For a Monday

Much to talk about ...




In July 2017, after Justin left the country, it was reported that his government awarded $10.5 million dollars to convicted and unrepentant terrorist, Omar Khadr, the premise being that it would have been easier to give the convicted murderer and enemy combatant against Canada and the US money to which he was not entitled than possibly lose a lawsuit. Khadr lost a $134 million (USD) lawsuit for injuring Layne Morris and killing Christopher Speer and, as of this writing, has not paid any portion of it.

It has now been discovered where Khadr has been hiding part of his payout, the money he is keeping from Christopher Speer's widow and children:

Khadr and his lawyers have, so far, sheltered that money from seizure. It was safely hidden away, until now.

Approximately one month ago, we received a tip about a real estate deal where Khadr’s name popped up in the form of a blurry screenshot -- enough to get the ball rolling. We had lawyers pull land titles and corporate registries and are now able to confirm that Khadr, or rather a numbered Alberta company where he is one of only two directors, owns an aging strip mall with a partner in North Central Edmonton.

The building itself houses a tire shop, a daycare, a travel agency, a commercial painting business, and a seasonal garden centre. The purchase price was $3M cash. No mortgage. ...

Once we confirmed the information, we handed it over to the Speer and Morris families. Their legal teams have known about the property for a few weeks because we gave them a head start. According to that wrongful-death judgment against Khadr, this $3M property should be theirs. Now they need a Canadian court to execute their judgment against Khadr.

The Rebel uncovered this. Not the state broadcaster, the CBC, not CTV, not any other news agency in the country.

$565 million does not cover investigative work, apparently.




The scandal that will not go away:

An international body announced Monday it is monitoring allegations that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his office attempted to politically interfere in the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, which if true could put Canada in violation of a multilateral anti-bribery agreement.

The 36-country Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, which includes the United States, the United Kingdom, France and others said Monday it would “closely monitor” investigations into the SNC-Lavalin affair by the House of Commons justice committee and the federal ethics commissioner.

OECD might be monitoring Canada because of this:

Trudeau Foundation's "Guy Saint-Pierre is the former CEO of SNC-Lavalin..."

Typical liberal political threads run deep.

I imagine @AndrewScheer @PierrePoilievre are fully aware of this, but not so much the general public.@manny_ottawa @SpencerFernando @CFRASnow @brianlilley https://t.co/PQaJ8UpmeW

— John Doe (aka Jacques Trappe) 🇨🇦🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿 (@john_don123) February 8, 2019

 

And this:

The media relations office of the PSPC said the updated policy is “being studied and finalized” and acknowledged there was no minimum period of suspension mandated under the proposed changes.

That could provide SNC-Lavalin — whose efforts to settle its criminal charges have led to a national furor about whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau improperly pressured former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould — an alternative way to escape the potentially debilitating effects on its infrastructure business that a conviction would bring.

“Theoretically, they could propose … that ineligibility be six months, a year or no debarment at all,” said Timothy Cullen, an Ottawa-based lawyer at McMillan, about the proposed changes. “Whether they (the government) will feel that’s appropriate, we don’t know because it’s never been done before.”

And this:

Canada has 3rd world Justice
1. Trudeau #obstructionOfJutice for friends at #SNCLavalin
2. Liberal #justicecommittee investigating crimes by PMO but still take instructions FROM PMO to stop @Puglaas from speaking. pic.twitter.com/yW1100XwN5

— Manny_Ottawa (@manny_ottawa) March 11, 2019

And this:

And a recent tweet from his account only adds to the impression of arrogance. It was pointed out by Warren Kinsella – who has been doing a great job exposing Wernick’s unfitness for the job:

“Michael Wernick calls the web site for the Government of Canada “my website.” #cdnpoli #lavscam #lpc”

For some reason, it's not a stretch for me to believe that Justin is a temperamental douchebag:

Vidal Chavannes, MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes’ husband, speaking up about his wife’s interactions with Prime Minister Justice Trudeau where she says he yelled at her.

** 

To recap, according to his government’s guidelines, the prime minister violated key provisions of workplace harassment legislation, and followed up by removing the complainant from her job and assigning her to a post that could be reasonably deemed inferior to the one she had. If he was an office manager at … oh, let’s say a Montreal engineering firm … and treated an employee like that, he’d be lucky to hang on to his job. The prime minister says he experienced the situation differently, but Liberal MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes says that when she told him she was not running for re-election, around the same time as the SNC-Lavalin crisis, he treated her with “hostility” and “anger,” eventually “stomping out of the room without a word.”

Don't forget Phoenix Sinclair:

A nervous father walks into a courtroom and sits down. Over the next few minutes, he’s quiet as two lawyers discuss his children and decide on the Indigenous family’s future.

“It’s really depressing, week after week, to be told no decisions have been made yet,” one of the lawyers tells the courtroom in Winnipeg on an afternoon in February.

The lawyer explains how the parent is disappointed in himself that his children were apprehended and is working to get them back. But there’s been a mix-up over which child and family services agency should oversee the file, so it hasn’t moved ahead for three weeks.

I would suggest that these oxygen-suckers look after their own families and the Canadian legal system is as useful and transparent as the governmental one, by which I mean not at all useful or transparent but that would just make too much sense and one cannot have that.




The Ford government is offering more money to autistic students who may find themselves utterly without necessary therapy:

School boards will get additional money to support students with autism, Ontario’s education minister announced Monday, as hundreds of kids may soon enter school because they will get less funding for therapy.

Families say that recently announced changes to the Ontario Autism Program that will kick in April 1 mean many of those children currently in government-funded, full-time therapy will have to instead transition into school. The government says there are 1,105 children with autism who are not in school.

Education Minister Lisa Thompson said school boards will get an average of $12,300 for each new student with autism entering the school system in the remaining months of this school year.

“This funding will allow school boards to make sure there are proper supports available during the transition from therapy to school,” she announced in Ottawa.

The government is aiming to clear a wait list of 23,000 kids by spreading an existing pot of money to all children diagnosed with autism, instead of fully funding the treatment.

Yet the therapy is expensive and teachers are unwilling or unable to properly teach these children. One must also not forget that money is simply put into a pool and may not go where it is needed.




Do you know what might help? Not having huge tariffs on aluminum and steel:

In the wake of U.S. tariffs on Canadian steel, the federal government has announced $100 million in funding for small and medium-sized enterprise steel and aluminum manufacturers in Canada.

Navdeep Bains, minister of innovation, science and economic development made the announcement at Nova Steel in Hamilton on Monday.

"In the face of unjust and illegal U.S. tariffs hurting businesses and workers on both sides of the border, our government is standing shoulder to shoulder with our hard-working steel and aluminum workers and the users of their world-class products," Bains said in a statement.

"Our investment to support small and medium-sized producers and users across the country will help businesses innovate to drive productivity, scale up and expand into new markets to create good middle-class jobs."

It's Justin's fault that those tariffs exist. If Justin were to - let's say -resign and leave the country, Trump might change his mind on the tariffs.

Just a thought.

Also - this might be a trifle embarrassing:

Corporate tax cuts in the United States have saved some of Canada’s big banks hundreds of millions of dollars in the first full year since they were introduced.

It's like Trump was on to something.




But not so much North Korea:

A U.S. Department of State official on Monday said she thinks there will be a third summit between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, but no date has been set. 

Also:

Millions of North Korean voters, including leader Kim Jong Un, went to the polls on Sunday to elect a new lineup of roughly 700 members for the next session of the national legislature, though the vote was more of an endorsement than a competitive contest.

(Sidebar: obviously.)

** 

An Indonesian woman accused in the 2017 chemical poison murder of the North Korean leader's half-brother was freed on Monday after a Malaysian court dropped the charge in a case that drew suspicions of being a political assassination.

As the court announced its decision, Siti Aisyah, 26, turned to her Vietnamese co-defendant, Doan Thi Huong, 30, in the dock and the two women, who had been facing the death penalty together, embraced in tears.

They had been accused of poisoning Kim Jong Nam, the half-brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, with liquid VX, a banned chemical weapon, at Kuala Lumpur airport in February 2017.

Following the dramatic decision to release Siti Aisyah, a defense lawyer asked for an adjournment in the case against Huong in order to submit a request that charges be dropped against her too.

Defense lawyers have maintained that the women were pawns in an assassination orchestrated by North Korean agents. The North Korean embassy in Kuala Lumpur was defaced with graffiti just hours before the trial was to resume, authorities said.

Interpol had issued a red notice for four North Koreans who were identified as suspects by Malaysian police and had left the country hours after the murder.

Not worth it or you can't do it?:

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said that barring “overwhelming” new evidence she would not pursue impeachment against President Trump because it would be too divisive and “he’s just not worth it.”

 
The latter.




Another day in Pakistan:

A woman who was gang-raped on the orders of a village council to punish her brother has told how she has gone on to teach the children of her alleged attackers after setting up a school.

Mukhtar Mai last week renewed her fight for justice when she went back to Pakistan’s supreme court to petition against the acquittal of men previously convicted of the attack.

Her supporters hope a string of new laws as well as the Supreme Court’s decision to quash Asia Bibi’s blasphemy conviction show a shift in the judicial system to protect women.

Ms Mai’s story caused international outcry in 2002 when it emerged a village council had ordered her rape because her 12-year-old brother was accused of having illicit relations with a woman from a powerful rival clan.

Rather than kill herself as custom might have expected, she swore she would have justice and her fight became an international cause celebre.

My God! Did someone tell the Democrats this?:

Archeologists working in Peru have found what they say is the site of the largest child sacrifice in the world. About 140 children and more than 200 animals — probably llamas — were killed in the middle of the 1400s. A civilization known as the Chimu sacrificed the children in response to catastrophic weather, the scientists suggest. An unusual layer of thick mud, a sign of an extreme El Nino event, covered the burial pits.