On December 17, Canada pledged $50.4 million in taxpayer dollars for the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) over the next 4 years.

The announcement was made by Immigration Minister Marco Mendicino at the Global Refugee Forum in Geneva, Switzerland. 

The agency has recently been plagued with a corruption scandal after an NBC investigation found numerous cases of UN agents accepting bribes and asking refugees for money in exchange for services. 

The UNHCR was forced to re-open a corruption investigation at a refugee camp in Uganda after a report exposed that employees were asking for bribes for resettlement and even essential services like medicine. Similar claims have been made about camps in five other countries including Kenya, Ethiopia, Libya and Yemen. 

According to past UNHCR investigators, the agency’s diplomatic immunity opens up room for exploitation of vulnerable refugees without punishment or consequences. 

“The U.N. fiddles around the edges, they issue new policies, [but] the immunity and impunity remains. The lack of accountability remains … it’s amazing that [corruption[ is still being revealed, because the U.N. crushes whistleblowers,” said lawyer Edward Flaherty who has extensively worked on U.N. cases.  

On the same day of Mendicino’s announcement, an outgoing UNHCR representative told Canada that it should do more for refugees, despite its already high acceptance rate. 

“[There’s] a strong argument to make that Canada should do more for refugees and displaced populations and humanity in general,” said Jean – Nicolas Beuze. 

In 2018, Canada resettled more refugees than any other country in the world. According to UNHCR data, over 28,000 refugees came to Canada last year. 

Alongside regular streams of refugee intake, the number of asylum claimants crossing into Canada illegally from the United States has continued unabated. According to official statistics, 11,973 people crossed illegally into Canada from January to September of this year. 

The growing number of people waiting for their asylum claims to be heard has ballooned due to a backlog. Earlier this year, the Auditor General predicted that wait times for asylum hearings could balloon up to five years by 2024.

According to the Canada Border Services Agency, nearly 39.4 kilograms of fentanyl and carfentanil were seized over a two year period. 

The seizures could have potentially averted 20 million overdoses between May 2016 and June 2018. 

The deadly opioid fentanyl is up to 100 times more powerful than medical-grade morphine, making it one of the most dangerous drugs on the black market. The quantity of two grains of salt could potentially kill an adult. Meanwhile, carfentanil is 10,000 times stronger than morphine and about 4,000 times stronger than heroin. 

According to official Government of Canada statistics, nearly 14,000 people have died from opioid-related deaths between January 2016 and June 2019. 80% of all overdose deaths in the country involved fentanyl or related drugs. 

Western Canada was the most impacted region for overdose deaths. 

A majority of fentanyl flowing into Canada is believed to originate in illicit labs in China. The Chinese government has recently taken steps to shut off the illicit supply of deadly synthetic opioids after receiving pressure from the U.S. 

A Global News investigation found that a majority of the fentanyl distribution in British Columbia, which has been hardest hit by the drug, originates in the Chinese mainland. 

“There are so many players we identified in B.C. But this is all directed from inside China. At the very top they are insulated. It’s government officials,” an unidentified international policing expert told Global News. 

An Ontario judge has dismissed 19 charges, including sexual assault and harassment, against former Taliban captive Joshua Boyle. 

The charges stemmed from allegations made against Boyle by his estranged wife and co-captive in Afghanistan, Caitlan Coleman. Coleman alleged that throughout their captivity and after their return to Canada, Boyle was physically and mentally abusive towards her. Coleman claimed she was tied up and confined by Boyle. 

According to trial Judge Peter Doody, neither Coleman’s nor Boyle’s testimony was reliable.

“I do not believe her, just as I do not believe Mr. Boyle,” said Doody about Coleman. Doody claimed that Coleman’s credibility was questionable after she testified about mental “fits” and memory issues. Although Doody also doubted Boyle’s claims, the Crown was not able to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt. 

Criminal convictions require the court to find proof of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. 

Boyle’s lawyer argued that certain acts, like spanking, fell within the marriage’s agreed boundaries given both Boyle and Coleman had a fondness for BDSM. According to Crown prosecutor Meghan Cunningham, Coleman was “terrified” of Boyle.

Boyle and Coleman were both captured by terrorists while backpacking through Afghanistan in 2012. According to Boyle who spoke to True North’s Candice Malcolm, the Taliban-linked group tried to recruit him on multiple occasions in the five years he was a captive. 

Boyle’s associations with Islamism have raised questions, including his past marriage with the sister of convicted terrorist Omar Khadr, Zaynab Khadr. Zaynab Khadr once stayed in Osama bin Laden’s compound in Afghanistan and defended the 9/11 attacks.  

After being released from captivity in 2017, Boyle was granted a private meeting with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

A photograph of Boyle and Coleman posing with Trudeau was released on Twitter from an account allegedly belonging to the Boyle family. The tweet alleges that Boyle had met with Trudeau “over other common interests.”

A British Employment Tribunal has ruled that an employer was right not to rehire a woman who tweeted “men cannot change into women,” calling her views “absolutist” and “not worthy of respect in a democratic society.”

The decision led to a wave of support for fired tax expert, Maya Forstater, including from Harry Potter author JK Rowling, who tweeted her dismay at a precedent that would “force women out of their jobs for stating that sex is real,” adding the trending hashtag #IStandWithMaya.

In his ruling released Wednesday, Judge James Tayler ruled that Forstater’s opinion that sex could not be changed cannot be protected under British law. 

“The specific belief that the Claimant holds as determined in the reasons, is not a philosophical belief protected by the Equality Act 2010,” he said.

Tayler added that “biological opinion is increasingly moving away from an absolutist approach to there being genes the presence or absence of which determine specific attributes.”

Forstater was previously a visiting fellow at the European arm of the Center for Global Development, an American think-tank with a focus on international development. Forstater said her contract was not renewed because she held opinions critical of gender ideology.

Forstater vocally opposed the Gender Recognition Act, a law that would allow for people to self-identify their sex.

In October 2018, coworkers complained that many of her tweets on sex and gender were transphobic. After her contract expired on December 31, 2018, she was not rehired and she was turned down for another job within the organization.

Forstater said she will challenge the ruling, saying that freedom of speech should not be put in jeopardy over gender ideology.

“As I said at my tribunal, I will, as a matter of courtesy, use preferred pronouns, and I support human rights. Everyone should be free to express themselves, to break free of gender stereotypes and to live free of violence, harassment and discrimination,” she said.

“But this does not require removing people’s freedom to speak about objective reality, or to discuss proposed changes to law and to government policies clearly.”

The vast majority of Canadians see the price of food increasing faster than their household income, researchers say.

In its end-of-year study, the Agri-Food Analytics Lab at Dalhousie University, working with Angus Reid, found that 87% of Canadians are concerned about rising food prices.

“Of those earning less than $50k per annum, 92% are concerned about food affordability, while 83% of Canadians earning more than $100k feel food prices are rising faster than their household income. The sentiment of not being able to afford food appears to be widespread across several demographics,” the study says.

Alberta and Quebec tied for the most concerned about food affordability, with 89% of people lacking confidence in their ability to pay for food in 2020.

Just over half of Canadians say they will have to change their habits to save money on food in 2020, with 60% saying they will have to eat at restaurants less.

Dalhousie and Guelph universities, in their recently-released Canada’s Food Price Report 2020, predicted that food prices could increase next year by 4%, or an average of $487 per person.

Overall, Canadians are leaving 2019 feeling less financially secure, with recent studies suggesting many feel increasingly anxious about 2020.

According to one recent poll, 56% of Canadians are worried about a possible recession in 2020. In October, Canada saw its highest number of insolvencies since the 2008 financial crisis, and in November the Canadian economy lost a staggering 71,000 jobs.

As a result of the current economic situation, younger Canadians in particular are finding themselves unable to afford the same things their parents did. A recent survey by tax and audit firm KPMG found that nearly half of millennials think buying a house is a “pipedream” for them.

“The combination of rising house prices, high levels of personal debt and annual incomes that are just a fraction of the cost of buying a home compared with their parents’ generation, is pushing the dream of home ownership out of reach for many millennials,” said KPMG partner Martin Joyce.

A video from a Persian language interview circulated on Twitter showing an associate of assassinated Iranian intelligence officer Masoud Molavi, claiming that Liberal MP for Richmond Hill Majid Jowhari was in contact with Iranian intelligence officers. 

“Masoud talked about someone by the name of Majid Jowhari. He’s an MP in the Parliament of Canada. He’s from the Liberal Party, representing Richmond Hill,” said the unidentified man. 

“He said that Jowhari was in touch with some of the intelligence officers of Iran and that he even visited the representative of Taeb and Mojtaba Khamenei. He even received financial support from these people.” 

Molavi died earlier this year in a suspected drive-by assassination in Istanbul for speaking out against the regime in Tehran. The Iranian government is notorious for assassinating dissidents and those who could harm their regime. 

In response to these explosive claims, Conservative Senator Linda Frum took to Twitter and called on the claims to be “immediately investigated” and for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to respond.

During a brutal 2018 crackdown on protesters in Iran, Jowhari appeared to have sided with the repressive Iranian regime and called on the protesters to work with the “elected government.” Elections are far from free and fair in Iran, and the same government has been in place for 40 years. 

In 2016, Jowhari sponsored a petition to reopen Canada’s embassy in Iran. Around that time, he also arranged a private meeting with officials from the Iranian regime. 

Jowhari has denied allegations that he is being influenced by the Islamic Republic of Iran. 

“In a recent program aired on two Persian language broadcasts, without a shred of evidence, I was accused of having connections to officials of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” wrote Jowhari in a public statement released on December 18. 

“These accusations are absolutely false and unfounded. I strongly deny any accusations.” 

Jowhari was also accused of having close ties with an Imam who ran a group believed by the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) to be promoting the Iranian regime’s interests in Canada. 

One photograph posted on Twitter appears to show Jowhari sitting at the same table as Reza Hosseini-Nassab, who is listed as a director of the Islamic Shia Assembly of Canada, which the CRA alleges was “acting as a facilitator organization to support the operational goals” of Iran’s Ahlul Bayt World Assembly (ABWA). 

The Assembly is based in Tehran and has close ties to both the Iranian government and Hezbollah.

When asked to define who he sees as being in the middle class, Justin Trudeau said that “Canadians know” and that there are “actual issues” to focus on. 

“Canadians know who’s in the middle class and know what their families are facing and we focus more on the actual issues,” said Trudeau on Breakfast Television. 

Trudeau’s answer echoed an equally unclear response by his newly appointed Minister of Middle Class Prosperity, Mona Fortier. 

In November, Fortier struggled to provide a definition for the middle class and her cabinet role during an interview on the CBC Radio program, The Current with Laura Lynch. After repeated questions regarding who she considers to be included in the term, Fortier defined it as people who “have quality of life” and “can send their kids to play hockey.” 

“I define the middle class where people feel they can afford their way of life, they have quality of life and they can send their kids to play hockey or even have different activities,” said Fortier.

A mandate letter released earlier this month also left Canadians wondering what exactly Fortier’s new position would entail. Most of the tasks assigned to Fortier by Trudeau related to her role as the Associate Minister of Finance and not to the new ministerial position. 

Shortly after the cabinet position was revealed, commentators and Canadians criticized the lack of clarity and questionable need for such a new minister.