May 27, 2006: #1

Prime Minister Harper says budget will boost Canadian business
May 24, 2006
London, Ontario

Prime Minister Stephen Harper said today that his government’s first budget will help unleash the potential of Canada’s business community through a combination of tax cuts and investment incentives.

In a speech to the London Chamber of Commerce, the Prime Minister stated that Budget 2006 included no less than 29 tax cuts for Canadian businesses and individuals. These reductions are worth $20 billion over the next two years – more than the last four federal budgets combined.

“We believe opportunity is created when hard work and innovation are rewarded,” the Prime Minister said. “We understand that business thrives when government embraces an environment that rewards achievement.”

Prime Minister Harper highlighted several key initiatives announced in the recent budget to benefit the business community, including:

Raising the amount of income eligible for the 12 percent small business income tax rate from $300,000 to $400,000 annually. The rate itself will be lowered to 11 percent by 2009;

Introducing a new tax credit of up to $2,000 for employers who hire apprentices;

Introducing a new tax credit for employees’ work-related expenses on tools and equipment;

Reducing the general corporate income tax rate from 21 percent to 19 percent by 2010; and

Eliminating both the federal capital tax and the corporate surtax.

On the spending side of the budget, the Prime Minister noted that expenditures were disciplined and focused on areas of federal jurisdiction, including improved border security, re-staffing the RCMP and rebuilding the Armed Forces. “No longer will money be wasted on ever-changing and ever-expanding priorities,” Prime Minister Harper said.

Harper says he'll avoid national media because they're biased against him -- Note: It was "Yves Malo, a reporter with the Quebec-based TVA network, who urged his colleagues to walk out of the Tuesday news conference."



Is this a necessary study ... or is there something about this study that might leave males wondering? ... Is there an agenda here?

Why do men die younger than women? -- "being competitive, physically dominating and daring" Amy Brown-Bowers, National Post, May 25, 2006 -- authors Daniel J. Kruger and Randolph M. Nesse

[....] A research paper recently published in the journal Human Nature [....]

-- being competitive, physically dominating and daring -- are also traits linked to shorter life spans.

[....] the high levels of testosterone responsible for more masculine features have been shown to have devastating effects on a man's immune system. [....]

Do we need a Mothers Against Males' CPDD program? Perhaps we need more feminized males? ... But don't we have enough already? There is something anti-male about this study. Isn't testosterone and its display natural?



And who is paying for this? Taxpayers? What about our right not to have him or his family here?

Deportation of delayed for accused Chinese fugitive -- Lai Changxing CTV.ca, May. 25 2006

One of China's most wanted fugitives will get at least one more court hearing in his battle to remain in Canada, immigration officials have confirmed.

Canada's Border Services Agency had planned to deport accused Chinese crime boss Lai Changxing on Friday, but that has now been delayed until at least next week.

[....] Lai's lawyer, David Matas, said he will challenge the Canadian government's ruling that Lai is not at risk of torture or death if forced back to China, where he is wanted on criminal charges.

Matas, a prominent Canadian human rights attorney, has also written to the United Nations Committee Against Torture in Switzerland, saying he may ask the UN to intervene if the Canadian courts refuse to put Lai's deportation on hold. [....]

And does Canada get to keep his wife and children too? "Lai, his wife Tsang Mingna and their three children arrived in Canada in August 1999 after fleeing China by way of Hong Kong." How much do you want to bet that one of the arguments will be undue hardship on his wife and children?

Concerning Matas and the United Nations Committee Against Torture in Switzerland, can you see where the UN and Global Governance would like to move? Also, where "rights" are moving -- when you consider the pronouncement from the UN that no-one is illegal.




Look at what children are exposed to in towns across Canada

Keswick Hells Angels sentenced after massive drugs and weapons raid

More than 190 marijuana plants, 16 kilograms of dried marijuana, six kilograms of cocaine, 441 grams of hashish, 2,350 tablets of Percodan, $205,000 in cash, handguns, and stolen property were seized, York Regional Police stated.

Five men arrested in drug bust off Vancouver Island detained -- Update also, on the "Canadian-registered Western Wind was carrying 2,500 kilograms of cocaine" Scott Sutherland, May 24, 06

[....] four Canadians and one Mexican ... MV Bakur ... Ucluelet ... 1200 kilograms of marijuana [....]

Nadeau said one of the men currently being detained was questioned in a massive cocaine seizure in 2001.

[Insp. Paul Nadeau] said Phillip Stirling was detained, but never charged, after a fishboat called the Western Wind was found to be loaded with more than two tonnes of cocaine.

"He was never charged. It was done in the United States. But he certainly has been arrested and charged in this case."

The Canadian-registered Western Wind was carrying 2,500 kilograms of cocaine, making it the largest seizure of cocaine in the Pacific Northwest at the time.

The drug shipment, packed into more than 100 bales, had an estimated street value of $200 million US at the time, police said.

[....] Police had been tracking the Bakur since it left Halifax in December, keeping an eye on it as it travelled down the East Coast, through the Panama Canal, then up the West Coast to Canada.

Good show!



Massive fraud sting leads to 400 Canadian charges Sarah Chapman, CanWest News Service; Calgary Herald, May 24, 2006

CALGARY - An international sting cracking down on illicit mass marketers targeting victims in the United States has led to almost 400 charges nationwide, police said Tuesday.

RCMP in Ottawa said Operation Global Con, which has been ongoing since Jan. 1 2005 and was conducted by law enforcement agencies across the globe, resulted in 372 charges and 96 arrests in Canada, where investigations were concentrated in and around Halifax, Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Edmonton, Vancouver, and Calgary. The investigations have so far netted 19 convictions including 13 guilty pleas.

Other arrests have been made in Costa Rica, the Netherlands, and Spain. [....]

Search: American Getaway Vacations Inc. and Credence Travel Processing Inc.



Court hears of unusual money flow to Guite's department -- Fraud trial. Underlings didn't ask questions: witness Les Perreaux, CP, May 25

When money was tight, millions would flow in highly irregular yearend transfers from other government departments, like Heritage or Health, said Huguette Tremblay, one of Guite's former deputies in Public Works.

[....] He produced several memos that showed top officials in Heritage Canada, Health Canada and sectors within Public Works approved unusual transfers to his department totalling more than $10 million in 1996 and 1997.

In a confidential 1996 Privy Council memo, it is revealed Guite's department spent $17 million without the Treasury Board approving the funds.

Search: wine for breakfast , Television series in China , David Dingwall , Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency , top-level politicians

Why were there "contracts that were supposed to study opposition to the gun registry"?



Activist dies in vicious beating -- Chan-Ung Park out for night walk near his home -- Died in hospital three days after being attacked Tracy Huffman, May 24, 06

Chan-Ung Park was a retired professor, author, civil rights activist and prominent member of the local Korean community.

On Saturday — after suffering a vicious beating three days earlier — the 79-year-old became the 23rd homicide victim for 2006. [....]

GLENN HARLAN REYNOLDS: The Parent Trap -- How safety fanatics help drive down birthrates. May 24, 2006

[....] Parenting was always hard work, of course. But aside from the economic payoffs, parents used to get a lot of social benefits, too. Yet in recent decades, a collection of parenting "experts" and safety-fascist types have extinguished some of the benefits while raising the costs, to the point where what's amazing isn't that people are having fewer kids, but that people are having kids at all. [....]

Search: decline in parental prestige


Of course, we don't call it eugenics ...

Yesterday, I read a New York Times Magazine (Mar. 12, 06) article entitled: A Wrongful Birth? by Elizabeth Weil which explores at length the ethical dimensions of pre-birth genetic or other screening and the counselling that attends it.

Mothers are suing over poor prenatal car, claiming if they'd known they were going to give birth to severely disabled children, they would have terminated their pregnancies ... Legally and morally, what does it mean to say that a child should not have existed?

Worth thinking about.




Toronto transit workers' union says Operators will no longer risk assaults by enforcing fare payments -- "Kinnear was accompanied by two male Operators who have been assaulted several times while trying to enforce fare
payments." CNW Telbec, h/t newsbeat(?)

TORONTO, May 24 /CNW/ - The union representing 8,500 members of the Toronto Transit Commission says it is advising its members to "no longer engage in fare disputes with customers" in order to reduce the risk of assaults, which are on the rise in both numbers and severity.

ATU Local 113 President Bob Kinnear told a press conference this morning that last Wednesday he raised the issue of assaults at a closed door session of the TTC and was met with silence.

"Not a single Commissioner, from the Chair on down, asked me a question about the problem of assaults. [....]

"On the brink of becoming a narco-state"

Judy Dempsey: General calls drugs biggest test for Afghans -- General James Jones, Nato's top military commander says: "drug cartels more dangerous for the country's future than a resurgent Taliban" -- "90 percent of Afghanistan's heroin ends up" in Europe International Herald Tribune, May 20, 06



Abstract: Information on Certain Illegal Aliens Arrested in the United States, GAO-05-646R, May 9, 2005 h/t newsbeat1, May 26, 06

[....] A more recent study estimated that there were about 10 million illegal aliens living in the United States as of March 2005. The study estimated that nearly 700,000 aliens entered the United States illegally or overstayed their authorized period of stay each year between 2000 and 2004 [....]

In our population study of 55,322 illegal aliens, we found that they were arrested at least a total of 459,614 times, averaging about 8 arrests per illegal alien. Nearly all had more than 1 arrest. Thirty-eight percent (about 21,000) had between 2 and 5 arrests, 32 percent (about 18,000) had between 6 and 10 arrests, and 26 percent (about 15,000) had 11 or more arrests. Most of the arrests occurred after 1990. [....]

What would the UN have to say about this? Of course, Canada must be better after years of Liberal social engineering and activism.



News of the Day (May 23) -- links on the site 2006

[....] Deputy Chief of Communist Navy caught embezzling $19 million: Wang Shouye, who stole the money when he was Vice Logistics Minister and Construction Minister for the Communist military, had reached the rank Deputy Chief of Staff of China's Navy before he was busted (Chengming Magazine via Epoch Times).

Three Gorges Dam completed: The BBC has two pieces on the Dam and the damage it has done.

Communists claim no geopolitical interest in Africa and Latin America: At least that's what they told U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon, Jr. Sadly, Shannon appears to have bought it (Washington Times). Meanwhile, the cadres offered Nigeria a $1 billion railroad-building loan (BBC). [....]