He may not have seen the potential threat when truckers rolled toward Ottawa last January, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau cannot miss the risk of Freedom Convoy fallout he now faces.
Under the no-nonsense watch of Justice Paul Rouleau with a lineup of inquisitive lawyers representing all sides of the protest, the Public Order Emergency Commission may well deliver a daily dose of bad news for the government as Trudeau and his seven cabinet ministers parade across the stand.
MPs have voted to invite representatives from security agencies to testify at a House of Commons committee on reports of three unofficial Chinese police stations that are said to be established in Toronto. The vote comes as some countries are investigating reports of similar Chinese police services and their alleged use for coercing Chinese diasporas and overseas dissidents.
PM Trudeau, Poilievre spar over recession concerns, affordability bill
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre sparred in the House of Commons on Tuesday over concerns of a looming recession and how the federal government should be tackling inflation, with Trudeau accusing Poilievre of “blocking” the Liberals’ bill to implement housing and dental benefits.
Tuesday’s Question Period saw a back-and-forth between Trudeau and Poilievre, with the Conservative leader accusing Trudeau of “bragging about” the $500 top-up for low-income renters as part of the proposed affordability legislation, while adding “these days, you can’t even rent a dog house in the backyard for that kind of money.”
Trudeau is a thief.
Canada’s annual rate of inflation cooled to 6.9 per cent per cent in September, according to Statistics Canada.
The agency said the drop in the headline figure was largely thanks to lower gas prices.
But prices on food purchased from the grocery store continued to soar, rising 11.4 per cent to a new 41-year high.
Justin Trudeau, Canada’s charismatic young Prime Minister, seeks to cultivate a progressive image. The Wall Street Journal calls him “the world’s golden boy of liberal politics,” while lamenting that a corruption scandal tarnished his “rock-star popularity.” Much of his progressive façade, however, rests on an embrace of identity politics. And, as often happens when ethnic lobbies trump individuals, radicalism wins while the silent majority loses out.
Toronto – A newly released report authored by economist Ross McKitrick exposes the true cost to Canadians of the Trudeau government’s new Clean Fuel Standard, dubbed Canada’s “Second Carbon Tax.”
This new tax will be expensive. According to the report released by LFX Associates, Economic Analysis of the 2022 Federal Clean Fuels Standard, household energy costs will increase by 2.2 to 6.5% a year per household. In real money terms this will mean an extra tax of $1,277 a year per worker.
I have not watched in detail thus far the inquiry into the invocation of the Emergencies Act. As a reasonable caution.
I fear trauma by proxy.
A new research report says federal cybersecurity legislation is so flawed it would allow authoritarian governments around the world to justify their own repressive laws.
The report by Christopher Parsons of the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab makes 29 recommendations to bolster transparency and accountability of the proposed measures introduced in June by the Liberal government.
The Prime Minister’s Office knew about an anti-racism consultant’s derogatory tweets about “Jewish white supremacists” a month before the government cancelled a $133,000 contract in which he played a key role.
The consultant, Laith Marouf, is an expert for the Community Media Advocacy Centre (CMAC), a non-profit that was awarded the contract earlier this year. Mr. Marouf’s tweets also derided francophones and Black and Indigenous public figures.
OPEC kicked the United States, the West, and the world’s poorest nations in the teeth recently with oil production cuts that will raise prices to help finance Russia’s war against Ukraine and Europe. And what has Canada done to help allay this situation, given that it is a country with one of the biggest oil and gas reserves on the planet?
… The Liberals don’t want the public looking too closely at their flimsy case for invoking the Emergencies Act to oust the Freedom Convoy last February. In the spring, they refused to allow the Conservatives, the official Opposition, to chair or vice-chair the parliamentary committee studying the use of the act, as is common practice for committees. The government has also used cabinet confidentiality to deny requests in court to outline the specific information supposedly used to back up claims that there was a genuine national security threat.
OTTAWA – The City of Ottawa received clear warnings several days before the event that Freedom Convoy protesters were planning to stay for weeks, and in much bigger numbers than the city planned for, according to emails and testimony at the Public Order Emergency Commission.
Gov. Gen. Mary Simon says media’s portrayal of trip expenses was ‘unfair’ but changes could be in the works
Simon argues her travel includes important discussions about world peace
Governor General Mary Simon says that while she thinks the way catering expenses for her trip to the Middle East in March were portrayed in the media was “unfair,” a review is underway to minimize the cost of future voyages.
“I don’t even know what the orders are for meals. But I do know one thing — our meals are not very extravagant on these trips. They’re pretty much like airline meals and the way they were portrayed in the media was pretty unfair, I thought,” Simon said in an interview on CBC’s The House airing Saturday.
Bad idea, Governor General. Bryan is one of those annoying people slavishly devoted to facts. https://t.co/vHygNqZc6x
— Lorrie Goldstein (@sunlorrie) October 16, 2022
In his opening statement at the public inquiry into the feds’ use of the Emergencies Act last week, the lawyer representing the Ontario Provincial Police said the OPP didn’t need an emergency declaration to clear the convoy protests.
Two of the highest-profile convoy protest sites were in the OPP’s jurisdiction: Ottawa, ground zero of the protests, and the Ambassador Bridge in Windsor, arguably the costliest of all blockades due to the high volume of goods traded between Canada and the United States over the bridge each day.
OTTAWA – Internal documents show the RCMP refused to release the badge numbers of officers who cleared “Freedom Convoy” protesters from the Ambassador Bridge last winter, citing a risk of violence from their supporters.
The situation was detailed in a briefing note and threat assessment prepared for RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki, who was asked to approve the decision because the force recognized it raised questions around transparency.
RCMP sent Freedom Convoy blacklist to lobbyists
Records show an RCMP blacklist of bank account holders identified as part of the Freedom Convoy movement was sent by email to lobbyists, according to Blacklock’s Reporter.
… The records show the RCMP distributed names, birth dates, phone numbers and more by unencrypted email and neither police nor Cabinet ensured the blacklist was accurate or confidential.
