It’s a dangerous pattern this government has displayed in playing identity politics.
The Liberals are singling out and magnifying the infinitesimal minority of “white” Canadians who are extremists, all while ignoring or even covering up the extremism coming from minority groups, such as removing “Sikh extremism” from a government report on terrorism.
Toronto Mayor John Tory thinks offering people $350 to turn in their guns will make the streets safer, despite a wealth of evidence proving gun buybacks simply don’t work.
The reason why is simple–gangsters who have guns have them because they want them. True North’s Andrew Lawton, who won’t be handing his gun over, explains why this is such a flawed initiative.
Support True North’s efforts to stand up for gun ownership in Canada by joining Andrew’s Heritage Club: https://tnc.news/lawton-heritage-club/
A post-election study reveals that Jason Kenney’s supporters are eager to see him push back against the federal government’s attack on the energy sector in Alberta.
The report, released last week by Navigator found that Albertans are anxious to see Kenney and the UCP tackle the province’s economic issues, build pipelines and fight the carbon tax.
Navigator held eight focus groups throughout the province after the UCP’s recent victory and included people from all age groups and social classes.
The poll found that the campaign promises Albertans were most eager to see materialize were Kenny’s pledge to to restrict oil and gas shipments to British Columbia if its government keeps obstructing new pipeline projects, as well as joining the fight against the federal carbon tax waged by Ontario, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and New Brunswick.
Another key promise by Kenney that UCP voters eagerly support is to hold a referendum on equalization payments to Ottawa if there’s no progress on pipelines by 2021.
While Albertans understand that current pipeline issues are complex, the poll suggests they nonetheless expect Kenney to take serious action on the file.
“Alberta voters told us that they are proud Canadians. However they simply don’t understand why Alberta’s contributions to the Canadian economy through equalization, federal taxation, employment and clean ethical energy are not understood and appreciated,” said Jason Hatcher, managing principal at Navigator.
“While Albertans prefer that the provinces and the federal government find an amicable solution, patience has run out. They want action and real progress. Albertans have empowered the Kenney government with a mandate to use every tool available including turning off the taps.”
The report makes it clear that Kenney will have to deliver for the energy sector and get pipelines built — Albertans understand that a strong energy sector brings prosperity to their communities.
“When I look at pipelines, I see hospitals, schools, clinics, things we enjoy as Canadians,” said one person in a focus group.
Most respondents felt hopeful about the incoming UCP government, already noticing the boost in province-wide optimism.
“Life is coming back to Alberta,” said a female millennial participant.
“It felt like an Old West town and there’s tumbleweeds, and we were waiting around. Now you can hear the horses coming back.”
Albertans appear to have both high hopes and high expectations for Jason Kenney, and he will have to take serious action to live up to them.
British Columbia judge, Robert Hamilton granted bail to a US inn owner facing 21 charges related to smuggling several migrants illegally into Canada.
Robert Joseph Boulé, who owns the Smuggler’s Inn in Blaine, Washington, was charged with violating Canada’s Criminal Code and Immigration and Refugee Protection Act, including Section 117 (1) of the act which states:
“No person shall organize, induce, aid or abet the coming into Canada of one or more persons knowing that, or being reckless as to whether, their coming into Canada is or would be in contravention of this Act.”
Those convicted for the crime of “aiding and abetting” illegal entry into Canada can face a fine of $500,000 and up to ten years imprisonment for their crimes.
Boulé, who also goes by “Bob Boule” was involved in aiding at least 16 people to enter into Canada from the period of May 2018 to March 2019.
69 year old Boulé’s bail conditions allow him to return to the United States if he posts $15,000 and meets 16 conditions imposed on him by the Canadian court.
Before returning to the US, Boulé is required to meet the following three conditions:
Legally there is nothing stopping Boulé from never returning to Canada to face trial after he has crossed the border back into the US. Boulé’s actions are not considered a crime in the US.
Some of the other conditions also require Boulé to send a photograph of the sign to his supervisor each week, his business must make copies of each guest’s ID, and he must report anyone he suspects of wishing to cross into Canada illegally to the proper authorities.
Officials believe that Boulé facilitated several crossings through his business property.
The Smuggler’s Inn is located directly on the Canada-US border. Only a line of boulders along Boulé’s property indicates the crossing. Directly beside the bed and breakfast lies “0 Avenue,” a BC road stretching from Surrey to Abbotsford.
According to the judge, Boulé does not have the sum required to meet the bail but he has claimed that the community of Blaine would fundraise the funds for his release.
Canada’s social fabric is changing, fraying perhaps, ever so slightly. Charitable donations, volunteerism and membership in community associations are slowly but steadily on the decline.
While there’s no one-stop solution to such a broad problem, there’s one idea Canadians ought to consider as election season nears: The introduction of some form of national service on a federal scale.
True North’s Anthony Furey discusses.
Five provinces are united in opposing Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax in court. Saskatchewan’s and Ontario’s governments have already argued their cases, and it’s believed Alberta will soon join the fight.
True North’s Andrew Lawton covered the Ontario carbon tax hearing–and was the only member of the media there for the entire thing.
As our national police force Canadians expect certain things from the RCMP.
We expect to be protected from threats to our national security and from threats in our communities they police. But we also expect the RCMP to be honest with Canadians and to tell the truth.
Last week the first mediation / settlement conference was held in one of four lawsuits brought against the RCMP by the members who responded to a disturbance call at YVR airport in October, 2007 that resulted in the death of Polish traveller Robert Dziekanski.
Yes, this has been going on for 12 years.
It began with the first media briefing given by Sgt. Pierre Lemaitre the Media Liaison Officer (MLO) for the RCMP in the Lower Mainland in the hours after Dziekanski’s death. Lemaitre had preliminary information from the investigators and gave an erroneous statement to the media.
When further investigation made it clear that Lemaitre had provided inaccurate information to the press, he wanted to correct the record but he was ordered not to by then Inspector Wayne Rideout who was in charge of IHIT, the homicide investigators handling the file.
Lemaitre was replaced and ultimately transferred to a traffic unit once the error became public and the baying media hounds became relentless. That failure haunted him to the point he committed suicide in the summer of 2013.
That decision by Rideout not to be honest with the public triggered everything that resulted, from the Braidwood Inquiry, to the formation of the civilian review agency, The IIO in B.C., to the members being charged criminally with perjury and with two being ultimately acquitted and two convicted. The two that were convicted served time in prison.
The reality of the situation is the four members responded exactly as they were trained to do but the senior management of the RCMP never said that publicly. They allowed their members to twist in the wind for years and ultimately to go to prison.
The machinations that went on behind the scenes continued for years as the force tried to contain the damage they had wrought by their own failure. Predictably, they only managed to exacerbate the problem.
The whole matter was examined in depth by veteran journalist Curt Petrovich in his excellent book Blamed and Broken.
I should also add that the RCMP conducted an internal review two years after the events of 2007 and determined that members acted appropriately. It was again reviewed ten years later and that report reached much the same conclusion.
In August of 2015, I spoke with Gary Bass who had just retired as the Deputy Commissioner in charge of E Division (BC) during all of these events. He tried to explain the actions of the force and decisions that were made but at the end of the interview he could not explain why the truth was never told.
On the actions of the four officers, he said this, “I continue to be of the belief that the four members acted in accordance with their training and the policy at the time and that I never saw any indication that they committed perjury.”
Well, why not say that publicly? It would have avoided a whole lot of grief, especially for the two members who went to jail.
The four members have all filed lawsuits against the RCMP. And the mediation efforts have begun to try and find settlements. But even the RCMP still won’t admit publicly that the YVR Four were just doing their jobs as they had been trained.
Petrovich wanted to attend the mediation but was told he’d have to sign a document essentially agreeing that he’d get sued for $100,000 if he said anything. Where they get the authority to say that is unclear. Petrovich declined to sign the document.
None of any of this would have happened had they just been honest with the public out of the gate. And it seems they still don’t want any sunlight shone on their actions.
Canadians expect better of their national police force.
After Tuesday’s election in Prince Edward Island, pollsters and political analysts are left scratching their heads. How did they get the results so wrong?
Polls prior to election day put the Green Party comfortably ahead of the Liberal and Progressive Conservatives, with media outlets already haralding the would-be historic victory for the Green Party of PEI.
When the votes were counted on Tuesday, the Progressive Conservatives under rookie leader Dennis King held a comfortable first place position.
The unofficial results report that the PCs got 36.5% of the popular vote, the Greens 30.6%, and the Liberals 29.5%, far different than what was projected just days prior.
One poll released a few days before the election claimed the Greens held 35.4%, while the PCs only had 30.5%, similar projections to previous polls conducted earlier in 2019.
Yet another poll on election day gave the Greens and PCs a one-point difference.
One pollster even projected that based on the Green lead, they should expect to win 17 out of the 27 seats in the legislature.
In actuality, the Greens only won eight seats, and the PCs won 12 — securing a PC minority government.
The formerly governing Liberals won only six seats in the PEI legislature, down from 18 in 2015 and its first ever third place finish.
Part of the Liberal decline may be attributed to growing resentment against the Liberal Party in Ottawa, which the PEI Liberal stand beside on nearly every issue.
“It’s such an anti-Trudeau environment that I don’t think anybody can think anything past that because a lot of people are confusing Trudeau with Wade MacLauchlan too,” said one PC candidate.
Voters have made their decision and it clearly was not what pollsters or the mainstream media predicted, yet another result where the Conservative party outperformed expectations.
Prime Minister Trudeau doesn’t practice what he preaches.
Trudeau is forcing a carbon tax on Canadians while flying around in his own private jet. If the government expects us to pay the carbon tax, shouldn’t they be setting a better example?
True North’s Leo Knight explains in his latest video.
While the federal government pursues policies to regulate the internet over concerns of “white nationalism,” Canada’s international allies disagree on the gravity of the threat.
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland faced pushback from her counterparts at a G7 meeting over her desire to reference white supremacy in her policy push.
In reaction to the tragic Christchurch shooting, Freeland told the UN white supremacy was one of the world’s greatest security threats.
During her announcement she called on the fellow nations “to act collectively to address” online hate.
According to sources at the G7 summit, Freeland insisted the nations involved issued a joint statement denouncing white supremacy. Some of the countries’ representatives disagreed with Freeland’s characterization of the threat level posed and refused to include any mention of it in their joint statement.
Instead the statement released by the G7 countries said that members were “deeply concerned about resurgent forms of racism, and discrimination, including anti-Semitism, anti-Muslim sentiment and the targeting of Christian minorities, leading to violence worldwide.”
It remains unclear which countries pushed back against Freeland’s assertions.
However the disagreement is not only international, as intelligence agencies within Canada seem undecided on the threat level white nationalism and far-right extremism pose to Canada’s national security.
According to internal communications between Canada’s security establishment from 2018, law enforcement and intelligence agencies are yet to be convinced that the problem is a grave threat to national security.
“Within the broader context of extremism in Canada, the number of right-wing extremists who promote or are willing to engage in politically-motivated violence is extremely small,” claimed one memo by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
White nationalism is referenced in the “2018 Public Report on the Terrorism Threat to Canada” by Public Safety Canada. However, according to the ministry’s website, there are no far-right groups named on their “Listed Terrorist Entities” page, while Islamist terrorist groups take up a majority of the list.
“Although the majority of recent global terrorist attacks can be attributed to individuals inspired by terrorist groups such as Daesh and AQ, other recent events around the world are bringing attention to the threat of violence from individuals who harbour right-wing extremist views,” claims the report.
“However, while racism, bigotry, and misogyny may undermine the fabric of Canadian society, ultimately they do not usually result in criminal behavior or threats to national security.”
While the security threat of right-wing extremism may be real, the Liberals have recently weaponized the threat of white nationalism for political purposes ahead of the upcoming election.
Recently, Justin Trudeau accused the leader of the opposition Andrew Scheer of sharing a stage with white nationalists.