As students prepare to return to class, calls for free tuition are growing louder. The usual suspects on the left – the Greens, NDP and student unions – will be the loudest advocates for this horrendous idea.
The facts show that free tuition is a really DUMB idea. It’s time for a Reality Check.
In this week’s episode of Reality Check with Jasmine Moulton, Jasmine breaks down the left’s arguments in favour of free tuition. From the claim that university costs prevent people from attending classes to asserting that it would provide an economic benefit to Canada, Jasmine debunks each argument using statistics from education systems from around the world.
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is struggling to explain how a disgraced antisemitic instructor, who received a $134,000 federal contract, was invited to speak on one of its campuses for a May 14 lecture.
During his Canada-wide and federally-funded “Building an Anti-Racism Strategy for Canadian Broadcasting” tour, Laith Marouf gave a speech at UBC’s West Mall Annex.
Marouf directly cited the School of Community and Regional Planning (SCARP) for sponsoring his talk.
A UBC spokesperson now claims that SCARP did not sponsor Marouf’s event “in any way.”
“The event was not an official SCARP event, nor was it sponsored in any way by SCARP. Centrally booked events are assessed for safety and security, as well as hate speech,” said UBC spokesperson Matthew Ramsay.
“A faculty member facilitated an enquiry from someone outside of UBC in locating a space for an event, without knowledge of the abhorrent views that have been expressed by one of its speakers.”
During the event Marouf spoke about how “colonialism and racism governs the media that we consume here in Canada.”
Marouf went on to criticize legacy media outlets like the CBC, CTV and Globe and Mail over their coverage of an Al Jazeera reporter’s death in the West Bank refering to Israel as “the Zionist apartheid regime.”
“This disgraceful media coverage is an example of racism in Canada’s broadcasting and we can see how media upholds white supremacy, genocide and colonialism from Turtle Island to Palestine,” said Marouf.
“But media are also useful tools for identifying the weak points in the system and dismantling it. So I invite you to join me in one-minute silence to honour journalists and martyr Shireen Abu Akleh. Free Palestine.”
The university did not elaborate on which faculty member was behind the invitation or whether there’s an investigation into the matter.
Earlier this week, Minister of Housing and Diversity Ahmed Hussen announced that he would cut funding to Marouf and his organization the Community Media Advocacy Centre (CMAC) after Marouf’s antisemitic tweets resurfaced.
“We call on CMAC, an organization claiming to fight racism and hate in Canada, to answer to how they came to hire Laith Marouf, and how they plan on rectifying the situation given the nature of his antisemitic and xenophobic statements,” wrote Hussen.
Liberal MP Anthony Housefather has accused Hussen of knowing about Marouf’s antisemitic views before the issue was widely reported on.
In an interview with the National Post, Housefather claims that he warned Hussen about Marouf’s antisemitic remarks, told the minister to cut the organization’s funding and hoped the government would’ve cut CMAC’s funding “the moment anybody became aware of this.”
The Conservatives believe the Trudeau government’s reaction is not enough.
“More questions than answers for those subjected to the vile & known hatred of Laith Marouf,” tweeted Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman.
“Again and again, no accountability. Rather than demanding who at Canadian Heritage
approved the (funding), the Minister demands who at CMAC hired Marouf. This isn’t a serious response.”
The Alberta Prosperity Project (APP) is clapping back at recent allegations of racism and homophobia from United Conservative Party (UCP) leadership candidate Leela Aheer, saying she’s following in the footsteps of Premier Jason Kenney — and that she’s likely to lose her seat in the next election.
Last week, Aheer accused fellow leadership candidates partaking in the upcoming APP and Rebel News leadership forum and fundraiser of being responsible for “white supremacy, homophobia and racism.”
Aheer’s vitriol emanates directly from Kenney’s playbook who similarly mischaracterized opponents of his Premiership in March, said APP president Dennis Modry.
“Both Ms. Aheer and Mr. Kenney have failed to understand that their poor performance, lack of integrity, lying, and spineless failure to stand up for Albertans have been at the root of the APP movement,” he said in a statement.
APP advocates for Alberta freedom and prosperity through independence.
Leadership candidates Travis Toews and Rebecca Schulz initially agreed to participate in the organization’s forum, but withdrew last week citing the event’s fundraising efforts “in support of a third-party advocacy group that supports an independent Alberta.”
Aheer took to Twitter to criticize those still participating, which includes candidates Danielle Smith, Todd Loewen and Brian Jean
“White supremacy, homophobia & racism have been supported & encouraged for too long in politics,” she wrote on Twitter.
“Anyone participating in the Prosperity Project / Rebel Media Debate, should be held accountable for supporting this toxic culture.”
Modry said Aheer is lashing out at thoughtful people and her “slanderous comments’ and “supercilious tone” is beneath the dignity of anyone seeking public office.
“But since she knows that she will never ascend to the Premiership and is likely to lose her seat in the next election, it is understandable that she has become the ‘woke’ attack dog,” he said.
“Should we be surprised that Ms. Aheer has such appalling cognitive dissonance and lack of decorum? Of course not, she is at the highest echelon of cancel culture and isolated socialist ideology, from which she refuses to be educated.”
Modry also said Aheer’s “misguided defamatory comments” insulted the APP’s hundreds of thousands members including moms, dads, grandparents, teenagers, first Nations, Metis, and multi-ethnic members and genders.
Aheer owes an apology to Albertans who value their individual freedoms, rights, and prosperity “but I question whether she has the class (to) do so,” Modry said.
Rebel News did not respond to Aheer’s claims, but reposted videos of Rebel News reporter Adam Soos interviewing Aheer following the first UCP leadership debate in Medicine Hat last month
In response, Aheer retweeted the videos and said “Thank you for sharing this!!”
The APP and Rebel News leadership forum will be held on Thursday in Edmonton.
Western University students are pushing back against new Covid mandates by holding an in-person demonstration against booster requirements on Saturday.
As first reported by True North, the University of Western Ontario is reimposing its mask mandate and will require all students and staff as well as visitors to have three doses of the Covid vaccine by October 1.
The university says a grace period will be given for those who are not yet eligible to receive a booster.
The news has frustrated students and some are fighting back, including graduate student Kendra Hancock, who launched the Enough is Enough Western campaign.
The campaign is calling on the university to reverse course and drop both its mask and booster mandate – giving students the option to choose.
“We’re doing something controversial… believing in an adult’s right to choose,” reads a tweet from the campaign.
— Enough Is Enough Western (@students4agency) August 24, 2022
Speaking with True North’s Andrew Lawton, Hancock said that when she saw the announcement, she knew she had to do something.
“I knew this had to be done… I thought about some things that might be helpful for the community to know, or to have one central spot where people could talk and could support one another.”
She believes students are being coerced into taking the vaccines – citing an Instagram poll where she asked students if they had gotten vaccinated last year because of Western’s previous mandate, and if they had felt coerced.
“So far it’s overwhelming for people feeling like they’re absolutely forced into this situation,” she said.
Western University previously bragged about its vaccination rate being almost 100% following the imposition of its mandatory vaccination policy, something Hancock finds ridiculous considering students who felt coerced.
“It’s kind of like if a country said, oh well a hundred percent of our citizens have… joined the war effort. But then you say, ‘yeah but don’t you have conscription?’”
Western is also facing criticism for announcing its mandate last minute, after the deadline for students to pay their first installment of tuition. Hancock says the timing “has been definitely less than ideal.”
The University has since said that it will allow students to receive a refund as long as they submit a request by September 1.
Hey @WesternU, a lot of students are ready to request refunds. We’re curious- Are you ready? 🤔
— Enough Is Enough Western (@students4agency) August 23, 2022
Enough is Enough Western now has over 4000 followers on both Twitter and Instagram. Hancock also told True North she has received a large number of messages, causing her to seek extra support to help manage the campaign.
“This is one of the first times in a long time, I’ve seen the entire Western student population be united, and that’s a really great thing,” said Hancock.
Hancock is not the only one to have started an initiative to oppose Western’s new Covid policies.
Two Change.org petitions calling on the mandates to be dropped have also been started. The first one by TK Reynolds calls the mandates unconstitutional and has received over 3500 signatures. The second one by Yasmine Rifai cites bodily autonomy and has received over 900 signatures.
It should be noted that booster uptake among young people in Canada is low, with data showing that only 36.39% of 18-29 year olds and 19.27% for 12-17 year olds have received three or more vaccine doses.
Following Western’s controversial announcements, its affiliated Brescia women’s college has said it will not mandate boosters or masks, but encourages compliance with Western’s policy.
A glimmer of good news from Western: Brescia, a women’s affiliated college, is not mandating boosters like main campus is. The college “strongly encourages” compliance with Western’s vaccine and mask policy but does not require it.
Other Ontario institutions including the University of Waterloo, University of Guelph and Wilfrid Laurier University have said that they will not mandate boosters.
Western University did not return True North’s request for comment in time for publication.
A new report by the C.D. Howe Institute found that Canada is lagging behind other Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) countries when it comes to bringing in business investment.
According to the study, Canada’s business investment is 50 cents per worker compared to every dollar invested in the United States.
“Business investment is so weak that capital per member of the labour force is falling, and the implications for incomes and competitiveness are ominous,” wrote researchers.
Report author William Robson says that the data shows businesses see lower opportunity when investing in Canada which will weaken growth and living standards.
“Investment per available worker lower in Canada than abroad tells us that businesses see less opportunity in Canada, and prefigures weaker growth in Canadian earnings and living standards than in other OECD countries,” said Robson.
The rate of investment per worker is the lowest it has been in over 20 years.
When it comes to OECD countries, Canada saw 73 cents of new investment for every dollar in the average OECD nation excluding the US.
OECD countries are projected to see $20,400 in new investment per worker in 2022, meanwhile Canada will only see $14,800 per worker.
Researchers pointed to a fall in spending in the energy and gas industry due to the 2014 oil crash as one of the reasons behind the disconnect.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has implemented several anti-energy policies during his tenure. In May, Alberta’s court ruled the Liberal “no more pipelines” law, Bill C-69, unconstitutional. The bill overhauled how major infrastructure projects are reviewed and approved.
Additionally, the amount of investment going into residential properties has impacted how much investment is available for businesses.
Uncompetitive corporate taxes are also a major issue with researchers advocating reducing the corporate tax from 15% to 13% by 2025.
During the last election, Trudeau campaigned to raise the corporate tax even further to 18%. Although the Liberals have yet to follow through on the move, during the last federal budget a tax hike was announced for banks and insurance companies.
“Regulatory uncertainty” from federal and provincial governments has also played a big role in dissuading investment.
“The prospect that Canadians will find themselves increasingly relegated to lower value-added activities relative to workers in the United States and elsewhere, who are raising their productivity and earnings faster, should spur Canadian policy makers to action,” the report read.
United Conservative Party (UCP) leadership candidate Leela Aheer says her personal and public Facebook accounts have been hacked — and are being used for “sexual exploitation.”
Aheer’s accounts were first hacked on Friday and the profile photo on her public account was updated to a picture of a green Lamborghini.
In the days since, the breach has grown more sinister as hackers have begun using Aheer’s personal account to “purchase nefarious and disgusting content under my name,” the leadership candidate said.
“Welcome to politics! My personal and public Facebook accounts have been hacked,” Aheer wrote on Twitter. “This is a targeted attack and I woke up to messages stating that my account is being used for sexual exploitation. This is disgusting. We will find the perpetrators.”
1/Welcome to politics! My personal and public Facebook accounts have been hacked. This is a targeted attack and I woke up to messages stating that my account is being used for sexual exploitation. This is disgusting. We will find the perpetrators. pic.twitter.com/x4LqenpTud
Facebook notified Aheer on Tuesday that restrictions were placed on her account after multiple posts went against the social media platform’s community standards on “child nudity and sexual exploitation.”
In response to a social media user asking Aheer about her account, she said she’s “dealing with the police right now as the picture that comes is pornographic.”
“My heart is just broken.”
Aheer said hasn’t seen the pornographic images, she only recieives the “gross” notifications in the middle of the night. The hack is an attack on her family, friends and personal integrity, she said.
“This is more than a distraction-this is (an) attack leveraged to hurt our campaign, but we won’t back down,” she wrote.
The Chestermere-Strathmore MLA has also been asking her Twitter followers to report the account as hacked so she can recover it.
The RCMP have confirmed they are investigating the incident.
Leadership opponent Rajan Sawhney said she’s “disheartened and disturbed” by the incident.
“This is unacceptable & I hope the perpetrators are brought to justice,” Sawhney wrote on Twitter. “Being a woman in politics is not easy but I know Leela, this will only make her stronger.”
I’m very disheartened & disturbed to know that this happened to @LeelaAheer & her family. This is unacceptable & I hope the perpetrators are brought to justice. Being a woman in politics is not easy but I know Leela, this will only make her stronger. 💪🏽 https://t.co/9mV9RZCRNC
Recent polls have placed Sawhney and Aheer as the last two candidates, behind the other five contenders.
Aheer has come under fire in recent days for saying those participating in the Alberta Prosperity Project — a group which supports Alberta independence — and Rebel News debate and fundraiser are responsible for “white supremacy, homophobia and racism.”
The Trudeau government awarded television stations nearly $104 million in taxpayer subsidies during the pandemic.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) reported that the funding was provided in the form of waivers to federal licencing fees and through the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy.
“Over 75 percent of assistance in 2021 was in the form of the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy,” read the Annual Highlights Of The Broadcasting Sector.
$36.5 million in annual fees were waived by Ottawa during this period.
The report also concluded that the number of Canadians tuning into television broadcasts also sharply declined.
“Overall the average hours spent watching traditional television services has decreased,” the report claimed.
The number of people watching English-language programs fell by 18.8% while those watching French programs fell by 9%.
“The two most recent broadcast years were marked by several and varied instances of societal and business shutdowns in response to the Covid-19 pandemic,” the CRTC said.
“These resulted in significant declines to the advertising revenues of the traditional commercial broadcasting sectors and an increased uptake by Canadians of online broadcasting content.”
Last month, the CRTC predicted that Canadian legacy media would have three years to determine how to fix its outdated business model in the face of competition from big tech.
The Trudeau government wants to give the CRTC power to regulate online content.
Bill C-11, which purports to update the Broadcasting Act to current digital standards, has been blasted by critics as an overreach and a threat to Canadians’ right to freedom of expression.
During testimony in the House of Commons, CRTC chair Ian Scott admitted that the bill would give the CRTC powers to regulate even user-generated content like home videos.
“[Section] 4.2 allows the CRTC to prescribe by regulation user uploaded content subject to very explicit criteria. That is also in the Act,” said Scott.
London, Ontario’s Western University announced the strictest university vaccine mandate in the country this week. The updated policy requires staff and students to be tripled-jabbed before stepping on campus. Concerned students took to social media, voicing their growing frustration with the university. For Western student Kendra Hancock, enough is enough: she’s leading a student group fighting back the mandate. Kendra joined True North’s Andrew Lawton to discuss how Western students are standing up for their right to choose, and why #EnoughisEnough.
If you’d asked Peter Wallace two months ago whether he’d ever have dreamed of running for school trustee, he would have laughed.
But after watching the number of issues with school boards emerging on social media – in particular Twitter – and the pervasiveness of “progressive” ideology in the school system, he decided to throw his hat into the ring and run for trustee on the Trillium Lakelands District School Board (TLDSB).
I am proud to announce my candidacy for the TLDSB Ward 7 trustee position.
Voters in #lindsayontario and the City of #KawarthaLakes can count on me to put student well-being and academic excellence before politics & ideology.
— Peter Wallace for TLDSB trustee 🇨🇦 (@Peter_in_Canada) August 15, 2022
He didn’t just decide to run, however.
Instead of just creating a campaign website, he opted to develop a “shared platform” that other would-be trustee candidates could use and endorse.
The result is blueprintforcanada.ca – a highly insightful and well-researched review of what is wrong with public education in Canada and what can be done to make public schools better.
“I wanted to get people on the same page about certain ideas and educate the public about the issues concerning us,” he said in a recent interview.
The website covers October school board elections in Ontario and B.C.
He says it is meant to reject the influence of the radical left and extreme right and appeal to a voting demographic that prefers “moderate centrist policies” in education.
Wallace spent two months pulling the blueprint together after getting feedback from educators and trustees. He said he has included YouTube videos and other documents to back up the positions contained in the blueprint.
He says the real problems lie with the universities – in particular the faculties of education which are promoting social justice in all areas of their curriculum.
Wallace says his blueprint could apply equally to colleges and universities as well.
Many of the ideas that would contribute to making public schools better are common sense, not that there is much of that in the school system in 2022.
They include ensuring kids get more instruction in personal finance, computer skills and the sciences; that the ban on police officers in schools be reversed; that parents’ concerns be addressed in a fair, non-judgemental manner and that parents be allowed to decide whether their children should be vaccinated against Covid.
The blueprint also calls for the removal of “extremist ideology” from the classroom.
The “cultural hot points” – words used by Wallace – include a proposal that all board “diversity, equity and inclusion” training programs be removed if they are based on “illiberal critical social justice” narratives.
In the area of gender ideology, it is proposed that students and staff be provided with better awareness of the “catastrophic” physical and mental side effects of gender-affirming medical care and procedures (those given particularly around the age of puberty).
The blueprint states outright that actively promoting gender ideology with children is “abusive,” and that school boards should be aware that “gender affirmative” policies which bypass parental consent have opened the door to potential massive legal liabilities in the U.K.
Those candidates following the blueprint also support ensuring that teachers and staff are not required to include preferred pronouns in their e-mail signatures.
Under a section called Critical Race Theory (CRT) in public schools, the blueprint states unequivocally that CRT “generates animosity, division and hate” in addition to actively promoting anti-semitism, anti-Asian and anti-caucasian racism.
A segment on Defending Teachers includes the case of Chanel Pfahl, who is being investigated by the Ontario College of Teachers for opposing CRT in a private Facebook group.
Pfahl, a licensed former teacher, is running for trustee in the Ottawa Carleton District School Board under the Blueprint for Canada platform.
The openly gay woman has already been accused of being anti-trans by woke activists and the legacy Ottawa media for her common sense approach to CRT and gender ideology.
Yeah. Start planning now- for what you will say in 5 years when the kids you encouraged to take puberty blockers, take hormones, and get operated on for the sake of their gender nonconformity wake up and realize it was a mistake. https://t.co/tKWLzMWMSq
— Chanel Pfahl, real LGBT advocate 🇨🇦 (@ChanLPfa) August 20, 2022
Wallace says that he’s had a number of inquiries about the platform but municipal election rules dictate that he can’t identify trustee candidates who might want to use it and can’t raise funds for them.
“Any candidate is free to endorse it,” he said.
As for his own campaign, he says the issues resounding the most so far at the doors relate to gender ideology.
He says people are adamant that no gender affirmation should be addressed until a student is 18.
It also infuriates people, he says, that their child’s gender identity change could be hidden from them by a school board.
Wallace said parents want to and must be informed.
Naturally the usual suspects – activists and woke trustees – are attacking the website.
“Any questioning of gender ideology is transphobic,” he says. “If you talk about CRT you’re racist.”
Liberal MP Anthony Housefather has accused Diversity and Inclusion Minister Ahmed Hussen of knowing about Laith Marouf’s antisemitic views before the issue was widely reported on.
In an interview with the National Post, Housefather claims that he warned Hussen about Marouf’s antisemitic remarks, told the minister to cut the organization’s funding and hoped the government would’ve cut Community Media Advocacy Centre (CMAC)’s funding “the moment anybody became aware of this.”
“I said the contract had to be cancelled. I alerted him and I persistently communicated with the minister in his office, from the day I learned about it, until today, and aggressively demanded that action be taken. Action could have been taken more quickly,” said Housefather.
This week, Hussen’s department cut the funding to CMAC and condemned the organization in a statement after news of Marouf’s racist remarks made the news.
“Our position is clear — antisemitism and any form of hate have no place in Canada. That is why I have asked Canadian Heritage to look closely at the situation involving disturbing comments made by the individual in question,” reads Hussen’s statement.
Heritage Canada gave CMAC $130,800 to develop an anti-racism strategy for Canada’s media organizations. However, last week, news broke revealing CMAC’s senior consultant Laith Marouf’s long history of vigorously anti-Semitic and racist remarks.
“You know all those loud mouthed bags of human feces, aka the Jewish White Supremacists; when we liberate Palestine and they have to go back to where they came from, they will return to being low voiced bitches of thier Christian/Secular White Supremacist Masters,” reads one of Marouf’s tweets.
Housefather says he would like to see an investigation into how the situation wasn’t taken care of sooner and how a rabid antisemite could have slipped through Heritage Canada’s vetting of CMAC.
“I think we all want to understand how, when it was relatively simple to Google what Mr. Marouf has said over the last 20 years that was insulting not only to Jews, but to other groups like French Canadians, how the department awarded a contract to a group that is so closely tied to Mr. Marouf and his partner,” said Housefather.
Despite Housefather applying pressure on his fellow Liberal MP, Hussen has survived fellow Liberals calling on him to resign before.
During his time as immigration minister, a former Liberal MP called on Hussen to retire after claiming the minister misled applicants about an immigration pilot program.
