Mid-Week Post

Your middle-of-the-week dose of sanity ...

How are these people NOT robber-barons?:

Cabinet has doubled the cost of executive salaries since 2016, new records show. The disclosure follows a Budget Office warning that growth in federal payroll costs was worrisome: “Yes, it is worrisome.”

And the chief robber-baron is this douche-tool:

Dear PM Trudeau,

If someone uses fiscal punitive measures to influence the climate while asking their people to prioritize the environment over feeding their children or paying rent, that person should not be holding their country's highest office.

Signed,
TFP. https://t.co/fsyw8zBYZX

— The Food Professor (@FoodProfessor) November 20, 2024

**

Trudeau hopped on a plane to fly 8,280 km to take the stage at the Global Citizen Now Event at the G20 Leaders’ Summit Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to lecture the audience and Canadians about our country’s role in saving the entire planet.

He opened by insisting it is morally selfish to put food and lodging concerns above contributions to the carbon tax.

He told the audience: “It’s really, really easy when you’re in a short-term survive, I gotta be able to pay the rent this month, I’ve gotta be able to buy groceries for my kids, to say, OK, let’s put climate change as a slightly lower priority.” Then, as if he were a proud undergrad reciting textbook material, he mentions Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, but then doesn’t address these very real practical concerns.

He continued: “There’s a sense that affordability is in direct contrast with our moral responsibility to protect the planet. And that is something that unfortunately people have been amplified and used propaganda, misinformation, disinformation, and flat out lies to scare people into saying, oh, no, no, no. We’ve gotta take care of our household budget and bottom line first and environment second.”

A disgusting, mouth-breathing groomer.

Bye, Randy:

Boissonnault’s departure comes at a bad time for the prime minister, who’s repeatedly touted the need for a unified “Team Canada” approach to bilateral relations with the United States, in advance of the looming return of Donald Trump’s “America First” agenda to Washington.

Trudeau will now need to do this without a single emissary in his cabinet to either Alberta or Saskatchewan, both major exporters of energy and agricultural products to the U.S.

Calgary Conservative MP Greg McLean told the National Post on Tuesday that Trudeau has himself to blame for the lack of representation.

“There’s a reason (the Liberals) don’t have good representation in Alberta,” said McLean. “It’s because they’ve worked against Alberta’s interests for a long time.”

Justin thought that parkas would protect the Yazidi from mass rape and murder:

Ten years ago, the Islamic State committed one of the worst crimes against humanity of recent times: the genocide of Iraq’s Yazidi religious minority.

After surrounding their villages, ISIS fighters gave the Yazidis an ultimatum: convert or die. It then executed the men and took the women and girls as slaves.

The massacres left Yazidis a scattered people, still trying to reunite their divided families while awaiting justice for the atrocities committed against them.

For many Yazidis, justice means prosecuting ISIS members for what they did in Syria and Iraq, but such cases remain rare in Canada.

Only three of the nine ISIS women who have returned to Canada from Syria face any criminal charges. None of the four women now living disconcertingly close to Bashar in Alberta have been charged.

But no one had a problem when Trump deported migrants and they all came to Canada:

Canadians are feeling increasingly uneasy about immigration and its role in generating "economic strain," according to a new survey conducted by the Canadian Museum for Human Rights.

Among other things, the survey found that many Canadians believe too much attention is being focused on newcomers and refugees, and that asylum seekers receive too many benefits.

Also - it is easy to get into Canada and stay here without any desire to actually be Canadian.

One will even receive benefits for that.

Now ... :

A new poll from Angus Reid finds a majority of Canadians still consider themselves to be happy, but that number has been decreasing in recent years. What’s more, non-white and new Canadians seem to be faring the worst in the growing trend of unhappiness.

The survey questioned more than 1,600 adult Canadians last summer, resulting in a margin of error of plus or minus two per cent, 19 times of out 20. It found that 61 per cent of Canadians identified themselves as “very happy” or “pretty happy” in their lives, with the over-55s leading the pack at 68 per cent. ...

 The survey found that people born in Canada were most likely to be very or pretty happy (64 per cent) versus not too happy or not happy at all (35 per cent) compared to immigrants who have been here for 20 years or less. That group was more likely to report being unhappy (48 per cent) than happy (45 per cent), with 7 per cent saying they weren’t sure.

 

Only in Canada can someone this odious remain ahead:

Amid the ongoing controversy over a planned vigil commemorating Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, the mayor of Mississauga, Ont., compared the deceased terrorist to Nelson Mandela during a council meeting on Wednesday.

(Sidebar: much to what one can assume was Carolyn Parrish's great disappointment, the vigil did not take place.)

**

Mississauga Mayor Carolyn Parrish — facing calls for an apology for comments seeming to defend Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar — has a long history of antagonism toward Israel, dating back to her time as a Liberal MP, a perch she lost after insulting George W. Bush and all Americans. ...

Parrish has a history of getting in trouble for what she has said. In 2003, Canadian journalist David Frum chronicled her vocal opposition to Israel throughout her early political life. In 2002, when Parrish was a Liberal MP, she accompanied several MPs to the West Bank and Gaza. She reportedly thanked the trip organizers by telling them: “You got your money’s worth. You have nine members of Parliament who’ve come back completely and totally convinced that what’s going on over there is a crime against humanity.”

Parrish’s impression of Israel, according to Frum, was reinforced by Palestinian misinformation alleging that the Jewish state killed hundreds in the Jenin refugee camp in April 2002, following a Hamas suicide bombing during the Second Intifada, despite news reports to the contrary.

“Palestinian sources originally claimed there were 3,000 dead in the street fighting, later lowering the tally to 500. An independent report found the actual number to be around 50, more than half of whom were terrorists. Despite the clarification, the myth of a Jenin massacre persists,” researchers at the Foundations for the Defense of Democracies wrote in a 2023 report. ...

Parrish was ousted from the Liberal Party caucus in 2004 for calling Americans “bastards” and appearing on a sketch comedy show stomping on a doll of then-President George W. Bush. She sat as an Independent MP until January 2006. She did not run in the 2006 federal election and was elected as a Mississauga city councillor in November of that year.

Also - Stephen Harper did not defund the CBC when he should have:

The CBC is at it again. This time, they’re explaining away the attacks on Israeli soccer fans that happened in Amsterdam on Nov. 7, suggesting there is a “clearer,” much more “nuanced” explanation for the violence that was doled out that night by individuals who chased and assaulted Jews in the street.

Which acts made Israeli soccer fans across the city deserving of such violence? The CBC points to a Nov. 11 joint letter by the Amsterdam mayor, police chief and chief prosecutor to council members, which states that some taxis in some parts of the city were vandalized, allegedly by Israelis; that an Israeli soccer fan took down a Palestinian flag from a building; and that others chanted slogans supporting the Israel Defense Forces. Is the CBC intentionally gaslighting Jews? ...

In reality, Amsterdam’s mayor breaks down events without the very-little-antisemitism-to-see-here rhetoric that our taxpayer-funded national broadcaster’s article suggests.

The CBC, meanwhile, suggests that the mayor of Amsterdam was wrong for blaming locals in a Nov. 8 statement condemning the “hateful, antisemitic rioters and criminals (who) attacked and beat up Jewish, Israeli visitors.” However, nothing in her letter to council on Nov. 11 contradicted her earlier words.

The CBC story continues by quoting remarks from several high-profile figures prior to the release of the mayor’s letter, including Dutch Prime Minister Dick Schoof denouncing “unacceptable antisemitic attacks,” King Willem-Alexander saying his country had failed Jews again and Israeli President Isaac Herzog referring to the violence a “pogrom.” Assumedly to diminish the severity of events, the CBC reporter follows up with a “but” and a claim that the letter in question “indicates it was Israeli fans who initiated the first attacks, which then spiralled.”

But taking down a flag is not an attack. Random vandalism on taxi cabs, allegedly perpetrated by Israelis, is also not an attack. Nor is chanting offensive slogans. Has this reporter even been in Montreal on a Canadiens playoff game night? Forget taxis, police cars get overturned and set ablaze.

The mayor’s letter does not even make it clear that any Israelis were arrested for taxi vandalism, or whether the taxis that were vandalized were the same ones that refused service to Israelis, a common occurrence that evening. Not that refusal excuses vandalism, but it might provide a “clearer picture” of why some vandalism may have occurred.

Unlike the CBC’s downplaying of events, the letter by Amsterdam authorities does not mince words about the “aggressive and threatening messages” that appeared on “several social media platforms” prior to the attacks on Israelis.

We’re plainly told that police monitored the spike in these messages on open and closed Telegram and WhatsApp groups. The tone of these suggestions “grew harsher” and “antisemitic.” Authorities later concluded that these messages were primarily made by “young Moroccan Amsterdammers” who turned against the Israeli team supporters. They noted a “significant level of aggression and willingness to act, and, in some cases, mobilization at specific locations.” As if that wasn’t enough, police “received reports that taxi drivers were being called to assemble at Strandvliet metro station, where the Maccabi supporters would be disembarking.”

If Canadians actually knew their own history, the grievance industry would grind to a halt:

The case against Macdonald largely requires you not to care about the intricate details of the past and, if you do, to interpret them only as would a crown prosecutor, not someone who was genuinely trying to understand life in that foreign country that is history. It requires you to look largely at only Canada, and, even then, to not contemplate the values and norms of his era. And the moralizing prosecution is carried out most strenuously by radicals who would find fault with just about anything done by someone they see as just another dead white man.

Patrice Dutil’s new book takes an entirely different approach. He wants us to walk in the shoes of Macdonald through one pivotal year: 1885. ...

Dutil lays bare some of the more ludicrous attacks that have been, in too many circles, taken at face value. Notably, there is the idea that Macdonald led a policy of genocide that attempted to starve the Plains Indians into submission in the 1880s. This idea gained publicity with the publication of James Daschuk’s book “Clearing the Plains: Disease, Politics of Starvation, and the Loss of Indigenous Life.” Dutil examines the case that has been drawn out of that book and lays bare its feeble foundations. Macdonald is said to have set policies that starved Indigenous peoples on the plains who were suffering from the effects of the decline of the buffalo. The broader phenomenon is accurate — the disappearance of the buffalo from the plain was a horrendous cultural and nutritional disaster for those who had relied on the hunt for survival.

Yet, when Dutil starts counting — asking how many people died and why — what becomes evident is that Daschuk’s book largely relied on generalizations based on only a handful of cases. Dutil finds in Daschuk’s book records of only 65 people who are said to have died in the key “starvation years” from 1879 to 1884 — and of these, 20 died of food poisoning. These deaths also largely occurred in the communities led by the two chiefs (Piapot and Big Bear) who most resisted Macdonald’s policy — who held out on signing treaties and taking up reserves. What Dutil shows is that Macdonald’s government spent huge sums of money trying to send food west — spending more on Indian affairs than almost any other aspect of government.

What’s more, it was precisely a desire to assist Indigenous peoples to shift towards an agricultural lifestyle — where they could feed themselves on the Prairies without the buffalo — that lay behind the other kinds of assimilation measures like residential schools, that are also now derided and attacked as “genocidal.” What Dutil does is expose the hard choices that lay behind a policy that had such terrible consequences, letting readers understand the political logic behind it.

“History is a tragedy, not a morality tale” is the fitting quotation from I.F. Stone that Dutil sets above his conclusion. There is much that is tragic about 1885 and the kinds of policies that Macdonald and others put in place. There is much that we might now find offensive — the common sensical race talk of the late 19th century, or the surety with which Macdonald and others spoke of civilization. And yet, there is also much to learn from taking this world — and the ideas of those who actually lived in 1885 — at face value — and trying to understand them for what they were.

For one thing — we will be surprised. We’ll be surprised to see Macdonald promoting a new bill to extend the franchise to women property owners, decades before women would eventually come to have the vote in most western countries. Macdonald lowered voting qualifications for working-class men and wanted to give women the vote as well as Indigenous peoples who met the same property qualifications. When his Liberal opponents criticized his desire to include Indigenous peoples as voters, he argued that Indians were “just as fit, as far as intellect goes, as far as education goes, as far as having an interest in the prosperity of the country goes, as their white brethren.” To deny them the right to vote was an “injustice.” When the vote for status Indians in Eastern Canada finally passed, he called it “the greatest triumph of (his) life”

Canadian students are afraid to air their views in public:

Three in five Canadian university students say they fear expressing their honest views on contentious political issues due to potential backlash from peers and instructors, a campus free speech survey says.

Participants in a survey of 1,548 university and college students were asked if they felt comfortable discussing “controversial issues” in the classroom, such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, transgender issues, and other politically charged subjects.

“Students were asked about potential consequences from other students and instructors if they shared their honest thoughts, ideas, and questions during a class discussion,” said the survey report, which was conducted by the non-profit organization Heterodox Academy (HxA).

Potential consequences feared by the students included formal career repercussions, such as an instructor refusing to write a recommendation letter, as well as informal social consequences, such as a classmate posting negative comments on social media about the student’s character, the report said.

Sixty-three percent of those surveyed said “they feared at least one formal consequence if they expressed their honest thoughts and opinions during class,” the report said.

“Among responses, students feared retribution from professors more than they were concerned about formal complaints from other students.”

 

The cry-bully culture is alive and well.

Any medical professional who doesn't take part in abortion or euthanasia or get the Covid jab can lose his or her license:

A doctor stripped of his licence to practice in 2018 for having sex with a patient has been reinstated, though he will have to do so with “at least three months of moderate-level supervision,” according to the Ontario Physicians and Surgeons Discipline Tribunal.

After that, Dr. Sugan Kayilasanathan — who in an unrelated incident was acquitted in 2011 of sexually assaulting a medical student — will undergo “a period of low-level supervision” for at least three months until a college-appointed expert completes an assessment of his practice.

The burn that keeps happening:

Kamala Harris and the Democratic Party’s prodigious fundraising operation raised more than $1 billion in her loss to Donald Trump, but the vice president is still pushing donors for more money after the election.

Putin expects some cannon fodder for Russia's running interference for North Korea:

North Korea may deploy as many as 100,000 troops to aid Russia’s war on Ukraine if the alliance between Pyongyang and Moscow continues to deepen, according to people familiar with assessments made by some Group of 20 nations.

The analysis is one of several on the evolving partnership between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, said the people, speaking on condition of anonymity to talk about private discussions. They stressed that such a move wasn’t imminent and that military support at that scale — if it occurred — would likely happen in batches with troops rotating over time rather than in a single deployment.

We don't have to trade with China:

A human rights coalition says the Hogue Commission should recommend that the federal government use existing immigration laws to deport perpetrators of foreign interference.

“Many of the existing tools remain underutilized or utilized in inconsistent or incoherent ways. As part of the Commission’s series of recommendations, the Commissioner can and should recommend that existing immigration and sanctions laws be leveraged to support and protect victims,” the Human Rights Coalition wrote in its submission to the foreign interference inquiry on Nov. 4.

The coalition, representing diaspora communities primarily from China, including Falun Gong practitioners, Hongkongers, Uyghurs, and Tibetans, submitted its report following the final round of inquiry hearings in September and October. The hearings focused on foreign interference, particularly by Beijing, aimed at undermining Canadian democracy and targeting diaspora communities with harassment and intimidation.

**

Swedish investigators are looking into the movements of a Chinese vessel in the Baltic Sea after two internet cables were severed, in what some Western leaders suspect was an act of sabotage.

The Yi Peng 3, a Chinese-registered bulk carrier passed close to Swedish-Lithuanian and Finnish-German cables at the time both were mysteriously damaged on Sunday and Monday, according to ship tracking data.

Sweden is now “taking a hard look” at Yi Peng 3 and the role it might have played in both incidents, a source familiar with the investigation told the Financial Times.

The vessel had been travelling from Ust-Luga in Russia to Port Said in Egypt, through the Baltic Sea when the 730-mile fibre optic cable C-Lion1, the only such direct connection between central Europe to Finland and another cable were cut, causing some internet outages in Lithuania.

A Danish navy vessel appears to have pursued the Yi Peng 3 on Tuesday evening according to marine traffic data.

The same data showed HDMS Soloeleven, another Danish military ship, on Wednesday morning staying close to the Chinese carrier.

 

Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. Shuntaro Tanikawa:

Renowned poet Shuntaro Tanikawa, who is also known for translating the Snoopy and Charlie Brown comic strip “Peanuts” into Japanese, died on Nov. 13 at a Tokyo hospital in Suginami Ward of natural causes, his office said Tuesday. He was 92.

Good

A paralysed government can't do much harm:

Treasury Board President Anita Anand is warning that if the House of Commons doesn’t get back to regular business, some government departments might be in financial trouble.

On Monday, Anand tabled a supplementary estimates request for $21.6 billion to fund programs including housing, dental care and the national school food program.

One of the biggest-ticket items is $970.8 million for compensation adjustments for civil servants as a result of collective bargaining agreements.

But some of the money requested by the government is to repay departments for what they’ve already spent, and it must be voted on by Dec. 10 in line with House procedures.

The civil servant compensation adjustments, for instance, included one-time lump sum payments issued between April 1 and July 31 of this year.

“The smaller departments would be impacted disproportionately earlier on,” Anand told reporters Tuesday.

“We are OK for the next three to four weeks, but we need to make sure that money flows to those smaller departments and then ultimately the larger departments, which also fuel so much of the government’s and the country’s business.”

 

Waste your own money, Anand.

 

 

We Don't Have to Trade With China

And yet ... :

Hong Kong's High Court on Tuesday sentenced 45 pro-democracy activists to jail terms of up to 10 years in a landmark national security trial that has damaged the city's once feisty democracy movement and drawn international condemnation.

A total of 47 pro-democracy activists were arrested and charged in 2021 with conspiracy to commit subversion under a Beijing-imposed national security law and had faced sentences of up to life in prison.

Benny Tai, a former legal scholar identified as an "organizer" of the activists, was sentenced to 10 years in jail, the longest sentence so far under the 2020 national security law.

**

Japanese passport holders may soon be able to travel to China without a visa, for the first time in more than four years, as the two countries work toward mending fences after a period of tension and in the face of rising protectionist threats.

According to two Japanese press reports, travel agencies in China have been informed that policy might be adjusted to once again allow for 15-day visa-free visits by Japanese nationals as early as the end of this month.

The privilege has been suspended since March 2020.

China and Japan have been working toward a thaw in relations and signaling the possibility of a resumption of the visa waiver program.

Former Liberal Democratic Party heavyweight Toshihiro Nikai pressed Beijing on this issue when he visited China in August. Keizai Doyukai Chairman Takeshi Niinami, who is also the CEO of Suntory, urged Chinese Vice President Han Zheng to reinstate the policy during a meeting between the two earlier this month in Beijing.

During the first meeting between Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba and Chinese President Xi Jinping, held on Friday, Xi told Ishiba that the two countries should “deepen and expand people-to-people exchange” — a statement that was missing from his meeting last year with Ishiba’s predecessor Fumio Kishida, according to Chinese Foreign Ministry readouts.

“We have repeatedly urged the Chinese side at various levels to promptly resume the visa exemption measures and will continue to call for their early resumption moving forward,” Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said on Monday, although he declined to confirm whether Ishiba had pressed Xi on this issue during their meeting.

In a white paper issued this year, the Japanese Chamber of Commerce and Industry in China called the current visa requirement “an obstacle to the smooth traffic and business promotion” between the two countries. It strongly supported the reinstatement of the visa-waiver program as soon as possible.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry has said that it will “intensively look into” requests for visa-free travel to be resumed, and that it hopes Japan can work “in the same direction” to make travel between the two countries easier.

 

They want Japan to play ball.

**

From the most "transparent" government in the country's history:

The judge overseeing Canada’s Foreign Interference Commission of Inquiry has decided two people can give evidence in secret about how the People’s Republic of China “co-opts and leverages some Chinese Canadian community associations and politicians of Chinese origin.”

Justice Marie-Josee Hogue made the decision in a written ruling dated Wednesday now posted on the commission’s website.

Her ruling, obtained by Global News, grants two witnesses — “Person B and Person C” — the right to testify by secret affidavits that will not be disclosed to the public or inquiry participants.

Hogue also issued a simultaneous order to seal their affidavits from the public for 99 years, after commission materials are deposited at the National Archives of Canada when the inquiry ends.

 **

The Conservative Party yesterday in its final submission to the China inquiry questioned why Prime Minister Justin Trudeau twice approved a Liberal nomination for MP Han Dong (Don Valley North, Ont.) despite learning he was under security surveillance. Political aides vetoed Dong’s appointment to a committee on China relations but permitted him to attend four years’ worth of secret Liberal caucus meetings: “Liberals knew.”

**

Sucking up to Trump will get you nowhere:

Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland thinks China could be the tie that binds the new Trump White House and the Liberal government.

 

No one in his Cabinet likes you.

**

But there are no guns, right?:

Dozens of people have been killed in China in the past three months in a series of mass attacks. The latest on Tuesday saw primary school students injured by a car as they arrived for classes.

The attacks take one of two forms — either drivers mowing down people on foot or knife-wielding assailants stabbing multiple victims. Guns are strictly restricted in China and gun attacks are rare.

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The attackers appear to be taking out their anger and frustration over a personal issue, according to police reports. The victims are often unknown to them.

Such attacks are not new in China and have targeted kindergartens and other schools in the past. The recent surge has gotten the attention of authorities and the public. Here is a look at some of the recent events. ...

A small white SUV struck students arriving for class at Yong’an Elementary School in Changde, an inland city in China’s Hunan province. Several adults also were injured, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The injuries were not life-threatening, authorities said.

Security guards and parents subdued the driver, Xinhua said. Authorities later issued a a brief statement saying the 39-year-old driver had been detained. Few details have been confirmed yet about the incident. ...

Eight people were killed and 17 others injured in a knife attack at the Wuxi Vocational Institute of Arts and Technology in Yixing city, about 160 kilometers (100 miles) west of Shanghai in eastern China.

Police detained a 21-year old student. They said he had failed his examinations and could not graduate and was dissatisfied with his pay at an internship. He decided to vent his frustrations via the attack, a police statement said. ...

A man who authorities said was upset over his divorce settlement rammed his car into a crowd of people exercising at a sports complex in Zhuhai city in southern China, killing 35 and injuring 43 others.

Police detained the 62-year-old man, who they said was in his car attempting to stab himself with a knife. He later fell unconscious from neck and other wounds. They said the man was dissatisfied with the split of financial assets in his divorce.

The Law Is An @$$

We have an unaccountable and entirely unfair legal system.

We need to elect our judges, return to the Bill of Rights, and rid the system of bleeding-hearts who have no compunction of coddling monsters:

The lawyer representing the families of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy — tortured and killed in two of the most heinous crimes in modern Canadian history — says the justice system has let them down again by denying the victims' mothers the opportunity to deliver their victim impact statements in person at Paul Bernardo's upcoming parole hearing.

In a letter sent to the head of the Parole Board of Canada (PBC) on Tuesday, lawyer Tim Danson argues his clients have a right to confront their daughters' killer in person.

"It was nothing short of gut-wrenching to experience the painful and heartbreaking reaction of Debbie Mahaffy and Donna French when they learned that the PBC was prohibiting them from representing their daughters (and themselves), and denying them the right to confront Paul Bernardo, in person, through the reading of their Victim Impact Statements," Danson wrote in his letter, which was shared with CBC News.

"This was truly a shock to their system. It was bone chilling — an insult so deep and hurtful that, (figuratively speaking), it set victims' rights back to the stone age."

** 

A federal court judge has tossed a lawsuit filed by 330 current and former Canadian Armed Forces members each seeking more than $1.3 million in damages for having their Charter rights allegedly violated by a 2021 COVID-19 vaccine mandate.

Now, they’ll collectively pay $5,040 to Canada in court costs.

Ruling in favour of the government’s motion to strike the case, Associate Judge Catherine Coughlan repeatedly discounted the plaintiffs’ claims under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms because their pleadings were devoid of “material facts” or “evidence” to support the allegations and prove a reasonable cause of action.

 

Is that so? 

Is that why the Trudeau government has given minuscule pay-outs to those injured by the jab?

Interesting.

**

Un-damn-believable:

The federal government issued a new passport to an admitted human smuggler after he was ordered to surrender the travel document as part of court-imposed release conditions, CBC News has learned.

The new passport was discovered in June 2023 by RCMP investigators executing a search warrant at the Montreal home of Thesingarasan Rasiah during a probe targeting an international human smuggling network that Rasiah allegedly headed, according to court records obtained by CBC News.

At the time, Rasiah was living at home with an electronic ankle bracelet on strict conditions while awaiting sentencing on a February 2023 guilty plea to one count of breaching the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act for his role in the smuggling of a Sri Lankan national from the U.S. into Canada in 2021.

Rasiah had been forced to surrender his passport to the RCMP in 2021 as part of his release conditions related to the human smuggling attempt that was intercepted by police in Cornwall, Ont., located about 120 kilometres west of Montreal along the Canada-U.S. border.

Rasiah was also forbidden from applying for any new travel documents.

**

Judges apparently don't know what they are doing:

A Nova Scotia man’s history of regular violence and threats against his common-law spouse has material bearing on charges that he trafficked her for sex, the Supreme Court of Canada has ruled, overturning his acquittal and ordering a new trial.

The accused, identified only as T.J.F. in a recent ruling from the country’s top court, was in a relationship with J.D. from 2004 until 2012. He was acquitted at trial, a decision affirmed by the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal.

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“The trial judge committed an error of law when he held that the evidence of regular violence and threats of violence by the accused against the complainant was past discreditable conduct evidence,” Justice Michelle O’Bonsawin wrote for the majority.

“Even though the trial judge admitted the evidence, this mischaracterization meant he did not assess it properly. That evidence could have been relevant to the essential elements of the offence. It could have formed the basis of a finding that the accused controlled, directed, or influenced the movements of the complainant during the time period specified in the indictment, and a contributing cause of the complainant’s engagement in sexual services. The trial judge’s incorrect assessment of this critical evidence seriously undermined his credibility assessment of the complainant, which he used as the rationale for acquittal.”

The trial judge’s mischaracterization “hindered his overall assessment of the evidence and considerably diminished the evidentiary foundation relevant to the essential elements of the trafficking in persons offence,” said O’Bonsawin.

Your Idiot Government and You

There is just so much stupidity:

A former deputy industry minister yesterday denied any responsibility for rampant conflicts at the disgraced federal agency Sustainable Development Technology Canada. Retiree John Knubley, testifying by videoconference at the Commons public accounts committee, appeared agitated as MPs accused him of a coverup: “I am not a lawyer.”

It's just money:

Taxpayers should expect a loss in any sale of the Trans Mountain Pipeline despite cabinet assurances, Budget Officer Yves Giroux said yesterday. Giroux recommended MPs audit billions’ worth of cost overruns: “That is a very interesting question.”

The Liberals have gutted our military, demeaned and diminished Canadian citizenship and identity and have allowed the country to be weak in the face of a more dangerous world:

Canadians want this, too. Public attitudes toward national defence are shifting as more and more Canadians recognize the growing need for military preparedness and global assertiveness. Over the past decade, those prioritizing military readiness rose from 12 per cent to 29 per cent, and 53 per cent of Canadians now back increasing defence spending to NATO’s 2 per cent of GDP target. With economic challenges ahead, achieving this target will require aligning defence with prosperity goals.

The numbers tell an important story. Canadians are not complacent to the shifting global landscape and the rising threats from authoritarian states. They see what is happening worldwide and support the idea that Canada must keep its military and defence capabilities strong. Yet in practice, as the only country among the 31-member alliance that has not met either of NATO’s investment pledges, Canada remains an outlier in meeting its defence commitments. This underinvestment paints Canada as a “free rider” and helps explain its exclusion from military alliances like AUKUS.

Despite repeated warnings from allies, successive Canadian governments have failed to take concrete steps to build necessary defence capabilities. Canada’s 2024 Defence Policy Update remains only vaguely committal and devoid of a clear plan of action. A recent report by the Parliamentary Budget Officer asserts that to meet NATO’s 2-per-cent target, defence spending would need to almost double from current levels.

General Wayne Eyre, the former chief of defence staff, warned last year that the world is “more chaotic and dangerous than at any time since the end of the Cold War” and argued that rising threats from authoritarian states could bring the world to “peak threat” by the end of this decade. His successor, General Jennie Carignan, has echoed this sentiment, emphasizing this summer that Canada and its allies may have as little as five years to prepare for emerging threats, including advanced missile technology from countries like China and Russia.

(Sidebar: perhaps even closer.)

Threats to Canada’s defence go beyond the traditional battlefield. In the era of hybrid warfare, cyberattacks and psychological operations are as dangerous as military force. Canadians recognize these risks; 84 per cent are worried about the impact of disinformation. Canada’s diverse but fragmented society, which has been exploited by foreign actors to create division and increase polarization makes us more vulnerable. Foreign interference is intensifying, highlighted by recent high-profile cases in both the Canada and the United States.

Canada must adopt a multifaceted approach to these challenges. Beyond boosting military spending, it needs to invest in strategic communications, community resilience and countering information warfare. Many European defence ministries retain the lead on strategic communications to support more cohesive responses to growing threats. Building cohesion around this function in Canada could involve setting up dedicated centres to analyze information environments and foreign networks so as to counter foreign influence and guide policy. Supporting AI-based start-ups and community programs that resist disinformation is essential for protecting Canada’s democracy and strengthening its economic infrastructure.

The goal should not simply be to match our allies in terms of defence spending, but to lead by example in building a resilient society that is capable of withstanding both conventional and unconventional threats. Beyond tanks and missiles, the required capability should encompass everything from cybersecurity infrastructure to public awareness campaigns. Such efforts would help strengthen a renewed Canadian identity and social fabric, which has been eroding quickly over recent years.

 

(Sidebar: and what is that fabric, exactly? We are killing off the sick to save someone on the Sunshine List from hunting for a real job.)

It is time for Canada to step up. With the world growing more dangerous, Canadians are beginning to understand the need for a strong military – not as a tool of aggression, but as a means of safeguarding our values and place in the world.

From the most "transparent" government in the country's history and from a government who applauded a Ukrainian Nazi.

There is no decency here but cover-ups:

Liberal and Bloc Québécois MPs have blocked a motion seeking the disclosure of a secret list of Nazi collaborators who were admitted to Canada after 1945.

Blacklock's Reporter says by a 6-5 vote, members of the Commons heritage committee rejected the proposal to compel cabinet to release the names by January 27, 2025.

Liberal MP Brenda Shanahan (Chateauguay-Lacolle, Que.) expressed discomfort with the motion. “I am not comfortable proceeding further with this,” she said during the committee meeting.

The motion, introduced by New Democrat MP Niki Ashton (Churchill-Keewatinook Aski, Man.), aimed to have Library and Archives Canada publish the names of individuals identified in the 1985 Deschênes Commission on War Crimes.

The commission had revealed that Nazi collaborators were admitted to Canada after the Second World War with minimal scrutiny.

Bloc Québécois MP Martin Champoux (Drummond, Que.) opposed the motion, citing concerns about the impact on the families of those named, even though most individuals on the list are likely deceased.

“This is an extremely delicate situation,” said Champoux. “Were these people Nazis? Not necessarily. Investigation showed the majority of these people were not suspected of anything and were cleared right away.”

“These are people who were investigated,” he added. “It was thought there was no need to go further.”

The Ukrainian Canadian Congress also opposed releasing the names, with its president, Alexandra Chyczij, stating in a submission to the Commons public safety committee that disclosure would violate the privacy of descendants.

Despite opposition, Ashton defended the motion, emphasizing the need for historical transparency. “Canadians deserve to know how, according to the Deschênes Commission, Nazis were welcomed into this country,” she said.

“Many Jewish, Polish, and Ukrainian organizations have been clear. The names need to be released,” Ashton added.

The motion received support only from Conservative MPs.

Was It Something He Said and Did?

 (ugh)

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has urged schoolgirls across Canada to experience the ‘bliss of abortion’ in order to dispel any fears they may have about the procedure.https://t.co/WjTg37G5uS pic.twitter.com/wBLSlMdQYT

— “Sudden And Unexpected” (@toobaffled) November 19, 2024

 **

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau used his time on the taxpayers’ dime to promote the killing of the unborn to an auditorium full of high school students, saying that women should have full, unrestricted access to abortion.

 

High school students.

Kids who can't vote but will, in the near future, know what it's like to room with six other unemployed students shacked up in a one room apartment in hopes that rent can be paid.

Don't tell me that this isn't grooming.

What a creep.

Oh, there's more:

After imploring the singer last year to not make it a “cruel summer” and come to Canada, Justin Trudeau commended Taylor Swift for her “good choice wrapping the Eras Tour” in this country.

Before the 34-year-old megastar took the stage at the Rogers Centre, Toronto, Trudeau wrote on X Thursday, “We’re ready for you, @taylorswift13. Good choice wrapping the Eras Tour in Canada.”

Article content

“Has this always been your endgame?” the 52-year-old prime minister added.

A fifty-two year old aging frat-boy is slobbering over a mediocre talent pre-teens gush over.

The creep level has intensified. 

 

 And nothing is his fault, either:

Don’t blame Justin Trudeau for any of the issues facing his government or the country — it’s not his fault and he’s happy to tell you that. From our catch-and-release bail system, to immigration, to the carbon tax, it’s all someone else’s fault and has nothing to do with his disastrous policies. ...

On immigration, Trudeau released a video this past weekend explaining what is happening on the immigration front including changes his government is bringing in to reduce immigration numbers.

What was the problem with immigration?

“Increasingly, bad actors like fake colleges and big chain corporations have been exploiting our immigration system for their own interests,” Trudeau said.

Interesting, because last I checked colleges and big chain corporations don’t run Canada’s immigration system. Sure, colleges and universities can ask for more foreign students, companies can apply to bring in foreign workers but it was still the federal government that decided whether to approve or deny those visas. ...

Take his claim on the carbon tax.

“We’re facing a level of attacks of misinformation and disinformation,” Trudeau said at a conference in Brazil as he was discussing the carbon tax.

He portrays everyone against the carbon tax as wanting to do nothing on climate change and a carbon tax as necessary to fight climate change. The United States doesn’t have a carbon tax and their emissions are coming down, Canada has one and ours are going up.

Also, Trudeau refuses to admit what the Parliamentary Budget Officer has shown, when the total economic impact is considered, most Canadians pay more than they get back in rebates. In fact, a Trudeau minister called that claim by the PBO “disinformation” during Question Period on Monday.

The way Trudeau sees it, his carbon tax isn’t unpopular because it makes life more expensive, it’s unpopular because other people are lying about it.

In Trudeau’s world, nothing is his fault, even when the problem staring him in the face is the direct result of his policies.

**

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the federal government could have acted faster on reining in immigration programs, after blaming “bad actors” for gaming the system.

Trudeau released a nearly seven-minute video on YouTube Sunday talking about the recent reduction in permanent residents being admitted to Canada and changes to the temporary foreign worker program.

Over the next two years, the permanent residency stream is being reduced by about 20 per cent to 365,000 in 2027.

In the video, Trudeau talks about the need to increase immigration after pandemic lockdowns ended in order to boost the labour market, saying the move helped avoid a full-blown recession.

 

So, there aren't any Canadians looking for jobs, or none looking for jobs that require a living wage?

A filthy liar and overseer.

**

While the Trudeau government has tripled the amount of money it spends on Indigenous issues from $11 billion annually in 2015 to more than $32 billion earmarked for 2025, it doesn’t appear to be improving the lives of on-reserve Indigenous people, according to a new study by the fiscally conservative Fraser Institute.

 

(Sidebar: does Randy the pretendarian know about this? Can the scam keep going?) 

**

This has been the mission of Justin Trudeau’s political career: finishing the political objectives of his father by transforming Canada into a postmodern, multicultural, Communist state. 

 

And he is nearly there.