Countless governments vilify — and tax — carbon dioxide emissions in the fight against climate change, but according to former Greenpeace president Patrick Moore, this flies in the face of science. Moore sat down with True North’s Andrew Lawton to discuss why CO2 is a positive, not a negative, for the environment, and how to push back against hysteria from climate alarmists.
Watch the full episode of The Andrew Lawton Show here.
One man has been arrested following the assault of a Whitby woman in late July.
On Friday, Durham Regional Police announced they had arrested Anthony Doiron-Francis, 21, of Whitby and charged him with attempted murder, aggravated sexual assault and aggravated assault in connection to an attack on a woman July 28.
On July 28, a 50-year old woman was reported missing by her family, leading to a search which located her on July 29.
Police reports say the victim was found with “multiple serious injuries consistent with a vicious assault.”
In a statement, Durham Regional Police thanked various units in their help identifying and locating the suspect.
“Investigators, along with members of the DRPS Auxiliary Unit, began to canvass the area and, on Tuesday, August 4, 2020, police released security video of a Person of Interest in this case,” they wrote.
“As a results of their tireless work by our members, including our Electronic Crimes Unit, investigators were able to identify the suspect.”
Doiron-Francis was arrested on Thursday in Ottawa without incident. Police do not believe that the victim and the accused had any connections prior to the attack.
“[Durham Regional Police Services] would like to thank the Centre of Forensic Sciences, Ottawa Police, members of the media and the public for their assistance in this investigation.”
The accused will be held until a bail hearing is arranged.
August 13, 2020 will be forever be known as a historic and monumental day for the world. Yesterday, Trump brokered a historic middle east agreement with the United Arab Emirates and Israel.
What are the details of the agreement? What does this mean for countries in the region? More importantly, how does this affect Canada?
True North’s Sam Eskenasi unpacks this historic agreement.
WE Charity engaged in extensive lobbying before they were awarded a $912 million federal contract.
Records obtained by National Post revealed that WE Charity lobbied the Liberal government 43 times before they were awarded the contract to administer Canada Student Service Grant.
Among WE’s lobbying efforts include three meetings with the Privy Council and eight meetings with aides to Finance Minister Bill Morneau.
Out of the 43 meetings, 38 of them occurred between the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak on March 11 and May 5.
In July, it was revealed that members of the Trudeau family had received $564,846 in speaking gigs with the charity.
Through the contract to administer the Canada Student Service Grant, WE could have earned as much as $43.5 million. WE has since walked away from the federal contract after the deal was met with public scrutiny.
On Wednesday, WE Charity Executive Director Dalal Al-Waheidi told the House of Commons finance committee that WE is finally obeying the Lobbying Act.
“I would like to share that we have registered as lobbyists, but I also want to provide context which I think is really important,” she said.
“For the past year our engagement with the government was about one to three percent of our overall budget. At the time we thought it was minimal. If I thought registration was required, we would have done it.”
Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre noted that WE should have registered to lobby long before they held any meetings. The Conservatives had previously filed a complaint to the lobbying commissioner over WE’s practices.
“It’s an incredible coincidence that your organization has suddenly registered to lobby, all of these months after all the lobbying happened,” he said.
The Lobbying Act requires that groups which have employees “whose duties is to communicate with public office holders,” are required to register as lobbyists.
Failure to follow the Lobbying Act could result in fines of up to $200,000 or up to two years in jail.
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On his last day standing in the House of Commons as Official Opposition leader, outgoing leader Andrew Scheer sat down with True North’s Andrew Lawton for a wide-ranging interview about his time as leader and hopes for the Conservative Party of Canada’s future.
In this candid discussion, Scheer discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the 2019 election campaign, the value of social conservatives to Canada’s right, and what he wants to see from his successor, among other topics.
The BC Centre for Disease Control (BCCDC) has released a coronavirus language guide meant to direct people on how to use “inclusive” language when talking about the virus and other health-related issues.
“This guide aims to assist with COVID-19 messaging and content development by using positive, acknowledging, and inclusive, rather than potentially stigmatizing language that may provoke fear,” claims the guide.
In a section called “Disease Basics,” the guide suggests that Canadians do not say “fight/battle/attack the virus” or mention a “war on coronavirus” because “battle and war references can evoke images of violence and panic.” Instead of using those terms, the guide suggests the alternative saying “protect/protection from COVID-19.”
“When describing a person engaging with the healthcare system, ‘individual accessing service(s)’ and/or ‘community member’ is considered acknowledging and inclusive. ‘Client’ and ‘clinician’ words may affirm a power structure/ dynamic,” the guide goes on to say.
The manual also goes onto lecture Canadians on the use of terms like “men and women” or “guys,” suggesting that they’re not “gender inclusive” ways of speaking.
“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.”
The guide also asks Canadians to “avoid terms like penis or vagina” and instead say “internal genitals” and “external genitals.” It also suggests that people refer to a “pregnant woman” as a “pregnant person” and to the practice of breastfeeding as “chestfeeding.”
These are only a few of the suggestions the guide makes regarding how Canadians should speak and think.
The guide also has sections on racial and ethnic identity, age and drug use.
According to the BCCDC, the guide was developed in response to a survey conducted in BC which claimed that British Columbians felt stigma and misinformation was present in the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau likes to spend a significant chunk of the year taking personal days according to a count of his publicly available itineraries.
So far in 2020, the prime minister has logged 48 personal days, while in 2019 he took a startling 91 days off or nearly 25% of the year.
Meanwhile, out of the 225 days that have passed since January 1, 2020, Trudeau has spent over 21% of them not at his desk.
Each individual itinerary dating from January 1, 2019 to August 13th, 2020 was checked to achieve this count. All itineraries which noted the term “personal” in their descriptions were included in the final totals. Personal days that fell on weekends and holidays were also included in the count.
On a month by month basis, Trudeau takes approximately seven personal days a month on average. The highest number of personal days for one individual month during this period was in December 2019, where his itinerary noted 17 personal days, followed by July 2019 which came in a close second with 13 days off.
In terms of where the prime minister preferred to spend his time off over the past two years, Ottawa, Ontario is at the top of the list, followed by Costa Rica, where he spent a lengthy Christmas and New Years holiday earlier this year.
The general location of “British Columbia” was the third most frequent destination for Trudeau, however, when taking into account visits to Whistler and Vancouver, BC would surpass Costa Rica as Trudeau’s second favourite vacation destination.
True North reached out to the Prime Minister’s Office for comment on why Trudeau feels the need to spend such a significant chunk of the year away from work, but did not receive a reply by the time this article was published.
Most recently, the prime minister’s RCMP security detachment was spotted at the popular Ontario cottage destination, Pointe au Baril. However, Trudeau’s itinerary at the time listed his location as being in Ottawa.
It wasn’t until reports of the prime minister’s whereabouts emerged that the location of the vacationing Trudeau was updated by the PMO.
According to a report by Toronto Sun columnist Brian Lilley, the Prime Minister’s Office confirmed to him that Trudeau was vacationing with his family in Ontario and staying at a “kind of an Airbnb.”
“The prime minister is taking some time off with his family in Ontario and Quebec,” Trudeau’s press secretary Alex Wellstead told Lilley.
One executive of a Chinese company hoping to acquire a Canadian gold mine in Nunavut claimed that the sale would be a “net benefit” to Canadians.
“The net benefit to Canada will be an international company focused on … continuing to drive and expand Canadian employment and the broader spend from Canadian suppliers,” said Shandong chief executive Mark Wall.
Shandong Gold Mining made a $230 million offer to acquire TMAC Resources’ Hope Bay mining operation in May.
The deal is currently under review by the federal government.
National security experts and politicians have warned that foreign takeovers of Canadian resource projects could threaten Canada’s sovereignty.
Shortly after the deal was announced, former director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) Richard Fadden warned the government that national security implications should be taken into account when reviewing the deal.
“There was a worry that the Chinese seemed to be very knowledgeable about regulatory thresholds and were coming just underneath them and, as is well known, Chinese corporations abroad are required to comply with Chinese government directives,” said Fadden.
Fadden’s views were echoed by CSIS in their 2019 annual report. In the report, CSIS suggests that foreign takeovers of Canadian companies could pose inherent risks.
“While the vast majority of the foreign investment in Canada is carried out in an open and transparent manner, a number of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and private firms with close ties to their government and or intelligence services can pursue corporate acquisition bids in Canada or other economic activities,” claims CSIS.
“Corporate acquisitions by these entities pose potential risks related to vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure, control over strategic sectors, espionage and foreign influenced activities, and illegal transfer of technology and expertise. CSIS expects that national security concerns related to foreign investments or other economic activities in Canada will continue.”
One politician from Canada’s north has also publicly spoken out against the deal. In June, Yellowknife MLA Rylund Johnson compared China’s bid to colonization.
“There is no benefit to the Inuit in having a Canadian colonizer swapped out for a Chinese one,” Johnson wrote.
“There are so many risks that come with allowing the Chinese government to increase influence in the Arctic, including the fact they are one of our main competitors in mining.”
Some of the biggest changes to our lives as a result of the pandemic have yet to come – real estate prices, work environments, travel and much more.
A lot of this is unclear, but one thing is certainly clear – we won’t be returning to the status quo.
True North’s Anthony Furey says this is something the politicians and insiders have yet to figure out.
Outgoing Conservative leader Andrew Scheer hopes to fix a Liberal bill to ban conversion therapy – a bill that’s been criticized by social conservatives for being poorly worded and excessively broad in scope.
Bill C-8, which is working its way through the House of Commons, would make it illegal to advertise conversation therapy, impose it on someone without their consent, or offer it to any minor, with or without consent.
In an exclusive interview marking his departure as Conservative leader, Scheer told True North’s Andrew Lawton that the Conservatives are against supposed treatments that aim to change one’s sexual orientation but noted that this bill goes beyond that.
“Let me first and foremost say that Conservatives are opposed to any so-called practice that would belittle, dehumanize, bully someone (or) coerce someone to try to change their sexual orientation,” Scheer said.
“But the way the liberals have drafted the legislation is the definition of that is very vague, and so what I don’t want to see is, conversations being criminalized or legitimate conversations that parents might have with with children and people might want to have with their friends or seek any kind of guidance or or counseling for any reason.”
Scheer said he’ll be supporting efforts to “fix the definition” in the legislation but noted that the Liberals have thus far not been receptive to making the changes. Scheer added it’s important that Conservative members have the right to vote freely as the bill works its way through the legislative process.
In the interview, recorded Wednesday, after Scheer rose in the House of Commons for the final time as leader of Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, the Regina MP reflected on his time as leader, the Conservatives’ performance in the last election and his hopes for the Conservative party’s future after its new leader is crowned in the coming weeks.
Four candidates are in the race to replace Scheer, with mail-in ballots from Conservative members due on August 21.
In the interview, Scheer was asked what he thinks of the narrative that has been raised by journalists throughout the Conservative leadership race that his social conservatism cost him the election.
Conservative leadership candidate Peter MacKay infamously said days after the election that Scheer’s social conservatism was a “stinking albatross” around the Conservative campaign.
Scheer said the focus on his social views in the last election was a “media obsession” and not an issue that was being raised by his candidates or the voters during the campaign. Though Scheer was clear to point out that social conservatives are a significant part of the conservative movement in Canada, and must be acknowledged by the next Conservative leader.
“It’s important the next leader recognizes that social conservatives not only have a place in our party, but, you know, that they’re a valuable part of it,” Scheer said. “That’s my message to the next leader, to find those opportunities to make sure that every party member is part of the conversation.”
Scheer said it was social conservatives in the Conservative caucus who led the effort from Stephen Harper’s government to raise the age of sexual consent from 14 to 16.
Scheer’s interview on The Andrew Lawton Show can be viewed here.
