UPDATED: A Pro Forma Response

While Justin Trudeau will undoubtedly be praised by some for his polite reaction to these activists, his perfunctory response tells all you need to know about the disparity between his usual soaring rhetoric and his increasingly disappointing environmental performance.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau thanked a pair of environmental protesters for their "activism" after they interrupted a press conference in Vancouver to question his commitment to fighting climate change.

Hayley Zacks, 20, and Jake Hubley, 24, rose from their seats to ask the prime minister for a "moment of his time" so that he might explain why he approved the contentious Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.

The prime minister let the protesters say their piece but did not defend his position on resource projects.

Zacks noted the project will run through unceded First Nations territories and said young Canadians are scared the planet will become "unlivable" because of climate change.

"The Kinder Morgan pipeline is going to increase emissions from the tarsands, it is going to poison our water, our lands, and everything that we hold dear," she said before being escorted away by security members.

"Thank you for your questions, for your activism. Keep up the activism please," Trudeau said. "It's great to see young people stepping forward and sharing their concerns and views. We certainly take those very seriously."

UPDATE: This is the kind of environmental disaster that seems inevitable, Mr. Trudeau's enthusiasm for pipelines notwithstanding:

TransCanada Corp. said its Keystone pipeline has leaked an estimated 795,000 litres of oil in Marshall County, S.D., just days before Nebraska is set to decide the fate of its Keystone XL pipeline.

The company said its crews shut down the Keystone pipeline system early this morning between Hardisty, Alta., and Cushing, Okla., and a line to Patoka, Ill., and that the line is expected to remain shut while it responds to the spill.

Theatre Of The Absurd

Any facile defence of Roy Moore's creepy predilections has to be regarded thus. His attorney, Trenton Garmon, even tried to draw Canadian Ali Velshi into the fray.

UPDATED:Engagement Is Always Preferable

There is a strong argument to be made for engagement rather than confrontation. Until we are willing to show at least a modicum of tolerance for the views of others, however regnant, all we are really doing is shouting at one another. However, I suspect that it is impossible to follow such a strategy when dealing with the supremely stupid, the woefully ignorant, the rancidly racist and the perniciously partisan, to name but four qualifiers.

Assign what category you will to Brandon Mosely, a writer for the Alabama Political Reporter and staunch supporter of Senate aspirant Roy Moore, whose apparent predilection for exploiting young girls is the source of the most recent ructions in the good ole U.S. of A.

UPDATE: The New York Daily News is reporting that consummate consumer Moore was banned from the Gadsden Mall in his hometown for his, er, shopping habits:

The former Alabama Supreme Court Chief Justice reportedly cruised the mall for dates, both AL.com and New Yorker reported Monday.

Blake Usry said Friday and Saturday nights was prime time for Moore to visit the shopping hub.

“Like the kids did,” Usry told the Alabama paper.

A police officer named J.D. Thomas told mall employees to be on the lookout for Moore because he was “banned from the mall,” Legat said.

“If you see Moore here, tell me. I’ll take care of him,” the cop reportedly told Legat.

Police officers who spoke with the New Yorker said Moore’s presence at the mall was a problem.

“The general knowledge at the time when I moved here was that this guy is a lawyer cruising the mall for high-school dates,” one of the officers said.

“I was told by a girl who worked at the mall that he’d been run off from there, from a number of stores,” another cop recalled.

Impossible To Ignore

I have noticed a shift lately on the part of the ultra-right. Instead of denying climate change, increasing numbers are 'admitting' that the climate may be changing, but they have no idea why.

The following may help to open the eyes of such willfully ignorant souls:

Sounds About Right

I don't suppose it should surprise anyone that an egregiously incompetent President Trump has nominated as a federal court judge for Alabama the egregiously unqualified Brett J. Talley. He

has never tried a case, was unanimously rated “not qualified” by the American Bar Assn.’s judicial rating committee, has practiced law for only three years and, as a blogger last year, displayed a degree of partisanship unusual for a judicial nominee, denouncing “Hillary Rotten Clinton” and pledging support for the National Rifle Assn.

The Senate judiciary committee has approved his nomination.

Sounds about right.

Seeing The Light

This is nothing like a reformed evangelical who has seen the light:

Appearing on MSNBC’s AM Joy, former evangelical – and son a a famous pastor — angrily tore into the Republican party for backing “rape, child molesting and neo-Nazis,” in a furious broadside.

Speaking with host Joy Reid, former Christian evangelical Frank Schaeffer was clearly enraged at the continued candidacy of Judge Roy Moore who has been accused of sexually assaulting four women when they were in their teens and he was in his thirties.

Canadians React To The Paradise Papers

If you aren't yet outraged over recent revelations, check your pulse to make sure you are still amongst the living.

Happily, signs of life are plentiful among Toronto Star readers:

Liberal Party fundraisers held family millions in offshore trust, Nov. 6

Coverage of the Paradise Papers’ celebrity tax evaders has tended to revolve around the potential illegality of their actions. For example: how “blind” the offshore trusts of Stephen Bronfman and Leo Kolber actually are. I imagine most Canadians could care less whether Bronfman’s $60-million, tax-free snowball is being managed from home or from offshore. The real issue is, why is it legal in the first place?

The answer, which these leaks are revealing, is that our federal leaders are so beholden to Canada’s richest men — their chief fundraisers — that substantive crackdowns on these schemes are being prorogued. [Emphasis added]

These tax evasions are a spit in the eye to the Liberals’ fabled “middle class,” let alone to the 12 million Canadians who collectively own less than our richest 100 families.

Jeremy Withers, PhD student, University of Toronto

Thank you again for enlightening us on the machinations of the 1 per cent to avoid paying their fair share of taxes. An outstanding editorial. Surely, I am not the only one thinking of voting for the NDP in the next federal election.

Norma Martinez, Toronto

One of the main reasons for U.S. President Donald Trump’s victory was the snail-pace change to the status quo. People are fed up with the failure of governments to act. Whether the Paradise Papers news is based on legal or illegal actions of wealthy people or organizations is irrelevant. We must find ways to finance the needs of the populace and it is evident that this must come from those who have. Unless the current government acts decisively to outlaw these types of actions, Canadians, too, will either not vote or seek alternative populist methods. Justin Trudeau, be warned. [Emphasis added]

Harry Coupland, Etobicoke

This four-page article about offshore tax havens proves the point of American billionaire hotelier Leona Helmsley, who famously said: “We don’t pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes.”

It seems that democracy is on sale. The rich families finance politicians to fight elections and, as a quid pro quo, politicians protect their wealth through favourable legislation.

The article shows how Leo Kolber, a wealthy man who had accounts in offshore money centres, was appointed senator and then became chairman of the Senate’s powerful banking committee. He held back proposed unfavourable legislation on offshore trusts for 14 years.

These multimillionaires are not paying their share of taxes, forcing government to cut back on social services, health care, education, affordable housing, etc. It is estimated that the Canadian government is losing $6 to $8 billion per year in tax revenue. [Emphasis added]

Is it too difficult to force countries like Panama and British protectorates like Grand Cayman, Isle of Man and the British Virgin Islands to stop hiding money for wealthy Canadians.

Anis Zuberi, Mississauga

It is in the public’s interest to take tax avoidance seriously because we now know this is not a one-shot deal carried out by the odd, cunning billionaire, but rather a widespread scheme common among the wealthy.

We can no longer consider tax dodging and offshore accounts to be trivial, when everyone from the Queen to U.S. President Donald Trump’s cabinet are benefitting from them.

It is especially important for lower- and median-income households to care about this epidemic because it is they who suffer from the increased taxation and lack of public funding caused by the millions lost in tax revenue from offshore holdings. [Emphasis added]

It is the vulnerable and the poor who get the short end after this game is played out and it is time they force this issue into the public sphere and demand it be made a talking point.

Benjamin Rawlings, Ottawa