Mid-Week Post

 Your middle-of-the-week sun beam …

 

Was it something he said and did?

Always:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s weekend appointment of two Liberal Party donors as Alberta senators was denounced by the Government of Alberta.

It marks the 35th anniversary of Alberta holding Canada’s first Senate election, according to Blacklock’s Reporter. Premier Danielle Smith said Trudeau’s administration “blatantly disregarded” Alberta’s interests.

Daryl Fridhandler, partner with Burnet, Duckworth & Palmer LLP of Calgary, was named to the Senate over the long weekend. Fridhandler is a longtime Liberal Party organizer with donations totaling $119,959 to federal and provincial campaigns.

Fridhandler co-chaired campaigns for former leaders Paul Martin and Michael Ignatieff. The Prime Minister’s Office called him a “businessman with over 40 years of legal experience” but omitted mention of his cash contributions.

Kristopher Wells of Edmonton, former director of the University of Alberta’s Institute for Sexual Minority Matters, was also appointed. Wells’ contributions to the Liberal Party totaled $200, according to Elections Canada filings.

Wells has been an outspoken critic of the Conservative Party. In a February 21 interview with the Globe & Mail he called Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre “transphobic,” and in 2023 told Global News it was “unconscionable” that Poilievre was photographed alongside a Calgary Stampede well-wisher wearing a “Straight Pride” T-shirt.

“I think it’s very concerning,” said Wells.

“It’s disturbing. What you’re seeing here is people trying to legitimize these views as though they were dominant views in society.”

"People will look at any opportunity to share this kind of hateful narrative and feel that’s okay and that’s appropriate, even to be wearing something like that in public,” said Wells.

The Saturday appointments came 35 years after Alberta held the first Senate election in Canadian history.

“Albertans’ interests have once again been blatantly disregarded,” Smith said in a statement.

“Despite our province’s repeated democratic election of senators in waiting ready to represent Albertans’ interests, the prime minister has chosen to appoint left wing partisans who will do whatever he and the Liberals order them to.”

“The Senate continues to lose credibility as an institution and needs to be entirely reformed.”

No, it needs to be turfed.

**

Proles eat doughnuts, right?:

WATCH: A steelworker in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, confronts Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about why he is paying 40% in taxes and tells Trudeau he will "only be around for another year." pic.twitter.com/hUUzEjuKPr

— The Canadian Independent (@canindependent) September 1, 2024

Jagmeet Singh’s support for Trudeau will never waiver … until February 2025 when his pension comes in:

The NDP is facing pressure from the Conservatives to break its agreement with the Liberals and trigger an early election, and doing so would not leave many of its big agenda items on the table, a review of the deal shows.

Major pieces of legislation supported by the NDP have been adopted in the areas of dental care, child care, and energy transition, while the pharmacare bill is in the Senate after clearing the House of Commons in June.

Tory Leader Pierre Poilievre asked NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh to drop his support for the Liberals in a letter made public this week. Poilievre said the NDP promised the alliance would help make things more affordable in Canada and pointed to Singh complaining recently about the high cost of living.

To remain in power as a minority government, the Liberals struck a supply and confidence agreement with the NDP in March 2022. In exchange for support on confidence votes in the House of Commons, the Liberals agreed to implement items on the NDP agenda.

The NDP has threatened to pull out of the agreement several times but the Liberal government managed to keep the deal.

Ahead of the new parliamentary session starting in mid-September, and with the deal extending until the end of the spring session of 2025, the partners have not said what area of the agreement they'll focus on.

 

 

From the most “transparent” government in the country’s history:

Lawyers opposing Blacklock’s Reporter in the Federal Court of Appeal abruptly deleted social media posts on the case. The Law Society of Ontario advises lawyers to avoid being “petty” or “intemperate” on social media platforms.

James Plotkin, counsel for a pro-government intervenor against Blacklock’s, deleted a LinkedIn post stating: “‘Riddled with mistakes’ is a risky stone to throw from a glass house ;).” Plotkin is a partner with Gowling WLG of Ottawa that last year received $723,824 in federal contracts.

Alexander Gay, senior counsel for the Department of Justice, also deleted a LinkedIn post stating: “Nothing like an appeal to sort it all out. Happy to meet any daring soul in a courtroom.”

Blacklock’s on Friday filed an appeal in the case. The Law Society of Ontario in a guideline Public Appearances And Statements recommends that lawyers avoid making snide remarks on social media.

“Licensees should avoid any criticism that is petty, intemperate or without merit,” says Public Appearances. “Licensees should always bear in mind their position in society can lend their opinions greater weight in the eye of the public and that they will ordinarily have no control over the context in which statements they make are used by the media.”

Blacklock’s is challenging a May 31 lower court ruling that federal managers could lawfully share passwords to paywalled stories without payment or permission. The decision came in the case of a Parks Canada manager Genevieve Patenaude caught sharing her Blacklock’s password with any co-worker who asked, at least nine people, “if you ever need to access any Blacklock’s article.”

Counsel Gay, the senior federal lawyer in the case, slandered Blacklock’s as a copyright troll following the May 31 ruling. “That’s the business model,” Gay was quoted in an interview with the periodical lawyer Canadian Lawyer.

Federal Court Justice Yvan Roy specifically dismissed the slander. “The Attorney General forcefully suggested Blacklock’s modus operandi is akin to copyright tolling which is described as copyright holders using the threat of litigation to generate revenue,” wrote Justice Roy.

“I was not inclined to consider further any allegation of copyright trolling perhaps with a view to implying an abuse of copyright,” wrote Justice Roy. “Having considered again the evidence before the Court I continue to disregard such assertions.”

Hugh Stephens, former assistant deputy trade minister, said in a commentary that remarks by the Department of Justice against Blacklock’s were an obvious tactic. “Not only has the Attorney General taken a hard line on this case it has also tried to blacken Blacklock’s reputation by accusing it of entrapment and being a copyright troll,” wrote Stephens.

“Blacklock’s had to resort to Access To Information requests to learn how many government employees had accessed the single subscription they had authorized,” wrote Stephens. “The judge in the case explicitly expressed dismissed these allegations, noting Blacklock’s had no intent to deceive.”

 

 

Canada had a thriving economy prior to 2015:

Canadian housing investment slowed further despite spending billions in taxpayer stimulus. Residential investment fell 1.9% in Q2 2024, marking the most significant drop in over a year. Leading the decline were new construction (-1.6%), renovations (-2.6%), and ownership transfer costs (-1.1%).

The real estate industry initially expected a boost due to falling borrowing costs. Few signs have since materialized, with those expectations of improvements now pushed to mid-2025.

On the upside, it wasn’t all bad. Canada saw a big improvement in at least one area—inflation.

“Recent economic data indicates that inflationary pressures have broadly eased, with breadth of goods impacted by abnormally high inflation narrowing to pre-pandemic levels, and the softening economic backdrop should reinforce the Bank of Canada’s view that the economy has softened enough to keep inflation on a downward trajectory,” explained Xu.

Canada may have printed impressive headline growth, but this was not a great quarter. Productivity is on the slide, job vacancies are falling, and unemployment is rising. Real GDP growth was 80% due to rising government consumption, and the rapid expansion of administration is now Canada’s primary job maker. It’s not officially a recession, but excluding aggregate GDP—this is what a recession looks like.

 

Vetting migrants only slows the national decay.

One had better not do that!:

A Toronto terror suspect at the centre of a controversy over Canada’s security screening system arrived in the country three years after he allegedly appeared in a 2015 ISIS video, according to details released on Wednesday.

A chronology tabled at the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security shows Ahmed Fouad Mostafa Eldidi landed at Toronto’s Pearson airport on Feb. 5, 2018 and made a refugee claim that was accepted in February 2019.

He became a Canadian citizen in May 2024, after the Canadian Security Intelligence Service screened him and “returned a favorable recommendation,” according to the timeline tabled by Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc.

CSIS learned in June that Eldidi could pose a security threat and launched an investigation. The RCMP also began an investigation and arrested Eldidi and his son Mostafa on July 28 for allegedly plotting an ISIS attack in Toronto.

The committee voted to probe Eldidi’s path to citizenship after Global News reported he had come to Canada after allegedly appearing in an ISIS video in which he was shown dismembering a prisoner.

His son is an Egyptian citizen who applied for a study permit in 2019 and was refused. He then made a refugee claim at the Fort Erie, Ont., land border in 2020, and was accepted in 2022, after security screening turned up no concerns, the chronology shows.

 

More here.

** 

A reminder – no one seemed to have a problem when Justin thought that allowing droves of unassimiable migrants into the country when such a thing could cheese Trump off:

(Sidebar: it didn’t.)

About two-thirds think that the Trudeau government is bringing in too many people through the permanent resident program. More than half believe higher wages should be offered to Canadian workers before bringing in temporary foreign workers.

Meanwhile, on the issue of screening the up to 5,000 refugees from Gaza the government has agreed to bring in, just 6% are very confident in the Trudeau government’s ability to properly screen these asylum applicants.

Given that Gaza is run by a terrorist group, Hamas, and that most of the population supports Hamas and their attack on Israel last October, we should be worried about who is coming in. Only those who are approved by Hamas to leave Gaza will be given permission to come to Canada.

 

This Hamas:

The six hostages whose bodies were recovered by Israeli forces from a Rafah tunnel in southern Gaza overnight Saturday were shot multiple times at close range just days before their discovery, Israel’s Health Ministry said on Sunday.

According to examinations conducted by the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute in Tel Aviv, the captives were murdered 48 to 72 hours before the autopsies, which would place their deaths at some point between Thursday and Friday morning.

That the captives were shot at short range suggests that they were executed by their Hamas captors.

“According to our initial assessment, they were brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists shortly before we reached them,” IDF Spokesperson Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said on Sunday.

The bodies of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, Eden Yerushalmi, 24, Almog Sarusi, 25, Alexander Lobanov, 32, Carmel Gat, 40, and Master Sgt. Ori Danino, 25, were found in a 65-foot-deep tunnel, with gunshot wounds to the head and other parts of their bodies.

According to the autopsies performed overnight Saturday, one of the hostages showed signs of having being tied up, and all showed evidence of neglect. In addition, there was evidence that they had sustained injuries during or after their kidnapping that were treated over time.

The hostages are believed to have been transported from the northern Gaza Strip to the south during the war.

**

Hamas has released a video on Telegram on Monday showing the six recently slain hostages speaking into a camera, while also announcing that it will release their "last message to the world" before they were killed.

In the video, all six hostages whose bodies were found by the IDF on Sunday are seen confirming their identities before cutting to a still frame threatening to release their "last messages."

The video ends with a threat to release the message in the coming hours.

**

All the terrorists around me were armed, one with a machete, another with a rifle. One of them started pulling me. I hugged a tree firmly, maybe I screamed a little, and I looked and saw the kibbutz gate had been breached. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I was horrified. That was it: we were going to Gaza.

The field had just been ploughed and it was full of small mounds. So I pretended to stumble and fall, moving slowly to delay them, hoping someone would come — someone would definitely come. At first, they went along with it, but at some point they got angry and just lifted me, covered me completely with the blanket I had taken.

Then four men grabbed me and the fight began. I wasn’t scared. I really fought them. One of them wore a purplish-pink shirt and he was the worst. He was about 25 or 26, he looked me in the eyes and beat me. He punched me in the eye, split my lip, just severely beat me up, lifted my shirt, touched my breast, and choked me constantly. And I didn’t care. I kept going, dropping the blanket, falling to the ground on purpose, really fighting them.

The whole thing took about an hour, the fight of my life. They lifted me again, and I made them fall. Then someone arrived with a bike and they put me on the back of the bicycle. We started riding, and I just put my hand on the wheel — see, I still have a scar — and toppled the bike. They got really mad, tore the blanket I brought into pieces, and handcuffed me, with my hands really tightly behind me. My entire left side almost dislocated because they tied it so hard. They also tied my legs and started dragging me on the ground, face down at first. And I screamed.

Understand this: all this time, I didn’t cry, nothing, no tears. I always knew I was physically strong, but I did want to die. I wanted to die because the last image I had in my head was a video I saw on my phone while hiding in the closet, of a vehicle entering Gaza with a soldier’s body being thrown from it. That’s what I thought they were going to do to me. I didn’t think they were going to lock me up in a house.

**

Ahmad Fauzi Nasser Muhammad Wadia, the commander of the Hamas terrorist Nukhba forces, paraglided into the Israeli border community of Netiv Ha’asra and oversaw the massacre there. Wadia was captured by a security camera drinking Coca-Cola before the bleeding kids, aged 9 and 13, while their father lay dead.

Gil Taasa, a 46-year-old firefighter, was killed when he jumped on a grenade to shield his sons, Koren (13) and Shai (9). Gil’s 17-year-old son Or was murdered by Wadia’s Nabuka terrorist forces. Koren and Shai managed to escape along with their mother despite severe injuries. Shay later lost his eyesight from a shrapnel wound during the attack.

 

And they are all coming to Canada.

The foaming-at-the-mouth anti-semites must be giddy with joy.

 

Also – one can never be TOO Islamist:

More than 50 Liberal ministerial staffers, mostly of Muslim and Arab origin, are refusing to volunteer in the LaSalle-Émard-Verdun by-election because they object to their own party’s stand on the conflict in Gaza, revealing how deeply that conflict is tearing at the Liberal Party.

And while this speaks to the internal division of a tired government, it also reveals how starkly polarized Canadians have become over the Middle East.

Evan Dyer and Raffy Boudjikanian reported for CBC News last week that 52 Liberal staffers working in ministers’ offices had sent Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a letter saying they refused to work as volunteers in the Montreal riding because they objected to their own party’s and their own government’s position on the conflict between Israel and Hamas.

“While many of us started our political careers in elections as volunteers, we can no longer in good conscience campaign for a party that excludes us and our values,” they wrote, demanding that the Liberal government condemn Israel’s actions and recognize Palestine as a state.

 

Another thing that Canadians got wrong:

Privy Council in-house research prodded Canadians to consider raising taxes on the rich, records show. Focus group researchers weeks before cabinet’s April 16 capital gains budget asked people “what they thought of when they heard the term ‘wealthiest Canadians.’”

A more gullible people could never be found.

 

There is no arrogance like Canadian arrogance:

The Constitution commands almost religious reverence, with politicians from all parties praising its brilliance. This 18th-century document underscores the U.S.’s enduring commitment from its inception. It represents what even Barack Obama called:

“An improbable experiment in democracy” grounded on principles of equality, self-government, and personal liberty. It is the key to what makes America “exceptional,” the foundation of our “shining city on a hill,” and the reason the country offers a universal model of what Abraham Lincoln called the “government of the people, by the people, for the people.”

The left has no respect for anything, so is it surprising that they would attack the document that has served as the pillar of our nation? These are the same people who believe that non-citizens should vote in American elections. It is a ridiculous daydream that is ridiculed worldwide.

The Constitution represents stability and traditional moral values. Try as they may, the left will never overturn it, and any serious attempt to do so will unleash the anarchy they crave but not the results they were hoping for.

Not that Jennifer Szalais understands the national underpinnings of Canada – peace, order and good government – she fails to grasp how well the Constitution works for ALL Americans.

But leftists seldom do.

 

 

We don’t have to trade with China:

The China inquiry yesterday disclosed it is investigating names and dates referenced in a censored report on foreign espionage in Parliament. The Commission on Foreign Interference will “endeavour to shed light on the facts,” Commissioner Marie-Josée Hogue said in a statement: “Counsel have undertaken the exercise of identifying and analyzing the information.”

**

A former aide to two New York governors was charged Tuesday with acting as an illegal agent of the Chinese government who used her state positions to subtly advance Beijing’s agenda in exchange for financial benefits worth millions of dollars.

Linda Sun, who held numerous posts in New York state government, including deputy chief of staff for Gov. Kathy Hochul and deputy diversity officer for former Gov. Andrew Cuomo, was arrested Tuesday morning along with her husband, Chris Hu, at their $4 million home on Long Island.

 

Federal prosecutors said Sun, at the request of Chinese officials, blocked representatives of the Taiwanese government from having access to the governor’s office and shaped New York governmental messaging to align with the priorities of the Chinese government, among other things.

In return, her husband got help for his business activities in China — a financial boost that prosecutors said allowed the couple to buy their multimillion-dollar property in Manhasset, New York, a condominium in Hawaii for $1.9 million, and luxury cars including a 2024 Ferrari, the indictment said.

**

Tokyo lodged a strong protest with Beijing on Saturday, after a Chinese Navy survey ship entered Japanese territorial waters off Kagoshima Prefecture — just days following the first foray into Japanese airspace by a Chinese military aircraft.

The Japanese Defense Ministry said the Chinese Shupang-class vessel’s entry into the territorial waters southwest of Kagoshima’s Kuchinoerabu Island was the 13th time since last September that the Chinese Navy had entered Japanese waters, with the ministry calling the moves “cause for concern.”

The Chinese ship, which entered the waters around 6 a.m. before departing nearly two hours later, was monitored by Maritime Self-Defense Force vessels and aircraft.

**

China’s production of batteries for electric vehicles is “definitely not clean,” says energy expert Diana Furchtgott-Roth.

Without its own vast natural energy resources, China is the world’s largest energy importer, but has seized on the economic opportunities of the “green energy” movement. Yet the production of products such as EVs is causing harm to the environment, says Furchtgott-Roth, director of The Heritage Foundation’s Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment.

China produces about 80% of the world’s EV batteries and “mining for the critical minerals in the batteries … causes vast amounts of environmental damage,” she explains.

 

 

What can go right?:

Times tables tests should be scrapped and grammar exams “stripped back”, teaching unions are urging the Government.

Ministers are being urged to cut down the number of tests in primary schools, which unions say lead to high levels of anxiety in children.

Tests on times tables are compulsory for all Year Four pupils at state schools in England.

Unions have also argued in favour of simplifying Year Six SATs – the exams pupils take at the end of primary school in reading, writing and maths – to cut out the most difficult grammar questions.

The demands will be handed to Bridget Phillipson, the Education Secretary, for her curriculum and assessment review, alongside submissions from multi-academy trust bosses and education experts.

“The times table tests should become optional,” said a union source. “We are not saying children shouldn’t learn times tables. They are really helpful. But the need to have the times table check is a bit of an unnecessary waste of time.”

Discussing grammar exams, the source said: “We are not saying let’s abandon knowledge. But there is an awful lot in the primary curriculum.

“Do we really need primary children to know about modal verbs and fronted adverbials? Why don’t we strip that back? Let’s do fewer things, but better.”

Like grunting?

Do what you are paid to do.