True North

A year after Canadian diplomats fell mysteriously ill, the Canadian department of Global Affairs has finally taken action and reduced its staff in Cuba.

Starting in spring of 2017, Canadian and American diplomats in Havana along with their families came down with mysterious fits of nausea, disorientation and headaches.

U.S. officials believe that some sort of energy-based weapon may have been used against them.

While the United States has been outspoken in demanding answers, the Canadian government has remained silent.

And that’s because, as some diplomats have said, Canada wants to keep a close relationship with the communist dictatorship.

“We did not expect to be abandoned, or more precisely, sacrificed – that’s how we’re feeling now,” said one Canadian diplomat in an off the record interview with the Globe and Mail.

Many diplomats feel like their trauma has not been taken seriously by the Canadian government.

Some diplomats reported having to pay out of pocket for travel and special treatments as part of their recovery.

While remaining silent on the plight of Canadian diplomats for political reasons, the federal government has defended Cuba’s despicable human rights record to the international community.

Independent watchdog UN Watch criticized Canada for its continued support of the global pariah, known for its military dictatorship and Soviet-style communism with little political freedom.

In the United Nations, Canada “broke with the free world and joined Syria, Iran and North Korea by voting no on eight separate measures that sought to hold Cuba accountable for widespread human rights violations,” the report says.

Canada’s strange affection with Communist Cuba continues to raise eyebrows.

The federal government overpaid for the Trans Mountain pipeline by as much as $1 billion, according to a new government report.

Nearly a year after the federal government bought the Trans Mountain pipeline project from Kinder Morgan for $4.5 billion, Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) Yves Giroux wrote that the project is worth significantly less than what the government paid.

The PBO also criticized the government for not negotiating on the price.

“If it was a car, we would say they paid sticker price, they didn’t negotiate very much, they didn’t get that many deals or manufacturers rebates — quite the opposite,” he said.

The $4.5 billion does not include construction costs, which could run as high as $9.3 billion.

Led by the NDP-Green government in British Columbia, environmentalists have been launching legal challenges against the pipeline project in an effort to landlock Alberta resources and keep Canadian oil in the ground.

In May of 2018, the Federal Court of Appeals overturned Ottawa’s approval for Trans Mountain —  leading to fears Kinder Morgan would cancel the project.

Despite creating laws which prevent pipeline development and the Prime Minister’s goal to “phase out the oilsands,” the government made an offer to buy the pipeline for $4.5 billion.

Construction has yet to begin — its future still being fought over in the courts.

Delays are only expected to further diminish the value of the nationalized project.

According to the PBO, Trans Mountain could lose as much as $700 million in value if delayed by

another year. If cancelled, the current pipeline infrastructure is only worth $2 billion.

The PBO believes that “all indicators point that there will be a delay in construction.”

Conservative Natural Resources Critic Shannon Stubbs slammed the government for accepting such a bad deal.

“Not only did the Liberals spend $4.4 billion of taxpayers’ money to purchase a pipeline that a private company was willing to build without a single tax dollar, they failed in their negotiations, spending a billion more than what the independent Parliamentary Budget Officer estimated it was worth,” said Stubbs.

The National Energy Board will be presenting a new report on the status of the project on February 22.

In the last two years, the RCMP has spent over $6.6 million towards processing illegal border crossers.

To deal with the constant flow of migrants crossing into Canada illegally, the RCMP has had to create a satellite office where officers work around the clock. In some cases, officers have processed over 400 migrants during a single day.

In 2018, the RCMP saw 19,419 migrants who crossed the border into Canada illegally. A majority of those took place along Canada’s border into Quebec.

“Between January 1 and December 31, 24,980 asylum claims were presented in Québec, of which 75.3% were submitted by people who entered irregularly. Since the beginning of 2018 and up to August 31, 2018, 18,145  asylum claims were submitted in Québec, compared to 15,055 claims during the same period in 2017,” claimed the latest update on the province’s webpage.

“Irregularly” is the federal government’s Orwellian term for “illegally.”

Of the total RCMP costs, $4.4 million was put towards overtime pay, $2 million was spent on a satellite office, $78,568 on extra staff, $72,487 for bus transportation, $17,468 on food and supplies, and $900 for child car seats.

Upon crossing the border illegally, migrants are arrested, they have their identification checked and are they, along with their belongings, are immediately searched. Afterwards they must undergo an interview process before being released and allowed to live freely into Canada.

One of the main crossing points into Canada is at Roxham Road, near Saint-Bernard-de-Lacolle, Quebec.

During the past few years, migrants have undergone this security procedure in temporary shelters at Roxham Road, including in trailers and makeshift tents. Now, the RCMP is seeking to build a larger steel-panel building with heating and better insulation. The cost of building this new structure has not yet been announced.

At one point, the army was even called in to build a temporary tent village in the area in order to accommodate all the migrants entering at this illegal crossing point.

This $6.6 million spent by the RCMP is only scratching the surface of the border crisis costs and what is incurred to deal with the initial stages of admitting illegal border crossers.

According to estimates by the Parliamentary Budget Office, processing refugees will cost taxpayers upwards to $1.1 billion over the next three years.

The federal government has also been handing out paycheques to residents living in the vicinity who have been negatively affected by the steady flow of migrants.

One woman was awarded $25,000 in financial compensation for dealing with an increase in traffic and noise.

Illegal crossings into Canada continues with show no signs of stopping or slowing down.

While the mainstream media in Canada and our politicians have seemingly forgotten about the alleged Edmonton terrorist attack in September, 2017, American politicians have called upon the U.S. inspector general to review the case.

On September 30, 2017, Abdulahi Hasan Sharif allegedly rammed and stabbed Edmonton police constable Mike Chernyk. Sharif is also accused of intentionally striking four pedestrians with a rental truck. Police confirmed the presence of ISIS flag in Sharif’s rental truck.

Further investigations revealed Sharif was ordered to be deported to Somalia in 2011 after he illegally entered the United States. ICE lost track of Sharif; he then claimed refugee status in Canada in 2012, and remarkably, was accepted as a refugee despite his illegal status in the U.S.

Five years later he tried to kill five people in Canada.

Congressional Republicans have penned a letter demanding to know how he escaped American authorities and got into Canada.

Sharif was believed to have been an ISIS sympathizer by his former coworker, who had reported him to police before his 2017 attack.

In a letter to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, former Representative Trey Gowdy (R-SC) said he believed not enough was being done to investigate this troubling situation.

“The Committee is deeply concerned the vulnerabilities existing in 2011 which allowed this individual to enter, be released, and transit through the U.S. may still exist today,” Gowdy wrote.

“More than one year has passed since the attack, and it appears there has been no comprehensive study of the incident.”

Sharif’s former coworker in Edmonton claims he had a history of violent outbursts and supporting ISIS.

The Canadian government claims they did everything they could to screen him.

“There was no information about him that would have raised any red flags,” Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said.

Sharif will be going on trial for five counts of attempted murder later this year.

The federal government has committed $114.7 million for temporary housing for migrants who have illegally entered into Canada.

Most of the money will be distributed between the provinces, while the rest will go directly to federal government efforts to provide temporary housing.

A spokeswoman for Border Security Minister Bill Blair called this new spending an acknowledgment of the significant impact migrants have caused on many parts of Canada.

This announcement is the latest in a series of pricey commitments made by the federal government to house the growing number of migrants, many of whom entered the country illegally.

On January 25, the government announced $15 million for housing migrants in Toronto, bringing the total given to that city up to $26 million for that city alone. City of Toronto officials, meanwhile, have said the city has spent $64.5 million over the past two years on migrant housing.

Both provinces and cities impacted by the surge of asylum seekers have criticized the latest spending announcements for not being nearly enough to cover the growing costs.

Despite not having a clear plan to stop the influx of illegal border crossers, the federal government has resorted to name-calling, false accusations and blaming others.

Lisa MacLeod, Ontario’s Minister of Immigration, was publically attacked by Federal Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen for criticizing his handling of the illegal border crossers crisis. Hussen called her “uncanadian” and “dangerous.”

Hussen also recently claimed that the Conservative Party of Canada intends  to “militarize the border and place a CBSA official or RCMP official every 100 metres.” No Conservative MP has ever made this suggestion.

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.