Canada in Danger of Dissolving?

"This is one of the few polls that I just looked at -- and I've been doing this for 30 years, so I did polling around the Oka Crisis -- I was astonished when I saw some of these numbers, but I'm not surprised."
"People are truly frustrated with the inability of their leadership to come together and recognize that human beings are being affected by their decisions and that they're not simply voters."
John Wright, pollster, DART

"A lot of the blame has been centred on the prime minister and the Liberal government."
"There was some form of void. The government left the impression -- at least many people came to the conclusion -- that there was no one really in charge of the situation [of rail blockades]."
Daniel Beland, director, McGill Institute for the Study of Canada

"Canada is not broken. Canada's institutions are broken."
"In 1867 [year of Confederation], the concern was to protect Canada against democracy, not to protect regional interests."
"Until we have an institution that can speak on behalf of the regions, we are going to have a problem."
Donald Savoie, Canada Research Chair, Public Administration and Governance, University of Moncton

A nation united? Appears not; more accurately, a nation acutely polarized. The West -- blessed by natural resources which resulted in wealth, has enabled, through tax transfers via the federal government to dole out 'equalization' payments to the 'have-not' provinces to ensure that all Canadians regardless of where they live are equally endowed in social services -- has been left by the central government in Ottawa to flounder. Its resource sector, the source of much of Canada's wealth, has been hit by the Liberal government's commitment to its environmentalist backers.

Demonstrators in London blocked several intersections as they made their way toward RCMP offices on Dufferin Avenue. (Sofia Rodriguez)

A government which has done all it possibly can to place roadblocks in the way of investment and development of petroleum resources, causing tens of thousands of job losses, and the firesale of Canadian energy at steeply reduced rates exported abroad, for lack of pipeline delivery stymied time and again through legislation and the courts doing the bidding of the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau. A prime minister whose agenda is reconciliation with Canada's First Nations and meeting environmentalists' demands of shutting down the conventional fossil fuel energy sector.

Both coming together in a sudden and stunning shutdown of Canada's national rail system, both freight and passenger, through sometimes violent, and always illegal blockades launched by five Wet'suwet'en ancestral chiefs, defying the agreement of 20 Wet'suwet'en elected chiefs and the majority of the Wet'suwet'en who signed an agreement of cooperation meant to result in employment and profit through the operation of the northern B.C. Coastal GasLink project.

The transport of critical perishables, production parts, chemicals and heating products across Canada has been halted. This, at a time when Canada is preparing for a possible epidemic of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus that has devastated China, and has emerged as an epidemic in South Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy, and now infects people in over 50 countries globally, and growing. The poll results indicating that a majority of Canadians now feel strongly that the country is not being governed well, is indisputable.

While the country's prime minister was jetting abroad in Africa to drum up support for his legacy project of having Canada elected to a two-year stint on the United Nations Security Council, Aboriginal and environmentalists' protests have virtually shut down cross-country transit. Shipped goods have been piling up on docks awaiting transfer to rail for distribution throughout the country. For two weeks and counting the government urged patience and failed to see that the law went into action to shut down the illegal and dangerous blockades of rail across the nation.

Hundreds of Londoners joined an Indigenous-led demonstration in solidarity with opponents to a pipeline in Wet'suwet'en territory in northern B.C. The demonstrators marched toward RCMP offices in downtown London to show their opposition to the arrests of protesters. (Sofia Rodriguez/CBC)

Now that Justin Trudeau has finally declared that Canada has waited long enough for protest leaders to agree to discussing the issues with government leaders, giving clearance to federal, provincial and municipal police to act, and a few of the blockades have been shut down, others spring up in their place, with 'activists' lighting tires on fire on rail tracks, and setting up blockades that engines narrowly miss hitting. Some activists have taken to standing on tracks, moving out of the way at the last moment.

A full 62 percent of those polled feel Justin Trudeau's promise to Canada's Indigenous people has failed on delivery. Two-thirds of respondents are not averse to supporting one-time payments to Indigenous Canadians for immediate acquisition of "food, clean water and housing" for the "necessities of life", which in actual fact, does go out regularly to Indian reserves throughout the country for those very purposes, and more.

What the agreement that the Wet'suwet'en elected chiefs signed with the Coastal GasLink project would have done was provide dignity through employment, and independence through the share of gasline profits. The current situation has led to another project, in Alberta, for a giant mine investment by Teck Resources, a Canadian firm prepared to invest $20 billion and having reached similar sharing agreement with Aboriginals, being cancelled in view of the ongoing roadblocks, including a decision whether to approve the project expected in days from the Trudeau government.

Over 80 percent of Canadians believe politicians have a greater care for their partisan interests than to do the work they were elected for on behalf of all Canadians. This feeling is supported at 90 percent in Alberta. The federal government under Justin Trudeau and his Liberals has alienated Canada's Western provinces, leaving the country worryingly polarized and increasingly leaderless, while a small minority of Canadian 'activists' and unwanted visitors from the U.S. work to shut Canada down.

Protesters in support of the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs stand near the entrance to the blockade of the commuter rail line in Kahnawake Mohawk Territory, near Montreal, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

Discounted Canadian Crude -- Boosting China's Welfare

"The policy of boosting infrastructure investment has been bullish for bitumen."
"The supply of the Merey grade has been disrupted since May, pushing refiners to look elsewhere. As late-September and October is traditionally the peak season for construction projects in China, demand will be further supported."
Li Haining, analyist, industry consultant SC199, Shandong province, China

"On the demand side, there are expectations for bitumen growth in China due to a boost in infrastructure spending."
"With traditional heavy oil shipments shrinking globally, trade flows are being reshaped and alternative heavy oil supplies from countries such as Canada are becoming sought after."
Sophie Shi, analyst, industry consultant IHS Markit, Beijing, China

"The gap between Canadian and U.S. oil is nudging US$50 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate is in the neighbourhood of US$72. The discount is so juicy that China has started switching away from Venezuela toward Bargain-basement Canada."
"That tells you something -- even claptrap, broken-down, corruption-riddled Venezuela can't undersell Canada's sadsack inability to peddle its oil."
Kelly McParland, National Post

"...Large emitters such as China, the United States, the European Union, India, Russia and Japan [collectively accounting for approximately 2/3s of total global emissions] matter the most."
"...The United Nations has sounded the alarm, releasing a report in early October suggesting a carbon tax of up to US$5,500 per ton [$7,183Cdn] may be necessary to limit temperature increases to 1.5 degrees."
"The UN report suggests that a global emissions reduction of 45 percent by 2030 is needed, amounting to approximately 24 billion tons. Canada's share would represent around 200 million tons -- or just 0.8 percent of world emissions."
"This is the argument Canadian carbon taxers are making; that securing 0.8 percent of global reductions is worth punishing millions of Canadians and destroying Canada's economic competitiveness. They are asking Canadians to make massive, tangible sacrifices in their everyday lives...meaningless in the highly probable event that most other countries don't also follow."
Aaron Wudrick, federal director, Canadian Taxpayers Federation

Bloomberg via Getty Images

Steam rises from the Syncrude Canada Ltd. upgrader plant in the Athabasca oilsands near Fort McMurray, Alta., Mon. Sept. 10, 2018. Canadian oil is selling at the largest discount to global oil prices ever.

There it is, the politics in this country leaning every-which-way to broadcast we're so open for business that we labour to extract heavy oil at great cost and effort and it can be had for wholesale prices which may or may not cover the cost of extraction. Alberta's oilsands extraction attracted huge interest from giant international oil developers but this government gets stomach pains imagining the potential of fouling the atmosphere, the ground, the oceans in achieving pipeline construction, so looks the other way when industry makes do instead with tanker trains moving it overland to port.

The U.S. administration of Barak Obama, Justin Trudeau's inspiration in environmental protection, nixed the Keystone XL line, even while the U.S. was polluting the environment extracting and burning immense volumes of dirty coal because energy is energy and the U.S. needs and uses plenty of it. Somehow, fracking is A-OK despite that it may cause surface quakes and no one knows exactly the long term effect of forcing chemicals and water below bedrock for extraction that may affect deep-seated aquifers.

British Columbia is on its environmental high horse, rejecting Alberta oil pipelines but enthusing that a $40-billion liquefied natural gas plant is slated for Kitimat which had refused to allow the Kinder Morgan oil pipeline to pollute the town with its presence. The B.C. government moans that a pipeline through B.C. is environmentally offensive, that it won't stand for the potential of leaks yet it's fine with hosting the largest coal export terminal in North America.

Heavy haulers are seen at the Suncor Energy Inc. Fort Hills mine in this aerial photograph taken above the Athabasca oil sands near Fort McMurray, Alberta.   Ben Nelms/Bloomberg

Oil shipped by rail has gone from 30,000 barrels a day to 200,000 barrels daily from 2012 onward to the present. The chances of spills in rail transport are so much greater and present far more serious consequences than spills from pipelines, but never fear, an environment virtuous commitment by the Trudeau government to imposing a carbon tax will serve to stifle fears of ignoring the threat of climate change, even if the U.S. is responsible for 15 percent of global emissions and China with its 25 percent emissions globally, fail to hold up their substantial end of the international strategy.

And don't forget how important it is to Justin Trudeau to see Canada in the news, particularly highlighting his progressive policies. He likes being admired and having Canada considered a well-run and prosperous, fully-employed nation, generous to its struggling peer-nations, steadily growing the national deficit in the process, but not yet prepared to commit definitively to steaming ahead in supporting multiple pipelines to tidewater to enable Alberta oil to ship at full price, prepared to forfeit the crown of most-disinterested-in-filthy-profit purveyors of energy.

Meanwhile, Canada's cut-rate crude is making China happy, and whether that will help lead to a seat on the UN Security Council is yet to be seen in the future. China's spending on infrastructure in the last half of 2018 is accelerating five times the first half of the year with expectations that bitumen demand will only increase and refiners producing residue from cheap Canadian oil may consequently look forward to heftier profit margins. China profits from Canada's sacrifice, losing billions in the transaction of discounted Canadian crude.

China has alternative producers like Brazil since heavy crude is high in demand among the independent refiners in China, known as teapots. Facing competition from mega refineries these China teapots, small independents, process heavy crude as residential fuel oil. The demand for bitumen and cheaper Canadian oil aids them in capitalizing on demand. So there we are, Canada doing good things for the Chinese oil processing industry, allowing them to approach better profit margins.

Not only a source of fuel, however, Alberta crude is as well as 60 percent cheaper than West Texas Intermediate, but is also rich in bitumen, the black residue used in the building of roads, runways and roofs. As Venezuela's Merey oil varieties shrinks, Canada's crude looks ever more appealing to China's refiners, responding to their nation's building boom. Who needs free trade with China when Canada can give oil virtually free to that huge Asian nation?

Canada's Love Affair with Scrap, Second-Hand

"[Germany has decided to] begin concrete negotiations with Canada for the sale of the Euro Hawk aircraft, two ground stations and possibly certain spare parts."
German Defence Ministry

"The question is what a buyer would do with such a gutted aircraft."
"Without GPS navigation and in particular without flight control systems, the drone would hardly be able to fly."
Thomas Wiegold, German journalist

In this Thursday, July 21, 2011 photo a recce drone 'Euro Hawk' is moved at the air base in Manching, Germany. Germany wants to sell a second-hand drone that’s cost the country over 700 million euros ($823 million) to Canada, without many core components it needs to fly. (Armin Weigel/dpa via AP, file)

This is a technologically advanced, military drone whose future is being discussed. According to the German government the drone has been "demilitarized". Which means U.S.-manufactured radio equipment has been removed, along with the GPS receiver and aerials, as well as all encryption and flight control system. Technicians, it appears, given the order to prepare the aircraft for sale, chose to perform a "hardware uninstallation" rather than labour to delete its individual software components.

Somewhat similar to a complete lobotomy with consequential results, one might safely assume. Back in 2000 Germany ordered the Euro Hawk, a variation of the Northrop Grumman Global Hawk, for use as a long-distance reconnaissance plane. The order was cancelled in view of skyrocketing costs and the realization that the prototype wouldn't be certifiable for flight in Europe, leading then-German defence minister Thomas de Maiziere to characterize the drone as a write-off.

Better, he said, to have a "horrible end than a horror without end". In recognition, most likely, that this was such a complicated mess; that attempts to rectify all the problems attendant on it would only complicate matters further, with increasing costs associated with each consequent effort to make a silk purse out of their sow's ear. Canada has some considerable experience in that type of situation. Remember the four Victoria-class submarines that Britain wrote off and Canada bought from them?

The HMCS Chicoutimi is seen departing in Esquimalt, B.C., on March 2, 2017.

CHAD HIPOLITO/THE CANADIAN PRESS     Liberals to spend nearly $2.5-billion to keep used subs sailing past 2030

"Why were the Canadians daft enough to buy them? My God, it's a sad tale, isn't it? 'Buyer beware' should have been painted on the sides of these submarines.We sold them to you knowing there were intrinsic problems in the submarines. It's either incompetence on behalf of the Canadians, or sheer, smooth-talking salesmen from the MOD [Ministry of Defence] here in Britain", noted Mike Hancock, the Liberal Democrat MP for Portsmouth South. Canada paid $850-million for the wrecks  plagued by dents, rust, fires and leaks.

A Royal Australian Air Force F-18 fighter on a training mission. (Royal Australian Air Force)

More currently, the Trudeau government has rejected the deal made by their predecessors who had signed on to buying CF35s for the RCAF, badly needed aircraft which Justin Trudeau scorned as of "unproven" value, turning instead to Boeing's Super Hornets, only to find that corporation in a competitive spat with Canada's Bombardier, leading the Canadian government to turn away from Boeing and decide instead to buy second-hand F-18 fighters from Australia, planes that are of the same vintage as the ones they're to replace currently in use by the Canadian Air Force.
 
Now, Transport Canada plans to buy that German-reject drone for surveillance missions in the Canadian Arctic, the very drone that many analysts claim to be close to worthless. This time the Department of National Defence isn't in the questioning hot seat, instead it's Transport Canada which refused to confirm its interest other than to state: "In 2015-2017, as part of its technical assessment, the government sought information from suppliers to better understand the technology and the solutions available."

"We look forward to sharing more information on this project as it progresses, but it is still premature to speculate which remotely piloted aircraft system will be purchased." Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat approved $39.5-million in funding for a technical assessment and a system meeting Canada's needs: "We have identified options within this range", noted a spokesperson for Transport Canada. According to the Left Party lawmaker Andrej Hunko in Germany, the drone has "scrap value".

Just down Canada's alley!

Trudeau & Company

"Canada is leading by example to address the issue of gender equality in the G7 energy agenda. We will continue to engage key private sector and public sector leaders on this important issue and take actions to improve gender equality, particularly in the energy sector."
"We want to influence current and future leaders of Canadian industry to commit to meaningful action in the area of gender equality."
Minister of Natural Resources Amarjeet Sohi

"Canada's energy industry is gender-imbalanced. [The Right Honourable Justin Trudeau] has made gender a equality a priority for Canada's G7 Presidency."
Natural Resources Canada

Alberta mayors hold “Go East” signs in support of the East Energy pipeline project while Lisa Holmes, president of Alberta Urban Municipalities Association, left, takes a selfie with Alberta Premier Rachel Notley at a mayors’ caucus in Edmonton on March 9, 2016. Postmedia News

The current Liberal-led government identifying the most critical area of concern at the moment for the G7 to be energy is rather amusing, given that this Liberal government has been incapable of leading Canada to the point where its vast natural resources in energy have been so ill-managed that the one province that had always been depended upon for its wealth lifting other provinces into the great Canadian net of 'haves' now teeters in uncertainty.

A teeter-totter of inequity solved by confederation evoking a responsibility from the wealthy to even out social advantages for the entire population.

'Wealthy' Calgarians agreeing to ensure that Montrealers have equal access to social welfare as anyone living in Alberta, thanks to that province's oil bounty. Quebec spurns oil, its energy needs served by water power for electricity, but it still needs gas to operate vehicles and heat homes. Yet Quebec finds it offensive that a pipeline should convey oil as well as gas from one geographic area of the country to the other; better to rely on imported oil from unstable, human-rights-abusing Middle East countries.

Canada is open for business, Trudeau smiled ingratiatingly at international investors. And then he set about beefing up his environmental agenda, and his gender equity agenda, making doing business all the more complex to meet environmental standards and human rights' employment hurdles for potential investors for whom the red tape and the stalling became too fraught with risk. But Canada is special and under Trudeau has a mission, to bring the rest of the world around to his views on solving all social ills through manipulating safeguards for the vulnerable into trade and investment and energy development.

And that's kind of amusing, too. Since Canada has a global reputation through its expertise and wide investments in developing nations in mining, as a predator and a human-rights abuser of other nations' aboriginal populations whose heritage traditional villages happen inconveniently to be located just where those Canadian mining vultures are poised and set to begin their operations in contracts signed by the various governments with which they do business and share profits. Not too concerned over the environmental and human rights impacts abroad.

Now that the revolving presidency of the G7 has fallen into Justin Trudeau's ever-so-capable hands, he plans to guide his G7 counterparts toward accepting and implementing his very own virtuous gender-equality insights and programs having chosen "Climate Change, Oceans and Clean Energy" as his major theme for the Halifax G7 meeting in September. Climate change, oceans and clean energy cannot be addressed in the absence of gender equality, just as international free trade is a non-starter without gender equality and recognition of LGBTQ-2 rights.

Canada is leading the pack. This is the Canada incapable of bringing its oil and gas resources to world markets, safely and efficiently conveying those energy resources from Alberta to the B.C. coast, much less pipelining it to the rest of Canada in the east and efficiently to the U.S. to enable it to start charging the going price rather than the marked-down price to American refineries. Venezuela's vast oil resources haven't kept pace with the need to upgrade its infrastructure and refining capabilities and the country is imploding in poverty and social welfare backwardness. See any resemblance?

But the issue of Canada's clumsy inability to govern itself takes second place to Advancing Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment in the energy industry. At the present time, women's representation in the Canadian energy industry stands at 24 percent. Rather than view that number as a voluntary representation in that women by and large are not represented in as great numbers as men because they don't naturally gravitate to the industry, Trudeau insists it is because they are deliberately shut out of the industry.

Which brings us to a summit of "gender equity in the energy industry" led by a government incapable of rising above its level of incompetence to solve the issue of opening up two pipelines summarily dismissed and paving the way for the TransCanada to finally get built, but that doesn't square with Trudeau's dedication to the "Path forward".

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks as the seat of US President Donald Trump sits empty during the Gender Equality Advisory Council working breakfast on the second day of the G7 Summit on June 9, 2018 in Quebec City, Canada.Leon Neal/Getty Images

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".

The Progressive Semantics of Welcoming Illegals to Canada

"Ottawa continues to experience a high demand for emergency shelter, now exacerbated by the pressures of irregular migration."
"The ability to respond to the current increased demand for shelter placement is hampered by the lack of capacity. This is affecting not only asylum seekers, but also families who have destabilized locally, households moving to Ottawa from other cities and provinces and other newcomers entering Canada through regular immigration channels."
Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson: letter to Ontario Premier Doug Ford

"I'm very concerned by Premier [Doug] Ford and [provincial] minister [Lisa] MacLeod really making statements that are difficult to understand when it comes to how they're describing asylum seekers."
"The use of the term] illegal border crossings [is quite unacceptable]."
federal Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen

"Some refugee activists have insisted that expressions such as 'illegal' border crossings should be banned from our journalism."
"The modifier 'illegal' in this context is accurate and clear, and it instantly helps our audience understand the story."
"[It represents] bureaucratic jargon [to use the term 'irregular' that the federal government prefers over] illegal border crossers." 
official CBC language guide

"The Conservatives have repeated ad nauseum that these people are crossing the border illegally, implying that they are criminals. However, they have been unable to name a single law broken by the immigrants crossing the border."
NDP MP Anne Minh-Thu Quach

Mostly Haitian migrants about to cross illegally into Canada in August 2017. Approximately 25,000 people crossed illegally into Canada to claim asylum last year, about 18,000 at the Quebec- US border. Photo Reuters/Christinne Muschi

For the past several years Canada has been attempting to cope with illegal residents living in the United States -- newly concerned at the election of Donald J. Trump as president promising to rid his country of the presence of millions of undocumented and thus illegal residents, inciting by default an exodus from the U.S. and a flood of would-be 'refugees' into Canada -- bypassing legal entry points to cross illegally to gain entrance and declare themselves refugees.

For the most part these have been Haitians, given leave after the earthquake and tsunami that hit Haiti to live on a temporary permit in the United States. There were Africans who were also living on temporary permits for humanitarian relief, expected to return to their countries of origin when the conditions that led them to leave were lifted. None had any intention of returning to their countries of origin, and when they found they could not remain in the U.S. they crossed into Canada.

Rows to tents had been set up in 2017 near the illegal border crossing point in Quebec to house the influx of illegally crossing asylum claimants. Photo- Radio-Canada

Originally it was Quebec that was being burdened by families trudging over the border to declare themselves refugees. These were illegal crossings, deliberately chosen to bypass the legal entry points where an agreement between the U.S. and Canada mandated that the first country of refuge maintained responsibility for the decision whether to admit or deny entry. Canada's Liberal government is prepared to host these illegal crossers, providing shelter, food, medical attention, education services until such time as refugee claims can be adjudicated which can take years.

Admitting refugees is a federal issue, not a provincial or municipal one, though Quebec has a special agreement with the federal government to look after its own immigration. But these are refugee claimants. Earlier Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale had stated: "Coming across the border in a way that tries to circumvent the law or defy proper procedure is no free ticket to Canada". It seems, however, that it is, if only for years at a time; all expenses paid.

Ahmed Aden Ali, 37, was a UN convention Somali refugee in the U.S. but was convicted of car theft there. He crossed into Canada to claim asylum but his claim was denied because of his criminal record and was deported in November of 2017. Deportations usually cost Canadian taxpayers thousands of dollars in airfare. Photo:Karen Pauls, CBC News

But by the time the claim for refugee status is determined years will have passed and people awaiting word have established themselves, had children, and jobs and in some instances simply cannot be found for deportation. In the meanwhile, social services are being strained to the limit to house, educate, medicalize along with other required social services in competition with legal residents and citizens of Canada.

Both the immigration and the public safety minister had adjudged that an estimated 90 percent of would-be refugees will face rejection simply because they don't in any measure qualify as genuine refugees, rather being in fact economic migrants. By processing them however, as legitimate refugees until the final determination is made, legitimate refugees and immigrants obeying the law by going through approved channels find themselves and their needs detained in an ever-lengthening queue to access strained resources.

Majority of illegal migrants to Canada in 2018 are Nigerians with U.S. travel visas

The very fact that Nigerians in particular enter the United States with temporary visitors' visas with the sole intention of passing directly through into Canada to declare themselves refugees registers just how pathetic Canada's response has been to the never-ending entry of illegal migrants. These pretenders will never be approved, but they will gain the opportunity to live in Canada for years, taking advantage of any generous social programs available, paid for by Canadian taxpayers.

"They are not 'irregular' border crossers; they are illegal border crossers. Let us get this straight", responded Conservative MP John Brassard to the controversy over progressively-correct sensitivities to labelling people in recognition of their behavior. The fact is that crossing the border into Canada, bypassing an official port of entry is illegal. It is a deliberately illegal act, flouting Canadian law, since most migrants pass directly before a bilingual sign informing them that they are breaking the law.

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

"It is illegal to cross the border here or any place other than a Port of Entry. You will be arrested and detained if you cross here", a sign reads close to the Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, the Quebec crossing where most unauthorized border crossings take place. As soon as the crosser states to an RCMP officer that they are asylum seekers, they are ushered toward a legal area where they are permitted to make their claim for refugee status. This is a pantomime well known by would-be claimants before entering Canada.

Under Canadian law, though they have committed a crime by entering Canada illegally, by claiming to be refugees their 'criminal' status is lifted and they are legally 'deferred' from prosecution. After all, they are only fulfilling their search for asylum in view of the one-upsmanship Tweet that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau virtuously wrote as an advocate for all those seeking asylum no matter their circumstances, that Canada will welcome them.

Canada has committed to the intake of a million immigrants between 2018 and 2020. This is Canada's normal, through regular, lawful channels, program of immigrant intake. Apart from which there is the lawful channels whereby Canada accepts its share of refugees in a world which has seen a monumental increase of migrating populations fleeing oppression, persecution, and deadly conflict largely perpetrated by Muslim majority countries and inflicted on their own captive populations.

Trying to be Prime Ministerially Relevant

"Whether it's pulling back of his engagement in the Donbass or leaving Crimea, whether it's taking responsibility for ... the important questions that the U.K. has asked after the terrible poisoning incident a few weeks ago in Salisbury, whether it's questions around NATO, questions around Syria, questions around the Arctic [Russia and Vladimir Putin in specific is due to show some positive behaviour on the world stage]."
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addresses the media at Sussex Regional High School in Sussex, N.B. on Thursday, March 22, 2018. The Russian Embassy is firing back at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for criticizing President Vladimir Putin at a press conference this week. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Andrew Vaughan

"We regret PM Trudeau's confrontational rhetoric at yesterday's Toronto press conference prompted by U.K. slanderous Russophobic hysteria."
"This language of ultimatums is totally unacceptable & counterproductive, especially for bilateral dialogue on important issues, like the Arctic."
Russian attache, Russian Embassy, Ottawa, Canada

Russia in Canada ✔ @RussianEmbassyC

We regret PM Trudeau’s confrontational rhetoric at yesterday’s Toronto press-conference prompted by UK slanderous Russophobic hysteria. This language of ultimatums is totally unacceptable & counterproductive, especially for bilateral dialogue on important issues, like the Arctic.

12:59 PM - Mar 22, 2018

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"The prime minister made a tiny mistake and a junior diplomat picked up on it. End of story."
"The Arctic is one of just a couple of places where Russian-Western co-operation remains good."
"[The Twitter account rebutting the prime minister's statement is run by a press secretary] who is a very active tweeter -- you might even call him a troll."
"Yes, he is an employee of the Russian Foreign Ministry, but he is a long way from the centre."
Michael Byers, Arctic expert, Canada Research Chair in Global Politics and International Law, University of British Columbia

There's Justin Trudeau, exchanging his clown's cap and internationally exchangeable costume wardrobes in cultural appropriation passing as 'respect', for the veneer of an intellectual and sturdy upholder of international stabilization between the governments of world powers, yearning to reverse the damage he willfully brought in government-to-government relations between Canada and India. Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper had the courage of his convictions preferring to deliver a more apt and particular message personally, face to face.

It was beneath Stephen Harper's dignity as the prime minister of Canada to masquerade himself as a Bollywood actor on his visit to India, which was a state and stately affair not a sham trade event of great moment staged by Trudeau that made a mockery of Canada as a nation whose governance was one to be reckoned with. Trudeau chose not only to embarrass Canada by his mawkish stage-managing to appeal to a voting bloc in Canada, but when his stupidity in parading his good relations with a convicted attempted assassin of an Indian Minister made inconvenient headlines, blaming India for engineering it.

Now, while the Parliamentarian opposition is heating up his seat to burn his backside over that crassly notorious bungle, Trudeau has hoisted his trousers to confront -- at a safe distance -- another government. Not that that other government's actions on a multitude of fronts doesn't call out for confrontation, simply that Trudeau isn't the one to do it. He has little credibility either at home or at large in the international community which hasn't yet stopped laughing uproariously at the colourfully silk-clad Trudeau family disporting themselves at the Taj Mahal and the Golden Temple at Amritsar.

Slapping together a sanctimonious accusation bundling Ukraine, election interference in the United States, and the use of a chemical poisoning agent in Salisbury against a former Russian intelligence agent who acted for MI6, and sticking Arctic sovereignty into the grievance-and-accusation list simply represents yet another demonstration of his lack of knowledge, of intelligence, and of maturity. That Parliament adopted a motion holding Russia to account for the nerve gas attack against Sergei Skripal and daughter Yulia should have sufficed.

Trudeau himself feeling that he can add weight to the solemn rejection of thuggery on the part of Russian President Vladimir Putin simply portrays himself as an adolescent me-too aspirant to influence on the world stage. He should stick to what he knows and does best; thrilling young girls with his august presence as the world's premier "feminist" with his endless agenda of advancing women's rights and social engineering in every single aspect of governmental and business processes throughout the world community.

Yawn.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau watches children working on small robotics in Toronto on Wednesday, March 21, 2018. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Frank Gunn

The Snubbed Canadian Thespian : Justin Trudeau, Making Friends and Influencing Prime Minister Narendra Modi

"A veteran Indian diplomat said in his long experience with bilateral visits, he had never experienced a trip of this nature, where the visiting dignitary spent so little time in official engagements with counterparts in the Indian government."
"[Though wishing to remain anonymous lest he appear] churlish [this diplomat is extremely puzzled that a junior minister was dispatched to greet Trudeau]."
Hindustan Times

"The beautiful photogenic Trudeaus went to see the Taj Mahal in Agra, where they were welcomed not by the provincial chief minister, not even a junior minister, but by district officials."
"There seems to be no end to the Indian snubbing of the Canadians, even as the Trudeaus are trying their best to disarm the Indians with a charm offensive."
"India has often accused Canada of sheltering Sikh separatists. Sikhs in Canada form a voting bloc for Trudeau, so much so that he even attended a Khalsa Day parade organized by a radical Gurudwara [Sikh temple] in Toronto. Some Sikh Gurudwaras in Canada have also barred the entry of Indian diplomats."
"For Trudeau, this trip is all about the Sikh vote in Canada. Ironically, Trudeau's visit was meant to mend fences with India, given that India has made clear its disapproval of Trudeau's appeasement of Sikh separatists. It's the sort of thing, India fears, that could reignite Sikh extremism in Indian Punjab."
"Trudeau has to choose between not reigniting Sikh separatism in India and keeping some of his voters happy. He can't have both. If India were to start supporting Quebec separatists, it can't imagine that Canada would have good relations with India. It works both ways."
Shivan Vij, New Delhi journalist, Washington Post

Still from video, Global News

The Trudeaus love dressing up and they love attention and they love vacations, and goodness gracious, they've rolled all their favourites together and are now in the process of wowing India. Hoping for some extracurricular opportunities to appear in a Bollywood movie perhaps? One of Justin Trudeau's scant few work experiences was as an acting coach at a private boys' school, after all; the other as a snowboarding instructor and one doesn't think snowboarding would go over in India, so you've got to grasp your opportunities where you can.

Um, does it seem a tad patronizing, a bit of cultural appropriation on the part of the Trudeaus to make such a great show of demonstrating the traditional Indian namaste gesture of veneration while clad in opulent Indian formal wear -- certainly worthy of photographing and demanding oohs and aahs of admiration for the family that represents Canada on the world stage, even if it does so in the most ostentatiously cringeworthy manner conceivable.

Omar Abdullah‏Verified account @OmarAbdullah

Is it just me or is this choreographed cuteness all just a bit much now? Also FYI we Indians don’t dress like this every day sir, not even in Bollywood.

2:48 AM - 21 Feb 2018

The Prime Minister of Canada, off on another junket whose purpose is to impress and influence the world at large with his cultivated sense of preening extraordinariness. True, he is one-of-a-kind, and most Canadians are grateful for that. Grateful that when he vacates the station he now holds, his fanciful endowment of vanity and virtue-signalling, his condescension and his promotion of progressive values will go with him. Justin Trudeau may never be sick and tired of posing for photo opportunities but much of the Canadian voting public is of viewing them.

He has not excelled at making friends for Canada within the international community, nor at his clumsy efforts in promoting Canadian exports (and values) along with succeeding in signing off on potentially lucrative and job-creating trade agreements. His inner ego is so focused on his personal attributes including his pathological feminism that success eludes everything he touches. In Canada's relations with powerhouse India he crudely boasts that there are more Sikhs in his cabinet than in India's. Three of his Sikh ministers are accused of supporting Sikh extremist Khalistanis.

His Minister of Foreign Affairs is persona non grata with Russia, but Trudeau muses that he would like to restore diplomatic connections with the Islamic Republic of Iran, a theocratic tyranny recognized for its support of terrorism and its vicious hostility to the West, alongside its persecution of its own people. Expanding trade with China is a Liberal party focus and Justin Trudeau was under the illusion his sunny personality could persuade Beijing to sign a trade union with Canada amending its attitude toward worker rights and female empowerment in the process -- and failed.

A new, amended NAFTA trade agreement with the United States and Mexico is in the works portending ill for both Mexico and Canada leading Canada to look elsewhere in diversifying its trade options. No problem in signing off on the European Union-Canada free trade agreement that would incorporate workers' rights, environmental concerns and feminist empowerment there, but vastly controversial when haughtily foisting it upon the nations prepared to sign the Trans-Pacific Trade Deal, in the process alienating Japan, traditionally one of Canada's largest trade partners.

The irrepressibly fatuous mouthpiece that is Justin Trudeau was warned years ago about "stepping on the minefield of the extremely sensitive domestic Indian politics and damaging bilateral relations with this key country" as a piece of cautionary advice by Ramesh Thakur, an international affairs expert. India has good reason to be suspicious about Canada's role in giving haven to violent Sikh separatists; its failure to hold accountable conspirators who masterminded the Air India bombing at the loss of 329 lives over Lockerbie, Scotland remains in evidence as a blot on Canadian justice for the victims.

And now, in the midst of the Trudeau family's imperial vacation-visit to India, CBC News has revealed that the Canadian High Commission in India had invited Jaspal Atwal to a formal event it is staging in New Delhi, a dinner with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Atwal has quite the background; a member of the International Sikh Youth Federation banned in Canada, the U.K. the U.S. and India as a terrorist group years ago, he had been convicted in 1986 on Vancouver Island of the attempted murder of Malkiat Singh Sidhu, an Indian cabinet minister.

As though that in and of itself was not enough to warrant a wide berth between this man and the official Canadian entourage, Jaspal Atwal was convicted as well in an automobile fraud case; charged but failed to be convicted in a 1985 near-fatal attack on Ujjal Dosanjh, a Sikh separatist movement opponent who became premier of British Columbia years later. The invitation, after CBC's having aired these details, asking the Prime Minister's Office to comment, was rescinded.

Sophie Trudeau and Jaspal Atwal pictured in Mumbai Feb. 20. The Trudeaus attended a business and cultural event in the city that evening celebrating Indian cinema.

Abortion Rights the Guiding Principle of Liberal Governance Under Feminist Trudeau

"As a small Christian church that was planning to apply for the Canada Summer Jobs program to offer a summer internship, the recent changes have been quite a shock and disappointment."
"And yet, because of our commitment to the sanctity of life and to biblical teachings, our government is discriminating against us."
"The very group that the Liberal government claims to care about -- students, refugees, children and people in need -- will all lose because of these changes."
Brad Jones, pastor, Woodgreen Presbyterian Church, Calgary

"[The attestation is consistent with] the Government of Canada's commitment to human rights, which include women's rights and women's reproductive rights, and the rights of gender-diverse and transgender Canadians."
"Women's rights are human rights [including] sexual and reproductive rights -- and the right to access safe and legal abortions."
Employment Ministry Canada, Applicant Guide

"The wording of the attestation is either very ambiguous and it needs to be clarified, or it's completely unambiguous and it needs to be changed."
"The end result, whatever the intent may or may not have been is that those who can't check off that attestation are being denied equal access to a public benefit solely because of their religious belief."
Julia Beazley, director of public policy, Evangelical Fellowship of Canada

Pro-choice group Love Team Peterborough march carrying bright pink signs alongside the Peterborough Pro-Life group outside Peterborough Regional Health Centre (PRHC) on Saturday April 15, 2017 CLIFFORD SKARSTEDT/PETERBOROUGH EXAMINER/POSTMEDIA NETWORK

According to the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, service levels may be reduced by some organizations who rely on the grant to hire summer students, giving them employment, and offering additional services under their auspices to those whom they serve, as a religious community. The Charter of Rights and Freedoms that all Canadians rely upon to ensure they are free to unimpeded practise of their religious beliefs is, in fact, being contested in this new exercise undertaken by the Trudeau government, of excluding from public funding through tax dollars those groups and organizations whose religious convictions go counter to the official Liberal support of abortion on demand.

"In addition to the obvious and unfortunate infringement of the freedom of conscience and religion in such matters as are raised by the new policy, there will be unfortunate consequences on the ground", stated the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops -- unambiguously. The attestation affixed to the application for summer employment funding had been added after a report indicated that anti-abortion groups had received federal funding through the summer jobs program, granting funds to hire students by small businesses, non-profit organizations and public-sector groups.

"We have had extremely successful summer placements of students of all backgrounds. We will feel the loss of students this summer", said executive director of Ontario-based New Life Prison Ministries, Rosemary Redshaw, unable to sign the attestation that goes awry of her organization, shutting her out of the grant program. The Canadian Council of Christian Charities, representing 3,400 organizations, has been fielding a massive number of communications relating to the new application form. "Right now, many members are saying 'we can't sign this attestation', and if they don't click it on the online application, their application is stopped", explained the organization's director of legal affairs.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau prides himself on being a 'feminist'. He inserted a feminist agenda into high-level executive talks with his international counterparts in the Trans-Pacific Trade Agreement, effectively scuttling by his insistence, the successful conclusion of the trade agreement, then followed that imbroglio up with introducing trade giant China to the novel idea of feminist ideals, thinking he could persuade them to implement his personal feminist agenda in a trade deal between Canada and China. The Chinese were pleased to politely set aside a trade deal with Canada, preferring not to infuse trade with feminism.

A majority of Canadians support a woman's right to abortion. Many of that majority feel that there should be limits to that right; for example, unrestricted abortions during the first trimester, and otherwise when there is a danger involved with the mother's health being imperilled, but that there should be a cut-off period as the foetus matures toward sustainability. Support for a woman's right to decide what she will do with her own body is fairly universal; there is no need for public coercion on the part of the Liberal government, and particularly this 'feminist' Prime Minister.

Openly Transparent Hypocrites

"We think it should be public and there's no reason for that information to be hidden or considered confidential. It should be part of the budget, and why they [the federal Liberal government] decided not to release it is a different question."
"To be honest with you, when I look at these numbers, [there is] nothing there that hits me that should be kept secret or confidential or kept from the public. I don't really see anything that would justify this. I am puzzled why they are so sensitive about this."
"[But] it's not up to us to decide what is public or not. That is their information. They [Liberal government] own it."
Mostafa Askari, assistant parliamentary budget officer

"We as a party have always demonstrated a level of openness and transparency in how we've conducted our affairs and we will continue to set a very high bar on our expectations of how Canadians need to be able to see what politicians are accountable."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

A report from Parliamentary Budget Officer Jean-Denis Fréchette, left, says Finance Minister Bill Morneau's budget lacks the transparency needed to properly analyze it. (Canadian Press)

The Parliamentary Budget Officer, although that office was given a legitimate and needed task, to overlook government budget to ascertain whether it was being conducted in the best interests of the taxpayer, was always given a hostile ride by the previous Conservative government. But never were primary figures enabling the Budget Officer to do his work, withheld at the demand of he PBO. The current prime minister, Trudeau, insisted that under his government accountability, openness, transparency represented an idealism he was proud to campaign on.

Now that he is prime minister, he has gone out of his way to counteract and reverse almost all legislation brought in by the Conservative government. Just as Prime Minister Stephen Harper was intent on putting his stamp and his conservative values front and centre during his administration, so too is Justin Trudeau doing the same -- with a vengeance and far more deeply than his predecessor, upturning legislation, renaming government departments, feeling himself immune from criticism.

Where the previous government became consumed with the need to balance the books, the current government is intent on pulling out all the stops to spend as much treasury as all the projects he has claimed to support will require. In so doing, though he campaigned on the notion that his government would bring in a relatively modest $10-billion deficit in its first year of operation, we're looking at three times that amount, and more, to plunge the country deeper into a massive debt load.

This is a man, this prime minister, who saw nothing amiss as a Member of Parliament, and then as Leader of one of the country's three main political parties, in speaking at various venues, some of them charitable, for hefty speaking fees. As though as an MP, handsomely paid for his services, he wasn't in any event obligated to speak on invitation and not charge exorbitant fees. When a public backlash resulted with that revelation, he no longer accepted such engagements, but now that his party and he are the government, that legacy lives on.

Now, the Liberal government is making key cabinet members available for one-on-one sessions with lawyers, lobbyists and corporate heads in exchange for financial support, selling $500 tickets to attend privately sponsored meetings with key government leaders. These may be legal in practise, but they come with a stench of corruption, an observation that should be obvious enough to make Cabinet and the Prime Minister step back from that abyss, but has not yet done so.

The Liberal government's much vaunted open-government strategy, an "open-by-default" strategy to demonstrate to Canadians how honourable and clean they are, has already fallen by the wayside. It is now obvious enough, as Mr. Askari of the PBO points out that the Liberal budget is nowhere near as transparent as those of previous governments. It is not leaving its books open for scrutiny by members of the House, as required.

The PBO on sending a formal request to the Finance deputy minister requesting the required data along with an explanation why the information has been ordered to be treated as confidential is still awaiting a response. The traditional year-by-year breakdown over a five-year period of new tax and spending measures cannot be completed as required. Without the withheld data relating to the last three years of the five-year period under scrutiny an incomplete and thus worthless report will result.

So much for Liberal transparency.