FEDERAL JUDGE STRIKES DOWN WISCONSIN'S VOTING RESTRICTIONS

A federal judge on Friday struck down a string of Wisconsin voting restrictions passed by the Republican-led legislature and ordered the state to revamp its voter identification rules, finding that they disenfranchised minority voters.

Republicans say voter ID laws are needed to prevent voter fraud. Democrats say the laws are really intended to make it harder for poor African-Americans and Latinos, who tend to vote Democrat, to vote.

 

EARLY IDENTIFICATION OF ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE

A Canadian researcher has developed a non-invasive way to test for Alzheimer’s disease years before a patient begins to show symptoms – and all it takes is a simple eye scan.

 

ANY PLANS TO CUT SPENDING OR PAY OFF ONTARIO'S DEBT?

Just like a few pounds accumulated on your waistline over the years, Ontario’s $300 billion in debt is going to be hard to shed, says Tory Finance Critic Vic Fedeli.

A week after Ontario’s debt crossed that mind-boggling mark, and the province’s financial watchdog predicted the Liberal government will add $50 billion more to that total over the next four years, Fedeli said it’s clear there’s no plan to pay it back or cut spending. But convincing Ontarians of the need to cut back might be an even bigger challenge, he concedes.

 

ONTARIANS' ENVIRONMENTAL RIGHTS

The Ontario Ministry of Environment & Climate Change poses the question: Should the right to a healthy environment be entrenched in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms?  The environmental bill of rights (EBR) review is being done to help "modernize the EBR and improve its efficiency and effectiveness."

It has nothing to do with targeting rural Ontario.  Really.

 

WYNNE'S LIBERALS IGNORING THE FACTS. AGAIN

Neonicotinoids — an insecticide coating on seeds before planting — are not affecting bees as some groups would want us to believe, says the president of CropLife Canada, a seed industry supporter. “Unfortunately, the Ontario government bowed to pressure from activist groups and introduced regulations to severely limit farmers’ use of neonic-treated seeds."

 

NFU(O) & OFA SUPPORT CLIMATE CHANGE ACTION PLAN

The National Farmers Union of Ontario (NFU-O) and the Ontario Federation of Agriculture (OFA) have both come out in support of the provincial Climate Change Action Plan.

The NFU-O called the plan “a tangible way for Ontario to meet its new greenhouse gas emissions goals,” and the OFA described it as “a significant commitment to the health and well-being of the planet,” adding that it “looks forward to the opportunities for the agriculture industry.”

 

RETURN ON CPP CONTRIBUTIONS MEAGRE

The claim that the CPP provides Canadians with a strong rate of return does not withstand scrutiny. Younger Canadians will continue to receive a meagre return for their CPP contributions even after expansion.

 

ANOTHER $70MILLION DISAPPEARED BY WYNNE

Well, there’s another $70 million down the drain.

Yep, in the middle of summer, a couple of days before the long weekend and on a day when the government knew the media would be preoccupied with the sentencing of Const. James Forcillo, Finance Minister Charles Sousa quietly lets us know the cost of his ill-fated Ontario Retirement Pension Plan (ORPP).

 

FISH FACTS

Persecuted by anglers and deprived of places to spawn, the alligator gar — with a head that resembles an alligator and two rows of needlelike teeth — survived primarily in southern states in the tributaries of Mississippi River and Gulf of Mexico after being declared extinct in several states farther north. To many, it was a freak, a "trash fish" that threatened sport fish, something to be exterminated.

But the once-reviled predator is now being seen as a valuable fish in its own right, and as a potentially potent weapon against a more threatening intruder: the invasive Asian carp

 

 

OSPCA POWER GRAB

 The Ontario Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals  has revoked the ability of the Ottawa Humane Society to investigate cases of animal cruelty.  The OHS claims sour grapes for having spoken out about problems with the association.

 

TRANSFORMING TURKEY

Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has been in power either as prime minister or president since 2003. During these years, Erdogan moved slowly and carefully to transform Turkey from a mostly free, mostly secular democracy into an authoritarian Islamist state.  Those plans have accelerated, as Erdogan now wants to take control of the military and the intelligence agencies. If he can pull it off, it would make Erdogan the most powerful leader in Turkey since the last Sultan, Mehmed VI.

 

CLINTON CAMPAIGN HACKED, TRUMP BLAMED

The computer network used by Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s campaign was hacked as part of a broad cyber attack on Democratic political organizations.

The latest attack, which was disclosed to Reuters on Friday, follows reports of two other hacks on the Democratic National Committee and the party’s fundraising committee for candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives.

 

BC'S TAX ON FOREIGN BUYERS

The governing B.C. Liberals ended their emergency summer session of the legislature by passing housing legislation with what amounted to a roll of the dice on one of the biggest tax changes since 2009’s ill-fated Harmonized Sales Tax.

Finance Minister Mike de Jong said while he doesn’t necessarily agree he rolled the dice, he’s also not entirely sure what the new 15 per cent property transfer tax on foreign buyers will do to Metro Vancouver’s super-heated housing market

 

POPE FRANCIS'S FOLLY ON RELIGIONS AT WAR

As the Islamic genocide against Christians and other “infidels” goes on and on in the Middle East, jihadists shouting "allahu akbar" (God is great) invaded a Catholic church in Normandy France during mass on July 26^th. They beheaded an 85-year-old priest and seriously injured a nun. Yet while declaring that “the world is at war,” Pope Francis refused to acknowledge that this war has any religious component.

Pope Francis explained to journalists accompanying him from Rome to Poland that the war he was referring to was “a war of interests, for money, resources.”   He added:  “Religions don’t want war. The others want war.”

 

HOME COUNTRIES WON'T ACCEPT RETURNING MIGRANTS

North Rhine-Westphalia Interior Minister Ralf Jäger has criticised the governments of North African countries saying that they are refusing to accept migrants who have been deported from Germany, Donau Kurier reports.

“We must ensure that the migrants who do not need protection can be as quickly returned to their home countries,” Mr. Jäger told German media, but claimed that the problem wasn’t just deporting the migrants from Germany, but getting their countries of origin in North Africa to let them back in. “Above all, Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia are uncooperative,” he said.

 

BIRTH TOURISM FROM CHINA IN BC

Health ministry investigators are aware of more than two dozen so-called birth houses in B.C. offering pregnant foreign mothers temporary room and board before and after giving birth in local hospitals, according to Freedom of Information documents obtained by Postmedia.

The baby houses, as they are called in Asia, are used by women seeking instant Canadian citizenship for their newborns. 

 

SHARED VALUES OF CANADA AND SAUDI ARABIA

Saudi Arabia’s top official in Canada is defending his country’s human rights record and a controversial $15-billion sale of Canadian-made armoured vehicles to the Saudi Arabian National Guard, noting that despite “misleading information” in the media, he still believes the contract will bring the two countries closer.

 

CHARGES DROPPED AGAINST PRO-LIFE REPORTERS

Charges against  David Daleiden and Sandra Merritt, the two reporters whose undercover videos of Planned Parenthood employees selling fetal body parts shocked the nation, have been dropped in Texas.

 

MEDIA IN DENIAL OVER ISLAMIST TERROR

While the rest of the world reels from the shock of recent Islamist terror attacks in Germany and France, our ruling elite and media seem to be in a state of denial, if not fear, of being labelled “Islamophobic”.

 

WYNNE CLANGING THE BULLSH!T METER AGAIN

It turns out Ontario's economic performance isn't as strong compared with some of our American neighbours as Premier Kathleen Wynne claimed.

 

9/11 REPORT REVEALS STINGING BETRAYAL

With friends like Saudi Arabia, who needs enemies? Last week we learned that the Saudi government almost certainly played a role in the 9/11 terrorist attack and that our government kept that secret from the public for about fourteen years.   But if Saudi Arabia is the worst, Pakistan must be a close second. After Navy SEALs raided Osama bin Laden’s hideout in May 2011, it became startlingly obvious that the Pakistanis had been his willing hosts for about nine years.

 

EUROPE'S GLARING HYPOCRISY ON TERROR AND ISRAEL

Western Europe is now being hit by a wave of terror. Israel has expressed sympathy to the governments and peoples, and is helping or has offered to help the hardest-hit countries—France, Germany, and Belgium—fight the terror.  It has been different when terror has pounded Israel. Even during the five-year onslaught known as the Second Intifada (2000-2005), Europe was sharply critical of Israel and denounced all its terror-fighting methods as immoral.

 

THE F-35 SAGA; GETTING MORE RIDICULOUS

Canada has so far forked over more than $311 million to develop the F-35 — without any guarantee it will actually buy the multibillion-dollar stealth fighter.

The most recent instalment was made June 24, when the Liberal government quietly paid $32.9 million to the U.S. program office overseeing development of the warplane, despite having promised during last year's election campaign not to buy the F-35.

 

POUNDING ALBERTA

Move over, British Columbia: Canada's oilpatch next door in Alberta is on track to have Canada's most aggressive carbon pricing system by 2020.

 

CLICK FOR YOUR BOOZE IN ONTARIO

The Liquor Control Board of Ontario launched online sales Tuesday with a website that lets people buy from nearly 5,000 products and have them delivered to their home or a local liquor store.

 

CRACKING DOWN ON CANADIAN OFFSHORE TAX CHEATS

Two banks have agreed to give the federal revenue minister information from the accounts of a Caribbean financial institution to help the government crack down on Canadian tax evaders.

 

ONTARIO'S CYA LIBERALS

In his first annual report, Ontario’s new financial accountability officer complains — again — the Liberal government is stonewalling his requests for information. 

Opposition finance critics accused Premier Kathleen Wynne’s government of trying to hamstring LeClair, who told reporters in March he suspects information is being withheld by officials because of “political direction” from the Liberals.

 

 

JUST WHAT WE NEED

Statistics Canada is privately floating the idea of new powers that would make all of its surveys mandatory by default and force certain companies to hand over requested data, such as credit card transactions and Internet search records.

RUSSIANS SHAKING IN THEIR BOOTS

The Liberal government turned the page on two years of acrimony between Canada and Russia on Monday as Foreign Affairs Minister Stephane Dion sat down for his first formal meeting with Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov.  The meeting was the first of its kind between Canada and Russia in years. The previous Conservative government steadfastly refused to meet with anyone from the Kremlin until Russia left Crimea, the peninsula it annexed from Ukraine in March 2014.

 

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

How could anyone not be excited about the new free-trade deal among the provinces? Well, perhaps it’s not accurate to call it a “free-trade” deal — even though the provinces insist on calling it that — since the premiers and territorial leaders who announced it Friday intend to carve out protections for their favourite rent-seekers and pet industries.  Nor is it quite a “deal,” either. So far, all the premiers have agreed to is a concept, in principle, to draft a proposal that would automatically eliminate trade barriers for goods and services that aren’t politically fraught.

BC'S CLARK: A DAY LATE & A DOLLAR SHORT

Foreign buyers in Vancouver's scorching real estate market will soon pay a new tax that Premier Christy Clark says is aimed at making housing more affordable for British Columbia's middle-class buyers.   The government took aim at foreign buyers Monday, highlighting housing data that indicates they spent more than $1 billion on B.C. property in a five-week period starting June 10, with 86 per cent of that spending recorded in the Lower Mainland area.

 

BLATANT INFLUENCE PEDDLING IN ONTARIO

Political staff of many Ontario cabinet ministers double as fundraisers for the Liberal Party, encouraging companies that do business with government to buy tickets to private events hosted by the same ministers who make decisions on contracts and policy. 
When the Liberals were in opposition, for instance, the party needed bank loans to stay afloat: “I used to think, ‘Okay. We all think we’re pure and everybody thinks they’re pure, but the next time something comes up with the banking industry and you’re in government, are you going to be influenced by the way you were treated when you were in opposition?’

LOBBYISTS ARE GIDDY ON PARLIAMENT HILL

Federal lobbyists say they are busier now than in years past thanks to a new and more accessible Liberal government eager to consult along with new possibilities opening up under an increasingly independent Senate.  In the first six months of 2016, under the new Liberal majority government, a total of 12,187 communications reports have been filed.

 

WHEN WHORES GET TOO OLD....

...they get worried about their gas emissions. 
Read the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers' latest press release...and keep a bag handy.

19% ADJUSTMENT NEEDED AT NASA

NASA researcher Mark Richardson has completed a study which compares historical observations with climate model output, and has concluded that historical observations have to be adjusted, to reconcile them with the climate models.

 

EXPOSING THE DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE

The most fascinating aspect of the controversy over the Democratic National Committee's hacked emails that has resulted in Deborah Wasserman Schultz’s resignation—a quasi firing—is that everything was fine with Wasserman-Schultz until... she got caught.

GERMANY'S VANISHING MIGRANTS

German authorities do not know the whereabouts of 130,000 migrants, the government confessed today. It means that more than one in ten unvetted new arrivals from the Middle East have disappeared, somewhere in Europe. 

 

IT'S TIME TO FIX HEALTH CARE

Political wisdom says don’t mess with public health care.

It’s the third rail of Canadian politics: Touch it and you’re dead.

As this province grapples with ever-growing wait-times for hospital procedures and as doctors sound alarm bells about the sustainability of a one-payer public system, other options are increasingly being suggested.

 

CAP-AND-FRAUD

Nothing disastrous has occurred in North America’s fledgling carbon market — yet — other than a recent crash in the price of carbon credits, which, while alarming, wasn’t due to fraud.

But Europe’s older and larger cap-and-trade market, the Emissions Trading Scheme, is overrun by fraud.

 

 

THE MERGING OF PARASITES

Tesla Motors Inc TESLA.O and SolarCity Corp SCTO.O have made progress in putting together a deal that will merge the electric car maker and the solar panel installer, people familiar with the matter said.

 

ERDOGAN'S STATE OF EMERGENCY

With the failed/staged Turkish coup quickly fading from memory and media attention, just as Erdogan likes it, and opposition from "western democracies" to a historic purge virtually non-existant aside from the occasional media soundbite, overnight Erdogan implemented his first decree since imposing a state of emergency in the country last week, and tightened his grip on Turkey by ordering the closure of thousands of private schools, charities and other institutions in his first decree since imposing a state of emergency after the failed military coup.

 

FISH SH!T FOR BRAINS IN CALIFORNIA

The San Luis Reservoir supplies water to the Santa Clara Valley, San Benito County as well as farmers in the Central Valley.  As of July 22nd, the reservoir stood at 11% of total capacity (226k AF) which puts storage well below the levels recorded during the driest season recorded in 1976-1977.  This news comes in spite of a robust rainy season in California with YTD precipitation roughly 16% higher than the long-term average and over 200% higher than the driest 1976-1977 season.

SCRUBBING NAMES

Ths snowflakes at the BBC have taken the concept of "Don't be beastly to the Muslim" to a whole new level.

In all articles, TV news shows, and on social media, all references to the Munich shooter's first name -- "Ali" -- have been scrubbed. Instead, Ali David Sonboly is reported as simply "David Sonboly."

 

THE BEST PROTEST THERE NEVER WAS

A year too late and decibels too quiet, but with a flair for the obvious, Grain Farmers of Ontario announce that winterkill - not chemicals - is the great bee-killer.
According to Grain Farmers of Ontario, more colonies seem to be lost during severe winters than mild ones – and that, not the neonicotinoid pesticides currently subject to a provincial crackdown, may be the biggest factor behind bee deaths.

WYNNE'S NEVER-ENDING OBSESSION FOR YOUR MONEY

The great Ontario Liberal electricity cash grab isn’t over yet. The government has sold off 30 per cent of its shares in the province’s biggest monopoly power distributor, Hydro One, netting about $3.7 billion. Another 30 per cent will be sold later. The money raised from shareholders in the market will fall into a slush fund the Kathleen Wynne government says will be used to pay for “investment in public infrastructure” and help balance the provincial budget.

But there’s more to come. The province is busy orchestrating another electricity deal to net the government hundreds of millions more.

 

TRUDEAU KICKING THE CAN DOWN THE ROAD

So beware, young Canadians. All the glitzy White House dinners and Vogue articles in the world won’t help you pay off the future tax obligations being accumulated in your name by this government. You might want to consider that next time you go to the ballot box.

 

LEAKED EMAIL: DNC & CLINTON

Leaked emails purportedly sent between staffers at the Democratic National Committee and reporters show that some in Hillary Clinton's camp were worried that the DNC strategy for fighting Donald Trump might actually help to make Donald Trump seem like a legitimate choice by some voters come November

 

HUNTING: A NATURAL THING TO DO

Yukon Premier Darrell Pasloski hasn't only welcomed his colleagues from across Canada this week — he's fed them as well.

The avid hunter and his son Taylor shot the moose and Dall sheep served to the provincial and territorial leaders at a private dinner Wednesday night.

 

ADDING INSULT TO INJURY

Newly released documents obtained by the CBC also show that officials were warned as early as Jan. 18 that the new Phoenix system has a flaw that allows widespread access to employees’ personnel records, including social insurance numbers.

Foote told the CBC she learned only this week of the internal breach of private information. “I am aware of it, and I’ve been told that none of the information became public.”

 

 

CANADA'S FADING LNG DREAMS

B.C.’s LNG industry remains little more than a fantasy. Not a single one of the dozen-plus LNG export plants once proposed in B.C. is under construction, let alone operating. With LNG prices in the ditch, the odds of one being built anytime soon appear slim. Meanwhile, it’s a completely different story south of the border

 

IT AIN'T EASY BEING GREEN

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is considering a request to guarantee new debt offerings to finish an over-budget and delayed hydroelectric project, a test of his support for low-emission energy development.

The estimated cost of the Muskrat Falls project in Newfoundland and Labrador has ballooned to C$11.4 billion ($8.7 billion) from C$7.4 billion

 

ONTARIO LIBERALS CUT NEARLY $1BILLION FROM PHYSICIANS' SERVICES

Disgruntled doctors around the province are warning our health-care system is stretched to the limits — and the tentative pact negotiated between the Ontario Medical Association and the health ministry will make matters worse.

 

 

THE COSTS OF PIPELINE OBSTRUCTIONISM

The Fraser Institute:  This paper reviews how Western Canadian oil producers are being con­strained by the inability to access new markets via ocean ports and how this constraint, along with the drop in oil prices, the Alberta ceiling on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in oil sands operations, and regulatory obstacles are affecting pipeline infrastructure requirements and decisions.

 

CANADIAN JOKE JUDGES

Now Canadian judges can decide if jokes “are too mean to be funny”.

 

 

BLACK HEROES EXPOSE FREDDY GRAY HOAX

The Freddie Gray hoax was a rigged game. It took courage to expose it. And that’s what Judge Williams and Detective Taylor did. The legal case against the six officers consisted of speculation, assumptions and innuendo. The case was baseless, but the fix was in from the White House to the residence of Baltimore’s mayor, and a bad judge would have let it pass.

 

MSNBC'S SPECIAL SNOWFLAKE VIEWERS

MSNBC's Rachel Maddow had to offer a trigger warning to the gentle souls who watch her show Wednesday night before showing images of RNC swag because they might have made them "uncomfortable." MSNBC's special snowflake viewers might have even gotten woozy and swooned at the sight of the anti-Hillary buttons that were on sale at the convention.

 

REVOLUTION IN THE ELECTRONICS INDUSTRY

Japanese startup invents a marker pen with conductive ink allowing the user to draw electrical circuits.

 

3 STABBINGS IN 30 HOURS

In Canada's capital city Ottawa.

THE IMPORTANCE OF TOAD STUDIES

The ability to predict when toads come out of hibernation in southern Canada could provide valuable insights into the future effects of climate change on a range of animals and plants. McGill University professor David M. Green of the Redpath Museum and his students have been studying Fowler’s Toads for over 24 consecutive years. Green’s focus? To use weather records to predict the springtime emergence of toads from their annual eight-month hibernation — and, by doing so, determine if a warming climate is changing the toads’ behaviour.

You can't make this sh!t up.

 

PREMIERS CIRCLING THEIR WAGONS

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the government will impose a "strong" price on carbon — and won't rule out a cap to ensure provinces meet a national standard.

In an interview with CBC News, Trudeau said putting a price on carbon is an "essential element" of the Liberals' climate change plan

 

ERDOGAN DECLARES 3-MONTH STATE OF EMERGENCY

Turkey tried to assure its citizens and the outside world on Thursday that there will be no return to the deep repression of the past, even though President Tayyip Erdogan has imposed the first nationwide state of emergency since the 1980s.  Now what could possibly go wrong?

 

FAILING TO SPOT THE WARNING SIGNS

It was among the most audacious cyber-heists ever to emerge – shining a light on worrying weaknesses in the global financial system and into a little-known corner of the U.S. Federal Reserve

The heist revealed that the New York Fed lacked a system for spotting potential fraud in real time – even though such systems are used elsewhere – instead relying at times on checking payments after they were made, usually for problems such as violating U.S. sanctions.

 

#1 SONG IN AMERICA

Federal Prison Blues

TRUDEAU FIDDLES WHILE ALBERTA BURNS

On Monday, the TD Bank’s economic analysis unit estimated Alberta’s economy will shrink a further 3% this year. Any recovery will be long and slow.

The longer Canada waits to build oil pipelines, the longer it will take for us to recover from the current economic downturn brought on by low world prices.

 

 

WYNNE'S RECORD BREAKING SPENDING

"This morning, the Financial Accountability Officer confirmed ... that Ontario will continue to be the largest sub-national borrower in the world," said Progressive Conservative finance critic Vic Fedeli.

"He also confirmed what we've been saying for months, that the government is using one-time money from asset sales, contingency funds and tax increases to artificially balance the budget in an election year."

 

BIG PHARMA: ALL ABOUT THE MONEY

Some of the world's largest drug companies are taking out their checkbooks for acquisitions of smaller peers whose cancer drugs have the potential to cure not just patients, but corporate growth prospects as well.

After decades in which progress meant extending life by weeks or months, new cancer treatments hold promise of adding years to patients' lives and billions of dollars in revenue to the companies that own them. Some of the most promising, known as immunotherapy, harness the body's own defense system to fight cancer.

 

BRISON BLAMES PHOENIX PAY PROBLEMS ON CONSERVATIVES

Federal officials have apologized to more than 80,000 employees who have had problems with their pay, and promised to work around the clock to fix the failed system.  A dozen unions representing federal workers have already filed a notice of application in Federal Court to force the government to pay its employees properly and on time. Aylward said that court action will proceed.

DESTROYING GERMANY

Sexual assault of women en masse was unheard of in modern Germany since the rape of Berlin in 1945, following the invasion of Soviet troops. But it became an abrupt reality again in 2016.

 Among the German population there are now repeated accusations that German media has an agenda set by the government and that it sets editorial demands in line with the government’s wishes, which are dictated by politics and ideology.

 

HOCKEY STICK MANN: CLIMATE TOOLS INCREASINGLY UNNECESSARY

What is disconcerting to me and so many of my colleagues is that these tools that we’ve spent years developing increasingly are unnecessary because we can see the impacts of climate change playing out in real time on our television screens in the 24 hour news cycle.

 

ERDOGAN: "THEY WILL PAY A HEAVY PRICE FOR THIS"

Turkey widened a crackdown on suspected supporters of a failed military coup on Sunday, taking the number of people rounded up in the armed forces and judiciary to 6,000, and the government said it was in full control of the country and economy.

 

BC HOLDS OFF SIGNING CPP DEAL

Morneau's March budget had promised to "launch consultations to give Canadians an opportunity to share their views on enhancing the Canada Pension Plan," but they have yet to take place.

The federal government's push to swiftly conclude an agreement to boost the Canada Pension Plan hit a snag Friday when British Columbia declined to put its pivotal signature on the deal.

 

CLUELESS POLITICIANS

We are living in an age of economically clueless governments, both federally and provincially.

 

MARK CARNEY: ALARMIST-IN-CHIEF

Carney was introduced as the former governor of the Bank of Canada “whose calm and steady hand helped guide our country, and arguably the global financial system, on the heels of the global financial crisis.” And today “the world again is looking to him as we face uncertainty in the wake of Brexit.”  And also now, apparently, the world continues to turn to Mark Carney for climate change salvation.

Terence Corcoran of the National Post tears a strip off Carney for portraying climate change as a potential financial catastrophe unless steps are taken now by the world’s financial players to integrate climate and carbon risks into all their decision-making and financial disclosure.

 

PURPOSELY MISLEADING & LYING TO THE PUBLIC

"When things get serious, you have to lie." says the President of the European Commission.

SKYROCKETING ELECTRICITY BILLS IN RURAL ONTARIO

Ontario’s energy minister, Glenn Thibeault, has no idea how many people in Ontario are behind on their electricity bills. The Ontario Energy Board, responsible for setting hydro rates in the province, has no idea either. 

Of the nearly 10,000 disconnections performed by Hydro One last year, only 7,269 were reconnected, or roughly 75 per cent.

 

BRAZIL THREATENS WTO CHALLENGE TO BOMBARDIER BAILOUT

The Quebec government finalized a $1-billion (U.S.) investment in Bombardier in June, and the Montreal-based aircraft maker is still looking for commensurate help from the Liberal government in Ottawa.

 Brazil’s Foreign Relations Minister, Jose Serra, said Thursday he’s considering taking a complaint to the WTO, which functions as a referee of fair trade between member countries. Brazil is very protective of its homegrown aircraft maker, Embraer.

Mr. Trudeau didn’t appear fazed by this on Friday.  “The fact of the matter is there is no country in the world that doesn’t heavily subsidize its aerospace sector,” he told reporters.

 

LIBERALS TO INTRODUCE NATIONAL CARBON PRICE

Canada will have a national price on carbon emissions by the end of this year, Environment Minister Catherine McKenna says.  Canada’s premiers agreed in March, along with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to have their governments develop an emissions reduction plan and present it by October. The plan would be preceded by study of “carbon pricing mechanisms adapted to each province’s and territory’s specific circumstances,” which premiers interpreted broadly to include things such as carbon capture and storage.

 

HOMEMADE EXPLOSIVE TATP

Law enforcement briefed on an investigation into an explosion in Central Park over the July 4th holiday weekend say the blast was a result of a homemade explosive device.

Initial reports claimed the explosion was merely fireworks.

 

OBAMA OPPOSES TURKEY'S ANTI-ISLAMIST COUP

President Barack Obama is speaking out against the military coup that is now seeking to overthrow Turkey’s elected Islamist government.

 Turkey's President Erdogan has pushed step-by-step create an Islamic state. That Islamic push is being resisted by secular, educated Turks, mostly in the major cities.  Erdogan has also tried to revive the defunct Ottoman Empire by building a new presidential palace and surrounding himself with guards dressed as the soldiers of the Ottoman empire, which collapsed in 1920.

 

ATTEMPTED MILITARY COUP IN TURKEY

Forces loyal to the Turkish government fought on Saturday to crush the remnants of a military coup attempt which crumbled after crowds answered President Tayyip Erdogan’s call to take to the streets and dozens of rebels abandoned their tanks.

Ninety people were killed, including many civilians after a faction of the armed forces tried to seize power using tanks and attack helicopters. Some strafed the headquarters of Turkish intelligence and parliament in the capital, Ankara, and others seized a major bridge in Istanbul.

 

CRITICISING IMMIGRANTS IN GERMANY

The offending Facebook page’s founding statement was read out in the courtroom. Written by Peter M. it read: “The war and economic refugees are flooding our country. They bring terror, fear, sorrow. They rape our women and put our children at risk. Bring an end to it!”.  The trial came amid a nationwide crackdown on “verbal radicalisation” by the German Federal Police (BKA). This week police launched a nationwide raid on the homes of people suspected of posting xenophobic and anti-mass migration posts on the internet.

 

#COIFFEURGATE

Francois Hollande's haircuts cost the people of France more than 14,000$ a month.

H CLINTON GUILTY; SHE DOES NOT CARE

Bill Whittle:  What David Horowitz called “the most breathtaking fix in American history” was so flagrant, so audacious, so shamefully and obviously crooked, and reeked of such bottomless contempt, that I take exception to the idea, frequently stated, that they must take us for idiots.

They don’t take us for idiots. They take us for cowards. They know that we know, and they don’t care.

 

UK PM MAY SCRAPS DEP'T OF ENERGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE

It’s true that the most significant benefit its closure will bring lies not so much in saved costs as in the likelihood of reduced regulation. In Britain, as in the rest of the world, green taxes and regulations have added a significant burden to economic growth, as well as having a distorting effect on energy markets.

This is good news. Very good news. The agonised screeching of all the usual suspects in the Environmental movement will be enough to sustain many of us in lols for weeks and months to come.

 

SHAKEUP AT OTTAWA CITY HALL

Admitting that the bureaucracy in Ottawa City Hall is short on “organizational effectiveness,” new city manager Steve Kanellakos has dismissed several senior managers.

He told city council his plan is to flatten the city bureaucracy, bust silos and make the city workforce more responsive on Wednesday. It begins with eliminating the two deputy city managers and a handful of other top jobs, and merging many others.  Kanellakos’s final org chart cuts the number of senior managers from 21 to nine.

 

THORNY ISSUE OF HEALTH TRANSFERS

Quebec's health minister says the federal government has indicated it plans to let the annual increase in provincial health transfers fall to half its current level by the end of the year.

As efforts to forge a new federal-provincial health accord continue, Gaetan Barrette says his officials have been told that Ottawa has no appetite to keep the escalator at its current level of six per cent.

 

ALBERTA'S 2015/16 DEFICIT AT $6.4BILLION

Once you factor in capital spending (roads, bridges, etc.), the province’s fiscal position looks worse. When that spending is factored in, the annual report shows that the province’s overall net financial assets (that’s all the government’s financial assets minus its debts) deteriorated by $9.2 billion last year alone, leaving the province with just $3.9 billion in remaining net financial assets at year end. Since the provincial government is still spending much more than it takes in, it‘s now just a few months away from entering a net debt position for the first time since 2000/01.

 

CANADA REVENUE AGENCY LAUNCHES VANCOUVER HOUSING PROBE

The Canada Revenue Agency has launched an investigation into the red-hot housing market in Metro Vancouver, where rampant speculation, unscrupulous dealings and foreign investment are being blamed for driving up the cost of homes and helping to create an affordability crisis.

 

CARNAGE IN NICE, FRANCE

A large truck plowed through revellers gathered for Bastille Day fireworks in Nice, killing at least 84 people and sending others fleeing into the sea as it bore down for two kilometres along the French Riviera city's famed waterfront promenade.

 

THE ROBBERY OF ONTARIO TAXPAYERS

A new report says Ontario taxpayers are putting in almost $6 for every $1 employees working at the province's four energy agencies are putting into their pension plans.

At Hydro One, taxpayers are forking out 81 per cent of the contributions.

CHINA UNLEASHES ACCELERATED WAVE OF GASOLINE EXPORTS

According to the WSJ, while initially China’s demand for oil helped soak up some of the surplus crude sloshing around the world, China is no longer the handy excess supply "buffer" it once was and as a result China's teapot refiners are now flooding markets with products including diesel and gasoline, in the latest example of how surging Chinese exports are shaking the commodities industry.

 

QUESTIONING SKEWED HILLARY POLLS

Pro-Hillary Clinton Polls do not make sense.

 

STATE ATTORNEYS GENERAL SUBPOENAED

Two state attorneys general have been subpoenaed by the House Science Committee because they refused to respond to requests for information on their efforts to prosecute climate skeptics.

 New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman and Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey, along with 8 environmental groups who have been coordinating their efforts to intimidate skeptics, all received subpoenas.

 

KEEPING SWITZERLAND SWISS

In the last few years, one country in Europe – Switzerland – has offered lessons in how to deal with Muslims that other Western countries might do well to emulate. For the Swiss have taken a tough line on those Muslims living in their country who have been unwilling to adapt to Swiss ways. Swiss authorities have been requiring Muslims to comply not just with Swiss laws, but with Swiss customs, and imposing stiff fines and other penalties for the failure to observe the country’s social norms.

 

NOTLEY TELLS FEDS TO STOP DITHERING OVER NEW PIPELINES

  A memo to the deputy minister of finance says low oil prices mean there is enough transport capacity in Canada to move oil without any new pipelines for another decade.   The federal Liberals are building in longer review periods by adding additional public consultations on Kinder Morgan's planned tripling of its Trans Mountain pipeline to Burnaby, B.C. 

 

H CLINTON NOT OFF THE HOOK

Clinton is not out of the woods just yet. Despite her current “victory” in circumventing an indictment for utilizing an unsecured bathroom server to send and receive classified emails, Clinton still faces other legal challenges stemming from allegations involving pay for play and perjury.

 

VENEZUELANS CROSS BORDER FOR FOOD

José Gregorio Vielma Mora, the socialist governor of Venezuela’s western Táchira state, asserted this week that the 35,000 people who took advantage of a limited border opening that allowed them to buy food and medicine in Colombia were not hungry but, rather, desperately crossed the border “for fun.”

 

OBAMA IS HURTING

Tuesday at the memorial service for the five slain Dallas police officers, President Barack Obama said that “it hurts” when peaceful protestors who are attempting to forward their grievances with the police treatment of African-Americans are “dismissed perhaps even by your white friends and co-worker and fellow church members again and again and again.”

 

FIRST NATIONS TO BUY HYDRO ONE SHARES

The government says it has reached an agreement in principle with the province's First Nations to loan them up to $268 million to buy up to 15 million shares at $18 per share.

MAINTAINING THE PANIC

Having failed to stir interest in the Great Barrier Reef during the recent cliffhanger Australian Federal Election, reef scientists are now demanding that the government must choose which parts of the Great Barrier Reef they want to save.

 

WYNNE'S LOOPHOLE

The Liberals introduced the legislation amid allegations they were selling access to cabinet ministers at high-priced dinners and receptions. Premier Kathleen Wynne scrambled to defuse rising criticism about fundraising quotas of up to $500,000 each for Liberal cabinet ministers.

"There is absolutely nothing in this legislation that will stop or even limit the cash-for-access system that it appears the Liberals have had in place for years," said party deputy leader Steve Clark. "We are concerned they have left this loophole in because they know how effective it is for their coffers, and they have no desire to end this practice moving forward."

 

BAD FOR PATIENT CARE AND PHYSICIANS

After a bitter two-year impasse, the Ontario Medical Association and the Ministry of Health suddenly kissed and made up over a tentative agreement Monday. The closed-door negotiations took everyone by surprise — from those in the higher echelons of the OMA to thousands of front-line physicians.  Given this total lack of transparency and due process, hundreds of physicians now question the motives behind OMA’s endorsement of a contract that is clearly bad for patient care and bad for physicians.

 

NOTLEY'S NDP EXPOSES ITS OWN INCOMPETENCE

The NDP continue to lose their collective minds over the prospect of Jason Kenney becoming leader of the PC party in Alberta and uniting the right. It’s caused them to pretend to be fiscal hawks, dissecting Jason Kenney’s expenses over the last 10 years as an MP. 

 

TRUTH-FREE MEDIA

  Like a burnt out Hollywood screenwriter, the Left keeps recycling the same old stock characters. Black men are tragic heroes. White people and police are racist agents of an evil system. The facts are never allowed to intrude on these fantasies.

 

STUNTING INVESTMENT IN CUTTING -EDGE MEDICINES

The Biologics Revolution in the Production of Drugs, spotlights the emerging science of biologic medicines, which involve genetically engineering living cells to produce needed proteins. Biologics have shown great promise in the treatment, diagnosis and prevention of more than 250 diseases including a variety of cancers. The study finds that Canada’s protection of intellectual property (IP) for biologic medicines lags behind other countries, limiting access and stunting investment.

 

VICTIMS OF HAMAS TERROR SUE FACEBOOK

Facebook is being hit with a $1 billion lawsuit after allegedly allowing the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas use its platform to plot attacks in Israel and the West Bank that killed and wounded Americans.

 

HORSING AROUND AT THE CALGARY STAMPEDE

View a slide show of this year's event.

 

CHINA IS NOT AMUSED

An arbitration court ruled on Tuesday that China has no historic title over the waters of the South China Sea and that it has breached the sovereign rights of the Philippines with its actions there, infuriating a defiant Beijing. The court has no power of enforcement, but a victory for the Philippines could spur Taiwan, Vietnam, Malaysia and Brunei to file similar cases.

 

THE ETHICS OF THE PHARMACEUTICAL INDUSTRY

Ottawa tried to get the pharmaceutical industry to pay into a fund for victims of the thalidomide scandal, in what would have been a historic gesture of support toward the survivors of one of Canada’s worst drug catastrophes. But the companies refused, Canada’s former health minister has revealed.

 

SELF-DRIVING CAR GOING NOWHERE IN ONTARIO

Ontario's program to allow testing of self-driving cars on public roads has not received any applications since it launched Jan. 1, the Canadian province's government said on Wednesday, as a recent U.S. accident increased scrutiny of the technology.

 

FORT MCMURRAY INSURED LOSSES AT $3.5BILLION

Insured losses from the May wildfires in Fort McMurray, Alberta, are expected to total C$3.58 billion ($2.76 billion), making it the costliest-ever Canadian natural disaster, an insurance industry group said on Thursday.

 

 

MAJOR DISEASES ARE IN DECLINE

It looks as if people in the United States and some other wealthy countries are, unexpectedly, starting to beat back the diseases of aging. The leading killers are still the leading killers — cancer, heart disease, stroke — but they are occurring later in life, and people in general are living longer in good health.

 

 

 

 

CARBON TRADERS WHINE PERMITS ARE TOO CHEAP

The only people who appear to be suffering are merchant bankers, who can’t find anyone willing to buy and hold carbon credits as an investment, because everyone believes prices are going to continue spiralling down into total collapse. And of course, anyone who was silly enough to believe carbon markets might have an impact on CO2 emissions.

 

INCITING A WAR AGAINST POLICE IS TERRORISM

Last night the BLM joined the ranks of major terrorist organizations.

A suspect in the attack last night had made it clear to a negotiator that, inspired to anger to anger by the BLM movement, he wanted to kill “white people” and especially “white officers.”

That’s what racism looks like. That’s what terrorism looks like.

 

COMMON SENSE HAS NO PLACE IN THE LAW

The offender said "I hate white people" and threw a punch. ... But there is no evidence either way about what the offender meant or whether (as in the cited cases) she holds or promotes an ideology which would explain why this assault was aimed at this victim. ... I am not satisfied beyond a reasonable doubt that this offence was, even in part, motivated by racial bias

 

 

PAPER DOCTORS OF THE WSIB

Ontario's workers' compensation board is standing by its controversial practice of using consultants to provide medical opinions on injured workers without actually examining them, saying the doctors it contracts to weigh in on benefits claims are being used "appropriately."

 

US CITIZENS KILLED BY POLICE IN 2016

In the U.S. a total of 509 citizens have been killed this year alone by police. The body count for the previous year stands at a grand total of 990 people shot dead, according to the Washington Post. As the below infographic from Statista shows, most of those killed by police were male and white.

 

 

ALARMIST & UNINFORMED MEDIA REPORTS

Melting in the Arctic reached an all-time high in June: Ice has been disappearing at a rate of 29,000 square miles a day.

This is near the average daily rate of melt in the brief Arctic summer, but few people know this is natural. It is another example of alarmists and uninformed media reporting a natural situation as unnatural. It is a lie of omission because they only presented facts that suited their story, but lying and deception are now standard and condoned practice for some people.

 

CHANGING THE PROTEST NARRATIVE

The most peaceful of peaceful Black Lives Matter rallies took place Friday evening in Lee's Summit, Missouri, a conservative suburb of Kansas City -- perhaps because the organizer is a former police officer and Army veteran.  His message for the young protesters -- mostly high school kids -- was not what we have come to expect at a Black Lives Matter rally, where extreme, anti-police rhetoric is the norm. He began by thanking the chief of police and the mayor of Lee's Summit for being so helpful.

 

CONSULT THE PUBLIC ON CPP REFORM

"If I tell you, would you like to have more money in your retirement, what are you going to say? Yes, yes I would like that," Raitt said.

"If I told you you're going to have more money in retirement, but it's going to hit the economy and that summer job for your son or your daughter, that may not be available because we're taxing businesses too much, what do you think the answer is going to be there? It won't be as strong a yes."

 

ISLAMIC STATE LOSING TERRITORY

Islamic State lost an area the size of Ireland - a quarter of its territory - to hostile forces in the last 18 months in Iraq and Syria and is likely to further step up attacks on civilians in coming months, IHS said in a report on Sunday.

 

LEGISLATION TO REVOKE CLINTON'S SECURITY CLEARANCE

“The FBI’s investigation into Secretary Clinton’s personal e-mail server confirmed what Americans across the country already know: Secretary Clinton recklessly accessed classified information on an insecure system – establishing a vulnerable and highly desirable target for foreign hackers,” said Gardner. “If the FBI won’t recommend action based on its findings, Congress will. At the very least, Secretary Clinton should not have access to classified information and our bill makes sure of it.”

 

OBAMA RESPONSIBLE FOR RACIAL UNREST

“I think [the Obama administration's] continued appeasements at the federal level with the Department of Justice, their appeasement of violent criminals, their refusal to condemn movements like Black Lives Matter, actively calling for the death of police officers, that type of thing, all the while blaming police for the problems in this country has led directly to the climate that has made Dallas possible,” said William Johnson, the executive director of the police advocacy group.

 

WONDER WHY THE UK VOTED TO LEAVE?

The Conservative party’s failed attempts to control spending and bring down public debt breach “human rights”, the United Nations (UN) has declared, calling for a bigger state and a higher minimum wage.  The Committee further recommended the UK adopt a “socially equitable” tax policy and demanded the Tory party pursue a feminist agenda.

 

EPIC RESPONSE FROM LANDOWNER TO DEP'T OF FISH & WILDLIFE

Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife sends a letter to a home/landowner asking for permission to access a creek on their property to document the decline in a certain species of unheard of frogs.  Read the landowner's response.  It's a beauty.

 

ALLEGED BEE-KILLING PESTICIDE LAWSUIT

Environmental groups have launched a court challenge to federal permits for two common pesticides that some say are behind large die-offs in bee populations.  The lawsuit, filed in Federal Court in Toronto, takes aim at neonicotinoids, which are among the most widely used pesticides in Canada.

The David Suzuki Foundation, Friends of the Earth Canada, Ontario Nature and the Wilderness Committee say in court documents that Canada’s federal pesticide regulator has allowed the chemicals to be used despite being uncertain about their risks.

 

LANDOWNER VICTORY IN USA SUPREME COURT

In June, Chief Justice Roberts wrote a unanimous opinion in United States Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co., Inc., holding that landowners have the right to challenge jurisdictional determinations by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or Corps of Engineers (COE) that water on their lands is governed by the Clean Water Act.

 

SOROS'S MACHINATIONS

His Latest Success: the European Refugee Crisis

Soros’s agenda is fundamentally about the destruction of national borders. This has recently been shown very clearly with his funding of the European refugee crisis.

The refugee crisis has been blamed on the civil war currently raging in Syria. But did you ever wonder how all these people suddenly knew Europe would open its gates and let them in?

 

TIN FOIL HAT TIME

Its not just Greens who are worried about Europe – the President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker stated in a speech that leaders of other planets are worried about the direction Europe will take, in the wake of the Brexit vote.

 

BLUE LIVES MATTER

Five police officers were killed and six were wounded after at least two snipers opened fire in Dallas on Thursday night during a protest over police brutality, throwing the city into chaos and turning parts of downtown into a massive crime scene by Friday morning.

 

THE EXTREMELY CARELESS HILLARY CLINTON

Congressman Gowdy asked Director Comey point-blank if Clinton’s testimony that she did not e-mail “any classified material to anyone on my e-mail” was true. Comey said it was not true. Was Clinton telling the truth when she said that she used only one device while Secretary of State? Comey said she used multiple devices. Did she return all work-related e-mails to the State Department as she had claimed? No was the reply. “We found work-related emails, thousands that were not returned,” Comey said.

 

IMAM DENIGRATES CHRISTIANS AT PRESBYTERIAN ASSEMBLY

The Presbyterian Church (USA) -- one of the nation’s foremost mainline Protestant churches and the largest Presbyterian body in the country -- recently convened in Portland, Oregon, for its 222nd General Assembly. Its “first order of business” was to commemorate the victims of the Orlando jihad massacre at the Pulse nightclub, as well as those killed last year at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

And what better way to do that than to invite a Muslim spokesman to address the assembly?

 

QUEBEC GOV'T RUNS SURPLUS, GETS SLAMMED BY OPPOSITION

Aiming for a balanced budget in the last fiscal year, the provincial government has instead wound up with a $1.8 billion surplus, which will be invested in a fund to pay off Quebec's gross debt.

 

 

KENNEY'S PLAN TO UNITE THE RIGHT

Over the past few days Kenney has been promoting his plan to morph Alberta's once mighty Progressive Conservative party with the Wildrose into what he calls a new free-enterprise party.  Kenney says his ex-boss Stephen Harper has "the ultimate credibility" when it comes to merging parties and a nod from the former prime minister would help his own efforts to unite-the-right in Alberta.

 

BLOCKING CANADA'S OIL RECOVERY

So could it be that Canada’s and Alberta’s eco-obsessed, lib-left governments are holding up our recovery? Could it be that despite Notley’s insistence that Alberta has to become more “green” in order to get pipelines built, her climate leadership plan and carbon tax will actually achieve little for the environment while at the same time scaring off investors?

 

YOU TOO CAN BECOME A SENATOR!

Canadians can now submit their names for possible nomination to the Senate, with new changes announced by the Liberal government on Thursday. 

 

NEVER IN THE FIELD OF HUMAN PETTINESS...

...has so little been accomplished at such great expense.

JUNCKER'S REVENGE

Someone who’s not known to be overly bothered by accountability or integrity is everybody’s favorite wino, European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. But Juncker, whatever else may be wrong with him, is not a stupid man. And unless I’m gravely mistaken, he has just saddled the European Union with a problem that could well trigger its undoing.

 

REVENUE AGENCY INVESTIGATES PHARMACISTS

CRA auditors had expected the Canada-wide operation to flush out about $75 million in unreported rebates and incentives, but so far the amount has fallen short – just over $58 million.

The rebates, which can include travellers cheques and pre-paid vacations, are typically dependent on the volume of generic-drug sales at a retail pharmacy.

 

ONTARIO LIBERALS' CASH FOR ACCESS FUNDRAISING

There is a pattern of industry-specific events, in which corporate elites, union leaders and lobbyists in a given sector were invited to pay for time with the Premier or the minister involved in their file.  People who attended some of the events, speaking on condition of anonymity, said many corporations pay the money because they want direct access to politicians who might not otherwise give them the time of day.   “No one would have dropped that type of money unless they thought or knew it would help them gain access and be listened to,” confided one insider.

 

FOREIGN CORPORATIONS VERSUS GOVERNMENT

Last November, after seven years of debate, study and analysis, the United States announced that they would not approve the pipeline, designed to bring Alberta oil to American refineries, because it was not in the “national interests of the United States.”

Not good enough, says TransCanada. Claiming that US government analysis found no environmental threat from the proposed pipeline, they are accusing the Obama administration of making the decision for purely political motives in order to “appear strong on climate change.”

 

PROTECTING BOMBARDIER

Philip Proulx, a spokesman for Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains, also declined to comment specifically on the negotiations. “We’re staying engaged with the company and we want to be a part of a solution,” he said by phone Monday. The minister and the company have met six times since Trudeau’s government took power, records from the Canada’s federal lobbying registry show.

 

NASA SPACECRAFT REACHES JUPITER

Braving intense radiation, a NASA spacecraft reached Jupiter on Monday after a five-year voyage to begin exploring the king of the planets.

 

COWARDLY POLITICIANS

Blizzard: Premier Kathleen Wynne and other craven politicians have created a monster in Black Lives Matter.  Our political leaders dealt with BLM with such cynicism they’ve emboldened and empowered a group that really speaks only for itself.

 

 

THE GORE EGO

In a recent interview, former Vice President Al Gore suggested his mission to save the world from Global Warming is comparable to Jackie Robinson‘s achievements,

 

MUSLIM NATIONS DEFENDING TERRORISM

The Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), attempted to introduce language condoning terrorism under certain conditions into a draft of a UN Counter-Terrorism Resolution.

“Terrorism in the name of self-determination and national liberation does not constitute terrorism.”

The clause was ultimately not included in the final draft of the review, entitled “The United Nations Global Counter-Terrorism Strategy Review”.

 

NO INDICTMENT AGAINST H CLINTON

None of these emails should have been on any unclassified system, but the presence of these emails is especially concerning,” FBI Director Comey said.

“There is evidence to support a conclusion that any reasonable person in Secretary Clinton’s position… should have known that an unclassified system was no place for that information,” Comey continued.

 

SAILING IN THE LATRINE

Olympic sailors, practicing for the Olympic Games in August, say their venue, Rio De Janiero's Guanabara Bay, are so polluted their boats are turning brown from being in the water.

 

BFF'S

Union leaders are celebrating unprecedented camaraderie with the federal Liberals.

CETA PLANS WILL NOT BE FAST-TRACKED

The agreement, known as the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement, CETA, has been in the works for seven years and has wide support among EU leaders. But it has run into fierce opposition in several countries, notably France and Germany, raising fears among some Canadian trade official that the deal will never be ratified.

 

 

NOT FIT TO BE A JUDGE

A judge who asked an alleged rape victim why she didn’t simply keep her knees together says that sensitivity training has given him new empathy and that he is still fit to be a judge.

 

OTTAWA'S LEMONADE DEBACLE

Two Ottawa girls whose lemonade stand was shut down over the weekend because they didn't have the right permit could be back in business by the end of the week — but they still need the paperwork.

The agency responsible for policing federal lands in Ottawa apologized Monday to Eliza Andrews, 7, and Adela Andrews, 5, after a conservation officer put a stop to their efforts to raise money for summer camp.

THE ILLUSIVE AGREEMENT ON INTERNAL TRADE

Ottawa and the provinces have been engaged in prolonged negotiations aimed at revamping the Agreement on Internal Trade, which was signed in 1994. While that deal was meant to eliminate trade barriers between provinces, a long list of obstacles remain for businesses and workers because rules and regulations are not harmonized. The Canadian economy is currently losing billions of dollars a year because of interprovincial trade barriers.

 

BRINGING A HALT TO TORONTO'S GAY PRIDE PARADE

Black Lives Matter brought Sunday’s Pride parade to a standstill on Sunday to force the annual celebration of LGBT equality to answer for its “anti-blackness,” the protesters said.

 

MISBEHAVING SYRIAN STUDENTS ARE OTTAWA'S PROBLEM

In fact, just before rising for their summer recess, MPs were getting an earful from educators about how complex a problem it has become for many on the front line to integrate students who may be illiterate in Arabic, let alone English, into Canada’s school system. Representatives of school boards in Calgary and in Toronto testified at a House of Commons committee that they needed more federal government funding for “the complex needs” of these students.