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Monday, September 29, 2025

Candidate Profile: Establishment candidate Ana Bailão runs Liberal-friendly campaign

By
Noah Jarvis
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Toronto’s former deputy mayor Ana Bailão has received strong backing from the city’s political class in her bid to become its next mayor.

But the endorsements haven’t translated into significant voter support for Bailão’s campaign ahead of the June 26 election, as she has fallen well short of frontrunner Olivia Chow and battles to distinguish herself from the race’s secondary contenders like Mark Saunders, Josh Matlow, and Anthony Furey.

Bailão’s campaign is built on  improving services and housing affordability – the latter through reforms that include, renter protection – as well as bail reform, better accessibility to Toronto Island, more efficient 311 service, and more. 

Her platform has garnered support from Toronto’s centre-left political class, with endorsements from nine sitting Liberal MPs, seven city councillors and three former Toronto mayors, including the most recent, John Tory.

Bailão served as one of  Tory’s deputies from 2017-2022, at which point she opted to retire from politics.

Tory threw his support behind Bailão earlier this week  in a six minute-long video, lauding her as a “fighter,” “negotiator,” and “leader.”

A recent Forum Research poll put Bailão in a two-way tie for third place with Anthony Furey, however, Chow leads Bailão by 19%, whileMark Saunders is edging her out by 2%.

On housing, she’s pledged 285,000 more homes in Toronto by 2031, of which 20% would be purpose-built rentals. 

“As Mayor, I will champion planning reforms that will urgently address the housing crisis to build 285,000 new homes, including 57,000 purpose-built rental, and will protect renters and homeowners today,” Bailão said.

She would introduce ‘rental zoning’ to reserve specified plots of solely for rental construction.

Bailão supports reforming Toronto’s planning regulations, including zoning and land use, to develop missing middle housing, or soft-density homes like mid-rise towers, townhomes, and multiplexes.

If elected, Bailão promises to install security cameras on Toronto’s subway platforms and deploy TTC staff to roam the platforms, providing more eyes and ears to react to any incidents in violence. 

She would also try to strike a deal with Canada’s major telecom providers, namely Bell, Rogers, and Telus, to provide cell phone service to the city’s subway tunnels.

To make Toronto streets safer, Bailão would expand Toronto’s Community Crisis Service to reliably cover the entire city and fund more mobile mental health clinics. 

Bailão also supports pushing the federal government to reform the country’s bail system, decrying the “revolving door system.”

To improve traffic, Bailão would get tough on enforcing traffic and parking violations, increasing fines, and installing red light cameras in school safety zones. 

Bailão also supports improving Toronto’s splash pads, making access to Toronto Island easier, and bringing major international events to the city.

Bailão is one of the only candidates to support Premier Doug Ford’s plan to move the Ontario Science Centre to Ontario Place, provided it benefits the surrounding community in some way. 

The nine Liberal MPs endorsing Bailão are Gary Anadasangaree, Julie Dzerowicz, Peter Fonseca, James Maloney, Judy Sgro, Charles Sousa, Arif Virani, Jean Yip, and Salma Zahid.

Bailão was also endorsed by Toronto city councillors Paul Ainslie, Shelley Carroll, Nick Mantas, Chris Moise, Frances Nunziata, James Pasternak, and deputy mayor Jennifer McKelvie. 

Feds’ plastic bag ban includes compostable bags: grocery chain

By
Neil Sharma
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An Alberta grocery chain is speaking out after learning its specially designed bags will be targeted under the federal government’s single-use plastics ban – despite being compostable.

Calgary Co-op, which operates in central and southern Alberta, says it stopped using plastic bags four years ago, but, despite designing its compostable bags with Calgary’s municipal government, the company has found itself in bureaucratic crosshairs.

“We were using 33 million plastic bags a year,” Ken Keeler, Calgary Co-op’s CEO, told the National Post. “And so we made this decision without any push from governments and rules and regulators, because we felt it was the right thing to do for the environment.”

Last year, the federal government introduced legislation banning single-use plastics, including disposable grocery bags, by the end of this year.

Calgary Co-op’s compostable bags are being targeted because of a technicality in how long they take to compost.

The federal government claims Calgary Co-op’s compostable bags don’t adhere to regulations requiring disintegration within 28 days because the bags are also designed to double as bin liners.

The company estimates it has kept 120 million plastic bags out of landfills since adopting these compostable bags, which cost 15 cents, in 2019.

Even Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek even petitioned Guilbeault on Calgary Co-op’s behalf in May, stating the company’s compostable bags adhere to municipal requirements after having collaborated on their design.

 “The bags break down at the Calgary Composting Facility and can be used as kitchen pail liners which supports participation in The City’s Green Cart program,” Gondek wrote in a letter to Guilbeaut.

Her letter added that an exemption from the legislation’s rules could function as a transitional to full consumer adoption of reusable bags.

But, as the Post reported, Climate Change Canada remains insistent Calgary Co-op’s compostable bags must be treated like all other single-use plastics. Referring to the compostable bags’ dual usage as bin liners, the government agency cited a three-year-old government-commissioned study which found there’s insignificant evidence biodegradable plastics fully degrade in natural environments.

First announced last June by Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Environment and Climate Change, and Minister of Health Jean-Yves Duclos, the manufacture and importation of single-use plastic—“barring a few targeted exceptions to recognize specific cases—took effect in December.

The full prohibition—which targets plastics used to produce checkout bags, cutlery, foodservice ware, straws, stir sticks, and ring carriers—takes effect Dec. 20 of this year so that Canadian businesses have enough time to transition and exhaust existing stocks, the government statement said.

The statement also noted exports of the six aforementioned products will be banned beginning in 2026.

Calgary Co-op will, however, be able to sell its compostable bags in bundles, which Keeler told the Post concerns him because it could dissuade customers from using their own reusable bags.

The company has expressed hope the legislation can be amended to grant an exception so that customers buying groceries that become organic waste won’t be forced to buy compostable bags.

What we know about AHS’ bid to rehire Deena Hinshaw

By
Rachel Parker
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Alberta Health Services (AHS) tried to rehire the province’s former chief medical health officer Deena Hinshaw just months after Premier Danielle Smith showed her the door.

Hinshaw, who oversaw the province’s lockdowns and vaccine mandates, was removed from the top job just days after Smith was sworn in as Premier in November — after spending the summer campaigning against such restrictions.

Screenshots of a job announcement circulating online on June 1, just days after the UCP won a second majority government, revealed that Hinshaw was given a job with the Indigenous Wellness Core (IWC), an AHS Indigenous health care program. 

The Counter Signal was the first to report that Hinshaw was back. But the outlet was forced to retract its story when AHS issued a statement saying, “Dr. Hinshaw is not employed by AHS.”

Now, according to a CBC report published on Thursday, Hinshaw was indeed hired for a part-time role as the Public Health and Preventive Medicine Lead with the IWC. 

According to sources who spoke to CBC, Hinsaw’s offer was signed in May, but the announcement was delayed until after the provincial election. 

“Whether the decision to revoke Hinshaw’s job offer came before or after that leak is unclear,” CBC reports. 

The legacy outlet also said criticism of Hinshaw’s new job “largely came from right-wing quarters.” 

Sources who spoke to True North said AHS proceeded with hiring Hinshaw, against the wishes of the Premier’s Office, because it felt confident the Alberta NDP would win the May 29th provincial election. 

Hinshaw is massively unpopular with Albertans following her pandemic reign. That dissatisfaction grew in August, when Albertans learned she received $227,911 Covid bonus in addition to her $363,634 salary. That marked the largest cash benefit payout of any provincial civil servant.

AHS, the Premier’s Office, and Hinshaw have all remained tight-lipped about the controversy. 

“Alberta Health Services is responsible for hiring decisions and the government of Alberta does not comment on AHS personnel decisions,” the Premier’s press secretary Sam Blackett told CBC. 

The Counter Signal editor in chief Keean Bexte told True North that AHS “hid the truth” to control the story and then used CBC as the “correction outlet.” 

NHL announces it’s banning pride jerseys

By
Elie Cantin-Nantel
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The National Hockey League (NHL) announced that it will ban pride jerseys and other special cause-based uniforms from its rinks.

This comes after several players refused to wear the rainbow jerseys during warm-ups – and amid a greater societal pushback against gender ideology.

In an interview with Sportsnet, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said the decision was made following a board of governors meeting.

“I’ve suggested that it would be appropriate for clubs not to change their jerseys in warmups because it’s become a distraction and taking away from the fact that all of our clubs, in some form or another, host nights in honour of various groups or causes.” said Bettman. 

“We’d rather they continue to get the appropriate attention that they deserve and not be a distraction.” 

Bettman added that “all of the efforts and emphasis on the importance of these various causes have been undermined by the distraction, in terms of which teams, which players. This way, we’re keeping the focus on the game and on these specialty nights, we’re going to be focused on the cause.”

The NHL commissioner noted that Pride Nights will be able to continue, just without the rainbow jerseys. Special jerseys are also expected to continue to be designed for autographing and selling purposes.

“32 of our clubs did Pride Nights, some do Heritage Nights, everybody does Hockey Fights Cancer. Some do military nights. All of those nights will continue,” said Bettman. “The only difference will be, we’re not going to change jerseys for warmup.”

As previously reported by True North, some Pride Nights hosted by Canadian hockey teams had pre-game all ages drag shows, in an effort to “celebrate the 2SLGBTQIA+ community.”

Several hockey players had refused to wear the pride jerseys, with some citing religious reasons. 

Players who opted not to wear the jerseys include Vancouver Canucks star forward Andrei Kuzmenko, and Montreal Canadiens winger Denis Gurianov. Other players include San Jose Sharks goalie James Reimer, Florida Panthers players Eric Staal and Marc Staal and Philadelphia Flyers defenceman Ivan Provorov.

Provorov’s announcement back in January that he would not wear the rainbow jersey caused a fury among members of Canada’s legacy media.

“I respect everybody’s choices. My choice is to stay true to myself and my religion. That’s all I’m going to say,” said Provorov. 

Breakfast Television host Sid Seixeiro called on the NHL to give the Flyers a “million dollar” fine and to “attack” Provorov for his beliefs. Other Canadian sports journalists joined in on the conversation, including the Toronto Star’s Bruce Arthur.


With files from True North’s Cosmin Dzsurdzsa.

The Daily Brief | Meta starts blocking news for Canadians

By
Andrew Lawton
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Facebook and Instagram have officially begun to block news content for Canadians in response to the passage of the Trudeau government’s Bill C-18.

The unvaccinated woman who was denied an organ transplant in Canada will be trying her luck in the United States’ healthcare system. 

Pierre Poilievre addressed a town hall meeting in Timmins, Ontario last week which drew dozens of citizens who are concerned about crime and drug use in their city.

Tune into The Daily Brief with Andrew Lawton and Cosmin Dzsurdzsa!

SUBSCRIBE TO THE DAILY BRIEF

The Andrew Lawton Show | Uncancelling Canadian history

By
Andrew Lawton
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Canada, a nation once celebrated for its unwavering commitment to freedom and democracy, now finds itself besieged by a relentless series of attacks to its history and national identity. How did it get this way?

1867 Project editor Dr. Mark Milke joins True North’s Andrew Lawton to discuss the profound issues plaguing Canada’s social fabric, and why Canada should be cherished—not cancelled.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE ANDREW LAWTON SHOW

Ratio’d | Targeting your kids: The secret trans agenda exposed in Canada

By
Harrison Faulkner
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The Canadian Paediatric Society’s new position statement on gender affirming care for children is the kind of thing that needs to be seen to be believed. Among other absurd recommendations and positions, the paper advocates the prescription of hormone blocking drugs like leuprolide acetate to adolescent boys and girls. This is the same drug that is given to repeat violent sex offenders to chemically castrate them. Once that is prescribed, the paper then moves on to advocating the use of hormone replacement drugs. These hormone replacement drugs – as the statement clearly states – will permanently decrease fertility to extent not yet known. Finally, they advocate “gender-affirming surgeries” for adolescent girls.

The truth is, the three-headed monster of government, medicine and education have been working together to create a barrier between parents and their children to such a degree that parents have next to no recourse once their child believes they were born in the wrong body.

We can thank both Liberals and Conservatives for that.

Full Canadian Paediatric Society position statement on gender-affirming care

Tune in to the latest episode of Ratio’d with Harrison Faulkner

OP-ED: Criminalizing Indian Residential School “Denialism”

By
Hymie Rubenstein
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Attempts to criminalize the truth about Canada’s Indian Residential Schools (IRSs) began in earnest in October 2022 when NDP MP Leah Gazan got the House of Commons to unanimously recognize that genocide occurred at residential schools.

Not content with getting that phony motion passed, she took it a step further in February this year by proposing legislation to criminalize attempts to deny that genocide took place at these residential schools despite no evidence that a single IRS child was ever murdered, at least by a staff member, during a 113-year period that saw the enrollment of some 150,000 students in federal government-funded institutions between 1883 and 1996.

Not one murder. Some genocide!

“Denying genocide [the core issue underpinning residential school denialism] is a form of hate speech,” said Gazan, who represents the riding of Winnipeg Centre. 

“That kind of speech is violent and re-traumatizes those who attended residential school.”

Always eager to label Canada a genocidal nation, the Office of Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller quickly said he would be interested in reviewing the proposed legislation.

“Residential school denialism attempts to hide the horrors that took place in these institutions,” Miller’s office told CBC News.

“It seeks to deny survivors and their families the truth, and distorts Canadians’ understanding of our shared history.”

The latest episode in this saga occurred on Friday, June 16, when Kimberly Murray, appointed last year as Canada’s “special interlocutor” on missing indigenous children and unmarked graves, released her interim report in which she argued that “urgent consideration” should be given to legal mechanisms to combat residential school denialism.

She referred to such denialism as an “attack” whenever there were announcements of the discovery of possible unmarked graves.

“This violence [sic] is prolific,” the report said. “And takes place via email, telephone, social media, op-eds and, at times, through in-person confrontations.”

Murray doesn’t seem to know the meaning of the term “violent attack.”

Still, she listed several examples, including after the May 2021 announcement by the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc Nation that ground-penetrating radar had discovered what are believed to be 215 unmarked graves at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.

The Kamloops findings — still highly inconclusive today — garnered international media attention and triggered an outpouring of grief, shock and anger from across the country.

Murray said in her report that on top of dealing with an onslaught of media attention, the Kamloops Indian Band in British Columbia had to deal with individuals entering the site itself.

“Some came in the middle of the night, carrying shovels; they said they wanted to ‘see for themselves’ if children are buried there. Denialists also attacked the community on social media.”

This assertion was made with no independent evidence or proof that the shovel carriers were not themselves concerned Kamloops band members at a site that was enclosed by a chain-link fence soon after the discovery was made.

This is what star investigative journalist Terry Glavin just had to say about these alleged shovel carriers:

There was no report of this to the RCMP. We are not invited to know when this happened or to whom these interlopers explained their wicked intentions or who they might have been, exactly. 

We are simply expected to believe it, in the same way, Murray’s report asks us to believe the Tk’emlups’ community initially intended to simply fence off the old apple orchard where a ground-penetrating radar survey detected anomalies that were presumed to be graves, so that certain former residential school students, “the ones that buried the children” in the first place, could come and pay their respects.

What? There are people still alive who were among the students in those lurid stories about children being woken up in the middle of the night to bury their classmates? Who are these people? Can we speak to them? Have they spoken to the police?

A lack of any real evidence did not prevent Murray from stating that Canada has a role to play to combat this denialist sentiment and that “urgent consideration” should be given to what legal tools exist to address the problem, including both civil and criminal sanctions.

“They have the evidence. The photos of burials. The records that prove that kids died. It is on their shoulders,” Murray told a crowd gathered Friday in Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan.

But there is no photographic evidence of IRS children buried beside the shuttered Kamloops IRS nor at any other former IRS school in Canada. 

The only photographic evidence I have seen are of regular church burials and of thousands of happy school children. As for the records, they prove that children who died and were buried at the schools (a minority of all children) or those who died and were buried on their home reserves (the vast majority) received a proper Christian burial after succumbing to a contagious disease like tuberculosis over which indigenous people have little natural immunity.

Regardless of this, “The government of Canada and the churches must step up,” Murray said.

Justice Minister David Lametti, who appointed Murray to her role and joined the event in Cowessess First Nation via video conference on Friday, kowtowing like other Liberal hacks to every indigenous whim and fancy regardless of how preposterous they may be, said that he is open to all possibilities to fighting residential-school denialism.

He said that includes “a legal solution and outlawing it,” adding that Canada can look to other countries that have criminalized Holocaust denial.

Looking to other countries is necessary because Holocaust denial is not illegal in Canada. But this Liberal government has little respect for legal niceties, especially when it comes to indigenous demands, so it is likely that IRS denialism will be made a crime while allowing anyone to freely claim the Holocaust is a myth.


Hymie Rubenstein is the editor of The REAL Indigenous Issues Newsletter and a retired professor of anthropology, University of Manitoba.

Facebook, Instagram to block news for Canadians in response to Liberal bill C-18

By
Cosmin Dzsurdzsa
-

Meta has announced it will begin blocking news links on Facebook and Instagram for Canadian users in response to the passage of the Liberal government’s online news bill C-18.

“Today, we are confirming that news availability will be ended on Facebook and Instagram for all users in Canada prior to the Online News Act (Bill C-18) taking effect,” wrote the company in a statement Thursday.

“We have repeatedly shared that in order to comply with Bill C-18, passed today in Parliament, content from news outlets, including news publishers and broadcasters, will no longer be available to people accessing our platforms in Canada.”

Facebook has already limited the reach of some Canadian news sites including small local and Quebec-based outlets. 

The bill was passed after the Liberals moved to cut off debate on Bill C-18, which critics blast for giving the government too much control over what kind of news Canadians see online. 

The bill forces social media companies to pay news publishers for links to their content being available on the platform.

As University of Ottawa Canada Research Chair in Internet and E-commerce Law Michael Geist wrote earlier this week, the Liberal government cut off debate from the Opposition to push through the bill. 

“In fact, despite plans for an evening debate on the bill last night, the government interrupted MP Martin Champoux in mid-speech, cut the debate short, and gave notice that it plans to limit debate altogether this week,” said Geist. 

“The irony that the government is cutting off debate on a bill it claims is essential to holding it to account should not be lost on anyone.”

SHEPHERD: Questioning narrative of “unmarked graves” may soon be illegal in Canada

By
Lindsay Shepherd
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Perhaps you’ve seen the explosive claim all over the legacy media that “residential school denialists” have been showing up in the wee hours of the night at the site of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School, shovels in hand, ready to dig for graves. 

“Denialists entered the site without permission,” special interlocutor for unmarked graves Kimberly Murray said in her June 2023 interim report.

“Some came in the middle of the night, carrying shovels; they said they wanted to ‘see for themselves’ if children are buried there.”

It’s a compelling account – but it’s not really true. 

The Kamloops RCMP told True North “At this time, there is no indication that these events have been reported to the Tk’emlúps Rural RCMP Detachment.”

This week, on CBC Radio, Tk’emlúps chief Rosanne Casimir downgraded the original claim after being prompted for more details on the shovel-wielding grave-diggers: “someone even showed up with a shovel in hand,” she said. 

Because the original sensational claim in the governmental report was uncritically repeated by the legacy media, Canadians are now under the impression that gangs of “denialists” are showing up to the school in the night, trying to dig up graves with shovels.

But it turns out, according to the chief herself, one single person showed up with a shovel (perhaps as a symbolic gesture) and was presumably immediately turned away by security. 

It’s similar to when the Tk’emlúps nation announced back in May 2021 that they discovered the “remains” of 215 children, and then in July downgraded their claim to 200 “targets of interest,” and eventually stopped providing any updates at all.

The “215” narrative caused a moral panic in Canada: over 70 churches were burned down or vandalized, our flags were lowered for several months, and our political leaders were trying to convince us that we are a nation of genocide.  

For asking questions about the “unmarked graves” narrative and trying to get to the bottom of the claims I see propagated in the mainstream media, am I a denialist who should be jailed?

After all, our Liberal government is mulling how they can make it illegal for Canadians to ask critical questions about the “unmarked graves.”

“Urgent consideration should be given to legal mechanisms to address denialism, including the implementation of both civil and criminal sanctions,” wrote Kimberly Murray in her report.

Justice Minister David Lametti said he is open to “a legal solution” to “outlaw” questioning the residential school narrative.

Minister Lametti’s office did not answer True North’s repeated requests for comment.

Lametti isn’t the first to express interest in limiting Canadians’ freedom of expression in this way: earlier this year, Winnipeg NDP MP Leah Gazan announced she wants to introduce legislation to outlaw denying the “genocide” of residential schools.

“Denying genocide is a form of hate speech,” Gazan declared.

Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Marc Miller said he would be interested in reviewing the proposed legislation.

In case you missed it, Canada recently made it illegal to “condone, deny or downplay the Holocaust.” 

Will it soon also become illegal to “condone, deny or downplay” the prevailing residential school narrative, even though there is currently no evidence to suggest any unmarked graves of missing children exist at all?

“I think it is now becoming clear that the claim that thousands of children went to residential school ‘and never returned’ is nonsense,” said Brian Giesbrecht of the Indian Residential Schools Research Group.

“There simply is no ‘missing children’ mystery. Children were buried properly and cemeteries were often not tended. However, an entire industry has been built on the false claim that something sinister took place at residential schools. This has spun out of control to claims that priests were murdering and secretly burying children.”

“I think that the activists making these claims know that as soon as the Trudeau government is gone their false claims will be exposed.”

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