Climate Barbie apologizes for tweet praising Syria

Following Walt's posting of "Canuck Minister tells The Rebel to stop calling her names" (WWW 4/11/17 - includes video), Ezra Levant, whose The Rebel website coined the name by which Catherine McKenna would prefer not to be known tweeted: "Appointed to fill a gender quota; unable to control her emotions when criticized; spends taxes on vanity photo shoots. #ClimateBarbie fits."

His point is not that Ms McKenna, like Chrystia Freeland, is one of the terminally entitled limousine liberals who gets her hair colour out of a bottle and any ideas which may temporarily reside in her head from the Toronto Red Star. The problem is that Climate Barbie is a classic example of the Peter Principle. The Peter Principle (by Laurence J. Peter and Raymond Hull, 1969), for those who haven't read it, states that people rise in an organization until they reach the level of their incompetence. Ms McKenna, now nominally in charge of one of the more sensitive portfolios in the Canadian cabinet, has actually risen above that level.

Yesterday, taking a break from defending herself for defending herself, the Climate Barbie was forced to admit that "clearly a mistake was made" after a tweet from her official departmental account praised Syria for joining the Paris climate agreement. The tweet has since been deleted, but we have a screen shot. Here 'tis.

Nicaragua and Syria were the final two countries to sign on to the climate accord, leaving the United States as the only UN member state not supporting the agreement. The tweet attracted dozens of complaints from other Twitter users, many of them pointing to the widely suspected use of chemical weapons by the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The celebratory Nicaragua and Syria tweet was sent from @ec_minister. Its description says it is run by Environment and Climate Change Canada, Parks Canada and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. Ms McKenna tweeted her response to the controversy from her personal account, @cathmckenna. "Clearly a mistake was made from my Dept twitter. We've been clear that the murderous Assad regime must end attacks against its people."

Well, maybe we're being a bit hard on Climate Barbie. Surely it's a bit unfair to ask the Minister of Stopping the Sky from Falling to take responsibility for communications sent out by the minions under her... errr... control. Walt suggests that in future she delegate adverse comments (along with whines about being called names) upwards to her boss, the self-proclaimed feminist Junior Trudeau. He's good at apologies, and totally undeserving of his rep for being a bit of an airhead himself.

Questioning the CBC's love affair with Chrystia Freeland

Chrystia Freeland? Who she? For readers outside of Canada (and many inside!) Walt will explain. The fragrant and unbearably smug Christina "Chrystia" Freeland is Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs (or "Global Affairs", whatever the new PC term is). She started out as Minister of International Trade in the first government of Justin "Junior" Trudeau, and was "elevated" in 2017 after demonstrating a lack of talent for international negotiations on free trade. See "Vote NO MA'AM!", WWW 25/10/16 and "Bill Maher calls BS on 'shared values' with Muslims", WWW 18/4/16. Walt regrets that Ms Freeland's minion have succeeded in having the video of her appearance with Bill Maher deleted. As I remember it, he made her look like a fool who knows next to nothing about the real world.

One of our agents was trying to make the same point in the "Comments" section of some articles on the CBC News website. He called out Ms Freeland for being a "limousine liberal" -- a useful idiot who knows next to nothing about the real world. Our agent has been trying for a week or so to get the CBC to print that comment -- just the "limousine liberal" part -- or anything close to it. Here's what happened.

By "pinked", our agent means his comment got "disabled". That's the word that appears in the PINK bar. Geddit? But why? What's so offensive about "limousine liberal" or the coded version of the phrase used here by our agent? Here are two more screen grabs.

You have to give our agent full marks for perseverance, eh. But he's now given up, and appeals to Walt for help. What he wants to know (but can't ask the CBC since there's no way to contact the moderators) is whether the Corp's list of prohibited comments includes any negative reference of any kind to the Honourable Chrystia Freeland. The supplementary question -- assuming the answer to the first to be "yes" -- is WHY? Why is the CBC so in love with Ms Freeland that even the mildest of snarks about her is verboten?

In one case, the mere mention of her name got "pinked". What about free speech? Why is Ms Freeland above criticism? Anyone from the CBC who wishes to answer these questions is free (geddit?) to use Walt's comments section. All you have to do is click on the headline, and the box will appear. We're waiting.