It's About Damn Time

Who is running this country - the Chinese businessmen lining the coffers of the Trudeau Foundation or American-funded anti-oil interests?:

The Alberta government has opened a new offensive in the fight against oilsands critics, announcing on Thursday a public inquiry into the finances of environmental organizations, specifically on funding from foreign donors, a bugbear of Jason Kenney’s government.

Such a move raises the stakes for environmental groups that could now be compelled to testify before the inquiry and face as yet unknown consequences — perhaps lawsuits, Kenney speculated — once the commissioner reports back to the legislature.

“For more than a decade, Alberta has been the target of a well-funded political propaganda campaign to defame our energy industry and to landlock our resources,” Kenney told reporters in Calgary in announcing the inquiry.

The United Conservatives have long promised a “fight back strategy” aimed at shellacking the critics of Alberta’s energy industry and supporting those who want to bolster it. So far, the plan has consisted of creating a war room to counter “misinformation” and using a litigation fund to support the legal battles of pro-energy industry Indigenous groups.

These people:

Why did Prime Minister Justin Trudeau order his revenue minister to stop the Canada Revenue Agency from auditing politically active charities? Was it to protect his best friend and former principal secretary, Gerald Butts?

Those are just two of the many questions asked by Vivian Krause during a sold out Calgary Chamber of Commerce luncheon Wednesday at the Fairmont Palliser Hotel and during a scrum with reporters afterwards.

Krause, the Vancouver-based researcher who has single-handedly exposed the foreign-funded campaign to “land-lock Alberta crude” — which Alberta Premier Jason Kenney vows to hold a public inquiry into — pointed out that her popular blog and Twitter account are called Fair Questions, because she doesn’t claim to have all of the answers.

Toward the end of her more than one-hour discussion — complete with numerous slides showing the paper trail behind $600 million of American money from U.S. foundations to Canadian environmental groups to “demarket” Canadian oil and gas — Krause turned her attention to how questions surrounding CRA audits of political charities in Canada “go right to the office of our prime minister.”

“When the current government came to office, the prime minister characterized these audits as ‘political harassment’ in his mandate letter to the national revenue minister, and the finalization of the political activity audits was suspended (by the CRA),” she told the attentive crowd of 170 chamber members and their guests.

It should not only be Premier Kenney or private researcher Vivian Krause asking these questions but every premier, MP and citizen. Why would a sitting prime minister allow American anti-Canadian oil groups to derail an industry vital to the Canadian economy?

If no one is asking, they are either not paying attention or are in on it.



(Merci)

Justin Is Taking Crazy Pills

No, really:

“Our approach of highlighting around the world the concerns that people have with the arbitrary detention of two Canadians by China is working,” said @JustinTrudeau. Yesterday, China warned Canada not to be ‘naive’ in thinking allies can help fix dispute”

This warning:

Geng Shuang, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, twice derided Canada for relying on a “so-called” ally and said China would allow no interference in its affairs.

Further: 

“Our allies know it is now time to come together to support the values that we share, the rule of law as well. We’ll continue to work with our allies to demonstrate to our Chinese partners that we will remain firm, steadfast and will continue to defend the rule of law and Canadians’ safety.”

Justin got the Americans, the "ally" he thinks he can supplant with China, to do the fighting for him.  Neither Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor have been released. The Chinese government is still ignoring the Trudeau government.


He isn't simply campaigning. He truly believes his own hype.

 
Also: 

Osaka was a humiliation for our prime minister. Forced by the unhappiness of China following Canada in the G20 alphabetical ordering, Justin Trudeau was forced to sit beside Xi Jinping. A picture of fashionable impotence, Trudeau merited not a sideways glance from Xi, whose regime has refused all contact with senior Canadian officials in retaliatory punishment for Canada having an independent judiciary in the matter Meng Wanzhou.

Trudeau’s team was forced to play-up a brief handshake and night-vision video of the two talking, and Canada insisted that Trudeau used his 90 seconds to raise the matters of the Canadians held in unlawful detention. Like an excruciating blow upon an embarrassing bruise, Trudeau was forced to rely upon Donald Trump to carry water for him. Trump had promised to raise the issue of the detained Canadians during the bilateral meeting. Whether he did or not is unknown but seems unlikely.

The prime minister ought not to take it personally. True enough, he has been grovelling before Beijing for years, even before his premiership began in 2015, and perhaps he thought that an exemplary record of abasement would be rewarded. That is to get the Chinese regime wrong. Increasingly under President Xi, the humiliation of rivals, to say nothing of enemies, is not to achieve some strategic objective, but is an end in itself. China humiliates those it can because it can, a demonstration both of power and a willingness to use it.

Read the whole thing.


And - if the police and the universities are letting this fly under the radar, what the Americans think and want is beside the point:

American authorities are seeking to extradite a retired McGill University engineering professor on charges that he conspired to illegally send U.S.-made computer chips to China, possibly for military use.

The prosecution of Ishiang Shih brings the West’s intellectual-property dispute with Beijing to the heart of Canadian academia, with suggestions a Chinese company that employed Shih planned to make circuits for “missile-tip guidance.”

This sort of thing has been going on for years.




And Justin's lunacy isn't restricted to one area of politicking:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is defending the federal system for appointing judges after revelations several in New Brunswick have personal connections to Liberal cabinet minister Dominic LeBlanc.

Media reports this week stated five of the last six federally appointed judges in New Brunswick have ties to LeBlanc, who is Trudeau’s minister of intergovernmental and northern affairs.

One is LeBlanc’s neighbour, according to the CBC, while a second is a relative by marriage and three helped him pay off debt he accumulated during his unsuccessful run for the Liberal party leadership in 2008.

A complaint has since been filed to the ethics commissioner by watchdog Democracy Watch, which is asking for the government to suspend further appointments until an investigation is concluded.

It's one thing to stretch credulity where things may be plausible but where five judges out of six have ties to his minister? That's just stupid.

For a Thursday

Because America ... or something.

Is Trump backing off of tariffs on China or is this a bait-and-switch tactic?:

World shares were trading in a narrow range Thursday after major U.S. indexes hit record highs in a pre-Independence Day rally, buoyed by the easing of trade tensions between the U.S. and China.

The detente reached by U.S. President Donald Trump and China’s Xi Jinping and their agreement to refrain from new tariffs pending a new round of negotiations has relieved some pressure on markets. But the trade war is still overshadowing the global economic outlook. 

Trump should not let up. China is relentless in its goal in toppling the US as the driver of the global economy.

People will rue the day Pax Americana is replaced by Pax Sinae.




Meanwhile, Canada shows the world how it's done when dealing with China by cowering like frightened farm animals:

As Kovrig has his eyeglasses taken by his Communist China jailers, as both he and Spavor and are held in rooms with the lights on 24 hours a day – in addition to whatever other horrors the Communists are putting them through – there are two Trudeau government officials in the country bragging about ice cream instead of trying to help their fellow citizens.

**

Jim Carr, Trudeau’s international trade minister, was asked if – given the horrible treatment of Canadians by the Communist State – Canadian ministers should be visiting the country.

Here was his response:

“We’re waiting to be invited to China to be offered ministerial visas so we can talk about a whole range of important issues” – International Trade Minister Jim Carr, on if Minister’s should be visiting China while the two Micheal’s are in jail”

Don't be kept waiting too long, Jim.

(source)

Also:

Hong Kong police have announced their first arrest in connection with Monday’s assault on the territory’s legislative building, as protesters gird themselves for the possibility of more detentions and what they fear will be a citywide dragnet.

The police said in a statement Wednesday night that they had detained a 31-year-old man on charges that included forcible entry into the building that houses the Legislative Council, as well as causing damage to the premises and attacking the police. The man was identified only by his surname, Poon.

Several hundred demonstrators broke into the legislature on Monday night after a day of protests, centered on an unpopular bill that would allow extradition to mainland China. Some of them defaced portraits, destroyed surveillance cameras and spray-painted political slogans on walls, as riot police officers looked on. Hundreds of thousands of other people marched peacefully on Monday in a separate demonstration.

Hong Kong, a semiautonomous Chinese territory, has been roiled by protests since the city’s leaders tried last month to push the extradition bill through the legislature. The bill would make it possible for criminal suspects to be sent to the mainland, where the courts are controlled by the Communist Party, and many residents believe it would put dissidents and others in jeopardy and mark an alarming new development in the erosion of the former British colony’s civil liberties.

Just your average basic dictatorship.




The Liberal Party cheerleaders in the bribed press cannot feign objectivity now, especially after the numerous pro-Islamist fiascos this government has thrown on the country:

Canadian officials have still not interviewed Ali. Officials say that, even if it were possible to leave Syria, former ISIL fighters would likely be detained in neighbouring countries like Turkey. Bell recently noted that Turkey, a NATO ally, is open to allowing ISIL members transit through, so they can return to Canada.

There appear to be some preparations being made in the shadows. But, as usual, Canadians will be the last to know if jihadis are walking among them.

In the meantime, they are being asked to swallow the line the situation is too dangerous and muddy for the government to act — at least this side of an election.

They could be charged with treason but, you know, election, so ...




Foreign money dictates what resources can be mined and the government g-d- knows it:

Zurich recently threatened to drop Canadian oilsands producers, pipeline companies and crude-by-rail facilities if within two years they didn’t show their investment plans are consistent with global efforts to reduce the impact of climate change. But the effect of its withdrawal will be to penalize high-performing environmental innovators like Canada and reward unsavoury suppliers like Saudi Arabia and Venezuela — with no net global environmental benefit and maybe even a loss.

After all, global demand for oil continues to grow, and that demand is sure to be met by the global supply pool, whether or not Canada is part of it. Wouldn’t it make more sense from a sustainability perspective to ensure a responsible supplier like Canada stays in the game? ...

But every story needs a counter-example. The Canadian energy sector could learn from a respected forest products company with deep roots in Quebec. Resolute Forest Products found out the hard way that Greenpeace’s public attacks on it were — in Greenpeace’s own words — not to be taken literally. 

“A funny thing happened when Greenpeace and allies were forced to account for their claims in court,” Resolute explains in a blog post. “Their condemnations of our forestry practices ‘do not hew to strict literalism or scientific precision,’ ” (they conceded in legal findings). “Their accusations against Resolute were instead ‘hyperbole,’ ‘heated rhetoric,’ and ‘non-verifiable statements of subjective opinion’ that should not be taken ‘literally’ or expose them to any legal liability.”

Now Greenpeace and other donations-driven activist groups have doubled down on targeting banks and other financial institutions until they cave and issue anti-oilsands statements. With no research, no discussion and no policy in place to help tell real sustainability issues from bogus ones, the institutions fold like so many cheap suits.

Also - isn't getting stuck in the ice an impossibility because (insert term here) has melted it all and taken the polar bears with it?:

Cranes hoist cargo onto the deck, power tools scream out and workers bustle through the maze of passageways inside the German icebreaker RV Polarstern, preparations for a yearlong voyage that organizers say is unprecedented in scale and ambition.

In a couple of months, the hulking ship will set out for the Arctic packed with supplies and scientific equipment for a mission to explore the planet’s frigid far north. The icebreaker will be the base for scientists from 17 nations studying the impact of climate change on the Arctic and how it could affect the rest of the world.

The Arctic? Like where the new Kursk has sunk?:

Russian President Vladimir Putin disclosed on Thursday for the first time that a secret military submarine hit by a fatal fire three days ago was nuclear-powered, prompting Russia’s defense minister to assure him its reactor had been safely contained.

Russian officials have faced accusations of trying to cover up the full details of the accident that killed 14 sailors as they were carrying out what the defence ministry called a survey of the sea floor near the Arctic.

Moscow’s slow release of information about the incident has drawn comparisons with the opaque way the Soviet Union handled the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear power station disaster, and another deadly submarine accident — the 2000 sinking of the nuclear-powered Kursk, which claimed 118 lives.

Russia, which says the details of the submarine involved in the latest accident are classified, said the fire took place on Monday, although it was only officially disclosed late on Tuesday.

I'm sure the Russians have this all sorted out as they did with Chernobyl and the Kursk.

Oh, wait ...


Also - this would be the same Vatican that helped leak out Doctor Zhivago and helped bring down communism in eastern Europe:

President Vladimir Putin met Pope Francis in the Vatican on Thursday, amid signs of closer ties between the Kremlin and the Roman Catholic Church.

The meeting came a day before the Pope is due to hold talks in Rome with leaders of Ukraine’s Greek-Catholic Church to discuss the conflict in that country. The Ukrainian Orthodox Church last year formally split from the Russian Orthodox Church amid tensions between Kiev and Moscow over the war in eastern Ukraine.

The Kremlin said before Putin’s visit that the meeting with Francis will focus on Syria and Ukraine. The meeting is the third between the two leaders, with the last such encounter in 2015. The head of 1.2 billion Catholics also had an historic encounter with Patriarch Kirill, leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, in Cuba in 2016. Putin will also meet Italian leaders including Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte during his one-day visit to Rome.

A "post-national state" produces "post-national" rubbish:

Under normal circumstances, a three-year planning dispute in Ottawa wouldn’t make the national news.

But when it involves the landmark Chateau Laurier hotel, the turreted jewel of the postcard landscape alongside the Parliament buildings and the Rideau Canal, the stakes get higher.

“This is going to, as it currently stands, disfigure an iconic, famous, important, beautiful scene at the heart of our capital city,” said Peter Coffman, an architectural historian and professor at Carleton University. “And I honestly can’t think of another country in the world, at least not one that I’ve ever visited, that would allow this to happen.”

The battle is over an addition to the back of the Chateau Laurier that would add 147 hotel rooms. But while the main part of the hotel, built in 1912 and expanded in 1927, is in the French chateau style — with towers and turrets and steep copper roofs — the addition is designed as a modern-style box.

Critics have variously described it as a “shipping container,” a “radiator,” and an “air-conditioning unit.”

There is much to be said about art, architecture and modern garbage.




Oh, I'm sure he is loony:

The 27-year-old man who stabbed Rev. Claude Grou during a mass at Saint Joseph's Oratory on March 22 was found not criminally responsible on Wednesday at the Montreal courthouse.

The ruling follows the conclusions of the psychiatrist who evaluated Vlad Cristian Eremia after the incident.

On the morning of the stabbing, Eremia went to mass armed with a knife with a 30-centimetre blade. He stood up from his pew, charged up to the priest and stabbed the priest twice, inflicting shallow wounds.

Eremia was quickly wrestled to the floor by security guards, and Montreal police showed up a short time later to arrest him.

Grou returned to the oratory a week after the attack, telling congregants that he had never seen the man who stabbed him before but he was open to meeting him.

"I have no resentment toward that person. On the contrary, I feel he is a person who needs help, and I'm sure he will get the help he needs, and I pray the Lord will assist him in his progress," Grou said.

Unelected judges need to be removed. 

Former Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne and her willing stooges painted Tim Hudak as a man who would fire nurses. Nurses ended up being laid off under her government, anyway:

Have you seen those full-page newspaper ads from the Ontario Nurses’ Association?

One features a wrecking ball and asserts that Premier Doug Ford is “breaking our health-care system apart with no clear idea about what comes next, leaving the hard details to everyone else to figure out. It’s a failure of leadership and an affront to the people of Ontario.” The second ad shows a beer can labelled “Health Care Lite” and claims that Ford’s priority is cheap beer in corner stores, not health care.

The union stops short of saying everyone is going to die, but you get the picture. The intent of the ad campaign is to alarm the public and persuade them to demand that Ford stop doing whatever it is the nurses don’t like. The ads are rather non-specific in that regard.

Mid-Week Post

Your mid-week spot of pleasure ...




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

In a searing letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a Conservative senator demands that “Canadians have a right to know” details of the government’s settlement with now-retired Vice-Admiral Mark Norman. 

“If you had the gall to give over $10 million to Omar Khadr . . . presumably you have paid Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, a dedicated servant of our country, even more,” writes Quebec Senator Jean-Paul Dagenais in his Canada Day missive. 

Justin can't worm his way out of the scandals he is currently mired in. He is hoping that this is the last he has heard of Vice-Admiral Mark Norman.

**

Federal Conservatives and New Democrats are accusing the Liberal government of cronyism following a media report claiming that the majority of recent judicial appointments in New Brunswick have had connections to Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc.

“Once again, the Trudeau Liberals have been caught red-handed abusing the power of their offices to reward their rich and powerful friends,” Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer said Tuesday in a statement. “When it comes to Justin Trudeau and the Liberals it has always been about who you know, not what you know.”

Canada is back ... getting the Americans to do the fighting for it:

Canadian officials have received confirmation that U.S. President Donald Trump raised the matter of the two Canadians detained by China during a weekend meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping, according to a government source.

** 

 “I would like to caution the Canadian side against being too naive,” said Geng.“First, it shouldn’t be so naive as to believe that asking its so-called ally to pressure China will work. China is a country with the rule of law and the judicial authorities handle cases independently. China’s judicial sovereignty brooks no interference. 

Added Geng, “Second, it shouldn’t be so naive as to believe that its so-called ally will earnestly pursue a Canadian agenda. They will only pay a lip service, at best. The matter is, after all, between China and Canada.”

Two things: first of all, Justin's oleaginous toadying to China has not endeared him to it because communist China, like the Borg, is a consummate user and not an ally. Secondly, China, through its pet, Geng, is warning Canada off of the US, the only country at the moment China would rather not fight if it could avoid it.

Either way, Justin looks like an enormous pansy and not an actual player on the world stage as once we were.


Also - if Canada had a leader who was clever and bold, it would simply offer its meat to any other Asian country but China.

But noooooo:

The assumption of Canadian agricultural producers is that the Chinese are behaving in a strategic fashion — blocking Canadian products in order to teach Canada a lesson over Meng but also to create space in the market for increased American imports. “That’s how the Chinese operate. I’ve always found it’s never one thing — it’s very strategic,” said the chief executive of one large Canadian exporter.

The impasse has left the Trudeau government looking more than a little sheepish. The prime minister said he raised the issue with Xi in a brief two-minute encounter at the G20 but there is “more work to do.”

No kidding.

And - yes, Britain, do as you're told:

China pressured London police to arrest Tiananmen protester, says watchdog. https://t.co/8SJ6fMyw8z

Shao, who escaped Hong Kong before its handover to China in 1997, told the Observer: “I expected so much more in a democratic country.”

— Arthur Kimes (@ComradeArthur) July 2, 2019

 

Does anyone remember how Trump's stepping into North Korea was going to change everything?:

North Korea’s mission to the United Nations accused the United States on Wednesday of being “more and more hell-bent on hostile acts” against Pyongyang, despite President Donald Trump wanting talks between the two countries.

In a statement the mission said it was responding to a U.S. accusation that Pyongyang breached a cap on refined petroleum imports and a letter that it said was sent on June 29 by the United States, France, Germany and Britain to all U.N. member states urging them to implement sanctions against North Korea. 

“What can’t be overlooked is the fact that this joint letter game was carried out by the permanent mission of the United States to the U.N. under instruction of the State Department, on the very same day when President Trump proposed for the summit meeting,” the statement said. 

Trump became the first sitting U.S. president to set foot in North Korea on Sunday when he met leader Kim Jong Un in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas. The pair agreed to resume stalled talks aimed at getting Pyongyang to give up its nuclear weapons program. 

The North Korean U.N. mission said the June 29 letter to U.N. member states “speaks to the reality that the United States is practically more and more hell-bent on the hostile acts against the DPRK, though talking about the DPRK-U.S. dialogue.”

Also - the breach occurred because Moon does not hold border security as a priority:

The government on Wednesday rejected all suspicions of a cover-up in connection with last month's undetected arrival of a North Korean boat at an east coast port, even though it acknowledged a "grave mistake" in securing the border and reprimanded top military commanders.

The government has been under fire following revelations that the military failed to detect the small wooden boat carrying four North Koreans until it traveled all the way to the port of Samcheok, about 130 kilometers away from the eastern sea border, and a civilian alerted police about it on June 15.

Fueling the criticism were allegations that the military gave an incorrect account of what happened, including saying the boat was found in the "vicinity" of the port, not at the port, sparking widespread suspicions that it tried to cover up the border security failure.

"The investigation into the case found a failure in the military's surveillance operations and a failure in appropriately informing the public of the case," Defense Minister Jeong Kyeong-doo said during a news conference to announce the results of a weekslong investigation into the case.

Then get that count, Doug:

In an interview on Global News Radio 640 Toronto on Tuesday, Ontario Premier Doug Ford stood by his government’s estimate of the backlog for autism support services, but also said the province needs to “get a handle on the exact count.”

The premier’s comments came days after The Globe and Mail reported the findings of an internal review of the government’s changes to the Ontario Autism Program, conducted by PC MPP Roman Baber.

Those findings, obtained by Global News, addressed the government’s claim that 23,000 children in Ontario are waiting for autism therapies and supports. That 23,000 figure is “unverified and is likely inaccurate,” Baber wrote in his report.

Asked on The Kelly Cutrara Show whether he stands by that number and believes it is accurate, Ford said he doesn’t believe his government spread any misinformation about the wait list, but then refrained from providing a number during the interview.

“I believe … since we’ve opened up a few more programs it’s actually going to be a little higher, but I’m not going to quantify any single number right off the top of my head,” Ford said on The Kelly Cutrara Show. “I can’t tell you the exact number.

“There seems to be numbers flying all over the place from the experts to other organizations. So we need to get a handle on the exact count.”

Were the veterans asking for two to three weeks more than what the government was willing to give?:

The long delays many veterans face when applying to the government for assistance for service-related injuries has reached a new milestone.

Former service members have long been promised that the vast majority will know within 16 weeks whether they are eligible for financial compensation or medical treatment.

But Veterans Affairs Canada says the average wait time for initial applications is now twice as long — 32 weeks — as requests for assistance outpace the department’s ability to process them.

But I thought that legalising prostitution was supposed to stop all sorts of problems:

Amsterdam’s first female mayor launched plans on Wednesday to overhaul the city’s red-light district and its window displays in a bid to protect sex workers from gawking tourists.

In what would be the most radical revamp of the sex trade there since the Netherlands legalized prostitution nearly two decades ago, Femke Halsema suggested stopping the practice of sex workers standing on display in window-fronted rooms entirely.

She said changes were needed because of social shifts, including the rise of human trafficking and an increase in the number of tourists visiting the district and using their phones to take and post pictures of the women.

Two women engineered the death of an innocent third-party. Watch the usual suspects freak out:

An Alabama district attorney said Wednesday she is dropping the manslaughter charge against a woman who lost her fetus when she was shot during a fight.

Marshae Jones was arrested last week after a grand jury concluded she intentionally caused the death of her fetus by initiating a fight, knowing she was pregnant.

Jones was five months pregnant when 23-year-old Ebony Jemison shot her in the stomach during a December argument over the fetus’ father, authorities said.

Jemison was initially charged with manslaughter, but a Jefferson County grand jury declined to indict her after police said an investigation determined Jones started the fight, and Jemison ultimately fired in self-defense. Jones, 28, was indicted by the same grand jury and arrested.

What the Taliban destroyed, someone must repair:

Hundreds of items were brought to Kabul from Hadda decades ago, but many of them were systematically smashed by the Taliban in the first months of 2001. Members of the museum staff surreptitiously collected and stored the fragments, but they sat untouched for years in the museum’s basement. Three years ago, a team of foreign and Afghan experts began working to restore them.

A Tyranny That Can Never Be Trusted

It cannot be said enough yet people refuse to hear it:

Hong Kong on Tuesday began picking up after historic protests left the legislature ransacked, the streets littered with spent tear gas canisters and the city’s Beijing-backed leader promising to push back against further unrest. ...

Lam’s government sparked the worst political crisis since the 1997 handover because of her decision to push legislation that would for the first time allow extraditions to China, a move that alarmed both locals and multinational companies. The clashes have embarrassed the central government in Beijing, which continues to back Lam’s administration.

China referred to protesters at the legislature as “extremists” and said it supported Hong Kong in punishing anyone responsible for the damage, the official Xinhua News Agency reported, citing a spokesman from the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office of the State Council.

The people of Hong Kong were finished with the handover. As valiant as the protesters may be, they will be as the Tienanmen protesters - people at the mercy of a dictatorial government no country in the world will counter because too much money rests with it.


Also - South Korea under Moon is more antagonistic to Japan than it is to a country that still threatens it:

Moon has repeated Seoul's two-track approach of separating key cooperation issues from the historical issue, while Foreign Minister Kang Kyung-wha publicly stated Seoul's "clear will" to enhance relations with Japan.

But analysts called for more "preemptive and proactive" efforts to restore ties with Japan through the "careful and pragmatic" examination of its foreign policy tendencies. 

Since retaking power in late 2012, Abe has appeared keen to advance his conservative, nationalist agenda, as the county has been striving to restore its national pride hurt in part by social anxiety from repeated natural disasters and the rise of its neighbors such as China, which overtook it as the world's second-largest economy in 2010.

"Rather than being just preoccupied with inter-Korean relations and the peace process involving the North and the U.S., Seoul needs to take an active approach to prevent the relations with Tokyo from further worsening," said Chun of Seoul National University.

There are plenty of opportunities to heal the rifts of the past. With China and its vassal state looming large, now is not the time.


And - what are you? Trudeau?:

President Moon Jae-in said Tuesday that North Korea and the United States have effectively declared an end to their hostile relations with the symbolic weekend meeting between their leaders at the inter-Korean border.

Although they did not sign any document, their action was tantamount to a "de facto declaration of an end to hostile relations and the beginning of a full-fledged peace era," Moon stressed, speaking at a Cabinet meeting.

He was referring to a meeting between U.S. President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un at the truce village of Panmunjom in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) on Sunday.

Was It Something He Did?

I guess so:

In 2015, the Trudeau Liberals won the most among Indigenous Canadians, pulling in 41% of the vote.

Now, they’ve fallen to 24%.


That 17 point drop represents a serious collapse in their support.

The Conservatives and NDP now lead the Liberals among Indigenous Canadians, with 26% each.


The Greens are at 16%.

Indigenous Canadians also rate Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer as the best choice for PM, with 20% picking him. Trudeau is at 19%, within the margin of error.


Additionally, 46% of Indigenous Canadians say they are ‘very angry’ with how Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott were treated.

And when it comes to whether Trudeau has helped improve living conditions for Indigenous People, just 25% of Indigenous respondents give him good marks on that, with the vast majority saying he’s done a poor job.

I won't pick sides. I'll let them fight it out.

It's Just a Fuel Source

Why don't they do this in the dead of winter?:

Canada’s natural gas industry is now being targeted by the ‘Global Energy Monitor.’

The international group is claiming that North America’s natural gas boom is “on a collision course” with the Paris Accord, according to a report by the CP.

The group says natural gas supply needs to be slashed by 15% by 2030. By 2050, they’re calling for a whopping 43% cut.

From the Most "Transparent" Government in the Country's History

It's like they can't help themselves:

Five of the six most recent judicial appointments in New Brunswick have strong connections to the federal Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and Northern Affairs and Internal Trade Dominic LeBlanc, raising questions of favouritism and political patronage.

The connections to LeBlanc, MP for the New Brunswick riding of Beauséjour, come despite promises by the federal Liberals to appoint the “most meritorious jurists” to judicial vacancies.

The appointments include the wife of LeBlanc’s brother-in-law and prominent donors to both the Liberal Party and the federal Liberal association for LeBlanc’s riding.

The Horrible Problem of Emptiness

Exemplified right here:

Look at the PM’s insipid Canada Day statement. After barbecue and outdoor clichés, he said “This year, we have a lot to celebrate. In the last four years, Canadians have created more than a million new jobs. The unemployment rate is at its lowest since the 1970s. And across the country, 825,000 Canadians have been lifted out of poverty.” So Trump isn’t the only leader who can’t tell a party political broadcast from a national celebration. (Even the Liberal-friendly Toronto Star called his actual spoken Canada Day remarks “a campaign-style speech”.)"

Yes, about that unemployment and poverty thing:

The unemployment rate is also supposedly at a record low of 5.4%. Again however, that is because 76,000 people simply gave up looking for work, and are no longer considered unemployed under the current system.

BNN also points out “The composition of the gains was not particularly robust, reflecting an increase of 61,500 among self-employed. The number of “employees’ in the economy actually declined.”

That ‘self-employed’ number is very important to look at.

In today’s economy, we are increasingly see people losing secure jobs with benefits, while then becoming self-employed in far more precarious positions. So, while there may technically be some jobs being created, the quality of those jobs is often worse, and leaves people far more vulnerable.

**

But a closer look at the numbers revealed that the country gained 82,000 less desirable, part-time positions last month — and it lost 28,000 full-time jobs. The public sector made the biggest contribution to the July increase with 49,600 new jobs, while the private sector added 5,200 positions.

But I digress ...

In a statement the immigration minister praised immigration and diversity and how “With the protection of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, people of every race, religion, sexual orientation, gender identity and cultural background share in the pride of being Canadian.” (This message is brought to you by the Liberal Party of Canada, which forgot there were other parties.) And the environment minister followed her own barbecue cliché with a relativistic “we each mark Canada Day in our own way,” before remembering to urge “more Canadians — particularly newcomers to our country — to experience the outdoors” then praising “diversity” (except the kind where you stay inside) “compassion and hard work.” Boooring.

You can say that again.

The PM served up even more burble. “We’re an example to the world because of the way we treat each other. Canadians are neighbours helping neighbours, ...

Yes, about that:

In total, 20.4% of Canadians claimed at least one charitable donation on their tax return in 2016 (the latest year of available data), down from 24.6% of tax-filers in 2006. In fact, if one quarter of tax-filers had donated in 2016, the number of Canadians who made charitable donations would have increased by more than one million people.

Canadians are also donating a smaller share of their income. Collectively, Canadians contributed 0.53% of their household income to registered charities in 2016 — the lowest percentage since 2006 — compared to 0.78% 10 years earlier, indicating that donations as a share of income declined by 32%.

With smaller donations by fewer tax-filers, the result has been a decline in the total dollar value for charitable giving in Canada.

**

... small businesses lifting communities up, ...

Ahem:

Capital flows dropped for a second year, and are down by more than half since 2015. The investment that did take place was from reinvested earnings of existing operations. Net foreign purchases of Canadian businesses turned negative for the first time in a decade, which means that foreign companies sold more Canadian businesses than they bought.

**

... and men and women in uniform keeping us safe. 

We’re families opening hearts and homes to newcomers in need — and friends who might as well be family.” 

Again:

A city committee will be asked Wednesday to approve six contracts valued at $108 million to house refugee claimants for the next year.

Those contracts, on the agenda of the economic and community development committee, will provide 800 hotel rooms in Toronto, Brampton, Newmarket and Pickering from July 1, if needed, according to shelter, support and housing spokesman Greg Seraganian.

That doesn’t include the $24 million already spent to house and feed those in the Radisson Toronto East ($13 million), the Toronto Plaza hotel ($9-million) and the Comfort Hotel Airport North ($2 million) over the past six months.

**
 

“Not everyone benefits equally from Canada’s success. We need to change that …That means supporting Canada’s workers, creating more opportunity, and growing the middle class. And it means fighting climate change …”

Why does this sound familiar?

Oh, yes:

Middle-class shrinkage was sharper in Canada than the OECD average.

One could carry on with the omissions, half-truths and outright lies but the biggest fault in this boring campaign speech is the total lack of substance and meaning in it.


Further:

The problem isn’t just saccharine partisan vacuity. It’s a much deeper vacuity. Gibbons suggested we’re not feeling the burn because “Our country is being pushed around … We have become a global punching bag” for “the world’s bullies” and “We just don’t seem to have the backbone to fight back anymore.” Which is true. But, I think, this geopolitical fecklessness is just a symptom, albeit serious, of a revolt of the elites, political, cultural and academic who don’t think our heritage and culture worth fighting for.

There is one problem with this bloated bag of air that was meant to be a rousing and contemplative oration.

When the Fathers of Confederation were finalising the union that would become Canada, it wasn't simply that they knew who they weren't. Many believed that they were British subjects and many still felt that way one hundred years after the BNA Act was signed. By 1867, people already had an idea of who they were - a nation too new to have the Old World pretensions and affectations. Canada was a place where one could not only start anew but be it - be a self-made citizen in a land that allowed it.

Compare that with Justin contempt and ignorance of the post-modern Canadian citizen:

When Trudeau told an American publication Canada has “no core identity” and “is the world’s first post-national state” he wasn’t sorry. He was boasting. We finally dumped Harper the evil troll, Duplessis and the Grande Noirceur, and our racist, sexist, homophobic, individualist past. ...

How does one feel proud when one is told that he or she is nothing but a blank slate and a product of a poor past only to contradict that with equally empty leftist and accusatory platitudes?:

Compare the PM’s spontaneous joy at a Pride parade with his stilted Canada Day prose and you know his heart is in transvaluing not celebrating, in remaking Canada not making it an even better version of what it always was. And it’s hard to get enthusiastic about “We stink and always have, but if we’re worthy of Justin we might be redeemed.”

Redeemed? Into what?

Or does Justin mean one should be in his good estimation?

Of him?

Nope.


Also:

You should all feel free to think whatever you will about Justin Trudeau and his record — love, hate, indifference, whatever. But it is really, really weird for the Star’s editorialists to say that the prime minister needs to stand up and demonstrate that he has those key qualities after he’s already been in office almost four years. How long does the guy have to be in office before the Star’s ed board concludes that what we’ve all seen is basically what we’re going to get?

I believe it is more like distancing themselves from Justin. After stepping up to bat for someone as useless as he is, even the editors for the Toronto Star can't lie and omit enough to cover that.