Although the government has anticipated a second wave since the beginning of the pandemic, they’re still struggling with their response.
As public health officials consider a second lockdown, True North’s Anthony Furey wonders what exactly are they trying to accomplish?
Anthony says the government needs to learn to live with the coronavirus and be open with the public about their intentions.
The candidate hand-picked by the Liberals to run in Bill Morneau’s former Toronto Centre riding was a guest speaker at a 2016 WE Day event.
Marci Ien, who was a CTV broadcast journalist and co-host of The Social until she took a leave this week to run for office, appears with her co-hosts on a WE Day stage in a 2016 photograph.
The 2016 event at the former Air Canada Centre in Toronto featured a star-studded line-up, including the late Gord Downie, Paula Abdul and Nelly Furtado, as well as WE co-founders Craig and Marc Kielburger.
Ien was also listed in a Globe and Mail article featuring the talent lineup for that year’s WE Day.
The photo was unearthed by Toronto Sun columnist Brian Lilley.
Ien was declared as the Liberal candidate for Morneau’s former riding yesterday shortly after she announced her intention to seek the nomination on Twitter.
“I’ve always strived to provide a voice to people who need it most — and now more than ever, we need all Canadians’ voices and aspirations to be reflected in the hard work of building a better future,” Ien tweeted.
“That’s why I’m running to be your Liberal candidate in Toronto Centre.”
Only a few hours later the Liberals bypassed the nomination process and appointed Ien, despite another candidate, Toronto lawyer Paul Saguil, also in the running.
Ien is the second Toronto Centre Liberal candidate in a row to have WE ties after former finance minister Bill Morneau stepped down from his seat in Parliament and cabinet post in August following increased pressure over his involvement in the WE Charity scandal.
During investigations, it was revealed that Morneau accepted $41,000 worth of free travel from the charity. His two daughters also have worked with WE, one of which as a paid employee.
The opposition have accused the Liberals of a breach of conflict of interest rules after picking the charity to administer a $900 million federal student service grant.
The Chinese Communist Party is once again heaping praise on Canadian Health Minister Patty Hajdu. The latest accolades came in a Friday morning press conference in Beijing.
“We noticed relevant reports and applaud the Canadian health minister’s objective and fair remarks,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin in response to Hajdu’s latest defense of China and the World Health Organization.
“China and Canada have been cooperating and giving each other valuable support during the difficult fight against COVID-19,” Hajdy said in an interview on The West Block earlier this week. “China is ready to continue working with Canada and other members of the international community so that the virus can be defeated as early as possible.”
Hajdu added that China alerted the World Health Organization to the emergence of the coronavirus strain “very early on” and shared its gene sequencing with other countries to help them detect the virus.
Hajdu has been at the receiving end of compliments from China before for her staunch defense of its coronavirus response.
In April, a bureau chief at one of China’s state media companies referred to Hajdu as a “role model” after she stood by China’s reporting of its coronavirus case data.
“Canadian Health Minister Hajdu is a role model. She is a disappointment to those paparazzi journalists and fearmongers, said China Daily EU bureau chief Chen Weihua in a tweet that was later deleted.
Chen’s compliments were directed at Hajdu’s prior comments through which she insisted there was no reason to believe that China’s coronavirus data were falsified.
“There’s no indication that the data that came out of China in terms of their infection rate and their death rate was falsified any way,” said Hajdu on Apr. 2.
“Your question is feeding into conspiracy theories that many people have been perpetuating on the internet and it’s important to remember that there is no way to beat a global pandemic if we’re not willing to work together as a globe.”
Filmmaker and author Phelim McAleer joined The Andrew Lawton Show to chat about his latest project, ObamaGate The Movie. This film, starring Dean Cain and Kristy Swanson, exposes the deep state players who tried to railroad Donald Trump’s 2016 election bid and continue to sandbag his presidency. Phelim and Andrew also speak about the need for people on the right to support conservative media and art as a counterbalance to the mainstream media and Hollywood bias.
Watch the full episode of The Andrew Lawton Show.
A survey conducted by the federal government found less than one-fifth of Canadians consider the environment to be cabinet’s top issue.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the survey Continuous Tracking Of Canadians’ Views found that the vast majority of Canadians felt that the environment should not be the Trudeau cabinet’s primary focus.
When asked, “Thinking about the issues presently facing Canada, which one do you feel should receive the greatest attention from the Government of Canada?” only 19% of Canadians said the environment.
Broken down regionally, just 8% of Albertans pegged the environment as their top priority, compared to 30% of Quebecers.
The survey was completed in late 2019 but only released by the Privy Council Office this month.
The survey also found that most Canadians – a majority in every province except Quebec and British Columbia – felt the government was not doing enough for the middle class.
Infrastructure Minister Catherine McKenna recently said once coronavirus stops being a threat the government needs to make the environment its top priority.
“When the pandemic is over, and we will get through this, we still have another crisis,” said McKenna. “It’s called climate change. The action needs to continue today, tomorrow, and we’re going to continue to move forward.”
The survey also found that most Canadians do not think the Trudeau government has actually addressed environmental issues. Only 34% of respondents felt the Liberals were on the “right track” when it came to the environment.
Ahead of the throne speech on September 23 it has been reported that the Trudeau government is planning an “ambitious green agenda,” even after the coronavirus has put unprecedented fiscal pressure on the government.
Earlier this week, Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson confirmed the Trudeau government will push ahead with its Clean Fuel Standard, a regulatory regime which amounts to a second carbon tax.
Energy industry experts predict the Clean Fuel Standard will raise the cost of fuel three times higher than the carbon tax will.
If the Liberals go along with the guaranteed annual income plan they’re mulling, it could increase overall federal program spending by 132.4%, a study from the Fraser Institute says.
Released Thursday, the Fraser Institute study compares the cost of four different guaranteed annual income (GAI) models.
The study found that providing a guaranteed income of $24,000 to all working-age Canadians would cost $464.5 billion, an amount which would increase program spending 132.4% from the 2019/2020 budget.
The least expensive option studied by the Fraser Institute, guaranteeing all Canadians $7,272 in a similar manner to Old Age Security, would cost $131.9 billion.
Authors note that it is very difficult to predict the true cost of a GAI as its supporters tend not to explain how the program would work.
“The proponents of such programs frequently do not clearly specify their details, which prevents a careful analysis of their costs, benefits, and implementation challenges. This report estimates the cost of four possible models. Those estimates suggest the total net cost of a GAI could range from $131.9 billion to $464.5 billion,” it says.
While Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has not supported a basic income publicly, Liberal MPs are currently pushing for the government to adopt the idea.
Last week the Liberal caucus pushed for cabinet to adopt a GAI policy. The Liberals will be voting on supporting a GAI at their next convention in November, with Liberal MPs considering guaranteed income a high-priority resolution.
Given the Trudeau government is in a minority situation, a GAI in the upcoming throne speech and budget could be a way to guarantee support from the NDP.
The federal government has recorded a deficit of over $400 billion so far this year, with the federal debt reaching $1.2 trillion.
Earlier this month Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux said that the current deficit will become unsustainable if continued for another one to two years, meaning revenues – taxes, predominantly – would need to rise substantially to compensate for the increases in spending a GAI would require.
Vancouver Mayor Kennedy Stewart is under fire after it was revealed that he okayed $317,000 for designer furniture for city hall amidst the coronavirus pandemic.
Among the items purchased with taxpayer funds include $1,500 desk chairs and plastic seats that cost up to $650 each.
The furniture was ordered as recently as May of this year.
Meanwhile, in April, Stewart was pleading with the federal and provincial government for additional funds to prevent a financial crisis.
“I won’t make apologies for telling people the truth about how serious this is, and I won’t make apologies for calling on the province and federal governments for help that they can afford,” said Stewart a month before ordering the designer furniture.
According to the city, the spending was part of a 2019-2022 capital plan which was approved prior to the pandemic.
“At the start of the pandemic, the decision was made by a Steering Committee comprised of senior leaders to continue with the project as it was a) already underway and b) the space was empty due to staff working remotely at the time, allowing the work to proceed with less disruption,” city officials told Global News.
Vancouver’s city hall is currently undergoing a $2.6 million renovation to its second floor.
In a statement on the furniture purchase order, Stewart’s office said that the plan’s approval “included funds to maintain the City Hall building and other city assets.”
“City Hall is an old building and its maintenance has been ongoing through this and many past Councils — since at least 2012,” said the mayor’s office.
A new survey by Ipsos has found that Albertans are much more likely to be still suffering financially than other Canadians.
The survey, conducted by Ipsos on behalf of credit counselling firm MNP, found that 53% of Albertans reported being either unemployed or under reduced hours or wages in September.
During that period, only 43% of all Canadians reported the same situation, with Albertans facing the highest level of financial hardship.
“Short-term financial relief is ending, but household finances are still disrupted. And on top of that, creditors will soon be looking for ways to catch people up on deferred payments,” said MNP President Grant Bazian.
“While jobs have slowly begun returning across the country, that does not necessarily mean relief for all working Canadians.”
The survey found that Albertans are much more likely to say they are still facing reduced hours from work and putting off credit card debts.
In April, 58% of Albertans said they were $200 or less away from insolvency. According to Bazian, many Canadians were already in a precarious situation before the coronavirus recession.
“Even in good times, many household budgets teeter on a knife-edge. We know that many don’t have enough emergency savings to cope,” he said.
“And though we’ve yet to see any concrete evidence Canadians have significantly increased their debt loads since March, there’s reason to think many will turn to credit when relief measures end.”
Alberta’s energy-based economy, already weakened by a lack of pipeline capacity, suffered greatly as a result of the coronavirus pandemic.
A drop in demand for crude oil pushed global oil prices to unprecedented lows. In spring Alberta’s largest energy producers put output drastically, putting many Albertans out of work.
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With upticks in COVID-19 cases, politicians are already talking about plunging us into another lockdown when we’ve barely gotten out of the first one. Though when you look at the numbers, deaths – the most accurate metric for the actual extent of the virus – have remained constant for over two months, even when cases are apparently on the rise. True North’s Andrew Lawton explains the stakes.
Also, why Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony is apparently racist and homophobic, plus Phelim McAleer joins to discuss his new film that aims to expose the deep state, ObamaGate The Movie
CTV’s The Social co-host Marci Ien announced on Thursday that she intends on running for the Liberal nomination in the riding of former finance minister Bill Morneau.
Hours later, the Liberal Party of Canada announced they selected Ien to be the Liberal candidate for Toronto Centre. Ien was the second person to seek the nomination for the riding, following Toronto lawyer Paul Saguil.
“I’ve always strived to provide a voice to people who need it most — and now more than ever, we need all Canadians’ voices and aspirations to be reflected in the hard work of building a better future,” Ien tweeted at the time of her announcement.
“That’s why I’m running to be your Liberal candidate in Toronto Centre.”
Morneau resigned from his seat and his cabinet position in the wake of the WE Charity scandal. Morneau along with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau were implicated in the scandal due to close personal and financial ties with the organization after it was awarded a $900 million federal student service grant.
According to Ien, she has left her position at Bell Media with the hopes of connecting “in a new way” with Canadians.
In a 2018 Globe and Mail op-ed titled “The double standard of driving while black – in Canada,” Ien accused Toronto police officers of racially profiling her after allegedly failing to stop at a stop sign.
However, the Toronto Police Service disputed Ien’s allegations, claiming that race was not involved in the decision to pull her over.
“I have viewed the video footage of your vehicle stop,” wrote Toronto police Staff Superintendent Mario Di Tommaso at the time.
“You were stopped because of your driving behaviour. You failed to stop at a stop sign. It was dark. Your race was not visible on the video and only became apparent when you stepped out of the vehicle in your driveway.”
In response to the police rejection to claims of racism, Ien maintained that “being black had something to do with it.”
In 2019, The Social celebrated the firing of Hockey Night in Canada host Don Cherry.
Cherry was fired by Sportsnet late last year after he was accused of making racist remarks while on air after he called out people who refused to wear poppies on Remembrance Day. After refusing to apologize for his remarks, Cherry was forced to leave the network.
In response to Cherry’s comments, The Social host Jessica Allen made negative remarks on air about “white boy bullies” who play hockey and look up to Cherry.