Quotulatiousness

September 26, 2025

A ministry for “Heritage” should not be funding hate publications

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

I’m with Dan Knight that the government shouldn’t be funding any private networks, magazines, or newspapers, but since it does provide a lot of funds through various programs, it should at the very least strive to avoid funding open hatred toward ordinary Canadians:

Steven Guilbeault at a happier stage of his life, before joining the Liberal cabinet.

In a fiery exchange at the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage (CHPC), Conservative MP Rachel Thomas dismantled Liberal Minister Hon. Steven Guilbeault, P.C., M.P., Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture and Minister responsible for Official Languages, over taxpayer money funneled into groups publishing hate-laced screeds and smearing everyday Canadians.

Thomas zeroed in on Cult MTL, a publication receiving federal heritage funds. She read into the record a headline published the very day after reports of Charlie Kirk’s assassination attempt: “To Hell with Charlie Kirk”.

“Minister, do you think that is wrong? Taxpayer dollars are funding this group. Will you revoke their funding?” Thomas demanded.

Guilbeault looked blindsided. He admitted he had no idea the government was bankrolling a tabloid openly celebrating political violence. His answer:

    I have not been made aware of this. I will verify with the department and report back to you. Obviously, spreading hate has no place in Canada, and if this is the case, we will make the necessary verifications and take the necessary steps.

Thomas didn’t stop there. She turned to the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, which she said has already pocketed about $1 million from Guilbeault’s department. Documents show the group paid an “investigative journalist” to hunt down so-called “far-right” targets — defining the term so broadly it included Catholics and pro-life Canadians — before seeding the stories into mainstream news outlets.

[…]

Conservative MP Rachel Thomas quoted former CBC anchor Travis Dhanraj, who launched a human rights complaint this summer […]

    To be honest, this has been the hardest period of my life. What happened at CBC really broke me.

Then she put it directly to Guilbeault:

    Have you reached out to the CEO of the CBC regarding this situation and the toxic work environment that is being accused there?

Guilbeault’s answer? Bureaucratic shrugging:

    The government role is not to get mixed into the daily operations and management of the organization. That is the purview of the organization, in this case, the public broadcaster.

Translation: $1.4 billion of your money flows into CBC every year, but the minister says he can’t pick up the phone when staff say they’re being harassed.

September 24, 2025

It won’t work – the minister responsible knows it, but they’re going ahead with it anyway

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Government, Law, Liberty, Politics, Weapons — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

The “it” in the headline is the federal government’s gun confiscation program, which they claim will reduce crime but they already know it won’t do any such thing. What it will do is take away from literally the most law-abiding, responsible citizens their legally purchased property and leave illegal guns in the hands of criminals … at an ever-increasing estimated cost to the taxpayer. In The Line, Matt Gurney covers the details:

The federal gun confiscation program […] is illogical. It won’t save lives or make the public safer. The federal government doesn’t really even expect it to work, and is only going ahead with it because they’ve been stuck with a dumb proposal the Trudeau government made almost five years ago. If they could do it all over again, they wouldn’t, but they feel like they’ve blocked themselves in and have no choice but to proceed so that they don’t anger part of their electoral coalition, mainly voters in Quebec.

That might sound like a blistering criticism of the program, the kind of thing you’ve read in any number of my columns before. It’s actually what the public safety minister thinks about it. He just didn’t know he was being tape recorded when he said so. In a 20-minute conversation Gary Anandasangaree had with a firearms owner he rents a home to, which was recorded and then leaked, the minister says all of the above things. (He has also confirmed the recording is legitimate.)

Awkward for the minister, clearly, but I actually give him credit. The minister’s comments on tape are a confession, and an admission of defeat. They’re also, hands down, the most honest thing a Liberal government official has said on the gun control file in five years. Given that the minister responsible is freely telling people the program is a bad idea he’s stuck with and that won’t work, a sensible government would probably take this opportunity to walk away from the program.

Unfortunately, that’s not what this PM has chosen. It’s full speed ahead with an idea so bad Anandasangaree wishes he’d never been saddled with it.

Let’s talk about what this program is for a second. And forgive me, there’s quite a bit of history here. During Justin Trudeau’s first term, his only majority, his government had proposed a series of fairly moderate changes to the gun control laws they had inherited from Stephen Harper. As I’ve written often since, the proposals were a mixed bag. Some were okay. Some were bad. But they more or less left the well-functioning Canadian gun control system intact. They nibbled around the edges enough so that they could tell their voters that they had gotten tougher. But they generally didn’t try to fix what wasn’t broken.

But then politics got in the way, as it always does. Trudeau lost his majority in 2019 and became ever-more dependent on voter efficiency and wedge issues. And then in 2020, there was a horrible massacre in Nova Scotia. That catastrophe had nothing to do with our gun control laws; the weapons used were brought in illegally from the United States, as is typical of guns used in gun crime. But the Trudeau government seized on the opportunity — never waste a crisis, right? — to announce that they were “banning” “assault rifles”.

A lot of quotes above. So let me explain. First of all, there really wasn’t much of a ban. Anyone who owned one of the newly banned rifles was allowed to keep them. And as for assault rifles, actual assault rifles — rifle-calibre weapons that use high-capacity detachable magazines and can fire in fully automatic mode — have been banned in Canada for decades. This isn’t a problem that we actually had. And the government tacitly admitted as much when they began fudging the words they used to describe them. In acknowledgement that there were no actual assault weapons to ban, they started talking about assault-style weapons.

“Style” is a tell. You wouldn’t take medicine-style pills, or munch on a food-style snack. Because you’d know better. Trudeau et al knew better. It didn’t stop them. They needed something to announce, and by God, they were going to announce it!

And as we’ve noted several times, the Trudeau government got addicted to the media high of making big showy announcements. So they started doing repeat announcements over a period of time, and thanks to the spinelessness of Canadian legacy media even before Trudeau started directly subsidizing them, the media sugar high got repeated as well. It didn’t take long for the lesson to be learned that making an announcement was cheaper than doing the thing that was announced, and we quickly transitioned to a world where it was the announcement that mattered, not the thing.

At Junk Economics, Bryan Moir sums up the stupidity:

You want blunt? Fine. Here it is:

Listen: politics is kabuki theater and promises are props. Here we have a government rolling out a nationwide confiscation-style buyback and calling it “voluntary” — which is like calling income tax “optional” if you want to be arrested. The minister tells citizens, in public, “it’s voluntary”, then admits in private he’ll criminalize non-compliance, will “bail you out” if it goes that far, and says the whole exercise exists because the party must keep the promise and because the Quebec caucus wants to show muscle. That’s not statesmanship. That’s PR with a warrant.

They lecture you about being “tough on guns” while refusing to be tough on the people who actually bring violence into our streets. The minister himself says if he could do it over he’d target illegal guns and put criminals in jail — not law-abiding owners. Translation: the policy is ideologically driven and politically performative, not strategically intelligent. You don’t cure gang violence — which the cops tell you comes from illegal trafficking and cross-border smuggling — by borrowing billions to buy back legally purchased rifles. That’s like throwing sandbags into a burning house and patting yourself on the back for “doing something”.

And then there’s the logistics and the cost — the ugly part they don’t want on camera. The federal pot is capped at about $742 million and the program is rolled out in fits and starts. Major police forces are already saying “no thanks”, which means the feds must either stand down, contract a patchwork of municipal services, or try to outsource enforcement. Any of those choices blows up the promise in different ways: it becomes toothless, it becomes wildly more expensive, or it becomes a federal-provincial fight that will make the Notwithstanding clause dust-ups look like backyard squabbles. Pick your disaster.

Remember the math: a capped pool of cash plus a growing list of banned models (hundreds, then thousands) equals many owners getting nothing while the bureaucracy eats up the rest on administration, contracts, security, staffing, and political “bribes” (a nicer word for handouts to get agencies to play ball). If the fund runs out — and the minister openly says “it’s capped; when it’s gone, it’s gone” — you’ll have a bunch of people stripped of legal property, out of pocket, and the state triumphant only in optics. That’s confiscation without fair market compensation; it reads like policy designed by accountants and sold by televangelists.

Worst of all: while Ottawa gamely auctions off the idea of virtue, or was that “Canadian values”, real problems pile up. Fire seasons rage, hospitals are full, kids wait for surgeries, food banks are overwhelmed and the cost of living keeps rising— and Mark and Gary are borrowing money to offer coupons for now-illegal guns. If you wanted a textbook case of political misallocation, this is it: symbolic policy delivered with symbolic money so the party can say it kept a promise, while the public pays the bill and crime networks keep smuggling.

On the gun confiscation program in particular, thank goodness you can always depend on social media to find the funny side of any issue:

September 23, 2025

Voters didn’t have to pay attention, but now they really, really should

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

On the social media site formerly known as Twitter, Tristin Hopper posted the best explanations I’ve seen for why Canada is in the state it’s in:

Canadians took it for granted that, no matter which party was in government, the country would continue to be stable, predictable, and competent. That’s clearly wrong today, yet the voters haven’t really accepted the new situation yet. Until they start paying attention, things may not improve.

It’s not just Canada, of course, but Canada is further down the road to ruin and thanks to the governments’ conscious actions, it will probably take longer to recover (and I don’t see a Canadian Javier Milei on the horizon, more’s the pity).

At The Freeman, Will Ogilvie Vega de Seoane discusses a related issue with most forms of representative government:

We are stupid. There, I said it. I feel much better now — like I’ve finally opened up in group therapy. PhDs won’t fix it, nor will subscriptions to all the best outlets. As individuals, we simply do not have the capacity to decide what is best in public life. As voters, we don’t usually care what our representatives are up to, nor do we have the faintest idea what the best policy on agriculture, artificial intelligence, or healthcare should look like — and that’s on a good day. But we do think we know. Deep down we think we are sovereign, that democracy is “all of us”, as though the government were some noble embodiment of “the people” rather than just another collection of organized persons with private agendas.

“Aristeides and the citizens” from Plutarch’s lives for boys and girls (1900).

Plutarch tells a story that I have always found marvelous. It’s about Aristeides “the Just”, one of Athens’s heroes in the Persian Wars. The Athenians, weary of kings and tyrants, invented ostracism — a mechanism to expel for ten years any citizen who got too powerful. Each voter would scratch a name onto a shard of pottery, and if more than 6,000 shards had the same name on them, the man was politely asked to take a decade-long sabbatical. Today we’d probably call it “a career break for the common good”.

Anyway, one day a farmer approached Aristeides himself — without realizing who he was — and asked him to write the name “Aristeides” on his shard. Surprised, Aristeides asked if he had ever harmed him. “No,” said the farmer, “nor do I know him by sight. But I am tired of always hearing him called ‘the Just’.” Aristeides, being annoyingly noble, wrote down his own name and handed the shard back. Later, as he left the city in exile, he prayed the opposite prayer of Achilles: that no crisis should come which would force the Athenians to remember him. On LinkedIn, Aristeides might have written: “Currently on a ten-year sabbatical generously sponsored by the people of Athens. Seeking new challenges outside the Attic peninsula #OpenToWork.”

This, in miniature, is how people vote. Not with knowledge, or vision, or even vague coherence — but out of envy, spite, boredom, or some other glorious irrationality. The Athenians had shards; we have hashtags. Instead of ostracism by pottery, we have ostracism by X: one bad joke, one leaked email, and the digital mob sends you packing. Today in Britain, people can even be jailed for their comments on social media. So much for parrhêsia, that old Athenian virtue of speaking frankly to power. We’ve managed to turn it into a crime — and worse, the canceling mob thinks it’s “speaking truth to power” when in fact it is obedience dressed as rebellion.

Modern voters aren’t any better. Some vote because the candidate owns a cute dog. Others because the candidate is endorsed by Taylor Swift. Entire campaigns have been won on promises of free cable, or by a politician smiling the right way on TikTok. In Spain, we even coined a term for it: the Charo. A Charo is usually an old lady with pink hair who parrots whatever our president says. Charos cannot resist the presidential smile. Even when the president contradicts himself, as he normally does, doing the exact opposite of what he promised, they just blush and blink as if to say: “Oh, Pedro, always misbehaving — we love you all the more for it.” They pamper their charming president and dismiss any criticism as fascist slander. Welcome to the Charocracy.

That’s a pitch-perfect description of the typical Liberal voter in Canada. Mark Carney’s Canada is clearly a maple-flavoured Charocracy.

September 22, 2025

The Liberals fervently believe that saying something is the same as doing something

Filed under: Cancon, Food, Government, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

One of the most irritating aspects of Justin Trudeau’s long reign of error was his evident joy in making announcements about this or that topic. It got to the point that even the pro-Liberal media started to notice that the same policy would be announced several times over a few months but no actual progress was made (except where they could start setting up a new government program … they’d hire the staff very quickly, but little or nothing would get done beyond that). Mark Carney was supposed to be a clean break from the Trudeau years — even though most of his ministers were Trudeau retreads — but Carney may actually be worse than Trudeau in that he just loves photo ops with pretty props for the cameras. As Dr. Sylvain Charlebois notes, we need a lot fewer photogenic Potemkin Villages in how our federal government operates:

In recent weeks, we have witnessed politicians lean on powerful visuals to make their case on food and trade. But these staged moments rarely serve the public interest. Worse, they often deepen food illiteracy in a country where understanding how our system works is already fragile.

Take Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s stunt. Upset with Diageo’s decision to close its bottling plant in Ontario, he theatrically dumped a bottle of Crown Royal and urged Ontarians to boycott the brand. What he didn’t mention is that the bottle in question was made in Manitoba and bottled in Quebec by unionized Canadian workers — jobs unaffected by the Ontario closure. The Windsor facility mainly serviced the U.S. market, and Diageo’s decision was years in the making. Ironically, the boycott risks punishing Canadian workers who will continue producing Crown Royal for Canadians. And for future investors, the message is chilling: why put capital into Ontario if a government will trash your brand on television for a corporate restructuring decision?

The federal stage brought us another head-scratcher. During a trade visit to Mexico, Prime Minister Mark Carney posed with bags of Canadian wheat stamped with a maple leaf. The problem? Canada doesn’t export wheat in bags. We are among the most efficient bulk grain exporters in the world, shipping millions of tonnes through rail networks and ocean vessels designed for efficiency, safety, and traceability. Bagged wheat is a relic of less mechanized economies. For Canada to present itself this way trivializes our status as a modern agri-food powerhouse. Beyond being misleading, the image suggests to global partners that our system is less advanced than it truly is — a dangerous misrepresentation for a nation that depends on reputation as much as price.

Even I didn’t realize how bad it got until the feds paid contractors to put up a fake building site for Mark Carney to pose in front of, then tore it all down:

September 20, 2025

Feds move to neuter the “notwithstanding clause” to frustrate Alberta

Filed under: Cancon, Government, History, Law, Liberty, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

To be honest, I wasn’t a fan of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms when it was forced down our throats in 1982, on the basis that if Pierre Trudeau thought it was a good idea then it must be the opposite. All these years later, although I’m still not a huge fan, I support the provinces who now need to combat Mark Carney’s minority Liberal government’s attempt to use the Supreme Court to limit or eliminate the provinces’ use of the notwithstanding clause:

You might be hearing a lot about the notwithstanding clause these days and wondering what is going on. The fact is, the Carney government is trying to change the constitution via a Supreme Court case on Bill 21 – a heinous bill in my opinion – but not an excuse to scrap or weaken the notwithstanding clause.

We’ve been here before with this debate before and I’m still of the same position, leave the clause alone.

It was in 2018 that Ontario Premier Doug Ford was looking to use the notwithstanding clause to shrink the size of Toronto city council. He should never have had to do this, but a lower court ruled that Ford’s actions were unconstitutional.

Which is really weird because the constitution is clear, municipalities are creations of the province. A provincial government can merge municipal governments, they can even abolish them if they wish.

Eventually, a higher court overturned the very politically driven decision against Ford, but for a time, he seemed to need the notwithstanding clause, otherwise known as section 33 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

I’ll never understand why some claim the notwithstanding clause is against the Charter when it is part of the Charter.

On the social media site formerly known as Twitter, Sean Speer notes the Liberals seem to be taken by surprise at the negative reactions to their plans:

I suspect that non-conservatives are a bit surprised by the magnitude of the reaction to the Carney government’s factum on the notwithstanding clause. That’s mainly because I think liberals and progressives don’t quite understand how much the past decade or two of judicial activism has come to animate Canadian conservatism. Even as a somewhat moderate conservatism, I admit to being radicalized on these issues.

The Carter decision on MAID was a key moment in this evolution. Not necessarily because of the issue per se — though a lot of us oppose it. But mainly because it was such a naked example of judicial lawmaking. The clearest case that it’s just power and politics all the way down.

After having ruled that there was no right to physician-assisted death in the Charter, just over twenty years later the Supreme Court unanimously decided there was indeed such a right.

There had been no constitutional amendment in the meantime. Parliament had considered the issue and carefully and consistently voted against it. And yet nine judges decided that the right should exist and so they created one.

If the judiciary isn’t merely protecting constitutionally-prescribed rights but manufacturing them based on the political preferences of judges themselves—if it’s in effect just politics from the bench — then we might as well have the politicians who we’ve duly elected to be making these decisions for us.

Before Carter I would have said that I was broadly supportive of S.33 as part of our constitutional order but today it’s much bigger part of my core political identity as the only check we have on judicial politicking.

The Carney government’s factum then isn’t just objectionable because it threatens to constrain the notwithstanding clause but precisely because it invites the Supreme Court to once again alter the constitution in its own image.

Brian Peckford, the last surviving signatory to the patriation of the Constitution in 1982:

Tragically, it is not surprising that we see this further emasculation of our 1982 Constitution.

It has been ongoing almost since its inception. Witness the 1985 Court Opinion twisting the meaning of the opening words: “the Supremacy of God”.

And the constant distortions ever since, accelerated during the false covid crisis.

This is The Tyranny of The Judiciary —The Destruction Of Parliamentary Democracy!

How important is Section 32 — the notwithstanding clause?

There would be no Constitution Act 1982 — no Charter of Rights and Freedoms without Section 32.

When PM Trudeau Sr. tried to unilaterally Patriate the Constitution and failed miserably because of the Provinces’ opposition before the Courts, he validated the suspicion most Premiers had about the Federal Government and its intentions during that time. The ability of the Provinces to continue democratically to initiate specific exemptions was crucial to solidify the federal nature of this country.

The Supreme Court was right in Sept 1981 in denying the Federal Government such sweeping powers.

None of the 10 First Ministers who signed the Patriation Agreement intended for this Section to be amended in any other way except by the Amending Formula that was achieved for the first time in our history in that Agreement.

The Federal Justice Minister’s action to ask the court is wrong — totally against the intent of those who authored the Patriation Agreement and defies and denigrates one of major accomplishments of 1982, The Amending Formula, a crucial part of the earlier 1981 Agreement, the foundation document, “The Patriation Agreement”.

The Canadian Press carries this:

    OTTAWA — The federal government’s request to Canada’s top court for limits on the notwithstanding clause isn’t only about Quebec’s secularism law, Justice Minister Sean Fraser said on Thursday.

    In a media statement, Fraser said he hopes the Supreme Court’s eventual decision “will shape how both federal and provincial governments may use the notwithstanding clause for years to come”.

Excuse me, Mr Fraser, this is the job, the solemn responsibility, for Canada’s Elected First Ministers and Their elected Parliaments not the Judiciary. Making law is the job of the elected, interpreting law the role of the Judiciary.

This brazen action of the Federal Government would enlarge the Judiciary power to make law — it deciding the powers of The Governments of this Nation.

Ironic in the extreme it is to ponder that Canada sought for decades to find an amending formula — self criticizing itself for not having a legitimate avenue for Constitutional Change.

Now that it has such an avenue instead of using it, it cowardly asks The Court?

Should not a majority of the Provinces have to agree — that’s what the Supreme Court said in 1981?

Hence, the Supreme Court, consistent with it predecessor views of 1981 should refrain from hearing the matter, and inform the Governments that it is they who have the power through the legitimate constitutional process present in the Constitution to make such significant change ie the powers of the Governments, adhering to Section 38, the Amending Formula.

“[V]iolent crime [in Canada] had increased by 30% over the last decade”

Filed under: Cancon, Government, Law — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

A lot of Canadians are noticing how much social peace has deteriorated in and near major cities, but police and local media increasingly are not sharing full information about suspects — often to avoid accusations of racism. It’s gotten bad but as James Pew points out … it’s just getting worse and worse:

Some of the 18 people charged with violent home invasions and carjackings in the Peel Region, July 2025.

Almost every day we hear new stories of violent crime in Canada. Many of us are shocked into speechlessness. Violent youth offences, home invasions, arsons and assaults are on the rise. The rate of car jackings in the York Region increased by 523% between the years 2019 and 2024. Home invasions in Canada are now a regular occurrence. Last year, Kiernan Green did some number crunching for The Hub. He found that violent crime had increased by 30% over the last decade. And Livio Di Matteo, of the Fraser Institute found that “while Canadian homicide rates remain lower than in the U.S., the Canadian rate has increased at a higher rate since 2014”. In the blink of an eye Canada went from a safe high trust society to a dangerous low trust society. Everything is upside down.

The swarming attack and murder of 59-year old homeless man Kenneth Lee of Toronto in December of 2022 was a somewhat early indication that something was dreadfully off. Eight girls, ranging in age from 13 to 16 attacked Lee, stabbing him with knives and small scissors multiple times. He later died in hospital. Initially charged with second degree murder, ultimately all eight girls had their charges reduced and were sentenced to probation only. The Mayor at the time, John Tory, referred to the judgment as “deeply disturbing.”

So far this year there have been thirteen cases in which youth offenders were charged with homicide in the Greater Toronto Area. The most recent involves a 12-year old who has been charged with murdering a 62-year old homeless man. He had been on a release order at the time of the murder. He was also accompanied by a 20-year-old man named Isaiah Byers. The two went on a spree of unprovoked violent attacks in downtown Toronto, targeting vulnerable individuals. Five in total were attacked with a hammer.

Frustrated with the city’s catch-and-release protocol, the Toronto Police Association recently took to X and asked, “Where are the judges who make these decisions?” And further, in a written statement the TPS pointed out, “Our members are held accountable for the decisions they make and the actions they take. Why isn’t anyone else?”

The Youth Criminal Justice Act (YCJA) is currently protecting the identities of youth offenders involved in shocking levels of violence across the GTA. On July 17th, a 14-year old boy, described as a black youth, was charged with fatally stabbing a 71-year-old woman, Shahnaz Pestonji, while attempting to rob her in a grocery store parking lot. The youth admitted later on a social media livestream that he “didn’t mean to kill the old lady” and was just trying to steal her car.

On August 16th, 8-year old Jahvai Roy was shot and killed by a stray bullet while at home sleeping in his mothers bed. Many bullets were shot that night by thugs outside the Roy home in North York, but tragically one of them passed through a window of Holly Roy’s bedroom and struck Jahvai. She wrote on Facebook, “My baby was preparing for one of his best friend’s birthday celebration. He was so excited he couldn’t sleep!” A 16-year old boy has been arrested, and two others are still being sought by police on Canada-wide warrants: 17-year old Ibrahim Ibrahim of Toronto, and 18-year old Amarii Lindner of Toronto.

On August 23rd a 16-year-old girl was charged with aggravated assault and assault with a weapon after stabbing a woman in her 80s in Scarborough, Ontario. Due to the YCJA, the name of the woman, who is suffering in hospital with life-threatening injuries, was not disclosed by the media. It was reported that the teen and the victim lived in the same residence. The story seems to have vanished. After August 23rd, there are no more media reports.

BC Ferries, federal financing and Chinese shipyards

Filed under: Cancon, China, Government — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

As you may have heard, at the same time that Canadian politicians of all parties were thumping the tub about buying Canadian, British Columbia’s provincially owned ferry corporation decided to buy new ships from China … and the federal government not only gave the deal their blessing, they added in a billion dollar underwriting guarantee to boot:

In Ottawa they call it “arm’s-length”. Out in the real world, people call it duck-and-cover. At Meeting No. 6 of the House of Commons transport committee, MPs confronted a simple, damning timeline: Transport Canada’s top non-partisan official was warned six weeks before the public announcement that BC Ferries would award a four-ship contract to a Chinese state-owned yard. Yet the former transport minister, Chrystia Freeland, told Parliament she was “shocked”. Those two facts do not coexist in nature. One is true, or the other is.

There’s an even bigger betrayal hiding in plain sight. In the last election, this Liberal government campaigned on a Canada-first message — jobs here, supply chains here, steel here. And then, when it actually mattered, they watched a billion-dollar ferry order sail to a PRC state yard with no Canadian-content requirement attached to the federal financing. So much for “Canada first”. Turns out it was “Canada … eventually”, after the press release.

Conservatives put the revelation on the record and asked the only question that matters in a democracy: what did the minister know and when did she know it? The documents they cite don’t suggest confusion; they suggest choreography — ministerial staff emailing the Prime Minister’s Office on how to manage the announcement rather than stop the deal that offshored Canadian work to a Chinese state firm.

Follow the money and it gets worse. A federal Crown lender — the Canada Infrastructure Bank — underwrote $1 billion for BC Ferries and attached no Canadian-content requirement to the financing. In plain English: taxpayers took the risk, Beijing got the jobs. The paper trail presented to MPs is smothered in black ink — hundreds of pages of redactions — with one stray breadcrumb: a partially visible BC Hydro analysis suggesting roughly half a billion dollars in B.C. terminal upgrades to make the “green” ferry plan work. You’re not supposed to see that. You almost didn’t.

How did the government side respond? With a jurisdictional shrug. We’re told, over and over, that BC Ferries is a provincial, arm’s-length corporation; the feds didn’t pick the yard, don’t run the procurement, and therefore shouldn’t be blamed. That line is convenient, and in a technical sense it’s tidy. But it wilts under heat. The federal lender is still federal. The money is still public. If “arm’s-length” means “no accountability”, it’s not a governance model — it’s a get-out-of-jail-free card.

The fallback argument is economic fatalism: no Canadian shipyards bid, we’re told; building here would have taken longer and cost “billions” more. Maybe that’s true, maybe it isn’t — but it’s the sort of claim that demands evidence, not condescension. Because the last time Canadians heard this script, the same political class promised that global supply chains were efficient, cheap and safe. Then reality happened. If domestic capacity is too weak to compete, that’s not an argument for outsourcing permanently; it’s an indictment of the people who let that capacity atrophy. And if you swear “Canada first” on the campaign trail, you don’t bankroll “China first” from the Treasury bench.

Dr. Leslyn Lewis on X:

September 18, 2025

Stop calling it “Turtle Island”

Filed under: Americas, Cancon, History, Media, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

At Woke Watch Canada, Igor Stravinsky strenuously objects to calling North America “Turtle Island” and all the other woke shibboleths of the modern progressive cant:

As another school year rolls out, we can hope a more honest and realistic portrait of Canadian history will start to take shape in our schools. Students have been brainwashed into believing that Canada was a racist state bent on the extermination of Indigenous people, who were peaceful and wise, living in harmony with nature and each other. But reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people is only possible if we base policy and action on the truth, not fairy tales, hearsay, anecdotes, or ideologies. We need facts, evidence, and reasoned debate. A good start would be for people to stop referring to North America as “Turtle Island”.

Calling it that is essentially to call the current geopolitical organization of the world invalid. If Canada, the United States, and other Western countries are in fact illegitimate, then that means national and international laws are also null and void. So, unless you are the direct descendent of an aboriginal person who was alive before first contact with Europeans, you are just a guest here — a second-class citizen at best. Non-Indigenous Canadians will simply never accept that. Nor should they.

In any case, “Turtle Island” is a nonsensical name on several levels. Firstly, North America is a continent, not an island. It is connected to South America by the Isthmus of Panama, which means it is not even surrounded by water. In any case an island is defined as a land mass surrounded by water that is part of a tectonic plate such as Greenland which is part of the North American Plate, thus is not a continent.

Then there is the fact that Indigenous North Americans were oblivious to the geography of the vast continent on which they lived. Like people everywhere in the distant past, they only knew the area they lived in, which could be substantial in the case of nomads, but was still a tiny fraction of North America’s 20+ million square kilometers. Of course, they knew nothing about the geography of the world with its 7 continents and 5 oceans.

Most importantly, the Turtle Island creation story is a myth believed by a particular cultural group. There is nothing wrong with believing in myths: I personally believe in the myth of human rights, as most Canadians do (pre-contact Indigenous people certainly did not). Myths are powerful: Our common belief in human rights has helped to make the Western world contain the safest and most prosperous societies ever. But when our institutions subscribe to myths not shared by the majority of Canadians, they are choosing to elevate one culture’s belief system above all others.

In the past, the Christian religion was regarded as the one true religion in Canada by most people, and the spiritual beliefs of Indigenous people were often denigrated as primitive superstition. But elevating Indigenous spirituality in our secularized 21st century world by treating it as a knowledge acquisition system equivalent to (or superior to) the scientific method is an attempt to correct for that past ethnocentrism. This is Critical Theory in action: It always strives to alleviate past wrongs with present wrongs, a formula for social disaster if ever there was one.

September 17, 2025

“It would be a grave error to scrap NORAD”

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Military, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

J.L. Granatstein makes the case that abandoning NORAD in a fit of pique over the antics of the Bad Orange Man would be worse for Canadian national defence interests and might not even be noticed in Washington DC:

There are beginning murmurings that Canada should get out of the North American Aerospace Defence agreement (NORAD). Given the Trump administration’s hostile tone — its 51st state suggestions, its tariffs, and its growing concerns with Arctic defence — the United States has become a difficult partner and a threat to Canadian sovereignty. But would this be a sensible decision for Ottawa to make?

Not at all. In the first place, NORAD is a joint alliance to defend North America against Russian, Chinese, or other potential attackers. Canada provides aircraft, radars, personnel, and expertise to this role that serves our national interests. It would be a grave error to scrap NORAD and to take on the role of defending our part of North America on our own. It would also be hugely expensive.

The problem, however, is that the Trump administration is right: Canada is, in fact, not doing enough today to defend our portion of North America and protect our sovereignty in the region.

The Royal Canadian Air Force has 1980s vintage CF-18s flying patrols and occasional larger surveillance aircraft monitoring traffic in Arctic waters; there are snowmobile and ATV patrols of Canadian Rangers armed with rifles; and a few army exercises in the north each year. The Royal Canadian Navy has a half dozen new Arctic Offshore Patrol Vessels that have limited utility in Arctic waters and are very lightly armed, and the Canadian Coast Guard (CCG) has only one 66-year-old icebreaker capable of clearing thick ice. The CCG is now under the authority of the Department of National Defence, but its members, unlike those in the Canadian Armed Forces, are unionized, and its vessels are unarmed. This could be a problem in a conflict.

Yes, Ottawa has promised to do more. The Trudeau government agreed to the $38.6 billion NORAD Modernization Plan, which includes the new Northern Approaches Surveillance System featuring the Arctic Over-the-Horizon Radar and a Polar Over-the-Horizon Radar, enhancing early warning and threat tracking from the North for air and maritime threats. These systems will not be fully operational until the 2040s.

There’s more, but it’s behind the paywall.

September 16, 2025

A rare thing … Canada’s Parliament in session

Filed under: Cancon, Media, Politics — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

On his Substack, Brian Lilley noted on Monday that we’ve had very little chance to see the Canadian Parliament in action so far in 2025:

Parliament returns for the fall sitting today, it’s the first time the House of Commons has met since June 20. What’s remarkable is that in the 257 days that we’ve counted in 2025, the House has only met for 20 of them.

As it stands now, the House has not met in 87 days.

More remarkable, the House didn’t sit between December 17, 2024 and May 2025, all during a time of national crisis. Add to that the fact that between the end of September 2024 and the opening of the new Parliament on May 26, 2025 no government business was conducted due to the green slush fund scandal and the Trudeau government’s refusal to release documents to the House.

To say our democratic institutions haven’t been well served over the last year would be an understatement.

Over the last year, the oversight function of the House of Commons hasn’t been working as it should in our system. We’ve either had inaction by government or for most of this year, government by decree with little to no oversight by the people’s representatives.

Hopefully that changes today with a new sitting.

A change in tone…

One thing we’ve heard lots of chatter about is the need for a new tone, but primarily that’s been aimed at Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre. Let me point out that Prime Minister Mark Carney is also new to this and we didn’t get the full measure of the man back in the spring.

The relationship between Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre was acrimonious to say the least.

Trudeau towards the end was despised by Canadians and Poilievre couldn’t hit him hard enough in Question Period. Canadians would cheer as Poilievre would use his formidable Parliamentary skills to skewer Trudeau in the House of Commons.

Of course, Trudeau was part of the demise of the relationship and civility in the House as he showed utter contempt for the opposition, for Parliamentary rules and by extension to millions of Canadians.

Well, it’s a new government, a new leader in Carney and so yes, we can expect a new tone coming from both sides. We’ve already seen it from Poilievre in his many media appearances and news conferences over the past several months.

Poilievre has said that he and his party will oppose the government on issues where they disagree, support them on areas where they agree and offer practical solutions to the problems facing the country. That’s exactly what you want from an opposition party, which should in fact operate as a government in waiting.

Fenian Needham Conversion: Just the Thing for Invading Canada

Filed under: Britain, Cancon, History, Military, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 10 May 2025

The Fenian Brotherhood was formed in the US in 1858, a partner organization to the Irish Republican Brotherhood. The groups were militant organizations looking to procure Irish independence from the British, and they found significant support among the Irish-American immigrant community. In November 1865 they purchased some 7500 1861- and 1863-pattern muskets left over from Civil War production, and used them to invade Canada in April 1866. The idea was to capture the country and then trade it to the British in exchange for Irish independence … but the invasion went quite badly. The Fenians briefly held Fort Erie, but were pushed out after a few hours and largely arrested by American forces.

The Fenians’ muskets were confiscated, but all returned by the end of 1866 in exchange for promised Irish-American support of embattled President Johnson. By 1868, the group was making plans for another attempt at conquering Canada. This time they would have better arms — they obtained a disused locomotive factory in Trenton NJ and set up the Pioneer Arms Works to convert 5,020 muskets into centerfire Needham Conversion breechloaders. These were given chambers that could fire standard .58 centerfire ammunition, or the .577 Snider ammunition that the Fenians expected to be able to procure once in Canada. Most of the guns also had their stocks cut, to allow them to be packed in shorter crates for transit. These usually have a distinctive “V” cut in the stock, which was spliced back together before use.

When the second invasion came in April 1870, it was again a failure. Only 800-1000 men turned out of the 5,000+ expected. They were scattered among several different muster points on the border, and the Canadians were once again aware of their plans. The most substantial fight was at a place called Eccles Hill, where the Missisiquoi Home Guard was ready and waiting for them with good Ballard rifles. Upon crossing the border, the Fenians were soundly defeated.

This second time, the guns were confiscated and not returned. Instead, the Watervliet Arsenal sold them as surplus in 1871. They were purchased by Schuyler, Hartley & Graham for commercial resale, and thanks to that several hundred remain in collector hands today.
(more…)

September 15, 2025

QotD: Federal equalization payments

Filed under: Cancon, Economics, Government, Quotations — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Perhaps the most fascinating component of [Prof. Thomas] Courchene’s paper is his subtle discussion of what, precisely, equalization is for. Is it meant to render every province in Canada equally well off in general? Or is it meant only to correct inequities introduced by the provinces’ different geographic and natural circumstances? Or is it meant even more narrowly, as a scheme to ensure that the federal government doesn’t accidentally worsen those inequities? Or it is meant merely to discourage culturally harmful labour migration?

There is no official answer to this question, and all the possible answers lead to moral and mathematical absurdities. It’s not just that we don’t know whether equalization works, as Terence Corcoran observed in the Financial Post yesterday. We literally don’t even know what it’s meant to accomplish

Colby Cosh, “Economist plays ethicist”, National Post, 2005-09-01.

September 13, 2025

“It was about control before green policy became popular, and it is about control now”

Filed under: Cancon, Environment, Government, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

In the National Post, Carson Jerema identifies the common thread among all of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s efforts since becoming Liberal party leader:

Then-Governor of the Bank of Canada Mark Carney at the 2012 Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
WEF photo via Wikimedia Commons.

Prime Minister Mark Carney may not be as obnoxiously progressive as Justin Trudeau, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t stubbornly left wing in his own right, though he has managed to convince many critics otherwise.

Over the past decade, the Liberals were particularly self-righteous over climate policy, so much so that the deviations made by Carney since assuming office have been met with praise — or, on the left, with scorn — that he is somehow pro-business and represents the return of the centre-right Liberals. Some even think he’s a conservative. Others have suggested that Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is now entirely redundant.

This narrative is just more proof of how utterly captured the media is in this country by the Liberal party. It is true that Carney gives the appearance that he is abandoning many of the government’s environmental policies. He set the carbon tax rate to zero, paused the EV mandate and, on Thursday, he refused to endorse his government’s own carbon-emissions targets.

None of this, however, should be taken as evidence that Carney represents some sort of rightward or pro-business shift in the Liberal party. He is not proposing to let markets determine what infrastructure projects get built. Nor is he proposing to minimize regulations to attract investment.

Instead, Carney wants to command the economy by himself, laying bare the reality that what attracts left-wing politicians to climate policy is not saving the planet from carbon, but using environmental objectives to manage the economy. It was about control before green policy became popular, and it is about control now. For Carney specifically, before he entered politics, “decarbonizing” markets was quite remunerative in his various banking roles.

Noticeably absent from the five infrastructure projects that the prime minister said on Thursday would be fast-tracked under the Major Projects Office was an oil and gas pipeline. Also noticeable was the fact that all five of the projects had already been approved, but the government tried to pass them off as something new anyway.

Even if the projects had been all brand new, the lack of a pipeline would still be of no surprise, as what private investor would be willing to back a pipeline when the Liberals’ Impact Assessment Act, tanker ban and emissions cap all exist to conspire against energy projects of any kind?

One thing that became incredibly obvious early in Justin Trudeau’s premiership was that the prime minister — and his ministers in general — really did seem to believe that talking about doing something was as effective in solving problems as actually doing the thing. Many had hoped that Mark Carney would be different … but as Dan Knight points out, he may actually be worse:

From there, [Poilievre] broadened the attack. He spoke of an entire generation priced out of homeownership, of immigration growing “three times faster than housing and jobs”, of crime rising, and of what he called “the worst economy in the G7”. And then he turned squarely on Carney: “Mr. Carney is actually more irresponsible than even Justin Trudeau was“, citing an 8% increase in government spending, 37% more for consultants, and 62 billion dollars in lost investment — the largest outflow in Canadian history, according to the National Bank.

The message was simple: Liberals talk, Conservatives build. Poilievre painted Carney as a man of speeches and promises, not results. “The mistake the media is making is they’re judging him by his words rather than his deeds“, he said.

It was an opening statement designed less to introduce policy — those details came later — and more to frame the battle. For Poilievre, Carney isn’t just Trudeau’s replacement. He’s Trudeau’s sequel, and in some ways worse.

[…]

Pierre Poilievre didn’t hold back when asked about Mark Carney’s record. His words: “Mr. Carney is actually more irresponsible than even Justin Trudeau was“. That’s not a throwaway line, he backed it with numbers.

According to Poilievre, Carney inherited what he called a “morbidly obese government” from Trudeau and made it worse: 8% bigger overall, 37% more for consultants, and 6% more bureaucracy. He says Carney’s deficit is set to be even larger than Trudeau’s.

Then the jobs number: 86,000 more unemployed people under Carney than under Trudeau. That, Poilievre argued, is the real measure, not the polished speeches Carney gives. His line: “The mistake the media is making is they’re judging him by his words rather than his deeds“.

September 12, 2025

Canada’s temporary foreign worker programs

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Cancon, Education, Government, Health, Media, Politics — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

At Acceptable Views, Alexander Brown calls for the end to the Canadian federal temporary immigration scam programs:

It’s not hyperbole to say that Canada has built an entire economy on exploiting cheap, foreign labour through TWFP, as well as the International Mobility Program (IMP). These are two slightly different programs that allow foreign nationals to work in Canada, with most going to Ontario. But contrary to its name, there is nothing “temporary” about the TFWP. Its original purpose was to remedy proven labour shortages while Canadians were hired and trained to eventually do the jobs in question. Meanwhile, the IMP allows international students to work—with or without a proven labour shortage—while they’re studying in Canada.

Between 2019 and 2023, the TFWP increased by 88 percent and the IMP increased 126 percent. They account for close to 1.58 million work permit holders, equal to roughly 7 percent of Canada’s labour force.

Taken together, the results of the TFWP and IMP are deplorable. The TFWP allows foreign nationals to be recruited abroad in vast numbers, brought to Canada, housed in degrading conditions, paid the minimum wage, forced to work long hours, pressured into not joining a union, and required to work for only one employer. Yes, the IMP is more flexible, but it’s more pernicious because it does not even pretend to address labour shortages.

Both schemes are also of course bad for Canadians themselves. The problem is especially grievous for young Canadians trying to get started in the labour market. Canada lost 40,800 jobs this past July, the unemployment rate is now 6.9 percent, and youth unemployment (those between 15 and 24 years old) is now 14.6 percent.

Both the TFWP and IMP are used as business models. Hiring foreign nationals at minimum wage keeps prices low and profits high—most notoriously in the hospitality and trucking sectors, but no industry seems untouched now.

Addicted to cheap foreign labour

The use of the TFWP in the healthcare sector, for example, has grown by an appalling 1,700 percent since 2000. That dramatic rise has no doubt been abetted by the absence of uniform standards and credential recognition among Canadian provinces. If medical personnel could move easily from one province to another, shortages could be filled by Canadians. But historically this has not been possible, and so medical institutions have had to turn to the TFWP. Ontario’s recent determination to solve this problem by speeding up recognition of 50 “in-demand” professions from other provinces is a step in the right direction, and hopefully not too little too late.

Meanwhile, the IMP is a vehicle for outright fraud, ranging from fake acceptance letters from bogus “colleges” to elaborate human-trafficking schemes. Not long ago, nearly 50,000 holders of foreign student visas were working and attempting to settle here, rather than studying at any Canadian university or college. Most were migrants from India, and some were trying to cross the border illegally into the United States. The RCMP is now working with Indian law-enforcement to investigate alleged links between dozens of “colleges” in Canada and two “entities” in India allegedly facilitating passage into the U.S. When we reflect that an astounding 4.9 million temporary visas are set to expire this year, we have reason to believe that this abuse, exploitation, and fraud are on a much larger scale that we understand.

The consequences for young Canadians

Both the TFWP and the IMP serve to keep wages artificially low and profits high, and to price Canadians out of the job market. It wouldn’t be wrong to view these programs as distortionary government subsidies or welfare for unproductive businesses. The effects disproportionately harm younger Canadians who are priced out of the labour market, given that temporary workers overwhelmingly earn less than the median wage. And yet, we’re constantly hectored about labour shortages, Canadians’ “unwillingness” to do certain jobs, and the need for foreign workers.

It shouldn’t take much intellectual effort to see that the use of foreign labour and the difficulties of employing younger Canadians are two sides of the same ugly coin. Foreign workers are more cooperative because they are bound to their employers like serfs. They face normally insurmountable barriers to joining unions and have no attachment to the community in which they’re expected to work. In comparison, the domestic population is generally better educated and rooted in the local community.

Young Canadians can afford to be discriminating and should rightly expect higher wages than foreign nationals. Employers should instead work harder to invest in and reward their domestic workforce. In any other era, this would have been obvious. But now there is little incentive for businesses to look beyond cheap, foreign labour.

To get an idea of the magnitude of our collective failure here, consider the following fact. A 2024 study by RBC Economics revealed that Canadian businesses are sitting on a stockpile of cash worth almost a third of our country’s GDP. In other words, Canadian companies have the means to invest in hiring and training Canadians, but simply refuse to do so. The results of this refusal are stagnant wages, structural unemployment, and a de-skilling of the domestic population.

September 11, 2025

The CH-148 Cyclone helicopter – the navy’s flying lemon

Filed under: Cancon, Military, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Over at Noah’s True North Strategic Review, a question came up about the Cyclone helicopters in Royal Canadian Navy service and whether the navy would include Cyclone landing pads on the upcoming Canadian Continental Defence Corvette design:

Q6. Any updates on the Cyclone helicopter and its replacement? I’ve read that the class is grounded and it’s already an orphan. Has it rolled into NTACS?

You probably heard our favorite Vice-Admiral absolutely tearing them apart lol. The fleet was grounded due to parts issues, a long-standing problem with the Cyclone fleet. In fact everything about the Cyclone is a problem.

I’ll let Mr. Topshee explain:

So yeah, the fleet was grounded or should I say the majority of the fleet is still grounded. Not all of them anymore, but still the majority last I heard like two weeks ago?

Of course even before the grounding the fleet was in bad shape. Nearly half haven’t flown this year, and again the majority is still grounded. Link 11 deprecated back in January/February? Lockorsky is asking ~$20,000,000 an aircraft to upgrade to Link 16, and even then it will take about two/three years to get the entire fleet upgrades.

And it ain’t like Link 16 is some optional capability. It is quite literally the standard. You can’t do much without it.

This isn’t counting other capabilities set to deprecate or in need of upgrading on the way to Block 2.1 … All to support, yes, an orphan fleet that we are paying tooth and nail to keep going.

And it isn’t like Lockheed is winning here. They reported a $570 million loss on the Cyclone this year. Quite literally no one is winning here. We are all suffering to keep these birds flying, lord forbid if we try to keep them going into the 2040s as planned.

Cyclone isn’t a new helicopter. It’s a product of 1990s requirements, from a contract signed twenty years ago. It still has yet to reach its final Block 2.1 state. I get why it’s frustrating to everyone. I’m glad Topshee said the quiet part out loud. Call them what they are.

I’m of course missing things, I know. I wont go into the entire history and issues with the fleet (yet) but I will say that I truly believe there is no fixing them by this stage. The navy has been using modified Hammerheads to fill the gaps and future UAS will likely take some role.

Unmanned systems aren’t at the level though to fully replace the capabilities a maritime helicopter like the Cyclone brings to the table. The loss of the fleet is a loss of capabilities. Eventually something has to give.

I don’t wanna go to into the Cyclone right now, as I’m currently working on something for it. However there are a lot of issues, more than the public knows.

As for NTACS? There is no plans to include the Cyclone. At least not right now. The NTACS team went back to the drawing board over the summer to hammer out what they want. We’ll see what comes of it.

Pre-delivery Sikorsky CH-148 Cyclone helicopter, 4 April, 2012.
Photo by Gerry Metzler via Wikimedia Commons.

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