MENG WANZHOU WINS SMALL VICTORY IN COURT

 A Canadian border officer who questioned Meng Wanzhou in the hours before her arrest at Vancouver’s airport has testified that he knew the case would end up in court over the way she was handled, as the judge hearing the case handed down a separate ruling granting the Huawei executive a small victory in her fight against extradition to the United States.

Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes of the Supreme Court of British Columbia agreed to admit new evidence presented by Meng, including portions of a crucial PowerPoint presentation she made to an HSBC executive, although other evidence was excluded.

In her written ruling, the judge also threw out an application by the Canadian attorney general to dismiss one of Meng’s arguments, that the record of the case (ROC) provided by the US is misleading and this constituted an abuse of process. The attorney general’s lawyers, representing US interests in the case, had opposed the new evidence, which was tendered to support the abuse-of-process argument.

CANADA TO WELCOME 1.2 MILLION IMMIGRANTS

 The Liberal government plans to bring in more than 1.2 million immigrants over the next three years, despite hurdles created by the global pandemic.

Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino unveiled what he called an "ambitious" three-year immigration plan today that set targets for bringing skilled workers, family members and refugees into Canada.

The numbers — which represent an increase of about 50,000 for each year — aim to compensate for the shortfall this year due to the pandemic and represent about one per cent of Canada's population.

TALKS RE $5BILLION PETROCHEMICAL PLANT IN ALBERTA

   Alberta is in talks with a private Saudi Arabian company to open a $5-billion petrochemical facility in the province, according to the associate minister of natural gas.
   Associate minister Dale Nally would not name the company in talks with the province, but his office confirmed it is not a state-owned entity. He also would not specify where the facility could be built but said it would be worth between $5-billion and $10-billion and would take more than five years to build.
   Despite pandemic-fuelled economic uncertainty that has companies across the globe cutting expenses to protect their balance sheets, Mr. Nally said his department has spoken with several international petrochemical producers eyeing Alberta.

SOUNDS LIKE GOV'T BAILOUT TIME AGAIN

 SNC-Lavalin Group Inc.’s past continues to haunt the engineering giant, and investors aren’t happy.

Montreal-based SNC on Friday reported a third-quarter net loss of $85.1 million compared with year-ago profit of $2.76 billion, when results were bolstered by the sale of a minority stake in Ontario’s Highway 407. The loss reflects a $58-million arbitration ruling against the company on a long-completed fixed-price construction project, which SNC didn’t identify, as well as lower productivity caused by COVID-19 safety protocols.

CUNNING PLAN FOILED

 Two men have been charged with explosives offenses over a suspected plot to use civil unrest over the police shooting of a Black man as cover to rob cash machines, Pennsylvania state Attorney General Josh Shapiro said.

The driver and passenger of a van were arrested on Wednesday with dynamite, a propane tank torch, a Taser and tools including electric drills, bolt cutters and machetes, Shapiro said in a statement late on Thursday.

FROM OPEN DOORS TO EVICTION

As the world watched in awe five years ago, new faces were welcomed into Germany with balloons and banners proclaiming 'We love refugees'.

More than a million strangers headed there from faraway lands at the height of Europe's biggest migration crisis since World War II hoping for a new life in the West

But today the celebrations for migrants are over in this powerhouse of the European Union. 

Many of the foreigners who entered Germany in those heady days are being forcibly sent home to Africa, south Asia, the Middle East, Russia and the Balkans on secret flights, marshalled by security officers, after being frogmarched to airports from their beds by armed police.

 

CADILLAC FAIRVIEW COVERTLY COLLECTS IMAGES

 The company that operates two of Calgary’s largest malls used hidden cameras inside digital kiosks to collect more than five million images of shoppers, according to a new investigation by the Alberta, British Columbia and federal privacy commissioners.

The report found that Cadillac Fairview, which runs both CF Chinook Centre and CF Market Mall in Calgary, used facial recognition technology to gather biometric information about shoppers without their knowledge or consent.

“Shoppers had no reason to expect their image was being collected by an inconspicuous camera, or that it would be used, with facial recognition technology, for analysis,” Daniel Therrien, the privacy commissioner of Canada, said in a news release.

Despite the violation of Canadian privacy law, Sharon Polsky said the country’s privacy legislation could not adequately ensure Cadillac Fairview would follow regulations in the future.

CANADA'S CRITICAL DRUG SHORTAGE

   The throne speech in September made numerous mentions of the fact that the government has stepped up and signed contracts to domestically produce personal protective equipment (to the tune of $400 million), vaccines ($1 billion) as well as ventilators. Yet, I fear that critical drugs will be forgotten in the shuffle, as the second COVID wave fills up hospitals and causes governments to push reset on their reopening plans.
   Allow me to explain: there have been serious, ongoing shortages of medications needed to keep our sickest, most critically ill patients alive. Drug shortages doubled in the first few months of the COVID-19 pandemic, with a survey from May of this year finding that only 3 percent of pharmacists had received their full shipments of drug orders in the first week of May. Many of these medications are used in a variety of settings – from emergency departments to operating rooms to ICUs to hospices – and are critical to the care of some of our sickest patients. These important drugs are given a Tier 3 classification by Health Canada. Their shortages cascade through the system causing a tremendous headache for front-line pharmacists, who can spend up to 25 percent of their working hours dealing with them, or for doctors, such as myself, who scramble to use alternative, often less effective agents. Drug shortages have been found to increase costs for patients, drive up the rates of medication errors, and play a role in greater patient mortality.

DEADLY TERROR ATTACK IN FRANCE

Three people are dead after a series of stabbings in a "suspected terror attack" that occurred at the Basilica of Notre-Dame in Nice, France, at 9 a.m. local time on Thursday, ABC News can confirm.

The suspect was arrested after the attack, according to the Associated Press, and taken to a nearby hospital after being injured during the arrest. Authorities say he was believed to have been acting alone.

Mayor Christian Estrosi said that the attacker yelled “allahu akbar” several times during the attack but these reports have not yet been confirmed.

ETHICS COMMISSIONER ACCEPTS MORNEAU'S CLAIM

Federal Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion has ended his investigation of former finance minister Bill Morneau's WE Charity-funded trips to Kenya and Ecuador and says he accepts Morneau's contention that he thought he had reimbursed the travel costs, CBC News has learned.

"I accept that you genuinely believed you had paid for the entire cost of both trips, including the portion of the trip that involved the use of non-commercial chartered aircraft," Dion wrote in an Oct. 28 letter — a reference to the private plane the Morneau family used for some of their travel in these developing countries.

While Dion has dropped his probe into the trips, the commissioner made clear that he is still investigating whether Morneau breached the Conflict of Interest Act by failing to recuse himself from cabinet deliberations on the WE Charity summer student grants contract due to his close family ties to the organization.

FREELAND DEFENDS LIBERAL SPENDING POLICY

   John Ivison: Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, in her virtual speech to the Toronto Global Economic Forum, said the expansive approach to fighting the pandemic “will not be infinite,” which is a relief.

The government will impose limits upon itself, “rather than waiting for the more brutal external restraints of international capital markets.”

But her boss Justin Trudeau has already revealed there will be no fiscal anchor in the fall update – a sentiment she echoed.

Freeland argued against “premature fiscal tightening.”

ZUCKERBERG DENIES CENSORSHIP

Mark Zuckerberg denied censoring the New York Post’s bombshell story on alleged links between the Biden family and the Ukrainian energy company Burisma, despite the fact that Facebook cut visibility on the story across its platform to less than half of that enjoyed by anti-Trump stories in the corporate media.

Zuckerberg also claimed that the Post’s distribution was limited pending a decision from fact-checkers, but the Poynter Institute, which accredits Facebook’s third-party fact-checkers, disagrees, saying the tech giant did not follow the usual protocol.

JUDGE SENTENCES RANIERE TO 120 YEARS

 On Tuesday in a Brooklyn courtroom, the path to enlightenment turned cloudy for Keith Raniere, the 60-year-old Svengali of the NXIVM sex cult.

Judge Nicholas Garaufis sentenced him to a staggering 120 years in prison after he was convicted last year for racketeer\ trafficking, sexual exploitation of a child and human trafficking.

Prosecutors and cops called his so-called self-help organization, NXIVM, a scam designed to fleece his wealthy followers “for power, for profit, and for sex.”

In the three years since he was busted while on the lam in Mexico, horrific stories have emerged about NXIVM and its inner circle sex slave cult called DOS.

BOBULINSKI SHOWS BIDEN FAMILY CORRUPTION

With the Wall Street Journal’s news side having gotten cold feet and the rest of the liberal media engaging in one of their most brazen cover-ups, Tony Bobulinski took his story of the Biden family’s rank corruption to the Fox News Channel on Tuesday night and primetime host Tucker Carlson.

Over the course of the full hour, Bobulinski came across as credible and, most importantly, brought e-mails, texts, and a recording of Biden family confidante Bob Walker pleading with him not to go public.

Carlson led-in to the interview by noting Bobulinski’s enormous wealth so he hasn’t done this for any financial windfall. Rather, he’s fighting back “to clear his family's name of” being called “an agent of Russian disinformation” by Biden, his circle, and the news media.

OVERREACHING PUBLIC SERVANTS REDACTED WE DOCUMENTS

 In letters to the committee at the time, Shugart and other senior public servants explained the redactions were to maintain personal privacy and cabinet confidences and to delete portions of records that had nothing to do with the WE Charity affair. Indeed, Shugart argued that the unredacted records included cabinet confidences that would normally have been blacked out.

However, Dufresne told the committee that it was not up to the public servants to decide what to redact.

“The House and its committees are the appropriate authority to determine whether any reasons for withholding the documents should be accepted or not,” he wrote in a letter to the committee.

INQUIRY INTO MONEY LAUNDERING IN BC

 The head of the RCMP’s detachment in Richmond, B.C., warned his superior “the monster is growing” and that an influx of organized crime groups surrounding the city’s new River Rock Casino could take over B.C.’s gaming industry, the province’s inquiry into money laundering has heard.

Ward Clapham, the detachment’s chief officer when the River Rock opened in 2004, told the Cullen Commission on Tuesday that the size of the casino had been drawing crime groups from outside the region, and had been draining Richmond’s policing resources.

Clapham said he tried to send foot patrols to the casino to deter a rise in crime, but low resources meant those were infrequent. Even then, he testified, an unidentified Great Canadian Gaming executive still called him and asked that police visits be curtailed because they were bad for business.

THE LIBERAL/BLOC NUDGE & WINK

 After enduring nearly three weeks of Liberal filibustering, opposition MPs trying to acquire WE Charity speaking contracts involving Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his wife were shut down Monday when a Bloc Québécois MP voted against the initiative — by mistake.

So Monday, after a bit more filibustering and a few more amendments, the Conservative motion at the ethics committee was set to pass with the support from all opposition members, who outnumbered the Liberals.

All was going as expected until the committee clerk called on Bloc Québécois MP Julie Vignola, who had replaced her colleague Marie-Hélène Gaudreau just a few minutes earlier.

After a few seconds of silence, Vignola unexpectedly said: “I am against the motion.”

In a scrum minutes after the vote, Bloc Québécois House Leader Alain Therrien admitted it had all been a mistake. Their vote had literally been lost in translation, and the party was scrambling to see if there was a way to change it.

FRENCH FOLK NOT TOO KEEN ON ISLAM

   A new poll conducted after the beheading of a teacher in Paris has found that 79% of French people believe Islamism has “declared war” on their country.
   The survey was carried out by polling firm Ifop following the jihadist murder of geography teacher Samuel Paty, who was targeted for showing pupils cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad during a lesson about freedom of expression.
   A previous poll also found that the French are becoming increasingly hostile to allowing more immigrants to enter their country, with 64% believing migrants have a negative impact, while 60% believe welcoming them is no longer feasible due to cultural differences.

YANIV SUING ONTARIO BEAUTY PAGEANT

   Trans-gender activist Jessica Yaniv has filed yet another human rights complaint – this time against a girls and women’s beauty pageant for not allowing her to participate.
   Yaniv (also known as Jonathan Yaniv and as Jessica Simpson) said she was discriminated against by Canada Galaxy Pageants when they refused to let her enter the “28 Years and Older” division.

LIBERALS SABOTAGING CANADA'S OILPATCH

   But the Cenovus-Husky deal is driven by another damaging factor: the deliberate stranding and sabotage of Canada’s most valuable commodity by the Liberal government. The oil industry has not received the pandemic stimulus that was afforded to others, and now we see another example of this full-blown, nation-busting mentality.
   Cenovus will close Husky’s head office in Calgary, costing many jobs, and has also said that construction of the offshore White Rose project in Newfoundland will not resume in 2021, as originally planned. Without an infusion of tax money, White Rose, which supports an estimated 2,000 direct and indirect jobs, is a goner and another disastrous blow to Newfoundland on top of its hydroelectric fiasco.
   But don’t cry for Argentia (the centre of White Rose’s project), because the federal minister of natural resources is Seamus O’Regan, a pal of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s. They’re so close that O’Regan accompanied Trudeau on the notorious Aga Khan holiday freebie a few years ago.
   So my guess is that Trudeau will throw copious amounts of tax dollars into the questionable Newfoundland oil project to prop up his pal and Liberal cronies with contracts there, while continuing to spite the West’s struggling oil industry because they are Tories.

PATTY HAJDU, AN INCANDESCENT LIABILITY

 This minister is an incandescent liability, a fearsomely efficient one-woman government-discrediting operation. It doesn’t really matter what went on with her mask at Pearson on Sunday, but it matters that she was still in a position to create the controversy. This would make for a pretty silly firing offence, but there’s no bad time to sack Patty Hajdu.

WOKENESS - THE NEW RELIGION OF THE LEFT

 Elitist political activists and Big Tech executives endlessly promote conspiracy theories suggesting traditional religious believers will seize power and force their religious views onto others. They look upon the faithful masses with contempt, while insisting that believers who dare to enter public life have a hidden, theocratic agenda. Hypocritically, as they point their conspiratorial fingers at Catholics, Evangelicals and Orthodox Jews, these elitists are frantically seizing power to force a new, godless religion upon the public: wokeness.

Wokeness, which is based on the belief that prejudice and discrimination are present at all times like an unseen spirit influencing our every thought or action, is mostly performative and ritualistic. Woke adherents show how pious they are by reciting the correct political scriptures about alleged injustices. To attain woke status you don’t have to actually help anyone overcome injustice. All that’s required is condemning others for not being woke enough.

VIOLENT INDIGENOUS PROTESTORS IN CALEDONIA

 Under assault, an unidentified officer sat behind the wheel of his parked OPP cruiser displaying an incredible calm, near the controversial McKenzie Meadows housing development in Caledonia. Despite the potential for harm, he didn’t raise his voice.

Instead, he reported what he was facing.

“A male with camo (camouflage) is throwing rocks at us,” the officer said on a hand-held radio.

The video shows that while he was on the radio, a male protester with a scarf over his face and a lacrosse stick in hand started hitting the driver’s side door and window.

CHINA'S VAST DATA HARVESTING OF FOREIGNERS

   A Chinese database containing the personal information of millions of people around the globe was recently leaked to Western media, offering a glimpse into the regime’s vast data harvesting campaign targeting foreigners.
   A private Chinese company, Shenzhen Zhenhua Data Technology, had amassed a database with files on 2.4 million people, compiled mostly from open-source material such as social media posts and online data. A reconstruction of 10 percent of the database by an Australian cybersecurity firm named Internet 2.0 revealed that it includes records on about 52,000 Americans, 35,000 Australians, 9,700 Britons, and 5,000 Canadians.
   People in the database range from ordinary business professionals to prominent figures such as U.S. naval officers, China watchers in Washington, members of the British royal family, and company leaders. The data cache also provides details on countries’ infrastructure, movements of military assets, and public opinion analysis.

GEORGE BUSH VS JOE BIDEN, APPARENTLY

With 8 days left until Election Day, Vice President Joe Biden is still having trouble remembering exactly who he's running against.

It's definitely not the first time this has happened, but during a critical opportunity to appeal to young voters from the safety of his basement (Joe and Dr. Jill Biden were making a brief appearance during the "I Will Vote" livestream) Biden stumbled and appeared to forget President Trump's name, awkwardly referring to him as "my opponent" before stammering out "George Bush".

IF RE-ELECTED, TRUMP TO FIRE CIA & FBI DIRECTORS

President Trump will 'immediately' move to fire FBI Director Christopher Christopher Wray and CIA Director Gina Haspel, along with Defense Secretary Mark Esper, according to Axios - which spoke to "people who've discussed these officials' fates with the president."

And while the list of pink slips is allegedly much longer, Trump's top priority is getting rid of Wray - whose FBI sat on alleged evidence of Biden corruption in Ukraine contained on Hunter Biden's laptop (along with alleged child porn), while Trump was impeached for asking the Ukrainians to investigate exactly that.

CHINESE STATE & ORGANIZED CRIME IN CANADA

 One of the entrepreneurs in the room was Yongtao Chen’s business partner, a Toronto real estate tycoon named Wei Wei.

But two years later, Wei is facing multiple criminal charges in relation to allegations that he was running illegal gambling operations out of his massive marble-floored 53-room mansion in Markham, Ont.

And according to law enforcement sources, the business and political ties of some CACA leaders like Wei and Yongtao Chen are of increasing concern for Canada’s national security as RCMP and Canadian Security Intelligence Service investigators probe networks they believe may involve the hidden hand of the Chinese state and organized crime.

"I'LL HOLD YOUR COAT" HAJDU

Health Minister Patty Hajdu says that if China misled the world in the early stages of the pandemic, then they will need to be held to account.

"But I can tell you this, the World Health Organization, although flawed, I will repeat, is an important organization in combating global pandemics. And we need to have global co-operation," she added.

The health minister has previously defended China’s handling of the outbreak. When news emerged about the U.S. intelligence community warnings in April, she said there was no evidence China had misled anyone with their reports.

PREMIER FORD GETS PUSHBACK FROM OWN MPP's

  Premier Doug Ford was blindsided Saturday when two of his MPPs joined local mayors from their region in releasing a letter speaking out against putting Halton back into a modified Stage 2 lockdown.  In their letter the MPPs do what Ford has failed to do in making announcements of increased restrictions, they showed detailed facts and stats related to their area to back up their request.

   A major problem with the decisions the Ford government has been making is that they don’t show their work, not in any detailed way. When putting Toronto, Ottawa and Peel Region back into a modified Stage 2, the government released general data on infections in the province and claims that cases would double every 10-12 days

   That hasn’t happened but the government still has not released detailed data on why they took the steps they did. Restaurants and gyms in Peel and Ottawa were closed despite no clear case being made that spread had occurred in these facilities.

FEMALE ATHLETES MUST TAKE A STAND

 Since 2015, the IOC has allowed biological males who have self-identified as female for a year to compete in women’s sport, if they reduce their testosterone levels to 10 nmol/l (nanomoles per litre). That‘s still much higher than the female testosterone range of .54 to 2.4 nmol/l. In any case, testosterone is only one factor in the male athletic advantage — and not, as I explain below, the most significant one by any means.

Relying on data published by Sweden’s pre-eminent Karolinska Institute of medical academic research, they concluded that even when following IOC hormone-reduction guidelines, genetically male athletes are, on average, 40 per cent heavier, 15 per cent faster, 30 per cent more powerful and 25-50 per cent stronger than female athletes. 

THE PROLIFERATION OF SATELLITES

Satellites are becoming critical for everything from internet connectivity and precision agriculture, to border security and archaeological study.

Right now, there are nearly 6,000 satellites circling our tiny planet. About 60% of those are defunct satellites - space junk - and roughly 40% are operational.

It may be no surprise that the United States, China, and Russia top the list of countries with operational satellites.

Let’s take a closer look at who operates those satellites and how they apply their technology.

ANOTHER TRUDEAU LAYING WASTE TO ALBERTA

It’s been 40 years, almost to the day, since the National Energy Program was announced in the House of Commons and yet those three words still evoke strong sentiments in Alberta.

   Kenney says while the times have changed and there’s no single mega policy like the NEP that has devastated Alberta, the current federal Liberal government under Justin Trudeau — Pierre Trudeau’s eldest son — has damaged Alberta’s economy. This has occurred through a series of policies and decisions — including the cancellation of the Northern Gateway pipeline even after it had been approved, signalling to global investors that Canada was no longer a safe place to invest. Capital fled Alberta and with it, high paying jobs.

“Then came the killing of Energy East pipeline; the tanker ban targeting only our resources — C-48;the huge investor uncertainty and the invasion of our authority under Bill C-69, the ‘no more pipelines law’. Whether it’s the pending clean fuel standards that would add $3 or $4 to the cost of producing a barrel of Alberta oil, that makes us less competitive; whether it’s the pending ratification of the United Nations Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous People, which many read as granting any one small, tiny group a veto power over development; whether it’s all of the talk about legislating net zero carbon emissions without a plan for a future for the oil and gas sector; all of this stuff together has made the price decline far more impactful than it otherwise would have been,” says Kenney.

BALLOT SHENANIGANS IN THE USA

   We’ll start with the story that made headlines recently when Pennsylvania authorities tossed out 372,000 ballot applications.
Far from disenfranchising voters, we are assured by Pennsylvania officials that 90% of the applications were duplicates due to confused voters signing up at multiple places and with different groups, according to Just the News. Hmm.
   But, there’s more! Remember the signature on the ballot that is checked against voter registrations to supposedly ensure voter integrity? Take a seat.
  Another Pennsylvania state Supreme Court ruling on Friday held that the signatures on the registration and the ballot don’t have to match.

LIBERALS INDIFFERENT TO INFORMATION RIGHTS

   In early 2017, the previous information commissioner said the government uses the Access to Information Act “as a shield against transparency and is failing to meet its policy objective to foster accountability and trust in our government.”
   Later that year, when the Liberals finally did present new legislation intended on increasing transparency, the commissioner found that it did the opposite. “If passed,” she said, the bill “would result in a regression of existing rights
   That same year, an audit commissioned by the group News Media Canada gave the government a failing grade for its handling of access to information. The report found that the federal system was much slower and less responsive than its provincial and municipal counterparts and concluded that “the Liberal government has a long way to go if it is to deliver on its promises of transparent government.”

"DRY YOUR WHITE MAN'S TEARS"

 If I wrote a column every time someone’s book or column got spiked for idiotic reasons these days, I’d have multiple daily bylines. But every once in a while, an episode stands out as particularly absurd, and I really do need to let the world know. And this is one of them. You see, the campaign against Pottle isn’t being led by an angry ex-girlfriend. He didn’t use the wrong pronoun, say that all lives matter, or Toobin his colleagues on a Zoom call. In fact, the only person coming after Pottle’s book is Pottle himself. This Canadian artist has become the world’s first cancel-culture soloist. He’s furiously cancelling himself in front of the whole world.

CHANGES NEEDED FOR OTTAWA PARAMEDIC SERVICE

The paramedic service calls it “level zero” when there are no paramedic crews available to respond to 911 calls.

The 400 times that Ottawa has seen level zero this year has resulted in about 183 hours when no city paramedic crew was available.

 When there are no city paramedics available, the work calls fall to paramedic teams based outside of Ottawa in the neighbouring counties. The domino effect has put strain on those outside municipalities since paramedics are required away from their home jurisdictions.

REAL ISSUE IN NS FISHERIES CRISIS

 First, let’s say what this crisis isn’t about: It’s not about the number of lobsters in the bay or on which days they may be caught. Nor is it simply about racism, though all these are undercurrents to the standoff in Nova Scotia.

The central issue is whether Ottawa’s approach to reconciliation will result in proper management of the fishery. The Sipekne’katik First Nation is emerging as a testcase for a particularly robust form of self-government, and the implications could be far-reaching.

Many Indigenous communities have or claim rights to use resources that are shared with non-Indigenous communities, including rights to hunt, cut trees, and harvest other natural resources. Non-Indigenous stakeholders will want to know how far this kind of self-government reaches into their shared resource and when the federal government will intervene to limit it.

NO QUARANTINE FOR 3.5 MILLION ESSENTIAL TRAVELERS

 More than 4.6 million people have arrived in Canada since the border closed last March but fewer than one-quarter of them were ordered to quarantine — the rest were deemed "essential" travelers and exempted from the requirement.

Essential travelers are asked to wear masks when they can't physically distance from others, and medical workers are asked not to treat people over the age of 65 for 14 days. 

Essential travelers also made up the bulk of arrivals according to data provided by the Public Health Agency of Canada. It said 3.5 million travelers, as of Oct. 20, had been deemed essential, and another 1.1 million were considered non-essential and were asked to quarantine for two weeks.

POPE PRAISED FOR CIVIL UNION SUPPORT

The decision by Pope Francis to offer his tentative support for civil union laws for same-sex couples was praised Thursday by U.N. chief Antonio Guterres.

Francis’s comments emerged in a new documentary titled Francesco in which he said that “what we have to create is a civil union law,” a position at odds with previous Vatican dogma.

While Francis, 83, opposes gay marriage, his words were hailed by admirers as a “major step forward in the church’s support for LGBT people.”

CHINA ENCROACHES ON JAPAN'S FISHING AREA

     Japan’s Fisheries Agency has advised Japanese fishing boats to avoid certain areas within Japan’s own exclusive economic zone (EEZ) and operate elsewhere after thousands of Chinese fishing boats ignored Tokyo’s previous warnings in recent weeks to exit the country’s waters.
    According to the South China Morning Post (SCMP), analysts observing China’s recent encroachment on Japan’s EEZ say it could be caused by China overfishing in its own “coastal waters close to the [Chinese] fishermen’s home ports … meaning the crews are having to venture farther afield for a catch. An alternative suggestion is that China is testing Japan’s resolve over its territorial integrity and the responses of its coastguard and, potentially, the military.”

EX-LIBERAL MP GETS GOVERNMENT CONTRACT

   A report released today by the investigative journalists of Journal de Montréal shows that the Trudeau Liberal government gave a $237 million contract to a firm that had been created just seven days before obtaining the contract and that the federal government overpaid by nearly $100 million.
   The $237 million was given to the obscure firm FTI Professional Grade. This firm had been officially created only seven days before obtaining the contract from the federal government and its website showed that FTI had only two employees.
   The contract was for the manufacturing of 10,000 ventilators.
   Soon after obtaining the contract, FTI hired the firm Baylis to handle the manufacturing of the ventilators. Baylis belongs to Frank Baylis, an ex-liberal MP and an active member of the party since the 1980s.

O'REGAN SLINKING

Government press releases that go out a few minutes shy of midnight are done purposefully so as to not get noticed because most people with any brains are rightfully asleep.

But so it came to pass that at precisely 23:46:25 — less than 15 minutes to midnight, Eastern time — on the night of Oct. 19,,Natural Resources Minister Seamus O’Regan quietly announced the approval of the NOVA gas pipeline expansion in Alberta.

So, we’re left to guess. O’Regan, not exactly stoic, is either scared of the eco-warriors’ gnashing of teeth for approving a gas line, especially in the middle of a caribou migration route, or having to embarrassingly watch the gas and oil men showing off their muscle with a Liberal government that wants them eliminated.

WILSON-RAYBOULD CALLS OUT TRUDEAU

On Wednesday — the one-year anniversary of the 2019 election that reduced Trudeau from a majority to a minority government and returned Wilson-Raybould to Parliament as an Independent MP for Vancouver Granville —she wrote a series of tweets giving her views on Trudeau’s conduct in his latest conflict-of-interest controversy in the WE Charity affair. 

Here’s what she said:

“The choice this gov’t placed before us — a potential election during a spiking pandemic or seeking to avoid transparency/accountability for ethical wrongdoings, demonstrates an utter lack of leadership. Imagine risking the health of (Canadians) to avoid taking responsibility. Shameful.

PERMANENT INJUNCTION AGAINST FN PROTESTERS

 An Ontario judge has ordered demonstrators to permanently leave a construction site at the centre of an Indigenous land dispute, saying he won’t hear constitutional arguments in the case because previous orders to clear the area were ignored.

Hours after the ruling, provincial police said cruisers near the McKenzie Meadows site were approached by protesters and were heavily damaged. No injuries were reported and police said an investigation was underway.

SENATE DEMANDS HUNTER BIDEN'S RECORDS

Senate investigators have demanded that Hunter Biden turn over a mountain of evidence following bombshell emails and text messages which appear to show he and his business partners engaging in an international influence-peddling scheme while his father was Vice President of the United States.

TRUMP/BIDEN FIREWORK-FREE SPECTACLE

 Thursday night's debate kicked off with both candidates behaving themselves, more or less, until the two engaged in several spats over the Hunter Biden scandal which quickly dissipated.

Overall, both candidates were much calmer and better organized than they were during the first debate - albeit Biden came off as very angry most of the debate. We doubt anyone is changing their mind after tonight.

For a quick summary of how the candidates did aside from Huntergate

THE FOLLY IN THE COMMONS

John Ivison: The vote in the House to reject a Conservative motion to establish an anti-corruption committee has averted the prospect of snap fall election – for now. MPs voted 180 to 146 against the motion, with the government supported by the NDP, Greens and independent MPs.

But no-one emerged from this mess with much credit.  What did we learn?

1: The House of Commons remains divided against itself. It cannot stand for much longer. The prime minister is set on an election – that much is apparent from the admission by NDP leader Jagmeet Singh that the Liberals didn’t even try to negotiate a solution, as they did on the COVID-response act last month. The explanation is contained in the opinion polls – the latest Nanos Research survey had the Liberals at 39 per cent support, the Conservatives at 33 per cent and the NDP at just 13 per cent. The New Democrats are propping up a government that no longer wants to be propped up, and the party is in danger of losing its sense of self. The NDP MPs who voted with the government did so with mutinous looks on their faces. Singh would be advised to start planning to part ways with the Liberals over something substantive like the fiscal update expected late next month. If he did, he could portray the Liberal response as wanting and reclaim his party’s fading identity

RCN's NEW SHIP HAS BREAKDOWN

  The Royal Canadian Navy is investigating an unexplained breakdown on its brand-new, $400-million Arctic patrol ship.

The problem first emerged last week as HMCS Harry DeWolf's crew were training off the coast of Halifax, 2 1/2 months after Irving Shipbuilding delivered the vessel to the Navy.

Commodore Richard Feltham, commander of Canadian Fleet Atlantic, says the ship was forced to return to port after its freshwater generator and communications systems didn't work.

It was while the ship was docked that the crew found the cooling pumps on two of the ship's four diesel generators had broken.

REPORT: BIDENS COMPROMISED BY CHINA

An important investigative report authored by the unknown Typhoon Investigations, was released by Christopher Balding, Associate Professor at Peking University HSBC School of Business Shenzhen, China and also Bloomberg contributor (which is odd considering the clear anti-Trump bias of the Bloomberg media empire) exposing Biden activities in China which "the press has simply refused to cover", and which reveals "how Biden was compromised by the Communist Party of China."

Upon review, this is how Balding summarized the report's contents in his series of tweets:

Hunter Biden is partnered with the Chinese state. Entire investment partnership is Chinese state money from social security fund to China Development Bank. It is actually a subsidiary of the Bank of China. This is not remotely anything less than a Chinese state funded play.

Disturbingly, everyone on the Chinese side are clearly linked with influence and intelligence organizations.

WHAT IS TRUDEAU HIDING?

 But given what Trudeau has done up to now, including risking a fall election during a global pandemic, where millions of people would have had to line up to vote at polling stations across the country — when Trudeau says it’s not safe for children to go trick or treating at Halloween — the question remains.

What is in these documents that Trudeau is so concerned about that he’s going to such extraordinary lengths to continue to conceal them?

TIME TO STOP THE COVID LOCKDOWNS

 Dr Reiner Fuellmich says lockdowns are a crime against humanity.

Lawsuits expected.

THE NDP - A PERMANENT PROP FOR LIBERALS?

 Singh and 23 other NDP members voted against a Conservative motion on Wednesday that would form a committee to investigate the Liberal government’s involvement in the WE Charity scandal, which has embroiled the government and could lead to a third ethics violation by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

“You cannot fold every single time,” said Karl Bélanger, president of consultancy group Traxxion Strategies and former press secretary to Jack Layton. “Today a lot of people would say that the NDP folded. So they cannot let this become a trend.”

The NDP have sided with the Liberals on several key votes during the COVID-19 pandemic, typically in exchange for concessions like added funding for students and unemployed people. But the NDP vote on Wednesday, which did not involve any concessions by the Liberals, will likely make for a tougher sell for Singh and his party, Bélanger said.

A JOURNALISTIC CRIME

 Rex Murphy:  As I write it is now the seventh day — and a bare two weeks till the presidential vote — that Twitter, Facebook and their co-operative partners in the television networks and mainline newspapers have smothered or refused to print or broadcast the devastating reports concerning the dealings of Hunter Biden and his father, presidential candidate Joe Biden.

The suppression of a major, no, an explosive and potentially result-changing news story by 90 per cent of the establishment media, is a journalistic crime.

It is the willing, the voluntary adoption by a (once) free press of the practice of information control that up to this period has been the hallmark, solely, of tinpot tyrannies, Communist governments everywhere, and most notably in the modern era the present information-throttling government of China.

CONSTABLE MONTSION ACQUITTED ON ALL CHARGES

 “This young man who suffered serious mental illness was taken off his medication at the direction of his family three weeks before the incident,” Edelson said.

COVID-19 ON THE WING TO CANADA

 More than two dozen flights carrying COVID-19-infected passengers landed at Toronto Pearson International airport during the past two weeks.

Online records posted by Health Canada show that since Oct. 5, 16 international and nine domestic flights touched down at YYZ carrying people with COVID infections.

NS FN PULL LOBSTER BOATS FROM WATER

HALIFAX — The chief of the First Nation behind a disputed moderate livelihood lobster fishery in Nova Scotia says recent vandalism and the loss of potential sales have cost the band more than $1.5 million.

Mike Sack, chief of the Sipekne’katik First Nation, issued a statement today saying the band has also been blacklisted by lobster buyers.

“The (non-Indigenous) commercial fishery has systematically boxed us out of the market,” Sack said in a statement. “It will take time to rebuild our relationships in the supply chain of people and companies we did business with who are now rightly afraid of retaliation.”

DNA DETECTIVE WORK

 Last Thursday, the Toronto police announced a decisive solution to one of Canada’s most heartbreaking cold homicide cases: the 1984 abduction, rape and murder of nine-year-old Christine Jessop. This was the crime for which the innocent Guy-Paul Morin spent nearly eight years in jail; Morin was ruled out as a suspect by DNA evidence and exonerated in 1995. But it was to be another 25 years before the development of methods of genealogical crime investigation allowed someone else, a friend of Christine’s family, to be ruled in.

With astonishing speed, police forces have learned to exploit cheap gene sequencing and open personal-genome databases to crack cold cases. The key is that some of these gene databases are uploaded by amateur enthusiasts with fairly extensive family trees attached, allowing investigators to identify ancestors, cousins and descendants of people who left DNA traces at the scene of a crime.

MACRON'S CRACKDOWN ON ISLAMIC TERROR

On Friday, a French schoolteacher named Samuel Paty was brutally decapitated by an 18-year-old assailiant outside his workplace, a brutal murder that has been confirmed as a terror attack, possibly inspired by a fatwa issued by a French cleric.

French authorities have determined all this, and more, as French President Emmanuel Macron launches an unprecedented crackdown on terror networks in the country with a focus on "political" organizations that officials fear function as fronts, or gateways, for terror recruits plotting acts of violence. Over the weekend, police arrested 11 people, including 4 relatives of the attacker, 18-year-old Abdoullakh Abouyezidovitch Anzorov, who is a migrant from Chechnya living in France.

Police appear to be nearing a determination of a motive in the attack: they suspect that a French extremist cleric named Abdelhakim Sefrioui issued a "fatwa" against Paty after visiting the school with the father of a pupil who was referenced above. Both of these men are among the 11 who have been arrested so far in the case.

THE DRAMA KING STOMPS HIS FOOT

 Rodriguez said MPs cannot establish a new committee “with sweeping powers” and assume there will be no consequences. “If they do that, they are saying that the government is corrupt. And that means that they don’t have confidence in this government,” he said.

Conservative leader Erin O’Toole said that, while he has no confidence in the government’s handling of the WE Charity issue, he does not want an election. Even NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said that the only way there will be an election is if the prime minister chooses to have one.

“Imagine the prime minister trying to explain to people who are worried about their livelihoods…his reason is because he doesn’t like the committee,” Singh said.

FROM A FACEBOOK WHISTLEBLOWER

 The ex-insider shared some information about the Facebook team, called the "Hate-Speech Engineering" group. The team comprises of at least half a dozen Chinese nationals and works out of Facebook's offices in Seattle. Many of these Ph.D.s work on complex machine learning algorithms that develop newsfeeds. 

The ex-insider said the team teaches algorithms to push specific content to the top of a newsfeed while other content gets shifted "dead-last."

CARBON TAXES ARE A MASSIVE FAILURE

 Global carbon taxes are ineffective because their main purpose is to raise government revenues, not lower industrial greenhouse gas emissions linked to human-induced climate change, according to a new study by the Fraser Institute.

The report by the fiscally-conservative think tank examined carbon taxes in 14 high-income countries that are members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), including Canada.

“Poorly-designed carbon taxes, like those in all high-income countries around the world, do not deliver on the promise of cost-effective emissions reductions. Instead (they) cause serious and harmful economic effects that increase costs, scare away investment and deter entrepreneurship.”

PRETTY WORDS DO NOT AVENGE THE DEAD

Steyn: On Friday Samuel Paty, a French high school teacher, was beheaded by a Chechen "refugee" on the streets of Conflans-Sainte-Honorine, north-west of Paris. His crime was showing a Charlie Hebdo Mohammed cartoon to his pupils in a class on free speech. So he had to be "canceled" - Xtreme Sports edition. M Paty leaves a wife and a five-year-old son, and the usual useless passive expressions of public grief, including inevitably #JeSuisSamuel and candlelight vigils and all the other mawkish crap that signals to the world that you're not serious about doing anything to prevent the next grieving widow and orphaned kid.

MORE DIRT ON SNEAKY LIBERAL GUN BANS

 Young has discovered that the infamous 1995 firearms act, Bill C-68, was co-drafted by the Coalition for Gun Control, Canada’s leading anti-gun lobby group.

Why do 25-year-old photocopies matter as anything more then historical proof the Liberals cannot be trusted on gun issues?

Because C-68 contained a provision permitting cabinet to declare whole categories of guns illegal and order their seizure without any debate in Parliament.

And it was this provision – still in effect – that was used May 1 of this year to outlaw as many as 400,000 guns in Canadians’ possession with the mere stroke of a cabinet pen.

OVERBEARING PMO IN JUDICIAL APPOINTMENT PROCESS

A Liberal official complained to his superiors last year about the Prime Minister's Office playing an overbearing role in the judicial appointment process, warning that partisan considerations have created the "potential for a scandal," according to emails obtained by Radio-Canada.

The internal warning came from François Landry, a political aide who worked directly on the judicial appointment process in the office of Justice Minister David Lametti at the time.

Concerns within the federal government about the PMO's role in the vetting process for candidates for judicial office — and its insistence on consultations with cabinet ministers, Liberal MPs, plugged-in lawyers and Liberal officials before appointments are made — go beyond Landry's stated qualms, according to sources and other internal government emails.

ROYAL PARDON FOR CONVICTED MURDERER

 A convicted murderer who fought the London Bridge attacker is set for early release after being granted a Queen’s pardon.

Steven Gallant — jailed for murder in 2005 — has had his sentence reduced by a Royal Prerogative of Mercy, known as a royal pardon, cutting 10 months off his 17-year sentence.

EX DEFENSE MINISTER CHARGED IN DRUG WARS

 MEXICO CITY, Oct 16 (Reuters) — Mexico’s former defence minister Salvador Cienfuegos used his power in office to protect the Beltran-Leyva cartel, directing military operations against rival gangs and even finding maritime transport to ship drugs, U.S. prosecutors said.

Cienfuegos, arrested at Los Angeles airport on Thursday, took bribes in return for protection that included warning cartel members about U.S. investigations, according to prosecutors in New York who have charged him with five counts of drug trafficking and money laundering.

WHINES FROM CHINA

BEIJING -- China said Monday that it has complained to Canada for allegedly condoning anti-China comments that appeared in Canadian media following controversial remarks made by the Chinese ambassador.

Ties between the countries are at their lowest point in years amid China's outrage over Canada's detention of a top executive of Chinese telecoms giant Huawei. Last week, China's ambassador to Canada, Cong Peiwu, branded pro-democracy protesters in Hong Kong as violent criminals and said if Canada grants them asylum it would amount to interference in China's internal affairs.

THE GREAT MUNICIPAL RECYCLING SCAM

 The big problem with household recycling programs is that most of our waste has little to no value. And while it might seem self-evident that the things we throw in the trash are usually worthless, this fact has somehow managed to escape the greenies who constantly perpetuate the false notion that more recycling equals a better environment.

Materials, such as metals, that do retain their value are often recycled by private companies that make money off them. Other products may one day become valuable as the resources used to make them become scarce. But at the moment, most household waste costs more money to recycle than it is actually worth. That often means that it takes more resources to recycle something than to use fresh inputs. This puts a huge burden on taxpayers who are forced to subsidize municipal recycling systems.

GIULIANI: BIDENS ARE A CRIME FAMILY

 Rudy Giuliani is all over the news these days, detailing the emails and documents on that MacBook Pro laptop purported to have belonged to Hunter Biden. According to Giuliani, only about 5% of the hard drive’s relevant content has been published. That 5% already paints Joe Biden as either the figurehead or director of a conspiracy to use his political positions to generate millions of dollars from dubious and even hostile foreign sources, with son Hunter as the prime conduit. The money goes to the Biden family.

POLICING IN THE AGE OF BLM/ANTIFA

 Who gives a f— if some honest hard-working cop had his or her life ruined and is in financial shambles because they got a no-win call dropped in their lap, right? All cops are bastards, anyway. Black Lives only seem to matter when cops are involved in the death, justified or not, of a black person.

Every single week, in many major cities all across this country, murders within the black community occur — oftentimes with stolen firearms. I’ve lost count of the bodies (mostly black, never in my case shot by police) I’ve stood over. Sometimes at night when I’m trying to fall asleep I hear the blood-curdling screams of family members (mostly mothers) who rush to the scene and are held back at the police tape.

So, in a knee- jerk reaction to a high-profile incident, in an effort to placate a mob, there is talk of not only defunding the police but abolishing them. Do you know what that leads to nationwide? Cops like me are not being proactive. At all. Because the juice isn’t worth the squeeze.

Every week men and women are leaving departments. Retirements, medical disability pensions, officers killed in the line of duty. But now people are also taking early retirements, leaving before they become vested in a pension system and going into another career field. Those who are vested in the pension system? Most are hanging on and counting down the days, weeks, months, and years. I’ve talked to many and they don’t blame anyone for getting out. Part 2

MINDLESS PIFFLING BUREAUCRATS IN CHARGE

Mark Steyn:  Defending democracy in covid times.  

LIBERAL SECRETS ABOUT COVID CONTRACTS

   The federal government cited a national security exemption (NSE) to withhold details of a “vast majority” of its COVID-19 related contracts struck at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
    The exemption expedited the weeks-long procurement process — and keeps details of domestic and international contracts, including costs and supplier information, secret.
   A memo approved in late May, obtained by HuffPost Canada through an access to information request, recommended the deputy minister of Public Services and Procurement Canada authorize “the 2019-2020 Q4 proactive disclosure of contracts not include those that are COVID-related.” 

   

ESCALATING TENSION IN NOVA SCOTIA

On Tuesday night, two facilities storing lobster caught by Mi'kmaw fishermen were raided and vandalized by a mob of hundreds of non-Indigenous commercial fishermen. The raids in the fishing communities of New Edinburgh and Middle West Pubnico are part of a series of incidents connected to the fight over a "moderate livelihood" lobster fishery that was launched by the Sipekne'katik First Nation in September.

Commercial fishermen are angry the fishery is operating outside the federally mandated commercial season, while the Mi'kmaq say they're simply exercising their treaty rights and that their small-scale fishery would not have a negative effect on lobster stocks.

A fire that police are calling suspicious destroyed a lobster pound in Middle West Pubnico, N.S., early Saturday.

THAT SWEET TALKING AMBASSADOR FROM CHINA

Canada’s Global Affairs officials summoned China’s top diplomat in Canada for a private dressing down Thursday after remarks he made warning Canada against offering political asylum to Hong Kong democracy activists.

But Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole says if Ambassador Cong Peiwu does not publicly apologize for his “belligerent” comments, which O’Toole called a threat to Canadians, Ottawa should kick him out.

Cong warned Canada against emboldening Hong Kong “criminals” and against interfering in China’s internal affairs.

“The Chinese ambassador has decided to engage in belligerent rhetoric unbecoming of his office,” said O’Toole. “To be clear, this was a threat to the 300,000 Canadians in Hong Kong. And a barely veiled one at that.”

TRACKING CHINA'S INFLUENCE IN BC ELECTION

 China has become part of the B.C. provincial election. With voting day a little more than a week away,  a group of activists is tracking and labelling provincial politicians based on their sympathies towards Beijing.

The campaign, calling itself “No BC for Xi” lists candidates in the election — from all parties — on an online website, and labels them as to whether or not they are “CCP leaning” or “against CCP interference.” CCP refers to the Chinese Communist Party.

Lee Haber, one of the volunteers with No BC for Xi, and a volunteer with Alliance Canada Hong Kong, said the campaign is meant to give information to voters and raise awareness of China’s activities abroad.

“The Chinese Communist Party is not just a threat to people within China,” he said. “The Chinese government looks at municipal and provincial governments as a way of spreading its influence.”

SLICK PHRASES DON'T NEGATE CHINA'S THUGGERY

 The stale jargon of Chinese diplomacy is designed to make threats and bullying sound respectable.

In the conference call with reporters, China's ambassador to Canada was obliged to resort to all manner of calculated phraseology to justify his country’s behaviour.

He said Canada had acted as “an accomplice” to the U.S. when it detained Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou. The Americans are engaging in “power politics and unilateralism” to bring down Huawei, while China is a “builder of world peace” and “upholder of the international order.”

UNWILLING TO SHOULDER THE BLAME

 Justin Trudeau attacking Canada’s opposition parties for reviving official inquiries into his WE Charity controversy that he shut down when he prorogued Parliament in August is absurd and politically dishonest.

It’s yet another example of the prime minister refusing to take responsibly for his own actions.

It’s the same thing he did during his Aga Khan and SNC-Lavalin conflict-of-interest scandals.

It’s also a consistent pattern he exhibits whenever confronted by controversy.

With Trudeau, it’s always somebody else’s fault.

BUSINESS AS USUAL: LIBERALS' CYA FILIBUSTERING

 Opposition MPs are bracing for another marathon meeting of the House of Commons ethics committee today as they ramp up efforts to revive their investigation into the WE Charity affair.

Indeed, Conservative MP Michael Barrett says he and his colleagues are prepared for the meeting to drag on for days, if that's what it takes to finally force an end to a filibuster by Liberal committee members who've been blocking opposition demands for more documents.

Last Friday, Liberal committee members launched a four-hour filibuster to prevent a vote on Barrett's motion; it ended only when a Bloc Québécois MP got fed up and joined the Liberals in voting to adjourn the meeting.

LIBERALS PAY LIP SERVICE TO FIGHTING FOREIGN BRIBERY

 The study, which covers 2016 to 2019, concludes that only four countries actively enforce against foreign bribery: the U.S., the U.K., Switzerland and Israel.

Canada, on the other hand, ranks well lower and is considered to be a country with “limited” enforcement since 2016. That puts us on par with Denmark, Costa Rica, Argentina, Columbia, and well below other major allies such as Germany, France and Australia.

Over the past three years, Canada has only “opened two new investigations, commenced one new case and concluded four cases with sanctions. This is based on the limited information available, as there are no official publicly available statistics on the number of investigations commenced,” the report details.

COMPENSATION TO SENATE EMPLOYEES

 The Senate of Canada will pay nearly half a million dollars in compensation to nine employees of disgraced former senator Don Meredith who say they suffered abuse, including sexual harassment, on the job.

The decision revealed Wednesday to award $498,000 in compensation — plus $30,000 in legal fees — comes more than a year after a four-year Senate investigation concluded there was a pattern of inappropriate behaviour by Meredith while he was a senator. 

 The Senate's slowness in dealing with the complaints is an aggravating factor in determining what the victims should be paid, the report says

Mitchell had previously complained about the compensation process on his clients' behalf — among other things, they weren't initially permitted to have lawyers assist them in dealing with the Senate.

FINANCING TRUDEAU'S SPENDING

   Canada’s main opposition party is cautioning the central bank against financing Justin Trudeau’s spending plans beyond immediate pandemic emergency measures, thrusting the Bank of Canada into a political firestorm.
   Lawmaker Pierre Poilievre, chief Conservative spokesman on finance issues, said the bank “should not be an ATM for Trudeau’s insatiable spending appetites.” He raised concerns about the long-term impacts of monetary expansion and urged Governor Tiff Macklem to steer clear of “ideological” debates.
   Poilievre’s comments highlight the political minefield Macklem is navigating as his central bank becomes primary financier of Trudeau’s massive budget deficits. The longer the Bank of Canada buys up the debt, or advocates for continued spending as it has done, the deeper it will be dragged into debates about government priorities.

MPP HILLIER TAKES ON MEDIA DISHONESTY

    Another example of dishonesty in our media, refusing to accept or consider dissenting facts or perspectives. I was invited to discuss on CFRA Ottawa, a letter from an Ottawa Police officer expressing his disappointment and concerns over our overreaching COVID policies. It is clear Leslie Roberts had no intention of discussing this powerful letter but instead attacked my character and refused to even consider the information I provided. One of their reporters even followed up with a dishonest attack on Twitter claiming I refused to answer questions. In fact, I did, they just found my answers disagreeable.

    Have a listen and let me know your thoughts, share this video and subscribe. And if you do have the time, be sure to contact CFRA Ottawa and Leslie Roberts, let them know what you think about their dishonesty.

PELOSI MELTDOWN ON CNN

 Tuesday on CNN’s “The Situation Room,” at the tail-end of a lengthy dispute with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer over House Democrats’ refusal to take a deal from the Trump White House for coronavirus relief, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) insisted she and her caucus knew what was best for constituents and the country despite Blitzer’s pleading.

MOCKING THE WOKE IN PORTLAND

    Last Sunday’s “Day of Rage” in Portland, Ore. – in which rioters toppled statues of Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt – drew mockery on Twitter from Lennon, the 45-year-old son of the late rocker John Lennon and artist Yoko Ono.

    “Can someone explain why it appears a Lincoln statue was toppled in Portland,” Lennon wrote Monday. “Asking for a friend.”
   Lennon, a musician, songwriter and producer who has played in several bands over the years, then sarcastically suggested that rioters might not have gone far enough in trying to right humanity’s past wrongs.

CUTTING THROUGH COVID ALARMISM

 Candice Malcolm:  We need a reality check when it comes to the so-called “second wave” of COVID-19.

Our public health experts are giving confusing, constantly changing and often contradictory advice, whether it’s about the effectiveness of masks, the risks of travel, or, more recently, on airborne transmission and the usefulness of rapid testing.

The media blare out the fact that new cases are up 25% from the height of the pandemic, but ignore the fact that testing is up 800%. This is a lie by omission. It’s alarmism. And it should be ignored.