For a Friday

A whole lot going on ...

 

Or a distraction like this:

The federal Justice Department is giving the go-ahead for an extradition case to proceed against Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, who is wanted in the United States on fraud allegations.

The decision is a formality and allows a judge to hear arguments about whether to grant the American request that she stand trial there.

Ultimately, Justice Minister David Lametti must decide if Meng is extradited, which is why his department says in a release that he will not comment on the facts of the case.

 
From this:

Justin Trudeau has the look of the high school hero who’s just fallen off his snowboard in front of all the twirling cheerleaders.

It’s been a hard week for Mr. Trudeau. It must have been even harder for the Gender Analytics Team down in the boiler room of the Department of Public Works (it’s next to the Deliverology stables, just past the Memorial to Proportional Representation). They’ve had to parse Jody Wilson-Raybould’s fierce testimony and sequence it with the government’s equity-feminism. ...

Mr. Trudeau has spoken of Wilson-Raybould’s presentation to the justice committee. “I have taken knowledge of her testimony…” — an odd locution, sounding like something from the Book of Exodus as translated by the Keilburger brothers. “… but there are still reflections to have on next steps” — which is, we must hope, his way of saying he disagrees.

But really, it’s just mush anyway you look at it. Much like Chrystia Freeland’s comment “I believe … she spoke her truth,” (accent on “her” you can be sure), which is a precious piece of equivocation even for a diplomat. Does no one in this government know what a real sentence sounds like?

Mush won’t melt steel. Wilson-Raybould has facts, details, specifics and principles. A deadpan face and urgently low-voiced platitudes will not prevail against them.

The fate of the Trudeau government now hangs on a contest between character and image. I expect they’ve already put out the call for all the king’s horses and all the king’s men ….

**

It looks like not only does Trudeau think he can survive this scandal he’s now embroiled in, but he believes that he can even thrive in the wake of Jody Wilson-Raybould’s bombshell testimony.

Further:

Gerald Butts, the former right-hand man to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, will publicly defend himself against allegations he attempted to interfere in the SNC-Lavalin prosecution.

Butts wrote to the House of Commons justice committee on Thursday asking for a chance to speak.

“I watched the testimony of the Honourable Jody Wilson-Raybould yesterday,” Butts’s letter said. “I believe my testimony will be of assistance to the (committee) in its consideration of these matters. I respectfully request the opportunity to attend the committee. I need a short period of time to receive legal advice concerning my evidence and to be able to produce relevant documents to the committee.”

Butts, one of Trudeau’s closest friends going back decades, resigned as the prime minister’s principal secretary on Feb. 18, saying he felt it was the right thing to do to defend himself and allow the government to continue its work undistracted.

Will Butts fall on his sword again or look out for the other Number One in the Butts-Trudeau dynamic?

Time, it will tell.


Also:

As the Liberal government descends into full-blown crisis, Conservatives could take some satisfaction that this is all happening in part because of a long-ago measure they implemented precisely to catch Liberal scandals.

In 2006, one of the first actions of the new government of Stephen Harper was the Director of Public Prosecutions Act, a measure designed to prevent future occurrences of the Sponsorship Scandal. Now, that act is at the centre of events apparently showing an attempt by the government of Justin Trudeau to halt a criminal prosecution for political reasons.

It's like Harper could see the future (but not well enough to have axed the CBC).


What a sh--bag:

Sidhu repeatedly said that if Wilson-Raybould was unhappy, she should have resigned immediately. He chalked up her discomfort to “a lack of experience,” and said she’s not “a team player.”

 

“The way she’s acting, I think she couldn’t handle the stress,” he said. “I think there’s somebody else behind – maybe her father – pulling the strings.”’

And - China is the kettle to the Liberal Party's pot:

China’s Foreign Ministry grabbed a chance to question the state of judicial independence in Canada on Friday, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government faced accusations at home that it had tried to intervene to stop a corruption trial.

Oh, stick to mowing people down at Tienanmen, China.




Damn you, Scott Brison!:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is making longtime MP Lawrence MacAulay his new veterans-affairs minister to fill the void left by the resignation of Jody Wilson-Raybould as part of a minor cabinet shuffle this morning.

Two other ministers already in cabinet are taking on new responsibilities: Marie-Claude Bibeau replaces MacAulay as agriculture minister and Gender Equality Minister Maryam Monsef takes on the additional portfolio of international development.

Why do Canadians need a Ministry of Truth? Aren't they clever enough to discern was is true or false?:

I am against the federal government’s Critical Election Incident Public Protocol (CEIPP) in principle. But given the up-to-his-eyeballs involvement of Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick in the prime minister’s efforts to pressure former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould into ending the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, I now have very practical objections to the CEIPP, too.

In early February, Democratic Institutions Minister Karina Gould announced that five senior civil servants will monitor the Internet for any sign of foreign meddling during this fall’s federal election.

Gould insisted this was not about “refereeing the election.” Rather, the CEIPP was about “alerting Canadians of an incident that jeopardizes their rights to a free and fair election.”

Okay, some giant hack of voting results that changed the outcome in several ridings might qualify, but Gould instead said the Liberals’ main concern was stopping “fake news” and “orchestrated disinformation campaigns.”

That’s a whole different kettle of fish. That sounds like an attempt to monitor the issues voters can and cannot see during an election. ...

Wernick did not say specifically that he was worried about the “yellow vests” who had driven their oilfield service trucks from western Canada to Ottawa that week. But given that some of them had displayed placards with the words “traitor” and “treason” on them, it was not hard to figure out who Wernick meant.

And if he cannot distinguish between frustrated people letting off steam by using exaggeration and real conspirators plotting to commit crimes, then Wernick has no business being named as one of the five impartial monitors of our upcoming federal campaign.

He also has no business being put in charge of election fairness if, in his judgement, a bunch of oil patch workers are a greater threat to Canadian democracy than an orchestrated effort by the Prime Minister’s Office to undermine our federal justice system on behalf of a Liberal-friendly corporation and on behalf of Liberal party re-election hopes.

Worse yet, since Wernick’s own credibility-shattering testimony, Canadians have heard from Wilson-Raybould herself. If her testimony is accurate, Wernick is also guilty of serving as a surrogate for the PM in pressuring Wilson-Raybould to get a deal done for SNC or face personal political consequences (such as being demoted in cabinet, which she was).

Wernick is supposed to be entirely non-partisan. Entirely. Given his entanglement in the SNC affair, he probably shouldn’t keep his main job, but he definitely can’t keep his post as an impartial monitor of this fall’s campaign.

Oh, save your breath, Justin:

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke to U.S. President Donald Trump on Thursday about American tariffs on steel and aluminum, Trudeau's office said on Friday, but well-placed sources said there was little sign of progress.

Oops:

Canada’s central statistics agency accidentally released closely watched growth figures early on Friday, surprising traders and taking a dent out of the loonie.

Good:

Ontario’s education ministry is recommending school boards freeze hiring as the government consults on class sizes and hiring practices.

Deputy minister Nancy Naylor sent boards a memo Thursday noting that the government implemented a hiring freeze in June and that school boards may wish to institute similar measures.

When that public service hiring freeze was instituted, the government said it didn’t apply to front-line staff such as police and fire services, and Premier Doug Ford said it also didn’t apply to nurses or teachers.

Naylor advised the boards this week to defer filling vacancies for retirements and other leaves for teachers and other staff until the minister gives them an update by March 15.

Desperate to save face, North Korea tries to explain away the failed summit in Vietnam:

President Donald Trump said he walked away from his second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un because Kim demanded the U.S. lift all of its sanctions, a claim that North Korea’s delegation called a rare news conference in the middle of the night to deny.

So who’s telling the truth? In this case, it seems that the North Koreans are. And it’s a demand they have been pushing for weeks in lower-level talks.

Trump’s much-anticipated meeting with Kim, held in the Vietnamese capital Wednesday and Thursday, ended abruptly and without the two leaders signing any agreements. Trump spoke with reporters soon after the talks broke down and said the dispute over sanctions was the deal breaker.

“Basically, they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, and we couldn’t do that,” he said. “We had to walk away from that.”

Hours later, two senior members of the North’s delegation told reporters that was not what Kim had demanded. They insisted Kim had asked only for partial sanctions relief in exchange for shutting down the North’s main nuclear complex. Foreign Minister Ri Yong Ho said the North was also ready to offer in writing a permanent halt of the country’s nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile tests.

Whatever we do, let's not be outraged by the child rapists who did this to the poor girl:

An 11-year-old rape victim gave birth in Argentina Tuesday after she was apparently denied an abortion by authorities, infuriating women’s-choice advocates in the country who have fought to legalize the procedure.

To clarify, the choice is to kill the child who is a product of rape. I await to hear the outrage against the scum who hurt this kid but, you know, the Narrative.