Iranian dissidents organized a massive exhibition in Washington, D.C. last Friday, featuring thousands of photos of some of the 120,000 men, women and children murdered at the hands of the Iranian regime for political reasons, including 30,000 killed in a mass execution of political prisoners in 1988.
Among the total death toll are the three brothers of Glenn Torshizi, an Iranian dissident now living in the United States. He joins True North’s Andrew Lawton for an emotional and evocative dialogue about his brothers’ legacies, the Iranian regime’s brutality, and how the global community must respond to Iran.
As Canada prepares to recover from the coronavirus, many challenges lie ahead. Everybody – except for Justin Trudeau – knows new and bold ideas are needed.
Trudeau has fixated on climate change again. He’s doubling down on an “ambitious green agenda” in the upcoming throne speech.
True North’s Anthony Furey says Trudeau should put the ideology aside.
The Conservative Party is asking the Commissioner of Official Languages to investigate the WE Charity because WE was not capable of providing services in French when they received a $912 million federal contract.
In a letter released last week, Conservative MP Richard Martel told language commissioner Raymond Théberge that WE (known as UNIS in Quebec) would not have been able to meet their contract obligations for Francophones.
Martel says that according to the Official Languages Act, the government should have guaranteed that any organization hired to perform a public service should be able to do so in both official languages.
According to La Presse, documents Trudeau recently released on the WE scandal reveal major doubts regarding WE’s Quebec capabilities.
Some of the documents reveal that Quebec cabinet ministers were worried about WE’s ability to service francophones, noting the small presence the group has in Quebec.
“The government’s contempt for the francophone populations of Canada must be the subject of an in-depth study. Justin Trudeau must not be able to shirk his responsibilities,” Martel said in French.
Earlier this year, the Trudeau government tapped WE to administer the $912 million Canada Student Service Grant. The agreement was cancelled after it was revealed members of the Trudeau family have been paid by WE for years.
While Trudeau has claimed that Canada’s public service was solely responsible for selecting WE for the lucrative contract, documents released by Trudeau suggest the Prime Minister’s Office had influenced the decision.
Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux says that the deficit will soon become unsustainable if the Trudeau government continues its current spending levels.
On Sunday,Giroux warned that any new spending commitments without a plan to decrease the deficit might spell fiscal disaster.
“It’s without a doubt that we cannot afford deficits of over $300 billion for more than just a few years. And when I say a few years, I really mean a year or two. Beyond that, it would become unsustainable,” he said.
“So if the government has plans for additional spending, it will clearly have to make difficult choices and either raise taxes or reduce other areas of spending. Because it’s clear that we cannot afford to have deficits of that magnitude for even the medium term.”
Ahead of the throne speech on September 23, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has hinted of an “ambitious green agenda.” Trudeau has advised his cabinet ministers and bureaucrats to “reimagine Canada.”
One Liberal insider told CBC that the cost of these new promises are “on a scale we haven’t seen before.”
Over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, the Liberals have let the deficit balloon to nearly $400 billion. The government currently has no plans to return to a balanced budget.
“What’s concerning is the absence of a longer-term plan,” Giroux told Global.
“That is concerning to me and to most people who are concerned about public finances.”
While Trudeau has said that the government is not looking at raising taxes, it’s unclear how Canada will be able to meet its future debt obligations without tax hikes or radical cuts.
Giroux, the non-partisan officer who gives objective analysis on Canada’s finances, says that with the worst of the pandemic is over, Canadians should already know the government’s long-term fiscal strategy.
“As the crisis is evolving and we are in months three, four, five, six and seven of this crisis, I think it’s reasonable for Canadians to expect more from the government in terms of what’s the plan going forward.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appears to be gearing up for an election. He’d better be, because leaks and hints in the media about what’s to come in the Sept. 23 Throne Speech simply cannot be pushed through without a democratic mandate.
Last week, Bloomberg reported that Trudeau was planning “Canada’s sharpest turn left in economic policy in decades.” The article stated that new Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland was tasked with “remaking the country’s socio-economic architecture.”
Freeland herself said during the first press conference in her new role that the COVID-19 lockdowns and resulting recession were a “fabulous opportunity for our country” and pledged a so-called green recovery.
Writing this past week in the National Post, John Ivison reported that senior bureaucrats in Ottawa were told to “come up with ‘bold and ambitious’ ideas to reimagine Canada.” When asked about the spending parameters, they were told “there were none.”
In another column, Ivison quoted one senior government official describing Trudeau’s plan as a “structural change in the way government in this country operates,” and another saying, “it is literally frightening. I am very worried about my kids’ future and their capacity to service that level of debt.”
Canadians should be incredibly wary of these news reports. Trudeau wants to “remake” our economy and “reimagine” our very country. He’s willing to spend any amount of money, to pursue any plans that any bureaucrat or Liberal official can think of.
The truth of the matter is, we already are spending money on a scale we haven’t seen before. At last count, our deficit for this fiscal year (which we’re only halfway through) is 10 times larger than it was last year. Our federal debt has surpassed $1 trillion for the first time in our history, and some are projecting that the 2020 deficit will tack on another half-trillion — the equivalent of the total federal debt just one decade ago.
In 2015, Trudeau ran on a platform of “modest deficits” to finance infrastructure spending and an eventual return to balanced budgets.
Instead of his proposed $25 billion in new debt, Trudeau’s deficits spiralled and he plunged the federal government into the red by more than $80 billion between 2015 and 2019.
Rather than being held accountable for his broken promises, during the 2019 election, Trudeau’s campaign focused on demonizing Conservatives and, with the media on his side, Trudeau squeezed by with a minority government, which he took as a mandate to justify more of the same.
In March of this year, when the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic, Trudeau followed other world leaders in shutting down our economy. He pledged to Canadians that his government would help compensate them for losses in their livelihood as a result of his policy of shutting down the economy.
Trudeau pledged to temporarily help Canadians recover lost income from a once-in-a-lifetime health pandemic. This reasonable proposition is now morphing into a socialist coup, where a scandal-plagued prime minister wants to re-engineer the lives of 36 million Canadians through borrowed cash and a utopian disregard for the future.
Trudeau presented himself to Canadians as a friendly and optimistic Liberal who more or less supported free markets and believed in preserving Canadian institutions. What he is proposing now is something totally different.
Canadians elected a Liberal and what we got was a revolutionary socialist. At least in Venezuela, the people knew what they were voting for in Hugo Chavez. If Trudeau wants to take Canada down the dark and ruinous path of socialism, he must directly put it to Canadians for a vote.
UPDATE FROM TRUE NORTH FELLOW LINDSAY SHEPHERD: One of the authors of the op-ed referenced in this video (“Cancel culture has no place at Laurentian”) has reached out and stated that I misunderstood the irony, sarcasm and humour contained within the op-ed. The full op-ed can be read here.
In June 2020, Laurentian University professor David Lesbarrères resigned from his position as Dean of Graduate Studies after posting a tweet that included the taboo hashtag “#AllLivesMatter.” This has happened far too often in 2020.
Fortunately, many of Lesbarrères’ students and colleagues have publicly stood up for him, and three of his fellow professors penned an op-ed criticizing cancel culture.
True North fellow Lindsay Shepherd explains the #AllLivesMatter trap, and dissects the op-ed that defended David Lesbarrères.
Former RCMP Commissioner Bob Paulson has denied allegations made that he protected Cameron Ortis, the civilian Director General of the RCMP’s National Intelligence Coordination Centre (NICC), their special intelligence unit.
Ortis was arrested in September of 2019 on charges alleging he was selling classified information.
The allegations were put to him by Global News and emanated from a lawsuit filed by former employees of the NICC who had complained in writing internally about Ortis harassing and bullying staff. These complaints were not acted upon by senior management of the RCMP.
Paulson has denied any knowledge that any complaints had been made.
But this seems unlikely.
Any complaints laid against someone like Ortis, a Director General with the civilian equivalent rank of Chief Superintendent, should have been reported to the Commissioner. Knowing the RCMP, it would have been brought up during a senior management meeting at the very least.
Ortis is now facing seven charges, including communicating special operational information and preparing information for the purpose of communicating with a foreign entity or terrorist group. The FBI brought the information to the attention of the RCMP — this should be embarrassing enough. But, as the lawsuit alleges, senior management of the RCMP went out of their way to cover and protect Ortis.
A review report was commissioned by the RCMP and was conducted by retired Asst. Commissioner Phonse MacNeil who interviewed some 60 people including complainants and those intimately connected to Ortis.
MacNeil’s report was provided to the RCMP in June of this year. A redacted version of the report is quoted in the lawsuit. It quotes MacNeil as stating, “senior management failed to act despite being made aware of Mr. Ortis’s treatment of NICC employees, and sought to avoid the situation, rather than act.”
This is essentially the same set of circumstances that has been alleged by two of the four members involved in the taser death of Polish traveller Robert Dziekanski at YVR in 2007. As reported in this space in August, the OPP is now involved under what has been dubbed Project Eastbourne.
The allegations are that of obstruction of justice committed by senior members of the RCMP for concealing what they knew about the events of that night at YVR. The allegations were made by two members of the RCMP who were involved, Constable Gerry Rundel and Corporal Monty Robinson (Ret’d).
Over the past seven years, Rundel and Robinson have filed numerous access to information requests that have returned reports and memos that clearly show senior management in the RCMP knew the two officers did nothing wrong. However, the RCMP said nothing to the Braidwood Commission, to the Special Prosecutor or at the fabricated perjury trials in which the two were convicted and acquitted on the same set of circumstances.
Rundel and Robinson allege that senior RCMP leaders committed the obstruction by omitting to provide the exculpatory information to the commission of inquiry, the Special Prosecutor or the courts which ultimately resulted in the conviction of two of the four.
Having seen the exculpatory documents, they have a compelling case.
There were many, but one that stands out is a specific document authored by Superintendent Wayne Rideout, who was the officer in charge of Integrated Homicide Investigation Team (IHIT), the homicide investigation team that investigated the death of Dziekanski.
Rideout said in a 2010 memo the members did nothing wrong and acted appropriately according to their training. Former Commanding Officer of “E” Division Gary Bass told me much the same thing in a phone interview a few years ago.
This would certainly seem to be relevant information for any investigation or inquiry. Yet, it was never provided outside the RCMP.
Hopefully the head of the OPP investigation Inspector Nadeau will learn the why of that question. That would go a long way to clearing the air and restoring the reputation of the four members whose careers and lives were trampled by the silence of the senior leadership of the RCMP.
In the interim, given MacNeil’s findings it would seem turning a blind eye is de rigour for the senior management of the RCMP.
Earlier this week Healthing, a health-focused outlet owned by Postmedia, published an article titled “Medically assisted deaths are ‘lovely’,” describing Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD), and featuring its proponents.
“Canada is a progressive country when it comes to dying,” the article reads.
“Consenting adult Canadians with incurable, intolerable suffering are now legally able to end their lives, along with the assistance of a doctor or nurse practitioner.”
No voices critical of MAiD were included in the article.
The article quotes Dr. Lonny Shavelson, a California doctor who specializes in MAiD, going into graphic detail about the procedure while describing the experience as “lovely.”
The article also features a pro-assisted suicide activist who is concerned that rules around MAiD are not being liberalized fast enough in Canada.
The Postmedia article ends disturbingly with an activist saying she wants MAiD rights extended to “mature-minors,” ending the requirements that a patient must be an adult.
“We don’t think this group should be excluded,” Dying with Dignity CEO Helen Long told Healthing.
“There are many individuals suffering from an intolerable condition.”
The article laments that Bill C-7, the Trudeau government’s attempt to change MAiD laws, has been postponed due to coronavirus and Trudeau’s prorogation of parliament.
Bill C-7 comes after a 2019 Superior Court of Quebec ruling which stated that MAiD laws in Canada needed to change.
The Executive Director of the Euthanasia Prevention Coalition Alex Schadenberg says Bill C-7 puts vulnerable Canadians at risk.
“Bill C-7 removes the requirement in the law that a person’s natural death be reasonably foreseeable in order to qualify for assisted death. Therefore, people who are not terminally ill can die by euthanasia. The Quebec court decision only required this amendment to the law, but Bill C-7 goes further,” Schadenberg told True North.
“Bill C-7 creates a two track law. A person whose natural death is deemed to be reasonably foreseeable would have no waiting period while a person who is not determined to be dying would have a 90 day waiting period before being killed by lethal injection.”
Despite all the pressing issues as a result of the coronavirus shutdown, Justin Trudeau’s top priority is climate change.
In the upcoming throne speech, Trudeau has hinted at a radical redesign of the Canadian economy with an “ambitious green agenda.” Trudeau cabinet ministers and bureaucrats have been told to “reimagine Canada.”
True North’s Leo Knight says Canadians should be prepared for a stunning assault by the prime minister.
Conservative Party Leader Erin O’Toole said on Friday that if elected his government would aim to eliminate the federal deficit within a decade.
“What I think we need to do is get [to] balance over a decade or so,” O’Toole told the Globe and Mail.
“We’re going to come up with a plan that shows there is no bogeyman with the Conservatives, that we’re going to try and get back to a balanced budget in two or three years or something like that.”
Over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, the Liberals have let the deficit balloon to nearly $400 billion.
Originally, it was projected that Canada’s deficit would be $343.2 billion but shortly after being appointed as the new Finance Minister, Chrystia Freeland told reporters that the real value would be $39 billion more than estimated.
“Our government has taken on more debt so Canadians didn’t have to,” said Freeland in July.
Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, federal debt has also skyrocketed to a projected record of $1.2 trillion by March 2021.
“We know this [pandemic] has been a shock, but we also know that economic growth is as important as controlling spending. And our caucus, we’re going to talk about that. And I would prefer more time to hear from industry, to hear from small business, before an election comes and we contrast visions for the future,” said O’Toole.
“Mr. Trudeau seems to be gunning for an election. We’ll be ready if there’s one. But it’s certainly not my intention.”
O’Toole was elected as the leader of the opposition by his party in August, edging out former cabinet minister Peter MacKay.
