Sunday, July 30, 2023

If You Don't Mind the Mounting Social and Political Problems, Canada Is a Great Place

Just forget the crime, the homeless migrants the Liberals need to next election (thank China for allowing Justin to have one), the lack of housing and jobs and just about everything else:

Canada is experiencing increased crime for the second year in a row, with violent crime at its highest level since 2007, according to new data released by Statistics Canada.

A report released on July 27 indicates that police-reported crime in Canada, as measured by the Crime Severity Index (CSI), was up by 4 percent in 2022. The violent CSI went up 5 percent in 2022, following a 6 percent increase in 2021. In 2022, there was a 15 percent higher rate of robberies, 39 percent more extortions, 8 percent more homicides, and 3 percent more sexual assaults.

The national murder rate was up for the fourth consecutive year, with 874 murders in 2022, an increase of 78 deaths from 2021.

The homicide rate has not been that high since 1992, increasing from 2.08 per 100,000 population in 2021 to 2.25 per 100,000 in 2022.

StatCan says the rise is largely due to three provinces seeing more homicides, with an increase of 30 murders in British Columbia, 26 in Manitoba, and 26 in Quebec.

The highest provincial homicide rate was in Manitoba, at 6.24 murders per 100,000 population, followed by Saskatchewan at 5.94 per 100,000. Meanwhile, Northwest Territories had 6.58 homicides per 100,000 people and Yukon had 4.57 per 100,000.

The indigenous community—including First Nations, Métis, and Inuit—had a homicide rate of 10.98 murders per 100,000 population, almost seven times higher than the non-Indigenous population at 1.69 murders per 100,000.

The agency says crime went down during the first year of the pandemic, in correspondence with the first implementation of lockdowns, but otherwise the Crime Severity Index (CSI) had been rising for five consecutive years beginning in 2015.

Across Canada, only New Brunswick, Yukon, and Nunavut recorded less crime from 2021 to 2022. Manitoba, meanwhile, had the highest CSI increase in 2022, up 14 percent, for both violent and non-violent crimes.

In 2022, said StatCan, police-reported fraud, including general fraud, identity theft, and fraud, was 78 percent higher than a decade ago. Cybercrime, which includes fraud and extortion, was also on the rise.

** 

Statistics Canada’s Crime Severity Index, which measures police-reported crime, was up four per cent overall last year. The index for violent crime showed a five-per-cent increase in 2022, following a six-per-cent increase in 2021. The 531,243 violent incidents reported in 2022 are a 39-per-cent increase over the 382,115 reported in 2015, when a nine-year downward trend in violent crime began to reverse.

** 

Toronto police say they have charged a 44-year-old man who allegedly killed a police dog after fleeing arrest in connection to a fatal shooting.

Police say the suspect faces a charge of second-degree murder in connection to the shooting of a 24-year-old Toronto man.

 **

U.S. Border Patrol agents recently disrupted an attempted smuggling run moving 14 Indian nationals from Canada into the U.S. across the Quebec-New York State border, court records show. 

This was one of the largest interceptions of Indian nationals by the U.S. Border Patrol in a single smuggling event over the past three years along this area of the Canada-U.S. border, according to U.S. federal court records.

The driver of the vehicle the agents stopped said he was recruited for the smuggling run in a manner resembling a spy novel. The location of the interception may also signal a shift in the tactics of smuggling networks operating in the area.

According to U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the border area known as the Swanton Sector runs from the New Hampshire-Maine state line to the western half of New York State south of Ottawa. This sector records the highest rate of irregular traffic flowing into the U.S. along the Canada-U.S. border. The heaviest traffic moves over the borders of Quebec and the U.S. states of New York and Vermont.


** 

Now, now, Tiffy - don't put all of your incompetence on the migrants.

That's unfair.

Your failed predictions helped, too:

But problems caused by rapid immigration are beginning to show. First of all, the Bank of Canada struggled to pin down the impact of the newcomers as it tried to cool economic growth.

Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem has said immigration adds to both supply and demand, but the overall effect has increased the need for higher interest rates. While immigrants helped ease a labor shortage, they added to consumer spending and housing demand.

“If you start an economy with excess demand (and) you add both demand and supply, you are still in excess demand,” he said about immigration earlier this month after hiking rates to a 22-year high of five per cent.

 **

Oh, really, Sean? 

Can you and Olivia house all of these Liberal voters?:

Canada's new housing and infrastructure minister says closing the door to newcomers is not the solution to the country's housing woes, and has instead endorsed building more homes to accommodate higher immigration flows.

Sean Fraser, who previously served as immigration minister, was sworn in Wednesday morning as part of a Liberal government cabinet shuffle aimed at showcasing a fresh team ahead of the next federal election.

He comes to the role at a time when strong population growth through immigration is adding pressure to housing demand just as the country struggles with an affordability crisis.

**

Toronto is asking residents to open up their homes and offer available rental units to asylum seekers as more than 200 people remain temporarily sheltered at two North York churches.
The city added 250 additional shelter spaces within the last week, through hotels and an existing emergency shelter, but these spaces are already full.
More than 200 people are staying at Revivaltime Tabernacle and Dominion Church in North York, two churches that opened up as temporary shelters last Monday for asylum seekers who were sleeping on the street outside a downtown Toronto shelter intake centre for weeks. The churches warn that while they won’t force people out onto the street, the costs to run the shelters are increasing significantly and the efforts aren’t sustainable.
The 250 additional shelter spaces were unanimously approved by council last week as part of a plan introduced by Mayor Olivia Chow to address the influx of asylum seekers, mostly from African countries.
Many people slept outside as the city and federal government sparred for weeks about who is responsible for footing the bill for providing additional shelter space. Toronto’s 9,000-bed shelter system is full most nights. About 300 people are turned away from the system nightly, with half of them being asylum seekers, according to city data.
Ms. Chow’s plan also included a program to encourage residents to offer available rental units at or below market rate to the asylum seekers through DonateTO. Landlords can offer their properties through the portal, which will be shared with agencies helping find more permanent accommodations for asylum seekers.

 


 

 ** 

A Toronto man has been arrested and charged with terrorism offences for allegedly helping to recruit and fundraise for the Islamic State, the RCMP said Friday.

The charges against Khalilullah Yousuf come months after he was charged with similar offences in the United States for allegedly providing financial support to the terrorist organization.

According to a statement from the RCMP, who say they have been investigating Yousuf since March 2021, the 34-year-old allegedly “made and disseminated pro-Islamic State propaganda on social media for the purposes of radicalizing and recruiting people” to join the group.

Investigators also allege Yousuf conspired with an overseas Islamic State member to “commit terrorist attacks against foreign embassies in Afghanistan,” and provided propaganda and research for similar attacks in that country.

Yousuf faces one count each of facilitating terrorist activity, participating in terrorist group activity, and providing or making available property and services for terrorist purposes.

 


We Don't Have to Trade With China

But the post-modern West needs a rope to hang itself:

The Defense Ministry said Saturday that five Chinese and five Russian warships had sailed through the Soya Strait between Hokkaido and Sakhalin island to the Sea of Okhotsk, possibly in connection with a joint patrol in the Pacific Ocean.

Nine of the naval vessels were involved in a joint exercise in the Sea of Japan between July 18 and 23, the ministry said, adding it is carefully monitoring their movements.

Last year, Chinese and Russian warships circumnavigated Japan, prompting Tokyo to criticize the "show of force."

The Chinese and Russian vessels — destroyers, frigates and supply ships — were located about 200 kilometers southwest of Rebun Island in Hokkaido around 3 p.m. Friday and had moved eastward through the strait by Saturday, according to the ministry.

On Saturday, China's Defense Ministry slammed the frequent dispatch of ships and aircraft by certain unnamed countries to "show off their military force for self-interest," saying the moves have raised tensions in the East and South China Seas.

In comments about a Japanese defense report flagging Chinese threats, ministry spokesperson Tan Kefei said the actions have seriously aggravated regional tensions, even as overall situation in the East China Sea and South China Sea was generally stable.

Tan said Japan's annual defense white paper projected a "wrong perception" of China, and "deliberately exaggerates the so-called Chinese military threat."

China has lodged stern representations to Tokyo, expressing resolute opposition to the paper, he said.

 

If China had its way, Japan would be wiped off the map.

Nope.

** 

For China watchers, the arrest of a retired RCMP officer for allegedly helping China with its interference efforts in Canada is not surprising, given Beijing’s extensive network of spies and agents in Canada and its ambitions for global domination.
Scott McGregor, a former Canadian Armed Forces intelligence operator and intelligence adviser to the RCMP, says Canada is particularly infested with a proportionally higher number of CCP agents compared to other countries.
This is due to a number of factors, including “ease of entering, the massive support network and depth of infiltration, abundance of natural resources, and lack of enforcement,” he said.

 

Don't forget Justin!

**

But it's not complicated to get your relative in a position of power, isn't it, Dominic?:

Calling a judicial inquiry into alleged election fraud by Chinese agents is “complicated,” newly-appointed Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc yesterday told reporters. It has been nearly five months since all MPs but the Liberal caucus voted for an independent investigation: “What exactly is the holdup?”

**

Well, it's true, isn't it?!:

A B.C. man took it upon himself to rebrand an RCMP station in Cariboo, placing a cardboard sign in front of the building that reads “Chinese Police Station.” ...

The incident follows recent reports that the RCMP has charged one of its former members in a foreign interference investigation, alleging retired officer William Majcher used his network of Canadian contacts to obtain intelligence or services that benefited the People’s Republic of China. 
Per a Global News report, a second former RCMP officer, Kenneth Ingram Marsh, has also been named a co-conspirator in the allegations against Majcher.

 **

A human rights group is raising concerns about the Canadian government-funded Chinese Canadian Museum as it opens to the public this month, citing anomalies during the opening ceremony and some board members' outspoken support of the Chinese communist regime.
The opening ceremony was held at the museum, housed in the historic Wing Sang Building in Vancouver's Chinatown, on July 1. Dozens of politicians from all three levels of government were invited, including British Columbia Premier David Eby, Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim, and Mary Ng, the federal minister of international trade, export promotion, small business, and economic development.
Irregularities during the event included the seating arrangement, choice of keynote speakers, and guests invited to the museum's plaque unveiling, appearing to indicate that critics of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) aren't welcomed, said the Chinese-Canadian Concern Group on the Chinese Communist Party’s Human Rights Violations in an emailed statement sent to Epoch Times sister media New Tang Dynasty TV on July 10.
The most apparent abnormality was the sidelining of NDP MP Jenny Kwan, a vocal critique of Beijing's human rights abuses, according to the group. Ms. Kwan represents the Vancouver East riding, where the museum is located. However, she was neither introduced by the emcee nor invited onto the stage along with other MPs to unveil a commemorative plaque.
"In response to the cold treatment of MP Jenny Kwan at the Chinese Canadian Museum’s opening ceremony, the Concern Group expressed its dissatisfaction and raised concerns in a news release, questioning whether this is another instance of the Chinese Communist Party targeting a political figure who dares to criticize human rights issues in China through Chinese Canadian community organizations," the statement said.
The seating arrangement was also called to question because Ms. Kwan was not given a designated seat despite being a third-term elected MP.
In contrast, Wilson Miao, a Liberal MP newly elected in 2021, who is not from the riding, was invited to the stage for the plaque unveiling and had a seat in the front row, right next to Senator Yuen Pau Woo.
Mr. Woo has on various occasions taken stances aligned with Beijing's policies, such as praising the national security law that has been used to clamp down on the pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong, and voting against a Senate motion in June 2021 that would recognize the CCP's oppression of Uyghur Muslims as an act of genocide. Mr. Woo previously also confirmed to The Epoch Times that he helped draft a petition opposing creation of a foreign agent registry in Canada.

**

It's not strictly Chinese and it's certainly nothing new, but it IS insidious:

The Gatestone Institute accuses the WEF of trying to replace governmental systems in Western nations with totalitarian Chinese Communist Party-style sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology.

On Friday, the Gatestone Institute’s J.B. Shurk issued a warning that the WEF’s plan will result in a tyrannical system in which “a small group of elites bark orders and ordinary citizens dutifully obey.”

The effort to replace current systems in the West with CCP-style totalitarianism is all part of Schwab’s “Great Reset” agenda.

 


It Was Never About A Virus

Oh! How the truth is most inconvenient!:

The controversy over the origins of Covid-19 refuses to die, despite efforts early in the pandemic to kill it. It was natural to doubt it was a coincidence that an outbreak caused by a SARS-like coronavirus from bats began in Wuhan, China, the only city where risky experiments were being done on diverse and novel SARS-like coronaviruses from bats. The Chinese Communist Party did its utmost to dismiss such suspicions, but so did a group of influential Western scientists.
On March 17, 2020, the journal Nature Medicine published a paper by five scientists, “The Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2,” that dismissed “any type of laboratory based scenario” for the origin of the pandemic. It was cited by thousands of news outlets to claim that the virus emerged naturally. But Slack messages and emails subpoenaed and released by the House Oversight Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic suggest that some of the authors didn’t believe their own conclusions. Before, during and even after the publication of their paper, they worried privately that Covid-19 was caused by a laboratory escape, perhaps even of a genetically engineered virus.
The lead author, evolutionary biologist Kristian Andersen of the Scripps Institution, told the journal’s chief editor, João Monteiro, that he would edit the paper “to make clearer that this [virus] does have a natural origin” (emphasis in original). The paper stated boldly: “Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.”
Shortly after publication, Francis Collins, then director of the National Institutes of Health, wrote on the NIH website that “this study leaves little room to refute a natural origin for COVID-19.” Anthony Fauci, then director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease, said from the podium of the White House that the paper showed that the data were “totally consistent with a jump of a species from an animal to a human.” In private, the authors celebrated the traction their paper was gaining despite angry emails from the public. “We RUUUUUUULE. That’s tenure secured, right there,” Mr. Andersen wrote.
The mainstream media frequently cited the paper in ridiculing any discussion of a lab leak as a conspiracy theory favored by racists and right-wing extremists. Facebook censored the topic for a year. Yet now the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Energy Department—the U.S. intelligence agencies with the strongest scientific expertise—have assessed that the pandemic likely had a research-related origin.
Mr. Andersen’s messages confirm that senior scientists who controlled the purse strings of large funding bodies prompted them to draft the paper after a conference call on Feb. 1, 2020. They were Dr. Fauci, Dr. Collins and Jeremy Farrar of the Wellcome Trust. Shortly before their paper went public, evolutionary biologist and virologist Edward Holmes of Sydney University reported to his fellow authors that “Jeremy Farrar and Francis Collins are very happy” with the final draft. Two of the authors wrote in private messages that they had rushed their paper out under pressure from unidentified “higher-ups.” The role of these senior scientists went unacknowledged in the paper.
When asked at a July 11 subcommittee hearing—before the latest release of messages—about the contrast between their public and private opinions, one of the authors, virologist Robert Garry of Tulane University, replied: “I was doing what scientists often do, and that is take a devil’s advocate position.” Mr. Andersen said that changing your mind in the light of new evidence “is simply the scientific process.”
Yet the newly revealed messages show that the scientists didn’t change their minds. They continued to advocate privately for the devil even after a preliminary version of the paper went online on Feb. 16, 2020.

** 

Covid-19 may have started in a “laboratory incident” but the precise cause is unproven, says the Department of Health. The acknowledgment comes three years after then-Health Minister Patricia Hajdu ridiculed “conspiracy theories” about the Wuhan Institute of Virology: ‘You’re feeding into conspiracy theories people perpetuate on the internet.’

 

Also remember that this heartless cow travelled to and fro while telling Canadians never to visit their families or friends. She even billed the taxpayers.

**

Conservative public interest advocacy group Defending the Republic (DTR) has obtained almost 15,000 pages of Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine clinical trial data, claiming the data show an "utter lack of thoroughness" of the trials and calls the vaccine's safety into "serious doubt."

As a result of successful Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation against the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the group recently announced it had obtained—and is releasing—nearly 15,000 pages of documents relating to testing and adverse events associated with "Spikevax," Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine.

Since 2022, the group has been involved in litigation against the FDA relating to the production of data submitted by Moderna in support of its application to federal regulators for approval of its vaccine.

As a result, the FDA agreed to produce around 24,000 pages of the Moderna records by the end of this year, with the 15,000 pages being the first instalment.

The records, some of which relate to adverse events related to the vaccine, include important information related to the safety profile of Spikevax, which was first authorized for emergency use in the United States in December 2020 and in January 2022 received full approval for adults.

"The public can be assured that Spikevax meets the FDA’s high standards for safety, effectiveness and manufacturing quality required of any vaccine approved for use in the United States," Acting FDA Commissioner Dr. Janet Woodcock said in a statement earlier this year.

But the new data call this view into question. The advocacy group says that the tens of thousands of pages of clinical trial data released by the FDA supports the conclusion that there is "serious doubt" about both  the safety of Spikevax and the FDA's standards for approval.

Neither Moderna nor the FDA immediately responded to a request for comment.

** 

We keep being told that injury to the heart from the COVID vaccine is very rare, but a study done in Basel Switzerland indicates that the rate of subclinical myocarditis after the COVID vaccine is hardly rare at all.

In fact, in a study with only 777 participants with a median age of 37--all medical professionals getting the COVID vaccine–the incidence of elevated cardiac enzymes 3 days after injection was pretty substantial, at almost 3%.

The CDC did a study and from that, they claimed the rate was 0.001%, or one out of 100,000.

2.8% is a lot higher than 0.001%. Another 0.3% had “probable myocarditis,” putting the total at over 3%. That is 3000 times higher than the US government claimed. 

In this small study, nobody had serious complications, but with a myocarditis complication rate of 3%, you would have to expect that giving out hundreds of millions of doses is a pretty risky proposition.

**

I'm surprised that they did not offer MAID:

The widow of a man who died after being denied a life saving organ transplant because of his vaccination status said the decision showed “a disgusting disregard for a man who was otherwise a prime candidate for transplantation.”

Meghan Harper, whose husband Garnet died in May, said a recent change in policy by the hospital involved is too little, too late.

On May 22, Garnet Harper of Sudbury, Ontario, died from complications related to dialysis. Mr. Harper was in kidney failure, but was denied a transplant by the London Health Sciences Centre (LHSC) because he had chosen not to take the COVID-19 vaccine.

On July 27, the LHSC sent The Epoch Times a statement, in which the hospital stated the policy had changed in May—the same month Harper died.

“As the pandemic evolved, so did our vaccination policy. As of May 2023, we no longer require transplant patients to have at least two doses of COVID 19 vaccine, although it is still highly recommended.”

The statement added, “We offer our deepest condolences to the Harper family for their recent loss.”

For Ms. Harper, who watched her husband die, the change in policy came too late.

“London Health Sciences needs to be held accountable for the discriminatory and deadly policy that they created and enforced,” she said in a statement to The Epoch Times, after seeing the hospital’s updated policy.

“Announcing a change in policy does not relieve LHSC of the responsibility they carry in Garnet’s death … experimental medicine should never have been mandated. Even the provincial guidelines they cite as directives for their harsh policy called the injection a recommendation and not a requirement.”

In a July 25 interview with The Epoch Times, Ms. Harper said denying her husband a transplant was unfair.

”I don't think that it's fair that anybody be denied an organ transplant in Ontario who needs one … and we need to make sure that people, whether they're vaccinated or unvaccinated in Ontario, are able to receive the health care that they desperately need,” she said.

She said Mr. Harper found out in February 2022 he had Stage 5 renal failure. The couple was told by a Sudbury doctor that he would likely be rejected as a candidate for transplant because of his stance against the vaccine mandate. Mr. Harper nevertheless decided to stand by his convictions.



Wednesday, July 26, 2023

Mid-Week Post

Your middle-of-the-week smoothie ...


 

Oh, do you really think so, Canada?:

Two in three Canadians think the amount they pay in income taxes is too high and fewer than one in four Canadians believe the federal government spends on the right priorities. ...

Other findings include that two in three Canadians recognize that increased government spending contributes to inflation.

“Not only do Canadians find that the Trudeau government spends too much, but they also find that it spends unwisely,” said Renaud Brossard, senior director of communications at the MEI, in a statement. “This seems to indicate a disconnect between the Department of Finance and the people whose money is entrusted in its care.”

 

Remind me again who and what you voted for:

A new survey conducted by TD Bank Group shows that nearly 60 per cent of Canadian parents are concerned about their children’s financial future, primarily due to the impact of inflation and the prevailing economic uncertainties in the country.

According to the survey published on Wednesday, an overwhelming majority of surveyed parents (89 per cent) believe that their confidence in their children's financial future would improve if their kids gained better financial knowledge before their teenage years.

The survey also found that 66 per cent of parents are not highly confident in their children's current financial knowledge.

In the survey, 60 per cent of parents admitted that they had made mistakes with finances during their childhood, with the majority attributing these mistakes to a lack of financial education at that time.

 **

Canadians questioned in Privy Council research “almost all had a negative opinion” of cabinet’s management of the economy, says an in-house report. Disclosure of cabinet polling follows Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s complaints of “gloom and doom and the talking down of Canada.”


You voted for these morons:

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland crowed on Wednesday about Canada’s inflation rate dropping to 2.8% in June.

“Canada’s plan to bring down inflation is working,” she wrote on Twitter alongside a graphic showing the country’s inflation rate leading the G7 and being its lowest since March 2021.

But citizens were not buying it, with some calling for Freeland to resign.

“Food prices have increased by over 9%, translating to a nearly 20% increase in two years, the fastest growth in more than 40 years,” one person commented.

“Mortgage interest costs have also significantly increased, rising over 30% in the past year due to the Bank of Canada’s attempts to control inflation,” they added.

Add in rent jumping 5.8% in the past year, and that adds up to a gaping hole in many people’s pocket.

Others pointed to the increased costs of energy and labour adding fuel to the inflation fire.

“Great job, but not at all,” one user responded. “You know inflation will come back stronger in this second half, leaving us with a significant hurdle in 2024, most likely a slowdown in the economy.

“Oil prices are down, but supply cuts made months ago will be reflected during winter,” he added.

**

The City of Toronto says it has designated more than 200 shelter spaces for asylum seekers, responding to the rising numbers of refugee claimants sleeping on the streets, which the mayor has called a crisis.

A press release from the city says it has secured rooms at two hotels and a city emergency shelter for 212 asylum seekers.

Last week, Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow secured unanimous approval on a motion to designate the spaces during her first council meeting as the city's leader, with officials revealing that the number of asylum seekers in Toronto's shelter system grew by 500 per cent in 20 months.

The city says the spaces would in part come from the $97 million in federal funding recently earmarked for Toronto to help its overstretched shelter system cope with the high numbers of refugee claimants who are unhoused.


Oh, that just happened, did it?

**

The federal government’s plan for a net-zero electricity grid by 2035 faces considerable regulatory, technical, and supply chain challenges, according to a new report, and Alberta Minister of Affordability and Utilities Nathan Neudorf said the cost to Albertans will be extreme.
“We are at a critical point in history where the global energy market is changing and energy supply needs to be addressed. Demands for reliable, sustainable energy are higher than ever, and we need our system to evolve to meet these demands in a responsible way,” said Mr. Neudorf in a July 19 statement.
He said the federal government’s plan “risks imposing exponential costs on consumers in Alberta and Canada.”
The report that Mr. Neudorf’s statement referenced was released by the Public Policy Forum on July 19. The report, “Project of the Century: a Blueprint for Growing Canada’s Clean Electricity Supply—And Fast,” suggests electricity demand is forecast to double by 2050, which would necessitate supply growing “an astounding two to three times today’s volume.”
“According to this report, the cost to Canadians of a net-zero grid by 2035 is well over one trillion dollars. Alberta’s share of that will be much higher than our proportion of the Canadian population since we won’t be able to onboard stable base load renewables in such a short period of time,” said Mr. Neudorf.
He indicated that the Conference Board of Canada has estimated the cost of Ottawa’s expedited clean electricity transformation at $1.7 trillion. Mr. Neudorf said that’s almost the size of the entire Canadian economy in 2023.

(Sidebar: the world cannot live without fuel. The pipe dream of running vehicles on batteries made with Congolese child labour or with minerals minded in Taliban territory is not just farcical but cruel. It is slavery under the banner of virtue which will only end with a crippled eighteenth century economy.)



Priorities:

Cabinet commissioned in-house research on banning federal funding to any Canadian organization “unaccepting of LGBTQ individuals,” records show. A Privy Council report also discussed preferential funding for Pride communities like LGBTQ scholarships: ‘They questioned why the process to normalize and protect LGBTQ communities was not moving faster.’

 

 

The government isn't looking for skilled workers. They are looking for replacement Liberal Party voters:

Announced last month by Sean Fraser, Canada’s immigration minister, at the Collision 2023 tech conference, the new special work permit is for foreign workers who already have obtained an H-1B visa in the U.S. The visa is generally designated for professional-level occupations in fields like engineering, mathematics and business administration, among others.

There are currently about 600,000 workers in the U.S. that hold an H-1B visa.

The new permit, which cost $155 to apply for, will allow individuals to live and work in Canada for up to three years and bring their family members with them. The permit won’t be revoked if workers quit their job or are laid off, which is a different approach from the H-1B visa, which requires workers to find a new job within 60 days or leave the country.

 

Now, what happens when these interlopers realise that things are financially better in the US?



"Let's legalise it," they said.

"No problems, " they said:

Accidental marijuana poisoning of kindergartners has worsened under legalization, according to records. The Department of Health acknowledged “the rise in pediatric cannabis poisonings” since Parliament legalized marijuana in 2018: “This is largely driven by children younger than five.”

 


Israel simply doesn't care about Justin:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he is not currently planning to join the American president in inviting his Israeli counterpart for a visit.


Not that Netanyahu cares, Justin.



We don't have to trade with China:

William Majcher is accused of helping the Chinese government identify and intimidate a person.

Police say he is from Hong Kong and used his network of Canadian contacts to get intelligence or services that benefited the People’s Republic of China. 


(Sidebar: he's getting bail, by the way.)

**

Kenneth Ingram Marsh, a B.C.-based private investigator and former commander of an RCMP international organized crime unit, has been named as a co-conspirator in the allegations along with former Mountie William “Bill” Majcher.

Few specifics about the case are known, but it allegedly involved the targeting of an individual for intimidation on Canadian soil. On Friday, the Canadian Press named Marsh as a second man involved in the case based on Majcher’s charge sheet, but did not identify him as a retired Mountie.


A few things:

- the RCMP, retired or not, is for sale

- the government is not unaware but (at least) tacitly allowing this to go on. It certainly has a scapegoat that might be utilised to avoid yet another costly and embarrassing inquiry

- the Chinese have a foothold in more than just the diaspora (SEE: for sale)

**

A newly released document shows intelligence officials have been tracking China's attempts to meddle in Canadian affairs for more than one-third of a century.

The February 1986 intelligence report warned that Beijing was using open political tactics and secret operations to influence and exploit the Chinese diaspora in Canada.

It said China was using new and potentially more potent techniques to accomplish these goals.

**

Friends of China may be spreading pro-Beijing propaganda to “pollute the general media” in Canada, warns a Department of Public Safety briefing note. Cabinet is reviewing a proposal to mandate public disclosure of advocates acting on behalf of the Chinese Communist Party: “Information could be disseminated by Canadians who may not be fully aware.

**

“The Government of Canada has a standing offer for commercially available and pre-existing satellite imagery with a company called China Head Aerospace Technology Co. (HEAD Aerospace), which has been added to the U.S. Department of Commerce Entity List,” said a June 13 question period note, as first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter.
HEAD Aerospace was founded in 2007 with headquarters in Beijing, and subsidiaries in Hong Kong, France, and the Netherlands, according to the company’s website.
The Department of Natural Resources hired HEAD Aerospace for satellite images of Canadian forests on Jan. 16, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.
About a month later on Feb. 24, the U.S. Commerce Department added HEAD Aerospace to its Entity List, blacklisting it, among other companies, as a threat to national security.

“These additions are based on information these companies significantly contribute to Russia’s military or defence industrial base and are involved in activities contrary to U.S. national security and foreign policy interests,” the Commerce Department said in a notice titled “Addition Of Entities To The Entity List.”
**

Oh, Japan, you know that China is not to be trusted:

China has proposed three-way vice-foreign ministerial-level talks with Japan and South Korea, diplomatic sources said Sunday, a move Tokyo views as underscoring Beijing’s enthusiasm for a three-nation summit this year, the first in four years.

China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, made the proposal when he met with Japanese Foreign Minister Yoshimasa Hayashi in Jakarta on July 14, even as the two countries are at odds over Tokyo’s plan to release treated radioactive water from the crippled Fukushima nuclear complex into the sea around this summer, the sources said.

Usually, a summit between Japan, China and South Korea is held following working-level and foreign ministerial-level talks.

Japan has also notified South Korea, which assumes the rotating chair of the next trilateral summit, of China’s stance on resuming a three-way dialogue, the sources said.

The deterioration of ties between Japan and South Korea, coupled with the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, has prevented the three neighbors from holding a trilateral summit since the last session in December 2019.

But with Tokyo-Seoul ties significantly improving, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol agreed in March on the importance of holding a three-way dialogue as soon as possible.

Wang, a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, had also said at the opening of a forum on trilateral cooperation held in China on July 3 that the three countries should “create an atmosphere for the early resumption of leaders meetings.”

A senior Japanese Foreign Ministry official said the latest attitude of China “shows it has become positive toward three-way dialogue” with the neighbors, considering its position in global affairs and its domestic economy.

**

Cabinet hired pollsters to survey Vancouver’s Chinese-Canadian community on its “current relationship with China” but made no mention of alleged election fraud by foreign agents. The in-house research by the Privy Council Office was disclosed yesterday: “Many believed there needed to be greater representation of Chinese-Canadians at the federal level.”


(Sidebar: Canada means nothing to these interlopers.)


As opposed to what everyone else said:

In a survey of over 7,000 Asian Americans, only about 20% had a favorable view of China, with Sino-U.S. tensions weighing on even those who count themselves among the large Chinese diaspora living in the U.S.

That compares with the 78% who said they had a positive view of the U.S. in the Pew Research Center survey released Wednesday, while more than half see the U.S. as the leading economic power of the next decade. About 52% of respondents had an unfavorable opinion of China, while 26% were neutral.

Only about 4 in 10 Chinese Americans see China in a positive light, with 15% holding a very unfavorable view of the country, more than the rates for people with Indian (10%), Vietnamese (5%) and Japanese (4%) heritage. A share of 20% saw China in a somewhat unfavorable light. Meanwhile, just 3 in 10 Chinese Americans hold positive views of the U.S.


It was never about a virus:

Cabinet budgeted millions for a vaccine passport program to 2026 though the World Health Organization has declared the pandemic is over. A Department of Health memo said funding was needed to support federal measures “as needed going forward.”

**

“We do expect there to be a lot of underreporting,” said Dr. Celia Lourenco, acting associate assistant deputy minister with Health Canada, during a Federal Public Sector Labour Relations and Employment Board hearing on July 13.
The official approved the COVID-19 vaccines currently on the market in her previous role as director-general of the Biologic and Radiopharmaceutical Drugs Directorate in the department.
Dr. Lourenco said this underreporting is a “well-known fact,” because health-care professionals may not report the adverse events, or patients may not report it to a physician.
“It doesn’t get reported to the regulator, so that’s a common problem,” she said, adding that the phenomenon exists across countries.

Particularly with this.
**
**
Quarantine hotels cost taxpayers more than a third of a billion according to new figures, the highest disclosed to date. Expenses were the equivalent of more than $17,000 for every traveler given shelter for 72 hours: “Costs associated with this program included lodging, meals, security, traveler support and transportation.”
**

After years of smearing such claims as “conspiracy theories,” the left-wing New York Times has admitted that the “official” data on deaths caused by Covid was overcounted by at least 30 percent.

Citing data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the NY Times states that a third of “Covid deaths” were actually caused by “something else.”

The newspaper admits that large numbers of people who died while testing positive for the virus had Covid listed as the cause of the death even though it didn’t kill them.

Many of the deaths, however, were found to be listed as caused by Covid even if the person hadn’t been tested for the virus.


Some people are, well, special:

Before the sun broke through the sky Monday morning, members of a Manitoba First Nation planned to start a critical month-long search in a good way.

Spiritual advisers were to lead a pipe ceremony in Minegoziibe Anishinabe while a sacred fire was to be lit near where potential graves of children forced to attend residential school may be.

The sacred fire is expected to burn for the entirety of the estimated four-week-long excavation of an area underneath the Catholic church where 14 anomalies were detected using ground-penetrating radar last year.

“This allows for a trauma-informed, spiritually and culturally sensitive approach to the work that we have to do in the community,” Chief Derek Nepinak said before the ceremony.

Monday is about ensuring elders, survivors and intergenerational survivors of the former Pine Creek Residential School are provided support before ground is expected to be broken Tuesday.


Bull. Sh--.

**

Mounties say after a yearlong investigation into potential unmarked graves detected in a western Manitoba First Nation, they have not found any evidence pointing to criminal activities.

Minegoziibe Anishinabe, also known as Pine Creek First Nation, requested the RCMP launch an investigation after it found 14 points of concern underneath the Catholic church in the community last year using ground-penetrating radar.

RCMP say in a release that officers interviewed community members, conducted surveys and followed up on other leads.

Investigators were unable to uncover evidence that showed a crime occurred related to what was detected at the site.

The community is set to begin excavating the area underneath the Our Lady of Seven Sorrows Catholic Church on Monday.

Mounties say if anything is located in the dig that may be related to criminal activity, officers will continue with the investigation.

**

Canada has accused itself of genocide for the most part. Only a handful of dissident ‘deniers’ like me continue to point out that the claims of children being forcibly torn from their mother’s arms is not supported by the thousands of Indian Residential School enrollment forms, signed by parents. On the forms is a spot for designating the child’s family’s religion — which is typically filled in with Roman Catholic (R.C.) or Anglican. Rarely blank. Meaning, the families had chosen Christianity some time ago and they wanted their children to continue learning in that religious tradition. So, no forcible indoctrination either.

Likewise, the claim that thousands of children died or mysteriously disappeared at Indian Residential Schools, as claimed by Knowledge Keepers, elders or former residential school students does not jive with documented records from the government, Indian Agents, school records and provincial death certificates.

Following the money is why this trail is tightly documented. Schools were funded by the government based on the child’s whereabouts. If at school, the annuity money came to the school. If at home with the family or band, the money went there. If deceased, the money stopped.

Several digs have taken place where self-described survivors had remembered or ‘just knew’ there were dozens of people buried in forgotten places. A reported instance is that at the then-named Charles Camsell Indian Hospital in Edmonton in operation from 1945 to 1996. The facility treated Indigenous Tuberculosis (TB) patients from across northern Canada. The architect in charge of present-day development on the property was deeply moved by the Kamloops Indian Residential School discovery of the claimed 215 unmarked graves. Thus, he paid for excavation services at the Charles Camsell sites that Ground Penetrating Radar had indicated as possible burial grounds. There were 13 digs followed by another 21. Only refuse and detritus was found.

Unfortunately, when no bodies are found, people who strongly believe that Indigenous people were secretly buried in unmarked graves only wonder where else the bodies would be buried, rather than reviewing the documented evidence of death and burial certificates and concluding that there are no missing children. These show where the persons were buried — typically at the person’s home reserve or sometimes in a local community graveyard. ...

Unfortunately, with “Two-Eyed Seeing” and Indigenous ways of knowing, there is typically a reliance on a certain individual, or a few, who have the unique insights or who carries certain sacred traditions forward. These people are held in high regard by their communities, of course. But there is no way to independently verify anything that the individual says, remembers or claims to be true, no matter how venerated they may be within their own community. This is known as Indigenous science and is part of Canadian government policy now. With the adoption of the UN Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP) this methodology is slated to become more prevalent and to affect all laws and processes in Canada.

Thus, regarding allegations of criminal activity related to graves said to be under the floor of the Our Lady of Seven Sorrows Roman Catholic Church on the Minegoziibe Anishinabe (Pine Creek First Nation) reserve, the RCMP issued a statement that they had not found evidence of criminality associated with the site after a year-long investigation, but that they would continue working with the band as they begin excavations under the floor of the church on July 24, 2023.

**

Canadians need to be made aware of the ways in which non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are interfering in Indigenous participation in Canada’s natural resource sector.

These organizations — which are almost all foreign entities with Canadian branches — hire activists and promote misleading commentary about Canada’s oil and gas sector and First Nations’ interest in development. These organizations, which include the Sierra Club, Stand Earth, World Wildlife Federation and Tides Foundation, have garnered a great deal of sympathetic attention from the national and international media.

But in my experience in northern British Columbia, there are dozens of NGOs funded by both government and interest groups that actively befriend Indigenous communities, groups and urban organizations with the goal of using the community’s political capital to block and stall the development of Canada’s natural resources, particularly the oil and gas sector.

Canada’s unwillingness and inability to prevent interest groups from interfering in and blocking natural resource development harms Canada’s international standing among our energy starved democratic allies and stops us from opening new markets for our energy products.

These campaigns, which extend to our mining, fishing and forestry sectors, have undermined the livelihoods of thousands of everyday Canadians. Locally, the turmoil caused by these interventions has ripped apart relationships within and between Indigenous and non-Indigenous communities. When the projects are halted, these intruders leave the north and return to their comfortable lives in the southern cities, leaving Indigenous communities to deal with the lasting damage. These biased NGOs have torn apart countless families and friendships in order to impose their views on communities.

**

Months after the first calls to search a Manitoba landfill were voiced, a local MP has lodged a written submission to the United Nations.

Leah Gazan, MP for Winnipeg Centre, filed her submission to the UN’s special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples on July 19, asking for international oversight into what she said was a failure by the provincial and federal governments. This comes after a decision not to search for the remains of two Indigenous women, which led to the blockade and eventual reopening of the Brady Road landfill.

This Leah Gazan:

**

A Senate committee yesterday recommended federal action to ban “Residential School denialism.” Senators did not define the term. Hate speech has been a Criminal Code offence in Canada since 1970: “Some individuals deny the negative effects on generations of Indigenous peoples.”



Identifying oneself as an aircraft on a tiresome and partisan survey is a marker of a "fascist dialogue":

Academic researchers condemned students’ irreverent and offensive responses to an LGBTQ survey, claiming the pushback indicates “fascist ideologues” are “living ‘inside the house’ of engineering and computer science.”

In an article for the Bulletin of Applied Transgender Studies, academics from Oregon State University wrote about their shock at receiving sarcasm and mockery in response to their research into undergraduate LGBTQ students studying in STEM fields. 

The team claimed 50 of 349 responses to their questionnaire on the topic contained “slurs, hate speech, or direct targeting of the research team.”

Labeling them “malicious respondents,” they adapted their project to examine how the joke responses “relate to engineering culture by framing them within larger social contexts — namely, the rise of online fascism.”

The result was the paper titled, “Attack Helicopters and White Supremacy: Interpreting Malicious Responses to an Online Questionnaire about Transgender Undergraduate Engineering and Computer Science Student Experiences.” ...

According to the article, when the “malicious” subjects were asked to fill out demographic data, “12 respondents (24%) indicated their gender as being related to a helicopter or aircraft” ranging from an “Apache Attack Helicopter” to a “V22 osprey.”

In the section declaring one’s disabilities, responses ranged from claiming to be “illiterate” to lamenting “My country is run by communists,” or even declaring that identifying as transgender is a disability in itself due to “the inability to come to terms with biological reality.”

One respondent claimed to identify as a gift card as their gender.



The little movie that could:

“Sound of Freedom” is an artistic story, but also a business one, and it reveals the changing nature of the film industry. After Disney dumped the project, it was eventually picked up by Angel Studios, a new player most famous for producing “The Chosen,” a massively successful streaming series on the life of Jesus, which is now in its third season, with a fourth coming next year.

“The Chosen” can be watched for free, and has been funded by donations from faithful viewers. It’s no community theatre YouTube video, but film-making of the highest Hollywood production standards, with much better writing.

Angel Studios is advancing a new approach to artistic patronage, which is the way great art — and poor art — has been produced down the centuries. The creative corruption of the big Hollywood studios, stuck in the rut of making ever more lavish cartoons for middle-aged children whose imaginations ceased developing in elementary school, has meant that serious patrons of the arts need to be sought elsewhere.

**



People are awful:

The Famous Five — Emily Murphy, Henrietta Muir Edwards, Nellie McClung, Louise McKinney and Irene Parlby — were early advocates for the rights of women and successfully spearheaded the 1929 “persons case” which recognized women as “persons” under British law.

For that, they are rightly celebrated and honoured across Canada as early, ground-breaking feminists.

Among many posthumous honours, for example, there are statues erected to them in Ottawa, Calgary and Winnipeg.

But the Famous Five were also racists, elitists and their support of eugenics — a popular and widely accepted theory among social reformers at the beginning of the 20th century — meant they advocated the forced sterilization of thousands of people in Canada, many of them Indigenous.

**

After being hospitalized for five months at three different institutions, her husband was finally strong enough to return home in June, albeit with a feeding tube. His only nourishment is a special prescription diet of ISO-Pro that Starkey picks up at their local pharmacy.
The first time she went to get it, the formula was not covered by the Régie de l’assurance maladie du Québec. The second time it was. The third time it was partially subsidized. The pharmacy told Starkey she had to call RAMQ to sort things out.
But when she tried to explain the situation in English to the public servant who answered the phone, he refused to listen.
“He said: ‘I don’t have to speak to you in English, speak French.’ And I said: ‘I can’t speak enough for you to understand me or me to understand you.’ He said: ‘Then go get somebody.’ I said: ‘I can’t, I’m alone,’” Starkey recounted. “I said: ‘Is there nobody there who can speak to me in English?’ And that’s when he hung up on me.”
It wasn’t that the civil servant at the end of the line wasn’t capable of speaking English.
“He spoke English like you and I. He had no accent, anything,” she said. “He wouldn’t let me speak any English. He just kept cutting me off.
“At the end, I said: ‘We were guaranteed (English) for medical things.’”
**
The Newfoundland and Labrador Supreme Court has sided with the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation in its bid to have a sexual harassment case heard in Quebec.

**

To be clear - the choice is always abortion and the buyer is right:

Here’s the story: Shortly into the pregnancy, Pearson received a cancer diagnosis, and made the decision she would deliver the little boy in her womb early in order to begin a pharmaceutical regimen. The buyers however, didn’t want to pay top dollar for a premature baby, so they demanded he be “immediately terminated.” When Pearson refused the abortion, the couple threatened to sue; when she offered to adopt the child, they ordered her to present a death certificate. When Pearson delivered the baby, under California’s surrogacy laws the men were permitted to withhold medical care (which they did), and the little boy ultimately died. Of the tragedy, Pearson’s uncle said this:

They’d [buyers] rather watch (or rather they won’t be around) their baby die than allow it to be saved as best as possible and given to a family.

**

Yeah, whatever, Modi:

Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister, pledged to punish a mob after viral video footage showed them stripping two Christian women and parading them naked around a village in the state of Manipur, sparking outrage.

The attack included the gang rape of one of the women, who have become known as “the daughters of Manipur”.

“The guilty will not be spared. What has happened to the daughters of Manipur can never be forgiven,” Mr Modi told reporters.

Without referring to the violence directly, he urged the heads of state governments to ensure the safety of women and said the incident was “shameful for any civilized nation”. He added: “My heart is filled with pain and anger.”

The incident occurred the day after violent scuffles between the majority Hindu Meitei and minority Christian Kuki-Zo communities in the region of Manipur, which is led by the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party. Ethnic violence in the north-eastern state has killed at least 120 people, most of them Kuki.

Opposition parties have previously accused Mr Modi of choosing to stay silent on the violence.

The 26-second footage was filmed two months ago but but has only emerged now because an internet blackout was imposed in the state. In it, the mob can be seen molesting and assaulting the two women as they are led towards an empty field.



But no one even remembers that there was a Korean War:

Bill Black still gets letters and cards thanking him and other Canadian veterans for their service in the Korean War.

Quite a few of those notes from South Koreans have arrived lately at the Korea Veterans Association, where Black is president of an Ottawa chapter, as the 70th anniversary of the armistice in that conflict approaches.

More than 26,000 Canadian Armed Forces were deployed to assist South Korea after it was invaded by North Korea in 1950 and 7,000 more followed to help with peacekeeping after the armistice was signed on July 27, 1953.

Black was part of the peacekeeping contingent. He worked on a navy destroyer assigned to patrol South Korean waters and says it remains an honour to have served.

"We take pride in what we accomplished there, all of our Canadian veterans who served in Korea take pride," the 89-year-old Canadian veteran says.

"We sort of slap ourselves on the back that we were there to contribute, to aid them."


As you should. 

It was everyone else who let you down.



Why I like dogs:

A stray dog in Lebanon rescued an abandoned baby girl that was left to die in a trash bag, a report says.

The dog was seen carrying the bag by a passerby who heard the newborn baby's cries coming from inside, Arab News reported.

The bruised infant, who is believed to have only been a few hours old, was taken to hospital for treatment in Tripoli, per the outlet.

The child was described as being in a "serious but stable" condition. No further information is known about her health and the circumstances of her abandonment.

Images purportedly of the injured child have circulated on social media, with many people expressing sympathy for the infant.

Authorities are investigating the incident, and the baby will be put in an orphanage if no one offers to adopt her.

Social media users also hailed the dog as a hero. "The dog has much more humanity, kindness, cunning, and intelligence than some satanic mutants in human form," wrote one.

Ghassan Rifi, a journalist in Tripoli, said that the baby was left in a non-residential area where there are lots of stray dogs.

"Is it possible that whoever dumped her wanted to get rid of her by letting the dogs eat her in this area infested with stray dogs, and that she was saved by that man who happened to be there by chance?" Rifi said, according to Arab News.

But in any case, "the dog that dragged her was more humane in the face of the brutality and criminality of the one who threw her," Rifi said on Twitter.