No, Point Your Finger This Way

Human rights commissions are legalised vendetta systems, not means by which one may accurately place blame on poor literacy levels:

Troubling statistics around literacy rates among Ontario elementary school students have prompted a public inquiry into issues affecting those with reading disabilities, the province's human rights watchdog announced Thursday.

The Ontario Human Rights Commission said data from the province's Education Quality and Accountability Office suggest an alarming number of students are falling short of reading standards in elementary school, setting them up for lifelong struggles.

The Commission said Ontario's curriculum is based on outdated science and fails to properly support disabled students, which in turn deprives them of a fundamental skill.

"Learning to read is not a frill, it is not a privilege," chief commissioner Renu Mandhane said at a news conference. "It is a basic and essential skill. Learning to read is a human right."

Ontario Ministry of Education spokeswoman Alexandra Adamo said the government would review the inquiry's recommendations thoroughly, but did not respond to the commission's comments on the state of the provincial curriculum. 

Mandhane said the most recent data from the EQAO indicate 25 per cent of Ontario's Grade 3 students were falling short of provincial reading standards. For students with disabilities, the number soared to 53 per cent. EQAO data indicate those numbers have been relatively static since 2016.

Students struggling to read are more likely to fall behind academically, fail to graduate or drop out altogether, Mandhane said. She said those with reading disabilities are also over-represented in the homeless population and the justice system.

What are the parents doing? What are the well-compensated teachers doing? There are more bureaucrats than there are specially-trained educators who can deal with those with disabilities. Why?

Let's start there.

We May Never Know Their Motives

Or - to put it another way - we know their motives but won't talk about them:

Evidence that the Paris police department missed warning signs about an employee who slashed four colleagues to death at its headquarters on Thursday is prompting demands for a leadership shake-up. ...

The killer, shot to death during the rampage, was identified by the prosecutor only as Mickaël H., but the French news media said he was Mickaël Harpon, born in the French West Indies department of Martinique.

He was a longtime convert to Islam, not a recent one as officials had said in the aftermath of the killings, and was an assiduous attendee of his local mosque, going to morning and evening prayers. A radical imam who was nearly expelled from France officiated there, a police union official said Friday.

**

A Crown prosecutor says a man accused of stabbing a police officer and striking four pedestrians with a cube van two years ago wanted to kill them.

Elizabeth Wheaton delivered an opening statement Wednesday to a Court of Queen's Bench jury at the start of a trial in Edmonton for Abdulahi Hasan Sharif.

Sharif, 32, has pleaded not guilty to 11 charges, which include five courts of attempted murder. He is also charged with aggravated assault against the police officer and dangerous driving.

Sharif, who now has dreadlocks, sat in the prisoner's box wearing an orange jumpsuit.

"Once you have heard the evidence, it's the Crown position that you will be convinced beyond a reasonable doubt that Abdulahi Sharif wanted to kill people," Wheaton told the jury.

"He tried first to murder Const. (Mike) Chernyk and then, during an extremely dangerous driving pattern, he fled from police causing bodily harm to four strangers. It is the Crown's position that he intentionally tried to kill these people by hitting them."

Chernyk was on duty outside a Canadian Football League game when he was struck by a vehicle around 8 p.m. on Sept. 30, 2017.

"He noticed headlights coming toward him," said Wheaton. "He heard the sound of a vehicle accelerating. He tried to move out of the way, but it was too late. The vehicle plowed into him."

A number of bystanders came to his aid.

"Suddenly the driver of that vehicle was there — a black male in dark clothing with a knife," said Wheaton. "He was trying to stab Const. Chernyk in the head with that knife. The bystanders saw the knife and they fled, fearing for their lives."

The officer was left alone and fought for his life, she said. With the man on top of him, Chernyk knew he was being stabbed and tried to grab the attacker's hand.

"But suddenly he could feel the attacker's other hand trying to get to his gun in his holster.

"With one hand still holding off the attack with the knife, he used his other hand and he pushed as hard as he could on that (gun) to keep it safe," she said. "Eventually he was able to roll over and get the other hand.

"His attacker lost the knife and the two got up. Const. Chernyk's attacker then fled into the night."

Wheaton said evidence will show that Sharif was the registered owner of the white Chevrolet Malibu than ran into Chernyk.

Were They Asking for Too Much, Too?

That did not age well:

First Nations chiefs are expressing outrage and disappointment at the federal government’s decision to appeal a Canadian Human Rights Tribunal ruling ordering Ottawa to pay billions of dollars in compensation to First Nations children and their families separated by a chronically underfunded child-welfare system.

Watch this squabble go pear-shaped. Don't take sides.


However:

According an Environics poll, Liberal support among Indigenous Canadians has plummeted from 41% to 21%.

Meanwhile, the Conservatives have 26%, the NDP have 17%, and the Greens have 16%.

Notably, the Conservatives are up from 15% support in the last election.

Because It's An Election Year

Watch the double standards turn into triple standards.




Given the sleaze, hypocrisy and corruption, this does not surprise me:

Jaime Battiste, who is running for the Liberals in the riding of Sydney-Victoria, issued an apology earlier this week after the Toronto Sun shared past racist and sexist remarks he had made on social media. 

Battiste told the newspaper the posts were crude jokes he made at a different time in his life, but that he now realizes they were offensive.

(Sidebar: I bet he does.)


But everyone else should turf their candidates:

The Conservative Party of Canada has dropped a Burnaby candidate over controversial comments that LGBTQ2 people “recruit” kids and her support for conversion therapy.

In a statement Friday night, the party said Heather Leung will no longer represent the riding of Burnaby North-Seymour, citing media reports about the offensive comments captured in a 2011 video taken by Burnaby local newspaper Burnaby Now. 

(Sidebar: I'll just leave this right here.)

**

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is brushing aside demands from the Greens that his party apologize for social-media posts that Green candidates hold anti-abortion positions.

So what if they have pro-life opinions? So what if prospective voters share those opinions? So what if May doesn't mimic Soy-Boy Justin who thinks that abortion is the issue in this election and not the fact that he is useless sack of lying racist crap and won't force her members to vote on this issue as she might wish?

(Sidebar: do note that every single "man" who supports abortion is an awful, effeminate, virtue-signalling, irresponsible piece of excrement who defends this ghastly practice just so he can traipse into pro-abortion harridans' underthings. I don't blame one if one wishes to never, ever picture that entire spectacle. This block of tofu should be treated like a pariah and excluded from normal society.)




For me but not at all for thee:

Liberal leader Justin Trudeau is defending his two campaign planes this morning after Conservative leader Andrew Scheer called him a climate hypocrite last night for his carbon-heavy leader’s tour.

But everyone else has to stop eating steak.




Behold! The art of deflection:

After all the times Trudeau has brought up Ford’s name on the campaign trail, Canadians could be forgiven for thinking Ford is on the ballot on election day.

Yet, Ford isn’t running in the federal campaign, he’s busy running Ontario and trying to clean up from the mess left by the Wynne Liberals.

Still, Trudeau just can’t stop talking about Doug.

**

Federal Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau has a clear message for Ontarians: Don’t vote for Conservative Andrew Scheer because that would be “doubling down’ on Ontario Premier Doug Ford. Ford and Scheer, you see, are so similar that it’s difficult to tell them apart.

As much as Trudeau might like people to believe that, it would be tough to find two Conservative politicians more different than Scheer and Ford. Even during an election campaign, when truth typically takes a holiday, the Scheer-is-just-like-Ford argument is laughably off base. It has novelty value, though. It’s not every day that you see a prime minister build his re-election campaign around attacking a premier’s record.

**

Global News has been tracking how many times at official events and media availabilities each of the two front runners reference the other — or others entirely.

That does not include photo ops, whistlestops or unscheduled remarks.

Those records show Trudeau has referenced Harper (in English) at speeches and campaign stops a total of 62 times so far over the last 21 days.

In comparison, he has mentioned Scheer just 40 times — the same number of times Trudeau has mentioned Ontario Premier Doug Ford.

**

In terms of actual impact, that is the same as what Andrew Scheer has been saying, with Scheer calling himself ‘pro-life,’ while also noting that he would not support any measure restricting abortion, and would indeed vote against any such measure.

It’s the exact same thing the Conservatives did during their near decade in power, as abortion laws in Canada remain unchanged, even when the Conservatives had a majority.


Yet, when a CBC reporter speaking with Barton pointed out the similarity in Trudeau’s position and Scheer’s position, Barton inexplicably used talking points identical to what the Liberals say, defended Trudeau, and cast doubts on Scheer.

Meanwhile, everyone is saying and promising XYZ because that is the usual thing done during an election:

Bernier — the real one — has gotten most of his attention lately for his controversial statements: saying he’s against “mass immigration,” claiming there’s no scientific consensus on climate change and calling teenage activist Greta Thunberg “mentally unstable.”

But in the Beauce, where Bernier was born and raised, these are not the positions that will win or lose him the election. The fact that Bernier launched his own right-wing populist party is of secondary importance here.

What matters in the Beauce, it seems, is whether Bernier is still one of them, whether he really is defending “Beauceronnes” values, as his campaign signs proclaim. He has almost certainly lost the vote of the region’s dairy farmers, who benefit from the supply management system Bernier has promised to dismantle. He will have to make do with what’s left.

The People’s Party is currently polling nation-wide at less than three per cent. It remains a long shot to win any seat other than Bernier’s, and his is far from a sure thing. Though Bernier insists his party is here to stay, its future may now rest in the hands of 90,000 Beaucerons, who are deciding who the real Maxime Bernier really is.

**

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer is promising to expand a program giving volunteer search and rescue workers and firefighters tax credits for their supplies.

Glass Houses

(SEE: live, throw, stones, people)


The federal election is two weeks away and the smell of desperation hangs in the air like a filthy shirt.


Andrew Scheer holds dual citizenship with both Canada and the United States:

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer says he never spoke publicly about being a dual Canadian-United States citizen because no one ever asked him.

Even when his colleagues were attacking politicians from other parties for their dual citizenships, he stayed silent.

The Globe and Mail first reported Thursday that the Tory leader’s father was born in the U.S. and therefore Scheer and his sisters received American citizenship as a result.

Scheer said he let his passport expire and met U.S. consular officials in August to begin the paperwork to renounce his American citizenship.

Before one can say "Yankee Doodle Dandy" and declare that Scheer dodged the draft that was abolished in 1973, one has to wonder why this issue was raised in the first place.

I'm sure many people were not aware of Scheer's citizenship (or cared). As election tactics go, it doesn't have as much traction as the Liberals want. Many people have dual citizenship these days and the knee-jerk anti-Americanism used to define Canadian identity has waned for the moment in lieu of more pressing economic matters.

It's rather farcical given that Scheer, for all of his fault and failings, has never once declared that he admires China's dictatorship or called Canada a "post-national state". He certainly hasn't repealed a law that would have revoked citizenship of terrorists who returned to Canada.

Indeed, this factoid about Scheer wasn't even brought to light as a serious discussion on whether one who has dual citizenship can be the prime minister of Canada.

It's a ploy as transparent and sleazy as any other from a party that knows it can't win on its poor record and stands in the shadow of some rather (as of right now, rumoured) unsavory bits and associations.

Given that, Scheer's omission seems like nothing.

Mid-Week Post

What a merry, blustery fall we have ...




Please help if you can.




You bet your @$$ he would:

If Trudeau earns a minority parliament in this election he’ll need the support of parties — NDP, Green or Bloc — that could well make the price of their support an end to the now government-owned, ready-to-be-built TMX pipeline. The NDP have been especially clear about that position.

It is hard to imagine anything that could be more destructive to Canada’s energy sector than the kind of bargain Trudeau might be tempted to make to hold on to power. What is much worse is what it would do to national unity.

Unsuited for the position in the first place and with no accomplishments to his name, Justin is fighting for his political life. He says one thing to please some masses, is deliberately light on details and ignores questions outright. Whatever he can't avoid, he attacks.

A completed pipeline free of further regulations is simply not going to happen while Justin is in office. There is no evidence he is going to get it built. By promising, he appeases those who wait in vain. By not getting it built, he holds off the American anti-oil interests. He is looking at a minority government at best later on this month. Will he sacrifice anything, even a pipeline, in a power-sharing scheme with another party?

To hang on to his pension, you bet he would.


Also - for one thing, Harper never lied about not being in blackface nor did he grope a woman.

So there's that:

But, fiscal conservatives that they were, they also said they were doing so strictly on a temporary basis. And they were true to their word. Within five years the $56-billion deficit was down to $0.6 billion — basically gone, as Harper and Flaherty had said it would be. That did involve “cuts.” 

Program expenditures actually fell in one year, which is more or less unheard of in Ottawa. But that “cut” of roughly $5 billion came after an increase of $32 billion the previous year, so it doesn’t really count.

What we observed post-Crash from the Harper government was purposeful rapid expansion of the deficit to deal with an economic emergency, followed by purposeful, adult control over spending to make sure the deficit did promptly come to heel.

Compare that to the fiscal record following 2015. A new government said it would run a modest deficit — $10 billion — to deal with what turned out to be a slight economic slowdown in the summer of 2015 but would then return to budgetary balance after the “emergency” was over. Once in office, however, it increased the deficit to well beyond $10 billion and it has now decided its fiscal anchor will be, not budget balance, but the debt-to-GDP ratio, which its election platform shows falling very slowly, from 30.9 per cent next fiscal year to 30.2 per cent in 2023-24.

Justin Trudeau said over the weekend that the Conservatives want to balance the budget “on the backs” of social services. Never mind that social services don’t have backs. I can’t speak for Scheer Conservatives but traditional conservatives believe that if a generation wants public services, it should pay for them, and not put off financing them onto the backs of their children.

And - cut the b@$#@rds off:

Canadian taxpayers sent $7.1 million to China in foreign aid last year. The Trudeau Liberals also sent $5 million to North Korea, $4 million to Iran and even Putin’s Russia got $200,000.

None of those countries are democratic, all are run by dictators and none have values in line with Canada. So why are we funding them?

For that matter, why are we funding countries like Italy? Yes, we are giving foreign-aid money to a wealthy member of the European Union.

Under a plan announced by Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer on Tuesday, that kind of foreign aid would be cut. Scheer promised a 25% cut to foreign-aid funding that would see high-income countries and dictatorships get the boot.

“Canadians now can see the choice between sending more of their hard earned tax dollars to countries that rank relatively high on the development index — countries like Italy, like Brazil, like Turkey, and hostile governments like Iran,” Scheer said.

If you find it hard to believe that we are funding some of these countries, here are the numbers from the government’s own figures for last year: Mexico, $6.8 million; Turkey, $4.5 million; Brazil, $4.3 million; and Argentina, $2.1 million.

Why on earth would Canada fund any of these countries with foreign-aid money? They are wealthy trading partners, not countries with the basic needs of their citizens not being met.

Scheer’s plan was denounced by Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau as not doing enough for climate change. I’m not sure what giving millions to rich countries like Italy and Mexico — or dictatorships like China and Iran — has to do with climate change.

A lot of things aren't germane to this election but that has never stopped PM Blackface:

Trudeau’s non-stop invocation of Ford’s name isn’t about peeling away disgruntled Conservative voters, it’s about scaring people that might cast a ballot for the NDP or Greens. Ford voters are still backing Scheer — the question is what happens on the progressive side of the aisle.

Also - go ahead, unions. Strike. Do it in an election year when belts are tightened and nerves are frayed. I dare you. Let's see who sympathises with you when hallways are littered with rubbish and parents can't find baby-sitters for their kids who will have triple the workload when this street theatre ends:

The union representing 55,000 education workers across the province says it is preparing to go on strike Monday.

CUPE Ontario president Fred Hahn said they are in conversation with other education unions and ideally teachers would not cross their picket lines.

“We’re going to talk to them and figure that out,” Hahn said Wednesday.

When is a gun a gun or a gun not a gun?:

During a press conference, Justin Trudeau was asked to explain the difference between the rifles he plans to ban, and the rifles he doesn’t.

Also:

The main argument against a national ban is that it would not interrupt the flow of guns that are actually responsible for the shootings in our major cities. Those would continue to come in, as ever, over our undefended land border with the United States, a country absolutely awash in guns. A national ban would simply inconvenience and anger, at considerable public expense, a bunch of law-abiding Canadians.

Just in in time for Halloween:

Norman seamen who ventured out to sea on Halloween "were said to have the 'double sight,' that is, each one beheld a living likeness of himself seated in close contact, and if he was engaged in any work, the phantom was doing the same."

Beef

It's the healthy choice for dinner:

New guidelines certain to be celebrated by enthusiasts of the carnivore diet and denounced by others as nutritional heresy recommend most adults shouldn’t worry about eating less red or processed meat.

The recommendations — which conflict with virtually every other in existence, including the latest iteration of Canada’s food guide — are based on studies involving millions of people. The authors found lowering red or processed meat consumption had little, and often-trivial effects in reducing the absolute risk for cardiovascular disease, stroke, heart attack, cancer, diabetes or death from any cause.

Researchers at Dalhousie and McMaster universities led the panel of international scientists. On the basis of four systematic reviews assessing the risks of red and processed meat, “we suggest that individuals continue their current consumption,” the authors write in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

“We cannot say with any certainty that eating red or processed meat causes cancer, diabetes or heart disease,” said Dr. Bradley Johnston, an associate professor of community health and epidemiology at Dalhousie, and lead author of the recommendations.

“This is not just another study of red and processed meat,” he said in a statement, “but a series of high quality systematic reviews resulting in recommendations we think are far more transparent, robust and reliable.”

There Is Simply No Reason to Preserve a Communist State

None:

The Chinese Communist Party plans Tuesday to put on the largest military parade in the 70-year history of the People’s Republic of China, wheeling out new hardware designed to show the country’s advances under the leadership of Xi Jinping.

The party is marking the 70th anniversary of its establishment of the state, an important milestone because the PRC has now outlasted the Soviet Union, which endured for 69 years.

This "glorious" Chinese state:

Hong Kong protesters planned a fresh round of disruption on Wednesday after violent clashes led police to shoot a demonstrator for the first time since the unrest began in June.

Simultaneous rallies against Beijing’s increasing grip raged across the financial hub on Tuesday hours after President Xi Jinping oversaw celebrations marking 70 years of Communist rule in China. Cable TV reported that the man shot in Hong Kong had the bullet removed in operation and is expected to survive even though he remains in critical condition.

**

Myriad other abuses of the Chinese people by the party-state have occurred, including:

• A World Bank study concluded that pollution in China was causing about 750,000 preventable deaths a year. Greenhouse gases from industrial coal-burning across the country wreak environmental havoc well beyond its borders. Nearly half a billion Chinese citizens cannot access safe drinking water.
• Bloomberg News reported that the highest echelons of the Communist Party have amassed unimaginable wealth and that in 2012 Xi Jinping’s family alone was ‘’worth’’ several hundred million dollars.
• Over two decades, the regime has been directing a vast network organ-harvesting from prisoners of conscience — primarily Falun Gong –– since 2001, but also from Tibetans, Christians and Muslim Uyghurs. By some estimates, two million Uyghurs confined to camps have all been blood-tested, as is necessary for organ transplant purposes.

But that hasn't stopped the Communist Liberal Party sending their defense minister for some grade-A slobbering:

Canada’s defence minister has drawn criticism for his recent appearance at a reception in Vancouver during which he stood on stage alongside the Chinese consul-general.

The gala event Sept. 22 at a restaurant in Chinatown was organized by the Chinese Benevolent Association of Vancouver, an umbrella organization for dozens of business and cultural associations, to celebrate the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China.

Besides Sajjan, other attendees included Tong Xiaoling, the Chinese consul-general in Vancouver, and her deputies, as well as Bruce Ralston, B.C.’s minister of jobs, trade and technology, and George Chow, the B.C. minister of state for trade.

Don't consider. Do:

  
“The discussion is in its preliminary stages and nothing has been decided, the source said. There’s also no time frame for their implementation, the source added. This discussion includes blocking all U.S. investment in Chinese companies, the source told CNBC. 

Restricting investments in Chinese entities would be meant to protect U.S. investors from excessive risk due to lack of regulatory supervision, the source said.”

How is that Singapore thing working out?:

North Korea fired a ballistic missile toward the sea Wednesday, South Korea's military said, in a display of its expanding military capabilities hours after saying it would resume nuclear diplomacy with the United States this weekend.

And I thought that they wanted to talk.




Sour grapes?:

In his first public comments since leaving the White House, John Bolton, the former national security adviser, delivered a stark warning Monday about President Donald Trump’s approach to North Korea, undercutting the president’s insistence that its leader, Kim Jong Un, wanted to make a denuclearization deal with him.

Without mentioning Trump by name, Bolton said he wanted to “speak in unvarnished terms about the threat posed by North Korea,” and made it clear that he thought the president’s outreach to Kim had benefited only one side. And while Trump has made a deal with Kim one of his signature foreign policy goals, Bolton asserted that there had been no gains with his approach.

“The strategic decision Kim Jong Un is operating through is that he will do whatever he can to keep a deliverable nuclear weapons capability and to develop and enhance it further,” Bolton said during an appearance at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. “Under current circumstances, he will never give up the nuclear weapons voluntarily.”

How true that it is.

Kim benefits himself and only himself.

What Could Go Wrong?

A jury of seven women and seven men will hear evidence in the trial of a man accused of trying to kill an Edmonton police officer.

(Sidebar: fourteen?)

Two years ago, Abdulahi Hasan Sharif is alleged to have run down Const. Mike Chernyk with a vehicle before stabbing him outside Commonwealth Stadium. He’s also accused of using a U-Haul to run down four other people that night, Sept. 30, 2017.

We Don't Tear Gas Antifa Enough

 

Seriously:

Police are investigating after an elderly woman using a walker was stopped from an event featuring Maxime Bernier by protesters shouting, “Nazi scum, off our streets.”

In a video widely circulating, the white-haired woman is walking over a crossing toward Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ont., on Sunday when her way is barred by three masked protesters. The protesters continually shout at the woman and her elderly male companion.

It's An Election Year!

Twenty more days before Canadians sign over their future and things are just getting more stupid.


Cases in point:

Justin has finally accepted that he is too stupid and too corrupt to answer a straight question so now he has taken to outright ignoring them:

Justin Trudeau doesn't even bother pretending to answer questions from reporters anymore - now he's flat-out ignoring them. #NotAsAdvertised pic.twitter.com/RwmF3jqax5

— Simon Jefferies (@sjefferies73) October 1, 2019

 

Is that better than just arresting reporters?




Rich people (rather like Justin and the people for whom he gives enormous tax breaks) don't understand money as people who have to worry about it their whole lives do:

The Liberals released their costed platform on Sunday, and it comes with big promises — and big spending. The party plans to run a $27.4 billion deficit in 2020-21, and then follow it up with deficits of $23.7 billion, $21.8 billion, and $21 billion in the following years. The Liberals do not have a plan to balance the budget; instead they are focusing on the debt-to-GDP ratio. In their platform the ratio is forecast to decline very slowly from 30.9 per cent in 2020-21 to 30.2 per cent in 2023-24. The platform adds a total of $31.5 billion in new debt over the four years. Here are the ten most expensive promises outlined in the Liberal platform (costs are over four years).

**

While the government was projected to run a deficit of $11.2 billion in the 2023-2024 fiscal year, the Liberals are now saying the deficit will be $21 billion under their new spending plans.

Debt will rise by $31 billion in the next four years – if the Liberal plans are put into effect.

Andy has veered from Justin's bottomless wallet approach to foreign aid:

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer says he will cut foreign aid by 25%.

That would amount to a $1.5 billion reduction in foreign aid spending, bringing it from $6 billion to $4.5 billion.

Scheer has also said $700 million in foreign aid will be shifted away from wealthier countries, towards children in warzones.

Currently, Canadian foreign aid is going to countries with a high income level, including many countries that are deeply corrupt.

It sounds sensible, if true, because throwing money at the likes of the late Mugabe is just like banning handguns when you know damn well that only criminals have them and they don't care who knows it.



Andy also wants to put money into infrastructure in hopes that by doing so commute times to work will be reduced:

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer is promising to prioritize infrastructure spending on projects intended to cut commuting times as part of a wider pledge to reshape how the federal government doles out billions annually for roads, bridges, highways, and transit systems.

Sure. Whatever.




Why not just refund every single legitimate refugee and immigrant who has had to pay all legal fees and undergo physical examinations and prove their worth to remain in the country?

You know - while you're at it:

The Liberals are promising to eliminate the application fee for Canadian citizenship, removing what some immigrant advocates have called a key barrier for many newcomers.

Tucked in the party's platform released Sunday is a promise to make the path to citizenship "more affordable." The estimated cost is $400 million over four years.

"Becoming a citizen allows new immigrants to fully participate in Canadian society and the process of granting citizenship is a government service, not something that should be paid for with a user fee," the platform reads. "To make citizenship more affordable, we will make the application process free for those who have fulfilled the requirements needed to obtain it."

The processing fee is now $530, which was hiked from $100 by the previous Conservative government. There is also a $100 "right of citizenship" fee.

Cost is considered a hurdle for many newcomers hoping to become Canadian citizens, especially low-income refugee families.

(Sidebar: they could always leave.)

The Liberals need to be turfed from Canada and Canadian consciousness.




What was it? Was it the blackface? Was it taxing Netflix?:

A new Nanos poll shows the Liberals losing a tonne of support among young Canadians.

The poll follows both the release of the Liberal platform, and Justin Trudeau’s meeting with Greta Thunberg.

Among Canadians age 18-29, Liberals support dropped from 35% to 24.

That support went to the undecided category, and in small numbers to the Conservatives, Greens, and PPC. Jagmeet Singh’s support among young Canadians stayed basically the same.

Also - well, these didn't age well:

In the wake of Justin Trudeau’s blackface scandal, his comments in a recent lawsuit give an illuminating insight into how the prime minister thinks about racism.

In August 2018, Trudeau made headlines when he called out a woman for “intolerance” and “racism” after she heckled him at a rally in Quebec and asked him about “illegal immigrants.”

That incident led to an ongoing lawsuit that has received little public attention since it was filed by the heckler last December. In July, Trudeau was questioned in Montreal as part of the lawsuit.

**

During the announcement, Trudeau took aim at Ford by saying, “Education matters to young people across the country, of course, but it’s especially top of mind here in Ontario, as Doug Ford slashes education funding and makes it near impossible to pay for tuition.”

Among the measures announced by Trudeau, one would allow new parents to take an interest-free break from paying off student loans until their youngest child turns five. Mississauga’s University of Toronto campus served as the backdrop for Trudeau’s announcement, an image intended to highlight the contrast between Trudeau’s policies and Ford’s.

Education costs money, @$$hole. As you went to and supply-taught at private schools (where you were a bad racist example), you wouldn't know that.

And let's not re-hash how Wynne treated autistic students.




Andy didn't wear blackface or grope anyone so who cares?:

The Liberals are asking Saskatchewan’s insurance industry watchdogs to investigate Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer for allegedly falsely claiming he once worked as an insurance broker in that province.

I'm sure Buttsy had a hand in this.




Someone get a cold, wet blanket for the Liberal Party. It is covered in BURNS:

The candidate who replaced Eva Nassif for the Liberals in the Montreal-area riding of Vimy is being forced to rely on money from Ottawa to run her campaign.

The Liberal riding association is refusing to transfer its funds to the new candidate, Annie Koutrakis, because members are furious with the party for dropping Nassif fewer than three weeks before the start of the election campaign and for parachuting in another person.

Koutrakis has had to pay for her election posters with money from party headquarters in Ottawa and had to negotiate with the owner of her riding office for a delay in paying rent.

Nassif had told the Globe and Mail she was not nominated to run in the Vimy riding because she did not publicly support Trudeau as a feminist following the SNC-Lavalin scandal, which led to the resignation of two female cabinet ministers.

From the most "transparent" government machinery ever:

Statistics Canada was so concerned over the potential damage to its reputation following revelations the agency was requesting customer transaction data from banks, it hired a public relations firm to help "re-establish" control over its public image.

I don't think there is a single MP in the country who cares about how shabbily this country treats its veterans:

Both the Conservatives and Liberals have made countless promises to Canada’s veterans over the years, with Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer the latest to commit to making life better for those suffering from service-related wounds and illnesses.

Yet while some are ready to look past their treatment by the previous Conservative government under Stephen Harper and accept Scheer’s promises on faith after what they describe as Justin Trudeau’s lies, others like Jorgensen are fed up and at a loss over whom to believe.

“When you say something, that means to me that you will do it,” Jorgensen says from his home north of Saskatoon. “None of these parties have demonstrated that in the past, so I can’t believe they will do it in the future either.”