Four individuals have been apprehended by American border officials after crossing the Canada-US border into Vermont.

Vermont directly borders Quebec, and despite several official border crossings, there has been a surge of illegal border crossings due to weak enforcement.

Some migrants have been taking advantage of a loophole in the Canada–United States Safe Third Country Agreement to cross the border illegally between official checkpoints.

Ever since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau loosened visa requirements for Mexican citizens entering Canada, illegal Mexican immigration has escalated.

Currently, Mexican citizens require only an Electronic Travel Authorization (ETA) to enter Canada, which costs only $7 and takes a few minutes to complete.

Abandoning prior visa regulations has led to an upsurge in cartel members entering Canada under the pretense of law-abiding Mexican visitors.

According to a recent report, 400 Mexican cartel members have entered Canada illegitimately using fake passports. Among those criminals are drug traffickers, hit-men and criminals, many of whom went off the radar since after being spotted by Canadian authorities.

Mexican migrants crossing illegally from the US into Canada have also been a problem for border authorities.

In 2018 alone, Canada had a 1,000 per cent upsurge in asylum claims from Mexican nationals. Approximately 3,300 asylum claims were made by Mexican visitors.

In April 2019, True North also reported that nearly half of those crossing illegally into the US from Canada were Mexican.

Two Conservative MPs are suing a municipal politician for defamation after he inferred that they were racists over Facebook.

John Brassard (Barrie-Innisfil) and Alex Nuttall (Barrie-Springwater-Oro-Medonte), are suing Barrie City Councillor Keenan Aylwin after Aylwin made Facebook posts which inferred a connection between the MPs and white nationalists.

“They are playing footsies with white supremacists who have inspired violence,” Aylwin said.

Aylwin also demanded that Nuttall and Brassard publically distance themselves from “Faith Goldy, anti-immigration groups and all white supremacist and hateful rhetoric” and apologize for “the harm they caused by not doing so.”

There is no known connection between the MPs and any white supremacist group.

Rather than tolerate Aylwin spreading unsubstantiated rumours, both MPs filed separate lawsuits, claiming that Aylwin intended to mean that they were racists and have inspired violence.

They are both claiming $100,000 for damages.

Both also made complaints to the city government that Aylwin’s posts violated the city’s code of conduct.

Both men have been Barrie City Councillors in the past.

Barrie’s integrity commissioner agreed with Brassard and Nuttall, condemning Alywin for his “baseless” claims.

“In no way am I saying that a member of council does not have the right to free speech. It is just not unlimited,” she said, referring to Aylwin’s claims.

Among Aylwin’s other claims were that Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer “appeared on the same stage” as Faith Goldy at the United We Roll rally in Ottawa.

As reported by True North, there was a massive mischaracterization of the United We Roll convoy perpetuated by the mainstream media.

Faith Goldy did not speak on stage as Scheer, she spoke to a group separate from the main rally.

United We Roll, who put on the rally, is not associated with any extremist organization or individual, going so far as publicly distancing themselves from Yellow Vests Canada.

Barrie City Council voted to publicly denounce Aylwin’s posts, and order he be reprimanded.

These lawsuits by Brassard and Nuttall represent a strong warning to those who insinuate the Conservative Party is partial to racism, which Andrew Scheer recently condemned.

“There is absolutely no room in a peaceful and free country like Canada for intolerance, racism, and extremism of any kind. I find the notion that one’s race, religion, gender, or sexual orientation would make them in any way superior to anybody else absolutely repugnant,” Scheer said.

“And if there’s anyone who disagrees with that, there’s the door. You are not welcome here.”

The Liberal government has announced that it is looking for avenues to legislate a potential handgun and “assault” weapon ban.

A potentially sweeping gun ban is under review by the federal government. Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime Reduction Bill Blair is in charge of the study and has not ruled out an order-in-council, a tool that subverts parliamentary approval, to further restrict firearms access in Canada.

According to Blair’s office, the Liberals are looking for a way to ban guns “designed to hunt people”.

“Assault-style rifles are military weapons designed to hunt people, and not animals, in the most efficient manner possible that maximizes the body count at minimum effort,” said Blair.  

“There is no option that will be discounted and all possibilities will be considered.”

The federal government has been hard-pressed to define what an “assault-style rifle” is since the announcement.

Assault rifles require the capacity to shoot in a fully-automatic fashion; these guns are already prohibited in Canada, though the term is often erroneously applied to semi-automatic guns like AR-15 variants.

In April, Blair released a report on a potential gun ban claiming that Canadians are polarized on the issue of gun control.

“Overall, participants were strongly polarized on the issue of banning handguns and assault-style firearms,” claims the report.

Despite efforts by Conservative politicians, Bill C-71 passed the senate on May 28. The bill further restricts gun ownership by adding extra layers of record-keeping and background checks on law-abiding gun buyers and owners.

While the bill was still being debated, Senator Marilou McPhedran attempted to pass a motion adding a handgun ban to the bill but it failed with a majority of senators opposed to the amendment.

This year may end up being a very difficult year for Albertans, as a new report projects a recession will hit the province.

The Conference Board of Canada’s 2019 outlook found that troubles in the oil industry and the debt burden in Ontario will push down the overall economy of Canada.

“While the outlook is generally sound for most provinces, there are challenges and risks. A slump in oil sector investment and fiscal austerity in Ontario are expected to be part of the economic landscape for some time to come while elevated household debt levels and moderate household income growth are weighing on consumer spending across the country,” said Marie-Christine Bernard, Director of Provincial Forecast.

The economic situation is particularly bleak for Alberta as the report highlights its economy will shrink by 0.1 percent, compared to a projected 1.3 percent  growth in the last forecast.

The report recognized that the decline in the Albertan economy is directly related to the regulatory environment driving away energy investment.

“Investment in the province’s oil sector will be low as concerns about Canada’s carbon tax and a lack of pipeline capacity will likely drive many investors south to the United States,” it reads.

The Canadian pipeline association has lamented this combination of restraints on their industry creating a “competitiveness crisis” because Canada and the United States, seeing investors flee Alberta in droves.

As the federal government has failed to make any meaningful progress on approving pipelines, despite purchasing an incomplete pipeline project for $4.5 billion, companies have had to cut production, further reducing potential income for Alberta.

In 2018 alone Canadian companies lost over $20 billion in revenue due to insufficient pipeline capacity.

Alberta’s troubles will push down the entire Canadian economy in 2019, the report reads, as the Conference Board predicts Canada’s GDP growth to slip to just 1.4 per cent.

The report does predict a rebound in the Alberta economy as early as 2020 if production and pipeline capacity can be increased.

If Alberta’s declining energy production trend is reversed the Conference Board predicts Alberta’s economy would become the strongest in Canada.

Newly elected Premier, Jason Kenney, has reiterated his support for the energy sector and his desire to get pipelines built. He has already improved Alberta’s economic outlook by scrapping the carbon tax.  

If the energy sector does not see the regulatory environment improve this year, the economic outlook for Canada will become much less certain.

Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board has admitted that it can no longer eliminate the growing asylum backlog but can only “manage” its growth.

According to estimates, the backlog is expected to grow to 100,000 by 2021. Eliminating that backlog could cost up to $400 million, claims IRB board member Richard Wex.

“What we’re focused on in terms of the next 24 months with the temporary funding in Budget 2018 and 2019 is not to eliminate the backlog. It is to slow the growth of the pace of the backlog from what it would otherwise be,” claimed Wex.

The admission came on May 28th, as members of various departments appeared before the public accounts committee.

The committee questioned officials from the Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB), the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) and Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) about findings reported by the auditor general which indicated that Canada’s asylum system is unable to cope with the current backlog.

“Overall, we found that Canada’s refugee determination system was not equipped to process claims according to the required timelines,” claimed the Auditor General’s report.

As reported by True North, asylum claims have grown this year respective to 2018.

“Approximately 17,290 people made refugee claims from the start of January to the end of April. Last year in that same time period 16,925 people filed refugee claims,” said True North’s Graeme Gordon.

Recently the Liberals have reversed on several positions regarding asylum and refugees. Earlier this year, new legislation was introduced within the Liberal 2019 bill, which allows Canada to turn away claimants who have already filed a claim in another country. The budget also allocated $1.18 billion over the next five years to help aid the situation.

Minister of Border Security Bill Blair has also attempted to engage with US counterparts to close loopholes in the Safe Third Country Agreement which allow for migrants to cross into Canada at unofficial border crossings. The discussions are currently ongoing and have yet to produce any results.

Earlier this week, Conservative Party leader Andrew Scheer promised that his government would close the loopholes if elected in October 2019 in one of a series of speeches intended to elaborate on the party’s election platform.

A Conservative government would work to strengthen the border and protect religious minorities, leader Andrew Scheer announced on Tuesday.

Scheer, in announcing the Conservative Party’s immigration policy plan, promised that his government would end illegal border crossings.

Scheer suggested the illegal immigration crisis can be addressed by closing a loophole in the Safe Third Country Agreement between Canada and the United States..

Scheer said the loophole undermines Canada’s immigration system, often to the chagrin of legal immigrants and bonafide refugees.

“[Legal immigrants] are the most offended at Trudeau’s status quo, where some are able to jump queues, exploit loopholes and game the system.”

True North’s Graeme Gordon has covered the plight of illegal border crossings extensively, finding that initial security screenings of illegal border crossers can take less than two hours.

Most of these border crossers are then transported to urban centres like Toronto, which have already received millions from the federal government to properly house them all.

In the last two years Toronto has spent $64.5 million of taxpayers’ dollars on asylum claimants.

One of Scheer’s other big immigration policy planks was to further increase protections for survivors of genocide and persecuted religious minorities.

To do this, Scheer promised to reopen the Office of Religious Freedom, an agency of Global Affair Canada which advocated for religious minorities around the world.

The office was started by then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2013 but closed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shortly after taking office.

Scheer specifically mentioned the plight of the Yazidis, which the Conservatives have strongly advocated for, as an example of a persecuted religious minority.

Yazidis, particularly women and girls, have been the target of extreme persecution since the takeover of their native Iraq by ISIS in 2014.

To close, Scheer took the opportunity to push back against claims that the Conservative focus on a strong border and well-managed immigration system is somehow motivated by racism.

“To ascribe those motives to those who simply want stronger security screening procedures or fewer people entering the country illegally makes a mockery of such hateful forces.”