Email reveals that Ottawa told Canada’s top soldier not to call budget changes ‘cuts’

OTTAWA — Canada’s top soldier was told he couldn’t use the word “cut” in a memo to soldiers about the federal government’s budget plans for the military, newly disclosed documents reveal.

The emails late last summer between Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Wayne Eyre’s office and the Department of National Defence (DND), obtained by the Star under the Access to Information Act, highlight the bewildering semantics — and the tension — between Canada’s soldiers and its politicians when it comes to defence spending.

DND is expected to have almost $2.6 billion in its budget “reallocated” over the next three years as a part of the Liberals’ broader exercise to redirect $14.1 billion in spending over the next five years, according to plans tabled last week.

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Will anyone ever be held to account for China’s infiltration of the Winnipeg microbiology lab? Don’t make me laugh

One begins to see what the Trudeau government was so scared of – why it went to such lengths to conceal documents related to the firing of two scientists from the top-security National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, stonewalling a parliamentary committee and even calling an early election rather than hand them over.

Because as the documents make clear, this was no ordinary national security breach. This was a national security disaster. How it happened, how it went undiscovered for so long, with how serious consequences, must await further investigation. But what we know already – what the government has known for at least three years, and did its best to suppress – is staggering.

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Judge Will Hear Conspiracy Argument in Trial of Freedom Convoy Organizers

An Ontario court judge will entertain arguments that Freedom Convoy organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber acted as co-conspirators as part of their criminal trial, she announced in a decision on Mar 7.

The Crown intends to prove the two conspired together in lockstep to organize an illegal protest, and that evidence against one of them should apply to both.

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Perfidious Trudeau non-committal about restoring funding to Hamas front UNRWA

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Thursday his government isn’t ready to announce it’s restoring federal funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), the UN agency that has been delivering aid to the people of Gaza.

“We’re not making any announcements today but we will continue to make sure Canada does the right thing in this situation and puts the protection of civilian life at the forefront,” Trudeau said at a media event in Toronto about his government’s pharmacare plan.

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Most Canadians think Canada is broken and are angry with Trudeau government: poll

Most Canadians believe “everything is broken in the country right now,” and more people agree with that statement than just one year ago, according to a new national survey.

Canadians across political lines were on the same page when it came to the perception that Canada is broken, with 70 per cent agreeing with the statement. Most Conservative voters (85 per cent) backed the idea. Notably, two-thirds of NDP voters (66 per cent) agreed, in addition to 58 per cent of Bloc Québécois voters and a fair number of Liberal ones.

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Companies at heart of ArriveCan scandal received more than $100M in government contracts

OTTAWA — Companies run by two consultants at the heart of the ArriveCan scandal received over $100 million in government contracts since 2011, according to a new government tally.

Speaking to the House public accounts committee Wednesday, federal Comptroller General Roch Huppé said he ordered a tally of all contracts given to GC Strategies and its predecessor Coredal — both owned by Kristian Firth and Darren Anthony — following conflicting reports by the government and media in recent weeks.

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Montreal Chinese community centres serve RCMP with $5M defamation suit over ‘police station’ allegations

Two Chinese community organizations are suing the RCMP for defamation after the national police force alleged they were operating as “police stations” for the Chinese government.

The Chinese Family Services of Greater Montreal and Centre Sino-Québec de la Rive Sud, as well as the two centres’ executive director, Xixi Li, are seeking more than $4.9 million in damages, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday in Superior Court.

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Tasha Kheiriddin: Liberals want Canadians in the dark about China threat

Who calls the shots in Canada, Ottawa or Beijing? It’s becoming harder to tell, especially after this week’s shameful performance by the House of Commons Ethics Committee.

On Monday the Liberal-dominated committee shut down an emergency request by Conservative MP Michael Chong to investigate the firing of two Chinese scientists, Xiangguo Qiu and her husband Keding Cheng, at the Winnipeg National Microbiology Laboratory in 2021. Chong made the request after the government released 600 pages of documents revealing that Qiu and Cheng had basically been spying for the People’s Republic of China (PRC), developing “deep, cooperative relationships” with institutions there and transferring Canadian scientific knowledge and materials to the Chinese government.

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Chinese government and military gained access Canadian lab and mailed live Ebola virus to Wuhan

A Chinese couple working at Canada’s highest biosecurity lab were secretly sending information to Beijing and mailed live Ebola to China, a bombshell investigation has found.

In a 600-page report released this week by the Canadian intelligence service, the pair were also accused of allowing visitors into the lab who tried to leave carrying plastic bags of vials containing an unknown substance.

Dr Xiangguo Qiu and Dr Keding Cheng were found to have left visitors with ties to the Chinese government and military unsupervised at the facility.

h/t Canucklehead

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Slippery Slope: Trudeau harassed by the pro-Hamas wing of the LPC

Trudeau confronted by pro-Palestinian protesters while snowboarding in Thunder Bay

h/t UCSPanther and SDMatt

I guess his security team just looks the other way now.

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Few Canadians Support Gov’t Subsidies for Media, Federal Polling Finds

Most Canadians would rather see federal funding spent on urgent needs such as affordable housing than on media subsidies to prop up failing news outlets, according to in-house Privy Council research.

Ottawa commissioned a poll just weeks before doubling newsroom payroll rebates to an additional $129 million. The survey, first obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter, found few Canadians were in favour of the federal government’s support of the news industry.

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Trudeau whores himself to Hamas voters by resuming funding to UNRWA with your tax dollars

The federal government is resuming funding to UNRWA, the United Nations relief agency for Palestinians, CBC News has learned.

In addition to going ahead with a scheduled payment in April of $25 million, Canada’s international development minister also intends to announce new funding, according to a senior government official.

The Canadian government announced a pause on funding in January after Israel alleged that 12 employees of UNRWA were involved in some capacity in the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas and the affiliated group Islamic Jihad.

He’s gonna need a stomach pump tonight.

Meanwhile in Torontostan …

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Gwyn Morgan: Truckers get jail time while real criminals get bail and parole

On Jan. 29, 2022, a trucker convoy headed down to the Coutts, Alta., border crossing with the U.S. to protest the COVID-19 vaccine mandates the Trudeau government had put in place. The protest turned into a full-scale blockade that lasted 17 days. Two of the protest leaders, Chris Lysak and Jerry Morin, were arrested and charged with conspiracy to commit murder and mischief, accusations that were hard to credit given the context of the event. They remained in custody for 723 days, during 74 of which Morin was in solitary confinement. Finally, after their lawyer filed a Charter of Rights application to examine the case, the Crown suddenly accepted a plea deal on minor firearms charges. They were released early last month.

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