Government data in Ontario reveals the retail sector makes up less than 0.1% of the province’s coronavirus cases.
Based on the government’s data, 50 retailers came together and wrote a letter to the province asking to be allowed to re-open.
In addition, a recent poll reveals 93% of Canadians support small businesses being reopened. In the same poll, 72% of Canadians said they feel safer in a small retail store than a big box store.
Anthony Furey says the government’s decision to continue to shutter businesses is nothing more than the triumph of ignorance.
Canadians can expect to pay up to $695 extra for groceries next year, a new report reveals.
According to Canada’s Food Price Report 2021, the growing cost of meat, bread and vegetables will contribute to an 3% to 5% increase in food.
That means that grocery bills could reach up to $13,907 for a family of four.
“We don’t expect a break at the grocery store any time soon. This is the highest increase that we’ve ever expected,” report author and Dalhousie University professor Sylvain Charleboi told Global News.
“We are expecting poultry prices to be a bit of an issue. If farmers are asked to spend more on equipment and COVID-19 cleaning protocols, consumers will eventually have to pay more.”
The report, which is published each year in collaboration with Dalhousie University and the University of Guelph, also included research from the University of Saskatchewan and the University of British Columbia for 2021.
The coronavirus pandemic is a major contributing factor to the rising food prices due to labour shortages, logistic disruptions and other related issues.
According to researchers, the price of meat is expected to jump by up to 6.5% next year.
Vegetables could also be heavily impacted by the price hike with costs also rising by as much as 6.5% in 2021.
As for the cost of bread and other baked goods, the report notes that they could rise by as much as 5.5%.
Despite the cost of living continuing to go up across the country, the Liberal government has continued to raise taxes on Canadians.
In 2021, both the carbon tax and Canada Pension Plan premiums are expected to rise while Canadians are struggling to make ends meet.
According to Charleboi, the carbon tax could also be a factor in the rising cost of food across Canada.
“Energy is required to get the food we need, but the extent of its impact on food prices remains unknown. One report published in 2012 suggested that the effect of a $50 per tonne carbon tax on food prices would be 3%. For Canada, under the current regime, that would not be until 2022. Given that food prices do go up 1%-2% a year, most years, that number is not unmanageable for most households,” Charlebois wrote in Retail Insider.
A group of MPs and senators are calling for an investigation into whether or not a Canadian-based pornography website breached the Criminal Code after a report alleges the site shares child porngraphy.
In the House of Commons, Conservative MP Candice Bergen pressed Attorney General David Lametti to investigate media reports that the website PornHub was openly sharing illegal material. The petition was co-signed by Liberal and Green MPs.
“There has been no action on this,” she said.
“We are seeing young girls, as young as fourteen and fifteen years old, being raped and abused. Those acts are being recorded, uploaded and viewed millions of times, and it is happening here in Canada.”
“We will continue to look if there are gaps in the law,” replied Lametti. “We will look at that seriously.”
Last week, the New York Times put out a report exposing evidence of child pornography, sexual violence and other obscenity being posted to the site PornHub through its Montreal-based parent company MindGeek.
The New York Times alleges that even when individuals were charged and found guilty of sexual assaults, PornHub refused to take videos of the attacks off the site.
“The New York Times reported this weekend of the abuse, rape and torture of young girls being videotaped and then uploaded and put onto porn sites through a company located in Montréal,” said MP Bergen.
True North contributor Mattea Merta says PornHub must be held accountable and that the government needs to act.
“PornHub is knowledgeable of many cases of rape and abuse that have been uploaded onto their site and yet refuses to remove them. They must be held accountable for every case where they continually share and profit from the exploitation of an individual’s violation of human rights. The world is watching and the government of Canada must take action,” says Merta.
Over the weekend both Mastercard and Visa said they would look into their financial dealings with MindGeek and re-examine their relationship with the pornography giant following the New York Times report.
One of the petitions signatories, Senator Julie Miville-Dechêne, has introduced a bill which would require service providers verify the age of users accessing online pornography.
“I don’t understand why the government has not acted yet,” she told the Senate at first reading.
The Trudeau government spent $570 million on foreign-made hand sanitizer during the pandemic while Canadian companies retooled their operations and produced sanitizer for free.
According to CBC, companies across Canada answered Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plea to help meet the hand sanitizer shortage in the spring. However, as these companies produced sanitizer at no-cost, they later learned that the government opted to purchase from foreign companies instead.
Of the $570 million, $252 million went to BYD Canada Co., a Chinese company with only a handful of employees in Canada.
For people like the CEO of Okanagan Spirits Craft Distillery Tyler Dyck, the payments to foreign suppliers feels like an insult.
“It really is like a sucker punch in the gut,” Dyck said.
“You are bypassing people that have done the right thing from Day 1.”
Dyck’s company heeded the calls by the prime minister to produce hand sanitizer, and spent about $200,000 producing it for Canadians.
“For our family … it’s the thing that made us feel more proud than anything.”
In total, the Trudeau government spent $5.6 billion on personal protective equipment (PPE). Because of the pandemic and a lack of PPE supply, much of that PPE purchased by the government was bought at prices inflated by over 380%.
In the early stages of the pandemic, it was revealed that Canada’s emergency supply of PPE had been allowed to get dangerously low. The decision to ship medical products to China also exacerbated Canada’s PPE shortage.
Manitobans in lockdown during the holidays will soon have the option to watch government-sponsored content after the province announced the $3 million “Safe at Home Manitoba” grant on Monday.
The Safe at Home Manitoba grant will give funding to organizations to produce free “creative cultural, artistic, and fitness activities” for residents.
“We are excited to invite organizations from across the province to create programs that bring Manitobans together while we are physically apart,” said Culture Minister Cathy Cox.
“Manitoba is home to so many diverse artists, cultural organizations and festivals, and I look forward to enjoying all the creative ways they can bring safe at home ideas into our own homes.”
Organizations, municipalities and individuals can receive up to $50,000 to put on programming that is family-friendly and accessible to those stuck at home.
In mid-November, the Manitoba government moved the entire province into Level Red, shutting down or limiting most businesses and forcing residents to stay at home.
Last week, Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister aggressively defended his decision to lock things up, calling those who question full lockdown measures “idiots.”
With Pallister effectively cancelling Christmas for many in Manitoba, the government hopes that a campaign of family-friendly activities will make the public feel connected over the holidays.
“We recognize that staying home this holiday season as we fight the pandemic, and not being able to see our friends and family will be difficult,” said Municipal Relations Minister Rochelle Squires Monday.
“This gives us an additional reason to stay home with our family, enjoy these home-grown Manitoba activities together and help make this time easier for us all.”
Among content already approved include a pre-filmed variety show of Manitoban musicians and gingerbread house making exercise.
While Canada is home to a large number of religions and religious people, some journalists cannot help but deride and attack people of faith.
The mainstream media fails to realize that Canadians of faith are defying the government’s arbitrary coronavirus rules because they have a right to worship freely under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
Mattea Merta says the attack on Canadians’ right to worship sets a very dangerous precedent.
Days after Canadian anthem singer Mark Donnelly was fired by the Canucks for performing at an anti-lockdown rally in Vancouver, former Coach’s Corner host Don Cherry spoke out about the incident.
Cherry told the Toronto Sun that entertainers and public figures must be prepared to handle the backlash that comes with expressing controversial opinions.
“He was becoming a pretty big star. You have to be careful because you can be stealing somebody else’s limelight,” said Cherry.
“When you give your opinion, you better be prepared to pay the price. Going to a ‘no-mask rally’ was not the politically correct thing to do. You have to do what the left media want now. I should know.”
On Saturday, Donnelly attended and sang at a Christmas rally in downtown Vancouver where several hundred people were gathered to protest provincial coronavirus health orders.
As word of his involvement at the rally spread, Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini took to twitter to announce the singer’s firing that very same day.
“Hey @VancouverSun change the headline to “Former Canucks anthem singer.” #wearamask,” tweeted Aquilini, accompanying a link to an article titled “Canucks anthem singer Mark Donnelly to perform at anti-masker rally”.
Last year, Cherry faced a similar situation with his former employer, Sportsnet. Cherry was fired from his decades-long post as the host of Coach’s Corner after he called on people to wear poppies for Remembrance Day.
Cherry was fired by the network for alleged discriminatory and divisive remarks despite clarifications by Cherry to the contrary.
“During the broadcast, he made divisive remarks that do not represent our values or what we stand for” said Sportsnet President Bart Yabsley at the time.
An Ontario Superior Court judge ruled that there was “apparent unfairness” in shutting down small businesses while letting large retailers remain open during the second wave of the coronavirus.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, Superior Court Justice Frederick Myers made the ruling during a speedy injunction initiated by Canadian Appliance Source LP against the province’s public health orders.
“I have little understanding of the public interest assessment behind the COVID-19 regulatory regime,” ruled Justice Myers.
“Everyone sees the apparent unfairness of small stores closing while big box stores remain open.”
Appliance Source took the issue to court after it was ordered to close its doors in Toronto, Mississauga and Brampton in accordance with the Ford government’s new coronavirus lockdown regime.
The company was expecting to make $27 million in sales in the province for December but now the company is arguing that the closures will cost the company millions.
“This case involves the public interest and not just the private concerns of the applicant and its customers in its showrooms. Has the government made a policy choice to favour a small number of very large stores to contain risks while people do necessary shopping?” wrote Justice Myers.
“There appears to be a battle for the hearts and minds of the public between public health advocates and others with different priorities.”
The Vancouver Canucks’ national anthem singer has been fired for performing at an anti-lockdown rally. His termination only serves to silence others who agree with him, making it seem as though the government and mainstream media’s narrative about lockdowns is a lot more widely believed than it actually is.
Also, a professor was denied a Canadian Armed Forces position because he dared to criticize forced diversity programs, plus medical mask exemptions are legal, so why aren’t they being recognized?
Opposition Leader Erin O’Toole put forward a motion on Monday to halt a proposed Canada Pension Plan (CPP) premium tax hike that would impact the income of all Canadians at the beginning of the new year.
On Twitter, O’Toole unveiled a statement calling on the government to release “concrete economic support” for businesses.
“We are calling on the Liberal government to postpone the increase of CPP payroll taxes set for January 1, as well as the increase of the carbon tax and the alcohol escalator tax planned for next year,” wrote O’Toole.
The statement also goes on to detail the Conservative motion which urges the government to remove barriers to job creation, unveil details about the highly Affected Sectors Credit Availability Program, and to fix the Large Employer Emergency Financing Facility, among other things.
The Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses (CFIB) thanked O’Toole and Conservative MPs for opposing the proposed tax hike.
“Many provincial governments, led by Saskatchewan, have asked the federal govt to pause this tax hike (CPP is a fed/prov program). To date, the feds have said the CPP premium increase will go ahead,” tweeted CFIB President and CEO Dan Kelly.
“And for those suggesting this rate hike is needed to pay for better CPP benefits, keep in mind that the improved payouts from CPP are phased in over 40 years. A 1 year pause in rising premiums will have no impact on benefits anytime soon.”
In 2021, employers and employees’ incomes will be affected by an increase in Canada Pension Plan rates by up to 9.3%.
The tax increases were announced by the Canada Revenue Agency in February 2020 and they mark the highest payroll tax increase since 2003.
The CFIB has been calling for a tax freeze on the pension front for some time now, ranking it as their second most important issue following the coronavirus and economic recovery.
To this day, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland has said very little with regard to a potential CPP hike freeze despite a push by the opposition to raise the issue.
