According to its official Twitter account, the Syrian Democratic Forces claimed they arrested “an ISIS member of Ethiopian origin who holds Canadian citizenship.”

They posted a 40-second video of the man, who identified himself as Mohamed Abdullah Mohamed — a Saudi Arabian-born Ethiopian man who was raised in Canada and became a Canadian citizen.

There are at least 14 individuals with Canadian citizenship — seven adults and seven children — being held in a Syrian jail for their involvement with the Islamist death cult ISIS.

Meanwhile, a UN official has told Canada that we must repatriate people who left to fight for ISIS.

According to Agnes Callamard, the UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, Canada is legally required to do so.

When CBC Radio asked if she believes Canada has a duty to bring ISIS fighters back to Canada, this was her response:

“I believe it has a legal obligation to do so, if those foreign fighters are currently held in Syria by a non-state actor in this case a Kurdish group. That group has currently no international legitimacy, and probably neither does it have the capacity to undertake fair trials. That’s one reason as to why those individuals should be sent back to Canada.”

Part of the reason the UN is advocating for Canada to take back these ISIS terrorists is to save their lives.

Iraq has the death penalty, and the UN opposes the idea of ISIS fighters — including militants who ruthlessly killed civilians and committed genocide against Yazidis and Christians — being put to death.

The UN official was dismayed that no one, including Canada, has worked to bring back their radicalized citizens imprisoned abroad.

“So far every government, for the last four or five years, have brandished ISIS as enemy number one around the world. None of those governments are now prepared to take their responsibilities and put IS to trial. None of them.”

Gee. Is it any wonder why?

One such ISIS militant is Muhammed Ali, a Pakistan and Canadian dual citizen that joined ISIS and used his social media accounts to spread beheading photos, threats and bigotry.

He openly called for terrorist attacks against Canada, and renounced his Canadian citizenship on Twitter.

The government of Canada has done little to bring these fighters back.

A concern held by terrorism scholars and practitioners is that Canada’s courts are too lenient to properly and successfully prosecute these fighters. There is widespread concern that, like many other terrorists, these ISIS fighters would get off scot-free.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau suggested that while he will punish ex-ISIS fighters, he will also try toreintegrate them into Canadian society.

“We are also there to help them to let go of that terrorist ideology,” said the Prime Minister in question period last year.

The Prime Minister also said returning ISIS fighters could be “powerful voices” against violent radicalization within Canada.

Despite the Prime Minister’s hopes, his own government isn’t too sure.

Minister of Public Safety Ralph Goodale suggested that the chances of reintegrating Canadian ISIS fighters is “pretty remote.”

Despite the risks, the UN Official remains certain that Canada must eventually repatriate ISIS terrorists.

“My strong recommendations is that governments, including Canada, must do the right thing legally, and must do the right thing in front of historians.”

What is right to the UN may be very different than what is right for Canadians.

What exactly is Sharia? It’s a set of guidelines and religious rules, stemming from the Islamic Qur’an and Hadith, that guide Muslims and command an overall way of life. It’s more than just a legal system; Sharia dictates both the private moral teachings of the Islamic faith as well as strict public rules that all Muslims are commanded to live by.

While there are different ways to interpret Sharia, and different Islamic countries impose the law in different ways, there are several core principles that are always evident in Sharia law.

First, women are second-class citizens according to Sharia.

Second, there is no separation of religion and politics — or mosque and state — in Sharia.

Third, our Western fundamental freedoms — freedom of conscience, freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of association and so on — are contrary to fundamental Sharia concepts.

While most Muslims in Canada reject Sharia (many fled Islamist countries because of Sharia), there have been repeated attempts by Islamist fundamentalist to impose Sharia, both directly and covertly.

Here is a short history of attempts to push Sharia law in Canada.

Sharia attempts to enter Ontario through the Liberal legislature (1991)

The Arbitration Act of Ontario was passed in 1991 under the Premiership of Bob Rae (NDP) allowing faith-based arbitration in provincial family courts. Under the new legislation, religious officials would be allowed to meditate on decisions involving family disputes including divorce and inheritance disputes.

• The act enabled groups to use the guiding principles of faith to help settle disputes over divorce, inheritance and custody
• Technically had to abide by Canadian law, but no third-party oversight, no duty to report
• In 2003, Islamic Institute of Civil Justice was established for the purpose of starting tribunals based on Sharia law for Muslims in Ontario.
  • 2004 – Islamic Institute of Civil Justice announces it will begin arbitrating family matters on the basis of Sharia law, warned that those who don’t submit cases were not “good Muslims”
• June 25, 2004 – Ontario government officials asked Maryon Boyd (former NDP Minister of Women’s Issues) to conduct a review of arbitration in family and inheritance cases and the impacts it has on vulnerable people
• September 2005 – Dalton McGuinty announces an end to all forms of religious arbitration saying: “I’ve come to the conclusion that the debate has gone on long enough. There will be no sharia law in Ontario. There will be no religious arbitration in Ontario. There will be one law for all Ontarians.”
• 2006 – Ontario legislature passes bill that puts an end to religious arbitration

Quebec National Assembly gives thumb down to push for Sharia law and Islamic courts (2005)

• The motion put forward by Liberal MPL Fatima Houda-Pepin was passed across party lines to reject the use of Islamic tribunals in Quebec

Environics Focus Canada report shows majority of Canadian Muslims want Sharia recognized (2006)

• Question: Do you believe that Sharia law – that is, traditional Islamic law – should, or should not, be recognized by Canadian governments as a legal basis for Muslims to settle family disputes, such as those involving divorce, custody and inheritance?
• 53% of Canadian Muslims responded that Sharia law should be recognized in Canada

Muslim elementary school in Toronto segregates boys and girls in classrooms, sports and prayer (2007)

• First organized Islamic elementary school in Canada
• Private Islamic school ISNA Elementary segregates boys and girls
• Learn to recite the Qur’an and learn Arabic

Macdonald-Laurier Institute reports high support for Sharia among Canadian Muslims (2011)

• 47% of Muslims wanted Ontario to allow Muslims the choice of being ruled by Sharia courts in the case of divorce or family matters

North Vancouver mosque admits to practicing Sharia (2013)

• North Shore News profile of Ar-Rahman Mosque
• Imam Abu Abdus-Salaam admits that the Mosque arbitrates marriages and disputes on Islamic law
• “Learning takes place here, problems are solved here, conflicts are resolved in this place, people are getting married here, people will be divorced here if they have to according to Islamic law, I mean the Shariah”
• Mosque tells the Vancouver Sun that the Imam had misspoken

Canadian adoption ban on children from Pakistan (2013)

• Canadian officials bar adoption from Pakistan in accordance with Sharia law (which prohibits adoption)
• Federal Canadian government extended the restriction to virtually all Muslim countries
• Government documents from federal officials to the provinces obtained by the Fifth Estate from June 2013 claim that “a change in the child’s parentage is strictly prohibited under Shariah law.”

Calgary “non-denominational” private school fined $26,000 by the Alberta Human Rights Commission for not facilitating Muslim prayer (2015)

• Webber Academy was fined for discriminating against two Muslim students for not accommodating their prayers
• Webber Academy maintains that it is a non-denominational school and there is no space in the school for praying, regardless of religion.

A disabled man is told he can’t occupy publicly subsidized housing because he’s not Muslim (2015)

• Austin Lewis (21) was denied access to taxpayer funded housing because he was not a member of the Muslim community
• According to Toronto City Councillor Joe Cressy the decision was not unfair after Toronto City Council entered a five-year agreement to restrict residency to “members of the Muslim Jama’at [congregation]”
• Lewis was removed from the tenant waiting list at the Ahmadiyya Abode of Peace on Finch Ave W. in North York because he wasn’t Muslim

Fredericton High School teachers make plans for segregated prayer room (2016)

• Reports surface of Syrian refugees harassing other students and teachers at the highschool
• High school staff create plans for Muslim prayer rooms in the school
• David McTimoney the superintendent of the school district confirms that a prayer room has been created at Fredericton High School

University of Regina summer camp runs segregated swimming times for refugee kids (2016)

• Children were segregated by University of Regina staff during summer camp swimming time
• Staff were asked by parents to impose the measure for their summer camp for “religious reasons”

Muslim accountant plans Islamic housing project (2016)

• Nabil Warda made a proposal to build 80 homes for Muslims so that they can avoid paying interest on loans
• Claimed non-Muslims who moved there would have to share Muslim values
• “There must be some modesty in the way you dress. We don’t want women living there going half-naked down the streets. We don’t like that,” he said. “If they want to do that, let them go and live in downtown Montreal.”
• Quebec legislature unanimously adopts a motion to inform municipalities “no real-estate development can be based on religious or ethnic segregation.”
• Nabil Warda’s plans were put on hold after he was told by the mosque where he planned an information session tells him “We never supported the project.”

Anti-Islamophobia Bill M-103 introduced by Liberal MP Iqra Khalid and passes in the House of Commons (2017)

• Fails to define “Islamophobia”
• Rejected a compromise with opposition MPs who asked the Liberal government to change the language away from “Islamophobia” to condemn “anti-Muslim bigotry” instead
• Calls for a “whole-of-government approach” to eliminating “Islamophobia”
• Many critics, including many Muslims, claim it could lead to blasphemy laws
• Calls for the collection of data on citizens, specifically stating: “the government should…collect data to contextualize hate crime reports and to conduct needs assessments for impacted communities.”

Refugee hotel imposes segregated “all-girls swimming time” (2018)

• Federal government documents reveal that the immigration department suggested an “all-girls swimming time” to accommodate Muslim refugees

A group butchers cow “halal way” by skinning it alive in Milton (2018)

• Police investigated a video purporting to show a cow being skinned alive, Ontario Minister of Agriculture replies with disgust

Prominent Canadians gets notified by Twitter that they are violating Pakistani Sharia law (Nov & Dec 2018)

• Twitter legal team notifies Saudi dissident and activist Ensaf Haidar that her tweet broke Pakistani law for a tweet saying “Retweet if you’re against the Niqab”
• Anthony Furey posted a collage of Mohammed cartoons and was notified by Twitter legal that his account has been reported for breaking a section of Pakistan’s criminal code

Islamic Party of Ontario reserves a name with Elections Ontario (2018)

• Provincial party founded on the teachings of the Qur’an
• Believes the native religion of Canada is Islam
• Policy states a desire to outlaw alcohol, drugs, gambling, gay marriage, interest on loans and religious blasphemy based on Sharia

While border security and building a border wall has been front and centre in the U.S. news, Canada has quietly been admitting and welcoming America’s illegal migrants.

As reported by the Canadian Press, Canada is proactively giving visas to those who were in the U.S. illegally.

According to Vanessa Routley, an immigration lawyer who helped someone who was an illegal migrant in the U.S. obtain a student visa in Canada, this would not have happened three years ago.

“In the past, if someone had failed to comply with the regulations of another country, Canada was not willing to take a chance on them to admit them and to ask them to follow our rules,” she told CP.

According to CP, “over the last few years, the Canadian government might have quietly revised its approach to some of these applications.”

Routley admitted she would not have accepted such a case a few years ago, but under the new government, the rules seemed to have changed. She has now successfully helped a few illegal migrant clients from the U.S. come to Canada legally.

I reported on this phenomenon 15 months ago.

After a gruesome terrorist attack in Edmonton, where a Somali refugee was accused of driving a truck into a crowd, running over five people and stabbing a police officer, we learned the man had once been an illegal migrant in the U.S.

Abdulahi Hasam Sharif illegally crossed the U.S. border from Mexico — the part of the border without a wall — and was detained by U.S. officials. He had no passport and couldn’t explain why he was in Mexico in the first place.

The Americans ordered his deportation back to Somalia, but instead, he skipped out on bail and made his way up to America’s other border — where he once again crossed illegally.

He was detained by Canadian officials, and made an asylum claim that was eventually successful.

Why did Canada let him stay? Why did we award refugee status to a man who had previously broken immigration laws?

As part of my investigation into this case, I spoke to a former senior official with the department of public safety, who told me this man should not have been admitted into Canada.

Even though Sharif had no passport and used a different name when making his refugee claim in Canada, our biometric screening system is designed to identify such individuals and to stop foreign criminals from moving within the Five Eyes security network.

To my surprise, in response to my report on this case, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety Mark Holland wrote a letterto the Toronto Sun taking issues with my column and explaining why Sharif was able to stay.

“Sharif’s identity was indeed confirmed by CBSA through both biometrics and biographical information,” he wrote.

So why did we let this illegal migrant, who is now on trial for an ISIS-inspired terrorist attack, into our country?

Holland stated, in no uncertain terms, “your admissibility to another country does not affect your ability to enter Canada or make an asylum claim.”

There you have it. A Canadian politician has stated its policy to ignore the immigration status of would-be migrants coming from our neighbour and closest ally.

We’ve quietly become a sanctuary country.

As the U.S. cracks down on dangerous criminals who entered their country illegally, Canada has once again become a potential safe haven for illegal migrants, foreign criminals and even terrorists.

A new poll suggests that more Canadians are going into 2019 feeling worse about their finances than the years before.

Despite the Trudeau government’s plan to “grow the middle class, and help those working hard to join it,” the number of Canadians who would call their financial position “good” hit a three year low, according to the Ipsos Reid poll.

When broken down regionally, it shows Alberta feeling the worst.

Of the metrics used by Ipsos to measure if 2018 was “good to them,” Alberta scored the worst.

This includes their job, their family, their retirement plans and the economy in general.

The poll suggests that the number of Canadians who feel “good” about their finances dropped by 9 percent from 2017.

It also found that the number of Canadians who felt good about their savings decreased by 6 percent from the year prior.

Along with uneasy feelings about 2018, Canadians’ feelings towards 2019 are even more negative than the year prior.

With the federal carbon tax going into effect this year, meaning Canadians will have to pay an additional tax on carbon, 2019 will be a very expensive year for Canadians.

“Canadians are giving a more pessimistic forecast for 2019 than they did heading into 2018 a year ago, reflecting a general souring of attitudes,” stated the Ipsos report.

The reasons? Ipsos polling suggests that “Canadians think they will be paying more for food, housing, health and wellness, transportation and debt repayments in 2019.”

Debt repayment is likely going to be a big concern for Canadians.

While the federal government is running a $19 billion deficit — with no apparent plan to balance the books anytime soon — dealing with debt is the number one financial priority for Canadians in 2019.

Another reason for the troubling Canadian economy in 2019 is the weakened Oil and Gas sector. The Governor of the Bank of Canada, Stephen Poloz, believes low oil prices are causing strain on the economy as a whole.

Poloz expects investment in the energy sector to decline further in 2019.

That explains the pessimism in Alberta.

Canceled pipelines, banning oil tankers and controversial legislation have all contributed to a disgruntled and vocal oil and energy sector in Alberta.

Lowered optimism in the economy may spell trouble for the Trudeau government going into an election year.

In another affront to Canada’s border security, the Trudeau government has been quietly accepting America’s illegal migrants.

Canadian border officers granted illegal immigrants from the U.S. legal entry into Canada.

Individuals like Elidee Sanchez, who spent 17 years living in the United States illegally, are being given temporary visas and permission to stay in Canada.

Sanchez was aided by her immigration lawyer and was permitted entry into Canada through a student visa, this despite her illegal alien status in the U.S.

Illegally entering an allied country, and staying in that country for years illegally, no longer prevents someone from being eligible to come to Canada.  

This government policy sets a dangerous precedent for those evading U.S. immigration authorities and sends the message that Canada is soft on immigration security.

Take the case of Abdulahi Hasan Sharif, a Somali man with ISIS sympathies who ran over five people in Edmonton and stabbed a police officer in an unprovoked terror attack in 2017.

Sharif illegally entered the U.S. from Tijuana, Mexico and was ordered by a judge to be deported in 2011. Instead, he skipped a court date and made his way into Canada in 2012 where he received refugee status.

As reported in 2017 by True North founder Candice Malcolm in the Sun newspaper chain, the federal government knowingly admits criminals like Sharif into Canada.

Here’s what Malcolm wrote about the situation 16 months ago:

I spoke to a senior source, formerly with the public safety department, who told me our biometric screening system — which uses eye scans, fingerprints and a live photo — is designed to stop foreign criminals from moving within the Five Eyes security network.

Even if Sharif had no passport, as was reported, and even though he provided a slightly different name when entering Canada, our system should have identified him and stopped him from entering our country.

But the system didn’t do that, and so my question to the government was simple: Why not?

Well, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety Mark Holland answered my question in a letter to the editor.

He let it be known that “Sharif’s identity was indeed confirmed by CBSA through both biometrics and biographical information”.

But Holland also stated that “your admissibility to another country does not affect your ability to enter Canada or make an asylum claim.”

In other words, Canada knew Sharif had entered the U.S. illegally. We knew he had a deportation order from the U.S., and we knew he was violating the terms of his deportation by showing up in Canada.

And yet, we let him into Canada anyway.

Why is Canada turning a blind eye to individuals who were considered illegal aliens to our neighbour and closest ally? Malcolm continues, describing a Trudeau government official’s pitiful defence for letting an illegal alien who would become a terrorist into Canada:

Holland justifies this decision by noting “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a statement saying that he ‘had no known criminal history at the time of his encounters with ICE.’”

Common sense tells us it’s possible Sharif had no known criminal history because he came from Somalia, a country with no viable government and thus no one to keep track of crimes.

Since arriving in North America — via Mexico, for some unknown reason — Sharif entered the U.S. illegally, failed to show up for his immigration hearing and skipped the country to come to Canada.

Are those not crimes that would make one inadmissible to Canada? Apparently not.

Holland stated all this, and then, without realizing the irony of his statement, said, “But Canadians can rest assured that our border controls are robust and effective.”

Effective at what?

In this case, federal officials knowingly let a suspicious young man with a questionable past into the country, where he’s now alleged to have done tremendous harm.

If an individual is willing to break the law in a neighboring country, it shouldn’t be a surprise when they don’t respect the laws of our own nation.

Instead of tackling the issue of illegal entry into Canada, the federal government seems intent on providing legitimacy to those who wish to circumvent immigration laws.

January 12, 2019

Justin Trudeau said it is “dangerous” to blame his immigration policy for crimes committed by the immigrants he welcomed into Canada.

At a recent town hall in Kamloops, British Columbia, Trudeau also said that looking at crimes committed by refugees and migrants was not “helpful or useful” in Canada’s multicultural society.

An audience member asked the Prime Minister about the murder of a 13-year-old girl, allegedly at the hands of Syrian refugee, and raised his concerns about the safety of Canadians amidst Trudeau’s open border policies.

“In an interview you did with Macleans, the interviewer said, ‘a lot of people say that if it hadn’t been for the surge in Syrian refugees after the 2015 election, this guy would not be here.’ To which you replied, ‘I’m not one of those people who said that,’” said the audience member.

“My question is, can you guarantee that Marrisa Shen was not killed by a Syrian refugee who came to Canada after you were elected. And if not, what in your opinion is the acceptable number of Canadian lives lost as a result of your policies on refugees?”

“I told you we were going to hear from a wide range of perspectives here,” quipped Trudeau in response to this heartfelt question.

“The generalizations and the danger that we get into when tying things like immigration policies to incidents like this is something that I don’t entirely know is helpful or useful in a diverse, pluralistic, inclusive society like ours.”

“To set up a false dichotomy that says, well part of everything we need to do to keep Canadians safe is to keep people from away out of this country, is simply not the way we are as Canadians” added the Prime Minister.

Marrisa Shen was raped and murdered in cold blood in a park near her home in Burnaby, B.C. in July 2017.

She was just 13-years-old when this horrific crime took place. Police have stated it was a random attack, and that Shen did not know the man who attacked her.

Ibrahim Ali, 28, has been charged with her murder.

Ali came to Canada as a refugee from Syria just three months earlier. While the Trudeau government had a specific policy to exclude single, military-aged men like Ali from our Syrian refugee resettlement program, Ali still managed to come to Canada with his extended family.

In 2016, months before Ali came to Canada, Trudeau defended his decision to bring 25,000 Syrians to Canada on a rushed timeline during an interview with 60 Minutes.

The American interviewer raised a question that few Canadian journalists have ever had the chance to ask our Prime Minister. She asked if he was worried about the possibility of one of Trudeau’s Syrian refugees carrying out a terrorist attack.

“I am more than comfortable that… accepting 25,000 Syrian refugees does right by both the safety of Canadians and by the values that define us as a nation,” said Trudeau.  

In the same 60 Minutes interview, Trudeau said he believed his approach was superior to the immigration policies of President Trump.

“Ultimately being open and respectful towards each other is a much more powerful way to diffuse hatred and anger than … big walls and oppressive policies.”

The Shen murder trial is still in its initial phases, and True North will continue to report on any updates to this case.

Socialism is a failed experiment. In every iteration, across the globe and throughout history, it ends the same way.

But this hasn’t stopped many on the Left from pushing for socialism in Canada. It’s honestly bizarre that we still take socialism seriously; even educated Canadians still advocate for it.

One only needs to look at Venezuela to see how socialism has been such a crushing failure.

Venezuela was considered rich in the early 1960s. Its produced more than 10 percent of the world’s crude and had a per capita GDP many times bigger than that of its neighbours. However, at the turn of the millennium, Venezuela became a socialist country and ever since it’s citizens have been plunged into poverty and food shortages.

Out of touch celebrities like Sean Penn and Michael Moore have naively praised Venezuela in the past. Today, thanks to its socialist policies, Venezuela is facing a refugee crisis and millions of citizens are fleeing the country.

Hugo Chavez came into power after a failed coup and rewrote the constitution and appointed his own supreme court. Soon after Chavez nationalized most of the privately-owned businesses in the country, including the oil industry, and confiscated millions of hectares of farmland.

After Hugo Chavez’s reign, his successor Nicolas Maduro took over power and doubled down on Chavez’s disastrous socialist policies.

• Venezuela’s GDP is sinking at a rapid rate and inflation is through the roof.
• Under Maduro’s watch, dozens of protestors were killed while hundreds were injured during anti-government demonstrations as reported by UN Human Rights Watch
• Due to socialist policies, consumer inflation rose by 800% in 2016
• 75% of Venezuelans have lost 19 pounds in weight according to the National Survey of Living Conditions
• Over 1/3rd of the country are eating no more than two meals a day
• 82% of Venezuelans are living in poverty
• United Nations has reported that approximately 7% of the population or 2.3 to 4 million Venezuelans have fled from the country in search of a better life
• Venezuelans are resorting to stealing animals from zoos and butchering them, while prisoners have been eating rats to stay alive
• Venezuelan women and girls as young as 14 are being forced into the sex trade to provide for themselves and their families
• A survey conducted by the country’s National Assembly found that Venezuelan hospitals are in such a terrible condition that 79% have no running water
• The same survey found that pregnancy-related deaths rose by 66% since 2016 due to lack of basic medical supplies
• The country has become a hotbed for the spread of disease. It is currently facing a Malaria epidemic as cases have tripled by 2013. Alongside the vast quantity of migrants leaving the country, Venezuela is a source for the spread of diphtheria and measles throughout South America and beyond.
• President Maduro raised minimum wage continuously up to 58% in 2018 to battle inflation with no success
• In 2017, members of the media reported a 26.5% increase in harassment from state officials
• Several South American countries alongside the United States and Canada reject Maduro’s 2019 re-election and claim it is not legitimate
• “The suffering of Venezuelans will only worsen should he continue to illegitimately cling to power,” said Canada’s Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland

Energy sector workers and supporters are planning a massive convoy of vehicles to Ottawa to protest the federal government’s attacks on their sector.

It is expected that hundreds of transport trucks and personal vehicles will join the convoy along the way from Western Canada to Ottawa.

The convoy is set to leave Alberta and British Columbia on February 14th, where it will meet up with another convoy from Atlantic Canada, then make its way to Parliament Hill for a massive rally.

The convoy’s GoFundMe page has gotten over $83,000 in donations as of January 8.

According to their GoFundMe page, the goals of the convoy include putting people back to work, ending dependency on foreign oil, ending the Carbon Tax and seeing more pipelines approved.

The purpose of the GoFundMe is to help cover the costs of gas for the demonstrators.

The account says,“a 12 person admin panel with certified accountants has been set up oversee organizing, strategy and disbursement of fuel cards.”

Low prices and not enough energy infrastructure have caused serious problems for the industry, with even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau calling the situation a crisis.

Many within the convoy believe the Trudeau government is working directly against the interests of the energy sector.

The Trudeau Government enacted Bill C-48, which introduced a ban on oil tankers off the northern coast of British Columbia, including many key ports that could get Alberta oil to Asian markets.

The government then passed Bill C-69, which changes the way pipeline projects are improved and will make it all but impossible to approve major projects in Canada. The bill cynically injects “sex and gender” into the considerations for pipelines, and allows special interests groups to hijack the consultation stage.

Bill C-69 injects “sex and gender” into the considerations for pipelines, and allows special interests groups to hijack the consultation stage.

Glen Carritt, the Executive Director of the Convoy project, has had enough.

He told BNN Bloomberg that “the industry has woken up. We’re just tired of our product getting slammed.”

“We have a great product that gets hammered again and again by environmentalists because they can.”

As the Alberta economy continues to be hit by low oil prices around the world and pipeline difficulties at home, demonstrations have become frequent.

One rally in Alberta recently attracted over 1000 vehicles.

But nothing as ambitious as a convoy to Ottawa has been attempted yet.

Jason Nixon, a UCP MLA who spoke to the crowd at a rally in Rocky Mountain House, Alberta, on December 29, made it clear that the solution is more pipelines, and slammed Trudeau’s recent $1.6 billion aid package to the energy sector.

“Trudeau, we don’t want your money. We want you to get out of the way.”

The February demonstration expects to see over 700 vehicles.

Sometimes it’s the little stories that tell you all you need to know.

Here’s a headline from The Canadian Press that pretty much sums up everything that’s both right and wrong with our current enviro craze:

“Sales of electric cars soar but Canada still nowhere near 500,000 goal set in 2009.”

You’ve got to love the tone.

We’re always treated like toddlers whenever it comes to anything “green.” Like when your kid eats just one spoonful of vegetables so you give them positive feedback but then point out they still have a whole plate to go.

Then again it’s true that the kids should be eating their full plate of veggies. But is it true that consumers should have bought 500,000 electric cars by now? What is this so-called goal? Who set it?

The story explains: “The 2009 Electric Vehicle Technology Road Map for Canada, produced by a panel of experts in part for the Department of Natural Resources, aimed for 500,000 cars with the hope of galvanizing industry to make and sell them and government to encourage people to buy them.”

My first guess was that this panel would have been made up of the various academic and activist eco-boosters who randomly come up with ridiculous targets that they then use to bully us into complying with for the sake of meeting those targets that the public never agreed to in the first place (Can anyone say Kyoto? Or Paris?).

But I was wrong.

There’s actually a sizeable steering committee made up not of activists but of industry execs. And why would industry execs make wildly inaccurate predictions about the free market? Because this report is really just them and the government telling people to buy a whole lot of their products.

Obviously people selling e-vehicles will sign on to a government report telling people to buy e-vehicles. So it’s hard to blame them.

The very next sentence of the story though shows they’ve got nothing to complain about:

“Although more electric cars were sold in Canada in 2018 than in the previous three years combined, they still accounted for about two per cent of the vehicles sold overall and there are only about 100,000 of them on the road.”

Okay… so what’s going on is Canadians are buying way more electric cars than before, just not the pie in the sky projections set a decade ago.

This ought to be cause for celebration, both for the industry people and the activists. Tripling their numbers! Who can argue with that? I’m also willing to wager that there’s no way the various internal projections that these companies put together was anywhere near as optimistic as the government report.

This tells us something that I’ve been harping on about for several years now, especially in light of Trudeau’s stubborn fixation with the carbon tax. And that is that there is pretty much zero connection between what the government does on these issues and what happens in the real world.

Seriously. Did any one single individual buy an e-vehicle because of this 2009 government target? Doubtful.

Once these companies actually build a product people want — something reliable and practical at a price they can afford — then maybe this idea will take off.

But there is no government target or edict or green scheme handout or amount of tsk-tsking from Catherine McKenna that will make Canadians want to buy a car that doesn’t work for their lifestyle.

I’ve just finished the great historian Niall Ferguson’s new book The Square and The Tower,  a whirlwind tour of world history from the perspective not of specific people and big events, but associations and networks.

Ferguson’s main message is that networks can adapt more quickly than hierarchies.

So while Trudeau and the other green scheme boosters in government no doubt see themselves as cutting edge, the truth is that bureaucracies are the worst type of hierarchies. They adapt to change worse than anything else. They’re always the last to bring about innovations like, to take just one example, accepting 21st century forms of payment to cover your property taxes and library fines.

This Canadian Press story is a cautionary tale for not just why the government shouldn’t be in the business of setting random projections, but why it needs to completely overhaul its approach to future innovations like green issues.

Want the green revolution? Cool. Then lower the taxes and regulations the companies face and otherwise get the hell out of the way. But if you think for one second you can engineer outcomes from your disconnected ivory tower, you’ve got another thing coming.

As much as elites love to lecture everyday people from the windows of their private jets, there’s increasing evidence that we don’t need top-down edicts to improve the planet.

Keep in mind that the U.S. pulled out of the Paris Climate Accord in 2017 and despite the hysteric condemnation from the world’s eco-activists, after leaving Paris the U.S. managed to reduce its national carbon emissions. In fact, carbon emissions south of the border went down further than most of the accord’s signatories.

In other words, we don’t need to sign on to some expensive international gabfest to build the communities we want to live in. Imagine if the climate alarmists spent their time, say, researching more durable e-vehicle batteries or picking up garbage in the park than building elaborate schemes and setting unrealistic targets for the rest of us.

Anthony Furey is a Fellow at the True North.