A family returning home to Montreal from New Brunswick is claiming that their coronavirus curfew tickets were handed down unfairly.
The family was ticketed $3,100 for violating Quebec’s latest curfew rules.
Under the new lockdown restrictions, citizens of the province found outside their home between 8:00pm and 5:00am can face hefty fines.
“Thirty one hundred dollars is not peanuts when you have three children,” said Melissa Calhoun.
According to Calhoun, the family had been in New Brunswick since December to take care of an elderly relative.
“He’s 77 years old. He was in the hospital for a bit and he lives alone. He didn’t have anyone to take care of him,” said Calhoun about her father.
Although the family was intending to return before the new curfew was implemented, car troubles delayed their trip home.
“I have three kids, so you can’t account for time. There are kids that are going to cry and scream and their necks hurt and they need to use the bathroom and they’re hungry and they have to do diaper changes, things like that,” said Calhoun.
“I understand the curfew. I understand the rules. We weren’t contesting that. However, we felt like we would fall into the exemption category. We weren’t stopping. We didn’t stop at any stores any time after 8:00pm. We didn’t even get gas.”
Despite their efforts to follow the laws, police pulled the family over at 10:00pm and handed them two tickets worth $1,550.
On Monday, Global News radio host Danielle Smith announced that she would be departing from her long-held position.
In an op-ed announcing her departure, Smith cites a growing readiness for people to abandon their freedoms and a culture of political correctness as some of the reasons behind her decision.
“It will be no surprise to you that I am gravely troubled by how easily most in our society have chosen to give up on freedom. Free enterprise, freedom of religion and conscience, free assembly, freedom of movement, freedom of the press. Freedom of speech, in particular, is in a dire state,” wrote Smith.
“Unfortunately over the last few years far too many topics have become unchallengeable and the mob of political correctness thinks nothing of destroying a person’s career and reputation over some perceived slight, real or imagined. I’ve found that as a result there are many topics I simply choose not to cover anymore.”
Smith, who was the former leader of the Wildrose Party until 2014, also served as an Alberta Progressive Conservative MLA for the riding of Highwood until 2015.
In her letter, Smith encouraged fans to follow her at her website www.daniellesmith.ca where they can keep up to date with her future plans.
Several media outlets and a Toronto-area Liberal MP have been using a dated Conservative campaign page to accuse the official opposition of casting doubt on the results of the election.
The page in question, which has since been removed from the Conservative Party’s website, brought up election law changes legislated by the Liberals and accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of “rigging the next election in his favour.”
“The Liberals have introduced changes to our elections laws that will restrict the spending opposition parties [sic] during a new ‘pre-election period,’” an archived version of the page reads.
“Liberal Ministers will have unlimited travel on your dime. The Liberal government will be able to spend your money on anything they see fit. Meanwhile, opposition parties that have done the hard work to raise its own funds directly from Canadians will be limited in what they can do and spend.”
On Friday, Liberal MP Adam Vaughan falsely tied the Conservative campaign to efforts by US President Donald Trump to overturn the results of the 2020 election.
Shortly after, the claim was further spread by media outlets such as Narcity and Now Toronto.
“The Conservative party just accused Justin Trudeau of sabotaging the next election and trying to limit what they can do as a party,” wrote Now Toronto reporter Enzo DiMatteo.
However, according to Conservative Party Director of Communications Cory Hann, the web page was in fact launched several years ago in response to the Canada Elections Act changes first proposed by the Liberals that very year.
Undermining elections before a vote is not just a tool Trump uses.
It’s an O’Toole the Conservatives lead with here in Canada too. The radical right ain’t right… and O’Toole is right there – right now.
“The site Liberals were pushing around was posted two to three years ago, prior to the last Federal election, when Mr. Trudeau was making changes to the Elections Act, and our position on those changes were that they appeared to be an attempt to stack the deck in the Liberal’s favour, and give them the advantage going into a competitive election. Many news articles can be found about our position then,” Hann told True North.
“Obviously content pre-dating the election of a new leader becomes stale dated, and thus it’s removed or just no longer representative of the current leader, and that’s what this content is – pre-dating the current leader, and no longer used or applicable.”
House of Commons debate records show that as early as May 2018, Conservatives were referring to the Liberal election plans as an attempt to rig elections in their favour.
“The government could prevent third parties from colluding to defeat the intent of the law. It could reduce, instead of increase, the limit on third parties during the writ period,” said Conservative MP Pat Kelly on May 22, 2018.
“However, the Liberals have chosen not to do any of these things, because these Liberals have proven over and over again how much they prefer a rigged game when it comes to elections.”
More lies and partisan hackery coming from Adam Vaughan.
The Liberals and the NDP have been using the rhetoric of "rigged elections" going as far back as 2014.
Additionally, even going as far back as 2011, the Liberals were similarly accusing former prime minister Stephen Harper of attempting to undermine elections.
“Mr. Speaker, voter turnout among students and young people is the lowest of all age groups. Last night, student associations testified in Parliament about how Elections Canada had been helping them run educational programs to reverse that trend. Yet, the government’s rigged elections act would not only stop Elections Canada from encouraging young voters, it would make it harder for them to vote,” said Liberal MP Joyce Murray on April 8, 2014.
Murray’s claims were also repeated on her official Twitter account where she implied that the Conservative Bill C-23 was made “for rigging elections,” and that they were attempting to suppress votes.
Furthermore, Hansard records also show that on March 8th, 2011 Liberal MP Dominic LeBlanc suggested that the Conservatives had a “strategy to get around the Canada Elections Act and steal an election.”
Ontario premier Doug Ford’s office is not answering questions about how it acquired cellphone data about the movement patterns of people under quarantine.
“Through cell service we can see people are not quarantining, all of them,” Ford said in his Dec. 21 press conference. “At least about 25%, roughly. I don’t care if it’s 10%. These folks are roaming the streets and we’re letting it happen.”
Ford was using the numbers to justify calling on the federal government to put stronger border protections in for incoming travellers.
On December 21, Ontario Premier Doug Ford referenced having cellphone data indicating people were breaking quarantine. Nowhere have I seen the Ontario government acknowledge using cellphone surveillance to surveil people under quarantine. pic.twitter.com/6TrNsEwcDZ
When asked to elaborate on the statistic, Ford spokesperson Ivana Yelich said the data specifically pertain to Ontarians who’ve traveled to the United States and returned.
“Anonymized cellular data that our researchers looked at shows that non-essential travellers arriving in Ontario from the U.S. only spend 77% of their time at home during the 2-week recommended quarantine period,” Yelich said.
Several further emails about the source of the data went unanswered.
Ford refused to rule out using cellphone data in the province’s effort to curb COVID-19 last March, but the province has not confirmed since then whether it has adopted such a tactic.
It is not clear whether these specific data came from a sampling of voluntary participants or are part of a broader surveillance effort.
An Environics study conducted over Christmas using cellphone data found that 70% of people sampled were “out and about.” Environics similarly says the data were anonymized.
It is possible that the numbers Ford cited were the product of a similar study, though the fact that the government claims to know the people tracked were non-essential travellers to the United States suggests personalized knowledge was required.
If the tracking was done involuntarily, and without a law permitting it, it would be illegal, one civil liberties lawyer says.
“As far as I am aware, there is nothing which gives authorization to surveil cell phones, so it must be coming from a health order if it’s happening,” said Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms litigation manager Jay Cameron. “Unless there’s something hidden in health orders allowing for it, the default position of the law is that privacy rights require a warrant for that kind of surveillance.”
The latest wave of censorship from Big Tech reveals the flaw in what’s always been the libertarian answer to the problem – building your own alternative gets more difficult when the internet is consolidated in the hands of a small cabal of internet companies like Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, Apple and Google. True North’s Andrew Lawton explains why this censorship is leading to parallel societies of liberals and conservatives, and why this is harmful to civil society.
Also, Toronto lawyer Ryan O’Connor joins to explain how state-mandated curfews are unconstitutional, and Andrew pays tribute to his friend Kathy Shaidle, who passed away on the weekend after what she called a “tedious rendezvous” with cancer.
Although COVID-19 has been the main topic of conversation for the last 10 months, that doesn’t necessarily mean that these discussions have been well-informed, nuanced or contextualized.
With so many individuals, mainstream media organizations and policymakers provoking fear and aggressively pushing for restrictions, curfews and further lockdowns, the facts are more important than ever.
COVID-19 and Children
Since the beginning of the pandemic, three individuals aged zero to 19 have died with a death attributed to COVID-19. According to Canadian government data, more children die of the seasonal flu in any given year than have due to COVID-19.
In BC, less than 1% of schoolchildren have tested positive for COVID-19. Children are deemed not at a high risk for COVID-19 infection, thus in-class learning has remained in place.
In fact, London, Ont.’s top public health official Dr. Chris Mackie says keeping schools open is “a public health measure that likely slows the spread of COVID.” Mackie says 80% of student cases were “linked to a previous COVID case at home, not at school.”
Nearly 90% of coronavirus-related deaths have occurred in individuals aged 70 and older. COVID-19 is more dangerous than the flu for old folks, but the opposite is true for young people.
Comorbidities
Statistics Canada reported in November that 100% of Canadians under the age of 45 that died of COVID-19 had at least one other disease or condition listed on the medical certificate of death.
Of all COVID-involved deaths analyzed from March to July, 90% had at least one other cause.
Long-term care homes
According to Dr. Theresa Tam’s 2020 annual report on the coronavirus, 80% of Canadian COVID-19 deaths tragically occurred in residents of long-term care homes.
Gyms
In Ontario, 435 of the province’s 215,782 COVID-19 cases have been linked to recreational fitness settings. Less than 0.1% of cases have been transmitted in recreational fitness settings, yet Ontario has shut down these facilities.
Retail
Though provinces like Quebec and Ontario have put the retail sector on lockdown, Ontario government data indicate the entire provincial retail sector has been directly linked to just 586 cases of COVID-19 since the pandemic began. This accounts for less than 0.1% of the Ontario caseload.
Salons and spas
A mere 38 cases of COVID-19 are linked to services like hair salons and spas in Ontario, accounting for less than 0.1% of the province’s cases, yet Premier Doug Ford has shut down these businesses.
The COVID Alert app
Though many COVID Alert app users believe they will receive a ping if it turns out they briefly brushed by someone COVID-positive in an aisle at Costco, the federal COVID Alert app doesn’t actually register a contact unless you’ve been within six feet of someone for 15 minutes or longer.
The federal app currently has 5.9 million downloads and only works on smartphones manufactured within the last five years or so.
Lockdowns
Canadian medical expert Dr. Ari Joffe initially supported lockdowns as a method to slow the spread of the coronavirus, but after doing a cost-benefit analysis on the government-mandated restrictions he concluded that they are not justifiable. Joffe estimates that the harms caused by lockdown measures are at least five to 10 times greater than the benefits, as a population plagued by economic downturn, unemployment and loneliness is at risk of early mortality, reduced lifespan and chronic disease.
Further, the World Health Organization urged governments to not plunge their citizens into another lockdown to combat a second wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
Zero-COVID strategies
Some Canadian health professionals and policy advocates are pushing for a “COVID-zero” or “near-zero” approach to the virus, by implementing any and all means necessary to bring the caseload down to zero or almost zero. But the head of the World Health Organization Emergencies Program Dr. Mike Ryan stated that the coronavirus will most likely become another endemic virus that will remain “somewhat of a threat, but a very low-level threat in the context of an effective global vaccination program.” Any kind of “COVID-zero” strategy is therefore incompatible with the latest coronavirus science.
Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson admitted Canadians will be paying more at the pumps due to his government’s carbon tax.
Wilkinson made the comments during an interview on TVO’s The Agenda With Steve Paikin.
“At the end of the day, politicians have an obligation to the public to tell them the straight goods. And if they have a disagreement, that’s fine. But let’s be serious and let’s be real about the facts,” said Wilkinson.
“Certainly as we move forward with that, it is going to have a number of different impacts. Certainly there are additional costs associated with moving to reduce the amount of carbon in those fuels.”
In December, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau backtracked on a former promise to not raise the carbon tax, increasing the levy on taxpayers up to 40 cents a litre by 2030.
The Liberals also introduced a second carbon tax which could add 50 cents per litre to the price of gasoline.
According to Environment Canada’s own notice, the standard is expected to “disproportionately impact lower and middle income households.”
“With respect to the Clean Fuel Standard, that is a regulatory mechanism that is about reducing the carbon intensity of fuels that we use,” explained Wilkinson.
“That’s about ensuring the gasoline we put in our car, the diesel that is used in heavy duty trucks, is reducing the amount of carbon emissions that it’s putting out into the atmosphere.”
In 2020, True North produced a four-part series exposing the failure of the Liberal government’s carbon pricing schemes.
Watch all four episodes of True North’s Green Hypocrisy here.
A Manitoba man with cerebral palsy says he was removed from a Dauphin, Man. Walmart by security after staff failed to honour his mask exemption.
In a video posted to YouTube Friday, Alex Lytwyn says the incident happened Dec. 16, while he was trying to buy a Christmas present for a friend.
While masks are currently required at all indoor spaces in the province, Lytwyn has cerebral palsy, a disability that prevents him from being able to put on or remove a mask by himself, one of the few cases for mask exemptions in Manitoba.
Despite his objections and explanation of his disability, Lytwyn was eventually trespassed from Walmart by two security guards, an experience he says left him feeling scared.
“I wasn’t going to complain about something or cause a disturbance. All I wanted to do was live with the little bit of freedom I do have, and Walmart has taken that away,” said Lytwyn.
Lytwyn says he was ignored during the incident, alleging staff directed comments to his homecare worker instead of him.
“I can represent myself, and I was appalled with how I was treated. I wanted to do Christmas shopping and I was made to feel ashamed, dirty and like I wasn’t supposed to be there,” said Lytwyn.
“It really put a damper on my holiday spirit.”
Walmart Canada did not respond to a request for comment.
Mask exemptions are only granted to people with cognitive or respiratory issues, children under 5 or those who cannot put on and take off a mask without assistance.
Although exemptions are given to those who meet the requirements, this is not the first time they have been ignored.
In recent months there have also been other cases of businesses acting on their own policies regarding masks, resulting in customers with exemptions being barred from shopping or ejected from retail locations.
A new report from McGill University has found that child marriage remains a persistent force in Canadian society.
The report found that between 2000 and 2018, there were 3,600 marriage certificates issued to Canadian children under the age of 18, with many more common-law marriages involving children occurring.
“Our results show that Canada has its own work to do to achieve its commitment to the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, which call for an end to child marriage by the year 2030,” says co-author Prof. Alissa Koski.
The minimum age for marriage in Canada is 16. Children below the age of majority can get married with parental consent.
The highest rates of child marriage were estimated to be in the Territories (1.7%) and Saskatchewan (0.5%). Over 85% of children granted marriage certificates were girls, with spouses often much older men.
In recent years, common-law marriages have overtaken formal marriages. In 2000, half of child marriage were common-law. By 2016, common-law relationships were 95% of child marriages.
“While the number of marriage certificates issued to children across the country has declined, it’s possible that individuals are opting for more informal unions in response to growing social disapproval of child marriage,” the authors wrote.
The authors conclude by saying they will next examine the consequences of child marriage in Canada and the motivations.
Fifty years ago, I was a young teen growing up in Montreal. The flames of separation were being fanned by a group called Front de libération du Québec (FLQ).
The FLQ kidnapped British High Commissioner James Cross and days later, Quebec Minister Pierre Laporte. Laporte’s body was found in the trunk of a car at St. Hubert airport a week later.
Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau imposed the War Measures Act, which allowed him the ability to deploy troops to the streets of Montreal and extraordinary detention powers.
I remember some older teens in my neighbourhood were arrested just for going for a cocktail in a downtown club. In another incident, a bomb blew apart the mailbox at the corner of my street triggering a military response. It was a frightening time.
Looking at the video clips of the streets of Montreal on the weekend, when a curfew was implemented, triggered many memories for me. People just walking down the street were arrested just for drinking a coffee in public or trying to flag a cab in the downtown area.
While I was walking my dogs, I witnessed the #Montreal#police pull over a car for the crime of being out past the 8 p.m. curfew.
The big difference today is there has been no triggering of anything like the War Measures Act, which could legally suspend what was then the Canadian Bill of Rights enacted in 1960. Today, the government of Quebec is just doing what they are doing without any legal authority.
It is very troubling that any government in this country could arbitrarily just suspend the Charter of Rights and Freedoms on a whim.
My biggest concern is that citizens seem to have just rolled over and allowed the government to have their way.
We have enshrined rights in this country, earned with the blood of thousands of young men who fought and died for Canada to be free in several wars. They must be turning over in their graves.
Freedom is not a nebulous concept. It allows you to go where you want, when you want and to be free of impediment assuming you have done nothing against the law in the process.
The government of Quebec has decided to take our freedom away with no legal authority. And the Government of Ontario is considering the same ridiculous action. And for what?
I’m no lawyer, but when the Charter was introduced, we had a lot of training drumming into our heads the ramifications of the Charter and our actions as police officers.
Section 2, Section 7 and Section 15 of the Charter grant absolute rights to all Canadians that no government can infringe.
Section 2: the freedom of conscience and religion, freedom of thought and opinion and freedom of assembly.
Section 7: the right to life, liberty and security and the right not to be deprived thereof except in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice.
Section 15: Every individual is equal before and under the law and has the right to the equal protection and equal benefit of the law without discrimination.
The caveat is that if a government does breach the Charter, those actions are subject to “reasonable limits.” The government must prove in a court the breach of the Charter achieves a “pressing and substantial objective.” The government needs to justify that the breach is minimal and the benefits of the breach outweigh its negative impact.
It’s hard to imagine the curfew in Quebec could possibly be justified in any court in this country. Yet, the streets of Montreal have been emptied and those who don’t follow along are subject to arrest or substantial fines ranging upwards of $6000.
If there is any substantial evidence that a curfew or lockdown has any affect on the spread of the pandemic, I have yet to see it. The government of Quebec is acting like totalitarian dictators. And there is nothing noble in that.
If Ontario Premier Doug Ford travels down this same path, he faces destruction at the ballot box in the next election.
