#Trudeau in trouble

[poliphoon]

What does Chrystia Freeland’s resignation mean?

Trump tariffs are creating a stir in neighbouring Canada as well. As tensions over Trump tariffs were souring ties between Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau and his deputy minister-and-finance minister Chrystia Freeland, the latter resigned from the cabinet on December 16th. Exiting with sound and fury, she heaped hate over how Canada was facing ‘grave challenges’ from Mr Trump.

[banji-effect]

If you're not an American just shut the fuck up today. Take the day off.

[neonstatic]

i must be tired cus there was a yt video w the title including the phrase "jubilee's tinder" and my brain auto-read "justin trudeau"

[allthecanadianpolitics]

The Trudeau government authorized at least $28.5 million of new permits for military exports to Israel during the first two months of the state’s brutal war on Gaza, data supplied to The Maple by Global Affairs Canada (GAC) shows. The total value of the new permits authorized over a two-month period exceeds the 30-year annual record high of $26 million in Canadian military exports to Israel in 2021. The information provided by GAC does not indicate the time period for which the newly authorized permits are valid for, meaning not all the goods may have been exported in 2023. Kelsey Gallagher, a researcher with the arms-monitoring group Project Ploughshares, told The Maple: “It’s not only troubling that Canadian officials have continued to authorize arms transfers since the onset of Israel’s operation, but also that the value of those transfers is in the tens of millions.” “These combined values exceed that of total Canadian arms exports to Israel for any year on record.”

Continue Reading

Tagging @politicsofcanada @allthegeopolitics

[coochiequeens]

Canada, WTF? Part I

By Reduxx Team November 13, 2024

The trial of a man charged with murdering his wife and two young sons has begun this week, with the accused now claiming to identify as transgender. Mohamad Al Ballouz, 38, is charged with the second-degree murder of his wife, Synthia Bussières, and the first-degree murders of their two sons, aged just 5 and 2 years old. Ballouz has now adopted the name Levana Ballouz, and has been referred to as a “woman” by Canadian press.

In September of 2022, firefighters attended Ballouz’ 12th floor condo in Brossard, Quebec in response to an apparent house fire. Inside, they found Synthia Bussières, her body riddled with stab wounds, laying on a bed next to her two children. Ballouz had lodged himself between Bussiéres and the children, and a small bonfire of household items had been lit next to the mattress.

Synthia Bussières and her two children.

All four were rushed to the hospital, but Bussières and her children died. Ballouz, who was also injured, had reportedly consumed dishwashing liquid in an apparent suicide attempt, but he was placed under arrest after being treated. Ballouz has no previous criminal history.

While the details of the case, including any potential motive, are still unclear, Bussières’ mother has come forward to reveal that her daughter appeared increasingly troubled in the two years leading up to the murder.

“She had been with this man for 12 years, but in the last two years, she had changed. I didn’t recognize her anymore,” Sylvie Guertin told Les 2 Rives in September of 2023. She also said that she had seen Bussières in the weeks before her death, and had observed that her daughter looked frail.

“In August [of 2022], I saw that something was wrong, but I didn’t say anything. I didn’t want to look like the mother who gets involved in something that doesn’t concern her,” Guertin said. “I thought she had lost weight.”

Ballouz’s trial began on Monday, but during the proceedings it was learned that he now identifies as a “woman” named Levana Ballouz. During his hearings, he appeared in court wearing a blonde, curly wig and nail polish. He is reportedly representing himself after firing his two criminal defense lawyers, both of whom were considered to be among the best in Quebec.

According to CBC, the prosecution had to “warn” the jury that several witnesses would refer to Ballouz as a man to preempt any concerns about “disrespect.” Prior to the start of the trial, no previous news coverage had documented that Ballouz was expressing a change in his self-perceived “gender identity,” suggesting his claim of being transgender was extremely recent.

Canadian media outlets are respecting Ballouz’ new identity, with multiple articles covering the trial referring to Ballouz as a “woman” or by using feminine pronouns.

While the trial is expected to last at least 10 more weeks, if Ballouz is found guilty and criminally responsible, he would be entitled to request housing in a women’s prison.

Largely due to the efforts of the governing Liberal Party under Justin Trudeau, the category of “gender identity” was made a protected characteristic after it was added to the Canadian Human Rights Act via a controversial piece of legislation known as Bill C-16. The amendments granted men access to single-sex female spaces like washrooms, changing rooms, prisons, and rape shelters on the basis of their identity.

While the Canadian government claimed the bill had been assessed for its impact on women prior to approval, it has refused to release any details of the assessment’s findings. In 2020, a copy of the assessment was given to journalist Anna Slatz via an Access To Information Request but was 96% redacted.

Since Bill C-16 was enacted in 2017, a number of violent and sexually depraved male inmates have been transferred to women’s prisons across Canada.

As previously reported by Reduxx, one egregious example includes a trans-identified male who raped an infant before being transferred to a women’s prison.

Tara Desousa, also known as Adam Laboucan, sexually assaulted a three-month-old baby boy in Quesnel, British Columbia in 1997. The infant was so brutally injured by the attack that he had to be flown to Vancouver, 410 miles away, to undergo reconstructive surgery. After declaring a transgender status, Desousa was transferred to the Fraser Valley Institution for Women, where he is one of multiple trans-identified males with a history of sexual violence at the facility. Desousa is designated a “dangerous offender” and is considered such a risk to public safety that he is serving an indeterminate prison sentence.

[brightlotusmoon]

Canada turns off all lights in hopes US will think we're not home - The Beaverton

While the bitterly contested election is decided, a majority of Canadians have indicated plans to “stay inside and watch Love Island with the sound down low”, whereas others intend to “head out entirely and go get dinner someplace, like France.”

Brian MacMurray, who lives on the border at Windsor, ON, reported upon peeking through his venetian blinds: “Aw hell, I see a bunch of Americans roaming around the streets all dressed up in camouflage and flag costumes. I can’t tell if they’re looking to start trouble, or if that’s just how they normally dress.”

Should tonight’s election devolve into a full-blown civil war, Prime Minister Trudeau has announced further plans for Canadians to put a bowl of fun-sized Snickers out on the porch in hopes that Americans will just take them and go away.

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Seth Mandel

Yet as exasperatingly counterproductive as Schumer’s remarks were, they could not hold a candle to the performance by Rep. Jerrold Nadler on Tuesday. Nadler was announcing that he would attend Bibi’s speech while also making clear he that he—as-a-Jew—despises the Israeli government that is currently embroiled in a multi-front war against enemies seeking to eliminate the Jewish people from the surface of the earth. Nadler collapsed under the pressure and tweeted what can only be described as a cry for help:

“Benjamin Netanyahu is the worst leader in Jewish history since the Maccabean king who invited the Romans into Jerusalem over 2100 years ago. The Prime Minister is putting the security of Israel, the lives of the hostages, the stability of the region, and longstanding Israeli democratic norms in perilous jeopardy, simply to maintain the stability of his far-right coalition and absolve him of his own legal troubles. Tomorrow’s address is the next step in a long line of manipulative bad-faith efforts by Republicans to further politicize the U.S.-Israel relationship for partisan gain and is a cynical stunt by Netanyahu aimed at aiding his own desperate political standing at home. There is no question in my mind it should not be happening.”

And yet, he said, “I have not given up on the dream of an Israel that can live in peace with its neighbors.” Therefore, he is attending the speech.

There are three things happening here, all of them deeply destructive. The first has nothing to do with the Jewish angle of this debacle. That is the diplomatic malpractice. America has a serious amount of power and lately an unserious way of wielding it.

Set aside the hysterical tone of Nadler’s post. Does anyone in Congress talk about any other ally this way? We have had a series of incompetent prime ministers in Britain over the past few years, one of whose term was outlived by a head of lettuce. We did not have members of Congress ranting about how Liz Truss was her country’s worst leader since Britain was Roman. That’s because they would look completely insane even publicly contemplating the question. If Nadler wants to retire to become a blogger at The Nation, he is more than welcome to. It’s a low bar, but more is expected of members of the United States Congress, especially those in senior positions.

Or we can turn to Canada, where the remedial-class prime minister likes to play dress-up more than think about politics, like some kind of ancient child-king. Is Schumer out on the floor ranting about how he loves Tim Hortons but the coffee will taste bitter to him until Justin Trudeau resigns to join the Ontario community theater?

[tyetknot]

We live in a world in which the GOP is spending the day before the US federal election canonizing some dude's pet squirrel that bit someone when it was confiscated and had to be put down so they could check it for rabies and it turned out that the squirrel's owner was putting squirrel videos on Tiktok to drive traffic to his gay porn OnlyFans. As an outside observer I am having trouble precisely articulating the particular combination of horror and fascination I am experiencing, and I can assure you that I am a seasoned gazer into the abyss that is American political discourse. I don't even fucking live there! I live in fucking Canada, for Gods' sakes! But we have to hear about this frankly unhinged insane shit and act as though somehow America is a sane and rational nation in spite of all this insane shit that inevitably creeps up north because Americans refuse to stop exporting their brainworms and in three week's time we'll all have to hear Pierre Pollievre Adult Milhouse beaking off about something equally insane in the House and Trudeau will once again fail to reply with "shut up, nerd" and steal Petey's lunch money.

There should be two separate Internets that can never interact. One of them should be for Americans and one of them should be for the rest of us so we don't have to engage with this nonsensical trash anymore.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

Dave Lawler and Ivana Saric at Axios:

Some of America's closest allies are melting down politically and sputtering economically, even before President-elect Trump takes office promising tariffs and unpredictability. The big picture: South Korea under martial law, warnings of economic crisis in Germany, an unprecedented government collapse in France — and that was just last week.

Most of the world's leading democracies are struggling with significantly slower economic growth and persistently higher inflation than the U.S.

Those economic struggles are reverberating politically. Remarkably, the German and French governments crumbled within a single month. Ruling parties also got walloped in parliamentary elections this year in the U.K., Japan and South Korea.

Breaking it down: President Biden's 37% approval rating looks stratospheric compared to some of his peers, many of whom are unlikely to last much longer.

South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol survived one impeachment vote Sarurafter his strange and shocking declaration of martial law, but the saga is far from over.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is unlikely to survive snap elections in February.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government is running on fumes ahead of elections next year.

Enter, Trump.

After years of hand-wringing around the world about his potential return — the lack of commitment to NATO and Ukraine, sweeping tariff threats — he's now hardly the biggest challenge some key allies face.

Still, his return could exacerbate the existing crises.

If Trump follows through on his promise to impose 25% tariffs on Canada and Mexico, it could push all three North American trading partners close to — or even into — recession, a new analysis from Oxford Economics found.

The European Union would also struggle to absorb additional tariffs, given the already sluggish growth in its economic powerhouses, France and Germany.

With the election of Donald Trump as the “President” of the USA again, many of the US’s allies are in trouble, such as Germany, South Korea, Canada, and France.

[eretzyisrael]

by Dexter Van Zile

Somebody needs to tell the National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), a prominent nonprofit in the Great White North, that if you live by the witch-hunt, you die by the witch-hunt. Two years after the NCCM helped oust Collin May, a well-regarded lawyer and scholar, from his post as director of Alberta's Human Rights Commission on trumped-up charges of "Islamophobia," the organization was helpless to stop the ouster of Birju Dattani—a Muslim activist with a troubling history of promoting anti-Zionist propaganda on the internet—from his post on Canada's Human Rights Commission.

The controversy over Dattani's anti-Israel messaging began soon after the Trudeau government appointed Dattani director of the Canadian Human Rights Commission, a body charged with, among other things, investigating and sanctioning people who post mean and scary things on the internet. Soon after his appointment, which took place in late June, Dattani was accused of using X, then called Twitter, to promote an article comparing Israel to Nazi Germany and another equating the Palestinians to the Jews during the Holocaust.

Soon after the allegations came to light, Dattani apologized to Jewish organizations for the harm caused by the posts in question. It was to no avail. The revelations prompted a review of Dattani's background, announced by Canadian Justice Minister Arif Virani on July 24. Virani initiated the investigation after it became apparent that the Privy Council, the body charged with vetting Dattani's background, dropped the ball.

The National Council of Canadian Muslims (NCCM), a prominent Islamist organization, jumped to Dattani's defense, declaring that he was the victim of a witch-hunt "based on misinformation and poorly sourced allegations."

Unfortunately for the NCCM, the allegations against Dattani were largely confirmed by outside investigators, whose findings were released in mid-August. While speaking with investigators, Dattani claimed he promoted the offensive articles not because he agreed with them, but because he wanted his Twitter followers to see them.

The investigative report stated: "Mr. Dattani advised that the reason for this was that his understanding of 'Twitter ethics' were that one didn't 'comment' on the links that one was tweeting. A tweet, for him, was the equivalent of saying 'look at this' without comment."

But the tweets were only part of the problem, with Dattani admitting to investigators that, in early 2015, he unwittingly appeared on a panel in London that included a speaker from Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT). It's a troubling admission given that HT is a South Asian Islamist organization that seeks Israel's destruction as part of a larger campaign to establish a global caliphate.

To make matters worse, Dattani admitted to appearing on a panel with Moazzam Begg, a former detainee at Guantanamo Bay who was once "a confirmed member of Al-Qaeda" and, according to the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, "penned a book in which he freely admitted that he was a jihadist." Dattani appeared on these panels while using the pseudonym of Mujahid, which in some contexts, describes someone committed to a holy war, or jihad, on behalf of Islam.

[fatehbaz]

There are three reasons why an international audience should care about the otherwise insignificant Canadian city of Thunder Bay, a community of 120,000 souls 100km North of the American border right in the middle of the world’s second most spacious nation-state.

The first is that, as Canada’s murder and hate-crime capital, with the vast majority of these terrors directed at Indigenous people, roughly 13-20 percent of the population, its example has a lot to teach us about the dire failure of the Canadian model of liberal capitalism, corporate multiculturalism, and half-hearted “reconciliation.”

Second, as a troubled (post-)extractive and logistics-based economy in a “first-world” country — a country that exports and finances extractive industries around the world — its patterns of racist violence reveal something profound about capitalism today.

Finally, Thunder Bay’s problems demand, and are generating, the kind of radical, grassroots solutions that point towards the kind of transformations all communities need to embrace in the years to come to overcome the dangerous intertwined orders of contemporary colonialism and capitalism [...].

---

The isolation, the economic marginality, and the history of extraction and racial resentments all contribute to, but cannot completely explain, the staggering degree of racism in the city. [...] Like many police forces in Canada, officers in the Thunder Bay Police Service (TBPS) have been known to drive Indigenous people out to the outskirts of town, take their shoes and coats, and leave them to walk back or freeze to death. Unlike most police forces in Canada, the TBPS has recently been found to be plagued with profound “systemic racism” by two independent and high-profile reports. [...] The real reason for the investigations was the deaths of seven Indigenous youth, most from remote Northern communities, most in the city to access high school education or medical services denied to them in their communities. [...]

---

As scholars Damien Lee and Jana-Rae Yerxa note, many precedents stand behind these fears. Indigenous people end up dead in Thunder Bay at staggering rates. [...] Just before the most recent police reports were issued, the mayor (a former Police Association president), the police chief (a fool) and the city’s most successful lawyer (a convicted child molestor) were all implicated in a scandal involving a blend of sexual abuse, extortion, and breach of trust. [...]

Meanwhile, just as I moved to the city in early 2017, an Indigenous woman was fatally injured in the street when one of a gang of white teenagers out joyriding threw a heavy metal trailer hitch at her from their speeding car. It took her several agonizing months to die from her internal injuries. [...]

---

The rank, racist and reactionary hypocrisy so common in Canada and in Thunder Bay is, unfortunately, often mistaken for merely a cultural anachronism, which can be solved through better public education, greater cultural sensitivity and more opportunities to celebrate diversity. This has, for instance, been the approach to the problems of racist policing in the city: another “cultural competency” workshop [...].

In spite of a great deal of rhetoric about “nation-to-nation” negotiations by the Trudeau government, it is profoundly clear, as Mi’Kmaq lawyer and professor Pam Palmater warns, that the State does not and cannot accept the idea that Indigenous people would be allowed to say “no” to, for instance, mines, forestry, corporate fishing or pipelines [...].

---

To this day Canada is a key player in a global capitalist imperium that specializes in extractive industries and extractive forms of debt.

The Mining Association of Canada reports that “the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and TSX Venture Exchange accounted for 57 percent of the global mining equity raised in 2016.” As Alain Deneault and William Sacher have noted, Canada has historically structured its laws and commercial norms to empower the theft of indigenous lands to be violently transformed into “resources” for export, a specialization that is now itself exported around the world as Canadian-owned or -funded corporations are called upon to “develop” mines and extractive projects globally.

Every Canadian with savings is necessarily complicit: almost all pension funds, banks and other investment vehicles here are wrapped up in the TSX and therefore the extractive industry. Meanwhile, as Peter Hudson illustrates, Canada also has a long legacy of renovating national, municipal and personal debt into a tool of neocolonialism, notably in the Caribbean where Canadian banks have enjoyed profound influence, even monopolies. [...]

The ruling class and international capital, working hand in glove, have consistently used divide-and-conquer techniques to sew the seeds of racism that undermine solidarity. Thunder Bay is only a particularly poignant example, a place so small and marginalized that it cannot sustain the veneer of polite, civil, cheerful liberalism that is the country’s brand.

---

Text by: Max Haiven. “The colonial secrets of Canada’s most racist city.” ROAR Magazine. 13 February 2019. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks added by me.]

[nexility-sims]

For Leonor: 🌑 - what does your character think is their biggest flaw?

For Renzo: ⚡ - what is actually your character's biggest flaw?

For Beatriz: 💗 - which relationship in your character's life is the healthiest?

For Rowena: 🗽- do you think your character's story would fit into any other time period? if so, which?

CHARACTER ASK GAME  / accepting !

man, excellent choices !!! let's see ...

🌑 - what does your character think is their biggest flaw?

perhaps it's less of a flaw than a tendency, but i think leonor is really troubled by the trend of self-doubt that has emerged lately. she's never really had cause to question herself, the world, the people around her, and now it's like she can't stop ! she should probably say her biggest flaw is being a grade A bitch, but. well. it's probably something like "i'm just too dedicated 🥺"

⚡ - what is actually your character's biggest flaw?

this is hard ! my first thought was selfishness, but i feel like that's not actually true. maybe it's more to do with temperament? renzo's tempestuous and reckless in a way that causes a great deal of problems, constantly, without apparently any lessons learned. or, i dunno, maybe that's the flaw: in a sort of contradictory way, he's easygoing and rootless but, on a deeper level, gets into trouble because he's fundamentally recalcitrant, obstinate, unwilling to change for anyone or anything—even what's best for himself, clearly.

💗 - which relationship in your character's life is the healthiest?

i would say it's her marriage ! i enjoyed the scene with beatriz and matias recently because i felt like it gave a glimpse of ... maybe a softer side? or, at least, what she's like in a domestic setting. their relationship has been rocky, for sure, but they figured out in time what worked for them—why they needed each other, what they were willing to compromise. matias has made way more compromises than she has, but she listens to him and—in the same way she felt like safya offered her some kind of redemption, just by virtue of existing—she feels the same way about him. she wants him to be happy and feel empowered because he makes the world a better place, and he makes her life feel more meaningful. she can't be the person he wants her to be, but she feels like allowing him to push her anyway counts for something.

🗽- do you think your character's story would fit into any other time period? if so, which?

all of them !!!! rowena is a quintessential woman of her time, but i think she would fit well into anywhere i slotted her. still, she's definitely meant for the twentieth century. i think she'd be really great at the cusp of the 1970s/1980s, actually. disco baby. she could be like margaret trudeau, at studio 54 with no panties on while her husband runs a government or whatever :^)

[darkmaga-returns]

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s left-wing government teeters on the edge after an unexpected resignation, renewed international tensions, and doubts about its future direction, according to a new report from Fox News.

Key Facts:

– Canada’s finance minister, Chrystia Freeland, abruptly resigned from her post. – Freeland was also Trudeau’s deputy prime minister and a close ally. – Her resignation followed weeks of hostile exchanges between President-elect Trump and Prime Minister Trudeau. – Trump has mocked Trudeau by calling him a “governor” and referring to Canada as a “state.” – Trudeau’s approval ratings have reportedly fallen to record lows, raising questions about his future.

The Rest of The Story:

The sudden departure of Chrystia Freeland left Ottawa scrambling for answers.

Freeland, previously known for helping secure the USMCA trade agreement, criticized Trudeau’s response to Trump’s tariff threats and faulted him for playing expensive political games.

The prime minister, already under growing pressure, saw this crisis deepen at a time when Canada’s economy and global standing appear uncertain.

Adding to these troubles, Canada faces the possibility of steep U.S. tariffs and is struggling to reassure its trading partners.

A recent by-election loss for Trudeau’s Liberal Party strengthened their Conservative rivals.

Meanwhile, Trump, with a sweeping new agenda, has shown little sympathy.

It appears Canada’s far-left government may be the next domino to fall after the collapse of governments in France and Germany.

[magxit]

I didn’t know that Ontario premier Doug ford is a conservative. American politicians need to learn country before party. Idk much about him, but the fact that he is putting his country first and telling Trump Fafo w your tariffs and we will cut off energy to the northern states is impressive. They say it better to come from him than Trudeau just for diplomacy reasons

Was the one that got in trouble for drugs?

[allthecanadianpolitics]

A detailed series of internal government polls obtained by Global News paints a picture of a government struggling to win approval from Canadians on just about any issue, while showing sharp regional differences when it comes to the top priorities voters want Ottawa to tackle. Weekly polls commissioned by the Privy Council Office from January through to June show a government given a failing grade by a healthy majority for the way it was handling the economy, climate change, Indigenous issues and crime. Only on the issue of Canada-U.S. relations did a majority of respondents — 51 per cent — agree the government was on the right track when it came to managing that file.

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[lestudio1-bernardbujold]

THE FRIENDS OF DONALD…

If you want to play in world politics in 2025, it is better to be friends with Donald Trump and his friend Elon…

One could not understand the way Justin Trudeau is playing the game!

After his dinner at Mar-A-Lago to seduce Donald, Justin goes all the way around to provoke Donald by saying that he is sad about his election…

At an Ottawa Gala Tuesday night December 10, 2024, Justin told the audience:

"Kamala Harris’ U.S. presidential loss as a setback for women’s progress worldwide. We were supposed to be on a steady, if difficult sometimes, march towards progress. And yet, just a few weeks ago, the United States voted for a second time to not elect its first woman president,"

Justin is now the enemy again of Donald, and worse, the one of Elon…

If Elon does not like you, you are in trouble!

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-kamala-harris-setback-1.7407402

LES AMIS DE DONALD...

Si vous voulez jouer dans la politique mondiale en 2025, mieux vaut être l'ami de Donald Trump, et aussi de son ami Elon...

On ne comprend pas la façon dont Justin Trudeau joue le jeu !

Après son dîner à Mar-A-Lago pour séduire Donald, Justin fait tout le contraire pour provoquer Donald en disant qu'il est triste de son élection...

Lors d'un gala à Ottawa le mardi soir 10 décembre 2024, Justin a déclaré à l'auditoire :

« La défaite de Kamala Harris aux élections présidentielles américaines est un recul pour le progrès des femmes dans le monde. Nous étions censés être dans une marche régulière, bien que parfois difficile, vers le progrès. Et pourtant, il y a quelques semaines, les États-Unis ont voté pour la deuxième fois contre l'élection de leur première femme présidente ».

Justin est à nouveau l'ennemi de Donald, et pire, celui d'Elon...

Si Elon ne vous aime pas, vous êtes dans le pétrin !