As China ramps up its aggression and threats against Taiwan, the Canadian government has not budged position of maintaining the status quo. In this special edition of True North’s The Andrew Lawton Show, Andrew shines the light on Canada’s relationship with Taiwan, asking how Canada and Canadians can support Taiwan in its pursuit of independence from China. Joining this panel discussion are Conservative member of parliament Michael Cooper, York University professor Jung-Chin Shen, and Taiwan Watch Canada founder Yuehying Tseng.
On Thursday, CBC was forced to apologize for using a fake hospital setting and mannequins posing as patients for a broadcast on the COVID-19 pandemic earlier this week.
In a tweet by CBC Edmonton, the outlet addressed what it called an “editorial error” in their programming.
“Earlier in October, we aired two stories on what patients can expect in a hospital ICU during the COVID crisis and the strain on nursing staff. We shot footage for these stories at two Edmonton training facilities that showed mannequins in beds and a realistic-looking hospital setting due to restrictions,” wrote CBC.
“Unfortunately, some of that same footage was then used in a different story about COVID projections and modelling last week. Using those images outside the context of the training facilities was inappropriate and we apologize for the error in judgement. The story has been corrected.”
Soon after the correction was issued, hundreds of Canadians expressed outrage at the dishonest reporting by the state broadcaster.
Among those who joined in to criticize the CBC was Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre who chastised the outlet for getting caught in “brazen dishonesty.”
“The government wants to censor citizens supposedly to protect us from “misinformation” online. Yet the government’s own broadcaster gets caught in brazen dishonesty,” wrote Poilievre before including the #DefundCBC hashtag.
The government wants to censor citizens supposedly to protect us from "misinformation" online.
Poilievre was alluding to a plan by the federal government to implement a proposal to address online harms which would include a regulatory framework that would tell internet content service providers like Twitter and Facebook to remove content the government deems inappropriate.
Several critics have already come out against the proposal over what many are calling a legislative overreach and a violation of Canadians’ fundamental rights.
Most recently, two university organizations dedicated to internet law called on the federal government to ditch its plans to censor the internet.
As Canadians are facing unprecedented spikes in the price of gasoline at the pump, Ontario Premier Doug Ford told reporters that the carbon tax will only compound the high prices even further.
Ford made the comments during a COVID-19 briefing on Friday, in response to a question from the media on whether he would do something to temporarily reduce the price of gasoline.
“I stood here month after month warning people about the carbon tax which was about ten cents a litre, approximately, that everything would be going up. I challenged it in court. I lost in court unfortunately. I respect the court’s decision but I kept warning people this is just the beginning with the carbon tax, it’s going to be compounded year after year,” Ford told reporters.
“The carbon tax is the single worst tax on the backs of Canadians that’s ever existed. It’s driving up the cost of groceries, it’s driving up the cost of us getting from point A to point B, driving your kids to work, I have fought this day in and day out.”
Ford also committed to a 10 cent reduction in provincial taxes on gas, which currently contribute 30 cents a litre to the cost at the pump.
Later in his response, Ford issued a challenge to the federal government saying that Ontario would match deductions to the federal carbon tax financially.
“I will match every single penny the federal government deducts from their tax, we will match that, so hopefully they can do it. We have to be competitive against places around the world and we need to make sure that we have competitive gas prices and the government isn’t gouging the people because it affects every single price here in Ontario and across the country,” said Ford.
Recent reports indicate that the price of gas in some parts of Ontario has reached $1.48 a litre.
Ford is not the only one pointing out how much carbon taxes are contributing to the growing cost of necessities for Canadians.
Earlier this month, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation warned that by 2030 the federal carbon tax will contribute up to 40 cents per litre on the price of gasoline on top of the already existing taxes.
“Taxes already cost Canadians big time at the pumps and that tax bill will only grow with carbon tax hikes,” said CTF Federal Director Franco Terrazzano.
“If politicians want to improve affordability and lower prices at the pumps, then they need to provide tax relief.”
It’s Fake News Friday on The Candice Malcolm Show, in which Candice calls out the legacy media for attempting to push opinions as facts and highlights instances where they attempt to mislead Canadians.
This week, a number of media outlets claimed a young teen in Alberta had died of COVID-19. While the teen’s death was tragic news, there was only one problem – he didn’t pass away because of COVID-19. When the legacy media started pushing their fake news, the teen’s family came out and revealed that he had actually passed away because of brain cancer.
Plus, Peter Mansbridge roasts his former employer and the state broadcaster apologizes for airing fake news.
There has been a phenomenal spike in crime in the Esplanade community – a once vibrant tourist spot in downtown Toronto – since a hotel shelter opened there, a concerned citizens group heard at a recent virtual meeting.
A high-ranking 51 Division police officer familiar with activities in the area told the Downtown Concerned Citizens Organization (DCCO) that there has been a “dramatic increase in crime and disorder issues” in the surrounding neighbourhood since the four-star Novotel hotel was turned into a homeless shelter in February.
He said three long firearms were pulled out of the shelter three weeks ago and a fire set in one of the units on Sept. 28 endangered the entire shelter.
The Novotel is generating the most calls in what is already a busy division which he characterized as the “epicentre” of the city’s opioid crisis.
“The Esplanade outside the Novotel hotel is a crime hot spot,” he told residents who were on the call.
He added that there have been 69 opioid overdoses within 100 metres of the hotel so far this year compared to none last year.
The shelter offers “harm reduction” services to the 262 residents currently staying at the shelter but has no curfew, leaving many to wander the neighbourhood late at night.
The police source said there are residents from the justice system including some “very serious offenders” who have been let out on minimal bail conditions during COVID.
This is quite a different narrative from the assurances given to residents of the surrounding area when the city’s shelter employees and the operator, Homes First, held a hastily organized virtual town hall four days before the shelter opened in February.
Residents were led to believe that once the homeless were moved in, they would not be roaming the streets wreaking havoc on the community.
An information package sent to tone-deaf Toronto Mayor John Tory, councillors Kristyn Wong-Tam and Joe Cressy and the city’s shelter executives on Thursday, provides pages and pages of recorded criminal incidents and pictures of the harm done by the shelter residents.
It includes a petition signed by more than 1,200 residents and businesses impacted by the shelter, pleading that it closes on Dec. 31, the expiry date of the original lease with the Silver Hotel Group.
In the letter to City that accompanies the package, the DCCO notes that the shelter has resulted in a “rash of criminal behaviours, police, fire and EMS calls, public drug use, public defecating and urinating, robberies, physical and verbal assaults and an obvious degradation of the once safe and vibrant neighbourhood.”
A city spokesman – in response to a series of questions from True North – did not give a definitive answer as to whether the lease will be extended beyond December but did say “most hotel providers” have indicated a willingness to renew leases to at least April of 2022 “to mitigate the need for transitions during the winter.”
The city refused to disclose whether some of the residents are on bail deeming it “personal information.”
The spokesman added that every site has “clear rules” that outline expectations for behaviour by residents admitted to the site.
“The shelter is run by Homes First who brings management practices that have proven successful at its other locations,” the spokesman said. “All Homes First staff are trained in de-escalation, conflict resolution and crisis prevention.”
The existence of a security team of four guards, two community safety team officers (in the immediate perimeter of the property) and 24/7 patrols of a grid around the hotel by Community Safety Teams was also noted.
The denial by Toronto City Hall – evident in this response – would be laughable if not so pathetic.
Things have escalated so much that pay duty officers have been employed for a month to be visible and reassure the public, the police source said.
The police source says officers are “burnt out” with the huge volume of calls.
Residents acknowledged they see a difference but the source said the pay duty situation is “not sustainable.”
A court has ordered Calgary-based pastor Artur Pawlowski, his brother and a business owner to cite what “medical experts” say about COVID alongside their own opinions.
The three have gotten in trouble with the law on multiple occasions for violating pandemic public health orders and opposing masks and vaccine mandates.
Pawlowski, his brother Dawid, and Whistle Stop Cafe owner Christopher Scott were sentenced by Court of Queen’s Bench Justice Adam Germain on Wednesday after being found in contempt of court for inciting people to break public health orders.
“They are on the wrong side of science. They are also on the wrong side of common sense,” said Germain in his judgement.
“When Pastor Pawlowski addressed the court (during his contempt sanction proceeding) I almost view his comments to be as a taunt to imprison him. He knows that for him, 21 days in jail will be a slap on the wrist that will make him a martyr.”
Artur was ordered to pay a $24,000 fine and serve 18 months probation while his brother faces a $10,000 fine and conditions for 12 months. Meanwhile, Scott was fined $20,000 and faced 18-months of probation.
All three must obey Alberta Health Service orders during the probation period and provide 120 hours of community service.
Additionally, all three of the men must balance their own views with the government’s public health narrative when speaking about COVID.
“I am aware that the views I am expressing to you may not be held by medical experts … the majority of medical experts favour social distancing … vaccine programs,” was a phrasing suggested by Justice Germain.
Prior to the judgement, Pawloski travelled to the US where he preached to sympathetic followers in alleged violation of a prior court order.
As people pursue a return to pre-pandemic life, a new report warns that government spending will remain at all-time highs. A Fraser Institute review of government spending finds that Trudeau was already incurring record-breaking expenditures before the pandemic, and shows no sign of slowing down now.
Fraser Institute senior economist Jake Fuss joined the Andrew Lawton Show to explain.
Canada’s failing government-run healthcare is on life support, and heavy-handed vaccine mandates are about to make things a whole lot worse.
Canada’s system of Socialized medicine means that scarce resources are allocated by central bureaucracies. This rationing of care leads to shortages. That’s why people wait in queues for procedures and surgeries.
The decision to fire anyone who isn’t vaccinated means that they will fire up to 20% of healthcare workers, making the system even more backed up.
On today’s episode of the Candice Malcolm Show, Candice talks about how more government meddling will destroy our healthcare system.
This week, former Canadian Radio-Television Commission (CRTC) vice-chair Peter Menzies blasted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan to censor the internet and Canadians online.
Menzies made the comments in a recent op-ed published by the Financial Post.
“When it comes to communications regulation, let’s be clear: the election did not give Justin Trudeau’s government a mandate to continue messing with free speech on the Internet,” wrote Menzies.
“(The Liberals) wanted the CRTC to have authority over the entire global internet — that’s right, the whole, infinite enterprise — and to order social media companies to suppress and remove posts by the tens of thousands of Canadian creators who flourish by pleasing consumers. Posts by ordinary citizens would also have been under the guise of the regulator.”
This is not the first time that Menzies has called out the Liberal government over Bill C-10, which died in the Senate at the end of the last parliamentary session.
In a different op-ed penned in May, Menzies called the legislation – which would place online content under the regulatory oversight of the CRTC – a “national embarrassment.”
Menzies isn’t the only former CRTC official who has pointed out the sweeping overreach of the Liberal government’s plan to regulate the internet.
Two other former top CRTC officials including ex-chair Konrad von Finckenstein and former commissioner Timothy Denton also signed a petition which criticized Trudeau’s plan as a step towards authoritarianism.
In his op-ed published this week, Menzies also targeted the “lobby group representing those in the creative industry” who were eager “to access government funds.”
Among those who have lobbied in support of the censorship bill are groups like CBC/Radio-Canada, the Canada Media Fund and Rogers Media, which have all received government funding in the past.
In the face of the growing criticism, the Liberals have denied that the bill would target content posted by ordinary Canadians and claimed that the law is meant to help news providers get a fair shake from social media giants like Facebook and Google.
The perpetually moving goalposts of pandemic policy have made yesterday’s conspiracy theory today’s public policy. Vaccine passports are no exception, True North’s Andrew Lawton argues, suggesting the evidence is mounting that these will become a permanent fixture of Canadian life, potentially including flu shots and COVID booster shots.
Also, an Alberta judge has ordered Pastor Artur Pawlowski to promote the government’s public health narrative whenever he shares his own opinions on vaccines, masks, and social distancing.
Plus, Fraser Institute senior economist Jake Fuss joins the show to talk about Justin Trudeau’s record-breaking spending.
