DISGRACEFUL RUNAROUND FROM TELEHEALTH ONTARIO

A Toronto woman, Jaime Nguyen, says her family was forced to pay a private company to bring her uncle's body home after he was transferred to a hospital in Ottawa and later died there of COVID-19.

"When he passed away, my cousin -- his son, was trying to get into communication with the powers that be, so Health Canada, TeleHealth Ontario, whoever else would listen, just to figure out how to get his body back," Nguyen said.

She says the family was given the runaround by everyone they talked to.

In the end, the family had to pay $1,062 out of pocket for private transportation to get his body back to Toronto for a funeral.

AG REPORT AIMED AT ONTARIO LTC HOMES

  Ontario's nursing homes were woefully unprepared for the onslaught of COVID-19 — the culmination of years of neglect and failure to address known problems, the province's auditor general said on Wednesday.

In a special report, Bonnie Lysyk took aim at overcrowding, poor ministry oversight, and a severe staffing shortage that existed before the pandemic struck.

Both the provincial government and nursing-home sector had failed to heed lessons learned from the SARS epidemic, while concerns raised repeatedly for years went unaddressed, her report said.

CHARGING CHURCH GOERS

 Two politicians are among several people charged for attending a large service in Aylmer, Ont., at the Church of God Restoration in defiance of COVID-19 lockdown restrictions. 

MP Derek Sloan and MPP Randy Hillier, who both represent Kingston-area ridings as Independents, are scheduled to appear in Elgin County provincial offences court in June, CBC News has learned. 

The two, who have been vocal about their opposition to COVID-19 public health measures, attended the large Sunday service in the southwestern Ontario town. Both told CBC they'll fight the charges.

LIBERALS MINIMIZING BORDER PROBLEMS

An employee at the facility contracted the U.K. variant from a returning traveller who was quarantining in the same household. It quickly spread through the residence, infecting 220 people and killing 70 residents and one caregiver.

 When the cases were classified by the local health unit, few, if any, were designated as being travel-related (Simcoe Muskoka District Health Unit noted 3,430 COVID cases between Dec. 20, 2020, and Feb. 28, only 48 of which were travel-related. Of the 48, only eight were from the 50-plus age group).

This makes a nonsense of the idea that Canada has reliable information on which to base border policy decisions. The Public Health Agency admits that not all jurisdictions report exposure history — hence its concession that cases attributable to travel are under-counted.

This is not a semantic point but one over which the government remains in denial.

LIBERAL GOV'T STILL DOING BUSINESS WITH CHINA

 In the nearly two-and-a-half years since the two Michaels were jailed in China, the Liberal government has dished out nearly $6 million worth of business contracts to Chinese companies.

“The Liberal government’s business-as-usual approach to the People’s Republic of China should come to an end, particularly with Canadians held hostage,” said John Williamson, a New Brunswick Conservative MP who sought the information.

There are, additionally, more than 100 Canadian citizens in Chinese jails, four of them on death row.

“Public attitudes toward Communist China are certainly hardening,” Williamson said. “Canadians understand Beijing views other nations as vassal states. The Canadian public has figured this out while our federal leadership, both political and bureaucratic, continues to ignore the problem or is convinced it didn’t matter.”

581 REPORTS OF SEXUAL ASSAULT IN MILITARY

 In what might turn out to be Operation Honour's epitaph, the Department of National Defence (DND) has tabled new figures in Parliament that show there were 581 reports of sexual assault in the Canadian military over the past five years.

Another 221 incidents of sexual harassment were logged over the same period by the tracking and analysis system set up as part of the military's effort to stamp out inappropriate behaviour in the ranks.

Operation Honour — which has been running for five years and was intended to address sexual misconduct in the military — is in the midst of being dismantled after recent allegations of misconduct against senior leaders left the effort discredited and in disarray.

TURNING A BLIND EYE IN CANADA'S MILITARY

 A retired former major with Canada's special forces says he felt betrayed after senior military leaders gave positive character references to a soldier found guilty of sexually assaulting his wife — while offering no support to his family.

Kevin Schamuhn's regiment and a deputy commander in his chain of command, Maj.-Gen. Peter Dawe, submitted letters to a judge in 2017 prior to a sentencing hearing for Maj. Jonathan Hamilton.

On May 2, 2017, a judge found Hamilton guilty on six criminal counts, including unlawfully entering the Schamuhns' home and sexually assaulting Schamuhn's wife Annalise, a retired logistics officer, on two separate occasions. Hamilton was also found guilty of physically assaulting Schamuhn twice.

Schamuhn said that when he confronted Dawe about it, he acknowledged he wanted to influence sentencing and felt Hamilton was a "good guy" who deserved a break.

MEASURING ONTARIO's REGIONAL PROSPERITY GAP

 From the Fraser Institute:

• By global standards, Ontario is a prosperous place. Ontarians enjoy living standards and access to opportunities that are the envy of much of the world.
• However, within its own economic region, Ontario is an economic laggard.
• This bulletin compares overall prosperity in Ontario (measured as Gross Domestic Product per person) to that of the eight American states in the Great Lakes region and its neighbouring province, Quebec. It also compares the economic growth rates of jurisdictions in the region in recent years.
• The study shows that Ontario has the second lowest GDP per person in the region, ahead only of Quebec. The region’s GDP per capita taken as a whole is 27.1 percent higher than Ontario’s.

COURT GIVES NOD TO AB TURN-OFF-THE-TAP LEGISLATION

The Federal Court of Appeal has ruled that Alberta has the right to control the amount and destination of oil and other fuels flowing through its pipelines.

The decision, released Tuesday, is a victory for the province in its battle with British Columbia over so-called turn-off-the-taps legislation enacted by Alberta in 2018, at the height of a dispute between the two provinces over construction of the Trans Mountain pipeline.

 “We are pleased with yesterday’s decision by the Federal Court of Appeal. We remain committed to standing up for Alberta, including protecting the value of our natural resources,” Alberta Energy Minister Sonya Savage said in a statement.

YEARS OF DELAYS TO PULL DOCTOR'S LICENSE

 After years of delays and countless lawyers, Gill has had his license yanked by the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario for professional misconduct that put his patients at serious risk of harm “from his failure to recognize significant health conditions, his neglect or inadequate or inappropriate management and from complicating the work of consultants and others sharing in his patients’ care.”

According to the scathing decision, the Mississauga doctor’s delivery of poor medical care was “profound, pervasive and ongoing” and found in every patient chart examined.

“Further, through his dishonest actions, Dr. Gill abused the trust that the public placed in him and the profession to be honest and careful in dealings with the taxpayer-funded system that pays for essential health services in Ontario.

WEASEL WORDS AND LIES

 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau vigorously defended his top aide on Tuesday, saying that while his office knew there was a complaint against then-defense chief general Jonathan Vance three years ago, no one knew it was about sexual misconduct.

The comments came in response to fresh questions about what the prime minister and his chief of staff, Katie Telford, knew about the allegation against Vance in March 2018 following testimony last week from one of Trudeau’s former advisers.

“He just told the House that his office was not aware that they were of a ‘Me Too’ nature,” O’Toole said as he held a piece of paper in the House of Commons. “The only trouble is his team used the term sexual harassment in their emails about this incident in March 2018.

PM & FORD FINGER POINTING WITH WORKER SICK LEAVE

  Lilley:  In response to a request from the Ford government to alter the Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Ontario needs its own program and employers should pay.

“The best paid sick leave is that that goes through employers,” Trudeau said, adding that Ontario should do just that.

 Changing the channel from the bad news stories plaguing his government is what he’s worried about and if that means small businesses need to pay a bill they can’t afford for years to come, that’s just fine with him.

Mind you, it's Premier Ford's covid restrictions that have shut down the businesses.

CANADIAN COs BIDDING FOR RCAF DRONE PROJECT

 Three Calgary-based companies are part of a larger team that has been selected as one of two qualified bidders for a Canadian aerospace military contract worth more than $1 billion.

Canadian UAVs — a Calgary-based unmanned aerial vehicle service company — has been selected along with ATCO and Lockheed Martin CDL Systems to be part of Team Artemis, a Canadian group bidding for the Royal Canadian Air Force’s Remotely Piloted Aircraft System project. The project is meant to supply the Canadian military with unmanned aerial vehicles (commonly called drones) for both domestic surveillance purposes as well as deployed missions.

Though the request for proposals is not expected to be released until later this year, the value of the contract is expected to be massive, with an estimated program price tag of between $1 billion and $5 billion over 25 years. Team Artemis — which is being led by Ontario-based defence and security company L3Harris Technologies — is one of only two groups to be selected as a qualified bidder, with the other being a group headed by U.S.-based military provider General Atomics Aeronautical Systems.

GLOBAL EMISSIONS TO SKYROCKET THIS YEAR

 First, the only things that have ever dramatically and quickly reduced global emissions are global recessions.

The last one before the COVID-19 pandemic occurred in 2008-09 because of the global financial collapse that started with massive fraud in the U.S. subprime mortgage derivatives market.

Second, as countries recover from global recessions, their emissions inevitably rise because of increased economic activity.

Third, Trudeau’s latest pledge to cut Canada’s emissions by up to 45% below 2005 levels by 2030 — having already failed to meet his 2020 target of 17% below 2005 levels — is absurd.

LIBERALS UNDER-COUNT COVID NO's FROM TRAVELERS

 Who says cases attributable to travel have been under-counted? The Public Health Agency of Canada, that’s who. A footnote on the government’s own international travel cases says: “This is an underestimate of the total number of cases concerning returning travelers, as exposure history is not available for all cases.”

Kelley Lee, professor of global health policy at Simon Fraser University, and Anne Marie Nicol, an associate professor of health sciences at the same institution, recently noted that the argument against stronger travel-related measures relies on PHAC’s data, which suggest the low risk from travel. Yet the numbers Blair quotes only count those direct cases involving air passengers. Any subsequent community transmission by travelers is not officially counted. Cases involving land or sea travelers are not included. No data is collected on inter-provincial travel, beyond detected exposures on domestic flights.

In its rosy view of border control, the government assumes that all international arrivals adhere to its mandatory 14-day quarantine. But given the limited enforcement, Lee and Nicol note that some arrivals may not quarantine properly, if at all.

FIRM INVOLVED IN MASSIVE INVESTOR FRAUD

 KPMG is disputing confidential emails from a leak of offshore financial data that show the Canadian accounting firm helped set up four shell companies in the Isle of Man that experts believe were later involved with a massive investor fraud that ran for years out of Montreal

More than half a billion dollars disappeared offshore in the mid 2000s in what has been called one of the largest investor frauds in Canadian history. 

Three men were eventually convicted in 2016 for their roles in what is known as the Cinar/Norshield/Mount Real fraud, but most of the misappropriated money that went missing offshore has not been recovered.

SPEAKING WITH PERMISSION OF THE CRTC

 The Liberal-dominated House of Commons Heritage committee has cleared the way for the federal government to regulate video content on internet social media, such as YouTube, the same way it regulates national broadcasting, under a new amendment made to a bill updating the Broadcasting Act.

Critics denounced the move to give the country’s broadcast regulator the ability to oversee user-generated content, and said it amounted to an attack on the free expression of Canadians, particularly in light of Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault’s recent plans to give Ottawa power to order take-downs of online content it deems objectionable.

TRADE MINISTER DUCKS QUESTIONS RE CHINA IMPORTS

  Canada’s international trade minister on Monday would not provide details about whether the federal government has barred the flow of imported goods from China suspected of using forced labour, months after Ottawa introduced measures purportedly to stop the practice.

In a committee testimony, Minister Mary Ng declined to answer questions from a Conservative MP about how much, if any, imports from the Chinese region of Xinjiang Canadian authorities have intercepted since the Liberal government said it would be cracking down on the issue in January.

ONTARIANS SICK & TIRED OF LOCKDOWNS

Independent MPP Randy Hillier's speech at Peterborough protest interrupted when police ticket Maxime Bernier.

THE USELESS UN

 The United Nations is facing growing scrutiny in the wake of Iran’s election to a top committee on women’s rights within the organization.

“We consider the election of the extremely misogynistic regime of Iran as an insult to all Iranian women, the main victims of this regime during the last four decades,” the Association of Iranian Women in France said in a statement released with their counterparts in Italy and Sweden.

“We call on governments, institutions and associations to condemn this decision,” the statement continued.

US SCIENTISTS FEARED COMPROMISED BY CHINA

More than 500 federally funded scientists are under investigation for being compromised by China and other foreign powers, the National Institutes of Health revealed Thursday.

The federal health officials told a Senate committee that they are fighting to keep up with large-scale Chinese efforts to corrupt American researchers and steal intellectual property that scientists hope will lead to biomedical advances.

NIH has contacted more than 90 institutions about more than 200 scientists they’re concerned about, said Dr. Michael S. Lauer, NIH deputy director for extramural research. But the investigations’ workload is weighing down the nation’s top medical research agency, and new cases are turning up constantly across the government.

TORIES WANT MORE HEARINGS RE VANCE

  — The federal Conservatives are demanding more hearings after a parliamentary committee heard testimony last week suggesting Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s chief of staff knew about a misconduct allegation against general Jonathan Vance.

Members of the House of Commons defence committee are scheduled this week to finish a report on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Canadian Armed Forces.

But Conservative committee members wrote to the committee clerk today asking for further hearings into the Liberals’ handling of the allegation against Vance following Friday testimony from former Trudeau adviser Elder Marques.

I WAS TOLD TO SHUT UP; I REFUSE TO

 Dr. Charles Hoffe of Lytton, British Columbia speaks out about the side effects of the Moderna   vaccine   gene therapy.

SCHOOLING THE LOCAL ONTARIO CONSERVATIVE MPP

“We (rural Ontario)  are being penalized because we’re being put in the same category as bigger areas within the province,” said Prevost. “You’re saying we’re not a hotspot area, so why are we being penalized like we are one then?

 “We aren’t here to get a lesson on COVID-19,” he said. “We all are living through it. We represent 70 per cent of your electorate and we are telling you that we need to get this addressed (small business restrictions). If we lose even five or six hairdressers, it seems like nothing to the people of Peel — who, perhaps you’re representing — but it means a lot to us. Our local economy is a very tenuous economic situation. We don’t have 50 people lined up like they have in the GTA.”

“We know about it,” said McDonell.

“Well, you’re not doing anything about it,” Armstrong replied.

THE ABSURDITY OF TRUDEAU'S CLAIMS

 First, the only things that have ever dramatically and quickly reduced global emissions are global recessions.

The last one before the COVID-19 pandemic occurred in 2008-09 because of the global financial collapse that started with massive fraud in the U.S. subprime mortgage derivatives market.

Second, as countries recover from global recessions, their emissions inevitably rise because of increased economic activity.

Third, Trudeau’s latest pledge to cut Canada’s emissions by up to 45% below 2005 levels by 2030 — having already failed to meet his 2020 target of 17% below 2005 levels — is absurd.

CLIMATE CHANGE CAUSED BY RACIAL INJUSTICE

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been mocked for claiming that climate change is a product of racial injustice, as she relaunched her controversial Green New Deal...

Steyn said that although his reaction to those words "is to roll my eyes ... nobody who matters rolls their eyes at AOC. They all take her seriously," adding that even Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer is afraid to contradict the congresswoman...

On the other hand, they're laughing in Beijing:

"You know the people who really laugh at this? Chairman Xi [Jinping] and the Chinese politburo. Because they don't have to bother thinking about all of this and it frees up all of their time to talk about something important and something true."

TOW TRUCK TURF WARS & INSURANCE FRAUD

An Ontario judge has sounded a warning over the wild west of tow truck wars in one of the first court cases stemming from last year’s police crackdown.

And Justice David Rose has called for the government to step in.

 “The fake car accident industry is now sufficiently lucrative that competition among corrupt car towing organizations has led to internecine violence,” Rose wrote in his ruling this week. “Tow trucks are set fire to. Shots are fired. The highways in the GTA are dangerous enough without having this added element.”

EXPOSING MORE LIBERAL DENIERS

    A former senior adviser to the prime minister gave testimony before a parliamentary committee Friday suggesting Justin Trudeau’s chief of staff Katie Telford knew about a misconduct allegation against Canada’s then-top military commander three years ago.
    Elder Marques, who worked in the Prime Minister’s Office, said Telford or her assistant contacted him on March 1 or March 2, 2018, to ask him to speak with the defence minister’s top staffer “on an issue related to the CDS,” referring to chief of defence staff Gen. Jonathan Vance.
    “I think very quickly everyone had the same information, which was very limited, and we quickly moved to asking the Privy Council to now take carriage of that matter and do what it could with that information to have an investigation ultimately take place,” Marques told a House of Commons defence committee hearing Friday.
   The testimony appears to contradict the sequence of events laid out by Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan earlier this month and raises new questions about what Trudeau knew about the allegations before a Global News report came out in February.

CLIMATE SUMMIT IS OFF THE RAILS

Chris Kenny video from Sky News in Australia:   "Last night we saw yet another climate summit. Another global gathering of world leaders parading their virtue, making grand promises, playing to the green left media zeitgeist, and never being accountable for any of their promises or actions," he said.

 "And yet while the weather bureau can't forecast 24 hours ahead, and bureaucrats can't run a Zoom chat, these world leaders and the climate activists they pander to, tell us they do know what will happen to the climate decades from now, and even better, they know how to control it. Even while they agree that the country that has by far the largest carbon footprint, China, can be allowed to continue to dramatically increase its emissions.

ST. MICHAEL'S COLLEGE SEXUAL ASSAULT TRIAL

 It was a stunning admission. And such a sad statement.

Speaking publicly for the first time, the only teen to stand trial for sexual assault in the St. Michael’s College scandal admitted he held down the arm of the victim as he was sodomized with a broom handle.

But the student, now 18, said he didn’t feel he had a choice.

“I felt like I had to hold him down. If I didn’t hold him down, they’re going to try to do the exact same thing to me,” he testified. “I just did what the mob of people told me to do.”

HOLDING SCHOOL BOARDS ACCOUNTABLE

 A former London, Ont., high school student has filed a $200,000 civil suit against her ex-teacher and the Thames Valley District School Board (TVDSB), alleging he caused her psychological and emotional harm after he secretly filmed her chest at school without her knowledge or consent. 

Madison Woodburn was one of 27 teenagers who were filmed by Ryan Jarvis while he taught English at H.B. Beal Secondary School between 2010 and 2011. She was 14 and in Grade 9 when he used a camera hidden inside a pen to film parts of her body. 

The civil suit is the latest chapter in a precedent-setting Canadian legal case that saw Jarvis, whose teaching certification was revoked, become the first person in Canada to serve jail time on a voyeurism conviction. He was sentenced in August 2019 to six months in jail.

QUESTIONING THE INDEPENDENCE OF THE OFFICE

   The Department of National Defense (DND) plans to create a new top level position — a chief of professional conduct and culture — to address sexual misconduct and racism in the ranks, CBC News has learned.
   Others — such as military law expert and retired colonel Michel Drapeau — are deeply skeptical.
   Drapeau argued DND would be reluctant to give up much authority over policing the conduct of military members and would be unhappy with the kind of deep, independent oversight an inspector general would bring.
   After reading a copy of the directive provided by CBC News, Drapeau said it troubles him that the new chief is expected to report through the military chain of command. He said it's not clear what kind of authority the office would have.
   "It is 180 degrees opposition to what an inspector general is supposed to be," he said. "It is opposite to independent, external oversight. There is no oversight here."

STIGMATIZING QUEBEC'S INDIAN COMMUNITY

Thursday's front page of the province's most popular daily newspaper was denounced by all parties in the National Assembly, who said it stigmatized Quebec's Indian community.

The premier also weighed in, though his comments were less forceful than those by opposition party members and one of his own ministers.

The Journal de Montréal featured a photo on its cover of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau from his 2018 trip to India. He is wearing a traditional Indian outfit and holding his hands together.

The headline reads, in French: "The Indian variant is here," with a line below that appears to question Trudeau's reluctance to stop incoming flights from India.

GEN. VANCE FATHERED 2 CHILDREN WITH HIS VICTIM

  Maj. Kellie Brennan says former chief of the defence staff Gen. Jonathan Vance told her he was “untouchable” and that he “owned” the military police. She also said “he fathered two children with me.”
   Global News reached out to Vance in February about the allegations. When asked if he was the father of one specific child by name, Vance said: “I am not.” When asked whether he was the father of another specific child by name, he said, “I don’t even know who these people are.”
   She also recounted comments she said took place when she asked military police investigating her allegations whether they had the authority to do so when the individual facing the allegations was the former chief of the defence staff — the “CDS,” as the role is colloquially known.
“I asked bluntly the [Canadian Forces National Investigation Service] if they had the mandate to investigate and did they have the powers to lay charges, and they would not answer me,” she said.
   “The answer was no because as the CDS told me, he was untouchable. He owned the CFNIS.”

THE REACTION TIME OF A SLOTH

The federal government is suspending incoming passenger flights from India and Pakistan for the next month as cases of COVID-19 surge in both countries.

Transport Minister Omar Alghabra says because there are so many people arriving in Canada from India and Pakistan with COVID-19, all commercial and private passenger flights from both countries will be prohibited as of midnight.

 Health Minister Patty Hajdu says half of the people who are testing positive for COVID-19 after arriving in Canada on an airplane came from India, even though Indian flights accounted for only one-fifth of air traffic.

She says passengers coming from Pakistan are also testing positive at higher rates than average.

GO P!SS UP A ROPE

My company provides services to insurance carriers. Recently, a large, nationally operational third-party administrator issued a directive, excerpts of which I have included.

Hello Team,

We wanted to send out a note regarding this, as the Carriers do not want to see the word "tranny" or "trans" manually entered when referring to a transmission or transmission fluid as it is a Political Correctness issue. We understand that it has been used for a while and is considered industry slang however, in today's society it can rub some the wrong way and create legal issues. Please be make sure going forward you are not using these slangs on your estimate.

LEFTISTS CALL KNIFINGS KID STUFF

 The far left has been mouthing so many phony, untrue things about crime and punishment in the U.S. that some of its unhinged denizens can no longer recognize reality.

That would likely explain why one Black Lives Matter activist, Bree Newsome, found herself the subject of ridicule on Twitter and beyond for jumping the shark on the subject of stabbings, which is the topic of the day regarding a police intervention in Columbus, Ohio, where an officer shot a 16 year-old in the act of stabbing another girl. Newsome's twisted herself into a pretzel over the incident to whip up the narrative that cops are evil and knife stabbings are everyday occurrences, effectively declaring the vicious near-disemboweling of a teenager in pink jammed up against the hood of a car at the hands of another teen, Ma'Khia Bryant, a sort of rite of passage for Black people. And after a torrent of ridicule, she won't stop digging.

SCANT ATTENTION TO AFFORDABILITY OR ECONOMIC GROWTH

   Joe Oliver:  Sadly, it was predictable. Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland tabled a profligate, something-for-everyone budget, with scant attention to affordability, economic growth or intergenerational fairness. As I forecast in a recent column that it would, it contains “extravagant spending in the guise of investment, undeserved self-congratulation, wokeness on steroids, empty promises of fiscal rectitude and soak-the-rich cash grabs.” Furthermore, nothing in its 724 pages justifies an unconscionable 25-month wait, which is an affront to parliamentary democracy.

Also predictable is that higher interest rates and credit downgrades could eventually compel the Liberal government, or its successor, to confront fiscal reality and make painful decisions to avoid a full-blown financial crisis.

BRITAIN SLASHES AID TO CHINA BY $95%

Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab revealed that the Chinese official development assistance fund to Beijing was being cut from £18 million a year to £900,000.

The move is set to further ramp up tensions between Britain and the one party communist state after they sanctioned five Tory MPs, Peers, lawyers and academics for highlighting China’s human rights abuses against the minority Muslim Uyghur community.

Meanwhile in Canada, home country of imprisoned Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig.....

FAILURE OF LEADERSHIP IN CANADIAN MILITARY

A House of Commons committee heard startling testimony about rape and retribution from different witnesses today as it continued its examination of sexual misconduct in the military.

Aviator Emily Tulloch, an air force technician, told MPs her military career has been one horrifying event after another.

"I am here today to tell you that I was raped only one month into my basic training at St. Jean (Que.). One month. I was also sexually assaulted during my training at Borden (Ont.). And I have been groped and kissed unwillingly at group parties and mess events. These degrading behaviours are more common than you think."

The status of women committee heard both from complainants and from former senior military officer Bernie Boland — who alleges he stood up against the harassment of a female colleague and faced a deliberate, Department of National Defense-backed smear campaign as a result.

In a formal complaint filed last January, Boland wrote to Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan and singled out the department's deputy minister for allowing the submission to go to the human rights commission.

He said his colleague's complaint was "summarily dismissed" by the department, despite Sajjan's public claim that all allegations will be thoroughly investigated, no matter the rank or position of the individuals involved.

TRUDEAU ADVISOR TO TESTIFY

 OTTAWA — The chairwoman of a parliamentary committee examining allegations of sexual misconduct involving former defence chief Gen. Jonathan Vance says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's former adviser has agreed to appear before the panel.

Liberal MP Karen McCrimmon, who chairs the House of Commons defence committee, confirmed that members have been told Elder Marques is prepared to testify this coming Friday.

The revelation represents a major turn of events as the Liberal government had recently prevented other senior ministerial aides from appearing before parliamentary committees.

LIBERAL GOV'T STILL DITHERING ON INDIA FLIGHTS

The federal government is looking into flights arriving from India due to a massive surge of COVID-19 cases ravaging that country, Canada's top public health doctor said Wednesday as at least one province urged Ottawa to tighten the border.

According to the Canadian government, there have been 35 flights from India with at least one case of COVID-19 that have arrived in Canada in the last two weeks.

Ontario's government, for one, is "pleading" with Ottawa to ban travel from India.

The provincial government says cases of COVID-19 are pouring in through international borders. 

According to latest data from the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, 10 flights arrived in Vancouver from Delhi between April 6 and April 16 with infected people on board — and in some cases with several infected people on board.

THE PONTIFICATING XI CALLS FOR NEW WORLD ORDER

 BEIJING — Xi Jinping has called for a new world order, using a speech at China’s flagship business event to launch a veiled attack against U.S. global leadership and to warn against economic decoupling.

“International affairs should be handled by everyone,” the Chinese president told the Boao Forum for Asia, an event billed as the country’s answer to the World Economic Forum in Davos. Last year’s summit was cancelled because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Xi did not name the U.S. in his 18-minute speech but he took aim at Washington’s efforts to decouple supply chains and bar the sale of critical American semiconductors and other high-tech goods to Chinese companies such as Huawei.

CHAUVIN FOUND GUILTY

Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis police officer, has been found guilty of second-degree murder, third-degree murder and manslaughter in the death of George Floyd, a Black man who died after Chauvin knelt on his neck for more than nine minutes during an arrest on May 25, 2020.

TIME FOR ADULT SUPERVISION IN ONTARIO

Whenever Doug Ford puts on that feel-your-pain “folks, I’m being honest with you” face, his pandemic-fighting plan from yesterday is about to be slammed into reverse - and replaced by something even worse.

I’ve been watching politicians since covering Calgary city council alongside a television reporter and future premier named Ralph Klein - yes, I’m that old - and I’ve never seen such raging ineptitude as Ford is now showing as Ontario premier.

The only consistency shown by Doug Ford in recent months has been boneheaded inconsistency, a pattern which peaked late last week when Ford ignored his own expert advisory group to issue a series of COVID-19 edicts largely divorced from any connection to the risk of transmission.

His guiding principle seems to be to lock down where he doesn't need to and leave open areas he should’ve closed.

CANADA, WHO'S YOUR DADDY?

 Quebec expects to unconditionally receive transfers from Ottawa of $6 billion over the next five years as compensation for the daycare plan announced Monday in the federal budget, provincial Finance Minister Eric Girard says.

“It’s certain that there will be no conditions,” Girard told reporters on Tuesday, referring to the decision by Ottawa to establish a national funding program for affordable child care based on Quebec’s model.

QUEBEC's ENGLISH SCHOOLS PROTECTED FROM BILL 21

 The English Montreal School Board says it is “elated” by a Quebec Superior Court judge’s decision to strike down certain sections of Bill 21 that applied to English schools.

Bill 21 forbids the wearing of religious symbols such as turbans, kippas and hijabs for employees of the state deemed to be in positions of authority, including police officers and teachers.

In his decision, Judge Marc-André Blanchard upheld most of the law but ruled it can’t be applied to English schools since it violates minority language rights protected under section 23 of the Charter.

EXPECTING PAGE WIRE TO STOP MOSQUITOES

 Many countries across the globe utilized medical and non-medical facemasks as non-pharmaceutical intervention for reducing the transmission and infectivity of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19). Although, scientific evidence supporting facemasks’ efficacy is lacking, adverse physiological, psychological and health effects are established. Is has been hypothesized that facemasks have compromised safety and efficacy profile and should be avoided from use. The current article comprehensively summarizes scientific evidences with respect to wearing facemasks in the COVID-19 era, providing proper information for public health and decisions making.  

The case fatality rate of Covid-19:

“Given the fact that asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times higher than the number of reported cases, the case fatality rate is considerably less than 1% [5]. This was confirmed by the head of National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases from US stating, “the overall clinical consequences of COVID-19 are similar to those of severe seasonal influenza” [5], having a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1% [5], [6], [7], [8]. In addition, data from hospitalized patients with COVID-19 and general public indicate that the majority of deaths were among older and chronically ill individuals…”

LIBERALS' ABOUT-FACE ON FIGHTER JET PURCHASE

   "In December 2017, the government announced that the evaluation of bids for the competition to replace Canada's fighter aircraft would include an assessment of bidders' impact on Canada's economic interests, and that any bidder that had harmed Canada's economic interests would be disadvantaged," said the budget.
   "Budget 2021 confirms the government will apply this policy to major military and Coast Guard procurements going forward."
   Defense procurement expert Elinor Sloan, a political science professor at Carleton University, was just as surprised to see the statement in the budget. She wonders whether the Liberal government is softening the political ground for its impending contract award.
   There is a lot of political baggage associated with the fighter jet purchase. During the 2015 federal election, the governing Liberals promised to ditch a Conservative-era plan to buy Lockheed Martin built F-35 stealth fighters and purchase something cheaper, such as the Boeing Super Hornet, and plow the savings back into a revitalized navy.
    "My guess is they are having to walk back that clear policy statement," said Sloan, who was also searching for more clarity from the government. "I can only read into this that [F-35 Joint Strike Fighter] will be chosen. They need to find a way, a political way, to justify this about-face."

KEEPING TRACK OF ADVERSE REACTIONS TO COVID VACCINES

Data released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on the number of injuries and deaths reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERS) following COVID vaccines revealed reports of blood clots and other related blood disorders associated with all three vaccines approved for Emergency Use Authorization in the U.S. — Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson (J&J). So far, only the J&J vaccine has been paused because of blood clot concerns.

CATCHING MEDIA IN THEIR LIES

It was crucial for liberal sectors of the media to invent and disseminate a harrowing lie about how Officer Brian Sicknick died. That is because he is the only one they could claim was killed by pro-Trump protesters at the January 6 riot at the Capitol.

So The New York Times on January 8 published an emotionally gut-wrenching but complete fiction that never had any evidence — that Officer Sicknick's skull was savagely bashed in with a fire extinguisher by a pro-Trump mob until he died — and, just like the now-discredited Russian bounty story also unveiled by that same paper, cable outlets and other media platforms repeated this lie over and over in the most emotionally manipulative way possible.

As I detailed over and over when examining this story, there were so many reasons to doubt this storyline from the start. Nobody on the record claimed it happened. The autopsy found no blunt trauma to the head. Sicknick's own family kept urging the press to stop spreading this story because he called them the night of January 6 and told them he was fine — obviously inconsistent with the media's claim that he died by having his skull bashed in — and his own mother kept saying that she believed he died of a stroke.

TRUDEAU'S $100BILLION ELECTION BRIBE

 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is out to bribe voters with $100 billion of our own money in the next election by throwing cash at every voting bloc the Liberals believe they will need to recapture a majority government.

On Monday, Canada’s first female finance minister in her first budget, simply filled in the names of who will be getting the cheques, including everyone from women, to subsidized childcare providers, green energy aficionados (can’t forget them!), Indigenous Canadians, visible minority groups, the unemployed, seniors, students, young families and big and small business.

Which would be great news if the government’s finances were in good shape, but they’re a train wreck.

AUSTRALIA'S HUAWEI BAN VINDICATED

London: Australian and British MPs who pressured Boris Johnson’s government to ban Huawei from the UK’s 5G network say they have been fully vindicated following reports the Chinese vendor was able to eavesdrop on conversations taking place on a Dutch telephone network.

Huawei staff were able to eavesdrop on all mobile numbers on the KPN network, according to a 2010 internal company record obtained by Dutch newspaper de Volkskrant, including then prime minister Jan Peter Balkenende and Chinese dissidents living in the Netherlands.

Australia’s governments have long banned Huawei from both the broadband and 5G networks over spying and security concerns.

But Prime Minister Boris Johnson resisted pressure from his own MPs and the Trump administration to block the company, causing tension amongst the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing club, comprising Australia, United States, Britain, New Zealand and Canada.

POLITICIANS' TURN IN BC MONEY LAUNDERING INVESTIGATION

After nearly two years of sometimes eye-glazing testimony, B.C.’s inquiry into money laundering will begin grilling politicians this week about dirty cash distorting the provincial economy.

Former Liberal Premier Christy Clark, her controversial minister Rich Coleman, and crusading NDP Attorney-General David Eby will be in the commission’s crosshairs.

The inquiry’s focus on the government’s response to the apparent money-laundering crisis starts today online with Sam MacLeod, the assistant deputy minister and general-manager of the regulatory Gaming Policy and Enforcement Branch.

The public, however, will probably want to connect Tuesday to hear from Clark, premier from 2011 to 2017, when the flood of suspicious cash swamped B.C. casinos.

LOCKDOWNS ARE ILLOGICAL, NOT SUSTAINABLE

 They’ve been called “witch doctors” and “snake oil salesmen” for daring to go against the prevailing “group think” about lockdowns and to challenge the “preening camera hungry” medical experts who don’t represent the experience of clinicians and nurses on the front lines of the COVID battle.

“This is all show, this is all theatre.”

Alexander, a PhD educated in epidemiology who recently worked for the Health and Human Services Department in Washington, D.C. as a senior advisor on COVID-19 pandemic policy, said they have a year’s worth of data showing there have been “crushing harms” from the “draconian” lockdowns.

“The present lockdown and school closures are not sustainable, illogical, and often driven by an ill-informed, sensationalized media,” he added.

TRUDEAU BUDGET WILL ADD TO RECORD DEBT

   Justin Trudeau is set to unveil a vision for Canada’s post-pandemic recovery on Monday that will double as an election platform, heavy on new spending and assurances the mounting debt is affordable.
   The budget, the prime minister’s first full fiscal plan since before Covid-19 hit, is an opportunity to lay out longer-term aspirations he’ll be able to campaign on in a national vote that could see him regain his parliamentary majority.
    Trudeau’s government has signaled as much as C$100 billion ($80 billion) in additional money over the next three years for initiatives from childcare to green energy. Expectations are being set so high that an even more ambitious plan can’t be ruled out. Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has described the budget as “among the most significant of our lifetime.”

POLICE CHECKPOINTS AT INTERPROVINCIAL BORDERS

 Ontario-bound motorists, cyclists and pedestrians will be greeted by police checkpoints at all interprovincial crossings into Ottawa starting today, as Ontario implements new restrictions to stop non-essential travel into the province during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Ottawa police say starting at 12:01 a.m. Monday, officers will be screening travellers at all Ottawa-area interprovincial border crossings from Gatineau.

The Ontario government announced the new travel restrictions into Ontario from the provinces of Manitoba and Quebec on Friday afternoon, as part of new restrictions aimed at reducing the spread of COVID-19.

A VIRTUAL SUMMIT OF GREEN BULLSH!TTERS

    The United States and China have agreed to cooperate and “curb climate change with urgency” in the lead-up to President Joe Biden hosting a virtual summit of world leaders to discuss the issue. The announcement of “strong pledges” by Washington and Beijing was made Sunday in a joint statement issued by the two countries.
The two countries “are committed to cooperating with each other and with other countries to tackle the climate crisis, which must be addressed with the seriousness and urgency that it demands,” the statement said.

NS SHOOTER INQUIRY IS A DISGRACE

 For Bagley, one of her many questions is why there is such inordinate secrecy surrounding the gunman, still, even though he was shot and killed by police. The government is fighting in court to prevent media from reading RCMP documents on the incident and about the killer, Gabriel Wortman, 51.

“There shouldn’t be this much secrecy for a dead man. He’s dead and they’re protecting him. Why?” she asked.  “What are they hiding and why?”

“The RCMP has been trying for a year to put this story to sleep. They’ve done everything they can to stymie any sort of inspection or investigation of what they did,” Palango said.

O'TOOLE'S SPECIAL KIND OF MADNESS

“I, Erin O’Toole, promise that, if elected Prime Minister of Canada, I will: Immediately repeal the Trudeau carbon tax; and, reject any future national carbon tax or cap-and-trade scheme.” — A Canadian Taxpayers Federation pledge signed by Erin O’Toole when soliciting support for his bid to lead the Conservative party.

Rex Murphy:  Last seen falling off his horse on the road to Green Damascus, Erin O’Toole is thought by many to be the leader of a party known as Conservative.

After being kindly helped back on the animal by Elizabeth May and Catherine McKenna, both of whom happened to be in the area, Mr. O’Toole declared he will put a levy on all Canadians purchasing such carbon-based fuels as gasoline or diesel.

Another bit of research might be useful, too. Has O’Toole made it clear where he stands on pipelines? It would be perfectly synchronous for a leader who favours a carbon tax for Canada, who’s fully signed on to the global warming industry, to oppose and suspend, for the same obsessional cause, the Trans Mountain pipeline extension. It would also hold that he would be resolutely determined there should never be a pipeline to the East, and indifferent to the oil and gas industry and the thousands who work in it. Finally, it suggests he is no friend to the province of Alberta, which gifted his party with 33 of his MPs. The voters of Saskatchewan are very likely shedding tears for their choices as well.

 

SUDDENLY, ONTARIO PCs ARE CAMERA-SHY

   The outrage came fast and fierce on Friday when Ontario Premier Doug Ford announced the latest round of restrictions that included closing playgrounds and recreational park space, banning people from socializing outdoors with non-family members, and giving the police the power to stop anyone to ask where they’re going.
   Criticism poured in from doctors, legal analysts, politicians and, of course, regular citizens. Dozens of police services from communities large and small stepped forward to say they wouldn’t be engaging in random stops.
    It was not a surprise then that the government walked back the more egregious aspects of the hastily considered rules. On Saturday, Ford posted to social media that they would ditch the random stop measures and the closure of playgrounds — although still keep the other unjustified restrictions on outdoor activities.
   What they should have also done was admit they were wrong and apologize to the people of Ontario.

CASTRO WALKS AWAY FROM HIS MESS

Raul Castro said Friday he is resigning as head of Cuba’s Communist Party, ending an era of formal leadership by he and his brother Fidel Castro that began with the 1959 revolution.

The 89-year-old Castro made the announcement Friday in a speech at the opening of the Eighth congress of the ruling party, the only one allowed on the island.

He said he was retiring with the sense of having “fulfilled his mission and confident in the future of the fatherland.”

Castro didn’t say who he would endorse as his successor as first secretary of the Communist Party. But he previously indicated that he favours yielding control to 60-year-old Miguel Diaz-Canel, who succeeded him as president in 2018 and is the standard bearer of a younger generation of loyalists who have been pushing an economic opening without touching Cuba’s one-party system.

ONTARIANS SLAP BACK AT GOV'T RESTRICTIONS

  Ontario reversed course on sweeping new police powers Saturday, just one day after Premier Doug Ford announced the measures that triggered a swift and furious backlash. 

Officers will no longer have the right to stop any pedestrian or driver to ask why they're out or request their home address, Solicitor General Sylvia Jones said in a written statement on Saturday evening. 

Instead, she said, police will only be able to stop people who they have reason to believe are participating in an "organized public event or social gathering."

POLICE FORCES REFUSING PREMIER FORD'S RANDOM STOP LAW

 Just because Ontario Premier Doug Ford has given police the power to stop and question why people are out of their homes does not mean every service will use it.

In fact, many police services and the associations who represent their officers have already said no to these new measures that feel more like police state rules than they do something introduced in a free country.

ONTARIO POLICE SERVICES REFUSING TO CONDUCT RANDOM STOPS

– Toronto, York, Peel, Durham, Halton, Hamilton, Waterloo, Guelph, Niagara, Stratford, London,

 St. Thomas, Peterborough, Kawartha Lakes, South Simcoe, Barrie, Ottawa, Cornwall, Gananoque, North Bay, Sault Ste. Marie

There are 50 municipal police services in Ontario, in addition to the OPP, for a total of 51. There are also nine self-administered First Nations police services in Ontario.

BC MAN ACCUSED OF CASH LAUNDERING FOR CARTELS

   A Surrey businessman, Bakshish Sidhu, who owns a money exchange is wanted in the U.S. for allegedly laundering money for international drug traffickers, including the notorious Sinaloa cartel.
   The 36-page indictment named 22 people allegedly involved in a “hawala” form of money laundering back in 2012. Several have been convicted in recent years, including the leader of the conspiracy, Gurkaran Singh Isshpunani, of Ontario. He was sentenced to 18 months.
   “Often, a given hawala network consists of many brokers operating in multiple countries around the world in which all brokers are in contact with each other and money movements can occur in a variety of directions from one country to another,” the indictment said. “Drug traffickers in Canada would generate drug proceeds from multi-kilogram and multi-pound sales and distributions of drugs provided by Mexican cartels, including the Sinaloa Cartel.”
   The Canadian traffickers coordinated money transfers to their counterparts in Mexico by instructing Isshpunani and other hawaladars in Canada to deliver specified amounts of money to couriers in the U.S. who were working on behalf of the cartels, the indictment said.

LIBERALS' LONG DANCE WITH CHINA

 While Canada's inhabitants are, by and large, polite, easy going, and apathetic in voter turnout, their Liberal governments have been playing House with the People’s Republic of China for a very long time.

For the last 70 of 100 years, Canada has been under the control of federal Liberal governments interrupted by Conservative Prime Minister Steven Harper’s 9-year tenure, and Conservative Brian Mulroney’s 9 years as PM.

But Canada’s unswerving allegiance to Red China didn’t come about overnight.

It was an allegiance incrementally put in place over time by late UN Poster Boy, Canadian Maurice Strong.

HOPING THE COPS TELL FORD TO STICK IT

TORONTO -- The Ontario government is giving police temporary powers to enforce its stay-at-home order and allowing them to stop individuals and vehicles and ask their reasons for leaving their homes.

Solicitor General Sylvia Jones made the announcement Friday afternoon as part of the new measures introduced by Premier Doug Ford's government to stop the further spread of COVID-19.

"We have made the deliberate decision to temporarily enhance police officers' authority for the duration of the stay-at-home order. Moving forward, police will have the authority to require any individual who is not in a place of residence to first provide the purpose for not being at home and provide their home address," Jones said.

LIBERALS' PETULANT ATTITUDE CONTINUES

 Liberal MPs launched a late Friday filibuster of the House of Commons defence committee to prevent a former prime ministerial adviser from being summoned to testify on what he knew about sexual misconduct in the Canadian military.

The parliamentary dust-up started when the Opposition Conservatives tried to convince the committee to hold at least one more public hearing into the social and leadership crisis that has gripped the Armed Forces.

Elder Marques, who served in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's office for two years, had agreed at the end of March to testify before the four-party committee.

Responding to Conservative MP James Bezan's call for an additional hearing involving Marques, McCrimmon, a former lieutenant-colonel in the military, ruled the motion out of order.

WEASEL WORDS FROM O'TOOLE

 Not only is O’Toole embracing a carbon tax (although he doesn’t have the courage or honesty to call it that), he thinks those of us who oppose carbon taxes are dumb enough to be deceived by his sleight-of-language.

He uses exactly the same verbal trickery former NDP Premier Rachel Notley tried when she introduced her carbon tax in 2015. Just like Notley, O’Toole insists it’s a levy, not a tax.

If it walks like tax and quacks like a tax, it’s a tax.

FAUCI DANCES AROUND SPECIFICS

During a Thursday congressional hearing, SaraACarter.com's Douglass Braff reports that a shouting match erupted between GOP Rep. Jim Jordan (Ohio) and Dr. Anthony Fauci over COVID-19 restrictions when Jordan pressed Fauci on when Americans can expect things to return to normal, bringing up civil liberties.

“When is the time?” Jordan asked during House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus hearing titled “Reaching the Light at the End of the Tunnel: Ending COVID-19”. “When do Americans get their freedom back? We had 15 days to slow the spread, turned into a year of lost liberties.”

TEXAS DEFIES NCAA TRANSGENDER ATHLETE POLICY

The Texas Senate approved legislation limiting transgender athletes to competing only in categories that correspond to their birth gender in contravention to the NCAA’s recent decision to allow transgender people to play in their choice of categories.

The Texas bill focuses on “biological sex.” It maintains that athletes born as males will be banned from competing in girls’ sports, although girls would be permitted to play with biological boys if there is no comparable female sport.

TRUDEAU INTERPRETS UK COVID FACTS

Justin Trudeau has bizarrely claimed that the UK is facing a “very serious third wave” of Covid-19, despite cases in Britain currently being much lower than in Canada.

The Canadian prime minister made the claim in response to criticism of his government’s vaccine rollout, arguing that immunization alone would not protect the country against coronavirus.

“We know for example that the UK is ahead of just about everybody else on vaccinations and yet they maintain very strong restrictions and are facing a very serious third wave,” Mr Trudeau told the Canadian House of Commons.

100s OF MILLIONS OF DOSES; CANADA'S POPULATION AT 38 MILLION

 Procurement Minister Anita Anand revealed the government has committed to spend up to $8 billion on vaccine contracts and defended the government’s overall performance getting shots delivered to Canadians at a House of Commons committee Wednesday.

Anand appeared before the House of Commons government operations committee and said the government has allocated about $8 billion on the vaccine deals with seven different companies for hundreds of millions of total doses.

Anand stressed the government was ahead of its targets having delivered 9.5 million doses by the end of March, when it had originally promised province six million doses. She also pointed out Canada is third in the G7 in providing first doses of vaccines.

Calling in to question Anand's claims, people experience things differently.

O'TOOLE'S DANCES WITH WORDS

Conservative leader Erin O’Toole will release a climate platform on Thursday that proposes to tax the carbon emissions of both large industrial emitters and consumer fuels, though change how the fuel levy currently works.

A Conservative source had initially told the National Post that O’Toole is scrapping the federal carbon tax on fuels, but CBC obtained the full document that shows it will be replaced with a fuel levy that goes into a “personal low carbon savings account.” The Post has confirmed CBC’s reporting.

 The Conservatives argue the new fuel charge is not a tax because it does not go into government revenue, but instead into a consumer savings account. However, the plan will mean consumers are still paying a surcharge on fuel; according to CBC’s document, it will start at $20 per tonne of greenhouse gas emissions, increasing to a maximum of $50 per tonne.

WHO SUPPRESSED CORONAVIRUS REPORT

 Dr. Zambon was part of the W.H.O. team assigned to draw lessons from the Italian experience and help other nations improve their response to the pandemic. The team swiftly produced a report entitled “An Unprecedented Challenge: Italy’s First Response to Covid-19 [Chinese coronavirus].”

The W.H.O. pulled down the report the same day it was published, supposedly because it contained some minor factual errors, which Zambon maintains were quickly and easily corrected. He said the real reason the report was quashed was because it reflected very poorly on the Italian government, so strings were pulled to shut it down.

Zambon told Sky News on Wednesday that W.H.O. jeopardized lives around the world by suppressing his report, since other governments could have learned valuable lessons from Italy’s errors:

25% OF UK COVID DEATHS REGISTERED INCORRECTLY

     As the people of England and Wales celebrate the end - or at least the beginning of the end - of the COVID restrictions that have stifled the economy for more than a year, new data from the Office of National Statistics have illustrated a startling conclusion: nearly 25% of registered COVID-19 deaths actually aren't being killed by the virus, something that we have been discussing here at Zero Hedge since we first pointed out that motorcycle accident deaths were being labeled "COVID deaths" in Florida.
    This time, it's not just accident deaths, but deaths of all kinds, that have been unduly counted in Britain's COVID death numbers. As the Daily Mail put it, many of the coronavirus deaths which are registered are now people who have died "with" the disease rather than "from" an infection. Dying "with" COVID can land somebody's death counted in the official data even if COVID isn't listed as the primary cause of death on their death certificate.