LONDON BRIDGE KILLER ROTTEN TO THE CORE

The London Bridge terrorist who stabbed two people to death in a horrific knife rampage yesterday sent a grovelling letter from prison begging to be sent on a deradicalisation course during his sentencing for his first terror offences, it has been revealed. 

Usman Khan, 28, was jailed in 2012 for his role in an al Qaeda-inspired terror group that plotted to bomb the London Stock Exchange and the US Embassy and kill Boris Johnson.

In an old letter from 2012, unveiled today, the terrorist begged to be shown mercy and asked for a course to be arranged so that he could 'properly learn Islam and its teachings, and I can prove I don't carry the extreme views which I might have carried before.' 

FARAGE PREDICTS BORIS JOHNSTON WIN

Brexit leader Nigel Farage has told Breitbart London he now believes that Boris Johnson will win the snap election next month, but pressure needs to be brought upon the Prime Minister to make sure Britain gets the clean break Brexit it needs, free from European Union rules in perpetuity.

ONTARIO LIBERAL PARTY CLAIMS A VALUE SENSE

The Ontario Liberal party is believed to have only 10,000 members now, down from the 44,000 on the rolls when Kathleen Wynne and Sandra Pupatello faced off for the leadership six years ago.In March, delegates at a Liberal convention will select a new leader and those delegates will be chosen by members of the party.

“Back in June of last year, the Ontario Liberal Party as we know it died. . . . So the party that we knew no longer exists. And I keep telling people that the only thing that is recognizable in the party today from our old party is the value sense we have. And that’s what draws people into rooms.”

“Last time was a competition to be premier,” says Jack Siegel, who will be chief returning officer in March. “This is a competition to be the saviour of a party that has kind of fallen off-track.”

NO INCREASE IN DEFENSE SPENDING

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is likely to face questions from other leaders of the NATO military alliance next week as new figures show Canadian military spending is expected to remain stagnant this year.

All NATO members agreed in 2014 to work toward spending two per cent of their gross domestic products on defence within a decade, a pledge that has taken on added significance thanks to U.S. President Donald Trump.

Yet new NATO figures published Friday estimate Canada will spend around 1.31 per cent of its GDP on its military this year — the same as last year. That leaves Canada 20th out of NATO's 29 members in terms of GDP spent on defence. Nine NATO members met the two per cent target.

VIOLENT STUDENTS IN ONTARIO'S CLASSROOMS

A study by two University of Ottawa professors surveyed 1,688 Ontario elementary teachers. It found an alarming increase in violence, with 54 per cent of the teachers experiencing one or more violent acts in the 2017-18 school year. That’s up from only seven per cent in a similar 2005 study. Harassment is out of control, too. Insults, put-downs and obscene gestures by students were reported by 72 per cent of the teachers. And get this — 41 per cent experienced the same kind of behaviour from a parent.

QUEBEC PREMIER IS NOT AMUSED

Manitoba’s premier would be better off spending money on French-language services or retaining NHL players than trying to woo Quebec civil servants to the Prairies, Quebec Premier Francois Legault said Thursday as he shot back at his counterpart’s latest criticism of his province’s secularism law.

Brian Pallister’s government recently announced it is rolling out a series of newspaper and electronic advertisements in Quebec that welcome government workers to move to Manitoba if they feel threatened by their province’s ban on religious symbols in the workplace.

The ads reference “21 reasons to feel at home in Manitoba” — a reference to Quebec’s Bill 21, which was passed into law earlier this year. The legislation prevents state employees in positions of authority, such as teachers, judges and police officers, from wearing religious symbols such as hijabs or turbans on the job.

TIME FOR THE DEMOLITION MACHINES

   More than four years after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau decided not to reside at 24 Sussex Drive, there remain no concrete plans for renovations to the deteriorating building as it costs taxpayers millions of dollars in basic upkeep, sources tell CTV News.

   Without a permanent tenant, the government has spent more than $2.3 million in building upkeep at 24 Sussex since 2015, including:
$370,936 for utilities;
$1,374,831 for extra security, which includes overtime; and,
$587,199 for snow and ice removal.

   Costs to renovate the building are pegged at $34 million and could cost more than $567 million with security upgrades.

TRANSGENDER CONS INTO WOMENS' PRISONS

Most of the 200 women at the Grand Valley Institute. are the products of shattered and abusive homes, violent relationships, drugs and bad choices.

Heather Mason was one of them. She knows the fear curdling inside the Kitchener-area jail and others sprinkled across the country.

Stoking that fear has been the arrival of transgender cons with appalling histories of violent sex assaults — and murder.

“It’s bizarre, among their conditions are to not be around women and children. Where are they? Around women and children,” Mason told the Toronto Sun.

"CHINA INTERFERENCE IN CANADIAN SOCIETY INCREASING"

A veteran Chinese-Canadian politician is coming forward to reveal that upon landing at the Shanghai airport in November 2015, Chinese authorities improperly detained him, separated him from his wife for eight hours, confiscated and searched his B.C. government phone and accused him of “endangering national security” before cancelling his visa and ordering him to fly back to Canada.

And since his detention, he said, China’s interference in Canadian society has increased in myriad ways, including aggressive attempts to influence our political system and elected leaders, control Chinese-Canadian immigrants, and silence all criticism of Beijing’s policies.

PM 's GREEN PLAN BANKRUPTING ONTARIO

We have already seen the Trudeau government’s attack on the resource sector result in the exit of Encana, Koch, Stratoil, and Marathon Oil, to name a few. We have also seen the implementation of a carbon tax which makes it uncompetitive to operate manufacturing plants in Canada. It is clear to those working in the manufacturing and resource sectors that the closing or relocation of companies is not due to unintended consequences, but is the result of a concerted effort to drive both the resource and manufacturing sectors out of this country.

HIS LIFE'S MISSION

The Senate of Canada will not appeal a court ruling that found the upper house violated a francophone man’s language rights by utilizing English-only push-buttons on Parliament Hill drinking fountains.

The Federal Court last week ordered the Senate to pay former public servant Michel Thibodeau $1,500 in damages and to cover his $700 in court costs.

Thibodeau complained in 2016 that water fountains in the hallways of Parliament Hill’s East Block — which houses some Senate offices and committee rooms and is open for public tours during the summer — required thirsty folk to push a metal button embossed with the word “push.”

PM NEEDS HIS HEAD EXAMINED

VANCOUVER—Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should get his “head examined” if he doesn’t think he needs to speak up about the situation in Hong Kong, says an official for Hong Kong’s Democratic Party.

Emily Lau, a pro-democracy and human rights activist, is the chair of the international affairs committee of Hong Kong’s Democratic Party and served 25 years on the city’s legislative council. Lau has been in Canada since last week, here to speak at a security forum in Halifax and accept the John McCain prize for public leadership on behalf of the people of Hong Kong. She said the silence from the Liberal government on events there is concerning.

“There are priorities and this one is a pressing issue, you see it on the news every day,” Lau said. “So, if the prime minister cannot find time to say something about it, his head needs examining.”

KINSELLA SLITHERING

  Audio recordings shared with CBC News reveal political strategist Warren Kinsella told employees working on a campaign against the People's Party of Canada that leader Maxime Bernier was a "racist" and a "white supremacist" who would be "easy" to expose in the lead-up to the federal election campaign.
   Dubbed "Project Cactus," the campaign against Bernier and the PPC was run by Kinsella's political consulting firm, Daisy Group. Kinsella made the comments during a staff meeting about the campaign in May.
  "I want the hatred you have for Maxime Bernier to wash over you as a purifying force," Kinsella tells his staff in one recording, made during a meeting on May 16. "There's nobody in the country doing what we're doing to Max Bernier."

NO WARNINGS OR THREAT FROM HUAWEI. SO FAR

Chinese high-tech giant Huawei says it has funnelled $50-million into Canadian university research over the past decade and added nearly $700-million to Canada’s economic output in 2018 alone, figures it is releasing as it tries to persuade Ottawa not to ban its equipment from next-generation 5G wireless networks in this country.
    Huawei’s future in Canada is in limbo while the Canadian government deliberates whether to follow the lead of allies, including the United States and Australia, and bar China’s flagship technology company from supplying gear for 5G wireless networks. The Americans and Australians say Huawei answers to China’s ruling Communist Party, and could be compelled to help Beijing spy or sabotage Western networks. Chinese law says companies must “support, co-operate with and collaborate in national intelligence work” when asked.

   As it publicizes the economic benefits it brings to Canada, Huawei has avoided any warning or threat that it might leave or scale back spending in Canada should Ottawa block the Chinese company from mobile network infrastructure.

PROTESTING CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION

Budapest, HUNGARY — The British Foreign Office has joined other governments and groups in the annual “Red Wednesday” global campaign to protest Christian persecution by lighting up monuments and landmarks in red.

Red Wednesday is promoted by Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) and Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) to highlight the plight of Christians around the world. Currently, some 245 million Christians around the globe face “severe persecution” for their faith in Jesus and on average 11 Christians are killed each day.
It is an “inconvenient truth that the overwhelming majority of persecuted religious believers are Christians,” the 2019 report stated, adding that 80 percent of people facing religious persecution around the world are Christians.

MANY OF CHINA'S BANKS FAIL STRESS TEST

  In our latest look at the turmoil among China's small and medium banks, which included not only the recent bailouts and nationalizations of Baoshang Bank , Bank of Jinzhou, China's Heng Feng Bank, but also the two very troubling bank runs at China's Henan Yichuan Rural Commercial Bank at the start of the month, and then more recently at Yingkou Coastal Bank.
    As Bloomberg reports, in the PBOC's its 2019 China Financial Stability Report, the high risk category contains 586 banks and financing firms, most of which are smaller rural institutions. The report also comically noted that one bank got a "D" grade this year, meaning it went bankrupt, was taken over or lost its license. No banks were named in the report.

RUSSIAN ATHLETES MAY FACE 4 YEAR BAN

A committee of the World Anti-Doping Agency has recommended that Russia’s anti-drug regulators be declared non-compliant, which could result in the country being booted from the Tokyo Olympics in the same manner of Pyeongchang 2018, where the country’s flag and anthem were excised from the Games, although certain athletes were allowed to compete under a neutral banner.

The New York Times reported on Monday that WADA’s compliance and review committee suggested a four-year ban of Russia from all global sports, which would imperil its participation in not just the next two Olympics, but also soccer’s European championship this summer and the World Cup in Qatar in 2022. WADA’s executive committee is expected to adopt the recommendations at a meeting on Dec. 9, according to multiple reports.

These developments are not at all surprising to anyone who has followed this story since Russia’s state-sponsored doping scheme was first exposed in 2015, but they are also a product of WADA’s own making. The anti-doping regulator, which is supposed to be ruthless in its pursuit of clean sport, has a consistent habit of seeking compromise when harsh sanctions are required.

TENTATIVE DEAL REACHED WITH CN RAIL WORKERS

Farm and many other business groups heaved a sigh of relief at the news of the tentative agreement to end a week-long strike by 3,200 CN conductors, train and yard workers but warned a lot of catching up remained.

While CN freight service resumed Nov. 27, the groups said it will take time for deliveries to return to normal and that they plan to look at pressing the government to place more importance on ensuring rail service is not disrupted.

“The delays in rail service have resulted in significant costs for farmers in the form of hefty demurrage fees from ships forced to wait at port as well as potential losses of crops due to a lack of propane for grain dryers. However, we can express relief that a resolution was found and these delays and losses are not continuing to mount for the agricultural community.

CANADA IS WEAK MEMBER OF DEFENSE TEAM

   Bezan, who served as the Conservative defence critic in the most recent session of Parliament, said the letter delivered from the U.S. government to the Department of National Defence, bluntly criticizing Canadian defence spending, should make it clear to Ottawa that it needs to step up its game if it wants to protect both itself and its core alliances in an increasingly restive world.
   “There are some serious security risks out there that Canada needs to be a part of and if we’re going to address it seriously, then we need to figure out how we’re going to spend more.”
   Bezan pointed to the Arctic as one particular area where he thinks Canada should be making a pointed effort to assert itself military in order to counter the threat of militarization by Russia, also an Arctic nation, as well as China, which has been eyeing the region for resource exploitation and commercial shipping.

TRIGGERING THE SJWs

The owner of a gun shop in Pembroke, Ontario has denied being a racist, and insists that he advertised a "White Friday" sale only because "Black Friday" would remind people of the blackface scandal of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Perkins Guns and Ammo owner Lance Perkins is believed to have put the sign up on November 14. The controversial sign posted in front of the store read "Gun Deals, All You People, Come On In, White Friday Sale." Perkins insists that he has "done nothing wrong," and claims the sign was intended as a tribute to controversial former hockey commentator Don Cherry. The last line of the sign originally read "Love You, Don," before the store owner added the "White Friday" line.

CN RAIL STRIKE CRIPPLING GRAIN GROWERS

"Farmers are on the front lines of this strike, relying on rail to move goods to markets all over the world," the Grain Growers of Canada said in a statement.

"This disruption, coupled with a universally disastrous harvest could have an impact from which some farmers never recover. The time for government action is now."

"Ideally, CN and its employees will reach an agreement soon. However, there must be a backup plan in the event that they do not," the letter reads.

The Liberals have demurred, saying they want the two sides to reach an agreement.  "This would be the best for every party and the fastest solution," Agriculture Marie-Claude Bibeau said yesterday in Regina.

DO YOU STILL BELIEVE HIM JUDGE BEAUDOIN?

   Accused serial rapist Paul Batchelor, arrested this week in Ottawa, allegedly raped three women while he was out on bail awaiting trial for two other, unrelated sex assault cases.
   Those cases ended in acquittals in June, stunning prosecutors, police, and many more on social media. After he walked on the charges, and his story was reported by this newspaper, numerous women came forward to police. In total, he now faces sex assault charges related to nine different women, in both Ottawa and Gatineau.
   In acquitting him, Ontario Superior Court Justice Robert Beaudoin accepted Batchelor’s evidence that he had consent in both cases, a claim that differed wildly from the stories the women told at trial. They detailed horrific accounts of sexual assault in 2015 at Batchelor’s Sandy Hill apartment, near the University of Ottawa, where he studied economics at the time.

GREAT LAKES WETLAND PLAN BLAMED FOR FLOODS

   Fighting a bitter wind, speaker after speaker — some wearing life jackets or sandbag togas — told stories of financial hardship, property damage, mental stress and ever-present uncertainty about whether hundred-year floods would become commonplace on the Ottawa and St. Lawrence rivers.
   Several said water regulators were trying to keep the water high on the St. Lawrence system to please shipping companies, while holding back flow on the discharging Ottawa to keep Montreal safe.
  Indeed, Plan 2014 was intended to return Lake Ontario to a more natural state by allowing water levels to rise and fall to the betterment of about 64,000 acres of coastal wetlands. It went into effect in 2016, and its main control point is the Moses-Saunders Dam at Cornwall.
  The commission says that a combination of massive snow melt, record rainfall and climate change contributed to the historic floods in 2017 and 2019 and that no regulation plan could have prevented them. Because the two floods were so close together, however, residents and politicians are beginning to question Plan 2014.

BULLETS FLY IN MEXICO's AVACADO ORCHARDS

    More than a dozen criminal groups are battling for control of the avocado trade in and around the city of Uruapan, preying on wealthy orchard owners, the laborers who pick the fruit and the drivers who truck it north to the United States.
  “The threat is constant and from all sides,” said Jose Maria Ayala Montero, who works for a trade association that formed its own vigilante army to protect growers.
   In Guanajuato state, the homicide rate has nearly tripled over the last three years as criminals battle for access to gasoline pipelines, which they tap to steal and sell fuel.
  In parts of Guerrero state, cartels control access to gold mines and even the price of goods in supermarkets. In one city, Altamirano, the local Coca-Cola bottler closed its distribution center last year after more than a dozen groups tried to extort money from it. The Pepsi bottler left a few months later.

FREELAND: A BULL IN A CHINA SHOP

  Now Freeland is charged with uniting a fragmented country. The Liberals have angered the West to the point of having no MPs elected in Alberta and Saskatchewan. There’s talk of Wexit, some kind of separation from the rest of Canada.
   More to the East, the Bloc Quebecois has risen from the phoenix capturing 32 ridings. When parliament was dissolved for the election, the Block only had 10 seats.
  There is nothing wrong by being principled and feisty, but Freeland is more like a bull in a china shop. In order to succeed at bringing the country together, she’ll need to tone down her inflammatory rhetoric and extend an olive branch to disenfranchised Canadians.

SNC-LAVALIN'S KICKBACKS EXPOSED IN COURT

  A former SNC-Lavalin vice-president says then-CEO Jacques Lamarre was involved in the firm’s decision to sign a controversial commercial agent contract in Libya.
  The Crown contends that the “agent” in question in the contract was a shell company, Duvel Securities Inc., set up by former executive Riadh Ben Aissa in order to pay bonuses and kickbacks.
   The jurors have been told the eventual claim settlement led to Duvel being paid $25 million Deutsche Mark, an amount the Crown argues was then divided between Ben Aissa, Bebawi and Saadi Gadhafi, son of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi.

HUAWEI 5G TO UNDERMINE NATIONAL SECURITY

    Donald Trump’s national security adviser has issued a dire warning to Canada about Chinese telecom giant Huawei, saying Ottawa should reject the company’s plan to deploy its 5G network because the technology would be used as a “Trojan horse” to undermine national security.
     “When they get Huawei into Canada … they’re going to know every health record, every banking record, every social media post — they’re going to know everything about every single Canadian,” Robert O’Brien said at an international security conference in Halifax.  “What the Chinese are doing makes Facebook and Google look like child’s play, as far as collecting information on folks.”
     Former Hong Kong Democratic Party chairperson Emily Lau said Canada should be "very worried" about the company's potential inclusion.

ANOTHER USELESS MINISTRY CREATED BY LIBERALS

   Canada’s first-ever Minister of Middle Class Prosperity declined to provide a clear definition of the middle class, but she said having kids enrolled in hockey is a telltale sign.
   The title did not come with an immediate job description.
Ms. Fortier appeared on several radio programs Friday to discuss her new role and the government’s agenda, with the caveat that she had not yet been fully briefed by officials. She promptly faced the same question that has dogged her cabinet colleagues over the past four years: What is the middle class?

    “I define the middle class [as] where people feel that they can afford their way of life.  They have a quality of life, and they can have, you know, send their kids to play hockey or even have different activities. It’s having the cost of living where you can do what you want with your families.”

US SANCTIONS BANKRUPTING IRAN

The critics of President Trump's Iran policy have been proven wrong: the US sanctions are imposing significant pressure on the ruling mullahs of Iran and the ability to fund their terror groups.

Even though Iran's Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, boasts about the country's self-sufficient economy, several of Iran's leaders recently admitted the dire economic situation that the government is facing. Speaking in the city of Kerman on November 12, Iranian President Hassan Rouhani acknowledged for the first time that "Iran is experiencing one of its hardest years since the 1979 Islamic revolution" and that "the country's situation is not normal."

PUTIN VOWS TO PERFECT NUCLEAR WEAPONS

    The Russian experimental rocket which exploded in August at an offshore platform at the Nyonoksa naval test range on the White Sea will be perfected "regardless of anything," according to President Vladimir Putin.

     Putin awarded posthumously orders of courage to the 7 scientists and workers who lost their lives after what many experts believe was a nuclear powered cruise missile known as the 9M730 Burevestnik experienced a catastrophic failure. After the accident, radiation levels in the area spiked sixteen times above normal before receding.

    Last March at his annual address to Parliament, Putin bragged about his advanced weapons, but military technology experts in the west believe Putin was blowing hot air. His "wonder weapons" were all probably still at the testing stage and nowhere near being deployed. 

SWEDEN: THE PRICE OF MIGRATION

The disproportionately large influx of people who do not have the educational or language skills to work in the Swedish economy was never likely to help bring about the lowest unemployment in the EU. As previously reported by Gatestone, the small Swedish city of Filipstad exemplifies a place where the influx of non-Western migrants, some of them illiterate, with little or no education, has meant that the unemployment rate in that group is at 80%: they depend for their livelihoods on the municipality's social welfare program.

In 2015, during the European migration crisis, nearly 163,000 migrants arrived in Sweden seeking asylum -- primarily from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a recent report by the daily newspaper Aftonbladet. Out of those 163,000 migrants, 60,000 received a residence permit. In the group of people over the age of 15, made up of 40,019 people, only 4,574 get their livelihood from employment, according to Aftonbladet's report. 18,405 people from the cohort live on welfare handed out by municipalities and 9,970 people receive funds for studying.

According to Aftonbladet, eight of the ten municipalities that received the most asylum seekers in 2015 have higher unemployment than the national average, and in all ten municipalities there is a higher proportion of the population living on welfare.

MORE OF THE SAME FROM CHINA's AMBASSADOR

China’s new ambassador to Canada said the Trudeau government should avoid weighing in on the ongoing protests in Hong Kong.

The new ambassador, Cong Peiwu, also said the formal charges against two Canadians detained for months and stressed their case has no connection to the case of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou.

QUEBEC's TWO-DAY "RESERVE" OF PROPANE

Some 85 per cent of the propane used in Quebec is supplied by rail. So when the rail workers go on strike, the propane isn’t moving. Which means Quebec’s reserves are dwindling, even a few days into the strike. On Thursday, Premier François Legault called it an “emergency” for the province. He said Quebec keeps 12 million litres of propane in reserve, and uses about six million litres per day. Which means two days of propane, in theory. But rationing has begun, media reports said, bringing daily usage down to 2.5 million litres per day.

So how many days until it’s all gone?

Jonatan Julien, the minister of energy, announced Friday a train from western Canada will arrive by Monday with 20 million litres, and that would be sufficient, atop the existing reserves, to carry through to Thursday.

NOW IT'S A CRISIS - QUEBEC IS SHORT ON PROPANE

Premier François Legault is calling on the federal government to step in and quickly end the CN Rail strike because the province will soon run short on propane.

Revealing Quebec has an inventory of about four days of propane, which is used to heat everything from seniors’ residences to chicken barns, Legault said action is urgently needed.

“We are in a state of emergency,” Legault said Thursday, arriving for question period. “We have several ministries concerned, including health and agriculture. But honestly, this strike cannot be allowed to drag on.”

BATTLE LINES DRAWN RE PM's CABINET PICKS

Before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had even started his press conference outside Rideau Hall after his rather bloated cabinet was sworn in —36 ministers, plus himself, upping he ante by two, with 17 from Ontario and 10 from Quebec, and all gender balanced, bien sur — the leader of the Conservatives had already delivered his slap-back.

“(This) cabinet is a version of the one that helped create an affordability crisis for Canadian families, attacked our energy sector and put thousands of Canadians out of work, and set the stage for a unity crisis,” said Scheer.

“Justin Trudeau made it clear he has learned nothing. By appointing a known anti-pipeline activist and ministers who stood behind him while he passed job-killing, anti-energy legislation, Trudeau will only further stoke the divisions he created during the election campaign.”

ISIS CONTROLS AFRICAN GOLD MINES

The pits around Pama are no isolated case. Groups linked to al Qaeda and Islamic State, having lost ground in the Middle East, are expanding in Africa and exploiting gold mines across the region, data on attacks and interviews with two dozen miners and residents, and government and security officials, show. Besides attacking industrial operations, two of the world’s most feared extremist forces are tapping the $2 billion informal gold trade in Burkina Faso, Mali and Niger – a flow that is already largely out of state control.

Researchers and the United Nations have warned of the risks of armed extremists reaching the region’s gold mines; Reuters’ analysis of data from Burkina Faso, and testimony from people who have fled mining areas, show this is happening at scale. For the Islamists, the mines are both a hideout and a treasure trove: of funds with which to recruit new members and buy arms, and of explosives and detonators to stage the attacks that extend their power.

CN RAIL STRIKE SCREWS AB FARMERS & OILPATCH

The pending sale of the provincial government’s crude-by-rail contracts has been percolating for months, with an announcement expected sometime this fall — and the waiting continues.

But Tuesday brought a full-fledged transportation migraine for the Kenney government, amid news that 3,200 Canadian National Railway Co. workers are now on strike.

It comes at a sensitive time for Alberta farmers trying to move their products to market after a difficult harvest season.

It also kicks the oilpatch and province firmly in the shins, threatening to interrupt crude-by-rail shipments at a critical time when pipelines are already full, rail shipments are climbing, storage levels are growing and the transportation system has little slack.

NATO: CANADA LEFT BEHIND AS AMERICA'S HAT

Canada has been criticized over the years for being among those allies not spending enough on defence, which has been a bone of contention for Trump, who wants all members to pay their fair share for collective security.

All NATO members agreed in 2014 to work towards spending two per cent of their gross domestic product on their militaries within a decade, but the federal Liberals planned to only spend 1.4 per cent of GDP by 2024-25.

Robert Baines, president of the NATO Association of Canada,  said he was genuinely concerned about the alliance's future — and the possible implications for Canada.

"I am hopeful, but very worried at the same time," he said. "We could be in this really awkward situation where we've got Macron's vision of a strengthened Europe worrying about itself, the U.S. increasingly worrying about itself ... and Canada left behind as America's hat."

MULCAIR NOW SHILLING FOR HOMEOPATHY

  Former federal NDP leader Tom Mulcair appeared at a pro-homeopathy conference on Tuesday, much to the dismay of critics who say his presence serves to legitimize a field they denounce as pseudoscience.
   He said he believes there is "scientific proof of their efficacy," and argued the Quebec government should do more to recognize and regulate the field to protect consumers' safety and their freedom to choose the products they feel work best for them.
    Homeopathy is based on the principle that "like cures like '' — a belief that a disease can be cured by ingesting a small dose of something that produces similar symptoms in a healthy person.
    Proponents of homeopathy also believe that a product becomes more potent the more it is diluted — a principle that flies in the face of basic scientific principles, said Jonathan Jarry of the McGill Office for Science and Society.

IN PURSUIT OF A UN SECURITY COUNCIL SEAT

Now, in pursuit of a UN Security Council seat and perhaps the international acclaim that has been noticeably absent of late, the prime minister has made a major change of policy, without much in the way of explanation.

And at a particularly strange moment in history. Much of the world is moving past long-held positions on the conflict. In Iran, protestors decry their regime’s continued support of anti-Israel terrorist proxies. Across the region, Arab countries are drawing closer to Israel out of shared security concerns. The U.S. has recognized Jerusalem as the Israeli capital, and chaos and anger notably failed to materialize.

It seems an odd moment for Canada to break with a policy supported by Liberal and Conservative prime ministers and our major ally. It’s also a bad decision on its own merits. If this is what foreign policy under a Trudeau minority government is going to look like, it’s going to be a bleak few years.

ISIS SYMPATHIZERS BACK IN ONTARIO

Two suspected ISIS sympathizers are back in Ontario, according to published reports.

Truth North said Pamir Hakimzadah — a former Ryerson student — was sprung from a Canadian prison on May 24 — even though he was deemed an “undue risk to society.”

Meanwhile, another Ontario man who was jailed in Turkey for three months is under a slew of court-ordered conditions because of “fear of [a] terrorism offence.”

PARALYZED HUMBOLDT BRONCO TAKES STEPS

A video posted to Twitter on Wednesday shows Ryan Straschnitzki taking steps for the first time since the Humboldt Broncos bus crash.

Straschnitzki travelled to Thailand to receive a spinal surgery that he hoped would restore some of his movement after being paralyzed from the chest down in the April 2018 collision.

The video on Twitter shows Straschnitzki walking with the assistance of medical personnel and a walker-like apparatus. The post said therapists were helping with his knees and ankles so they wouldn’t buckle underneath him. His steps were slow and small, but there is movement in his legs that hasn’t been there in more than a year and a half.

FARMERS CUT OFF FROM PROPANE DELIVERIES

Farmers across eastern Ontario and Quebec have been cut off from propane deliveries with no warning as industry reacts, stockpiles and prioritizes delivery thanks to a CN strike which is just beginning.

The situation is worsened by a government which won’t sit until December and thus can’t address any back-to-work legislation. It adds an exclamation mark to the harvest from hell where farmers are having to roll the dice: watch your already high moisture crop disintegrate in the field, or stockpile it and risk it rotting in storage.

Elevator operators and farmers alike are “panicking, stressing, over what’s going to happen. They made some investments in the last five, six years to put in new dryers and they had customer lists that were wanting to combine,” Wilson said.

LIBERALS MUZZLING THE ENVIRONMENTALIST

Little information has been leaked about who will form Justin Trudeau's cabinet, but TVA Nouvelles has learned that environmentalist Steven Guilbeault will be appointed to head Canadian Heritage.

The Liberal recruit is expected to join the minority government cabinet on Wednesday. However, it is not through the main door of the Department of the Environment that he would do it, as some reports in Ottawa suggested.

The training and experience of the co-founder of Équiterre does not naturally predispose him to be at the head of the Ministry of Heritage. This is the role that Prime Minister Trudeau has chosen to welcome his star candidate to the table of ministers, sources said.

Background on the "star candidate" Guilbeault.

CANADA'S ECONOMY WORSENING

The bad news for Canada’s economy is only getting worse.

CN Rail confirmed our faltering economy — aided by Donald Trump’s trade war with China and China’s hard-nosed approach to Canadian exports over the house arrest of a top Huawei executive at the behest of the U.S. — has begun cutting back freight volumes and laying off upwards of 1,600 workers.

This was seen coming, of course, when CN’s chief financial officer, Jean-Jacques Ruest, put out a public warning in September that some of his company’s rails were a little dodgy.

But the October federal election barely mentioned the fragility of our nation’s economy, or the bad financial news from CN.

3000 CN RAILWAY WORKERS ON STRIKE

About 3,000 workers of Canadian National Railway, the country’s largest railroad operator, went on strike on Tuesday, labour union Teamsters Canada said after both parties failed to resolve contract issues.

“Conductors, trainperson and yard workers at Canadian National Railway are now officially on strike,” the union said in a tweet.

Canada, one of the world’s biggest exporters of farm products, relies on its two main railways to move canola and wheat over the vast distances from western farms to ports. Crude oil shippers in Alberta have also increasingly used trains in the past year to reach U.S. refineries as an alternative to congested pipelines.

P!SSING AWAY TAXPAYERS' MONEY

A four-year study sponsored by the Department of Immigration is looking at incentives to promote French-speaking immigrants to settle in cities where only 1% of residents speak French, Blacklock’s Reporter reports.

The study is sponsored at an undisclosed cost but a team of federal consultants has been hired to oversee the project to the tune of $4.5 million.

The chosen cities will receive “welcoming grants” to help the process of attracting French-speaking immigrants.

BC GOV'T's SATELLITE SURVEILLANCE OF FARMERS

The Ministry of Agriculture has withdrawn, at least temporarily, a plan to use satellites to detect violations of regulations governing the Agricultural Land Reserve.

MDA Systems was to provide radar satellite surveillance over parts of the ALR to detect road-building, commercial vehicle storage and non-compliant buildings on farms, according to a government notice.

But the $70,000 contract was abruptly withdrawn Monday after farmers complained the government was “effectively spying on both citizens and private land on a daily basis,” in a formal objection to the Agricultural Land Commission.

250 POSITIONS CUT AT U OF CALGARY

The University of Calgary will be eliminating 250 positions due to budget cuts announced by the provincial government last month, officials said Monday.

The university faces “significant budgetary challenges” in light of the provincial budget and had to make “difficult decisions” for its in-year budget, president and vice-chancellor Ed McCauley said in a statement.

Out of the 250 positions the university will be eliminating, a total of 100 positions are being abolished through retirements, vacancies and resignations, McCauley said. The other 150 jobs will be cut in two phases, with the first this month, followed by a second phase in mid-January.

MacKinnon report:  Link the school funding  to performance.

YOU PEOPLE OUT THERE: DON CHERRY IS BACK

They may have knocked Don Cherry to the ice with a hit he didn’t see coming.

Now watch him get back up.

You people out there who want the 85-year-old Cherry back, here’s the news you have been hoping for. You people who wanted him to fade away are out of luck as the former NHL coach of the year is going to be able to exercise his free speech, after all.

INDIAN POLICE SHUT DOWN SIN SCAM CALL CENTRE

Sameer Sharma, a New Delhi deputy police commissioner, said in a release in recent days that the force arrested 32 people between the ages of 19 and 37 after discovering the “swanky international scam call centre targeting Canadian citizens.”

The officers also seized 55 computers, 35 cell phones and other equipment including the scripts that the scammers used during calls.

When investigators approached the call centre to ask questions and didn’t get a “satisfactory answer,” the suspects eventually “divulged that they were engaged in calling foreign (Canadian) nationals & impersonating (themselves) as genuine Canadian police/Service Canada officials.”

NEW IMMIGRANTS RESENT ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION

New Canadians have no time for illegal immigration according to a new comprehensive study conducted by Ipsos-Reid for the federal government.

The annual report, commissioned by the Department of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and uncovered by the investigative news outlet Blacklock’s Reporter, showed the clear frustration newcomers have watching others break Canada’s immigration laws.

“Newcomers to Canada resent illegal immigrants for jumping what they view as an immigration queue,” states the Blacklock’s report. “There was an underlying sense of unfairness.”

VIOLENT CRIME ON THE RISE IN TORONTO

There are some useful findings in the Toronto Board of Health report last week on taking a public health approach to community violence.

First, that while police-reported crime was decreasing in Toronto prior to 2014, it went up 14% between 2014 and 2017, disproportionately impacting young black males, particularly young Somali-Canadians.

Second, the rate for firearm-related crime more than doubled for youths and adults between 2013 and 2017.

Third, that as the result of violent crime there were 102,000 visits to the emergency departments of Toronto hospitals between 2004 and 2017 for assault-related injuries, 1,133 of them caused by firearms.

"ALBERTA IS JEALOUS OF QUEBEC"

OTTAWA - A former Liberal cabinet minister and Montreal mayor says Alberta is "jealous" of Quebec’s position in the federation.

"I think that if we cut that rhetoric and we’re more factual, we will witness that maybe Alberta is jealous of some of the powers that Quebec has and would like to have that kind of autonomy," said Denis Coderre in an interview on CTV’s Question Period, airing Sunday.

The former immigration minister said it’s time to acknowledge that politicians like Alberta Premier Jason Kenney are pushing "their own political agenda."

ILLINOIS SCHOOL BOARD'S TRANSGENDER POLICY

In the most radical rule change to ever be implemented in Illinois high schools, the District 211 school board in Northwestern Illinois passed a new policy allowing any transgender student access to any private space or sport regardless of anatomy. This decision was hotly contested by the community. Supporters of the policy were dwarfed in number by those opposed. New information reported by Illinois Family Institute shows that a super PAC created by transgender activists in Chicago poured out-of-town money into the April 2018 election that led to the policy change.

ISIL BRIDE WILL NOT RETURN TO USA

A federal judge ruled Thursday that Hoda Muthana, an American-born woman who joined the Islamic State in 2014 and says she now wants to return home to her family in Alabama, is not a U.S. citizen.

In a surprise ruling from the bench, the judge, Reggie B. Walton of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, abruptly dismissed a lawsuit brought by her family seeking to force the Trump administration to bring her home from a refugee camp in Syria, along with her 2-year-old son — the child of a slain Islamic State fighter.

In 2014, Muthana, then 24, withdrew from college and used her tuition money to pay for travel to Syria on a U.S. passport – which she appeared to torch in a propaganda message. Once there, she married three separate times to ISIL fighters, two of whom died fighting. Muthana promoted the Islamic State’s ideology on social media and called on Muslims in America to carry out terrorist attacks. “Terrorize the kuffar (non-Muslims) at home,” she said in one post.

HOW ALBERTA PAYS QUEBEC's BILLS

In just 11 years, Albertans have paid out almost $240 billion to the rest of Canada.

The money is sent to Ottawa as part of net federal fiscal transfers — basically the residents of Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario pay more in federal taxes than they get back in federal programs and transfers — they are net positive contributors to the federal finances. And in Alberta’s case it has been doing that for a lot of years.

Other provinces are net negative contributors — they get more back in federal programs and transfers than they give in taxes. In Quebec’s case its net negative contributor was minus $171.3 billion from 2007-2018.

TIME FOR CTV TO FIRE THE ANTI-HOCKEY SJW

   CTV says it is apologizing to anyone who was offended by comments made by a correspondent on its show The Social following the firing of hockey commentator Don Cherry.
     During the program on Tuesday, Jessica Allen said she doesn’t “worship at the altar of hockey” and found in her experience that those who did “all tended to be white boys who weren’t, let’s say, very nice.”

      She added that “they were not generally thoughtful, they were often bullies.”

COURT UPHOLDS POLICING POWERS OF OSPCA

Ontario’s top court has affirmed the now-ceded policing powers of the province’s animal welfare agency, striking down a lower court’s ruling that called into question the constitutionality of private law enforcement.

In a decision released Thursday, the Court of Appeal for Ontario said a lower court judge erred in introducing “reasonable standards of transparency and accountability” as a principle of fundamental justice.

THERE'S NO PHONY LIKE AN OLD PHONY

During her most recent "Fire Drill Friday" climate action protest in Washington, Fonda was asked if she is going to give up air travel like Thunberg but she did not respond. Fonda also declined to respond when asked for her opinion of Thunberg's boycott of air travel.

PLASTIC SEX PARTNERS IN SWITZERLAND

What many considered a recession-proof occupation has been hit by tech disruption and its implicit deflationary pressure as RT reports that human prostitutes in the beautiful and civilized Swiss city of Lucerne are facing a serious squeeze (and not in a good way) as, at half the cost their human counterparts, hard-up punters prefer sex worker robots at a Swiss brothel.

$1M / MONTH FOR TORONTO'S REFUGEE SHELTER

A former North York hydro site now being used as a refugee shelter is costing taxpayers at least $1-million per month, the Toronto Sun has confirmed.

The city is paying $42,000 per month to the Times Group Corp. to use the 5800 Yonge St. site, which opened its doors on Tuesday.

City spokesman Andrea Gonsalves also confirmed the city has been paying the monthly rent to the owner since January of this year even though the site sat vacant until this week.

KILLING BC's FORESTRY INDUSTRY

     Unfortunately, forestry, like oil and gas in Alberta, is another major resource sector experiencing an intense bust cycle, and it’s also one where the largest companies are seeking growth opportunities outside Canada, mainly in the U.S., further fuelling the sense of discord in the West.

      At least nine sawmills in B.C. this year have been shuttered while an estimated 47 others have cut shifts or curtailed production, leaving many remote communities economically stranded. The Ministry of Forests, Lands, Natural Resource Operations and Rural Development estimates about 8,000 people, or roughly 15 per cent of those employed in the sector in B.C., have been touched by the cuts, a massive blow to the province, which produces about half of Canada’s lumber with an annual export value of $14.2 billion.

"GREEN" QUEBEC ACCEPTS ALBERTA'S "DIRTY" $

    Dismissing calls for more independence for western Canada, Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet said he doesn’t believe Canada is currently experiencing a national unity crisis. He claimed Alberta and Saskatchewan are using concerns about western alienation to force the federal government’s hand in an attempt to garner more support for the petroleum industry. “And on that issue, my enthusiasm is obviously very limited,” he told reporters on Wednesday morning after meeting with Trudeau.
     Those comments were not well-received in Alberta, where Kenney responded directly during a speech to an industry association in Calgary. “If you are so opposed to the energy that we produced in Alberta then why are you so keen on taking the money generated by the oilfield workers in this province and across western Canada?” he said. “You cannot have your cake and eat it too. Pick a lane.”

BELL SILENCING THE RIGHT-WING VOICE

CFRA host Rob Snow lost his job Wednesday after two decades with the local newstalk radio station.

In an interview with this newspaper, Snow said he got the news at 8:30 Wednesday morning.

“I was told I was part of restructuring,” he said. “It’s a shock, but it’s the media. The media — whether it’s newspapers, radio, television — it’s all struggling.”

THE OFFICIAL QUEBANGLO LIST

9-1-1 operator (in French): “9-1-1. Your call may be monitored to ensure compliance with the Quebec government’s language policy.”

Caller: “Help! Somebody’s trying to break into my house!”

9-1-1 operator: “En français, s’il vous plaît.”

Caller: “I—I’m sorry, I don’t know the French for ‘somebody’s trying to break into my house.’”

9-1-1 operator (in French): “Sorry, madame, before I can take your information in English, you must give me your name and the number of your certificate of eligibility for services in English, so I can consult the list. Then you’ll have to answer some security questions. All in French, of course.”

CONTINUOUS FURIOUS ASSAULT AGAINST ALBERTA

   Rex Murphy:  The greatest contribution to Alberta’s downturn, the flight of much of its capital, and the low morale in the industry generally, has been the continuous and furious assault the province, its oil industry, and Fort McMurray in particular, have endured for well over a decade. The globalist international movement of apocalyptic climate change has marked Alberta and its oilsands as its chosen target and symbol. There has never been so concentrated and focused an attack on any industry or project that equals in scale the relentless, propagandist denigration of the Alberta oilsands and the town of Fort McMurray.
   The Suzukis, the Sierra Clubs, the always railing Greenpeacers, the fund-raising behemoths of the eco-industry, and the swarms of petty NGOs, self-appointed activists, and trippy climate celebrities — Bill Nye the Foolish Guy may stand for them all — have feasted on the portrayal of Alberta energy as world-damaging, nature-offending and planet-despoiling.

SUPERBUG CRISIS IN CANADA

Hundreds of thousands of lives lost from infections that have been treatable for the last century. Fewer organ transplants and joint replacements because they’re just too risky to perform. Stigma against “carriers” or “the infected.” A shrinking economy.

A new report is raising the stark possibility of Canada returning to an almost pre-antibiotic era — the prospect of a future where antibiotics against common infections no longer work.

While it’s not quite the apocalyptic world others have warned of, if the overuse of antibiotics isn’t slowed, if the number of effective drugs continues to run out, “Canada will be greatly changed within a few decades,” the report warns.

FREEDOM IS NOT FREE AND NEVER WILL BE

More than 100 years after the last shots echoed across First World War battlefields and fully 75 years after the end of the Second, we still gather every Nov. 11 in the cold and damp to remember what it cost for us to live in freedom. The World Wars loom large, from the physical monuments to the date of Remembrance Day commemorating the Great War armistice. But we also recall other wars, from the Napoleonic campaigns to Korea, and backward to Salamis and forward to Afghanistan. Especially 30 years since the Berlin Wall fell we should remember those who stood firm, or ready, in smaller and sometimes frustratingly inconclusive conflicts and even defeats. Freedom is not free, never was and never will be.

KICKING THE FAMILY WHEN IT'S DOWN

   Former RCMP constable Krista Carle was instrumental in fighting sexual misconduct in the police force, being one of the first women to speak out about the harassment and assaults endured by female officers.
   But Carle’s kids won’t see a cent from a $100-million class action sexual misconduct settlement because her request for compensation wasn’t processed before she took her own life last year.
   Carle submitted her claim on time, but the organization overseeing the settlement failed to review it before she committed suicide on July 6, 2018.
   Now that same organization says that, since Carle is dead, her claim can’t be considered.

JASON KENNEY'S FIREWALL MEASURES

    Rachel Notley uttered the absolute funniest comment about Alberta Premier Jason Kenney’s “firewall” speech delivered at a conference in the central Alberta city of Red Deer on the weekend. The New Democrat opposition leader and former premier accused Kenney of “’intentionally stoking the fires of western alienation.”
     As if western alienation weren’t wide and deep even before Kenney opened his mouth. And as if Notley’s own kiss-and-make-nice approach to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the federal Liberal government had reaped so many benefits for Alberta – like, um, none.
       Kenney announced the appointment of a panel of distinguished Albertans to study what measures the province might consider doing two things: First, shelter Alberta (and especially its economy) from the hostile actions and inactions of the Trudeau government and, second, to wake up the feds to what Albertans truly want from Confederation.

SHAMELESS EXECUTIVES OF SNC-LAVALIN

Jacques Lamarre, the former head of SNC-Lavalin, authorized the purchase of a $25-million luxury yacht for Saadi Gadhafi, a Quebec Superior Court jury has heard.

The purchase came in 2007 shortly after SNC-Lavalin secured a multimillion-dollar contract in Libya, the jury was told.

A close working relationship with Saadi Gadhafi helped SNC-Lavalin obtain expensive engineering contracts in that country in the early 2000s, the jury has heard.

The Crown alleges the firm’s relationship with Saadi Gadhafi led to it developing a scheme that involved paying millions in kickbacks and bribes, including to Gadhafi, to ensure it kept receiving lucrative contracts in Libya.

EXPOSING THE BIGOTS

The Quebec government has overturned a decision to deny a French woman her Quebec immigration documents because a chapter of her PhD thesis was written in English.

The controversial ruling was invalidated abruptly on Friday after Emilie Dubois’ case gained international attention this week.

Dubois, a native of France whose mother tongue is French, had been denied a Quebec selection certificate after bureaucrats ruled her level of French wasn’t adequate under the Quebec experience program, a popular fast-track immigration program for foreign students and workers.

STATUE OF RONALD REAGAN UNVEILED IN BERLIN

    Most historians try their best to deny President  Ronald Reagan had anything to do with the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was all Gorbachev's doing, they claim. But that criticism fails to take into account the moral power of Reagan's words, which Berliners remember to this day as the beginning of the end of communism. They don't need any historians to tell them the impact that speech had behind the Iron Curtain.
    The dedication for the monument took place Saturday to commemorate 30 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

DOUBLE STANDARD OF THE LEFTY MEDIA

Rex Murphy:  When Justin Trudeau was rightly being tested by the press on his conduct during the SNC-Lavalin affair, did any in the press gallery ask: Mr. Trudeau, as a Catholic do you think your interference with the Justice Department is a sin? As a Catholic do you think your treatment of Vice-Admiral Mark Norman violates the commandment about “bearing false witness?” Even more to the point — As a Catholic how do you justify barring all MPs who oppose abortion (which in your faith really is a sin) from your caucus?

Well, if we’re going to have religious questions put to one leader, let’s put them to them all. What are Mr. Singhs’ private religious views on homosexuality and abortion? This latter is highly unlikely though. For as unspeakable as it may be to mention the obvious here, to question the religion of a person who is not Christian is, under the current progressive ethos, beyond the courage or depravity (take your pick) of any journalist who wishes to remain a journalist.

SHAME ON THE SENATE COMMITTEE

In a move described as “totally unreal” by an alleged victim, a powerful Senate committee met on Thursday to discuss possible compensation for staffers who reported — as far back as 2013 — sexual harassment by former senator Don Meredith.

“They’ll be evaluating how much I deserve while they were the ones imposing the trauma on me. What the f**k is that?” she told HuffPost Canada in an interview. “As of today … we never received one phone call from anyone from the institution asking us, ‘Do you need help?’ No one.”

The former employee, whose testimony was deemed credible and reliable in an investigation by the Senate Ethics Officer, was in disbelief that senators who ignored her case six years ago are on the same committee discussing potential redress. She spoke about her experience on the condition of anonymity, citing professional and personal concerns.

KEEPING TRACK OF CANADA'S WAR GRAVES

New to the job, he was startled to learn that there are thousands of war graves outside of the old European battlefields where people might expect to find them.

"The fact that there are over 20,000 of them from the Commonwealth War Graves Commission perspective is a surprise to me, but I think for most Canadians it is a surprise," Loveridge said.

The vast majority of Canada's war graves — 19,000 — can be found here in Canada. They're legacies of the First World War, the Second World War and the Korean conflict.

PROCESSING CARS AT HALIFAX AUTOPORT

   The majority of the world’s automakers, even premium brands like BMW and Mercedes, ferry their cars to a destination by ship. Halifax Autoport plays regular host to these sea monsters, where a vast number of European machinery make their first turn of a wheel on North American soil. Autoport is one of the largest vehicle processing and shipment facilities, handling nearly 185,000 vehicles every year.
   The enormous ocean carriers docking at Autoport measure in the vicinity of 200 metres from stem to stern, ships like the Asian Majesty and MSC Cristiana can deliver about 5,500 cars at a time to the shores of North America.

SIGNATORIES TO LATEST CLIMATE CHANGE DRIVEL

Academics and scientists are yet again issuing “consensus” statements on climate change. In 2017, we were warned by 16,000 scientists across 184 countries that “human beings and the natural world are on a collision course.” This past week, BioScience, an academic, peer-reviewed journal from Oxford University Press found 11,224 scientists, from 153 countries, who signed off on the latest climate change drivel.

How many of these 11,000 scientists possess germane degrees in meteorology, climatology or atmospheric science? Lo and behold, BioScience actually published a list of these scientific signatories in the attached link -- so I looked.

In keyword searches across 324 pages of signing signatories, spanning 11,224 scientists, I found 240 (2%) individuals with professions that can be construed as bona fide meteorologists, climatologists, or atmospheric scientists.

REMEMBERING THE FORT HOOD SLAUGHTER

Mark Steyn:  Today is the tenth anniversary of an appalling act of slaughter, even among the long catalogue of such acts since September 11th. It was committed at an American military base by an "American" major, and thus is analogous to similar acts by Afghan "allies" on western troops in Nato barracks, or the recent murder of his colleagues by a Muslim policeman in Paris. But it was distinguished by the especially insane reaction of almost everyone who mattered, from the media to the army. As Mark Steyn Club member Kate Smyth noted the other day, "We'd rather die than be thought of as 'Islamophobic'." In the case of the US Army brass after Fort Hood, that's literally true.

SJW's BLIND TO THEIR OWN FAULTS

An extraordinary column appeared on the website of Canadian Lawyer on Tuesday. Titled, “B.C. Brazilian waxing case a step backward for trans human rights cases, says lawyer,” the article presented an interview with self-described “transgender human rights activist” Adrienne Smith, who laments that the recent legal setback to scrotal-waxing enthusiast Jessica Yaniv (JY) is “going to put a chill on trans rights human rights litigation in British Columbia.” That’s a rather eyebrow-raising claim given that an exhaustive judgment written up by the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal showed Yaniv to be a vexatious racist and grifter who’d deliberately targeted Vancouver-area immigrant women who didn’t have the means to fight back. Incredibly, Smith complains that, in the words of the interviewer, a good lawyer “would have prevented Yaniv” from expressing the racist animus behind the human-rights grifting campaign. Which is to say: This “human rights activist” regards JY’s racism as “unfortunate” — but mainly because it got in the way of a trans-positive judgment.

HELPING RURAL PROPERTY OWNERS IN ALBERTA

WETASKIWIN, Alta. — Alberta is making changes to prevent homeowners from being sued if they injure people committing crimes on their properties.

Justice Minister Doug Schweitzer says the government will be introducing amendments to existing legislation and make them retroactive to the start of 2018.

“This is just the beginning of the steps we’re going to take to combat rural crime,” Schweitzer said Wednesday.

REVOKE PASSPORTS OF PEDOPHILE SEX TOURISTS

“It’s more pervasive than we think,” said Graeme Illman of the charity Ratanak which combats sex tourism in Cambodia.

“For a lot of these guys, it’s easier for them to go in and sexually assault a child in a Third World country than back home.”

And while the Canadian government has the right to revoke the passport of a registered sex offender, they usually don’t.

In the United States, convicted pedos lose their passports. If they want a new one, it’s clearly marked: CHILD SEX OFFENDER.

UBC PRIORITY; KEEP CHINA'S STUDENTS & FUNDS

In the days following the arrest last December of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, UBC administrators and faculty scrambled to assess the impact that rising Canada-China tensions could have on student enrolment, fundraising and research, internal records show.

Amid concern that Chinese scholars might seeking to exploit the openness of Western academic institutions, some American research universities announced they would stop accepting funding from Chinese companies, including telecommunications giant Huawei, and pledged to boost screening procedures before partnering with people or entities from China, Inside Higher Ed reported.

At UBC, where Chinese students comprise more than one-third of the international student population (there were 5,715 Chinese students on the main campus in 2018-19), officials have publicly said over the past year they have no intention of ending their relationship with Huawei.

Huawei sponsors $9.5 million in research agreements with UBC, campus spokesman Kurt Heinrich said Wednesday.

REFUSING A RAINBOW POPPY IS HATE SPEECH

   The 17-year-old cousin of a former Conservative MP hopeful in the 2019 federal election and her friend have apparently been suspended from Stonewall Collegiate for refusing to wear a rainbow poppy.
   Cyara Bird of the Little Black River First Nation, who was on the ballot for the Churchill-Keewatinook Aski riding of northern Manitoba this past election, took to Twitter tonight to express her anger after learning her cousin and another student had both been suspended for “hate speech” after rejecting the idea that rainbow poppies should replace the traditional red-and-black ones worn during their school’s Remembrance Day performance.

MORAL GRANDSTANDERS

Do you strongly agree with the following statements?
       When I share my moral/political beliefs, I do so to show people who disagree with me that I am       better than them.
       I share my moral/political beliefs to make people who disagree with me feel bad.
      When I share my moral/political beliefs, I do so in the hopes that people different than me will feel ashamed of their beliefs.
   If so, then you may be a card-carrying moral grandstander. Of course it's wonderful to have a social cause that you believe in genuinely, and which you want to share with the world to make it a better place. But moral grandstanding comes from a different place.

NATUROPATHIC "DOCTOR" IS NOT AN MEDICAL DOCTOR

   However, in a move that has provoked baffled and outraged responses, Cornwall city council last week agreed to provide $45,000 in public funding for a new private clinic run by an ND — a naturopathic “doctor.”
    “If this is really to address a physician shortage, then it is just completely inappropriate and completely ridiculous,” Cohen, an assistant professor in Queen’s University’s department of family medicine, said in an interview Tuesday.
    However, unlike medical doctors, the Ontario Health Insurance Plan doesn’t cover treatments naturopaths offer. “So, this is public money that is really only going to benefit people who can either pay out of pocket for private naturopathy services, or people who have (private) benefits,” said Cohen.

PHONE SCAMS USING GOVERNMENT NUMBERS

Scam artists are using phone numbers from more than a dozen federal government departments to defraud Canadians — making it look as if the calls are coming from legitimate government agencies and police departments — CBC News has learned.

Some of the calls tell potential victims that their social insurance numbers have been compromised. Others are told that they owe the government money and are in legal trouble.

To deceive potential victims who examine the numbers on incoming calls, the scammers "spoof" their calls so that they display the phone numbers of the relevant federal government departments. In many cases, a scammer tells a victim they will be getting a call from a police officer — then spoofs the call that comes in a few minutes later so that it appears to be coming from local police.