Hong Kong refugees are fleeing persecution by the Communist Chinese regime and they want to seek refuge in Canada.
You would think the Trudeau government would welcome these refugees with open arms, but no – instead the government is being non-committal and for once not virtue-signalling about refugees.
What is going on here? Is the Trudeau government afraid to upset the People’s Republic of China? True North’s Anthony Furey discusses.
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The Toronto Star’s Heather Mallick thinks the Liberal gun ban doesn’t go far enough because Justin Trudeau is letting gun owners keep their “machine guns” for two years.
This is just one example of the rampant misinformation the media and the government are spreading about firearms in Canada to justify targeting law-abiding gun owners, True North’s Andrew Lawton says.
Also, Alberta Conservative MP Garnett Genuis joins the show to explain how a Liberal bill to ban “conversion therapy” is so poorly worded that it has little to do with actual conversion therapy.
Former Green Party leader Elizabeth May said that “oil is dead” and that Canada’s oil industry should not be saved during the ongoing economic crisis.
“My heart bleeds for people who believe the sector is going to come back. It’s not. Oil is dead and for people in the sector, it’s very important there be just transition funds,” said May.
May was joined by Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet who said that Alberta’s energy is “condemned” and that federal funds should be spent on renewable energy instead of developments like the Trans Mountain expansion.
“The pandemic, in a very real way, as horrific as this is at many, many levels, gives us an opportunity to stop and think about how we get this economy back on its feet,” said May.
Oil prices have plunged globally due to an oil war instigated by Saudi Arabia at the cusp of the coronavirus pandemic. As a result, Alberta’s economy has been hit particularly hard.
In April, Western Canadian Select (WCS) was trading at a negative value, a historic first in the financial market.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has already pledged $1.7 billion to the struggling industry intended to be used to clean up orphan well sites.
Critics have said that this sum falls significantly short of what is required to keep domestic oil businesses afloat.
“This is not going to do anything. If this is as good as it gets, it will do very little or nothing to assist with operations for companies,” said Grant Fagerheim, chief executive of Calgary-based Whitecap Resources.
“I don’t think there’s a full appreciation and understanding of the severity of what we’re dealing with.
In 2019, the domestic oil industry made up 5.6% of Canada’s GDP contributing $108 billion to the national economy.
According to a recent Bank of Canada Business Outlook Survey oil companies “saw the current shock as worse than those in 2008 and 2015 as access to financing had become more difficult.”
An English-language propaganda outlet operated by the Communist Party of China has run to the defence of Canadian WHO official Bruce Aylward after he ignored repeated requests to appear before the health committee.
The article titled “Canada should end travesty of ‘WHO-bashing’ campaign” was published by Global Times, which is owned and operated by the official state newspaper of the CCP the People’s Daily.
The outlet cites one expert who accuses Canada of having a “giant baby” mentality and that the coronavirus had crushed Canada’s “sense of superiority.”
“Like the US, Canada acts like a country with a self-centered ‘giant baby’ mentality who refuses to accept the fact which it is unwilling to believe,” claimed the director of Fudan University’s Research Center for Cyberspace Governance Shen Yi.
“The coronavirus had struck a blow to their once vaunted ‘superior’ capabilities in responding to public health crises. The death rate from the coronavirus in Canada, higher than that of China, crushed their illusions and sense of superiority.”
Shen goes on to accuse Canadians of having “narcissistics views of their own system,” and applauds Aylward as a “renowned epidemiologist” who “praised China” for its coronavirus handling.
“They are pointing a finger at a renowned epidemiologist who led a group of WHO experts to China for a joint mission on COVID-19 in February because Aylward revealed some facts those politicians long balked at,” writes Shen.
“Aylward praised China’s coronavirus prevention work, saying potential patients were well-organized and tested quickly at a press conference in Beijing in February.”
Aylward was recently summoned by the committee to appear and testify after ignoring two prior formal requests. The rarely used summons carries with it legal weight that could be enforced by a court of law.
During Aylward’s last truancy, the WHO sent a lawyer in his stead informing the committee that they should pass on their questions for Aylward to the organization instead.
Critics of the WHO have accused it of being slow to implement concrete measures and parroting false Chinese claims about the virus.
Early on during the coronavirus outbreak, the official WHO Twitter account repeated CCP talking points and spread false information that there was no human-to-human transmission of the coronavirus.
Aylward himself has been in the public spotlight after evading questions by a Hong Kong-based journalist regarding Taiwan’s exclusion from the UN organization.
In a video published online, Aylward appears to abruptly cut contact with a reporter after initially ignoring a question about Taiwan.
While Canadians suffer from the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic, the Trudeau government is seeking to use the crisis to win a seat at the UN Security Council.
Canada’s campaign for the seat has carried on despite the ongoing global disruptions, according to CBC News.
With the increased restrictions brought forth by the coronavirus pandemic, Trudeau is hoping that Canada’s role in organizing and leading international virtual conferences will give Canada’s bid a better chance.
“The best campaign is when we don’t need to campaign, when we just show our leadership, that this is the type of voice that you would want at the Security Council,” Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne told CBC News
“We do a lot of things virtually these days, so it allows us to reach more people without having to go very far.”
In March, as the coronavirus pandemic was accelerating in Canada, Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne and International Development Minister Karina Gould confirmed that Canada’s campaign would continue as planned despite the virus.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been seeking to secure one of two seats currently up for grabs for some time now. Prior to the pandemic, Trudeau toured throughout Africa in order to garner support from other world leaders ahead of the vote.
Among those courted by Trudeau while abroad was Senegalese President Macky Sall.
Trudeau was able to secure Senegal’s vote for the seat, despite the country’s abysmal human rights record.
During Trudeau’s visit, Sall defended his country’s criminalization of homosexual acts, claiming that it has nothing to do with homophobia.
“The laws of our country obey rules that are the condensation of our cultural and civilizing values. This has nothing to do with homophobia. Whoever has the sexual orientation of their choice is not the target of exclusion,” said Sall.
While in Germany, Trudeau was also caught on camera bowing before Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif despite Iran’s role in killing 57 Canadians after shooting down an airliner.
“I went by to impress upon the foreign minister of Iran how important it is that we work together,” said Trudeau about the interaction.
A draft agreement between the Trudeau government and the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs will give the hereditary chiefs sweeping powers over natural resource development.
The draft memorandum of understanding (MOU) obtained by CBC will transfer many powers to the hereditary chiefs and give them legal recognition to speak on behalf of the Wet’suwet’en people.
The jurisdictional powers to be given the hereditary chiefs include the “fair and just compensation” for natural resources and land, as well as family services.
Throughout January and February, a group of Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs led protests against the Coastal GasLink pipeline which is being built within their traditional territory.
Protesters acting in solidarity with the hereditary chiefs illegally blockaded railways, ports and public buildings across Canada.
The Coastal GasLink pipeline is supported by the elected chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en. Until this MOU is signed, elected chiefs are the only legally recognized voice of the Wet’suwet’en people.
The MOU is expected to be signed on May 14th.
Elected Chief Dan George of Ts’il Kaz Koh First Nation is suspicious as to why the Trudeau government wants to give the hereditary chiefs so much power after their protests illegally shut down much of Canada’s transportation network.
“I don’t see why the government gave them this because this has got nothing to do with what the protests across Canada started from,” he said.
“Those issues are not resolved. They can set up roadblocks again and do it again, and that’s what I’m worried about.”
The elected chiefs are calling for the signing to be postponed, saying the Wet’suwet’en people need to resolve their internal governance disputes before signing such a radical agreement.
“That’s like signing an agreement to buy a car and negotiating the price later,” George said.
“That’s kind of backwards.”
George accuses the hereditary chiefs of trying to push the agreement as quickly as possible.
“If they [hereditary leaders] get this title and rights over our lands, which is part of my territory — not all of it — it has huge implications for my band members.”
In early March the Trudeau government began negotiating with the hereditary chiefs in secret meetings which lead to the MOU. The elected chiefs were not invited.
On Tuesday Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Carolyn Bennett told elected chiefs that the government would not postpone the May 14 signing date.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is playing favourites at his daily coronavirus press conferences, a True North investigation shows.
The briefings in front of Rideau Cottage have become a staple in Canadian politics and have been a source of guidance for many Canadians.
However, True North’s research reveals that CBC and Radio-Canada reporters were the most frequently called to ask questions during Trudeau’s daily coronavirus press briefings – with multiple reporters from the state broadcaster called on within single briefings, on occasion.
CBC-affiliated journalists asked 21% of the questions during Trudeau’s daily coronavirus briefings from March 13 to April 30.
CBC journalists were afforded 119 questions during this time frame.
CTV was the distant runner-up, with its reporters asking 13% of the questions or 73 total questions.
These outlets were followed by Global News with 11% or 61 questions, meanwhile Canadian Press received 10% of the questions composed of 58 inquiries, and TVA got nearly 7% with 37 questions asked.
True North analyzed 562 different questions from the prime minister’s publicly televised press conferences to arrive at these results.
Very few reporters picked to drill Trudeau during his briefings were from independent outlets.
Due to poor audio quality or incoherence, 23 questions were not attributed to outlets during this analysis.
Repeats and followup questions were also included as individual questions and contributed to the final result.
When taking into account the number of questions afforded to individual reporters, data shows that Global News’ Janet Silver asked the highest number of questions, scoring in at 29 different inquiries for the time period mentioned above.
Silver was followed by TVA’s Michelle Lamarche who tied with CTV’s Molly Thomas, both asking 23 questions.
Several CBC reporters followed, including Tom Parry, who asked 22 questions; Olivia Stefanovich, who got 19; meanwhile Ashley Burke received 18, and Christian Noel was selected 18 different times.
Alberta is one of the first provinces to announce it is allowing non-urgent surgeries to take place as the province prepares to reopen.
The province’s Minister of health Tyler Shandro announced on Monday that the most urgent surgeries and those which have been waiting for the longest are being given priority.
“Many Albertans have had to delay important non-urgent scheduled procedures in order for us to ensure our healthcare system was prepared for an influx of patients with COVID-19,” said Shandro.
“Thanks to the measures our government and Alberta Health Services (AHS) have taken, and the hard work and dedication of frontline healthcare workers, our healthcare system now has the capacity to begin resuming some of these procedures. Together, we will move forward, get patients the care they need, surround vulnerable Albertans with a ring of defence and build back our province one step at a time.”
In other provinces, questions have arisen regarding the decision to cancel elective or non-essential medical procedures due to the coronavirus after several people have died as a result.
Most recently, a BC father died shortly after a potentially life-saving kidney surgery was cancelled by the hospital.
Chris Walcroft died on April 15, which was the very same day he was supposed to see a specialist to potentially reschedule the procedure for a later date.
Similarly, in Ontario, a report by the University Health Network estimated that approximately 35 people died as a result of cardiac issues from cancelled or delayed surgeries.
“I understand that a report has been released today by UHN with respect to cardiac deaths and it has been estimated that approximately 35 people may have passed away because their surgeries were not performed,” said Ontario Minister of Health Christine Elliot during a daily coronavirus briefing.
“That’s not something any of us want to hear, certainly was not intended because the best medical decisions were made, but as I said before any death is a tragedy. It’s something that has happened, I don’t want to call it collateral damage because they are deaths and that is very concerning and sad to all of us.”
According to the Financial Accountability Office fo Ontario, around 52,700 procedures were cancelled or avoided in the province from between March 15 to April 22.
During the Ontario premier’s daily briefing on Monday, Minister Elliott indicated that the government was looking at the possibility of creating COVID-19-only hospitals so other hospitals can begin to resume elective surgeries.
Rod Giltaca, the CEO of the Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights, joined the Andrew Lawton Show in response to the Justin Trudeau government’s ban of 1,500 variations of firearms.
Listen to the full episode of the show.
A new University of Calgary study is indicating that stress levels for Calgarians have hit record highs.
The survey which included 30,000 people and employed statistics from the Calgary Counselling Centre showed that lower employment levels and stress are interlinked.
By 2019, Calgary stress levels had spiked to 80%, well above the global average of 72%.
“Seventy is like, ‘Okay, we can live with that,’ but when it gets up to 80, it’s really high. That can really lead to suicide, domestic violence — it’s a growth industry, unfortunately,” said University of Calgary Economics Professor Ron Kneebone.
According to the CEO of the Calgary Counselling Centre Dr. Robbie Babins-Wagner, those levels are sure to rise due to the coronavirus pandemic and the plunge in oil prices which have devastated Alberta’s economy.
“The stress is really higher than we’ve seen before; things like depression, anxiety, relationships, how they’re doing at school. With COVID-19, maybe not at first, but I expect it’ll climb as unemployment increases — this is one of the factors that will create more demand for agencies like mine,” said Babins-Wagner.
Statistics Canada figures from March indicate that unemployment in the city rose up to 8.6% after 17,000 people lost their jobs.
“We need to understand this is just the beginning. I anticipate much more challenging figures at the end of April heading into the spring,” said Alberta Premier Jason Kenney.
Business Council of Alberta Chief Economist Mike Holden claims that those numbers don’t reflect the reality and that the real unemployment rate is several orders higher than reported.
“A reported unemployment rate of 8.7 per cent seriously underestimates the reality in Alberta because the labour force survey took place just as the economy was shutting down. Based on all the data we’ve seen this week, our estimates indicate the true unemployment rate in Alberta today is likely three times that – a staggering 27 per cent, Holden told CTV News.
Last month True North released an exclusive documentary exploring unemployment and other issues plaguing Calgary. You can watch the film by visiting Calgary in Crisis.
