Of the eight organizations invited by Justin Trudeau’s government to nominate candidates for an “independent panel of experts” on government-approved journalism, four represent Quebec interests, one is already contemplating pulling out of the process over a lack of transparency, and one, Unifor, has declared itself the “resistance” to Andrew Scheer and the Conservatives.
True North’s Andrew Lawton says this process only serves to undermine journalism by making Justin Trudeau the media industry’s sugar daddy. It’s never been more important to support independent journalism.
A government official has told senators that a list of approved media companies for government subsidies will eventually be created, but cannot say what the qualifications will be.
Trevor McGowan, Director General of Tax Legislation for Finance Canada, told a Senate committee that the federal government will produce a list of media companies of which the Trudeau government approves— being on this list qualifies them for a multi-million dollar subsidy program.
“The rules themselves allow for the publication of a list of qualifying journalism organizations. It would allow for, say, the Canada Revenue Agency to have a list saying here are the organizations that qualify for the digital tax credits. You could go to that list,” McGowan said.
Under a new bill being proposed by the Trudeau government, government-approved media companies can apply for a 15 percent tax credit, giving them a major financial advantage against those which are not.
Despite the huge price tag and the potential to influence which media companies prosper and which fail, the government has so far refused to give any details of what counts as “qualified” journalism.
Also up for grabs is a payroll subsidy, $13,750 for each newsroom employee per year. This is budgeted to cost taxpayers $360 million over the next four years.
Opposition senators in the committee voiced their skepticism at the legislation and the bureaucrats, which both failed to address the lack of transparency.
“What frightens me about some of these things is there are a lot of assumptions and you’re not willing to provide us with hard facts,” said Conservative Senator Nicole Eaton.
True North’s Andrew Lawton and Anthony Furey have been highlighting the problematic amount of secrecy behind the government’s decision process.
The landscape of Canadian media may forever change after the Trudeau government passes this legislation and funnels millions of dollars to “government-approved” media.
Not only does Minister Bill Blair say a ban on certain firearms is still on the table, but he’s refusing to rule out the possibility of implementing such a ban in the most undemocratic way possible–without a vote in Parliament.
As the October federal election gets closer, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer has put forward a bold plan to revamp the economy and give the Canadian energy sector a much-needed jolt.
In a speech on economic policy, Scheer promised to work towards a coast-to-coast “energy corridor” to allow for large scale transportation of Canadian oil and gas from Alberta to all parts of the country.
“With a single corridor, we could minimize environmental impacts, lower the costs of environmental assessments, increase certainty for investors, and, most importantly, get these critical projects done,” Scheer said.
Along with greatly helping the stagnating energy sector, an energy corridor would assist in meeting Scheer’s other big energy promise: energy independence for Canada by 2030.
Scheer says energy independence would end Canada’s dependence on “regimes that abuse human rights and take virtually no steps to protect the environment.”
This most notably includes Saudi Arabia, a murderous dictatorship Canada relies heavily on for oil and gas.
“An energy independent Canada would be a Canada firing on all cylinders — across all sectors and regions,” he said. “If the United States can do it, so can we.”
Canada is largely dependent on the United States to buy our oil, which they buy at a high discount.
An east-west corridor would both give more Canadians access to Canadian oil and open new markets abroad to export.
While Andrew Scheer’s plan would potentially help recover the $20 billion Canada lost in oil revenue, Finance Minister Bill Morneau slammed Scheer’s plan, stating that the Liberal government’s “approach to the economy is actually working”
Despite Morneau’s assertion, recent surveys reveal the opposite: that nearly half of Canadians are less than $200 away from insolvency and another 26% have no money left at the end of each month after paying their bills.
While the Liberals claim “sunny ways,” Scheer says ordinary Canadians are worried about their financial situation and that that is the only real assessment of this government’s handling of the economy.
Just one week after thousands of Canadians took part in the March for Life, Minister Maryam Monsef is taking aim at the Conservative members of parliament who were among them, effectively trying to silence those who believe abortion is wrong.
True North’s Andrew Lawton says vilifying pro-life politicians not only denies representation to the millions of Canadians who share those views, but also makes it impossible for people who disagree to find any common ground.
Another day, another bad news headline for Chinese tech giant Huawei.
On Friday, the Trump administration announced Huawei and dozens of its affiliates had been placed on a blacklist that limits its access to major U.S. suppliers.
The next step may be a full ban that restricts the sale of products like semiconductors to Huawei, which would seriously slow down their business.
President Trump is doing this for the same reason many other countries, universities and others are pausing or scaling back their ties with the firm: Because they believe it operates as a spy for the Communist government in Beijing.
The claim of Huawei spying – which the company firmly denies – is worse than that of other companies spying. The traditional idea of foreign actors spying on Western soil, the sort of stuff seen in Cold War movies and novels, is of people stealing dossiers or taking photographs of secret plans, only to send them back to the USSR or elsewhere.
The game is different now. The stakes are higher.
Major countries around the world are currently building the infrastructure for their upcoming 5G online connectivity. This is a faster and more advanced web structure than we currently enjoy. It would enable “The Internet of Things”, where all of our electronics are connected to the online world and communicate with each other. While you can already do things like adjusting your thermostat from your phone, the options will ramp up. And so will the possibilities for espionage.
If there’s a camera in your house that you can watch at all times, that means there’s a camera in your house that a hacker can get into at all times to spy on you. And if Huawei technology is in your house and if Huawei reports back to the Communists, as is alleged, then that means the global superpower seeking world domination can potentially watch you at home anytime it wants.
Trump has already said China will not gain an inch in global domination on his watch. Anyone who believes that Western liberal democracy is superior to Chinese Communism should applaud this and join the U.S. in its efforts.
You’d think Canada would be front and centre in all of this, given how much of a rough ride we’ve received at the hands of Beijing in recent months. They continue to turn the screws on us over the lawful detention of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou, including banning our canola and pork products and arresting two high-profile Canadians on dubious charges.
The time to ban Huawei from our 5G grid is sooner than later.
Yet Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale and other members of the Liberal cabinet keep talking about taking their time on a typical security review as if this is business as usual. It’s not. And their reluctance to make the obvious decision makes it appear that they’re open to caving from lobbying pressure from Huawei and China.
With all that’s going on in this file, and the disproportionate way Canada is taking the hits on it, you’d think we’d be leading with our response. Instead, we’re laggards.
The number of asylum claims made in the first four months of 2019 was higher than the first four months of 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.
With RCMP border interceptions decreasing but the overall number of asylum claims increasing, its evident more individuals are coming to Canada under false pretences rather than illegally crossing the border. Foreign workers, foreign students and tourists are arriving in Canada and then making refugee claims upon arrival.
True North has interviewed over a dozen asylum seekers who came here under one of those three categories.
One example is a Caribbean woman who came here ostensibly to study for her undergrad in the arts. She received a student visa, flew to Toronto Pearson Airport and made a claim immediately after landing.
A major contributor to the increase in asylum claims is coming from Mexico. Since the Trudeau government waived the travellers visa requirement for Mexicans the claims from that country have skyrocketed, now nearing a 1,000% increase.
Despite the Trudeau government’s complete reversal on its former nonchalant stance towards “irregular” migrants entering Canada illegally in the tens of thousands, and the number of RCMP interceptions of people illegally entering the country decreasing late last year, the number of those crossing into Canada from unofficial ports of entry climbed again in April as well.
The number of people intercepted in the first three months of 2019 was 871, 800 and 967 respectively. In April 1,206 were intercepted by the RCMP. US President Donald Trump could very likely end the Temporary Protected Status program for tens of thousands of non-citizens who are currently living in America on humanitarian grounds. Trump ending other groups under the same program contributed to the spike in illegal border crossings into Canada.
The inability to properly vet criminal records of some newcomers and the lack of transparency on the percentage of asylum seekers with serious criminal records all raise questions regarding the security risks involved with the current situation.
The federal government’s 2019 initial monthly reports on the number of asylum claims made are subject to change. The Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC) and the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) release preliminary data on the number of asylum claims, but those numbers aren’t final.
“To answer your question, please note that the asylum data posted on the IRCC site refers to claimant intake i.e. the number of claimants received at each office. Due to a variety of operational factors, including how the data is tracked within the system, there can be a slight delay before the information entered is backdated in order to more accurately reflect the date a claim is made. Generally speaking, it may take up to two monthly publication update cycles before the majority of data is settled,” says IRCC spokesperson Nancy Caron.
“Please note that the RCMP intercepts are tracked separately and do not undergo the same update process.”
Some of the data from the first couple of months actually lowered the initial total number of asylum claims from 12,940 to 12,900.
When the World Trade Centre was attacked on September 11, 2001, I was in Calgary. I wound up at the airport watching all the international flights being grounded and stack parked wherever they could on the tarmac.
I did more than a dozen TV news interviews that day from the airport. The underlying message I was giving was whatever you knew the world as on September 10, it had now changed and changed utterly.
That day changed the way we think about security and keeping citizens safe. The U.S formed the Department of Homeland Security, amalgamating all federal agencies under one umbrella. In Canada, we already had a national police force, the RCMP, but created different sections to respond to the emerging threat.
In the days after 9-11, the RCMP scrambled to get as many resources as it could into intelligence investigations. The Mounties were working hand-in-glove with our American partners on info and intel trying to separate the wheat from the chaff.
The issue of national security is complicated and involves cooperation with our allies, chief among them the U.S. And so it was this week in a suburb of Toronto when, acting on intel from our American friends, York Regional Police executed a search warrant at a Richmond Hill home. They seized precursor chemicals used to make explosives, at least one detonator and a copy of The Anarchist’s Handbook, a guide to making bombs.
Police arrested 18-year-old Mahyar Mohammadiasl and 47-year-old Reza Mohammadiasl. They were charged with a variety of things relating to the search and were released on $50,000 bail.
That’s it. And they are back in their community.
Police said the younger man was “on the cusp of being radicalized.”
Um, what? Is that like being on the cusp of being pregnant?
Not to be outdone, Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said this wasn’t a national security issue, but a local police matter.
Come again?
Allow me to take a quote from the RCMP web page dealing with national security responsibilities. “Threats to national security can come in any form: chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear; an explosive device.”
Wouldn’t the fact chemicals, explosive precursors and at least one detonator and “he was on the cusp of being radicalized” fit within those parameters?
The RCMP has a section called the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team (INSET) with offices across the country. And I happen to know they have an office in the Greater Toronto area. So, where the heck are they in this?
We are not sure, yet, how the information was developed and given to Canadian authorities, but we do know it came from U.S. sources. Typically those things go government to government. By that, I mean federal agency to federal agency. How did York Regional Police wind up with the conduct of the investigation?
I ask again where the heck was the RCMP in all of this? Too busy stitching up Vice Admiral Mark Norman at the behest of the PMO to deal with an actual terror threat?
And what of Goodale’s remarks?
Goodale is nothing more than a political opportunist, a hack who has never had a real job in his adult life. He was first elected in 1974 when he was 24. And that’s the nicest thing I can say about him.
The Liberals want to repatriate ISIS fighters and don’t want a word spoken that might suggest there might be a problem in this country with those who wish to do us harm. Radical Islam shall not be mentioned lest you think they are actually the enemy of the west. That would be contrary to the Liberal narrative. And we can’t have that.
Nothing to see here folks. Move along.
No part of any of this case passes the sniff test.
If True North’s Anthony Furey had it his way, the best relationship between the government and the media would be no relationship at all.
Unfortunately, the Trudeau government is likely going forward with the $600-million media bailout package.
Last week, Anthony was invited to appear as a witness at the House of Commons Finance committee to share his thoughts about the media bailout package. He summarizes his presentation to the committee in his latest video.
