While the Trudeau government begins to curb the number of study permits it issues, the number of international students filing asylum claims is skyrocketing, many of which are suspected to have been filed on fraudulent grounds.
Nearly 14,000 international students filed asylum claims in the first nine months of this year after arriving in Canada, marking a new record number of claimants, despite the overall drop off in permits.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller isn’t ruling out fraudulent claims amid the unprecedented spike in students claiming asylum. He believes some students are being counselled to do so by outside consultants.
Miller told the Globe and Mail in an interview that he suspected the spike in asylum claims, many of which were filed by first year students, to be “mostly false.”
“It is quite obvious someone that’s here, that’s been here a year or even more, claiming asylum where no conditions have changed in their home country – it doesn’t smell good, it doesn’t look good,” said Miller.
“Clearly there is advice being given for people that are here that would otherwise have to go home to claim asylum, and that is not the intention of the asylum system as we have it in Canada.”
Some critics believe that the increase in student asylum claimants is in response to the government’s recent tightening of rules around permanent residency and that by claiming asylum, they have an alternate avenue to remain in Canada.
The federal government reduced its number of international student permits issued by more than 100,000 compared to 2023 earlier this year, however, permit extensions have increased slightly.
Between Jan. 1 and Sept. 30 this year, 13,660 asylum claims were filed by international students attending universities and colleges across Canada, according to federal immigration data obtained by The Globe and Mail.
With three months remaining this year, the total number of student claimants is expected to grow and it marks a notable increase, compared to the almost 12,000 international students who claimed asylum for all of 2023 and certainly a jump compared to the 1,810 who filed in 2018.
According to data from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, international students filing for asylum tend to be most often coming from countries like India, Nigeria, Ghana, Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Miller has tasked College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants president John Murray with investigating the possibility of licensed immigration consultants as being responsible for “illegitimately advising international students to claim asylum.”
According to Murray, the college’s code of professional conduct clearly states that licensees are not permitted to aid clients in being dishonest or to commit fraud when filing applications.
Additionally, licensees who breach the code may face criminal sanctions in some cases as well as disciplinary measures, including permanent licence revocation and fines from the College.
“The college works closely with IRCC and other partners to protect the integrity of Canada’s immigration system and will collaborate with IRCC to address the specific concerns raised by the minister,” said Murray in a statement.
Legalized racial segregation is alive, if not well, in the city of Winnipeg in the form of two aboriginal schools, Niji Mahkwa Primary School and Children of the Earth High School.
Its open-air extension is a rectangular green space in the city’s hardscrabble north end has recently been revealed as a “sacred” grassy plot shared by these two schools.
Though most passersby would view it as a typical school sports and recreation field, cultural support teacher Connie West-Buck has laid the groundwork for a “learning lodge” to be erected in the field to facilitate more “land-based education.”
When Children of the Earth principal Jen Donachuk pitched the project to West-Buck in June, she offered sacred tobacco and requested her help to start consultations on it.
The Winnipeg School Division has set aside $3,000 for construction, fuel, sacred tobacco, and honorarium expenses.
The recipient high school opened in 1991, and the feeder school, established next door three years later, claim to deliver holistic programs that embed indigenous values and traditions into the Manitoba curriculum, now including lessons on the land.
“That’s my vision, that’s my hope, that’s my dream — that we have our own space,” said West-Buck, a member of Sandy Bay Indian Band.
The cultural support teacher said she wants to hold sweat lodges for students and caregivers close to home.
Despite colonialism and historical attempts to erase Indigenous cultures, languages and ways of being, the Niji Mahkwa principal said many indigenous people want to share their worldview.
“We still very much believe that our ways are valuable for everybody to understand as a pathway in living in harmony with the rest of creation,” he said.
No stories about the schools ever discuss their success in imparting indigenous “language and culture” while simultaneously teaching the mandated provincial curriculum.
Indeed, the authenticity of cultural education at the two schools can be questioned because they are founded on the so-called seven sacred teachings (also known as the Seven Grandfather Teachings), a set of principles invented out of whole cloth by an Ojibway Anishinaabe educator and activist, Edward Benton-Banai, in his 1979 children’s fairytale novelThe Mishomis Book. Conversely, authentic historical aboriginal culture can only be discovered by reading the detailed ethnographic accounts compiled in the early 20th century by legions of white cultural anthropologists, now gathering dust in university libraries around the world.
There is also an objective study suggesting these two schools are failing to meet the standard educational and indigenous cultural needs of their aboriginal students.
In 1999, standardized provincial examinations in mathematics, the most culture-free of subjects, the Grade 3 province-wide average was 60.7 percent. Niji Mahkwa students averaged 26.8. The Grade 12 province-wide average was 65.9 percent; the Children of the Earth students averaged 34.6. Most isolated reserve schools achieved much higher results.
Though these province-wide exams were abolished years ago by an NDP government obsessed with Marxist equity-of-outcome education, there is no reason to believe the students in these two schools are now more proficient in mathematics.
The academic failure of so many urban native students has usually been explained away by invoking such external factors as urban poverty, spurious cultural differences, systemic racism, single parenthood, and student behavioural problems. Any call to systematically test them — or even question their relevance — is taken as prima facie evidence of systemic racism. Rarely, if ever, are factors intrinsic to the educational system given the consideration the academic literature says they deserve — factors such as teacher training, curriculum content, pedagogical methods, classroom and school management, teacher-union hegemony, and government bureaucracy.
Co-opted and brainwashed by the vast, self-serving, white-managed, guilt-based “Indian industry,” too many native people have come to believe that their very survival, cultural or otherwise, lies in the hands of benevolent statist policies and programs. School boards, among the most wasteful if not harmful of state institutions, have repeatedly shown themselves to be antithetical to fostering educational excellence. How can an institution that has permitted, if not encouraged, a steady 60-year decline in basic educational standards — in reading, writing, history, mathematics and science — be entrusted with such a sensitive and complex phenomenon as cultural survival?
It’s not surprising that not only have these aboriginal schools failed their students academically, but they have also failed to teach them much about their heritage, as the following comments from an objective 1994 external review of Children of the Earth High School suggest:
“I need math. I didn’t learn math last year…. Take drumming, dancing but don’t learn anything about culture…. Since coming here, I haven’t been doing anything other than phys ed.”
“Some of the programs are not well organized. For example, Indigenous Issues, not much to do. Sat and watched movies. There were no assignments. Expected a lot more.”
“In language class, we just sit around. We’re not given time to learn anything. I haven’t really learned Cree.”
“It gets boring. They keep telling you the same thing over and over in the classes. Only Language Arts and Math really interest students. There isn’t enough challenge. They should get more spirit into it.”
Retaining or re-learning traditional languages and preserving ancestral culture are understandable goals that individual native people have a right to pursue if they wish. But what good is it to become fluent in Cree even if such fluency were being achieved — and be left illiterate in English? What good is it to have high ethnic self-esteem — to be proud to be an Indian — but be consigned to a life of material and intellectual poverty?
Native students have the same innate potential as white students. When will enough aboriginal people recognize that, freely chosen or not, apartheid is still apartheid and force the white educational establishment to put aside its mythical and patronizing agenda and allow their children to fulfill this potential?
Alberta has become the first non-U.S. state to join a United States energy pact featuring 12 states that had already signed onto the coalition.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith made the announcement Thursday, personally thanking Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry and New Hampshire Governor Chris Sununu for inviting her, along with President-elect Donald Trump. Smith also thanked the other ten governors involved.
Smith said that Alberta’s role in North American energy security is vital as the largest crude oil and natural gas supplier to the United States.
“With 200 billion barrels of recoverable oil, 200 trillion cubic feet of recoverable natural gas, significant natural gas liquids and ample pore space for carbon capture, Alberta’s contribution is set to grow even further as we look to work with the Trump Administration and other U.S. partners to increase our pipeline capacity to our greatest friend and ally, the United States,” said Smith. “We are proud to collaborate with this coalition of allied states in advancing energy security, reliability and affordability for Americans and Canadians.”
Trump’s re-election has re-ignited conversations about the Keystone XL Pipeline, a project capable of transporting up to 830,000 barrels of Alberta oil daily to the United States and contributing $2.4 billion to Canada’s GDP and $30 billion in tax and royalty revenues.
Alberta currently accounts for 56% of oil imports into the United States, double Mexico, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq combined.
Landry said that the pact’s members share the goal of enhancing and protecting energy security, which he said will lead to lower energy costs, increased reliability, sustainable economic development, and wise management of energy resources and the environment.
“I welcome Premier Smith and the insights she will bring as the leader from a fellow energy-producing province that, like my state, is under a federal system of government where national imperatives are not always aligned with state or provincial interests,” said Landry.
The United States is the largest trading partner with Alberta, having $188 billion in bilateral trade in 2023. Energy products accounted for more than 80%, approximately $133.6 billion, of Alberta’s exports to the United States in 2023.
Alberta is a global leader in emissions reduction technologies and clean energy solutions.
“The province has captured about 14 million tonnes of carbon dioxide through carbon capture, utilization and storage technology, and has the ability to support the U.S. in developing new infrastructure and supply chains for future energy markets in the areas of hydrogen, renewables, small modular reactors and others,” reads Alberta’s press release.
The newly renamed Governors’ Coalition for Energy Security listed its goals in the press release issued by the Governor of Louisiana.
“They are to ensure families and businesses have the right to choose the energy they need, to minimize permitting and other regulatory barriers, limit expensive energy mandates, focus on affordability and reliability of energy infrastructure, and to coordinate to positively manage energy resources and the environment,” reads the press release.
Former Liberal finance minister Bill Morneau recently called on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to reconsider his existing policies like the oil and gas cap and begin to prioritize defence, tech, and energy.
Smith issued an additional statement on Friday, saying she won’t wait for the Liberals to strengthen energy trade and that she and Alberta will do it themselves.
“Alberta’s energy sector is a cornerstone of North America’s prosperity and we’re ready to work with our partners in the United States, especially @realDonaldTrump, to ensure that remains true,” said Smith. “Alberta’s resources are critical to energy security, economic growth, and the strong ties between our countries. Together, we can build a future that benefits both sides of the border—because when Alberta succeeds, the United States thrives. Let’s power that future, hand in hand.”
The 12 signatory states included in the energy pact are Louisiana, New Hampshire, Indiana, Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, South Dakota, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Wyoming, and Virginia.
The Trudeau government is pushing forward with its oil and gas emissions cap despite concerns that it will result in massive job losses and a reduction of Canada’s GDP. But it’s not just Alberta and various business groups that are sounding the alarm, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s former finance minister Bill Morneau is even speaking out against it. Will Trudeau listen to him?
Plus, is former Prime Minister Stephen Harper going to be in the political spotlight again? Harper has been rumoured as the potential new chair of the Alberta Investment Management Corp.
And the Alberta government may be adding citizenship status to provincial driver licenses in an effort to safeguard future elections.
These stories and more on The Alberta Roundup with Isaac Lamoureux!
Canada’s Jewish advocacy groups are condemning Montreal’s McGill University after it allowed a vocal supporter of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack to give a “Night of Resistance” talk on campus.
B’nai Brith Canada posted on X that the university is allowing Iyad Abu Hamed, a leader of the anti-Israel Montreal4Palestine group and self-identified Human Rights Advocate, to speak at an event hosted by the school’s Muslim Association on Thursday.
“You have betrayed your Jewish students and the broader community by allowing Iyad Abu Hamed, a vocal supporter of terrorism and a purveyor of vile antisemitic hate, to speak on your campus at an event titled ‘A Night of Resistance’ with the theme ‘Al-Aqsa is Our Creed,’” B’nai Brith said on X.
The Jewish rights group said Hamed had glorified Hamas’ Oct. 7 massacre, which killed over 1,400 civilians, and hundreds were kidnapped, leaving countless others injured.
“On the very day of the attack, he shared an image of Hamas terrorists using gliders to invade Israel with the caption: ‘When it rains, men are true to what they promised God#Al-Aqsa Flood,’” B’nai Brith said. “This was an endorsement of mass murder.”
In one post on his Instagram, which is no longer accessible to True North, he said that Israel was to blame for the Oct. 7 terror attack and “blaming Hamas” for the attack was “like blaming a woman for punching her rapist.”
One video shows him telling a crowd in Montreal, “It’s a Jihad!” with the crowd yelling back at him, “Victory or Martyrdom.”
Hamed, in the captions, argued that he didn’t mean a violent holy war, which most people think of when they hear the word “Jihad,” but rather a “relentless civil struggle alongside the oppressed people of Palestine.”
“This declaration is not a call to arms but a profound commitment to persist in our fight for justice until we achieve victory—freedom and human rights for Palestine—or face martyrdom, which in this context symbolizes the ultimate sacrifice in the pursuit of these noble goals,” he said.
In an email responding to questions of why the individual was allowed on the property and what they have to say to the Jewish community and other Canadians concerned about Hamed speaking to students, a spokesperson for McGill University said that it wasn’t the school who hosted him.
“Iyad Abu Hamed’s lecture was organized by the Muslim Student Association, a student group recognized by the Student Society of McGill University,” the spokesperson told True North. “This should not be interpreted as an endorsement by McGill University of this event, or for that fact any other organized event by a student group.”
The University did not respond to True North’s further questions on whether it condemns the speaker’s support for Hamas, a listed terrorist entity in Canada or the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, or whether the school would be speaking to the MSA about speakers it invites onto campus.
B’nai Brith Canada’s regional director for Quebec, Henry Topas, told True North in an interview that McGill University bears “ultimate responsibility” for allowing this speaker onto campus.
“McGill University could have, should have, and still can stop the hate fest that has manifested itself on the McGill campus,” he said.
The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs also condemned McGill for allowing Hamed on campus.
“There must be no place at McGill for speakers who call for jihad, support terrorist groups and promote a climate of hate,” CIJA said in a post on X. “Our values are under attack and we must defend them.”
Hamed responded to the two Jewish groups and some media organizations on Instagram by threatening legal action against anyone who “participates in campaigns inciting” against him. He warned McGill University and media organizations of “Fueling Islamophobia and anti-Palestinian racism propagated by voices like CIJA.”
Topas told True North that the danger of allowing people such as Hamed to speak on campus is that pro-terrorism and anti-Israel rhetoric can escalate into widespread violence, such as what happened in the last couple of weeks in Amsterdam and Paris, which saw Jewish people get violently attacked by pro-Hamas activists.
“As long as levels of government, starting with Mayor Valerie Plante, do not put their foot down, do not handcuff the police, there is a risk of major escalation by those who are propagating hate against first, the Jewish community and secondly, Canadian society,” he said. “What is happening by Mayors Plante, Olivia Chow, and Mayor Parrish in Mississauga is without excuse a total lack of moral clarity.”
Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault said that after “reflecting on this a lot over the past days” he “unequivocally” apologizes for not being “clear” about alluding to having an Indigenous heritage.
“I was adopted into an Indigenous family, and I have never claimed Indigenous status,” Boisonnault told reporters in Ottawa on Friday.
His apology comes after an Indigenous researcher that Boissionault claimed told him he was “non-status adopted Cree” refuted his claim.
“I sought out advice to know how to talk about my family when I was running, and I want to say unequivocally that I apologize for not being as clear about my family history as I could have been with everything that I know now,” said Boissonnault.
The president of the Metis nation had also come forward to say that the members of Boissonnault’s adoptive family agree that the cabinet minister wouldn’t qualify for citizenship under its rules.
Assistant professor of political science at the University of Toronto and member of the Michi Saagiig Nishnaabeg Nation Chadwick Cowie was the expert who Boissonnault said informed of his status.
However, after being contacted by the National Post regarding Boissonault’s ever-changing identity claims, Cowie responded by saying, “I would not say that I gave him the term that he was ‘non-status adopted Cree.’”
“I would have worded it differently,” added Cowie. “I would have said that he was adopted to a family that had Cree lineage.”
However, Cowie noted that he never saw Boissonnault use such claims while campaigning to win his Edmonton in 2015, which he won. He would later regain the seat in 2021 after losing it in 2019.
Boissonnault has made contradictory statements about his identity and heritage in the past, including in an interview with the online LGBTQ magazine Xtra, where he was quoted as saying he was “a white, cisgender member of the community.”
Boissonnault was also among nine MPs in the Liberals party’s Indigenous caucus in 2016 during his first term, however, he was not included in a Liberal press release identifying the eight Indigenous Liberals who won their seats in the September 2015 federal election.
Additionally, Bossonnault told the Canadian Press that he was “non-status adoptive Cree” in 2017 and that his heritage could be traced back to a maternal great-grandmother in the family that adopted him.
Boissonnault routinely referenced his great-grandmother in Parliament before being voted out in the 2019 election, however, upon winning the Edmonton Centre seat in 2021, his name was removed from the Liberal Indigenous caucus list.
The employment minister is currently under fire for claiming that the company he once co-owned, Global Health Imports, was Indigenous-owned while bidding on federal contracts.
The information came to light when parliamentary hearings reviewed the Procurement Strategy for Indigenous Business, a federal procurement program designed to boost the Indigenous economy.
The hearings are part of an inquiry launched in response to suspicions that the program was being exploited by companies falsely claiming they were Indigenous-owned businesses.
Alice Hansen, a spokeswoman for Boissonnault, said that the Indigenous heritage claims were made by his business partner without his consent and that Boissonnault’s changing identity is a “reflection of his family exploring their own history.”
According to Cowie, after Boissonnault told him he had a Cree great-grandmother, he informed him that it was more realistic that he was someone who has non-status Cree lineage.
“I thought that was his biological great-grandmother,” said Cowie. “I misunderstood probably… that he was (a) descendant of someone who had been adopted out, not that he was adopted into a family that had Indigenous lineage.”
The term “adopted” in this context generally refers to someone who was adopted by an Indigenous community as a member, noted Cowie, regardless of their status or membership as observed by the government.
“The adoptive thing makes it sound like he is, you know, (Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond), or he is Buffy Sainte-Marie,” said Cowie, referring to other well-known Canadians who have had their Indigenous heritage claims questioned.
“If I said adopted, that means he’s been adopted into a community,” Cowie says. “That’s what I get when I see the word.”
Boissonnault did not respond to True North’s request for comment.
The governmentalization of the news media in Canada continues apace. According to a recent announcement by the Trudeau government, the “CRTC determined that a new temporary fund for commercial radio stations in smaller markets should be created.” Now, radio stations outside of Montreal, Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton and Ottawa-Gatineau will be eligible for taxpayer subsidies.
Clearly a bad idea. Firstly, there’s no obvious market failure the government will solve. If the value of local radio stations, as measured by how much revenue they generate, is higher than the costs of running those stations, no subsidies are needed to keep them going. Conversely, if the costs are higher than the benefits, it doesn’t make sense to keep those radio stations on the air.
The government said the new funding is “temporary” but as economists Milton and Rose Friedman famously observed, “Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program.” Taxpayers may can reasonably expect that subsidies to local radio news stations will become an ongoing expense instead of a onetime hit to their wallets.
Indeed, the Trudeau government has a history of making temporary or “short-term” costs permanent. Before coming to power in 2015, the Liberals proposed “a modest short-term deficit” of less than $10 billion annually for three years; instead this fiscal year the Trudeau government is running its 10th consecutive budget deficit with the cumulative total of more than $600 billion.
Secondly, the governmentalization of media will likely corrupt it. Here again an observation from Milton Friedman: “Any institution will tend to express its own values and its own ideas… A socialist institution will teach socialist values, not the principles of private enterprise.” Friedman was talking about the public education system, but the observation applies equally to other sectors that the government increasingly exercises control over.
A media outlet that receives significant government funding is less likely to apply healthy skepticism to politicians’ claims of the supposed widespread benefits of their large spending initiatives and disbursements of taxpayer money. The media outlet’s internal culture will naturally lean more heavily towards government control than free enterprise.
Moreover, conflict of interest becomes a serious issue. To the extent that a media outlet gets its revenue from government instead of advertisers and listeners, its customer is the government—and the natural inclination is always to produce content that will appeal to the customer. Radio stations receiving significant government funding will have a harder time covering government in an unbiased way.
Finally, as a general rule, government support for an industry tends to discourage innovation, and radio and other media are no exception. When new companies and new business models enter a sector, the government should not try to keep the incumbents afloat through subsidies.
“The media, like any other business, continually evolves,” noted Lydia Miljan, professor of political science at the University of Windsor and a senior fellow at the Fraser Institute, in a recent essay. “As each innovation enters the market, it displaces audiences for the legacy players. But does that innovation mean we should prop up services that fewer people consume? No. We allow other industries to adapt to new market conditions. Sometimes that means certain industries and companies close. But they are replaced with something else.”
To summarize—there are three major problems with the Trudeau government’s new fund for radio stations. First, it will impose costs on taxpayers that, despite the government’s label, may not be “temporary” and the compensating benefits will be lower than the costs. Second, increased government funding will damage the ability of those radio stations to cover the government with neutrality and healthy skepticism. And third, the new fund will discourage innovation and improvement in the media sector as a whole.
Matthew Lau is an adjunct scholar with the Fraser Institute.
A recent shooting in Ontario has led to the arrest of one of India’s most wanted terrorists and alleged known associate of the former Sikh separatist activist Hardeep Nijjar Singh, who was murdered in British Columbia last summer.
Arshdeep Singh Gill was arrested for his alleged connection in a recent shooting and he is well known to both Indian authorities and street criminals alike, going by the alias “Arsh Dalla.”
Gill has resided in Canada for several years and the Indian government placed him on a public list of India’s terrorists in January 2023, where he’s been accused of ordering killings from Canada.
Gill has also publicly claimed responsibility for multiple killings, including the targeted murder of a local politician in Punjab.
He is “a very prominent player, as far as organized crime in the north state of Punjab,” prominent Indian independent journalist Ritesh Lakhi told CTV News.
Police in Halton, Ont. posted a press release last month alleging that two men involved in a shooting in Milton, Ont., had been “charged with discharging firearm with intent” after arriving at a hospital in Guelph, Ont.
“One of the males was treated and released for a non-life-threatening gunshot wound apparently suffered in Halton region. The other was not injured,” reads the release.
Gill is one of the two men facing charges and he remains in custody until a decision on his request for bail is processed.
According to Lakhi, Gill “would simply call me up. I did a few interviews with him, and he would tell me why he killed this person. We’ve been watching his activities for the last three and a half years.”
Lakhi went on to say, “There are certain gangsters who’ve been designated as terrorists, and Arsh Dalla happens to be one of them.”
News publication India Express ran a story in March claiming that the Indian government had previously shared Gill’s location with Canadian authorities and requested his arrest, however, it remains unclear if an extradition request was officially made.
Additionally, it remains unknown how the Canadian government responded to the request but former CSIS terrorism analyst Phil Gurksi argues that since Gill was only arrested after the shooting, it’s likely that the government did not act.
“If Canada doesn’t take action that India feels is necessary, there are people in India who would say, ‘We have no choice. Canada has ignored our requests. This is a dangerous individual. We have to take care of him ourselves,’” Gurski told CTV News.
News of Gill’s arrest and the previous request from the Indian government comes as the relationship between the two nations has been further strained in recent months.
Canada expelled six Indian diplomats from Canada last month after the RCMP accused the officials of being directly involved in homicides, extortions and other criminal acts of violence on Canadian soil.
The RCMP made the announcement after India refused to drop diplomatic immunity, which prevented the officials from being interviewed by Canadian police.
“As India did not agree, and given the ongoing public safety concerns for Canadians, Canada served notices of expulsions to six diplomats and consular officials early this morning,” said Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly at the time.
Joly said that, in response, India announced that it would withdraw those diplomats from Canada.
“To be clear, we’re not seeking diplomatic confrontation with India, but we will not sit quietly as agents of any country are linked to efforts to threaten, harass or even kill Canadians,” Joly said.
The diplomatic fallout began after Nijjar, an outspoken Khalistani activist was murdered in Surrey, B.C. last June, which Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused the Indian government of having involvement in. The Indian government has denied the accusation.
Since his murder, four Indian nationals living in Canada have been charged for their alleged involvement.
Gill, 28, and his co-accused, Gurjant Singh, both remain in custody at Maplehurst Correctional Complex in Milton, Ont. The two are awaiting their first court date.
The Trudeau government’s Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge is refusing to say whether or not the CBC’s outgoing CEO Catherine Tait will be receiving an exit payment for her time at the public broadcaster.
Tait is leaving the CBC in an abysmal state as the state broadcaster is currently experiencing a massive drop-off in viewership, the departure of major advertisers, significant layoffs of CBC staff, and a significant decline in the Canadian public’s support for the public broadcaster.
At a meeting of the House of Commons’ heritage committee, Conservative MP Damien Kurek questioned heritage minister St-Onge on whether or not Tait would be rewarded with an exit package upon her departure.
St-Onge dodged the question, denying that CBC executives receive bonuses while stating that the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper gave out generous bonuses to CBC executives during their time in government from 2006-2015.
“I’d remind you that she doesn’t have bonuses to start, it’s just not how it works so it’s false to say that that possibility exists,” said St-Onge.
“We should remember is that one of the first things the Harper government did when it took power in 2006 was to significantly increase bonuses by 65% for CEOs and other leaders.”
Despite St-Onge’s claim, the CBC’s 45 executives received $3.3 million in bonuses in June 2024, receiving an average bonus of $73,000 per executive.
Tait’s salary at the CBC ranges from $468,900 to $551,600, with the government being responsible for setting her bonus amount, ranging from 7% to 28% of her salary.
Kurek responded by expressing concern for taxpayer dollars that are being spent to confer large bonuses on the CBC’s CEO and executives.
“Certainly the board seems to approve of her performance, it appears that you’re unwilling to rule out giving her a generous bonus and generous exit package. I think that Canadians demand more respect for their taxpayer dollars,” said Kurek.
According to a public opinion poll commissioned by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation in August 2024, 69% of Canadians oppose the most recent round of CBC bonuses for CBC staff and executives.
The dolling out of millions of dollars in bonuses comes after the CBC laid off 600 employees in December 2023, amounting to 10% of the public broadcasters’ workforce.
In recent years, the Conservative party under leader Pierre Poilievre have been campaigning defunding the CBC’s English language programming while the governing Liberal party have defended the CBC, emphasizing its importance to Canadian news coverage and increasing its funding.
Former prime minister Stephen Harper is reportedly being considered as the chair of the Alberta Investment Management Corporation following the provincial government sacking the entire board and CEO on Nov. 7.
Sources told Postmedia that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith had supported Harper’s potential appointment for a while. However, concerns about his business activities allegedly needed to be addressed before proceeding. No wrongdoing was suggested, but there were potential conflicts of interest.
AIMCo is one of Canada’s top ten largest pension funds and is responsible for managing over $160 billion in assets, with a 7.3% ten-year annualized rate of return. The pension saw an $8.9 billion net investment return in 2023.
Some of the managed assets include the Alberta Teachers’ Retirement Fund, the Local Authorities Pension Plan, and the Public Service Pension Plan.
The pension fund operates independently from the province.
However, after firing the entire board, Alberta Finance Minister Nate Horner was appointed the sole director and chair until a new one could be appointed within 30 days. He was not to make any investment decisions or receive compensation during this time.
“The corporation has seen significant increases in operating costs, management fees, and staffing without a corresponding increase to return on investment,” reads the press release.
The Alberta government cited that between 2019 and 2023, AIMCo’s third-party management fees increased by 96%, the number of employees increased by 29%, and the salary, wage, and benefit costs increased by 71%. The increases came despite managing a smaller percentage of funds internally.
Ray Gilmour, a senior public servant in the provincial government for over five years, was named interim CEO the day after the board’s firing, on Nov. 8. Over the past five years, Gilmour oversaw an organization with more than 29,000 employees and a $73 billion budget.
“Ray has been the most trusted official in the province under three premiers. I have complete confidence in his ability to get costs at AIMCo under control and restore stability to the corporation,” said Horner.
True North asked the finance minister to confirm whether Harper would chair AIMCo.
“Alberta’s government will be announcing the new chair of AIMCo within the next couple weeks,” the finance ministry told True North.
Harper served as Canada’s 22nd prime minister from 2006 to 2015 over three terms.
He was one of the founders of the Reform Party of Canada and negotiated the merger of the Canadian Alliance with the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada to form the Conservative Party of Canada.
When Harper was elected in 2004, he was the Conservative Party’s first leader.
The former prime minister now serves as the chairman and CEO of Harper & Associates Consulting, working in the financial services, technology, and energy sectors, providing advice and counsel to business leaders.
