Fairness, Fairness, Fairness - Maybe if you Say it Often Enough, the Masses Will Believe You; Yet No Notion of "Balanced Books"

Yesterday as The Justin was having his SECOND "me" day after his India debaucle in avoiding an obvious lion's den episode of question period, the budget was released.  Spoiler alert - still no clarity on when our out of control deficits will start to approach a declining trend, or even a plateau.

While claiming "growth is there", in reality, maybe gowth was there for the month of December and/or 4Q2017, but all forecasts are looking towards weaker growth not just for Canada but the world.  This is even more clear as the Liberals participate in their passive-aggressive strategy on pipelines: approving select pipelines yet dragging their feet on actual enforcement and implementation of these economic steroids as well as clearing the legal air as it relates to the BC-Alberta trade spat.

Oh, and as of today, Morneau blames the previous Conservatives for the govenment employees"\' Phoenix payment program, even though the Liberals have been in power for over two years.  It's a payment system - all over the world small, large, public, private, government entitities are issuing cheques! How hard can this be?

http://business.financialpost.com/opinion/morneau-delivers-a-budget-in-deep-denial-about-the-dangerous-territory-were-in

Budget Day Today: Let's See How Loopy Things Become

With various initiatives at play as part of international trade agreements and Canadians at home (gender diversity, human rights, sustainability, abortion rights, carbon taxes, manufactured language such as peoplekind) among flamboyant and unnecessary trips by the PMO, Canada will be watching how much worse tax dollars are being spent and deficits being driven higher by this self righteous, everyone should play nice government.

I am betting there is still no more clarity when Canada will be able to pay off this financial mess.  But more Liberal math to dance around question period like Justin on an India trip in Bollywood attire.

Fiscally, Which Canadian Political Party Would You Vote For?

Not only is a ludicrous and damaging trip to India (supposed to be a trade mission), many broken promises and a delayed legalized marijuana deadline, but also the reality of interest rates are against the Liberal party which should reduce somewhat their "Spend! Spend! Spend!" attitudes toward  financing and  budgets. But then again, as has been written previously in this forum, there is "Math" and then there is "Liberal Math" (sources noted below including recognition to Bloomberg).  Somehow, some way this will be swept under the rug without any consideration.  As well as the leftist media will bite on this bait. 

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-26/why-trudeau-will-have-a-hard-time-financing-his-election-agenda

Canada Loses To...Germany? Canadian Hockey Supremacy Challenged This Olympics

Politics and sports are never to mix, but hey it's Friday...

Even the CBC Reporting Trudeau's "Trade Mission" Trip As Negative And A Bust

How much worse can it become? Even the CBC "broke" this story (claimed to break) "thanks to the CBC's Terry Milewski" who has been the only one over there to approach and question such topics as a certain airline bombing.  

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-india-atwal-controversy-1.4546502

No Fewer than Five Negative Articles About Justin's Indian Travels, The Liberals...Out of Six in the National Post This Morning

It must be easy to be a journalist these days covering the likes of The Justin and The Donald.  Here at home in the Great White North, anyone who reads one of the national daily papers will have seen the Trudeau family posing in India. As one of these comments on the kids playing cricket, a visit to a Jama mosque, and other meaningless events on this taxpayer funder borderline vacation.  The other, reports of eye rolling on the extra fashion choices in India, the embarrassing invite of a convicted terrorist Jaspal Atwal, and the upcoming utopic budget of gender equality, inclusiveness, and everything else that is feel-good that will be paid for by the never ending dollars from a unicorn's ass.  Scrolling further down there is another regarding, "This country has racked up one of the developed world’s saddest records in attracting business investment".

With one day's worth of headlines like this, how does someone like this stay in power?

Even the Canadian Leftist Rags (Some May Say Newspapers) Are All Over Trudeau and His Trade Mission/Family Vacation

You know it is bad when, i)  you are snubbed at the airport for a proper welcome, ii) no official meetings are booked, iii) the only "positive news" are two deals that could have been signed regardless of any governmental intervention or even travel, and vi) even the left leaning media is publishing stories such as....

http://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/bonokoski-trudeaus-election-ready-collection-of-excellent-vacation-photos

And The Liberal Vote Generation System is Going Strong - Another Broken Policy, This Time the Refugee Tribunal and Process

In Canada the following headlines are common "never enough skilled labour to choose from ", "the age demographic is not skewed enough to younger generations and is on average older than other first world nations " impacting pensions.

I wonder why....

The refugee Tribunal has thrown in the towel.
http://nationalpost.com/news/politics/over-burdened-refugee-tribunal-ditches-legislated-timelines-for-hearings

It Must Be Easier Requesting a "Trade Mission to India" From the Ethics Commissioner Rather Than "A Family Vacation to India'

Pipelines: We Will See if Minister of Natural Resources Jim Carr's Bark is Worse Than Bite, or If The Liberals Just Stall Another Two Years Until The Next Election

Although the Liberals will try to appease both opposing political forces (both the same party in two neighbouring provinces but with differing views on one dividing topic) and voters in BC and Alberta, Canada's two western most provinces, eventually one province will win, and the Liberals will have lost the voters in the province that did not.  

There is a third option, Justin could change the word "pipeline" to "carrier of economic diversity and sustainable growth complete with tens of thousands of jobs".  

Carr maintains Canada has “all kinds of options” to exert its constitutional authority over interprovincial pipelines”.  He did not say “by when”. 

"Shannon Stubbs, federal Conservative natural resources critic, is not as convinced as Notley that Ottawa is doing everything it can to get the pipeline built. She introduced an opposition motion in the House of Commons on Monday calling on the federal government to make public no later than Feb. 15, its specific plan to get the pipeline built.”

We await the 15th of February...and also 50% off chocolate sales.  

http://business.financialpost.com/commodities/energy/canada-will-do-what-it-must-to-prevent-b-c-from-stopping-pipeline-says-carr

Veterans, Verdicts and Vocabulary - While Trudeau Continues Foot in Mouth Disease, We Have Yet to See Conclusion To Canada's Constrution Leader by a Chinese Firm

Aecon Group. Inc. has extended the timeline of its proposed takeover by a Chinese buyer, saying Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet is reviewing the deal on national security grounds.  With so many topics (bait?) happening for the Canadian media to be distracted, the acquisition of Aecon by a Chinese company continues to be reviewed by the Liberal government with little attention - until today.  With Chinese governemental links with the parent company it is more than a curiosity that this has only escalated to this level now.  Regardless of any uncompleted trade deal the Liberals have tried with China. We are about to find out what the Investment Canada Act means to the Liberals.

And where are our fearless Minister of Finance Morneau and "what does a Minister of Innovation do anyway?" Navdeep Bains on this file? Invisible. Crickets.  

As per Bloomberg "CCCC International Holding Limited is the financing platform for overseas business of China Communications Construction Company Limited. It focuses on merger and acquisition, and restructuring and management of overseas assets; and investment, building, and operation of transportation infrastructure in overseas markets. The company was incorporated in 2012 and is based in Wan Chai, Hong Kong."

This review is not arbitrary and usually raised during most significant foreing takeovers of Canadian businesses.  The Investment Canada Act (ICA) provides: 

"the framework for conducting reviews of acquisitions of control of existing Canadian businesses, as well as reviews of the establishment of new Canadian businesses, by non-Canadians in Canada....Furthermore, for a foreign acquisition to be approved, significant benefit to Canada resulting from the transaction had to be demonstrated...

...The ICA narrowed both the range of foreign acquisitions that are reviewable and the scope of the “benefit to Canada” test to which these transactions must be submitted in order to receive approval from the federal government. The purpose of the ICA, as set out in section 2 of the Act, is:3

to provide for the review of significant investments in Canada by non-Canadians in a manner that encourages investment, economic growth and employment opportunities in Canada and to provide for the review of investments in Canada by non-Canadians that could be injurious to national security.

...Under the ICA, foreign investments are classified into two categories: investments that are subject to notification, and investments that are reviewable."

Canada: The Christmas Economy...Now the Hangover Starts, Especially in Ontario

With interesting job numbers from December, that coincidentally aligned with the biggest shopping season of the year, for Christmas, in which The Justin bragged briefly about even while frittering around at Davos (when not scolding the world on gender rights, climate change, fair trade, human rights, etc), they have vanished much like Santa on Christmas eve. Maybe for another year (or in this case, maybe not for many years). 

Unlike the media who has covered such stories lately on a "guilty until proven innocent" basis, let's take a different approach - jobs data has deteriorated, Ontario lost most of those, Christmas is over and this province wakes up to higher minimum wage costs.  Discuss among yourselves....

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-02-09/blame-ontario-minimum-wage-hike-for-canada-job-plunge-or-not 

Hello Minimum Wage, You Mean Higher Costs to Employers Impact the Jobs Market? Hmmmm...

http://business.financialpost.com/news/economy/update-1-canada-sheds-88000-jobs-in-jan-biggest-decline-since-2009

"A Dumb Joke"? Well, At Least It Is Different Than An Apology

As Canadians and the world picked up on our Prime Minister's political correctness and language bending reference to "peoplekind", he eventually had to face this (I don't want to give him the international recognition that feeds his ego, but...) "viral" episode, and dismissing it as a "dumb joke".

If only his and fellow Liberal policies could be dismissed as such.  Including yesterday's new (in other words, "another") approval process along with a bash at Harper's "loss of trust" in the process.  Low, bewildering, nauseating and unnecessary comment Catherine McKenna.

Government of Canada Web Site Has Changed English "O Canada"; French Version Continues to Have Five References to "Our"

Well that took a while. The new "word" is reflected in the English version.  Meanwhile, in the French version, still five references to "our" (nos) and no mentions of sons, daughters, him, her, he, she....

Is "eh" gender neutral?

https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/anthems-canada.html

#27 Sittler's 10 Points Anniversary: Hello Roch Carrier - Check Out This Sweater!

A feat that not even The Great One could match, on this day 42 years ago, Sittler had a Swiss Chalet special for lunch and then became a one-man wrecking machine scoring two hat-tricks and four assists for 10 points in one game, in a slaughter of the Boston Bruins.

Curioulsy, the mystery of that sweater he worn had not been on the tips of tongues of many Leafs and Sittler fans, but it appears, the void of mystere has been overcome with the emergence of "the sweater" upon his anniversary. 

Swiss Chalet for lunch today.

https://www.tsn.ca/sittler-s-record-setting-jersey-resurfaces-after-42-years-1.990558

And the Words of O Canada Still Have Not Changed...

https://www.canada.ca/en/canadian-heritage/services/anthems-canada.html

Grade School Teacher or Prime Minister?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxO8QZAdkCY

Another Day, But Not Another Apology - Now It's Another Broken Promise: Justin's Shocking Reply to Veterans' Compensation

Where is the head shaking emoji? An incredibly politically suicidal response of a Prime Minister.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNg3acnGAsc

@VetsCanada

O Canada - According the Government of Canada, The Words Have Not Changed

Another broken Liberal promise or more foot dragging? #OCanada

If Canadians Are So Adamant About Pronouns and Lack of Religion in O Canada, Then Sing The French Version

After making news when it was first suggested in the House of Commons, the Senate finally and quietly passed a bill to change a word ("thy sons" to "of us") that makes the entire universe allowed to live in order and harmony.  (Which, when replaced, does not sound gramatically correct to me in my opinion - I have yet to consult with an English major on this). 

Scanning various English/Anglophone social media, normal media and the typical left leaning media feeds, there are more than a handful of female and male Anglophones that will not be obliging and have vowed to continue singing the version they have learned and has been place for scores of decades. 

Canada is blessed with two anthems in two languages (and a third bilingual version) - O Canada and Hymne du Canada.  Neither, when translated directly, represents the same rendition lyrically. For instance, in French, there are no references to "sons" or for that matter daughters, him, her, he, she etc.  However, there are five references to "nos" meaning "our" or "us". 

In Canada, thanks to our two official language system, we have options. Unfortunately most Anglophones are not aware of that.

Looking forward to the next major significant sporting event in Canada (outside of regular season NHL games) to see how this plays out.  #OCanada

Where is the Institution of Bilingualism Now?

With one of the few successful  initiatives that both generations of the governing Trudeaus ever were awarded with from a cultural and Canadiana point of view, sadly and shockingly examples of complete lack of understanding of basic French translation and horrid reliability on Google Translate continue in what is supposed to be a bilingual country.

Do Anglophone Canadians really lack even an ounce of effort to invest in order to communicate with their Francophone fellow citizens? After all French is an OFFICIAL LANGUAGE of Canada, NOT A FOREIGN LANGUAGE (it makes me cringe to see French offered as a "foreign language" from various educational and language centres).

Even a large corporation such as Telus (#Telus, run by a "Francois") that lacked the oversight of an outsourced firm's "handling of a Twitter account" to allow this brutal and blatant mistake and which has much more risk of public reputation and reduced revenues on the line, shows it has little regard for truly being Canadian.
http://business.financialpost.com/telecom/media/grind-yourself-go-kill-him-telus-sorry-for-badly-translated-french-tweets