Business
Australian senator compares Trudeau’s treatment of Freedom Convoy protesters to Communist China
From LifeSiteNews
‘This push towards a digital ID future is another step toward a Chinese Communist Party-style social credit system, which will force you to support the current thing at the risk of total cancellation,’ Senator Alex Antic said
An Australian senator compared Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s handling of the Freedom Convoy with Communist China.
During a November 13 meeting in the Australian Senate, Senator Alex Antic used the freezing of Canadians’ bank accounts during the 2022 Freedom Convoy as an example of the dangers of digital currency, comparing Trudeau’s actions with China’s social credit system.
“I’ve been warning about digital ID for some time, and it wasn’t so long ago that, like many of these issues which turn out to be correct, it was considered to be nothing but a conspiracy theory,” he said.
“We saw how that worked a couple of years ago with the financial cancellation of the Canadian truckers when they were protesting COVID lockdowns and restrictions,” Antic appealed. “The advancement of technology is inevitable, but this push towards a digital ID future is another step towards a Chinese Communist Party-style social credit system, which will force you to support the current thing at the risk of total cancellation.”
The Trudeau government’s similarities to China’s Communist government have become increasingly evident to both Canadians and other countries. Indeed, Trudeau himself admitted that he has a “level of admiration” for China’s “basic dictatorship.”
His imitation of China’s credit score system was revealed during the 2022 Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa with thousands of Canadians calling for an end to COVID mandates by camping outside Parliament.
In response, Trudeau’s government enacted the EA on February 14, 2022, to shut down the popular movement. Trudeau revoked the EA on February 23 after the protesters had been cleared out. At the time, seven of Canada’s 10 provinces opposed the use of the EA by Trudeau.
Under the EA, Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland froze the bank accounts of Canadians who donated to the 2022 Freedom Convoy, which protested vaccine mandates and COVID regulations.
As articulated by LifeSiteNews correspondent David James, this type of financial crackdown is precisely why many fear the move toward an entirely digital, cashless society.
“What Freeland has outlined is an unprecedented incursion into financial activity that is designed to lock the people whom the government deems to be undesirable out of the system entirely,” James wrote in an op-ed.
“It confirms what many have been warning about for some time: that one of the core elements of the so-called Great Reset is to enslave populations by surveilling and controlling their transactions,” he continued. “China has already implemented its version of digital tyranny with its Social Credit System, which it will combine with its Central Bank Digital Currency [CBDC]. Now Trudeau and Freeland have drawn back the curtain in Canada to reveal their version of digital despotism.”
Antic’s use of Canada as an example comes as governments around the world are pushing digital currency despite warnings that it will lead to a social credit system.
“Last week, the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union reached a final agreement on a law to create the European Digital Identity, or eID, the EU’s first fully digital identification system,” Antic announced.
“This law will provide Europeans with a digital wallet containing digital versions of their ID cards — their drivers licences, their academic certificates, their medical records, their bank account information and so on,” he explained. “The next major step in the EU will be to create a digital euro and a central bank digital currency, which is currently being developed by the European Central Bank.”
“I’ve been warning about digital ID for some time, and it wasn’t so long ago that, like many of these issues which turn out to be correct, it was considered to be nothing but a conspiracy theory,” he added.
Currently, Australia is moving toward introducing digital currency with consultation on the bill having recently closed.
“You can see how it’s going to happen: We’ll get a digital currency and, once those steps are in place, a digital snare trap will have been created,” Antic warned. “We must reject a digital ID future, and time is running out for people in this place to understand that they are playing with fire.”
Business
CBC’s business model is trapped in a very dark place
I Testified Before a Senate Committee About the CBC
I recently testified before the Senate Committee for Transport and Communications. You can view that session here. Even though the official topic was CBC’s local programming in Ontario, everyone quickly shifted the discussion to CBC’s big-picture problems and how their existential struggles were urgent and immediate. The idea that deep and fundamental changes within the corporation were unavoidable seemed to enjoy complete agreement.
I’ll use this post as background to some of the points I raised during the hearing.
You might recall how my recent post on CBC funding described a corporation shedding audience share like dandruff while spending hundreds of millions of dollars producing drama and comedy programming few Canadians consume. There are so few viewers left that I suspect they’re now identified by first name rather than as a percentage of the population.
Since then I’ve learned a lot more about CBC performance and about the broadcast industry in general.
For instance, it’ll surprise exactly no one to learn that fewer Canadians get their audio from traditional radio broadcasters. But how steep is the decline? According to the CRTC’s Annual Highlights of the Broadcasting Sector 2022-2023, since 2015, “hours spent listening to traditional broadcasting has decreased at a CAGR of 4.8 percent”. CAGR, by the way, stands for compound annual growth rate.
Dropping 4.8 percent each year means audience numbers aren’t just “falling”; they’re not even “falling off the edge of a cliff”; they’re already close enough to the bottom of the cliff to smell the trees. Looking for context? Between English and French-language radio, the CBC spends around $240 million each year.
Those listeners aren’t just disappearing without a trace. the CRTC also tells us that Canadians are increasingly migrating to Digital Media Broadcasting Units (DMBUs) – with numbers growing by more than nine percent annually since 2015.
The CBC’s problem here is that they’re not a serious player in the DMBU world, so they’re simply losing digital listeners. For example, of the top 200 Spotify podcasts ranked by popularity in Canada, only four are from the CBC.
Another interesting data point I ran into related to that billion dollar plus annual parliamentary allocation CBC enjoys. It turns out that that’s not the whole story. You may recall how the government added another $42 million in their most recent budget.
But wait! That’s not all! Between CBC and SRC, the Canada Media Fund (CMF) ponied up another $97 million for fiscal 2023-2024 to cover specific programming production budgets.
Technically, Canada Media Fund grants target individual projects planned by independent production companies. But those projects are usually associated with the “envelope” of one of the big broadcasters – of which CBC is by far the largest. 2023-2024 CMF funding totaled $786 million, and CBC’s take was nearly double that of their nearest competitor (Bell).
But there’s more! Back in 2016, the federal budget included an extra $150 million each year as a “new investment in Canadian arts and culture”. It’s entirely possible that no one turned off the tap and that extra government cheque is still showing up each year in the CBC’s mailbox. There was also a $93 million item for infrastructure and technological upgrades back in the 2017-2018 fiscal year. Who knows whether that one wasn’t also carried over.
So CBC’s share of government funding keeps growing while its share of Canadian media consumers shrinks. How do you suppose that’ll end?
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Business
PBO report shows cost of bureaucracy up 73 per cent under Trudeau
From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on the federal government to rein in the bureaucracy following today’s Parliamentary Budget Officer report showing the bureaucracy costs taxpayers $69.5 billion.
“The cost of the federal bureaucracy increased by 73 per cent since 2016, but it’s a good bet most Canadians aren’t seeing anywhere close to 73 per cent better services from the government,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Taxpayers are getting soaked because the size and cost of the federal bureaucracy is out of control.”
Today’s PBO report estimates the federal bureaucracy cost taxpayers $69.5 billion in 2023-24. In 2016-17, the cost of the bureaucracy was $40.2 billion. That’s an increase of 72.9 per cent.
The most recent data shows the cost continues to rise quickly.
“Spending on personnel in the first five months of 2024-25 is up 8.0 per cent over the same period last year,” according to the PBO.
“I have noticed a marked increase in the number of public servants since 2016 and a proportional increase in spending,” said Parliamentary Budget Officer Yves Giroux. “But we haven’t seen similar improvements when it comes to service.”
The Trudeau government added 108,793 bureaucrats since 2016 – a 42 per cent increase. Canada’s population grew by 14 per cent during the same period. Had the bureaucracy only increased with population growth, there would be 72,491 fewer federal employees today.
The government awarded more than one million pay raises to bureaucrats in the last four years, according to access-to-information records obtained by the CTF. The government also rubberstamped $406 million in bonuses last year.
“The government added tens of thousands of extra bureaucrats, rubberstamped hundreds of millions in bonuses and awarded more than one million pay raises and all taxpayers seem to get out of it is higher taxes and more debt,” Terrazzano said. “For the government to balance the budget and provide tax relief, it will need to cut the size and cost of Ottawa’s bloated bureaucracy.”
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