A Toronto-area man was arrested in connection with a terror investigation while he was heading toward Roxham Road with plans to illegally enter the United States.
Plus, Molson Coors and its Canadian operations have announced the termination of all diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
And Parks Canada spent four years and $10,000 to cull one frog.
Tune into The Daily Brief with Lindsay Shepherd and Isaac Lamoureux!
Hard-working taxpayers shouldn’t be forced to pay for buses they’ll never use.
That’s the bottom line to consider as politicians push proposals to eliminate transit fares and have taxpayers foot the bill.
Nova Scotia Liberal Leader Zach Churchill is the latest to jump on this bandwagon, promising “free” rides for everyone if he wins the next provincial election.
This echoes calls from other politicians and activists in places like Ottawa, Toronto, and even as far north as Yukon.
But once you take a closer look at these proposals, they just don’t make sense.
Take Churchill’s plan, for example.
It would hit provincial taxpayers with an extra $66-million bill while also taking from federal taxpayers through the Canada Public Transit Fund, which sends $3 billion a year to municipalities.
That’s a lot of money coming out of taxpayers’ pockets at a time when the provincial government, under Premier Tim Houston, is already running deficits. This includes an estimated $500-million deficit for 2024-25. With no plan to balance the budget, every penny used to pay for this project would be paid with borrowed funds.
If the provincial government keeps spending like this, it’s only a matter of time before taxes go up even more to pay future interest payments. This is at a time when Nova Scotians are already paying over $800 million annually to cover interest charges on the provincial debt and are among the most heavily taxed in the country.
The cost is even steeper when you factor in that only 25,300 Nova Scotians use transit services to commute daily. That means almost 98 per cent of taxpayers would be paying for a service they don’t need.
Churchill’s plan also banks on a 20 per cent increase in ridership, with the idea that fareless buses will magically convince people to ditch their cars, removing congestion on roadways and reducing carbon emissions.
But that hasn’t happened in other places that made taxpayers foot the bill for fare-free transit. Instead, the results were less than impressive.
In Santiago, Chile, for instance, a study showed that giving people “free” transit passes only led to a 12 per cent increase in trips, with no drop in car usage. Instead, the only thing that increased was the number of bus rides taken by people who used to walk.
The same thing happened in Talinn, Estonia, after they eliminated transportation fares in 2013. A report from their national auditor in 2021 found that car use didn’t go down. So much for reducing traffic and emissions.
Even if we could get more people onto buses, Churchill’s plan still doesn’t account for the fact that a huge chunk of Nova Scotians live outside the areas served by the major bus systems. Perhaps Halifax Transit might see some extra riders, but what about the over one-third of Nova Scotians who don’t have access to reliable daily bus service? Folks in Truro shouldn’t be paying for something they can’t use.
And let’s be honest: taking a bus every day just doesn’t fit into the lives of many Nova Scotians. Are we really expecting a carpenter to lug all their tools onto a bus at the crack of dawn? Or a mom to squeeze four kids onto a crowded bus during rush hour on the way to soccer practice?
This is why these taxpayer-funded transit proposals always sound better in theory than they work in practice. They’re great for grabbing headlines and scoring political points, but when it comes to actually improving life for taxpayers, they fall flat.
Instead of throwing millions at a “free” transit scheme that benefits a small fraction of the population, Churchill should understand that the provincial government should be focusing on balancing the budget, cutting taxes and making life more affordable for everyone in Nova Scotia.
We need leaders who understand that every dollar spent comes from the pockets of taxpayers. So let’s keep more money where it belongs—in the hands of the people who earn it—not wasted on a bus system most Nova Scotians will never use.
Devin Drover is the Atlantic Director and General Counsel for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. He resides in St. John’s, NL, and holds a joint Juris Doctor/Master of Business Administration from Dalhousie University, and a Bachelor of Science (Economics) from Memorial University of Newfoundland and Labrador.
The Toronto police have the tools to put an end to the rampant anti-Semitism playing out on our city streets and at Jewish schools and institutions, a powerful forum heard last week.
But the police have chosen not to employ existing laws of which there are many.
They have instead used the excuse that the violent protesters have a right to freedom of speech, speakers told a crowd of about 200 at a Canadian Women Against Anti-Semitism event at Beth Torah synagogue.
”Freedom of speech has its limits,” argued criminal defense lawyer Mark Sandler.
”Police have the discretion to enforce existing laws but the balance is struck in the wrong direction (towards freedom of speech no matter how hateful).”
Sandler, who has formed a group called the Alliance of Canadians Combating AntiSemitism (ALCCA) post-Oct. 7, recently submitted a series of recommendations to the Toronto Police Services Board on how to deal with protests, demonstrations and occupations.
Believe it or not, a protocol does not exist.
In it, he says despite the emphasis by the police force and the city that there is zero tolerance for hate, “hate and intimidation (directed towards the Jewish community) is currently being tolerated.”
In spades.
While protesters believe “freedom of expression” trumps anything else and no restrictions can be placed on protests or what is said, the law says quite the opposite, he says.
Criminal enforcement measures which are not being used include:
I’ve lost count of how many of these kind of offenses have occurred in Toronto, even recently — and about which the police have done nothing.
Never mind that only one man has been arrested so far in the slew of arsons and vandalism perpetuated on Toronto Jewish schools.
Or that protesters that have repeatedly taken over our streets are permitted to do so without a permit.
Let’s talk about the mass prayer sessions that have blocked traffic, the most recent being on busy Sept. 6 on College St.
The police have said that these prayer sessions are protected by the Charter of Rights.
What absolute nonsense.
These people were wilfully obstructing a busy street and the public’s right to use that street. I guarantee if all of them had been arrested, or their leaders were charged at least, it wouldn’t happen again.
They know they’re in charge.
Sandler also referred to the terrorist sympathizers who came into a Jewish neighbourhood in June and harassed innocent residents. A more recent example is the Jewish family harassed by masked thugs at the Toronto International Air Show over Labour Day weekend.
Only True North covered the incident. The lazy MSM was predictably silent.
”When we allow lawlessness on our streets, it just emboldens the next round,” said Sandler.
Coun. James Pasternak, who has fought an uphill battle against a council and mayor that has enabled anti-Semitism in Toronto, said quite bluntly that the mayor and council have to be “aligned” with the police.
In other words, they have to let the police know it is okay to arrest these people, which of course they have not done.
He said the Mayor Olivia Chow must realize this is not a Jewish issue.
”The optics of gangs marching on the streets doesn’t reflect well on Toronto,” he said.
The Hamas sympathizers also disrupted the opening night gala of the Toronto International Film Festival — with no consequences.
Pasternak suggested that if these rioters were charged under our current laws, they’d be bogged down in court and would have “less time to mobilize.”
He added that there has been a record level of shock in Toronto’s Jewish — and non-Jewish — community over the “silence” from the political class.
That’s not just Mayor Chow but Premier Doug Ford and of course, our Prime Minister, who has been intent on appeasing the terrorist sympathizers.
“People have become afraid to speak out for us (the Jewish community),” he said.
”Now in Toronto there is a fear of speaking out.”
Sandler told the crowd people in the non-Jewish community should be told their support is needed.
Alluding specifically to our negligently silent politicians, he said that this is not a question of “measuring votes.”
”This is a question of lawlessness which everyone abhors,” he said.
I thought of everything expressed at this forum as I watched the Hamasniks take over the downtown streets yet again over the past few days, praying and screaming as if they own the city.
With the anniversary of Oct. 7 a month away, it no longer makes me sad.
It makes me angry that our politicians and our police chief have no understanding of what it means to embolden this violence—and no guts to stop it.
Canadian students can expect to pay more for tuition and residence next year, with the average cost rising to just over $75,000 for a four-year degree, according to an educational think tank.
Canadian RESP company Embark said in its forecast report that costs will be up for a four-year university degree beginning in September and that parents of generation alpha children will have to begin preparing to pay six-figures for post-secondary education soon.
“Post-secondary education is one of the most substantial investments Canadians can make towards their future, but it can also lead to a distressing financial burden,” said Andrew Lo, CEO and President of Embark.
“Given that the cost of education has historically outpaced inflation, it is vital for parents and students to not underestimate the associated expenses, and proactively plan for savings at the earliest opportunity to avoid sticker shock when the time comes.”
The group estimates an average cost of $75,000 and projects that figure to increase by 39% over the next 18 years, climbing to $104,898 by 2041.
Students who attend schools in Ontario, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Saskatchewan are likely to hit this benchmark far sooner, potentially within the next 11 years.
“Canadians in these four provinces are also expected to pay the most, with those in Nova Scotia and Ontario having to pay an average of $88,490 and $86,106, respectively,” reads the report.
“This is more than $10,000 greater than the national average. On the other end, students in British Columbia ($68,495), Manitoba ($67,934) and Newfoundland ($54,366) are estimated to pay the least.”
When asked, however, 31% of Canadian parents told Embark that they would not be able to guess what post-secondary education currently costs.
Those who did guess were far below the reality, estimating a four-year program to cost “$62,067 when factoring in all expenses, which is below the estimated average cost for 2024 in nine of the ten provinces – and over $10,000 off from the national average,” said Embark.
The group also noted that many Canadian families are unaware of government grant money that is available to them under the Canada Education Savings Grant, which matches 20% of what you contribute to an RESP annually.
“In order to maximize education savings, it’s important to leave no stone unturned. We saw that less than half of parents know about the CESG, which means most Canadians are missing out on government money that they are entitled to,” said Lo.
Parks Canada spent over $10,000 culling an American bullfrog population, yet only caught one in the four years the program operated.
Through access to information documents acquired by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, the advocacy group found that thousands of taxpayer dollars were spent on an operation that killed only one frog at a national park in British Columbia over four years in its bid to eliminate an invasive species.
According to the documents, Parks Canada spent $10,009 at Gulf Islands National Park Reserve to euthanize the American bullfrog between 2018 and 2023, and only one frog was killed.
The park is a nature reserve “teeming with wildlife” located on the Gulf Islands in B.C.
The documents clarify that the goal of culling a species on the list is to manage the population of overabundant and often invasive species.
According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, the American bullfrog is native to Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia, but it was introduced to B.C. and is now considered an invasive species in the province.
From 2019-2020, $2000 was spent exterminating the amphibians without finding a frog.
During the pandemic from 2020 to 2021, Parks Canada took a break from hunting the invasive American bullfrog, opting not to spend any taxpayer dollars on the hunt.
As the documents obtained by the CTF show, in 2021-2022, Parks Canada resumed the frog hunt, spending $2,202.27, but the elusive leapers again escaped their grasp.
Finally, between 2022 and 2023, Parks Canada increased the funding towards its American Bullfrog Euthanization program to $3,882.04, and a single American Bullfrog was captured.
“Kids catch frogs for free, but Parks Canada managed to spend several years and thousands of tax dollars before it even managed to catch one frog,” the CTF’s B.C. director Carson Binda said in the report. “Did Parks Canada put Wile E. Coyote in charge of this operation?”
However, in 2023-2024, $5079.54 was spent, and the park was able to eliminate 100 American Bullfrogs from the island reserve.
According to the CTF the frogs killed by Parks Canada “come at a hit to taxpayers of $149 a head.”
“The frogs appear to be slipping through the fingers of Parks Canada bureaucrats just as fast as our hard-earned tax dollars are,” Binda said. “Parks Canada keeps proving it’s horrible at hunting, but great at wasting taxpayer money.”
Parks Canada did not reply to True North’s request to comment before the deadline provided.
Molson Coors and its Canadian operations have announced the termination of all diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
The brewing company stated that it is moving towards a “broader view” to foster a welcoming atmosphere for all employees that doesn’t include DEI training.
This change comes after the company says it completed DEI training programs and has decided to discontinue setting specific diversity hiring targets.
The move has been made amidst a growing wave of criticism in the United States against corporate support for LGBTQ+ and DEI efforts.
Molson Coors also revealed that it will no longer participate in the Human Rights Campaign’s workplace inclusivity ranking program, which had previously awarded the company a perfect score.
The Human Rights Campaign has not issued a formal response to this policy change.
Going forward, Molson Coors plans to rely on internal metrics and direct employee feedback to cultivate a positive work environment, stepping away from external validation systems.
The blowback against DEI initiatives continues to grow.
In the US, several post-secondary have decided to abandon similar programs in the wake of public opinion turning against such divisive measures like race-based hiring.
In April 2023, North Dakota became the first state to pass a law against DEI, prohibiting diversity statements and mandatory DEI training in educational institutions. Several states, such as Florida, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, and Utah, soon followed suit.
By June 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that affirmative action policies in colleges and universities violated the Constitution, drastically restricting the use of racial preferences in admissions.
Almost everyone has a story to tell about a home renovation project gone wrong. If Sir John A Macdonald was around today, he’d have a whopper.
Earlier this year the federal government re-opened Bellevue House – Macdonald’s one-time home in Kingston, Ontario – after a seven-year renovation. The purpose of the refurbishment, Parks Canada says, is to tell “broader and more inclusive stories about Canada’s first Prime Minister, Sir John A. Macdonald.” The real goal is to cancel Macdonald in his own home.
Macdonald and his wife Isabella lived at Bellevue House in 1848-1849 when he was a young elected official prior to Confederation. Unfortunately, it was not a happy time for the young family. The rent was beyond their modest means and their first son, John Jr., died there as an infant; the Macdonalds left Bellevue House shortly afterwards. The house was purchased by the federal government in 1964 and designated as a national historic site in 1995.
After many years of neglect and budget cuts, the site was closed to the public in 2017. This past May marked its official reopening. Like all renovations, there’s good news and bad news to be had.
First, the good news. Macdonald’s old digs look great. Compared to when I first visited in 1978, the new stucco, moulding, panelling, paint and roof work have Bellevue House literally gleaming. The gardens have been enlarged and are now well-suited to a leisurely ramble. The well-lit rooms are packed with decorative and practical articles from Macdonald’s era. And a team of eager young staff are keen to engage with visitors, but they’ll leave you alone if you prefer to wander at your own pace.
As for the bad news, Bellevue House has regrettably become one more battlefield in the Liberal government’s endless war on Canada’s past. It also reveals the apparent requirement under the Trudeau government’s reconciliation policy that Indigenous opinion be inserted into all possible government activities and institutions, regardless of relevance or factual accuracy. It makes for a rather odd visitor experience.
On the path leading to Bellevue House, for example, visitors are confronted with a variety of messages about Macdonald that range from the entirely factual – “We wouldn’t have Canada without him” – to the deliberately provocative – “He was a monster.” Without any context for this commentary, visitors, especially impressionable young schoolchildren, will quickly figure out which responses comprise the “official” view of the man.
As visitors make their way through the house, they will notice that nearly every room has some sort of Indigenous artifact on display, some easy to overlook, others not so much.
The nursery displays the Macdonald’s cradle, which evokes a somber mood given the tragic death of John Jr. But alongside this poignant reminder of personal heartbreak is a native cradleboard used by Indigenous mothers to carry their babies. And in the same room, former residential school students complain about their experiences on an endless video loop. The goal is to undercut any sympathy we might have for Macdonald in the very bedroom where his son died.
In other upstairs rooms, information panels variously describe Macdonald the man, the politician and nation builder. Whenever his achievements as a nation-builder or statesman are mentioned, however, they are always paired with some sort of attack on his policies, personal character or the era in which he lived. Again, the goal is to belittle Macdonald’s very real and significant feats. A handy glossary explains key terms visitor will repeatedly encounter, including colonialism, racism and genocide.
As Bellevue House’s Visitor Experience Manager Tamara van Dyk told the media “We can’t tell [visitors] how to feel about this history. But we can help them to understand this history…we share facts, non-biased facts.” This is a transparent cop-out. Parks Canada has deliberately constructed the displays to paint Macdonald in the most unfavourable light possible.
Despite all the attention paid to residential schools, there is no mention that during Macdonald’s time a majority of Indigenous students attended day schools, not residential schools. Or that most students dropped out after grade one. This is hardly consistent with claims of genocide, cultural or otherwise.
Also unmentioned is the very successful campaign Macdonald’s government ran to vaccinate every Indigenous Canadian against smallpox. If genocide was his goal, why go to such trouble to save so many Indigenous people from this terrible disease?
Similarly, despite the surfeit of Indigenous content, no mention is ever made of Macdonald’s friendships with many prominent aboriginal Canadians who supported him politically. This includes Oronhyatekha (also known as Burning Sky), who graduated from a residential school and attended the universities of Toronto and Oxford; he campaigned for Macdonald in the 1872 election.
Despite all the above complaints, however, the good news of the renovation outweighs the bad. Most of the irrelevant and randomly inserted Indigenous artifacts are easy to overlook. And those that aren’t are often so absurd that a visitor eventually tunes them out, the way our brains learn to ignore a bad smell. More importantly, the building is in great shape. That alone is reason to cheer.
In its current gussied-up state, Bellevue House will easily outlast our current Liberal government and its obsession with denigrating Canada’s past. That means there is every reason to expect it will be around to welcome future generations of Canadians who want to learn the real story about Macdonald’s true legacy as this country’s most important politician. The man and his house aren’t going anywhere.
Greg Piasetzki is an intellectual property lawyer with an interest in Canadian history. He lives in Toronto and is a citizen of the Métis Nation of Ontario. A longer version of this story originally appeared at C2CJournal.ca.
Today on the Alberta Roundup with Rachel Parker, Rachel explains the province’s decision to axe funding for Calgary’s LRT Green Line until an independent study is done. The province says costs for the project are ballooning out of control.
Also on the show, a killer bear has made an appearance after a three year hiatus. And finally, Rachel has an exciting update about her new show.
Tune into the Alberta Roundup now!
Calgary has outpaced all other North American cities in tech job growth over the past five years, according to a new report from CBRE, the world’s largest commercial real estate services and investment firm.
The study ranked the top 50 markets in the United States and Canada based on their competitive advantages and appeal to both employers and tech employees. Thirteen metrics were used to calculate the rankings. Each metric is weighted differently based on its importance to job creation and innovation.
“Tech talent concentration metrics have the highest weights because they signify clustering of tech workers,” reads the report. “Labour costs for tech talent are weighted more heavily than office rents because companies allocate more capital to labour than to real estate.”
Eight Canadian cities made the top 50 of the tech talent scorecard.
While employment in Toronto’s tech sector only grew by 44% in the last five years, notably less than Calgary, it took the highest rank out of Canadian cities, coming in fourth place. Flanking Toronto were Ottawa, Vancouver, Montreal, Waterloo, Calgary, Quebec City, and Edmonton, in 10th, 11th, 15th, 18th, 20th, 40th, and 49th place, respectively.
Out of all North American cities, San Francisco came in first place. The city saw an 18.6% growth in employment over the last five years but employed a total of 436,740 tech employees.
The Canadian city with the most tech employees was Toronto, with a total of 314,100 working in the sector in 2023.
CBRE Canada Chairman Paul Morassutti said that Canadian cities have a high concentration of young people, ensuring that the future of technology-driven growth will remain strong.
“The tech sector has come off the boil but remains a key driver of our economy and office demand. Four Canadian cities produced the highest percentage increase of tech talent jobs, which points to the underlying strength of the tech sector in Canada,” said Morassutti.
While Calgary topped Canadian cities with job growth of 78.1% over the last five years in the sector, Ottawa came in second place at 51.7%. Waterloo came in third place with a 45.5% employment growth. However, all three cities ranked lower than Toronto overall, which saw an increase of 44%.
Vancouver, Montreal, Edmonton, and Quebec City saw growth of 30.7%, 30.3%, 24.2%, and 13.9%, respectively.
Ottawa and Calgary’s overall ranking increased from last year. Every other Canadian city fell in the rankings.
While these cities saw growth, 30% of North America’s top 50 tech cities, 15 of 50, lost jobs in the tech sector.
The report also calculated the number of degree completions in each area. Edmonton saw the most significant growth in degrees issued for Canadian cities, rising 67.2% over the last five years. The Canadian city with the lowest growth was Quebec City, which grew a mere 5.3%.
Tech workers accounted for 1.1 million of Canada’s employees in 2023, according to the report. Job growth in the sector grew 30.2%, compared to a 7.5% growth in overall employment since 2019.
The most recent data used in the study were from Apr. 2024, the same month that the Liberal released its 2024 federal budget.
The tech sector warned that a capital gains tax hike would cause “irreparable harm” to the Canadian innovation economy, causing Canadian entrepreneurs and tech workers to leave Canada for a more competitive environment with less tax, like the United States.
Near the end of Apr., over 1000 Canadian CEOs and tech leaders signed an open letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, urging them to reconsider the proposed capital gains tax increase.
The signatories on the letter have since grown to over 4,000, with over 650 tech executives from Toronto alone.
A list of Nazi war criminals who fled to Canada after the Second World War is facing increasing pressure to be kept from the public, as some bureaucrats feel it would be embarrassing for the country, despite the list including around 900 names.
Ottawa-based Library and Archives Canada held consultations with unnamed members of Canada’s Ukrainian community and a “discrete group of individuals or organizations” regarding whether the names should be made public, according to documents obtained by the Ottawa Citizen.
Some of those present in the consultation claimed that releasing the information would be embarrassing and could lead to the alleged war criminals being prosecuted.
“A few stakeholders were concerned that the release of the report would result in new legal action (criminal prosecution, citizen revocation, or otherwise) being brought against the individuals named in the report,” read the documents.
However, among those who weren’t consulted were Holocaust survivors and scholars, the ones who had initially advocated for a full release of the list of alleged Nazi war criminals.
Canada’s oldest Human Rights organization B’nai Brith took issue with LAC’s decision to withhold such information, seeing it as further “sheltering suspected Nazi war criminals from prosecution.”
“B’nai Brith has and will continue to advocate for all the available information related to allegations of Nazi war criminals entering Canada to be released to the public,” Richard Robertson, director of research and advocacy for B’nai Brith told True North.
“Canadian Jewry have a right to know how their own government was complicit in the sheltering of suspected Nazi war criminals from potential prosecution. The concerns raised during the LAC’s consultations do not mitigate the need for a full and expedient disclosure.”
According to the documents obtained, the stakeholders advised LAC not to release the list, fearing it would embarrass Canada’s Ukrainian community as large cohorts of Ukrainian Waffen SS soldiers fled to Canada following the Second World War.
Additionally. stakeholders cited worries that such information could be repurposed for Russian propaganda.
LAC had initially hoped to release the information to the public later this month, however, what now will be available to the public currently remains unknown.
The list was part of the war crimes commission led by Justice Jules Deshcenes in 1986 and the names were compiled via RCMP records and other documents.
Richard Povencher, an LAC spokesperson said that multiple requests were filed through the Access to Information law for a full release of the lists, which prompted the organization to hold “targeted consultations with external stakeholders.”
“As of today, LAC is still refining and concluding its analysis to respond to the ATI requests received,” Provencher told the Ottawa Citizen.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller acknowledged that the country “has a really dark history with Nazis in Canada” last September following a standing ovation received by former Waffen SS soldier Yaroslav Hunka in the House of Commons.
“There was a point in our history where it was easier to get in as a Nazi than it was as a Jewish person,” said Miler. “I think that’s a history we have to reconcile.”
In the wake of Hunka’s Parliamentary invitation, several Holocaust survivors wrote to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau expressing their disgust with the decision and questioning why they would choose to honour a soldier who had sworn allegiance to the Nazi regime.
Trudeau laid the blame for the incident on former-Speaker of the House Anthony Rota, who resigned as a result. However, it was later revealed that Trudeau’s office invited Hunka to “a special event” at Fort York Armoury in Toronto later that evening on Sept. 22.
The invitation was “sent to Mr. Hunka four days before the reception from the Office of Protocol of Canada.”
“The continued withholding of information related to Canada’s Nazi past only serves to further the impact of the Holocaust on survivors living in Canada. The release of the records will provide further closure to Canada’s Jewish community in regard to a sordid period in this nation’s history,” said Robertson.
“It will also serve as an opportunity, in the midst of a horrid rise in antisemitism, for the enhancement of Holocaust education in Canada.
The Ukrainian Canadian Congress said it plans to challenge the list’s release in court on Friday, seeking to raise $150,000 to stop the federal government from doing so.
“It is appalling that the Canadian government could attempt for no good reason to subject innocent Canadians, their family members and descendants to public scorn,” wrote CEO and executive director of the UCC Ihor Michalchyshyn in a fundraising release.
