Mid-Week Post

Your mid-week examination of conscience ...



People who have no conscience - these guys:

In the last week, the Liberal government have been arguing strongly that their actions on SNC-Lavalin were motivated solely by a desire to protect jobs.

“We are always going to stand up for good jobs,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at a Monday press conference in P.E.I. 

Five times before the House of Commons justice committee on Wednesday, former prime minister adviser Gerald Butts said his actions were motivated by the threat of job losses.

“When 9,000 people’s jobs are at stake, it is a public policy problem of the highest order,” Butts said.

But this point, more than any other, may be bolstering the case that Trudeau and his staff strayed outside the law in pressuring former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to defer charges against SNC-Lavalin.

Under section 715.32(3) of the Criminal Code, prosecutors are forbidden to consider the “national economic interest” in deciding whether to grant certain deferred prosecution agreements, including the one that was being sought for SNC-Lavalin. According to Jody Wilson-Raybould’s sworn testimony last Wednesday, she was explicitly told to seek a DPA for SNC-Lavalin because of the potential “jobs lost.”

**

Last night at Trudeau's rally, some women discovered the true face of the Liberal Party. Note: the crazy Liberal supporter in th pic was allowed to stay.#toronto #topoli #goon #climatehaschangedforTrudeau #cdnpoli @kinsellawarren pic.twitter.com/4zv5B8W5hU

— Somebobby (@70hr_weekcanuck) March 5, 2019

 

But ... but ... Wernick!


Speaking of whom:

Vice-Admiral Mark Norman's lawyer is threatening to call Gerald Butts and Privy Council clerk Michael Wernick to testify in open court if they don't produce a series of documents that she says are essential to defend her client.

Lawyer Marie Henein issued the ultimatum during a brief pre-trial hearing this morning even as Butts, who recently resigned as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's top aide, was testifying before a House of Commons committee on the SNC-Lavalin affair.

Henein told the court that she has been fighting since October for internal communications inside the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office, which included issuing subpoenas for Trudeau's, Butts's and Wernick's records last month.

Government lawyer Derek Rasmussen responded by saying the requested emails, BlackBerry messages and other documents were ready for Justice Heather Perkins-McVey to review before deciding whether they should be released to Norman's legal team.

Yet Henein nonetheless said she has yet to see a single document and unless they are produced by March 18, she plans to issue subpoenas for Butts, Wernick and other senior officials to take the stand and explain why not.

Also:

A Canadian judge set Huawei Technologies Co Ltd Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou's next court date for May 8, as she appeared in court on Wednesday. 

Who wants to go to Regina, anyway?

No one except the people who live there and like it and who work there and think it's nice with its quaint buildings and such.

Not Justin, is my point:

On Monday, the Prime Minister’s Office said Trudeau would “visit a Canadian Tire store to highlight how Saskatchewan residents can choose to use their Climate Action Incentive payments to save money at home.”

A PMO spokesperson said Tuesday that Trudeau will return to Ottawa for “private meetings” after an armchair discussion as part of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada Convention in Toronto.

While the spokesperson expects Trudeau to be back in Regina “in no time,” there is no new return trip planned.

The event was planned for the Gordon Road location at 2:45 p.m. But Monday night, protesters said they were getting word the event had been cancelled due to an “outpouring of calls detesting the support” of the prime minister.

Further burn:

Drop the poses. Choke off the slogans and pieties. Leave the jacket on. Sit down and speak to Canadians in detail on the moral and legal questions these two most serious ministers have put to him. Cut the theatricals. Don’t talk fatuously of the “bigger picture.” There is no bigger picture than whether you are morally entitled to govern.

It's just an economy:

If you’re trying to argue against the Trans Mountain pipeline, you’ve got a few compelling points to work with. You could argue that coastal communities stand to gain little from the project while shouldering most of the risk. You could make a climate argument: Alberta oil has a higher carbon footprint, so kill the pipeline to leave it in the ground.

Despite all this, one of the most common arguments against the project is also one of the most ridiculous: That the pipeline expansion will drive killer whales to extinction. Specifically, the Southern Resident Killer Whales, an endangered population of fewer than 80 orcas that spend a lot of their time in the Salish Sea.

**

China’s foreign ministry said Wednesday that it is blocking some imports of Canadian canola due to fears of insect infestation, in what some suggest is just the latest swipe against the Canadian government for arresting a top Chinese tech executive.

Oh, Ralph. You do have your work cut out for you, don't you?:

A Conservative MP is calling for a federal review of the decision to move serial killer Cody Legebokoff from a maximum-security prison in B.C. to a medium-security facility in Ontario. 

Cariboo-Prince George MP Todd Doherty challenged Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale in the House of Commons last week to review the case and to get back to him and the families of the victims. 

"I just think that we need to be doing everything in our power so that we are respecting the rights of our victims and the victims' families," said Doherty, adding that the minister and prime minister have the power of review under the Corrections and Conditional Release Act.

Well, this must be dreadfully inconvenient:

The measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine isn’t associated with an increased risk of autism even among kids who are at high risk because they have a sibling with the disorder, a Danish study suggests.

Also:

The Ontario government would likely need to trim $8.6 billion in projected annual health care spending — about $560 per person — to balance its books within four years, a new report from Ontario’s Financial Accountability Office (FAO) estimates.

Why is anyone surprised that North Korea, of all places, has never given up its nuclear ambitions and is continuing to drive a wedge between itself and implosion?:

North Korea continues to use a uranium-enrichment facility at its main nuclear site in Yongbyon, according to International Atomic Energy Agency chief Yukiya Amano. 

Amano also said in the IAEA's quarterly report that the North continues to construct an experimental light-water reactor in Yongbyon.

Ancient records are being used to locate any survivors of Vesuvius:

Modern visitors to the ruins of the two main cities destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD are usually enthralled when they see the site of plaster casts of those who were killed, frozen in the midst of action. The catastrophic eruption wiped out several nearby towns and killed thousands of people. But some survived, and Miami University archaeologist and historian Steven Tuck thinks he knows where they ended up. He created a database of Roman names and matched them with records from other cities in Italy, describing his findings in a forthcoming paper in the journal Analecta Romana.

"Tuck's combination of history and archaeology has produced strong evidence that it is possible to trace Vesuvian refugees," bioarchaeologist Kristina Killgrove wrote at Forbes about this new work. "He finds that many refugees settled on the north side of the Bay of Naples, and that families tended to move together and then to marry within their refugee community."