Justin Trudeau has appointed the Justice Minister who turned a blind eye to a decade of Liberal scandals to investigate a Liberal scandal.
The hypocrisy fairly drips.
True North’s Leo Knight explains.
LAWTON: Trudeau’s budget an attempt to buy re-election
Bill Morneau has tabled the Liberal government’s final budget in advance of the fall election. The budget has tens of billions of dollars of new spending, and no end in sight for the deficit that the Liberals promised would be gone by this year.
True North’s Andrew Lawton breaks down the numbers.
LAWTON: Canadians are heading to other countries for healthcare
Canada’s healthcare system is a source of great pride for many Canadians, but it’s far from perfect. A new study from SecondStreet.org found that hundreds of thousands of Canadians leave the country each year for health care services in the United States and abroad.
SecondStreet.org president Colin Craig joins True North’s Andrew Lawton to discuss the findings.
Anti-Pipeline MP Joyce Murray named to Cabinet by Justin Trudeau
Justin Trudeau has named longtime anti-energy sector activist Joyce Murray President of the Treasury Board, the newest addition to cabinet after multiple resignations and shuffles.
Murray, Member of Parliament for Vancouver Quadra, was named President of the Treasury Board after Jane Philpott resigned citing her loss of confidence in the Trudeau government two weeks ago.
Murray has been a lifelong climate activist who has spent her time in office fighting oil and gas development projects.
Recently Murray spoke out in disappointment at her own party for approving the Trans Mountain Expansion project, which they later bungled and spent $4.5 billion of taxpayer money to buy.
“Cabinet’s decision to approve the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain Expansion project is incredibly disappointing for me and for many in Vancouver Quadra and British Columbia,” Murray said.
She also took partial credit for the recent Trudeau government ban of oil tankers off the coast of Northern B.C. which effectively killed the Northern Gateway pipeline project.
“I am very pleased that my seven years of effort to protect B.C.’s north coast by legislating a ban on crude oil tanker traffic have now born fruit,” she said.
As President of the Treasury Board, Murray will be in charge of administering regulations, cabinet order, and managing public finances.
Trudeau’s decision to appoint Murray to this important position is just one of many examples of the government’s disdain for the energy sector.
In 2017, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said, “we can’t shut down the oil sands tomorrow. We need to phase them out.”
Former Treasury President Jane Philpott resigned in wake of the SNC-Lavalin scandal and the alleged treatment of former Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould.
“I have been considering the events that have shaken the federal government in recent weeks and after serious reflection, I have concluded that I must resign as a member of Cabinet,” she said in her resignation.
“Sadly, I have lost confidence in how the government has dealt with this matter and in how it has responded to the issues raised,” she said.
Wilson-Raybould herself also resigned from cabinet after being demoted to Minister of Veterans Affairs – a move that came after she alleges high ranking Liberals pressured her to give a beneficial deal to SNC-Lavalin.
How much has Justin Trudeau’s invite to the world’s migrants cost Canadian taxpayers?
Since Prime Minister Trudeau tweeted an open invitation to the world’s migrants, thousands have accepted the invitation.
Rather than securing our borders or even discouraging migrants from crossing into Canada illegally, the Canadian government has allowed thousands of migrants entry into Canada. 2% of illegal border crossers have been deported.
As a result, in order to accommodate the illegal border crossers, Canadian taxpayers are on the hook for billions of dollars.
There have been endless reports on the cost of illegal border crossers, but it is unclear whether the federal government will develop a plan to stop the flow of illegal border crossers or if they will continue throwing money at the problem caused by the Prime Minister.
This report is intended for Canadian taxpayers to keep track of the costs:
- In Budget 2019, the government allotted $283 million in new spending intended on covering the healthcare costs of the recent influx of illegal border crossers.
- In Budget 2019, the government announced $1.18 billion “to support implementation of the Border Enforcement Strategy, and to process 50,000 asylum claims per year, as well as to facilitate removal of failed asylum claimants in a timely manner”
- According to the non-partisan Parliamentary Budget Officer, processing illegal border crossers alone will exceed $1.1 billion this year.
- The RCMP has spent over $6.6 million in overtime and maintaining a satellite office for processing illegal border crossers.
- Since 2016, the Canadian Border Services Agency has deported seven people using chartered flights, costing taxpayers a total of $821,157
- The 2018 federal budget devoted $173.2 million over two years to support intake of illegal border crossers
- 43 residents near Roxham Road are eligible for a total of $375,000 in compensation for increase in traffic and “disturbances”
- On June 1st, 2018, the federal government pledged $50 million in aid for provinces and municipalities affected by illegal migrants
- On July 16th, 2018, the Liberals announce that $11 million in aid will go directly to the city of Toronto to compensate for housing and shelter shortages due to illegal migrants
- At the start of 2019, the federal government revealed a plan to give the provinces another $114 million in extra funds to deal with the situation
- On January 25th, 2019, the federal government provided the city of Toronto with an additional $15 million to address shelter shortages due to illegal border crossers
- The government has committed $6 million to provide temporary housing to asylum seekers in British Columbia.
- Manitoba to get $5 million more to house illegal border crossers, in addition to the $3 million Manitoba received in 2018.
- Government sinks $50 million into holding facility for illegal border crossers.
- Quebec will be receiving $250 million from the federal government for the costs of handling illegal border crossers from 2017 to 2018.
- The Department of Immigration transferred a total of $372 million to provincial and municipal governments to cover the costs provinces and cities have incurred because of illegal migration.
- North York shelter for asylum-seekers will cost taxpayers $1 million per month: report
- Canadians spent nearly $11.4 million to cover additional policing and enforcement costs attributed to the asylum seeker problem.
FUREY: Premier Ford’s most popular announcement ever?
Ontario is set to ban all cellphones in school classrooms and parents across the province are applauding this decision.
This announcement sends a clear message to our education system – don’t be so connected to your phones. It shouldn’t be your only lifeline to reality.
True North’s Anthony Furey says this is one small step in the right direction.
FUREY: Expect the Liberal budget to be all handouts and distractions
The Liberal early approach to budgeting was something of a betrayal of trust. All of those Canadians who took Justin Trudeau at his word that he could stimulate the economy, bring benefits to the middle class and boost infrastructure spending, all by going into deficit to the tune of a minuscule, measly, blink-and-you’ll-miss-it $10 billion dollars, well they quickly learned things would turn out very different.
First, and the part that garnered the biggest headlines, is that they learned that the deficit was going to be almost triple that previously promised ceiling. And it’s never gone back before $10 billion with no real sign of balancing the budget in sight.
Yes, they got their middle class tax break (dropping from 22% to 20.5%) but then – as a report by the Fraser Institute concluded – still saw their overall taxes rises because of the elimination of other credits.
As for that infrastructure? The money is barely out the door. Those nation building projects that Trudeau said we’d get aren’t currently under construction.
I wrote back in 2015 that we should expect something like this very let down because it’s not like we’re missing something big like a national railroad. There was nothing Trudeau was actually proposed that was on the table anywhere in the country. Except for one big thing, that is. Pipelines. It’s rather ironic that the biggest nation building projects current on the slate are pipelines and they’re the ones the Liberal government isn’t expediting.
But that was then. This is now. Is the Liberal approach to budgeting any better? Not really. There was initially a finance report that cautioned the budget wouldn’t be balanced until the 2050s given the track they were on. That’s since been improved to the 2040s. Some improvement.
Then there’s the worrisome fact that the 2018 budget implementation omnibus bill included the changes to the Criminal Code that are the focus of the Lavscam saga.
What should we expect then from the 2019 budget, the one that’s coming out next week?
Two big things: Handouts galore and distractions.
The Liberals continue to be bogged down in Lavscam. Every development just ends up digging the hole deeper. The latest one coming courtesy of the Liberal MPs on the Justice Committee voting to shut down Wednesday’s meeting before they could vote on inviting Jody Wilson-Raybould to return.
They pushed it back until… wait for it… budget day! So when all of the country’s Parliamentary Press Gallery correspondents would normally keep a keen eye on the committee hearings, they’ll be in budget lock-up instead. No wonder the NDP and Conservative MPs on the committee shouted “cover up!”
Then there’s the double whammy of what attempting to bribe people with their own money will do this year, an election year. Expect some unexpected handouts – some previously unheard of freebies and big spends for a handful of interest groups to keep them in the Liberal fold at a time when their support has been steadily dropping over the past few years.
If the handouts are enticing enough, worth talking about enough, then they’ll both get to woo voters and get them talking about something other than Lavscam.
A cynical approach to budgeting would be putting it mildly.
British Columbians concerned about birth tourism while government continues to ignore growing practice
The public remains worried about the growing practice of birth tourism, despite the federal government’s defense of the current laws, which do nothing to stop it.
The growing phenomenon often sees wealthy women from Europe, Russia, China and elsewhere fly to Canada late in their pregnancy, give birth in a Canadian hospital to collect a Canadian passport for their newborn child, before returning home.
Current laws allow the children of foreign parents to gain citizenship so long as they are born on Canadian soil.
British Columbia is the epicentre of birth tourism in Canada. In a recent survey, 82 per cent of British Columbians believe birth tourism takes advantage of Canadian social services, and 66 per cent say it degrades the value of Canadian citizenship.
Nearly two-thirds also believe that servicing birth tourists will negatively impact their access to healthcare, maternal or otherwise.
In 2018 concerned citizens in Richmond, B.C. started a petition asking the government to state that it does not support birth tourism, and commit to reduce or eliminate the practice.
The petition was eventually brought to the House of Commons by MP Joe Peschisolido.
Rather than consider the concerns of the public, the government defended the current laws which give anyone born on Canadian soil automatic citizenship.
Last year, the issue of birth tourism popped up again at the Conservative Party’s policy convention when delegates voted in favour of a policy motion to “fully eliminate birthright citizenship in Canada unless one of the parents … is a Canadian citizen or permanent resident of Canada.”
In response, Trudeau’s former top aide Gerald Butts started pushing misinformation about the conservative motion, stating “they committed to give the government the power to strip people born in Canada of Canadian citizenship.”
In Richmond alone, birth tourists accounted for nearly 400 of the births performed in the city hospital alone, up from just 18 in 2010.
Today birth tourists account for 20% of the deliveries at the Richmond Hospital.
“(The data) shows the steady growth in the number of babies born in hospitals to women who are residents of other countries, by absolute numbers and percentage, for all provinces except Quebec,” says Andrew Griffith, a researcher who has studied birth tourism in-depth.
“These births total just over one per cent of all live births in English Canada.”
Many countries, including the United Kingdom, India, and New Zealand, have all changed their laws in recent years to prevent children born to foreign parents in the countries from getting citizenship automatically.
The Trudeau government has made it clear that Canada will not be changing its laws surrounding birth tourism anytime soon.
Government spends $60k to defend a $25k defamation case
The federal government has spent nearly $60,000 defending former veterans affairs minister Seamus O’Regan in court, according to documents obtained under access to information laws.
The cost stems from a defamation case launched against him by a veterans’ rights activist who is seeking $25,000 in damages.
Activist Sean Bruyea, the plaintiff in the case, filed an Access to Information request to the Justice Department, uncovering the mounting legal bill.
“I was shocked,” Bruyea said. “They are willing to spend more than twice the amount in the small-claims court action than what it would have cost to settle.”
The whole case surrounds O’Regan’s handling of a column Bruyea wrote in The Hill Times in February of 2018, criticizing the proposed changes to the disabled Armed Forces pensions, which come into effect this month.
Bruyea determined some veterans who apply under the new system will receive less overall than those who had applied under the new system.
In response, O’Regan submitted a rebuttal column to The Hill Times, accusing Bruyea of misleading the public to satisfy his own agenda.
Veterans Affairs official even told O’Regan’s office that Bruyea’s claims were mostly correct, but O’Regan still accused Bruyea of “stating mistruths.”
As a result, Bruyea sued O’Regan for defamation in May in small-claims court, seeking $25,000 in restitution.
It doesn’t happen all that often,” said Rory Fowler, a military lawyer.
Fowler said taxpayers may be forced to pay the entire legal costs because O’Regan is a member of the government.
“The Crown could be held vicariously liable for the actions of its servants and the minister of the Crown could be a servant,” he said.
O’Regan, now Indigenous Services Minister, asked the court to throw out Bruyea’s suit, claiming O’Regan column was for the public good, therefore outweighed the damage that could have been done to Bruyea.
Bruyea, however, remains defiant, believing that O’Regan’s aggressive response caused him significant harm.
“I’m not suing the minister because of his opinion, I’m suing him because he personally defamed me,” he said.
“I’m prepared for a public debate about the facts with the minister.”
LAWTON: In conversation with leading Brexit economist Andrew Lilico
True North’s Andrew Lawton sat down with the Leave campaign’s lead economist, Andrew Lilico, in October to discuss the impending Brexit deadline, and what a no-deal Brexit would mean for the UK. Don’t listen to the fear-mongers, Lilico said.
We re-share this interview in light of the latest developments, which have shown how the British government has further bungled what was supposed to be a clear and unequivocal rebuke of the European Union.
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