Ryerson University no longer recognizes the Ryerson Student Union (RSU) as the official student government after the union was rocked by a massive spending scandal.

The announcement was made by the university’s vice-provost of students, Jen McMillen. 

“Effective immediately, the university no longer recognizes the RSU as the official student government representing Ryerson students. The university has lost confidence in the RSU’s ability to represent students with good governance and to supply the services that students pay for,” wrote McMillen. 

The reasons behind the university’s decision to terminate its relationship with the student union was the union’s mishandling of large sums of student funds. 

A forensic audit was launched into over $700,000 of spending by several executives including former RSU president Ram Ganesh. Ganesh was impeached after an external investigation was launched into the union’s spending.

Among some of the questionable expenditures by executives were visits to Toronto nightclubs, LCBO purchases, and Airbnb stays. 

The termination agreement also mentioned an internal drama within the union regarding the performance of the song “Colors of the Wind” from the film Pocahantas. As reported on by True North several union executives were facing impeachment, including one for “creating a hostile space for students” by having the song performed by a non-Indigenous student. 

Since the audit’s completion, the union had filed a report with the Toronto Police Service to investigate the alleged financial mismanagement by Ganesh. Earlier this year, it was also revealed that the Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development was investigating a complaint made against the RSU regarding the union’s handling of workplace harassment.

According to McMillen, the union’s activities were a breach of the university’s 1986 Operating Agreement, and despite negotiations, the RSU has failed to meet the conditions set out by the university to create a new agreement. 

Since the announced termination, the RSU has refused to accept the university’s actions.

“The university’s attempted termination of the operational agreement, and added threat to support an entirely new student government, actively undermines the autonomy and democratic rights of students,” said the RSU. 

“The RSU does not accept this termination as valid under the agreement.”

Every year, the RSU collects millions of dollars from students through mandatory and ancillary student fees. For the 2017-2018 year, the RSU collected a total of $2.25 million in fees. 

The Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) also responded to the announcement condemning the university for interfering in student affairs.

“Ultimately, all students’ unions are accountable to their members. University administrations cannot and should not insert themselves in the affairs of autonomous and democratically-governed students’ unions,” wrote the CFS. 

The federal government has given Mastercard $49 million as part of a scheme to get the multinational company to build a cybersecurity centre in Vancouver.

Mastercard and Minister of Innovation, Science, and Industry Navdeep Bains jointly announced the forthcoming Intelligence and Cyber Centre last week at the World Economic Forum, an annual conference for the rich and powerful held in Davos, Switzerland.

“The centre will focus on creating technologies and standards to ensure that Canadians and others around the world can safely use any device that could be connected to the Internet—phone, tablet, computer, vehicle—without concern that their personal and financial information could be stolen,” said Bains.

The centre will employ 380 people and will be located in Vancouver’s old stock exchange building.

Mastercard had a net income of nearly $4 billion in 2017.

Bains claimed that the new centre will help make Canada a “world leader in cybersecurity,” adding that cybercrime costs Canada $3 billion a year.

President of Mastercard Canada Sasha Krstic said that cybersecurity technology developed at the new centre will benefit Mastercard customers around the world.

Kristic said the centre’s research and activities “will help meet the growing demand for technology solutions to reduce the cost of cyberattacks, enable today’s connected devices to become tomorrow’s secure payment devices, and address the growing vulnerabilities associated with the Internet of Things.”

The $49 million will come from the Strategic Innovation Fund, a program which has given over $2 billion mainly to major corporations for large-scale projects.

Mastercard is just one of several multi-billion dollar companies to receive funding from the federal government.

In January, Canadian Tire recently received $2.7 million from the government to install “fast” charging stations for electric vehicles. On average, charging stations in Ontario and Quebec receive one to three uses per day.

Last year, Loblaws received $12 million to replace their refrigerator units with “low-emission” models. 

Loblaws has since announced the layoff of nearly 800 people.

As the “woke left” comes for hockey, one Ontario man has found himself no longer permitted to coach because he refused to take a course on “gender identity.”

In an interview with Quillette, a man who formerly volunteered with his son’s hockey team claimed he is no longer allowed to volunteer because he refused to take the course.

“I can’t coach. I can’t be on the bench. I can’t help on the ice — even just to help on the ice, you need this training,” said the man, who wishes to remain anonymous.

Taking a course on gender identity became mandatory for Hockey Eastern Ontario volunteers following a 2017 legal settlement with a transgender hockey player who alleged discrimination.

The former assistant coach said he is opposed to discrimination and that he was going to take course — until he saw the 33-slide module on “gender.”

“I would be fine taking an awareness course if it [were] factual and based in science,” he said.

“But I felt it was too ideological.”

Included in the presentation was the claim that biological sex and gender are unrelated to one another, as well as detailed explanations of identities such as “polygender,” “genderqueer,” and “agender.”

The presentation also alleged that the “gender binary” was invented by Europeans and imposed on the rest of the world through colonialism.

In recent months, identity politics has had a significant effect on Canada’s national sport. 

Mainstream media and left-wing figures in Canada have regularly argued that hockey has a 

racism problem and bemoaned the fact that players are predominantly white.

Last year on Remembrance Day, Don Cherry, the iconic host of Hockey Night in Canada’s “Coaches’ Corner” segment, was fired by Sportsnet after an on-air rant targeting people who do not wear poppies.

Only a couple of weeks later, his former co-host Ron MacLean gave viewers a lecture on the “white privilege” and “structural racism” found in the sport of hockey.

In late 2019, Hockey Canada also formally removed words like “midget” from the sport’s vocabulary in an attempt to be less offensive.

Federal Health Minister Patty Hajdu says none of the nearly 2,800 patients around the world with the coronavirus is Canadian.

Hajdu shared this with reporters in a scrum after Question Period Monday, hours after Ontario’s government announced the country’s second presumptive positive test.

Hajdu didn’t address how many Canadians are being screened for the virus, saying the number fluctuates and changes every day. She deferred to the provincial health agencies.

“I will tell you that the provinces and territories are reporting cases that they’re monitoring immediately to their federal counterparts,” said Hajdu 

“I think all Canadians should be taking appropriate healthcare precautions that are normal and advisable.”

Conservative opposition MPs grilled the Liberal government over its handling of the virus’ arrival to Canada in Question Period.

“China has quarantined whole cities and millions of people. The World Health Organization has now listed the global threat as high,” said Conservative MP Todd Doherty.

“The safety of Canadians is currently dependent on screening in china and passengers self-reporting. When will the government institute a real plan that includes enhanced screening processes?” 

The Conservatives have called on the House of Commons health committee to reconvene urgently to address the virus’ arrival in Canada.

Major airports and border crossings across Canada have implemented several screening measures to detect the virus at entry points. Electronic kiosks and signage have been displayed to direct travellers to report symptoms to border authorities if they have travelled from the Wuhan region, where the virus originated. 

According to the National Post, 21 people are currently being monitored for the virus in Ontario. 

Globally, there are 2,744 cases of coronavirus and a total of 80 deaths. Several major population centres in China have been quarantined, putting a total of 56 million people on lockdown throughout the country. 

The virus has also spread to 10 different countries, including the United States and Canada. 

The organizers of an upcoming keynote address by Omar Khadr at Dalhousie University are not responding to inquiries about whether the convicted terrorist and murderer is being paid to speak.

Khadr is scheduled to appear at the Halifax university on Feb. 10 as part of an event titled Children’s Rights Upfront: Preventing the Recruitment and Use of Children in Violence.

While the talk is being presented by the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative in partnership with Dalhousie University, neither organization’s representatives responded to repeated inquiries from True North about the arrangement with Khadr.

It’s not known who’s paying for his travel to Alberta from Nova Scotia, let alone whether he’s receiving a speaking fee or honorarium for the talk.

The Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative also didn’t answer whether it or Dalhousie, a publicly funded university, took the lead in inviting Khadr.

This is Khadr’s first public appearance as a speaker, although he did appear last year on an episode of CBC’s Tout le monde en parle, where he received a standing ovation from the studio audience.

In 2017, Khadr received a $10.5 million settlement and apology from Justin Trudeau’s government, ending a lawsuit Khadr filed over his treatment in Guantanamo Bay. Khadr was serving a sentence after confessing to throwing the grenade that killed American army medic Sgt. Christopher Speer during a firefight in Afghanistan.

The Speer family, along with Sgt. Layne Morris, who was injured in the blast, won a US$134 million judgement against Khadr in a Utah court, which Khadr has not paid.

Despite “striking” from school on Fridays to protest government inaction on climate change, Swedish activist Greta Thunberg was part of a school program that didn’t mandate in-person attendance at all.

This revelation comes in a new documentary by Rebel News, exposing the power brokers and financiers behind Thunberg’s rise. 

The documentary Greta Inc. reveals that, despite Thunberg’s calls for other students to join her in striking from class, attendance at her school is not mandatory and she can do her schoolwork while at home or away. 

“In August, she initiated a school strike for the climate at Mynttorget outside Parliament House. Now she sits there every Friday, but she no longer educates. The school leaves her there with a customized study program and a textbook,” writes journalist Peter Franke in Swedish, according to a translation from Rebel’s documentary.

The relationship between Thunberg’s rise and Swedish PR guru and CEO Ingmar Rentzhog was also brought into question. 

Rentzhog has raised millions for Thunberg’s activism after claiming to have “discovered” her protesting outside of the Swedish parliament.

Thunberg’s fame ballooned shortly after Rentzhog shared images of her protest on social media. 

At the height of the climate demonstration, Rentzhog used the teenage activist in promotional materials for his organization We Don’t Have Time, and promised investors that his company would be “extremely profitable.” 

During a climate strike in Stockholm, Thunberg was surrounded by a number of private security guards. When questioned by Rebel reporter Keean Bexte the guards refused to answer who was paying for their presence there.

Thunberg has denied that anybody is financing her activities or behind her activism and has even suggested that her parents are paying for her travel expenses including flight tickets and accommodations.

Critics have also pointed out links between Thunberg’s links to climate and political extremists including Antifa. 

Photographs of Thunberg, along with her parents show her family donning the far-left extremist group Antifa’s slogans and memorabilia. 

During one speech, Thunberg threatened that politicians need to be put “against the wall” for their inaction on climate change. 

Thunberg has also spoken to and gathered support from Extinction Rebellion, which was once listed by UK terrorism police as an extremist group.

A second person may have been infected with the coronavirus in Canada, according to Ontario health officials. 

The new presumptive case is believed to be the wife of the first patient who travelled from Wuhan, China to Toronto on Jan 22. 

The first patient is currently being treated in isolation by medical experts at the Toronto Sunnybrook hospital. 

The woman has been held in self-isolation since landing in Canada along with other members of their household. 

“Since arriving in Toronto with her husband, this individual has been in self-isolation,” said an official government news release. 

“Given the fact that she has been in self-isolation, the risk to Ontarians remains low.”

Canadian health officials held a news conference at 11:30 am on Monday to address the new case. 

According to the National Post, a total of 21 people in Ontario are being screened for the virus. 

So far, 2,744 cases of coronavirus have been confirmed worldwide with a total of 80 deaths. In response to the outbreak, the Chinese government has placed 56 million people under lockdown in various cities throughout the country. 

The virus has so far spread to 10 countries with five different cases being confirmed in the US.