Just over one-quarter of Canadians favour Justin Trudeau’s performance.

The Nanos Research Mood of Canada poll, conducted alongside the Institute for Research on Public Policy, found only 27% of Canadians view the government as “good” or “somewhat good.”

Compared to prior iterations of the poll, dissatisfaction with the Liberal government is growing among the population at large. 

Previously, 44% of those surveyed had said Trudeau’s performance was very good or somewhat good. 

When Trudeau was first elected, 60% of people polled expressed satisfaction with Trudeau’s performance. 

In comparison, American President Donald Trump has seen a record-high approval rating according to the latest Gallup poll.

The poll found that 49% of Americans approved of Trump’s performance as president and half of all registered voters think he should be re-elected for a second term. 

Prior to 2019, election approval for Trudeau dropped to a new low with a majority of Canadians disapproving of his performance. 

Also according to Gallup, 52% of Canadians disapproved of Trudeau’s performance on the job and only 46% thought he was performing well. 

The Ottawa headquarters of the Department of National Defence is in poor condition despite $537 million being spent on upgrades.

The Treasury Board Secretariat’s real estate directory describes nearly all buildings in the National Defence Headquarters (NDHQ) Carling Campus as being in poor condition.

“Some or all asset systems are compromised or show serious signs of deterioration,” the  Treasury Board Secretariat said of the buildings.

“Risk of some systems failure is likely, with high O&M costs and unplanned maintenance and repairs.”

NDHQ Carling Campus is a complex of eleven buildings in Ottawa. Starting in 2017, the various offices of the Department of National Defense started relocating to the campus. 

When completed, 9,300 employees will work at the site.

After buying the campus from Nortel in 2009 for $208 million, the federal government announced it would spend $506 million over six years to renovate the buildings.

To date, the government has spent $537 million on improvements to the buildings, but the Treasury Board Secretariat still describes most of the campus as being subpar.  

According to the Ottawa Citizen, the federal government would not say why the buildings have been put on the “poor” list. A spokesman for Public Services and Procurement Canada denied there were any issues with the campus’ buildings.

“The Carling Campus buildings are in excellent condition and safe for employees and building occupants,” spokesman Marc-Andre Charbonneau said. 

“Carling Campus is not currently on PSPC’s list of assets in critical condition. We will work with TBS (Treasury Board Secretariat) to ensure that this is reflected in the Directory of Federal Real Property list.”

Since opening, NDHQ Carling Campus has been plagued by logistical issues including a massive shortage of parking spaces and extremely poor cell phone coverage.

Saskatchewan residents can expect to pay more in carbon tax than were previously told, according to the latest estimates. 

The Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) recently reported that households in the province will pay an average of $475 in the 2019-2020 year, and an additional $1,070 a year when the carbon tax reaches its eventual $50 a tonne target by 2022-2023. 

The latest numbers exceed the PBO’s prior estimates. Last April, Saskatchewan residents were told they would pay $425 in 2019-2020 and $932 per year in 2022-2023. 

Saskatchewan families on average face the highest carbon tax in Canada – twice as much as families in New Brunswick are expected to pay. 

According to the Agricultural Producers Association of Saskatchewan (APAS), farmers will be the hardest hit when it comes to losses. Farmers in the province are expected to lose thousands of dollars each year due to the carbon tax. 

A farmer with a 5,000 acre farm will pay up to 8% of their net income by 2020 and another 12% by 2022. 

As exclusively reported on by True North, a Canadian grain retailer from Saskatchewan was recently charged over $10,000 in carbon taxes on a 2019 energy bill.

The unidentified grain trading company was charged $10,267.71 on a $46,382.23 energy bill. 

A carbon tax was federally imposed on the province in 2019 after the provincial government refused to legislate its own carbon pricing scheme. 

In December, the Trudeau government announced it would be reducing the tax rebate Saskatchewan families could claim. 

In March of this year, the Supreme Court of Canada will be hearing Saskatchewan’s and Ontario’s court challenges of the federally imposed carbon tax. 

Lawyers for both provinces are arguing that the forced tax is unconstitutional and reaches beyond the federal government’s authority. 

Federal and provincial Liberal governments have been handing Huawei millions in taxpayer dollars since 2010.

According to a report by the National Post, both the federal government and the Ontario government have given major handouts to the Chinese company.

In 2016, former Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne gave Huawei a $16 million handout to conduct “5G research” in the province. In 2010, the company received $6.5 million from Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government in what was described as a strategic partnership. 

No further commitments have been made since Wynne’s 2016 commitment according to a spokesperson for Ontario’s Economic Development Ministry. 

The company has also benefited from numerous federal NSERC research grants involving partnerships between Huawei and academic researchers. 

From 2016 to 2020 the government handed out $6.9 million to researchers and universities working to develop Huawei technology. A total of 43 grants were handed out during this period, and 23 of them involved research on 5G technology. 

The Liberal government is expected to make a decision on whether it will allow Huawei to partake in Canada’s 5G network soon.

The company has admitted to pursuing a “diplomatically forceful” lobbying plan targeting specific federal ministers and MPs. 

Among the Liberals named as potential lobbying targets by the company include Minister of Finance Bill Morneau, Minister of Foreign Affairs François-Philippe Champagne, and the President of the Privy Council Dominic LeBlanc.

As reported on by True North, Huawei most recently lobbied a cabinet official from the Privy Council Office and two MPs, Chandra Arya and Alexandra Mendes. 

Members of both Canada’s intelligence community and the international intelligence community have warned the Trudeau government that accepting Huawei onto the network could potentially endanger the country’s national security and relationship with its information-sharing partners. 

According to former national security adviser Richard Fadden, Huawei could use the technology to spy on Canadians. 

“Huawei claims that it is a private company—similar to Apple or Google—and is being unfairly treated by the United States and its allies. But the reality remains that Huawei is a company beholden to higher laws that could—and most likely would—make it a tool for state-sponsored espionage,” said Fadden.

The City of Regina is reconsidering the invitation they extended to ecologist and Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore to deliver a keynote speech at a sustainability conference, due to his questioning of man-made global warming. 

Moore, who has a PhD in ecology, was invited to speak at the city’s upcoming Reimagine Conference 2020, taking place May 20-21. His scheduled talk is titled “Fake, Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom.”

Moore challenges the notion that human carbon emissions are the main cause of climate change. While this goes against the media’s narrative, Moore says that’s all the more reason to hear him out.

However, Regina mayor Michael Fougere called Moore’s views “problematic” and has since asked councillors to review the invitation.

In addition, an online petition is calling for Moore to be removed from the conference. The online petition titled “Remove climate change denier Patrick Moore as a speaker at sustainability conference!” had 1,700 signatures at the time of writing. 

“We demand the removal of Patrick Moore as keynote speaker for the Reimagine Conference, given his lack of credibility and history of misleading the public on environmental issues,” states the petition. 

“Clearly, this is much more controversial than I thought it would be in a way that I don’t think I expected to happen,” said Fougere.

City council co-chair Mike O’Donnell is standing by the decision to invite Moore, saying his ideas are “interesting” and would invoke discussion. 

“If you’re not controversial, you’re not shaking anything up at all. I just don’t see why that should be taken as a reason why I shouldn’t be speaking somewhere because I’m controversial,” said Moore.

The Trans Mountain Pipeline passed another hurdle today when a federal court dismissed an appeal by First Nations groups. 

The Federal Court of Appeal unanimously ruled that the federal government’s consultations with Indigenous people were both “reasonable” and “meaningful.” 

The decision by the court stated that while Indigenous groups can oppose a project they do not have the power to veto it. 

“The case law is clear that although Indigenous peoples can assert their uncompromising opposition to a project, they cannot tactically use the consultation process as a means to try and veto it,” stated the court ruling. 

“Canada must act in good faith, but at the same time accommodation cannot be dictated by Indigenous groups.”

According to court findings, 120 out of 129 Indigenous groups affected by the pipeline’s development either support the project or are not opposed to it, while 43 First Nations have signed agreements with the project. 

The federal government is also in the process of handing over ownership of the pipeline to Indigenous people. 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised that the government was open to full ownership of the project by First Nations when announcing the development last year. 

Three Indigenous groups from Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia are already involved in talks with the government for full or partial ownership of the project.

“We don’t want to be in the courts,” said the chief of the Fort Nelson First Nation, Sharleen Gale.

“We want to take equity stakes and participate in the economy of our territories.”  

A United Nations anti-racism committee recently revealed that they were not aware that a large contingent of First Nations supported resource development in their territories when condemning several projects, including the Trans Mountain Expansion. 

Similarly, a BC court ruled that hereditary Wet’suwet’en chiefs caused “irreparable harm” to the LNG pipeline in their opposition to the project. The court also ruled that the tribe’s laws were not recognized as Canadian law.  

“There has been no process by which Wet’suwet’en customary laws have been recognized in this manner. While Wet’suwet’en customary laws clearly exist on their own independent footing, they are not recognized as being an effectual part of Canadian law,”  wrote Justice Church.

A man convicted of smuggling 34 Chinese migrants into Canada has been sentenced to serve three and a half years in prison.

Michael Shun Lok Kong’s sentence, delivered Friday at the Richmond Provincial Court, also requires him to pay a $175,000 fine and hand over another $135,000 in cash that was stashed away in his home. 

Kong facilitated the illegal entry between June 2014 and October 2015. All of those smuggled had American visas issued by the US consulate in China before walking across the border into BC.

The migrants were smuggled into BC, and then transported to Toronto where they made their asylum claims.

Kong was on the Canada Border Services Agency’s radar for some time. He was convicted of prior immigration violations in 2010 and 2013.

As True North reported exclusively, a majority of the illegal border crossers apprehended by the RCMP along BC’s border were of “unknown nationality.” 

As of May 17, 2019, 90 people were arrested along the border for crossing into Canada illegally and the nationalities of 48 were listed as “unknown” or “unidentified.” 

The CBSA confirmed some individuals with an unknown nationality were sent to them by the RCMP despite having undergone preliminary security screenings. 

“For various reasons, there are times when the CBSA cannot immediately determine a person’s country of origin upon their arrival in Canada. Next steps are dependent on the circumstances of the specific case, and all persons are processed in accordance with the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act,” said CBSA spokesperson Luke Reimer. 

Among those with an identified nationality who illegally crossed the border into Canada in 2019 were migrants from Afghanistan, Colombia, Mexico, India, and Saudi Arabia among others.