A record amount of Canadians are using food banks, many young Canadians still can’t afford to own a home and unemployment is the highest since 2017. But according to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the Canadian economy is doing fine. In fact, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland wants you to think there isn’t a recession happening in Canada but instead a “vibecession.”
True North’s Harrison Faulkner, the Northern Perspective’s Ryan and Tanya, and Federal Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Association Franco Terrazzano discuss how the Trudeau government is gaslighting Canadians about the state of the economy.
Tune into The Northern Dispatch!
Is Justin Trudeau intentionally manipulating the economy for political points?
Former Alberta NDP premier Rachel Notley ended her nearly years-long political career after announcing her official resignation as the MLA for Edmonton-Strathcona on Thursday.
Notley announced her resignation with “mixed feelings” almost a year after officially stepping down as Alberta NDP leader in Jan. 2024.
She became an NDP member in 2007 and served as the party’s leader since 2015–leading the province as premier between 2015 and 2019.
Notley’s victory in 2015 ended 44 years of rule in Alberta by the Progressive Conservatives. She subsequently lost the 2019 and 2023 provincial elections before resigning as NDP leader.
One of Notley’s first legislative moves was to introduce a carbon tax, while simultaneously pledging to eliminate burning coal by 2030.
Notley was also responsible for raising Alberta’s minimum wage to $15 per hour.
Notley’s reign carried on her family’s legacy. Her father, Grant Notley, also a former NDP leader, died in a plane crash in 1984.
“It has been an indescribable honour to represent the people of my neighbourhood and community for almost 17 years,” wrote Notley in her post to X.
Notley confirmed that her resignation will be effective as of Dec. 30, 2024.
“I was excited and proud to see our membership swell to over 80,000 members as four worthy contestants sought their votes in June of this year,” she said.
In Dec. 2023, the Alberta NDP had 16,224 members. During the leadership race, which Naheed Nenshi won, the number allegedly grew to 85,144. However, the Alberta NDP was cited by Elections Alberta for inflating its membership numbers.
Nenshi won the Alberta NDP leadership contest on the first ballot with 86% of the vote. In her resignation announcement, Notley expressed clear support for her successor.
“Naheed Nenshi’s selection represents a tremendous opportunity for all Albertans seeking practical solutions to the affordability crisis, along with a genuine commitment to fixing our healthcare so that all Albertans can get the support they need no matter where they live or how much they earn,” said Notley.
Notley’s departure may provide an opening for Nenshi to seek a seat in the legislature. Despite winning the leadership race in June, Nenshi is not an elected MLA. No MLAs have vacated their seats to allow him to run and he opted not to stand in the Lethbridge-West byelection currently underway.
Premier Danielle Smith commented on whether Nenshi will choose to run at an unrelated Thursday press conference.
“He chose not to run in the most recent byelection that we’re having on Dec. 18. I waited as long as I could to see if somebody would step down for him so that we could hold the two of them together,” she said. “No one did.”
An Alberta minister recently called out Nenshi for celebrating his “first legislative session.”
“Nenshi never served one day in the Legislature because he refuses to run in an election, to become an MLA,” said Alberta Minister of Transportation Devin Dreeshen.
Amid tense relations between Canada and the incoming Trump administration, which has pledged 25% tariffs on all Canadian products, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau just couldn’t help himself but virtue-signal about feminism again. Canada’s biggest self-titled feminist said Kamala Harris’ defeat in the U.S. election was an example of women’s progress under attack.
One can only wonder how President-elect Trump will respond to this insulting comment.
Instead of showing strength like Mexico’s government and Ontario Premier Doug Ford, who threatened to cut the US off of Canadian energy, Trudeau is putting his own pet causes ahead of the interests of Canadians.
Ontario Liberal leader Bonnie Crombie has received praise for her party’s ambitious housing platform, detailing plans to help municipalities scrap development charges and selectively eliminate the land transfer tax.
The housing plan titled “More Homes You Can Afford” promises that a Liberal government would eliminate the land transfer tax for first-time homebuyers, seniors seeking to downsize, and non-profit homebuilders.
The Liberals would also seek to scrap development charges on new housing, claiming to cut as much as $170,000 on each new family-sized home.
To compensate municipalities for lost revenue in the absence of development charges, the Liberals would establish the “Better Communities Fund” to help municipalities with their finances.
The announcement comes shortly after Crombie’s Liberals released their plan to cut income taxes for the middle class, eliminating sales taxes on home heating and hydro bills, and slashing the small business tax rate in half.
The Ontario director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation Jay Goldberg told True North that the announcement is a “good step in the right direction.” for the Ontario Liberals.
Goldberg said that while he would prefer a complete elimination of land transfer taxes, the Liberals’ policy of selectively eliminating land transfer taxes is a net positive.
“Land transfer taxes really should go generally, but this is a very good first step in talking about getting rid of these land transfer taxes for some individuals in some cases, but we definitely think that land transfer taxes should go completely,” said Goldberg.
Goldberg also approved of the idea of scrapping development charges, explaining that these taxes contribute significantly to the cost of a new home and getting rid of them would contribute to housing affordability.
“Generally I think getting rid of development charges is a good thing. I think that it does increase certainly the cost of new homes,” said Goldberg.
However, forcing municipalities to scrap their development charges and replace them with the Better Communities Fund would be a difficult task for the province to execute.
“My concern with this replacement fund is not so much that you’re getting rid of development charges, which I think is a good thing, but that municipalities could potentially hold the province hostage and say “if you don’t give us buckets of more cash, we’re going to re-impose development charges.”
Overall, Goldberg says that he is happy to see the Ontario Liberals reform their party’s platform with taxpayer-friendly policies, unlike Liberal platforms under former leaders Kathleen Wynne and Steven Del Duca.
Entrepreneurs and real estate developers Matt Spoke and Chris Spoke told True North that the Liberals’ housing agenda is satisfactory, but could use some improvements.
“I think that reducing or eliminating development charges and land transfer taxes is a great idea,” said Chris.
“Development charges in particular increase the cost of development which naturally leads to less development, less housing, and ultimately less downward pressure on housing prices. For context, Toronto’s development charges have increased by approximately 10x over the past decade.”
Matt added that development charges severely impact the price of new homes, in direct effect they have on new homes, and in the opportunity cost of homes that end up not getting built.
“Development charges are often thought of as a direct one-to-one cost impact to a buyer. In reality, I’d argue it’s worse than that, because that math doesn’t factor in the homes that never get built because of the DCs in the first place. It could be that eliminating $1 of DCs drops home prices up to $2,” said Matt.
However, Chris criticized Crombie’s plan to deliver specific carve-outs to the land transfer tax for first-time homebuyers and seniors, advocating for a more universal tax-cutting approach.
“I generally dislike the trend to increasingly complex policy proposals, where it’s not enough to simply cut taxes, we have to cut taxes but only for a certain group of people and for a certain range of taxable products,” said Chris.
“Simplicity in policy design is highly underrated. The Crombie proposals would have been meaningfully improved by not attaching the limits and conditions to these tax cuts.”
Chris suggested that the Liberals follow up their housing announcement with plans to reform land use rules while Matt suggested that Toronto’s mayor scrap the city’s municipal land transfer tax along with the province.
TikTok has filed a federal court challenge against the government over its recent order to shut down the social media company’s Canadian operations in response to privacy concerns.
The federal government ordered the closure of TikTok’s operations within the country last month, however, individual Canadians may continue to use the app.
The popular social media company is a subsidiary of ByteDance, a Beijing-based tech giant that has come under scrutiny globally for its data-sharing practices.
“This order would eliminate the jobs and livelihoods of our hundreds of dedicated local employees – who support the community of more than 14 million monthly Canadian users on TikTok, including businesses, advertisers, creators, and initiatives developed especially for Canada,” reads a statement from TikTok.
“We believe it’s in the best interest of Canadians to find a meaningful solution and ensure that a local team remains in place, alongside the TikTok platform.”
However, Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne told MPs that the closure will make forcing the company to cooperate with privacy investigations more difficult during a House of Commons ethics committee meeting.
Dufresne noted that privacy laws allow his office to seek a Canadian court order to force the company to provide evidence and testimony during an investigation.
“Certainly in terms of compelling powers, if there’s a refusal to provide us with documentation, it’s easier if the organization is in Canada,” he said on Tuesday.
His office continues to investigate with a final report expected in the coming months.
While the government has yet to share specific details regarding the security risks, the ban was in response to findings from a national security review conducted earlier this year.
According to the Liberals’ policy statement, the ban was predicated on “hostile state-sponsored or influenced actors may seek to leverage foreign investments in the interactive digital media sector to propagate disinformation or manipulate information in a manner that is injurious to Canada’s national security.”
TikTok responded by filing documents in a Vancouver Federal Court last week.
The government’s concerns are similar to those shared by the U.S. and other countries, which have worries about how the app handles private user information.
A U.S. appeals court upheld the legislation to enforce the ban last week, however, TikTok requested that the U.S. Supreme Court intervene.
Industry Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne declined to make any information public as to what caused TikTok’s closure, citing national security laws, nor has Dufresne provided an opinion on the government’s decision.
What is known, however, is that the privacy commissioners’ investigation is focused on whether the company obtained valid and meaningful consent for data collection, use and disclosure of personal information.
“I think the more the public can understand about the decisions of the government, the decisions of my office, the better,” said Dufresne. “There may be some limits in terms of confidentiality, but certainly this is important.”
He added that due to the rapid pace of technology, “websites are evolving very quickly, so we need to be able to have faster application of decisions.”
Amid tense relations between Canada and the incoming Trump administration over tariffs, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asserted that Kamala Harris losing the US election was a sign of women’s progress under attack.
Plus, the Canadian Border Services Agency has lost the whereabouts of 30,000 people slated for deportation.
And the Alberta government is growing restless with the Canada Post strike and wants the federal government to step in – even if it means employing back-to-work legislation.
Tune into The Daily Brief with Isaac Lamoureux and Noah Jarvis!
The operators of an Ontario supervised drug site have launched a legal challenge against the province’s new law to shut them down, arguing that the decision is a breach of Charter rights.
The Neighbourhood Group Community Services, located in Toronto, and two site users, filed a challenge against the Ontario government with the Ontario Superior Court of Justice on Tuesday in response to the Community Care and Recovery Act.
The recently passed law permits the closure of 10 of the 23 supervised drug consumption sites across the province that are located within 200 metres of daycares or schools.
The Ontario government said it was in response to parental concerns over community safety, giving the sites until March to relocate.
“Communities, parents, and families across Ontario have made it clear that the presence of drug consumption sites near schools and daycares is leading to serious safety concerns,” said a spokesperson for Ontario Health Minister Sylvia Jones in a statement.
“We’ve heard from families of the harassment, verbal and physical assault they have experienced walking their child to daycare or school. We have also heard about the phone calls parents have received that their child has picked up a dirty needle, or bag of toxic drugs in the school yard.”
The law also prevents municipalities from applying for new sites through the federal government for exemptions, effectively stopping any new sites from opening.
The legal challenge argues that these closures violate sections 7, 12 and 15 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which guarantee the right to life, liberty, and security of the person; protect Canadians from cruel and unusual punishment; and guarantee the right to be free from discrimination.
Additionally, it argues that the province’s decision is in violation of the Constitution because only the federal government has the authority to implement criminal law or “suppress conduct that it deems to be socially undesirable.”
However, criminal lawyer Ari Goldkind argues that Canada’s constitution wasn’t referring to supervised consumption sites when enshrining said rights.
“There is no Section 7 violation, 12, or 15 violation,” Goldkind told True North. “Nobody is shutting down these sites, which have been shown, on the evidence, to be of limited value, or even worse, and which certainly render communities that they’re in indisputably worse.”
The challenge claims that preliminary data from Toronto Public Health reported 523 people died last year as a result of opioid toxicity in Toronto, an increase of 74% compared to 2019 and that consumption sites can remediate such overdoses.
The Association of Municipalities of Ontario also released a policy paper which found overdose deaths fell by 42% since these sites were implemented, alleging that no overdoses have occurred at the Toronto location for the past five years.
However, Goldkind argues that the Ford government is simply “moving them away from children and parents, and giving the same rights that the applicants claim for themselves,” which protects the “rights of others, particularly school age kids and their parents.”
The province also pledged nearly $400 million to create 19 new intensive addiction recovery facilities to replace the 10 consumption sites slated to close by March 31.
The new spaces, which will combine addiction recovery with 375 “highly supportive” housing units, have been granted a $378 million budget.
“It’s a perfectly acceptable and responsible tradeoff, and, again, what a democratically elected government is supposed to do,” said Goldkind. “By no means is it cruel and unusual to move the sites a bit away from schools and daycares, that argument should hold little merit, if any, upon close and exacting scrutiny, let alone on its obvious face. If the Charter covers this, then it truly is like ketchup, and can be spread over anything. And that would be a very bad thing indeed.”
Rev Joel St. John pastor of Liberty Church, Bowmanville Ont - Source: True North
Christians need to unite and demand more from their political leaders.
That’s the message from a GTA pastor who helping spearhead a campaign to protect Christians alongside Conservative MP Jamil Jivani and several other clerics.
Rev. Joel St. John, a pastor at Liberty Church in Bowmanville, Ont., says the “Protect Christians Canada” campaign is a “clarion call” for unity to protect churches and Christians across the country.
St. John and members of at least five other church communities in the Durham region banded together to help Jivani draft a petition calling on all governments in Canada to protect the rights of Christians across the country.
“This is not a partisan movement. This is not a movement that’s trying to add to the divisiveness of this time,” he said. “It’s simply a clarion call to Christians in Canada that want to protect what we already have.”
Jivani’s “Protect Christians in Canada” campaign attracted a public endorsement from Jivani’s longtime friend, U.S. Vice-President-elect JD Vance.
The petition calls for governments to protect parental rights, safeguard the rights of medical professionals to conscientiously object to performing euthanasia, protect the legal charity status of churches and Christian charities and strengthen penalties for those who violently target churches.
“Myself and other Christians are concerned, and we’ve been concerned about government and corporate overreach in the different areas of our lives, in our community, workplaces and schools,” St. John told True North in an interview at his church.
St. John helped Jivani craft the petition through numerous conversations, which he said was a culmination of concerns he and other pastors have been hearing from church members. He said the petition gives voice to what many Canadians are perceiving as an “anti-Christian attitude” taken by many governments and corporations in Canada
“We’re not asking for something new. We’re not asking for a bill or any new rights,” St. John said. “We’re saying we already have rights because we’re Canadian citizens. Those rights just need to be protected.”
He noted a rise in church arsons and vandalism incidents since the discovery of soil irregularities at a Kamloops residential school, which were said to be graves of Indigenous students. True North’s exclusive map shows over 100 churches damaged by fire or vandalism since 2021.
St. John said he never thought he’d have to worry about needing extra security at his church. He said community members were contacting him asking if he was planning on increasing security due to arsons at Canadian churches.
He said he hears from church leaders who are concerned about safety with a rise in anti-Christian violence against churches in Canada. Still, they’re also concerned that churches and Christian groups will have their charity status stripped.
“We’re asking for protections for churches, whether it’s their charity status or just a physical building, that if someone does decide just to burn down a church, that the church knows that the government is going to support them, and also that the (arsonist) should be held responsible,” he said.
St. John said Christian groups contribute a lot in Canada and shouldn’t be stripped of their ability to continue to do so.
St. John was clear in pointing out that there is great diversity among Christians in Canada, with many being immigrants from countries such as India, Nigeria or Jamaica, like his mother, who are concerned with the way Christians are treated in Canadian culture.
He thinks that the Protect Christians campaign is something that all Christians, regardless of their diverse traditions and backgrounds, can unite behind.
“Our country is in a moment of choice. I think Christians have an opportunity to share their perspective in a united way on that choice. I think our country’s at a tipping point,” he said.
“This petition, this movement, will help other Christians as well who may be sensing (the anti-Christian culture) and give them a voice in this very volatile but pivotal time in our history.”
Taxpayers are funding the tab for a federal department’s real estate portfolio to the extent of $186 million over the last decade.
This cost and more were revealed by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, which highlighted that Global Affairs Canada owns more than 400 properties in over 70 countries.
One of the expenses is $12.5 million for vacant land in Senegal.
“Do we really need the government dropping tens of millions of dollars on official residences halfway around the world?” asked Franco Terrazzano, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “Better question: does Senegal not have vacant land available for less than eight figures?”
Consul General in New York and former chair of Global Public Affairs, Tom Clark, was previously involved in a spending controversy after the government purchased a $9 million condo in the ultra-luxury area of Billionaires’ Row.
“With the government more than $1 trillion in debt, taxpayers need to know why the government is spending so much of our money overseas,” said Terrazzano.
The federal debt officially doubled during Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s tenure to $1.232 trillion on Aug. 30. He added more to the debt during his time in office than every other prime minister before him combined.
Some of the department’s costs include $58 million on 23 properties since 2015. Global Affairs Canada owns 65 properties in London, U.K., totalling a purchase cost of $208 million.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation highlighted that Global Affairs Canada spent $41 million on three properties in Kabul, Afghanistan. The properties have since allegedly been abandoned to the Taliban.
Terrazzano told True North that Global Affairs Canada is a particularly wasteful department. It is spending an average of $51,000 on alcohol monthly. He added that it also had one of the most wasteful slush funds, which was subsequently shut down after the federation highlighted it.
“When the Trudeau government wastes our money overseas, it can be especially frustrating for struggling taxpayers back home. The big problem is that we continue to see the government waste our Canadian tax dollars on lavish spending around the world,” said Terrazzano.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation previously showcased that the CBC’s real estate portfolio consisted of over $444 million across 12 properties.
The Liberals spent almost $15.5 billion on foreign aid in 2022-23. The department with the most spending was Global Affairs Canada, at nearly $7 billion. Following it was the Department of Finance, at over $6.3 billion and Immigration, Refugees, and Citizenship Canada at just over $1.7 billion.
Conservative MP Arpan Khanna revealed some of the most “outrageous” spending abroad from the Liberals, warning that Trudeau needed to stop funding foreign dictators and “woke global elites.”
Some of the highlighted points included $62 million to protect biodiversity in regions worldwide, including “gender-responsive biodiversity action,” $29.4 million to support small-scale financial institutions in developing countries, $10 million for young entrepreneurs in Egypt’s agribusiness sector, and millions to fund inclusive governance systems.
“Are you kidding me? The guy that has divided Canadians from coast to coast. He pits region against the other region. He attacks people based on their race, their gender, their wealth, their vaccination status,” said Khanna. “He’s divided Canadians right across our country, and he’s funding inclusive governance-building systems? Give me a break.”
True North reached out to Global Affairs Canada but received no reply.
Elon Musk blasted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on X following comments made during his speech at the Equal Voice Foundation gala on Tuesday.
“He’s such an insufferable tool,” said Musk. “Won’t be in power for much longer.”
Musk’s statement was in response to a quote Tweet by Gad Saad, a popular X commentator and Canadian academic.
“There are no words, no sentiments, no non-verbal cues, no telepathic communications that can capture the extent to which this individual is grotesque,” Saad wrote in his original post bashing Trudeau.
In the short video, Trudeau alludes to the fact that D.E.I. should supersede democracy.
“Just a few weeks ago, the United States voted for a second time to not elect its first woman president. Everywhere, women’s rights and women’s progress is under attack — overtly and subtly,” said Trudeau. “But I want you to know that I am and always will be a proud feminist. You will always have an ally in me and in my government.”
Saad took the chance to reply to Musk.
“It is truly astounding, Elon. I warned people repeatedly about him, and yet they allowed their emotional processing to take over when choosing this degenerate idiot,” said Saad. “Many are now writing to me privately saying that they made a mistake in supporting him. It always amazes me that people could be so easily duped.”
Trudeau was not the only person speaking at the event on Tuesday. Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman also gave a speech.
“Most of all, I think we’re divided because we’ve placed diversity of thought on the backburner, in exchange for lofty platitudes of those who believe that all women who hold elected office have to have the same view on every single issue,” said Lantsman.
Trudeau has previously come under fire for his past interactions with women.
Former Conservative MP Candice Bergen previously called out the legacy media for not exposing Trudeau allegedly groping women.
A former Liberal MP, Celina Caesar-Chavannes, also previously called out Trudeau and other of her past colleagues in the Liberal Caucus.
She said that despite the party’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, she was treated merely as a “token.”
“I never had to use my brain at all. It was tokenistic. It was embarrassing,” said Caesar-Chavannes.
She called the Liberal caucus’ stance on feminism and racial progressiveness “fake as f**k.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau previously removed former ministers Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott from cabinet when they opposed him on the SNC-Lavalin affair.
True North compiled a list in 2020 of various inappropriate behaviours from Liberal MPs.
As for Musk’s claim that Trudeau won’t be in power much longer, 338 Canada’s most recent projection from Sunday projects that the Conservatives would win 227 seats. A majority government requires 172 seats. A two-thirds majority, often referred to as a supermajority, requires 226.
True North reached out to the Prime Minister’s office but received no reply.
