John Helmer — Global News Hour Radio, Canada — Little Miss Ukraine Is Barking Up The Wrong Tree

Canada has endorsed US trade warfare against China, Russia, the European Union states, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela, but registers its dismay when the Trump Administration refuses to give Ottawa an indemnity pass so that it can benefit from the damage inflicted on the others.

Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland has accepted a “Diplomat of the Year Award” from Foreign Policy Magazine, a subsidiary of the Washington Post and the Jeffrey Bezos media conglomerate which is sworn to topple President Donald Trump. Freeland’s supporters in the Liberal Party claim she has been exceptionally effective lobbying for Canadian interests in the US. After her lobbying has failed, Freeland claims it is unfair, absurd and illegal for the White House to threaten Canada with penalty duties on steel, aluminium, and cars.

In all common sense what can Canadians expect from the Americans if this is how Canada’s leaders behave?

What was Justin Trudeau thinking when he appointed Chrystia Freeland as foreign minister?

Dances with Bears

Global News Hour Radio, Canada — Little Miss Ukraine Is Barking Up The Wrong Tree

John Helmer

John Helmer — Defecation in Public – Was It Soft or Hard When White House Officials Did It on the Canadian Prime Minister? Is Chrystia Freeland Also Aiming at Justin Trudeau?

US-Canada relations and Canadian politics. 

Dances with Bears
Defecation in Public – Was It Soft or Hard When White House Officials Did It on the Canadian Prime Minister? Is Chrystia Freeland Also Aiming at Justin Trudeau?
John Helmer

See also

The G-7 summit once again made it clear that U.S. President Donald Trump is intent on treating America's allies worse than its enemies. Europe must draw the consequences and seek to isolate Trump on the international stage.

Spiegel Online
The G-7 Fiasco — It's Time to Isolate Donald Trump

Roland Nelles

Gordon Watts — China accuses Canada of being ‘US colony’ as trade sparks fly

Harsh. Sure looks like a brewing trade war to me.

Asia Times

China accuses Canada of being ‘US colony’ as trade sparks fly

Gordon Watts

Rob Crilly — Justin Trudeau tells Donald Trump he will block Boeing contracts over Bombardier tariff row

The first trade war of the Trump administration is with — Canada! Not counting sanctions as trade war, of course. Sanctions are just war by non-military means.

Justin Trudeau, the Canadian Prime Minister, told President Donald Trump on Wednesday he would block his country’s armed forces from buying Boeing aircraft if the US presses ahead with plans to slap import tariffs of 300 percent on Bombardier aeroplanes.

The issue is threatening to ignite a trade war between the US, Canada and the UK, where the Canadian planemaker employs about 4,000 people in Belfast.…

And the UK!

Theresa May, the Prime Minster, responded by saying the US was risking a trade war and warned Boeing that it was jeopardising future deals with the Ministry of Defence to supply aircraft such as its Apache helicopters.

Not sure that DJT has thought this trade thing through.

The Telegraph
Justin Trudeau tells Donald Trump he will block Boeing contracts over Bombardier tariff row

Rob Crilly

Paul Robinson — Grandstanding

Note how only one country – Russia – is listed as having committed violations of human rights, and only one country’s behaviour is given as a rationale for the Act – Russia. And note how only one other country is even mentioned, and in that regard as a victim of Russian maleficence – Ukraine. And then look at who sponsored the Bill – Senator Raynell Andreychuk, a prominent member of Canada’s Ukrainian community – and now you understand what this is really about.

Irrussianality
Grandstanding
Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

Brian Romanchuk — Canadian Federal Government Rejoins Reality

Canada-centric but interesting from the MMT POV.

Bond Economics
Canadian Federal Government Rejoins Reality
Brian Romanchuk

Andrew Jackson — Reflections on the Social Democratic Tradition

The purpose of this paper is to provide a political history, overview and critical evaluation of the social democratic tradition in Western politics with some reference to the Canadian experience. It serves as a starting point for the Broadbent Institute’s new initiative exploring social democratic renewal in Canada, a project that will feature essays from a wide range of left perspectives on the future of social democracy in this critical moment of upheaval, inequality and erosion in democracies around the globe.

Broadbent Institute
Reflections on the Social Democratic Tradition

Andrew Jackson | Senior Policy Advisor to the Broadbent Institute

Rick Salutin — Can we come out now that deficit hysteria is over?

Another news article on MMT. Positive.

The Star (Canada)
Can we come out now that deficit hysteria is over? Salutin

Rick Salutin, columnist

John Helmer — Russia Lie Detector Catches Australian Prime Minister, Canadian Foreign Minister

MH17

The truth, revealed last week in Brandis’s papers, is that Brandis and Prime Minister Turnbull have been hiding what they, not Russian government officials, know about the incident. A source in Canberra close to these papers emerged following the release of this report last week. The source identified himself as privy to the classified intelligence on MH17 in the days and weeks which followed the incident. The source was also privy to the discussion in the National Security Committee of Cabinet (NSC), the topmost decision-making body in Australia for Ukraine and Russia.

According to the new disclosures, the Australian Government believed in 2014 — and Brandis and Turnbull believe still — that in the daylight hours before MH17 was shot down, Ukrainian Government military forces were using the overflight of civilian airlines in eastern Ukraine as shadow and shield for attacks against ground targets in the belief the separatist forces would not return fire for fear of hitting the civilian airliners.

The source has also revealed it was the Australian Government’s conclusion that the Kiev regime did not close the airspace in the Donbass region to civilian air traffic above the war zone because of the operational advantage Malaysian Airlines transit gave to Ukrainian Air Force operations. The Australian officials recognize this calculation to be a violation of the Geneva Conventions on war crimes. The source is sure the intelligence leading to this finding was American, so the implication is that the US Government also shares the Australian finding – in secret.

The Australian officials concluded — the source has reported — that what had happened to MH17 was an unintentional accident on the part of those who fired the BUK missile. Without intention, there was no crime on the part of those on the ground, whoever they were — if they were the Novorussian separatists, or a regular Ukrainian Army missile battery, or a unit of the irregular forces paid by Igor Kolomoisky and others.

Dances with Bears

Russia Lie Detector Catches Australian Prime Minister, Canadian Foreign Minister – Which Country’s Media Conceal the Lie Machine?

John Helmer

John Helmer — The Canadian Establishment and Prime Minister Trudeau Aim at Ousting Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland

More on the political drama in Canada.

Dances with Bears
The Canadian Establishment and Prime Minister Trudeau Aim at Ousting Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland
John Helmer

Also

On 10 January 2017 Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau fired his minister of external affairs, Stéphane Dion, and replaced him with Chrystia Freeland, who was then minister of international trade. This cabinet shuffle might not have gotten much public notice except that Dion is a distinguished parliamentarian, former leader of the party and leader of the opposition, and a former key minister in the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien. Freeland, on the other hand, is a well-known Ukrainian ultra-nationalist and self-declared Russophobe and hater of Russian President Vladimir Putin....

Strategic Culture Foundation
Will Chrystia Freeland Finally Ruin Canadian-Russian Relations?Michael Jabara Carley | Professor of history at the Université de Montréal

John Helmer — In The Canadian Cartoon Dudley Do-Right Can Do No Wrong, Snidely Whiplash No Good. In Real Life Can Robert Fife, David Walmsley, Terry Glavin, Alan Freeman And Scott Gilmore Save The Galicia Gang?

You may recall Scott Gilmore from the link to Paul Robinson's smackdown of Gilmore I posted earlier. today

Why is this important. Because a lot of the Russophobia now is owing to expats, former refugees and their descendants from Eastern Europe that still living in the past and influencing based on their grudges.

The Canadian foreign minister appears to be one of them.

Dances with Bears

In The Canadian Cartoon Dudley Do-Right Can Do No Wrong, Snidely Whiplash No Good. In Real Life Can Robert Fife, David Walmsley, Terry Glavin, Alan Freeman And Scott Gilmore Save The Galicia Gang?

John Helmer

Paul Robinson — The Russians are coming!

Fake news spreads to Canada.

Irrussianality
The Russians are coming!
Paul Robinson | Professor, Graduate School of Public and International Affairs at the University of Ottawa

Phil Butler — What’s Wrong in Canada’s Halls of Power?

Justin Trudeau was banking on a Clinton presidency. Now that Trump is POTUS...?

NEO
What’s Wrong in Canada’s Halls of Power?

Phil Butler

Also

Dr. Reynaldo Ileto, a leading Filipino historian, is concerned about Duterte’s survival, should he move too quickly with the regional realignment:

“He cannot break up with the United States too abruptly… he’d be killed.”

For a while, in Manila, we were discussing the pattern established; the way the West treats the ‘rebellious’ countries and their governments: Ukraine, Brazil, and even the former President of the Philippines, Gloria Arroyo.

“Arroyo moved closer to China”, explained Dr. Ileto: “They got her indicted for corruption. Only Duterte managed to release her.”

Antagonizing China, even provoking it into a military conflict, has been the mainstay of US foreign policy in Asia, at least during the later years of the Obama administration. This dangerous trend will most likely continue, even accelerate, since Donald Trump has already taken office.

President Duterte’s stubborn determination to reach a peaceful arrangement with China may put him squarely on the hit list of the Western Empire.

Prof. Roland Simbulan from the Department of Social Sciences of the University of the Philippines confirms what Dr. Ileto suggested above:

“If Duterte moves too fast, he will be overthrown, by the military. He is an outsider. Police and army hold grudges against him. Many top military commanders here were trained by the US, and often even corrupted by the US. Duterte’s anti-US and anti-imperialist policy goes beyond rhetoric; it is real. He is confrontational, he is against the US foreign policy towards the Philippines and the world.”

The Philippines in the Center of Asian Realignment

Andre Vlchek

Dances with Bears — Chrystia Freeland’s Family Record for Nazi War Profiteering, and Murder of the Cracow Jews

Chrystia Freeland (lead image), appointed last week to be the new Canadian Foreign Minister, claims that her maternal family were the Ukrainian victims of Russian persecution, who fled their home in 1939, after Adolf Hitler and Josef Stalin agreed on a non-aggression pact and the division of Poland between Germany and the Soviet Union. She claims her mother was born in a camp for refugees before finding safe haven in Alberta, Canada. Freeland is lying.

The records now being opened by the Polish government in Warsaw reveal that Freeland’s maternal grandfather Michael (Mikhailo) Chomiak was a Nazi collaborator from the beginning to the end of the war. He was given a powerful post, money, home and car by the German Army in Cracow, then the capital of the German administration of the Galician region. His principal job was editor in chief and publisher of a newspaper the Nazis created. His printing plant and other assets had been stolen from a Jewish newspaper publisher, who was then sent to die in the Belzec concentration camp. During the German Army’s winning phase of the war, Chomiak celebrated in print the Wehrmacht’s “success” at killing thousands of US Army troops. As the German Army was forced into retreat by the Soviet counter-offensive, Chomiak was taken by the Germans to Vienna, where he continued to publish his Nazi propaganda, at the same time informing for the Germans on other Ukrainians. They included fellow Galician Stepan Bandera, whose racism against Russians Freeland has celebrated in print, and whom the current regime in Kiev has turned into a national hero.

Just before Vienna fell to the Soviet forces in March 1945, Chomiak evacuated with the German Army into Germany, ending up near Munich at Bad Worishofen. On September 2, 1946, when Freeland says her mother was born in a refugee camp, she was actually in a well-known spa resort for wealthy Bavarians. The US Army then controlled that part of Germany; they operated an Army hospital at Bad Worishofen and accommodated Chomiak at a spa hotel. US Army records have yet to reveal what the Americans learned about Chomiak’s war record, and how he was employed by US Army Intelligence, after he had switched from the Wehrmacht. It took Chomiak another two years before the government in Ottawa allowed the family to enter Canada.

The reason the Polish Government is now investigating Freeland is that Chomiak’s wartime record not only victimized Galician Jews, but also the Polish citizens of Cracow. In a salute to Freeland as a “great friend of Poland” by the Polish Embassy in Ottawa last week, Warsaw officials now believe a mistake was made….

Dances with Bears
Victim or Aggressor – Chrystia Freeland’s Family Record for Nazi War Profiteering, and Murder of the Cracow Jews

Editor

Richard Kochetov — Chrystia Freeland Is The Body Double – Canada Plays Hillary Clinton Card At Russia; Kremlin Suspects Freeland Putsch Against Justin Trudeau

Meet Chrystia Freeland — the Victoria Nuland of Canada.

Justin Trudeau appears to be somewhat of a Barack Obama, engaging but useless, with high popularity but low performance ratings.

Dances With Bears
Chrystia Freeland Is The Body Double – Canada Plays Hillary Clinton Card At Russia; Kremlin Suspects Freeland Putsch Against Justin Trudeau
Richard Kochetov

Ari Altstedter — Money is flooding out of Canada at the fastest pace in the developed world

Money is flooding out of Canada at the fastest pace in the developed world as the nation’s decade-long oil boom comes to an end and little else looks ready to take the industry’s place as an economic driver.

Canada’s basic balance — a measure of national accounts that spans everything from trade to financial-market flows — swung from a surplus of 4.2 per cent of gross domestic product to a deficit of 7.9 per cent in the 12 months ending in June, according to analysis from Kamal Sharma, a foreign-exchange strategist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch. That’s the fastest one-year deterioration among 10 major developed nations.…

Financial Post
Money is flooding out of Canada at the fastest pace in the developed world
Ari Altstedter, Bloomberg News

Bill Mitchell — The tale of two nations – democracy dies in Portugal and lives in Canada

The tale of two nations – two monetary systems – two continents – Canada and Portugal. It is reasonable to assume that when voters in so-called free democracies elect members to their parliaments who then freely coalesce across ‘party’ lines to form an absolute majority that they will be given the right to govern irrespective of the ideology they represent and the policies that they have put forward to the voters to win their approval. That seems to happen in Canada. It definitely doesn’t happen in Portugal. The Portuguese President dropped his so-called “bomba atómica” last week when he refused to endorse the coalition of parties that held the absolute majority of seats in the Assembly as a result of the recent national election. He indicated that he would not allow a government that would relax the fiscal austerity and consider exiting the Eurozone. His motivation was that financial markets had to remain appeased. It was an extraordinary intervention and will come back to haunt the nation given that the conservative austerity government will lose its authority as soon as it puts its platform to the new Parliament for endorsement (within the next 10 or so days). Then the nation is in chaos and the President will be compelled to accept the anti-austerity left coalition or something worse will happen. But, happily, in Canada, the election of the Liberal Party is a rejection of the obsession with fiscal surpluses – at least for now.…

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The tale of two nations – democracy dies in Portugal and lives in Canada
Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Brad DeLong — Must-Read: Marshall Auerback: The United Kingdom Draws the Wrong Lessons from Canada

Brad: Marshall Auerbach [2010] was, of course, 100% right. The turn to severe austerity in 2010 by the then-newly elected Conservative-Liberal Democratic government looks to have cost Britain 4% of GDP in a slowing-down of recovery. It was not quite enough to knock the UK back into recession–in large part because the government in the end did less to cut spending than its manifesto had committed it to. But it was very damaging.

WCEG — The Equitablog
Must-Read: Marshall Auerback: The United Kingdom Draws the Wrong Lessons from Canada
Brad DeLong

Xinhua Business — RMB clearing bank launched in Canada

The renminbi (RMB) clearing bank in Canada, ICBC Canada, was officially launched on Monday evening. This is the first RMB trading hub in North America and in the western hemisphere.

China.org.en
RMB clearing bank launched in Canada

Peter Martin — Classical economists don’t understand real people or real economies.

There is at last some evidence that the political mainstream is coming around to the idea that “places {in the same currency zone -PM} in deficit have to be easily financed by places in surplus”. At least there is, if we can consider John Redwood, a British Conservative MP, to be representative of the mainstream. He, himself, may well question that assertion, but nevertheless this recent quote shows that it isn’t just Greece’s Syriza and the political left who are making the argument.…

Modern Monetary Theory: Real Economics
Classical economists don’t understand real people or real economies.Peter Martin