The Conservative’s non-confidence motion to topple the Trudeau government and force a snap election was voted down in the House of Commons on Wednesday, as the NDP and Bloc Quebecois voted against the measure.
Plus, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has hinted at further protecting vaccination choice, property rights and legal firearm ownership in upcoming amendments to the Alberta Bill of Rights.
And the NDP’s push for a national universal basic income program is thwarted at second reading in the House of Commons.
Tune into The Daily Brief with Lindsay Shepherd and Isaac Lamoureux!
The government of Manitoba has announced an extension to the gas tax holiday, initially implemented in January of this year and slated to last until the end of September.
On Wednesday, Premier Wab Kinew announced that the gas tax reprieve will now continue until December 31, 2024.
In a press release, the Manitoba government explained that the extension was a direct response to the economic challenges, particularly in the realms of high interest rates and grocery prices.
Kinew has stated that the extension is a necessary measure to support the province’s citizens, noting that the gas tax holiday has already contributed to a reduction in inflation within Manitoba.
“Since we cut the gas tax in January, inflation has gone down in Manitoba,” said Kinew.
“This is what governments are for. We know Manitobans are still struggling with the impact of interest rates and grocery prices so we’re going to continue to step up and save you 14 cents at the pump.”
As reported by True North, inflation in Manitoba and Saskatchewan rose at half the rate as the rest of Canada in May when compared to last year due to both provinces taking measures to cut gas taxes.
The tax holiday affects both gasoline and diesel, providing a 14-cent per liter saving at the pump, which has been particularly beneficial for drivers of pickup trucks—the most common vehicle type in Manitoba. These drivers are estimated to save approximately $14 with each full tank of fuel.
According to the Manitoba Bureau of Statistics, the gas tax holiday has led to a 0.4% reduction in the province’s inflation rate, suggesting a significant economic impact from the policy.
Manitoba’s average retail price for gasoline has been the lowest in Canada since the tax holiday began, which has also contributed to the province’s inflation rate falling within the Bank of Canada’s target range of 1% to 3%.
The continuation of the gas tax holiday is expected to further assist in maintaining this economic stability claimed the government press release.
Netflix will no longer sponsor several arts institutions involved in Canadian film and television productions in response to the Liberals’ Bill C-11, also known as the Online Streaming Act.
The company cut funding to a host of training and development initiatives last week that it had been investing in since it established a presence in Canada in 2017.
Netflix had been helping to advance the careers of over 1,200 Canadian writers, directors, producers and performers over that period, investing more than $25 million domestically.
The decision comes as a response to being compelled by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to contribute 5% of its annual domestic revenues to support Canadian screen productions under the Online Streaming Act imposed by the Trudeau government.
“The CRTC moved ahead with Bill C-11 mandated streamer payments without addressing issues such as what constitutes Cancon and what existing payments will be counted as contributions. This was the inevitable response: Netflix pulls millions in sponsorship,” said law professor and Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law Michael Geist in a post to X.
Netflix said in a statement “despite our long-standing commitment, the government has chosen not to acknowledge our substantial support for the Canadian film and TV sector. Consequently, we will be unable to continue funding many of the programs that have come to rely on our backing, as we are now required to allocate resources to meet the CRTC’s new investment mandate.”
The streaming service is not alone as the Motion Picture Association-Canada, an industry group representing them and other major American companies who produce and distribute content in Canada like Walt Disney, Warner Bros. Discovery, and Paramount Global productions launcheddual legal challenges in Federal Court over the CRTC measures in July.
According to the group, the CRTC “acted unreasonably” in imposing this requirement.
“The CRTC’s decision to require global entertainment streaming services to pay for local news is a discriminatory measure that goes far beyond what Parliament intended, exceeds the CRTC’s authority, and contradicts the goal of creating a modern, flexible framework that recognizes the nature of the services global streamers provide,” said Wendy Noss, president of the Motion Picture Association Canada in a statement this summer.
Geist said the “multiple legal and trade challenges, Netflix cancelling sponsorships, Facebook blocking news links, and Google adding digital ad surcharges” shouldn’t come as a surprise because they’re the result of “repeated warning signs” which were simply “ignored.”
The CRTC held a public hearing last November where Netflix vice-president of global public policy Dean Garfield asked that the Trudeau government offer some flexibility in how it defines contributions to the local sector.
“If you develop a system that limits the areas or the funds to which those resources are directed, then in some respects you’re creating a zero-sum game where you may have to move away from the relationships, partnerships that we built over time, and we certainly don’t want to do that,” said Garfield at the time.
Executive director of the Whistler Film Festival Society Angela Heck said that Netflix has been a supporting partner of their festival for over five years, contributing up to 50% of its funding.
However, it now stands to lose producers and screenwriter labs as a result of Netflix’s decision.
“They’re just responding to the ambiguity of the current legislation,” Heck told the Globe and Mail. “I think it’s not clear under current guidelines whether or not something like training initiatives are eligible expenditures. Maybe we don’t do a good enough job tooting our own horn as to how important these programs actually are.”
An NDP attempt to push through universal basic income was short-lived after a majority of MPs voted against a bill to push through the initiative during its second reading.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh endorsed MP Leah Gazan’s “Bill for a Framework for a Guaranteed Livable Basic Income”, however 83.5% of MPs voted against the bill.
While the bill’s defeat is welcome news, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Franco Terrazzano, told True North that taxpayers need to stay vigilant and keep pushing back against any such policies.
“Bad ideas never seem to go away in Ottawa, so taxpayers must stay alert and continue to push politicians to fight against guaranteed income schemes,” said Terrazzano. “Politicians should be making life more affordable by cutting taxes and letting Canadians keep more of their own money.”
Bill C-233 aimed to have the Minister of Finance table a report with a framework to provide Canadians 17 years and older, including temporary workers, permanent residents, and refugee claimants, with a guaranteed livable income. The bill specified that the framework should outline that participation in education, training, or the labour market would not be required to qualify for the income.
According to the bill, the amount provided would be region-specific and take into account the cost of goods and services necessary to ensure individuals could lead a dignified and healthy life.
The bill’s overwhelming defeat resulted in 273 MPs voting against it and 54 MPs voting in its favour. NDP MPs and a few Liberals supported the bill.
Prior to the bill being defeated, Terrazzano warned that its passing would be a disaster for taxpayers, businesses, and the Canadian economy, urging every politician to vote against it.
“The government is broke and is more than $1 trillion in debt, so this expensive scheme would mean massive tax hikes for average Canadians,” he told True North. “It would make it harder for Canadian businesses to find and retain talent because if the government pays people not to work, fewer people will work.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau officially doubled Canada’s debt on Aug. 30, accumulating more debt than every other Prime Minister before him combined. When he first took office, Canada had $616 billion in debt, which has now doubled to over $1.232 trillion.
According to the CTF’s federal debt clock, the debt costs each Canadian over $31,000.
“The government can’t even launch a simple app or pay its own employees without soaking taxpayers, so there’s no way the government could launch this scheme without fumbling the ball and ballooning the tab,” said Terrazzano.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer released a report in 2021, highlighting that universal basic income would cost taxpayers $85 billion a year.
Singh’s post to X promoting the bill received overwhelmingly negative feedback as of Sep. 25, with many users who replied urging Singh to force an election rather than pushing for more expensive socialist programs.The Bloc Québécois and NDP both voted against the Conservatives’ non-confidence motion on Wednesday, as neither are willing to budge on propping up the Liberal government.
Greg Piasetzki toured the newly renovated Bellevue House in August, the Parks Canada monument to John A. Macdonald, and was appalled at the historical inaccuracies and maligning of Macdonald throughout the house where he once lived. Everything about Macdonald today except for one or two biographies written decades ago is a carefully curated slander against not only the man but his creation – Canada.
In Piasetzki’s belief, Macdonald is not only innocent against the claims of genocide for which he stands accused, but Macdonald actually saved more Indigenous lives than any other prime minister in the history of Canada.
Watch the full interview with on the Faulkner Show!
With the provincial election underway, more British Columbians than ever fear for their safety in their community.
In a new poll by Save Our Streets, half of British Columbians worried about public safety, adding to a long list of other concerns held by the majority of the province’s population regarding crime.
Almost three-quarters of British Columbians, 74%, said that crime and violence impact their quality of life, while 55% said that criminal activity in their communities has increased in the past four years.
The Vancouver police previously reported in 2021 that four people a day were targets of random, unprovoked assaults.
More British Columbians trust the police (61%) to adequately handle crime and public safety than any other institution.
Fewer respondents trust the provincial government (45%), the municipal government (43%), the justice system (38%), and the federal government (36%) to properly handle crime and public safety in B.C. communities.
British Columbians were likely to be critical ofthe provincial justice system, with 61% stating that it fails to strike the right balance between the rights of offenders and victims.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has promised to repeal Bill C-75, which he blamed for the catch-and-release bail system.
He said that in Vancouver, the same 40 offenders were arrested 6,000 times—an average of 150 arrests per offender per year, or once every two days.
Almost nine in ten, 87%, of British Columbians support modifying the bail system to keep repeat offenders in custody while awaiting trial. An equal 87% support harsher penalties, such as incarceration for individuals with multiple offences.
While British Columbians fear for their safety, they feel that the provincial government is the most responsible for crime and public safety. 40% of British Columbians felt this level of government should be the most responsible, followed by 27% who said the same of municipal governments and 23% for the federal government.
British Columbians cited addiction and mental health issues as the top reasons for poor public safety and rising crime, with 88% of respondents expressing this concern. Other top concerns were poverty and inequality (81%), gangs and illegal drug trade (79%), the inadequate court system (76%), and more.
The poll was commissioned to 1,200 British Columbians between Sep. 9 and 12 to see which issues affected British Columbians most before heading to the polls on Oct. 19.
“As disheartening as these results may appear at first glance, the good news is residents across the province have clearly stated that they are open to new ideas and willing to support new and expanded approaches to tackle crime, reform our justice system and provide effective treatment and recovery options for people suffering from addiction and mental illnesses,” said Jess Ketchum, Co-Founder of Save Our Streets.
The NDP has been in power in British Columbia since 2017.
Recent polling suggests the B.C. NDP and Conservatives are neck and neck heading into the upcoming election. Rustad has put some focus on public safety, pledging to end B.C. NDP Leader David Eby and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s “drug dens” and shut down safe-consumption sites.
The Conservative’s non-confidence motion to topple the Trudeau government and force a snap election was voted down in the House of Commons on Wednesday, as the NDP and Bloc Quebecois voted against the measure.
The motion was defeated by a vote of 211 to 120.
The Bloc and NDP continue to prop up the Trudeau Liberals by voting against the Conservative’s non-confidence motion. The motion was defeated 211-120. pic.twitter.com/gM0G2ORBte
The outcome of the vote was unsurprising as both NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves Blanchet had publicly said they would not be supporting the Conservatives’ motion last week.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre used the first Opposition Day of Parliament’s fall sitting to present the motion before the House of Commons on Tuesday, which stated: “The House has no confidence in the Prime Minister and the Government.”
The motion comes on the heels of a turbulent summer for the Liberals.
The Trudeau government saw two major byelection losses, the NDP withdrawing its support from their coalition agreement and several high ranking Liberals announcing that they will be leaving the party, including the prime minister’s top campaign director.
These changes come in addition to Trudeau hitting a new rock bottom in the polls.
During the motion debate in the House on Tuesday, Poilievre blamed Canada’s high cost of living, the housing crisis and the growing drug overdose problems on the Trudeau government.
He said that Canadians are “suffering the pain of a brutal economy — the worst economy since the Great Depression” and offered an alternative Conservative platform to scrap the carbon tax, “build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime.”
However, Liberal House Leader Karina Gould said that a Poilievre government wouldn’t be run any differently than when former prime minister Stephen Harper and his Conservative government were in power.
“WhatI recall when the Conservatives were in government was a country that was ashamed of what we were doing on the world stage, it was ashamed that we were not fighting climate change, and it was a country that was ashamed that we were putting forward divisive politics and not bringing people together,” said Gould.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said that his party would not support the Conservatives non-confidence motion, saying he won’t let Poilievre “call the shots.”
“Look to any province where Conservatives have been in power and look at the state of the health-care system, they will be in shambles because that is what Conservatives do. They cut health care,” said Singh.
Bloc Quebecois Leader Yves-François Blanchet told reporters on Parliament Hill on Tuesday that his party would not be supporting the motion and would instead use its position within the minority government to benefit Quebec like pushing through Bill C-319, which would hike Old Age Security payouts by 10% for seniors between the ages of 65 and 74.
“What we are proposing is good for retired persons in Quebec but also in Canada. It’s good for milk, eggs and poultry producers in Quebec but also in Canada. That’s good for everybody,” said Blanchet.
After warning Canadians of the dangers of “importing US-style politics” into Canada, leftist Canadian premiers are now campaigning for Democratic Presidential Nominee Kamala Harris.
“Canadians for Kamala,” a group endorsed by former B.C. premier Christy Clark, former Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne and former Alberta premier Rachel Notley, are searching for Canadians to volunteer their time to canvass for the Harris campaign.
Rachel Parker points out the disastrous records of the former premiers and says perhaps it’s not a bad thing the Democrats take the advice of these failed leftists after all.
Most Canadians will surely shake their heads in disbelief when they learn that on September 19, the Southern Chiefs’ Organization (SCO) announced that it’s taking Manitoba Hydro and the Government of Manitoba to court on behalf of a “living entity” named Lake Winnipeg.
Manitoba’s Court of King’s Bench in Winnipeg is being asked to declare Lake Winnipeg a person with Constitutional rights to life, liberty and security.
“Decades of poor decision-making and Hydro friendly regulation have left Lake Winnipeg, known traditionally as Weeniibiikiisagaygun, on life support. SCO is launching a Charter challenge, an unprecedented move in Canada, to have Lake Winnipeg declared a living entity with all the rights and protections that entails,” its media release declared.
SCO’s Grand Chief Jerry Daniels states, “The lake has its own rights. The lake is a living being.”
Daniels said it makes sense to consider the vast lake – one of the world’s largest – as alive: “We’re living in an era of reconciliation, there’s huge changes in the mindsets of regular Canadians and science has caught up a lot in understanding. It’s not a huge stretch to understand the lake as a living entity.”
The lawsuit aims to force the government to hold public hearings on Manitoba Hydro’s licence renewal to continue regulating the lake’s waters for power generation.
Many readers would see all this as an unjustified publicity stunt. They would be wrong to do so on three grounds.
First, such an idea has existed in western science since the 1970s. The Gaia hypothesis, though still highly disputed, proposed the Earth is a single organism with its own feedback loops that regulate conditions and keep them favourable to life.
Second, the courts already recognize non-human entities such as corporations as persons.
Third, animistic beliefs continue to be widespread among indigenous peoples around the world.
The presence of animism suggests that the monotheistic Christian belief systems that also underpin Western jurisprudence need to be contrasted with the polytheistic indigenous ones that have always co-existed alongside them.
The political dimension of indigenous revivalism is now resurrecting the broader notion of traditional animistic aboriginal sacredness that reveres all of nature.
Animism perceives everything as animated, i.e., having agency and free will. Although each culture has its own mythologies and rituals, animism is said to describe the most common, foundational thread of indigenous peoples’ “spiritual” or “supernatural” perspectives. The animistic perspective is so widely held and inherent to most indigenous peoples that they often do not even have a word in their languages that corresponds to “animism” (or even “religion”). The term “animism” is an anthropological construct.
Animism is both a concept and a way of relating to the world. According to their traditional views, Canada’s indigenous people attribute sentience – or the quality of being “animated” – to a wide range of “beings” in the world, such as the environment generally, non-human animals, plants, spirits, and forces of nature like the rivers, lakes, oceans, winds, and the sun or moon.
In short, animism rejects the Western scientific distinction between “persons” and “things.”
For example, Kimberly Murray, Independent Special Interlocutor for Missing Children and Unmarked Graves and Burial Sites associated with Indian Residential Schools, has called her efforts “sacred work,” suggesting the term is so elastic that it can be used to describe any activity influential indigenous people wish to assign to it, including any time and at any place a sacred fire is lit.
Similarly, most indigenous leaders now routinely call the treaties signed by their ancestors with the British and Canadian governments “sacred agreements,” a term never used when they were enacted.
Quebec’s Innu First Nation has claimed that status for the Magpie River, and the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation in Alberta is seeking standing for the Athabasca River in regulatory hearings. The Magpie’s status hasn’t been tested in court and Alberta’s energy regulator has yet to rule on the Athabasca.
The SCO claim comes on the heels of an earlier suit against all three levels of government for the pollution of Lake Winnipeg, a 24,514 square kilometres body of water.
On May 2, 2024, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs (AMC) announced that the eight Indian Bands filed a $4 billion lawsuit against the federal and provincial governments, as well as the City of Winnipeg
According to these Bands, the pollution of Lake Winnipeg and the adjoining Red River through sewage spills and continuous discharges is a recurring issue. The communities note the most recent incident took place in February when over 221.2 million litres of raw sewage spilled into the Red River.
Although indigenous spirituality was not directly mentioned by the AMC, it was still implied by its Grand Chief, the late Cathy Merrick, who opined, “As First Nations people and as to our teachings [e.g., animism], we protect the water.”
Though none of these claims has been tested in court, it needs to be acknowledged that woke judicial bodies across Canada, including the Supreme Court in Ottawa, have been increasingly sympathetic to claims based on indigenous spiritual and allied “knowings” for years now.
American Transgender YouTuber Blaire White hosted a speaking event in Toronto for 200 supporters, most of whom identified as part of the LGBTQ community, Tuesday.
In an interview with True North, White, a self-identifying transwoman and often lauded as “transphobic” by LGBTQ activists, blasted Canada on several trans-related issues, including transwomen in women’s prisons, “gender-affirming” medicine for minors, and parental rights.
White was supportive of policies such as restricting hormones and puberty blockers for minors and applauded Alberta’s rules on gender transitions in children put forward, which have been supported by Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre and also implemented by provinces such as Saskatchewan and New Brunswick.
“I’m absolutely in support of banning transition from minors. I think people have a hard time understanding how I can be a trans adult who’s happy with my decision to transition and also believe that, but the keyword is adult.” She told True North. ”I believe consent is not possible as a child.”
She advocated for LGBTQ wards in female prisons to protect both the trans population who might experience heightened violence in male wards and protect females who experience violence from transwomen in their wards.
White was supportive of legislation which would prevent transgender people from competing in women’s sports.
On the gender debate in schools, she said it’s “insane” that parents are being kept in the dark about their children’s gender transitions in schools. She said the idealogy behind the policy, such as that used in the Durham District School Board in Ontario, is Marxist or collectivist in nature.
“It’s an ideology that believes children belong to the community. I believe children are of their families and they’re of their own autonomy. But there are limitations to autonomy when you’re a child,” she said.
White also raised concerns about children being misdiagnosed as transgender, which could lead to a lack of diagnosis of other mental health issues, including autism, split personality disorder or sexual violence-based trauma, which she says is common in the trans community.
White has a conservative view on the trans debate, arguing the need for a cultural shift rather than wielding the power of the state to protect women and children.
“We have to come to a cultural understanding that it’s not something for kids. Through hearts and minds, not legislation.” White said. “(America) didn’t legalize (gay marriage) because some lawmakers got in the room and did it, and everyone was just cool with it. It was because we came to a cultural place where we understood that this is something we want to extend to gay Americans.”
Due to her conservative leanings, White has been attacked for her views and has frequently been labelled “far-right.”
A recent report by the taxpayer-funded Canadian Anti-Hate Network stated that anyone other than “CIS straight white males” who occupy “far-right or hate groups” in Canada usually require a constant performance of misogyny, racism or other bigotries.
White believes the CAHN assessment is “super ridiculous.” She thinks the term “far-right” has been used too broadly and often inaccurately in recent years. She also rejects the insinuation that if someone is in a minority group, they must hold certain political opinions.
She said she is often called a “trans token for the right” but believes that she would be much more tokenized if she “regurgitated every leftist line.” White said that people who think she must hold certain beliefs are “projecting” and must believe they have some ownership over her.
She said there are awful people on the right, and one only needs to look at the comment sections of her videos to discover that. But a look at the “FBI logs of death threats” would reveal the way that hate manifests itself from the left.
“I don’t think any side has a monopoly on hate. One side pretends if it’s all coming from the right.” White said. “The hate on the right amounts to people on X calling me a man. The hate on the left is people threatening my life and bomb-threatening my events.”
Blaire said sex changes for minors are what’s really causing harm to the community, not her presence in Canada.
“The idea that a kid can know all the ramifications of transitioning – Sex changes for minors that sterilize, cause harm to the trans community,” White said. “I am 100% pro-LGBT. I believe in a lot of trans people, gay people, and the entire community. I believe that we’re important voting blocks.”
