Trudeau’s past vacations have created controversy for the Prime Minister. In 2016, Trudeau took a vacation on the private island of the Aga Khan, the billionaire religious leader of Ismaili Muslims. Months earlier, the Trudeau government gave the Aga Khan’s foundation $55 million for foreign aid projects in 2016.
Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson would later determine that Trudeau’s vacation with the Aga Khan violated the Conflict of Interest Act.
True North’s Leo Knight wonders how much work the prime minister really does, given Trudeau’s high number of personal days.
“By my count, Trudeau has taken 48 ‘private’ days and 107 ‘personal’ days this year and only been in Question Period less than 30 times. This Prime Minister thinks his job is a part-time job,” he said.
Truck drivers contracted by the Regina Co-op refinery are alleging that Unifor strikers are violating a court order and vandalizing their trucks.
On Christmas Eve, a Saskatchewan court ordered union members to not delay drivers for over 10 minutes while picketing a lock-out. Union members have been picketing the refinery since December 6, 2019 over a pension dispute.
“A delicate balance must be maintained between the union’s right to picket and the employer’s right to protect its premises. Long delays can cause tensions to rise to levels where unexpected incidents occur. The current order seeks to deal with that risk,” wrote Justice McMurtry in her ruling.
Contracted drivers are now claiming that their trucks are being tampered with and vandalized by the strikers.
“We’ve had a couple slashed airbags and we’ve had a DEF tank that was contaminated which caused a bad day for the driver trying to get the truck back and then having to get it fixed and back on the road,” said Len Grant Trucking’s maintenance manager Evan Grant.
Chad Heibein, who owns a company contracted by the Co-op refinery claims that his drivers found spikes in their truck tires on Tuesday morning.
“They just loaded at MacDonald Street terminal in the middle of the night there, and they left, and by the time they got to the Cardlock – the Co-Op Cardlock – one already had half a flat tire, and the other one went to sleep and they both woke up [to find] these — man-made, twisted sharpened metal that were welded together to do nothing but deflate tires,” said Heibein.
Unifor has since denied the accusations made by the drivers.
The union has been accused of using aggressive tactics in the past towards those opposed to their picketing.
In one video titled “Meet the scabs,” Unifor shared the photos and names of replacement workers who crossed the picket line while union workers were locked out in 2018.
The opposition Conservatives are urging the Liberal minority government to block Huawei from participating in Canada’s upcoming 5G network.
Canada’s allies and security experts have warned the Trudeau government that giving Huawei access could compromise national security and give China a backdoor to the country’s networks and by proxy jeopardize intelligence-sharing relationships.
“When they get Huawei into Canada or other Western countries, [China is] going to know every health record, every banking record, every social media post; they’re going to know everything about every single Canadian,” said White House National Security Adviser, Robert O’Brien, during the Halifax International Security Forum.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has delayed making a decision on whether the company would be allowed onto the network. A decision is expected in 2020.
Britain’s newly re-elected Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, is expected to make a decision on Huawei soon which may influence Canada’s final ruling.
Recent signals by Johnson have indicated that the U.K. will follow in the footsteps of other “Five Eyes” intelligence nations like Australia and the U.S. to ban Huawei from the country’s networks.
“I don’t want this country to be hostile to investment from overseas. On the other hand, we cannot prejudice our vital national security interests nor can we prejudice our ability to cooperate with other Five Eyes security partners. That will be the key criterion that informs our decision about Huawei,” said Johnson on the matter.
When polled, Canadians overwhelmingly leaned towards the government prohibiting Huawei from access, with 43% saying that Canada “definitely should not” allow the company, while 25% stated that we “probably should not” allow it.
In a bid to get on the ground floor of Canada’s 5G network, Huawei has undertaken a “diplomatically forceful” campaign to lobby Liberal ministers who are willing to hear them out. Of those mentioned as potential targets were the Minister of Foreign Affairs François-Philippe Champagne and Finance Minister Bill Morneau, among other ministers.
As reported by True North, the company lobbied the Liberal government several days before the 2019 federal election. On October 16, Huawei met with Senior Assistant Deputy Minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada to discuss security and the 5G network.
Currently, Huawei is at the centre of a diplomatic dispute between Canada and China over the arrest and detention of the company’s CFO Meng Wanzhou. Meng is wanted by the U.S. on an extradition request for allegedly breaking sanctions on Iran.
In response to her arrest, the Chinese government has detained two Canadian citizens for over a year and denied them access to legal representation.
A top Iranian general is believed to be among those killed in an airstrike on Baghdad’s international airport.
Iraqi officials are claiming that the United States was behind the aircraft which killed Iranian General Qassim Soleimani who is also the top official of Iran’s Quds Force. Iraqi militia commander Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis was also killed in the attack.
“The American and Israeli enemy is responsible for killing the mujahideen Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis and Qassem Soleimani,” Ahmed al-Assadi, a spokesman for Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces umbrella grouping of Iran-backed militias, told Reuters.
The airstrike comes shortly after a standoff between Iran-backed Iraq militiamen and the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.
In response to the incident, the U.S. sent 750 troops to secure the embassy.
Shortly after the airstrikes the Pentagon confirmed the killing and stated that Soleimani was involved in plans to attack Americans in Iraq and other parts of the region.
“At the direction of the President, the U.S. military has taken decisive defensive action to protect U.S. personnel abroad by killing Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps-Quds Force, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization,” read a statement from the Department of Defense.
“General Soleimani was actively developing plans to attack American diplomats and service members in Iraq and throughout the region.”
U.S. President Donald Trump took to Twitter to address the operation by tweeting a photo of an American flag.
The Iranian government responded by warning that the U.S. will face “harsh retaliation” for their actions and called it the “biggest miscalculation by the U.S.”
An illegal border crosser wanted by U.S. authorities for allegedly murdering a 78-year-old man in Eastland County, Texas, will be facing a deportation hearing with the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada.
Derek Cameron Whisenand was captured by the Halifax Regional Police on Monday after being on the run in Canada since late June.
He was arrested by police during a response to a shoplifting report, who captured Whisenand after he fled. He has since been handed off to border officials.
Whisenand is believed to have crossed into Manitoba illegally around June 25, 2019 with his vehicle being found only a few kilometres from the Canadian border in the state of North Dakota.
He is a key suspect in the murder of Burton Duane Sanborn who was found dead with “severe trauma to the head.”
Before his capture, Whisenand was last sighted in Winnipeg at a Junior’s restaurant in the city.
The Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) has struggled to deal with tracking those who cross into Canada illegally. CBSA officials have called on the federal government to offer more resources to reinforce the border.
A May 2019 report found that border authorities have lost track of an estimated 400 dangerous criminals from Mexico, including cartel members, drug traffickers and hitmen who are now loose in Canada.
A decision by the Supreme Court of British Columbia has ruled to enforce the construction of the $6.6 billion Coastal GasLink pipeline after protests have prevented further work on the project.
The ruling gives the RCMP a mandate to enforce the construction order and states that Indigenous law is not necessarily “an effectual part of 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.
The new ruling comes after a prolonged standoff between Wt’suwet’en First Nations who oppose the pipeline and have set several blockades and protests in order to prevent construction workers from access to the sites.
Despite the fact that other First Nations along the pipeline’s route have signed agreements allowing the project, hereditary Wt’suwet’en chiefs have engaged in an effort to prevent the project from moving forward.
Since the ruling, the chiefs have issued a statement claiming that they would reject the ruling and claimed that the court has “criminalized” their lands.
Past injunctions have been filed in order to prevent further jeopardy to the project, but these have been ignored by protestors. In one case, a masked individual drove a pickup truck high-speed into a worksite with construction workers labouring nearby.
Last year, police were forced to arrest several protestors and clear the area of obstacles.
The CBC is continuing its lawsuit against the Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) over the party’s use of news material in an online election advertisement.
As part of its reasoning, the CBC is arguing that the CPC’s use of the clip was “sensational and one-sided” and that it gave the “false impression” that the broadcaster was pro-Conservative, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.
“Selectively editing various news items together to present a sensational and one-sided perspective against one particular political party may leave a viewer with the impression that CBC is biased, contrary to its obligations under the Broadcasting Act,” wrote CBC lawyers.
“In the digital age where trust in media is constantly being attacked, and where credible news outlets are regularly accused of bias, this false impression among viewers is particularly damaging to CBC’s reputation as a trusted source of news.”
In response, the Conservatives maintain that the video was used fairly under the Copyright Act and that its usage is protected by the right to freedom of expression under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.
The CBC is suing the Conservative Party over this ad, and for using debate footage in online videos.
But all of the footage is copyright exempt for public discussion and debate, as per fair dealing provisions in the Copyright Act. #elxn43pic.twitter.com/PNUJY0A9S5
The original court application named journalists Rosemary Baton and John Paul Tasker as applicants in the filing. The CBC has since removed the two journalists from the filing claiming that the broadcaster “was the driver of this process, not the journalists.“
Recently, the Trudeau government revealed that they were planning to increase funding for the CBC, which already receives around $1.2 billion in taxpayer dollars each year.
As part of his duties, Canadian Heritage and Multiculturalism Minister Steven Guilbeault was tasked by Prime Minister Trudeau to “strengthen the regional mandate of CBC/Radio-Canada.”
Despite high levels of government funding, the CBC has seen a 14% decline in viewership from 2018-2019. The broadcaster has also seen a steady decline in revenue, with a loss of 53% in the last five years.
Conservative MP and former shadow minister for Democratic Institutions Scott Reid says Andrew Scheer removed him from his critic role over a disagreement on the Cannabis Act.
Reid, one of the two longest-serving Conservative MPs, made the allegations on December 30 in a publication titled “Scott Reid on Democracy, released on his constituency website.
“Today, an MP who votes his or her conscience, or the will of his or her constituents, on any matter where the leader wants a different outcome will, in punishment for his or her disobedience, be tossed out of shadow cabinet and possibly off of committees,” wrote Reid.
“In January 2018 I was sacked from the party’s critic role for Democratic Institutions, for the crime of having broken ranks two months earlier and voted in favour of Bill C-45, the Cannabis Act, after having consulted my constituents and been given a mandate to do so.”
Reid was the only Conservative MP who voted in favour of the law in its third and final reading in the House of Commons.
According to Reid, he was given an ultimatum by Scheer after he made his intention to vote in favour of Bill C-45 according to his constituents’ intentions. Reid was allegedly told that he could either vote against the bill, resign from his post, or be forcefully removed from the position.
He was also allegedly threatened by Scheer and told there would be no “road back” out of the backbenches if he didn’t agree to resign. Two months after voting for the bill, Reid was removed from his position.
“I had been removed from my post in the evening, with neither notice to me nor explanation in the Leader’s press release, less than a week after Patrick Brown had been removed as leader of the Ontario PCs for sexual misconduct,” said Reid, who implied the timing may have caused people to erroneously speculate.
When provided with the opportunity to explain the removal to former National Post reporter Marie-Danielle Smith, Reid said he lied to cover up the truth and protect the credibility of the party leader ahead of the election.
“The whole thing would have remained a secret, were it not for the fact that I now believe that making this story public may serve as a way of incentivizing the next leader of my party to foreswear doing the same thing in the future,” said Reid.
On January 31, Smith tweeted about the cabinet shuffle indicating that Reid claimed he was taking on more responsibilities at his family business and was too busy to be a critic in the role.
Since Reid released the allegations, Smith has written a column addressing the incident and calling the lie “not really surprising.”
“If this Tory backbencher is serious in his desire to reset himself and his party on a path to honest dealing with voters, he’s showing what a wrenching process that will be,” writes Smith.
Throughout the campaign and his tenure as leader of the Conservatives, Scheer had been adamant about allowing his members to vote their conscience on various “social issues.”
“Nothing has changed for our party on this issue. Individual MPs have the right to express themselves on matters of conscience, but that a Conservative government will not re-open these divisive social issues,” said Scheer in August when pressed about his views on abortion or same-sex marriage.
True North reached out to the Conservative Party for comment but had not heard back by the time of publication.
More than a third of millennials approve of communism, while 22% think society would be better if private property was entirely abolished, according to a new poll.
The poll, which was conducted by YouGov asked American millennials their opinions on the current economic system. It found that only half of them support capitalism, with 36% favouring communism.
When asked how they intend to vote, 70% of millennials said they were either somewhat likely or extremely likely to vote for a socialist candidate.
A Canadian Forum poll in August found that a majority of Canadians have a favourable view of socialism, suggesting both are part of a larger trend.
In total, communism has contributed to an estimated 100 million deaths, through political violence, starvation and mass executions over the last century.
“The historical amnesia about the dangers of communism and socialism is on full display in this year’s report. When we don’t educate our youngest generations about the historical truth of 100 million victims murdered at the hands of communist regimes over the past century, we shouldn’t be surprised at their willingness to embrace Marxist ideas,” said executive director of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in response to the poll results.
In Canada, millennials have been expressing discontent about their economic futures.
A poll targeting millennials and their views about homeownership found that 46% of them believe that owning a home was a “pipe dream.”
In 2019, millennials also officially surpassed baby boomers as the largest voting bloc for a Canadian federal election.
Millennials are generally regarded as those born between 1981 and 1996, depending on the study.
