One UN committee tried to dictate to Canada what we should do with a pipeline project.
Where do they get the authority to try and dictate sovereign nations? They don’t.
True North’s Leo Knight discusses.
Fan of Leo’s? Help us keep the lights on by making a tax-deductible donation to True North! http://www.tnc.news/donate/
The deadly Wuhan coronavirus might have just reached Canada.
Six people are currently being monitored by health officials for the disease, which originated in the Wuhan region of China.
Among them are one patient in Vancouver and another in Quebec.
Earlier this week it was revealed that the virus had reached the North American continent with a confirmed case being reported in Seattle.
Nobody has been officially diagnosed with the virus in Canada. Airports, hospitals and border crossings have implemented increased security measures to prevent a viral outbreak.
“At this point, there has not been a positive case in Canada. The risk is low to Canadians,” said Health Minister Patty Hajdu.
The Chinese government has instituted ever-expanding quarantines in six major cities over fears that the virus is spreading. A total of 23 million people are currently on lockdown in cities like Zhijiang, Chibi, and Ezhou.
The World Health Organization met this week to discuss whether the viral threat should be declared a global emergency. According to a recent statement by the international health watchdog, it is currently too early to declare whether the virus is a global health emergency.
According to the latest figures, the flu-like virus has killed 17 and infected over 540 people worldwide.
Scotiabank’s latest report on the wholesale sector reveals a more worrying picture than the Bank of Canada or the Finance Minister would have Canadians believe.
According to the latest Canadian GDP Nowcast data, Scotiabank revealed that the fourth quarter of 2019 reported a much lower growth rate than previously predicted.
“Wholesale sales for November is just the latest in the string of negative data releases that underscored the slowdown of the Canadian economy at the end of 2019. With this report, Q4-2019 is reduced to -0.29% Q/Q SAAR, far below the BoC’s somewhat stale forecast of 1.3%,” said the report.
In December, the Bank of Canada affirmed its 1.3% growth rate for the third quarter of 2019 and predicted that the rate will remain steady for the following quarter.
Finance Minister Bill Morneau said in a fiscal update during the same month that Canada’s economy was “sound and growing.”
During the update, Morneau also revealed that the federal government expects a mammoth deficit of $26.6 billion for 2019, far exceeding the projected $19.8 billion.
“We know that in order to ensure we continue on this positive trajectory, the strong economy that we’ve seen, the very strong employment numbers, that we should be continuing to invest at an appropriate level, and that’s what we are doing with this economic and fiscal update and with the campaign that we ran on,” said Morneau.
The Conservative opposition has since raised the alarm over the Liberal government’s spending and deficit.
Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre has warned that the Liberals are running the risk of breeding a “made-in-Canada” recession if they continue down their current path.
“Justin Trudeau is setting the stage for a made-in-Canada recession,” said Poilievre in a statement responding to the fiscal update.
“The debt-to-GDP ratio is rising, the deficit is $7 billion higher than Liberals promised only months ago and there is no date for a balanced budget.”
LISTEN AND SUBSCRIBE TO THE SHOW
Spencer Fernando joins Andrew Lawton to talk about the growing divide between what real Canadians care about and what the media thinks they care about.
Also, Andrew discusses Conservative leadership candidate Richard Décarie’s contentious comments about homosexuality, plus Donald Trump’s takedown of climate alarmists at Davos.
(Note: after this episode was recorded, Pierre Poilievre announced he will not be seeking the Conservative leadership. Tune into the next episode for Andrew’s thoughts on that.)
Pierre Poilievre confirmed on Twitter that he is not going to be running to replace Andrew Scheer as leader of the Conservative Party of Canada.
“Over the last several weeks, I have been building a team and support for a possible run for the conservative (sic) leadership. In criss-crossing the country, I have been overwhelmed with the favourable response,” tweeted Poilievre.
Citing strain on his family life, he went on to say “…my heart is not fully engaged in this leadership race. Without being all in, I cannot be in at all. So I have decided not to seek the leadership of the party at this time.”
The announcement comes after weeks of speculation regarding his potential leadership bid.
Poilievre now joins two other notable Conservatives in dropping out of the race this week. Yesterday, former interim leader Rona Ambrose announced she would not be seeking the candidacy and former Quebec premier Jean Charest announced the same on Tuesday.
Candidates seeking to enter the race must pay a total entry fee of $300,000 and submit 3,000 signatures of endorsement from party members.
Visit True North for a complete and regularly updated list of who’s in and who’s out of the Conservative Party leadership race.
Convicted terrorist and multi-millionaire Omar Khadr will be featured as a keynote speaker at a respected Canadian university.
Khadr is scheduled to speak at an event on children’s rights hosted by Dalhousie University on February 10, 2020.
The event is part of the university’s Open Dialogue series, in partnership with the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative. The talk will be hosted by the CBC’s Nahlah Ayed and will also feature former child soldier and author Ishmael Beah as a speaker.
For the past few years, Khadr has been seeking a way out of US war crimes charges he pleaded guilty to before being released on bail in Canada. A US civilian court has since turned down Khadr’s attempt to force a military court to hear an appeal on his conviction.
Khadr was convicted in the killing of US Sergeant Chris Speer while fighting as an armed militant for the terrorist group al-Qaeda in 2002. He was originally set to serve 40 years in prison but had his sentence reduced to 8 years as part of a plea bargain.
Since returning to Canada, Khadr sued the Canadian government and was awarded $10.5 million in taxpayer dollars by Justin Trudeau in 2017.
The CBC has hosted Khadr in the past as a featured guest on their French-language program “Tout le monde en parle,” where he stated that his $10.5 million settlement was for “all Canadians.” He has used $3 million of his wealth to invest in an Edmonton shopping mall.
In 2019, a Trudeau-appointed Alberta judge ruled that Khadr’s war crimes sentence had expired and that he was to be relieved of any bail conditions, including not being allowed to obtain a Canadian passport.
A Utah civil court awarded Sgt. Speer’s grieving family a $134 million claim against Khadr for the slaying of the US soldier and the family is currently trying to have the award enforced in Canada.
“What is important are Mr. Khadr’s actions that day and leading up to that day. The plaintiffs and the Utah court hold Mr. Khadr responsible,” said the Speers’ lawyer, Jamie Schacter.
An online petition on gun rights has been signed by almost 100,000 Canadians seeking to send a message to the governing Liberals that legal gun ownership is not the problem.
The petition has become the second-largest petition of its kind in Canadian history in only a month’s time.
Petition e-2341, introduced by a man from Medicine Hat, Alta., calls upon the government to bring any new laws seeking to restrict firearm ownership before the House of Commons where they can be debated, rather than enacting them by orders-in-council.
“The use of an Order in Council (sic) is an egregious overreach of executive authorities, bypassing the democratic process of the House and the elected representatives of Canadians,” the petition says.
In a CTV interview on the anniversary of the Polytechnique shooting, Public Safety Minister Bill Blair wouldn’t rule out an order-in-council to prohibit what the Liberals call “military-style assault weapons.”
Conservative MP Glen Motz, who’s sponsoring the petition in the House of Commons, says the Liberals have a “flawed” approach to gun control.
“I am always pleased to help Canadians voice their concerns, especially on a deeply flawed policy like the Liberal’s misguided approach on crime policies that ignore criminals and instead focuses on law-abiding Canadian gun owners,” he said.
Blair has said the government has earmarked $250 million to buyback guns from legal gun owners. Though this plan misses the mark, Motz said.
“(Canadians) are saying they want a government that actually takes crime seriously, that works to protect Canadians, that focuses on criminals not law-abiding Canadians,” said Motz. “The Liberal firearm confiscation plan will likely cost billions without making a single Canadian safer.”
Policing experts and officials across Canada have spoken out against the effectiveness of gun bans, saying that they will do little to nothing to prevent criminals from accessing illegal firearms.
“There’s no way in my world or any world I know that (a handgun ban) would have an impact on somebody who’s going to go out and buy an illegal gun and use it to kill another person or shoot another person,” said Toronto Police Association president Mike McCormack.
Conservative leadership hopeful Richard Dècarie is under fire after he denounced gay marriage and asserted homosexuality is a “choice” on the Jan. 22 edition of CTV’s Power Play.
His comments have attracted national attention as he’s accused of holding views that are out of alignment not only with Canadians, but even with the party he wants to lead.
Numerous declared and prospective Conservative leadership candidates immediately denounced Dècarie’s comments:
True North is keeping track of who’s in and who’s out in the Conservative leadership campaign here.
A former Conservative MP has accused Rona Ambrose of whipping votes against his private member’s bill to privatize the CBC while she was interim leader of the party from 2015 to 2017.
True North spoke to former MP Brad Trost after he tweeted that Ambrose “ordered Conservative MPs” to vote against his bill, the “Canadian Broadcasting Corporation Privatization Act.” A Conservative MP was able to confirm Trost’s version of events.
“I put together this private member’s bill and I had a lot of interest from Conservative MPs but Ambrose and the leadership decided to oppose it to the point they decided to whip members against it,” said Trost.
“Rookie MPs told me they want to vote for it but they were told explicitly to vote against it.”
According to parliamentary record, Bill C-308 was shut down by a vote of 260-6 on May 3, 2017 while Ambrose was still the interim leader of the party.
Trost is currently the campaign chair for former Conservative staffer Richard Décarie.
Ambrose officially announced today that she will not be pursuing the Conservative leadership race.
“I don’t know why people talk about her being strongly conservative but my viewpoint is that she was Liberal-lite. Rona Ambrose did what the national press gallery told her to do,” said Trost.
True North is keeping track of who’s in and who’s out in the Conservative leadership campaign here.
If you thought living in San Francisco or London was expensive, wait until you see this year’s annual ranking of the most expensive cities to live in worldwide.
According to the 2019 Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey, Vancouver is the second least affordable metropolitan city to live in worldwide, coming in after Hong Kong. Toronto is the sixth least affordable, after Sydney, Melbourne, and Los Angeles.
Toronto rose four places since 2018, when it was in 10th place.
“Toronto… has severely unaffordable housing, with its Median Multiple deteriorating to 8.6 from 8.3 in 2018 and 3.9 in 2004,” says the report.
The median multiple is calculated by dividing an area’s median housing cost with the median household income.
According to the Global Real Estate Bubble Index 2019, Toronto has the second-highest global housing bubble risk, due to its overvalued market. Vancouver also made the list, coming in sixth place.
In 2019 the average price of a home in Toronto was a startling $832,703, and in Vancouver it was approximately $928,000.
Millennials have been most affected by the skyrocketing cost of homeownership, with nearly half of them reporting that owning a home is a “pipe dream.”
According to a poll by KPMG, 46% of millennials believed it is unrealistic that they would ever be able to own a home.
