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OTTAWA — Interim Conservative Leader Candice Bergen pushed predecessor Erin O’Toole to show support for the Freedom Convoy protest, arguing last week there are “good people on both sides,” an echo of the phrase made infamous by former U.S. president Donald Trump after a Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., in 2017.

Bergen also told O’Toole and other members of the Conservative shadow cabinet that there were “reasonable people” at the truckers’ protest, just as there were in the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.

In an email Bergen sent Monday, obtained by CTV News, she told other MPs “I don’t think we should be asking them to go home” and proposed that the party “turn this into the PM’s problem.”

She also shared pictures of herself visiting on the Hill with protesters from her home province of Manitoba, tweeting that, “They deserve to be heard and they deserve respect.”

Trump’s phrase – “very fine people on both sides” – drew heavy criticism when he used it to characterize the Charlottesville protest, where white supremacists marched with torches and Nazi and Confederate flags, chanting anti-Semitic slurs. One counter-protester was killed at Charlottesville.

Excerpts Source: CTV News Feb 4/22

Erin O’Toole is out as leader of the federal Conservatives

Erin O’Toole made a last-ditch effort to save his job Wednesday morning in a heated meeting with a single item on the agenda: a vote by MPs on whether or not he should stay on. He lost. ( photo was not available)

Pundits wonder who will throw their hats in the ring of righteous fire this time?

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In the course of our months of Pandora Papers reporting, one secretive industry kept popping up again and again. From politicians to power couples to alleged criminals, a particular kind of asset emerged as a go-to for the rich and powerful to store wealth: ARTWORK. For longtime ICIJ readers, this may not come as a surprise. Investigations like the Panama Papers and FinCEN Files showed how anonymously trading expensive art and antiquities — which are portable, increase in value over time, and can be bought with little anti-money laundering oversight — has become a widespread phenomenon. But one surprise for ICIJ reporter Scilla Alecci was finding a number of pieces by street artist Banksy in the Pandora Papers documents. Banksy’s work rebukes consumer culture, capitalism, and the art world itself. But it has been swept up into a parallel financial system that many experts say represents the worst of what his art often critiques. “It’s terribly ironic,” John Zarobell, a San Francisco University associate professor and author of “Art and the Global Economy” told ICIJ. “When you become a famous artist, like Banksy has, your work gains lots of value, and then it can become a tool in these kinds of schemes by the ultra wealthy, in order to hide their wealth.” Scilla’s latest investigation digs into London financial broker and former car racer Maurizio Fabris, who used an offshore trust to buy more than a dozen Banksy pieces — and sold some off to a London gallery managed by Banksy’s former agent when he came under criminal investigation for alleged tax fraud in Italy. The pieces were among more than 1,600 works of art by about 400 artists from all over the world that ICIJ identified in the Pandora Papers. These offshore dealings are emblematic of how the booming ART MARKET has become “the largest, legal unregulated industry,” in the words of American lawmakers, where dealers largely aren’t subject to know-your-customer rules meant to stop suspicious transactions and financial crime — and reforms have been uneven and slow coming.

Court Painter in a paroxysm of generosity sent paintings of Lego Heavy Duty Tow Trucks as gifts to Ottawa Mayor Watson and Premier Jason Kenney of Alberta. A note accompanying these magnanimous hand crafted gifts asked the Mayor to share with the Ottawa Police Chief and Premier Kenney to share with the Coutts RCMP.

Court Painter, a man of few words also scribbled accompanying notes that simply said :

Protest Expressed! Times Up! Lard Asses and their Toys Must Go!

An independent Great Dominion poll of this citizen action by Court Painter showed a number of Canadians who agreed and a number who disagreed. Others had no opinion .The cumulative results showed a stunning 100%.

TIme to pull the plug on this freedom version crap!

Chain, chain, chain
(Chain, chain, chain)
Chain, chain, chain
(Chain, chain, chain)
Chain, chain, chain
(Chain, chain, chain)
The supply chain of fools

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• https://youtu.be/omvMaiWwEpY

Trevor Noah Torches Joe Rogan for Saying It’s ‘Very Strange’ to Call Someone Black Unless They’re ‘100% African’

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Trevor Noah addressed Joe Rogan’s recent exchange with controversial clinical psychologist and YouTube personality Jordan Peterson, in which the two weighed in on the term “Black.”

On Tuesday’s edition of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, Rogan recalled the time writer and professor Michael Eric Dyson called Peterson “a mean, mad White man” during a 2018 debate on “political correctness.”

Rogan argued that Peterson was “not mean at all,” calling Dyson’s statement “dumb.”

“I am White — actually that’s a lie too. I am kind of tan,” Peterson added. “And he (Dyson) was actually not Black, he was sort of brown.”

The comment prompted Rogan to share his take on the word Black, saying, “The Black and White thing is so strange because the shades are such a spectrum of shades of people.”

“Unless you are talking to someone who is, like, 100% African from the darkest place, where they are not wearing any clothes all day and they have developed all of that melanin to protect themselves from the sun, even the term Black is weird,” he continued. “When you use it for people who are literally my color, it becomes very strange.”

Noah was unimpressed.

Noah went on to give Rogan and Peterson a quick history lesson on the word:

The things these guys seem to be ignoring is that Black people didn’t call themselves Black. You understand that, right? It’s not like Black people were like, ‘We’re Black.’ No. In Africa, we have tribes. We have cultures. Zulu. Xhosa. Baganda. Igbo. Wakandans! But then white people got there, and they were like, ‘Wow. There’s a lot of Black people here. A lot of Black people.’ Then in America, they invented a rule that if you had one drop of Black blood in you, that makes you Black—which defined how you were treated by the government and by society.

Source: Mediaite January 27/22

DEFUNDING THE POLICE: DEFINING THE WAY FORWARD FOR HRM

El Jones walks us through the report’s rethink on how to keep our communities safe and examines the common ground between supporters and opponents of defunding.

Click Link for CBC frontburner Podcast

• https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/a-path-for-halifax-to-defund-the-police-1.6325044?__vfz=medium%3Dsharebar

A Halifax committee tasked with defining what it means to defund the police has released its final report: a 219-page document that recommends numerous reforms and reimagines our communities’ relationship with law enforcement. 

The report, prepared for the city’s Board of the Police Commissioners by a 14-member subcommittee, was formally presented to the board by subcommittee chairperson El Jones. It makes 36 recommendations on police practices, oversight and accountability.

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As an aside: Halifax Regional Municipality released its 2021 sunshine list, showing 1,065 employees made more than $100,000 in the last fiscal year, and more than 40% of them work for the police force.

Halifax Regional Police Chief Dan Kinsella was the second-highest paid employee in HRM, up from eighth the year before, making $253,946.39. That’s an increase of 18% over the $215,409.19 he made last year.

click link for video

• https://youtu.be/psSYiidw-v0

Is Money Even Real? An Economist Explains | The Problem With Jon Stewart Podcast

Money is basically a lie we tell ourselves so the world doesn’t implode. In this week’s podcast, Jon talks to economist and former President and CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City Thomas Hoenig to get to the bottom of the US national debt.

• https://www.nationalnewswatch.com/2022/01/23/canadian-trucking-alliance-condemns-protests-by-unvaccinated-truckers-4/#.Ye4DmcSvCEO.twitter

“The Canadian Trucking Alliance does not support and strongly disapproves of any protests on public roadways, highways, and bridges.” 

The CTA believes such actions – especially those that interfere with public safety – are not how disagreements with government policies should be expressed.

The “vast majority” of Canadian trucking industry members are vaccinated, the alliance said, noting the immunization rate among truck drivers is on par with that seen among the general public.

The Canadian Press— Jan 23 2022

OTTAWA — A federation representing truckers across Canada has denounced a series of planned protests against the federal government’s cross-border travel vaccine mandate, arguing such demonstrations aren’t a safe or effective way of resisting the policy.

The Canadian Trucking Alliance spoke out against the pending protests in a statement issued 24 hours before a convoy of unvaccinated truckers was set to leave British Columbia en route to Ottawa. They will be joined by fleets of other drivers from across Canada in the Nation’s capital on Jan. 29, where they plan to hold a rally decrying policies that require drivers to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19 in order to cross the Canada-U.S. border.

“The Canadian Trucking Alliance does not support and strongly disapproves of any protests on public roadways, highways, and bridges,” the statement read. “CTA believes such actions – especially those that interfere with public safety – are not how disagreements with government policies should be expressed.”

The “vast majority” of Canadian trucking industry members are vaccinated, the alliance said, noting the immunization rate among truck drivers is on par with that seen among the general public.