A former ambassador appointed by the Jean Chrétien government spoke highly of the merciless communist dictator Mao Zedong before the House of Commons Special Committee on Canada-China Relations.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, Howard Balloch praised Mao for achieving “great things” during his decades-long authoritarian reign.
“What is interesting about China is it’s changing. One of the great things Mao Zedong did – and there were many more things that he did bad – but he turned more or less a completely illiterate society into a literate society, and we see the benefits of that today when we see Chinese students in all our universities and all over the world,” said Balloch.
Estimates claim that under Mao’s leadership and his Great Leap Forward social program, at least 45 million people died from torture, famine and political executions.
Balloch was appearing before the Canada-China relations committee, which has been tasked with investigating the state of Canada’s diplomatic relations with China.
Balloch’s comments reflect past Liberal admiration for the communist Peoples’ Republic of China. Even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau himself has admitted that he admires China’s government.
“There’s a level of admiration I actually have for China. Their basic dictatorship is actually allowing them to turn their economy around on a dime,” said Trudeau in 2013, when asked which country he admires the most.
Relations between the two countries have reached an all-time low under the Trudeau government.
After Canadian authorities apprehended Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou in 2018 upon the request of the US, China retaliated by unlawfully detaining two Canadian citizens.
Both Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor have been held in Chinese prisons for over a year now.
Global oil prices plummet, kicking Alberta while it’s down.
Everyone is worried about Coronavirus, so the Trudeau Liberals throw a billion dollars at the problem.
Italy struggles to deal with this pandemic.
And the woke left uses Coronavirus as an excuse to push their annoying ideology.
Tune in to the latest episode of The Candice Malcolm Show!
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A BC father could be thrown in jail for refusing to be silent about his child’s chemically induced gender transition.
The BC Supreme Court has called on the province’s Attorney General David Eby to decide whether the father and former PPC candidate Laura-Lynn Tyler Thompson will face contempt of court charges after Thompson published a video interview discussing the details of the case.
The father, referred to only as C.D. in court documents, has been trying to intervene in his child’s female-to-male transition for over a year now. The hormone treatment could have permanent side effects on the child’s physiology, including permanent infertility, voice changes and facial hair growth.
“You must not do that, sir, you are in breach of the court order,” said BC Supreme Court Justice Michael Tammen referring to his breaking of the publican ban.
“I mean, the reason I do it [broke the ban], or did it, is because I am taking the best interests of my child at heart,” said the father.
True North was able to confirm with the BC Prosecution Service that they are investigating whether or not to pursue criminal contempt proceedings against the father.
“The BC Prosecution Service (BCPS), on behalf of the Attorney General, will now undertake a detailed review the matter to determine whether criminal contempt proceedings are appropriate under BCPS policy,” said BCPS Communications Counsel Dan McLaughlin.
According to McLaughlin, Crown Counsel will be applying a two-part test to determine whether to follow through on the charges. Both “whether there is a substantial likelihood of conviction” and “whether the public interest requires a prosecution” will be taken into account before moving forward.
Lawyers representing his child, his ex-wife, and the doctors involved in the case claim that C.D. and Thompson broke the court-ordered publication ban by discussing the case’s details.
According to a prior decision, the child was determined to be capable of deciding for themselves whether or not to carry on with the testosterone injections and did not require the approval of the father.
Despite the publication ban and a prior order to not give any further interviews, the father has continued speaking out to both Canadian and American outlets naming the doctors involved and referring to his child as his daughter.
Thompson’s interview with C.D. has since been taken down at the court’s request.
C.D. is prohibited from speaking about his own child’s “sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, mental or physical health, medical status or therapies.”
The law also requires C.D. to refer to his child by a male name and use male pronouns both in public and in private or potentially be charged with “family violence.”
If found guilty of contempt of court, both C.D. and Thompson could face a prison term of 30 to 45 days, depending on the plea.
The wife of jailed Saudi political activist and blogger Raif Badawi says her husband had been transferred to a hospital due to his deteriorating health.
Ensaf Haidar shared the news on Twitter Wednesday morning, expressing her concern for his well-being.
“I received the news that my husband Raif Badawi had been transferred to [the] hospital again. His health has deteriorated very badly and we have not heard from him for three months. The children and I are so worried about him,” wrote Haidar in a tweet.
I received the news that my husband Raif Badawi had been transferred to hospital again. His health has deteriorated very badly and we have not heard from him for three months. The children and I are so worried about him. pic.twitter.com/qOoKaZYjDV
In February, Haidar spoke out about not having heard from her husband for a month’s time. At the time, Haidar said she had her last update had been Jan. 14. the last time she had heard of Badawi’s wellbeing was on Jan. 14.
Despite attempts to contact the jail, Haidar was unable to reach Badawi.
“All my attempts to contact the prison authorities have failed. They are stalling. This silence is very worrying as he used to call me & my children on a regular basis,” tweeted Haidar.
Badawi was convicted by Saudi authorities in 2013 for being critical of the country’s religious leadership. He was sentenced to serve a prison term of 10 years and receive 1,000 lashes for his purported crimes.
Badawi was first flogged by the Saudi regime in 2015.
Saudi Arabia has been a frequent violator of human rights due to its brutal monarchical regime, currently under the leadership of Crown Prince Mohammad Bin Salman Al Saud.
The regime is known to partake in medieval-style punishments such as public floggings and mass beheadings. According to Human Rights Watch, Saudi Arabia mass executed 37 people after unfair trials on April 23, 2019.
In 2018, relations between Canada and the Saudi’s soured after former foreign affairs minister Chrystia Freeland demanded the release of Badawi and his sister Samar Badawi.
The Saudi’s responded by freezing trade with Canada and expelling the Canadian ambassador in the region.
In July 2019, US Vice President Mike Pence also urged Saudi Arabia to set Badawi free during a conference in Washington.
“All four of these men have stood in defence of religious liberty and the exercise of their faith despite unimaginable pressure, and the American people stand with them,” said Pence of Badawi and other dissidents who have been imprisoned by their respective governments.
“Today, the United States of America calls upon the government of Eritrea, Mauritania, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to respect the rights of conscience of these men and let these men go.”
The federal government is spending more than $1 billion to combat the impacts of the outbreak of COVID-19 in Canada.
At a press conference on Wednesday morning, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced a “COVID-19 response fund” to help contain the virus and mitigate the effects it will have on the economy.
“Canada has been fortunate so far, we have not seen a drastic spike in the number of cases reported, but I know that people across the country are worried,” he said.
“We have a responsibility to make sure Canada is ready for all scenarios, and we take that responsibility extremely seriously.”
As of Wednesday, there have been 93 cases in Canada with one confirmed death as a result of COVID-19.
Allocation of the new funds include:
Support for provinces and territories: $500 million
Investing in research: $275 million
Immediate and additional public health response, including funding for Indigenous Services Canada: $150 million
Sustained communications and public education: $50 million
Personal protective equipment: $50 million
International assistance: $50 million
Repatriation of Canadians: $7 million
Employment Insurance sickness benefits: $5 million
Initial support to the World Health Organization: $2 million
Last week the government announced $27 million on researching COVID-19, including $2.6 million on research on how to combat discrimination, racism and social media misinformation.
Trudeau said that his government is willing to do more to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 on businesses if necessary, adding that his government will make credit available to businesses that need it.
“Should businesses face a cash crunch in the short term they can easily access credit to bridge to better times. We will work with our financing crown corporations through the business credit availability program to project jobs and to be there for businesses,” he said.
Despite a shaky economy and a massive deficit, Trudeau claimed that the Canadian economy is in good shape, and says that Canada will be able to handle the difficulties posed by COVID-19.
“With a strong balance sheet and a resilient economy, Canada is well-positioned to deal with these challenges.”
This includes $50 million to other countries to deal with COVID-19. From a government that insists we don’t need to worry about people from other countries bringing coronavirus into Canada. https://t.co/I4lF9X9a6x
Earlier this week, Conservative leadership candidate Peter MacKay announced a campaign promise to, if elected, lift the cap on RRSP withdrawals for first-time homebuyers, allowing Canadians to access their savings more easily for a mortgage down payment. However, this pledge neglected to address a core problem of home ownership in this country: rising house costs.
If Conservatives want to get serious about addressing affordability issues in the Canadian real estate market, they should address an often ignored problem which is pricing families out of the market: foreign home-buyers.
Over the last decade, Canadian house prices in urban centres have seen significant increases. as foreign investment, mostly from countries like China, has flown into Canada. For example, since 2009, residential property sale costs have increased by 106% in Vancouver and 108% in Toronto. Meanwhile, over $2.46 billion have been invested in Canadian real estate from 2003-2018 from the Asia-Pacific region alone. This comes at the same time that land constraints in these urban centres, combined with a growing population, has already placed additional pressure on the Canadian real estate market, further causing price increases.
The predominant problem with this form of foreign investment is it risks leaving properties vacant at a time when Canadians need access to affordable housing, reducing needed-housing to speculative investments.
One study from the University of Calgary has indicated that foreign investors are more likely to engage in purchasing residential property for future resale purposes – sometimes leaving the properties vacant as they wait to resell – reducing the number of properties available in these markets. This reduces the supply, drives up costs, and thereby contributes to deteriorating affordability.
Foreign investment in real estate is not a problem that is going unnoticed, either domestically or abroad. Financial industry leaders, including the Chief Executive Officer of the Royal Bank of Canada, has recently called on the federal government to monitor and regulate foreign direct investment into the domestic real estate market. Then-BC Premier Christy Clark began to introduce reforms on the issue in 2016, including enabling the City of Vancouver to charge an additional tax on foreign-owned vacant properties sold in Vancouver. Even Justin Trudeau alluded to the possibility of introducing a tax on the federal level during the last election, though – as to be expected – there has been little movement on that since.
Internationally, other countries have already taken steps to restrict foreign investment in their residential real estate market. For example, Australia has permitted foreign investors and temporary residents to only purchase new residential property or vacant residential land; the latter which can encourage the construction of new properties and therefore increase the housing stock. In the United Kingdom, while campaigning for re-election, Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Conservatives pledged to require foreign-buyers to pay an additional tax on home purchasers than domestic buyers, which is projected to raise £120m in revenues which is intended to be redistributed to address problems of affordability in the country. And, ironically enough, China – where a majority of our foreign housing investment comes from – restricts foreigners from purchasing more than one home or residential unit on their mainland.
Conservatives may be concerned about some political repercussions of addressing this issue, as many existing home-owners likely enjoy the value of their property increasing due to the investment from foreign nationals.
But if Conservatives are serious about making housing affordability more accessible in this country – which they should be – then it’s time to tackle foreign-owners, whether through a more punitive tax treatment, or even restricting them from buying existing properties to begin with.
The federal government has been letting the CBC off the hook with their employee pension solvency payments.
The most recent waiver for the payments was signed off by former Minister of Canadian Heritage Pablo Rodriguez on August 21, 2019.
A staff memorandum to Rodriguez recommended he confirm he has “no objection to the corporation reducing its solvency payment.”
A solvency deficit for the CBC pension plan means it would not be able to pay all of its promised benefits to its employees if it was accessed all at once.
However, according to Blacklock’s Reporter, Canada’s broadcaster has failed to make the minimum payments outlined in the Pension Benefits Standards Act since 2012.
According to CBC Pension Board CEO Duncan Burrill, the plan has been paying out more than it was taking in as contributions.
In the corporation’s 2019 Annual Report, the CBC listed a whopping pension deficit of $123.6 million.
This revelation is the latest in a series of red flags surrounding the state broadcaster’s financial wellbeing.
The CBC’s 2019 report also revealed just how far viewership and ad revenue have fallen over the past few years.
Since 2018, their English television ad revenue fell by 37%, while its share of the market fell to 5%. Only 0.8% of Canada’s population tunes in to watch the CBC’s evening news broadcasts.
Despite the crown corporation’s poor performance, the Trudeau government has pledged to reward them with further funding on top of the $1.2 billion in taxpayer funding it receives already.
Liberal Heritage and Multiculturalism Minister Steven Guilbeault announced late last year that CBC News would be eligible for even further funding for its local news programs.
An Italian doctor took to social media to warn the world about the COVID-19 “tsunami” that has hit the healthcare system of affected regions in the country.
In his lengthy and tragic account of treating an influx of coronavirus patients, Dr. Daniel Macchini describes the rapid spread of the virus and the hospital’s inability to properly treat new cases.
“The war has literally exploded and battles are uninterrupted day and night. But now that need for beds has arrived in all its drama. One after the other the departments that had been emptied fill up at an impressive pace.” writes Macchini in Italian.
“Now, explain to me which flu virus causes such a rapid drama. … And while there are still people who boast of not being afraid by ignoring directions, protesting because their normal routine is ‘temporarily’ put in crisis, the epidemiological disaster is taking place.”
The Italian government recently announced a national lockdown that went into effect on Tuesday to prevent the further spread of the virus.
According to numbers coming out of Italy, around 10% of people who tested positive for the disease are admitted to intensive care units.
According to the World Health Organization, the coronavirus death rate has risen to 3.4% which is much higher than the earlier 2% figure.
This week, Canada reported its first COVID-19 death in British Columbia as cases are slowly on the rise.
New research coming out of the University of Toronto’s Dalla Lana School Of Public Health indicates that anywhere from 35-70% of Canadians could become infected by the virus if it continues to spread.
While Canada’s Public Health Agency is still reporting the risk of coronavirus as “low” several provinces have already reported a “deficit” of medical supplies.
“Doctors who move beds and transfer patients, who administer therapies instead of nurses. Nurses with tears in their eyes because we can’t save everyone, and the vital parameters of several patients at the same time reveal an already marked destiny,” claims Macchini.
“I finish by saying that I really don’t understand this war on panic. The only reason I see is mask shortages, but there’s no mask on sale anymore. We don’t have a lot of studies, but is it panic really worse than neglect and carelessness during an epidemic of this sort?”
A new party billing itself as “further left than the NDP, greener than the Greens” has appeared in British Columbia, promising radical socialist reforms if elected.
The BC Ecosocialists are led by Canadian musician Geoff Berner and are a registered political party with Elections BC.
The party already has a platform that ranges from sensible propositions like protecting endangered species to radical policies like seizing wealth from the rich, removing “pro-capitalist/pro-liberal” teachings from schools and a major land redistribution program that would transfer some private ownership to Indigenous groups.
“We have the resources to house everyone. We can feed everyone, without subjecting them to the humiliation of food banks. We can afford to provide childcare to everyone who needs it,” claims the party’s website.
While the party’s policy might sound fringe to the ordinary Canadian, many of the party’s board members are established activists and long-time NDP and Green Party supporters.
Among the party’s board members is seven-term Duncan city councillor Sharon Jackson who ran a failed mayoral bid in 2018.
In the Public Debt and Finance portion of its platform, the party raves against “the forces of international finance” and condemns the “hostile or parasitic forces” present in financial entities like the World Bank.
Part of its policy includes a plan to “abolish billionaires” and raise a 50% “capital tax” for those earning $10 million or more.
“[We would] abolish billionaires on the first day of our mandate by seizing all wealth exceeding $999,999,999.99 from any person living or doing business in our province,” claims the party’s platform.
With regards to education, if elected the Ecosocialists plan to revamp British Columbia’s education system by removing “pro-capitalist, pro-liberal” curricula from the elementary schools.
“We recognize that school curricula are political and we, as a government, will intervene to remove pro-capitalist, pro-liberal, pro-colonialism and pro-patriarchy elements from our curricula beginning at the elementary school level,” says the education policy.
Their education policy also includes phasing out tuition for postsecondary school and creating a public pre-school system.
According to the BC Ecosocialists, they also intend on “socializing” the province’s transportation system and reach a state of “zero-emissions.”
If elected the BC Ecosocialists also plan a hefty land redistribution program that would see land owned by private companies transferred to indigenous reserves and businesses.
“[Implement] a BC Land Reform program operating on a parallel track with judicial land claims processes whereby public land previously alienated to private companies is transferred to reserve governments or indigenous cooperative businesses based on a need-based rather than compensation-based case for using rural land,” writes the BC Ecosocialists.
The party’s policy also proposes a new “Ministry of Equity for Racialized Peoples” while planning to completely eliminate the notion of race from society. While on the front of gender equality, the Ecosocialists intend on making contraceptives and menstrual products free for secondary school students among many other changes.
In terms of political activity, the BC Ecosocialists have spent their time fundraising and hosting events to those interested throughout the province. The party’s first launch party took place on Wednesday, March 4th at the Intrepid Theatre in Victoria.
The party has until BC’s next provincial election on October 16, 2021 to build support.
The Royal Canadian Navy thinks “seaman” is uninclusive and makes the navy an unsafe place to work. Iran’s lies about coronavirus and COVID-19 are putting Canadians at risk not to mention people around the world.
True North’s Andrew Lawton talks about these stories, and also interviews Christy Evon, the co-founder of Health Vantis, a company that connects waitlist-plagued Canadians with healthcare in the United States.
