One year after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shut down the idea of supplying Germany with liquified natural gas (LNG), one of the country’s largest energy companies is dismantling a wind farm to make room for an open-pit coal mine.
During German Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s visit to Canada in Aug. 2022, Trudeau said supplying the European nation with LNG lacked a “business case.”
“There are a number of potential projects, including one in Saint John, and some others that are on the books for which there has never been a strong business case because of the distance from the gas fields,” said Trudeau.
This week, Germany’s RWE began operations to dismantle a wind farm in the North Rhine Westphalia region.
The company plans to dismantle at least eight wind turbines so that it can excavate up to 20 million tonnes of highly pollutant lignite coal, also known as ‘brown coal.’
RWE brokered a deal with the German government last year to be allowed to mine the area under the pretense that it would aim to be coal-free by the year 2030.
Germany and other European nationals have struggled to wean off their dependence on Russian oil and gas in response to the country’s invasion of Ukraine.
Instead of buying LNG from Canada, Germany has already struck a deal with the US and even built a terminal to receive fresh shipments of gas.
According to the International Energy Agency, the global LNG market doubled in size in 2022 largely due to Europe’s growing need for imports.
Last year, the market reached a whopping $450 billion with the US being among the biggest winners as a result of the growth.
Other countries benefiting from the growth include Qatar, Egypt, Norway, Angola and Trinidad and Tobago.
Canada’s health care system is in crisis. While much of the discussion around this is rightfully centered on how governments can improve the services provided, policymakers would be wise to also think about how to ease the demand that patients impose on the system.
Simply put, if Canadians lived healthier lives, the health care system could focus more of its resources on treating those with unavoidable health conditions.
Many of the lifestyle decisions that Canadians make – what they eat, how frequently they exercise, and so on – can lead to diseases and adverse health conditions if poor choices are made. This in turn increases demand for health services. Consider that the Public Health Agency of Canada has indicated that if individuals eliminated risk factors such as unhealthy eating and physical inactivity, 80% of premature heart disease and type 2 diabetes cases, and 40% of cancers could be prevented.
Similarly, the Chronic Disease Prevention Alliance of Canada (CDPAC) estimated that in 2015, the cost of treating diet-related diseases in Canada was approximately $26 billion. For perspective, last year, provincial governments in Canada spent $218 billion on health care. Billions more could be saved if Canadians exercised more frequently.
So how can governments encourage healthy living, without micromanaging people’s lives? In a normal insurance model, those who pose higher risks pay higher premiums and have a financial deterrent to making unhealthy choices. This is why drivers who have had many speeding tickets typically pay more for car insurance.
In Canada, it’s probably fair to say that no political party would introduce higher premiums in health care based on risk. However, the opposite of higher premiums could be an option – incentives. New SecondStreet.org research shows that financial incentives have been effective in improving patient health in several studies and private sector models.
In the U.S. for example, grocery store chain Safeway improved employee health by implementing a rewards program based on financial incentives. For performing well on health indicator tests (eg. blood pressure, body weight, cholesterol etc.) employees received discounts on their insurance premiums. According to the former CEO of Safeway, Steven Burd, an employee could save up to $1,560 annually on health insurance for their family.
Burd indicated that the incentives were a success; the company’s obesity rates were 30% below the national average and its spending on health insurance stayed constant over the course of the program, when ‘most American companies’ saw their health care costs increase by 38%.
In Canada, Manulife Financial Corporation implemented a program called Vitality that offers rewards and benefits, including discounts of up to 15% on insurance, for making healthy choices and recording it using their app. The program has yielded positive results according to Manulife: “nearly one in three members with elevated blood pressure improved their readings to normal levels within one year.”
Safeway and Manulife are just a few of the examples highlighted in the report by SecondStreet.org, where successful incentive programs have improved the health of its users. Based on these findings, provincial governments should be encouraged to try small pilot projects that use incentives to promote healthy living. Such programs should be voluntary, simple and avoid micromanaging patients’ lives.
And if a province comes up with an effective incentive-based model, it could be scaled on a wider basis.
Ultimately, a healthier population could help ease the burden on our nation’s health care system – something our system could definitely do with right now.
Gender ideology is running rampant in Canada – particularly in schools. Children are being taught incredibly inappropriate things and are being coerced into the idea that gender is a spectrum — and this is all being done in the name of “inclusion.”
But parents and concerned Canadians are pushing back, forcing some politicians to stand up for parental rights and against gender ideology. However, many Conservative politicians are still afraid of being accused of being “transphobic.”
On this episode of The Rupa Subramanya Show, Rupa is joined by one of the most influential activists in the fight against gender ideology – Chris Elston – better known as Billboard Chris.
Chris has been on the front lines of the fight against gender ideology, protesting events that promote radical gender theories on children and warning of the dangers of the concerning trend of young people transitioning.
The Trudeau government has funded over 43,000 electric vehicle charging stations since 2016, but today less than one in five of them are actually operational.
Data recently published by the Department of Natural Resources revealed that under 20% of the electric vehicle chargers that were funded under the federal government’s two largest EV infrastructure programs are currently available for use.
Despite the lack of success with these programs, Energy Minister Jonathan Wilkinson announced more funding for EV chargers was on the way while speaking in Quebec City on Wednesday.
The current electric car charging program plans to add another 1,500 chargers in Quebec, which will cost another $25 million.
Both of the federal EV charging programs have an investment of $768 million dollars with the goal of having 90,000 chargers installed by 2027.
The combined programs are responsible for about one-third of the 23,000 charging stations currently operational but another 35,000 that were given funding have yet to be installed or if they were, aren’t working.
Data conducted by research firm Dunsky Energy and Climate indicates that another 52,000 chargers will likely need to be installed by 2025 and an additional 200,000 by 2030 in order to match the national sales targets required to get more electric vehicles in use.
Of all the absurd edicts to be issued by the Trudeau government, the recent travel advisory warning about certain non-LGBT-friendly US states takes the cake.
The trouble is that the edict, a political statement about mostly gender ideology policies south of the border, is like pablum for the uninformed and easily indoctrinated – many of whom draw conclusions based on what they hear in the often biased legacy media and on social media, and not on their own experience.
Even though to those with a shred of common sense, the advisory reeks of desperation by a party sliding in the polls, it will convince some of those easily manipulated not to venture south of the border.
The edict from Global Affairs Canada warns LGBTQ travellers that new laws in some states might affect their visits.
“Check relevant state and local laws,” the advisory says.
Normally advisories like this one are reserved for countries such as most of those in the Middle East where homosexuality is considered a crime, sometimes punishable by death.
While they don’t name the states in question, I can surmise that Florida – with its ban on teaching gender ideology (as well as critical race theory) in elementary schools— is at the top of the list.
In a rambling non-answer about the advisory Chrystia Freeland defended the bureaucrats working for Global Affairs Canada as very “professional.” She repeated the word “professional” more than once.
But we all know this is political – an attempt to portray Republicans south of the border and Conservatives here in Canada as hateful homophobic and transphobic troglodytes.
In fact, all that seems to separate the two parties, both here and south of the border, is a steadily growing understanding of how kids are being indoctrinated by the woke bureaucrats and the equally out of touch unions who have infiltrated our public school systems.
I am gay, married and have a home in Florida, where I reside over the winter months.
My wife and I have both gay and straight friends there.
The idea that we should be afraid to live and be ourselves in Florida is absolutely ridiculous.
I in fact celebrated when Gov. Ron DeSantis instituted the ban on teaching gender ideology in public schools up to Grade 8, stopped the use of pronouns in classrooms (other than those assigned at birth) and banned transition-affirming care for minors (one of 18 states to do so).
Classrooms are for learning the academic skills to survive in an increasing complex and fast-paced workplace.
Teachers have a duty to ensure that their students can read, write, spell, add, subtract, multiply and divide – not to regale their students with stories of their sex lives, their queer activist friends and with whom they share their bedrooms.
It would help if they dressed appropriately and not come to school with blue hair, piercings and sporting army gear. But a dress code for teachers is considered by unions as anti-free expression.
Still, students shouldn’t have to care what pronouns teachers prefer to use, or be forced to declare whether they are a he, she, they, zie or some other ridiculous words.
I am pretty certain that once out in the real world of work knowing 267 different pronouns will not make someone better able to cope with the rigors of a job.
As for the whole idea of a school board being able to hide a student’s gender dysphoria (or alleged dysphoria) from their parents, that, in my view, borders on abusive.
Parents have a right to know if their children are struggling (particularly those under the age of consent). Besides, teachers are not shrinks or social workers, nor should they pretend to be.
Considering how far the pendulum has swung in Canada towards cancelling anyone who fails to march to the progressive beat, I would suggest that a travel advisory should be issued for this country aimed at those who see through the progressive bias.
Between the woke policies that force us to continually mouth a land acknowledgement at the outset of every meeting, anti-black racism and DEI indoctrination sessions rampant in our schools, gender neutral bathrooms and multiple days devoted to virtue signaling about some perceived oppressed identity group, we are not in a good space in this country.
I know I can ignore this latest attempt by the Trudeau government to yet again sow the seeds of divisiveness and hate – and just laugh it off.
Sadly, it will not be the case for the woke who have been indoctrinated (and want) to hate the right.
British Columbia politicians are calling for action on bail reform following the release of a Vancouver man charged with four sex assaults.
Arturo Garica Gorjon, 45, was released shortly after being charged with multiple sexual assault charges for incidents that were alleged to have occurred between 2009 and 2010.
The B.C. judge made the decision to release Gorjon on $15,000 bail, despite the recommendations of both police and Crown prosecutors.
Gorjon must report to a bail supervisor weekly, provide his home address and refrain from making applications for any international travel documents as part of his conditions. He is also not allowed to contact his alleged victims.
“We did ask for remand in this particular case,” said Deputy Vancouver Police Chief Fiona Wilson. “He went before a judge and the judge made the decision to release him with conditions.”
On Wednesday, the charges against Gorjon were announced by Vancouver police, over a decade since the attacks were initially reported.
In 2009, police launched an investigation into three 2009 assaults that were alleged to take place in Granville Island, the West End and Yaletown.
There wasn’t a break in the case however for another 12 years, until investigators were able to link another 2010 sex assault in downtown Vancouver to the first three.
The information from the fourth assault led police to Gorjon, who was arrested on July 21, 2023 in Regina. He is due to appear back in court on Sept. 12, 2023.
Gorjon’s release sheds light on a broken bail system, according to B.C. United Opposition Leader Kevin Falcon.
“It’s extremely disappointing, I have been saying for 18 months that this catch and release program we are seeing operate in this country, and especially in B.C., is not working for public safety,” said Falcon.
“Finally, somebody, please put the interest of public safety ahead of the right of that individual to reoffend.”
While Falcon agreed with Crown prosecutors recommendation to deny bail, he believes that they aren’t doing enough on a regular basis to demand the same.
It isn’t unusual for a judge to release someone on bail even if prosecutors disagree because the justice system is founded on a basis of innocence until proven guilty.
Defence lawyer Ian Donaldson said that judges must consider three factors when making a decision on whether or not to grant someone bail.
“Will the person show up, will they commit offences if released, and would the public confidence in the administration of justice be undermined by their release,” said Donaldson, who is not involved in the Gorjon case.
“Unless the Crown can demonstrate that one of those things requires detention, then this person was required to be released.”
Donaldson said that even if the person is at risk of not meeting those requirements, judges may still decide to release them with conditions like house arrest, bail surety or electronic monitoring, if they feel it will mitigate those risks.
On Thursday, B.C. Premier David Eby spoke about the need for bail reform and said that it must be done on a federal level, a sentiment many other premiers have already been pushing for.
“One of the reasons we believe this is happening is the courts are applying the federal bail rules as they stand — the federal government has committed to change those rules, we expected them to be changed last session, they weren’t,” said Eby.
“My hope, my expectation, our insistence in B.C. is that the federal government pass those amendments this coming session as quickly as possible.”
Across the country, more and more parents are seeking education options for their kids outside of public schools. For some this is private schooling, perhaps a charter school for those in places such as Alberta, or even home schooling. This edition of The Andrew Lawton Show shines a light on school choice – what options do parents have, and why are they making the choices they are? Joining Andrew to discuss are the Fraser Institute’s director of education policy, Paige MacPherson, Alberta liaison officer Catherine Kavanagh of Cardus, and Home School Legal Defence Association president Peter Stock.
The Canada Revenue Agency has fired nearly 120 employees for inappropriately claiming the Canada Emergency Response benefit (CERB) at the beginning of the pandemic.
On Friday, the CRA put out a statement saying that after an internal investigation, 600 possible violations were flagged and 120 individuals were fired from the department.
“Out of the approximately 600 cases, we can report that 120 individuals are no longer with the CRA as a result of this internal review,” wrote the CRA.
“The investigations and disciplinary processes continue.”
The CRA also wrote that any employee who received CERB under false pretenses will have to pay the sum back.
Additionally, cases where an element of criminality is suspected will be forwarded to police for investigation.
“When misconduct is identified, we ensure that the appropriate actions are taken to address it,” wrote the CRA.
Estimates by Canada’s auditor general show that nearly $4.6 billion in CERB payments went to people who were ineligible for the program.
Of all CRA employees who received CERB, the CRA wrote that around 30 were actually eligible.
“In this regard, roughly 30 employees that are part of this review have been found to be eligible so far,” said the CRA.
According to National Revenue Minister Marie-Claude Bibeau, the CRA’s decision to reprimand employees who benefited from CERB shows that it has a “zero tolerance” approach to such matters.
“The CRA’s investigation into the employees who received the Canada emergency response benefit is being taken very seriously and is still ongoing,” said Bibeau.
“The disciplinary measures imposed show that for us it is zero tolerance.”
The CRA began its investigation in July and immediately fired 20 employees.
“As the CRA is responsible for administering the Income Tax Act and many COVID-19 benefits, the highest standard of employee conduct must be upheld,” said the CRA at the time.
Following a report that found there’s a surplus of at least one million more non-permanent residents living in the country than what official estimates claimed, the Trudeau government will revise its methods for counting them.
Meanwhile, Ontario Premier Doug Ford is blaming the Trudeau government’s bungling of the immigration file for the reason behind opening the Greenbelt.
Plus, Alberta issued two electrical grid alerts in less than a week due to heavy demand and low output from renewable energy sources like solar and wind.
Tune into The Daily Brief with Cosmin Dzsurdzsa and Elie Cantin-Nantel!
The Canadian economy contracted in the second quarter as new construction developments and investment in housing are in decline, according to Statistics Canada.
On Friday, Statistics Canada said that during the second quarter, the economy contracted 0.2% overall, at an annualized rate. During the first quarter it shrunk from 3.1% to 2.6%.
Housing investment fell by 2.1%, marking its fifth consecutive quarterly decrease and new construction is down by 8.2%. Renovation spending dropped as well, down 4.3%.
Interest rates raised by the Bank of Canada in an attempt to bring inflation back to its target of 2% have brought forth higher borrowing costs, which means a drop in household spending by Canadians.
Real household spending dropped in growth from 1.2% in the first quarter to 0.1% in the second quarter.
Another contributing factor is slow growth in exports, up only 0.1% in the second quarter, compared to an increase of 2.5% in the first quarter.
The second quarter did see an increase of business investment in non-residential structures of 2.4%, which was accelerated by a 3.3% gain in spending on engineering structures.
In June, service industries fell by 0.2% and good-producing industries dropped by 0.4%.
In July, real GDP is estimated to have remained the same, however Statistics Canada warned that the estimate may need to be revised.
The second quarter report comes just a week before the Bank of Canada will announce their latest decision regarding interest rates.
In July, the central bank’s key interest rate target was increased by 0.25%, bringing it to 5% and the Bank of Canada remains worried that its target of 2% inflation is being hampered.
