The RCMP has been using “Canadian-made” technology to spy on people’s cellphones for 20 years, even using spyware allowing officers to surreptitiously turn on phones’ cameras and microphones. The police agency says it only does this in limited circumstances with judicial approval, so Canadians don’t need to worry. True North’s Andrew Lawton says the RCMP hasn’t earned the benefit of the doubt.
Also, UCP leadership candidate Brian Jean joins to explain how he wants autonomy for Albertans, and Jasmine Moulton stops by to discuss her new True North show Reality Check.
Alexander Graham Bell is next on the woke historical revisionist chopping block.
A federal government body is investigating posthumous honours received by the Canadian inventor of the telephone due to his “controversial beliefs.”
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the Historic Sites and Monuments Board stated that it was reviewing the designations because of “views, actions and activities condemned by today’s society.”
Board members did not provide any details about what supposed controversial beliefs Bell held when flagging him for the review.
In 2019, the Liberals launched a Framework For History And Commemoration to review the 2,200 historical designations across Canada. To date the board has axed 208 monuments including Bell’s.
“In Canadian history colonialism, patriarchy and racism are examples of ideologies and structures that have profound legacies,” the Framework explained.
“There is a need to be cognizant of, and to confront, these legacies. This contributes to the ongoing process of truth-telling and reconciliation.”
Blacklisted historical figures include Canada’s first prime minister John A. Macdonald who was cited for “colonial assumptions,” Jacques Cartier and suffragette Lousie McKinney.
24 historic Canadian forts are currently also being investigated for “colonial assumptions.” Those include British Columbia’s Fort Steele, Fort La Reine in Manitoba, Fort Malden in Ontario and Fort Laprairie in Quebec.
The Liberals have also targeted historical archives. In March, it was revealed that a Trudeau-appointed archivist called on federal workers to purge thousands of pages including a biography of Macdonald on government websites.
“We need to discuss having a disclaimer on the website about having content that may offend people. I feel very strongly about that,” chief archivist Leslie Weir said in an email on June 9, 2021.
“Much of the content on the Library and Archives Canada website reflects the time at which it was written. We understand much of this outdated historical content no longer reflects today’s context and may be offensive to many. This is an enormous undertaking with over 7,000 web pages.”
Freedom Convoy organizer Tamara Lich is a political prisoner who’s been targeted by “weaponized” courts, Conservative leadership candidate Leslyn Lewis says.
In an email to supporters, Lewis took aim at “dictatorial acts” by the government throughout the pandemic, which the Liberals have fuelled.
“Justin Trudeau and the Liberals have created an environment that has undermined our institutions for political gains,” Lewis said. “Under the guise of protecting people’s health and safety, we have seen the erosion of our constitutional rights, and seen our justice system, law enforcement, health system and media weaponized to silence political opponents.
“These dictatorial acts have dangerously eroded the foundations of our democracy and the rule of law. The Liberals’ penchant for weaponizing institutions to silence their political opponents is undermining the very pillars that should be holding society together.”
Lewis, who is a lawyer, noted that a political prisoner is “a person imprisoned for their political beliefs and actions,” concluding this describes the state’s treatment of Lich.
Lewis also alluded to political infiltration of the judiciary, which she said was responsible for Lich’s two stints behind bars.
“Tamara Lich is just one example of what happens when government uses its power to control Canadians, to inflame hate and division and to infest independent institutions with political operatives,” Lewis said.
The first judge who detained Lich, Ontario Superior Court Justice Julie Bourgeois, was a former Liberal candidate. In addition, the Crown attorney, Moiz Karimjee, had donated over $17,000 to the Liberal party since 2013.
Lich was eventually released, but rearrested last month and spent nearly 30 days in jail after being accused of violating her previous bail conditions. Her new bail conditions include another $37,000 bond and tightened rules around communication with other convoy organizers.
The breach charge bringing her back to court in June relied on a photo taken at a dinner hosted by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) where Lich posed with Tom Marazzo. Lich’s defense relied on the fact that her lawyers were present at the event.
“The fact that we have to ask if Canada has political prisoners speaks to the state of our declining democracy,” Lewis’ email said. “But there seems to be no depth that Justin Trudeau and the Liberals will not sink to in order to control our thoughts, actions and even democratic institutions.”
“These events have sent tremors into the hearts of Canadians,” wrote Lewis. “Some of whom have picked up and left this country out of fear that we are descending into a full-blown dictatorship.”
Lewis has proposed that a two-thirds of members of parliament should have to approve the prime minister’s invocation of the Emergencies Act, a higher threshold than the simple majority in parliament required now.
“We never imagined our government would invoke the Emergencies Act without exhausting existing options and without a request from law enforcement–but that happened,” wrote Lewis. “We never conceived that Canadians could be targeted for their political views, their property confiscated and their bank accounts frozen out of a political vendetta.”
A former intelligence chief told MPs at the House of Commons ethics committee that elected officials at all levels of government are in the pocket of Communist China or other foreign governments.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, former Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) chief of the Asia-Pacific desk Michel Juneau-Katsuya revealed that the foreign interference reaches all the way into the federal government. Juneau-Katsuya made the admission during an investigation into the RCMP’s use of spyware on Canadian MPs.
“We had to monitor parliamentarians. There are elected officials at all levels whether it’s municipal, provincial or federal who are being paid by foreign governments and who are not necessarily acting in the interests of Canada,” said Juneau-Katsuya.
The former intelligence chief was tightlipped on how many politicians were working with foreign states or who they were but did reveal that the practice was ongoing.
“It is still happening. Foreign agents try to recruit elected officials. It’s fairly easy because elected officials don’t necessarily listen to security guidelines to protect themselves.”
Juneau-Katsuya also had concerns about elected officials who go on to work for foreign firms that work against Canada’s interests after leaving public office.
“What we know for sure is we have various foreign countries that succeeded in recruiting elected officials – again, municipal, provincial or federal – and were capable of influencing this way,” said Juneau-Katsuya.
“We see that also, when we see at the end of their mandate, cabinet ministers going to work for a foreign company that works directly against national security and the national interests of Canada.”
In 2021, the federal government directly named China as the main culprit in conducting foreign interference on Canadian soil.
“The Government of Canada is aware foreign states including the People’s Republic of China or its proxies may attempt to harass, threaten and intimidate Canadians, persons residing in Canada or their families in Canada or abroad, particularly Chinese diaspora or ethno-cultural communities,” a submission to the Commons foreign affairs subcommittee read.
Questions have arised about whether the Liberal government is doing enough to combat Chinese espionage. Last year, it was also reported that foreign agents are freely harassing and threatening Chinese dissidents in Canada.
New data published by the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy Canada shows that bankruptcies have spiked across the board in 2022.
Canadians filed over 26,000 personal insolvency claims in the second quarter of this year – an 11% increase compared to 2021.
Meanwhile, Ontario saw a 16.5% spike in bankruptcies with over 8,800 insolvencies being declared.
According to Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives economist David Macdonald, the housing market could be driving people to claim bankrupt status.
“You start to get under water, you can’t sell for enough money to cover the loan, and then you end up in insolvency,” said Macdonald. “The take-up rate was fairly high on the mortgage deferral program.”
An Ipsos survey from April found that 49% of Canadians reported that they were $200 away from insolvency and being unable to pay their debts.
Statistics Canada reported that in June the consumer price index jumped by 8.1% bringing inflation levels to a 39-year-high.
“On a year-over-year basis, consumers paid 54.6% more for gasoline in June following a 48.0% increase in May, contributing the most to headline consumer inflation,” said Statistics Canada.
“Prices at the pump rose 6.2% month over month in June, following a 12.0% increase in May. Gas prices largely followed crude oil prices, which peaked in the first week of June with higher global demand amid the easing of COVID-19 public health restrictions in China, the largest importer of crude oil.”
The inflation numbers came only weeks after the Bank of Canada announced a 2% interest rate hike to combat the inflationary pressure.
“With the economy clearly in excess demand, inflation high and broadening, and more businesses and consumers expecting high inflation to persist for longer, the Governing Council decided to front-load the path to higher interest rates by raising the policy rate by 100 basis points today,” wrote the Bank of Canada in a news release.
It’s almost impossible for some Canadians to afford a home right now. Government of all levels have come up with their solutions for Canada’s housing crisis. While some solutions are intriguing and some sound nice, none of them address the root problem of the issue – the government.
On this week’s episode of Reality Check, Jasmine Moulton breaks down Canada’s housing crisis and debunks the most popular leftist solutions to the crisis: government needing to implement rent control schemes, government imposing tax increases on homeowners and landlords and building more “affordable housing.”
Canadians are suffering from the worst levels of housing affordability since the 1990s according to an RBC Economics report from June. Jasmine arms you with the facts about one of our most serious and pressing issues.
Tune in now to Reality Check with Jasmine Moulton!
United Conservative Party (UCP) leadership contender Todd Loewen wants the provincial auditor general to investigate bonuses paid to civil servants during the Covid-19 pandemic – and the Alberta NDP agrees with him.
Albertan taxpayers have been grappling with the news that 107 management employees collected $2.4 million in bonuses in 2021 without government oversight. This includes a $227,911 Covid bonus for Alberta’s provincial chief medical officer of health (CMOH) Dr. Deena Hinshaw, an addition to her $363,634 salary.
Loewen wrote to the Auditor General on Thursday requesting an investigation and a performance audit completed on the Government of Alberta’s budget for fiscal year 2021-22, focusing on the 107 cash bonuses awarded to government officials and ministry staff.
“I believe Albertans are demanding clarity around the procedures and directives for the awarding of discretionary bonuses to these employees,” the Independent MLA wrote in in a letter to Auditor General Doug Wylie.
The civil service said Hinshaw’s bonus was approved using an existing formula to compensate civil servants for overtime hours.
Loewen said the bonuses are concerning because they were apparently done without the oversight of elected cabinet ministers “which I find deeply concerning.”
“Albertans expect their elected officials to be aware of what is happening in their departments,” he wrote. “We now have statements from multiple cabinet ministers saying that they had no knowledge of these bonuses being awarded. Albertans deserve answers regarding what else happened with Alberta’s finances that cabinet was not aware of and whether the directors in place were truly being followed.”
A letter from the NDP on Monday mirrors Loewen’s request, with finance critic Shannon Phillips requesting a performance audit of the bonus payment structures and processes related to the Covid-19 pandemic response. She also requested a performance audit of the actions of former finance minister Travis Toews, who’s now running to replace Premier Jason Kenney.
As previously reported by True North, Toews has said he did not approve nor did he have prior knowledge of Hinshaw’s bonus.
But Toews had ministerial authority over the Alberta Public Service Commission’s extra or special services compensation directive which was approved in March this year, Phillips wrote in her letter.
“For many Albertans, including members of our caucus who have served as ministers and on Treasury Board, MLA Toews’ claims defy belief,” Phillips wrote in the letter on Monday.
Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley said last week that the UCP is responsible for Hinshaw’s bonus and the subsequent fallout.
In response to Philip’s request, Loewen wrote on Facebook, “The awkward moment when even the NDP follows my lead… It won’t earn Rachel Notley a spot in my cabinet, but thanks for coming on board anyway!”
Alberta Finance Minister Jason Nixon has said the public service should not have the ability to “unilaterally approve significant overtime payments of this size.”
“The Public Service Commission has been instructed to undergo a full review of the policy to ensure that future overtime payments for emergencies go through Cabinet for approval,” Nixon said in a statement to True North. “Until the review has been completed and a new policy has been confirmed, all future requests will be brought forward for (the) Treasury Board to review.
UCP leadership frontrunner Danielle Smith said Albertans are “rightly stunned and outraged” by news of Hinshaw’s Covid bonus.
“As Premier, not only will we not lockdown again or impose vaccine mandates, we will have a full review into the handling of the pandemic, including the role our CMOH of health played in it,” she wrote on Twitter.
Contender Brian Jean said the bonus “is unsettling, to say the least.”
“While Albertans were losing businesses, while our health system was collapsing under mismanagement, the people on the Sky Palace balcony signed off on an all-time record bonus,” he wrote on Twitter.
A report published last week on revamping the Government of Canada’s digital infrastructure states that the next step to making services more convenient is to introduce a federal “Digital Identity Program.”
Details of the program were scarce in the publication titled Canada’s Digital Ambition 2022 which was signed off by President of the Treasury Board Mona Fortier and the Chief Information Officer of Canada, Catherine Luelo.
Citing the pandemic, the report outlines how a federal framework would also be integrated with provincial digital identities.
“The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the need for government services to be accessible and flexible in the digital age. The next step in making services more convenient to access is a federal Digital Identity Program, integrated with pre-existing provincial platforms,” the report explained.
“Digital identity is the electronic equivalent of a recognized proof-of-identity document (for example, a driver’s license or passport) and confirms that ‘you are who you say you are’ in a digital context.”
Steps currently underway to implement the program include “developing a common and secure framework to digital identity” and “launching public consultations on a federally managed digital identity framework.”
When first appointed to the position by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Fortier’s mandate letter for the Treasury Board included a specific directive to work “towards a common and secure approach for a trusted digital identity platform to support seamless service delivery to Canadians across the country.”
As exclusively reported by True North in May, the Trudeau government revealed that it was working with airlines to require “digital identity documents” and biometric data like facial recognition as boarding requirements.
Currently, the Liberals are facing calls from the opposition to ditch the ArriveCAN application citing airport backlogs and privacy concerns.
Canada’s privacy commissioner Philippe Dufresne was prompted to launch an investigation into the app to see whether it violated any laws or improperly collected the personal information of Canadians.
During a June House of Commons information and ethics committee, former privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien also told MPs that there is a potential for digital identity to be “harmful to privacy” if designed incorrectly.
“Digital ID, like all technologies, can be helpful and privacy protective or harmful to privacy depending on how it is designed. It is certainly conceivable that digital ID could enhance the verification process and the authentication process, allowing citizens to have access to services,” responded Therrien.
“It is certainly possible that digital ID would lead to the data being available to many players or actors, corporate or governmental, that should not have access to all of this data, but it doesn’t have to be designed that way.”
The deadline to purchase a United Conservative Party (UCP) membership to vote for the party’s next leader and Premier is this Friday at midnight.
Members must be a permanent resident of Alberta who is older than 14 years of age. The membership costs $10 for one year, $20 for two years or $30 for three years.
Members can also vote via mail-in ballot. Mail-in ballots will be sent out sometime after the Friday cutoff, and must be returned before October 3.
The Brian Jean and Leela Aheer campaigns told True North they expect around or slightly less than 100,000 Albertans to vote in the contest.
Leela Aheer’s campaign manager Sarah Biggs said the team is happy with their membership sales and is expecting less than 100,000 people to vote in the contest.
“But I am hoping that our efforts will be showing a significant increase in the membership base,” Biggs said in a statement to True North.
The Jean campaign said they expect membership to be around 100,000 people “which is quite an accomplishment in the middle of summer.”
“We expect that the majority of those members will vote but you never have everyone vote,” the campaign said in a statement to True North.
The Jean campaign also said it desires an updated membership list as soon as possible following the closing of sales on Friday.
“The list the campaigns are currently working off of is already almost three weeks out of date.”
Campaign spokesperson for Travis Toews Christine Myatt, said the UCP has one of the largest memberships of any political party in the country, but it’s only a fraction of the Alberta population.
“We hope that as many Albertans as possible sign up for their $10 UCP membership by August 12 in order to have a say in this pivotal election,” Myatt said in a statement to True North.”We also hope that everyone who holds a current UCP membership will participate in choosing Alberta’s next Premier.”
If 100,00 people vote in the contest, that marks just over 2% of Alberta’s population of 4.4 million who engage in the process.
In the 2017 UCP leadership race which elected Premier Jason Kenney, less than 60,000 votes were cast. But that race only elected a party leader, while this race will also elect a Premier who will inherit a $3.9 billion surplus and the upcoming surplus is projected to be the largest in Alberta’s history.
UCP leadership candidate Rajan Sawhney and her team are focused on signing up as many Albertans as possible to be part of the leadership election vote, as well as reaching out to the existing members, said campaign advisor Ryan Hastman.
“We look forward to continuing to share Rajan’s strong plan to move Alberta forward with UCP members from every corner of the province,” Hastman said in a statement to True North.
A statement from the Rebecca Schulz campaign said, “We will continue to sell memberships until the deadline and we’re looking forward to meeting new and existing members in the upcoming months.”
Danielle Smith’s campaign declined to comment on membership numbers, but the candidate has been encouraging Albertans to sign up before it’s too late.
Time is running out.
If you want to put Alberta First it’s now or never.
The UCP membership cutoff is this Friday, August 12th. Click the link, grab a membership for $10, and let’s do this together!
Candidate Todd Loewen did not respond to a request for comment.
Premier Kenney triggered a leadership race in May, just after he barely survived a leadership review with 51.4% of support from party members. He will step down once the new leader is selected.
In-person voting will occur on October 6, the same day the votes will be announced.
A new poll published by Leger shows that a majority of Canadians believe that the economy is already experiencing a recession.
When asked whether they “believe Canada is currently in an economic recession,” 57% of respondents said yes, 28% said no and 15% didn’t know.
Liberal and Bloc Quebecois voters were the least likely to believe the same with respondents polling 48% and 46% respectively.
WIth regards to the biggest issues facing Canada, inflation was the primary concern for Canadians with 21% of people ranking it as their top choice. Health care followed with 19% and climate change was in third place with 11%.
The survey was conducted online between Aug. 5 and 7, and included 1,509 Canadians over the age of 18 randomly recruited from an online panel.
A similar random sample would have a margin of error of +/- 2.52% or 19 times out of 20.
The number of Canadians who believe Canada is in a recession is slightly less than the 59% who said the same in July.
Economists are predicting that Canada will be in a recession by next year. In an RCB report, economist Nathan Janzen stated that a recession was “the most likely outcome” given current trends.
“(Recession) has become, in our view, the most likely outcome,” said Janzen.
“It doesn’t take a whole lot at that point to push you into negative GDP growth rates at some point next year, which is how a recession is defined.”
Among the causes cited by RBC were prolonged inflation, central bank policy and interest rate hikes.
“Strong domestic demand for housing and services has intensified these pressures and the labour crunch is driving wages higher,” wrote Janzen.
“Unemployment could jump by 1.5% to 6.6% as pressures continue to contract Canada’s economy.”
