We got a better read of the charges against the Rideau Hall intruder from last week, including more specifics on the weapons charges – a restricted revolver, a prohibited rifle, and two legal shotguns – as well as confirmation that the uttering threats charge was indeed directed toward the prime minister. This is, of course, in direct contravention to what RCMP sources were leaking to certain journalists last week that he didn’t intend to harm anyone, which never actually was credible at the time, and yet they dutifully reported it anyway.
That final charge, that he allegedly threatened the prime minister, certainly undercuts the narrative the RCMP was leaking out that he was just on the grounds of Rideau Hall to chat with the Prime Minister.
— Justin Ling (Has Left) (@Justin_Ling) July 6, 2020
https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1278788951885721602
https://twitter.com/robert_hiltz/status/1278809780392427520
What is especially galling is that the RCMP seems to have zero self-awareness that this sort of thing fuels the calls about systemic racism in their organization – doing proper de-escalation and then floating this “not intending to harm” fiction when it’s a white guy with guns as opposed to a Black, Indigenous or otherwise person of colour where they will beat, taze, or outright kill them when they are unarmed. The contrast had been made to the arrest video of Chief Allan Adam video where he was tackled and pummelled for merely mouthing off after police outright harassed him for expired licence plate tags, whereas the intruder was armed and had intent to threaten the prime minister (if not outright assassinate him – that remains for the investigation to conclude and the courts to decide), and he was apparently unharmed after a ninety-minute conversation. The fact that they would float that “no harm” notion when the guy was armed and rammed through the gates pretty much confirms in everyone’s minds that white perpetrators of violence get treated separately and less lethally than anyone else – but they remain oblivious to it. Incredible.
Good reads:
- Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will not be heading to Washington on Wednesday to meet with Trump and the president of Mexico. (He’s got the “fiscal snapshot”).
- Trudeau also appointed Bob Rae as Canada’s new ambassador to the United Nations.
- ESDC says they considered running the Canada Service Grant through the Canada Service Corps, but they determined they wouldn’t have sufficient capacity.
- Apparently some Service Canada centres will start reopening this week.
- It only took DND four years to launch an investigation and suspend a supervisor who was posting racists images in the workplace.
- Under investigation by the Privacy Commissioner, Clearview AI has stopped their facial recognition service in Canada, including their contract with the RCMP.
- Here’s a look at what Canadarm3 will be tasked with as part of the Lunar Gateway station that will begin construction in a couple of years (hopefully).
- China is warning its citizens to exercise caution while travelling in Canada. Ironic.
- MPs on the Procedure and House Affairs committee are seriously contemplating remote voting by app, and I can’t even. My head is going to explode.
- Liberal MP Lenore Zann has been facing abusive calls and threats since making comments on gun control and feminism in the wake of the Nova Scotia shooting.
- Susan Delacourt reads into Trudeau’s decision not to attend the meeting in Washington between Trump and Mexico’s president.
- Delacourt also speculates as to some of the reasons for Bob Rae’s appointment as UN Ambassador.
- Paul Wells surveys some of the other UN delegates who will be serving alongside Rae, and makes a few poignant observations about their diplomatic experience.
Odds and ends:
My latest Loonie Politics video dispels the notion that the Commons could have voted down the WE Charity contract, and instead reminds us of their proper role.
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It also fuels anger about systemic racism in the feckless media, which would have put this incident on their front pages and the top of the news broadcasts for weeks if a BIPOC of non-Christian religion was arrested for the attempted assassination of the prime minister. Gee, I can’t qwhite figure out what’s different about the friendly sausage maker over Michael Zehaf-Bibeau. Or why so many hackles were raised when Justin Trudeau addressed the “Reclaiming the Muslim Spirit” conference in the run-up to his leadership campaign, versus when Andrew Scheer and a bunch of other deplorables in his caucus gave a pep talk to the yellow vests with special guest Faith Goldy. Does no one else recall the softpedaled coverage depicting them as economically anxious patch workers with legitimate grievances about the government? Or that senator who exhorted the truck drivers to “run over every Liberal in the country”?
It’d be nice if any of them gave an apology to Michael Wernick for his prescient Cassandra warning, after they all ran him out on a rail condemning him as a partisan hack and Trudeau shill attempting to deflect from the “seriousness” of the Stupid Nothingburger Controversy aka Multi-Hyphenate Affair. But that has as much chance of happening as the RCMP, the fourth estate, and especially, the Conservatives themselves, admitting that, shock, they might have systemic racism in their ranks. Either the media is sleepwalking into Canada’s first JFK moment, or they’re letting it build up because their corporate ownership is salivating over the great ratings it’ll get and the cottage industry of TV specials and “commemorative edition” issues of their respective publications that’ll crop up in the aftermath. As for the Conservatives, I think they’re so far gone into derangement syndrome that they want it to happen, or at least wouldn’t mind if it did, because they’re starving for power and it’s their only chance of dislodging Justin Trudeau permanently from the top job. Sick, really. The whole thing is just sick.
J.B. Cons never, ever, apologize for anything, they are too hidebound for that. Canadians are browner, more liberal, more anti establishment and less religious. The Cons, if they don’t wise up, and they can’t, are going to continue to lose.