CALLING BS ON HOTTEST JANUARY ON RECORD

In a report generating substantial media attention this month, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) claimed January 2020 was the hottest January on record. In reality, the claim relies on substantial speculation, dubious reporting methods, and a large, very suspicious, extremely warm reported heat patch covering most of Russia.

TRAIN ATTACKS PUNISHABLE BY LIFE IN PRISON

Under Section 248, “Interfering with transportation facilities,” it states “every one who, with intent to endanger the safety of any person, places anything on or does anything to any property that is used for or in connection with the transportation of persons or goods by land, water or air that is likely to cause death or bodily harm to persons is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for life.”

ONE MORE GREEN HYPOCRITE IN OTTAWA

A Canadian senator advocating for “bold” action to avert a “climate catastrophe” has billed taxpayers nearly $17,000 for flights last year, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.

Senator Mary Coyle of Antigonish, N.S., a former vice president of St. Francis Xavier University and senate appointee in 2017, billed $16,778 for flights in 2019, listing the travel only as business meetings. All this as she has urged Canadians to do everything they can to reduce their carbon footprint.

UNFAIR TAX BURDEN ON WOMEN & SENIORS

  Here’s a scenario I’ve seen several times in my career as a wealth manager. A retired couple that receives two full CPP payments and two full Old Age Security (OAS) payments is able to fully split their income for tax purposes. Then one spouse dies. The survivor only receives one CPP payment, no OAS, and often has a higher tax rate on less family income because they now have one combined RRIF account that must withdraw more funds on a single tax return. It hardly seems fair, because it isn’t.
     The scenario highlights just one of a number of thoroughly unjust tax policies that negatively affect hundreds of thousands of Canadians each year. Many of the policies are particularly harmful to older women because they hit those who are single/widowed and over the age of 65 — a group that contains a much higher percentage of women than men.

THE GROWING BURDEN OF INTEREST COSTS

• In recent years, deficit spending and growing government debt have become a trend for many Canadian governments. Like households, governments are required to pay interest on their debt. These interest payments consume resources that could have been used for tax relief or for health care, education, and social services.
• On aggregate, the provinces and federal government are expected to spend $54.8 billion on interest payments in 2019-20. For a Canadian family of four, interest costs will translate to an average of $5,830.
• Residents in Newfoundland & Labrador face by far the highest combined federal-provincial interest payments per person ($3,343). Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, is the next highest at $1,550 per person.

LAURENTIAN ELITE KILLING OIL SANDS DEVELOPMENT

As predicted weeks ago, Albertans did not need to hold their breath for Ottawa’s approval of the Frontier oil sands mine.

Reports of massive opposition within the Liberal Party caucus and rumours of an appeasing “economic aid” package for the province were strong indicators that the federal cabinet had no intentions to approve the Frontier mine for northern Alberta later this month.

Frontier represented hope for Alberta. It promised $20 billion in investment, and to generate four decades of operation and $70 billion in taxes for all levels of government. Some 2500 permanent jobs would have remained from the 7000 sparked during the construction phase. Poof just like that it’s all gone!

OTTAWA PROTESTERS SUPPORT RAIL BLOCKADES

The protesters started their march in front of Parliament Hill on Wellington Street, before heading west to Kent Street and then south to Slater Street and east to Elgin. At numerous intersections along the way they would stop for speeches, dance and drumming, while a considerable police presence looked on.

“I’m uneasy about all the police and surveillance,” said Gabrielle Fayant, an Indigenous protester originally from Alberta.

OPP CLEAR BELLEVILLE RAIL BLOCKADE

   Several anti-pipeline protesters were detained Monday morning as provincial police moved in to clear a rail blockade on Tyendinaga Mohawk Territory in central Ontario that has brought freight and passenger rail traffic to a virtual standstill.
   The arrests came hours after the protesters ignored a midnight deadline by police to leave their encampment near Belleville, Ont., or face criminal charges.

CORONA VIRUS FLOODS SOUTH KOREA

   In a report that was 4 hours "late", China reported an additional 409 coronavirus cases across the entire nation, and 150 additional deaths as of February 23 compared to 648 additional cases and 97 deaths on February 22; this brought total China cases to 77150 and total deaths 2592
China's Hubei province said it has 398 New Coronavirus Cases As Of Feb 23 and 149 New Coronavirus Deaths.
    South Korea raised its national threat level to “red alert” for the first time since the H1N1 swine flu outbreak in 2009. The total number of confirmed cases in the country reached 763, a jump of 161 overnight, and a 25-fold increase in the past week.
   The Italian government said it has 152 confirmed cases, up from three in a matter of days. Three people have died. Authorities have locked down about a dozen small towns and canceled events across the north, including Venice’s Carnival.

ANOTHER POLICE WARNING IGNORED

Protestors who've set up a camp in Tyendinaga, Ont., near one of Canadian busiest rail corridors were still on the scene early Monday despite a warning from police to clear the area by midnight Sunday.

The warning was delivered by Ontario Provincial Police and CN Rail on Sunday to the Mohawks at the camp. Police and the railway ordered the camps dismantled, warning protesters would face charges if they disobeyed.

But by early Monday, there were still a smattering of people and vehicles at the site near Belleville, Ont

TECK WITHDRAWS OILSANDS APPLICATION

   For the Kenney government and almost anybody interested in oil and gas investment, it was the Sunday night slaughter — sudden news that Teck Resources has cancelled its $20-billion Frontier oilsands mine.
    Federal cabinet was expected to rule on the mine this week. Teck’s sudden decision to withdraw its application has many consequences, but one is to get Ottawa off the hook for a ruling that deeply divided the Trudeau cabinet.
   Premier Jason Kenney had made Teck the big test of whether the Trudeau government will allow further oilsands projects. Now the Liberals won’t even face the test.

USING GRETA

If you were ever in doubt that Greta Thunberg was being used, it is confirmed now.

CANADA CAN NOT FUNCTION WITHOUT ITS TRAINS

There’s an old truism about military studies — “Amateurs talk strategy, but professionals study logistics.” Millions of us may soon have good reason to be talking logistics. As the rail blockade of CN’s line moves well into its third week, cracks are starting to appear in Canada’s logistics network. While the railroad looms large in Canadians’ understanding of their early history, its place in our notion of travel has been bumped out of the public’s eye by the car, the truck and the jet. But railways remain essential — the country cannot function without its rails.

LIBERALS PARALYZED BY VIRTUE-SIGNALLING

   Canada is still being held hostage by a small and radical group of far-left protesters. Still.
   We’ve entered the third week of this national temper tantrum, and our country’s leaders are further from a solution now then they were while Trudeau was off gallivanting around the world in vain pursuit of a seat at the United Nations security council.
   Instead of defending our democracy, enforcing our laws, and heeding to the majority of Canadians who want this dealt with now, the Trudeau government has retreated. They ordered the RCMP in British Columbia to stand down, abandon the court order to arrest the protesters and remove police presence from the original protests in the Wet’suwet’en territory.

CRA WANTS TO EDUCATE YOUNG TAXPAYERS

  According to Blacklock’s, a 2019 study by the CRA found 20% of respondents believed the benefits of tax cheating outweighed the risks. Thirteen percent were classified as “outlaws” who believed tax evasion was “no big deal.”
   A 2016 Statistics Canada report found nearly $45.6 billion is lost to tax cheating.
  The problem isn’t one a large chunk of Canadians view as a problem, however, as many of the respondents believe “tax cheating is justified because of unfairly high levels of taxation,” researchers conducting the study wrote.

SENATOR: "NOT TAKING A POSITION PUBLICLY"

    Canadians won’t “tolerate too much more large activity in the oilsands,” and after the Trans Mountain controversy, it may be a bridge too far for the Liberal government to approve the Teck Resources Frontier mine, Independent Sen. Mary Coyle says.
   Coyle, who was appointed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2017 and represents Nova Scotia in the Upper Chamber, was reflecting on the “hard choices” she said Ottawa will have to make to meet its goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050. She wants to see the Senate launch an inquiry into the climate pathways required to achieve this goal.
   Her comments come the same week a new report from the Pembina Institute revealed Alberta’s energy regulator has already approved projects that would, if built, blow past the province’s legislated 100-megatonne cap on carbon pollution.

PROPANE SHORTAGE FORCES RATIONING

    Propane shortages in Quebec sparked by rail blockades is forcing companies to ration supplies to hospitals, farms and buildings, according to local businesses.
    Jean-François Bergeron, general manager of Quebec City propane supplier Capital Propane, said the company is left with a seven-day propane supply, and it’s running out of solutions. “There are none, there are no other options for us,” he said.
   Its last shipment of propane came in on Monday by truck from Sarnia, Ont., but Bergeron said there aren’t enough trucks left for their next shipment. Compared to the Canadian National Railway Co. workers’ strikes in November, which resulted in rail transport being suspended for a week, Bergeron said this situation is “much worse.

   A Nova Scotia propane distributor is warning customers to conserve their fuel usage and plan for alternate sources of heating and cooking because of a supply disruption caused by Indigenous rail blockades across Canada.

SMACKDOWN OF ALARMISM

“As important as your cause is,” said Jeffrey in one of the videos, an open letter to Extinction Rebellion, “your persistent exaggeration of the facts has the potential to do more harm than good to the scientific credibility of your cause as well as to the psychological well-being of my generation.”

CRACKDOWN ON POLITICAL ISLAM IN FRANCE

   French President Emmanuel Macron has announced new measures aimed at countering political Islam in France. The changes would limit the role that foreign governments have in France in training imams, financing mosques and educating children.
   Macron also vowed to fight what he called "Islamist separatism" and to lead what he described as a "Republican reconquest" aimed at reasserting state control over Muslim ghettoes — so-called no-go zones (zones urbaines sensibles, sensitive urban zones) — in France.
   In a much-anticipated policy speech, Macron, during a visit to the eastern French city of Mulhouse on February 18, said that his government would seek to combat "foreign interference" in how Islam is practiced, and the way that Muslim religious institutions are organized in France.

DISSENSION IN THE EU RANKS; UK MUST BE LAUGHING

   EU leaders were facing budget chaos today at a bruising first summit since Brexit as four wealthy nations refused to fill the gap left by Britain's departure.
   The 27 leaders reached a stalemate after arguing into the early hours in Brussels, with talks on the trillion-euro budget resuming for a second day today and this afternoon there was still deadlock.
   The UK's departure has left the bloc with a €75billion (£63billion) hole in its finances over seven years and the budget battle has exposed bitter divisions between EU members.

ENDING BLOCKADES & HYPOCRICY

    Randy Hillier: While politicians refuse to act for fear of losing a few votes, small groups of radical, privileged and dishonest idealogues are attempting to derail Canadian society.
    These groups have hijacked our charitable dispositions, successfully stifled our freedom of speech through coercive political correctness, distorted our education, rewritten our history, abused freedom of assembly, caused financial harm and grave disruptions to our economy, while seeking to impoverish and lower the standards of all Canadians regardless of their ancestry. They seek to prevent the Indigenous peoples from sharing in the fruits of a modern society while enshrining their dependence onto a welfare state.

CORONAVIRUS FEAR IN CORNWALL

Once the plane lands at a military base in Trenton, Ont., the passengers will be examined once again. If any show signs of infection, they’ll have to stay at the base. The rest will be sent for a two-week stay at the NAV Canada Training Institute — a privately owned facility where soldiers learn to use radar technology and other aeronautical equipment.

But as the tradesmen erect fences around the Cornwall building and staff sterilize rooms inside, locals say they’re afraid their city isn’t equipped to handle such a complex medical intervention.

”Why not just put them at the Bell Centre (in Montreal), it makes about as much sense,” said Wayne McGill, who sat in the Riverside Restaurant just down the road from NAV Canada Wednesday. “There was no consultation with us, we have no idea how contagious this is, we have no idea what the risks are.”

Cornwall Mayor Bernadette Clement said her office wasn’t included in the decision by Public Health Agency Canada to set up a quarantine in the border city. She was informed of it after attending a production of Mamma Mia! at the local theatre Saturday.

HUAWEI'S TRAIL OF ECONOMIC ESPIONAGE

   But on social media, and among some cyber-security experts and ex-Nortel staff, suspicions live on that Nortel died at least in part because its intellectual property was plundered, as an upstart Chinese rival soared past it in the telecom industry.

   Such views will not be disabused by a new indictment that U.S. prosecutors filed last week. It accuses Huawei of using various methods to steal other companies’ intellectual property for decades.

   “What people need to hear is that economic espionage caused Nortel’s failure,” insists Brian Shields, the security advisor who uncovered the massive hack. “So others better beware lest they succumb to the same fate.”

IT'S NONE OF THEIR BUSINESS

   On Wednesday, about 200 people gave up three hours of their afternoon to pack a movie theatre in the community of Houston, a town of about 3,000 people in northwestern B.C., in the heart of the Wet'suwet'en Nation.

This was a pro-pipeline event as members of the Wet'suwet'en Nation explained why they support construction of the Coastal GasLink pipeline.

The people who came out to the meeting say they want to see the natural gas pipeline built. They say the project will create well-paid jobs that will bring economic opportunities to their communities.

VIA RAIL LAYS OFF 1000 WORKERS DUE TO BLOCKADES

Via Rail is temporarily laying off almost one third of its employees in light of the rail blockades. On Wednesday, it started sending temporary suspension notices to nearly 1,000 employees. The passenger rail operator employs 3,115 people nationwide.

Via Rail, which operates on Canadian National Railway’s tracks, said Wednesday it began notifying employees of the temporary layoffs in light of the prolonged cancellations. Since the blockades began on Feb. 6, Via Rail has cancelled more than 470 trains, affecting nearly 100,000 passengers.
“This general interruption is an unprecedented situation in our history.

In 42 years of existence, it is the first time that VIA Rail, a public intercity passenger rail service, has to interrupt most of its services across the country,” Via Rail’s chief executive Cynthia Garneau said in a statement.

GETTIN' HER DONE IN EDMONTON

A blockade set up on a Canadian National rail line on the western edge of Edmonton in support of Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs was being dismantled — at least temporarily — Wednesday after a handful of counter-protesters showed up.
  Wet’suwet’en supporters linked arms in front their camp as a few counter-protesters tried to remove pallets and other materials from the tracks.
“This is the violence. See this is the violence,” said a protester, who had his face covered.
  “This is not violence. I am just trying to remove some garbage,” a counter-protester responded.

HEAD OF CRUMBLING CBC GETS RAISE

Sheila Gunn Reid of Rebel News reports: Canada's state broadcaster is imploding in on itself like a dying star and Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have given a retroactive raise to the CEO overseeing the wreck.

SENATOR OH'S LACK OF INTEGRITY

The Senate’s ethics watchdog has found Conservative Senator Victor Oh broke the Red Chamber’s conflict of interest and ethics code by accepting an all expenses-paid trip to China for himself and two other senators.

The Office of the Senate Ethics Officer, in a report released Tuesday, also criticized Mr. Oh for providing incomplete testimony and withholding information, saying his conduct "raises questions about his integrity.”

“Senator Oh’s conduct in deliberately withholding information in this inquiry is the type of conduct that did not uphold the highest standards of dignity inherent to the position of senator and that would undermine public confidence in the office of [a] senator and in the Senate as a whole," Mr. Legault said.

THE OUTCOME OF PM'S DISASTROUS SLOGANEERING

  Rex Murphy:   But words from this government are like fairground balloons: they float upwards because they are so light. If there were a carbon tax on platitudes, this government would be broke. There is not a progressive piety it has left unexpressed, or a self-congratulation that’s been left unspoken. Recall that vivid moment when the prime minister was asked why he went with “gender equity” in cabinet and gave that immortal rejoinder, “because it’s 2015.” That wasn’t an answer, it was a self-administered pat on the back. It’s unsaid meaning was, “Hey, we’re Liberals and we are always in tune with the times, unlike those backward Conservatives with all their prejudices and biases and stick-in-the-mud social attitudes.”

PM TRUDEAU: THE MAN WITH NO PLAN

  Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pleaded for patience Tuesday in the face of ongoing blockades that have brought rail traffic to a grinding halt across the country.
   Trudeau spoke to the House of Commons Tuesday as freight and passenger services in large parts of the country continue to be disrupted.
“Patience may be in short supply and that makes it more valuable than ever,” he said.
   In response, Opposition leader Andrew Scheer denounced the prime minister’s comments as the “weakest response to a national crisis” and he called for tougher action against the blockades.

   Mr. Scheer’s forceful demands earned him a snub from Trudeau who refused to invite him to a meeting later Tuesday with other opposition leaders.

WET'SUWET'EN PROTESTERS INFLAMING SITUATION

  Protesters standing in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs are only inflaming an already intense situation, and have disregarded the years of consultations conducted with First Nations along the pipeline route, says Ellis Ross, who served for 14 years on one of the 20 elected band councils that signed an agreement with Coastal GasLink.
  “There’s a lot of people that aren’t from these communities, that aren’t Aboriginal, that are saying hereditary leadership has full authority, and they’re not doing it based on any facts. It would be like me saying that the elected leadership of B.C. and Canada has no authority, and it’s the Queen who has all authority,” said Ross, now the Liberal MLA for Skeena, B.C. “That would be a very destabilizing remark to make. It’s a very irresponsible remark to make.”
    Five Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs have claimed they have title to a vast 22,000-square-kilometre area, about four times the size of Prince Edward Island, and that the elected chiefs only have authority over reserve lands. Ross questioned the validity of this point of view given that Aboriginal title belongs to Indigenous communities and is not held by any specific individual or group.

CANADA: A TOTALITARIAN STATE IN PROGRESS

To describe Canada as a totalitarian state-in-progress sounds like a gross and indeed absurd exaggeration. Yet many premonitory signs are present. In the words of political philosopher William Gairdner, author of The Book of Absolutes, The Great Divide and The Trouble with Canada, Canada “has just crossed the red line between soft-socialism and soft-totalitarianism.”

Gairdner has assembled a virtual mountain of evidence for his claim: Bill C-25 seeking to impose “diversity” on all corporations; financial penalties against organizations that do not comply with government programs; a teeming brigade of government surveillance “Inspectors,” that is, spies -- wage spies, speech spies, feminist spies, pay-equity spies, Human Rights spies; paralegal bodies known as Human Rights Tribunals with the power to levy crippling fines, bankrupt families and shut down businesses, to impose prison time for contempt of court, and to compel conformity via “re-education.”

EUROPEANS RESENT FUNDING THEIR OWN DEFENSE

   With the Cold War’s end, American spending dropped in Europe – a drop that coincided with Europeans beginning to have problems funding all their social services. Trump, however, has taken things to the next level by demanding that Europeans start helping to pay for their own defense. (Indeed, Europeans have long promised to pay for that defense but they consistently failed to fulfill those promises.)
    It turns out that Europeans are not pleased to be called out to make good on their promises. In addition, they’re discovering that those gauche, bullying Americans were, in fact, a very useful bulwark against evil in the world
   Europeans, though, want a return to the status quo: They want once again to get the benefit of American money, without spending their own, while retaining the moral high ground to hector and belittle America:

TRUMP TAKES A DAYTONA LAP IN THE BEAST

  Although past presidents have attended the Daytona 500, Donald Trump became the first president ever to utter that famous phrase, “Gentlemen, start your engines!” Moreover, being Trump, he did the whole thing in the biggest and best way possible, first flying over the race track in Air Force One at 800 feet and then driving the Beast around the track with race cars following, before joining with Melania to salute the military, Gold Star families, and
   “God, family, and country.”
   The assembled crowd loved it, greeting Trump with cheers and cries of “USA!” Meanwhile, Democrats took to Twitter to complain that Trump was spending taxpayer money for the pleasure of Americans.

TOO MUCH $ SPENT ON SCIENCE OF CLIMATE RESEARCH

   In a recent study, researchers at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI) and the University of Sussex reviewed how much of US 1.3 trillion (NOK 11.4 trillion) in research funding is dedicated to climate research.
    And while research in the natural sciences and technology received about USD 40 billion, social science and humanities research received just USD 4.6 billion during the same period.
   An analysis of 1500 grants for social science research aimed at curbing climate change showed that this type of research is being awarded USD 393 million.

“The one-sided emphasis on the natural sciences leaves one wondering whether funding for climate research is managed by climate sceptics. It’s as if they don’t quite believe in climate change, so they keep trying to find out how it really works, rather than trying to work out how to stop it,” researcher Indra Øverland said in a NUPI press release.

AVENATTI FOUND GUILTY ON ALL COUNTS

   NEW YORK (AP) — Michael Avenatti, the combative lawyer who gained fame by representing porn star Stormy Daniels in lawsuits involving President Donald Trump, was convicted Friday of trying to extort sportswear giant Nike.
    The verdict was returned by a federal jury in Manhattan following a three-week trial in which prosecutors said Avenatti threatened to use his media access to hurt Nike’s reputation and stock price unless the company paid him up to $25 million.
    The convictions for attempted extortion and honest services fraud carry a combined potential penalty of 42 years in prison.

VOLUNTEER EXPOSING LRT FARCE IN OTTAWA

   Wright-Gilbert has used her platform as a commissioner — and the power of social media — to insert herself into the heart of the discussion about this city’s LRT. She has repeatedly called out OC Transpo management for failing to provide timely information or a reliable service.
   To transit riders, she has become a folk hero of sorts: a fulcrum for their exasperated calls for action.
    To OC Transpo officials and some of her fellow board members, however, she has become something of a problem: a wild card who refuses to play by the house rules.
   For her part, Wright-Gilbert says it’s not her job to be cheerleader for an underperforming system, but to speak for the city’s commuters.

THE KUMBAYA STRATEGY IS NOT WORKING

    Manufacturers are scrambling to deliver products, industry associations are warning of potential shortages of food items, propane, and chlorine for water treatment, and mining companies are curtailing production as rail blockades by Indigenous groups and environmental activists continue to paralyze Canada’s transportation infrastructure.
   Canadian National Railway began shutting down all operations in Eastern Canada and Via Rail cancelled most passenger service nationwide Friday as protests in support of Wet’suwet’en Nation opposition to the Coastal GasLink pipeline in northern British Columbia moved into a second week.
   Demonstrators have blocked railways in B.C. and Ontario, crippling crucial arteries for industrial supply chains that operate on a just-in time basis. And as trains ground to a halt, unions were notified by CN, Canada’s biggest cargo railway, to be prepared for potential layoffs.

CANADA'S ABSENTEE PM

   I’m familiar with absentee landlords from grade school history. The concept of an absentee prime minister is a brand new one to me.
   Justin Trudeau has been a week now waltzing around Africa while, day by day back here in carbon-tax Canada, the country is seizing up. For the same past seven days apparently, Canada has been under the administration of what the media insists on calling “anti-pipeline” forces.
    Anti-pipeline is far too narrow. These are the anti-industry, anti-energy, anti-Alberta, climate-change save-the-worlders who have been harassing the country for years. The difference is in the past week they’ve upped their opposition, and from one end of the country to another decided to muscle their way to a victory by a storm of blockades, protests, traffic obstruction, and in the case of Victoria, B.C., actually shutting down the people’s legislature.

INCHING CLOSER TO THE TRUTH IN CHINA

   China’s National Health Commission reported 59,804 confirmed cases of coronavirus as of Wednesday – after a surge of 15,152 new cases because of a change in diagnostic criteria.
   The commission on Thursday said 1,367 people had died from the illness in mainland China, and 254 new deaths were reported on Wednesday.
   Of the new infections, 14,840 were reported in Hubei – the epicentre of the coronavirus epidemic, almost 10 times the number reported a day earlier.
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FREELAND ESCORTED THROUGH PROTESTORS

     Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was briefly blocked from entering Halifax city hall on Wednesday afternoon by demonstrators supporting the Wet'suwet'en First Nation's opposition to the construction of a gas pipeline through northern B.C.
   Demonstrations against the project have been erupting in cities across Canada in recent days. Freeland was confronted by dozens of protesters, but was eventually able to enter city hall with the help of Halifax Regional Police.
     "I absolutely respect the right of Canadians around the country to exercise their right to peaceful protest," Freeland told reporters. "The protesters did express the view that they wanted to prevent me from having the meeting with the mayor [Mike Savage] and his team. Respectfully, that was not a view I was prepared to agree with."

  The rest of Canadians who depend on trains, well you just have to put up with the inconvenience of the protests.  No police escort for you.  But do not worry, PM Trudeau is "very concerned".

ENFORCING THE LAW ON THE RAIL BLOCKADE

The Sun’s political columnists Brian Lilley and Anthony Furey think it is time for the OPP to take action against the rail line protesters.

THE END OF THE XI DYNASTIC CYCLE?

  A trade war with China’s biggest trade partner, open rebellion in the former British colony of Hong Kong and pork shortages caused by the devastating spread of African swine fever would all be traditionally regarded as ominous portents that the end of the dynasty is near. But each of these pales in comparison to the unfolding coronavirus pandemic that began late last year in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.
   In a twist of history, Wuhan was where the first shots were fired in the 1911 revolution that toppled the last emperor of the Qing dynasty. Today it is the source of a terrifying plague that has already spread across China and around the world and has prompted the biggest ever attempted quarantine of a population — some 60m people.
   The fact that China’s authoritarian system is particularly poor at dealing with public health emergencies that require timely, transparent and accurate information makes this far more significant than any other challenge Mr Xi has faced so far.

RIP CHRISTIE BLATCHFORD

Christie Blatchford, a powerful public voice through nearly five decades of journalism, has died after being diagnosed with cancer in November. She was 68.

Blatchford was one of Canada’s most prominent writers, having been a leading journalist at each of Toronto’s daily newspapers, a trailblazer for women in sports reporting, an award-winning war correspondent, and a columnist renowned for her vexing mix of toughness and tenderness.

Blatchford passionately championed crime victims, Canada’s soldiers, Canada’s athletes — particularly Olympians — and publicly obsessed over law and order issues. In court, sitting in the front row, she would be relentlessly grabbing at tissues, weeping as she chronicled evidence of child abuse and neglect. And then she made readers weep when reading her account of the injustice.

HILLIER'S ADVICE: SKIP THE FORM LETTERS

  Randy Hillier:  I place considerable weight on these personal interactions, but with advancements in technology, including social media, this form of communication is increasingly being replaced with the speed and convenience of form emails that are composed by others and empty of any personal experiences or meaningful insights.

Form letters generated by impersonal third-party websites belong in the trash can and that is where they end up in most government offices, whether they be those of elected members, ministries or government agencies.

“Form follows function” is a maxim that appears to have lost currency in our society, at least as it relates to engaging in public policy. If you want to affect change, but the most effort you are willing to exert is resending someone else’s email, do not be surprised when the recipient does not exert any more effort than the button press you put into it.

Regurgitating someone else’s talking points is not advocacy. Rather, it has the same effect as elected members who act as trained seals — no one takes them or their talking points seriously and no one is swayed by their arguments.

CANADA'S ARROGANT PM

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has run afoul of federal ethics rules yet again — this time missing the deadline for filing a financial disclosure statement with the ethics commissioner.

Every MP is required to file a disclosure statement within 60 days of his or her election being published in the Canada Gazette; in Trudeau's case, the deadline was Jan. 13.

BRINGING CHINA'S DATA THIEVES TO JUSTICE

The Conservatives want to know what federal officials are doing about China's alleged involvement in stealing data from thousands of Canadians.

In a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, two Conservative MPs say it is extremely worrisome that members of the Chinese People's Liberation Army stand accused of the high-profile 2017 hack of Equifax.

The breach also involved the information of about 19,000 Canadians, including names, addresses, social-insurance numbers and credit-card numbers as well as usernames, passwords and security-question data.

TRAIN SERVICE INTERRUPTED

 Via Rail is cancelling all train service from Toronto-Montreal and Toronto-Ottawa due to the ongoing blockade just east of Belleville, Ont.

In a travel advisory issued late Tuesday, Via Rail stated all routes Toronto and Montreal and all routes between Toronto and Ottawa would be cancelled until the end of day Thursday. The trains that do not pass through Belleville will be unaffected, the company added.

Passengers will be issued a full refund, the company said, but it could take up to 10 days to process.

CANADA'S DRYLAND SUBMARINES

All four of Canada's submarines were tied up last year for repairs and maintenance — news that has the opposition Conservatives questioning whether the Liberal government can keep the second-hand fleet afloat for another two decades.

In response to a written question before Parliament, the Department of National Defence said the boats "spent zero days at sea" in 2019, but three of the four would return to service at some point this year.

Over the year, HMCS Victoria, HMCS Windsor, HMCS Chicoutimi and HMCS Corner Brook were in various stages of repair and maintenance. They also went into drydock for long-term upgrades meant to ensure the submarines remain operational until the end of the next decade.

WHAT IS THAT SMELL?

The strategist who has been working for decades to make Peter MacKay the prime minister is one of the high-powered lobbyists who tried to convince the Trudeau government to help SNC-Lavalin avoid a criminal trial for bribing corrupt officials in Libya.

William Pristanski, a well-connected former senior aide to Brian Mulroney, is raising money and offering strategic advice on MacKay’s campaign to succeed Andrew Scheer as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. It’s a relationship that is likely to come under the spotlight if MacKay wins the leadership race and takes over the party in June, as seems likely.

WEASEL WORDS FROM LIBERALS RE TECK OILSANDS

Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson said today he won't rule out deferring a decision on the proposed Teck Frontier oilsands mine.

"None of the options are off the table," Wilkinson told CBC's Power and Politics Monday evening. "We will be taking into account all of the relevant information."

CBC obtained a letter addressed to Wilkinson from the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN). In it, the First Nation suggested the Liberal cabinet take more time in deciding whether to permit the controversial oilsands mine to go forward.

HEAVE-HO TO OBAMA HOLDOVERS

President Trump and National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien have removed 70 Obama holdovers from the NSC, which previously boasted a staff of roughly 200 people, according to the Washington Examiner

It comes days after the contentious impeachment battle on Capitol Hill — a battle ignited by a complaint from a so-called “whistleblower.” The “whistleblower’s” complaint, regarding Trump’s phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, sparked the House Democrats’ partisan impeachment inquiry, which ultimately ended in a full acquittal.

KENNEY TALKING OF GREEN TRANSITION

  Suddenly, Premier Jason Kenney is talking publicly about the “energy transition.”
“Over the next decades as we go through the energy transition, we all know that there will be a continued demand for crude,” he told a panel at Washington’s Wilson Center last Friday.
   Kenney added: “It is preferable that the last barrel in that transition period comes from a stable, reliable liberal democracy with among the highest environmental, human-rights and labour standards on earth.”
  Energy transition. Last barrel. Transition period. Six not-so-little words we’ve never heard clearly from Kenney before.

SHOCK: GLOBAL WARMING COULD BE BENEFICIAL

This recent study (h/t to Jim Simpson) comes from Australia and was published in late 2019. It studies the impacts of global warming on the U.S. economy. What the authors have done is used one the climate models (the FUND model) to look ahead at the impacts warming would have on other economic sectors besides energy. Now that the “worst-case scenario” RCP8.5 model has been put out of favor by a recent paper, the 3.0°C warming scenario they used is more in-line with the RCP6 and RCP 4.5 models that remain. The work replicates and improves upon earlier work done by Dr. Richard Tol in 2009 in The Economic Effects of Climate Change.

What they found is surprising; the overall economic impact of 3.0°C global warming would be beneficial nor just for the United States, but the entire global economy.

CANADA STILL WAFFLING ON 5G TECHNOLOGY

Shopping for 5G technology should be straightforward for an executive of a profit-seeking enterprise. Huawei’s gear is the best on the market. The company spent US$15.1 billion on research and development in 2018, more than Sweden’s Ericsson AB and Finland’s Nokia Oyj, the other two significant 5G providers, combined. If the Communist Party of China was a benevolent force, Ericsson and Nokia might not be in the game, given that Huawei’s kit is also the cheapest.

“It’s (cheaper), it’s a factor,” Jette said. “With the size of the telecom players in China … they have millions and millions and millions of customers, hundreds of millions of customers, so they operate and manufacture at a scale we won’t ever see in Canada. They play on a different scale. They can manufacture parts at a reduced price.”

But the Chinese regime isn’t a benevolent force.

SUCKING AROUND FOR UN SECURITY COUNCIL SEAT

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Sunday he is seeking a seat for Canada on the powerful United Nations Security Council because it is where the world's most pressing issues are debated.

Trudeau spent his second full day in Africa at a working lunch with some Ethiopian female business owners and in one-on-one meetings with leaders from Nigeria, Somalia, Mauritius and Madagascar.

But not all African nations are on the same page as Canada on at least one issue: human rights. Trudeau has been noticeably quiet or vague about the matter on this trip so far, said Alice Musabende, a Canadian doctoral student in international relations specializing in Africa's international relations.

She said she thinks it's because he didn't want to upset any leaders as he is campaigning for their votes.

CHINA'S COVER-UP OF CORONA VIRUS SPREAD

    Piecing together the events in Wuhan shows that for at least three weeks before the banquet, city authorities had been informed about the virus spreading in their midst but issued orders to suppress the news. In effect, they engineered a cover-up that played down the seriousness of the outbreak, according to officials and medical professionals.
   The most fateful consequence of the official silence was that it facilitated the exodus of some five million people in the weeks before the city was quarantined on Jan. 22, thus helping to transport the virus all over the country and overseas. Slow and sometimes contradictory statements from the World Health Organization, which is responsible for warning the world of public health emergencies, also hampered early efforts to combat the crisis.
  Just as with China’s SARS outbreak that killed 800 people worldwide in 2002-03, the central shortcomings in China’s response have derived from its rigidly hierarchical political system.

PROTESTERS BLOCK TRAINS & PORT OF VANCOUVER

  High-volume passenger and freight train travel between Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa is at a standstill Friday during a solidarity protest for opponents of a natural gas pipeline being built through Wet’suwet’en territory in northern British Columbia.
   VIA passenger service on the Ottawa/Montreal to Toronto and Toronto to Ottawa/Montreal routes have been cancelled. Passengers on board any of the trains blocked en route Thursday were offered to either get off at the station where the train stopped or return to their station of origin.

   Protesters blockaded all three entrances to the Port of Vancouver on Saturday in support of Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs and land defenders trying to halt a natural gas pipeline project in northwest B.C.

ALBERTA: WE DON'T WANT WELFARE. WE WANT WORK

Rex Murphy:   
   The sentence was this: Canada is preparing an aid package for Alberta.
   Let me detail how wrong this is, and outrageous.
   Where did this “Canada” come from? The Liberal government is not Canada. And everyone in Canada except, perhaps, the Liberal government, knows this
    The headline should read: The minority government of Justin Trudeau, having already strangled Alberta’s energy industry with pipeline bans and carbon taxes, has come up with a new, most devastating insult to that province. It is contemplating an “aid package” (UN administered?) in the event it makes the most bottomlessly stupid decision in the history of the country and denies the go-ahead to the Teck mine.

PM SINGING FROM A DIFFERENT HYMN BOOK

   Alberta’s Jason Kenney and Saskatchewan’s Scott Moe spent Thursday morning selling their province to an American audience at the Wilson Center in the American capital. Ford spent Thursday afternoon speaking to the Canadian American Business Council and a group of executives about what Ontario has to offer.

   Meanwhile, Reuters is reporting that Trudeau’s Liberals are looking to put together an “aid package” for Alberta because they are seriously considering rejecting a new oil sands development. You read that correctly, the federal government is considering an aid package to Alberta, like we send to poorer countries after a natural disaster, because they may turn down a viable energy project that has been approved by the National Energy Board after meeting strict environmental and scientific hurdles.
   This may seem like just a concern for oil rich Alberta, and there are plenty of Canadians who will foolishly say, let them keep the oil in the ground, we don’t need it. The problem is the signal that the Trudeau Liberals are sending to the world is that Canada is actually closed for business, that big projects can’t get approval.

US AMBASSADOR TO UKRAINE GETS THE BOOT

  Update (6:55 p.m.): Today's Trump admin casualties continue to stack up, after it was reported that Ambassador Gordon Sondland was fired Friday afternoon.
   "I was advised today that the president intends to recall me effective immediately as United States Ambassador to the European Union," Sondland said in a Friday statement, expressing gratitude to Trump for having "given me the opportunity to serve."
   Sondland testified in Trump's impeachment inquiry that there was no quid pro quo when President Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky to investigate the Bidens while withholding US military aid (unbeknownst to Zelensky at the time). Sondland later flipped his story, claiming that he told a top Ukrainian official that a meeting with President Trump may be contingent upon its new administration committing to investigations Trump wanted, according to the New York Times.

CLOSED MINDS OF REGINA CITY COUNCIL

   The City of Regina is axing self-described “sensible environmentalist” Patrick Moore from its sustainability conference this spring.
   During a news conference at City Hall on Friday, Coun. Mike O’Donnell said Moore’s planned keynote speech had become a detraction to the overall objective of the Reimagine Conference, which is to foster meaningful discussion around how to make the City’s facilities and operations 100 per cent renewable by 2050.
  “We’re not hosting a climate change conference and so we feel that we need to refocus,” he said.

   Moore, who was told of the change Friday, tweeted, “I have been de-platformed, cancelled, and round-filed by the great City of Regina for daring to question the God-Given wisdom of the catastrophists. Actually, I don’t want to be part of such a stupid exercise. It’s impossible to make a city 100% renewable.”

SNC-LAVALIN BANNED FROM BIDDING IN QUEBEC

In a new twist to SNC-Lavalin Group’s bribery scandal, an oversight body in Quebec has banned several of the companies’ entities from bidding on public procurement contracts for five years.

The Autorité des marchés publics (AMP) on Wednesday named six SNC-Lavalin entities to its list of companies that are ineligible to bid on public contracts, known as RENA.

In December, a subsidiary of the Montreal engineering firm, SNC-Lavalin Construction Inc., pleaded guilty to corruption and agreed to pay a $280 million penalty to settle federal criminal charges that its executives bribed Libyan government officials nearly a decade ago in order to win lucrative contracts in the African country.

QUEBEC GOV'T DEALS WITH SCHOOLBOARDS

  Playing hardball to the bitter end, an unyielding Education Minister Jean-François Roberge infuriated MNAs Friday when he announced the government intends to fire hundreds of school board commissioners three weeks sooner than originally announced.
   As the final legislature debate over Bill 40 abolishing Quebec’s 60 francophone and nine anglophone school boards dragged late into the night under the cloud of closure, Roberge tabled a surprise last-minute amendment to the bill moving up the date commissioners will be extinct.
   Instead of the previously announced date of Feb. 29, Roberge’s amendment means commissioners are out the door as soon as the bill gets royal sanction, sometime Saturday morning.

PELOSI DEFENDS HER ATTENTION-SEEKING ACTIONS

A fiery House Speaker Nancy Pelosi went on the offensive Thursday to push back on Donald Trump’s claims during his State of the Union address and warn the president against threatening Democrats.

Her spirited press conference the day after the Senate acquitted Trump of the House’s impeachment charges was an extension of her decision to rip up her copy of the president’s State of the Union speech Tuesday. She defended her action, saying the president lied about his record on health care and former President Barack Obama’s economic achievements.

Pelosi said Tuesday’s speech was more like a reality show that showcased Trump’s “state of mind.”

“He shredded the truth in his speech, he is shredding the Constitution in his conduct, so I shredded his state of the mind address,” Pelosi said. “It was necessary to get the attention of the American people that this was not true.”

AID FOR ALBERTA IF TECK OILSANDS REJECTED

The Liberals are preparing an aid package for Alberta in hopes of appeasing the province if the $20-billion proposed Frontier oilsands mine is rejected, say sources familiar with the matter.

As the mayors of Alberta’s two biggest cities were in Ottawa calling for fair treatment for the province, Reuters reported that approval for the project was shaping up to be a major battle within the Liberal party.

“There will be a big fight inside cabinet over this,” Reuters quoted one source as saying adding the person was directly familiar with the matter but requested anonymity given the sensitivity of the situation.

CANADIANS FLY HOME FROM WUHAN

 A charter plane headed for Canada carrying 176 people fleeing the centre of the global novel coronavirus outbreak has begun its journey.

"The plane is wheels up," Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne said Thursday afternoon after the evacuation flight organized by the federal government departed from Wuhan, the central Chinese city where the outbreak originated.

The flight is slated to stop for refuelling in Vancouver before heading to Canadian Forces Base Trenton, where it is expected early Friday.

All evacuees will spend 14 days under quarantine on the military base in southern Ontario being monitored to see if they have contracted the virus.

WHO DOWNPLAYS CHINA'S MISINFORMATION

World Health Organization officials Wednesday downplayed criticism Chinese officials hushed up cases of a mysterious virus in the first weeks of the coronavirus outbreak, while hundreds of Canadians found themselves stranded aboard a virus-hit cruise ship off the coast of Japan.

China reported its largest single-day jump in cases since the outbreak began. As of Wednesday, there were 24,363 confirmed cases in China, and 490 deaths.

Outside of China there were 191 cases in 24 countries and one death, in the Philippines.

TRUMP ACQUITTED IN IMPEACHMENT TRIAL

  U.S. President Donald Trump was acquitted on Wednesday in his U.S. Senate impeachment trial, saved by fellow Republicans who rallied to protect him nine months before he asks voters in a deeply divided America to give him a second White House term.
   Trump was acquitted largely along party lines on two articles of impeachment approved by the Democratic-led House of Representatives on Dec. 18. The votes to convict Trump fell far short of the two-thirds majority required in the 100-seat Senate to remove him from office under the U.S. Constitution.

THE GROWING DEBT BURDEN FOR CANADIANS

     Fraser Institute:  Budget deficits and increasing debt have become serious fiscal challenges facing the federal and many provincial governments today. Since 2007/08, combined federal and provincial nominal net debt has grown from $837.0 billion to a projected $1.5 trillion in 2019/20.

KHADR ORDERED TO RESPOND TO PLAINTIFFS

Relatives of a slain American soldier have won a skirmish in their attempt to collect on a US$134-million wrongful-death award against former Guantanamo Bay detainee Omar Khadr.

In a pre-trial decision this week, an Ontario Superior Court ordered Khadr to answer several questions from the plaintiffs about a 50-point agreed statement of facts he signed as part of his guilty plea to five war crimes before a widely disparaged military commission in 2010.

Khadr, 33, has since disavowed the confession he says was the product of abuse. The plea deal, he argues, was his only way to be returned to Canada from the infamous American prison in Cuba.

MAXIME BERNIER SUING KINSELLA FOR DEFAMATION

A former member of Parliament and leader of a fringe federal political party is suing a prominent political commentator and strategist for defamation.

Maxime Bernier alleges Warren Kinsella repeatedly branded him as a racist on social media and blog posts before, during and after the federal election campaign last year.

In his statement of claim, Bernier says those descriptions damaged his reputation and subjected him to public scandal and embarrassment.

MISINFORMATION FROM CANADA REVENUE AGENCY

   The Canada Revenue Agency is still giving wrong information to people inquiring about tax issues.
   The Auditor General looked at the CRA’s call centres in 2017 and found agents were giving the wrong information as much as 30 per cent of the time. It also found almost half of phone calls didn’t get through, with callers getting busy signals and having to call back multiple times.
   Manitoba Conservative MP Marty Morantz raised the problem with an order paper question in the House of Commons, wanting to know if the government had turned the numbers around.
   In the current fiscal year, the government found call centre agents were giving the wrong information 13 per cent of the time to personal tax filers, 17 per cent of the time for benefit inquires and six per cent of the time for business inquiries.

FIRST NATIONS DO NOT HAVE A VETO ON PIPELINES

The Federal Court of Appeal rejected claims by several First Nations that federal officials failed to adequately consult with them on the Trans Mountain pipeline, removing the final major barrier hanging over the long-delayed project.

Tuesday’s decision, which struck a starkly different tone than a 2018 ruling, also sought to establish a firm line against Indigenous claims that they should have a veto over major natural resource projects deemed to be in the public interest.

The judges ruled that “reconciliation does not dictate any particular substantive outcome” on a given resource project. They wrote that requiring a “perfect” level of consultation would in turn create a kind of de facto veto on major projects, and said First Nations “cannot tactically use the consultation process as a means to try to veto it.”

OBAMA'S $1BILLION SOLAR PLANT GOES BUST

It is in the news, as expected Crescent Dunes, the world largest concentrated solar power plant featuring 10 hours of molten salt thermal energy storage, just went bust.

PELOSI'S PUBLIC TEMPER TANTRUM

Two different events played out on the floor of the House on Tuesday night. The first was President Trump’s powerful, moving, uplifting, and optimistic State of the Union speech. The second was the immature, arrogant, intemperate, and really disgusting temper tantrum in which Democrats indulged.

The most obvious sign of a complete mental breakdown on the left was Nancy Pelosi’s conduct during the speech. Her petulant behavior could not be missed because she was seated behind the president, to his left. Whenever the camera was on Trump, it was on Pelosi too.

LOCUST SWARMS IN AFRICA & ME DESTROY CROPS

What we are witnessing in east Africa and across much of the Middle East right now is hard to believe. 360 billion locusts are eating everything in sight, and UN officials are warning that this plague of “Biblical proportions” could get many times worse over the next several months. Desert locusts can travel up to 93 miles a day, and each adult can consume the equivalent of its own weight in food every 24 hours. These voracious little creatures are traveling in absolutely colossal swarms that are up to 40 miles wide, and they continue to push into new areas. If urgent action is not taken on a massive scale, millions upon millions of people could soon have next to nothing to eat.

SAVAGE SELLING WAVE IN CHINA'S STOCK MARKET

  China’s stock market opened to the most savage wave of selling in years, with thousands of shares falling by the daily limit after just minutes of trading.
   Though investors turned on computers hours early to tee up their sell orders, many of them couldn’t exit the market fast enough. All but 162 of the almost 4,000 stocks in Shanghai and Shenzhen recorded losses, with about 90 per cent dropping the maximum allowed by the country’s exchanges. Health-care shares comprised most of Monday’s gainers on speculation they will benefit from the virus outbreak.
   While it was always going to be brutal for China’s US$7.5 trillion stock market as investors caught up with losses worldwide, Monday’s declines were particularly severe. The CSI 300 Index sank as much as 9.1 per cent — a slump rarely seen in its almost 15-year history. The huge number of stocks trading limit down means it could take days for investors to execute their orders, prolonging the sell-off.

"CORONAVIRUS A BIOLOGICAL WARFARE WEAPON"

  Francis Boyle is a professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law. He drafted the U.S. domestic implementing legislation for the Biological Weapons Convention, known as the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, that was approved unanimously by both Houses of the U.S. Congress and signed into law by President George H.W. Bush.
   In an exclusive interview given to Geopolitics and Empire, Dr. Boyle discusses the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China and the Biosafety Level 4 laboratory (BSL-4) from which he believes the infectious disease escaped. He believes the virus is potentially lethal and an offensive biological warfare weapon or dual-use biowarfare weapons agent genetically modified with gain of function properties, which is why the Chinese government originally tried to cover it up and is now taking drastic measures to contain it.
  The Wuhan BSL-4 lab is also a specially designated World Health Organization (WHO) research lab and Dr. Boyle contends that the WHO knows full well what is occurring.
   Dr. Boyle also touches upon GreatGameIndia‘s exclusive report Coronavirus Bioweapon – where we reported in detail how Chinese Biowarfare agents working at the Canadian lab in Winnipeg were involved in the smuggling of Coronavirus to Wuhan’s lab from where it is believed to have been leaked.

CALGARY BANS CONVERSION THERAPY

A rainbow-clad crowd burst into applause at city hall Monday as council unanimously passed a motion to ban conversion therapy.

Calgary joins Edmonton and St. Albert as another Alberta community taking steps to block the harmful and discredited practice of using psychological or spiritual intervention to change a person’s sexual orientation, gender identity or gender expression.

City staff will now draft a bylaw that prohibits conversion therapy and fine anyone found advertising or offering the practice in Calgary. The motion also includes a request to push the federal and provincial governments to end the practice.

LIBERALS LEAD IN RACKING UP DEBT

   Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberals have racked up more debt than any other Canadian government that didn’t fight a world war or endure a recession during the last 125 years.
  A bulletin issued Tuesday by the Fraser Institute says Trudeau will have increased the per-person federal debt by 5.6% (or $1,723) — from approximately $30,922 in 2015 to $32,645 in 2019 — the highest percentage amount since 1895 outside of World war or economic downturn.
   “As you increase debt, you’re putting upward pressure on interest costs and as you divert more tax dollars to interest costs, that leaves fewer resources for tax relief or government programs,” said Fraser Institute policy analyst Jake Fuss.

  Fraser Institute report.

BUSINESSMAN CLAIMS TO HAVE BURNT $1M

   Bruce McConville would rather burn his own money than give it to his ex-wife, and a disbelieving Superior Court judge is giving him 30 days in jail to rethink his claim.
   The 55-year-old Ottawa businessman and failed mayoral candidate sold properties and businesses behind her back, then withdrew the $1 million and, he claims, burned the money in two bonfires: $743,000 last Sept. 23, and $296,000 on Dec. 15.
   McConville has long defied a court order to file an affidavit about his finances, notably where the money went from the secret sales. Because his financial affairs remain a mystery, the court has been unable to figure out what he owes in child and spousal support. As a result, he has been paying neither.

CANADIAN TAXPAYERS FUNDING HUAWEI

   Canadian governments have provided millions in funding to Huawei and academic researchers collaborating with it, most of the grants designed to enhance the company’s 5G prowess, records indicate.
The support includes a $16-million handout from Ontario’s former Liberal government to Huawei in 2016, augmenting money the company said it would spend on enhancing 5G research in the province.
   A McGill University engineering professor is receiving $740,000 from a federal funding agency over five years for cutting-edge work with the firm on next-generation wireless.
   The McGill grant is among almost $7 million NSERC has provided researchers collaborating with Huawei since 2016-17. About $1.3 million in new grants were awarded just this fiscal year, after the arrest in Vancouver of a Huawei executive and alleged retaliatory actions by China. There is even an NSERC/Huawei research chair at Montreal’s École Polytechnique, costing the federal government $295,000 a year, and another reportedly being considered for Laval University.

QUARANTINE AWAITS EVACUEES FROM CHINA

Canadian evacuees from the Chinese province afflicted with the novel coronavirus will be quarantined for two weeks upon their arrival at an Ontario military base, the government announced Sunday night.

But Ottawa did not provide a timeline for when they’ll arrive from the locked-down city of Wuhan, saying it’s still awaiting final approval from Chinese authorities. Their plane will land at Canadian Forces Base Trenton.

“To protect the health and safety of Canadians — both those who are coming to and those already in Canada — the returning individuals will undergo a thorough health screening before boarding, during the flight and upon arrival at CFB Trenton, Ontario,” said a statement from Global Affairs Canada.

“All other returning Canadians, including staff and flight crew, will remain at CFB Trenton for 14 days for further medical assessment and observation, and be provided with all the necessary medical and other supports as needed to ensure the health and safety of all Canadians.”

POLITICIANS JUMPING ON RACISM BANDWAGON

But now we’re getting politicians jumping on a racism bandwagon. At a news conference last week, a gaggle of Toronto councillors and Mayor John Tory denounced racism they perceive happening as a result of the coronavirus.

Asked quite reasonably by the Toronto Sun’s Joe Warmington if there’d been any incidents of racism so far, the politicians couldn’t come up with anything specific. They muttered that business was down in Chinatown, but in a later TV interview I saw one merchant there say it’s too early to tell if people are staying away.

More recently, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave us another virtue-signalling lecture on coronavirus racism.

MISHANDLING SENSITIVE DOCUMENTS

 As a senior RCMP intelligence official faces charges of disclosing secret information, new figures reveal thousands of incidents last year in which federal agencies, including the national police force, mishandled sensitive documents.

Answers tabled in Parliament in response to a query from Ontario Conservative MP Jamie Schmale show 38 agencies reported a total of more than 5,000 incidents between Jan. 1 and Dec. 10 in which classified or otherwise protected documents were stored in a manner that did not meet security requirements.

That averages out to about 20 such incidents across the government each working day.

CRITICIZE LIBERALS; BE INVESTIGATED

  Rex Murphy:   The absolute gist of the situation has only three elements. Mr. Levant wrote a book critical of the Liberal government. He advertised it via billboard and lawn signs. (For the unwary, it is a feature of publishing a book that it be advertised, and, surprisingly, even a book criticizing a government.) The Elections Commissioner wrote to him that he thereby “contravened the (Canada Elections) Act … having incurred over $500 on elections advertising expenses.”
   So he’s summoned, under threat of penalty, to come to the Commissioner’s office and explain himself to two of its investigators, to tell why he did not “register” his book. Many thoughts occur. Here are a couple.
   Can anybody give the name of any other book, ever, which has been the subject of an investigation by the Commissioner of Canada Elections?

THE IMPETOUS BEHIND BREXIT

Britain has seen three prime ministers, two General Elections, and three and a half years of arguments from either side of this political divide since the public voted to leave. It was a campaign fought even after the votes were counted. This may seem familiar to our American audience. President Trump won in 2016, and yet there are swathes of the political and media class who just do not accept the reality: This is Brexit country.

As Britain prepares to bid a not-so-fond farewell to the European Union, I want to walk you through the timeline of events from Britain joining what was billed as little more than a simple trade arrangement. And we’ll go all the way through to the E.U. becoming a monolithic government that commanded nations in what laws they must implement and what border controls, if any, they were permitted. Finally, we’ll see how Britain broke free of an organization that would be a country.

CHINA'S CORONAVIRUS COVERUP

China has gone from constructing ghost cities to now erecting hospitals to treat coronavirus patients. As we've reported, China could be hiding the true number of confirmed cases and deaths, and in some cases, not reporting the deaths at all, and "immediately" hauling the bodies down the street to a local crematorium, effectively burning the evidence.

THEY WILL ATTACK, SLANDER, AND DESTROY YOU

   On Oct. 13, 2016, just weeks before the election, Trump spoke at a campaign rally in Florida. Leading up to the election, he was holding several rallies each day, giving numerous speeches, but this seemingly random speech stands out.
   The enigmatic Q group refers to it as the speech that got Donald Trump elected. As it was one of many pre-election speeches he gave and at a Florida rally, it may have only been heard by a fraction of Trump voters before the election, but it certainly encapsulates his philosophy, both before and after the election, toward government corruption.
   The speech explains the resistance by the Washington, D.C. ruling class to Trump’s candidacy, election, and presidency. Trump attacked the foundation of deep state power, wealth, and corruption. Trump was indeed an “existential threat” to the cabal.

BARN DEMOLITION ANGERS HERITAGE ACTIVISTS

  An after-dark tear-down, a morning pile of rubble.
  And plenty of questions about a designation under a law meant to prevent just that, slapped in place just 48 hours earlier.
  A 130-year-old barn in west London that city council voted to protect under provincial law on Tuesday was torn town Thursday night. And Friday morning, the resulting rubble had angry heritage activists questioning whether the law has any teeth.
  “It’s frustrating for heritage activists because even when the city is on our side and designates a building for protection . . . it still gets knocked down,” said Jenny Grainger, president of the London branch of the Architectural Conservancy of Ontario.