Rex Murphy

by **Wolfman** Fri 16 Feb 2018, 4:35 pm

Rex Murphy | Rejecting a War Hero's Request for Care

Jun 2, 2016

Veterans Affairs has rejected a 94-year-old war hero's request for care. Rex shares his point of view on the situation.
Click here for the full story: Full Story

by **RazzorSharp))** Tue 01 Dec 2020, 4:15 pm

Rex Murphy: Adamson Barbecue and the epidemic of snobbery

Rex Murphy
Publishing .Dec 01, 2020

Adamson BBQ owner Adam Skelly is led away from his restaurant by Toronto Police on Nov. 26.

https://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-adamson-barbecue-and-the-epidemic-of-snobbery

by RanMerison Tue 14 Sep 2021, 9:30 pm

14.09.2021

by Jumper Mon 06 Dec 2021, 9:22 pm

Rex Murphy: When Justin Trudeau turned his back on veterans

In 2015, Trudeau promised to give veterans the support they need. Since that time, he has doubled the national debt, but our war heroes are still being left out in the cold

Rex Murphy
Publishing date: Dec 06, 2021

The year was 2018, before the pandemic hit the world. The month was February. The place was Edmonton. In Canada, February is cold all over the place. In Edmonton, “cold” is a useless adjective. To take an approximate reading of outside temperatures, thermometers have to be held over an open fire so the mercury can thaw. Penguins, on holiday in Edmonton, don long johns and check into heated motels. All of which is whimsical prelude to a story not at all whimsical.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was holding a town hall that day. Out of the assembly, a retired corporal in the Canadian Armed Forces arose, a veteran of the conflict in Afghanistan. His name was Brock Blaszczyk. In Afghanistan, Blaszczyk was wounded in an explosion. Very seriously wounded: the explosion took one of the young soldier’s legs.

Cpl. Blaszczyk rose in that town hall to ask the prime minister a question. John Ivison’s column from that time sets the stage : “He asked Trudeau why his government is fighting a legal battle with veterans (the Equitas class-action lawsuit), even though the Liberal election platform said ‘no veteran will be forced to fight their own government for the support and compensation they have earned.’

“Further, he complained he was not eligible for the new lifetime pension option, yet the Liberals have found money to pay for the re-integration of ISIL fighters and the $10.5-million compensation payment for Omar Khadr.

“ ‘What veterans are you talking about — those fighting for the freedoms and values you so proudly boast about, or those fighting against?” he said. “I was prepared to be killed in action. What I wasn’t prepared for, Mr. Prime Minister, was Canada turning its back on me.’ ”

In this country, we treasure our soldiers, and especially our veterans. So Cpl. Blaszczyk’s question, grounded in his individual experience, also went to the core of Canada’s national understanding of itself. The reply from a leader who could give lessons to Bill Clinton on the “I feel your pain” barometer was uninspiring.

On that cold winter night in that northern city, Trudeau told Blaszczyk that veterans were asking “more than we are able to give right now” — implying that they were exploiting their suffering.

To recap, the leader of our country replied to an amputee soldier: “Why are we still fighting against certain veterans’ groups in court? Because they are asking for more than we are able to give right now.”

Let us now jump forward to December 2021, in the midst of the COVID pandemic. Over $500 billion have gushed with cataract force and Niagara volume from this same government. Flights to the sand and surf of Tofino, B.C., have been booked for the prime minister. Hundreds of flights, hotels and expenses have been paid for to attend climate conferences. And, just as a side note, a needless election, birthed in sheer political opportunism, wasted $600 million, a sum that could have purchased a lot of supports for wounded soldiers.

The cash has poured out of the Liberal treasury during COVID in sublime aggregates that only a prime minister who has no idea about “monetary policy” would ever authorize.

Now comes the veterans’ ombudsman, Nishika Jardine, a retired Canadian Army colonel who, in a recent interview with The Canadian Press , noted that many injured soldiers have been fighting for the supports they require, but the government has been refusing to provide them.

“It’s crystal clear that over the past four years, the government is falling behind in doing the work that’s required to address the inequities that we’ve highlighted,” said Jardine.

Clearly, those ill and injured vets are asking too much. How dare those who answered Canada’s call and went to a foreign land, risked their lives, suffered loss of limb and returned home, ill, amputated, mentally in torment, their families bearing all the ancillary pains and strains of loved ones dead or suffering — how dare they think their country should care for them in their time of need.

There was a gentleman who, in August 2015, a short distance from CFB Trenton, during an election campaign, made this beautiful, solemn declaration: “If I earn the right to serve this country as your prime minister, no veteran will be forced to fight their own government for the support and compensation that they have earned.”

The speaker was Justin Trudeau, and the September 2019 CP story from which the quotation was taken ends: “It was exactly what many veterans had been waiting to hear. Four years later, however, faith in the Liberals has all but disappeared.”

Since that time, Trudeau has managed to double the national debt. Yet the veterans who need support have been left to metaphorically stand in the rain with a begging bowl. Politicians who thank veterans for their service should not be allowed to thank them, if this is the way they show their gratitude.

I wonder how Cpl. Blaszczyk feels now. It’s cold in Edmonton, but in some ways, ways that bite far deeper, it’s never as cold as it is in Ottawa.

National Post

NATIONAL POST

by Logan Fri 18 Mar 2022, 9:09 pm

Rex Murphy: Putin is surely trembling over Canada's 'convening' power

We couldn't even convene a few truckers who were our citizens

Rex Murphy
Publishing date: Mar 18, 2022

Canada “is a middle-sized power and what we’re good at is convening.”

When the Minister of Foreign Affairs, in lieu of any increased Canadian presence in the alarming crisis in Ukraine, makes a boast of Canada’s “convening power,” it is to wonder, perhaps even mandatory to ask, is Mélanie Joly serious? As bombs rain down, cities are pulverized, all canons of international behaviour outraged, we brag of a power to “convene?”

Our “convening” power? Which, mildly paraphrased, comes down to our, Canada’s, gift at calling meetings! What is this country — a conference management firm?

Is this what the dreamers of 1867 saw as our future? A dominion that when the world was in peril, and wars were brewing, nations under siege and invasion, the mighty provinces of the Canadian Confederation, under the taut umbrella of their woke national government, would hail the world …. “Hey, guys, Let’s have a meeting. The Convening Power has spoken.”

What is this country — a conference management firm?

Lest you should think, dear reader, that this is an isolated fancy in the isolated brain of a minister of this nation’s foreign affairs, allow me to correct you.

In what I must regard as a strange article in a magazine called Policy Options, a full four years ago, there was voiced an equal hosanna to this eldritch power. I have no idea where this weird concept originated, or how anyone would want to associate their name with asserting it, but here was Policy Options spreading the confetti:

“Canada today arguably has unsurpassed convening power, and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau can harness this power during Canada’s G7 presidency in 2018 to elevate global conversations and progress on the global skills agenda, clean innovation and women’s economic empowerment.”

“Unsurpassed convening power!” We have not jets worth sending. We have not military range. We do not live up to our NATO commitments. We live off U.S. protection. We starve out our Armed Forces. We disoblige our veterans.

BUT. We have unsurpassed convening power!

It is all that I can do to keep from swearing in print. For God’s sake you could not convene a few peaceful truckers who were your own citizens. You won’t convene a sit down with Alberta. You can’t convene our own Parliament, except to do virtue-display for the Ukrainian president.

When you are nothing on the international stage, when the respect for Canada’s integrity as a bulwark state, ready to face real challenge, with a real military, is close to zero, you try out this silliest hollow boast that any nation has ever dared to shoot up as a flare of its concern and commitment: We are ready “to convene.”

Vladimir Putin shudders. The tyrants of the world tremble. Canada is ready “to convene.” As Policy Options celebrated, we have “unsurpassed” convening power.

That should make mothers under rubble in Ukraine look up in hope and gratitude, and as their children’s tears are falling, take great comfort: There is one country that has the power to convene. It is Canada. We are saved.

National Post

National Post

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