European Politics > Despite two top ministers being gay, Macron's new cabinet leans further to the right

 

Macron’s reshuffle tilts French cabinet to the right

ahead of EU elections

The reshuffle followed the appointment this week of 34-year-old Gabriel Attal as prime minister, a move which Macron hopes will give his presidency new momentum.

The secretary general of Macron’s Renaissance party Stephane Sejourne, 38, was named foreign minister in place of Catherine Colonna, although other key ministers including Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin and Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire kept their posts.With Defence Minister Sebastien Lecornu also staying, this leaves all the top ministries in the hands of men, following the departure earlier this week of Elisabeth Borne as prime minister.

Sejourne was in a civil partnership with Attal, France’s first openly gay prime minister, but their relationship is now believed to be over newly appointed Prime Minister Gabriel Attal applauds the speech of outgoing prime minister Elisabeth Borne at the Hotel Matignon in Paris on January 9, 2024. © Emmanuel Dunand, Reuters.

Rachida Dati, 58, a justice minister under the former presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy and member of the right-wing opposition Republicans party, was named culture minister in a surprise appointment.

Sports Minister Amelie Oudea-Castera, 45, a former French tennis champion who already faces an immense task overseeing the Olympic Games this summer in Paris, will now head a new super ministry combining sports and education, Attal’s former department.

France's newly appointed Prime Minister Gabriel Attal applauds the speech of outgoing prime minister Elisabeth Borne at the Hotel Matignon in Paris on January 9, 2024. © Emmanuel Dunand, Reuters

‘Action, results’

“What I want is action, action, action” and “results, results, results,” Attal told TF1 television, praising the “energy” of his ministers who he said were “committed 200 percent to meet the expectations of the French”.

Attal said he’ll fulfil Macron’s promise to cut taxes for the middle class, though he wouldn’t be tied into a timetable.  

The appointments appeared to mark a new shift to the right for Macron’s centrist government.

Eric Ciotti, leader of the Republicans party, announced that Dati would be excluded from the party following her appointment, accusing her of “placing herself outside our political family”.

Mayor of the Paris seventh district since 2008, Dati was in 2021 charged with corruption over consulting services to a subsidiary of Renault-Nissan, charges she has denied.

Attal insisted this posed no problem, pointing to the “presumption of innocence” and praised Dati as a “woman of commitment” who “all her life fought to obtain what she wanted”.

Socialist leader Olivier Faure said on X that rather than promised regeneration the government was marked by “Sarkozy dinosaurs”.

The leader of hard-left France Unbowed (LFI) MPs in parliament, Matilde Panot, said the reshuffle was marked by the “relegation of women”.

Colonna’s departure had been widely expected, with the former ambassador to the UK seen by critics as not being a loud enough voice for French foreign policy at a time of multiple global challenges.

Eyes on EU elections, 2027

When Macron came to power in 2017, his government mixed figures from the right and the left but the new cabinet is prominently sprinkled with right-wing names.

According to French news channel BFM TV, out of the 14 ministers named, 8 were from the right.

Out of 11 ministries in what is a slimmed down cabinet, there are seven male ministers and four female ministers, excluding Attal himself, as well as three junior ministers who are all women.

The appointment of Attal and the reshuffle are seen as crucial for Macron to relaunch his government with an eye to June 2024 European elections where the far right under Marine Le Pen’s protege Jordan Bardella, 28, are leading in the polls.

Cabinet ministers are also keenly aware that Macron cannot stand again in 2027 presidential elections which will represent Le Pen’s best-ever chance to take the Elysee.

Asked about his own presidential ambitions, Attal said “2027 is not the subject, what interests me is 2024.”

French media have said that Attal’s age and relative inexperience means he has to navigate tricky political waters populated by “crocodiles” less than delighted by his appointment.ubscribe

Le Maire and Darmanin had reportedly objected to Attal’s appointment as France’s youngest prime minister, even though both vigorously denied this.

High-ranking civil servant and former treasury director Emmanuel Moulin, 55, has been named Attal’s chief of staff but the premier is also bringing with him from the education ministry four young special advisors of his generation dubbed “the power rangers” in French media.

In addition, Macron’s party failed to win a majority in parliament after his 2022 re-election, meaning that Attal - like Elisabeth Borne whom he replaces – will have to seek opposition support to pass important pieces of legislation.

“We’ll have to try to work with them,” he told TF1, referring to the opposition.

European Politics > Culture Wars - Israeli and European Politics - Brilliant Column

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ISRAEL JOINS THE WEST’S CULTURE WARS

written by Melanie Phillips 

November 3, 2022 

Those clutching their pearls over the “fascists” poised to join Israel’s new government should look in the mirror.

Melanie Phillips

(JNS) With the result of its election this week, Israel has joined other Western countries in a notable current trend: A revolt by the public against the political establishment.

The Religious Zionist Party has now become the third-largest party in the Knesset. This is likely to mean cabinet posts for the rabble-rouser Itamar Ben-Gvir and the ultra-conservative Bezalel Smotrich in a new government led by the Likud Party’s Benjamin Netanyahu.

While their likely inclusion is due to Israel’s baroque political structure—some 90% of voters didn’t vote for them—the increase in support they received is significant.

Just as happened in Hungary, Italy, the U.S. and Sweden, the once-fringe Religious Zionist Party has come to power because a significant proportion of the public has become profoundly disillusioned with a political establishment that it felt was ignoring and betraying its interests and values.

Before the election, a number of mainstream conservative-minded Israeli voters said they would be voting for Ben-Gvir. So too did a surprising number of the secular young in Tel Aviv. For the latter, Ben-Gvir’s authenticity and directness made him an unlikely political rock star. In addition, among some conservatives, there was a weariness with Netanyahu.

Others who had previously voted for the Yamina Party’s Naftali Bennett felt a deep sense of betrayal when he tore up his previous promises and principles and formed a governing coalition with the left-of-center Yair Lapid that depended upon the Islamist Ra’am Party.

As this coalition staggered along, there was further disillusionment. Bennett and Lapid seemed to be groveling to the Biden administration, only for Israel to get kicked in the teeth in response.

The government failed to tackle rapidly increasing domestic threats. Illegal Arab settlements in the Negev and the Galilee expanded exponentially, posing a potential threat to Israel’s territorial integrity. Islamist radicalization took increasingly widespread hold. Terrorism and violence rose. Many areas that had been safe for Israeli Jews became unsafe.

On election day, a Jewish woman in Tiberias narrowly escaped an attempted kidnapping by an Arab man. Last weekend, five Israeli soldiers were wounded in a terror attack in the Jordan Valley. Last week, an Israeli was murdered in Kiryat Arba.

Ben-Gvir’s pitch was restoring public security. “We shall act against those who throw Molotov cocktails or stones and put at risk prison guards, women and do everything to jeopardize the system,” he said. “It’s about time that the soldiers of the IDF and the policemen get support and backing.”

This resonated. But it doesn’t mean Israelis have become extreme. It means they were angry at a political and security establishment that appeared sluggish, incompetent and in thrall to liberal activist judges.

In different contexts, similar “populist” insurgencies have taken place in other Western countries. They have all been based on defending the integrity of the nation and upholding its culture against threats to destroy it from left-wing ideologues, Islamist radicals or a combination of the two.

In the United States, former President Donald Trump was brought to power as a pushback against the attempt by the liberal elite—aided by fellow-travelling “Republicans in Name Only”—to destroy America’s national identity and core values.

In Britain, a similar insurgency delivered Brexit, though the continued failure to uphold the country’s integrity as a nation and defend its borders against illegal immigration still threatens to destroy the ruling Conservative Party.

The Western left’s principal bogeyman, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, proclaims that he runs an “illiberal democracy” that upholds socially conservative values and keeps the country safe from Islamist entryism.

`

Last month, Sweden formed a new government dependent on support from the ultra-nationalist Sweden Democrats after the public finally revolted against increasing Islamist violence.

Italy’s new Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, who has pledged to fight illegal immigration and Islamization, says the political philosophy of her Brothers of Italy Party is: “Yes to universal Christian values, no to Islamist violence. Yes to safe borders, no to mass migration. Yes to our civilization and no to those who want to destroy it.”

The Brothers of Italy Party was founded in 2012 by Meloni and others who had previously belonged to a party with roots in Mussolini-style fascism. Meloni insists she disavows fascism completely.

But to Western liberals, every part of her “center-right” platform of defending Western civilization is fascism. For such people, the West’s historic culture and values are themselves extremist, cruel, oppressive, racist, xenophobic, Islamophobic and neo-Nazi.

It is precisely that demonization that has driven so many mainstream voters into supporting leaders whose agenda may indeed be authoritarian or illiberal.

But the left has shifted the needle on the ideological compass. What was previously regarded as a left-wing threat to a civilized and self-disciplined social order is now deemed the center ground, while what was previously considered the center is now denounced as right-wing or far-right.

The hypocrisy from those now having a fit of the vapors over the rise of Ben-Gvir is truly epic. They shout that he is a threat to democracy. Yet they made no complaint when Bennett and Lapid governed courtesy of Arabs whose agenda is to destroy Israel.

Despite the careful declaration by Ra’am’s leader Mansour Abbas that Israel would always be a Jewish state, his party remains avowedly anti-Zionist and committed to replacing the State of Israel with a Muslim theocracy.

Ra’am, like Israel’s other Arab parties, is also implacably hostile to the LGBTQ agenda. Yet no Western liberals ever accused it of “homophobia,” a slur they now hurl at Ben-Gvir and Smotrich.

Those screaming about the threat to Israeli democracy are the same people who utter not a peep of protest when the despotic Palestinian Authority cancels elections, forces journalists under pain of death to write only the approved line and routinely jails and even kills dissidents.

They are the same people who have remained utterly silent over the supremely anti-democratic, two-year attempt to lever Trump out of office through dirty tricks involving elements in the FBI, the administrative class and the Democratic Party.

Above all, these liberals fail to acknowledge their own profound illiberalism. They try to coerce acceptance of their ideological dogma through intimidation, character assassination and suppression of dissent.

A graphic example of a society that has passed through the moral and political looking-glass arose in Britain a few years back, when under the administration of a Conservative government, the education regulator tried to force ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools to teach homosexuality.

Ignoring its own reports that these schools were exemplary in instilling tolerant values, the regulator refused to acknowledge that they never taught sexuality of any kind because of their religious beliefs.

The ultra-Orthodox said privately that if they lost this battle, they would leave Britain for a country that would grant them religious freedom. The country they had in mind, where they believed they would be safe because it was defending biblical values, was Orban’s Hungary.

The mainstream cultural and political establishment has long been warned that, if it fails to uphold core cultural values, the resulting vacuum may be filled by objectionable characters. The “populist” leaders who have duly arisen are the creation of the liberals who are now clutching their pearls.

We have yet to see from Ben-Gvir’s actions whether he has indeed renounced his youthful support for Kahanist extremism. But even if he has, Western liberals will cut him no slack whatsoever. Anything that departs in any way from any part of left-wing dogma will be resisted with everything they can throw at it.

In addition to the physical threats to its existence, Israel has now joined the West’s culture wars.

Canadian Convulsions > Trump slams Trudeau; Canada's Defenceless Minister; Trudeau's Incompetent Cabinet

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Trump Rebukes Trudeau Over Forceful Removal,

Slandering of Convoy Protesters

By The Canadian Press 

February 27, 2022

Former U.S. President Donald Trump is assailing Canada as a country of “left-wing fascists” for the way it cleared protesters out of Ottawa last weekend.

Trump’s remarks at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Florida marked the first time in nearly a month he’s publicly acknowledged the protests.

He said protesters in Canada were “slandered” as Nazis, racists and terrorists, charged with what he called “phony crimes” and accused of being loyal to foreign powers.

The comments prompted a passionate standing ovation from the crowd.

Trump says police crossed a line when they began removing protesters after nearly a month of their occupation of streets in downtown Ottawa, both on and nearby Parliament Hill.

He says he stands with the truckers who staged the protest and with Canadians who he says are fighting to reclaim their freedom.

“The tyranny we have witnessed in Canada in recent weeks should shock and dismay people all over the world,” he said to hoots and hollers from a sympathetic crowd in Orlando.

“In an advanced Western democracy, that peaceful movement of patriotic truckers, workers and families protesting for their most basic rights and liberties has been violently put down.”

Trump likened Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to President Joe Biden, whom he vowed to ensure would be dispatched to “political exile,” along with Democratic allies like House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer.

“They have been slandered as Nazis, racists and terrorists – these are the names they’ve been called,” Trump said.

“I watched them; I saw those Maple Leafs all over, the flags and the love for their country. Plenty of Americans were there, too, and they love our country. They’re being hunted down like enemies of their own government and treated worse than drug dealers and murderers or rapists.”

Authorities in Canada crossed a line when they began making arrests, towing vehicles and forcing the protesters out of the national capital’s downtown core, he continued.

“You’re either with the peaceful truckers, or you are with the left-wing fascists – that’s what’s been happening,” he said.

“We stand with the truckers and we stand with the Canadian people in their noble quest to reclaim their freedom.”

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Canada leaves itself defenceless as it contributes to the prolonging of the war in Ukraine.

Canada says aiding Ukraine has ‘exhausted’ its stock of weapons

It has sent thousands of rocket launchers, grenades, and kit

to assist the country in its conflict with Russia

Canadian aid for Ukraine being loaded on a plane at Toronto's Pearson Airport. © AP / Chris Young

Canada has depleted its own stock of weapons in its bid to support Ukraine amid Russia’s military operation in the country, Canadian Defense Minister Anita Anand has acknowledged.

“I believe that we have exhausted our inventory … to the extent that we are able to provide [more] weapons,” Anand said during a live appearance on CBC on Friday.

“There are capacity issues we need to make sure we are on top of for the purposes of ensuring the Canadian Armed Forces are well resourced,” she added.

Ottawa had been among Western capitals that have provided Kiev with so-called “lethal aid.” It has so far sent or is in the process of sending 4,500 rocket launchers, 7,500 hand grenades, 100 anti-tank launchers with 2,000 rounds, two C-130J tactical aircraft, and various other pieces of kit from Canada.

Russia sent its troops into Ukraine in late February, following a seven-year standoff over Kiev’s failure to implement the terms of the Minsk agreements, and Russia’s eventual recognition of the breakaway Donbass republics of Donetsk and Lugansk.

German- and French-brokered protocols were designed to regularize the status of those regions within the Ukrainian state.

Russia has now demanded that Ukraine officially declare itself a neutral country that will never join the US-led NATO military bloc.

Kiev insists the Russian offensive was completely unprovoked and has denied claims it was planning to retake the two republics by force. 

Eventually, Ukraine will agree to recognize Donetsk and Lugansk as per the Minsk agreement, and will renounce joining NATO. The sooner that happens, the sooner Putin will remove his troops from most of Ukraine. The longer it takes, the more likely Putin is liable to claim another chunk of Ukraine, and, the more people will die or be forced to flee their homes.

Countries that support Ukraine are prolonging the war that Ukraine cannot win, costing lives and untold catastrophes in European and world economics.

Canada has left itself militarily defenceless and has had the utter stupidity to announce that to the world. It's so embarrassing being a Canadian in Trudeau's Canada.

Many members of Trudeau's incompetent cabinet should be fired ASAP

The Liberal government is a dumpster fire that can't fix the airports,

can't issue passports and can't seem to get anything right lately

Author of the article: Brian Lilley

Publishing date: Jun 18, 2022  •  1 day ago  •  6 minute read

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks during a press conference with members of his new cabinet in Ottawa, Oct. 26, 2021. PHOTO BY LARS HAGBERG /AFP via Getty Images

If you were to hold a contest for Justin Trudeau’s most incompetent cabinet minister, there would be lots of competition.

Problems at airports, at passport offices, a massive immigration backlog, not to mention a Canadian diplomat partying it up at the Russian embassy.

I’ve been writing about the problems various ministers and their departments have been dealing with over the last several weeks but I’m not alone in noticing the wheels coming off the bus. Tom Mulcair wrote a recent column detailing the problems facing Trudeau’s government.

“Canadians, including many Liberals, have been witnessing and lamenting months of abject failure in the most basic administrative and decision-making processes in government,” Mulcair wrote. “It’s a whole-of-government approach to incompetence.”

Mulcair knows how government should work. Before being the leader of the opposition in Ottawa, Mulcair was a cabinet minister in Quebec. And before that had been a civil servant.

Clearly, in his eyes, this government isn’t up to the job.

Paul Tellier is another old hand at government who has been critical of the way the Trudeau crowd operates. Tellier was a senior civil servant in several departments when Pierre Trudeau was prime minister and eventually was named Clerk of the Privy Council under Brian Mulroney. He’s also had a stellar private sector career and doesn’t think much of Trudeau’s management style.

“The current government, with centralization of everything in the PMO, is in the process of destroying the public service … and the word ‘destroying’ is not too strong,” Tellier told Policy Options recently.

The centralization of power in the prime minister’s office isn’t something Justin Trudeau brought to Ottawa, it’s been going on for decades. But he’s made it worse instead of better. Which is part of the reason why he and his office wear so many or the mistakes his cabinet makes.

Barring an election or his own resignation, we can’t get rid of Trudeau, but we can hope for a summer cabinet shuffle to get rid of the incompetent ministers.

Here’s a short list on who should be fired from their current posts and why.

Canada’s Minister of Public Safety Marco Mendicino attends a news conference in Ottawa, Feb. 15, 2022.

PHOTO BY BLAIR GABLE /REUTERS

Marco Mendicino – Public Safety

Right now, Mendicino is under fire for lying to Parliament over the invocation of the Emergencies Act, but he’s also the man responsible for part of the border problem, the customs agents.

The Conservatives are calling for Mendicino to resign or be fired for repeatedly saying that police asked for the Emergencies Act to be invoked and that’s why the government acted. We know that’s not true because the police have said so. When ministers lie to Parliament, they’re supposed to resign. So far that hasn’t happened.

As for his part in the mess at airports, specifically Pearson in Toronto, there have been months of delays. Backlogged customs counters have contributed to flight delays and passengers sitting on the tarmac for hours. When departments aren’t working properly, it is the minister’s responsibility to fix it and he has failed to do so.

Mendicino has a great resume and credentials, but he can’t perform, so it’s time to go.

Minister of Transport Omar Alghabra attends a news conference in Ottawa, Feb. 15, 2022.

PHOTO BY BLAIR GABLE/FILE PHOTO /REUTERS

Omar Alghabra – Transport

While Mendicino is responsible for the delays in people arriving at Pearson, Alghabra is the minister responsible for why you have trouble taking off on time. The delays due to security screening and a lack of agents have been growing for months.

Any close watcher of politics knew Alghabra was in trouble when he blamed rusty travelers for being slow at getting their laptops out of their bags and into the bins. Blaming the public for your mistakes is always a bad idea in politics and the mess with the Canadian Air Transport Security Authority is Alghabra’s responsibility.

He’s announced new hires but it’s too late and not enough. Air travel spikes by 20% in July and August and the 850 extra screeners aren’t enough to cover the coming increase in volume and cover staff absences due to the vacation schedule.

Alghabra might be a smooth political operative for Trudeau but he isn’t handling this important file, shuffle him out.

Karina Gould, Minister of International Development, holds a press conference in Ottawa on Monday, July 12, 2021,

regarding Canada’s support for vaccination efforts in developing countries, humanitarian and conflict situations.

PHOTO BY SEAN KILPATRICK /THE CANADIAN PRESS

Karina Gould – Passport Canada

Like the issues with border agents and security screeners at airports, the problems at the passport office aren’t new. They’ve been festering for months. Lines have been growing, Canadians have been complaining, but the minister only recently recognized this.

Like her cabinet colleagues, Karina Gould wants you to know it’s not her fault, it’s yours. You didn’t apply for your passport soon enough and now there’s a surge. Sure, the surge they’re complaining about is lower than the normal number of passports they would process in the same amount of time prior to the pandemic but it’s your fault.

Canada’s Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Sean Fraser attends a press conference with United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada April 6, 2022. PHOTO BY BLAIR GABLE /REUTERS

Sean Fraser – Immigration

We have a two-million person backlog when it comes to immigration applications in this country, even for people we desperately need to fill jobs. Want to come to Canada under the federal skilled trades program, it’s a 43-month processing time. The start-up visa program to get entrepreneurs to invest in a start-up business is 31 months.

These are people with high demand skills that we need, and we are pushing them away to other countries.

The immigration system is broken, so is this minister.

Canada’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly speaks at a news conference about the situation in Ukraine, in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, February 22, 2022. PHOTO BY PATRICK DOYLE /REUTERS

Melanie Joly – Foreign Affairs

After screwing up the Canada 150 celebrations with a Canada Day party that didn’t work and building a skating rink on Parliament Hill that cost $8.1 million to operate, I didn’t think Melanie Joly would ever be in cabinet again.

She was a disaster in the Heritage portfolio, overseeing the opening of a Holocaust memorial in Ottawa that failed to mention Jews or that six million of them perished at the hands of the Nazis.

Now she’s running one of the most important portfolios, foreign affairs — or Global Affairs Canada in Trudeau parlance. Just over a week ago, a senior diplomat in her department attended a party to celebrate Russia at the Russian embassy. If you haven’t heard, we’ve called what Russia is doing in Ukraine genocide and we are imposing harsh sanctions to isolate the regime, but we are also going to their parties to show we are good sports.

Joly’s political staff knew about this ahead of time and didn’t stop it, but they deny the minister knew. Her department first defended the diplomat attending the party and then apologized under media pressure.

Joly is obviously a lightweight, not suitable for the role she’s in. Even though Trudeau obviously has a soft spot for her, she needs to go.

For sure, you can't get rid of the only attractive minister in the government.

There could be a longer list

The list of people who could or should be shuffled out of cabinet could be longer.

Justice Minister David Lametti comes to mind. He just pushed a bill through Parliament to drop sentencing requirements for repeat offenders on serious gun crimes. He’s effectively lowering sentences for them. He also isn’t standing up to Quebec’s Bill 21 or Bill 96, two flagrant violations of the Charter he is supposed to defend.

Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez should be turfed for not only pushing through Bill C-11, the internet censorship bill, but having MPs vote on secret amendments to the bill. The problem is, he was was doing what his boss, the PM, wanted him to do.

In an ideal world it would include Trudeau himself. In a normal minority government, this level of incompetence spread over so many ministries would be enough to vote a government down.

Thanks to Jagmeet Singh and the NDP though, he’s going to be in office until 2025 or until he decides to pull the plug.

The incompetence in this government is brought to you by Justin Trudeau but all of it is made possible by Singh’s unwavering support.

Add the Minister of Defence to that list as documented in the story immediately above.

As I have mentioned in years past, Trudeau picks his cabinets by their sex, their sexual persuasion, their colour, their faith (as long as it's not Christian), and their heritage. It makes for a colourful Cabinet, but certainly an incompetent one.

Corruption is Everywhere - Certainly in the Canadian Prime Minister's Office

A Prime Minister's Office drunk on its own arrogance: Robyn Urback

Six months ago, Trudeau told Canadians that a report his office pressured the AG was 'false.' He lied

Robyn Urback · for CBC News Opinion 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said a report that his office tried to pressure Jody Wilson-Raybould into intervening

in the SNC-Lavalin case was 'false.' It was not. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

It's hard to fathom what Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was thinking on the morning of Feb. 7, when he stood before reporters and categorically declared, 

"The allegations in the Globe story are false."

The Globe and Mail was the first to report that Trudeau's office attempted to pressure his justice minister and attorney general, Jody Wilson-Raybould, into intervening in the corruption and fraud case of SNC-Lavalin.

That day, he knew that Wilson-Raybould, who he'd shuffled out of the Justice Ministry three weeks earlier, had been repeatedly approached by members of the Prime Minister's Office about her reluctance to get involved.

He was told by Wilson-Raybould herself at a meeting in September 2018 of her concerns about his staff attempting to interfere in a criminal matter (though he would later say he couldn't specifically recall the remark).

And surely he knew, or should have known, that repeatedly reminding the attorney general of the potentially cataclysmic political and economic costs of failing to secure a remediation agreement for an important Quebec company constituted inappropriate pressure. 

Nevertheless, there was clearly a concerted effort to see her reconsider her position. That much was fact, and Trudeau knew it on February 7. 

Power & Politics✔

@PnPCBC

 Trudeau:  "The allegations in the Globe story are false. Neither the current nor the previous attorney general was ever directed by me or by anyone in my office to take a decision in this matter." #cdnpoli

Yet he stood before reporters that morning and called the report "false."

Not "misleading." Not "unfair." Not "half the story." 

"False." Wrong. Fake news. 

How 4 ex-Supreme Court justices got caught up in SNC-Lavalin affair

Trudeau vs. Dion: How the PM and ethics commissioner differ on the SNC-Lavalin affair

That was, in fact, a lie. The PMO did press Wilson-Raybould to seek a remediation agreement for SNC-Lavalin, and that pressure was inappropriate and contrary to the Conflict of Interest Act, as Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion concluded in his report on the affair, published Wednesday.

Trudeau knew that the Globe's reporting couldn't reasonably be called "false," even if perhaps he believed it somewhat skewed. But he lied and told Canadians it was wrong anyway. 

Cozy relationship

With hindsight, it seems silly to make such an unequivocal statement about something easily verified. But a belief in one's own righteousness, along with a record of previous political infallibility, can make a prime minister and his staff do some very silly things. 

To wit: For months, the prime minister insisted that actions taken by his office were always in the interest of Canadians; it wasn't about currying favour with powerful Quebec company but simply about keeping good jobs in Canada.

Dion's report, however, chronicles an awfully cozy relationship between the PMO and SNC-Lavalin in which the two seem less like government-and-lobbyist than players on the same team.

Remediation agreement SNC-Lavalin's idea

In fact, it was SNC-Lavalin that suggested, back in February 2018, that a new remediation agreement regime — one that could benefit them — be included in the upcoming budget, in the interest of expediency. The government obliged: an amendment to the Criminal Code was included in the budget implementation bill and received royal assent within months.

Is Trudeau in for another hit in the polls because of the SNC-Lavalin ethics report?

5 things we learned from Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion's report on Justin Trudeau

That summer, Ben Chin, the chief of staff to the minister of finance, reportedly tried to get an update on the status of a remediation agreement on behalf of an anxious SNC-Lavalin. Chin was told by Wilson-Raybould's office that an inquiry itself could be perceived as improper interference on the independent nature of the prosecution service. 

And in December 2018, PMO senior adviser Mathieu Bouchard exchanged text messages with an SNC-Lavalin representative who wanted an update on a dinner conversation between Wilson-Raybould and then-principal secretary Gerald Butts — the one in which Wilson-Raybould said she told the PMO to stop pressuring her office about SNC-Lavalin. Bouchard reported to the rep that the door was still open to a remediation agreement (it was not). 

'Someone like' Beverley McLachlin

Dion's report also revealed that while Trudeau and Butts had been imploring Wilson-Raybould to seek an opinion from "someone like" former Supreme Court chief justice Beverley McLachlin, discussions had already taken place between McLachlin, SNC-Lavalin's lawyer and the PMO (as well as another retired Supreme Court justice). 

Butts failed to mention that fact during his testimony before the justice committee back in March. Instead, he testified that, "All we ever asked the attorney general to do was consider a second opinion." Perhaps if he had more time he would have added: "And we already vetted and approved those second opinions on her behalf."

'I take responsibility,' Trudeau says in wake of damning report on SNC-Lavalin ethics violation

Timeline: SNC-Lavalin and Jody Wilson-Raybould

Trudeau welcomes ethics probe but won't cooperate

(Trudeau always says what people want to hear, and then does what he wants. He said yesterday that he accepted responsibility, but then refused to admit that he did anything wrong and refused to apologize).

On top of it all, we learned that despite the "welcome" Trudeau publicly offered Dion's probe, the ethics commissioner, in fact, encountered some trouble accessing relevant information and testimonies.

Call these lies-by-omission. Or maybe half-truths. Together, they're a chronicle of a PMO drunk on its own arrogance, so convinced of it own moral virtue that it can rationalize trading text messages with a criminally charged organization over a pressure campaign on the attorney general.

Liberals block new SNC-Lavalin ethics probe as Trudeau insists his team is 'more united than ever'

This is a leadership, as we have since learned, that will kick members out of caucus for having the audacity to speak out against the prime minister, and will lie to Canadians about the veracity of a news report that has since proven true.

And it's a prime minister who, when asked if he will apologize for it all, chooses to respond with an answer to a question no one asked: "I can't apologize for defending Canadian jobs." As if, six months later, anyone is buying those lines anymore.

A quick summary

So, SNC-Lavalin, a major engineering and construction company, a global player, got caught paying graft to the son of Muammar Qaddafi for a Libyan project. Being convicted would mean SNC could not bid on federal Canadian projects for up to 10 years, although they could still bid on provincial projects. They have already been blacklisted by the World Bank.

So, SNC lobbies the Trudeau government to pass a new law to allow SNC to pay a fine without being held criminally responsible, and therefore not losing its ability to bid on federal Canadian projects. The Liberal government thought this was a great idea and immediately implemented the new law by hiding it in the back pages of the 2018 spring budget. A law which would allow wealthy and powerful people and corporations to avoid facing justice.

All is good in SNC's world until they heard that Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Reybould was not onboard with the plan. SNC was unhappy; Trudeau was unhappy - many of SNC's employees lived in his own riding in Montreal. If Trudeau was unhappy, everyone in the PMO and the Finance Minister's office was unhappy. The law they snuck through Parliament was for nothing if JWR didn't play along.

Consequently, Trudeau shuffled JWR out of the Justice portfolio. He needed a minister to retire in order to do that and his old friend, Scott Brison, took the bait. It's hard to say what Brison got out of the deal, but if the timing seems too coincidental to be coincidence, that's because it is. That resulted in the JWR shuffle. Maybe I should put that to music.

Robyn's column details the rest of the story very well.

Pride and arrogance and a typical Liberal attitude that 'the end justifies the means', should spell the end of this government. But I fear there are too many Trudeau supporters who also believe 'the end justifies the means', that he will finish, at least, in second place in the October elections. If so, he will form the next government as all parties in the House besides Conservatives are far-left and will not coalesce with a Conservative Prime Minister. The only other party that might cooperate with the Conservatives is the fledgling People's Party - a party that just might bring honesty and integrity to the House.

A High School Student Speaks Out on Feminism and It's Amazing

Hard to believe she is a high school student. Her vocabulary is far beyond any high school student I know. Nevertheless, this is really worth the read.

by Helene Hennig 

Today’s feminism has lost its way.  In the late 1800s, “first wave” feminism rightfully started out as a movement to establish, first and foremost, suffrage for women (i.e., the right for women to vote). From there, it then quickly evolved into a movement that focussed on gaining women equal opportunity in the workplace and equality in the eyes of the law.  Through the 1960s, “second wave” feminism sought an end to sexual harassment and fought against discrimination. 

All of these were worthy goals and, to a large extent, have successfully been accomplished.  However, feminism today—“third wave” feminism—has morphed into a shrill, self-righteous crusade that, in what seems like a desperate bid to remain relevant, has not just vilified men but has turned on children, families and even women themselves.

Modern feminism has set out to infiltrate family life, destroying it with poisonous lies through the cultivation of a “culture of grievance” in which women are always to be seen as victims. It has done this by promoting the ideological falsehood that men and women are not natural allies, but that their relationship is adversarial in nature. Feminism strives to pit women against men at every opportunity.  

Because of this, men are not allowed to speak on any issue concerning women, from the supposed “pay gap” to abortion to even the difficulties men face simply being men.  The new anti-men hashtags coined by modern feminists—#killallmen or #menstears to name a couple—show how feminism has allowed itself to become synonymous with misandry. Delivering generalizations on the back of slogans is, as Chairman Mao proved, a powerful way of thought control. It allows the idea to form that all men are inherently bad while overlooking the fact that there are also bad women.

The fact is, over all, men and women work well together and I can attest to this personally. My father raised five girls with my mother. When my mother gets complimented on having been a good mother to so many children, she always responds that she couldn’t have been half the mother she is without the extraordinary support of her husband. It is important to note now far this goes against the modern-day feminist creed. From today’s feminist standpoint, my father is an oppressor who kept my mother locked away at home to raise the children and cook the meals when, instead, she could have had a fulfilling role slaving for a big corporation as a top executive. 

In the eyes of today’s feminist, my mother sacrificed her education to the “drudgery” of motherhood and therefore failed to reach her full potential. My mother is, in essence, a “traitor to the sisterhood.” This is not how my sisters and I see it, nor how my father sees it and certainly not how my mother sees it.

Furthermore, because feminism promotes the idea that women should have a “fulfilling” career, the majority of today’s children are now left in daycare centres to be raised by the state. This is another Maoist idea that Western feminism, in the name of female empowerment, has embraced: collective, state-sponsored childcare. We can already see the results of what happens when the state raises the children instead of the parents; today we have a generation of children in which mental illnesses, suicides, and drug use are all out of control. 

How did this happen? Feminism thrives on the lie that the centre of woman’s life is her career. But if my father is anything to go by, in the end, a career is not even the centre of a man’s life. Most people lying on their deathbeds do not lament the career they must now relinquish. Instead, the dying lament the loved ones they must now leave, most especially their children.

Secondly, feminism has turned from meaningful, worthy goals into a dogmatic, indoctrinating agenda. With its poisonous slogans, the new age feminism is just repeating history from totalitarian regimes with their propaganda. There is no clearer example of this than the fight over the rights to abortion. Feminists use slogans such as “Shout Your Abortion” as they wave placards and mindlessly chant through megaphones. But in actual fact, it can be argued that none of us own our bodies; in short, we are all little more than mere tenants of our bodies and we are forced to vacate when we die.  

However, more worrying than the slogans and propaganda is that, in its rabid promotion of abortion, feminism has actually turned against itself in a grotesque twist of irony; abortion has paved the way for the erasure of future women through sex-selection abortion. Little girls are aborted for being little girls because little boys are more valued in some cultures. In a nutshell, feminists claim for themselves an almost untouchable virtue even in the face of something as fundamentally and obviously discriminatory as sex-selective abortion.

Lastly, feminism has managed to hoodwink an entire society into believing that a woman deserves a job or a promotion just because she’s a woman. No one demonstrated this bizarre, modern-day fraud better than our very own Prime Minister—the buffoon with a bouffant—Justin Trudeau. When he created his cabinet, he mandated that it was to consist of 50% women. However, he did so from a caucus that was made up of only 22% women. The unpleasant message for women is that they don’t have to be particularly good to assume a job, they just have to be female. How infantilizing. When I finally start my career, I hope I’m chosen because I’m competent, able, and skilled. NOT because I’m female.

Feminism has become its own worst enemy. Far from promoting the rights of women as it once did, it now strives to (take?) away from women any sense of responsibility by promoting a culture of victimhood. With its faux outrage over “mansplaining,” “manspreading,” and eggplant emojis to obsessions over trivial matters such as “slutwalks,” armpit hair and bra burning, feminism is rendering itself ridiculous and petty. Its silence over real issues of concern for women, such as female genital mutilation, forced marriages, and honour killings has made it difficult to take it seriously anymore.

Helene Hennig 17-year-old student high school in Vancouver.

The Other Mind-Blowing Testimony Today - Justin Trudeau is in Deep Trouble

While Michael Cohen was sabotaging Donald Trump's Presidency, Canada's Justin Trudeau was being lambasted in a Parliamentary Committee by his ex-Attorney General. Both are astonishing stories. You can read about the USA mess just about anywhere; here is the mind-blowing Canadian story that could bring down Justin Trudeau.

The story has to do with one of Canada's largest engineering companies, SNC-Lavalin. It was charged last year with paying bribes to Muammar Qaddafi for a construction contract in Libya. The decision was made to prosecute SNC-Lavalin on corruption charges.

The problem here becomes very political. SNC-Lavalin is headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, and employs thousands of people in Quebec and across Canada. If found guilty, the punishment would restrict SNC-Lavalin from bidding on any Canadian Government contracts for 10 years. They could continue to bid on international contracts but the Canadian suspension would certainly result in a lot of jobs lost, many of them in Quebec. I believe the company may have threatened the government that it might pull out of Canada completely.

Quebec is the centre of the Liberal Party's world. It usually wins a lot of seats in that province, and without it, cannot win enough seats to form a national government. Trudeau and the Prime Minister's Office is keenly aware of the dangers with a federal election due in October. So, what does he do? He, and at least 10 other people from the PMO, the Privy Council, and Ministry of Finance begin to twist the arm of Jody Wilson-Raybould.

Jody Wilson-Raybould (JWR) was appointed Attorney General of Canada with great fanfare, being a woman, and an  indigenous woman. Trudeau chose his cabinet very carefully, based on their sex, colour, sexual persuasion, and religion. 50% women, lots of Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, and who knows what - but definitely no Christians, and several gay people. 

JWR was one of two indigenous people in the cabinet, the other had to resign for sexual improprieties. 

I have long complained that the cabinet was based on appearance and that some very capable and talented people were overlooked because they happened to be white men. But it must have come as quite a shock to Trudeau to find that one of those women is principled, excruciatingly honest, and has a high degree of integrity. 

After dozens of attempts to persuade her to break the law and interfere in the judicial process, he finally shuffled her out of the Attorney-General's office and demoted her to a lesser ministry. She did not take that well, at least if you are a Liberal. She decided to resign from cabinet and either she, or someone close to her, leaked the story that she had been improperly influenced by senior people to interfere in the legal system for the benefit of SNC-Lavalin and, of course, the Liberal Party.

Trudeau flat out denied the story but the pressure was on from opposition parties to hold inquiries. The Justice Committee was the first to bite, but immediately restricted the guest list to people who had nothing to do with the affair. One reporter on Twitter reported it something like this: The committee investigating the fox and the hens is restricting testimony to the mouse and the rusty old shovel.

JWR stood in the House of Commons and expressed her desire to testify, but claimed she was restricted by solicitor-client privilege as well as cabinet privilege. After some considerable pressure, Trudeau released her from those privileges and allowed her to speak. She spoke this afternoon and it was stunning.

CBC:

Wilson-Raybould said she was contacted by 11 officials in the Prime Minister's Office, the Privy Council and Finance Minister Bill Morneau's office on the matter when she served as justice minister and attorney general.

"For a period of four months from September to December 2018, I experienced a consistent and sustained effort by many people within the government to seek to politically interfere in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in my role as the attorney general of Canada in an inappropriate effort to secure a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) with SNC-Lavalin."

Wilson-Raybould said she was "hounded" by various officials through phone calls, meetings and text messages.

'Veiled threats'

"Within these conversations there were express statements regarding the necessity of interfering in the SNC-Lavalin matter, the potential of consequences, and veiled threats if a DPA was not made available to SNC-Lavalin," she said.

The very fact that JWR was demoted in cabinet would seem to verify that she was not just threatened but the PM made good on those threats.

I have always thought that if Trudeau were leader of an autocratic country, that he would be a brutal dictator.

She chronicled a series of meetings, including one with Trudeau and Privy Council clerk Michael Wernick on Sept. 17, 2018. She told him that she had made a decision not to overturn the decision from the director of the Public Prosecution Service Kathleen Roussel to proceed with criminal prosecution against SNC-Lavalin.

The prime minister cited potential job losses and the possible move by the company, and asked her to "help out." The clerk then made the case for a DPA and reminded there was an election coming in Quebec.

"At that point, the prime minister jumped in, stressing that there is an election in Quebec, and that, 'I am an MP in Quebec, the MP for Papineau,'" she recounted. 'I was quite taken aback."

At that point, Wilson-Raybould said, she posed a direct question to Trudeau while looking him straight in the eye, asking if he was politically interfering with her role and her decision as the attorney general.

"I would strongly advise against it," she told the committee she warned Trudeau, who responded, "No, no, no, we just need to find a solution."

Apparently, allowing justice to take its course was not a solution!

This is a huge problem for Justin Trudeau and his very Liberal Party, as opinion polls are already showing a downward trend. It also puts the newly appointed AG in a nasty position - interfere with the judicial system or lose the next election. If he does choose to interfere, it may well cost the very Liberal Party the next election anyway.

Trudeau has inspired a lot of left-leaning people. They have faith that he is one of the people most likely to save the planet from global warming, from war, and from nationalism. Finding out that he is a hypocrite, on top of several stupid stunts he has pulled, hits the faithful very hard. But he is first and foremost a politician and winning the next election is the most important thing. So important that he is willing to pressure others to break the law and act in a manner not fit for a minister in the government of Canada.

This is also a problem for Canada's mainstream media. They are head-over-heels in love with Trudeau and his very Liberal Party and are loath to bring meaningful criticism against him. For instance - last December, when the CFO of Huawei was arrested in Vancouver on a USA warrant, Trudeau answered complaints from China by lecturing them on the fact that Canada is a nation of laws and there is no political interference in those laws. He said that a few times. He said that while he was pressing JWR to interfere in the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin. The MSM seems to have conveniently forgotten that.

Expect lots of personal attacks in the MSM against JWR as they try to mitigate the disaster on the very Liberal Party.