A new public opinion poll from Forum Research has some rather inconvenient facts about public perception of the federal carbon tax.
The poll is definitely not in Justin Trudeau’s favour.
True North’s Anthony Furey has the latest.
Trudeau awards plastic producers $35M with one hand and bans single use products with the other
Approximately a year before Justin Trudeau announced that he will ban single-use plastics in Canada, the Liberal government awarded a plastic producing company $35 million in funding.
On January 23, 2018, the Trudeau government announced that it would give the sum to the company Nova Chemicals.
According to the company’s website, “NOVA Chemicals develops and manufactures chemicals and plastic resins that make everyday life safer, healthier and easier.”
The announcement was made in Davos, Switzerland only a day before Justin Trudeau and Minister of the Environment Catherine McKenna urged G7 member nations to sign a “no plastic pledge”.
A year later, Justin Trudeau pledged to “ban harmful single-use plastics as early as 2021”. The ban would include items like plastic bags, straws, cutlery, plates, and stir sticks among others.
However, the funding contributed to NOVA Chemicals in 2018 will go on to produce many of those said products. Among the things that the company’s plastic resin goes into producing are objects like: bags, liners, garbage bags and packaging, among many others.
According to the government website the funding is intended to further expand the company’s research capabilities and open further chemical plants in Canada.
“With our multi-billion dollar investment in Canada, we will expand NOVA Chemicals’ facilities in Ontario by over 50 percent, further develop our proprietary technology, and grow our already significant R&D and innovation capabilities in both Alberta and Ontario,” said NOVA Chemicals’ Senior Vice President Naushad Jamani.
It is unclear how a mass plastic manufacturer like NOVA Chemicals would be affected by the single use ban but a local chamber of commerce in Alberta is concerned about its effect.
According to Reg Warkentin, the Red Deer’s Chamber of Commerce policy and advocacy manager would cause problems for the Alberta company.
“Our position is [the ban] is quite a huge concern, considering the importance of the petrochemical sector to central Alberta’s economy. I think it’s a very modest industry, and I think a lot of people don’t really appreciate how much they put into this community through service and donations,” said Warkentin.
The investment by the federal government is part of its “Strategic Innovation Fund”.
FUREY: Tiananmen and Hong Kong’s lessons for Canada
BY: ANTHONY FUREY
It was disheartening but not surprising to hear that former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien has been talking up a storm with business and political bigwigs about brokering the release of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou to appease the powers that be in Beijing.
Disheartening because dealing with this situation should be about hitting back, not giving in.
“Canada can’t and shouldn’t try to ‘defuse’ this,” Terry Glavin wrote in a wise tweet. “We should hurt Beijing in whatever way we can until Xi backs off.”
Although not surprising because this is the common wisdom among certain circles in the Canadian political and business communities who wish things could go back to how they were beforehand, all in their pursuit of trade deals and the almighty dollar. They know China’s an authoritarian regime, but they want to look the other way from the bad stuff as they strive for access to this growing economy. Chrétien’s long been a part of that machine.
The root of all this flawed thinking stems from the idea that we’re now dealing with some sort of momentary blip in our relationship and we can patch things up and return to normal. That’s not true. What we’ve seen from China recently is their true face – or at least their new face under President Xi Jinping, who seems set to rule for many more years to come.
Regardless of what happens with the Huawei incident, Canada will likely be faced with more such problems in the years ahead that require us to rethink our relationship with the Communist regime.
A decade ago there was the belief among many Western observers that China was making some degree of progress towards becoming a more open, liberal and democratic country. That’s now completely out the window.
You only need to read news stories from the past few days for proof. The 30th anniversary of Tiananmen Square saw widespread censorship. Social media was restricted, you couldn’t text message certain numbers and phrases and a popular pop singer has disappeared for fear he’d sing about the anniversary.
Then there are the protests in Hong Kong, where many thousands of people are taking to the streets to oppose an extradition bill that could see those in the autonomous region be shuffled off to China for things deemed to be offences on the mainland.
Canada needs to stand with the people who want the truth about Tiananmen Square and we need to stand with the people of Hong Kong. So far Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland’s words have been muted and Justin Trudeau has been pretty much silent.
But more than that, we need to wake up to what this means for us – we need to acknowledge what we’re up against – a Communist giant seeking to elbow out the United States as king of the castle and replace them as the world’s dominant superpower. And we need to stand firm against it.
LAWTON: More socialism? Government panel wants universal pharmacare
A Liberal-appointed panel, headed by a former Liberal health minister, has recommended the government adopt single-payer, universal pharmacare. At a cost of $15 billion per year.
True North’s Andrew Lawton explains why this is such a bad idea.
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Freeland thinks communist Cuba can help bring democracy to Venezuela
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland believes that Cuba should play a role in ending the current crisis in Venezuela, despite the fact Cuba actively supports the dictator, Nicolás Maduro.
Her comments came on Friday after a meeting with her Cuban counterpart Bruno Rodriguez. Freeland stressed Canada’s supposed closeness with the communist island and how that will help them find a solution to the ongoing collapse of Venezuela.
“Canada has a deep and historic connection with Cuba, and we believe, and I hope our Cuban counterparts would agree, that this strong relationship we have with Cuba can be a way for us to talk about the crisis in Venezuela, coming as we do from very different perspectives,” she said.
Freeland also took the opportunity to redeclare Canadian economic support for Cuba, a nation known for human rights abuses.
“The Government of Canada always has, does and will continue to support Canadians and Canadian companies legitimately doing business in Cuba,” she said.
Cuba is a fervent supporter of the socialist government of Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela, under which the economy collapsed.
Canada, on the other hand, has joined the United States and most of its allies in supporting Juan Guaido, the opposition leader who declared himself president in January after an election seen as fraudulent by the international community reelected Maduro.
The United States, the Organization of American States (OAS) and many others have alleged that the Cuban military and intelligence forces are in Venezuela right now aiding the Maduro government.
“This year [2018] in Venezuela, the presence of Cubans was recorded in the torture of its people. It is estimated that there are some 46,000 Cubans in Venezuela, an occupation force that teaches how to torture and repress, that performs intelligence, civil identification, and migration services,” said OAS President Luis Almagro.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has expressed his admiration for the Cuban dictatorship on multiple occasions.
In 2018, the Trudeau government voted against condemning Cuba’s human rights record in the UN.
In 2016, Trudeau was criticized and ridiculed for his statement following the death of the tyrannical Fidel Castro, calling him a “remarkable leader.”
FUREY: Who’s actually threatening national unity?
Six Premiers sent an urgent letter to Prime Minister Trudeau saying national unity will be threatened if bills C-48 and C-69 became law.
Instead of working with the provinces, Trudeau vilified them and accused the Premiers of threatening national unity.
This is the classic case of the kid who screams, “I know you are, but what am I?”
True North’s Anthony Furey weighs in.
Liberals looked for donations from foreigners over Facebook
The Liberal Party of Canada used Facebook to try to solicit donations in both the United States and the United Kingdom.
Only Canadian citizens and permanent residents of Canada can legally donate to Canadian political parties.
“A limited set of grassroots fundraising ads on Facebook inadvertently ran briefly both inside and outside of Canada, when that wasn’t the intention here,” admitted Braeden Caley, a Liberal party official.
It isn’t clear why the Liberal Party would try to run advertisements to Facebook users in other countries, but Caley said the Liberals are working with Facebook to see what went wrong.
Facebook offers many filters that advertisers can use to target specific types of users, among these include country, region, gender and age.
The party did not comment on who would have allowed their ads to run outside of Canada, but they did confirm that they were taken down after a week running in the US and the UK.
It is significant to note that the governing Liberals have trailed the Conservative Party of Canada in fundraising for years.
Ironically, while the Liberals have been soliciting donations from foreigners, they have also been spearheading a crackdown on possible foreign interference in the upcoming federal election.
The Liberals are asking social media platforms to sign a “Declaration of Electoral Integrity” ahead of the October election.
The declaration demands that platforms like Facebook fight foreign interference in our democracy.
It also requires companies to combat “misinformation” which “undermine[s] free and fair elections and core democratic institutions and aggravate existing societal tensions.”
This phrase may cause more problems than it solves. True North’s Andrew Lawton points out that the document provides no real definitions for the term “misinformation”.
Democratic institutions Minister Karina Gould even publicly suggested shutting down social media platforms which do not sign the declaration, as Twitter has yet to do.
“I think it’s obvious that Twitter is not taking this issue seriously,” she said in an interview, suggesting Twitter is responsible for its users’ actions.
While pressuring social media companies to fight foreign interference in our democracy, this recent fundraising gaffe raises the question of whether the government can hold themselves up to the same standard.
LAWTON: Victoria councillor says military should pay for Remembrance Day ceremonies
A city councillor in Victoria, BC, thinks that the Department of National Defence should pay the costs of hosting local Remembrance Day ceremonies because they are, in his view, “military” events.
This councillor, Ben Isitt, previously accused the Invictus Games for wounded veterans of being militaristic.
True North’s Andrew Lawton weighs in.
Canada exploring war crimes charges for returning ISIS fighters
The RCMP is in the process of figuring out if any Canadian ISIS fighters held in Syria could be prosecuted under war crimes laws.
This news comes on the heels of revelations that the government is trying to find ways to bring imprisoned ISIS fighters to Canada.
Officials are now saying that they are deciding if the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act could be used to lock up ISIS fighters who are Canadian.
The RCMP’s deputy commissioner has said it would be difficult to arrest and charge returning ISIS fighters, but the national police force has nevertheless made it clear it will try. Either way, it’s clear the federal government wants these terrorists to return.
War crimes charges are very rare in Canada, with only a handful of successful cases on the record.
Even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau understands the challenge the RCMP faces, noting the difficulty with “making the translation from intelligence gathering activities to presenting evidence of crimes.”
“That is something that the RCMP, our intelligence agencies and indeed agencies around the world are struggling with and working on very hard,” he said.
The government estimates around 60 ISIS fighters with Canadian citizenship have already returned to Canada, with around 190 believe to remain abroad, many held by Syrian rebels.
Many of these fighters are accused of horrendous crimes.
One such man, Mohammed Abdullah Mohammed, an Ethiopian man from Toronto produced, narrated, and circulated ISIS mass execution videos.
Another, Abu Huzaifa, admitted to executing two people on behalf of ISIS. He also claimed he lied to Canadian authorities about what he did for ISIS upon returning to Canada.
ISIS commits unspeakable atrocities on those who do not follow its brand of extremist Islam, particularly religious minorities.
The mass murders, rapes and enslavements of Iraq’s Yazidi minority have been considered genocide by many.
It’s unclear to what extent those fighters with Canadian citizenship could have been involved in ISIS atrocities.
Due to the difficulty of procuring evidence from war zones, and the lack of law enforcement in former ISIS-controlled territory to work with, creating strong cases against many returning ISIS fighters would be nearly impossible.
Despite the efforts of the RCMP, it is unlikely that many of them would ever be punished for their crimes if the government returns them to Canada.
LAWTON: Liberals promised “evidence-based” policy, but the evidence says plastic bans don’t work
It’s policy based on a straw man, one might say. Justin Trudeau announced a ban on single-use plastics to reduce pollution in the ocean, except marine plastic is overwhelmingly from Asia and the developing world, not Canada.
Trudeau’s announcement is environmental virtue signalling, not the evidence-based policy the Liberals promised, True North’s Andrew Lawton says.
