Trudeau hates Canada: apologizes for nothing.

Vincent J. Curtis

9 July 22

RE: Trudeau apologizes to descendants of No. 2 Construction Battalion CEF

This apology should be viewed as another effort by Prime Minister Trudeau to humiliate Canada.  He portrays Canada’s history as one atrocity after another, and this “apology” is to create another atrocity out of nothing.

The No. 2 Construction Battalion served honourably in Britain and France from the fall of 1917 to December 1918.  Attached to the Canadian Forestry Corps, the battalion filled a role that needed filling, namely forestry work in France.  The battalion was among the first to be repatriated to Canada, arriving in February, 1919.  A salient fact about the battalion is how few troops there were in it.  After recruiting across all Canada, the battalion sent overseas 19 officers and 595 men.  A standard battalion required 1049 men.  The Black troops were assigned the duties they were because there weren’t enough Black men in all Canada to staff a full battalion and keep it staffed in the face of battle losses.

A segregated battalion was common in those times.  The U.S. Army, under the presidency of that great progressive Woodrow Wilson, was kept rigidly segregated.  Besides, given the prejudices of the times, what would be the point of distributing 595 Black soldiers among half a million white soldiers?

So, what’s the apology about?  To say that white soldiers of a hundred years ago, now all deceased, the grandfathers and great-grandfathers of those living today, were racists.  What is demanded in compensation to “descendants” by their self-appointed spokesmen?  Money and power.  Instead, Trudeau is offering to punish the soldiers of the CAF today with more rigorous progressive indoctrination.  CRT, and all that.

It’s all a big. shameful joke.  But Trudeau keeps power by dividing Canadians.  Trudeau hates Canada.

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Where's justice for the Canadian taxpayer?

Vincent J. Curtis

7 July 22

RE: Justice for indigenous families.  Spectator editorial 7 July 22.

The House of Commons has the power it has because it began centuries ago with the power of the purse.  Thanks to that power, the executive government now rests in the hands of the steering committee of the House.

Chief among the powers of the House is the setting of taxes, and close behind is the power of budgeting.  The statement, “From 1991 until this year Ottawa knowingly discriminated against Fist Nations children by chronically underfunding the child welfare services they needed.”  is irrational.  Budgeting is a complex business, resources are finite, lots of interests need to be balanced, and if parliament decides to spend this much and no more on indigenous child welfare services, that’s it.  Justice has nothing to do with it.  This is what Canada has to give, period.  And there’s no higher authority to say otherwise – until now?

If, from some cosmic perspective, this seems retrospectively unjust, well, get in line.  Lots of good causes got “underfunded” from their perspective as the government fought inflation and then chronic deficits.  The provinces claim the feds chronically underfund Medicare.  But the budget is passed as law just like any other law, and there’s no gainsaying it, particularly not by creatures of parliament like the CHRT.  Unless, that is, you’re a progressive with a divine view of the world.

This $40 billion settlement is an injustice to the Canadian taxpayer.  The next government should abrogate it, and then abolish the CHRT whose god-like self-regard got this mess started.

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The Commonwealth is no anachronism

 

Anachronistic Avant-Garde

Vincent J. Curtis

6 July 22

RE: Commonwealth is an anachronism.  Opinion piece by Martin Regg Cohn.  Published inexplicably in the Hamilton Spectator 6 July 22.

It’s amazing how quickly the avant-garde can fall behind the times.  Martin Regg Cohn would regard himself as on the leading edge of forward thinking.  He’s one of those people who would abolish the monarchy in Canada, but not admit that he’s calling for Canada to become a republic, like the United States or France or Germany.

The Commonwealth is anachronistic only if those British ideals of rule of law and tolerance are anachronistic.  Cohn completely misunderstands the significance of Rwanda’s membership in the Commonwealth.

Rwanda was a Belgian colony.  The official language was French.  Then came the genocide.  Rwandans who, it must astonish Cohn to learn, are intelligent human beings, determined among themselves that they needed a whole new model of society and government.  They chose the British model because of its hard-won tradition of tolerance and dedication to the rule of law.  Most surprisingly everybody learned English.  Then, Rwanda applied for membership in the Commonwealth.  Cohn would destroy what inspired post-genocide Rwanda.

In his “Iron-curtain” speech, Churchill declared that, besides the UN, the world needed associations of nations “which harboured no design incompatible with the Charter of the United Nations, far from being harmful, are beneficial, and, as I believe, indispensable. I spoke earlier of the Temple of Peace.  Workmen from all countries must build that temple….”

The Commonwealth is an association of nations dedicated to the cause of good government, mutual benefit, and domestic peace.

Like many self-appointed forward thinkers, Cohn would destroy what he doesn’t understand.  The Rwandans understand.

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Martin Regg Cohn is an anachronism of the Toronto Star.

Grotesque incompetence of Trudeau Gov't.

Vincent J. Curtis

5 July 22

RE: Canadian airports top global list for delays.  Canadian Press story by Christopher Reynolds.  Published in the Spectator 5 July 22.

“Ideologically rigid, nonchalant, and grotesquely incompetent” is how Victor Davis Hanson described Joe Biden’s Administration.  The Trudeau government is making the beleaguered Biden Administration look good by comparison.  Topping the global list of airport delays is the tip of the iceberg.

Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos announced that “fully vaccinated” no longer had meaning, and that time from last vaccination shot was the proper measure.  Measure for what?  Canada still maintains the obsolete and totally worthless policy of requiring a person to be “fully vaccinated” before they can travel commercially by air or train or bus in Canada.  By now, even the janitor knows that there’s no stopping the spread of the latest COVID variant by any means, and also knows that vaccination is no barrier to infection or transmission.  Some provinces are eliminating requirements for self-isolation after testing positive for COVID.  So, what’s the scientific basis for the policy?

Duclos is the Minister for Health, and here he is announcing Transport policy with the Transport Minister nowhere in sight.  Sitting next to Duclos was Theresa Tam, but not one reporter thought to ask Tam for the scientific basis for “nine months,” when the third dose sort-of works for only four months.  NO one asked about reports of side-effects from getting multiple vaccinations.

Obsolete and incompetently conceived policies are being announced by the wrong Minister, and nobody asks the alleged expert to explain.  Canadians are learning about the incompetent clown show running the government the hard way.

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A bad day for Page 1

Stupid Streets: any excuse will do.

Vincent J. Curtis

4 July 22

RE: Street design changes pitched as deaths spike.  Headline story by Matthew van Dongen.  The Hamilton Spectator 4 July 22.

The streets haven’t changed and traffic volumes are down, but pedestrian deaths are up, 16 last year and a ‘grim’ 9 so far this year.  Obviously, the street is at fault for these rising numbers.

“We can’t rely on people to change their behavior,” reasons a lawyer who represents injured cyclists. “We need infrastructure that helps protect vulnerable road users.”  Since the humans can’t learn, the streets need to get smarter.  At taxpayer expense.

When I visited Hamilton last July, I noticed how much more aggressive Hamilton’s drivers were than I remembered.  Aggression was stimulated in part because of all the construction, mistimed traffic lights, and other obstructions that made getting to where you needed to go so frustrating and time-consuming.  My car got totaled on Garner Road in a rear-end collision while I was stopped at a red light.  Driver inattention.  No matter how smart the street, the drivers have to have the brain in gear.

“Smart streets” is another progressive solution in search of a problem.  Its aim is to choke traffic flow because driving is morally evil and drivers deserve to be punished.

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Net-Zero Nonsense

Vincent J. Curtis

4 July 22

RE: Businesses discuss reaching net zero.  Page 1 below-the-fold story by Ritika Dubey.  The Hamilton Spectator 4 July 22

In Europe, the energy shortage is so bad, the Greens are restarting coal-fired power plants.  In California, unscheduled power black-outs have become so common that Stanford University is shutting down summer classes.  But the ostriches of Hamilton, are talking about net-zero?

In my 30 years of manufacturing, I never encountered another manufacturer that wanted to change for the sake of change.  The risks and costs of being wrong in the slightest way were too great.  It’s fine for paper-shufflers to talk about net-zero because they’re nearly there to start with.  Transforming matter from one form into another takes energy, and capital, and simply to do it differently is fixing something that isn’t broken.

Metaphor mixing Hamilton Mountain MP Lisa Hepfner says, “We’re on the precipice of a seismic shift” in how sustainability is defined.  When we shift over that precipice, why not make the new definition something easy, and then call it a day.  Reaching net-zero may give moral satisfaction, but as a practical matter is a waste of time and economically disastrous for most.

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Campaigning for a fourth dose?

 

Campaign for the useless?

Vincent J. Curtis

2 July 22

RE: Time to renew Hamilton’s vax campaign.  Spectator editorial 2 July 22.

The poster children for the uselessness of masking and COVID vaccinations are Prime Minster Trudeau and Health Minister Jean-Yves Duclos.  Trudeau ostentatiously got vaxxed and boosted, and then became (conveniently) infected with COVID in February and again (conveniently) in June.  Less remembered is that he isolated himself (conveniently) for a month starting March 12, 2020, after his wife tested positive for COVID.  Trudeau wears a mask like it were a subliminal suggestion of political correctness, which it probably is.  Duclos likewise is vaxxed, boosted, masked, - and infected nevertheless.

Realization of the uselessness of the vaccines to prevent infection and transmission is what led to the truckers’ strike in February, when a vax mandate was imposed upon them.  The only alleged benefit is a reduction in severity of symptoms, which is rather pointless anyhow to otherwise healthy people under 60.  Even Theresa Tam admits the vaccines didn’t work, but she has yet to apologize for being wrong about boosters.  Being wrong is one thing, lying is another.

The full range of pressure available to the government to coerce people to get vaccinated was employed: taking away rights, firings, shaming, ostracizing, and official condemnation.

Nobody’s going to tell the Spectator where to put their vax enthusiasm (well, almost no one!); People just aren’t going to do it this time.  The resistance began when vaxxing didn’t stop the sixth wave, and then children fell under the evil eye of desperate health care officials.

The progressives broke Humpty-Dumpty, and he can’t be fixed.

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Climate change causes electoral reform?

Vincent J. Curtis

30 June 22

RE: Climate action needs electoral reform – fast.  Op-ed by Jane Jenner.  The Hamilton Spectator 30 June 22.

Is this going to be the latest climate change disaster: that climate change causes electoral reform in Ontario?  Or is this simply another demand that the electoral process be changed until it reliably produces the results we want?  And by that I mean either gives power to the party I like, or denies it to the party I don’t.

Quite apart from the business of monkeying with the electoral process is the proposition that Ontario, by her own actions, can stop global climate change.  No, it can’t.  Canada can’t.  John Kerry admits that not even the United States can.  So, get over your narcissism Canadian climate activists, you just aren’t that important.

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