A decision has been made in Ottawa and, predictably, the political actors are playing the same cards they always do.

I’m talking about allegations involving foreign interference in Canadian elections, and more to the point, about how the Chinese insert themselves into this kind of stuff any time they get a chance. 

By the way, when I refer to the Chinese, I’m speaking about the Communist Party of China, or CPC.  Not the Chinese people.

Justin Trudeau announced today that that a parliamentary committee, one with access to top-secret intelligence, will look into this affair.  

Cue the music. Play the parts.

With all the talk of the Highway 417 extension, and with visible evidence of this project getting closer to Renfrew, attention must be paid to what happens when people follow this new road to Renfrew, experience it, then decide to live here.

Driving by Arnprior reveals all kinds of residential construction, completed or in progress, as that town absorbs more and more people into its soon-to-be city limits. 

As it happens there, it will happen here in Renfrew, perhaps to a lesser degree, but nonetheless it’s going to happen. So one of the key questions to be asked has to do with where these new people are going to live if they choose to reside within the town boundaries.

So where will these new housing developments be located?

Finally.

In Ottawa this week, the top executives from Canada’s major grocers will appear before MP’s on the House of Commons Committee Studying Inflation and Food Prices and answer tough questions about how they managed to make so much money through the pandemic and the following period of inflation.

Loblaws, Metro, and Empire Foods will be grilled over the rising cost of food and the substantial profits that these, the Big Three, have posted over the past year.

It’s like an episode of Coronation Street, except it’s for real and the invitations for the real coronation of Britain’s King Charles III have been sent out, and a certain couple hasn’t yet received theirs.

Hmm.

To add to the whole thing, the King has ordered his second son, Prince Harry, and his young family to move out of Frogmore, the place on the grounds of Windsor Castle where they would stay when visiting England.  He wants to give it to Prince Andrew and his collection of teddy bears instead.

The Renfrew Creamery Kings?

The Renfrew Wolves play back-to-back home games this weekend against Kemptville and Hawkesbury but they’ll have a completely different look while doing so.

It appears the Ukrainian city of Bakhmut is about to fall.

After a months-long siege by Russian forces, Ukrainian army units are methodically egressing from the city before they become completely surrounded.

Once a city of some 75,000 people, Bakhmut is now a smoking ruin with most of its pre-war population gone or dead, with few die-hards remaining.  Not a strategic place in any proper use of the word, but a place of prominence nevertheless as thousands of Russians have been killed and wounded here.  The Ukrainians, too, have suffered terrible casualties, but at a lower scale to the Russians.

Vladimir the Great. 

You have to admit, it’s got kind of a punch to it. If I was a Vladimir, I could go for that title all day long. 

Seems this Putin fellow, all five foot nothing of him, wishes to be the latest Russian historical figure. Wants to be on the same level as the big boys, like Lenin, Stalin, Peter the Great. Wants to be known as a great hero of the Russian people.

He recently pointed out that the last Russian ruler to totally control the Sea of Azov was Peter the Great. That’s really cool, other than he had to invade Ukraine to make it happen. But no matter. So did Peter the Great. 

In what some may feel to be an ironic twist, the Chinese social media app TIKTOK has introduced screen time limitations for teens and youth that could limit young people to an hour of screen time a day.

TIKTOK is responding to an American study that pegged the teenage use of the app at over two hours/day in the United States, far more than other apps like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.

The announcement comes mere days after Canada’s federal government banned the app from all government-issued smartphones, a move quickly copied by the government of Quebec.  The government move was in response to the huge amount of personal data that the app harvests from its users, deemed a potential national security threat not just here, but in other western countries as well.

For what it’s worth, any teen coming up against the one-hour limit can continue with the app by re-inserting their personal password, so it appears that enforcement of these new provisions is basically the pain in the ass involved in having to re-enter your password.  If you can live with that inconvenience, then I guess you’re good to go.

For the remaining family of Kobe Bryant, Tuesday’s settlement of a prominent lawsuit against Los Angeles County adds some degree of closure to one unfortunate aspect of their tragedy:  the existence of first-responder photographs of a helicopter crash scene and the bodies contained therein.

Two of those bodies were that of NBA Hall-of-Famer Bryant, along with his 13 year-old daughter Gianna.  They were travelling to a youth basketball game with seven others when their helicopter went down during poor visibility in January 2020, killing everyone on board.

Kobe’s wife, Vanessa Bryant, and her three remaining daughters agreed to a $28.5 million settlement that included restorative and punitive damages.  

Well, by God, it’s happened.

After kicking the idea around for awhile, the federal government has announced that the app TIKTOK will no longer be allowed on government-issued phones.

Citing national security issues, the government has declared that the Chinese-based app harvests personal data at a rate that has security agencies concerned.  As well, the Canadian government has formed the opinion that ByteDance, the company controlling the app, has deep connections to the Chinese Communist Party, and that the app can be used by nefarious actors – read China – to gather information on Canadians that may in turn be used to cultivate leverage in the area of espionage.

This is the second Chinese company literally accused by the Canadian government of being a front for intelligence-gathering operations.  A couple of years ago it was Huawei, the giant Chinese smartphone manufacturer, that was given the red light in its hopes to become the provider of a 5G internet network in Canada.

Like ByteDance, Huawei has been ruled a potential threat to national security, something that has had the company banned from 5G networks in several western countries already.