Long wait times for medical treatment cost 1.2 million Canadian patients an estimated $3.5 billion in out-of-pocket expenses last year, according to a new study by the Fraser Institute.
The fiscally conservative think-tank said the estimate — averaging $2,871 per patient — is conservative because it only includes costs borne directly by patients waiting for treatment in terms of lost productivity during an average work week.
A new report lends insight into Canadians who leave the country, estimated to number around four million in 2016, or about 11 per cent of the population according to Statistics Canada.
Canada has trouble retaining new citizens, with onward migration showing an increase by 31 per cent between 2017 and 2019, according to the report published by McGill Institute for the Study of Canada on Monday.
OTTAWA — Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre laid down a historic marker Tuesday with a promise to invoke the notwithstanding clause to shield criminal justice reforms from being overturned in the courts.
Poilievre pledged to invoke the Charter’s Section 33 — something that has never been done at the federal level — to reverse a Supreme Court decision that criminals can’t be locked up more than 25 years before being eligible for parole.
After raising the idea while speaking to the Canadian Police Association on Monday , Poilievre told reporters on Tuesday that the promise would keep murderers like Alexandre Bissonnette, the gunman who killed six people in a Quebec City mosque in 2017, behind bars for life.
… Vox’s Zack Beauchamp, who deconstructed Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre for American readers, comes to a less alarmist conclusion. Where Mr. Marche sees a threat to Canada’s “liberal and multicultural society,” Mr. Beauchamp cites Mr. Poilievre’s support for immigration as the clearest evidence distinguishing him from right-wing radicals elsewhere. “His populism is primarily rhetorical – rather than system-threatening – because the Canadian system for limiting extremism is still basically intact.”
Until this week, I might have agreed with that conclusion. Now, I’m not so sure. The events of the past few days do suggest that Canada has finally joined peer democracies in entering a postliberal age in which the left and the right no longer agree on even the basics of liberal democracy.
I agree with the Vox guy Poilievre is a status quo identity politics guy. That’s hardly dangerous.
Poilievre will not “alter the demographic realities”. He wants to get elected and that means following the same identity politics playbook Trudeau does. I imagine a gauntlet of court challenges would arise to stymie the imposition of common sense in immigration policy.
— Fancypants Maloney (@fancypants_s) May 1, 2024
A dozen years ago, Pierre Poilievre was a relatively obscure political figure who was mostly regarded — to the extent he was regarded at all — as a fiercely anti-labour guy on the far-right of the Harper cabinet.
But there he was in Parliament last February, voting in favour of pro-labour legislation banning scabs in federal workplaces.
Has he fundamentally changed his thinking — or was that simply part of his new, air-brushed “friend of the working man” look?
More on Linda and her fellow travelers: Venezuela’s collapse and the ‘useful idiots’ of the Canadian left
OTTAWA — Describing how politics has grown so “toxic” and “hyperpartisan” that she is often afraid to appear in public, Liberal MP Pam Damoff says she will not seek re-election in her suburban riding west of Toronto.
Damoff, the three-term MP for Oakville—North Burlington who was first elected in 2015, told her Liberal colleagues about her decision Wednesday at the party’s caucus meeting on Parliament Hill.
Her leader is largely responsible for this state of affairs.
Jews have eyes. And they see that the antisemitism in the protests over Gaza is no aberration
There is a point at which the gaslighting becomes genuinely insulting. When meek attempts to blame a rogue few for hateful or antisemitic speech, or the repeated insistence that such displays of bigotry have “no place in Canada,” are so disconnected from reality that they become offensive and belittling.
People can see with their own eyes that this sort of bigotry clearly has a place here. And they can hear with their own ears as choruses of people – not just one or two outliers – sing about sending Jews “back to Europe.” It happened during pro-Palestinian protests in Ottawa on April 15, in Toronto on March 8 and April 13, and just days ago, in Montreal, at the encampment set up at McGill University.
It is a litany of enrichment made possible by the Liberal and Conservative parties.
While Pierre Poilievre’s Conservatives continue to endear themselves to voters, new polling suggests Tory supporters are among those most likely to change their minds come election day.
A new National Post-Leger poll shows the Conservative with a 21-point lead over the Liberals — with the Tories gaining two points over the last month for 42 per cent support nationally and Trudeau Liberals losing three points to 26 per cent. The poll was taken April 26 to 28.
The Liberal government is proposing to make changes to Canada’s asylum claim system which could speed up the deportation process for rejected applicants from the country.
The proposed amendments were quietly announced two weeks ago in the 2024 federal budget and come as Canada deals with a record number of asylum seekers.
Most Of Those Sent Deportation Letters Still Living In Canada Years Later
For months now, we have heard rumblings of a Loblaw boycott organized by a clandestine group aiming to penalize grocers for their perceived profiteering. This alleged boycott is set to start on May 1, with participants calling for a reduction in food prices. However, it’s important to note that many food prices have already been declining for weeks, rendering the movement somewhat misguided in achieving its purported goals.
Canada’s top spy says China’s concerted efforts to steal cutting-edge Canadian technology is mind-boggling, and is designed to build the People’s Liberation Army as a formidable force against Western interests.
David Vigneault, the director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, told MPs on the Canada-China committee Monday that Chinese hacking and other espionage activities have become a serious threat since Xi Jinping became president in 2012.
Speaker Greg Fergus kicked Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre out of the House of Commons during question period today.
All Conservative MPs have left the chamber in protest after Fergus gave Poilievre multiple chances to withdraw comments calling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a “wacko.”
Poilievre said he would replace the word with “radical,” then that he would “simply withdraw and replace” the language with the term “extremist.”
In his classic A Short History of the World, H.G. Wells asked why the Roman Empire grew, and why it so completely decayed.
He concluded that it grew because the idea of citizenship held it together, creating a sense of privilege and obligation and a willingness to make sacrifices in the name of Rome.
However, the failure to explain itself to its increasing multitude of citizens, or invite their co-operation, led to the demise of its collective mission.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh says he’s still not ready to say whether his caucus will support the federal budget, citing a need for further “clarity” over whether the Liberals intend to address concerns surrounding the Canada Disability Benefit program.
Speaking to reporters on Parliament Hill on Monday, as MPs resume debate on the 2024 financial plans, Singh said that while his caucus “fought hard” to ensure the budget included relief for Canadians such as new renter protections, a national school food program, and diabetes and contraception coverage, the government didn’t go far enough in other areas.
OTTAWA – The Crown is asking a judge to consider an Ottawa man’s pro-Hamas comments at a Toronto protest to be an aggravating factor in sentencing for breaching the bail conditions of an unrelated charge.
The Crown says Mohammed Assadi was supposed to be living under house arrest with his sister in Ottawa while out on bail on an assault charge.
