RUSSIA TELLS SYRIAN ASYLUM SEEKERS TO GO HOME

  Safaa is one of thousands of Syrian refugees that Russia, an ally of President Bashar al-Assad, is urging to return. Large parts of Syria are safe, Russian officials say, and there is no reason for asylum seekers like Safaa, 55, to remain.
  “But it’s not possible for anyone to return in this situation. People know that there is poverty, that people are dying of cold or from hunger, or from bombing.”
  According to the U.N. refugee agency, nearly 5.5 million Syrians have fled a war that has raged over

seven years.

LIBERAL's SICKENINGLY SMUG PROTECTION RACKET

    I’ve never met a Liberal yet who doesn’t reliably confuse his electoral skin with the national interest. So much of what Trudeau and his minions have done in the last year stems from that instinct. Take the ludicrous half-billion-dollar bailout for people in my line of work, never explained, sprung out of nowhere in Morneau’s fall economic update—or as I now like to think of it, between Trudeau advisor Mathieu Bouchard’s meeting (yet another one) with Prince and Michael Wernick’s chat with Wilson-Raybould. You can get a lot of op-eds written with that kind of dough. Take the cool billion the Canada Infrastructure Bank coughed up to pay for a politically popular and impeccably well-connected transit project around Montreal. That money appeared, from a brand-new bank that has not funded a single other project and did not then yet have a CEO [Update, Thursday: Wrong! It had had a CEO since last May – pw], on the day before Philippe Couillard launched the Quebec election campaign. It is now impossible to believe on faith that the Canada Infrastructure Bank is not a wholly-owned subsidiary of Ben Chin, Mathieu Bouchard, Katie Telford and Justin Trudeau.

   What the former attorney general described tonight is a sickeningly smug protection racket whose participants must have been astonished when she refused to play along. If a company can rewrite the Criminal Code to get out of a trial whose start date was set before the legislation was drafted, all because a doomed Quebec government has its appointment with the voter, then which excesses are not permitted, under the same justification? If a Clerk of the Privy Council can claim with a straight face that ten calls and meetings with the attorney general, during which massive job loss, an angry PM and a lost election are threatened, don’t constitute interference, then what on earth would interference look like? Tonight I talked with two former public servants whose records rival Michael Wernick’s. Both were flat astonished that he seems not to have pushed back against this deeply disturbing, and plainly widespread, behaviour.

LIBERALS GRANT $MILLIONS TO CLIMATE WATCHDOG

  Canadian Environment Minister Catherine McKenna is planning to award a multimillion dollar grant to a non-profit organization that will take on a watchdog role, holding the federal government to account for its climate change commitments and policies, says a spokeswoman from her office.
  The minister's office confirmed the plans after McKenna's staff met with the chief executive of the U.K.'s climate watchdog, who was visiting Ottawa this week.
  McKenna’s office said that such an institute could help fill the void created by the government of former prime minister Stephen Harper when it cancelled funding for the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, or NRTEE, forcing the independent organization to close its doors in 2013.

COHEN: I'VE LIED, BUT I'M NOT A LIAR

   Perhaps the foremost issue with Michael D. Cohen’s Congressional testimony today was spotlighted by Cohen himself when President Trump’s disgraced and disbarred former personal attorney exclaimed, “I have lied, but I am not a liar.”
   In his opening remarks before the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, Cohen, a convicted criminal, stated:
   For those who question my motives for being here today, I understand. I have lied, but I am not a liar. I have done bad things, but I am not a bad man. I have fixed things, but I am no longer your “fixer,” Mr. Trump.

TIME FOR PUTIN TO SHOW HIS TITS AGAIN

  The Russia of 2019 is in a complicated economic and even political situation. Smoldering conflicts near its borders amid continued pressure from the US and NATO affect the situation in the country negatively. This is manifested in society and in national politics. The approval rating of the Russian government and personally of President Vladimir Putin has been decreasing.
  According to VCIOM, a state pollster, in January 2019, Putin’s confidence rating was only 32.8%. This is 24% less than in January 2018 when it was 57.2%. At the same time, the confidence rating of Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev was 7.8%. The approval rating of his cabinet is 37.7% while the disapproval rating is 38.7%. Opposition sources show data, which is far worse for the current Russian leadership.
   This tendency is not linked to the foreign policy course of the Kremlin. Rather, it’s the result of the recent series of liberal-minded economic reforms, which look similar to the approaches exercised by the Russian government in the mid-1990s. The decision to increase Value Added Tax amid the slowing Russian economy, especially in the industrial sector, and a very unpopular pension reform increasing the retirement age were both factors contributing to the further growth of discontent in the population.

LE BACK-PEDALING ON LE HIJAB DE RUNNING

  French retailer Decathalon has quickly backpedaled on a heavily promoted "sports hijab" which allowed Muslim women to work out while still remaining in compliance with Sharia law, after the garment faced immediate pushback from outraged politicians and members of the public.
   "My choice as a woman and a citizen will be to no longer trust a brand that breaks with our values," tweeted Health Minister Agnes Buzyn.
   Islam is the second-most widely practiced religion in France after Catholicism, at around 12.5% of the population. The country has banned Muslim women from wearing veils in public, including the controversial "burkini" in coastal cities.

PM COMPLETELY DISAGREES WITH WILSON-RAYBOULD

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addresses comments made earlier today by former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould on the SNC-Lavalin affair.
  " I and my staff always acted appropriately and professionally"
  

SNC-LAVALIN PAID FOR GADHAFI DEBAUCHERY

  New details have emerged about Quebec engineering giant SNC-Lavalin’s cozy relationship with the son of former Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi, including the company allegedly hiring prostitutes for him during a visit to Canada a decade ago.
  Receipts gathered during an investigation of a former SNC-Lavalin executive show $30,000 in payments to Saadi Gadhafi for sexual services in Canada in 2008, La Presse reported. The documentation can now be revealed publicly because the prosecution of Stéphane Roy, former vice-president of SNC-Lavalin, on fraud and bribery charges was dropped last week due to court delays.
    The investigation showed that SNC-Lavalin was writing off the expenses as associated with construction projects in Libya, La Presse reported, with the total bill for Gadhafi’s trip totalling nearly $2 million.

WILSON-RAYBOULD NUKES LIBERALS

Wilson-Raybould:

For a period of approximately four months between September and December 2018, I experienced a consistent and sustained effort by many people within the government to seek to politically interfere in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in my role as the Attorney General of Canada in an inappropriate effort to secure a Deferred Prosecution Agreement with SNC-Lavalin. These events involved 11 people (excluding myself and my political staff) – from the Prime Minister’s Office, the Privy Council Office, and the Office of the Minister of Finance. This included in-person conversations, telephone calls, emails, and text messages. There were approximately 10 phone calls and 10 meetings specifically about SNC-Lavalin that I and/or my staff was a part of.
  Within these conversations, there were express statements regarding the necessity for interference in the SNC-Lavalin matter, the potential for consequences, and veiled threats if a DPA was not made available to SNC. These conversations culminated on December 19, 2018, with a phone conversation I had with the Clerk of the Privy Council – a conversation for which I will provide some significant detail.

Read the full text of Jody Wilson-Raybould’s statement to the House of Commons’ justice committee

PROVIDING DRUGS TO PRISONERS AT NO CHARGE

   The Correctional Service of Canada spent more than $100 million over three-and-a-half years to provide inmates with prescription drugs, including revolutionary but expensive biologic medications that some Canadians living with serious illnesses struggle to afford.
    Ongoing treatments with biologic drugs can cost as much as $20,000 annually. Patients who require them must navigate a patchwork of private insurance plans, provincial drug coverage and, in some cases, compassionate care programs provided by the drug-makers themselves.
   Offenders in federal prisons -- those serving sentences of two years or longer -- are provided biologic drugs at no charge.

MADURO'S SOLDIERS DEFECTING

  A high-stakes plan by the Venezuelan opposition to bring humanitarian aid into the country floundered Saturday when troops loyal to Maduro refused to let the trucks carrying food and medical supplies cross, but it did set off a wave of military defections unlike any seen yet amid the country’s mounting crisis. Over 320 mostly low-ranking soldiers fled in a span of four days, Colombian immigration officials said Tuesday.
   The defections come as the Venezuelan opposition puts pressure on the military to recognize congress leader Juan Guaido as the nation’s rightful president. Venezuela’s military has served as the traditional arbiter of political disputes, forcing out dictator Marcos Perez Jimenez in 1958. But the top military brass has stood fast with Maduro, who has shown no sign that he intends to relinquish power.

$56M IN AID TO COUNTRIES NEIGHBOURING VENEZUELZ

US Vice President Mike Pence and Venezuela opposition leader Juan Guaido agreed on a strategy to tighten the noose around President Nicolas Maduro following a meeting with regional allies in Colombia on Monday.

Pence announced more sanctions against Venezuela and $56 million in aid for neighboring countries grappling with a flood of people fleeing the economically stricken country.

Maduro hit back in an interview broadcast the same day, saying the regional meeting was aimed at setting up a parallel government and accusing the US of coveting his country's oil and being willing to go to war to get it.

BILLIONAIRES TAKE $1T HIT FROM 2018 MARKET

  BANGKOK (AP) — The stock market meltdowns in 2018 obliterated $1 trillion of the fortunes of the world's richest individuals, according to a list by wealth compiler Hurun Report.
   The report, China's version of the Forbes rich list, showed Chinese billionaires still outnumbered those from any other country as of Jan. 31, at 658. Several newly minted ones amassed wealth through big share offerings, while 212 Chinese tycoons lost their dollar billionaire status.
   The U.S. had 584 billionaires, followed by Germany with 117.

TAKE COMFORT IN OUR REFUGEE SYSTEM

  A Somali man with a list of criminal convictions amassed while living in the United States and who was among the waves of irregular migrants coming to Canada fearing U.S. President Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric, has had his refugee claim rejected.
  Abdirizak Abdullahi Mohamed was among the hundreds of migrants who illegally entered Canada in 2017 by simply walking from the United States across the largely uncontrolled border into Canada near Emerson, Man., causing concern over border integrity and migrant safety.
   Mohamed’s lawyer, Winnipeg-based Bashir Khan, said this case, seen as a snap shot from the wave of irregular migration, should comfort Canadians about the refugee system rather than cause alarm.

TRUMP & KIM AT THE HANOI SUMMIT

In a choreographed ceremony that recalled their first meeting in Singapore, President Trump and Kim Jong Un met at the Metropole Hotel in Hanoi late Wednesday (local time) to start their second historic summit off with a handshake, a brief private meeting and a dinner with their aides - all of which (except for the private discussion) took place in front of thousands of reporters from around the world.

Shortly after arriving at the hotel, the two leaders shook hands standing in front of a display of American and North Korean flags.

Responding to questions from reporters, Trump said he felt the summit would be a "great success" and that he hadn't reconsidered his stance on total denuclearization for North Korea. That was followed by the two leaders' first "sit down" where they both answered questions from the press. Asked if the two leaders would announce an end to the 1950-1953 Korean War, an outcome that analysts have said would be one of the best-case scenarios for the summit, Trump said: "We'll see."

PAKISTAN SHOOTS DOWN 2 INDIAN FIGHTER JETS

Update 2: Pakistan is now saying that only one Indian pilot is in custody...and India has confirmed that only one pilot is missing. Meanwhile, there have been reports of "heavy exchange of fire" in multiple areas along the border.

Regarding the detained pilot, India's Ministry of External Affairs has lodged a "strong protest" after summoning Pakistan's deputy high commissioner. In a statement, India accused Pakistan of violating the Geneva Convention by shooting down its planes, and said that it expects the "safe return" of the detained pilot.

A DOG WHISTLE FOR VIOLENT ACTIVISTS

  The SNC-Lavalin scandal has Canadians fixated on justice and the rule of law.
  The timing could not be better for a charity called Canadians for the Rule of Law (CFTRL), which is hosting a full-day “National Teach-in” in Toronto on March 17, entitled, “The New Taboo: Respect for the Rule of Law in Canada.” It was planned long before the present political brouhaha, and isn’t concerned with corporate corruption, but it’s a nice marketing coincidence all the same.
  I can’t tell you where the conference is taking place, because the original locale, a large Toronto synagogue, withdrew its invitation when it was “doxxed” (with a photo of the building) in a column by Michael Coren in Now Toronto, fomenting security concerns. As is becoming the norm for groups mounting events that deal with conservative ideas or politically incorrect topics, locales are being kept secret until the last minute to avoid potential violence from Antifa-style activists, for whom Coren’s column was, in my opinion, a dog whistle.

  Coren’s and Farber’s righteous indignation would arouse less cynicism if they were not casting these stones from glass houses. In a previous spiritual incarnation, Coren was happy to have platforms to speak his (then) truth on gay marriage (against it), and would not have reacted well to threats of mobbing by those with opposing views. Farber can only see danger to Jews and democracy on the right. He finds it difficult to admit that anti-Semitism is, for some of us, a greater problem when it comes from the anti-Zionist left and its complicity with political Islam. Farber showed amazing restraint, for example, dealing with an imam captured in a video, crying “O Allah! Purify Al-Aqsa Mosque from the filth of the Jews,” advocating publicly for sympathy on his behalf.

DID PMO NOT GET THE "PLAN B" MEMO?

   But what perplexes me is why Wernick, the prime minister, and senior advisers Gerald Butts and Katie Telford even discussed a remediation agreement for SNC after Wilson-Raybould made clear she was not disposed to negotiate one, when a perfectly sound plan B was already being worked on.
   As my colleague Gabriel Friedman revealed in the Post on Saturday, the department of Public Services and Procurement is finalizing changes to the Ineligibility and Suspension Policy under the Integrity regime. This word salad governs whether corporations convicted of crimes can bid on federal projects

LIBERALS' STUNNING HYPOCRISY

   The hypocrisy of the federal Liberals is not only sickening but extremely dangerous to this country.
   In the SNC-Lavalin case, they pressure a minister over prosecution, allow criminal charges to lapse and invent bureaucratic ploys to bend and mitigate the law.
   But at this end of Canada, the Liberals insist on hyper-respect for every law, regulation, concept, process and social notion that might possibly be used to delay a pipeline.

BUTTS's LEGACY OF DESTRUCTION

   Funny thing: While Butts readily accepted responsibility for his role in the SNC-Lavalin affair, and sought to remedy the situation by resigning, he has appeared determined to dodge any personal responsibility for past screw-ups that have left Canadians with far bigger and longer-lasting concerns.
    Years before becoming the prime minister’s key strategist, Butts held a similar position in the office of former Ontario premier Dalton McGuinty. In this role, he launched the province on course for a vast suite of controversial environmental policies, culminating in the notorious Green Energy Act. He has bragged of these accomplishments. When he left the premier’s office to become president and CEO of the environmentalist lobby group, World Wildlife Fund (Canada), for example, his online biography claimed he was “intimately involved in all of the province’s significant environmental initiatives, from the Greenbelt and Boreal Conservation plan to the coal phase-out and toxic reduction strategy.”
   These initiatives were indeed significant. The McGuinty government’s obsession with phasing out coal and promoting renewable energy via outrageous subsidies and government diktat was a provably ruinous policy. Between 2008 and 2016, residential electricity costs in Ontario grew by more than 70 per cent — double the average for the rest of the country. In some cities, large industrial users saw prices spike by 50 per cent or more. According to Ontario’s current provincial Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk, Ontario taxpayers paid $37 billion over market rates for electricity during those eight years.

KHADR WANTS COURT TO RULE SENTENCE EXPIRED

Former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Omar Khadr is to ask Alberta's youth court today to declare his eight-year sentence to have expired.

The sentence, which was imposed in 2010 by a military commission in the United States, would have ended last October had he remained in custody.

But the clock stopped ticking when an Alberta judge freed him on bail in May 2015 pending Khadr's appeal of a military commission conviction for war crimes — a years-long process that has no end in sight.

UKRAINE ASKS CANADA TO EXTEND MISSION

 Ukraine is asking Canada to send a "strong signal" to Russia by extending and expanding the Canadian military's training mission there.

In an interview with The Canadian Press on Monday, Ukrainian Ambassador Andriy Shevchenko expressed confidence that Canada would renew the military mission, whose mandate is up at the end of March.

But the sooner an extension and expansion to Operation Unifier, as the mission is known, is announced, the better, he said.

SINGH WINS IN BURNABY SOUTH

  NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has won his place in the House of Commons with a win tonight in the Burnaby South byelection.
  Singh has 37.7 per cent of 10,698 votes counted, and has been declared the winner. Singh will take the podium shortly. There are 76,204 registered voters in the riding. 120 of 196 polls have been counted so far, representing 43 per cent of the vote.

The Conservatives, meanwhile, easily hung onto the Ontario riding of York-Simcoe.
Conservative candidate Scot Davidson captured just over 50 per cent of the vote with a majority of polls reporting results to Liberal Shaun Tanaka's 30 per cent.

In Outremont, Liberal contender Rachel Bendayan held more than 40 per cent of the vote with more than half of the riding's polls reporting results, with the NDP's Julia Sanchez second at just over 25 per cent.

COW VIGILANTISM

  Radical cow protection groups in India have killed at least 44 people over the last three years and often received support from law enforcement and Hindu nationalist politicians, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch.

The 104-page report unveiled last week examines Hindu nationalist vigilante attacks and said 36 of the dead were members of India’s large Muslim minority. About 280 people have been injured in more than 100 attacks between May 2015 and December 2018, the report by the New York-based group said.

Members of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which supports policies to protect cows revered by the country’s majority Hindus, have “increasingly used communal rhetoric that has spurred a violent vigilante campaign against beef consumption and those deemed linked to it,” the group said.

WHITE OUTS & PILE UPS ON ONTARIO ROADS

  A blast of winter weather that included damaging winds and blowing snow caused chaos on highways in southern Ontario and left thousands of residents in several communities without power, authorities said Monday.
   One major crash took place on Highway 400 near Barrie, Ont., where several people were treated for minor injuries. Local fire officials said the collision involved more than 70 vehicles and required a stretch of the highway to be shut down in both directions.

PUTIN BARES HIS TEETH

  Russian state television has listed U.S. military facilities that Moscow would target in the event of a nuclear strike, and said that a hypersonic missile Russia is developing would be able to hit them in less than five minutes.
  The targets included the Pentagon and the presidential retreat in Camp David, Maryland.
  The report, unusual even by the sometimes bellicose standards of Russian state TV, was broadcast on Sunday evening, days after President Vladimir Putin said Moscow was militarily ready for a “Cuban Missile”-style crisis if the United States wanted one.

BEIJING'S ATTEMPTS TO INFLUENCE CANADIANS

But it was when Guo decided to run for mayor in Richmond last year, campaigning in part on strengthening ties with China, that her perspective on the country came startlingly into focus.

Asked by The Breaker news website about China’s human-rights record, she insisted that reports of rights abuses were an invention of foreign media like the New York Times and CBC.

“I think China has lots of freedom of speech,” she told the site. “The Chinese media in China, they have very much freedom, to talk and to criticize and to make suggestions.”

ZIMBABWE'S SOLDIERS BOOTED FROM CANADA

A husband and wife from Zimbabwe who were found complicit in crimes against humanity for their years working together in the Zimbabwe National Army have lost their legal appeals to avoid deportation from Canada.

Richard Tapambwa served in the Zimbabwean National Army for about 20 years; his wife, Stensia Tapambwa, served for about 16 years. Both were promoted to the rank of staff sergeant in the army’s data processing unit.

Their military service took place when the army was under the authority of former president Robert Mugabe, who faced condemnation for human rights abuses and crimes against humanity.

ANOTHER TRUTH-STRETCHER FROM AB NDP PHILLIPS

When it comes to the Bighorn park proposal, Alberta Environment Minister Shannon Phillips continues to struggle with the facts.

She clearly hasn’t learned her lesson from last month’s fiasco, when opposition MLAs and members of the public called on Phillips to resign from cabinet after she was caught in her own web of untruths regarding why she cancelled public meetings about the NDP government’s plans to create four parks, four recreation areas and two public land-use zones in the vast wilderness region.

Now, Indigenous leaders in the area say the minister’s claim that she met with the Sunchild First Nation last week is not true.

DEMOCRACY WATCH TO FILE ETHICS COMPLAINT

  A leading democracy watchdog is filing an ethics complaint against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in relation to the SNC-Lavalin fiasco, the Sun has learned.
  Democracy Watch, a Canadian advocacy group, believes Trudeau broke two sections of the Conflict of Interest Act by failing to abstain from a vote held last week in the House of Commons over whether or not to hold a public inquiry into the growing scandal. The Liberals defeated the motion with 159 against and 133 in favour.
  “Jody Wilson-Raybould did the right thing by abstaining,” Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch and adjunct professor of law and politics at the University of Ottawa, told the Sun. “Democracy Watch will soon file a complaint with the Ethics Commissioner about Trudeau’s vote.”

UK TOP POLICE CHIEF "DISCRIMINATE AGAINST WHITE MALES

Sara Thornton, head of Britain’s National Police Chiefs’ Council (NPCC), has said the law should be changed so forces can actively discriminate against white recruits in order to increase diversity.

Currently, discriminating against people in job recruitment on the basis of certain “protected characteristics”, including race, sex, and sexuality, is technically illegal under the Equality Act of 2010.

However, excluding certain people — generally white people, or at least white males — from supposed internships, even if they pay more than a typical working-class job, or deprioritising them from training schemes or workshops designed to boost employment prospects, is allowable under the act’s so-called “positive action” provisions.

GOOGLE'S UNMENTIONED MICROPHONE

  Google said Wednesday it forgot to mention that it included a microphone in its Nest Secure home alarm system, the latest privacy flub by one of the tech industry's leading collectors of personal information.
   The company said earlier this month that its voice assistant feature would be available on the system's Nest Guard, which controls home alarm sensors.
   But Google hadn't told consumers about the device's built-in microphone when it began selling the hubs in the fall of 2017. As recently as January, the product specs for the device made no mention of a microphone.

BILL GATES ON ECO-FANTASIES

Bill Gates slams unreliable wind and solar energy.

FEINSTEIN SNUBS GREEN NEW DEAL KIDS

  Oh this is precious. California’s senator Dianne Feinstein is facing criticism over a video showing her responding to a group of children and teenagers asking her to support the Ocasio-Cortez backed Green New Deal.
  LOL I don’t know what’s worse; kids being used for propaganda, or an old political crony more concerned about votes than issues.
  But, at least senator Feinstein realizes the “Green New Deal” is an unworkable fantasy, and rightly rejects it.

ORCASIO-CORTEZ, "I AM THE BOSS"

  “Like, I just introduced the Green New Deal two weeks ago, and it’s creating all of this conversation. Why? Because no one else has even tried,” she declared, in an apparent snub to Barack Obama’s Paris accord.
  “Some people are like, ‘Oh, it’s unrealistic, oh, it’s vague, oh, it doesn’t address this minute little thing, and I’m like, you try! You do it! ‘Cause you’re not! ‘Cause you’re not! So, until you do it, I’m the boss!
 “How about that?” she declared.
Ocasio-Cortez sat back in her chair and smiled broadly.

UGLY LESSONS ABOUT MEDIA RE JUSSIE SMOLLETT

It’s all but official. Empire co-star Jussie Smollett lied about getting attacked by two Trump supporters on a sub-zero Chicago street.

Smollett says two men attacked him, doused him with bleach, threw a noose-like rope around his neck and yelled racial and homophobic slurs at him. Oh, and one cried something about being in “MAGA country,” meaning President Donald Trump’s supporters were to blame.

 The narrative proved irresistible for our biased press. A gay black man assaulted by Trump supporters?

Stop the cyber presses!

SHIFTING SUPPLY DYNAMICS IN GLOBAL OIL MARKET

    As the US battles with its OPEC+ rivals over the direction of global oil prices (Trump wants to keep oil prices subdued, while Saudi Arabia and Russia, reeling from years of prices too low to balance their budgets, are desperately hoping to push them higher with another round of production cuts), 12 supertankers sailing across the Atlantic can tell us a lot about the changing supply dynamics in the global oil market.
    The tankers have been traveling a route spanning thousands of miles with no cargo other than some seawater needed for ballast. Of course, in normal times, the ships would be filled with heavy, high sulfur Middle East oil for delivery to refineries in places like Houston or New Orleans.
    The 12 vessels are making voyages of as much as 21,000 miles direct from Asia, all the way around South Africa, holding nothing but seawater for stability because Middle East producers are restricting supplies. Still, America’s booming volumes of light crude must still be exported, and there aren’t enough supertankers in the Atlantic Ocean for the job. So they’re coming empty.

MADURO BURNING TRUCKLOADS OF USA AID

I've always known that Venezuelan dictator Nicolas Maduro was bad. But never would I have imagined he'd stoop to what he did on Saturday, burning truckloads of U.S. aid as it entered Venezuela on Venezuelan trucks, as the poor screamed in despair and tried to rush into the burning vehicles to retrieve the food. The dictator was rubbing the hunger he himself created right in their faces.

Because in socialism, food is always the weapon. And like any dictator, Maduro wanted the locals disarmed.

LIBERALS LEANING ON THE AG IS JUST FINE

   Lilley: Here in Canada we have top officials, the PM and his most senior civil servant, admitting that they leaned on the attorney general to make sure a favoured company avoided prosecution and the government wants to act like it is just fine.
  If Canada is a country based on the rule of law rather than the whims of men, then we cannot have the prime minister’s office letting off friends anymore than we can have them using the justice system to prosecute enemies.
  It doesn’t matter if the attempt was successful, which in the SNC case it wasn’t, it matters that they tried.

OIL EXECS DOWNPLAY NEB APPROVAL

   Oil executives downplayed the National Energy Board’s recommendation Friday to — once again — approve the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion as only a small step toward building a project that will continue to face challenges.
   There are dozens of Indigenous communities along the pipeline route in Alberta and B.C. that have benefits agreements in place with Trans Mountain but the project has still faced opposition from First Nations on the West Coast.
   “Even if one community, one nation, says ‘no,’ then that project is not happening,” said Neskonlith Chief Judy Wilson, who is also secretary treasurer of the Union of B.C Indian Chiefs.

ANOTHER SPOT OF BOTHER FOR TOP LIBERALS

  On Friday, Vice Admiral Norman’s lawyer read out a list of priority people whose records need to be produced ahead of the abuse-of-process motion, scheduled to be heard starting March 25.
  Those five people are Trudeau himself; Butts, who was Trudeau’s principal secretary until resigning earlier this week; Katie Telford, Trudeau’s chief of staff; Michael Wernick, the clerk of the privy council; and Zita Astravas, the former issues manager in the Prime Minister’s Office, and now chief of staff to Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan.

   The defence has not yet filed its abuse-of-process motion because it is still waiting for disclosure of documents. However, the defence has indicated that political interference allegations will be a major component of the motion when it’s filed.

LIBERALS KEEP GETTING IN THE WAY

  Robyn Urback: The Liberal government, according to the Liberal government, absolutely wants to get to the bottom of the SNC-Lavalin affair. The problem is the Liberal government is standing in the way. What's a government to do?
   The question at the centre of this saga is whether former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould was pressured by anyone in the Prime Minister's Office (PMO) to seek a deferred prosecution agreement in the criminal case involving Quebec engineering giant SNC-Lavalin; Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been unequivocal in his answer. It's just that he's been answering a different question: No one directed her to secure a particular resolution.
   Don't be confused. Ever since that unambiguous denial of a question that wasn't asked, the government's line on the matter has been consistent and clear: We would like to tell you more, but we simply can't, because we are choosing not to.

SNC LAVALIN CHOSE TO DO BUSINESS IN LIBYA

   Meanwhile, SNC-Lavalin was allegedly busy defrauding Libyan public agencies of “approximately 129.8 million.” Charges were laid by the RCMP against SNC executive Sami Bebawi and a former SNC executive vice president, Riadh Ben Aissa, who pleaded guilty to charges of corruption and money laundering relating to SNC-Lavalin’s Libyan operation. Aissa has since been extradited to Canada.
   It has also been claimed that SNC “paid for lavish trips and more for relatives of former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi and even had some on payroll to ensure they got lucrative contracts.”
  Some more background about the Libyan regime that SNC was allegedly wheeling and dealing with: Muammar Gaddafi seized power in Libya in a military coup d’etat in 1969. He was known for “horrific human rights abuses,” a supporter of jihad terror, “fervently Islamic and pro‐Palestine,” and once stated: “Christianity is not a faith for people in Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Other people who are not sons of Israel have nothing to do with that religion….all those believers who do not follow Islam are losers…..We are here to correct the mistakes in the light of the teachings of the Koran.” Gaddafi also declared that “Iranians are our brothers” and fed into the victimology narrative that America was the great oppressor.

SMUGGLERS RAMMING DOWN BORDER FENCES

As California's leftist Gov. Gavin Newsom grandstands about suing the Trump administration over its construction of a concrete border wall, Mexico's human smugglers are having a grand old time, ramming through the corrugated junk metal fencing that's there with heavy smuggling vehicles, terrorist-style.

 Here's the U.S. Customs and Border Protection photo from independent San Diego television news station KUSI, reporting the matter last night:

WERNICK PRESSURED WILSON-RAYBOULD

   But that's okay, because he's worried about his country.
   Ivison:  Having exonerated Trudeau and Butts, Wernick revealed that he himself is the likely source of any disquiet Wilson-Raybould may have over SNC.
  He predicted that when the former attorney general appears before the committee next week, she will express concerns about a phone call he had with her on Dec. 19.
   He said he called her that afternoon to discuss the SNC file and whether a deferred prosecution agreement was still an option, even though she had ruled out intervening during her conversation with the prime minister in September.

SPENDING IN CANADIAN PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Compensation (salaries and wages, fringe benefits, and pensions) accounts for most of the increase in spending for Canada as a whole, growing from $35.1 billion in 2006/07 to $48.3 billion in 2015/16. Salaries and wages increased by 33.2 percent, from $28.8 billion in 2006/07 to $38.4 billion in 2015/16, and accounted for 72.4 percent of the overall compensation increase. As a share of total education spending in public schools, salaries and wages increased slightly from 59.0 percent in 2006/07 to 59.4 percent in 2015/16.

Fringe benefits increased 48.8 percent from $3.7 billion to $5.6 billion over the period. The increase in this spending category explains 13.8 percent of the overall increase in compensation spending. As a share of total education spending in public schools, fringe benefits have increased from 7.6 percent in 2006/07 to 8.6 percent in 2015/16.

Teacher pension costs for Canada as a whole increased 71.0 percent from $2.6 billion in 2006/07 to $4.4 billion in 2015/16. Pension costs increased as a share of total education spending on public schools from 5.3 percent in 2006/07 to 6.8 percent in 2015/16.

PRESSURE, BUT NOT UNDUE PRESSURE

   Lilley:  Wernick said there was no “undue pressure” and no “inappropriate pressure” but didn’t deny there was pressure for the former attorney general to intervene and stop SNC-Lavalin from facing prosecution.
“That the board of the company had to look at its options. Its share price had tanked and the board had fiduciary responsibilities to the company to take decisions about its future, close, sell,” Wernick said.
“That would have consequences for 9,000 Canadians, plus the suppliers, plus the pensioners, plus all the communities in which the company is active.”
   Nothing like telling the attorney general that if she goes ahead with the criminal prosecution of a company that is alleged to have bribed officials in Libya to the tune of $48 million and defrauded the country of $130 million that she could kill jobs.

TELFORD NAMED IN LAWSUIT

  One week after losing his right-hand man Gerald Butts, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's top political aide — chief of staff Katie Telford — faces allegations she intentionally inflicted mental suffering on an ex-ambassador.

The allegation is contained in a lawsuit filed by Vivian Bercovici, a former Canadian ambassador to Israel, who was appointed by the previous Conservative government of Stephen Harper and subsequently fired by the Trudeau Liberals.

Bercovici alleges she was terminated without being properly compensated for pension benefits, and that the government abused and harassed her.

FARMERS BURDENED BY RED TAPE

An alarming 69 per cent of Canadian farmers say burdensome red tape makes them question whether their children should take over the farm or even start their own farm, a Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) survey concludes.

Of 671 farmers surveyed, they said that the most burdensome agencies and regulations were the Canada Revenue Agency (59 per cent), the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (46 per cent), environmental regulations (45 per cent) and Statistics Canada (40 per cent). CFIB says sometimes the problem with red tape is not what needs to be done, but the timing, such as Statistics Canada sending out surveys during spring planting when farmers are busy in the fields.

JODY WILSON-RAYBOULD PLAYING GAMES

   Many smart lawyers say former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould isn’t bound by solicitor-client privilege regarding her discussions with the Prime Minister’s Office in the SNC-Lavalin scandal.
   Brian R.D. Smith of Gowlings, former attorney general of British Columbia, told thelawyersdaily.ca last week:
   “I think she can tell the world. I hope she does. First of all, she’s not giving advice to government … It’s not covered by the cabinet oath. So why would it be privileged? … you have to prove a privilege. Privilege is a very narrow thing … I see no privilege in (alleged) discussions involving political aides of the government trying to persuade, or tell the attorney, that she should do certain things on a criminal prosecution.”

HOCKEY STICK GRAPH A SYMBOL OF LYING

Scott Adams: ‘The hockey stick is literally a symbol of lying’

That’s direct quote from Scott Adams in this video he posted yesterday. Well worth your time.

In this video, ‘Dilbert’ creator Scott Adams solves the climate debate and saves the world (really).

RUSSIA & EUROPE FUELING VENEZUELA; COST RISING

  Venezuela is paying heavy premiums for fuel imports from Russia and Europe, with fewer than a dozen sellers seeing the risk as worth the reward after flows from the United States dried up because of sanctions, trading sources said and data showed.
  The South American nation exports crude but its refineries are in poor condition - hence the need to import gasoline and diesel for petrol stations and power plants, as well as naphtha to dilute its heavy oil.
  Since the United States imposed fresh sanctions on Venezuela on Jan. 28, products supplies have mainly come from Russian state oil major Rosneft, Spain’s Repsol, India’s Reliance Industries and trading houses Vitol and Trafigura, according to sources and vessel-tracking data.

PUTIN'S BOASTS AND THREATS

  President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia is militarily ready for a Cuban Missile-style crisis if the United States is foolish enough to want one and that his country currently has the edge when it comes to a first nuclear strike.
  The Cuban Missile Crisis erupted in 1962 when Moscow responded to a U.S. missile deployment in Turkey by sending ballistic missiles to Cuba, sparking a standoff that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.
   More than five decades on, tensions are rising again over Russian fears that the United States might deploy intermediate-range nuclear missiles in Europe as a landmark Cold war-era arms control treaty unravels.

MCCABE'S QUESTIONABLE CLAIMS RE 2ND FBI PROBE

Former Republican Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) said Tuesday evening that he does not believe former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe's claim that he informed Republican and Democrat leaders in 2017 that the bureau had opened a second counterintelligence probe of President Donald Trump.

Asked to respond to McCabe's view that Trump could be a Russian agent, Gowdy exclaimed: "If thinking that Jim Comey is not a good FBI director is tantamount to being an agent of Russia, then just list all the people that are agents of Russia!" Some other possible suspects he suggested included "Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Rod Rosenstein -- who wrote the memo getting rid of Comey -- Michael Horowitz, who's the inspector general."

"I mean, look, I know McCabe liked Jim Comey.... But lots of people thought that Jim Comey had lost the ability to lead that department," Gowdy said. "And the fact that President Trump got rid of him in May of 2017 is not sufficient basis to launch a criminal obstruction of justice probe!"Gowdy explained why the argument doesn't make sense. Trump "gets rid of Comey, replaces him with a Comey acolyte who not only continues the probe but expands it. So if his goal was to obstruct a Russia investigation, gosh, he did a terrible job of it!"

SENATE WATCHDOG's STATE OF INERTIA

The Senate ethics officer didn't publish a single inquiry report last year, prompting some senators to wonder exactly what the office (which has a $1.2 million budget) has been up to — and why it's taking so long to finish investigations that have been underway for months.

Pierre Legault, a career public servant, was tapped by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in summer 2017 to keep an eye on ethical transgressions in the Red Chamber on an interim basis. He was then appointed as the permanent Senate ethics officer (SEO) in December of that year.

Since then, the office has not concluded one ethics inquiry.

WHISTLING PAST THE NATO GRAVEYARD

   If the Anti-Iran conference in Warsaw was the opening act, the annual Munich Security Conference was the main event. Both produced a lot of speeches, grandstanding and virtue-signaling, as well as a lot of shuffling of feet and looking at the ground.
  The message from the U.S., Israel and Saudi Arabia was clear, “We are still committed to the destruction of Syria as a functional state to end the growing influence of Iran.”
  Europe, for the most part, doesn’t buy that argument anymore. Germany certainly doesn’t. France is only interested in how they can curry favor with the U.S. to wrest control of the EU from Germany. The U.K. is a hopeless has-been, living on Deep State inertia and money laundered through City of London.

USA COMPANIES TARGETS OF CHINESE HACKERS

  As US and Chinese negotiators prepare to begin their seventh round of trade talks this week, more reports are being leaked to the media about China's efforts to steal trade secrets from US companies via "Operation Cloudhopper", the Ministry of State Security-backed infiltration campaign that used service providers in the US and Europe to infiltrate the systems of their clients.
   According to a report in the New York Times that detailed how China and Iran have ramped up their hacking efforts since 2015, when the now-abandoned Iran deal was initially struck, and China promised the Obama administration that it would pull back on its cyberespionage efforts. After an 18-month lull, China's 10-year-long commercially motivated campaign was revitalized in the midst of growing trade tensions between the US and China (tensions that predated Trump's trade war).

   Among the latest targets of China's hacks, according to the NYT's military and private sources, were GE Aviation, Boeing and T-Mobile.

CHARGES STAYED AGAINST SNC-LAVALIN EXECUTIVE

   A Quebec court judge stayed charges of fraud and bribery against former SNC-Lavalin executive Stephane Roy Tuesday, ruling his right to a trial within a reasonable time had been violated.
  Judge Patricia Compagnone said delays caused by the Crown are an example of the "culture of complacency" the Supreme Court of Canada deplored in its 2016 Jordan decision limiting the length of legal proceedings. She added that prosecutors failed to show they tried to avoid unreasonable delays in the case, which began when Roy was first charged in 2014.
  Compagnone said the bribery charge against Roy stemmed from an allegation that he had plotted with a fellow SNC-Lavalin executive, Riadh Ben Aissa, to smuggle someone out of Libya. An RCMP affidavit filed in relation to its investigation alleged Roy was involved in a plot to smuggle Gadhafi's son, Saadi, and his family into Mexico as the Libyan regime was failing in 2011.

SANDMANN SUES WP FOR $250 MILLION

Attorneys for Covington Catholic High School student Nick Sandmann filed a lawsuit against the Washington Post on Tuesday, seeking $250 million in compensatory and punitive damages.

“The Post wrongfully targeted and bullied Nicholas because he was the white, Catholic student wearing a red ‘Make America Great Again’ souvenir cap on a school field trip to the January 18 March for Life in Washington, D.C. when he was unexpectedly and suddenly confronted by Nathan Phillips (‘Phillips’), a known Native American activist, who beat a drum and sang loudly within inches of his face (‘the January 18 incident’),” the lawsuit filed by lawyers Todd V. McMurtry and Lin L. Wood in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky reads.

BUTTS ACCEPTING PENANCE FOR SINS UNCOMMITTED

  Rex Murphy: But of this we can be certain. Mr. Butts did not resign to make matters worse, to sharpen focus on the drama, to further darken its already bleak overcloud.

  He must have chosen to do so because there was some element, more explosive, more turbulent, and more ominous for his friend and prime minister yet to come. Yet to come, and which Mr. Butts’

 pre-emptive sacrifice offered some hope of either preventing, deflecting or deflating.

    Mr. Butts’ leave-taking is all the more remarkable, too, because, as so many have noted, it was replete with declarations, unqualified and trenchant, that neither he nor anyone in the PMO “pressured Ms. Wilson-Raybould.” He emphatically denies all fault. And he should — as long as J W-R’s silence extends itself and no factual contradiction emerges — be taken at his word. But why then leave? This is accepting penance for sins uncommitted, unfamiliar both in liturgy and life.

FORD OVERHAULING POLICE OVERSIGHT REGULATIONS

Ontario is narrowing the scope of mandatory Special Investigations Unit probes into police conduct, with the Progressive Conservative government framing current rules as inherently anti-police.

The government is introducing legislation Tuesday to overhaul police oversight regulations, after it had paused implementation of a law from the previous Liberal government that enhanced the mandates of Ontario’s three police oversight agencies — the SIU, the Office of the Independent Police Review Director and the Ontario Civilian Police Commission.

ISIS BRIDE HAS BRITISH CITIZENSHIP REVOKED

   Islamic State schoolgirl Shamima Begum has had her British citizenship revoked, her family has been told in a letter from the Home Office.
  She and two school friends from Bethnal Green fled the UK via Turkey in 2015, where they made their way to Syria and were married off to Islamic State fighters.
   Speaking to ITV News on Monday, the teenager insisted she was "not a threat" to the UK, despite having insisted she did not regret joining IS.

CBS's LOGAN: JOURNALISTS ARE ACTIVISTS

  CBS News chief foreign affairs correspondent Lara Logan has broken ranks and admitted that journalists have lost their objectivity and become "political activists."
  During an appearance on the Mike Drop podcast with retired Navy SEAL Mike Ritland, Logan admitted that "the media everywhere is mostly liberal, not just the U.S.," adding that it was nearly impossible for viewers to decipher if they were being told the truth at any given time.
  "85% of journalists are registered Democrats," Logan said. "How do you know you’re being lied to? How do you know you’re being manipulated? How do you know there’s something not right with the coverage? When they simplify it all [and] there’s no grey. It’s all one way. Well, life isn’t like that. If it doesn’t match real life, it’s probably not. Something’s wrong. For example, all the coverage on Trump all the time is negative. … That’s a distortion of the way things go in real life."

MIGRANTS OVERWHELM USA BORDER FACILITIES

   Leaked photos reveal the extent to which U.S. border facilities are being overwhelmed by the inflow of migrants from Central America and other nations. Breitbart exclusively obtained the photos that are reminiscent of the Obama-era border surge. The images depict a Customs and Border Protection (CBP) processing, detention, and transport facility at a U.S. port-of-entry in El Paso, Texas. According to the source of the images, the photos were taken on February 17, 2019.
   Another source operating under the umbrella of CBP spoke with Breitbart under the same conditions and stated, “This is no different than what we were dealing with during the Obama Administration. This is happening in the Rio Grande Valley Sector, the Del Rio Sector, the El Paso Sector, the Tucson Sector, the Yuma Sector, and the San Diego Sector. It’s almost across the entire Southwest border that we are being overwhelmed by migrant families.” The source added, “We are basically facilitating Mexican cartels’ migrant smuggling operations into the interior of America. We are babysitting and not securing our border. The flow shows no signs of abating and it keeps increasing.”

SNC-LAVALIN; QUEBEC's POINT OF VIEW

  OTTAWA — In the ongoing debate over the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin and what kind of “pressure” was put on ex-justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to prevent it, the pundit classes of Quebec and the rest of Canada are singing different songs.
  The opinion pages and panels of talking heads in English-Canadian media have largely focused on the question of whether a refusal to bow to undue “pressure” from Trudeau’s office led to Wilson-Raybould’s demotion to the veterans affairs file last month and ultimately her resignation on Tuesday.
  In Quebec, par contre, the commentariat is more critical of Wilson-Raybould. They are more concerned about why the then-justice minister wouldn’t push the Director of Public Prosecutions to allow SNC-Lavalin a deferred prosecution agreement — a way for the firm to make amends for corruption charges incurred doing business in Libya without risking a long-term freeze on its ability to take public contracts. Liberals had inserted provisions for that kind of arrangement in the 2018 federal budget. Why then wouldn’t the provision be used, Quebec columnists wonder?

EGO BOOSTING AT THE EXPENSE OF THE LITTLE PEOPLE

Taxpayers spent $161,000 for photographers to take images of Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan on his various trips in what the Liberal government says is proof that Canada is re-engaging on the world stage. That cost covers only travel and accommodations for the military photographers and does not include their salaries.

The amount covers 26 trips since late 2015 to locations such as India, Trenton, Yellowknife, Brussels, Ukraine, Latvia, Iraq and Africa.

Such international meetings also often have official photographers assigned to events to produce imagery for the participants.

BUTTS WALKS THE PLANK

Justin Trudeau's Liberal government and his hopes for re-election were rocked Monday by the resignation of his principal secretary, Gerald Butts, amid allegations that the Prime Minister's Office interfered to prevent a criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin.

In a statement, Butts unequivocally denied the accusation that he or anyone else in the office improperly pressured former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to help the Montreal engineering giant avoid a criminal case on corruption charges related to government contracts in Libya.

Nevertheless, Butts said the allegation is distracting from the "vital work" Trudeau is doing, so it's in the best interests of the Prime Minister's Office for him to step aside.

DO YOU BELIEVE IN THE DEEP STATE NOW?

Be afraid. Be very afraid.

That’s a natural reaction to the revelation of Andrew G. McCabe, the former deputy FBI director, that top Justice Department officials, alarmed by Donald Trump’s firing of former Bureau director James Comey, explored a plan to invoke the 25th Amendment and kick the president out of office.
According to New York Times reporters Adam Goldman and Matthew Haag, McCabe made the statement in an NBC 60 Minutes interview to be aired on Sunday. He also reportedly said that McCabe wanted the so-called Russia collusion investigation to go after Trump for obstructing justice in firing Comey and for any instances they could turn up of his working in behalf of Russia.
The idea of invoking the 25th Amendment was discussed, it seems, at two meetings on May 16, 2017. According to McCabe, top law enforcement officials pondered how they might recruit Vice President Pence and a majority of cabinet members to declare in writing, to the Senate’s president pro tempore and the House speaker, that the president was “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.” That would be enough, under the 25th Amendment, to install the vice president as acting president, pushing aside Trump.

THE DIGITAL GANGSTERS OF FACEBOOK

  Facebook and its executives were labeled "digital gangsters" and should immediately be subject to statutory regulation, according to an 18-month investigation ordered by the UK parliament.
  The UK assessment comes as word that the Silicon Valley tech giant is negotiating a multibillion-dollar settlement with the US Federal Trade Commission, the largest handed out to a tech company in agency history.
  The UK report from the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport select committee, found that Facebook purposefully obstructed its inquiry, according to The Guardian, while the social media giant failed to tackle Russian attempts to manipulate elections.

"Democracy is at risk from the malicious and relentless targeting of citizens with disinformation and personalized ‘dark adverts’ from unidentifiable sources, delivered through the major social media platforms we use every day," warned Damian Collins, chairman of the committee.

1,800,000 SOLAR PANEL PROJECT IN VIRGINIA

   What is the New Green Deal?  Take a look at the economic and climate concept pushed by progressives.

The company sPower wants to build a 500-Megawatt solar project on the 6,350-acre site in western Spotsylvania County, with 3,500 acres being used to house 1.8 million solar panels. The land, currently owned by seven different landowners who plan to sell it to the company, has already been cleared for timber in anticipation of the project. sPower has said the project “will be safe, reliable, quiet and screened from public view.”

But a vocal contingent of activist-residents are working to pressure county officials to deny special use permits for sPower, arguing it would have disastrous environmental, economic and cultural impacts on the area. They point out that the proposed site is nearly half the size of Manhattan.

WIPING OUT TRUDEAU'S PROGRESSIVE PRETENSIONS

   Rex Murphy: The treatment of Ms. Wilson-Raybould put a big, bold, strike-through line on the absolute core elements of the Trudeau brand. It crisscrossed so many cardinal Trudeau pretensions it was almost enough to tempt belief in trendy “intersectionality.” (Almost.)
   It had been vowed that, in the sun-drenched days of a male-feminist Justin Trudeau administration, women would be treated better, more respectfully and above all fairer than in all the Neanderthal darkness that preceded it. Mr. Trudeau branded himself as the feminist-equity principle made flesh. Athena herself in pinstripes.
   Skipping past the prelude of the recently surfaced groping allegations from before he was prime minister, Mr. Trudeau’s treatment of Jody Wilson-Raybould, far from being a milestone of modern male-feminist sensitivity, could have been hauled out of a script for Married with Children.

LICENSE YOUR SNOW BLOWER IN OTTAWA

  It was near 3 a.m. on Wednesday morning, while the city was under siege from a winter storm, a bylaw officer pulled over on Holland Avenue to inspect a snow-clearing crew in a small, commercial parking lot.
   The owner of the company, Kevin Joly, was taken aback by the urgent flashing lights on a high-end SUV, the U-turn stopping in the middle of the night, as if this was some kind of emergency. A few minutes later, after a testy exchange, Joly was handed a ticket for $260. The offence? The company snowblower was not carrying a numbered licence plate issued by the city.

License a snowblower? Joly, 31, said he was told that any device that was used to move snow for profit must be licensed by the City of Ottawa.

“What about my shovel?” he asked, quite logically.

A SCANDAL, OR BUSINESS AS USUAL IN QUEBEC

   First, delve back into history, to 1986. That year, Progressive Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney awarded a 20-year, $100-million contract to service the country’s fleet of CF-18 fighter jets to Quebec-based Canadair — despite Winnipeg’s Bristol Aerospace offering a lower bid. The Mulroney government muttered something about the benefit of Quebec’s “technology transfer” from its well-established aerospace sector, but the truth was far more venal: Mulroney had vowed to sell the separatist Parti Québécois on the benefits of federalism. This contract was the fruit of his vow.
   Now consider Bombardier, the pride of Quebec’s vaunted aerospace industry. The company’s choice postal code has resulted in a cash bonanza from the federal as well as Quebec governments. Foisted on the taxpaying public to the tune of $4 billion since 1966, according to the Montreal Economics Institute estimate — an amount that includes provincial government support — Bombardier is one of the biggest recipients of government largesse in the country’s history. Put simply, governments have not allowed Bombardier to fail, despite a chronically anemic share price and a corporate structure that serves to enrich the Beaudoin and Bombardier family clans. The party that oversees Bombardier’s collapse is the party that loses Quebec.
   For its part, SNC-Lavalin shares Bombardier’s heft and has the benefit of good timing. With the October election looming on the horizon, a “remediation agreement” would be mutually beneficial to SNC and the Liberal Party of Canada; the former gets out of a legal jam and the latter gets to ride to the defence of a Quebec-based corporate crown jewel. The trouble is, by not granting this remediation, the Public Prosecution Service of Canada seems to have already deemed SNC undeserving of such a thing.

OINKERS ON HYDRO ONE BOARD

After being told by the province to lower the CEO’s total pay package to a maximum of $1.5 million and to pay board members no more than $80,000, the board flipped Premier Ford the finger.

The board wants to pay their CEO a maximum of $2.77 million per year and pay board members $140,000 for a part-time job.

EC BOSS JEAN-CLAUDE JUNCKER RUNNING SCARED

European Commission boss Jean-Claude Juncker has changed the rules governing the political activity of European Union Commissioners, allowing them to actively campaign in the upcoming EU Parliament elections.

Formerly the EU Commission, an unelected body which acts as the bloc’s executive and is the sole initiator of EU-level laws, was regarded as technocratic rather than overtly political, and not supposed to take partisan political stances of its own volition — at least in theory.

But the new rules will allow the Commission to campaign with, endorse, and support candidates and parties ahead of the European Parliament elections set to be held in May, Il Giornale reports.

ALL ABOUT THE QUEBEC VOTES

 If you want to understand what is going on in Ottawa recently, you have to recognize that all of the major political parties are pandering to Quebec, home of 78 federal ridings, the second most number of seats of any province.
And unlike most of the seats across the country, the seats in Quebec are up for grabs and will determine who wins the next election.
Last week, Quebec Liberal MP and chair of the House of Commons Justice Committee Anthony Housefather suggested during a Quebec media interview that Jody Wilson-Raybould may have been shuffled out of her job as Minister of Justice and Attorney General because she didn’t speak French.
It was a blatant attempt to position the prime minister and the Liberal government on the side of Quebecers.

WHEN IS HE GOING TO PRISON?

The Vatican announced Saturday that former-cardinal Theodore McCarrick will be laicized after finding him guilty of serial homosexual abuse.

According to a Vatican statement, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) issued a “decree finding Theodore Edgar McCarrick, archbishop emeritus of Washington, D.C., guilty of the following delicts while a cleric: solicitation in the Sacrament of Confession, and sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and with adults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power.”

The decree was issued on January 11 at the conclusion of a penal process, the Vatican said, imposing on him “the penalty of dismissal from the clerical state.”

QUESTIONABLE CONVERSATIONS RE V-A NORMAN PROSECUTION

   Vice-Admiral Mark Norman’s defence lawyers now have unredacted copies of the notes Crown prosecutors made when they met with senior government lawyers — notes that may be key in the defence’s attempt to have the case tossed next month.
   Prosecutors handed over the notes on Friday after Norman’s lawyers challenged the redactions, raising concerns the version they’d been given previously omitted material that could show political interference in the prosecution.
  Justice Heather Perkins-McVey pointed out that even in the notes previously disclosed, there appear to be questionable conversations between prosecutors and Privy Council lawyers.

CHARGES STAYED AGAINST SNC LAVALIN EXECUTIVE

MONTREAL — A former SNC-Lavalin executive and his lawyer had obstruction of justice charges against them stayed Friday on the grounds it took too long to bring the case to trial.

Sami Bebawi, a former SNC-Lavalin executive vice-president, and his Montreal-based tax lawyer, Constantine Kyres, had been accused of offering a $10-million bribe to have a key witness change his testimony in a fraud and corruption case against Bebawi.

The alleged recipient of the offer was Riadh Ben Aissa, another former SNC-Lavalin executive, who was detained in Switzerland at the time on charges of corrupting officials in Libya on behalf of the Canadian engineering firm.

FBI's RECOMMENDATION NOT TO PROSECUTE CLINTON

   The top brass of the Obama FBI went to great lengths to justify their decision not to recommend charges against former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information, according to Judicial Watch, which obtained evidence that the agency created a 'chart' of Clinton's offenses.
  The newly obtained emails came in response to a court ordered Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that the DOJ had previously ignored.
   Via Judicial Watch (emphasis ours):
Three days after then-FBI Director James Comey’s press conference announcing that he would not recommend a prosecution of Mrs. Clinton, a July 8, 2016 email chain shows that, the Special Counsel to the FBI’s executive assistant director in charge of the National Security Branch, whose name is redacted, wrote to Strzok and others that he was producing a “chart of the statutory violations considered during the investigation [of Clinton’s server], and the reasons for the recommendation not to prosecute…”

THE RUSSIA COLLUSION THUD HEARD ROUND THE WORLD

   A majority of the left, the Democrats, and their “mainstream” media arm have pounded the spurious collusion narrative for over two years. How much of that narrative they actually believe to be true is an open question that will someday hopefully be answered.

And then there was that vast swath of the American public that never, not for a moment, believed the charges. For them, the very idea that Donald Trump strategized with Russian apparatchiks, operatives, spies, whatever, was always patently ridiculous. For them, the investigations, particularly Mueller's, which gives new and ironic currency to the phrase “trumped up,” was always what President Trump said it was, a “witch hunt.”
   Now, the release of the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee’s report has borne out what those millions in the nation’s electorate always believed: there was no coordinated effort between Trump and the Russians to win in 2016.
   

PM TRUDEAU WILL NEVER SACRIFICE THE PMO

When Justin Trudeau was leader of Canada’s third-largest party in the House of Commons, he had big opinions on the Prime Minister’s Office and how it functioned.

According to Trudeau, Stephen Harper’s PMO (of which I was a part) was too secretive, too controlling and too partisan. “The boys in short pants” (as we were known) were running amok manhandling elected members and clubbing bureaucrats in the manner of baby seals (I paraphrase, but lightly).

The apotheosis of Trudeau’s outrage came in October 2013, when he tweeted: “(Retweet) to call on (Stephen Harper) to testify on the PMO Ethics Scandal under oath.”

INSIDE THE "UNITED WE ROLL" CONVOY

     It looked, and sounded, exactly what you’d expect of a truck convoy. Dozens of engines belching exhaust, amplified by the frigid prairie air and blowing through the parking lot at Gort’s Truck Wash in north Red Deer. The low rumble as they pulled out onto Alberta’s Highway 2, heading south. Then, an hour and a half later, an eastward turn onto the Trans Canada highway.
  The destination, Ottawa. The message, pipelines. The man to receive the message, Justin Trudeau.
   Even if nobody’s paying attention in Ottawa, the organizers hope people are paying attention in ridings across the country, and will see — and consider — what Albertans see as economic turmoil and pain that will affect Canadians far beyond the province’s borders. Still, what the convoy is striving to be about, oil and gas and the carbon tax — this is western alienation personified, gathered in a convoy of big trucks motoring across the nation, running straight through the heart of Canada, from oil country to the seat of political power. Before leaving, the group sang O Canada as the wind chill approached -40. Two pastors prayed, asking through a megaphone for God to open the ears of Parliamentarians and bless the convoy.

ANOTHER WAY TO SAVE SNC LAVALIN

MONTREAL - Lawyers for a former SNC-Lavalin vice-president accused of fraud and bribery are trying to have the case thrown out due to what they claim are unreasonable delays.

Stephane Roy's lawyers argued today in Quebec court that Crown prosecutors haven't done enough to limit delays as legal proceedings approach the 60-month mark.

Roy was arrested in 2012 and formally charged by the RCMP in 2014. He faces charges including fraud over $5,000, bribing a foreign public official and violating United Nations sanctions against Libya.

HE'LL JUST IGNORE THE BRIBERY AND FRAUD

   Quebec Premier Francois Legault says he wants the federal government to settle with engineering firm SNC-Lavalin "as soon as possible" in order to protect jobs and the company's corporate headquarters in Montreal.
   The embattled firm is vulnerable to a foreign takeover, Legault told reporters Thursday in Quebec City. And the longer its legal troubles drag on, the greater the chance it could fall prey to another company, he said.
   The company has been lobbying the federal government for a remediation agreement to avoid a criminal trial on charges of bribery and fraud related to its efforts to secure government contracts in Libya.