PMJT: The First 100 Days

[Brad Sallows]

>The opposition applied the pressure, sure, but the CPC did not need to cave to it. They did, they own it.

You keep claiming the CPC "own it".  I agree - but in the context that all 3 major parties own it.  Either you agree with me, or you need to prove the NDP and LPC do not also own it - despite their insistence upon it.  Good luck with erasing the internet.

 

[Brad Sallows]

>I do not understand our fetish surrounding deficits.

The explanation lies in human nature.  Canada had a close call with fiscal disaster, and on working our way out of it turned it into a moral crusade.  As a matter of practical politics, it is easier to turn spending on than to turn it off (diffuse costs, concentrated benefits), similar to the way in which the pressure to extend the reach of government is often stronger than the pushback (hence the fuss over erosion of constitutional protections we observe in the US).  So the default position should be resistance.

My understanding of the circumstances that allowed us to break our deficit spiral problem makes me skeptical that we could do it again.  The world economy, or the economic circumstances of any particular nation, is uncertain terrain and when any collection of experts claim to provide useful advice we should not be inclined to accept it - records of consistent predictive accuracy are extremely rare.  Canada's economy is fragile - to the circumstances I noted above, add the high level of consumer debt.  Given the fragility and uncertainty and consequences of the risk, fiscal moderation is the most prudent default position.

[Add: much of the heat centres around the notion of what is "infrastructure" and "infrastructure investment".  Replacing infrastructure prematurely with no improvement is a waste (opportunity cost).  Replacing infrastructure prematurely with improvements may be beneficial, provided the improvements pay for themselves within the remaining lifespan of the original.  Adding new infrastructure may be beneficial, provided it does not amount to overbuilding (Chinese Disease).  Much of the demand for infrastructure originates from municipalities, but much of that demand stems from municipalities with low commitment to basic housekeeping and high levels of distraction on bread-and-circus issues and social posturing.  Replacing water and sewer pipes and upgrading roads is dull and mundane, but the cities that plan and execute it properly are not the ones crying for funding.  The specific problems I read about all seem to have more to do with dysfunctional municipal politics, or municipal-provincial personality conflicts which cause worthwhile projects to go undone.  These are not problems to be solved by the federal taxpayer.  They are problems to be solved by the cities and provinces.  Media would do us a huge favour by digging into these conflicts and embarrassing the principals into behaving like adults.]

 

[Altair]

>The opposition applied the pressure, sure, but the CPC did not need to cave to it. They did, they own it.

You keep claiming the CPC "own it".  I agree - but in the context that all 3 major parties own it.  Either you agree with me, or you need to prove the NDP and LPC do not also own it - despite their insistence upon it.  Good luck with erasing the internet.

I have said repeatedly that the LPC and NDP were hypocrites by bashing the deficits the CPC ran because they would have run them if they were in that position.

What more you want from me I do not know.

 

[Edward Campbell]

I would if a fucking train was coming.

So what is it that we know that all other OECD countries don't?

Any nation's (or provinces, or municpality's) debt must be examined line-by-line to determine its utility. And we must remember that there is a political dimension to utility that doesn't, cannot show up on a spreadsheet: how much is social harmony worth? How much social harmony would we lose if we reformed, say, health care or education financing or old age security?

Many economist favour debt which can be used to improve real property - roads, bridges, harbours, airports, etc, and which can be repaid before the end of life of the project. Some of the projects discussed during the Liberal election campaign were social in nature and social spending tends to be never-ending because, contrary to Maynard Keynes' dictum, it cannot be "switched off" when the economy pulls out of one of its periodic recessions.

I'm not opposed to some stimulus, it was not opposed to some even before the current commodities crisis, but I am opposed to any that cannot be "switched off," which means I will likely oppose most of what the Liberals propose.

As to: "what do we know that all the other OECD countries don't?" I don't know, except that we had spending pretty well under control in a (very slow, to be sure) growing economy and, therefore, didn't really need to stimulate anything. Again some economist favoured some, carefully targeted, stimulus because the recovery was so anaemic, but the ones I read didn't favour any increase in e.g. social housing or "green" energy.

 

[Kirkhill]

Perhaps "Debt if necessary, but not necessarily debt".

Here is the debt profile of the nation that invented modern debt financing.

In times of crisis (predominantly when keeping the French in their place - but that is to digress) the debt spiked.  When the crisis passed, commerce ensued, the government collected taxes and paid down the debt so that it had the capacity to borrow again the next  time the French a crisis occurred.  Exactly like using a credit card.

Debt is bad when it is so large that people will no longer lend you money.  If the unexpected crisis shows up when you're credit card is maxed out you are in a world of hurt.  Therefore the prudent borrower keeps their borrowing as low as possible as long as possible.

How much you can afford to pay back, how much debt you can carry, how much risk you are willing to accept in the event of the French showing up at your door again,  those are all subjects of interminable debate.  I have been married to a French-Canadian woman for 32 years.  I know whereof I speak.

Edit: By the way the comparable Debt to GDP ratio for Canada is 64.8%, according to the Fraser Institute (Federal and Provincial Debt combined).  The Federal number is 34.9%.  The other 30% is generated by the Provinces with Ontario and Quebec taking pride of place.  The Feds owe 692 BCAD, Ontario owes an additional 298 BCAD while Quebec owes 188 BCAD.

And the issue is that Ontario and Quebec wish to borrow more money on the back of Canada's AAA credit rating because their own credit ratings (A+ for Ontario and Quebec both according to S&P - or the same level as Ireland).

Essentially they want Alberta and Saskatchewan to co-sign their loans.  Unfortunately Alberta and Saskatchewan have hit a crisis of their own and are unable to take on the extra load.

 

[Old Sweat]

And to turn away from financial matters, here is a post media column that criticizes an apparent unwillingness to express outrage at and to take action agains terrorism. It is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act.

Michael Den Tandt: Where is the fury and resolve to fight back? Trudeau’s silence on terrorism is deafening


BY NATIONAL POST, MICHAEL DEN TANDT JANUARY 17, 2016 8:32 PM

It’s early still in the life of this government. Yet with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Grits closing in on 100 days since their Oct. 19 electoral triumph, a pattern begins to emerge. It’s one that does the new regime and its leader little credit. It smacks of an inability or unwillingness to perceive sentiment beyond the urban Liberal echo chamber. It bespeaks a lack of imagination — including an inability to imagine threats to the government’s capacity to endure and succeed long-term. Tunnel vision and obduracy are not supposed to set in quite so soon.

Let’s begin with this: Trudeau’s Achilles heel. Every politician seems to have one. For this PM, for the longest time, it was his tendency to blurt silly things about serious geopolitical issues at importune times. There was his tone-deaf statement in an interview with the CBC that the Boston Marathon bombers must have felt excluded; his offhand praise of China’s system of government; his curious joke about the Russians invading Ukraine over hockey. Most memorably, there was the juvenile quip about former prime minister Stephen Harper whipping out Canada’s CF-18s to “show them how big they are.”

That series of gaffes, combined with Trudeau’s decision in the fall of 2014 to vote against Canadian participation in the U.S.-led air war against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, was a factor in the collapse in public support that led to the Liberals entering last year’s election campaign an underdog. That they recovered and won resoundingly is a testament to Trudeau’s political skills and the quality of the campaign he ran. None of that mitigates that his perceived instincts and judgment about foreign policy — especially as concerns the war against Islamist, jihadist terrorism — are his greatest weakness.

Tonally this manifests as an inability, or unwillingness, to emit more than the minimum necessary wattage in public responses to terrorist atrocities perpetrated by ISIL and its fellow travellers. That was on display immediately after the massacre in Paris last November. It was on display again this past weekend, in the aftermath of Islamist killing sprees in Jakarta, Indonesia and Ouagadougou, Burkina-Faso, that left seven Canadians dead.

Has the government, and Trudeau personally, condemned these atrocities? Certainly they have. Canada “strongly condemns the deadly terrorist attacks,” the PM said in a prepared statement in response to the Burkina-Faso massacre. On his personal Twitter feed, he offered his condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of those murdered. In the statement, he proposed a “speedy recovery” to the injured. “We are deeply saddened by these senseless act of violence on innocent civilians,” the release went on.

My question: Where is the expression of fury at the sociopaths who chose to murder these good people in cold blood? Where is the resolve to fight back, the passion for justice?

It’s not as though this government is incapable of displaying revulsion. Two weeks ago, when a hooligan on a bike pepper-sprayed Syrian refugees newly arrived in Vancouver, Immigration John McCallum said he was “shocked and appalled” at the attack — and rightly so. It was a vile, cowardly assault. Trudeau’s personal Twitter feed immediately lit up with a condemnation of the perpetrator. Again, rightly so.

But where are the passionate condemnations of terrorists who murder innocent Canadians in the pursuit of their demented ends? Burkina-Faso was not a pepper-spraying. Surely there should be horror and fury, in addition to the now customary sadness? Former Liberal leader Bob Rae took to Twitter Sunday to call the attack “an appalling act of cruelty.” Where is the corresponding vehemence on the part of his successor and his ministers?

It looks as though two things are at work. First, the PM and his ministers are taking pains to avoid the bellicose vitriol that characterized the Harper government’s communications about Jihadism, that being all-too American-Republican for their taste. Second, they are leery, with good reason, of being accused of hypocrisy due to the continuing void — intellectual, practical and moral — in their policy vis-à-vis combating ISIL.

Where is that policy? It’ll be three months this week since the federal election. The defence minister, Harjit Sajjan, has travelled to Iraq on a fact-finding mission. Trudeau and his foreign-policy team have had ample time to consult Canada’s allies. They’ve had time to hear reports from Canadian Forces generals who understand military strategy and tactics. Canadian citizens are among the victims in the plague of Jihadist murder that seems to me to be having its intended effect — to terrorize. What is the government’s response?

A period of orientation is understandable. Three months in, the silence grows deafening. Leaving Canada’s CF-18s in place, while claiming they’re doing no good and should be pulled out? Claiming a robust ground mission is in the works, while also abjuring any suggestion that Canada will ever be involved in ground fighting?

It’s incoherent. As long as it remains so, it will weaken Trudeau, while shoring up the arguments of his critics and opponents.

 

[a_majoor]

Virtue signalling means that you only have to say the right things, not that you must do anything.....

 

[ballz]

So just to get this right:  You're saying that you don't like the approach the Conservative Party took and you would've found it preferable had they called yet another election but in hindsight you agree with the path they chose?

Maybe read the entire paragraph, that will help.

I am saying in hindsight, I disagree with the path they chose. But that is with the benefit of hindsight. At the time, I was cussing the other three parties just like everyone else.

In hindsight, I would have preferred if they say "if you want deficits, have 'em, but we won't be the ones to run 'em."

 

[Journeyman]

BY NATIONAL POST, MICHAEL DEN TANDT JANUARY 17, 2016 8:32 PM

That they recovered and won resoundingly is a testament to Trudeau’s political skills and the quality of the campaign he ran.

Garbage.  It was a testament only to a widely-held dislike of Harper, not remotely to Trudeau’s political skills.  As Den Tandt himself argues, Trudeau's political skills thus far are limited to "an inability or unwillingness to perceive sentiment beyond the urban Liberal echo chamber."

I personally cannot wait for Trudeau to do anything  substantive -- 'give him time, his government is new' is wearing thin.

 

[Altair]

Garbage.  It was a testament only to a widely-held dislike of Harper, not remotely to Trudeau’s political skills.  As Den Tandt himself argues, Trudeau's political skills thus far are limited to "an inability or unwillingness to perceive sentiment beyond the urban Liberal echo chamber."

I personally cannot wait for Trudeau to do anything  substantive -- 'give him time, his government is new' is wearing thin.

If that was true, mulcair would be prime minister now.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Well, there is one bright spot on the horizon ... contrary to my expectations, Chrystia Freeland ~ who, along with Pink Lloyd Axworthy, proves, to my satisfaction, that a first rate education can still produce third rate minds ~ has mastered one simple fact: "It's important for us to understand that we don't have a veto," on the TPP deal. We are either all the way in or all the way out of a trade block that will account for 40% of the global economy.

I understand that most NDP partisans and many Liberals, of the terminally bloody stupid variety, oppose the TPP and oppose free(er) trade in general, but not even Trudeau~Wynne~Butts~Telford~Freeland can be dumb enough to opt out of this .... can they?  :dunno:

 

[Journeyman]

If that was true, mulcair would be prime minister now.

        :not-again:

I cannot imagine Canadians ever  providing the NDP with a federal victory.  They peaked in 2011, becoming the Official Opposition for the only time, but they're back in their habitual, distant third place in the House. 

Even those votes, I imagine, were largely because Mulcair (a Quebec LIBERAL politician, by the way) avoided most of the NDP's traditional, extreme union-driven policies, campaigning on things like ~shudder~  balanced budgets -- you know, like the Conservatives.

 

[Altair]

        :not-again:

I cannot imagine Canadians ever  providing the NDP with a federal victory.  They peaked in 2011, becoming the Official Opposition for the only time, but they're back in their habitual, distant third place in the House. 

Even those votes, I imagine, were largely because Mulcair (a Quebec LIBERAL politician, by the way) avoided most of the NDP's traditional, extreme union-driven policies, campaigning on things like ~shudder~  balanced budgets -- you know, like the Conservatives.

In the first half of the campaign it was pretty easy to imagine that, the NDP was polling in the 40s. Liberals a distant third.

The trudeau victory was no shoe in, people were wondering how far they would fall if he bombed in the first debate.

 

[George Wallace]

Garbage.  It was a testament only to a widely-held dislike of Harper, not remotely to Trudeau’s political skills.  As Den Tandt himself argues, Trudeau's political skills thus far are limited to "an inability or unwillingness to perceive sentiment beyond the urban Liberal echo chamber."

I personally cannot wait for Trudeau to do anything  substantive -- 'give him time, his government is new' is wearing thin.

That sums up my sentiments of the past election.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

        :not-again:

I cannot imagine Canadians ever  providing the NDP with a federal victory.  They peaked in 2011, becoming the Official Opposition for the only time, but they're back in their habitual, distant third place in the House. 

Even those votes, I imagine, were largely because Mulcair (a Quebec LIBERAL politician, by the way) avoided most of the NDP's traditional, extreme union-driven policies, campaigning on things like ~shudder~  balanced budgets -- you know, like the Conservatives.

I was impressed how far he got the NDP, they were actually a contender, but his party hardcore managed to stab him in the back. I grew up in a NDP family, I am not surprised by the infighting.

 

[a_majoor]

The "Libranos" meme is actually prevalent across much of the Western world's political class, and while Glenn Reynolds (Instapundit) may be speaking for the United States, much of what he says is oh so applicable here as well. The highlighted portion should be what concerns us (as it is the part which is universal), and of course would arouse the fiercest opposition from the political class in general and "Big Government" parties, bureaucrats and government cronies in particular:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2016/01/18/glenn-reynolds-constitution-amendments-convention-greg-abbott-column/78933518/

Glenn Reynolds: Blow up the administrative state
Glenn Harlan Reynolds 6:02 a.m. EST January 18, 2016

Constitutional convention could wrest power from political class and return it to states and people.

Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wants to amend the Constitution. His proposed changes:

•Prohibit Congress from regulating activity that occurs wholly within one state.
•Require Congress to balance its budget.
•Prohibit administrative agencies — and the un-elected bureaucrats that staff them — from creating federal law.
•Prohibit administrative agencies — and the un-elected bureaucrats that staff them — from preempting state law.
•Allow a two-thirds majority of the states to override a U.S. Supreme Court decision.
•Require a seven-justice super-majority vote for U.S. Supreme Court decisions that invalidate a democratically enacted law.
•Restore the balance of power between the federal and state governments by limiting the former to the powers expressly delegated to it in the Constitution.
•Give state officials the power to sue in federal court when federal officials overstep their bounds.
•Allow a two-thirds majority of the states to override a federal law or regulation.

This proposal has shocked some people. Writing in The Washington Post, Catherine Rampell — apparently unaware that the Constitution itself provides for amendments — is appalled, saying that Abbot wants to ”blow ... up” the Constitution. According to Rampell’s analysis, if you love the Constitution, you can’t simultaneously want to change it.

This would come as a surprise to the framers, who actually ratified the Constitution and then, immediately, passed 10 amendments known as the Bill of Rights. They then followed up in short order with the 11th Amendment — protecting state sovereignty from federal courts — and the 12th Amendment, which corrected serious problems in the way presidential elections were conducted.

The framers knew that the Constitution was a work in progress. And moderns like Rampell don’t really disagree with the idea of constitutional change. Instead, opposition to a convention is more about locking in changes made through other means — Supreme Court decisions like Roe v. Wade and Baker v. Carr, or just longstanding bureaucratic practice that courts and the public have come to accept — rather than through a formal convention where the changes would have to be approved by the American people as a whole.

The real fear, I suspect, is that the proposals urged by Abbott, which would roll back much of the political class's successful power-grab over the past century, would prove popular enough to pass. If that happened, the federal government would become both smaller and more accountable, two political-class nightmares.

A smaller government would mean fewer phony-baloney jobs for college graduates with few marketable skills but demonstrated political loyalty. It would mean fewer opportunities for tax dollars to be directed to people and entities with close ties to people in power. It would mean less ability to engage in social engineering and “nudges” aimed at what are all-too-often seen as those dumb rubes in flyover country. The smaller the government, the fewer the opportunities for graft and self-aggrandizement — and graft and self-aggrandizement are what our political class is all about.

A more accountable government would be, in some ways, an even greater nightmare. Right now, when the federal government screws up, people often don't find out — look at how the IRS and the State Department have stonewalled efforts to find out what happened with the Tea Party audits or the Benghazi debacle — and even when word gets out, it's rare that anybody loses their job. (The EPA knew that Flint, Michigan’s water was toxic for months and didn’t tell anyone. Will there be consequences? Doubtful.)

Most of the time, the bureaucracy acts without any real oversight from Congress, or from the public. It's able to enact political agendas that, if put to an open vote, would never pass. And to the bureaucracy's supporters, that's not a bug, but a feature.

There are legitimate reasons to be afraid of a constitutional convention — I spoke at a conference on this topic a few years ago at Harvard Law School and compared it to pressing the “hyperspace” button on the old Asteroids video game, which sometimes saved you, but sometimes destroyed you — but there's nothing illegitimate about it. Any changes, after all, would have to be approved by three-fourths of the state legislatures, and it seems less likely that bad ideas would make it that far than that bad ideas might persuade five out of nine Supreme Court justices.

Another nice feature of Abbott’s proposal — which is, as the Houston Chronicle notes, “well within ... the mainstream of Republican governors” — is that it doesn’t depend on controlling the White House. The Constitution provides numerous checks and balances, and the Republicans are wise not to depend solely on the presidency.

I'm not yet ready to say that a convention to discuss constitutional amendments is a good idea. But to the extent it panics our current political class, which I believe to be probably the worst political class in our nation's history, it's looking like a better one.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a University of Tennessee law professor, is the author of The New School: How the Information Age Will Save American Education from Itself, and a member of USA TODAY's Board of Contributors.

 

[Altair]

And to turn away from financial matters, here is a post media column that criticizes an apparent unwillingness to express outrage at and to take action agains terrorism. It is reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act.

Michael Den Tandt: Where is the fury and resolve to fight back? Trudeau’s silence on terrorism is deafening


BY NATIONAL POST, MICHAEL DEN TANDT JANUARY 17, 2016 8:32 PM

It’s early still in the life of this government. Yet with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Grits closing in on 100 days since their Oct. 19 electoral triumph, a pattern begins to emerge. It’s one that does the new regime and its leader little credit. It smacks of an inability or unwillingness to perceive sentiment beyond the urban Liberal echo chamber. It bespeaks a lack of imagination — including an inability to imagine threats to the government’s capacity to endure and succeed long-term. Tunnel vision and obduracy are not supposed to set in quite so soon.

Let’s begin with this: Trudeau’s Achilles heel. Every politician seems to have one. For this PM, for the longest time, it was his tendency to blurt silly things about serious geopolitical issues at importune times. There was his tone-deaf statement in an interview with the CBC that the Boston Marathon bombers must have felt excluded; his offhand praise of China’s system of government; his curious joke about the Russians invading Ukraine over hockey. Most memorably, there was the juvenile quip about former prime minister Stephen Harper whipping out Canada’s CF-18s to “show them how big they are.”

That series of gaffes, combined with Trudeau’s decision in the fall of 2014 to vote against Canadian participation in the U.S.-led air war against the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, was a factor in the collapse in public support that led to the Liberals entering last year’s election campaign an underdog. That they recovered and won resoundingly is a testament to Trudeau’s political skills and the quality of the campaign he ran. None of that mitigates that his perceived instincts and judgment about foreign policy — especially as concerns the war against Islamist, jihadist terrorism — are his greatest weakness.

Tonally this manifests as an inability, or unwillingness, to emit more than the minimum necessary wattage in public responses to terrorist atrocities perpetrated by ISIL and its fellow travellers. That was on display immediately after the massacre in Paris last November. It was on display again this past weekend, in the aftermath of Islamist killing sprees in Jakarta, Indonesia and Ouagadougou, Burkina-Faso, that left seven Canadians dead.

Has the government, and Trudeau personally, condemned these atrocities? Certainly they have. Canada “strongly condemns the deadly terrorist attacks,” the PM said in a prepared statement in response to the Burkina-Faso massacre. On his personal Twitter feed, he offered his condolences to the families, friends and colleagues of those murdered. In the statement, he proposed a “speedy recovery” to the injured. “We are deeply saddened by these senseless act of violence on innocent civilians,” the release went on.

My question: Where is the expression of fury at the sociopaths who chose to murder these good people in cold blood? Where is the resolve to fight back, the passion for justice?

It’s not as though this government is incapable of displaying revulsion. Two weeks ago, when a hooligan on a bike pepper-sprayed Syrian refugees newly arrived in Vancouver, Immigration John McCallum said he was “shocked and appalled” at the attack — and rightly so. It was a vile, cowardly assault. Trudeau’s personal Twitter feed immediately lit up with a condemnation of the perpetrator. Again, rightly so.

But where are the passionate condemnations of terrorists who murder innocent Canadians in the pursuit of their demented ends? Burkina-Faso was not a pepper-spraying. Surely there should be horror and fury, in addition to the now customary sadness? Former Liberal leader Bob Rae took to Twitter Sunday to call the attack “an appalling act of cruelty.” Where is the corresponding vehemence on the part of his successor and his ministers?

It looks as though two things are at work. First, the PM and his ministers are taking pains to avoid the bellicose vitriol that characterized the Harper government’s communications about Jihadism, that being all-too American-Republican for their taste. Second, they are leery, with good reason, of being accused of hypocrisy due to the continuing void — intellectual, practical and moral — in their policy vis-à-vis combating ISIL.

Where is that policy? It’ll be three months this week since the federal election. The defence minister, Harjit Sajjan, has travelled to Iraq on a fact-finding mission. Trudeau and his foreign-policy team have had ample time to consult Canada’s allies. They’ve had time to hear reports from Canadian Forces generals who understand military strategy and tactics. Canadian citizens are among the victims in the plague of Jihadist murder that seems to me to be having its intended effect — to terrorize. What is the government’s response?

A period of orientation is understandable. Three months in, the silence grows deafening. Leaving Canada’s CF-18s in place, while claiming they’re doing no good and should be pulled out? Claiming a robust ground mission is in the works, while also abjuring any suggestion that Canada will ever be involved in ground fighting?

It’s incoherent. As long as it remains so, it will weaken Trudeau, while shoring up the arguments of his critics and opponents.

Yes, I suppose you want Trudeau pissing blood and vinegar over an attack in Burkina Faso and Indonesia, all the while unable to very much about the domestic security situations in foreign countries. Unless you want him to send the jets there and start bombing targets?

As opposed to getting hot under the collar for a incident that happened on Canadian soil by a Canadian, something that he does have a bit more control over.

Meh? Seriously, what is he suppose to do about AQIM?

 

[Loachman]

From the 17 January 2016 Hamilton Spectator
http://www.thespec.com/news-story/6236139-trudeau-leads-moment-of-silence-at-peterborough-mosque-for-burkina-faso-victims/

Trudeau leads moment of silence at Peterborough mosque for Burkina Faso victims

PETERBOROUGH, Ont. - Justin Trudeau led a moment of silence for the victims of this weekend's terrorist attack on a luxury hotel in Burkina Faso, an outrage that left six Canadians among the dead.

The prime minister condemned the attacks Saturday on the Splendid Hotel and nearby Cappuccino Cafe in the West African country as a "brutal act of violent terrorism."

Quebec media reports say four members of one family are among the six victims, and they are identified as retired teacher Yves Carrier, his wife Gladys Chamberland and their two adult children.

Trudeau was speaking on Sunday at a restored mosque in Peterborough, Ont., which was firebombed in the aftermath of deadly attacks in Paris last November, a slaughter for which the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant claimed responsibility.

Most of his remarks focused on the "reprehensible" crime perpetrated against the mosque, saying it doesn't define the community, nor the country, and that the "criminals" who carried it out failed in their attempt to sow hatred and division.

Trudeau says the community responded with hope, love and compassion, and quickly helped rebuild the house of worship.

Mark Steyn's comments at http://www.steynonline.com/7427/mohammed-millinery:

Canadians are dead, and so is satire. Six Quebeckers get slaughtered by Islamic terrorists in Burkina Faso, and to honor their memory Prime Minister Justin Trudeau leads a moment of silence ...at a mosque.

As for "gender segregation" in the Muslim world, let's go back to that Peterborough mosque where Justin Trudeau had his moment of silence to dishonor the Canadian dead at Islam's hands. The mosque is run by Imam Shazim Khan, who gave an interesting speech in Toronto a few years back. "Gender segregation"? Bring it on!

"There is no need for her to go out. There is no need for her to call anybody. There is no need for her to talk to anybody...

"She only makes available herself to her husband and she protects herself and she stays away from everything that her husband doesn't like in order to please him and to make the marriage work..."

Incidentally, Trudeau's imam says that, if David Cameron thinks "gender segregation" is bad now, wait till the hereafter:

"The Prophet PBUH said he said because of this ingratitude [of the wives towards their husbands] that is why most inhabitants of hell are women."

 

[Old Sweat]

Yes, I suppose you want Trudeau pissing blood and vinegar over an attack in Burkina Faso and Indonesia, all the while unable to very much about the domestic security situations in foreign countries. Unless you want him to send the jets there and start bombing targets?

As opposed to getting hot under the collar for a incident that happened on Canadian soil by a Canadian, something that he does have a bit more control over.

Meh? Seriously, what is he suppose to do about AQIM?

Apparently, according to this story in the Globe and Mail reproduced under the Fair Dealing provision of the Copyright Act, is just what his Minister of Global Affairs is proposing.

Dion urges Canada to ‘fight’ with allies in wake of Burkina Faso attacks

GLORIA GALLOWAY, STEVEN CHASE AND LES PERREAUX
OTTAWA, ST. ANDREWS, N.B. and MONTREAL — The Globe and Mail
Published Sunday, Jan. 17, 2016 8:13PM EST
Last updated Monday, Jan. 18, 2016 7:52AM

A murderous rampage by al-Qaeda-linked militants in Burkina Faso that claimed the lives of six Quebeckers and at least 22 other people demonstrates the ease with which terror can be spread in disparate parts of the world and Canada’s Foreign Minister says the international community must unite in its determination to stop it.

Four attackers, two of them women, stormed the Splendid Hotel in the capital city of Ouagadougou on Friday night, killing 18 people during a 12-hour siege. They also marched though a nearby café where another 10 victims lost their lives. Those who died were of multiple nationalities – American, Swiss, Dutch, Portuguese, Italian and the six from Canada who were in the West African country to work at schools and orphanages.

In the end, the perpetrators of the attacks, claimed by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, were also killed. But authorities in the region as well as the government here in Canada said efforts must be made to thwart future carnage.

The prime ministers of Burkina Faso and Mali, a country that is a hot spot for the jihadi movement, agreed Sunday to work together by sharing joint intelligence and joint security patrols. And Canada has offered to assist the authorities of Burkina Faso in their investigation of the deadly incident.

Foreign Affairs Minister Stéphane Dion said the attack in Burkina Faso is a reminder that Canada is not safe from terror threats. It follows explosions and a gun fight involving affiliates of the Islamic State in Jakarta last week that killed another Quebecker, as well as massive assaults on Paris in November that left 130 dead and a suicide bombing in Turkey earlier this month that killed 10.

“You have seen it in Burkina Faso, Turkey, Paris and we are affected by that and we need to fight with our allies,” Mr. Dion said during a Trudeau government cabinet retreat in New Brunswick. “They are everywhere,” he said of terrorists, adding Canada must “fight in strong co-operation with our allies: military, police and intelligence services.”

The Canadian victims came from the tight-knit Quebec City bedroom community of Lac-Beauport.

Yves Carrier, 65, was a well-respected school principal who dove into volunteer work after he retired a few years ago. His wife, Gladys Chamberland, was a provincial civil servant who had joined Mr. Carrier on his most recent missions. Their son, Charlelie Carrier, was a 19-year-old student. His half-sister, Maude Carrier, a 37-year-old mother of two, was a school teacher. Family friends Louis Chabot and Suzanne Bernier were also educators in the local school system.

Mr. Carrier had organized previous missions with a small Quebec aid group, Centre amitié de solidarité internationale de la région des Appalaches, and the Notre-Dame du Perpétuel Secours order of nuns who have been working in Burkina Faso since 1955. One of the nuns identified the remains of the six Quebeckers.

“Every two years Mr. Carrier formed new groups and came back again to help at different levels,” Sister Lise Desrochers said. “He did it in love and respect. His groups were always comfortable in what they did.”

An audio tape released by the North African affiliate of al-Qaeda claiming responsibility for the carnage was titled A Message Signed with Blood and Body Parts. Witnesses said the attackers arrived in a vehicle with licence plates for neighbouring Niger and spoke with an Arabic accent while screaming in French.

Both the café, which was set ablaze, and the hotel were popular with Westerners. Survivors said the militants appeared to be targeting which victims to kill.

Bruce Hoffman, the director of the Center for Security Studies at Georgetown University, said terrorist activities by groups such as al-Qaeda, Boko Haram and the Islamic State have been spreading throughout the region.

“I think it’s more opportunistic than anything,” he said of the Burkina Faso attack. “These groups don’t have international capabilities, but they certainly have transnational ones that play upon the weakness of border controls but also of local security forces.”

Killing locals does not generate international attention and outrage, Dr. Hoffman said, but killing Westerners is front-page news around the world, which is the aim of the terrorists.

Michael Zekulin, a terrorism expert who teaches at the University of Calgary, said al-Qaeda and the Islamic State are actually in direct competition with each other.

As the Islamic State has “been ascending so rapidly, a lot of us have been wondering basically where al-Qaeda is,” Dr. Zekulin said. Al-Qaeda has “spent the past 25 years being the vanguard of this movement and basically these guys have come along and usurped them. And usually they don’t take too kindly to that.”

But the objectives of both terrorist organizations are the same, Dr. Zekulin said, and the reality is that “there are groups like this operating all over the world.”

In a separate incident, two Australian humanitarian workers were abducted Friday by extremists in northern Burkina Faso. Surgeon Ken Elliott and his wife, Jocelyn, reported to be in their 80s, were abducted in the northern town of Djibo where they had run a medical centre for 40 years.

Cicely McWilliam of Save the Children Canada said that although the Burkina Faso attacks do not appear to have deliberately targeted aid workers, there is no question that the world has become more dangerous for people who provide humanitarian assistance – and more difficult for those they are trying to help. “We do our best to mitigate, but it doesn’t mean we can eliminate all risk,” Ms. McWilliam said.

Mr. Dion said Canadian aid workers overseas must stay cautious but should not succumb to fear. He urged them to remember “how much it’s needed” and to avoid scaling back their work abroad. “We should not allow the terrorists to stop us from doing the right thing.”

 

[Brad Sallows]

Regarding Trudeau's "brilliance", consider what might have been: if Jack Layton had lived, his personality appeal would easily have equaled or surpassed Trudeau's, and Layton likely would not have played into the Liberal's hands by adopting "ABC".  I suspect Layton would have finished what he set out to do: replace the Liberals with the NDP.  Mulcair, consciously or not, threw the NDP under the bus.  The stars will not likely align that well for the NDP in the lifetime of any currently serving MP.