National
Jordan Peterson calls for public apology from Trudeau over accusations about ties to Russia
From LifeSiteNews
The prominent psychologist is also considering legal action against Canada’s prime minister.
Popular psychologist Dr. Jordan Peterson demanded an apology from Justin Trudeau after the Canadian prime minister accused him last week of being funded by Russian state media.
In a X post on Friday, Peterson wrote, “Dear @JustinTrudeau Here are the options: 1. I am a Russian agent and traitor 2. You are a liar. 3. You are incompetent.”
Peterson observed that “before we assume the first is true some shred of evidence, no matter how flimsy, should be adduced.”
“If none is forthcoming, then one or both of the next two possibilities must be true,” he wrote.
Peterson then asked for an apology from Canada’s leader.
“Furthermore, a maximally public apology (that means press conference) is due. Your move Sir Take note @TuckerCarlson.”
In another X post on the same day, Peterson made fun of Trudeau’s claims by posting a fake image of himself wearing a Russian hat, saying the leader should use the (fake) photos to implicate him.
“Here Use this @JustinTrudeau It’s more convincing than Whatever You have For sure,” he wrote.
As reported by LifeSiteNews last week, Trudeau claimed U.S. media personality Tucker Carlson and Peterson are being funded by the state media outlet Russia Today. He also blamed Russia for “amplifying the chaos” surrounding the 2022 Freedom Convoy protests.
Trudeau made the claim last Wednesday under oath during testimony at the Foreign Interference Commission, after he was asked about Russia’s alleged role in the Freedom Convoy.
Peterson, as reported by LifeSiteNews, confirmed he is considering legal action against the prime minister.
Meanwhile, Trudeau has praised China for its “basic dictatorship” and has labeled the authoritarian nation as his favorite country other than his own.
Peterson for his part has been critical of Trudeau and his Liberal government for years.
Frontier Centre for Public Policy
To Truly Help Indigenous Communities Prosper, We Must Put the Economic Horse Before the Political Cart
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has surprised a lot of people by placing a real emphasis on his party’s relationship with Indigenous peoples. Not only has he recruited high-profile Indigenous politicians like Ellis Ross and Chief Billy Morin to be candidates, but he’s even addressed the annual meeting of the Assembly of First Nations.
As he thinks about how best to translate these efforts of engagement and outreach into a practical policy agenda, he ought to prioritize economic reconciliation over certain political reforms. This is a balance that the Trudeau government has failed to abide by.
In November 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a statement on the 25th anniversary of the final report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples (RCAP)—a massive five-volume report containing 440 recommendations covering most areas of Canada’s Indigenous life.
The prime minister proudly stated his government followed through on one RCAP recommendation: In 2017, it established the Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and North Affairs and the Department of Indigenous Services as separate departments.
Yet his government neglected—like others before it—a much more significant recommendation: the creation of economically viable and eventually self-sufficient Indigenous communities.
The result is that most Indigenous governments in Canada—even self-governing modern treaty governments—are no closer to achieving RCAP’s vision of self-sufficient Indigenous governments.
It reflects a consistent problem in the discourse about advancing progress towards the overall goal of reconciliation. Indigenous activists and scholars too often put the politics of self-government before economics.
They advocate for independent political institutions, but without a realistic economic plan, these institutions will not be free of federal economic paternalism.
They fail to put the political cart behind the economic horse.
Over 20 years ago, Dene leader Stephen Kakfwi told an interviewer that First Nations seeking self-government must first consider their community’s financial viability. No government in the world, he said, provided free housing, free education, and free government. Kakfwi wisely observed that this would not create self-reliant individuals, families, and communities.
So, what will ensure a path toward economic viability for Indigenous communities that leave the Indian Act? Long-term data on Indigenous communities provides answers.
The National Indigenous Economic Development Board (NIEDB)’s flagship Aboriginal Economic Benchmarking Report found a recurring positive correlation between greater control over land and resources and higher socio-economic outcomes.
The NIEDB’s research reveals Canada’s modern treaty process provides the greatest Indigenous economic freedom because it provides the most significant control over land and resources. Modern treaties are land claims agreements signed since the 1970s between the Crown and First Nations, in which Indigenous parties abandon reserves and federal oversight. They involve wide-reaching control over lands and resources and often self-governing institutions.
These agreements provide a favourable investment climate and create greater potential for economic development and growth by instilling certainty over rights to land and resources.
Consider two case studies, one in the U.S. and one in Canada, to understand this fully.
First is the 1971 Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA). The second is the 1984 Inuvialuit Final Agreement (IFA). Both agreements involved Northern Indigenous groups extinguishing rights and title in exchange for cash and full control over lands and resources. Both agreements created arm’s length corporate structures to make sound business and investment decisions for the community.
Through ANCSA, U.S. Congress provided Alaska Natives with a total cash settlement of $962.5 million and title to surface and sub-surface to 40 million acres.
ANCSA turned the Alaska Native communities into for-profit regional and village corporations with legal obligations to generate profits for their shareholders.
Alaska Natives would not allow these entities to become regular corporations. They banned selling and trading shares on the open market. They adopted ancestral restrictions on shareholder eligibility to prevent takeovers.
Alaska Native communities used their revenues to establish a fiscal relationship between all corporations that included resource revenue sharing.
As a result, ANCSA created a significant socio-economic change within the Alaska Native population and shifted from subsistence-based activities toward a more middle-class existence over a few decades.
The corporation’s economic power rested on natural resource wealth (oil and timber). However, wise investment of settlement monies and resource revenues into other businesses and ventures ensures future economic viability.
Now, turning to Canada.
The Inuvialuit of the Western Arctic signed the Inuvialuit Final Agreement (IFA) with the federal government. The IFA created two institutions, the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation (IRC) and the Inuvialuit Game Council to oversee wildlife. The IRC corporate structure encompasses six community corporations.
The Inuvialuit Development Corporation (IDC) was the IRC’s business unit. The IDC invested settlement monies into business ventures within and outside the settlement region, focusing on creating Inuvialuit jobs. The IDC created over 20 subsidiary businesses and joint ventures in seven major business sectors. They invested in construction, manufacturing, environmental services, transportation, tourism and hospitality, real estate, and petroleum servicing.
The Inuvialuit Investment Corporation (IIC) is the IRC’s second subsidiary. IIC protects Inuvialuit funds, earns a five percent long-term return, and manages Inuvialuit corporation investment funds. Inuvialuit Social Development Fund—the non-income generating part of the IRC—provides Inuvialuit housing, health, welfare, education, and traditional language services.
The IFA created significant socio-economic change within the Inuvialuit Settlement Region, paralleling changes within Alaska Native society after the ANCSA. The two communities differ because the promised Mackenzie Valley Pipeline project never materialized for the Inuvialuit while the Trans Alaskan Pipeline did.
One wonders how the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline could have economically improved the condition of the Inuvialuit.
So, can one conclude Indigenous communities cannot achieve economic viability without substantial natural resources? Not necessarily. Indigenous communities without substantial natural resources tend to adopt two other economic development strategies: 1) expanding land holdings, including valuable urban lands; and 2) developing high-value-added, reserve-based businesses and niche industries.
Studies by the Fraser Institute and the C.D. Howe Institute reveal that many First Nations in Canada have access to their own source revenues. A 2016 Fraser study found at least 100 First Nations at that time had access to their own source revenues that exceeded government transfers.
To replicate such successes, Ottawa must fundamentally re-orient its Indigenous policy.
The federal government—in working with First Nations seeking freedom from the Indian Act and reserve system—must develop realistic economic viability plans before signing agreements. Ottawa must place economic success and viability at the centre of its Indigenous policy approach. New agreements must include for-profit corporate structures. Ottawa must provide Indigenous communities with the fiscal tools they need to succeed, including self-taxation powers and the ability to easily expand their land base for economic purposes.
Finally, Ottawa must recognize that future Indigenous economic viability hinges on the future of Canada’s resource economy. Governments must abandon green transition policies that run counter to future Indigenous viability.
First published here.
Joseph Quesnel is a Senior Research fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
Education
Saskatchewan school board defends policy to allow boys in girls’ change rooms despite parents’ protests
From LifeSiteNews
The rural Saskatchewan school district’s director of education said ‘it is the right thing to do for our students, staff and school communities’ to allow biological boys to use the same locker room as girls who feel uncomfortable about the situation.
Despite an outcry from concerned parents, a Canadian school board told them it supports allowing gender-confused boys access to girls’ change rooms.
Last week, LifeSiteNews reported about Balgonie Elementary School in rural Saskatchewan where a female seventh grader told her parents she was not comfortable sharing changing rooms for gym class with gender-confused biological males.
Despite the outcry, the Prairie Valley School Division (PVSD) in a recent email sent to parents claimed that the school division’s inclusivity policy trumps the rights of girls from being victimized by gender-confused boys.
“One important part of creating these safe and welcoming spaces is ensuring our schools operate in a way that respects the human rights, dignity and privacy expectations of all students and their families,” PVSD director of education Gord Husband wrote in an email to parents.
Husband said the school division’s policies and procedures are “carefully aligned with the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, the Canadian Human Rights Act and the Saskatchewan Human Rights Code.”
“We operate according to these documents not only because it is our legal obligation, but also because it is the right thing to do for our students, staff and school communities,” he added.
Husband’s email did not mention the issue at Balgonie Elementary directly but instead claimed it was a “human rights” issue and asked all parents to support “all students.”
The father of the girl, who remains anonymous, said that after his daughter raised the issue of the biological males using the girls’ locker room, saying she “felt uncomfortable,” she was told, “she can change in a different room by herself.”
The issue drew the attention of Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe. He said that his first “order of business” should he be re-elected to lead the province will be to ban gender-confused boys from accessing girls’ change rooms in public schools.
As reported by the Western Standard, the gender-confused boys using the girls’ change rooms are in fact those of Saskatchewan NDP MLA Jared Clarke.
One of the concerned parents noted that learning this fact is “insane.”
“Wow, that’s insane, Sask NDP candidate from the NDP party, but not surprised that someone from that party would do that to a child. The NDP is really pushing that agenda and it’s so disturbing,” said the parent, as reported by the Western Standard.
Saskatchewan’s provincial election will be held October 28.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, LGBT indoctrination targeting kids has been on the rise in Canada and worldwide, leading to Canadians fighting back in protest.
Earlier this week, LifeSiteNews reported that a leading female gender ideology activist, who also worked as a school counselor, has been charged with grievous sexual offenses involving a minor.
Provinces such as Alberta, New Brunswick, and Saskatchewan have in recent months proposed legislation that would strengthen parental rights.
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