ECONOMY'S ADDICTION TO REAL ESTATE FEES

Canada's addiction to real estate goes far beyond our obsession with talking about it. Our economy actually relies more on the fees associated with buying and selling houses than it does on agriculture, fishing, forestry and hunting combined.
Real estate commissions, land transfer taxes, legal costs and fees for inspecting and surveying homes make up almost two per cent of Canada's economy.

MEDICAL COSTS OF OXYCONTIN CRISIS

A proposed legal settlement involving the drug company whose pill triggered Canada’s deadly opioid epidemic shuts the door on the provinces taking action to recoup the costs of treating people dependent on painkillers.

Purdue Pharma, maker of the prescription painkiller OxyContin, has agreed to pay $20-million, including $2-million to provincial health insurers, to settle the long-standing class-action suit.

The amount earmarked for the provinces reimburses only a fraction of their health-care costs. The provinces’ public drug plans spent $423.3-million over a five-year period on medications used for addiction to prescription painkillers and illicit opioids.

 

THE SCOURGE OF CARBON TAXES

Canadians are right to be skeptical. As the Fraser Institute showed in a recent study, provinces are implementing carbon pricing in ways that fundamentally violate the three key principles of efficient and economically benign carbon pricing, which are: 1) the tax must displace existing regulations, not be atop them; 2) The tax must be fully rebated to the public as reductions in other distortionary taxes such as income and corporate taxes; and 3) the tax revenues must not be used to distort energy systems by supporting one form of production over another.

JOB OPENING

Mobsters are jostling to fill the vacuum left by the death of an organized crime mega-boss, resulting in about a dozen unsolved violent incidents this year in Ontario — shootings, explosions and killings.

After Vito Rizzuto, considered by police to be Canada’s most powerful mobster, died in Montreal in December 2013 of reportedly natural causes, a vacancy at the top opened up. And the results have been bloody.

 

INTERFERING IN CANADIAN ELECTIONS

NP:  Just how greatly these foreign organizations and money contributed to interfering in the Canadian election needs to be investigated by the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, states Canada Decides.
“The threat to Canadian election sovereignty is real and must be eliminated by the Commissioner as quickly and decisively as possible,” adds the report.

DANCING WITH THE DRAGON

Trudeau has made it much easier for foreigners to buy up Canadian real estate and companies, by increasing the threshold at which foreign takeovers will be reviewed — to $1 billion.
Despite a recent Nanos poll showing most Canadians didn’t want to sell our high-tech companies to China, Trudeau’s public-relations efforts have convinced a slight majority of Canadians to support his pursuit of a free-trade agreement with Beijing

DISRUPTING BC FIREFIGHTING EFFORTS

Frontline workers risking their lives battling wildfires across B.C. are now adding thieves, vandals and careless outdoor enthusiasts to their list of problems.

MAKING CANADA LESS COMPETETIVE:PETRONAS DEBACLE

NP:  This week’s decision by Malaysian energy giant Petronas to abandon its plans to develop a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility on B.C.’s Pacific Coast is a devastating blow to the local and Canadian economies.
Unfortunately, the Petronas debacle is not an isolated event either. It’s emblematic of a broader, nation-wide problem. Our governments have badly damaged the appeal of Canada’s investment climate. Companies face different regulatory requirements in each province and there are regulations at provincial and federal levels that end up duplicating each other, adding nothing but red tape. Environmental assessments drag on nearly indefinitely.

CHINA'S ESPIONAGE

NP:  A successful Toronto businessman is fighting government charges that he is a spy for China

GREEN ENERGY WRECKING LIVES IN AUSTRALIA

TODAY’S confronting revelation that more than 464 Queenslanders a week are having their electricity disconnected because of soaring power prices is a wake-up call to the Labor Party.
Labor’s zealotry on renewable energy targets is sending the country broke.

PRESIDENT CHAOS & THE KEYSTONE KONGRESS

What a week! After a health care bill nearly dies due to Capital malfeasance and White House neglect, Donald Trump finally discovers his inner president and bully pulpits the Keystone Kongress back to work. A (let's face it) dying Senator John McCain — a man who seems to love the image of himself on a white horse more than he likes actually winning stuff — gets on his white horse and rides to rescue the vote, then votes the wrong way because something something something.

OCEAN LEVELS FALL, CRICKETS FROM MEDIA

Most media outlets cannot be bothered to report something that dramatically deflates their narrative. So it goes without saying that when NASA confirmed that ocean levels have actually been falling for the past few years, the media would be more than silent.
As the global warming narrative quickly unravels, and leftists scramble to throw accusations at those who dare question the false data, the media brushes facts under the rug. Amidst revelations of scientific fraud, data alteration and faked “hockey stick” data models, the fake news media remains suspiciously silent over the fact that NASA now confirms ocean levels have been falling for nearly two years.

P&G SLASH DIGITAL AD SPENDING

Tired of feeding an opaque, slimy industry of bots and fake clicks:
Procter & Gamble, one of the largest and most sophisticated advertisers in the world, reported on Thursday that sales were slightly down in the fourth quarter and for the fiscal year, despite consumer price inflation. It’s the epitome of corporate revenue stagnation: only price increases keep revenues from declining. An activist investor – formerly called “corporate raider” – is breathing down its neck. So cost cutting to raise profits is the trick.
When a corporate giant cuts costs, it cuts the revenues of other companies.

E&E LEGAL WINS MAJOR RULING AGAINST VERMONT

Washington, D.C. – The Energy & Environment Legal Institute (E&E Legal) has two freedom of Information Act cases pending against the Vermont Attorney General’s Office for records relating to the notorious “climate-RICO” scheme among ideologically aligned, activist state AGs, first exposed by E&E Legal last April.
Today E&E received favourable ruling in both their cases.

AUSTRALIAN TALE OF GOVERNMENT IDIOCY

This is a tale of idiocy, full of facts and foreboding, signifying that the end times must be surely upon us. A bloke bought a sheep property of half a million acres in western Queensland for $2.0 million. Instead of running sheep on it, he now gets $350,000 per annum under the federal government’s Direct Action scheme for not using the grass on his property.

HOUSE INTEL. CHAIR ACCUSES OBAMA STAFFERS

After being forced to recuse himself from his committee's investigation of the 'Russian meddling' controversy earlier this year (see: House Intel Committee Chair Nunes Recuses Himself From Russia Probe), Devin Nunes has thrust himself back into the national spotlight by drafting a letter to the Director of National Intelligence, Dan Coats, saying he has evidence that several of Obama's top political aides made hundreds of unmasking requests in the waning days of Obama's administration even though they offered no legitimate reason to do so and some of them didn't even serve in an intelligence position.

COUNTERING EXTREMISM IN GERMANY

The ferocious street riots during the G20 summit earlier this month in Hamburg have fueled the discussion about political extremism and violence in Germany. One talking point is centered on the question if the state and the police reacted adequately, and how extremism should best be countered in general.

INVESTIGATING COMEY, LYNCH & CLINTON

As such, 20 Republican Representatives have sent a letter to Attorney General Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein demanding the appointment of a Second Special Counsel to look into a laundry list of potential scandals surrounding Hillary Clinton, James Comey, Loretta Lynch and many others from the Obama administration.

COMBATING WHITENESS IN SCHOOLS

A recent conference hosted by an Ivy League university focused on integration and inclusion in K-12 education and included workshops on how educators should face white privilege in their classrooms, challenge microaggressions and address “Eurocentric pedagogical approaches.”

JOHN KELLY NEW CHIEF OF STAFF

President Donald Trump replaced Chief of Staff Reince Priebus on Friday with Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly, a retired Marine Corps general.
The shift at the top of the White House hierarchy is aimed at bringing order to an administration that has been beset by infighting, as Mr. Trump seeks to notch the sort of sweeping legislative victories that he promised during the campaign but that have eluded him to this point, advisers to the president said.

POWER STRUGGLE OVER THE COLUMBIA RIVER

To ride down the Columbia River as the John Day Dam’s wall of concrete slowly fills the view from a tugboat is to see what the country’s largest network of energy-producing dams created through five decades of 20th-century ambition, investment and hubris.
Now, the Trump administration has proposed rethinking the entire system, with a plan to sell the transmission network of wires and substations owned by the Bonneville Power Administration, a federal agency that distributes most of the Columbia basin’s output, to private buyers.

TOLERANCE IS WEARING THIN

  Which would explain a recent incident in the French town of Séméac, where the government recently bought a hotel in the hopes of turning it into a migrant shelter.

  Protesters in the town have built a nearly-two-metre-high wall around the entrance to a disused hotel to try to prevent it being turned into a migrant shelter

 

 

"THIS BULLSH*T WILL NOT STAND"

On Thursday, Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro testified about free speech on college campuses before the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. In less than five minutes, he dissected and destroyed the Left's argument against free speech.

"Free speech is under assault because of a three-step argument made by advocates and justifiers of violence," Shapiro declared in his opening remarks.

 

BC WILDFIRE EVACUEES RETURNING HOME

 Thousands of people who rushed out of their homes as a wildfire neared Williams Lake are being allowed to return to the Interior British Columbia city, but with a warning that they could be forced to leave again.

QUEBEC'S TONGUE TROOPERS STILL AT IT

He says the Office québécois de la langue française (OQLF), started sending letters to the Montreal location, on Bernard St., in early June because of his English-only website

TOO MANY PEOPLE DOING TOO LITTLE

It took being embarrassed — first on the front page of our newspaper, followed by TV, radio and even in media across the pond — to get Toronto’s parks officials to step up to the plate.
Stepgate is now 13 steps closer to being resolved. If not by Friday, the new safer staircase into the south end of Etobicoke’s Tom Riley Park will be usable early next week.
   They counted eight — yes eight — parks officials and a crane working on the actual installation of the new pre-fabricated stairs.

NOT A PROMISING START

The federal infrastructure bank is many months away from opening its doors, but Liberals have given a group of civil servants the power to help fast-track approval of projects for private funding well in advance.
The officials are now on the verge of handing in their secret evaluations of the projects, along with any recommendations about how to use public funds to quickly pull in private dollars to pay for construction.

NOTHING TO SEE HERE. MOVE ALONG

A Chinese man has transferred more than 29 percent of HNA Group of China — the equivalent of as much as $18 billion — to a New York-based private foundation. The donation puts him in the same league as donors like Bill Gates and Warren E. Buffett and almost matched the combined giving of all American corporations in 2016.

But it has not been disclosed how that man, Guan Jun, who is in his 30s, came to own such a large piece of one of China’s biggest conglomerates. His registered address in Beijing is a modest apartment at the end of a dingy hallway littered with discarded furniture and bags of trash.

 

AWAN ARRESTED AT DULLES AIRPORT

To the embarrassment, more accurately the humiliation, of CNN, Deborah Wasserman Schultz, Nancy Pelosi, not to mention dozens of Democratic congressmen and women -- all of whom used the article's writer for IT help for their government computers -- the author, Pakistani-born Imran Awan was arrested Tuesday by the FBI at Dulles Airport for alleged bank fraud. He was trying to flee the country for Qatar.

SHOCKS TO CANADA'S NATURAL RESOURCE SECTOR

This has not been a good week for the reputation of this country’s natural resource sector. On Tuesday, the $36-billion Pacific NorthWest liquefied natural gas project was cancelled, ostensibly because of poor global prices but really because of the reduced attractiveness of the Canadian market for investment.
In addition to new carbon taxes, businesses find themselves facing rising electricity costs, federal government fee increases, Canada Pension Plan hikes, richer minimum wages and higher Employment Insurance rates than would have been the case had the government not increased EI costs.
  The Liberal government is going to have to create a more focused, predictable regulatory regime or Canadians will face a future of lower living standards, higher taxes and bigger debt.

WYNNE'S PLATITUDES

Premier Kathleen Wynne is pledging to minimize the impact on small business of the looming increase to the minimum wage.

“We’re going to work with small businesses and in the fall, we’ll bring forward some initiatives that will help business to get through this transition,” Wynne told Newstalk 1010 on Wednesday.

“There are some other things that we can do to support small businesses through the transition,” the premier said without offering specifics.

 

PATRICK'S PARTY

Lisa MacLeod has represented Nepean-Carleton in the Ontario legislature since 2006 but the riding is being split at the next election. MacLeod is running in the northern suburban section, called Nepean. After one of their now-routine ugly nomination squabbles, the Tories nominated young trade lawyer Goldie Ghamari in the rural Carleton section last November.
   MacLeod’s antipathy to Ghamari isn’t a secret. There are too many layers to disentangle completely, but it’s wrapped up in Brown’s attempts to assert himself in the party’s Eastern Ontario operation as a newcomer to provincial politics.

PUTIN'S PROPAGANDA AGAINST UKRAINE

Vladimir Putin’s decade-long media campaign turned Russians against Ukrainians and Ukraine itself before he annexed Crimea in 2014.
   Putin successfully fanned the flames of ethnic Russian nationalism, turning Russians against both the Ukrainian state and people.

WHEN ROAD GRADERS GO ROGUE

The Ontario government-commissioned report was supposed to depict an idealized sustainable farm in the Ontario of 2050. And for some reason, it features highway equipment mercilessly destroying a field of harvest-ready lettuce.
Apparently mistaking the machine for a tractor, the report’s authors equipped the farm with a road grader — a piece of heavy equipment used to create level surfaces for roads.

DON'T MENTION THE PIPELINE

Trudeau and new B.C. premier, John Horgan, agree — don't mention the pipeline.

ONTARIO LIBERALS IN COURT

Kathleen Wynne will testify as a Crown witness at an upcoming Election Act bribery trial for two Liberals, putting the Ontario premier directly in the spotlight of an already politically charged case.
Pat Sorbara, the premier's former deputy chief of staff, faces two bribery charges under the Election Act, and Gerry Lougheed, a Liberal fundraiser, faces one charge.
A second Liberal trial is set to start just days apart in Toronto.
David Livingston and Laura Miller, who were then-premier Dalton McGuinty's chief of staff and deputy chief of staff, face charges of breach of trust, and mischief in relation to data and misuse of a computer system to commit the offence of mischief.

SINK YOUR DINGHIES

Call it the case of the delayed dinghies.
The Canadian military wants to replace its fleet of inflatable landing craft, which is more than a quarter-century old, with 350 new inflatables designed for rapid deployment of up to a dozen infantry or engineers in each boat.
Public Services and Procurement Canada has flubbed the order twice since last year – and will be trying to place an order for a third time later this year.

100 YEARS OF INCOME TAX

One hundred years ago, on July 25, 1917, Conservative Finance Minister Sir Thomas White introduced a plan for Canada’s very first income tax in the House of Commons. It was three years into the First World War, and days after the adoption of compulsory military service. White had suggested that Parliament consider whether or not to keep the tax after the war. Since we’re all still paying, someone, somewhere in Ottawa must deem this anniversary worth celebrating.

JUSTIN'S SANCTIMONIOUS LECTURING

It was also a bit rich, and incredibly disingenuous, to call the controversy sweeping the country over the Liberals’ $10.5-million payout to Omar Khadr nothing more than a “domestic squabble.” The vast majority of Canadians remain outraged

INVESTIGATING THE AWAN BROTHERS

Over the past few months, the story of the Awan brothers has been largely ignored by mainstream media. However, the Pakistani-born brothers Abid, Imran, and Jamal Awan are at the center of a criminal investigation by U.S. Capital Hill Police and the FBI.  While official charges have not yet been filed, allegations of wrong doing vary from simply overcharging taxpayers for congressional IT equipment to blackmailing members of Congress with secrets captured from emails.
   Of course, if Republicans and/or members of the Trump administration hired foreign-born IT specialists who were suspected of committing a laundry list of federal crimes and then smashed a bunch of hard drives just before skipping town...we're sure the media would still gloss right over it in much the same way they're doing for the  Democrats in this instance.

SHRINKFLATION

As a new study in the U.K. just revealed, shrinking portion sizes among food manufacturers is actually way more common than you might think and you probably never even noticed it.  In fact, according to data from the Office for National Statistics, over 2,500 consumer products in the U.K. shrunk in size over the past five years despite being sold for the same price.

CALIFORNIA'S IMAM PRAYS FOR ANNIHILATION OF JEWS

Imam Ammar Shahin of the Islamic Center of Davis in California delivered a sermon on Friday in which he quoted an antisemitic hadith and prayed for Allah to “annihilate” Jews “down to the very last one.”

CHARLIE GARD'S STORY

The controversy about Charlie Gard grew from the National Health Service refusing to release Charlie for treatment in the United States, saying it was not in Charlie's best interests. His parents, Chris Gard and Connie Yates, appealed the decision to the courts, which uniformly ruled against the parents.

POLYGAMY IS A CRIME

CRANBROOK, B.C. — Two former bishops of an isolated religious commune in British Columbia have been found guilty of practising polygamy after a decades-long legal fight launched by the provincial government.
Winston Blackmore, 60, was married to Jane Blackmore and then married 24 additional women as part of so-called "celestial" marriages involving residents in the tiny community of Bountiful.
The court heard his co-defendant James Oler, 53, had five wives.

WHERE'S THE GLOBAL WARMING?

It might be July but a frost warning has been issued for parts of northwestern New Brunswick. 

DETROIT DEMOLISHING HOMES USING FEDERAL MONEY

Contrary to popular perception, not all of the money approved as part of the federal government’s emergency effort to save the American financial system in the fall of 2008 went to the big banks. Some of it – nearly $10 billion, all told – went to support the government’s “hardest hit” program, meant to help forestall foreclosures in 18 states.
And unsurprisingly, nearly a decade after the program was signed into law, government investigators are finding that much of this money was squandered by state governments. Money initially earmarked to help troubled homeowners struggling with underwater mortgages was instead spent on demolitions meant to boost prices of surrounding homes and help ward off crime in city neighborhoods. Except the money was often squandered by state governments, disproportionately robbing poor citizens in cities like Detroit of a program meant to save them from homelessness.

FRANCE: JUNE 2017

A month of multiculturalism in France.

KEEPING QUEBEC MAPLE SYRUP PRODUCERS IN LINE

A Quebec maple syrup producer has lost an ongoing legal battle over the province’s control of syrup supplies.
The Supreme Court of Canada announced on June 8 that it will not hear two appeals from Angèle Grenier, a maple syrup producer who runs an operation just south of Quebec City.
She’s facing $300,000 in fines from the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers, in addition to the $150,000 she’s spent in legal fees.

WHEN THEIR EPA EMPIRE FELL

Following eight years under Obama, where there were few constraints on the fatuousness of their policies, or the damage caused by regulatory assaults on private property and individual rights, these little dictators are now looking for other thrones from which to elevate their radicalism.

OPTICIAN'S MISSION TO MAKE GLASSES AFFORDABLE

Philippe Rochette is a Montreal optician on a radical mission.
While a pair of glasses in a stylish shop can easily cost you more than $1,000, Rochette sells his for $100 or $200.
But for customers who cannot afford that much, he will sell prescription glasses — frame and lenses — for $20. Or give them away for free.

MEXICO'S MURDER RATE

 Mexico's spiraling violence reached new heights with 2,234 murders in June, the country's deadliest month in at least 20 years, according to government data.

CRITICIZING BRITAIN'S HEALTHCARE SYSTEM

The utterly unparalleled degree of moral outrage which greets any criticism of the NHS bespeaks the decades of propaganda - in the state’s schools, from the state’s politicians, and on the state’s news and media outlets - which have taught the British people to believe that the only alternative to a state-controlled healthcare monopoly is for the poor to die in the streets . This has led to a situation wherein the desperately needed reforms to Britain’s healthcare system cannot even be discussed, due to the irrational overflowing of blind rage and uncomprehending contempt that greets any criticism of Britain’s ultimate sacred cow.

COMBATING THE SOROS MAFIA NETWORK

The war of words between Hungary's outspoken prime minister Viktor Orban and liberal billionaire George Soros escalated to previously unseen levels on Saturday, when the Hungarian PM said that European Union leaders and Soros are seeking a "new, mixed, Muslimized Europe," however during a visit to Romania, Orban said that Hungary's border fences, supported by other Central European countries, will block the EU-Soros effort to increase Muslim migration into Europe.

HOLDING THE SPINMASTERS ACCOUNTABLE

For all the talk of obstruction and interference by the Trump camp, it's neither Donald Trump Jr. nor Paul Manafort who are challenging their scheduled testimony in the Senate next Wednesday, but rather the man who according to many started the whole "Trump Russia collusion" narrative, who is doing everything in his power to avoid testifying next week.
 On Friday, attorneys for Glenn Simpson, a former WSJ reporter who now runs the infamous Washington political intelligence firm Fusion GPS - best known for compiling the salacious "dossier" of unverified research about President Trump - told the Senate Judiciary Committee in a letter that their client was on vacation through July 31 and traveling abroad through August 3, and would be unavailable for next week’s hearing.

CUTE SOCKS WON'T WIN THE DEAL?

The Liberal-dominated House of Commons trade committee has quashed a move to invite the prime minister and other high-ranking cabinet members to answer questions about Canada’s NAFTA renegotiation priorities, as calls continue for more transparency about how the government plans to handle upcoming talks on the deal

Andrew Leslie, an Ottawa-area Liberal MP who is parliamentary secretary to the foreign affairs minister, said  that the government has already announced its broad goals with NAFTA, which include modernizing the agreement and creating “win-win-win conditions” for the member countries.

“It is illogical to unmask and to lay down detailed objectives when we don’t have to,” Leslie said. “That’s giving up a negotiating advantage.”

 

LET THE GAMES BEGIN

Alberta Conservatives unite: The battle for the soul of the new United Conservative Party starts now

WYNNE BILLING THE NEXT GENERATION OF TAXPAYERS

For several months the Wynne government has concentrated on retail politics, including a dramatic increase in the minimum wage and kicking $45 billion in hydro costs down the road to pay for a rate decrease now
Just wait for the avalanche of debt-financed goodies Wynne will shower on every competitive riding over the next six months.

IT'S ONLY TAXPAYERS' MONEY

BC:  The new NDP government’s transition to power cost taxpayers $11.3 million in severance packages for fired Liberal political staffers.

GREEN INSANITY ALONG THE TRANS CANADA

The federal government is hoping to blaze a trail for long-distance electric car travel by bankrolling a network of charging stations on the Trans-Canada Highway.

The $17.3-million project would see a private company called Fast Charge install 34 stations along 3,000 km of road spanning Ontario and Manitoba, and is being supported by an $8-million repayable contribution from Natural Resources Canada.

 

ORGANIC... MAYBE...MAYBE NOT

In its first state of the industry report, Canada’s Organic Trade Association has said that organic regulations across the country are inconsistent and a number of provinces “do not have any regulation at all.”

AMERICA'S MOST UNDERFUNDED CORPORATE PENSIONS

We spend a lot of time talking about the public pension crisis because, well, it's a massive $5 - $8 trillion dollar overhang on the economy and one which will undoubtedly result in some heartache for investors at some point in the future.
Of course, our nation's various governmental institutions aren't the only ones to have unwittingly created massive ponzi schemes from which there is no escape.  In fact, as Bloomberg points out today, as of the end of 2016 over 90% of the top 200 corporate pensions in the S&P were unfunded to the tune of $382 billion.

AMERICA'S LEFT ABANDONS ITS ACTIVIST

   Many left-wing progressive and Islamic political groups have quietly walked away from Islamic activist Linda Sarsour since her incendiary July 1 appeal for Muslims in America to declare jihad on elected President Donald Trump. 

    She is getting sharp-eyed criticism from experts on Islam for her call to jihad against Trump — and for her calls for Islamic self-segregation and loyalty to Allah only. But she is getting only tepid and perfunctory public support from her usual alliance of Islamic and progressive allies.

NDP POLICY OF SILENCE

The political fallout from the Omar Khadr payout has largely been portrayed as a Liberal government vs. Conservative opposition issue – with Conservative leader Andrew Scheer taking a stand against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
The NDP has managed to stay largely off the radar, despite being in the midst of a leadership race. Lucky for them.

WAITING FOR WYNNE TO SPIN THIS ONE

And this is now, Hydro One announcing Wednesday a $6.7 billion cash deal to buy U.S. energy company Avista Corp., to be finalized next year.
Avista, based in Spokane, Wash., burns coal, lots of it, to supply electricity to its customers in four states in the U.S. northwest, through its part ownership of the giant Colstrip coal-fired power plant near Billings, Montana.
According to a February, 2014 article in the Spokane Spokesman-Review: “Colstrip produced nearly 13 1/2 million metric tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in 2012, according to EPA data.

BE THE FIRST TO YELL "RACIST"

Federal regulators have revoked the charity status of a Canadian Islamic organization after an audit uncovered problems including tax receipts that were issued for donations to a Pakistani group linked to armed militancy.

SPEND $7BILLION, ASK FOR RATE INCREASE

“Hydro One is gouging ratepayers while using our money to buy up foreign companies. In the end, Ontario families will be left paying even more for hydro,” the Tory leader said.

Brown noted Hydro One is applying to the independent Ontario Energy Board to increase electricity rates by about $141 per household annually.

 

REAPING THE REWARDS OF VOTING LIBERAL

Toronto and Ottawa experienced the most significant price increases, according to the Fraser results.
    The Fraser Institute says the high cost of electricity is a “made-in-Ontario problem directly tied to the provincial government’s policy choices.” The study laid much of the blame on the rollout of several renewable energy projects that have resulted in large additional costs for consumers in Ontario.

KIP VAN KEMPEN vs. HYDRO ONE

An Ontario man has lost his court case against Hydro One over electricity delivery charges he received for his cottage that was disconnected from power for months.

PUTTING A PERSPECTIVE ON JUST HOW LARGE THE KHADR SETTLEMENT IS

The pharmaceutical giant behind the blockbuster pain pill that triggered Canada’s deadly opioid crisis has agreed to pay $20-million to settle a long-standing class-action lawsuit.

The proposed national settlement caps a legal battle that began a decade ago between Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, and lawyers representing as many as 2,000 Canadians who got hooked on the drug after their doctors prescribed it. The country’s opioid epidemic traces its roots to the introduction of the prescription painkiller 21 years ago. From 2000 to 2015, more than 6,300 died in Ontario alone from overdoses related to opioids.

ANOTHER WYNNE "STRETCH GOAL" FAIL

In 2013, the Liberals promised to reduce car insurance premiums by an average of 15 per cent by August 2015, but after the self-imposed deadline passed, Premier Kathleen Wynne admitted that was what she called a “stretch goal.”
In April, a report by Ontario’s auto insurance adviser found that the province has the most expensive auto insurance premiums in Canada despite also having one of the lowest levels of accidents and fatalities.

COURTING TORONTO

Bring the cheque book.

OVERDRAWN AT THE CREDIBILITY BANK

While nobody was watching -- because the legacy media is still trying to figure out how they can have Donald Trump Jr hanged for treason for talking to Russian lobbyists for 20 minutes -- the legacy media itself is starting to notice it's gone way overboard.

PROFESSOR WRITES A GREEN FAIRY TALE

Mark Jacobson, the Stanford engineering professor who became the darling of the green Left by repeatedly claiming the U.S. economy can run solely on renewable energy, has threatened to take legal action against the authors of an article that demolished his claims last month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

WHEN THE SUBSIDIES RUN OUT FOR TESLA

The California state Assembly passed a $3-billion subsidy program for electric vehicles, dwarfing the existing program. The bill is now in the state Senate. If passed, it will head to Governor Jerry Brown, who has not yet indicated if he’d sign what is ostensibly an effort to put EV sales into high gear, but below the surface appears to be a Tesla bailout.
Tesla will soon hit the limit of the federal tax rebates, which are good for the first 200,000 EVs sold in the US per manufacturer beginning in December 2009 (IRS explanation). In the second quarter after the manufacturer hits the limit, the subsidy gets cut in half, from $7,500 to $3,750; two quarters later, it gets cut to $1,875. Two quarters later, it goes to zero.

SHAMING TORONTO BUREAUCRACY

A Toronto man who spent $550 building a set of stairs in his community park says he has no regrets, despite the city’s insistence that he should have waited for a $65,000 city project to handle the problem. The city is now threatening to tear down the stairs because they were not built to regulation standards.

WHEN WHORES GET TOO OLD

They clutch their pearls.

Related: Development of Nation Rise Wind Farm began in 2012 with the construction of one 60 meter meteorological tower. Since then the EDPR Canada development team has constructed an additional 100 meter meteorological tower and secured more than 12,000 acres through land agreements with approximately 70 local individuals and farming families.

CALIFORNIA'S SPECIAL SNOWFLAKES

Just when you think you've seen it all, the snowflake capital of the world finds new, creative and amazing ways to shock your system.  In it's latest attempt to do just that, three California counties, two in the Bay Area and one in Southern California, have filed a lawsuit against 37 of the world’s biggest oil and coal companies alleging they're ultimately responsible for the public's usage of fossil fuels and the greenhouse gas emissions they create which will ultimately contribute to rising sea levels and lay waste to their cities...at least that seems to be the 'logic' as far as we can tell.

CHOOSING TO LIVE IN MOMMY'S BASEMENT

Not only have hours fallen, but there is a large and growing segment of this population that appears detached from the labor market: 15 percent of younger men, excluding full-time students, worked zero weeks over the prior year as of 2016. The comparable number in 2000 was only 8 percent.

 A natural question is how these younger men support themselves given their decline in earnings. We document that 67 percent of non-employed younger men lived with a parent or close relative in 2015, compared to 46 percent in 2000

ALBERTA'S OUTSIZED CONTRIBUTION

Historically, Alberta has made an outsized contribution to Canada’s economy and federal public finances. This report quantifies Alberta’s role in Canada’s economic and fiscal well-being in recent years.
Specifically, it shows that Alberta has contributed disproportionately (relative to its population) to federal revenue, GDP growth, job creation, and business gross fixed capital formation.

FRANCE'S CAR-B-QUES

Late last week, before and after President Donald Trump marched through Paris with French President Emmanuel Macron to celebrate Bastille Day on Friday, nearly 900 cars were burned across Paris suburbs.

A total of 897 cars were put to the torch, and 368 people were held in police custody for the crimes on the evenings of July 13 and 14, the French Interior Ministry reported

 

OUR GOVERNMENTS DROWN US IN DEBT

Di Matteo concludes: “It’s somewhat hypocritical for governments to warn Canadians about rising household debt levels, given the state of their own finances.”

NDP GREEN DREAMER

NDP leadership candidate Niki Ashton says she wants to wrest power from the corporate interests she blames for climate change, so “grassroots” groups and a new Crown corporation can manage Canada’s environmental policies better and reduce emissions.

LIBERALS STARTING TO ROOT IN THE COUCH LOOKING FOR CHANGE

Morneau’s 2016 budget lamented “the ability of high-net-worth individuals to use private corporations to inappropriately reduce or defer tax.” The 2017 budget renewed the pledge, saying “the government will continue to study, identify and address tax loopholes and tax planning schemes,” while ensuring that corporations continue to benefit from competitive tax rates.

WHEN WHORES GET TOO OLD

When the government subsidies run out they close the door.

PRIVACY IN THE AGE OF TECH TOTALITARIANISM

Would you allow a government official into your bedroom on your honeymoon? Or let your mother-in-law hear and record every conversation that takes place in your home or car – especially disagreements with your husband or wife? Would you let a stranger sit in on your chil
dren’s playdates so that he could better understand how to entice them with candy or a doll?  Guess what? If you bring your phone with you everywhere, or engage with a whole-house robo helper such as Alexa or Echo or Siri or Google, you’re opening up every aspect of your life to government officials, snooping (possibly criminal) hackers, and advertisers targeting you, your spouse and your children.

GERMANY: INFECTIOUS DISEASES SPREADING

A new report by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), the federal government's central institution for monitoring and preventing diseases, confirms an across-the-board increase in disease since 2015, when Germany took in an unprecedented number of migrants.

Some doctors say the actual number of cases of tuberculosis is far higher than the official figures suggest and have accused the RKI of downplaying the threat in an effort to avoid fueling anti-immigration sentiments.

WARRANT ISSUED FOR IMAM

A warrant has been issued for a Jordanian imam who was captured on video calling Jews “the most evil of mankind” in a Montreal mosque in December.
In the taped sermon, which was delivered in the Dar al-Arkam Mosque on Jean Talon St. on Dec. 23, Nasr called for the killing of Jews. B’Nai Brith filed a complaint with the SPVM after the video surfaced in March.
According to B'Nai Brith, Nasr is charged with willful promotion of hatred.
Video of the speech, which was delivered in Arabic, remains on the mosque’s YouTube page.

CANADIAN HOME SALES FALL BY 6.7 PER CENT

Home sales fell in June by their largest amount in seven years, the Canadian Real Estate Association said Monday, as nearly three-quarters of all markets slowed down during what is normally the most popular time of the year for real estate.

TRUMP'S BORDER PATROL PROGRAM A SUCCESS

The significant downturn in the number of illegal border crossers between the U.S. and Mexico is "nothing short of miraculous," National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd said on C-SPAN Monday.

COULDA USED THAT $10.5 MILLION

The graves of 45,000 veterans are in disrepair due to funding shortfall: audit.

SOROS SPONSORED IMMIGRATION NETWORK EXPOSED

The main theme of the Open Society network is to use anti-discrimination laws to promote unlimited migration via the abolition of borders. The idea is clearly stated in the manifesto of many organizations. Most organizations promote their extreme views as “fact based’’ or “common sense’’ to give themselves an aura of scientific approach, while providing subjective and ideological interpretation of data and omitting inconvenient information. That is also why they omit the nationality of the criminal. It’s equivalent to admitting there is a problem but it should not be talked about. This is typical of totalitarian regimes, not democratic and certainly not “open’’ societies. The stated goal of “correct information on the theme of immigration’’ is certainly not achieved this way.

LIBERAL RUSH TO SETTLE KHADR SUIT

Suddenly, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of the never-ending federal deficits is worried about spending too much of our money.
That was his latest explanation last week for his decision to settle Omar Khadr’s $20 million civil suit against the government for $10.5 million and an apology.

CORNWALLIS UNDER SIEGE IN HALIFAX

Protesters cheered as a controversial statue of Halifax’s founder was covered with a tarp on Saturday.

The Mi’kmaq people have long called for removal of the statue in Halifax’s Cornwallis Park due to actions some refer to as a form of genocide. After founding the city, Cornwallis issued a bounty on Mi’kmaq scalps.

MOONBEAM BROWN UNHINGED

Existence of humanity rests on extending Governor Brown’s cap and tax law. Just watch Jerry Brown in his rant over the issue on July 14th

PRUITT CALLS OUT THE HYPOCRITES

EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt dismissed European critics of President Donald Trump’s climate policies as hypocrites on Wednesday, while chastising German Chancellor Angela Merkel for phasing out her country’s nuclear power plants.
“I just think the hypocrisy runs rampant,” Pruitt said in an interview with POLITICO. “To look at us as a nation and say, ‘You all need to do more’ in light of what we’ve done in leading with innovation and technology — the hypocrisy is palpable in those areas.”

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PAYS HARASSMENT SETTLEMENT

You remember Emma Sulkowicz, aka “Mattress Girl," don’t you?”  She accused fellow student Paul Nungesser of what these days is termed “gender-based misconduct,” but which seems to be really just rape, or maybe sexual assault, if a jury so found. But after a thorough investigation by University authorities, Nungesser was exonerated.

HARPER SPEAKS FOR ME

First it was a Toronto Sun reader buying a full-page advertisement to apologize to Omar Khadr’s victims for the eight-figure settlement he received from the Canadian government.
Now former prime minister Stephen Harper has reached out to the families to express his outrage.
Upset about the Liberal government’s $10.5-million settlement with Khadr, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s predecessor picked up the phone Wednesday and called American soldier Layne Morris at his home in Utah.

THE FASTEST FIRETRUCK IN THE AIR

A giant aircraft that can fly high above oceans on intercontinental flights instead jets in low and slow over a flaming forest, trailing a long plume that settles on the ground and creates a wildfire-stopping barrier.
The operators of the Boeing 747 converted from a passenger jet into a firefighting air tanker say it has proven itself battling forest fires in countries outside the U.S. The modifications allow it to drop more than 19,000 gallons (72,000 litres) of a flame-squelching combination of ammonium phosphate and sulfate mixed with water that comes billowing out in a red-colored line.

WHAT'S THE PLAN PATRICK BROWN?

Slashing the exorbitant pay rates of the most senior hydro executives in Ontario, as Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown promised last week if he wins next year’s election, is a populist and symbolic measure 
It’s vitally important in the next election that voters have a clear idea of where the parties stand on the electricity file, which impacts everyone in the province financially.

TURBINE SCAM IN NOVA SCOTIA

The Nova Scotia government knew from the beginning that a partnership with a South Korean company in a Trenton plant to manufacture wind turbine towers was going to involve major government support.
"Without special support from the Nova Scotia government, the project may not be economically feasible," Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering Ltd. said during a slide presentation to provincial government officials on Aug. 5, 2009.

HELPING THE SPEER FAMILY

By now you’ve heard about the outrageous settlement that Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government gave to confessed terrorist Omar Khadr: An apology and $10.5 million.Meanwhile, the real victims, the Speer family, get nothing.
That's why we are launching a crowdfunding campaign to raise $1 million for the Speer children.

BC WILDFIRE MONSTER

Following the progress of British Columbia's wildfires.

ALBERTA NDP SELLING SNAKE OIL

It’s clear the NDP government has rolled out a new strategy this week in an attempt to quiet public discontent with their runaway spending and soaring debt.
The new bogeyman the Notley government is attempting to scare Albertans with is this: Cutting public spending now would send our economy back into a tailspin just as we are beginning to climb out of recession.

AVRO ARROW RECOVERY PROJECT

Sixty years after nine Avro Arrow free flight models went missing in Lake Ontario, a high-tech, all-Canadian search is under way for their recovery.
The Arrow Recovery Project, funded by private sponsors and corporate funding with start up costs between $500,000 and $1,000,000, was announced Friday by John Burzynski, the president and CEO of Osisko Mining Inc. and head of OEX Recovery Group Inc., which is leading the expedition.

BOMBARDIER BOMBS AGAIN

“You Had One Job” is the perfect way to describe the disastrous $1.2 billion deal the TTC and council agreed to in 2009, with Bombardier to deliver 204 new streetcars to Toronto by the end of 2018.
That Bombardier this week announced it may miss yet another interim deadline to deliver 70 of the streetcars by the end of 2017 (so far, the city has 40) is simply par for the course.
Given the troubled history of this deal, it’s not even surprising.

IN CASE YOU EVER WONDERED

No...it doesn't fit under.

ONTARIO'S UNDERUSED FINANCIAL WATCHDOG

His and his small staff calculated, for instance, that the Liberals’ “Fair Hydro Plan” cuts electricity prices by 25 per cent now by having us spend an extra $21 billion in the future. They laid out some of the risks of Ontario’s cap-and-trade plan for greenhouse gases the government would rather not talk about. They pointed out how much the government’s budget plans rely on Toronto’s overheated housing market’s spinning off billions of dollars in land-transfer taxes.

NO GRAVY, NO TURKEY

Notice that in their case, with the U.S. pullout, it's a case of the gravy train shutting down. Under the original pact, President Obama pledged $2 billion to third world countries as part of the deal. Well, now that the money's run out, there's no reason to hang around. Within about a month, Turkey was scrapping its role in the pact. They didn't want to be another pillar in some fake global warming establishment myth that would ruin their economy and empower eurocrats, just so wealthy greenie hipsters in the West can feel good about themselves.

20 MILLION TO THE CLINTON FOUNDATION

We have real concerns with plans announced Tuesday by the Liberal government to hand $20 million over to the Clinton Foundation to “support projects that will provide critical sexual and reproduction health (SRH) services” around the world.

CAN PROPERTY SURVIVE THE GREAT CLIMATE TRANSITION?

Western Sydney University Researcher Louise Crabtree, writing for The Conversation, thinks in a world torn by climate disasters ownership of private property may have to be sacrificed, to be replaced by a system of housing cooperatives or a roaming right to reside.

CRUMBLING GERMANY

A month of multiculturalism in German: June 2017

MILITANTS FIND SANCTUARY IN LIBYA

-- A series of military victories over extremist Islamic groups along Libya's Mediterranean coastline has forced hundreds of militants, including Islamic State fighters, to seek refuge in the vast deserts of the North African nation, already home to militias from neighboring countries, cross-border criminal gangs and mercenaries.

Libya's lawless, desolate center and south provides a sanctuary for militants to reorganize, recruit, train and potentially plot for a comeback. That is especially important at a time when the Islamic State group lost not only its urban holdings in Libya but is crumbling in Iraq and Syria.

 

USA HITS 50,000 REFUGEE CAP

The U.S. has reached the Trump administration's limit of 50,000 refugees for this budget year. That won't stop some additional refugees from entering the United States in the next few months, but they will now face tighter standards.

A Supreme Court order last month said the administration must admit refugees beyond the 50,000 cap if they can prove a "bona fide relationship" with a person or entity in the United States. That was part of a broader ruling that allowed President Donald Trump to partially administer his contested travel ban affecting six Muslim majority countries.

 

COMPLYIING WITH USA DEPORTATIONS

Combined efforts from the Departments of State and Homeland Security under the Obama and Trump administrations have reduced nations blocking transfers of illegal immigrants by half.

OBSCENE SALARY OF HYDRO ONE CEO

The head of Hydro One makes double the salary of his next highest-paid provincial counterpart, and 10 times that of some CEOs in smaller provinces.

At $4.4 million in salary and bonuses in 2016, Hydro One CEO Mayo Schmidt is well above the Alberta CEO, whose pay package topped out at $2.2 million in 2015.

 

$10.5 MILLION PAYOUT A COST SAVING MEASURE

We’re still in the early innings, but it would appear that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s pieties about the sanctity of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms aren’t quite a match for the blowback over his government’s decision to cough up $10.5 million and an apology in a secret deal with Guantanamo Bay’s loudly-argued-about former inmate, Omar Khadr.
It turns out that Canadians are so put off by the arrangement — 71 per cent of respondents in an in-depth Angus Reid public opinion survey say it was the wrong thing to do — that three in five Liberals, even, agree with Conservative leader Andrew Scheer that the case should have been fought in court, to the end.

INCREASING WARINESS & SUSPICION IN BORDER TOWNS

By mid-April, the number of border-hopping asylum seekers arriving in Canada had surpassed last year’s total of 2,464. The flow remains steady, which has compelled authorities and border-town residents to adjust to a new reality, reassessing their values and assumptions. In a major national poll conducted this spring by Abacus for Maclean’s, 71 per cent of Canadians called for increased security along the U.S. border—a steady sentiment across the country’s regions and age groups.

LIBERALS & LOBBY GROUPS: $950 MILLION UP FOR GRABS

Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre said Liberal promises of innovation super clusters and other forms of direct support to private companies will inevitably lead firms to boost their lobbying efforts.

“This sort of sleazy, cash-for-access influence-buying is an unavoidable consequence of government interference in the free enterprise system,” he said. “The government is pouring billions of dollars into highly-complex corporate welfare schemes, and as soon as that happens, businesses are prepared to invest in the political access to get their hands on that money.”

 

FAIL!

Israel has been listed in a Canadian school textbook as a country that recruits children as “spies and soldiers”, placing the Jewish State alongside Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq, Libya, and Yemen as a human rights violator.

EPA CHIEF WANTS TELEVISED CLIMATE DEBATE

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is in the early stages of launching a debate about climate change that could air on television – challenging scientists to prove the widespread view that global warming is a serious threat, the head of the agency said.

ZAYNAB KHADR

Omar's older sister, who is still in a Turkish prison, on terrorist charges.

GERMANY'S UNFAIR DISTORTED ADVANTAGE

Donald Trump, for all his rhetorical clumsiness and intellectual limitations, still sometimes makes a valid point. He does when he says that Germany is “very bad on trade.” However much Berlin claims innocence and good intentions, the fact remains that the euro heavily stacks the deck in favor of German exporters and against others, in Europe and further afield. It is surely no coincidence that the country’s trade has gone from about balance when the euro was created to a huge surplus amounting at last measure to over 8 percent of the economy—while at the same time every other major EU economy has fallen into deficit.

RIDICULOUS RALPH

Listening to Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale blame Stephen Harper for the fact the Liberals just gave an apology and $10.5 million to Omar Khadr reminds me of listening to Baghdad Bob during the Iraq war.
Baghdad Bob (aka “Comical Ali”) was the Iraqi information minister, Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf, who became globally infamous for his daily summations of the war, which had no basis in reality, and which provoked international ridicule every time he spoke.

KEEPING AN EYE ON IT

NP:  He rose to fame in early June when his wife snapped a picture of him casually mowing their backyard in shorts and a t-shirt while an enormous tornado swirled in the distance.

OFFER TO PAY FOR NOTLEY'S ECONOMICS COURSE REJECTED

Over the past weekend, PC leader Kenney called the Notley NDP "a government of economic illiterates."
He saw them as a group of politicians living in denial after the latest bad review of their financial plan from a credit rating agency didn't faze them.
Kenney didn't end there. He even offered to pay the tuition, and pay it happily, to send Notley on a "remedial Economics 101 course."

HE SHOULD KNOW HE WAS THERE

A man injured in the same firefight in which Omar Khadr is alleged to have killed an American special forces soldier says he believes Canada owes the former Guantanamo Bay inmate nothing.

BROUGHT TO YOU BY THE LETTERS W-T-F

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry has set up turtle underpasses in new road developments, including Highway 69, south of Sudbury.

COMEY LEAKED TRUMP MEMOS

First loved by the Democrats when he personally absolved Hillary Clinton of any sins regarding her (ab)use of her personal email server, then furiously loathed when he reopened the FBI probe into Hillary Clinton one week before the election, then finally getting into a feud with President Trump which cost his him job, Comey ultimately admitted to leaking at least one memo which contained personal recollections of his conversations with the president, in hopes of launching a special probe into the president's alleged Russian collusion. 
There was just one problem: according to a blockbuster report from The Hill, in addition to the leaked memos, Comey also leaked classified information in gross and direct violation of FBI rules and regulations.

LIBERAL WAR ON HISTORY

What the hell has happened to Canada? How did we reach such a state that sackcloth and ashes would be the only fitting attire for commemorating such an important milestone in this country’s  development?
We’re not allowed to say this anymore, but you know the inmates have seized the national asylum when the country’s founding father is vilified as a genocidal monster while a former terrorist, a so-called “child soldier” who pleaded guilty to murdering an American medic, is portrayed by the social/judicial elites as both victim and hero and transformed overnight into a multi-millionaire with our tax dollars.

POT CALLING THE KETTLE BLACK

 Pope Francis told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica on Thursday that the United States of America—and Russia, China, North Korea and Bashar al Assad's Syria—have “a distorted vision of the world"

SYRIAN CEASEFIRE. AGAIN

A U.S.-Russian brokered ceasefire in southwest Syria was holding several hours after it took effect according to Reuters, the latest international attempt to restore peace in the six-year Syrian war. The truce, which took effect across southwest Syria on Sunday at noon Damascus time (09:00 GMT), extends to Syrian government forces and rebel groups in the provinces of Deraa, Quneitra, and Sweida where western-backed rebels control swathes of territory and form a center of the insurgency south of the capital Damascus.

EU STILL GIVING ORDERS TO THE UK

The first vice president of the European Commission has said he expects the UK to take in migrants from North Africa as part of a new European Union (EU) programme.
 The bloc is planning to take genuine refugees directly from nations like Libya, hoping to secure a deal where Libya would, in return, accept the immediate return of all migrants found crossing the Mediterranean

LIBERALS REDACT ACCESS TO INFO REFORMS

The Liberals campaigned on a promise to expand the access to information act to the offices of the prime minister and his cabinet. The legislation introduced by Brison did no such thing, instead it required that those offices proactively disclose certain types of documents — although they are mostly talking points and communications notes.

ALBERTA HAS NO CREDIBLE PLAN TO REDUCE FUTURE DEFICITS

There will be more political fallout than financial consequences from a credit-rating agency’s new negative long-term outlook for Alberta, a Mount Royal University political studies professor says.
DBRS on Friday said the provincial government’s continuing accumulation of debt and no “credible” plan to reduce future deficits prompted the agency to forecast a negative outlook for Alberta’s finances, instead of its previously stable state.

WILDFIRES IN BRITISH COLUMBIA

'It feels as if all of B.C. is on fire': Scores of new blazes trigger state of emergency

HOLDING PARENTS ACCOUNTABLE

Brandon and Gail Blackmore did that in 2004 when they drove their 13-year-old daughter from B.C. to Utah and witnessed her marriage to Warren Jeffs, the 49-year-old prophet of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints.
Jeffs already had more than 80 wives (including one of the Blackmores’ other daughters). He was already known as erratic, autocratic and a suspected pedophile.
And yet they handed their daughter to him, knowing that procreation is the main reason for marriage, not companionship or love.

SGT CHRISTOPHER SPEER

Who was Sgt. Christopher Speer, the soldier who died in a firefight with Omar Khadr?

YOU MIGHT AS WELL TALK TO THE WALL

Ontario’s energy use is highest in the winter and summer and lowest in spring and late fall.
“This is almost a mirror image of wind production patterns: wind is highest in the spring and fall, when electricity needs are lowest, and lowest in summer when electricity demand peaks,” the report notes.
The result is that two-thirds of wind [power] generation is surplus to demand and must be wasted or dissipated either through forced curtailment of hydro and nuclear generation, or by increased exports to Quebec and the United States, generally at low prices.

NO MORAL DUTY TO TAKE IN MIGRANTS

The liberal facade behind Europe's grand refugee acceptance experiment took a big hit on Friday, when Italy's Former Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, and head of the ruling Democratic Party, said his country does not have "any moral duty to take in migrants", sharply toughening his stance over surging numbers of asylum seekers.  His U-Turn follows that of Angela Merkel, who infamously accepted nearly 1 million mostly Syrian refugees in 2015, only to see a surge in terrorist attacks across Germany and Europe, and a plunge in her popularity as a result of an angry social backlash, prompting her to quietly but forcefully end Germany's "open door" policy.
Now it's Italy turn.

AMERICA GOING ITS OWN WAY

World leaders forged a fragile compromise at a summit in Germany that failed to conceal the reality that Donald Trump’s America is increasingly going its own way.
The Group of 20 nations meeting in Hamburg agreed to fight protectionism while tacitly recognizing Trump’s concerns about excess steel capacity and what he says are unfair trade practices. On climate change, the U.S. was again isolated, with all 19 other members agreeing that the Paris accord on cutting harmful emissions was “irreversible.”

UNESCO REWRITING HISTORY

The second holiest place in Judaism has been declared a world heritage site for the Palestinians by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

Jews have claimed Hebron's Cave of the Patriarchs as the burial site for Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah. Jews were praying at this site half a millennia before Islam was even invented.

 

ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST IN ONTARIO

The high cost of electricity is driving about 20 manufacturing jobs out of the Central Wire Industries Ltd. plant on Erinville Drive.
As the price of power increases in Ontario, the Canadian company has decided to redistribute its production capabilities within its multiple North American sites, and stop manufacturing completely at its Erin branch.

OTTAWA PAYS OUT $10.5 MILLION

The Trudeau government has quietly paid a $10.5-million settlement to Omar Khadr in a move that circumvents legal efforts by two Americans to prevent him from receiving compensation for abuses he suffered as a teenager at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"DEBATING SCIENTIFIC THEORIES UN-AMERICAN"

Many scientists are now rejecting an open debate on anthropogenic global warming. EPA administrator Scott Pruitt appears ready to move forward with a “red-team, blue-team” exercise, where two groups of scientists publicly challenge each other’s evidence on manmade climate change.

G20 PROTESTORS FIREBOMB POLICE STATION

A police station has been firebombed and cars and buildings set alight in the German city of Hamburg, where world leaders are holding crunch talks today.

Police have called for reinforcements after tens of thousands of protesters descended on Hamburg, causing chaos. 

INSPIRING SPEED

 A professional runner from Kenya who was out training on a nature trail in the woods near his home in Maine says he encountered two charging black bears but was able to outrun them during a frantic sprint to a nearby vacant house for cover.

CANADIAN JUSTICE

More than 200 criminal cases across the country have been tossed due to unreasonable delays since the Supreme Court of Canada’s landmark Jordan decision one year ago, court data shows.
The cases include murders, sexual assaults, drug trafficking and child luring, all stayed by judges because the defendant’s constitutional right to a timely trial was infringed.

'HOCKEY STICK' MANN COMMITS CONTEMPT OF COURT

Michael Mann, who chose to file what many consider to be a cynical SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) libel suit in the British Columbia Supreme Court, Vancouver six long years ago, has astonished legal experts by refusing to comply with the court direction to hand over all his disputed graph’s data. Mann’s iconic hockey stick has been relied upon by the UN’s IPCC and western governments as crucial evidence for the science of ‘man-made global warming.’
Punishment for Civil Contempt
Mann’s now proven contempt of court means Ball is entitled to have the court serve upon Mann the fullest punishment. Contempt sanctions could reasonably include the judge ruling that Dr. Ball’s statement that Mann “belongs in the state pen, not Penn. State’ is a precise and true statement of fact. This is because under Canada’s unique ‘Truth Defense’, Mann is now proven to have wilfully hidden his data, so the court may rule he hid it because it is fake. As such, the court must then dismiss Mann’s entire libel suit with costs awarded to Ball and his team.

SCIENTISTS LIVE BY A COVENANT

Michael Mann:  There’s a big asymmetry in the public conversation. Scientists live by a covenant to be truthful, to be skeptical in an honest way, stating the caveats and uncertainties, and yet we’re often in battle with climate change deniers who don’t play by those rules.

P!SSING OFF ALBERTA

When Prime Minister Justin Trudeau forgot to mention Alberta during his Canada Day speech on the weekend, some aggrieved westerners reached for a familiar response to a slight from the East.
From the usual short-fused social media users to conservative leaders, it’s not hard to find anger in Alberta about equalization payments. The program intends to make sure provinces are providing comparable services across the country, but more often it is a political talking point.

NOT BELIEVING THE GREEN HYPE

Northland Power Inc., the C$4 billion ($3.1 billion) Canadian renewable energy producer, failed to find a buyer after running a sale process, according to people with knowledge of the matter.
Shares in Toronto-listed Northland fell as much as 3.9 percent to C$22.10 Wednesday morning and traded at C$22.84 at 9:51 a.m.

RESETTING BIOFUEL TARGETS

The U.S. government on Wednesday proposed to reduce the volume of biofuel required to be used in gasoline and diesel fuel next year as it signaled the first step toward a potential broader overhaul of its biofuels program.

MEANWHILE IN AUSTRALIA

In Australia, according to judges, women and children must accept sexual assaults because it is part of the "Islamic culture" of their attackers. It would seem that in parts of Australia, this "Islamic culture" has replaced the rule of law.

THE FUTURE OF MULTICULTURAL EUROPE

Over the past 20 years, European cities have slowly become more ethnically diverse, as EU governments open their borders to foreign populations. And as this process has taken place, the authorities have been quick to cover up any crimes that have been committed by these populations. For instance, Swedish police are no longer allowed to describe the ethnic background of the criminals they catch, and most notably, the German government and press were desperate to cover up hundreds sexual assaults that occurred in Cologne in 2015.