PM UNDERMINING DEMOCRATIC TRADITIONS

  Trudeau did his best to avoid parliamentary accountability to an extent almost unprecedented in Canadian history. That it was accompanied by earnest appeals to progressive ideals and the defense of necessity does not detract from how seriously he breached the norms of responsible government and the Westminster tradition, dating back to the first Canadian provinces in 1848.

Trudeau repeatedly invokes progressive values and the environmental, social and governance (ESG) movement to engorge government, hike taxes, transition the oil and gas industry out of business and ‘reset’ our economy to a socialist paradise or statist nightmare, depending on your perspective – all without a mandate for such a massive transformation.

Canadian parliamentary procedure has partially constrained Trudeau’s tactics. But it cannot counter the leftward lurch and out-of-control profligacy. We must assume he will relentlessly pursue this ideological vision, especially if he wins a majority government.

UN ABANDONED HUMAN RIGHTS IN 2020

Human rights took another beating at the United Nations in 2020 — the global body formed after the Second World War, supposedly to protect them.

Despite China’s brutal suppression of democracy in Hong Kong and persecution of its Uighur Muslim minority, the 193-member nations of the UN General Assembly voted in October to elect China to a three-year term on the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC), starting Jan. 1.

 Joining China — which denies all wrongdoing —on the UNHRC next year will be four other countries elected by the UN General Assembly, also infamous for human rights abuses: Russia, Cuba, Pakistan and Uzbekistan.

FORD DESTINED FOR HYPOCRISY HALL OF FAME

   Ontario Premier Doug Ford has made a lot of tough decisions during the pandemic, some of them right, some of them wrong. The next decision he has to make should be easy, if unpleasant.
   Finance Minister Rod Phillips has to be fired, not just for taking a Caribbean vacation while other Ontarians are locked down, but for the social media posting designed to deceive people into thinking Phillips was still in Ontario. His “Christmas Eve” fireside message on Twitter, so full of fake empathy for all those facing a virus-curtailed Christmas, is destined for the Hypocrisy Hall of Fame
   It’s too bad, because Phillips, the former chair of the board of Postmedia Network Inc., has been a strong finance minister, but he has lost the moral authority to lecture other Ontarians on the sacrifices they have to make when he is apparently not prepared to make any himself. His attempt to prevent people from knowing that he was on the beach in St. Barts suggests that Phillips knew the decision was wrong, but made it anyway.

NEW RULES FOR IMMIGRANTS TO UK

   At the end of the Brexit transition period, the UK’s immigration apparatus will be based on a points-based system modelled off of the Australian immigration system.
   Those wishing to immigrate to the UK will need to demonstrate proficiency in English, have an appropriate skill level, and meet a minimum salary threshold.

 Immigrants from the European Union will have to wait for five years before claiming benefits from the British government following the end of the Brexit transition period on December 31st.
   The welfare overhaul will also include the removal of the ability to claim child benefits for children residing in countries outside the UK.

UK - EU TRADE PASSED INTO LAW

Addressing supporters on YouTube on Wednesday night, Mr Farage said that while he feels “relief that we’re out”, he cannot feel joy, “because there are aspects of this deal that really are dreadful”, first noting the status of Northern Ireland, which is “in a different constitutional arrangement to the rest of us”, but particularly, the “worst part of the deal for me is fisheries”.

 “There are many, many battles to fight, but the best thing about Boris Johnson’s deal is this: it ends the faultline, not just within his own party, but it stops big industry bosses from continuing to scream and shout. It ends the Brexit Wars. It means that we are not going to rejoin the Single Market, we’re not going to rejoin the Customs Union, we’re not going to be rejoining the European Union. We’re certainly not going to join the Euro.

“And there is now a widespread acceptance that this is done. It is the settled will of the people, and there is no going back. That — even if the deal is not perfect — that is a giant leap forward for our country.”

LIBERAL VIRTUE-SIGNALLING OVERRIDES ECONOMIC REALITY

 The Trudeau government has been unacceptably opaque in its handling of the national purse, several former senior Finance officials say, a concern that reflects deeper disagreements in Ottawa between the public service and the Liberal government’s lofty spending plans.

 But those inherent divides have deepened in recent years as the Trudeau government fixates on expanding the social safety net, said David Dodge, who served as deputy minister of finance from 1992 to 1997 before becoming governor of the Bank of Canada. Trudeau’s policies have broadly centred around redistribution, with much less regard for tackling difficult economic questions or making efforts to cut unnecessary spending.

“The policies of the government in power, and the proclivities of the current prime minister, are not particularly oriented towards the hard work of generating economic growth, and that can make things difficult for the Department of Finance,” Dodge said.

SPECIAL TREATMENT FOR FORD CRONIES

  Lanark County OPP and the Leeds, Grenville and Lanark District Health Unit say they’re looking into a holiday gathering hosted by MPP Randy Hillier that contravened provincial guidelines.
“The OPP is aware of the social media post,” stated Bill Dickson, OPP East Region media relations co-ordinator, on Dec. 30. “We, along with the local health unit, are looking into it at this point.”

    Ontario premier Doug Ford is under pressure after admitting that he has known for weeks that his finance minister – who faked social media posts to conceal his location – had ignored a coronavirus lockdown to go on holiday in the Caribbean.  
     Posts on Rod Phillips’s social media accounts suggested that he remained home over Christmas, but it emerged on Tuesday that the minister flew to the island of St Barts in mid-December – despite his own government’s advice to avoid non-essential travel.  “He never told anyone he was leaving. He never told me he was leaving,” said Ford, who said he planned to have a “tough conversation” with Phillips when he arrives home tomorrow.

$150K FOR VICTIMS OF IRAN'S TREACHERY

 Iran’s cabinet on Wednesday allocated $150,000 for the families of each of the 176 victims of a Ukrainian plane shot down in Iranian airspace in January, the official IRNA news agency reported.

Describing Iran’s handling of the situation as “unacceptable,” Ukraine said the amount of compensation should be negotiated and called for those responsible to be brought to justice.

Many of the victims were Canadian citizens or residents.

8 CHARGES & 130 TICKETS

TORONTO -- Although more than 40,000 people entering or returning to Canada during the pandemic have had to be reminded directly by police to quarantine, only 130 tickets and eight charges have been issued in connection with breaking travel requirements.

A press release from the federal government issued Tuesday stated that more than 4,600 calls are made on a daily basis to check in with those who have arrived to Canada from abroad and are in the midst of their mandatory 14-day quarantine.

PALESTINIAN PAY FOR SLAY PROGRAM

Khitam Khudeish, a long-time employee of the Palestinian Embassy in Baghdad, came to Canada in September of 2016, claiming refugee status on the basis of religious persecution.

It turned out that, for 22 years, Khudeish had been doling out funds on behalf of the PLO through its “Palestine Martyrs’ Families Foundation” (PMFF.)

The Minister of Citizenship and Immigration became involved, suggesting that by aiding the PMFF, Khudeish made herself ineligible for refugee status under article 1(f) of the Refugee Convention, which bars those engaged in crimes against humanity — including terrorism.

MPP HILLIER DEFIES COVID RESTRICTIONS

Independent MPP Randy Hillier appears to be at it again – defying provincial COVID-19 guidelines.

Hillier, whose represents the riding of Lanark-Frontenac-Kingston, posted a picture of a Christmas gathering on his social media feeds.

The behaviour in the post appears to be in defiance of the province’s recent lockdown and enforced public health protocols.

Ontario Premier, Doug Ford, can't say much about Randy Hillier, now that his own finance minister has been caught;
Ontario Finance Minister Rod Phillips says he is making arrangements to return to Canada “immediately” after being criticized for taking a “personal trip” despite pleas to stay home amid the coronavirus pandemic.

MISLEADING COVID-19 DEATH NUMBERS

   When Briand looked at the 2020 data during that seasonal period, COVID-19-related deaths exceeded deaths from heart diseases. This was highly unusual since heart disease has always prevailed as the leading cause of deaths. However, when taking a closer look at the death numbers, she noted something strange. As Briand compared the number of deaths per cause during that period in 2020 to 2018, she noticed that instead of the expected drastic increase across all causes, there was a significant decrease in deaths due to heart disease. Even more surprising, as seen in the graph below, this sudden decline in deaths is observed for all other causes.
    This trend is completely contrary to the pattern observed in all previous years. Interestingly, as depicted in the table below, the total decrease in deaths by other causes almost exactly equals the increase in deaths by COVID-19. This suggests, according to Briand, that the COVID-19 death toll is misleading. Briand believes that deaths due to heart diseases, respiratory diseases, influenza and pneumonia may instead be recategorized as being due to COVID-19.

SUING TWITTER FOR $500M FOR DEFAMATION

Twitter has been sued by a Delaware computer shop owner who says the social media giant effectively labeled him a "hacker" after he was outed as the source of Hunter Biden's laptop.

John Paul Mac, who provided signature evidence that Hunter Biden dropped his laptop off at the Wilmington, Delaware repair shop - subsequently abandoning it, says Twitter's actions forced him to shut down the 'Mac Shop' after Twitter said the New York Post's exposé on the laptop violated its "hacked materials" policy - which they initially disallowed from being shared across the network, according to Variety

"Plaintiff is not a hacker and the information obtained from the computer does not [constitute] hacked materials because Plaintiff lawfully gained access to the computer," reads Mac's complaint, adding that thanks to Twitter citing its "hacked materials" policy, he is now "widely considered a hacker," and has received negative online reviews along with threats against himself and his property - forcing him to ultimately shutter the Mac Shop.

BIDEN CORRUPTION

A video from a press conference in Ukraine is going viral. It is the follow-up to a video press conference that Ukraine released over a year ago, in which members of the Ukraine Parliament demanded that President Zelensky and President Trump investigate billions of dollars of corruption in Ukraine that is tied to the U.S. The newly released video is meant to provide documentary and eyewitness information about the corruption — and the Biden family figures prominently in the story.

The video is long — over an hour — and not all of it involves the Biden family. This post quotes those portions of the press conference that address Biden family corruption. The gist of it is that, while Democrats obsess about Trump's purported criminality, despite the absence of any evidence, their chosen standard-bearer is extraordinarily corrupt.

Indeed, I would argue that Biden is one of the most corrupt politicians ever in America. In the past, corrupt politicians have confined themselves to playing dirty in their own backyard, making money from deals with fellow Americans.

NO LIBERAL DEMAND FOR COVID TESTING AT AIRPORTS

 By all appearances, the government sees mandatory quarantine mostly as a disincentive to travel and a way to reassure nervous Canadians. Adding mandatory testing to the regime could only help achieve the latter goal; and the fact quarantine is so easily broken can only hinder it. If mandatory testing had been in effect, it almost certainly would have caught the carriers of the new and more contagious strain of COVID-19 that’s running riot in England. On Sunday, Ontario confirmed that a couple diagnosed with that new strain had contracted it from a traveller from the United Kingdom. It is reasonable to assume a positive test would have prevented that contact from occurring, even absent more stringent quarantine measures.

   But an amazing number of otherwise reasonable Canadians will tell you that this sort of thing needn’t, shouldn’t or even can’t happen here. Most commonly, they will say, there just aren’t enough travellers to worry about. “Travel-related COVID-19 cases represent a small number of infections,” CBC News noted in dutifully rubbishing Ford’s complaints. And that is sort of true: Since Dec. 1, 321 cases in Ontario have been reported acquired via travel, which is 0.6 per cent of the total.

But 321 is six times the number of cases linked to “personal service settings” such as nail and hair salons in Ontario since Dec. 1. Such businesses are now legally prohibited from opening. And 321 is just the number of cases determined to have been acquired while travelling; it doesn’t count the number of people they infect after arriving, such as the aforementioned Ontario couple.

THE CARING SOULS AT SIENNA

 In the spring, Sienna Senior living needed military support in two of its overwhelmed long-term care homes where COVID-19 was surging, but even though soldiers were marching in, the company still paid out $45 million to its shareholders.

Sienna is a publicly traded company that runs dozens of long-term care homes and retirement residences in Ontario and British Columbia. During the spring, two of its homes required military support; Altamont Care Community where 53 people have died and Woodbridge Vista Care Community where 31 people died.

In a response, the company said the dividends were necessary and it has invested $20.5 million above and beyond any government support to improve the care homes.

“Dividends are similar to interest costs on loans — dividends are paid to shareholders who have provided the capital necessary to invest in the maintenance, upgrading and building of new long-term care residences,” the company wrote in a statement to the National Post. “At no point has the payment of dividends taken away from front-line care.”

TRUDEAU AVOIDS PARLIAMENTARY ACCOUNTABILITY

 Trudeau’s objectives aren’t that malign and Canadian democracy would not permit an unconstitutional power grab. However, he did his best to avoid parliamentary accountability to an extent almost unprecedented in Canadian history. That it was accompanied by earnest appeals to progressive ideals and the defense of necessity does not detract from how seriously he breached the norms of responsible government and the Westminster tradition, dating back to the first Canadian provinces in 1848.

PUT ON YOUR BIG-BOY PANTS, PM

 I have a New Year’s resolution for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

After more than five years in power, he should take responsibility for his decisions, as opposed to blaming others.

Trudeau isn’t the first politician to blame opponents and predecessors for problems he or she faces, nor for the opposition parties and premiers to blame him for problems he inherited.

But Trudeau has turned blaming others into an art form, even for messes of his own creation.

HOLDING THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH RESPONSIBLE

 John Doe No. 26 places two weathered hands on his dining room table, smoothing out creases in a holiday tablecloth as he talks about the monsters of a Christmas past.

Dec. 25, 1955, was the day he put a stop to the abuse he suffered inside the hallowed walls of the Mount Cashel Orphanage in St. John’s.

For seven years, sadists in black robes and white collars desecrated so much that was innocent in the child. The abuse was physical, sexual and psychological.

THE MAN IS A GENIUS

  The federal minister in charge of the government's push on child care says bringing down fees parents pay is a key ingredient in the Liberals' design for a national system.

Social Development Minister Ahmed Hussen also says that just as critical will be to expand the number of affordable daycare spaces across the country for parents who want them.

Hussen said that driving down fees and ramping up the number of spaces would likely require a sizeable influx of federal funds.

CONSUMPTION FOR THE BETTERMENT OF OTHERS

Former employees of WE Charity who requested anonymity because they’d signed nondisclosure agreements recount that Kenya projects were sometimes built as slowly as possible to ensure a steady supply of feel-good tasks for donor groups, which could number as many as 100 people. A running joke among staff was that donor plaques hanging on buildings should be made of Velcro because they were swapped so frequently. (Several ex-employees say this practice was eventually abandoned.) A wall at Baraka Hospital, the medical facility on the strip, was rebuilt at least four times by volunteers, according to three people with direct knowledge. The same three sources say that so-called community mobilizers cajoled villagers into donning traditional garb and cheering with requisite enthusiasm when donors arrived.

In one memorable incident recalled by former employees, a major benefactor came for the opening of a women’s empowerment center. The night before, Craig realized the donor had specified the center was to have a kitchen. Mayhem ensued. Employees were instructed to cobble together a makeshift kitchen with equipment from a nearby high school. Photographs of the result show pots and pans hanging neatly on the wall and tidy shelves stacked with cups and plates. When the donors left, it all went back to the school.

Compounding WE’s troubles, Jesse Brown, one of the lone journalists to scrutinize the charity before the furor, posted a copy of a report that a private investigator hired by WE’s defamation lawyer had compiled on him and his family after he published a critical series on his news site, Canadaland. (“WE Charity was not involved in the preparation of the document,” the nonprofit says.) The Canadian media also picked up on an Instagram post that Amanda Maitland, a former employee who’d traveled to WE-affiliated schools in Canada to give anti-racism talks, had made not long before Trudeau’s announcement. Defying a nondisclosure agreement, Maitland recounted having a speech about the personal injustices she’d suffered as a Black woman rewritten by White colleagues into a bland script about “cornrows” and “the Oscars.” “I was supposed to memorize this new speech and perform it,” she said in an interview. “I don’t know if they understood how oppressive that was.” By the time the media picked up her story, others were adding theirs, alleging an abusive and racist workplace culture at WE; 200 past and current employees ultimately signed a petition to demand that the Kielburgers personally apologize for the trauma caused by a “culture of fear, abuse of power, silencing tactics, and microaggressions.”

  Grab a coffee.

NASHVILLE BOMBER DIED IN BLAST

 The 63-year-old suspect in the bombing that rocked Nashville on Christmas morning was killed in the blast that destroyed his motor home and damaged more than 40 businesses, authorities said on Sunday.   An individual named Anthony Warner is the bomber.

Warner’s motor home, parked on a downtown street of Tennessee’s largest city, exploded at dawn on Friday moments after police responding to reports of gunfire noticed it and heard music and an automated message emanating from the vehicle warning of a bomb.

The explosion in the heart of America’s country music capital injured three people and damaged businesses including an AT&T switching centre, disrupting mobile, internet and TV services across central Tennessee and parts of four other states.

CHINA JAILS CITIZEN JOURNALIST

 SHANGHAI — A Chinese court on Monday handed down a four-year jail term to a citizen-journalist who reported from the central city of Wuhan at the peak of this year’s coronavirus outbreak on the grounds of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” her lawyer said.

A former lawyer, Zhang arrived in Wuhan on Feb. 1 from her home in Shanghai.

Her short video clips uploaded to YouTube consist of interviews with residents, commentary and footage of a crematorium, train stations, hospitals and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Detained in mid-May, she went on hunger strike in late June, court documents seen by Reuters say. Her lawyers told the court that police strapped her hands and force-fed her with a tube. By December, she was suffering headaches, giddiness, stomach ache, low blood pressure and a throat infection.

CANADIAN SELF-FLAGELLATION RE SYSTEMIC RACISM

 Conrad Black  In the absence of anything more original to write at year-end, the politics of this country are discouraging; I lamented as recently as last week the failure of any visible and audible political leader in the country to offer even a slightly uplifting version of what the late president George Bush Sr. used to call ”the vision thing.” Political discourse in this country appears to be confined entirely to climate change, gender issues, native concerns, and the apparently invincible, bone-crushing advance of the juggernaut of political correctness. The entire citizenry seems to have been mobilized to hunt down, root out, pulverize, and incinerate any trace of the ghastly and abominable, ubiquitous bugbear, “systemic racism.” It is an “existential” threat. The phrase means that the social and political system in this case of Canada is rotten throughout, because of its inherent racist prejudices. In practice, many people who bandy this conceptually and acoustically irritating phrase about have no idea what they mean and if asked to think about it, most would say that they believe there has been a good deal of official racism and racially discriminating attitudes and practices in Canadian history, and that to a substantial extent, it lingers yet. This is utter nonsense.

POLICE HEROES AT NASHVILLE BOMBING

 What we witnessed … yesterday morning was nothing short of heroism and courageous actions by those six officers, who received a call about shots being fired in the area and they charged towards the danger like any other police officer in our nation would.

When they got there, obviously the danger continued to increase. And they took swift action, and they started working in the streets and in the neighborhood to clear residents from the area and clear pedestrians from the area. They put themselves in between good and evil. And they saved lives, without a doubt.

FORD'S LOCKDOWN DECISION QUESTIONED

Now, ten months later, we have hit 1,000 COVID patients in hospital again. Almost 270 of those patients are in ICU, approximately 180 on ventilators. But unlike the spring, we have 2,250 new hospital beds. If the beds were one giant COVID hospital, it would be less than half full of COVID patients today, and over 80% of the ICU would lie empty. My own almost-500-bed hospital on the outskirts of Toronto has only 20 COVID cases on the ward, five in ICU. We could care for over 80 ICU patients if necessary.

So why is the entire province facing a brutal provincewide lockdown over the ordinarily festive Christmas season?

Politicians are vote maximizing machines, so we cannot blame them for following votes. Given all the media concern about case counts, who would vote against lockdown? Salaried hospitals workers love lockdowns. It makes life so much easier and less risky for the same amount of effort. White-collar workers love them too. Why commute when you can telecommute for half the cost and none of the risk? Civil servants love lockdowns secure in their jobs, programming on hold.

 To this, point, these groups have swayed politicians, winning the media debate over concerns about the economic devastation, the plight of customer-driven small businesses, isolated people suffering without family, and those who would emphasize a more sensible risk-benefit analysis that preserves individual freedoms to conduct business and personal affairs safely.

COLD WAR SPY DIES IN RUSSIA

   LONDON/MOSCOW (Reuters) - George Blake, who died in Russia on Saturday at the age of 98, was the last in a line of British spies whose secret work for the Soviet Union humiliated the intelligence establishment when it was discovered at the height of the Cold War.
   Britain says he exposed the identities of hundreds of Western agents across Eastern Europe in the 1950s, some of whom were executed as a result of his treason.
   Unmasked as a Soviet spy in 1961, Blake was sentenced to 42 years in London's Wormwood Scrubs prison. In a classic cloak-and-dagger story, he escaped in 1966 with the help of other inmates and two peace activists, and was smuggled out of Britain in a camper van. He made it through Western Europe undiscovered and crossed the Iron Curtain into East Berlin.

LOBBING INSULTS IN ALBERTA'S LEGISLATURE

Even though Alberta MLAs are bound by a list of behavioural rules in the legislature, they’ve left a lot of juvenile insults on the official Hansard record.

Members have hurled some weird and wonderful snubs, from “skunk,” “scuzzball” and “gerbil,” to the “minister of gobbledygook.” They have called each other “jackasses,” “yahoos,” “idiots,” “liars” and “trained seals.”

 Probably the most common point of order, the granddaddy of all insults, is to call a member a liar or imply lying. But even that rule haswiggle room. On Nov. 18, UCP house leader Jason Nixon said in one breath: “That member – I’m going to have to withdraw this in a moment – is a liar. Happy to apologize and withdraw.”

STILL FOLLOWING NONSENSICAL COVID RULES

I speak to my neighbors, to people I meet in the public square, and to our professionals, medical, legal, and otherwise. When I point out certain obvious facts, I am usually met with glazed incomprehension or outright condescension. When I am informed, for example, that Sweden, which did not lock down, is currently experiencing the same winter spike in COVID infections as lockdown countries, and therefore that not to lock down is a failing strategy, I wonder at the incapacity for logical deduction. If the results are the same, I reply, then why in heaven’s name not keep the kids in school, allow bars, restaurants, and small businesses to stay open, and preserve the economy intact? No response.

 When I suggest that instead of blindly following the government line, or deriving our information from suborned or ignorant journalists churning out a column a day, they might spend a few hours doing their own research and consult eminent virologists and organizations, all readily accessible on the Net—people turn away as if I were some sort of crank. And yet spending merely a couple of minutes with a recent AIER assessment would help dispel the “fog of disease mitigation.” Citing a W.H.O. report that asymptomatic spread is “very rare,” the AIER concludes that “everything we’ve done over the months—the mask wearing, the grasshopper dance not to be next to people, the canceling of everything, the wild paranoia and premodern confusions—has been a calamitous and destructive waste of time, energy, and money.”

When I suggest that it might be worthwhile to crack the spines of a few definitive books, written by world-acclaimed specialists and epidemiologists—my interlocutors hem and haw. They are busy with work and family. They already have the truth—it was on CTV or Global. They prefer to park their confidence in the pronouncements of our Provincial Health Officer, who has already changed her mind three or four times.

BOWING DOWN TO SCIENTIFIC GROUPTHINK

 Scientific groupthink is now in vogue. Doctors who question the wisdom of pandemic lockdowns run the risk of being censored and cancelled. Thankfully, some are made of sterner stuff, such as Matt Strauss, a critical care physician and assistant professor of medicine at Queen’s University, and an early signatory of the Great Barrington Declaration. The declaration is a statement now endorsed by over 12,000 medical and public health scientists and over 38,000 medical practitioners expressing concerns about the science of prevailing COVID-19 policies. It asserts that lockdowns are producing devastating effects on short- and long-term public health that are disproportionate to the threat from the virus. As Strauss wrote in The Spectator in October, “mandatory government lockdowns amount to a medical recommendation of no proven benefit, of extraordinary potential harm, that do not take personal values and individual consent into account.”

CANADA REVENUE AGENCY IS WRONG

 One of the requirements of the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) is that an individual must have earned at least $5,000 from employment or self-employment in 2019 or in the 12 months preceding the application date. But does this mean gross income or net income after expenses? That simple question has created a fiasco.

The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) was uncertain of the answer when CERB was first introduced, but now says it means net income after expenses. It issued 441,000 letters in early December telling individuals that, based on the net income reported on their 2019 tax returns, they may have to repay all or a portion of CERB amounts received.

First, the CERB Act is separate legislation from the tax act or any other act, with its own definitions. But, incredibly, it does not define the term “income”: we must therefore look outside the CERB legislation for guidance. The best guidance regarding the meaning of “income” is not found in dictionaries (to which the courts often refer when the meaning of a word is not clear) but in one sentence of the tax act. That sentence says that, for tax purposes, a taxpayer’s “income” from a business means profit: in other words, it deems the word “income” to mean “net income” instead.

CTF NAUGHTY & NICE LIST

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has released its naughty and nice list for the year — and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau tops their naughty list.

“Lying to Canadians and hiking the cost of heating our homes is a sure-fire way to land you on the naughty List and the Prime Minister has achieved that in spectacular fashion,” said Aaron Wudrick, federal director of the CTF. “Some politicians and bureaucrats did manage to land on the nice List this year, so let’s hope Trudeau aims for that in 2021.”

Trudeau promised not to hike taxes, but he more than tripled the carbon tax up to $170 per tonne by 2030 and also announced a second carbon tax.

GRIEVANCE FILED AGAINST CHRC

   The Association of Justice Counsel filed a grievance against the Canadian Human Rights Commission last week on behalf of its Black and racialized members, and, according to a number of sources with information about the commission’s operations, they say there is ongoing systemic discrimination and a disproportionate dismissal of race-based complaints at the commission.
   The AJC, which represents around 2,600 lawyers employed by the federal government who work for the Department of Justice, the Public Prosecution Service of Canada, and provide in-house legal services to various federal agencies, tribunals and courts across the country, also includes members who are lawyers with the Canadian Human Rights Commission.
   The AJC says it reactivated its policy grievance on Dec. 17, which it previously filed with the Treasury Board on behalf of their Black and racialized members at the CHRC, in October, after employees raised issues of system racism with CHRC management and after CHRC Chief Commissioner Marie-Claude Landry issued a statement on June 2 in support of Black Lives Matters.

THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS ALIVE & WELL

 The most wonderful time in a not-so-wonderful year has arrived and Canadians from coast to coast aren't letting the pandemic put a damper on their Christmas spirit. Many have found creative ways to celebrate while still in the throes of COVID-19's second wave.

In Iqaluit, Nunavut, Sheila Flaherty thawed a piece of polar bear meat, or nanuq in Inuktitut, to serve to her family on Christmas Day.

"It's as big as a ham. It's huge," she said.

BRITAIN AND EU HAVE TRADE DEAL

LONDON/BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Britain clinched a narrow Brexit trade deal with the European Union on Thursday, just seven days before it exits one of the world’s biggest trading blocs in its most significant global shift since the loss of empire.

The deal, agreed more than four years after Britain voted narrowly to leave the bloc, means it has averted a chaotic finale to the tortuous divorce that has shaken the 70-year project to forge European unity from the ruins of World War Two.

It will preserve Britain’s zero-tariff and zero-quota access to the bloc’s single market of 450 million consumers, but will not prevent economic pain and disruption for the United Kingdom or for EU member states.

TORONTO HOUSING CORP's CHRISTMAS GRINCHES

At Christmas Eve it’s Bah Humbug time at 855 Roselawn Ave., near Eglinton Ave. W. and Allen Rd., since the TCHC asked residents to pack up the artificial tree that has stood in the lobby every holiday season for the past 25 years.

Needless to say, the residents trying to create a yuletide mood left the tree where it has always been at Christmas.

“But it was soon gone,” said Kowlessar, a strong Presbyterian Christian. “Security took down the tree and all the decorations on the walls too.”

 The drug culture among some in the building is still there, though. If TCHC is worried about an artificial Christmas tree going up in the flames, maybe they could look at other problems in their buildings including crack, crystal meth, marijuana and cigarette smoking.

CHINA IN LECTURE MODE AGAIN

 Representatives of the Chinese government say Canada was “wrong” to reject the proposed takeover of an Arctic gold mine by a state-owned company, the latest jab in an already-fraught relationship between the two countries.

Canada on Tuesday rejected the proposed takeover of Toronto-based TMAC Resources Inc. by China’s Shandong Gold Mining Co. Ltd., citing national security concerns. Under the deal, Shandong would have paid $230 million not including debt to acquire the Canadian firm, which is developing a gold mine in Hope Bay, Nunavut.

In response to questions by the National Post on Wednesday, the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China in Ottawa said the decision amounted to the “politicization of normal economic cooperation” between China and Canada.

Embassy officials said blocking the transaction interferes with “mutually beneficial” relations between the two countries, saying that “political interference with the excuse of national security is wrong.”

THE WAYWARD SISTERS FOUL THE AIR

Two of the most notorious bigots in the House of Representatives signed a letter to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg demanding that he “eradicate anti-Muslim bigotry from Facebook”.

The three-page letter signed by Rep. Ilhan Omar, Rep. Rashida Tlaib, as well as 28 other left-wing House members, spends a great deal of time demanding the removal of what it calls "anti-Muslim content" without ever specifically defining it. That's convenient considering Omar and Tlaib's own history of racism and antisemitism, and support for the sorts of Islamic bigotry and violence that groups like CAIR, which supports the letter, have become known for.

The letter spotlights one violent incident, but then goes on to call for a ban on "anti-Muslim content", "anti-Muslim animus", "anti-Muslim bigotry", and finally, "anti-Muslim content and organizing" on the platform, without ever explaining what exactly they want to ban.

DETROIT'S COUNTER-LAWSUIT AGAINST RIOTERS

The Black Lives Matter umbrella group Detroit Will Breathe sued Detroit, alleging police abuse of force during the George Floyd riots in the city this past summer. A judge granted a restraining order in September but the city responded with a countersuit, claiming that the Black Lives Matter group organized a “civil conspiracy” to riot, destroy property, and disturb the peace.

According to Detroit’s countersuit, the protesters “illegally, maliciously, and wrongfully conspired with one another with the intent to and for the illegal purpose of disturbing the peace, engaging in disorderly conduct, inciting riots, destroying public property, resisting or obstructing officers in charge of duty, and committing acts of violence against [the city] and [Detroit Police Department] officers.”

The counter-lawsuit may force a Black Lives Matter group to fork over cash damages for the riots, a positive step toward justice for the riots that proved the most destructive (in terms of insurance claims) in U.S. history. While leftists repeat claims of “institutional racism,” the riots have victimized the black community. The destruction disproportionately hit black communities in Kenosha, Wisc., Minneapolis, and Chicago. The riots destroyed black lives, black livelihoods, and black monuments. At least 26 Americans have died in the riots, most of them black.

LIBERAL FUEL STANDARD HITS LOW & MIDDLE INCOME HARDEST

  Reuters: Canada’s left-leaning New Democratic Party (NDP) opposition party criticized on Tuesday freshly-unveiled clean fuel standards, after a government impact analysis said higher fuel costs will hit lower- and middle-income households hardest.

If adopted next year the proposed regulations will become law in 2022. Concerns about the cost to households could increase push back against a policy that is central to Canada’s commitment to reduce carbon emissions 30% below 2005 levels by 2030.

In an analysis published on Dec. 19, the federal environment department said households will see an increase of liquid fuel costs on average between C$69 and C$208 in 2030 as suppliers pass on higher production costs to consumers.

HER DEATH WAS NO ACCIDENT

Activist friends and family of Karima Mehrab claim her death was no accident.

Lateef Johar Baloch said the last time he spoke with the 37-year-old Pakistani human rights activist was on Friday about her courses at University of Toronto, where she was studying political science and economics. She went missing on Sunday and Balcoh said her body was pulled from Lake Ontario, near Centre Island, on Monday.

 “We can’t believe or accept this was an accident,” said Baloch, 30, a friend and fellow activist who lives in Toronto. “She was threatened anonymously. They said, ‘We know where you live.’ Her husband showed me the messages and it said, ‘We will send a Christmas gift to Karima she will never forget.'”

ABSENT BLOC MP BATTLING BIPOLAR DISORDER

OTTAWA – Quietly on medical leave from work since last January, Bloc Québécois MP Simon Marcil announced on Tuesday that he has been dealing with mental health issues and was recently diagnosed with bipolar disorder.

“Over the last year, I’ve unfortunately had to be absent while facing mental health issues. Week after week, I hoped to be able to return, but against all hopes, my leave unexpectedly extended as my health was slow to improve,” the MP for the Montreal-area riding of Mirabel wrote in French on social media.

Simon Marcil faces criticism for collecting his full salary of $182,600 during his absence and claiming $14,150 in expenses for his secondary residence

GOOGLE & FACEBOOK CAUGHT COLLUDING

Big Tech giants Google and Facebook agreed to “cooperate and assist one another” if faced with antitrust litigation related to a deal on online advertising, according to a lawsuit filed by 10 states against Google last week.

According to the Wall Street Journal, the suit cites internal company documents that were “heavily redacted.”

The lawsuit, which is led by Texas, includes ten Republican attorneys general who allege that Google and Facebook joined in an agreement in September 2018 in which Facebook agreed not to compete with Google’s online advertising tools in exchange for special treatment when it used them.

In a heavily redacted passage, the lawsuit states that Google and Facebook were both aware that their agreement could trigger antitrust investigations and discussed how to deal with them.

PUTIN GRANTS HIMSELF LIFETIME IMMUNITY

   President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday signed into law a bill granting lifetime immunity from criminal prosecution to Russian presidents and their family members.
   The law comes amid swirling questions over Putin’s future after his current term limit expires in 2024 and is part of sweeping constitutional reforms allowing Putin to ignore current limits and run for two more six-year presidential terms.
   Under the new law, former presidents are immune from criminal or administrative prosecution and may not be detained, arrested or subject to searches, interrogations or bodily searches.

IGNORING THE ADVICE OF PRIVACY COMMISSIONER

 OTTAWA — The federal privacy watchdog is pressing for changes to security screening procedures for public servants.

An internal memo prepared by the privacy commissioner's office says the government has "not demonstrated the need" for several intrusive measures — from credit checks to polygraph tests.

The memo says the watchdog will continue to press the Treasury Board Secretariat to justify provisions of its security-screening standard, but also that the Treasury Board has largely proceeded without taking the privacy commissioner's advice over the years.

The privacy commissioner's office says Treasury Board has emphasized the need to align Canada's screening practices with those of the other Five Eyes nations — members of an intelligence-sharing alliance that includes Australia, Britain, New Zealand and the United States.

BANK OF CHINA REC'D CORONAVIRUS WAGE SUBSIDY

The Canada Revenue Agency on Monday released a searchable registry of the 339,938 businesses, charities and non-profits that applied for and received the wage subsidy so far.

The Canadian branch of the Bank of China and anti-abortion groups are among some of the recipients of the federal wage subsidy.

A spokesperson for Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland said the government plans to review the program criteria in light of some of the entities accessing the funds.

ESTABLISHMENT'S LIES WILL BE ITS UNDOING

    The coming vaccine fiasco is going to be yet another example of our idiotic ruling class’ utter incompetence and total paucity of wisdom. It is clear that there is going to be a huge backlash in the form of people refusing to take the vaccine.
   The Establishment decided that instead of having a vigorous debate and discussion over the safety and efficacy of these prophylactic potions, they would just short circuit the whole messy truth determination process that Western civilization has relied upon for a millennium – argument, debate, and eventually consensus after everything is fully and freely hashed-out – and move right to the Official Truth. All the smart set decided that the Official Truth would be that these vaccines were all perfect and necessary and that we needed to stamp out any hint of dissent lest people pause and think for themselves and thereby disrupt the plan by raising unapproved notions. And the tech overlords would do their part by ensuring that any info, ideas, or interplay that was not inline with the narrative would be suppressed.

ABSENTEE BLOC QUEBECOIS MP, SIMON MARCIL

 OTTAWA – It’s been a year since Bloc Québécois MP Simon Marcil spoke in Parliament, sat on a committee, or even voted. He has been on medical leave from work, an absence that should have been disclosed to voters, political experts say.

Marcil, who still receives his full MP salary of $182,600 as well as expenses, has been on medical leave from work since January 31, 2020, Bloc Québécois Whip Claude DeBellefeuille confirmed in an interview.   According to DeBellefeuille,  Marcil provided a doctor’s note explaining that he required one month of medical leave at the time. The MP then provided a new note every month extending his leave to this day. His return to work is now expected to be Jan 10, 2021.

But none of this information was disclosed to media or the public until National Post questioned the party about the MP’s disappearance from work this week. DeBellefeuille says that the party chose to keep the absence under wraps to protect Marcil’s privacy, and that she hasn’t heard of any complaints from Mirabel constituents.

CANADA REJECTS CHINA COs BID FOR ARCTIC MINE

 The Canadian government has rejected Shandong Gold Mining’s bid to acquire Canada’s debt-saddled TMAC Resources, the companies said, with the Chinese miner adding that the sale was blocked on national security grounds.

As the COVID-19 pandemic has caused economic dislocation, countries from Australia to Canada have increased scrutiny on deals by state-run Chinese miners this year.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has faced pressure from opposition Conservative politicians to toughen the country’s stance on China.

Canada’s department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development, which oversees foreign investment, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

ON THE COVID VACCINE PRIORITY LIST

   Steyn:  The CDC, of course, has things other than "science" to follow, such as "social justice". One of the factors their all-powerful committee decided to take into account was "mitigating health iniquities". For example, eight out of ten Covid deaths in America are among persons 65 and older. So, given they're at greater risk, shouldn't they be given priority over, say, trial attorneys who get elected to Congress?

Ah, not so fast, say the CDC. True, they have the "highest incidence and mortality in congregate living", but, on the other hand, "racial and ethnic minority groups [are] under-represented among adults >65".

So, because the high-risk category is excessively white, we have to find other categories to give the vaccine to instead.

FORD'S NONSENSICAL ONTARIO-WIDE LOCKDOWN

   Randall Denley:  Ontario Premier Doug Ford made the dumbest move of his premiership Monday. His severe pandemic lockdown of the entire province will not only subject millions of Ontarians to unnecessary restrictions, it effectively undermines the idea that his government’s decision-making is driven by science, logic or even a minimum of rationality.

There is a significant COVID problem in Toronto, the GTA and Windsor-Essex. That’s not going to be helped one bit by shutting down everyday life in Ottawa, Northern Ontario and other areas where COVID numbers are light.

In his media conference, Ford tried to portray the lockdown as protecting the low-COVID areas from hordes of invading sick people. He specifically cited Ottawa, a city of one million people that has only 19 COVID cases in hospital, none in intensive care and just 378 active cases. Apparently, the city faces the hitherto unperceived threat of “droves” of Quebecers surging across the border to infect the populace.

BC's CARBON TAX PROOF OF FAILURE

The problem is B.C.’s carbon tax, which is no longer revenue neutral, has failed to reduce emissions.

When B.C. introduced it in 2007 it set a goal of reducing its emissions to 33% below 2007 levels by 2020.

Based on the latest data from 2018, B.C.’s annual emissions are up 6% from 2007, up 3% from 2017, up 10% over the past three years and up five times in the last seven years.

Trudeau, apparently believing doing the same thing over and over again leads to different results, continues down B.C.’s path.

MORE LOCK DOWNS ARE NOT THE ANSWER

 “When people start calling for closing schools, I can’t tell you how detrimental that is to the overall mental health and well-being of our children,” Nimni says. “Show me evidence where COVID is rampant in schools and the kids are bringing it home.”

A balanced approach seems to be the prudent path forward, with more and more medical professionals stepping forward to voice their support for it.

Yet for that to happen, the politicians will need to welcome more diverse voices to the table. So far, they’ve surrounded themselves with medical advisers who have a one-track mind, fixated on ever-stricter lockdowns.

SAJAN IS CONCERNED RE CHINA. REST EASY CANADA

 OTTAWA — Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan is taking aim at what he describes as China’s unpredictability, refusal to play by the rules and expanding footprint around the world, saying those are among the “significant” concerns Canada and its allies have with Beijing.

The comments come amid growing alarm over China’s increasingly assertive foreign policy, which has led Canadian military commanders and others to increasingly focus on what is being described as the next great power competition.

The last great power competition saw Canada and its NATO allies face off against the Soviet Union during the Cold War. 

Sajjan declined in an interview with The Canadian Press to describe China as an adversary even as he emphasized the importance of talk and diplomacy in dealing with the Chinese government.

COVID PANDEMIC INQUIRIES CLOAKED IN SECRECY

    For its part, the Chinese government has been pushing hard the unproven theory that the virus began in another country and the document does not rule out ‘the possibility that the virus may have silently circulated elsewhere’ before infecting people in Wuhan.
   It does, however, add that the virus has been ‘remarkably stable’ since being first reported in the city and spreading around the world, ‘suggesting that the virus was well adapted to human transmission from the moment it was first detected’.
   This claim was first published in a study – revealed by this newspaper in May – that raised questions over how the virus became so adept at infecting humans. It also challenged claims the disease originated in a Wuhan wildlife market, which was ruled out later that month by Beijing.
   In the meantime, medical staff who responded to the first outbreak of Covid 19 in Wuhan have been warned they could be charged with espionage – which carries the death penalty – if they reveal details about the disease’s eruption in the city. (Almost every case in China’s courts ends with conviction.)
    This is the latest disturbing attempt by Communist Party chiefs to suppress details about the pandemic’s   outbreak which was followed by the arrest of doctors who tried to warn local citizens and by outside experts barred from entering China.

O'TOOLE GOING ALONG WITH THE CHARADE

   Rex Murphy:  I entertain these questions because it seems a good idea that on the one, massive, central policy of the Liberal government, it would be desirable to have some space, some debating room, between the Opposition party and the government. It is especially interesting now that we have had Justin Trudeau’s announcement of the $170-a-tonne tax on carbon dioxide by 2030, and can by no means be certain it won’t go much higher than that. The Liberals adapt their goals to their opportunities. We were told, after all, the tax would never go higher than $50 a tonne after 2022.

Now Mr. O’Toole and the Conservatives may come out against this particular tax. Indeed, they have done so. But far more consequential is their intellectual or ideological position on apocalyptic global warming itself. On that they appear to be perfectly aligned with the government they are presumed to oppose.

   Here’s the ultimate question for O’Toole: Why is it necessary or laudable for Canada to pulverize its major resources, wound Canadian agriculture to its heart, and estrange an entire region of the Confederation for the sake of this vaporous, useless, and almost certainly never-to-be-realized dreamscape goal of zero emissions in Canada by 2050?

ZOOM EXEC SPYING ON CHINESE DISSIDENTS

An employee of the video platform Zoom who is based in China was spying on Chinese dissidents for the Communist Chinese government, according to a federal indictment announced on Friday

.John Demers, the assistant attorney general for national security, said that the case shows that U.S. executives are at risk of being co-opted by the Chinese government when doing business with Beijing.

“No company with significant business interests in China is immune from the coercive power of the Chinese Communist Party [CCP],” Demers said in a statement.

LACK OF ATTENTION TO SAFETY

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan’s Nagashiki Shipping said on Friday the grounding of one of its large bulk carriers that caused an ecological disaster in Mauritius was due to a lack of safety awareness and a failure to follow rules as it pledged better training and oversight.

 The crew of the MV Wakashio, a nearly 300-metre Cape Size bulker used for carrying iron ore, changed direction to sail close enough to Mauritius to get cell phone coverage after also changing a set course two days earlier, Nagashiki said in a statement.

WHO FINALLY ADMITS PCR TESTS FLAWED

This has all been public knowledge since the beginning of the lockdown. The Australian government’s own website admitted the tests were flawed, and a court in Portugal ruled they were not fit for purpose.

Even Dr Anthony Fauci has publicly admitted that a cycle threshold over 35 is going to be detecting “dead nucleotides”, not a living virus.

Despite all this, it is known that many labs around the world have been using PCR tests with CT values over 35, even into the low 40s.

So why has the WHO finally decided to say this is wrong? What reason could they have for finally choosing to recognize this simple reality?

The answer to that is potentially shockingly cynical: We have a vaccine now. We don’t need false positives anymore.   

(Link fixed)

MORE CHINESE COs ADDED TO USA BLACKLIST

 WASHINGTON — The United States added dozens of Chinese companies, including the country’s top chipmaker SMIC and Chinese drone manufacturer SZ DJI Technology Co Ltd, to a trade blacklist on Friday as U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration ratchets up tensions with China in his final weeks in office.

The U.S. Commerce Department said the action against SMIC stems from Beijing’s efforts to harness civilian technologies for military purposes and evidence of activities between SMIC and Chinese military industrial companies of concern.

The Commerce Department will “not allow advanced U.S. technology to help build the military of an increasingly belligerent adversary,” Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement.

CHOPPY WATERS FOR CANADA'S WARSHIP PROGRAM

 The plan to construct the warships has navigated its way through federal governments since the 1990s, but won’t start until 2023. It has been delayed time and again; project requirements have changed; and most significantly, the price estimate has soared; the original $14-billion estimate for these ships is now around $70 billion, according to experts.

 Next came allegations of bid-rigging (strenuously denied by the government) from some potential contractors, after the procurement rules were changed. In one legal filing, a company noted the parameters of the CSC project has been altered 88 times during the process.

Third, while politicians and bureaucrats have argued there will be thousands of high-paying jobs and other industrial benefits, insiders are more dubious. There are no consequences to contractors who don’t meet job targets.

CONSEQUENCES OF SLASHING POLICE BUDGET

The city of Minneapolis has seen a 90% hike in homicides since the police budget was slashed in the wake of George Floyd’s May 25 killing at the hands of cops.

 Homicide, robbery, aggravated assault, burglary, theft and arson are all up significantly on 2019 numbers.

Cops say they have recorded 532 gunshot victims this year — more than double the same period a year ago. Carjackings are also up 331%.

Starry-eyed municipal politicians remain steadfast in their pursuit of woke Twitter love. The city is now spending $500,000 bringing in cops from the surrounding area to make up their staffing shortfall.

ZUCKERBERG'S $419M IMPROPER INFLUENCE

A report released by the Amistad Project of the Thomas More Society at a press conference on Wednesday alleged Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and his wife made $419.5 million in contributions to non-profit organizations during the 2020 election cycle–$350 million to the “Safe Elections” Project of the Center for Technology and Civic Life (CTCL) and another $69.5 million to the Center for Election Innovation and Research–that, “improperly influence[d] the 2020 presidential election on behalf of one particular candidate and party.”

CHINA'S COAL SHORTAGE OF ITS OWN MAKING

Coal is among the latest in a growing list of major Australian exports hit by severe restrictions in China, also including commodities like cotton, timber wine, lobster, and barley. While Chinese citizens might be able to forgo luxuries for a while like Aussie wine as well as lobster, coal is quite another thing especially given the country is currently facing a broad coal shortage.

Several cities in at least three provinces in central and southern China are experiencing a power crunch, with some local governments beginning to ration power use during peak times, according to multiple domestic media reports.

So ultimately this shows Beijing is so intent and devoted to punishing Australia that it will make its own citizens suffer in the downward spiraling spat that began last Spring when Canberra joined US calls for an independent probe into China's handling of COVID-19 as the place of origin for the pandemic.

ENTITLED ATTITUDE AT OTTAWA GOLF COURSE

The Royal Ottawa Golf Club, one of the country's most prominent private courses, has banked a $1-million surplus from its past season, thanks mostly to federal subsidies for workers' wages during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

"We ended up with a rather substantial subsidy," Doug McLarty, the club treasurer, told participants in the Dec. 5 online video meeting. "It was over a million dollars. And that ended up on the bottom line." 

 Appearing before the Commons finance committee earlier this month, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland told MPs that CEWS support was intended only for workers' wages, not for other costs, or dividends for shareholders.

PANDEMIC RULE MAKERS ARE FINANCIALLY IMMUNE

  Lilley:  Toronto mayor John Tory, like most of the people making these decisions, and I include the Premier, the Prime Minister and all their bureaucrats in this, don’t really get the impact of their decisions. For the most part, their lives have continued.

The politicians and those working most closely around them have continued to go to work, they have continued to be paid, they have not been laid off and asked not to leave their homes while wondering how to pay bills. That is a very real reality for the people affected by the decisions being made.

Have any of these people — and let’s include the doctors, nurses and hospital CEOs — demanding even harsher lockdowns had to worry about their finances during this entire crisis? Have any of them ever gotten to the end of the day worried about how to feed their kids and keep the lights on and gone to bed thankful that they made it another day but not sure about tomorrow?

VAN KILLER'S LAWYER BLAMES CLIENT'S AUTISM

After weeks and weeks of testimony, this was the final chance for Alek Minassian’s lawyer to argue the mass killer shouldn’t spend the rest of his life in prison.

Instead, he should be found not criminally responsible for killing 10 people and injuring 16 others due to his autism spectrum disorder.

 The Crown’s key expert, Dr. Scott Woodside, rejected that theory and maintained Minassian not only clearly understood the moral wrongfulness of his plan but that was the whole point — he admitted to wanting to achieve infamy by causing the most moral outrage in society.

CROSS-BORDER VIRTUE SIGNALLING

 Canada wants deeper environmental ties with the United States and one result could be a North American ban on the sale of new gasoline-powered passenger cars and trucks, a senior cabinet member said on Thursday.

Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said Ottawa and the incoming administration of President-elect Joe Biden both agreed zero emissions vehicles needed to be deployed faster.

Canada, which has missed all its greenhouse gas targets, is vowing to hit zero net emissions by 2050. The government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who says the environment is a big priority, last week said it would increase the price on carbon from C$30 a tonne now to C$170 by 2030.

WESTERN GREENIES ARE CHINA'S USEFUL IDIOTS

For anyone under the illusion that China’s Communist regime was a force for good in the world, the past few years have been a wake-up call. Under President Xi Jinping, China has: incarcerated over a million Uyghur Muslims in “re-education” camps; allowed the coronavirus pandemic to sweep the world; violated its treaty with Britain by ending Hong Kong’s self-rule; and vowed to invade Taiwan.

As a result of these eye-opening actions, among others, public opinion throughout the West has changed dramatically. Most now recognize that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) cheats and threatens to get its way and is hostile to rules-based institutions.

 The big exceptions to those who have had their eyes opened are Western environmentalists and their funders who, rather than becoming more cautious about China’s role in the world, continue to lavish its environmental efforts with superlatives such as “herculean” and “momentous.” As recently as 2018, Natural Resources Defense Council’s Barbara Finamore wrote a laudatory book entitled Will China Save the Planet?

PREPARE FOR REMOTE LEARNING IN ONTARIO

 Ontario is telling its school boards to prepare for the possibility of fully remote learning in the new year, prompting calls for clarity on whether the government plans to shut down in-class learning in January.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce told boards in a memo late Wednesday that staff and students should be encouraged to bring essential learning materials home over the holidays.

“We encourage boards to continue to ensure that students and families are provided the resources required to successfully participate in remote learning.”

TORONTO COUNCIL PASSES VACANT HOME FINE

 Owners of empty homes in Toronto will soon have to pay to keep their properties vacant.

City council has given their nod to a vacant home tax, requiring owners of empty homes and condos to pay a levy — most likely 1% of the property’s value — starting in 2022.

While reports suggest the levy could raise between $55 to $66 million annually, Councillor Mike Layton said revenue isn’t the goal.

WHICH COUNTRY IS CHINA TARGETING?

 The report about the scandal of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau allowing China’s communist-led military to train in winter warfare, shocked ordinary Canadians who learned their country’s military leadership —  who put a stop to the training —  was at odds with Global Affairs and the prime minister.

For it was Justin Trudeau who had invited China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to send its troops for cold weather training at CFB Petawawa in Ontario — and when Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) cancelled the training following China’s kidnapping of Canadian citizens Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, we hear the prime minister ‘raged’ at the Canadian Armed Forces for doing so.

The question no one has asked so far is this: What were the Chinese troops training for and against which country?

WHEN YOU HAVE SO MUCH TO HIDE

  Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says while he is committed to transparency in the federal government, being too forthcoming can hinder the government's ability to wrestle with tough decisions.

In an interview with The Canadian Press, Trudeau defended the Liberal record on openness, pointing to the publication of ministerial mandate letters and efforts to make more data available through restoration of the long-form census.

Information commissioner Caroline Maynard has criticized the Trudeau government for failing to provide the resources that departments and agencies need to answer the steeply growing number of requests from the public under the Access to Information Act.

PM JOHNSON'S PLANS FOR LONDON

 Boris Johnson has made ambitious plans to turn London into a shipping hub to rival Singapore after Brexit.

Proposals have been drawn up to revamp UK shipping tax laws to allow more vessels – including oil rigs – to be classified as ships in a move ministers believe will raise up to £3.75billion over three years.

They also suggest the change to the way ‘tonnage tax’ is calculated could create 2,500 jobs directly and 25,000 in related sectors.