Keeping an eye on Communist, Totalitarian China, and its influence both globally, and we as Canadians. I have come to the opinion that we are rarely privy to truth regarding the real goal, the agenda of China, it's ambitions for Canada [including special focus on the UK, US & Australia]. No more can we trust the legacy media as there appears to be increasing censorship applied to the topic of communist China. I ask why. Here is what I find.
The young 21-year-old Chinese woman behind the injunction that silenced the honking
Zexi Li is the downtown Chinese resident behind the court order handed down Monday
Meet the 21-year-old Ottawa woman behind the injunction stopping the honking downtown
9 days ago
Duration0:50
Zexi Li, a government public servant, is the face of a class-action lawsuit filed against organizers of the convoy of truckers and others who are protesting vaccine mandates in the nation's capital. 0:50
The incessant honking that disrupted the lives of many downtown Ottawa residents for more than a week fell mostly silent on Monday, thanks largely to a young woman named in a class-action lawsuit against the protesters who are occupying the capital.
Zexi Li is a public servant behind a proposed $9.8-million class action filed with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, which sought an injunction prohibiting the defendants, or any other participant in the anti-vaccine mandate convoy protest, from using vehicle horns in the vicinity of downtown Ottawa.
The statement of claim names Chris Barber, Benjamin Ditcher, Tamara Lich and Patrick King as convoy organizers,
...Who is the group behind this lawsuit ?
The court granted the 10-day injunction Monday, banning honking in the area north of the Queensway, the city's main east-west artery. According to the order, police are now authorized to arrest and remove anyone who they believe is intentionally contravening the order. Typically, such nuisances fall under the city's bylaws and are subject to a fine.
"It's honestly such a stark difference. The past fortnight, honestly, has not felt really real." Li told CBC News on Tuesday. "Now that it's quiet, it feels even more jarring, in a good way."
When truckers and other protesters began pouring into the nation's capital nearly two weeks ago, Li said she walked around her downtown neighbourhood to speak with them.
"I had some really great conversations," she said.
While she met some sympathetic people, she said others seemed to care little about what local residents were going through.
Some residents have sought refuge elsewhere, fleeing their downtown homes due the noise and other forms of harassment.
Trucks and people seen in downtown Ottawa on Feb. 4, during an ongoing protest against vaccine mandate. A man is seen putting his hand around his head and ears.
Li said she invited an Ottawa police community liaison officer to meet with her neighbours, giving them a chance to air their grievances.
"I had to really make sure our voices are heard," she said.
During that meeting, one of her neighbours who happens to be a lawyer noticed Li's leadership.
"They saw the role that I was taking and felt that I might be an appropriate candidate to forward to Paul Champ, who is now my lawyer in the class-action case," she explained.
Lawyer 'thrilled' about win
"We were thrilled yesterday to obtain this win for our client, who've just been so brave and courageous in stepping forward," said Christine Johnson, a lawyer with Champ and Associates, on Tuesday.
"[Li] said the worst part was almost the brief gaps in between the honking, [when] she was riddled with anxiety in anticipation for the moment it would start up again, even with noise-cancelling earphones," said Johnson, reading from an affidavit.
Since the honking began, many downtown residents have downloaded apps to measure noise levels. Inside Li's own apartment, the din regularly reached 84 decibels, the same level as a lawnmower, said Johnson, citing an ear, nose and throat doctor.
"It's really been horrendous for people living in downtown Ottawa," said Champ.
Champ said he's assembling a team to hand out the order documents across the downtown area so protesters are aware of the injunction. He'll appear before the judge again on Feb. 16, before the order expires, to see about having it extended.
Paul Champ filed the class-action lawsuit on behalf of downtown residents affected by protest disruptions.
During the hearing, Keith Wilson, a lawyer representing three protest organizers named in the suit, argued that his clients — Tamara Lich, Benjamin Dichter and Chris Barber — are not personally responsible for the noise.
"There is more evidence before you that downtown Ottawa residents don't feel they're being harmed and this is part of the democratic process," Wilson said at the time.
Li said she knew being the face of this lawsuit was going to be a challenge, but has been pleasantly surprised by the "outpouring of love" from her community.
"I kind of intentionally put a target on my back, but really, I'm more than happy to do so, if it means that I can make a difference for the community."
*Lawsuit being heard today: Friday/2022-02-18 during hostile police action
Dissident Chinese freedom activist Chen Guangcheng warns West about social credit system ‘at our doorstep’
The high-profile blind lawyer, who escaped from China in 2012, said that diplomatic boycotts of the 2022 Beijing Olympics are 'far from enough.'
A Chinese Communist-style social credit system is “happening at our doorsteps now in the United States and in Europe,” Chen Guangcheng, the blind human rights lawyer and outspoken dissident who escaped from China in 2012, told LifeSiteNews in an explosive new interview.
In addition to the ongoing forced abortion regime in China — wherein the “One Child Policy” has been relaxed and married couples are allowed to have three children but “the Communist Party can still force an abortion” on any of its citizens — we ought to be paying attention to the Chinese Communist Party’s “use of Western technology to create their networks of movement recognition systems and facial recognition systems that they use to control the population.”
This, combined with the “health number” every citizen is required to have, allows the CCP total control over its citizens’ lives, Chen warned.It used to be that if an activist were going to go participate in something and the Chinese Communist Party wanted to prevent them from leaving or prevent them from partaking in something, they would send a bunch of thugs to go and prevent them from going,” he explained. “But now, what they can do is on a computer, they can change the status — vaccination status or other health information — to make it so they can’t even buy a plane ticket or a train ticket to go somewhere.”
“In the last two years, the Chinese Communist Party’s ability to control the population via this technology has just skyrocketed.”
The dystopian scenario that is now a reality for 1.4 billion people in China is nascent in the West, Chen cautioned: “That’s not only something that we need to worry about in China under the Chinese Community Party. I think we can see that happening at our doorsteps now in the United States and in Europe.”
Chen’s warning comes as many American cities require people to furnish proof of COVID-19 vaccination to enter restaurants or other establishments of public accommodation, often in the form of a QR code or through a digital health app, and there is increased chatter about “environmental, social, and governance” (ESG) scores that measure the “sustainability” and “social justice” of people and institutions.
Famed human rights activist
Chen Guangcheng is well-known in human rights circles around the world. His historic class-action lawsuit against the CCP over its One-Child Policy and criticism of China’s human rights abuses landed him in a CCP prison and then under house arrest, from which he ultimately escaped.
Chen’s escape, detailed in his 2016 book The Barefoot Lawyer: The Remarkable Memoir of China’s Bravest Political Activist, involved evading the guards stationed around his house, breaking his foot scaling a wall and having to literally crawl to a neighboring village, and a car chase through the streets of Beijing. He made it to the American embassy and he and his family fled to New York.
Chen said that diplomatic boycotts of the 2022 Beijing Olympics are “far from enough.”
“The Communist Party is a mafia organization that has completely kidnapped and controlled the entire country,” he said. “The idea that western nations would cooperate with this government, would participate in this kind of event, is embarrassing.”
“Even though the United States has said publicly they’re doing a diplomatic boycott, in the end they’ve sent 18 government officials to the games,” he added. “So I feel that this is … sort of tricking the American people and it’s going against America, American values.”
Chen called for “an alliance of democratic countries” to come together and “figure out how to eliminate” the CCP regime. “The claws of the Chinese Communist Party have extended into all areas of other countries,” he said. “The coronavirus is a perfect example of that. It’s changed our way of life.”
He said coronavirus responses modeled on Communist China’s response to the virus were a mistake.
If in the West, “we start doing things according to the way … the Chinese Communist Party is doing things, then we are limiting people’s freedoms [and] becoming just like them and we’re in danger of becoming slaves.”
Guangcheng also slammed the harsh COVID-19 vaccine mandates being implemented in many Western countries.
“I think, for one, at the time when the vaccines haven’t been completely tested, to start forcing everybody to have them is not right,” he explained. “And when we don’t know if there is any residual harm that could come from the vaccines.”
It should be up to each individual whether to take the shots, he said.
Furthermore, “There are a lot of potential side effects from the vaccines that haven’t been talked about in the media, having to do with blood clots and other things. I think that not talking about that is a kind of propaganda: it’s misleading. And I don’t accept this kind of media self-censorship that’s going on.”
Chen stressed that lack of answers about the virus’s origin means the risk of more diseases: “The thing that I want to emphasize the most is that if we don’t investigate the origins of this virus, if we don’t get to the bottom of it, then in the West we will have countless of these kinds of viruses that will come one after the other.”
Scientists said claims about China creating the coronavirus were misleading. They went viral anyway. The spread of the unverified assertions by Chinese scholar Li-Meng Yan, widely dismissed as “flawed,” show how vulnerable scientific sites are to misuse and misunderstanding.
10 foreigners given medals for roles in reform, opening-up
Updated: 2018-12-19
Ten foreigners received China Reform Friendship Medals on Tuesday for their outstanding contributions to the country’s reform and opening-up over the past 40 years.
Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum Klaus Schwab was given a medal by President Xi Jinping, together with other recipients at a grand gathering in Beijing to celebrate the 40th anniversary of China’s reform and opening-up.
President Xi Jinping reaffirmed China’s commitment to opening up wider to the world during the gathering.
“The practice of reform and opening-up over the past 40 years has shown that openness brings progress, while seclusion leads to backwardness,” Xi said.
The president pledged to support the building of an open, transparent, inclusive and non-discriminatory multilateral trading system, facilitate trade and investment, and promote more openness amid ongoing economic globalization.
The high-profile conference was attended by Xi and the six other members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee as well as Vice-President Wang Qishan. Premier Li Keqiang presided over the meeting.
Over the past 40 years, China has recorded an average annual GDP growth rate of around 9.5 percent, contributed over 30 percent to global economic growth and lifted more than 740 million people out of poverty, Xi said, calling the four decades “a glorious process”.
The country will focus on jointly building the Belt and Road with other countries and establish a new platform for international cooperation, Xi said, and will continue measures to boost opening-up.
China will never seek self-development at the cost of other countries’ interests, nor will it give up its justified interests, Xi said, adding that China’s development will pose no threat to any other nation, and it will never seek hegemony no matter how developed it becomes.
China’s development provides successful experience and offers bright prospects for other developing countries as they strive for modernization, and it represents China’s great contribution to the progress of human civilization, Xi said.
Wang Huning, a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, lauded the medal recipients as “old friends of the Chinese people” while reading a statement from the CPC Central Committee and the State Council.
Wang said the 10 foreigners significantly helped promote exchanges and cooperation between China and the rest of the world and were deeply involved in China’s reform and opening-up process.
“They have made outstanding contributions to the country’s reform and opening-up,” he said.
Among the medal winners, Panasonic founder Konosuke Matsushita made great contributions to China’s modernization in electronics through trade and investment.
Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore’s first prime minister and one of the most influential Asian politicians, made contributions by sharing Singapore’s successful governance experience with China.
Juan Antonio Samaranch, former president of the International Olympic Committee, was remembered by many Chinese for his great contributions to China’s return to the IOC.
In the foreword to The Sleeping Giant Awakes, a book compiled by China Watch — China Daily’s think tank — Schwab said the World Economic Forum has witnessed China’s great development process.
“The change brought about by reform and opening-up has been incredible,” he said in the foreword.
“In 40 years, China has shifted from a largely agricultural nation with a planned economy to one that is poised to be a leader in the Fourth Industrial Revolution.”
Kuhn, a leading Chinese expert and chairman of the Kuhn Foundation, said it’s a great honor to receive the medal.
“As I look at my participation among the 10 foreigners who have received the China Reform Friendship Medal, I see my role as representing the importance of international communication. It’s not so much personal as it is representing the importance that China places on communication with the world so as to learn about the world and tell the world the true story of China,” Kuhn said in a live report by China Global Television Network.
Conferring the China Reform Friendship Medal on foreigners demonstrates again that China’s reform and opening-up are closely connected with the international community, Ruan Zongze, executive vice-president and senior fellow at the China Institute of International Studies, said in an interview with China Daily.
China’s reform and opening-up drive has won support from the international community, and in the meantime, global peace and development have benefitted from China’s growth, Ruan said.
Ruan added that the 10 medal winners are only a representative sampling of millions of foreigners who have made contributions to the country’s reform and opening-up.
Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel was previously CEO of BioMerieux until 2011. BioMerieux is owned by French billionaire Alain Merieux, who was instrumental in the creation of the P4 laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, and is a close friend of Xi Jinping.
The BSL-4 lab at the Wuhan Institute of Virology began operations in 2018, after negotiations with France since 2003. The Merieux Institute & owner Alain Merieux were the projects biggest enthusiasts, despite concerns that the CCP may weaponize the lab.
Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel's former boss, Alain Merieux was awarded the 'China Reform Friendship Medal' by Xi Jinping in Beijing in 2018, alongside World Economic Forum founder Klaus Schwab. chinadaily.com.cn/a/201812/19/WS…
Merieux Institute worked with the Chinese government to "share data and jointly research on the pathogens carried by bats" in Africa in 2015. Merieux Foundation has maintained a 'close relationship' with the Chinese Government since 1965. pairault.fr/sinaf/doc_impo…
The Pasteur Institute, which also worked closely with the Merieux Foundation & Wuhan Institute of Virology's P4 lab, partnered with Moderna in 2015 to develop mRNA vaccines. pasteur.fr/en/moderna-and…
#Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel was in charge of "industrial microbiology" in Asia-Pacific for BioMereiux from 1995-98, before joining Eli Lilly and becoming their 'Global Supply Chain Manager' for drugs like Prozac, etc. web.archive.org/web/2010033015…
Bancel rejoined BioMerieux as CEO in 07, then left in 2011 to become Moderna CEO, only to partner with Pasteur Institute on mRNA in 2015, which collaborated with Merieux & CCP at the Wuhan P4. Meanwhile, BioMerieux boss Alain Merieux was constructing & co-directing the Wuhan P4.
Moderna CEO Bancel was on the board of the Merieux Foundation USA (until at least 2019), which was funding & working at the Wuhan Institute of Virology P4 lab since 2017.
Scientists Discover Genetic Material Suggesting COVID Came From Chinese Lab
Scientists in Hungary examining a unique variant of COVID-19 have discovered genetic material that suggests the strain was being examined in a Chinese lab, bolstering the lab leak theory.
The researchers “found traces of a unique variant of coronavirus while examining DNA from soil from Antarctica that had been sent to the firm Sangon Biotech in Shanghai,” reports the Daily Mail.
Genetic material from Chinese hamsters and green monkeys was also discovered, “which may suggest the virus was being examined in a lab, using either the animals themselves or their cells,” according to the report.
Viscount Ridley said that such evidence bolsters the theory that the virus accidentally escaped or was leaked from the Wuhan lab deliberately.
The presence of “three key [COVID] mutations” is characteristic of the early sequences of the virus, according to Ridley.
The discovery contradicts claims that the virus jumped from animals to humans naturally.
For the best part of a year, the lab leak theory was dismissed by the legacy media and ‘fact checkers’ as a racist conspiracy theory.
It subsequently emerged that Dr. Peter Daszak, President of the EcoHealth Alliance, a group that has extensive ties to the Wuhan lab gain of function research, thanked Dr. Anthony Fauci for dismissing the lab leak theory early on in the pandemic.
He subsequently created a pressure campaign via a letter published by The Lancet to force the scientific community into avoiding looking into the lab as a potential source of the outbreak.
Daszak was also tasked by Facebook with ‘fact-checking’ (censoring) information related to the hypothesis, while Google, which via YouTube also censored information about the theory, also funded Daszak’s virus research.
Daszak was also the lead investigator for the World Health Organization investigation that determined within 3 hours of visiting the Wuhan lab in February 2021 that there was no leak purely based on the word of researchers there.
As we highlighted last year, one of the World Health Organization’s leading infectious diseases experts said that the first COVID ‘patient zero’ was “likely” a lab worker at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.
337 illegal crab traps by Chinese poachers pulled from Boundary Bay in 5 day operation
The traps were found in a joint operation between DFO and the Canadian Coast Guard
The 337 illegal crab traps pulled from Boundary Bay in a recent five day operation is the most ever. A record 337 illegal commercial crab traps have been seized in Boundary Bay in a five day joint venture between the Department of Fisheries and Oceans and Canadian Coast Guard, potentially saving thousands of crabs from being sold on the black market.
The operation on Jan. 20, 21, 25 and Feb. 1 and 2, used, for the first time, the CCG hovercraft Moytel, which helped enforcement crews pull in more than double the 136 illegal traps netted in a three day operation last winter.
Fisheries officers are now investigating the seized gear to try to identify perpetrators and say charges may follow.
Boundary Bay straddles the Canada-U.S. border, but on the B.C. side, the commercial crab fishery closed in November.
Art Demsky, field supervisor with DFO's conservation and protection unit, said poachers set traps without the required identifiers or locator floats, and then use GPS coordinates to find them later.
Smaller vessels used a dragger to locate illegal traps and the large crane and winch on the CCG hovercraft Moytel (left) pulled them to the surface. (DFO)
"Their intent is to hide these traps," he said. "We're pretty sure this catch gets laundered into the commercial marketplace."
According to Demsky, higher prices driven by demand for crab at Christmas and Chinese New Year is motivation for illegal crabbers.
He said they pose a major conservation concern by taking undersized crab or females that haven't had a chance to reproduce.
"This is the time of year they start to spawn. We don't want harvests on smaller crab or female crab, and certainly not crab that are spawning or carrying eggs," said Demsky. "That fishery is closed for a reason."
Because illegal traps have no floats, DFO crews use a grappling hook or "dragger" to locate and snag the "string" or groundline that connects the traps.
Ghost gear is pulled out of the water. (DFO)
The gear was then pulled to the surface using the large crane and winch on the Coast Guard hovercraft.
Demsky said they were surprised to pull up one monster string that was 1.6 kilometres in length with 21 traps attached. Everything caught in the traps was put back in the ocean.
A large quantity of ghost gear — abandoned lines and traps that pose a threat to fish and invertebrates — was also recovered.
Officials says they pulled up a monster groundline that was 1.6 kilometres in length with 21 illegal traps attached. (DFO)
According to DFO, in the past five years similar wintertime operations have yielded:
2017 — 219 traps seized over three days.
2018 — 226 traps seized (approximately 18 strings) over three days.
2019 — 230 traps seized over three days.
2020 — 136 traps seized (approximately 16 strings) over three days.
2021 — 337 traps seized (approximately 33 strings) over five days.
'A bloodbath, basically': Crab poaching a problem in B.C.'s Lower Mainland: biologist
Enforcement and patrol stretched thin as fisheries officers deal with salmon shortages
Dungeness crab, shown here, account for nearly 100 per cent of commercial harvest in B.C.
Earlier this month, Andrew Newman was dismayed to witness two people rip the claws off undersized crabs in White Rock, B.C. and toss them back into the ocean.
Newman, the owner of White Rock Sea Tours and Whale Watching, described the scene as an act of "greed and cruelty" and called authorities.
He later posted a video of the RCMP bust that resulted in fines for two people accused of removing the meaty claws from undersized and female crabs.
The Department of Fisheries and Oceans says Hsin Chan and Chun Li were charged and ticketed under the federal Fisheries Act for fishing without a licence and harvesting undersized Dungeness crab on Sept. 7.
Pair accused of breaking claws off live crabs
4 years ago
Duration0:29
Video posted to Facebook shows police speaking with accused at a White Rock, B.C. pier 0:29
Fisheries officials did not have statistics on poaching in B.C., but a biologist at Vancouver Island University said crab poaching is a problem in the Lower Mainland.
Stefanie Duff, chair of the fisheries and aquaculture program at the University of Vancouver Island, said she has noticed a number crabs without their claws, especially in intertidal areas where recreational fishermen often pitch their traps.
Poachers rip the claws off crabs because they contain the most succulent — and therefore most valuable — part of the crab. Poachers then toss the rest of the body back in the water.
"It's a bloodbath, basically," Duff said, adding that removing a crab's claws is akin to cutting off a human's hands; it reduces the animal's ability to eat, defend itself, move effectively and almost ensures a slow death.
A slow death
It's illegal in B.C. to retain any part of a crab without the body. It is also illegal to keep female crabs which can produce between 20,000 and 80,000 offspring in a lifetime, said Duff.
Because crabs don't have blood vessels the way mammals do, they are likely to bleed to death if an appendage is torn off carelessly, Duff said.
Dungeness crab must be at least 165 millimetres in width while red rock crab must measure at least 115 millimetres in width to be a legal catch. (Fisheries and Oceans Canada)
It's difficult to determine how much crab is removed by recreational fishers in the province. However, a 2005 survey estimated the legal recreational harvesting accounted for about 368 tonnes, or seven per cent of the total harvest.
Crab poaching is a concern because stocks in the Lower Mainland have been declining since 2010, according to Jason Dunham, a biologist who has helped conduct the surveys for a number of years.
The cause of the decline is unknown, but the ministry said it could be combination of environmental conditions, warming waters, poaching and other issues.
Because of the decline, some of the province's 221 commercial crab licensees have moved their fleets to other regions, worried about harvesting opportunities around Metro Vancouver, according to Dunham.
B.C.'s commercial crab fishery accounted for 31 per cent of the value of the province's wild shellfish products in 2014 and averaged a value of $46 million in harvest each year from 2013 to 2015.
It's also an important food, social and ceremonial fishery for First Nations.
Salmon stocks take priority
Newman said he used to see fisheries officers at the pier in White Rock, but they haven't been around lately.
Ministry staff said that's likely because of record-low salmon returns, which have kept the few officers in the region very busy.
Fisheries and Oceans Canada deploys up to four conservation and protection officers each day but he said that's not enough to keep up with enforcement, habitat restoration work and investigations, said Fisheries and Oceans Canada detachment supervisor, Art Demsky,.
"I would say our resources are definitely stretched and we definitely do need more officers," said Demsky who added that the Lower Mainland employs 27 officers.
A White Rock RCMP officer speaks with a woman on the dock Thursday, following reports that people were ripping the claws and legs off of live crabs and throwing them back in the water.
Two accused of breaking claws off live crabs on White Rock pier
DFO investigate as White Rock woman, Belgian man charged
Sep. 12, 2017
One woman and one man are facing charges under the federal Fisheries Act, after police were alerted to people breaking the claws off of live crabs and throwing them back into the water off the White Rock pier last week.
Const. Chantal Sears confirmed Tuesday that charges – fishing without a tidal licence, catch and retain undersized red rock crab, and catch and retain Dungeness crab – were sworn that afternoon against a White Rock woman and a man from Belgium.
