A week after former B.C. NDP premier John Horgan was diagnosed with thyroid cancer, the NDP is facing backlash for asking supporters to wish Horgan well, in what appears to be an attempt at amassing email addresses.
Horgan, who now serves as Canada’s ambassador to Germany, announced in June that will be taking a leave from his current job to undergo immunotherapy to treat the cancer.
The B.C. NDP’s X account posted the link to a webpage asking supporters to “send a message of support” to Horgan, after he was diagnosed with cancer for the third time.
The webpage prompts their well-wishers to enter their name, email address, phone number, and postal code.
The British Columbia NDP did not respond to a request for comment from True North about the criticism.
In a statement to True North, Conservative Party of BC campaign director Angelo Isidorou said that the intent of the data mining campaign is to solicit money from those who sign on, and that this was done unethically.
“Using John Horgan’s cancer diagnosis as a mechanism to trick British Columbians into giving their personal information is highly unethical,” said Isidorou.
“We all know the NDP will use this data to profit. Whoever had this idea should be held responsible.”
Users on social media decried the tactic as opportunistic and disrespectful.
“The NDP is using John Horgan’s cancer diagnosis to mine data and use it to raise money. Gross,” reads an X post from the B.C. Conservatives.
The NDP is using John Horgan’s cancer diagnosis to mine data and use it to raise money. Gross. #bcpolihttps://t.co/TAtYwCYUNx
— Conservative Party of BC (@Conservative_BC) July 3, 2024
BC United MLA Trevor Halford said that while he hopes Horgan makes a quick recovery, the NCP should not use his illness to collect data.
“Every British Columbian is hoping John Horgan makes a full & speedy recovery. Using his illness as a way to data mine is gross,” said Halford.
Every British Columbian is hoping John Horgan makes a full & speedy recovery. Using his illness as a way to data mine is gross. “The information you share with us may be used to keep you updated about this & other BC NDP activities in accordance with our privacy policy” #bcpolihttps://t.co/gG6ivZ2OqS
To nobody’s surprise, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has replaced outgoing Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre with a key mover involved in the Liberal government’s woke military “culture change” agenda.
Lt.-Gen. Jennie Carignan will become the first woman to hold the top position in the Canadian Armed Forces after being appointed its new chief of the defence of staff. The change in leadership comes during a recruitment crisis for the CAF.
Carignan enrolled in the CAF in 1986 and in 2008 she became the first woman to lead a combat force in the Canadian military. She is currently serving as the military’s chief of professional conduct and culture – a role invented by the Liberal government to rid the military of systemic racism and harassment.
She received the Meritorious Service Medal and the Governor General’s Order of Military Merit. Carignan has been deployed to Afghanistan, Bosnia and Syria and led a NATO mission in Iraq in 2020.
The position was created in the wake of the CAF’s sexual misconduct crisis, which saw several high-ranking leaders forced to resign from their posts following accusations in 2021.
Former Supreme Court justice Louise Arbour conducted a report following the scandal which made several recommendations to reform the culture of the CAF.
Carignan’s office published a military guiding document last year which aimed to overhaul the toxic culture of the military, which it claimed to be rooted in “colonialism,” “patriarchy,” and “heteronormativity.”
First reported on by the Epoch Times, an access-to-information request revealed that the 2023 document said that the CAF’s culture “cannot avoid being influenced by a legacy of colonialism, inherited as part of Canada’s colonial origins and still at work in many aspects of Canadian society today.”
“Along with patriarchy, heteronormativity, and other systems, it has informed and influenced our organization’s norms and power structures.”
It went on to identify the CAF members who benefit from these systems as being “typically male, white, heterosexual, and cis-gendered.”
According to the document, those who oppose the new changes being ushered in do so to protect their “historical privilege and advantage” and there are ”still too many” members who hold this viewpoint.
Trudeau announced the appointment of Carignan on Wednesday, calling it an “extraordinarily important choice” while speaking with reporters in Montreal.
“Particularly in these moments of complicated geopolitics and increased threats, particularly to our Arctic,” he added.
“Making sure that we have the right person to lead our Armed Forces in this pivotal time was something that I think Canadians appropriately felt that we needed to take seriously, which we did.”
The Chief of the Defence of Staff is appointed by the Governor General on recommendation from the prime minister.
Carignan will officially assume the position in a ceremony on July 18, taking over during a very rocky period in the CAF, which has had to rebuild its ranks following years of declining recruitment and poor retention.
The CAF remains short of about 16,000 troops, and has consistently lost more members than it has been able to recruit in recent years,
Defence Minister Bill Blair called the current state of the CAF a “death spiral” in March.
Morale within the CAF has become so bad that Canadians are no longer able to comment on posts made by the current Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre’s X account in April after the CAF turned off the ability to reply.
The decision was taken in response to negative comments being made about unpopular policies he’s enforced in the CAF.
The CAF closed the comment section in January as critical comments began to pour in from people who believe Eyre is ushering a “woke” agenda into the CAF.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller said that Ottawa is toying with the idea of buying up hotels to house the exponential influx of asylum seekers coming to Canada.
The rationale behind the decision is to save money on the cost of block-booking hotel rooms, which is how the Trudeau government is currently dealing with the situation.
According to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, the government has taken out prolonged leases on hotels over the past several years to accommodate asylum seekers, with taxpayers footing the bill for some 4,000 hotel rooms to house those who’ve been transferred from provincial shelters and churches.
Miller said in an interview with the Globe and Mail that among the government’s potential ideas for more affordable and long term ways to house those claiming refugee status is buying up hotels and retrofitting them.
The move has been criticized for not getting to the root of the problem with large numbers of people claiming asylum in Canada.
“As a matter of principle, I don’t think the federal government should be buying properties in the private sector for the purpose of advancing their program aims,” Sergio Karas, specialist in citizenship and immigration law told True North.
“Housing refugee claimants whose cases have not been adjudicated when we do not know if they are deserving of refugee protection, at a high cost to taxpayers is a really bad idea.”
Karas said providing housing on this scale would only “incentivize” more asylum claimants. “Instead of trying to find solutions to provide housing, they should try to address their mismanagement of the refugee program and reduce the number of refugee claimants coming to Canada,” he said. “They should look for ways to disincentivize the refugee program instead of always being behind the eight ball because the program has grown exponentially. There are currently more than 138,000 claims pending on the refugee board.”
Canada is currently the fifth largest recipient of asylum claimants in the Western world.
This increasing number of asylum claimants is a problem that Miller himself acknowledged, saying that the government’s previous efforts to “stabilize” the numbers haven’t worked, saying “these numbers aren’t going down drastically anytime soon.”
One idea being considered involves having federal and provincial officials on site at the converted hotels to provide front-line services to asylum seekers who are waiting to have their cases processed.
The Trudeau government spent nearly $94 million on hotel bookings for asylum seekers from September 2021 to January 2023, according to its own figures.
An additional cost of over $100 million was spent on hotels for asylum seekers in Niagara Falls, Ont. between February 2023 and 2024.
Housing asylum seekers is a provincial responsibility, however, the federal government began paying for hotels at the onset of the pandemic to relieve provinces whose shelters had overfilled.
The Liberals’ latest budget allocated $1.1 billion over the next three years to municipalities and provinces to meet the increasing costs of housing asylum seekers.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged $750 million to Quebec to help the province deal with its influx of asylum seekers as it has taken the lion’s share of refugee claimants.
The Conservatives have previously chided the Liberals for allowing the problem to get as bad as it has.
“Conservatives consistently called for the Liberals to fix these problems but the Liberals charged ahead, breaking the system with their failed policies and inaction,” said a spokesperson for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. “Now their failure is needlessly costing Canadian taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars.”
Historica Canada quietly deleted a sympathetic portrayal of Sir John A. Macdonald from its official YouTube page, citing “feedback from educators” on the first Canadian prime minister’s “controversial” legacy.
The organization, most known for producing the 60-second historical shorts called Heritage Minutes, confirmed to True North that the video was intentionally taken down.
The Heritage Minute in question, which remains available on Facebook, encapsulates Macdonald’s vision of a nation stretching “from sea to sea,” a dream realized through the construction of the Canadian Pacific Railway.
In the video, the actor portraying Macdonald expresses his enthusiasm for Confederation: “To the east, the Atlantic provinces, then Upper and Lower Canada, across the Prairies, to the Rockies and beyond. A new country made one by a railway from sea to sea.”
Chantal Gagnon, Historica Canada’s director of branding and digital media, told True North in an emailed statement that the positive portrayal was produced before “subsequent controversies” surrounding Macdonald had entered the national conversation.
“This Minute was produced in 2015, in advance of Canada’s sesquicentennial. The more intense discussions and subsequent controversies regarding Macdonald’s treatment of Indigenous peoples had not yet taken place,” said Gagnon.
Since then much has been written about Macdonald’s role in famines, the detention of Indigenous tribes and the establishment of the residential school system.
Those controversies have often included far-left activists defacing statues of Macdonald, toppling monuments and the erasure of his biography by a federal department. Macdonald’s former place of residence, the Bellevue House National Historic Site in Kingston, Ont. has just added a “decolonized” tour, further maligning Macdonald’s legacy.
According to Gagnon, unspecified “educators” prompted the removal of the Heritage Minute.
“To present a Minute – particularly given their extensive use in schools – without mentioning these other aspects of his time in office is to provide an incomplete image lacking proper context. This view was reflected in some feedback from educators,” Gagnon told True North.
“With this in mind, Historica Canada put the Macdonald Minute on hiatus while we assess what other accompanying content we can provide in order to offer a more complete treatment. Historica Canada’s goal is to educate Canadians on the history of this country, including both its achievements and failings.”
Gagnon went on to say that the production will require an “appropriate treatment” to recognize both accomplishments and controversial legacy.
“In the case of Macdonald, an appropriate treatment is to recognize both his many accomplishments while in office – including his key role in Confederation – while also acknowledging those areas, particularly in the treatment of Indigenous peoples, where his legacy is – to say the least – controversial,” Gagnon wrote.
This isn’t the first time Historica Canada, which receives government funding, has abruptly removed a Heritage Minute after demands from nebulous interest groups. Last month, Historica Canada faced pushback after it deleted a video depicting the execution of Louis Riel.
If the Liberal government’s controversial Online Harms Act passes, the “digital safety commission” the bill establishes will have 330 staff and cost Canadian taxpayers more than $200 million, the Parliamentary Budget Officer has said. True North’s Andrew Lawton says even if it cost nothing, it would still be wrong, but it’s especially bad that Canadians will have to pay the government to police how they use the internet. He discusses with Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner and Peter Menzies of The Rewrite.
Also, are teachers’ colleges the best way to ensure children are getting the best education they can? A new piece in the Hub from Caylan Ford, the founder of the Alberta Classical Academy, says no. She joins to explain why not.
Plus, Andrew will be speaking at the 2024 Freedom Talk in Alberta this weekend about the decline and fall of western civilization, among cheerier subjects. Conference organizer Danny Hozack returns to the show to talk about what the stakes are and why the conversation matters.
The Canadian Armed Forces has backtracked on controversial dress code changes two years after implementing them.
The CAF announced the dress code changes this week, reversing some of the guidelines that relaxed many of the military’s long-held grooming standards to the objection of many current and former Canadian Armed Forces members.
The new guidelines will require CAF members to groom their beards regularly, keep facial hair under 2.5 cm in length, and tie back hair. Long hair is still permitted, but the volume of one’s hair must at least allow for a headdress and protective equipment to be appropriately worn while the face remains visible.
Many dress code changes from the 2022 overhaul are still permitted, such as coloured hair, religious attire and face tattoos, as long as the tattoos are not linked to criminal organizations or hate groups.
According to Canadian veteran Tom Marazzo the changes are a relief, but there’s room for improvement.
“I think that going back to the original standards is the right move. I’m just regretful that it ever changed, to begin with,” Marazzo told True North in an interview.
“There’s a very good reason why soldiers and every branch of the military wear uniforms. It is to signify many different attributes. You’re part of a team, and the team is only as good as the weakest link.”
He said the changes, which focus on CAF members’ individual expression, diminish the purposeful uniformity that is the standard among militaries worldwide.
“The team can only be strong if all the members focus on the entire team instead of focusing on being an individual,” he said. “When you relax these dress codes, what you’re saying is, ‘me as an individual and my personal appearance is more important than being a member of this team.’”
He said that the “backbone” of any military is the ability for soldiers to trust that each person serving side by side together has each other’s backs.
“If you feel like those people are individuals before they’re team members, then the team itself is actually going to fail,” Marazzo said.
Aside from what he called “obvious” safety concerns of having pink hair in a situation that requires camouflage, his objection to different-coloured hair still being permitted was again the overemphasis on individuality and the embarrassment he felt it brought to the public and fellow service members.
“I think it directly affects the reputation of the Canadian military. People want to be on a winning team,” he said. “I talk to veterans all the time. And they say, ‘Thank God, I’m not in the military anymore. It would be really embarrassing for me to walk around beside people who disrespect their uniform in that way.’”
According to a survey of current CAF members that the CBC acquired about the 2022 dress code changes, almost half of the serving armed forces were against relaxing the standards.
“It creates a leadership challenge for people that are in positions of authority,” Marazzo said. “What we call dress and deportment is how we communicate our level of professionalism.”
He said perceiving other members as sloppy if they don’t adhere to the same standards as everyone else could have a detrimental effect on morale and, consequently, combat readiness.
He noted that dress and deportment standards are directly linked to how the rest of the world perceives the Canadian military.
“Foreign governments look at Canadians and think, ‘I wouldn’t have any problems fighting these guys. They’re all a bunch of individuals and don’t take care of themselves,” he said.
Marazzo mentioned obesity as an example of previous dress and deportment standards being relaxed and how that relates to lowered levels of recruitment and retention in the military.
According to the CAF’s current guidelines on dress and deportment, the appearance of all members “shall on all occasions reflect credit on the CAF and the individual.”
According to a survey from Statistics Canada in 2019, over a quarter of the regular forces were reported to be obese.
“When you’re 200 pounds overweight, how can you do the job of soldiering? The public is not very impressed. It doesn’t look professional, and the reason that is is because it’s not.”
Media reports citing insider sources indicate that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will not attend this year’s Calgary Stampede.
Trudeau has attended the Stampede every year since 2013, when he was elected as the leader of the Liberal party, except for a brief reprieve during the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021.
The 2024 Stampede will take place between Jul. 5th and 14th.
The news of Trudeau planning to miss the Stampede was first reported by the Globe and Mail and follows the Liberal Party’s devastating byelection loss in the Toronto—St. Paul’s riding, a former Liberal stronghold held by the party since 1993.
The loss was followed by a Liberal MP writing a letter calling for Trudeau’s resignation.
“For the future of our party and for the good of our country we need new leadership and a new direction. The voters have spoken loud and clear they want change. I agree,” said New Brunswick MP Wayne Long.
While Long was the first Liberal caucus member to publicly call for Trudeau’s resignation, several former Liberal MPs and ministers have made similar calls.
“I think the leader needs to be replaced,” she said. “I think it’s time for him to move on to other, fairer pastures.”
Political insiders joined the chorus calling for Trudeau’s resignation, saying he must reverse course or resign.
On top of the calls for resignation, some Liberal MPs have called for a national in-person caucus meeting to discuss the byelection loss and the party’s future. Nine MPs sent a letter requesting a meeting to national caucus chair Brenda Shanahan, according to The Hill Times. George Chahal was among the nine MPs; the rest remain unidentified.
“We, the undersigned, would like to add our voices to those who have called for an immediate, in-person national caucus meeting in Ottawa to discuss the extremely concerning results in the Toronto—St. Paul’s byelection,” reads the letter.
Some Liberal MPs have threatened not to run in the next election if Trudeau refuses to resign.
NDP leader Jagmeet Singh is similarly expected to miss the Calgary Stampede this year.
Unlike his NDP and Liberal counterparts, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre will be attending the Calgary Stampede. He will be hosting a sold-out barbecue on July 6, with participants paying $50 to cover the cost of the meal.
$50 seems a small price to pay compared to Trudeau’s $1,725-a-plate fundraiser where he discussed how to make “life more affordable.”
Sebastian Skamski, a spokesperson for Poilievre, told True North that Trudeau should call a carbon tax election instead of hiding from Canadians.
“Having just been rejected in one of the safest Liberal ridings in downtown Toronto, it’s hard to imagine that Canadians will miss Justin Trudeau all too much at Stampede,” said Skamski. “This news must come as welcome relief for Liberal-NDP MPs from Alberta who would prefer Justin Trudeau stay in hiding from Canadians.”
Trudeau and Singh’s offices did not respond to True North’s requests for comment.
A Sikh organization implicated in former defence minister Harjit Sajjan’s order to evacuate Sikhs from Afghanistan during the retreat from Kabul had donated several thousands of dollars to Sajjan in the form of political contributions.
A new poll indicates that former US president Donald Trump has growing support in Canada, especially among young Canadians.
A councillor in British Columbia’s capital city wants residents compensated for the lawlessness he says has taken over.
Tune into The Daily Brief with Cosmin Dzsurdzsa and Isaac Lamoureux.
Human rights activists are calling for Canada to get tougher against Iranian regime agents as five more senior members of the regime face deportation from Canada.
All five suspected members are alleged to have held senior positions in the Iranian government, according to the Canada Border Service Agency, who called for the Immigration and Refugee Board to hold the hearings.
Deportation hearings generally take place in public, unless the person has made a refugee claim. These hearings are taking place behind closed doors.
Salman Sima, an Iranian who fled the country after being imprisoned and tortured there, doesn’t believe deportation is enough, should that be the outcome.
“You know what is going to happen when they get back to Iran? The regime is going to welcome them as a hero.” Sima, who now lives in Canada, told True North. “They should be in jail.”
Canada banned ten of thousands of top Iranian officials from entering the country under sanctions implemented in 2022, including and most recently members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
The Liberal government officially declared the IRGC a terrorist organization under Canada’s Criminal Code last month, six years after the House of Commons initially called for such a designation.
The sanctions were imposed in response to the arrest and death of Mahsa Amini by Iran’s morality police for showing her hair in public. She was later killed while in their custody, sparking a wave of mass protests that the regime suppressed using brute force.
Iranian science advisor Majid Iranmanesh and deputy interior minister Seyed Salman Samani have since been deported under the government’s 2022 policy.
However, those two hearings were held publicly, whereas the five facing hearings now are doing so behind closed doors, with the Trudeau government refusing to release their names.
“According to Canadian law, we have the rule to put these guys in front of a trial. The Ontario Supreme Court ruled against the IRGC. We know that the IRGC shot a missile in an intentional act of terror to flight 752 and they killed 55 Canadians,” said Sima.
“These are the members of the same organization, so why just deport them?”
Canada severed diplomatic ties with Iran in 2012, and tensions further increased in 2020 after the Iranian military shot down Ukrainian International Airlines Flight 752, allegedly mistaking it for a cruise missile.
The missile killed all 176 passengers on board, 85 of whom were Canadian citizens or permanent residents.
The IRGC also trains, funds and arms the Palestinian terror group Hamas, who were responsible for the Oct. 7 attack on Israel.
According to the CBSA, 87 investigations have been launched into suspected senior Iranian regime members living within Canada.
CBSA officials said that 43 of those investigations have since been closed due to the individuals in question no longer being in Canada or were deemed not to be senior Iranian officials.
The CBSA told True North that while “admissibility hearings before the IRB are generally open to the public,” they may not be if the immigration board decides not to “or is required to conduct the proceeding in private” based on the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.”
Former Senior Policy Advisor on human rights to Global Affairs Canada Kevin Shahrooz said that if it’s not a matter of national security, then the public should have access to the hearings.
“Unless these individuals have made refugee claims and have sought private proceedings, it is very unusual for such hearings to be held behind closed doors,” Shahrooz told True North.
“It’s possible that there is a national security dimension that requires the information be kept from the public. Otherwise, these deportation hearings should be public as a matter of usual procedure and because there is a significant public interest in these cases. I’m glad that Canada seems to finally be taking some action against those with ties to Iran’s regime, but it is important that such actions be taken in a transparent manner.”
The British Columbia Teachers Federation has been hit with a human rights complaint, alleging that the union engaged in and perpetuated antisemitism, making Jewish and Zionist teachers feel unwelcomed.
A group of British Columbia teachers called BC Teachers Against Antisemitism are filing a human rights complaint against their union, alleging the BCTF discriminated against Jewish teachers in the wake of the Oct. 7 terrorist attack by Hamas against Israeli civilians.
In a comment to True North, the attorney representing BC Teachers Against Antisemitism Paul Pulver said that the BCTF has taken an aggressively pro-Palestinian and anti-Zionist voice and has actively made Jewish educators unwelcome in the classroom and at union meetings.
“They’ve found that they’ve been intimidated, ostracized, excluded from union processes, and they have been made to feel unwelcome within union meetings,” said Pulver.
Pulver described an annual general meeting that the BCTF held in March where several members expressed aggressively anti-Israel sentiments, making Jewish and pro-Israel members feel excluded.
“There was an annual general meeting of the BCTF earlier this year in which there was a great deal of pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel sentiment that was expressed by a number of teachers and groups that operate within the BCTF,” said Pulver.
When Jewish union members attempted to express their perspective, including pro-Zionist views, Pulver says they were treated unfairly, having their microphones cut prematurely.
“They tried to speak at the AGM and in some cases were prevented from doing so. Their time was cut short, quite different than the experience of those who were speaking on behalf of Palestine or against Israel,” said Pulver.
“Obviously if you’re experiencing that as someone who doesn’t share their views, and as someone who wants to express your views…you feel intimidated, you feel prevented from doing so, you feel silenced, you feel that you don’t have a voice.”
True North reached out to the BCTF for comment, though no response was given.
BC Teachers Against Antisemitism say that one of the union’s affiliated sub-groups called the Anti-Oppression Educators Association has been distributing anti-Israel teaching materials to the union membership.
“The union has issued and has allowed its subgroups to issue teaching resources that contain a tremendous amount of what our group believes to be misinformation, falsehoods, and for a lack of a better word, propaganda,” said Pulver.
Pulver said that among the materials the Anti-Oppression Educators Association distributes to union members are resources alleging Israel is administering collective punishment, committing genocide, and oppressing the Palestinian people. One of these resources includes a “Zionists F*** Off” poster that teachers are free to display in their classrooms.
The BCTF currently has 31 recognized Provincial Specialist Associations, which are specialty groups that provide teachers and union members with professional development opportunities and the opportunity to connect with like-minded specialty educators.
A group of teachers came together to form the Holocaust and Antisemitism Educators Association to counteract the anti-Israel pervasive anti-Israel sentiment flourishing within the union.
BCTF’s PSA council denied the ratification of the Holocaust and Antisemitism Educators Association, stating that the group had not met the criteria for approval while affirming the union’s commitment to fighting antisemitism.
However, Pulver and BC Teachers Against Antisemitism believe that the denial of the Holocaust and Antisemitism Educators Association’s application was done for different, more nefarious reasons.
“They applied to the BCTF to essentially authorize or certify them as a PSA, and they were denied the opportunity to do so, their application was rejected,” said Pulver.
“You can imagine their view on that, they feel that there’s a difference in how members are treated based on their beliefs, and which beliefs are approved and which beliefs are not.”
Pulver mentioned that the Anti-Oppression Educators Association disseminates teaching materials talking about oppression against gays and lesbians, transgenders, people of colour, Indigenous people, Asian people, and even the Irish and Italians, but no resources talking about Jews and antisemitism.
True North reached out to the Anti-Oppression Education Association for comment, though no response was given.
When asked what an ideal outcome would look like for his clients, Pulver simply responded “This union needs to change its ways.”
