FUREY: New Canadian study breaks down 'ineffectiveness' and harms of lockdowns

 

A closed store front boutique business called Francis Watson pleads for help displaying a sign in Toronto on Thursday, April 16, 2020. PHOTO BY NATHAN DENETTE /THE CANADIAN PRESS

Lockdowns are accomplishing little benefit, but colossal damage. That’s the conclusion of a research paper by Simon Fraser University Economics Professor Douglas W. Allen, who concludes «it is possible that lockdown will go down as one of the greatest peacetime policy failures in Canada’s history». Professor Allen’s paper is an examination of over 80 research papers from around the world that studied lockdowns. He found that many of them employed false assumptions, greatly overestimated the benefits of lockdowns and underestimated their harms.

Ottawa's move to regulate video posts on YouTube and social media called 'assault' on free speech

 

Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault. PHOTO BY ADRIAN WYLD/THE CANADIAN PRESS/FILE

Ottawa’s move to regulate video posts on YouTube and social media called ‘assault’ on free speech

The Liberal-dominated House of Commons Heritage committee has cleared the way for the federal government to regulate video content on internet social media, such as YouTube, the same way it regulates national broadcasting, under a new amendment made to a bill updating the Broadcasting Act. Critics denounced the move to give the country’s broadcast regulator the ability to oversee user-generated content, and said it amounted to an attack on the free expression of Canadians, particularly in light of Heritage Minister Steven Guilbeault’s recent plans to give Ottawa power to order take-downs of online content it deems objectionable. Last Friday afternoon, MPs on the committee made changes to the government’s bill updating the Broadcasting Act. Bill C-10 was introduced by Guilbeault in November, to clarify the CRTC’s ability to regulate TV and movie streaming services, such as Netflix.

Federal court refuses to end quarantine hotel rules, saying health order remains until full hearing in June

 

A man looks at his phone at a quarantine hotel near Toronto Pearson International Airport in Mississauga, Ontario, on Feb. 24, 2021.PHOTO BY CARLOS OSORIO / REUTERS

In June a full hearing is scheduled by the Federal Court to hear a number of challenges to the government’s health restrictions in response to COVID

Robert Asselin: The federal budget has no answers on the question of growth

On the same day Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland tabled the budget, NASA flew a helicopter on Mars. Credit: NASA.

 To start, it was clear for some time that the government’s decision to spend more than $100 billion in so-called short-term stimulus was a political solution in search of an economic problem. If you search for an output gap, even in the short term, you’ll find the budget arithmetic doesn’t match the current economic data. One can try in the 739 pages to find a clear plan to make Canada more productive and competitive. Governing is about making choices, but if this budget can be defined as anything it is everything.

MIT study challenges indoor social distancing, highlights 'inadequacy' of 6-foot rule

 A new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology challenges widespread social distancing guidelines, asserting that the «six-foot rule» is inadequate in mitigating indoor transmission of COVID-19. «Our analysis shows that many spaces may be safe to re-open at full occupancy, while others carry significant risk,» MIT Professor Martin Bazant, who conducted the study alongside Professor John Bush, explained to Fox News, «depending on the amount of time people spend together, the ventilation rate, whether face masks are worn and other factors». 

Father sentenced to 6 months for violating gag order about child's medical gender transition

 In 2021, Canada really is sterilizing lesbian, gay, autistic and depressed children, and calling that «human rights.» The false consensus enforced by the courts cannot hold. Canada’s prisoner of conscience, the British Columbia father who tried to prevent his child from undergoing pediatric transitioning, has been sentenced for criminal contempt of court. Legal commentators and child protection lawyers around the world expressed alarm at this result. Once this kind of precedent is set, there is a real danger that this punitive approach will spread to any challenge to a child’s ‘gender identity’.

EUROZONE YIELD CURVE CONTROL IS HAPPENING, IS THIS BAD FOR THE EURO?

 

FED AND ECB BALANCE SHEETS AS % OF GDP

The message conveyed was that the sell-off in the bond market has been a sign of a strengthening economy, not rising inflation concerns. The Fed duly raised its 2021 real GDP growth estimate at that meeting from 4.2% to 6.5% and the core PCE inflation forecast from 1.8% to 2.2%. In a speech in early March on the subject of monetary policy and the way out of the pandemic, Panetta stated that «by keeping nominal yields low for longer, we can provide a strong anchor to preserve accommodative financing conditions». This sounds to this writer like a policy of targeting nominal yields, which also implies potentially unlimited balance sheet expansion on the part of the ECB.

Terence Corcoran: Liberal budget marks a major shift toward centralized state planning

Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland walks to a news conference in Ottawa, Monday April 19, 2021. Freeland will deliver the government's first budget since the COVID-19 pandemic began. PHOTO BY ADRIAN WYLD /The Canadian Press

We should call it what it is: Reverse Perestroika

Welcome to the new Canada, where on Monday the Liberal government launched a grand experiment in retrograde economic policy. Canada is now moving in the other direction. The 724-page Liberal budget, a document worthy of the great Gosplans that dominated Soviet economic life, lays out a massive increase in government spending and debt in a document whose essential aspect is to weaken the role of markets and enhance the power of government and planners. By my tabulation, between 2019 and 2026 the annual Liberal budget deficits totals $725.5 billion, exactly $1-billion per page of the budget.

BLM co-founder spent $3.2 million on four homes since 2016

BLM co-founder spent $3.2 million on four homes since 2016

Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Khan-Cullors made headlines last week after it was revealed that she purchased a $1.4 million home in a wealthy Bohemian neighbourhood west of Los Angeles. Now, the New York Post has discovered that the large compound purchased by Khan-Cullors was not the only piece of real estate she has invested in in recent years. The activist, who comes from a modest upbringing, has spent over $3.2 million on four properties across the United States since 2016. In 2016, Khan-Cullors purchased a $510,000 home in Inglewood, another suburb of Los Angeles.

Conrad Black: Erin O'Toole promised boldness and change. We're still waiting

 

Erin O’Toole speaks on Aug. 24, 2020 after winning the Conservative Party leadership. PHOTO BY SEAN KILPATRICK/THE CANADIAN PRESS/FILE

The leader of the federal opposition, Erin O’Toole, gave an important address to his Conservative partisans, anticipating a general election at his party conference in Ottawa on February 26. As of Friday, there were 3769 people hospitalized in Canada with COVID-19 of whom 1125 were in intensive care units, out of a population of almost 38 million, and the country is locked down. It was clear a year ago that, when factoring in that two per cent of cases result in death and 80 per cent of fatalities also had one comorbidity, recovery rates are approximately by my calculations 99.5 per cent for healthy people beneath the age of 65. If we had just protected the elderly and infirm a year ago, we might have been able to save at least a third of those who have died, at a minimum cost in inconvenience and in money.

BRAUN: Ontario nurses claim they have been muzzled by college

 

Protesters in front of the College of Nurses of Ontario building on Davenport Ave in Toronto on Wednesday, April 14, 2021. PHOTO BY VERONICA HENRI /Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network

College of Nurses of Ontario allegedly threatening to yank license of nurses who don’t stick to the COVID script

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell Announces He's Launching 'MyStore,' a Patriotic Rival to Amazon

 

Mike Lindell, CEO of My Pillow, speaks during a campaign rally held by U.S. President Donald Trump at the Target Center on October 10, 2019 in Minneapolis, Minnesota.

MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell Announces He’s Launching ‘MyStore,’ a Patriotic Rival to Amazon

United Airlines roasted on social media for plan to choose pilots by race instead of ability

 

United Airlines joined other corporations and the US government in making identity characteristics a qualifier for employment. « That’s why we plan for 50% of the 5,000 pilots we train in the next decade to be women or people of color». And they invited those who are women or specifically not white to apply to train for work with United Airlines. The site states that «United expects to hire more than 10,000 pilots over the next decade.» 5,000 of those spots are dedicated to women and people of color by 2030.

BLM Co-Founder Buys Million-Dollar Home in Neighborhood with Black Population of Less Than 2%

 

Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, recently purchased a $1.4 million property in Topanga Canyon, California. (Taylor Jewell - Invision / AP)

The co-founder of the polarizing Black Lives Matter movement is under fire for buying a $1.4 million home in a posh California neighborhood that’s 88 percent white. It’s an interesting decision for Patrisse Cullors, a self-professed Marxist and race-baiting activist who has paid lip service to promoting black pride. Com, the home is located in Topanga Canyon, an idyllic rustic neighborhood about 48 minutes outside of Los Angeles and less than 30 minutes from tony Malibu. Cullors’ new home has three bedrooms and two baths and sits on one-quarter of an acre.

California to Test Whether Big Batteries Can Stop Summer Blackouts

AES Corp. in January commissioned a 100-megawatt battery installation in Long Beach, California, using Fluence batteries. Photographer: Bing Guan/Bloomberg

 

The state is set to become a global test case in using batteries to back up wind and solar power

With summer’s heat approaching, California’s plan for avoiding a repeat of last year’s blackouts hinges on a humble savior — the battery. Giant versions of the same technology that powers smart phones and cars are being plugged into the state’s electrical grid at breakneck speed, with California set to add more battery capacity this year than all of China, according to BloombergNEF. It will be the biggest test yet of whether batteries are reliable enough to sustain a grid largely powered by renewables. Last year, when the worst heat wave in a generation taxed California’s power system and plunged millions into darkness in the first rolling blackouts since the Enron crisis, many blamed the state’s aggressive clean-energy push and its reliance on solar power.

Slowly but surely the government is gathering the media into its ghastly embrace

I don’t want to alarm you, but you might like to know that the federal government is about to take over the media. Every minute of every hour of every day of what is broadcast on Canadian radio and television is overseen by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission , with its sprawling mandate to protect the public from material that is harmful, degrading or American. The results are about as dire as you would expect — an industry that, after many decades of state nurturing, remains largely alien to the public it allegedly serves. Still, in television’s technological infancy there was probably no escaping this sort of thing.

Opinion: In a democracy, the government shouldn't fund the media

Ottawa now has a list of approved media organizations that may be eligible for government funding of a portion of the salaries of their reporters and journalists. PHOTO BY BRENT LEWIN/BLOOMBERG FILES

 

Scrap this Ministry of Truth-type $600-million bailout and eliminate any perception of a conflict of interest in our media’s reporting of the government

To maintain trust in the audit process, users of the audited financial statements must know the auditors have not been influenced by any conflict of interest, real or perceived. Of course, the vast majority of auditors are honest and understand their reputation is on the line should there be any questions as to the quality of their audit, for whatever reason. The Competition Bureau is responsible for making a decision on the merger. Suppose Rogers and Shaw start paying a portion of the salaries of the employees of the Competition Bureau, up to a maximum credit of $13,750 per employee.

Kelly McParland: Time to grow some backbone Canadians

Louis Moro, 93, receives the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine from Vena Anderson at a pharmacy prototype clinic in Halifax on March 9, 2021. PHOTO BY ANDREW VAUGHAN/THE CANADIAN PRESS

 

Has the bumbling government response to the pandemic not convinced you that you have to start taking care of yourself and your loved ones?

Her daughter drove her to the designated spot, which was deserted. To get her shot, the daughter would have to drive her mom to the second address. The mom, in her 90s, seemed a bit perplexed but said she was happy she had her daughter to sort things out. The daughter was furious.

Trafigura: green copper supercycle driving prices to $15,000

 

The world’s biggest copper trader expects metal to hit $15,000 a tonne in the coming decade with demand from global decarbonisation

Even in the early stages of the covid-19 crisis, Trafigura Group was betting on the rebound that’s seen copper double over the past year to trade at more than $9,000 a tonne. Now the commodities giant sees the metal soaring past record highs above $10,000 as western economies pull out of the pandemic and the green revolution takes hold, head of copper trading Kostas Bintas said in an interview. So far, the rally has been fueled by virus-related supply disruptions and an unprecedented buying spree in China, consumer of half of the world’s copper. «We thought copper would come out of this Covid crisis stronger, and that’s exactly what’s happened,» Bintas said.