The coming 2023 federal budget will “exercise fiscal restraint” while also making “significant” investments in Canada’s health-care system and building a clean economy, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said Monday.
In a speech detailing the Liberal government’s priorities ahead of next week’s budget release, Freeland said the budget will include “targeted inflation relief” to help Canadians who are most acutely feeling the pinch as a result of rising prices.
The strong opposition to David Johnston’s appointment as special rapporteur investigating Chinese interference in elections reveals how our times, and our politics, have changed.
In a previous column, I suggested that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre should accept Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s choice of Mr. Johnston on the grounds that the former governor-general was appointed to that post by then-Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, and that he is one of this country’s most trusted, and trustworthy, figures.
Johnston is a suspect “choice” given his own ChiCom links alone.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called Sunday for the development of a national standards system that would allow qualified doctors and nurses to work in any province or territory in the country.
Poilievre proposed what he called a “Blue Seal” standard, modelled after the Red Seal program used in the skilled trades. The standard would apply to the national competency test for a worker’s profession, and if health-care workers pass the test, they would be quickly licensed and able to work anywhere that adopts the new standard.
So long as they are able to screen for fraud and ensure that the institution attended by the physician offered a sound training with standards equivalent to our own.
Mortgage rates, changing psychology, Canada’s vulnerability, large volumes of investors and migration policy are squeezing the country’s housing market.
Spring is in the air. And for some, so is the expectation of a housing rebound.
The real estate industry hopes the spring market, when sales traditionally surge, will turn around housing prices, which have fallen 19 per cent nationally since their peak a year ago.
There are tentative signs some buyers are tiptoeing back into the market, which has been hammered for a year by mortgage rates that have risen to six and seven per cent. That was forced by the Bank of Canada and others around the world realizing they had to beat back inflation caused by government over-spending during the pandemic.
It looks like we finally have one political leader serving in higher office who actually wants to know more rather than less about the allegations of the Beijing Communist regime’s interference in our elections.
British Columbia NDP Premier David Eby says he’s “very troubled” by these allegations. He wants a “thorough and independent investigation” and he’s requested CSIS provide him with a “full briefing.”
Vincent Harris arrived in Haiti earlier this year to heal bodies.
Two weeks ago, the medical adviser for Doctors Without Borders found himself instead in the midst of the country’s war.
“There was a really violent clash between two armed groups,” Harris said this week from Port-au-Prince. “Unfortunately, the front line where those groups met was directly in front of the doors of the hospital.”
How bout we just stay out of it?
Canada’s ambassador to the United States says U.S. President Joe Biden may be less critical of Canada failing to meet its defence spending targets than former President Barack Obama was when the latter addressed Parliament.
When Biden makes his first official state visit to Canada this week, discussions around defence and security, Norad modernization, and how to deal with Russia and China are on the agenda.
The last American president to visit Ottawa — and to address Parliament — was Obama in 2016, when in a 50-minute speech he said: “NATO needs more Canada.”
OTTAWA — The leaked intelligence reports have set off a political firestorm. They describe plans by the government of China and its diplomats in Canada to ensure that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party took power in the last two elections, raising troubling questions about the integrity of Canada’s democracy.
But as two prominent Canadian news organizations have published a series of leaks over the past month, Mr. Trudeau has refused calls to launch a public inquiry into the matter, angering political opponents and leading to accusations that he is covering up foreign attempts to undermine his country’s elections.
MONTREAL—If the debate over Chinese interference in Canada’s politics is a test of leadership, both Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre are going out of their way to fail it.
That starts with Trudeau, who came peculiarly late to the realization that the issue of the integrity of Canada’s democratic system could not be swept under the carpet. He has been playing catch up — with very relative success — since then.
According to the Blacklock’s Reporter, Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino expects the cabinet’s review of the proposed paid foreign agent registry to take several months.
Senate has a bill for a foreign agent registry sitting there for a year and nothing has been done.
Xi is a busy guy, he just hasn’t had a chance to review the bill.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s appointment of former governor general David Johnston as his “eminent rapporteur” on foreign interference by China in the last two federal elections is a classic “wag the dog” political strategy.
As an opposition MP during the previous Conservative government, Liberal John McCallum travelled often to China, with pro-Beijing non-governmental groups picking up a reported $73,000 of his travel costs.
When McCallum later became ambassador to China under a new Liberal government, his friendly relations with the country seemed to continue.
A Daily Caller News Foundation reporter said Friday that the northern border of the United States was chaos with migration going “both ways.”
“On my northern border trip, I didn’t realize how many people were coming both ways,” DCNF investigative reporter Jennie Taer said on the Timcast podcast on YouTube. “So, what I did while I was down there or up there, is I took a bunch of taxis filled with people from all over the world, they just filled up. People just flocked to them at the airport, at bus stops.”
In his new role as special rapporteur investigating alleged foreign interference, David Johnston will likely take a deep dive into the suburban Toronto riding of Don Valley North.
The riding is emerging as a nexus for alleged meddling by China. It’s represented federally by a Liberal and provincially by the Progressive Conservative party — but what raises eyebrows are their connections to a wealthy supermarket mogul with close ties to the Chinese Consulate in Toronto.
B.C. Premier David Eby wants to meet with Canada’s intelligence agency, saying he is disturbed by secret documents describing Beijing’s efforts to interfere in a Vancouver election, as some of the province’s senior political strategists call for urgent measures to address vulnerabilities in the democratic process.
The Canadian Security Intelligence Service has described efforts by China’s consul-general in Vancouver, Tong Xiaoling, to “groom” someone for the city’s council and, in the 2022 mayoral vote, “get all eligible voters to come out and elect a specific Chinese-Canadian candidate.” The documents do not name any candidate.
