Only a few days after Quebec Public Health apologized for posting a link to a Pornhub foot fetish video in a tweet on COVID-19 case counts, another Quebec ministry has been caught linking government webpages to not-suitable-for-work content.
According to Noovo Info, Quebec’s Ministry of Transportation website for the Louis-Hippolyte-La Fontaine tunnel redirected visitors to a website selling various pharmaceuticals used to treat erectile dysfunction, including Viagra and Cialis.
The link was eventually corrected on Sunday morning.
The Ministry of Transportation did not respond to requests for comment from Noovo Info about the incident.
The latest boner by the Quebec government follows an apology and public retraction from Quebec Public Health after a staff member mistakenly hyperlinked a COVID-19-related tweet to a “Femdom feet worship” page on the adult video website Pornhub.
“Due to a situation beyond our control, a link with inappropriate content was posted on our Twitter account. We are looking into the causes. We are sorry for any inconvenience,” wrote Sante Quebec.
En raison d’une situation hors de notre contrôle, un lien avec du contenu inapproprié a été publié sur notre compte Twitter. Nous en cherchons les causes. Nous sommes désolés des inconvénients.
Pornhub is a Canadian-owned pornography company. The video-streaming website’s owner Mindgeek has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years after it was accused of hosting illegal content such as child pornography and sexual abuse videos.
An Ottawa conference marking the 40th anniversary of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms saw a law professor lecture the government for not understanding “the very notion of freedom,” as well as an independent media journalist chastise a panel member for calling Freedom Convoy protesters “human slime.”
The government conference saw representatives from various human rights organizations speak to reporters both on Parliament Hill and virtually. Panellists included University of Ottawa law professor John Packer and Canadians United against Hate founder Fareed Khan.
A half-hour into the conference, Blacklock’s Reporter’s Tom Korski asked why no one had discussed the government’s implementation of the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14.
This is amazing. During a federal conference today on 40th anniversary of the Charter, a journalist called out anti-hate activist Fareed Khan for calling Freedom Convoy protestors "human slime" and saying MPs who supported truckers should be arrested while espousing human rights. pic.twitter.com/H1snGmSFE8
“That seems an odd omission for this panel,” Korski said. “And I wondered why, Mr. Khan – I looked up your social media accounts – you described Freedom Convoy protesters as ‘human slime,’ – I’m quoting. You said that plaintiffs awaiting bail hearings charged with mischief ‘deserve to spend years in jail.’”
“You said any publicly funded employee including a nurse who donated a penny to the Freedom Convoy needs to be removed from their job. That was on February 16 – on your Twitter account – and you said any Conservative MP who supported protesters needs to be arrested. Mr. Khan, that’s a little bit rough coming from an advocate of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
Replying that he didn’t remember using the term “human slime,” Khan proceeded to justify his assessment of the truckers using other pejorative labels.
“This was a protest organized by people with a known history of racism and white supremacy, Islamophobia, anti-semitism,” he said. “They allowed white supremacists and neo-Nazis to march around freely within the protests; they had no problem with that. And frankly, the politicians who stood by these protest organizers and enabled them – encouraged them, in my view – were committing sedition under the Criminal Code.”
Korski brought up the fact that the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (CCLA) and 15 civil rights groups were all seeking to hold the Trudeau government accountable.
Packer, a constitutional scholar, said that he welcomed the CCLA’s action and that not enough people – including in the government – understood the Constitution and its distinction from “the notion of a right to protest that absolutely does exist.”
“There is no explicit expressis verbis right to protest, for example, in our Constitution,” he said. “However, the notion of a right to protest absolutely does exist.”
“Its very core in human rights to rebel against excessive abuse of authority and so forth, as a result, or a combination of a number of freedoms – freedom of association, freedom of assembly, freedom of expression, freedom of movement – and understanding the relation of these and the very notion of freedom is something that clearly not enough Canadians understand, neither in our government nor in the public square.”
“I think it is extraordinary the Emergencies Act was invoked,” he concluded, calling it a “political reaction.”
“I do think it is very problematical. I actually welcome that it should be challenged. The courts should have some opportunity to say something about it. I think that’s essential in our democracy.”
Manitoba senator Marilou McPhedran added that there had been “a movement among a significant number of senators and MPs, including some Liberals, to come up with the requisite number of signatures to end the declaration (of the Emergencies Act).”
She said the government had been aware of the movement when Trudeau voluntarily revoked the act on Feb. 23.
Jay Goldberg is Ontario Director at the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
Imagine Ontario premier Doug Ford driving down a highway. The road is about to end in a fork. Now Ford must decide whether to head north or south.
If Ford goes north, he can get Ontario’s finances in order and finally end a years-long provincial deficit streak. But if Ford goes south, he can announce billions of dollars’ worth of new spending and allow the province to continue to barrel toward a fiscal cliff.
According to Ontario’s Financial Accountability Office (FAO) – an independent watchdog that keeps track of government spending – Ford can balance the books as soon as next year with just a little bit of restraint.
But to achieve that outcome, Ford needs to pick the right path.
How did Ontario reach this historic fork in the road?
It all started sixteen years ago.
When former finance minister Greg Sorbara presented Ontario’s last balanced budget, Ontario’s debt stood at $143 billion. After sixteen years of reckless fiscal management, Ontario’s debt now stands at $440 billion.
Ontario is now the most indebted sub-national government in the world.
That’s right – worse than New York state and worse than California.
In the sixteen years since Ontario’s politicians last balanced the books, successive governments have tried to convince Ontarians that deficits are a good thing.
While campaigning for re-election in 2018, former premier Kathleen Wynne told Ontarians billions of dollars of more deficit spending were needed, because “if we don’t make those investments … we’ll actually pay a price down the line.”
Ontario is paying the price, albeit a different one than Wynne alluded to. Thanks to years of overindulgent spending, Ontario taxpayers are being forced to spend over $13 billion a year simply to pay interest on the province’s debt load.
That’s money going to Bay Street that ought to be left on Main Street.
When the Ford government came into office, the province’s finances were in shambles.
“The party is over with taxpayers’ money,” said Ford while running for office.
But Ford actually increased spending by $5 billion, despite claiming that Wynne’s out-of-control spending was running the province into the ground.
In retrospect, it seems only the Liberal party with taxpayers’ money had ended. The party balloons and streamers had changed from red to blue, but the spending raged on.
Once the pandemic hit, Ontario’s already reckless spending went into overdrive. In just two years, the Ford government hiked permanent government spending by $17 billion.
But against all odds, the FAO says the Ford government can balance the books next year if it holds the line on spending.
This opportunity is not due to the Ford’s government’s fiscal prudence.
Ontario is on the cusp of running a surplus next year because government revenue has grown by $12 billion since last year and is set to grow by another $8 billion by next year. Much of that will come from increased federal transfers.
With a $20-billion cash infusion, the Ford government has no excuse not to balance the books by next April.
According to the FAO, Ontario will run a surplus of $1.2 billion in 2023-24 if the Ford government exercises just a little bit of fiscal restraint.
As Ford decides which direction to turn – north toward fiscal sustainability or south toward fiscal ruin – the right pathway for the government is obvious.
Ford needs to turn north. He should present a clear plan to balance the books by next year. If he does so, Ontario’s sixteen-year deficit road trip from Hell can finally be over and the government can turn its attention to much-needed tax relief.
Ontario Liberal Party Leader Steven Del Duca has said that if he is elected premier of Ontario in the upcoming election, he will move to ban law-abiding Canadians from possessing handguns in the province.
According to Del Duca, the ban would be a top priority for the Liberals if they won power. He vowed to put it in place within a year of being in government.
“I’ve had it with Doug Ford’s open for business policy for guns,” said Del Duca on Tuesday. “The Ford Conservatives are putting the interests of the gun lobby ahead of the Ontario victims of gun crime they swore an oath to protect. The result is handgun violence is spiraling out of control.”
“The choice on handguns is clear, more handguns and gun crime under the Ford Conservatives or a ban on handguns under the Ontario Liberals.”
Handguns are strictly regulated across the country. Canadians are currently required by law to carry a restricted licence to legally possess the firearm. Those who are licensed to possess handguns must also follow special requirements that dictate storage, display, transportation and handling.
Handguns can only be carried by those with special permits, including peace officers, and they cannot be used for hunting.
According to official statistics, a vast majority of gun crimes in Ontario are committed by illegal firearms, mostly trafficked into the province from the US.
“The statistics are clear, over 80 per cent of guns being used in crime are obtained using illegal means — including from across the border — and half of the gun-related deaths in Ontario are gang related,” said Ontario Solicitor General Sylvia Jones.
“That’s exactly why our government has invested a record $185 million to combat gang violence fuelled by these smuggled guns. This included reversing the Del Duca-Wynne Liberals’ cut of millions per year in anti-gang intervention programs.”
In 2019, the Trudeau government instituted a ban on 1,500 different firearms including some hunting and sporting rifles.
Various law-enforcement officials throughout Canada have disputed whether such bans could be effective in combatting crime.
Among them is the President of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police Adam Palmer.
“People can’t be naive to the realities of how it works with organized crime and smuggling,” said Palmer.
“There will always be an influx of guns from the United States into Canada… Heroin is illegal in Canada, too, but we have heroin in Canada.”
American air travel is mask free as of yesterday, but in Canada there is no end in sight for the air travel mask mandate or the requirement to be fully vaccinated to board a plane. True North’s Andrew Lawton says we’re far from a return to normal, and anyone who thinks otherwise isn’t paying attention. Also, broadcaster and former Wildrose leader Danielle Smith is seeking a United Conservative Party nomination, and possibly to replace Jason Kenney as the UCP leader. She joins the show to explain why.
The Trudeau government wants to meddle in the content you see online. They want to apply the clunky and out-dated regulatory framework of the CRTC and awkwardly use it to regulate the internet.
On today’s episode of the Candice Malcolm Show, Candice is joined by one of Canada’s most prominent political internet personalities, JJ McCullough.
JJ opposes the new bills, C-11 and C-18, despite the fact that he would very likely benefit from them. He warns that they are based on a “boomer ignorance of what the internet is” and there is no evidence they are needed.
Candice and JJ discuss Trudeau’s hypocrisy in saying that Canada has no core identity, while also using the CRTC to promote “Canadian content”, balancing threats to free speech from big government and big tech, and what the proposed bills will all mean for small independent outlets like True North.
A defence expert has told a parliamentary safety committee that threats of disinformation from Russia and China are “highly overblown and exaggerated” and that the government should focus on Canada’s real vulnerabilities, like those involving nuclear strikes.
Deputy Director of the University of Manitoba’s Centre for Defence and Security Studies James Fergusson told the Commons public safety committee on Apr. 4 that the threat posed by disinformation had been overemphasized and that government attempts to censor perceived misinformation would “definitely…backfire.”
“I think it’s very important that the committee and the government do not overreact, if not go into panic, with regard to existing vulnerabilities both in the cyberworld and defence world of Canada from Russian capabilities,” said Fergusson.
“In terms of disinformation, I’m not one who believes that Russian disinformation, Chinese disinformation or anyone’s disinformation campaigns really have much of an effect at all. I think that’s highly overblown and exaggerated.”
Fergusson said that defence priorities should focus on deterring first strike nuclear capabilities and enforcing current systems like NORAD.
“We have significant gaps and vulnerabilities which have existed for over a decade in terms of the ability of NORAD, and as a result Canada, to be able to detect these threats, to track them, to discriminate, and then to be able to cue interception capabilities,” said Fergusson.
Fergusson added that although there is a lack of confidence and trust among the public, he believes Canadians can be trusted to make correct decisions. Additionally, he said, the concept of disinformation is often wielded towards political ends.
“I think we put too much of a scare sense, a panic, if you will, around this without stepping back and saying…. I’ll put this bluntly: Trump won the 2016 election and it was not because of the Russians. That’s an excuse that’s then dragged out to explain this anomaly which the elites couldn’t understand,” said Fergusson.
Conservative MP Dane Lloyd then asked Fergusson about the potential consequences of government censorship.
“Considering the misinformation campaign, some people have been calling for censorship. Do you think that would backfire, if the government were to engage in censorship?” Lloyd inquired.
“Definitely it’s going to backfire,” Fergusson responded. “As I said, I don’t agree that disinformation campaigns—and they’re not all coming from Russia; there are issues about our information campaigns as well—have that much of a significant impact in terms of exploiting social differences.”
Others including Simon Fraser University Assistant Professor Dr. Ahmed Al-Rawi took a different view, claiming that Russian disinformation campaigns posed a threat to Canada and particularly targeted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party.
“In my view, the main reason behind this information operation strategy is to sow division, create tension and confuse people about what is real or fake. For example, the main targets of Russian trolls were Liberals, especially due to their immigration policies, with a focus on attacking Justin Trudeau and Chrystia Freeland,” said Al-Rawi.
A new poll shows that over half the country is struggling to cope with personal finance issues, with some even saying they are “close to breaking down.”
According to a Public Square Research survey commissioned by The Hub and conducted between Apr. 8 and Apr. 11, 51% of those polled said they were having difficulties with their pocket books.
When broken down further, 36% said they had minor struggles that made some days difficult, while 9% said they were struggling a lot. Meanwhile, 6% said they were near their breaking point or had already reached rock bottom.
On the other hand, 49% said they were doing just fine in the current economy.
As the country transitions out of the pandemic, economic issues have surpassed COVID-19 as Canadians’ biggest concern. The survey found that cost of living was number one, with 37% ranking it as their top issue. Inflation followed with 13%.
On Monday, the Canadian dollar fell by 0.07% as economists awaited the latest domestic inflation data from Statistics Canada.
Last month, inflation reached a 30-year-high, with the Consumer Price Index reporting a rate of 5.7%.
Inflation has hit Canadians hard, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. A study by the group found that wages only rose by 2.7% for the majority of Canadians while inflation grew by 3.4% annually.
“We’re just not seeing wage gains anywhere near the rate of inflation,” said CCPA senior economist David Macdonald. “It may be that workers have yet to catch up to the fact that inflation is high, and that they should start asking for higher wage gains on a year-to-year basis.”
Another recent survey by Ipsos found that nearly one in three Canadians was $200 away from bankruptcy.
Cost of living has become a central issue in the Conservative Party of Canada leadership race, with MP Pierre Poilievre making it a central point of his campaign.
Government-imposed lockdowns and travel bans cut Canada’s greenhouse emissions and Environment minister Steven Guilbeault couldn’t be happier.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, a Department of Environment report acknowledged the government’s climate targets benefited from public health restrictions.
“2020 was marked by the Covid-19 pandemic coinciding with a decrease in emissions,” said the Executive Summary of the department’s National Inventory Report 1990-2020.
According to the report, national emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse-causing gases fell by 9% from 738 million tonnes to 672 million tonnes. The Trudeau government has set a climate target of 519 million tonnes. Only two provinces saw an increase in emissions – Alberta (up 8%) and Manitoba (up 6%).
In response, Guilbeault described the drop in emissions as an achievement for Canadians.
“Progress happens step by step,” said Guilbeault in a statement.
“With this year’s report to the United Nations we can see that Canada is moving in the right direction.”
The report indicated that emissions attributed to transport dropped by 12% as fewer Canadians were driving and there was less air traffic, as a result of stay-at-home orders and travel restrictions.
Further, factory emissions fell by 11% because plants were forced to shut down during the pandemic.
Canadians have been subjected to some of the strictest lockdowns in the world, and lockdowns have proven to have had devastating effects on the economic and mental well-being of the country.
According to a report by Statistics Canada in 2021, the consequences of government-enforced lockdowns killed more Canadians under the age of 65 than the COVID-19 virus itself.
In a report titled Provisional death counts and excess mortality, the government agency reviewed the number of deaths between January 2020 to April 2021 and concluded that 5,535 Canadians under the age of 65 died because of “indirect consequences” due to the pandemic.
Over the same time period, 1380 Canadians in the same age cohort died because of COVID-19 itself.
According to the University of Oxford’s COVID-19 Government Response Stringency Index, Canada is the tenth most restrictive country in the world when it comes to overall government COVID-19 measures.
According to the study, Canada’s score sat at 69.91, making it more restrictive than countries such as Iran (61.57), Russia (60.65) and even China (59.72).
As the cost of living becomes more expensive, half of Canadians indicate that they are only $200 away from being unable to pay their bills.
According to an Ipsos survey conducted for the professional service firm MNP, 49% of Canadians surveyed are within $200 of insolvency. Further, 31% of respondents said they are unable to cover their bills because they don’t earn enough income.
Two thousand Canadian adults were surveyed by Ipsos from March 9-15 – a week prior to the Bank of Canada’s (BOC) decision to raise its central rate for the first time since 2018.
The BOC raised interest rates by half a percentage point last week and promised several more hikes in an attempt to fight historically-high inflation.
According to the survey, 52% of Canadians said they were already feeling the effects of high rates prior to the BOC’s decision.
A majority of Canadians have been looking for ways to reduce spending as their worries about the Canadian economy continue.
According to a recent Leger survey in March, 81% of Canadians believe inflation is a very or somewhat serious problem for their household. It also showed that 86% of respondents say they believe inflation will increase, while 84% expect gas prices to rise.
In February of this year, Canada’s inflation level hit 5.7% – the highest it’s been in 30 years. Economists predict that the inflation level will steadily increase, due to sanctions on Russia and other world events.
Gas prices rose more than 32.3% compared to the previous year’s figures. Food prices across Canada are up more than 7.4%.
Rather than reduce spending or attempt to address the cost of living crisis, the Trudeau government is continuing its massive spending spree, revealing $56 billion in new spending and programs in its latest budget.
The new spending includes $8 billion on defence, $10 billion towards an affordable housing plan and further taxes on financial institutions. The Liberals have also raised a surtax on those earning over $1 billion by 1.5%, bringing it to 16.5%.
“Freeland is giving taxpayers another credit card budget with no plan to pay the bills on time and chip away at the $1 trillion debt,” said Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation Federal Director Franco Terrazzano.
“Freeland is taking the wait-and-see approach to the government’s credit card bills and hoping the economy can grow faster than its borrowing, but that’s not a good bet with its track record of runaway spending.”
