Last week, my son announced at the dinner table that his school had turned off the lights for a time to “celebrate” Earth Day. To my mind, it seemed more of a lesson in why we need electricity to power our modern civilization, yet the kids were apparently allowed to spend the time playing computer games, which makes the overall point of the exercise hard to decipher.
A senior adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told MPs that he was the one who briefed Trudeau during the 2019 election campaign after Canada’s spy agency reportedly warned the Liberal campaign about a candidate working in cahoots with the Chinese regime.
Jeremy Broadhurst, who works in the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), was asked about the Sept. 28, 2019, briefing as he testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs (PROC) on April 25.
KYIV, Ukraine — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and China’s Xi Jinping spoke by phone Wednesday — their first conversation since Russia invaded Ukraine 14 months ago and a signal that Beijing may be angling to play a mediating role.
China will send a special representative to Ukraine and other countries to hold talks with all parties on resolving the “crisis,” Xi told Zelensky, according to a Chinese readout of the call.
“Amid the current rise of reasonable thinking and voices from all sides, we should seize the opportunity to build up favorable conditions for a political settlement of the crisis,” Xi told Zelensky, according to the Chinese summary.
OTTAWA — Liberal party officials said Tuesday that recently reported claims that security agencies told them to drop MP Han Dong as a candidate before the 2019 election were not accurate.
Global News reported earlier this year that national security officials warned the party that Dong was part of a foreign interference network directed from Beijing. Dong, the current MP for Don Valley North in Toronto, left the Liberal caucus after the allegations were reported and has since launched a defamation suit against Global.
Military journals report that the United States is preparing to make the Pacific island of Guam a veritable “fortress.”
One suspects no one has used that phrase since the days just before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor when the United States finally woke up to the fact that the Land of the Rising Sun had every intention of owning the Pacific. History would go on to record that our decision to fortify Guam would come too late as our isolated defenders would eventually be forced to surrender to overwhelming enemy forces. Few would survive their imprisonment.
The message: there is trouble at CSIS, and if the government doesn’t wake up, it could leave Canada vulnerable to threats from hostile foreign interests – or, conceivably, from domestic terrorism
… The message sender(s) – one or more disgruntled, or genuinely alarmed, CSIS officers – were not whistleblowers in the customary sense. Their mission was not to expose malfeasance, corruption, or some ghastly mistake that the agency had made.
Their message was political, its delivery staged to embarrass the government without revealing any truly damaging information. It conveyed a sense of festering antipathy in the relationship between CSIS and the Trudeau Liberal government.
Delays caused by the RCMP’s work-from-home directives in the early days of the pandemic are the reason for the collapse of a criminal case against a former Agriculture Canada scientist who was accused of illegally taking payments from China.
The Saskatchewan RCMP arrested the scientist, Yantai Gan, in November, 2019, and he stopped working for the federal government shortly afterward. He was charged with breach of trust by a public official, as well as fraud.
Now this is so stupid you have to wonder if the fix was in.
h/t OJ
Alexandre Trudeau reportedly negotiated and signed a deal for a $200,000 donation from a Chinese billionaire in 2016
OTTAWA – The prime minister’s brother, Alexandre (Sacha) Trudeau, will not have to testify before a parliamentary committee probing the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation and allegations of foreign interference in federal elections.
On Monday, MPs who are on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts unanimously agreed to launch a brief study composed of two hearings into the “situation” at the Trudeau Foundation, on the condition that the witnesses not include any elected officials or Trudeau family members.
Poilievre wanted Junior’s bro to testify but Conservatives voted to give him a pass. Okey Dokey, nothin to see here.
Tesla has begun producing in Shanghai a version of the Model Y to be sold in Canada this year, the first time it will ship cars to North America from China, according to a person with direct knowledge of the plan and a production memo seen by Reuters.
The move would connect Tesla’s biggest and most cost-efficient factory in the world to North America, its largest market. The Model Y is the electric vehicle (EV) maker’s best-selling model globally.
Manufacture in China will hurt Tesla’s brand.
… Much of the analysis of the Belt and Road Initiative has focused on its impacts in sub-Saharan Africa, where several countries have faced debt crises as a result of the infrastructure projects. But an underappreciated impact of the Belt and Road Initiative and significant economic ties with China is the potential for Chinese government influence in the human rights realm, including in regards to religious freedom.
I ask myself the following question: how many foundations in the country have access to a room in the Prime Minister’s Building and also have access to five deputy ministers at the same time? There shouldn’t be many. Dimitri Soudas, political analyst and former close associate of former Prime Minister Stephen Harper
“I wish I had another example of a foundation that had such access. Seems like preferential treatment for a foundation that had the name of the father of the current prime minister,” he added.
What did Justin Trudeau know about this roundtable? Nothing, argues the Prime Minister’s Office. “Neither the Prime Minister nor the Prime Minister’s staff attended this meeting. The Prime Minister was not aware of this meeting,” said Alison Murphy, spokesperson for Mr. Trudeau.
Note – Google translate.
University of Waterloo advises researchers they aren’t obligated to talk to CSIS agents
The University of Waterloo is advising its researchers that they are not required to talk to CSIS agents or give them access to faculty equipment if approached by the spy agency for information on joint research projects with scientists from foreign countries such as China.
In guidelines recently sent to faculty and researchers, the University of Waterloo warned them they could be approached by CSIS agents who “may be concerned that you could be a target of a foreign state or entity, or they may have questions about some of your activities.” The memo also advises them: “You do not have a legal obligation to talk to a CSIS agent.” It later adds. “You must not consent to a search of University of Waterloo property without authorization.”
A bland, two-story red brick building is surrounded by a perimeter fence in a nondescript neighborhood in Omaha. Passersby are greeted by a modest billboard that reads: Welcome To Nebraska Chinese Center.
In the heart of San Francisco’s bustling Chinatown, wedged next to a Chinese jewelers and an oriental restaurant, lies the Chinese American Association.
And in Houston, the Chinese Civic Center covers 22,800 sqft of an industrial estate, boasting a function room, library, and dozens of classrooms.
Chinese police stations in the USA are a hot topic in the news these days, with two arrests made in New York and six stations claimed in Texas. These, we’re told, were the “illegal” stations. Simultaneously, it’s being reported that there is a “growing number of Chinese migrants arriving at the U.S.-Mexico border seeking asylum.”
But we Deplorables should be sensitive to the scent of weasel words. These stories are always about “illegal” Chinese police stations in the USA, which are characterized as “secret” or “unauthorized.” This language leaves the impression that there may be Chinese police stations in the USA that are legal.
The Chinese contribution to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation does not seem to me very worrisome in itself. A contribution of $200,000 from a wealthy Chinese businessman apparently closely affiliated with the governing Communist Party of the People’s Republic of China, is not an especially consequential event for a foundation that was launched the year after Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s death and was endowed with $125 million from the government of Canada.
