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.