BC United Caucus- New documents confirm the NDP not only knew about 20 percent carbon tax kickbacks to high-paid government consultants, but it also signed off on them.
Business Intelligence for BC- B.C.’s opposition parties demand probe into alleged government grant kickbacks
The Orca- B.C. energy minister faces backlash, orders audit in wake of clean energy grant scandal
Two days ago, Trudeau was in Alberta, promoting modular construction as a way to solve the housing crisis he created.
He chose NRB Modular Solutions as a backdrop for his press conference. NRB is part of Dexterra Group, a leading support services and solutions company in Canada.
Who recently joined Dexterra’s Board of Directors? None other than Justin Trudeau’s favorite “Uncle”, the 28th Governor General of Canada from 2010 to 2017. Mr. David Johnston. […]
Not a bad gig, if you can get it. Johnston attended 6 board meetings in 2023, for which he got paid $122,861.
He owns 78,938 shares of the company, worth $437,317.
Rob Shaw: B.C.’s opposition parties demand probe into alleged government grant kickbacks: An electric vehicle manufacturer said it was solicited by the firm administering certain programs; the province says it has found no wrongdoing
This alleged shakedown has an eery similarity to the Shumiatcher Deals of the Tommy Douglas government in Saskatchewan.
Morris Shumiatcher was a lawyer and former Attorney General under Tommy Douglas who would help people secure business development grants from the Saskatchewan government. The process worked that an existing business person would hire Shumiatcher and Shumiatcher would then put together a deal inwhich the applicant would sell shares in their business to Tommy Douglas and Clarence Fines, Fines being the Minister of Finance. Once the shares were purchased Shumiatcher would arrange for the business to receive a very generous grant from the Saskatchewan government for business development. Shortly after the grant was paid the business person would buy back the shares from Tommy Douglas and Clarence Fines at an enormous profit. This scheme was repeated numerous times. The similarity to the current allegations in BC are obvious.
To read more on this scandal and several more I suggest picking up The Road to Jerusalem.
Shumiatcher had numerous legal shenanigans throughout his career and often found himself on the wrong side of the law.
In the early 1960’s Clarence Fines ran off to Grenada with his secretary and a ton of Saskatchewan taxpayer money. One of the last things he did was write a letter to the bank explaining a cheque for $1,500 from the Alberta Distillers was to be deposited into a CCF party slush fund and that Tommy Douglas would be looking after the account henceforth, but that’s a Saskatchewan Mafia story for another day.
Electric cars will decide the outcome of the American election
If Joe Biden loses to Donald Trump this November, he can apportion blame towards his administration’s many unforced errors, from the botched Afghanistan bug-out to the mess at the southern border. But the biggest blunder of all has yet to fully reveal itself: the ill-conceived drive to push electric vehicles into making up over three-fifths of all car purchases by the 2030s.
Just last week the administration issued a draconian mileage requirement, one of many ‘nudge’ policies attempting to usher in an all-electric future. Replacing a massive $3 trillion industry with a singular technology represents a severe economic threat under any circumstances, but ramming through changes just as EV sales are slowing is nothing less than madness.
The last thing any municipal ratepayer in this country needs is for their city to gain the ability to get their hands on your income. Income taxes are outrageously high as it is and adding another predatory level of government into the mix will only make that worse. But that doesn’t stop socialist think tanks from proposing such nonsense, which is then uncritically regurgitated by the leftist corporate media.
Macdonald believes the City of Vancouver alone could net a further $100 million annually if it could collect a one per cent tax on annual incomes over $56,000.
Just lower taxes across the board.
Fraser Institute- The Cost of Business Subsidies in Canada: Updated Edition
Business subsidies delivered through government spending since 1961 came with significant costs to Canadian taxpayers.
In 2019, provincial business subsidies reached $27.0 billion ($2022). This represents the single largest year of provincial subsidies in Canadian history prior to COVID.
Federal business subsidies increased significantly as a result of COVID-related programs, reaching $88.5 billion in 2020 and $47.0 billion in 2021.
Although federal business subsidies declined in 2022, the new total ($11.2 billion) is nearly double the amount the federal government spent in the final pre-COVID year ($6.5 billion in 2019).
Public Choice Theory and How This Ends
Concentrated minority interests will ALWAYS defeat dispersed collective majority interests in any system of government/institution that doesn’t terminate in an individual owner.
This is basic public choice theory. […]
The most degenerate will set the tone of sexual politics because they’re the slim minority that cares the most and has the most to gain, whereas normal people have 10k other concerns and can’t dedicated their lives to defending normality. Same with farm policy, it will always be set by the narrow concentrated interest of corporate food producers and recipients of subsidized government food stuff: This is what’s happened to America’s food supply, it’s what happened to Rome’s before the fall. Down the list of every policy.
Every individual item will be controlled not by the public good or even majority will, but by the narrowest interest that can make it their life’s work and either get rich, or lead a life of sloth by controlling it.
Rather than tackle the pressing question as to why pension funds have decreased the their investments in Canada from 28% in 2000 to 3% today, a gaggle of milquetoast business leaders is demanding that Ottawa force those pension funds to invest within Canada despite lower returns. It’s as if these Wesley Mouch types believe that a depressed business climate is an unalterable fact of nature.
Government has the right, responsibility and obligation to regulate how this savings regime operates,” says the letter signed by dozens including BlackBerry Ltd founder Jim Balsillie, Metro Inc. chief executive Eric La Flèche, the CEOs of telecommunications companies Telus Corp., Rogers Communications Inc. and Quebecor Inc., and former Bank of Nova Scotia and Air Canada CEOs Brian Porter and Calin Rovinescu.
“We think the government does have some right to have an influence over the regime” in which these large funds operate, he said. “But we’re not suggesting the government tells these pension funds exactly where to invest.”
If I were a Minnesotan, supposedly I would sleep at lot easier at night knowing that the state was ready to protect me from all those unscrupulous house painters out there.
The legislation, which was posted online February 15, would restrict the “sale of certain solvent-based paint materials to licensees; [establish] a paint contractor board; [and require] licensing for paint contractors and journeyworker painters.”
So regardless of their motivations, Minnesota lawmakers are at best offering an immoral “solution” to a problem that doesn’t exist. At worst, they are weaponizing the law to benefit special interests.
A former University of Manitoba law dean has been given “the ultimate penalty” of disbarment in Manitoba after he misspent over half a million dollars in school funds, including racking up charges that amount to fraud, the provincial law society says.
Jonathan Black-Branch has been disbarred and his name has been removed from the Law Society of Manitoba’s rolls of barristers and solicitors, according to a Feb. 14 decision from a law society disciplinary committee.
He also was fined $36,000.
Faced with the news that his media water-carriers are in financial trouble, Maximum Leader publicly berates them for failing to conjure up non-existent customers. Not at all shocking for a man who sees no need for boundaries between the state and the economy.
A fired-up Prime Minister Justin Trudeau unleashed on Bell on Friday, calling its move to layoff thousands of employees — including hundreds of journalists — a “garbage decision.”
“I’m pretty pissed off about what’s just happened,” Trudeau said during a press conference in Toronto.
“This is the erosion not just of journalism, of quality local journalism at a time where people need it more than ever, given misinformation and disinformation…. It’s eroding our very democracy, our abilities to tell stories to each other.”
(From Kate) Drama Queen: the PM had at least 16 weeks statutory notice from Bell about layoffs of this magnitude so “garbage decision” & “pretty pissed off” were hardly “from the heart”.
If your reserve was sitting on substantial oil and gas deposits you’d have to have pretty lousy management to lose track of $120 million, but accountability is probably an outdated artifact of the colonial mindset anyway.
Public financial reports for Frog Lake First Nation show the band is short $120 million in net assets over a five-year time period between 2013 and 2018.
The records show the band-owned business called Frog Lake Energy Resources has been losing millions of dollars since 2015.
APTN reached out the current Chief Greg Desjarlais and initially agreed to an interview but later cancelled.
In a virtual meeting with community members he says that an audit is unnecessary.
Without telling me you’re rigging the election.
CTV- Trudeau and Singh’s teams quietly planning electoral reform legislation
WSJ Editor-in-Chief brings bad news;
Emma Tucker told a crowd at the World Economic Forum, “I think there’s a very specific challenge for the legacy brands, like the New York Times and like the Wall Street Journal.”
She continued, “If you go back really not that long ago, as I say, we owned the news. We were the gatekeepers, and we very much owned the facts as well.”
“If it said it in the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, then that was a fact,” Tucker further stated, adding “Nowadays, people can go to all sorts of different sources for the news and they’re much more questioning about what we’re saying.”
Doomscrolling (Rumble): The Civil War in the WEF (1hr, 20min)
Update: @PierrePoilievre I will ban all my ministers from any involvement in the World Economic Forum.
Mark is in Washington resting up in preparation for the resumption of his trial at the DC Superior Court on Monday morning.
In the meantime, here are Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer with their dramatised reconstruction of the last day’s events, including what Powerline’s John Hinderaker described as Steyn’s “bravura performance” of his opening statement.
The peasants are revolting: Al Gore made a fortune after losing to George W when he set up a green investment firm now worth $36BN that pays him $2m a month… as he warns about ‘rain bombs’ and ‘boiling oceans.’
Related: Don’t ever stop bitching about it.
Despite the official pronouncements, the main concern of central banks is not inflation or unemployment, but rather the solvency of the banks within their purview. When a bank runs into balance sheet trouble, the go-to solution is to quietly extend more credit on easier terms. The public will be the last to know which bank received the bailout just so depositors don’t get spooked.
What The Hell Is Going On At The Bank Of Canada: $30B Just Went Where?
The Bank of Canada has just provided the "Financial System" $30B but where did it go?
6 times recently the BoC has sent $5B somewhere
They won't tell us, they are allowed to keep it secret
2/
— Ron Butler (@ronmortgageguy) January 10, 2024
Full report at Unusual Whales;
This year, Democrats absolutely dominated their Republican counterparts.
Dems were up 31%, and Republicans 18%.
Meanwhile, the S&P500 itself was up 24%.
