Monday, August 31, 2020

The Desolation of Smug

This isn't over, @$$holes:

The federal Conservatives are calling on WE Charity to release a series of documents the Toronto-based youth organization promised to hand over to a House of Commons committee before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prorogued Parliament.

But WE is pushing back against the Tories' request, with the organization's legal counsel saying it amounts to "politics, not proper process."

 

Like being friends with the Trudeau dynasty? That process? 


These documents:

The Tories’ request is contained in a letter sent Sunday from Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre and ethics critic Michael Barrett to Craig and Marc Kielburger, the brothers who co-founded WE more than 20 years ago.

It represents the official Opposition’s latest effort to continue digging into the decision to have WE run a multimillion-dollar student-volunteer program, after Trudeau temporarily shuttered several Commons committee investigations by proroguing Parliament on Aug. 18.

In their letter, Poilievre and Barrett note the Kielburgers and other WE officials committed to provide members of Parliament with answers to several questions they were unable to answer while appearing before the finance committee.

**

 

You can run away from your soon-to-be shuttered offices but you can't run away from the truth.


Oh, My ...

This must be embarrassing for the Democrats:

A top Democratic operative says voter fraud, especially with mail-in ballots, is no myth. And he knows this because he’s been doing it, on a grand scale, for decades.

Mail-in ballots have become the latest flashpoint in the 2020 elections. While President Trump and the GOP warn of widespread manipulation of the absentee vote that will swell with COVID polling restrictions, many Democrats and their media allies have dismissed such concerns as unfounded.

But the political insider, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he fears prosecution, said fraud is more the rule than the exception. His dirty work has taken him through the weeds of municipal and federal elections in Paterson, Atlantic City, Camden, Newark, Hoboken and Hudson County and his fingerprints can be found in local legislative, mayoral and congressional races across the Garden State. Some of the biggest names and highest office holders in New Jersey have benefited from his tricks, according to campaign records The Post reviewed.

“An election that is swayed by 500 votes, 1,000 votes — it can make a difference,” the tipster said. “It could be enough to flip states.”

The whisteblower — whose identity, rap sheet and long history working as a consultant to various campaigns were confirmed by The Post — says he not only changed ballots himself over the years, but led teams of fraudsters and mentored at least 20 operatives in New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania — a critical 2020 swing state.

 

(Merci)


I'm Sure That the Czech Republic Doesn't Care What You Think, China

The Czechs have had enough of communism:

China’s foreign minister warned Monday that a top Czech lawmaker would “pay a heavy price” for visiting Taiwan, exposing continued tensions with Europe even as Beijing sought to push back against U.S. overtures on the continent.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi told reporters in Germany that Czech Senate President Milos Vystrcil’s trip was a “betrayal” that made him “an enemy of 1.4 billion Chinese people.” Vystrcil is leading a 90-member delegation to Taiwan, including Prague Mayor Zdenek Hrib, a Beijing critic who in January made Taipei a sister city to the Czech capital.

“China will not sit idle and tolerate the Czech Senate leader’s provocation and the anti-China forces behind him,” Wang said. “We will make them pay a heavy price for such short-sighted behavior and political speculation.”

The Czech delegation represents Taipei’s second high-profile foreign visit in recent weeks, bolstering President Tsai Ing-wen’s effort to fight an isolation campaign by Beijing. Earlier this month, U.S. Health Secretary Alex Azar became the most senior American official to visit Taiwan since Washington switched diplomatic ties to Beijing from Taipei in 1979.

Vystrcil told an investment forum Monday that he aimed to deepen trade ties between the two sides, and that Czech entrepreneurs wanted to make connections with Taiwanese businesses. He didn’t comment on Wang’s remarks.

 

Probably because Vystrcil doesn't care.

 

What Makes Anyone Think That Trudeau Will Help?

Did everyone forget what he admires?:

The federal Liberal government is facing increasingly frustrated and worried calls to help people leave Hong Kong for Canada as China continues to crack down on pro-democracy activists in the former British colony.

The exasperation follows Ottawa's suspension of an extradition treaty with Hong Kong in early July after Beijing passed a national security law for the territory.

Critics say the law is being used to crack down on democracy in Hong Kong and put it more firmly under the communist regime's heel, and violates Beijing's promise to maintain a high degree of autonomy for Hong Kong after China took it over from Britain in 1997.

In early July, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself announced the treaty suspension along with a ban on the export of military goods before asserting that the federal government was looking at a variety of additional responses, including on immigration.

The hope for activists, human-rights groups and others at the time was that the measures were the first in a series of actions aimed at supporting the people of Hong Kong, particularly those trying to fight China's increasing control of the territory.

 

Don't forget how the Liberals treated the Yazidis and how the intimidation of dissidents is goes as unabated as cops leisurely watching the toppling of a statue.


Saturday, August 29, 2020

Sue Away!

It's the only way that they will learn:

A federal judge on Friday rejected the New York Times’ bid to dismiss Sarah Palin’s defamation lawsuit over a 2017 editorial she said falsely linked her to a mass shooting.

U.S. District Judge Jed Rakoff in Manhattan said that while much of Palin’s case was circumstantial, it was strong enough for a jury to find the Times and former editorial page editor James Bennet acted with “actual malice by clear and convincing evidence.” in publishing the editorial.

Rakoff scheduled a Feb. 1, 2021 trial.

 

 

What Is It That We Need China For?

 This China:

A COVID-19 vaccine-development partnership between Canada and a Chinese firm has been abandoned, ending clinical trials that were to be conducted by a Dalhousie University research lab.

The National Research Council of Canada said Thursday the CanSino Biologics vaccine intended for phase one clinical trials has not been approved by Chinese customs for shipment to Canada.

 They're blowing smoke. They never had it.

**

Way to stick it to them, Franky:

Canada’s foreign minister raised the arbitrary detention of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor in a meeting with his Chinese counterpart this week, but did not warn the Chinese of new sanctions or consequences for the ongoing imprisonment of the two men.

“I told him that arbitrary detention was certainly not conducive to relations between states ever but certainly now,” Foreign minister François-Philippe Champagne said of his meeting with his Chinese counterpart Wang Yi.

** 

Voters blocks aren't made. They are born:

The number of women coming to Canada to give birth, which automatically bestows citizenship on the baby, is expanding much faster in British Columbia than the rest of the country.

Richmond Hospital is the centre of the trend, often called “birth tourism.” New data released this week shows one out of four births in the past year at the hospital in the Vancouver suburb, which features many illicit “birth hotels” advertising their services in Asia, were to foreign nationals.

 

Not that Canadian citizenship even matters anymore.

**

The new Vietnamese boat people:

The Chinese Coast Guard has intercepted and arrested at least ten people reportedly trying to flee from Hong Kong to Taiwan during a crackdown on the city’s pro-democracy movement. 

The authorities in the southern Chinese province of Guangdong announced the arrests on social media, revealing that the boat had been stopped by coast guard officials on Sunday. 

Local media in Hong Kong, citing unidentified sources, said the passengers were planning to apply for political asylum in Taiwan, a democratically-ruled island some 440 miles from the former British colony. 

The South China Morning Post identified one of those on the vessel as Andy Li, who was arrested earlier this month under a sweeping and controversial national security law imposed by Beijing on Hong Kong in June, and which can mete out life sentences for subversion.

 

Refugees of a different sort but their circumstances are familiar.

 

"We're Better Than the Americans!"

 ... say people who have never left their homes since their idiot government put them under house arrest and are disincentivised to work:

Canadians believe the COVID-19 crisis has brought their country together, while Americans blame the pandemic for worsening their cultural and political divide, a new international public opinion survey suggests.

Fully two-thirds of Canadian respondents to the Pew Research Center study released Thursday say they believe Canada is more united as a result of the novel coronavirus, while 77 per cent of U.S. participants feel precisely the opposite is true south of the border.

 

The self-consciousness of a country that worked its way from a proud fledgling nation into a pile of inferiority is just astounding.

 

Also - and who will be paying for this? The same people too terrified to leave their homes and frequent your restaurants. That's who:

Restaurant owners issued a stark warning to federal policymakers on Wednesday, saying that more than half of all Canadian eateries could go out of business in the next three months as the pandemic continues to discourage people from dining out.

Restaurants Canada, a lobby group representing 30,000 firms, has been meeting federal officials and calling for a range of supports for the food service sector, which has been clobbered by COVID-19 lockdowns.

 

From the Most Corrupt, Stupid and Impossibly Foul Government Ever Re-Elected

 Canadians will still vote for these people especially after the money runs out (which it will):

 

** 

The federal Conservatives are calling on a speaking agency through which WE Charity paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to members of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau‘s family to hand over all documents about the arrangements.

The request is contained in a letter from Conservative ethics critic Michael Barrett to Speakers’ Spotlight on Thursday and comes amid a brewing battle over the blacking out of thousands of other WE-related documents released by Trudeau last week.

In his letter to Speakers’ Spotlight, Barrett notes the agency was first asked by the House of Commons ethics committee to produce the documents last month.

The initial deadline was July 29 for all records pertaining to speaking appearances by Trudeau, his wife Sophie Gregoire Trudeau, mother Margaret Trudeau and brother Alexandre Trudeau at different WE events dating back to October 2008.

The agency subsequently asked for an extension and the committee agreed to a new date of Aug. 19. Trudeau prorogued Parliament one day before that new deadline, ending the committee investigations that were underway into the WE controversy.

Parliament is set to return Sept. 23 with a new speech from the throne.

**

A non-partisan parliamentary official is pushing back against the decision by several federal departments to submit thousands of pages of documents to a House of Commons committee with redactions already made, saying it’s not up to the government to black out parts of the tabled documents.

One of the last acts of Parliament allowed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau before ordering it prorogued was for 5,000 pages of documents to be distributed to members of the Commons finance committee, containing correspondence about the Liberal government’s decision to grant WE Charity a controversial agreement to administer the $500-million Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG). 

In a letter obtained by iPolitics, Philippe Dufresne, the law clerk and parliamentary counsel for the House of Commons, said the Commons and its committees are the appropriate authority to determine acceptable reasons for withholding the documents.

“As my office has not been given the opportunity to see the un-redacted documents, we are not able to confirm whether those redactions are consistent with the order of the committee,” he wrote to committee clerk David Gagnon in a letter dated Aug. 18.

The Commons finance committee on July 7 adopted a motion calling for any documents between the government and WE Charity — or from senior officials for cabinet ministers regarding the CSSG from March 2020 — be provided to the committee no later than Aug. 8. The motion stipulated that any redactions be made specifically by the Office of the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel of the House of Commons.

Information appropriate for redaction includes that which would protect the privacy of Canadian citizens and permanent residents whose names and personal information may be included in the documents, as well as public servants who helped craft the CSSG program.

In his letter, Dufresne said the clerk of the Privy Council, the deputy minister of the Department of Finance, the deputy and the senior associate deputy ministers of Employment and Social Development of Canada, the deputy minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, and the Secretary of the Treasury Board  (TBS) provided the committee with documents for their respective departments between Aug. 9 and Aug. 17. 

The documents contained letters from each department stating that redactions had been made: to protect cabinet confidence in accordance with the motion; to protect personal information in accordance with the Privacy Act; and to protect third-party information and information on the vulnerability of their computer or communication systems, or methods.

In his response, Dufresne said Commons committees have the power to order the production of records, which supersedes the powers of the statutory obligations of the departments.

 

What third party information could there be?


No wonder the Americans don't trust us.



The WE scandal isn't the only pool of slime coming from the Liberal Party and its mincing puppet-head:

B.C. MP Kerry-Lynne Findlay is facing criticism after claiming that Canadians should be disturbed by the “closeness” between Canada’s finance minister and George Soros, an internationally known philanthropist who is frequently mentioned in far-right and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories.

Prove her wrong. Any time someone cries about these things, it only makes everyone more interested.

** 

Marwan Tabbara, an Ontario MP facing assault and break and enter charges, made a short appearance in court on Thursday, where his case was adjourned to next month.

Tabbara, 36, was charged with two counts of assault, one count of break and enter and commit an indictable offence, and one count of criminal harassment on April 10.

** 

Walk away, Derek. Not from that b!#ch, Pam Damoff, but from the Tories who clearly don't deserve you:

You’ve probably heard by now that Pam Damoff, Liberal Member of Parliament for Oakville North—Burlington posted a letter this week urging our new leader Erin O’Toole to eject me from the CPC caucus.

That’s right, a Liberal MP publicly briefed the newly minted Conservative leader on what he should do with his caucus. ...

Pam Damoff is typical of the Liberals in her promotion of “diversity”, which never includes diversity of opinion. In 2017, Damoff was instrumental in barring Conservative MP Rachael Harder from chairing the House of Commons Committee on the Status of Women because of Harder’s pro-life views.

Interestingly, Ms. Damoff’s definition of inclusiveness does extend to ISIS militants returning to Canada, as she made clear during a Status of Women Committee meeting in 2018.

That’s when Damoff led the charge to stop a motion to study the impact that returning ISIS terrorists would have on Yazidi women and girls who had suffered at the hands of ISIS before finding refuge in Canada. Damoff chose ISIS radicals over victims of rape and sex-trafficking.

Let’s be honest: MP Damoff’s maneuver is a political attack designed to divide our Party under its new leadership.

This attack was made at the behest of her party, because her party is afraid. They also hate the fact that I stand up for conservative principles, without apology.

 

I'm Sure That This Is Nothing At All to Be Worried About

 Budgets, I've been told, balance themselves:

The Canadian economy suffered its worst three-month stretch on record in the second quarter as the economy came to a near halt in April before starting to recover in May and June.

Statistics Canada said Friday real gross domestic product contracted at an annualized rate of 38.7 per cent for the quarter, the worst posting for the economy dating back to when comparable data was first recorded in 1961.

Almost every single component of the economy used to calculate GDP was at its lowest point during the three-month stretch — driven largely by widespread lockdowns in April meant to slow the spread of COVID-19

(Sidebar: this Statistics Canada.)

** 

The unmooring of Canada’s fiscal anchor — an explicit commitment to balanced budgets — and the failure to replace it with a convincing alternative contributed to Fitch Ratings’ decision in June to remove Canada from its exclusive club of AAA sovereigns.

(Sidebar: these ratings.)

The agency reckons that Canada’s potential growth rate — the pace at which the economy can expand without stoking rapid inflation — has shrunk to a mere one per cent, raising questions about whether politicians will be able to rely on economic growth alone to shrink their COVID-19 deficits.

** 

The federal government ran a deficit of $120.4 billion during the first three months of its 2020-2021 fiscal year as the treasury pumped out aid to cushion the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The result compared with a deficit of $85 million for the same period in the 2019-2020 fiscal year.

**

Alberta’s estimated massive budget deficit this year could mark a record for the province and could emerge as the largest deficit in percentage terms for any province in the country over the past 35 years.

Alberta’s government tabled a fiscal update Thursday that showed an expected budget deficit of $24.2 billion, which is 230 per cent, or $16.8 billion, higher than its previous budget for 2020/21 announced in February.

The coronavirus pandemic, related collapse in oil prices this year and sharp decline in tourism has hit Alberta’s economy particularly hard, Bank of Montreal chief economist and managing director Doug Porter said Thursday.

“Let’s face it, every single budget deficit number (within Canada and beyond) that we’re seeing tends to be shocking because they’re all numbers we’ve never seen before,” Porter said, but cautioned that “proportionately, Alberta’s is large. It’s the largest provincial deficit number as a share of GDP,” he said.

 

(Sidebar: it must suck when Canada's responsible adult among the provinces is going under.) 


These problems look so minuscule and unimportant that it doesn't matter that Justin's uglier but equally corrupt brother was paid $67,000 in "talent fees" or that former finance minister Bill Morneau billed the taxpayers over $81,000 in travel fees or that federal employees stuck taxpayers with equally high bills or that $237 million was paid for ventilators from Frank Baylis ...

(Sidebar: this Frank Baylis.)

 .. or that Industry (formerly Climate) Barbie can't account for money again.

 

I'm sure that none of that is important.


Not In MY Gated Backyard

A resident at a downtown Toronto condominium says she’s scared to leave her own home, pointing to a number of problems resulting from a temporary homeless shelter set up adjacent to her building.

“The concierge was attacked with an axe a couple of weeks ago, I personally now choose not to walk on York Street at all,” says Claire, who did not give her last name and who has lived at 33 University Ave. for nearly two decades.

She and a number of other residents have voiced concerns to their property manager about the Strathcona Hotel becoming a temporary shelter.

They say problems range from finding dirty needles on the property to shelter residents urinating on the flower beds and some allegedly accosting those who live in the condo building.

Ask this concerned citizen if she still has a problem with drugs sites in other neighbourhoods not near hers.

 

Sir John A. Macdonald Statue Toppled

Today is August twenty-ninth, 2020 (AD). It is the feast day of Saint Sabina and the beheading of Saint John the Baptist. It's been two hundred and sixty-one years since the French lost at the Plains of Abraham:

Protesters in Montreal toppled and defaced a statue of John A. Macdonald at the end of a demonstration calling on cities to defund police departments.

A spokesman for the Montreal police confirmed the statue of Canada’s first prime minister was unbolted, pulled down and sprayed with graffiti at around 2:45 p.m.

** 

Maybe the police should be defunded:


 

Someone will replace that statue. The French still lost at the Plains of Abraham.

Nothing can change that.


Thursday, August 27, 2020

Justin Trudeau Is a Treasonous B@$#@rd, Part Deux

Just like dad, he admired a Third World communist dictatorship that his friends profit from:

Chinese prison labour was assigned to work at a Canadian-owned mask factory in Shanghai, according to the Communist Party press. The Department of Public Works has said it does not know if it purchased slave-made goods: “We do the job not for a reward but driven by our inner eagerness.”

**

A federal mask supplier AMD Medicom Inc. yesterday said it never shipped any goods made by Chinese prison labour to Canada. Communist Party authorities in Shanghai had directed prisoners to work at a Medicom plant in Shanghai, according to the local Party press: “The town government called for volunteers to help mask maker Medicom.”

 

So, it was local slave labour, not prison slave labour.

Right ... 



Yes, China IS a predatory country.

We know that.

What is anyone going to do about this?:

“I would like to stress once again that things between China and Canada have come to this stage not because of China,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Zhao Lijian said during a news conference in Beijing on Wednesday.

“The Canadian side is well aware of the crux of the problem. It should take immediate and effective measures to correct the mistakes and create conditions for bilateral relations to return to the right track.”

The comments appear to pour cold water on hopes that Champagne’s meeting with Wang in Rome would lead to a breakthrough for the two Michaels.

 

That disgusting bit of extortion would be considered offensive in other countries but remembering that this is Canada and no one has done anything to affect the release of these two men, this is just another day for the Trudeau government and their voters.



It's not like anyone should inject that poison into their veins, anyway:

In May, Health Canada gave the go-ahead for the Canadian trials to begin, and the hope was that clinical trials in Halifax could begin within weeks.

But in late July, The Canadian Press reported that the Canadian-Chinese partnership was on the rocks, saying China had held up shipments the company was supposed to send to the Halifax researchers by the end of May.

In an emailed statement, the National Research Council (NRC) said the vaccine candidate had not been approved by Chinese customs to ship to Canada.

The statement said CanSino's collaborators in the Chinese government — the Beijing Institute of Technology and the Ministry of Science and Technology, which had provided funding to CanSino — reviewed the agreement between the NRC and CanSino before it was signed.

"Subsequent to signing, the government of China introduced process changes regarding shipping vaccines to other countries," the NRC said in its statement.

"The process is not clear to the NRC, but CanSino does not have the authority to ship the vaccine at this time."

 

Had Justin been an actual leader, he would never have let the Chinese military complex develop this vaccine for Canadian use in the first place but instead collaborate more closely with the Americans (gasp!) or the Israelis or simply rely on whatever medical researchers haven't left the country for more lucrative climes. Now, he runs the risk of being humiliated by Chinese snake-oil salesmen who might not be any closer to developing this vaccine than they are embracing democracy. Instead, he is being extorted and bounced around.

This humiliation looks good on you, Canada.

Thank Justin for that.



"Nothing is far from God."


 

Thereupon she said to both of us, “Bury my body wherever you will; let not care of it cause you any concern. One thing only I ask you, that you remember me at the altar of the Lord wherever you may be.” 

 

(From The Confessions of Saint Augustine)

 

Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Justin Trudeau Is a Treasonous B@$#@rd

Pass it on.


To wit:

Trudeau's answer: "You know, there's a level of of admiration I actually have for China ..."

** 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s pursuit of a temporary seat on the UN Security Council is not worth it, if the price is Canada’s silence on China’s responsibility for the global spread of COVID-19.

** 

Just about two years ago, the Trudeau government put $256 million from Canadian taxpayers into the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. That money has essentially been handed over to a bank controlled by Beijing to develop projects that would have trouble getting built in Canada under this government, including ring roads and power plants.

**

Trudeau Foundation



Mid-Week Post

 

 

Your churning river of the work-week ... 


Fresh from his leadership victory, MP Girl Name jumps into being a douchebag:

“I won the leadership of the Conservative Party as a pro-choice Conservative MP, one with a strong mandate. That’s how I’m going to lead as the leader of the Opposition,” O’Toole said.

Because girls love it when you tell them that they want abortions (well, Canadian girls do).

Way to lose and split the vote there, Girl Name.

Any "male" politician who supports abortion is a pig who looks at women one way.


Also - no, Leslyn, walk away while you still can:

Leslyn Lewis, who came third place to Erin O’Toole and Peter MacKay during the last Conservative Party leadership race, will run in the next election, a senior campaign source confirmed with Global News.

Lewis has not yet determined which riding she will be running for, they said.

“She is 100 per cent committed to running and helping build the party and grow the party,” Steve Outhouse, her campaign manager, said to the Canadian Press.

 

 

This means nine out of ten Canadians would prove Darwin right:

More than 76 per cent of respondents in the Statistics Canada survey indicated they would likely get inoculated if and when a vaccine is ready. Yet 14 per cent said they were somewhat or very unlikely to do so. Nine per cent remained unsure.

Those who indicated they were unlikely to get a vaccine were asked to identify the reasons for their reluctance. More than half cited a lack of confidence in its safety while a similar number said they were worried about potential risks and side effects.

About one-quarter of respondents, who were allowed to give more than one answer, said they did not consider it necessary to get the vaccine while about 10 per cent indicated they did not believe in vaccines at all.

 

Keep in mind this comes from a government that would have to have a complex brain in order to be stupid, that it has trusted the Chinese military complex to create a vaccine and that, as of yet, no one has created and successfully tested a vaccine for the common cold.

So there's that. 


Also - another foray into junk science "strangely" enough produces bullies and anti-science miscreants:

The dispute began when Cantor posted an essay on the listserv complaining that “extremists” were unfairly castigating people who questioned some tenets of the transgender movement, such as that children who identify with another gender can begin transitioning before puberty.

The essay referenced Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling, who herself drew the ire of many in the trans community when she wrote that sex is undeniably tied to biology.

Some of those who commented on Cantor’s essay accused him of encouraging hatred or even violence toward trans people.

 

 I am shocked to hear this. Oh, wait - I'm not.



And?:

The number of illicit drug deaths in B.C. well exceeded 100 in July, marking the fifth consecutive month where provincial totals surpassed triple digits.

 

(Sidebar: aren't those publicly funded injection sites working?)

People make the choice to ruin their bodies and governments make the choice to enable them.

That's Canada for you.



HA!:

The Canada Revenue Agency will launch an audit pilot project to see if fraudulent applications are a problem within the Trudeau government’s $82.3 billion flagship COVID-19 corporate aid program.

 

 

What? The government wasted money? I refuse to hear it!: 

Federal auditors have cited a Crown corporation, the National Arts Centre, for sloppy budgeting. Directors failed to set aside funds for necessary maintenance and repairs even after charging taxpayers a quarter-billion for renovations. Cost overruns at the concert hall once prompted two parliamentary investigations: ‘It doesn’t match London or Paris.’

 

 

Lawyers for Meng Wanzhou have lost a legal battle to have certain documents released to them:

The legal team for a Huawei executive facing extradition to the United States has lost its battle to have the contents of six confidential documents released to them.

Meng Wanzhou‘s defence team argued in Federal Court that the redacted documents would support its position that Meng suffered an abuse of process during her arrest at Vancouver’s airport in 2018.

Meng is wanted in the United States on fraud charges, which she and Huawei deny.

In a ruling dated Aug. 21 but released on Tuesday, Justice Catherine Kane said the court found the information contained in the documents is not relevant to the allegations of abuse described by Meng’s legal team.

 

I'll just leave this right here. 


Also - yeah, right:

Canada is the only member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network that has not formally blocked Huawei from 5G networks, but it has effectively done just that, delaying a decision long enough to force telecom companies to exclude the Chinese gear maker.

The strategy allows Canada to keep on the right side of both China and the United States as they tussle over Huawei Technologies Co Ltd, say six well-placed sources with direct knowledge of the matter.

 

This China:

Top Chinese diplomat Yang Jiechi on Saturday asked national security adviser Suh Hoon for support in intensifying diplomatic tensions with the U.S.


This South Korea:

The Sarang Jeil Church, which recently emerged as a hotbed of mass coronavirus infections, hit back at President Moon Jae-in on Tuesday, criticizing him for making groundless accusations that the religious group obstructed the government’s antivirus fight. 

 

This Moon Jae-In

 

As opposed to North Korea. This North Korea

A woman in a forced labor brigade, or dolgyokdae, working on a northern section of the Pyongyang-Manpo-Hyesan railway line committed suicide earlier this month after being repeatedly sexually assaulted by her superior, according to source in North Hamgyong Province on Friday.

 


Tuesday, August 25, 2020

Yes, Canada DOES Have Resource Sectors

But why would the Liberal government use them to rebuild Canada when they can be ignored, disparaged or sold off the Chinese?:

If properly supported, Canada’s resource sector and Canadian agriculture will be leaders in the recovery. Our world-class resources, producers and the tech economy that entrepreneurs have built on their foundations are creditable reasons for optimism.

A good example of that kind opportunity comes from Canada’s mining sector and more specifically uranium. I admit to two conflicts for this brief discussion. One is my directorship with NexGen Energy, which is currently developing what will be the world’s largest uranium mine near La Loche, Sask. The second being that I live in Saskatchewan, the province home to virtually all of Canada’s uranium supply.

COVID-19 exposed the vulnerabilities of the world’s uranium supply. The spot price responded with a run, rising over 40 per cent. This is good for Canada’s uranium producers. Previously shutdown mines have new hope and the viability of thousands of good Canadian mining jobs, many held by Indigenous Canadians, has been greatly enhanced. So is the prospect for new mining jobs in the sector.

But it ought not to end with mining. Federal and provincial governments can support the value added and tech opportunities that can be built on the primary part of the uranium industry. Credit here to the leadership of Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe who has spearheaded a national push for Canada to lead in the development of small modular nuclear reactor technology. His efforts have been joined by Ontario Premier Doug Ford, New Brunswick Premier Blaine Higgs and recently Alberta Premier Jason Kenney.

Nuclear reactors remain a source of reliable base-load power (hello California) that is emissions-free. What could be greener, more equitable or more inclusive?

Something similar could be said for Canadian oil and gas. After all, Canada is still home to the  third-largest reserves on earth. We have a world-leading record in terms of responsibly developing the resource. As the world reopens, it will continue to buy oil. A federal government that sought to ensure its oil-and-gas sector was a priority would, by definition, be taking an equitable, inclusive and globally sustainable approach to the restart. It certainly wouldn’t wish the sector didn’t exist at all. This has been the sentiment betrayed by any number of utterances and Freudian slips from Camp Trudeau.

 


Migrant Workers to Remain in Canada

There are no Canadians out of work, apparently:

Cabinet yesterday claimed labour shortages in waiving a requirement that jobless migrants leave the country before reapplying for work here. Any migrant worker with a legitimate job offer may stay, said Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino: “We have heard from employers who continue to face challenges.”

 

I'll Just Leave This Right Here

 Ahem:

 

 

**

The Department of Agriculture yesterday paid more than a million dollars to distribute surplus seafood to Nova Scotia food banks. The initiative to help processors get rid of unsold stock follows Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s appeal to Canadians to aid the industry by eating more lobster: “Not only will it taste great but it will help people.”

 

Elections?

 I don't think that there will be any more elections, despite what new leader of the federal Tories, Erin O'Toole, may think.

 

Justin has been hiding since the beginning of the lockdown he failed to prevent, emerging only to give his tent addresses to an adoring press and attempting to pass a bill that would give him unlimited spending. He even prorogued Parliament to shut down any investigation of the WE scandal in which his family and himself are heavily mired.

(Sidebar: like that will work.)

 

Assuming that a recent poll suggesting that thirty-eight percent of Canadians would vote for the Liberals were an election held in the near-future isn't a bit of fiction invented by Katie Telford, that would only mean that Canadians are comfortable with Justin's corruption and stupidity so why even even go through the pantomime of an election to prove how much they love poverty and loss of national face?

No, the Liberals know how weak the population is and that they can still count on Chinese funds to leak into their coffers. No electoral apple cart will be upset, assuming anyone actually has the will to push it over.


Monday, August 24, 2020

From the Most Opaque, Corrupt, Inept and Arrogant Government Ever Re-Elected

 It never ends with these guys:

Volunteer groups warned the We Charity program was misguided and badly drafted, according to internal Department of Employment memos. One organization refused a $100,000 fee from We Charity in protest over the program’s design: “They indicated there was a fee.”

**

Federal auditors have cited a Crown corporation, the National Arts Centre, for sloppy budgeting. Directors failed to set aside funds for necessary maintenance and repairs even after charging taxpayers a quarter-billion for renovations. Cost overruns at the concert hall once prompted two parliamentary investigations: ‘It doesn’t match London or Paris.’

Canadians get to wear this. They can drone on and on about Trump all day but at least he delivers on his promises and will leave office when his second term expires.

Canada is stuck with the snowboard instructor the way the North Koreans are stuck with Kim Fatty and his wicked sister.


Karl Marx Hated Private Property, Too

Quebec is special:

The number of expropriations of private land exploded in Montreal four years ago when city hall quietly delegated its seldom used power to take properties for use as streets and alleys to civil servants, documents obtained by the Montreal Gazette reveal.

For decades, city departments responsible for real estate transactions and infrastructure had to obtain approval from Montreal’s top decision-making body, the city executive committee, to use a section of the city charter that’s written expressly to enable the expropriation of private properties for streets, places and lanes.

But in May 2016, the executive committee under former mayor Denis Coderre delegated its authority to use Section 192 of Schedule C of the charter to the civil servants — specifically civil servants at the level of department director, according to the documents obtained through Quebec’s access to information law. The power gives the bureaucrats full control to decide behind closed doors what properties to expropriate without needing the executive committee to pass a public resolution on it.

And after the power was transferred to city employees, the number of times Section 192 was used to acquire property for the city rose more than sixfold, the documents show. The city clerk’s office gave the newspaper the files for every expropriation under Section 192 since 2010 in response to the newspaper’s request for information for the past decade.

The files show that between 2010 and May 2016, the executive committee approved 67 expropriations under Section 192 of the charter — an average of 10 expropriations per year.

After the power to use Section 192 was delegated to the civil service, there were more than 200 such expropriations between mid-2016 and August 2019, the files reveal. Between 2016 and 2019, city employees expropriated, on average, 68 properties per year, which means the city was expropriating the same number of properties each year that it had taken during all of the previous six-and-a-half years.

 

 

What Can Possibly Go Wrong?

 What?:

Decriminalizing heroin and cocaine is “something worth deliberating”, says Health Minister Patricia Hajdu. A private Liberal bill pending in the Commons would repeal a federal law that criminalizes simple possession of street drugs: “I hear the calls across the country.”

I hear calls across the country that this plan should only be enacted in front of Patty Hajdu's house.

 

 

Let's Fine the Americans

 ... because that is easier than stopping all international flights and it also makes everyone think that the government is doing something solid to stop the coronavirus from getting into the country:

Nearly two dozen more flights have landed at major airports in Canada with passengers infected with COVID-19

According to the federal government, more than 55 flights have landed in Canada between Aug. 1 and Aug. 18 that had passengers who tested positive for COVID-19 after arriving in the country.

The vast majority of the flights with COVID-19 passengers have landed in Toronto, but a number of them also touched down in Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary.




Tories Have a New Federal Leader

Erin O'Toole is another Liberal. It's time for MPs (ie - Derek Sloan, Leslyn Lewis and - yes - even Pierre Poilievre) to run as independents: 

On Valentine’s Day this year, O’Toole posted a video on Twitter accusing the CBC of being “out of control” and promising to slash its funding.

O’Toole says he wants to maintain funding for Radio-Canada in Quebec and CBC Radio which “maintains the original public interest mandate” of the public broadcaster.

“Taxpayer dollars should not pay for things like a Canadian version of Family Feud. Nor should they fund CBC News Network, a channel no different from its private sector competitors,” O’Toole’s platform reads.

 

If you don't have the intestinal fortitude to get rid of the CBC, MP Girl-Name, then join a party that keeps it going


Also:

Searching on CBC.ca shows 239 results for Leslyn Lewis in the news section.

The same search for Kamala Harris yields 847 results.

 

I'm sure that it's nothing.


Friday, August 21, 2020

No, Canada IS Venezuela

 Justin's policies of waste and corruption can be interpreted as nothing else:

Venezuela is staggering in the face of a years-long power struggle, food shortages, hyper-inflation and an exodus of its citizens.

The country’s foreign minister says, Blame Canada.


 

 

Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza is part of Nicolas Maduro’s government, which most Western countries no longer recognize, but it does still control most of the country’s institutions. He was speaking through Zoom to a Canadian audience on Thursday, in an event organized by the left-leaning Canadian Foreign Policy Institute.

 

It can't be the political and social failure that is socialism, a system embraced wholeheartedly by Canadians and Venezuelans alike.

Oh, wait ... it is:

These policies would end up devastating the economy through a combination of enterprise-crippling regulation, elimination of market competition, and the removal of the price mechanism to match supply with demand and allocate resources efficiently. Like the so-called “market socialism” of the former Yugoslavia in decades past, the “democratic socialism” now enjoying popularity is simply an attempt at rebranding without new ideas or real improvement. Socialist policies inevitably do damage, even in the oft-vaunted Scandinavian countries, which achieved economic success before the rise of their welfare states. In Sweden, for example, out-of-control public spending led to the 1990 economic crisis and Sweden has since wisely reversed course somewhat. Norway and Denmark are both currently led by government coalitions favoring more free-market policies.

We should not ignore the lessons of twentieth-century socialism’s failures, nor turn a blind eye to what socialism has wrought in Venezuela—as some socialists, sadly, do. Until the socialist movement evolves different policies, these failures remain relevant. There is no reason to think that the same policies that failed in the past will produce different results in the future.

 

Anyone who tells one that things can be freely provided and no one has to do any actual work to get anything is selling utter ruin in the form of stupidity and must be stopped for the good of humanity.

 

Also:

If you move to Vancouver, assuming you have CAD $280,000 of income, you will pay tax of $104,674. Your after-tax income will be $175,326. Therefore, the effective tax rate is 37 percent. Every additional dollar you earn will be taxed at 49.8 percent.

If you move to Seattle, though, you’re in luck! Washington State is one of seven states without a state income tax. You only have to pay U.S. federal tax. Assuming you earn US $200,000 (about CAD $280,000), your total income tax bill would be US $52,552. Therefore, your after-tax income would be US $147,448 (or roughly CAD $206,000). The effective tax rate is 26 percent and every additional dollar would be taxed at $33.45 percent. ...

There are many political groups, think tanks, organizations and journalists who keep repeating the claim that the rich are not paying their fair share of tax. Yet today, seven out of 10 provinces have a combined federal and provincial tax rate of more than 50 percent on the highest tax bracket.

According to Statistics Canada, the top 10 percent of income earners earns 34 percent of all income in the country but pays 54 percent of all income taxes! The top one percent of income earners earns 10 percent of all income in the country but pay 21 percent of all income taxes. The top 0.1 percent of income earners earn 3.4 percent of all income but pays 7.9 percent of all income taxes.

This clearly demonstrates without a shred of doubt that the richest people in the country are already paying more than their fair share of income tax. Furthermore, these figures only include income tax and do not take into account all the sales taxes and property taxes these people are paying. The erroneous belief that the rich are not paying their fair share of tax has led politicians to unfairly and illogically raise tax rates to the point of confiscation.

 

If Justin et al really felt that the rich should be heavily taxed, then he should surrender his WE earnings.

 

Sloan's Words On China

Tell us what you really think, Derek:

I am not afraid to question our government’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Canadians are rightly concerned with Canada’s involvement with Chinese Communist Party-affiliated companies to develop vaccines to fight COVID-19. They are right to wonder why social media is banning videos of doctors around the world who are touting alternate, cheaper and effective treatments to COVID-19.


(Sidebar: more here.)


No one questioned Justin's undying love for China in 2013. Are they willing to question his allegiance to China and his accepting money from those loyal to the communist Chinese and ignore the (as of this writing) 9,064 dead?



Some Will Not Be Fooled

Justin had better take a sick day for the rest of the calendar year:

Poilievre’s press briefings had to be the dread of the wizards who practice spin for Trudeau. Their spin was unspun, and the tangled amateur “explanations” given out by the government about how Trudeau, finance minister Bill Morneau and Youth Minister Bardish Chagger variously locked arms and fired (email) billet-doux back and forth, were both derided and destroyed.

His masterpiece was the very latest, where he flung, with magisterial scorn, blacked-out page after blacked-out page of the government’s file on WE Inc., over the press podium. Most telling was his central point during that conference.

That the government wasn’t “proroguing” to work on a “reset” or devise a post-COVID “agenda.” It was prorogued to shut down the committees, one of which Poilievre headed, looking into the WE affair. It was prorogued to halt the revelations hidden and obscured under black ink that the government lathered over the documents released.

Prorogation killed the committees. That was its point. Its only point. Parliament had been done already.

It killed further revelations of how interwound Kielburger Inc. and the highest powers in Trudeau’s government were. ...

Another question. Why is there any redaction on a purely internal transaction between a Canadian organization and the Canadian government? These aren’t NATO documents. They are not high-level communications between Canada’s military and the Pentagon. There’s no espionage, no delicate trade talks and strategy discussions.

Why were there any redactions? It can only be because between the Kieburger brothers and ministers, civil servants, the PM, and members of his family, there were at least more and other communications of an even more fulsome, embarrassing kind. Displaying their connection, and thus shredding the idea that the whole deal came about “only because the civil service insisted that only WE could deliver the program.”

 

Poilievre is not going to let this go.

And that's a good thing.


I'm Sure That's Just A Coincidence

Yep:

SNC-Lavalin, the company that landed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in trouble with the ethics commissioner, has been awarded more than 100 government contracts since the controversy.

According to a database from Open Government, SNC-Lavalin received 142 government contracts with a combined worth of about $25 million between January 2019 and June 2020.

Aaron Wudrick, the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said he was shocked SNC-Lavalin was continuing to receive government contracts.

“I think from SNC-Lavalin’s standpoint these are not giant contracts,” said Wudrick. “They often deal with contracts that are much larger, so this is small potatoes for them. But I think a lot of Canadians would be surprised to know they are active in bidding after the seriousness of what happened last year.”

In August of last year, Mario Dion, the ethics commissioner, found Trudeau guilty of breaching ethic rules by trying to persuade his attorney general to give SNC-Lavalin a deferred prosecution agreement in relation to criminal charges it was facing.

 

To wit

... The RCMP have been investigating the possibility that someone in the Trudeau government obstructed justice in the SNC-Lavalin case.

The news was revealed in a bombshell report by the Globe and Mail issued less than 12 hours before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was to visit Rideau Hall and kick off the 2019 election.



It's Just Money

Justin's "legacy" is debt so severe that our grandchildren will not crawl out from under it:

"We are taking a moment to recognize that the throne speech we delivered eight months ago had no mention of COVID-19, had no conception of the reality we find ourselves in right now. We need to reset the approach of this government for a recovery for a recovery to build back better, and those are big important decisions, and we need to present that to Parliament and gain the confidence to move forward on this ambitious plan," the prime minister stated.

 

Oh, you mean that you want people to forget what a disgusting @$$hole you are?

That will never happen. Even people willing to take hand-outs can't stand you, you lying weasel. 

**

Based on those leaks we should brace for much higher government spending, expanded social programs, new taxes and a real push to shut down Canada’s oil and gas sector.

The government has made clear that “decarbonizing the economy” is one of their goals which effectively means shutting down the oil industry.

“Of course, it has to be part of it,” Trudeau’s new finance minister Chrystia Freeland said when asked if decarbonization was part of the government’s economic plan.

Not surprising given that the Liberals haven’t even walked back from their promise to ban single-use plastics even as their use has shot up as a way to deal with COVID-19.

I think we can also expect the government to lay the groundwork for a universal basic income and pay people not to work rather than get on with the difficult task of creating an economy with jobs for all. Liberal-leaning thinkers have been calling for this to happen since the pandemic broke out.

** 

In another example of Trudeau government cronyism, Trudeau's chief of staff Katie Telford's husband lobbied for changes to government policy so to help his company.

In a bombshell Vice article, journalist Justin Ling detailed how Katie Telford’s husband, Rob Silver, attempted to persuade the former Finance Minister Bill Morneau into changing government policy. Silver has not registered as a lobbyist. 

** 

The federal deficit is near $400 billion, seven times the previous record, with proposals by cabinet yesterday to extend new benefits to jobless workers. “Our government has taken on more debt so Canadians didn’t have to,” Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland told reporters.


Trudeau Laughs Off WE Scandal

 Because he thinks that he has gotten away with it:

When Trudeau was asked about if he stood by his initial statement that he had first heard about the WE rollout on May 8, despite an internal memo from the PMO was "weighing in" as of April 20, Trudeau discussed the importance of the N95 project for Ontario and Canada.

Trudeau then forgot the question. When asking to be reminded of what the question was, Trudeau said that it was "something far less important than N95 masks."

 

(Sidebar: so, where were those masks in late January and February? You know, after you handed sixteen tonnes of OUR personal protective equipment to China and claimed without cause that this country was prepared for yet another epidemic but wasn't? Did you forget that question, you [redacted]?)


 

This scandal:

** 

When asked to analyze WE's role in the student job's program, Treasury Board officials concluded that there was no evidence that WE had "capacity to undertake this work, especially under accelerated timelines."

"Furthermore, the tracking of hours by a third-party may be challenging," they added. It may "result in potential integrity concerns should students not be honest about hours accrued." 

** 

Newly released federal documents have revealed contradictions in the prime minister's official story revolving the WE scandal.  

These documents were released as a result of the prime minister's controversial decision to prorogue parliament, effectively limiting the ability of parliamentary committees to consider the government's role in the WE scandal.  

Not only did these documents reveal that the $900 million contract was suggested by the Trudeau government, but it also details early PMO pressure and the fact that the WE organization made clear their closeness to the prime minister when they lobbied for a contract ...

 

(Sidebar: how very interesting.)

**

Newly-disclosed records contradict testimony by ex-Finance Minister Bill Morneau that he had scant personal contact with a federal contractor, We Charity. The finance department released a series of “Hello Bill” emails from Craig Kielburger, co-founder of the charity: “They are all besties.”  

(Sidebar: they were totes besties! That's right - the government is run by eight year olds. This Morneau.)

**

Federal employees in internal memos expressed astonishment at the cost of an untendered agreement to have We Charity manage a student aid program. The plan was to pay post-secondary students $10 an hour, but included $500 per hour fees for We Charity lawyers and six-figure payments to project managers: “Bit of a shit show.”

** 

We Charity highlighted Trudeau family members’ paid appearances with the group in appealing for a $43.5 million grant, according to documents. Internal memos indicate Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office was “weighing in” on the grant proposal weeks before the Prime Minister said he first heard of it: “We have the documents right here.”

** 

Suspension of Parliament has delayed disclosure of speaking fees paid to the Prime Minister’s wife and family. Justin Trudeau as a first-term MP personally collected almost $300,000 in talent fees from unidentified sponsors: “That way we could at least limit the damage we’re about to cause.”

** 

The public service did indeed recommend WE. That is true. But WE was recommended after the Trudeau government — not just the public service, but cabinet ministers or their staff — was actively working with WE. The recommendation of the public service, though undenied, did not happen in a vacuum, nor was it generated neutrally. It took place against a backdrop of active lobbying by WE and communication about the matter at high levels of the Trudeau government.

This turns the Liberal narrative on its head. Trudeau and his senior ministers and aides have thus far used the public service as armour, putting it between themselves and the scandal. They cop only to sloppiness. But we know from these documents — sections of which remain redacted — that while the public service recommended WE to the prime minister on May 13, cabinet minister Bardish Chagger was communicating directly with WE as early as April 17, and that a policy adviser in Morneau’s office was communicating with WE as early as April 20. Indeed, WE’s Craig Kielburger even sent Chagger an email on April 22, thanking her for her “suggestion” of a student support program.


This hubris only works if certain parties forget to bring it up in the fall:

Mr. Trudeau is hiding from the truth, Conservative MP Michael Barrett said Wednesday. “This is about one thing and one thing only,” he said.

Mr. Barrett was referring to Mr. Trudeau’s request to prorogue Parliament as MPs on the House of Commons finance committee gained access to thousands of pages of government documents on Tuesday regarding a now-cancelled $543.5-million agreement with WE Charity to administer a program for students.


Peruse the WE documents at one's leisure and follow Pierre Poilievre's Twitter feed before they go down the memory-hole.

 

Justin believes he has earned some sort of reprieve from yet another one of his messes because he is a [redacted] who likes to  [redacted].

 


Wednesday, August 19, 2020

Mid-Week Post

The centre of the week ...

 

 

Plagued with scandal and forced to turf his wealthy, inept and equally corrupt finance minister and replace him with an Orc, Justin makes further promises he can't keep because there is no such thing as magical money-growing orchards: 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is weighing sweeping changes to the country's social welfare system and a series of economic measures that will align Canada with ambitious climate goals, according to people familiar with the matter.

The plan to bolster the social safety net will especially help those hurt most by the pandemic and come after Trudeau replaced a fiscally cautious finance minister.

"The prime minister wants to go big," said a government source, adding that Trudeau, 48, sees the moves as part of his legacy.

(Sidebar: oh, it definitely will be your legacy, along with corruption and arrogance.)

** 

With the sudden resignation of finance minister Bill Morneau, Canadians should be asking a simple question: are the federal Liberals about to embark on a new spending spree? Differences in views between a finance minister and prime minister are common, but with Morneau’s departure the signal seems to be to loosen the belt — which is not easy when you’re already planning a deficit of $343 billion. Perhaps the new minister of finance, Chrystia Freeland, will be a stronger personality with her own ideas of belt tightening. We shall see.

When I say “spending spree” I’m not referring to the multitude of temporary support programs that are already producing the gigantic deficit in fiscal year 2020-21. No, I mean permanent public spending, including growing interest charges. After the WE Charity scandal, rumour has it the Trudeau government is looking for a magic recovery bullet that will transform Canada. Two obvious candidate files are climate change and social policy, both supposedly sources of conflict between the PM and former minister Morneau. ...

For $50 billion over five years, the government can implement net-zero emission building codes and subsidize building and energy retrofits, clean energy work training programs and electric vehicles, which still account for less than four per cent of the auto market. These policies become necessary only because others don’t seem to be doing the trick — not the federal carbon tax and not new regulations, such as recently announced resource-stifling Bill C-69 assessment procedures. Subsidies will widen a federal deficit that has already turned from pink to deep COVID red.

 

(Sidebar: ahem ...) 


But the price tag for climate-change policies pales in comparison to possible new social spending on health care and income security. Facing their own yawning deficits, the provinces are expecting more federal transfers for health care, which takes up half their budgets. The Liberals promised during the 2019 election to bring in national Pharmacare. Some provinces may support it if they can offload their program expenses on Ottawa, while others, most notably Quebec, will reject federal intrusion but claim compensation. Given our recent experience with COVID deaths in nursing homes, the Liberals are also expected to promote a cost-sharing program for long-term care. For years, the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association has raised concerns about funding long-term care in our aging society, but little was done, given the daunting costs involved.

Another major welfare program would be a guaranteed annual income (GAI) to replace the temporary CERB. A Senate committee report recently looked at a GAI of $24,000 per year for couples and $17,000 per year for single people between 18 and 64 years of age. The payment would be clawed back by either 50 cents, 25 cents or 15 cents for each dollar earned by a worker.

**

Media executives divvying up federal grants awarded their own companies 100 percent wage subsidies, accounts show. News Media Canada, a publishers’ lobby, yesterday did not comment: ‘Helping the press is in the interests of democracy.’

Now, it can be said that the average Canadian can be bought with as little as a can of beer (SEE: CERB) but even the most ovine can see through the charade played out before them.

This one:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau yesterday prorogued the minority Parliament, halting for at least a month ongoing committee investigations of federal contracting, China meddling and We Charity. Trudeau told reporters if Opposition MPs didn’t like it they could force an election: ‘We will force a confidence vote.’

 

(Sidebar: don't tempt them, douchebag.)

** 

 

**

 

(Sidebar: convenient, isn't it?)

 

Those who were burned have not forgotten:

Retired Vice Admiral Mark Norman has stepped forward on social media to call out the Liberal government’s decision to prorogue parliament.

“Leadership means facing problems not avoiding them,” Norman wrote in a social media post on Twitter Wednesday afternoon. “Wouldn’t it be nice if the millions of [Canadians] struggling with the challenges of the pandemic could just hit the ‘reset’ button and ‘prorogue’ their responsibilities.”

 

It's incredibly important that this is kept in the public consciousness even well after September when Justin finally remembers that the Papineau riding actually expects him to show up for work. 



Karl Marx also didn't like people owning houses:

CMHC chief executive Evan Siddall in a 2019 podcast complained Canada has “glorified this idea of home ownership” and enriched property holders at the expense of renters. Siddall praised a federal consultant who advocated federal taxes on “unhealthy home values”. Conservative MPs yesterday served notice they will summon Siddall for questioning: “The losers are the people who have won so much already through the increase in house prices, the owners.”


 

No, it totally is your fault:

The World Health Organization will not allow Canadian MPs to question its officials over dealings with China on Covid-19. The Commons health committee had issued an April 30 summons for Dr. Bruce Aylward, a WHO epidemiologist who repeatedly praised Communist Party measures to contain the coronavirus: ‘China is being successful.’

 

Also:

The results suggest many parents are torn, with 66 per cent of respondents with children admitting they were worried about children returning to school but 63 per cent saying they planned to send their kids anyway.

Yet 69 per cent also felt all classes should be suspended and learning shifted back to home if there is a significant increase in COVID-19 cases in their community, with 19 per cent saying classes should continue and 12 per cent unsure either way.

 

 

What is it that we need China for anyway?:

A dissenter within China’s Communist Party has said that leader Xi Jinping is “killing” China with his one-man rule, and added that many in the party want him removed as boss, with China “sliding towards disaster.”

Cai Xia, once a professor at China’s elite Central Party School, told the Guardian that she was “happy” to be kicked out of Xi’s party after an audio taping of her, in which she criticized Xi, was leaked two months ago. She said many in the party are opposed to Xi but fear what will happen if they speak out — including being hit with corruption charges.

(Sidebar: careful, Miss Cai. Had this been Canada, you would be Jody-ed by now. But China is very different!)

** 

The massive $190 million, 470,000-square-foot complex, dubbed the “World Commodity Trade Center,” is a joint venture between a Chinese state-sponsored company and a local development firm. The centre, first conceived in Beijing, has four warehouses and two large exhibition halls — to be lined with Chinese and Canadian flags — strategically located in the Campbell Heights industrial zone between Vancouver International Airport and the United States border.

**

Rights activists estimate 40 percent of women have faced sexual harassment in China, where a patriarchal system, victim-blaming and conservative attitudes mean reporting sex crimes and securing convictions can be difficult.

Blind women in the massage industry are even more vulnerable, says lawyer Li Ying, who warns that the real number who have faced sexual harassment is likely far higher than the general population.

Many in the profession have told charities they endured physical or sexual assault but as such incidents are rarely reported to authorities there are no official records detailing how high harassment levels are.

Li was the first lawyer to bring a case under China’s new sexual harassment legislation — which she won.

 

 

What can go wrong here?:

North Korea is believed to have up to 60 nuclear bombs and the world's third-largest stockpile of chemical weapons totaling up to 5,000 tons, the U.S. Army has said.

 

Also:

North Korea’s ruling Workers’ Party will discuss a “crucial” matter at a meeting Wednesday that comes as the country battles catastrophic flooding that’s dealt a blow to its staggering economy and tries to head off a coronavirus crisis.

** 

The neighbour can be heard yelling: “You're an asylum seeker. You're not from this country.”

Mum Myungseo, a North Korea national who lives in Croydon, South East London, took to Facebook to reveal her plight.

She wrote: “It's only me and my children, we don't have any relative or friend in the UK and this situation is affecting my mental health and my children's wellbeing.”

Myungseo said she moved to the house with her kids in November 2019 and her neighbour allowed her to share a bin.

 

(Merci)



Trouble in Japan:

As the chaos linked to the coronavirus pandemic causes a spike in unemployment, the bleak economic prospects of working-age people in Japan are increasing concern that the nation’s already low birth rate could slip further, deepening the country’s aging crisis.

Japan, home to one of the world’s longest-living populaces, is also the grayest society, with the highest percentage of older people anywhere in the world.

In 2019, people aged 65 or over made up a record 28.41 percent of the country’s total population, according to government data released Aug. 5.

Combined with dwindling numbers of newborn babies, which dropped below 900,000 for the first time ever last year, the world’s third-largest economy has a shrinking working population to draw on at a time when soaring social security spending to cover pensions and medical care for older people is weighing heavily on the budget.

**

On paper, the nation's low unemployment rate suggests an economy weathering the novel coronavirus reasonably well, but official figures belie worsening prospects for the country's army of temporary workers, who make up about 40 percent of the employment market.

A rise in job losses would undermine one of the few successes of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's "Abenomics" stimulus policies, which has been aimed at reviving the economy.

The jobless rate stood at 2.8 percent in June, much lower than the 10.2 percent seen in the United States and the 7.8 percent in the 19-member eurozone.

But a closer look at data shows a rising number of people are dropping out of the search for work. That prevents the official jobless rate — the ratio of job-seekers who are yet to secure employment — from rising much.

 

 

Wait - this actually happened?:

Dreams do come true — or at least they do in Switzerland, where chocolate fell from the sky due to a malfunction at the Lindt & Sprüngli factory in the town of Olten.

The chocolate maker says a ventilation problem launched cocoa powder into the open air outside its facility last Friday morning. The wind caught the powder and spread it across the neighbourhood, leaving a fine dusting of sweet, sweet chocolate.

 

 

 

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Ben Cross: