June: “The last thing they need is a call from the Canada Revenue Agency.”

 

 

Enjoy the decline, Canada:

Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson yesterday said he will soon introduce legislation to meet greenhouse gas emission targets that “may” include taxes. Cabinet had promised before the 2019 election it would never raise the federal carbon tax: “It may be tax mechanisms, and it’s pricing pollution.”

 

 Jagmeet Singh finished his career as a b!#ch to a snowboard instructor:

The federal New Democrats will use an upcoming chance to set the agenda in the House of Commons to push for a new tax on wealthy people and those who made massive profits during the COVID-19 pandemic, their leader Jagmeet Singh says.

 

 

Mid-Week Post

 

 

Your middle-of-the-week muddle ... 

Who won the election last night?

It is hard to say with all of this voter fraud:

BREAKING: Wisconsin has more votes than people who are registered to vote.

Total number of registered voters: 3,129,000

Total number of votes cast:
3,239,920

not a joke https://t.co/bYoDWrZSDj

— {{David H}} (@daveyboy103) November 4, 2020

 

**

The latest plot twist comes from Arizona, which had reportedly counted 95%+ of its votes. NYT notes that "due to an error in an Edison Research data feed of results ... the actual estimate is that 86% of the vote has been counted."

— Jeff Dufour (@dcdufour) November 4, 2020

 

**

AZ update: apparently the use of sharpie pens in gop precincts is causing ballots to be invalidated. Could be huge numbers of mostly Trump supporters. More to come

— Matt Schlapp (@mschlapp) November 4, 2020

 

Why, none of this sounds suspicious at all.

(Merci) 

Vaguely related -

... says Justin's little b!#ch:

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has been the only leader to weigh in on the U.S. campaign. On Tuesday, he said he hopes Trump is defeated.

“It is a moral imperative that we have to speak out and say that what he has done in his presidency is wrong,” he said. “I think it would be better for the world if Trump loses and I hope he loses.”

** 

Canada’s diplomats will be ready to help Canadians living south of the border if there’s trouble in the United States after election day, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said Tuesday.

“It is absolutely a responsibility of our government to be there for Canadians outside our country, and we will be there for them, too,” Freeland said.

 

** 

For Canada, the implications of the American election will be mixed. Biden promised to cancel the long-suffering Keystone XL pipeline and his green policies would be harmful to our energy sector. Alberta and Saskatchewan would be hammered, but the entire country would be damaged.

Trump’s tax and regulatory policies restrained the Liberal government from its worst instincts. Higher Democratic taxes and tougher green regulations would provide finance minister Chrystia Freeland scope to do the same here, with negative implications for our competitiveness, productivity and capital attraction.

Canada was battered by Trump’s protectionism. The Democrats might outdo him, but without the bluster, braggadocio and threats. The softwood lumber dispute will still fester. Either way, get used to American First policies, even if Biden’s rhetoric would be less threatening. Our ability to impose taxes and regulatory restrictions on the social media giants could by kiboshed by a Democratic administration beholden to Facebook, Google and Twitter, which were helpful to its re-election.

 

Somewhat related - voter fatigue in this country proves that even sheep tire of corruption and incompetence and get apathetic: 

MPs on the House affairs committee yesterday expressed alarm over low voter turnout in two provincial elections. Trends may see future campaigns decided by as few as a third of voters, said one MP: “It would be a tragedy.”

 

 

In other news, the Vichy government in Canada insists that its obvious support for censorship was misinterpreted and that it really does support free speech even though it is going to police the Internet:

The prime minister's comments come in response to multiple attacks in France over reprinted caricatures of the prophet Muhammad, which is considered blasphemous by Muslims.

"World leaders have been standing with President Macron and defending free speech. Why hasn't this prime minister?" O'Toole said. 

Trudeau replied he "unequivocally" condemned the terrorist attacks in France, as well as around the world.

"We stand with the French people," he said.

 

(Sidebar: except when you don't, Petain Trudeau.) 

**

Lest there was any room for confusion about the prime minister’s free speech credentials, he reinforced the point in English. “Our journalists, our artists have an important challenge function in our society and we need to leave them free to do their work. I have always believed that and I’ve always said it.”

At least he had the decency to look sheepish.

Because, of course, that’s not what he has always said.

Those with prodigious memories will recall it was last Friday that the prime minister said something quite different.

When he was asked at last week’s press conference whether we should be able to laugh at religion or make fun of the Muslim prophet, Trudeau defended freedom of expression but said there are limits on those freedoms. “We do not have the right to shout ‘fire!’ in a movie theatre crowded with people,” he said. In a pluralistic, diverse society, people have to be aware of the impact of their words and actions, particularly on groups that experience discrimination, he added.

In the aftermath of the beheading of French teacher Samuel Paty for showing his class some Charlie Hebdo cartoons that caricatured the Prophet Muhammad, it was a response that discounted the barbarity of the assault on Western values such as freedom of thought.

It smacked of Trudeau’s rather academic reaction to the Boston Marathon bombing seven years ago, when, after the new Liberal leader had mused about the “root causes” behind the attack, prime minister, Stephen Harper, accused him of “committing sociology.”

On Monday, Quebec Premier Francois Legault made it known he “totally disagreed” with Trudeau’s equivocation on freedom of expression, despite his own government’s stance on the wearing of religious symbols by teachers and civil servants in its own secularism law.

Instead, Legault backed French President Emmanuel Macron, who has vocally supported the right to make fun of religion.

On his Facebook page on Tuesday, the Quebec premier revealed that he received a call from Macron, thanking him for his support in defending freedom of expression, a posting all the more delicious because it is clear that Trudeau did not get one.

It appears the prime minister’s sociological musings did not resonate with Canadian voters either, given the course correction on Tuesday.

 

(Sidebar: it wasn't a "course correction". He folded like the coward that he is.)

**

Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault yesterday introduced first-ever federal regulation of the internet, specifically streaming video services like Netflix and Disney Plus. Cabinet dropped a January 29 proposal to control digital news publishers under the Broadcasting Act: “Do we try and change everything under the sun?” 

 

It's just money:

Parliament’s budget watchdog has called out the Trudeau government for not providing information on billions of dollars in planned federal spending.

The parliamentary budget office made clear its concerns about the Liberals’ spending secrecy in two separate reports released Wednesday.

The first accused the government of having failed to provide detailed information in its recent request to Parliament for $79 billion in added spending authority.

While the government says most of the money is intended for COVID-19 relief, the PBO suggested Parliament was hamstrung in its ability to oversee government spending because of the Liberals’ secrecy.

** 

The Canada Revenue Agency last night would not comment on MPs’ complaints auditors have targeted small businesses drawing pandemic relief benefits. The Commons votes today on a motion to suspend audits for at least seven months: “Stop treating small business owners like tax cheaters."

Defunding the police will only minimise their ability to tackle crime.

Instead, take money from their pensions. That should fix things:

Quebec City police say it wasn’t necessary to issue a mass public alert during the Halloween night stabbing rampage that left two dead and five injured.

Insp. André  Turcotte said Wednesday the force felt it had the situation well under control last weekend.

Police tweeted at 11:57 p.m. Saturday, warning citizens of multiple victims, of a suspect in medieval clothing and ordering people to stay away from the crime scene in Old Quebec.

 

 

And the Rest of It

A lot going on ...

 

Isn't anyone tired of this wretched family?: 

The sister of the former Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr is suing the Canadian government for refusing her entry to the country, CTV News reports.

Zaynab Khadr is seeking to force the Minister of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness to remove her name from the no-fly list, claiming before a federal court that there is no justification for her inclusion on the list.

 

Yes, there is.

 

Let it keep dropping:

Immigration fell as much as forty-nine percent this year to the lowest level in more than two decades. Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino said quotas must be raised in future years to make up the difference. “Immigrants create jobs,” he said.

 

Give them the jobs that don't exist, Marco!

 

Because the coronavirus didn't kill enough old people, the usual suspects start at the front of the existence line: 

A national civil liberties group has filed legal notice in the first stage of a suit against the New Brunswick government for lack of access to abortion.

As long as you're not worried about the Chinese-spread virus or anything trivial like that.

Just Separate Already

Quebec hates you and the mincing little hand puppet accused you of ruining Canada.

Leave and take your oil dollars with you:

The government ran over that motion with one of its older ones, dusted off and approved for the occasion.

Much milder, the UCP motion doesn’t condemn separatism at all.

It said the assembly “should affirm its loyalty to a united Canadian federation, and urge the Government to obtain a fair deal for Alberta within the Canadian federation.”

That’s been Premier Jason Kenney’s approach all along. On Monday he told the house you “don’t win people over by calling them ‘deplorables,'” a backhanded reference to a certain election down south.

Ultimately, the NDP motion was kicked to the bottom of the order paper and the government motion will prevail.

But the NDP was poking a sharp stick into a genuine UCP sore spot.

Some UCP caucus members are said to be growing impatient and starting to lean toward more overt sympathy for separatism.

Cypress-Medicine Hat MLA Drew Barnes is making his feelings highly public.

He’s challenging the government’s defence of federalism with regular blogs and Facebook posts.

In June, Barnes publicly criticized the fair deal panel’s findings as too moderate, even though he’d been a member.

Without a better deal from Ottawa, he wrote, “the majority of my constituents in Cypress-Medicine Hat and from across our land have made clear that we must seek another relationship, as a sovereign people.”

On Oct. 29 he told the legislature that Quebec got a fair deal with “credible threats,” obviously referring to the two provincial votes on separation.

Then he asked “how far are we willing to go . . . to make sure Alberta families and Albertans get the deal they deserve as part of this federation.”

The American Election

Tonight people will see if Bobby Orr's trust in Donald Trump was spot-on.

 

That's right, Justin. Shut up: 

Eddie Goldenberg was a senior advisor to then prime minister Jean Chrétien at the time. He said they knew instinctively to stay out of the fray down south and he suspects Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will do the same.

“It’s for the Americans to decide who has won, that’s not for another country to decide who has won. I’m sure the prime minister would be very careful on that,” he said. “There’s not a lot that any other country can do. We sit and watch.”

 

No one cares what self-conscious, sanctimonious Canadians think about American politics that they don't understand anyway. All they have to do is reap what is sown:

The direct reason is that changes in U.S. tax rates and regulations alter the impact of Canadian tax rates and regulations. If the U.S. moves its corporate or personal taxes up or down, that affects policy choices made here. The indirect reason is that the U.S. university and think-tank world is at least 10 times the size of ours. And we get free access to it.

 

Lower corporate tax rates in the US will ensure a wealthy and stable American economy that gets pipelines built and a poor and tattered Canadian one that will ensure brain-drain.

 

From the Most Corrupt Government Ever Re-Elected

Who put these guys in charge?:

A recent access to information and privacy request has revealed tens of thousands of dollars in lavish gourmet items from Justin Trudeau’s private Challenger jet.

Covering just the first two months of 2018, these invoices include $23,000 in catering, $412 for “hot towels” and $285 for Belgian waffles. The overall bill is considerably large, as there are 176 pages of invoices describing luxury food items purchased on the jet.

** 

Both Liberal and Conservative-appointed Senators have expressed concern over the Trudeau government's opacity in federal spending and budgets. Spending disclosures were ended after the government suspended Parliament on August 18, according to Blacklock's Reporter.

“It’s not being transparent,” Senator Elizabeth Marshall said. “We cannot get current, up to date financial information. Why is the government refusing to provide current financial information?”

The Department of Finance has not issued a report on borrowing and spending since August 6, as was ordered of the Department of Finance by MPs.

** 

The Department of Natural Resources says it has neither a detailed plan nor budget to plant two billion trees promised by then-Environment Minister Catherine McKenna in 2019. Data show the program even if successful would account for about a third of trees planted by forestry companies and provinces: “Mother Nature will plant millions of trees on her own.”

** 

The House of Commons operations committee voted 6-5 yesterday to order The Public Health Agency to disclose the number of masks, gowns, and other medical supplies that were thrown away before the COVID-19 pandemic began.

The Liberals are frustrated with this opposition move, Liberal MP Steven MacKinnon said. “My duty as a parliamentary secretary, as an MP with the government, is to denounce this fishing expedition.  It’s like we’re looking for problems where they don’t exist.” MacKinnon added that he failed to understand the motive, saying “Why?”

The motion, which was presented by the NDP, states that "The committee send for all briefing notes, memos and emails from senior officials prepared for the Minister of Health, the president of the Public Health Agency of Canada, the chief medical health officer and the Minister of Public Works between 2010 and Monday, August 31, 2020 regarding the management, stockpiling, disposal and replenishment of medical equipment and supplies in the National Emergency Strategic Stockpile” by December 1.

Without civil servants and unfettered spending, where would this country be?:

The RCMP for two years withheld in-house research showing fewer than half of Canadians surveyed consider Commissioner Brenda Lucki to be effective. Federal agencies including the Mounties are required by law to disclose polling financed by taxpayers: “They award lower marks when it comes to the calibre of its leadership.”

** 

A law against thieving by public employees was quietly repealed by Parliament though prosecutors used it dozens of times over a ten-year period, according to Access To Information records. The Department of Justice said the law was slated for repeal because it was “obsolete”.

** 

A media start-up that complained of the corrosive influence of federal money in Canadian newsrooms has won a sole-sourced Department of Public Works contract worth more than a quarter million. David Skok, former Toronto Star editor who launched the business website The Logic Inc. two years ago, declined an interview: “I founded The Logic on the belief that journalistic independence comes from financial independence.”

 

(Sidebar: so that corrosive money determines the start-up. Way to hood-wink.)

 

 

Of course he did: 

The federal ethics watchdog has cleared former finance minister Bill Morneau of failing to disclose a gift from WE Charity — but he remains under investigation for failing to recuse himself from cabinet talks.

Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion accepts Morneau “genuinely believed” he had paid for the entire cost of two trips he and his family took in 2017 to view WE’s humanitarian projects in Ecuador and Kenya.

This WE charity:

WE Charity is expecting to net $25-million from the sale of its real estate holdings and other assets as it winds down its Canadian operations and sets up a new endowment, documents released by the charity indicate.

Freedom Is the Freedom to Say That Justin Trudeau Is a Mincing Little Nobody and Everybody Knows It

Without a hand up his @$$, his mouth wouldn't open:

I have covered almost everything — except for the worst part of all. The limits that Western societies typically apply to free expression usually do have a danger component. We are ordinarily forbidden from threatening an identifiable person or group; we suppress some political symbols and ideas that we have found especially obnoxious; and you can certainly be imprisoned for shouting “fire” at the wrong moment if you could be shown to have intended gratuitous harm.

To compare that sort of regulated speech with the work of a schoolteacher in a classroom, explaining libertarian principles by means of some rude cartoons … well, it reeks of second-guessing a murder victim, doesn’t it? Samuel Paty probably knew he was facing some risk of reprisal, but shouting “fire” (falsely) in a theatre is forbidden because the fellow theatregoers are likely to be stampeded. Humans in the face of physical danger, especially a fire, become unreasoning beasts who will kill and crush their own kin to reach an exit.

That is to say, Holmes did have an improperly extrapolated point. The cry of “fire” in the wrong setting is more like violence than it is like a proposition or an assertion.

It is certainly not anything like any cartoon — unless you believe, as our prime minister might, that some humans cannot be trusted to behave non-violently if the doctrines of their religion are defied. (Cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad are not actually judged by how “insulting” they are; the depiction itself is what’s objectionable to Muslims.) Maybe this was Trudeau’s real point, and I am deaf to a dog-whistle that Quebecers can hear perfectly well. Maybe he was just agreeing with Holmes that socialists belong in jail.

 

(Sidebar: it should be pointed out that this is the same snowboard instructor vaulted into power despite his love and his family's love of dictatorships, who supported the execrable Islamophobia bill, who defended the Boston bomber and rewarded notorious terrorist, Omar Khadr, whose idiot "wife" thought that puerile depictions of Christ were hilarious enough to put on a sweater, who has stymied every attempt to hide his and his family's involvement in a "charity" scam, who hides instead of answering direct questions, who bribed the press to be on his side, who, along with a criminal, is attempting to police the Internet, uses the military to "change" public opinion, and wants to unseal public documents as long as they are not related to the WE scandal in which he is deeply mired.)

Justin's prepared (undoubtedly) condemnation of free expression is on the heels of the murder of a French teacher who showed allegedly offensive cartoons of the Islamic prophet Mohammad.

One can dispense with the "lone wolf" description of the culprit or his ambiguous motive for the murder. One can certainly cast aside any notions that this was a random act not reflective of the actions of an entire culture. It has spawned the murder of three church-goers in France, an attempted murder of a Greek Orthodox priest and - more than likely - violence in Vienna. We are beyond the point of deflection from Islamism or even creating the fiction that all religions so needled will eventually resort to bloody violence. The past is prologue and Justin's poor attempt at deflection and defense only shows him up to be more of the fool everyone knows that he is.

The bigger issue is why only a handful in this country have pointed out that their leader is not simply stupid but categorically wrong on this front. Free speech means that everything is on the table, even things we find repugnant. The reaction to free speech cannot be be violence or censorship but more dialogue or a mature understanding of the material and who disseminates it. Justin may be a worthless apologist but his voters are either supportive of his selective approach to freedom of expression and why it definitely needs a place in Canada or something is on Netflix, a soon-to-be-taxed distraction from the larger issues of the day.

Merry Halloween

Enjoy an extra bit of Halloween tonight.

Ladies and Gentlemen ...

 Sir Sean Connery:

And the Rest of It

We may never know the true motive:

A knife-wielding attacker shouting “Allahu Akbar” beheaded a woman and killed two other people at a church in the French city of Nice on Thursday, while a gunman was shot dead by police in a separate incident.

At around 9 a.m., a man armed with a knife entered the church and slit the throat of the sexton, beheaded an elderly woman, and badly wounded a third woman, according to a police source.

The sexton and the elderly woman died on the spot, the third woman managed to make it out of the church into a nearby cafe, where she died, Estrosi told reporters. None of the victims has so far been named. “The suspected knife attacker was shot by police while being detained. He is on his way to hospital, he is alive,” Nice’s mayor Christian Estrosi told reporters.

“Enough is enough,” he added. “It’s time now for Franc eto exonerate itself from the laws of peace in order to definitively wipe out Islamo-fascism from our territory.”

 

France is well beyond that point, Monsieur Etrosi.

 

 

India doesn't have the hesitance or the naivety Canada does when it comes to China:

Two days of meetings by the top US and Indian diplomatic and defense chiefs in New Delhi underscored a desire for growing military cooperation driven by mutual distrust of China. 

Deadly clashes between Indian and Chinese troops over a disputed border region have given the Pentagon fresh fuel to draw Delhi closer, as it seeks a coalition to counter what the US sees as the rapid expansion of China's military presence across the Indo-Pacific region.

In two days of talks on Monday and Tuesday, couched as the third annual 2+2 discussions, US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Secretary of Defense Mark Esper agreed to share with India geospatial satellite and sensor intelligence. 

They laid the groundwork for more military exchanges and cooperation on cybersecurity and space, as well as increasing arms sales, the US particularly pressing India to buy US F-18 fighter jets for its navy.

 

Also - why hasn't she been sent to the US yet?:

A border officer who assisted in the three-hour detention and examination of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou before her arrest at Vancouver’s airport two years ago says collecting phone passcodes is routine during secondary examinations of foreign nationals.

 

Wow. People totally have a handle on this coronavirus: 

Sinai wasn’t the only lab in that position. Hospital and public health labs submitted a budget proposal outlining the anticipated surge and the money needed to deal with it sometime in either late spring or early summer, said one source with deep knowledge of the system. But it wasn’t approved until after the second wave hit in the autumn. “Heels were dragged,” the source said. “And that’s awful. Because it’s not a light switch. You don’t just say, ‘Great, I’ve got the money. I can increase the diagnostic testing capacity.’ It doesn’t work like that. It takes about two to three months.”

The province has since taken steps to cut the number of tests coming in, but the backlog, while it lasted, took a brutal toll on Ontario’s COVID fight. “As recently as two weeks ago, we were getting less than 20 per cent of positive cases reported to us within 24 hours from the labs, and less than 50 per cent of cases reported to us within two days,” said City Councillor Joe Cressy, who chairs the Toronto Board of Health.

At that speed of return, the testing system was all but cosmetic. It was like giving a virus that doesn’t need any kind of edge a 50-metre head start in a 100-metre dash. “To put it simply, the combination of insufficient testing, coupled with delays in lab reporting, significantly constrained our ability to do contact tracing and our collective ability to prevent a significant second wave,” Cressy said.

 

The Scarlet Mask

Or lack thereof:

To say Ontario PC MPP and Parliamentary Assistant Sam Oosterhoff was stupid for posing for a photo with more than 40 relatives at a Niagara banquet hall is a bit redundant.

To claim, as the NDP and Liberals did, that it is the same or worse than a teacher going to school while sick and refusing to wear a mask is ridiculous.

 

Yep.

This is merely a cheap shot at a well-liked MP who, for a few moments, didn't wear the Garment of Social Piety that was once an object of scorn, something the chief public office wants down the memory-hole.

Did everyone forget the crappy and partisan way in which the federal government contributed to the deaths of over ten thousand Canadians?

I guess so. 

 

Trudeau Waits For Orders In the Event of Trump's Re-Election

The indecisive puppet will not know what to do if Trump should permanently withdraw the US from the WHO:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will speak with the European Union's President of the European Council Charles Michel and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen this morning via video conference.

The trio will discuss their commitment to international cooperation ahead of the US presidential election, particularly through strong support of the United Nations and World Health Organization.

 

From the Most Corrupt Government Ever Re-Elected

"Transparency!" they insisted:

 

Canada’s chief public health officer yesterday in an official report on the pandemic deleted all references to garbled advice on masks. Dr. Theresa Tam as late as April 3 claimed there was no evidence masks protected Canadians from Covid-19: “It is absolutely mind-boggling.”

 

Well, about that:

The Public Health Agency in a January 29 briefing note advised Canadians traveling in pandemic quarantine zones in China not to wear a mask despite local mandatory mask orders. Dr. Theresa Tam, chief public health officer, for weeks told the public masks were pointless and risky: “You have to be careful you’re not putting your finger in your eye.”

**

Privacy Commissioner Daniel Therrien spent four years and assigned seven investigators to a cursory review of a privacy complaint, records show. The complainant, a retired policeman, described Therrien’s office as slow and dysfunctional: ‘If I conducted investigations the same way they did I would have been charged.’

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Accountability! They tried that in the movies and it didn't work:

Cabinet cannot risk censure for concealing We Charity documents for fear of losing control of Parliament, a Liberal MP said last night. MP Julie Dzerowicz (Davenport, Ont.) made the remarks as Liberals continued a three-week filibuster against disclosure: “It’s unpredictable.”

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Labour Minister Filomena Tassi yesterday rewrote rules to save federally-regulated employees from having to get a doctor’s note in claiming unpaid sick leave. Tassi did not comment, but acknowledged in a regulatory notice that employers protested the change: “Of course we believe Canadians are honest.”

 

 

Chinese Groups Are Proud of the Role Their Real Country Played In Dividing Korea

I notice how these passport-holders will not utter this in Seoul for some reason:

A group of Chinese-Canadian associations are marking the 70th anniversary of the Korean War by publicly condemning the United States and its allies, including Canada, as aggressors and imperialists while lauding China for fighting alongside North Korea.

More than 26,000 Canadians in the army, navy and air force served in the United Nation-authorized military campaign to defend South Korea from China-backed North Korean forces in the early 1950s. The war claimed the lives of 516 Canadians, whose chief adversaries were Chinese and North Korean troops.

Statements praising China’s role in the Korean War from five Chinese-Canadian organizations were recently posted on WeChat, the popular Chinese-language social-media platform. Apptopia, a firm that tracks mobile services, said WeChat has been downloaded 265,000 times in Canada in 2020 alone.

The quotes appeared as part of an article posted by the Come From China News WeChat account in Ottawa.

“Seventy years ago, the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and the Korean people fought together to resist the invasion, took the initiative to attack and achieved victory! Let us remember this great victory,” wrote Tracy Law, a Vancouver financial adviser and president of the Guangzhou Fellow-students Association of Canada and president of the Guangdong Chinese Chamber of Commerce of Canada.

David Bercuson, a University of Calgary historian who wrote a book on the Korean War, said celebrating China’s role in the Korean War is akin to glorifying Germany’s invasion of Poland in 1939.

He said it’s particularly offensive because South Korea would be living under a communist dictatorship today if it weren’t for the actions of the United States and allies including Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.

The United States did not start the war. North Korea, with the approval of China and the Soviet Union, did he said.

“If we had not stopped the North Koreans and the Chinese from taking over South Korea, then South Korea today would be part of North Korea.”

 

Chinese-backed North Korea invaded the south on June 25th, 1950. 

Chinese (most of whom were not even properly armed by the communist government they praise) and North Korean troops put five hundred and sixteen Canadians in their graves so that the people of South Korea could live and eat freely.

Today, North Korea is a Third World dictatorship whose dynastic tyrant pays tribute to his Chinese financiers while his own people endure oppression.

THAT is what the passport-holders whose very presence in Canada cheapens Canadian citizenship, its sovereignty and Canada's role in this wretched stalemate celebrate freely in a country whose puppet not only praised China but lets it run its business in Canadian borders.

This sickening display of historical revisionism in favour of an authoritarian state could only be possible when Canadians not only forget who they are but forget why their sovereignty is important.

Those passport-holders who see Vancouver as Plan B for when China eventually goes kaput are not Canadians in any real sense.

 

Canadians Want More Immigration Says Propaganda Poll

Indeed:

This survey is based on telephone interviews conducted (via landline and cellphones)with 2,000 Canadians between September 8 and 23, 2020. A sample of this size drawn from the population produces results accurate to within plus or minus 2.2 percentage points in 19 out of 20 samples. …

Perhaps the most striking aspect of this latest trend is that it has taken place all across the country and among all demographic segments of the population; in some cases especially so where opinions about immigration have been the least positive, including Albertans and Canadians with lower levels of education and income, as well as supporters of the federal Conservative Party. While divisions remain along regional, generational and political lines, in some cases these have diminished over the past year. This suggests that whatever fault lines may continue to divide Canadians, immigration is now less likely than before to be among them. What lies behind this growing public support for immigration and refugees is not immediately apparent from the survey data itself. It may be in part a response to the pandemic (e.g., a “we are all in this together” reaction). It could be a reaction to the alarming political instability south of the border in the USA (“we are not like them”). And it may reflect a solidifying public consensus that Canada’s economy (and one’s own livelihood) depends on making space for newcomers, especially this year when the economy needs all the help it can get.

 

(Sidebar: for a  conclusive and unbiased poll, it sure does list some rather obvious partisan bogey-men like Alberta, the Tories and the good, old US of A.)

 

Yes, about that: 

New data suggests that Canadians are feeling skittish about any future increases in immigration levels for the next 12 months. 

Fifty-two per cent of those polled by Leger and the Association for Canadian Studies want to see the currently low levels of immigration maintained for at least a year.

** 

For example, a recent telephone survey of 1,320 Canadians by the federal immigration department revealed by Blacklock’s Reporter, found a strong minority of Canadians surveyed — 41% — think the Trudeau government’s target of allowing 341,000 immigrants into Canada this year is too high.

Slim majorities agreed that “immigrants need to do more to integrate into Canadian society” (51%) and “Canada should focus on helping unemployed Canadians, rather than looking for skilled immigrants for our workforce” (52%).

That doesn't sound like a font of unquestioning support for a socially mandated platitude.

Consider this: Canada has the highest unemployment rate of any G7 country. Much of the country is in some form of lockdown. One-third of Canadians may never recover financially from this lockdown. Schools are operating at half of the capacity at best. With what money or jobs (aside from a handful of menial and low-paying jobs) would these people be provided for? How would a lottery system, touted to reunite people with grandparents who have not paid into the system but will benefit from it, make Canada a more of a functioning democracy than allowing in skilled workers who are financially capable of caring for themselves and are less likely to be socially or culturally at odds with the existing population?

 

I'm sure someone will answer those questions eventually.