Chinese Military,Political and Social Superthread

[rmc_wannabe]

Tom Mulcair weighs in and is not amused.

He's 100 percent accurate in all his points.

 

[RangerRay]

The Red Star thinks it’s a raw deal too, especially for Chinese-Canadians who experience harassment, surveillance and intimidation from the Chinese state, while our political and corporate elites hob-nob with the elite of the Chinese state.

Canadians who say they were targeted by Beijing slam David Johnston: ‘Another day of being unheard’

Public hearings won’t lead to any real change, they say.

www.thestar.com

 

[The Bread Guy]

Five Eyes breaking up a bit of Chinese IT pokey-pokey ....

The highly secretive Five Eyes alliance has disrupted a China-backed hacker group – in an unusually public manner

The Five Eyes alliance is critical to hunting and detecting foreign cyber actors, but tends to work in secret.

theconversation.com

Volt Typhoon targets US critical infrastructure with living-off-the-land techniques | Microsoft Security Blog

Chinese state-sponsored actor Volt Typhoon is using stealthy techniques to target US critical infrastructure, conduct espionage, and dwell in compromised environments.

www.microsoft.com

More in attached multi-lateral advisory committee report out this week.

 

[Good2Golf]

It may be wearing on the resilience of the “shiny new pony/unicorn” factor…this trend is now a month and a half long, and not getting any weaker.



When you have a savvy NDP Godfather coming out like Mulcair, it’s only a matter of time before Mr. Rolex-Porche’s support of Mr. B-I-2015’s pseudo-majority loses effectiveness. That there is no coalition combination that gives the LPC control should be somewhat (a lot) concerning…to JT

 

[Edward Campbell]

It may be wearing on the resilience of the “shiny new pony/unicorn” factor…this trend is now a month and a half long, and not getting any weaker.

View attachment 77733

When you have a savvy NDP Godfather coming out like Mulcair, it’s only a matter of time before Mr. Rolex-Porche’s support of Mr. B-I-2015’s pseudo-majority loses effectiveness. That there is no coalition combination that gives the LPC control should be somewhat (a lot) concerning…to JT

View attachment 77734

I think cooperating, in any meaningful way, with the BQ would destroy the Conservative Party and might do the same to the Liberals. I cannot see the NDP wanting to cooperate with the Conservatives. That means we have a repeat ion Joe Clark in 1978.

 

[QV]

I think cooperating, in any meaningful way, with the BQ would destroy the Conservative Party and might do the same to the Liberals. I cannot see the NDP wanting to cooperate with the Conservatives. That means we have a repeat ion Joe Clark in 1978.

Could there ever be a three way coalition?

 

[Good2Golf]

I think cooperating, in any meaningful way, with the BQ would destroy the Conservative Party and might do the same to the Liberals.

Possibly, but never say never, and there’s some element of case-by-case benefit of dark blue light blue collaboration against evil red, that could be workable…perhaps ‘destroy’ is a wee bit strong?

I cannot see the NDP wanting to cooperate with the Conservatives. That means we have a repeat ion Joe Clark in 1978.

Certainly not CPC-NDP, although that would raise some eyebrows of the Laurentians!

 

[Fishbone Jones]

I'm pretty sure that Singh, trying to make a point, said on more than one occasion that the NDP would never, ever, ever support the Conservatives in or out of Parliament.

Singh would not support Conservatives if NDP holds the balance of power after fall election

If the fall election results in a minority government and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh holds the balance of power, he says he would not support the Conservative Party's agenda.

www.ctvnews.ca

Now, that was in 2019. Will he change his mind after another election where the CPC hold the government? For that matter, will Singh still have a job after the next election? His stance on gun control has distanced many of his party (like Charlie Angus) from their constituents and may cost them their seat.

 

[FSTO]

About the destruction of the reputation of David Johnston - Or if he'd only said "Thanks Justin, I've got fuck you money now and don't need the headache"

Howard Anglin: Canada’s top men

thehub.ca

Johnston was right. Canada really is a small country…if you’re lucky enough to move in circles where “good friends” share a leafy Ottawa estate, where you can ask a “great friend” for a legal opinion clearing you of a conflict of interest, and where you can get your dad’s old confidant to grade your job performance on a matter of national security.

Between superannuated Supremes and eminent Canadians, our federal politics sometimes feels like a collegial class of old friends swapping favours and extending to each other a presumption of trust and goodwill that I suspect very few ordinary Canadians think they deserve. In other words, it’s just another day at the office for Canada’s top men.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/david-johnston-conflict-of-interest-1.6854592

Johnston insisted that he was not in a conflict of interest. He said he asked retired Supreme Court of Canada justice Frank Iacobucci for his opinion and was given the all-clear.
But that argument did little to dissuade his critics. Experts say that Johnston's own words, and the words of the prime minister, indicate Johnston was most likely in a conflict of interest — even if there's no way to determine if his report was biased as a result.
"So even if we say that David Johnston was in a conflict of interest, we're not suggesting anything about his integrity or about his capacity to rise above those interests," Andrew Stark, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto, told CBC News.
"We're simply saying there was an encumbrance that existed and perhaps you shouldn't have been the person to do this job."

The grooming starts at some daycare center at the Glebe, followed by a posh school such as Greys Point Academy or Upper Canada College then a law degree at McGill University, and a MBA at Harvard. A few cushy PS jobs to get a bit of seasoning followed by an appointment of VP of fuckery at SNC Lavalin and then a safe seat in Danforth or a law career that finishes at the Supreme Court. And there you have it, the path to the upper reaches of the Laurentian Elite!

 

[RangerRay]

I think cooperating, in any meaningful way, with the BQ would destroy the Conservative Party and might do the same to the Liberals. I cannot see the NDP wanting to cooperate with the Conservatives. That means we have a repeat ion Joe Clark in 1978.

Wasn’t the big kerfuffle a few years ago over Dion’s and Layton’s proposed coalition was that it was going to be backstopped by the Bloc? I remember a lot of people I knew and strangers I wouldn’t expect to share a political opinion with me we’re absolutely livid about that.

 

[Edward Campbell]

Wasn’t the big kerfuffle a few years ago over Dion’s and Layton’s proposed coalition was that it was going to be backstopped by the Bloc? I remember a lot of people I knew and strangers I wouldn’t expect to share a political opinion with me we’re absolutely livid about that.

Absolutely, and the resulting outcry was especially loud from a large minority of Liberal federalists who hated and still hate, the BQ.

 

[Remius]

I think cooperating, in any meaningful way, with the BQ would destroy the Conservative Party and might do the same to the Liberals. I cannot see the NDP wanting to cooperate with the Conservatives. That means we have a repeat ion Joe Clark in 1978.

It certainly won’t be well received by the CPC supporters who have an irrational hatred of Quebec.

A repeat of Joe Clark is a highly likely scenario…

 

[daftandbarmy]

About the destruction of the reputation of David Johnston - Or if he'd only said "Thanks Justin, I've got fuck you money now and don't need the headache"

Howard Anglin: Canada’s top men

thehub.ca

Johnston was right. Canada really is a small country…if you’re lucky enough to move in circles where “good friends” share a leafy Ottawa estate, where you can ask a “great friend” for a legal opinion clearing you of a conflict of interest, and where you can get your dad’s old confidant to grade your job performance on a matter of national security.

Between superannuated Supremes and eminent Canadians, our federal politics sometimes feels like a collegial class of old friends swapping favours and extending to each other a presumption of trust and goodwill that I suspect very few ordinary Canadians think they deserve. In other words, it’s just another day at the office for Canada’s top men.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/david-johnston-conflict-of-interest-1.6854592

Johnston insisted that he was not in a conflict of interest. He said he asked retired Supreme Court of Canada justice Frank Iacobucci for his opinion and was given the all-clear.
But that argument did little to dissuade his critics. Experts say that Johnston's own words, and the words of the prime minister, indicate Johnston was most likely in a conflict of interest — even if there's no way to determine if his report was biased as a result.
"So even if we say that David Johnston was in a conflict of interest, we're not suggesting anything about his integrity or about his capacity to rise above those interests," Andrew Stark, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto, told CBC News.
"We're simply saying there was an encumbrance that existed and perhaps you shouldn't have been the person to do this job."

The grooming starts at some daycare center at the Glebe, followed by a posh school such as Greys Point Academy or Upper Canada College then a law degree at McGill University, and a MBA at Harvard. A few cushy PS jobs to get a bit of seasoning followed by an appointment of VP of fuckery at SNC Lavalin and then a safe seat in Danforth or a law career that finishes at the Supreme Court. And there you have it, the path to the upper reaches of the Laurentian Elite!

Ottawa's motto

 

[Halifax Tar]

That means we have a repeat ion Joe Clark in 1978.

Let it happen. The last time the Lib lead opposition toppled a Minority Con Gov they were soundly beaten in the follow on election.

Canadians don't like frequent elections.

It certainly won’t be well received by the CPC supporters who have an irrational hatred of Quebec.

A repeat of Joe Clark is a highly likely scenario…

I dunno, I'm a CPC supporter and I don't hate Quebec. You just have a build legislation that makes them think they get a special role.

 

[RangerRay]

It certainly won’t be well received by the CPC supporters Canadian federalists who have an irrational hatred of Quebec the BQ.

A repeat of Joe Clark is a highly likely scenario…

FTFY

 

[RangerRay]

Terry Glavin's latest.

Inside Stories, Unreported Stories, True Stories

I've lately come to expect the worst, and my expectations haven't let me down.

therealstory.substack.com

Mission: Destroy Sheng Xue​

This is about the horrible fate that befell Sheng Xue, the democracy activist who warned Parliament back in 2006 that all this was coming. I touched on her case May 3 in the last column before my too-brief hiatus from newspapering this past month, before this series began: Evidence of China's interference has been lying in plain sight for years.

It’s of immediate relevance now that Johnston has appointed himself to convene those public hearings to draw out the Canadian victims of Beijing’s strongarm operations in Canada. I don’t know what he was thinking. Perhaps he imagined CBC clips showing him listening thoughtfully, in that grandfatherly way of his. Perhaps he wanted photos of Uyghurs whose relatives have been murdered, crying on his shoulder.

Here’s the top bits from that May 3 column:

“The Chinese community here is frightened by the Chinese government, even though they are in Canada … A lot of Chinese organizations or social groups are very close to the consulate and to the embassy. Why is that? It’s not because they don’t understand the values, or they don’t trust or agree with the values. It’s just because they are so frightened. They know that the Chinese government is so brutal they could do anything.”

If you thought that those words appeared in some news story over the past few days, perhaps in an interview with a Canadian Security and Intelligence Service whistleblower speaking anonymously out of fear of prosecution under the Security of Information Act, you’d have guessed wrong.

Those words were spoken 17 years ago, quite publicly, in testimony before the Subcommittee on International Human Rights of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Development. Sheng Xue, the vice-president of the Federation for a Democratic China, was trying to explain to Parliamentarians the vicious reach of Beijing’s strong-arm operations in Canada.

Whatever happened to Sheng Xue?

Five years ago I reported on what happened to Shawn Zhang, a 28-year-old student at the University of B.C., who told me: “It’s like they are holding my parents hostage there, so that I can’t say things. . . In Canada, in general, most Chinese students are not willing to express any opinion about China, or to talk about China.” And just a couple of weeks ago the Vancouver Sun reported on how the esteemed former journalist and teacher Victor Ho had his course on Chinese history at Trinity Western University cancelled, out of the blue 18 months ago. It was a course for seniors.

In my columns I’ve made repeated reference to a still-mostly-overlooked report about Beijing’s strongarm operations in Canada, first presented to CSIS in 2017 and updated several times since. Assembled from extensive investigations by Amnesty International and a coalition of Chinese-Canadian and other human rights organizations, the report set out in horrific detail the breadth and scope of Beijing’s bullying and intimidation operations in Canada.

Sheng Xue’s case figures fairly prominently in that extensive report. She has been the target of a long-running, complex and lurid smear campaign involving computer hacking and identity theft that the New York Times spent a year investigating.

The case bears all the signs of a Chinese Communist Party operation to ruin the Federation for a Democratic China, where Sheng played a leading role from her home in Mississauga. It’s “a textbook destabilization of the exile movement,” Nicholas Bequelin, Amnesty International’s regional director for East Asia, told the Times.

Operations like these are primarily functions of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department, the overseas influence-peddling, harrassment and espionage superagency that specializes in “elite capture” operations in priority countries like Canada. I don’t think I need to say anything much about Canada’s “elites,” starting with the Trudeau family and its powerful circle of friends, as the often-willing objects of the United Front’s inducements.

The United Front is mentioned in Johnston’s 53-page report only once, in passing.

 

[Remius]

Let it happen. The last time the Lib lead opposition toppled a Minority Con Gov they were soundly beaten in the follow on election.

When Joe Clark was toppled PET came back to form a majority.

Canadians don't like frequent elections.

They don’t. They also hate governments that can’t govern.

I dunno, I'm a CPC supporter and I don't hate Quebec. You just have a build legislation that makes them think they get a special role.

PP will never get pipelines built from out west anywhere near or through Quebec in any alliance that includes the Bloc. I’m sure the Bloc has seen what the NDP was able to squeeze out of the LPC. Now imagine a separatist party doing the same and a PM who wants to be PM at all costs who won’t care and will cave into to their demands. That won’t go over well for the party.

Mr. campbell’s assertion that something like that could destroy the Conservative Party is well founded and not at all far fetched.

 

[Czech_pivo]

It may be wearing on the resilience of the “shiny new pony/unicorn” factor…this trend is now a month and a half long, and not getting any weaker.

View attachment 77733

When you have a savvy NDP Godfather coming out like Mulcair, it’s only a matter of time before Mr. Rolex-Porche’s support of Mr. B-I-2015’s pseudo-majority loses effectiveness. That there is no coalition combination that gives the LPC control should be somewhat (a lot) concerning…to JT

View attachment 77734

Where are the LPC, NDP, BQ figures.....

 

[RangerRay]

Where are the LPC, NDP, BQ figures.....

There’s no way any federalist party will ally with the BQ. Political suicide. Ask Stephan Dion. The BQ wasn’t even going to be a formal member of the “coalition”.

 

[Good2Golf]

Where are the LPC, NDP, BQ figures.....

338Canada says they don’t do all coalition variants.

I *don’t honestly think if the CPCs won a minority, that they’d cut a permanent drug-deal with the BQ like JT did with Herr Porsche-Rolex. However, I could see a stealth agreement in that the BQ “might consider, from time to time, the merit of what the CPC proposes…” so as to secure support for certain interests and also take the occasional pleasure in sticking it to things that the Laurentians hold dear.