Mid-Week Post

Five more shopping days before Halloween ...




What Bill 62 actually says:

Under the bill, personnel members of public bodies and of certain other bodies must exercise their functions with their face uncovered, unless they have to cover their face, in particular because of their working conditions or because of occupational or task-related requirements. In addition, persons receiving services from such personnel members must have their face uncovered. An accommodation is possible but must be refused if the refusal is warranted in the context for security or identification reasons or because of the level of communication required.

The bill goes in great detail but the long-and-short of it is that unless one is wearing a surgical or similar type mask in the middle of work when such a mask would be required, one's face cannot be covered if one wants anything from the government.

It sounds reasonable.


But the Fils is not amused: 

Bill 62 requires anyone providing or receiving provincial and municipal public services in Quebec to uncover their faces.

Last week, Vallee said the law would oblige people riding a bus or the subway to do so with their faces uncovered for the entire journey.

On Tuesday, however, she backtracked, saying only those whose fare requires a card with photo ID will need to uncover their faces before riding public transit — and that they can put the veil back on once they've been identified.

Asked Wednesday about Vallee's clarifications, Trudeau replied: "You call those clarifications?"  

(Sidebar: Well, yes, she does, Lord Huffy-Pants, and so does the province of Quebec which you assured everyone was way better than Alberta in leading the country. I'm sure everyone worries about the opinion of a former substitute drama teacher.)


Trudeau, in what he must think is best dramatic performance to date, threatens to put the kibbosh on this bill:

Justin Trudeau has opened the door to federal intervention to challenge Quebec's new law on religious neutrality, widely seen as targeting Muslim women who wear face veils.

Immediately after Quebec passed Bill 62 last week, the prime minister was hesitant to come out strongly against the legislation. He said the responsibility to challenge the law lay with citizens, not the federal government.

But he was considerably more forceful Wednesday, scoffing at the Quebec government's attempts to clear up confusion about how the law will be applied and disclosing that the federal government is exploring its options for protecting the rights of women who cover their faces.

"I will always stand up for individual rights and I will always stand up for the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and we are looking very carefully at what tools we have and what steps we have to make sure we make this situation better for everyone," Trudeau said.

Even he must know that if he invokes his father's stupid Charter for this, he'll lose Quebec where a strong majority support Bill 62.

But Quebec has a card up its sleeve:

Despite the musing of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of a possible legal challenge, Quebec’s justice minister says she is convinced Bill 62 will stand up in the courts.

But Stéphanie Vallée has refused to rule out the use of the constitution’s notwithstanding clause, which would allow the government to override fundamental rights to protect the law adopted last week.

At the same time, Premier Philippe Couillard has warned reluctant cities and educational institutions that he expects Bill 62 to be respected.

“That Mr. Trudeau does not share our opinion is his right,” Vallée said. “He has the right to have an opinion on the law. I won’t start having conversations (with him) through the media.

“I would just say I am completely confident in the constitutionality of Bill 62, which was adopted and given royal assent last week. I am persuaded it will pass the test of the courts.

“Quebec has the right to legislate on issues which belong to it, issues affecting diversity and people living together in Quebec. I think it’s important to legislate on these questions.”

I say let the fun begin.

Let Trudeau challenge this if he can. He'll lose Quebec. If he doesn't, though, he'll lost the Islamist vote. And Quebec will just lose because it forgets who now occupies la belle province.

We don't have a justice system in this country:

Two Ontario Liberals were acquitted of Election Act bribery charges Tuesday in a case the party and one of the defendants suggested was only brought to trial because of political motivations.

The judge hearing the case granted a directed verdict application from the defence that called for the charges to be tossed before any defence witnesses were called. Based on the Crown's evidence alone, no reasonable jury could convict the pair on trial, the judge concluded.

So how did this evidence-bare case go to trial then?




Of course Dalhousie University did:

Dalhousie University is withdrawing disciplinary action against a student over a post she made to Facebook in the summer about Canada 150 celebrations.

A complaint was made against student union vice-president Masuma Khan, who posted "white fragility can kiss my ass. Your white tears aren't sacred, this land is."

Khan had been facing possible disciplinary action from the Halifax school over the post that expressed her frustrations with Canada 150 celebrations.

The university's vice-provost of student affairs, Arig al Shaibah, said in a statement released Wednesday the incident "demonstrated the need for an open, thorough discussion on campus about the appropriate policies and processes to support freedom of expression."

Oh, I'm sure it does. 

Miss Khan is more than welcome to express her displeasure about Canada and about living in it. After all, she could be in any Islamist country and be murdered for her beliefs. Why should self-awareness or gratitude get in the way of a good rant? But I think it is only fair for any other student to point out that she is a fat ingrate from a backward culture that uses law-fare and violence to silence its critics:

On Monday, Gazali went further, suggesting that Islamophobia should explicitly be criminalized. The Criminal Code of Canada currently forbids the public incitement or promotion of hatred “against any identifiable group,” and the Canadian Human Rights Act prohibits discrimination on grounds including race, national or ethnic origin and religion.

(Sidebar: I think Jew-hating from mosques should be prohibited.)

What is good for the goose, Miss Khan ...


Also:

Canada already has the world’s most extreme abortion license, with abortion on demand legal for any reason at any time. But the totalitarian impulse seeks to enforce approval, or at least criminalize dissent. How far does Bill 163 reach? The police could arrest you if, a block down from an abortion clinic, you wore a t-shirt saying, “Canada should adopt Sweden’s abortion laws.”

As I said, we don't have a justice system in this country. 




Rachel Notley is a silly woman. That can't be said enough:

Alberta Premier Rachel Notley says an alternative sex education curriculum being crafted by Catholic school officials will never be taught if it arrives as previously advertised.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Notley says the health and well-being of students comes first.

"Nowhere do the rights of religious freedom extend to that person's right to somehow attack or hurt others — and that's what's happening here," Notley said Tuesday. "We will not use public dollars to have sexual health programs that deny science, that deny evidence, and that deny human rights.

"They can continue to work on (the proposal) all they want, but we ultimately approve the curriculum that goes into schools — and this kind of curriculum will not happen."

And the proof that there are several sexes is where exactly? 

Yes, I would say blowing up people is evil:

Agent Tamer Elnoury describes how Esseghaier gave him chills from the first time they met, musing casually about shooting down passenger aircraft.

“The look in Chiheb’s eyes when he talked about killing infidels was something I’d never seen before in my life,” he writes in American Radical, a new book that focuses largely on the Via case. “It was a look of hatred and death.”

Lawyers have suggested that Esseghaier’s 2015 conviction was tainted by the mental illness that seemed to manifest itself at trial, an issue expected to figure prominently in his appeal.

But Elnoury — the agent’s cover name in the Canadian investigation — says the Tunisian-born PhD student from Montreal “absolutely” knew right from wrong as the conspiracy unfolded, offering complex justifications for his planned violence, and removing cell-phone batteries and doing other counter-surveillance to try to avoid police scrutiny.

“That isn’t someone who isn’t aware of what’s happening, who’s ‘out there,’ ” he said in an interview. “That’s someone who’s calculating to commit mass murder.”

But that would mean that the authorities have to take a stronger stance against terrorism. That's not going to happen.




It turns out that resource-based economies reduce poverty:

With the recent cancellation of TransCanada’s Energy East pipeline — after the company spent $1 billion in attempts to jump through ever-changing regulatory and political hoops — it is time to remind ourselves as Canadians where much of our country’s recent economic uptick originated.

Answer: In resource exploration and extraction.

This was illustrated again recently, just before the TransCanada announcement, with Statistics Canada’s recent release of key census data. The data revealed how median Canadian household income rose to $70,336 by 2015, up almost $6,900 from $63,457 in 2005 or nearly 11 per cent.

The provincial breakdowns are even more revealing than the national figure. Median income went up by $20,161 in Saskatchewan (37 per cent), $18,151 in Alberta (20 per cent) and $15,068 in Newfoundland and Labrador (29 per cent).

As Statistics Canada noted, “An important factor in the economic story of Canada over the decade was high resource prices.” The agency further observed how “that drew investment and people to Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland and Labrador, boosted the construction sector, and more generally filtered through the economy as a whole.”

But why state the obvious?




A North Korean defector describes life for Christian converts in the hermit kingdom:

North Korean Choi Kwanghyuk is one of the lucky ones.

The 55-year-old managed to escape from the work camp where he was sent after being targeted and persecuted by the government for his Christian faith.

“We couldn’t raise our voice during a service, we couldn’t sing out loud during a worship … that was hard,” Choi told Fox News through a translator. “Also, we had to hide so that other people could not see us.”

Despite having to hide his faith in plain sight while living in North Hamgyong province, Choi was still compelled to bring religion to others when he started an underground church.

“There were about nine people,” he said. “I couldn’t do mission work because we had to keep it secret that we had a church.”

“If that information had leaked, we could have faced the death penalty.”

North Korea is officially an atheist state where – except for a “show church” in Pyongyang that tourists are shown -- public worship is forbidden. The country is ranked the most oppressive place for Christians in the world and has had that ignominious status for years, according to Open Doors USA.

“[Choi’s] statements describing oppression, as well as his report of imprisonment for owning a Bible or practicing faith, align with everything we know about North Korea,” Open Doors President David Curry told Fox News. “Rated the worst place for the persecution of Christians, North Korea treats Christians horrendously and registers them as 'enemies of the state' for their faith.”

The totalitarian state forces the estimated 300,000 Christians living there to hide their religious beliefs and fellowship among each other.

“In a nation where the ruling regime demands total control over the general public, anything that challenges the government’s power is seen as a threat, including religion,” Jeff King, president of International Christian Concern, told Fox News. “As a result, the North Korean government does everything in its power to squash the spread of Christianity."

This leads much of the religious population in North Korea to go underground with their worship, much like Choi and his church were forced to do.

Also:

Malaysian prosecutors said Wednesday that they would present security camera video showing two more male suspects at the airport on the day the estranged half brother of North Korea’s leader was killed.

Chances are that they are North Korean agents and may never face justice.




The paper dragon has a new Mao:

“The amendment of the party constitution effectively confirms Xi Jinping’s aspiration to be the Mao Zedong of the 21st Century – that means a top leader with no constraints on tenure or retirement age,” said Willy Wo-Lap Lam, a political expert at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

“The fact that he has become the new helmsman of the ship of state, providing guiding principles for party, state and military, provides the perfect justification for him to stay number one well beyond the normal 10 years,”

The inclusion of Xi’s name in the party’s document makes him only the third Chinese leader to be so honored, with his ideology joining Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory as a “guide to action.” It will now become compulsory learning for Chinese students from primary schools through to universities.

Xi is gearing up for a new and belligerent dictatorship.

It is time to be very concerned.




And now, not sure what to be for Halloween? Fret no more!

(Insert Own Title Here)

Lots going on ...




How could this go wrong?

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is appointing Bob Rae as Canada's special envoy to Myanmar, two months into a growing crisis that has left 600,000 Rohingya Muslim people displaced.

This Bob Rae:

Regrets? Bob Rae has a few.

But unpaid leave for public-sector workers – or "Rae Days" – is not one of them.

And these Rohingya:

The Myanmar authorities have accused Muslim Rohingya militants of killing 28 Hindu villagers whose bodies were allegedly found in a mass grave.

The army says the bodies of 20 women and eight men and boys were found in two pits in northern Rakhine state.

The state has been in turmoil since 25 August when Rohingya militants launched deadly attacks on police posts.

Now imagine a new voters block of them just before the 2019 election.




That's the sound of desperation:

The federal government will announce plans to boost payments made to families under the Canada child benefit program on Tuesday, CBC News has learned.

Multiple sources, speaking to CBC News and Radio-Canada on the condition of anonymity, said the government will foreshadow the increase in the fall economic update, which will be tabled tomorrow, and provide more details later this week.

The benefit was introduced in 2016 and gives most families with children under the age of 18 a monthly cheque.

The benefit offers a maximum $533.33 a month for each child under six — and $450 for each child aged six to 17 — in a family earning less than $30,000 annually, and is adjusted downward as a family's net income increases.

The payment is not currently indexed to inflation, something the Liberal government said it would do starting in 2020, if re-elected. Indexation could be one of the levers the government uses to boost payouts.

The Liberal government said a lot of things, like making farmers pay their "fair share". 

Also in "desperate for votes" news:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau marked the third anniversary of the terrorist attack at the National War Memorial by calling on Canadians to pay tribute to the soldier who was killed.

This is a departure from last year when nothing was done.




Did one get away?

An undercover FBI agent who helped convict two men of plotting to derail a Via Rail passenger train in Canada did not see the arrests as a triumph, because he feared another extremist had eluded his grasp.

In a new book published under his cover name from the operation, Tamer Elnoury reveals how gaining the confidence of the would-be rail saboteurs led to knowledge of an apparent al-Qaeda sleeper terrorist in the United States.

Elnoury is still haunted by the thought of the jihadi who got away.

"Every time I hear about someone committing a terrorist act on U.S. soil, I wonder if that was the American sleeper," he writes. "My biggest regret is that I couldn't find him."

Nothing has to be a problem. Simply disallow it in public and deport accordingly:

The Quebec Liberal government’s bill banning face veils is somewhat rightly seen as a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist. There aren’t all that many women walking about the streets of Montreal in full niqab and burka coverings. For now.

But according to Statistics Canada, the Muslim population is going to double in 20 years to make up 7.2% of the nation, clocking in at more than 2.5 million people.

Will this demographic become increasingly liberalized and integrated, less likely to cling to intolerant old country ways? Don’t count on it.

Agree with us and nobody gets hurt:

Just a few years ago, Yahya Mohamid was living in a northern Israeli town controlled by the Islamic movement and like everyone else in Umm el-Fahm, had been indoctrinated to hate Israel.

Today, the 20-year-old, calling himself a Muslim Zionist, has made his home in Jerusalem and is dedicated to getting the truth out about his life as an Arab Israeli and giving back to his country.

He hopes to join the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in March and get into one of the elite combat units — a precedent for an Arab Israeli.

But Mohamid’s pro-Israel activism has come at a huge price.

The brave, articulate, handsome man — who seems wise beyond his years — has been subject to assaults, more death threats than he can count and has been forced to break ties with his mother and sister, both of whom still live in Umm el-Fahm.

“They live in a constant situation of fear,” he says.

 
Over seventy percent of Canadians are fine with China's human rights record, exploited work-force, currency-fixing, shoddy workmanship and supplanting Canadian workers for their cheaper and more compliant counterparts:

Almost 70 per cent of Canadians support a free trade deal with China, a new University of British Columbia poll finds, showing “pragmatism” is on the rise in the age of Trump. 

(Sidebar: this is what happens when both parents and schools fail to teach critical thinking, ie, not listening to the same popular press that predicted Clinton in a landslide.)
 

In the next decade, Canadians also predict China will be a bigger economic power, “doing more to maintain peace,” “more stable and predictable” and “doing more to address environmental issues” than the United States — perceptions likely fuelled by President Donald Trump’s administration, according to researchers. 

Yes, about that: 

Zhou Xiaochuan, the long-serving and respected governor of the People's Bank of China, raised eyebrows last week when he cautioned that the country could have a "Minsky Moment" if "we are too optimistic when things go smoothly."

Although he was right to warn against policy complacency and general economic overconfidence, particularly in the context of a growth model that still relies too heavily on credit and debt, the Minsky threat of a financial crisis per se is lower than the risk of generalized downward pressures on economic growth should the policy effort falter.

The "Minsky Moment," a term coined by my former colleague Paul McCulley at Pacific Investment Management Co., refers to a tipping point when a prolonged period of stability leads to unsettling financial volatility. It is the culmination of what the economist Hyman Minsky labelled a period of "Ponzi finance," as risk-taking and economic activity are financed overwhelmingly by credit and higher leverage. It is fuelled by booming debt encouraged by both lender and borrower overconfidence in continued financial stability. Coming at the end of the multistage Minsky cycle, it engenders dislocations, including a sudden destabilizing collapse in asset prices and markets. ...

Mr. Zhou is right to point to the growing risks associated with the rapid rise in total debt in China and, more generally, financial risk-taking by Chinese households, corporations and local governments. Indeed, some of the numbers are truly striking, including a near doubling in debt to gross domestic product in the past 10 years during a period of declining, albeit still high, economic growth.

** 

At a time when the United States is worried about North Korea developing a nuclear weapons program, “The Coming Collapse of China” author Gordon Chang tells FOX Business China is equipping the country with weapons.

“[Chinese President] Xi Jinping has been kind of fueling North Korea, transferring very important weapons and equipment and technology to the North Koreans, especially their ballistic missile program… They are weaponizing the North,” ...

**

China may have just dodged a major bullet for now. “We had a senior official, [Liu Shiyu] on the sidelines of the Communist Party’s 19th National Congress in Beijing, saying that President Xi Jinping foiled a coup. A group of officials, Liu said, had ‘plotted to usurp the party’s leadership and seize state power,’” explained Gordon Chang, best-selling author of Nuclear Showdown and a columnist for the Daily Beast. While Chang personally does not think a coup took place, he does see it as a very bad sign. Liu’s loaded charge suggests China is heading into a period of turbulence, likely one reminiscent of the Maoist era, Chang said. “Xi Jingping is characterizing his political adversaries as traitors to the State, and that is something we have not heard in a long time. [W]e can see China tearing itself apart as the political struggles become more intense and that’s why I’m concerned about political stability. Maybe not this month…but they will be more vicious than we have seen in the past couple of decades,”

How stable can China possibly be?



Also:

The return of rising interest rates is leaving Canadians anxious as they come to grips with the reality of historically high consumer debt.

Nearly half of Canadians are now concerned about repaying their debts, while four in 10 say that further rate increases may leave them "in financial trouble," according to a poll released Monday morning by insolvency firm MNP Ltd. In September, Canadian households' credit-market-debt-to-disposable-income ratio hit 167.8 per cent, the latest in a string of national indebtedness records.

When did we last see this?

Pierre Trudeau took office at a moment when commodity prices were rising worldwide. Then as now, rising commodity prices buoyed the Canadian economy. Good policymakers recognize that commodity prices fall as well as rise. A wise government does not make permanent commitments based on temporary revenues. Yet between 1969 and 1979 – through two majority governments and one minority – Trudeau tripled federal spending.

Nemesis followed hubris. Commodity prices dropped. Predictably, Canada tumbled into recession and the worst federal budget deficits in peacetime history.

Trudeau’s Conservative successor Brian Mulroney balanced Canada’s operating budget after 1984. But to squeeze out Trudeau-era inflation, the Bank of Canada had raised real interest rates very high. Mulroney could not keep up with the debt payments. The debt compounded, the deficits grew, the Bank hiked rates again – and Canada toppled into an even worse recession in 1992. By 1993, default on Trudeau’s debt loomed as a real possibility. Trudeau’s next successors, Liberals this time, squeezed even tighter, raising taxes, and leaving Canadians through the 1990s working harder and harder with no real increase in their standard of living.

It's a proud Trudeau tradition that continues today:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is on track to increase Canada’ federal debt at a record pace, says a new study by the Fraser Institute.

“According to his own government’s projections,” the study concludes, Trudeau “will increase per person federal debt by 5% from 2015 to 2019 — the largest increase of any prime minister whose time in office didn’t include a world war or economic recession.”

“The fact is, Justin Trudeau is the only prime minister in the last 120 years who has increased the federal per person debt burden without a world war or recession to justify it,” said Charles Lammam, the Fraser Institute’s director of fiscal studies. ...

The inevitable result of Trudeau’s record pace of debt accumulation will be more federal tax dollars diverted to pay interest on government debt, meaning less money for programs like health care and post-secondary education, along with higher taxes.

As the Fraser study observes: “A key part of any prime minister’s legacy is whether they have left the federal government more or less indebted than when they took office.

“Government debt matters,” said Lammam. “Higher debt means more tax dollars are diverted away from important public programs in order to pay interest, and it leaves future generations on the hook to pay for today’s spending through higher taxes.”

It's just money.




Fresh from hearing of Shinzo Abe's handy victory, Kim Jong-Un plays the tired and unsubstantiated "Japanese imperialism" card:

North Korea on Monday blasted “Japanese reactionaries” for working to “pave the groundwork for a reinvasion of the Korean peninsula” after Sunday’s Lower House election that saw Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s ruling bloc secure a sweeping victory.

Abe dissolved the Diet on Sept. 28, forcing the election, as he sought a fresh mandate amid improving poll numbers and his handling of the North Korean nuclear crisis.

In a statement carried Monday by the North’s state-run Korean Central News Agency, a spokesman from the country’s Korea Asia-Pacific Peace Committee lambasted the move, calling it reminiscent of Imperial Japan’s march across Asia before and during World War II.

“What the Japanese reactionaries seek in deliberately linking their step to dissolve the House of Representatives with the DPRK is to gratify their ambition for staying in power and pave the groundwork for reinvasion of the Korean peninsula in order to realize the old dream of the ‘Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,’ taking advantage of the nuclear war moves of the U.S.,” the spokesman said, using the North’s formal name and referring to the Co-Prosperity Sphere, a pseudo-political and economic union of Japanese-dominated Asian and Pacific territories during the war.

“This is well proven by the fact that Japan examined a plan for giving logistic support to the U.S. troops and putting down ‘armed refugees’ with mobilization of the ‘Self-Defense Forces’ in contingency on the Korean peninsula, while loudly trumpeting about the U.S. military attack on the DPRK,” the spokesman added.

It's high-time that the North Koreans called him out on his total bullsh--.




Britain so generously offers Parks Canada the HMS Erebus and the HMS Terror one hundred and seventy-two years after they sank:

Britain will give Canada the shipwrecks of British explorer John Franklin, who tried to chart the Northwest Passage through the Canadian Arctic in 1845.

The Ministry Of Defence said in a statement it would transfer the ownership of the HMS Erebus and HMS Terror to Parks Canada, but retain a small sample of artifacts.

Thanks, guys.

For a Sunday

Before I comment on a couple of articles, I feel it necessary to re-quote the very astute insight of Ibn Warraq:

An obsession with conspiracies leads to fatalism, a refusal to take charge of one's own destiny or to take responsibility for the manifest backwardness of one's own culture.

(Warraq, Ibn. Why the West Is the Best. Encounter Books, 2011. pg. 159)


Now:

While the law does not mention a particular religion, many say it unfairly targets Muslim women who wear religious face coverings.

Ahmad says the bill could technically stop her from attending university, although she's hoping that won't happen since most of the faculty members she's spoken to have said they'll support her.

She also takes buses and the subway to get around, both to school and social engagements.

In the future, she says she expects to have to stay home more often.

**

On Wednesday, the Liberal majority passed into law Bill 62, which singles out the small number of Muslim women who wear face-covering niqabs or burkas and bans them from receiving government services, right down to a bus ride or a library card.

“Rather than facilitating inclusion, this legislation excludes citizens from the public sphere, it reinforces the marginalization of Canadian Muslims, and it risks emboldening those seeking to sow division and hatred between Canadians,” Eve Torres of the National Council of Canadian Muslims said in reaction.

Now, let's see: Pierre's son refused to call honour-killings barbaric, would not refer to the Boston bombing as an act of terror without excuse, regarded the prioritisation of the persecuted Yazidis for refugee status as "disgusting", has been known to frequent a mosque that has terrorist connections, has been the personal guest of a wealthy Islamist, has gone out of his way to pander to the Islamist community, voted for a motion of censorship, has ceased to strip convicted terrorists of Canadian citizenship, has rewarded a convicted terrorist and does not regard Canada as a separate and sovereign nation with an identity of its own.


This is not satisfactory?


Well, not if one belongs to an emotionally retarded culture that assumes a supine response whenever it cannot sway with anger or threats (reason is too much to expect).


This is why it is important to remember Ibn Warraq's (himself a former Muslim) words and to disregard with one's every impulse the notion that Islamists are the perpetual victims in Western countries where they are not only granted the ability and right to live in the manner they always have but are lauded for it and, when caught doing something wrong, are quickly excused for it.


When women in Iran were forced to wear the hijab after the 1979 revolution, they turned out in the streets in the thousands:

The penalty for their not wearing any covering - then and now - is severe.


Afghanistan (if one can believe it) was fairly modern in the 1950's and 1960's:

One cannot say the same now.


If these countries had already bucked these misogynist coverings through a natural cultural evolution, why return to a regressive state? Why force an established Western nation-state to accept things for which (one assumes) people immigrated to flee from? The answer to that question is that some people are fleeing to a place where they are placated, not where they must re-invent themselves and build a new life, as so many have done before them. Canada, in their eyes, must be transformed into a backward hole with which they are familiar and comfortable, even at the expense of liberties all enjoy.

Does the hijab crowd speak for her?

Well, it took over two weeks but Trudeau eventually got around to checking if Constable Mike Chernyk was okay:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau praised an Edmonton police officer for his "exemplary'' actions during an attack in which he was run down and then stabbed.

Trudeau met with Const. Mike Chernyk on Saturday during a visit to the Alberta capital and thanked the officer for his efforts, which the Prime Minister said helped save lives.

"It is a testament to his strength, but also to his training and just to the excellence of first-responders right across this country that he was able to keep a cool head in the most chaotic and violent of circumstances," Trudeau said.

Chernyk had been working crowd control outside a Canadian Football League game at Commonwealth Stadium on Sept. 30 when he was hit by a car that rammed through a barrier and sent him flying through the air.

The driver then got out, pulled out a large knife and began stabbing Chernyk, who fought back as he was lying on the ground.

Hours after Chernyk was injured, a cube van with police cars in pursuit drove down Jasper Avenue and hit four pedestrians.

Trudeau just oozes with concern for his political future.


Also - I would say the anniversary passed very quietly:

Sunday was a lovely, warm and above all peaceful day around Parliament Hill, in stark contrast to the chilly day exactly three years earlier when a terrorist killed Cpl. Nathan Cirillo.

As anniversaries go, this one couldn’t have been quieter. No announcements, no speeches, no military displays.

Crowds waited for tours of the Centre Block, posing for photos on the sunny lawn near the door where Michael Zehaf-Bibeau shot his way into the building. Some walked dogs; two young men kicked a soccer ball. (The tours skip over any mention of the shootings unless a visitor brings it up.)

The flag on the Peace Tower has been at half-staff for days, but that, as a Senate website made clear, was to honour the late Gord Downie.

Just another quiet day on the Hill, a Mountie observed.

While no one was looking or caring:

At least 54 policemen, including 20 officers and 34 conscripts, were killed when a raid on a militant hideout southwest of Cairo was ambushed, officials said Saturday. The ensuing firefight was one of the deadliest for Egyptian security forces in recent years.

**

A man with a knife attacked eight people in Munich on Saturday and then fled, police said. The suspected assailant, a local German already known to police for theft and other offences, was arrested a few hours later.

**

Anti-Christian persecution is at an all-time high world-wide, according to a recent report from the international Catholic charity, Aid to the Church in Need. The report, which tracks worldwide persecution from 2015-2017, found that 75 percent of religious persecution was directed at Christians.

The report also found that “in 12 of the 13 countries reviewed, the situation for Christians was worse in overall terms in the period 2015-17 than within the preceding two years.”

 
If the Liberals can't get their money from those grubby little hoarders in the waitressing and farming professions, they will damn well get it from the diabetics:

Health groups joined forces on Sunday with the Conservative opposition to accuse the Liberal government of trying to raise tax revenue on the backs of vulnerable diabetics.

The accusation opened a new front in the ongoing opposition waged war on government taxation policy, amid the backdrop of the conflict-of-interest controversy dogging Finance Minister Bill Morneau over whether he's properly distanced himself from millions of dollars of private sector assets.

Diabetes Canada was among the groups that joined Conservative politicians to publicly denounce what they say is a clawback of a long-standing disability tax credit to help them manage a disease that can cost the average sufferer $15,000 annually.

Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre branded it as one more example of an out-of-touch Liberal government that he characterized as unfairly targeting the hardworking middle class people it claims to support.

Speaking of out-of-touch:

This is more than a hint that the prime minister doesn’t really understand the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. Commissioner Mary Dawson is NOT the first or last authority on the ethics of the House or its members. They are. The House is. And the prime minister as government leader is, or should be, the first guardian and watchdog over the behaviour of his ministers and members. Mary Dawson is just a source of prudent backup. The attempts of the prime minister and finance minister to outsource their ethical standards to a parliamentary office, to position Dawson as somehow responsible for the deep pit they have so zealously excavated for themselves, is an outrage.

Also:

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has been badly shaken by a conflict-of-interest controversy about his finance minister, but the Liberal government’s upcoming fiscal update offers an opportunity to reset the public focus on Canada’s strong economy, political observers say. 

How? Does he have a pair of socks for that?


And:

Ontario’s Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk revealed this week that Kathleen Wynne’s government hid the cost of its “Fair Hydro Plan” from taxpayers.

This fat, unimportant little so-and-so wrote what she wrote because she knew that no one would be up in her grill about her bigotry and the fact that if she was caught using social media in Afghanistan, she would end up on the business end of a rifle:

A Dalhousie University student leader says she’s facing a backlash for criticizing “white fragility” and standing with Indigenous Peoples on Canada 150 celebrations.

Masuma Khan, a member of the student council executive, is under investigation for an online post that another student alleges discriminated against white people.

The issue stems from a Dalhousie Student Union decision not to endorse Canada Day celebrations or hold celebratory events on campus.

The decision prompted outcry from some groups, like the Nova Scotia Young Progressive Conservatives, who said in a Facebook post the student union “should be helping instill pride in our country, not boycott it on our most significant national holiday.”

Khan, a fourth-year international development studies student, called the celebrations an ongoing “act of colonialism” and used a hashtag that referred to “white fragility.”

“At this point, f–k you all. I stand by the motion I put forward. I stand by Indigenous students. … Be proud of this country? For what, over 400 years of genocide? #unlearn150 #whitefragilitycankissmyass #yourwhitetearsarentsacredthislandis” – Masuma Khan

“Be proud of this country? For what, over 400 years of genocide?” she said. “I stand by the motion I put forward. I stand by Indigenous students.”

Her post prompted Michael Smith, a graduate student in history at Dalhousie, to pen an opinion piece for the National Post newspaper.

“Canada is a welcoming country. We are blessed to be one of the most tolerant and multicultural nations in the world, where all individuals are free to pursue their dreams, regardless of their backgrounds,” he said in the op-ed. “Canadians have much to be proud of, and plenty to celebrate on this 150th year.”

Khan, a Muslim woman of colour who wears a hijab, said implicit in these comments is that she isn’t from Canada.

Enjoy your fifteen minutes of fame, fatty.




Bergdahl should be thankful that firing squads are in short supply these days:

Bowe Bergdahl, the U.S. Army sergeant who pleaded guilty Monday to deserting his post in Afghanistan in 2009, says his Taliban captors were more “honest” with him than the Army has been since his release three years ago.

He is vaguely like some other traitors who have occupied portions of the news.




Harvey Weinstein's sentencing circle rehabilitation is apparently finished. He is free to be a pervert again:

Disgraced movie mogul Harvey Weinstein has completed his one-week sex rehab program.

A psychologist taking part in his treatment told TMZ that Weinstein would remain in Arizona for a month or so after his week of outpatient 'intensive therapy' ends on Saturday.

Weinstein was 'invested in the program' and had focused on 'dealing with his anger, his attitude toward others, boundary work and the beginnings of work on empathy,' the psychologist told the outlet with Weinstein's permission.