Andrew Scheer announced his resignation as Conservative Party of Canada leader in the House of Commons Thursday afternoon, shortly after informing his party’s national caucus of his intention.

The resignation comes on the heels of a report by former Conservative cabinet minister John Baird about the Conservative campaign’s shortcomings in the 2019 election.

However, according to an initial Global News report, Scheer was said to be facing allegations that Conservative party funds were going towards his children’s private school tuition. However, an official statement from the party’s Executive Director, Dustin van Vugt, states that Scheer was offered a reimbursement for moving and schooling costs.

“Shortly after Mr. Scheer was elected leader, we had a meeting where I made a standard offer to cover costs associated with moving his family from Regina to Ottawa. This includes a differential in schooling costs between Regina and Ottawa. All proper procedures were followed and signed off on by the appropriate people,” wrote van Vugt.

Scheer has called on the Conservatives to “immediately” prepare to launch a leadership race.

“I just informed my colleagues in the Conservative caucus that I will be resigning as the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, and I will be asking the Conservative Party national council to immediately begin the process of organizing a leadership contest,” said Scheer in the House of Commons.

“In order to chart the course ahead in the direction this party is heading, the party needs someone who can give 100 per cent.”

A Nanos poll commissioned by Bloomberg News found that 56% of Canadians believed that the possibility of a recession in 2020 was either ‘likely” or “somewhat likely.” 

“Canadians have a gloomy forward economic outlook for 2020 with a significant proportion believing a recession is likely,” said chairman of Nanos Research, Nik Nanos. 

“Jitters about a potential recession, regardless of the strength of the economic fundamentals can have a material negative effect on consumer spending.”

According to the poll, only 34% believed that an impending recession was “unlikely.” 

In November, the Canadian economy lost a total of 71,000 jobs because of struggling manufacturing and natural resource sectors.

Unemployment also rose last month by 0.4% bringing the national rate to 5.9%. A majority of the job losses took place in Quebec, which saw a loss of 45,000 jobs, while both Alberta and British Columbia lost 18,000 jobs. 

In comparison, the U.S. economy saw an unexpected gain of 266,000 jobs during the same period. 

Economists predict a 40% chance of a Canadian recession over the next 12 months, while the U.S. faces only a 25-30% chance of recession. 

Oxford Economics also predict that economic growth will slow down from 1.5% to 1.3% next year and that the Bank of Canada will cut interest rates twice in 2020. 

Since the great recession of 2008, Canadian private debt has grown from 150% to 220% of GDP. 

According to the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy, Canada saw a 13.4% increase in insolvency for the month of October. An Ipsos survey also found that a troubling 48% of all Canadians reported that they were $200 or less away from insolvency.

A study released by a University of Ottawa-based research group found that half of Canadians believe the benefits of pipelines outweigh the risks. 

Results from the study on “Polarization over Energy and Climate in Canada” were released on December 10, 2019.

The study questioned Canadians on their views about various energy and climate-related issues.

On the topic of a carbon tax, the study found that 51% of Canadians agreed that Canada needed the tax, while 36% disagreed. 

Support for the tax was more prevalent in large cities and suburbs, while it was less popular in regional cities and rural areas.

The study also found that Canadians had energy prices on the top of their minds, with over 50% ranking “keeping prices as low as possible” as their top energy priority. 

Overall, a majority of Canadians throughout the country ranked the oil and natural gas sector as “important.” Support for the industry was highest in the Prairies, where 80% of survey participants said it was important, and lowest in Quebec, where only 44% said it was important. 

On the issue of polarization, some Canadians expressed the view that elites have become detached from the opinions of ordinary people. A total of 35% stated that they believed Canada was divided between ordinary people and elites, while 46% said the “polarized and extreme views of powerful decision-makers” don’t reflect the views of ordinary people. 

The study also revealed that there was “moderate support” for Canada’s ability to develop projects like the oil sands while still meeting climate commitments.

Alberta Premier Jason Kenney has accused the federal government of creating anti-pipeline legislation. Kenney called Bill C-69, which places further restrictions on the assessment requirements needed for new energy development projects, the “No More Pipelines Bill”.

The oil industry in Alberta has taken a direct hit over the last few years and is struggling to recuperate. Alberta has seen many major oil companies scale down their operations. Most recently Husky Energy Inc. which laid off 370 people in October, mainly in Calgary, where its headquarters are stationed. 

In the first vote of the new parliament, a Conservative motion to create a committee on Canada-China relations passed despite Liberal opposition.

The Bloc Québécois and the NDP joined the Conservatives on Monday to support the creation of a committee to study the diplomatic and economic ties between Canada and China.

The motion, voted on exactly one year after two Canadians were arrested in China under questionable charges, passed 171-148.

The sponsor of the motion, Conservative MP Erin O’Toole, said before the vote that if the Liberals voted against the motion they would be admitting Canada-China relations have broken down under their leadership.

“If the Liberal government opposes this modest proposal, it is a recognition that they simply want to avoid scrutiny of their handling of this diplomatic crisis over the last year,” he said.

All 148 Liberals in parliament on Monday voted against the motion.

Over the past several years Canada-China relations have significantly worsened. Throughout 2019, China placed trade restrictions on Canadian agricultural products, most notably a ban on Canadian canola. 

For over a year, Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor have remained in a Chinese prison, deprived of basic legal rights. Their arrests are largely seen as revenge for the arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver last December on an American warrant.

Since the arrest of Meng, China has threatened, bullied and insulted Canada. The Canadian government largely ignored these transgressions.

If created, the committee may require the prime minister and the minister of foreign affairs to appear as witnesses.

Conservatives in the Senate are also looking to see Canada get tougher on China. Conservative Senator Leo Housakos recently put forward a motion to allow the government to sanction Chinese and Hong Kong officials.

“We have tried soft diplomacy over the last year, more than a year. It has given us zero results,” he said.

“If anything appeasement and kowtowing to them has shown they take advantage of weakness. We have leverage. We are an important economic player in the world and we need to send a statement.”

A new poll by the Angus Reid Institute suggests that a majority of Canadians hold an unfavourable view of China and believe Ottawa should ban Huawei from Canada’s 5G network. 

The poll found that 66% of people held an “unfavourable view” of China, while only 29% saw it as “favourable.” 

With regards to trade ties, sentiments for a closer relationship between Canada and China have sharply declined since 2015. As noted by the poll, 40% of Canadians said Canada should try and develop closer ties with China in 2015. By November of this year, only 22% of Canadians believed the same. 

On the topic of Huawei, 43% of Canadians believed that Canada “definitely should not” allow the company into Canada’s 5G network, while 25% stated that Canada “probably should not” allow it. 

The negative views come at a time when Canada is involved in a diplomatic dispute over the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, who is wanted by the U.S. for several fraud charges. December 10th also marked one year since two Canadians, Michael Spavor and Michael Kovrig, were arbitrarily detained in China in retaliation to Meng’s arrest. 

According to the poll, Canadians were leaning towards letting the courts decide Meng’s fate. 53% of those polled said that Canada should “continue to treat it as a legal matter and leave it with the courts to decide, no matter the consequences to Canada-China relations,” while 47% believed political pressure should be applied to resolve the issue. 

Recently, Huawei has engaged in a “diplomatically forceful” campaign to lobby Liberal ministers who would potentially hear them out. 

“There’s always going to be naysayers that they don’t want to meet with you…[but] there are a lot of smart parliamentarians who were either re-elected or newly elected,” said the company’s vice-president of government affairs, Morgan Elliott.

Several ministers were named by the company as potential lobby targets including Minister of Finance Bill Morneau and Minister of Foreign Affairs François-Philippe Champagne, among others. 

As reported by True North, Huawei lobbied the government six days before the election and met with Senior Assistant Deputy Minister Mitch Davies from the Ministry of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada. 

Canada’s allies have raised the alarm over the company’s bid to join the network, citing national security and intelligence-sharing concerns. 

“It would make it very difficult to have a full intelligence-sharing [relationship] with a partner who has installed a direct line to Beijing,” said U.S. Senator Angus King during the Halifax International Security Forum.

A man has been arrested by American authorities after 120 kilograms of unrefined opium was intercepted in a rented truck on its way from Canada into the United States. The driver said the shipment contained only towels.

Abdolnasser Mahmoudikanesbi was arrested at the Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. border crossing on Friday.

American authorities say Mahmoudikanesbi arrived in Sault Ste. Marie, Mich. in a rented moving truck with Arizona plates. An x-ray scan by border officials found “dark anomalies in the cargo area inconsistent with towels.” Agents say they found bricks of unrefined “opium paste” after searching the vehicle.

After being questioned, Mahmoudikanesbi told authorities that the bricks were, in fact, opium, a drug which he had used in his native Iran. Isotope testing later confirmed this. 

Drug smuggling across that Canada-US border has been a significant issue for law enforcement in 2019, with millions worth of drugs stopped by authorities on both sides of the border.

In September, Jatinderpal Singh was arrested after trying to smuggle $6 million worth of cocaine into Canada through the Detroit-Windsor border crossing. 

After being arrested by American authorities, Singh reportedly asked if defendants in US courts “receive a large discount relating to time sentenced as offered to Canadian defendants in Canada.”

Three British Columbia men and ten Americans were also arrested in September as part of a cross-border drug bust. Authorities alleged that the thirteen were part of a conspiracy to move drugs from Mexico into Canada via the United States.

Along with the arrests, police also seized 428 kilograms of cocaine, nine kilograms of heroin, 47 kilograms of methamphetamine and 46 kilograms ecstasy and $811,000 cash.

The government is unsure whether its $300 million electric car rebate program has had any effect on the environment.

Originally reported in Blacklock’s Reporter, officials from Transport Canada were unable to tell the Senate national finance committee how much of an impact rebates have had on carbon emissions. 

Transport Canada offers rebates of up to $5,000 for electric cars sold for $45,000 or less.

“What contribution will that make to carbon emissions in Canada?” asked Conservative Senator David Tkachuk. 

Officials told the committee that they have processed 31,000 claims amounting to $165 million so far. Transport Canada said that electric vehicle sales increased from 2% of all vehicle sales to 3% because of the rebate program.

“How many people would have bought vehicles in Canada last year? Millions. So what would the contribution be of those 31,000 vehicles to carbon emissions in Canada? There must be research on this,” Senator Tkachuk asked.

“Unfortunately we don’t have the data with us on cost per tonne,” responded Transport Canada Chief Financial Officer Ryan Pilgrim.

“The entire objective is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The objective is not to sell the cars. The objective is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, right?” asked Conservative Senator Elizabeth Marshall.

Several provinces including Quebec and British Columbia have engaged in similar rebate programs at the taxpayers’ expense.

In 2018, the government of Ontario scrapped Canada’s most generous rebate program for electric car purchases — up to $14,000 per car. 

The government of Ontario predicts that by ending the rebates and the cap-and-trade program used to fund them, $1 billion of taxpayer money will be saved over four years. 

In 2017, there were only 7,477 electric vehicles in Ontario — a province of over 13.5 million people.

A lawyer representing People’s Party of Canada leader Maxime Bernier has released a legal letter sent to Warren Kinsella calling on him to immediately remove “defamatory statements” about his client. 

The letter shared by lawyer and former Ontario ombudsman André Marin mentions three articles posted on Kinsella’s blog, “The War Room,” which allegedly paint Bernier as racist. 

“These statements are false and malicious,” writes Marin.

“You should publicly retract these false and defamatory statements immediately by posting a withdrawal of these statements, as well as an unreserved apology to our client in a conspicuous place on your blog (which will remain posted for 365 days).” 

The claims have not been tested in court. True North reached out to Kinsella by email but had not heard back by the time the article was published. 

One article titled “Is Maxime Bernier a racist?” was posted on February 23, 2019. In the article, Kinsella compares Bernier’s rhetoric on immigration and refugees to Donald Trump and American white supremacist David Duke.  

“Is it necessary, at the end of all this, to label Maxime Bernier a racist? Do we really need to prove that he is a telegenic bigot who panders to the worst in people?” writes Kinsella in the blog post.

“No. By his words, and by his deeds, we all know who Maxime Bernier is.” 

In another article identified in the legal notice, Kinsella says “Maxime Bernier and his People’s Party are indisputably racist,” and refers to them as “bigots” with “anti-Semitic and homophobic members.” 

In response to the notice, Kinsella claimed in a blog post titled “Bernier vs. Kinsella that he will not be apologizing or issuing a retraction, indicating he’s retained legal counsel. 

True North reached out to Marin for comment on Kinsella’s refusal to apologize and retract the messages.

“The wise thing to do would be to apologize and retract the false statements. This is not a PR stunt, this is not to raise money for the People’s Party, this is the real deal,” said Marin.

When asked why Kinsella’s other comments, including those made in the Globe and Mail recordings, were not included in the legal notice, Marin said that they kept it simple in order to make it easier for him to retract his claim. 

“If Mr. Kinsella refuses to apologize, we’ll go to the next stage and do a statement of claim and everything is going to be in there,” said Marin.  

Last month, as reported on by True North, Kinsella received a bomb threat from a man claiming to be a member of the far-right. In a recorded phone call during the incident, the suspect is heard demanding for Kinsella to publicly say that he received “foreign funds” to engage in a “smear campaign against Maxime Bernier. 

An October report by the Globe and Mail detailed how Kinsella’s firm Daisy Group was hired to engage in a campaign meant to depict Bernier as racist. Secret recordings were later released by the CBC in which Kinsella can reportedly be heard instructing employees to attack Bernier.