Canada’s gun control debate has been Americanised and the consequences are real - "“I would say most Canadians follow American news more closely than they do Canadian news,” the University of the Fraser Valley’s Dr. Noah S. Schwartz tells The Hub. “American news about guns dominates how the public understands this issue. It’s very easy for political actors to take that understanding and use it to push legislation that’s not in the public interest. The literature on banning specific types of weapons shows pretty clearly that it’s not effective.” An American framing also affects how Canadian media reports on guns. “Whenever I was asked for comment after a shooting in the U.S., the most common question I heard was, ‘Why does that happen so often down there, and so infrequently up here?’” Daniel Fritter, the editor of Calibre, says. “I haven’t heard that question for years. Now the most common questions parrot those of U.S. interviewers: ‘How can we prevent this from happening? Who needs guns anyway?’” Canadians consume American news, Canadian media reports through an American lens, and politicians take advantage of both to present palatable but ineffective gun control initiatives. “When the government announced the handgun freeze, they referenced the Uvalde shooting, even though handgun control in the U.S. versus Canada is night and day,” Dr. Schwartz says. “The licensing process in Canada for someone to own a handgun is strict. So I think politicians can take advantage of that American news cycle. Many Canadians don’t appreciate the differences between gun regulation here and there.” Before the freeze, a Canadian looking to buy a handgun had to complete a safety course, take multiple tests, prove their status as a collector or shooting range patron, provide the approval or contact information of every partner they’d lived with in the last two years, apply and wait at least 28 days for a firearms permit, complete an extensive background check, and register their handgun with the police... Not coincidentally, experts argued the handgun freeze would be ineffective as the vast majority of handguns used in Canadian crimes are smuggled from the United States. Canadian gun violence has risen since the 2010s, but its causes, outcomes, and potential solutions are uniquely Canadian, and to pretend we are simply Diet America does not help us find solutions. Canada and the United States have radically different firearm cultures. We must understand Canadian gun culture and the causes of Canadian gun violence, not cynically point at American headlines and decree that we will put an end to the problems of another country. The former is difficult and would require a tremendous amount of political capital. The latter is empty posturing that threatens to trap us in an unproductive spiral of blame and waste... Prime Minister Trudeau has cited mass shootings and domestic violence against women as major drivers of C-21, but firearms were present (not necessarily used) at 0.006 percent of cases of intimate partner violence in 2019. Mass shootings, meanwhile, remain exceedingly rare in Canada. We had no mass shootings in 2021; the United States had, according to the Gun Violence Archive’s definition, 693, for a total of 703 fatalities and 2,842 injuries. That may serve as a cold comfort if a loved one has been a victim, but the Nova Scotia shooter smuggled their firearms from Maine, while the Danforth shooter acquired his smuggled gun through a gang connection. Other recent mass killings have been committed with a van and knives. Meanwhile, we are slowly importing another element of American gun culture: the virulence of our conversations surrounding guns."
Liberal wedge issues are important to win elections. The liberals who keep claiming conservatives are pursuing culture wars are stupid because there're real cost of living issues to take care of (when it's really just a reaction to liberal excess - apparently cost of living issues shouldn't stop liberals trying to push their agenda) are happy to go on about guns
‘Unprovoked stabbing’ in Vancouver sends New Zealand tourist to hospital - BC : canada - "Criminal law: federal jurisdiction.
Criminal sentences guidelines in the Criminal Code: federal jurisdiction.
appointing judges: federal jurisdiction.
appointing appellant court justices (who create shitty case law): federal jurisdiction.
crown attorneys: federal jurisdiction.
Hiring police officer who catch criminals who the feds release: provincial jurisdiction."
Liberals keep claiming the federal government has nothing to do with crime, despite their pro-crime policies
Justice Minister Arif Virani gaslights Canadians on crime - "The federal Liberals’ new communication strategy appears to be doubling down on their signature tactic: gaslighting Canadians into thinking there’s no problem and, if that fails, blaming them for thinking there’s a problem at all... newly minted Justice Minister Arif Virani is telling Canadians their concerns about crime may be all in their heads. He told Reuters: “I think that empirically it’s unlikely” Canada is becoming less safe. ”But I think there’s a sense coming out of the pandemic that people’s safety is more in jeopardy.” The facts disagree with him. According to a report by Statistics Canada last week, “Police-reported crime in Canada, as measured by the Crime Severity Index (CSI), increased for the second consecutive year, up four per cent in 2022. The Violent CSI rose in 2022, reaching its highest point since 2007.”... Random crime has a particularly damaging psychological impact on people. When average Canadians feel they lack any sort of control, that no matter what measures they take, they won’t be safe — that’s a special, heightened type of fear. When this fear takes hold, crime becomes more than a public safety issue. It grows into a larger societal and economic one. Studies show random crime makes people stay closer to home, or even inside their homes, dampening economic activity and hurting small businesses in particular. Even worse, much of the random violent crime as of late has been preventable: perpetrators are commonly found to be on bail or probation, often with lengthy criminal histories. Canadians are right to be angry that their justice system is clearly failing them, allowing violent criminals to reoffend time and time again."
Crime is unlike anything Canada's seen, and it's getting worse - "Statistics Canada figures released just last week had Canada’s 2022 Violent Crime Severity Index higher than at any point since 2007. Homicide rates — the most reliable measure of violent crime rates — are hitting 30-year highs. In 2022, Canada recorded 2.25 homicides per 100,000, the highest since 1992... More Canadian police are now being killed in the line of duty than ever before. Between 1961 and 2009, an average of two to three law-enforcement officers were murdered on duty each year. But in just the last 10 months, eight police officers have been killed, often in targeted ambush attacks. Cities across Canada are also facing down the terrifying new phenomena of “stranger attacks.” Random, unprovoked killings are still statistically rare, but they’re no longer anomalous... an Angus Reid Institute survey found that a clear majority of Canadians (60 per cent) were reporting that crime in their neighbourhoods was on the increase. As for what’s causing this, Canadians are largely in agreement that this is a policy issue. In a wide-ranging June poll conducted by Leger, near-unanimous numbers of Canadian respondents blamed the crime wave on a justice system that was too “lenient” on violent offenders, particularly when it came to the issue of bail. An incredible 79 per cent of respondents agreed with the statement that “there are too many repeat violent offenders being offered bail.”... Perhaps most notably, shootings have doubled since 2015, despite Prime Minister Justin Trudeau championing the issue of gun control and introduced some of the most sweeping gun bans ever pursued by a Canadian government. Meanwhile, everyone from First Nations leaders to mayors to police departments to an unanimous declaration of all 13 premiers have been saying for months on end that a significant chunk of this crime would be remarkably easy to stop. In the April words of the Council of the Federation — the organization representing Canada’s premiers — much of this violence could be brought to an end if the federal government would take action against the scourge of “violent crimes committed by repeat offenders.” It’s not necessarily that more people are getting bail now; the vast majority of accused offenders have always been set free in advance of a court date. It’s that new bail guidelines have utterly gutted the ability of police to enforce even the most rudimentary bail conditions. In cases of violent charges, it’s typical for a bail hearing to impose conditions on an accused; someone accused of sexual assault may be instructed to avoid contact with the alleged victim, for instance. Prior to a suite of Liberal bail reforms introduced in 2019, any violation of such conditions would typically result in immediate detention. But now, the more typical response is simply more bail. “When bail/release is being considered for repeat offenders, it’s hard to establish that they have a significant past history of not respecting the conditions imposed on them, which makes it far more likely they’ll receive bail over and over,” Michael Gendron, spokesperson for the Canadian Police Association, told the National Post in April. Despite this, Ottawa is dragging its feet on even the most milquetoast of reforms. It was March when now-former justice minister David Lametti first acknowledged that some “targeted” changes to bail might be needed “to maintain the public’s confidence in the administration of justice.” It took another two months before his ministry finally issued Bill C-48, an eight-page bail reform proposal that, according to legal analysts, would be largely ineffective in changing the status quo. For one thing, it imposes no hard guidelines on bail sentencing. For judges who have gotten accustomed to immediately granting bail to high-risk offenders, there’s nothing in the bill explicitly compelling them to stop. And even then, the bill has been stuck in limbo ever since May, with no prospect of getting picked up again until at least Sept. 18, when the House of Common reconvenes."
Here comes Ottawa's second carbon tax - "The second carbon tax is buried in the Clean Fuel Regulations, which mandate that fuel companies reduce the carbon intensity of the fuels that they produce. When producers can’t meet federally imposed standards, they will have to pay for credits. Because the companies aren’t charitable institutions those costs inevitably will be passed on to consumers — i.e., any Canadian who buys gasoline or diesel... The PBO estimates it will remove $9 billion from the economy. That’s a big hit when too many Canadians are already worrying about making their mortgage or rent payments on time. And it’s not clear it will reduce overall Canadian emissions, which increased during the first year of the first carbon tax. (It’s almost certain not to reduce global emissions: Canada is only responsible for 1.5 per cent of those. As the PBO puts it: “Canada’s own emissions are not large enough to materially impact climate change.”) The PBO says the second carbon tax is “broadly regressive [meaning] the cost to lower income households represents a larger share of their disposable income compared to higher income households.” So the second carbon tax won’t help the environment much but it will hurt folks who can afford it least"
Liberals just blame greedy companies for not absorbing costs
Canadians now paying two carbon taxes while majority of countries are without national one - "Federal director of Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Franco Terrazzano, told The Sam Laprade Show on Aug. 8, the federal government has added a carbon tax of 14 cents per litre of gas for provinces and territories. But he noted, Quebec was granted a special deal on tax, at 10 cents per litre. Terrazzano’s calling on the Trudeau government to make life more affordable for Canadians, at a time when the costs of necessities like groceries and gas are skyrocketing. “Atlantic Canada will be getting hammered this winter as the carbon tax is applied on home heating oil at 17 cents per litre,” said Terrazzano. While Canada’s climate change plan is aimed at lowering Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions, carbon tax hikes are increasing the cost of food for all Canadians, he added. With higher fuel costs, transport costs are also rising and this means food delivery to grocery stores will be more expensive. “When you make it more expensive for farmers out in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario, to dry grain with natural gas or propane, you make food delivered to the store more expensive as well,” explained Terrazzano. According to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, Canada’s parliamentary budget officer relayed that average families in Ontario are paying an estimated $470 this year in carbon taxes, after rebates are factored in. On July 1, Nova Scotia was by hit the largest carbon tax hike in Canadian history, jumping from about a two-cent per litre in tax to an estimated 14 cents per litre – with the federal carbon tax adding 12 cents per litre of fuel... “What’s frustrating is that Nova Scotia was actually leading the way when it comes to emission reductions. They reduced emissions from 2005 levels by about 36 per cent without the massive carbon tax hike the Trudeau government has imposed.” While an estimated 75 percent of countries don’t require their citizens to pay a national carbon tax, Canadians are facing two carbon taxes at a time when the cost of living is soaring, he pointed out. To the contrary, many countries are cutting gas taxes, including Australia, New Zealand, Netherlands, and Germany, explained Terrazzano. South Korea has also cut gas taxes by 30 per cent and the UK has provided its citizens with millions of dollars in gas tax relief... “We all want to help the environment but having carbon taxes that make fueling up a mini van or filing up a grocery cart more expensive, this does nothing to reduce emissions in places like China, India, Russia or the United States, where emissions are really a problem.”"
I see liberals claiming that there is no good time, so it should just be applied now
Liberal logic - out of sight, out of mind. Importing products made in places without carbon taxes doesn't harm the environment, so domestic industry and economy need to be destroyed to virtue signal with no benefit to the environment
Atlantic provinces 'worse off' with federal carbon tax by 2030: PBO - "Most households in Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland and Labrador will be “worse off” as a result of the carbon tax by 2030, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer latest report... Giroux said his office took into account a more sluggish economic growth with a carbon tax to come to these conclusions, and found that Nova Scotia, P.E.I. and Newfoundland and Labrador would follow the same trajectory as the other provinces, which is a net loss for most individuals and households on average. “Most households will be worse off when you take into account this slightly lower economic activity,” he said. “So only the bottom quintile is better off, but everybody else is likely worse.”... Terry Duguid, who is parliamentary secretary to the minister of environment and climate change, brushed off Poilievre’s accusations and repeated his party’s talking point that eight out of 10 families would be better off with the federal carbon pricing regime. He said it would mean up to $1,000 for families in Nova Scotia or P.E.I. and $1,300 in Newfoundland and Labrador. Giroux said that Liberals are simply looking at the carbon tax paid by individuals and households, minus the rebate they get to come to that conclusion. But he said they are not taking into account the cost of business going up and job displacement as the tax increases. “It’s just looking at this issue from one angle,” he said. “When you look at the other aspects, the broader impact on the economy, and the related impact on the household, then I think it’s a more accurate picture of the overall cost borne by households.”"
I still see liberals spread the lie that most people are better off under the carbon tax, even though the non-partisan PBO has previously refuted this fake news
Exclusive report reveals Liberals appoint judges who donate to party
Shootings double under Trudeau, crime up overall since 2015 | Toronto Sun - "outside of 2020, the year of pandemic lockdowns, the crime severity index tracked by Statistics Canada has gone up every year... It’s violent crime that is up the most during Trudeau’s tenure from a ranking of 75.3 in 2015, the year he was elected, to 97.7 in 2022. In fact, one of the most shocking statistics is that during Trudeau’s time in office shootings across Canada have doubled... How can it be that shootings doubled during those years given all the times Justin Trudeau and his ministers have stood before the cameras saying they would crack down on gun crime? Could it be, as I and other wise people have pointed out, that Trudeau’s gun control policies focus more on farmers and duck hunters than the criminals who cause the crime? To back up that claim, gun crime has never been higher in the last 20 years... Overall, the crime severity index has gone up by 18% since Trudeau took office while the violent crime severity index has gone up 27.5% since Trudeau became PM... “Gang murders have more than doubled, and violent gun crime has increased for the eighth year in a row.” Dancho pointed out that the murder rate is the highest it has been in 30 years. Yet, time after time, as criminal shoot up Canada’s streets, Trudeau comes out with new laws like Bill C-21 that seek to ban hunting rifles, that make life more difficult for legal, licenced gun owners. When it comes to criminals, Trudeau and his Liberal government take the opposite approach and try to make life easier for them. With Bill C-75, the Trudeau Liberals made it easier for criminals to get bail telling judges and justices of the peace they needed to show restraint and offer bail as fast as possible under the least onerous conditions. With Bill C-83, passed shortly after C-75, the Liberals made it easier for serious, violent criminals, like Paul Bernardo, to move to a medium security prison by requiring the least restrictive conditions as part of the jail conditions. With Bill C-5, passed in November 2022, the Trudeau Liberals dropped mandatory minimum sentences, including gun smuggling and trafficking because who needs to ensure that those who come across our borders with illegal guns are held to account. The Trudeau government has adopted a hug-a-thug approach to gun crime, something that is now showing up in the statistics in the worst way."
I doubt this will stop liberals claiming that policing is a provincial responsibility, so blaming Trudeau/the federal government is fake news
Don Wright: Why did Justin Trudeau switch sides in the 'class struggle?' - "In 2014, Justin Trudeau wrote an op-ed arguing that the Stephen Harper government should dramatically scale back the Temporary Foreign Worker (TFW) program. His reasoning was sound – both in moral terms and in economic terms. He wrote: “I believe it is wrong for Canada to follow the path of countries who exploit large numbers of guest workers.” He also pointed out that large numbers of TFWs “drives down wages.” We might have expected, therefore, that things would change under his leadership. And indeed, they have. Between 2015 and 2022 the number of TFWs in Canada doubled! But TFWs are actually only a small fraction of total Non-Permanent Residents (NPR) with work permits in Canada. There is another category known as the “International Mobility Program” (IMP) which provides work permits for international students, graduates of post-secondary programs and other categories. The number of IMP work permit holders almost tripled between 2015 and 2022. In total, NPRs with work permits now exceed 1.1 million people – and have grown from 2.1 per cent to 5.5 per cent of the Canadian labour force... he eliminated the restriction on the number of hours that international students could work while they are supposedly studying. Previously, the limit was 20 hours a week. There are no limits on the number of international students that can be granted a student permit. All they need is acceptance from a “Designated Learning Institution.” In addition to the publicly funded universities, colleges and institutions, there are a large number of private, for-profit colleges that are in this business as well. One doesn’t have to be too cynical to imagine that some private college operators would market themselves as a way to get a work permit in Canada, with a possible path to permanent resident status down the road, with the quality of the education being offered of secondary importance. Indeed, a casual search of the web will uncover many such stories... Statistics Canada reports that, even with high educational attainment, NPRs were in occupations requiring no formal education proportionately more than the rest of the Canadian population."
A majority of Canadians think Ottawa spends too much: poll - "Two in three Canadians think the amount they pay in income taxes is too high and fewer than one in four Canadians believe the federal government spends on the right priorities... two in three Canadians recognize that increased government spending contributes to inflation... Respondents were also more likely to be against carbon pricing (45 per cent) than in support (41 per cent), with the Atlantic provinces representing the strongest opposition at 68 per cent... six in 10 Canadians are dissatisfied with the accountability and transparency of the federal government’s spending... Canadians are feeling the pressures of inflation when it comes to summer plans, with a third of respondents changing or cancelling their vacation plans. Of those opting to change their plans, 43 per cent said they are looking for less expensive accommodation options, while 41 per cent are cutting back on activities and attractions and 39 per cent are taking a shorter trip. The survey of 1,526 Canadians, conducted by Leger, also found that nearly half of the respondents have cut back on dining out, though they won’t find much reprieve at grocery stores, with food prices rising 9.1 per cent last month"
Pierre Poilievre on Twitter - "StatsCan reveals that gun violence is up 101% after 8 years of Trudeau. Go figure: banning hunters and licensed sport shooters doesn’t stop crime. Stopping gangsters and gun smugglers will. #CommonSense"
Meme - "TRUDEAU USES THE SAME TRICKS
The Trudeau scandal playbook:
1. Deny you did anything.
2. Okay you did something, but it wasn't wrong.
3. Okay you did something wrong, but you totally did it for the good of Canadians!
4. Okay it wasn't really for the benefit of Canadians, but it was a mistake and you're really sorry!
5. Ignore all questions, obstruct all investigations, hope it goes away. Start harping on a wedge issue to divert attention.
We are currently on step 4."
TWITTER TROLLS FOR TRUDEAU: Expect mean tweets if you criticize PM! | Toronto Sun
Of course, the media only go on about right wing "trolls"
Government operating spending exploded during pandemic: report - "The federal government’s operating spending exploded over the pandemic, jumping by nearly $30 billion since 2019 thanks in large part to “record” growth of the public service, according to a new report... “That was surprising considering the levels of service and the issues that government had with delivering services that Canadians expect,” Giroux said. “One would have expected the size of the public service to have grown, yes, but not that much, considering that we’re not getting outstanding services.”... That increased spending on employees was driven by the three largest federal organizations, the Canada Revenue Agency, the Department of National Defence and the RCMP, his report notes. Giroux said it makes sense that CRA had to hire a bunch of new workers to help administer all the COVID-19 pandemic benefits, but he struggles to justify the increase at DND and the RCMP... Giroux also pointed to a sizable jump in the public service’s spending on consulting and external services over the past two years as contributing to the government’s operating costs... the Liberals tabled the 2023 budget that promised to cut spending across federal departments by 3 per cent, as well as find over $7 billion in savings on consulting and travel costs within the public service. But Giroux says that he’ll believe that when he sees it"
The Trudeau Liberals' long, sordid history with McKinsey - "It’s a very good thing that public attention and opposition inquiries are at last promising to shed light on the opaque and strangely intimate relationship between the Trudeau Liberals and McKinsey and Company, the global management consultancy that mutated into a service agency for dictators, oligarchs and corporate drug pushers. Its former boss was Dominic Barton, the longtime Trudeau confidant and Canada’s former ambassador to China... It looks like a simple matter of CBC News having posted on its website a translation of a Radio-Canada investigation into McKinsey’s growing footprint at the federal level, which grew from Radio-Canada’s persistent investigations of the Quebec government’s contracts with McKinsey, including a $35,000-a- day arrangement relating to advice on managing the COVID-19 pandemic at the same time that one of McKinsey’s key contracts was with the vaccine producer Pfizer... If the Opposition is serious about digging into McKinsey’s relationship with the Trudeau Liberals they’re going to have to go back a long way, back to the days before Trudeau was even his party’s leader in the House of Commons. When Trudeau was crafting his platform during the Liberal leadership campaign, McKinsey provided the statistics and growth forecasts to bolster Trudeau’s vision of Canada as China’s global supplier of raw materials and the world’s prime beneficiary of Chinese direct investment. After Trudeau’s election in 2015, he outsourced his blue-chip advisory council on economic growth to McKinsey, in its entirety. Chaired by Barton, the council’s payroll, administration, research and analysis were all supplied by McKinsey, “pro-bono.” That’s a common company practice, especially in the United States: Come up with the big ideas, then get the contracts and the plum government jobs to put those ideas to work. Among the advisory council’s main policy proposals adopted by cabinet — boost annual immigration targets to 500,000 a year. Another free McKinsey idea was the $35 billion Singapore-style Canada Infrastructure Bank, most notable for its refusal to answer Parliament’s questions about bonuses paid to its executives. Last year the Commons transport committee voted to shut down the bank, but it carries on, with former McKinsey partner Ehren Cory as its chief executive officer and former McKinsey associate Aneil Jaswal as its director of sector strategies... Questions of the most indelicate kind are being asked of French president Emmanuel Macron these days, now that he and his party are being investigated in a corruption scandal in France. A dozen McKinsey staffers worked on Macron’s election campaign, and one of the questions French prosecutors have been asking is how it came to pass that McKinsey appears to have paid no taxes in France for a decade. The leading French pollster Frédéric Dabi says the scandal is turning into “slow poison” for Macron’s government. Then there’s South Africa, where McKinsey is facing criminal charges related to a corruption scandal involving payoffs and sweetheart deals with the state-owned freight rail operator."
