From Justin Trudeau’s cottage getaway to John Tory’s weekend at the park to British political staffer Dominic Cummings’ cross-country road trip, it’s increasingly clear the leaders telling us to stay put aren’t interested in following the rules they’re imposing on the rest of us. True North’s Andrew Lawton talks about these public health hypocrites.
Also, former Conservative leadership candidate Jim Karahalios and his wife, Ontario Progressive Conservative MPP Belinda Karahalios, join the show to discuss Jim’s successful lawsuit against the Conservative Party of Canada – and his subsequent second disqualification from the party’s leadership race.
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The Liberal government intends on giving out coronavirus emergency payments to temporary foreign workers without requiring to see their valid work permits.
The decision, which was announced in a memo to federal staff, says that foreign workers only need to give their word to be approved to receive the Canada Emergency Response Benefit (CERB).
Prior to the decision, foreign workers had to provide photographs of a valid work or work/study permit to receive the $2,000 a-month subsidy, but that is no longer the case.
The new directive also applies to others who are neither Canadian citizens nor permanent residents including students and refugee claimants who have a “900-series” social insurance number, according to the National Post.
According to a source familiar with the CERB system, the federal government would have no power to recover lost taxpayer dollars if someone makes an illegitimate claim and then proceeds to leave Canada.
“The Government of Canada will, whether it be in the upcoming weeks or at tax time next year, reconcile accounts and make sure people did not defraud the CERB,” said Maya Dura who is the spokeswoman for the Minister of Families, Children and Social Development Ahmed Hussen.
Since the Trudeau government mutually closed Canada’s land border with the US over fears of the coronavirus, Canada has still been accepting temporary foreign workers into the country.
Despite the fact that Canada’s unemployment is at an all-time high, the Liberals have been promoting foreign labour in the agri-food sector.
In April, the Liberal government announced it would spend $50 million in taxpayer funds to cover the expenses and wages of the mandatory two week-isolation period workers must undergo before beginning their jobs.
“With so many young people out of work — so many of whom are desperate to get work experience, pay off debt and save for the future — it defies logic that our government is paying these young workers to stay at home, while also recruiting temporary foreign workers to come fill jobs that have been deemed essential services,” wrote True North founder Candice Malcolm.
China sees Canada as a “minor country” it can bully to get its way, suggested former Canadian ambassador to China David Mulroney.
Mulroney told Global News on Sunday that China is outraged that a country it views as a “vassal state of the United States” would dare to proceed with extradition hearings against Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou.
“We’re seeing the real China in all of this,” said Mulroney.
“China sees Canada as a vassal state of the United States, as a minor country it can push around and part of their great anger at the Meng Wanzhou process and the fact that she’s facing extradition hearings is China’s outraged that a country as small as Canada would dare to do this.”
According to recent reports, Canada’s current ambassador to China, Dominic Barton, has accused the communist regime of alienating its international partners through increasingly threatening and aggressive rhetoric.
During a closed-door meeting recounted to reporters, Barton was alleged to have called for a “rigorous review” of the WHO’s handling of the coronavirus and said that China is risking undermining its international influence.
“Canada’s voice will be heard loudly,” Barton reportedly said during the meeting.
Canada’s Huawei saga is set to break a major impasse this week as BC Supreme Court Associate Chief Justice Heather Holmes announced she will deliver her ruling on Meng’s defence Wednesday.
US authorities are seeking to have Meng extradited to the US over a number of bank and wire fraud charges related to Huawei’s alleged dealings with Iran, contravening American sanctions.
Lawyers representing the controversial Huawei executive claim her case does not stand, on the grounds of double criminality, meaning that the charges brought against her by the US do not apply in Canada.
In retaliation for Meng’s arrest in 2018, China unlawfully detained Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor. The pair have been held in Chinese prisons for nearly two years and are currently being denied consular visits under the pretense of the coronavirus pandemic.
Meng, who is under house arrest at one of her million-dollar Vancouver homes, recently gathered family and friends for a celebratory photoshoot outside the BC Supreme Court.
Toronto Mayor John Tory is sorry for his “mistakes” after being photographed mingling with crowds and not properly wearing his mask at a Toronto park on the weekend.
On Saturday pictures circulated on social media showing Tory talking to Torontonians at Trinity Bellwoods Park. The mayor appeared not to be wearing his mask correctly or following physical distancing rules.
“I want to apologize for my personal behaviour yesterday,” he said in a statement.
“I fully intended to properly physically distance, but it was very difficult to do. I wore a mask into the park, but I failed to use it properly, another thing I’m disappointed about. These were mistakes that I made and as a leader in this city, I know that I must set a better example going forward.”
Ironically, Tory said he went to the park to assess how closely people were following social distancing rules.
“I saw a crowd scene that was completely out of control relative to what we have been saying people should do… [People] were sitting in big groups really close together,” Tory said in a CP24 interview. “I just was dumbfounded by this kind of lack of personal responsibility.”
Tory has publicly scolded those he perceives as not taking precautions against coronavirus, including on Wednesday when he claimed, without proof, that men were refusing to wear face masks.
Including himself. John Tory was at Trinity Bellwoods park as well. No mask and no distance. This is all nothing but a joke and a scam. pic.twitter.com/11tKWSQ5B2
“There’s been some coverage lately that men in particular don’t want to wear masks or face coverings for a variety of reasons, but including one that says that they see it somehow as a sign of weakness,” Tory told reporters.
Many people were fined by police and bylaw officers for breaking public health orders at Trinity Bellwoods Park, bringing the number of Torontonians fined up to $1,000 to 600 as of Sunday.
Tory hopes that the incident will be a wakeup call for both the city and public, saying that in future everyone will have to learn to better obey public health orders while in Toronto’s parks.
“Lessons will be learned, including by me, and we will move forward and hopefully do better,” he said.
On Friday, Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam admitted for the first time that Canada did not have enough medical supplies stockpiled prior to the coronavirus pandemic.
“There was definitely a small amount,” Dr. Tam told the House of Commons government operations committee.
“It wasn’t a lot.”
While Dr. Tam refused to tell MPs how much equipment was in Canada’s emergency stockpile, according to Blacklock’s Reporter there may have been as few as 100,000 N95 masks.
When asked by NDP MP Matthew Green, Dr. Tam refused to say if she ever warned cabinet that Canada’s stockpile was dangerously low.
Health Minister Patty Hadju interrupted Green’s line of questioning, claiming cabinet confidentiality forbids Dr. Tam from answering.
“I can tell you during the five years we were in government in fact we increased funding to the Public Health Agency,” Hadju said.
In 2006, Dr. Tam co-authored a report which recommended that the government stockpile 4 months worth of N95 masks.
“A pandemic will likely result in shortages of medications, medical supplies and potentially operational supplies,” The Canadian Pandemic Influenza Plan For The Health Sector says.
“Since multiple jurisdictions including other countries will potentially be affected by these shortages, the response plan should not rely heavily on outside assistance in terms of the provision of supplies and equipment.”
In May of last year, 2 million N95 masks and 440,000 pairs of gloves were thrown away at the National Emergency Strategic Stockpile (NESS) warehouse in Regina.
Though the Public Health Agency of Canada said the equipment had expired, the NESS warehouse was never refilled.
Canada’s failure to plan ahead for medical equipment has cost the taxpayer at least $500 million, with vendors charging as much as 380% the usual price.
The Conservative Party of Canada is less than three months away from selecting its next leader — the person with the greatest chance of beating Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in the next federal election and putting Canada back on the right track.
After five years of Liberal rule, Canada is a weak and divided country. There are two separatist movements flaring on opposite sides of the country — the Bloc Quebecois, which surged in the 2019 election and won enough seats to form the balance of power in the House of Commons, and a new Wexit movement in Western Canada no longer demanding a fairer deal within confederation, but now simply demanding an exit from the Canadian experiment.
The divisions in Trudeau’s Canada run even deeper than traditional regional tensions, as the Liberals have introduced a toxic brew of identity politics into every aspect of federal politics. Federal budgets now consist of more rhetoric on feminism and intersectionality than they do cold hard facts on spending, taxation, deficits and debt. Federal cabinet ministers are not appointed based on merit, but instead, on filling quotas and promoting superficial diversity.
Trudeau takes his own rigid ideology — dogmatically “progressive” on social issues and big spending, big business corporatist on fiscal matters — and attempts to exclude and silence those with dissenting views.
Trudeau has allowed unprecedented illegal immigration into Canada; if you criticize him, you are a “racist” and, as he told a heckler in Quebec who asked about the growing cost of illegal immigration, “you have no place in Canada.”
Trudeau believes in unlimited access to abortion — including late-term procedures and sex-selective abortion. If you disagree with Trudeau, you cannot be a Liberal candidate and you cannot apply for funding through the federal Canada Summer Jobs Program.
Trudeau believes in catastrophic predictions of man-made global warming, the only solution being a high-tax regime that makes our economy uncompetitive and phases out of our domestic oil production industry. If you disagree with Trudeau’s alarmism, you are a “denier” and a “knuckle-dragging neanderthal.”
Trudeau’s strategy has been to marginalize, exclude and delegitimize those he disagrees with. He treats all Conservative voters as members of a fringe movement who are unwelcome in polite society.
Just look at the 2019 election, where the Liberals took negative smear campaigns to new lows.
While Canada has largely avoided the rise of an anti-immigrant backlash seen on the political right throughout Europe and the U.S. in recent years, Trudeau and his Liberal henchman nonetheless pretended the opposite.
They used every dirty trick in the book to paint their conservative opponents as white nationalists, white supremacists and members of the racist alt-right. The media happily played along, grasping at straws to vindicate the invented Liberal narrative.
Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper wrote in his latest book Right Here, Right Now, “it is a shame that in Canada, a country that has largely avoided the social divisions associated with the rise of new disruptive political movements, it is now the party in power that is attempting to provoke them.”
That is why this Conservative leadership race is so important. Canada needs a strong opposition to push back against Trudeau’s divisive tactics and ideology that is tearing our country apart.
First, Conservatives must ignore the traps being set by Trudeau-aligned journalists and push back against their leftist smears, or even better, bypass the establishment media altogether and bring their message directly to Canadians.
Second, the majority of Canadians rejected Trudeau’s sneering brand of elite globalism in the last election. There is plenty of room to start reimagining a populist conservative agenda that rejects far-left identity politics, appeals to the economic sensitivities of working Canadians, and focuses on unity, nation-building and an unambiguously pro-Canadian message.
Can you really blame the people who went to Trinity Bellwoods Park in Toronto? The weather is nicer, people want to go outside – it’s human nature.
Sure, they could’ve followed the social distancing rules better but Canadians have been in lockdown for months now.
Also, Ontario has been reporting that only 12.7% of cases to date can be confirmed as community transmission. This number should be highlighted much more than it has been.
The Trudeau government believes “immigration is the only solution” for economic recovery.
However, when it comes to the economics, their claims that immigration will cure all of our financial woes do not hold water. If the government brings over immigrants in hopes of instantly repairing our economy and repaying debt, they will likely be disappointed, and actually see an increased deficit.
True North’s Lindsay Shepherd says when politicians claim immigration will remedy Canada’s demographic challenges, they are either uninformed or lying.
The Globe and Mail is asking the government for more financial assistance as the coronavirus pandemic takes its toll on the faltering newspaper industry.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, Globe and Mail publisher Philip Crawley told MPs at a House of Commons finance committee hearing that Canada’s largest newspapers are suffering in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
“The Globe is forecasting a drop of 32% year on year in print advertising. That’s many millions of dollars of high-margin revenue, and we won’t be the biggest victims in Canada,” Crawley said.
“We’ve been cutting costs over the last few months to minimize layoffs and I have suggested schemes to the Department of Canadian Heritage like a rebate on our printing costs.”
Crawley said that the Globe did not qualify for the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy.
The Globe and Mail is held solely by the Thompson family. According to Forbes, the Thompson family is worth approximately $34.6 billion and are among the wealthiest families in the world.
Despite saying there has been a decrease in revenue, Crawley did not say if the newspaper is profitable.
In 2019, the Trudeau government announced a $595 million subsidy program for media organizations like the Globe and Mail. That same year, the Globe also received untendered contracts worth $2 million from the federal government.
Though the coronavirus pandemic has hurt the newspaper industry, most mainstream media outlets were already in decline.
According to Statistics Canada, from 2016 to 2018 print advertising sales in Canada decreased by 18.2%.
Last year Postmedia Network lost $6.3 million, and the Toronto Star lost $51.9 million and laid off dozens of employees despite receiving $115,00 weekly in government subsidies.
Crawley said that despite major financial aid from the government, it appears that the long-term prospects are grim for Canada’s largest media outlets.
“This is welcome and substantial assistance from the government, but let’s be clear: the long-term outlook for the Globe and many others has darkened because of the pandemic,” he said.
“Print advertising revenue, once the backbone of newspapers, will go into accelerated decline.”
While Canadians have been locked down and the media endlessly reports on the coronavirus pandemic, the Trudeau government quietly reached a secret deal with the so-called Wet’suwet’en “hereditary chiefs.”
It’s time to tell the truth about this new memorandum of understanding the hereditary chiefs have signed with the government.
The text of the secret agreement was finally leaked, and the blowback was almost instantaneous.
Four out of five elected First Nations leaders in the region slammed it immediately and demanded Trudeau’s indigenous affairs minister Carolyn Bennett resign.
And not without good reason. These elected leaders were left completely out of the loop.
Both the Trudeau government and the Horgan BC government – led by BC’s Indigenous Relations Minister Scott Fraser – inexplicably negotiated a complex issue like aboriginal rights and title, without the input or consent of the elected chiefs.
Think about how crazy this is – sidelining the democratically elected representatives of a community, chosen by First Nations people themselves, in favour of an archaic system of hereditary chiefs based on bloodlines, nepotism and let’s be honest – questionable dealings.
These are the same hereditary chiefs who helped launch the unrest and nationwide blockades just a couple months ago.
They encouraged the obstruction of our roads, highways, bridges and rail lines, all while being bankrolled by large US foundations committed to the destruction of Canada’s energy economy.
But instead of standing up and simply enforcing the rule of law, the Trudeau government has now done the exact opposite.
Elevating the authority of this handful of hereditary chiefs, all while effectively throwing those that were elected, and who had dealt with us in good faith, completely under the bus.
And what makes this even more concerning is that we are now marginalizing the elected First Nations leaders – the very ones who stood up for their communities in the first place.
They were the ones that supported development. They were the ones that supported good-paying jobs.
They were the ones committed to ending not only the vicious cycle of poverty in their communities, but unemployment and taxpayer dependency as well.
And even more importantly, they were the ones with democratic legitimacy.
There is no denying that many First Nations need and deserve our help, and that mistakes have been made in the past.
But the solution now is not some form of mickey-mouse monarchy or environmental theocracy.
The solution now is what it’s always been – for First Nations and Canadians.
Good paying jobs. Economic development. Accountable, responsible democratic government.
To suggest that First Nations are somehow incapable of electing their own leaders like everybody else, is offensive.
In fact, it’s borderline racist.
The truth is, over the past few years the root of these protests in Northern BC had less to do with any particular pipeline, and more to do with an indigenous power struggle shaped and exploited by various outside groups and actors.
A struggle that pitted the elected indigenous leadership on one side, and the unelected hereditary chiefs on the other.
And our governments, both federal and provincial, have just chosen to support the wrong side.
