[Canada] Canadian Politics Redux

[crazy canuck]

plus, you already have CC to have pissing matches with.

I otherwise like CC and don't understand why he responds the way he does to me, which is why I mostly try to avoid him.

(I sometimes fail in this - the fault is mine, not CC's - he is who he is)

With the exception of Josephus I am the only one old enough to call bullshit on your claims about what happened in the 80s in Canada based on first hand experience. 

[Jacob]

I was not a dedicated observer at the time so I could be wrong, but my understanding of events is closer to CC and GF's than to BB's.

[viper37]

I have talked about former judge Delisle before.

He was accused of killing his wife.  He did not testify during his trial, did not say anything during his appeal and was sent to prison.  His defense to the police was the he let a charged gun in the appartment.  An illegal gun.  A gun he had been holding to for 20 years.

He then changed his version of the facts saying he gave his wife the gun so she could kill herself, during an interview with a journalist while he was behind bars.

This prompted a revision by some last chance committee.

This report was secret, but it prompted the Justice minister to declare that there likely was a judicial mistake in his case and a new trial was needed.

But we learn this week, while the judge pleaded guilty that his report, far from exonerating him, concluded he likely did it and he could have better defended himself at his trial, he only switched version when it was convenient for him to do so.


Use your favourite translation service:
Ni innocent, ni victime d'une erreur


I think, just like the author, David Lametti will have some explaining to do.

[Josephus]

I was stoned pretty much throughout the Mulroney era.

[crazy canuck]

 

[viper37]

Canadian scientist accused of spying surface in China:

Globe & Mail

Spaywall

One of two fired scientists at the centre of an RCMP investigation into a massive security breach at Canada's top infectious-disease laboratory in Winnipeg is working in China and collaborating with researchers from the People's Liberation Army.
The Globe and Mail has learned that Xiangguo Qiu has been conducting research with Chinese military scientists and other virology researchers, including at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, on antibodies for coronavirus and the deadly Ebola and Nipah viruses.
The Globe was unable to find any information on her biologist husband, Keding Cheng, who is believed to be with her in China. The two infectious-disease scientists were escorted out of the National Microbiology Laboratory in July, 2019, and later had their security clearances revoked. They were fired in January, 2021.
They have been under an RCMP national-security investigation since 2021.
Declassified documents tabled in the House of Commons on Feb. 28 show the couple had provided confidential scientific information to China and posed a credible security threat to the country, according to the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
The Globe found that Dr. Qiu's name appears on four Chinese patent filings since 2020, two with the Wuhan Institute of Virology – whose work on bat coronaviruses has placed it at the centre of concerns that it played a role in the spread of COVID-19 – and two with the University of Science and Technology of China, or USTC. The patents relate to antibodies against Nipah virus and work related to nanobodies, including against coronaviruses.
The RCMP declined to discuss the whereabouts of the couple and whether their move back to China has affected the national-security investigation. Living in China places them beyond the reach of Canadian authorities.
But former RCMP commissioner Bob Paulson said he hopes charges will be laid even if Mountie investigators are unable to talk to the couple.
"The only thing you are missing is an interview with the person, but if they are out of the country, you can't do it. There is no problem charging them. The problem is getting them back to face the charges," Mr. Paulson said. "The federal Crown might have some reservations about charging them knowing there is no prospect of them showing up, but I think it is in the public interest that they be charged."
Dr. Qiu returned to China despite it being under a COVID-19 travel lockdown for three years until January, 2023. As well, China doesn't allow dual citizenship and, under normal circumstances, a Chinese national who has obtained Canadian citizenship is not allowed to retain their Chinese citizenship.

National-security and scientific experts say Dr. Qiu would be of high value to China.
"It's very likely that she received quite preferential treatment in China on the basis that she's proven herself. She's done a very good job for the government of China," said Brendan Walker-Munro, senior research fellow at Australia's University of Queensland Law School. "She's promoted their interests abroad. She's returned information that is credibly useful to China and to its ongoing research."
Andrew Coyne: Will anyone ever be held to account for China's infiltration of the Winnipeg microbiology lab? Don't make me laugh
Documents reviewed by The Globe show that Dr. Qiu is most closely aligned with the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC) in Hefei. In March, 2023, a document posted by a Chinese pharmaceutical company listed Dr. Qiu as second amongst "major completion personnel" on a project awarded by the Chinese Preventive Medicine Association for study related to an anti-Ebola virus therapeutic antibody. Most of the other completion personnel were associated with the Chinese People's Liberation Army.
USTC was founded by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and initially established to build up Chinese scientific expertise useful to the military, which at the time was pursuing technology to build satellites, intercontinental ballistic missiles and atomic bombs. The university has continued to maintain close military ties.
The document says Dr. Qiu works for USTC. Jin Tengchuan, the principal investigator at the Laboratory of Structural Immunology at USTC, lists her as a co-inventor on a patent. Mr. Jin did not respond to requests for comment.
A person who answered the phone at USTC told The Globe, "I don't have any information about this teacher."
In 2012, USTC signed a strategic co-operation agreement with the Army Engineering University of the People's Liberation Army, designed to strengthen research on cutting-edge technology useful for communications, weaponry and other national-defence priorities.
Dr. Qiu is also listed as a 2019 doctoral supervisor for students studying virology at Hebei Medical University.
"Well, that makes me wonder what circumstances she was under when she emigrated to Canada. Why did she come?" asked Earl Brown, a professor emeritus of biochemistry, microbiology and immunology at the University of Ottawa's faculty of medicine who has worked extensively in China in the past. "People leave for more freedom from China, or to make more money. But China keeps tabs on most people so I am not sure if she came over to infiltrate or whether she came and the infiltration happened later through contact with China."
It may be impossible to answer that question. Three former colleagues at the National Microbiolgy Lab have indicated that Dr. Qiu and her husband were diligent and pleasant to deal with, but largely kept to themselves outside of work. They say Dr. Qiu was a brilliant scientist with a strong work ethic, although her English was weak. The Globe is not identifying the three who did not want to be named.
Dr. Qiu is a medical doctor from Tianjin, China, who came to Canada for graduate studies in 1996. She started at the University of Manitoba, but began working at the national lab as a research scientist in 2006, working her way up to become head of the vaccine development and antiviral therapies section in the National Microbiology Laboratory's special pathogens program.
She was also part of the team that helped develop ZMapp, a treatment for the deadly Ebola virus, which killed more than 11,000 people in West Africa between 2014 and 2016.
Over a period of 13 months, though, the Chinese-Canadian microbiologist and her biologist husband's lives were turned upside down.
She went from being feted at Ottawa's Rideau Hall with a Governor-General's Award in May, 2018, to being locked out of the Winnipeg lab in July, 2019 – the high-security facility where she had made her name as a scientist in Canada. By January, 2021, she and Mr. Cheng were fired.
Last month, after being pressed into explaining what happened, the Canadian government finally disclosed the reasons for this extraordinary dismissal: CSIS found the pair had lied about and hid their co-operation with China from Ottawa.
A big question remains following their departure: Why would Dr. Qiu risk her career, including the stature associated with developing an Ebola treatment, for China?
"My sense is this was part of a larger strategy by China to get access to our innovation system," said Filippa Lentzos, an associate professor of science and international security at King's College London. "It was a way for them to to find out what was going on in Canada's premier lab."
Initially trained as a medical doctor, Dr. Qiu graduated in 1985 from Hebei University in the coastal city of Tianjin, which lies southeast of Beijing. Dr. Qiu went on to obtain her master of science degree in immunology at Tianjin Medical University in 1990.
Her career at Canada's top infectious disease lab in Winnipeg began in 2003, only four years after Ottawa opened this biosafety level 4 facility at the Canadian Science Centre for Human and Animal Health.
Over time, she built up a reputation for academic collaboration, particularly with China. It was welcomed by management who felt her work was helping build a name internationally for the National Microbiology Lab.
By the time Canadian officials intervened in 2018 and began investigating, documents show, Dr. Qiu was running 44 separate projects at the Winnipeg lab, an uncommonly large workload.
Her work with former colleague and microbiologist Gary Kobinger vaulted Dr. Qiu into the international spotlight. The pair developed a treatment for Ebola, one that in its first human application led to the full recovery of 27 patients with the infection during a 2014 outbreak in Liberia.
Mr. Kobinger's career continued to soar and he is now director of the Galveston National Laboratory, a renowned biosafety level 4 facility in Texas. In 2022, he told The Globe that it was "heartbreaking" to see what had happened to his colleague. He declined to speak for this article.
"She had lost a lot of weight with all the stress. She was so convinced that this was all a misunderstanding ... and she would go back to her job," he said in 2022. " Her career has been destroyed with all this. She was one of the top female Canadian scientists of virology and Canada has lost that."
It was the CSIS probe that found some of the most damning information about Dr. Qiu's career with the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC).

[crazy canuck]

Maybe now people will take the CSIS warnings more seriously.

[Sheilbh]

A useful reminder of the harm inflicted upon democracy by Yale Law school.

Law schools generally

Only half joking

[viper37]

The Liberal Party has voted on a motion put forward by the NDP to recognize Palestinian Statehood.

This one is not even about the war, although the Libs have shifted their stance slightly on this.

Anthony Housefather, Liberal MP is now reflecting on his future with the Liberal party and his thinking of crossing over the Conservatives.  Because they recognize the State of Palestine.

Housefather is a member of Montreal's Jewish community and has been active in municipal politics before joining the LPC.

Obviously, the pro-Israeli stance is all about peace, like the Israeli policy itself, only about destroying the Hamas.  It has nothing to do with gaining more territories for Israel...

[viper37]

RCMP report warns the Liberal government that Canada is heading for civil unrest once Canadians realize how broke they really are.

Link

A secret RCMP report is warning the federal government that Canada may descend into civil unrest once citizens realize the hopelessness of their economic situation.

"The coming period of recession will ... accelerate the decline in living standards that the younger generations have already witnessed compared to earlier generations," reads the report, entitled Whole-of-Government Five-Year Trends for Canada.
Article content

Article content

"For example, many Canadians under 35 are unlikely ever to be able to buy a place to live," it adds.

The report, labelled secret, is intended as a piece of "special operational information" to be distributed only within the RCMP and among "decision-makers" in the federal government.

A heavily redacted version was made public as a result of an access to information request filed by Matt Malone, an assistant professor of law at British Columbia's Thompson Rivers University, and an expert in government secrecy.

Describing itself in an introduction as a "scanning exercise," the report is intended to highlight trends in both Canada and abroad "that could have a significant effect on the Canadian government and the RCMP."

Right from the get-go, the report authors warn that whatever Canada's current situation, it "will probably deteriorate further in the next five years."

In addition to worsening living standards, the RCMP also warns of a future increasingly defined by unpredictable weather and seasonal catastrophes, such as wildfires and flooding. Most notably, report authors warn of Canada facing "increasing pressure to cede Arctic territory."

Another major theme of the report is that Canadians are set to become increasingly disillusioned with their government, which authors mostly chalk up to "misinformation," "conspiracy theories" and "paranoia."

"Law enforcement should expect continuing social and political polarization fueled by misinformation campaigns and an increasing mistrust for all democratic institutions," reads one of the report's "overarching considerations."

So.  One of my friends has retired to the Dominican Republic.  He wants me to join him there.

On the one hand, never ending civil unrest by the far left and some populist right wing idiots to govern us.

On the other hand, a warm country with no fracking computers and an electric grid that keeps shutting down.

I'm gonna take my chances here.

[HVC]

Don't forget a neighbour with major civil unrest and a porous border... actually come the next election in the US that might be true for both countries

[viper37]

Don't forget a neighbour with major civil unrest and a porous border... actually come the next election in the US that might be true for both countries

Fuck.  I forgot about them!

I'll have to bunkerize my home

[viper37]

Mulroney-style moderates should ditch the Conservatives

Dear progressive conservatives,

On the occasion of what would have been Brian Mulroney's 85^th birthday on March 20, I am asking you to honour his legacy and the legacy of the party he devotedly served: the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada (PC).

The party stood for moderate conservatism. Its merger with the Canadian Alliance (the Reform Party's successor) in 2003 gave birth to the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC). At the time of the merger, many hoped the CPC would become a mainstream centre-right party. That did not happen. The terms of the merger and Stephen Harper's long leadership tenure (2004-15) ensured the CPC would turn into a version of the populist hard-right Reform Party that Harper helped build. The culture of the CPC today is starkly different from the culture of the PCs that Mulroney led.

[...]

[Barrister]

Mulroney-style moderates should ditch the Conservatives

Dear progressive conservatives,

On the occasion of what would have been Brian Mulroney's 85^th birthday on March 20, I am asking you to honour his legacy and the legacy of the party he devotedly served: the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada (PC).

The party stood for moderate conservatism. Its merger with the Canadian Alliance (the Reform Party's successor) in 2003 gave birth to the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC). At the time of the merger, many hoped the CPC would become a mainstream centre-right party. That did not happen. The terms of the merger and Stephen Harper's long leadership tenure (2004-15) ensured the CPC would turn into a version of the populist hard-right Reform Party that Harper helped build. The culture of the CPC today is starkly different from the culture of the PCs that Mulroney led.

[...]

SO they're free to make the argument of course.

National Observer is an online left-wing newssite.  Again, nothing wrong with that - but that's the perspective they're coming from.

I do respect Mulroney and some of the things he did in power, while not being a particular fan.  But I think National Observer is a little mistaken if they think Mulroney was a big champion of progressive politics.

He ran for the PC leadership pretty explicitly in 1983 as being a "Blue Tory" - that is, of being from the right-wing side of the party.  Being President of the Iron Ore Company of Canada he was definitely pro-business.

It's tough to analyze the politics of the 1980s through the lens of the 2020s, but on the definitely right-wing side he: brought in Free trade with the US, and then NAFTA, privatized many Crown corporations, introduced anti-abortion legislation, supported the US Gulf War (1991 version).  On the left-wing side he brought in important environmental legislation and supported sanctions on apartheid south Africa.  (side note: I hate that environmental protection has started to be seen as a left-wing issue)

In the years since he left power he had ample opportunities to denounce the Conservative Party, but never did.  He endorsed the merger with the Canadian Alliance, endorsed Stephen Harper (and O'Toole, and Poilievre for that matter).  Other prominent PCs like Joe Clark or Kim Campbell pointedly did not.  Apparently he had some issues with the Conservatives supporting an inquiry into the Airbus scandal - which directly affected him.

His legacy with the Conservative Party was complicated (although apparently I was wrong - he was a member at times) but lets be clear he never supported the Liberal Party at any time.

So let me correct my earlier mistake - he was a Progressive Conservative Prime Minister, not a Conservative Prime Minister.  But he was a Conservative by virtue of having a membership.

[crazy canuck]

I don't know who, other than BB, needs to be reminded of this.  There was no Conservative party when Mulroney was Prime Minister.  The PC's were Canada's conservative party.