Typhoon Hagibis

Oh, dear:

Record-breaking rainfall, strong winds and severe flooding struck areas from central to northern Japan on Saturday as Typhoon Hagibis made landfall on Shizuoka Prefecture’s Izu Peninsula and directly hit Tokyo and its surrounding areas.

At least two people were killed, nine were missing, and 86 others were injured across 27 prefectures.

As of early Sunday morning, the typhoon was traveling toward the Tohoku region, and as many as 340,000 residents in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, were advised to evacuate. According to the Meteorological Agency, Hagibis was predicted to move into the Pacific Ocean off Tohoku by around 9 a.m. Sunday.

Over 6 million people across Japan were urged to evacuate earlier in the day, with train operators suspending most services and airports shutting down in the metropolitan and surrounding areas.

Huge amounts of rainfall pushed up water levels of many rivers in areas including Tokyo, Saitama and Chiba prefectures, and some were overflowing.

More than 100 rivers were at risk of overflowing, including the Arakawa River in Tokyo’s Edogawa Ward, the Karasawa River in Saitama Prefecture and Koito River in Chiba Prefecture.

The Tama River running between Tokyo and Kanagawa Prefecture began to overflow into the Tamagawa area of Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward at around 10:30 p.m. The area is better known as Futako-Tamagawa.

The Chikuma River flooded in the city of Ueda and the city of Nagano, both in Nagano Prefecture, as did the Minami-Asakawa River in Hachioji and the Nariki River in Ome, both in Tokyo.

At the same time, the operators of several dams in mountainous areas said they were considering the emergency step of releasing massive amounts of water as of Saturday night. This would significantly increase flood risks in downstream areas, and local authorities repeatedly urged local residents to check safety information and evacuate if necessary.

Also:

Saskatchewan's premier is sheltering in place in Tokyo as a powerful typhoon batters the Japanese city.

Scott Moe says he and the rest of the delegation in Tokyo are safe and in consistent communication with the Canadian Embassy in case the storm worsens.

Moe is on a trade mission in Asia, and says some of the official delegation travelled to South Korea ahead of schedule in anticipation of the typhoon.

He says their early arrival in Soeul means the government can keep its commitments even if typhoon Hagibis makes air travel impossible.

The storm is forecast to be the most powerful typhoon to hit Japan in six decades.

We Don't Have to Trade With China

Let the paper dragon blow away already!:

Federal officials were wary of creating a chill within ethnic communities and rattling Canada's bilateral relations as they fleshed out next steps to secure vital scientific research, internal documents show.

The details of those steps were shared in greater detail on Tuesday, when the federal government released a list of sensitive research areas and the names of labs and institutions considered a risk to national security.

The newly announced restrictions means the federal government will withhold funding for scientific research in 11 strategically important fields — including artificial intelligence, aerospace and satellite systems — when affiliated with certain institutions linked to military, defence or state security organizations in counties deemed a risk to Canada.

The federal government is concerned that China, Russia and Iran are determined to acquire sensitive Canadian research and intellectual property by partnering on projects with academics in Canada.

 

More:

Canadian universities researching in some critical areas will be prohibited from working with certain Russian, Chinese and Iranian institutions if they want federal funds under a new policy the government unveiled Tuesday.

The government unveiled a list of research areas including advanced digital, energy and materials technologies, 3D printing, nano manufacturing, new nuclear technology, battery storage or cryptography. It also covers robotics and quantum computing.

It also includes any research into weapons, surveillance, aerospace, artificial intelligence and a wide variety of life sciences and medical research.

Any researcher looking for funding in any of those areas would have to attest that no one on their team has any ongoing link with a list of institutions. That list includes research institutions with ties to the Chinese and Russian military, as well as other facilities in those countries and institutions in Iran.

Anyone with ties to those institutions will be ineligible from receiving funding from Canada’s major research councils, which includes the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, and the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

Every researcher on a project would have to be free of any connection with the banned institutions or be removed from the project. The government is promising to do spot checks on the submissions, but said they don’t want to slow down research applications.

 

And why is that, I wonder?

Oh, yes:

The RCMP are investigating whether two scientists dismissed from Canada’s top-security infectious-disease laboratory passed on Canadian intellectual property to China, including to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

The investigation centres on the possibility that materials such as plasma DNA molecules, which could be used to recreate vaccines or viruses, were transferred to Chinese authorities without the approval of the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), according to a source with direct knowledge of the matter.

The Globe and Mail has also learned that the RCMP have been informed that Xiangguo Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, recently relocated to China after they were fired in January from the National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg.

 

I believe the above two had help, but hey! Who is to say?

 

 

Why aren't people worried about this?:

Scientists in China, experimenting with a coronavirus closely related to the virus that causes COVID-19, found that it had a 100 percent kill rate in a small mouse study, according to the researchers’ announcement on Jan. 4.

The scientists, including a doctor trained by the Chinese military, cloned a pangolin coronavirus and infected modified mice to “assess its pathogenicity,” they said in a preprint paper published on bioRxiv.

Of the four mice infected with the virus, all began to lose weight five days post-infection. Shortly thereafter, they exhibited symptoms including sluggishness and white eyes.

The four mice died within eight days of inoculation. Researchers described the results as “surprising.”

Researchers then infected eight additional mice, euthanized them, and selected organs from four to analyze. High levels of viral RNA were found in various organs, including the brain, lungs, and eyes. While the viral load in the lungs decreased by the sixth day, it increased in the brain.

“This finding suggested that severe brain infection during the later stages of infection may be the key cause of death in these mice,” the scientists said.

 

 

This is how it works - China barges in and tells Canada what it expects of it and Canada nods its head:

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly and her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi say they want to find common ground and maintain communication, despite tensions across the Pacific.

A real country would tell Wang where to go.

 

Chinese propagandists tell the CBC to hold their beers:

The CRTC yesterday dismissed a request from MPs that it ban state-run Chinese propaganda from its approved distribution list of cable and satellite programming in Canada. A parliamentary committee recommended a ban on all TV shows financed by “authoritarian state-controlled broadcasters.”

 

Taiwan is not China.

Repeat:

Japan will find a like-minded ally in Taiwan President-elect Lai Ching-te, who hopes to build even stronger ties with Tokyo as both look warily at China’s designs on the self-ruled island.

Lai described his win in Saturday’s election as a “victory for the community of democracies,” and signaled that his administration would look to deepen cooperation with Japan by meeting with Tokyo’s de facto ambassador and a Japanese lawmaker just a day after the poll in Taipei.

Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association chief Mitsuo Ohashi held talks with Lai and his running mate, Hsiao Bi-khim, Taiwan's former top envoy to the United States, at the headquarters of Taiwan’s ruling Democratic Progressive Party, with the president-elect noting that the neighbors are both “concerned about regional peace and stability,” the DPP said.

China claims Taiwan as a renegade province that must be united with the mainland, by force if necessary. This policy has triggered concerns of a possible invasion by China, despite U.S. President Joe Biden hinting that the United States would help Taiwan militarily in the event of a conflict.

Lai on Monday told a visiting delegation of former top U.S. officials that he hoped the United States could continue to support Taiwan.

"I am grateful for the strong support from the United States for Taiwan's democracy, which demonstrates the close and solid partnership between Taiwan and the United States," local media quoted Lai as saying.

The election of Lai, who Beijing has called a “worker for Taiwan independence and destroyer of peace across the Taiwan Strait,” has stoked fears that tensions could surge to even higher levels.

On Monday, China lured away one of the handful of countries that formally recognize Taiwan, poaching the Pacific Island nation of Nauru, which said it would sever ties with Taipei. The move leaves Taiwan with just 12 diplomatic allies.

But unlike Nauru, Taipei's relationship with Tokyo is likely to grow under Lai, who has said that Chinese military exercises in the East China Sea, the Taiwan Strait and elsewhere have shown that both Japan and Taiwan “directly face China’s threats.”

“If Taiwan is invaded by China and the Taiwan Strait becomes an inland sea of China’s, that would inevitably also pose a threat to Japan,” he said in an interview with the Yomiuri Shimbun last October, hinting that he expected Japan would deepen security cooperation with Taiwan.

Tokyo views any conflict over the democratic island as an existential threat, and has beefed up defense spending and dispatched Self-Defense Force personnel and weapons to its far-flung southwestern islands near Taiwan while bolstering its military alliance with the U.S.

At the same time, Japan has repeatedly “stressed the importance of peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait” and urged “a peaceful resolution of cross-strait issues” — a stance reiterated Monday by Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi.

“Taiwan is an extremely important partner for Japan, with whom we share fundamental values and close economic and personal relationships,” Hayashi told a news conference. “As an important friend, the government intends to further deepen cooperation and exchanges between Japan and Taiwan” in a nongovernmental format.

Hayashi’s remarks came after Foreign Minister Yoko Kamikawa on Saturday congratulated Lai on his victory, a move that prompted the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo to express "strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition" to the message, which it said "seriously interferes with China's internal affairs and violates the ‘One-China’ principle."

But Wait! There's More!

Often, there is ...




Happening now:

A huge group of anti-pipeline protestors swarmed the Toronto subway and blocked major train tracks on Saturday to spread their message of solidarity with demonstrators in northern B.C. who oppose the building of the Coastal GasLink pipeline. ...

Police served an injunction to the anti-pipeline protestors, who proceeded to burn it in defiance. Protestors also threw rocks at drones that were monitoring the situation.

The government is all over this (even in ridings that gave them seats)?

Bullsh--.

It feeds into their true intent and that is to rid the country of one of its chief economic exports and reduce its people to serfs.

Case in point:

The federal government is expected to support international measures that would reduce the environmental impact of Arctic shipping but would cost northern families hundreds of dollars a year.

On Monday, the International Maritime Organization is to begin considering how to eliminate the use of heavy fuel oil in ships sailing Arctic waters.

Also - that is, ostensibly, their job:

The RCMP is defending the actions of a member seen on video pointing a firearm at Indigenous opponents of the Coastal GasLink pipeline during police enforcement in northern B.C. this month.

Or should we have more Caledonias?




Because priorities:

The federal government and associated bodies spent roughly $118,000 on tickets to events, galas and concerts in six months last year.

That included nearly $10,000 on tickets to bring 35 foreign investors to see Cirque du Soleil in Toronto and for the Canadian ambassador to Serbia to bring guests to see Bryan Adams in concert there in November.

Those breakdowns were provided last month by the government in response to an order paper question submitted in December 2019 by the Conservatives.

But no money for defense:

The top U.S. official in Ottawa says in his country’s view, Canada is not likely to hit the defence spending targets it has promised.

Richard Mills, the U.S. Embassy’s chargé d’affaires, said while there have been positive spending steps by the Canadian government, the view south of the border is that Canada will fall short in hitting its promised investment of two per cent of GDP on defence.

“We were very pleased with some of the defence spending that’s occurred under this government, including some effort to buy new frigates, some new airplanes,” he said in an interview with The West Block’s Mercedes Stephenson.

“But to be quite honest with you, Mercedes, the Canadian government is not on course to meet two per cent by 2024. In fact, they probably will reach a peak — in our estimate, around 1.4 per cent — in 2024 and then decline rapidly.”

Disgusting:

Sexual assault and gender-based violence experts say they are deeply disturbed by the recent decision of a Canadian refugee adjudicator who said it “does not make sense” that a woman would keep a child conceived by rape.

The adjudicator also said she would have expected the woman to report the rape to medical professionals and her family “if, indeed, it took place.”

Because that is how pro-abortion people look at the world.

Aren't women supposed to be trusted and believed? Only if they choose one thing, right?

Vile!




Wow, the world really has a handle on this coronavirus:

The true cause of how the coronavirus spread has been revealed by Chinese scientists who have broken cover and said the oubreak started in a science laboratory in Wuhan yards away from a wet market.

They have sensationally spoke out and said the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan was due to the scientists researching bat diseases and could be responsible.

A scientist told how a sick bat attacked the researchers and bled on them and urinated on another, they were then forced to quarantine themselves for 14 days.

Biologists Botao Xiao and Lei Xiao published a pre-print entitled “The possible origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus.”

The report describes how “the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan.

“We noted two laboratories conducting research on bat coronavirus in Wuhan, one of which was only 280 metres from the seafood market.

“We briefly examined the histories of the laboratories and proposed that the coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory.

“Our proposal provided an alternative origin of the coronavirus in addition to natural recombination and intermediate host.”

The report clearly contests the Chinese authorities’ official findings that the virus jumped from bats to humans at the Wuhan wet market.

The scientists say, “The probability was very low for the bats to fly to the market.

**

As Japan grapples with the expanding new coronavirus outbreak, six more people — five in Tokyo and another in Aichi Prefecture — tested positive Sunday for the deadly virus, local authorities said.

During a news conference held Sunday evening, officials at the Tokyo Metropolitan Government said that two of the five were male acquaintances of a Tokyo taxi driver who tested positive Thursday after attending a party held Jan. 18 aboard a traditional yakatabune (traditional roofed party boat).

The third person was a male doctor who had contact with a female medical worker at the same hospital. She attended the same party as the taxi drivers and has tested positive, the government officials said.

The remaining two cases were one man in his 30s and the other in his 60s, the officials said, adding that their infection routes were not immediately clear.

**

A woman in her 80s infected with the new coronavirus died Thursday, becoming Japan’s first confirmed fatality, health minister Katsunobu Kato said Thursday evening, as more cases of domestic infection were reported, in addition to hundreds on a quarantined cruise ship in Yokohama Bay.

The Japanese woman from Kanagawa Prefecture, just southwest of the capital, was found to be infected with the virus after she died, Kato said at a press conference.

The woman had been diagnosed with pneumonia and hospitalized since Feb. 1, the health ministry said, adding her breathing deteriorated on Feb. 6.

She was the mother-in-law of a Tokyo taxi driver who tested positive for COVID-19 on Thursday, according to a government official.

It's probably because no one can trust Moon:

A senior U.S. military officer has stirred up a hornets' nest by hinting at the possibility of deploying more launchers for a Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense battery in South Korea.

Vice Adm. Jon Hill, the director of the U.S. Missile Defense Agency, was speaking at a Pentagon press briefing on Monday. "If you can separate the launchers away from the battery, that gives you a lot of flexibility on the peninsula," he said. "So you could put the battery further back, you can move the radar back, you can put the launchers forward, you can bring in additional launchers."

The deployment of the first THHAD battery in Seongju in the southeast, which remains incomplete, got Korea into massive trouble with China and forced it to endure a yearlong boycott that devastated businesses here and is still not fully over.

A THAAD battery consists of four key parts -- launchers, interceptor missiles, fire control units and a radar.

Seoul has already pledged to Beijing that it would not permit the U.S. to station more THAAD batteries here. Whether Beijing would consider the deployment of extra launchers a violation of that promise remains to be seen.

 

This North Korea:

Some 50,000 North Koreans have been press-ganged into trekking tours of Mt. Baekdu since December to stiffen their ideological spine and tighten internal solidarity.

Since leader Kim Jong-un rode a white steed up the mountain last December in a "Game of Thrones"-type photo op, "the number of participants from across the country in a winter expedition to revolutionary battlefields in Mt. Baekdu has reached nearly 50,000," the official Rodong Sinmun newspaper said Thursday.

But Kim himself has shut himself up at home for almost three weeks amid coronavirus fears and the regime is stepping up quarantine efforts.

We Don't Have to Trade With China

It's time to stop being China's North American vassal state:

China and Canada should promote normalising relations and get back on track toward establishing a strategic partnership, Foreign Minister Wang Yi told his Canadian counterpart, according to his ministry.

"China-Canada relations have experienced difficulties and twists and turns over the years, which is not something China would like to see," Wang told Foreign Minister Melanie Joly in Beijing, the ministry said in a statement late on Friday.

Joly's three-day visit through Saturday, at Wang's invitation, is the first by a Canadian foreign minister in seven years.

 

Wang just gave Justin's girlfriend her marching orders. 

He explained what China's leadership expects Canada to do and it will be done.

 

The bosses have spoken.

Can't the universities get student fees from someone else?

What of spies?:

From 2019 to 2022, the number of Chinese international students with active Canadian study permits tumbled 26 per cent, from 173,315 to 128,040. Meanwhile, other countries and territories that contribute large numbers to Canada’s international student body experienced growth —  with the Philippines, Hong Kong, Colombia, Nigeria and India, seeing the biggest jumps during the same timeframe. In 2023, study permit applications from mainland China did surge 23 per cent compared to 2019 numbers, however, experts largely attribute the jump to a pandemic backlog and the Canadian government’s post-COVID international student push. ...

In May, the government released its initial report on foreign interference, which stated that China “stands out as a main perpetrator of foreign interference against Canada.” It highlighted Ottawa’s fears of the Chinese state manipulating their overseas students — and the larger Chinese diaspora in Canada — to back pro-China political candidates.

“Intelligence reporting — though not firmly substantiated” indicated that prior to the 2019 elections, people associated with a known Chinese state proxy agent provided Chinese international students falsified documents that allowed them to vote and bused them into the Don Valley North nomination process to support Liberal candidate Han Dong, the report said. Dong denied any involvement.

 

Japan and Pacific islands form agreements on how to deal with China:

Japan and Pacific island countries agreed on a host of new initiatives during a three-day summit in the Japanese capital designed to boost economic and security cooperation as Tokyo steps up efforts to counterbalance China’s growing regional clout alongside the United States, Australia and other partners.

During the gathering, which ended Thursday, Prime Minister Fumio Kishida and the leaders and representatives of 18 Pacific countries and territories agreed on an action plan that will see Tokyo boost engagement with the strategically important region, with collaboration announced in seven fields, including technology and connectivity, climate change, people-centered development and security.

"I'd like to make ties between Japan and the Pacific island nations stronger and demonstrate to the rest of the world that we are moving in the same direction," Kishida said during the summit, expressing his determination to take relations “to even greater heights.”

Most, if not all the initiatives agreed to at the latest iteration of the triennial Pacific Islands Leaders Meeting are aligned with the 2050 Strategy for Blue Pacific Continent — a long-term regional guideline for cooperation in key areas, including governance, people-centered economic development and climate change.

Under the new plan, Tokyo vowed to help some of the island nations maintain and manage the operation of undersea communication cables that not only link the resource-rich region with the rest of the world but also carry critical internet traffic.

While the project will boost regional connectivity, countries such as Japan, Australia and the U.S. are also partnering on subsea cable development in the Pacific to “rein in China's involvement in undersea infrastructure and reduce the strategic vulnerability of such cables as a result of hybrid warfare,” said Jose Sousa-Santos, a Pacific security expert and associate professor of practice at New Zealand’s University of Canterbury.

We Don't Have to Trade With China

What will it take for China to realise that it cannot have Taiwan?:

Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed on Saturday to realize “reunification” with Taiwan, though did not directly mention the use of force, following a week of tensions with the Chinese-claimed island.

**

Taiwan will keep bolstering its defenses to ensure nobody can force the island to accept the path China has laid down that offers neither freedom nor democracy, President Tsai Ing-wen said on Sunday, in a strong riposte to Beijing.

Japan's defense of Taiwan is hinting at a remilitarised and cautiously preparatory power in the Far East:

In recent months, Tokyo has issued increasingly bold statements of support for Taiwan against Chinese intimidation, even hinting at military support during potential hostilities. An expanded Japanese alliance role in protecting regional security is a welcome development.

However, the extent to which Tokyo would join U.S. forces in protecting Taiwan remains uncertain, as does the ability of the habitually slow Japanese decision-making process to respond expeditiously during a crisis. U.S. policymakers should engage with Tokyo to remove political impediments to action and coordinate military contingency plans.

Japan’s increasing concern with China’s intimidation of its neighbors triggered a shift toward greater willingness to publicly align its national interests with the security of Taiwan. Last December, State Minister of Defense Yasuhide Nakayama defined Taiwan’s safety as a “red line” and urged President-elect Joe Biden to “be strong” in supporting Taiwan against Chinese aggression.

 

Japan has little choice. It can be crushed economically or politically under China's boot or it can demonstrate not just a hint of global altruism but that it also has naval bite for itself and its neighbours. 

Also - oh, noez! China is angry again!:

A U.S. special-operations unit and a contingent of Marines have been secretly operating in Taiwan to train military forces there, U.S. officials said, part of efforts to shore up the island’s defenses as concern regarding potential Chinese aggression mounts.

About two dozen members of U.S. special-operations and support troops are conducting training for small units of Taiwan’s ground forces, the officials said. The U.S. Marines are working with local maritime forces on small-boat training. The American forces have been operating in Taiwan for at least a year, the officials said.

 

Oh, well. 

Oh, China denounces everybody!:

China's embassy in Australia said former Prime Minister Tony Abbott was a "pitiful" politician on Saturday after he denounced Chinese pressure against Taiwan during a visit to the island.

Abbott visited Taiwan, which is claimed by China, in a personal capacity this week, meeting President Tsai Ing-wen and saying at a security forum that China may lash out with its economy slowing and finances "creaking".

The Chinese embassy in Canberra responded with distain.

"Tony Abbott is a failed and pitiful politician. His recent despicable and insane performance in Taiwan fully exposed his hideous anti-China features. This will only further discredit him," it said in a brief statement on its website.

 

Blah blah blah.

 

We Don't Have to Trade With China

Isn't it time that they fixed someone else's elections?:

“Around half the Chinese-Canada [sic] constituents she canvassed would tell Ms. Alleslev they were afraid to vote for her because they feared repercussions against themselves or their family members both in Canada and China,” the affidavit said, as first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter.

** 

Elections Canada says it cannot refute an affidavit by former two-term MP Leona Alleslev (Aurora-Oak Ridges, Ont.) stating it unwittingly hired Chinese Communist Party agents as poll workers in the 2021 campaign. Alleslev in a sworn statement said she received complaints from Chinese Canadian electors who said they were too frightened to vote: “Half the Chinese Canadian constituents she canvassed would tell Ms. Alleslev they were afraid to vote for her because they feared repercussions.”

** 

Federal executives at a confidential meeting last August 29 concluded foreign agents were using illegal methods to threaten Canadians. The meeting occurred only weeks after cabinet’s Special Rapporteur downplayed foreign interference as “media allegations.”

**

The suppression doesn’t stop at the Chinese border. In the United States and elsewhere, Chinese operatives have tried every means to extinguish Falun Gong, including bribing IRS agents to revoke a practitioner-run nonprofit’s status, disrupting Falun Gong demonstrations during high stakes Chinese official visits, spying on individuals’ activities, and in some cases, carrying out violent assaults.

A 2021 report by Freedom House states that “China conducts the most sophisticated, global, and comprehensive campaign of transnational repression in the world.”

**

Let's go with a 100% tariff on everything:

Canada will impose new tariffs on Chinese-made electric vehicles, aluminum and steel, lining up behind western allies and taking steps to protect domestic manufacturers.

The government plans to announce a 100% levy on electric cars and 25% on steel and aluminum, according to people familiar with the matter, speaking on condition they not be identified because the matter is still private. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is expected to unveil the policy in Halifax, Nova Scotia, where he’s gathered with the rest of his cabinet for a series of meetings about the economy and foreign relations.

Canada, an export-driven economy that relies heavily on trade with the US, has been closely watching moves by the Biden administration to erect a much higher tariff wall against Chinese EVs, batteries, solar cells, steel and other products. Canada’s auto sector is heavily integrated with that of its closest neighbor: The vast majority of its light vehicle production — which was 1.5 million units last year — is exported to the US.

 

I doubt even this will happen.

Justin owes a great debt to his Chinese bosses. 

**

Another reason why the housing market is in trouble:

"Canada’s real estate sector is used by criminals to facilitate tax evasion and money laundering," stated FINTRAC. The agency highlighted that Canadian real estate is not only an attractive destination for laundered funds but also a channel through which proceeds of crime are being laundered.

The alert specifically cautioned realtors, mortgage issuers, and other industry stakeholders to be vigilant about the use of straw buyers who act as intermediaries in sales. It also flagged the suspicious use of private lenders for property purchases outside traditional financial institutions without logical explanations and the practice of "assignment contracts"—where property titles are flipped multiple times to different buyers or investors before construction is even completed.

"Instances observed include multiple incoming electronic funds transfers structured below currency restrictions imposed by other countries such as China and Iran and sent to individuals in Canada, which are then invested in real estate," the alert noted, without providing further details.

**

Why Japan needs to grow its military and navy:

A Chinese military aircraft was confirmed for the first time to have violated Japanese territorial airspace on Monday morning, the Defense Ministry in Tokyo said, with Japan strongly protesting the move.

The Defense Ministry said one of the Chinese military's Y-9 intelligence-gathering planes had briefly entered Japanese territory near the Danjo Islands off Nagasaki Prefecture from around 11:29 a.m. to 11:31 a.m., prompting the Air Self-Defense Force to scramble fighter jets in response.

The ministry said the fighters had taken steps such as "issuing warnings," while NHK reported that no weapons or flares were fired.

According to a map of the flight path provided by the Defense Ministry, the Chinese plane continued to circle in an area near the Danjo Islands for some time after leaving Japanese airspace.

At around 5:20 p.m., Japan's vice minister for foreign affairs, Masataka Okano, summoned the charge d'affaires of the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo to the Foreign Ministry to deliver a solemn protest and "strongly request" that the Chinese side prevent any recurrence, the ministry said in a statement.

In response, the Chinese side said that it "would report the matter to their home country."

Underscoring the unprecedented nature of the move, China is believed to have previously sent government aircraft into Japanese territorial airspace on just two occasions, both of which, unlike Monday's incursion, involved contested territory.

Both instances — once in 2012, when a propeller plane was detected, and another time in 2017 with a small drone — occurred near the Japanese-controlled Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea. China also claims the islands, which it calls the Diaoyu.

Beijing routinely sends military aircraft into international airspace above the East China Sea and elsewhere around Japan, but this is the first instance of a territorial airspace violation by a Chinese military aircraft to be publicly confirmed by Tokyo.

Observers say the moves are intended to probe Japan's response time and erode the capabilities of its fighter jets.

Mid-Week Post

 

The countdown to Thanksgiving Day is now ...

 

Former prime minister Stephen Harper emerges from his steam bath of complete and utter rightness to say that he told us all so:

A purported video is circulating showing Stephen Harper telling a partisan crowd that all his warnings about Justin Trudeau had come true.

“Unfortunately, literally everything I said would happen in 2015 has now come to pass,” says the former prime minister at what appears to be a gathering in Windsor, Ont.

The 90-second video was posted to TikTok by Anil Thapa, a Windsor restaurant owner, broadcaster and Conservative nomination candidate.

 

Is that so?

Idiot Canadians replaced an adult with an aging, blackface-wearing frat-boy who runs away at the first sight of strong-willed women and irate taxpayers.

 

 

Canada is poor:

A new report from the Fraser Institute, a Canadian free-market think tank, looks at income instead of output, and its findings are even worse for Canada. In a ranking of the 50 U.S. states and ten Canadian provinces by median earnings per person, all ten provinces line up at the bottom, occupying spots 51–60. Every U.S. state has higher median earnings per person than Alberta, the richest Canadian province.

The report tracks the changes in median earnings per person for each state and province in real, constant Canadian dollars between 2010 and 2022. “This twelve-year period allows for the analysis of a full business cycle following the 2008 recession through to 2022 when the economic effects of the global COVID pandemic began to subside,” the report notes.

Every state and province except Alberta saw increases in real median earnings between 2010 and 2022. But most U.S. states saw faster growth than their Canadian counterparts. British Columbia is the only Canadian province in the top half of the 60 total jurisdictions in earnings growth. Real earnings growth in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, was slower than in every U.S. state.

The report also zooms in on specific comparisons. It finds that relatively poor U.S. states have improved more than relatively poor Canadian provinces. In the ranking of all 60 jurisdictions by median earnings between 2010 and 2022, Utah improved from 47th to 28th, Michigan improved from 44th to 27th, and Arkansas improved from 45th to 31st. “Conversely, none of the lower-ranking Canadian provinces improved their relative positions by more than one position over the period from 2010 to 2022,” the report found.

 

 

Quebec is special:

A make-or-break Bloc Québécois bill to raise Old Age Security would cost almost $20 billion over six years, the highest estimate to date, says a federal Briefing Binder. Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet has warned the bill must pass into law by Halloween or his caucus will “bring down the government.”

 

Squeezing money out of the taxpayer in any way one can:

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland yesterday said cabinet would like to adopt an Irish-style three percent annual federal tax on vacant lots. The Department of Finance opened consultations on the proposal: “Ireland has an example of a measure like this.”

 

Companies require the indentured servitude the Temporary Foreign Workers Plan provides:

Canadian employers have become addicted to migrant labour, Immigration Minister Marc Miller told the Senate last evening. Miller in November is expected to table a new Immigration Levels Plan that cuts the number of temporary foreign workers let into the country: “All of them ask for more and more.”

Also:

Several U.S. legislators recently wrote a letter to trade minister Mary Ng raising concerns that Canada needed tougher rules and better enforcement. The letter specifically cited goods that U.S. officials rejected over forced labour concerns being rerouted through Canada.

McKay said beyond the moral imperative there is a real trade risk to Canada if the issue isn’t addressed.

“If Americans come to the fixed position that Canada’s nothing other than sieve for slave products and other stuff that’s inadmissible to the United States, this will be to be really serious.”

We don't have to trade with China:

Legislators targeted by Chinese Communist Party agents should have been warned in person, the Department of Public Safety said yesterday. Canadian MPs were among 400 parliamentarians worldwide who were targeted by Chinese hackers in 2021: “Is the current system adequate? No.”

** 

He usually is:

Evidence at the China inquiry yesterday depicted Defence Minister Bill Blair, 70, as distracted and ineffectual. Witnesses testified Blair liked to work from home and had employees explain what security memos meant rather than reading the documents himself: “We were aware when drivers went to his house.”

Also - oh, burn, China!:

Former Prime Minister Taro Aso has once again found himself at the center of controversy over Taiwan on Wednesday, after delivering remarks a day earlier that referred to the island as an important “country” for Japan — despite Tokyo's lack of formal diplomatic ties with Taipei.

In his remarks at an event in Tokyo celebrating Taiwan’s National Day, which Taipei was set to mark Thursday, Aso called the democratic island a “close country” and stressed that it is “extremely important” to maintain friendly relations even in the absence of formal diplomatic ties.

Instability in the Taiwan Strait would be “an existential crisis situation” for Japan, local media quoted him as saying, adding that he hoped “that the people of Taiwan will be prepared to protect and defend (the island).”

Tokyo has assiduously avoided describing the self-ruled island as a sovereign nation for fear of angering Beijing. China views Taiwan as its “core of core issues” and regards the island as a renegade province that must be unified with the mainland, by force if necessary.

China opposes any official contact between Taiwan and other governments, but its reaction to Aso's latest comments on the island were relatively muted.

No country for anyone:

Now that protesters have burned the Canadian flag and shouted “Death to Canada” on the steps of the old Vancouver courthouse, might the prime minister be prompted to action?

Not in his usual way, with a solemn, “This is not who we are” pronouncement, but with something more concrete, something that might alleviate, even stop, the hate on our streets?

Lest anyone has been asleep for the past year, all is not well in Canadian society. We have entered a dark time, a very dark time.

 **

Such hateful rhetoric is unacceptable. This has no place in Canada. All options must be considered. This is not who we are. We are treating this with the utmost urgency.

And so forth. And so on.

For more than four years, this is what we have been hearing from the Liberal government about the bloodcurdling incitements that are the stock in trade of the Vancouver-headquartered Samidoun Network, the overseas agitation and propaganda wing of the terrorist-listed Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.

It’s what Canadians have been hearing from federal, provincial and city politicians over the course of a year’s worth of skyrocketing hate crimes targeting Jews in the ugliest convulsions of antisemitism in living memory.

It’s what we heard again this week in Ottawa, where Samidoun’s unencumbered mobilizations and lurid sloganeering came up several times in Parliament after Samidoun hosted an anniversary celebration in Vancouver Monday commemorating the Hamas-led surprise attack on Southern Israel last October 7.

Samidoun has been at the vanguard of the most outwardly pro-terror street rallies and campus demonstrations that have erupted across Canada since last October 7. Roughly 1,200 people were killed in that attack, including several Canadians, and 251 people were kidnapped. To Samidoun, this is all to the good. The October 7 pogrom also triggered the war in Gaza that has left roughly 41,000 people dead, civilians and terrorists alike.

At the Monday Samidoun event in front of the Vancouver Art Gallery, a masked woman shouted into a megaphone: “We are Hezbollah, and we are Hamas.” A Canadian flag was set on fire, and hundreds of revellers joined the masked woman in a chant: “Death to Canada, death to the United States, and death to Israel.”

 

This is just obscene:

Just over 100 new prescriptions for hormone-related drugs were filled last year for Albertans between the ages of 11 and 15, according to data from the province’s Pharmaceutical Information Network.

There were a total of 107 “first pharmacy dispenses” of estrogen, testosterone and puberty blocker leuprolide in 2023. This was down from 139 first dispenses in 2022 and 124 in 2021, marking a three-year low.

That's the Canadian legal system for you:

The woman who helped kill a young Inuit student from Labrador a decade ago in Halifax and dumped her body in a hockey bag beside the highway has been granted 30 days of unescorted leave to take “personal development” courses at a halfway house.

Victoria Lea Henneberry is serving a life sentence for the second-degree murder of Loretta Saunders in February 2014.

“The board remains seriously concerned about your low level of insight and limited responsibility for the index offence,” said her most recent parole decision.

“Although you have completed required and voluntary interventions to mitigate your risk, you remain assessed at a low-moderate risk level, and it is essential that you complete further treatment and programming to mitigate your risk of re-offending. Notwithstanding the board’s concerns, the board concludes that your risk is manageable in the context of the (unescorted temporary absence) with the proposed plan and focus on further rehabilitation.”

Henneberry, now 39, and her boyfriend, Blake Leggette, were subletting a room in Saunders’ Cowie Hill Road apartment when the couple killed the Saint Mary’s University student, who was pregnant, after she came to collect their rent.

Saunders was 26 when she died. Leggette attacked her from behind when she entered the apartment.

“Your boyfriend choked the victim, tried to suffocate her with several plastic bags, and hit her head off the floor twice,” said Henneberry’s parole decision, dated Sept. 25.

 ** 

At a press conference on June 3, Chief Justice Wagner was asked to comment on an ongoing controversy over whether the Supreme Court should provide official French-language translations of its judgments prior to 1970, before the Official Languages Act was enacted. Attempting to justify the court’s refusal to do so, he made a series of bizarre claims that sought to diminish the importance of his own court’s prior decisions.

According to Wagner, “apart from considering these decisions as part of our legal cultural heritage, no one today will refer to a decision from 1892 to support his claim,” later adding that “sometimes a decision from five years ago is an old decision, in commercial and civil matters.” He then concluded that “the legal value of these historical decisions is quite minimal.”

Coming from Canada’s top judge, these cavalier statements reflect a breathtaking dismissal of the role and significance of legal precedent. As any practicing lawyer will readily attest, at all levels of court across Canada, litigants routinely cite and rely upon judgments of the Supreme Court dating back much further than the 1970s. This is most apparent in the Canadian provinces and territories other than Quebec, where basic areas of law — the law of contracts, torts and property, for instance — are founded upon the common law, which emerges from legal precedents and landmark decisions that date back centuries. It is also true across the country where fundamental issues of constitutional law are concerned, including in matters relating to the division of powers between the federal and provincial governments. Here, precedents dating back to 1892 and beyond continue to be authoritative.

What is even more troubling about the chief justice’s remarks, however, is that they confirm the now widespread impression of an undisciplined approach to judicial responsibility at the Supreme Court of Canada. Regrettably, the judicial decisions that appear to exemplify this attitude are legion. Rather than attempting to resolve disputes within settled legal frameworks and principles, recent appeals before the court are explicitly framed as invitations to overturn established doctrine. This was notably the case in Canada v. Bedford (2013) and Canada v. Carter (2015), two Charter challenges that targeted the criminal prohibitions on prostitution-related activities and assisted suicide, respectively. In ultimately deciding to strike down these laws, the Supreme Court went so far as to approve the effacement of its prior work.

**

Brothers convicted in the United States of helping Iran evade sanctions were allowed to legally adopt new identities in Ontario, records released to Global News show.

Amin and Arash Yousefijam were sentenced in Michigan in the fall of 2021 for using shell companies to illegally export sensitive manufacturing equipment to Iran, where they were born.

They then returned to Ontario, where they had lived prior to their arrests, and applied to change their names to Ameen and Aurash Cohen. The province granted their requests in April 2022.

At the time they altered their identities, they were still serving out part of their sentences — a one-year period of supervised release, a form of parole, government records show.

Using his new name, Arash Yousefijam, 36, became a registered dentist and went to work in Ottawa as Dr. Aurash Cohen. The Royal College of Dental Surgeons of Ontario said it was looking into the matter.

Meanwhile, his brother, 37, took a job as a compliance officer at an international company in Richmond Hill, Ont. Property records show an Ameen Cohen bought a home in the city in 2022.

But no one is going to dig up Kamloops.

Interesting:

Three years after a devastating wildfire nearly wiped out the picturesque B.C. hamlet of Lytton, residents say it may never be reborn because of costly, government-mandated archeological excavations.

Village Mayor Denise O’Connor — whose own house was destroyed in the June 2021 wildfire — said homeowners are getting individual quotes for archeological work that range from $26,000 to $48,000 to much higher, making the work prohibitive.