Imagine being the federal minister in charge of the energy file and skipping a major world conference on a lower carbon that was happening in your own backyard.
This isn’t an imaginary scenario, the minister who did this is Jonathan Wilkinson, Justin Trudeau’s minister of natural resources.
Beijing and other tyrannical regimes exploit gaps in Canadian law to advance their transnational repression in Canada, and a prominent international human rights lawyer says this is a problem that calls for comprehensive legislation to combat their foreign interference.
Winnipeg-based lawyer David Matas, senior legal counsel for B’nai Brith Canada, said repressive states like China, Russia, and Iran have been exploiting organizations such as the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol) to harass and intimidate their own nationals even after they’ve fled abroad to escape persecution back home. He said malign state actors are also abusing conventional mechanisms for international cooperation on criminal matters.
Officials with the town of Ajax, Ont., say in less than two weeks, the town has seen more than 200 asylum seekers arrive, creating a dire situation as shelters across Durham Region are at capacity.
Durham’s regional chair John Henry says the influx of refugees is something they’re not equipped for.
“We were never designed as a level of government to try to manage these problems,” says Henry.
Regular readers will recall that from time to time I inveigh in this space against the uncompetitive economic performance of this country as we slip steadily down the list of the world’s most prosperous per capita incomes and we suffer every year from negative capital flows: more Canadian capital invested outside Canada than Canada attracts from foreigners. The present federal government seems to wish to discourage our primary industry sector, that is all natural resources, though particularly the oil and gas industries. What the world envies about and most needs from Canada is that it is a treasure house of almost all forms of energy, forest products, base and precious metals and non-tropical agriculture. Pierre Trudeau was periodically mesmerized by the anti-economic growth pieties of the Club of Rome, and astonishingly for a man of his high intelligence, did not grasp the importance and desirability of economic growth until its absence endangered his own political incumbency.
It speaks to the culture of spending that pervades official Ottawa that nobody saw anything wrong with spending $71,000 on limousine services when the Governor General visited Iceland for four days last year, even though much of the program took place half a kilometre from Mary Simon’s hotel in Reykjavik.
Reports of possible meddling by Chinese government in Canada’s elections are pressuring Trudeau government
RICHMOND, British Columbia—A series of public revelations about alleged Chinese government meddling in Canadian politics has roiled the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, prompting calls from opposition politicians and China analysts for tighter monitoring of foreign-interference threats within Canada’s borders and a full probe of the alleged activities.
The latest concerns flared when Erin O’Toole, the former Conservative Party leader, said he was told recently by Canadian security officials that Beijing had tried to thwart his path to replace Trudeau as prime minister in the 2021 elections.
It used to be common for opposition politicians to ask at election time: “Are you better off than you were four years ago?” In other words, had the current government improved voters’ lives during its tenure?
Well, it might be a good time to ask of the Trudeau government: “Are you being better served by the federal government than you were eight years ago?”
A growing number of GTA regions are accusing higher governments of stranding them with the costs of sheltering refugees and asylum seekers — with some announcing shelter closures in response.
The cries for help come as Toronto has been locked in its own funding clash with the federal government, a dispute that has left a crowd of newcomers sleeping outside a street outreach referral centre. On Friday morning, representatives of social services such as refugee centres, hospitals and drop-in centres are expected to gather there to press elected officials to take action.
Why does everything Trudeau puts his hand to seem designed to make Canada a shithole state?
Ottawa still spends only a pathetic 1.38% of GDP on defense.
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in Lithuania this week for the annual NATO summit, but it’s too bad there wasn’t a junior table where he could sit. That’s where his country belongs based on Ottawa’s feeble commitment to alliance defense.
In 2014 all NATO members agreed to spend 2% of GDP on defense by 2024. Eleven out of 31 countries now make it, but Canada still isn’t close at 1.38%. That’s up from 1.01% in the nine years since 2014, but it still falls between those exemplars of muscular self-defense Italy (1.46%) and Slovenia (1.35%).
Just a few weeks ago, on World Refugee Day, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau trumpeted his government’s commitment to refugees. In a statement , he said, “Everyone deserves a safe place to call home … And Canada is stepping up: In 2022, for the fourth year in a row, we were the top country in the world to resettle refugees.”
He concluded it with, “Today, we come together as Canadians to keep our country a welcoming place and help build a safer world for everyone.”
Chow and Trudeau seem made for each other.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Canada will contribute $450 million to the United Nations’ main fund to help developing countries cope with climate change, the country’s climate minister said on Wednesday.
The pledge comes as countries prepare for this year’s UN COP28 climate negotiations. Questions around finance are already looming over the talks on how to cut CO2 emissions, which poorer nations say they cannot do without more support to cope with spiralling costs from climate change-fuelled disasters.
People can’t afford a roof over their head but what’s a few hundred million when you can virtue signal.
I can’t help but feel that Guilbeault and his fellow grifters slosh our money around to their friends to buy a cushy job for themselves once they leave office.
h/t Mauser
It is mid-July now, but there are a couple of cabinet ministers who have owed us explanations for months.
Both Bill Blair and Marco Mendicino haven’t adequately answered a question about why they didn’t know something important. Government officials tried to tell them, and somehow, neither was told.
But now the bigger issue is that there are no explanations.
One-third of Canadians say they cannot cover their bills and debt payments, while more than half state they are $200 or less away from being unable to cover their financial obligations, according to a new survey.
The latest results from the MNP Consumer Debt Index—gauging Canadians’ attitudes toward consumer debt and their ability to pay bills, cope with unexpected expenses, and adapt to interest rate fluctuations—were released on July 10 and indicate that Canadians’ concerns about debt and their ability to pay bills have reached unprecedented levels of concern.
This summer, thanks to the Trudeau government’s new Clean Fuel Regulations (CFR), Canadians already struggling with the high cost of gasoline, groceries and other essentials will see the cost of living rise even higher.
The CFR, which went into effect July 1, forces fuel producers and importers to gradually reduce the carbon content of the fuels they sell. By 2030, the “carbon intensity” of these fuels, which measures the emissions generated per unit of energy, must be 15% below 2016 levels. If fuel suppliers fail to meet these standards, they must purchase credits, increasing costs that will inevitably be passed on to Canadians who rely on gasoline or diesel.
Emergency Preparedness Minister Bill Blair says staff in his office and department aren’t to blame for not informing him of Beijing threats to MPs and has repeated that Canada’s spy agency is at fault.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) “had Top Secret information that they felt that I should see, and clearly, the process that they had in place to bring it to my attention was not complete, and did not bring it to my office’s attention and that’s now been remedied,” Mr. Blair said in a press conference in Ottawa on July 11.
