Showing posts with label rule of law. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rule of law. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 10, 2019

Is Justin Trudeau Even Sane

As we pointed out several years ago, Justin Trudeau is the worst Canadian Prime Minister since his father Pierre Elliot Trudeau inflated the Federal Government deficit to 8% of GDP, while undermining the fertility of the nation with "no-fault" divorce and tacit approval of abortion in defiance of the law, as a result of which actions:
the Canadian dollar fell sharply, bottoming eventually at 63.11 cents US;

there was a general recognition among Canadian women that economic security is to be found not in the hard task of raising children, but in the pursuit of higher education and a career;

and, for the first time ever, the national fertility rate dipped below the replacement rate, and has continued falling ever since.
During the interim, between the Trudeau's there were four essentially abortive premierships, two Conservative (Joe Clarke and Kim Campbell) and two Liberal (John Turner and Paul Martin) and three significant governments, those of Brian Mulroney, Jean Chrétien and Steven Harper.

Brian Mulroney, let the Trudeau deficit ride, leaving it to the subsequent Liberal administration of Jean Chrétien to clean up, while signing the Free Trade Agreement with Canada's largest (by far) trading partner, the US, and later the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which included Mexico, and introducing the GST, a consumption tax with a rebate to low income earners.

Jean Chrétien brought the Federal budget deficit under control, while allowing the Canadian dollar to slump against the greenback, making Canadian manufacturing more competitive than it would otherwise have been in the face of low-wage competition from Mexico. Nevertheless, following the NAFTA agreement Canada lost out to Mexico as the largest supplier of autoparts to the United States.

Stephen  Harper's administration promoted oil sands development, thereby greatly boosting the economies of Alberta and Saskatchewan and strengthening the Canadian dollar, which returned to parity with the US dollar by the time Harper left office. The downside to increased oil exports and a strong dollar was a decline in Canada's international competitiveness in manufacturing, with the result that Ontario, formerly a manufacturing power house, is now a have-not province and the recipient of "equalization payments".

But if not all has gone well under administrations since that of Pierre Elliot Trudeau, at no time have things gone as disastrously and unnecessarily badly as under Trudeau the Second. For example, in handling relations with the United States — Canada's most important trade partner by far, with China — the world's largest economy and Canada's third largest trade partner, and India — the World's most populous nation, Justin Trudeau has managed to give offence to all.

With respect to the US, Canada has, throughout the 2016 US Presidential election campaign and ever since, used the state-controlled Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to run a  daily smear and jeer campaign directed at president Donald Trump. The result? Tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum, and a contemptuous American disregard for Canadian interests in the negotiation of a still unsigned (with Canada) Canada-US-Mexico Trade Agreement.

With respect to China, Justin Trudeau, in search of a trade agreement, went to Beijing to demand, as a condition, that China introduce workplace gender-equity laws. The result, naturally, was zero Chinese interest in a trade deal with Canada, a country with whom China has a massive trade surplus. Not unconnected with the imbecility of Trudeau's effort to interfere in China's domestic arrangements, China has banned the import of Canadian Canola seed and oil, heretofore Canada's second largest agricultural export.

With respect to India, Trudeau made his absurd and notorious fancy dress tour, adding injury to insult not only by taking with him his own Indian chef, but a Sikh nationalist convicted of attempting to murder an Indian cabinet minister. Surely not unconnected, India has since banned the import of Canadian pulse crops.

Domestically, Trudeau's chief accomplishments have been to put a stranglehold on oil exports through failure to permit construction of new pipelines. As a result, Canada, the World's fourth largest oil exporter, is reduced to the necessity of transporting oil to tidewater by rail, which is expensive, dangerous, and environmentally harmful.

And by far the greatest cause for concern, Trudeau has repeatedly demonstrated a contempt for the rule of law.

He did so when:
breaching the Federal Conflict of Interest Law by accepting the gift of a free family vacation from a registered government lobbyist, and sticking the Canadian taxpayer for several hundred thousand dollars in travel costs.

Pressuring the Attorney General to grant a deferred prosecution agreement to SNC-Lavalin, a Montreal-based corporation convicted of bribery and corruption on a massive scale both at home abroad.

Booting his fired Attorney General, Jodie Wilson-Raybould and former Treasury Board Minister, Dr. Jame Philpott from the Liberal Party caucus without, as required by law (albeit unenforceable), a caucus vote.
Which last point raises an interesting question. Why, exactly, did Dr. Jane Philpott, generally regarded as one of the most competent ministers in Trudeau's government, resign. At the time of her resignation, Dr. Philpott said that there was much that remained to come out concerning Trudeau's firing of the Attorney General, Jodie Wilson-Raybould.

But was that all there was to Dr. Philpott's decision? Perhaps not. Jane Philpott is a medical doctor with wide experience of public health issues, which raises this question: does she interpret Justin Trudeau's lawless behavior differently from other political spectators? In particular, does she interpret Trudeau's conduct as evidence of mental illness?

In short, does Jane Philpott see in the behavior of Justin Trudeau evidence of paranoid megalomania, an understandable risk in the son of Margaret Trudeau, a victim of bipolar schizophrenia, and the son of Pierre Elliot Trudeau, whose political heroes were among the world's most tyrannical dictators, Hitler (during his youth and before the collapse of the Nazi empire), Mao Tse Tung, responsible for the greatest state-organized slaughter of civilians during the Twentieth Century, and the comparatively small-time but ruthless killer and Commie, Fidel Castro.

Yes, in Justin Trudeau, Dr. Jame Philpott may well have diagnosed a madman capable of limitless harm to the Canadian nation, the non-existence of which he has already asserted.

Related:
Toronto Sun: Trudeau plays politics with terrorism

Monday, April 8, 2019

Trudeau's Libel Action Reveals His Unfitness for Office

Andrew Scheer, Leader of the Opposition, has received a letter from JustinTrudeau's lawyer notifying him of the Prime Minister's intention to bring a libel suit against Scheer for statements made by Scheer concerning pressure brought to bear on former Attorney General, Jodie Wilson-Raybould, in relation to the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin on charges of bribery and corruption.

The letter states, in part:

On March 29, 2019 you issued a press statement [that] contained highly defamatory comments about Prime Minister Trudeau. ...

In particular:
1. “These documents and recordings are concrete evidence that proves Justin Trudeau led a campaign to politically interfere with SNC-Lavalin’s criminal prosecution.”

2. “Ms. Wilson-Raybould repeatedly told the Prime Minister and his top officials that their actions were ‘entirely inappropriate’ and amounted to ‘political interference’. Despite her objections, the Clerk of the Privy Council pressured her and made it clear that her job was on the line.”

3. “Justin Trudeau also told Canadians what he knew to be false. He knew that his Attorney General had serious concerns about his plan to get SNC-Lavalin off of serious criminal charges. But he looked Canadians in the eye and told them that no one had raised concerns with him. This is false and he owes Canadians an explanation.”

4. “The entire SNC-Lavalin scandal is corruption on top of corruption on top of corruption.Two cabinet ministers have resigned on principle and both Justin Trudeau’s top political advisor and his top civil servant have resigned in disgrace. The Prime Minister has lost the moral authority to govern and must resign.”
If this goes to court, Trudeau will either have to admit complete ignorance of what Butts, Wernick and other members of his staff were doing when they pressured Wilson-Raybould to order the Director of Public Prosecutions to grant SNC-Lavalin a deferred prosecution agreement, or he will have to deny what the taped conversation between Wilson-Raybould and David Wernick proves to be a fact; namely that Wernick cleary warned Wilson-Raybould that she either complied with the Prime Minister's wish in the matter of ending the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin or she'd be fired as Justice Minister and Attorney General.

 Either way, Trudeau's unfitness to head the government will be demonstrated. Indeed, the fact that he has threatened to bring such an idiotic suit against the Leader of the Opposition proves his unfitness for office. Any actual court proceedings would be a redundancy. Furthermore, by attempting by means of court action to deny the undeniable, Trudeau proves that he is liar intent on lying about the lies he's told. 

Trudeau has effectively sabotaged his own chances in the October general election, and if the Liberal Party wishes to be regarded as a realistic contender in the forthcoming election, rather than a cult headed by a dim-witted dictator wannabe, they'd better act soon to find a new leader.

Related:
Ottawa Citizen: Scheer repeats alleged libel, goads Trudeau to follow through on lawsuit
The Tyree: Why Has Trudeau Risked So Much for SNC-Lavalin?
Ottawa Citizen: Philpott says Trudeau's caucus expulsions violated law
The Atlantic: Justin Trudeau Falls From Grace
National Post: Gurney: Trudeau's lawsuit threat takes Liberals' SNC-Lavalin response to even dumber depths
Ottawa Sun: LILLEY: Scheer sticks to his guns on SNC-Lavalin

Tuesday, April 2, 2019

Justin Trudeau Has Got One Thing Done: He's Booted Two Liberal Party Members for an Unwanted Display of Integrity

In a Twitter post yesterday, former Canadian Justice Minister and Attorney General Jopdie Wilson-Raybould wrote:  
I have just been informed by the Prime Minister of Canada that I am removed from the Liberal caucus and as the confirmed Vancouver Granville candidate for the Liberal Party of Canada in the 2019 federal election
And in a FaceBook post, Dr. Jane Philpott, also expelled from the Liberal Party of Canada—in her case for supporting the former Justice Minister and Attorney General, Jody WilsonpRaybould, wrote:
Rather than acknowledge the obvious — that a range of individuals had inappropriately attempted to pressure the former attorney general in relation to a prosecutorial decision — and apologize for what occurred, a decision was made to attempt to deny the obvious — to attack Jody Wilson-Raybould's credibility and attempt to blame her.

That approach now appears to be focused on whether Jody Wilson-Raybould should have audiotaped the clerk instead of the circumstances that prompted Jody Wilson-Raybould to feel compelled to do so.
And Andrew Scheer, the Leader of the opposition, said with cheerful sanctimony:
View image on Twitter

While Jagmeet Singh, leader of the NDP, joined the chorus of condemnation, writing on Twitter:
Today, PM Trudeau and the Liberal government showed us exactly what they think about integrity. Thank you Jody for being loyal to Canadians. You deserve better.
In a letter to members of the Liberal Party caucus, sent just prior to her expulsion by Prime Minister Trudeau, Ms. Wilson-Raybould wrote of her commitment to doing politics in a new way:
... to break old and cynical patterns of centralizing power in the hands of a few unelected staffers" and the "the marginalization of hundreds of members of Parliament." 
 LOL. Young Justin, so much the admirer of all things dictatorship, from Castro to China's President for Life Xi, no doubt found such a commitment an insult impossible to ignore.

Related: 
CBC: With Wilson-Raybould and Philpott, the Commons' crew of Independent MPs enters uncharted territory
The Post Millenial: How far is Trudeau’s AG willing to go to shut his eyes to the glaring evidence?
The Ottawa Sun: BONOKOSKI: Trudeau did not find his spine, only his panic button
The Tyee: Trudeau’s Dumb Expulsions and Strange Compulsions
CBC: SNC-Lavalin insider's bribery allegations spark probe by Crown agency that loaned the firm billions

Friday, March 29, 2019

Why Jodie Wilson-Raybould Resigned As Canada's Minister of Veterans Affairs

Jodie Wilson-Raybould (JWR) was fired as Canada's Justice Minister and Attorney General after refusing to abort the prosecution of Québec-based engineering multi-national, SNC-Lavalin on charges of bribery and corruption abroad.

She was subjected to political pressure to provide SNC with relief from Prosecution by the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, both in person and by letter, by members of the Prime Minister's staff, by Finance Ministry staff, and by David Wernick, Clerk of the Privy Council, Canada's most senior civil servant.

Specifically, it was expected that she would override the judgement of the independent Director of Public Prosecutions, by ordering that SNC-Lavalin be granted a so-called remediation agreement, under the terms of which penalties would be negotiated without criminal liability.

By way of pressure, JWR was given to understand that cabinet post was in jeopardy unless she submitted to the Prime Minister's wishes in the matter of the SNC-Lavalin prosecution.

JWR rejected these demands on the grounds that they amounted to interference in Canada's constitutionally protected traditions of prosecutorial independence and rule of law. Shortly afterwards, Prime Minister Trudeau fired JWR as Justice Minister and Attorney General.

Following her dismissal, JWR was offered the cabinet post of Minister of Veterans Affairs, which she accepted. However, following meetings with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on January 14th of this year, JWR resigned her new cabinet appointment. The trigger for this decision was a statement by the Prime Minister that with reference to the propriety of the Government's action in relation to SNC-Lavelin, JWR's ongoing presence in Cabinet spoke for itself. With reference to her resignation from Cabinet the following day JWR said: "I trust that my resignation also speaks for itself."

The recording of the telephone conversation between JWR and the Clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Wernick, is here.

JWR's 21-page written submission of supplementary information for the Parliamentary Justice Committee relating to political pressure under which she was placed during her tenure as Canada's Attorney General is here.

Related:
Toronto Sun: Lilley — Trudeau's lies
CBC: Wilson-Raybould: 'no regrets'
CBC:Feast hosted for Jody Wilson-Raybould on Vancouver Island
Global News: Phone call leaves Liberals’ SNC-Lavalin narrative — and excuses — in complete tatters
Global News:Michael Wernick never briefed Trudeau on Wilson-Raybould phone call — says PMO
NaPo: Christie Blatchford: The Jody Wilson-Raybould solution
NaPo: Andrew Coyne: Wilson-Raybould recording brings SNC-Lavalin affair crashing back to reality
The Tyee: Jody Wilson-Raybould: Cassandra of the Trudeau Government

Friday, March 8, 2019

Gerald Butts Offers Serpentine Explanation for Quitting as Trudeau's Brain

Asked by Liberal MP, Randy Boissonnault, during Wedenesday's Parliamentary Justice Committee hearing why he quit his job as the Prime Minister's Principal Secretary, Gerald Butts offered this gem of snake-like obfuscation:

I think I was put in a position where I had to ask my colleagues to fight another colleague over accusations a colleague was making, and I think that put the prime minister in an impossible position given the nature of our friendship.

Which interpreted, means:

I was put in a position

Justin wanted this.

I had to* ask my colleagues to fight another colleague =

I persuaded various cabinet minsters to make snide comments about then Justice Minister and Attorney General, Jodie Wilson-Raybould, with the intention of making the obdurate bitch resign from cabinet, thereby making way for some malleable tool who would follow directions and tell the Director of Public Prosecutions to drop the prosecution of SNC-Lavelin on charges of bribery and corruption, as conviction would have detrimental consequences for the Prime Minister.

over accusations a colleague was making =

The accusation being the fully justified objections that Jodie Wilson-Raybould had addressed to the Prime Minister and others, concerning efforts by Butts, the Head of the Civil Service, the Minister of Finance, the Deputy Minister of Finance, the Prime Minister's legal advisers, and the Prime Minister himself to interfere in the independent action of the Attorney General and the Federal Prosecution Service concerning the ongoing prosecution of SNC-Lavalin on charges of bribery and corruption. 

and I think that put the prime minister in an impossible position given the nature of our friendship =

It would have been totally out of character for me to have instigated the campaign of vilification against Jodie Wilson-Raybould without the Prime Minister's knowledge and approval, therefore, as a longtime close friend of the Prime Minister I am resigning to create the impression that the whole dirty scheme was entirely my own idea and carried out contrary to the commitment of the Prime Minister (if any) to the rule of law, even when the application of the law causes him a massive pain in the arse.

———
* Note the reference to compulsion: "I had to." In other words, what Butts did appears to have been something contrary to his own judgement of what was right, and must, therefore, have been ordered by the Prime Minister.

Related:

CBC: SNC-Lavalin loses bid for judicial review of prosecution decision

Sunday, February 18, 2018

Niall Ferguson: The Decline of the West Explained – Not

First published by CanSpeccy on Wordpress, June 20, 2013

In his latest book, pot boiler, extended magazine article in hard covers for 28 bucks, whatever, Niall Ferguson sets out to explain why the nations of the West, so long dominant in scientific and technical skills, wealth and power, are now stagnating economically as China and much of the rest of the Third World rise in power and prosperity at an unprecedented rate.

The trouble, thinks Feguson, is the problem that Adam Smith identified as the cause of China’s economic stagnation in the 18th century: it is, he argues, our institutions. Our institutions of democracy, capitalism, the rule of law, and civil society, he says, have degenerated, resulting in the the concentration of wealth, the emergence of monopolies, a decline in educational standards and other ills that have resulted in a loss of Western competitiveness.

In form, Ferguson’s book is reminiscent of those vaguely interesting and generally incoherent lectures to which so many have been exposed during undergraduate education: a few interesting facts and ideas with many loose ends, leaving unlimited scope for further debate and literary output.

But as an account of the stagnation and relative decline of the West, Ferguson’s effort is almost entirely futile other than as an exercise in misdirection, distraction and cover-up.

If the institutions of democracy in the West are degenerating, those of the extraordinarily dynamic China are essentially non-existent. If the rule of law in America is increasingly the “rule of lawyers,” in China it is a concept barely even understood. If free and fair competition in Western economies has diminished as capital has been concentrated in fewer hands, China’ state capitalism is the complete antithesis of the free and fair market that underlay Adam Smith’s invisible hand. As for the the institutions of civil society, the West is still incomparably free compared with China where even association for the purpose of religious worship is prohibited.

So while Western institutions are in decline, China’s are absolute crap. Yet still China’s economy booms as the West stagnates. Clearly, then, there’s more to Western economic decline than the inadequacy of some vaguely defined sets of institutions.

To discover what has stultified the West, it is necessary to consider what drives economic expansion, and the answer to that is quite simple: increased investment and production. But you cannot have increased investment and production unless there are markets for the increased output, and there will only be markets for the increased output if the new production is competitively priced. But how can new output in the West be competitively priced when the legally mandated minimum wage in America and Europe is between ten and twenty or more times the rate paid factory workers in the Third World?

This is the simple, obvious brute fact that explains Western economic stagnation, to which Niall Ferguson, like any other tenured professor at a top US or UK university, must carefully avoid drawing attention.

The consequences of the fact of Western wage uncompetitiveness with the Third World are as obvious as this one basic fact itself.

Once the Uraguay Round of the Gatt (which led to the creation of the World Trade Organization) was signed by the Western states in 1994, the Western economies were on the skids.

It took a while, naturally, to export Western capital and technology, accumulated through the sweat of generations, to the Third World.

Collapsed Bangladesh factory where Loblaws of Canada (62% owned by 
billionaire George Weston) outsourced manufacture of its "Joe Fresh" line 
of apparel. More than one thousand workers died in the collapse, but as 
George Weston remarked, they need the work. Garment workers in Canada
 presumably do not need the work, or if they do, would be much more 
expensive to hire.
It took a while, naturally, to construct the factories, build the research centers, train the engineers, biotechnologists, the computer scientists, and the millions of production line workers in China, India, Bangladesh and a hundred other countries before the Third World was in a position to take the jobs of tens of millions of Western workers.

But the system’s in place now and the jobs have been bleeding away rapidly during the last ten years, the loss masked in part by housing bubbles that stimulated the construction industry, which is among the few that cannot be off-shored wholesale.

But now the real estate bubbles have burst or are bursting and the shrinking Western economies are plagued by deflation, falling incomes, rapidly rising welfare costs and unemployment, and ominous rumblings of social discontent. Add to the mix mass immigration of culturally disparate elements, which displaces from the workforce the least competent members of the indigenous population, and you have a recipe for both economic decline and revolution.

Hyperventilating about the degeneration of our social, legal and political institutions or getting everyone to join the Lions Club won’t solve the problem created by the treason of our elites, who have sold out the working people of America and Europe for the benefit of the money power, which has gained enormous profits through the success of globalized corporations such as IBM, Apple, Microsoft, and many others.

The only remaining question of real interest is whether the money power will get away with the genocide of the Western nations in its bid for a system of global financial feudalism. And an answer to that question, we can be sure, will not be made available by Niall Ferguson or any other member of the academic elite until such time as the question has become entirely academic.

Saturday, October 29, 2016

America: A Failing State

The headlines indicate that the US Empire is coming apart.

The reasons are multiple, but the rot is from the head, the result of an elite mental illness giving rise to the delusion that the heaven-born ones, the Ivy-League-trained scions of the one percent of the one percent, can create their own reality simply by ordering that it be made so.

Like George Soros, they believe themselves to have become gods, free to treat ordinary, deplorable Americans with unlimited condescension, ridicule, and contempt.

The process whereby this once great nation is in the process of self destruction resulting from ruling class madness is spelled out in an essay After the Republic  by Angelo M. Codevilla, from which the following is ane excerpt.

Under our ruling class, “truth” has morphed from the reflection of objective reality to whatever has “normative pull”—i.e., to what furthers the ruling class’s agenda, whatever that might be at any given time. That is the meaning of the term “political correctness,” as opposed to factual correctness.