It's been a while. I've been wanting to comment but there's so much out there, I lost the energy to bang these out. It takes time to think things through and there's just too much. Much has happened that hasn't made into posts but such is life. I've been observing as I always do. So I'll jump right in and condense some stories into a Daily Derp.
One topic I was hoping to cover was the Foreign Interference Commission like I did POEC but I simply didn't have the time to sit and listen to hours of testimony (and lame government excuses) for a commission that may or may not be a show trial. Who knows what's going on anymore? I've been listening in parts and hope to listen to clips at some point but for now, I've been following Steven Chase and Sam Cooper - and others.
One thing is clear is that we don't have a serious country wallowing in moronic mediocrity.
None of it reflects well on the Liberals. Yet, there are people out there who claim to be listening and concluding that the report will be devastating to the Conservatives. All political parties are targeted but a picture is developing where all facts point to the LPC being at the centre of all this.
Just another level of scandals for a derelict corrupt government. I don't doubt there are conservatives in the list of names nor do I doubt they were targeted and matt have done nothing to deal with it but isn't that the point of the inquiry? Isn't this a problem across all parties?
Now the defensive PMO and Trudeau are trying to play up the murder of some bad guy on our soil by India story again. But here's the thing. It's not the 'win' or distraction they think it is. Is that event not an example why FIC is taking place? That a foreign government committed an extrajudicial murder on Canadian soil points directly to the very reason why there's an inquiry. That is, years and decades of Canadian irreverence - and now possibly treacherous - behaviour leads to this result.
It's a legit Keystone Cops mess. It's such a disaster I don't even think Canada is capable of fixing this. It's a mindset ingrained in the political establishment. I have no idea how this country hasn't been invaded yet.
What's funny about all this is that Canada once considered Ernst Zundel (who ironically was part of left-wing and liberal parties) a 'national security threat because he denied the holocaust happened. Holocaust denialism was idiotically made illegal in Canada. I don't agree with it but I don't believe people should be thrown in prison for their opinions. Nevertheless, he was a 'threat' but China, Iran, India and Russia interfering in our elections is not seen as a threat given our inaction on the matter. Particularly where China and Iran are concerned who threatened Canadian citizens on our soil with no consequences. Alas, nothing makes sense here. Truckers were a 'national security threat' leading to the illegal invocation of the Emergencies Act but pro-Palestinian protestors swarming Trudeau's RCMP detail are not. Criminalizing such acts set a bad precedent we don't want to necessarily mess with.
I'll stop here. My guess is in the end, FIC will be like POEC. Hogue will say "bad boy" and give her recommendations that will be ignored. And nothing else will matter or happen.
If there are to be consequences it will come by way of how our allies treat us moving forward. Already, we're seeing signs of Canadian being frozen out while the U.S. American intelligence apparatus is basically monitoring Canada like the tin pot banana republic colony it has become under Trudeau.
Canada is a colony of dimwitted whores open for business allowing for all sorts of criminal activity to run rampant.
But hey. Lowest inflation in the G7 and "best country in the world".
Uh-huh.
Moving on.
As usual, not edited. I have to bang these out on first draft. Apologies for any grammatical errors.
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Let's look at what makes Canada so splendid. Oh. Here's an example. Our judicial system and the Supreme Court of Canada. Where in the U.S., conservatives hold the balance of power (and by conservatives I mean fair-weather ones as Coney-Barrett, Kavanaugh and Roberts can easily swing either way so it's actually a decently balanced court), Canada is 100% liberal. Not just liberal but woke social justice liberal. They've swallowed whole the climate change and vaccine "safe and effective" narrative.
That's fine. So long as they're impartial right?
Nah.
Chief Justice Richard Wagner doesn't even pretend to be neutral. As I've written in the past, his public outbursts tainted any reasonable belief that the court is fair and objective.
Chief has entertained us with his most (ahem) enlightened takes on disinformation while suggesting the government wasn't hard enough on the protesting trucker's convoy who broke no laws. In doing so, he basically admitted the Emergencies Act was acceptable with the subsequent freezing of bank accounts. To make matters all the more interesting, a Federal Court ruled the invocation of the Act was illegal. File Under: No shit. t was plainly political as were the futile and unethical Covid restrictions. Harumph.
And despite the fact that pretty much everything the government and public health officials coerced on people were proven pointless, Wagner said citizens need not bother filing any lawsuits because la, la, la he's not going to listen. If the measures had no negative impacts on people it's one thing to hold this unfortunate posture but people were harmed. Many people. It's all there in NCI to see. Including four residents of Coutts, Alberta who were basically railroaded and turned into political prisoners by a vindictive government look for its pound of flesh to make examples of.
All this could and should have been avoided with true leadership.
Yet, he's denying Canadians their right to be heard and present evidence contrary to the government's untenable narratives. It's worse than that, when they chose to not hear Peckford et al, he gave the government the green light to maintain the position that these measures are merely suspended and not fully rescinded and ended. In other words, if it so desires, the government can lock the country down again "because emergency" without the need to present facts or evidence. Just declarations will suffice. You must take this shot. You must wear the mask. You will social distance. You are to remain in your home.
It's all so incredible if not spectacularly stupid.
And it was with most interest I read this piece in Harvard Law Today titled "Is a distrusted judiciary 'truly the beginning of the end'?'
Um. Yes?
I think it was Beccaria who argued once the public perceives there's no justice they lose trust in the institutions - in this case the courts - tasked to ensure justice is served.
It astonishes me how people don't see that 2020 shattered any illusions we have a fair and functional judicial system. It has steadfastly refused to listen to Canadians. In doing so, it has shown deference to the government. It will not defend Charter rights if there's no will from the public. They have dubiously argued because the measures were ended (recall suspended) it's not in the public's interest and that the matter is now moot. But how can they determine this without giving Canadians their day in court?
Forcing people against their will under the threat of loss of employment or removal of rights enshrined in the Bill of Rights and as far back as the Magna Carta and even document since (as was, for example, the case with the denial of mobility rights and idiotic vaccine passports supported by just about every influential expert in this country) will come with unintended consequences. Pretty amazing that people in positions of great power and influence aloofly disregarded a basic premise of human nature: People don't like to do things against their will.
You don't apply a coercive one size fits all policy in a free democracy. It's bound to cause friction and you'd better damn have the evidence to back your claims up if you're going to ruin lives.
And they didn't. So for millions of Canadians, public health is a failure and the court not to be trusted for blindly backing them up.
Let's break down the article:
"Canada may not be a superpower, Canadian Supreme Court Chief Justice the Hon. Richard Wagner told a Harvard Law School audience on Friday. “But I like to think we are a superpower in terms of democracy.”
Not since 2020 we are. And certainly not with all these bills from C-11, 18 to the Online Harm's bill. Canada ceased, to me, being a functional democracy and when Canadians tried and pleaded for courts to step in, they were instead mocked.
Canada has no lessons to give on democracy. It chose to play this way.
He defined this as “good justice for all, rather than perfect justice for a few.”
His public outbursts tell a different story.
"Access to justice is both an elusive goal and a “democratic imperative,” he said."
But access denied to people challenging the Covid measures? Italians, Irish, Negroes, Jews need not apply.
“The spread of lies and half-truths can threaten democratic institutions throughout the world,” Wagner said. “Open and transparent courts are an antidote to misinformation.”
I find this assertion troubling. Who is he to claim there's a spread of "lies"? Is he reading it in the news? If so, which news? The legacy corporate media? Where's he getting his "truth"? It's hard to find the truth if you're not going to allow for dissenting voices to present their evidence, no? Here he shows that the only truth is what the government says it is.
Canada is very good at talking a good game and very bad at playing it out.
“Citizens in any country governed by rule of law need to recognize themselves in the institutions, including the courts,”
I hear this claim made by liberals but not sure it's correct. This is a variation of identity politics. Wagner is making his social justice credentials known. What should matter is people see BLIND JUSTICE in the system. Once you assign culture and race to law, you're on your way to all sorts of multiple-standards leaving you vulnerable to perception of laws being applied unevenly.
” Every Canadian federal judge is now required to take courses in systemic racism, sexual assault law, and systemic disinformation. “All of these topics are relevant to access to justice, and we have taken steps to export that expertise outside of Canada.”
This is an example of Judges are being fed a steady diet of left-wing Marxist propaganda. What in The Blazing Saddles is "systemic disinformation"? Can Wagner not see how problematic and frivolous this argument is? Alas, we all know the law associations in Canada are full blown leftists.
Wagner is over rating this 'expertise'.I'm willing to bet 1) it will be rejected in most places in the world where wokism is non-existent and 2) even in the West we're likely to see a shift away from all this empty jargon. My bet is Canada bet on the wrong horse. It has a knack for that sort of thing.
I reject this notion. Outright. It should be removed from the judiciary immediately.
“In Canada, I am happy to say that we are going in the right direction. Out of the last 70 appointments of federal judges, 50 percent were women. We have people from visible minorities, and from the LGBTQ minority as well.”
DEI in action. A quota system in full bloom and flight. Wagner has taken the judiciary into uncharted territory based on an assumption that 'diversity' is the same as diversity of ideas. Instead, what we're going to get is an increasingly intolerant judiacry that will simply deny access to those it perceives to be guilty of promulgating "misdismalinformation.'
Take a gander at how the internal logic of DEI actually works.
Don't act shocked - SHOCKED - by the result in other institutions.
DEI portends to be on level with merit and that it "equals" the playing field.
It's not and it doesn't.
“In Canada it is very hard, in fact nearly impossible, to determine where a judge will stand on a specific legal issue. We have no such thing as a political appointment.”
Prior to 2020, I would have believed this. After 2020? I've become skeptical. Again, simply basing it on what's happened where Canadians were denied their rights and the courts slammed the door on them. It even went as dark as to not hear the case of an unvaccinated woman - Lewis - who was denied a transplant. I think the courts in Canada are highly politicized. It's just that the line between the executive and judiciary is basically blurred so we think we're not politicized. The entire decision to not listen to Covid lawsuits IS politics by other means. SCC rulings don't come with the same explanations for opinions.
I don't think Wagner quite grasp the role he played in the fall of trust in public institutions. Over the years, I've read more American opinions than Canadians ones. In fact, I never read a Canadian one. SCOTUS are intellectual works of arts sometimes. I've not been impressed by the opinions of judges during Covid. They read exactly what you'd expect from an institution committed to DEI. Unoriginal, tedious and predictable. I don't think I'm taking too much of a chance in arguing Canadian law - so full of itself - will offer much to the process of democracy should it ever get back on track. We'll be outside of that track.
They can ignore the real anger and discontent over what happened during Covid all they want but it's there.
And it's not going to go away until people are heard.
Take that for access.
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Maybe Parks Canada and Fema should merge. Sounds like they exchange notes.
What happened at Jasper? Well, we won't find out under the most transparent government EVAH!
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Ok. Since I went over with the SCC bit I'll close with the carbon tax.
To anyone with a modicum of sense, the tax is just that: A tax.
Shorter PBO: Rebates don't offset net costs.
On top of that, they're charging GST. A tax on top of a regressive tax that in the end doesn't result in the desired outcome. It won't because the premise that carbon is a main driver of emissions causing the opaque "climate change" is a faulty one. One that is dubious and hotly disputed by several experts some of whom are Nobel laureates. But shh. Stick to Nye, Suzuki, De Grasse-Tyson and the climate-green-grift complex.
You heard the propaganda. 8 in 10 Canadians will get a rebate higher than what they paid in taxes? If you're over 30 and believe this crap, you really need to sit it out. It's on the same level as 95% effective, 96% consensus and 4 in 5 dentists.
It's bull shit and you should know better.
Especially given it comes from a convicted felon who has consistently been found to be less than honest with the Canadian public. He's an activist. Nothing else.
Another claim is that it's revenue neutral. I spent many years in financial services. One thing I was good at is spotting empty jargon and that's one of them. Schemes like this are never neutral.
Never.
Then why do it? Same with the 8 in 10. Why take the money in the first place?
Oh. Right. It's better than doing nothing!
Net cost considers the overall economic impact, and not just the fiscal. When just the fiscal aspect is considered, they can argue that the rebate is higher than what taxpayers pay into it. However, when you consider how a tax impacts all levels of the supply chain, you get a net loss. Not gain. It’s not rocket science. In other words, what cost, for example, $1 to transport, say, corn is now $1.25. And that finds its way into higher food prices at the end of the supply chain. That’s the economic part in simplistic terms leaving aside inflation and possible corporate pricing games.
It's stupid to think a tax doesn't impact household budgets eating into discretionary income. it's even dumber to think a tax as a means to social engineer habits is going to have an impact on the environment.
The story isn't good for Canadians. Imagine Quebec which levies its own 'cap and trade' tax system. I'm pretty Quebecers are even worse off than their Canadian brethren.
We're all worse off for nothing. Pretending otherwise is:
A tax on a tax shouldn’t just be illegal, it should also be considered IMMORAL.
Snap out of it and stop contending to wealth distribution schemes that don't benefit you.
