“Vaccine certificates” could help Ontario reopen sooner, according to Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table.
In its briefing Wednesday, the Ford government’s science advisors included vaccine certification among its recommendations to the province.
The science table claims that a “vaccine certificate” is different from a vaccine passport.
“A vaccine passport provides proof of vaccination status for the purpose of travel across international borders … a verifiable attestation by an issuing body, for example, the Province of Ontario, that a person received an approved and complete series of COVID-19 vaccines,” the brief reads.
The science table believes “vaccine certificates” would be helpful on a short-term basis so that higher risk settings can reopen sooner. The group of scientists and health experts identify settings such as indoor dining and gyms as high-risk settings.
On a long-term basis, the brief says “vaccine certificates” could serve as a way to show immunization records.
“Given the anticipated seasonality of [COVID-19], as well as the possibility of additional variants of concern, establishing … [a] COVID-19 vaccine certification may be useful if public health measures need to be reintroduced,” the briefing reads.
Ontario already administers paper slips as proof of vaccination upon receiving a vaccine dose. Vaccination status can also be viewed and downloaded online.
Last week, Ontario Premier Doug Ford came out strongly against the idea of a vaccine passport.
“The answer is no, we’re not gonna do it. We’re not gonna have a split society,” Ford said.
Toronto Mayor John Tory said he would be in favour of a “vaccine certificate.”
“The bottom line is that if there are people including [the] government who are going to ask you to show that you’ve been vaccinated or not as just a practical means, then the same government, the provincial government in this case, has to provide something to people to be able to show they’ve been vaccinated,” Tory told CP24.
More than 20 protesters were arrested by Toronto Police on Wednesday after the police used force to break up an illegal homeless encampment.
Leftist activists were outraged to see the police doing their jobs and enforcing the law. But there’s a lot more to this story – these illegal encampments have been in place for months and the police and politicians did nothing about them until this week.
On today’s episode of The Candice Malcolm Show, Candice is joined by True North contributor Sue-Ann Levy to learn more about the events leading up to yesterday.
Levy is one of the only journalists in Canada who has covered this story from day one, and she provides much needed background to help us understand why the police finally broke up these illegal encampments.
For a small vocal minority of Canadians, it doesn’t matter that Canada is witnessing low cases of COVID-19, a high vaccination rate and the reopening of the country.
The vaccine passport has Canadians more divided than ever before – even more so than when the pandemic was at its most acute phase.
Future generations will still be paying for the government’s growing debt if politicians do not curb spending, according to the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO).
In its most recent Fiscal Sustainability Report, the PBO warns that the federal government will not return to a balanced budget until 2070 under the status quo.
In its estimate, the PBO says the government is projected to tack on an additional $2.7 trillion in debt before balancing the budget in 2070. Interest charged will cost Canadians approximately $3.8 trillion by 2070.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) voiced its concerns following the PBO’s shocking report.
“Racking up trillions of dollars in debt and interest is not okay, and that’s why we need to see federal politicians start taking deficits seriously,” said CTF federal director Franco Terrazzano.
“If things don’t change, Canadians will lose out on a tonne of money to the bond fund managers because of government debt interest charges. That money can’t go to health care or lower taxes because of these huge debt interest costs.”
In April, the Trudeau government revealed a $354 billion deficit in the 2021 budget. The government announced $100 billion in new spending but no plan for a balanced budget.
Canada’s federal debt recently surpassed $1 trillion dollars following a frenzy of pandemic spending by the ruling Liberal government.
The CTF took aim at the Trudeau government’s massive spending and disregard for fiscal restraint.
“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised Canadians he would balance the books in 2019, but it turns out that we will have to wait about 50 years before we see a balanced budget,” said Terrazzano.
“Politicians should not be okay with five decades of red ink and families shouldn’t be forced to pay for all the overspending, so we need the feds to roll-up their sleeves and save some money.”
Based on 2021 federal and provincial budgets, Canadians’ share of federal and government debt totalled $57,500 per person.
If nothing else, the activists who’ve enabled the homeless to languish in squalor in Toronto’s downtown parks for more than a year are predictable.
As has occurred with every long overdue eviction of the Tent Cities, the activists – largely a group of artists, academics, harm reduction workers and other radicals associated with the Encampment Support Network (ESN) –issued a call to arms early Wednesday morning on social media to come down to Lamport Stadium.
This was the third encampment to be cleaned out in a matter of weeks and the activists intended to do everything they could to stop the eviction–or at least to put on a good show.
People were instructed to be at the encampment as early as 5 a.m. and look for “greeters” with “yellow armbands” to get their marching orders.
URGENT call for support🚨pylons are going up at Lamport stadium. We need people at 74 Fraser NOW pic.twitter.com/dv4WDIpuSy
— Encampment Support Network Toronto (@ESN_TO) July 21, 2021
I cannot stress enough that we need bodies right ❗️NOW❗️ at Lamport. WE NEED PEOPLE OUTSIDE THE FENCES. THE SITUATION IS MOVING QUICK AND WE NEED BODIES ASAP. KING AND FRASER. This is our chance to protect our neighbours in encampments being displaced and evicted by TO police.
— Toronto Tiny Shelters (@TorTinyShelters) July 21, 2021
The ESN activists issued a shout-out to supporters to help the homeless “stand their ground” – claiming that this is what the homeless located at Lamport Stadium and Moss Park want.
“The clearing took place without proper consultation or due respect for the human right to shelter,” the ESN activists wrote on their social media pages.
As the day progressed, the ESN repeatedly tweeted pictures showing the number of cops and mounted units on scene and tales of people being “pepper-sprayed,” “violently beaten” and arrested.
Having watched this circus for more than a year and the tactics of the ESN activists I’m guessing those arrested were not the homeless.
I’m also presuming that these rabble-rousers – many of them “Defund the Police” types – were doing all of this for the cameras and the single-minded legacy media reporters, some of whom seem to think it’s fine for the homeless to squat illegally in sordid conditions in downtown parks contrary to city bylaws and public safety.
Make no mistake, despite the hyperbole of the activists, they were given ample warning that the parks would be cleared. Trespass notices were posted at Trinity Bellwoods and Alexandra Parks, Lamport Stadium and Moss Park on June 12.
This wasn’t the first attempted eviction of Lamport Stadium Park either. In mid-May when police tried to remove the tent dwellers there, they were also met with resistance from the ESN and other supporters.
But no matter, the activists have consistently used the homeless as their pawns in the 20 years I’ve followed this issue. It has forever caused me to wonder whether they really care about the homeless or about their own agenda – seemingly keeping drug addicts high through harm reduction methods and keeping the homeless out in the open to guilt politicians into throwing more money at the poverty industry.
For more than a year, the prevailing notion – from progressive politicians, activists and journalists – has been that the Tent City folk have far more rights than tax-paying families who just want to use their parks for picnics, to play with their kids or to walk their dogs.
The ESN has done everything they could to keep the homeless in the parks – despite the availability of fancy hotel rooms for them costing taxpayers $220 per night. They’ve delivered food, water, new tents and in the winter Durofoam pods and survival supplies.
This ideology turned Alexandra Park – located at the corner of Toronto’s Bathurst and Dundas Sts. – into a horrendous Shantytown.
When I visited there last month, the grass was up to my knees and there was debris and garbage everywhere around the 70-odd tents. The park was pretty much empty except for the tent dwellers.
A few days before the cleanout of Trinity Bellwoods Park, I biked down there to find a woman with a baby stroller concerned about manoeuvring along the path through the Tent City. One of the residents of the several dozen tents and wooden structures was busy occupying himself throwing things at passersby.
Despite plenty of evidence from such cities as Venice Beach, Seattle and Portland about what happens when activists are permitted to set the agenda with respect to Tent Cities, Mayor John Tory and his council let this drag on far too long.
After all, city officials conceded last October – in a submission to Ontario Superior Court – that there were frequent violent incidents, human trafficking, fires and “unsanitary conditions” in the encampments.
At one point Toronto fire officials reported that there was a 250% increase in encampment fires in a year and sources told me many times that drug dealing was rampant.
People living on the border of and across from the encampments repeatedly expressed concern with the noise, the fires, the fights and drug dealing which made it impossible for them to sleep or to enjoy a good quality of life.
But that’s the thing about the activists who prey on these vulnerable, often drug-addicted and in many cases mentally ill, Tent City folk.
Never mind the tax-paying neighbours trying to live beside the encampments.
The activists don’t seem to really care about the homeless living in these squalid conditions either.
They just want to make a point – namely, to defund the police – and as loudly as possible. Sadly, many media lap it all up.
When Justin Trudeau banned 1,500 popular firearm variants with the stroke of a pen last year, then introduced a bill that would severely curb legal handgun usage, he said in no uncertain terms that sport shooters would not be affected. That simply is not true.
Sport shooting is one of the fastest growing sports in Canada, but it’s been placed in the government’s crosshairs despite its safety and the rigorous vetting of lawful sporting arms owners. In this third part of Assaulted: Justin Trudeau’s War on Gun Owners, Andrew Lawton talks to sport shooters about the very real implications of current and future Liberal gun control measures on their sports.
In this episode, Andrew talks to Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights CEO Rod Giltaca, Team Canada shooter Allan Harding, competitive IPSC and 3-Gun shooter Amanda Fisher, and Lynda Kiejko, who will be competing on Canada’s behalf in the Tokyo Olympics this month in pistol and airgun events.
In Assaulted: Justin Trudeau’s War on Gun Owners, True North’s Andrew Lawton travels the country talking to real gun owners whose stories are being ignored by the mainstream media and who are being vilified by the Trudeau government.
We thank the generous supporters whose contributions made this project happen. If you’d like to contribute, you can do so at https://assaulted.ca
More than 20 protesters were arrested by Toronto Police on Wednesday after trying to block city employees and Toronto Police from clearing the illegal homeless encampment at Lamport Park.
The protesters – most of whom are not homeless and do not live in the encampment – showed up in hundreds to protect an illegal homeless encampment from being cleared.
Many of the activists blocking the police belonged to the Encampment Support Network, a volunteer network that supports residents of the illegal encampments.
Toronto Police arrived at the scene in the morning to notify those living in the encampment that they were trespassing and that they must leave. The police put up fencing to block out protesters and clear the way for city officials to dismantle the encampment.
As protesters refused to listen to police orders, they were met with force by law enforcement.
Footage from the scenes at Lamport show the protesters actively blocking police from clearing the tents and refusing to obey commands.
Police were not interested in negotiating with protesters at Lamport Park today in Toronto. Why do protesters act so surprised when they get arrested after breaking the law? pic.twitter.com/5gxIaoK32N
When the police arrived, they fenced off the homeless encampment to keep protesters and activists out and allow for the city to do its job. As the crowd of protesters grew, they eventually broke through the fencing.
In recent days, the City of Toronto has cleared several other homeless encampments, including an encampment in Alexandra Park on Tuesday. Police arrested 11 people when clearing the homeless encampment.
These clearings began after people living in four different homeless encampments received trespassing notices from the city. Residents of these encampments that refuse to leave also face a fine of up to $10,000.
The City of Toronto has provided hotels and other forms of shelter to the residents of the illegal encampments however many of them prefer to live in the encampments instead citing the fear from random check-ins.
Speaking after clashing with protesters, Toronto Police Staff Supt. Randy Carter said that the police were there to support city workers and make sure that the public was safe.
“We do our best to get to a place where nobody gets hurt and where we don’t have to be physically fighting with people but you were all witness to how we had to get to that place today,” Carter said.
Toronto Police Staff Superintendent Randy Carter on police activity at Lamport homeless encampment today @CityNewspic.twitter.com/axvqgOsp12
Speaking to the Toronto Sun after having to leave his encampment, Joey Mauger said, “We like it here, we don’t want to go and we don’t know where we’re going to go.”
He added that he had been living there for six months.
Immediately after the tragic death of Const. Jeffrey Northrup on July 2, the Toronto police issued a statement indicating a man had been charged with first-degree murder.
We heard that Northrup had been “deliberately” struck in the parking garage of Old City Hall in downtown Toronto. We were also told Northrup’s partner was treated and released from hospital in relation to the incident.
We were informed that the person charged in connection with the death was 31-year-old Umar Zameer and that he appeared in court that same day. No pictures of the suspect were released, by police or media.
Unlike other police press releases, there wasn’t even an indication of where Zameer called home. We don’t know if he was also charged in connection with Northrup’s partner.
A publication ban was quickly slapped on any further details of the alleged killing, and to this day there has been radio silence.
No journalist in Canada, from the best I can tell, has bothered to question who this man is, his background or where he came from.
A week has gone by since Northrup’s funeral, and crickets from the media.
A Toronto police spokesman informed me Tuesday that there is “no further information” to be provided due to the publication ban.
It’s as if protecting Zameer’s rights is more important than the officer he allegedly killed.
But we only have to look to another sad incident that occurred the month before in London, Ontario to find proof of the shameful double standard perpetrated by the police, our politicians and the media who go along with this selective narrative.
While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took two long days to weigh in about Northrup’s tragic death, in the London case, he and everyone else couldn’t wait to call it a “hate crime” and to label the alleged perpetrator as a “terrorist” and the incident a “terrorist attack.”
On the evening of June 6, a Muslim family of five was mowed down by the driver of a black pickup truck as they were out for a walk. Four succumbed to the injuries while a nine-year-old boy survived.
Nathaniel Veltman, 20, was charged with four counts of first-degree murder and one of attempted murder in connection with the attack.
Within hours, his photos were circulating on social media as members of the legacy media were quick to post photos found of the alleged perpetrator as a teenager. It didn’t even take London police 24 hours to call it a “planned premeditated act motivated by hate.”
One week later they laid terrorism charges against him after working with federal crown prosecutors on the case.
This is despite the fact that police admitted they had not established a connection between Veltman and known hate groups. Police have never said what evidence led them to surmise he engaged in an alleged terrorist act.
Veltman was tried and convicted in the media and questions of his mental state were conveniently ignored, according to one source. A court document from his parents’ divorce several years ago revealed that he suffered from mental illness and was medicated.
But mental illness didn’t fit with this narrative, it seems.
Still, the die was cast from the get-go after Trudeau wasted no time calling it a clear terrorist attack, as did his second in command, Chrystia Freeland. She called it an “act of terror.”
Premier Doug Ford and even Mayor John Tory engaged in the de rigueur acts of virtue signalling following the tragedy.
The story was covered by CNN, the BBC and the New York Times – all eager, of course, to call out acts of alleged terrorism.
Vigils were held across Canada in a tremendous outpouring of compassion we have not seen with Northrup, a father of three whose life was cut short too after 31 devoted years on the Toronto police force.
This is not at all to say that either act of violence is acceptable. They are both heinous.
But what the handling of the two tragedies shows is a dangerous precedent by the institutions we are supposed to trust of selectively deciding what narrative the public should hear.
In one case, everyone jumped on the bandwagon of alleged hate and terrorism – whether true or not – dispensing information that likely prejudices the perpetrator’s right to a fair trial.
On the other, our politicians, the police and the media are content to jump over backwards and circle the wagons to keep us in the dark about an alleged perpetrator who has also been deemed by police to have committed a “deliberate act.”
One is a terrorist. The other, who knows?
If the police brass and politicians have their way, we’ll never find out.
Former Conservative member of parliament and leadership candidate Brad Trost has been approved to run as a nomination candidate in Saskatchewan after an earlier disqualification by the Conservative party’s candidate selection committee.
Trost, a prominent social conservative who served as a Saskatoon MP from 2004 to 2019, is seeking the nomination in Moose Jaw—Lake Centre—Lanigan, a seat currently held by longtime Conservative MP Tom Lukiwski, who is not seeking reelection.
Trost’s application to seek the nomination was initially rejected by the National Candidate Selection Committee (NSCS), though this decision was appealed to the party’s elected National Council. On Sunday, the National Council voted to reverse the NSCS decision, effectively approving Trost as a candidate, True North has learned.
Trost declined to comment on the situation.
“I’m a candidate in good standing,” Trost said. “There were some minor issues but they got resolved rather quickly.”
True North was not able to verify the reason for Trost’s initial disqualification.
A Conservative Party of Canada spokesperson confirmed that all candidates who submitted applications – including Trost – have been approved by the party’s National Council.
The other candidates vying for the nomination in the relatively safe Conservative seat are Moose Jaw mayor Fraser Tolmie and Kathryn Pollack.
A date has not yet been set for the nomination, which will allow the riding’s Conservative members to vote on who will represent them in the next general election, widely rumoured to be coming this summer.
Trost ran for the Conservative party’s leadership in 2017, coming in fourth place with over 14% of the points. Trost’s support was ultimately what pushed Andrew Scheer to his narrow victory on the 13th ballot.
Months later, the party fined Trost’s campaign $50,000, alleging it leaked the membership list to a Canadian firearms group. The Conservatives eventually backtracked on their accusation, citing “insufficient evidence” after Trost filed for judicial review in an Ontario court.
After the leadership race, Trost was defeated in a nomination by Corey Tochor, who went on to win the 2019 general election.
Citing a rise in hate-motivated crimes and “drug-fuelled attacks,” Alberta’s justice minister is calling on the federal government to allow the use of pepper spray for self-defence.
“I suggest consideration be given to allowing individuals, including vulnerable persons, to carry capsaicin spray, commonly known as ‘pepper spray,’ for self-defence,” Min. Kaycee Madu says in a letter to his federal counterpart David Lametti and Public Safety Minister Bill Blair.
“As you are aware, pepper spray is currently a prohibited weapon. It is sadly ironic that a vulnerable person carrying pepper spray for self-defence could quite possibly receive a longer sentence than her attacker.”
Pepper spray causes temporary blindness and pain, which can allow someone under attack time to get away.
Madu points to an “increase of drug-fuelled attacks” in Alberta and across the country, saying Albertans should not be prohibited from accessing a tool of “personal defence when absolutely needed.”
Pepper spray has been designated as a prohibited weapon in Canada since 1995 as a “device designed to be used for the purpose of injuring, immobilizing or otherwise incapacitating any person.” Someone convicted of carrying it could be sentenced to up to 10 years in prison.
The prohibition exempts sprays designed for repelling animals, but anyone found to be carrying or using these sprays for defence against people can still be charged.
In his letter, Madu says this is unacceptable.
“Our government wholeheartedly supports the notion of permitting Albertans, and indeed, Canadians, to defend themselves in circumstances where they are in serious risk of imminent danger,” he writes. “Vulnerable communities and persons would be well served by your government allowing them to effectively defend themselves, as an additional measure to the community safety measures we are undertaking.”
Former Conservative Party of Canada leadership candidate Kellie Leitch promised to “clarify” the laws surrounding self-defence in 2016.
“The law should not force women to be victims of violence when non-lethal means exist for them to protect themselves,” Leitch said at the time.
