Mid-Week Post

Your middle-of-the-week pointing out of the obvious ....

 

Abolition of private property through taxation, elimination of the innovation and corporate sectors, higher taxes and lower standard of living.

People actually voted for this:

Despite the Trudeau Liberals spending 8½ years throwing large sums of money at every problem that comes our way, a majority of Canadians think the country is fundamentally broken. Now, the Grits are trying to convince us that the answer to the problems they either helped create or failed to fix is … spending large sums of money.

In the lead-up to Tuesday’s budget, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland deviated from her tradition in recent years of spending the weeks leading up to budget day trying to convince Canadians that the government was planning on showing fiscal restraint.

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Perhaps a sign that the Liberals have come to accept their unholy alliance with the socialist New Democrats, this year, Freeland didn’t even bother pretending that fiscal responsibility would factor into her calculations at all. This is not your father’s Liberal party — the party of Jean Chrétien and Paul Martin — this is the spirit of Jack Layton coming to exact his revenge.

The 2024 budget is intended to address two major problems — not for the country, but for its “natural governing party”: recent polls show that a majority of Canadians think the country is broken, and that nearly twice as many young voters are planning to cast a ballot for the Conservatives, as opposed to the Liberals, in the next election.

(Sidebar: the Chinese will have something to say about that!)

Thus, Freeland has spent the last three weeks attempting to bribe millennials and gen Z with their own money: $500 million for youth mental health, $2.4 billion for AI (because the robots that are going to take our jobs need subsidies, too), $1 billion for school lunches, $1 billion in loans for daycare centres. The list goes on.

In the forward to her budget, Freeland assured young Canadians that the Liberals “have a plan to build a Canada that works better for you, where you can get ahead, where your hard work pays off, where you can buy a home.” They’ll do this by “building more affordable homes,” “making life cost less” and “growing the economy in a way that’s shared by all.” ...

In total, budget 2024 introduced $53 billion in new spending over the next five years. In order to pay for all this while keeping the deficit at around $40 billion per year until the next federal election at the end of 2025, budget 2024 intends to pilfer an additional $21.9 billion from the pockets of hard-working Canadians, this year alone.

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But don’t worry, Freeland assured us during her budget address in the House of Commons on Tuesday, because that money won’t be taken from you middle-class Canadians. It will be seized from the most unsavoury elements of our society: successful corporations and the rich, through an increase in the capital gains tax, and anyone who happens to be addicted to nicotine, through yet another tax hike on tobacco and life-saving electronic cigarettes.

The government hopes the capital-gains changes will raise an additional $19.4 billion in the 2024-25 fiscal year. Freeland tried to downplay the effects of this by saying that the tax increase would only apply to the top 0.13 per cent of earners. But it will also affect the over 300,000 companies that pay capital gains, making them less likely to invest in the economy and create new jobs.

Freeland says she wants to build a country where “hard work pays off,” but the message she’s sending is quite the opposite: There’s no need to work hard and improve your lot in life because the government is going to pay to care for your children, fix your teeth and buy your birth control and diabetes meds, so you can maintain your lifestyle. And if you do happen to go that extra mile and strike it rich, you’ll be severely punished.

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Addressing the captains of industry who will be penalized by these measures, Freeland asked, “What kind of country do you want to live in? … Do you want to live in a country where the only young Canadians who can buy their own homes are those with parents who can help with the down payment?

“Do you want to live in a country where we make the investments we need — in health care, in housing, in old-age pensions — but we lack the political will to pay for them and choose instead to pass a ballooning debt on to our children?”

Well, no, I don’t. But perhaps the finance minister needs to be reminded that it was the Liberals who sat idly by while house prices increased 60 per cent under their watch; and it was her government that more than doubled the national debt in a decade — increasing it to an estimated $1.44 trillion in 2024-25, from $649 billion in 2014-15.

And it’s only going to get worse. The government plans to run a $39.8-billion deficit this year — $4.8 billion more than it forecast in budget 2023. If anyone thinks Freeland has a hope in hell of reaching her deficit target of $38.9 billion next year, or the $20 billion projected for 2028-29, I have some beachfront property in Nunavut I think you’ll be extremely interested in.

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It’s hard to believe that Canadians will buy the notion that Trudeau and Freeland can “fix it.” But this is their desperation budget, where they need to do whatever they can to woo voters back to the Liberal fold at a time when polls show Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is heading towards a landslide majority victory. 

Their hopes are clearly that between now and the next election their policies and spending initiatives will see the economy improve enough that Canadians view the Liberals in a more favourable light.

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Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland yesterday proposed billions in new mid-term deficit spending at rates up to 95 percent higher than forecast only a year ago. Freeland revised all deficit projections upwards despite writing in her budget document that “it would be irresponsible and unfair to pass more debt to the next generation.”

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As Canadians deal with a crushing housing shortage(opens in a new tab), high rental prices and inflationary price pressures(opens in a new tab), now Equifax Canada is warning that Canadian consumers are increasingly "under stress" from the surging cost of living.

"Our data says about 50 per cent of Canadians are living paycheque-to-paycheque(opens in a new tab)," Sue Hutchinson, the president of Equifax Canada, told CTV News Channel on Tuesday.

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Ontario is going to see a big jump at the pumps later this week as gas prices in the province hit levels not seen in nearly two years, according to one industry analyst.

Dan McTeague, the president of Canadians for Affordable Energy, told CP24 Wednesday that both Ontario and Quebec will see a 14 cent per litre increase overnight Thursday.

This will push the price per litre up to $1.79 in cities across Ontario, the highest level seen since Aug. 2, 2022, McTeague added. In Quebec, the price per litre is expected to climb to $1.88, he noted.

 

Enjoy the decline, Canada.

 

 

It's a matter of Liberals being Liberals.

Favouritism and so on:

A federal ethics investigation of a Department of Industry board will be finalized within 90 days, the Commons ethics committee was told yesterday. Records show then-Industry Minister Navdeep Bains ignored repeated warnings in appointing a Liberal Party donor with a known conflict: “Have you uncovered any element of criminality?”

Israel weighs its options against Iran:

The IDF has decided how it will counter-strike Iran and its proxies but has not yet settled on the timing; multiple sources told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday.

Because the timing is still variable and because of all the necessary complex preparations, the current decision could change.

However, the very development of a decision shows the severity and determination of Israel’s leadership to strike back, though all indications are that Jerusalem still seeks to tamp down the attack to avoid spiraling into a regional war.

 

 

It was never about a virus:

The federal government has destroyed almost a third of all COVID-19 vaccine doses that entered its inventory, after spending an estimated total of $10.6 billion on vaccine purchases.

Information tabled by the government in an Inquiry of Ministry on April 8 provides a breakdown of every dose purchased, donated, and destroyed, listed by manufacturers and product types.

Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) says a total of 353.5 million doses were purchased through advanced purchase agreements with under ten manufacturers, enough to vaccinate every Canadian over eight times.

Many of the doses were never delivered, due to a company folding or not developing a vaccine. Many of the doses have also yet to be make it into federal inventory or have been forfeited.

As of Feb. 6, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) accounted fo 252,090,980 vaccine doses.

The agency says in the Inquiry document that the information provided does not account for new doses expected to be delivered after February. It also excludes doses held in federal inventory that haven’t been distributed, donated, or destroyed. 

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A lot of jabbing and a lot of cheddar:

As of Monday, Alberta Health Services (AHS) has updated its guidance on mRNA COVID-19 booster shots to every three months, beginning with six-month-old babies.

That works out to about 320 doses for the average lifespan.

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In a review published on April 5, researchers argue that modification to mRNA causes immune suppression that may contribute to cancer development.

The mRNA used in the COVID-19 vaccines differs from naturally occurring mRNA, which has been modified to prevent immune degradation when injected. In a review published on April 5, researchers argue that modification—specifically, N1-methyl-pseudouridine modification—to mRNA causes immune suppression that may contribute to cancer development.

 

 

Not even teachers like the NDP-proposed anti-spanking bill: 

The nation’s largest teachers unions yesterday opposed a New Democrat bill to outlaw corporal punishment of unruly children. Heidi Yetman, a mother of two sons and president of the Canadian Teachers’ Federation, said the bill would “put teachers at risk of being charged with assault.”

 

 

Did you look?:

The Canada Border Services Agency has not successfully intercepted a single shipment of slave-made goods since cabinet announced a federal crackdown on Chinese imports, records show. Critics have called Canada an unwitting leader in importing forced labour products: “Our enforcement to this point has been terrible.”

 

Unwitting?

Try complicit.

To wit:

No one can provide “100 percent clarity” there are no Chinese agents on the federal payroll, says the nation’s spy chief. David Vigneault, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, told MPs he could not discuss ongoing investigations: “We can never rest.”

Also:

For example, we obtained a July 30th, 2017, WhatsApp message from Hunter Biden to Henry Zhao, where Hunter Biden wrote: “I am sitting here with my father and we would like to understand why the commitment made has not been fulfilled. Tell the director that I would like to resolve this now before it gets out of hand, and now means tonight. And, Z, if I get a call or text from anyone involved in this other than you, Zhang, or the chairman, I will make certain that between the man sitting next to me and every person he knows and my ability to forever hold a grudge that you will regret not following my direction. I am sitting here waiting for the call with my father.”

And:

Idaho Gov. Brad Little has signed legislation into law aiming to ensure that residents are not unknowingly complicit in China’s state-sanctioned forced organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience.

As of July 1, it will be illegal in Idaho for health insurers to cover an organ transplant or post-transplant care performed in China or any country known to have participated in forced organ harvesting. The legislation (H 670), which was passed unanimously by the state Senate and House earlier this month, was signed by Mr. Little on April 10.

The new law will also ban medical and research facilities in Idaho from using genetic sequencing machines or software that come from foreign adversaries such as China’s communist regime.

But ... carbon taxes!:

“CO₂ is not a bad gas,” says Valentina Zharkova, a Professor at the Northumbria University in Newcastle, U.K. On the contrary, she points out, every garden centre uses it in its greenhouses to make plants lush and green. “We actually have a CO₂ deficit in the world, and it’s three to four times less than the plants would like,” she notes, adding that the proportion of CO₂ in the atmosphere has been at much higher levels throughout our planet’s history than it is now.

In fact, over the last 140 million years, the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere has been steadily decreasing and only now slightly starting to rise. It is currently around 420 parts per million (ppm), or 0.042%. 140 million years ago, it was estimated at 2,500 ppm (0.25%), or about six times higher. And it also meant a greener and more biodiverse world. If CO₂ were to fall below 150 ppm (0.015%), it would already mean the extinction of vegetation and all other life. We came close to that during the last glacial maximum when it was at 182 ppm (0.018%).

Zharkova says that the fact that CO₂ levels in the atmosphere are now increasing is a good thing. “We don’t need to remove CO₂ because we would actually need more of it. It’s food for plants to produce oxygen for us. The people who say CO₂ is bad are obviously not very well educated at university or wherever they studied. Only uneducated people can come up with such absurd talk that CO₂ should be removed from the air,” says Zharkova. ...

However, her research has focused on the Sun and she can confirm that, unlike CO₂, the Sun plays a major role in Earth’s climate change. So much so, in fact, that Zharkova’s research suggests that we have entered a colder period, or essentially a little ice age, in the next 30 years, as the Sun’s activity weakens in the context of global warming.

Putin Is No Friend of Western Values

In case one is confused:

The issue of religious persecution has emerged as an objection to House Speaker Mike Johnson’s plans for military funding for Ukraine. Many congressional Republicans evidently believe that Russia is “protecting Christianity,” as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R., Ga.) said on Monday. These Republican members are being duped by Russian propaganda, including the claim that Russia’s war against Ukraine is against Satanism. “The overthrow of faith and traditional values and the suppression of freedom are resembling a ‘religion in reverse’ — pure Satanism,” Putin said two years ago, in a speech on Russia’s intent to annex occupied Ukraine.

Moscow’s invasion and devastation of Ukraine have contributed to the assessment, by the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), that Russia ranks among the world’s religious persecutors of greatest concern. Russia, they find, “egregiously” and “systematically” persecutes a wide array of Christian churches, except the Ukrainian Orthodox Church–Moscow Patriarchate, which Putin co-opts. A Ukrainian delegation of diverse religious leaders told a Hudson Institute gathering last year that they fear that a victorious Russia would crush their religious institutions. Credible reports on Russia-occupied Ukraine validate this.

Last December, the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church posted on its site that in 2022 the Russian authorities in occupied Zaporizhzhia banned all Greek Catholic churches there as well as Caritas and the Knights of Columbus, Catholic aid organizations. According to the post, the bans were based on “groundless” accusations that church buildings were storing explosives and firearms, that its members were participating in anti-Russian protests, and that the charities were spying for the Vatican and Washington. All real property of the Greek Catholic Church in Zaporizhzhia was transferred to the Russian administrative authorities, church leases were terminated, and its leaders were barred from registering to legally carry out their ministries. The office of Archbishop Borys Gudziak of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia confirmed for me that the post represents the official position of the Ukrainian Catholic Church.

Mission Eurasia, an American Christian charity, finds that in spring 2023 “almost all non-Orthodox churches in occupied territories were stripped of their right to hold church services.” Forum 18, a Norwegian news service dedicated to religious freedom, reports that, in the occupied Luhansk region, Protestants, Jehovah’s Witnesses, and the Orthodox Church of Ukraine have not been allowed to register their places of worship and only two Pentecostal churches were allowed to register, last January. Moreover, in 2022 in Lysychansk, Russian administrators reportedly seized the city’s largest Protestant church and informed another that Baptists, Pentecostals, and Seventh-day Adventists were banned as “extremists.” USCIRF also reported that Russian authorities in Mariupol had banned “all Protestant and non-Orthodox churches.”

Mission Eurasia found that the “scale of the destruction of evangelical prayer houses is vast.” It has mapped more than 600 religious buildings damaged or destroyed by targeted Russian missiles, suicide drones, artillery strikes, and other violence. Affected were the Ukrainian Pentecostal Church, Evangelical and Baptist churches, and the Seventh-day Adventists. The Jehovah’s Witnesses have seen 110 of its Kingdom Halls damaged.

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church now has “no clergy left” in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied regions of Donetsk, Luhansk, and Kherson, in addition to Zaporizhzhia, according to Mission Eurasia. It cites Forum 18’s Felix Corley, adding that Ukrainian Greek Catholic churches have been closed and their priests expelled from the occupied regions.The Kyiv-based Institute for Religious Freedom reports that Russian militants calling themselves “Cossacks” have shut down Catholic churches in Donetsk and and closed them to worshipers. Storing weapons, promoting “neo-Nazi goals” — such claims are “the kind of classic accusations they’re making against the [Ukrainian] Greek Catholic Church,” said Corley.

In November 2022, Fathers Ivan Levitsky and Bohdan Geleta, Ukrainian Catholic Redemptorist priests, were arrested by Russian authorities at their church in occupied Zaporizhzhia. They were then “tortured without mercy” before being sent to prison, according to Major Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. According to Mission Eurasia, Russia’s “widespread” torture of detained Christian leaders in occupied Ukraine, includes “mock executions, threats of rape, electrical torture, and hours-long group beatings.” It finds a “practice of arbitrary arrests and kidnappings of religious figures, holding them in basements in horrific conditions and inflicting violent torture on them.”

 

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Marie-Antoinette Governor-General Mary Simon hosted a conference in support of the new censorship czar and Bill C-63:

Rideau Hall yesterday had no comment after Governor General Mary Simon personally hosted a conference in support of a bill before Parliament, C-63 An Act To Enact The Online Harms Act. The guest list was limited to Attorney General Arif Virani and supporters of internet regulation: “We discussed this and our Online Harms Act.”

 

This Bill C-63:

In late February, the Liberal government introduced draft legislation in Parliament, Bill C-63. It purports to increase online protection for children. Officially named the Online Harms Act, that part of the legislation is laudable.

But what is not praiseworthy are the tacked-on provisions that would further restrict the rights of Canadians to speak, debate, and dissent. For example, the bill would create a “hate crime offence,” which in the eyes of government is “content that foments hatred.” Such hatred is defined in the bill as that which “expresses detestation or vilification of an individual or group” based on categories in the existing Canadian Human Rights Act.

For those outside Canada not familiar with the list, it’s all-encompassing: anyone “motivated by hatred based on race, national or ethnic origin, language, colour, religion, sex, age, mental or physical disability, sexual orientation, or gender identity or expression.” To helpfully define “hatred,” one aspect of the bill adds this clarification: “Hatred means the emotion that involves detestation or vilification and that is stronger than disdain or dislike.”

Note that in this case it’s not actions that would be outlawed but thought, the key word being the allegation that someone might be “motivated” by hate to speak against the cited list of groups. Note as well that a civil servant in the human-rights bureaucracy would have a hand in deciding whether or not the accused has engaged in emotions “stronger than disdain or dislike” and is therefore potentially subject to a Criminal Code charge.

Just as alarming, if a hate-speech case arrives in court, as the Canadian Constitution Foundation notes, claims would be judged “on a mere ‘balance of probabilities’ standard rather than the criminal standard of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.” The bill would even “allow judges to put prior restraints on people who they believe on reasonable grounds may commit speech crimes in the future.” So future thoughtcrimes would be added to past thoughtcrimes as punishable Criminal Code offenses in Canada.

This would lead to a cornucopia of complaints, given that anyone would be able to file an anonymous complaint to the federal Human Rights Commission alleging that a “hate crime” has occurred. The commission in turn would be authorized to investigate, rule, and order “remedies,” including prosecution if the government-appointed body concludes that the accused is “motivated” by hate.

 

A broad brush for an iron fist.

 

No Country For Anyone

Imagine having to justify retaliation after having one's countrymen murdered and eventually eliminating an existential threat to itself.

That's Israel:

Iran informed Turkey in advance of its planned operation against Israel, a Turkish diplomatic source told Reuters on Sunday, adding that Washington had conveyed to Tehran via Ankara that any action it took had to be "within certain limits."

Turkey, which has denounced Israel for its campaign on Gaza, said earlier on Sunday that it did not want a further escalation of tensions in the region.

The Turkish source, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan had spoken to both his US  Iranian counterparts in the past week to discuss the planned Iranian operation, adding Ankara had been made aware of possible developments. 

Earlier this week, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke to Fidan to make clear that escalation in the Middle East was not in anyone's interest.

"Iran informed us in advance of what would happen. Possible developments also came up during the meeting with Blinken, and they (the US) conveyed to Iran through us that this reaction must be within certain limits," the source said.

 

Canada morphed into Nazi Germany so gradually that one hardly noticed, even when a Nazi was openly applauded in the House of Commons:

Biographies of UN employees who took part in the Oct. 7 massacre in Israel.

Satellite photos of Gaza schools constructed atop buried terrorist bunkers.

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Hamas rocket launchers installed within metres of marked United Nations compounds.

This is just a portion of the Israeli intelligence that Canada had access to when the Liberal government decided on March 8 to resume funding the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA). Global Affairs Canada announced the decision despite several other countries, including the United States, opting to waiting until the conclusion of a UN investigation before making any decisions on resuming funding they had also paused after allegations from Israel of links between UNRWA and the Oct. 7 terror attacks led.

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National Post was granted exclusive media access to the intelligence given to the Trudeau government — a dossier spelling out Israel’s case for Canada to permanently stop sending tax dollars to the controversial UN agency.

After allegations in January of UNRWA members taking active roles in the Oct. 7 massacre, the United States announced a temporarily funding halt.

Canada and numerous other nations followed suit, but Ottawa reversed course two months later, in time to deliver this year’s $25-million installment of a $100-million funding pledge to UNRWA made last year by the Trudeau Liberals.

In contrast, the massive appropriations package passed by the U.S. Congress late last month included a statutory ban on funding UNRWA until March 2025.

Japan, Australia, Finland and Sweden have also resumed their funding.

The intelligence briefing shown to National Post included 43 slides laying out a comprehensive dossier of evidence, including information gathered from communications of Hamas operatives, social media, and video of the Oct. 7 attack. Some of it bore the logo of iNet, the Israeli operation that synthesizes open-source intelligence for the state’s defence establishment.

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According to the intelligence — which Israeli diplomatic officials confirmed to the Post was made available to the Canadian government before March 8 — Hamas views UNRWA as a pillar of its civil rule providing the support that allows it to put greater focus on its military and terrorism programs.

“Hamas is deeply and systematically embedded in UNRWA,” the briefing states.

“Hamas members serve in all sectors of UNRWA activities, including in key positions.”

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Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly says she’s urging Israel to de-escalate rising conflicts in the Middle East and not bomb Iran in retaliation for this past weekend’s thwarted airstrikes.

Joly says she told Israel’s Foreign Minister Israel Katz to “take the win” of having stopped Iranian airstrikes and to not respond with a direct attack on Iran.

 

Take the win?

Is this a game?

Stupid b!#ch.

 

Also:

Progressive Conservative MPP for Eglinton—Lawrence Robin Martin’s constituency office was vandalized by Hamas supporters overnight on Tuesday, in yet another display of antisemitic vandalism that has become all too common in Canada.

The asphalt outside of the office, located in North York`s Yorkdale-Glen Park neighbourhood, had the words “Shame on Robin” and “genocide supporter” written on it, in what appears to be red spray paint.

Martin has been a vocal ally of Israel and has posted specifically debunking the narrative of genocide in Palestine. Following the October 7 massacre by Hamas, Martin said in a post to X that she stands with Israel, and sent her prayers to its people “in the face of this act of war.”

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What the hell is in the water in Sydney?:

A 16-year-old boy who allegedly stabbed a bishop and a father at an Orthodox Christian Church in Sydney's west had his fingers cut off during the attack.

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Sometimes we bring heartache on ourselves:

An anti-Israel protester wept as a judge arraigned her in California on Friday after she allegedly threatened to murder public officials at a city council meeting.

Riddhi Patel, 28, sobbed as she pleaded not guilty to 18 felony counts after she directed comments to Bakersfield city council members and Republican Mayor Karen Goh for not backing a Gaza cease-fire resolution against Israel and for installing metal detectors at city hall.

Patel was ordered to be held on $1 million bail and stay at least 500 yards away from city hall.