2.65 Billion: It’s Harper’s Fault

(link)
Assorted rightie bloggers are expressing their outrage that Trudeau has committed Canada to spending 2.65 billion dollars helping 3rd world kleptocracies “fight climate change”.

As I said at Kate’s and repeated at BCF,

Idiot.

However, the real problem lies with Harper and the Cons not digging in and discrediting the global warming farce while they had a majority. 20 million tossed at sceptical researchers – ideally led by Steve MacIntyre – and the whole scam could have been buried forever.

Instead, Harper and the Cons pretended that global warming was a thing. They didn’t actually do anything about it; but they did not use their time in government to demolish the Green Blob.

20 million versus 2.65 billion simply because the Conservatives were chickenshits.

Harper might have had an excuse with the minorities. He had no excuse with a majority. He knew the science was bogus and the economics laughable. But he wanted to avoid offending the climate true believers. So he punted the file and we are stuck with 2.65 billion now and carbon taxes and, Lord knows, what else.

A twenty million dollar Commission looking at the science and the economics could have torpedoed the crazier claims of the warmists and built a solid wall of science preventing Trudeau and Dion and the other dimwits from fashionably screwing the economy.

Harper lacked the courage of his convictions on this file and many others. Good riddance.

France and Terror

Ignored in news coverage of the Paris massacre is the single most pertinent piece of background: A 2014 opinion poll found that ISIS had an approval rating in France (at 16%) almost as high as President Francois Holland (at 18%). In the 18-to-24-year-old demographic, ISIS’ support jumped to 27%. Muslims comprise about a tenth of France’s population, so the results imply that ISIS had the support of the overwhelming majority of French Muslims (and especially Muslim youth), as well as the endorsement of a large part of the non-Muslim Left. Spengler

Spengler suggests that France will do nothing in the wake of the Paris attrocities. His logic is that to do something involves putting pressure on the French Muslim community which, in turn, will likely cause a great deal of trouble. The French don’t want the trouble so they will do nothing.

I am not sure Spengler is right but the numbers and the concentrations of Muslims in France suggest he may be.

I don’t live in France but the takeaway for Canada is that at a certain point a Muslim population becomes unmanagable. Canada is not at that point. Yet.

Realistically, Canada needs to take a hard look at immigration from Muslim majority countries. A trickle is one thing, a serious flow quite another. By eliminating, or vastly reducing, immigration from those countries we have the chance to avoid the truly awful consequences of a large, unassimilated and potentially hostile group within our borders.

I suspect if you were to ask the average Frenchman or Englishman or German whether, given the chance of a “do-over”, they would have welcomed quite so many Muslims to their nations, you would hear a chorus of Nein, Non and No. We have the opportunity to reduce our future regrets with, initially, a moratorium and then, after a decade or so, a re-examination of the question of Muslim immigration.

Think Again

One of the Paris terrorists apparently arrived in Greece in October claiming to be a refugee. link

Canada proposes to accept 25,000 “refugees” on an expedited basis. The government needs to give us an undertaking that it will not let a single “refugee” in who cannot be positively vetted no matter how long that takes.

Do We Get Serious?

To repeat what I said a few days ago, I’m Islamed out. I’m tired of Islam 24/7, at Colorado colleges, Marseilles synagogues, Sydney coffee shops, day after day after day. The west cannot win this thing with a schizophrenic strategy of targeting things and people but not targeting the ideology, of intervening ineffectually overseas and not intervening at all when it comes to the remorseless Islamization and self-segregation of large segments of their own countries.

So I say again: What’s the happy ending here? Because if M Hollande isn’t prepared to end mass Muslim immigration to France and Europe, then his “pitiless war” isn’t serious. And, if they’re still willing to tolerate Mutti Merkel’s mad plan to reverse Germany’s demographic death spiral through fast-track Islamization, then Europeans aren’t serious. In the end, the decadence of Merkel, Hollande, Cameron and the rest of the fin de civilisation western leadership will cost you your world and everything you love.

So screw the candlelight vigil. mark steyn

I think the events in Paris bring us a bit closer to being serious. A bit closer to the recognition of the fundamental incompatibility of Islam with Western liberal democracy. We’ll see in the morning.

The way we will see is by paying close attention to our leader’s words and their actions. To allow a million Muslims to arrive in Europe in the guise of refugees is an obvious mistake and one which, with political will, can be corrected. (And, in the Canadian case, to invite 25,000 so called refugees in on a timetable which precludes serious vetting is an excellent test of Trudeau’s seriousness as a leader.) But will it be?

Will Hollande’s “pitiless” crusade against terror actually deploy troops to the “no-go zomes” of Paris for the house to house searches to find the weapons, the illegals and the intelligence? Will the rest of Europe cheer the French on or retreat behind the tut, tuts of multikulti delusion?

We are about to find out if this night in Paris has been enough. I would have thought Charlie Hebdo would have been enough. But I was wrong then. Everybody had a nice march and went home.

Will this be enough? I am afraid I doubt it. Mark is right in that the West simply will not confront the reality of political, imperial, Islam. We’re lazy and we’re nice and we simply can’t imagine the sorts of action which might stop the flow of illegal migrants or the terror in the streets of Paris. Because to imagine that is to treat people who are deeply different from us as alien, as “other”. We are too polite to recognize and treat the cancer which is Islam.

This is a war. It is a war which has been going on since the 7th Century. The other side has always, right from the time of the prophet, understood that this is a war. The West, most of the time, pretends it isn’t. Will Paris convince us to take the war seriously? I hope so but I doubt it.

I really think it will take a mass atrocity: biological, chemical or nuclear with 100,000 or a million deaths, to put a bit of fight in us. And, sad to say, when that happens the terrified left and muddled center will probably try to figure out how to negotiate.

No, really.

When asked Thursday by CBC about confronting ISIS, Sajjan said:

“We need to get better as an international coalition … better at looking at the threats early on, to making sure that we identify them early so they don’t balloon into these big threats,”

“They were smaller at one time, we need to get better at identifying the subtle indicators so we might be able to have dealt with it diplomatically.” the rebel

(Sad to see a Sikh warrior say something so craven about the traditional enemy of the Sikhs.)

Paris Attack

Possible suicide bombs. Gunfire. Hostages.

Networks are cautioning against concluding that this has anything to do with Islam.

35 dead, 100 hostages…

Update: It looks like 3 attacks. And it looks like they were co-ordinated.

Update #2: Daily Mail has it at 60 dead, potentially a 4th attack and, shockingly, cries of “‘Allah Akbar’ and ‘this is for Syria'” DM

Update #3: Twenty years too late, Hollande is closing the French borders. I expect there will be a lot of that.

Update #4: Now France 24 is saying attacks at 7 sites.

Update #5: There is some question as to whether France is actually capable of closing its borders. Over at Breitbart London the suggestion is that it can’t close it’s green borders and that a full modilization would be required to “secure” Paris.

Update #6: “I am shocked and saddened that so many people have been killed and injured today in a number of terrorist attacks in Paris, France, and that many others are being held hostage.” Justin Trudeau

A good start using the word terrorist to describe terrorists.

Update #7: Looks like massive casualties amongst the hostages. 100+

Update #8: Justin Trudeau is going to address the Paris atrocity shortly. It is a statement which could make or break his Prime Ministership. One word of “excuse” or “root cause” and we’ll know he is not fit for the job. However, before he speaks the Tory partisans should dial back the commentary. Trudeau is not the enemy. ISIS and political Islam is the enemy. If Trudeau can make that clear as well as extending Canadians’ deepest sympathies to France he will grow in the office. Here’s hoping.

Update #9: JT gets it “terrorist attacks” in both languages. And taking questions…good. Of course there is not much he can say at this point. Ok…one question.

Sort of like his victory speech. It was adequate. On Twitter Chris Selley said JT “was almost alarmingly subdued there”. I think it has occurred to Trudeau that he is actually the Prime Minister and, if he blows it, he could be in the position M. Hollande was in tonight having to order the storming of a hostage situation. A thought which would tend to sober anyone up. I suspect we’ll hear less about “Happy Ways” for a while.

—-

On Twitter John Ibbitson opines <blockquote class=”twitter-tweet” lang=”en”><p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”>These attacks will have ugly consequences everywhere incl here. They must not change our refugee policy.</p>&mdash; John Ibbitson (@JohnIbbitson) <a href=”https://twitter.com/JohnIbbitson/status/665310036525121536″>November 13, 2015</a></blockquote>
//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

I suspect we are going to hear a lot of this sort of nonsense in the next few days. Of course it must change our refugee policy; we have to screen very hard indeed and if that takes until spring, so be it. We also have to think very clearly about whether we want to allow more Muslim immigrants into Canada. The situation in France – with a vast, unassimilated, Muslim community – is profoundly unhealthy. Today’s terror may or may not have its roots in that unhealthiness; but the French trouble with unassimilated Muslims is a warning.

So, yes, we do have to rethink our refugee policy. And we need to rethink our immigration policy as well.

Timing

A fair number of the louder conservatives are already calling down the Furies on Justin Trudeau and his Cabinet. It turns out the Stephan Dion is just as Green as he ever was and that the Libs are going to throw their shoulders into bringing the 25,000 Syrian refugees to Canada ASAP. And lots more besides. As Lance over at SDA points out:

“I hope the incrementalist Conservatives are paying attention. The liberals are slashing and burning their way back to Trudeaupia and they’ve only been in power for what – a week?”

With 39% of the vote the Libs are doing exactly what they said they were going to do and, of course, the media party is cheering them on.

Whining about the Libs doing what they said they were going to do is dopey. At the moment, and right through the winter and into the spring, the Liberals are going to push their agenda. They are also going to blame the Conservatives for anything which goes wrong. Conservatives who don’t get that are just firing blanks at an indifferent enemy.

Now is an excellent time for Conservatives to think clearly about why, in four years, Canadians should vote for the Conservative Party. Make the assumption that all will go reasonably well for Trudeau. (Over estimate his strength.) Assume further that there is presently no potential Conservative leader who will come close to Trudeau in terms of straight leadership appeal. Now, why would someone vote for the Conservative Party?

It is not enough to shoot at the inevidable “carbon tax”. Conservatives have to go out and actually say why a carbon tax is an expensive, ineffective way of making very little change to a non-existent problem. They need to push back against the dwindling, but loud, anti-scientific, economically illiterate warmists. On migrants they need to actually articulate why it is a bad idea to allow more than 25,000 into Canada while be conspicuous in helping to settle the poor people already in the pipeline.

Conservatives also have to think seriously about their own economic platform. Trudeau is promising 10 billion a year for infrastructure to be financed with deficits. Throughout the campaign there was no coherent response to this bit of economic candy. Was it wrong? If so why? Did the Conservatives have an alternative? What are the pillars of a Conservative economic vision for Canada? That needs to be hashed out before there really can be a coherent response to Trudeau.

Just as every new government has a honeymoon lasting at least six months and often up to a year, a defeated party has a period of reflection. While Ezra and the gang at the Rebel are pouncing on every Liberal announcement and appointment as evidence of Liberal prefidity, they are wasting their breath and annoying the fair minded Canadians who tend to think the new kids should have a bit of a break as they take over.

Winning the next election is going to be touch for the Conservatives, there is no reason to make it tougher by substituting rants for constructive policy. Give Trudeau room to make his mistakes. Give him time to hit the various potholes the world is putting in his way. Most of all, get to work to give Canadians a real alternative to the Liberals.

Ooops…

China burnt 17% more coal than it had previously said it did. Which, what with one thing and another, comes to a billion extra tons of evil CO2 “spewing” (it always spews) into the atmosphere. (NYT for details.)

So, as Paris fast approaches and the great and the good led by Prime Minister Trudeau prepare to pledge reductions in Canada’s CO2 emissions we might pause to consider that Canada’s total CO2 emissions from all sources in 2013 were…726 million tons. Yup, we spewed less CO2 than the CO2 spewed by China’s little error.

Whatever we pledge – in an excess of virtue signalling – will make absolutely no difference to the temperature of the Earth even conceding that CO2 has some effect. Our noble pledges will be entirely lost in the rush to industrialization taking place in China, India and many other countries. For all the difference to the climate Prime Minister Trudeau and the premiers and his merry band of Cabinet Ministers will make in Paris they might as well skip the jet ride and the hotels and mail in some targets which will not be met. Cheaper and less polluting.

Promises

Tomorrow Justin Trudeau becomes Prime Minister. As the Lying Jackal points out Trudeau has made a lot of promises along the way. Realists, and the Jackal is certainly nothing if not that, are suggesting that there is a lot on Trudeau’s plate and that a few items will likely fall off. Quite right. Now the question is which items?

Here is the Jackal’s list with a few comments.

Syrian refugees: 25,000 by year end. No. Even if it were possible – and it likely isn’t – it would be unwise. There are a lot of “refugees” and then there are a lot of people who are pretending to be. Sorting sheep from goats is important here. As well, paying attention to which of the refugees are at risk of genocide – Christians, Yazidis and so on – have no future in Iraq and Syria. They are not going back.

Doctor-assisted suicide: All the rules in the world are not going to replace medical judgment. Upping the morphine at end of life should not be a crime. Professional oversight should be sufficient to prevent flagrant murder, but I can’t see how you can legislate judgment.

Repeal parts of C-51: This is actually not that hard. Putting in the sunset provisions is easy. Beefing up the oversight is a bit trickier but possible. The one thing that Trudeau didn’t promise, but which would improve C-51 immediately, is to include very stiff administrative, financial and, ultimately, criminal penalties for misuse of the powers C-51 creates. Put the security services on notice that misuse has real, career ending, consequences. And make sure that there is a named officer in charge of every operation who will be identified publically and fired in the event of misuse.

Launch inquiry into murdered and missing aboriginal women: Appoint a judge. Set a budget. Wait three years.

Reinstate long-form census: Sure, but make it voluntary. At that point, the air goes out of the argument against. (And, realistically, the statistical validity of the material is largely unchanged if two or three people decline to fill it out.) Problem solved.

Pull out of Obama’s anti-ISIS force: Yes, tomorrow. It is a pointless waste of time run by an idiot. (But keep our guys working with the Kurds. About the only good guys in the entire mess.)

Restore home mail delivery: As the Jackal points out, Canada Post has suspended the implementation of the program. Does anyone still get mail?

Legalize marijuana: Given the complete balls up the Conservatives made of the Medical Marijuana Program it is almost impossible for Trudeau to do worse. The Jackal cites the hoary old “but the US will clamp down on the border” chestnut as a reason for delay. Rubbish. Colorado and Washington have legal, recreational pot and the feds have backed off. California will legalize in 2016 along with a number of other states. The war on pot is over in the US.

Legal pot in Canada can be in place in three months. 1) Allow already licenced medical growers to sell to the general public through the mail as they do for medical users now, 2) allow them to sell to registered – make registration really easy – dispensaries, 3) unplug the bottlenecks at Health Canada and start issuing licences to more grow shows. The pot ship has sailed. Minimally regulate it, tax it and move on.

Ratify TPP: Sure. But also think about what a realistic Canadian trade stance should be.

Frankly, if Trudeau can’t get most of this done in a five-week Parliament he and his Cabinet are overthinking things. The only genuinely tough item on this list is the Syrian refugee question and even that is more about timing than policy.

Politically, being able to sit in front of the Christmas fire and tick of a list of promises made, promises kept,d is going to make Trudeau look brilliant. The real work begins in the New Year.