Conservative leadership candidate Joseph Bourgault says lots of Canadian politicians talk about freedom but don’t have a record supporting it. Bourgault, a Saskatchewan business owner who joined the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa, joined True North’s Andrew Lawton to discuss vaccine mandates, carbon taxes, western alienation and what it means to stand up for Canadians. He says Canadian politics needs a restoration of truth-seeking and truth-telling.
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A new draft plan by the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) to create a more “gender inclusive” dress code includes permitting men or women in uniform to don face tattoos, fake nails, jewelry and dyed hair while on service.
True North has exclusively obtained a presentation by the Department of National Defence titled “Canadian Armed Forces Dress Instructions proposal to reflect a more inclusive culture.”
The plan purports to be “safe, operationally effective, inclusive and reflective of societal norms and expectations.”
If adopted there would be one standard guideline for all CAF members from recruitment to release.
On the issue of face tattoos, the CAF writes that “tattoos are permitted on the face as long as they conform to the regulations outlined in Section 2- Appearance.” The section prohibits members from having tattoos associated with criminal or hate groups.
Proposed changes on hair could include “no length restriction, no restrictions on colours and all styles of facial hair and sideburns (will be) authorized.”
“Yes, the colouring of hair is permitted in all orders of dress unless it inhibits an operational duty. For example, bright coloured hair may have a negative operational impact during field operations/training. Leaders are invited to discuss with their members (and) find a simple suitable accommodation, such as a scarf to cover the hair,” a FAQ portion of the presentation describes.
As for facial hair, “all styles of facial hair and sideburns” on men or women would be allowed should the draft plan be approved.
“Yes, all styles of facial hair and sideburns are authorized and shall comply with safety and operational requirements. Facial hair may be braided/pony tail style and coloured. Accessories to secure facial hair include but are not limited to: barrettes, bobby pins, fabric elastics, elastic bands, and hair nets,” the FAQ explains. “There are no restrictions on the length of hair. However, it must not prevent the proper wear of headdress and must not impede the visibility of the members face.”
However, soldiers could still be asked to shave their facial hair should a commander decide it doesn’t meet operational or safety standards.
With regard to being “permitted to have long fingernails in uniform,” the CAF writes that “fake nails and eyelashes (are) permitted, nail polish (is) permitted” and “permanent make up (will be) allowed.”
CAF members could also soon be allowed to wear jewelry, including rings and earrings.
“All may have earrings with adornment (no number restriction),” a proposed changes slide writes. “No restriction on numbers of rings worn.”
According to its implementation section, the proposed plan has received “endorsement from national leadership” and was approved by the National Defence Clothing and Dress Committee.
The plan is currently being reviewed before being passed onto Chief of Defence Staff Wayne Eyre. It could be implemented before the end of April 2022.
“More inclusive” military to permit face tattoos, fake nails, dyed hair on soldiers by True North on Scribd
United Conservative Party members in Alberta are voting by mail on whether they support Premier Jason Kenney’s continued leadership of the party and the province. Premier Kenney joins True North’s Andrew Lawton live to discuss his record as premier and UCP leader and make his pitch to voters for why he should remain in office. Also, in an interview with Le Devoir Supreme Court of Canada Chief Justice Richard Wagner condemned politicians who supported the Freedom Convoy, which he accused of taking Ottawa residents “hostage” and unleashing “anarchy” on the city. Do you think this rhetoric is becoming of a judge who might have to preside over convoy-related cases?
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The Trudeau government is considering a recommendation to hit pickup trucks with a new tax that could cost Canadians between $1,000 and $4,000 per truck.
If the tax is approved, popular light-duty trucks such as the Ford F-150, Ram 1500, and Chevrolet Silverado would be charged $1,000, while heavy duty trucks used to tow equipment like the Ram 3500 would pay $4,000.
The Ministry of the Environment released a 271-page report that includes a recommendation to subject pickup trucks to a levy that varies from $1,000 on light-duty trucks to $4,000 on super-duty trucks.
Right now, the Green Levy applies to large SUVs and passenger vans that use more than 13 litres of fuel per 100km. Pickup trucks are expressly exempt from the current tax.
This new recommendation urges the Trudeau government to lift that exemption and to hit pickups with the tax.
The report was posted by the Ministry of the Environment on the Government of Canada website Mar. 31, 2022, titled 2030 Emissions Reductions Plan: Canada’s Next Steps for Clean Air and a Strong Economy.
It includes a foreword by Liberal environment minister Steven Guilbeault, who wrote, “(t)his is our ambitious and achievable roadmap to reach our emissions reduction targets.”
The recommendation for the truck tax read, “(c)onsider adopting an approach that combines financial incentives for the purchase of ZEVs with fees for the purchase of fuel-inefficient ICE vehicles. Broaden Canada’s existing Green Levy (Excise Tax) for Fuel Inefficient Vehicles to include additional ICE vehicle types, such as pickup trucks.”
Speaking to True North, Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) B.C. director Kris Sims pointed out how some professions require these types of trucks and that the tax would have a negative impact on those industries.
“It’s pretty tough to stuff plywood into a Prius and construction tools into a Tesla, so the Trudeau government should scrap these plans to hit trucks with a new tax,” said Kris Sims.
Guilbeault called the concerns over this truck tax recommendation “disinformation” on Twitter on Wednesday, writing “(t)his so-called fee on trucks doesn’t exist. It’s fear mongering, plain and simple.”
“If the minister wants to clarify and categorically reject a new tax on pickup trucks he should go ahead and do so, but this recommendation for a truck tax is in his ministry’s report in black-and-white, and Canadians have every right to be concerned about it,” Sims told True North.
Sims encouraged Canadians who oppose the proposed tax on trucks and SUVs to sign the CTF’s petition.
According to Autotrader.com, from Dec. 2020 to Dec. 2021, the average price of a used car increased 34.5% year over year, with the cost of new vehicles increasing 12.7%.
Trucks are used in various crucial industries, and the additional cost this may impose on businesses seeking to update their trucks affects getting products to shelves.
The Trudeau government did not announce this tax increase on trucks in any public announcement previous to the Mar. 31 report released by the Ministry of the Environment.
This truck tax comes as the Trudeau government imposes various levies on the Canadian people, including the Apr. 1 carbon tax increase, the tax increase on Canada’s financial sector, and the effects of inflation.
Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada is one of the only countries in the world, in the history of the world, to routinely sacrifices its own national interest to virtue signal. Instead of focussing on a vision for Canada in the future, the Trudeau government is focused on social justice, climate change, mass redistribution of wealth and equity.
Is there a better path forward? What does the future hold for Canada? Can Canada become a global power? These are questions that shape the thinking of one of Canada’s brightest policy thinkers, Dr. Irvin Studin. Irvin is the Founder, Editor-In-Chief and publisher of Global Brief Magazine. He recently published a new book, Canada must think for itself: 10 theses for our countries survival and success in the 21st century.
On this episode of the Candice Malcolm Show, Candice is joined by Irvin Studin to discuss the challenges that Canada faces and the potential future that lays ahead for our county.
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With the prices of homes still skyrocketing across the country, Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) leadership candidates Pierre Poilievre and Scott Aitchison have made it part of their campaigns to make housing more affordable.
Ontario MP and finance critic Poilievre released a video to social media on Monday, addressing the housing crisis in Canada by pointing out a tiny house being sold in Vancouver for $4.8 million.
“Why is it that Vancouver has the third most unaffordable housing market on planet Earth? Ahead of Manhattan, Los Angeles, London, England, and even Singapore. All places with more money and people but less land,” he said.
In the video, Poilievre rails against ‘gatekeepers’ who have kept ordinary Canadians out of the housing market. He points to the governmental cost of building a home which the C.D Howe Institute pegs at $644,000 – a cost that he said excludes everyone but the wealthy.
Poilievre’s solution to the housing problem is to have the government slow down the printing of new money, which he claims is going to wealthy investors who use it to bid up the price of real estate.
He added that as prime minister, he would nudge city halls across the country – including Vancouver – to speed up the review of building permits and reduce the governmental cost of getting a home approved.
“My message to City Hall here in Vancouver is, remove the gatekeepers. Stop blocking the poor, the working class and our immigrants from the privilege of owning a home here in this country.”
Ontario MP and leadership candidate Aitchison has also released a plan to alleviate Canada’s housing crisis. The plan is called YIMBY: A Plan to Build More Homes for Canadians, which lays out the path to “(s)olve Canada’s housing crisis that will increase housing supply across the country.”
YIMBY – an acronym for “yes, in my backyard” – is an established term for a pro-housing movement contrary to NIMBYism (“not in my backyard”).
Aitchison’s plan sets out four objectives: ending exclusionary zoning in Canada’s big cities, expanding skilled trades, investing in public housing programs and cracking down on money laundering.
Aitchison argues that the limited number of homes available is causing the prices of houses to go up, making federal funding of municipalities contingent on building more homes.
“We got housing built when I was mayor in Huntsville with a common-sense approach to planning,” said Scott Aitchison, Conservative Leadership Candidate. “We set clear rules and incentives for builders, and it’s the kind of leadership we need in Ottawa to solve the housing crisis.”
Aitchison’s plans were accompanied by a slickly edited video posted to Twitter, similar to the video on housing uploaded by the Poilievre campaign.
“Prices have doubled in the past five years, and an entire generation feels like they will never be able to afford a home,” he said.
With housing traditionally a social issue, the move by some Conservatives toward bringing down prices in big cities can be seen as a strategy to capture much-sought-after Toronto voters, as well as young voters shut out of the housing market.
Trudeau’s Liberals all but swept the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) in the 2021 election.
Internal communications from the Department of National Defence (DND) and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) reveal a military increasingly preoccupied with concepts like equity, critical race theory (CRT) and gender ideology.
Instances range from a “drag queen bingo” event for CAF members, instructions to root out right-wing political opinions and claims that soldiers were encouraged to read anti-racist literature like Robin Diangelo’s book White Fragility.
A CAF member who asked to remain anonymous over fears of reprisal shared with True North multiple emails and documents sent out to military personnel, revealing material chock-full of woke ideology.
The anonymous source told True North that soldiers had to sit through “CRT sessions we all had to endure and book recommendations from high ranking people,” with titles including “Robin Diangelo’s White Fragility and books by Ibram X. Kendi.”
One DND facilitator’s guide titled Conversations on Defence Ethics: a Defence Team Learning Event invites soldiers to ponder so-called ethically questionable scenarios.
These practice scenarios largely focus on fictional circumstances involving religious or right-wing CAF members.
One of the scenarios on “diversity and dignity” depicted a lesbian staff member who dug into a new hire’s social media and found that they were active in a local “religious denominational community – a known fundamentalist sect of a major world religion with known strident opposition to homosexuality.”
“She reads a few of Marielle’s comments and posts,” the scenario explains. “She finds one that says ‘I personally believe that marriage can only be between a man and a woman.’ “This is of concern to Shirley who does not hide being a lesbian and who believes same sex marriage is a human right. Shirley goes to the director to express her concern and find out what he is willing to do to ensure she is not confronted or misjudged at work.”
One of the guided discussion bullet points states that “it could be argued that stating marriage should only be between men and women is a form of hate speech” before suggesting solutions like a private meeting with the employer.
Another scenario on “association with political groups of doubtful persuasion” depicts a situation where some CAF members are part of a fictional group called “Canada Patriot.”
“(The group) claims to be fighting against illegal immigration and radical Islam. Thousands of association members belong to its private Facebook group,” the scenario reads. “Master Corporal (MCpl) Dwayne MacDonald is posted to an Army base close to a small town. He has alerted his chain of command that some CAF members wear Canada Patriot t-shirts to the gym during physical training and to the mall in town when off duty. He interprets the clothing as an expression of anti-immigrant attitudes.”
“MCpl MacDonald is asking leadership to explicitly ban the wearing of the t-shirts, both on and off base,” it continues.
The scenario goes on to make clear that the “DND/CAF is committed to preventing hateful conduct and ensuring that all related incidents are investigated and dealt with in a timely manner.”
According to the anonymous source, CAF members were also encouraged by superiors to put “pronouns in their email block” and use “non-gendered French ranks.”
On Nov. 10, the Fleet Club Atlantic – an official gathering place for CAF members in Halifax – put out a poster advertising a “Drag Queen Bingo” featuring drag performers Elle Noir and Brooke Rivers.
Other examples of gender ideology include a Sep. 21 2021 instance where Rear-Admiral Rebecca Patterson sent soldiers a message asking them to celebrate Gender Equality Week and touted the benefits of “gender equality initiatives” for “all gender identities.”
“Gender Equality Week is a reminder that all of us in Defence—women, men, non-binary people and people of all gender identities—benefit from gender equality initiatives as it can lead to greater health, happiness, and economic prosperity for all people,” wrote Patterson.
The influence of woke ideology has led to policy changes for the CAF. Most recently, the force announced it would bring in a new gender-neutral uniform policy allowing members “to choose the uniform that makes them the most comfortable.”
Despite warnings from their education director that it was unworkable at this stage, trustees with the Ottawa-Carleton District School Board (OCDSB) have voted 8-1 to reinstate a mask mandate for students and staff.
After nearly two hours of procedural wrangling, in-camera questions and twisted logic, the motion on Tuesday to mandate mask use in all OCDSB buildings was approved with absolutely no deadline given for it to be lifted.
Only trustee Donna Blackburn voted against the edict, which impacts all 70,000 students and OCDSB staff. Blackburn said she wouldn’t support the motion because she refuses to give people a “false sense of security.
“We have no way to enforce a mask mandate,” she said. “It’s highly irresponsible to give people the idea schools will be safer.”
As the emergency motion stated, masks are needed to control the “spread of the virus” and the apparently significant blip in Ottawa cases.
Three trustees, who’d expressed reservations with the mandate, ended up abstaining – seemingly afraid to go against the “woke” groupthink of their colleagues.
Education director Camille Williams Taylor cautioned trustees at the outset of the meeting that in the past six weeks since the mandate was lifted, there’d been a “shift in focus” from COVID and mandatory masking to student learning.
“I am concerned we are (yet again) putting staff on the front line to police masking,” she said, adding that the big question is how they enforce compliance.
She added that the community is very divided on the masking issue.
After two long years, the Doug Ford government lifted the mask mandate in all Ontario schools when students returned from March break on Mar. 21. Despite the move, many NDP politicians and leftist doctors will not let it go, and continue to fearmonger about the recent blip in Omicron cases.
Trustee Mark Fisher introduced the motion – with strong support from fellow NDPers Justine Bell and openly trans trustee Lyra Evans – indicating he takes his responsibility “very seriously” to protect students against the next wave of COVID.
“I am trying to bring forward an extra safety measure because the province refuses to act,” Fisher said.
Bell said she worried about all the absences from class and the educators being afraid, claiming the lack of a mask mandate compromises mental health and worsens the anxiety of everyone who wants to “learn in a safe space.”
She ignored the board’s assistant director when he made it clear the absences – around 15% – are pretty average and likely related to illnesses other than COVID (like a cold or the flu).
Bell also seemed not to care about the mental health of students who’ve been stuck in masks (that do very little) all day at school for the past two years.
“The opinions of the vocal do not matter to me… we live in Ottawa where people follow rules when they are mandated (to do so),” she added.
That says it all.
Trustee Wendy Hough, the board’s lead on Indigenous issues, said that due to colonialism and racism many Indigenous staff don’t have the ability to take time off work.
Could we get woker than that?
Whether this was just another power trip or an effort to try to make the Ford government look bad, these trustees have yet again gone too far. Not only are they using students as pawns, but their move makes absolutely no sense.
How do they think they’re going to protect students and teachers when the mask mandate has been lifted everywhere else?
Even if they themselves wear masks to the grocery store or other venues – as they’ve repeatedly claimed they do – sporting events and other places where students gather are now mask-free.
These self-anointed doctors are deluding themselves if they think their mandate will have any impact on COVID numbers whatsoever. Trouble is, seeing what the woke folk at the OCDSB did might encourage other boards to follow suit.
They don’t have an ounce of common sense among them.
Online video platform Rumble slammed the Globe and Mail on Wednesday, accusing the legacy news outlet of supporting corporate-media-driven public censorship after a Globe journalist asked them why they haven’t blocked or limited Russian content like other sites.
“The Globe and Mail is demanding to know why we aren’t dutifully copying YouTube’s censorship. It is now common that we receive pressure from journalists demanding that we censor more,” Rumble wrote.
Rumble posted two emails to Twitter showing questions sent to them by Globe journalist Joe Castaldo earlier this week. Castaldo had requested comment on why the platform hasn’t limited or blocked content from Russian broadcasters while other sites like YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter have promptly censored Russia Today (RT) shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The first email writes, “YouTube announced a policy to prohibit content denying, minimizing or trivializing well-documented violent events in connection to Russia’s war in Ukraine.” Castaldo continued, asking, “(d)oes Rumble have any plan to enact policies similar to Youtube to deal with such content?”
In the next email, Castaldo mentioned two sources accusing Rumble of spreading “Kremlin lies and propaganda” and who said that their business model relies on “fringe groups who disseminate conspiracy theories and disinformation under the pretext of freedom of expression.”
He later wrote that he could provide examples of prominent creators such as Stew Peters and Alex Jones having produced videos “mirroring Russian government propaganda.”
Rumble replied with a scathing remark on corporate media and the big tech conglomerates that advocate for public censorship.
“There is a reason the public has radically turned against both the corporate media (such as your outlet) and Big Tech: because you have arrogantly claimed for yourselves the power to decide for the public what information they can and cannot be trusted to hear and what views they can and cannot express,” the platform tweeted.
Rumble then continued, saying, “(b)y stark contrast, the reason Rumble is growing so rapidly is because we trust adults to make decisions for themselves about what ideas they can express, and we trust them to make up their own minds after hearing all sides.”
Independent journalist Glenn Greenwald responded to the post.
“It cannot be overstated: (a) how surreal and dangerous it is that the leaders of the campaign for greater censorship are “journalists” (i.e., employees of large media corporations) and (b) how vital it is to have free speech platforms resisting this coercion to censor.”
MPs at the Commons heritage committee voted on Feb 28. to require the Canadian Radio Television Commission (CRTC) to prevent “state-controlled broadcasters” from airing in Canada.
The motion, which was put forward by Liberal MP Yvan Baker, called on cabinet to “issue an order of general application directing the Canadian Radio Television and Telecommunications Commission to a new broadcasting policy that would remove state-controlled broadcasters that spread disinformation and propaganda from the CRTC’s list of non-Canadian programming services and stations authorized for distribution, effectively removing Russia Today from Canadian airwaves.”
Rumble’s Founder and CEO is Chris Pavlovski, a Canadian who now runs the company out of Florida, USA.
The results of the first Quebec by-election since the COVID-19 pandemic suggest that the province’s political landscape is shifting increasingly away from the sovereigntists and towards conservatism.
The race took place in the south-shore Montreal riding of Marie–Victorin after former Parti Quebecois (PQ) MNA Catherine Fournier gave up her seat to become mayor of Longueuil.
Fournier had quit the PQ in 2019, saying the party had “stopped attracting and renewing itself.” She added that “too many Quebecers no longer listen to it. By losing, the Parti Québécois has become a loser.”
While by-elections are rarely given much attention by the media or voters, this one was different. Most major parties also opted to run candidates with name recognition.
The governing Coalition Avenir Quebec (CAQ) ran former nurses union representative Shirley Dorismond, while the PQ ran former NDP MP Pierre Nantel. The Conservatives ran actress Anne Casabonne, and the democratic socialist Quebec Solidaire ran former BQ candidate Shophika Vaithyanathasarma.
Political pundits said the by-election was significant, as it could offer a foreshadowing of the provincial election set to take place in October.
The local race was also a test for the sovereignist PQ, which is currently polling at historic lows. In addition, it served as a referendum on Quebec premier Francois Legault’s controversial pandemic response, as well as a trial run for the Conservative Party of Quebec (PCQ), which is growing rapidly under its new leader, Eric Duhaime.
Legault’s CAQ ended up winning the by-election with 34.95 % of the vote, making it the party’s third by-election flip since forming government in 2018.
This win came despite Legault imposing some of the harshest COVID-19 restrictions in North America, which included full lockdowns, bans on gatherings, limits on movement, curfews and a continuing refusal to lift the provincial mask mandate.
Opposition to Legault’s pandemic measures was detectable, however, with the PCQ making massive gains. The province’s Conservative party has been one of the most vocal opponents of Legault’s COVID-19 restrictions and mandates.
The PCQ’s celebrity candidate Anne Casabonne – who was discredited by the legacy media for challenging vaccine mandates – received 10.41 % of the votes, far more than the 0.75% the party received last time it ran a candidate in the riding.
The PCQ, once a small party which had received only 1.46% of the vote in the 2018 Quebec election, is currently polling in second place, with a Mainstreet poll from Mar. 14 giving them 24% support.
Such a spike in popularity is almost unheard of in Canadian politics. It is perhaps understandable, however, given the events and developments since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID a global pandemic in Mar. 2020.
It should be noted that the PCQ also outperformed local polls conducted in the riding before the by-election vote, suggesting that their province-wide support may, in fact, be even higher.
The by-election results are bad news for the PQ. Not only did the sovereigntist party lose a riding, but they lost one they had held since 1985. These results may not be surprising, however, given the party had its worst results in the 2018 provincial election, and is currently polling as low as 7%.
Despite the PQ’s loss, the biggest underperformance of the evening belonged to the Quebec Liberal party, once led by now-Conservative Party of Canada leadership candidate Jean Charest. The Quebec Liberals received only 6.93% of the votes, less than half of the 15.21% they received in 2018. Quebec Solidaire (QS) also received fewer votes in the by-election than it did in the Marie–Victorin riding in the last general election.
If indeed this by-election offers a reliable foreshadowing of the upcoming provincial election, then the sovereignist movement may get its final nail in the coffin. Support for establishment opposition parties could also drop further, and conservatism might become the dominant movement in a province still viewed to be one of the most liberal in Canada.
