The Canadian military was once feared by our enemies and respected by our allies. Today, that is no the longer case. The Armed Forces are subjected to a relentless onslaught of DEI and radical progressive ideology enforced on the ranks along with a chronic underfunding that continues unabated. An attrition crisis and a morale crisis are thinning out the officer and leadership class and nobody at the federal level is prepared to make a change.
How did it get so bad? More importantly, how can we turn it around?
Joining Harrison on The Faulkner Show is ret. Lt.-Gen. Michel Maisonneuve to discuss the crisis faced by the Canadian Armed Forces and how it can be solved.
Under the helm of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada is not a serious country. We proved that over the weekend, when the Toronto Police failed to protect a meeting with Trudeau and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni as pro-Hamas activists swarmed the Art Gallery of Ontario and police cancelled the event.
Are we witnessing two-tier policing? The police had no problem brutally cracking down on protesters during the Freedom Convoy but seem to turn a blind eye to pro-terror masked activists who intimidate Jewish Canadians, threaten and attack police and even shut down diplomatic meetings.
Candice Malcolm says Trudeau has failed all Canadians, and under his leadership, Canada is barely a country anymore.
Rebel News is suing the RCMP for its actions against David Menzies and what the news organization calls “a pattern of intimidation and exclusion against Rebel News journalists.”
The independent media organization and one of its reporters, Menzies, have filed a lawsuit against the federal government, York Regional Police, and five RCMP officers over what they describe in their court filing as the assault and false arrest of Menzies.
They originally announced that they planned to sue the RCMP over the arrest two days after Menzies was arrested while attempting to interview Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland at an event in the Greater Toronto Area.
The lawsuit alleges seven claims, including false arrest, false imprisonment, abuse of process, as well as assault and battery.
Rebel News and Menzies also allege their Charter rights to freedom of the press and freedom from arbitrary detention were violated.
The lawsuit specifically targets five RCMP officers, identified as John Does.
The RCMP said in a statement to True North that it does not comment on ongoing legal proceedings.
The incident occurred Jan. 8 at the Richmond Hill Centre for the Performing Arts, where Freeland was attending an event honouring victims of the downed PS752 flight.
Upon seeing Freeland arrive, Menzies and a videographer approached her and asked her two questions.
“Ms. Freeland, how come the IGRC is not a terrorist group? Why is your government supporting Islamo-Nazism?” Menzies said while walking alongside Freeland. An RCMP officer appears on video to have put himself in Menzies’ path, which Rebel’s lawsuit alleges made physical content inevitable.
“Mr. Menzies did not push or shove anyone. He did not ‘almost’ push anyone. He was not ‘aggressive’ with either Minister Freeland or the police. At all material times, he maintained a reasonable distance from Minister Freeland,” says the lawsuit.
Despite this, Menzies was detained, arrested, and charged with assault of a police officer, not for his interactions with Freeland.
“There was no cause for either the detention or arrest of Mr. Menzies,” claims the lawsuit.
After the arrest, Menzies was placed in a York Regional Police vehicle and driven to an empty parking lot a few blocks away where he was told that he was not being charged and instead being released. He was told he was prohibited from returning to the venue under the Trespass to Property Act. The videographer, Lincoln Jay, was given the same verbal notice.
“The RCMP and the YRP worked in concert to assault, detain, and falsely arrest Mr. Menzies. The conduct of John Doe #1-5, amounts to bad faith and a perversion to their roles as police officers,” reads the lawsuit.
In Rebel News’ lawsuit, they provide previous examples of incidents with the RCMP, which they deem to be a “pattern of police misconduct behaviour” against the organization.
The lawsuit claims that the RCMP assaulted Menzies in 2020 when asking Prime Minister Justin Trudeau questions at a large fundraising gathering. Menzies has commenced litigation against the RCMP over this incident.
Alexa Lavoie, a journalist with Rebel News, was allegedly shot by the RCMP with a riot-suppressing gun while covering the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa. Lavoie has commenced a claim against the RCMP for the incident.
“This isn’t just about suing Freeland’s bodyguards for assault and false arrest. That’s in there of course. It’s also about showing the ongoing pattern of abuse that the government directs at Rebel News, including a previous assault on David, attacking our reporter Alexa Lavoie with batons and a riot gun, and a pattern of punishing us simply because we criticize Trudeau,” said Menzies.
An Alberta physician who has been critical of the province for years is requesting a meeting with Premier Danielle Smith, saying the government’s transgender policies contributed to his adult nephew’s suicide even while the province plans to increase support for transgender adults.
David Keegan, a family physician and professor of family medicine at the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary, told City News that his 37 year-old nephew committed suicide after recent government policies appeared to have pushed him over the edge.
Under Smith’s announcement, transgender adults will actually receive more support in the coming years.
“This shouldn’t have happened. It was chosen. She knew this would happen,” Keegan argued on City News. “This is not the kind of way our province should be.”
In January, Smith announced that top and bottom gender reassignment surgeries will be banned for children aged 17 and under in Alberta while puberty blockers and hormone therapies for gender reassignment or affirmation will be prohibited for minors aged 15 and under.
The premier also announced that she will expand provincial access to surgical care for trans adults so they don’t have to travel to Quebec.
The activist doctor has lamented the state of health care in the province in media articles dating back a few years.
A David Keegan of Calgary contributed $350 to the Alberta NDP in 2021. Keegan didn’t respond to a request confirming whether the donation was his.
In September 2022, Keegan filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission over the federal government’s decision to lift mask requirements on airplanes.
The following June, he created a crowdfunding campaign to file a court injunction against Alberta Health Services’ plan to lift its facility mask mandate.
A few months later in December, he wrote a column in the Calgary Herald titled “Why I chose Alberta; and what went wrong.”
“I’ve been here almost 16 years. Something has gone wrong with Alberta in this time,” he wrote.
“The wisdom that seemed to anchor Alberta’s decision-making has been thrown out, replaced by refusals to address the opioid crisis, advance Truth and Reconciliation, and ensure we have strong health and education systems for all. And for what? To save a bit of money in the very short term and enable some companies to extract as much as they can, while downloading costs to families and the future.”
A month later, a January article from the Red Deer Advocate covered how Keegan wears a ribbon he made from duct tape to “represent how Alberta’s health care system is barely being held together.”
Smith hasn’t commented on meeting with Keegan but directed City News to the mental health helpline.
The Ontario PCs’ star candidate for an upcoming Milton byelection previously vied for a federal Liberal nomination and met with Justin Trudeau, True North has learned.
Zeeshan Hamid’s past affiliations and contributions to the Ontario Liberal Party have sparked controversy and raised questions about his political allegiance, especially as Hamid has yet to address them head-on.
Hamid’s connections to the federal and provincial Liberals date back several years. Not only did he donate to the Ontario Liberals, as reported first by True North, but he sought the federal Liberal nomination in 2014 and was notably photographed alongside Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau on multiple occasions.
During his nomination announcement in 2014, Hamid criticized the Harper Conservatives, stating that their governance style was ill-suited for a parliamentary democracy.
“I want to make sure all politics end up becoming local again,” Hamid told Inside Halton at the time.
“We have this top down government this time that isn’t right for a parliamentary democracy. “
Moreover, Hamid’s involvement with the Liberals extends beyond mere financial support. When he ran for Milton mayor in 2022, he received an endorsement from Liberal MP Adam van Koeverden.
Hamid also attended a provincial Liberal event alongside former Liberal MP John McCallum in 2016.
Additionally, Hamid served as a delegate for former Ontario Liberal leader Steven Del Duca in his 2020 leadership race, as reported by QP Briefing.
Public records revealed that Hamid has contributed $3,406 to the Ontario Liberal Party since 2020, including $950 to Del Duca’s leadership campaign in 2020. This support continued with a further contribution to the same association in 2022.
True North reached out to Hamid to allow him to clarify his past political affiliations and what his views are on the Ontario PCs but was told that he was too busy to respond.
Hamid also had a past X (formerly Twitter) handle that no longer exists. When asked what happened to the account, he told True North he renamed his account to align with his other online handles.
“I then created a new @votezee account to make sure nobody else uses that to impersonate me. In the past I also went by @zeehamid4 (same story there). You can tell by looking at the age of the account,” said Hamid.
The Trudeau government will be extending a program which funds local reporting jobs across Canada by spending an additional $58.8 million on top of the $50 million it has already spent since the program began five years ago.
Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge announced the additional spending on Tuesday, which will provide funding for 400 local jobs in various communities until 2027, under the Local Journalism Initiative.
The program was first launched in 2019 to help news organizations employ local reporters in areas that Ottawa feels are underrepresented like LGBTQ+ and Indigenous communities.
Not-for-profit organizations are responsible for administering the funding and aim to secure the independence of the press.
News Media Canada has a contract with the Canadian Press for editorial and technical support and is among the seven non-profits that administer the program.
However, the Canadian Press is not funded directly through the Local Journalism Initiative, nor can it receive its grant money to hire journalists, according to CBC News.
The Canadian Press does have a representative who participates in the panel of reviewers who oversee applications for the program’s grants, administered by News Media Canada.
The program had been set to expire at the end of the month.
CBC will be spared from the federal government’s cost-cutting efforts.
Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge told CBC host David Cochrane that the Liberals don’t want to “endanger” the state broadcaster.
“There’s actually an increase in money for the CBC for the fiscal year ahead. Is CBC going to have to make that 3% cut?” asked Cochrane.
“We don’t want to endanger the mission and the mandate that CBC-Radio Canada needs to deliver to the Canadian population, especially when it comes to the official languages. So no CBC will not have to do the 3.3% cuts, explained St-Onge.
With David Cochrane on CBC’s Power & Politics to talk about how and why we’re supporting a sustainable news landscape in Canada as the sector innovates and transforms its financial model. 📺 🌐 pic.twitter.com/lqannAf7Jz
St-Onge clarified that the government determined the public broadcaster would not face significant cuts after reviewing the situation.
All of us ministers had to do that exercise of looking at our departments and seeing what programs could be remodeled and rebuilt or changed or cut completely because they are no longer needed or efficient. But in the case of CBC Radio-Canada, of course, you know, it’s still as relevant as it is today,” said St-Onge.
“And we know that CBC-Radio Canada, like all other broadcasters, are facing financial difficulties right now. And so I think that the Treasury Board and my colleague Anita Anand, made the right decision when it comes to the public broadcaster.”
This declaration comes amidst financial turbulence for the public broadcaster.
Despite a pledge of an additional $90 million in funding for the upcoming fiscal year by the Trudeau government, CBC has faced challenges including declining revenue, viewership, and recent layoffs amounting to 10% of its workforce.
Documents from Canadian Heritage reveal that for the 2024-25 fiscal year, CBC’s budget will see an increase to approximately $1.4 billion, up from $1.3 billion in the previous year.
However, despite this apparent boost in funding, CBC announced plans to lay off 800 employees due to a projected shortfall of $125 million at the onset of the next fiscal year in April 2024.
A greater Toronto area school trustee is facing censure over several “disrespectful” posts disparaging Christianity and parental rights protesters.
Plus, Liberal and NDP MPs shut down further investigation into the Winnipeg microbiology lab breach.
And Lawyer and former broadcaster Jamil Jivani will be headed to Ottawa following a byelection win in the Greater Toronto Area riding of Durham, replacing former Conservative leader Erin O’Toole, who resigned his seat last year.
These stories and more on The Daily Brief with Cosmin Dzsurdzsa and Noah Jarvis!
Conservative candidate Jamil Jivani won the Durham byelection yesterday, meaning he’ll be headed to Parliament in the seat previously held by Erin O’Toole. While the Conservative win is not surprising, the margin of victory was decisive and spells bad news for the Liberals heading into the 2025 election, True North’s Andrew Lawton says.
Also, the Liberals have extended one of their media bailout programs until 2027 – after the next election.
Canadians are against the carbon tax, but the government is doubling down on it. Franco Terrazzano of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation joins to discuss.
Plus, University of Saskatchewan law professor Dwight Newman on how the Liberals’ “online harms” bill might actually make things worse for the people it purports to protect.
The 28-year-old man charged in the Edmonton City Hall shooting in January will now face additional charges related to terrorism.
The RCMP confirmed on Monday that Bezhani Sarvar has been charged with possession of property for terrorist purposes and counselling commission of a terrorism offence.
Sarvar is also charged with intentionally or recklessly causing damage by fire or explosion to property while knowing the property was inhabited and intentionally possessing incendiary material while committing an indictable offence.
Those charges are in addition to his previous counts of using a firearm while committing a crime, intentionally discharging a firearm, and carrying a concealed weapon, among other charges.
Multiple gunshots rang out at Edmonton’s City Hall Jan. 23 and a Molotov cocktail was thrown inside, leading to the immediate evacuation of the building.
Police confirmed within hours of the shooting that no one had been injured and that they had made an arrest.
The surrounding roads were closed and residents were asked to stay away from the area.
Police later discovered a video they believed to be of Sarvar saying he was “just tired of seeing the tyranny and corruption taking over our society and our lives.”
The man in the video also aired grievances about “wokism,” the housing crisis, multiculturalism, and what he referred to as the “genocide” in Gaza.
“As-Salaam-Alaikum. Brothers and sisters, before I do my mission, I want you all to know that I am not a psychopath. I do not believe in bloodshed. I am not one of these monsters that hurt children, that hurt innocents, and that promote wars all around the civilization of our society,” said the man in the video.
“And inshallah, we will rise against you guys, and we’ll put you on trial.”
Sarvar remains in custody at the Calgary Remand Centre while he awaits his next scheduled court appearance on Tuesday, according to Global News.
