We’re not sure if Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is talking to a
4-year-old here, but he knows that 4-year-old are excited and eager to
get the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as they turn 5 … in fact, they can book
appointments now for after their birthday.
Millions of infants worldwide missed their
first dose of measles vaccine last year amid disruptions caused by the
COVID-19 pandemic, threatening the global progress against the disease
and increasing the risk of outbreaks in vulnerable communities,
according to a new report in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
Make sure your kids get the heart-enlarging shot, though.
An Inuvialuit leader
wants the rare Western Arctic kayak held by the Vatican Museums sent
back to the Mackenzie Delta region, where it was built a century ago.
In a statement released Friday, Duane NingaqsiqSmith,
chair and chief executive officer of the Inuvialuit Regional Corp.
(IRC) in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, said the IRC “is seeking the
immediate return of all Indigenous artifact held in the collection of
the Vatican Museum,” including the kayak. ...
While the Vatican’s possession of the kayak was no secret, the IRC was
apparently unaware of it. The 4.4-metre hunting craft is referred to
extensively in “The Americas” book published by the Vatican Museums’
ethnological museum (now known as Anima Mundi), and The Globe wrote about the Royal Ontario Museum’s examination of the boat in 2004. ...
The Vatican Museums say
the kayak and the other objects from the Mackenzie Delta area were
“gifts” to the Vatican. They were collected by Joseph Élie Breynat, the
Roman Catholic bishop in the Mackenzie area, in 1924 and shipped to
Rome, where they became part of Pope Pius XI’s world expo of Indigenous
artifacts. Some 100,000 objects from the Americas, Africa, Asia and
Australasia were put on display for a year, after which much of the vast
collection was put into storage. The Western Arctic kayak has been in
and out of storage for the better part of a century and has not been on
display for at least two decades, perhaps longer. It is in remarkably
good shape, even if the sealskin cover has a few rips.
“This
kayak is a piece of Inuvialuit history, made by Inuvialuit traditions,”
Mr. Smith said. “It is not ‘the Pope’s kayak’ and rightfully belongs to
the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, where its lessons and significance
can benefit Inuvialuit culture and communities.”
It was gifted to the Vatican where it will remain in good shape (as can be expected) and be seen by millions of visitors, as opposed to sitting in a garage going to rack and ruin benefiting no one.
Ontario New Democratic Party MPP Laura Mae Lindo proposed a bill on Thursday to embed “anti-racist strategies” in the province’s education system.
“Students, parents and education workers should never experience
racism in Ontario’s public schools and post-secondary institutions,”
said Lindo. “Yet every month we learn about new incidents of racism that
leave students, families and their communities reeling.”
Lindo stated that the proposed bill “makes sure Ontario schools have
the tools they need to develop anti-racist strategies that promote
racial equity in Ontario from kindergarten to Grade 12 as well as
throughout the post-secondary sector."
Cabinet yesterday invited taxpayers to vote for their favourite design
of a multi-million dollar tribute to the Department of Foreign Affairs.
The monument will commemorate the “daily sacrifices” of diplomats, said
Foreign Minister Mélanie Joly: “It is essential.”
Governor General Mary Simon delivered a horrendous, lackluster and
monotone Throne Speech, a Conservative MP said yesterday. Other MPs
protested the critique was a breach of rules akin to insulting the
Queen: “I found the words offensive.”
The Manitoba government is considering whether to make the National
Day for Truth and Reconciliation — also known as Orange Shirt Day — a
provincial statutory holiday.
Premier Heather Stefanson says her government will consult with businesses and Indigenous leaders before any decision is made.
"It's part of reconciliation and moving forward on that front, if we do go in that direction," Stefanson said Thursday.
"We
need to ensure that we talk to the business community and see what this
means to them, we talk to Indigenous communities and see what it means
to them. We haven't had a chance to do that."
The European Parliament accuses the Liberal government of being asleep
at the switch since 2018 when it comes to levelling harsh sanctions on
some of the world’s worst human rights offenders.
Cabinet’s promotion of electric vehicles sounds good but is impractical,
says an internal briefing note at the Department of Industry.
Management said converting its own fleet of cars, trucks and vans to
electrics was unrealistic despite federal climate change targets: “Green
technology is not readily available.”
The B.C. government
was warned more than a decade ago that a critical staffing shortage at
its River Forecast Centre could put the public at risk by not getting
flood information in time to get out of harm’s way.
The warning is contained in a 2010 report written by Jim Mattison
, a former senior-ranking member of the Ministry of Environment, and
highlighted in a new investigation published Wednesday by the Canadian
Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
Postmedia News has sent a request for a response to this report to the B.C. government.
The
report said staffing at the centre needed to more than double to a
minimum of 12 employees from 5.5 employees if the centre was to provide
effective critical warnings to vulnerable communities threatened by
floods.
The CCPA said the River Forecast Centre’s employee levels remain unchanged to this day.
The Member of Parliament for Canada’s most populous riding yesterday
said weighting of votes is frustrating electors. Conservative MP Mike
Lake (Edmonton-Westaskiwin) noted in his riding nearly 89,000 voters
cast ballots while in rural Atlantic Canada Liberals won seats with as
few as 9,700 voters: “Each of those votes should matter as much as any
other.”
Ontario students and teachers now have access to a set of online resources aimed at combating Islamophobia in schools.
The Muslim Association of Canada, a national non-profit organization,
launched a website Thursday that features three courses, four workshops
and six hours of educational videos to help address anti-Muslim biases
that teachers and students may have.
Memona Hossain, a member of
the association’s team that developed the site, said the resources on
offer are important to help schools address Islamophobia.
“This is
definitely necessary work,” said Hossain, who is also a PhD student at
the University of Toronto. “Our hope is that this type of work will
inform long-term change, not just short term.”
There is, of course, the popular rebuttal that these goalpost shifts are entirely above-board as the "science evolves."
But that exposes the flaw inherent in governments' COVID response: for
nearly two years, debate and dissent from burdensome COVID restrictions
has been short-circuited with demands that citizens "trust the science"; a modern take on debate-defusing exhortations to "support our troops"
during the War on Terror. Every infringement on citizens' privacy,
mobility, autonomy and conscience rights has been justified by officials
in the name of the infallible technocratic might of "the science."
That is the lens through which we see what is happening now:
Ursula Van Der Leyen, the head of the EU commission, told the press on
Wednesday that she is in favour of scrapping the long-standing Nuremburg
Code and forcing people to get vaccinated against COVID.
The voluntary consent of the human
subject is absolutely essential. This means that the person
involved should have legal capacity to give consent; should
be so situated as to be able to exercise free power of
choice, without the intervention of any element of force,
fraud, deceit, duress, overreaching, or other ulterior form
of constraint or coercion; and should have sufficient
knowledge and comprehension of the elements of the subject
matter involved as to enable him to make an understanding
and enlightened decision. This latter element
requires that before the acceptance of an affirmative
decision by the experimental subject there should be made
known to him the nature, duration, and purpose of the
experiment; the method and means by which it is to be
conducted; all inconveniences and hazards reasonably to be
expected; and the effects upon his health or person which
may possibly come from his participation in the
experiment.
The duty and responsibility for ascertaining the quality
of the consent rests upon each individual who initiates,
directs, or engages in the experiment. It is a personal
duty and responsibility which may not be delegated to
another with impunity.
The experiment should be such as to yield fruitful
results for the good of society, unprocurable by other
methods or means of study, and not random and unnecessary
in nature.
The experiment should be so designed and based on the
results of animal experimentation and a knowledge of the
natural history of the disease or other problem under study
that the anticipated results justify the performance of the
experiment.
The experiment should be so
conducted as to avoid all unnecessary physical and mental
suffering and injury.
No experiment should be conducted where there is an a
priori reason to believe that death or disabling injury
will occur; except, perhaps, in those experiments where the
experimental physicians also serve as subjects.
The degree of risk to be taken
should never exceed that determined by the humanitarian
importance of the problem to be solved by the
experiment.
Proper preparations should be made and adequate
facilities provided to protect the experimental subject
against even remote possibilities of injury, disability or
death.
The experiment should be conducted only by
scientifically qualified persons. The highest degree of
skill and care should be required through all stages of the
experiment of those who conduct or engage in the
experiment.
During the course of the experiment the human subject
should be at liberty to bring the experiment to an end if
he has reached the physical or mental state where
continuation of the experiment seems to him to be
impossible.
During the course of the
experiment the scientist in charge must be prepared to
terminate the experiment at any stage, if he has probable
cause to believe, in the exercise of the good faith,
superior skill and careful judgment required of him, that a
continuation of the experiment is likely to result in
injury, disability, or death to the experimental
subject.
If this code is gotten rid of, there will be no one and nothing stopping any sort of experimentation on human beings.
That's not hyperbole.
Read the above.
**
House of Commons Speaker Anthony Rota says the chamber’s governing body overstepped its
authority when it required anyone entering the Commons precinct to be
fully vaccinated.
Rota
has sided with the Conservatives in concluding that the all-party board
of internal economy did not have the authority to impose a vaccine
mandate.
He says only the House itself can make a decision to restrict access to the chamber and other parliamentary buildings.
However, Rota’s ruling changes nothing for MPs or anyone else wanting access to the precinct.
Last
week, Liberals and New Democrats joined forces to approve a motion to
resume hybrid sittings, which also specified that anyone entering the
precinct must be fully immunized against COVID-19 or have a valid
medical exemption.
Nothing changes?
The why have anything?
**
The normal rhythms of daily life are shot; commerce is desperately ailing; industries are
failing; inflation is back and it will cut very deeply in the months
ahead; energy supplies are in jeopardy; the supply chain is broken; the
health of a multitude of citizens is not being attended to, doctors are
on phone lines, surgeries delayed, emergencies rooms have turned into
vast waiting halls; young people have lost out on their education; loved
ones have been separated; travel is either a pain or a joke; the
psychological injuries imposed by COVID regimes are not, and perhaps
cannot, be measured. But they are massive and extreme.
And
most emphatically: the civil liberties of citizens have been pushed
aside, abandoned, violated with scarcely a whimper from parliamentarians
and the news media. Our once-celebrated Charter of Rights and Freedoms
is shown to be a platitudinous vapour, a shield of fog and foam, most
insouciantly violated when it is most needed.
We may accede to
the conditions and regulations being laid down for us. But I would ask
readers these questions: Do you think our various authorities, medical
and political, are competently managing COVID and have a clear plan for a
return to normalcy? Do you believe that our politicians — municipal,
provincial and federal — really know what they are doing?
And the
last one: are you feeling better now, more confident today, than you
felt two years ago, when our leaders, so solicitously, asked for your
help, just for two weeks mind you, to “flatten the curve?”
We should never expect that Charter was ever meant for the average Canadians citizen. It is a guideline at best and it safeguards only the political elite for whom accountability is, as Mr. Murphy might say, "... platitudinous vapour".
The WHO has followed the Greek alphabet when labeling certain
variants of the virus, SARS-CoV-2, since May. It said the system allows
for variants to be referred to in a simpler way than by their scientific
names, and that it helps prevent people from referring to variants by
the location where they were detected and creating stigma.
Many people had expected the agency to label the latest variant nu, which comes after mu, a variant designated on Aug. 30.
Instead,
the WHO skipped over nu as well as xi, the next Greek letter in line — a
move that many users on social media pointed out, while some questioned
whether it was to avoid offending Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
"A little bit concerned," said Lantsman.
"These are the words of the prime minister when he was asked about
President Biden's proposed tax rebate for electric cars that excludes
the ones made here right in Canada."
Lantsman went on to ridicule Trudeau for his comments.
Lantsman
said that Trudeau was "a little bit concerned about the tens of
thousands of Canadian jobs in jeopardy. A little bit concerned about our
second largest export."
"What is it gonna take for this prime minister to show a lot of concern?"
Get a woman to confront him about his fruity socks and his inability to count beyond ten.
Do that in public.
Then he will show concern.
**
CanadianPrime Minister Justin Trudeau’s
government will outline limited new spending in a fiscal update to be
released later this month, a source said on Thursday, as inflation soars
and some business groups and opposition politicians call for restraint.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland
on Thursday told lawmakers the so-called fall fiscal update would be
released on Dec 14. The update will be “limited in scope,” a source
familiar with the drafting of the document told Reuters.
On Wednesday, The United Nations General
Assembly voted to approve a resolution that ignores the Jewish ties to
Temple Mount, a holy site in the city of Jerusalem, opting to call it
solely by its Muslim name of al-Haram al-Sharif.
The
assemble voted 129 for, 11 against, with 31 nations abstaining on a
text referred to as the "Jerusalem resolution," according to The Jerusalem Post.
Abigail Shrier @AbigailShrier on California activist teachers' efforts to hide gender identity clubs from parents: "This kind of nonsense spreads." pic.twitter.com/Vyubrdn6z7
Mary’s troubled
daughter had talked about her changing sexual identity before, but when
she announced at age 16 that she was a transgender boy, it seemed to
come out of the blue.
Even
so, a doctor later wrote her a prescription for testosterone after a
pair of 15-minute appointments, the mother says. Within months, the
teenager had also had a double mastectomy. She was now a trans male.
But
Mary says her child’s long-standing depression and anxiety only
worsened. And last year the young woman made a stunning admission to her
mother: even as she was being wheeled into the operating room to have
her breasts removed, she was having doubts about her decision.
Now
the 21-year-old is “detransitioning,” reverting to her original female
identity. And Mary is part of a nascent movement calling for brakes to
be placed on a health-care system geared to affirming a young person’s
transgender feelings with drugs and surgery, allegedly in some instances
after little assessment of other psychological issues.
That movement has picked up steam
just in the last year. Countries from Finland to Australia have stepped
back somewhat from the affirmative approach, while the critics’
concerns are unexpectedly being shared by some of the leading figures in the transgender medical world itself.
But in Canada the thrust is if anything in the other direction, which proponents say is a positive thing.
A bill now before the Ontario legislature
emphasizes speeding up access to medical transition, reducing the need
for practitioners’ referrals to get such treatment and defining services
like double mastectomies as life-saving.
And on Wednesday the
House of Commons passed legislation that would ban the widely condemned
practice of conversion therapy, despite concerns that it could also make
it a crime to provide any therapy to gender-identity patients that
explored broader psychological issues.
“Alarms
are being sounded all over the world,” says Aaron Kimberly, a
B.C.-based transgender man and registered nurse with qualms about the
current approach. “And Canada seems completely deaf to it.”
Not seems. Is.
This is deliberate.
You can have whatever operation you like. If you born a biological male, you always will be male and your depression will never go away. The DNA is not lie. Biological sex (not gender, as that is a grammatical construct, the same grammar that demands exactness in subject-verb agreement. No they here.).
If you demand that people accept you for who you think you are, why should they when you have had yourselves mutilated because you won't accept yourself?
Everyone from teachers to quacks who ply children with these delusions and body-alterations should have their licenses pulled at the very least.
But this is Canada and here we reward hatred of children and quackery.
The National Weather Service has issued a blizzard warning until Sunday morning on the Big Island of Hawaii.
The
warning remains in effect from 6 p.m. Friday until 6 a.m. Sunday as up
to 12 inches or more of snow is expected on the island. NWS also warns
residents to stay indoors as forecasters predict winds gusting over 100
mph.
"Travel could be very difficult to impossible. Blowing snow
will significantly reduce visibility at times, with periods of zero
visibility," NWS's weather warning reads.
Parliamentarians
could finally get a look at documents related to the firing of two
scientists from Canada’s highest security laboratory — which the
Liberals went to court to keep secret — under a new deal offered by the
government.
Xiangguo
Qiu and her husband, Keding Cheng, were escorted out of Winnipeg’s
National Microbiology Laboratory in July 2019 and later fired.
The government refuses to reveal why they were fired.
The
National Post has previously reported that Qiu collaborated with
Chinese government scientists on inventions patented in Beijing, but
closely related to her job in the lab, even though federal civil
servants are not allowed to file such patents.
The national
microbiology lab is a secure facility that conducts research on some of
the world’s most dangerous viruses, including ebola and tuberculosis.
The
documents were first demanded by the House of Commons committee on
Canada-China relations, but the government essentially ignored the
request. A motion was then passed in the House calling for them to be
presented but Iain Stewart, then president of the Public Health Health
Agency of Canada, repeatedly argued that he was prevented by law from
releasing material that could violate privacy or national security laws.
MPs
specifically sought material related to the transfer, overseen by Qiu,
of deadly Ebola and Henipah viruses to China’s Wuhan Institute of
Virology in March 2019. That’s the lab some suspect released the
coronavirus that triggered the pandemic.
Stewart assured MPs that
the transfer had nothing to do with the firings of Qiu and her husband
and that there was no connection to COVID-19.
The battle
culminated in June with Stewart being hauled before the bar of the
Commons to be reprimanded by the Speaker. A few days later, the
government asked the Federal Court of Canada to intervene to stop the
release of the documents, arguing they must be kept secret to protect
national security.
The
government dropped the case when the election was called in August
since the order to produce the documents, along with all other business
before the House, was terminated with the dissolution of Parliament.
However, in one of the first moves when the Commons resumed sitting last
week, the Conservatives asked Speaker Anthony Rota to rule that the
government was in contempt of Parliament when it launched the court
proceeding. Rota has not yet ruled on the matter but should he agree,
the Conservatives intend to move a motion, supported by other opposition
parties, to issue a warrant to seize the documents.
Liberal
House Leader Mark Holland offered up a new proposal on Thursday, which
could avoid the court case if opposition parties are prepared to play
along, which he said is a balance and a compromise.
“The
proposed model balances two key principles; first, accountability to
Parliament by maximizing disclosure and transparency to the greatest
extent that is possible, secondly the protection of sensitive and
confidential information from disclosure where it would be injurious to
our nation,” he said. ...
Under the deal, one
MP from each party and one alternate would sit on a panel to review the
documents and decide what information should be made public. The MPs
would be selected by their parties, but they would have to pass a
security clearance and read the documents in a secure room.
Any
disputes among the MPs on what should be made public would go to a
panel of three senior judges. The judges would be selected by the
committee and would have the final say on whether information could be
released.
Bullsh--.
Redacted documents poured over by handpicked and sympathetic MPs and decided on unelected judges and having nothing released to the public is another Liberal attempt at obfuscation.
The documents need to go public.
All of them.
Let's see how deep the Liberal Party is in Chinese interference.
DisinfoWatch researchers Marcus Kolga and Ai-Men Lau point to a
September 9 article in the Chinese Communist Party’s Global Times
propaganda platform warning that a Conservative win would invite “a
strong counter strike, and Canada will be the one to suffer.” Almost
immediately after the article appeared, disinformation — in the case of
this operation, outright lies — began circulating quickly on WeChat,
which hosts an estimated one million ethnic Chinese in Canada. ...
During the election campaign, Chiu found himself barraged with
allegations that the law would single out Chinese-Canadians, “suppress”
the Chinese diaspora in Canada and force ethnic Chinese people to
register under the law. His campaign never recovered.
These were
outright lies, but that’s what the Chinese Communist Party does. In the
National Post this week, for instance, Cong Peiwu, ambassador of the
People’s Republic of China to Canada, proved himself again to be a liar,
but in the most comically transparent way. “People have to understand
the real status quo in the Taiwan Strait. The status quo in real terms
is that there is one China in the world,” he said, “of which Taiwan is
an inalienable part.”
A former Islamic State militant was convicted of genocide against the Yazidi people in a
world-first ruling on Tuesday by a German court.
Taha
al-Jumailly was sentenced to life in prison for crimes including the
murder of a child he chained in the sun to die of thirst.
The
29-year-old Iraqi national is the first person to be convicted of
genocide over the jihadist group’s systematic killing campaign against
the Yazidis.
The court in Frankfurt heard that he kept a
five-year-old Yazidi girl as a slave and chained her outside his house
in Mosul in temperatures of more than 50C as punishment for wetting the
bed.
The judge ruled that the enslavement and killing of the girl
amounted to genocide as part of an organized campaign by ISIL to wipe
out those of the Yazidi faith.
Some countries find letting a child die of exposure to be personally and morally repugnant.
With Christmas fast
approaching, and family dinners and workplace parties, a majority of
Canadians are unwilling to let an unvaccinated friend or family member
into their home, according to new polling from Leger-ACS.
While
the overwhelming majority of Canadians are vaccinated, with 75 per cent
of the total population fully vaccinated, the poll says three-quarters
of Canadians do know someone who’s unvaccinated.
Fifty-seven per
cent say they wouldn’t invite an unvaccinated person into their home, a
rate that’s highest in British Columbia at 70 per cent, and lowest in
Atlantic Canada at 50 per cent. Fifty-five per cent of Ontarians and
Quebecers wouldn’t do so, nor would 59 per cent of those in Saskatchewan
and Manitoba and 58 per cent of Albertans.
Pollster Leger says Atlantic Canadians are split on their social distancing plans for the holidays.
The survey has found 44 per cent of us intend to bring back the handshake and give loved ones a hug or kiss this Christmas.
The pollster looked at the same trend across the nation.
Nearly half of Canadians, 45 per cent, will bid farewell to social distancing when greeting their loved ones.
Fifty per cent of Americans plan to do the same.
Also:
Doocy: “You advised the president about the possibility of new testing requirements for people coming in to this country, does that include everybody?”
Canada’s House of
Commons erupted into a scene of cheers and cross-party hugs Wednesday as
MPs unanimously adopted a motion presented by a Conservative MP to
fast-track the passage of a Liberal government bill banning conversion
therapy for LGBTQ Canadians.
That
legislation, introduced earlier in the week, will now proceed to the
Senate, as no MP spoke out against the move to skip the routine
legislative debate.
The South Korean and U.S. defense chiefs met Thursday for their
annual talks, as Washington pushes to reinforce alliances with its
partners to curb mounting challenges from China and increasing North
Korean nuclear threats.
After the talks, the allies were expected
to announce a boosting of their decades-long military alliance while
U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin will likely reaffirm America’s
extended deterrence to South Korea using its full range of military
capabilities.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has said the country must be prepared
for a "very giant struggle" next year to continue to make progress in
areas including defence, agriculture and construction, state media
reported on Thursday.
Kim made the remarks on Wednesday at a
meeting of the central committee of the ruling Worker's Party's
politburo, which decided to hold a plenary meeting of the committee next
month.
Premier François Legault says he would like to permit Quebec families
to host up to 25 people for the Christmas holidays, but the opposition
says the premier is sowing confusion and creating expectations.
For
the second consecutive day, Legault told reporters Tuesday it was his
wish that indoor gathering limits would increase during the holidays to
20 people or 25 people — up from 10. He made the same comment on Monday,
adding that he had to wait for advice from public health authorities
before he could issue an order.
“What I (said) yesterday is I
hope, personally, that we can increase the number of people in houses
from 10 to 20 or 25,” Legault said Tuesday.
“I hope so, but we’ll have recommendations from (Quebec's public health director) next week.”
Opposition
parties were quick to criticize the premier for the statements,
suggesting they were similar to his comments last year, when he had told
Quebecers indoor gathering rules would be eased for the holidays,
before backing down. Shortly after, he imposed a curfew across most of
the province that lasted for almost five months.
The Liberals represent the callous and antipathetic throngs of voters in the greater Toronto area.
The Narrative of a people lesser than the Islamists and their yes-men among the leftists must be maintained at all costs:
Murad was a torture
victim, a rape slave, whose family was killed by ISIL. Her life story is
a dark window into the harrowing cruelties, the unthinkable physical
and mental violence that girls, in the desperate regions of this vile
world, suffer from sadistic fanatics, of which ISIL is the nightmare
incarnation.
It
should be considered a privilege and an honour to hear from a young
woman who bore unspeakable torments, saw family killed, yet, with an
endurance and personal strength beyond all belief, went on to become a
Nobel-winning human rights advocate.
Any ordinary person, male or
female, who endured what she endured would most likely end up in a dark
room weeping till the end of that person’s days. Murad came out of the
inferno to offer an example to all young women, and to challenge the
indifference of the nations of the world to the wicked persecution of
her fellow nationals. She deserves two Nobel prizes and is worth 50
wailing Greta Thunbergs.
Yet some functionary at the Toronto
District School Board, vibrating with the right pseudo-thoughts and
embedded in woke sensitivities, decided it was improper to expose young
readers to what she has to say. How do so many overpaid people get so
silly, or is it necessary to be so silly to get hired by the TDSB?
These
two case studies are not isolated incidents. They are an index of a
kind of insanity, a symptom of ideas so far off the beam of truth and
reality, of attitudes both corrupt and shallow, that steep some of the
most crucial structures of our society. The elite institutions of the
West have bedded down in the cave of nonsense, smashed the lights of
rational thought and taken the knee to a third-rate ideology.
It
is not enough for the TDSB to talk glibly about a “misunderstanding.”
What we need to hear from the great minds of the TDSB is how the
pernicious mentality these cases have exposed has situated itself within
the board, and how those with such an abridged understanding of life
have so high a place in its deliberations. Explain yourselves.
There
is such a thing as occasionally being wrong, but this wasn’t merely
wrong — this was a vivid illustration of an entire mentality, an ethos
that pervades the whole board, and that is far more worrisome than the
particular incidents that revealed it.
Political correctness is toxic; wokeism is an insult to reason. Both seem to have found a home in Canada’s largest school board.
**
Two weeks after the Toronto District School Board said students were not
to attend a book club event featuring lawyer Marie Henein, they will
now be allowed to read her book. ...
The event will go ahead, Lee said. She’s hoping for a national
event, and says she would love for the library of Parliament to host it —
but Murad’s book is still under consideration by the TDSB.
“(Murad’s) book is still being read and we hope to approve shortly,” wrote Bird.
(Sidebar: and who asked these @$$holes what can and cannot be read?)
Canada will own this.
Canada will be known as a country that actively silenced the victims of violence in the Middle East and thwarted any domestic attempt to bring attention to their plight.
The CCRL has launched a Church Attacks Database, accessible from www.ccrl.ca
which catalogues attacks against Catholic churches in Canada ranging
from the breaking of stained-glass windows, to acts of desecration and
church burnings, as witnessed this summer and reported in releases on June 22, July 1, and July 30.
Currently, there are 153 individual entries covering attacks from
2010 through 2021. In any given year, acts of vandalism and desecration
increased during Christmas and Easter, but by far, 2021 has featured the
highest number of total attacks, far more than in any other year. The
period from May through August of 2021 alone has had more attacks than
in any other period.
The surge in attacks against churches this summer follows reports of
discoveries of communal graveyards on properties of former residential
schools. There have been no indications that these attacks have been
carried out by indigenous people and indigenous leaders were quick to
condemn these acts of violence. Indeed, there were churches burned down
on indigenous land and those serving indigenous Catholic communities.
The CCRL noted how many non-indigenous Canadians were quick to accuse
the Church of genocide but were much slower to acknowledge that many of
these graveyards were known, and in many cases were the subject of
compensation for upkeep and maintenance from local dioceses.
Money-grubbers:
A federal manager coached a favoured contractor how to invoice one penny
below the Treasury Board threshold on a sweetheart contract, according
to Access To Information records. Neither the contractor nor manager
would comment yesterday: “Hello, Raj. Our contracting folks inform me
that the total contract value cannot exceed $40,000.”
A federal law that prohibits voting by children faces a constitutional
challenge. A legal clinic and group of young plaintiffs yesterday filed
their claim in Ontario Superior Court: “Denying Canadian citizens under
the age of 18 the right to vote is unconstitutional.”
A federally-funded agency yesterday claimed wide public support for
internet regulation in a survey that asked Canadians if they’d like to
ban hate speech. Parliament already banned hate speech in 1970: “This is
really an important point.”
Canadians will soon debate amongst themselves whether to heat the home or buy food.
We have been living with uncommon restrictions on our freedoms for
the better part of two years now, of course, and some of them even made
sense. But too many people enjoyed slapping those restrictions on the
unwilling, and governments that score points off limiting freedoms tend
to get a taste for it, regardless of the circumstances.
Parliamentarians
did their jobs with C-6 last time, not that it improved the legislation
much. They need to go back to the drawing board with C-4, not wave it
through just because it’s easy to support and difficult to oppose.
As of Nov. 30, everyone age 12 and older will need to provide proof of
full COVID-19 vaccination to travel from Canadian airports and trains,
including VIA Rail and Rocky Mountaineer trains.
The Canadian Tourism Commission laid off nine percent of its employees
due to Covid. Recovery from the pandemic will take at least four years,
the agency said: “We are facing the spectre of an industry in deep
crisis with many parts of it on the brink of collapse.”
Justin et al care about conversion therapy. Isn't that enough?:
NORAD commander Gen. Glen VanHerck warned top Canadian government and
military leaders Tuesday about the threat hypersonic missile technology
poses to North American security, saying it's making it "very
challenging" for him to carry out his mission.
Visiting Canada for
the first time since taking command of the continental defence
organization last year, VanHerck gave officials in Ottawa what he called
a "candid" risk assessment — one day after Russia said it had
successfully tested another of its hypersonic cruise missiles.
Hypersonic
missiles can travel at more than five times the speed of sound and have
vast ranges. A hypersonic missile can bob and weave through the
atmosphere and avoid interception en route to its target. Its
manoeuvrability also makes it more difficult to track.
Most
hypersonic vehicles can only deliver conventional warheads — but experts
warn that they could be capable of carrying nuclear weapons within
years.
The longtime president of Belarus said Tuesday that his country would
be ready to host Russian nuclear weapons if NATO moves U.S. atomic
bombs from Germany to Eastern Europe.
In an interview, President
Alexander Lukashenko also said for the first time that he recognizes the
Crimean Peninsula as part of Russia and plans to visit it soon. Russia
annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, a move that the West regards as
illegal.
Lukashenko made the remarks as he moves to cement ties
with Russia, his main ally and sponsor, amid tensions with the West over
his disputed reelection last year and his government's brutal crackdown
on dissent in Belarus.
Also:
Lithuania's government said on Wednesday it would ask parliament to
declare a state of emergency on its border with Poland from Dec. 10 as
part of efforts to prevent the smuggling of migrants.
The state of emergency would include border checks focusing on "suspicious vehicles", Interior Minister Agne Bilotaite said.
Poland
currently provides the only checks-free route from Lithuania and Latvia
to Germany, the destination for many migrants who have arrived in the
region via Belarus in recent months.
Lithuanian prosecutors are
pursuing 60 cases of illegal smuggling of people and new smuggler
"networks" are being established, the Interior Ministry said.
We don't have to trade with China:
China lashed out at Shinzo Abe Wednesday after the former Japanese
prime minister warned of the serious security and economic consequences
of any Chinese military action against self-ruled Taiwan.
Chinese
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Abe had “talked nonsense,
pointed fingers at Taiwan issues and made irresponsible remarks on
China internal affairs.
He said China ”strongly opposes and deplores this” and had protested to Japan through diplomatic channels.
Senegal's Foreign Minister Aissata Tall Sall says she hopes China
will lend support in the fight against insecurity in the Sahel region at
opening of a China-Africa summit in Dakar.
Speaking on Sunday
following a meeting with her Chinese counterpart Wang Yi, Sall said she
hoped China would become a "strong voice" in combatting terrorism in the
vast Sahel region.
China will protect its interests in Africa.
Sall will do as he is told.
**
China on Wednesday urged its citizens to leave three provinces in
eastern Congo as violence intensifies in the mineral-rich region.
A
posting from the Chinese Embassy in Kinshasa on the WeChat online
messaging said a number of Chinese citizens had been attacked and
kidnapped over the past month in the provinces of South Kivu, North Kivu
and Ituri, where several anti-government rebel groups have a presence.
It
said Chinese residing in the three provinces should provide their
personal details by Dec. 10 and make plans to leave for safer parts of
Congo. Those in the districts of Bunia, Djugu, Beni, Rutshuru, Fizi,
Uvira and Mwenga should leave immediately, it said, adding that any who
do not do so “will have to bear the consequences themselves."
“We
ask that all Chinese citizens and Chinese-invested businesses in Congo
please pay close attention to local conditions, increase their safety
awareness and emergency preparedness, and avoid unnecessary outside
travel,” the embassy said.
A new report by a human rights group has found more than 600
Taiwanese arrested overseas have been deported to China in recent years.
Safeguard Defenders says the practice was being "used as a tool to undermine Taiwan's sovereignty".
Taiwan,
which considers itself an independent nation, has long insisted that
Taiwanese arrested abroad should be sent back to the island.
But Beijing sees Taiwan as a breakaway province that is a part of China.
Safeguard Defenders said
the deportations, which it collated from media reports between 2016 and
2019, were "being used to bolster Beijing's influence abroad" and
accused China of "hunting" down these Taiwanese.
The Spain-based
group pointed out that the Taiwanese sent to China "have no roots and no
families", and warned that they were at risk of persecution and severe
human rights abuses.
It argues several nations are breaching
international human rights laws in following extradition treaties with
Beijing, and singled out Spain and Kenya for extraditing the most number
of Taiwanese people to China.
Four people were injured when an old aircraft bomb exploded at a
bridge near Munich’s busy main train station on Wednesday, police said
on Twitter, raising the number of wounded from three earlier.
The Munich fire brigade said one of the people was seriously injured.
More
than 2,000 tonnes of live bombs and munitions are discovered each year
in Germany, more than 70 years after the end of World War Two.
British
and American warplanes pummelled the country with 1.5 million tonnes of
bombs that killed 600,000 people. Officials estimate that 15 per cent
of the bombs failed to explode, some of which were buried six metres
deep in the ground.
The explosion happened as the site was being drilled to build a tunnel, police said, adding the area had been cordoned off.
There is a James Joyce joke in here somewhere and I am struggling to find it:
Eight people have been arrested in connection with a violent brawl at a cemetery in Co Galway in September.
The
seven men and one woman were detained on suspicion of violent disorder
during the fight which broke out following a funeral in Tuam cemetery on September 22nd.
