True North’s Andrew Lawton asks Jagmeet Singh about Khalistani extremism and how he will work with India if he’s elected Prime Minister.
Incumbent Liberal MP involved in alleged multi-million dollar money laundering scheme
Liberal MP Joe Peschisolido is currently involved in an international money laundering investigation while he is seeking re-election for the riding of Steveston — Richmond East.
Earlier this month, Global News reported that Peschisolido made an application in a B.C. court for the judge to dismiss claims against his involvement in a $15-million immigration investment deal.
According to the case, Peschisolido’s firm received funds from seven Chinese investors by way of an “underground” bank in China.
Current laws prevent Chinese citizens from sending more than $50,000 USD internationally each year, which makes room for illegal underground banks to facilitate transfers.
Both Peschisolido and another employee of his firm, Yvonne Hsu allegedly oversaw the transfer of these funds from the firm to Paul Oei, who is coincidentally also a Liberal fundraiser and involved in the immigration business. The Liberal MP denies these charges.
“Hsu allowed her trust account to be used to receive and disburse investor funds without making any or reasonable inquiries, including about the companies in which investors were purportedly receiving shares,” said the B.C. Law Society who stripped Hsu of her license on July 30, 2019.
Oei was earlier found to have defrauded several investors in 2018 by the B.C. Securities Commission and was fined a whopping $8 million.
The plaintiff in the court case alleges that Peschisolido was in the know with regard to the illegal activity and had a hand in the laundering.
While denying the charges, Peschisolido is also arguing that the allegations are damaging his chances for re-election in the upcoming election. Peschisolido is currently a sitting MP for Steveston-Richmond East.
“This is a close to USD $4 million fraud case against a group of alleged fraudsters and their former lawyers,” argues plaintiff Yicheng Jiang, who was allegedly “induced” into the deal.
WATCH: Andrew Lawton asks Trudeau about West Point Grey Academy
Unlike the mainstream media, True North’s Andrew Lawton isn’t afraid to ask Justin Trudeau about his time at West Point Grey Academy.
Read Candice Malcolm’s exclusive report: https://tnc.news/2019/10/10/malcolm-trudeau-refuses-to-answer-questions-about-mysterious-yearbook-message/
LAWTON: Liberal candidate running against Jane Philpott says Justin Trudeau is “true feminist”
A new poll shows Jane Philpott, running as an independent in Markham–Stouffville, is in the lead. Does her success mark a rebuke of Justin Trudeau’s treatment of her and Jody Wilson-Raybould? Does it signal skepticism about Trudeau’s feminist bona fides?
True North’s Andrew Lawton caught up with the Liberal running against Philpott, Helena Jaczek, who says Trudeau is a “true feminist.”
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MALCOLM: Trudeau refuses to answer questions about mysterious yearbook message
Justin Trudeau’s campaign is not answering questions about the nature of the Prime Minister’s relationship with a high school student during his time as a teacher in Vancouver.
For days, True North has been asking questions of the Liberal campaign about a message in the 2001 West Point Grey Academy (WPGA) yearbook that may suggest a relationship outside the classroom between Justin Trudeau, his former roommate and convicted sex offender Christopher Ingvaldson and a female Grade 12 student at the school.
The exact nature of this relationship is not known and the Liberal campaign is refusing to respond to questions about what may have been a close personal relationship.
Grade 12 students at WPGA were given an opportunity to write “Grad Shoutouts” to thank their friends, families and others in an informal section of the printed yearbook.
A female student, who True North has decided not to name but will refer to by a pseudonym, Jane, wrote the following message in her shoutout.
“To ‘The Empire’, JT & CI, thanks for making my life at WPGA a lot more interesting/amusing!”
There are no other students with those initials in the graduating class that year.
Trudeau and Ingvaldson were the two “young and cool teachers” at the school, True North was told by a former student. They were popular teachers and friends with many of the students.
The yearbook also includes a “Grad Poll” — where Grade 12 students voted on various categories including “Most Likely to be Famous,” “Most School Spirit,” “Teacher’s Pet,” etc.
The poll included “Biggest Crush on Mr. Trudeau” and “Biggest Crush on Mr. Ingvaldson.” These were the only two teachers named in the Grad Poll.
Jane was the student voted by her peers to have had the “Biggest Crush on Mr. Ingvaldson.” She was also voted “Biggest Flirt.”
On a previous page of the yearbook, Trudeau can be seen with his arm around Jane, in a photo of the Ultimate Frisbee team.
Jane was a member of that team, where Trudeau was the coach and mascot. Trudeau was very close with the team, which was made up of male and female students, a former student said.
Trudeau is featured very prominently on the school’s Ultimate Frisbee team page of the 2001 yearbook. There are three different photos of Trudeau in wild outfits that show him hugging and roughhousing with the students. His various costumes include black and white face paint, a big black afro wig, a kilt and a large Mickey Mouse hat.
The team was called the “MadHatters,” and the yearbook includes a poem about the team that describes Trudeau as “a loud-mouthed maniac.”
It is unclear from Jane’s inscription whether she was referring to her time with the Ultimate Frisbee team, or something else. According to a former student who spoke to True North on background, Ingvaldson was not involved with coaching the Ultimate team.
In 2010, Ingvaldson was arrested and charged with four counts of possessing and distributing child pornography. He was caught during an international police sting using Facebook, and according to the RCMP, 11 members of the ring were arrested in Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom.
At the time of his arrest, Ingvaldson was teaching at an all boys private school in Vancouver, and reports at the time said that his “offences did not involve the school in any way or endanger the students.”
According to an e-book released by Huffington Post in 2013, Inglvaldson was Trudeau’s former roommate. The book also states that Trudeau cut all ties with Ingvaldson after he was arrested in 2010.
Ingvaldson pleaded guilty to two counts and was sentenced to three months in prison and two years probation in 2013. Ingvaldson had to provide a DNA sample and will be listed as a registered sex offender for 10 years.
The 2001 WGPA yearbook made international headlines last month when a report in Time Magazine drew attention to a racist photo of the future Prime Minister with his face and hands painted black.
Trudeau wore blackface on many occasions. Several more photos and videos have emerged of Trudeau wearing the racist costume, and he’s admitted he doesn’t remember how many times he has painted his skin black or brown.
True North obtained copies of the WPGA yearbooks from a former student, and found the cryptic inscription and photos independently.
On Monday, the Conservative Party of Canada issued a statement questioning why Trudeau left his teaching job at WPGA in 2001. The news release points out that Trudeau’s story has changed over the years, and that he has given at least four different and inconsistent accounts of why he left the small private school.
In 2001, the Ottawa Citizen wrote that Trudeau was leaving the school to pursue a career giving speeches. That claim was refuted by Trudeau through his lawyers and later, the Montreal Gazette wrote that he left the private school to teach at a public school.
In his 2014 autobiography, Trudeau stated that he left WPGA after a dispute with the school’s administration over an article written in the student newspaper where Trudeau was an editor. Trudeau claimed he encouraged a student to write an article criticizing the school’s dress code, and the administration found that disrespectful.
A 2019 book about Trudeau likewise claimed he left the school over “a disagreement over an article written by a student for which Trudeau was responsible.”
Last week, WPGA’s former headmaster issued a statement saying that Trudeau was not “dismissed” but instead “parted the school on good terms.” He stated that Trudeau decided to leave WPGA to return to Montreal and “continue his university studies” in engineering.
That same day, Trudeau said he left WPGA to “move on” with his life.
Neither Trudeau, Ingvaldson nor the female student would comment on the inscription or the nature of their relationship, despite multiple attempts by True North to reach all three of them.
The Trudeau campaign has ignored multiple emails, texts and phone calls from True North, and blocked a True North journalist from attending events with the Liberal leader, thereby preventing him from asking about this yearbook inscription.
On Monday, a Federal Judge in Toronto issued a court order to grant True North accreditation to attend the Leaders Debates. This came after a flawed and partisan decision was made by the Trudeau government to exclude True North from election events.
Despite this court order, the Trudeau campaign continues to ban True North from asking questions of the Prime Minister.
SHEPHERD: Five times the PPC has been met with hysteria
Since the People’s Party of Canada (PPC) was founded by former Conservative MP Maxime Bernier in September 2018, they’ve been a party able to invoke hysteria like no other. From its inception, the PPC has been written off as xenophobic, fascist and white supremacist. This is largely due to their position on lowering immigration levels to 150,000 immigrants per year (even though half of Canadians desire lower immigration numbers, according to an Angus Reid survey).
Many state that Bernier and the PPC are “divisive” and “hateful”, but these declarations are rarely qualified. Here are the top five cases of the PPC being met with hysteria:
University of Guelph all-candidates meeting cancelled after PPC candidate included
On October 2nd 2019, the University of Guelph’s Central Student Association (CSA), which represents all undergraduate students at UGuelph, and CUPE 1334, the union representing the university’s 250 resource workers, were to conjointly host an all-candidates’ meeting on campus ahead of election day on October 21st.
Guelph PPC candidate Mark Paralovos did not receive an invitation, so he reached out to the CSA and asked to participate, and was then granted an invitation.
However, the CSA proceeded to rescind his invitation without explanation, and soon after, the CSA and CUPE 1334 issued a statement that the all-candidates debate was cancelled. They cancelled the entire event because Ontarian university free speech rules meant the two unions would have to allow the PPC candidate to be included, but in their view, letting the PPC candidate speak would “compromise the safety of students and workers.”
The CSA and CUPE 1334 declared they both “work under an anti-oppressive mandate and a commitment to upholding equity and protecting marginalized groups from hate and violence on campus.” They went on to say that the PPC platform and policies “discriminate against people in the University of Guelph community, particularly marginalized groups”, though they never elaborate or give examples as to why they think that is the case.
These groups ultimately decided that no speech is better than speech they don’t personally like.
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh advocates for the Leaders’ Debate Commission to deplatform Maxime Bernier
In September 2019, it was announced that Maxime Bernier would be permitted to participate in the federal leader’s debates held by the Leaders’ Debate Commission.
New Democratic Party (NDP) leader Jagmeet Singh wrote a letter to David Johnston, head of the Leaders’ Debate Commission, advocating for the deplatforming of Bernier. Singh wrote that it is wrong for Bernier to receive a platform to “promote an ideology of hate that spreads prejudice and disinformation.”
Singh’s claims were made because it was discovered that one of the founding signatures for the PPC to become an official party came from Shaun Walker, the former leader of the American white supremacist organization National Alliance. Walker, who was the head of the St. Catharine’s PPC riding association, was fired after information about his background in the U.S. came to light.
Bernier has stated racists and anti-Semites are “not welcome” in the PPC.
In other words, Singh was spreading disinformation about Bernier and the PPC.
Green Party leader Elizabeth May, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of the Liberal Party, and Conservative leader Andrew Scheer all had more reasonable reactions to the news that Bernier would be allowed in the leaders’ debates, saying they were ready to debate him.
Green and NDP candidates turn their back to PPC candidate during local debate
At an all-candidates meeting for the Toronto riding of Parkdale-High Park in September 2019, the Green and NDP candidates stood up and turned their backs onstage when PPC candidate Greg Wycliffe was speaking. To be fair, this form of silent protest is far more preferable to banging pots and pans or crashing cymbals. It does, however, seem like an overdramatic reaction.
During his opening remarks, the Communist Party of Canada candidate at that same debate urged all of the candidates to leave the stage in protest of the PPC candidate being present, but no one took his suggestion.
In this Toronto riding, Communists are welcomed, but conservatives who want less immigration are not.
“Say No To Mass Immigration” billboards cause uproar, get removed
In August 2019, a handful of billboards went up in Halifax, Toronto, Regina, Calgary and Vancouver that featured the face of Maxime Bernier, the People’s Party logo, and the message “Say NO to mass immigration.” The billboards, sponsored by True North Strong & Free Advertising Corp. (unrelated to True North News) sparked outrage nationwide, and were eventually removed by the billboard company, Pattison Outdoor Advertising. Many took to social media to denounce the billboards, including Nova Scotia Premier Stephen McNeil, who condemned the billboards as having a “negative, divisive tone.”
However, seeing as half of Canadians want lower immigration levels, one would think that a billboard stating “Say YES to mass immigration” would be equally as “divisive.”
Antifa calls elderly lady “Nazi scum” at PPC event in Hamilton, blocks her path
Antifa’s reputation has only worsened since their Portland, Oregon division inflicted a brain hemorrhage on journalist Andy Ngo after beating him up at a rally in June 2019.
In September 2019, a free speech event featuring Maxime Bernier, American talk show host Dave Rubin, and PPC candidates Salim Mansur, David Haskell, and Frank Vaughan was heavily protested at its venue of Mohawk College in Hamilton, Ontario. Fights broke out and four protesters were arrested.
But what went viral was the video footage of two elderly individuals being blocked from entering the venue by masked protestors. “Nazi scum, off our streets” the group of protestors viciously chanted at a woman using a walker and her companion.
The elderly woman’s son penned an op-ed after the event, with his mother insightfully noting that back in her day, the NDP were written off as “Communists”, but are now treated as a legitimate political party. Perhaps the PPC will follow a similar trajectory, being smeared as “bigots” today, but a mainstream political party in the future.
Statistics point to heavy western alienation this election
As the federal election draws near, the plight of Western Canadians is being noticed, with statistics and the media suggesting Western voters will be going to the polls angry in 2019.
After four years of assault on the Canadian energy sector, the introduction of a carbon tax and disastrous trade policies, the resource-based provinces of Western Canada have been feeling more distressed.
Earlier this year True North reported on new statistics showing western discontent on the rise, with 86% of Albertans believe that their province is becoming more infuriated with the federal government. This feeling is shared by 81% of people in Saskatchewan, and 63% of British Columbians.
These numbers are significantly higher than decades past, demonstrating the negative effects the carbon tax and pipeline-restricting laws like Bill C-69 have had Western provinces.
Anti-Energy policies and Justin Trudeau’s intention to “phase out” the oil sands has led many Western Canadians to believe that there is no reason to stay part of Canada.
Half of Albertans in one survey believe Alberta leaving Canada is a real possibility, and 25% were willing to support it, compared to just 28% of Quebecers.
This disillusionment directly led to the United We Roll convoy, a massive demonstration that took Western discontent directly to Ottawa.
Despite only asking for the government to pay attention to the plight of the energy sector, United We Roll was largely mischaracterized by the mainstream media.
With the election underway, more western Canadians are voicing their frustrations with the Canadian government.
“I’ve honestly never felt so… not even under-appreciated, just like completely ignored,” says Sarah Leguee, a Saskatchewan grain farmer contacted by Global News.
“It seems like any time we, you know, say something, we just get labelled as racists, as bigots.”
Canada’s failure to act when India put tariffs on Canadian lentils or when China targeted Canadian products substantially hurt Western farmers like Leguee
This feeling of resentment is not isolated to regular people, their feelings are shared by Western leaders.
Former Opposition Leader Preston Manning recently told reporters that he has been noticing the surge of resentment in the West.
“The problems with the energy sector and the inability to get resources to tidewater and world markets are all fuelling Western alienation,” the former Reform Party Leader said.
While the Trudeau government does not seem interested in addressing Western concerns regarding economy, Manning suggests parties take the time to address their concerns or else risk further alienation.
“Don’t dismiss them,” he said.
“Don’t tell people, ‘You’ve got no right to be angry or mad,’ but try and provide constructive alternatives rather than tearing things apart.”
LAWTON: Politicians are finally talking about immigration this election
During Monday’s federal leaders’ debate, the issue of immigration was finally given the importance and significance it deserves.
True North’s Andrew Lawton asked PPC Leader Maxime Bernier about his plan to reduce immigration levels to 150,000 and re-introduce mandatory face-to-face interviews to screen immigrants for Canadian values.
Despite the left’s claim that talking about immigration and opposing open borders is racist and bigoted, Andrew says the majority of Canadians want a robust discussion about Canada’s immigration system.
We’re still banned from covering Justin Trudeau’s campaign events but that won’t stop us from reporting the truth. Support our election coverage: http://www.tnc.news/donate
LAWTON: Lawton and True North: 1. Canada: 0
I never thought I’d wind up in a battle against my own country, but for what it’s worth, they started it.
We finished it.
The Federal Court in Toronto heard Andrew James Lawton and True North Centre for Public Policy v. Canada (Leaders’ Debates Commission/Commission Des Debats Des Chefs) and Attorney General of Canada on Monday.
Or as the case will appear in court records, Lawton v. Canada, which has an oddly satisfying ring to it given events of the past few weeks.
It felt from the day True North’s and my stellar lawyer filed the case as though it was a David and Goliath story in the making. (Though I must admit by friend Mark Steyn thought Canada was the David in this analogy).
“In any showdown between you and the Dominion of Canada, a mere G7 and Nato member has to be accounted the underdog,” Steyn wrote to me.
He was right.
We won. Justin Trudeau’s government lost. Press freedom and freedom of speech were the real victors, however.
This whole case came about because the Leaders’ Debates Commission – a government agency set up to organize and run “independent” election debates, banned me from covering the debate for True North, a startup media outlet published by a registered charity, the True North Centre for Public Policy. Also banned were Keean Bexte and David Menzies of Rebel News, who filed a similar successful suit.
I applied on September 24th for accreditation – one day after the Government of Canada accreditation portal for the debates opened up. I heard nothing until October 4th, which was the last business day before the Monday debate. The rejection was a mere two sentences long. The reasoning was that True North, in the eyes of the Parliamentary Press Gallery, to which accreditation had somehow been outsourced, is “actively involved in advocacy.”
As I’ve noted in interviews and posted online, True North has no advocacy mandate. The charity’s sister organization, the True North Initiative does, but I have no role with it, nor does it have any role in the media division of the True North Centre for Public Policy. This may seem a bit confusing – my friend and True North’s founder Candice Malcolm’s column in Quillette offers more detail about the organizational structure, and how it’s not uncommon even in the mainstream media world.
Neither the Leaders’ Debates Commission nor Parliamentary Press Gallery asked any questions about this though. Had they done so, we could have easily cleared things up. No, they decided to drop the hammer on my coverage plans, which had been in the works for nearly two months, in the eleventh hour so no challenge or appeal would even have been possible.
So we did the only thing we could do by filing for an emergency injunction, which was granted after a hearing of less than 90 minutes, in which the presiding judge not only recognized True North and I as producers of journalism, but also accepted that we would be irreparably harmed, as would Rebel, by exclusion from a debate funded by Canadians for the benefit of Canadians.
I would have loved to have been in the courtroom, where our lawyer, Jessica Kuredjian, delivered a stellar case by the accounts of those present (and by the result). But I was following it all on Twitter from my hotel room in Ottawa, ready to get to the leaders’ debate in Gatineau on a moment’s notice in the event our case succeeded. Spoiler alert: it did.
The judge delivered his finding at about 4:45pm. Within 15 minutes I was in a car on the way to the debate location, where my press credentials were being printed off.
I can’t overstate that this was a team effort. Our lawyer worked all-nighters through the weekend to meet the federal government’s arbitrary timeline demands. Malcolm exhibited immense confidence in my journalistic credentials by deciding True North would take a stand and fight this. Our legal bills cleared $20,000. Had we not been successful and had the judge not awarded costs, we would have been on the hook for that as an organization. Malcolm put up a hefty sum of her own money to kickstart the case.
I must also thank donors from across Canada and as far away as the United States and Australia for believing in our fight as well.
My role in the case was a small one – albeit I have the honour of going down in the law books as the one who took on Canada. As much as I joke about it, I don’t take it lightly. I had minutes to decide whether I was comfortable putting my name on this case. I did so because I recognized instantly it was about something much bigger than me, and much bigger than True North. It is about the freedom for all journalists in Canada, and for those wishing to start their own ventures in a climate that’s inhospitable to traditional, legacy business models.
This is why I chose to use the first opportunity I’ve had in this campaign to formally pose a question to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to challenge him on his commitment to press freedom.
Trudeau claims to be a stalwart defender of press freedom while his party has banned me from covering its campaign. His attorney general vigorously fought against our press freedom fight in court.
“This afternoon, a federal court judge ruled that I had a right to be here, to cover this debate as a journalist despite opposition from your Attorney General,” I said to Trudeau in the scrum. “This comes after two weeks of me being kicked out or not being allowed into your campaign rallies. The Conservatives have criticized you for being ‘not as advertised.’ You’ve advertised yourself as a champion of press freedom. Will you take a stand right now sir, as the leader of the Liberal party, and allow me to cover your campaign like every other journalist?”
“We are a party, and we are a country that respects journalistic rights and who respects the freedom of the press and we will continue to,” Trudeau said.
Even a day later I’ve no idea whether his answer to my question was yes or no. My attempt to get a clarification yielded a nearly identical response.
“We are a party and a country that respects the hard work and the freedom of the press, and we will continue to,” Trudeau said on the second go-round.
Well at least he changed a few words.
While most of the response to this exchange has been critical of Trudeau, a few in the mainstream media commentariat have criticized my question as being self-serving. I was asking to be treated like every other journalist who’s asked to cover the Liberals – a question that would have been unnecessary had the mainstream media been standing up for press freedom for all, as my media colleagues did a few months back at the Global Conference for Media Freedom in London.
I had to ask Justin Trudeau about his party’s opposition to my press freedom with the country watching, because this attitude will extend to other journalists if it isn’t exposed and challenged now. And by court order and the grace of God, I had an opportunity to do that Monday night.
Trudeau’s answer, if one can call it that, shreds his ability to blame staff or a miscommunication. He had an opportunity to right a wrong in front of a national audience and didn’t take it. Silence, as they say, is deafening.
Nothing changed. The day after the debate, the Liberals made their way to Iqaluit, in Canada’s north. I would have followed them there, but no commercial flights could get me there before his event. Instead, I caught up with the campaign Wednesday in Markham. Once again, I was told I couldn’t enter the supermarket for Trudeau’s announcement, because I’m not “accredited media.” Even with a court decision saying I am. My inquiries to the Liberals’ communications director went unanswered. Trudeau’s press secretaries briskly walked past me in Markham with no willingness to stop and explain why, still, I am persona non grata in their view.
Despite the undoubted victory in the Federal Court’s ruling, Trudeau’s evasion of my question and the Liberal party’s continued refusal to recognize my credentials underscored the main issue facing independent journalists in Canada: rights are meaningless if governments and politicians don’t respect them.
Trudeau proved that his laudatory words about journalists and press freedom only extend to those his party approves of, which defeats the purpose of a free press.
NDP candidate caught on tape calling voters in her riding “stupid,” saying she “hates everyone”
NDP Member of Parliament Cheryl Hardcastle has been caught on tape insulting voters in her riding after losing a mayoral race in 2014, an audio file uncovered by True North reveals.
The call took place shortly after the 2014 Tecumseh municipal election, in which Hardcastle lost. About a year later, she was elected to parliament with the NDP.
The nearly 40-minute call, which appears to have been secretly recorded, was between Hardcastle and Deputy Mayoral candidate Tony Azar — who also lost.
The two were commiserating over their electoral loss and using colourful language to bash other local politicians and complain about the voting system.
The worst parts of the call, however, are when Hardcastle turns her anger towards the voters.
“I cannot believe there are that many stupid people in this town,” she told Azar
Hardcastle served as deputy mayor of the town of Tecumseh from 2010 to 2014. She left municipal politics after losing the mayoral race to incumbent Gary McNamara in 2014.
Tecumseh is a small town in Essex County in Southwestern Ontario outside of Windsor with a population of about 23,000 people.
“I went to town hall yesterday… I just don’t — I still hate everybody, you know,” she said.
“They just drank his Kool-aid, or you just ate his pablum, or whatever want to call it, you just don’t think! You bought into his f—ing little show… like I just can’t believe people are that stupid,” Hardcastle can be heard saying.
Hardcastle is currently seeking re-election as the NDP’s candidate for Windsor-Tecumseh.
