Taxpayers will continue to have to foot the bill when it comes to massive increases in federal spending, even as the government charts its course forward with the newly released Fall Economic Statement.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) issued a press release in response to the 2023 Fall Economic Statement released by Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Finance Chrystia Freeland on Tuesday.
According to CTF’s Federal Director, Franco Terrazzano, the update provides little relief as the deficit continues to grow.
Trudeau finally recognizes the building is on fire but he’s not even grabbing the hose.
Billions in extra spending.
This year’s deficit is higher than last year’s.
Interest charges will cost each Canadian about $1,000.
The fiscal update indicates government spending will reach $488.7 billion this year, a notable increase from last year’s $473.5 billion. This escalation in expenditure coincides with the deficit rising from $35 billion to $40 billion.
The top three expense areas of the $488.7 billion encompass the large majority of all expenses. Firstly, a substantial $210.1 billion is allocated to direct program expenses, encompassing the operational costs of government departments and various transfer payments.
In second place, major transfers to persons, including elderly benefits, employment insurance, and the Canada Child Benefit, account for $120.6 billion.
The third highest expense in the economic statement is the $100.3 billion directed towards transfers to other orders of government, such as provincial and territorial governments for health, social services, and other regional programs.
“This is the first time this government is starting to recognize reality, but spending is still billions higher than last year, and the deficit is bigger,” said Terrazzano.
According to Terrazzano, pressure is mounting on taxpayers, with interest charges on the national debt costing nearly $4 billion a month.
“Taxpayers are losing out on almost $4 billion every month that can’t be used to improve services or lower taxes because that money is going to the bond fund managers just to cover the government’s debt interest charges,” he told True North.
Terrazzano explained that the charges on the government credit card will cost each Canadian an average of more than $1,000 this year.
The fiscal update also shows the national debt is projected to grow to $1.2 trillion by the end of 2023, with interest on the debt expected to cost $46.5 billion.
Despite these figures, the update did not include any substantial tax relief measures, prompting Terrazzano to criticize Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for not providing real tax savings for Canadians.
“Trudeau won’t even do the simple things to save taxpayers money like ending his undemocratic alcohol tax escalator or taking the carbon tax off everyone’s home heating bills,” said Terrazzano.
Terrazzano concluded, “The budget update is an admission that the government has a spending problem, but Trudeau still isn’t serious about managing our finances or providing real tax relief.”
If you celebrate Christmas or any Christian holiday, you might be intolerant and perpetuating “settler colonialism” according to a federal body in charge of human rights law.
The Canadian Human Rights Commission (CHRC) recently published a paper discussing anti-racism in the workplace, which describes the Christmas and Easter holidays as a form of discrimination and religious intolerance.
The paper’s release comes shortly after the Canadian Armed Forces issued a directive that prohibits chaplains from reciting religious prayers and mentioning God during official public functions and ceremonies, including Remembrance Day.
Entitled, Discussion Paper on Religious Intolerance, the paper claims that because “Statutory holidays related to Christianity, including Christmas and Easter, are the only Canadian statutory holidays linked to religious holy days” they are therefore discriminatory.
The CHRC argues that this is the case because “non-Christians may need to request special accommodations to observe their holy days and other times of the year where their religion requires them to abstain from work.”
According to the federal human rights body, Canada has a long history of religious intolerance which is “deeply rooted in our identity as a settler colonial state.”
This legacy has led to the system in Canada being “constructed in a way that places value on certain traits or identities to the exclusion of others — for example, white, male, Christian, English-speaking, thin/fit, not having a disability, heterosexual, gender conforming.”
As for microaggressions in the workplace, the paper cites “scheduling team meetings on Jewish or Muslim holy days” as an example.
Perhaps the assumption there is that no work meeting has ever been scheduled over a Christian holiday.
Victoria Mayor Marianne Alto has refused to condemn a city councillor who signed an open letter that accused Israel of committing genocide and denied the reports of sexual violence against Israeli women by Hamas terrorists.
Coun. Susan Kim, who was elected in October 2022, has yet to publicly address her involvement in the open letter, which was signed by over 500 people, including academics, far-left activists and politicians.
The letter has since been taken down from the internet, but an archived version shows Kim’s name among the signatories.
🚨MUST WATCH
Victoria Mayor @MarianneAlto refuses to condemn her City Councillor, Susan Kim, for signing a letter questioning Hamas' rapes of Israeli women and then refuses to acknowledge any sexual violence against Israeli women by Hamas terrorists.
When confronted by reporters, Alto said on Tuesday that Kim should speak for herself, and that she did not have enough information to comment on the matter.
“I don’t have enough information to be able to answer that in an informed way. I think it would be actually quite irresponsible for me to comment on that without being more informed,” said Alto.
The letter sparked outrage among many Canadians, especially those in the Jewish community, who denounced it as anti-Semitic and hateful.
A petition was launched to demand Kim’s censure by Victoria council, her removal from all official board appointments, and a ban on her wearing the Palestinian keffiyeh scarf in council.
The petition had gathered over 8,500 signatures as of Monday evening.
Meanwhile, the University of Alberta has fired the director of its sexual assault centre and several other employees, after she and the centre signed the same open letter.
The university said it was unacceptable for the centre to deny the experiences of survivors of sexual violence and that it was reviewing its policies and procedures.
The Alberta government expressed its concern over the letter saying that it expected the university to address the matter.
Alberta Advanced Education Minister Rajan Sawhney told True North she was appalled by the letter’s content, prior to the director’s dismissal.
Israel has said it is investigating several cases of sexual assault and rape during Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack, which killed an estimated 1,200 people.
It’s been over two weeks since federal immigration minister Marc Miller revealed the Liberals’ new mass immigration targets, and Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre still hasn’t offered up his own potential figures to Canadians.
Plus, an EV battery plant that received $15 billion in government handouts received a number of temporary workers from South Korea instead of hiring Canadians.
And Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault plans to challenge the Federal Court’s decision regarding Ottawa’s ban on single-use plastics.
Tune into The Daily Brief with Cosmin Dzsurdzsa and Noah Jarvis!
With a looming byelection in the Toronto area riding of Durham, local Conservatives rallied to “send a message” to the Trudeau government to scrap the federal carbon tax.
Around 100 people showed up to a Conservative party’s “Axe-the-Tax” rally at Durham College in Oshawa last Saturday, hosted by Conservative candidate and former broadcaster Jamil Jivani.
Scrapping the carbon tax has been a flagship promise by Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, who’s been holding “axe the tax” rallies across Canada.
“(Axe the tax) means asking for Justin Trudeau to extend the same courtesy to the rest of Canada as he did for Atlantic Canadians,” Jivani said, “to put a pause on the carbon tax, which is driving up the cost of living for Canadians.”
He said there are people of all types struggling with affordability.
“It’s one of the ways that the federal government is increasing the cost of living for everybody,” he said.
“I think it’s questionable that the carbon tax is helping with climate change in the first place.If the carbon tax is so essential to fighting climate change, why was it paused in Atlantic Canada?“
Jivani was referring to the Liberal government’s pause on the home heating oil carbon tax, which triggered a call from premiers in other parts of the country to extend the pause nationally – which the Liberals have refused to do.
Jivani said the Conservative approach to climate change would emphasize “technology, not taxes.”
He said developing nuclear facilities and new technologies like small modular reactors will make it easier to develop clean energy that he thinks will reduce Canada’s carbon output.
“It’s a way to not pit the environment against economic growth,” he said. “We believe that through technology, we can do both things…grow the economy, and we can help be good stewards of the environment.”
Jivani also made a pitch to attract younger voters to the Conservative cause.
“We came to Durham College for a reason,” he said. “We wanted to show young people and students that we are also here to make a difference for them.”
As a millennial, Jivani said he wanted to reach out to young people to say, “What can we do to make sure that you’re growing up in a country where you feel like you’ve got a future and that the best days of Canada are ahead, not behind us?”
The Conservative MP for the neighbouring Oshawa riding, Colin Carrie, was at Jivani’s rally to show support.
“It’s just common sense that (the carbon tax) is going to drive up the cost of everything,” he said, noting the carbon tax puts an artificial price on farmers, truckers, warehouses and grocery stores, all the way up to the consumer driving their vehicles to get food.
“It’s a unique Canada thing going on here that’s making us less competitive.”
According to The World Bank 39 countries currently put a price on carbon. Globally, revenue from carbon pricing in 2021 rose by almost 60 per cent from 2020 to $84 billion.
Carrie said greenhouse gas emissions and pollution is a global problem.
“Right now in the world, China, India, and other countries are building coal-fired [power] plants that are polluting,” he said, “if we could provide clean Canadian natural gas and get people off coal, that will make a significant difference.”
At the end of the rally, three pro-Palestine protesters showed up to send a message of their own.
Colin, a student at Durham College who wanted his last name to remain anonymous, said that they showed up to raise awareness that the MP of Oshawa was “one of the people who is refusing to call for a cease-fire and therefore refusing to support Palestinians human rights.”
He said, “The only way the lack of a cease-fire would prevent that type of attack (another Hamas terrorist attack) is if the entire population of Gaza was wiped out.”
The Canadian Human Rights Commission has been quiet on six weeks of rampant antisemitic hate and calls for violence against Jews and Israelis, but has published a discussion paper taking aim at the real source of discrimination – Christmas and Easter. The human rights commission says Christmas and Easter being holidays is discriminatory against non-Christians, making Canada a religiously intolerant “settler colonial state.” True North’s Andrew Lawton discusses with Rebel News founder Ezra Levant.
Plus, a new report from C2C Journal exposes the “dangers and delusions” of central bank digital currencies, which the Bank of Canada is actively exploring. Author Gleb Lisikh joins the show to discuss.
Global Affairs Canada expressed concerns regarding “extremist settler violence” in the West Bank on Monday, calling for the Israeli government to intervene.
“Canada strongly condemns the extremist settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and is also gravely concerned by reports of Palestinian communities being forcibly removed from their lands in the West Bank,” said Global Affairs in a statement.
“Canada, along with partners, calls on the Government of Israel to take immediate action to stop such further occurrences of extremist settler violence, protect the Palestinian population, and hold those responsible for the violence accountable under the law.”
Since the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas terrorists, the United Nations has reported a significant increase in what it says are Israeli settler attacks in the West Bank.
Settlements refer to communities in historic Judea and Samaria inhabited by roughly 500,000 Jews. These communities are disputed and frequently condemned by the United Nations, which maintains they are illegal.
Canada similarly believes the settlements are illegal, though Israel rejects this characterization.
On Monday, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) released an update claiming that over the last six weeks, there have been 256 settler attacks against Palestinians and at least 143 Palestinian households accounting for over 1,000 people who have been displaced “amid settler violence and access restrictions.”
“(Canada) strongly condemns the extremist settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and is gravely concerned by reports of Palestinian communities being forcibly removed from their lands” wrote Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly on X.
“This violence negatively impacts efforts to achieve a negotiated two-state solution.”
🇨🇦 strongly condemns the extremist settler violence against Palestinians in the West Bank and is gravely concerned by reports of Palestinian communities being forcibly removed from their lands.
This violence negatively impacts efforts to achieve a negotiated two-state solution.
Former Canadian ambassador to Israel Vivian Bercovici criticized Joly’s comment as “focusing obsessively (on Israel) and exaggerating negative reports in order to appease your HamasISIS (sic) base.”
The Associated Press reported that towns have been raided with property damaged and olive trees destroyed during harvest season.
Many Palestinians were forced from their homes and detainees have been beaten.
Honest Reporting Canada, a pro-Israel media watchdog, says that discussion of settlements – a term that is itself loaded – is often one-sided and lacks nuance, holding Israelis and Palestinians to different standards.
Critics say Israeli settlements in the West Bank are a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an “occupying power from transferring parts of its own civilian population into a territory it occupies.”
Defenders say there is no occupation as the land is historically Jewish and there has never been a sovereign Palestinian state.
“As has been the position of successive Canadian governments, Canada does not recognize permanent Israeli control over territories occupied in 1967, and strongly opposes illegal settlement outposts in the West Bank,” said Global Affairs.
“The settlements constitute a serious obstacle to achieving a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the Middle East,” added Global Affairs.
“Canada continues to recognize the Palestinian right to self-determination and remains committed to the goal of a comprehensive, just and lasting peace in the region, of a two-state solution, including the creation of an independent, viable Palestinian state living side by side in peace and security with Israel.”
In Tuesday’s upcoming federal fiscal update, the Trudeau government is set to introduce measures targeting individuals profiting from short-term rentals like on the popular platform Airbnb.
According to sources familiar with the matter, the plan aims to deter property owners from violating local rental restrictions by eliminating the ability to deduct rental expenses from their income.
A senior federal official told the Toronto Star that the fall fiscal update, to be presented by Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland on Tuesday, will include this tax measure effective January 1, 2024.
“This is going to change the financial equation,” the official told the Toronto Star.
Housing Minister Sean Fraser has confirmed that he’s looking at which tax changes the government could make on a federal level to tackle the issue of short-term rentals.
The move is part of a broader effort by the Liberal government to address Canada’s housing crisis.
The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation said, “to restore affordability [by 2030], Canada will need 3.5 million more units on top of what’s already being built.”
The Liberal government has been under increased pressure to act, with its numbers plummeting in the polls and a cost-of-living crisis affecting Canadians.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has called for more fiscal discipline from the Liberals, linking the government’s previous spending habits to the current inflation and cost of living challenges.
Tiff Macklem, the Governor of the Bank of Canada, stated that although the bank maintains authority over interest rates as a tool to manage inflation, it is also crucial for the government to do its part.
Last month, Freeland indicated upcoming initiatives to regulate the short-term rental market. This followed British Columbia’s announcement of new laws to reinforce existing rental property regulations.
Freeland highlighted that converting short-term rentals into long-term housing in cities like Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver could free up 30,000 housing units.
“We know that short-term rentals through sites like Airbnb and VRBO mean fewer homes for Canadians to rent and live in full time, especially in urban and populated areas of our country,” said Freeland on Oct. 17.
A 2019 report by Statistics Canada revealed that in 2018, the national revenue from short-term rentals was approximately $2.8 billion.
Poilievre has since outlined three key demands for the fiscal update, which include cancelling the carbon tax hikes, bringing down inflation and interest rates by balancing the budget, and building homes, not bureaucracy.
The chair of Sustainable Development Technologies Canada’s board of directors, Annette Verschuren has announced her resignation from the crown corporation.
Verschuren’s resignation comes after the federal ethics commissioner announced an investigation into a potential conflict of interest regarding $217,000 of Covid-19 payments SDTC distributed to NRStor, a company that Verschuren is the CEO of.
“While I have faithfully and fully committed myself and my decision-making to serve the organization’s best interests, it is time for me to step aside,” Verschuren said in her resignation letter to Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne.
“Continuous improvement is the foundation of any successful organization, and these assessments provided helpful recommendations for procedural improvements, which we wholeheartedly accept. We can always do better.”
Verschuren was grilled at the House of Commons’ ethics committee earlier this month for her role in granting NRStor two rounds of Covid-19 payments totalling $217,000.
Verschuren did not recuse herself from the board meetings in which SDTC granted NRStor the relief payments despite the potential conflict of interest.
Verschuren told the ethics committee that she received legal advice that she was not obligated to recuse herself from the vote to distribute the Covid-19 relief payments.
In recent months, SDTC and its leadership has come under fire after multiple news reports revealed significant corporate mismanagement.
In response to whistleblowers from SDTC reaching out to the government and complaining about corporate mismanagement, the federal department Innovation, Science, and Economic Development (ISED) commissioned a report from Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton to investigate the matter.
True North spoke with an SDTC whistleblower and conducted an independent investigation which found that SDTC had given tens of millions of dollars to companies to which its former and current board members have financial ties. Further, SDTC fired employees who presented their concerns about the corporate mismanagement they witnessed.
The Raymond Chabot report uncovered a number of problems with SDTC’s governance, including the funnelling of money to companies in which board of directors members had personal or financial interests, several violations of SDTC’s contribution agreement with ISED, and failures of SDTC’s human resources policy.
The scrutiny placed on SDTC culminated in SDTC’s long-time CEO Leah Lawrence resigning from her position after what she called a “sustained and malicious campaign to undermine” her leadership.
A controversial Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) trainer raked in more than $315,000 in fees during the pandemic for her sessions with the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) and the Peel District School Board (PDSB).
The invoices for Kike Ojo-Thompson from the KOJO Institute – obtained by True North through two separate freedom of information requests requests – covered primarily the years 2020 and 2021 for anti-racism sessions and advice.
The person signing off on the majority of them is current TDSB education director Colleen Russell-Rawlins, who hired Ojo-Thompson while she was still at the TDSB as associate director of equity, well Being, early years and school improvement, and then repeatedly while she was interim director at the PDSB for one year between August 2020 and August 2021.
One of the TDSB invoices from July of 2020 sent to Russell-Rawlins is for $45,765 for “comprehensive leadership training on equity” – training that was repeated many times in the invoices.
I cannot say how often Russell-Rawlins hired her once she returned to the TDSB in August of 2021, since I was forced to appeal my request to get even one year’s worth of invoices from that school board.
Ojo-Thompson came under intense fire in July after celebrated principal Richard Bilkzsto took his own life after being humiliated by the DEI trainer in two sessions in April and May of 2021 and being subsequently canceled from temporary assignments by woke TDSB senior executives.
This was despite a favourable WSIB ruling in June of 2021 that stated Ojo-Thompson’s conduct was “abusive, egregious and vexatious” and could be considered “workplace harassment and bullying.”
Bilkzsto filed a $750,000 lawsuit against the board just before he took his own life. His lawyer Lisa Bildy recently told me the lawsuit is on hold while estate and other issues are settled.
A review by the King International Group of what led to Bilkzsto’s suicide, announced by Russell-Rawlins in late July, has yet to be completed four months later. TDSB spokesman Ryan Bird said it is “ongoing” and he has “no further information at this time.”
Ditto for an education ministry review launched at the same time by minister Stephen Lecce.
The FOI invoices consistently show how little accountability was required of Ojo-Thompson.
None of them contain the number of hours worked or any details on what services she provided.
She does insist, however, on being paid within 30 days, sometimes within 10 days.
It would appear that the sessions in which Ojo-Thompson is reported to have behaved abusively towards Bilkzsto were invoiced in April of 2021 at $22,882.50 for what she calls “Comprehensive Leadership Training on Equity.”
The invoices were billed to the interim education director Karen Falconer; however she did not sign off on them.
Let’s remember the sessions were all conducted on Zoom.
In addition, the Comprehensive Leadership Training on Equity template was being offered at the same time by Ojo-Thompson at the Peel school board.
Russell-Rawlins was named interim education director in Peel after allegations of anti-black racism resulted in a ministry takeover of the board.
While Russell-Rawlins was at the Peel board, Ojo-Thompson appeared to be involved with helping to facilitate the board’s We Rise Together action plan – one that was to identify, minimize and eliminate the marginalization of black students in the board’s schools.
In March of 2021, Ojo-Thompson issued a $11,149.71 invoice (with HST) to the Peel Secondary School Vice Principals’ Association for something called the We Rise Advisory Committee.
In that same timeframe, she charged $3,000 for a three-hour conference with the same association. Her invoice provides no details as to what she did.
She also charged the PDSB $20,340 for the first two installments of “Comprehensive Leadership Training on Equity with a focus on anti-racism and anti-black racism” in January and February of 2021.
She provided no details on hours or content or what group is being trained, except to say there were four modules. Russell-Rawlins signed off on the invoice.
A $6,780 invoice for the third installment was dated in early July of 2021 and signed off on by Russell-Rawlins the very date it was received.
Another invoice for $13,560 for the first installment of the same “Comprehensive Leadership Training on anti-racism and anti-black racism for principals, vice-principals and managers was dated Feb. 8, 2021 and signed off on, yet again, by Russell-Rawlins.
It is interesting to note that another invoice from Ojo-Thompson for work related to the We Rise Advisory Committee – Installments 1-3 – was dated August of 2021.
The $22,299.42 had no signature of approval. But even after Russell-Rawlins departed for Toronto, the KOJO Institute continued to benefit from the largesse of the Peel board.
These include $2,260 for a Joint meeting on We Rise billed in Nov. 2021. With whom she met she doesn’t say.
There was also more than $108,480 paid for cohort training at the end of 2021 and early 2022. She didn’t indicate what cohort or cohorts she was training.
By far the craziest invoice was for $10,000 for a June 11 event in 2022. She was hired by Romana Siddiqui of the Parent Involvement Committee, who ran as a labour-endorsed candidate for trustee (and lost) later that year.
At the TDSB Ojo-Thompson made $115,113 over 18 months from mid 2020 to end of 2021 for her equity training – the only period over which I was able to obtain invoices.
She did not respond to repeated efforts to obtain comment on what she provided during these sessions and how the Comprehensive Equity Training package differed between the two boards.
I suspect it was a boilerplate template.
Bird insisted the invoices cover all preparation including meetings with staff and the workshop presentations.
