True North

Premier François Legault announced on Wednesday he has information leading him to believe there are dangerous firearms present at the illegal Mohawk Kahnawake blockade. 

“We have information that confirms there are weapons, AK-47s to name them,” said Legault. 

“The SQ [Sûreté du Québec] is working on a plan to dismantle the blockade. They are speaking to the Peacekeepers. But there are people who are armed. It’s very delicate.”

Protesters continue to occupy the rail site even after a court-ordered injunction was issued to dismantle the barricade.

Legault claimed that provincial police have yet to take action in dispersing the illegal blockade due to the threat posed by the weapons. However, local First Nations authorities form the Kahnawake Longhouse strongly denied the claims, calling them “dangerous.” 

“The Longhouse is extremely concerned by the dangerous and inflammatory comments made by Quebec Premier François Legault who stated that he has information that the Kahnawake land defenders are armed with AK-47s,” said a statement by the Mohawk protester spokesperson Kenneth Deer.

“These accusations are absolutely and totally false. The land defenders at the site are unarmed and peaceful. There are no firearms.”

Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller joined in on the voices condemning Legault’s comments, suggesting that he be more “judicious” regarding the volatile situation. 

“In Kahnawake, I haven’t heard a word on any weapons and my understanding from any leadership inside the community is there are no weapons. I have no reason not to believe them,” Miller told the Montreal Gazette. 

Legault’s claims came on the same day videos emerged of protesters attempting to derail a train in Belleville, Ontario by lighting tire fires under passing rail cars.

As exclusively reported on by True North, far-left extremists have been providing instructions for activists involved in the anti-pipeline protests to derail and disrupt national rail infrastructure.

The websites provided detailed information on how to create the highly flammable chemical thermite and methods to destroy traffic signal boxes.    

On Monday, Ontario Provincial Police arrested 10 people after dismantling a prior camp in Belleville in relation to the protests. 

Two more contenders have officially entered the race to become the next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. 

Anti-carbon tax activist Jim Karahalios and first-term Conservative MP Derek Sloan announced to their supporters this week that they had both met the conditions set by the Conservative party’s leadership election committee.

Both are running on the basis that the CPC needs a true conservative leader moving forward.

The filing deadline for candidates is Feb. 27, by which point leadership hopefuls must pay a $25,000 entry fee and submit 1,000 signatures from members.

Former attorney general Peter MacKay and former veterans affairs minister Erin O’Toole are authorized contestants, meaning they’ve each submitted $150,000 out of the overall $300,000 required to run, plus 2,000 of the overall 3,000 member signatures needed.

Sloan and Karahalios join Sarnia–Lambton MP Marilyn Gladu and Toronto lawyer Leslyn Lewis as approved applicants.

Sloan is the Conservative MP for Hastings–Lennox and Addington in eastern Ontario. He was first elected to the House of Commons in 2019. 

Prior to being elected, Sloan was a practising lawyer. He was involved in the Trinity Western University case before the Supreme Court of Canada in 2015. 

Despite his social conservative bona fides, Sloan says his campaign is about the full spectrum of conservative values.

“Derek is standing for the leadership because our country is under siege by a tide of political correctness that seeks to destroy Canada, and he knows that the quickest way to lose such a war is to pretend you’re not in one,” claims Sloan’s website. 

Karahalios, whose wife is a PC MPP in the Ontario legislature, rose to prominence campaigning against a carbon tax in Ontario, which was previously part of the Progressive Conservative party’s platform.

He is the founder of Axe the Carbon Tax which strives to end federal and provincial carbon pricing schemes across Canada. Karahalios was also the head of the Take Back our PC Party campaign to restore accountability in the Ontario PC party.

For a full list of who’s in and who’s out of the Conservative leadership race, visit True North’s tracking page. 

Professor and former soccer player Irvin Studin is seeking the leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada.

Studin announced his campaign with little fanfare on Twitter Wednesday morning.

While his Twitter account has only a handful of followers, a source confirmed the account and campaign are legitimate.

“I’m a proud Canadian, Rhodes Scholar, leading policy thinker and strategist, and former All-Canadian and professional soccer player,” Studin said. “Ours is a very last minute entry into the federal Conservative race. We are motivated strictly by the growing crises enveloping our country and the patent lack of national leadership, vision and direction.”

Studin is collecting signatures of Conservative Party of Canada members in hopes of meeting the first submission deadline of Feb. 27, by which candidates must submit 1,000 signatures and $25,000.

In the 1990s, Studin played soccer with the USL A-League and the Canadian Professional Soccer League.

He’s currently a senior fellow at the University of Toronto’s Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, as well as president of the Institute for 21st Century Questions.

Air Canada will cancel all flights from Canada to Mainland China until April as the number of cases of coronavirus continues to rise.

On Tuesday, Air Canada announced that its flights to Beijing and Shanghai — which were suspended throughout February — will remain unavailable until April 10.

“Air Canada will continue to monitor this evolving situation closely in consultation with the Public Health Agency of Canada, Transport Canada and Global Affairs and will adjust its schedule as appropriate,” Air Canada said in a statement.

Air Canada also announced it will be suspending its daily Toronto-Hong Kong flights until April 30. Flights will still be available from Hong Kong to Vancouver.

The move comes at a time when health officials have increased preventative measures as novel coronavirus continues to spread around the world.

Currently, there are over 79,000 cases of coronavirus confirmed globally, most of which are in China.

Health Canada officials are warning that the government cannot stop the spread of the virus into Canada if the virus becomes a global pandemic.

On Monday, Canadian Chief Public Health Officer Dr. Theresa Tam said that stopping coronavirus from entering Canada is becoming unlikely.

“These signs are concerning, and they mean that the window of opportunity for containment, that is for stopping the global spread of the virus, is closing,” she said.

Canada currently has 11 cases of coronavirus, seven in British Columbia and four in Ontario.

Canada’s most recent confirmed case of coronavirus was a young woman who recently arrived in Toronto from China.

On Tuesday Foreign Affairs Minister François-Philippe Champagne told Canadians to watch for travel advisories before making international trips.

“Make sure you check before you go. That’s the best advice I can give,” he said.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has proposed a new bill that would prevent protesters from blockading critical infrastructure.

On Tuesday, Kenney stated that the new bill, titled the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act, will impose “stiff penalties for anyone who riots on or seeks to impair critical economic infrastructure.”

“This decision was taken in large part because of regulatory uncertainty and endless delays created by the national government, as well as the general atmosphere of lawlessness that we have seen take hold of parts of our country and much of our economic infrastructure in the past three weeks,” said Kenney.

The Alberta government tabled the Critical Infrastructure Defence Act, also known as Bill 1, today after the throne speech.

The bill was created as a response to the nationwide protests in support of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs who are opposed to the construction of an LNG pipeline in northern BC. The protests have halted rail transportation in much of Canada.

Kenney called the individuals taking part in the protests and blockades “urban green left zealots” who are condemning indigenous Canadians to poverty.

Over the weekend, Teck Resources Ltd. withdrew its application to build a $20.6 billion oil sands mine north of Fort McMurray, citing a lack of a strong regulatory framework and investor uncertainty. 

Kenney blamed Teck’s decision on the “appearance of anarchy” caused by rail protests.

The Teck Frontier mine would have employed 7,000 workers during construction and up to 2,500 workers during its 40-year lifespan. The project had the support of local First Nations and Métis communities.

One teaching assistant from McMaster University plans on giving her students university credits for attending an illegal highway blockade in Hamilton. 

According to CBC News, McMaster sociology masters student Sonia Hill intended on requiring students from her class to check in with her while she joins other protesters in blockading Highway 6. 

“I’m coming back tomorrow… I’m going to bring my students, make it a part of their credit, their attendance [to] check in with me at the blockade,” said Hill. 

The illegal blockades in the area have already been served with court injunctions, and police have called for protesters to leave the sites peacefully. 

“Anyone who is down there is in violation of the court injunction. Hopefully, people will leave the area peacefully,” said Hamilton police Constable Jerome Stewart. 

True North reached out to Sonia Hill for comment but had not heard back from her by the time of this article’s publication. 

“McMaster students and faculty are able to decide whether they want to participate in any activity, but no grades can be conditional on whether or not students participate in a particular protest,” said McMaster in a statement on the article. 

Several protesters have already been arrested as police have moved to enforce various court injunctions against the illegal blockades throughout Canada. 

The police action came shortly after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said that the “blockades must come down” during a press conference last week. 

Several other blockades have recently sprung up in other areas including Hamilton.

Transportation Minister Marc Garneau confirmed earlier this month that protesters have been tampering with railways shortly after True North reported on several far-left websites instructing activists to sabotage critical infrastructure. 

One post from Feb. 10 from the website North Shore details criminal sabotage to a CN Rail in Hamilton.

“Overnight, we burned a small road crossing signal box on the CN line. It’s [sic] default is to activate the road crossings if tripped, so no people were in danger,” reads the article.