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National

BC election officials still need to count 65k ballots in virtual tie between Conservatives, NDP

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3 hours ago

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

“Final count process for B.C.’s provincial election is scheduled to begin on October 26 and will conclude on October 28.” 

Election officials in the province of British Columbia now say there are 65,000 ballots yet to be counted, up from 45,000 following last Saturday’s election that has the Conservative Party and the reigning New Democratic Party in a virtual tie. 

In an election count update Thursday, Elections B.C. says during its “screening process” it now estimates that “approximately 65,000 ballots will be counted as part of final count,” which is significantly more than the original 45,000 estimate.  

According to Elections B.C., the “final count process for B.C.’s provincial election is scheduled to begin on October 26 and will conclude on October 28.” 

It is estimated that on October 27, the final mail-in- ballot counts will be complete. There are recounts underway in two ridings as well, which were remarkably close between the NDP and Conservatives.  

Elections B.C. says the “final count” will involve three distinct processes, “counting mail-in ballots, counting absentee ballots, and recounts of ballots counted on election night.” 

Final results will be made available on its social media channels and website. 

As reported by LifeSiteNews, initial counts show the B.C. Conservatives under leader John Rustad with 45 seats, while the ruling NDP under Premier David Eby have 46 seats. A party needs 47 seats to form a majority government in the province. The Green Party appears to have won 2 seats, meaning should the seat count remain as is, the distant third party will effectively hold the balance of power. 

Rustad won his seat easily, beating out his NDP rival with 68 percent of the vote. His win was the first time since 1978 that a Conservative has won a seat in the B.C. legislature.  

It hasn’t been since 1991, the last year B.C. was ruled by the Social Credit Party under Premier Bill Vander Zalm, that the province has been under the control of parties other than the NDP or Liberals.  

B.C.’s Conservative Party shot up in popularity after the former Liberal Party of the province, under its new name B.C. United, lagged in the polls. Then B.C. United decided shortly before the election to pull all its candidates and throw its support behind the Conservatives.  

Rustad, a former Liberal MLA, also gained popularity for promising to restore order and oppose the woke policies popularized under the NDP.  

As reported by LifeSiteNews, Rustad, just days before the election, condemned sexually explicit material in school libraries and indicated that he would remove them if elected.  

Rustad has also come out in opposition to the use of often-sterilizing puberty blockers for gender-confused children and has condemned SOGI 123, a nationwide program pushing LGBT ideology in schools under the label of “inclusivity.”  

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Business

The debt silver bullet? Ending corporate welfare

Published on October 25, 2024

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From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

By Jay Goldberg

Canadians are worried about government debt and axing corporate welfare is the closest thing to a silver bullet politicians have to solve the problem.

Canada’s politicians spent $89 billion handing out taxpayer cash to corporations in 2021, the last year for which figures are available, according to the Fraser Institute.

To get a handle on swelling government debt at both the federal and provincial levels, it’s time to put corporate welfare on the chopping block.

And those who think taxpayers don’t care about government debt are sorely mistaken.

A recent Leger poll shows 81 per cent of Ontarians are concerned about the debt dive the province has taken over the past decade.

No doubt Canadian taxpayers are just as alarmed about the doubling of Canada’s federal debt during Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s nine years running Parliament Hill.

When an individual has a debt problem, the first step is to stop digging. The same is true of governments.

This year, just two of Canada’s 10 provinces are running balanced budgets. And Ottawa is nowhere close.

But look at the corporate welfare numbers and a path to solving Canada’s run-away government debt problem begins to emerge.

Take Ontario.

Ontario’s politicians have racked up $145 billion in new debt over the past decade, including more than $80 billion over the past six years under Premier Doug Ford.

Thanks to years of mismanagement, Ontario taxpayers will spend $13.9 billion on debt interest payments this year. That’s more than the province spends on post-secondary education.

And this year’s deficit is a whopping $9.8 billion.

Ontarians are concerned. And rightly so.

But take a quick gander at the Fraser Institute’s report and a path toward balance becomes clear.

The Ford government spent $22.1 billion in taxpayer handouts to corporations in 2021.

If this year’s handouts are even half of what they were in 2021, the Ford government could wipe out its deficit and produce a surplus by eliminating corporate welfare alone.

It’s unfair to place more and more debt at the feet of our children and grandchildren to give wealthy companies handouts.

It’s also unfair to pick winners and losers. The Ford government is taxing hardworking Ontarians, as well as small businesses, and handing billions over to wealthy corporations that don’t need taxpayer help.

Over the past few years, the Ford government has teamed up with the Trudeau Liberals to give billions to wealthy companies like Honda, Volkswagen, the Ford Motor Company, Stellantis, and many others.

Each year, Ottawa and Queen’s Park ran big deficits while handing out taxpayer cash to wealthy companies like candy. In many cases, taxpayers are paying millions of dollars for every job created.

Corporate welfare is fueling government debt. And it’s time for it to stop.

Not only is corporate welfare insanely costly, but it simply doesn’t work.

Between 2011 and 2021, the Ontario government spent $100 billion on corporate welfare. Yet inflation-adjusted economic growth in Ontario was below one per cent, on average, during that decade.

If handing out billions to create jobs and grow the economy worked, surely, we’d have the evidence by now.

Queen’s Park isn’t the only place where the budget could be turned around if corporate welfare were a thing of the past.

The Trudeau government also spent $47 billion on corporate welfare in 2021, which roughly equates to its budget deficit this year.

If 2024 corporate welfare numbers are in line with 2021, the Trudeau government could balance its budget in one fell swoop.

Taxpayers are rightly concerned about growing government debt across the country. Ending handouts to wealthy companies is an obvious solution to the debt binge.

After all, you cannot borrow and subsidize your way to prosperity.

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Alberta

Premier Smith hammers Liberal government for ‘slightly’ reducing immigration

Published on October 24, 2024

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As so often happens these days the headlines from major news outlets all look like they were written by the same people.  All the major news outlets repeated the government talking point that immigration would be reduced significantly.  In his news release, Immigration Minister Marc Miller spoke of “controlled targets” and even “marginal” declines in Canada’s population. Minister Miller made it sound like the feds are pulling way back on the number of immigrants being allowed into the country.

A few hours later, Premier Danielle Smith explained how Alberta sees things.  According to Premier Smith, immigrants will still be pouring into the country at near record levels.  Smith says this new immigration plan will offer almost no relief whatsoever to provinces buckling under the pressure of so many newcomers.

Premier Smith is right.  When you take out all the adjectives and the self back-patting, the 2025 – 2027 Immigration Levels Plan shows the number of new immigrants will still hover near record levels.

From the 2025–2027 Immigration Levels Plan.

The levels plan includes controlled targets for temporary residents, specifically international students and foreign workers, as well as for permanent residents.

We are:

  • reducing from 500,000 permanent residents to 395,000 in 2025
  • reducing from 500,000 permanent residents to 380,000 in 2026
  • setting a target of 365,000 permanent residents in 2027

Quick facts:

  • Canada’s population has grown in recent years, reaching 41 million in April 2024. Immigration accounted for almost 98% of this growth in 2023, 60% of which can be attributed to temporary residents.
  • Francophone immigration will represent
    • 8.5% in 2025
    • 9.5% in 2026
    • 10% in 2027

The Levels Plan also supports efforts to reduce temporary resident volumes to 5% of Canada’s population by the end of 2026.  Canada’s temporary population will decrease over the next few years as significantly more temporary residents will transition to being permanent residents or leave Canada compared to new ones arriving. Specifically, compared to each previous year, we will see Canada’s temporary population decline by

  • 445,901 in 2025
  • 445,662 in 2026
  • a modest increase of 17,439 in 2027

It’s interesting how the feds explain the situation with “temporary residents”.  This group includes foreign students and temporary workers.  Most Canadians would probably be shocked to know just how many people are “temporarily” here.

Minister Miller says this population will decline by 445,901 people in 2025.  What he leaves out is that this still allows for just over 2,000,000 foreign students and temporary workers! (5% of 41,000,000 Canadians is 2,050,000)

It’s also very interesting that in the explanation for how the feds plan to cut the number of temporary residents down from about 2.6 million to just over 2 million, is by recognizing that many of the temporary residents will transition to being permanent residents.  It’s not clear how that will reduce the number of people in the country.  I guess we’ll have to see how that all turns out.

Meanwhile Alberta Premier Danelle Smith and Minister of Immigration and Multiculturalism Muhammad Yaseen issued this joint statement on today’s federal government immigration announcement:

“Alberta has a long history of welcoming newcomers, and we plan to maintain that reputation.

“However, the federal government’s reckless and irresponsible open-border immigration policies, permitting almost 2 million newcomers to enter Canada last year alone, have led to unsustainable financial pressures on all provinces.

“With the cost of food, energy, housing and everything else in this country increasing, and with tens of thousands of new people moving to Alberta monthly, our hospitals and schools are at or above capacity.

“As a province, we need a reprieve from this explosive population growth so we can catch up with these pressures. So do all provinces.

“The federal government’s plan to cut a mere 105,000 new permanent residents will not solve these pressures when they are bringing in almost 2 million additional people annually.

“We call on the government to cut the number of newcomers to Canada from almost 2 million to well under 500,000 annually until further notice.

“Ottawa’s priority should be on reducing the number of temporary foreign workers, international students and asylum seekers—not on reducing provincially selected economic migrants.”

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