The mayor of Merritt, British Columbia wants the provincial health authority to bring back unvaccinated healthcare workers who were fired due to provincial Covid-19 vaccine mandates, as the city faces protests over repeat emergency room closures in the city and across the province.
On Saturday, a group of Nicola Valley residents demonstrated against the 10th closure of the local emergency department since December.
Mayor Mike Goetz has made a request to Interior Health to drop remaining Covid-19 vaccination requirements and hire back the unvaccinated healthcare workers who were put on leave.
“This hospital, years ago, was a fully functional hospital. All 40 beds were out. We had surgeons, we had babies born here. This is not a magical situation. It’s happened before and it needs to be returned to that,” said Goetz.
Goetz is expected to discuss the issue with the province’s Health Minister Adrian Dix this week.
Protest organizer Georgia Clement has accused Interior Health of putting politics before the safety of British Columbians.
“People here are in danger. (Interior Health) is making decisions and they’re playing with our lives. They’re playing politics with our lives — literally,” organizer Georgia Clement told CFJC Today.
The town’s emergency department was forced to shutter its doors due to a staff shortage and those seeking emergency services are required to drive an hour or more to Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops or Kelowna General Hospital.
One of those attending the demonstration said her father died earlier this year after he was sent home by the hospital.
“The hospital was closing in two hours. They sent him on his way home. Last thing I remember my dad saying was, ‘I’m scared.’ But he passed away in the night,” said Melanie Griffiths.
Prominent Canadian scholar, author and public policy expert Brian Lee Crowley is denouncing calls to rename McGill University over claims of “violent, colonial and racist origins” as “absolute nonsense.”
Last week, student paper The McGill Tribuneannounced it was dropping “McGill” from its name, and called on its university to follow suit.
“McGill frames its founder as a philanthropist, but hardly acknowledges that the donated fortune, the gift that ensured he would be our namesake, was amassed through the exploitation of enslaved people in Canada, the Caribbean, and the slave trade more broadly,” wrote The Tribune’s Editorial Board.
In an interview with True North, Crowley, who studied at McGill, described calls to rename the institution as “absolute nonsense.” He added that those advocating for the move “claim that they’re acting on behalf of morality and a better understanding of history. And they know nothing of history and even less of morality.”
“They are ungrateful vandals who are denying the great institution that James McGill helped to found with his own money, which has served literally centuries worth of Canadians and people from all around the world.”
Crowley says that while James McGill was a slave owner, the latter was “completely legal and normal in his time, completely accepted by his peers.” He added that Mr. McGill “was a member of a society and a culture that ultimately for the first time in history abolished slavery.”
“There is no other example that I’m aware of in the history of the world in which a country that benefited from slavery made a conscious decision to give it up, and not only to give it up, but to then spend enormous resources combating the slave trade.”
This is not the first time that The Tribune and other woke student activists have called for the cancellation of James McGill. The University removed a statue of its founder in July 2021 amid demands that it be replaced by a tree. Before its removal, the statue had also been the subject of vandalism.
Statue of James McGill covered in red paint. McGill University campus, Montreal. pic.twitter.com/YPUpHhckIG
McGill has also recently renamed its sports team, the Redmen, to the “McGill Redbirds and Martlets” in 2020 amid students finding the former name to be offensive to Indigenous peoples.
However, Crowley believes it’s unlikely that McGill University will follow in the footsteps of Ryerson University, which changed its name to Toronto Metropolitan University amid accusations that Egerton Ryerson was responsible for the residential school system. Crowley says a McGill name change would anger alumni, including himself.
“If (the name change) does happen, I think there will be a reckoning later on. I can’t imagine that the alumni of McGill, on whom McGill depends for quite a lot of money, would be prepared to go along with this,” he said.
In an email to True North, McGill said that “many universities are presently confronted by the need to acknowledge, with humility and honesty, some historical facts within their own past and within the histories of those who have shaped these institutions. Our university is no exception.”
“McGill University recognizes that the wealth leading to its establishment was derived, in part, from James McGill’s engagement in the colonial economic system and the transatlantic slave trade. The University has taken steps to recognize publicly the complexity of his life, including through our website.”
Crowley says he has no issue with McGill being more transparent about its founder and his ties to slavery, but says, “the idea that we should be embarrassed by him, that we should cancel him, that we should remove him from the historical record, is I think completely unacceptable and completely contrary to the quest for truth to which all universities, including McGill, should be devoted to”
He added that woke student activists should “get a life, learn some history, take a genuine course in the philosophy and ethics of history, and stop messing with things you don’t understand in order to make yourself feel better.”
Crowley is the Managing Director of the Macdonald-Laurier Institute, the author of several books, and a frequent columnist and political commentator. He holds degrees from McGill University and the London School of Economics.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) heavily criticized the demands made by The Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC), saying federal employees are “out of touch” and are asking too much while Canadians are struggling to make ends meet.
“Canadians don’t feel sorry for the privileged bureaucrats on strike who took pay raises during the pandemic and never worry about losing their job,” said Franco Terrazzano, Federal Director of the CTF. “These bureaucrats are living a privileged life and now they want to take billions more from taxpayers who are worried about making their mortgage payments and struggling to afford gas and groceries.”
PSAC demanded up to 47% compensation increases over three years, according to the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, which would cost taxpayers $9.3 billion.
312,825 federal employees received a pay raise during the pandemic, according to the CTF. 74,925 public employees made more than $100,000 per year which is up from 43,424 since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took office.
“Taxpayers paid for hundreds of thousands of pay raises, hundreds of millions in bonuses and tens of thousands of new employees over the last few years and now bureaucrats are demanding billions more,” Terrazzano said. “Enough is enough. The government must reject PSAC’s unaffordable, unsustainable and out-of-touch demands.”
The average pay for a full-time federal employee is $125,300 including pension and benefits, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
After beginning their strike at midnight Wednesday, PSAC has detailed services that will be affected including income tax and benefit returns from the Canada Revenue Agency.
“Benefits to Canada’s most vulnerable will be unaffected, including payments for income security Canadians rely on to pay their bills,” said Jeffrey Vallis, a representative of PSAC told True North. “Our workers who ensure public safety will continue to work, including the Coast Guard, firefighters, and critical government operations.”
“Some emergency visa and passport applications will be processed based on extreme need.”
Services such as the Canadian Transport Agency, Veterans Affairs Canada, Canada Pension Plan, Old Age Security, and Employment Insurance are considered essential services but may see some delays.
Canadians can expect disruptions such as issuing of licenses, certifications, new benefit requests, and increased wait times when accessing federal services during the strike.
The federal government has not been able to reach a deal with the Public Service Alliance of Canada and as a result, a strike began at midnight today.
Plus, as Prime Minister Justin Trudeau takes aim at “American billionaire” Elon Musk for labelling the CBC as a “Government-funded media” on Twitter, filings with the United States’ Federal Election Commission show that CBC CEO Catherine Tait donated to the presidential campaign of Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016.
And Alberta’s United Conservative Party government could introduce a law to force drug addicts into treatment, if reelected in May’s provincial election.
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The federal government has not been able to reach a deal with the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) by their 9 pm deadline and a strike will commence at midnight tonight.
PSAC represents roughly 35,000 workers at the Canada Revenue Agency and 120,000 employees in a variety of departments, including tradespeople, teachers, firefighters, Employment Insurance and Immigration workers.
Canadians can expect serious delays and longer wait times in the last weeks before the tax deadline, especially those filed on paper.
National PSAC President Chris Aylward said the bargaining teams would remain at the table throughout the strike.
Aylward told reporters on Monday that workers are prepared to strike for “however long it takes.”
The union and the federal government have made progress over the last few weeks but still have major disagreements that have not been addressed such as wages and remote work, said Aylward in a Monday morning press conference.
After PSAC members voted overwhelmingly in favour of striking earlier this month, a spokesperson for the CRA told Global News that there is no plan to extend the deadline for Canadians who still need to file their taxes.
The Union of Taxation Employees requested a 14-month backdated pay raise of 4.5%, a 2-month backdated pay raise of 8%, a future pay raise of 8% and a one-time pay increase of 9%, adding up to nearly 30% in raises.
Filings with the United States’ Federal Election Commission (FEC) show that CBC CEO Catherine Tait donated to the presidential campaign of Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton in 2016.
Tait’s contribution record lists Brooklyn, New York as her residence and the production company she founded in 2002, Duopoly Inc., as her employer, raising questions about the CBC CEO’s relationship to the United States.
PM @JustinTrudeau is triggered by "American billionaire" @elonmusk labeling a public broadcaster but won't say a word about the CBC's CEO, Catherine Tait, being an American Democrat donor@FEC records show Tait contributed to Hillary Clinton's run for president in 2016. pic.twitter.com/JxJeBgGV6Q
She was first appointed as president and CEO of the public broadcaster in 2018, nearly two years after she made the $150 donation.
CBC has recently come under public scrutiny after it was labeled a “government-funded media” outlet by Twitter CEO Elon Musk shortly after a request from Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.
In response to the label, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau criticized Poilievre for running to “an American billionaire” by criticizing the CBC.
“When they’re trying to attack a foundational Canadian institution, the fact that he has to run to American billionaires for support to attack Canadians says a lot about Mr. Poilievre and his values,” said Trudeau.
Liberal MP Mark Gerretsen has also called Musk’s Canadian citizenship into question on Twitter.
That’s a stretch.
He was in Canada from ‘89 to ‘92, two of those years in Kingston at Queen’s University. Transferred to University of Pennsylvania. Made all his billions in USA.
Yet at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, Tait’s own status as a Canadian citizen was also brought into question after the online outlet Canadaland published an article revealing how the CBC CEO owned a $5.4 million residence in Brooklyn, New York with her husband.
It was also revealed how Tait regularly traveled to the United States, despite pandemic-related travel restrictions being in place at the time.
According to CBC, Tait was required to take a second residence in Canada in order to comply with the broadcaster’s requirements.
After Elon Musk correctly labeled the CBC as a “Government-funded media” outlet on Twitter, the state broadcaster decided to rage quit the platform. Musk really pissed off the man who signs the CBC’s cheques — Justin Trudeau. And as always, when Trudeau is angry, he attacks the Conservatives.
Despite the fact that the CBC receives $1.2 billion annually from the government and even openly admits to being government-funded on financial documents, they think they shouldn’t have to be accurately labeled on Twitter. In response, Musk hit them with the even more humiliating “69% Government-funded label.”
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All but one of the MLAs present at the BC Legislature on Monday evening voted to condemn the Freedom Convoy and applaud lockdowns and vaccine mandates.
“Be it resolved that one year after the anti-vaccine protests in Ottawa and communities including Victoria, South Surrey, Kelowna and Cranbrook, this House denounces the freedom convoy protests and affirms that public health orders, including vaccine requirements, have been an essential tool in B.C.’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic,” the motion read.
The motion received 64 yeas and 1 nay from lone BC Conservative John Rustad. 20 MLAs skipped the vote, including both BC Green Party members.
BC United leader Kevin Falcon was amongst those who did not register a vote.
“Many BC United MLAs who call themselves ‘conservative’ simply didn’t show up,” Rustad wrote on Twitter.
“Their silence speaks volumes.”
In December 2020, BC NDP Public Safety Minister Mike Farnworth called anti-mask mandate protesters “irresponsible idiots.”
“They are the problem and the sooner we get this curve bent down, the sooner we get COVID under control, then they can go back to their narcissistic self-indulgent ways – but until that time, they don’t have the right to endanger the health of the public,” said Farnworth at the time.
No Covid-19 outbreaks in BC were ever connected to anti-mask mandate protests.
The Freedom Convoy protesters were nonviolent, and many protest attendees reported a jovial, party-like atmosphere in Ottawa during the winter of 2022, where bouncy castles and hot chocolate were on offer.
Approximately 2,500 healthcare workers in BC were fired after declining the Covid-19 vaccine. Meanwhile, hospitals are understaffed and some rural emergency departments had to close for long periods of time due to insufficient staffing.
Government-enforced lockdowns led to poorer social-emotional development and academic outcomes in children that were banned from attending school, as well as a deterioration in mental health.
Due to lockdowns, individuals lost their businesses, lost the opportunity to attend the funerals of loved ones, and lost the chance to participate in milestone celebrations like graduations and weddings.
According to a Fraser Institute report authored by Simon Fraser University economics professor Douglas Allen, “The most recent and thorough meta-analysis found that after combining all lockdown effects there was only an average reduction in mortality of 3.2 percent.”
“All of the lockdown efforts amounted to almost nothing.”
Canada’s state broadcaster, CBC, is pausing its use of Twitter just one day after Twitter slapped a “government-funded media” label on its main account. CBC has condemned the label and asserted its “independence” as a broadcaster. Justin Trudeau has accused Pierre Poilievre of cozying up with “American billionaires” and attacking the media.
Also, antisemitism was on full display at the Al-Quds Day in Toronto on the weekend. Yet none of the NDP politicians who want to ban protests at drag storytime hours have said a peep, True North’s Andrew Lawton notes.
Alberta’s United Conservative Party government could introduce a law to force drug addicts into treatment, if reelected in May’s provincial election.
According to documents obtained by The Globe and Mail through an access-to-information request, the government has considered introducing a law to place those with severe drug addiction into treatment without their consent.
The legislation would be the first involuntary treatment law in Canada to specifically target addiction. The bill would be called the “Compassionate Intervention Act,” and could be introduced in the legislature at some point this year.
Colin Aitchison, spokesperson to Addictions and Mental Health Minister Nicholas Milliken, said the premier tasked the office with bringing forward recommendations to improve interventions for Albertans with addiction who may be a danger to themselves or others. He said the Compassionate Intervention Act was put forward as part of the effort to explore a variety of options.
“As of this time, no decisions have been made by the Government of Alberta,” Aitchison told True North.
“We will continue to build out a full continuum of care, including prevention, intervention, treatment and recovery, where all Albertans who are struggling with addiction can be compassionately supported in their pursuit of recovery.”
Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley, who does not respond to inquiries from True North, told the Globe that the legislation is too punitive and “ is doomed to failure, both from a treatment perspective and a legal one.”
“Effective and lasting treatment meets people where they’re at and supports them in taking a different path,” Notley said in a statement. “I strongly expect that the courts would strike down an approach that forcibly confines Albertans who have not been convicted of a crime.”
Since forming government in 2019, the UCP government has spent millions to develop a wide-ranging addiction recovery program unlike anything else in Canada.
That includes six massive recovery communities currently being built by the province. The first of those opened in north Red Deer earlier this year. It’s nearly the size of a football field, has 75 beds, and the ability to treat up to 300 people per year.
The government’s addictions recovery efforts have been headed up by Marshall Smith, a recovered Vancouver drug addict who was hired by former premier Jason Kenney to head up the province’s addictions and recovery ministry. Smith was promoted as the new premier’s chief of staff in October.
In an interview with True North late last year, Smith said his appointment “without a question” signifies the seriousness with which the premier considers the addictions crisis. He also said there’s been a change in how addictions are viewed, which guides the systems of implementation.
“Simply, our view is that people have the right to recover and get well. They have the right to individual choice and the freedom of choice. They have the right to be unencumbered in their pursuit of a better life for themselves.”
