Mid-Week Post

 

Your mid-week bout of folly …

 

 

No country for anyone:

The Israel city of Tel Aviv came under direct missile attack from Iran.

CNN footage showed dozens of missiles from Israel's Iron Dome defence system soaring into the air intercepting missiles.

Iran fired up to 200 missiles at Israel.

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu put Iran on notice.

"Iran made a big mistake tonight — and it will pay for it. The regime in Iran does not understand our determination to defend ourselves and our determination to retaliate against our enemies. We will stand by the rule we have established: whoever attacks us — we will attack him"

**

The Islamic Republic fired more than 180 ballistic missiles at the Jewish state on Tuesday evening, forcing Israel’s entire civilian population of nearly 10 million people into bomb shelters.

**

Among the victims of Tuesday terrorist attack in Tel Aviv was Inbar Segev-Vigder, a new mother who died protecting her nine-month old baby.

“Murdered while shielding her 9 month old son Ari,” the State of Israel wrote on the social media platform X. “She saved his life. There are no words. Only heartbreak. May the memory of the victims be a blessing.”

**

What a silly b!#ch:

As war spread in the Middle East on Tuesday, Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly “unequivocally” condemned Iran’s move to fire dozens of missiles into Israel but asked the Jewish state not to respond in a bid to avoid further escalation.

 

What can one expect from a nation of idiots and proud anti-semites?:

Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiw says there will be more plainclothes and uniformed officers, as well as patrol cars, dispatched across the city to address the potential for increased protest activity and violent acts amid rising tensions in the Middle East.

Demkiw says there will also be multiple command posts in Jewish neighbourhoods and at various mosques in the city, and police are working with partners and intelligence services to monitor potential threats.

He says police will also continue ensuring safety at demonstrations while balancing the right to assembly and expression.

 

I will stop right here.

This country is poised to pass its THIRD censorship bill any day now.

Canadians gladly acquiesced to house arrest until some truck drivers parked in front of the House of Commons. Said truck drivers were then arrested and had their property seized by a blackface-wearing clown all for the offense of embarrassing him for the coward that he is.

Fast-forward a few years and watch as the police stand idly by while streets are blocked by people screaming death to the Jews and letting shopping centres be invaded by similar sorts of miscreants.

What Demkiw really means is that the police will once more stand by while screaming anti-semites do what they want.

**

Toronto has seen a 69 per cent increase in hate crimes against Jewish people in the wake of Hamas’s October 7 attack on Israel, according to the city’s top cop.

Year-to-date, Chief Myron Demkiw’s force has fielded reports of 350 hate crimes, a 40 per cent increase over the first nine months of last year.

“While many different communities have been targeted, the greatest increase has been against the Jewish community by 69 per cent,” Demkiw told reporters at Toronto Police Headquarters.

**

Aviva hasn’t been back to her house at Kfar Aza. There are bullet holes and shattered pieces of things the terrorists destroyed. They looted what they could. Her wedding album was salvaged by her daughter, along with some small personal items. Those taken hostage didn’t have their houses burned, says Hagar Yechieli, 53, the kibbutz spokesperson. “They left these houses but burned the ones with people still inside hoping they’d run out so they could kidnap them.”

Kfar Aza is a kibbutz of about 700 people. A typical kibbutz looks like a retirement community or a ski village. People live in modest bungalows, often attached. There are kindergartens, a medical clinic, a dining hall, agricultural activities and farming equipment. Everyone is within walking distance. Dogs and children run wild. Aviva, as a senior member in the nursery, soothed, cuddled and changed the diapers of many of those killed when they were babies. Some members have returned to the kibbutz, but it still needs to be rebuilt.

**

Cabinet should not declassify a secret blacklist of suspected Nazi collaborators recommended for prosecution 39 years ago, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress said yesterday. Suspects named in the confidential 1985 list even if long dead have “several generations of descendants” who deserve privacy, said the Congress president: “Today we hear repeated calls for the disclosure of the names of these innocent people.”

 

 

Canada was once a country that worked.

Once:

Young Canadians have “diminished faith in the future,” the Government Representative in the Senate said yesterday. Senator Marc Gold (Que.) called it “disturbing.”

**

Canadians are told that the best thing they can do is abort their children and live a life free of responsibility.

Here are the results:

Statistics Canada revealed last week that 2023 was the second year in a row that Canada’s fertility rate hit an all-time low. The nation’s total fertility rate — a figure, based on current fertility levels, to determine the number of children a woman would be expected to have throughout her reproductive life — is at 1.26, down from 1.33 in 2022.

 

Why even walk through the pretense of adoption?

If there is no child before birth, there is none afterward.

Enjoy the demographic decline, Canada.

You must be so pleased to go extinct.

**

Her again:

Government House Leader Karina Gould yesterday claimed cabinet’s climate plan cut emissions by “the equivalent of 60 million cars.” Aides did not substantiate the claim. Emissions went up in the last official reporting period, and Canada has never had 60 million cars: “We just got the news.”

**

It is easy to conclude that the lack of ambition is due to lack of capital and opportunity.

That is partly true.

It is also true that a country that aims for mediocrity gets or failure:

The president of e-commerce giant Shopify Inc. is calling on Canada to address a problem he calls “the 600-pound beaver in the room.”

That problem is a lack of ambition that Harley Finkelstein described as hampering the growth and long-term success of Canadian companies, the country’s tech ecosystem and its broader economy.

“This idea of injecting more ambition into the Canadian psyche, of not going for bronze but going for gold, of owning the podium … is unequivocally necessary,” he said late Tuesday during an interview hosted by astronaut Chris Hadfield at the Elevate tech conference in Toronto.

While they first delved into Finkelstein’s previous DJ career, why he starts his day with meditation and Shopify’s views on remote work (great as long as staff still gather regularly), the pair eventually got down to business, discussing the state of Canadian tech.

The conversation saw Finkelstein compare startups in Canada, where he lives and runs Shopify, with their rivals in the U.S., where he went to school.

The difference between the two, he pointed out, is that the lack of ambition in Canada has left the country’s startups with a reputation for being acquired, often by their U.S. counterparts, which are known for swallowing up buzzy businesses.

“I want more Canadian companies to be headquartered here,” Finkelstein said. “I don’t want to be a country of branch offices.”

 

 

The Bloc Quebecois, whose mandate it is to tear apart the country, will never vote for an election due to its poor numbers, limited funding, and unwillingness to let a vote for accountability get in the way of political extortion:

Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet is giving the Liberals a few more days to follow the will of the House of Commons and grant a royal recommendation to his party’s bill to increase old age pension payments for all seniors.

 

Speaking of Quebec:

Quebec Premier François Legault says his government has asked Ottawa to set up "waiting zones" for asylum seekers, as is the practice in France.

Legault told reporters during a press conference in Paris on Tuesday that Canada should take inspiration from the European country. Waiting zones in Canada, he added, could be located close to airports or elsewhere on the territory.

The premier has for months been calling on the federal government to redistribute would-be refugees across Canada. He says Quebec is home to 45 per cent of asylum seekers in the country, despite accounting for just 22 per cent of the population. "So can we think about having waiting zones in other provinces?" he said.

In France, people arriving by boat, train or plane can be placed in a waiting zone at the border for up to 26 days if they are seeking asylum, if they are refused entry, or if they're denied boarding to the country of their final destination.

Ahead of Tuesday's cabinet meeting in Ottawa, federal Immigration Minister Marc Miller accused Legault of using immigration for political ends. "Secure zones are a completely different order of magnitude from anything that has been conceived in Canada. And it's never been mentioned in our working groups," he said. "I think Mr. Legault is desperately trying to keep the public's attention on the immigration issue.”

Miller said he had "no idea" what exactly Quebec is calling for. "They're just throwing it out there," he added.

 

(Sidebar: shut up, Marc! No one likes you!)

 

Why not wait in their former countries?

How much slave labour does this country need?:

The owner of a Canadian Tire store in Toronto is being investigated by the provincial and federal governments for allegedly mistreating and financially exploiting employees hired through Ottawa’s Temporary Foreign Worker Program.

At least 13 of those employees resigned or were fired by the store late last year, according to documents reviewed by The Globe and Mail and conversations with several of the workers.

They allege their wages were arbitrarily reduced by the owner and that they were forced to do jobs for which they were not hired. They also claim the owner threatened to fire them on multiple occasions when they brought up their concerns about the working conditions.

Federal government rules dictate that employers cannot arbitrarily decrease the wages of temporary foreign workers or materially change their job duties. If they do, they will have to apply for a new labour market impact assessment (LMIA), a document needed to hire foreign workers.

A spokesperson with Ontario’s Ministry of Labour, Training, Immigration and Skills Development confirmed to The Globe that the province is investigating Ezhil Natarajan, who owns and operates a Canadian Tire store in Etobicoke, which comprises Toronto’s west end.

Meanwhile, a federal investigation is being conducted by an officer of Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC), the ministry in charge of the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) Program. ESDC would not confirm if it was still investigating Mr. Natarajan, but an e-mail exchange as recent as Aug. 14 revealed that one of its officers was in contact with one of the workers regarding wages allegedly owed to him by Mr. Natarajan.

We don’t have to trade with China:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and other federal officials were warned 163 separate times of foreign interference over a six-year period, China inquiry records show. Trudeau as late as 2023 denied he was ever told of illegal activity by foreign agents: “This list does not include additional ad hoc meetings that may have occurred.”

**

Populations are being subjected to cognitive attacks that leverage a combination of psychology and new technologies, a former Canadian spy boss has warned, identifying China and Russia as key perpetrators.

David Vigneault, former director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), delved into “cognitive warfare” while testifying before the Foreign Interference Commission on Sept. 27.

Vigneault described this form of unconventional warfare as an evolution of psychological warfare, which has long been used to degrade an adversary’s morale and will to fight.

**

Chinese language media in Canada are dominated by Communist Party news and views, a retired editor of one of the nation’s foremost Chinese dailies said yesterday. Foreign agents typically co-opt publishers trying to make a living on a “shoestring budget,” the Commission on Foreign Interference was told: “From Toronto to Vancouver much of the Chinese language media in these communities exist under the immense influence of the Chinese Communist Party.”

**

Chinese spies target political aides including unwitting assistants who express no strong views on China, says a secret federal memo. The document by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service explained political staff are co-opted as “gatekeepers” for MPs and senators: “Foreign interference activities often transcend party lines.”