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Wednesday, July 9, 2025

Author slams CBC over biased report on attempts to censor her book

Best selling author Abigail Shrier slammed the CBC as “incompetent” over a biased article about her book “Irreversible Damage: The Transgender Craze Seducing Our Daughters.” 

According to Shrier, CBC News failed to reach out to her for comment despite her book being at the centre of the controversy.

The article, “Pride breaks with Halifax libraries after controversial book kept on shelves,” was written by CBC journalist Haley Ryan. The piece centres on claims by trans activists and Halifax Pride painting Shrier’s work as “transphobic misinformation and hate speech.” CBC’s piece was last updated on Monday afternoon. True North was unable to access the article’s original text.

In recent weeks, activists have called for Shrier’s book to be removed from Halifax Public Libraries’ shelves. The library has rejected these calls, citing a commitment to “free access to information and ideas.”

In an email to True North, CBC spokesperson Chuck Thompson said that “no substantive edits” were made to the report.

“There were no substantive edits to the original story and we did not reach out to the author because the piece was about Pride and the Halifax Public Library’s decision to keep the book on the shelves,” said Thompson.

CBC’s Journalistic Standards and Practices include a commitment to “balance.” 

“We contribute to informed debate on issues that matter to Canadians by reflecting a diversity of opinion. Our content on all platforms presents a wide range of subject matter and views,” the document says.

“On issues of controversy, we ensure that divergent views are reflected respectfully, taking into account their relevance to the debate and how widely held these views are. We also ensure that they are represented over a reasonable period of time.” 

As a result of the announcement, Pride Halifax has stated that it will cut ties with the organization over its refusal to censor Shrier’s book. 

Deceased individuals received $9.2 million in pandemic benefits

Canadians who died before the pandemic began in Canada received over $9.2 million in pandemic benefits last year.

First reported by Blacklock’s Reporter, Employment and Social Development Canada recently revealed that $9,208,500 in pandemic tax credits were paid out to people who had died before March 11, the day the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic.

The department says they will review the recipients of the tax credits to determine who needs to repay.

“The department will undertake a post payment review to determine whether there are any overpayments,” department staff wrote. 

The payments occurred after parliament passed Bill C-20 An Act Respecting Further COVID-19 Measures, in July 2020 which gave $600 in tax credits to around 1.7 million qualifying Canadians.

In their report, government staff blamed the families of deceased individuals for not informing the government of their loved ones’ death.

“In some cases information for persons with disabilities may not have been up to date because the government did not receive the individual’s updated personal information,” staff wrote. 

“Much like the need for clients to update their personal information with each department for their specific programs, death-related information would also need to be updated by relatives or the estate.”

Over the course of 2020, the federal government paid out huge sums in benefits to individuals which may not have been eligible. Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough has admitted that tax filing and repayments will be difficult for Canadians.

Last year, the government gave Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB) to 824,000 people, even to individuals who were ineligible. Tens of thousands of people who earned over $100,000 in 2019 also received pandemic benefits.

Children between the ages of 15 and 18 also received $636 million through CERB, regardless of if they ever held a job.

“Toronto 18” terrorist leader denied parole

The ringleader of the former “Toronto 18” terrorist group has been denied parole.

At a hearing on Friday, the Parole Board of Canada denied Zakaria Amara’s request for day parole, saying there is not sufficient proof he is fit to be allowed in public.

In their decision, the Board wrote that Amara still requires professional help to “address the future risk of harm related to terrorist activity” and recommends he be transferred to a minimum security institution.

“The Board felt the risk was unmanageable and the risk to public safety was still present,” the Parole Board wrote.

In 2006, Amara and 17 other men were arrested for plotting to bomb various high profile targets in Ontario. The plot was uncovered just before the bombs could be placed.

The homegrown terrorist group was inspired by al-Qaeda and Amara claimed he wanted to “take revenge for Canada’s involvement in Afghanistan.”

The attacks targeted many important locations, including the Toronto Stock Exchange, a Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) office and a military base. The group ultimately planned to blow up Parliament Hill and assassinate former Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Another member of the plot, Shareef Abdelhaleem, was granted day parole in December despite objections from his case management team.

The previous Harper government passed a law which allowed the government to strip citizenship from dual citizens convicted of terrorism. As a dual national of Canada and Jordan, Amara was one of those who saw their citizenships revoked.

However, in 2016, the Trudeau government enacted Bill C-6, a bill that protects dual-citizen terrorists from having their citizenship revoked. Shortly after, Amara’s Canadian citizenship was restored.

FUREY: Will politics ever be the same again?

Canadians have felt the impact of government decisions more than ever during the pandemic. Government-imposed lockdowns have impacted everybody.

As a result, many Canadians have switched their political allegiance. Many who have traditionally voted for left-leaning parties no longer favour big government.

Anthony Furey discusses in his latest video.

Halifax “gender pay gap” study finds that men and women are paid equally

A report submitted to Halifax Regional Municipality’s (HRM) Executive Standing Committee discovered that no gender pay gap exists in the city’s pay systems. 

According to the report, the study was initiated by the municipality as “part of the ongoing efforts to achieve better balance in relation to gender parity” and to “determine if there were barriers inherent in our pay structures that would interfere with our ability to attract and retain female employees.”

The study, which was submitted by human resources executive director Caroline Blair-Smith and chief administrative officer Jacques Dube came to the conclusion that men and women employees were being paid the same wages for similar work. 

“The review of the pay structures at HRM has determined that they do not create pay inequity based upon gender and, therefore, are not a barrier to achieving gender parity in the HRM employee population,” the study notes. 

Both pay equity and a “gender pay gap” were included in the scope of the study which also looked at differences in pay between unionized and non-union employees hired by the city. In both cases, no gender pay disparity was detected. 

“For most Unionized roles at HRM, there is a single pay rate for each position which means that there is no pay gap between male and female employees doing the same work,” wrote the study’s authors.

“…HRM was able to determine that there was little to no statistical significance in the relationship between a Non-Union employee’s gender and their position in the pay band. The most statistically significant relationship found was between an employee’s performance and their position in the pay band.”

“This analysis supports the goals of improving the gender balance in all Non-Union pay levels by validating that HRM’s Non-Union pay structures are not a barrier to attracting and retaining female employees,” the report continues. 

The “gender pay gap” is a theory that women are paid less than men in certain industries despite doing the same work. 

Critics of the idea like author and psychologist Dr. Jordan B Peterson claim that proponents of the “gender pay gap” fail to take into account relevant factors such as differences in occupations, education and hours worked. 

Nova Scotia, Manitoba, Ontario among the most locked down provinces: True North Freedom Score

While Canada’s allies are reopening up their countries, much of Canada continues to adhere to strict lockdowns and public health orders. 

The True North Provincial Freedom Score found that Nova Scotia, Manitoba and Ontario were the most locked-down provinces in the country when taking into account business closures, school openings, in-person dining and nearly a dozen other variables. 

Based on the report, Nova Scotia and Manitoba received the lowest Freedom Score of -8, while Ontario followed closely behind with a score of -6. 

The freest region based on the 12 variables True North considered was the territory of Yukon which received a Freedom Score of 10. Interestingly Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut all received a Freedom Score of 8.

Predictably, Ontario received a low Freedom Score given the increasingly stringent measures being applied in the province to combat recent surges of COVID-19 and its variants.

The report is meant as a way for Canadians to get an understanding of Canada’s lockdown landscape. Anyone interested in more information about COVID-19 or regarding provincial or territorial public health measures should access any of the publicly available provincial or federal COVID-19 information resources. 

Freedom Scores should not be understood as a measure of how good, reliable or effective public health orders are but only as a comparative tool to judge how free a province or territory is. 

True North relied on official provincial and territorial COVID-19 public health orders to compile this report. 

True-North-Provincial-Freedom-Score-3

Download the full report.

Ontario to allow 550 healthcare workers to attend Game 7 between Maple Leafs and Canadiens

The Ontario government has changed its mind about allowing healthcare workers to attend the highly anticipated Game 7 between the Toronto Maple Leafs and the Montreal Canadiens.

On Monday morning, Heritage, Tourism, Culture and Sport Minister Lisa MacLeod tweeted that the government will allow 550 fully vaccinated healthcare workers to attend tonight’s game in-person.

The decision is a sudden change of heart for the Ford government, which had previously made it clear they were not going to allow spectators to watch the game in-person.

In a statement on Monday, Premier Doug Ford praised Ontario’s healthcare workers for their sacrifices during the pandemic and said that 550 fully vaccinated people gathering in the Scotiabank Area will pose “minimal risk” to public health. 

The Scotiabank Area has a capacity of 19,800.

The move comes after Quebec allowed 2,500 people to attend Game 6 inside Montreal’s Bell Centre on Saturday.

On Sunday, Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown launched a petition calling for Ontario to allow 2,500 healthcare workers to attend the game.

“Given the fact that a large number of our essential workers and healthcare workers who have given so much over the last year are fully vaccinated, this would be a way to give the Maple Leafs a boost,” Brown told CP24.

A Reopening Plan Without Reopening

While Alberta is getting ready for the Calgary Stampede, the Ontario government has ditched its previous reopening plan (again) to replace it with a three-stage plan that doesn’t have a stage without restrictions. True North’s Andrew Lawton discusses the latest in the never-ending lockdown.

Watch the latest episode of The Andrew Lawton Show.

MALCOLM: The lab leak flip-flop shows what’s wrong with journalism today

Everything wrong with journalism today can be summed up in one remarkable news story: the theory that COVID-19 leaked from a lab in China.

In the past seven days, this story has experienced an incredible 180 in terms of its credibility. After nearly 18 months of this theory being thoroughly discredited and debunked by all the fancy people in politics, the media and big tech, it is now suddenly a mainstream theory.

Let’s rewind all the way back to January 2020, when the very first case of the coronavirus was reported in Canada. At the time, COVID-19 was still very much a local story in China. We began seeing images online of brutality in dealing with those infected and the despicably common practice of Chinese journalists and whistle-blowers simply “disappearing.”

The narrative coming out of Communist China was that this mysterious new virus originated in a wet market. At the time, I noted the obvious fact that Wuhan is the location of China’s only high-security infectious disease laboratory, the Wuhan Institute for Virology. I thought it was obvious, anyway.

I raised simple questions about this controversial lab, known for lax safety standards and studying dangerous diseases, which was located a mere 300 yards from the wet market where Patient Zero was infected.

Isn’t that suspicious? You would assume that scientists, researchers and journalists all over the world would begin examining this link.

China, after all, is run by an adversarial communist dictatorship known for lying and covering up inconvenient facts. Surely enlightened thinkers in the West would question their narrative and try to poke holes in their theory.

Imagine my surprise, then, when the entirety of the mainstream media — in Canada, the U.S. and around the world — completely ignored this link. Worse, there was a campaign to malign and discredit anyone raising questions about the controversial Wuhan lab.

The media brigade in Canada systematically began “debunking” this theory. Smug journalists wrote stories dismissing the lab leak theory as “nonsense”, “disinformation” and a “hoax.”

These journalists, who have been proven utterly wrong by the recent swing in the narrative, do not admit their errors. Instead, they try to ensure their readers they were right all along.

At this point, you may be thinking to yourself: these aren’t journalists.

Journalists ask questions, examine links and act skeptically towards information being pushed by partisans, politicians, and communist regimes.

What we’ve seen instead are the actions of anti-journalists. There have been too many examples of journalists being intellectually dishonest, morally corrupt, or acting as bad-faith propagandists who deserve to be mocked, ridiculed and ignored.

But it doesn’t stop there. Some scientists, who are held up by many as being exempt from any political influences, admitted that they purposely avoided examining the lab leak theory sooner simply because prominent conservatives were questioning it.

And, to add insult to injury, social media giants like Facebook admitted that they were hiding posts that talked about the lab link from their algorithm in an effort to stop the spread of “disinformation.”

Something is rotten in the state of Denmark. And every major institution — governments, journalists, scientists and big tech — is complicit in this corruption.

A simple mea culpa will not cut it. The truth is out there.

Mainstream media company received $6.2 million in Liberal bailout funds

A mainstream media company that once urged the federal government to bailout Canada’s failing news industry received $6.2 million in taxpayer funds from the Liberal government.

According to Blacklock’s Reporter, FP Newspapers Inc, which owns Winnipeg Free Press, the Brandon Sun and a number of other publications, received the sum in the form of pandemic wage subsidies and other media rebates. 

In total the company received $6,204,000 in taxpayer funding, $5,382,999 of which was in the form of COVID-19 wage subsidies and $822,000 in the form of payroll rebates for newsroom employees. 

When taking into account the company’s income, federal grants made up 54% of the business’ earnings. 

“Despite the fact the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic remains unpredictable, we continue to identify and undertake cost reduction initiatives in an effort to address the underlying revenue declines in the legacy print business,” wrote the company in a Financial Statement.

Winnipeg Free Press’ publisher Bob Cox has been an early proponent of subsidizing Canada’s failing news media industry .

In 2020, Cox was one of the media executives chosen to sit on the $50 million Local Journalism Initiative judging panel which approved organizations for federal grants under the program. 

Cox’s paper was among the outlets awarded grants to hire new reporters under the initiative.

According to records, Winnipeg’s Free Press saw an 8% decline in online ad revenue last year and a 27% drop in print ad revenue. 

Additionally, FP Newspapers Inc. is not only cashing in on federal subsidies but has recently announced a partnership with Facebook to receive payment for the news content it hosts on the platform. 

Under the arrangement, FP Newspapers and 13 other media outlets will be a part of a pilot endeavour where companies will receive an undisclosed amount of money for their content. 

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