fbpx
Saturday, May 17, 2025

Legacy media defends WEF after Pierre Poilievre shuns organization

By
Cosmin Dzsurdzsa
-

The legacy media is doing everything it can to defend the World Economic Forum (WEF) from attacks by Conservative leadership frontrunner Pierre Poilievre. 

Over the weekend, Poilievre announced that if he is elected prime minister, he would ban all top cabinet officials from attending the controversial conference. 

“My ministers in my government will be banned from participating in the World Economic Forum when I’m in government,” said Poileivre. “Work for Canada. If you want to go to Davos – to that conference – make it a one-way ticket.” 

Among the media personalities who leapt to the defence of the WEF was Globe and Mail columnist and frequent CBC guest Andrew Coyne. 

After Alibaba Group president J. Michael Evans boasted about developing an “individual carbon footprint tracker,” to monitor people, Coyne seemed compelled to clarify that the monitoring would be up to individual users and not authorities. 

Meanwhile, Global News anchor Mercedes Stephenson also came to the defence of the globalist organization, asking what Poilievre thinks “has changed about WEF” since former prime minister Stephen Harper attended the conference. 

Similarly, CTV reporter Evan Solomon called Poilievre’s announcement odd and pointed to several high-profile Conservative Party members who have attended the WEF. 

Globe and Mail journalist Robyn Urback mocked Poilievre for “banning certain people” from “something the internet told me was bad.” 

Even some conservative media journalists seemed to have a problem with Poilievre’s position.  

Toronto Sun columnist Brian Lilley called Poilievre’s ban on WEF attendance an “absolutely crazy point” and told the Conservative MP to “put down the hooka pipe.” 

In an op-ed, Lilley also accused Poilievre of “buying and selling a false narrative” about the global organization and of shilling “conspiracy theories” to sell party memberships. 

This is not the first time that Poilievre has attacked WEF during his campaign. 

Earlier this month, he pledged to boycott the forum after being questioned by supporters at a campaign stop in Ontario.

@mikegray287

♬ original sound – mikegray287

“I’m against the World Economic Forum,” Poilievre said. “Unlike Maxime Bernier, I’ve never been to the Davos conference that the World Economic Forum puts on, and he’ll have to explain why he went there and what he was doing there.” 

“But I did not go to that, and I would not, nor will any of my ministers.”

At Polievre’s side was his wife Ana, who told supporters, “(h)is name was on the website, and we do not know why. We asked them why they put (his) name there. The only answer we got is that they published an article that he has published, but he has no affiliation.”

Poilievre has also denied any relationship with WEF in an interview with True North’s Andrew Lawton in March.

As exclusively reported by True North, last year the Trudeau government gave the WEF $3 million in taxpayer funding. 

Currently, global policy makers are meeting in Davos, Switzerland to attend this year’s WEF summit. True North fellow Andrew Lawton has been reporting from the scene on the conference’s happenings. 

The WEF wants you to reduce your carbon footprint

By
Andrew Lawton
-

The world’s elites travelled to the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s annual meeting in their private jets and limousines, but they believe you need to do more to reduce your carbon footprint.

During today’s conference, Alibaba Group president J. Michael Evans boasted about the development of an “individual carbon footprint tracker” to monitor what you buy, what you eat and where/how you travel.

True North’s Andrew Lawton reports from Davos.

SUPPORT OUR COVERAGE OF THE WEF ANNUAL MEETING

GUEST OP-ED: Trudeau’s internet laws will muzzle his critics

By
Gregory Tobin
-

Gregory Tobin is the National Content Manager for the Canada Strong & Proud network of pages.

Imagine you woke up one morning to find out your Facebook account had been locked out. 

At first you think maybe you got hacked, but when you check your email, you see something from Facebook informing you that, unfortunately, according to the new censorship laws, the status update you posted that contained a criticism of the government was labelled as “hate speech” and “disinformation,” so they were forced to shut your account down.

That may seem like a bit of a wild example, but that possible future is closer than you think.

Right now the federal government has three bills they want to pass through Parliament – two of which are being voted on right now – which would allow the government to take direct regulatory control of what you see, say and read online.

These bills would mean you will be censored, news will be hidden from you and the government will pay off the news for favourable coverage.

So what are those bills? And how will they do this?

The first is Bill C-11. It’s called the Online Streaming Act, and its job is to control what Canadians see online. The government will do this by forcing the CRTC – which regulates TV and radio –  to regulate the entire online world in Canada as well. 

Do you want Prime Minister Trudeau, or any prime minister for that matter, along with a bunch of unelected bureaucrats to have the final say on what counts as appropriate content for Canadians?

Think of all the scandals and critical stories that could have been hidden from Canadians in the last 7 years had this legislation been passed – the WE scandal, the Aga Khan scandal, SNC Lavalin, blackface and so on.

The second is Bill C-18. It’s called the Online News Act. This bill’s job is to funnel hundreds of millions of dollars from tech companies to a select list of government-approved media outlets. It will disincentivize news outlets from being critical of the federal government, and puts outlets who don’t make the “nice list” at a serious disadvantage.

So how will it do this? 

First we need some background.

Back in 2020, when the Trudeau government started handing out its $600+ million per year in subsidies to news outlets, it also created the Qualified Canadian Journalism Organization board, made up of 5 unelected, unaccountable members who are all former journalists and academics.

They have the power to decide who qualifies to be a news organization and who doesn’t in Canada.

The Rebel recently applied for status and was denied.

Fast forward to today, and Bill C-18 will force tech companies like Facebook and Google to pay news outlets any time news content gets shared online. Legacy news outlets feel it’s unfair that 80% of online ad revenue is going to tech companies, but rather than try to change up their strategy or business model to compete, they lobbied the government for a sweetheart deal.

A paycheque builds loyalty and obedience. How good are you at criticizing your boss, or keeping them accountable? And how could the media possibly cover and criticize the government that it’s getting millions of dollars from?

The end result is a further loss of a truly free press – one of the very pillars of democracy. This bill would further reduce the separation between news and state that’s already been harmed by this same Trudeau government.

The third is the Online Harms Act, which hasn’t been tabled yet, but the Liberals made it a big election promise all the way back in 2015. So what do they plan to use it for? Simple. They will use it to silence dissenting Canadian voices online. It does this by cynically labelling anything they don’t like “disinformation” or “hate speech”.

Things like criticisms against the government, sharing news that has a critical angle, or exposes a scandal. Anything posted online can be flagged as “hate speech” or “disinformation” by the authorities, and then the government will impose massive fines on social media and other online outlets if they don’t take down the “hate speech.”

The same government that was caught and flagged on Twitter last election for sharing manipulated media, wants the power to label what’s “disinformation.”

It’s laughable.

All these bills together mean that Canada’s online world will become intolerant, oppressive, unfriendly, and neutered.

All three bills have received enormous blowback from academics and experts on both the left and right, as well as human rights organizations and freelance journalists.

During one hearing, Twitter’s head of public safety, Michele Austin held nothing back.

“People around the world have been blocked from accessing Twitter and other services in a similar manner as the one proposed by Canada by multiple authoritarian governments (China, North Korea and Iran for example) under the false guise of ‘online safety,’ impeding peoples’ rights to access to information online,” she said.

The prime minister knows exactly what he’s doing. He’s smart enough to craft these bills, and he’s smart enough to know exactly what they will do to Canadian society. The problem is, he doesn’t care. He wants to silence criticism, and he wants to shut down opposition.

Will Canadians one day wake up to find their social media accounts frozen for posting content critical of the government?

Trudeau mercilessly booted Jody Wilson Raybould and Jane Philpott out of his government because they stood up to him over the SNC lavalin scandal. Imagine what he’d do to you if he was given the chance.

This suite of censorship legislation is the greatest attack on free speech in modern Canadian history. It should not be ignored or underestimated. 

Canadians of all stripes should rightly fight back and get these bills tossed out of Parliament and into the dustbin of history.

The WEF’s climate agenda in their own words

By
Andrew Lawton
-

The World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Annual Meeting official programme began today, and panellists immediately started talking about climate change and how governments can “transition away from fossil fuel.”

Panellists went as far as admitting that there would be “pain in the process” and the executive chairman of the WEF Klaus Schwab claimed that those in Davos can change the future.

True North’s Andrew Lawton reports from Davos.

SUPPORT OUR COVERAGE OF THE WEF ANNUAL MEETING

GUEST OP-ED: Bringing some facts to the conversation on Residential Schools

By
Hymie Rubenstein
-
Source: (Gleichen, AB), P75-103 S7-184, 1945, General Synod Archives.

Hymie Rubenstein is editor of The REAL Indian Residential Schools newsletter and a retired professor of anthropology, The University of Manitoba

Readers of True North know that the legacy media are some of Canada’s biggest peddlers of  misinformation and disinformation – otherwise known as “fake news.”

There is no worse offender than the prestigious Globe and Mail. 

Take this April 21 Globe and Mail editorial titled Will the head of the Anglican Church finally bring restitution to Indigenous peoples? The column claimed that “historical records show 48 children died” at the Mohawk Indian Institute operated by the Anglican Church of Canada.

This claim is misleading. Let me explain. 

The Mohawk Institute opened in 1828 in Brantford, Ontario. The federal government took full responsibility for the school in 1945 and closed it in 1970.

The former Mohawk Indian Residential School, Brandford, Ontario

Indeed, there are 48 allegedly missing Mohawk IRS children listed on the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation Student Memorial Register. Where they died is unknown, and only two of the deaths are from the post-1941 period. 

But calling these children “missing” is inaccurate. They are not missing, they are known to be dead. 

Yes, their cause of death and place of burial are both unknown, but only because these were never investigated by the Centre’s many researchers. 

The result is that there is no reason to suspect that they are any more “missing” than the two children still not accounted for among their 51 Kamloops Indian Residential School counterparts. Those children were found in historical school records, backed up by death certificates (see here and here) by a lone unpaid researcher, Nina Green. All were buried in named cemeteries – mainly on their home reserves.

Even though Ms. Green sent droves of information to dozens of media outlets, Indigenous leaders, academics, and government officials months ago, they were ignored. 

Could this be because they contradicted the grievance narrative celebrated by agenda-driven woke activists like those who write at the Globe?

Objective research conducted by Green and others has revealed the fate of other so-called missing children — “so-called” because the whereabouts of their remains can easily be discovered by any serious researcher willing to dig through the schools’ archives and provincial death records.

These rich primary sources were either never properly studied or dismissed for their inconvenient truths by the extravagantly funded Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada charged with reporting on the history, operation, and legacy of the Indian Residential Schools. 

Similar scurrilous claims of Indigenous children murdered by Roman Catholic priests and secretly buried in the dead of night next to their Kamloops Indian Residential School have been thoroughly discredited. Ongoing research is sure to keep showing that nearly all former students can be accounted for across Canada, as has already been done for British Columbia and elsewhere. 

None were murder victims.

Globe-style falsehoods have been exposed only because of strict and impartial research – research now rejected by mainstream journalists, most academics, aboriginal leaders, and elected politicians in favour of Indigenous pre-scientific “ways of knowing.”

In the same piece, Globe and Mail columnist Tanya Talaga also writes that “thousands of children are now being recovered from the sites of schools just like the Mohawk Institute.” 

This is plain factual nonsense since no confirmed missing children have ever been “recovered” from any newly discovered putative grave anywhere in Canada.

The “missing children” discovered by the often inconclusive technique called ground penetrating radar have no names attached to them. The technique is so vague and inconclusive, researchers can’t even be sure if they’re looking at graves or tree roots. 

In order for remains to be “recovered,” as the Globe suggests, researchers would have to first confirm their existence and then presumably perform an excavation. 

Talaga also shows or feigns ignorance of previous Mohawk Institute efforts to discover the burial of alleged missing children when she argues, “now, an exhaustive search is under way [sic] on 600 acres of Six Nations’ grounds for those who never went home.”

Though superficially true, this ignores a previous search for student bodies in 2013 that was not only inconclusive but also fabricated by Canada’s leading Indigenous conspiracy theorist, defrocked United Church minister Kevin Annett. 

He was subsequently disavowed by the Mohawk leadership for his fraudulent claims. Annett’s inventions about the Mohawk Institute are eerily similar to the make-believe stories about the Kamloops Indian Residential School because the same man peddled both.

This has not prevented the burial-obsessed Trudeau federal government from allocating $10.2 million early this year for additional searches.

Talaga also speciously claims that the Indian Residential School system “was used as a tool of genocide” even though there is not a single verified case of a child murdered at any Indian Residential School during their 114-year government-funded operation (1883-1997). 

Yes, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission employed the extra-legal term “cultural genocide” to characterize the school experience. But this hyper-inflammatory synonym for the ordinary enculturation of millions of non-English-speaking children has been going on since our country’s founding.

She also claims, with no supporting evidence, that the Indian Residential Schools engaged in “stealing children to send to these so-called schools” oblivious to the fact that researchers have reconfirmed what was always known to any credible historian: Indian Residential School attendance was never mandatory – except for orphaned, abandoned, or abused children.

Canada’s history is imperfect, and there is no greater example than our history with First Nations Canadians. But rather than exaggerate and politicize our history – based on sloppy postmodern reports filled with half-truths, inflammatory rhetoric and vitriolic emotion – we should make sure that facts and truths rule the day and guide us towards finding reconciliation. 

LAWTON: The strange phoniness of Davos

By
Andrew Lawton
-

The World Economic Forum’s first in-person annual meeting in more than two years kicked off today in Davos, Switzerland.

It’s been eye-opening to see just how inauthentic much of it is.

Rebel News reporter Avi Yemini, who arrived in Davos Tuesday, got a glimpse of this himself when he saw construction crews erecting façades on buildings on the Promenade, the town’s main drag.

These glitzy façades adorn temporary outposts used by companies – and even countries – to promote themselves to the thousands of elites descending on Davos for the weeklong summit.

(I’ve no idea what these buildings are used for the remaining 51 weeks of the year).

The real estate, the temporary face-lifts, and the hospitality tabs, not to mention the costs to attend the WEF meeting itself, total in the millions. In these spaces, companies woo investors and politicians. Countries try to attract to find capital.

Among the countries who’ve sponsored “Houses,” as they’re called in Davos, are Greece, Namibia, and Poland. One of this year’s anticipated hotspots is Ukraine House, situated in a building that normally functions as the Davos casino.

“Ukraine House Davos is returning to Davos thanks to the generosity of the Davos community, which graciously provided a venue and services at no charge,” the Ukraine House website says.

When I was in the India lounge, a WEF meeting attendee nonchalantly mentioned he was with a company eyeing setting up an operation in India. Within moments, the greeter summoned an Indian trade official who started chatting the man up.

At the last WEF annual meeting, Russia sponsored a house. This year, a non-governmental organization backed by a Ukrainian oligarch has set up the “Russian War Crimes House,” an exhibit featuring jarring and graphic images from the war in Ukraine. The Russian War Crimes House was guarded by armed police and security.

Companies including Salesforce, Meta (formerly Facebook), and Accenture have large footprints here with their hospitality centres, many of which are closed off to those not on their guest lists.

Many of these spaces are only being used once or twice in the entire week. The sign outside the Female Quotient’s “Equality Lounge” said “All Are Welcome,” though regretfully I was told to come back Tuesday as it hadn’t opened yet.

Generally though, most of these spots are open. The hosts assume most people here are important, and many of them seem to be run by marketing firms which want to tell their clients they filled the rooms with those important people. While I was in one of them, two vegan protesters barged in and took a bunch of fruit. No one seemed to mind.

The “Saudi Café,” part of a sprawling network of buildings sponsored by the Saudi Arabian regime, was all too happy to offer traditional Saudi delicacies to anyone. What the regime lacks in human rights it makes up for in hospitality, evidently. Saudi friendliness is the least-convincing façade I’ve encountered so far.

Just down the road, a house sponsored by the Saudi crown prince’s foundation was giving out ice cream.

Most of the engagement I’ve seen in these houses is just glad-handing and networking – no multibillion-dollar deals or anything. But it shows there is cachet in being here and, more importantly, being seen.

There’s a bizarre caste system involving World Economic Forum badges that I’ve learned about since I got here. A white name tag with a blue line means you’re an invited guest, one of the VIPs hand-picked by the WEF to be here. A white badge with no line means you’re the spouse of one of those, evidently important but not that important.

Orange badges are reserved for the press, but some legacy media journalists are also here with blue-lined white badges, particularly those friendly with WEF. Green badges go to those in the entourages of the white-badged elites, such as political staffers and corporate flacks.

Normally at conferences, people can’t wait to take their nametags off. Here, people wear them around proudly.

As you’ll know if you caught my previous reports on this conference, I am completely badgeless, though I’m told cabinet ministers and Saudi princes freely walk around without their badges. Perhaps before the week is up, I’ll manage to convince a security guard I’m an uber-important Ukrainian oligarch and be able to hit up the good parties.

Beyond the fake buildings and fake status markers, I’d be remiss to not also point out the fake climate crusaders. 

Many of the panels scheduled for the conference this week are about climate change, going net-zero, transitioning away from oil and gas, and related topics. Yet I couldn’t help but notice the helicopters flying overhead dropping off the VIPs and dignitaries coming to Davos to solve climate change. 

Once they land, they get picked up in one of the hundreds of waiting BMW or Mercedes Benz limousines, which drives them the kilometre or two into town to whichever of the “secure” (publicly-inaccessible) hotels they’re staying at.

I don’t have much in common with Antifa “climate justice” protesters generally, but I spoke to a few earlier who aren’t convinced by the Davos crowd. 

I was quite moved by a woman I spoke to from KlimaSeniorinnen, a Swiss activist group made up of older women. She doesn’t own a car. She walked to Davos, in fact. We don’t see eye to eye politically, but she practices what she preaches unlike those who jet in from around the world to talk about the climate. 

She was real, even if nothing else was.

Climate protesters say WEF meeting is a “corporate Disneyland”

By
Andrew Lawton
-

During the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Annual Meeting, politicians from around the world will be discussing how to fight climate change. The agenda for the conference is full of pledges of “net-zero” and “clean energy.”

However, according to climate protesters in Davos, the WEF’s promises to fight climate change are not genuine. Many believe the WEF Annual Meeting is no more than a “corporate Disneyland.”

True North’s Andrew Lawton is in Davos, Switzerland to cover the international conference and caught up with some climate activists to discuss why they’re protesting the WEF.

SUPPORT OUR COVERAGE OF THE WEF ANNUAL MEETING.

Federal public sector unions say vax mandate “now is unreasonable”

By
Harley Sims
-
Source: Facebook

As legal action continues across Canada over the constitutionality of pandemic measures, three federal public sector unions have said they will now defend their members against the Trudeau government’s ongoing vaccine mandates.

The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada (PIPSC), the Canadian Association of Professional Employees (CAPE) and the Public Service Alliance of Canada (PSAC) have all filed grievances against the federal government on behalf of their members, as reported by the National Post.

Altogether, the three unions represent over 300,000 public servants. According to the Treasury Board, 1,828 of them had been forced onto leave without pay by the end of March.

The Trudeau government’s vaccine policy for federal employees – first announced Oct. 6 of last year – requires all public servants to have at least two Covid shots “whether they are teleworking, working remotely, or on-site.”

The policy was, however, up for its first slated six-month review on Apr. 6. The purpose of the review is for the government’s chief human resources officer to re-evaluate the vaccination policy, which is subject to modification based on changing circumstances.

Union officials said there has been no word of that review and that it is less reasonable than ever to suspend unvaccinated public servants who are working – or can work – from home.

“Not only have they failed not to give us a position, they failed to let us know when they’re going to come up with a position,” said PIPSC president Jennifer Carr. “We had a call (Tuesday), and they still can’t give us a tentative date.”

Like almost all unions across Canada, PIPSC, PSAC and CAPE say they endorse Covid vaccines and recognize that the vast majority of their members have gotten the required shots (the Treasury Board claims that around 99% of federal workers have).

They point out, however, that requiring a tiny minority of people who have not gotten the shots AND don’t need to go to an office to work shouldn’t be forced off the job.

“We continue to support vaccination. But given … the loosening of the COVID restrictions and the shifting landscape, we’re of the opinion that employer’s policy right now is unreasonable. These members can work from home.”

CAPE president Greg Phillips agreed.

“My members are basically all office workers,” he said. “For the past two years, only a statistically insignificant number of people have actually had to go into the office.”

“What we’re saying is that if you have to go into the office, you should be vaccinated, as much as if you’re going into a construction zone, you have to wear steel toed shoes.”

As for the federal government’s response, Treasury Board spokesperson Alain Belle-Isle said that a review is currently underway, but also insisted “(t)here is no obligation to update the policy every 6 months.”

That wasn’t good enough for the three unions, whose grievances demand the federal labour relations tribunal require the government to allow suspended employees to work from home, as well as to compensate them for lost wages since Apr. 6.

“They have to look at other health and safety measures that are appropriate,” Carr added. “Again, working from home is one of those, as well as keeping people out of contact, but also ventilation rates and spacing and masking if applicable.”

This week, True North published a survey of recent arbitration decisions over vaccine mandates, as compiled by the labour law firm Mathews Dinsdale.

 The survey concluded by recognizing that “circumstances surrounding the pandemic are constantly changing, and therefore the reasonableness of measures can also change,” but also that “it is clear the loosening of restrictions has not swayed arbitrators’ thinking that COVID-19 is still a large enough threat to the workplace to warrant mandatory vaccination policies.”

In B.C., a lawyer is now representing over 200 union members against the unions they say failed to defend them against the vaccine mandates that forced them off the job.

Grid regulator warns of supply-chain-related power outages this summer

By
Cosmin Dzsurdzsa
-

Supply chain issues and shuttered power plants mean parts of Canada could experience widespread power outages this summer, according to an annual report by a continental grid regulator. 

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NAERC) blames droughts, closed down power plants and the growing supply chain crisis as the cause of the predicted blackouts. 

“NERC’s 2022 Summer Reliability Assessment warns that several parts of North America are at elevated or high risk of energy shortfalls this summer due to predicted above-normal temperatures and drought conditions over the western half of the United States and Canada,” the corporation’s press release stated. 

“These above-average seasonal temperatures contribute to high peak demands as well as potential increases in forced outages for generation and some BPS (bulk power system) equipment.”

Its assessment for Alberta notes that “above-normal summer” conditions could result in the employment of mitigation measures including emergency alerts and “load shedding.”

“Alberta is expected to have sufficient resource availability to meet demand and cover reserves. However, if all derate conditions were combined concurrently, Alberta would likely need to seek external assistance for imports,” the assessment explained. 

“Above-normal summer peak load and outage conditions could result in the need to employ operating mitigations (i.e., demand response and transfers) and (energy emergency alerts). Load shedding may be needed under extreme peak demand and outage scenarios studied.”

The NAERC wrote that Saskatchewan should also expect extreme conditions that “cause above-normal generator outages or demand.” 

Researchers blamed the stressed supply chain, including challenges for coal plants in acquiring fuel.

As exclusively reported by True North, a recent report by Calgary blamed the “aggressive price” on carbon as contributing to Alberta’s high electricity rates. 

“In 2022 February, the ENMAX residential regulated rate option price (16.52 cents per kilowatt-hour) was at its highest level since the provincial government restructured the regulated rate option in 2006,” the report explained.

High prices were caused in part by a “more aggressive price for carbon” and increased demand. 

In Alberta, 36% of the province’s electricity is produced by coal generators, while 54% is produced using natural gas. 

CRA spending questioned after millions in subsidies given to insolvent companies

By
Cosmin Dzsurdzsa
-
Source: Flickr

The Canada Revenue Agency gave millions in taxpayer funding in the form of the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) to hundreds of companies that owed the government taxes and eventually went bankrupt. 

According to Blacklock’s Reporter, an Inquiry of Ministry requested by Conservative MP Anna Roberts shows that 750 firms that became insolvent received $145.9 million in emergency funds. 

“(Of those companies) 352 owed back taxes to the Canada Revenue Agency when they were sent the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy payments,” government staffers wrote. 

“What are the names of the companies that owed back taxes?” the inquiry asked. 

“As the protection of taxpayer information is of utmost importance the confidentiality provisions of the Acts administered by the Revenue Agency prevent the disclosure of taxpayer information,” replied Revenue Minister Dianne Lebouthilier. 

The subsidy was introduced by the Liberal government in 2020. At first, CEWS paid a 10% subsidy to small businesses before it grew to a 75% grant for public companies. 

Concerns have also been raised about the CRA’s own fiscal responsibility during the course of the pandemic. 

During the pandemic, CRA employees received a 10% raise. At the time Canadians suffered from a 10.9% unemployment rate which was preceded by a record unemployment rate of 13.7%. Small businesses were also being shuttered by lockdowns.

CRA employees received other perks as well, including increased maternity leave qualifications up to 78 weeks, more overtime meal allowances and a single payment of $400. 

According to the Parliamentary Budget Office, all federal employees received a total of $1.3 billion in payouts during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“The Treasury Board was unable to provide actual personnel expenditures,” wrote the PBO.

“Leave was likely under-reported by many organizations. Indeed, in each subsequent data update provided by the Treasury Board there was an increase in the number of hours previously reported.”

1...820821822...1,460Page 821 of 1,460

Related stories

© 2025 True North | Privacy Policy