As Canadian cities deal with an unprecedented wave of violent crimes, Statistics Canada data shows that every province except Manitoba and Quebec saw a decline in the number of police officers.
Plus, citing a rise of hate and violence against “2SLGBTQI-plus communities,” the Ontario NDP introduced a bill on Tuesday to designate safety zones of 100 meters around venues where drag queens read to kids.
And the federal government is defending its use of the Emergencies Act in Federal Court this week, facing a challenge by the Canadian Constitution Foundation and Canadian Civil Liberties Association.
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Following a House of Commons report that declares Taiwanese people should determine the fate of the island nation instead of Beijing, the Chinese regime is accusing Canada of foreign interference.
The special committee on the Canada-People’s Republic of China released a report last week calling on the Canadian government to “declare its clear and unwavering commitment that the future of Taiwan must only be the decision of the people of Taiwan.”
According to the Globe and Mail, the report was unanimously supported by all parties.
In response, the China’s embassy in Canada said it “strongly deplores” the House of Commons report. The regime accused Canada of “grossly [interfering] in China’s internal affairs” and considers the report “a flagrant provocation to the Chinese people.”
“The Taiwan question is purely China’s internal affair,” the embassy wrote.
“Resolving the Taiwan question is a matter for the Chinese and brooks no foreign interference.”
Later this month, a group of MPs from all parties will visit Taiwan as a symbol of solidarity with the island nation. When news of the visit first became public, the Chinese government said it was willing to resort to “forceful measures” should Canada interfere in Taiwan.
When U.S. Speaker of the House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in 2022, China claimed her visit was a violation of the One China principle and a threat to China’s national security.
Earlier this month, Canadian Security Intelligence Service officials reportedly leaked documents to the Globe and Mail which alleged Chinese state actors made concerted efforts to interfere in Canada’s elections.
The Ontario NDP introduced a bill on Tuesday to designate safety zones of 100 meters around venues where drag queens read to kids.
NDP MPP Kristyn Wong-Tam’s private member’s bill goes one step further than a similar bylaw recently passed in Calgary as it would apply to the entire province.
“The topic that brings us here is deadly serious,” said Wong-Tam.
“The rise of hate and violence facing the 2SLGBTQI-plus communities, including the drag artists, happening across Ontario and right (across) the nation has been alarming.”
If passed, the bill would allow the attorney general to create designated safety zones which would prohibit protests from happening within the area. Those found violating the zone could receive a $25,000 fine.
MPP @kristynwongtam will be tabling an important bill this afternoon to protect 2SLGBTQI+ communities and drag performers from rising hate crimes.
For months, we’ve been calling on the Ford Conservatives to take action – but they haven’t lifted a finger. Time for action. #onpolipic.twitter.com/b6pTqTzrUW
Last month Calgary City Council voted through two administrative suggestions aimed at curbing the protests against drag queen story hours, citing a rise in discrimination against the LGBT community.
“Specifically, the bylaw would prohibit specified protests from taking place within 100 metres of an entrance to a city operated or other designated recreation facility or library during operational hours and an hour before and after,” Katie Black, general manager of community services, told council.
Protests have flared outside of “drag queen story time” events in Ontario and elsewhere in Canada.
In November, demonstrators gathered outside the Terryberry Library in Hamilton to protest a scheduled drag queen story time aimed at “gender variant” children between the ages of 0 to 4.
The Hamilton Public Library promoted the event, which was initially reported by True North, as a “family-friendly” drag queen story hour.
“Hear family-friendly, culturally diverse stories and songs in celebration of families with 2SLGBTQ+ parent(s) and gender-variant children,” the event descriptor claimed.
The federal government is defending its use of the Emergencies Act in Federal Court this week, facing a challenge by the Canadian Constitution Foundation and Canadian Civil Liberties Association. The federal government has tried to dismiss the challenge as “moot,” given the Emergencies Act is no longer in effect. True North’s Andrew Lawton weighs in.
Also, former CSIS intelligence officer Andrew Kirsch joins to discuss the leak of CSIS documents about China’s interference in Canada’s elections. Plus, Andrew sits down with Canadian Coalition for Firearm Rights spokesperson Tracey Wilson about Justin Trudeau’s war on gun owners.
Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek walked away from the podium after a journalist asked her about supporting the defund the police movement as violent stabbings have prompted growing concerns over public safety.
The Counter Signal’s Keean Bexte questioned Gondek over her past commitments to defunding the police after she announced a new action plan for transit safety after two women were stabbed last week.
In 2021, while still a Ward 3 Councillor, Gondek and eight other members of Calgary City Council voted to defund the Calgary Police Service by $20 million.
Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek walks away from the podium after being asked about her support for the Defund the Police movement and the current rise in violent crimes. pic.twitter.com/j5IEfGV8cU
“Just a handful of months ago you were fighting tooth and nail against increasing the police budget and you were actively supporting defund the police rhetoric. I’m just wondering when you realized that police forces were not optional? Did it take the random stabbings, police officers getting killed to realize it was important to fund police departments?” asked Bexte.
“How can Calgarians trust you when you flip flop on basic issues like public safety?”
Gondek walked away from the podium without answering the question.
In a news conference before City Hall, Gondek announced on Thursday that Calgary transit would double the amount of security present at its stations.
CTrain stations will also have overnight patrols boosted. Pairs of Calgary Police Service officers and community peace officers will be present seven nights a week.
“It will take all orders of government and partners together to make real and meaningful improvement,” said Gondek who spoke alongside Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.
On Tuesday, Smith announced that the provincial government will be directing officials to hire 100 more street-level police officers over the next 18 months to increase the visible law enforcement presence and tackle rising criminal activity in Edmonton and Calgary.
Too many Canadians seem to have forgotten that greed is a sin.
Case in point: Cape Breton University president David Dingwall, who is so focussed on his own self-serving careerist ambitions that he is ruining the lives of international students and Cape Bretoners alike.
Does the name “Dingwall” sound familiar? He’s the former Liberal cabinet minister who proudly proclaimed, “I’m entitled to my entitlements.”
Cape Breton University (CBU) was facing declining enrolment, budget issues, and layoffs until Dingwall dialed up the percentage of international students to more than 70% of the student population. International students pay higher tuition rates because the university does not receive government subsidies for their enrolment.
The university then had to rent out the Cineplex in town because they don’t have enough classroom space, and they bought two buses to shuttle students to school because Sydney, NS doesn’t have the capacity to transport this influx of students.
“Who is studying at the movie theatre?” CTV’s Molly Thomas asked an international student interviewee.
“The Indian community is studying in the movie theatre… I haven’t seen any Canadian students at all,” he answered.
One of Sydney’s food banks, Loaves and Fishes, serves 250 meals a day, mostly to non-Canadian students. This is not specific to Nova Scotia: at the University of British Columbia, international students make up 30% of enrolment, but account for approximately 80% of campus food bank visits. At Ontario’s Conestoga College, a campus survey indicated that 96.5% of food bank visits are by foreign students.
The Cape Breton region has a severe shortage of housing, but Dingwall is content letting international students cram themselves into dilapidated units. One student from India died in a house fire last year – eight international students were living in one side of the duplex, and five in the other.
Oh, I should mention – Dingwall was compensated with a base salary of $392,893 for the year ending March 31, 2022.
A CBU professor who spoke to CTV W5 anonymously said that “75% of the international students would have failed” if they were at a different Canadian university. The professor noted that the students have backgrounds as lawyers, engineers, and computer scientists, but “they’ve never learned English.”
The framing of this issue was strange: if the students should be failing, then fail them… no? But because these international students are a major source of the university’s income, the school won’t fail them, which contributes to poorer educational standards and academic morale on campus for all students.
But as long as Dingwall can bask in glory when CBU’s annual report says that the university is a rapidly growing school, then no matter!
This seems to be a theme with Liberal leadership: ramp up Canada’s intake of immigrants and/or temporary residents to extraordinary, unsustainable levels, causing both Canadians and newcomers to experience a strain in housing, healthcare, and social services. But because the economic growth looks better on paper (whether those numbers are the government’s or the university’s), who cares!
We need to send this message far and wide: Canadians cannot find housing. Canadian families making average salaries are priced out of rentals that aren’t even nice places to live. Canadians cannot afford the groceries that would be maximally nutritious to them. Canadians cannot get their kids daycare spots, and sometimes they can’t get a school spot in their catchment. If you’re coming here from a different country, it’s not going to magically be a better situation for you.
Beware of the types like greedy Dingwall who only want you here to justify their own cushy $400,000 salaries, while you live in a run-down basement with six other strangers.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has directed officials to hire 100 more street-level police officers over the next 18 months to increase the visible law enforcement presence and tackle rising criminal activity in Edmonton and Calgary.
Between July 2022 and January 2023, Edmonton’s LRT and transit centres experienced a 75% increase in violent criminal incidents. In Calgary, overall criminal occurrences at LRT stations increased 46% between 2021 and 2022.
Smith said the province is addressing root causes like mental health and addiction, but won’t compromise on security for Calgarians and Edmontonians meanwhile.
“Safety on public streets is never negotiable,” she said.
“This starts with the federal government reforming its broken catch-and-release bail system and includes us working with cities and police services to fight back against criminals.”
According to a new Leger poll, 68% of Albertans say crime is worse than it was before 2020. Half of the respondents say the situation is a little worse and half say it’s much worse.
Overall, 68% of Albertans say crime is worse than it was before 2020, with half of those respondents saying the current situation is a little worse and half saying it’s much worse. It’s a view that’s consistent among those who intend to vote for the UCP or the NDP in the upcoming provincial election.
That view is consistent among those who support United Conservative Party leader Danielle Smith and Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley.
But, those who plan to vote UCP in this May’s provincial election identify a lack of penalties and lenient sentencing as the biggest reason for increased crime, while intended NDP voters more often name socioeconomic conditions and mental-health issues as key factors.
These views are consistent with statistics tracking the increase in crime.
The average crime severity index in downtown Edmonton has increased 29%, to 116 in December 2022 from 90 in July 2022. This is primarily caused by an increase in serious criminal offences, including second-degree murder, assault causing bodily harm with a weapon, robbery and aggravated assault.
In Edmonton, a person is about twice as likely to be victimized by a stranger at a transit centre than for the city as a whole; 70% at LRT transit versus 36% citywide.
In Calgary, property crime occurrences nearly doubled, increasing 95% to 463 in 2022, up from 238 in 2021. Public-generated calls for service to LRT stations increased to 5,012 in 2022, up 20% from 2021, while officer-generated calls for service to LRT stations increased to 4,305, up 69% from 2021.
Both UCP and NDP voters say drug addiction plays a big role in the data.
The Alberta government is in the process of building six massive recovery centres across the province to treat drug addicts. The Red Deer Recovery Community opened last month.
The new facility is nearly the size of a football field, with 75 beds and the ability to treat up to 300 people per year. There are also recovery communities underway in Lethbridge, Gunn, Calgary, Edmonton and on the Blood Tribe.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has an aversion for the car, even though he gets comfortably chauffeured in a Chevy Suburban by a security detail.
He would like to see all Canadians driving electric vehicles by 2035. He would love it even more if the oil sands closed down.
He is willing to phase in his government’s electric car mandate, of course. But one-fifth of all passenger cars, SUVs and trucks sold in Canada in 2026 will need to run on electricity under new regulations Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault has proposed.
By 2030, the mandate will hit 60% of all sales and by 2035, every passenger vehicle sold in Canada will need to be electric.
It is going to be hell.
Trudeau hates cars so badly, in fact, that between February and March, our car-loathing PM flew in Royal Canadian Air Force executive jets 17 times, roughly once every other day.
Ten of those flights — nearly 60% — were under an hour’s duration. Trudeau, in fact, seems especially in love with the 22-minute flight between Ottawa and Montreal where his Papineau riding is located.
On St. Patrick’s Day, he had the arrogance to add to his already substantial carbon footprint by ordering his jet to come pick him up from an appearance in Waterloo, Ont. — for a flight time of approximately 20 minutes — rather than sticking himself with the hour-long chauffeured drive to Toronto where his jet was parked.
As Sun columnist Lorne Gunter put it, “better Canadian taxpayers be out of pocket than His Holiness, Canada’s 23rd prime minister, having to ride in the back of an – ugh – limo or a – shriek – Chevy Suburban, accompanied by a phalanx of motorcycles and police SUVs.”
But there is already a problem.
In the first six months of 2022, sales of fully electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles made up just 7.2% of new car registrations. For all of 2021, the proportion was 5.2%.
Cara Clairman, president and CEO of Plug’n Drive, a non-profit organization that encourages electric vehicle use, said the toughest part of promoting the change from gas-powered vehicles is availability.
“Long waiting lists are definitely discouraging consumers that are ready to make the switch,” she said. “And if we all agree that we’re in a climate emergency, we need to help consumers make the switch as soon as possible.”
Electric vehicle sales in Canada grew by more than one third in the first half of this year but they are not keeping pace with the rest of the world.
A report on global EV sales released by Bloomberg at the United Nations climate talks in Egypt said battery-electric and plug-in hybrid passenger vehicles accounted for nearly one in every eight vehicles sold worldwide between January and June.
That compares with one in 11 in the same period a year earlier.
Total sales for the period hit 4.3 million, a 70% increase over 2021. Bloomberg says they’re on track to hit 10.6 million vehicles by the end of December, which would be 61% more than in 2021.
Between January and June, 56% of global sales were made in China, 28% in Europe and 11% in the United States.
Canada, which accounted for about 1.5% of all global vehicle sales, was home to less than one per cent of all electric vehicle sales.
The Bloomberg report said Canada is among the countries “catching up” on electric vehicles.
Under Stephen Harper’s governance, relations between the U.S. and Canada were strained.
One of the reasons behind this was the issue of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would send Canadian oil to America.
President Obama vetoed the plan citing environmental concerns, a move which angered Harper who hoped it would create jobs for Canadians.
While Trudeau also claimed to support Keystone XL, he never batted an eye when Joe Biden, on his first day as president, revoked a permit for an add-on to the pipeline.
For Trudeau, all was going according to Hoyle.
Until it wasn’t. Based on average new vehicle registrations, the electric vehicle total would have to grow from 55,600 to about 480,000 over six months to hit that 60% target planned for 2030.
It is a safe bet that it won’t even come close to happening.
Civil liberties groups appeared in federal court today to challenge the government’s use of the Emergencies Act to quell the Freedom Convoy protests under lack of evidence of a serious threat or grounds to invoke the Act.
“What threats of violence did they actually make?” said a lawyer from the Canadian Civil Liberties Association, whose challenge against the Emergencies Act is being heard alongside the Canadian Constitution Foundation’s. “The presence of jerry cans does not constitute a fire hazard and honking horns is not violence.”
“We had no serious injuries and no serious threats according to CSIS.”
The CCLA lawyer argued that the threshold for invoking the Emergencies Act, the country’s strongest powers, was not met during the Freedom Convoy.
“The opinion that some people may have been inspired to commit violence does not constitute the use of the Emergencies Act,” said the lawyer. “It’s clear, there was no real emergency.”
The CCLA also spoke on Covid restrictions in general such as the fact that unvaccinated Canadians were prevented from entering many public spaces such as bars, restaurants and libraries, and for several months were barred from leaving the country.
“The Freedom Convoy gave a voice to people all over the world. They had a country they had a movement they could attach themselves to. Public opinion was changing.”
The CCLA recalled the clearing of the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor as an example of being able to clear protests under existing laws, making the invocation of the Emergencies Act unnecessary.
“The Trudeau government’s use of this extraordinary law may be the most severe example of overreach and violations of civil liberties seen during the pandemic,” said Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF) Litigation Director Christine Van Geyn. “The use of this powerful law was unauthorized because the legal threshold to use the law was not met.”
“Review through the courts is now the last remaining guardrail of accountability,” said Van Geyn.
In its official report released in February, the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) has ruled that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s use of the Emergencies Act to quash Freedom Convoy protesters last year was justified.
According to Commissioner Paul Rouleau, the federal government’s invocation “was appropriate” and in accordance with the requirements set out by the emergency legislation. The report also stated that legacy media outlets amplified disinformation about the Freedom Convoy.
During the POEC hearings, the former deputy minister for public safety Rob Stewart confirmed that CSIS advised the federal cabinet that the Freedom Convoy did not pose a national security threat.
The Director of CSIS, David Vigneault, told the federal cabinet, “at no point did the Service (CSIS) assess that the protests in Ottawa or elsewhere constituted a threat to national security as defined by Section 2 of the CSIS Act,” and “CSIS cannot investigate activity constituting lawful protest.”
Early in the hearings, Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) intelligence officer Pat Morris confirmed that there was no intelligence that indicated the Freedom Convoy met the legal threshold required for the federal government to invoke the Emergencies Act.
The federal court hearings are expected to go until Wednesday.
Editor’s Note: This article has been updated to reflect the fact that Steven Sofer does not represent the CCLA.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s legal team is telling CBC News to retract a recent news story about contact her office has had with Justice officials over Coutts border blockade charges, saying the outlet is seeking to revive a “manufactured controversy.”
Plus, a violent attack on a transit bus in Surrey over the weekend is deemed a terrorist attack by the RCMP.
And the prime minister’s official residence at 24 Sussex was closed following the discovery of walls filled with dead rodents.
These stories and more on The Daily Brief with Rachel Emmanuel and Lindsay Shepherd!
