Getting Alberta Oil to Market

"Today I'm announcing that, with the TransMountain halted and the work on it halted, until the federal government gets its act together, Alberta is pulling out of the federal climate plan."
"And let's be clear, without Alberta, that plan isn't worth the paper it's written on."
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley

"This is a project that's in Canada's national interest, a project that means thousands of good, well-paying jobs for the middle class."
"This one will be a strong, commercial project once we de-risk it. That's what we're attempting to do, so we can be in the market in the long term."
"The court has asked us to respond promptly and in a meaningful way to today's decision and has given us some good directions in next steps."
"While we want to make sure the project proceeds, we also want to make sure it moves ahead in the right way."
Federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau

"There is that overall sense that when central Canadian issues -- steel or autos or dairy -- are in play, they're a priority, and when western issues are in play they're either not taken seriously or they are of such a secondary nature that they're not thought through carefully enough and they are essentially botched."
"We're getting to the stage where TransMountain is just botched. Elements of western alienation, for lack of a better term, run deep and also just below the surface in Alberta political culture. There's room for a provincial premier to champion the west, his province's interests, but the west more generally."
"We're at about the middle of the third iteration of this cycle [of past energy feuds with the rest of the country]."
Faron Ellis, political scientist, Lethbridge College, Alberta

Steel pipe to be used in Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain expansion project sits on rail cars at a stockpile site in Kamloops, B.C. On Thursday, the Federal Court of Appeal quashed Ottawa's approvals to twin the existing 1,150 kilometre-long Trans Mountain pipeline . (Dennis Owen/Reuters)

If any province has issue and legitimate ones with the rest of confederation it is surely Alberta. The long-established federal-mandated transfer payments to lesser economically hale provinces are mostly fueled by Alberta taxes, and the recipient provinces of this largess just happen to be the biggest critics of Alberta oil production. Quebec gets its electrical energy from its giant James Bay project, and sniffs disparagingly at oil production, campaigning vigorously against oil pipelines while grasping at Alberta's generosity.

British Columbia's digging in of heels, refusing to allow pipelines to cross its territory claiming environmental issues, is hypocritically taking advantage of Alberta oil to service its provincial energy needs while denying Alberta the kind of access that would ensure the province finally receives full payment for its oil products, not the discounts currently disabling its economic future. The federal government's stringently restrictive policies have so hamstrung investment by large energy conglomerates that they've given up struggling to build facilities that are meant to enable Alberta oil to be shipped abroad.

Yet when Kinder Morgan called it quits from sheer exasperation that all the patience mustered and the investments and the consultations, regulations simply kept increasing, leading the Trudeau government to the desperate measure of using taxpayers' funding to buy it all, lock stock and barrel. Shareholders approved the sale by a 99 .9 percent vote at the very time when the Federal Court of Appeal slammed the government for not adequately consulting First Nations. Work was proceeding on the pipeline and suddenly work is halted; thousands out of work, money thrown to the winds.

The National Energy Board's  report seen to be 'flawed', not considering tanker traffic, an issue outside their jurisdiction. That increased tanker traffic seen to be a threat to ocean wildlife. The increased rail traffic carrying oil across land also carries a greater risk of accidents and spillage, apart from the fact that the railroads are called upon to carry another natural resource -- Canadian wheat -- to outbound shipment abroad; oil interfering with the similarly critical issue of transporting grains, another trade imperative.
The steep discount Alberta oil sells for is a result of Canada not being able to ship Alberta oil economically and expeditiously if no pipeline is built to transfer it to tidewater. Oil by rail has accelerated to the point where Canadian trains have delivered twice as much oil to U.S. refineries int he period January to June of 2018 as was shipped for the entire of 2012. According to the National Energy Board "major crude oil export pipelines have been operating at, or near, capacity", and at discount.

"We can ship our energy products safely or we can ship them by rail, driving up emissions and costs", wrote Alberta Premier Rachel Notley  in an op-ed in the Vancouver Sun, in May, an explanation that did nothing to change public or government opinion in British Columbia. According to a 2017 report by the Manhattan Institute, to move a like amount of petroleum, trains cause close to four times greater numbers of accidents as do pipelines. Add to that the fact that when rails are stuffed with oil, a severe backlog of Canadian grain rail shipments result.

Pity the Pitiless Murderer's Acute Anguish

"On Sept. 11, 2015, as shown on the surveillance video from the Alehouse, Catherine Campbell was expecting romance and affection on the evening she was murdered. She was vulnerable."
"For reasons unknown, Mr. Garnier punched her in the face, broke her nose, strangled her to death, and then, in an effort to hide his crime, treated her remains like garbage."
" ... Ms. Campbell’s death was not akin to a single punch that results in death, a quick squeeze of a trigger, or even the quick stroke of a knife. Mr. Garnier intentionally squeezed the life out of Ms. Campbell over a number of minutes, and such action was not merely a split-second lapse of self-control."
"[Though Garnier was] certainly subject to the coercive powers of the state [throughout the prolonged police interview], it is clear he never lost his ability to exercise his free will and to choose whether to speak."
Justice Joshua Arnold, decision statement

"Mr. Garnier not only murdered Ms. Campbell, he interfered with Ms. Campbell's remains. He demonstrated a callous disregard for Ms. Campbell, and made an attempt to cover his crime."
"The message should be sent that Mr. Garnier should forever be remembered as the person who stole Ms. Campbell's future for no reason, and then treated her remains like garbage."
"[Ms. Campbell died in a] gruesome way, in that it would not have been quick and immediate."
"Her nose was broken, the cartilage in her neck was broken. He moved her body and concealed numerous pieces of evidence, some of which was never recovered."
"He should be remembered as someone who tried to cover up his crime. His parole eligibility period should reflect the nature of the offence, his future dangerousness, and deterrence."
Crown lawyers Christine Driscoll and Carla Ball 

"There are actual veterans who returned from war, or multiple wars, and they are killing themselves because they can't get help for the PTSD they suffer from through no fault of their own."
Reekie Wong, aunt of murdered woman, Facebook post

"The testimony of Dr. Hucker [psychiatrist] clearly indicates that there is a strong link between Mr. Garnier's illness and his interference with human remains; therefore, it should be considered a mitigating factor in his sentencing [on that charge]."
Defence lawyer Joel Pink

She was not in uniform, off duty, a Truro, Nova Scotia police officer looking to connect with someone that evening in 2015. At a bar in downtown Halifax, 36-year-old Catherine Campbell met a stranger by the name of Christopher Garnier. They had drinks together and they decided to leave the bar together. That was the most serious error in judgement that Catherine Campbell ever made in her life. They went together to a northend apartment. To become more intimately acquainted, to pass the night together, to make love and perhaps a friendship might come out of it.


It's hard to imagine what Catherine Campbell might have been thinking in the panic of attempting to save herself from the sudden psychotic attack by this strange man whom she obviously wanted to like. But she failed to succeed in either liking him or saving her life. It's always an uneven contest, a male's superior physical strength to that of even a well-conditioned and conflict-trained female. He throttled her to death. At trial, Dr. Matthew Bowes, Nova Scotia’s chief medical examiner, informed the jury it would take between two and six minutes to cause death by strangulation.

As it happens, and not surprisingly, Christopher Garnier's defence is that he has no memory of attempting to dispose of Ms. Campbell's body. And he is in the process of appealing his conviction on second-degree murder with the claim that the presiding justice should not have admitted his confession extracted through his second police statement. That pairs nicely enough with his declaration of post-traumatic stress syndrome, for which he requires medical treatment since of course, it interferes with the quality of his life.

While in prison for the 13.5 years he has been sentenced to, the man has been suffering; PTSD does that to those affected by severely traumatic, life-altering events they have been exposed to. Perhaps had Catherine Campbell survived the attack that meant to deprive her of her life, she too would be suffering from PTSD. That her murderer is claiming now to be in its miserable throes, insisting the onset occurred through distress he experienced while handling her remains after freshly murdering her, requires the intervention of medical expertise.

That the Department of Veterans Affairs has stepped forward to defray all costs associated with his treatment has not gone down particularly well with the public, much less with Ms. Campbell's friends and family, and certainly has caused extensive consternation among the veteran community in Canada, many of whom have experienced great delays in being treated for service-related traumas they were exposed to in conflicts abroad and other related items reflective of military service.

"While I completely understand people's frustration with this story these supports for family members [of military veterans] are not new -- they've been in place for many years."
"Even in the past few days, as people are reacting to this story, we've been able to connect more veterans and their families with mental health supports."
Seamus O'Regan, Minister of Veteran's Affairs 

Mr. O'Regan's soothing reassurances that his department has succeeded in its outreach to suffering veterans and their families, because this is what Veterans Affairs does, in support of its members, extending service and assistance to all family members of veterans, somehow has failed to smooth the waters of roiling indignation, that in this instance, the family member of a veteran of 26 years' previous service, who just happens to be a convicted murderer is receiving treatment on the taxpayer's dime.

Nova Scotia premier Stephen McNeil sees no justification for Veterans Affairs Canada to pay for the PTSD treatment of a convicted murderer.

New Trade Alliances of Necessity

"I don't think it's helpful at all to have more sectors of the economy hit by protectionist tariffs."
"It's not a great thing from our perspective. We wish more sensible heads were prevailing on the U.S. side so we could get back to modernizing the NAFTA agreement."
"I think the Canadian government has reached out [to the steel and aluminum sectors], and you are seeing unanimity among premiers including our premier [John Horgan]. This is a place where you should stand together as one country."

"[From the lumber industry's perspective, the U.S. construction market needs Canadian lumber, which is evident in high lumber prices], so it's super frustrating."
"And I'm sure for [companies] that haven't been exposed to this level of protectionism, it must be very frustrating to them."
"Who's really suffering [as a result of 20 percent U.S. tariffs on Canadian lumber] is the U.S. consumer."
Susan Yurkovich, president, B.C. Lumber Trade Council

B.C. Lumber Trade Council president Susan Yurkovich,

- Citizen file photo by Brent Braaten

"We believe the lumber producers were acting not much differently than the oil cartels did back in the 1970s. There is just too much evidence that leads us to conclude that there was profiteering going on."
"He [Vermont home builder] just opened up a wood pallet for his next project, and the lumber was Russian."
"We're at a point where Americans and Canadians are exporting to China, and the Russians are finding it cost-effective to export to the United States ... We've gone through the looking glass."
Jerry Howard, CEO, National Association of Home Builders

"There's no one to pass that cost on to [the tariff imposition on Canadian lumber imports Trump imposed on Canada]."
"It's crippling, quite frankly ... Those kinds of changes are very difficult to run a business around."
"Every increment you go up excludes people [potential new home purchasers] from the market."
Bill Tuyn, vice-president development, Forbes Capretto, custom-home builder, Buffalo 

President Donald Trump's ignorance on free trade issues between countries and the details that irritate him, not necessarily bearing any resemblance to reality, hasn't stopped him from acting on his erroneous impressions and assaulting what he claims is the undue entitlement to profit from a trade agreement with the United States by other, lesser-endowed countries for whom trade is an economic national imperative unlike the U.S. which can take it or leave it, given its huge consumer base, able to absorb its production.

But there are items of primary production that other countries excel in and it is their exports that the U.S. is interested in, to ensure that all its own needs are being met. A simple enough transactional device known as trade and in the global atmosphere where freer trade is recognized to benefit all countries that engage in it, Trump's brilliant move in closing off the U.S. to incipient and present free trade agreements even while important trading partners' production is now integrated with that of the U.S. making separation problematical for all involved, hasn't cautioned him to second-think his split-second decisions.

Now, the home building sector in the United States is pointing a finger of blame at the lumber producing sector, claiming that it has artificially increased the price of building lumber on the backs of home builders. Reliance on Canadian lumber with its ready availability, but with the added headache of the 20 percent increase in cost due to Trump-imposed tariffs has made new housing starts in the U.S. quite a bit more expensive for new buyers and the housing construction companies eager to sell their inventory.

Now that they are under stress, Canadian lumber producers have diversified, seeking customers elsewhere than their traditional export base in the United States. The U.S. share of Canadian lumber exports has fallen from 85 percent in the 1990s to its current 50 percent, a significant difference. And while U.S. home builders were unsupportive of the duties imposed on Canadian lumber, they now look to reduce their traditional dependence on Canadian lumber.

Their suggestion is to cull the U.S. national forests which have about 300 trees per acre in comparison to most other nations' 100 per acre, using downed or diseased wood culled from the forests to help builders and just incidentally, they say, keep the woodlands in a healthier state, less prone to wildfires feeding on dead timber. Ironically, wherever and whenever Trump pries open doors and sticks his fingers in the open cracks to insinuate his primacy in the art of the deal, normalization unravels speedily.

But it isn't quite as though things always went smoothly in trade between Canada and the U.S. Bullying tactics are the forte of the bully. Canada has always weathered accusations of unfairness from the U.S. which claims that Canadian softwood is subsidized since most of it is harvested from Crown land and American lumber from private land, in contrast, with subsequent higher costs. Its the conventional argument of evening the playing field.

Canada has made frequent use of the trade dispute resolution system in response to countervailing and anti dumping duties the U.S. slaps on Canadian lumber products; dispute rulings that have generally favoured the Canadian position; in a system that Trump is anxious to scrap, as he 'improves' the NAFTA agreement, strong-arming Mexico and Canada into meeting his 'fair' and even-handed terms.

The Art of the Trumpian Deal

"We're starting negotiations with Canada, pretty much immediately. If they'd like to negotiate fairly, we'll do that."
"If not, the easiest thing we can do is to tariff their cars coming in ... It could end in one day and we take in a lot of money the following day."
"This is a tremendous thing. They used to call it NAFTA, we're gonna call it the United States-Mexico trade agreement. We'll get rid of the name NAFTA, has a bad connotation because the United States was hurt very badly by NAFTA for many years."
"It's an incredible deal [the U.S.-Mexico agreement], it's an incredible deal for both parties.We'll start negotiating with Canada relatively soon."
U.S. President Donald J. Trump

"This [protecting of intellectual property] would require a significant overhaul of Canadian intellectual property law." 
"These provisions ... are at odds with the Canadian government's commitment to modern intellectual property laws that adequately balance the interests of all stakeholders [as with adding years of patent protection from generic drug competition]."
Michael Geist, intellectual property expert, University of Ottawa

Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland arrives at the Office Of The United States Trade Representative, Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2018, in Washington.Andrew Harnik / ASSOCIATED PRESS

The simple fact is, negotiating a fair and mutually useful agreement on free trade with the three partners representing two supplicants and one powerful bully, the prospect of fairness becomes a lost cause. When the balance of power is held unevenly it represents a big stick to wallop the weaker links in a three-way deal with. Where the U.S. yielded in some areas in the original NAFTA agreement, that time is long gone; now the reality is that the one with that big stick is prepared to use it, as a very effective 'negotiating' device.

Beginning with the unexpected U.S. tariffs on steel and aluminum, and going on, in Canada's case, to target lumber, along with other vulnerable items, even if it ends up hurting American consumers as much as it does Canadian producers. Donald Trump may wax threatening about fairness, when he demands that Canada's Supply Management System be dropped -- an antiquated, anti-consumer farm monopoly that should be rethought -- but it has been repeatedly and pointedly observed that the U.S. has its own farm subsidies more than equal to Canada's.

None of the three major political parties in Canada is prepared to submit on the demand to dissolve supply management; there's too much political interest, as in danger, at stake, in the form of critical votes from a well-oiled lobby group. The Dairy Farmers of Canada, as an example, is not above using the threat of political boycott for any party that seriously considers abolishing the dairy supply management. Its threatening overtures ensures that none of the parties would dare speak to the issue in a conciliatory tone to NAFTA.

At the just-concluded Conservative Party of Canada's annual conference a briefing book produced by the Dairy Farmers of Canada was discovered by the press amplifying the extent of their influence, as when it warns that "Members of the Conservative Party of Canada have sent a clear signal that they do not support Canadian farmers" and "Canadians will remember the position taken by Conservatives today". There was no clear signal, no committed position, not even a discussion on the agenda relating to supply management; the issue was deftly set aside; dead in the water.

But had it not been, and the conference had that debate with a majority deciding that their party would do well to scrap supply management, the little book of instructions cautioned the Conservative Leader not to forget the power vested in his position: "The powers of the Leader are far-reaching in preventing a policy from being in the party platform. DFC has been told by the Leader's office that he will exercise this power ... regardless of the outcome at convention." There's the lobby telling the party how it will act; the party indebted to the vote.

Well, Justin Trudeau has an interesting decision to make. The Liberal Party is firm that this is a non-negotiable issue. And "Canada will not be pushed around". If the farm lobby cannot depend on the Liberals, they can't depend on any party. Oh, yes, of course, the New Democrats; and how likely are they to form government -- heaven forfend. It is a desperate situation when a three-party agreement deliberately cuts out one of the three. Six weeks of negotiations took place between the U.S. and Mexico, Canada clearly informed its presence not only unneeded but unwanted.

The idea being, as senior U.S. trade negotiator Robert Lighthizer noted confidently, to strike an agreement with the slightly more malleable Mexican negotiators and when it's done, allow Canada to enter the negotiations with the knowledge that the U.S. is prepared to conclude a bilateral deal without Canada, and leave Canada out entirely, if they feel the need to do so. Canada cannot afford not to sign on to a renewal of NAFTA; the U.S. represents its trade lifeboat; the U.S. doesn't need trade, Canada does. This is indeed the proverbial rock and a hard place.

Accede to U.S. demands that supply management be dissolved to please Trump, and the Liberals limp, defeated into the October 2019 election. Refuse to drop supply management and retain the dignity of making one's own sovereign decisions over the value placed in Canadian-made internal agreements -- almost all other nations, including the U.S. commit to agricultural subsidies of some sort, to ensure self-reliance on national self-sufficiency of the necessities of life-sustenance -- and the Liberals eat humble pie while the Canadian economy tumbles and the voting public takes its revenge.

No sleeping easy in Ottawa for the next five days, the time-frame the U.S. has given Canada to make up its mind whether it is serious about concluding a deal with its Mexican and U.S. free trade partners. This is one very large lemon to suck on.

United States Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer leaves the Office Of The United States Trade Representative, Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2018, to walk to the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, in Washington, ahead of Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland. Canada, America’s longtime ally and No. 2 trading partner, was left out of a proposed deal Trump just reached with Mexico and is scrambling to keep its place in the regional free-trade bloc. Andrew Harnik / ASSOCIATED PRESS

NAFTA's Deal of the Century : Divide and Conquer

"We’ll start negotiating with Canada relatively soon, they want to negotiate very badly. But one way or the other, we have a deal with Canada. It will either be a tariff on cars, or it will be a negotiated deal; and frankly a tariff on cars is a much easier way to go, but perhaps the other would be much better for Canada."
"We’re looking to help our neighbours. If we can help our neighbours, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. So, we’ll start that negotiation imminently."
"Deal with Mexico is coming along nicely. Autoworkers and farmers must be taken care of or there will be no deal. New President of Mexico has been an absolute gentleman. Canada must wait."
U.S. President Donald J. Trump

"Canada is very encouraged by the optimism we have heard from our partners Mexico and the United States. I've been talking to representatives of those countries a lot this week."
"They seem encouraged and optimistic about the progress they've been making in resolving their bilateral issues."
Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland

"It was a rich, fun, important negotiation, from which everything emerged in a very satisfactory way for all involved."  [Done Deal!]
Jesus Seade, envoy, Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador 

"I've made it very clear. I support supply management and I don't believe that that is a situation we need to be in [putting it on the table for a NAFTA deal]. The Conservative government in the past, when the free trade agreement was originally signed with the United States, was to preserve and protect NAFTA. And I think some of the things that are lost in this conversation is the vast myriad of support systems that the U.S. has for their own producers. That's not part of this conversation."
"So everything from floor prices to their own quota system, in many, many states, as well as the U.S. farm bill."
Leader of the Opposition Conservative Party of Canada, Andrew Scheer

"Canada has a little bit of negotiating power, but not a lot of negotiating power. Canada would have to accept most of what the U.S. and Mexico have agreed to, which, in my opinion, is not bad — not bad at all."
"There are some other issues that are a major irritant, the most important of which is the dairy sector and I think Canada would have to give some ground on that..."
James Brander, NAFTA expert, Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia

Running scared? Not the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau! He thought he could stick-handle Trump, but somehow his ego got in the way and after the G-7 conference he couldn't resist the urge to maintain that Canada wouldn't be pushed around. Trump is practised at pushing and he is in a position to get results. Canadian trade experts and journalistic commentators months back predicted the U.S. had nothing against Canada in the trade deal; Trump's ire was targeted directly at Mexico for the trade imbalance that so irritated him.

And Canada nobly let it be known that though they could swiftly come to an agreement with the U.S. bilaterally, they wouldn't think of it. Abandon Mexico? Not bloody likely, there's honour involved and this government is nothing if not honourable -- according to its version of what constitutes honour. Don't ask. And then somehow the tables were turned, and Canada's negotiators were invited out of the meeting and suddenly it wasn't Canada conferring with the U.S. and bringing Mexico along, it was Mexico bargaining with the U.S. and Canada outside, waiting to be allowed back in.

Oops, sorry about that. Prime Minister Trudeau knows how vital Quebec is to his future prospects of re-election in 2019 and has made no secret of his commitment to the number one trade irritant for the irascible, determined Trump who has no interest whatever in trade facts, only his own outcomes in making the deal one he can brag about; the bully and the beggars. Trudeau infuriated Trump by his declaration of resolution, and Freeland offended Trump's chief negotiator by going 'behind his back'. Guess they didn't have time to read the seminal instruction in How to Make Friends and Influence People.

How's this for deflating the Canadian ego as exemplified by Trudeau & Company? (We can stick Conservative leader Scheer in there as well) "We’re starting negotiations with Canada pretty much immediately." The Canadian economy, he added is "a smaller segment, Mexico is a very large trading partner." Take that! Or lump it, your preference, Canajuns!
"They used to call it NAFTA. We’re going to call it the United States-Mexico Trade Agreement. We’ll get rid of the name NAFTA", he added for good measure.

Wait, Canada's turn to tune in to NAFTA! And Canada, as usual is prepared to "punch above its weight".

Adolescent Delusion of "Belonging", or Recognized Pathology?

Study Abstract:
"In on-line forums, parents have been reporting that their children are experiencing what is described here as 'rapid-onset gender dysphoria', appearing for the first time during puberty or even after its completion. The onset of gender dysphoria seemed to occur in the context of belonging to a peer group where one, multiple, or even all of the friends have become gender dysphoric and transgender-identified during the same timeframe."
"Parents also report that their children exhibited an increase in social media/internet use prior to disclosure of a transgender identity. The purpose of this study was to document and explore these observations and describe the resulting presentation of gender dysphoria, which is inconsistent with existing research literature."
A Study of Parental Reports, Lisa Littman, researcher, department of Behavioral and Social Sciences, Brown University School of Public Health

Elliott Kunerth, 17, a transgender male high school student in Mankato, hugs his girlfriend, Kelsi Pettit, 17, after the Minnesota State High School League board voted to pass the Model Gender Identity Participation in MSHSL Activities Policy in Brooklyn Park, Minn., on Dec. 4, 2014.Leila Navidi / Star Tribune via AP file

Suddenly the rare becomes commonplace. Some boys and girls have always mused to themselves what it might be like to be a boy if one were a girl, or a girl if one were a boy. It is the syndrome of the 'grass' being 'greener' elsewhere. Many people have a disinclination to accept what and who they are, and many people feel cheated by life's circumstances, wondering what they have missed or are missing, and why cannot they have experiences and recognition relating to being someone else. There is also the attraction to many of being rebellious and 'different', of eliciting notice to their person; good or bad, that acknowledgement that they are singularly different is compelling.

Young people imagine themselves to be misunderstood, overlooked, taken for granted, not taken seriously. Suddenly, they are being taken seriously. The medical community has been pressured by a very vocal group who challenge the common sense and mostly appropriate custom of gender recognition and identification at birth (natal identification), assigning proper acknowledgement in gender through natural selection. What appears to be at issue is the dysphoria claimed between physical characteristics and mental attitudes.

Infants gravitate toward behaviours and attitudes that are not gender-specific. And occasionally boys will be fascinated with attributes of girlish functions and vice-versa. Mostly these impulses are transitory. There is nothing in the development of the human being that must insist certain behaviours are off limits to the opposite gender. There are many boys and men who reflect behavioral emotions and interests most commonly seen in women and the opposite is also true. And while there are instances when the mind and the body simply are not a match, it's doubtful their numbers reflect what is now seen in society.

Where parents of infants feel they can read their child turning to the opposite sex and viscerally react by guiding them away, there are also parents in the present more 'tolerant' social scene who set out to demonstrate just how supportive they are of their children's 'real' persona that they encourage the deviance from one sex to another, making of it a perfectly normal transition which in this social climate, brooks no criticism. Yet there is a kind of social hysteria at work here resulting from the loudly assertive and angry accusations from the LGBTQ-2 community succeeding in persuading those parents they're on the right track.

Society has turned from its rejection of seemingly abnormal gender identification that once harassed homosexuals, in threatening and violent attitudes, to its current attitude of acceptance, long in coming. But that acceptance didn't suffice to persuade the once-persecuted that they were now viewed as part of society; many among them demanded all the formal trappings of  'normal' society, as in marriage, denoting which among the same-sex couples be viewed as 'husband' and which as 'wife', a fairly risible situation, but one which the general public was prepared to accommodate.

When Children Say They’re Trans   The Atlantic Hormones? Surgery? The choices are fraught—and there are no easy answers.

The present-day rash of young children and teens declaring themselves to be a mind placed in the wrong body has turned the normalcy of the social covenant inside-out and upside down. Some parents may be complacent, reassured that society now accepts it all as 'normal-abnormal', while many more parents are anguished and confused, unhappy with their children's insistence that they are not the boy or girl their parents thought they were, but since the medical profession has given a clean bill of health to the reassignment process, feel they have nowhere to turn.

"When we tried to give our son's trans doctor a medical history of our son, she refused to accept it. She said the half-hour diagnosis in her office was sufficient ..." recalled one parent whose story was repeated in the newly published study. "I overheard my son boasting on the phone to his older brother that 'the doc swallowed everything I said hook, line and sinker. Easiest thing I ever did'", reported another on the credulity of her child's therapist.

The study's author, taking a critical look at Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD), took the time to review popular Internet sites such as Reddit, SubReddit and Tumblr to pick up additional problematical comments, where contempt for parents is rife and encouraged by the examples of others, and the festering emotions of victimhood are shared in a mutual resentment of parental authority. Linked with criticism of heterosexuals and "cisgenders" the common cause of rebellion takes its form in declarations of life-changing claims of transgenderism.

Before 2012, points out Ms. Littman, there was little research on adolescent onset of gender dysphoria. Two clinics existed prior to 2012, one in Canada, the other in The Netherlands, in possession of data providing empirical information on adolescents presenting with gender dysphoria. Both of the institutions studying the issue concluded that individuals in adolescent-onset were "more likely to have significant psychopathology".

The study included 256 parents of ROGD adolescents and young adults who completed detailed surveys. Most of the young adults were female, averaging 15 years of age and of that group 41 percent claimed to have expressed non-heterosexual urges prior to onset, while 62 percent had been diagnosed with at least one mental health disorder. According to the study, none of the young adults "would have met diagnostic criteria for gender dysphoria in childhood". Tellingly was the finding that parent-child relations tended to deteriorate once the girls "came out".

The study leans heavily on ROGD as a form of "social contagion". Common among these teens was the time spent on websites, particularly Tumblr and Reddit where advice on best lying practices are available when confronting clinicians: "Get a story ready in your head ... keep the lie to a minimum" and "look up the DSM for the diagnostic criteria for transgender and make sure your story fits it". 

Study Conclusion:
"Rapid-onset gender dysphoria (ROGD) describes a phenomenon where the development of gender dysphoria is observed to begin suddenly during or after puberty in an adolescent or young adult who would not have met criteria for gender dysphoria in childhood."
"ROGD appears to represent an entity that is distinct from the gender dysphoria observed in individuals who have previously been described as transgender."
"The worsening of mental well-being and parent-child relationships and behaviors that isolate AYAs from their parents, families, non-transgender friends and mainstream sources of information are particularly concerning."
"More research is needed to better understand this phenomenon, its implications and scope."

The Internal Picture of Immigration/Refugee Process Inadequacy

"Without changes to improve efficiency and productivity of the asylum process, wait times and backlogs will only continue to grow."
"This situation is not sustainable, nor is it fair to the people who need Canada's protection."
"While the department has carefully analyzed the findings and recommendations of the report, [recommending a major overhaul of the Immigration and Refugee Board], it would be premature to speculate on any future changes to the asylum system."
Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen, August 14

"[Hussen's letter to the Canadian Bar Association represents] an admission of failure ... by the Liberal government."
"I honestly do not understand how it is that the federal government can look the people of Canada in the eye and say that the system works. Because the system has collapsed."
Sergio Karas, immigration lawyer and analyst

A Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer informs a migrant couple of the location of a legal border station, shortly before they illegally crossed from Champlain, N.Y., to Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Que., using Roxham Road on Aug. 7, 2017. (AP / Charles Krupa)

This from a letter addressed to Barbara Jo Caruso, chair of the immigration law section of the Canadian Bar Association, belying the language that Immigration Minister Hussen usually employs when it is pointed out to him by the premiers of Quebec and Ontario that the number of illegal refugee claimants pouring over the border into Quebec from New York State is straining the capacity of the provinces to serve their needs while awaiting processing of their refugee claims and status, when his response usually is praise for the "strict and efficient immigration and border control system".

Not only is the border control and immigration system not to be questioned for its streamlined efficiency and adherence to Canada's rule of law respecting immigration, but the fact that tens of thousands of economic migrants deliberately flouting the law bypassing legal points of entry to portray themselves on apprehension as 'refugees' is unassailable, sacrosanct as a ploy to take advantage of this government's laxity in defending Canadian values and laws. Any protest of the government's accommodation of illegal entrants is identified as 'racist', unbecoming Canada.

The prime minister's snarling reaction to a Quebec woman's insistence that it is the federal government's responsibility to repay her province for the outlay of millions in sustaining Justin Trudeau's cloying narcissism as the defender of desperate 'refugees' seeking haven, being denied by heartless racists like her, concerned with her tax dollars' disposition. Sneeringly claiming that the racist bigotry of the Conservatives against refugees and immigrants is similarly un-Canadian.

Under all Canadian governments of the past 40 to 50 years the numbers of immigrants that Canada has welcomed for the purpose of adding to the economic well-being of a country whose population is not reproducing itself in needed numbers while at the same time offering opportunity to those who qualify and whose presence is clearly in both the interests of the individual and the country they are joining, has been in the neighbourhood of a quarter-million immigrants and refugees.

Trudeau is so engrossed in his personal vendetta against Stephen Harper, his predecessor as prime minister, he attributes mean-mindedness to the latter while he himself is a textbook case in nasty slander. The Conservatives were careful stewards of Canada's needs, not the least bit the mendacious xenophobic racist bigots, wholesale insults Trudeau likes to attribute to them.

In his zeal to 'prove' he is so much more generous to the needy of the world, regardless of what it can cost Canada in dollars and security, he has increased the intake of immigrants to 340,000 annually by 2020. With good fortune, Canada will be rid of him and his style of governance by then. A sizeable 49 percent of ordinary Canadians polled feel there should be a decrease, not an increase.

"We inherited a massive backlog of asylum claims after a decade of short-sighted and damaging policies under the Harper Conservatives", claims a spokesman for Hussen, Mathieu Genest. "This situation has only been exacerbated by the increase in asylum seekers, which has been growing sine 2013", but it has only been under the Liberal Trudeau government that we can overlook as an irritating trifle the entrance to Canada last year of an unauthorized (read illegal) over 20,000 "irregular" asylum seekers, and an additional 12,000 so far this year.

Immigration and Refugee Board data indicate over 55,000 refugee claims pending as of 30 June. The review of the IRB recommended a number of reforms, creation of a new refugee protection agency among them, to report directly to the immigration minister. That would be compellingly interesting, since at the current rate Minister Hussen who was instructed in his mandate of 2017 to 'improve' Canada's asylum system, has so far proven inadequate to the task.

Of course, he is rather constrained by Justin Trudeau's insistence that no illegals be turned away, as they should be, with instructions to proceed, if they wish, using legal channels.

Agenda: Who Is Harassing Whom?

"That really got to me. I shouldn't have to do this amount of work to get a leg wax or a Brazilian wax. I shouldn't have to scour to find a salon willing to do ... what is customarily available to the public." 
"It hurts ... if everywhere I go, I get shut down for who I am."
Transgender 'woman' -- "JY"

"Please stop harassing my gf [girlfriend] or we will take further action [police]. She explained to you what she does and does not do."
"Do not call her work again and don't bother messaging me back. Get a life when someone says no move on."
"You did harass her over and over she didn't respond and you call her work get a f-----g life."
"I'll be posting about you on my own account I have all the proof of harassment."
Jeremy Paradis, Surrey, British Columbia

"The complainant wants to punish our client and compel her to pay a fine."
"We do not agree that this is appropriate, so it must go to a hearing."
Jay Cameron, lawyer, Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, Calgary

"[The only staff member who does male waxing was on sick leave], however, we also welcome and support all of our staff members and respect their religious beliefs and feelings of safety and dignity in regards to the right to perform waxing services on males or male genitals."
Jason Carruthers, president, Mad Wax, Windsor, Ontario

Jason Carruthers, president of Mad Wax, a Windsor, Ont., spa which faces a human rights complaint similar to the one filed against Mint Tanning Lounge in Surrey, B.C.   Dan Janisse/Postmedia/File

Denied service at Mad Wax body hair removal business in Windsor, Ontario, a transgender woman is seeking $50,00 to compensate for 'her' hurt feelings. Mad Wax's president explained that on the day in question the only employee on duty happened to be a Muslim woman for whom touching men outside her family is forbidden, and she refused the male woman's request for a waxing. At the time in question the sole staff member who did do male waxing happened to be on sick leave. This explanation evidently failed to suffice and the case will appear for mediation in October.

When another unnamed transgender woman in British Columbia followed up on an advertisement on Facebook for waxing services, she asked the location of the Mint Tanning Lounge. Aesthetician Shelah Poyer responded  with the location. "Awesome! Do you do Brazilians"? wrote the woman back. "Not for men, sorry", was the response from Ms. Poyer. "I'm actually female. I transitioned a while ago", replied the transgender woman, asking for an appointment, only to find there was no response forthcoming.

The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal was brought into the picture when the transgender woman identified by the tribunal only as "JY" charged she was the victim of gender identity discrimination. An apology and a cheque for $2,500 would make her feel better over the unfortunate denial of services. The transgender woman, a digital entrepreneur, has filed fifteen complaints against salons located from Vancouver to Abbotsford in British Columbia. She is obviously on a righteous campaign, incensed that of 18 salons she had contacted three only agreed to give her service.

The aesthetician at Mint Tanning Lounge, Shelah Poyer, is being represented by lawyers at the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, based in Calgary, where lawyer John Carpay explained that his client simply didn't have the supplies or the requisite training to enable her to perform a "Manzilian" wax job. "As such, she is unqualified and unable to provide the service", he stated. "Not wishing to enter into controversy, Ms. Poyer declined to speak further with the complainant".

Ms. Poyer's boyfriend, Jeremy Paradis, is also named in the complaint for purportedly sending harassing and threatening messages to the sensibility-wounded transgender woman. Mr. Paradis questions the complainant's use of a male name in his/her communications; in essence contradicting his claim to have transitioned to a female.

A transgender woman in Canada has filed complaints against 15 salons that she has claimed denied her services. (Sean Gallup/Getty Images)

Justin Trudeau: Out of His Shallow Depth

"First and foremost, Canada's Conservatives recognize that Canada is a country that has been built by immigrants and first nations alike who have worked hard to build Canada and its pluralism. Canada is and should remain -- a country that welcomes newcomers."
"The question is under what principles and what policies. The question is how, not if."
"Dissembling the permanency of Trudeau's new immigration program at Roxham Road by closing the loophole in the Safe Third Country Agreement [would be a reasonable first step at correction]."
Opposition immigration critic Michelle Rempel

"By sweeping away legitimate questions on his failed border policy with vile personal insults, it is Trudeau himself who is guilty of polarizing the debate."
"No one has done more to divide Canadians than he has."
Andrew Scheer, leader of the Parliamentary opposition, Conservative Party of Canada

Blain approached Trudeau and challenged him for his attitude toward 'Québécois de souche.' (Carl Brochu/Facebook)

"This intolerance regarding immigrants does not have a place in Canada. This intolerance of diversity, you do not have a place here."
"Madam, Canada was built by waves of immigration that were welcomed by the First Nations, who showed us how to build a strong society, and the people who come here, generation after generation to build stronger communities, this is what makes us stronger as a country and, madam, your intolerance does not have a place here."
"We are Liberals here, we know that diversity is a source of strength, never a source of weakness and madam, your fear, your fear of others, your intolerance does not have a place among us tonight. "Thank you very much, my friends. Thank you for being here, thanks for working hard and uniting people because we see that there will be intolerance in the coming months. There will be attacks in the coming months."
"But you must know that strength is to unite and not to scream, not to spread fear, not to spread intolerance, madam."
"Yes madam, I am tolerant of all perspectives, it is you, madam, who is intolerant, and you don't have a place in this beautiful gathering of Liberals. Thank you, friends."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau responding to senior Quebecer Diane Blain, member of a nationalist group that has advocated against immigration     

Justin Trudeau imagines himself a sophisticated, well-versed and capable leader with a charismatic personality and an agenda on human rights and social equality second to none. Look a little closer and you see a clumsy, egotistical, bully quick to respond to perceived insults, and a little slow on the cognitive side. In fact, look even closer you may recognize many characteristics that are reflected in the personality of a more practised bully in a more powerful position in the world, more skilled at alienating those who disagree with him, but in this aspect of his character, Trudeau is a quick study.

Trump offends his allies, professes great admiration for the world's autocratic leaders who share many of his traits which he considers great attributes. They have far fewer constraints to work against their narcissistic schemes, and possibly elicit envy in the man who holds the position of the most powerful leader in the world of the most prosperous, influential and powerful country of the world. Justin Trudeau shares Trump's affinity for the kind of benevolent dictatorship that 'turns on a dime'. And he is most certainly wedded to the certainty that he is not to be questioned or held to account for any of his decisions.

And Justin Trudeau lives with the delusion that his values and priorities are the only ones worth pursuing, and like Trump, has contempt for those who question the values he presses upon his Canadian audience, much less other world leaders as well as the method by which he prioritizes them. He is as fully deficient as a leader as is Trump, whom he likes to pose against; the villain and the virtue-monger. What he has perfected is an irritating air of sanctimony that his actions mark as hypocrisy.

Aside from his personal characteristics he has shown himself a complete failure as this country's prime minister. Even his personality honed as 'sunny' turns quickly to snarls of contempt; the smiles for those who support him, the contempt for those who question him. The thing of it is, the number of Canadians who increasingly question Trudeau's agenda is now in majority territory, and growing. The dismay and alienation Canadians increasingly feel faced with a leader who incessantly promotes himself while in the process demoting Canada to negligible status on the world stage, a powerful symptom of his inability to grasp the issues that Canadians are most consumed with.

His smug insistence that other leaders of the free and democratic world have far to go to reach his level of angelic promotion of human rights has helped make him a figure of derision internationally as his persona is fully revealed. Would-be trading partners have not been eager to accept Trudeau's selective righteousness; his fixation is our downfall. From China to India, the Trans Pacific Pact to the North American Free Trade Agreement with Mexico and the United States, he has botched it all right royally. But he feels this to be his royal prerogative; after all, he is right, everyone else wrong.

No one appreciates being patronized and Trudeau simply doesn't appear to be able or willing to curb his gushing enthusiasms and damning behaviours. Canada's traditionally staunchest allies, Great Britain and the United States look on with disbelief at Trudeau's unravelling of international relationships to prove the superiority of his sensitivity to human rights -- selectively so, to be sure, but irritating to any who become the target of his none-too-subtly-pointed accusations.

So yes, Canadians want some say in the direction their government takes. And that government should be concerned when a majority of those he is elected to serve, clearly become less than pleased with the incompetence and self-harm done their country by a self-serving and out-of-control prime minister whose rage turns on any who ask for an accounting of the man who feels none of his decisions require scrutiny.

Canada's intake of a quarter million immigrants a year is a reasonable accommodation to the country's needs and to the needs of those who wish to migrate here. When that number doubles by dint of people taking illegal measures to enter the country because they know that this government will tolerate the insolent rejection of our laws, creating great costs in accommodating their presence, burdening the nation's social welfare systems in the process we know we have a problem but the prime minister remains indifferent.

The border situation has a solution. Canada is under no obligation either at home by law or internationally, to accept the presence of those who flout our laws to gain entry. The RCMP should be given orders to escort those entering illegally across the border from the United States to a legal port of entry from which they will be returned to the Safe Country they had originally entered, legally or illegally. Those same people have the option of registering legally to apply to emigrate to Canada.

The hundreds of thousands of would-be immigrants who do apply through normal, legal channels have the ethical and moral right to have their applications processed as swiftly and firmly as possible, not held back by the weight of demands placed on the immigration system by hordes of illegals overwhelming it. Above all, Canada has the right and the obligation to itself to accept only those whom it feels will be a credit to Canada, not those who feel Canada will credit them, despite their contempt for its laws. 

Well, Now -- From this Corner the Contender for Prize Hypocrisy -- Female Accusers of Male Sexual Predation

"This development reveals a stunning level of hypocrisy by Asia Argento,"
"At the very same time Argento was working on her own secret settlement for the alleged sexual abuse of a minor, she was positioning herself at the forefront of those condemning Mr. Weinstein, despite the fact that her sexual relationship with Mr. Weinstein was between two consenting adults which lasted for more than four years."
Weinstein attorney, Benjamin Brafman

LOIC VENANCE/AFP/Getty Images

"It doesn’t really matter what I want."
"[The message sent to people who have been sexually assaulted after the two-and-a-half year saga is] don’t bother reporting. You are going to spend the next two, three years of your life being wrapped up in a system that really doesn’t care about you."
"[I] never needed any man to tell me whether I’ve been raped or not . . . . I still know what happened to me, and it doesn’t matter what the legal system thinks."
"I’m horrified by this entire system, not just by Zuker’s inadequate analysis of case law. The whole system is horrifying and people should be horrified."
"[Her self-incriminating text message...?] I didn't think it was relevant to him raping me."
Mandi Gray, teaching assistant, York University 

Mandi Gray, right, has said she probably wouldn’t participate in a new trial for Mustafa Ururyar, left, if one was ordered, noting the case has already taken two years of her life.  (Toronto Star / Alyshah Hasham and Anne-Marie Jackson)

Mandi Gray was a teaching assistant and graduate student at York University in Toronto who had an affair with Mustafa Ururyar, also a graduate student and teaching assistant there. Their casual affair in 2015 was of two weeks' duration, when they slept together with no otheer commitment of any kind. Completely consensual. From a party, she texted him, inviting him to come along to the pub: "Come drink and then we can have hot sex". He came, and they did. And she later failed to release the text message to Toronto Police when she accused Ururyar of raping her. He was originally convicted of sexual assault, but ultimately the conviction was overturned.

Another short story of false accusations has far greater repercussions in social media. The storm of revelations and accusations that erupted in Hollywood and then spread everywhere through the #MeToo movement when several actors, among them Asia Argento, accused Harvey Weinstein of raping them set a new standard in women finally getting their own back from men who had propositioned, manhandled, molested and raped them, usually from a position of power. Men in the entertainment business, in sports, in corporate life, high and mighty celebrities and local entrepreneurs alike, were accused and their lives forever changed.

Most of the accusations without doubt were credible, some veered on the edge of absurd with clumsiness being equated with violence. But there have been a number of occasions, such as the earlier court case with CBC's one-time darling Jian Ghomeshi -- whose ego led him to denigrate women and whose sexual appetite steered toward violent kinkiness -- was accused of rape. His lawyer revealed on the stand that the women accusing him sent cloying messages of endearment and conciliation to him, after the supposed rapes took place.

And now, Italian actor-producer Asia Argento, the first woman to publicly accuse Weinstein that led to a veritable landslide of other accusations, began the downward spiral of his life as a celebrated Hollywood producer, to a pathetic wreck of a man insisting he did nothing wrong, appears to have incriminating skeletons in her own designer closet. Child actor Jimmy Bennett was assaulted by her in a California hotel room in 2013; she at age 37, he 17, even while the age of consent in the state was 18.

While she accused Weinstein of rape, forcibly performing sex on her in a hotel room, she had committed rape on a child actor and settled with him afterward to the tune of $380,000 for his silence and agreeing that a photograph of them lying in bed together not be made public. However, once news became public of her accusation of Weinstein, Bennett, now 22, approached Argento to ask for $3.5 million in damages.

Child molesters are usually, but not always, men. Women are usually, but not always, the innocent party in forced violent sex. Women insist, and with good enough reason, that they be believed when they come forward with their accusations of man-handling of their intimate persons. And those women who falsely accuse men of molestation and sexual assault do no favours to the women who have genuinely suffered the misery of sexual assault.

😅😅😅😅Sunny Ways of Course!

"Madam, this intolerance toward immigrants has no place in Canada."
"You have no place in Canada!"
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

The unspeakable temerity of unconscionable Canadians to question the humanitarian instincts of Justin Trudeau!

"Perhaps we can get the smiles of Andrew Scheer, but it remains the Conservative Party of Stephen Harper", sneered Trudeau. When cornered, simply indulge in the impulsive beckoning of a smear campaign. When Stephen Harper was prime minister his views regarding the practical need for Canada to absorb immigrants and refugees came from a different place in his head, one that was sincere, absent the sanctimonious virtue-signalling that comes so naturally to Justin Trudeau.

"It's important that we have people who come at problems from very different perspectives because that actually ensures that we solve them right."
"I will point out, and I will not flinch from highlighting, when the politics of division, of fear, of spreading misinformation, is actually harming the fabric of this country... So while I will, as I did in the previous election, stay positive and not engage in personal attacks, I will also be very sharp wherever we see significant policy differences and whenever someone is pulling up intolerance and playing fear as a way of getting elected, people who are trying to feed fears and intolerance."
"One of the things we are facing in the world right now is a rise of extreme populism, of the politics of fear, division, of a kind of polarization that has short-term political advantages in some cases, but ends up creating fault lines within communities."
"Hiding behind half-truths and torquing up fears is something that I and our government will always call out. Not just because it's a problem for us, but because it's a dangerous path for any democracy to be on."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

This man is the very exemplar of what it is he rails against. He is a populist of the lib-left variety, his tolerance for illegal entrants to Canada and his tolerance for the presence in Canada of people whose religious ideology leads them to sow a minefield of accusations against other Canadians, supported and instructed by incendiary, racist and violent Friday sermons as incitement to spurn the type of Canadian values that Trudeau loves to point out are Canada's strengths, such as equality and respect for others is another of his hallmark virtues cloaked as acceptance of 'diversity'.

"We do not appreciate or welcome irregular migration."
"I have used the word 'illegal' and I have used the word 'irregular' and I think both are correct."
"[I will work against] a polarization in our political discourse. I will remain positive and remain [sic] pulling people together, pulling communities together right across this country."
Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen

Trudeau and his caucus, his Cabinet members and his Parliamentary attitudes of supporting and protecting equality and human rights in Canada and abroad are one of a kind, all without exception incapable of filling the executive political positions they hold in the best interests of Canada and Canadians. While pursuing his agenda on human rights and inclusion he has demonstrated poor judgement and questionable choices, leading the country on a trajectory of failure, from alienating groups who refuse his summer-jobs attestation requirements to signing free trade agreements, to protecting Canada's borders from illegal entrants.

He is known by the unsavoury company he keeps, alongside the mendacious actions of his chosen acolytes. Rather than bringing Canadians together in a moderate collective of social cohesion, his actions and his utterances have distanced a majority of Canadians in areas vital to the country's future prospects for a sound pluralist social covenant, long-lasting solutions to discontent by First Nations, catering beyond reason or rationale to cultural and social minorities while offending the majority, castigating it for rejecting his tender ministrations to the disaffected.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addresses local Liberals and Liberal MPs from the South Shore of Montreal for a summer corn roast in Sabrevois, Que., on Thursday, Aug. 16, 2018. (Paul Chiasson / THE CANADIAN PRESS)

While hypocritically contending he won't stoop to personal attacks, he ravages the reputations of his political adversaries through accusations and insults rather lacking accord with his self-professed dedication to 'sunny ways'. When a woman at a Quebec rally questioned his intentions respecting the intake of economic migrants entering Canada illegally declaring themselves refugees, asking whether the federal government plans to reimburse Quebec where most such illegals enter, he accuses her of racist intolerance. That she is revealed to be someone loyal to another version of Canada is irrelevant; she is a Quebecer whom he has declared he is 'respectful' of.

"We're seeing a notable change in the trendline, but it's one data point, so what we can't know yet is: are we seeing a country that's now trending in a particular direction, or are we experiencing a moment in time?
"One data point doesn't make a trend. We have to wait and see where sentiment goes over the next couple of years."
"There is a significant segment of that left-of-centre base that is also of the view that we're accepting too many immigrants."
Shachi Kurl, executive director, Angus Reid Institute

"In Ontario, the province where most immigrants settle by a wide margin, one-third are satisfied with national levels, while half say they should be reduced."
2018 Report, Angus Reid Institute

A family is arrested by RCMP officers as they cross the border into Canada from the United States as asylum seekers on Wednesday, April 18, 2018 near Champlain, NY. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson)