Why Canucks are at the back of the line for Covid vaccine

Earlier this week, Just In Trudeau, Prime Minister of All Canuckistan, told virus-weary Canadians that they would have to wait for "a while" to get any of the Covid-19 vaccines that will soon be made available to Americans, Germans, cheese-eating surrender monkeys, Indians (the south Asian kind) and even citizens of Rumbabaland. Why so? Because, Mr Socks admitted, Canada "no longer" has any vaccine-manufacturing capacity of its own. Any vaccine which Canucks may get... later... will have to be imported. 

Agent 3 was puzzled by Hairboy's explanation ["excuse", shurely. Ed.] because he (3) remembers, as a young man, walking past an imposing building near the University of Toronto named Connaught Laboratories, which he understood to be a manufacturer of vaccines and other medicines. What (he wonders) happened to Connaught Labs? 

It turns out that Connaught Medical Research Laboratories was an early victim of... wait for it... globalization. 

The non-commercial public health entity was established in Toronto in 1914 in Toronto to produce the diphtheria antitoxin. Contemporaneously, the institution was likened to the Pasteur Institutes in France and Belgium and the Lister Institute in London. It expanded significantly after the discovery of insulin at the University of Toronto in 1921, manufacturing and distributing insulin at cost in Canada and overseas.

Connaught's non-commercial mandate mediated commercial interests and kept the medication accessible not just to Canadians but (as the map shows) to subjects of His Britannic Majesty around the world. In the 1930s, methodological advances at Connaught updated the international standard for insulin production. Efforts at Connaught to purify heparin for human clinical trials lay the foundation for various critical surgeries including vascular surgery, organ transplantation and cardiac surgery. 

During World Wars I and II, the Labs produced various antitoxins that became crucial due to increased risks of injury infection and exposure to diseases in other parts of the world, including the typhus vaccine and penicillin. Connaught's production technologies also enabled the mass-scale field trial of Jonas Salk's polio vaccine and its subsequent expansion. The institution played a particularly important role in restoring the faith of the American public in the polio vaccine after a production mishap at California-based Cutter Laboratories. 

Connaught Labs was taken over in 1972, during the reign of Emperor Trudeau I, by the Canada Development Corporation (CDC), a federally-owned corporation charged with developing and maintaining Canadian-controlled companies in the private sector through a mixture of public and private investment. Today,  the globalists and one-worlders would condemn such a move as "nationalist" or "protectionist", contrary to the spirit of free trade.

As surely as day follows night, the state-owned enterprise increased prices on its products and came under allegations of mismanagement and deteriorated manufacturing standards. In 1986, Connaught were transferred to private ownership as the CDC was dismantled as part of the neo-conservative Mulroney government's programme of privatization. 

Three years later, Connaught was "merged with" (read: sold out to) the French Institut Mérieux. In 19 1999 it was transformed into the Canadian component of "Pasteur Mérieux Connaught", owned by Rhône-Poulenc, another French outfit. A series of acquisitions since then have transferred ownership of what used to be the Connaught Laboratories to the global vaccine business of Sanofi, which distributes its output primarily to the people of, errr, France.

That's what happens, folks, when you declare that your country is "open for business again", which really means "for sale to the highest bidder". These days the highest bidder is likely to the country with all the money, and we know which one that is. Right?

One thing Still-President Trump got absolutely right

There are many Americans [but surely not 50%! Ed.] who absolutely refuse to give Still-President Trump credit for a single thing that he did or tried to do to Make America Great Again. If he walked across the pool at his Florida estate they'd say he doesn't know how to swim! It's a pity that more Americans, especially the anti-Trumpers, didn't read The Expendables, by Jeff Rubin (PenguinRandomHouse 2020).

Ed. says that maybe the book didn't make a big splash in the Excited States of America because Jeff Rubin is a Canadian, and Americans just don't listen to Canadians. But Mr Rubin is not your typical Canuck milquetoast liberal. He is a world-leading expert on trade and energy, and former chief economist and chief strategist at Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce World Markets, and recently served as a senior fellow at the Centre for International Governance Innovation. 

So Mr Rubin knows a thing or three about economics, and about the adverse effects of globalism and globalization, as promoted by George Soros and all the other Volvo liberals behind the campaign to turf President Trump out of office. They think globalism is wonderful, and why wouldn't they... it made them rich! But Jeff Rubin begs to differ.

The subtitle of The Expendables says it all. It reads: How the middle class got screwed by globalization. Our Agent 17, a member of said middle class, complained to me years ago (BT) that "China is eating our lunch." He was right. And the liberals made that happen! 

Through the World Trade Organization and trade deals like NAFTA and the Trans-Pacific Partnership -- all endorsed and promoted by the Prez and Mr and Mrs Clinton -- tariffs were lowered to the point of being non-existent, and millions of well-paying manufacturing jobs were off-shored to places like Mexico ("that great sucking sound"), Vietnam, Bangladesh and, of course, China.

What happened? The owners of multinational corporations like Amazon, Microsoft, Facebook, Apple, Walmart, etc etc, got rich beyond the dreams of avarice, while the American (and Canadian and OECD) middle class actually shrank. 

But, the liberals say, the poor people -- below middle class -- became better off. Not true, says Mr Rubin. More people than ever are working in McJobs and the gig economy, rather than steady well-paying jobs in industry. And because wages have been stagnant while profits grow, their standard of living has actually declined, as witness the growing numbers of those "experiencing homelessness" -- living in cars and RVs even in supposedly prosperous areas like Silicon Valley.  

What Donald Trump did right, but gets little or no credit for, was to put the brakes on globalization, by getting the US of A out of rotten trade deals like NAFTA and the Obama-sponsored TPP. He also lowered taxes to encourage the multinationals to bring their manufacturing plants back to America, while at the same time raising tariffs to make it less profitable to import cheap manufactured goods from countries which are America's enemies.

Is it any wonder that the business interests for whom Sleepy Joe Biden fronts wanted to put Mr Trump out of office? The President was throwing a monkey-wrench into the machinery of  globalization. He was upsetting the plan of  Soros & Co. to make America second-rate, economically as well as politically. He was trying to Make America Great Again! 

In closing let me quote one short passage from The Expendables. 

History warns us that when monopolistic control falls into the hands of the few (who make massive fortunes as a result), someone is getting scrwed.

Some commentators have suggested that the CEOs of today's tech giants -- Apple's Tim Cook, Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon's Jeff Bezos, to name a few -- are the robber barons of our age. Their modern-day uniform of jeans and T-shirts may not scream "money" the way the three-piece suits and top hats of Rockefeller and his cohort did, but their enormous wealth dwarfs the riches of their nineteenth-century predecessors....

All of these CEOs are good at what they do. And what they do best is manipulate public governance in ways that the early twentieth-century global oil industry could only dream of. In the United States, where most of them are based, they have supported the establishment wing of the Democratic Party -- the same wing that was in power for eight years under President Obama [and Vice-President Biden. Walt] 

They've been outspoken on climate change, racial tolerance, gender equity, and all of the other hot button issues of American liberalism. But at the same time, the efforts to prove their liberal bona fides have helped protect this group from something they care far more deeply about: government regulation of the monopolies that have made them all multibillionaires.

"Gee, Walt," I hear some of you say, "Why didn't you tell us this before we voted?" Unfortunately I didn't start reading The Expendables until yesterday. But it's not like others weren't warning that the good works of the Trump presidency would be undone by the Democrats, once the likes of Kamala Harris, Bernie Sanders and the Squad get their hands on the levers of power.

Old Joe Biden himself promised that he would take care of the Obama administration's unfinished business, reverse the tax cuts, put America back in the Paris Accord and other globalist institutions, and generally turn back the clock to 2008. If you weren't paying attention and voted for him, you're about to learn, the hard way, why changing leaders and policies in the middle of an economic crisis was a baaaaad idea.

Canuck foreign minister Freeland skips 5th round of NAFTA talks

Chrystia Freeland, Canada's Minister of Global Affairs [sic] is a shining example [horrible example, surely! Ed.] of the Peter Principle in action. Dr Laurence J. Peter wrote that in any organization, especially a bureaucracy, people get promoted to the level of their incompetence. Or, in the case of Ms Freeland, beyond. She was clearly in over her head as Minister for International Trade, when, only a year ago, she burst into tears and stormed out of a negotiation meant to work out a Canada-Europe Trade Agreement (CETA), crying that "These [Europeans] are impossible! I'm going home to my children!"

Fortunately for the lovely and fragrant Ms Freeland, her boss, Justin "Mr Socks" Trudeau, flew over to Brussels right sharpish and smoothed things over. The agreement, however, remains unratified as of this writing -- just another fancy but meaningless piece of paper.

Having thus demonstrated that throwing a hissy fit is a great negotiating tactic, Ms Freeland was promoted to Global Affairs, to take charge of negotiations with the USA and Mexico to revise the much-flawed North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA). The Liberal government which Junior Trudeau leads and of which Ms Freeland is a part wants NAFTA "improved" by the addition of sections designed to... wait for it... respect the rights of indigenous peoples, promote gender equality, and combat the horrors of climate change. Just what you'd expect from a gender-equal cabinet of certified limousine liberals and SJWs. Trouble is, the Americans and the Mexicans have no interest in those things. They just want to find better ways to do business together. So... things are not going well.

The fifth round of talks began in Mexico City this week, but Chrystia Freeland is not there. Neither is American trade representative Robert Lighthizer or Mexican Secretary of the Economy Ildefonso Guajardo Villarreal. The official explanation for their absence is that the top negotiators don't need to talk to each other, since they met on the sidelines of last week's APEC summit in Vietnam. A statement from the Canadian Ministry of Propaganda [Ed., please check.] says "Given the substantive discussions held between the ministers at APEC, the ministers agreed not to attend the fifth round so negotiators can continue to make important progress on key chapters advanced in Round 4. The chief negotiators from Mexico, the United States and Canada will be in constant communication with their respective ministers and will report on the progress reached in Round 5."

That's the party line, according to the Canadian Broadcorping Castration. [I checked. Ed.] The CBC says "a source with direct knowledge of the talks told CBC News that the push for political leaders to take a step back from the negotiating table came from Lighthizer." And that is true, according to an insider who spoke "on background" to Agent 3, but not for the reason suggested by the press release.

Walt can reveal, thanks to the inside dope just received, that the real reason is that Mr Lighthizer simply cannot stand the lovely and fragrant Chrystia Freeland. He doesn't want her at the negotiating table, or even in the same room! Not even in the same hotel! So word was sent to Ottawa that if she goes, he won't. To save face, the diplomats concocted the story that the non-meeting is by mutual agreement. Dear reader, which version of "the truth" sounds more plausible to you?

Further reading on WWW: "Questioning the CBC's love affair with Chrystia Freeland", WWW 8/10/17, and "Bill Maher calls BS on 'shared values' with Muslims", WWW 18/4/17, which includes a great video of Mr Maher -- no friend of Walt's -- destroying the legal blonde cabinet minister.

"Vote for civilization!", Marine Le Pen tells French

Marine Le Pen, leader of  the Front National, today excoriated globalization and Islamic fundamentalism and called on the people of France to vote for civilization!

In her closing speech to this weekend's party at Lyon, Mme Le Pen blasted the "two totalitarianisms" threatening France. "We are at a crossroad...," she told the crowd. "This election is a choice of civilization." She asked whether her three children and other young citizens would have the rights and culture of the current generation. "Will they even speak our French language?"

Yesterday, to applause and cries of "On est chez nous!" ("We are at home!"), Mme Le Pen unveiled her "144 Commitments" -- a nationalist agenda that envisions a France unshackled from the European Union and NATO, that puts French people first. She promised drastic cuts in immigration, to ensure work, health care and other services for French citizens first.

Mme LePen said she is defending France's patrimony -- material and immaterial -- "which has no price" and is "irreplaceable." Running on the campaign slogan "In the Name of the People", she called on all French patriots, whether of the left or right to join with her. In politics, she explained, "the division is no longer right-left (but) patriot-globalist. You have your place at our side."

The FN leader told a cheering crowd that globalization is erasing France, just as Charles de Gaulle said predicted some six decades ago. Islamic fundamentalism is "planting itself in some neighborhoods...and vulnerable minds," she said, listing Muslim veils, mosques and prayer in the streets as unacceptable cultural dangers that "no French person...attached to his dignity can accept."

Talking about the effects of massive immigration, Mme Le Pen said, "When you arrive in a country, you don't start violating laws, demanding rights.... There will be no other laws and values in France but French."

Mme Le Pen's 144 Commitments include a promise to limit immigration to no more than 10,000 per year, and restrain "family reunification" policies that haave allowed many immigrants from former mainly Muslim French colonies such as Morocco and Algeria to bring in relatives. She also promised to add 15,000 police and 6000 border patrol officers, and to arrange for foreigners convicted of crimes to serve their prison terms in their homelands.

The French go to the polls this spring to elect a new president. Opinion polls show Mme Le Pen as favoured to win the first-round vote on 23 April. Whether or not she would win the run-off, on 7 May, depends on who opposes her. The socialists and right-wing parties are in disarray, beset by scandals, making it possible that a hitherto unknown centrist, Emmanuel Macron to be the other name on the final ballot. Walt will be watching closely.

Note from Ed.: Thanks to Poor Len Canayen for helping with translation. He reports that a lot of folks in La Belle Province wish a Marine Le Pen would emerge there, tout de suite!

VIDEO: Vote NO MA'AM!

There's a lesson for American voters in the current brouhaha between Canada and the EU over free trade. A couple of years ago, when Canada was under the dictatorship of Steve Harpoon, the Dear Leader drank the koolaid of globalization and started work on making a free trade deal with the European Union. The Canada-Europe Trade Agreement (CETA) was worked out, and endorsed by the Gliberal government of Justin Trudeau, which took power a year ago. Open trade and open borders are the kind of thing liberals love, and CETA fits their one-world agenda perfectly.

Fast forward to October of 2016, when CETA is due to be ratified by the member states of the EU, all 28 of them. 27 countries fell into line without any fuss. And then there was Belgium. That country is divided more or less in half by language and ethnicity. The southern half, Wallonia, is home to French-speaking Walloons. (Gotta love that name.) The Walloons, it turns out, think increasing globalization is not a good idea. Gives too much power to multinationals, you see. The parliament of Wallonia passed a resolution against CETA last Friday, so Belgium's federal government is unable to give its consent.

Enter Canada's International Trade Minister, Chrystia Freeland, who was sent to Brussels to tweak the deal a little bit and so persuade the stubborn Walloons to change their minds. As Walt pointed out in April, Ms Freeland is a certified and certifiable member of the liberal elite. She is the spoiled child of privilege, the type who feels she is entitled to her entitlements, such as spending $6000 of taxpayers' money to hire a photographer to record her presence at a trade summit in Paris, or swanning around the world -- first class, of course -- preaching the benefits of globalization, free trade agreements and helping all the poor people of the Third World.

When the Walloons failed to succumb to Ms Freeland's charm (?) offensive, she threw a hissy fit, storming out of the meeting room to tell the meeja "These people are impossible! I'm going home to my children!" Well, at least she didn't call the Walloons "deplorable", but she's the sort of liberal feminist who might have used that word. Just like... you know who!

Walt asks the MEN of America, do you want to be ruled for the next four years by the gender warriors --  WIMMIN like (((Madeleine Albright))), Elizabeth Warren, Justice (((Ruth Bader Ginsburg))) and... you know who?! NO?! Better join NO MA'AM -- the National Organization of Men Against Amazonian Masterhood. When the existence of this organization was revealed on Married With Children (watch the video below), you probably thought it was just a joke. It's no joke now! Vote accordingly!

6 ways Pope Francis promotes political liberalism

The following is excerpted from "The Undertaker Pope: A Brief Study of an Infallibly Politically Correct Pontificate", an article by Christopher A. Ferrara, featured in The Remnant Newspaper.

In the fourth year of his pontificate, Pope Francis continues to deliver regular payloads of explosive off-the-cuff remarks that delight the media and shock the Catholic faithful....

For Francis, "magisterium" and "what I think" are one and the same thing. What Francis thinks -- and speaks incessantly -- generally serves the ends of political liberalism and state power while confirming the Church’s post-Vatican II demotion to a mere religious constituency under the secular sovereign. Witness, for example:

· Francis’s warm relations with socialist dictators;

· his lauding of pro-abortion and pro-“gay” politicians;

· his abuse of the papal office as a platform for globalist environmentalism (thus advantaging the same transnational corporations he professes to deplore);

· his refusal to intervene in opposition to the legalization of “gay marriage” because “the Pope belongs to everybody, he cannot enter the concrete, domestic politics of a country. This is not the Pope's role”;

· his demand -- flatly contradicting his professed abstention from domestic politics -- for universal abolition of the death penalty (while declining to demand the abolition of abortion), open borders in Europe and America, and policies of environmental regulation and wealth redistribution;

· his conspicuous failure to identify government policy, particularly in socialist countries, as a primary cause of the poverty he attributes entirely to the greed of the wealthy.

Not even during a post-conciliar epoch marked by the generalized surrender of churchmen to the zeitgeist have we seen a Pope willing to serve as the veritable pontifical undertaker at the funeral of the Church Militant, glibly reciting a few last words at the graveside in superficial remarks to reporters that he insists are "magisterium".... How is it possible that a conclave could have placed such a spectacularly unsuitable man on the Chair of Peter?...

I propose no answer to the question. Only history will provide the answer. Meanwhile, however, one can only wonder whether the unprecedented circumstances surrounding the elevation of Cardinal Bergoglio to the papacy are in some mysterious way related to the unexampled recklessness of his reign, so pleasing to the world that sings his praises.