Opinion
Ontario mayor refuses to cave in to demands after town rejected ‘pride’ flag
Mayor Harold McQuaker of Emo, Ontario
From LifeSiteNews
Emo, Ontario mayor Harold McQuaker said he will ‘absolutely not’ pay a fine or attend re-education classes, emphasizing that ‘I will not be extorted.’
Last month, the Ontario Human Rights Commission ordered the township of Emo to pay the LGBT activist group Borderland Pride $10,000 for voting in 2020 not to fly a “Pride” flag. Mayor Harold McQuaker was ordered to personally pay $5,000 — and take a re-education course titled “Human Rights 101” to boot. We covered both the original story as well as a follow-up, detailing Borderland Pride’s threats and demands.
There is a new development in the case: Mayor Harold McQuaker is flatly refusing to do what is being demanded of him. Asked by the Toronto Sun if he will pay the fine or attending re-education classes, the 77-year-old McQuaker was blunt. “Absolutely not,” he replied. “I will not be extorted.” He also stated that he will not host Drag Queen Story Hour at the local library, either — one of the demands laid out in an open letter published by Borderland Pride.
Emo Township is a small town of just over 1,200 people located 380 kilometers west of Thunder Bay. The township now has to decide whether to pay the LGBT activist group as demanded by the Ontario Human Rights Commission or refuse to do so. McQuaker has made up his mind. “I utterly refuse to pay the $5,000 because that’s extortion,” he stated. “I have a lot of respect for our four councillors. We have a special meeting of council, and they will decide that and what to do next, either pay the fine or appeal it.”
McQuaker grew up in the area and owned a construction company there for 50 years, and he cannot be pushed around easily. “I will not pay the $5,000 I have been fined and will not take the training,” he emphasized to the Sun. “The council will decide on the fine levied to it. I did not do anything wrong … if anybody needs training it’s the LGBTQ2+ to quit pushing their weight around and making demand that people can’t live with.”
Ironically, the Emo town hall doesn’t even have a flagpole — but that didn’t matter to Borderland Pride, which has, in addition to other demands, stated that it expects a written apology as well as “diversity and inclusion training for council, and a commitment to adopt Pride proclamations in the future without stripping out their 2SLGBTQIA+-affirming language.” Borderland Pride insisted that despite the lack of flagpole the LGBT flag could have been displayed somewhere else, “such as in a window or on a counter in the municipal office.”
McQuaker emphasized that he “doesn’t hate anyone” and that he will not tolerate the accusations being leveled at him by Borderland Pride. “I am a husband to my wife for 51 years, father of two, a grandfather of seven and a great grandfather of one,” he said. “I consider myself a very reasonable person and a good leader for our community and I would have a lot of support if there was an election.”
In response, Doug Judson of Borderland Pride suggested that the mayor should be happy to learn from the LGBT group because his role:
(A)ctually requires that the mayor ‘participate in and foster activities that enhance the economic, social and environmental well-being of the municipality and its residents.’ Part of showing this kind of community leadership is to set the tone for civil debate and to demonstrate a willingness to learn and adapt one’s perspective on issues that, for various reasons, they may have more limited understanding of. It seems obvious enough that the mayor does not have many ties to the queer community. We hope that the training that was ordered by the tribunal will assist him in his leadership role moving forward.
In short, Judson and his LGBT activist buddies hope that forcing the 77-year-old mayor of a small town to take re-education classes will create “ties to the queer community” and that he will be a good boy from now on and do what they demand the first time. Harold McQuaker isn’t having any of it — and we need more like him. Godspeed to the mayor — I hope that the council follows suit.
From LifeSiteNews
The Center for Innovative Public Health Research’s website suggests teenage girls make their ‘own decisions’ about sex and not let their parents know if they don’t want to.
For almost a decade, the U.S. government funded a group that actively works to teach kids how to use sex toys and then keep them hidden from their parents to the tune of $22 million.
According to investigative reporter Hannah Grossman at the Manhattan Institute, The Center for Innovative Public Health Research (CIPHR) has been educating minors about sex toys with public funds.
Records show that the millions given to the group since 2016, according to its website, go toward “health education programs” that “promote positive human development.”
However, the actual contents of the programs, as can be seen from comments from CIPHR CEO Michele Ybarra, seem to suggest that its idea of “human” development is skewed toward radical sex education doctrine.
In 2017, CIPHR launched Girl2Girl, which is funded by federal money to promote “sex-ed program just for teen girls who are into girls.” Its website lets users, who are girls between ages 14 and 16, sign up for “daily text messages … about things like sex with girls and boys.”
The actual content of some of the messages is very concerning. Its website notes that some of the texts talk about “lube and sex toys” as well as “the different types of sex and ways to increase pleasure.”
The website actively calls upon teenage girls to make their “own decisions” and not let their parents know if they don’t want to.
Grossman shared a video clip on X of Ybarra explaining how they educate minors about the use of “sex toys” and dealing with their parents if they are found out.
The clip, from a 2022 Brown University webinar, shows Ybarra telling researchers how to prepare “young person(s)” for her research.
She said if they are doing “focus groups,” she will ask them, “Okay, so what happens if somebody comes into the room and sees words like penis and sex toys on your screen — on your computer screen or on your phone? What if it’s your mom?’”
In 2023, CIPHR launched Transcendent Health, which is a sex-education program for minors who are gender confused. This initiative received $1.3 million of federal grant money that expired last month.
Grossman observed that the federal government “should not fund programs that send sexually explicit messages to minors and encourage them to conceal these communications from parents.”
She noted that in order to protect children and “prevent further harm,” U.S. President Donald Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services “should immediately cancel CIPHR’s active contract and deny its future grant applications.”
“By doing so, the Trump administration can send a clear message: Taxpayers will no longer foot the bill for perverted ‘research’ projects,” she noted.
The Trump administration has thus far, through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), exposed billions in government waste and fraud. Many such uses of taxpayer dollars are currently under review by the administration, including pro-abortion and pro-censorship activity through USAID, “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and neo-Marxist class warfare propaganda” through the National Science Foundation, and billions to left-wing “green energy” nonprofits through the Environmental Protection Agency.
Business
Canadian Police Raid Sophisticated Vancouver Fentanyl Labs, But Insist Millions of Pills Not Destined for U.S.
Sam Cooper
Mounties say labs outfitted with high-grade chemistry equipment and a trained chemist reveal transnational crime groups are advancing in technical sophistication and drug production capacity
Amid a growing trade war between Washington and Beijing, Canada—targeted alongside Mexico and China for special tariffs related to Chinese fentanyl supply chains—has dismantled a sophisticated network of fentanyl labs across British Columbia and arrested an academic lab chemist, the RCMP said Thursday.
At a press conference in Vancouver, senior investigators stood behind seized lab equipment and fentanyl supplies, telling reporters the operation had prevented millions of potentially lethal pills from reaching the streets.
“This interdiction has prevented several million potentially lethal doses of fentanyl from being produced and distributed across Canada,” said Cpl. Arash Seyed. But the presence of commercial-grade laboratory equipment at each of the sites—paired with the arrest of a suspect believed to have formal training in chemistry—signals an evolution in the capabilities of organized crime networks, with “progressively enhanced scientific and technical expertise among transnational organized crime groups involved in the production and distribution of illicit drugs,” Seyed added.
This investigation is ongoing, while the seized drugs, precursor chemicals, and other evidence continue to be processed, police said.
Recent Canadian data confirms the country has become an exporter of fentanyl, and experts identify British Columbia as the epicenter of clandestine labs supplied by Chinese precursors and linked to Mexican cartel distributors upstream.
In a statement that appears politically responsive to the evolving Trump trade threats, Assistant Commissioner David Teboul said, “There continues to be no evidence, in this case and others, that these labs are producing fentanyl for exportation into the United States.”
In late March, during coordinated raids across the suburban municipalities of Pitt Meadows, Mission, Aldergrove, Langley, and Richmond, investigators took down three clandestine fentanyl production sites.
The labs were described by the RCMP as “equipped with specialized chemical processing equipment often found in academic and professional research facilities.” Photos released by authorities show stainless steel reaction vessels, industrial filters, and what appear to be commercial-scale tablet presses and drying trays—pointing to mass production capabilities.
The takedown comes as Canada finds itself in the crosshairs of intensifying geopolitical tension.
Fentanyl remains the leading cause of drug-related deaths in Canada, with toxic supply chains increasingly linked to hybrid transnational networks involving Chinese chemical brokers and domestic Canadian producers.
RCMP said the sprawling B.C. lab probe was launched in the summer of 2023, with teams initiating an investigation into the importation of unregulated chemicals and commercial laboratory equipment that could be used for synthesizing illicit drugs including fentanyl, MDMA, and GHB.
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