May 27, 2022 - "The province of Newfoundland and Labrador has announced that its mandatory vaccination policy for public service employees will no longer be in effect starting June 1. It comes as the government said it is also suspending its COVID-19 Vaccine Regulations under the Health Protection and Promotion Act, which became effective in December 2021.
"This means workers in the following sectors will also no longer need to get vaccinated against COVID-19:
Personal care homes
Assisted living facilities
Home care
Charitable organisations providing services to persons in need
Private health clinics
Private schools
Post-secondary institutions
Fire departments
Ambulance providers
Businesses employing regulated health professionals
Organisations providing childcare services
Organisations providing therapeutic, supportive, and residential services to children, youth, and families
"According to the provincial government, while the policy helped in maintaining the safety in workplaces, the current pandemic situation in the province allows for its suspension....
"Health Minister John Haggie said they will be ready to reinforce the mandate again should the COVID-19 situation goes bad again.
"'While these regulations for employees and service providers of specified businesses will end based on our current situation, we will continue to monitor the situation carefully,' said the minister. 'If our situation down the road suggests we need to enforce these regulations again, we will reinstate them.'"
May 28, 2022 - "Along with the four mainstream parties, five candidates of lesser-known parties are campaigning for votes in Leeds-Grenville-Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes for the June 2 provincial election. Stephen Ireland is running for the Ontario People’s Front, Daniel Kitsch wants to represent New Blue, Glenn Malcolm is the Ontario Party candidate, Dave Senger is on the ballot for the Populist Party and Mark Snow is the local candidate and provincial leader of Ontario’s Libertarians.
"The five candidates are mostly trolling for votes in the same political pond. They are on the right wing of the political spectrum, oppose COVID-19 mandates, advocate smaller government and are fishing for the votes of Ontarians who have become disenchanted with the major political parties, particularly the Progressive Conservatives....
Mark Snow
"Libertarian Party candidate Snow is retired after 30 years in the Canadian military and lives on an acreage near Oxford Mills.
"Snow is also the party’s provincial leader, meaning he has spent part of the campaign travelling the province to support the 15 other Libertarians running for election.
"Unlike the other four small parties that were formed within the last four years, the Libertarians have been around since the mid-1970s, advocating smaller government and less interference in people’s lives.
"'We believe that government has grown too big with too many regulations that interfere with property rights, individual rights, medical choices, education choices, land-use choices,' Snow said in an interview. Government red tape, a myriad of regulations and high taxation interfere with people’s ability to earn a living and retain more of their income, said Snow, who acknowledged that some rules on health and safety are necessary.
"Snow said the Libertarians would end all subsidization of green-energy projects and get rid of carbon taxes. Climate change is real and is a naturally occurring phenomenon, but 'you can’t tax your way out of climate change,' he said. Snow said that when the business case for wind and solar power is there, then business will pursue them. There’s no need for government subsidies, said Snow, adding that the party’s opposition to subsidies extends to large corporations and others that get taxpayers’ money."
New data from British Columbia sheds light on one of the most contentious social media arguments that raged throughout the coronavirus pandemic, the dispute over 'deaths with Covid' versus 'deaths from Covid'. During the pandemic, many countries used the 'deaths with' standard: fatalities were reported as Covid deaths if they occurred within a reasonable time (usually a month) after a positive PCR test. The U.S., Sweden, and the U.K. all reported 'deaths with' Covid figures; not coincidentally, all have higher Covid mortality rates. Other countries, such as China, counted only 'deaths from': the only deaths included in the Covid count were those verified, by an investigation (a postmortem or even an autopsy), to be caused by the virus; again not coincidentally, China has one of the world's lowest reported Covid death rates.
A big deal? Not to me. My main interest was in comparing countries, and so long as most most of them used 'deaths with', I could happily compare apples to apples. However, social media witnessed many bitter battles waged over it. Whichever standard one uses will affect the reported figures. Counting all 'deaths with' will give a higher figure, artificially high if it miscounts clearly non-Covid deaths (such as poisoning or accident wounds), and using it exaggerates or inflates the virus's impact. But how much higher?
Some Covid libertarians (opponents of Covid mandates) argued that public health authorities were using the 'deaths with' standard to deliberately exaggerate the death toll. In turn, the pro-mandate crowd argued that counting 'deaths from' would give an artificially low figure (by excluding uninvestigated deaths), and accused Covid libertarians of trying to trying to minimize the toll. The ongoing debate generated much heat, with one side accusing the other of alarmism, and the other accusing it in turn of denialism. However, for me it generated little light; whatever actual information emerged was merely drowned out in the tide of mutual recriminations. Many others also appeared to get little from the debate, as they argued in turn that it was a debate about nothing – that the distinction made no difference, as the differences between the two counts would end up being insignificant..
Which is why I found recent news out of British Columbia worthy of comment. As per a May 26 story on CTN News, B.C.'s Center for Disease Control (BCCDC) "changed the way it counted COVID-19 deaths back in early April". The province had previously reported mortality using a 'death from' standard: "Before April 2, B.C.'s health authorities manually updated the pandemic death toll after investigating each death to determine if COVID-19 was a factor." After that date, the reporting standard became 'deaths with': "anyone who dies within 30 days of a COVID-19 diagnosis has been automatically flagged and reported as a death possibly caused by the disease."
"The province's Vital Statistics agency reviews each possible COVID-19 death and determines what the underlying cause was, a process that can take as long as eight weeks," CTV reporter Ian Holliday notes. Before April 2, then, it could take as long as eight weeks before a death was added to the provincial total. Switching to 'deaths with' makes for more immediate reporting, which is probably the reason most countries use it. The agency still investigates all deaths, though, and the data for those verified as being caused by Covid are released later. That gives a reader the chance to compare the two figures, and see how much higher (if any) the 'deaths with' figure is.
Holliday reports:
According to the BCCDC's weekly "situation report" released Thursday, there were 424 deaths between April 2 and May 14 that were flagged as potentially caused by COVID-19 because the person who died had tested positive within 30 days of their death. Of those, more than half (218) were still pending review by Vital Statistics to determine the underlying cause of death. Of the 206 deaths for which an underlying cause had been determined, 94 were considered to be caused by COVID-19, while the remaining 112 had some other underlying cause.
As Holliday notes, that 94/206 ratio "works out to slightly less than 46 per cent of reported deaths between April 2 and May 14 for which an underlying cause has been determined." Or, as summed up in the headline: "Fewer than half of COVID-19 deaths reported since B.C. changed counting methods were caused by the disease."
These preliminary statistics (which may be the only ones that do get reported) allow us to compare the two counting methods: counting 'deaths with Covid' will give a figure at least twice as high as counting 'deaths from Covid'. That in turn allows one to compare reported deaths between jurisdictions which use different methods.
Of course, these findings are preliminary. One should ideally look at all the data, from as many jurisdictions as possible. B.C.'s figures are only one data set, still incomplete, and possibly an anomaly. So this report's findings are hardly the last word on the subject. They are, though, an important first word, one which we have sorely lacked throughout the pandemic.
May 27, 2022 - "'Conflict, COVID, the climate crisis and rising costs have combined in 2022 to create jeopardy for the world's 811 million hungry people,' the UN's World Food Program warned earlier this month. The organization went on to name Russia's invasion of Ukraine, climate shocks, 'the economic consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic,' and rising food prices as culprits.
"This was hardly the first warning along these lines. In June 2021, the International Monetary Fund cautioned that 'early lockdown measures and supply chain disruptions induced a spike in consumer food prices.' Then we saw Thanksgiving headlines in the United States about the cost of serving a holiday meal at a time when the price of food worldwide had risen by almost a third over the previous year. International disruptions in the supply of precursor chemicals prompted Svein Tore Holsether, the CEO and president of fertilizer giant Yara International, to predict a 'food crisis.'
"A combination of always-unpredictable weather, trade disputes, and pandemic lockdowns stretched budgets, boosted costs, and threatened farmers' plans for growing seasons to come. And that was before Russian troops crossed the order of Ukraine, threatening the ability of two major breadbasket countries to satisfy global demand. 'Between them, Ukraine and Russia produce almost a third of the world's wheat and barley and half of its sunflower oil,' UN Secretary-General António Guterres noted on May 18. "There is no effective solution to the food crisis without reintegrating Ukraine's food production, as well as the food and fertilizer produced by Russia and Belarus, into world markets — despite the war.'
"Food prices around the world were up in April by 29.8 percent over the already elevated costs seen in the same month last year, according to the UN's Food and Agricultural Organization. That fueled demonstrations, food riots in Iran, and violent protests that toppled the government in Sri Lanka, which destroyed its own agricultural sector with a ban on modern fertilizers. Understandably, officialdom in many countries panicked.
"So, in typical political form governments are cutting off trade in what food they have, threatening to make the matter worse. 'India has defended its decision to ban exports of wheat after initially saying it would help ease a global supply crunch created by the war in Ukraine,' Voice of America reported earlier this week.... Malaysia banned the export of chickens, Indonesia restricted (after first outright banning) palm oil exports, and Ghana now blocks the export of rice, maize, and soybeans. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) currently counts 19 countries that forbid the export of some foods, and another seven that require government licenses.
"Historically, these requirements tend to spread, the organization warns, as governments emulate their neighbors to secure domestic supply. 'Export restrictions often had a cascading effect — when one country announced restrictions, others often followed suit, further exacerbating supply problems and creating a panicked atmosphere in global markets as importers sought to secure new suppliers, sending prices even higher,' according to IFPRI researchers Joseph Glauber, David Laborde, and Abdullah Mamun. 'Other countries have an incentive to have similar policies for similar reasons, and therefore this augments the problem and pushes food prices further up,' Michele Ruta, lead economist at the World Bank for macroeconomics, trade and investment, agreed in a statement to the The Wall Street Journal.
"The export bans can also be devastating for local producers who are cut off from international markets. That may mean ... fewer producers going forward, especially when production costs, including fertilizer and other inputs, are through the roof. 'Exporting helps keep the farms running, because the government's ceiling price at RM8.90 (US$2) keeps chicken prices low, but costs of chicken feed keep increasing month by month,' a Malaysian poultry farmer told ChannelNewsAsia this week. Indonesia's palm oil producers similarly protest restrictions on exports. They warn that because of the controls and a resulting glut of domestic supply, 'prices no longer cover costs.'
"It's difficult to find economists who think that export restrictions on food are a good idea. But politicians often support them anyway because they tend to play well with politically powerful urban constituents.... The inevitable result of export restrictions on food, though, is higher costs around the world, and often reduced production at home as farmers go out of business or switch to unrestricted crops. That means more poverty, hunger, and suffering going forward.
"It's all that much more infuriating when you remember that we previously enjoyed decades of steadily declining poverty and disappearing hunger thanks to innovation, free markets, and open societies. The current chaos can be largely laid at the feet of profoundly stupid policy decisions. Yes, drought, floods, and frosts played a significant role, but nature has never been cooperative, and humans have grown increasingly skilled at producing sufficient calories despite the fickleness of weather and climate. It took lockdowns, trade disputes, ignorant protectionism, and old-fashioned warfare to make the cost and availability of the next meal once again a matter of concern for a growing, rather than shrinking, portion of the world's population."
May 25, 2022 - "In March 2022, the Wall Street Journal reported that the US military wanted President Joe Biden to reverse President Donald Trump’s last-minute removal of US military trainers from Somalia right before he begrudgingly left office. Instead, without any public or congressional debate, Biden decided to redeploy US troops to Somalia to fight against al-Shabab, an armed non-state group that has launched attacks against civilians and government forces for decades — and against whom the United States has never officially declared war.
"As has become the trend under this presidency, establishment forces in the administration appear to have once again given the president advice that is both politically and strategically short-sighted — and he’s far from the first. Like in Afghanistan, US policymakers have chosen militarism and perceived realpolitik in Somalia for the last four decades: President Ronald Reagan and Henry Kissinger cozied up to the genocidal Siad Barre regime.... There was the infamous Black Hawk Down disaster during the Clinton administration; undeclared CIA drone strikes for the last two decades; the list goes on and on. Trump quickly ramped up US drone strikes and special forces operations in these areas, including Yemen, Somalia, and Libya....
"All these episodes have one thing in common: US policymakers perceive Somalia as a battlefield rather than a country full of people caught in the cross-fire of armed men vying for power. So there was the hope of a new approach when Biden’s team reportedly halted US drone strikes in so-called 'areas outside of active hostilities' — locations like Yemen, Libya, and Somalia ... as part of his administration’s proclaimed counterterrorism policy review.
"Biden’s decision to send US troops back to Somalia officially dashed any hope that the administration’s counterterrorism review would end or, at minimum, significantly curtail its undeclared, often covert wars in Somalia and beyond. His decision to engage the US military in another nation-building project with zero congressional authorization is eerily similar to what was attempted in Afghanistan. Given that the past decades of US covert action and trying to build a national military have merely led to a strengthening of al-Shabaab (as has been the case in other countries, the US is conducting counterterrorism) rather than its weakening. It begs the question: what was actually 'reviewed' by the administration over the last year?
"Unfortunately, even before Biden decided to return US troops to Somalia, it had been clear for some time that the president was not going to change the course of the United States’ post-9/11 wars. Officials in the National Security Council told me last fall that the chaos of the US withdrawal from Afghanistan cooled any appetite for withdrawing US troops from other war zones. And while the administration never announced an official end to the counterterrorism review, its new counterterrorism czar — then at the Department of Homeland Security — debuted that the future of these wars was essentially no new strategy.
"There’s little to no evidence that this administration has wrestled with the facts that the US government is fundamentally inept at training and professionalizing foreign militaries, the ineffectiveness of (let alone the racism inherent to) concepts like countering violent extremism (CVE), and that providing weak institutions with millions or billions in money for war incentivizes corruption and conflict. So instead, the prescription is more CVE, more rebranded counterinsurgency and drone wars, and more lawlessness to establish the rule of law. The main difference is merely the explicit focus on exporting the duty of carrying out these wars to foreign militaries.
"All of this brings us back to ... the mission’s intention to create and train a professional and capable national Somali security force that can eliminate al-Shabaab and has legitimacy in the eyes of the Somali people. This recycling of past failed strategies once again misses why there is no US military solution in Somalia: a state’s legitimacy does not come from foreign military training, and it certainly won’t come from a security force trained by the very foreign military that continues to kill the very people Somali forces are supposed to protect.....
"In returning US troops to Somalia, Biden has kept the US stuck in a military-first mindset that focuses on eradicating or undermining the enemy on the battlefield — not addressing the root causes of insecurity and conflict. It is now up to Congress to check his decision — only Congress has the sole constitutional duty to declare war. But the 2001 Authorization for the Use of Military Force application to Somalia is flimsy at best. The president’s deployment certainly meets the 'introduction in hostilities' threshold of Section 8C of the War Powers Resolution of 1973, meaning that the deployment of US troops to an active war zone puts them at imminent risk of war, requiring Congress’ affirmative approval. But with Congress in a militaristic crouch on Ukraine, it’s unclear whether there is political will to invoke its war powers over renewed US war in Somalia."
May 25, 2022 - "The Justice Centre has reviewed the decision of Ontario Superior Court Justice Kevin Phillips regarding the appeal of Tamara Lich’s bail conditions. Ms. Lich was one of the participants of the peaceful protest in Ottawa against vaccine passports this past February.
"In a decision given orally on May 25, 2022, Justice Phillips said the Courts are not 'thought police' and are not in the business of controlling political views. While Justice Phillips upheld a sweeping social media ban which Ms. Lich’s lawyer objected to, he also said that Ms. Lich has the presumption of innocence, and did not find that she violated any of her previous bail conditions.... Justice Philips set new bail conditions.... Ms. Lich is prohibited from communicating with other pro-freedom activists, using social media, organizing or aiding protests, and entering the downtown part of Ottawa unless for court.
"During the bail appeal hearing that took place on May 19 and 20, 2022, Assistant Crown Attorney Moiz Karimjee argued that Ms. Lich should be put back in jail because she had accepted the Justice Centre’s 2022 George Jonas Freedom Award. Mr. Karimjee suggested that Ms. Lich had breached her bail conditions by agreeing to attend the June 16 Justice Centre’s George Jonas Freedom Award dinner in Toronto, however there was no evidence before the Court that she planned to attend in person. When Ottawa police sergeant Mahad Hassan was called to give evidence for the Crown, he had no evidence other than a post on the Justice Centre website about the June 16 dinner. Sgt. Hassan speculated with his own opinion that it was a reasonable inference that Ms. Lich was attending at the annual award....
"Lawrence Greenspon, counsel for Ms. Lich, argued for the lifting of the bail conditions, specifically the ban on social media, which prevented Ms. Lich from exercising her Charter freedoms of expression and association. He argued that a finding in favour of the Crown would put the criminal justice system in disrepute.
"Justice Philips said, 'No court will ever seek to control the manifestation of political views. The courts are not the thought police and are only meant to control conduct.' However, Justice Philips justified leaving the complete social media ban in an attempt to 'prevent toxic group think.'
"On February 17, 2022, Ms. Lich was charged with counselling to commit mischief and obstructing police, among other charges. The day before Ms. Lich was charged and jailed, Ontario Superior Court Justice Hugh McLean had decreed that Ms. Lich and other Defendants in a civil action to stop honking in downtown Ottawa were 'at liberty to engage in a peaceful, lawful and safe protest.' The Prime Minister [had] declared a national emergency on February 14, in spite of the fact that Ottawa police had not arrested any of the peaceful protesters or charged anyone with a crime in the preceding weeks. Ms. Lich was jailed for 18 days, and eventually released on bail....
"'In our criminal justice system – innocent until proven guilty – and for someone with no previous criminal charges, it is our view that these revised bail conditions still excessively restrict Ms. Lich’s fundamental Charter rights of speech, assembly, association, and political advocacy,” said Eva Chipiuk, Justice Centre lawyer. 'The extent to which the Crown has pursued Ms. Lich is troubling. Homicide detectives, crown attorneys, and scarce court time are being expended on persecuting Ms. Lich and her peaceful activism against two years of repressive government lockdowns and mandatory vaccination policies,' added Ms. Chipiuk."
May 24, 2022 - "Billed a COVID-19 success story as its economy boomed through the pandemic, Taiwan is now battling a record wave of infections as it eases restrictions that had kept outbreaks at bay to start life with the virus. For the whole of 2021, Taiwan reported less than 15,000 locally transmitted cases. Now, it's registering around 80,000 cases a day....
"'We could no longer achieve the goal of zero COVID because it was too contagious,' former vice-president Chen Chien-jen, an epidemiologist, said in a video released by the ruling Democratic Progressive Party on Sunday. Most cases in Taiwan are of the less severe Omicron variant, with more than 99.7 per cent of cases exhibiting mild or no symptoms, he said. 'This is a crisis but also an opportunity, allowing us to walk out of the shadow of COVID-19 quickly,' Chen said.
"Despite a peak of infection forecast for this week, the government is determined to end a policy that included largely closing its borders. It has relaxed restrictions, such as shortening mandatory quarantines, in what it calls the 'new Taiwan model' — gradually living with the virus and avoiding shutting down the economy.
"Unlike some countries where new case spikes overwhelmed medical systems and disrupted everyday life, Taiwan hospital beds earmarked for COVID patients are at 56 per cent occupancy. Shops, restaurants and gyms remain open, and gatherings continue, with mandatory mask-wearing. Still, the island of 23.5 million people is recording 40 to 50 deaths a day, bringing its year-to-date total to 625 deaths. Deaths stood at 838 from 2020 through to the end of 2021....
"The surge in cases is now sparking new precautions. Starting this week, classes in Taipei schools were moved online while subway ridership has fallen to about half average levels.
"'Taiwan didn't really have a choice. Naturally, we need to move on to coexist with the virus,' said Shih Hsin-ru, who leads the Research Center for Emerging Viral Infections at Taiwan's Chang Gung University. She said the government was not well prepared for the shift away from the zero COVID approach, pointing to the initial shortage of resources, from vaccines to antivirals. But things are looking better after what she described as a 'scramble' by the government. 'We are slowly getting back on track,' she said. 'We are likely to see less impact compared to neighbouring countries.'"
May 11, 2022 - "Sudbury’s Ontario Libertarian Party candidate is espousing the virtues of individual rights and freedoms as his key motivators to seek public office.
"Their loss during the last couple of years, said Adrien Berthier, has driven [him] 'to stand up for the rights of Sudburians.'
"'For those that feel that the big three political parties have either remained silent or complicit in the loss of individual rights, voting Libertarian can send a powerful message to the politicians at Queen's Park,' he said in an email to Sudbury.com.
" 'I would like to make it impossible to bring back vaccine passports, and would like to explore out of the box thinking on fixing our broken health-care system.'
"New solutions to the rising cost of living is important, he wrote, adding that removing impediments and interference with small businesses will also be key. 'I would like to bring in landlord rights to protect people’s private investments and encourage projects to restore the forest and lakes surrounding the city,' he said.
"If elected, Berthier pledges to donate 25 per cent of his MPP salary to the Sudbury Food Bank, and challenges other candidates to do the same."
May 19, 2022 "The three biggest federal public sector unions are challenging the Liberals’ vaccine mandate for bureaucrats in court, arguing suspending unvaccinated workers without pay instead of letting them return to work[ing] from home is 'punitive' and 'unjustified.'
“'We continue to support vaccination. But given … the loosening of the COVID restrictions and the shifting landscape, we’re of the opinion that employer’s policy right now is unreasonable. These members can work from home,' Jennifer Carr, president of the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), said in an interview. 'Effectively, we think it is punitive and an abuse of management authority'....
"PIPSC and the Canadian Association of Professional Employees (CAPE), which represent nearly 60,000 and 21,000 public servants respectively, have filed policy grievances against the federal government’s vaccine mandate for bureaucrats. Their challenges are in addition to the first grievances filed in late March by the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), the biggest federal government union.
"At issue: the Trudeau government’s federal COVID-19 vaccine policy put in place on Oct. 6, 2021, which forced all bureaucrats to either get vaccinated with two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine or be suspended without pay (except those who obtained exemptions to the policy). The unions say that working from home has become readily available for so many public servants that it’s time to let the unvaccinated employees who can work outside the office effectively do so.
""As of March 29, 1,828 employees were on unpaid leave due to the vaccination policy, according to numbers shared by Treasury Board Secretariat (TBS) with unions in April.
"'As the pandemic has evolved and the science has developed, we believe continuing to put unvaccinated employees on leave without pay is a harsh administrative measure that can be considered disciplinary and without just cause,' PSAC said when it announced its grievances. They’re also frustrated that the government has yet to complete a review of the policy once since it was implemented, despite its own requirements.
"A copy of TBS’ vaccine policy online says the government’s chief human resources officer is responsible for reviewing both the need of the policy and its contents 'at a minimum every 6 months” and reporting those results to the minister. Since the policy kicked in on Oct. 6, 2021, that means the first review was due by April 6. But union heads say that date came and went without a peep from TBS, and the latest update meeting between them and government officials on Tuesday didn’t provide any new insight into when the review will be made public.... TBS spokesperson Alain Belle-Isle said in a statement that the review is currently underway “in line with the requirement” and the results will be presented 'in due course.' 'There is no obligation to update the policy every 6 months,” he said....
"But now, the unions are asking the federal labour relations tribunal via their policy grievances to force the government to allow unvaccinated employees currently suspended without pay to be accommodated by allowing them to work from home. They’re also asking that the government be compelled to reimburse all the bureaucrats still affected by the vaccine mandate for lost wages since April 6 (the date they say the policy needed to be reviewed)."
May 20, 2022 - "Nina Jankowicz, who was tapped to lead the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) Disinformation Governance Board, insists that national security is at risk because of 'childish behavior' now that the panel has been put on hold. During an interview on CBS News on Thursday, Jankowicz said, 'I would say that the Disinformation Governance Board was the victim of disinformation.'
"'Disinformation is false information spread with malign intent. And clearly, there was a malign intent on some actors in the media and in politics who just really stood up to the formation of this board because it would be confronting disinformation,' she continued. 'They completely mischaracterized its mission. And frankly, this childish behavior is endangering our national security now. This board was set up to counter real disinformation that makes Americans less safe.... So those who stand in opposition to the board — which as the secretary said was just an internal coordinating mechanism something to make sure we were efficient and using best practices — are standing in the way of our national security,' she insisted." Read more: https://ijr.com/jankowicz-childish-behavior-disinformation-board-put-ice/
May 18,2022 The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has placed a 'pause' on the newly-minted Disinformation Governance Board; its first executive director, Nina Jankowicz, has resigned.... It's unclear whether plans for the board will be un-paused in the future; Jankowicz had initially decided to resign, reconsidered when she was told the pause might be temporary, and then ultimately left anyway....
"This news comes from an exclusive report by The Washington Post's Taylor Lorenz, whose scoop is buried underneath layers of pro-government verbiage. For WaPo, the story is not that DHS shuttered the Disinformation Governance Board — the real story is that right-wing 'coordinated online attacks' achieved this outcome after subjecting Jankowicz to an 'unrelenting barrage of harassment'....
Jankowicz's experience is a prime example of how the right-wing Internet apparatus operates, where far-right influencers attempt to identify a target, present a narrative and then repeat mischaracterizations across social media and websites with the aim of discrediting and attacking anyone who seeks to challenge them.... Experts say that right-wing disinformation and smear campaigns regularly follow the same playbook and that it's crucial that the public and leaders of institutions, especially in the government, the media and educational bodies, understand more fully how these cycles operate....
"Yet there is good reason to be skeptical of both the Disinformation Governance Board and Jankowicz's fitness to run it. Informal efforts to police disinformation on social media are beset with serious challenges, as moderators and fact-checkers routinely make odious mistakes: Just today, Facebook dubiously censored a recipe for homemade baby formula. The social media site's fact-checkers have previously flagged Reason articles as spreading false information, only to later admit the articles in question were accurate. John Stossel, host of Stossel TV and a contributor to Reason, is currently suing Facebook for characterizing his videos as misleading, even though fact-checkers eventually conceded he was right.
"Government disinformation cops are no better; time and time again, public health officials circulated false information about COVID-19, and suppressed perfectly legitimate discussion of the theory that the virus originated from a lab leak. And when The New York Post reported on the salacious contents of Hunter Biden's laptop just weeks before the election, the story was widely dismissed by so-called disinformation experts and government security experts on grounds that they presumed it to be Russian malfeasance. "Hunter Biden Story Is Russian Disinfo, Dozens of Former Intel Officials Say," reported Politico back in October 2020.
"Jankowicz repeatedly made public statements indicating that she held this view, too.She shared national security officials' 'high confidence' that the Hunter Biden story was part of a Russian influence campaign. She described the idea that the laptop had been left behind at a repair shop as 'a fairy tale.' This was a critical test of whether disinformation experts could check their innate tendency to ascribe everything unfavorable to the Democratic Party as Russian nefariousness, and they utterly failed. Jankowicz failed as well."
Premiers of New South Wales and Victoria, Australia, lock down. Cartoon by Mark Knight, Kidsnews.
May 17, 2022 - "Over the weekend, the New York Times carried a story headlined 'How Australia Saved Thousands of Lives While Covid Killed a Million Americans,' written by Damien Cave. Cave claimed that Australia’s comparatively low COVID death count is down, in the main, to 'a lifesaving trait that Australians displayed from the top of government to the hospital floor, and that Americans have shown they lack: trust, in science and institutions, but especially in one another.' As a dual American-Australian citizen and resident of Sydney throughout the COVID policy fiasco, and equally as one of Australia’s most outspoken anti-lockdown economists since March 2020, seeing this coverage made my stomach turn.
"No, Australia’s 'trust in institutions' has not served it well during this period. What has happened is that we have seen how corrupt and/or incompetent the people in charge of our institutions really are, and – to our horror – how our misplaced trust in those institutions has led to an abject failure of our systems of democratic oversight and accountability. The same 'trust in science' that saw Australia ride to the top of the global class for HPV vaccination several years ago (my children were in that cohort) has been manipulated and hijacked in this period to produce broad-based support for the most damaging health and economic policy decisions I’ve seen since emigrating here in 2003 from the US.
"Cave’s article goes on to praise Health Minister Greg Hunt and Prime Minister Scott Morrison.... He claims that Australia’s better results on COVID and on the economy relative to the US, according to current measures, are because our cultural tradition of 'mateship' made us into docile compliers during COVID times, thinking all the while that we were looking out for one another.... I wholly reject this laudatory portrayal.... Hunt and Morrison, far from being heroes, have betrayed the trust of the Australian people. Our tendency towards 'mateship' and our pro-social nature caused us to obey rules they and others in positions of power sold to us as 'for the greater good' that in fact delivered horrific losses to our country that will cripple us for a generation. Few in Australia publicly questioned these policies in 2020 and 2021, in part because when they did, speaking from personal experience, they were vilified in the public square of social media as granny-killing Trumpkinaut death cult warriors and pieces of human excrement....
"How damaging, exactly, has the Australian COVID policy suite been?... I have been working in my spare time on a CBA of Australia’s lockdown policies, and just released it last week. The Executive Summary is freely downloadable here. My analysis, extending the draft CBA supporting my testimony to the Victorian state parliament in August 2020 and compiled with the excellent assistance of ex-Victorian Treasury economist Sanjeev Sabhlok, estimates that the Australian COVID lockdowns have directly cost more than 30 times what they possibly could have delivered in benefits. This tally can be made in the currency of dollars, or in the currency of human well-being – the quantity that matters most at the end of the day, or at least that should matter most....
"Australia’s history is bejewelled with a glittering chain of luck. In COVID times, this luck was on display again as the 'lucky country' found itself with auspicious geography and demography. Politicians from both major parties, the Liberals and Labor, exploited this luck to sail to success at all levels of government for two years on the false narrative that the lockdowns they implemented prevented so many deaths from COVID.... My analysis shows to the contrary that even under assumptions highly generous towards lockdowns, the maximum number of COVID deaths postponed by Australia’s lockdowns and border closures is about 10,000. This compares to a quantity of human damage directly due to lockdowns that is over thirty times greater than the human savings represented by those 10,000 lives.
"Unlike the costs of COVID, the costs of lockdowns are spread far more widely across age categories, with massive losses in areas like mental well-being, physical well-being, future government expenditure, and future earnings due to decisions such as stay-at-home orders and school closures – not to mention the effects of extended lockdowns on less-measurable drivers of social flourishing like the development of anti-social habits, productivity losses, and lower levels of trust in institutions like our healthcare system that were complicit in COVID policy mismanagement.
"Many of those spared death in 2020 or 2021 from COVID are succumbing now in 2022 as our borders re-open, meaning that enduring the horror of lockdowns “saved” only a couple of years of life for a large fraction of Australia’s eventual COVID victims. Australia is now experiencing far more COVID deaths and infections ... while COVID restrictions have largely been eased on the back of triumphant politicians’ claims that the COVID injections have been the game-changer that we all needed to escape lockdowns and start to live normally again.
"As we head into a federal election on May 21st, the major parties’ candidates really don’t want to talk about COVID. I wonder why?"
May 17, 2022 - "The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) has announced a legal win for three British Columbia pastors ticketed for defying lockdown orders during the pandemic. A total of 24 tickets – adding up to $55,200 – against Pastors John Koopman of the Chilliwack Free Reformed Church, James Butler of the Free Grace Baptist Church and Timothy Champ of the Valley Heights Community Church, have been dropped by the B.C. Crown. The pastors were fined following their non-compliance with provincial government restrictions imposed on Nov. 2020, which banned in-person religious services....
"Koopman received 23 tickets totalling $52,900, while Butler received 25 tickets totalling $57,500, and Champ received 18 tickets totalling $41,400. The recent victory amounted to seven tickets dropped against Koopman, 11 against Butler and six against Champ, for a total of 24. The JCCF said there remains over 20 outstanding tickets issued against pastors and churches in B.C.’s Fraser Valley. 'The Justice Centre will vigorously defend pastors and churches against these charges in future appearances in Provincial Court,' said the legal charity, adding that over four dozen tickets against B.C. churches they represent have now been dropped.
"'All levels of government, including politicians, health officials and law enforcement, have the duty to respect the constitutional rights and freedoms of Canadians. In response to Covid, there has been a serious failure of government officials and authorities in BC to respect the Charter freedoms of BC residents,” said JCCF lawyer Marty Moore. Moore added that 'BC discriminated against houses of worship, prohibiting them from meeting for worship regardless of the safety measures they implemented.' While the B.C. government never shut down retail businesses during the first lockdown in the spring of 2020, it did impose restrictions on places of worship that were stricter than other provinces.
"Provincial politicians across Canada imposed restrictions on places of worship which some have said encroached on religious freedom – however many of those restrictions were capacity limits ... and not full closures as was the case in B.C. True North spoke to two northern B.C. pastors in December – Simon Lievaart of Bethel Reformed Church in Smithers and Andrew Simpson of the Heritage Free Presbyterian Church in Prince George – who defied public health orders including vaccine passports.... Other pastors across Canada also defied public health restrictions, including Pastor James Coates of Gracelife Church and Pastor Artur Pawlowski of the Cave of Adullam congregation in Alberta. In Ontario, Pastors Henry Hildebrandt of the Church of God in Aylmer, Aaron Rock of the Harvest Bible Church in Windsor and Jacob Reaume of the Trinity Bible Chapel in Waterloo opted not to comply with restrictions imposed by the Ford government.
"Throughout the pandemic, the JCCF has been representing people who were charged with breaking government Covid rules. The organization also represented the Freedom Convoy earlier this year."
May 12, 2022 - "North Korean leader Kim Jong Un ordered a nationwide lockdown Thursday to try to contain a highly transmissible variant of coronavirus that causes COVID-19, which was confirmed in the country this week for the first time. The official Korean Central News Agency [KCNA] said genetic sequencing analysis of samples collected from a group of people on Sunday in Pyongyang had identified the BA.2 strain, also known as the 'stealth omicron' for its relative difficulty of detection. At least one person confirmed to have COVID-19 has died, KCNA said Friday.... North Korea has maintained a strict border closure since February 2020 and instituted its own quarantine measures amid the pandemic, which have now officially been breached....
"Kim was seen wearing a mask for the first time at Thursday's early morning politburo meeting, which he took off only when addressing his masked aides. He ordered a 'thorough lockdown' in all cities and counties, KCNA said. He directed businesses and construction projects to continue to operate but in isolation to 'perfectly block' the spread of the virus.
"'They only have one option: simply lock down their country and try to prevent the spread of the omicron virus,' Park Won-gon, professor of North Korea studies at Ewha Womans University in Seoul, told VOA. 'Because North Korea doesn’t have simple medicines, much less a medical system comparable to other countries, even if they had the vaccines, they would not be able to stop omicron.' Park doesn’t think North Korea will be looking to solicit vaccines from outside parties; what it really wants is a simple cure, which the world has yet to develop more than two years into the pandemic.
"North Korea will institute draconian measures to those of its biggest ally, China, if not even more severe, Park predicted. Based on several studies conducted on the contingency of North Korea, Park said, there was a single scenario that would incite a people’s uprising, and possibly the regime’s collapse: a pandemic paired with extreme economic difficulty. 'That is why, for more than two years, North Korea has been very sensitive and serious about this pandemic, even at the deep economic cost of closing its border with China.'" Read more: https://www.voanews.com/a/north-korea-s-kim-orders-lockdown-as-first-covid-19-outbreak-is-confirmed/6569002.html
May 14, 2022 - "North Korea on Saturday reported 21 new deaths and 174,440 more people with fever symptoms as the country scrambles to slow the spread of COVID-19 across its unvaccinated population. The new deaths and cases, which were from Friday, increased total numbers to 27 deaths and 524,440 illnesses amid a rapid spread of fever since late April.... North Korean leader Kim Jong-un during a meeting on anti-virus strategies on Saturday described the outbreak as a historically 'great upheaval' and called ... for officials to take lessons from the successful pandemic responses of other nations and picked an example in China, the North's major ally. China, however, has been facing pressure to change its so-called 'zero-COVID' strategy that has brought major cities to a standstill as it struggles to slow the fast-moving omicron variant....
"Lacking vaccines, antiviral pills, intensive care units and other major health tools to fight the virus, North Korea's pandemic response will be mostly about isolating people with symptoms at designated shelters, experts say. North Korea doesn't have technological and other resources to impose extreme lockdowns like China, which has shut down entire cities and confined residents to their homes, nor could it afford to do so at the risk of unleashing further shock on a fragile economy, said Hong Min, an analyst at Seoul's Korea Institute for National Unification....
"North Korea has a higher tolerance for civilian suffering than most other nations and some experts say the country could be willing to accept a certain level of fatalities to gain immunity through infection, rather than receiving vaccines and other outside help." Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/north-korea-covid-19-outbreak-fever-deaths-1.6453303
May 18, 2022 - "North Korea on Thursday reported 262,270 more cases of people with suspected symptoms of COVID-19 as its pandemic caseload neared two million — a week after the country acknowledged the outbreak and scrambled to slow infections in its unvaccinated population. The country is also trying to prevent its fragile economy from deteriorating, but the outbreak could be worse than officially reported since the country lacks virus tests and other health-care resources and may be underreporting deaths....
"North Korea's antivirus headquarters reported a single additional death, raising its death toll to 63, which experts have said is abnormally small compared to the suspected number of coronavirus infections. The official Korean Central News Agency reported that more than 1.98 million people have become sick with fever since late April. Most are believed to have COVID-19, though only a few Omicron variant infections have been confirmed. At least 740,160 people are in quarantine, the news agency reported.... Workers were mobilized to find people with suspected COVID-19 symptoms who were then sent to quarantine — the main method of curbing the outbreak since North Korea is short of medical supplies and intensive care units that lowered COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths in other nations." Read more: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/north-korea-covid-outbreak-infections-1.6458803
May 14, 2022 - "Conservative Party of Canada leadership candidate Jean Charest is claiming the Freedom Convoy 'terrorized' and 'laid siege to' Ottawa, and that his rival Pierre Poilievre 'appeals to the fringe minority.' The former Quebec Liberal premier made the claims in a campaign mail-out obtained by True North. It appears to have been sent exclusively to Ottawa residents, although Charest’s campaign team would not confirm – opting instead to say that 'over 50,000 letters have been sent nationwide so far.'
"'I'm on the side of law-abiding Canad- ians,' the mail-out reads, adding that 'Pierre Poilievre is on the side of the lawbreakers and illegal blockaders who laid siege to YOUR CITY and our nation’s capital!!'
"Charest adds in the mail-out that convoy participants – whom he refers to as 'illegal blockaders' – terrorized residents, closed shops and businesses and disrupted daily commutes. 'But the worst part is these lawbreakers were cheered on by one high-profile – but recklessly irresponsible – local Member of Parliament, Pierre Poilievre, who now says he wants to be Prime Minister!'
"Charest also writes that Poilievre isn’t a serious leader and would be unable to win a general election, linking him to the far right and claiming he appeals to 'the fringe minority.' 'Pierre Poilievre is the Justin Trudeau of the far right, a celebrity who appeals to the fringe minority and is more focused on building his social media following than building an electable, mainstream Conservative Party,' writes Charest. Charest also said that he is 'holding Pierre Poilievre and his supporters accountable” for attempting to close Canada’s border and occupy Ottawa.
"True North reached out to Charest’s communications director Michelle Coates Mather, who affirmed Charest’s remarks on the convoy. 'The facts are clear. The downtown Ottawa core was occupied for weeks, critical infrastructure was blocked, businesses were forced to close, people’s ability to get to work was obstructed and all these cost taxpayers $375 million a day.” Coates Mather added, however, that Charest does not believe that those who participated in the Freedom Convoy are part of a 'fringe minority' – a phrase first used by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and then by Jean Charest while referring to some of Poilievre’s base....
"Charest, who calls himself a 'law-and-order Conservative,' said he agrees with Ontario premier Doug Ford introducing Bill 100 – a new law that gives police the power to immediately address protest disruptions at land border crossings and international airports.[and] the ability to suspend drivers’ licences and vehicle permits and to seize the license plates of vehicles.... Charest has promised to introduce a federal Critical Infrastructure Protection Act, which would make blockading, trespassing or interfering with critical infrastructure a criminal offense. He said he would also give law enforcement the ability to clear blockades without obtaining a court injunction. Additionally, Charest’s proposal would '(a)mend the Income Tax Act to remove charitable status from any group that has accepted foreign funds and has engaged in action related to the new offenses created in this Act'....
"The Charest campaign said, however, that he did not support Trudeau’s invocation of the Emergencies Act to clear the Freedom Convoy in February. Charest 'believes Trudeau’s implementation of the Emergencies Act in response to these protests was an overreach, completely unnecessary and divisive. It was a complete failure of leadership,' Coates Mather told True North. Charest campaign co-chair Tasha Kheiriddin [has] said she would have invoked the act to deal with the convoy had she been Prime Minister, in addition to calling in the military....
"This is not the first time that Charest has claimed that Pierre Poilievre supported an 'illegal blockade.' He also made this claim at the 2022 Canada Strong and Free Conservative leadership debate, which resulted in him being booed by the audience. True North has also previously reported that while Poilievre said he supported the 'law-abiding and peaceful truckers', there exists no record of him supporting border blockades.
"The Conservative Party of Canada will choose its new leader on Sept. 10. The latest poll from Abacus Data puts Pierre Poilievre in first place with 48% support among Conservatives, and Jean Charest in second with 20% support."
May 9, 2022 - "Michelle Lashbrook, Nipissing candidate for the Libertarian Party, was joined by candidates representing the New Blue Party and the Ontario Party Saturday afternoon at the 406 Squadron RCAF Alliance. All three candidates spoke about their party's positions and goals, however they expressed frustration and disappointment in the fact they haven't been invited to election debates being held throughout Nipissing.
"Ontario Libertarian Party leader Mark Snow asked Nipissing candidates from the three parties how many local debates they’ve been invited to.... Lashbrook .. was only invited to the candidates’ debate hosted by North Bay Pride. Other candidates weren’t invited to any.
"'They are using community organizations to set the rules which are private venues to say who and what person is allowed on stage,' Snow told about 75 people Saturday at the 406 Squadron RCAF Alliance. 'This is the suppression that is happening.' Lashbrook agreed....
"'I decided to run for the Libertarian Party. As much reach as we’ve had with Northern Freedom Alliance, our voices need to reach further out,” Lashbrook said. 'I encourage everyone to look at municipal elections, run for council, board, committees, use our tactics to get involved. I don’t want this to be our world. We need to reduce government.'
"Action4Canada hosted the session, giving each candidate a chance to speak to the crowd to outline their party’s position and goals.
"Joe Jobin, Nipissing candidate for the Ontario Party, thanked the other parties – the New Blue Party and the Libertarian Party – for standing up for Canada. He said he hopes all three will come together as one party.... 'Don’t be discouraged, we will have victory. It may not happen overnight. Good things take time and it’s going to take time, step-by-step, brick-by-brick and legislation-by-legislation we will restore what we lost.'
"The businessman and ordained minister said he sat back in hopes the leaders of the province would 'straighten things out'.... 'I kept thinking maybe things will [get] straightened out and let someone else take care of it, but then when they weren’t getting straightened out I couldn’t remain silent any longer,' Jobin said Saturday. 'For a number of years I’ve started to realize something is wrong and the rules aren’t making any sense. We’re in a changing world and it’s not changing for the better. We can’t vote for self-serving politicians.'"
May 10, 2022 - "The head of the World Health Organization [WHO] said on Tuesday China's zero-tolerance COVID-19 policy is not sustainable given what is known of the disease, in rare public comments by the United Nations agency on a government's handling of the virus. 'We don't think that it is sustainable considering the behaviour of the virus,' WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a media briefing.
"Speaking after Tedros, WHO emergencies director Mike Ryan said the impact of a 'zero-COVID' policy on human rights also needs to be taken into consideration alongside the effect on a country's economy. He also noted that China has registered 15,000 deaths since the virus first emerged in the city of Wuhan in late 2019 — a relatively low number compared with 999,475 in the United States and more than 500,000 in India. With that in mind, it is understandable that one of the world's most populous countries would want to take tough measures to curb coronavirus contagion, Ryan said.
"WHO guidelines have never recommended mass screening of asymptomatic individuals — as is currently happening in China — because of the costs involved and the lack of data on its effectiveness. China's zero-COVID-19 policy has drawn criticism ranging from scientists to its own citizens, leading to a cycle of lockdowns of many millions of people. Under the policy, authorities lock down large population areas to stamp out viral spread in response to any coronavirus outbreak, even if just a small number of people test positive.
"Shanghai, with a population of 25 million, was enduring its sixth week of a city-wide lockdown. Shanghai's measures have been particularly strict, with residents allowed out of compounds only for exceptional reasons, such as a medical emergency. Many are not even allowed out of their front doors to mingle with neighbours. Its quarantine policy has also been criticized for separating children from parents and putting asymptomatic cases among those with symptoms....
"China has been hampered by the fact its strict pandemic-long approach left the population with little acquired immunity through infection, with the highly transmissible Omicron variants spurring infections. In a contrast to what has been seen in most developed nations, the working age population has had higher rates of vaccination than the generally more vulnerable cohorts of seniors. The approach its taking a heavy toll on the world's second largest economy, with significant knock-on impacts on global trade and supply chains. China's export growth slowed to its weakest in almost two years, data showed on Monday. Unemployment was also near two-year highs."
May 11, 2022 - "The criticism from Tedros, who was accused of being too close to China earlier in the pandemic, came just days after Chinese leader Xi Jinping vowed to double down on the policy and 'resolutely struggle' against all critics. The United Nation’s official press account on China’s Twitter-like Weibo posted Tedro’s comments early on Wednesday morning, drawing a wave of sarcastic comments from Chinese users.
“'Resolutely fight against any words and acts that distort, doubt or deny our country’s epidemic prevention and control policies! Down with the World Health Organization!' a top reply said. 'Should the UN’s verified account be blocked this time?' another said. By mid-morning, the post was no longer viewable on Weibo 'due to the author’s privacy setting'.... A Weibo hashtag of Tedros’ name has also been censored, with images featuring his face being scrubbed from the platform, though posts containing his name are still visible.
"On WeChat, an article from the UN’s official account that included Tedros’ comments has been 'banned from sharing due to a violation of relevant laws and regulations' as of Wednesday morning. Video clips of Tedros’ speech have also been removed from the platform.
"Tedros’ comments, though in line with the assessment of most scientists, have also drawn the ire of Beijing.... 'We hope relevant people can view China’s epidemic prevention and control policy in an objective and rational way, learn more about the facts and refrain from making irresponsible remarks,' Chinese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Zhao Lijian said at a news briefing Wednesday."
May 5, 2022 - "A federal judge on Friday gave the green light for an independent journalist’s lawsuit against Twitter to proceed — a blow to the social media giant, which had tried to get the case dismissed. But U.S. District Judge William Alsup dismissed the free speech claims made by independent journalist Alex Berenson.... The case won’t challenge Big Tech’s Section 230 shields, but it could still test Twitter’s power to banish users from the site as Elon Musk moves to take over the company following his $44 billion purchase.
"Berenson, a vocal critic of the government’s pandemic response, sued Twitter after the company kicked him off the site for describing Covid vaccines as an advance therapeutic with risky side effects. The complaint got its first preliminary hearing in a San Francisco federal court on Thursday.... Alsup focused his ruling on Berenson’s allegations that the company changed the ground rules on the content Twitter would allow on its platform, despite assurances from an executive that his posts weren’t up for censorship.
"'Collectively, these actions plausibly qualify as a clear and unambiguous promise that Twitter would correctly apply its COVID-19 misinformation policy and try to give advance notice if it suspended plaintiff’s account,' Alsup wrote in his decision. He also noted that “[a]ny ambiguities in a contract like Twitter’s terms of service are interpreted against the drafter, Twitter.'
"However, he deemed that Section 230’s powerful protections are broad enough to shield twitter from Berenson’s other claims — including the complaint that the company violated his First Amendment free speech rights. 'For an internet platform like Twitter, Section 230 precludes liability for removing content and preventing content from being posted that the platform finds would cause its users harm, such as misinformation regarding COVID-19,' Alsup wrote."
May 11, 2022 - "Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government gained fame this winter when protestors opposed to COVID-19 restrictions took over the streets of the nation’s capital.... In response, the Trudeau government used the Emergencies Act — giving it powers designed for wartime — to disperse the protestors. Assertions of a seditious white-supremacist-led insurrection have to date proven unfounded, no weapons were found, and the government is still struggling to explain why it had to take such drastic action. Unrepentant and undeterred, Trudeau and his Heritage Minister, Pablo Rodriguez, are moving forward with a buffet of speech and media legislation.
"The Online Streaming Act[Bill C-11] places the internet under the authority of the Broadcasting Act and Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), which is best known for enforcing mandated levels of Canadian content (Cancon) and ensuring that which it governs is 'of good standard.' Rodriguez says the aim is to make streaming companies such as Netflix, Disney Plus, Pornhub, and Amazon Prime pay into funds used to make Canadian films and television programs. But the ... regulator will not only get money for the funds, but it will also be expected to force YouTube et al. to give priority to approved content as well as governing TikTok, podcasts, and social media posts. The impact on consumer freedom, preferred speech, online creators, and what has been a flourishing film and television sector fuelled by foreign investment is expected to be significant.
"Next up is the Online News Act [Bill C-18], which forces American companies such as Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, etc to make payments to Canada’s struggling news industry, which insists it should be compensated for the value its posts add to social media. Facebook and the others believe the value they provide to news organizations (free access to billions of eyeballs) is much greater than any they receive but, regardless, Trudeau’s government is anxious to send revenue the publishers’ way....
"The overreach doesn’t end there: the money comes with catches. Newsrooms wishing to benefit must be approved by a government-appointed panel that assesses applicants’ bona fides and also approves which media may (or in the case of Rebel News who may not) qualify for a tax credit which is not to be confused with another panel that doles out funds to pay reporters on panel-approved beats. (This year, one of those beats involves enhanced coverage of the Trudeau government’s presence in British Columbia)....
"The Online News Act also makes the CRTC responsible for appointing arbitrators when needed and approving agreements that must detail how newsrooms spend the dollars they obtain.... The chill created by government involvement in newsroom decisions (Canada is going far beyond legislation elsewhere in the world, including Australia) has already been pointed to by experts such as Michael Geist who say op-eds critical of C-18 have been spiked by nervous editors. And, when last checked, only one columnist from media standing to benefit from what critics are calling a shakedown — Andrew Coyne — has published an objection to his industry’s pending subservience. Editorial boards have been unanimous in their approval.
"Meanwhile, a bill amending the definition of hate speech [Bill C-36], an offense within the Criminal Code since 1970, is also underway. The original law set a very high bar, targeting only speech likely to incite a breach of the peace against members of an identifiable group and/or that willfully promotes hatred against the same. Going forward, hate will be further defined as an 'emotion that involves detestation or vilification and that is stronger than dislike or disdain.' More significantly, the new Act will allow for pro-active censorship, albeit with court approval.... It remains unclear precisely what problem the government is addressing with this change, although that may become more obvious within its next piece of legislation.
"Waiting in the wings is the Online Harms bill which is, we are told, needed to deal with terrorism recruitment, unauthorized sharing of intimate images, child pornography, hate speech, and perhaps also the spread of misinformation and disinformation, about which the Prime Minister and cabinet members complain frequently. All of those are already illegal. Nevertheless, Rodriguez’s department initially envisioned creating a new online regulator with powers so extreme they were denounced across the board by civil rights organizations and many others. Twitter, for instance, referred to the government’s desired control over internet speech in the name of public safety as similar to authoritarian regimes such as Iran, North Korea, and China....
"It remains unclear whether these measures will be broadly debated, let alone opposed in the public square. At the moment, the only venue available for Canadians wishing to do either is via the free and open internet where, if Trudeau and Rodriguez have their way, they will soon be communicating only in manners of which their government approves."
May 9, 2022 - "Newly elected President Rodrigo Chaves, eliminated the mandatory use of masks for the population, as well as the obligation to be vaccinated against covid-19. In addition, not being vaccinated will no longer be a cause for dismissal in the public sector. The Decree is yet to be published in La Gaceta, but will become effective as soon as it is.
"The strict use of masks and vaccination is only enforced for front-line public health care workers. For the rest of the population, the use is voluntary, explained President Chaves. 'To the rest of the people, I recommend that they wear a mask on the bus if they feel like it, especially those who have not been vaccinated three or four times.,,,
Ticos are intelligent people and Ticas even more so. I respect the population, and if a new covid wave comes, we will reevaluate,' Chaves further elaborated.
"The Association of Physicians and Surgeons of Costa Rica, the Association of Pharmacists of Costa Rica and the National Medical Union of Costa Rica, publicly spoke against lifting the mask mandate.
"''Eliminating the obligatory use of masks in enclosed places, as well as vaccination against covid-19, is inopportune,” read the statement issued. 'Costa Rica is on the verge of a fifth wave, so it would have been ideal to wait for its behavior before taking a decision such as the one that has just been communicated', affirmed the president of the Association of Physicians and Surgeons....
"'We express our concern regarding the non-mandatory vaccination, as it was a reasonable and proportional measure, with a valuable which has represented a very valuable contribution in terms of public health, due to the coverage achieved,' said Lidiette Fonseca, president of the Association of Pharmacists.
"The Association of Physicians and Surgeons of Costa Rica, clarified it is respectful of the decisions made by the authorities; however, it urged citizens to voluntarily maintain the use of masks and asked the population to get vaccinated."
May 6, 2022 - "With the provincial election just under a month away and [Ontar]ians set to head to the polls on June 2, Zachary Tisdale is hopeful to offer those in the area a candidate they feel more aligned with politically. Representing the Ontario Libertarian Party, Tisdale believes the key to prosperity in Ontario is through reducing the size and cost of the provincial government.
"Formed in 1975, the party is running on a platform that focus[ses] on the freedom of choice behind party leader Mark Snow. 'It promotes the ideas and the political philosophy of libertarianism, which upholds freedom and liberty as core values that are ideals we should strive for,' said Tisdale. 'That means having individual rights and autonomy over the state, protecting individual rights, standing up for freedoms like speech, freedom of association, and bodily autonomy.'
"It wasn’t always Tisdale’s plan to run in a provincial election, but after seeing what happened throughout the pandemic, he felt it was his obligation to get involved.... 'I’ve always been interested in politics, but throughout the pandemic I saw time and time again, instance after instance of government overreach. They stepped over the line and violated people’s civil liberties, violated property rights, violated bodily autonomy and medical rights. I grew concerned over the increase in censorship through the mainstream media and government by vilifying and silencing any dissenting voices'....
"Tisdale’s platform focuses on both economic and social freedom. 'To me the only way to achieve that is with less government,' he said. 'That means deregulation, striking down unnecessary laws and laws that restrict mobility rights and zoning laws that prevent development. We have a housing supply crisis in the region with housing becoming more and more unaffordable for young people and new arrivals to Canada. The price of housing has gone way up, and I believe it’s fundamentally a lack of supply to meet the demand. A key part of my platform is encouraging development of new housing and reducing red tape to build the infrastructure needed to support the high population growth we’re expected in the region.'
"With economic recovery at the forefront as Ontario works to rebound from the impact of the pandemic, Tisdale says it starts with the issue of inflation.... 'We have an inflationary crisis going on across the country, and particularly in Ontario. We’re looking at generational level highs with inflation, especially the prices of the day-to-day items that we need—food and gas.' To help balance the issue of inflation, Tisdale suggests cutting taxes would do wonders for the wallets of Ontarians.... 'I believe cutting taxes like the provincial sales tax portion of the HST from eight per cent down to five (bring the HST down to 10 per cent), would allow us to give more money back to people and eas[e] the burden. I’d also look at cutting additional punitive taxes that are embedded in various products. I’d fight back against the carbon tax—I see it as a program that will have little impact on reducing climate change — I believe fighting back on some of the consumption taxes on beer and wine, and fighting back on the gas and fuel taxes permanently to give more purchasing power back to the people.'
"Having spent part of his childhood in Bradford, Tisdale wanted to come back to represent the like-minded people of York-Simcoe. 'I grew up in Bradford, it was my hometown and some of my oldest memories are of growing up there going to school and playing hockey,' he said. 'That’s why I felt compelled to run in the area, to stand up for the rights of the residents in the region. I wanted to come back and make a statement to say that there are other ways to approach some of the problems we face....
“'The big establishment parties all kind of have the same idea and approaches to problems,' he said. 'One of the reasons I wanted to represent the Libertarian Party ... to say that there is a different way we can be looking at our issues and different types of solutions that we can bring to the table while promoting that sometimes the government is the problem and creates some of the issues. That’s why it’s important to push the idea of the party and get it out there to inform others of the political philosophy.'
May 5, 2022 - "While the bulk of China’s new Covid cases are in Shanghai and Beijing, data show the impact of business restrictions is more widespread. For one, nearly 60% of European businesses in the country said they were cutting 2022 revenue projections as a result of Covid controls, according to a survey late last month by the EU Chamber of Commerce in China.... Among Chinese businesses, monthly surveys released in the last week showed sentiment among manufacturing and service businesses fell in April to the lowest since the initial shock of the pandemic in February 2020. Official and third-party versions of the survey, known as the purchasing managers’ index, pointed to further contraction in business activity from March....
"Power generation rose in the first two months of the year, but slowed to zero growth in March, according to figures cited by Larry Hu, chief China economist at Macquarie. He expects a drop in power generation in April. In the massive real estate sector, Hu noted that lockdowns also make it 'physically impossible to buy property,' sending sales in the top 30 cities down 54% in April from a year ago.
"On the consumer front, companies like Starbucks are reporting a widespread impact from Covid. In the quarter ended April 3, the coffee giant said 72% of the 225 Chinese cities it operates in experienced omicron outbreaks.... Starbucks’ China chairperson Belinda Wong ... noted that most of the stores still able to operate do so under 'strict safety protocols that interfere with our traffic and operations.' Starbucks said as of Tuesday, a third of its stores remain temporarily closed, or only offer delivery or takeout....
"Since March, mainland China has faced its worst Covid outbreak since early 2020 — using the same zero-Covid strategy.... Manufacturing areas from the northern province of Jilin to the southern city of Shenzhen were among those initially forced to lock down.... Shanghai, China’s largest city, essentially remained locked down for all of April. The capital city of Beijing began tightening travel and business restrictions toward the end the month to control a spike in Covid cases. With China’s two largest cities by GDP under Covid controls for the five-day holiday that ended Wednesday, national tourism revenue for the period only recovered to 64.68 billion yuan ($9.95 billion) — 44% of pre-pandemic levels, official figures showed.
“'During lockdowns, residents only consume daily necessities, so consumption will inevitably slump, not to mention that price could easily triple during city-level lockdowns,' said Yue Su, principal economist at The Economist Intelligence Unit. 'Lack of confidence in the private sector will drag investment and employment, which will take a much longer period of time to restore even if China introduces more stimulus,' she said. China reported better-than-expected first quarter GDP growth of 4.8% from a year ago. But retail sales fell in March, while unemployment in the country’s biggest cities set a new high for the pandemic so far.
"Lockdowns are affecting 'consumers’ ability to reach stores, grocery stores, department stores,” American household products giant Procter & Gamble said in an earnings call last month. 'Even online shopping is significantly constrained due to the inability to deliver.' The company said the market for its products in China didn’t grow in value in the first three months of the year, and that 'with the continued lockdown and difficulties in the market, we would expect April to be flat to negative.'
"While Shanghai’s prolonged lockdown experience could help other cities better organize food and medical services, the EIU’s Su said that local governments with poor finances would find it difficult to maintain the zero-Covid policy without transfers from the central government. This week, among smaller cities tightening Covid controls, the city of Zhengzhou ordered residents to work from home and for schools to move online through the end of Tuesday.... Other than Shanghai, large cities such as Fuzhou, Suzhou, Tianjin, Shenzhen and Xi’an were partially locked down in April....
"Nationwide, about 327.9 million people in more than 40 cities are affected by the latest lockdowns, Nomura’s chief China economist Ting Lu estimated Wednesday. That’s about 31% of China’s GDP, down slightly from last week’s 35.1% share, he said."
