B’nai Brith Canada accused NDP MP Charlie Angus of “promoting anti-Semitic conspiracy theories” after tweeting about Israel’s COVID vaccination program and Israel being an Apartheid State.
True North’s Sam Eskenasi provides some context to Angus’ statement that Canadians might not know about the Israel-Arab conflict.
Here are some of the tweets Sam refers to in his video:
https://twitter.com/devorah555/status/1344251545668485121
https://twitter.com/imshin/status/1343883086753394690
Ontario Premier Doug Ford was in disbelief on Wednesday when questioned about the federal government’s plan to immediately vaccinate dangerous criminals in federal prisons ahead of long-term care residents, staff and other vulnerable populations.
“Well when I first heard it I didn’t believe it, I had to get my team to double check that they had the information right because what I understand is you’re giving the most dangerous criminals in the entire country … How do you square this? How do you put them ahead of long-term care patients? How do you put them in front of all of those vulnerable and we’re scraping every vaccine we can get?” said Ford.
“I imagine whoever the minister is in charge of that has dropped the ball majorly. Let’s not give the most dangerous criminals in our country [the vaccine] before we give it to our long-term care patients, the most vulnerable and other elderly people.”
According to the Union of Canadian Correctional Officers (UCCO), at least 600 inmates will be getting two doses of the coronavirus vaccine as part of Canada’s initial vaccination roll out.
“People are very close together in there, our members are going to work in there every single day. They need to be protected,” said UCCO national president Jeff Wilkins.
A total of five prisons will be included in the pilot vaccination program.
“We have worked very closely with the Public Health Agency of Canada to respond to every aspect of the pandemic, including the provision of vaccines to inmates,” wrote Correctional Services Canada in a statement.
On Tuesday evening, Conservative Party Leader Erin O’Toole also tweeted in opposition to the plan saying that “Not one criminal should be vaccinated ahead of any vulnerable Canadian or frontline health worker.”
Nova Scotia’s Canadian Mental Health Association (CMHA) is alerting the public to the threat coronavirus poses to those already suffering from mental health issues.
According to the CMHA, the pandemic is a “tipping point” for mental health, as evidenced by a quadrupling of people accessing treatment services, taxing an already strained system.
“We are hearing from people unable to secure timely treatment. Many people who had the ability to access online supports [increased by the provincial government during this period] feel that the online support isn’t giving them the care they need,” said CMHA Nova Scotia executive director Pamela Magee.
“We are hearing this as well from those who are contemplating suicide and have lost hope. They feel there isn’t a door they can walk through to receive timely and adequate care.”
A poll conducted by the CMHA and the University of British Columbia revealed that 40% of Canadians feel that their mental health has worsened over the course of the pandemic.
Magee testified before Nova Scotia’s legislative committee on community services on Tuesday, asking legislators for help to handle the situation.
Furthermore, in Nova Scotia, the number of people struggling with suicidal thoughts rose to 4% this year, nearly doubling from 2.4%.
CMHA officials and mental health advocates called on the provincial government to increase the amount of resources dedicated towards mental health services.
China has blocked a team of World Health Organization scientists from traveling to the country to investigate the origin of the coronavirus.
After months of discussions, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said he is disappointed China is still denying WHO investigators access to Wuhan.
“Today, we learned that Chinese officials have not yet finalized the necessary permissions for the team’s arrival in China,” he said.
“I’m very disappointed with this news, given that two members had already begun their journeys and others were not able to travel at the last minute, but had been in contact with senior Chinese officials.”
According to Sky News, the WHO had been coordinating the trip to China since July and Beijing was well aware the team planned to arrive this week. The ten-person team of researchers and virologists planned to look into the earliest cases of coronavirus and try to determine a source.
Since the beginning of the pandemic, critics have questioned the official Chinese narratives around the coronavirus.
While China originally claimed the virus began in a wet market, a US security official recently said there is a “growing body of evidence” that suggests the coronavirus started in Wuhan’s Institute of Virology.
Since the pandemic began, WHO has been hesitant to criticize China despite the mounting evidence they lied about the reality of coronavirus. The UN agency repeatedly parroted Chinese Communist Party’s claim that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission.
SickKids is raising the alarm after reporting a startling growth in the number of eating disorders among Canada’s youth as result of the pandemic and the ensuing lockdowns.
According to an interview with the Toronto Sun, President and CEO of SickKids Dr. Ronald Cohn called the issue an “unprecedented crisis.”
“Our eating disorder unit has very high numbers that we have never seen before,” said Dr Cohn.
“It’s part of the evidence that I’ve been saying since May that kids are the unheard voices of this pandemic.”
According to Dr. Cohn, one contributing factor to the increase is the stress the pandemic is putting on children.
“I think we often don’t realize that the stresses of this pandemic — because children are exposed to media and social media and conversations around the dinner table — are having a huge impact,” said Dr Cohn.
“It’s really important that you openly address [the pandemic] but at the same time what sometimes unfolds on social media in terms of exaggerated anxiety and drama is sometimes really not healthy.”
The issue of children’s health during the coronavirus pandemic has once again reared its head.
In October, Ontario Ministry of Health data revealed that the pandemic and its restrictions have decimated the quantity of surgeries being performed on children by nearly 60%.
In 2019, 28,844 child surgeries were undertaken, while in 2020 there were only 11,230 operations performed.
Chinese authorities have arrested six people for holding a Bible study, including the pastor.
According to International Christian Concern, on December 30, Pastor An Yankui was holding Bible study in his house in Taiyuan, Shanxi province, when around 40 local officials descended on the meeting.
The wife of Pastor An Yao Conya said that police confiscated the choir robes and books that belong to the church, and arrested most of the study group.
The five detainees were released by authorities after two days, but Pastor An is still in prison serving a 15-day “administrative detention.”
Pastor An’s church is associated with the Early Rain Covenant Church, an underground Christian organization which has been heavily persecuted by the Chinese government in recent years.
Less than two months earlier, Pastor An and six members of his congregation were arrested when he held a service which was not pre-approved by the state.
In order to legally practice Christianity in China, churches must be registered with the Chinese Communist government and obey strict regulations.
Along with censoring themselves, officials have recently ordered pastors to incorporate state-ideology into sermons as a requirement for churches to reopen as coronavirus lockdowns end across China.
The desire to “sinicize” Christianity and ensure every church complies with Communist doctrine has led to renewed persecutions of independent churches this year.
An advisory member of Ontario’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table travelled to the Dominican Republic over the holidays. Dr. Tom Stewart has since resigned from his position.
As a member of Premier Ford’s COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, Dr. Stewart provided recommendations and strategic direction to Ontario’s coronavirus response.
In a statement to CBC, a spokesperson for Dr. Stewart said he deeply regrets going to the Caribbean nation.
“I regret this non-essential travel and I’m sorry. Everyone should be avoiding non-essential travel now, including me,” said a quote attributed to Stewart.
“As a health system leader, my actions in no way reflect the tireless dedication and commitment of the staff at St. Joseph’s Health System, who continue to live the legacy of our organization every day.”
The Ministry of Health confirmed Dr. Stewart’s resignation on Tuesday evening.
“Helen Angus, Ontario’s Deputy Minister of Health, has accepted Dr. Tom Stewart’s resignation from the Health Coordination Table, the Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, and the LTC Incident Management System Table,” read the ministry’s statement.
“The people of Ontario have made countless sacrifices during the pandemic and it remains critically important that everyone continues to follow public health advice. We all have a part to play to stop the spread of COVID-19.”
Dr. Stewart is also the CEO of the St. Joseph’s Health System and Niagara Health System, making him responsible for many major hospitals and care homes in Ontario.
Dr. Stewart had previously encouraged Canadians not to leave the country for non-essential travel and supported lockdown measures to slow the spread of coronavirus.
Dr. Stewart joins the growing list of public officials who have travelled abroad against their own advice and rules.
Under the leadership of Liberal Health Minister Patty Hajdu, the Department of Health ordered nearly two million coronavirus test kits that didn’t work.
In total, the Liberal government spent $149,048,550 in taxpayer funds to purchase the faulty equipment.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the bulk order was made without even testing whether the kits worked or not.
The tests, which claimed to “diagnose COVID-19 in less than an hour,” were sourced from Ottawa company Spartan Bioscience Inc.
“The Government of Canada has a procurement contract with Spartan to secure supply of these devices,” a Health Canada briefing note from May stated.
“The contract is conditional on the Spartan test kit being Health Canada authorized for sale.”
Government records show that 5,500 of the 1,920,000 tests ordered had already been delivered before testing found the equipment to be faulty.
“If successful, its diagnostic platform and COVID-19 test could be used in airports and clinics,” Industry Minister Navdeep Bains said of Spartan’s technology in March 2020.
“The device could read the test results within thirty minutes. We’re working with Spartan to ensure Canadian supply of this equipment.”
As of December 14, Spartan Bioscience had reapplied for a license to fulfill its federal contract, saying that they are “confident” that the deal will succeed this time.
Canada’s top public health official Dr. Theresa Tam tweeted on Tuesday advising “pregnant people” and children under 5 to get their flu shots.
Twitter users were quick to criticize Dr. Tam for using the term “pregnant people” instead of simply referring to pregnant women.
“It’s pregnant women. Stop erasing women,” wrote one Twitter user.
“I keep trying to get pregnant but to no avail. What am I doing wrong?” said another commentator.
Tam’s language echoes the Liberal government’s push towards “gender-inclusivity.”
In 2018, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau interrupted a woman during a town hall to correct her for using the common word “mankind.”
During the correction, the prime minister lectured the woman that the politically correct and gender-inclusive term “peoplekind” was more appropriate.
Eventually, the prime minister backtracked on the comment calling it a “dumb joke.”
Similarly, in British Columbia, a recently published coronavirus language guide by the BC Centre for Disease Control (BC CDC) advises people to use “inclusive” language when talking about the virus and other health issues.
In the guide, the BC CDC lectures Canadians to not use terms like “men and women” or “guys” since they are allegedly not “gender inclusive.”
“The phrase ‘men and women’ excludes non-binary people, and it is unclear whether it includes trans men and women. And ‘guys” is not gender inclusive – people, everyone, folks, or folx are gender-neutral and thereby inclusive.”
Furthermore, the guide similarly suggests that people avoid talking about referring to penises or vaginas and to instead say “internal genitals” and “external genitals.”
The list of coronavirus hypocrites is growing as more and more politicians from all parties admit to travelling while telling the people they represent to stay at home. True North’s Andrew Lawton says the answer to this is not to throw the book at the politicians, but to start ripping pages out of the book, since clearly these supposed restrictions aren’t necessary.
Also, cannabis activist Marc Emery joins the show to talk about his campaign to seek a People’s Party of Canada nomination for the upcoming election, and why fighting against what he calls the “COVID dictatorship” is among his top priorities.
