OTTAWA'S CANCEL-CULTURE COUNCILLOR

   An Ottawa city councillor is trying to get a venue to cancel a Jordan Peterson event happening Monday night.
   On Friday, Coun. Ariel Troster wrote to the Canadian Tire Centre, asking the venue to reconsider hosting the Ottawa stop of the Canadian psychologist’s Beyond Order tour.
  “His hateful rhetoric has no place in our city,” she wrote.

  Did Peterson's presentation proceed?:   “Thirty-six organizations (calling for the talk’s cancellation,) and not one protestor,” Peterson said at the top of the talk, which was met by roars from the nearly full hockey arena.

MEMORIES OF THE FREEDOM CONVOY

   Last weekend marked the first anniversary of the monumental Freedom Convoy and events were held across Canada to commemorate the protest – including in the nation’s capital.
   The Convoy was a historic protest as Canadians from all walks of life demanded the government put an end to its extreme Covid measures.
   True North’s Elie Cantin-Nantel was on the ground in Ottawa over the weekend and asked people what their favourite memories from the Freedom Convoy were.

ABOUT THAT COLD DAY IN HELL....

   As a medical student and researcher, I staunchly supported the efforts of the public health authorities when it came to COVID-19. I believed that the authorities responded to the largest public health crisis of our lives with compassion, diligence, and scientific expertise. I was with them when they called for lockdowns, vaccines, and boosters
   I was wrong. We in the scientific community were wrong. And it cost lives.
   I can see now that the scientific community from the CDC to the WHO to the FDA and their representatives, repeatedly overstated the evidence and misled the public about its own views and policies, including on natural vs. artificial immunity, school closures and disease transmission, aerosol spread, mask mandates, and vaccine effectiveness and safety, especially among the young. All of these were scientific mistakes at the time, not in hindsight. Amazingly, some of these obfuscations continue to the present day.

REQUIRED READING: THE REAL ANTHONY FAUCI

   Pharma-funded mainstream media has convinced millions of Americans that Dr. Anthony Fauci is a hero. He is anything but.
   As director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), Dr. Anthony Fauci dispenses $6.1 billion in annual taxpayer-provided funding for scientific research, allowing him to dictate the subject, content, and outcome of scientific health research across the globe. Fauci uses the financial clout at his disposal to wield extraordinary influence over hospitals, universities, journals, and thousands of influential doctors and scientists - whose careers and institutions he has the power to ruin, advance, or reward.
   During more than a year of painstaking and meticulous research, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. unearthed a shocking story that obliterates media spin on Dr. Fauci...and that will alarm every American - Democrat or Republican - who cares about democracy, our Constitution, and the future of our children’s health.
    The Real Anthony Fauci reveals how “America’s Doctor” launched his career during the early AIDS crisis by partnering with pharmaceutical companies to sabotage safe and effective off-patent therapeutic treatments for AIDS. Fauci orchestrated fraudulent studies and then pressured US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulators into approving a deadly chemotherapy treatment he had good reason to know was worthless against AIDS. Fauci repeatedly violated federal laws to allow his Pharma partners to use impoverished and dark-skinned children as lab rats in deadly experiments with toxic AIDS and cancer chemotherapies.

CANADA FALLS FROM FREEDOM INDEX TOP 10

   Lockdown measures during the COVID-19 pandemic helped Canada fall out of the top 10 in an annual study on worldwide freedom.
   Released Thursday by the Fraser Institute and the U.S.-based Cato Institute, the 2022 edition of the Human Freedom Index lists Canada as the world’s 13th most free nation — down from No. 6 last year and the first time in over a decade that Canada didn’t make the top 10.
   “Canada’s COVID response was much stricter than many in 2020,” said study co-author and Fraser Institute Fellow Fred McMahon.
   “There have also been some bumps in our legal system, and given various scandals and political interference,” he said.

AMERICA IS FIGHTING A MODERN WORLD WAR

   What does a modern world war between nuclear powers look like?
   Take a good look around. We’ve been in one for a number of years, and unlike ‘old school’ wars, it is difficult to pinpoint the start. Was it the introduction of Covid-19, or 9/11? The Federal Government could answer that question, but they aren’t going to tell us as our Federal Government is on the other side of this war.
   The war is distributed. The enemy is fighting against Russia in Ukraine, using Ukrainian soldiers to fight with NATO (primarily American) money and weapons. Much of the money going to Ukraine is not staying there, but is instead laundered back to the United States, where it ends up in the pockets and campaign funds of those politicians who are responsible for fighting that war.
   The war is informational, with news organizations telling us what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the World Economic Forum (WEF) want us to hear. Quite literally, everything you see or hear in the mainstream media is propaganda, from CNN, FOX News, and MSNBC right up to your favorite shows, movies, and video games. Propaganda is everywhere, and most of it is false.

TRUDEAU SWARMED BY PROTESTERS IN HAMILTON

   Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came face-to-face with hundreds of protesters on Tuesday night in Hamilton, Ontario when his security team escorted him across the street from the restaurant he and members of his cabinet had gathered at for dinner.
   The federal cabinet is currently in Hamilton for a multi-day retreat.
   A large group of protesters quickly assembled outside the Bread Bar, a downtown Hamilton restaurant, when they became aware that Trudeau and his cabinet were all inside.
   Protesters can be heard calling the Prime Minister a “tyrant” and a “traitor”.

VITRIOLIC LETTER POSTED BY WOKE SCHOOL TRUSTEES

   At a Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) meeting earlier this week, the board’s non-woke trustees expressed concern with the vitriolic and defensive letter posted last Friday evening.
   The anonymous and unsigned open letter was a response to a scathing but entirely accurate speech by concerned parent David Todor a week earlier addressing the board’s obsession with gender identity and sexual orientation.
   Trustee Mike Ramsay called out education director Jeewan Chanicka for issuing the “disrespectful” letter without coming back to the board for approval – adding that certain board members may have signed off on the letter in secret.
   The subsequent responses from Chanicka and his sycophant trustees proved to me that most of those on the board are part of a cult that has nothing to do with teaching students academics.

ABOUT THOSE SUSTAINABLE WELL-PAYING JOBS IN THE JUST TRANSITION

     Jack Mintz:  That’s over 2.7 million jobs — almost 14 per cent of all jobs in Canada. Seamus O’Regan, the federal labour minister, struggles to put job-killing in a better light as “ensuring an equitable and prosperous future for workers and communities to take full advantage of the transition to a net-zero future.”
    The leaked federal document’s agenda is to replace lost jobs with jobs that are sustainable jobs, but not necessarily well-paying. Oil and gas workers earn salary and benefits equal to $98 per hour in the oilsands or $78/hr in petroleum and coal manufacturing (based on 2021 data ). Replacing those with anything similar will be hard. Jobs in the critical minerals sector are closer to the mark, at $65/hr, but still represent a big income hit for oil and gas workers. The federal government extolls the virtues of clean-tech jobs but they average only $48/hr, not much more than the average Canadian worker earns ($41/hr).
   When lost in a just transition fog, politicians in some countries feather-bed their own public service with laid-off workers whether they’re needed or not. Canada’s non-military federal employees averaged an extraordinary $75/hr in 2021, so the income would at least be in the ballpark. But in the long run being paid handsomely for zero-value “work” isn’t even good for the “workers.”

SENDING TANKS TO UKRAINE

   The West is poised to send nearly 200 battle tanks to Ukraine in a potential hammer blow that could help Kyiv win its war against Vladimir Putin.
   It came after Germany last night succumbed to weeks of international pressure and agreed to donate some of its Leopard 2 tanks.
   Berlin also relented on allowing other countries such as Poland to re-export German-made Leopard 2s, which could happen within days.
   Meanwhile, the United States dropped its opposition to sending M1 Abrams tanks, potentially dozens of them, in an escalation of its involvement.

GERMAN FREEDOM CONVOY SUPPORTER TO TOUR CANADA

   A European politician who rebuked Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in front of the European Union Parliament last year has announced a Canadian tour to meet the people she says are the bravest in the world.
   German MEP Christine Anderson has booked tour venues in Alberta, Quebec and Ontario this February because she says she has grown fond of Canadians since seeing their resistance to what she describes as a totalitarian regime in Canada.
   “Canadian truckers, they just stood up,” she said in an interview with Rebel News on Friday. “And they just said ‘No, we’re not going to put up with this. We will fight for […] our freedom.’ That takes a lot of courage, and a lot of bravery. I was so impressed by that.”

CANADA COULD BE GREEN AND WEALTHY

   Driving the streets of Doha in Qatar, a country soon to become the world’s largest exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG), the words “there has never been a strong business case for LNG” rang in my ears.
   For a country that had struggled to economically survive for 60 years after the collapse of the pearl-diving industry in the 1940s, the contrast today is astounding. In only 20 years, due exclusively to its vast natural gas reserves and ability to commercialize them via liquefaction, Qatar has grown its gross domestic product tenfold, amassed a sovereign wealth fund worth more than US$450 billion, and used its LNG revenue to build brand new cities with infrastructure that is the envy of the world, or at least most Western nations.
   With the Government of Canada set to release details of its long-term vision for its oil and gas sector, impacting its 202,000 workers and investors alike, are there any lessons that we can learn from Qatar, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries? Rather than vilifying their oil and natural gas sectors, these countries are championing them, using their resource wealth to grow their economies, and slowly diversify away from hydrocarbon reliance while significantly investing in alternative energy. Could Canada and the environment be better off adopting a similar all-of-the-above strategy instead of its current either/or approach?

NO EVIDENCE OF CLAIMS MADE IN CBC NEWS STORY

   The Alberta government says there’s no evidence of emails between the Alberta Crown Prosecution Service and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s office.
   The government initiated the review after the CBC published a story on Thursday alleging that staff in Smith’s office emailed Crown prosecutors challenging their assessment and direction on cases stemming from the Coutts border blockades and protests. The story cited anonymous sources.
   The CBC story alleged that staff in Smith’s office sent emails to Crown prosecutors in the fall. The CBC agreed not to identify because they fear they could lose their jobs.
   The CBC later updated its story with an editor’s note saying the original version of the story neglected to note that CBC News has not seen the emails in question.

TRUDEAU'S SHAMEFUL USE OF RACE-BASED POLITICS

   Rex Murphy:  In a recent interview, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau put that phrase in the past tense — a “time when men were men” — but, may I suggest, ever so mildly, that the axiom is still sound.
   But that phrase wasn’t the only thing that caught my attention in Trudeau’s interview with the Toronto Star’s Susan Delacourt. It was when he alleged that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was yearning for the days when “white men ruled.”  
     To be just, here’s the whole quote: “What is he actually proposing? He’s saying everything’s broken.… He’s playing and preying on the kinds of anger and anxieties about some Canada that used to be — where men were men and white men ruled.”
   Still, even in context, that last phrase bothers me. I don’t like the attention to skin colour, specifically “white.” I cannot see, of all people, this particular prime minister calling out a “skin colour” epithet in any other context, or — to be sure — any other epidermal shade than white.

TRUDEAU MAKES NO SENSE

 Last week, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave an exclusive interview to the Toronto Star’s Susan Delacourt, in which he shared his thoughts on a wide range of topics, including dismissing Pierre Poilievre’s charge that Canada is broken by claiming the Opposition leader is merely pining for a time “where men were men and white men ruled.” This, despite the fact that he is a white man who currently leads the country. “What’s clear to me is that Justin Trudeau no longer makes any sense,” says Jamil Jivani in this NP Comment video.

PERSECUTED FOR BELIEVING IN BIOLOGY

In Canada right now you could probably put up a sign that said, “I love Satan,” and nothing would happen.

 But put up a sign saying “I (heart) J. K. Rowling” and then, like nurse Amy Hamm, you face a trial before a disciplinary body and the loss of your livelihood.

Hamm’s crime is that she believes biological sex is real, that men are men and women are women. And for that she is being persecuted.

STANDING UP TO THE THOUGHT POLICE

 The College of Psychologists of Ontario wants to re-educate Jordan Peterson for criticizing Justin Trudeau on social media. Nurse Amy Hamm is presently before a disciplinary panel of the B.C. College of Nurses and Midwives for saying that biological sex is real. Numerous doctors have been sanctioned for expressing medical views contrary to official government COVID policies. Across the country, regulators are censoring, disciplining or ousting members of their professions who fail to comport with their political imperatives. A new standard of practice is emerging for Canadian professionals: be woke, be quiet, or be accused of professional misconduct.

THE "WORKING WITH MILLENNIALS" COURSE

 One of Canada's oldest institutions is grappling with how best to manage some of its youngest workers — and the negative perceptions some staff members have of them.

The Senate of Canada has a training course on offer titled "Working with Millennials." It's a webinar aimed at getting older Senate employees to confront their stereotypes about this age cohort — especially the belief that, according to the wording on the Senate website, millennials are "entitled praise-seekers who are easily distracted by technology."

The one-hour course, which was offered as recently as last month, is designed to manage what the Senate calls one of the "greatest challenges" in the workplace — "negative stereotyping in multi-generational teams" — according to the description posted on the Senate's human resources portal.

LOSING THOUSANDS OF JOBS AND $BILLIONS IN WAGES

   President Joe Biden’s Energy Department quietly published a congressionally mandated report in December showing the president revoking the Keystone XL Pipeline federal permits cost thousands of jobs and billions of dollars.
    The report — Keystone XL Extension Permit Revocation: Energy Costs and Job Impacts — brought attention to the positive economic benefits the Keystone XL Pipeline could have had if Biden did not revoke the federal permits for it hours after being sworn into office.
     Energy’s report indicated the Keystone XL project would have created between 16,149 and 59,468 jobs annually for a two-year period, which is up from a 2014 report sponsored by the department that showed it would have only created 3,900 direct jobs and 21,050 total jobs over a two-year construction.
     The Keystone XL would have delivered roughly 830,000 barrels of crude oil from Canada to the U.S. through the pipeline. Additionally, a labor agreement signed by four unions with TC Energy in August 2020 promised the project would have created 42,000 American jobs and 2 billion in total wages.

HEALTH CANADA SAYS 400 DEATHS AFTER COVID JAB IS LOW

    Canada now has 400 reported deaths and more than 10,000 serious injuries following people receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, but Health Canada indicates it has confidence in vaccinations to battle coronavirus variants.
     However, for families behind those numbers, it’s not about statistics.
    “Evidence indicates that the benefits of COVID-19 vaccines continue to outweigh the risks of the disease,” Health Canada states in its new adverse reaction update. “Health Canada, the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), the provinces and territories, and manufacturers continue to closely monitor the safety of COVID-19 vaccines.”

UN CHIEF FEARMONGERS ABOUT CLIMATE DEATH SENTENCE

  United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres delved into a fear-mongering tirade about certain death as a result of climate change during a special address at the World Economic Forum (WEF) on Wednesday.
   Guterres delivered a speech alongside WEF founder Klaus Schwab to the international elite audience.
   “We are flirting with climate disaster. Every week brings a new climate horror story. Greenhouse gas emissions are at record levels and growing. The commitment to limit global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees is nearly going up in smoke. Without further action, we are headed to a 2.8 degree increase and the consequences, as we all know, would be devastating,” said Guterres.

BC GANG CONFLICT MOVES TO THAILAND

 PHUKET, Thailand — Jimi Sandhu didn’t look concerned about a thing as he parked his red rental car behind the luxury villa where he was staying just north of Friendship Beach here in Phuket. It was 10:32 p.m. on Feb. 4, 2022. The temperature had fallen to a comfortable 26 C from the midday high of 33. He casually got out of the driver’s seat, wearing a light-coloured T-shirt, shorts, and flip flops, before reaching back into the MG ZS car to grab a few things from the centre console and sun visor. As he shut the car door and turned toward Villa A, his killers burst from around a corner and opened fire. He had no time to react, nowhere to run.

ALBERTA'S SOVEREIGNTY ACT IS NECESSARY

   The 81 page document, Trudeau's "just transition" legislation,  singles out Alberta’s 187,000 oil and gas workers, acknowledging that transitioned workers without adequate “green skills or knowledge” could wind up in menial roles, such as “janitor or driver working for a solar energy company .”
   Albertans have every reason to be alarmed by the contents of this document. Nearly three-quarters of Canadian oil and gas workers lack a university degree and the demographics of the industry skew older (just seven per cent of the oil and gas workforce was 24 and under in 2016; nearly one-fifth were over 55). “Transitioning” to custodial work would mean a 70 per cent pay cut for the average oil patch worker (from $150,000 to just over $30,000 per year ). This would hardly make for a “just” transition.
   Just as alarming is the abysmal track record of prior federal government programs aimed at transitioning workers displaced from other industries. The federal auditor general released a damning report last year showing that past efforts to transition workers to new industries, such as in the case of the Newfoundland cod industry, have failed, noting that the federal government was “not prepared to support a just transition to a low‑carbon economy for workers and communities.” Likewise, it found that, “Federal programs and benefits fell short of a just transition for coal workers.”

CANCEL CULTURE ALIVE AND WELL IN OTTAWA

   A group of organizations on Monday wrote an open letter to Ottawa City Council, asking it to get behind an effort to cancel an upcoming event by Jordan Peterson.
   The self-described coalition of organizations said it represents thousands of Ottawa residents who experienced trauma from what they label the far-right, which it says occupied Ottawa after Peterson avidly supported the ‘Freedom Convoy.’
  “He even had some of the leaders on his podcast including BJ Dichter and showed support for Tamara Lich,” their open letter states.

ACTS OF KINDNESS FROM HODY CHILDRESS

   When Childress died on New Year’s Day at age 80, Walker said she decided to let his family know about the donations that had helped several hundred people in the farming community, located about 60 miles from Huntsville.
   As the years went on, Childress’s $100 bills added up to thousands of dollars, she said, noting that she was usually able to help two people a month who didn’t have insurance or whose benefits wouldn’t cover their medications.
   “His kindness motivated me to be more of a compassionate person,” she said. “He was just a good old guy who wanted to bless his community, and he certainly did. He established a legacy of kindness.”
   People in Geraldine who hope to keep that legacy going are now dropping by the drugstore with donations of their own, Walker said.

DISCIPLINARY HEARINGS FOR 3 ONTARIO DOCTORS

   Three doctors opposed to public health measures regarding COVID-19 failed to stop potentially practice-ending disciplinary hearings by the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons.
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   An appeal by doctors Mark Trozzi, Patrick Phillips and Crystal Luchkiw, claiming the college is targeting “anti-vaxxers” and “anti-maskers,” and is unconstitutional, was rejected by a college tribunal.
   They have also been unsuccessful in court.
   The three Ontario physicians are well known for their vociferous opposition to COVID restrictions and are currently suspended from medical practice pending the outcome of disciplinary hearings.

TAKING A STAND AGAINST SEXUALIZATION IN ONTARIO SCHOOLS

   Parent David Todor asked Waterloo Region District School Board (WRDSB) trustees more than once Monday evening who exactly is interested in the “sexual orientation and gender identity” of his nine-year-old daughter.
   In a scathing speech to the new board, he spent his allotted time of 10 minutes attacking the board’s ongoing “censorship” of meeting proceedings and surveys asking kids as young as Grade 4 to provide their sexual orientation and preferred gender.
  He also raised concerns with another controversial book located in WRDSB elementary school libraries called “The Bluest Eye” written by Toni Morrison.

   The novel, written in 1970 and banned by many school boards across North America, includes themes of oppression, misogyny and incest.

SELL MORE OIL TO EASE CANADIANS' FINANCIAL BURDEN

 Many families will soon be having to decide between heating their homes and providing three meals a day.

Once again, though, our inept federal government has only excuses to offer.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau merely shrugged that, “The inflation challenges the world is facing right now is a global challenge.” In other words, don’t blame us. It’s out of our control. Don’t expect us to fix it.

TRUDEAU'S CULTURE OF FEAR CONTINUES DESIRE TO WORK FROM HOME

   “Our people are afraid to go back to work in the office because they don’t trust the safety measures that the government has put in place. They are afraid that the COVID is still there, and that if they go back to the office they get infected.” This choice quotation is from none other than Andre Picotte, the acting head of the Canadian Association for Professional Employees, the third largest federal public sector union representing more than 23,000 members. This, in response to the federal government finally cracking the whip and trying to cajole or otherwise induce public servants to come back to the workplace rather than working from home, which they’ve been doing since the early days of the pandemic.
   Picotte's comment sounds like special pleading for not getting back to the workplace, but in fact, the federal government has set up exactly this rationale with its continued fear mongering about the pandemic and the constant urging of all and sundry to be up to date with COVID boosters and flu shots. Canada under the Trudeau Liberals remains stuck in a time warp.

UNION CALL CRA LABOUR COMPLAINT HYPOCRITICAL

   The union representing more than 35,000 Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) employees said the agency's recent labour practices complaint against it is hypocritical as strike votes loom ahead of tax season.
   On Friday, the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) filed an unfair labour practices complaint against the Public Service Alliance of Canada – Union of Taxation Employees (PSAC-UTE), claiming it is not bargaining in good faith.
  The union said it withdrew from mediation because the Treasury Board had announced a return-to-work order for all employees just a few days before mediation was set to start, which the CRA chose to comply  with even as return-to-work was a key bargaining issue.

STAGGERING DISRUPTION PLANNED FOR TRUDEAU'S JUST TRANSITION

   The staggering scope of change that Justin Trudeau’s Liberals intend to impose on Canadians with their Just Transition program is made clear in a newly-released government document.
   Such is the magnitude of the proposed change that Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said she “felt sick” reading it.
   The document — uncovered by a freedom of information request by the online new agency Blacklock’s Reporter and now obtained by Postmedia — are department speaking notes from June 1, 2022, for Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson.
   The document predicts “significant disruption” for workers in key Canadian employment sectors in order to meet federal emissions reduction targets. “The transition to a low-carbon economy will have an uneven impact across sectors, occupations and regions, and create significant labour market disruptions.”

WHEN CLIMATE POLICY IS ALL ERROR

 Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has not proposed much in the way of climate and environmental policy beyond scrapping the carbon tax , but if he is searching for policy ideas, one place he best not look — except for examples of what not to do — is across the pond to the U.K.’s Conservative government. Its environmental agenda is a shambolic mishmash of impoverishing energy policies, climate alarmism, excess spending, and virtue-signalling regulations that afflict consumers and businesses without any compensating environmental benefit. If all this sounds familiar, it is because Canadians are already suffering from the same policy agenda under the Liberals.

SUPPLY MANAGEMENT WORSENING INFLATION'S STING

   If you’ve been to a grocery store lately, you know just how difficult it’s getting to afford everything you need to put on the table. Whether it’s bread, meat, vegetables or anything else, inflation is making life less affordable.
  However, while the price of everything is going up thanks to many different factors (tax increases, supply chain issues, government printing more money, etc.), there are a few products that you’re paying too much for – with no good reason.
  In Canada, the government sets prices for dairy products, turkey and some types of chickens and eggs. At the same time it keeps supply artificially low by approving how much each farmer can produce while imposing large tariffs on imports. The government has essentially removed competitive forces, resulting in higher prices for consumers as a result.

CANADIAN FAMILIES DINGED $847 PER YEAR BY TRUDEAU'S CARBON TAX

   The average Canadian family can expect to pay up to $847 on carbon taxes even after rebates are dished out, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF).
   They say the federal government isn’t telling the full story when it comes to the cost of the levy.
   “The Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) shows politicians are using magic math to sell their carbon tax,” said CTF federal director Franco Terrazzano.

PROVE WHY RETURNING TO THE OFFICE IS NECESSARY

   OTTAWA — The federal government says repercussions for public servants who refuse to return to in-person work will be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
   Starting Monday, all federal employees who are still working from home will begin the transition back to in-person work.
  Treasury Board President Mona Fortier announced last month that all departments must bring workers back to the office at least two to three times a week by the end of March.
   In an interview Thursday, she did not specify what the consequences may be for anyone who refuses to return.

JAPAN'S PM PRESSES TRUDEAU FOR RELIABLE LNG SUPPLY

  Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida says Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine has caused a global energy crisis and he pressed Justin Trudeau on Thursday to supply reliable liquefied natural gas to Tokyo to replace Russian oil and gas.
  Mr. Trudeau and his Japanese counterpart, who met for three hours of talks in Ottawa, also agreed that China’s growing economic and military belligerence is one of the “central challenges” in the Indo-Pacific region.
   Mr. Kishida told reporters that the two countries would vigorously object to any efforts by Beijing to shift the balance of power in Asian waterways through which significant amounts of global trade pass.

HUGE BOOBS TO BE COUNTERACTED BY DRESS CODE

   After four months of international uproar, the Ontario school board employing a gender transitioning teacher who wears enormous and sexualized prosthetic breasts under tight-fitting tops inside the classroom agreed teachers need to “maintain appropriate and professional standards of dress.”
   Emerging from a private session of a specially called meeting of the Halton District School Board, last week, trustees publicly passed a resolution to develop a policy on staff “dress and decorum in the classroom.”
  The motion passed unanimously.
   It comes after the academic year at Oakville Trafalgar High School, west of Toronto, has been largely overshadowed by controversy, outrage, protests, legal letters from frustrated parents, petitions, and a string of anonymous bomb threats and angry hit lists against education officials.

SPENDING ON CONSULTANTS INCREASED 60% SINCE LIBERALS IN OFFICE

   OTTAWA — “We’re definitely going to reduce the cost of consultants.”
   The leader of the Conservative party hasn’t committed himself to much but that’s a pretty definitive promise — a Pierre Poilievre government would reduce the spending on third-party consultants that Ottawa’s own estimates suggest rose to $17.7 billion in 2022.
   Governments should, of course, be judged on their actions, not their intentions. In the 2015 Liberal election platform, Justin Trudeau promised to save billions by reducing the use of external consultants. In reality, spending on outsourcing has increased nearly 60 per cent from the $10.4 billion spent when the Liberals took office.

75% OF SMALL/ MEDIUM SIZE BUSINESS OWNERS PLANNING EXIT IN NEXT 10 YRS

   More than three-quarters of small- and medium-sized business owners plan to exit their companies in the next decade, adding urgency to the need for solid succession plans, according to a new report.
   “For 75 per cent of those businesses that want to exit, they want to retire,” Corinne Pohlmann, senior vice-president of National Affairs at CFIB, said. “So for many, the proceeds from the sale of their business becomes their retirement plan.” That makes it all the more important for business owners to prepare succession plans, she said.
   But what happens to that $2 trillion in assets is crucial, because about 50 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product is created by small- and medium-sized businesses, which together employ more than 80 per cent of workers, Pohlmann said.

STANDING WITH DR JORDAN PETERSON

 At noon on Wednesday, outside the College of Psychologists of Ontario, at 110 Eglinton Ave W., supporters are expected to respond to a “call to action” to “stand with Dr. Jordan Peterson” and “defend free speech in Canada.” The college has requested that Peterson submit himself for re-education after criticizing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and others on Twitter.

WE DEMAND YOU CEASE AND DESIST SENDING MIGRANTS

   Last summer when the surge of illegal aliens at the Texas border was overwhelming towns like El Paso, Gov. Greg Abbott began to bus illegal aliens and asylum seekers from Texas border towns to Chicago and New York. After all, Abbott reasoned, these two mayors were constantly bragging about how welcoming their “Sanctuary City” policies were, so the Texas governor thought it was time those Democrats began to put their money where their mouth is.
   As expected, Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot and New York Mayor Eric Adams began to scream bloody murder. Lightfoot referred to Abbott’s policy of busing illegals to Chicago and New York as “inhumane.” She said Abbott was “a man without any morals, humanity or shame.”
  The poor dear almost got the vapors she was so very upset.

COLLEGE OF PSYCHOLOGISTS OF ONTARIO NEEDS SELF SCRUTINY

  Rex Murphy:  Which brings me to the College of Psychologists of Ontario (CPO) and their jihad — pardon, that is politically incorrect — their crusade — pardon again, that might be politically incorrect as well — their whatever-it-is campaign against Dr. Jordan Peterson. You may have heard of him. He’s CPO’s highest profile member. Likely the sole Ontario clinical psychologist known in most parts of the province and beyond.

It is a lurid moment when the inexplicable beds down with the ludicrous. What a Bethlehem birth of folly awaits such a congress.

The CPO has provided such a moment. And, as when rare comets or terrifying supernova ornament the firmament with their tails and brilliance, all eyes burn with fascination at the extraordinary phenomenon. 

AN INVESTIGATION INTO GREENBELT DEVELOPMENT?

   Ontario Provincial Police say they’re working to determine whether they should investigate the government’s plans to open up the protected Greenbelt to development.
   The Progressive Conservative government has proposed removing land from 15 different areas of the Greenbelt so that 50,000 homes can be built, while adding acres elsewhere.
   Both Premier Doug Ford and his housing minister have said the government did not tip off developers ahead of announcing the plan — media reports have suggested some prominent developers who are Progressive Conservative donors stand to benefit from the move.

CHINESE GEOLOCATING DEVICE FOUND IN UK GOV'T CAR

   A Chinese geolocating tracking device was reportedly discovered in a British government car that would be used by high-level officials including cabinet ministers, raising further concerns about Chinese espionage in the UK.
   According to a report from the i newspaper, government cars have been “dismantled surgically down to the last nut and bolt” by intelligence officials after at least one Chinese SIM card with the capability of transmitting location data was found hidden in a car used by senior politicians and diplomats.
   The SIM card was reportedly put inside a sealed part of the vehicle which was imported from a supplier in China. The paper noted that car manufacturers are reticent to open up such components as it would void the warranty and therefore the geolocation device was left undetected.

DRUG COMPANY FUNDS STUDY FOR PUBERTY BLOCKERS

   If you enter “Ferring Pharmaceuticals” into a search engine, you will get stories about their gene therapy for bladder cancer along with multiple entries for the company itself, including career opportunities. What you won’t find is a story about the company’s involvement in puberty blockers and the study that it funded. But the Post Millennial has a piece asserting that Ferring Pharmaceuticals did just that in 2006.
   The piece cites an article by investigative journalist Jan Kuitenbrouwer and media sociologist Peter Vasterman that was published at the end of last month on the website NRC. The article is about the “Dutch protocol.” This involved using puberty blockers on adolescents who were struggling with gender dysphoria and was adopted as part of gender care by clinics around the world. The Dutch protocol was based on a 2006 study that, according to the NRC article, was “deeply flawed.” The study followed 55 children who took puberty blockers and then cross-sex hormones and reported “positive results.” Ferring, the article states, funded the study and also markets the puberty blocker Triptorelin. The NRC piece states that among the problems with the study, there was no control group and there were several participants that the study lost track of during follow-ups. The follow-up period was also short.

AB PREMIER SMITH CALL OUT TRUDEAU'S JUST TRANSITION PLAN

   Alberta has no intention of following a federal plan to transition workers out of the energy sector, Premier Danielle Smith said Saturday.
  The premier, on her Saturday morning radio show, said it’s still unclear what the Liberal government is proposing with “just transition” legislation aimed at helping workers find new jobs in a low-carbon economy.
  “We are not going to be shutting down our oil and natural gas industry. We are not going to be transitioning our workers, who are in good, high-paying meaningful, important jobs, into installing solar panels, which is the idiocy (federal Green Party Leader) Elizabeth May was first proposing when this kind of thing came out,” Smith told listeners.

BIDEN TO SEE FIRSTHAND US-MEXICO BORDER SITUATION

   WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden is heading to the U.S.-Mexico border on Sunday, his first trip there as president after two years of hounding by Republicans who have hammered him as soft on border security while the number of migrants crossing spirals.
   The numbers of migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has risen dramatically during Biden’s first two years in office. There were more than 2.38 million stops during the year that ended Sept. 30, the first time the number topped 2 million. The administration has struggled to clamp down on crossings, reluctant to take hardline measures that would resemble those of the Trump administration.
   The policy changes announced this past week are Biden's biggest move yet to contain illegal border crossings and will turn away tens of thousands of migrants arriving at the border. At the same time, 30,000 migrants per month from Cuba, Nicaragua, Haiti and Venezuela will get the chance to come to the U.S. legally as long as they travel by plane, get a sponsor and pass background checks.

MORNEAU'S BOOK UNLOADS ON TRUDEAU & POILIEVRE

   Morneau says Trudeau is a smart politician with excellent “performance skills” but his “management and interpersonal communication abilities were sorely lacking.”
  Serious challenges facing the government “were not managed on a daily basis at the highest level.”
  While well-motivated, the government overspent during the pandemic “because the numbers sounded good,” contributing to inflation and recession fears.
   Meanwhile, major problems such as Canada’s low productivity — a report by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development predicts Canada will be dead last in economic growth among advanced countries for four decades — fell by the wayside.

CTV News has its interview with Morneau.

REPAIR ATTEMPTS CAUSE ADDITIONAL DAMAGE. AGAIN

The partial closure of Ottawa's Light Rail Transit is now expected to stretch into Sunday as repair efforts Saturday morning caused further damage to the system, the third time that's happened since the initial breakdown several days ago.

In an earlier update Saturday, Amilcar said crews successfully removed ice from the overhead wires Friday night.

But when Rideau Transit Maintenance (RTM) sent a train at low speed to tow one of the trains stuck near Lees station, it instead caused additional damage to the overhead wire, Amilcar wrote.

EXPANDING THE MEANING OF A THREAT TO NATIONAL SECURITY

  A Justice Centre lawyer, Rob Kittredge, took  National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister Jody Thomas through the CSIS Act tests for declaring an emergency. She confirmed there was no espionage, no sabotage, no foreign interference.

But what about serious violence? Thomas replied: “There was continual violence in the streets of Ottawa…” Kittredge asked her to be specific about what she meant by “continual violence.” Thomas named “harassment, people being followed, people being intimidated, the noise, the pollution…” Yet, incidents of harassment, stalking, and physical intimidation are matters police address every day across the nation upon receiving a complaint. Eventually, Thomas conceded, “No, not serious violence.” But reframed matters stating, “A Public Order Emergency is broader as defined in the CSIS Act.” Thomas elaborated, “There’s a range of threats that need to be considered when you’re talking about this country, economic security; the threat of IMVE (ideologically motivated violent extremists); the rhetoric of threats against public figures; the inability to conduct a livelihood in the City of Ottawa — as an example, the Coutts border blockade if we’re going to speak about the specific example; the threat to public institutions and the undermining of the confidence in public institutions.”

DR. JORDAN PETERSON BLASTS CANADA'S COMMISSARS

   Dr Jordan B Peterson blasted Canada’s “commissars” and penned a scathing letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau Tuesday after a leading association of his fellow psychologists threatened to go after his license to practice clinical psychology over social media criticisms of the nation’s far-Left government.
   The College of Psychologists of Ontario ordered the best-selling author and Daily Wire+ host to undergo “social media communications retraining” or face a hearing on the potential suspension of his license. In the letter to Trudeau, Peterson vowed not to participate in the process and decried the effort to stifle free speech.
  “I simply cannot resign myself to the fact that in my lifetime I am required to resort to a public letter to the leader of my country to point out that political criticism has now become such a crime in Canada that if professionals dare engage in such activity, government-appointed commissars will threaten their livelihood and present them with the spectacle of denouncement and political disgrace,” Peterson wrote. “There is simply and utterly no excuse whatsoever for such a state of affairs in a free country.”

PRICE TAG FOR PATROL SHIPS SOARS TO $6.5BILLION

   It will cost Canadian taxpayers upwards of $6.5 billion to acquire six Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships for the navy and two additional similar vessels for the coast guard, according to newly tabled documents and a statement from the federal government.
   Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) says a contract amendment has been signed with Irving Shipbuilding Inc. of Halifax, N.S. that allows for a top-up to the budget for the military ships and sets the contract price for the coast guard vessels.
   The cost of the navy ships has now risen to $4.98 billion from an earlier projection of $4.3 billion. The contract for the coast guard vessels has been set at $1.6 billion — an increase of $100 million from the figures tabled before Parliament last spring.

CALLS FOR A NEW WORLD ORDER

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Japan's trade and industry minister said on Thursday post-Cold War free trade and economic inter-dependence had bolstered authoritarian regimes and urged the United States and other like-minded democracies to counter them with a "new world order."

"Authoritarian countries have amassed tremendous power, both economically and militarily," Japan's Minister of Economy, Trade and Industry Yasutoshi Nishimura said in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"We must rebuild a world order based on the fundamental values of freedom, democracy, human rights and the rule of law," he added.

PHOENIX PAY SYSTEM DEBACLE IS GETTING WORSE

   John Ivison:  OTTAWA — The Phoenix pay system debacle was quite rightly called “an international embarrassment” by a Senate report five years ago. Most Canadians probably assume the failures that resulted in pay problems for 80 per cent of the federal government’s 300,000 public servants have been resolved.
  But that is not the case. In fact, things are getting worse.
  Sources tell the Post that Public Services and Procurement Canada, the department responsible for Phoenix, has asked for an extra $500 million to “stabilize” the problem in the face of a rising backlog of cases. Last year, government expenditure on Phoenix was $713.7 million across all departments, according to Treasury Board’s departmental results report. In 2019, the Parliamentary Budget Office estimated the cost of correcting Phoenix’s data problems at $2.6 billion. That now looks like an underestimate.

TRUDEAU LIBERALS' UNMEASURABLE ARROGANCE TOWARDS ALBERTA

    Rex Murphy:  National Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson plans to introduce “just transition” legislation early this year to help workers in the oil and gas sector move into green energy jobs. Help?
   Well, that’s one way to start the New Year. Send out a second-tier minister, working in concert with another second-tier minister, Seamus O’Regan, and an NDP consort, Charlie Angus, to announce a peremptory, arbitrary, unnegotiated shutdown of a greatly productive province’s principal industry.

   That would be Alberta. None of the three national-economy-rearrangers — Wilkinson, O’Regan or Angus — represents a district in the province they are insouciantly planning to remake.
   I do not have the official title of this about-to-be presented legislation. In the happy event it has not yet been determined, I can offer this perfectly realistic one: An Act to Inspire, Lubricate, and in all other manners Facilitate the Separation of Alberta from Confederation .
   If I were of a darker turn of mind, which happily I am not, I would propose an even more telling label: An Act Responding to the Province which had the temerity to send a Truckers Protest to Ottawa.

CANADIAN SCHOOLS AID GENDER TRANSITION WITHOUT PARENTAL CONSENT

   When a student in a Calgary Grade 6 class came out as transgender this year, the teacher made one thing clear to the other pupils: they mustn’t let slip their classmate’s new gender identity to her parents. The couple was not yet aware of the change.
   “This upset me so much," says the mother of one of the pupils. . “Kids were being taught to lie to parents.” It seemed like an odd message for a group of 11-year-olds, 
   But in some ways the instruction flowed naturally from what has become a common policy throughout Canada. Boards of education, education ministries and even the Public Health Agency of Canada are urging schools to both automatically honour a transitioning student’s request to change their name and pronouns — and to keep that information from parents if requested.
   It’s just one way the education system has become intimately involved in the transgender process, which affects an “exponentially” growing number of young Canadians. Schools accept name and pronoun preferences, provide gender-neutral washrooms and teach from a young age about gender identity. In some cases, they can even refer students directly to gender-treatment clinics.

WOKE EDUCATION DIRECTOR AT WATERLOO DSB

   The controversial education director of the Waterloo Region District School Board began the new year with a series of tweets inviting all who follow him to join what I’d describe as the quickly evolving Oppression Cult.
   Jeewan Chanicka – a long-time activist who appears to have turned the WRDSB into a social justice experiment – suggests in New Year’s Instagram posts (and protected Tweets) a series of ways social justice warriors like him “can pull people in” for what he calls #crossracialsolidarity.Both his Twitter and Instagram feeds are under his name – he does not have a separate WRDSB account – and he appears to blur the lines between his day job, his activism and a slew of at times unprofessional pictures of himself.
    Like the board’s leftist trustees, he is quick to block anyone who challenges his point of view. He has cried at board meetings insisting that those who don’t understand oppression or trans ideology are hateful and last year hosted a menstrual health day video in which he declared that men can menstruate.

NEITHER LIBERALS NOR CONSULTING FIRM GIVING ANSWERS

   The consulting firm McKinsey & Company has seen the amount of money it earns from federal contracts explode since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau came to power — to the point where some suggest it may have a central role in shaping Canada's immigration policies.
   According to public accounts data from Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC), the Liberals spent 30 times more money on McKinsey's services than Stephen Harper's Conservatives did.
   In the nine years of the Harper government, McKinsey was awarded $2.2 million in federal contracts. During Trudeau's seven years in office, the company has received $66 million from the federal government.
   McKinsey refused to answer Radio-Canada questions regarding its role and agreements with the federal government. The government did not provide copies of the firm's reports in response to Radio-Canada's request.

TURPEL-LAFOND NO LONGER AT UBC

   Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond is no longer employed by the University of B.C.’s prestigious law school after controversy this fall surrounding her long-standing claims of Indigenous heritage.
  The university did not say why the former judge and high-profile advocate for children’s and Indigenous rights is no longer a tenured professor at the Peter A. Allard School of Law, only confirming that she is no longer with the school as of Dec. 16. UBC cited privacy law in not giving more details.
    In October, the CBC published a lengthy investigation into Turpel-Lafond’s claims of Indigenous ancestry and statements that she grew up in Norway House Cree Nation in Manitoba. The media outlet said the claims of Cree ancestry and treaty Indian status are inconsistent with publicly available documents.

MISSED OPPORTUNITY FOR EAST COAST LNG SALES TO GERMANY

   As a US ship arrived in Germany’s newly built liquified natural gas (LNG) terminal with a fresh shipment of gas, critics of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau blasted him for turning down an opportunity to sell Canadian gas to the European nation.
   Conservative MP and foreign affairs critic Michael Chong called the deal a “missed opportunity” for Canada as Germany seeks for ways to offset its dependency on Russian energy.
“Germany’s newly constructed LNG terminal received its first full cargo from the U.S. today – not Canada,” tweeted Chong.
“That’s partly because Trudeau believes there’s ‘never been a strong business case’ for exporting East Coast LNG. What a missed opportunity.”

DR. JORDAN PETERSON FACING CENSURE

   Renowned author and psychologist Jordan Peterson says he is being subjected to mandatory “social media communication retraining” by the College of Psychologists of Ontario (CPO) due to his political comments on Twitter that include criticizing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
   “The Ontario College of Psychologists has demanded that I submit myself to mandatory social-media communication retraining with their experts for, among other crimes, retweeting Pierre Poilievre and criticizing Justin Trudeau and his political allies,” wrote Peterson in a Twitter thread Tuesday.

   According to Peterson, he will need to complete a course with reports documenting his progress. If he does not comply, he would face an in-person tribunal and may even have his license to practice clinical psychology suspended.

ARTIC DEFENSE SHIELD FACES ROADBLOCKS

   Despite the ballyhoo that surrounded last year's announcement, it's becoming clear that the modernization of North American air defense systems — a plan to spend $4.9 billion over six years — has a long way to go and a number of key technical obstacles to overcome.
   And the planned air defense upgrade was a key talking point for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Defense Minister Anita Anand and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly at the NATO summit in Madrid.
  In the months since, however, some of the challenges facing that multi-billion-dollar defense makeover have become glaringly obvious — especially in Canada.
  The goal of the modernization programme is to create a layered defense over the Far North that will guard against strategic bombers (the kind NORAD was created to counter more than seven decades ago) but also ballistic, cruise and hypersonic missiles — the kind of weapons we've seen pummeling Ukraine.

RANSOMWARE GROUP APOLOGIZES, OFFERS FREE DECRYPTOR

   TORONTO — A global ransomware operator issued an apology and offered to unlock the data targeted in a ransomware attack on Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, a move cybersecurity experts say is rare, if not unprecedented, for the infamous group.
   LockBit, a ransomware group the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation has called one of the world’s most active and destructive, issued the brief apology on Dec. 31 to what cybersecurity experts say is the dark web page where it posts about its ransoms and data leaks.
   In the statement, reviewed directly by The Canadian Press, LockBit claimed to have blocked the “partner” responsible for the attack and offered SickKids a free decryptor to unlock its data.

CANADA'S ACTIVIST SUPREME COURT

    Often, if there’s a massive political controversy gripping the country, there’s a good chance that the Supreme Court of Canada had something to do with it.
   Ontario was recently driven into a miniature constitutional crisis due to a Supreme Court decision declaring that striking is a Constitutional right. A series of recent Supreme Court decisions kneecapping bail and sentencing provisions has helped fuel a crisis of “catch and release” justice. And, of course, Canada is now experiencing regular incidents of contentious assisted suicide cases — a regime whose existence is due entirely to Supreme Court order.
   It wasn’t too long ago that the Supreme Court of Canada was extremely leery of overruling Parliament or mandating seismic shifts to the status quo. But in just the last 10 years, Canada’s top court has been on an activist streak that has begun to profoundly affect Canadian daily life.

LIBERALS FILTER OUT DISSENT TO THEIR ANTI-HATE AGENDA

   Back in April, Canadian Heritage ran online consultations for a future “National Action Plan on Combatting Hate” that could introduce anti-hate laws and curb freedom of expression. While the department publicly encouraged “every person in Canada” to participate in a survey about what this plan should include, email records show that people were screened out if they believed that an anti-hate plan wasn’t needed at all.
   The “National Action Plan on Combatting Hate” doesn’t exist yet. Whenever it is released, you may see ministers on the culture portfolio boast of the public consultations that helped shape it. If that happens, don’t take them at their word.
   Canadian Heritage didn’t really consult the public on this matter — it consulted anyone who agreed with the Liberal platform point to create a National Action Plan on Combatting Hate. It’s yet another example of a government department being used to effect partisan goals and manufacture consent for something the public might not actually want.

ANGER IN RUSSIA AS SCORES OF TROOPS KILLED

KYIV, Ukraine (Reuters) -Russia acknowledged on Monday that scores of its troops were killed in one of the Ukraine war's deadliest strikes, drawing demands from nationalist bloggers for commanders to be punished for housing soldiers alongside an ammunition dump.

Russia's defence ministry said 63 soldiers had died in the fiery blast which destroyed a temporary barracks in a former vocational college in Makiivka, twin city of the Russian-occupied regional capital of Donetsk.

It said the accommodation had been hit by four rockets fired from U.S.-made HIMARS launchers, claiming two rockets had been shot down. Kyiv said the Russian death toll was in the hundreds, though pro-Russian officials called this an exaggeration.

ENERGY PAIN IN CA & TEXAS A LESSON FOR NET-ZERO CROWD

  South of the border, U.S. states that have embraced renewable energy such as wind and solar are struggling to keep the power up and running. Canadians should take heed, as the Trudeau government wants to achieve “net-zero” electricity—where the production of conventional power sources such as natural gas is constrained to favour renewables—by 2035.
  In the United States, federal and state governments have spent billions to increase renewable energy production, quadrupling the share of solar and wind electricity in the last decade. By 2021, renewables reached 33.6 per cent of electricity production in California while in Texas wind and solar recently overtook coal as the second-largest source of electricity.
  The transition away from traditional energy sources to renewables in both of these massive states, however, has coincided with a marked deterioration in their electric systems. The number of interruptions in California’s power supply increased from 12 reported failures in 2012 to 42 in 2021. Texas went from 12 reported failures to 91 during the same time period. California narrowly avoided massive blackouts this past summer and calls for energy conservation are becoming more common in Texas.

NEEDLESS SUFFERING INFLICTED ON SOCIETY

   There have been worse plagues than COVID, but none has ever done so much damage to the world’s scientific institutions. In the pre-COVID era, the public health establishment had been gradually falling under the sway of progressives pushing their agenda, but it retained enough integrity to heed serious scientists—the ones who crunched data from past pandemics and randomized clinical trials. Those epidemiologists concluded that lockdown measures would do little or no good against a virus while inflicting enormous social harm.
   But then, suddenly, all that peer-reviewed evidence and advice was discarded. Public health leaders adopted radical untested strategies without even pretending to do a cost-benefit analysis or explain why the pre-2020 plans were no longer valid. Lockdowns and mask mandates became “the science,” and those who questioned this “consensus” were declared “outside the mainstream.”
  Scientific journals became reluctant to publish contrary opinions and evidence even as COVID data confirmed the wisdom of the pre-2020 advice. When three of the world’s leading experts—from Oxford, Harvard and Stanford—independently published a critique of lockdowns called the Great Barrington Declaration, they were vilified by activist scientists, denounced by officials like Anthony Fauci, and censored on social-media platforms.

COVID RISK: WE'RE NOT ALL IN THIS TOGETHER

   Looking back, our biggest mistake, socially and governmentally, was in treating the risks of Covid-19 as if they affected everyone in society equally. The group-mentality responses (lockdowns, closures, etc.) were wildly inappropriate given the actual stratified individual nature of risks.
   However, those inappropriate measures caused massive economic damage, which will linger for years if not decades, to a population already fighting serious illness. And social harms that we’re still only beginning to understand.
  So here are some thoughts going forward. First, let’s not make the same mistakes. Let’s accept that Covid-19 poses unique risks to individual people, heavily stratified by age, and that we’re not “all in this together” nor is this a group struggle where we attack each other for not following the crowd.

FAKE NEWS AWARDS FOR 2022

  2022 has come to an end – what better way to welcome the new year than awarding the Fake News Awards!
  From a sustained epidemic of ‘Poilievre Derangement Syndrome’ that took over the legacy media, to the systemic racism of crossword puzzles, to the several hate crime hoaxes during the Freedom Convoy, we were all subjected to far too much fake news this year.
   True North Insiders were given the opportunity to pick the worst fake news story of the year and the winner was unanimous.

CANADA'S SOFT-ON-CRIME CREDO IS DECADES OLD

 Canada’s kid-glove treatment of violent criminals today — easy bail, soft sentencing, statutory release, early parole, special treatment for members of some minority groups, keeping the identities of young offenders secret even when they commit murder — didn’t happen by accident.

They were the inevitable result of criminal justice, prison and parole measures passed by Canadian federal governments starting in the 1970s.

These were initially implemented by the Liberal government of then prime minister Pierre Trudeau, which openly acknowledged its intent was “to stress the rehabilitation of individuals rather than the protection of society.”   But this was also embraced by Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats of the day.

CANADA'S ECONOMIC GROWTH IN 2023 AT 1%

   There is a simple economic theory developed in China, called the Cake Theory, which helps explains this situation. The traditional communists believe the focus should first be on determining how the cake should be divided before it is made. The free market reformers in China believe that the goal should be to bake the largest cake possible and then determine how it is to be divided. Both groups believe in having clear policies on the how to divide up economic growth, but only the reformers want to pursue economic growth first before the wealth is divided up.
   Our current federal government, headed by our Prime Minister and Finance Minister are advocates of dividing the cake up before it is made. Their view is that our natural advantages in primary industries are large enough, and the focus should be on a redistribution of wealth, rather than growing the economy. As we all know, Trudeau has praised the Chinese Communist Party in the past, and it comes as no surprise that he favours their approach when it comes to the economic development.
   This is a long-standing position that our Finance Minister, Ms. Freeland, is dedicated to, as clearly articulated in her book, “Plutocrats.” She recognizes that while free markets and capitalism brings far greater growth than communism, and it increases wealth for everyone, it does not do so with enough equality. She refers to the halcyon days after WWII, when the US Central Government had a marginal income tax rate of 77percent. This was a period when income inequality shrank, and due to a number of factors, including a baby boom and the end of the war, the US economy grew at about 3.5 percent per year. It appears that she has been able to persuade both Trudeau, who jettisoned his previous Finance Minister, Bill Morneau; an advocate for a bigger cake first. Now our PM has a Finance Minister who believes in dividing the cake up before baking it.