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Wednesday, May 14, 2025

Trials of the two Michaels beginning Friday and Monday

By
True North Wire
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The trials of Canadian citizens Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor will be beginning in China in the next few days.

According to Canadian Embassy in Beijing, Chinese prosecutors will begin their opening hearing in the trial of Spavor on Friday, with Kovrig’s first hearing scheduled for Monday. Both men face charges of stealing unspecified Chinese government secrets.

“The arbitrary detention of Mr. Kovrig and Mr. Spavor is a top priority for the Government of Canada and we continue to work tirelessly to secure their immediate release,” Foreign Affairs Minister Marc Garneau said in a statement.

“We believe these detentions are arbitrary, and remain deeply troubled by the lack of transparency surrounding these proceedings.”

Chinese state-owned media reported last week that the trials of the two Michaels were beginning “soon.” The Canadian government appears to have not been officially notified until the day before the trial of the two Michaels.

The two Michaels were arrested in 2018 in a move which is widely believed to have been retaliation for Canada’s arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou on an U.S. warrant. Spavor and Kovrig’s trials were postponed in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic.

The wife of Michael Kovrig Vina Nadjibulla said in an interview the limited window to see her husband realised through diplomacy is closing.

“This is, of course, a very difficult development. But as difficult as it is I cannot imagine what it’s like for Michael who is having to deal with this in isolation and alone and has been for 830 days,” she said in an interview.

“What I am focused on now is that we must remain determined and work for their freedom. The proceedings in China are still going ahead and this is a stark reminder. We are simply running out of time.”

The Chinese legal system is notoriously biased against opponents of the Communist Party. In 2019, the conviction rate in China stood at 99.9%.

Accused in $11 million COVID-19 relief fraud case pins blame on Ontario government

By
True North Wire
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A former public sector worker accused of embezzling around $11 million in COVID-19 funds claimed the Ontario government was at fault for not taking steps to secure the program. 

Sanjay Madan, a former IT worker involved with implementing Ontario’s Support for Families fund, was fired by the Ontario government in November. In a civil action, the province accuses him of opening thousands of bank accounts to deposit fraudulent cheques to made-up applicants. Madan is also accused of profiting off a kickback scheme begun several years ago. 

The allegation has not been tested or proven in court. True North reached out to the Government of Ontario for comment on the matter but did not receive a reply in time for publication. 

In a statement of defense filed last week, Madan blamed the government for hosting a system open to exploitation.

“The plaintiff knew, or ought to have known, that unscrupulous individuals, including potentially its own employees, might try to exploit weaknesses in its security measures to take money,” said the statement of defense, which also has not been tested in court.

“Having anticipated such threats, (the government) ought to have taken steps to prevent them, or reduce any losses arising from them.”

No criminal charges have been laid against Madan.

Madan’s wife and sons are also named in the lawsuit, though he claims they had no knowledge of his activities as related to the suit. 

Madan’s wife, Shalini Madan is suing the province for wrongful dismissal as a result of the incident, meanwhile the two sons named in the case are also suing for being named in the court documents. 

In response, Madan has accused the government of hiring “incompetent or marginal” individuals and falling short of securing the program with safeguards that could detect fraudulent activity. 

“Such misappropriation occurred not because of anything the defendant Sanjay Madan did or didn’t do, but because of the plaintiff’s own negligence,” the defence statement claimed. 

“Grave concerns” about BC father’s arrest for opposing child’s gender transition: Justice Centre

By
Cosmin Dzsurdzsa
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Source: Wikipedia

A Canadian constitutional rights group has expressed “grave concerns” about the case of a BC father who was arrested this week on contempt of court charges after opposing his transgendered child’s chemically-induced transition.

The case, styled as AB v. CD and EF to protect the identities of those involved, has been ongoing since February 2019, when the father, referred to in court documents as “CD”, opposed the idea that his then-14-year-old child, identified as AB, could properly consent to hormone therapy. AB was born as a biological female but identifies as a transgender male. 

While CD does not approve of the child’s decision, AB’s mother – CD’s ex-wife – does. According to court proceedings, CD’s opposition to the transition is rooted in concerns about AB’s well-being and the permanent physiological effects gender transitioning could cause.  

According to the BC Prosecution Service (BCPS), CD was arrested Mar. 16 on a court ordered warrant. BCPS Communications Counsel Dan McLaughling told True North that CD was taken into custody after the BC Supreme Court granted a warrant based on “allegations that CD had committed further breaches of the court order.” CD will be appearing in court for a hearing on the matter on Friday, March 19, 2021.  

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms was an intervener in the proceedings, though the group isn’t involved in the contempt case.

“We have ongoing grave concerns about the state’s imposition of ideology and gender orthodoxy in this case and others like it to override parental rights and freedom of expression, and concerned and dissenting medical opinions,” said JCCF litigation director Jay Cameron. “Anytime the state attempts to become the enforcer of ideology or dogma it asserts infallibility and overturns the marketplace of ideas and the constitutional rights of Canadians. That is not the proper role of the state. Oppression is always sure to follow.”

In March 2020, the BCPS underwent a review on whether or not criminal contempt proceedings were appropriate in this matter after CD allegedly repeatedly breached a court order requiring him not to publicly discuss the details of the case, which is currently under a publication ban due to the child’s age.

 “You must not do that, sir, you are in breach of the court order,” said BC Supreme Court Justice Michael Tammen.

“I mean, the reason I do it [broke the ban], or did it, is because I am taking the best interests of my child at heart,” said the father.

CD was also ordered by a court to only refer to his child by their chosen male name and use male pronouns both publicly and privately under threat of being charged with “family violence.” 

FUREY: Are all lockdown restrictions “science-based?”

By
True North Wire
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What will make politicians change their minds about the lockdown restrictions? Do you need to be a scientist for them to listen to you?

This doesn’t seem to be the case in Ontario.

The Archdiocese of Toronto Cardinal Collins successfully lobbied the Ford government to change the rules on religious gatherings by starting a petition and rallying Canadians.

Anthony Furey discusses in his latest video.

Canada cited for poor performance in cutting emissions by Australian minister

By
Cosmin Dzsurdzsa
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Australia’s minister of international development compared his country’s success in cutting carbon emissions to Canada’s poor performance during an Australian senate meeting on Wednesday. 

Minister for International Development and the Pacific Zed Seselja held up Canada’s 0.1% reduction in carbon emissions and other countries’ abysmal records in reducing pollution when asked how his government’s “technology-not-taxes approach” was performing. 

“When we compare our effort, our 19% reduction since 2005, with New Zealand on 1% and with a 0.1% reduction in Canada, this is something we should all be celebrating. We have overachieved on our target by 639 million tonnes. Our emissions fell faster than in Canada, New Zealand, Japan and the United States, and were more than double the OECD average,” Seselja said.

“So we can do this; we can deliver emissions reductions while delivering lower energy prices for Australian families, households and businesses. That’s something we can all celebrate and that’s something we can all get behind.”

In 2014, Australia’s former prime minister Tony Abbott repealed the country’s own version of a carbon tax after making it a central promise in his election platform. 

While having no carbon tax, Australia has considerably outperformed Canada in reducing carbon emissions nationwide.

Recent figures show that over a period of 12 months to September 2020, Australia was able to reduce greenhouse emissions by 23.3 million tonnes in comparison to the year prior. The latest numbers put Australia’s emission 19% below what they were in 2005. 

In comparison, Canada, which has a nation-wide federal carbon levy, missed its emission targets by 99.2% in 2020 by emitting 730 million tonnes of greenhouse gases instead of its target 606 million tonnes. 

True North reached out to Canada’s Minister of Environment Jonathan Wilkinson for comment but did not hear back in time for publication. 

Critics of Trudeau’s environmental policies have accused the Liberal government of not addressing the root problems at the heart of climate change and unnecessarily burdening taxpayers with additional taxes instead of targeting big emitters. 

A new study by the Fraser Institute estimated that the government’s $170-per-tonne carbon tax which is to be phased in over the next decade, will cost Canadians $24 billion a year by the year 2030. 

“A key finding of this analysis is that introducing the carbon tax will cause rather pronounced reductions in revenues elsewhere in the tax system, such that the government will not be able to refund household carbon-tax payments to the extent it has promised without going into deficit,” wrote study authors, University of Guelph Professor of Economics Ross McKitrick and Associate Director of Natural Resource Studies at the Fraser Institute Elmira Aliakbari. 

“The net increase in government revenue will only cover about 20% of the carbon taxes on final demand. If the government intends to rebate 90% of the revenue and use 10% to increase spending elsewhere, it will add about $24 billion annually to the consolidated government deficit.”

Pro-lifers gearing up for Conservative convention

By
Andrew Lawton
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Pro-life political action group RightNow says that 1,000 of the 4,000 delegates registered for this weekend’s Conservative Party of Canada convention are from its database, suggesting pro-lifers and social conservatives continue to make up a significant portion of the Conservative party’s base.

RightNow co-founder Scott Hayward tells True North’s Andrew Lawton social conservatives need to get more involved, however, especially with nomination races coming up and a possible spring or summer election.

Watch the latest episode of The Andrew Lawton Show.

Only 19% of Canadians used government’s COVID-19 Alert app

By
True North Wire
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The Trudeau government’s heavily marketed COVID Alert app was only downloaded by a small percentage of Canadians.

According to Blacklock’s Reporter, in a submission to the Senate finance committee, the Public Health Agency of Canada said that the app was downloaded on 6,361,424 cell phones, or just 18.8% of all Canadian cell phones.

The app cost the government $480,000 to develop and $16 million for marketing. In previous statements, Trudeau had aimed to have 50% of Canadians download the app.

“We know solid data is the foundation for making the right public policy decisions,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said when announcing the app in June. “This is an approach we are confident is going to make a big difference.”

The COVID Alert app asks Canadians who tested positive for COVID-19 to upload their information onto the app, which would then notify other app users which may have had contact with the person.

Of the 913,047 people who had tested positive at the time of the submission, only 21,048 reported their diagnosis on the app, around 2.3%.

With few Canadians downloading the app and even fewer using it as intended, health experts have called the COVID Alert app “completely useless.” 

Despite claims from the federal government that the app will protect your information and keep your identity hidden from others, the Office of Canada’s Privacy Commissioner has stated there is a chance anonymity may not be maintained.

Privacy concerns have been the main reason why people have consistently refused government COVID-19 tracing apps around the world.

CBC published feature on business owner who assaulted female journalist

By
Cosmin Dzsurdzsa
-

CBC is claiming that it was not aware of an Edmonton man’s past assault of a female journalist before it published a feature on the man’s business earlier this week. 

The Radio-Canada story which went up on March 13 and was subsequently translated into English on March 14 for CBC News, largely concentrated on the guitar-crafting business of a man named Dion James.

James, who is also known by his aliases Dion Bews and James Dion Bews, was implicated in an assault and battery lawsuit after he attacked Rebel News reporter Sheila Gunn Reid at a Women’s March on January 21, 2017 in Edmonton, Alberta. 

According to a 2018 court ruling on the matter, James pleaded guilty at the time to knowingly uttering a threat to cause damage to property and was sentenced to serve 30 hours of community service. 

“To seek to curtail the media’s right to report and opine on the event, such as the Defendant Bews did here, was unacceptable and his resort to physical violence against a member of the media qualifies as ‘high handed, malicious,arbitrary, or highly reprehensible misconduct that departs to a marked degree from ordinary standards of decent behaviour’,” wrote Chief Judge G.W. Sharek. 

James was also required to pay a total of $3,500 in personal injuries and punitive damages to Gunn Reid as a result of the incident. 

Gunn Reid told True North that she was not surprised by the report on her attacker and that CBC has a track record of mistreating conservative women. 

“I can only speculate about why CBC chose to highlight this individual as some sort of entrepreneurial success story during the pandemic when there are other, less violent entrepreneurs they could have showcased with their cheap advertorial cloaked as news. But at the end of the day it comes down to politics. I have the wrong kind of politics. Bews has the right kind. He’s a left-wing male feminist,” said Gunn Reid. 

“I was vilified by the mainstream media as somehow instigating my assault by Bews at the time, and Bews is now championed by the same state broadcaster that had a war room to deal with Jian Ghomeshi’s problems with women. Given how CBC has treated conservative women, from Sarah Palin to Leslyn Lewis, I’m not surprised at all by CBC’s article which closed with a quote from Bews that read ‘It’s the best life I could have imagined.’”

True North reached out to CBC for comment and was informed that both the author of the article Axel Tardieu and the editor overseeing the article were unaware of the connection before the article went into print. 

“While we can confirm Dion Bews is the same individual as Dion James, we were not aware of this at the time we did the feature on him,” said CBC’s Head of Public Affairs Chuck Thompson.

“By way of background, one of our Radio-Canada colleagues, Axel Tardieu, in Edmonton was listening to a podcast that was all about record guitar sales in the pandemic, and then wondered if there was a guitar handcrafter in Alberta. Some research led him to Dion James and Axel thought it would make for a great story.” 

According to Thompson, other guitar makers also knew the individual in question by his aliases and not his real name. 

“CBC / Radio-Canada takes the on-going issue of harassment and violence towards journalists very seriously and we do everything possible to ensure the safety of our own,” wrote Thompson. 

Pastor James Coates to be released from jail as most charges dropped

By
True North Wire
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Pastor James Coates will be released from jail after Alberta Crown prosecutors drop all but one of the charges laid against him, Coates’ lawyers say.

In a statement on Wednesday, the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF), who is representing Coates, said the Edmonton-area pastor could be released as early as Friday.

Coates was arrested in February after he repeatedly held church services that violated Alberta’s Public Health Order, specifically the strict 15% capacity limit for religious services.

A judge had previously ruled that Coates must remain in jail until his May 3 trial unless he agreed to not hold in-person church services that violate the Public Health Order. Coates declined, arguing the restrictions violate his and his congregation’s constitutional rights to assembly, expression and freedom of religion.

Coates still faces one charge of violating the Chief Medical Officer of Health’s order. The JCCF will continue to act as his defendant at the May 3 trial.

In a statement, JCCF president John Carpay welcomed the decision to release Coates, arguing the previous bail conditions were never fair or reasonable.

“The condition that Pastor Coates effectively stop doing his job as a pastor by adhering to unscientific and unconstitutional public health restrictions should never have been imposed on him by the RCMP, or by the court. We are hopeful that he will finally be released from jail without conditions, and can resume pastoring GraceLife church,” Carpay said.

“We look forward to appearing in court in May and demanding the government provide evidence that public health restrictions that violate the freedoms of religion, peaceful assembly, expression and association are scientific and are justifiable in a free and democratic country.”

Andrew Scheer slams Liberals for spending $400 million on bike lanes and “active transportation”

By
True North Wire
-

The Trudeau government is being criticized by the Conservatives for spending $400 million on bike lanes and “active transportation.”

Last week, Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna announced the creation of an active transportation fund to pay for walking and biking infrastructure

Conservative Infrastructure and Communities Critic Andrew Scheer slammed the Liberals for spending millions on projects like bike lanes when infrastructure crucial to the Canadian economy needs improvement.

“The Liberals have a terrible record on getting existing shovel-ready projects approved and built,” Scheer told True North.

“To help Canadians emerge from the pandemic as strong as possible, Canada needs an infrastructure plan that prioritizes job creation and economic growth. The federal government should be focused on projects like expanding ports and transportation so we can sell more goods to the world. It should be focused on things like highways and public transit so people get home from work quicker.” 

The $400 million is being taken from funding previously announced for public transit infrastructure.

Some of the funds have already been committed to several projects, including a footbridge in Ottawa and a bike lane in Halifax. The fund is expected to operate for the next five years.

Scheer says key infrastructure such as sewage treatment and clean drinking water on First Nations are being neglected by the Trudeau government in favour of vanity projects.

“It should be focused on things like upgrading water plants so communities can grow, Canadians can have clean drinking water, and less pollution is emitted in our waterways,” he said.

“Bike lanes are the types of projects that should be left to municipalities. Mayors and councils can decide if their taxpayers should pay for bike lanes and bike paths.”

In recent years, many of Canada’s large cities have been constructing active transportation infrastructure such as bike lanes independent of assistance from the federal government. 

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