Some People Are "Important"

But don't take my word for it:

Cabinet says it was never told who gave a custom sculpture of Chief Justice Richard Wagner to the Supreme Court of Canada for display in its Grand Entrance Hall. The Court’s Registrar yesterday said it was “reviewing the relevant information.”

 

This Richard Wagner:

In his interview with Le Devoir, Wagner characterized the protest on Wellington Street, where Parliament and the Supreme Court are located, as “the beginning of anarchy where some people have decided to take other citizens hostage.” The article reports Wagner as having declared that “forced blows against the state, justice and democratic institutions like the one delivered by protesters … should be denounced with force by all figures of power in the country.”

 

 

Strange

Pierre Trudeau was never arrested:

Newly-declassified records show the RCMP from the close of the Second World War spied on the Royal Canadian Legion in a hunt for Communists. The Mounties in one confidential 1947 memo named dozens of Legion members as subversive: “The menace of Communist infiltration and disruption was brought to the attention of the Dominion President.”

 

"Canadian" Woman Convicted of ISIS Terrorism

Window-dressing, I'm sure:

A Canadian woman who spent four years with ISIS and married two of its fighters is guilty of terrorism, a jury in Brampton, Ont. ruled on Tuesday.

Ammara Amjad, 32, was the first woman to go on trial in Canada for her role in the Islamic State in Syria as it committed widespread atrocities.

The case was a test of whether Canada could bring to justice the women who played support roles in ISIS as wives and mothers but were not armed fighters.

The jury began deliberations on Monday and returned after one day to find Amjad guilty of participating in, or contributing to, the activities of a terrorist group.

A former York University student and Walmart employee, Amjad was living a life of “comfort” in Ontario when ISIS summoned women to Syria, according to the Crown.

The Pakistan-born Canadian flew to Turkey in March 2015, crossed into ISIS territory and remained with the terror group until she was captured four years later.

“She answered ISIS’s call,” the Crown argued in its closing arguments on Friday, as the two week trial came to an end in a courtroom north of Toronto.

Amjad faces a possible sentence of ten years in prison. She was not detained during the trial, having been released on bail after she was charged in 2023.

She did not testify in her defence and her lawyer did not present any evidence, instead arguing the Crown had not proved what Amjad did in Syria.

 

 

It's Just An Entire Economy

The Liberals will still have their perks:

.@OurCommons places order for 6,000 bottles of fine wine to “maintain expected standards of hospitality” in Parliamentary Dining Room. Stocking of wine cellar came 4 days after #Budget2026 lamented plight of “hardworking Canadians struggling to get by.” https://t.co/QR5fmOEXOb @MarkJCarney @FPChampagne #cdnpoli

— Holly Doan (@hollyanndoan) November 10, 2026

**

The Office of the Auditor General of Canada says the federal government wrote off billions of dollars last year in COVID-19 benefits that it no longer expects to see repaid.

The federal government is trying to recoup payments made to Canadians during the COVID-19 pandemic in cases where it determines someone was overpaid or was ineligible for the benefit.

But when the government expects not to be paid back, it writes off the debt and strikes it from its ledgers.

Audits of the government’s consolidated financial statements for the last fiscal year show Ottawa wrote off $4.5 billion tied to COVID-19 benefits — up sharply from $26 million the previous year.

The government’s financial statements for 2025-26 were published on Friday — a day after Ottawa tabled its 2026 federal budget — as part of its annual public accounts.

Auditor General Karen Hogan’s office also released its commentary that day on the government’s previous fiscal year.

Hogan warned that Ottawa is also expecting a larger portion of business loans from the pandemic will not be repaid.

** 

If Canada becomes an associate member of Erasmus+, it could end up paying a hefty sum of our tax dollars into a pool of funds so that the European Union can manage international exchanges involving our students, professors, workers and athletes.

Canada is capable of managing its own exchange programs. More importantly, a review of Erasmus+ documents reveals that these exchanges benefit few select applicants, while the program appears more obsessed with the EU's relevance on the world stage than any measurable improvements in the quality of education for member nations.

The program's name is a clue to its elite nature. Erasmus lived in Rotterdam in the Netherlands during the Renaissance and was a "leading scholar and inspiring lecturer" who "travelled extensively in Europe to teach and study at a number of universities."

Canada has participated in Erasmus to varying degrees since 2004, beginning with its Mundus master's course, which has allowed students to travel around Europe and attend several different universities, with its stated goal being to "improve the quality of higher education in Europe," and, "at the same time have an impact on the visibility and perception of the European Union around the world as well as building a capital of goodwill among those who have participated in the program."

** 

Ottawa plans to hold immigration levels mostly steady over the next three years, according to Budget 2026. The Liberals claim the updated immigration plan aims to strike “a balance” that favours the needs of the economy, housing, healthcare, and social services. Such claims have not been true in the past and are unlikely to be true going forward.

The mythmakers say the “Levels Plan” will continue to balance the needs of Canada’s employers, industries, and communities with Canada’s ability to meet the needs of newcomers, while avoiding undue pressure on housing, healthcare, and social services. Evidence shows past claims have been unreliable, and the new “Liberal speak” will be just as ephemeral.

The new federal immigration targets were revealed on November 5. They will maintain temporary resident arrivals at 370,000 per year in each of 2027, 2028, and 2029, while the target for permanent resident admissions will stay at the current level of 380,000 in each of those years. The announcement is socially irresponsible and even hurtful.

What is the Liberal immigration policy all about? Are the Liberals playing a long game to bake into society a biased pro-Liberal voting bloc among immigrants? It is hard to measure, but Liberals keep doing it despite considerable political pushback. So, they clearly see it as worth the political risk and believe it will pay off. Liberals also have a historical advantage among more recent immigrant-origin voters.

A 2019 Canadian Election Study analysis published in the Canadian Journal of Political Science found that the Liberals had an advantage among immigrant-origin electors. Potential citizens who were permanent residents were particularly favourable toward the Liberals.

Many factors influence their voting preferences, including country of origin, length of time in Canada, income and occupation, religion and social values, age and education, views on taxation, housing, and public services, and their assessment of individual political parties. Permanent residents cannot vote in federal elections, but some cheat and do anyway. They must first become Canadian citizens and meet the applicable voting requirements.

Immigration clearly changes the electoral landscape; that is a demographic reality. Every person who eventually becomes a Canadian citizen and registers to vote becomes part of the electorate. Over time, immigration changes the composition of Canada’s social fabric. If certain immigrant-origin communities have historically favoured one party, their growing representation would affect electoral outcomes. Parties choose candidates to reflect local ethnic and social character.

System defenders respond that there is a difference between a policy having an electoral benefit from immigration and a policy being deliberately designed for that benefit. Liberals deny ulterior motives.

Voters can scrutinize political incentives, campaign strategies, constituency demographics, and government decisions as a test of motives. However, without better documentary evidence, internal communications or credible testimony establishing intent, it is only a likely possibility to say the government is deliberately importing voters.

However, immigrants are not necessarily lifelong Liberal supporters. Their political preferences can change with their economic circumstances, experiences, and integration into Canadian society.

Canadians need to demand measurable accountability rather than simply arguing about whether immigration numbers are too high. Key problem areas are housing, healthcare, labour markets, infrastructure, immigration transparency, and democratic accountability.

Immigration targets should be assessed against actual housing completions, rental vacancies, and household formation, and not just bold Liberal bragging.

Publish provincial and regional assessments of the additional doctors, nurses, hospital beds, and healthcare funding required. These statistics don’t look good for the Liberals.

Demonstrate that temporary foreign worker programs are addressing genuine shortages rather than allowing employers to avoid improving wages and working conditions. Tim Hortons, the subject of media controversy over foreign worker abuse, is one example. Although based in Canada, its parent company, Restaurant Brands International, has 3G Capital, a Brazilian-linked investment firm, as its largest shareholder.

Ensure municipalities receive adequate funding for population growth, including transit, water, sewage, and schools. Federal practice can unreasonably download responsibilities onto local governance.

Publish the actual number of new arrivals, departures, extensions, overstays, and transitions from temporary to permanent status. The federal bureaucracy either hides the data or deliberately does not record it.

Publish transparent assessments of immigration policy, including its economic, social, and demographic effects, without treating criticism of immigration levels as hostility towards immigrants. This is a public-service shortcoming.

The bottom line — are the announced levels socially acceptable and financially doable? They are financially manageable in theory, as Canada will suffer but muddle through regardless. However, the targets alone do not establish social and infrastructure sustainability.

 

 

 

 

[Title Redacted]

Does anyone know or care that the Liberals will pass yet another censorship bill, one that allows the government to spy on its citizens?:

This past week the Standing Senate Committee on National Security, Defence and Veterans Affairs heard from Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree and Justice Minister Sean Fraser as the Senate continues its study on Bill C-22, the Lawful Access Act.

Neither minister seemed to have assuaged any concerns, as cybersecurity experts, cryptographers, the tech industry, and civil liberties groups all continue to press the government for amendments, warning that the bill as written would severely compromise Canadians’ privacy and cybersecurity.

Currently, the bill would require electronic service providers — companies that provide cloud services, messaging apps, social media platforms, email providers, companies that provide internet services, video game platforms, AI systems, as well as smartphones and smartwatches — to build surveillance capabilities into their systems meant to be used by law enforcement and national security agencies. The bill would also compel service providers to retain the metadata of its users for six months.

The Carney government has maintained that Bill C-22 is just regular, run-of-the-mill legislation that already exists in comparable jurisdictions, and that Canada needs to pass this bill because we are currently lagging our partners in the Five Eyes security alliance. However, a quick look at the lawful access regimes of our Five Eyes Partners easily disproves this government talking point.

As pointed out by the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, while the U.K. and Australia do have regimes resembling Bill C-22, the U.K.’s is currently being challenged constitutionally and has resulted in Apple removing Advanced Data Protection (an encryption tool for iCloud) from all Apple devices connecting from the United Kingdom. Which is precisely what Apple is telling us will happen in Canada should C-22 be passed as written. For its part, the Australian lawful access regime resulted in a Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights concluding that Australia’s lawful access set up was “incompatible” with human rights such as privacy and freedom of expression.

In a head-to-head comparison with the United States’ Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act (CALEA), Canada’s Bill C-22 comes across as overly broad. CALEA is narrowly targeted to apply to telecom carriers and internet providers, while it explicitly exempts “information services,” which means unlike C-22, CALEA does not apply to cloud providers, social media platforms, email, messaging apps, or AI services.

Yet even with CALEA’s much more narrow scope, we have seen devastating breaches in cybersecurity. Two years ago, a Chinese backed hacking group known as Salt Typhoon used the lawful access infrastructure (that cell phone companies like AT&T and Verizon were required to build into their systems for the FBI) in order to steal the metadata of over a million Americans as well as read text messages and listen in on the calls of senior political figures. Given that C-22 is much more expansive, the opportunities for hackers could be much greater. …

The Carney government is about to take a massive step in violating the privacy rights and cybersecurity of every single Canadian. That in and of itself is bad enough. But what’s worse is that aside from a few law professors and concerned civil society members, the political chattering classes and the wider political commentariat have been utterly silent on a piece of legislation that not only undermines privacy and cybersecurity, but also runs the risk of interfering in the operations of the now taxpayer-backed Cohere.

The Carney government has benefitted from an extreme amount of goodwill from everyday Canadians in light of the unprecedented nature of our ruptured relationship with America. Canadians might want to start paying attention to the details in Bill C-22 to see if it continues to deserve that goodwill.

** 

The true extent of Canada’s controversial C-22 surveillance bill has been revealed during a Senate hearing, when officials were forced to answer questions from senators.

The questioning revealed that the bill is designed to be very broad in its scope – a point that was conceded by the minister.

“The term electronic service provider is deliberately broad,” Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree told the senators on November 2, as he was trying to defend the proposal that has been criticized as overreaching and poorly defined.

Senator Pierre Dalphond raised daycares, and Justice counsel Anne-Marie Lebel replied that an order “could be made to any service provider, a person who provides services to the public. It could be a daycare in some cases.”

Senator Hassan Yussuff asked if a VPN (Virtual Private Network) would qualify as an electronic service provider, and the minister replied, “the expansion to other platforms is not what is immediately envisioned, although, as technology develops, we want the ability to do that.”

The minister also said that “a world in which AI will be able to generate its own electronic service and sell it to Canadians” is “something the regulation and definition could capture.”

Assistant Deputy Minister Richard Bilodeau said that whether AI services end up as core providers is a question on which “time will tell.”

Shannon Hiegel of Public Safety Canada explained that the broad definition of an electronic service provider is “probably where we’re leaning the most forward when we look at the comparisons across all of the countries that we’ve taken a look at.”

The bill’s definition of an electronic service provider is anyone who provides an electronic service to people in Canada, and the minister can make orders that apply to any such provider.

Hiegel said that this would include “gaming platforms where communication isn’t the primary purpose of that service, but yet there is a predominant chat room and chat function that goes on.”

It also emerged during the hearing that the bill’s provisions could reach far beyond telecommunications and internet companies, and that its broad wording could allow it to be used to obtain sensitive information from health care providers, lawyers, and financial institutions, as well as dating apps.

This is according to Privacy Commissioner Philippe Dufresne, who said that the subscriber information rules in the bill could apply to services “which could include health-care providers, lawyers, financial institutions and dating apps,” and that “such information could reasonably attract a heightened expectation of privacy due to its sensitivity.”

The production order, which would force these providers to hand over data, requires a judge’s approval, but the bar is set very low, at “reasonable grounds to suspect.”

The privacy commissioner wants to see a finite list of what counts as subscriber information, a carve-out for medical or privileged information, and a limitation of the order to telecommunications providers.

Another problem is that the bill does not define what is meant by “publicly available” information – something that Dufresne said was undefined.

“An individual does not automatically forfeit any reasonable expectation of privacy in information that has become public,” he explained.

Meanwhile, Intelligence Commissioner Simon Noël spoke about secret ministerial orders that would force companies to build surveillance capabilities, and said that “a clear proportionality factor that includes reasonable alternatives would ensure the minister explains the needs.”

The bill’s explicit protection of medical and solicitor-client information only applies when police make a warrantless demand for confirmation of service – but not to the production order.

Despite these and other criticisms, the government is trying to defend its bill. A spokesperson for the minister, Simon Lafortune, said, “Bill C-22 does not authorize indiscriminate surveillance and does not permit or compel companies to introduce systemic vulnerabilities or so-called ‘backdoors’.”

However, four cryptography and privacy academics who submitted a brief to the committee said that the bill risks “serious harm to Canadian citizens, companies, and government agencies” and could “open up attack vectors for the least trusted countries and bad actors in the world.”

One of the co-authors of the brief, Peter Swire, said, “If local protocols are broken, users in Canada can decide to use open-source models or use services that are hosted in other countries where the Canadian law can’t require broken encryption.”

 

 

We Don't Have to Trade With China

But Carney wants his Chinese bosses how hard he is working for them:

As Prime Minister Mark Carney prepares for a trip to China and a bilateral meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping next week, new trade data suggests Canadian exports to China are reaching record levels, particularly in Western Canada.

Third-quarter figures compiled by the China Institute at the University of Alberta show strong growth in exports, led by food and energy shipments.

“Our exports are going to hit record highs this year, and the numbers are accelerating,” said Philippe Rheault, director of the China Institute.

The trade surge marks a sharp turnaround from the low point in Canada-China relations that followed the detention of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor in China after the 2018 arrest of Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou in Vancouver.

 

(Sidebar: did we forget those guys?) 

 **

Chinese authorities blocked attempts by the Canadian Embassy to visually commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre for the last two years, CBC News has learned. 

The second incident came just months after Prime Minister Mark Carney's trade trip to Beijing, where he touted improved relations with Chinese President Xi Jinping.

"Late Saturday evening local authorities, working into the early hours of Sunday, planted two large, mature trees in an attempt to block the embassy's LED screen," noted an email by Diana Tan, a staffer at the Canadian Embassy in Beijing, obtained by CBC News through an access to information request.

The message was dated June 1, three days before the Canadian diplomatic mission intended to display an image of a candle to mark the Tiananmen Square massacre's 37th anniversary. 

"The trees were planted on municipal property, approximately 0.5-1 metre from the embassy wall," Tan noted.

Another document released as part of the access to information package notes that in 2025, "the Chinese government sent a crane to suspend a large rectangular barrier in front of the screen of the embassy so that passersby could not see the candle."

 

Let me help:

 

 

 

 

Some People Are "Special"

The Indian Act should be abolished but I, too, wonder at Carney's demand to repeal it.

Is this a psy-op to create foment that it stays and the status quo remains?:

Chiefs said they wanted to use the gathering to discuss the federal government's controversial major projects legislation, health services, policing and public safety and the Natural Resources Transfer Acts.

Those resource agreements were negotiated with the Prairie Provinces at a time when First Nations were barred by the Indian Act from hiring their own lawyers. Chiefs have said those agreements should be abolished or changed to ensure resource development projects meaningfully benefit their communities.

But the main topic to come out of the closed-door meeting was Kinew's sudden call to abolish the Indian Act — something he acknowledged he didn't consult on with chiefs beforehand.

The law, which dates from 1876, gives Ottawa sweeping power over First Nations communities and people, including the authority to decide who qualifies for status and what reserves can and can’t do. While there is a widespread consensus that the law is outdated and restrictive, there's little agreement on what could or should replace it.

In an audio recording of the closed-door meeting obtained by The Canadian Press, Kinew referred to his own First Nations status card and said he would keep it until he dies or the Indian Act is abolished.

"The idea that we have a race-based identification in our country in 2026 is inconsistent, at the very least, with Canada being a leader for human rights and democracy around the world," Kinew, who is Anishinaabe, told Carney, chiefs and premiers.

"Typically, prime ministers are around for about a decade. And if we don't put it on the agenda for this prime minister, that means we'll be back here in 2036 and I'll still have my laminated plastic card …

"And to the chiefs who may be like, 'He didn't consult with us before he's saying this,' I just wanted to say I think this is consistent with what you're bringing forward here."

Kinew made similar remarks to media following the session.

In a closing press conference after the meeting with chiefs, Carney said he was "very open" to the idea of abolishing the Indian Act. He said it's important that the call came from community members and not the federal government.

 

 

This Remembrance Week

Homeless veterans are just like regular veterans in that they can be ignored, too:

“There can be a disconnect between compassion and bureaucracy when they bump into each other,” cautions retired Brig.-Gen. Alan Mulawyshyn. After 40 years in the Canadian Armed Forces — serving along the Iraq/Kuwait border, in Kosovo, and in Kandahar — he now heads Veterans’ House Canada, the non-profit that houses and supports homeless veterans.

“The day-to-day job is obviously housing homeless veterans, taking care of them, providing them supports,” he says, “but I think my second role is advocacy and awareness.” He has testified before the Senate subcommittee on veterans affairs and will talk to anyone who will listen to puncture the assumption that “there can’t be homeless veterans because of course why wouldn’t Veterans Affairs take care of them? We have a whole department. How can this be?”

Veterans Affairs Canada does some things well and some things poorly, he reports. Most veterans have case managers and can apply for disability and pain-and-suffering benefits; all good. The problem, he says, is that Veterans Affairs does nothing on the housing front: “There’s zero, there’s not a dollar in their budget for housing.”

** 

Why aren't we being told about CFB Wainwright?:

Fifteen Canadian soldiers remain on ventilators more than three weeks after the deadly fire at CFB Wainwright, according to information obtained by Global News.

A senior Alberta government official provided Global with a section of a confidential Alberta Health Services (AHS) briefing document after almost a week of unsuccessful attempts to get the Department of National Defence (DND) to disclose how many injured soldiers remained in critical condition. ...

The document, dated Nov. 5, provides a detailed breakdown of the conditions of soldiers who remain hospitalized following the fire at CFB Wainwright on Oct. 17 that killed four soldiers and injured 39. ...

The report showed that, as of Nov. 5, 21 soldiers remain hospitalized in Alberta.

Of that number, 10 were listed in critical condition, eight were stable in intensive care and three were stable in medical units.

By Nov. 9, the number of soldiers in critical condition had dropped to nine, while 12 were listed as stable across intensive care and medical units, an ACA spokeswoman confirmed.

Two weeks ago, 13 soldiers were in critical condition, according to officials.

Dr. Sayeh Zielke, interim CEO of Acute Care Alberta, told Global News that the hospitalized soldiers remained “gravely ill.”

She explained that some burn patients require prolonged ventilator assistance due to smoke inhalation or airway injuries, even when their condition is stable. Patients classified as critical typically require additional life-sustaining support, such as assistance with breathing or medications to maintain blood pressure.