Rita

Quote of the Day: “Prices are important not because money is considered paramount but because prices are a fast and effective conveyor of information through a vast society in which fragmented knowledge must be coordinated.” Thomas Sowell

I’ve mentioned before that Fitsum Areguy is a “Local Journalism Initiative Reporter” with TheRecord, which really means he is part of the $600 Million bribe that Justin Trudeau gave to newspapers so they would soften any published criticism of his harmful and destructive policies. Areguy has a nice little, Christmas story today about a Syrian refugee family that came here five years ago. He details how they were initially sponsored by the Mennonite Central Committee, how they “visited us and always asked me if we needed anything…”. He tells us that the father, Saleh Al Qablawi, got a job as an Uber driver and also a construction worker. He has saved enough money that the family bought a house (down payment, I assume) in Woodstock. What a nice story (and picture) of a family making it in Canada after so many hardships in their home country and refugee camps. “Everything is positive here… people are so friendly, it gives me a good vision to stay here” he tells us. Oh, wait. Right after this quote, Areguy tells us without evidence or a single reference that: “However, some researchers suggest that newly arrived refugees are reluctant to share negative experiences with interviewers.” What an ass. Is he calling Al Qablawi a liar? Is he trying to suggest that there might be sometime negative in Canada compared to a refugee camp? This Areguy guy is being paid by my tax dollars. Wasted tax dollars.

News Media Canada is the lobby group representing a number of Canada’s print and digital publishers. TorStar belongs to this group. I’m not sure how many other of the big newspapers belong to the group, because I can’t find a list of members on their website ( https://nmc-mic.ca ) . Normally, you would expect to see a list of who belongs to a lobbying group, but not this one I guess. I wonder why? On the Insights (Huh?) Page today, its CEO, John Hinds responds to an email that Jason Kee, Public Policy and Government Relations Counsel at Google Canada, wrote to every MP on 30 November 2020. In that letter, Kee clearly and definitively outlines, with facts and references, what a joke the whole campaign by News Media Canada is to regulate what it considers Google and Facebook’s near monopoly of advertising revenue in Canada. Hind writes that: “The two web giants use their monopoly positions to deny local newspapers revenues…”. Hinds refers to the Kee’s letter in part but I had real trouble finding a copy of it. Obviously, News Media Canada has a copy, but they didn’t post it on their website. I wonder why? Here is a link to the Kee’s letter. Read it yourself. What a joke the Insight Page has become.

Quote of the Day: “Talkers are usually more articulate than doers, since talk is their specialty.” Thomas Sowell

The so-called Search feature at TheRecord is embarrassing. This morning, I tried to find out the last time an article from someone at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy (FCPP) wrote an op-ed. It was frustrating. Google gave me more results than Search. Why? I’m not sure now long TheRecord has been publishing online, but it’s been many years. So why don’t they have all of their articles up and searchable? I don’t get it. Here is a business where the only thing they sell is “words”, but they do such a poor job of managing them. Oh well… The last time TheRecord published something from the FCPP – was in 2018. Google tells me they also published a column in 2017 and again in 2013. Yup – that seems about right. Publish something from a centre-right think tank about every two to three years. For balance, I assume. Today, Michael Zwaagstra from the FCPP has an op-ed that talks about diverse learning skills and the benefits of a broad background from reading. He links this to the game show Jeopardy! and the late Alex Trebek. This column originally appears in the FCPP website on 01 December 2020. I know, because I read it back then since I subscribe to the FCPP newsletters. O.K., nice little op-ed. Nothing special. But I guess what this really means is that some editor (gasp!!!) at TheRecord actually subscribes or at least reads columns from the FCPP. Well, if that’s the case, then where is the column from the FCPP on the “The Great Myth of Lockdowns”, or the column on “LEO Satellite Networks – Fast Rural Internet at Reasonable Cost?” or the column on “Police Reform: An Examination of the Systemic Protections of Misconduct” or “Death of Free Expression on Campus Drives Intellectual Exodus” or the spectacular column “Canada’s COVID-19 Strategy is an Assault on the Working Class”. Yea, I guess I will have to wait about another two or three years..

Quote of the Day: “Facts are not liberals’ strong suit. Rhetoric is.” Thomas Sowell

Just what exactly is wrong with Susan Koswan. Today, she starts off her nagging, silly little column by telling us: “I’m horrified when I see trees recklessly and needlessly chopped down. Just because it’s easier and cheaper to do so before building doesn’t mean we should.” What? And: “I am a tree-hugger. Literally. Every week, during our yoga hike at Huron Natural Area, we pause for a moment to hug a tree. It is surprisingly soothing…”. Oh my. “Tree planting, reforesting and, most importantly, not cutting down the trees and forests we already have are some of the most important and effective ways to combat climate change.” I get it. Thank-you. Oh wait, there’s more: “We need to start asking if people understand climate change, not whether they believe in it. Our current provincial government obviously does not understand it, or they would be doing the opposite of what they have been doing, especially with recent changes to our conservation authorities. We must do more, not less, to protect our natural climate systems.” Really? Has Koswan ever looked at a map of Canada. I guess not. But according to this government site: https://www.nrcan.gc.ca/our-natural-resources/forests-forestry/state-canadas-forests-report/how-much-forest-does-canada-have/17601 Canada has over 347 million hectares of forest that covers 38% of Canada’s land mass. The forest area of Canada is stable, with less than half of 1% deforested since 1990. And with about 1,800 trees per hectare that means there are over 600 billion trees in Canada. But she is “horrified” when one is cut down before a house is built. Seriously – someone should be checking on her on a regular basis.

Quote of the Day: “It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong.” Thomas Sowell

I’ve used this quote before but I can’t think a more appropriate statement considering the Ontario Government’s recent COVID decisions…

The Editorial today is about the upcoming lock down, of course, and the editorial writers just can’t find enough good things to say about it. Well, except that the Ford government should have enacted these draconian measures sooner… The editorial suggests that: “Today the pandemic’s second wave continues to accelerate at an alarming rate, largely because people refuse to stop gathering socially, at weddings or religious services for example.” Really? At my church, I have to register with the church office to attend on Sunday. I have to sign in with my name and phone number, my temperature is checked on my forehead and wrist, I have to answer a bunch of health questions, I have to wear a mask and finally, I have to use hand sanitizer to gain entrance to the church. Every second pew is blocked and members are seated on either on the side or in the middle of the open pews. Church is limited to 30% capacity. No hymnals, brochures or service agendas are available anywhere. Not one person in our congregation (to my knowledge) has contacted COVID-19. Other churches that I know of are also following procedures like this. So, just where are the writers getting this information that “religious services” are spreading the virus? The editorial continues to blah, blah blah about COVID – and basically makes a lot of assumptions that can’t be verified like Hamilton saw a spike in COVID cases because people from Toronto went there to shop etc. etc. Enough blah for one day…

Hey TheRecord is a measly 20 pages today but it’s split into two sections with the Editorial in one section and the Insights (Huh?) page in another. Really?

Quote of the Day: “Concentrated power is not rendered harmless by the good intentions of those who create it.” Milton Friedman

Wow – a three page insert to “Give the gift of trusted news” in TheRecord today. Times must really be desperate over there on King Street East. Of course, “trusted news” is a highly subjective term, now isn’t it. As I have mentioned many times before, one-sided, biased, leftist “news” shouldn’t be “trusted” at all. How can anyone trust news from any TorStar source? Again, just point to one single article, op-ed, editorial, editorial cartoon that pictured Donald Trump as anything but Hitler in the last 5 years. Point to one single Monday column from Geoffrey Stevens that didn’t portray any Conservative or any conservative idea as something other than horrific and should be mocked. Point to an op-ed or editorial in the last few years (with the sole exception of columns by Peter Shawn Taylor) where TheRecord severely criticized any Liberal government or Liberal policy. Go ahead, I’ll wait…

TorStar is dead. TheRecord is dead. Journalism is dead.

And speaking of “trusted news”, does anyone think that Luisa D’Amato’s front page article in TheRecord today about Bardish Chaggar would be anything but enthusiastic cheer-leading? After all, she hasn’t had a negative word to say about her since she heaped praise on Chaggar way back in her first column about her on 21 August 2016. “…her meteoric ascent to the top”, “…a top contender for the Liberal leadership”, “…with a smile that could light up the entire country”. Yea – this is what “trusted news” looks like – from Entertainment Tonight. Hurry, sign up now for a digital subscription to TheRecord before they run out…

Quote of the Day: “In various countries and times, leaders of groups that lagged behind, economically and educationally, have taught their followers to blame all their problems on other people – and to hate those other people.” Thomas Sowell

A number of articles to comment on today – not sure if I can get through them all. First up is the story by Liz Monteiro on Kitchener’s housing strategy for the next few years. One huge issue – I can’t read the “Wheelhouse” diagram that was printed on Page A8. Black ink on a dark blue background is not very gentle on my aging eyes. I actually had to go to the website to read it properly. But even looking at the diagram at TheRecord.com, I still don’t understand it. The diagram [actually, this is one of the few articles that you can read at the website without a subscription, interesting…] is a wheel with eight types of housing within Kitchener – homeless on one of the spokes all the way to “market home ownership” on the other. All of the other spokes are rental, supportive etc. There are two sets of numbers around that outside of the wheel and the diagrams explains that “the numbers around the perimeter of the Wheelhouse are the City’s targets” in terms of number of units per housing type while “The number within the Wheelhouse are the income deciles for Kitchener” for each of these types. O.K., got it, but the only issue here is that “deciles” means (from the dictionary, just to get this correct…) “one of the values of a variable that divides the distribution of the variable into ten groups having equal frequencies”. Ten is the “dec” part of deciles. The issue here is that there is only seven categories of income. Huh? Some planning department moron wanted to make this presentation extra special so they added some impressive sounding word – except that they can’t count to 10. Unbelievable. And doesn’t Monteiro know what deciles means? Oh, and something else interesting in this story: “On Thursday, the federal government pledged $40 Million for Habitat for Humanity to build homes for Black families in Canada.” So, can someone please look up the definition for “racism” in the dictionary? Never mind, I’ll do it: “…that a particular racial group is inferior to the others”. So, does the Government of Canada think that Blacks aren’t able to build their own homes? Flat out racism, nothing but…

What a great gig Gordon Paul has at TheRecord. It appears that his job is to scourer OPP crime reports and then copy them to his column after making humorous remarks. On Page A9, he tells us that the cops pulled over a “car” that was speeding and found 14,000 cigars that didn’t have the mandatory tax stickers. The value of these cigars was about $4 each. So, just doing a bit of quick math, cigars weigh on average about 20 grams (from my friend, Mr. Google who knows these things..). So, these 14,000 cigars weigh over 280 kilos or about 620 lbs. Now, where do you get 620 lbs of untaxed tobacco and a cigar making machine in Ontario? Oh, wait, I know…

Great story by Brent Davis on Page A3 today about The Culinary Studio. We totally enjoyed our experience there a few years ago. Excellent.

The Editorial is titled: “Waterloo Region is listening to racialized voices”. Wait a minute. “Waterloo Region is listening to radicalized voices”. There – I fixed the title for them. No need to thank me… The Editorial starts off by stating: “No government can claim to be democratic unless it listens to what the people are saying and tries to respond in a meaningful way. By this standard, democracy is alive and kicking in Waterloo Region.” Well, I don’t think that’s a very good definition of democracy. But even if it was, our elected leaders should respond based on each situation and what is being requested of them. Democracy does not respond to a group of very, very loud “activists” who are trying to influence decisions that only affects a small but vocal group of people. Everyone I know who are “racialized” (when did this ever become a word?) aren’t running around screaming to defund the police or demanding special treatment. Everyone of them are hard working parents who are trying to pay down their mortgages and sending their kids off to university. They aren’t camping in tents in Victoria Park because they have jobs and families to support. They aren’t yelling about police brutality, because they only time they have contact with the police is when their husbands play Sunday night pickup hockey with other cops in Cambridge. And the most important fact is that the “racialized” people I know aren’t shooting each other over drug deals or because one of them dissed (when did this ever become a word?) someone in an online rap video. But here is an interesting statement: “What’s needed now is for these three municipal governments to set clear goals that explain to the public exactly what they’re aiming to accomplish.” Oh really? So just what clear goals did Kitchener or Waterloo Council make when they decided to hire a million dollars a year worth of people “to combat racism and promote equality.” I didn’t hear about “goals” or how these new, unionized workers would ever accomplish this task or even how to measure success or failure of these nonexistent goals. The editorial concludes by saying: “Where this exercise in local democracy is headed, nobody knows. We sincerely hope it is toward a more equitable, inclusive and harmonious Waterloo Region.” Well, all I know is that 9 people now have jobs for life – and every last taxpayer in the Twin Cities is poorer because of it.

Mike Morrice has a column in the Insight (Huh?) Page today where he suggests: ”It’s time for a science-based climate plan”. Well, I think that all government policies should be science-based or at least evidence-based. But if that ever happened, we wouldn’t have Editorials exclaiming that “nobody knows” where a $1 Million a year policies are headed, now would we? I’m not going to go through the entire column and dissect it line by line. But the point here, if you look at all of the so-called “science-based evidence” regarding climate change, it is weak at best. If you accept the theory that CO2 emissions cause global warning, then you also have to accept the fact that western nations are and continue to reduce or maintain their emissions while the rest of the world, China and India, South East Asia and even Africa have dramatically increased theirs. Here is the issue – Morrice and others like him want to destroy Canada’s economy in the name of climate change while completely ignoring the massive increases in CO2 emissions mainly from the East. Instead of pumping out self serving op-eds in TheRecord, he should publish his column in the Times of India or in China’s Daily Worker. Oh, I also most forgot. Morrice in his call for a “science-based climate plan” in his column and then quotes some Swedish teenager. *cough* And if Morrice wants to use science-based and evidence-based policies for his climate change agenda, then maybe he should glance over this article: https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/goldstein-b-c-s-failed-carbon-tax-shows-why-trudeaus-wont-work?

Quote of the Day: “Education is not merely neglected in many of our schools today, but is replaced to a great extent by ideological indoctrination.” Thomas Sowell

Luisa D’Amato has a great column today where she rightly and justifiably criticizes “activists” who are attempting to dump school board Trustee Mike Ramsey from the School Resource Officer Committee. I won’t repeat and go into the details, but here is a great line from her column: “But for him [Ramsey], the discussion ahead ‘needs to be evidence-based, fact-based and not based on feelings’”. O.K. Ms D’Amato, how about you take up that challenge as well as you write your columns? How about you look at all of the “evidence” that these “activists” are dreaming up and start writing “fact-based” columns? We will see…

Quote of the Day: “The persistent trick of modern politics – that appears to fool us repeatedly – is to disguise economic and political interests as cultural movements.” George Monbiot

Mulugeta Dilnesahu is today’s Community Editorial Board columnist. His article is titled: “We all lose when social media trumps scientific knowledge”. Here are some of the sentences right out of his column (I’m not making this up…): “No one refutes the fact that knowledge is power because innovations and objective achievements in every aspect of nature and life are products of hard-working, hard-thinking scientists” and “When science is hurt, it is the masses of humanity that gets hurt” and “Electricity was not discovered by a conspirator, nor airplane” and “Nuclear science is not a piece of rumour” and “Knowledge and science are under attack and so is humanity”. No comment.

By the way, this is the same guy that claimed back on 10 September 2020 in another CEB post: “That’s the racism of Canada” when he can’t find a job in his field – which is population studies… No comment.

So, the Trudeau government has a deficit of about $400 Billion this year, almost one in every seven small businesses are forecast to close by the end of the year, the median wait time to see a specialist physician is now 22.6 weeks between referral from a general practitioner and receipt of treatment – the longest wait time ever recorded according to a new report by the Fraser Institute, and so what does Trudeau do? He announces a $170 per tonne carbon tax to be implemented by 2030. And TheRecord editorial today cheers him on… And why, you might ask? Because: “But no one should forget what’s really at stake here: the future of our planet…” No comment.

Quote of the Day: “Liberalism is totalitarianism with a human face.” Thomas Sowell

Last Thursday, I mentioned a say-nothing column by Benjamin Aduba who suggested that governments should take a more active approach to “challenge money misconceptions” by immigrants. Well, looking over the Globe and Mail’s website today, I noticed that the same article was published at the Globe here: https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/commentary/article-when-you-come-from-a-country-where-its-a-crime-to-leave-debts-unpaid/ Interesting that both TorStar and the Globe would publish the same op-ed.

The editorial today says that it’s: “Time for an adult talk on health funding”. Well O.K. But if anyone is going to have an adult talk, then maybe the first step is to acknowledge that the current, single-payer system is completely bankrupt and not working. Forget funding. Get to the real issue – the increasing (actually insatiable) demand for health care far outstrips the supply. Period. This basic truth is the true reason why my mother-in-law has to wait 23 months(!) for cataract surgery. This is the reason why I had to wait 3 months for an MRI when I ripped up my knee. So unless The Prime Minister and the Premiers are willing to have an adult talk about simple core aspects of our brutal “free” health care system, then editorials like this are just wasted ink. Fix the Canada Health Care Act first and then have that adult talk.

Quote of the Day: “One of the most pervasive political visions of our time is the vision of liberals as compassionate and conservatives as less caring.” Thomas Sowell

Well this is interesting. Shocking, really… For the first time ever (at least that I can recall), we have a column on the Editorial page that presents evidence that suggests that the lockdown hammer that is so widely used by every politician on the planet might somehow not just be the best option. Cue the hysteria and every last Karen up in virtual arms… Dr. Laura Duncan and Professor Emeritus, Dr. Michael Boyle, suggest three very real issues with the lockdown mentality: Lockdowns come with unmeasured harms, Lockdowns compound risk in disadvantaged groups and Lockdowns have not protected those at greatest risk for death. Here is real evidence based science that no government official should ignore. Well worth the two minute read and well worth the three minute re-read.

Tammy Webster from our Community Editorial Board suggests today that “Impostors shifting race for personal gain” is a “recent phenomenon that is highly contentious”. No kidding. She explains that: “Race shifters take advantage of the anti-oppression political climate and romanticize the notion of Indigeneity, perpetuating the same oppressions and systems that Indigenous people continually navigate.” She mentions a few people like Iron Eyes Cody, Grey Owl and wrestler Chief Jay Strongbow as some of these impostors. But Cody was active mostly in the 1930’s, 40’s and 50’s. Grey Owl was also from the 1930’s. And Chief Jay Strongbow is a wrestler with the WWE. But isn’t strange how Ms Webster doesn’t mention the most glaring and recent example of passing oneself off as a different race? That would be of course, Democrat U.S. Senator and former presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts who was called out by President Donald Trump. Here is a woman who used her fake identity to avoid tuition and taxes by claiming Indian heritage and Webster somehow forgets to mention this? Too funny…

Richard MacKinnon on the Editorial page tells us that “Right now, climate change is killing people around the world”. His bio states that he “lives in Hamilton”. That’s it. He lives in Hamilton. Does he have a Ph.D in Environmental Science, or maybe Economics, or Geography or something? Nope – but he lives in Hamilton and I guess that’s good enough to get yourself on the Editorial page these days that TheRecord. His 338 word grade 8 essay gives us gems like: “Because we haven’t acted as if there actually is a climate emergency there are still wild fires, the Atlantic hurricane season shattered records, thousands of people lost power because of recent snow and the high winds in B.C.” and “Five dead due to flooding in Vietnam this month is on us.” *cough* I guess from Mr. MacKinnon’s perspective, no one every died due to hurricanes, flooding, cyclones, forest fires, tornadoes or any other weather related event before the Industrial Revolution. I wonder, do you get this brilliant understanding of climate by living in Hamilton?

The Editorial talks about the ridiculous resolution that Waterloo Council unanimously passed this week asking the Regional Police Board to defund part of next year’s police budget. They did this just after they passed their own budget that calls for a 3.5% increase. Nice. The editorial correctly calls them out for this waste of time – but then talks about a “proposal to consider” – and goes on to suggest almost exactly the same thing. Huh??? Is the editorial writer from Hamilton?