The Canadian Catholic church and its members, many of whom are Indigenous or immigrants, were last year buffeted by a horrendous 260 per cent spike in hate crimes.
Catholics were subject to a far higher escalation in police-reported hate incidents than any other religious or racial group, according to a Statistics Canada study.
MONTREAL—Federalism as usual or constitutional crisis in the making? What is one to make of the fighting words coming out of various provincial capitals these days?
To separate the wheat from the chaff — and there is quite a bit of the latter — the place to start may be the state of play in some top-of-mind files.
All involve, at least to some degree, the notion of provincial autonomy within the federation, but they are each playing out on distinct scenes and will likely be resolved in different venues.
Healthcare? Enough to topple Trudeau?
Whatever else the public inquiry into the Trudeau government’s decision to invoke the Emergencies Act to end the chaos in downtown Ottawa earlier this year may or may not determine, it has already triumphantly vindicated one thing: the Emergencies Act itself.
The inquiry, formally known as the Public Order Emergency Commission, was not struck at the government’s discretion, but was explicitly mandated by the act, as was the joint parliamentary committee that is already holding hearings. The government will not be able to avail itself of the “if you knew what we knew” defence, beloved of tyrants everywhere: After the commission has finished its work, we will know what they knew.
Ottawa slams Google-backed survey criticizing Canada’s online news bill as an attempt to ‘avoid accountability’
OTTAWA—A national survey commissioned by Google painting Ottawa’s online news bill as flawed and a potential vehicle for misinformation has been slammed by the federal government as an attempt to “avoid accountability.”
Abacus Data on Friday published a report on Canadians’ views about Bill C-18, a piece of legislation that would compel online platforms like Google and Facebook to share some of the revenues they generate from posting news content on their sites with the outlets that produce the stories. The bill, known as the Online News Act, is now being studied by the House of Commons heritage committee.
Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland outlined a realistic vision for Canada’s foreign policy last week, with one fundamental flaw.
The realistic vision she outlined to an American think tank was centred on the realization that China and Russia are enemies of the West and that liberal democracies need to help each other — “friend shoring” as she called it — to minimize that threat.
Ministers are facing questions on the whereabouts of almost 500 foreign criminals facing deportation, including offenders convicted of multiple sexual offences.
Among them are around 30 offenders guilty of serious crimes including culpable homicide and other violent offences.
Canada Border Services Agency says that, as of December last year, the “whereabouts are unknown” of 29,719 people facing removal from Canada, including 469 facing deportation “for criminality or criminal convictions in Canada.”
It should come as no surprise that the federal government can’t give the opposition parties any details on sanctions enforcement, since it has no idea how many of those on the sanctions list actually hold assets in Canada.
Most Canadians who pay for natural gas or electricity can expect their bills to rise by between 50 and 100 per cent on average this winter, according to one energy analyst.
Some consumers could see their bills rise by as much as 300 per cent while others could see minimal increases, but the overall trend is clear, says EnergyRates.ca founder Joel MacDonald.
Most of what will drive up the cost of home energy this winter is the rising price of natural gas, which generates 8.5 per cent of Canada’s electricity.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland grossly inflated estimates of the Freedom Convoy impact on the Canadian economy, internal documents show. Freeland cited figures described in one Department of Transport memo as an “extreme case” that did not reflect actual data.
“The blockade of the Ambassador Bridge has affected about $390 million in trade each day,” Freeland told reporters last February 14. “This bridge supports 30% of all trade by road between Canada and the United States.”
Windsor? $3 billion?
The economic nightmare that wasn’t? Border blockades had little effect on trade, data reveals: https://t.co/oPlIljx3k1 https://t.co/6lIn4zTFjk— Lorrie Goldstein (@sunlorrie) October 15, 2022
“Everyone,” says the Charter of Rights, has the fundamental freedom “of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.” Everyone, that is, except Tamara Lich, one of the organizers of the truckers’ Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa in January and February.
Most egregiously, under her bail conditions Lich must remain publicly silent pending the result of her court hearing in September 2023—including no social media use whatsoever—all for exercising her right to protest in a free country.
The long anticipated public inquiry into the federal government’s first ever invocation of the Emergencies Act in response to the Freedom Convoy protests are finally underway in Ottawa. The Public Order Emergency Commission, also known as the Rouleau Commission, commenced hearings Thursday in Ottawa with opening statements from parties and the introduction of overview reports from commission counsel.
OTTAWA — Advocates for Ottawa businesses said former police chief Peter Sloly told them he was “scared” by the Freedom Convoy protests in the days following the first weekend of blockades, the Public Order Emergency Commission heard Friday.
Caught up in naval-gazing and living under the protective shield of the United States, Canada has allowed its military presence worldwide to wither over the last decade or so, France’s new ambassador to Ottawa suggested Friday.
In blunt comments that he said reflected his own personal opinions, Michel Miraillet argued Canada needs to boost its defence capabilities as threats increase from the likes of China, Russia and North Korea.
Russia’s war in Ukraine is proving to be “one of the biggest threats” to the world economy at the moment, according to Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland.
Freeland, who also serves as Canada’s finance minister, made the comments to reporters in Washington, D.C., on Friday following the annual meetings of the World Bank Group and International Monetary Fund (IMF), which put out a stark world economic outlook earlier this week.
“As the days passed and I took notice of the great line of huge trucks on Wellington Street, the invasion — it was nothing less — of the huge 18-wheelers and their drivers, the nightly bonfires, the fearful lineups at the few takeouts still open, I knew matters had reached a head. This was an absolute crisis.
I immediately called an emergency cabinet meeting. The peril was great. The thought ran through my mind that it might be on my watch that the great experiment, the over 150 years of our precious Confederation, could be at an end.
