Monday Post

So much is happening ...




Now Jane Philpott is abandoning ship:

Treasury Board President Jane Philpott is resigning from the federal cabinet over the fallout from the SNC-Lavalin affair, telling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in an open letter she has “lost confidence in how the government” has dealt with the issue.

Right. The principle of the thing. Right ...




Gerald Butts will attempt to refute the testimony given by the former justice minister on Wednesday. Have one's favourite beverage and snack ready as this promises to be entertaining:

Gerald Butts, the former top advisor to Justin Trudeau who’s resignation further escalated the PMO scandal, will be addressing the ongoing controversy at the Justice Committee.

Butts will be speaking at 10:00 am Wednesday.

His appearance follows the absolutely devastating testimony of former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould, testimony that included the revelation that Butts applied pressure and even said there was no ‘solution’ for SNC-Lavalin that ‘didn’t involve some interference.’

The problem facing Butts and Trudeau however, is that Jody Wilson-Raybould had meticulously detailed testimony, based on notes and documentation, while Trudeau and his cronies appear to have nothing with which to refute her comments.

They’ve been reduced to saying they ‘disagree’ with what she said, without actually detailing any specific areas of disagreement or providing any detailed information of their own.

As a result, many expect Butts’ testimony to be more about spreading talking points and playing defence for Trudeau, rather than actually refuting what Jody Wilson-Raybould said.

Also - the SNC-Lavalin scandal has not softened Jody's ambitions one bit:

Jody Wilson-Raybould says she is “overwhelmed and grateful” about an outpouring of public support since her scorching testimony in the SNC-Lavalin scandal. ...

Despite the backlash, Wilson-Raybould said she has no intention of leaving the Liberals.

“I was elected as the Liberal member of Parliament for Vancouver Granville and I will continue to serve as such,” she said.

Trudeau said last week he had not decided whether Wilson-Raybould will be allowed to remain in the government caucus or to run again for the Liberals.

“I haven’t yet had the opportunity to review her entire testimony,” Trudeau said. “I will do that before making any further decisions.”

But Wilson-Raybould said she’s already secured the Liberal nomination for the October election.

“I was confirmed as the Liberal Party of Canada candidate for Vancouver Granville last year,” she said.

Despite being at the centre of a raging political storm, Wilson-Raybould said she is feeling upbeat and confident.

“I am doing fine,” she said. “The past few weeks have been eventful ones for our country, our system of government, and for myself and family.”

Quite a forgiving attitude from someone who was shoved under a bus by her former colleagues. But one doesn't win elections as an independent, does one?




Vice-Admiral Mark Norman -

(Sidebar: this Mark Norman.)

- is one of three individuals the Department of National Defense did not cover the legal costs for:

Vice-Admiral Mark Norman is one of only three individuals over the past two years whose request to the Defence Department for financial help with legal bills was rejected.

The Conservative party has been pushing the military to cover Norman’s mounting legal costs as the case against the senior naval officer drags into its second year.

The department received requests from 41 military officers and public servants over the past two years to cover their legal bills and is doing so for 38.

The figures were provided by the DND to Postmedia but the details of the individual cases were not released because of the federal privacy law.

Taxpayers, however, will be financing the legal bills of some of DND staff who will be testifying at Norman’s upcoming trial, department sources confirmed.

Also:

The problem is that the Liberals are still locked in by preposterous conflicting campaign promises during the 2015 election: that they would select Canada’s next fighter jet in a fair and open competition, but that they also would refuse to consider the F-35 jet favoured by the Harper Conservatives. You cannot have a fair and open competition while excluding a leading candidate. The Liberal answer to this self-imposed problem seems to be just punting the final decision off as long as they can. Hence, the purchase of four-decade-old Australian castoffs (jets Australia no longer needs because it’s replacing its aging fleet with modern equipment).

It’s a bad plan, and yet, depressingly, a quintessentially Canadian one.

And - it's an election year!:

Trudeau and Veterans Affairs Minister Lawrence MacAulay later met with P.E.I. Premier Wade MacLauchlan.

Heading into the meeting, MacLauchlan noted the announcement last week by the Conference Board of Canada that P.E.I. is expected to lead the country with 3.2 per cent growth this year.

Later in the day, the prime minister announced his Liberal government will spend $37.5 million to help a pharmaceutical company expand in Atlantic Canada.

Trudeau made the announcement at BioVectra Inc. in Charlottetown, which plans to spend $144 million over five years to expand its operations in Charlottetown and Windsor, N.S.

Shocked and outraged that Justin didn't do what was expected of him, the Chinese take drastic action:

The defence team for Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou has filed a notice of civil claim alleging “serious violations” of her constitutional rights, accusing officers of detaining and questioning her for three hours before notifying her of her arrest.

The suit filed with the B.C. Supreme Court on Friday is against members of the Canadian Border Services Agency, the RCMP and the federal government.

It seeks damages for false imprisonment based on multiple alleged failures of government officials to comply with the rule of law upon her detention, search and interrogation at the Vancouver airport on Dec. 1.

(Sidebar: and she didn't do this in December because ...?) 

**

Chinese official media on Monday accused two Canadians detained in China of acting together to steal state secrets, just days after Canada announced it will proceed with a U.S. extradition request for a senior Chinese tech executive.

The Xinhua News Agency cited unidentified Chinese authorities as saying former Canadian diplomat Michael Kovrig violated Chinese laws by acting as a spy and stealing Chinese state secrets and intelligence with the help of Canadian businessman Michael Spavor.

Both Canadians were arrested on Dec. 10 in what was widely seen as an attempt to pressure Canada to release Chinese executive Meng Wanzhou, who was arrested in Vancouver on Dec. 1 at the request of U.S. authorities.

Oh, this must be awkward:

The suspected ISIS member known as ‘Jihadi Jack’ was days away from being welcomed into Canada when the U.S. and U.K. torpedoed the move, a British politician claims.

Labour MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle told Channel 4 that Jack Letts — whose father is Canadian — was to be smuggled out of Syria and brought here.

However, the federal government strongly denies the allegation.

“While we do not comment on national security operational matters, we can confirm that the claim made in the Daily Mail is categorically false,” Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale’s office said Friday in a statement to the Toronto Sun.

Let's put it another way: there probably was a move to bring the aforementioned sh--bag to Canada but it was scrapped due to some rather bad press as of late.




Imagine for a moment the head of the household is sent out to buy a week's worth of groceries. He is given $150 for the task. When he returns home, it is discovered that he hasn't bought groceries at all but magic beans:

Left with only $50, it is up to the mother to buy provisions. She must make economies due to the father's silliness (SEE: beans, magic). No more fancy toilet paper, only the regular stuff:

This does not sit well with the rest of the household.

The above scenario is Canada in a nutshell.

Canadians will vote in a stupid and reckless government and stay with that pack of criminally-minded idiots until they tire of them. Then they will vote in a government that must enact austerity measures or the entire province or country will sink.

Case in point:

All week I’ve been thinking about that as I watch the NDP react to Ford government changes with calls for more spending.

On Friday, it was revealed that the education ministry has ordered a hiring freeze for school boards across the province.

The NDP issued a news release headlined, “Take deep cuts to classrooms off the table.”

Deep cuts?

It’s a hiring freeze in an area where government spending has ballooned in recent years.

As I reported a couple of weeks ago now, spending on education more than doubled from $13.4 billion in 2004, the first budget of the McGuinty government, to $29.1 billion in 2018, the last Liberal budget. All figures adjusted to 2018 dollars.

In that time, the number of teachers grew from 112,235 teachers overseeing 2,129,742 students to 125,980 teachers plus 9,054 early childhood educators overseeing 2,020,301 students.

“Parents shouldn’t have to worry that their children won’t get the quality education they deserve as the Conservatives take their cutting agenda out on our children,” NDP education critic Marit Stiles said.

Really?

If money were the solution, then the McGuinty/Wynne Liberals would have left us a stellar education system. Instead, we have less than 50% of Grade 6 students being able to meet the provincial standard in math.

Education Minister Lisa Thompson confirmed the hiring freeze and said it is about spending tax dollars wisely.

“We need to take a hard look at how school boards spend their money and make sure every single dollar invested in our education system, is a dollar invested in a student’s future,” Thompson said.

After all, the EFTO had the means to go to court to support a convicted child pornographer's sex ed program.

But there is no money for special-education or math teachers, apparently.




Oh, this must be embarrassing:

“Ok I will write on the fake news of ‘abortion survivors,” Jennifer Gunter, an Ob-Gyn who has been published by the New York Times, decided on Feb. 27. 

The only problem is, they aren’t fake. Abortion survivors are real and they have a voice.

Melanie Israel, a research associate at the Heritage Foundation, reported that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention discovered that from 2003 through 2014 there were at least “143 cases of infants surviving abortion.” Israel also listed states, like Florida, which found 17 cases in just one year. ...

Two of the most well-known abortion survivors, who have both testified before Congressional members, are Melissa Ohden and Gianna Jessen. Both of them survived attempted saline abortions.

"This method of abortion burns the baby inside and out, blinding and suffocating the child, who is then born dead usually within 24 hours. This is what I survived,” Jessen told the House Judiciary Committee in 2015. “Instead of dying, after 18 hours of being burned in my mother's womb, I was delivered alive."

Pretending something doesn't exist does not change the fact that it very much does.




Good. These records will only confirm what the Vatican and historians have been saying for years - that Pope Pius XII and others had worked tirelessly in almost impossible situations to save people who would otherwise have perished in death camps:

Declaring that the church “isn’t afraid of history,” Pope Francis said Monday he has decided to open up the Vatican archives on World War II-era Pope Pius XII, who has been criticized by Jews of staying silent on the Holocaust.

Francis told officials and personnel of the Vatican Secret Archives that the archive would be open to researchers starting March 2, 2020.

I'm quite sure the pro-North Korea Moon Jae-In would gladly let Kim do as he wishes:

Today, the destitute North is able to bully and censor the affluent South at will. Imagine what Pyongyang, after a peace declaration with Washington, could do to the risk-averse Seoul whose default position is to pay and placate Pyongyang in return for de-escalation. “Peace” sounds hypnotically peaceful — but an actual peace by virtue of credible U.S. military deterrence has been maintained in the Korean Peninsula since the armistice of 1953. Decades-long de facto peace has facilitated South Korea’s rise as a prosperous, free nation while the North chose the opposite path.

But, with a signed “peace agreement,” the North can overturn the gloomy future of perpetual economic inferiority. A peace agreement would render the post-war United Nations Command a prime candidate for nullification. Next, the raison d’etre of U.S. forces in South Korea would be compromised in a brave new world of formal faux peace. And sanctions enforcement against the Kim regime will have become a relic of the past.

Through graduated escalation, occasionally tempered with sugar-coated placation, Pyongyang will compel the South to pay up. Inter-Korean economic, cultural and sports projects, which always entail money flow from the South to the North, will palliate the shame of Seoul’s increasingly subservient relationship with Pyongyang under a cloak of “inter-Korean reconciliation.” Any criticism of Pyongyang’s extortionist ways will be regarded “anti-peace.”

(Kamsahamnida)




Ladies and gentlemen, the late great John Candy: