| To: Cogito Ergo Sum who wrote (214) | 2/3/2025 1:50:59 AM | | From: Joachim K | | | | ---2024 export values expressed in U.S. dollars.
---Canada Exports to U.S.: $462 billion
---U.S. Exports to Canada: $435 billion
Conrad Black
I wish this latest round of bed-wetting from Andrew Coyne came as more of a surprise. But anyone afraid of annexation is suffering from an acute and irrational phobia best treated by spending less time on social media.
I've never opined on "the wisdom of Trump's strategic vision for us." Not least because he doesn't have a strategic vision for us, he's focused on his own country's strategy. My comments are largely on what Canada's response should be in light of the sobering economic correlation of forces. US exports to Canada represent 1.5% of US GDP. Canadian exports to the US are 20% of our GDP. US exports to Canada could go to zero, and while some northern states would be hit pretty hard, it wouldn't even slow the US economy enough to trigger a recession. On the other hand, if Canadian exports to the US went to zero, it would be a cataclysm.
As a fervent flag-waiving patriot and enthusiastic member of Team Canada, I'm afraid the tough-talk and posturing is not going to cut it. Unilateral insistence that we are entitled to the status quo simply because we've gotten accustomed to it, while refusing to negotiate with Trump because we purport to possess the moral high ground, instead, puffing out our maple leaf emblazoned chests in defiance of the "bad orange bully," is dim-witted bunk (Andrew Coyne's apparent stock-in-trade).
If someone in the beleaguered Liberal cabinet, with the authority to do so, called up the president and proposed two simple things, I suspect the trade war would end overnight.
Firstly, a modest earmark for stronger and collaborative border security measures (which would both satisfy Trump and redound to our benefit—see the Toronto police's seizure of 900kg of cocaine two weeks ago, smuggled over the US border, and note the vast majority of illegal firearms on Canadian streets come over the US border).
Secondly, make good on our long-overdue commitment as a member of NATO to contribute 3% of GDP to defense. Something we should be doing for decades.
That's it. My prediction is those two mutually beneficial "concessions" with a bit of finesse would be enough to resolve the issue overnight.
In my personal experience with Donald Trump, he is a tough negotiator, but I have never known him to reject a fair deal.
As a hedge against his supposed unpredictability, by all means respond with counter tariffs, but that's not a fight we can win. The only real counterpunch, such as there is one, is a combination of heeding Premier Danielle Smith's call to fast track domestic oil and gas pipelines, construct LNG terminals on each coast, and unshackle Canada's resource economy, while getting busy strengthening existing and developing new international trade relationships (CANZUK for starters). Unfortunately, it appears the Liberal government is gearing up to walk the plank, while Andrew Coyne cheers them on. |
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| From: Joachim K | 2/7/2025 6:04:48 AM | | | | | | Male Arrested Twice in Three Days for Impaired Driving Offences
06 February 2025
A 35-year-old male is facing impaired driving charges for the second time in three days.
On Monday, February 3, 2025, at approximately 8:50 a.m., members from East Division conducted a traffic stop near Grandview Street North and Beatrice Street East in Oshawa. After speaking with the driver, officers administered a roadside screening test, which registered a "fail." The driver was subsequently arrested, and further testing revealed a blood alcohol level exceeding the legal limit.
Further investigation revealed the driver was also driving while under suspension.
On Wednesday, February 5, 2025, at approximately 8:40 a.m., members from East Division conducted a traffic stop near Grandview Street North and Beatrice Street East in Oshawa after observing a male driver using his cellphone. Upon speaking with the driver, officers administered a roadside screening test, which registered a "fail." The driver was subsequently arrested and taken to the division for a breathalyzer which revealed a blood alcohol level exceeding the legal limit.
Sharifuddin ABASSI, age 35 of Oshawa is charged with the following Criminal, Highway Traffic Act and Liquor Licence Act offences; Impaired Operation – Blood Alcohol Concentration x2, Drive – Hand Held Communication Device, Fail to Produce Permit x2, Driving While Under Suspension x2, Fail to Have Insurance Card, Drive No Insurance and Having Care and Control of a Motor Vehicle Unsealed Container of Liquor.
He was held for a bail hearing.
Anyone with information is asked to contact the Durham Regional Police at 905-579-1520.
Anonymous information can be sent to Durham Regional Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS (8477) or online at www.durhamregionalcrimestoppers.ca and tipsters may be eligible for a $2,000 cash reward.
The information in this media release contains facts and circumstances that have been obtained from a police investigation. These allegations have yet to be proven in court.
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| From: Joachim K | 2/7/2025 6:07:05 AM | | | | | | MPs reject Trump's idea of clearing out Gaza as Israeli minister points to Canada
By The Canadian Press
February 06, 2025
Minister of Foreign Affairs Melanie Joly attends a luncheon with the Chamber of Commerce of Metropolitan Montreal in Montreal on Tuesday, Feb. 4, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Christinne Muschi
OTTAWA — Canadian politicians are pushing back on the idea of clearing Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip as an Israeli minister suggests some of them could be sent to Canada.
“We support Palestinians’ right to self-determination, including from being forcibly displaced from Gaza,” Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly wrote on the online platform X on Wednesday.
The previous day, U.S. President Donald Trump stunned leaders across the Middle East and beyond when he suggested that the territory be cleared out and made into a U.S.-owned resort destination.
Human Rights Watch and similar groups say Trump’s plan would amount to ethnic cleansing.
While White House aides and various analysts have suggested other ideas for American involvement, Trump doubled down on his proposal Thursday, saying “the Gaza Strip would be turned over to the United States by Israel at the conclusion of fighting,” by which point Palestinians “would have already been resettled.”
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz wrote Thursday on X that he’d instructed Israeli’s military to draft a plan to evacuate “any resident of Gaza who wishes to leave” to be resettled to willing countries abroad.
“Countries like Canada, which has a structured immigration program, have previously expressed willingness to take in residents from Gaza,” he wrote.
Ottawa’s only resettlement program for Gazans is limited to people with relatives in Canada, and only a small portion of the applications — currently capped at 5,000 — have resulted in Palestinians actually making it to Canada.
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada did not immediately respond when asked for the latest figures on Palestinian resettlement. In its last public disclosure release, issued in late May 2024, it said just 41 people had arrived as of May 20. CBC News reported last month that just 616 people had arrived under the temporary program.
Before Katz made his comments, Joly said Canada is still calling for a two-state solution — the creation of a Palestinian state that would exist in peace alongside Israel.
“Canada’s long-standing position on Gaza has not changed,” she wrote Wednesday on the platform X.
International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen, Justice Minister Arif Virani and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh were among a dozen MPs who also pushed back on Trump’s idea.
Hussen, Virani and seven other Liberal MPs released a statement calling Trump’s idea “preposterous and a complete violation of international law” and saying that “it amounts to ethnic cleansing.”
Singh said that Trump’s comments “destabilize” the Middle East and threaten the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. “Trump’s threats are utter madness. They violate every international law,” he wrote in a post on X.
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs deferred comment to the Israeli embassy in Ottawa, which did not provide an immediate response.
The Gaza Strip was established as a Palestinian territory after Palestinians were displaced across the region during the creation of the State of Israel.
Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt already host millions of Palestinian refugees and say it would be inappropriate to remove more Palestinians from their homeland.
Israel rejects the United Nations' designation of Palestinians as refugees, saying this creates an illegitimate idea of them returning to land that is now Israel. Israeli officials also have argued that the Jewish people have ancestral ties to the land.
Mona Abuamara, the Palestinian ambassador in Ottawa, said that Israeli “terrorist settlers” in occupied Palestinian territories are the ones who should be moved to other countries. She said another alternative is to have Palestinians take back land that is now Israel.
“If you don’t want to move forward, we can happily go back,” she wrote on X.
In late 2023, amid reports that the Israeli government was looking to send Palestinians to countries like Canada, Immigration Minister Marc Miller dismissed talk of a “so-called ‘voluntary transfer’ of Gazans out of Gaza” to Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 6, 2025.
Dylan Robertson, The Canadian Press |
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