It’s expected the majority of Canadians could be vaccinated against the novel coronavirus by next September, according to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
While that’s great news for Canada, experts warn that unless other nations have access to vaccines, Canadians will have to continue to live in a “bubble” — meaning our borders could remain closed.
Dominic Barton’s appointment as Canadian ambassador to China last year was inappropriate because he, and the firm he worked at for much of his life, McKinsey & Company, have been unabashed fanboys of the People’s Republic of China for years.
Pandering to the panda is why Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s foreign policy toward China has failed. Billions of dollars worth of contract breaches by China remain unaddressed, two innocent Canadian businessmen remain political hostages and the Chinese government’s rhetoric toward Canada has become toxic.
The task of the panel, which has an open-ended mandate, is to take a deep look within the department to uncover “systemic discrimination, unconscious bias, [and] white supremacy,” Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said today.
Canada defended its shift in its historic pro-Israel voting pattern at the United Nations General Assembly, through which it cast a “yes” vote for the second year in a row on the annual resolution in favor the right of Palestinian people to self-determination.
Many politicians have been sounding alarms about the Chinese Communist Party’s infiltration into the United States. Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe, in a recent opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal, said that “the People’s Republic of China poses the greatest threat to America today, and the greatest threat to democracy and freedom world-wide since World War II.” In a recent interview with Newsmax, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) “the greatest threat to security of the American people and indeed the free world.” Republicans in the House Committee on Oversight and Reform have sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray asking him to investigate China’s “use of spies or covert agents to infiltrate America’s most sacred educational and governmental institutions.”
A top foreign affairs official says China’s history of lashing out means that “sensitive matters” in a long-running espionage case before Canada’s courts should be kept away from public discussion.
Federal prosecutors are seeking to seal documents and close coming courtroom hearings in the criminal case of Qing Quentin Huang, an Ontario shipbuilder who was charged in 2013 with violating the Security of Information Act by allegedly trying to communicate Canadian naval secrets to China.
Information about Canada’s winter survival military training with China has been in the public sphere for some years but only drew heightened attention after recent media coverage.
A February 2018 tweet by the Canadian Army shows Canadian soldiers participating in winter training in China with the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), and Canada extending an invitation to China to take part in the same training in Petawawa, Ont., at a future date. Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said during question period on Dec. 10 that the engagement was part of a cooperation initiative signed with China back in 2013.
An esteemed engineering professor in Montreal says suggestions he has a parallel, full-time academic career in his native China are “absolute nonsense,” the product of misleading articles there that exaggerated his involvement in the country.
Ke Wu of Polytechnique Montreal said he has been at times a visiting professor at three universities in China and did a sabbatical at one of them, but said those are “very conventional” academic collaborations that “contribute to Canadian well-being.”
Last week, the Canadian government refused to tell the public whether it had granted legal immunity to COVID-19 vaccine manufacturers. Health Canada said it couldn’t release “details of its contracts due to confidentiality clauses.”
On Monday, this changed. A cabinet minister has now acknowledged that pharmaceutical companies will be protected from lawsuits in the event that Canadians are harmed.
In Ayn Rand’s most famous novel, Atlas Shrugged, thinkers and producers responded to a world of strangling state control by going on strike. As an ever hungrier government crushed enterprise while growing into an unsustainable size, producers vanished to a fictional hidden retreat called “Galt’s Gulch” where genuinely free commerce could be practiced.
In today’s world of growing state control, Alberta has the potential to become Canada’s “Galt’s Gulch”.
The U.S. Department of Defence on Dec. 3 blacklisted a Chinese state-owned oil company that has a heavy presence across Canada for being associated with the communist regime’s military. The Pentagon encourages parties to consider the U.S. position in their dealings with such companies, a spokesperson told The Epoch Times.
China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) is China’s largest offshore producer of oil and gas and was established as the state-owned offshore petroleum company of China in 1982.
PM invites China’s army for “cold weather training” in Canada – while China holds Canadians captive.
December 10 marked two years since China’s Communist regime seized Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. “These two Canadians are an absolute priority for our government,” Canadian foreign minister Francois-Philippe Champagne told reporters, “and we will continue to work tirelessly to secure their immediate release and to stand up for them as a government and as Canadians.” According to another story that broke last week, the government’s true priority is to ignore the captives and stand up for China.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he hopes there will be good news before the New Year for the families of two Canadians arbitrarily detained by Beijing for more than two years.
In a year-end interview with The West Block’s Mercedes Stephenson, Trudeau was asked about the continued detention of Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor by China, whose fates Chinese officials have repeatedly linked to that of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou.
Speaking during question period, Senator Marc Gold said the carbon tax hike is the best way to protect the environment.
Ontario’s two top doctors were caught discussing their announcements on a hot mic just prior to hosting a press conference on December 14.
“I don’t know why I bring all these papers, I never look at them” Ontario Associate Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Barbara Yaffe says, referring to the stack of notes she brought along with her. “I just say whatever they write down for me,” Yaffe says with a chuckle.
“That’s funny. Yeah same,” replies Ontario’s top doctor and Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. David Williams.
