Quebec's Interests

As we all are invited to have amnesia about why the Bloc Quebecois exist (we TROC people are too stupid obviously to understand the subtleties here), we still stubbornly note that, somewhere in what they laughably call a "Platform", is the following sentence no doubt in both languages so that we can all understand - We want Quebec to separate from Canada or some such weasel language, instead, at best. Lest we forget that when their miniature leader tells us that he's only here to protect Quebec's interests.

Where have we heard that before as we try to recover from a fog of cultural and historical amnesia no doubt created by almost 25 years of Unity and Clarity? Why,  Gilles Duceppe, that son of a clown who looked clownish in a cheese hat who, by 1997, the crisis of unity perhaps finally passed, realized that he needed to justify his existence to the usually flinty eyed voters of Quebec (of course, he felt he had nothing to justify to The Rest Of Canada). This especially as some people began to notice that some BQ mp's were more interested in their MP's salaries and privileges than they were in being the Champions of Separatism from Canada...in Ottawa. They were beginning to like just being there.

So, it worked for almost 15 years until Jack Layton and the NDP seemed to finally put a stake in the heart of this feckless vampire of Canadian politics in 2011. Most Quebeckers understood by this time that their interests did not need protection in Ottawa after 45 years of Ottawa granting indulgences to her on the constitution, language, ethnicity, energy, the environment, immigration and even foreign affairs. But now, much like his father, the PM's cowardice, leaderlessness and ineptitude especially in the campaign have incredibly revived the monster. Really, Hammer Films would have had trouble showing how the Young Frankenstein managed to do it.

And the barely loyal almost traitorous, rigorously unpatriotic Press (especially in TROC)  far from being horrified at this, seem to revel in this unwanted and dangerous freak development lap it up and only speculate about how those chump patriot money eanrers in Alberta or Saskatchewan will take it if their golden boy Scheer has to depend on the Bloc to govern. Yecch! While this Trudeau may do his father one better and invent a truly hardy and efficacious Western Separatist movement, too.

Man Bites Basketball

Here's a man bites dog story: both AOC AND Ted Cruz signed a three page letter condemning the NBA for its cowardice and greed in the face of Chinese oppression! Adam Silver, the craven NBA commissioner who backed China over Hong Kong and his own executive and thus helped spark this retort, may have worked a political miracle  But, sadly, the real man bites dog story would be if the NBA stood up to its Chinese Sugar Daddy. Think of it, Nike, Addidas and the NBA must be really hard up that they rely so much on Chinese cash that they will sell out and throw even their own people under the bus to keep the Chinese on their street corner.

And, as Trump points out, Steve Kerr and Lebron James (not to mention Colin Kaepernick and states like New York) criticize the US 24/7 in the most execrable terms about relatively trivial sins. But, when it's time to defend ordinary people against the depredations of the worst, biggest dictatorship in the World, their money and brownie points with the Chicoms are, as South Park satirized, more important than freedom and democracy or even intellectual consistency. James Harden actually apologized to the "people of China" for the executive's comments in support of protestors in Hong Kong. Doesn't he understand that most of the people of China would give their right arm to have the chance to protest their government the way that Hong Kongers are (so far) permitted to do every day? He and the NBA should apologize to them and the people of Hong Kong for lending comfort to their tormentors, the Chinese State.

It occurs to me that the same people who laugh at John Bull or Uncle Sam or call for empire, the flag and the anthem to be disavowed would be appalled that some of those brave young Hong Konger protestors  brandish Old Glory and the Union Jack as symbols of freedom and democracy.  Those who are embarrassed by patriotism about the greatest countries in the World should be embarrassed...at their own smugness, inanity and hypocrisy. Will any of these arbiters of Woke call for boycotting China, Cuba or Zimbabwe at any time about anything before they call for a boycott of Chik-fil-a, Israel or North Carolina?

And will some one (perhaps Cruz and AOC) propose a Foreign Oppressive Practices bill that would forbid companies like Google from assisting China or any other dictatorship in oppressing their people and define it as a "foreign corrupt practice".  In this imperfect world, if I had to choose, I would rather a country be free before it is financially hygienic. Isn't it more likely the latter will follow eventually (as it did for us in the 1800's) after the former is achieved? Then Google would be forced to reconcile their stated policy of refusing to help the Pentagon on pain of "sabotaging" them while helping the Red Chinese Army to censor, plunder and enslave their people.

BTW - for what it's worth, I hereby boycott the NBA.

Argument Clinic

It's just dawning on the UK that, in seeing that the EU had no intention of real "negotiation" all along, they, too, are like the customer who goes to the Argument Clinic in Monty Python expecting a fine debate and instead, after shelling out many pounds and wasting several sessions, gets a flat "yes v. no" affair. "I thought I came here to leave." "Oh. no, you came here to remain. If you want to leave, you have to pay 39B pounds first." "But I did already!" "No you didn't." "Yes I did." "No you didn't." "Yes, I did! Oh come on that was not really 3 years of me not leaving just now...!" "Yes it was." and so on...and on..."We can leave with Northern Ireland." "No you can't." "Yes I can. It's part of me!" "No it isn't. Not unless you pay another, er. 100 billion pounds." Now, perhaps, this expensive, soul-destroying, black comic charade of miserabilism will soon finally be over, if not by Halloween by the vengeful hand of the English voter. 

The EU never wanted to bargain in good faith to get a proper Brexit anymore than the clinic wanted to give the man a proper argument. They wanted to trap the UK and doom her to be a trade colony of the EU with no more rights of policy or control than, say, China had over the "trade concession zones" they were forced to surrender to the Great Powers in the 1800's.

The wonder is that it took so long for even tough guys like Gove, Mogg, Cox and Johnson, at least externally, to realize that the Euros are a bunch of bad faith, bad will losers that we should regard now as "hostes" the UK (as the govt is preparing to treat EU members who force another delay on us) and get out of it, asap. If anything, they've made any right thinking Englishman more determined than ever to leave. Not for the first time, the European has underestimated, misunderstood and misjudged the Englishman. He will pay dearly as will his familiar accomplice in British mayhem, the Irishman. Then where will be their "colony", their captive markets now? Down the loo.

That lousy KGB chemist posing as a Chancellor of Germany actually said that NI would be forced to stay in the EU customs union "forever". And the EU will last a 1000 years. And you will crush Perfidious Albion like a bug. And England will be finished as soon as you shoot down a few more spitfires. I know. We've heard it all before from you people. It's just your crass unadulterated sickening nerve in abusing a country that astounds and appals. That is the nation that has done nothing but help you down the ages, including saving your very civilization four times at least by my count at an untold cost of lives and given 100's of billions of its treasure to you. Shame on you, "friend"!

If I was on the phone with that geo-financial extortionist, I would have threatened that, if she did not make a deal happen mach schnell, I would throw her mercedes, volkswagens and porsches into the Channel, and not just the ones she wants to ship. And, after the UK has won again, and their latest megalomaniacal grab for continental power sits in tatters, they will once again not have learned their lesson. Nonetheless, it will be fun trying to teach it to them.

And woebetide the Englishman who helped the Brussels con artists. And, if any of you beasts from the Parliament, the BBC, the EU, the ECB, Dublin or the UKSC thinks that we're either Ireland, Greece or Norway, you've got another 39 billion pound think coming!

Let my people go!

Virtue Signaller in Chief

And so we are treated to the latest display of the PM's public virtue in his belated declaration that, he, JT, arbiter of all that is just and good and defender of our religious freedom (unless you secretly oppose abortion) will fight Bill 21. Now, I do not know what he intends to do to fight that thing. I agree that it is a bad thing. But more than a few reasonable people of good will (not including me) worry that, to go after it might reignite separatist feelings in Quebec (although as I recall his bungling of the pipeline file may have done that in Alberta and he doesn't seem to worry).

But, more importantly, and this is where the virtue signalling comes in, I do not know how you are supposed to fight it unless you get Quebec to kill it voluntarily unless you go nuclear constitutionally. Once the Bill was passed, the Federal Govt. could then use its Disallowance power from the Constitution to strike it down. But, it didn't and hasn't. It has until June 17, 2020 ( the anniversary of its passage) to do so according to Forsey on Disallowance in the Constitution. If it doesn't do that by then, there is no other way to repeal it. Court decision based on the Charter almost certainly will be overriden by Quebec invoking the Notwithstanding Clause. You can't otherwise legislate on it because it is an exclusive provincial competence, civil rights, under s. 92. You can't POGG it like you did with the carbon pricing scheme because it is obviously not, technically at least, a matter of national importance in that it only applies to Quebeckers or their guests within Quebec. You could make it inapplicable on federal property, federally regulated workplaces, reserves and military installations (including, ironically, the LG's office). Although I don't think the PM is even proposing what I like to call the "Dief Bill of Rights" approach.

SO the question for Justin is this -, if you are opposed to this and sweet reason does not convince Quebec to ditch 21 before June 17, will you send instructions to the Lt. Gov. to disallow it? (And, don't try to hide behind the desuetude, "it's not conventional" argument. Just because it has not been used since since 1943, it has been used over a hundred times in every province except PEI and NFLD and it was never repealed.) Or is this just a case of you posing again as a great immaculator of our rights when you have absolutely no intention of doing anything except to strike a pose? It certainly reminds one of when you apologize for wrongs you and I did not commit for a photo op. Or are you just trying to embarrass your opponents into looking like their condoning racism to get seats in PQ so you can wash all that shameful makeup off? Why haven't you even threatened to disallow yet?

Questions that I would pose to our cynicalist PM tomorrow night in French.

Meanwhile, in a CBC story about the matter, "Trudeau's challenge to Singh on Quebec's Bill 21 has Risks", Disallowance is not mentioned at all, let alone as an option for the Federal Govt. to "intervene" as JT keeps saying he will leave open as an option. This is widely interpreted to mean that he might, if it gets to the SCC, instruct federal lawyers to seek intervenor status in the case. Here there is dishonesty and ignorance on two levels not only from the PM but the Press. One, as mentioned above, even if the SCC strikes this down as  unconstitutional on Charter grounds (as I do not see how there can be any other ground based on 92), Quebec will almost certainly use 33 to override to uphold a law that allegedly 70% of the province want. Thus, the writer and the PM are both being disingenuous in imfeplying that any court intervention can ultimately kill this. 

Secondly, either by ignorance or mendacity or both or maybe fear of the Constitutional fallout, the writer (and likely most of the Press) and the PM are not at least openly considering Disallowance, the only effective, sure route for repealing. Another example of our uninformed, superficial and heavily censored debate. Would that the PM could be made of the stuff that his father was made of when he used POGG several times to do major national things that he knew to be nasty but that were perfectly constitutional, when he believed it was in the national interest. But...he's not. And the clock is ticking. What if the SCC doesn't get around to deciding the case until late June? Will he use the Reservation power to put Bill 21 on hold until the court sorts it out? In the meantime, Justin Trudeau, the rest of our political "leadership" and the Press seem to stumble along, blissfully unaware, uncaring or afraid of how to defend our rights. If only Trudeau's virtue signalling was our only problem.

Elected Dictator

How would we feel if a foreign leader attacked our PM and commented on the merits of a crucial constitutional legal case that had nothing to do with that foreign country? (say that country was the UK, the US or Australia) We would be pissed.

But, our PM (aka: Old Blackface) felt that he of the Budget Omnibus Bill, the Norman Case and MP for SNC-Lavalin had the nerve to pronounce on the "lawfulness" of the UK PM in his exercise of a right and power that he and his predecessors  here and in the whole Commonwealth (except Sri Lanka) have used unchecked for hundreds of years. 

Like a jackal, he pounced on his prey, one of our closest allies, again, at an international gathering. It's hardly a week since Blackface erupted and he is brazenly displaying his hypocrisy again. It is like he doesn't  even realize how hypocritical he is. He never loses an opportunity to be a hypocrite.

I would like to claim my patent against Lord Pannick and the UKSC on the phrase "elected dictator". I have been alerting people to this phenomenon as regards our PM. Although, a  similar concept was bruited by counsel for Nixon in the US v Nixon case when he unsuccessfully argued that the POTUS effectively has the powers of Louis XIV once elected. And good thing that he failed. I have recommended a number of ways to make our Parliament in particular truly independent of the Executive, including taking the Cabinet out of the legislature American and French Republican style and electing the Governor-General and above all, making strict party discipline illegal amongst other things.

But, the UK Parliament and the UKSC and the antics of the US Congress have made me realize that undemocratic forces can come from the other branches too. However, it does not take away from the fact that, if there is an "elected dictator" effectively existing in any of the great democracies, it is the Canadian PM. What is more, unlike the other Chief Executives (including of course the least secure of them all, the Australian PM), this one truly fits the bill for "elected dictator" pejoratively as well as technically and in form. He has eviscerated the Rule of Law, whipped his MPs into subverting the proceedings of Parliament and its committees to shelter his government from scrutiny in the midst of a coverup of likely criminal conduct whilst using cabinet confidentiality to frustrate an RCMP investigation and that of the Ethics Commissioner. All of this in aid of covering up his use of his office to try to obstruct justice and intimidate prosecutors and the Justice Minister and destroy their independence to protect a corrupt company that gave his party illegal campaign donations.

In other words, UKSC and Lord Pannick, if you want to see what a real elected dictator PM looks like in action, come to Canada and study the genuine article who dared to pronounce about how thrilled he was that his constitutional brother was haltered by you.

BTW - why hasn't ANYONE thought of bringing an application to the SCC  to judicially review the PM's actions and his use of Cabinet confidentiality in SNC? The Tories propose that, if the RCMP is stopped from completing an investigation into the government by the use of cabinet secrecy, it should be able to apply to the SCC to get access. Why can't it do that now? The UKSC prorogation case was filed by non-MP's as the Plaintiffs. The UKSC is far less powerful proportionally than the SCC. Why couldn't anyone do this then? But, more importantly why didn't the Opposition take the Liberals and Trudeau to court the moment that they stymied the Parliament's ability to investigate SNC? While I'm at it, why can't I do it? If anyone's reading this, I invite you to tell me why I or you for that matter would not have the standing to take the HMG and Trudeau to court over this and, if you agree with me that I can, help me set up a class action to do it!

(BTW 2 - If the Court and the Trudeau government's new laws say that pretty well anyone with a pulse can put in their five cents about pipelines in court,grf then why can't John Q. Public have a say in how his government and parliament are being used by the PM?)

The Funhouse Hall of Mirrors

In the weird topsy turvy back to front world we live in, I present to you the Funhouse Hall of Mirrors that is our politics and government today. 

In one mirror, a PM uses his age old power as chief executive to suspend the legislature. He is called an "elected dictator" by the court and implicitly a liar and ordered to cease and desist. The court does this while people call for the politician to be hung in the streets. He is excoriated for expelling MPs from his party who voted against him in Parliament. He is openly called a racist by MPs and the Speaker fails to censure them when all know the PM is about as racist as you or me. One of his opponents swears she will never honour the result of a national referendum and calls herself a "Liberal Democrat" while her colleagues cross benches refuse to hold an election on the most crucial issue of the day and their press hail them for "defending democracy". The Speaker who tears up many of those same age old rules is called a hero.

In another, A PM blatantly brazenly and openly covers up a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice, interfere with the courts and meddle with judicial and prosecutorial independence. He shuts down Parliament, the police, his Cabinet, the Ethics and Justice committees and expels his female native justice minister using extreme party discipline and...nothing happens let alone a court order or an independent investigation. Finally, he shows himself to be an Un-PC hypocrite on racism in the Blackface scandal and the polls hardly budge. The only leader in the election in the meantime that talks clearly about the issues is called a racist and marginalized.

In another, a President is found not guilty of foreign collusion or anything like obstruction after 4 years of investigation including a special counsel, the FBI, the CIA and the Justice Department and his political opponent in the election at enormous cost and effort and he is still hounded by the Congress constantly (who already investigated it under his own party before) and now is about to be impeached for simply speaking with a foreign statesman about possibly restarting an investigation into his opponent's son. For trying for almost three years and counting to mount a coup against the President and undo the result of his perfectly fair and legitimate election, they are called "Democrats".

It is apparent that, unlike in the Hall of Mirrors, the image that you see in the mirror, whether long, tall, short, wide, fat or small, depends on who you are not the warp of the mirror's glass. If you are Democrat, Labour or Liberal and you look in the mirror, the image is pristine as presented by the courts, the media or the academia or the "glorious retired" or punditocracy. If you are Conservative or Republican, the image is distorted in the extreme, grotesque, bizarre and deplorable regardless of your merits. Worse, if you are PC, the mirror is clear. If not...

December 8, 2008

You don’t have to be a separaphobic to think that one of the most glorious mug shots in Canadian history is Gilles Duceppe standing by the "Making Parliament Work" at the coalition rally, thinking about whether to sign it. How can you stand there and watch that? This is a sham!
*****
Mr. Dion’s parliamentary career seems to be like a fiery comet burning through the atmosphere turning into a snowball at the end. A little ice and rock.
He’s had the political shelf life of a fruit fly.
******
It’s amazing that when the time comes to speak of infrastructure, it’s public housing for seniors, homeless and Aboriginals when in fact it’s not time to Santa Claus. We need, NEED, environmental and transport lacunae to be address. BC has spent billions of dollars for port reconstruction and road improvement with the ongoing challenges BC has in those fields. There is a lack of bridges and disgraces like Victoria Harbour. This is the very harbour Mr. Campbell, the premier, works day after day. It is full of excrement. Yet, he seems to be blind to this, as are all the other first ministers.
Infrastructure that you can see immediately and that helps the favourite constituencies, is so much sexier than roads. There’s not a municipal edifice like hospitals, schools and roads and sewage treatment that doesn’t need updating in this country. They require billions to improve them. It would not only help the environment but it would help the country economically.
It could be done through a private sector effort rather than through the PPP thing, which is ridiculous. Make people pay for their use of these items. Tolls would work.
Housing is important. But the private sector could do it more efficiently. The government should make more hospital beds available for mental health.
The government should assist Aboriginals to lead normal lives. Most live off reserve because they know that no matter how much money is spent there, they will be administered badly. This won’t change no matter how much money is pumped into the sytem.
It is irresponsible to continue this way. Our seniors are one of the richest interest groups in the country.
I do congratulate Mr. Campbell for recommending changes to RIFFs, lowering taxes, levelling regulation, suggesting open skies and getting rid of economic protectionism between provinces now. I wish more premiers understood his point that the parochial politics of provincial protectionism is hurtful.
*****
It’s typical of central Canada that Mr. Yakubuski, from the Globe and Mail, a normally respectful man, quoted Jean Charest as being a possible leader for the Tories. Has Mr. Yakubuski been to a Tory meeting lately? It’s not that the party hates Quebec. Francophobia is gone and it truckles favour with Quebec at the cost of support or respect elsewhere.
But why does he think that the rest of the country wants to be governed by a man who presides over the worst large province of the country. Quebec lags economically, financially, socially and in terms of health care and education. It’s gotten worse under Mr. Charest. He has not made a single change to the province’s basket case of an economic union and corporatist system. Mr. Charest does not generate confidence he can lead. That he is from Quebec is his only commendable trait, assuming those from western Canada can forget the vicious rhetoric Mr. Charest dispenses regarding the Tory party. He is a Liberal. We always knew it.
If Mr. Harper were one day to have a freak gardening accident, I would more likely turn to the Liberal premier Gordon Campbell than Jean Charest. And this by a mile.