Saturday, February 28, 2026

The Economy One Voted For

To wit:

The federal government posted a budgetary deficit of $26.14 billion for the April-to-December period of its 2025-26 fiscal year.

In its monthly fiscal monitor, the Finance Department says the result compared to with deficit of $21.72 billion reported for the same period a year earlier.

The result came as revenue totalled $363.36 billion for the nine-month period, up from $355.62 billion a year earlier, reflecting increases in customs import duties due to the countermeasures imposed in response to U.S. tariffs, and corporate and personal income tax revenues.

Meanwhile, program expenses excluding net actuarial losses amounted to $344.91 billion compared with $333.20 billion a year earlier, due to increases in direct program spending, major transfers to persons and major transfers to provinces, territories and municipalities.

Public debt charges totalled $40.86 billion, down from $41.12 billion a year earlier, due to lower short-term interest rates on treasury bills and lower net interest on cross-currency swap transactions and other liabilities.

Net actuarial losses were $3.74 billion, up from $ 3.02 billion a year earlier.

**

Statistics Canada reported a fourth-quarter contraction in real gross domestic product Friday that economists argue conceals some promising details in underlying economic data.

StatCan said Friday that real GDP declined 0.6 per cent on an annualized basis in the fourth quarter, falling short of expectations for flat growth from the Bank of Canada and most economists.

StatCan said the main culprit was businesses drawing down their inventories — in other words, selling off goods or materials that weren’t reproduced in the quarter.


Friday, February 27, 2026

We Don't Have to Trade With China

Our new owners:

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said trade with China is no substitute for trade with the United States and Canada should build on its leverage to secure a tariff-free trade deal with our neighbour to the south.

“Canada’s prosperity and security are inseparable from a stable relationship with the United States,” said Poilievre, during a speech at the Economic Club of Canada in Toronto on Thursday.

“That is why we should not declare a permanent rupture from our biggest customer and closest neighbour in favour of a strategic partnership for a new world order with Beijing–a regime the prime minister said a year ago was the biggest threat to Canada.”

Poilievre said U.S. President Donald Trump’s comments and trade actions have understandably upset Canadians, but that his words should “not distract us from the work here at home.”

“The most effective response to uncertainty is not outrage,” said Poilievre. “It is results.”

**

The Department of Public Safety never undertook any security review of the subsidized purchase of Chinese vessels because rules don’t permit it, Minister Gary Anandasangaree said yesterday. “We had no authority to undertake that review,” he told the Commons transport committee.

**

What may not be as well known is that in Canada’s smallest province, the picturesque Prince Edward Island (PEI), the CCP has been accused of using Buddhist monasteries as money laundering fronts to the tune of half a billion dollars.

Indeed, a report from late last year noted how Buddhist monks and nuns from a group called Bliss and Wisdom showed recent tax filings with about $500 million in assets.

The monks first came to PEI in 2008, and now number in the hundreds. The monks claim to follow Tibet’s Buddhist tradition; however, it is interesting in that the Dalai Lama does not recognize the group’s original spiritual leader.

The group has been under suspicion for so long that even a former Canadian CSIS intelligence officer, Michel Juneau-Katsuya, and Garry Clement, a former national director for the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) Proceeds of Crime Program, wrote a book about the Buddhist monks.

Their book, titled Canada Under Siege: How P.E.I. became a forward operating base for the Chinese Communist Party, “pulls back the curtain on how the Chinese Communist Party quietly turned Prince Edward Island into a strategic forward operating base – right under the noses of Islanders and Ottawa alike.”

Juneau-Katsuya has called for a federal investigation into the group, and the story has become too large to ignore for the PEI government.

Indeed, in February 2025, PEI’s government ordered a full investigation into two Buddhist groups’ land holdings as well as an investigation into another Buddhist organization. The groups are Great Wisdom Buddhist Institute Inc. and Great Enlightenment Buddhist Institute Society.

The PEI government ordered the province’s regulatory commission in charge of land transactions to release the results of an investigation that was supposed to have been done in 2018.

As a result, Premier Rob Lantz of PEI asked the RCMP to launch a full investigation into what he said were “allegations of foreign interference and money laundering” in his province.

He said the investigation was needed as the people of the province “deserve answers.”

After this, the RCMP then said it had done its own investigation into money laundering and foreign interference on the island, but to date “all investigations were concluded as unfounded.”

However, it did say that due to new information coming to light, it would review its findings from the past.

**

Et tu, Korea?:

**



Canada the Cruel

If not hockey, then excelling in this:

People in Canada are having their lives ended by assisted dying on the same day that requests are made, adding to fears that wrongful deaths may be occurring.

An official report by the Chief Coroner of Ontario’s Medical Assistance in Dying Death Review Committee (MDRC) highlighted that, in 2023, 65 people in Ontario had their lives ended by Canada’s assisted suicide and euthanasia programme on the same day that they made their requests to do so. A further 154 people had their lives ended the day after their request was made.

These same-day suicides, which comprise both assisted suicide and euthanasia, include the case of Mrs B, a woman in her 80s who suffered from complications following coronary artery bypass graft surgery and who chose to receive palliative care support at home.

After sharing her desire with her family to end her life through Canada’s euthanasia and assisted suicide programme, her spouse requested an assessment. However, Mrs B informed the euthanasia and assisted suicide assessor she “wanted to withdraw her request, citing personal and religious values and beliefs”, preferring instead to pursue “in-patient palliative care/hospice care”.

After being denied hospice palliative care, Mrs B’s spouse subsequently requested another euthanasia and assisted suicide assessment, which deemed Mrs B eligible for the euthanasia and assisted suicide programme. This approval was granted despite reservations from the first practitioner, who held “concerns regarding the necessity for ‘urgency’ and… the seemingly drastic change in perspective of end-of-life goals, and the possibility of coercion or undue influence (i.e. due to caregiver burnout)”.

Despite this, Mrs B’s request was approved by two separate assessors, and she died the same day.

**

On Feb. 10, 2026, Jesse Van Rootselaar, an 18-year-old transgender male, attacked the community of Tumbler Ridge and its Middle School, whereupon he brutally murdered 8 people and wounded 27 others, before he subsequently divorced himself from all existence in the “deadliest school shooting since 14 women were killed in the Ecole Polytechnique massacre in Montreal.”

Predictably, countless left-wing political actors and pundits have already leapt to reflexively condemn the tragedy as a result of mental illness, in an effort to distract Canadian society from the hyper-liberal political ideology and propaganda that ultimately culminated in Van Rootselaar’s massacre of innocent children in Tumbler Ridge. 

Unfortunately, although it is easy to blame mental illness for the tragedy in Tumbler Ridge, it is utter sham to suggest that Van Rootselaar’s murderous rampage and suicide are anything but the culmination of Canada’s current political climate and the hyper left-wing ideology that has been forcibly imposed upon the Canadian people over the course of the past decade.

In fact, it is clear that the recent massacre of innocent lives in Tumbler Ridge is a direct consequence of the modern advent and onset of identity politics in Canada throughout the Liberal era.

Due to the modern advent of identity politics, every Canadian has been robbed of all personal agency and transformed into little more than a convergence of various identities and social circumstances. 

For example, the socio-political paradigm and perspective that every person inhabits, as well as the products of their labor, have all been rendered solely on the result of their location on the so-called ‘spectrum of identity’ within society. In fact, any action, no matter how great or terrible, has been rendered a mere by-product of ‘identity’ and its interaction with the nation-state’s political structures.

Even Shakespeare’s work has recently been deemed naught but the result of his “whiteness,” and the Shakespeare’s Birthplace Trust has actually been called upon to “present Shakespeare not as the greatest, but as part of a community of equal and different writers and artists from around the world.”

Furthermore, the legitimacy of any person or people’s respective social plight and perspective, indeed their ability to suffer itself, has become contingent upon their ability to immediately display the requisite “diversity criteria” and intersectional location upon the “spectrum of identity.” In truth, it has become nigh-inconceivable that any person or community might suffer or become marginalized and oppressed at all in Canada, without explicitly exhibiting any of the necessary “diversity criteria.”

As a result, specific identities have been rendered right or wrong, rather than actions.

**

An Indigenous man who bragged to an undercover cop about the Gladue “discount” that would cut his penalty in half for helping to clean up after a Calgary murder has been sentenced to 6.5 years in prison, even though the Crown was looking for as much as 10.

A jury convicted Jason Leo Tait of being an accessory after the fact to murder in the death of Keenan Crane. He was acquitted of manslaughter.

“Mr. Tait’s cavalier reliance on a Gladue ‘discount’ in discussions with the undercover operator are not only wrong in law, but they are undoubtedly distressing to hear for Indigenous people, as well as other citizens, particularly those who have roles in the justice system,” Justice Janice Ashcroft wrote in her Feb. 17 decision on Tait’s sentence.

Gladue principles, set out in a Supreme Court of Canada decision, require sentencing judges to consider the unique circumstances of Indigenous offenders to address their over-representation in Canada’s prisons.

“It is undeniable that Mr. Tait’s life has been impacted by many factors related to colonialism and residential schools,” Ashcroft said. “His comments demonstrate a lack of insight and education into history and how his own family and life have been affected by colonization.”

His “life circumstances, as connected to his crime, do allow for some mitigation and reduced moral culpability with respect to sentencing,” she said. “However, I still find that the aggravating circumstances outweigh the mitigating circumstances.”

The court heard that Crane, 22, was a low-level drug dealer who owed $300 to Tait’s roommate, Darren Bulldog. On April 7, 2022, Crane showed up at Tait and Bulldog’s place, where Bulldog confronted him about the debt. Crane was beaten, his hands and feet duct-taped, and given a lethal dose of fentanyl. His body was then dismembered.

**

One in four Canadians living in long-term care homes were prescribed anti-psychotic medication without a diagnosis of psychosis, according to a new report that highlights serious risks associated with using the powerful drugs.
The report, released on Thursday by the Canadian Institute for Health Information, examines the safety and well-being of residents in long-term care homes. It found the rate of anti-psychotic medication use in long-term care homes was higher in Canada compared to several other countries, including the United States, Australia and Sweden.
Health professionals say anti-psychotic medications are largely used to manage symptoms of psychosis, including delusions and hallucinations. However, the medications are sometimes given to residents in long-term care facilities, such as those with dementia, to manage aggressive behaviour.
“Inappropriate use of antipsychotics can carry serious risks, including adverse reactions, cognitive decline, falls and even death,” the report cautioned.
The CIHI report stems from a commitment in 2023 between Ottawa and provincial and territorial governments to provide extra funding for specific health care improvements. Long-term care was among those priorities.

 



Your Contempt-Ridden and Contemptible Government and You

Vote for them all you want.

They still hate you:


**

Fraud in Canada’s refugee system is difficult to gauge but may be significant, says Immigration Minister Lena Diab’s department. A “meaningful proportion of claims” from illegal immigrants and other refugee claimants are ineligible, it said: “Indicators provide a broader picture of integrity pressures.”

**

An insider report authored by a former director of policy at Immigration with the Canadian government has shown that, for nearly a decade, Canada let in 25,000 asylum seekers without any of them ever being properly vetted.

The report, by the Toronto-based C.D. Howe Institute, and authored by James Yousif, who is the former director of policy at Immigration, noted how the federal government “slashed all its usual controls to weed out fraudsters, human traffickers and terrorists” in letting these people into the nation.

When looked at in detail, some 24,599 people were allowed into Canada between 2019 and 2023, with none of them ever having an interview done by immigration officials at the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada (IRB).

“A person from a country on the IRB’s Country List can enter Canada, make a claim for asylum, and receive a positive determination in the mail, without being asked a single question,” noted the report.

The report shows some 24 countries, mostly nations rife with crime and terrorism, as being places where the new so-called asylum seekers come from, including North Korea, Yemen, Venezuela, Eritrea, and Afghanistan.

In his report, Yousif noted how government officials cannot, and should not, take asylum seekers at their word, which is why in-person interviews are vital.

“Asylum claims cannot be presumed to be true. Fabricated narratives and forged documents are a real and persistent risk,” he wrote.

“In-person questioning is the primary means to test the truthfulness of each claim. A policy that accepts claims without questioning exposes Canada to fraud and may encourage misuse of the system.”

**

** 


**

Cabinet yesterday gave Cuba an advance on $8 million in yearly foreign aid before the April 1 start of the budget year. Emergency shipments of Canadian petroleum products to ease fuel shortages were not considered, Foreign Minister Anita Anand told reporters: “Why aren’t you sending fuel?”

(Sidebar: more here.)



But Australia is ... to Canada:
**


The most recent labour force numbers published by Statistics Canada show that 4.6 million Canadians now work in the public sector, as compared to 13.8 million working in the private sector, and 2.7 million who are self-employed.

This means that public-sector workers – those working for government or a government-funded sector such as health care – now represent one quarter of all Canadians working as employees, and 21.8 per cent of all workers generally.

As first noted by economist Charles Lamman in an analysis for The Hub, this means that Canada’s public sector is approaching a size last seen just before Canada was plunged into fiscal crisis in 1994.

In the early 1990s, the size of Canada’s public sector briefly peaked just above 22 per cent of the workforce, before entering a period of rapid decline as the government of then Prime Minister Jean Chrétien dramatically slashed program spending to avoid default.

By 1999, these cuts had resulted in the public sector’s share of the job market dropping to a low of 18.6 per cent.

And the rising imbalance of the Canadian labour market becomes ever starker when considering that Canada has been hiring public-sector workers at highs not seen since the Second World War – all while private-sector hiring remains largely stagnant.
**

Former prime minister Brian Mulroney personally petitioned the Liberal cabinet to approve full combat benefits for Canadian veterans of the Persian Gulf War, newly-disclosed Access To Information records show. Cabinet dismissed the appeal: “They must not now be forgotten.”



Getting the Economy One Voted For

This economy:

Some Canadians clutched their pearls so hard they nearly shattered last week, after The Globe and Mail published a deep dive into how, as its online headline read, “Out of Nowhere, Canada Became Poorer Than Alabama.”

There was some debate about whether analyses showing that our GDP per capita had recently fallen behind Alabama’s is enough to declare us poorer (GDP per capita is a nation’s economic output divided by the population, and is used to determine a country’s standard of living). But the real source of righteous indignation was far more revealing: the idea that Canada’s moral and social standing is so superior that such data can’t possibly reflect reality and, even if it does, it doesn’t matter.

The general reaction — which basically amounted to, “fine, we’re less competitive, but at least we’re more equal, more humane and more decent” — embodies Canada’s unique strain of economic hubris, which will cement our decline, if we don’t snap out of it. Indeed, Canadians didn’t just wake up one morning to find that “out of nowhere,” we had become poorer that the southern U.S. state. The reality is that we’ve been actively kneecapping ourselves for some time, all while maintaining a smug sense of superiority.

Our virtuous self-image rests on a specific promise: that Canada’s social contract protects people from some of the more brutal social outcomes historically seen in places like Alabama. While this promise has generally held for those lucky enough to enter the housing and job markets before 2010, younger generations are living the cruel reality that a country can claim world-class values and increasingly deliver third-world outcomes.

(Sidebar: this social contract.)

Meanwhile, Alabama, too self-aware and perhaps even embarrassed to be complacent, worked to close the gap. This is the real story of how we got here, not out of nowhere, but through indulging a moral self-image that doesn’t just confuse being “good” with being competitive, but actively sabotages any hope of progress by justifying complacency.

Even if you think that GDP per capita isn’t an accurate reflection of a country’s quality of life, Canada’s other indicators paint a disturbing picture of downward mobility. Our middle class and younger generations are being ruthlessly compressed, with floors continuously falling out from under them like dominoes. There’s no reason to believe we’ve seen the bottom yet.

A 28-year-old in Alabama can still hope to own a home and build a family, if they don’t have both already. The same can’t be said for many of their peers in Canada, who struggle to even rent a place of their own. The median home value in Alabama is around US$230,000 (C$315,000), with a median price-to-income ratio of 3.6. In Canada, the average price is around $650,000, and the price-to-income ratio is 8.4 .

While Alabama’s wealth gap is a fissure between rich and poor, ours is largely generational. For example, real incomes for Canadians in their prime working years have stagnated and declined over time, even as they’ve soared for seniors. For the first time, men past retirement age are actually earning more than men aged 25-34, according to research from economist Mike Moffatt. Similarly, our wealth gap sharply divides between asset-rich older homeowners and younger non-owners.

Some will point to Alabama’s minimum wage of US$7.25 and lower educational attainment as proof that we remain superior. However, in Canada, you can earn both a university degree and so-called middle-class salary and still find yourself locked out of housing and family formation, while living paycheque to paycheque. It’s not just possible, but common, to make a significantly higher salary in Canada than a peer in Alabama but have the same, or a markedly worse, quality of life.


The electorate will still put such people in power who make such knee-capping decisions that one must either conclude incompetence or deliberate malice:





Tuesday, February 24, 2026

Legalised Vendettas

 Change my mind:

A ruling by the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal which imposed a penalty of $750,000 on a trans heretic is as chilling in its implication as it is draconian in its punishment.

The extraordinary judgement creates a hierarchy of beliefs in that if a person says they are transgender then everyone is obliged to believe them, regardless of any skepticism. To do otherwise is to deny their existence, says the tribunal.

The ruling has all the hallmarks of the Spanish Inquisition: a government-sanctioned body seeking to compel people to conform to a certain orthodoxy on pain of punishment. The tribunal isn’t yet using the Iron Maiden but by imposing such a large cash award the financial pain is considerable and punitive.

The man at the centre of the case, Barry Neufeld, was ordered to pay compensation of $750,000 to be distributed among the LGBTQ members of the Chilliwack Teachers’ Association, the group that complained about him.

The tribunal claims that it is balancing the rights of free expression against the evils of hate and discrimination. The judgement, however, is heavily weighted in finding Neufeld guilty, but when it comes to freedom of speech the “fix” is in early.

The ruling says that merely denying the existence of trans people is not, on its own, hate speech. But it says, “speech which denies the authentic existence of trans and gender diverse people bears a hallmark of hate against them.”

In essence, if a Canadian now questions whether someone is transgender, then the ground has already been prepared for them to be accused of hateful and/or discriminatory conduct.

By creating a hierarchy of beliefs, the tribunal is setting a dangerous and chilling precedent.

 

By creating a tribunal, you are setting a dangerous and chilling precedent, one where some unaccountable and unelected chair-moistener can cater to the whims of an emotionally stunted grifter who relies on such tribunals to not only pacify their tantrums but line their pockets, as well.



Who Would Support This?

There are people who have no regular physician and they pay into the system.


A Conservative motion to restrict health-care benefits to failed asylum claimants was tabled in Parliament on Tuesday, with the projected cost of a federal health program for refugees expected to increase to $1.5 billion by 2030.

“Under the Liberals, the Interim Federal Health Program (IFHP), the program that provides benefits to asylum claimants, has morphed well beyond its initial intent of providing care to a small number of legitimate refugees who are fleeing to Canada from war zones into a massive boondoggle that provides care to bogus asylum claimants,” said Conservative Immigration Critic Michelle Rempel Garner, who tabled the motion.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer published a report earlier this month that broke down the rising costs of the IFHP, which has ballooned from $226 million in 2019 to $1 billion in 2025. The total projected cost is expected to climb to over $1.5 billion in 2030.

The PBO also projects that the number of beneficiaries will continue to grow and will reach over 680,000 eligible beneficiaries in 2029-30.

The program has basic and supplemental health care coverage. The basic coverage includes hospital services, services from medical doctors, registered nurses and other licensed health care professionals, ambulance services and lab and diagnostic services (such as blood tests and ultrasounds).

The supplemental coverage includes psychologists, occupational therapists, physiotherapists and speech language therapists, assistive devices like prosthetics, mobility aids and hearing aids, home care and long-term care, urgent dental care and limited vision care, medical supplies and equipment. The program also provides prescription drug coverage.

Rempel Garner’s motion calls on the federal government to review the program to find savings for taxpayers, restrict federal benefits received by rejected asylum claimants to emergency life-saving health care only, provide an annual report to Parliament of the IFHP program and pass policies to immediately expel foreign nationals convicted of serious crimes in Canada.

Immigration Minister Lena Diab told reporters that her government introduced a co-pay model in the federal budget, specifically for supplementary coverage. She also said her government will continue to uphold the constitutional, humanitarian and international obligations that Canada has as a signatory to the United Nations convention on refugees.

“We want to still protect those refugees and those people that are claiming the help and need from Canada that legitimately deserves to be protected, including the children,” she said. “We will continue to do that.”

 

Would these be the children you plan on euthanising?

Is MAID offered to our newcomer friends?


Cut the b@$#@rds off.

This practice of covering the bills for these people is a sign of pure contempt the Liberals have for the electorate.

And the electorate lets it happen.


Canada to Record 100,000th MAID Death By Summer

Imagine a mass casualty event wiping out a mid-sized town in this country.


Just as Canada approaches the 10th anniversary of legal assisted suicide, the country is on course to soon record 100,000 total deaths from Medical Assistance in Dying.

This means that in addition to now charting MAID as one of its leading causes of death, Canada will also become the first country of the modern era to measure its total euthanasia deaths in the six figures.

The 100,000 figure has recently been popularized by Canadian anti-MAID activist Kelsi Sheren. She stated in a recent op-ed that her country is “about to kill its 100,000th citizen through Medical Assistance in Dying.”

The number was picked up by various anti-euthanasia organizations, and was repeated by Sheren in a podcast appearance on the show Real Talk With Zuby.

“This spring, we’re about to hit our 100,000th individual,” she told host Nzube Udezue, a British rapper who goes by the stage name of Zuby.

And the estimate is indeed in line with the official trajectory of Canadian MAID deaths.

In Health Canada’s most recent update on MAID deaths, the agency stated that 76,475 Canadians had died via assisted suicide as of Dec. 31, 2024.

At the time of the report, new MAID deaths were coming in at a rate of 45 per day; the annual number of deaths charted in 2024 came to 16,499. Thus, even if MAID approvals have plateaued in the interim months, Canada would be on track to pass its 100,000th MAID death by the first week of June.

This would be only a couple weeks shy of June 17, when Canada will mark the 10th anniversary of the passage of Bill C-14, the Act of Parliament which first legalized doctor-assisted suicide.


The government's greatest trick is fooling a gullible public that is it directing its own demise.


Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel

Trust these guys:

Left-wing activists are planning to stage a protest at the Buchenwald concentration camp on the anniversary of its liberation—accusing the memorial’s managers of not being “anti-Israel” enough.

The demonstration, organised under the banner “Keffiyehs in Buchenwald,” is set to take place on April 11th, the date the camp was freed from Nazi control in 1945.

The group is demanding the right to wear the keffiyeh—widely associated with the Palestinian cause and, in some contexts, pro-Hamas activism—at the site. Their campaign follows a ruling last year in which a German court said the memorial has the right to refuse entry to those wearing the scarf. Memorial director Jens-Christian Wagner has stressed that the keffiyeh was not automatically banned, but that “when it is used together with other symbols … to relativise Nazi crimes, then we would ask people to remove those symbols.”

A woman who claims to have been barred from the memorial last April asked ahead of the planned protest: “How can it be that the genocide against the Palestinians is now being denied in this very place?”

 

Because there is no genocide of the Palestinians and this pantomime certainly has no place at a former death camp, you b!#ch.



It's Just Money

Not Carney's, of course:

Canadians will be expected to make sacrifices to build up national defence, Prime Minister Mark Carney said yesterday. Carney reiterated a pledge he reneged on last year to spend 2 percent of GDP on military preparedness: “Can you outline what sacrifices?”

**

Pay and benefits averaged more than $143,000 per federal employee last year, the Budget Office said yesterday. It was “historically high,” wrote analysts: “An employee can have seven levels of management above them.”

**

Cabinet spent more than $18 million refitting an Italian office to showcase “Canada’s efforts to combat climate change,” Access To Information records show. The spending on a consulate in Milan was approved at the same time cabinet claimed to cut unnecessary spending: “How do you convince Canadians that you are serious about this?”

**

Conservative amendments to provide more guardrails to a provision in the federal budget that would allow cabinet ministers to exempt entities from federal laws was passed by the finance committee on Monday, with support from the Liberal government.

Buried in the federal government’s 600-page Bill C-15 is a provision that gives cabinet ministers discretionary power to exempt a company or individual from any act of Parliament for a three-year period, except for the Criminal Code, for the purposes of what’s called a “regulatory sandbox.”

The provision is proposed under amendments to the Red Tape Reduction Act, legislation that was first passed under the Stephen Harper government in 2015.

Regulatory sandboxes are a tool used by federal regulators that allow industry to demonstrate the real-life impacts of a new product or service in the marketplace under a temporary set of rules and controlled by regulatory supervision.

The exemptions in question could be given by a minister if they are within the public interest, the benefits outweigh the risks and “would enable the testing of, among other things, a product, service, process, procedure or regulatory measure with the aim of facilitating the design, modification or administration of a regulatory regime to encourage innovation, competitiveness or economic growth.”

The exemptions have been the subject of criticism from opposition parties and Canadian civil, legal, and environmental groups, who call the provision the “King Henry the VIII” clause, “draconian” and “offensive” to democratic institutions.

Earlier this month, Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne defended the measures, which he said were a key ask by innovators, particularly in the tech sector.

But the Canadian Civil Liberties Association said the original language in the bill suggests the powers would go beyond just regulatory sandboxes.

“It does not streamline regulation,” said Anaïs Bussières McNicoll, director of the fundamental freedoms program at CCLA. “It applies to almost every piece of federal legislation and regulation, and it truly dynamites the rule of law itself by creating a two-tier legislative system whereby laws debated and enacted by Parliament can be suspended for political convenience with little to no accountability or transparency.”


That's the plan.