In Vancouver, leftist activists are calling for the end of “street checks” or “carding.” According to them, this practice is discriminatory and racist.
Leftist activists need to be told the police will do their job as they see fit and that’s their call.
Former police officer Leo Knight points out how in urban cities like New York City and Toronto, gun crime and shootings skyrocketed when police stopped street checks and carding.
The University of British Columbia has adopted the Chinese regime’s preferred manner of referencing Taiwan in some official records.
According to the Ubyssey, UBC’s annual enrollment report this year identifies Taiwan as “Taiwan (Province of China),” effectively denying recognition of Taiwanese independence. In previous years, the nation has been listed as “Taiwan.”
UBC spokesperson Kurt Heinrich told the Ubyssey that the change was made as the university adopted a new data recording system which required adoption of International Organization for Standardization data standards. The UN-recognized ISO refers to Taiwan as “Province of China.”
UBC would later say that the changes were “necessary for the university’s successful transition to Workday.” Workday is a software system recently adopted by the university.
Taiwan, officially known as the Republic of China, has acted independently since 1949. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) on mainland China claims Taiwan as part of its territory.
Canada officially does not recognize the independence of Taiwan, but does maintain diplomatic and economic ties.
The government of Taiwan has asked UBC to reverse its decision, calling the move an attack on the nation’s sovereignty.
“We urge the University of British Columbia not to bow to China and to correct how it addresses Taiwan,” a Taiwanese government spokeswoman said.
“Employing ‘Taiwan (Province of China)’ as a term to characterize UBC students from Taiwan is simply discriminatory.”
Students from the PRC makeup around a third of UBC’s international student population, with UBC officials last year being concerned about declining Canada-China relations “given our significant reliance on China for students/$.”
Relations between Canada and the PRC have declined significantly since Canada arrested Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou in 2018 on an American warrant.
Since Meng’s arrest China has arrested Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, and blocked Canadian products without justification.
The site of Canada’s Memorial to the Victims of Communism has been vandalized.
On Sunday, the Ukrainian Canadian Congress tweeted a picture of the entrance to the memorial. Across the memorial’s sign vandals spray-painted the phrase “communism will win” with several communist symbols.
The $3 million memorial is currently under construction. When completed it will cover around 500 square meters. The monument is dedicated to those who suffered under communist regimes.
Tribute to Liberty, the charity that partnered with the federal government to create the memorial, strongly condemned the vandalism of their project.
“Communism always fails. Communism kills but also gives birth to plentiful numbers of the useful idiots in Canada and beyond,” they wrote.
“The Memorial isn’t completed yet but that didn’t stop some moron from insulting the memory of our heroes on Canada Day.”
Communism is among the deadliest ideologies ever implemented, with well over 100 million deaths in the past 100 years as a result of communist policies.
Between 1932-1933, 7-10 million Ukrainians died of starvation as a result of famine orchestrated by the Soviet Union. This event, known as Holodomor, is considered a genocide by many countries, including Canada.
Between 1958-1962 at least 45 million people died in China as a result of the “Great Leap Forward,” a modernization program organized by China’s communist regime.
While the Harper government originally planned for the memorial to be built beside the Supreme Court, the Liberal government moved the site to a much less prominent location in 2015.
Under Trudeau, the memorial was also redesigned to put more emphasis on the story of refugees coming to Canada from communist states.
The Memorial to the Victims of Communism is expected to remain under construction for a few more months. Tribute to Liberty says that the unveiling of the memorial will occur in the fall.
While the renaming controversies haven’t exactly brought people together, who can argue with celebrating successful and accomplished people who were admired by many?
Instead of finding a relatively obscure person from a long time ago to tear down because they don’t live up to today’s standards, why don’t we focus on honouring more great black Canadians, both the recently deceased and still living? There are many names to choose from and new streets and parks being christened every year.
Student activists are demanding the implementation of mandatory anti-racism classes in universities and in the public school system.
True North’s Lindsay Shepherd explains why we should push back against calls for these mandatory courses.
After public health officials and politicians encouraged attendance of large-scale protests, spending Canada Day at the beach has been derided by one official as “human behaviour at its worst.” As the never-ending lockdown continues, so does the pandemic doublespeak from our leaders.
True North’s Andrew Lawton talks about the latest, plus the growing trend of destruction in the name of social justice – even when it comes to a statue of a legendary black abolitionist.
Canadian research has determined that the World Health Organization (WHO) was too supportive of China during the coronavirus pandemic.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, a study by the University of Ottawa and the Université de Sherbrooke determined that the WHO chose to praise China and support Chinese narratives rather than focus on scientific evidence.
“It is difficult to distinguish World Health Organization recommendations based on science and expertise versus political recommendations,” the report says.
“For example, China’s actions were praised on multiple occasions by the WHO without scientific background and context.”
The researchers found that the WHO’s inconsistent public statements caused confusion across the world. In January, the WHO claimed that there was “no clear evidence of sustained human-to-human transmission” when reports suggest that hundreds of people in China had already contracted coronavirus.
“The World Health Organization appears too far removed as a source of information to be able to reduce stress, anxiety and misinformation,” the report says.
Since the coronavirus pandemic began, reports and whistleblowers have claimed that China was lying about the virus and its spread. The WHO often repeated the Chinese Regime’s claims as fact.
Reports suggest that China is still hiding the actual death toll the virus had in the country.
In February, the WHO said that countries should not ban travel from China as it would “unnecessarily interfere with international trade.”
For weeks the WHO argued that closing national borders would not be an effective method of containing coronavirus, a claim which Canada followed long after much of the world already closed their borders.
The report also mentions Canada’s senior delegate to WHO Dr. Bruce Aylward, who has repeatedly praised China for its “stunning demonstration” fighting the coronavirus.
Dr. Aylward has repeatedly turned down requests to testify before the House of Commons health committee regarding WHO’s handling of the pandemic.
In March Dr. Aylward appeared to have hung up on a reporter during an interview when he was asked about if WHO would ever allow Taiwan to join the organization.
It was disappointing to go onto social media on Wednesday to see various campaigns trying to smear our great country on its national holiday.
Canada Day — or as I prefer to call it, Dominion Day, the name used by Canadians for over a century until former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau re-engineered our national symbols to bury our rich history and traditions — should be a day of unity and patriotism.
Instead, for many Canadians, it was just another day to push division, show off their woke credentials and try to smash the foundation of our free society.
On Twitter, the hashtag “Cancel Canada Day” was trending, filled with vile and ignorant messages insisting that Canada is a uniquely evil country, purveyors of atrocities equal to Nazi Germany, and that Canada simply ought not to exist.
On my own Facebook and Instagram pages, where I use the opportunity every year to praise the great Canadian achievement, I was met with scorn and anger from those who cannot separate our wonderful country from its inept government or the mistakes made by past leaders.
Some commenters wanted to dwell on dark episodes of our history, others insisted that it’s time to break up the country altogether.
It seems that many Canadians, sadly, have lost all context and cannot show appreciation of Canada for even one day.
After weeks of difficult conversations about race and historic injustices, Dominion Day should have been a day where we put our differences aside and join together to celebrate the things we love about Canada.
In that vein, I interviewed Brian Lee Crowley of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute for a special Dominion Day episode of my video podcast, the True North Speaker Series, to discuss reasons to be proud of Canada and why we should celebrate our history.
Crowley and I discussed the building of a Canadian ideal — a society where rights, freedoms, dignity and justice are upheld and protected for each and every one of us. Crowley noted how rare this is in human history, and we discussed the reasons why Canada has been so successful.
Canada is an extraordinary country, with a proud history and a promising future. But our peaceful, pluralistic free society did not pop up overnight. It was built and preserved by past generations of Canadians who understood the importance of the rule of law, tradition, liberty, peace, order and good governance.
We cannot divorce our successful present society from our rich historical past. That is why we must reject and combat modern efforts to erase our history, tear down statues, rename streets and schools and paint one-dimensional caricatures demonizing historical figures and past events.
Understanding where we came from and the importance of Canadian achievements is the best antidote to the fervent anti-Canadian mob.
Of course, Canada is not perfect — no country is — but as Crowley noted in our interview, it’s important to judge ourselves against other systems of governance rather than some idealistic utopia that does not and cannot exist.
“Never forget that the way to judge any society, any group of human beings is not against some impossible ideal standard. You must judge people against where they’ve come from, the efforts they’ve made to improve themselves and what the alternatives are by any of those measures,” said Crowley, an historian and author of the book The Canadian Century.
“Canada is a rare jewel in human experience. We have every reason to be proud of Canada.”
Rather than spending Dominion Day complaining about our imperfections, we should use the holiday as a reminder of our unique achievements and proud history.
I hope you will join me next year in an unabashed celebration of our great country on July 1st, and on July 2nd we can go back to criticizing the government and working to improve upon the Canadian ideal.
During the coronavirus pandemic, Canada relied on other countries for basic medical supplies because we lacked manufacturing capacity at home.
Relying on other countries for things Canadians need to survive is a national security threat.
True North’s Anthony Furey says Canada needs to have a serious discussion about our manufacturing sector and why we need a “Made In Canada” approach going forward.
Canada will no longer extradite individuals to Hong Kong after the Chinese Communist Regime imposed new security laws on the territory.
On Friday, Global Affairs Canada released a statement condemning Hong Kong’s new national security legislature, calling the new laws anti-democratic and restrictive.
“Canada joins the international community in reiterating its serious concern at the passage of national security legislation for Hong Kong by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China,” the statement reads.
“This legislation was enacted in a secretive process, without the participation of Hong Kong’s legislature, judiciary or people, and in violation of international obligations.”
Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne says that Canada will no longer extradite individuals to the Chinese territory and will restrict the export of military goods from Canada to Hong Kong.
“Effective immediately, Canada will treat exports of sensitive goods to Hong Kong in the same way as those destined for China. Canada will not permit the export of sensitive military items to Hong Kong,” he wrote.
“Canada is also suspending the Canada-Hong Kong extradition treaty.”
The Communist Party of China recently introduced new national security laws that have radically changed the justice system in Hong Kong — an autonomous territory of China.
Under these new laws, China’s dictatorship will now have the power to bring Hongkongers to the mainland for trial.
According to Amnesty International, the Chinese justice system is defined by unfair trials, torture, and excessive and secretive use of the death penalty.
Prior to Canada’s announcement Britain, Australia and the United States all issued similar condemnations.
In June Prime Minister Justin Trudeau refused to directly answer questions from journalists about where Canada stood on Hong Kong’s new security laws.
