Tamara Lich, an organizer of the Freedom Convoy and of the GoFundMe/GiveSendGo online campaigns, remains in jail, having been denied bail. A grandmother from Alberta who led a peaceful protest, she was described by Judge Julie Bourgeois as a criminal potentially facing years in prison, whose jailing “was necessary for the protection or safety of the public.” Before her peaceful surrender, this dangerous criminal posted a video imploring her supporters to conduct themselves peacefully, and to treat the police with respect.
By contrast, violent criminals usually get bail. The Antifa member who drove a vehicle into Convoy supporters in Winnipeg, an act of vehicular assault that injured several people, was quickly bailed. Obviously, Ms. Lich is on the wrong side.
It is relevant to mention that Judge Julie Bourgeois was a failed Liberal candidate in the election of 2011. But one does not need to impute partisan hostility to this one judge to see that Ms. Lich and other anti-bureaucratic protesters face in the judiciary, as in the legal profession as a whole, a hostile institution.
Beverley McLachlin is the former long-time Chief Justice of the Canadian Supreme Court, a leader of the Canadian judiciary, and by extension of the legal profession. As Chief Justice, she was a prominent judicial activist, usually to the left of elected politicians, often leading policy change. She is at once a product of a leftist institutional climate and a shaper of that climate, not to mention a patron of careers that prosper within it. Writing last week in The Globe and Mail, Judge McLachlin tells us of the ugliness of the freedom for which Ms. Lich demonstrated.
The judge writes of “this vaunted ‘freedom,’” in sarcastic scare quotes, which tells us how the judiciary regards the freedom from state interference, and the personal independence, valued by many Canadians. She then subjects the freedom convoy protestors to the now expected but evidence-free accusations of violence and racism. But she does get one point right: protesters did indeed claim the right to “malign public officials” if by that she means the right to criticize ministers. It is a charge Putin might use.
At this point the Judge’s tone becomes patronizing and didactic, as though her targets were slow (which is of course exactly what she thinks). Freedom, we are instructed, is not absolute (as though anyone had thought it was). “Reasonable” (several times) limits apply to the Charter’s “bundle of rights and freedoms.” The alternative is anarchy. Free speech, we are to understand, is just a not-so-important part of a larger bundle. Are we at Walmart? Would you like toilet paper with your freedom of speech and assembly, subject to management approval?
Liberal MPs on the Commons finance committee yesterday rejected a two-year ban on the sale of Canadian residential real estate to foreigners abroad. The Liberal Party promised a ban in the September 20 election campaign: ‘One of my frustrations is the slow pace which the Liberal government undertakes to meet its own commitments.’
They don't launder money in this country only to be shut out, you know:
Federal regulators yesterday would not commit to enforcing a parliamentary ban on foreign propaganda by Chinese state TV. The Commons voted unanimously for a ban targeting the Kremlin-financed television service Russia Today: “RT has no place on our airwaves.”
**
Xiao, who was born in China but holds Canadian and Antiguan passports, handled business transactions and investments of China’s ruling class including President Xi Jinping, according to multiple media reports. He founded his umbrella of companies, the Tomorrow Group, in the early 2000s with his wife, Zhou Hongwen (also spelled Zhou Guangwen). Zhou, along with her sister Zhou Liwen, are listed as the directors of WinnerMax. This Toronto-based company was first incorporated in March 2017, less than two months after Xiao’s detention.
The Tomorrow Group controlled interests in state-dominated industries, including banking, insurance, coal, real estate and even rare-earth mineral extraction, and helped Xiao build a fortune estimated at roughly $5.8 billion.
Xiao’s story exemplified China’s excessive world of finance, where wealthy tycoons use political connections to build sprawling empires. His close connections to President Xi Jinping, marriage to a Mongolian beauty queen, and luxurious lifestyle made him a magnetic figure before and after his detainment made headlines around the world.
His whereabouts are currently unknown. Ottawa would not confirm to Global News reporters whether Xiao has ever received consular visits, or if he is even alive. Some media reports have speculated he is under indefinite house arrest in Shanghai.
Following Xiao’s abduction, Beijing authorities accused him of laundering corruption proceeds in foreign markets as well as “bribery and stock manipulation.” In an October 2020 statement, China’s Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission labelled Tomorrow Group among China’s “illegal financial groups” that were involved in “financial crimes.”
But other factors may have precipitated his downfall. Documents obtained by Global News through an access to information request show Canada’s government has mulled the possibility that Xiao’s kidnapping relates directly to factional battles in the upper echelons of the Chinese Communist Party.
Two years late and several million dollars short:
The Public Health Agency yesterday said it is now almost fully stocked with pandemic medical supplies two years after the outbreak of Covid. The Agency to date has not explained why it ignored its own planners in failing to maintain a four months’ supply of masks, medical gowns and other goods: “It’s unacceptable to get that kind of dissembling to direct questions.”
The delivery of new pistols for the Canadian Army has been pushed back until early 2023.
The Canadian government had hoped to replace the military’s Second World War-era handguns with the new pistols starting this year, but in August 2021 one of the firms interested in bidding on the project complained to the Canadian International Trade Tribunal (CITT) that the proposed purchase was designed to favour its competitors.
In response, the Canadian government had to rewrite some portions of the request for bids, delaying the timelines on when the guns would get into the hands of military personnel.
A new bid package was issued to companies on Feb. 18, Department of National Defence spokesperson Jessica Lamirande said.
She said 7,000 pistols would be initially purchased for the Canadian Army. Options to buy additional handguns for the army, the Royal Canadian Air Force and the Royal Canadian Navy will be acted upon later. In total, up to 16,500 pistols will be bought.
What set of cronies will mess this up?
A class artificially propped up by a plutocracy:
A majority of English-speaking Canadians cannot carry on a conversation in French despite 53 years of official bilingualism, says in-house federal research. Cabinet as early as today will reintroduce a bill mandating use of French in the federally regulated private sector: “I am just not interested.”
Why not learn Russian or Japanese?
At least the Russians can win wars.
No comments:
Post a Comment