Sunday Post

A lot going on in the world ...




After saying things many people actually think, Doug Ford does the cowardly thing and ditches Tanya Granic Allen:

Ontario’s Progressive Conservatives have dropped a controversial candidate from their roster ahead of the spring election, with the party’s leader saying “her characterization of certain issues and people has been irresponsible.”

Tanya Granic Allen, a social conservative and outspoken opponent of the province’s sex education curriculum, has been taken off the PC ballot in Mississauga Centre just over a month before Ontarians go to the polls.

PC Leader Doug Ford said in a statement Saturday that the Tories “are a party comprised of people with diverse views that if expressed responsibly we would respect.”

Granic Allen responded to her dismissal on Twitter, saying she was “disappointed” to be informed of the decision by Ford’s campaign manager.

This act of cowardice is playing right into the Liberals' hands, Doug.

Shame on you.




A professor withdraws from a free speech task force (yes, those are things now) after learning that leftist groups will not undergo the same rigours that other groups will:

Liberal arts associate professor David Haskell stepped aside Thursday after learning that the university is demanding $5,473 for unspecified “security costs” for a Lindsay Shepherd-organized free-speech event. ...

Widdowson is also the co-author (with Albert Howard) of Disrobing the Aboriginal Industry: The Deception Behind Indigenous Cultural Preservation, the 2008 book which argued that indigenous deprivation is maintained by a de facto industry of lawyers and consultants.

At Laurier, she was to discuss the question, “Does University Indigenization Threaten Open Inquiry?”

But Wednesday, the LSOI sponsoring faculty member, economics prof Will McNally, was told two things within three minutes — first that Laurier’s new booking policy is to charge “all additional costs” to the sponsoring club or faculty member and second, that the Widdowson event would require “a fee of $5,473” for security.

That led directly to Haskell resigning.

If one cannot ban them outright, one will bleed them dry.

Outrageous.



British Columbia and Ontario hand over huge swaths of land to Big Aboriginal:

Negotiators have signed off on a new treaty agreement between the federal and provincial governments and the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation near Prince George, B.C.

Representatives put their initials on the Lheidli T’enneh Treaty in a ceremony Saturday — the final step before members of the community vote on the deal next month.

The agreement provides the Lheidli T’enneh First Nation with more than 43 square kilometres of land, a capital transfer of $37.1 million and ongoing funding for services such as health care, education and social development.

“The agreement would allow us to have our own governance, our own lands. We would own the lands and control the lands,” Chief Dominic Frederick said in an interview.

**

The Ontario government says it has signed agreements to share the revenue from mining and forestry projects with First Nations, saying the deals are the first of their kind in the province.

Under the agreements, the province will share 45 per cent of its revenue from forestry stumpage, 40 per cent of the annual mining tax and royalties from active mines at the time of signing, as well as 45 per cent from future mines in relevant areas.

The province says the deals were developed in collaboration with its First Nations partners — Grand Council Treaty #3, Wabun Tribal Council and Mushkegowuk Council — and could benefit 39 communities across them.

The government says the First Nations will have full control over the allocation of its share into initiatives that support economic development, education, health and other priorities.

If what they really wanted was control over education and health care, why didn't they ask for it in the first place and pay for it themselves?

Also:

First Nations chiefs on Wednesday called on the federal government to amend its marijuana legalization legislation to prevent provincial regulations from applying on reserves.

Some people consider these groups to be "grooming" organisations:

Alberta’s United Conservative Party delegates voted Sunday for balanced budgets and an end to the carbon tax, but there were fireworks after they also OK’d a controversial motion affecting gay children in schools.

Delegates at the party’s founding policy convention voted 57 per cent in favour of a motion to have parents told when their child is involved in any subject of a religious or sexual nature, including after-school social clubs like gay-straight alliances.

They passed the motion despite pleas from three UCP caucus members to scuttle it because it was fundamentally wrong and politically perilous.

“This is about outing gay kids,” UCP caucus whip Ric McIver said at the speaker’s microphone as some delegates hooted and shouted at him, forcing the moderator to intervene.

“This is about making kids feel unsafe. They can’t join a club.”

Canada and the United States are not mad theocracies in the Middle East. As of yet, homosexual persons will not be thrown from rooftops. The mere idea that homosexuals face that sort of persecution in North America (yet) is insulting to one's intelligence.

As these underage, minor, adolescent persons are allegedly homosexual, not informing the same parents who need to sign permission slips for any other activity is appallingly Orwellian and creepy.

It's not like these clubs are needed in schools, anyway.




Does one need more proof that Justin Trudeau is a scumbag? :

According to the Toronto Sun, “The federal government is planning to build temporary housing for up to 520 people at a Quebec border crossing that has been the scene of an influx of asylum seekers.”

The report also notes that, “The housing notice calls for “heated, ventilated and illuminated canvas shelters” for three-season use that must include areas for sleeping, security, reception and warehousing. The government is also looking for other units to serve as quarantine space, toilets and showers as well as systems for drinking water and drainage.”

Meanwhile, many Canadian citizens remain homeless.

There are an estimated 235,000 homeless people in Canada on an annual basis, while 35,000 people are homeless each night.

**

The Trudeau government has used the controversial Canada Summer Jobs Grant to fund an Islamic group with terror ties, and another with a history of anti-gay rhetoric, the Sun has learned.

According to a government database listing recipients of the Canada Summer Jobs grant, both the Canada Arab Federation (CAF) and the Anatolia Islamic Centre have been approved for federal funding in 2018.

In 2009, CAF was de-funded over the group’s extremism and support for terrorist groups – a decision made by the previous Harper Conservative government and backed up by a federal judge.

CAF had received a grant through the department of immigration to provide English lessons for newcomers, but the contract was pulled when then-immigration minister Jason Kenney found out about the funding.  

Kenney wrote a letter to CAF informing them that funding would be pulled because of the group’s “promotion of hatred, anti-Semitism and support for the banned organizations Hamas and Hezbollah.”

Kenney said that CAF’s “president attacked (former Liberal leader) Bob Rae because his wife is Jewish.”

“From our point of view, these groups do not deserve and have no right to taxpayers’ dollars to promote their kind of extremism,” said Kenney.

The Canadian Arab Federation appealed the decision, but a Federal Court judge ruled in favour of the Harper government, determining that Kenney acted “reasonably” when he cut federal funds.

The Anatolia Islamic Centre also has a history of controversy. The Centre’s Imam made headlines in 2013 for anti-gay comments caught on tape.

**

Even though no one has called 24 Sussex Drive home for more than two years, staff have been using the kitchen there to prepare meals for the Trudeau family, which are then ferried across the way to Rideau Cottage.

It's not clear that there's anything wrong with the kitchen at Rideau Cottage, a red brick Georgian Revival heritage home on the grounds of Rideau Hall.

Neither the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) nor the National Capital Commission, which oversees the official residences, would answer CBC's questions about the state of Rideau Cottage's kitchen. The one at 24 Sussex has been described as fully functional.

Pure scum.





Speaking of scum:

A report in the Globe & Mail reveals that Conservative MP Bob Saroya took a free eight-day trip to China, a trip that was “in part funded by the foreign affairs arm of the ruling Chinese Communist Party.”

This China:

China's foreign minister congratulated North Korean leader Kim Jong Un on Thursday on his moves to reduce tensions with South Korea, China said. Their meeting in Pyongyang underscored warming ties and Beijing's desire to remain a key player in the Korean Peninsula peace process.

Foreign Minister Wang Yi also told Kim that Beijing backs North Korea's shift of focus to economic growth, along with its efforts to resolve its "legitimate security concerns" while taking steps to denuclearize, China's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

China "supports and congratulates" Kim's summit meeting last week with South Korean President Moon Jae-in and the statement they issued, it quoted Wang as saying.

Yes, congratulate your vassal state. 

Also:

A sweeping criminal probe into offshore tax evasion has ensnared the director of a failed Chinese-backed natural gas producer whose bankruptcy has exposed major regulatory lapses in Alberta’s oil patch.

Court documents show a trio of properties in Calgary, West Vancouver and north Toronto owned by, or affiliated with, Wentao Yang and his wife, Rong Catherine Lu, were targeted in February raids by the Canada Revenue Agency, the RCMP and West Vancouver Police.

CRA investigators allege that Mr. Yang and Ms. Lu received payments totaling $2,666,865 through a series of transfers involving foreign corporations that he is either directly or indirectly involved with, and that Mr. Yang did not report income tied to the transactions on his 2016 personal returns. As a result, it says he evaded income tax totaling $736,562. Mr. Yang also failed to report and remit $126,993, according to the court documents filed in Calgary.

And so it begins:

With just weeks to go before President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un are expected to hold their first-ever summit, Pyongyang on Sunday criticized what it called "misleading" claims that Trump's policy of maximum political pressure and sanctions are what drove the North to the negotiating table.

The North's official news agency quoted a Foreign Ministry spokesman warning the claims are a "dangerous attempt" to ruin a budding detente on the Korean Peninsula after Kim's summit late last month with South Korean President Moon Jae-in.

 
When will Kim walk away from the talks?

 Start betting now.




And now, a cat's neighbourly gesture:

A friendly cat named Willow surprised her neighbors when she carried a beautiful pink flower and offered it as a gift during one of her frequent visits.

Mid-Week Post

Aaaahhh, glorious late spring ....




Yesterday was the feast day of Saint Joseph, the patron saint of workers, the Church and carpenters.

It was also a day to remember what leftists of all stripes would rather people not remember:

Victims of Communism Day can serve the dual purpose of appropriately commemorating the millions of victims, and diminishing the likelihood that such atrocities will recur. Just as Holocaust Memorial Day and other similar events help sensitize us to the dangers of racism, anti-Semitism, and radical nationalism, so Victims of Communism Day can increase awareness of the dangers of left-wing forms of totalitarianism, and government control of the economy and civil society.

There is only one form of communism and it always ends in bloodshed.




Terrible:

Ashen-faced MPs of all political stripes commiserated with their stricken Conservative colleagues after hearing the news Wednesday that longtime Ontario Tory MP Gord Brown had died suddenly in his Parliament Hill office. 

Brown, 57, was a veteran MP representing the eastern Ontario riding of Leeds-Grenville-Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes. He was first elected in 2004, and won re-election three more times, including most recently in 2015.

"Heartbroken at the passing of our dear friend Gord Brown," tweeted Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer.

It's like the useless prick can't help himself:

Trudeau accepted transport on the Aga Khan’s private helicopter, didn’t recuse from potential conflicts of interest, and didn’t clear the trip with the ethics commissioner ahead of time. Plus, the Aga Khan foundation lobbies the federal government, and has received taxpayer money.

And yet, Trudeau is arrogant enough to think that he can get away with attending a dinner for the Aga Khan’s diamond jubilee without anyone bringing up the scandal.

This is what got him into trouble in the first place.

What a moron.

I wouldn't argue that elitism - the very thought that Justin can do as he pleases because he is in the upper echelons of power and wealth - isn't part of this incredibly poor decision but one has seen him be a useless, mindless prick so many times before that it's easy to conclude that he is an idiot.


Also - his douchebaggery knows no bounds:

$1.60+ per litre in Vancouver
$1.37+ per litre in Toronto

According to Trudeau, this is what his carbon taxes are supposed to do and exactly what he wants #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/eLqCmMDsTQ

— Ontario Proud (@ontarioisproud) May 1, 2018

Further:

According to the CP, “Even with carbon pricing and other measures, including eliminating coal-fired power plants, cutting methane emissions from the oil industry and making cleaner fuels, Canada will still be 90 million tonnes shy of its international emissions targets set in 2015 under the Paris agreement.”

** 

In December, 2017, the Trudeau government admitted in its own submission to the UN that even if it implements its entire climate action plan, including projects not begun, it will fall 66 Mt annually short of its 2030 goal.

That means Canada would have to shut down the equivalent of almost all of our agricultural sector (72 Mt annually), beyond all other initiatives it has or hasn’t started, to meet its 2030 target.

**

The former CEO of oil company TransCanada says the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain expansion will only happen if it gets a large, taxpayer-backed indemnity.

As reported by BNN Bloomberg, Hal Kvisle said, “The only way [the Trans Mountain expansion project] could go ahead is if the government was to indemnify Kinder Morgan against a failed project halfway through… That’s a $10 billion dollar indemnity – I don’t know that’s going to happen.”

It's just money, right?


Also:

Even more alarming is that our “leaders,” provincial and federal, cannot see the consequences of continued reckless borrowing, including the menacing piling up of unfunded liabilities for public-sector pensions, especially if we also pursue economic policies that choke off wealth creation. Yet far too many Canadians are not alarmed, by what politicians are doing or what they are babbling about it.

So back to the reality thing. Since the debate is normally about what is real, and since it is conservatives who typically use phrases like “the real world,” let me try to list more specifically what too many Canadian governments, and citizens, are not coming to grips with.

First, one more time, incentives matter, to business and consumers. If it becomes too difficult or expensive to operate in Canada investment will go elsewhere. Not all of it and not immediately, of course. But slowly and inexorably.

Second, you can’t redistribute wealth that never got generated. Yet governments dependent on ever-larger streams of revenue scorn to foster prosperity. Federal finance minister Bill Morneau pledges to fix the gender gap while scorning “knee-jerk reactions” to U.S. tax cuts. And B.C.’s premier blocks pipelines, supports carbon taxes, then complains that gas is expensive.

Third, the essence of a free market economy, like a free society, is co-operation. We hear harsh rhetoric about competition from capitalism’s defenders as well as its critics. But remember that while, say, a gas station competes with other gas stations, it co-operates with everyone else from oil producers to lightbulb manufacturers to insurance companies to those who feed its employees and make its customers’ cars.

Mr. Robson, you simply must remember that Canadians have amassed two trillion dollars in debt.

Money means nothing to them.

The politicians aren't the only ones removed from reality.




Just as one is sure that Canadians are oblivious to drowning in debt, they are drowning in other matters, as well:

“Realistically, if it’s going to take 10 years to get a refugee hearing … you’ve almost got de facto amnesty,” said Raj Sharma, a Calgary-based immigration lawyer and former refugee protection officer.

It's not like Justin is even going to address these matters let alone deal with them, no matter how many squeaky wheels there are:

CBSA officials are being “muzzled” and the Trudeau government is not properly enforcing the law, according to a CBSA official who reached out to the Toronto Sun for an exclusive interview.

“This government is making it up as they go along,” said the irritated CBSA officer, who asked to remain anonymous because, in his words, “we are muzzled.”

“But, I can tell you that the rank and file cadre has had it ‘up to here’ as with the rest of the growing number of frustrated Canadians out there,” he said.

After all, there is an election in 2019 and hurriedly appointed new citizens make great Liberal voters.




Speaking of elections:

One key change Conservatives were hoping for with this legislation was a total ban on registered third parties receiving foreign funding. This issue arose after it became clear third parties were receiving millions of dollars in funds from groups in the United States to aggressively target Conservative ridings in the 2015 election.

The Liberals are now able to claim they’re banning foreign sources from influencing Canadian elections by removing an odd rule on the books that allowed such groups to previously spend up to $500 in their own names.

But this rule was never the target of Conservative frustrations. It was the third-party element.

While there are already restrictions limiting when these funds can be received and used, Conservative Senator Linda Frum put forward a private member’s bill that prohibited third parties from at any time accepting “a contribution for any purposes related to an election if the contribution is from a foreign source.”

The new Liberal amendments tinker with foreign funding for third parties, but they don’t outright ban it.

I'll just leave this right here:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was the top draw at a $1,500 Liberal Party cash-for-access fundraiser at the mansion of a wealthy Chinese-Canadian business executive in May. One of the guests at the event was a well-heeled donor who was seeking Ottawa's final approval to begin operating a new bank aimed at Canada's Chinese community.

The Globe and Mail has learned that wealthy Chinese businessman Zhang Bin who, with a partner, donated $1-million to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and the University of Montreal Faculty of Law weeks after the fundraiser, also attended the event. Mr. Zhang is a political adviser to the Chinese government in Beijing and a senior apparatchik in the network of Chinese state promotional activities around the world.

Chinese Business Chamber of Commerce chair Benson Wong played host to Mr. Trudeau and 32 other people at his Toronto home. Among the donors was insurance tycoon Shenglin Xian, the founder of Wealth One Bank of Canada, and several Chinese billionaires.

Now is the time for Pope Francis to be characteristically off-script and off-colour:

MPs have voted overwhelmingly to extend to Pope Francis a formal invitation to apologize in person to Indigenous Peoples for decades of abuse meted out in residential schools across Canada.

Vaffanculo, Canadesi!




Happening now:

North Korea is preparing to release three U.S. detainees ahead of President Trump's summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, according to an activist who spoke to the AFP.

South Korean activist Choi Sung Ryong, who is connected with sources in the North, told the outlet that the three Korean-American detainees Kim Dong-cheol, Kim Sang-duk and Kim Hak-seong are staying in a hotel outside of Pyongyang. Choi reportedly said the U.S. and North Korea were close to reaching a deal on the captives' release.

Choi said the three detainees were being separated, but were "going on tours, receiving medical treatment and eating good food."

Oh, really? :

Kenneth Bae, a Christian preacher, ran religious tours into the ‘Hermit Kingdom’, but was accused of attempting to overthrow the government. ...

"I worked from 8am to 6pm at night, working on the field, carrying rock, shovelling coal."

North Korea is known to have a number of secretive work camps, where summary executions, starvation, torture and forced abortions are all alleged to occur.

But if the dawn of a new peaceful era on the Korean Peninsula is arriving, why would one need American troops? :

South Korea said on Wednesday the issue of U.S. troops stationed in the South is unrelated to any future peace treaty with North Korea and that American forces should stay even if such an agreement is signed.

"U.S. troops stationed in South Korea are an issue regarding the alliance between South Korea and the United States. It has nothing to do with signing peace treaties," said Kim Eui-kyeom, a spokesman for the presidential Blue House, citing President Moon Jae-in.

Surely the South Koreans trust the Kim regime and its Chinese financiers:

Instead, as part of that strategy, China hopes to decouple South Korea from the U.S. militarily by making the withdrawal of American forces a quid pro quo for a peace treaty and denuclearization, thereby, again placing Korea outside the U.S. defense perimeter and extending China’s sphere of influence to the shoreline of Japan.

Trump could avoid being ensnared in previous North Korean traps by being mindful of what and who the US is dealing with:

Condoleezza Rice gave President Trump three pieces of advice Tuesday for negotiating with Kim Jong Un and North Korea.

“First of all don’t try to negotiate the details with Kim Jong Un,” the former secretary of state said on Fox & Friends. “Leave that to people who understand all the nuances of this situation. There are other countries who have interests here. Japan, for instance has interests here. South Korea of course has interests here. So that is the first thing, really recognize that others are at stake.”

“Secondly, don’t be anxious about moving American military forces,” she continued.

“American military forces are a stabilizing force, not just on the Korean peninsula, but in the region as a whole.”

“Finally, never forget what the nature of this regime really is.”

Rice reminded everyone that North Korea “murdered an American citizen just a little while ago.”

“A regime where the leader had his half-brother murdered in Malaysia using VX gas,” she added. “A brutal regime. Human rights violation. A death camp for its own citizens. Don’t forget the true nature.”

Even Shinzo Abe knows not to put too much trust into these talks:

Despite what appears to be good news that North Korea leader Kim Jong Un is eager to hold a bilateral summit with Japan, the administration of Prime Minister Shinzo Abe remains cautious, saying there are many hurdles to be overcome.

Since Abe has said there needs to be progress on the issue of Japanese nationals abducted decades ago by North Korean agents, he cannot simply meet with Kim without any guarantee that the summit will bear fruit.

“If we agree to a summit with no prerequisites (on the abduction issue), they will ignore it and instead demand compensation over past history,” a senior official at the Prime Minister’s Office said.

The government, mainly the Foreign Ministry, is now secretly debating what kind of progress will need to be in place in order to hold a summit with North Korea.

To wit:

In the words of another defector Park Sang Hak, who chairs the North Korean Defector Association and regularly sends in information through balloon launches: “What a liar fears most is the truth and the greatest liar in the world is Kim Jong Un. We can end the North Korean regime in a really simple way: by spreading the truth to our homeland.”

Also:

THE ONE INVIOLABLE RULE OF INTER-KOREAN SUMMITS IS THAT THERE IS ALWAYS A SCANDAL sooner or later. Kim Dae-jung’s summit with Kim Jong-il in 2000 resulted in a Nobel Peace Prize, eight indictments, six convictions, and a bunch of suspended prison sentences for an illegal payment of $500 million to North Korea. Otherwise, it did not disarm North Korea and did not produce a lasting reduction of tensions.1)

Roh Moo-hyun’s 2007 summit with Kim Jong-il also failed to disarm or pacify North Korea, but resulted in the criminal indictment and subsequent acquittal 2) of Cho Myoung-gun, who is now the Unification Minister, for destroying the transcript of the meeting. The opposition alleged that the agreements reached there would have ceded the South’s Yellow Sea waters to a jointly controlled “peace zone,” shared some of the South’s most valuable fishing waters, allowed the North to enter the sea lane that serves the Port of Incheon, and left the islands of Baekryeong and Yeonpyeong potentially besieged. One useful clarification from this week’s North-South agreement is the resolution of that old argument. ...

With North Korea now directly threatening the U.S. with nuclear attack, an agreement to defer North Korea’s disarmament–and Moon’s deal looks like exactly that–puts South Korea’s interests in direct conflict with ours. On Fox News Sunday, John Bolton said that North Korea must disarm before it gets sanctions relief, and that Moon’s promises to His Porcine Majesty do not bind the United States. Of course, left-of-center scholars will insist that the U.S. can’t possibly oppose its ally, which is something you’ll never hear them say about South Korea unilaterally promising to violate U.N. sanctions and undermining the policy of its security guarantor. Our message to Moon Jae-in ought to be emphatic and public: nations have permanent interests, not permanent alliances. We are approaching the point at which Seoul is becoming a national security liability to the United States.

(Kamsahamnida to all y'all)