I am Groot

The Chinese have obviously been busily engaged in what they call 'elite capture' and Johnston was captured decades ago, along with many other senior Liberals and influential members of the corporate elites. It'd be interesting to see if, like others, he was given preferential investment opportunities in China to keep them 'honest' and busily defending China's interests. It'd also be interesting to see what business his kids are in given he had three of them educated at Chinese universities. I'm guessing their jobs have something to do with China, like advising/representing or working for companies that do business there. Another part of elite capture involves those Confucious Institutes a number of universities and schools have installed. Johnston was a big fan of those. There, young people are taught precisely what the Chinese Communist Party wants them to be taught about China. Which is actually getting to be what our universities overall teach now, fearful of angering China and thus endangering the flow of money coming from Chinese foreign students and Chinese companies.

Right. Once Trudeau appoints his wife or brother to do the hearings. And you'll be here to defend him. This message brought to you by the Liberal Party of Canada

If he'd had any brains he never would have taken the job. Only an ivory tower twit would have failed to see the inherent conflict of interest in taking an appointment to investigate the suspicious doings of a country he loved (China) and the possible malfeasance of a PM who has been his friend and acquaintance for decades.

Why would someone be a worse risk than this scumbag? And this guy's crimes were just as horrific. Time to change that. Time to put all such people into solitary and keep them there until they die. And screw the courts. Put the law under the notwithstanding clause. It's clear the judiciary has zero consideration for either justice or the safety of the community.

Got me there. I read the complaint with cite on another forum and didn't think to check the date. I remember this case at the time for its particular cruelty, especially with leading the blind girl into the woods and beating her to death. It's bad enough the guy was let out of max after 9 years but if it was only 5 years that's worse.

Those portable toilets actually have doors which go from the top of the door frame down to the bottom, and without large gaps on the sides. Our public bathrooms take after the Americans, who are far more worried about someone doing something 'immoral' in them than in privacy. European public bathrooms are more private.

We need to get them ready for their release, after all! All this one did was rape and murder four women. Well, three women and a 15 year old blind girl. But hey, he's been in jail almost ten whole years now! Time is approaching fast for his pat on the head and release into a halfway house! No doubt he'll join Paul Bernardo there as the corrections authorities continue to assert that the criminal's well-being is more important than the victims they killed. https://www.aptnnews.ca/national-news/a-slap-in-the-face-serial-killer-moved-to-medium-security/

Came across this earlier today. A quick, easy definition of woke. Basically, those who believe all inequalities are due to discrimination and that as such justice is only achieved through the elimination of those inequalities by any means. No accounting is made for intelligence vs dumb, energetic vs lazy, working hard at education vs truancy and dropping out, responsible parenting and fatherless children. All inequalities are due to discrimination. All inequalities must be eliminated.

Perhaps the lack of absolute privacy in North American toilet stalls?

The EU alone has spent over $300 billion in the last decade fighting climate change. How much has the developing world spent? How much has the developing world spent building coal plants? As I pointed out and posted a cite to support, forest firest have been trending down in Canada for 25 years. This spring/year is an anomaly. Don't blame everything on climate change.

You can't actually wrap your mind around the possibility someone might be uninterested in celebrating gay pride day, and maybe think little kids are too young to be hectored on this score without hating or even disliking or disapproving of gay people, can you?

Maybe in this country But in Western Europe they've been pouring hundreds of billions into lowering Co2 emissions, to the point they got caught flat-footed when the Russians cut off their natural gas. Mind you, the stupidity of closing down nuclear power plants in Germany and Japan has a part fo play there, too. The Japanese have finally realized that's a dumb idea and are retreating but the Germans seem determined to screw up their economy as much as possible. But blaming the West, as you guys tend to do, again ignores the real issue. While the West HAS largely taken cilmate change seriously and has been doing its best to wean itself off fossil fuels the developing world has ignored the problem and is continuing to build hundreds of coal power plants. And guys like you are like "That's okay. You're good. You keep doing that. I'll keep blaming whitey!" What catastrophic conditions? Forest fires have been on a downward slope in Canada for twenty five years now. This is an anomaly. https://cwfis.cfs.nrcan.gc.ca/ha/nfdb

Yes. But the judges of the courts reflect the society of university-educated liberal arts graduates in and from urban areas. They do not reflect the larger society around them, or even notice it exists. They are not a part of it. They disdain it. Has it really? If we took a referendum how many 'rights' do you imagine would be approved for transgender people? Would a referendum come down on the side of trans women being in sports, being allowed in womens change rooms, womens dormitories, or prisons? Would it be in favor of huge gay pride parties in schools, in favor of drag queens reading to small children? Would a referendum vote tabulation show the majority in favour of teaching CRT and gender fluidity to nine year olds?

I like being impolite And this whole topic is ABOUT the compulsion, like even Ontario's allegedly conservative education minister telling school boards that celebrating pride is mandatory and the school board then telling teachers no one is allowed to opt out.

Not hard when you use tax writeoffs and infrastructure funding. Proper taxation policy.

Well, that's the view from the downtown condo towers of the urban university-educated worker, of course. Things don't look so pristine for the working poor in the rust belt who lost their job when the factory moved to China, and when the politicians refer to them as the 'deplorables' in the 'flyover states' nobody cares about. Not to mention looking down their noses at them for not having degrees or sharing their woke values on social justice issues. Or wanting to cling to their jobs in the mines and oil fields when obviously climate change says they need to lose those and work at McDonalds instead. Not to mention also allowing in millions of illegals to do unskilled labor, which keeps the wages at rock bottom. Not to mention doing everything they can to discriminate in favor of minority groups and against THEM in everything from government grants and loans to hiring and promotion. Not to mention being soft on crime if the criminals are (as they usually are) darker skinned. There's a whole host of reasons why the ignored, despised blue collar types would vote for a loudmouthed rabble rouser like Trump over the sneering coastal elites of the Democratic party. Which, come to think of it, are the same reasons why blue collar workers in Canada would vote Conservative.

What do you want to talk about the forest fires for? We all know stuff is burning. I don't think there's going to be a raging argument about that. I myself think there ought to be a central pool of equipment like water bombers, perhaps even standing by ready to be flown by trained military pilots in an emergency situation like we have now. If you want to climb up on a pedestal and start screaming that this is because of climate change feel free. It doesn't really make any difference to anything if it is or isn't. The facts remain the same. China is adding the CO2 equivalent of five new oil sands projects every year. India isn't far behind. Remember that goober who said something like if the oil sands keep expanding it's 'game over for the planet"? Yet the oil sands are irrelevant compared to the vast new amounts of CO2 coming online from the ever-growing horde of coal power plants in the developing world. Which means we're we should forget about trying to destroy our economy by making power more and more expensive and instead use our wealth to put dikes and irrigation systems and better forest management systems in place. But I know that's not something you want to hear.

We're required to attend grandiose celebrations of people who are gay because that's the polite thing to do?

You know, I didn't really think or care much about this. Like, okay, big deal. Pride day. But I saw this video in the paper the other day and I found it problematic. You've got a bunch of little kids who don't know what sex is and their school is having this fantabulous celebration as if pride day is the most marvelous, most fantastic, most wonderful thing that ever was. The teachers are all dressed up head to toe, theres rainbows everywhere, flags are flying! It's like I can almost read what the underlying message to the kiddies was without them saying it "Gay is good! Isn't gay fun! You should be gay too! It would be wonderful for you if you were gay! Want to know all about how you can be gay!? If you were gay this would be all about YOU! And I'm like, yeaahhh, I can see why Muslim parents, and for that matter, tons of others would have an issue with this. It's one thing to teach respect and it's another to tell kids who don't even know what sex or sexuality is that being gay is fantastic fun. And we're doing this for why, exactly? Up until about ten years ago 3% of the population identified as gay or lesbian. Now, for some reason I can't possibly imagine, it's doubled. https://twitter.com/libsoftiktok/status/1665724634120048641?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1665724634120048641|twgr^28cc467346c8bb5bb5ad38fee63a14fd1836c8b9|twcon^s1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fnationalpost.com%2Fnews%2Fcanada%2Fall-schools-must-comply-schools-get-heavy-handed-against-pride-backlash

Bullshit. Nah, you just fire their ass for something else. That's if you've made the mistake of hiring one to begin with. But employees don't need to have any standards. Nor do people who think the idea of having standards or questioning bullshit is 'bigoted'. You mean like saying offensive speech is 'unsafe'? Because... because.. well, it might lead to something...?

Another voice heard from. According to the federal government’s own data, Canada’s emissions in 2019 were 724 million tonnes — 1.5% of global emissions, down from 1.8% in 2005 — while global emissions during the same period increased 23.6%, from 38,669 million tonnes to 48,117 million tonnes. The highest-emitting country in 2019, according to the same data, was China with 12,705 million tonnes, or 26.4% of global emissions, up 74.8% from 2005. As Kenneth Green noted in a recent Fraser Institute report, which estimated the federal emissions cap will cost the Canadian economy more than $44 billion in 2030, even if Canada eliminated all emissions expected from the oil and gas sector in 2030, “the reduction would equal four-tenths of 1% of global emissions.” https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-were-paying-money-for-nothing-to-fight-climate-change

Well, I care. Almost half the people in this country don't pay taxes, as it is. That means I have to pay for their healthcare, their children's schooling, and everything else they get in the way of government services, from their share of road building and maintenance to their share of the military. We do not need more mouths sucking on the government teat. If we're going to bring in more people they need to be people who will share the load.

In the first place, we should not be bringing over anyone who does not increase GDP per person. The only possible reason for immigration is to improve the lifestyle of those who are already here. That means, as they suggest above, only bringing in highly skilled people with job skills that are in high demand. We need people who will earn above the national average, not below. We certainly don't need people to do low-skilled work. That the government is allowing TFWs who work in the restaurant industry to count that as 'Canadian work experience' and bringing them in as permanent residents is ludicrous. They are not improving the wealth of Canadians in general, but lowering it. Everyone who comes in who earns less than the national average lowers GDP per person. Anyone coming in who does not earn a reasonably high salary has to be carried by those who do - due to our progressive tax system.

Some damn thing.

More expensive than what? And the longer timeline is mostly a product of bureaucracy and process, not building. I think both projects are a product of the incompetence Canada has come to accept in all its major projects. Nothing finishes on time. Nothing comes anywhere near budget. Why? Because of bad planning? Because of corruption? Because of massive bureaucracy and red tape? All three? We need to do something about that. We do not have an endless supply of water to dam up for electricity. We need nukes. We should have been starting to build them years ago. Even if they were regular nukes and not the smaller ones. But we have shitty government that prefers not to think about anything beyond the next election. For now, perhaps. But if someone doesn't quickly solve the issue with the scarcity of rare earths the growth is going to come to an abrupt halt. There is also reluctance to drive them here, esp in less urban areas. What happens during a multi day power outage?