Non-Coalition Coalition that’s Definitely NOT a Coalition…

[Ron in Regina]

Arguing that it is not an “urgent” situation, the Liberals, with the help of the NDP, shut down an emergency House of Commons ethics committee meeting that had been set up to dig deeper into the matter of two high-security scientists fired from the Winnipeg National Microbiology Laboratory after an investigation uncovered they had been leaking information and working with Chinese institutions.

Liberals, NDP shut down committee probing fired government scientists leaking secrets to China — National Post

Conservative MP Michael Chong wanted to investigate why covert operations by Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng were not caught earlier

apple.news

Hmmmmmmmm…..

The federal government released last week more than 600 pages of documents that showed that Qiu had developed “deep, cooperative relationships” with institutions in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and transferred scientific knowledge and materials to China to benefit the PRC government. The two scientists were escorted from the lab in 2019 and, following an investigation, were fired in 2021.

Chong (Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong) reminded the committee that the government defied multiple orders from the House of Commons and even took former Speaker Anthony Rota to court to prevent these documents from being released.

“After three long years, we finally have gotten access to the documents, and we need to continue this examination in order to hold the government accountable. We cannot let this defiance of Parliament that took place three years ago go unanswered and unexamined,” he said.

Nothing to see here! Move along…

 

[pgs]

Arguing that it is not an “urgent” situation, the Liberals, with the help of the NDP, shut down an emergency House of Commons ethics committee meeting that had been set up to dig deeper into the matter of two high-security scientists fired from the Winnipeg National Microbiology Laboratory after an investigation uncovered they had been leaking information and working with Chinese institutions.

Liberals, NDP shut down committee probing fired government scientists leaking secrets to China — National Post

Conservative MP Michael Chong wanted to investigate why covert operations by Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng were not caught earlier

apple.news

Hmmmmmmmm…..

The federal government released last week more than 600 pages of documents that showed that Qiu had developed “deep, cooperative relationships” with institutions in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and transferred scientific knowledge and materials to China to benefit the PRC government. The two scientists were escorted from the lab in 2019 and, following an investigation, were fired in 2021.

Chong (Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong) reminded the committee that the government defied multiple orders from the House of Commons and even took former Speaker Anthony Rota to court to prevent these documents from being released.

“After three long years, we finally have gotten access to the documents, and we need to continue this examination in order to hold the government accountable. We cannot let this defiance of Parliament that took place three years ago go unanswered and unexamined,” he said.

Nothing to see here! Move along…
View attachment 21340

Come on , NDP MP’s getting their pensions is far more important than any fiscal or ethical considerations . Everybody knows this is the Canada we want .

 

[Ron in Regina]

Come on , NDP MP’s getting their pensions is far more important than any fiscal or ethical considerations . Everybody knows this is the Canada we want .

NDP/Liberal Leader Jagmeet Singh quietly handed the Liberal/NDP government of Justin Trudeau a victory that voters neither want him to have, nor one he deserves.

The NDP/Liberal non-coalition coalition that’s definitely not a coalition-type coalition Supply and Confidence agreement has — literally — bought Trudeau more time in power at the cost of billions spent on costly NDP/Liberal programs. Now the NDP/Liberals have again demonstrated it’s prepared to vote with the Liberals to stop Canadians learning about what could be one of the largest national security breaches this country has known.

EDITORIAL: We need to know details of lab leak — Toronto Sun

New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh quietly handed the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau a victory that voters neither want him to have, nor one he deserves. The NDP/Liberal Supply and Confidence agreement has — literally — bought Trudeau more time in power at the cost of billions spent...

apple.news

NDP/Liberals went along with the Liberal/NDP government to shut down a parliamentary investigation into this security breach. In doing so, it’s defying the will of voters. In the last election, voters refused to give Trudeau the majority government he sought. In electing a minority government, voters said they wanted the other parties in Parliament to hold the Liberal/NDP’s to account.

It’s bad enough that Singh is using that minority to blackmail the Liberal/NDP’s into caving to his expensive demands. Now his party has casually voted to stifle investigation of what appears to be agents of a hostile nation operating within a sensitive agency.

Singh clearly doesn’t understand the main role of an opposition party. It is supposed to hold the government to account, not vote with it with knee-jerk regularity to shut down the will of voters.

It took three years to obtain these documents and Canadians have a right to a full investigation. Now the Liberal/NDP’s and the NDP/Liberals are denying us our right to know how much our security was compromised.

 

[pgs]

NDP/Liberal Leader Jagmeet Singh quietly handed the Liberal/NDP government of Justin Trudeau a victory that voters neither want him to have, nor one he deserves.

The NDP/Liberal non-coalition coalition that’s definitely not a coalition-type coalition Supply and Confidence agreement has — literally — bought Trudeau more time in power at the cost of billions spent on costly NDP/Liberal programs. Now the NDP/Liberals have again demonstrated it’s prepared to vote with the Liberals to stop Canadians learning about what could be one of the largest national security breaches this country has known.

EDITORIAL: We need to know details of lab leak — Toronto Sun

New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh quietly handed the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau a victory that voters neither want him to have, nor one he deserves. The NDP/Liberal Supply and Confidence agreement has — literally — bought Trudeau more time in power at the cost of billions spent...

apple.news

NDP/Liberals went along with the Liberal/NDP government to shut down a parliamentary investigation into this security breach. In doing so, it’s defying the will of voters. In the last election, voters refused to give Trudeau the majority government he sought. In electing a minority government, voters said they wanted the other parties in Parliament to hold the Liberal/NDP’s to account.

It’s bad enough that Singh is using that minority to blackmail the Liberal/NDP’s into caving to his expensive demands. Now his party has casually voted to stifle investigation of what appears to be agents of a hostile nation operating within a sensitive agency.

Singh clearly doesn’t understand the main role of an opposition party. It is supposed to hold the government to account, not vote with it with knee-jerk regularity to shut down the will of voters.

It took three years to obtain these documents and Canadians have a right to a full investigation. Now the Liberal/NDP’s and the NDP/Liberals are denying us our right to know how much our security was compromised.

Pensions are important .

 

[petros]

Pensions are important .

Not yours

 

[pgs]

Not yours

No sadly it is a pittance .

 

[Taxslave2]

MPs got a raise of about what a single person's pension is for the year. If we had the money us and our employers invested in CPP, plus 50 years accumulated interest, invested it conservatively, our pensions would be at least double the pittance the government allows us to take.
CPP investments have done very well in investing our money, but somehow we are not allowed to have it. Now, various groups want to force CPP investments to invest in pie in the sky Canadian deals. Mostly I think because no one else is willing to invest here.

 

[Ron in Regina]

 

[Ron in Regina]

Every social problem should be addressed at the lowest level that is effective to address the problem.

Justin Trudeau hasn’t proposed a national pharmacare plan, he’s proposed a national save Justin’s political career plan and that is something we should all reject.

From my readings this AM, implementing this plan could(will?) have negative consequences for people that have superior plans through their unions/employer. Unfortunately, the article did not explain why a private plan couldn't top up what the government won't pay to your existing level of coverage.

Did your readings this morning give you a date of implementation of the Federal plan? Before or after October 20th of 2025?

The truth is that under the best-case scenario, there won’t be any deals with the provinces to start this so-called universal, national pharmacare plan until just before the scheduled election in 2025. It’s just as likely, if not more likely, that we won’t see this plan enacted until after the next election.

Pharmacare is part of the costly supply and confidence agreement between New Democratic Party Leader Jagmeet Singh and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to keep the minority Liberal government afloat.

Which makes all of this nothing more than political posturing by Trudeau, which is what he’s been doing since the announcement.

Given that everybody lives someplace, "provincial" level sounds about right for this one. I strongly doubt that Ottawa is better positioned to administer pharmacare than Edmonton.

It’s not universal, it’s not national and it’s not pharmacare. In fact, the Liberal proposal — plan is too generous — is barely a proposal.

Bill C-64 makes no spending commitments and is transparently an attempt by the Liberal/NDP’s to do as little as possible while keeping the NDP/Liberals onside.

The pharmacare plan unveiled two weeks ago looks like it was written on the back of a cocktail napkin. Once you strip away the fancy formatting, the title page, the pages of definitions, the actual meat and potatoes of the bill is about a page and a half long.

Yes they have an agreement with no details . They should be able to rag the clock on that until October 2025 .

The first line of the summary of the bill gives away that this is not what the Liberals are selling it as. “This enactment sets out the principles that the Minister of Health is to consider when working towards the implementation of national universal pharmacare,” the bill summary reads.

…& dump it onto the next government to take over that’ll have to clean up after Justin and Jagmeet and rein in the rampant spending on top of trying to tackle a decade of budgets balancing themselves, etc…

It’s right there in black and white — this legislation is about how the minister should work towards a pharmacare system. If you listen to the rhetoric of the Liberal/NDP’s and their junior coalition partners in the NDP/Liberals, pharmacare has been delivered and the Conservatives are just waiting to destroy it.

LILLEY: The reality is, Trudeau hasn't offered a real pharmacare plan — Toronto Sun

Even the legislation is simply a proposal to consider a plan in the future

apple.news

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines universal as “including or covering all or a whole collectively or distributively without limit or exception.” This plan will only cover contraceptives and diabetes medication to start, nothing else.

That means a woman who is past menopause, who doesn’t have diabetes but has high blood pressure, for example, will get nothing.

This plan isn’t national because Quebec has already rejected it but demanded funding compensation. Alberta has said they aren’t interested in the federal plan given they have their own. Meanwhile, British Columbia already covers contraceptives and therefore doesn’t need to join that part of the federal plan.

That leaves the rest of the provinces wondering if this helps them or hurts them. Most provinces have prescription drug programs for low-income individuals and while those could be improved, this proposal, such as it is, doesn’t seem to be it.

As for this being pharmacare, go back to the part of this being universal.

This program will cover two classes of drugs, that is it. There isn’t even a full promise of more down the line.

Cancer drugs? Not yet.

Drugs for liver disease? Not anytime soon.

Kids with ADHD? Not unless they want contraceptives.

And yet, Trudeau will spend from now until the next election acting like he is a hero for providing birth control to people who are mostly covered or can afford it. He will fight an election campaign as if it is the 1950s and women are oppressed simply because he has nothing left to give.

 

[petros]

Justin Trudeau hasn’t proposed a national pharmacare plan, he’s proposed a national save Justin’s political career plan and that is something we should all reject.


The truth is that under the best-case scenario, there won’t be any deals with the provinces to start this so-called universal, national pharmacare plan until just before the scheduled election in 2025. It’s just as likely, if not more likely, that we won’t see this plan enacted until after the next election.

Which makes all of this nothing more than political posturing by Trudeau, which is what he’s been doing since the announcement.

It’s not universal, it’s not national and it’s not pharmacare. In fact, the Liberal proposal — plan is too generous — is barely a proposal.

The pharmacare plan unveiled two weeks ago looks like it was written on the back of a cocktail napkin. Once you strip away the fancy formatting, the title page, the pages of definitions, the actual meat and potatoes of the bill is about a page and a half long.

The first line of the summary of the bill gives away that this is not what the Liberals are selling it as. “This enactment sets out the principles that the Minister of Health is to consider when working towards the implementation of national universal pharmacare,” the bill summary reads.

It’s right there in black and white — this legislation is about how the minister should work towards a pharmacare system. If you listen to the rhetoric of the Liberal/NDP’s and their junior coalition partners in the NDP/Liberals, pharmacare has been delivered and the Conservatives are just waiting to destroy it.

LILLEY: The reality is, Trudeau hasn't offered a real pharmacare plan — Toronto Sun

Even the legislation is simply a proposal to consider a plan in the future

apple.news

The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines universal as “including or covering all or a whole collectively or distributively without limit or exception.” This plan will only cover contraceptives and diabetes medication to start, nothing else.

That means a woman who is past menopause, who doesn’t have diabetes but has high blood pressure, for example, will get nothing.

This plan isn’t national because Quebec has already rejected it but demanded funding compensation. Alberta has said they aren’t interested in the federal plan given they have their own. Meanwhile, British Columbia already covers contraceptives and therefore doesn’t need to join that part of the federal plan.

That leaves the rest of the provinces wondering if this helps them or hurts them. Most provinces have prescription drug programs for low-income individuals and while those could be improved, this proposal, such as it is, doesn’t seem to be it.

As for this being pharmacare, go back to the part of this being universal.

This program will cover two classes of drugs, that is it. There isn’t even a full promise of more down the line.

Cancer drugs? Not yet.

Drugs for liver disease? Not anytime soon.

Kids with ADHD? Not unless they want contraceptives.

And yet, Trudeau will spend from now until the next election acting like he is a hero for providing birth control to people who are mostly covered or can afford it. He will fight an election campaign as if it is the 1950s and women are oppressed simply because he has nothing left to give.

Hmmmmm. Why is an OTC drug still being prescribed in Canada?

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/03/04/1235404522/opill-over-counter-birth-control-pill-contraceptive-shop

Opill, the first oral contraceptive pill to be available without a prescription in the U.S., has shipped to retailers nationwide. It will be sold online and in the family planning aisle of drugstores, convenience stores and supermarkets later this month, the manufacturer announced Monday.

The drug itself has been around for decades, but manufacturers have been working nine years toward making it available over the counter. Here's what else to know about Opill.

What's in it?​

Opill is a daily progestin-only pill, meaning there's no estrogen in it. That's why this kind of pill is sometimes called a mini-pill.

Sponsor Message


This isn't a new kind of birth control pill. The drug substance was originally approved for prescription use in 1973, according to the Food and Drug Administration. But this is the first birth control pill that has been approved for use without a prescription from a health care provider.

"We have been working on it for nine years and got approval in July 2023 from the FDA to move forward. And it's been kind of full-steam ahead since that day," says Triona Schmelter, an executive at Perrigo, which manufactures Opill.

Is it safe? And does it work?​

Yes. Like many other oral contraceptives, it's 98% effective at preventing pregnancy if taken correctly. It should start to work 48 hours after taking the first dose. Potential side effects include headaches, bloating and cramping.

The FDA convened its panel of outside experts to advise it on this approval back in May, and the panel voted unanimously in favor of approval.

They said that the labeling alone was enough for people to be able to use Opill correctly without a doctor's help.

"The progestin-only pill has an extremely high safety profile, and virtually no one can have a health concern using a progestin-only pill," Dr. Sarah Prager, a professor of obstetrics and gynecology at the University of Washington School of Medicine, told NPR in July when Opill was first approved by the FDA.

 

[Ron in Regina]

Well…the NDP/Liberal’s motion on Canadian policy toward the Israel-Hamas war, which will be up for a vote in the House of Commons on Monday. That’s tomorrow. Will the Liberal/NDP’s support it?

Our current government’s only foreign policy goals are to win domestic favour it seems, & Global Affairs Canada’s direction to new postings in Israel or Ramallah was that their job in the region wasn’t to manage Canadian foreign policy — it was to mitigate domestic politics, odds are good.

It’s become crystal clear why there have been four ministers of foreign affairs in the past five years under the Trudeau government: it is are a rudderless ship with no vision for how Canada should be represented on the world stage. The prime minister’s leadership has been catastrophic for Canadian foreign policy.

The Liberals have failed to meet our NATO commitments, leaving our allies questioning our ability and our resolve. They’ve failed to stand with our Israeli allies, who are facing an existential threat. They’ve left Canada’s image degraded, tarnished and nearing the point of total collapse.

Tomorrow’s NDP/Liberal motion on Canadian policy toward the Israel-Hamas war, which will be up for a vote in the House of Commons on Monday, isn’t just a minor product of this failure, it’s a catastrophic one — a seismic shift that threatens to upend 50 years of Canadian foreign policy grounded in the pursuit of peace through a negotiated settlement over the Israel-Palestine conflict.

(Let’s be clear: no one desires war. Israel, our steadfast ally in a tumultuous region, least of all. This war is with Hamas, not the Palestinian people — a fact that Israel does not equivocate on)

The NDP/Liberal’s motion champions a unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state — a gesture that serves as a trophy to Hamas’s campaign of nihilistic violence.

Such a move doesn’t just reward terror, it legitimizes it, emboldening Hamas as the de facto voice of the Palestinian cause, to the detriment of the Palestinian Authority’s already waning influence. This isn’t support for peace, it’s an endorsement of Hamas’s strategic objectives, an action that’s diametrically opposed to the assertion that Hamas, a recognized terrorist organization, must never be allowed to lead.

Further complicating this debacle is NDP MP Don Davies’ tweet suggesting there is an equivalence between the innocent Israeli civilians who are being held under barbaric conditions by Hamas and the Palestinians who are being held by the Israeli justice system on terrorism charges.

There is no justifiable comparison between perpetrators of terrorism who were arrested under Israeli law, and toddlers and the elderly taken hostage by Hamas on Oct. 7. Israeli prisoners have the right to access lawyers, to contact their families, to health care and to a trial in a court of law — none of which are afforded to the Israeli hostages being held in Gaza.

This isn’t foreign policy, it’s laundering Hamas propaganda through the halls of Canadian democracy, a dangerous false equivalency that dehumanizes the victims of the Oct. 7 massacre and emboldens the terrorists who are responsible for it.

So where will Justin & the Justin-ites stand on this motion with their vote? I have no idea, but I can predict where the Conservatives stand on it like I can predict that the Sun rises in the east & sets in the west. The Liberal/NDP’s tepid response is a far cry from the robust support one might expect for an ally in distress. If the Justin-ites stand for anything, this must be their red line…but will they somehow find a way to flip-flop, support both sides while supporting neither, and then blame it on Steven Harper who was PM three elections ago? That’s where my money is at in this political selfie motion…

The crux of the matter, the heart around which all else orbits, is the precipice on which Canadian foreign policy teeters. For half a century, Canada has championed a two-state solution brokered through dialogue and mutual concessions. This motion, if passed, doesn’t just tilt at windmills, it dynamites the very foundation of this longstanding policy, granting a victory to terrorists and making this beleaguered Liberal/NDP government look weaker.

This decision transcends partisan lines and political calculations. It’s a question of who we are as a nation and what we stand for on the global stage. Do we side with democracy and peace, or do we capitulate to the demands of terror?

Stay tuned.

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

Our current government’s only foreign policy goals are to win domestic favour it seems, & Global Affairs Canada’s direction to new postings in Israel or Ramallah was that their job in the region wasn’t to manage Canadian foreign policy — it was to mitigate domestic politics, odds are good.

Well, that makes sense, anyhow. I mean, who really gives a flying fuck what Canaduh thinks about the Israel-Gaza kerfuffle?

 

[Taxslave2]

and then blame it on Steven Harper who was PM three elections ago? That’s where my money is at in this political selfie motion…

TBF, it is all Harper's fault. If he had not lost that election, we would not be in this mess now.

 

[Taxslave2]

Well, that makes sense, anyhow. I mean, who really gives a flying fuck what Canaduh thinks about the Israel-Gaza kerfuffle?

Canadian taxpayers. But the left hates us as much, or more than they hate Israel.

 

[Tecumsehsbones]

Canadian taxpayers. But the left hates us as much, or more than they hate Israel.

Right. Hence, and I quote. . .

Our current government’s only foreign policy goals are to win domestic favour it seems,

 

[Taxslave2]

Right. Hence, and I quote. . .

Note that they are being forced by their own ineptitude to finally attempt to curry favour with voters. But not necessarily taxpayers.

 

[Ron in Regina]

Well, that makes sense, anyhow. I mean, who really gives a flying fuck what Canaduh thinks about the Israel-Gaza kerfuffle?

Well, that’s a good question, and the answer is the approximately 5% of Muslim Canadians that predominantly live in large urban centres…potentially as swing votes in tight ridings for the Liberal/NDP or NDP/Liberal parties. That’s it in a nutshell.

5% of Muslims in Canada is larger than 2% of the Jewish in Canada, regardless of…etc…

 

[Ron in Regina]

Well, that’s a good question, and the answer is the approximately 5% of Muslim Canadians that predominantly live in large urban centres…potentially as swing votes in tight ridings for the Liberal/NDP or NDP/Liberal parties. That’s it in a nutshell.

The Liberals went up this week! Huh…& where did that happen? Hmmm…

5% of Muslims in Canada is larger than 2% of the Jewish in Canada, regardless of…etc…

Did the Liberal/NDP go up in BC? AB? SK?


Nope…doesn’t look like it. Doesn’t look like it’s in MB either…or the four Maritime provinces? Doesn’t even look like it’s in Quebec or the Territories? That leaves Ontario and probably not in the rural area’s…so maybe it worked somewhat…at the expense of the NDP/Liberals? Swing riding in the GTA?

 

[Ron in Regina]

“On Monday the NDP/Liberals have a motion that it pitches as a call for a ceasefire. It does so without demanding Hamas surrender & no longer rule Gaza. It also calls for a litany of other things hostile to Israel. Changing foreign policy to reward a terrorist attack. Not smart,” said Liberal MP Anthony Housefather, on X.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs launched a petition in opposition to the motion, saying it “threatens Canada’s values, foreign policy, and support of Israel, while giving Hamas what it wants: recognition and support.”

Of course Liberal MP Salma Zahid has said she will vote in favour of the motion.

The Liberal/NDP have been in talks with the NDP/Liberals about amending the motion, although it’s unknown what the contents of the amendment would be, iPolitics reported on Saturday.

NDP motion to recognize a Palestinian state tests Liberal caucus divisions over Israel-Hamas — National Post

The motion calls on the government to officially recognize Palestine as a state

apple.news

The House of Commons is scheduled to vote on the motion Monday afternoon.

 

[petros]

“On Monday the NDP has a motion that it pitches as a call for a ceasefire. It does so without demanding Hamas surrender & no longer rule Gaza. it also calls for a litany of other things hostile to Israel. Changing foreign policy to reward a terrorist attack. Not smart,” said Liberal MP Anthony Housefather, on X.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs launched a petition in opposition to the motion, saying it “threatens Canada’s values, foreign policy, and support of Israel, while giving Hamas what it wants: recognition and support.”


Of course Liberal MP Salma Zahid has said she will vote in favour of the motion.

The Liberals have been in talks with the NDP about amending the motion, although it’s unknown what the contents of the amendment would be, iPolitics reported on Saturday.

NDP motion to recognize a Palestinian state tests Liberal caucus divisions over Israel-Hamas — National Post

The motion calls on the government to officially recognize Palestine as a state

apple.news

The House of Commons is scheduled to vote on the motion Monday afternoon.

There won't be peace until Hamas issues a climate policy.