Your middle-of-the-week moment of clarity ...
Your disgusting government and you:
Government House Leader Mark Holland said Tuesday that his Conservative, Bloc Québécois and NDP counterparts have signed a memorandum of understanding that will allow MPs on an ad hoc committee to learn why Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, were dismissed in January, 2021. The committee will also see all secret documents involving the transfer of Ebola and Henipah viruses, overseen by Dr. Qiu, to China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology in March, 2019.Exactly why the two scientists were fired has been a contentious political issue. At first, the government would not disclose any information about the reason for the dismissals and even took House Speaker Anthony Rota to court last year for trying to obtain the classified documents. The Liberals abandoned the effort when the 2021 election was called. ...More than 250 pages of records have been withheld in their entirety from MPs, and hundreds of others have been partly censored. The government had warned that their release could jeopardize national security.“What they will have access to is all documents unredacted in their totality. They will be able to see behind the curtain on every aspect,” Mr. Holland told The Globe and Mail.MPs on the committee must sign an oath of secrecy and will be required to view the classified documents at a secure facility, he added.
A federal court in New York has charged seven Chinese nationals for harassing and coercing a U.S. resident to return to China as part of Beijing’s international extralegal repatriation campaign known as Operation Fox Hunt.The indictment, recently unsealed by a Brooklyn, N.Y. court, shows that similar operations were carried out on Canadian soil.
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"How dare you use a loophole!" shrieks the coward who ordered the police to crush a popular grassroots movement that publicly humiliated him:
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is criticizing the Ontario government’s use of the notwithstanding clause in legislation to impose contracts on education workers and ban them from striking.
Go ahead, "educators". Go on strike. Give parents the impetus they need to choose anything but public or separate schools, for more reasons than one.
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It bears repeating:
Media and political leaders falsely characterized the Freedom Convoy as an extremist movement, according to confidential emails between Ontario Provincial Police commanders. There was no evidence convoy members were anything but political protesters, said one commander: “It is not an ‘extremist’ movement.”
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Cabinet and political aides schemed on ways to perpetuate media coverage depicting Freedom Convoy members as “crazies,” the Public Order Emergency Commission was told yesterday. A lawyer for the truckers read out text messages in which Liberal aides contemplated a media campaign to depict protesters as violent, adding: “We need something to back this up.”
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The Freedom Convoy was “calm, festive and family oriented” the day cabinet invoked emergency powers, according to an internal memo by Ontario Provincial Police. Protesters and their children were playing hockey, quoting the Bible and “wishing everyone a happy Valentine’s” at the moment cabinet claimed the streets were lawless, said the memo: “Speakers were again telling people to walk away from agitators and thanked the police.”
(Sidebar: also - HA!)
No wonder no one wants to protect them.
Regardless of how one feels about the execrable pull of social media and its varying degrees of vapidity and censorship, the Liberals aren't worried about Facebook fleeing the Canadian market. If Canada is ever to be cut off a la North Korea, pretending to worry about Facebook's evacuation from the market is one way to do it:
The Heritage Minister’s parliamentary secretary accused Facebook of threatening Canadians’ safety, after the company said it could pull news off its platform if it’s forced to share revenue with news publishers.
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“Facebook has stepped up again to threaten the well-being of Canadians, to threaten our safety, to threaten our information online,” Chris Bittle, the parliamentary secretary to Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez, told reporters Tuesday.
(Sidebar: squeal like a pig, Chris.)
Bill C-18, which is targeted at Google and Facebook parent company Meta, would force the tech giants to reach commercial deals with news publishers, under the threat of mandatory arbitration. The two companies could end up funding 30 per cent of the cost of producing news in Canada, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has estimated.
Google has been pushing for amendments to the legislation, and Meta has threatened to pull news off its platform in Canada, repeating that statement at a parliamentary committee Friday.
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“Faced with adverse legislation based on false assumptions that defy the logic of how Facebook works, and which if passed, will create globally unprecedented forms of financial liability for news links and content, we feel it is important to be transparent about the possibility that we may be forced to consider whether we continue to allow the sharing of news content on Facebook in Canada,” Meta’s global policy director Kevin Chan said.
Meta has followed through on removing news from Facebook before, doing so for a week after Australia passed legislation similar to C-18 last year.
Also - were we always at war with Eastasia?:
Hate thought leads to hate crime, Senator David Arnot (Sask.), a former Saskatchewan human rights commissioner, said yesterday. Arnot’s remarks came amid testimony at the Senate human rights committee that claimed the Freedom Convoy was rooted in hatred of Muslims: “Hate thought, hate speech, begets hate crime. We know that.”
Also:
Parliamentary Press Gallery president Guillaume St-Pierre is threatening to “terminate” Blacklock’s ten-year membership on complaints of disrespectful treatment of subsidized competitors. St-Pierre of the Journal de Montréal yesterday would not release a mediator’s report in the case.
“The Gallery will consider taking appropriate measures,” St-Pierre wrote in a formal letter of reprimand. Blacklock’s contravened “the quiet and civil environment that members expect,” he wrote.
“The executive may determine it is appropriate to remove privileges from a member at any time for due cause,” wrote St-Pierre. “Membership in the Gallery could also be suspended or terminated.”
The Gallery has no bylaws on quietness or civility. Its constitution also restricts the Gallery from directing how members cover news or adjudicating grievances between competitors.
Threats of expulsion follow a 2021 motion in which Blacklock’s sought full disclosure of subsidies paid to members including the Journal de Montréal. Records show the Gallery executive from last May 2 began compiling vexatious grievances including a complaint Blacklock’s managing editor Tom Korski listened to English-only audio feeds from the House of Commons.
“It is important to listen to the French,” Catherine Levesque of the National Post, a former Gallery president, told a May 2 executive meeting. The Gallery refused to release the text of the noise complaints or grant Korski a chance to respond.
On June 7 and 8 President St-Pierre and the National Post’s Levesque attended the National Press Building to personally monitor Korski’s work habits. On July 11 the Gallery hurriedly drafted a Code Of Conduct. The code written by the National Post’s Levesque, Althia Raj of the Toronto Star and Dylan Robertson of The Canadian Press stated members must “avoid loud conversations” in the newsroom. ...
The Gallery also compiled pages of frivolous complaints from Gallery director Emilie Bergeron of The Canadian Press, freelancer Hélène Buzzetti, a former Gallery president, and Michel Saba, a Canadian Press reporter.
Complaints included allegations Korski created a “toxic environment” in the National Press Building by using a speaker phone, leaving the “House of Commons feed running all day” when the House was in session, referring to freelancer Buzzetti as “that idiot,” speaking to a competitor “in a vaguely threatening tone,” tearing a piece of paper “in a theatrical gesture,” propping open a newsroom door and posting a tweet critical of Canadian Press committee coverage.
The Gallery refused to allow Korski to address the board. It also refused to canvass 19 other newsroom reporters and clerks assigned desks in the National Press Building on the “toxic environment” claim.
Journalists the Gallery refused to question included freelancer Gerhard Braune, Andrea Gunn of the Halifax Chronicle-Herald, Adam Huras of Brunswick News, Kathryn May of Policy Options magazine, David McKie of the National Observer, freelancer James Munson, Tim Naumetz of iPolitics, Greg Quinn of Market News International, Cristin Schmitz of The Lawyers Daily, Antoine Trépanier of Le Droit, Pascal Vachon of TFO, Paul Vieira of the Wall Street Journal, Limin Zhou of New Tang Dynasty TV and Alex Binkley, dean of the Press Gallery, a member since 1975.
Threats of censure follow an April 7, 2021 Gallery meeting in which Blacklock’s sponsored a motion asking “that all Gallery members disclose all applications for grants, rebates or subsidies to any branch of the Government of Canada and that disclosures be published on a Press Gallery website.” The motion was defeated by a vote of 18 to 1.
Blacklock’s in 2020 also reported Canadian Press petitioned the Commons finance committee for 100 percent subsidies “to fully offset subscription fees paid by CP media clients,” and on August 25, 2021 reported Canadian Press launched a fact-checker service “that examines the accuracy of statements made by politicians” after pocketing $1.6 million in sole-sourced federal contracts.
It's not terrorism if you're special:
Activists and advocates who've been targeted for government snooping in the past are denouncing what they see as the Canadian Security Intelligence Service's "vilification" of First Nations activism.
They say they know the state is watching, but it still came as a surprise to learn CSIS secretly weighed whether rail blockades could qualify as "acts of terrorism" in reports beginning in November 2020.
"It is an absolutely ridiculous sentiment to me that in 2022 when Indigenous people make a stand for their lands and their water, we get called terrorists," said Skyler Williams, a prominent Mohawk activist from Six Nations of the Grand River in Ontario.
"It's a real struggle for me to understand how you could be called a terrorist for that, or a violent extremist."
If you block trains and set fire to things, well ...
A diesel shortage south of the border could trickle to Canada causing price spikes along with an overall rise in prices, says Dan McTeague, president of Canadians for Affordable Energy, a senior petroleum analyst for GasBuddy.com, and an 18-year veteran of the House of Commons.
A diesel supply shortage has been gripping the United States of late, with the White House declaring on Oct. 23 that reserves are down to 25 days of supply.
In an interview with The Epoch Times, McTeague said that diesel demand is “extraordinarily strong and production is just not there.”
McTeague predicts that the further east you go on the continent, the worse the shortage will be, on top of an ongoing supply crunch. U.S. diesel supply shortages are critically low, he says, and Canadians are going to feel it.
Also:
A winter recession will not be severe, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem last night told the Senate banking committee. Macklem acknowledged his earlier forecasts were wrong: ““It’s not like we got everything right.”
Why not just replace doctors with hitmen?
The effect is the same:
But a guidance document produced by Canada’s providers of medically assisted death states that doctors have a professional obligation to bring up MAID as an option, when it’s “medically relevant” and the person is likely eligible, as part of the informed consent process.
There is no legal restriction on who can raise the subject of MAID with someone with a grievous and irremediable illness, disease or disability, provided the intent is not to induce, persuade or convince the person to request an assisted death, says the Canadian Association of MAID Assessors and Providers.
But some ethicists argue that introducing death as a “treatment option,” without the person suggesting it first, is seriously problematic, especially within the expanding realm of MAID, and that people could be unduly influenced to choose to have their life intentionally ended, given the power dynamics of the doctor-patient relationship.
And how do you plan on housing and employing these 500,000, Sean?:
The federal Liberal government has unveiled plans for a massive increase in the number of immigrants entering Canada, with a goal of seeing 500,000 people arrive each year by 2025 as it seeks to address a critical labour shortage across the country.
Because Canadians can't be trained to work, apparently.
Also:
Quebec Premier François Legault is maintaining that the province cannot accept more than 50,000 immigrants a year despite Ottawa's plans to significantly raise the country's immigration levels.
The federal government, Legault told reporters Wednesday, needs to understand that Quebec is facing a "special challenge" to preserve the French language.
His comments were in reaction to Ottawa's announcement on Tuesday that it intends to welcome about 500,000 annual newcomers to Canada by 2025. By comparison, the federal Immigration Department said 405,000 permanent residents were admitted last year.
"Already at 400,000 there was a problem, so at 500,000 it's even more so," Legault said. “Already at 50,000 it is difficult to stop the decline of French."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday that immigration done correctly can help address labour shortages in Quebec and that Ottawa would be there to help the province create more economic growth.
"Quebec has long had the ability to increase its immigration thresholds," Trudeau told reporters. "I know that every time I speak to business owners in Montreal or in the regions, they emphasize how important it is to counter the worker shortage."
Quebec's immigration agreement with Ottawa permits the province to welcome a percentage of newcomers equal to its demographic weight in the country — 23 per cent — which would be about 115,000 people should Canada accept 500,000 immigrants a year.
The highest number of annual immigrants the province can properly integrate is 50,000, Legault said, adding that even the most ambitious plan presented by a political party during the recent provincial election set a maximum target of 80,000 newcomers.
Later on Wednesday, Quebec Immigration Minister Christine Fréchette said the province's 50,000 number was firm.
On the Korean Peninsula:
South Korea says it has conducted air-to-surface missile tests in response to North Korean missile launches.
South Korea’s military says its fighter jets fired three precision-guided missiles Wednesday near the rivals’ eastern border.
It says the launches were in reaction to a barrage of North Korean missiles tests earlier Wednesday. South Korea says one of the North Korean missiles landed near the sea border.
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North Korea added its barrage of recent weapons tests on Thursday, firing at least three missiles including a suspected intercontinental ballistic missile that forced the Japanese government to issue evacuation alerts and temporarily halt trains.
The launches are the latest in a series of North Korean weapons tests in recent months that have raised tensions in the region. They came a day after Pyongyang fired more than 20 missiles, the most it has fired in a single day ever.
South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said it detected the North firing a missile it presumed as an ICBM from an area near its capital Pyongyang around 7:40 a.m. and then firing two short-range missiles an hour later from the nearby city of Kacheon that flew toward its eastern waters.
While South Korean officials didn’t immediately release more specific flight details, the longer-range missile may have been fired on a high angle to avoid reaching the territory of the North’s neighbors. Japan’s Defense Minister Yasukazu Hamada said one of the North Korean missiles reached a maximum altitude of 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) and traveled about 750 kilometers (460 miles) before his military lost track of the weapon.
The Japanese government initially feared that the suspected ICBM would fly over its northern territory, but later revised its assessment, saying there were no overflies.
We don't have to trade with China:
In a dystopian nightmare come to life, the Cambodian government has given Chinese crime syndicates free rein to bring in tens of thousands of foreign men and women who — according to human rights organizations and their own accounts — are held captive to work in crowded cyber scam mills.
Lured by the promise of legitimate employment, they are instead forced to run online and telephone rackets targeting people around the world with gambling, money lending and romance schemes, to name a few. Other scams have included fake real estate developments and bogus initial coin offerings.
"The criminals are limited only by their imagination," said Jason Tower, an executive at the United States Institute of Peace and an expert on transnational Chinese crime syndicates. "These are sophisticated schemes."
Workers who meet their targets are rewarded. Those who fail are tortured, abused and sold like chattel to other gangs on private messaging apps such as Telegram. Reports of murder, depression and suicidal ideation are rampant.
The syndicates run their operations not unlike private companies trying to motivate a sales force. The big difference: Employees aren't allowed to leave.
"Instead of getting fired for poor performance, you get physical punishments — forced push-ups and squats, tased, beaten, deprived of food, locked up in dark rooms or worse," said Jacob Sims, country director for International Justice Mission Cambodia, a rights group that has helped rescue more than 100 victims. "On the other hand, those who consistently meet or surpass their targets are rewarded with more freedoms, food, money and control over other victims."
The duped workers come from across Asia, including China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Taiwan and Hong Kong. Many cite the economic fallout from the pandemic as a motivating factor for taking a job in Cambodia.
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Most Canadians will know Barton only as our ambassador to China through the nearly three-year ordeal of Beijing’s kidnapping of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. When that humiliation was over, quite a few Canadian opinion-makers fell for the story that Barton played some key role in negotiating the Michaels’ release.
He didn’t, as an exhaustive investigation undertaken by the Wall Street Journal, published last week, amply proves. But it is a new book by New York Times reporters Michael Forsythe and Walt Bogdanich, When McKinsey Comes to Town: The Hidden Influence of the World’s Most Powerful Consulting Firm, that casts Barton in an even clearer light.
It was during Barton’s decade as global managing director for McKinsey and Associates that the company became notorious for serving kleptocrats and oligarchs from Moscow to Riyadh and from Beijing to Johannesburg. While Trudeau’s infatuation with China was already a family tradition, Barton’s formulae situating Chinese markets and money as the keys to Canada’s prosperity were built into Trudeau’s program long before he was prime minister — it was all right there and ready to go when he was running for the Liberal Party leadership.
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Chinese Communist agents are targeting MPs, senators and political aides, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service yesterday told the House affairs committee. “We are very concerned about targeting,” testified Michelle Tessier, deputy director: “Did the Chinese Communist regime interfere in the last federal election?”
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Canada’s spy agency is growing “increasingly concerned” about China’s attempts to influence Canadian politics, a senior official told members of Parliament on Tuesday.
That’s because the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is “involved and interested in promoting their own national interests” in Canada, Michelle Tessier, the deputy director of operations for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) told the procedure and House affairs committee on Tuesday.
“They are an actor in foreign interference, and we have said that publicly … that we are concerned about the activities regarding threats against the security of Canada, including foreign interference by the Chinese Communist Party,” Tessier told MPs.
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Of all the countries where China has purportedly set up unofficial police stations, only Ireland and the Netherlands have so far ordered the stations to be closed. Authorities in other countries, including in Canada, have at most said they are “investigating” the issue.This came after a Spanish NGO, Safeguard Defenders, published a report in September alerting countries like Canada to these stations on their soil. The station in Dublin, Ireland, displayed a public sign, “Fuzhou Police Overseas Service Station.” Other stations, such as the reported three in Toronto, are more subtle.But why did it take an NGO to raise the alarm about these stations in countries with sophisticated intelligence and security agencies? Andy why is there not yet any report on whether they’ve been ordered closed in Canada?
Canada’s ability to detect foreign incursions in its Arctic territories is “very limited” and in need of modernization, says a high-ranking Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) general.“The North Warning System is very limited in its ability to actually detect the current threat presented by Russia right now and China in the future,” said Lt. Gen. Alain Pelletier, deputy commander of the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), while testifying before the House of Commons national defence committee on Nov. 1.“Especially given that the threat from China may be coming from the west coast,” Pelletier continued. “And the warning system is geared towards the threat coming from the Arctic, as that’s for what it was designed back in the early 1980s.”
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