For a Thursday

Damn you, global warming!

From the scandal that will die eventually:

In a statement before votes in the House of Commons, Jody Wilson-Raybould spoke.

Here’s what she said:

“I understand fully that Cdns want to know the truth & want transparency. Privilege & confidentiality are not mine to waive & I hope that I have the opportunity to speak my truth.”

Justin ignores this subtle bit of extortion at his peril:

If there was anyone left in Canada who doubted whether the Trudeau government was engaged in a total cover-up in the SNC-Lavalin PMO Scandal, those doubts are now GONE.

The Liberals just voted against waiving ‘solicitor-client privilege’ and allowing Jody Wilson-Raybould to speak freely.

It failed by a 160 – 133 margin.

And yet this is not going away:

According to a source with knowledge of the cabinet discussions, Ms. Wilson-Raybould said the director of the prosecution service rejected a negotiated settlement with SNC-Lavalin based on how the law applies to the company’s case. The Liberal government had changed the Criminal Code to allow for deferred prosecutions in which a company admits wrongdoing and pays a fine, but avoids a trial. Under Canada’s new deferred-prosecution agreement law, prosecutors are not allowed to consider national economic interests when deciding whether to settle with a company.

Mr. Trudeau has acknowledged he raised concerns about the economic impact that a conviction could have on SNC-Lavalin when he met privately with the then-justice minister and attorney-general on Sept. 17, two weeks after the director of public prosecutions decided to move toward a trial.

The fact that prosecutors had already informed the Quebec company of its decision before the meeting between Mr. Trudeau and Ms. Wilson-Raybould meant the only remaining question was whether the attorney-general would override federal prosecutors and publicly instruct them to cut a deal. ...

Gerald Butts also spoke to Jody Wilson-Raybould about a deferred prosecution for SNC-Lavalin on December 5. That meeting took place at the Chateau Laurier hotel, according to the reporting.

A key issue appears to be that the Trudeau government kept bringing the issue up again and again and again, even after the independent prosecutor had decided not to give SNC-Lavalin the deferred prosecution deal:

“Once prosecutors decided in early September to move to trial, Ms. Wilson-Raybould told cabinet she felt it was wrong for anyone – including the Prime Minister, members of his staff and other government officials – to raise the issue with her, the source said. Another source added that Ms. Wilson-Raybould would not budge from her position at the cabinet meeting.”

This totally contradicts Trudeau’s talking points.

He’s said there was no ‘pressure’ on Jody Wilson-Raybould. Yet, if a decision was already made, and the only question left was whether Jody Wilson-Raybould would overturn that decision, then any time the PM or the PMO staff spoke to her about it was obviously about pressuring her.

Cue the denials:

Canada's top civil servant has refuted a bombshell media report that alleged political interference in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, claiming it included "errors" and "unfounded speculation" and was "defamatory."

Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick, testifying at the justice committee today, was referring to a Feb. 7 Globe and Mail report that touched off a political scandal and triggered the resignation of cabinet minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's principal secretary, Gerry Butts.

"I'm here to say to you that the Globe and Mail article contains errors, unfounded speculation and, in some cases, is simply defamatory," he said.

This could be cleared up if Jody was allowed to speak.

Or she could forget about it if offered a new job.

Whatever.


This is another instance of Liberals being Liberals.


What is more sickening is how Canadians little understand what is going and how completely they are willing to put up with it.

Cases in point:

According to a Leger poll, 41% of Canadians believe Trudeau has ‘done something wrong.’

12% say he hasn’t done something wrong.

And 41% say they aren’t sure.

So,  53% of Canadians are so stunted in their thinking that they probably couldn't guess their own names even if prompted?

Oh, but don't take my word for it!:

A new survey conducted by Leger for The Canadian Press suggests the Trudeau Liberals will have to work harder to convince Canadians the country is doing better under their stewardship.

In all 46 per cent of respondents say Canada is doing worse since Justin Trudeau's Liberal government was elected in 2015, while only 22 per cent believe the country is doing better and 27 per cent say things are the same.

The poll also suggests the most important issues to Canadians are economic growth and jobs, followed by taxes and finances.

**

A survey by Leger shows a huge drop in the number of Canadians who pick Justin Trudeau as the best choice for PM.

In November 2018, 33% of Canadians picked Trudeau as best choice for PM.

Now, just 26% pick him, a drop of 7 points.

**

The Angus Reid Institute online survey found that 29 per cent of those polled are of the opinion that the science on vaccinations against deadly childhood infections isn’t “quite clear.” And the skepticism rises with age, with 36 per cent of Canadians over 55 believing the science isn’t entirely convincing.

A further one-quarter — 26 per cent — believe there is a “real risk of serious side effects” from vaccinations, even though such bodies as the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention note that side effects from childhood vaccines, for the most part, are minor (such as a sore arm, slight fever or fussiness) and serious reactions rare (occurring in less than one out of a million doses with the diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus vaccine, for example.)

The fact that every time Justin opens his mouth he says something stupid, that a major industry has been all but shut down, that the current government is rocked with scandal after scandal and that life expectancy has soared since the advent of childhood vaccines hasn't caught the average Canadian's attention?

The next time someone claims that Canadians are immensely more erudite than the average American, hit that person.




Selfless, my @$$:

Butts’ statement was full of baloney — or at the very least hypocrisy — in a broader sense, too, if one thinks about his team’s record.

If “Canadians are rightly proud of their public institutions,” as Butts claimed, how does he imagine Canadians have felt watching the Liberal government trying to politicize those institutions right from day one?

The appointment of partisan political Liberals in senior positions in the senior public service (including putting a person who helped write the Liberal election platform in a No. 2 position in the Privy Council Office) was the beginning. Then things proceeded apace with highlights including the brilliant idea to require employer-applicants for the Canada Summer Jobs program to pass a values test and attest to respecting abortion rights before benefitting from the federal funding. The Liberals walked that one back after an outcry — removing the requirement that employers specifically profess their faith in Charter rights.

But there’s so far been no rescue from the terrifying policy of the government distributing $600 million in aid to news organizations of its choice — er, sorry, the choice of an “independent panel” of journalists — thereby politicizing the country’s free press (or the part of it that wasn’t already working for the government). Not even our private institutions are safe.

As far as Butts’ contention that at “all times, I and those around me acted with integrity and a singular focus on the best interests of all Canadians,” I have but two words of rebuttal: supply management.

Butts has now removed himself from the picture … or, I guess, disembowelled himself with his own sword in a ritual suicide to restore the honour of the nation, to keep the metaphor more in keeping with his sense of self-importance.

With the loss of seven future Liberal voters, Justin aims to make things right by bringing in the rest of her family:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the federal government is looking into reuniting a mother who lost her seven children in a Halifax house fire this week with Syrian family members who are not in Canada.

Trudeau says Halifax MP Andy Filmore has already been in touch with Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen and immigration officials who are looking at the case involving Kawthar Barho’s family.

 
It's an election year!


Also:

The Quebec government is being taken to court over its decision to cancel a backlog of more than 18,000 immigration applications as it overhauls its system for selecting newcomers.

An association representing Quebec immigration lawyers filed an injunction request Wednesday seeking a halt to the policy. It wants the Immigration Department to be ordered to resume processing the applications.

The request, made in the name of a Korean woman living in Montreal, Seeun Park, states that potential immigrants whose applications have been scrapped feel "humiliated, betrayed and abandoned" by the provincial government.

Madame Park, you clearly not Muslim nor welfare-seeking enough to remain in Canada. You should have just walked over the border and claimed you had no papers. Filling out applications is for law-abiding suckers.

Too late for that:

Any “malicious interference” in Canadian affairs by foreign representatives here would be inappropriate, a federal official warned Wednesday in the wake of incidents that saw students from China angrily attack Tibetan and Uyghur activists at two Ontario universities.

But the spokeswoman for Kirsty Duncan, minister responsible for universities, sidestepped a call for Ottawa to investigate whether Chinese diplomats are using such students to meddle in Canadian post-secondary institutions.

Of course she did.


Further:

Chinese students at McMaster University were issued instructions by the Chinese consulate in Toronto on how to respond to a human rights event on campus involving China organized by two student clubs, screenshots of social media discussions among a group of Chinese students show.

The incident is part of a growing trend of reports of Chinese consulates and embassies exerting influence and interference in their host countries.

Nothing to see here, I guess.

Mid-Week Post

The soft, chewy centre of the work-week ...




The daughter of a North Korean defector was kidnapped and returned to Pyongyang:

The 17-year-old daughter of North Korea’s acting ambassador to Italy, Jo Song-gil, was forcibly taken to Pyongyang from Italy after her father tried to defect, reports say.

Italy’s ANSA news agency says the incident happened in November, after the high school student’s father and mother went missing in Italy in what was a suspected attempt by the father to switch allegiance.

As his term in Rome neared its end, Jo and his wife are said to have gone underground. The parents’ whereabouts are unknown and Italy has only said that Jo hadn’t requested asylum.

South Korean media reports that Jo is with his wife and is under Italian government protection, but that his daughter was forcibly taken as she was trying to link up with her parents.

But Trump, who will meet Kim Jong-Un next week in Vietnam, does not appear to be concerned about matters like this or denuclearisation, for that matter:

U.S. President Donald Trump said on Tuesday he wants North Korea to end its nuclear program, but has no pressing time schedule for this, as he dispatched his special envoy to finalize preparations for a second summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un next week.

Speaking to reporters at the White House, Trump said sanctions against North Korea would remain in place in the meantime and noted Pyongyang's freeze in nuclear and missile testing since 2017.

"I'm in no rush. There's no testing. As long as there is no testing, I'm in no rush. If there's testing, that's another deal," he said. "I'd just like to see ultimately denuclearization of North Korea."

Yes, about that: 

• Located 250 kilometers north of the DMZ, Sangnam-ni (상남리) missile operating base is an operational missile base that houses a battalion- or regiment-sized unit equipped with Hwasong-10 (Musudan) intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBM).¹
• The deployment of the Hwasong-10, with 3000+ kilometer ranges, at Sangnam-ni is a component of North Korea’s presumed offensive ballistic missile strategy that provides a strategic-level first strike capability against targets located throughout East Asia as far as U.S. forces in Okinawa and Guam.
• The base is defended against by a single anti-aircraft artillery position and nearby surface-to-air missile bases.
• Repeated flight failures of the Hwasong-10 may lead to the Strategic Force’s replacing it with the successful Hwasong-12 IRBM (KN-17) or Pukkuksong-2 (KN-15) medium-range-ballistic missiles (MRBM). The Hwasong-12 has a flight range up to 4,500km and the Pukkuksong-2 has an operational flight range estimated at between 1,200km-2,000+ km.
• Sangnam-ni is one of approximately 20 North Korean ballistic missile operating bases that has never been declared by North Korea. The base does not appear to be the subject of denuclearization negotiations between the United States and North Korea.
• Some have argued that North Korea is under no obligation to declare these operational missiles bases. But ten standing United Nations Security Council Resolutions, including the most recent UNSCR 2397, explicitly ban North Korea from developing and testing ballistic missiles.²
• Any potential agreement that decommissions the Tongchang-ri (Sohae) rocket test stand alone would obscure the extant military threat to U.S. forces and South Korea from this and other undeclared ballistic missile bases in this CSIS study.

Either North Korea is no longer a priority for Trump or he has fallen into the same rut as previous presidents - let tensions drag on until North Korea appears conciliatory and sanctions are eased. That or a conclusion of a more craven nature - prepare North Korea for economic exploitation as pro-North Korea president Moon is ready to do.


(Kamsahamnida)




Who says people can't be bought?:

Wilson-Raybould, who resigned from cabinet at the height of the SNC-Lavalin scandal, attended Tuesday’s Liberal cabinet meeting and sat in the seats normally reserved for cabinet ministers.

All of that lead to speculation that the woman Justin Trudeau often simply calls “Jody” was back in cabinet.

Not so, apparently.

Wilson-Raybould remains in the Liberal caucus but sources say she simply addressed cabinet then sat with them for question period.

Is this the price of her co-operation?

Well maybe that and the resignation of Gerry Butts as the PM’s principal secretary.

**
 

Former justice minister and attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould will be called to testify before a parliamentary committee probing the SNC-Lavalin scandal — but opposition critics are furious that no past or current aides in the Prime Minister's Office will be invited to appear.

After a two-hour closed door meeting, members of the justice committee emerged today with a list of witnesses that includes a handful of academics and Justice Minister David Lametti, in addition to Wilson-Raybould.

But Conservatives and New Democrats accused the Liberals of blocking key players from appearing — among them Gerry Butts, who suddenly resigned Monday from his position as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's top adviser.

Butts goes and Jody re-appears.

Whatever she might have said must have been so big that someone too big to fail might have gone to jail for. 

Also - from the most "transparent" government in the country's history:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says it’s important there be an “airing” of what happened in the SNC-Lavalin affair.

But he dodged questions on why his government is refusing to support a public inquiry into allegations of political interference at the heart of the matter.

Don't get the government to do a business' job:

Frustrated by persistently low prices for their product, Seven Generations Energy Ltd, Peyto Exploration and Development Corp. and Advantage Oil & Gas Ltd. and seven other producers have formed a consortium with the aim of building a new liquefied natural gas export project in Canada.

The more leftists speak, the more they convince even the ovine and apolitical that they are nuisance the entire province can do quite well without. Sooner or later, people will tire of subsidise any education and it will become completely privatised. How many private groups or individuals will shell out money for a gender studies degree or how many jokes about Trump one can tell when they can fund math classes and medical degrees?:

Doug Ford admonished protesting students for their "filthy" mouths on Tuesday after a group decrying cuts to post-secondary grants disrupted a session at Ontario's legislature by shouting obscenities at the premier.

A handful of student protesters seated in the public gallery interrupted legislators by shouting chants of "free tuition" followed by profanity directed at the premier. Ford chastised the group and blamed the Opposition for influencing them.

The article neglected to add the racist slurs hurled at Ford but that kind of content would only divert the Narrative, so ... 

Good:

The family of the Kentucky teen who was involved in an encounter with a Native American advocate at the Lincoln Memorial last month filed a defamation lawsuit against The Washington Post on Tuesday, seeking $250 million in damages for its coverage of the incident.

She is not really a citizen of anything other than whatever bombed-out building ISIS is crouched in ... and she can stay there:

Isis schoolgirl Shamima Begum is not a Bangladeshi citizen and will not be allowed to live there, according to the country’s ministry of foreign affairs .

“The government of Bangladesh is deeply concerned that she [Begum] has been erroneously identified as a holder of dual citizenship,” Shahrial Alam told the Guardian.

Home Secretary Sajid Javid ordered the 19-year-old Londoner, who wants to return to the UK with her newly-born child as the so-called caliphate crumbles, be stripped of UK citizenship, claiming she is also a citizen of Bangladesh due to her parentage. 

Britain cannot remove the citizenship of a person who does not have dual nationality as doing so would make them ‘stateless’ and is illegal under international law.

And now, Tokyo - one hundred and twenty two years ago:

 

And the Rest of It

Just in:

Former justice minister and attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould will be called to testify at a parliamentary committee probing the SNC-Lavalin scandal — but it's not yet clear how much she'll be able to reveal publicly because she's still bound by client-solicitor privilege.

Wilson-Raybould said today she is consulting with her lawyer about what she can and can't say, and his guidelines also will apply to her appearance before the Commons justice committee.

"I will appear, but as I said, I'm still in discussions with my counsel about the various privileges and confidences that I have," she said.

 
Will she burn herself or others?


Also:

In what appears to be a deceptive effort to give the appearance of transparency without actually getting the truth, the Liberal-controlled justice committee will invite Jody Wilson-Raybould to speak.

However, the PMO continues to block Jody Wilson-Raybould from being able to fully speak about what happened, because they aren’t waiving ‘solicitor-client privilege.’

This means she still can’t go into details.

As a result, inviting her to the committee without waiving privilege appears to be a political stunt.

Naturally.



A man who fired into a crowded mall is found guilty of manslaughter:

In a stunning verdict, a Toronto man accused of fatally shooting two men at Toronto’s Eaton Centre seven years ago was found guilty of two counts of manslaughter.

After almost six days of deliberations, the jury also found Christopher Husbands guilty of five counts of aggravated assault, one count each of criminal negligence causing bodily harm and reckless discharge of a firearm in the June 2, 2012 mall shooting.

Just manslaughter.


Also:

An appeal court has found that a judge mistakenly failed to consider the Cree background of a drug trafficker who had been taken from his Manitoba parents as an infant and raised by a non-Aboriginal family on Prince Edward Island.

Nicholas George Nash McInnis was taken from his biological Cree parents at birth and placed in the care of Manitoba Child and Family Services.

When he was seven months old, he was adopted by John and Brenda McInnis, who are originally from Sherwood, P.E.I., and are not Indigenous.

A provincial court judge rejected a joint Crown-defence submission that would have seen the 20-year-old man avoid jail time for possession of cannabis for the purpose of trafficking.

McInnis was apprehended with marijuana and cash at Charlottetown Rural High School where he was a student, The Guardian reported. He told police he was selling marijuana to about six students.

Furthermore, she decided not consider the man’s Aboriginal heritage in arriving at her decision — an intermittent sentence of 90 days in jail — because he had been adopted at a very young age.

Where is the scientific evidence that race determines what crimes one will commit?



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

U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham said Friday the response by the United States to China detaining two Canadians in apparent retaliation for the arrest of a Chinese Huawei executive has not been strong enough.

Graham also told Munich Security Conference delegates the international reaction to China's arrest of ex-diplomat Michael Kovrig and entrepreneur Michael Spavor hasn't been enough to persuade China that its apparent use of hostage diplomacy won't be tolerated.

"The president has been tough on China but this is one area where I think we need to make a more definitive statement, because the two people arrested in China had nothing to do with the rule of law. 

It was just grabbing two Canadians," Graham said.

Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, who appeared on the panel with Graham, mouthed the words "thank you" to Graham after he said it. Roland Paris, one of the delegates and a former foreign policy adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, asked Graham about it.

Why didn't that come from you, Crier-in-Chief? 

Also - no, when Trump declared that the North Korean people loved their tyrant, he made vanish any political or moral authority he had:

Trump’s praise for the North Korean dictator — and hopes for a breakthrough in negotiating peace — won’t surprise his detractors, either. “Kim Jong Un has become yet another authoritarian ruler that Trump simply can’t resist praising,” scoffed Slate, one of many media outlets mocking Trump’s presumed naiveté in foreign affairs and shallowness in judging character.

The shallowness, however, is all the media’s, whose blind hatred of Trump leads to a myopic analysis of his M.O. True, Trump has also lavished praise on China’s President Xi Jinping and Russia’s President Vladimir Putin, both strongmen. But that hasn’t prevented him from being tougher on China and Russia than any president in recent history, as their leaders no doubt rue.

The media have nothing better to do  than moan about Trump. That doesn't change the fact that the error he made was his to own.



I'm sure it's nothing to be concerned about:

Russian lender Gazprombank has decided to freeze the accounts of Venezuelan state oil company PDVSA and halted transactions with the firm to reduce the risk of the bank falling under U.S. sanctions, a Gazprombank source told Reuters on Sunday.

A fact uncovered about the Stonehenge:

Researchers excavated two quarries at the Carn Goedog and Craig Rhos-y-felin outcrops—sites geologists had matched with bluestones. Analyzing and dating charcoal from the sites in the lab, the team was able to build a picture of the ancient quarrying that yielded stones now standing 180 miles away.

Pillars of rock rise naturally from these jagged outcrops, likely giving neolithic quarriers a serious advantage. The ancient workers could have eased the large stones from their homes with the use of stone wedges that helped loosen them from their rocky neighbors. 

Ancient mudstone wedges—likely used to prevent damage to the megaliths—and stone hammers have been found at the site. Quarry workers probably also used perishable items like ropes, wooden levers and mallets to extract and move the rocks.

After they loosened the rocks, these ancient workers would have lowered them to a platform area at the bottom of each outcrop. Researchers found evidence of platforms built of earth and stone, the end of each giving way to a three-foot drop.

The Age of Cyber-Espionage

The beleaguered Chinese company, Huawei, has issued another warning to Canadians:

As the Trudeau government decides whether to join its security and trading partners in banning Huawei Canada from supplying technology to build Canada's 5G wireless network, it risks an expensive lawsuit under the terms of a foreign investor protection agreement signed by its predecessor.

According to one report, cyber-espionage costs between $375 billion and $575 billion globally. Another report puts the cost at $445 billion.

Would a lawsuit cost that much?


Justin may be glad some of the heat has been taken off of him and Huawei executive, Meng Wanzhou, and may even be glad to hear that the British are fooling themselves when they claim that they can handle what they must acknowledge is spyware and cyber-attacks.  That doesn't change the fact that Huawei and the government it works for spy on others and their own citizens:

A Chinese surveillance firm is tracking the movements of more than 2.5 million people in the far-western Xinjiang region, according to a data leak flagged by a Dutch internet expert. 

An online database containing names, ID card numbers, birth dates and location data was left unprotected for months by Shenzhen-based facial-recognition technology company SenseNets Technology Ltd, according to Victor Gevers, co-founder of non-profit organization GDI.Foundation, who first noted the vulnerability in a series of social media posts last week.

Their reach extends as far as Canada where Tibetan activists face threats almost constantly.


Why even risk it?

Leave. Them. There.

It really could not be more simple a solution.

They knew what they were doing. They knew what they wanted. Now that their gangs of rapists and murderers are fleeing to the four winds, they wave a flag until someone agrees to pick them up.

Screw you.

With U.S.-backed Syria Democratic Forces advancing on ISIL’s last stronghold in the village of Baghouz, some 20,000 people have fled the area. The male ISIL fighters have been jailed, with the women kept under guard at refugee camps.

The four-year coalition war to wipe out ISIL’s self-declared “caliphate” has entered its final sequence, and a number of so-called ISIL brides have told their stories to the world’s media. Facing harrowing conditions and uncertain futures, their tales include remorse and regret as well as defiance and bitterness. ...

“It was an easy life. It was a city. It was stable,” Ahmed said of the time, in 2014, when she had first gone to Raqqa, Syria. “You’re there and you’re eating Pringles and Twix bars. You’re just there. You don’t feel like you’re in a war.”

Asked about ISIL’s use of slaves, her answer was blunt:

“Well, having slaves is part of Sharia. I believe in Sharia, wherever Sharia is. We must follow whoever is implementing the way, the law.”

“No,” she responded when asked if she had any regrets over making the trip.

Even for the children, Belgian sympathy goes only so far. Many people are anxious. Belgium contributed the largest number of Islamic State fighters to Syria per capita of any European Union nation, and the country remains scarred by the attacks of 2016, when Belgian citizens with Islamic State connections targeted Brussels with deadly bombings. Discussions on talk shows and in editorial pages have stoked fear about what the children may have learned from their parents or from Islamic State training camps, which targeted children as young as 6 for indoctrination – although little evidence exists that any of the Belgians were exposed.

Yes, about that:

In Belgium, for instance, a secular primary school in Ronse reported in the spring of 2017 that some Muslim children "called others 'pigs' or 'unbelievers.' They made murder motions by drawing their fingers over their throats." According to one teacher cited in the report, some students have stopped coming to school "because the school's vision doesn't fit with their beliefs," and a toddler in her class has already been promised in marriage to a boy in Morocco. Another girl refused to stand next to boys in line.

That man, Mohammed Khalifa, captured in Syria last month by a U.S.-backed militia, spoke in his first interview about being the voice of the 2014 video, known as “Flames of War.” He described himself as a rank-and-file employee of the Islamic State’s Ministry of Media, the unit responsible for publicizing such brutal footage as the beheading of American journalist James Foley and the burning of a Jordanian pilot.

“No, I don’t regret it,” Khalifa said from a prison in northeastern Syria. “I was asked the same thing by my interrogators, and I told them the same thing.”

Also:

Under the current laws, advocating for terrorism is a crime. Under the new laws, it only will be if a specific person is being directly counselled.

(Sidebar: kind of like being directed to drop prosecution of a certain Quebec company.)

How could this go wrong?

Convoy!

 

This massive multi-ton rolling movement of national indignation couldn't happen at a worse time for Justin:

United We Roll left Red Deer, Alta., on Valentine’s Day, intent on bringing a message to the federal Liberal government that “Pipelines need to be built. Bill C-69 and 48 are obviously a problem. And (so is), the carbon tax,” said one of the organizers, Jason Corbeil, referencing federal legislation seeking to change the environmental review process for energy projects and ban oil tankers from British Columbia’s north coast.

Any country that stymies a major natural resource is one that not only does not want to compete on the national stage but wants its citizens to endure poverty:

The premiers of Saskatchewan and New Brunswick joined Conservative leader Andrew Scheer on a panel at a rally in rural Saskatchewan on Saturday that was held to draw attention to legislation that would overhaul how major energy projects are assessed.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe called Bill C-69 “the no more pipelines bill.”

“We have a very thorough process that does work. What we need is a federal government that supports our resource industries across this nation,” Moe told a crowd of hundreds in southeastern Saskatchewan.

“Unfortunately what we have is a federal government that is pressing forward with Bill C-69.”

Scheer vowed that if elected in October, he would repeal C-69 if it passed, but his government’s first job would be to scrap the carbon tax.

Instead of fighting for the pipelines that could enrich her province, Premier Rachel Notley takes the regressive approach:

The Alberta government says it’s investing $3.7 billion to move the province’s land-locked oil to market by rail.

It says 4,400 leased railway cars will move up to 120,000 barrels of oil per day by 2020.

Shipments are expected to begin as early as July.

I'll just leave this right here:

(source)

From the Most "Transparent" Government In the Country's History, Part Deux

Corruption in Quebec can't just stay hidden:

Jody Wilson-Raybould was confronted by reporters today on Parliament Hill.

She was asked about the SNC-Lavalin scandal, and asked if Trudeau pressured her on the issue.
Here’s what she said:

“Former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould speaks briefly w/ reporters on Parliament Hill: asked if she was pressured re SNC-Lavalin case, says “I’m still working w/ my lawyer”; asked if she’s still in Liberal caucus, replies “I’m a Liberal member of Parliament.”

Oh, I'll bet she is but her advisor is a former mentor to the Trudeau Foundation, so ...

 

Quelle surprise:

A judge has thrown out fraud and bribery charges against a former SNC-Lavalin executive after concluding delays in his trial had become unreasonable.

Quebec court Judge Patricia Compagnone stayed proceedings against Stephane Roy Tuesday. She said the delays created by the prosecution "are an example of the culture of complacency that was deplored by the Supreme Court" in its 2016 Jordan decision.

Roy was facing charges of fraud over $5,000 and bribing a foreign public official in connection with the company's dealings with the regime of the late Libyan dictator, Moammar Gadhafi.

He was charged in 2014, and his trial was scheduled to begin at the end of May. In a hearing last week, his defence invoked the Jordan decision, which set time limits on criminal proceedings.

His case stemmed from the same RCMP Project Assistance investigation that led to charges against SNC-Lavalin. Those charges are fuelling controversy in Ottawa following a report that the Prime Minister's Office pressured former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to help the engineering firm avoid prosecution.

Meanwhile:

T.J. Harvey, a first-term Liberal MP from New Brunswick, won’t be running in 2019.

Despite not even having served long enough to get his lucrative MPs pension, Harvey says he’ll be returning to the private sector.

Also:

The Norman and SNC-Lavalin episodes show that what Trudeau promised to fix about the PMO during the 2015 election — making it more open, more transparent, and less controlling — remains broken. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

It’s not a particularly insightful point, given that people such as Donald Savoie have been banging on about the unholy concentration of power in the PMO since Justin Trudeau was in short pants. 

Literally, as Savoie has been going on about it since the days of Pierre Elliott Trudeau.

Savoie argues the concentration of power in the “centre” is — in part — a consequence of the spread of government. Central agencies such as the Privy Council Office and Treasury Board were meant to co-ordinate government business across the growing panoply of post-war departments, but instead telescoped power away from departments to the centre. And that telescoping has now continued to the point we have today, where the unelected and short-panted call all of the shots.

(Sidebar: now one knows one of the reasons why the Liberals are loathe to chuck SNC-Lavalin under the bus.)

**

It was just earlier this month that former CEO of SNC-Lavalin, Pierre Duhaime, pleaded guilty for his role in a bribery scam related to a Montreal hospital.

Just last week it was prosecutors in Quebec, aided by the RCMP, that were found to be investigating the company on bribery charges related to a Montreal bridge project.

If this is the company that Justin Trudeau wants to stake all his political capital on then we have to ask, what do they have on him?

Let's not forget Justin new whipping boy:

Lawyers for Vice-Admiral Mark Norman have taken aim at a key federal cabinet minister with new allegations about Treasury Board President Scott Brison’s links to the powerful Irving family and Brison’s role in the government’s plan to delay a supply-ship contract awarded to an Irving rival.

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

The scandal that won't die:

All of which raises a very curious question. If Butts did absolutely nothing wrong; if neither he, the prime minister nor anyone else acted improperly in any manner; if this whole thing is, in essence, a figment of the imagination of Jody Wilson-Raybould, why is Butts stepping down and leaving the prime minister flailing for a solution to the worst crisis he’s faced since becoming prime minister?

**

Resignations follow revelations. It is not in the course of political nature that they precede them. The public still does not know what all this is about. Ms. Jody Wilson-Raybould’s silence (as I write anyway) is still intact. Words she has still yet to speak are the Damoclean Sword over Mr. Trudeau’s stay in office and the fate of his government.

But of this we can be certain. Mr. Butts did not resign to make matters worse, to sharpen focus on the drama, to further darken its already bleak overcloud.

He must have chosen to do so because there was some element, more explosive, more turbulent, and more ominous for his friend and prime minister yet to come. Yet to come, and which Mr. Butts’ pre-emptive sacrifice offered some hope of either preventing, deflecting or deflating.

I do not believe that someone like Butts whose arrogance, insolence and Liberal penchant for collecting self-appointed entitlements would bravely fall on his sword after serving himself and not the public. He is not a scapegoat. That would make him almost noble.

Remember - this is the man who even Justin claimed made the decisions.

Butts not only had the ear of Justin but other bits of him, as well. People would claim that he and Butts would finish each other's sentences.

But however long they braided each other's hair, Butts' supposed departure does not wrap up the SNC-Lavalin scandal (upon which Quebec votes are based) but shines a very bright light on an unknown transgression.

And the voters know it.

Resignation

Oh, this is going to burn:

Gerald Butts, Justin Trudeau’s principal secretary and long-time friend, has resigned amid allegations that the Prime Minister’s Office interfered to prevent a criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin.

In a statement, Butts unequivocally denies the accusation that he or anyone else in the office improperly pressured former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to help the Montreal engineering giant avoid a criminal case on corruption and bribery charges related to government contracts in Libya.

Nevertheless, Butts says the allegation is distracting from the “vital work” Trudeau is doing so it’s in the best interests of the Prime Minister’s Office for him to step aside.

(Sidebar: was Buttsy pressured? Did Justin accept his decision? Seeing as he was free and clear to not testify, even behind closed doors, what could have motivated him to pack and run?)


Now, did Buttsy resign to save Justin or did he resign to save himself?

Time, it will tell.

One thing is for certain: without the help of his most trusted puppeteer, on whom will Justin rely for scripted lines that seem vaguely plausible?

For a Friday

(Insert own pithy comment here)




Justin is stuck in a loop:

Jody Wilson-Raybould would still be justice minister if it wasn’t for the resignation of former Treasury Board president Scott Brison, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Friday, downplaying suggestions she was moved for not giving into political arm-twisting.

Trudeau said Brison’s decision to leave politics resulted in having to “move things around” on the team, including shuffling Wilson-Raybould into the veterans affairs portfolio.

“One of the seniors members of our team stepped down and we had to move things around on the team,” Trudeau said. “If Scott Brison had not stepped down from cabinet, Jody Wilson-Raybould would still be minister of justice and attorney general.”

Trudeau was also asked directly if the decision to move Wilson-Raybould out of justice had anything to do with SNC-Lavalin.

“Any time, one makes a decision to shift members of cabinet, there are always a wide range of factors that go into making that decision,” he said.

Yes, about that:

I recall skimming an unusually lengthy statement published by recently-demoted attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould on Jan. 15.

The statement was largely a congratulatory pat on the back in which Wilson-Raybould reflected on her many accomplishments as AG and waxed poetically about the challenges still to come in her continuing service as a Liberal MP and her new role as Minister of Veterans Affairs.
 
The PMO had allegedly pressured Wilson-Raybould — then attorney general —  to enter into a “remediation agreement” with SNC-Lavalin; essentially encouraging the AG to cut a deal. Wilson-Raybould is said to have refused, citing the obvious impropriety of an Attorney General, at the direction of the Prime Minister’s Office, interceding in the normal course of a prosecution being handled by the Public Prosecution Service. Then Wilson-Raybould got fired as AG.

**

“I am surprised and disappointed and to be honest don’t entirely understand why Jody Wilson-Raybould made the decision that she did. Because if anyone, particularly the attorney general, felt that we were not doing our job fully, responsibly and according to all the rules, as a government, it was her responsibility to come forward to me this past fall and highlight that directly to me. She did not. Nobody did. And that’s why I continue to be puzzled and disappointed by her decision to step down from cabinet.”

** 

During a conversation in the fall, Trudeau said Wilson-Raybould asked if he would be directing her to take a particular decision, stressing that he replied, “No.” Trudeau said Friday he told Wilson-Raybould any decision on SNC-Lavalin was hers alone.

“It was her decision to make and I expected her to make it,” he said. “I had full confidence in her role as attorney general to make the decision.”

So, which is it, Justin? 


Also:

While talking about the demotion of former attorney general Jody Wilson Raybould, Housefather told host Elias Makos the cabinet shuffle may have had to do with her lack of French.

“There are a lot of justice issues this year, including the Charter of Values being proposed by Quebec, that are going to require a justice minister who is very able to communicate with Quebecers,” Housefather told CJAD.

Wilson-Raybould was Justin Trudeau’s justice minister and attorney general and was able to shepherd some major legislation for the government including medically assisted dying and the legalization of marijuana.

And she did all that without speaking French.

There were no complaints about her performance until she apparently refused to cut a deal to allow SNC-Lavalin, the Montreal based construction giant, to avoid prosecution over bribery, fraud and corruption charges.

Housefather chaired the justice committee meeting on Wednesday that blocked attempts by the Conservatives and NDP to call Wilson-Raybould and top advisors to the PM to testify.

Just pile it on, lackeys.




Meanwhile:

Quebec Premier Francois Legault says he wants the federal government to settle with engineering firm SNC-Lavalin “as soon as possible” in order to protect jobs and the company’s corporate headquarters in Montreal.

I'll just leave this right here:

Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (CDPQ) (lit. Quebec Deposit and Investment Fund, also referred to in English-language media as the Caisse) is an institutional investor that manages several public and parapublic pension plans and insurance programs in Quebec. It was founded in 1965 by an act of the National Assembly under the government of Jean Lesage. It is the second largest pension fund in Canada, after the Canada Pension Plan (CPP).

**

The Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec has raised its stake in SNC-Lavalin Group Inc., as the pension fund keeps its faith in the beleaguered engineering and construction company.

The Caisse, already SNC’s top shareholder, bought 1.81 million shares on March 12 and 13 for a total investment of $73.7 million, according to March 16 filing with the Ontario Securities Commission’s System for Electronic Disclosure by Insiders, or SEDI.

The pension fund bought 721,800 shares at $40.56 each and an additional 1,087,300 at $40.88 over the two-day period, taking its total stake to 17.27 million shares, or 11.3% of the company.

(Merci)




So it begins:

A rural Manitoba school division says it is investigating after a gym teacher posted a photo to Facebook showing him holding a sign insulting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The photo was taken after an event attended by Conservative MP Candice Bergen at the kindergarten to Grade 12 school in Miami, Man.

In an interview with CTV Winnipeg, physical education teacher Brent Unrau says he asked for a photo with Bergen and in it, the two hold signs that together read: “Trudeau is just the worst.”

Well, he is.

If the school division finds any partisan content in the classroom to be offensive, I trust it will be as equally punitive to others teachers.

Right?



Basic income is just another form of welfare:

An Ontario court has denied a request that it quash the provincial government’s decision to cancel a basic income pilot project.

In a decision released Thursday, a panel of three Superior Court judges ruled the court has “no power” to reverse the move made by the Progressive Conservative government last summer.

The Tories announced in July they were cancelling the project, which provided a guaranteed annual income to participants in three Ontario cities: Hamilton, Thunder Bay and Lindsay.

Good:

Britain’s Home Secretary has warned he’ll block the return of Britons who travelled to the Middle East to join the Islamic State group.

Sajid Javid’s comments come amid a furious debate about Shamima Begum, who ran away to join extremists when she was 15. Begum, who is now nine months pregnant, told The Times newspaper that she wants to come home.

Javid told the newspaper on Friday that he “will not hesitate” to prevent the return of Britons who “supported terrorist organizations abroad.” Others have appealed for mercy, noting Begum’s age when she fled.

And I thought North Korea was on the ropes:

North Korea possesses the capabilities to track and target satellites, posing a challenge to other militaries, the US Department of Defense said in a recent report.

According to the report published Monday by the US Defense Intelligence Agency, “Challenges to Security in Space,” North Korea is among countries that pose a challenge to militaries using space-enabled services.

Will this issue be addressed during the summit?:

North Korea has informed Japan that Minoru Tanaka, a Hyogo Prefecture native who vanished in 1978, is living in Pyongyang with his wife and children, Kyodo News reported Friday, quoting an unnamed source in the Japanese government.

The government claims Tanaka was kidnapped by North Korean agents while staying in Europe.

Since 2014, North Korea has told Japan about Tanaka’s situation several times, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Pyongyang also reportedly told Tokyo that Tatsumitsu Kaneda, one of his coworkers at a noodle shop, is also living in Pyongyang with his wife and children.

Japanese officials were told that neither Tanaka nor Kaneda intends to return to Japan, according to Kyodo News. ...

Japan officially lists 17 citizens as having been kidnapped by North Korean agents and suspects the North’s involvement in many more abductions. Of the 17, five were repatriated in 2002.