David Thomas, the former Chair of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, sounds the alarm over Justin Trudeau’s new proposed Online Harms bill which, if passed, could put you in prison for so-called hate speech.
Thomas speaks out against the unconstitutionality of the proposed legislation and the dangers it will have on political discourse across the country.
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Canada once had the world’s strongest and most secure immigration system. But everything fell apart after 2015, and by 2023 we saw the largest number of illegal migrants entering our country in the history of Canada.
Most people believe Canada admits 500,000 immigrants annually, but this is only the number of permanent residents. This figure does not include foreign workers, international students and illegal migrants. Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in 2023, Canada admitted approximately 2.2 MILLION people into the country. That number could grow EVEN HIGHER in 2024.
On this episode of The Candice Malcolm Show, Candice walks you through the shocking numbers behind Canada’s immigration system, highlights the surge of illegal immigrants and explains how and why everything started falling apart around 2015.
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Newfoundland and Labrador’s premier is adding his voice to the growing chorus calling for Justin Trudeau to scrap an impending hike to the federal carbon tax.
Premier Andrew Furey penned an open letter to the prime minister calling for a pause on the carbon tax increase, scheduled for April 1, to help alleviate Canadians’ struggle with the increasing cost of living.
“Workers and families in Newfoundland and Labrador, throughout the country and indeed around the globe continue to face the most significant cost of living crisis in a generation,” wrote Furey. “For the past two years now, Canadians have endured persistent and punishing inflation, coupled with the most aggressive inflation in the history of the Bank of Canada.”
The Trudeau government will be raising the carbon tax an additional 17 cents per litre of gasoline, 21 cents per litre of diesel, and 15 cents per cubic metre of natural gas, effective Apr. 1.
Furey said that for his province’s “most vulnerable, it has been a particularly difficult time” and that it’s time for the federal government to address the “magnitude of inflation’s effect on citizens.”
The premier made a point to share all the environmental work his province has already done, such having its lowest greenhouse gas emissions since 1992 and being “well below the 10 million tonnes per year average of the past decade.”
In collaboration with Ottawa, Furey’s provincial government is offering eligible residents up to $22,000 to switch their home heating from oil to electric, an offer that Furey said is receiving applicants in “record volume,” with 2,140 applications already submitted.
However, many residents of the Atlantic province are still struggling with the basic cost of living and the “coming almost 25 per cent increase (from $65 to $80 per tonne) in the federal carbon tax on April 1st is causing understandable worry as people consider how they will manage the mounting financial strain,” wrote Furey.
“We ask for the collaboration of the federal government to address the ramifications of the current challenges that families face and not to compound them,” added Furey.
“I respectfully request that you consider pausing the implementation of the April 1st carbon tax increase – at least until inflation stabilizes, interest rates lower and related economic pressures on the cost of living sufficiently cool,” concluded Furey.
Furey is not the only premier to express dissatisfaction with the carbon tax, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe recently pledged to stop collecting it altogether and Northwest Territories’ premier, R.J. Simpson, requested a full exemption from it.
A Leger poll for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation found that the majority of Canadians, 69%, opposed the hike, while the remaining 31% were in support of it.
That number would increase to 72% if Quebec and British Columbia, where the federal carbon tax isn’t applied directly, were excluded.
“The poll is clear: the vast majority of Canadians, across every province and all demographics, oppose the upcoming federal carbon tax hike,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF’s federal director.
“Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should listen to Canadians and stop hiking his carbon tax.”
Canada’s state broadcaster dished out $14.9 million in bonuses in 2023 despite laying off hundreds of employees at the end of the year.
According to documents received by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, CBC distributed bonuses to 1,143 CBC staff members as of October 26, 2023. Once data for November and December are made available, the figure has the potential to rise.
The CBC also gave 6,575, or 87% of its workforce, a pay increase in the 2023-24 fiscal year, amounting to $11.5 million in raises with no pay cuts made.
The revelation of these payouts comes after the CBC had announced it would be cutting 600 jobs, or 10% of its workforce this past December amid “financial challenges.”
Canadian Taxpayers Federation federal director Franco Terrazzano criticized the decision and called on the heritage minister to intervene.
“CBC president Catherine Tait is wrong to hand out bonuses while announcing hundreds of job losses and begging the government for more taxpayer cash,” said Terrazzano.
“Tait won’t do the right thing, so Canadian Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge needs to step in and shut down these bonuses.”
After news broke that the CBC intended to lay off 600 hundred of its employees, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre introduced a motion to ban CBC from handing out bonuses to its executives. It was shut down by the Liberals.
As reported by True North, the CBC is the main beneficiary from a $100 million deal the federal government struck with Google as a result of the Online News Act.
The CBC is also set to receive an extra $90 million from the Trudeau government in fiscal year 2024-25, adding up to $1.4 billion in taxpayer funding.
Since 2015, the CBC has approved $97 million in pay raises and the number of CBC employees receiving six-figure salaries has risen 231%.
Edmonton police are calling attention to a hidden cave they uncovered being used as a shelter in Edmonton’s River Valley.
The Edmonton Police Service, alongside Alberta’s sheriffs branch, released a video of the discovery.
Sgt. Serge Soucy, who was on scene with other officers, said that a hole leading to the cave was covered by a piece of steel.
“They just happened to move it out of the way and discovered a cave that had been dug in here and found an occupant inside the cave,” said Soucy. He added that it is one of the most unique structures the police have encountered.
The cave was approximately five feet deep and nearly 12 feet across, according to the Edmonton Police Service.
The police returned to the cave after its initial discovery and found it collapsed.
“Today we’ve noticed that someone or something has caused it to cave in… Absolutely dangerous,” said Soucy.
Luckily, the individual living in the cave had been relocated to the government’s “navigation and support centre” for homeless people days earlier.
The Edmonton Police Service and Edmonton Fire Rescue Services were still dispatched on-site to confirm that no one was injured or buried due to the collapse.
Soucy recommended destroying the cave to ensure nobody attempts to excavate it further.
The Edmonton Police Service said that it has not seen an increase of encampments in Edmonton’s River Valley.
“The majority of encampments continue to be concentrated in the downtown core and other green spaces around the city, though their size and numbers continue to shrink as more and more occupants are connected to support services, including those for mental health addictions and housing,” the police service said in a statement.
True North previously reported that as of Jan. 6, there were 2,987 homeless people in the city, a figure that has since been revised to 2,868.
A spokesperson for the Israeli government accused the Canadian government of indirectly funding terror through its support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.
Ilana Stein, the National Public Diplomacy Directorate’s head of international affairs, condemned Canada’s decision to continue funding UNRWA at a press conference.
“The taxpayer should know that their money is funding terror, as simple as that. And do they want their money to help terrorists, build tunnels, educate children on how to kill and that they should kill? And train them how to do so? Is that the best way for the taxpayer’s money to be used?” Stein said, in response to a question from the Canadian TV station the News Forum.
The federal government’s decision to resume funding after a brief pause has raised concerns among some Canadian lawmakers, including Liberal MPs Anthony Housefather and Marco Mendicino, who have advocated for a complete halt in Canadian support for UNRWA.
Housefather and Mendicino expressed deep concerns over allegations of UNRWA staff involvement in terrorism and the distribution of antisemitic materials in an open letter to the government released last week.
These allegations linking some UNRWA staff members to Hamas attacks against Israel first emerged in October and were later acknowledged by the UN agency itself..
Among the accusations are claims of involvement in grave activities such as kidnapping, distributing ammunition, and participating in a massacre that resulted in the deaths of 97 Jewish civilians.
The Israeli government has provided a dossier to the United States government outlining the alleged roles of several individuals in the Hamas attacks against Israel on October 7.
These allegations have fueled suspicions that funds directed towards UNRWA may have been diverted to support Hamas activities.
The Israeli spokesperson emphasized the need for a reconsideration of taxpayer funds, questioning whether supporting an organization with such allegations aligns with Canada’s interests in promoting peace and stability in the region.
“If we want Gaza to have a bright future…you can’t keep on giving the money to an organization that taught hate (and) facilitated and was part of a massacre. And it’s not just a few, we have evidence of a lot of people. There’s no way that people who are running this organization did not know this, so that means that there has to be another solution,” said Stein.
The Conservative candidate for the Ottawa-area riding of Orléans says that he is unequivocally a conservative despite previous donations to the Liberals and a stint working for a Liberal cabinet minister.
Matthew Luloff, the current Ottawa city councillor for Orléans East-Cumberland was a member of the Liberal party for about a decade and donated over $3,000 to the party in 2014 and 2015, just before Justin Trudeau won a majority government.
Luloff had also worked for the Liberals in several roles from 2012 to 2018 as a staffer and campaign worker, culminating in a job working for the then-defence minister Harjit Sajjan.
During the Freedom Convoy in the winter of 2022, Luloff had publicly supported using the National Defence Act to call in the military to disband the peaceful protest.
However, Luloff claims he has become a conservative in recent years and that the Liberals have abandoned the values that once drew him to them.
In a speech to Orléans’ Conservative members, which he shared with True North, Luloff said that Liberal broken promises turned him away from the party.
“It is true that in 2015, I was excited about a platform that called for properly supporting our veterans, renewing our defence policy, and increasing defence spending,” said Luloff.
“I then worked for ministers to implement them, and I saw firsthand how little the party and this prime minister care about these policies.”
Luloff said that after leaving federal politics in 2018 to serve as an Ottawa city councillor, he decided to explore what he truly believed more deeply.
He claimed that he turned to conservative intellectuals like Friedrich Hayek, Ludwig von Mises, Edmund Burke, and Milton Friedman. He also turned to modern commentators including Conrad Black, Michael Shellenburger, James Lindsay, and Ben Shapiro.
“I came out of this knowing that I sure as hell was not a Liberal. That I desperately needed to find a new home, and I found it with the Conservative Party of Canada.”
Luloff had formerly served in the Canadian Armed Forces from 2003 to 2009 before entering politics.
According to 338Canada, the Conservatives are projected to win the Orléans riding, currently held by Liberal MP Marie-France Lalonde.
True North reached out to the Conservative Party of Canada’s media office for comment but did not receive a response.
Canada’s prison service is under fire by the Conservatives for its 2022 decision to move killer Luka Magnotta into medium security.
Magnotta was found guilty of first-degree murder in 2014 for the killing and dismemberment of 33-year-old university student Jun Lin two years earlier. He pleaded guilty to his crimes and was sentenced to life in a maximum security prison.
Magnotta was transferred to a medium security prison in 2022, news of which prompted an inquiry by members of Parliament last week.
Correctional Service Canada confirmed to Global News that it had informed the then-public safety minister Marco Mendicino’s office in May 2022, prior to the transfer, although it’s not known if Mendicino, who has since been removed from cabinet, was personally aware.
Conservative MPs on the public safety committee have called Correctional Service Canada Commissioner Anne Kelly to speak about the issue in the coming weeks, along with the warden of La Macaza, the medium security prison where Magnotta is now incarcerated.
Conservative MPs called for a motion to bring Kelly, the warden, and other officials before the committee to testify, including Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc.
Magnotta’s transfer from a maximum security prison in eastern Quebec took place a year before the transfer of serial rapist and murderer Paul Bernardo, who is now also serving his sentence at La Macaza.
Bernardo is serving a life sentence for the murders of Kristen French and Leslie Mahaffy, who were teens at the time in the early 1990s, alongside his then-wife Karla Homolka. They also killed Homolka’s sister, Tammy.
Bernardo’s transfer stirred up a political feud as well over concerns of public safety.
Correctional Service Canada informed both Mendicino’s office and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about the possibility of the transfer before it took place in March and then again in May once a date was cemented.
The two would later claim that they weren’t personally made aware of the transfer until it happened.
The families of Bernardo’s victims were not notified of the transfer beforehand either, which only added to the decision’s controversy.
Correctional Service Canada has told reporters that decisions regarding transfers are “very through” and are made only once the offender “can be safely managed in a medium-security facility.”
CSC assured the committee that La Macaza is equipped with a “well-defined perimeter with high fences, is strictly guarded 24/7 and is patrolled by armed officers.”
Conservative MP Frank Caputo expressed his dismay over the transfer, posting a video to X detailing a visit he recently made to La Macaza. Caputo argued the conditions of the medium security prison were too luxurious for someone who had committed such horrific crimes as the prison had an ice hockey rink in the winter and tennis courts in the summer, along with a billiards room.
“I think most Canadians were shocked at the transfer of Paul Bernardo, and I feel similarly Canadians are also shocked to find out that Luka Magnotta and others are not only in medium security, but also in the same penitentiary,” said Caputo.
Former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi announced that he will be running to become the leader of the Alberta NDP.
Plus, the Trudeau government had initially created a proposal to raise Canada’s annual immigration rate to one million permanent residents per year, according to newly obtained internal documents.
And Ontario’s Queen’s University says it’s investigating a break and enter incident after a Palestinian flag was raised on the flagpole atop of its clock tower last week.
Tune into The Daily Brief with Cosmin Dzsurdzsa and Noah Jarvis.
Canada’s state broadcaster, CBC, was whining about its budget while simultaneously paying out upwards of $15 million in bonuses in 2023, new documents reveal. News like this will make the call to defund CBC a much easier sell for Canadians, True North’s Andrew Lawton says. He discusses with Canadian Taxpayers Federation federal director Franco Terrazzano.
Also, despite the RCMP making the explosive claim that drugs distributed through government “safe supply” programs are being diverted and sold by organized crime, British Columbia Premier David Eby says he’s yet to review any evidence of diversion.
Plus, Margaret Atwood has weighed in on the Liberal government’s online harms bill, calling Bill C-63 “Orwellian.” The Liberals are using child protection as a shield for censorship. Andrew discusses with former CRTC vice-chair Peter Menzies.
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