Enough Conservative Members of Parliament have signed a letter calling for a review of Erin O’Toole’s leadership that he may have to face a vote in caucus as early as Wednesday, according to a report in the Globe and Mail.
The story, published Monday evening, said that 35 Conservative MPs have signalled their desire for a vote in a letter to the party’s caucus chair, Scott Reid.
Under the Reform Act, caucus members can trigger a review vote if 20% of them provide written notice. With 119 Conservative MPs, 35 is more than enough to force a vote.
The Globe report cites unnamed sources claiming that 63 MPs – more than half – are willing to oust O’Toole in a caucus vote, though it also cited another source claiming O’Toole had the support of the majority of his caucus.
Alberta Conservative MP Bob Benzen issued a statement Monday evening openly calling for a caucus review of O’Toole’s leadership.
Today, I am calling for a caucus review of Erin O’Toole’s leadership of the Conservative Party of Canada. See my full statement below. #cdnpolipic.twitter.com/U8ssOMLfl8
“Mr. O’Toole campaigned in the leadership contest as a principled conservative voice that would unite the party,” Benzen wrote. “However, since Mr. O’Toole assumed the position of Leader, there have been numerous instances of flip-flops and questionable judgements on Mr. O’Toole’s part.”
Benzen cited the “adoption of a de-facto carbon tax,” the requirement that Conservative caucus members support the entirety of the platform, and the failure to stand up for English language rights in Quebec as some of O’Toole’s short-comings. He also called out O’Toole’s performance as opposition leader during the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Failure to clearly stand up for the Charter rights of Canadians during the pandemic,” Benzen included in his list.
Benzen said the caucus has given O’Toole “more than enough chances for a course correction,” but concluded a caucus review was the only way forward.
Last week, O’Toole floundered when asked repeatedly whether he supported the Truckers for Freedom Convoy as it made its way towards the nation’s capital. It was only after numerous Conservative MPs, including deputy leader Candice Bergen, issued statements of support for the convoy, that O’Toole backed the convoy and vowed to meet with truckers.
On today’s episode of the Candice Malcolm Show, Candice says the Trucker Convoy was a huge success and that Canada woke up this morning feeling freer, more united, more optimistic, and more Canadian.
This comes despite the best efforts of the legacy media to smear and discredit the protest. Legacy media reporters outed themselves as being aggressively partisan, openly deceitful and ultimately, irrelevant.
Candice goes through the most malicious slander peddled by the legacy media, she shows how their reports fell flat, and she explains how this convoy was a turning point for our country.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau emerged from a secure location on Monday to denounce the thousands of truckers and their supporters rallying in Ottawa as “tinfoil hats” whose behaviour has disgusted him.
“And to Canadians at home,” Trudeau said, “watching in disgust and disbelief at this behaviour, wondering how this could have happened in our nation’s capital after everything we’ve been through together – this is not the story of our pandemic, of our country, of our people.”
“Canadians were shocked and disgusted by some people protesting in our nation’s capital,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says. pic.twitter.com/cxt2P2krg4
During his remarks, Trudeau referred to “hateful rhetoric,” “Nazi symbolism” and “racist imagery” to characterize the convoy, despite no arrests during the weekend rallies and worldwide support that has united Canadians.
“I know you’re wondering about what you saw in our capital this weekend,” Trudeau read to the camera from a prepared statement. “Freedom of expression, assembly and association are cornerstones of democracy, but Nazi symbolism, racist imagery, and desecration of war memorials are not.”
The comments marked Trudeau’s first public appearance since going into isolation from a reported COVID exposure on Friday, being whisked away due to “security concerns” on Saturday and isolating for a positive COVID test on Monday.
Trudeau, who contracted the virus despite getting his third shot on Jan. 4, also reiterated that “the way out is not protesting the pandemic, it’s getting vaccinated.”
“Over the past few days, Canadians were shocked and frankly disgusted by the behaviour displayed by some people protesting in our nation’s capital. I want to be very clear – we are not intimidated by those who hurl insults and abuse at small business workers and steal food from the homeless. We won’t give in to those who fly racist flags; we won’t cave to those who engage in vandalism or dishonour the memory of our Veterans.”
He then reminded Canadians to reject division and hatred.
Speaking to truckers who aren’t taking part in the massive convoy in Ottawa and protests in other cities across Canada, Trudeau said, “(a)lmost 90% of you are doing exactly that (getting the shots) and we thank you, deeply, for everything you’ve done. The behaviour on display this weekend does not represent you.”
Trudeau also took questions from pre-approved members of the legacy media, including one about reports of vaccine injury being shared by some protesters.
Trudeau responded that vaccines are safe, saying, “the concerns expressed by a few people gathered in Ottawa right now are not new, not surprising, are heard, but are a continuation of what we have unfortunately seen in disinformation and misinformation online – conspiracy theorists about microchips, about God knows what else that go with the tinfoil hats.”
“While this fringe minority is protesting, the vast majority of Canadians are thinking, ‘come on, it’s by continuing to be there for each other that we will get through this pandemic.’ We all want to be done with this pandemic, but the vast majority of Canadians know very well that the way out is not protesting the pandemic, it’s getting vaccinated.”
When asked whether he would meet with the convoy organizers, as he did with the Black Lives Matter rally leaders in June of 2020, Trudeau said no.
“I have attended protests and rallies in the past when I agreed with the goals, when I supported the people expressing their concerns and their issues. Black Lives Matter is an excellent example of that,” said Trudeau, who has repeatedly worn blackface and various ethnic outfits over the past decades.
“But I have also chosen not to go anywhere near protests that have expressed hateful rhetoric, violence towards fellow citizens, and a disrespect not just of science but of frontline health workers.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says the Conservatives have been “sharing disinformation” and “encouraging conspiracy theories online.” pic.twitter.com/FGNR9g1OGy
“My choice is to continue to be there for the 90% of Canadians who are fed up with this pandemic, but who know the way out of it is by standing in solidarity with each other, showing respect for each other and following public health advice.”
Despite Trudeau’s accusations, Freedom Convoy organizers have made it clear they had nothing to do with alleged extremist behaviour at the weekend rally, including a brief display of two hateful flags whose bearers remain unknown.
The allegations came as part of a week-long campaign by left-wing politicians and legacy media to pre-emptively defame the convoy, for which organizers urged participants to be highly cautious.
Organizers Tamara Lich – an Albertan Métis woman – and Benjamin Dichter – a Jewish Torontonian – have said they are not anti-vaccine. Rather, they have said, the protest is about bringing an end to COVID restrictions in Canada, including forced vaccination through government mandates.
The organizers have said they will stay in Ottawa until Trudeau meets their demands.
A fourth-year nursing student with a federal vaccine exemption has been prevented from finishing her studies at Laurentian University for not having COVID shots.
Katherine Bishop had hoped to graduate from Laurentian University with a BScN nursing degree in hopes of becoming a doctor down the road. As a reserve member of the Canadian Armed Forces, she had already sought and received a federal COVID vaccine exemption on Dec. 17 in order to continue her military service.
The permanent exemption was granted based on Katherine’s religious beliefs and was determined by the Canadian Human Rights Act, according to the CAF website. She is still required to undergo testing in order to access her workplace.
“For me personally getting the vaccine would go against my values and would hinder my spiritual fulfillment, therefore, it would do me more harm than good,” Bishop told Sudbury.com. “Also, I am 21 years old and in perfect health.”
In September 2021, Laurentian University implemented a vaccine requirement to attend in-person classes, stating that exemptions to the rule would only be considered on medical grounds, or those recognized by the Ontario Human Rights Code.
Again, Bishop had applied for a vaccine exemption due to her religious beliefs. She had hoped to return to Laurentian in-person and complete the classes she requires to graduate.
However, on Oct. 4th, Katherine received an email from Céline Larivière, Laurentian’s dean of the Faculty of Education and Health, stating that she would no longer be allowed to attend due to her vaccination status.
Bishop said she forwarded her federal exemption documents to the university, but aside from acknowledging they’ve received them, they’ve given no further response. As of the third week of January, Laurentian has yet to say whether Bishop would be granted a religious exemption or whether she’ll be allowed to attend in-person classes again.
Meanwhile, the university’s website includes the recognition that “The Ontario Human Rights Commission (“OHRC”) has stated that “creed” means a professed system and confession of faith, including beliefs and observances, if the beliefs and observances are sincerely held and/or observed.”
While she waits, Katherine also awaits the response of other nursing schools and universities in the hopes that she’ll be able to complete her education elsewhere.
“I’m trying to be positive,” she said. “I’ve learned a lot from it too. So I have grown as a person.”
While Canadians across the country have thrown their support behind the Truckers for Freedom Convoy, True North has discovered that some of the “experts” warning against “extremists” within the protest have long been affiliated with far-left organizations.
Two such voices are Kurt Phillips and Peter Smith, both with the Canadian Anti-Hate Network (CAHN). They told various news outlets that Canadians should be wary of the convoy’s ultimate goals and activities.
“There are people who genuinely believe that this is overreach by the federal government,” Phillips said to CTV News, “but there are also a lot of other groups that are involved and individuals who are involved who have a long history of very overheated rhetoric.”
Phillips works as a junior/senior humanities teacher at St. Anthony’s School in Drumheller, Alta and reportedly serves as a board member at CAHN. He is also the founder and former lead writer for Anti-Racist Canada (ARC).
Phillips told CTV News last week that far-right groups are trying to infiltrate the convoy and suggested the protest could amount to Canada’s version of the Jan. 6, 2021 U.S. Capitol attacks.
“People are energized in an incredible way right now, and it’s hard to see something not happening,” he added. “I don’t know if it would be on the scale of Jan. 6 in the United States, but there are so many angry people.”
True North has learned that he made 125 donations to the federal New Democratic Party from 2005 to 2019, ranging in amounts from $5 to $160.
Phillips, who used to manage ARC, stepped away from the organization in 2020. His repeated opposition to Donald Trump, as with his opposition to the trucking convoy, involved frequent warnings of “far-right extremism.”
“With the uptick in far-right extremism on the rise during the 2016 presidential race in the United States which was also seeping up into Canada, I decided to stick it out until Donald Trump’s inevitable defeat which I thought would spell the end of what would be an intense but relatively short-lived form of fascism known as Trumpism,” Phillips said in 2020.
Phillips was also among those who condemned former “Coach’s Corner” host Don Cherry for telling everyone to wear poppies on Remembrance Day in 2019.
Another so-called expert who has spoken out against the convoy is CAHN investigative journalist Peter Smith. Smith told The Canadian Press that he is seeing similarities between this convoy and one in 2019 about federal pipeline policies.
“There are definitely people within that group who have a heart-in-the-right-place mentality, but it is a movement that is heavily informed by conspiracy theory, and is being organized by people who have a history of engaging with these groups,” said Smith.
He said these protests are close to being based off of conspiracy theories “not something that’s just a little bit on the edges, but quite significant.”
Rebel News reported in October 2020 that the Canadian government gave $268,400 in funding to the CAHN in 2020 for a project called Containing and Countering Canadian Hate Groups.
This project, said the Ministry of Canadian Heritage, would help CAHN fight online hate “by hiring four team members to carry out the monitoring of extreme-right groups, report on their activities and file complaints with law enforcement.”
Smith has made accusations of hate speech in the past.
In October, he accused parental rights activist Chris Elston of transphobia, saying that “(a)ctions against the transgender community are becoming increasingly organized.”
Smith also condemned Rebel contributor Ian Miles Cheong in April for criticizing Hamilton Public Health Services for prioritizing racialized people for COVID-19 vaccines.
CTV News and The Canadian Press could not be reached for comment in time for publication.
Alberta United Conservative Party MLA Peter Guthrie made a request to his own party’s government on Wednesday to eliminate its vaccine passport system.
“We are now approaching two years dealing with COVID, and the time is well upon us to make a life beyond restrictions,” said Guthrie in a Facebook video. “To move away from divisive policies and begin healing this province.”
Guthrie said the Omicron variant is making people realize COVID-19 is subsiding, which “provides a renewed sense of hope.” He said it has become apparent that unvaccinated and vaccinated people can both transmit COVID-19.
Guthrie said vaccine passports should end for multiple reasons, foremost the division they have created. He said the passport system has caused “animosity, even among the closest of friends and families.”
Medical privacy is another reason Guthrie gave for ending the passports, with such information “an area that was always without question previously protected.”
The third reason, he said, is that vaccine passports are expensive for businesses to implement, “causing numerous conflicts with owners and their customers and limiting their clientele.”
Guthrie said that if Alberta wanted to claim that they do not have a vaccine mandate, removing vaccine passports would be “an excellent first step in our transition away from restrictions.”
He said that Alberta needs to learn from its mistakes and that the government has to stop claiming the policy works.
He encouraged Alberta to take the lead.
“Vaccine passports are the epitome of leftist identity politics,” he said. “Removing them will come with outrage from the opposition and gaslighting from the media, but it is the right thing to do.”
Guthrie broke ranks with his colleagues in September by criticizing the Alberta government for bringing back mask mandates and offering financial incentives for people to get their COVID shots.
A new poll is suggesting that the percentage of Canadians who believe COVID-19 restrictions should end has leapt from 40% to 54% in less than a month.
The latest poll, which was conducted by Angus Reid between Jan. 27 and 28, suggested that more than half (54%) of all Canadians strongly agree or agree that it is time to end restrictions and “let people self-isolate if they are at risk.”
This compares to 40% of respondents who strongly disagree or disagree that restrictions should end and 6% who are unsure.
“The public sentiment appears to be moving in the direction of opening up communities,” said the Angus Reid Institute. “Indeed, in the past two weeks the number of Canadians saying they would like to see restrictions ended has risen by 15 percentage points, to a majority (54%).”
The numbers from a previous poll from earlier in January had suggested things were the other way around, with 40% of respondents strongly agreeing or agreeing that restrictions should end and 55% who strongly disagreed or disagreed. The number that was unsure remained similar, at 5%.
According to the new poll, every province except those in Atlantic Canada showed the majority of people agreeing that restrictions should end, with Saskatchewan seeing the highest support at 62%.
The poll also suggested that most age groups for both genders – except women 55 years old and older – support ending restrictions, with men 35 to 54 years old providing the most support at 60%. The poll suggested that 51% of women 55 years old and older disagreed.
The poll also included questions about COVID-19 infections, suggesting that 21% of Canadians say they have been infected since Dec. 1. When questioned about their symptoms, 52% said they were relatively mild, 47% claimed they were serious but manageable and 1% said they were very severe.
The poll was conducted among a randomized sample of 1,688 Canadian adults who are members of the Angus Reid Forum. A probability sample of this size has a margin of error +/- 2.5 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.
The poll comes as the Truckers for Freedom Convoy enters into its ninth day of protests calling on the federal government to end vaccine mandates and other restrictions under COVID.
The Trudeau government has committed itself to purging or rewriting hundreds of historical plaques and monuments commemorating Canadian history in a revisionist attempt to “decolonize” the country.
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, this means that a tenth of federal historical landmarks erected since 1919 are going to be revised or completely removed.
The purges will include “major political figures” like Canada’s first prime minister Sir. John A. Macdonald, those “associated with Residential School history” and anybody “associated with the eugenics movement.”
“The designations and plaques which require review have been assessed as relating to four issues: colonial legacy, absence or erasure of a significant layer of history, outdated or offensive terminology and controversial beliefs and behaviours,” the briefing entitled Review Of Designations: National Program Of Historical Commemoration reads.
A total of 205 plaques and monuments have been placed on a blacklist for removal based solely on “public requests” or controversies. Additionally “subjects identified as urgent by Indigenous consultants” will also be destroyed.
“Nothing can be immune from review. Every designation can be re-evaluated,” wrote federal staff.
On a comparable note, Parks Canada recently removed references to Pocahantas from signage at an Alberta forest.
“Parks Canada is committed to a system of national heritage places that recognizes and honours the historical and contemporary contributions of Indigenous peoples, their histories and cultures,” said Parks Canada.
“Taking the time to properly rename these sites is one small step towards truth and reconciliation in Canada. As a group, we encourage Canadians and international visitors to educate themselves on Canada’s brutal history towards Indigenous people.”
Additionally, In Victoria, BC, a statue of Capt. James Cook which was toppled and broken in January 2021 by far-left protestors will not be returning to the city’s Inner Harbour Causeway.
“Decolonization” is a far-left practice popular among adherents of critical race theory and other so-called anti-racism viewpoints which have infiltrated governments of all levels.
According to academic publications cited by the University of British Columbia, decolonization “sets out to change the order of the world (and) is, obviously, a program of complete disorder.”
CUPE Paramedics of Windsor-Essex criticized governments across Canada for supporting vaccine mandates on Thursday, borrowing some steam from the Truckers for Freedom Convoy and continuing the chapter’s defiance of the position of the national union.
“If you initially supported mandates, you’re forgiven,” said CUPE Paramedics of Windsor-Essex in a since-deleted eight-part Twitter thread on Thursday. “If you still support mandates, you may just be authoritarian and have a propensity for evil.”
The thread, which appears to have been removed on Friday, ended with pictures of Canadians cheering the freedom convoy making its way toward Ottawa. The truckers, who are demanding an end to all vaccine mandates, lockdowns and other restrictions, are expected to arrive in the capital on Saturday.
CUPE has supported vaccine mandates for employees, saying that while employers should craft policies that ensure workers who refuse to be vaccinated can keep their jobs, members should also understand they might not be kept in the workplace for health and safety reasons.
About 35 paramedics in Windsor-Essex are believed to have been placed on unpaid leave over the policy.
According to the chapter’s president James Jovanovic, Essex-Windsor Emergency Medical Services (EMS) had been experiencing significant challenges prior to the vaccine mandates, which affected Essex-Windsor paramedics last September.
Jovanovic said at a press conference in November that while he and most of his members were vaccinated, he would defend any who were not.
“I’ve had countless sleepless nights staying up on the phones speaking directly to and shedding tears with those who are being forcibly coerced into a medical treatment, which should only be a medical decision in consultation with their doctor,” he said.
Essex-Windsor EMS responded to the CUPE Paramedics of Windsor-Essex’s posts on Friday by reaffirming its support of vaccine mandates, tweeting that, “Essex-Windsor EMS is aware of recent social media posts regarding vaccines, vaccine mandates and vaccine policies made by the union local representing our paramedics.”
“These posts do not represent the position of Essex-Windsor EMS or the County of Essex.”
This was in turn met with a statement by Jovanovic, saying his members “support vaccination while opposing mandates.”
“We believe open dialogue and debate are crucial to our democratic society and must be protected and encouraged, whereby we must end the vilification, detestation and hate; we must accomplish this by returning respect and compassion for our fellow Canadians,” said Jovanovic.
CUPE head office could not be reached for comment in time for publication.
Visible minority Canadian men earn as much as a tenth more than white Canadian men, according to a report from Statistics Canada obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter on Thursday.
The report, titled “Comparing Weekly Earnings Of Canadian-Born Individuals in Designated Visible Minority And White Categories,” revealed that weekly earnings among Canadian women aged 25 to 44 years old were comparable across ethnicities but that they varied across men in this age group.
Japanese-Canadian males had the highest-earning weekly paychecks across all ethnicities, earning $1,750, according to the report. This was followed by Korean-Canadian males at $1,720 and $1,680 for South Asian males.
The report said white males ranked fifth on the list, making $1,530 per week. It claimed black males had the lowest-earning weekly paychecks, making $1,120.
“Even among individuals born in Canada sociodemographic characteristics vary considerably across designated visible minority and white categories,” said the report.
Analysts said the research was important in “identifying and addressing inequalities.”
Young white men, said the report, were more likely to marry with children. About 43% of white men were married with children, compared to as few as 15 to 30% of visible minorities, it said.
The report also declared that white men were less likely to have a university degree. Analysts found that 24% of white men had one, compared to more than 60% of Korean and Chinese men, and more than 40% of Arab, West Asian, Japanese and South Asian men.
On the other hand, visible minority men were more likely to live with their parents, remain single and reside in Canada’s largest cities. The report said that 60% of visible minority men lived in Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver, compared to 27% for white men.
“Even among individuals born in Canada, sociodemographic characteristics vary considerably across designated visible minority and White categories,” said analysts. “Clearly, much needs to be taken into account when comparing weekly earnings across categories.”
The findings of the report – which seem to counter claims of predominant “white privilege” in Canada – also come after a poll in June 2021 suggested that the majority (66%) of Canadians do not believe Canada is a racist country. This compared with 34% of respondents who agreed or strongly agreed that it was.
The poll also found that “equity and anti-racism advocates” were more likely to suspect racism than visible minorities themselves.
