The false promise of pharmacare

Maintaining clinics, hospitals, and delivering health care is a provincial jurisdiction. For decades, the federal government, via the Canada Health Act, has stifled innovation in the healthcare delivery field while ignoring its constitutional healthcare obligations.

Given the Supreme Court of Canada's decisions that the Impact Assessment Act is mainly unconstitutional, premiers must insist that the Canada Health Act be rescinded and provinces given tax points compensating for the per capita grants currently offered.

Writing for a majority of the Court, Chief Justice Wagner ruled that the reference questions should be answered in the affirmative: the federal impact assessment scheme is unconstitutional in part. While the constitutionality of sections 81 to 91 of the Act was not challenged, Chief Justice Wagner said that the process set forth therein is constitutional. However, the balance of the scheme — that is, the “designated projects” portion — is ultra vires Parliament and thus unconstitutional for two overarching reasons. First, it is not directed at regulating “effects within federal jurisdiction” as defined in the Act, because these effects do not drive the scheme’s decision-making functions. Second, the defined term “effects within federal jurisdiction” does not align with federal legislative jurisdiction. The overbreadth of these effects exacerbates the constitutional frailties of the scheme’s decision-making functions, he said.

In short, in any area where the Impact Assessment Act infringes on a provincial jurisdiction, the Act is null and void – kaput!
 

In other areas, the federal government may exercise its options primarily under section 92(10) of the Constitution Act, the federal government assumes ownership and costs operations of the facility or infrastructure link.

by Catherine Swift
The Niagara Independent
October 20, 2023

Among all the other hot topics in our world today, the issue of pharmacare will likely be a key part of discussions in Ottawa at least until the end of this year. The reason is of course the demand of Jagmeet Singh’s NDP that the Liberals introduce a pharmacare program before year end. This demand is part of the so-called Supply and Confidence agreement between the Liberal Party and the NDP to ensure the NDP will continue to prop up the minority Liberals through until October 2025, as long as the Liberals satisfy NDP demands. 

A look at the facts suggests that mucking around with the existing Canadian pharmacare system is a bad idea. First of all, a grandiose national government-run pharmacare system is a solution looking for a problem. Currently, about 90 per cent – and some studies have found higher percentages – of Canadians have sufficient drug coverage of one kind or another. Much of this is done through the provinces and the private sector with employers, insurance companies and others contributing to the mix.

It is not exactly the same for every Canadian, as some programs cover drugs other programs do not, but generally it is a pretty good system. As well, there are back-up agencies such as the Trillium Drug Program in Ontario, who can step in and provide coverage for lower-income people, the disabled and others that need assistance with drug costs. For the small minority of Canadians who truly lack drug coverage, it would be much more sensible to focus on them than upend the entire current system which is on balance working well. 

The NDP, defying centuries of factual experience, continue to believe that government monopolies are the ideal way to deliver any service. They would like to see the creation of a massively costly government bureaucracy to oversee a one-size-fits-all pharmacare program for the country, no matter the different needs of the various regions and subsets of the population. And it will be expensive. 
 

Estimates of how much a national government-run pharmacare program would be range from $11-30 billion annually and, as with most government program estimates, this is likely on the low side. Federal finances are already in a perilous state because of the massive overspending of the Trudeau government, and debt rating agencies are paying close attention to any worsening of our debt burden by the introduction of costly new programs. 

The unions are of course gung-ho about the prospect of a new national program, as they foresee lots of new government unionized jobs for the big bureaucracy that will be needed with their overly generous salaries, rich pensions and other pricey benefits. Trudeau has already increased the unproductive federal public sector by 40 per cent, and an additional new bureaucracy will further worsen the government cost burden on the productive private sector. 

Proponents of a national pharmacare system tout the notion that money will be saved by having one national entity obtain drugs at higher volume and a lower price, but much of that “bulk buying” is already taking place within and among the provinces. Furthermore, the notion of “free” drugs suggests that the over-prescription and use and abuse of unnecessary medications would be even worse than it already is if there are not some kind of costs attached to it. Furthermore, experience with these types of programs in other jurisdictions suggests that the range of drugs covered by the program would be significantly less than with the current system.

From the legislative standpoint, the likelihood of the Liberals presenting a piece of legislation acceptable to the NDP in the few weeks left that Parliament will be sitting in 2023 is slim to none. Any sensible pharmacare Bill would be very complex and detailed and will never be accomplished in a few weeks. If anything is produced, it will probably only be a rough overview put together to satisfy the NDP’s arbitrary deadline. And although the NDP loves to rattle the sabres occasionally and say that they will back out of their coalition agreement with the Liberals and force an election, no one believes that will happen as NDP leader Singh currently has the most power he will ever have, and even that isn’t all that much. 

It’s also ironic that Jagmeet Singh, who loves to rail against large companies and their supposed rip-off of Canadians, will actually be benefitting the private sector by taking pharmacare off their hands. Employers would be foolish to offer drug coverage to their employees if the government steps in, despite the fact the employer-funded program is likely to be much superior to what the government will offer. It is also worth noting that if a national government pharmacare program does come to pass and is viewed to have failed in future, it would be impossible to go back to the previous system of primarily private sector participation.  

Many Canadians may believe that a government administered national pharmacare program will be a great addition to our array of expensive and inefficient government social programs. Given the probable outcome, they should be careful what they wish for. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.
https://niagaraindependent.ca/the-false-promise-of-pharmacare/

Tristin Hopper reports in the National Post that a Liberal MP has quietly introduced a bill that would remove the 156-year-old requirement to swear an oath to the King as a condition of sitting in Parliament or a provincial legislature. Ever since Canada’s founding, legislators must swear an Oath of Allegiance before they are allowed to take their seat in a legislative assembly.

Lunacy. The government of Canada has no authority to amend the constitution without the required consent of the majority of the ten provinces.
 

The current state of the Privy Council is unconstitutional. The Privy Council can't lawfully be part of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO):

Declaration of Executive Power in the King
9 The Executive Government and Authority of and over Canada is hereby declared to continue and be vested in the King.

Application of Provisions referring to Governor General
10 The Provisions of this Act referring to the Governor General extend and apply to the Governor General for the Time being of Canada, or other the Chief Executive Officer or Administrator for the Time being carrying on the Government of Canada on behalf and in the Name of the King, by whatever Title he is designated.

Constitution of Privy Council for Canada
11 There shall be a Council to aid and advise in the Government of Canada, to be styled the KIng’s Privy Council for Canada; and the Persons who are to be Members of that Council shall be from Time to Time chosen and summoned by the Governor General and sworn in as Privy Councillors, and Members thereof may be from Time to Time removed by the Governor General.

All Powers under Acts to be exercised by Governor General with Advice of Privy Council, or alone
12 All Powers, Authorities, and Functions which under any Act of the Parliament of Great Britain, or of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, or of the Legislature of Upper Canada, Lower Canada, Canada, Nova Scotia, or New Brunswick, are at the Union vested in or exerciseable by the respective Governors or Lieutenant Governors of those Provinces, with the Advice, or with the Advice and Consent, of the respective Executive Councils thereof, or in conjunction with those Councils, or with any Number of Members thereof, or by those Governors or Lieutenant Governors individually, shall, as far as the same continue in existence and capable of being exercised after the Union in relation to the Government of Canada, be vested in and exerciseable by the Governor General, with the Advice or with the Advice and Consent of or in conjunction with the King’s Privy Council for Canada, or any Members thereof, or by the Governor General individually, as the Case requires, subject nevertheless (except with respect to such as exist under Acts of the Parliament of Great Britain or of the Parliament of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland) to be abolished or altered by the Parliament of Canada.

Application of Provisions referring to Governor General in Council
13 The Provisions of this Act referring to the Governor General in Council shall be construed as referring to the Governor General acting by and with the Advice of the King’s Privy Council for Canada.

Power to Her Majesty to authorize Governor General to appoint Deputies
14 It shall be lawful for the King, if His Majesty thinks fit, to authorize the Governor General from Time to Time to appoint any Person or any Persons jointly or severally to be his Deputy or Deputies within any Part or Parts of Canada, and in that Capacity to exercise during the Pleasure of the Governor General such of the Powers, Authorities, and Functions of the Governor General as the Governor General deems it necessary or expedient to assign to him or them, subject to any Limitations or Directions expressed or given by the King; but the Appointment of such a Deputy or Deputies shall not affect the Exercise by the Governor General himself of any Power, Authority, or Function.

Command of Armed Forces to continue to be vested in the King
15 The Command-in-Chief of the Land and Naval Militia, and of all Naval and Military Forces, of and in Canada, is hereby declared to continue and be vested in the King.

Seat of Government of Canada
16 Until the King otherwise directs, the Seat of Government of Canada shall be Ottawa.
      The Clerk of the Privy Council is the head of the civil service, which must be politically neutral and prepared to serve whatever government the people of Canada elect.
      The Prime Minister is not empowered to name members of the Privy Council. That is for the Governor General to decide. (see 12 above.) The Privy Council must be politically neutral. The primary reason is that in the event of an emergency where the sovereignty of Canada is at risk, the Privy Council will brief the Government and opposition party leaders on the situation. These briefings are ultra secret; no person attending may lawfully publicly comment on the briefing.
      It is irrelevant what some tenured and unaccountable university professor thinks. We cannot accept governments that refuse to abide by the Constitution they are sworn to uphold. We operate in an era where the voices of the people are stifled and ignored by governments fixated on acquiring power over us.

The federal government ignores its obligations under the Constitution, section 91:
1A   The Public Debt and Property.
2.    The Regulation of Trade and Commerce.
2A.  Unemployment insurance.
3.    The raising of Money by any Mode or System of Taxation.
4.    The borrowing of Money on the Public Credit.
5.    Postal Service.
6.    The Census and Statistics.
7.    Militia, Military and Naval Service, and Defence.
8.    The fixing of and providing for the Salaries and Allowances of Civil and other Officers of the Government of Canada.
9.    Beacons, Buoys, Lighthouses, and Sable Island.
10.  Navigation and Shipping.
11.  Quarantine and the Establishment and Maintenance of Marine Hospitals.
12.  Sea Coast and Inland Fisheries.
13.  Ferries between a Province and any British or Foreign Country or between Two Provinces.
14.  Currency and Coinage.
15.  Banking, Incorporation of Banks, and the Issue of Paper Money.
16.  Savings Banks.
17.  Weights and Measures.
18.  Bills of Exchange and Promissory Notes.
19.  Interest.
20.  Legal Tender.
21.  Bankruptcy and Insolvency.
22.  Patents of Invention and Discovery.
23.  Copyrights.
24.  Indians, and Lands reserved for the Indians.
25.  Naturalization and Aliens.
26.  Marriage and Divorce.
27. The Criminal Law, except the Constitution of Courts of Criminal Jurisdiction, but including the Procedure in Criminal Matters.
28. The Establishment, Maintenance, and Management of Penitentiaries.
29. Such Classes of Subjects as are expressly excepted in the Enumeration of the Classes of Subjects by this Act assigned exclusively to the Legislatures of the Provinces.
94A The Parliament of Canada may make laws in relation to old age pensions and supplementary benefits, including survivors’ and disability benefits irrespective of age, but no such law shall affect the operation of any law present or future of a provincial legislature in relation to any such matter.
10. Local Works and Undertakings other than such as are of the following Classes:
        (a) Lines of Steam or other Ships, Railways, Canals, Telegraphs, and other Works and Undertakings connecting the Province with any other or others of the Provinces, or extending beyond the Limits of the Province:
        (b) Lines of Steam Ships between the Province and any British or Foreign Country:
        (c) Such Works as, although wholly situate within the Province, are before or after their Execution declared by the Parliament of Canada to be for the general Advantage of Canada or for the Advantage of Two or more of the Provinces.

NOTE: Where the federal government elects to exercise its rights under 92 (10) it becomes wholly responsible for the costs associated.

Our federal governments repeatedly infringe on the powers given to the Provinces: 92 In each Province the Legislature may exclusively make Laws in relation to Matters coming within the Classes of Subjects next hereinafter enumerated; that is to say,
    1    Repealed.
    2.   Direct Taxation within the Province in order to the raising of a Revenue for Provincial Purposes.
    3.   The borrowing of Money on the sole Credit of the Province.
    4.   The Establishment and Tenure of Provincial Offices and the Appointment and Payment of Provincial Officers.
    5.    The Management and Sale of the Public Lands belonging to the Province and of the Timber and Wood thereon.
    6.    The Establishment, Maintenance, and Management of Public and Reformatory Prisons in and for the Province.
    7.    The Establishment, Maintenance, and Management of Hospitals, Asylums, Charities, and Eleemosynary Institutions in and for the Province, other than Marine Hospitals.
    8.    Municipal Institutions in the Province.
    9.    Shop, Saloon, Tavern, Auctioneer, and other Licences in order to the raising of a Revenue for Provincial, Local, or Municipal Purposes.
    10.    Local Works and Undertakings other than such as are of the following Classes:
        (a) Lines of Steam or other Ships, Railways, Canals, Telegraphs, and other Works and Undertakings connecting the Province with any other or others of the Provinces, or extending beyond the Limits of the Province:
        (b) Lines of Steam Ships between the Province and any British or Foreign Country:
        (c) Such Works as, although wholly situate within the Province, are before or after their Execution declared by the Parliament of Canada to be for the general Advantage of Canada or for the Advantage of Two or more of the Provinces.
    11. The Incorporation of Companies with Provincial Objects.
    12.  The Solemnization of Marriage in the Province.
    13.  Property and Civil Rights in the Province.
    14.  The Administration of Justice in the Province, including the Constitution, Maintenance, and Organization of Provincial Courts, both of Civil and of Criminal Jurisdiction, and including Procedure in Civil Matters in those Courts.
    15.  The Imposition of Punishment by Fine, Penalty, or Imprisonment for enforcing any Law of the Province made in relation to any Matter coming within any of the Classes of Subjects enumerated in this Section.
    16. Generally all Matters of a merely local or private Nature in the Province.

Non-Renewable Natural Resources, Forestry Resources and Electrical Energy
Laws respecting non-renewable natural resources, forestry resources and electrical energy
    92A (1) In each province, the legislature may exclusively make laws in relation to
        (a) exploration for non-renewable natural resources in the province;
        (b) development, conservation and management of non-renewable natural resources and      forestry resources in the province, including laws in relation to the rate of primary production therefrom; and
        (c) development, conservation and management of sites and facilities in the province for the generation and production of electrical energy.

Export from provinces of resources
(2) In each province, the legislature may make laws in relation to the export from the province to another part of Canada of the primary production from non-renewable natural resources and forestry resources in the province and the production from facilities in the province for the generation of electrical energy, but such laws may not authorize or provide for discrimination in prices or in supplies exported to another part of Canada.

Authority of Parliament
    (3) Nothing in subsection (2) derogates from the authority of Parliament to enact laws in relation to the matters referred to in that subsection and, where such a law of Parliament and a law of a province conflict, the law of Parliament prevails to the extent of the conflict.

Taxation of resources
    (4) In each province, the legislature may make laws in relation to the raising of money by any mode or system of taxation in respect of
        (a) non-renewable natural resources and forestry resources in the province and the primary production therefrom, and
        (b) sites and facilities in the province for the generation of electrical energy and the production therefrom, whether or not such production is exported in whole or in part from the province, but such laws may not authorize or provide for taxation that differentiates between production exported to another part of Canada and production not exported from the province.

Primary production
    (5) The expression primary production has the meaning assigned by the Sixth Schedule.

Existing powers or rights
    (6) Nothing in subsections (1) to (5) derogates from any powers or rights that a legislature or government of a province had immediately before the coming into force of this section.
Legislation respecting Education
93 In and for each Province the Legislature may exclusively make Laws in relation to Education, subject and according to the following Provisions:

1. Nothing in any such Law shall prejudicially affect any Right or Privilege with respect to Denominational Schools which any Class of Persons have by Law in the Province at the Union;

2    All the Powers, Privileges, and Duties at the Union by Law conferred and imposed in Upper Canada on the Separate Schools and School Trustees of the King’s Roman Catholic Subjects shall be and the same are hereby extended to the Dissentient Schools of the King’s Protestant and Roman Catholic Subjects in Quebec;
3.  Where in any Province a System of Separate or Dissentient Schools exists by Law at the Union or is thereafter established by the Legislature of the Province, an Appeal shall lie to the Governor General in Council from any Act or Decision of any Provincial Authority affecting any Right or Privilege of the Protestant or Roman Catholic Minority of the King’s Subjects in relation to Education;
4. In case any such Provincial Law as from Time to Time seems to the Governor General in Council requisite for the due Execution of the Provisions of this Section is not made, or in case any Decision of the Governor General in Council on any Appeal under this Section is not duly executed by the proper Provincial Authority in that Behalf, then and in every such Case, and as far only as the Circumstances of each Case require, the Parliament of Canada may make remedial Laws for the due Execution of the Provisions of this Section and of any Decision of the Governor General in Council under this Section.

Old Age Pensions
Legislation respecting old age pensions and supplementary benefits
94A The Parliament of Canada may make laws in relation to old age pensions and supplementary benefits, including survivors’ and disability benefits irrespective of age, but no such law shall affect the operation of any law present or future of a provincial legislature in relation to any such matter.

Concurrent Powers of Legislation respecting Agriculture, etc.
95 In each Province the Legislature may make Laws in relation to Agriculture in the Province, and to Immigration into the Province; and it is hereby declared that the Parliament of Canada may from Time to Time make Laws in relation to Agriculture in all or any of the Provinces, and to Immigration into all or any of the Provinces; and any Law of the Legislature of a Province relative to Agriculture or to Immigration shall have effect in and for the Province as long and as far only as it is not repugnant to any Act of the Parliament of Canada.

From Postmedia News, Toronto Sun – The Canada Border Services Agency says more than 29,000 foreign fugitives are at large in the country, reports Blacklock’s Reporter. Another 10,041 foreigners banned from Canada were deported. MORE

Once again, we find one of our federal agencies unable to do its intended job. Our borders are insecure. Twenty-nine thousand criminals circulating in our society are a serious threat.  

These are career criminals who prey on innocent Canadians. They are kingpins in drug dealing, prostitution, protection rackets, human slavery, loansharking, identity theft, blackmail, extortion and every other conceivable crime.

They are experts in laundering their untaxed profits, significantly dampening our economy. They get into turf wars over who has the right to an area and settle arguments with guns blazing, with innocent bystanders killed or seriously injured.

Police officers risk their lives apprehending these armed thugs or are injured and killed responding to another gangland shooting incident. The federal government is to blame for this threat to the peace and order of our society. This situation is unacceptable. We have to transform our legal system into a justice system without delay.

This is unbelievable. Tom Engel, chair of the Criminal Trial Lawyers’ Association’s policing committee, has the audacity to criticize the Calgary Police Service. His organization is in a conflict of interest. Advocates for accused criminals are in no position to criticize our police.

This one-sided media report is not in the public interest. Police are put on the defence for doing their best to protect Calgarians. This is why police morale is low and why very few men and women want to join a police force. Police critics don’t care how many innocent lives are lost. They are lost in a dream world where they can fix crime by providing services to thugs. So far, their batting average is a dismal zero.

Calgary police have the option and right to arrest dangerous criminals when the odds are in their favour instead of responding to incidents where these criminals are employing weapons to commit crimes, and the police are responding to a volatile situation with no time to prepare.

Risks are involved, but there are risks to the public as long as armed criminals exist. Police have the duty to get armed thugs off the streets even though they risk their own lives in doing so.

Calgarians need to express their outrage at Tom Engles’ criticism. They want to return to the safety and security of days past. Criminal gangs are making our homes and streets unsafe, which is intolerable. We have to turn on the enablers and insist that dangerous, armed thugs go to jail instead of being released on bail to commit more crimes.

We don’t have any obligation to rehabilitate criminals. We need armed thugs in prison and out of circulation for the rest of their lives. If they disobey our laws prohibiting the taking of a life, they have no place in society. There are no valid excuses for murder. Our Criminal Code differentiates between first and second-degree murder and manslaughter, so the courts already consider the situation of a murder. Uneducated attacks on the police must cease. We are not governed by vested interests or the hysteria of the social media.

We are a nation of ethical, moral and principled individuals who lived in harmony and peace until recently. We know the solutions but are marginalized by political parties who serve themselves.  

Questions are being raised about a Calgary police decision to conduct a high-risk arrest of armed men at a northeast strip mall that led to the shooting death of a suspect and wounding of an officer. A suspect was killed in the parking lot of the McKnight Village Shopping Centre and another man was arrested. See Bill Kaufmann’s full report in the Calgary Herald.

23-10-23 – More than 30 MPs — including 23 Liberals — call for ceasefire in Israel-Hamas war – CBC News

I have a response to these idiots:

This is disgusting. Two weeks into a major conflict, our politicians are unclear about dealing with shockingly evil terrorists devoid of ethics, humanity, compassion or decency. Their only objective is to annihilate Israel. 

Are we so bereft of ethics and principles that we can accept the execution of 9.2 million Israelis? That is inevitable if Israel does not eliminate Hamas, Hezbollah and their sponsor, Iran. It is only a matter of when.

Hamas wants civilians in Gaza killed to blame Israel for the carnage, and our politicians don’t get it. Israel is dropping thumps on Gaza apartments – heavy weights to warn residents that the building is a target and to get out. Hamas orders the residents to stay inside – for safety!

Prime Minster Trudeau immediately blamed Israel for the bombing of a hospital in Gaza before several independent authorities concluded the blast was a result of a malfunctioned terrorist rocket.   

We are at a turning point in history. This is a clash between good and monstrous evil. Those with a moral compass and principles understand that evil must be confronted and vanquished, irrespective of the lives lost. Recent experience makes the case for standing firmly by an ally and standing by one's principles and values. Politicians must make difficult, even brave, decisions if those are in conflict.

Hamas operatives tell themselves they can blend in with the civilian population and stay safe. People without hope will turn on Hamas when Israel invades and identify them for the army. Entries to tunnels and the whereabouts of hostages will be revealed. Cornered cats will come out with claws.
 

Qatar is brokering the release of Palestinian hostages and, at the same time, harbouring the chief of Hamas in five-star accommodations. Can any of these MPs spell duplicity?

US President Biden has provided $100 million in refugee relief to Hamas. The fool believes the aid will be provided to the Palestinians, but Hamas has complete control over Gaza. No one can stop Hamas from seizing the supplies for the use of its militia.

As US President Truman observed during WW II, there will always be timid souls who are convinced they can pick up a piece of s**t by the clean end. Didn’t happen then, won’t happen today.

It’s disgusting when politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib, along with hysterical undergraduates and ill-informed leftists across America, Canada and the world, complain that Israel is an “apartheid state” illegitimately occupying territory West of the Jordan River from the Golan Heights down to the border of the Sinai Peninsula.

Responding to the terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians by Hamas on October 7, Ocasio-Cortez decried “the occupation of Palestine” while Tlaib urged “ending the occupation, and dismantling the apartheid system” that can “lead to resistance.”

It is a fact that depraved and inhuman Hamas terrorists attacked Israeli civilians, murdering families in their sleep, slaughtering partygoers, incinerating and beheading babies, raping and then murdering hostages. Tlaib ignores the facts and substitutes fantasy.

The Jewish people occupy the place that is
1)         their ancestral homeland;
2)         with which they were reinvested by the Balfour Declaration of 1917, by the victorious Brits after WW I  explicitly to provide a “national home for the Jewish people,” and
3)         by the creation of the state of Israel in 1948
In Gregorian Calendar terms, Judea originated in 1500 BC, about 3,500 years ago. In the thousand years prior to  500 BC, the people of Israel referred to themselves as Israelites or Hebrews.
But what is Palestine?

From time immemorial, Jews occupied the spot where they reside as “Judaea.” Historian Edward Gibbon said that (Roman Emperor) Hadrian, who ruled from AD 117 to 138, was one of the “five good emperors.” 

Hadrian brutally put down the Bar Kokhba (Jewish) revolt of AD 132-136 and, in an effort to stamp out any remnants of Jewish nationalism, killed or exiled the entire population and renamed “Judaea” “Syrian Palestine.”

Jews usually respond to any mention of Hadrian with the curse, “May God crush his bones.”

This was one of the many diasporas (disbursements) the Jews suffered as various empires, invaders, and nations banned Jewish people from their precincts, forcing them to flee. In most cases, the property of Jews was confiscated and disbursed amongst the rulers.        

Who are the Palestinians? That depends on the time period.
1.         From 1500 BC to WW I, Syrian Palestine was occupied by nomadic tribes known by their tribal names. There were no Palestinians.
2.         From 1917 to about 1945, the Jewish people living in what is now Israel were usually referred to by others as Palestinians. Incredibly through multiple diasporas, the Jewish people remained united by allegiance to one God, a sense of shared ancestry, a history, language and distinctive practices. Judaism is an ethnicity, a religion, and a culture, but also transcends those categories.

Throughout their long history, Jews have often lived in small enclaves on the fringes of societies that rejected them but always maintained a deep connection with Judaea and Jerusalem.

3.         From 1964 to the present, Palestinians are an invention of the Russian KGB. In 1978, Ion Mihai Pacepa, the former chief of Romanian intelligence, defected to the US and wrote about the links between Yasser Arafat and the KGB: “Arafat was an important undercover operative for the KGB,” Arafat, an Arab of Egyptian origin devoted his life to murderous anti-American terrorism. (He arranged for the murder of Cleo Noel, the US ambassador to Sudan.) An internet search will reveal over a dozen terrorist events where Arafat led or had a hand.

In 1969 the KGB asked Arafat to declare war on American “Imperial-Zionism” during the first summit of the Black Terrorist International, a neo-fascist pro-Palestine organization financed by the KGB and Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi.

In 1977, Zuheir Mohsen, a senior PLO leader, stated: “The Palestinian people do not exist. Creating a Palestinian state is only a means for continuing our struggle against the state of Israel (and) for our Arab unity. (It is) only for political and tactical reasons do we speak today about the existence of a Palestinian people since Arab national interests demand that we suggest the existence of a distinct “Palestinian people” to oppose Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons.

“Imperial Zionism” was a Moscow invention. The KGB regarded antisemitism plus anti-imperialism as a rich source of anti-Americanism.

Before the release of the PLO Charter in 1964, no one referred to Palestinians with the intent used today. No mention exists because the KGB did not create the fictitious people until then.

Hitler Connection
Few people know that in 1941, Haj Amin al-Husseini (a Palestinian Arab nationalist and Muslim leader in Mandatory Palestine) went to Germany and met with Adolf Hitler, Heinrich Himmler, Joachim Von Ribbentrop and other Nazi leaders. He wanted to persuade them to extend the Nazis’ anti-Jewish program to the Arab world.

On November 28, 1941, the Mufti met with Hitler, who told him the Jews were his foremost enemy. The Nazi dictator rebuffed the Mufti’s requests for a declaration in support of the Arabs, however, telling him the time was not right.

The Mufti offered Hitler his “thanks for the sympathy which he had always shown for the Arab and especially Palestinian cause, and to which he had given clear expression in his public speeches. The Arabs were Germany’s natural friends because they had the same enemies as Germany, namely the Jews.” Hitler replied:

Germany stood for an uncompromising war against the Jews. That naturally included active opposition to the Jewish national home in Palestine. Germany would furnish positive and practical aid to the Arabs involved in the same struggle. Germany’s objective (is) solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere. At that time, the Mufti was the most authoritative spokesman for the Arab world. The Mufti thanked Hitler profusely.

Two German historians say that Hitler had a plan to extend the Holocaust to the Middle East and had forged an alliance with Arab nationalists. This is why Hitler met with the Mufti and provided him with a budget of 750,000 Reichsmark per month to foment a jihad (holy war) in Palestine. The alliance did not alter Hitler’s racist views toward Arabs, reflected in his refusal to shake the Mufti’s hand or drink coffee with him.

In 1945, Yugoslavia sought to indict the Mufti as a war criminal for his role in recruiting 20,000 Muslim volunteers for the SS, who participated in the killing of Jews in Croatia and Hungary. He escaped French detention in 1946 and continued his fight against the Jews from Cairo and later Beirut. He died in 1974.

The ultimate Irony
In our twisted world, the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize  was awarded jointly to Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin "for their efforts to create peace in the Middle East." Our politicians and the media avoid the long list of Arafat attacks on America and other Western nations.
 

At the end of WW II, US General Eisenhower insisted that films and pictures of the aftermath of the Holocaust be taken and preserved as he was convinced that, over time, people would forget. He was right. We have forgotten.     
 

We naively believed we had crushed the effort to exterminate Jews as an objective of WW II. Twenty-nine years later, we find Arab attacks on Israel, America and Western nations continue unabated.

23-10-21 – This is disgusting. Ten days into a major conflict, our politicians are unclear about dealing with shockingly evil terrorists devoid of ethics, humanity, compassion or decency. Their only objective is to annihilate Israel. Are we so bereft of ethics and principles that we can accept the execution of 9.2 million Israelis? That is inevitable if we do not eliminate Hamas, Hezbollah and their sponsor, Iran.

Hamas wants civilians in Gaza killed to blame Israel for the carnage, and our politicians don’t get it. Israel is dropping thumps on Gaza apartments – heavy weights to warn residents that the building is a target and to get out. Hamas orders the residents to stay inside – for safety!

We are at a turning point in history. This is a clash between good and monstrous evil. Those with a moral compass and principles understand that evil must be confronted and vanquished, irrespective of lives lost. Recent experience makes the case for standing firmly by an ally and standing by one's principles and values. Politicians must make difficult, even brave, decisions if those are in conflict.

Hamas operatives tell themselves they can blend in with the civilian population and stay safe. People without hope will turn on Hamas when Israel invades and identify them for the army. Entries to tunnels and the whereabouts of hostages will be revealed. Cornered cats will come out with claws.

23-10-19 – I was catching up on the news last Sunday eveningand tuned in to the CTV national news. At the 5:25 mark of the newscast, the anchor put on the Israel–Palestine Director of Human Rights Watch for 6 minutes 40 seconds.
 

He presented a devastating tirade on how Israel unlawfully treated Palestinians and that they had a “right? to water, electricity, fuel and humanitarian aid. He accused Israel of war crimes several times and insisted the bombardment of Gaza was unlawful.

Throughout, the anchor encouraged him with softball questions. It is extremely rare that a story gets that much airtime in a single show.

There was no mention that Hamas spends all its money on paying its officers and soldiers, munitions and terrorist activities while Palestinians are not cared for. Hamas spends nothing on a viable infrastructure for the region or fuel stockpiles for generators. The central electrical generating station has fallen into disuse.

Palestinians need foreign aid for clothing, food, medicines and other essentials. They are expendable Hamas hostages who might be murdered tomorrow so that Israel can be blamed for their deaths.     

This is antisemitic propaganda presented as news. That is dangerous, irresponsible, misleading and unethical. What a shameful excuse for responsible journalism. This is support for genocide, thoughtlessly supported because the media is not targeted – yet.
Islamic Jihad (holy war) targets all people not of the Muslim faith.

When jihadist terrorists begin wreaking havoc in Western nations, remember who befriended and supported them.

23-10-03 – “Canadian society is filled with opinion yet utterly lacking in wisdom.” That neatly sums up our position on the world stage.

Our education system has ceased educating and is indoctrinating prepubescent children in sexual orientation. “Don’t tell your mom and dad about this; it’s our secret” is the common phrase used by child abusers and molesters worldwide and our Canadian teachers.

We have mobs of ignorant people tearing down statues of historical figures and demanding that we change the names of buildings and streets because they find their past actions offensive. With no knowledge of our history, they have no means of measure. Leaders of the past were flawed, as all humans are, but they built Canada into a prosperous liberal democracy envied around the world.

Canada’s political class is devoid of responsible adults. They set the stage, behaving like petulant adolescents intent on changing the world but lacking the experience and wisdom to do so. Today, October 3, is election day in Manitoba. I awakened to thunderstorms and heavy rain in Winnipeg, which expresses the mood of tens of thousands of Manitobans who no longer trust the political class and fear that nothing will change no matter how they cast their ballot.

Our parliament and legislatures are asylums for the mentally incompetent, smug in self-awareness and believing that their blunders are achievements. We will replace them with honest men and women we can trust. It is now a matter of how and when, not if, we do that.

**********************************************************.

Douglas Murray’s commentary in the National Post today is very apropos of the situation.

Perhaps I should say straight away that I love Canada. Some of my best friends are Canadian. That minimal throat-clearing aside, let me say — as a friendly outsider — that Canada today looks like a nation of ignoramuses.

The incident in Parliament the other week is just one case in point. Standing ovations are very rare things. They should be very special things. When a whole House stands to applaud someone they had better be very sure who they are applauding.

I know that Speaker Anthony Rota has now resigned. But here is the thing. Anybody who knows anything about the Second World War knows that if you were fighting the Soviets in Ukraine in the 1940s you were most likely fighting with the Nazis. It does not require a fine-tuned expert in the era to know this. Almost anybody could have guessed this. If almost anyone knew anything.

It seemed to be the assumption not just of Speaker Rota but of the whole Canadian Parliament that there existed in the 1940s some proto-anti-Putin fighting force and that the great cause of this moment has some direct lineage back to the fight of the 1940s. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy almost certainly guessed this. But it was the Canadian Parliament who was hosting him, the Canadian Parliament who embarrassed him and the Canadian Parliament who have handed the most magnificent propaganda victory to the Kremlin. In a war which Putin pretended to start in order to “de-Nazify” Ukraine, how much help has Canada given by your entire Parliament standing to applaud an actual Nazi?

What makes this worse is that this all comes after a period in which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been perfectly happy to call decent, ordinary Canadians Nazis. To use measures like the de-banking of his critics in moves that have horrified most of the other democracies in the West. When a bank in my country of birth — Britain — was recently found to have de-banked a politician (Nigel Farage) for what turned out to be political reasons not only did the head of the bank resign, but politicians in Britain from across the political system condemned the bank. Such moves are unlikely to be taken by another bank in Britain again. But in Canada it seems to be perfectly acceptable, because at any time the Canadian prime minister and deputy prime minister can claim that their critics are homophobes, xenophobes, racists, Nazis, misogynists and all of the rest.

The world — especially America — has looked on in horror as the Canadian government has tried to curtail speech in the country, and looked on with ever-more horror as Canadians seem willing to go along with this. It seems to be the view of the Canadian authorities that they are capable of deciding at the merest glance who is and is not allowed to speak, what is and is not acceptable speech, what any Canadians can and cannot read and who is and who is not a “Nazi.” These being the same authorities who apparently cannot even perform the most basic Google searches on their guests.

I know that Canadians often like to look down on Americans. But as someone who spends most of his time in America I can tell you that it is the American public who now wonder at what on earth is happening with our neighbour in the north.

The most famous public intellectual in the world right now is Professor Jordan Peterson. Canada should be proud of him. Yet every week we read of him undergoing yet another trial back home in Canada. It was an Ontario court which in August ruled that the college of psychologists could order Peterson to undergo mandatory “social media training” after Tweets which people who had never been patients of Dr Peterson’s objected to. I wonder who in Canada thinks they know more about social media than Jordan Peterson? But it is the professional bodies as well as the courts of Canada that have jumped right into this idiotic place. The governing body for Ontario psychologists thinks that Peterson has committed some crime for expressing his thoughts. It is also noticed — I can assure you — that a Toronto doctor who sexually abused four of his patients was only given a six-month suspension.

But it isn’t just double-standards, or the grotesque politicization of almost every institution in Canada that now catches the eye of the world. It is, as I mentioned at the start, the unbearable stupidity which seems to have trickled down from the top of government downwards.

Take that bizarre moment most in 2021 that I know most Canadians would wish to forget about. The moment when the country went into a bizarre moral panic after one totally unverified report claimed to have found numerous graves near residential schools run by the Catholic Church in areas with First Nations communities. That one unverified report was based on ground penetration radar that was wholly inconclusive. Nevertheless, the country went into one of the most disturbing moral panics since Salem.

Canadian media ran reports of the discovery of “mass graves” containing the bodies of children. How many churches were burned as a result? Some estimates say over 80, across the country. These included churches built by First Nations peoples. But it was Canadian authorities that fanned these fires. It was a Canadian law professor who called the burnings “resistance to extreme and systemic injustice.” It was a New Brunswick radio host who demanded “Burn the churches down.” It was the head of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association and a former volunteer at the Newfoundland Canadian Bar Association who said “Burn it all down.” And it was Gerald Butts — friend and advisor to your Prime Minister — who said that although burning down churches may not be advisable it was certainly “understandable.”

These are the sort of consequences you get from a society wallowing in unutterable ignorance.

Why, at such a moment, were there not prominent figures with some guts and some knowledge of your country´s history even willing to stand in front of the mob and shout “stop”? Why was the mob not confronted by people saying “You know what — the residential schools were not in fact set up to murder Indigenous children.” Or at the very least saying “Let us wait to consider some evidence.”

None — or very little — of this happened. And all this in a society whose leaders seem to believe that they understand so much about “hate” and “hate speech” that they can actually put a stop to it once and forever if Canadians just put their shoulder to the wheel hard enough.

My suspicion is that very few Canadians are aware of quite how bizarre the rest of the world now finds the country. When it thinks of it at all it sees is a country that used to be renowned for its liberalism now most noted for its proto-authoritarianism. A country whose leaders think they can root out nastiness wherever they find it and are not even informed enough not to give a standing ovation to a former member of the SS.

I could go on. But this jeremiad is really just to say that the problems that Canada is now going through at home and on the world stage seem to come from one deep well-spring. Canadian society is filled with opinion yet utterly lacking in wisdom. This includes any knowledge of the world’s history — but most crucially an increasing ignorance of your own country’s history. I hope this can be turned around. Most things can be. But a country which used to be regarded as dull but decent now looks indecent and led by dullards.

This is noteworthy because this article was originally published on The Spectator’s U.K. website. The fallout of the Trudeau government’s ineptness is noted in many nations worldwide, but our domestic media carefully hides any reference.

India’s domestic press is having a field day with Trudeau’s comment that he has ‘credible allegations’ of the Indian Government's involvement in the murder of a BC Sikh. Either he has credible evidence or an allegation. The Indian press has released information that dogs inspecting Trudeau’s aircraft in India discovered evidence of cocaine aboard and counters with the suggestion that it has a credible allegation that Trudeau is crazy.

G20 leaders shunned Trudeau during the September summit in New Delhi. He has achieved a “net zero” rating in international circles.

Following is Brendan O’Neill’s commentary in The Spectator, Sept. 27.

Justin Trudeau’s government sees fascists everywhere, except when one is standing right under their nose. That’s the brilliant if bleak irony of the Canadian Parliament’s standing ovation for Yaroslav Hunka, a ninety-eight-year-old veteran of the Ukrainian military who, it turns out, fought under the Nazis in World War Two.

It was an extraordinary sight, surely unprecedented in the modern West. At the behest of House Speaker Anthony Rota, MPs rose to their feet and gave rousing applause to an old man who once fought on the same side as Hitler. It occurred following an address to the parliament by Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky. He clapped too.

Trudeau himself, the most right-on man in Christendom, ostentatious loather of the far right (which is basically anyone who disagrees with him), applauded with vim for this former associate of the SS.

This is the same Trudeau who fantasizes that Nazism lurks everywhere. Who gleefully brands his critics as “far right.” Who has damned everyone from parents worried about LGBTQ education to truckers concerned about vaccine mandates as foot-soldiers of a 1930s-style populism.

Indeed, just a few months ago he sneered at the “far-right political actors” who are trying to “outdo themselves with the types of cruelty and isolation they can inflict on already vulnerable people.”

Who are these fascistic nutters, visiting hate on the weak? Parents, basically. Trudeau was referring to a decision by the premier of New Brunswick, Blaine Higgs, a center-right politician, to change the gender rules in schools so that parental consent would be required for any kid under the age of sixteen to “transition” to a new name or new pronouns. Sounds sensible to me; to Trudeau, though, it had End of the Weimar Republic vibes.

As a writer for the National Post said, in Trudeau-world “parental rights are now a ‘far-right’ political issue.” This PC PM is disparaging “millions of parents by lumping them in with other far-right radicals like white supremacists and fascists,” the Post said.

Welcome to “Woke Canada,” where moms and pops who would rather their kid wasn’t transitioned behind their backs are far right, while a literal former SS fighter gets a fulsome round of applause.

Trudeau also hinted that the Freedom Convoy of truckers that occupied Ottawa in early 2022 to protest against mandated vaccination were far right, or at least very extreme. These people are a “fringe minority” who promote “hate, abuse and racism,” he said.

Left-wing talking heads were more frank. One radical magazine condemned the truckers as a “proto-fascist” movement. All hail morally correct Canada, where working-class men who stand up for their jobs are “proto-fascists” while a former fascist-adjacent soldier is cheered in the corridors of power.

Many will say that Rota — who has now resigned — Trudeau and the other clapping seals were not aware of Hunka’s SS-linked past. And that’s fair enough. Although you don’t need a PhD in European history to think that a Ukrainian military man who fought against the Ruskies in the 1940s was probably linked with the Nazis.

Trudeau has apologized for the “embarrassing” ovation for Hunka. And Hunka, of course, is not a fascist anymore. It’s possible he never was one — many Ukrainians will have sided with the Nazis more from hatred for Russia than love for Hitler.

And yet the Hunka scandal is a perfect snapshot of the liberal elite’s weird and delirious obsession with the far right. They marshall the horrors of the 1940s to condemn their critics in the here and now, as if every trucker protest and parental uprising were a harbinger of a new Fourth Reich. Yet when face to face with someone who was involved in the horrors of the 1940s, they smile and fawn.

The cluelessness is off the scale. It’s good that Trudeau has said sorry for dumbly applauding a former SS fighter — when will he apologize for his equally dumb demonization of his opponents as far-right lunatics?

23-09-29 – There is an important missing element to this story. The House of Commons Speaker receives a salary of $92,800 in addition to his base salary of $194,600 and a car allowance of $1,000 per year. The Speaker also has an official residence, The Farm, in nearby Kingsmere, Que. In addition to The Farm, the Speaker has a “secret” apartment inside the Centre Block on Parliament Hill, behind a door marked merely as “202N.”
 

The Speaker must not show any political bias during his tenure as Speaker. However, Rota broke the covenant by stating: “I am very proud to say that he is from North Bay and from my riding of Nipissing–Timiskaming. He is a Ukrainian hero, Canadian hero, and we thank him for all his service.”

Rota was apparently concerned about his re-election, given the plummeting public respect for the Prime Minister. Rota was playing to voters in his (Liberal-held) constituency of Nipissing–Timiskaming, thereby endorsing the Liberal government and party. For that, he should have been tossed out on his ear, not allowed to resign.
 

When will the Prime Minister apologize to the millions of Canadians he has vilified as “people who wave swastikas” for daring to oppose his policies and directives? I suggest you don’t hold your breath.
 
See Peter Menzies commentary in The Epoch Times
9/25/2023
 

Finally, a real Nazi affiliate appears to have breached the ramparts of Canada’s Parliament.

Yes, indeed, after a couple of dry runs in which many politicians and media activists tried desperately to portray the trucker-led Freedom Convoy of 2022 and the Sept. 20 Million March 4 Children protests as fuelled by Nazis, white supremacists, and others suffering from a glossary of prejudicial phobias, the government of Justin Trudeau at last reeled in the real deal.

By invitation.

As the sun set Sept. 24 for the beginning of Yom Kippur, politicians were scrambling to atone in the wake of the news that an honoured guest given a standing ovation in Parliament was a little bit more contentious than your average Ukrainian freedom fighter.

Yaroslav Hunka, 98-years-old, was introduced Sept. 22 as part of the pageantry surrounding Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s address to Parliament.

“We have here in the Chamber today, a Ukrainian Canadian veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians and continues to support the troops today even at the age of 98. His name is Yaroslav Hunka,” Speaker of the House Anthony Rota said. “I am very proud to say that he is from North Bay and from my riding of Nipissing–Timiskaming. He is a Ukrainian hero, Canadian hero, and we thank him for all his service.”

All good, right? Until it turned out that Hunka’s First Ukrainian Division had been strategically rebranded in the last days of the Second World War in an effort to disguise its original title, the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS. Connected to crimes against humanity during the Holocaust, this was a Nazi military unit ultimately under the command of Adolph Hitler.

The first politician to speak out in protest was Conservative MP and Co-Deputy Leader Melissa Lantsman, a descendant of Holocaust survivors, a Jew, and the daughter of Ukrainian immigrants.

And then others lowered the boom.

The Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre swiftly denounced “Parliament’s recognition of a Ukrainian veteran who served in a Nazi military unit during the Second World War implicated in the mass murder of Jews and others,” and demanded an apology “to every Holocaust survivor and veteran of the Second World War who fought the Nazis, and an explanation must be provided as to how this individual entered the hallowed halls of Canadian Parliament and received recognition from the Speaker of the House and a standing ovation.”

By day’s end, Rota’s office had issued a full apology for the latest, enormous domestic and international embarrassment to be suffered by Trudeau and his increasingly troubled government.
 

The incident came on the heels of the prime minister’s humiliating Asian sojourn, the suspension of trade talks with India, and the escalation of tensions following the uncomfortable handling of accusations that the Indian government orchestrated the murder in Canada of Khalistan independence activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar in June.

No doubt the engagement with Hunka was a mistake. Given that Francois-Phillipe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, recently X-posted that Canada and Japan have “always” been allies, it’s clear there are many in Ottawa with little, if any, knowledge of even recent history.

But this was also a richly deserved moment of karma for a government that has been far too swift to accuse others of sidling up to Nazis.

It was only February 2022, after all, when Trudeau stood in the House of Commons and, in response to a question from Lantsman regarding what many viewed as his thuggish response to the Freedom Convoy, said: “Conservative Party members can stand with people who wave swastikas. They can stand with people who wave the Confederate flag.”

Lantsman, in shock that the prime minister would accuse a person of her history of such behaviour, demanded an apology, which she never got.

Last week, when thousands of parents from coast to coast took to the streets to express their discontent with explicit sexual content in schools and radical gender ideology, Trudeau issued a statement inferring all involved are opposed to the rights of the LGBTQ community.

“Transphobia, homophobia, and biphobia have no place in this country. We strongly condemn this hate and its manifestations,” he said in a social media post.

Others went further. In an email, members of the Greater Victoria Teachers Association were warned that “these campaigns are being organized by known white supremacist groups. These campaigns use dog whistle techniques that try to frame their hateful message as 'protecting children.'

Police shut down the Victoria #1MillionMarch4Children because they couldn’t keep participants safe from a large mob of counter-protesters.

None of this is useful. Hyperbolic portrayals of anyone who disagrees with the left’s increasingly radical policies as goose-stepping psychos serve only to deepen divisions in society.

Yet for years, it has been encouraged by a prime minister far too comfortable questioning the need to tolerate or accommodate dissenting views.

Let this past week teach him and others that it is their job to heal wounds, not manufacture and exploit them.

Too bad it took a humbling encounter with real Nazi history to remind them of that.

Let’s Start With Bagmen  

“Bagmen” is a description of party fundraisers who play a pivotal role in any political party. They excel at identifying people inclined to support the party and are usually well-connected within high-income groups.

Bagmen know that major donors expect a return on their investment and use their powers to influence legislation and policies adopted by the party. That conflicts with the laws and policies elected members want to propose on behalf of their constituency.

All this happens ‘behind the scenes’ and is very rarely, if ever, mentioned in the media. In some cases, media owners may be major donors who wish to influence policy. The same can be said of many businesses and commercial groups. Bagmen are anonymous, as are the major donors. Their activities are kept under wraps and are not reported to the federal or provincial election authorities.   

Activities of the bagmen erode the powers of elected representatives to speak for the people who elected them. They are not free to promote the best interests of their constituents. That undermines democracy.

Then We Need to Look at Lobbyists   

There are different types of lobbyists. Some freelance and assist persons or groups for a fee, while others are contracted and paid for by individuals or groups. The objective is to gain access to public officials (bureaucrats and elected officials) to make a case for why public policy should be influenced in their favour. 

The federal and all provincial governments have created legislation and regulations to make lobbying government appear normal. It is not. It gives some people access to government influence denied to those who vote. Electors get an opportunity to voice their opinions every four years or so, while lobbyists carry on year-round, every year.   

Lobbying is illegal under Section 121 of the Criminal Code, and sanctioning lobbying creates a high risk of collusion, corruption, and cronyism.   

We need to replace lobbying legislation and regulations with tough ethics laws and regulations for politicians and bureaucrats overseen by an independent Ethics Auditor reporting directly to Parliament (or the Legislature) with powers to investigate complaints, require witnesses to testify under oath and subpoena relevant documents.   

Governments and political parties do not provide transparent records of financial dealings with the public they represent and lack public accountability. That should be the purview of an independent Auditor General styled similarly to the Ethics Auditor above. We must ensure that there are adequate checks and balances to curtail corruption.

Now Let’s Examine Party Structure

 Varying somewhat from party to party. Essentially party members elect a Board of Directors who employ the necessary personnel to operate the corporation (Canadian political parties claim they are private corporations.) They raise funds to finance marketing between and during elections. 

They make the final decision on candidates for election. They may disqualify a candidate they deem incapable of selling enough memberships and raising enough money and may name a candidate to a particular riding whom they deem able to meet their objectives. The named candidate may not even live in the constituency. 

That violates the concept of party members in the riding choosing a candidate to represent them. The party has a thumb on the scale and chooses candidates that best represent the party.

During an election, the party will provide financial support for candidates it deems most capable of winning a seat and not support candidates it deems as having a low chance of winning.  

That is heartbreaking for the low-chance candidate willing to stand for election as well as the volunteers who work hard on his behalf. Eventually, disillusioned candidates and volunteers leave the party and join the silent majority. Many stop voting in what they correctly deem a rigged system.   

The tension between the bagmen and party operations mentioned above is ongoing, and bagmen influence policies adopted despite the objections of operations and elected representatives.

An Unfair Advantage & Special Treatment  

Political parties enjoy tax credits not available to any other organization. Donors can receive a tax credit of 75% of donations up to $400. Someone who donates $400 will get a federal tax credit of $300 and can donate to a provincial party and get similar credits as they are calculated separately.

Compare that with the tax credit for charitable donations. Depending on the province, the tax credit on $400 in donations varies from $120.42 in Ontario to $176 in Quebec. The national average is $144 or 36% of the donation – just over half of the political donation tax credit for the same amount.

Most Canadians mistakenly believe corporate political donations are limited to the $5,000 limit they have as individuals. Not true. At the federal level, corporate donations are banned. At provincial level, corporations are required to report political donations to Revenue Canada but don’t.

Revenue Canada tracks tax receipts to enforce maximum donation rules. Corporations write off the entire amount of their donations as marketing expenses. Since there are no tax receipts, Revenue Canada has no idea that donations have been made.    Political parties keep corporate donations in separate accounts, never seen by the public or even by their own members.

Adding insult to injury, at the federal level, taxpayers fund campaign political expense rebates to political parties. For the 2021 election, taxpayers footed a reimbursement to six political parties.

Bloc Québécois -  $1,122,350;
Conservative Party - $14,171,190;
Green Party - $614,889;
Liberal Party - $13,505,290; NDP - $12,095,432;
People’s Party - $707,018. Total: $42,216,170.

 Some provinces have similar expense reimbursement schemes. In 2012 the Harper government passed legislation ending the per-vote public subsidies to political parties. The legislation provided for continued subsidies for 2013-14 ($16,746,931) but reduced the subsidy for 2014-15 to $11,164,620. The public subsidy ended on March 31, 2015.

Where Does The Money Go?

Political parties constantly canvass subscribers to donate so they can fight for some appealing issue. They use those funds to combat their political opponents. Their operations are already funded by parliament or the legislature.

The role of the opposition parties is to make proposals for improvements in government policies or to propose alternative solutions to existing legislation and policies. Parties won’t do that using the excuse that the party in power will steal their ideas.

The whole idea of a democratic government is for parties to work together to develop the best laws and policies for the people of Canada. We have no interest in observing the pretend conflict we see on Question Period.   

For most of us, the faces of politics are the cabinet ministers in parliament and legislatures. They strive to look statesmanlike and wise. However, a peek under the hood shows a different picture.


How are Cabinet Ministers Chosen?   

Cabinet ministers are not chosen for their abilities or knowledge in a given field. They are usually chosen based on a balance of gender, even distribution by region, and increasingly to show ethnic diversity. It is rare that a minister happens to be assigned to a department he is familiar with.

Ministers are dependent on senior civil servants. Deputy Ministers brief the Ministers on their departments, what the problems are, and what issues need attention. The deputy ministers are appointed by the Prime Minister or Premiers. The Ministers are boxed into following the party script.

Deputy Ministers have the power to get rid of a boss (Minister) that they don’t like. Governments like to make a production of mandate letters to ministers. It makes the government look as if it has plans for governance. However, the deputy ministers may not like the department mandate and passively resist implementation or may fail to brief them on important matters.   

There is fierce competition among party representatives for cabinet positions and for other powerful positions within the government. The House Leader (not to be confused with the Party Leader) is one. The House leader is regularly interviewed by the media and often makes public statements on behalf of the government.

The Party Whip    The most powerful cabinet position is the party whip. They control the purse strings for the political arm and assign office space, furniture, and other perks of office. They tell party members how they will vote on issues. The whip will be obeyed – or else! They are the political party enforcers. 

The best office spaces go to ministers, roughly ranked in the importance of their departments. The caucus squabbles fiercely over remaining office spaces as the best offices indicate prestige (and good standing with the party whip). Those whom the whip considered troublesome may find their desks in a broom closet or storage room.

Backbenchers 

Backbenchers also fight over secretary positions. In parliament, the government names “secretaries” to assist the ministers of the most important portfolios. The positions come with some extra dollars, long hours, and a little prestige.

The saddest part of political operations is that caucus members who did not draw a ministerial or secretarial position are left bored, defeated, and despondent. Most make more money than they would if they returned to civilian life, so they run for re-election and build their pension income for another four years.

That is a huge waste of talent and resources. If the full caucus was involved in reviewing proposed bills and policies and was allowed to present ideas for improvement, we could see a marked improvement in governance and a huge improvement in the backbench climate.

Because many jurisdictions have multiple parties in play, party house leaders do meet and work together to some extent. One area of cooperation is called ‘pairing.’ Particularly during a minority government, the party in power is always wary of having ministers and members away on business and being outvoted by opposition parties. It has happened. If a government representative is away, a member of the opposition parties agrees to ‘pair’ one of its members to maintain a balance of representation.

There is no valid reason why House leaders could not work together to develop bipartisan solutions to many issues before them. The emphasis on partisan bickering is detrimental to Canada. Acting as enemies is wrong. The role of the opposition is to offer improvements to legislation, not to obstruct legislation.

The federal government's push to allow members to participate in debates and votes remotely is to avoid having all hands on deck for a vote. We pay these people to work on our behalf in parliament or the legislature.

I am of the opinion that members should be in their seats for not less than 200 days per year, trying to improve the lives of their constituents. That still leaves members 49 days or seven weeks away from parliament or legislature.


So Who’s Representing the People?

As much as it pains me to admit it, our elected representatives have no opportunity to represent the people of their constituency. If they try to represent constituents, they will be marginalized within their party and, if they persist, will be tossed out of the party to sit as independents with only a remote chance of re-election.

Protecting the Cash Flow

Those who invest heavily in a political party or government expect a return on investment in quid pro quo terms. The result is that political parties and the governments they form are influenced by those who finance them. Unelected and unseen financiers govern us. Very few people have any idea who these people or organizations are.

Add a couple of billionaires whose agents toss money into political campaigns designed to change the outcome of an election, often at the constituency level. While we struggle to understand what is happening, we are not holding our governments accountable as we should.

The Silent Majority

I am acquainted with several outstanding representatives, both federally and provincially, who tried their best to represent constituents until they recognized that they were blocked from doing so.  They wind up walking away in disgust.   

The makeup of the Senate is illegal. The Constitution requires the Senate to be formed into four divisions, not as a partisan carbon copy of the Commons. Each division is required to ensure that government laws and regulations do not adversely affect the people of their region.   

The makeup of the Prime Minister’s Office is illegal. The Constitution requires that the Privy Council be within the Governor General’s realm, not in the PMO.  

The Judiciary is intended to be politically neutral and is not. Appointments of judges should be made by the Governor General, not by the Prime Minister. The dual position of the Attorney General and Justice Minister is wrong as the Attorney General must be politically neutral and cannot be when the Justice Minister sits in Cabinet. The conflict of interest is unlawful.

Political parties have evaded accountability and responsibility successfully. They can hoodwink supporters into donating small amounts with a 75% tax credit which keeps money flowing to them.

They illegally bend laws and regulations to serve the interests of major financial donors and operate independently for their own unethical benefit.

"An evil enemy will burn his own nation to the ground to rule over the ashes." ~ Sun Tzu Sun Tzu, the author of The Art of Warfare, passed in 256 BC – 2,279 years ago. His tactics have been adopted by military strategists worldwide ever since. His quote could easily be adapted to present times: Political parties will oversee the destruction of democracy and freedoms in an unending battle to determine who will rule over the remaining rubble of a once proud and free Canada.


I am not pessimistic.

Canada has never waged war on another nation. We have defended ourselves and joined other nation’s battles to bring a speedy end to wars and conflicts. We are slow to anger and formidable when aroused.

The words populist and populism are terms leftists spit out like something exceedingly vile. They cannot survive in an atmosphere where we, the people, have a voice in our governance. They insist that they can rule us rather than represent us and can better regulate our lives than we can. So far, Canadians are not doing well under their mentoring.

As our situation deteriorates, Canadians will rebel and insist on changes to how we are governed. The silent majority is increasingly restless and annoyed by the failure of governments to find solutions to their most pressing issues. We will not be ignored as insignificant for much longer.

23-09-25 – A report in the Montreal Gazette, Sept 16 quoted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau saying Progressive politicians’ hope to triumph over right-leaning political adversaries can only succeed if they can do a better job bridging their lofty goals and people’s day-to-day struggles.

The progressive promise of a better, fairer world is too aspirational to resonate with people who may be struggling to afford their basic needs. The goal is “getting people to be optimistic about the future but also comforted in their present challenges” by presenting progressive aims, such as an inclusive economy and fighting climate change, as solutions to affordability issues, Trudeau said.

This loon fails to understand that we are fed up with platitudes and want action to address our concerns and issues. There is no better, fairer world while we struggle for survival.
    

The idea that Trudeau’s promises are too aspiring for Canadians to grasp is nonsense. We are done with propaganda assuring us his ideology is working when it is not.
    

Our feelings are authentic and not to be trifled with.
    

Better messaging will not address our valid concerns. Trudeau has ignored us for too long. He has had eight years to take action to prevent the situation we face and has done nothing positive.
 

We are well beyond being “comforted” like frightened children. His arrogance and disdain for us is starkly evident.

Trudeau needs to stop flitting about the world, pretending that he has some leadership role in the G-20 when he is ignored by other leaders, stay in Ottawa and focus on Canada’s real needs.    

Sadly, the joke is on us

with the global warming scam

23-09-15 – CBC reported that Federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, an avid cyclist who does not own a car, was fined $273 for speeding in Alberta. She was caught driving 132 km/h between Grande Prairie and Peace River and has paid the ticket in full.

This is hilarious and pathetic at the same time. Hilarious because Freeland has a driver’s licence, so she can use a car when necessary, and pathetic because she will not recognize that millions of Canadians can’t bike to the store or take a bus or subway anywhere.

Our federal government’s plans and policies are designed for large urban centre cores and ignore the rest of Canada.

It is unbelievably sad that our government cannot recognize that its plans to transition to electric vehicles are riddled with scams. Investors look for government-subsidized startups to finance. They know very few of these enterprises will succeed. They hype the start-up shamelessly and go public to increase value and dupe unwary investors into pumping up share value.

 When the now-public startup looks like failure is imminent, the original investors sell off their shares at a profit while unwary governments, investors, lenders and suppliers take the loss.

Recent examples are Proterra Inc., which said in an Aug. 7 press release that it “intends to continue to operate in the ordinary course of business” as it files Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceedings and looks to restructure its operations. NFI Group, a Winnipeg-based electric and traditional bus and coach manufacturer, also faces financial challenges. In a July 25 press release, NFI said it expected a net loss of $48 million to $52 million in the second quarter of 2023, causing a loss of 62 to 67 cents per share.

Proterra was plagued with problems with its buses – battery fires, breakdowns, battery freezes in cold climates, and up to a year to repair a bus. Now, the City of Vancouver, which went all-in and bought an entire fleet of electric buses, has nowhere to buy repair parts or services. It is now the proud owner of several dozen tons of inert metal, plastic and toxic storage batteries that will cost millions to recycle.  

Rumours are that the US government invested as much as $8 billion in subsidies to Proterra, touted by US President Biden as America’s answer to electrifying urban transportation.

Global warming, now called climate change, is a hoax. We are watching scams operating within a hoax. The gullibility of our governments and society knows no bounds.

23-09-11 – Few people have an understanding of how political parties and the governments they form operate. In recent times, political parties have evolved into stand-alone corporations that can operate independently from the people they claim to represent.

Let’s start with ‘bagmen’. That is a description for party fundraisers who play a pivotal part in any political party. They may be men or women who excel at ferreting out people inclined to support the party and are usually well-connected within the higher-income group.

There is tension between the bagmen and the party. The bagmen know that major donors expect a return on their investment and use their powers to influence legislation and policies adopted by the party. That is in conflict with the laws and policies the party governance structure and elected members want to propose.

All this happens ‘behind the scenes’ and is very rarely, if ever, commented on in the media. In some cases, media owners may be major donors who wish to influence policy in their favour. The same can be said of many major business and commercial groups. Bagmen are anonymous, as are the major donors. Their activities are kept under wraps and are not reported to the federal or provincial election authorities.

Activities of the bagmen erode the powers of elected representatives to speak for the people who elected them. They are not free to promote the best interests of their constituents. That undermines democracy.

Then we need to consider ‘lobbyists.’ There are different types. Some freelance and assist persons or groups for a fee, while others are engaged by individuals or groups. The objective is to gain access to public officials (bureaucrats and elected officials) to make a case for why public policy should be influenced in their favour.

The federal and all provincial governments have created legislation and regulations to make lobbying government appear normal. It is not. It gives some people access to government influence denied to those who vote. Electors get an opportunity to voice their views every four years or so, while lobbyists carry on year-round, every year. Lobbying is illegal under Section 121 of the Criminal Code, and sanctioning lobbying creates a high risk of collusion, corruption, and cronyism.

We need to replace lobbying legislation and regulations with tough ethics laws and regulations for politicians and bureaucrats overseen by an independent Ethics Auditor reporting directly to parliament (or Legislature) with powers to investigate complaints, require witnesses to testify under oath and subpoena any relevant documents from any source.

The primary problem is the lack of public accountability. Governments and political parties do not provide transparent records of financial dealings with the public they represent. That should be the purview of an independent Auditor General styled similarly to the Ethics Auditor above. We must ensure that there are adequate checks and balances to ensure corruption is kept to a minimum.

23-09-12 – Few people have an understanding of how political parties and the governments they form operate. In recent years, political parties have evolved into stand-alone corporations that can operate independently from the people they claim to represent.

Let’s look at the party structure – which varies somewhat from party to party, but essentially party members elect a Board of Directors who employ the necessary personnel to operate the corporation. They raise funds for the party and finance advertising between and during elections. They make the final decision on candidates for election. They may disqualify a candidate they deem incapable of selling enough memberships and raising enough money and may name a candidate to a particular riding whom they deem capable of meeting their objectives.

That violates the concept of party members in the riding choosing a candidate to represent them. The party has a thumb on the scale and chooses candidates that best represent the party. During an election, the party will provide financial support for candidates it deems most capable of willing a seat and avoid financial support for candidates it deems with a low chance of winning.

That is heartbreaking for the candidate willing to stand for election as well as the volunteers who work hard on behalf of their candidate. Eventually, disillusioned members and volunteers leave the party and join the silent majority, and many don’t vote in what they perceive as a rigged system.

The tension between the bagmen and party operations mentioned in Part 1 is ongoing, and bagmen influence policies adopted despite objections of operations.

Political parties enjoy tax credits unavailable to any other organization. Donors can receive a tax credit of 75% of donations up to $400. Someone who donates $400 will get a federal tax credit of $300 and can donate to a provincial party and get the same credit as they are calculated separately.

Compare that with the tax credit for charitable donations. Depending on the province, the tax credit on $400 in donations varies from $120.42 in Ontario to $176 in Quebec. The national average is $144 or 36% of the donation – just over half of the political donation tax credit for the same amount.

Political parties constantly canvass subscribers to donate so they can fight for this, that or the other cause. What they mean is give us money to slag our opponents. Their operations are already funded by parliament or the legislature.  

The role of the opposition parties is to make proposals for improvements in government policies or to propose alternative solutions to existing legislation and policies. Parties don’t do that using the excuse that the party in power will steal their ideas as their own. That is nonsense. The whole idea of a democratic government is for parties to work together to develop the best laws and policies for the people of Canada. We have no interest in observing the pretend conflict we see on Question Period. It is as fake (and scripted) as a wrestling match. Canadians deserve better.   

Few people have an understanding of how political parties and the governments they form operate. In recent times, political parties have evolved into stand-alone corporations that can operate independently from the people they claim to represent.

For most of us, the face of politics is the cabinet ministers in parliament and in the provincial legislatures. They all strive to look sober, statesmanlike and wise. However, a peek under the hood shows a different picture.
Cabinet ministers are not chosen for their abilities or knowledge in a given field. They are usually chosen based on a balance of sexes, even distribution by region, and increasingly to show ethnic diversity. It is rare that a minister happens to be assigned to a department he is familiar with.

Ministers are dependent on senior civil servants (deputy ministers) to brief the ministers on their departments, what the problems are and what issues need attention. The deputy ministers are appointed by the Prime Minister or premiers. The ministers are boxed into following the party script.

Government like to make a production of mandate letters to ministers. It makes the government look as if it has plans for governance. However, the deputy ministers may not like the department mandate and passively resist implementation, or may not like the minister and fail to brief him on important matters. The deputies can get rid of a boss they don’t like.

There is fierce competition among party representatives for cabinet positions and for other powerful positions within the government. House leader (not to be confused with the party leader) is one. The Hose leader is regularly interviewed and often makes statements on behalf of the government.

The most powerful position is the party whip. He controls the purse strings for the political arm and assigns office space, furniture and other perks of office. He tells party members how they will vote on issues. The whip will be obeyed – or else! He is the party enforcer on the political side.

The best office spaces go to ministers, roughly ranked in the importance of their departments. The caucus squabbles fiercely over remaining office spaces as the best offices indicate prestige (and standing with the party whip). Those whom the whip considered troublesome may find their desks in a broom closet or storage room.
Backbenchers also fight over secretary positions. In parliament, the government names secretaries to assist the ministers of the most important portfolios. The positions come with a few extra dollars, long hours and a little prestige.

The saddest part of political operations is that caucus members who did not draw a ministerial position are bored, defeated and despondent. Most make more money than they would if they returned to civilian life, so they run for re-election and build their pension income for another four years.

That is a huge waste of talent and resources. If the full caucus was involved in reviewing proposed bills and policies and was allowed to present ideas for improvement, we could see a marked improvement in governance and a huge improvement in the backbench climate.

This is the last in the series. I hope you now have some insights into what goes on behind the scenes.

Because many jurisdictions have multiple parties in play, party house leaders do meet and work together to some extent. One area of cooperation is called ‘pairing.’ Particularly during a minority government, the party in power is always wary of having ministers and members away on business and being outvoted by opposition parties. It has happened.

There is no valid reason why house leaders could not work together to develop bipartisan solutions to issues before them. The emphasis on partisan bickering is detrimental to Canada. Acting as forever enemies is wrong. The role of the opposition is to offer improvements to legislation, not to obstruct legislation.

The federal government's push to allow members to participate in debates and votes remotely is to avoid having all hands on deck for a vote. We pay these people to work on our behalf in parliament or the legislature.

I am of the opinion that members should be in their seats for not less than 200 days per year trying to improve the lives of their constituents. That still leaves members 49 days or seven weeks away from parliament or legislature.

As much as it pains me to admit it, our elected representatives have no opportunity to represent the people of their constituency. If they try to represent constituents, they will be marginalized within their party and, if they persist, will be tossed out of the party to sit as independents with only a remote chance of re-election.
Governments are moving towards technocracy, which I covered on August 17^th. That will further distance political parties from the public they claim to serve.

I have seen several outstanding representatives, both federally and provincially, try their best to represent constituents until they recognize that they are blocked from doing so at every turn. They wind up walking away in disgust.

The makeup of the Senate is illegal. The Constitution requires the Senate to be formed into four divisions, not as a partisan carbon copy of the Commons.

The makeup of the Prime Minister’s Office is illegal. The Constitution requires that the Privy Council be within the Governor General’s realm, not in the PMO.

The Judiciary is intended to be politically neutral and is not. Appointments of judges should be made by the Governor General, not by the Prime Minister. The dual position of the Attorney General and Justice Minister is wrong as the Attorney General must be politically neutral and cannot be when the Justice Minister sits in Cabinet. The conflict of interest is unlawful.

There is no incentive for political parties to be held accountable to constituents. They have evaded the responsibility successfully. They can successfully hoodwink supporters into donating $100 with a $75 tax credit which keeps money flowing to them. They illegally bend laws and regulations to serve the interests of major financial donors. They operate independently for their own unethical benefit.

23-09-07 – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau throws a hissy fit whenever someone refuses to comply with his edicts. Independent news sources are scarce. There are about 60, but only about ten cover Canada-wide news.

The local factor is nonsense. Canadians in fire zones have friends and relatives all over Canada and look for information about how people they care about are doing. The mainstream media are doing a poor job of coverage. Replayed images of a burned-out building or area or a string of cars on the highway are not informative.  

Meta’s objection is being forced to subsidize the half-dozen giants who control Canadian media and have done away with local content producers doing nationwide editing from their head offices. We recently witnessed an attack on CPC leader Pierre Poilievre written by the Canadian Press (owned by the giants) and printed in numerous giant publications the same day.

Trudeau intervened and passed legislation requiring streaming giants to subsidize media giants. It never occurred to his cadre of loons that streaming giants might just stop carrying media giant stories and thus avoid subsidies. Independent media outlets are caught between and blocked by Meta. I am caught because I usually include a link to stories I comment on to assure readers that they are real. I am blocked from adding them to my Facebook account, so I will not be including links until the mess is sorted out.

Advertisers have migrated to streaming platforms as they can get wider coverage for the same or less money. Trudeau’s Online News Act was intended to protect the media outlets that protect him. His taxpayer-funded subsidies to media giants are repulsive but buy him protection he needs. 

He was warned that he was treading on thin ice and to expect unintended consequences. His comment that Meta is only concerned with the ‘bottom line’ is hilarious. The loon has no idea what a bottom line is or how it affects a business, including the government.

His reckless spending, unending deficits and borrowing are negatively affecting Canadians. He has made himself as popular as a skunk at a tea party but blames us for his arrogant stupidity.

Also, read Merv Unger’s Perspective column HERE.

23-09-05 – The answer is distressing: “Not during a Trudeau-Freeland Marxist regime.”
    

Their close connections with China, the WHO and WEF are alarming. They appear to be intent on dismantling our democratic constitutional monarchy.
    

Canadians have constitutionally guaranteed freedoms and rights which the current government ignores. Provinces have constitutionally guaranteed sovereignty in these classes:

1. (Repealed)
2. Direct Taxation within the Province in order to the raising of Revenue for Provincial Purposes.
3. The borrowing of Money on the sole Credit of the Province
4. The Establishment and Tenure of Provincial Offices and the Appointment and Payment of Provincial Officers.
5. The Management and Sale of the Public Lands belonging to the Province and of the Timber and Wood thereon.
6. The Establishment, Maintenance, and Management of Public and Reformatory Prisons in and for the Province.
7. The Establishment, Maintenance, and Management of Hospitals, Asylums, Charities, and Eleemosynary Institutions in and for the Province, other than Marine Hospitals.
8. Municipal Institutions in the Province.
9. Shop, Saloon, Tavern, Auctioneer, and other Licences in order to the raising of Revenue for Provincial, Local, or Municipal Purposes.
10. Local Works and Undertakings other than such as are of the following Classes:
• Lines of Steam or other Ships, Railways, Canals, Telegraphs, and other Works and Undertakings connecting the Province with any other or others of the Provinces, or extending beyond the Limits of the Province:
• Lines of Steam Ships between the Province and any British or Foreign Country:
• Such Works as, although wholly situate within the Province, are before or after their Execution declared by the Parliament of Canada to be for the general Advantage of Canada or for the Advantage of Two or more of the Provinces.
11. The Incorporation of Companies with Provincial Objects.
12. The Solemnization of Marriage in the Province.
13. Property and Civil Rights in the Province.
14. The Administration of Justice in the Province, including the Constitution, Maintenance, and Organization of Provincial Courts, both of Civil and of Criminal Jurisdiction, and including Procedure in Civil Matters in those Courts.
15. The Imposition of Punishment by Fine, Penalty, or Imprisonment for enforcing any Law of the Province made in relation to any Matter coming within any of the Classes of Subjects enumerated in this Section.
16. Generally all Matters of a merely local or private Nature in the Province.
17. Laws respecting non-renewable natural resources, forestry resources and electrical energy
18. Legislation respecting Education

The federal government routinely ignores provincial sovereignty and infringes on its constitutional rights. For example, the federal government want to get heavily involved in housing, but cannot do so without proving that housing is a national concern and, if it does so, becomes the sole financier of the housing construction effort. It cannot assume authority without undertaking the operating costs.
   

  If you look at item 10 (a) above, the federal government reserves the right to control railways, roads, highways and similar works that connect provinces or connect provinces to other nations or foreign nations (ports). It follows that those works' construction and maintenance costs are a federal responsibility. Provinces and municipalities are not obligated to share these expenses.      

******.

By Lorrie Goldstein, in the Toronto Sun, Aug 19, 2023
      

In a commencement address to graduating students at Boston’s Northeastern University in May, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the fundamental question of our time is: “Does capitalist democracy still work?”

     That, of course, raises the question of what she thinks should replace it, if she wonders if it’s still working, since dictatorships — see the collapse of the former Soviet Union — don’t exactly have a great record on capitalism or democracy.

     And what does it mean in the context of a Liberal government headed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who, when asked in 2013, when he was Liberal leader, what country he most admired aside from Canada, answered:
     “There’s a level of admiration I actually have for China. Their basic dictatorship is actually allowing them to turn their economy around on a dime and say, ‘We need to go green, we want to start investing in solar’.”

     On that front, Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault will soon be off to China, ostensibly to make the world’s largest emitter of industrial greenhouse gases, the country that burns more coal than the rest of the world combined, an ally in the fight against climate change.

     Meanwhile, Trudeau continues to rag the puck on calling a public inquiry into foreign interference by China into our democracy, including but not limited to the last two federal elections, despite the fact all the opposition parties, the House of Commons and, according to the polls, most Canadians, want one.

     Then again, the Trudeau government has always had a soft spot for China, especially on the issue of climate change, back to when then environment minister Catherine McKenna was being quoted approvingly in Chinese state media for her praise of China while visiting Beijing.

     “China has been and continues to be an essential partner in the fight against climate change as a large emitter and producer, but also with its commitment to reduce emissions and its ability to scale like no other country. It is essential that we engage with China, and China is committed to climate action.”

The reality, as Chinese President Xi Jinping recently made clear, is that while his nation will pursue its climate goals “unswervingly,” as he described it, it will tolerate no foreign interference on what those goals are or how or when they will be achieved.
    

Which is ironic, given China’s interference in our democracy.

23-08-30 – From Adam Vaughan, Environment Editor The Times (UK): “After Britain’s hottest June to date, July being the hottest month on record globally, and weeks of debate about how to best meet Britain’s net-zero target, Jim Skea, the British professor and chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said people were not joining the dots.”
    

On the contrary, people are connecting the dots. Thirty years of increasing IPCC hysteria proves beyond doubt that these people are on the wrong track. They can produce no evidence that carbon emissions are the sole driver of climate change. Supportive science does not exist.

Michael Mann, the originator of the “hockey stick” climate computer model that the IPCC pinned its prediction on, has proven to be a fraud. He will not allow his model to undergo peer review. When ordered by the courts to release his calculations, he refused.

There is no evidence available to suggest that emissions from G-20 industrialized nations affect climate change, since other nations, particularly China and India, are producing increases in emissions several times the reductions other nations have achieved.

Governments are powerless to control climate change. Their efforts at emission reductions are driving inflation upward, in particular, the costs of food dependent on diesel-fueled transport.

The use of our educational system to frighten children into promoting and supporting green technology disguised as environmentalism is a Machiavellian approach to mind control. Fearful people have no objectivity; they beg to be saved from a threat, even if the threat is imaginary.  

We are being forced to accept an ideology against our will, and government efforts to beat us into submission are destructive and unwarranted. Ultimately, the people will decide what powers we are willing to give our governments. It will be a hard lesson for the elitists and bureaucracy to endure.   

Governments operating in secrecy cannot be trusted

23-08-26

Even in a democracy like Canada, journalists often face efforts to keep information from the public.
    

This is from Brodie Fenlon in the state-subsidized CBC propaganda regime. He has a point, we have never faced an equally secretive government before.
    

The access to information systems is a bureaucratic nightmare, very slow to respond and riddled with traps. A favorite response is that the system needs more than 30 days to review the requested information.
    

Sometime after that, the system administrators notify you that accessing and coping xxxx pages will cost $xxxx. Please send money if you wish to proceed.
    

Assuming you are willing to pay extortion, you eventually receive a bundle of papers that have a lot of information blacked out. System administrators misuse the term redacted to cover their actions and claim that information is blacked-out for security purposes.
    

The question never asked is: “For whose security?” The names of people who prepare reports are routinely blacked out. These are public servants, paid by taxpayers. Why should we not know who wrote the report?
    

The names of people who were interviewed or contributed information are routinely blacked out. If they are influencing government decisions, we should know who they are.
    

Governments operating in secrecy cannot be trusted. They represent and are accountable to the people. Secretive government agencies, departments and subsidiaries have no place in a democracy.          

23-08-21

Populist conservatism has been on the march around the globe in recent years. But in New Zealand, many conservatives are beginning to embrace an old ideology: libertarianism – Henry Olsen in The Washington Post. .

 It is dreadful that we must go to foreign media to find out what is happening in the world. A thoughtful column in the Washington Post offers us an insight into how New Zealand is dealing with many of the same problems we face.

Identity politics is shredding our cohesiveness as a society. That is dreadful as we have fallen into a trap of placing gender and race as the measure of a person when we should focus on our universal human rights and that every person should have equal freedoms and rights.

Expecting equal results is ridiculous. Some people are quick to recognize an opportunity within their capability and strive diligently to achieve their objectives, raising capital, working long hours and making sound business decisions. Some fail.

Others prefer safety and avoid risks. Still others don’t want to work hard, thinking that all they need to succeed is an average ability to get a task completed. There are hundreds of variations and many different outcomes. Attempts to artificially level the outcome is grossly unfair.

We reap what we sow. If we ignore our personal responsibilities and fail to make efforts to improve ourselves, we will fall behind. Insisting that the world owes you something ignores the fact that the only person you can change is yourself. Society and its people can’t do that for you.

 This has gone on since we hunted fierce animals for meat and hides with rocks and spears. The hunter who failed to kill his prey could wind up eaten by his quarry. As social animals, we created a social hierarchy based on a member's contributions to the tribe. The most daring and strong are at the top, while others fall into lower ranks. The deference afforded to the offspring of those high on the social order is still there today. Those in lower ranks don’t want to risk the ire of people above them.

Government efforts to reshape our society are a spectacular failure. Our forefathers created one of the greatest nations on earth. Our constitution and legal system were imported from a nation with over 800 years of struggling to define democracy, freedoms and personal rights. Progress was incremental with kings, then lords, gradually giving up powers to the people.

Over the past 200 years, particularly during the last century, we have seen governments increasingly willing to ignore our constitution and rule of law, eroding democracy. Governments and political parties cannot override our constitution and legal system for long. People will demand change as the realities of their failed policies become obvious at the kitchen table.

23-08-11 – Elizabeth Thompson of CBC News takes a look at newly-minted minister of citizens services Terry Beech and the challenges ahead. Canadians will soon be able to access and apply for more federal government services online — from passports to payments, says Canada's first minister of citizens' services.

"I think, fundamentally, it's my job to wake up every day thinking about how we're improving the customer service experience for Canadians," Beech said.

•   •   •

I wince at Beech’s enthusiasm and naivety. "We should be problem solvers."

I will not enjoy seeing him ground into the dust by a lethargic, monolithic civil service fixated on securing lifetime employment rather than serving anyone.

The departments he wants to modernize are riddled with incompetent people who have positions to fill EIG quotas. The civil service does not hire or promote based on merit. It does not even do occasional reviews of employee productivity and merit.

We know what the government should be and is not. Politicians have never been less popular. Trust in our institutions is at rock bottom levels.

Canadians are watching their standards of living eroded and costs of living climb month by month. Far too many are facing bankruptcy and some loss of their businesses. Our politicians seem oblivious to the harm that will do.

After years of lies, forcing people into loss of their property and homelessness will trigger a revolt against the elitists in government and big business. Workers will dictate terms of employment, and politicians will be required to engage with the people they are elected to serve. Employers and governments will be held to account by the people.

That is how a democracy works, and we have ignored that for far too long.

23-08-10 – Expenses cannot exceed income. With the exception of a war where our sovereignty is at risk and natural catastrophes, a government proposing a debt increase must resign.

 
Not less than 5% of the GDP must be allotted to debt reduction. All foreign aid and external spending must be halted until our debt level is below 15% of our GDP. We are not obligated to provide foreign aid while Canadians are making huge interest payments on growing public debts.

Government agencies, departments and partners that are not providing effective, efficient and timely services to the public must be downsized and restructured. Those departments and agencies that do not provide direct services to the public, such as Foreign Affairs, International Development and International Trade, must have their budgets scrutinized by an Inspector General and approved by the House of Commons on an individual basis, not as part of an omnibus budget.

Government budgets have to be approved department by department. The argument that there is no time to scrutinize budgets at the department level is ridiculous.

The parliamentary calendar shows 115 sitting days for the calendar year 2023. Excluding weekends and statutory holidays, there are 249 weekdays open for parliament to sit, but parliament is only committed to sitting for 46% of the time available.

 Increasing that to 80% or 200 days (85 more sitting days) still leaves MPs 49 days or 7 weeks for vacation and constituency affairs. Our MPs are there to represent us in all aspects of Parliament’s operations. We are in a rapidly changing and uncertain world and have serious internal problems. MP's absence from Parliament for 134 days or 19 weeks is inexcusable. 

         
All civil servants have to swear an oath of on-the-job political neutrality to keep their positions and must undergo an annual performance review to establish productivity. Civil service retention and promotions must be based on ability and merit. It is unfair that Canadians who hold jobs based on merit have to pay the salaries of civil servants who hold positions that are not merit-based.

The Senate has to be restructured to comply with the terms of the Constitution:
      22 In relation to the Constitution of the Senate, Canada shall be deemed to consist of Four Divisions:
1. Ontario;
2. Quebec;
3. The Maritime Provinces, Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island;
4. The Western Provinces of Manitoba, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, and Alberta;
which Four Divisions shall (subject to the Provisions of this Act) be equally represented in the Senate as follows: Ontario by twenty-four senators; Quebec by twenty-four senators; the Maritime Provinces and Prince Edward Island by twenty-four senators, ten thereof representing Nova Scotia, ten thereof representing New Brunswick, and four thereof representing Prince Edward Island; the Western Provinces by twenty-four senators, six thereof representing Manitoba, six thereof representing British Columbia, six thereof representing Saskatchewan, and six thereof representing Alberta; Newfoundland shall be entitled to be represented in the Senate by six members; the Yukon Territory, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut shall be entitled to be represented in the Senate by one member each.

In the Case of Quebec each of the Twenty-four Senators representing that Province shall be appointed for One of the Twenty-four Electoral Divisions of Lower Canada specified in Schedule A. to Chapter One of the Consolidated Statutes of Canada.
 
32 When a Vacancy happens in the Senate by Resignation, Death, or otherwise, the Governor General shall by Summons to a fit and qualified Person fill the Vacancy.
     The Governor General, not the Prime Minister, shall . . . . . . . . . The GG is not obligated to take advice from the PM.
 
The Constitution, as written, gives Newfoundland and Labrador the balance of power in the Senate. While it would appear natural that the province would align with the other Maritime provinces, it is not bound to do so and can act as a dealmaker if there is a deadlock between Ontario and Quebec and the other provinces.   
 
That leads us to another unconstitutional aspect of our federal government. The Privy Council must be restructured to comply with Constitution Section 11.

11 There shall be a Council to aid and advise in the Government of Canada, to be styled the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada; and the Persons who are to be Members of that Council shall be from Time to Time chosen and summoned by the Governor General and sworn in as Privy Councillors, and Members thereof may be from Time to Time removed by the Governor General.
 
The Privy Council cannot lawfully be part of the Prime Minister’s Office.

It goes further, The judicial section of government has to be politically neutral and is not part of the government. The Justice Minister is a member of the Cabinet. The Solicitor General cannot be part of the Cabinet as that politicized the office. Combining the Justice Minister and Solicitor General positions is unlawful as the Solicitor General is in an unacceptable conflict of interest.
 
The Constitution, article 96 reads:
96 The Governor General shall appoint the Judges of the Superior, District, and County Courts in each Province, except those of the Courts of Probate in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.
 
The GG is not required to accept the recommendation of the Prime Minister or Premiers. Recommendations from the bar association should be made to the GG, who will appoint the judge 
 
If you are not familiar with our constitution, an English version is here.  Other versions, including PDF downloads, are available here. Arming yourself with a basic knowledge of our Constitution allows you to confidently participate in (or start) conversations or debates on many topics.         
 
It is tedious, like most legal documents, but not complicated and cannot be ignored.
 
The Constitution belongs to the people, not to governments. It is a check on the operations of government and includes our Charter rights and freedoms. It is the primary law of Canada, and no action, legislation, regulation or rule, federal or provincial, can stand if it is in conflict with the Constitution.

Chris George writes in the Niagara Independent that eight years into his tenure as Prime Minister, it has become abundantly clear that Justin Trudeau’s promise of “sunny days” has failed to materialize. An ever-growing number of Canadians are financially strained and finding themselves caught in impossible living situations. There are numerous economic reports and studies suggesting matters will worsen in this country – and Canadians will not be waking anytime soon from this midsummer night’s nightmare. Chris’s full report

•   •   •

PART 1 - 23-08-07 - The Ottawa Loons have put us between a rock and a hard place. Led by a pair of egotistical sociopaths detached from the real world we mere mortals inhabit, they have no interest in solving the difficulties we face.

They underestimated Canadians' determination, grit and resilience when punished into a disliked situation. The army of civilian volunteers who supported our voluntary military during WWII was unmatched.

The solution is simple. Take back our children, allow parents to supervise the social development of their families and require educators to focus on the basic education required to allow children to thrive in adulthood.

Our children have been indoctrinated through groundless fear-mongering to support an unrealistic and unreasonable green energy fantasy. They have no sense of patriotism as they are not taught about our history and achievements. They have no understanding of our civic systems, our justice system or our constitution. They are not taught the elements of critical thinking or to question everything they don’t understand. They don’t understand that education is a life-long journey limited only by a person's interest and effort.
 

The destruction of a generation of our children forced into isolation detrimental to their natural development has to be overcome and reversed. The government and the educators they employ are not surrogate parents.

They have an important role to play and an obligation and accountability to the people to act professionally and do no harm. Teachers are obligated to report to parents regularly on their children's educational progress. School boards are obligated to ensure that educational policies meet standards satisfactory to parents.

Our lives, liberty, rights, and democracy are rooted in an educated society that understands the fundamentals of its adult responsibilities. Our rights are not conferred by governments. We create governments to carry out duties we cannot carry out as communities. Those governments are accountable to the people they are elected to serve. Governments do not set our social standards and values; we do.

23-08-03 – Michael Higgins reports in the National Post that the suicide of former school principal Richard Bilkszto is an appalling tragedy and a warning that unless we stand up to woke, moralizing, antagonistic bullies who seek to shame Canadians then we are all complicit in such deaths. FULL REPORT

We have allowed minority group activists and governments to make unfounded accusations of genocide and racism without submitting evidence to support their allegations.

We are innocent until proven guilty. In a civil court, a judge may make a decision based on probabilities based on the evidence presented. The key is that evidence must be presented; otherwise, the accusations constitute libel or slander.

These minority activists are engaged in persecution and violations of our Charter right to the freedom of expression. We have the constitutional right to respectfully disagree with any person, ideology or political position.

We must not sit silent when fellow citizens are attacked for disagreeing with minority activists. By doing so, we empower them. An attack on one of us is an attack on all of us. If we fail to confront these actions, we are part of the problem and should be embarrassed and ashamed of ourselves.

We must not allow these activists to fragment our society. They are unelected and, in most cases, do not represent the views of the people they claim to represent. If we stand together as we have for decades, minority activists will perish. They are bullies who will slink off as the cowards they are when confronted by determined opponents.  

Politicians love this strife as it draws our attention away from their failures to govern responsibly. Those who support the activists do not deserve our support or votes at any level of governance.

We must level the playing field and ensure that all people, irrespective of gender, colour, disability or any other natural distinguishing feature, have an equal opportunity to grow and thrive, limited only by their abilities and efforts.

Accusations, confrontation and shaming promote anger and resentment and divide us into hostile camps. Our challenge is to promote respectful dialogue and make Canada a place where people are truly equal in access to opportunities and services.

Artificial barriers, both hidden and open, must come down for that to take place.  

23-08-01 – Politicians have earned disparagement and disrespect from ordinary Canadians. The summer BBQ circuit does not exist for politicians to become familiar with the people they are sworn to serve.

The objective is to canoodle with party members, supporters and donors. Party members need to be pumped up to ensure they continue to support their representative.  Private meetings with donors are to ensure them that their donations really do influence party policies.

The appearances at public events are public relations exercises. There is no intention of listening to the concerns of electors who don’t contribute to the cause by volunteering or donating cash.
 

Poilievre is touring the country, holding open forums, listening to Canadians and doing his best to address their concerns. Basically, Canadians are tired of seeing their standard of living steadily eroded, and their hopes for a secure future for their families vanish.
 

The unknown at this point is whether Poilievre will follow through and require party representatives to continue to maintain a close connection with their constituents. If he does, he will upend a cynical political system and form a powerful government his opponents are unprepared to counter. The cozy, elitist reign of political parties and their squadrons of advisors will wind up in the trash.

Political systems don’t change overnight. It will take a decade or two for the elitists to realize that they can’t continue to operate without the support of the people who keep Parliament’s lights burning with their excessive taxes. Poilievre can shrink the bloated, useless bureaucracy our government has become and put us back on the path to prosperity and success.    

******

See Josie Sabatino’s comment on Prime Minister Trudeau’s weekend confrontation with the public, in The Niagara Independent HERE

23-07-31 – When the fairy dust settled, six federal cabinet ministers were booted, 13 retained the same portfolios, another 20 were shuffled to new positions, and seven newcomers rounded out a new cabinet of 40!

Moving Bill Blair into defence is ridiculous. He is incompetent. Anything he touches turns to chaos.

Stephen Guilbeault will continue to badger us with insane regulations stifling economic growth and driving up inflation.

We don’t need a Housing Minister. We don’t need an Energy and Natural Resources Minister.  Housing and Natural resources are provincial jurisdictions. The Northern Affairs Minister already covers the federal housing and natural resources jurisdictions.

Dominic LeBlanc is President of the King’s Privy Council, which is unconstitutional. The Privy Council belongs in the realm of the Governor General and must be politically neutral. Why do we have a Public Service Minister? Constitutionally, the head of the civil service is the Clerk of the Privy Council.
 

Why do we have a Women and Gender Equality Minister and a Diversity and Inclusion Minister? Our society thrived for a century without these ministries, and their efforts to date have not improved the lives of women or minorities. Their efforts are divisive, not inclusive.

We don’t need a Canadian Heritage Minister. Prime Minister Trudeau claims that we live in a post-national world, that there is no Canadian identity, and that Canadians are guilty of genocide without producing a shred of evidence. We are innocent until proven guilty in accordance with our charter rights. Canadians are patriotic and will not allow you to steal our nation.

We don’t need a Rural Economics Minister. That is a local, provincial jurisdiction. We don’t need a bureaucracy to hand out grants with strings attached. The feds want to rope in provinces and municipalities to match grant funds. That is an expensive abuse of tax dollars.

We don’t need an Energy and Natural Resources Minister or bureaucracy. Constitutionally, Energy and Natural Resources are provincial jurisdictions. The federal government is responsible for the three territories, and the Northern Affairs Minister handles that.

We must stop treating the territories as provinces. They have no right to elect Members to the Commons.

The Senate must be restructured in accordance with the constitution into four sections; East, West, Ontario and Quebec. There is no provision to form the Senate as a copy of the Commons. The Senate is intended to be politically neutral and ensure that the regions are equal in all legislation.

We don’t need a Health Minister. Healthcare delivery is a provincial jurisdiction. The federal government is responsible for providing healthcare to indigenous people, the armed forces and RCMP, diplomatic and international personnel posted abroad, prison inmates, and foreign diplomats in Canada.

The Canada Health Act stifles innovation in healthcare delivery. Large federal and provincial bureaucracies are failing us in health care delivery. We desperately need private sector competition and investment to repair a broken system. Governments are dishonest in costing health care. They claim a cost for various medical procedures but hide the costs of administration.

We must establish quality standards for each type of healthcare delivery unit, from hospitals to clinics to personal care homes and ensure those standards are met. Each facility must be separately operated with all costs, including land values, buildings (including maintenance and repairs), equipment, property tax value, and administration costs. That gives the private sector a level playing field.

We have to amp up the teaching facilities for all healthcare professionals until we have an excess of our immediate needs. Our population is growing and ageing. We are not preparing to meet future demands.

We don’t need a Housing Minister, the CMHC or their bureaucracies. Insanity is repeating the same operation year after year and expecting different results. Our whole approach to housing has to be scrapped. There are many solutions available, including increasing our stock of rental properties. With many downtown office buildings sitting vacant, we have an opportunity to redevelop these towers into dwelling units.

Some of the innovations used in different nations:.

We don’t need or want a Families, Children & Social Development Minister or bureaucracy. We want to be left alone to raise our children as we see fit. We do not need government regulation of our lives. The family is the cornerstone of healthy, thriving communities.

We don’t need a Small Business Minister or bureaucracy. The majority of small businesses are provincially registered. Federal government interventions have driven many small businesses out of business, and more are expected to close in the near future. Creating a new bureaucracy will not bring them back to life. Small businesses are collectively the largest employers in Canada. Failure to anticipate the fallout of extended forced closures is unacceptable. Investors have lost confidence in our institutions, and entrepreneurial people are wary of risking all they own in venture governments can close down without justification or warning.

Small business closures are a form of constructive expropriation, and I expect that class action legal proceedings are not far off.           

Naming Terry Beech the new Citizens Services Minister is cynical, disgusting and insulting. The whole federal government exists to serve Canada and its citizens. The reminder that the Trudeau cabinet does not care about the aspirations and needs of the people they are sworn to serve is repulsive.

While the government is controlled by the Prime Minister’s Office and ignores its constitutional obligations, there is little hope for the future.     

Aaron Wherry, CBC News
A little over an hour before members of the new cabinet began strolling up the tree-lined driveway to Rideau Hall, Abacus Data released new survey results that suggest 81 per cent of Canadians feel it's time for a change in government. 

23-07-30 – If the article by J. Kennerly Davis of Real Clear Wire seems eerily familiar, it is because our Canadian governments is equally committed to the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) hoax.

There is no credible evidence to support the outrageous and vastly exaggerated claims of IPCC theories. No other institution can claim an equal record of consistent errors in prediction over a thirty-year span. Any person with the capacity for rational thought has long ago dismissed this band of clowns as irrational and unworthy of an ear.

Governments, by nature, are not equipped to consider theories rationally. They are incapable of resisting the urge to employ their powers to make our lives increasingly miserable. Trudeau’s claim to be in the forefront of a battle to save the planet is poppycock.

Note that you have seen nothing in the media about the megatonnes of CO² released into the atmosphere by burning forests throughout North America. Those forests sequester and store CO² as part of the natural human–plant dependency on one another. There have been a few stories about the chemicals in forest fire smoke which is nonsense. The number of structures burned is a tiny fraction of the overall devastation and is negligible.     

Harnessing and directing climate change is far beyond the ability of any mere mortal. The IPCC is willfully blind to any factor that can affect climate other than carbon emissions. They refuse to admit that forest fires can ruin all their computer model projections. That tells us all we need to know.          

*******************************************************************************.

J. Kennerly Davis (Ken) is a regulatory attorney with over 40 years of experience in the electric and gas power industry. He can be reached at j.kendavis@verizon.net

It is appalling that the federal government has squandered just over $7.7 million in bonuses for the executives of an agency that has accomplished nothing from 2017 to 2022.

The Bank can’t attract investors because its regulatory framework makes any investment a mind-numbing chore. Investors have not forgotten the $ billions in investments quashed by the Trudeau government’s Canadian Environmental Protection Act.

The three projects on its website, all in May and June 2023, do not include private investment. Subsidizing green energy projects is not the published aim of the Infrastructure Bank.
 

This follows a pattern – announcing a $35 billion fund intended to increase private investment with a lot of fanfare, letting the initiative lay dormant for years and rewarding executives for doing nothing. There are dozens of priorities far more important than this ‘initiative.’  

The government does not plan to spend the $35 billion. It is smoke intended to obscure our vision. The payoff to Trudeau’s friends (he appointed them all) for maintaining the charade is appalling.

Bonuses paid to all executives at the Canada Infrastructure Bank last year

July 26, 2023 – The opinions of economists representing major financial institutions have little to do with our day-to-day realities.

Food prices are up by nine per cent, mortgage rates by 30 per cent and shelter by 4.8 per cent year over year. That is what drives spending. We have less disposable income with each passing month, and some of us are preparing for major changes in our financial planning if we have mortgages due for renewal.

Left out of the article is that in March 2022, the Bank of Canada rate was 0.5 per cent, a full 2 per cent below the ideal target of 2.5 - 3 per cent. The BoC started out in a hole created by federal government influence. Much of our inflation in the latter half of 2022 was driven by reckless government spending and expansion of the money supply.

Consumer spending will continue to shrink for most Canadians. Far too many are $200 from being unable to meet all their financial obligations and don’t have access to credit if they are faced with an emergency such as illness of a family member or breakdown of an auto required for commuting.

Trudeau once claimed that if we grew our economy, the budget would balance itself. Our economy is stagnant, not growing. We should have seen some inflation relief resulting from lower world oil prices, but that was more than offset by the Ottawa Loon carbon tax 2.0, effective July 1.

The best thing governments can do is stop meddling in free markets and allow people who risk failure for mismanagement to manage the economy. Governments cannot regulate us into compliance with their ill-considered schemes.         

Consumers appear to be ramping down their spending

I have a prescription for Senator Brazeau and all other Senators and MPs in Parliament: Drink two 6 oz glasses of “Mind Your Own Business” every four hours, and repeat until you develop common sense.

Due to government meddling, we no longer have effective, functioning health care systems. While we have a million people unable to find a family doctor and millions more on lengthy waiting lists for medically approved procedures, alcohol addiction is not a priority.

Two years of rigid rules and isolation have seriously harmed Canadians of all ages. If there is an increase in alcohol abuse, your government and those of the provinces are culpable. The grand experiment in dealing with a virus epidemic was a disastrous failure.

No one was immunized as promised, people have had multiple bouts of the virus, and the harmful side effects of treatment and mistreatment are just becoming known. Elected representatives have much to answer for.

Our economy is reeling, and the cost of living is skyrocketing. Elected representatives are wasting money on frivolities, borrowing us into the poor house and behaving like teenagers with no life experience, common sense or commitment to duty.

People are angry, anxious and worried about their future and those of coming generations. In over 60 years in politics, I have never witnessed the lack of responsible leadership, chaotic public policy and the fractured society so evident today.

All elected representatives are drunk with power, avoid accountability to those who elected them and fail to serve and protect Canadians. You should hang your heads in shame and resolve to become true representatives of the people who elected you, not those who fund you.                          

See John Paul Tasker’s report on CBC News May 22.

The federal government pitched a sizeable increase to the alcohol excise tax earlier this year — only to walk back that commitment in response to backlash from some MPs, lobby groups and cost-conscious Canadian drinkers.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland's budget kept the annual tax increase much lower than inflation — it'll grow by just 2 per cent this year — after a well-organized letter-writing campaign convinced the government that the political repercussions of such a hike weren't worth the relatively modest revenue bump. FULL REPORT

230519 – While too many of us have been doing our best to ignore politics, the Liberal Party of Canada has transformed into a northern wing of the US Democratic Party.

The tactics employed are identical. There is nothing positive or rational in the policies they endorse, and since they cannot justify those policies, they refuse to debate, choosing to attack and silence critics as if they have some divine right to do so.

Unsurprisingly, Canadians are cowed into submitting to their abuse rather than standing on principle and damning the liars. That is a sad dereliction of our duty to future generations.

The Liberal Party of Canada is flat-out loco, living in a dream world of chaotic and contradictory doublespeak while avoiding the realities we face. There is nothing positive about creating tension between factions and groups of Canadians.

As long as we are warring with one another, we are not working together on solutions to the economic and security chaos the Liberals have created.

Liberals fear that we will unite and begin on a road to recovering our freedoms and rights and, with them, true democracy where elected representatives are accountable to the people in the jurisdiction that elected them.

The basis for their fear is that we will toss the party, its officers, supporters and the hidden financers who actually control the party in the waste bin where they belong.

NDP leader Jagmeet Singh is even more cynical and divisive. He recognizes that Trudeau has gone too far in crushing Canadian’s hopes for the future, and uses that to wring concessions from Trudeau that we cannot afford. He is throwing gasoline on a firestorm and hoping we will not notice.

Canada stumbled along for 148 years in relative stability and prosperity. We survived the financial collapse of the 1930s, and fought a couple of world wars, but gradually improved the overall well-being of the nation’s people. We dealt with a few recessions and gradually strengthened our freedoms and rights.

For the last 15 years, we have endured changes we have never seen before. We are concerned about our future and those of future generations. Reductions in our standard of living are a reality.

Trillion-dollar public debts are real and are approaching the point of no return. Future generations face eternal servitude to foreign bankers instead of hope for continued prosperity. This madness has to end and soon. Each of us has the duty to uphold the principles, standards and values of our grandfathers, and to refuse Trudeau’s new world of economic servitude.

Patriotism to our nation, its people and future generations is a badge of honour, not something we shun as relics of days gone by. Those who think they are smart, spitting out the term ‘colonialism’ as if they had ingested a piece of dung, are hypocrites who have benefitted from improvements in their lives for over 500 years.

They and the Liberal Party that sponsors them are indolent and incompetent narcissists incapable of gratitude. They are spoiled, snivelling brats -  demanding, despotic, ill-disciplined, miserable, unsatisfied, and useless. Like Trudeau, they will never, ever be satisfied.

It was only 20 years ago that a Liberal government was brought to the edge of collapse by revelations that they sole-sourced $4 million in ad contracts to Liberal-friendly marketing firms. And it was 10 years ago that headlines were dominated for months by a scandal in which Senator Mike Duffy accepted a $90,000 cheque from the prime minister’s chief of staff in order to pay back invalid expense claims. 
 
All Canadian governments amass scandals, but the government of Justin Trudeau nevertheless stands out for the sheer tonnage of official misconduct. Trudeau remains the only prime minister found to have violated the Conflict of Interest Act, and he’s attained the rare distinction of having scandals that have attained widespread mention in the foreign press. When Canada’s Ethics Commissioner stepped down earlier this year, he noted with exasperation that he had been forced to investigate Liberal ministers more than two dozen times since 2018.
 
It would be too difficult to list all of them, so here’s our best effort at listing the ones that have happened since the last federal election in September, 2021.
 
(As for the main pre-2021 scandals, here’s a quick summary: SNC-Lavalin, Aga Khan, We Charity, alleged Kokanee groping and blackface.)
 
The Chinese interference scandal
 
This one has several parts and technically stretches all the way back to 2016, when one of the first scandals of the newly elected Trudeau government surrounded the prime minister’s attendance at “pay for play” fundraisers featuring Chinese billionaires.
 
But the core of the scandal is a series of CSIS leaks, primarily released through the Globe and Mail, holding that the Trudeau government had openly ignored warnings about Chinese attempts to swing the results of the last two federal elections. The alleged Chinese efforts weren’t massive – a laundered donation here, a disinformation post there – but it was apparently being conducted so brazenly from Chinese consulates that it would have been relatively easy for Ottawa to shut it down. As to why they didn’t, it’s not helping the optics of the scandal that the Chinese interference was all directed towards getting Liberals elected. 
 
Meanwhile, another CSIS leak hinted that the Chinese government has been openly trying to influence-peddle Trudeau almost since he first entered politics in 2008. And just this month came allegations that CSIS also passed on a 2020 warning that Chinese agents were attempting to target the Hong Kong family of Conservative MP Michael Chong – only for the Prime Minister’s Office to ignore it just like everything else.  Trudeau has maintained through everything he was not made aware of China being up to anything unseemly. 
 
The Lucki Affair
 
One of the most notable results of the Mass Casualty Commission – the probe into Canada’s worst-ever mass shooting – was how it revealed that RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki had tried to interfere in the early stages of the massacre’s investigation for the explicit purpose of obtaining cover for a planned Liberal gun ban.
 
As revealed in the Commission-tabled notes of Nova Scotia RCMP Superintendent Darren Campbell, Lucki had demanded that investigators make public the types of firearms used in the massacre. The local RCMP refused, arguing that withholding the information could help them track the weapons’ origins in the United States. To this, Lucki berated the Nova Scotia Mounties so hard that Campbell would describe some attendees being brought to tears (they were all in the first hours of piecing together a mass-shooting, after all). 
 
And according to Campbell’s note – as well as the testimony of a civilian employee in the room that day – Lucki had been acting on the direct orders of the federal cabinet, who wanted the information to justify a planned gun ban. As Campbell wrote, “the Commissioner then said … this was tied to pending gun control legislation that would make officers and the public safer.” 
 
Cabinet ministers keep handing sole-sourced contracts to friends
 
International Trade Minister Mary Ng said she became so overwhelmed by media requests during the COVID-19 pandemic that she had to commission $20,000 in media training from a close friend. Even after the Ethics Commissioner informed Ng that her actions were pretty clearly a violation of the Conflict of Interest Act, Ng would tell a House of Commons committee that she had no idea you weren’t supposed to sole-source contracts to friends. 
 
“Media training” was also the culprit when it emerged in January that a staffer inside the office of Housing Minister Ahmed Hussen had paid $93,050 in constituency funds to her sister, who ran a food marketing company called Munch More Media. The Ministry of Housing did not need food marketing help, but the idea was that Munch More Media could branch out into political PR. 
 
Hiring a cabinet minister’s sister-in-law as Ethics Commissioner
 
That exasperated Ethics Commissioner mentioned in the introduction? When the Trudeau government named his interim successor, they went with Martine Richard. She was a veteran lawyer in the commissioner’s office, but she also happened to be the sister-in-law of Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc. Richard would step down after a House of Commons committee decided to probe her appointment for anything hinky. 

ArriveCan overspending
 
This is another one that didn’t inherently break any laws (so much as we’re aware). It’s just another case of the government spending way more money on something than would make reasonable sense. ArriveCan – a glitchy and oft-criticized mobile app that was mandatory for travellers entering Canada during the COVID-19 pandemic – somehow managed to cost $54 million.  
 
Software development is expensive, but $54 million was so beyond the pale that in October a team of coders decided to stage a “hackathon” to see how quickly they could rebuild ArriveCan from scratch. It took them two days. Estimates at the time from smartphone app insiders estimated that ArriveCan should conceivably have cost no more than $2 million.
 
Incredible as it seems, these lawless incompetents believe they are entitled to our respect. They want us to believe that their continuing blunders are accomplishments. 
 
None of them suffer the consequences of the policies and regulations they impose. Our viewpoint as citizens is different.    

The actions of our federal government often leave us bewildered, wondering what they are thinking as we see our nation and society crumble into chaos. They are not thinking in terms of mature adults with life experience. They act with the wide-eyed wonder of immature primary-grade students.

It is the equivalent of replacing the contents of the National Art Gallery with the drawings of primary-grade students proudly taped on refrigerator doors.

The development of a mature society is incremental. In thousands of ways, we find improvements and better ways to carry out tasks and meet our needs. We have hundreds of examples.

Composing written words has evolved from scratches with a sharp stick or stone to using pens and brushes on animal skin or hide to movable type and printing presses, to computerized images transmitted over the internet.

There is no doubt that meeting our energy needs will evolve as demand exceeds available supply. However, our government has decided to allow immature and incompetent bureaucrats to dictate standards that are beyond our ability to meet. A shining example is setting unrealistic and unreasonable emission standards for automobile engines.

Automakers spent billions improving engines to meet standards and were not entirely successful. In the process, the costs of vehicles rose sharply, and the costs of maintenance rose significantly more. Consumers are paying more for transportation without any benefit from better or safer conveyance.

There is no tangible benefit from sitting in gridlock in a low-emission vehicle, and travel from point A to point B is no faster or safer than it was in previous generations of automobiles.

The forced transition to electric vehicles is inane. We don’t have the technology to create efficient and effective solar and wind energy. It is still in the science fiction stage.

Our electrical infrastructure is inadequate to meet current commercial and consumer demands and is a very long way from an ability to meet the added needs of electric vehicle owners.

Blocking all development of our oil and gas sector based on a desire to make a transition we cannot technically manage is immature daydreaming that has proven to be economically devastating. World demand for petroleum-based energy has increased, not diminished. Our government has effectively sidelined Canada as a competitor while increasing the costs of our domestic energy needs.

Adding increasing carbon taxes to support an unfounded and technically impossible dream of an all-electric future is delusionary and harmful to our economy, security, safety and well-being. It is driving up inflation and interest rates, and reducing our ability to maintain our living standards.

The levels of insecurity and anxiety resulting permeate our society, leading to depression and hopelessness. We live in a toxic environment created by an inept government.

The government’s enchantment with equity and diversity is another major departure from common sense, logic and reality. Canada was created by outstanding people of every background imaginable. They were patriots who lead the way in every endeavour by proving their merit to lead. Their commitment, energy and principles cannot be replaced by people with no merits to offer. We do not progress by appointing the indolent to leadership positions.

The most recent ignorant and juvenile attempt to replace our coat of arms, passports and other symbols of our history with childish cartoons is an affront to our nation, its history and its people.

We did not arrive as one of the most envied democracies in the world by accident or overnight. We earned the right through diligent adherence to fundamental principles, ethics, honesty, industry and integrity.

We are not post-national. We have not changed and are aghast that our government would presume to believe it can change us. Our federal government can be summed up in three words: “Unfit for office.”

Pierre Poilievre appears to be tuned into the anxieties and concerns of the people he meets in his town hall excursions. The acid test will be if he shows the courage to stand apart from the legacy political parties in combat over power and insist that conservative party members be accountable to the people who elected them.

If he does, we can look forward to a dozen or more years of true democratic governance and an outstanding Prime Minister.

No one can control climate change. There are too many factors at play. The best we can do is mitigate predictable events such as flooding, overly dry conditions and storms.

There are many practical solutions, such as ceasing to allow building development on flood plains, building dikes and levees along flood-prone areas, engaging in sound forestry management practices, creating wide firebreaks around settlements, and investing in fleets of water bombers.

Far too much of our infrastructure is created by need without considering later consequences. Highways along watercourses can become flood levees if built properly and ensuring that bridges can withstand once-in-a-century flooding. A thousand miles of highway are useless if bridges along the route wash out.

Creating a robust electrical grid from coast to coast is expensive, but warranted.

Twinning our major highways and rail lines is also a necessity for being able to move goods and people with minimal disruption.

Twinning pipeline corridors with power transmission lines can create divisions to limit fire spread and provide access corridors for fire-fighting crews.

Building storm-resistant structures in areas that experience high winds and storms is far more practical than believing we can stop the storms.

The possibilities are endless, and we have the talent and ability to make it happen. All it takes is leadership by experienced tradesmen and engineers, and politicians to fund their projects without interference.

Until politicians are accountable to the people who elected them, that will not happen.

The federal government is failing to provide for Canada’s safety, security and sovereignty by allowing illegal immigrants a free pass to stay in Canada. It has no means of tracking the whereabouts of these scofflaws or of identifying criminals among them. Thousands have evaded border security and disappeared into our society.

Human traffickers are smuggling people into Canada as an entry point into the USA, and many of those people are sold into perpetual (sex and labour) slavery to pay off their ‘fees’ to smugglers.

With the exception of immigrants brought into Canada under federal–provincial agreements to bring in people with needed skills, provinces have no responsibility for the housing and settlement costs of immigrants and asylum seekers.

Providing illegal immigrants with priority over those awaiting clearance to immigrate through normal channels is repulsive.

Trafficking in drugs and firearms is epidemic, and the government response is to confiscate legally owned firearms from law-abiding citizens.
  
It is clear that the government is deliberately risking our safety and security and plans to continue to do so.

This government is devoid of compassion for the people drug dealers addict, or those who suffer from crimes committed by illegal aliens, including murder, and has no moral compass.

Recently, drug dealers are circulating disinformation that people are addicted to fentanyl, which is ridiculous. The equivalent of two grains of salt is lethal, and dealers do not have the equipment or expertise to measure a safe quantity. Carfentanil is lethal at any measurable dose.

British Columbia has now legalized the possession of dealer-quantity hard drugs, including fentanyl. This escalating rot in our society cannot be allowed to continue.

Marie Woolf of The Globe and Mail reported in January that the federal government has spent almost $94-million since the last election booking entire hotels for months to accommodate an influx of asylum seekers entering Canada, according to an access-to-information request. FULL STORY

This is the tip of a huge iceberg.

The federal government has no idea of how many employees it has, or what, if anything, they are doing. Employees may be spending work hours on social media, gambling online or in endless, non-productive meetings with superiors or peers. They might be on an unreported vacation.

The bulk of federal employees work a 37.5-hour work week. Let’s break that down.

There are 365.25 days in a year. They do not work weekends. That reduces work days by 104.4 or to 260.85.

Federal employees have 12 statutory holidays per year. They have at least three weeks (15 days) vacation per year. They have 5 days of family-related leave and 5 days of (undefined) personal days. 12+15+5+5=37. The working year is now 223.85 days or about 32 weeks.

The average wage for strikers who have settled ranged from $50K to $75K. Wages for striking Revenue Canada workers average $68K.
They are employed for about 32 weeks or for about (32 x 37.5 =) 1,200 hours per year. That makes the average hourly wage for strikers who settled between $41.67 and $62.50

The average hourly wages for Revenue Canada employees are $56.67!

All wages and average hourly rates are pre-strike settlement numbers and are higher now. 

And the Treasury Board does not know who is working where or what they are doing. No private sector employer could survive with that level of inattention to human resources.

In 2015 there were 257,034 active full-time public-service workers. By 2022, the number had increased to 335,957 – an increase of 78,923 or 30.7%. Personnel costs for 2021-22 were $48.5 billion. With that level of public service employment and costs, we should expect superior service in all areas of the public sector. That is not what we get.

See Marnie Cathcart’s FULL REPORT in the Epoch Times, May 4.

Criminal gangs deal in drugs, human trafficking, extortion, loan sharking and prostitution, and are skilled at coercing and compromising individuals they can use to infiltrate private and public entities. This has been going on for decades.

The recent theft of gold at Toronto’s Pearson Airport was not a crime of opportunity or accidental. It was planned with access to information the shipper and carrier thought was secret and secure.

We don’t see any news on this, as corrupt governments don’t want to admit they are further compromised by criminal gangs. No wonder our criminal justice system is failing at its mandate.

We tend to focus on the street gangs shooting up our neighbourhoods while the professionals are fleecing the public unscathed.

Criminal gangs should not be able to influence the outcome of criminal trials, but they do. They intimidate witnesses or make them disappear, compromise prosecutors and judges when they can and have compromised our justice system, which is not impartial to the gang-connected.

The difference between criminals and politicians is that criminals don’t waste our money lying about how they will care for and protect us.

Tara MacIsaac reports in The Epoch Times that almost 30 organized crime groups have “influence or access within Canadian public sector agencies or departments primarily at the local or regional levels,” according to a federal report.

The level of infiltration into the public sector is “unknown” for more than 400 other organized crime groups, according to the Public Report on Organized Crime in Canada for 2022, first covered by Blacklock’s Reporter. See her full REPORT HERE

If the PM does not understand the meaning of these words, how can Canadians possibly trust his government to regulate their speech?

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s advisors are adept at providing him with the words and phrases that most Canadians want to hear Virtue signalling). However, words and phrases take on a new meaning depending on how they are delivered. Tone, voice inflection and volume play a role in the delivery of text. Trudeau is an actor delivering lines; he can sound sincere while delivering gibberish.

Actor Trudeau delivers his lines without commitment. They have no effect on his actions and behaviour. That is, by definition, disinformation (false information spread in order to deceive people).

Misinformation, on the other hand, is, by definition: wrong information, or the fact that people are misinformed.

This is where the disinformation – misinformation debate becomes arbitrary and sketchy. Trudeau takes the position that those who disagree with him are misinformed. The debate is a misdirection.

Every Canadian has the right to the fundamental freedoms of (a) conscience and religion; (b) thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication; (c) peaceful assembly; and (d) association.

Freedom of expression includes the right to employ the one-finger salute, draw cartoons, and carry banners, signs, or flags to express yourself.

A peaceful assembly is not necessarily calm or serene. It may be boisterous and noisy but may not be destructive. Even then, the limit is set out in the Criminal Code and requires that authorities act in a predictable manner. For example, crowds gathered in Toronto to cheer on the Maple Leafs were not calm. They were boisterous and noisy.

These and other charter rights cannot be circumvented by our governments or suspended by invocation of the Emergencies Act. We retain the right to (a) life, liberty and security of the person and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice, (b) be secure against unreasonable search or seizure, and (c) not be arbitrarily detained or imprisoned.

Our freedoms and rights were wrung from the hands of absolute monarchs and titled landowners over a span of eight centuries.

As always, Rex Murphy has an excellent take on the subject in the National Post, April. 28. READ HERE.

Lorne Gunter of the Edmonton Sun has confirmed what most of us believe about EVs – they are very expensive and risky. He missed a concern of mine. Rapid improvements in battery manufacturing are an enemy.

What happens when a battery fails (and does not catch fire) after, say, five years? The current replacement cost of an EV battery ranges from $4K to $18K US, ($5,500 to $24,500 CAN at current exchange rates), including labour but not taxes.

There is a very real risk that batteries for older EVs will not be available as they are no longer made. A used battery from a wreck may be available but will drive up costs as the replacement will require testing and possibly repair, and there are very few facilities able to repair EV batteries at present.

Those who can’t afford replacement own a two-ton ship’s anchor. Disposal of the battery requires an EV shop with specialized technical expertise. It is not a handyman’s or backyard mechanic’s task, as the repairman is in extreme danger of electrocution.

What bugs Gunter most about EVs is the sanctimony around them — that somehow they’re a more moral choice — and the compulsory way the Trudeau government is forcing them on us. The whole exercise is a scam. Read his full report HERE.

The federal budget announced plans to automatically file taxes for millions of low-income earners.

‘Round and ‘round the mulberry bush . . . bureaucrats remain convinced they can create a one-size-fits-all computer system to deal with the complexities of a wildly diverse society. Their refusal to respect us as individuals is disgusting.

Our politicians can begin by drastically simplifying the Income Tax Act.

They can follow up by cutting a myriad of federal and provincial tax credits and reducing income tax rates by the cost savings in operating those programs.

Then they can increase basic personal exemptions to poverty line levels and exempt people who have no taxable income from GST and PST. If we can put secure LOTTO terminals in every drug store, gas station, and convenience store, we can do the same for GST, PST and Health Care.
   
The CRA already calculates the tax forms for millions of Canadians but does not provide accessible copies to those taxpayers or a means of adding missing information.

It is disconcerting that nothing is said about data security. Data has to be on servers resident in Canada and secure from hackers. The number of hacks of agencies and departments makes us nervous.

No data can be shared with any nation or entity not resident in Canada except for specific nation-to-nation tax and pension benefit treaties.

Our problem is not taxpayers who fail to file. It is a tax system so complex that few understand it. The forms are formidable creations that do not follow any logical pattern.

The CRA is attacking the systems while ignoring the problems.

Pete Evans of CBC News reports with Monday's deadline for Canadians to file their income taxes for 2022, experts say a new pilot program for the government to automate the process for low-income Canadians is a long overdue step on the road toward doing them automatically for everyone. Read MORE

Money was earmarked to help during pandemic, but shelters say extra dollars have become 'lifesaving'

This is outrageous. Women are under attack as never before, and pandemic pressures have been replaced by high inflation, high interest rates, increased taxation and diminished living standards. All Canadians are faced with highly stressful worries over how they can navigate their way through the increased costs of everything and survive.
 
There is every indication that continued high rates of domestic violence will continue.

Notoriously underfunded women’s shelters have used the federal support to enhance the services they provide to extend a holistic approach to the recovery of affected families. Nothing less will do.

Men dressed as women are claiming a right to access women’s washrooms and participation in women’s sports. That is a fraudulent attack on women. A biological male cannot transition into a female. Had they tried this 30 years ago, public outrage would have halted the effort in its tracks.

Appearances are deceiving, but no amount of hormones, surgery or therapy can alter male or female genetics. Men and women are not the same, for which we are eternally grateful.

If it were not for women, men, including those who claim to have transitioned, would be in scarce supply. All of us have mothers. That is how the world works.

So-called feminists who claim that men and women are equal in every respect are wrong. Men and women are different biological beings and always will be. Our families and communities respect and protect women for who and what they are.

Our social standards and values are under unprecedented attack. Governments want to control us rather than serve us. We have to draw a line in the sand and tell our elected representatives they have gone too far. They cannot allow women and children subjected to violence to languish in underfunded shelters.

     “In the most recent federal budget, released just days before the inquiry's final report, Ottawa did not commit any new money for tackling domestic violence and offered nothing to fund women's shelters. Instead, it set aside $53 million each year for the "Women's Program." It funds one-time projects under the general banner of addressing women's equality.” 
     “Unlike previous funding, the Women's Program money can't be used to help with an organization's operations.”

The ‘Women’s Program’ is another veiled attack on women. Equality programs do not respect women’s freedoms and rights, and freedom from domestic violence is too important to our society to leave unattended. Funding for women’s shelters and the services they provide must be enhanced, not just restored.

The more than 600 women's shelters across Canada will soon lose hundreds of millions of dollars in federal funding they say has kept them afloat during the pandemic and is still desperately needed. See Marina von Stackelberg’s report on CBC news, Apr 24.

The most shocking quotation in the article below is:
 
“The Attorney General argued that the decision to invoke the Emergencies Act was “quintessentially executive in nature, unconstrained” and that its decisions should be considered “very difficult to set aside.”
 
Constitutionally, the Prime Minister of Canada does not enjoy executive powers. Executive powers reside with and are restricted to the King of Canada and his agent, the Governor General.
 
Adding the Privy Council to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is an unlawful transfer of executive powers. (Ref: Constitution Part III Sections 9 to 16 inclusive)
 
The government is sore afraid that an investigation into its undercover lawlessness will arouse the anger of Canadians and force the government to resign in disgrace.
 
The Attorney General, as head of the Justice Department, must be politically neutral, but cannot be as he sits in the cabinet and is thus in a conflict of interests. The conflict was recognized and adhered to by Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould, which led to her redeployment and eventual resignation.
 
Trudeau would not allow the proper application of the law to thwart his plans to rescue SNC-Lavalin from sanctions for criminal acts. That is consistent with his illusions of grandeur.
 
We can only with Justice Richard Mosley the best in sorting out this rat’s nest of illegalities, illusions and doublespeak. Someone has to stand up for the freedoms and rights of ordinary Canadians.        

Christine Van Geyn is litigation director at the Canadian Constitution Foundation. See her full report in C2C Journal, April 21. HERE

A closer look at the inescapable math of climate change

Lord, save us from the manipulations of environmental zealots, particularly those zealots who are fear-mongering idiots.
The whole carbon reduction plan is based on two preposterous and unproven theories:

First, carbon emissions are the sole driver of global warming. All other influences are ignored.

Second, governments can control climate change. If so, why is mitigation focused solely on industrialized nations?

 
The long-held claim that global warming trends are a consensus of scientists has completely fallen apart. Scientists who have been attacked and muzzled for daring to oppose the unscientific blather of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are speaking out at last. Their criticisms cannot be denied or set aside.
 
Government support for abiding by the IPCC carbon emission reduction targets is rapidly crumbling. Various governments are discovering the adverse effects on their economies are a greater danger to their people than global warming.
 
In the real world, individuals, citizens and residents of industrialized nations are paying a huge price for governments, including Canada, committed to unsustainable idealism. It would be grand if Canada was able to transition to clean green energy and create tens of thousands of high-paying jobs in the transition. However, that is highly unlikely.
 
Recent announcements of a $10.8 billion subsidy to Volkswagen to build a battery manufacturing plant in southern Ontario is a very high-risk venture based on several dubious factors:

That rare earth minerals critical to battery manufacture will be available in quantities needed;

That carbon emissions from mining rare earth minerals will not offset reduction gains;

That inefficient and ineffective solar and wind energy sources will undergo a quantum leap into sustainability;

That China will not profit handsomely from its stranglehold on rare earth minerals and semiconductors vital to electric vehicle and battery manufacturing; and

That the majority of Canadians have little interest in acquiring or owning electric vehicles.

 
Carbon emission reductions have nothing to do with the environment. Reduction targets are aimed at forcing radical changes to our society – changes we do not need or want. It is not about saving planet Earth; it is about gaining complete control over us and future generations.      
 

Also, see Aaron Wherry’s report on CBC News, Apr 23

The Royal Bank the top financier of fossil fuel development in the world. A new report finds
all five big Canadian banks make list of Top 20 oil and gas funders globally.

My first reaction is, what do the banks know that our governments don’t? The only hint is buried in the story below: "Our bank believes the transformation to net zero must be orderly and inclusive to be successful, recognizing the significant changes that need to occur in our day-to-day lives and our economies, and in how we consume energy and resources."

I read that as the banks don’t believe the Canadian government’s net-zero plan can succeed. That is a sobering position given the government’s huge investments in anything green and its punitive carbon taxing system designed to force us to give up diesel and gasoline-powered vehicles.

Canadians are excluded from participating in net-zero plans with good reason. The government knows that given a voice, we would say: “No, thank you.”

The Bank of Mom and Pop can’t afford a forced transition. We have a few million miles of primary and secondary highways where alternative transportation does not exist. There are no buses, LRT lines, subways, or taxis. Travelling those highways by bicycle is ludicrous.

Our climate is not electric vehicle (EV) friendly. You can’t strap a ten-gallon can of electricity on the roof if highways close due to icing or storms, and you’re caught between gas stations. Batteries do not do well in cold weather, and we have plenty of that.

Everything a city needs to survive is carried to it by diesel-powered ships, trucks and trains. That is not going to change during the next decade. 2030 is only seven years away.

We have no peer-reviewed scientific evidence that carbon emissions are the cause of global warming. Without such proof, global warming predicted by the IPCC and governments is an illusion, like we expect when we attend a magician’s show. We know we are being hoodwinked, but can’t figure out how.

The carbon emission reduction scheme is more than an illusion – it is a lie! That lie is destroying our economic security and is projected to get much worse.

It is unsurprising that this study is done by environmental zealots driven by emotion and incapable of the common sense approach most of us employ. Poll after poll indicates the majority of Canadians have little or no interest in acquiring an EV. We need to stand up to the government and make it clear that we will not be bullied into accepting huge changes to our society that we do not desire or need.

If nothing else, the COVID debacle has taught us to be extremely wary of government edicts based on half-vast plans and junk science.
The imposition of the Emergencies Act was a clear signal from this government that it will not be held to account under any circumstance. The petty vindictiveness that followed is repulsive.
 
When a government resorts to censoring, criminalizing, punishing and silencing its critics, democracy is at risk. 

Read the full Canadian Press and CBC News report HERE.

Prairie premiers have blasted Justice Minister David Lametti for suggesting Ottawa might “look at” provinces' power over natural resources. Lametti told an Assembly of First Nations meeting he would examine calls to rescind Natural Resources Transfer Act.

This invented kerfuffle is a distraction. The federal government and the AFN have no interest in reconciliation. Neither wants to upset the current cozy relationship they have.

The AFN pretends it is suffering injuries, and the federal government pretends that huge transfers of taxpayer funds can resolve issues. In the meantime, there is no improvement in the rights of indigenous people. They, like taxpayers, are excluded from the discussions and negotiations.

The Cambridge Dictionary defines reconciliation as a situation in which two people or groups of people become friendly again after they have argued: It took hours of negotiations to bring about a reconciliation between the two sides.

The federal government and AFN have gone to great lengths to define what reconciliation is and is not, all without consulting either indigenous or non-indigenous people. The whole thing is a charade.

Reconciliation has to be based on common sense, logic, reason and facts and the participation of the people involved. Creating political positions and definitions unsupported by the people who want the problems resolved is ludicrous.

The current situation is two packs of wolves deciding on the lunch menu for the sheep they claim to represent. Nothing positive can possibly result. Until the sheep are consulted and represented by people they trust, the charade will continue indefinitely.

The Natural Resources Acts were a series of Acts passed by the Parliament of Canada and the provinces of Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan in 1930 to transfer control over crown lands and natural resources within these provinces from the Government of Canada to the provincial governments.

Under these 3 Acts - one each for Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta - the federal government turned over to the Prairie provinces jurisdiction that it had exercised over the crown lands and natural resources of the region since its purchase from the Hudson's Bay Company in 1870.

This was a popular grievance in the West, where federal control appeared to relegate the provinces to second-class status in confederation and to result in the subordination of regional concerns to national goals. The Natural Resources Transfer Acts were very popular in the West, for they recognized the equality of jurisdiction for all Canadian provinces.

The federal government and AFN are both in a serious conflict of interests, each trying to gain power over the other while the people, indigenous and non-indigenous, continue to suffer. Neither side is proposing practical solutions that will empower indigenous people with the same freedoms and rights enjoyed by other Canadians.

North America was invaded and conquered by European nations with superior science, skills and technology. Indigenous people realized they could not engage in a war with waves of immigrants from more advanced civilizations without facing annihilation.

Treaties were struck without considering long-term effects as the nation developed. Canada has been shameful by ignoring and marginalizing Indigenous people. That cannot be undone. Nothing less than providing Indigenous persons with equality of freedoms, rights and opportunities will suffice.

Indigenous people are original Canadians. Treating them as a foreign element in our society is appalling.

Our federal government is shamelessly divisive, pitting various social groups against one another. The objective is to provide endless distractions from the federal agenda, which is to control us instead of doing what MPs are elected to do – serve Canada and Canadians.

The charade must end.   

Read Elizabeth Thompson’s full report on CBC News HERE

Rising interest rates are exposing weak spots in the financial system – the next flashpoint could be real estate. We are a long way from achieving financial stability in Canada and worldwide. When borrowers “leverage” it means they maximize loans and mortgages on properties they build or buy.

Increasing loan rates mean that projections for leveraged loan repayments are suddenly impossible. Refinancing is not an option as the lending market is shrinking as rates rise.

If a borrower defaults, the lender is stuck with a property worth far less than the outstanding loan. If the lender is a bank, the bank’s assets are diminished, and it needs an infusion of cash to meet its regulatory balances. That’s not always possible.

The devaluation will eventually hit the housing market. Developers face the same shrinking loan capacity while mortgage holders are finding they can’t keep up with rapidly increasing repayment schedules. Income is not keeping pace with mortgage repayment terms.

We are on a pause at present as many of those with five-year fixed mortgages have not renewed, but that number will evaporate over the next four years. Unless mortgage rates drop, which is unlikely, more people will default when they find they cannot meet new rates. That puts more pressure on banks and other lenders.

Commercial and residential building values will adjust based on current loan interest rates. Inflation dictates an adjustment as the rising cost of living diminishes the funds left for basic necessities such as shelter, food and clothing. The shelter component is under pressure, and there are no alternatives available without a sharp drop in values.

Homeowners who have built substantial equity in their homes need to consider a reverse mortgage to protect as much of their home value as possible. With most reverse mortgages capped at 55 per cent of equity, lenders will survive a value adjustment. I do not recommend entering a reverse mortgage arrangement without independent professional advice. It is a minefield for the unaware.

* * *

Barbara Shecter of the Financial Posthad an excellent interpretive article on March 28 pointing to haow rapidly rising interest rates have exposed weaknesses in the United Kingdom’s pension system and sparked a banking crisis in the United States and Europe. Now economists, investors and authorities are on the lookout for other potential problem spots in the global financial system.Read it HERE

Brian Platt of Bloomberg News/Financial Post reported March 29 that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan to add billions of dollars in new annual spending has some economists worried that Canada is at risk of racking up unsustainable debt, especially if economic growth comes in worse than expected.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland’s latest budget added $43 billion in net new costs over six years, primarily by increasing health-care outlays and clean-technology subsidies to compete with the U.S. Inflation Reduction Act. She’s wrong to describe the budget as prudent, with over all program spending set to balloon to 51 per cent above pre-pandemic levels by 2028, according to Derek Holt, an economist at Bank of Nova Scotia.

My take is that the Trudeau-Freeland team is living a dream of saving the world while Canadians suffer. They are avoiding their responsibilities and turning them over to the United Nations without our consent.

The budget did not address major issues that trouble Canadians - #1 healthcare, #2 economy, #3 housing affordability and homelessness, #4 sharply increased crime rates, and #5 sharply increased drug addiction and overdose deaths. People do not feel safe on our streets.

According to Nanos, the key factors are #1 healthcare, #2 economy, #3 environment, #4 debt, and #5 education. Covid is dead last. (Data from March 24).

Trudeau and Freeland don’t care as long as they can tax us into poverty and lower our standard of living by chasing a dream detached from reality.

No amount of atmospheric carbon reduction will make any difference to global warming or climate change. However, there is a real risk that if emissions are reduced too far, plant life will perish, and humans with it.

Mother Nature ignores all efforts to change her ways. Our government must take note.

Ttwo articles by Brian Lilley in the Toronto Sun speak to the character of our Prime Minister and his government. His disrespect for the people of Canada is disgusting.

Why is everything this government does a secret? Perhaps it is ashamed of its behaviour and afraid that voters will rebel when the truth unfolds. Instead of apologizing and reimbursing taxpayers, Trudeau is trying to justify a minor stupid decision and leaves us speculating on what significant issues he is lying about. His failure to deal with China appropriately comes to mind.
 
Does no one remember that Canada sent 16 tons of PPE to China in February 2020? Or that the Chinese United Front bought up all available PPE in Canada in January 2020. Face mask prices on Amazon increased by 166%.

That is the same United Front engaged in election interference in Canada, although Trudeau insists it is not happening. Another lie?
 

Even when fessing up, Trudeau tells a fib about $6,000 hotel room 
 
The PMO claims the costs were much higher due to demand at the Queen's funeral but that's just not true
 
Brian Lilley
Toronto Sun
Mar 24, 2023
     Even when finally coming clean about who stayed in the $6,000 per night hotel room, Justin Trudeau’s office can’t tell the whole truth.

     The PMO has finally admitted what we’ve all known since last October; it was Trudeau who stayed in the River Suite at the Corinthia Hotel in London for the Queen’s funeral.

     They refused to answer that question when the Sun first broke the story on Oct. 24. Days went by without PMO or Global Affairs Canada responding to questions put to them by the Sun.

Read the details HERE.

Trudeau called for Bev Oda to resign for hotel costs, will he? 

 
If Trudeau held himself to his own standards, he'd be out of office now
 
Brian Lilley
Toronto Sun 
Mar 25, 2023

Based on his own standards, Justin Trudeau owes Bev Oda an apology

and Canadian taxpayers a refund.

     Trudeau took to Twitter on Feb. 17, 2011, to demand Oda, who was then minister for International Cooperation, resign over hotel costs in London, England.
     My how the tables have turned.

     Oda was in the news at the time over expenses incurred by the taxpayers for changing hotels that were booked for her stay in the British capital during an international conference. The total charge for the controversy, which included Oda switching hotels and ordering an orange juice with her breakfast at a cost of $16, came out to $1,353.81.

     Oda reimbursed taxpayers for the room change, the difference between the two hotels, and the orange juice. She even stood up in the House of Commons and apologized for incurring the extra costs.

     “The expenses are unacceptable, should never have been charged to taxpayers, I have repaid the costs associated with changing the hotels and I unreservedly apologize,” Oda said at the time.

To Trudeau, Oda’s expenses were too much, and she had to go.

So, let’s compare this to Trudeau’s behaviour while in London for the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. Read the details HERE.

230331 – Canada will provide $100 million in aid to the Haitian National Police to help the country restore law and order as gang-fuelled violence continues to cause widespread human suffering across the Caribbean nation.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau made the announcement during  President Joe Biden's two-day visit to Ottawa, during which the president was expected to press Canada to take a leadership role in restoring order in Haiti. CBC NEWS

Let’s take a hard look at where $100 million of our tax dollars are going. The article below illustrates the situation in Haiti and who the key players are.

How can Canada provide aid to the Haitian police without having most of it disappear into the pockets of corrupt officials? Haitian police are losing battles with better-equipped criminal gangs.

In part, announcing assisting Haiti is a distraction from domestic issues.

This is troubling when Canada is facing a surge in violent crime nationwide. Our criminal gangs are no less predatory than those in Haiti. They smuggle drugs, guns and people for profit, sell drugs containing deadly additives on the street, and war against one another without considering innocent casualties.

Canadian gangs have not achieved the level of control of the gangs in Haiti – yet. Without intervention, our gang problem will continue to grow until we are embroiled in chaos. Where is our plan to crack down on criminal elements terrorizing Canadians? We cannot tolerate this federal dereliction of duty.

See John Pietro’s report in The Spectator
March 24, 2023

Haiti tends to not get much attention in the American press, but it should. 

The country has descended into a state of near-anarchy, with gangs ruling the streets and the government more or less non-functional. There has not been an election since 2016, and both the legislative and executive branches of government have no elected officials in office. 

The country has been ruled by an unelected prime minister, Ariel Henry, since the July 2021 assassination of President Jovenel Moïse. Elections are tentatively planned for this year, but the timeline is not yet set. The crisis in Haiti is a problem for the whole region, including the United States. MORE
    

230330 – This is astonishing and frightening. None of us are aware that foreign meddling in our politics has been ongoing for four decades and has become embedded and successful.

The underlined paragraph below reveals why we are not part of the AUKUS. Our allies don’t trust our intelligence capabilities – with sound reason.

Trudeau’s blunders on the international stage evidence his limited understanding of foreign affairs. China’s president curtly dismissed Trudeau as ‘naive.’ His inability to play in the big leagues is as bad as his not knowing when to keep silent. He blabbers on removing any doubt about his idiocy.

A wise man will change his mind. A fool never will. Trudeau maintains that we must maintain trade relations with China while ignoring that China is busily interfering in the best interests of Canada and its people.

Either the CCP has completely compromised Trudeau, or he is too fixated on selling Canada out to the World Economic Forum to care. Trudeau’s ridiculous fixation on carbon emission targets to prevent global warming while middle-income Canadians can’t afford basic necessities is repulsive.

There is no scenario where Trudeau’s blundering from crisis to crisis will allow us to sleep soundly.            

See Katabella Roberts’ report in The Epoch Times

230328 – Every Canadian prime minister over the past 40 years has allegedly been compromised by agents working for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), according to Michel Juneau-Katsuya, the former chief of the Asia-Pacific desk at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS).

     Juneau-Katsuya made the comments during an interview with Canada’s CBC News on March 19 in response to revelations made in a soon-to-be-released book, “The Mosaic Effect: How the Chinese Communist Party Started a Hybrid War in America’s Backyard.”

     The book, authored by journalist Ina Mitchell and intelligence expert Scott McGregor, claims that the United States ran a secret probe—Operation Dragon Lord—into CCP activities in Canada in the 1990s that found China’s alleged infiltration of the nation’s government posed a major security risk to the United States.

“Canada has a world-class public service with employees committed to providing the highest level of service to Canadians,” Treasury Board President Mona Fortier wrote in an Inquiry of Ministry tabled in the Commons last September, according to Blacklock’s. “In fact, Canada’s public service is regularly recognized globally for its quality and effectiveness.”

No reader of this commentary will believe this packet of lies. Mona Fortier apparently missed the freedom convoy protest. Millions of Canadians are repulsed by federal government actions, its dismal level of performance and unrestricted deficit spending.

The Trudeau government hires consultants to advise on making its decisions less distasteful. It does not look to the public service for advice, resulting in nervousness in civil service ranks. If department heads do not look to the civil service for advice, how secure are their jobs? For years civil service cuts have been made at front-line level. Executive and management ranks continue to grow.

The civil service has become a cauldron of political intrigue for employees seeking promotions and advancement. Nothing is merit-based. Promotions are based on nonsense factors that include nepotism, discrimination, favours given and owed, ‘equity’ and other nonsense factors.

The civil service has lost the ability to provide meaningful advice to department executives. It is an ability that must be used to be effective, and those who had the ability have retired or moved on to less toxic workplaces. The intuition required has been lost.
     
Ethical, honest and productive civil servants grow tired of the nonsensical political games and leave for places where they are respected and can earn promotions through merit.

Department executives are incompetent. They don’t conduct annual performance reviews and promote based on merit. Instead, they look for ways to expand their fiefdoms as jurisdiction over more employees leads to promotions and pay increases. They shun improving performance and productivity.

Every government quakes at angering the civil service as if they do so, they will be voted out of office. Governments, federal and provincial, are paying hundreds of millions each year, rewarding incompetence and mediocrity at taxpayer expense.

Both our governments and civil services operate in detached worlds, completely apart from the trials and tribulations Canadians face when they wake up every morning. The detachment between those governed and those governing is complete.

As time passes, we can expect further intrusions into our freedoms and rights by people detached from the real world and unconscious of the harm they do.

Incompetent people are amazing; they believe their blunders are achievements.

Read Tara MacIsaac’s report in The Epoch Times

230327 –

Louis Blouin, Alexander Panetta and Richard Raycraft reported on CBC News, Mar 23.

The Trudeau government has reached a long-discusseddeal with the United States on irregular migration which will allow Ottawa to close the Roxham Road irregular crossing at the Canada-U.S. border, sources told CBC News.

The deal would see Canada announce openings for 15,000 migrants from the Western Hemisphere to apply to enter the country legally, asenior source with knowledge of the agreement told CBC News. Radio-Canada was first to report the deal.The Los Angeles Times was the first to report the numberof migrants. FULL REPORT.

Canada will accept 15,000 migrants from Western Hemisphere and would allow closure of Roxham Road

The government didn't close Roxham Road because it did not want to. Pretending there is a difference between irregular and illegal entry to Canada is ridiculous.

“Loophole” is a term for actions taken by the parties that are contrary to, or apart from, a written agreement or contract. The pith and substance of the agreement are avoided.  The US cannot prevent the return of immigrants who enter Canada from the US illegally. That is a US misinterpretation of the agreement accepted by Canada.

Canada has no obligation to provide illegal immigrants with the opportunity to file for refugee status to delay deportation. We must not allow our immigration policies to be set by the USA or the UN.
    
The Safe Third Country agreement is not unique to the USA and Canada:

CONSIDERING that Canada is a party to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees, done at Geneva, July 28, 1951 (the “Convention”), and the Protocol Relating to the Status of Refugees, done at New York, January 31, 1967 (the “Protocol”), that the United States is a party to the Protocol, and reaffirming their obligation to provide protection for refugees on their territory in accordance with these instruments;

ACKNOWLEDGING in particular the international legal obligations of the Parties under the principle of non-refoulement set forth in the Convention and Protocol, as well as the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, done at New York, December 10, 1984 (the “Torture Convention ”) and reaffirming their mutual obligations to promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedoms.

The agreements and protocols are international.

Both parties have violated the Agreement terms: The Parties agree to review this Agreement and its implementation. The first review shall take place not later than 12 months from the date of entry into force and shall be jointly conducted by representatives of each Party. The Parties shall invite the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) to participate in this review. The Parties shall cooperate with UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees) in the monitoring of this Agreement and seek input from non-governmental organizations.

Another oddity of this agreement:
The deal would see Canada announce openings for 15,000 migrants from the Western Hemisphere to apply to enter the country legally, a senior source with knowledge of the agreement told CBC News.

Canada’s immigration policy is outside the scope of the Safe Third Party Agreement. Who are these fools trying to impress? The UN will do anything it can to settle refugees as it has a crisis on its hands. The UN does not care who pays for resettlement of refugees or the best interests of Canada.

Our government has an obligation to manage immigrant and refugee intake to numbers our economy can sustain. Trudeau is planning for increasing immigration when our economy has been devastated. That is growing the family without growing the income to sustain it.
 
The Canada – US Safe Third Party Agreement controversy proves that incompetent people regard their blunders as accomplishments.

230324 – The Trudeau–Singh exercise in coquettishness (trying to attract attention by pretending to be sexually interested in someone, in a pleasant but not serious way) is long past its expiry date.

Canadians have a right to know what their plans and priorities are. They are accountable to the people who elected them. We will get a glimpse of what they are planning when the budget is released on March 28. I can hardly wait.

Singh’s attempts to wring more spending from Trudeau are insane. Trudeau has no trouble ringing in jaw-dropping deficits. The interest on those deficits is rising along with all other loans worldwide. That means (1) we will suffer in debt for far longer than Trudeau’s and Singh’s grandchildren will live, and (2) that each year, the government has less money to spend on core needs.

Everyone who has encountered economic hardship knows that the hole is easy to dig, but difficult to refill. There is no room in the budget to continue a lifestyle pre-hardship. Every possible dime has to go to paying down the debt. We survive and become cautious and prudent with assuming debt and build a savings account for unexpected costs we incur from time to time.

     “I just think we’re in the middle of doing lots of really big things,” Trudeau said. “And yes, we’re going to have to make sure we’re continuing to be engaged and open and get through some of the more challenging issues here and there with them. But I think there’s a will to show that progressive governments can deliver.”

That is plain frightening. Canadians are not enamoured with “really big things.” Common sense, competent and prudent governance is what we desire. The vast ideas supported by half-vast, if any, planning have become a Trudeau-Singh specialty.

Trudeau is talking about being engaged and open with Singh, not with the people governed. Please note that honesty is not mentioned. Neither side can field an honest representative since they are all bound to follow the party line on each and every issue. Common sense, ethics, and honesty are on permanent vacation in parliament. How have we managed to sink so low?

We have a duty to keep ourselves aware of what our politicians are up to. We have to get engaged and view political events with a critical eye. No political party has clean hands or is willing to give up the powers it has unlawfully seized. We need to cast informed votes in the next election and insist that our elected representatives represent the people of their electoral district, the province they reside in and all Canadians.

Each Member of Parliament must take an oath or undertaking:
“I (member name) do swear, that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to His Majesty King Charles III.”

That is a very broad oath and includes adhering to all laws of the nation and the constitution. The requirement for elected members to adhere to a political party’s issue positions and political tactics is unconstitutional and unlawful.   

See Susan Delacourt’s commentary in the Toronto Star March 19.

230322 – The story below is appalling on several levels.

First, the UN is wrong to send an unelected, unaccountable representative to interfere in our internal affairs. My reaction to Tzay is: “Here’s your hat. Don’t let the door hit you as you leave.”

Second, the Assembly of First Nations is a modern fraud. There are no internationally recognized indigenous nations.

Third, our Prime Minister announced that governments had engaged in genocide without consulting with Canadians. Canadians were shocked when news of alleged graves in Kamloops first surfaced. We had no idea this had been going on and were angry and repulsed as the story unfolded. The genocide story is modern fakery invented to distract from our government’s failures.

Fourth, Tzay is preserving the myth that indigenous people are helpless victims unable to care for themselves and forced into perpetual servitude. That is inconsistent with the definition of independent nationhood. Indigenous people either have a workable nation or not. No one owes them nationhood. There are successful indigenous tribes. That is one of the best-kept secrets in Canada.

Fifth, indigenous people have a responsibility to account for their actions and behaviour. Reconciliation is not a one-way street. There must be forgiveness and goodwill by both parties to make reconciliation possible.

Reconciliation can only take place between indigenous and non-indigenous people. Governments, both indigenous and non-indigenous, have failed us for 156 years and are incapable of managing reconciliation.

The federal government must stop making deals with indigenous bands that have not been approved by non-indigenous people. We will not be robbed without having clear evidence that there are direct improvements in the freedoms, rights and living standards of indigenous Canadians.

Non-indigenous and indigenous people need to elect representatives to meet and oversee a path to living in harmony. Political leaders of both communities are not welcome. They have had over a century to heal wounds and make peace, but they have clung to self-interest and the graft that flows from that. There are no clean hands in the ongoing suppression governance of indigenous people.

Brett Forester

CBC News

Mar 10, 2023

Despite positive measures taken by Canada, Indigenous people continue to face obstacles to fully enjoying their individual and collective human rights in this country, the United Nations special rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous Peoples says.

José Francisco Calí Tzay delivered his preliminary findings Friday in Ottawa following a five-province, 10-daytrip to Canada, concluding his first official visit since his 2020 appointment.

In a 30-minute speech to reporters, the UN expert decried what he called the appalling legacy of residential schools, disturbing reports of residential school denialism and alarming testimony of violence against Indigenous women and girls.

He expressed particular concern about reports of forced and coerced sterilization of Indigenous women, the militarization of Indigenous lands, the criminalization of Indigenous human rights defenders, and the over-incarceration of Indigenous offenders across the country.

He urged Canada to address the "poverty to prison pipeline" and reduce the disproportionate number of Indigenous kids in the child-welfare system.

"Canada must adopt holistic reform in consultation with Indigenous people to address the root cause of these problems," Calí Tzay told reporters at Ottawa's Lord Elgin Hotel.

The expert called on all levels of government to implement recommendations from past reports, including his predecessor's, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's report and the final report of the national inquiry into missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG).

"Human rights are universal, indivisible and interdependent, and all Indigenous Peoples should have equal rights and opportunities," he said.

"I urge the government of Canada, the provinces and territories to advance reconciliation based on the nation-to-nation relationship with Indigenous Peoples."

Special rapporteurs are independent experts the UN dispatches to report and advise on human rights. Calí Tzay, who is Mayan Kakchiquel from Guatemala, landed in Ottawa last week and visited Montreal, Winnipeg, Edmonton and Vancouver before returning to the capital.

The expert said his whirlwind of stakeholder meetings brought him mountains of documentary submissions and barely a wink of sleep.

As result, Calí Tzay declined to say whether Canada's efforts to overcome the obstacles he outlined have been sufficient, citing the need to carefully analyze the submissions and render an opinion in his final report.

Findings 'not news' to First Nations: AFN head

He met with a wide range of people, including federal ministers, senators, Indigenous leaders, human rights advocates, civil society groups and others.

However it was the head of the Assembly of First Nations who first urged the UN rapporteur to visit Canada at the 21st permanent forum on Indigenous issues in New York in April 2022.

In an interview Friday, National Chief Rose Anne Archibald agreed with Calí Tzay's recommendations but said the findings are "not news" for First Nations.

"We have been advocating for the many things that he's addressed in his report for a number of years," she said.

"It's really the government inaction that we need to deal with."

Archibald had requested a full-fledged independent probe into genocide committed at residential schools in 2022. She wants to see a nod toward that in Calí Tzay's final report.

Calí Tzay declined to say whether he believes acts of genocide have been committed against Indigenous people in Canada, saying it falls outside of his mandate to report and advise on human rights.

However, he did note that Canadian parliamentarians have unanimously passed a resolution urging the government to designate what happened at residential schools as genocide. He also focused at length on residential schools.

"During my visit, I observed the legacy of colonialism and the history of abuse and discrimination have left survivors and their families with a deep mistrust of Canadian institutions," he said.

Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller said no one in government should be surprised at the UN expert's preliminary report.

"Those findings speak for themselves. I think it's important to look at them clear-eyed and not to sit around and try to deny them, qualify them or denigrate them," Miller said.

"We'll look at them and as a mature government, and as a country, respond to them with the importance that they're due."

Leaders welcome findings, urge strong final report

Calí Tzay planned to examine an ambitious set of issues, including the implementation of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP).

UNDRIP is a human rights instrument that establishes minimum standards for the survival, dignity and well-being of Indigenous Peoples worldwide. Though legally non-binding, the Canadian and B.C. governments have passed legislation pledging to harmonize their laws with the declaration.

Calí Tzay pledged to closely monitor the implementation of these laws, with a particular focus on how Ottawa harmonizes the Indian Act with the declaration, something Miller said he and the rapporteur spoke about at length.

The rapporteur did commend the government for advancing self-determination and other initiatives, such as signing self-government agreements with Métis associations.

"We look forward to continued conversations and developing our relationship with the Rapporteur to ensure that a Métis voice is included in future reporting," said Métis National Council President Cassidy Caron in a statement.

Sarah Niman, assistant manager of legal services at the Native Women's Association of Canada, said she expects Calí Tzay's report to reflect Canada's failure to implement the MMIWG inquiry's calls for justice.

"When it comes to Indigenous women and gender-diverse folks, he specifically mentioned that there are significant shortcomings," she said in an interview.

"The work is certainly not done."

Progressive Sen. Brian Francis, who is Mi'kmaw from P.E.I. and met with Calí Tzay last week, also welcomed the expert's findings.

"While not shocking it is especially discouraging and troubling to hear Mr. Calí Tzay note that the overall situation of Indigenous Peoples in Canada has not improved significantly since the last official visit in 2013," Francis said in a statement.

Independent Sen. Kim Pate also said it was disheartening to hear how little things had changed sinceCalí Tzay's predecessor James Anaya visited. Pate said she looks forward to a strong final report.

"I think he would be hard-pressed to send anything but a fairly challenging report, at the very least, back to Canada because the situation is pretty dire," she said.

The report is scheduled to be completed by September.

I am not qualified to comment on the content of the article below. However, it is consistent with numerous articles appearing in various publications I follow in researching various issues that are important to my subscribers.

There appears to be a growing consensus that the huge spike in sudden deaths of people aged 18 to 64 is linked to mRNA injections. Like you, I have to leave it to the experts to explain.

I remain concerned over government efforts to silence people who spoke out against the harms done by lockdowns, mandated injections and other aspects of dealing with COVID.

The only reason I can think of for censoring critics is that we were not told the truth about injections. That is chilling. There is too much evidence from too many ethical, honest and experienced medical people to ignore. I fear there is much more to come over the next few months.

Jennifer Margulis & Joe Wang
The Epoch Times
Mar 11 2023

Recently “COVID-19” and “Fauci” have been trending on Twitter. And when you click on those hashtags, you don’t get regurgitated government messaging.

Instead, you get declarations like this one from Dr. Eli David, which has been viewed 1.2 million times: “Fauci was wrong about lockdowns, masks, double-masks, Remdesivir, vaccine, boosters, and virus origin.
“Was Fauci right about anything? Give me a single thing about Covid which Fauci got right …”

Tired of Half-Truths
It’s becoming increasingly clear from social media and real life that people are tired of being lied to by government health authorities. They’re beginning to realize that these agencies don’t have their best interests in mind.

I (Jennifer) stopped to chat with an older couple enjoying the sun last week. They had set up two folding chairs by the water so they could watch the passersby and look at the shimmering Atlantic Ocean.

“You just have to enjoy every second,” the wife said. “My husband has dementia. It’s been hard. You don’t know when you’re going to go. My best friend called me sobbing two weeks ago. They found her 46-year-old son dead in his bed. No one knows why.”

“Do you know if he was vaccinated?” I asked in the gentlest tone I could muster. “I know that may sound like a strange question but … we are seeing myocarditis and pericarditis in young men post-vaccination; the Florida surgeon general no longer recommends mRNA vaccines for young men; and at least some of these sudden unexplained deaths may be due to that.”

“I didn’t know that,” she said. “But I’m sure he was vaccinated. I’ve done so many at this point, I’m radioactive!”
“We’ve had, what, five?!” she said, turning to her husband. “It’s getting ridiculous. We still got COVID, twice. We’re not doing anymore.”

Deaths Continue
There has been an upsurge in sudden, unexplained, and age-inappropriate deaths in at least 30 countries in the industrialized world.

In Ireland, so many people died in January that funerals had to be postponed, according to local news.
Ed Dowd, in his new book, “‘Cause Unknown’: The Epidemic of Sudden Deaths in 2021 and 2022,” argues that the sudden deaths in young people in industrialized countries is because of mRNA vaccines.

Dowd shows how the number of excess deaths in America that were attributed to COVID-19 in 2020 was actually much lower than the huge spike in sudden deaths that began in 2021 after the COVID-19 vaccines started being widely distributed.

Importantly, most of the 2021 deaths, which occurred mostly in people ages 18 to 64, were not attributed to COVID.

More Have Died After COVID-19 Vaccine Roll-Outs Than During the Vietnam War
“From February 2021 to March 2022, millennials experienced the equivalent of a Vietnam war, with more than 60,000 excess deaths,” wrote Dowd, who is an expert in following and anticipating trends and a founding partner in a global investment company called Phinance Technologies.

“The Vietnam war took 12 years to kill the same number of healthy young people we’ve just seen die in 12 months.”

Swine Flu Vaccine Program Halted After 3 Deaths
On Oct. 13, 1976, the New York Times ran a story about the swine flu vaccine.

The headline read: “SWINE FLU PROGRAM IS HALTED IN 9 STATES AS 3 DIE AFTER SHOTS.”

As of Feb. 24,34,576 deaths have been reported to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention via the government’s Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS), which is known for its under-reporting (pdf), after COVID-19 shots.

With deaths reported for all vaccines combined, the number jumped from 420 deaths in 2020 (before COVID vaccination) to 22,278 deaths in 2021 (with COVID vaccination), a 5,304 percent increase.
Brave Doctors Around the World Speaking Out

With the mounting evidence that the COVID-19 jab is doing more harm than good, medical doctors and health experts around the world, many of who are risking losing their jobs, are now speaking out against continuing to give mRNA injections.

Especially problematic, they say, is giving mRNA vaccines to young people for whom COVID-19 is usually a mild, easily overcome viral infection.

In May of 2020, we wrote our first article on evidence-based science-forward researchers and clinicians who have spoken out against propaganda posing as science: “May the Force Be with Them: Scientists Fight Back.”
Since then, we have continued to document and report on a global phenomenon: conscientious doctors and medical scientists who follow the facts say that mRNA vaccinations do more harm than good, and that it’s time to stop the harm.

Japanese Cardiovascular Surgeon Says Halt the Boosters
Dr. Kenji Yamamoto, a cardiovascular surgeon in Japan, argued that giving any further COVID-19 vaccines is simply too dangerous.

“As a safety measure, further booster vaccinations should be discontinued,” Yamamoto insisted in a peer-reviewed letter published in the journal Virology. He has seen lethal cases of vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia.

He and his colleagues have found that the vaccines have led some patients to such marked immune dysfunction. Some have died from difficult-to-control antibiotic-resistant infections, the underlying cause of which Yamamoto attributed to vaccine-induced immune problems.

“To date, when comparing the advantages and disadvantages of mRNA vaccines, vaccination has been commonly recommended. As the COVID-19 pandemic becomes better controlled, vaccine sequelae are likely to become more apparent,” he wrote.

“It has been hypothesized that there will be an increase in cardiovascular diseases, especially acute coronary syndromes, caused by the spike proteins in genetic vaccines. Besides the risk of infections owing to lowered immune functions, there is a possible risk of unknown organ damage caused by the vaccine that has remained hidden without apparent clinical presentations, mainly in the circulatory system.”

British Cardiologist Speaks Out
Dr. Aseem Malhotra, a British cardiologist who has been staunchly in favor of vaccines for his entire medical career, initially defended the COVID-19 vaccine program

.
In fact, he was among the first to get them.
But after spending countless hours researching the vaccines and carefully reviewing all the available scientific data, Malhotra no longer recommends them.

He now believes that these vaccines are causing “unprecedented harms,” as he explained in a recent interview.
Moreover, he has published several peer-reviewed articles explaining the data. “Re-analysis of randomized controlled trials using the messenger ribonucleic acid (mRNA) technology suggests a greater risk of serious adverse events from the vaccines than being hospitalized from COVID-19,”

Malhotra wrote.
Australian Cardiologist Calls to Stop the Shots
Dr. Ross Walker, a cardiologist based in Sydney, Australia, has seen on the order of 70 cases of vaccine-induced heart problems following mRNA vaccines in his practice alone.

He now believes the mRNA vaccines are “very pro-inflammatory,” and that these vaccines should never have been mandated.

In his patients, the heart problems—which include palpitations, chest pain, andshortness of breath—have been lasting for up to half a year following vaccination, according to Walker.

“… we don’t need to use mRNA vaccines like Pfizer and Moderna,” Walker told Daily Mail Australia.

A Virologist and Immunologist Speaks Out
Yuhong Dong is a medical doctor with over twenty years of experience in virological and immunological research who writes for The Epoch Times.

For her doctorate, which she earned at Beijing University in China, Dong specialized in infectious diseases. From 2010 to 2017, she was the senior medical scientific expert and pharmacovigilance leader at Novartis Headquarters in Switzerland. During that time, she won four company awards.

“There is ample evidence, based on preclinical and clinical studies, demonstrating that these COVID-19 vaccines do not protect people against SARS-CoV-2 infection, but incur serious adverse events including abnormal blood clots, cardiovascular events, strokes, sudden death, immune disorders, neurological injuries, and reproductive events,” Dong told The Epoch Times via email.

“At the general population level, the risks weigh high over the benefits. We should take a decent but rational decision to stop the COVID-19 vaccine program immediately.”

The solution to building strong immunity to survive viral infections, Dong said, is not via mRNA technology.
Instead, she wrote, we need to teach people “how to preserve or booster their divine-endowed natural immunity [and] change their detrimental lifestyles and mindsets.”

‘Should Be Summarily Stopped’
“The COVID-19 vaccine program should be summarily stopped because signals for adverse effects, including death, are unprecedented,” Dr. Bose Ravenel, a retired pediatrician based in North Carolina who spent 31 years in private practice, 11 years as an academic pediatrician, and six years practicing integrative pediatric medicine, also insisted.

Ravenel told The Epoch Times that he has clocked over 4,500 hours studying SARS-CoV-2, including the vaccines.

“The risk of death or serious illness from current COVID strains is statistically low,” he continued, “effective ambulatory treatment is available, and theabsolute risk reductionfrom the vaccines is 0.5 to 1.6 percent—that’s very low,” he said. “These mRNA vaccines fail to achieve the foundational function of a vaccine of stopping infection or transmission to others.”

‘Belongs in the Dustbin of History’
Dr. Thomas Redwood has been an emergency room physician for over 30 years. Currently practicing in Alabama, he was an ER physician within the Wellstar and Piedmont health care systems in Atlanta, Georgia, until his privileges were terminated for not complying with COVID-19 vaccine mandates.

“We should end the COVID vaccine program, full stop,” Redwood told The Epoch Times. “What was touted as safe and effective is neither.”

Redwood also added that he’s surprised that the medical community is still defending—and even promoting—these vaccines.

“Any other vaccine with a similar adverse event profile has been pulled from the market,” he said. “The vaccine’s inability to prevent infection and therefore transmission further highlights why this experimental drug belongs in the dustbin of history.”

Cardio-Toxic
Dr. Kirk A. Milhoan, a pediatric cardiologist and the medical director of a non-profit called For Hearts and Souls, says the spike protein is a known cardio-toxin.

“It is now known to function as a cardio-toxin,” Milhoan wrote in an email to Jennifer.

According to Milhoan, knowingly having our bodies produce a cardio-toxin with the hope that this will help protect us against a respiratory virus with a very low infection-fatality rate makes no scientific sense.

Cammy Benton, M.D.: After This Health Assault, We All Need to Heal
Dr. Cammy Benton, a family physician in private practice in Huntersville, North Carolina, said she was skeptical of the COVID-19 vaccine program from early on.

“The science from the beginning simply did not meet criteria for approval for use,” Benton told The Epoch Times.
“Ongoing data confirms that the vaccine failed on its promises and has caused significant harms, not only on a physical level but on a psychosocial level on a global scale,” she said. “We need to heal on all levels after this assault on our freedoms and our health.”

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times. Epoch Health welcomes professional discussion and friendly debate.

Jennifer Margulis, Ph.D., is an award-winning journalist and author of “Your Baby, Your Way: Taking Charge of Your Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Parenting Decisions for a Happier, Healthier Family.” A Fulbright awardee and mother of four, she has worked on a child survival campaign in West Africa, advocated for an end to child slavery in Pakistan on prime-time TV in France, and taught post-colonial literature to non-traditional students in inner-city Atlanta. Learn more about her at JenniferMargulis.net

Joe Wang, Ph.D., was a molecular biologist with more than 10 years of experience in the vaccine industry. He is now the president of NTD Television Network and a columnist for The Epoch Times.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/health/doctors-around-the-world-say-its-time-to-stop-the-shots_5103024.html?utm_source=Morningbrief&src_src=Morningbrief&utm_campaign=mb-2023-03-12&src_cmp=mb-2023-03-12&utm_medium=email&est=QRCdDpCHzmCWd%2FERUEtwZxjxlHCe%2F7GJ%2Bcp5DGnqZbR%2BR64asDQJZxdsdMSI0w%3D%3D

By The Canadian Press
The Epoch Times
March 9, 2023

Canada’s intelligence service warns that technological innovations adopted by municipalities could be exploited by adversaries such as the Chinese government to harvest sensitive data, target diaspora communities and interfere in elections.

A newly-released report by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service urges policy-makers and the technology industry to consider steps that can be taken to address and ease the emerging security threat before “smart city” platforms are widely adopted. FULL STORY

**************.

Take note that the original article was produced by the Canadian Press. That means that every major news outlet in Canada received copies. It is chilling that most of the mainstream media ignore the CSIS warnings.

High-Tech is not benevolent. The use of algorithms and artificial intelligence is not yet understood by most of us. We have learned from Twitter revelations that these tools have been used for the manipulation of public discourse.

What we see, hear and read is not necessarily accurate and true. Messaging can be manipulated to provide a slanted view of reality.
In the high-tech world, privacy does not exist. Detailed information on us we have always considered private, such as our medical history, driving record, income tax information, credit score and so on, are limited only by the size of the database they are housed on and who can access those records.

When we link databases to one another, the amount of information available is huge. Smartphones track our location 7/24. Our credit cards track when and what we purchase. Surveillance cameras track our images. Facial recognition software can pick you out of a crowd and then be run on social media platforms to track you down.

On the TV shows, we see the XXXX agency catching bad people and employing high-tech wizardry to track them down. That is still science fiction (good fiction has to be plausible), but high-tech is rapidly surpassing what was fiction a few months ago.

We find ourselves in a sea of technology we know very little about and are at the mercy of those who do understand its capabilities, not all of whom care about our safety and security. We may be creating a hacker’s paradise.

The CSIS warnings need to be heeded, which is particularly troubling when we are unsure which side our governments are on and what they are hiding.

My (mostly older) friends who refuse to use smartphones and computers they don’t understand will enjoy some security of their private information but are not immune. They still file taxes, go for medical care and use credit cards, and those databases contain much personal information.

It is in the public interest that people with evidence of government misdeeds or deliberate violations of our laws and regulations come forward with information normally shielded from public view.

So-called ‘whistleblowers’ need protection from retaliation by their employers. These men and women have the ethics and integrity their employers lack. They are the eyes and ears of the public. Without their vigilance, governments are free to engage in questionable and often unlawful conduct.

Canada’s protection for whistleblowers is woefully weak: Transparency International Canada
 
     Problem to be addressed: Canada’s current legal framework for whistleblowing is outdated and out of step with internationally recognized best practices. The most serious deficiencies are 
     1) lack of protection for public sector whistleblowers, either at a federal or provincial level, and 
     2) an almost complete lack of coverage of the private sector.
     Most of the current legislation focuses on procedures for handling allegations of wrongdoing, rather than on protection for the whistleblowers.
     At the federal level, the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act (PSDPA) created two new agencies: 
     (1) the Office of the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner and 
     (2) the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Tribunal. 
     Only the Tribunal can provide whistleblowers with a remedy, but access to the Tribunal is controlled by the Integrity Commissioner. The effectiveness of this mechanism has been brought into question, as the Commissioner has referred only seven whistleblowers to the Tribunal, and no case has yet reached the point where the Tribunal could order a remedy for the whistleblower.
     One example of the shortcomings of the PSDPA is that the onus is on the whistleblower to prove that adverse actions were intended by the employer as reprisals: an almost impossible task. 
     Best practice is to reverse the onus by requiring the employer to prove that adverse actions against the whistleblower were not reprisals.
     Of the six provinces that have whistleblowing laws, only one (Ontario) provides a mechanism for whistleblowers who have suffered reprisals to seek a remedy. 
     None of Canada’s whistleblowing laws contains adequate measures for preventing or halting reprisals in the first place, before the whistleblower suffers serious harm.
     There is virtually no coverage of the private sector in Canadian whistleblowing laws. The federal law (the PSDPA) does not address private sector wrongdoing.  For the public sector wrongdoing that it does cover, the
PSDPA does not allow private sector participants to be either investigated or sanctioned.
     There are currently no steps being taken to bring Canadian laws in line with best practices per Canada’s G20 commitment. The PSDPA, which came into force in 2007, requires that the President of the Treasury Board conduct a five year review of the legislation and report on the review to Parliament and the Senate. Despite this legal obligation, no review has been conducted to date.
Main Objective:
     Demonstrate a commitment to creating a strong federal legislative framework that will enable workers in both the private and public sectors to speak up about wrongdoing, risk or malpractice without fear of reprisal; and work with the provinces to provide similar frameworks at a provincial level.
OGP Challenge Addressed:
     Improving public integrity, improving public services, increasing corporate accountability.
Verifiable and measurable milestones to fulfill the commitment: 
     Conduct a formal and independent review of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, with substantive input from civil society and internationally-recognized experts, and publicize the recommendations of the review (August 2017)
     Draft and table amendments to existing federal law to afford whistleblower protection to all cases of wrongdoing involving government resources, regardless of the employment status of the participants (public or private sector) (2018).
     Launch a public consultation on the development of a federal whistleblower protection law that covers private sector wrongdoing (2018).
     Establish a dialogue with the provincial governments and agencies, particularly those without whistleblower protection laws, to discuss how to enhance whistleblower protection in these jurisdictions (2017).

The federal government has tasked the RCMP to investigate and establish who released documents showing that it had ignored security agency warnings about foreign interference in our elections. The objective is to sanction the culprit for exposing the government’s dereliction of duty to Canadians.

The Integrity Commissioner is appointed by the Prime Minister and cannot be considered politically neutral. It is imperative that the Integrity Commissioner be independent, politically neutral and approved by all parties in parliament. The Public Servants Disclosure Protection Tribunal must be independent and report directly to parliament.

Failure of the Treasury Board to conduct a lawfully required five-year review of the 2007 Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act is another example of this government’s disrespect for laws and regulations. Three mandated reviews have been missed, which cannot be considered accidental.

Our governments are keeping secrets they ought not to be allowed to keep.

For decades, we have accepted that we should not talk about politics in public as it is too divisive. That is nonsense perpetrated by the woke liberal-left coalition screwing up Canada.

The woke mob will not debate its everlasting efforts to dictate how we should live and its intrusions on our freedoms and rights. They cannot justify their dictates, so they refuse to debate. They attack opponents personally and vow that any other critic will receive the same treatment. They are authors of ‘cancel culture,’ where critics are abused to the point of losing public credibility. They are a destructive force without anything positive to replace what they deem wrong.  

If we value our freedoms, we have to bring the discussion of politics into the public conversation. We must not allow anyone to stifle our rights to the freedom of expression, belief and opinion.

Certainly, some people are going to be upset. Leading the pack will be the woke mob with hair afire claiming we are disrupting our governance system.

It is about time – our governance system is not working for us. When a significant portion of our society cannot afford to buy a home or afford food, clothing and shelter for themselves and their families, something is terribly wrong.

Since the Trudeau mob took office in 2015, we have sunk from “Sunny days – Sunny ways” into increasing business and personal bankruptcies, high inflation and interest rates, increased homelessness, larger numbers relying on food banks, reduced spending on charities, a major spike in alcohol and drug addiction with hundreds dying from overdoses, and unprecedented violent crime.

Our social standards and values are under constant attack. A growing number of Canadians shun personal accountability and responsibility. Everyone is a victim of the dreaded white male. Ethnic political strife is rampant.

All of it is fiction. All of it can be repaired or replaced by ethical, honest and moral representatives supported by and accountable to their communities.   

The truth emerges from robust public debate.

The silent majority must find a voice in the public forum. If we fail to voice our beliefs, opinions and views, we will give up our liberty and freedoms by default.

Majority rule is what the woke mob fears most. Stifling us is their only weapon. We must confront the bullies in public and reveal them for who and what they are. We have nothing to lose by turning away from the road to everlasting serfdom.

We cannot give up the freedoms and rights earned by the blood of ordinary people over the span of over eight centuries.

Democracy in Britain is based on Acts of Parliament, historical documents, court judgments, legal precedence and convention. The earliest date in the history of our constitution is 1215 when the barons forced King John to accept the Magna Carta, the ‘Great Charter of the Liberties of England’, which limited the king’s power, making him subject to the law of the land.

Two of its key principles, the right to a fair trial by one’s peers and protection from unlawful imprisonment, form the basis of British common law on which our constitution and that of the USA are based.

The Provisions of Oxford in 1258 set out the basis for the governance of England. 24 members would make up a Council governed by the monarch but supervised by a parliament. The first parliament, made up of knights, lords and common men drawn from the towns and cities, was presided over by Simon de Montfort, widely regarded as the founder of the House of Commons.

The Petition of Rights of 1628 set out some further rights and liberties of the people, including freedom from arbitrary arrest and punishment.

Another landmark piece of legislation was the Bill of Rights of 1689. This followed the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688, in which William III and Queen Mary replaced King James II. This bill declared that the monarch could not rule without the consent of Parliament.

As part of the bill, Parliament would meet regularly; there would be free elections and freedom of speech in the chamber. It outlined specific liberties for the people, including the freedom to bear arms for self-defence, freedom from taxes imposed by the monarch without the consent of Parliament and the freedom from cruel and unusual punishment.

The Act of Settlement of 1701 controlled who should succeed to the throne and established the vital principle of judicial independence. The number of men entitled to vote was greatly increased by the 1832 Great Reform Act, and the Representation of the People’s Act of 1928 gave all men and women over the age of 21 the right to vote.

These and other written laws form just part of the constitution of the United Kingdom. Political customs or conventions are the unwritten rules that are vital to the workings of government. The office of Prime Minister is one of these conventions: legally the Monarch appoints the Prime Minister, who by convention is the leader of the largest party (or coalition of parties) after a General Election and commands the confidence of the House of Commons.

Parliament is made up of three entities: the Monarchy, the House of Commons and the House of Lords (our Senate). To become law, bills have to be passed by both Houses and then given Royal Assent. By convention and in practice today, the monarch automatically gives their consent, although they have the absolute and legal power to refuse.

By convention, all ministers in government must have a seat in either the House of Commons or the House of Lords (Senate). The Prime Minister and Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister in Canada) must have a seat in the House of Commons. This convention makes the elected government responsible and accountable to Parliament. This is known as the Westminster system of parliamentary government.

Over time, political parties have usurped fundamental democracy in many ways. The most flagrant example is that political parties require that elected representatives are beholden to their sponsoring party, not to the people who elected them.

Members of the Privy Council are named by the Prime Minister, but under our constitution, the makeup of the Privy Council is for the Monarch (or her representative) to name. Constitutionally, the Privy Council is politically neutral, but in Canada, the Privy Council is unlawfully attached to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and is politicized.

By convention, the Clerk of the Privy Council is head of the civil service, which must be politically neutral, ready to serve whatever government the people elect, but is part of the PMO and not neutral.

By convention, the judicial arm of government is independent and has been since 1701. In Canada, the Prime Minister appoints judges negating judicial independence. Judicial appointments must be made by a separate process independent of the government of the day.

By convention, the Attorney General (head of the judicial branch) is independent of the government, but in Canada, the government married the positions of Attorney General and Justice Minister. Since that is a cabinet position, the Attorney General is automatically in a conflict of interest.

The move of the Privy Council to the PMO was made by an Order in Council by then Prime Minister Mackenzie King in 1942. It is an unlawful violation of our constitution that has never been corrected.

Over the eight decades since, our governments have gradually moved us back with more and more power vested in the Prime Minster’s Office, which is contrary to the principles of the Westminster parliamentary system.

Since October 2015, Prime Minster Trudeau has acted and behaved like an absolute monarch, reverting to the 13th-century days of King John. He is not to be criticized or questioned. His edicts are destroying our society along with the hopes and dreams of all free people.

I can’t imagine the immigrants who come here expecting to fulfill their hopes and dreams only to face the realities illustrated above.            

Our obligation is to maintain the freedoms won for us and restore governance by and of the people. All that is required is for those who value their freedom to speak up publicly.

This is serious business. Our democracy has been compromised. This is one more way that the people we elected to represent us ensure they can feather their nests at our expense.

Accountability to the people who elected them is a myth. Trudeau’s response to the trucker convoy protest proved that beyond doubt. He criminalized and crushed legitimate protestors rather than seek a solution or employ tools available in the Criminal Code.

The Trudeau Liberals are dysfunctional, in disarray, have no connection with the people they were elected to represent and have wreaked havoc on Canada and Canadians.

I direct you to an exceptional analysis by Chris George of the Niagara Independent on Feb. 4. He says the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) covertly influenced Canada’s 2019 and 2021 federal general elections in order to re-elect a Liberal government. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau does not want Canadians to know about the Chinese operations in Canada. These are the two threads that are woven through the never-ending-story of intrigue, scandal, and false narratives. It is a serious matter. The details being exposed about the CCP’s support for the Trudeau Liberals involve the integrity of our country’s democratic process. FULL REPORT

23/02/25

Political parties view an election as an opportunity to raise money and demand that the people they choose as candidates sell memberships and raise money. The emphasis is on enriching the party, not on serving the public.
 
Each elected member is accountable to the people of the district that elected him/her and to the province or nation, as the case may be. Avoidance of this accountability and responsibility to the public must end if we want to remain free.
 
Historically, the defence of democracy, freedoms and rights falls on the ordinary citizen. No one will do it for us. Democracy is the great equalizer. In the voting booth, every person has the same power as the Prime Minister – one vote.
 
Our duty is to inform ourselves about our governance and elect candidates who closely match our standards and values. Our votes will set the future direction of Canada.  
 
Threats to our freedom are not all external. Those entrusted to govern on our behalf now govern for their benefit at our expense. Trading favours for money has become a tradition that enriches the political class and creates a barrier between politicians and those they are sworn to serve.
 
Those who purchase favours from politicians and political parties eventually own them, so we are, in fact, governed by unelected interests with deep pockets. They set the direction for the political party in power but are invisible to us.        
 
Tens of thousands of Canadians are writing to their MPs expressing their annoyance and filling out petitions to be presented in parliament. Millions joined the trucker convoy protest in Ottawa in February 2022, either as participants or supporters.
 
Our broken, dysfunctional governments were content that their edicts would never be criticized and had no plan to deal with a million-person plus protest of their actions.
 
Caught flat-footed and in disarray, they misused the Emergencies Act, pretending that a protest of their edicts threatened the peace and good order of the nation. The only thing threatened was the abuse of power governments have routinely employed without regard for the harm done to the people they were elected by.
 
When our elected representatives enact laws and regulations that result in people losing their livelihoods and ability to provide clothing, food and shelter for themselves and their families, they can expect a backlash.
 
When the backlash came, instead of listening to the protestors and finding ways to relieve the harm done, politicians shat their pants and pretended that a lawful protest was an insurrection.
 
They managed to put off an inevitable insurrection. Canadians will not sit quietly while their freedoms and rights are eroded by politicians feathering their nests at our expense.
 
Hundreds of politicians have adopted the World Economic Forum (WEF) plans for a world government, violating their oath of office. They are traitors to democracies. They should be thrown out of office and face charges of treason and imprisonment.
 
Treating lawful protestors as criminals for criticizing uncaring government overreach of powers is the last gasp of governments drunk with power. If Canadians wanted Marxist rule, they would emigrate to one of the dozens of nations where dictators rule and people have no rights or freedoms.
 
The WEF grand plan is to shift powers up a level from our greedy political class and enslave them to unelected oligarchs. (Oligarchy is a conceptual form of power structure in which power rests with a few billionaires.)
 
The WEF absorbed the equally corrupt United Nations and its agencies. Their primary weapon is misinformation that promotes fear. Fearful populations do not behave rationally; they seek relief from the fears instilled and are compliant, not independent.
 
Climate change is one of the WEF’s main weapons for instilling groundless fear. The World Health Organization (WHO) is Chinese-controlled. Adoption of the WHO response to COVID is another fear-mongering tool.
 
Canada had a complex plan for dealing with the next epidemic, prepared by medical professionals and logistics experts they consulted. It was flexible and able to adapt to changing conditions on the ground.
 
Our governments threw it in the trash and adopted a plan espoused by the WHO that had never been tested or tried. The result was the devastation of our economy and society that a world war could not have accomplished.
 
As the devastation became obvious, our governments responded with ill-conceived mitigation plans that resulted in millions of people taking advantage of income replacement funding they were not eligible for, including thousands of government employees.
 
Governments claim that recovering billions in ineligible income fund payments is too much trouble. That is not how we are treated when they tax us. They fear that recovery of ineligible income fund payments will cost them votes. That is cynical and dishonest.             
 
Millions of people worldwide have become convinced they have a duty to save the world – from themselves! Combatting climate change has become a cult. If you can think of a more ridiculous concept, I am open to submissions.
 
Climate change is cyclical and pays no attention to the tiny level of carbon emissions in the atmosphere. Our greatest protection against earth’s overheating is water vapour in the atmosphere and clouds. Water vapour reflects solar energy into space, preventing unhindered heating.       
 
The WEF has no interest in populations already under the heel of a dictator or tyrant, as there is no profit to be made. The WEF is after the productive segments of the world – democracies that are the engines of the world’s commerce and economy.
 
The WEF oligarchs have convinced themselves that they are the ultimate predators – and can overcome the predators that democratic governments have become.
 
The danger of ignoring the responsibilities of elected representatives and allowing widespread corruption is that sooner or later, another predator will take advantage of the situation, and corrupt governments do not enjoy support of the people they abuse. They are already compromised.
 
Infighting about which political party gets to hold the reins of power next without respect for the electorate brought us to an unacceptable situation.
 
Our challenge is to force our governments to adhere to their constitutional duties and oaths to serve the public they represent. We do not have to accept their ideologies and grand plans. They exist to serve us, not to control us.
 
We have a duty to become familiar with how we are governed, cast an informed vote, and ensure that whoever we elect answers to us.

Ignorance is inexcusable. Lawyers must confront inequities in the legal system

Activist Daniel Song has published an opinion on CBC which shows he has drunk deeply from the Indigenous activist narrative of indigenous people being perpetual victims of other races.

There are more than 600 native tribes in Canada that speak over 60 separate languages. They were conquered by European nations with superior skills and technology.

Indigenous activists are racists who refuse to accept that the future of their people lies in assimilation with mainstream society.

Their isolation is self-inflicted. Indigenous people have no hope of owning land and a home. All land, housing and infrastructure are communally owned, and all funds are managed by a handful of people with no control over graft. There are no jobs to be had on most reserves.

Many Indigenous families are dysfunctional due to the hopelessness that ends up in taking alcohol or drugs to numb the pain for a while. There is a high level of violence on reserves. That violence results in high numbers of incarceration.

I worked in the federal prison system for 20 years and can verify that the band where the inmate was from would write to corrections asking that the inmate not be paroled to his home reserve. His level of violence was too high to be controlled by the band.
     
There are a few Indigenous bands that have done well for themselves and their members, but they are never talked about, as that is contrary to the activist narrative.

There is no national Indigenous body that speaks for 600 tribes. That is pure fiction.

More to the point, Mr. Song has no solutions to offer. Wringing hands over alleged discrimination is not a solution, nor is ‘educating’ lawyers to follow a false narrative.

It is dangerous and stupid to allow the Law Society to try to invoke social justice; for one thing, if the society is wrong, it pays no penalty. It will shrug and move on.

Someone must explain how alleged trauma is passed from generation to generation in Indigenous communities but not in other ethnic groups. Several ethnic groups have suffered horrific discrimination and, in some cases, genocide, but their trauma is not handed down to their children and grandchildren. 
                        
Over the past century, almost every ethnic immigrant has faced discrimination – and survived. The glue that binds Canadians together is respect for one another. Indigenous activists do not respect anyone – their stock in trade is to constantly attack ‘the white race’ as authors of all misfortunes.

Finally, Mr. Song carefully avoids the principle of fairness. If he wants the Law Society to educate lawyers on Indigenous discrimination, what about the blacks, browns, yellows and gay people and other ethnic groups who have faced severe discrimination? Do they not deserve equal treatment?

A lawyer’s job is to represent a client ethically, honestly and to the best of his ability, not to engage in fretting over alleged discrimination. If an Indigenous person shoots or stabs and kills a neighbour in a fit of anger, the trauma his grandmother endured at a residential school is not a defence, nor should it be.

Solutions for Indigenous people must come from within the Indigenous community and be accompanied by respect for the other parties involved. The current system encourages Indigenous isolation, and it is killing them.

Indigenous people are not aliens to be forever separated and apart from other Canadians. They must find a comfortable existence in our larger society, but how that can be accomplished requires the involvement of Indigenous people, not self-proclaimed activists.

23/02/09

Canadians are a cantankerous lot. We take freedoms and rights for granted and are not conditioned to accept government edicts without argument, criticism and debate. We have enough confident and capable free thinkers to make predicting our response to edicts difficult.

When governments mandated lockdowns, many Canadians refused to obey. When governments mandated COVID-19 shots, many Canadians became sullen and surly, unwilling to inject experimental drugs we did not fully understand.

Canada had a plan to deal with the next epidemic or pandemic. It was complex and flexible, designed to deal with a number of variables. The federal government tossed it in the trash and proceeded with the plan drafted by the World Health Organization (WHO).

A bit of background is required. In April 2020 US President Trump halted US funding of the WHO. At the time, the US was funding about $400 million annually while China contributed about $40 million. Trump was upset by the WHO handling of the COVID crisis, claiming that the WHO deferred to China and allowed unrestricted travel from China where the outbreak occurred.

China stepped up and filled the funding void left by the US withdrawal. That put China in a position to influence the WHO. Canada adopted the WHO plan without considering variables or reactions to the WHO-inspired mandates. Canada had no contingency plans to deal with fallouts from plans to offset COVID. The WHO plan was rigid and assumed everyone would comply as they did in China. 
     
We were initially told that COVID-19 injections would immunize us from the disease. That turned out to be untrue, and when drug manufacturers started introducing booster shots, skepticism increased.

Follow the money. Who stood to gain by demanding we take booster shots to overcome deficiencies in the original injections? Our dithering and failures worked to China’s benefit. We are weakened.

The herculean effort by drug manufacturers and governments to force injections of boosters included drug manufacturers spending $$ millions on advertising and subsidies to professional organizations and governments to stifle any criticism of COVID-19 injections as “misinformation” not to be heeded.

Organizations and governments do not work feverishly to censor criticism if they have nothing to hide. We have and will continue to use the freedom of expression to voice our concerns and criticisms when edicts and excuses do not ring true.

Little this government says or does rings true. We will not give in to “shut up and obey orders.” The essence of democracy is that we will not be dictated to. Our governments have earned themselves a middle-finger salute for trying.

See Brian Lilley’s original report in the Toronto Sun.

23/01/31

This latest whine from a make-believe group of bigoted, discriminatory racists is too much. There are few equals in ignoring the cultural sensitivities of other Canadians.

There are more than 600 indigenous bands in Canada (for example, Musqueam Indian Band, in British Columbia, Sturgeon Lake First Nation, in Alberta, and Atikamekw of Manawan, in Quebec) and over 60 Aboriginal languages reported by indigenous people. REFERENCE

These indigenous bands are not nations and are not sovereign. They come from a wide variety of Asian tribes who crossed ice and land bridges from Asia to North America. Claims that these diverse people are part of some grand separate national identity are fraudulent. It is the ultimate disrespect for indigenous people. Ignoring their dignity, humanity, hopes for prosperity and security, and rightful place in broader society is shameful.

Health care delivery within provincial boundaries is constitutionally in provincial jurisdiction, and Indigenous people are not part of that discussion. Health care delivery to indigenous people is constitutionally an exclusive federal jurisdiction. Indigenous leaders know that, but choose to ignore reality.

Section 91 (24) declares Indians, and Lands reserved for the Indians are a federal jurisdiction and responsibility. 
 
The federal government has deliberately blurred reality by contracting with provinces to deliver health care services on its behalf but cannot escape its fiduciary responsibility to indigenous people.

Framing health care delivery as culturally sensitive is ridiculous. We look to health care for the prevention or treatment of illness and injury, not to have our culture recognized. 
      
With the collapse of our health care systems, provinces must insist that the federal government resume providing health care services to indigenous people directly, thus relieving the provincial systems of a major burden.

Section 91 (11) declares Quarantine and the Establishment and Maintenance of Marine Hospitals as a federal jurisdiction and responsibility. At one time, the federal government provided marine (military) hospitals for every province, which served the armed forces, RCMP, indigenous people, penitentiary (prison) inmates, and certain members of the diplomatic corps and some federal agencies.

The leaders of the Nunavut, Northwest and Yukon Territories have no place at the federal-provincial health care meeting. They are not premiers, and the federal government has exclusive jurisdiction and responsibility for the Territories. The Prime Minster is encroaching on provincial jurisdiction while muddying the waters.

Lands outside of provincial boundaries are federal lands and include the Territories.

Indigenous leadership demanding inclusion while practising exclusion is unacceptable. We are all equals, or we are not. Indigenous people have an equal obligation to treat other Canadians with the respect they demand. Reconciliation is not a one-way street.

Portraying indigenous people as perpetual victims of colonialism is nonsense. North America was invaded and conquered by European nations with superior skills and technology. Maintaining the fiction of perpetual victimhood is a self-fulfilling prophecy. Indigenous people have benefitted enormously from the rapidly evolving technology of their conquerors.

The brutal fact is that indigenous leaders have squandered every opportunity to improve the lives and living standards of the people they represent. They thrive on imagined resentment, which appeals to emotions while ignoring reality, following Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals.

We have no reason to accept that we are obliged to cater to indigenous fiction or that the federal government can arbitrarily manage reconciliation without representatives from non-indigenous people at the table and in agreement with settlement terms. The current charade must end.  

Original news report by Jeanelle Mandes of Global News on January 26 HERE.    

Ottawa has said it wants to go beyond short-term fixes

This non-news story has no point. It is 1,077 words of baffle-gab we are all familiar with.
 
The politicians who presided over the collapse of our health care systems are ignoring their culpability and pretending that they can solve the crisis they created.

Health care cannot be resurrected from a high-level overview of systems. The contention that each province has unique difficulties is rubbish. None of them provide a reasonable level of public health care.

Politicians and their bureaucrats are protected from feeling the brunt of health care deficits through above-average wage increases coupled with publicly supported health care plans far beyond the affordability of rank-and-file Canadians.

There is no accountability, and no incentive to improve the efficiency of operations. There is no standard for an effective and efficient hospital or clinic operation. Pouring money into a failed system is counter-productive.

We desperately need private investment in health care delivery facilities. We don’t have adequate public funds available to carry the whole load. Private delivery facilities introduce competition that is a lacking element of our systems.

Where is the public consultation for this improvement effort? The public can quickly highlight where and how the system fails us. That is not what the political class wants.

Where is the input from our health care professionals? Doctors, nurses and technicians need to be consulted, and free of coercion by their governing bodies and unions while they share the skinny on their work environments.

Twelve-hour shifts and mandatory overtime are not common in healthy work environments. Why are we driving away the professionals that are the heart and soul of any health care system?

Working long hours is easy when you are thirty but burdensome when you hit 50. Why are we not accommodating older and experienced professionals instead of burning them out? We need answers an overview can’t give us.

Politicians need to sit down with health care stakeholders, which includes every Canadian and listen carefully to what they have to say.

We can’t fix health care without them. They can highlight the areas of most concern and provide a map for politicians to follow. There has to be an ongoing involvement of health care stakeholders so that remedial efforts that are not working can be quickly corrected.

Politicians tell us that we are all in this together. It is time to put that phrase into action and deal with the realities on the ground.    

Also read John Paul Tasker of CBC News, Jan 25 HERE.

23/01/26

It is disheartening to be subjected to all the commentary on our economy, inflation and interest rates when we have nothing concrete to compare Canada’s situation.

The following article from The Australian is eerily similar to the difficulties we face here. The Australian government made the same mistake as ours – employing ridiculously low prime rates to stimulate the economy without considering the long-term consequences.

Both governments now face unenviable choices, and both pretend they can find solutions but are not ready to give up the status quo. Without serious reductions in non-essential spending, our future economic outlook is grim.

Governments worldwide are loath to admit that hitching their future to clean, green energy to replace petroleum is an absolute disaster. Demands for petroleum energy are increasing, and as a consequence, the possibility of meeting the reduction targets set for 2030 only seven years distant are impossible to meet.

I wrote about the issue earlier: Coming in 2023: A Painful Return to Energy Supply Reality

Our government refuses to accept responsibility for the economic disaster it created. Mumbling about other governments being in the same leaky boat is not an acceptable excuse for failing the people it was elected to serve.

So far, the government has not come up with any viable plan to protect us from the probability of having our standard of living sharply reduced. The people we entrusted with looking after our best interests are a dismal failure and unfit for the offices they hold.

Please speak up. Tell your MP that the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, 1999 must be rescinded, and our oil and gas sector rejuvenated without further delay and verbal diarrhea. Nothing less will suffice.

Check out Patrick Commins’ analysis in The Australian

This is unacceptable and should get your blood boiling. Canada has no role in anything promoted by the World Economic Forum (WEF). The WEF is not an accredited political entity and was not created by a consortium of nations with a common interest.

The WEF is compromised of a group of industrial, commercial, and financial elitists who would prefer a world that protects their interests and comfort. The WEF has no interest in the comfort and well-being of the people who inhabit the nations they want to control.

“The Agile Nations Charter(signed by Canada in November 2020)will facilitate agile ‘rule-making’outside of Parliament.”No Canadian Government can be empowered to make rules outside of our constitution and parliament unless Canada is at war, and even then, the expanded power is limited.

The signing of theAgile Nations Charterviolated the Canadian Oath of Allegiance sworn when Ministers were appointed to office. All current cabinet ministers are thus guilty of treason and must be charged and brought to trial without delay.

We cannot allow our government to enslave us to an unaccountable, unelected foreign power without our express consent.

See Noé Chartier’s comment in The Epoch Times, January 19.

23/01/20

Last Tuesday, I wrote a piece on Chrystia Freeland’s $2 billion slush fund: Bill allows finance minister to spend $2 billion on shares for imaginary green company.

My thanks and a tip of the hat to subscriber Robert Ede who sent me a YouTube video of the exchange between Conservative Senator Elizabeth Marshall and Chrystia Freeland. Freeland lets the cat out of the bag – this is the initial funding for the Canada Growth Fund to be capitalized at a staggering $50 billion!! You can watch the video here. The revelation comes at 2.03.

This ends my current series on the climate change hoax. Take a couple of days off to enjoy the weekend. Give the people you love a hug as a hug cuts through the background noise, and the personal touch reassures family and friends that together, we will find a way through the current nonsense.

We need to take comfort in remembering that many of our blessings, such as family love, friendship, companionship, compassion for others, charity, and doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do, are beyond the reach of politics. Treating one another respectfully and as equals is a core value of Canadians.

In addition, we discover a short list of influential Canadians sitting on panels at the World Economic Forum's annual trip to the Swiss mountains.

MARK CARNEY is on three panels this week, starting with a Tuesday session alongside JOHN KERRY on philanthropy as a "catalyst for protecting our planet. The former central banker will sit on Wednesday panels on the "pivot to resilience" and the responsibility of large shareholders to call out corporate misbehaviour.

CHRYSTIA FREELAND co-headlines a Wednesday "peace and security" panel with NATO sec-gen JENS STOLTENBERG, Polish President ANDRZEJ DUDA, U.S. Director of National Intelligence AVRIL HAINES, Ukrainian deputy PM YULIA SVYRYDENKO and CNN anchor FAREED ZAKARIA.

Freeland will join a Thursday conversation about empowering women in business and politics. Among her co-panellists is Michigan Gov. GRETCHEN WHITMER.

MARY NG (Minister of International Trade, Export Promotion, Small Business) sits on a single Thursday panel driven by this question: "What does the rise of the intangible economy mean, and how should policy-makers respond?"

The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board's SUYI KIM joins a Tuesday panel guided by this question: "How does private equity transform the real economy through its increased focus on impact?"

I find it highly disturbing that senior government officials are key participants in the World Economic Forum’s Annual General Meeting in Davos, Switzerland.

I am also concerned that a member of the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board is in attendance since the pension board is allegedly an arm’s-length agency independent of the government. It may be far less independent than we can afford to be comfortable with.

Collectively, these people wield an enormous amount of power over us, our economic security and the future of generations to come. There is an unacceptable conflict of interest. These people were elected or appointed to serve the interests of Canada and Canadians, not the interests of the World Economic Forum.

The current government is clearly out of control and living in some wonderland detached from reality. We don’t have $50 billion available for anything, and if we did, those funds are sorely needed to replace our broken healthcare systems.

Freeland’s message that the government expects to attract three times the $50 billion Canada Growth Fund financing is a delusion. Private investment requires a stable, predictable economic climate this government lacks.

What this government plans to do is to remove the risk for investors, which has them laughing all the way to the bank. If a project succeeds, they stand to profit. If the project fails, as many, if not most will, taxpayers pick up the tab. It is a recipe for increased economic disaster when we expect a recession and, more likely, a depression.

We grow up and gain wisdom through experience, and a lot of that experience is gained from our bad decisions. When you reach my age, you have few bad decisions left. – been there, done that gets old very quickly.

Our government appears to be comprised of perpetual adolescents who have managed to avoid personal responsibility instead of becoming responsible adults. That is a severe deficit.

The tenure of this government cannot end too soon. NDP Leader Singh is propping up this disaster in the making and lost his Party’s claim to be there to protect ordinary people. How repulsive and sad.

The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret of tyranny is in keeping them ignorant. ~ Maximilien Robespierre

It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong. ~ Thomas Sowel

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23/01/18

“Woke” activists, aided and abetted by our government, are erasing our history becuse it does not comply with their worldview.

When we allow proponents of a new world order to erase anything they find offensive, they erase all traces of our social evolution. We cannot take pride in that evolution without some past experiences to compare to. Woke activists are destructive vandals who oppose our social standards and values.

Negating pride in our nation, patriotism, and our espousing of compassion and respect for one another does not have a positive effect. At the core of our society is an obligation to family, neighbours and community. In return for the unlimited opportunities we have, we accept personal responsibility for our actions and behaviour.

Men have traditionally assumed family responsibilities without expectations of reward. For the last few decades, woke activists have gone to great lengths to portray men as incompetent bigots, nerds and unnecessary family baggage.

The basis for our common-law legal system is the protection of the individual person from intrusion on their person and property. This system of legal rights is set out in precedents developed over the past eight centuries. The woke mob wants to replace that with – nothing.

Politicians learn little from history and are prone to repeat past errors or, more correctly, to use the same tired tactics that worked in the past. It is no accident that when we face inflation caused by government mismanagement, rumblings of war are in the wings.

An old-fashioned war will distract the public from anger over government ineptitude. We do not need or want civil unrest or war. If we had governments with principles and spines, they would have put a load of buckshot in Putin’s north end within 60 days of his invasion of Ukraine.

Putin’s sacking of Ukraine and the genocide of its people are not acceptable in a civilized world. When such actions are not met with deadly force, we lose the right to consider ourselves civilized. We are barbarians willing to watch 43.4 million people murdered for being who they are.

The woke mob ignores Ukraine as there is no gain for them in the conflict.

Read Chris George's analysis of woke-ism in The Niagara Independent in July 15, 2022

23/01/17

A bill that has been passed into law will allow Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland to spend $2 billion on shares for imaginary green company

Freeland is in a conflict of interest. Her government regulates the industries her taxpayer-bankrolled funds are invested in.

Federal investments in corporations have a rotten track record. Investments and loans are rarely recovered. Governments that can’t run efficient and effective agencies and departments are not equipped to choose corporate winners. Investment advisors are not accountable. They provide a service for a fee and have nothing to lose if bad advice results in a loss to taxpayers.

Freeland’s arrogant dismissal of the Senator’s questions is breathtaking:

“The green transition will cost a good deal, really a lot, and we need money to fund it,” said Freeland. She did not elaborate, according to Blacklock's Reporter.

“What it is able to do on a project-by-project basis is de-risk private sector investment in new technology, in exactly the kind of technology we are going to need to build the jobs of the future in Canada and to get the emissions reductions we need,” said Freeland.

If the project is too risky for private investment, it is not worthy of support. Investors expect to receive a profit on their investments. If they don’t foresee a profit, the venture is dubious. If the government assumes the risks, investors have no downside; they cannot lose money if the project fails and stand to profit if the venture succeeds. If the venture fails, taxpayers are burdened with the loss. 
  
Freeland’s job is to keep scrupulous track of government spending, report to the public on overspending and create a near-term budget without deficits. So far, she rates an “F.”

Freeland is not accountable as Finance Minister, so why not chase rainbows funding fictitious corporations engaged in creating clean energy to take on a fictitious climate change crisis?

Freeland has no proof that Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predictions are accurate or correct. The IPCC refuses to present its data to independent scientists for peer review and refuses to debate the merits of its predictions with eminently qualified climate scientists.

IPCC’s claim that ‘the science is settled’ is nonsense; Science is never settled as its basic tenet is an ongoing examination of what we believe we know. Science is evolutionary, not revolutionary. IPCC’s claim that 97% of scientists have reached a consensus on climate change is ridiculous. No scientific theory has ever been adopted by a consensus.

Do we want investments handled by a dupe who believes IPCC propaganda and commits billions in taxpayer funds without ensuring that IPCC claims are not fraudulent? That would be exercising due diligence, vital to any investment decision. In over three decades, the IPCC has never made an accurate prediction. That would ring alarm bells for any competent investor. 
 
Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant; it is necessary for life on earth, and its effect on the atmosphere is negligible. The earth’s temperature is controlled by water vapour from our vast oceans and cloud cover, which reflect radiation from the sun into space to keep us from roasting to death. Both are fluids and thus difficult to predict. Water in vapour or cloud form is our primary climate defence.

IPCC predictions are propaganda designed to frighten us into believing we face a non-existent climate crisis. As time passes, IPCC propaganda grows increasingly hysterical. Carbon emissions are blamed for every current weather event.

The current flooding in California is blamed on carbon emissions. However, in 1889, flooding in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, caused 2,209 deaths and caused $17 million in damages (1889 dollars); (about $583 million in 2022 dollars).

In 1913, flooding in Alabama, Indiana, Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, and West Virginia caused an estimated 650 deaths, left about a quarter million people homeless and caused about $333 million in property damage (1913 dollars); (about $9.844 billion in 2022 dollars).

Severe weather events are not new or caused by carbon emissions. It takes a while for local governments to react and improve infrastructure to minimize the effects of the next fire or flood. They will occur. The “flood of the century” is not in our vocabulary without reason.

See the original in-depth report by Matthew Horwood in The Western Standard  Dec 8, 2022

23/01/26

We hear the term “woke” used frequently, but it is rarely defined. Thomas Sowell put it this way:

“Activism is a way for useless people to feel important, even if the consequences of their activism are counter-productive for those they claim to be helping and damaging to the fabric of society as a whole.”

An article by James Pew sheds light on how ‘woke’ applies to indigenous affairs. The same factors spill over into visible minority issues. The government’s stance that self-proclaimed victims must not be questioned is ridiculous. The emergence of truth requires robust debate.
 
It is unacceptable that indigenous people make no effort and have no plan to take responsibility for themselves. They claim sovereignty but don’t have sovereign abilities to support their claim. We are failing to ask the obvious questions: 

• At what point does non-indigenous peoples' responsibility for resent-day indigenous circumstances end, and indigenous peoples’ responsibility for those circumstances begin?
  
  
• At what point does non-indigenous peoples’ responsibility for indigenous-perpetrated violent crime end, and indigenous peoples’ responsibility for indigenous-perpetrated violent crime begin?

Efforts by the government to censor our freedom of expression are repulsive. (‘Freedom of speech’ is an American concept – the Canadian ‘freedom of expression’ is much broader, including speech, the middle finger salute, signage, paintings, statuary, protests and more.)
 
The truth emerges during a robust debate of issues, and robust debate cannot occur if dissenting opinions are censored or quashed.

Please look at James Pew’s well-written article on the broader subject HERE.

23/01/14

You need to become familiar with the term. It is an abbreviation of psychological operations, first employed by the military. The original object of a psyop was to convey selected information and indicators to influence the military and civilian populations that they could not win and that further fighting and deaths were wasteful  

In peacetime, governments employ psyops to influence the emotions, motives, and objective reasoning of civilians to ultimately change the attitudes and behaviour of organizations, groups, and individuals primarily through propaganda.

We see dozens of examples, among them green ideology. We have suffered decades of propaganda to support allegedly clean, green energy to save the planet from overheating and extinction. Thousands of Canadians believe they have a duty to ‘save the world’ even though the clean green concept is impractical and has yet to be successful in any jurisdiction worldwide.

It should be unlawful for any electric vehicle to be charged or recharged by other than wind or solar power. Stop using our electrical grid for your toys.

We have endured similar propaganda respecting mRNA injections used to combat COVID. When Dr. Robert Malone recently called for a halt to the injections due to evidence that the injections were not safe and caused considerable harm. He is eminently qualified by training and experience to comment on mRNA technology, its use and possible abuse. 

Dr. Malone was immediately attacked for spreading misinformation. Attack pieces were published in The Atlantic, the New York Times, the Washington Post and many other publications.

This is another aspect of psyops – if confronted, attack the messenger, which is disturbing. In a free democracy, everyone is entitled to an opinion, whether we agree with that opinion or not.

Instead of shutting down debate, leftists avoid debating the merits of Dr. Malone’s opinion. Propaganda is reinforced with more propaganda, and respectful debate is stifled. That is censorship. There are issues governments do not want to be discussed. They are unaccountable and want to keep it that way.

In Canada, medical colleges have adopted a policy that no doctor or nurse may criticize mRNA injections. That is frightening on several levels.

It violates the medical principle of “do no harm.” Doctors spent much time reviewing developments in their field to keep up to date. Recent studies of mRNA injection results raise doubts about their effectiveness and safety. That should result in a robust debate respecting public safety.

If these injections are safe and effective, there is no need to stifle criticism. If they are not, the injections must be halted until clinical trials prove them safe. The health of generations is at risk.  

We go to a doctor or nurse to seek the best medical advice possible. It never occurs to us that medical college prohibitions colour the advice. Risking the license to practice and a career is no small matter.

The mRNA injections were rushed into production and approved on an emergency basis. There was insufficient time to study the safety of the injections or the potential side effects. That takes five years or more.

It is interesting to review nations that no longer require COVID injections for travel. There are about 96, including:
Argentina        France          Mexico
Australia         Germany      New Zealand
Austria             Greece          Norway
Bulgaria          Hungary       Poland
Canada           Iceland         Portugal
Chile                India              Spain
Colombia        Ireland          Sweden
Denmark         Israel             Switzerland
Egypt               Italy               Turkey
England          Jamaica        USA

This is incomprehensibly inconsistent with the mandates nations exercise internally. Psyops are not logical or rational. They consist of propaganda intended to appeal to your emotions and ultimately change your attitude and behaviour.

We are under siege by foreign elements and governments determined to control our minds to subjugate us. They have been so successful that some, notably the World Health Organization and the World Economic Forum, openly brag about it.

Please take 15 minutes to view this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gzGU5rkkBGw     
 

23/01/13

Bill C-10 proposes to subject whole realms of the Canadian online world to content oversight from broadcast regulators, including podcasts, online videos and websites

This is awkward.

The National Post rang the alarm bells over a year and a half ago, on April 29, 2021. Bill C-10 was pushed through and received Royal Assent on March 4, 2022. It has not been enabled yet. Now the Western Standard reports that Jagmeet Singh intends to push the Liberals into invoking censorship of our freedom of expression.

Bill C-10 puts the federal government in the position of censoring your freedom of expression if you dare to contradict it. A dissenting opinion, no matter how valid and well-considered, can be stifled. If you don’t recognize that conservatives are the target, please return to your slumbers.

This proposal is unacceptable in a free democracy. The truth only emerges during a robust debate of facts. Showing up government propaganda for what it is depends on our dissenting voices. Censoring opinion and stifling dissent is the hallmark of totalitarian regimes.

Do you want to live under the iron rule of an appointed prime minister acting as a king? If so, remain apathetic or cynical. Either will result in the slavery Trudeau is planning for you. 

See the National Post article HERE.

Jagmeet Singh will push Liberals for more internet censorship – HERE

23/01/09

Early settlers to Canada shared common interests, including the prospect of land ownership. The lure of working to acquire a piece of land on which to build a home or business was significant.

Both the British and French colonies placed a very high value on land ownership. Land grants to retiring military and government officials were a common reward for service.

Is a man’s home his castle? Yes, in the sense that it has been part of common law since at least the 17th century, that no one may enter a home unless by invitation. This was established as common law by the lawyer and politician Sir Edward Coke (pronounced Cook), in The Institutes of the Laws of England, 1628:

"For a man's house is his castle, et domus sua cuique est tutissimum refugium [and each man's home is his safest refuge]."

What was meant by 'castle' was defined in 1763 by the British Prime Minister William Pitt, the first Earl of Chatham, also known as Pitt the Elder:

"The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the crown. It may be frail - its roof may shake - the wind may blow through it - the storm may enter - the rain may enter - but the King of England cannot enter."

Nevertheless, a homeowner must obey the law and cannot murder an intruder. Unless the criminal code is amended to allow a homeowner to take whatever steps he must to protect his home and family, killing an intruder will most probably result in a prison sentence.

Many immigrants from the British Isles and Europe had little prospect of acquiring land where they lived, and the prospect of earning from work and saving for land acquisition was enticing.

Property ownership and the rights of the owner are deeply embedded in both civil and common law.

Since the end of WWII, governments have increasingly intruded on property owners’ rights, claiming that a property owner needed permission to build a house or business and must meet a lengthy list of criteria in order to construct on his land.

This bureaucratic nonsense is designed to generate revenue for the local government authority. This is an example of governments removing our legal rights and then selling them back to us as permits (permissions).

The landowner building a home must be able to build whatever he desires. Most will ensure that electrical, heating and plumbing systems are installed by qualified tradesmen. Those who do not assume the risks to the investment they made.

The business owner will engage qualified tradesmen to install services and ensure his property is safely accessible to attract customers. He has an investment to protect.

Urban planning has become an ineffective and failed bureaucratic nightmare that adds enormous costs to property development. The largest urban developments are grotesquely overpriced, and most large cities have become crime-ridden, dangerous places to survive in. What good is urban planning to the tens of thousands of Canadians who can’t afford a home purchase?

Our political class is ignoring the fact that the people decide what powers they shall have. It is not for politicians to decide. When the policies and systems governments employ do not meet our needs, they must be scrapped and replaced with something that does meet our needs.

Property and civil law are in provincial jurisdiction. The federal government has no authority over property.

Our governments are overriding our rights to own property and use it as we desire. Building a home or business on your land is not for local officials or the neighbours to set limits on. Requiring businesses that house tenants or serve food and beverages to meet health and safety standards is reasonable, but governments have gone far beyond reasonableness as a policy limit.

Why would any homeowner require a permit to renovate or otherwise improve his property? The upgrade raises the value of the property, and the government wants to tax the owner on the improved value. The owner receives no tax credit for the investment in the upgrade. The result of the unfairness is that owners are reluctant to upgrade or renovate, and older areas deteriorate, becoming slums.

Today, residents of overvalued major urban centres are leaving for other provinces or areas where they can save money towards a home purchase currently impossible where they live. Urban mismanagement is driving productive people out and increasing the ranks of the homeless, which is a drain on urban resources.

We must reinstate the rights of property owners to decide how to utilize their investments to their best advantage.

The ‘impasse’ has nothing to do with healthcare; it is a raw power struggle between the federal and provincial governments as to who will control the billions poured into healthcare each year.

Dealing with the current mess is three decades overdue and will take another three decades to rectify. We can’t hire and train the professionals desperately we need more quickly. Doctors and nurses take anywhere from four to eight years to educate, and specialists take even longer.

What is particularly stunning is the arrogance of politicians. They act as if only they can fix the healthcare system that failed under their watch.

Not one of them, the Prime Minister, Premiers, or Ministers of Health Care, feels they are accountable and responsible to the people they failed. Not one has proposed a practical, workable model to replace the failed system. They are proposing bandages for a system that expired due to internal organ failure. The heart of healthcare is dead.

Proposing a universal data bank where patient records can be accessed by anyone treating a patient is preposterous when we don’t have the professionals to access the records. It is an element of building a workable healthcare structure, but not the key element.

Our healthcare system failed because no one running the system is accountable. There is no incentive to improve efficiency or effectiveness. Operational decisions are made by bureaucrats and healthcare professionals, and neither group has training in administration.

Healthcare facility administration is a specialty field where public needs, medical professional needs and the available budget are balanced. Each facility has to be stand-alone and accountable, measured against a standard of excellence.

The concept of building huge hospital complexes that deliver almost every conceivable healthcare service is inefficient and outdated. Hospital emergency rooms are outdated. We need urban and rural trauma centres where patients with dire injuries or illnesses can be treated and stabilized for further treatment in appropriate facilities.

Restructuring healthcare cannot succeed without private sector investment in land, buildings and personnel. We don’t have the public money available. Government procurement is notoriously expensive and inefficient. The same standard of excellence would apply to private healthcare delivery facilities.

Those who rail against the private sector involvement in healthcare as creating a two-tier system have created a no-care system. Bravo!

We already have a two-tier system where tens of thousands of Canadians are on waiting lists for medically approved procedures. We can’t even get timely diagnostic procedures. The endless suffering and premature deaths are unacceptable in a first-world nation claiming to have a top-rate universal healthcare system that has evaporated into a myth.

When we are limiting healthcare to the public to ‘save the system’ from overload, we are on the yellow brick road to the insanity of Oz.

Our political class is sorely afraid of an increasingly irate public. The notion that they should not face severe criticism and threats is ridiculous. When our loved ones die needlessly and prematurely because the people we elected failed us, drastic changes must occur.

Leaders committed to those they serve will emerge. The only question is what degree of social upheaval it will take.

The federal government must transfer tax points to the provinces and confine its role in healthcare to that mandated under our constitution. Healthcare is a provincial jurisdiction, and federal interference has brought us a disaster in healthcare delivery. Pretending that the government that caused a crisis can solve the problem is ludicrous.

Provincial premiers are culpable. They all have large bureaucracies to administer healthcare, and those bureaucracies have failed us. The systems are broken and must be replaced.

Failure to monitor the bureaucracies and demand performance to protect the public cannot be tolerated.

This is an administrative problem, not a funding problem. We have too many fingers and vested interests at play.

It will take a couple of decades to fully recover from this crisis, and we can’t start soon enough.

Discontent is gradually growing. We face an uncertain future in 2023. The cost of living is increasing rapidly. Interest rates (and mortgage rates) are likely to continue to increase. Both outpace income increases.

The use of food banks is increasing rapidly and shows signs of continuing to increase. Homeowners are at risk of losing the equity they have built up over the years. Those who are heavily mortgaged face the prospect of losing their investment and being unable to afford a cheaper replacement.

Governments are creating relief programs to offset inflation, but the cupboards are bare – they are adding to our public debt levels which leaves less money free to fund primary programs such as education and health care.

There is every indication that pressures to lower our standard of living will continue in the immediate future and that discontent with governments will continue to grow. I expect that by the end of the 1922/23 fiscal year (March 31), the calls for an election will be deafening.

See the analysis by Isaac Teo in the Epoch Times.

23/01/05

Caught in a lie. On Dec. 8, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s national security advisor Jody Thomas told the Commons national defence committee she has seen “no evidence” that covert Chinese funding went to 11 candidates in 2019.

“I have not been briefed and have no awareness, and I’ve asked the question of 11 candidates and the connection to the money that was in that report. I know nothing of that,” she said.

If Thomas had ‘no knowledge,’ how did she know which candidates to question?

The Canada Election Act states:

363 (1) No person or entity other than an individual who is a Canadian citizen or is a permanent resident as defined in subsection 2(1) of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act shall make a contribution to a registered party, a registered association, a nomination contestant, a candidate or a leadership contestant.
 
Why is there not an investigation underway? The Elections Act has been violated. The individuals involved are guilty of knowingly aiding and abetting in a crime, as are any candidates who received funds or other assistance from those individuals.
 
Canadian environmental NGOs that receive funding from foreign sources must be investigated and charged for violations of the Elections Act.
 
We are allowing the American, Chinese and Russian governments to engage in public disinformation campaigns and interfere in our elections. Why?

23/01/05

This is bad – very bad. Health Canada is spying on Canadians. Not only that, but those who exercised their charter right to decline a COVID shot were targeted for re-education. That would violate the Privacy Act, which appears to require that such data be scrubbed of personal identifiers before releasing for use.
It gets much worse. Health Canada is requesting new contracts for data mining.

This is a currently-open competition.

What possible use can Health Canada have for this data? Whom else will they share it with? If the initial contracts and effort were to identify and re-educate those who resisted COVID shots, what do they plan to do with those identified as COVID shot resistant now? Are we to be put on a blacklist so we can be denied various government benefits? I don’t see any upside for us in this exercise.

The efforts to demean and marginalize anti-vax Canadians is unethical insanity. Health Canada is drunk with power. It does not help that our chief Medical Officer is in a severe conflict of interest.

Dr. Teresa Tam is on the Independent Oversight and Advisory Committee of the Health Emergencies Program of the World Health Organization (WHO), a role she took up between April and June 2018. She is an official advisor to the WHO's International Health Regulations Emergency Committee on 2019-nCoV. She cannot provide independent, unbiased advice to the Government of Canada and is thus unfit for the role she plays.

Canada’s healthcare response to COVID cannot continue to be controlled by an unaccountable, unelected foreign entity.

See Noé Chartier’s full report in The Epoch Times

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has announced a contract with a social media intelligence collection firm based in the U.K. to obtain data on vaccine hesitant individuals in order to be able to deliver targeted messaging to break through their hesitancy, contract details indicate.

“In preparation for increased vaccination education, promotion, and outreach, The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) is requiring the services of a consultant to analyze the vaccine related conversations on social media and PHAC social media initiative and campaign performance,” says the tender notice description posted online on Dec. 22.

The notice says the contract will be awarded to U.K.-based Pulsar Platform if no other supplier submits a bid meeting the requirements before the closing date. The estimated value of the contract is $339,000.

Pulsar describes itself as an “audience intelligence company” using artificial intelligence and “smart human minds” to comb through conversational and behavioural data on social media.

The notice says the consultant will need to analyze Twitter and other online sites and platforms spanning three years of historical data.

PHAC is seeking to obtain information on individuals who are participating in and influencing online conversations about vaccination.
It wants reports produced by the consultant to “provide PHAC an actionable understanding of the vaccine conversation landscape online and the conversation participants, while determining a conversation baseline,” according to the Statement of Work.

Once this data is obtained, PHAC will run a tailored messaging campaign, which it says will seek to target “communities of interest,” such as “indigenous peoples and millennial males,” states the Advance Contract Award Notice.

The study is to be rerun within a three to four month period to “monitor shifts in attitudes and confidence levels,” says the notice.
‘Keyword-Based’

PHAC lays out how the consultant must conduct its work, including the establishment of a “keyword-based social listening tracker to capture social media conversations around vaccinations in Canada.”

Data must also be parsed along conversation themes such as “experiences with long Covid, previous vaccine side effects, engaging with mis/disinformation, shift in perceived risk of infection.”

PHAC also seeks to obtain a breakdown of reasons for vaccine hesitancy for different regions and cities to allow more targeted messaging.

Along with identifying regions, cities, and subgroups such as First Nations communities, PHAC is also requesting segmentations of key audiences to include “demographics, interests, affinities, online behaviours, and the leading topics of vaccine hesitancy conversation, per each sub-community.”

The Statement of Work provides an example of what the consultant should do once a sub-community has been identified.

It says that once a community of “Toronto University Students that indicate low confidence in vaccinations” has been identified, then some factors should be investigated.

These include their reasons for being hesitant and the topics of their conversations, the media they consume and the content they share, and the tone they use when discussing their vaccination status.

The Epoch Times contacted PHAC to find out if previous such programs have been implemented and to learn more about how the data from private individuals will be protected, exploited, and if it will be shared with other departments.

PHAC was also asked whether it consulted the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC) on the program. A response was not obtained before publication time.

The OPC was also contacted to know whether it was aware of PHAC’s social media collection program, but a response was not received immediately.
Cellphone Tracking

PHAC has been embroiled in a data collection-related controversy in recent months when it was revealed it was analyzing the anonymized movement of millions of Canadians through the tracking of their cellphones, unbeknownst to them.

PHAC had been obtaining the data from carrier Telus and other cellphone tracking companies, but in December 2021 it sought a contractor to directly access data from cellphone towers to conduct its analysis.The data has been used to measure the compliance of Canadians while provinces implemented COVID-19 lockdowns.

When this became known, MPs started examining the issue and the Commons ethics committee told the government last spring that Canadians should be allowed to opt out of the data collection program.

The OPC also said it was investigating the matter, but the results have yet to be announced.
PHAC and the OPC have been asked about the status of the contract and the investigation.

23/01/03

Let’s open 2023 by calling out the frauds whose aim and purpose is to control us.

View the 16-minute video from Nexus Climate Discussion with John Robson. You will find how a small group of eco-activists, academics, lay people and politicians have manipulated global temperature data to transform facts into the “carbon emissions are our enemy” fiction thrust at us constantly.

There is no scientific consensus that man-made carbon emissions are harming the earth. That is the greatest hoax ever launched on a naive and unsuspecting public.

Our politicians are sheep who bought into the hoax and are terrified at the prospect of admitting they were wrong and enduring the jeers of their peers. They hide under the skirts of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), meekly accepting its edicts as a gospel. 

The IPCC consists of unelected, unaccountable, unscientific frauds, while our politicians are only unaccountable, unscientific frauds. Our duty is to make our politicians accountable and recognize the enormous fraud that is damaging our economy and nation.

Our government must either provide independent, peer-reviewed studies verifying the IPCC findings or rescind the Canada Environment Act and carbon taxation. If they have not undertaken studies to support their policies, they too are frauds, unfit for public office and must resign.

23/01/02

Prime Minister Trudeau can’t even put together a coherent 385-word Christmas message. First, he states:

“2022 was a challenging year, and for many, this holiday season won’t be easy. But I’m confident that Canadians will continue to be there for each other in 2023 – because that’s just who we are. We show up for each other. And when times are tough, we stand together.”

If we ignore the ongoing stupidity of English – French bickering commencing at the Battle of the Plains of Abraham on September 13^th,1759, involving less than 10,000 troops and lasting about an hour, the statement is generally true.

Quebec has never been purely French and never will be, despite valiant and inconsiderate efforts by its government to create the illusion that by forcing all inhabitants to speak the French language, those from places other than France will forget their heritage and history.

. . . . because that’s just who we are. We show up for each other. And when times are tough, we stand together.

One of Canada’s greatest strengths, lasting from 1759 to 1988 – 229 years, was our accommodation for ethnic origins. People were free to gather and celebrate their heritages and histories as they saw fit while fully integrated into a homogeneous society.

Governments could not keep their hands off. The Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism, (also known as the Bi and Bi Commission) was a Canadian royal commission established on 19 July 1963, by the government of Prime Minister Lester B. Pearson to:

"inquire into and report upon the existing state of bilingualism and biculturalism in Canada and to recommend what steps should be taken to develop the Canadian Confederation on the basis of an equal partnership between the two founding races, taking into account the contribution made by the other ethnic groups to the cultural enrichment of Canada and the measures that should be taken to safeguard that contribution." 

That mouthful of psycho-babble led to the eventual passage of the Canadian Multiculturalism Act in 1988 (Brian Mulroney was then Prime Minister). It also proves that both major political parties are wooing Quebec votes to the detriment of everyone else. It has been a downhill slide for Canadian society since.

Few of us want to be dragged into the false concept of ‘two founding nations.’ The British won a war in northern North America. During peace treaty negotiations, France ceded ‘New France’ or the northern colonies to the British in return for British cessions elsewhere. Many Quebecers dreamed for years that France would rise again and invade, freeing them from British rule, which did not happen. No amount of political double-talk can change that.

The Quebec Act gave 65,000 French-speaking colonists a right to maintain their language, culture, religion and system of civil laws, not nationhood. It was the model for Trudeau’s first quote – the accommodation of ethnic origins within a homogeneous society.

When we untangle all the double-talk, our federal government introduced tribalism to our society. What had been a long-standing and successful accommodation policy was replaced by tribal rivalry, fracturing our society. Both federal and provincial governments have taken to providing grants to ethnic groups who succeeded for years through fundraising efforts. The grants support the tribal element and are aimed at garnering votes, not creating a better Canada.

In recent years, tribalism has been extended to include females and gays. Both are pitted against the “privileged white male.” The government has successfully employed a divide-and-conquer technique to make its manipulations of the population easier. The excuse is government support for the downtrodden. In reality, compared to the elites and the political class, we are all downtrodden.

The government is squandering an enormous amount of time, energy, money and resources trying to manage our lives for us while neglecting the duties it was created to manage. We exist in surreal times.

Later in his message, Prime Minister Trudeau states:

“. . . .. as we celebrate those unique traditions that reflect Canada’s diversity – let’s remind ourselves how fortunate we are to live in a country of peace. Canada is a country where families can live out their faith and be proud of the communities they represent.”

This passage completely contradicts the first passage. We either stand together as Canadians or represent separate communities. We can’t do both. There are no …. unique traditions that reflect Canada’s diversity . . . . They are not traditions at all, they are politically invented nonsense the public had no opportunity to refute or support. Accommodation lasted for 229 years, while diversity came along just 34 years ago. It is not a tradition, let alone our tradition.
     
Like other government initiatives, this one is coming apart at the seams. Canadians are realizing that they have been hoodwinked. Diversity is a synonym for tribalism fracturing our society. There is no evident benefit. Tribal friction is not a social positive.

The other nine provinces are finally waking up to the fact that federal accommodations to Quebec must be equally available to all provinces.

If Quebec is allowed to remain unilingual French, other provinces must be allowed to be unilingual English if they so choose.

The Official Languages Act must be repealed and replaced with merit-based hiring and promotions without regard for language, and the federal civil service must return to political neutrality.
 
Ideology ultimately fails to conquer reality.

Statement by the Prime Minister on Christmas

December 24, 2022
Ottawa, Ontario

“Merry Christmas, everyone!
“Like millions of Canadians, my family is excited to gather around the Christmas tree and spend some quality time together. It’s the time of year when things slow down a little bit, when Christmas movies – including Die Hard – are on repeat, when some of us keep an ear out for the sound of reindeer on the roof, and when we all take a moment to appreciate those who make our lives special.

“This year, I’m thinking of Canadians who go the extra mile to make our country a better place. I’m thinking of members of the Canadian Armed Forces who are protecting our country and the values we share. I’m thinking of the doctors, nurses, and first responders who will be working throughout the holidays. And I’m thinking of everyday Canadians who find ways to show up for their friends and neighbours.

“2022 was a challenging year, and for many this holiday season won’t be easy. But I’m confident that Canadians will continue to be there for each other in 2023 – because that’s just who we are. We show up for each other. And when times are tough, we stand together.

“We’ve been through a lot as a country, but through it all Canadians have demonstrated the true meaning of generosity, kindness, and hope. For Christians, this is a special time where we celebrate the birth of Christ and the promise of peace and joy that comes with it. No matter your beliefs, these are values you can bring as you celebrate the season.
“So, as we come together under the twinkle of Christmas lights, as we share a glass of good cheer with friends and colleagues, as we welcome the cousins, uncles, aunts, nieces, and nephews we haven’t seen in so long, and as we celebrate those unique traditions that reflect Canada’s diversity – let’s remind ourselves how fortunate we are to live in a country of peace.

“Canada is a country where families can live out their faith and be proud of the communities they represent. As we look ahead to the new year, let’s continue to stand together as we build a better future for all Canadians.
“From my family to yours, Sophie, Xavier, Ella-Grace, Hadrien, and I wish you joy, health, love, and peace this holiday season.

“Merry Christmas.”

Once again, the sheer stupidity of our federal government is on full display. Subsidizing EV battery manufacturing drives up costs and inflation. If EV battery production cannot stand on its own, the technology is not yet viable. Matching the U.S. subsidy schemes is ridiculous. If the Americans want to subsidize all EV battery builders let them do so.

Investors with deep pockets will flock to the U.S.A to finance EV battery start-ups. When they sense that the government is getting nervous about pouring money into a green hole, they take the start-up public, recovering their investment and a tidy profit. The government ends the subsidy, the start-up goes bankrupt, stockholders lose their money, and the government is left with a derelict property and environmental headache. It is legal and has been going on for decades.

An EV battery is an electrical energy storage device, much like the gas tank in a conventional vehicle is a storage device for petroleum energy. Canada has a huge supply of petroleum energy, more than enough to make U.S. independent of oil imports and become a petroleum energy exporter. We don’t produce much petroleum energy because the idiots in governance refuse to allow it.

We have a limited capacity for electrical power generation that is under stress to meet huge competition for supplies. Urban centres are experiencing brownouts and blackouts. Power grids are vulnerable to cyclones, hurricanes and storms. Power outages of various duration are common. Building a billion EV batteries without any certainty as to how they can be energized is irrational.

Allow the U.S. to squander capital chasing dreams and invest Canada’s capital into creating the infrastructure that will make using EVs at least partially possible. We don’t have the electrical grids able to handle widespread EV use and, in some cases, lack the generating capacity to power EVs. It makes no difference if EV batteries are becoming more efficient and hold more power if available power is limited.

Encourage provinces to ramp up mining the rare earth (lithium, cobalt, magnesium) and minerals (aluminum, copper, steel, and nickel) needed to produce batteries and EVs. Rare earth does not mean their existence is rare, it is a category of metals found in abundance.

Encourage the production of petroleum products. EVs make extensive use of very lightweight and strong carbon-fiber components, as well as plastics for insulation and oils for lubricants. EVs run on carbon-based tires.

EVs and their batteries cannot be produced by Trudeau spreading subsidy fairy dust on production plants. That requires extensive mining and entails major environmental impacts. None of the mining and refining can occur without extensive use of diesel-powered heavy equipment.

We are still a petroleum-dependent nation, no matter what dreams the PMO has. Reality rules and green ideology is riddled with green holes sucking up our money on creating an uncertain energy future.

Like most other government initiatives, clean green power is so far multiple times over anticipated costs, environmentally unfriendly and dismally under-performing. Whoopee!

22/12/12

It challenges the imagination to grasp the ineptitude of our federal government. Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos is wrong on three counts:

• COVID injections are an experimental drug, not a vaccine;
• COVID injections failed to protect us from COVID infections or from spreading the virus; and
• Shipping expiring COVID injections to COVAX does not reduce the financial loss.

The real reason the government has been feverishly pushing booster injections is to minimize expired injection losses.

Claiming credit for the distribution of COVID injections that proved to be ineffective is filed under government disinformation on my desk. Worse, growing information from reliable sources indicates that COVID injections have been harmful to the health of many people.

Some of you may recall that in November 2019, the federal government dumped $ millions in personal protective equipment (PPE) that had expired but not been replenished. The failure to maintain stocks of PPE in the event of an epidemic is gross incompetence.

Adding insult to injury, in March 2020, the federal government shipped 16 tonnes of PPE to China.

More than half of the 40,000 ventilators the Canadian government ordered early in the pandemic are now sitting unused in the federal emergency stockpile.

The level of incompetence is staggering. Canada had an elaborate plan, prepared by medical professionals to deal with an epidemic. It was trashed, and politicians took over.

That makes as much sense as taking an abscessed tooth to a plumber for repairs.

22/12/10

'I'll just say it — we've not seen money going to 11 candidates,period,' says Jody Thomas

This is not news, or newsworthy. It is government propaganda brought to us by the propaganda arm of the Prime Minister’s Office, the CBC, which taxpayers fund to the tune of over $1.4 billion annually (2021 figure).

Jody Thomashas an interesting history:
Education
Bachelor of Commerce, University of Calgary
Bachelor of Arts, Carleton University

Professional Experience
Since October 2017, Deputy Minister of National Defence
2017, Senior Associate Deputy Minister of National Defence
2015 – 2017 Commissioner of the Canadian Coast Guard, Fisheries and Oceans Canada
2014 Special Advisor to the Deputy Secretary to the Cabinet (Operations), Privy Council Office
2010 – 2014 Deputy Commissioner of Operations, Canadian Coast Guard
2007 – 2010 Chief Operating Officer, Passport Canada
2004 – 2007 Director General, Security, Passport Canada
2003 – 2004 Director, Security Operations, Passport Canada

Thomas began her career in the Public Service in 1988 when she was appointed Chief of Business Planning and Administration with Public Works and Government Services Canada’s Atlantic Region.

She has held an appointed office in the federal government for the past 34 years. Although she has held ‘security’ positions, she has no training in intelligence operations. Asset and operations security is a world away from intelligence gathering. She is surprisingly unqualified for her position.

Thomas is only one of many senior government officials who are appointed based on unswerving loyalty to the PMO rather than on competence. She will do and say whatever her boss wants.

Auditor general says CRA's 'lack of rigour' in CERB and other pandemic benefits recovery efforts means majority of overpayments not likely to be recovered.

This is a first look at the perils of adopting the Covid Combat Plan (CCP) of an unelected and unaccountable UN agency – namely the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO).

A few of you may recall that in May 2020, then US President Trump stopped support of the WHO. China stepped into the breach and became the primary funder of the WHO.

It’s eerie that the Covid Combat Plan and the Chinese Communist Party share the same CCP acronym.

It is no coincidence that Dr. Theresa Tam is a veteran of the WHO.

The Covid Combat Plan was defective from the outset as it dealt only with lockdowns of businesses and people. There was nothing in the plan to deal with the obvious economic disaster that would follow.

The Trudeau government put together a patchwork of programs to mitigate incomes lost due to the lockdowns.

In the typical Trudeau style, although mitigation plans required follow-up to detect fraudulent and ineligible claimants, the government failed to ensure that adequate resources were allotted. We are now approaching three years after lockdowns were imposed, and little has been done to recover program payments that should not have been made.

I am not paranoid. I am disgusted with a government that abandoned its responsibilities to Canadians and turned our lives and futures over to unelected third parties with interests competing with our long-term well-being. Trudeau threw us to the crocodiles hoping that by doing so, he might be spared.

Canadians are facing rising interest rates, high inflation levels, an almost certain recession, and probably a depression decreasing the likelihood of any repayments. Chickens are coming home to roost, and not even the CRA can extract blood from a stone.

$27.4 billion would help to shore up our failed healthcare systems, but the misspent funds are gone and are now part of the huge federal debt we pay interest on.

No government can manage an economy without a plan that includes spending priorities to meet the needs of Canadians. This government has no plan and no priorities that match our needs. Trudeau insists that saving the planet is our first priority, although he has no power over climate change.

Promoting the illusion of a crisis and creating unworkable plans to deal with it is the kingdom of crooks, frauds, grafters, shysters and those suffering from delusions of grandeur.

As Thomas Sowell noted: “It is usually futile to talk facts and analysis to people who are enjoying a sense of moral superiority in their ignorance.” That sums up Canada’s current situation in a nutshell.