It never fails to disappoint:
There are simply not enough affordable places for people to live across Canada, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Monday during an housing announcement in Hamilton, where he promised the federal government would work to scale up supply.
As of March, 2023, according to the feds, taxpayers have committed $33.69 billion to Trudeau’s national housing strategy, which will top out at over $82 billion in March, 2028.
Trudeau says this has helped almost two million families and individuals get the housing they need.
If he’s going to claim successes in federal housing policy, he has to account for its shortcomings as well.
Especially if he is going to flood the country with unvetted and unemployed migrants who are currently sleeping on the streets.
A list of governmental responsibilities here.
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It doesn't matter if one likes or dislikes Facebook. It matters who the gatekeeper is:
Facebook’s parent company, Meta, is following through with its threat to end the availability of news on its platforms beginning Tuesday, preventing Canadians from sharing news articles on its social media sites.
The change is the company’s response to C-18, the Online News Act, the new federal government law that would force tech giants Meta and Google to negotiate deals with Canadian news publishers to pay for their content.
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This happened because she gave up Disney+:
Chrystia Freeland’s chauffeur billed for 28 days’ worth of meals and other expenses in driving the finance minister, mainly in Toronto, according to records. Freeland yesterday denied using a chauffeured car but did not explain charges by her driver: “I am disappointed to see you peddling blatant misinformation.”
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Let's just tax people and see how that goes:
In her March 2023 federal budget, Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland said she was raising taxes on higher-income Canadians to ensure they “pay their fair share,” but a new study shows the top 20 per cent of income-earning households already pay more in total income taxes than the other 80 per cent do.
“In recent years there have been growing calls to increase taxes on high-income earners based on the belief that they don’t pay enough taxes,” said the Fraser Institute’s Jake Fuss, who co-authored the report Measuring Progressivity in Canada’s Tax System, released Tuesday, along with economist Nathaniel Li.
“There’s typically little discussion about how much tax each income group pays,” Fuss said.
Boosting tax rates on the basis that upper-income earners are not paying a fair share is a policy based on false reasoning, the report concludes.
“The top 20 per cent of income earning families in Canada pay over half of the country’s taxes,” Fuss said.
“That’s obviously a disproportionately large share of the tax burden.”
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But without French, how will 75.5% of country communicate?:
Cabinet will not meet its targets to increase use of French in Canada despite billions in promotions, says a federal report. “Worrisome demographic trends” see bilingualism rates decline over time, it said: “Immigration is not sufficient to increase the demographic weight of francophones outside Québec.”**
Indigenous Canadians have no automatic treaty right to disturb fish habitat, says an Ontario judge. The ruling centred on a long-disputed clause of the Fisheries Act: “To find the existence of a treaty right is to bestow upon a particular activity the highest form of recognition and protection available in Canadian law.”
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Virtue-signalling and surface concern pretty much defines Canada's international role:
Canada provided more than $520-million in development assistance to Niger in the period from 2000 to 2020, followed by an additional $59.3-million in 2021-2022 alone, according to Global Affairs.
The Canadian Armed Forces have been training Niger’s military for the past decade, under a Canadian program called Operation Naberius. As many as 50 Canadian soldiers have been deployed to Niger every year to train the national army in counterterrorism operations. This has included “leadership training” on human rights and the laws of armed conflict, according to a Department of National Defence website.
Canadian military trainers have also focused on helping Niger’s military officers in the annual U.S.-sponsored training exercise known as Flintlock. This year, when The Globe and Mail visited the Flintlock exercise, the Canadians were working closely with some of those officers. One senior Canadian officer said the training included Canadian military values, such as respect for democracy – a value that was seemingly ignored when the coup was launched last week.
Defence Department spokesperson Daniel Le Bouthillier said the Niger training program’s future is unknown. There has been no decision made yet on whether Canada will go ahead with the next planned training session, in the fall of this year.
The continued viability of Operation Naberius “is dependent on the developing security situation and, as with all operational deployments, Government of Canada direction,” Mr. Le Bouthillier added.
While there is no current training program in Niger, a small number of Canadian soldiers – fewer than 10 – are now in the country, planning for future training, Mr. Le Bouthillier said. He said about 210 Canadian Armed Forces members have deployed on Operation Naberius since its inception.
He also said the Canadian Special Operations Forces Command has not provided training to Gen. Tchiani or Gen. Moussa Salaou Barmou, the head of Niger’s special forces, who is also believed to be a leader of the coup.
Canada’s dilemma in Niger is similar to its earlier quandary in Mali, where the federal government provided $1.6-billion in development aid from 2000 to 2020. It also sent about 250 troops to Mali from 2018 to 2019 to support Canadian helicopters in a United Nations peacekeeping mission, and it has continued to deploy dozens of other Canadian troops and police officers in the UN mission. Despite this support, Mali’s military has launched two coups since 2020, and the UN is now withdrawing its peacekeeping force after Mali’s military junta demanded its departure.
Adam Sandor, a researcher at the University of Bayreuth, in Germany, said it is difficult to determine if any of the military members trying to take power in Niger received training from the Canadian Forces. But he said it is “most likely the case,” since so many soldiers have undergone Western military training across the Sahel.
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Danielle, cut the grandmother-trampling b@$#@rds off:
The Alberta government is no longer formally pursuing its plan to dump the RCMP in favour of a new provincial police force.
However, Justice Minister Mickey Amery says the idea is not dead and his department will continue to consult with Albertans on where they want to go with policing.
Last fall, Premier Danielle Smith directed then-justice minister Tyler Shandro and Public Safety Minister Mike Ellis to move forward on creating an Alberta force to replace the Mounties in communities that don’t already have their own officers.
But in a new mandate letter delivered today to Avery, along with one to Ellis on Monday, no mention is made of creating a provincial force.
Instead, Smith directs Ellis to work with communities to deliver policing options they believe are best.
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