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Friday, July 11, 2025

Canadian Forces veteran James Topp makes it to Manitoba

By
Harley Sims
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Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) veteran James Topp has crossed from Saskatchewan into Manitoba, reaching the second-to-last province of his protest march to Ottawa and facing the nastiest weather his team has seen yet.

Topp gave an update just outside of the village of Kirkella before calling it a day on Tuesday evening.

“Well, it’s been another amazing day, and met some great people,” he said. “And we say goodbye to Saskatchewan and hello to Manitoba for the next – foreseeable – future.”

“Thanks everybody in Saskatchewan. It was a hell of a ride. And like I said in my other video, time for another province to abuse me with weird weather.”

Topp entered Saskatchewan on Apr. 9 and soon ran into a massive blizzard that blanketed some areas of the province with as much as 50cm of snow. The bad weather only continued during his two-week trek toward Manitoba, requiring him on days to call an early stop to his march in order to hunker down.

“This isn’t a suicide mission,” Topp said on Saturday amidst fierce winds. “It’s about us getting to Ottawa.”

Topp – a 28-year veteran of the CAF – is marching to the nation’s capital to protest government mandates during COVID. He began his trek from Vancouver’s B.C. Place on Feb. 20, the same day a joint force of national, provincial and municipal police ended the Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa.

Having been forced from his job due to vaccine mandates, Topp told True North before he began that the truckers’ show of courage had brought him back from the brink of despair, and showed him what he owes to the working people who built this country. 

His protest he has dedicated to all those who have suffered under vaccine mandates – whether those who lost their jobs, those who were coerced into getting the shots, or those who saw their relationships damaged due to their vaccination status.

His goals – and progress – can be found on his website, CanadaMarches.ca.

Topp also spoke to True North’s Andrew Lawton from the road on Apr. 21.

Topp intends to reach the National War Memorial in Ottawa some time in June, where he hopes politicians will meet with him and discuss with him the reasons behind his march.

Liberal-funded “anti-hate” activist grilled over misinformation about Freedom Convoy

By
Cosmin Dzsurdzsa
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Conservative MP Dane Lloyd grilled an activist from the far-left Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN) before a parliamentary committee this week, accusing the group of bias and for spreading misinformation during the Freedom Convoy.

CAHN executive director Evan Balgord admitted to the Commons public safety committee on Tuesday that his so-called research organization did not in fact verify a photo of an anti-Semitic flyer allegedly found at the site of the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa before CAHN chair Bernei Farber pinned it on convoy protesters. 

The admission came during Lloyd’s questioning of Balgord.

“During the convoy protests your (chair) Bernie Farber posted a tweet with a photo of a vile antisemitic flyer and claimed that this was a picture of a flyer being circulated in Ottawa among the trucker protesters, but upon further examination it was proven that this exact same photo was taken in Miami, Florida weeks before the protest ever began,” said Lloyd. 

“Can you explain why the (chair) of your organization was claiming that this photo was being circulated at the protest when in fact it was a photo from a completely different country weeks before the protest?” 

Balgord explained that “(w)hat had occurred was that somebody had reached out to us in Ottawa who said that they saw that flyer there, and they provided the photo at that moment.

“Bernie was not aware that the photo itself was taken from an American source,” he continued. “What the person was trying to communicate to our organization was that they saw the same flyer but they had attached the photo from the states so it was our error in not communicating that more clearly.”

“So you have no evidence other than hearsay that that flyer was actually being distributed in Ottawa? Correct?” asked Lloyd. 

“That is correct. We took the report from somebody on the ground, and our chair put the information out there,” replied Balgord. 

Quillette editor Jonathan Kay was the first to debunk Farber’s Feb. 6 tweet that claimed that the photo of the flyer was “taken by a friend in Ottawa at the Occupation. Apparently in plain sight.” 

Farber eventually deleted the tweet after its true source was discovered. 

During his testimony, Balgord also admitted that CAHN was biased, describing it as an “anti-fascist” group. 

“We wear our biases on our sleeves,” he said. “We are very proudly anti-fascist and we focus on the far right.” 

Responding to the remark, Lloyd referred to the rash of church burnings last summer about which CAHN has remained silent.

“You know, I come from an area where last summer where we had a 100 year old church burnt to the ground and dozens of people had to be evacuated from an apartment building close by which nearly went up in flames and killed dozens of people, but you just don’t hear it talked about in this country, and I understand that it’s not your organization’s mandate to talk about these things,” he said. 

The anti-Semitic flyer is among numerous false claims by the legacy media and politicians which were floated to paint convoy demonstrators as extremists and even domestic terrorists. 

At the height of the demonstrations in Ottawa, numerous Liberal and NDP politicians including NDP leader Jagmeet Singh claimed that the protesters were responsible for an attempted arson on a residential building. The Ottawa Police Service have since debunked those assertions after arresting two suspects whom they said had no connection to the convoy protest. 

CAHN has to date received a quarter-million dollars from the Trudeau government for “anti-racist” research activities under the Anti-Racism Action Program.

Standing up against the corporate media’s social justice agenda (Ft. Jamil Jivani)

By
Candice Malcolm
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The woke mind virus has infected just about every company in corporate Canada, but it seems to be the media has been hardest hit, with anti-conservative purges happening in editorial sections and managerial rooms across the country.

For those few journalists who refuse to go along with the media’s social justice agenda and push back against the Left’s woke world view, they run the risk of losing their jobs.

On this episode of The Candice Malcolm Show, former radio host Jamil Jivani joins the show. Jamil was recently fired by Bell Media and iHeartRadio for refusing to push the woke dogma or parrot their ideological talking points on identity politics. Candice and Jamil discuss the sad state of the corporate legacy media in Canada, how conservatives are fighting back, Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter and much more.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE CANDICE MALCOLM SHOW

Statistics Canada data debunks claims that border blockades impacted trade

By
Cosmin Dzsurdzsa
-

New data shows that border blockades that happened while Freedom Convoy protests took place in Ottawa had little effect on cross-border trade. 

Data from Statistics Canada has revealed that international trade at Ontario and Alberta borders with the US were actually up in February compared to the same time last year. 

The new statistics raise doubts about Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s justifications for his implementation of the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14, which cited  “threats to (Canada’s) economic security resulting from the impacts of blockades of critical infrastructure, including trade corridors and international border crossings.” 

The first blockade occurred at Coutts, Alberta which paused all traffic at the border crossing to Montana. The Ambassador Bridge border crossing in Ontario was also blocked soon after, while similar protests took place in Surrey, B.C. and Emerson, Manitoba.

Even trade in perishable goods such as vegetables was up in February, with Ontario reporting a 7% increase compared to last year. Meanwhile, Alberta saw a whopping 66% increase in vegetables crossing the border. 

Almost every single type of trade – excluding automobiles – was up the same month the borders were blockaded. 

In February, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland claimed that “the Ambassador Bridge (blockade) has affected about $390-million in trade each day.”

The international trade numbers indicate that most of the goods eventually reached their destination when business resumed, despite the delays caused by the blockades. 

This week, Trudeau appointed former Liberal staffer and judge Paul S. Rouleau to head the Public Order Emergency Commission – a so-called “independent public inquiry” into the government’s use of the Emergencies Act. 

The Liberals have already attempted to block certain court challenges from accessing documents used by the federal government to justify their emergency powers. 

Court documents show that the Liberals cited “cabinet confidentiality” in their attempt to hide the documents from the Canadian Constitution Foundation and other civil rights groups. 

Rolling Thunder organizer warns ban on protest could lead to a “free for all”

By
Elie Cantin-Nantel
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One of the organizers behind the Rolling Thunder motorcycle convoy has warned that the Ottawa Police’s plan to ban “vehicle-based or supported protests” from the city’s downtown will result in a “free-for-all”. 

On Monday, the Ottawa Police Service (OPS) announced it would be creating “vehicle exclusion zones” that would cover large segments of downtown Ottawa.  

OPS chief Steve Bell told 580 CFRA that they had “identified that based on what’s occurred in our city over the last number of months, that vehicle-based protests shouldn’t occur in that area.”  

According to Bell, contributing factors in the decision to limit protest downtown include the Freedom Convoy and expectations to maintain the safety and well-being of Ottawa communities who are “scarred by what happened in February.”

However, as reported by The Canadian Press, organizer Neil Sheard (also known as “brother Neil”), is calling on the city to reconsider its decision, saying that the lack of a designated route for bikers to follow could create safety issues. 

“Thousands of people are coming to the city, there could be over a thousand bikes coming,” said Sheard in a YouTube video. He added that they “had a route nailed.” 

Sheard said the city had taken away the “quasi control that we could’ve had to guide the motorcycles.” 

“And now, it’s gonna be a free for all.” 

Sheard called the situation a safety issue, adding that since day one, he had “always been about the safety of the bikes, safety of the public, constantly safety, safety, safety.” 

He addressed Ottawa mayor Jim Watson directly in his video, saying “Mr. Mayor, I am imploring you to have a relook at this.”

The Rolling Thunder bike convoy is set to arrive in Ottawa on Friday. Unlike the Freedom Convoy, participants are only planning on staying in Ottawa for the weekend.  

The bikers and their supporters will hold two rallies on Parliament Hill – one on Friday evening and another Saturday afternoon. They will also hold a memorial service at the National War Memorial at 10:00am Saturday. The service will be hosted by advocacy group Veterans for Freedom.

On Sunday, participants are invited to a church service at the Capital City Bikers Church before they head back to where they came from.

In his video, Sheard reminded participants to be peaceful, dignified and respectful. 

“Don’t have them paint us with a bad brush,” he said.

The Freedom Convoy had received large amounts of negative coverage from the legacy media, as well as disparaging remarks from some elected officials.

Before the truckers had even arrived in Ottawa at the end of January, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had described them as a “small fringe minority” holding “unacceptable views.” He also called them “tinfoil hats” and referred to a handful of bad actors as representing the whole movement.  

Meanwhile, Ottawa councilor Diane Deans went as far as calling the peaceful convoy demonstrators “terrorists.” The protests were brought to an end on Feb. 17-20 by a joint force of national, provincial and municipal police after Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14.

Trudeau calls inquiry into his invocation of the Emergencies Act

By
Andrew Lawton
-

Sixty days after Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act to clamp down on Freedom Convoy protesters in Ottawa, his government has established a public inquiry. Trudeau won’t say whether he’ll let the judge overseeing the inquiry have access to cabinet documents though, raising questions about how fulsome the inquiry can be when it comes to the government’s conduct and evidence for declaring a national “emergency.” True North’s Andrew Lawton discusses this with Canadian Constitution Foundation executive director Joanna Baron.

Also, Kate Harrison joins to chat about the upcoming Canada Strong and Free Network (formerly Manning Centre) conference in Ottawa.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE ANDREW LAWTON SHOW

BC law society investigating free speech lawyer over misgendering

By
Cosmin Dzsurdzsa
-
Source: Wikipedia

A B.C. lawyer representing a father who was jailed for opposing his daughter’s medical gender transition now says he’s being investigated by the Law Society of British Columbia for misgendering.

Vancouver lawyer Carey Linde says he was issued two citations by the society “alleging, among other things, misgendering an unknown trans child and discussing the facts and medical history of this unknown child.” 

Linde was cited on Jun. 3, 2021 for three alleged breaches of conduct. Two of the citations relate to him speaking out about the AB vs CD trial, which has received international coverage.

The father involved in the case, known only in court documents as “CD” is attempting to prevent his underaged daughter –  “AB” – from undergoing a medically-induced gender transition. Last year, CD was arrested for criminal contempt and jailed after allegedly repeatedly breaking a publication ban on the case by speaking to various media outlets. 

According to the society, Linde also breached the publication ban on the case by “posting on-line, causing to be posted on-line or failing to remove from on-line” items that were covered under the judge’s order. Additionally he is being investigated for breaching a “Protection Order” in interviews he gave to the media.

In the said order, BC Supreme Court Justice Francesca Marzari called misgendering and denying gender identity a form of “family violence.” The order also restrained CD and his legal counsel from “referring to (his daughter) as a girl or with female pronouns,” either to the child directly or to third parties. 

Linde’s case is scheduled to be heard on May 16-18, but it has been closed to the public and media, a move Linde refers to as a “gag order.” 

“What happened to the elaborate campaign to sell the Law Society’s  new image freshly modern,  transparent, and visible fairness with hearings open to the media?” Linde wrote in an email to the society’s counsel. “How is that possible if its procedures and disciplinary hearings are not open to the public and the mass media? My license to vigorously defend constitutional rights to free expression of personal opinion is in jeopardy.”

Law society Director of Communications and Engagement Jason Kuzminski told True North that hearings can be closed to the public in order to protest confidential client information.

“Discipline hearings may be closed to protect confidential client information. The court orders are a core element of the allegations before the Tribunal, and the orders prohibiting publication are still in effect. As such, at a pre-hearing meeting the Tribunal made an order that the hearing be closed to comply with the court orders,” said Kuzminski in an emailed statement. “The allegations, which still have to be proven in hearing by the Law Society Tribunal, are that Linde acted contrary to Law Society Rules by breaching court orders, including orders prohibiting publication of personal information of a party to litigation before the court.”

On Mar. 27, Linde applied to have several documents produced for his defense and alleged that some involved in his hearing were biased. Adjudicator Lindsay R. LeBlanc turned down Linde’s application for the documents but has requested written submissions regarding the bias claims. 

True North has reached out to the Law Society of British Columbia and will update this story as information becomes available.

“Aggressive price” on carbon contributing to high electricity rates: report

By
Cosmin Dzsurdzsa
-

A new Calgary report on the surging cost of energy names the “aggressive price” on carbon emissions as one factor driving up the prices of electricity and natural gas prices for Albertans. 

The report, an Industry Update on Electricity, Natural Gas, and Telecommunications, was submitted to Calgary’s Apr. 27 Community Development Committee by the City’s Chief Financial Officer.

According to the update, the electricity regulated rate option price hasn’t been this high in nearly 16 years. 

“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. 

Higher electricity prices in Alberta were driven by “a more aggressive price for carbon,” “increased demand,” and “higher generator offer prices” among other factors. 

In Alberta, the vast majority (91%) of electricity people use is produced from fossil fuels. Alberta was among several provinces that had to submit to a federal carbon tax beginning in 2019. On Apr. 1, the carbon tax saw a scheduled increase by 25% to $50 per tonne. 

Executive Director of Operations for the Canadian Energy Centre Mike Simpson told True North that multiple policies affecting the development of energy projects, along with a lack of market access for pipelines, is also a contributing factor.

“When implemented policies create a shortage of supply, costs of the product will go up,” explained Simpson. “The burden on natural gas consuming Canadians has been steadily increasing for many years.” 

“While natural gas prices are increasing, there are other costs in regards to electricity such as distribution and transmission charges, balancing pool allocations, rate riders and other fees that make up the final bill,” 

Along with the cost of electricity, the price of natural gas has also climbed due to various factors including increased export. 

“Natural gas prices in Alberta have climbed as geopolitical issues in Europe have helped fuel commodity inflation across the globe. Closer to home, below-average inventories and elevated liquefied natural gas export demand have also placed upward pressure on natural gas prices,” wrote staff. 

According to Simpson, Canada is not producing resources fast enough to meet the global demand, and the federal regulatory system could be to blame. 

“Canada is not developing its resources fast enough. But this should not surprise anyone when you have an open ended federal regulatory system that requires companies to risk billions upfront with no guarantees and political interference within,” Simpson told True North. 

“The global marketplace needs our responsibly developed resources, because if not us, the world will get oil and gas from some of the worst players – Qatar, Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela to name a few. This should be unacceptable to all Canadians when we stand for the equality of human rights for our global neighbours.”

Last year Prime Minister Justin Trudeau revealed that he wanted to force the oil and gas sector to cut emissions by 40% – a plan which Alberta Premier Jason Kenney blasted as “unrealistic.” 

“Their approach seems to be, well it’s totally unrealistic, and their approach, if they were to actually achieve their targets without using these transition technologies, would be devastating to the entire global economy,” said Kenney in November. 

As reported by True North, the Trudeau government also recently went after the agriculture sector, which it has tasked with reducing emissions from fertilizers by 30%. In a recent report by Agriculture Canada, the Liberals labeled Canadian grain growers as the worst “emissions intensity” offenders in the world. 

Industry leaders including President of the Western Canadian Wheat Growers Gunter Jochum have hit back at the federal government’s assertions. 

“I would like to know where they got their facts from,” Jochum told True North. “I believe those facts were entirely made up because in Canada we don’t even have a baseline as to what the true emissions are.”

Journalists’ social media monitored by RCMP during Freedom Convoy

By
Harley Sims
-
Source: X

Damage control over negative publicity of the RCMP during the crackdown on the Freedom Convoy sent the police force’s media relations department scrambling, with teams monitoring and screenshotting the social media accounts of journalists, according to documents obtained by Rebel News.

As reported by The Rebel’s Sheila Gunn Reid, the surveillance occurred in the wake of leaked Whatsapp group chats showing RCMP officers apparently gloating over the mistreatment of Freedom Convoy protesters, with some luxuriating at the Fairmont Chateau Laurier – Ottawa’s choicest establishment.

In addition to the accounts of True North journalists Andrew Lawton and Cosmin Dzsurdzsa, RCMP surveillance involved collections of screenshots from the social media of other reporters providing positive coverage of the Freedom Convoy. These included Fox News’s Greg Re and Tucker Carlson, Rebel News’s Ian Miles Cheong and Ezra Levant, National Post’s Rupa Subramanya, Counter Signal’s Keean Bexte and independent journalist Benny Johnson.

Rebel and other outlets had published the Whatsapp photos and screenshots, which were leaked on Feb. 19. The same day saw mounted police knock down and trample an elderly First Nations woman – an action that the group chat’s members cheered.

“Just watched that horse video – that is awesome!!! We should practice that manoeuvre,” wrote one member by the name of “Marca.”

Another member under the name of Andrew Nixon wrote, “(t)ime for the protesters to hear our jackboots on the ground.”

He added that they were going to make some “sweet OT (overtime)” that weekend, and urged his colleagues, “(d)on’t kick all of (the protesters) out until next weeks group gets our turn.”

The documents obtained by The Rebel last week show a national police force in crisis, with social media teams exchanging hundreds of emails and other messages. As Gunn Reid reports, the RCMP “sought to identify and delete any promotional postings the agency had used featuring police officers involved in the internal leaked chats.”

Messages also show that RCMP managers were interested in the whistleblower who leaked the chats and that that policer officers were “feeling threatened, paranoid and demonstrating anxiety like symptomology” due to the negative publicity of the leaks.

The RCMP teams also mention Rebel reporter Alexa Lavoie – whom police shot in the leg with a gas canister – alleging that Rebel had set up a website in support of Lavoie even before the incident occurred.

There is also an apparent expression of gratitude towards a reporter who helped curb some of the public outrage over the leaked chats, with police writing, “…this was shut down overnight by an immediate reply to Justin Ling (Thanks Camille).” 

The RCMP are one of several police forces who participated in the crackdown on the Freedom Convoy protests between Feb. 17 and 20, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau invoked the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14. 

As exclusively reported by True North, an Access to Information and Privacy request revealed that the RCMP charged taxpayers a total of $234,995.79 for breakfast, lunch and dinner buffets at the Fairmont Chateau Laurier hotel’s Canadian Room.

Twitter, Microsoft oppose Trudeau government policing social media

By
Noah Jarvis
-

Tech giants including Twitter, Pinterest and Microsoft have voiced their opposition to the Trudeau government’s Bill C-11, calling it a tactic of censorship and government overreach.

The companies’ submissions to Canadian Heritage’s “online harms” consultation were shared by University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist, who posted them on his blog. Bill C-11 seeks to subject streaming and social media platforms to government regulations.

In addition to Twitter, Pinterest and Microsoft, firms that gave their input on the government’s plans included TikTok and Canada’s largest telecoms companies (Bell, Rogers, Telus, Cogeco, Quebecor and Shaw), which issued a joint submission.

Twitter, known for its tight censorship policies, claims that the bill “(s)acrifices freedom of expression to the creation of a government run system of surveillance of anyone who uses Twitter.”

“As lived during the recent Canadian federal election, a general approach to flagging will result in censorship,” Twitter said in their statement. 

The social media giant said that Bill C-11 opens the door for politicians to use the powers the bill grants the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to influence Canadian political discussion to benefit the governing party of the day.

Corporations that operate as a platform for online discussions and information sharing will come under direct regulation of the CRTC and be subject to rules and quotas set by the CRTC if Bill C-11 passes.

The CRTC would force these companies to promote a certain amount of Canadian content set by a CRTC quota, as well as require these companies to censor what they deem to be harmful content.

It is expected that streaming services including Netflix and Disney + would be forced to promote a certain amount of Canadian content, while such as Twitter and YouTube would have to police their platforms on behalf of the CRTC. 

Platforms would be obligated to flag and remove material that features terrorist content, incites violence, involves nonconsensual sharing of sexual content, depicts child exploitation and promotes hate speech.

Microsoft also raised concerns about the effects of Bill C-11 on basic freedoms, saying that it “(c)ould have disproportionate impacts on freedom of expression and other fundamental human rights.”

“Service providers should not be required to proactively monitor user content, nor decide whether particular content is unlawful. Elected officials and independent courts — not private companies — should be the decision-makers on what content is illegal.”

Microsoft also claimed that countries that are known human rights violators and are not democracies may “(p)oint to Canada’s approach in defense of regulatory frameworks within their borders that are used to crack down on internet speech or other human rights.”

While Twitter and Microsoft are opposed to the legislation, Canada’s major telecom providers, including Bell, Rogers, Telus, Cogeco, Shaw and Quebecor have sent the government a joint statement voicing their support for the legislation.

Telecom providers are already regulated in the Broadcasting Act by the CRTC. The legislation would place their major competitors under the purview of the same regulatory agency.

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