BeaverFever

She was briefly a Biden staffer 30 years ago, but since found a career as a scammer and darling of MAGAs and Russia.

Whenever anyone wants to put people and public interest ahead of greed and private profits, those who prefer the latterly will use the dreaded “s” word. But most citizens accept that a reasonable level of regulation is necessary.

I don’t think that’s accurate. Doug Ford is hardly the messiah of big city millennials, he is their Great Satan in fact. Do you not remember he and his crack-smoking brother Rob’s war against downtown city dwellers? The millennials who are being priced out of the city are a symptom, not the cause of the disease. There’s plenty of blame across all demographics Suburban homeowners who think they’re entitled to have their house value double every 5 years are just as liable, as are all the professional and amateur estate speculators who own multiple homes as “income properties” for no other purpose except to resell at higher prices. The government could implement measures in certain high priority areas like GTA to curb this activity, such as a vacant home tax and some sort of windfall tax on secondary properties sold within say the first 5 or 10 years of ownership. That would help ensure that the housing stock in those areas under pressure is primarily used to house people rather than generate businesses profits and support people’s side-hustles.

1. I stand by my original assertion. Repeating an empty slogan does not demonstrate of understanding the importance of the natural environment to the quality of human life. 2. Your own words show you see no value in mon-human life. Your “strong survive” comment is another meaningless slogan lacking substance. Surely you are suggesting we are meant to destroy anything that is weaker than us simply because we can? We are not in competition with the environment. 3. As point of fact the amount of land removed was 7400 acres. Much od the land added to the greenbelt was not as ecologically important and was either already protected under other statutes or didn’t need protection because it was undevelopable for other reasons. And as a humanist don’t you care about the active farmland destroyed? As reported: “76 per cent of the land removed from the Greenbelt was being used for farming in 2022, and 83 per cent of the land removed is classified as "prime agricultural land" — the highest quality farmland in the province.”

Depends which wing of the Republican Party. Half of Republicans think Putin is the good guy, and that wing of the party is currently the most powerful

The greenbelt has intrinsic value

1) As a humanist, I think you fundamentally misunderstand the importance of the natural environment to the quality of human life. For carbon capture, climate control, flood control, pest control and so on It’s an extensive list 2) Furthermore I think you are wrong to completely devalue non-human life. Like most people I believe nature has intrinsic value beyond whatever convenience or financial gain it offers humans. 3) You continue to falsely suggest that developing the greenbelt is needed, which again the AG demonstrated is not the case.

But the AG makes clear his housing strategy had nothing to do with developing Greenbelt land. They had already identified and confirmed the land needed for housing development BEFORE they started doing these greenbelt deals This greenbelt land grab was totally outside of and separate from his housing strategy. His buddies bought the greenbelt land cheap because development was restricted, far less than what developable land would cost. Now that Doug has removed it from the greenbelt its far more valuable. That’s the scam. As the AG said there’s not even any evidence that these developers will develop the land in the foreseeable future. I wonder how many will simply flip the property and cash in

Not true at all Not true. Read the report. This is not true either

More ties between Trumptards, Russian propaganda amd and Russian spies. So to recap, a couple of years ago, someone who briefly worked in Joe Biden’s office back in the 90s tried to come forward with some “me too” type accusations of sexual assault and that made her a darling of right wing propagandists like Tucker Carlson amd Roger Stone. Her lawyers were a prominent Trump supporter and an editor of Putin’s propaganda outlet Sputnik Her story fell apart when her history of fake names, bankruptcies, GoFundMe scams, lawsuits, falsified educational records etc were exposed and it was revealed to be just another Russian-backed lie circulating as “news” in the right wing info sewer But now this scammer has actually defected to Russia and appeared alongside an indicted Russian spy who now serves in Putin’s Duma Say it with me righties “NOTHING TO SEE HERE!” Tara Reade, who accused Joe Biden of sexual assault, defects to Russia Former Senate staffer who made claim in 2020 appears on Russian media alongside convicted Russian agent in US Maria Butina Tara Reade, a former Senate staffer who in 2020 accused Joe Biden of sexual assault, has said she had defected to Russia. “I’m still kind of in a daze a bit but I feel very good,” Reade told Sputnik, a Russian press outlet supportive of President Vladimir Putin, while sitting with Maria Butina, a convicted Russian agent jailed in the US but now a member of parliament in Russia. “I feel very surrounded by protection and safety,” Reade said on Tuesday. Now 59, Reade was a staffer for Biden when he was a US senator from Delaware. In 2020, as Biden ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, she claimed that in 1993, in a Senate corridor, he pushed her against a wall and assaulted her. Biden repeatedly denied the accusation. At her press appearance in Russia, Reade was described as a “writer and publicist and former aide to Joe Biden”. Sitting next to Butina, Reade said: “I just really so appreciate Maria and everyone who’s been giving me [protection] at a time when it’s been very difficult to know if I’m safe or not. “I just didn’t want to walk home and walk into a cage or be killed, which is basically my two choices.” Reade recently considered testifyingbefore US House Republicans seeking to use committees to attack Biden and his family. The decision to defect to Russia, she told Sputnik, “was very difficult. I’m not an impulsive person. I really take my time and sort of analyse data points. “And from what I could see based on the cases and based on what was happening and sort of the push for them to not want me to testify, I felt that while [the 2024] election is gearing up and there’s so much at stake, I’m almost better off here and just being safe. My dream is to live in both places, but it may be that I only live in this place and that’s OK.” Biden is running for re-election. As president, he has helped maintain international support for Ukraine as it fights invading Russian forces. Reade said: “To my Russian brothers and sisters, I’m sorry right now that American elites are choosing to have such an aggressive stance. Just know that most American citizens do want to be friendsand hope that we can have unity again. “I am enjoying my time in Moscow, and I feel very at home.” https://amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/may/30/tara-reade-defects-russia-biden

Exclusive: Georgia prosecutors have messages showing Trump’s team is behind voting system breach CNN — none Atlanta-area prosecutors investigating efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia are in possession of text messages and emails directly connecting members of Donald Trump’s legal team to the early January 2021 voting system breach in Coffee County, sources tell CNN. Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willisis expected to seek charges against more than a dozen individuals when her team presents its case before a grand jury next week. Several individuals involved in the voting systems breach in Coffee County are among those who may face charges in the sprawling criminal probe. Investigators in the Georgia criminal probe have long suspected the breach was not an organic effort sprung from sympathetic Trump supporters in rural and heavily Republican Coffee County – a county Trump won by nearly 70% of the vote. They have gathered evidence indicating it was a top-down push by Trump’s team to access sensitive voting software, according to people familiar with the situation. Trump allies attempted to access voting systems after the 2020 election as part of the broader push to produce evidence that could back up the former president’s baseless claims of widespread fraud. While Trump’s January 2021 call to Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and effort to put forward fake slates of electors have long been considered key pillars of Willis’ criminal probe, the voting system breach in Coffee County quietly emerged as an area of focus for investigators roughly one year ago. Since then, new evidence has slowly been uncovered about the role of Trump’s attorneys, the operatives they hired and how the breach, as well as others like it in other key states, factored into broader plans for overturning the election. Together, the text messages and other court documents show how Trump lawyers and a group of hired operatives sought to access Coffee County’s voting systems in the days before January 6, 2021, as the former president’s allies continued a desperate hunt for any evidence of widespread fraud they could use to delay certification of Joe Biden’s electoral victory.  Last year, a former Trump official testified under oath to the House January 6 select committee that plans to access voting systems in Georgia were discussed in meetings at the White House, including during an Oval Office meeting on December 18, 2020,  that included Trump.  Six days before pro-Trump operatives gained unauthorized access to voting systems, the local elections official who allegedly helped facilitate the breach sent a “written invitation” to attorneys working for Trump, according to text messages obtained by CNN. Investigators have scrutinized the actions of various individuals who were involved, including Misty Hampton, a former Coffee County elections official who authored the letter of invitation referenced in text messages and other documents that have been turned over to prosecutors, multiple sources told CNN. They have also examined the involvementof Trump’s then attorney Rudy Giuliani – who was informed last year he was a target in the Fulton County investigation – and fellow Trump lawyer Sidney Powell as part of their probe, according to people familiar with the matter. A spokesperson for Willis’ office declined to comment. The letter of invitation was shared with attorneys and an investigator working with Giuliani at the time, the text messages obtained by CNN show. A ‘written invitation’ to access voting systems On January 1, 2021 – days ahead of the January 7 voting systems breach – Katherine Friess – an attorney working with Giuliani, Sidney Powell and other Trump allies shared a “written invitation” to examine voting systems in Coffee County with a group of Trump allies. That group included members of Sullivan Strickler, a firm hired by Trump’s attorneys to examine voting systems in the small, heavily Republican Georgia county, according to text messages obtained by CNN. That same day, Friess sent a “Letter of invitation to Coffee County, Georgia” to former NYPD Police Commissioner Bernie Kerik, who was working with Giuliani to find evidence that would back up their baseless claims of potential widespread voter fraud, according to court documents filed as part of an ongoing civil case. Friess then notified operatives who carried out the Coffee County breach and others working directly with Giuliani that Trump’s team had secured written permission, the texts show. CNN has not reviewed the substance of the invitation letter itself, only communications that confirm it was provided to Friess, Kerik and Sullivan Strickler employees. Friess could not be reached for comment. The messages and documents appear to link Giuliani to the Coffee County breach, while shedding light on another channel of communication between pro-Trump attorneys and the battleground state operatives who worked together to provide unauthorized individuals access to sensitive voting equipment. Exclusive: Text messages reveal Trump operatives considered using breached voting data to decertify Georgia's Senate runoff in 2021 “Rudy Giuliani had nothing to do with this,” said Robert Costello, Giuliani’s attorney. “You can’t attach Rudy Giuliani to Sidney Powell’s crackpot idea.” “Just landed back in DC with the Mayor huge things starting to come together!” an employee from the firm Sullivan Strickler, which was hired by Sidney Powell to examine voting systems in Coffee County, wrote in a group chat with other colleagues on January 1. Former New York Mayor Giuliani was consistently referred to as “the Mayor,” in other texts sent by the same individual and others at the time. “Most immediately, we were just granted access – by written invitation! – to Coffee County’s systems. Yay!” the text reads. Breaking into Coffee County Shortly after Election Day, Hampton – still serving as the top election official for Coffee County – warned during a state election board meeting that Dominion voting machines could “very easily” be manipulated to flip votes from one candidate to another. It’s a claim that has been repeatedly debunked. But the Trump campaign officials took notice and reached out to Hampton that same day. “I would like to obtain as much information as possible,” a Trump campaign staffer emailed Hampton at the time, according to documents released as part of a public records request and first reported by the Washington Post. In early December, Hampton then delayed certification of Joe Biden’s win in Georgia by refusing to validate the recount results by a key deadline. Coffee County was the only county in Georgia that failed to certify its election results due to issues raised by Hampton at the time. Hampton also posted a video online claiming to expose problems with the county’s Dominion voting system. That video was used by Trump’s lawyers, including Giuliani, as part of their push to convince legislators from multiple states that there was evidence the 2020 election results were tainted by voting system issues. Text messages and other documents obtained by CNN show Trump allies were seeking access to Coffee County’s voting system by mid-December amid increasing demands for proof of widespread election fraud. Coffee County was specifically cited in draft executive orders for seizing voting machines that were presented to Trump on December 18, 2020, during a chaotic Oval Office meeting, CNN has reported. During that same meeting, Giuliani alluded to a plan to gain “voluntary access” to machines in Georgia, according to testimony from him and others before the House January 6 committee. Days later, Hampton shared the written invitation to access the county’s election office with a Trump lawyer, text messages obtained by CNN show. She and another location elections official, Cathy Latham, allegedly helped Trump operatives gain access to the county’s voting systems, according to documents, testimony and surveillance video produced as part of a long-running civil lawsuit focused on election security in Georgia. Latham, who also served as a fake elector from Georgia after the 2020 election, has come under scrutiny for her role in the Coffee County breach after surveillance video showed she allowed unauthorized outsiders to spend hours examining voting systems there. https://www.cnn.com/2023/08/13/politics/coffee-county-georgia-voting-system-breach-trump/

Youve got it backwards. As everyone knows, The Trump indictments have been in the works for LONG TIME and came as a airport to literally nobody This latest non-revelation about the usual Hunter Biden nonsense is the cooked-up distraction timed to redirect attention from the indictment. .

Here’s a thorough and entertaining legal breakdown of the details of the case against Trump and his co-accused by am actual lawyer with a sense of humour

Yes in the “at a glance” summary the AG says Greenbelt Changes Not Necessary to Achieve Government Housing Targets • The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing (Housing Ministry) had already allocated the entirety of the 1.5-million-unit housing target to municipalities in October 2022—one month before the government’s proposal to remove land from the Greenbelt. • The government and the Housing Ministry did not have evidence that removing land from the Greenbelt was needed to meet the government’s housing goals. • Ontario’s Housing Affordability Task Force determined that a shortage of land was not the cause of the province’s housing challenges and that the Greenbelt and other environmentally sensitive areas must be protected. • Chief Planners in the regions of Durham, Hamilton and York—which are home to all 15 sites removed from the Greenbelt—told us that Greenbelt land was not needed to meet the housing targets assigned to them by the Housing Ministry and that there is sufficient land outside the Greenbelt in their regions that is already or easily serviced. • The Regional Planning Commissioners of Ontario, a group of senior municipal planning leaders from across Ontario, stated it does not support the removal of lands from the Greenbelt as a necessary step to address Ontario’s housing needs. You can read that here: https://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/news/specials_newsreleases/ataglance_Greenbelt_EN.pdf Or you can read the full report here, with relevant details in Ss. 4.2,4.3 and 4.5: https://www.auditor.on.ca/en/content/specialreports/specialreports/Greenbelt_en.pdf

Yep time for JT to step aside, everyone is tired of him, including his wife. It’s hard to imagine what LPC has to gain by keeping him on. He never had any substance anyway, he was never more than an empty spokesmodel that LPC just used for image and PR but that currency is spent

So clearly you missed the part of rhe AG report - which I also mentioned in my post - that stated greenbelt land was NOT needed to meet the government’s housing requirements as ample non-greenbelt land is available for development. The second thing you missed is that AG stated that there was NO evidence to suggest that any of the doctored greenbelt land deals will be developed within the timeline of Ford’s housing strategy The third thing you missed was that 15th recommendation:the one rhat Doug WONT overturn, which is the outcome. Imagine if Joe Biden came to a microphone and admitted that 2020 election had been rigged in his favour without his knowledge and he would implement every recommendation from investigators except the one to overturn the election result it’s absolutely comical. Lastly your suggestion that these ecologically important areas are nothing more than “land sitting fallow” that “does nothing for communities” is false, as is your suggestion that it is just “plants”. Furthermore your statement that “No environmentalist has ever brought forth any solution or, even more importantly, physical or fiscal assistance tor issues and crisis.” is also false. Your comments suggest that you’ve never spent a minute of your life reading or listening to what any “environmentalist” has to say on the subject so you are likely unaware. Also not wanting to see your local creeks and wetlands paved over doesn’t make one an “environmentalist”.

Absolute Canada puts itself down, botht the left and the right are guilty of this for different reasons. The left thinks acting like a proud and sovereign nation and that things like trying to win gold medals at the olympics is an act of ultranationalist aggression against the world, never mind having a capable military. Meanwhile the right believes Canada’s rightful station is to be America’s faithful and unquestioning servant, effectively become Puerto Rico North From the days or Reform/Canadian Alliance party bleating that Canada should adopt the US dollar and formally merge the Canadian and US militaries into a single North American military (in other words effectively advocating for the US annexation of Canada) to the days of Stephen Harper rending his clothes that we didn’t join Bush’s seriously criminal invasion of Iraq, the right has made their views clear in recent decades Canadians will never want or need amphibious assault ships or aircraft carriers. The only question Canadians have to answer is what expeditionary capabilities if any do they want their country to have with the understanding that they can’t have it all. I think the most you can hope for is that the capabilities we claim have on paper are someday reflected in reality but we are likely not getting new assets like carriers The Halifax class is certainly long in the tooth and its weapons are no longer the latest cutting edge but my sense is that it’s not as useless as you make it seem. Harpoons have been around a long time but as I understand it they are not yet considered obsolete despite newer/better options now being available and they are still used in US and allied navies, as are frigates. As you point out, naval ships typically work within a larger naval task group and there are different roles for different types of ships in the group. Yea we lost capability when we retired our destroyers and AORs without available replacements and the Halifax class is not meant to takeover either ships role But as I understand it the problem is not that it’s a lousy Frigate its that Frigates alone aren’t enough for a self-sufficient navy with respect to near peer conflicts.

Pierre Poilievre, the class tourist who didn’t read the guidebook Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre speaks at a news conference outside the West Block on Parliament Hill in Ottawa, on Aug. 1.Justin Tang/The Canadian Press Near the end of July, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre paced a rally stage in Sault Ste. Marie, Ont., showing off his summer makeover: no glasses, grey pants, a white henley shirt with the sleeves pushed up, but still with the expensive-looking shoes. He was in full what-a-nice-young-man mode, cracking cheesy jokes that the crowd ate up, mocking Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and flexing about how everything would be better if he took the top job. Mr. Poilievre had drawn a good crowd of about 400 and opened with a classic campaign-style anecdote. A local waitress ran over to give him a big hug that morning, he said, and she ordered him to “Get him out, get in there and fix this” – meaning the various ways in which Mr. Trudeau was laying waste to the country. Story continues below advertisement Later in his remarks, Mr. Poilievre returned to this waitress to make a point about the burden of taxes and benefits clawbacks. ”I don’t know her personal story, but let’s say that she has three kids,” he said. “And let’s say that she earns $60,000, 25 bucks an hour.” At this point, several people even in that extremely friendly audience made little strangled noises of surprise and confusion, the human equivalent of a record-scratch sound effect. A waitress in a blue-collar Northern Ontario city pulling down a cool $60,000 a year? The median income of everyone in Sault Ste. Marie – including the lawyers, the doctors, the teachers and all the people who work in the service industry or manufacturing jobs like Algoma Steel – was $40,800 in 2020. The average annual income of people working in the food service industry across Canada was $21,175 last year. Outtakes from a ‘kinder, gentler’ Pierre Poilievre’s efforts to flip the script It would be as churlish to make a big thing out of a minor gaffe like that as it would be to point out that Mr. Poilievre began making $141,200 as a 25-year-old MP in 2004 and now makes $287,400, so perhaps his voter narratives are graded on a curve. Story continues below advertisement Or rather, it would be cheap to point out such discrepancies – if Mr. Poilievre didn’t keep saying out-of-touch or insulting things as he wages his chosen game of class warfare. A week earlier, in trying to make a point about housing, he asked why it cost $550,000 in Niagara Falls to buy a “tiny little shack,” and even gave the address of this supposedly decrepit abode. As it turned out, a real person lived there and she found his remarks “a little embarrassing” for reasons we can all understand. What’s more, her house was a perfectly lovely 1.5-storey postwar home that would not look at all odd or shack-like to many, many Canadians – especially the working-class people Mr. Poilievre keeps fetishizing. Sault Ste. Marie, which is where I grew up, is home to entire blocks lined with identical houses, and many in that crowd of political admirers would have left a house exactly like that to attend his rally. Back in May at an airport, Mr. Poilievre recorded a selfie video that can only be described as deeply weird. “I just had a great weekend, meeting with the common people, listening to their common sense. I just want to remind everyone politics is supposed to be a blue-collar job. Check out these boots,” he said into the lens, before panning toward his blurry and apparently muddy feet. Story continues below advertisement “That’s what it’s like to be out with the people, in the rain, attending their festivals, listening to their stories, hearing their dreams.” If I know anything about the working class, it’s that they constantly refer to themselves, in the manner of a particularly cringey museum exhibit, as “common people” who delight in primitive “festivals.” And they absolutely view dirty boots as something to preen about, like an especially successful Halloween costume. But the bigger problem with Mr. Poilievre’s class tourism is this: He has grasped a real thing that is simmering just below a boil. Too many people feel like they can’t afford any sort of reasonable life or even pin the hopes of such a thing to their children. And many people – some included in the group above, some not – feel ignored, maligned and scolded by the current federal government. But in seizing on those feelings without an evident shred of real empathy, perspective or authenticity, Mr. Poilievre seems to see them as smouldering embers of resentment to be fanned for his own purposes, rather than a set of real problems in need of solving. Story continues below advertisement My dad – Northern Ontario working-class smarts through and through – once told me: “Don’t trust anyone who doesn’t drink or swear.” That advice isn’t really about alcohol and cursing. What it means is that you should be careful around someone who refuses to let down their guard, who keeps their true self bottled up in the packaging they want you to see. What it also means is that so-called common people are not idi0ts. They know very well when they’re being patronized – or when someone is pretending. And they deserve something better than being patted on the head and treated like cardboard cut-outs by someone who claims to understand the very real stresses in their life. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/politics/article-pierre-poilievre-the-class-tourist-who-didnt-read-the-guidebook/

Like I said if the target is in range it’s in range nI could see it in situations other than self defence where the ship can operate closer to shore and is identified by P8 or CP140 or other ISTAR assets. As the excerpt in my last post Charlottetown was able to identify land targets for coalition aircraft

Yeah they’ll never get 12. But in Canada if you want 4 you have to ask for 12, then wait 20-30 years.

My problem with that line of argument is threefold: 1) There are REAL consequences to developing this protected land, its not just a few inconsequential and random empty fields we are talking about here, these are creeks, waterways, wetlands and heritage crop land that are vital to local ecosystems 2) The argument is the standard polluter’s motto: the litterbug says “a few pieces of garbage will not do any harm” and the rainforest clear-cutter says “there are millions of trees, taking a few thousand won’t do any harm” It’s a logic trap known as “the bald man’s paradox”: as the lesson goes, imagine a man with a full head of hair who begins plucking hairs out one at a time each time saying “there are plenty of hairs left before I go bald”. The paradox is that there will never be an obvious point where he crosses the line: there is no point where a single hair when plucked makes him transition from “not bald” to bald and when replaced returns him to “not bald”. Rather it the gradual transition from “not bald” to “bald” is so gradual and incremental that the man and others will only perceive it over time and after the fact. Eventually as he plucks his hair some people will begin to consider him bald given the amount of hair lost while others might disagree until later. But eventually everyone will consider him bald even though he will still have hundreds of hairs left on his head at that time, perhaps even some thick patches of it 3) IMO the logic of “it’s only a small piece of the greenbelt” is inverse to the larger reality. Instead of saying they are only snatching a small piece of protected land for development, we must first recognize that this protected land is only small sliver of the total landmass and even that small sliver is too much for people like Ford If the “small piece” rile is so valid then why are they coming foe the greenbelt which is itself a small piece? Per the AG’s confirmation there was no need to snatch greenbelt land for housing targets anyway and no indication that the greenbelt land would be developed within their target housing timeframe anyway

They are all false religions and Islam is not all that different, all the Judeo-Christian characters and stories, including Jesus, are in Islam. Only the fine details are different, then they add another chapter at the end with another prophet after Jesus named Mohammad. Besides the larger point which you completely miss is that we’re not a theocracy who puts citizens to death based on scripture n

Doug Ford’s Corruption Well the cat is out of the bag as an Ontario auditor general’s investigation confirms what the public knew all along: Ontario Premier Doug Ford invented the need for, then rigged, the unnecessary development of environmentally protected land in order to approve lucrative development deals for party donors who then profited to the tune of more than $8Bn dollars To recap all the news that’s come to light in recent years, specifically: :When Ford was first running for office he vowed not to develop any Greenbelt land.however a recording of him promising a room full of developers he would in fact develop said land soon surfaced Doug denied, obfuscated, made excuses etc and swore it was all a big misunderstanding, he would never do the things that he was caught on tape saying he was going to do - Developers and their lobbyists made significant donations to his political campaign and even attended his daughter’s wedding -Fords government has abused Ministerial Zoning Order powers, using them far more than any previous government in provincial history, and for private developments. MZOs are extreme measures usually meant for urgent critical public infrastructure they nullify most provincial and municipal requirements for things like public consultation, environmental assessments, etc. and specifically prevent citizens and municipalities from opposing, delaying, investigating or otherwise interfering with the development - After Doug was elected, there was a sudden rush of politically connected developers buying up environmentally sensitive greenbelt land that was protected from development … and by what must be sheer luck, most of that land suddenly had its environmental restrictions removed and approved for development. Isn’t that just the darnedest coincidence? Especially since Doug swore he was never going to do the thing he just did and was caught on tape saying he was going to do But now the auditor general has confirmed that: - Doug lied about the need to develop environmentally protected land in the first place as ample non-protected land exists - Although the Ford administration established a supposedly independent panel of non-political government staff to select from the 630 requests for land to be developed, the process was rigged to approve proposals from a specific list of Ford donors provided by Fords minister, All 15 chosen were Ford donors All involved staff (94 in total) were forced to sign strict confidentiality agreements to keep them quiet -The Ministers office was closely coordinating with the donors on the process the entire time, - Overall, of the 3,000 hectares extracted from Greenbelt protection, 92 per cent was removed as a direct result of developer access to Ford government officials. Blatant corruption

Well I don’t think the Halifax class was designed to attack mainland China of course but the incident in Libya and that type of conflict is what they are talking about. Those types of conflicts and littoral naval operations will not go away. On that mission Charlottetown was protecting allied minesweepers who were clearing harbour mines laid by Ghadaffi loyalists. As reported in the Canadian Naval Review: Under Charlottetown’s protection, the Belgian and British minesweepers cleared a safe pathway into the port, allowing the harbour to reopen on 05 May. The ship’s superior combat coordination and communications systems led to its periodic assignment as Surface Action Group Commander, in which Charlottetown directed the tactical employment of allied warships and maritime patrol aircraft in the area while coordinating patrol areas and alert levels for shipborne helicopters. These same capabilities, summarized under the rubric ‘C4ISR’, standing for the ship’s command, control, communications, computing, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance systems, allowed the ship’s combat control centre to alert NATO to a major offensive on April 26 against Misrata by Qaddafi forces. Working with NATO air controllers, Charlottetown’s operations staff assisted with the coordination of air strikes that blunted the attack and eliminated several dozen assault vehicles, artillery pieces and a main battle tank. The ship had repeat performances on 08 May and 24 May. Also IIRC the missile tubes on our Victoria class SSNs were converted to diver lockout chambers as part of the initial Canadianizarion refit. The boat’s original mine-laying capability was also removed.

Well the 124 km harpoon range is better than a punch in the shorts. If a target is in range then it’s in range. During the Libya action a Canadian frigate (HMCS Charlottetown IIRC) shelled a land target with its 57mm deck gun. When RCN finally got the Block II Harpoons they referenced the incident as an example of how the upgrade was needed.