Hay Lakes church destroyed by suspicious fire

Andrew Kozak
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Hay Lakes church destroyed by suspicious fire

Another church in Canada has been set ablaze and destroyed.

On New Year’s Eve, St. Joseph Lutheran Church in Hay Lakes, Alb. was completely burned down.

The church was originally built in 1915.

First responders arrived on the scene at 11:30 pm and found the church “completely engulfed in flames.” Wetaskiwin RCMP say the fire was intentionally set.

“Despite efforts of the first responders, the church was completely burned,” an RCMP release stated.

Hay Lakes Fire Chief Bryce Wolfe told the Canadian Press that nobody was hurt in the incident, but questioned why anybody would burn down a church. 

“Main concern is no one was hurt, but at the same time it’s a lot of history loss…a lot of the community around here has been involved for generations,” said Wolfe.

“What is the motive…for burning down a church?”

In 2021, True North compiled a map of the nearly 70 cases of arson and vandalism targeting churches across Canada since the announcement of the apparent discovery of graves found near a residential school in Kamloops, BC.

In May 2022, Conservative MP Dane Lloyd grilled officials from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and Public Safety Canada for ignoring the torching of churches across the country.

Lloyd questioned three officials with the security agencies during a May 12 Commons public safety committee meeting on ideologically motivated violent extremism.

“It would be nice to have a statement of at least concern for these communities from CSIS considering the fact that at 4 a.m. in the morning in my town of Morinville over 50 people had to be evacuated from their homes because a church was burned down, and there was a massive threat that a senior’s home apartments were going to be burned to the ground,” said Lloyd. 

“This could have been one of the highest mass casualty terrorist events on Canadian soil in our modern history, and yet it doesn’t seem to have merited a single mention by our security service so I want to put that on the record.”

The RCMP is asking anyone with information about the suspicious fire in Hay Lakes to call them at 780-312-7200 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.

BONOKOSKI: The push to rein in Mary Simon’s free-spending ways

Mark Bonokoski
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Like a dog on a bone, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation is doubling down on getting Gov.-Gen. Mary Simon to rein in her free-spending ways and publicly contain her extravagance by posting her expenses.

Carpaccio anyone? Beef Wellington?

Martini with an olive?

The focus of the federation’s frustration, of course, is Simon’s week-long trip to the Middle East late last year with an assortment of dignitaries, during which nearly $100,000 was spent on in-flight meals.

Simon insisted the “meals are not very extravagant on these trips” and “they’re pretty much like airline meals.”

Airline meals? Indeed, they did have “eggs” and they did have “omelettes” as Simon’s deputy secretary told a Parliamentary committee, but the omelettes came poshed-up with “Boursin cheese, sliced chives and sundried tomatoes, a side of grilled artisan pork sausages and sauteed button mushrooms.”

The flight menus included “beef Wellington with red jus” and “pan fried chicken scallopini in creamy mushroom wine reduction sauce.” Buttery chicken tikka masala, apple and cranberry stuffed pork tenderloin, beef carpaccio and about $190 worth of “VIP sliced fruit” were also on the menus.

As the federation put it, that’s not exactly “like airline meals” that most Canadians are accustomed to, as Simon had claimed.

The bureaucrats tasked with trotting the vice-regal around the globe repeatedly told the committee that they could not provide the in-flight catering receipts because they’d been lost.

The trouble with that, however, is that the lost receipts had already been found by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. 

And second to that trouble, the Office of the Secretary to the Governor General is not subject to access-to-information requests. That needs to change, just as the governor-general and her office need to be part of transparency legislation.

Extravagance has its limits.

Gone are the days when a Tory cabinet minister named Bev Oda could be driven out of politics because she expensed a $16 glass of orange juice at London’s Savoy Hotel while on a business trip.

“Our government believes very much that all ministers must respect taxpayer dollars,” said the Conservative government’s House leader at the time, Peter Van Loan, in response to a barrage of questions in the House of Commons. “The minister of course has repaid the costs in question.”

Today, however, we have the era of Liberal PM Justin Trudeau, where we instead have someone with the audacity to bunk up for a week in a $6,000 a night hotel room while attending the London funeral of Queen Elizabeth II.

No one has yet to cough up who it was, and Liberal government House leader Mark Holland has yet to make a comment as Van Loan did when it came to Oda’s situation.

Still, that is the $42,000 question that taxpayers would like to see answered, (seven nights at $6,000 per) but the prime minister, too, is remaining mute.

When it comes to Mary Simon’s spendthrift ways, though, the CTF’s federal director Franco Terrazzano said, “politicians should push for budget cuts. That’s how a serious government would deal with frivolous spending.

“If bureaucrats have so much money that they can blow nearly $100,000 on in-flight catering, then Rideau Hall doesn’t need $34 million from taxpayers every year.”

After being dragged back to committee, the bureaucrats promised to cut back on future flight costs. They say they will reduce meal options, limit special requests and offer “minimal” snacks. 

“Drink garnishes will be eliminated from service,” the government’s chief of protocol Stewart Wheeler told the committee.

No martini with an olive? No twist of lemon?

Don’t laugh. Thirty years ago, American Airlines made a startling discovery. It determined that eliminating one olive from each passenger’s first-class salad plate would reduce costs by $40,000 a year.

The story made international headlines. 

The Alberta Roundup | Smith challenges Notley to stand up to Trudeau

Rachel Parker
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The Alberta Roundup | Smith challenges Notley to stand up to Trudeau

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is pushing back against the Trudeau government’s “Just Transition” bill, which Smith claims will shut down Alberta’s energy sector. The premier is also calling on Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley to “put aside partisanship” and join the UCP government in its opposition to the federal bill.

Plus, Alberta became the first province to announce a permanent tax relief program, which took effect in the new year.

And Premier Smith rejects a call to reimpose a mask mandate in indoor spaces by the United Nurses of Alberta.

These stories and more on The Alberta Roundup with Rachel Emmanuel!

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OP-ED: The so-called “just transition” will leave Canadians cold and in the dark

Gregory Tobin
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Gregory Tobin is the Digital Strategy Director for the Canada Strong & Proud network of pages. Working in graphic design, video editing, social media management and much more. His career has seen him work on numerous political campaigns across the country.

A key theme in all the best Christmas films is when characters experience distressing moments that cause them to rethink their outlook on life.

One thinks of the Grinch, Scrooge, or George Bailey. They find their Christmas spirit and make the compassionate choice to be optimistic, and give up their old bad ways.

One person for whom that doesn’t seem to have happened over Christmas, though, is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and his “just transition” agenda.

Bah humbug, I guess.

So what is the “just transition”? At its most basic level, it is a plan to phase out Canada’s best in the world oil and gas industry. Leaving us with only unreliable and intermittent wind turbines and solar panels for our energy sources. And any fuels we do use are imported from countries like Saudi Arabia and the United States.

It also means replacing all oil and gas jobs in Canada – some of the highest paying jobs in the country and frankly the world – with jobs like solar panel installer.

It’s unrealistic, but the Trudeau government is full steam ahead on it. 

Natural Resources Minister, Johnathan Wilkinson, made a new year’s announcement that 2023 will see new legislation on the matter brought forward. They’ve even brought on board NDP MP Charlie Angus to help draft the legislation – another unfortunate sign that the Liberals have gone quite far left in their agenda.

And with every passing item on their agenda, our allies outperform us. Leaving Canada playing catch-up, if the government even bothers to catch up at all.

In 2015 the United States exported zero LNG. But in 2022, America became the world’s largest exporter of Liquified Natural Gas (LNG). It is simply ridiculous that Canada isn’t at the top of that list. We have the best product, made to the best standard, made by the best workers in the field, with extremely low emissions. The only thing stopping us from getting the product to market is government willpower.

America is also becoming a leader in Carbon Tech – which is using technology to reduce emissions, or even remove CO2 emissions from the air and re-use it as an ingredient in all kinds of things like concrete, alcohol, carbon nanotubing and much more. Again, something Canada is doing, but should be the world leader in.

We’re already experiencing something called “carbon leakage” – which occurs when Canada stops producing a given product, due to government efforts to reduce domestic emissions. But the demand for that product is still there, and so buyers end up going to places like China – who are happy to sell their coal and other products which are made with little to no environmental standards at all.

And because of the government’s lagging behind, we’re also going to see “job leakage” start to occur. Where workers who aren’t interested in being solar panel installers will go to the States or elsewhere to make big bucks in the Carbon Tech engineering world.

But Trudeau does not seem to want to make Canada #1. And because of his attachment to an outdated eco-radical ideology, we have left it up to countries like Qatar and the United States to sell their LNG to the European nations begging for it. And they’ll make billions.

Billions that could pay for hospitals, schools, roads, doctors, teachers, and good-paying jobs. Imagine if it was us benefiting instead?

Sadly, Trudeau fails to see the case for selling natural gas to a continent freezing to death. And also fails to see the case for capturing carbon while the world grapples with an emissions problem. It’s very frustrating.

But so long as the prime minister can say he cut some domestic emissions somewhere, he is happy to do it, even if it leaves Canada behind.

This “just transition” off of oil and gas and nuclear is what has left Europe burning garbage to keep their kids warm. We cannot allow the same crisis to come to our shores.

Canadians deserve better. 

Let’s work towards an energy transformation – driven by innovation – that will allow us to continue using the energy and products we make here, to the best standards in the world, use Carbon Tech to make it all low emissions, and sell those products to a world that needs them.

What we don’t need is more of the same old top-down bureaucratic ideas that don’t work, from a tired government, that leaves us and our allies cold and in the dark.

US engineering company opening shop in Alberta citing “uptick of business”

Cosmin Dzsurdzsa
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US engineering company opening shop in Alberta citing “uptick of business”

Despite claims by NDP leader Rachel Notley that Premier Danielle Smith’s Sovereignty Act would drive business away from Alberta, a US engineering company that supplies the energy industry is opening up shop in Clairmont.

Vulcan Industrial cited “rising demand” as a reason behind the Houston-based company’s decision to open up shop in Western Alberta. 

“Vulcan Industrial is adding a location in Western Alberta, Canada to ensure support for its growing business in the region,” said spokesperson Tanner Ford. 

“The expansion comes as a result of consistent business growth in the region.”

Company president Simon Lawrie hopes that the new warehouse and service facility will improve the energy supply chain for hydrofracking developments throughout western Canada.

“By staging these mission-critical pieces of hydraulic fracturing hardware, consumables and service personnel near concentrated hydraulic fracturing activity in Alberta and British Columbia, we’re helping fleets add more value and create efficiencies across the energy supply chain,” said Lawrie.

“Customer response to this continued investment in the region has already been overwhelmingly positive.”

Several oil and gas companies have announced plans to expand operations and increase investment in Alberta in 2023, including Suncor Energy which indicated it would boost capital spending to $5.6 billion or an 11% increase when compared to 2022.

MEG Energy has also reported double-digit increases in spending for this year. 

Responding to claims that the Sovereignty Act was driving business out of Alberta, the head of Cenovus said that he hasn’t heard concerns from any investors in the industry about the legislation. 

“I have not heard anything from investors worrying about that at this point,” said CEO Alex Pourbaix.

“Pourbaix downplayed statements issued by the Calgary Chamber of Commerce and the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers expressing concerns about the bill scaring off investors from Alberta.”

In December, Notley claimed that the Act would “make matters worse” for Alberta, citing statements made by a number of business groups that expressed concern about the bill. 

“The job-killing Sovereignty Act will only continue to make matters worse. We have heard from chambers, business associations and energy stakeholders that the mere notion of this legislation already put a chill on investment and job creation,” claimed Notley on Dec. 2. 

Notley has called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to intervene and put a stop to the bill but her party has since walked back on the statement claiming that Notley was not referring to the federal government.

“To be clear – the Alberta NDP is calling for the provincial government to revoke Bill 1, but we are NOT calling for the federal government to disallow it,” said NDP spokesperson Benjamin Alldritt. 

Nearly three in ten Canadians no longer interested in getting a Covid shot

Cosmin Dzsurdzsa
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Nearly three in ten Canadians no longer interested in getting a Covid shot

A new poll found that more Canadians than ever are not interested in getting another Covid-19 shot. 

The survey was conducted by Ipsos for Global News and included 1,004 adults contacted between Dec. 14 and Dec. 16, 2022. 

Although 58% of people polled said they had recently been vaccinated, nearly 30% indicated they don’t plan on getting a shot.

Ipsos senior vice-president Sean Simpson told the outlet that the decline is significant compared to the vast majority of Canadians who indicated a desire to be vaccinated against Covid-19 at the beginning of the pandemic. 

“A lot of people were on board with getting it either because they felt that was the appropriate thing to do or because that was what the threshold was in order to be able to get your passport and do things without that stick or carrot, as it were,” said Simpson. 

“Again, it was up (at) 80, 85 per cent when vaccines first came out… A lot of people are saying, ‘That’s it, that’s enough for me. I’ve done what I was required to do and I’m not going to volunteer to get any more shots.’”

Additionally, under 40% of those polled also indicated that the virus was no longer of concern to them. 

“What’s really interesting about the evolution of this disease and public opinion on the disease is two years ago, there was pretty well a consensus in Canada: COVID was a concern. There was very strong support for mandatory vaccinations, for restrictions on travel, et cetera,” said Simpson. 

“Now that we’re almost nearing the three-year mark, we have nothing close to a consensus and we can’t even necessarily agree that it is an ongoing concern.”

Another recent poll conducted by Research Co. last month found that 75% of Canadians believed that the Covid-19 pandemic was “behind us.” 

The figure represents a 7% increase when compared to August. 

Canada sinks into $41 million trade deficit defying growth expectations

Cosmin Dzsurdzsa
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0
Canada sinks into $41 million trade deficit defying growth expectations

The latest Statistics Canada data on merchandise exports show Canada entering into a $41 million trade deficit in November despite predictions of growth the month prior. 

Statistics Canada’s report Canadian international merchandise trade, November 2022 shows that exports fell by 2.3% with imports also decreasing by 2.1%.

According to the department, the decrease was partly due to a 4.7% decline in energy sector exports due to a drop in prices, however, a majority of sectors measured also saw significant declines. 

“Lower prices were behind the decrease in natural gas exports (-13.1%), coinciding with relatively mild November temperatures in the United States, as well as rising production in that country,” wrote analysts. 

Energy products were followed by consumer goods and motor vehicles and parts.  The only sectors that saw a growth in month-over-month change were fishing and food products as well as metal and non-metallic mineral products. 

In response to the report, senior economist at Capital Economics Stephen Brown predicted that exports and imports will weaken further. 

“Lower commodity prices have now wiped out the goods trade surplus, while the falls in export and import volumes present downside risks to the preliminary estimate that GDP edged up in November,” wrote Brown. “The latest surveys suggest that export and import volumes will weaken further.”

Economists have predicted that Canada could enter into a recession early on in 2023 – if it already isn’t in one. 

Bank of Canada governor Tiff Macklem recently said that growth in jobs could help alleviate some of the pain that comes with the predicted downturn in the economy. 

“Because the labour market is so hot and we have an exceptionally high number of vacant jobs, there is scope to cool the labour market without causing the kind of large surge in unemployment that we have typically experienced in recessions,” said Macklem in November.

Fake News Friday | Poilievre takes on F*** Trudeau flags

Andrew Lawton
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Fake News Friday | Poilievre takes on F*** Trudeau flags

With less than a week into the new year, the knives are already out for Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre after he apparently didn’t go far enough in denouncing the anti-Trudeau flags from the Freedom Convoy. Even though he clearly stated that he isn’t a fan of them, the “experts” are saying he is stoking divisions.

Next on the show, the CBC lazily illustrates wealth inequality by releasing its annual attack on Canadians who make too much money. Not only that, but they have a solution, just add another tax!

Lastly, a public servant who has worked from home during the pandemic criticizes the government’s hybrid work model that will ask employees to return to the office for two days a week. Work? On no!

Tune into Fake News Friday with Andrew Lawton and Harrison Faulkner on True North!

44-year-old Montreal man died attempting to cross into the US via Roxham Road

Cosmin Dzsurdzsa
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44-year-old Montreal man died attempting to cross into the US via Roxham Road

A 44-year-old Montreal man has died attempting to cross the illegal Roxham Road border crossing into the US. 

On Friday, the Sûreté du Québec (SQ) announced that the body of Fritznel Richard was discovered by a US border services helicopter on the Canadian side of the border. 

“Mr. Fritznel would have tried, according to the investigation, to join a member of his family living in the United States and would have died during this unfortunate attempt,” said an SQ press release. 

“A coroner’s inquest should be carried out in order to find the specific cause or causes as well as the circumstances of the death.” 

At the moment, Richard’s body showed no signs of foul play. Hypothermia as a result of exposure is the most likely cause of death. 

Police had been searching for Richard since Dec. 27 when relatives reported his disappearance. By Dec. 29, authorities ended the search believing that he had entered the US. 

This is not the first incident where people have died in a desperate attempt to leave Canada by jumping the border illegally. 

Last year, a family of four from Dubai died while attempting to trek into the US from Emerson, Manitoba on foot. 

Jagdishkumar and Vaishaliben Patel as well as 11-year-old Vihangi and 3-year-old Dharmik are believed to have died from exposure. Police are investigating the incident in relation to a human smuggling network. 

As exclusively reported by True North in August, one Buffalo immigration lawyer has seen an uptick in asylum applications filed by Canadians hoping to flee the country due to the government’s pandemic policies at the time. 

The vast majority of illegal crossings along the border are from the US into Canada. Due to Roxham Road, Quebec has warned that its social service system, including homeless shelters, are being overburdened by the new arrivals of migrants. 

“It is not that we don’t want to welcome these people, because shelters are there to welcome people in need, but the problem is that the network is already overwhelmed,” said the executive director of a homeless youth shelter in Montreal, France Labelle. 

The Daily Brief | Government-funded group demonizes Convoy and conservatives

Rachel Parker
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The Daily Brief | Government-funded group demonizes Convoy and conservatives

A government-funded research group, which counts former Trudeau senior staff Gerald Butts as one of its key players, claims Canadians are becoming more polarized, particularly on the right, and that the country is heading towards political instability.

Plus, after hundreds of travellers were stranded over the holidays, the Conservatives and the NDP are calling for an urgent committee meeting and is calling for Transport Minister Omar Alghabra to testify.

And unvaccinated Canadians are still not welcome in the US after the Biden administration extended its Covid-19 vaccination requirement for air travellers until April 10, 2023.

Tune into The Daily Brief with Rachel Emmanuel and Harrison Faulkner!

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