A recent survey by a small business advocacy group has revealed growing discontent among small businesses towards the federal carbon tax.
Plus, as the inflation crisis worsens, 78% of Canadians plan on purchasing fewer gifts these coming holidays.
And a Canadian female powerlifter was hit with a two-year ban by the Canadian Powerlifting Union for advocating that womens’ sports remain single-sex.
Tune into The Daily Brief with Cosmin Dzsurdzsa and Lindsay Shepherd!
The President and CEO of Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) Leah Lawrence has resigned after facing scrutiny for doling out millions of taxpayer dollars to companies connected to members of the federal crown corporation’s board of directors.
Lawrence’s resignation comes after multiple news reports and an investigation by the House of Commons ethics committee uncovered significant corporate mismanagement during Lawrence’s time as SDTC’s CEO.
In Lawrence’s letter of resignation, she lashed out against what she perceives to be a pernicious campaign against her leadership that has compromised her ability to lead SDTC.
“Given recent media reports, House of Commons testimony, and the surrounding controversy, it is clear there has been a sustained and malicious campaign to undermine my leadership,” said Lawrence.
“This compromises my future ability to lead the organization and puts me in an untenable situation. And I want to see this organization succeed.”
Lawrence’s resignation comes after SDTC’s chair of the board of directors Annette Verschuren was grilled at the House of Commons Ethics committee.
MP Michael Cooper pressed Verschuren for sending out $217,000 in Covid-19 relief payments to NRStor, a company that Verschuren is the CEO of.
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 (RCGT) to investigate the matter.
The RCGT 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.
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 in which its former and current board members are financially vested. Further, SDTC fired employees who presented their concerns about the corporate mismanagement they witnessed.
The aforementioned RCGT report also found that Lawrence had failed to declare a conflict of interest with an SDTC consultant and that Lawrence had created a backdated conflict of interest declaration between herself and the consultant under the advice of her external legal counsel.
A Canadian human rights organization warns that Jewish Canadians are feeling vulnerable following a series of antisemitic incidents across the country.
Tensions have been rising globally between supporters from either side of the Israel – Hamas conflict, but the recent surge in violence expressed towards members of the Jewish faith has the community concerned for their safety.
Rich Robertson, B’nai Brith Canada’s manager of research, told True North that Jewish Canadians are experiencing unprecedented anxiety.
“Our community has gone from a period of devastation and mourning following the terrorist attack on the morning of the seventh, to facing unprecedented anxiety ever experienced by the Canadian diaspora.”
“While antisemitism is nothing new for the community,” Robertson said. “The current Israel-Hamas conflict is bringing anti-Jewish and antisemitic sentiments to the forefront.”
B’nai Brith operates an app, hotline and a website that allows Jewish Canadians to report and record acts or experiences of antisemitism.
Since the October 7 terrorist attack on civilians in Israel there has been an alarming increase of incidents directed towards Jewish Canadians.
A few nights ago, shots were fired at two Jewish schools in Montreal, molotov cocktails were thrown at a synagogue and Jewish centre, threats were made against a Hebrew school in Toronto, and there have been calls to boycott Jewish owned businesses.
To address the safety concerns of Jewish Canadians, officials should “mitigate incitement at pro-Palestinian rallies,” Robertson said.
“It is the incitement at these rallies that are causing anxiety, not the rallies themselves,” Robertson said.
“These rallies are fueling incitement, and have demonstrated to be the opposite of the peaceful protests that they attest to be.”
A few weeks ago, a group of pro-Palestinian demonstators swarmed the Israeli coffeehouse Aroma while slapping “boycott” stickers on its windows.
Last month, at a demonstration in Montreal, an imam, in Arabic, condemned “Zionist aggressors” and called on Allah to “kill the enemies of the people of Gaza and to spare none of them.”
Secondly, the “virulent spread of misinformation and miscategorization of the Israel-Hamas and the Israeli-Palestinian debate on campuses across the country, should not be ignored,” Robertson said.
Madi Foglia, an 18-year-old Barrie resident said, that a recent pro-Palestinian rally in the city “had the Jewish community questioning the safety they thought they had here.”
“Our community members asked their Rabbi if they could move their Mezuzah (a small decoration attached to doorframes at the entrance of a home) to the inside of their doors, to avoid being identified as Jewish homes,” Foglia said.
Last month Foglia had been putting up posters of missing and kidnapped Israeli women and children, when she noticed someone taking them down. Folgia recorded the incident, and the individual was later identified as Barrie BIA employee Sarah Jensen.
Jensen can be heard in the video saying she was removing the posters, because they did not “bring light to the other side of the situation at all.”
Jensen later issued an apology for removing the posters, but Foglia said the incident speaks to a larger issue of misinformation about the situation.
“It’s really a war of misinformation,” said Foglia. “There is this very twisted narrative that Jews are colonizers, that Hamas is only resisting occupation as a justification for the violence committed against communities world wide.”
Foglia hoped that putting up posters would help fight against some of the false narratives of the conflict. She believed posters of missing and kidnapped children would catch the attention of people walking by.
While many Jewish Canadians are taking measures to hide their faith, Foglia says she will not hide her identity, or stop putting up posters of kidnapped Israeli children.
“Historically when we are scared for our well being, when we have to hide who we are, we disappear, and no one pays attention to Jewish suffering.”
Over the years, Canada has witnessed a significant shift in its firearm policies, with Justin Trudeau leading a nationwide crackdown on gun ownership. Alberta Justice Minister Mickey Amery spoke with True North’s Andrew Lawton about the profound role guns have played in shaping Alberta’s identity, and why the province is leading the fight against Trudeau’s gun grab.
A Canadian female powerlifter was hit with a two-year ban by the Canadian Powerlifting Union (CPU) for advocating that womens’ sports remain single-sex and prohibit transgender male-to-female competitors who have a natural biological advantage from competing.
The CPU’s discipline panel suspended the Team Canada powerlifter April Hutchinson for violating the organization’s code of conduct social media policy based on a complaint submitted by Anne Andres, a transgender powerlifter.
Hutchinson has been criticizing Andres’ participation in female powerlifting competitions, as Andres had broken several records held by biological women and has taunted her fellow competitors as weak and having “tiny little T-Rex arms.”
In an exclusive interview, the Team Canada powerlifter April Hutchinson told True North that she is “very hurt” by the CPU suspending her, but remains resolute in her will to appeal her suspension.
Hutchinson said that the CPU had sent her multiple notices over the past several months to stop talking about Andres on social media and for allegedly making the union “look bad.”
However, the CPU went ahead with suspending Hutchinson after she was invited on Piers Morgan Uncensored and called Andres a “biological man.”
Hutchinson said that after the CPU gave her notice that they were investigating her due to a complaint Andres made and would possibly suspend her membership, she shared several videos of Andres demeaning her fellow powerlifters.
One such video saw Andres calling Hutchinson a “cancer” that needs to be “cut out” of the CPU.
However, Hutchinson said that the CPU rejected her complaints as “frivolous” and “vexatious.”
Hutchinson says that she has spoken with the International Powerlifting Federation (IPF), the international body governing powerlifting worldwide, who allegedly told Hutchinson that they in fact agree with Hutchinson’s position and that the CPU shouldn’t have suspended her for calling Andres a “biological man.”
“I’ve actually had to go to the IPF and say ‘look it, you guys need to step in a protect me,’” said Hutchinson.
“And they actually agree with what I’m doing. They said ‘if you suspend April, you have to suspend Anne because Anne has been making fun of women for like a year now.’ They’re mad, they’re upset with the CPU. They’re just like ‘look it, you can’t suspend April for saying Anne is a biological male.’”
Hutchinson said that she will be consulting with her legal counsel in the coming days, but plans to fight the suspension “tooth and nail.”
“I will fight this, and I am fighting for the female category,” said Hutchinson.
“This is not anti-trans, this is pro-women and pro-sports, and that’s what they have to understand. I’m literally speaking the truth and standing up for what’s right.”
Hutchinson said that she plans on taking legal action, though she cannot discuss details as of yet.
Open drug use has gotten so bad for a local business owner in Sudbury, Ontario that she was forced to temporarily shut down her business.
In a move driven by concerns over the increasing prevalence of drug use near her storefront, Tammy Maki, the owner of Raven Rising chocolate shop in downtown Sudbury, Ontario, shut her doors.
While Maki herself doesn’t feel unsafe in the downtown area, she acknowledges that the issue of homelessness and opioid addiction has affected foot traffic to her establishment and other businesses for customers who feel uncomfortable.
“The perception is much worse than it actually is, but unfortunately, that perception leads to people not coming here,” Maki told CBC.
“And that only lets what’s going on outside perpetuate and get larger, so it’s like a snowball effect. It makes me really sad.”
Maki’s concerns have prompted her to call the Sudbury police multiple times a day. Maki says drug users require more social services and better solutions.
The Downtown Sudbury Business Improvement Association (BIA) is taking steps to address this issue by launching the ‘zero-vacancy’ program, allowing business owners to rent vacant storefronts at discounted rates on rolling 30-day leases.
Jeff MacIntyre, co-chair of the Downtown Sudbury BIA, sees this initiative as a means to attract more businesses downtown and boost foot traffic, ultimately enhancing safety.
“When you have more people on the street, more eyes on the street, it creates safety,” MacIntyre pointed out.
“We’ve seen that in downtowns across Ontario,” he added.
MacIntyre believes that by increasing the number of people frequenting downtown businesses, the problem of open drug use can be mitigated, making the downtown experience more comfortable for everyone.
The BIA has also taken steps to improve lighting in certain areas and install gates to discourage congregating in particular spots.
However, Kaela Pelland, director of peer engagement with Réseau ACCESS Network in Sudbury, takes issue with these measures, branding them as “anti-homeless infrastructure.”
Pelland’s organization manages the city’s supervised consumption site.
Sudbury Mayor Paul Lefebvre is taking action by co-hosting the Greater Sudbury Summit on Toxic Drugs on December 7 and 8, in collaboration with Public Health Sudbury and Districts.
This summit aims to bring together various community organizations, programs, and services to explore collaborative solutions for the escalating toxic drug supply crisis.
Despite the city’s increased investment in social services, the problem of toxic drugs continues to worsen.
Nicole Gauthier, a health promoter with Public Health Sudbury and Districts, highlights the alarming increase in opioid-related deaths, with a nearly 60% rise in Ontario since 2018 and a staggering 193% increase in Greater Sudbury.
Rural areas across Canada have been grappling with a rising wave of criminal activity, with statistics revealing that crime rates and severity indexes in rural regions far surpass those in urban areas.
In response to the rural crime crisis, Conservative MP for Red Deer–Lacombe, Blaine Calkins, has introduced Bill C-364, aimed at amending the law to address the security concerns of residents in rural and remote communities.
This worrying trend has been escalating since 2015, prompting MP Calkins to take legislative action.
“Rural crime is a crisis, and the stats don’t lie – it’s worse in the countryside than the city,” Calkins wrote in a press release.
Bill C-364 proposes several key changes to the Criminal Code to combat rural crime effectively. One of the central provisions is the introduction of aggravating factors at sentencing for rural crime, particularly focusing on areas with extended response times for emergency medical or police services.
The bill also addresses the use of violence or the threat of violence against persons or property by including possession of a weapon as a factor that results in harsher penalties.
Furthermore, the bill expands the definition of “dwelling-house” to “place” within section 348.1 of the Code, ensuring that outlying structures such as barns, shops, and garages are afforded the same legal protections against breaking and entering.
Another significant aspect of Bill C-364 is the recommendation that judges take an offender’s criminal record and reasons for not receiving bail into account when determining extra-credit for pre-trial custody. This provision aims to address repeat offenders.
“Conservatives are focused on providing real solutions to rural crime. Despite the creation of a pan-Canadian working group on rural crime in January 2020, the progress at the federal level has been disappointingly slow,” said Calkins.
“After eight years of Trudeau’s government, the Liberals have shown time and again they do not understand rural issues.”
Rural communities in Alberta have been particularly hard-hit by the surge in property crime, as data from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) shows. Airdrie, Alberta, witnessed a staggering 73% increase in break and enters from January to June 2023 compared to the previous year.
Lac La Biche, another rural town in Alberta, also experienced an alarming rise in break and enters and vehicle thefts, with both crimes increasing by over 40%. Corporal James McConnell of the Airdrie RCMP pointed out at a recent town hall that these increases in crime can often be attributed to a small number of individuals committing a large number of offenses.
Lac La Biche Coun. John Mondal expressed concerns about the federal “catch and release” system, where individuals are arrested but subsequently released, which he described as a significant factor in the problem.
“Inflation has a lot to do with it. Job losses have a lot to do with it,” Mondal said.
“And this is catch and release. Which means the RCMP does their job, they bring the person to the justice system, but then they get released. That is one of the major factors.”
If Canada had a functioning free press, the whole embarrassing “Nazi applauded in Parliament” episode would have never happened. Allow me to explain.
During the Freedom Convoy, Liberal MPs and their allies in the legacy media were quick to paint the protesting truckers as extremists, radicals, racists, and yes, even Nazis.
The tens of thousands of Canadians who lined overpasses and gave the truckers a hero’s welcome for standing up against the ill-conceived, ineffectual and unconstitutional vaccine mandates were part of a “small fringe minority,” Prime Minister Trudeau told us.
And so, when a single, mysterious, yet-to-be-identified masked man arrived on Parliament Hill during the first weekend of the Freedom Convoy rally and, for a grand total of about five minutes, waved a Swastika flag, well, that was it. The Canadian establishment determined that the entire protest movement – every protester across the country, every trucker in attendance, every politician who endorsed the movement – they had all been exposed. They were ALL Nazis.
According to our brain trust, one anonymous, masked Swastika guy exposed the true Nazi colours of the Freedom Convoy.
Somehow protesting against heavy-handed government mandates and medical coercion meant that you hated Jews or something…
Trudeau then accused Conservative MP Melissa Lanstman, who happens to be Jewish and also happens to be the granddaughter of Holocaust survivors, of “standing with those who wave swastikas.”
Nice.
Trudeau’s government-funded journalists gave him a pass, of course. They hated the blue-collar truckers in Ottawa as much as any Liberal civil servant or Parliamentarian, so Trudeau calling them all Nazis was perfectly fine and acceptable.
So imagine my surprise when, less than one month later in February 2022, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland was photographed at a Ukrainian rally in Toronto holding a banner representing a Nazi movement in Ukraine.
It wasn’t just that she was photographed, as I pointed out in my exclusive report at the time, she posted the photo herself on her social media pages.
Freeland is of Ukrainian descent. Beyond that, she considers herself a “Ukrainian Nationalist” and spent the early part of her career working in Moscow and Kiev. Freeland has a sophisticated understanding of the region, and its history, which makes it honestly surprising that she would be so callous and arrogant as to pose for and then post a photo holding a well-known Far-Right banner.
The red and black scarf represents the Bandera movement, a Neo-Nazi paramilitary group named after WWII Ukrainian leader and Nazi collaborator Stepan Bandera.
Freeland’s team quietly deleted her original social media post, where she is seen proudly clutching the banner, and re-posted a sanitized version of the photo, sans Bandera scarf.
Freeland’s arrogance, I learned, was for good reason. The Liberal-aligned legacy media in Canada (the CBC, CTV, Globe and Mail, Toronto Star and even Postmedia) all initially ignored the controversy. Nothing to see here!
When my news reports on True North started picking up steam and gaining interest on social media, several of these news outlets were forced to pick up the story. Well, story of.
Rather than reporting on the facts – Freeland waves a Nazi banner – the Liberal media reported that the whole thing was Russian disinformation!
“Why a photo of Freeland holding a black-and-red scarf sparked a firestorm online,” read a CBC headline, which acknowledged True North’s report but quoted Freeland’s spokesperson dismissing it as a “A classic KGB disinformation smear.”
Classic CBC.
Not to be outdone, a Toronto Star report entitled, “The controversy over Chrystia Freeland and the red Ukrainian scarf, explained” quoted an expert saying that the story was a “product of Russian propaganda and part of a pattern of disinformation.”
A journalist never reveals their sources, but I can confirm that my report was not the product of Russian disinformation. It was a friend from Edmonton – someone of Polish descent whose family was terrorized by Banera militias during the Second World War – who alerted me to the banner and its meaning.
Never let facts get in the way of a good narrative!
Finally, my favourite article from this news cycle came courtesy of our friends over the National Post. One Tristin Hopper, who blocked myself and my husband on Twitter for the sin of noticing this article, parroted Freeland’s comments that this was just “classic KGB disinformation” but then took it a giant step further by whitewashing the Nazi slogan “blood and soil.”
“The black represents the Ukrainian soil, while the red symbolizes blood — although Khanenko-Friesen (a scholar of Ukrainian folklore) said it’s not traditionally understood as blood in any violent context. “Blood as life, as blossom, and not as blood lost in battles,” she said. Red and black remains a common colour scheme in traditional Ukrainian embroidery.”
Hopper describes torchlit marches through Kiev, and explains away the complicated, nuanced history of Ukrainian Nazis.
The lone outpost of mild criticism against Freeland came from a small, once-independent (now Trudeau-subsidized) digital news platform called iPolitics.
“Freeland seen with scarf associated with Ukrainian far right,” read the iPolitics headline, which fairly and accurately described the situation, the controversy, and our True North reporting. It was written by an up-and-coming journalist named Rachel Emmanuel.
But then, suddenly a few days later, Emmanuel quit her job at iPolitics, and wrote on social media that the reason for her departure was because of this story.
I invited her on my podcast to tell us what happened, and her story reveals just how corrupted our media organizations are.
Emmanuel explained how Freeland’s spokeswoman had called her editor in a tizzy and demanded edits to her piece. The editor, being loyal to likely their largest donor, changed the piece without the reporter’s knowledge or permission.
Freeland says jump, the media ask how high?
Emmanuel quit in protest to this unethical behaviour, and I’m happy to report that she landed on her feet. She is now a reporter and host of the Alberta Roundup here at True North.
The moral of the story is that the legacy media proved itself completely inept and unwilling to scratch the surface when it came to diaspora politics and the Liberal’s alliances with foreign extremists around the world (the same can be said for the Iranian regime, CCP agents, Khalistani separatists, radical jihadists, and now we can add Ukrainian Nazis to that list).
Freeland can hold a Nazi banner, and no one bats an eye. The only scandal the Canadian media think to investigate is those pesky independent journalists who dare question our wise leadership class. Blame the Russians!
In a functioning democracy with an independent press, there would have been ten journalists just like me pondering the banner and its meaning, researching Freeland’s backstory and why she is so deeply aligned with extremist characters in Ukraine. They would have been skeptical of her dismissal of the whole episode, and been curious about her time as a Ukrainian Nationalist activist and the friendships she kept.
Editors would have assigned stories, investigations would have been initiated, relationships would have been scrutinized.
Instead, journalists at the Star, the Post and CBC dismissed it all as Russian disinformation and went to bed feeling proud. Freeland and her ties to Ukrainian Nazis never crossed their minds again.
Until, that is, that humiliating day in September 2023, when all of Parliament welcomed – and gave a standing ovation to – a Nazi war criminal, who no doubt was invited by one of the more incompetent members of the Liberal braintrust who was flipping through Chrystia Freeland’s rolodex.
Of course, the blame primarily lands on Trudeau and Freeland’s feet.
Ironically, if they hadn’t bribed the legacy media with billions of dollars in exchange for scrubbing stories like the 2022 Bandera banner, the free press would have worked its magic and gotten to the root of this problem before we invited an actual living Nazi for tribute in our highest house of government.
The whole episode shows a failing of our democracy on a level deeper than it originally appears.
New research from The Aristotle Foundation has challenged the idea of broad systemic racism in Canadian society, examining educational attainment and economic outcomes, finding limited evidence of such claims. Aristotle Foundation president Mark Milke joined True North’s Andrew Lawton to discuss the organization’s findings, and the factors influencing educational and economic disparities.
Almost one quarter of kids in Ontario face food insecurity at home, a startling new survey reveals.
The troubling statistic was reported by Ottawa Public Health’s (OPH) Nutritious Food Basket 2023 survey, which seeks to map food insecurity and access to a nutritious diet.
OPH’s report highlights that nearly one in four children in Ontario, or 24.6%, lived in food-insecure households.
This figure translates to almost 700,000 children across the province who are struggling with access to adequate and nutritious food.
Analysts underscored the urgent need to address food insecurity, particularly among Ontario’s most vulnerable residents.
In 2022, 19.2% of Ontarians, equivalent to 2.8 million people, faced household food insecurity, indicating that the issue continues to worsen.
Moreover, the report details a significant increase in the cost of maintaining a healthy diet. For a reference family of four in Ottawa, the cost of healthy eating has risen to $1,153 per month, compared to $1,088 per month in 2022.
This escalating cost presents a serious barrier to families striving to provide nutritious meals for their children, OPH warned.
The impact of food insecurity is not uniform and disproportionately affects households that rent their homes, with 25.9% of renters experiencing food insecurity.
The Nutritious Food Basket survey is an annual tool employed by Ottawa Public Health since 1998, designed to assess the affordability of a healthy diet as mandated by the Ontario Public Health Standards.
OPH examines the costs of food, along with average rental rates, and compares them to income levels, particularly for those reliant on social assistance or earning minimum wage.
This year’s affordability report paints a grim picture, with many families grappling with the rising costs of basic food items and rent. The average cost for a family of four to afford a nutritious diet in 2023 is now $1,153 per month, marking a $65 increase from the previous year when it was $1,088.
Furthermore, those relying on social assistance, such as Ontario Works, with an average monthly income of $2,794, would need to allocate 111% of their earnings just to cover the expenses of housing and meals.
