A British Columbia school board is apparently so troubled by parents making their voices heard about curriculum matters that they’re now collecting the ID of parents who show up at board meetings.
Meanwhile, a new report shows that 75% of Canadians say their family is paying way too much in taxes. Is there a limit to the amount of taxes Canadians will have to shell out?
And yet another climate activist has vandalized a cultural institution, this time hurling paint on a woolly mammoth statue at a Canadian museum.
Tune into The Daily Brief with Anthony Furey and Lindsay Shepherd!
Freedom Convoy organizer Tamara Lich joins the show to discuss her life after the Freedom Convoy and after the release of the Public Order Emergency Commission report.
On the show, Tamara reflects on the rise of the Freedom Convoy and how it became Canada’s largest movement. Tamara tells us about her experience during the inquiry and the demanding process of going through the justice system.
Also, Tamara sheds light on what she’s planning in the future, including an upcoming book and even a possible run for office.
The NDP are beginning to break ranks with Trudeau’s Liberals over the Chinese election interference scandal. Opposition MPs are currently debating the details of a national public inquiry into foreign interference – which the Prime Minister has refused to commit to opening himself. The NDP and Conservatives are united in their calls to form an inquiry, signalling the first cracks in the foundation that supports Justin Trudeau’s leadership of Canada – his support agreement with the NDP.
Tune in to the latest episode of Ratio’d with Harrison Faulkner!
While NDP leader Jagmeet Singh is taking a pause from TikTok after a federal review found it posed an “unacceptable” privacy and security risk, Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley is still posting videos on the controversial Chinese platform.
Notley posted her latest video on Tuesday — one day after Singh said he would stop using the site and one day before the Alberta government banned it on government devices.
The federal government banned the app from devices earlier this week following the chief information officer of Canada’s review.
Singh, who had a following of 880,000 on TikTok, announced on Monday he was “taking a pause” from the site.
“When security and intelligence agencies express concerns about digital platforms, Canadians expect elected officials to treat them seriously and take necessary action,” Singh said in a statement to the Toronto Star.
In 2020, the Trump administration sought to ban TikTok’s US app, alleging that ByteDance, TikTok’s owner, has a close relationship with Beijing authorities that endangers American’s security. Justice Department officials also said ByteDance is beholden to Chinese laws that may require the company to assist in surveillance and intelligence operations at the direction of the Chinese government.
TikTok denied the allegation and the following June, President Biden signed an executive order revoking Trump’s efforts.
Yet Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, once a prolific and popular user, closed his account on Monday. Quebec, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan also banned use of the app.
That didn’t stop Notley from posting a video to TikTok on Tuesday, in which she criticized UCP education, saying it was cutting spending and hurting vulnerable students.
“That will change under an NDP government,” she said.
The Alberta NDP leader has just under 9,000 followers on the platform. Her content is largely made up of UCP attack ads and some videos promoting NDP candidates. In one video she makes jokes about being short.
The NDP did not respond to a request from True North about whether Notley and the party plan to discontinue use of the platform moving forward. In the past, the party has said it has a policy to “not have dealings” with True North.
On Wednesday, the government announced that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith and Technology and Innovation Minister Nate Glubish directed the Public Service Commission to immediately ban the installation of TikTok and remove any existing instances of the application from Government of Alberta devices.
The decision came “after an analysis of the risks presented by TikTok to government security and the integrity of government decision-making,” the premier’s office said.
A climate activist caused a disturbance at the Royal B.C. Museum on Wednesday morning after throwing pink paint onto the museum’s woolly mammoth exhibit.
Police escorted the protester who was affiliated with the On2Ottawa group out of the building after the incident.
24-year-old climate activist Laura Sullivan staged the affair to launch a “caravan” to the nation’s capital intending to protest the government’s inaction on climate change.
Climate group On2Ottawa just threw paint at the BC Royal Museum's woolly mammoth exhibit.
“I will be going to Ottawa as part of a caravan to demand immediate action to tackle the climate and ecological emergency, and would encourage everyone to join, especially youth,” said Sullivan.
In a statement addressed to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the federal cabinet, On2Ottawa calls for the establishment of a “citizens’ assembly” to decide how Canada will transition its economy to address a climate emergency.
“The government has until April 1, 2023, to begin establishing a citizens’ assembly to decide how Canada’s economy will be transformed to tackle the climate and ecological emergency in the next 2-3 years,” the ultimatum claims.
“If this ultimatum is ignored, or mocked, we will take action to pressure the Canadian government – you – to uphold the demands of this ultimatum: to establish a citizens’ assembly that has legally-binding power to determine how Canada’s economy is to be transformed to appropriately mitigate the climate and ecological emergency.”
Three suspects have since been arrested as a result of the vandalism.
“At 11 a.m. today an incident took place in which Woolly, the iconic and beloved Royal B.C. Museum mammoth, was defaced by activists and pink paint was applied to his tusks,” said the museum.
“Museum security staff safely reprimanded those involved, and called Victoria Police Department who quickly arrived on the scene and took the activists into custody.
In the one month the Alberta government will sit ahead of a spring general election, it plans to table firearms regulations to protect gun owners from the federal firearms confiscation program.
On Wednesday, Government House Leader Joseph Schow announced that firearms legislation will be one of three bills the United Conservative Party government will introduce in the next session.
Schow said a number of Albertans have reached out to him and his colleagues to say they feel federal legislation to confiscate legally purchased firearms is “overreaching.”
“As a province, we’re taking action within our abilities to protect firearms owners,” he said.
“We’re enacting this bill because it’s important that we’re defending Albertans, we’re defending firearm owners in this province and making sure that everyone feels that the government has their back.”
Canadian Coalition for Firearms Rights spokesperson Tracey Wilson said Alberta is once again leading the fight to hold the federal Liberals to account for their failure to address actual crime and violence, while at the same time protecting constituents from government overreach.
“We applaud this move, as we did with Saskatchewan, and implore the federal government to listen to law enforcement and experts across the country calling for bail reform, not gun bans against hunters and sport shooters.”
As part of the proposed legislation, Bill 8, the government will also establish a provincial firearms regulatory system that will promote a safe and responsible use of firearms.
Schow declined to comment on the specifics on the legislation when pressed on Wednesday.
“I’m going to leave that to the minister,” he said. “It’s his bill, I’m going to leave that to him.”
The fourth session of the 30th legislature is expected to last until the end of March. The writ for the general election is expected to drop in early May.
In May 2020, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced he was banning more than 1,500 models of firearms, including AR-15s, through an order in council. He said owners of these guns would have a two-year amnesty period to come into compliance with the prohibition.
The buyback program requires firearms owners to sell their guns to the government or have them rendered inoperable at federal expense.
Under new amendments to Bill C-21, the proposed legislation to codify the order in council, the prohibition now applies to over 1,800 firearms — including those primarily used by hunters, farmers and sport shooters.
Last month, the Federal Court of Canada granted Alberta intervenor status in six ongoing lawsuits against the Liberal government’s firearms ban.
King Charles is booting Prince Harry and Meghan Markle from Frogmore Cottage – their only remaining UK residence.
The couple is in the process of moving their belongings to the United States, where they currently live.
The eviction, first reported by The Sun, comes at a time of increasingly strained relations between the couple and the royal family.
King Charles’ decision comes after Prince Harry reportedly insulted his relatives with personal details of their lives in his memoir Spare.
Among the allegations include claims by Harry that his brother, William, knocked him to the ground during a fight over Meghan, and that Camilla leaked stories to the press.
The Sun reported Buckingham Palace issued an eviction notice following the publication of the book.
It is unclear if the couple will attend King Charles’ coronation in May.
Taking Harry and Meghan’s place at Frogmore will be the disgraced Prince Andrew, who was offered the place instead of the Royal Lodge mansion where he currently resides.
The couple had a short-lived stint in Canada from Nov. 18, 2019 to Jan. 19, 2020 after deciding to lead more “progessive” lives.
Canadians taxpayers had to foot a $56,484 security bill for Harry and Meghan during their residence in the form of RCMP protection.
Following their move to Canada, former public safety minister Bill Blair announced at the time that the Canadian government would stop paying for the couple’s protection.
Polls from the time showed that Canadians were overwhelmingly against footing said bills.
Considering the Conservatives, the NDP and the Bloc Quebecois have publicly banded together in a show of electoral force, an independent public inquiry into China’s alleged interference in the 2019 and 2021 federal elections is almost a certainty.
It would be 172 Opposition votes to the Liberals’ 158, so the final outcome wouldn’t even be close.
What the public would learn, however, is also almost a certainty—a certainty to be “nothing whatsoever” since much of the testimony would fall under national security and would therefore be deemed secret.
Entire transcripts would be redacted.
While multiple media reports have detailed allegations of foreign interference, including attempts to co-opt candidates, the top bureaucrat at the Department of Public Safety told a committee of MPs studying foreign election inference that there are no active RCMP investigations underway into the last election.
“I can confirm that the RCMP is not investigating any of the allegations that are arising from the last election,” said Shawn Tupper, also deputy minister of Emergency Preparedness.
Jody Thomas, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s national security adviser, told MPs on the procedure and House affairs committee that she and other officials have routinely briefed the PM about election interference by China — the “greatest threat,” she said— as well as other bad foreign actors like Russia and Iran.
Trudeau, however, has brushed it all off as if it were no big deal.
A recent survey by Angus Reid, though, has nearly 70% of Canadians believing the federal government is “afraid to stand up” to Beijing amid mounting evidence that the Chinese regime did interfere in Canada’s 2019 and 2021 federal elections.
The poll found those who said they voted for the Conservatives in the last election were most likely to say Ottawa feared Beijing (91%), followed by 78% of past Bloc Québécois voters, 62% of NDP voters, and 46% of Liberal voters.
Last Friday, Global News named Shanghai-born Liberal MP Han Dong (Don Valley North) as one of the 11 candidates China sought to help in the 2019 election.
Global said seniors were bused in to vote for Dong during his nomination battle with his name written on their arm. They reported that Chinese international students in the Toronto area were told to vote for him or lose their visa status.
But it gets curiouser and curiouser. Earlier this month, Dong stood to help unanimously pass Bill C-35 at third reading. The bill was the formalization of the Trudeau government’s childcare deal and was supported by all 323 MPs present.
Moments later, 322 MPs voted to condemn China’s genocide “against Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims.” It was sponsored by a Liberal MP and had the support of every MP in the House. Han Dong, however, had slipped out of the Commons before the vote could be called.
Trudeau has so far ducked calls to launch an inquiry. He has argued the House of Commons committee currently studying interference is the best forum for this sort of investigation, and wholly supported Dong.
He labelled criticisms of Dong as “racist.”
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said, however, that while the Commons committee’s work must continue, the “massive” news that Beijing and its agents may have interfered in Canada’s democratic process also demands an outside review.
And that inquiry, he said, should be chaired by someone who is acceptable to all political parties to ensure its independence.
Three-in-four Canadians think the average family is paying too much in taxes, according to a new report.
The Fraser Institute report released on Thursday shows 74% of Canadians think the average family is paying too much tax to federal, provincial and local governments.
“There is a large discrepancy between what the average family actually pays in total taxes versus what Canadians believe the average family should be paying,” said Fraser Institute associate fiscal director Jake Fuss.
According to the report, the average Canadian family paid 45% of its total income to governments in 2022. Eight-in-ten Canadians said that percentage should drop below 40%. Half said it should go below 26%.
Fuss said the poll speaks to the quality of government services.
“It’s clear that many Canadian families don’t believe they’re getting value from their taxes,” he said.
Four-in-ten Canadians said they were getting poor or very-poor value from government services.
Fuss found 6% of Canadians supported last year’s tax rate – a rate that exceeds 40% of the average family’s income.
The institute based its report on a commissioned Leger poll conducted between January 20 and 22.
