OTTAWA — Despite $443 million in new annual spending aimed to reduce homelessness the number of people without a roof over their head has grown by 20 per cent in Canada, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
The new $443 million was a 374 per cent increase compared to prior spending, but it doesn’t appear to be having the desired effect.
The release of over 600 pages of classified documents concerning security breaches at Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg this past February shed a light on one of this country’s most shocking cases of espionage.
NML scientists Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng essentially used Canada’s highest-security biohazard lab as a lending library for Chinese military interests. During her time as head of Vaccines and Antivirals in the NML’s Zoonotic Diseases and Special Pathogens Division, Qiu repeatedly acted on China’s behalf, including by transferring knowledge and materials from the NML to Chinese institutions. The files led bare Canada’s shocking inability to protect its own secrets.
While Victoria Day may have been celebrated by most in Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Gov. Gen. Mary Simon were not among the celebrants.
Simon dedicated her energies to planting trees to help fight climate change, while Trudeau used the day to promise Canadians they’ll get free contraceptives.
Canada has reached “a critical turning point” as the high cost of living and housing in this country push more people below the poverty line, says a report out today from Food Banks Canada.
According to the 2024 Poverty Report Cards, almost half of people nationally feel financially worse off than last year and one in four are suffering from food insecurity.
In Canada’s House of Commons, the Conservative leader of the opposition, Pierre Poilievre, often taunts the Liberals by speaking past the faltering prime minister Justin Trudeau and instead making reference to “the next Liberal leader”: by this, he means none other than Mark Carney, the central banker who is suspected of harbouring grand political ambitions.
It’s a vicious circle with no end in sight, courtesy of the current Liberal government. Canada needs to build more houses, so it needs more construction workers. The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation reports a shortage of construction labour as one of three factors contributing to longer build times, and RBC’s assistant chief economist Robert Hogue predicts that Canada requires over 500,000 additional construction workers to build all the homes needed between now and 2030.
Food prices are still far higher than they should be, gas prices continue to rise and rent increases are up dramatically year over year, but the Trudeau Liberals are taking a victory lap.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland held a news conference on Tuesday to take a bow and explain that despite still higher prices, we’ve never had it so good.
A government-appointed director at the Canada Infrastructure Bank has resigned after being under fire for approving federal green fund money to companies she was invested in while serving as a fund director.
The April 16 resignation of renewable energy venture capitalist Andrée-Lise Méthot was not publicly announced until Housing and Infrastructure Minister Sean Fraser was asked about Ms. Méthot on May 21. Mr. Fraser was testifying before the House of Commons transport and infrastructure committee.
When it comes to Canadian PM Justin Trudeau’s Orwellian Online Harms Act, tech titan Elon Musk gets it: “This sounds insane.”
Insane is putting it mildly…
When federal public service unions recently threatened a summer of discontent(opens in a new tab), it would have been easy pickings for Justin Trudeau to clear his throat and deliver a heartfelt “fuddle duddle(opens in a new tab)” for and on behalf of hard-pressed Canadian voters.
It wasn’t to be.
Having recently signed generous collective agreements with the major public sector unions, one could have expected Trudeau’s Liberal government to be given a bit of a break, but just the opposite happened.
A new report says shelters are not designed to meet the physical or mental health needs of the growing number of older adults who are homeless.
Lead author Dr. Jillian Alston says people who experience homelessness age faster than people who are housed due to factors such as ongoing stress and the inability to properly manage chronic medical conditions.
OTTAWA — Conservatives are calling once more for Greg Fergus to resign as House of Commons Speaker, arguing that an advertisement for an event in his riding used “very partisan, inflammatory language” concerning Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.
Trudeau in Philadelphia to push ‘Team Canada’ charm offensive
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in Philadelphia Tuesday, on his first trip south of the border since his government launched a new “Team Canada” charm offensive in the United States.
Officially he is in Pennsylvania after accepting an invitation to speak at a the Service Employees International Union quadrennial North American convention.
But the trip comes five months after Trudeau dispatched his industry and international trade ministers to lead the new trade strategy with American business leaders, labour unions and state and municipal governments.
New home construction in Ontario has slowed to a pace not seen since 2018, putting Premier Doug Ford’s government further off track from hitting its housing targets.
Housing starts in April in urban areas of Ontario were down a whopping 37 per cent from the same month last year, according to the latest figures reported by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC).
Economists see no signs of the slowdown reversing in the months to come, creating the potential for a grim 2024 when it comes to new home construction.
Rule of thumb: Everything the Trudeau government has or will have to say about “fixing” the housing crisis they themselves created is a lie.
When the federal government said earlier this week its investment of $1.7 million in a Brampton, Ont., pasta plant would create 10 jobs, some questioned whether that taxpayer money was being put to good use.
One economics professor tweeted he was “legit astonished” by the investment in Italpasta.
“Do they not understand just how insane this is? That spending north of $170k for *one job* is an embarrassment, not an achievement?” wrote Stephen Gordon of Laval University.
And that was just a fraction of the billions in subsidies that were announced recently for the creation of electric vehicle-related plants in Ontario.
