"Ask not what your country can do for you..............

.........ask what you can do for your country."

The brilliant "Ask not" speech.

Remember that profound phrase written by Ted Sorensen and uttered by JFK in his inaugural speech in 1961?  Carney has borrowed the famous line, but changed it to, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for Brookfield."

That about sums up Carney's policies.  If you dig deeply enough, you will discover that all the contracts and "deals" he has pursued benefit Brookfield -- either directly, or by way of companies it controls.  

Sadly, the media are too lazy to look into anything that matters.  They just spout government press releases and buy into the hype.  Just to make sure no one finds out how this country's finances (don't)work, Carney has not named a new head of the Parliamentary Budget Office.  

With the departure of the highly-competent interim leader Jason Jacques, Carney is leaving the office empty and cutting off all enquiries and requests for documentation it needs to do its job.  Basically, he has muzzled it.  Again, the media ignores this completely.  

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Now we hear that thousands of Canadian citizens living in the Middle East are demanding that Canada evacuate them.  Guess what?  Anita Anand is already complying, securing planes and seats back to Canada.  I'm sick of people who come to Canada, stay just long enough to get citizenship and then return to Lebanon, or wherever, to resume the life they had always led.  It's not the first time; the Lebanese are very good at this gig.  (See "Here we go again," August 20, 2020.)

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And why are we sending Dominic Leblanc back down to Washington to "negotiate" a trade deal?  He's the guy who hasn't been able to get it done for an entire year.  Just to ensure it fails, Carney has appointed former PCO Clerk Janice Charette as another negotiator.  As I keep saying, Trump operates on instinct.  He'll take one look at Charette and walk out of the room -- if he even walks in in the first place, which I doubt.

Clearly, Carney doesn't want a deal with the U.S.  He prefers to deal with China and India.  Someone needs to tell him no deals will ever come close to what we are losing with the U.S.  

American Senator John Kennedy made a brilliant suggestion:  Canada should cancel all tariffs with the U.S.  I agree.  He, a Republican, believes that would force Trump to back down.  You know, it just might.

Flip flop

Now Carney is claiming he supported the U.S. bombing of Iran, but "with regret".  Huh?!  What does that mean?  Either he supported the decision, or he didn't.  And if he supported it, "with regret", then he didn't support it, in which case he should not have supported it.  (Sorry, getting tongue-tied here.)

Incoherence reigns.  He may be the worst prime minister in living memory.

Another pile coming out of his mouth.  And now he is siding with Kier Starmer, claiming the move was against international law and did not have the backing of the UN Security Council.  Anytime you side with Starmer, the most reviled and unpopular prime minister in British history, you can bet you're on the wrong one.

As for international law, doesn't exist -- as witnessed by the fact that no one pays a whit of attention to it.  The court, headquartered in The Hague, comprises 15 members, 13 of which hail from corrupt countries, so, so much for listening to their decrees?  At any rate, Canadian law trumps the impotent international variety; Carney should quit quoting it to excuse his cowardice. 

As for the Security Council, although sitting on the most expensive real estate in the world, it is a completely ineffectual organization and everyone knows it.

Meanwhile, as Carney backtracks on his support for Trump's move, the "brilliant" lifelong backbencher and now Minister of Defence, David McGinty, is enthusiastically confirming it.  Folks, it's "duh" all around this cabinet table.

Carney's current position on Iran.

Carney will pay for his about-face with Trump.  He should have heeded his own advice and worked with, "The world as it is, not how we would like it to be."  And we all know how Trump is.

Get set for more tariff fun!

 

Baffling

We're coming up on a year of Carney's vacant reign and still people support him.  Why?  He has achieved absolutely nothing, save for maybe a couple of memoranda of understanding.  Do his supporters have no brains?  No ability to think?  No critical faculty to analyze?  What other reasons can there be?

Now he's off to India to.....to.....what?  India has already said they will take every drop of oil and natural gas we will sell them, so why go there?  To avoid the House of Commons, a place where he is decidedly at sea?  To steer clear of Question Period where he has to remove his self-anointed crown?  He consistently thumbs his nose at Joe Blow Canadians -- people currently struggling to pay the rent and put food on the table.

Carney is exactly like Trump.  The latter bypasses and ignores Congress; the former does the same with Parliament.  For those who automatically despise Trump and blindly venerate Carney, give your heads a shake.

My question is, why does Carney have to be the star of every trip?  Doesn't he have ministers to do some of this?  Where are they?  Shockingly, he cancelled a press conference because, "There was no time."  That was complete BS.  He cancelled because he didn't want to answer questions about India's political interference in our elections.  The headline confirming the Indian consulate's hand in the assassination of a Canadian citizen didn't help either.

Ah yes, here's why he's in India.

And there was his wife, along for the ride.  Diana, if you insist on accompanying your prime minister husband, at least put on a decent outfit and fix your hair.  She looks like she just grabbed the nearest tablecloth on her way out the door!  Or perhaps she feels looking fashionable is vacuous and beneath her intellectual brilliance.

Diana Carney's dress on arrival in India.

The reality is dragging your wife along doesn't make you look strong.  It makes you look weak.  It makes you look like you have to have your Mummy along to hold your hand. 

Genders unknown

Whatever, woman, make an effort, or stay home in New York.  She needn't have tagged along at all.  I mean, why?  And why was Champagne on the plane?  The guy's the minister of finance, why did he need to be there?!

Heard Vassy interview Champagne before he left and he blabbed a stream of word salad nonsense, after which B and I looked at each other and said, "What did he just say?"  Neither of us could conjure a thing.

Carney may be the worst prime minister in recent memory.  He gives not a hoot for this country with his fruitless, vain voyages around the globe.

Speaking of incompetent "leaders", Britain's Kier Starmer is currently giving him a run for his money.  Currently voted the most unpopular prime minister in the country's history, he just refused to allow American planes to re-fuel at a British air base, meaning they have to fly longer and more dangerous sorties to accomplish their mission. 

Britain's stunned PM

What a dumb move!  Almost as dumb as the Indigenous group in B.C. who are trying to close off the air space above the Crown land on which their reservation sits.  How brilliant of Starmer to alienate Trump in the latter's determination to rid Iran of a leader who has killed at least 40,000 of his own people because they spoke out.  As usual, the stuffed-shirt devotee of international law said he couldn't because Iran wasn't "an imminent threat" to Britain.

Frankly, Trump should follow through on his earlier musings about leaving NATO altogether.  I mean, he is getting absolutely no support from other members, so what's the point?  

As far as Iran is concerned, never mind Ayatollah Khomeini's followers have carried out many murderous attacks on British citizens on British soil.  No, Starmer is sticking to his guns, so to speak, and adhering to the impotent international laws that threaten the entire world.  And what's the response of the EU?  Ursula von der Leyen has called an emergency meeting to.....to.....hold another gab fest.

As I said, what thick, dumb moves by both Starmer and Barbie Ursula.

 

One word

When a young student asked me what reconciliation with the Indigenous meant, I replied, "Money".  She stood there shocked because there she was, writing what she thought would be a complicated analysis of land claims and traditions and I had just destroyed her entire thesis.  I mean, what would she be writing about when it can all be summed up in that one word?

'The Globe and Mail' tiptoed into the subject today with its editorial, "The high (and rising) cost of reconciliation".  They went on about ways of life and traditional territories, but after all is said and done it boils down to that one word -- especially after the Cowichan decision, giving all of Richmond, B.C. to the Indigenous it'll only get worse.

Can you imagine owning property in Richmond and finding out the title belongs to the Cowichan?  Good luck trying to sell it.  (See, "Everyone's effed", August 25, 2025)

Tanya Talaga weighed in on another Indigenous reality:  The preponderous of Indigenous inmates in Canadian prisons.  In Thunder Bay, for instance, it's 100 percent.  Tanya's analysis, however, is brilliant.  

She claims that the high rates of recidivism of natives are due entirely to the lack of librarians in correctional institutions.  Huh?!  Yep, it's all because there are no librarians helping them learn.

"What did we teach them in there?" she asks.  She never, however, asks what their upbringing might have had to do with their fates.  No, it's all the librarians' faults -- never the parents.

I'm getting sick of the blame game being completely dumped into the laps of everyone but the parents and the community.  Hey, look into yourself, as Mark Carney implored Rosemary Barton.  

Will anything change?  Rhetorical.

How can communities like this foster civilized behaviour?

Another shining example of a pristine reserve.  We spent $63 billion on Indigenous funding last year -- 12% of the entire budget -- for a population of 1.8 million.  Get out your calculator and weep.

  

War crimes

Zelensky has just celebrated four years of a senseless war he cannot win, but wages yet.  'The Globe and Mail' had this tragic photo on its front page, the headstones of just a fraction of the 50,000 killed in addition to another 500,000 wounded.  When you see actual graves, it hits hard:

Every grave represents a senseless death.  As well, there are probably 10 relatives, mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers who will forever weep and mourn.  

Apart from outrageously enriching himself personally out of the billions countries have given him -- Canada alone has sent $24 billion down the black hole of his atrocity -- he continues to sacrifice the lives of young men and women in his personal quest to.....to......what?!

And guess who else is profiting from this mess?  Brookfield.  Gee I wonder how that happened?  Carney's personal wealth is estimated to be $96 billion.  $96 billion!  Something smells to high heaven here.

Why does it continue?  Canadians are suffering, vets are living on the streets.  Zelensky has to be stopped.  And so does Carney.

 

Is it "sleigh" or "sled"?

...as in "Bob".  I'm not sure, but at any rate, who cares and who does it?  By my count, there are six disciplines:  Single, two-man, four-man, luge, skeleton and relay. 

Death wish because....?????

Frankly, who does this in real life?  No one I know or have ever seen, even though we live 15 minutes from the 1988 Olympic track.  A few years ago, two teenaged brothers literally lost their heads when they took a run on that track when it was closed.  A very sad day, but it stopped other kids from trying such a very dangerous sport.

Apart from this "sport", the Olympics have wrapped and I watched snippets here and there.  What it did do, however, was motivate me to switch over and binge-watch the Tessa Virtue and Scott Moir series, 'Tessa and Scott' on YouTube.  Now, there was magnificence!  

Their intimacy convinced me they had to be lovers in real life, but they're not.  Each is married to other people and each has kids.  They were, however, perfection.

Do yourself a favour and tune in to this breathtaking couple making magic on the ice.

The hockey gold match was heartbreaking, as Canada fell to the U.S.  Frankly, I think Canada was the better team, but clearly Crosby was missed.  I think he had to weigh this game in favour of the entire season with the Penguins.  Obviously, he chose the Penguins.

The most insulting and ridiculous part was the presentation to the players of dolls!  Dolls!  WTF was that about?  Absolutely ludicrous and whoever came up with that idea needs to be fired.    

Finally some sense

Re-printed from 'The Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy', a Calgary-based organization dedicated to a civil, common sense approach to public discourse:

"News out this past week that the University of Alberta might be ending so-called Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI). If that's true, it's positive. After all, despite the pleasant-sounding words, DEI as policy is an anti-merit, anti-individual, illiberal way of awarding jobs or university student spots based on race, ancestry, or ethnicity.

"However, we've seen institutions announce such things before. What often happens is the name changes but the discriminatory policies stay. It used to be called "affirmative action" and then it was changed to "employment equity." Then it became Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI).  A very counter-productive, anti-meritorious policy. "We'll keep an eye on developments at the University of Alberta and let you know what we see in the coming months.  "Also news this past week that the federal government is shutting down its own "Islamophobia" office, one headed up by a former Toronto Star journalist." But it might be replaced with a new office dedicated to tracking what Ottawa considers hate speech.  "The problem with an office dedicated to policing speech is that it injures free inquiry and free expression, which are necessary for getting to the root of problems. You can't solve a problem if you can't critique others' views. That's as true of religious beliefs as it is when it comes to ideological beliefs.  “I’m glad to see a journalist-activist—which is what Ms. Elghawaby’s skillset was—is no longer receiving taxpayer funds to promote a radical, illiberal view of how Canadians should think, i.e., that any critique of Islamic fundamentalism, is wrongly equated with hatred of Muslims.  "We shall see if the new government body is any improvement though. The core issue is that Canadians should be free to critique each other’s belief systems and out-workings of the same, religious or atheist, without being hounded by taxpayer-financed bureaucrats about their views.”  _________________________ If adopted, I agree it would be a positive move.