On the final episode of Ratio’d for 2023, Harrison Faulkner hands out the year-end Ratio of the Year prizes. We have a podium finish including an honourable mention to one of Toronto’s most pathetic professional sports teams.
Thank you to everyone for supporting the show this year.
Tune in now!
The year 2023 has come and gone – and it was a busy one for True North journalists. In this edition of The Andrew Lawton Show, the last of the year, Andrew checks in with True North journalists Sue-Ann Levy, Rachel Emmanuel, and Cosmin Dzsurdzsa on their favourite stories from the year past. They discuss the re-election of Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, the Million Person March for parental rights, the tragic suicide of Toronto principal Richard Bilkszto, and the London Public Library’s embrace of censorship.
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Although CERB (Canada Emergency Response Benefit) was supposed to be a lifeline for many Canadians who lost their income due to the COVID-19 pandemic, some federal employees abused the system and claimed the benefit when they were not eligible.
To date, the CRA has fired 185 employees so far and is investigating another 600 cases.
The benefit provided $2,000 per month to Canadians who were unable to work or had reduced hours because of the public health measures.
According to the agency, some of its employees may have qualified for the benefit, depending on their contract type and situation.
The CRA started its internal review in July and quickly terminated 20 employees who had received CERB improperly.
The agency says that it is committed to maintaining the highest standard of conduct and integrity, as it is responsible for administering the Income Tax Act and many COVID-19 benefits.
National Revenue Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau praised the CRA for its “zero tolerance” approach to dealing with employees who took advantage of CERB during the last spate of firings in September.
She said that the agency was sending a clear message that such behaviour was unacceptable and would not be tolerated.
Several high profile fraudulent pandemic benefits cases have come to light in recent months.
In October, a Toronto Uber driver had his bank account frozen after being suspected of improperly obtaining over $4.5 million in Covid-19 relief meant for businesses.
The case, highlighted in an Ontario court, exposed the exorbitant misuse of pandemic fiscal programs.
Ontario Superior Court Justice Michael Penny ruled that Rabih George Barake accessed the funds under false pretenses, ordering him to repay the bank with interest and costs, and imposing punitive damages totaling $1.5 million.
How many people did you have at your Christmas gathering this year? Your kids, your parents, maybe some aunts, uncles and cousins?
If you were visiting with 10 or more family members, then the odds are pretty good that at least one of them was on some kind of a health care wait list.
SecondStreet.org just released the latest data on the number of Canadian patients waiting for surgery, a diagnostic scan, or to see a specialist. The data were mostly obtained through freedom of information requests with provincial governments across Canada.
While there were some bright spots in the data, unfortunately, the numbers have gone up.
When SecondStreet.org first started tracking these numbers in November 2022, there were almost three million Canadians on waitlists. That number has now risen by over 140,000 – a nearly 5% increase.
Let’s dive a bit deeper.
First, it’s important to note that many provinces don’t do a very good job of tracking this data or reporting it consistently. For instance, British Columbia could only provide data on the number of patients who were waiting for surgery. In Manitoba, it was positive to see the number of patients waiting for surgery or receive a diagnostic scan go down, but the prairie province only reports data from four types of surgeries and five types of diagnostic tests ‒ hardly a complete picture of what’s going on.
New Brunswick had previously provided some of the most complete data in the country, with figures on waits for surgery, diagnostic scans, and specialists. However, this time around, it only provided data on the surgical waitlist.
These holes in the data (along with a few more) led us to make some conservative estimates to fill in the gaps – the true number of Canadians waiting for health services is likely over 5.1 million.
That’s clearly not a good situation.
Think of the people behind those numbers. People like Allison Ducluzeau, a B.C. woman who was told she wouldn’t be able to get cancer treatment, and was instead offered assisted suicide. Or Dean Baker, an Ontario man who had to contact politicians and bring his story up in the media to get treatment for a life-saving brain tumor.
Not everyone waiting for care has a story as dramatic as those cases, but stories like theirs are becoming more common, and the sheer numbers show how bad the situation is.
It’s clear that Canadian health care is sick and in need of treatment. So what should the prescription be?
For one, Canadian law generally forbids patients from paying for surgery within their own province, with the exception of Quebec. In effect, this means patients have two options: wait for the public system to eventually provide care or travel somewhere else for treatment.
This isn’t right.
Governments could take a bold step and follow in the lead of every other developed country with a universal health care system and keep the public health system, but allow patients to choose private options. Sweden, Denmark, Australia… they all do it, and they all have better outcomes than Canada. Allowing patients to pay for care helps them get care more quickly, and it takes pressure off of the public system, making waits shorter for everyone else.
Provinces could also make travelling for care easier. The European Union has a policy called the Cross-Border Directive, where patients are allowed to go to another EU country for care, pay for it, then be reimbursed by their home government for up to what it would cost to have the procedure in their home country. This opens up a world of options for lower and middle income people. This option is also extremely popular with Canadians – a Leger poll commissioned by SecondStreet.org showed that 74% are in favour of their home province copying this policy.
Those are a couple of bold changes that could immediately help cut these gargantuan waitlist numbers, but there are certainly other options that could help as well.
No matter what, it’s clear that something needs to be done. Do you want to live in a modern, developed country where around 1 in 10 people are waiting for health care? Hopefully we see more in the way of health reform in 2024.
Dom Lucyk is the Communications Director with SecondStreet.org, a Canadian think tank.
Politicians say the stupidest things!
On today’s episode of the Candice Malcolm Show, Candice breaks down the top 10 stupidest things said by our Canadian politicians in 2023.
Don’t miss all the highlights (or should we say lowlights) of our less than inspiring political class.
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Of the few certainties in the world, one is that government spending, left unchecked, will continue to grow. 2023 was no exception, with the Canadian government getting bigger than ever and Canadian taxpayers footing the bill. In this year-end edition of the show, Andrew Lawton checks in with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s Kris Sims and Franco Terrazzano on the worst and zaniest examples of taxpayer waste before taking in the bigger picture of how the bureaucracy gets so out of hand in the first place.
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Several smaller Canadian oil and gas companies are optimistic about the prospects of a Liberal government defeat in the next election, as they resist the latest federal initiative to accelerate a cap on carbon emissions.
In response to the government’s target to reduce industry emissions by 40-45% from 2005 levels by 2025, some oil companies are reluctant to invest in emission reduction measures.
Instead, they are pinning their hopes on a shift in political leadership projected by recent polls in the upcoming federal election, anticipating a scenario where the ruling Liberals might lose their majority, hampering their ambitious environmental targets.
The head of Yangarra Resources, a company producing 12,500 barrels of oil equivalent per day, was one of several industry executives who told the outlet EnergyNow that they were awaiting the results of the next federal election.
CEO Jim Evaskevich asserts that the company will prioritize emission cuts if they align with economic or operational efficiency. Expressing a desire for a change in leadership, Evaskevich hopes that a new government could lead to a reconsideration or relaxation of emission targets.
“If we get to where we’re having to spend a lot of money to become way more draconian with our reductions, then we’re going to look at the federal election and go, ‘yeah no we’re not spending that money, no way.’ Because our fervent hope is (Trudeau) is gone.”
A representative from the federal environment ministry claimed that the emission reduction plan made business sense, but companies such as Tamarack Valley Energy remain cautious.
CEO Brian Schmidt, with plans to produce about 62,000 barrels per day in 2024, highlighted the uncertainties associated with potential government changes and mounting legal challenges.
Schmidt told the outlet that “nobody’s putting much weight” into the government’s ploy at this point.
Bonterra Energy, looking to boost production, is already taking steps to reduce emissions by minimizing gas flaring.
CEO Pat Oliver remains optimistic, indicating a reluctance to expedite efforts until there is more clarity on the political situation and expressing minimal concern about the emission targets in the near term.
“Say that we would have to spend significant capital (to comply), we would have a look at, is this government going to survive and what are the chances of this legislation surviving?” Oliver told EnergyNow.
While Canada may be experiencing record high population growth, there is an exodus of its citizens, with emigration or reverse immigration, surging this year.
The outflow of citizens in the last three months has only been higher three other times in the past century, according to data from Statistics Canada.
More and more Canadian residents are leaving to go live in foreign countries, with emigration up 3% in the last quarter.
In the last 73 years of data collection, only three other years have seen larger quarterly emigration numbers – 2016, 1967 and 1965.
In 2016, a record high exodus occurred and that trend has continued with higher than average emigration becoming normalized.
Quarterly outflows from 2016 onward have been almost 50% higher than previously.
Canada is currently on track to hitting 79% of the outflow recorded last year, with 74,017 emigrants so far year to date.
Even if the final quarter of 2023 is lower than the previous two years, it will still be one of the biggest years for outflow on record.
This reality can easily be ignored because of the simultaneously high influx of record high immigration, as policy makers tend to point to the net increase as a way to ignore the issue.
The main question that this outflow raises is, if Canadians most familiar with the country see no opportunity in staying here, how could immigrants?
The trend of onward migration, where immigrants arrive in Canada and then subsequently leave, has been steadily increasing since the 1980s.
The number of permanent residents who pursued citizenship within 10 years of their arrival dropped by 40% between 2001 and 2021.
This could be because Canada continues to fall behind other Organization for Cooperation and Development (OECD) countries by a number of measurements from least amount of doctors per capita to education standards.
More Canadians than ever view Islam as damaging to Canadian society, a new poll reveals.
The survey from the Angus Reid Institute, conducted online from Nov. 24 to Dec. 1 among 3,749 Canadian adults, asked respondents to rate eight faith groups on whether they were benefitting or damaging to Canada and Canadian society.
The results show that Canadians are largely consistent in their views of religions since the last time the survey was conducted in 2022, with one notable exception.
Islam, which was already seen as the most damaging religion by a plurality of Canadians in 2022, has seen its negative perception increase significantly in 2023.
Now, 43% of Canadians say Islam is a harmful presence to Canada, compared to 14% who say it is a positive contributor. This is a threefold increase in the proportion of Canadians who view Islam negatively since 2022.
The survey also finds that Canadians are aware of and concerned about the discrimination faced by both Jewish and Muslim communities in Canada.
Three-quarters of Canadians say that both antisemitism and anti-Muslim discrimination are significant issues in the country, while only 11% say that they are not really problems.
However, there are some differences in how Canadians perceive the severity of these problems based on their age. Older Canadians are more likely to see antisemitism as a major problem than younger Canadians.
Meanwhile, younger Canadians are more likely to see anti-Muslim discrimination as a major problem than older Canadians.
The survey also includes a sample of 114 Canadian Jews and 111 Canadian Muslims, who were asked about their own experiences and opinions on religious issues in Canada.
The full report and methodology can be found on the Angus Reid Institute website.
Canadians have had enough of Justin Trudeau. After 9 long years of woke virtue signaling, endless embarrassing scandals, ruinous economic policies, Canadians are telling us they want change.
Poll after poll after poll reports that the vast, overwhelming majority want Trudeau to go and that if an election were held today, Trudeau’s main opponent, Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre would win a sweeping, historical landslide in an election.
But will we have an election anytime soon?
On today’s episode of the Candice Malcolm Show, Candice is joined by pollster Hamish Marshall to discuss the possibility of an election in 2024.
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