fbpx
Saturday, October 4, 2025

Housing starts in Edmonton hit new low as its population balloons

By
Isaac Lamoureux
-
Source: Unsplash

Edmonton saw “electric, migration-spurred, population growth” in 2023, according to a new study released by the Conference Board of Canada. 

Record federal immigration programs and the city’s booming economy are among the reasons behind the discrepancy.

“High federal immigration targets are delivering international newcomers, while the city’s healthy economy and affordable housing is (sic) attracting other Canadians,” highlighted the report.

In October, the Edmonton City Council approved a new zoning bylaw. The previous zoning limited many residential zones to single-family homes. Three-story apartments, townhouses, row houses, and duplexes with up to eight units will now be allowed in any residential area.

Still, housing starts in Edmonton fell approximately 10% between 2022 and 2023. 

Alberta’s peak of housing starts was in 1978, at around 17,000. This peak was mirrored in 2015.  In 2023, that value had fallen by almost 23%. 

The Conference Board of Canada expects a modest uptick of housing starts in 2025, with about a 10% increase by 2028. 

The report explained that the city’s good affordability, continuing employment growth, and easing interest rates point to a strengthening resale market later in 2024.

“Although the near term looks rocky,” read the study.

Edmonton’s population growth hit a new record thanks largely to 47,100 international newcomers, breaking the previous year’s 33,400 arrivals, according to the report.

The growth of international newcomers exceeds Edmonton’s 20-year average of 10,700.

Net-interprovincial migration also hit a record high, at 18,700 people in 2023, well above the 4,000-person average over the previous two decades.

An estimated 17,000 interprovincial migrants arrived in Alberta in the third quarter of 2023, the highest among all provinces. Most of the newcomers came from British Columbia and Ontario, seeking affordable housing.

Interprovincial migration to Edmonton was 4,200 in 2023. This is not a record, but it is above the 20-year average of 3,160 interprovincial migrants.

Additionally, Edmonton’s real GDP will rise by 1.5% in 2024, following a 2.8% rise in 2023. In 2025, Edmonton’s real GDP is expected to grow by 3.4%, with annual hikes of 2.9% between 2026 and 2028. 

“These are decent figures by national standards,” highlighted the study.

Meanwhile, Canadian GDP is expected to rise 0.7% in 2024, 2.3% in 2025, and 2.3% annually between 2026 and 2028. 

In 2023, while Edmonton’s overall employment surged by 5.2%, the construction sector did not keep pace. The sector experienced a contraction, losing jobs despite the city’s increasing demand for housing fueled by the influx of international newcomers and high rate of interprovincial migration.

For 2024, the construction sector is expected to see some recovery, with a projected employment growth of 4.2%, translating to an addition of 3,700 workers, bringing the total to 90,600. 

However, this recovery still leaves the sector more than 10% below its 2015 peak employment of 100,700 workers.

A stronger employment increase is expected in 2025, of 2.7%, led by job gains in construction, professional and technical services, and healthcare services. 

While not a record, Edmonton’s consumer price index—used to measure inflation—rose to a 41-year high of 6.3% in 2022, up from 3% in 2021.

Another NDP leadership candidate announces opposition to carbon tax

By
Isaac Lamoureux
-

Former Alberta deputy premier Sarah Hoffman is the latest candidate to throw her hat in the ring for Alberta’s NDP leadership. 

Hoffman’s policy mirrors that of Rakhi Pancholi, who announced last week that she would be against the carbon tax if elected leader.

Hoffman was second in command to former Alberta premier Rachel Notley when the NDP was elected in 2015. She joins Kathleen Ganley and Pancholi in the race to replace Notley, who announced that she was stepping down as the party leader on January 16.

As Pancholi said three days earlier, Hoffman called for an end to the consumer carbon tax.

“I think the consumer carbon tax is dead. It died provincially in the last election. The feds took it over. Justin Trudeau played dirty politics with it and picked winners and losers. If you don’t have public support, you can’t carry on with something like that,” Hoffman told Canadian Press reporters.

She mirrored Pancholi’s messaging, saying that Albertans care about climate change. However, she argued that the consumer carbon tax is not the model going forward. 

“We need to find new tools that are successful,” she said.  

The NDP brought its provincial carbon levy when Hoffman previously worked for the party. She said she would release more details about her plan during her campaign but pledged that large polluters need to pay more as they can likely afford it. 

“Nobody is on board with what Justin Trudeau did with the federal carbon tax. He absolutely broke trust and broke confidence when he looked at the polls in Eastern Canada and decided to exempt them,” she said.

Canadian Taxpayers Federation Alberta director Kris Sims told True North that she welcomes the surprising news. 

“It’s surprising because it was the Alberta NDP government that first brought a provincial carbon tax to Alberta. So that cost Albertans an awful lot of money, and it cost the NDP, I would argue, some popularity in Alberta,” said Sims. 

However, Sims said to be cautious about the NDP candidate’s promises. She said that when the NDP were in opposition in British Columbia, they campaigned against the federal carbon tax. Now they have two. 

“So, we need to make sure that any politician who’s vowing up and down to scrap the carbon taxes keep his or her word. We have to hold them accountable. Good thing we have provincial recall here,” said Sims. 

After announcing her bid, Hoffman hosted an event to discuss her campaign.

“We know things have gotten much worse in the past five years under the UCP,” she said. 

“Every day, we see our public health care sabotaged by Danielle Smith. We see longer wait times for emergency care, longer drives for rural parents wanting to deliver a baby that have to go further and further from home. And so many Albertans can’t find a family doctor.” 

Pancholi had previously emphasized the importance of rural Alberta and its importance towards winning the election. While Calgary and Edmonton were predominately orange, signifying NDP-winning ridings, almost the entire rest of the province was blue.

Hoffman, a native of Kanuso in rural Alberta herself, thinks that she can be the change the NDP needs.

“In my hometown, Kanuso, there’s a UCP MLA. That’s going to change. I pledge a positive leadership campaign about forward-looking ideas, free from personal attacks in public or in private, and I invite my fellow contestants to join me in making the same pledge.”

Sims said that this issue is more than just capturing rural Alberta, but perhaps about the NDP and how the party aims to champion itself as the party of the working man or woman, to look out for the poor and the little guy. She said that the carbon tax hurts the poor the most.

Hoffman pledged to fix the housing crisis, act on climate change, and rebuild Alberta’s publicly funded and delivered health care system.

Others rumoured to be considering running are MLA Jodi Calahoo Stonehouse and former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi.

David Shepherd, who was previously rumoured to be running, posted on X that he will not be running due to ongoing health issues.

Party members will pick a new leader on June 22. 

Alberta’s next provincial general election is scheduled for May 31, 2027.

The federal and provincial NDP are one party. Sims remains hopeful that if enough provincial counterparts turn against the carbon tax, maybe so too will Jagmeet Singh. 

Sims said Manitoba’s NDP Premier Wab Kinew is a prominent figure. She believes that he is influential within the NDP circle and that these candidates might be taking notes from him. He stopped collecting carbon tax on home heating in November.

B.C woman convicted of coughing on grocery clerk acquitted after appeal

By
Clayton DeMaine
-

A disabled senior convicted of coughing on a grocery store clerk and complaining about the store’s COVID protocols has been acquitted after an appeal. and “complaining with considerable persistence and vigour” about the store’s COVID protocols in 2020, has been acquitted of all criminal charges.

The British Columbia Supreme Court has overturned a judge’s 2022 ruling that Kimberly Woolman, 60, “assaulted one employee by intentionally coughing in their direction and assaulted another by intentionally pushing her shopping cart into him.”

She was initially charged with causing a disturbance in a public place by shouting and two counts of assault.

Woolman was shopping at Save-on-Foods in Campbell River, B.C., for her mother, who lived in a nursing home, one month after B.C. declared a state of emergency.

She had finished shopping and was at the cashier, ready to pay. She questioned why a barrier was blocking some of the aisles, and the clerk explained it was for social distancing to “keep down congestion.”

“I said, ‘You got to be freaking kidding me,’ and I walked away. She followed me, stopped me halfway down the aisle and demanded that I answer her question of whether I would keep social distancing, as she was in my face, two feet away, and I was telling her to back off,” Woolman said in an interview on Rumble.

According to Woolman, the clerk persisted in following her, saying that she would not be able to get groceries if she didn’t commit to following the public health guidelines.

Eventually, three other clerks were involved. She was accused of intentionally coughing at the first clerk, Jacqueline Poulton, and another clerk accused her of ramming a cart into him.

Woolman’s case was granted an appeal after Justice Douglas Thompson ruled the trial judge was incorrect for refusing to allow Woolman to call on a character witness.

Thompson did not order a new trial, opting instead to overturn the conviction and enter an acquittal.

According to Thompson’s decision, Woolman asserted a myriad of grounds for appeal, but many of these were “manifestly without merit.” He concluded, however, that the character evidence matter provided enough grounds for an appeal.

Woolman also claimed that her lawyer sought a deal with the Crown rather than defending her innocence using available video evidence.

Woolman fired her lawyer and began representing herself.

“The lawyer had not looked at the video evidence that had been submitted. There was a problem with the video reader. You needed to have a specific reader,” said Rebecca Sheppard of Stand4Thee, a group that assisted Woolman with her defence.

There were four different videos in total, according to Sheppard.

Woolman said her lawyer showed the video but “didn’t point out anything on it.”

“I trusted her because she was a lawyer,” she said.

Sheppard also said the witnesses’ statements to the police did not match their testimonies in court.

“Nowhere in the videos do you see any reaction to being coughed on and supposedly horked on from two feet away,” she said.

After the first trial, Woolman lacked the funds to appeal the court decision, but Stand4Thee provided assistance.

“From my heart. I am so thankful to everyone for all the love and support and for helping me do this appeal,” Woolman said. “It wasn’t just about me. It was the fact that so many people were (harassed) in grocery stores.”

LEVY: Jewish workers are taking a stand against union antisemitism

By
Sue-Ann Levy
-

Another public sector union is under fire by its Jewish members for turning a blind eye to anti-Israel sentiment within the union.

OPSEU’s Jewish members crafted a letter to president JP Hornick last month after the union’s flags were spotted flying at a protest celebrating violence and death to the Jews and attacks by the Yemen-based Houthis on ships in the Red Sea.

Marchers were seen on video supporting the Iran-backed Houthis, whose slogan, I should note, is, “Allah is great, Death to the USA, Death to Israel, Curse the Jews, Victory to Islam.”

The letter, obtained by True North, expresses the “profound shock and disappointment” of OPSEU’s Jewish members at watching public videos of the Jan. 14 protest with OPSEU clearly there.

”We are shaken to see OPSEU/SEFPO flags flying in the hands of members at this …protest,” the letter says. “We as OPSEU/SEFPO Jewish members and allies do not agree with the use (of) OPSEU/SEFPO flags or logos for this cause, or any cause that is not labour-related.”

The Jewish members ask if this involvement in this toxic protest is the “union position.”

”We do not pay union dues to have death chants against us seemingly glorified by the SAME union that represents us. The message being sent is dangerous and frankly, none of us feel safe,” the letter continues.

The members conclude by asking that Hornick make a public statement disassociating herself from the seeming antisemitism of some OPSEU members and reaffirm that she and her board are inclusive of all union equal rights and anti-racism initiatives (not just a select few).

Sources say standard letters were finally sent to the Jewish signatories.

My Feb. 4 request for a response from Hornick was finally addressed a week later.

According to an OPSEU spokesperson, the union’s members share a “diverse range of opinions, positions and correspondence” with them and OPSEU makes all reasonable efforts to “respond in a timely and thoughtful manner.”

The spokesperson contends that they “work tirelessly to fight against antisemitic, Islamophobia and all forms of racism and discrimination” — not addressing the involvement of some OPSEU members in the Jan. 14 protest at all.

”Like all Canadians we want to see an end to this terrible cycle of violence in the Middle East,” the spokesperson said.

Nice platitudes.

That said, Hornick was seen front and centre at a labour protest in Niagara Falls with disgraced Ontario MPP Sarah Jama in attendance. At least, unlike the Amalgamated Transit Union’s John DiNino and CUPE Ontario’s Fred Hahn, she was not pictured smiling with her.

But according to sources, OPSEU’s Jewish members are considering taking the union’s activities further.

Two other public sector unions have already become the subject of human rights complaints for their overt and bordering on aggressive anti-Israel activities.

Some 80 Jewish members are taking on CUPE Ontario for what they say is systemic and longstanding antisemitism.

It really came to light, their claim contends, in the days following the atrocities of Oct. 7 — as the Israeli body count was still being tallied — when Hahn tweeted that he was grateful for the “power of resistance around the globe.”

He also posted a picture to Instagram in which he parroted the chant, “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be free” — which is considered a call to eradicate the Jewish state.

Hahn continues to obsessively tweet virulent anti-Israel diatribe including, a claim that anyone who voted for Justin Trudeau “has blood on their hands” because Canada exported military equipment to Israel.

Hahn happily celebrated Jama at an OPSEU rally in early February

Jewish members of the Public Service Alliance of Canada have also filed 14 human rights complaints. They allege a “culture of discrimination and harassment” from a union pushing an “anti-Israel agenda.”

Among the incidents listed are a “solidarity with Palestine” webinar in which Israel was accused of all the predictable buzz words such as “colonialism, apartheid and genocide.”

The complaint also accuses the union of handing out “antisemitic” flyers promoting the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanction) movement against the Jewish state.

The radical progressives in these unions — who are the first to scream transphobia and Islamophobia if someone dares express an opinion contrary to their own—have been allowed to carry out anti-Semitic activities like funding UNRWA and Hamas-led Gaza for years.

Never mind that this has nothing to do with labour negotiations.

It’s been a true slap in the face to those Jewish members who have seen their union dues go to groups advocating for their destruction.

It’s more than time that Jewish union members spoke out.

Toronto Star VP warns of “pseudo-journalist” takeover without permanent media funding

By
Cosmin Dzsurdzsa
-

A Toronto Star executive and former staffer for Justin Trudeau says if the government doesn’t force Big Tech to permanently fund legacy media, news will be taken over by “pseudo-journalists.” 

Toronto Star vice-president of government and public relations Ryan Adam made the comments on a panel with the U.S. group Ethnic Media Services. 

Adam said Google and Meta need to recognize that “the content they’re sharing from news organizations has value,” arguing government must be “compelling them to compensate, permanently, those content creators with revenue generated from the advertising.”

“I strongly encourage the government to move forward and pursue the approach while the industry is on its knees and then I strongly encourage tech leaders to really acknowledge the important role that real fact-based journalism has in a democracy,” he added.

Adam warned that the consequences of not making the Liberals’ Bill C-18, also known as the Online News Act, a permanent staple of the legacy media industry was for “pseudo-journalists” to flourish. 

“In the absence of real journalism, all we’re going to get moving forward is pseudo-journalists, online experts and folks who don’t go through the rigorous fact-checking that we do in our newsrooms,” said Adam.

Adam worked for the Prime Minister’s Office during Trudeau’s government between 2017 and 2019 and also spoke in favour of Bill C-18 on the panel. Admittedly, he also had reservations about too much government involvement in the media. 

“Full disclosure for me to say that the Toronto Star, before the Online News Act was implemented, already had deals with Google and Meta and Apple and a few other tech platforms. So for us, it was not about newfound revenue but this was about rolling over and consistent revenue,” explained Adam. 

“It is my strong recommendation that the government do as little as possible to stick their fingers into the revenue streams of journalists because government can change, politicians are swayed by a number of different forces so that is not a concrete business model.” 

The Toronto Star was recently catapulted into the international spotlight after X CEO Elon Musk likened the outlet, which receives federal funding, to the historical Soviet propaganda newspaper, Pravda. 

Musk’s comparison came in response to Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre accusing the newspaper of planning a hit piece about his family. 

Poilievre took to social media to criticize the Star’s purported intentions, labelling its forthcoming story as a “ridiculous attack” concerning something as trivial as his wife’s purchase of a $300 splash pool for his kids.

Despite Adam’s insistence that governments stay out of determining media revenue as much as possible, Torstar CEO John Boynton called on additional subsidies for the newspaper in 2022. In 2019, Torstar received $6.8 million in federal aid and also benefits from Trudeau’s $595 million media bailout which consists of $13,750 payroll rebates per employee.

Ratio’d | Another church arson attack in Canada

By
Harrison Faulkner
-

On Friday an arsonist set fire to the Blessed Sacrament Parish Catholic church in Regina, Saskatchewan. The 118-year-old historic church became the 97th church in Canada to be attacked since the false claims of bodies in mass graves at the sites of former Indian Residential Schools began circulating throughout Canada’s mainstream media in 2021. Thankfully the church was saved by first responders but the entire attack was caught on video and posted to social media.

The federal government it appears doesn’t want anything to do with this story. Despite close to 100 churches being attacked in Canada, the government have refused to open a formal inquiry.

Do you think the response would be the same if 97 mosques or synogogues had been attacked in this way?

To make matters worse, the CBC couldn’t bring themselves to even write a story about the latest attack in Saskatchewan. Justifying the church burnings seems to be more of a priority for the state-broadcaster.

Watch the latest episode of Ratio’d with Harrison Faulkner!

Lawyer says Trudeau government’s DEI agenda contributing to judicial vacancies

By
Elie Cantin-Nantel
-

A prominent Toronto lawyer says the Trudeau government’s ‘diversity, equity and inclusion’ agenda is contributing to judicial vacancies that are resulting in serious criminal trials being tossed.  

There are currently 21 vacancies in the Ontario Superior Court alone, including six in Toronto.

This has resulted in court delays and backlogs, as well as several files in the Ontario Superior Court collapsing in the last few months, including a human trafficking case, a gun possession case and a sex assault case. 

The cases collapsed after the trials went beyond a time limit imposed by the Supreme Court’s landmark R v Jordan ruling, which says cases must be heard within 18 months in provincial courts or 30 months in superior courts to not violate one’s right to a fair trial.

Chief Justice Richard Wagner sounded the alarm last June on the high number of judicial vacancies, saying “these empty positions have a significant impact on the administration of justice, the functioning of our courts, and access to justice for the public.” 

Is DEI contributing to judicial vacancies?

Ari Goldkind, a prominent Toronto criminal defence lawyer, says DEI ideology is contributing to the Trudeau government’s failure to fill judicial vacancies.  

“We have a terrible and so far extremely ineffective justice minister in a government so obsessed with identity politics and with the appointment of certain ‘preferred’ judges whose immutable characteristics and political views are politically appetizing for them,” said Goldkind in an interview with True North.

The Trudeau government made major changes to judicial appointments in 2016 to increase gender, racial and sexual diversity. As a result of these reforms, more than half of judicial appointments since then have been women. A considerable number have also been visible and sexual minorities, as well as individuals with disabilities.

The Trudeau government doubled down on its DEI judicial agenda last fall, saying it was committed to “greater diversity on the bench.”

For Goldkind, this focus on DEI is resulting in a sidelining of merit, and efficiency in filling vacancies.

“There are hundreds of capable and meritorious judicial applicants that will not be quickly selected because they don’t rank as high on the identity politics totem pole as others, even though they have the legal chops, good judgment, and level of experience to make them excellent appointments,” he said.

Justice Minister Arif Virani’s office did not respond to a request for comment from True North.

Goldkind said there are other factors at play too behind court delays and backlogs, including a dramatic rise in violent crime over the past few years. Canada’s murder rate is currently at its highest in 30 years. He ascribed much of the blame on Justin Trudeau’s soft on crime and open border policies.

“You have an incredible rise in crime throughout Ontario, and most of Canada, simply due to the federal government’s extremely soft on crime policies, as well as immigration policies that more and more Canadians are starting to realize, including an essentially bottom-line position that if you make it to a Canadian airport, no matter who you are or where you’re from, you’re welcome here for the rest of your life,” Goldkind said.

The rise in crime is resulting in an increased demand for courts. 

Goldkind noted that this demand would be reduced if “there were fewer people who were dangerous and violent who were released prematurely, or inappropriately in relation to the violence or antisocial nature of their crime, or were given their 8th bail after their 7th violent or non-complying offense.”

On the Jordan ruling used as a basis for tossing out cases after lengthy delays, Goldkind said some nuance is needed.

“I think it’s a decision that has arguably been unhelpful. Perhaps the intentions were good, but it created a whole new set of problems, while trying to solve a previous one.”

Goldkind argued that there is a difference between someone being in custody for 30 months waiting for their trial, and someone who gets to wait for their trial at home. 

“That distinction should matter more significantly in the calculation than it currently does.”

Trudeau blames Harper

Responding to rising crime last week, Trudeau blamed the Harper government.

“In the previous government, funding for border security was gutted,” said Trudeau at a summit organized to address rising auto theft. “A long tail of cuts like this have hurt the ability of border agents to do their jobs.”

Goldkind told True North he finds the shift in blame to be absurd.

“When we see how crime has changed from 2015 because of horrible federal policies, immigration, criminal justice, mandatory minimums and various other bills that make the Canadian public less safe while being obsessed with the colour or background of convicted criminals,” Goldkind said. “Saying this is Harper’s fault should be immediately disqualifying for anybody to be taken as a serious or honest person.”

Police investigate arson of Regina church set ablaze by man in balaclava

By
Quinn Patrick
-

A suspect in an attempted arson at a church in Regina, Saskatchewan was caught on surveillance footage last week. 

The footage, which is under a minute long, was posted on social media by Fr. James Hentges, a priest at Regina’s Blessed Sacrament Parish on Saturday. 

A camera captured a man with his face covered pouring what is presumed to be gasoline from a jerry can onto the front entrance of the church. 

He can then be seen lighting the office entrance of the church on fire before running away. 

“The alarm went off immediately when it detected smoke,” Hentges told 980 CJME AM radio in an interview. “My Apple iPods picked up the alarm and alerted me… that there was an alarm going off in my home.”

The church, which is located in Regina’s downtown at 2039 Scarth St., had to cancel its Sunday mass as a result of the fire and its clean up and won’t be able to provide services until Wednesday. 

Regina police started an investigation on the incident on Friday afternoon and Hentges asked in his social media post for anyone with information to contact Regina police or Crime Stoppers. 

Firefighters arrived on the scene around 3:40 a.m. on Friday morning, following reports of the fire. 

Fortunately, they managed to extinguish the flames before any major damage occurred. 

“We have done a thorough investigation, and it was an intentionally set fire,” Deputy Chief Gord Hewitt told reporters. “We’re working with our Regina Police Service right now on providing those details to them.”

“Our crews managed to contain the fire to the exterior,” Hewitt said. “Internally, it was just smoke, which we managed to ventilate (from) the property.”

The Regina Police Service has not provided any further updates on the investigation since Sunday afternoon.

Since the announcement of a potential mass grave near a residential school in Kamloops, B.C. in 2021, 96 Christian churches in Canada have been vandalized or burned across the country.  

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre addressed these arsons publicly last month.

“There is no justification for burning down a church period. Regardless of the other information or justifications that people claim to use, there is never a justification to burn down a church,” said Poilievre.

He pledged that his government would allocate resources for a comprehensive investigation into the allegations of human remains at former residential school sites.

Taxpayers billed nearly $60 million for failed ArriveCan app: Auditor General report

By
Isaac Lamoureux
-
Source: ParlVu

Auditor General Karen Hogan released a report on Monday revealing that federal spending on the ArriveCan app and its “glaring disregard for basic management practices” cost Canadian taxpayers an estimated $59.5 million with little value provided.

Monday’s audit report came following the House of Commons passing a motion in November 2022 to conduct a detailed study on the government’s management of the ArriveCan application which was shut down by Ottawa due to a lack of use. 

The earliest estimates for the application put costs at only $80,000, a figure that quickly ballooned to over $54 million.

In the Auditor General’s report, the most up-to-date estimation for the Arrivecan’s cost is $59.5 million.

The report concluded that the public service did not ensure that Canada received the best value for money. 

“I would tell you that we paid too much for this application,” said Hogan. 

The costs were from work outsourced to 32 different contractors. GC strategies had the biggest price tag of the contractors at $19.1 million.

Conservative MP Larry Brock posted on X that the testimony was “jaw-dropping.”

“Auditor General reveals Trudeau paid $20 million to GC Strategies on Arrivecan. The 2-person IT company did no actual IT work on the app. This is DOUBLE what was previously reported. Where did the money go?”

The report found that financial records were not well maintained by the Canada Border Services Agency. Thanks to poor documentation and weak controls at the Canada Border Services Agency, only an estimation of the cost was provided.

18% of invoices submitted by contractors that were tested did not have sufficient supporting documentation to determine whether expenses were related to ArriveCan or another information technology project. The real cost of the application could be higher or lower. 

Hogan spoke at the House of Commons about her findings following the release of her report.

When speaking about whether the app could have cost more or less than estimated, she said that it’s possible.

“The bookkeeping is the worst I’ve seen in years,” said Hogan. “I’ve been left perplexed,” she added when explaining the lack of information to show whether work done was associated with ArriveCan.  

The costs for the ArriveCan application included more than just the digital health form related to the Covid response. While developing the application, the Canada Border Services Agency added the digitization of the customs and immigration declaration, a previously paper-based system.

The breakdown of expenditures was $53.3 million for the pandemic-response health component and $6.2 million for the customs and immigration declaration form.

“In this audit, we found disappointing failures and omissions everywhere we looked,” she said. 

The most concerning was that the Canada Border Services Agency did not have complete and accurate financial records.

Financial issues aside, the Auditor General found no evidence that the Canada Border Services Agency disclosed invitations to private functions they received from contractors, as required by the Code of Value and Ethics. 

Conservative MP Garnett Genuis pointed out that Hogan’s report showed the cozy relationships between the Trudeau government and the contractors at GC strategies. This company was involved in the development of the rules and requirements for making proposals.

“This seems, to me, akin to having the coach of one of the teams making the rules and directing the referee — an effective rigging of the process,” said Genuis. 

“This created a significant risk or perception of a conflict of interest or bias around procurement decisions,” said Hogan. 

Public servants must always be transparent and accountable to Canadians for their use of public funds, Hogan explained. 

“An emergency does not mean that all the rules go out the window and that departments and agencies are no longer required to document their decisions and keep complete and accurate records.” 

“I believe that this audit of ArriveCan shows a glaring disregard for basic management practices.” 

During questioning, Conservative MP Michael Barrett asked the Auditor General that in her investigations of billions of dollars in government spending during her tenure, whether she believed this to be the worst example that she’s seen. 

Hogan said that she has looked at a lot of contracting that happened during the pandemic, where the public service was required to act quickly to serve the public.

“This would be the first example I’ve seen where there is such a glaring disregard for some of the most basic and fundamental policies and rules and controls,” said Hogan. 

The Daily Brief | Health Canada thinks banning smoking in homes is a good idea

By
Cosmin Dzsurdzsa
-

Health Canada suggested that governments should ban smoking in private homes and to completely phase out selling tobacco at a World Health Organization conference.

Plus, protesters gathered in Victoria last week where a documentary film about BC Provincial Health Officer Dr. Bonnie Henry titled “Our Time to be Kind” had its world premiere.

And an association of energy contractors is blasting NDP MP Charlie Angus’ latest bill which seeks to outlaw the promotion of Canadian oil and gas.

Tune into The Daily Brief with Cosmin Dzsurdzsa and Lindsay Shepherd!

SUBSCRIBE TO THE DAILY BRIEF

1...330331332...1,460Page 331 of 1,460

Related stories

© 2025 True North | Privacy Policy