Connect with us

National

Canadian twins Chase and Sydney Brown set to make American college football history

Published

7 minute read

They were born together, they grew up together and attend the same American university.

Next week, Canadians Chase and Sydney Brown will make U.S. college football history together.

The Browns, identical twins from London, Ont., will represent Illinois at the Big Ten media days Tuesday and Wednesday at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. It’s reportedly the first time in U.S. college football history that twins will participate in a media day event together.

Illinois’ session is scheduled for Wednesday.

“Sydney and I always dreamt about playing college ball together and that’s been the story since the start,” Chase Brown told The Canadian Press in a telephone interview. “A couple of days ago we looked back and reflected on our path to where we are right now.

“We recalled a time when we were at our mom’s place looking out at local high school in London watching homecoming games and thinking we couldn’t wait to play high school football and be like those guys . . . and here we are now. This is a terrific opportunity to represent the great men and players who’ve been part of this program and the university at such a high level . . . it’s one we’re looking forward to and ready for.”

The brothers were significant contributors last season for Illinois (5-7 overall record, 4-5 in the Big Ten) in Bret Bielema’s first season as head coach.

Chase Brown, a five-foot-11, 205-pound running back, was the Big Ten’s third-leading rusher (1,005 yards on 170 carries, 5.9-yard average) with five touchdowns. He added 14 catches for 142 yards (10.1-yard average) and was named to the All Big 10 third team.

Sydney Brown, a six-foot, 200-pound defensive back, is a four-year starter at the school with 262 tackles and four interceptions in 38 career starts. He was an All-Big Ten honorable mention last season after registering 81 tackles (team-high 50 solo).

This week, Chase Brown was added to the watch list for both the Maxwell Award for college player of the year and Doak Walker Award for top running back. He was also on last year’s Walker list.

A second straight 1,000-yard season would enhance Chase Brown’s childhood dream of one day playing in the NFL. And he’s looking forward to being a part of first-year offensive co-ordinator/quarterback coach  Barry Lunny Jr.’s gameplan.

“His offence is a lot faster, we’re spread out more and we’re going to get a lot of playmakers the ball as well,” Brown said. “That’s going to be exciting to watch and I’m glad to be a part of it.

“But I’m not going to change the way I play. I’m going to go hard no matter what every single time I get an opportunity on the field . . . if I do that, then everything else will fall into place.”

While an NFL career remains a priority for Brown, he’s keeping the door open on a possible return to Canada.

“My goal since I I was a child was to play pro football,” he said. “I grew up watching Canadian football, I played it in high school and I’m not opposed to that idea at all.

“I’m not in control of where I go. The only thing I control right now is the work I put in and the production I have on the field . . . that’s what I have to focus on.”

The Browns began their high school careers in London before moving to Bradenton, Fla., and helping St. Stephen’s Episcopal School win consecutive Sunshine State Athletic Conference titles. Chase Brown originally enrolled at Western Michigan because of its aviation program before rejoining his brother at Illinois.

There’s precious little physically that distinguishes the two, who both wear their hair in a bun. Sydney Brown is slightly bigger but Chase Brown is the older of the two, by about two minutes. In full gear, the only way to tell them apart on the field is by their numbers — Chase Brown wears No. 2 while Sydney Brown dons No. 30.

If the Browns graduate to the pro ranks. they’ll very likely be on different teams, something Chase Brown said he and his brother fully understand.

“Obviously we don’t choose where we go at the next level,” Brown said. “A lot of it has to do with how we play and what teams are interested.

“But we’ve done so much here together that we’ll be able to reflect upon it together in the future, so we’re good.”

This season, the Browns will again be carrying the torch for young football players north of the border, providing more evidence Canadians can play in the NCAA.

“Canada is often overlooked for football,” Brown said. “I just hope we can motivate more Canadians to make the move and just know it’s not impossible to get down and play at a Power Five school.

“But this doesn’t come without sacrifice, it takes a lot of hard work. As long as you learn to put in the work, it’s not impossible to do.”

Illinois is slated to open its ’22 season hosting Wyoming on Aug. 27. And Brown, for one, isn’t resting upon his laurels.

“We’re really confident in what we have and we’re just looking forward to putting it on the field,” he said. “We just have to dominate every single week, be the best players we can be on the field, the best people we can in the community and leave Champagne, Ill., feeling good and like we left this university in a better place than when we came in.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 20, 2022.

Dan Ralph, The Canadian Press

Storytelling is in our DNA. We provide credible, compelling multimedia storytelling and services in English and French to help captivate your digital, broadcast and print audiences. As Canadaā€™s national news agency for 100 years, we give Canadians an unbiased news source, driven by truth, accuracy and timeliness.

Follow Author

espionage

China bragged it meddled in 41 candidatesā€™ campaigns in Canadaā€™s 2019 election: report

Published on

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Toronto area ridings, including one in the city of Markham which saw Trudeau personally campaign in, are now under investigation by the ongoing Commission on Foreign Interference.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) boasted it successfully managed to get no less than eight of some 41 preferred candidates elected in Canada’s 2019 federal election, an investigative reporter’s findings have revealed.  

Investigative journalist Sam Cooper, who works for The Bureau, recently made known that he was able to obtain an analysis published in February 2021 by a CCP-run group called All-China Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese (ACFROC), which included the shocking revelations. 

The 2019 federal election saw Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government re-elected to a second term. In that election, there were no less than 41 “distinguished Chinese candidates” who were officially endorsed by the People’s Republic of China (PRC), in Toronto-area ridings that saw Trudeau personally campaign. 

According to the ACFROC report, which is the main agency of the CCP’s United Front, a political group that connects mainland China to Chinese in other nations, “Trudeau Jr. personally went to seek votes at a Chinese supermarket in Markham, an area of Toronto where Chinese people live, demonstrating that Chinese votes play an important role in the general election.”  

As it stands now, the Toronto area ridings, including one in the city of Markham which saw Trudeau personally campaign in, are now under investigation by the ongoing Commission on Foreign Interference. A report from the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) has shown that there are no less than 11 candidates known to have been directly influenced by China.  

The main goal of the ACFROC is to “mobilize diaspora networks” that are in line with the will of the CCP, as noted by Alex Joske, author of the 2022 book Spies and Lies. 

The report said that popular Chinese app WeChat was used to mobilize voters, going all the way back to the 2015 and 2011 elections. 

According to Charles Burton, an expert in the Chinese language who looked at the ACFROC report for The Bureau, the use of the term “distinguished” to refer to the Chinese candidates who were nominated “implies identification of candidates potentially useful to the United Front’s aims.”

“This article clearly aims to guide the agents of the Chinese Communist Party’s United Front Work Department in their strategic work to gain leverage for China by placing persons of Chinese origin into the Parliament of Canada,” noted Burton.   

The Foreign Interference Commission was convened to “examine and assess the interference by China, Russia, and other foreign states or non-state actors, including any potential impacts, to confirm the integrity of, and any impacts on, the 43rd and 44th general elections (2019 and 2021 elections) at the national and electoral district levels.”  

The commission is headed by Justice Marie-Josée Hogue, who had earlier said she and her lawyers will remain “impartial” and will not be influenced by politics. In January, Hogue said that she would  “uncover the truth whatever it may be.”  

As reported by LifeSiteNews, documents from a federal inquiry looking at meddling in Canada’s past two elections by foreign state actors show that agents of the CCP allegedly worked at Elections Canada polling centers during the 2021 campaign.  

To date, Trudeau has been coy and has never explicitly stated whether he was ever told by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) that CCP agents’ actions were in breach of the nation’s Elections Act.  

 

A few months ago, the head of Canada’s intelligence agency testified under oath that he gave Trudeau multiple warnings that agents of the CCP were going after Conservative MPs, yet the prime minister has denied receiving these warnings.  

Continue Reading

Business

Claiming the Carbon Tax is Not Inflationary Defies Belief ā€“ So Do Media Reports About Inflation

Published on

From EnergyNow.ca

By Jim Warren

Back in March 2019, the average price for a pound of lean ground beef at five major chain grocery outlets in Regina was $4.71. In September 2024 lean ground at the five big chain outlets averaged $7.90 — a 68% increase over the past five years…  these price increases are a far cry from the official statistic for accumulated inflation of 21% over the same period.

Kudos to the Canadian Trucking Alliance (CTA). They have provided us with some valuable insight into the inflationary effects of Canada’s carbon tax.

This past August, the CTA published a brief to the federal government which among other things called for a moratorium on the carbon tax for diesel fuel.

In commenting on the brief, CTA president Stephen Laskowski said, “The carbon tax on diesel fuel is currently having zero impact on the environment and is only serving to needlessly drive up costs for every good purchased by Canadian families and businesses. The carbon tax needs to be repealed from diesel fuel until viable propulsion alternatives are available for the industry and the Canadian supply chain to choose from.”

The CTA estimates that as of 2024 the carbon tax on diesel adds an extra cost for long-haul truck operators of $15,000 to $20,000 or around 6% of per truck in annual operating costs. The brief to government claims a small trucking business with five trucks, “is seeing between $75,000 and $100,000 in extra costs due to the carbon tax.”

Obviously, truckers striving to remain solvent will be doing their utmost to pass carbon tax costs on to their customers. If the cost of the tax can’t be recouped by some trucking companies, we can bet there will be fewer of them operating over the coming years. As Laskowksi said, the carbon tax increased the cost of virtually every product transported by truck—which means  pretty well every physical good consumers purchase.

In light of the political beating the Liberals have been taking over the carbon tax, the Trudeau government has taken a tiny feeble step toward relieving the pressure on businesses. In October 2024 federal finance minister Chrystia Freeland announced the government’s intention to provide carbon tax rebates to businesses with fewer than 500 employees. That means many of Canada’s trucking companies will be eligible to recoup some of the carbon tax they have been paying since fiscal 2019-2020. Freeland says the cheques will be in the mail this December.

It sounds okay until you look at the fine print.

The payments will not reflect the amount of fuel a business uses or how much carbon tax it has paid over the past five years. The rebates will be based on the number of people a company employs and will be paid only in provinces where the federal fuel charge applies. An accounting business with 10 employees will receive the same carbon tax rebate as a small trucking business with 10 employees. A CBC news report pulled the following example from Freeland’s press release, “A business in Ontario with 10 employees can expect to receive $4,010…”

Freeland boasted, “These are real, significant sums of money. They’re going to make a big difference to Canadian small business.”

Freeland’s statement is patently false when it comes to trucking companies.

Let’s say that the 10 employee business is a long-haul trucking company based in Ontario. After paying the carbon tax on five or more trucks for five years, the business would receive a paltry $4,010 rebate. That light dusting of sugar won’t make the carbon tax any more palatable to the trucking industry. According to the CTA’s estimates, if the 10 employee long-haul trucking firm had just five trucks the carbon tax will have cost it approximately $400,000 in operating costs over the past five years.

Carbon tax costs are not the only inflation related frustration affecting Canadians. The way the federal government and its friends in the media describe inflation presents people with a warped view of what is happening to the cost of living. Media reports on inflation rarely reflect the lived experience of people trying to pay the mortgage, feed their families and drive to work.

Governments, and their media apologists, in both Canada and the US have been taking victory laps over the past year because the rate of inflation has decreased. It’s as though people have nothing to worry about because the cost of living this year isn’t increasing as fast as it was last year. Changes in the inflation rate may be important for statistical purposes but they don’t reflect reality for people who have been coping with increases in inflation over several years. Most people measure the difficulties caused by inflation by comparing how much more things cost today than they did three to five years ago. The figure regular civilians, as opposed to statisticians, use to assess increases in the cost of living is accumulated inflation. However, we still need to be cautious about the accumulated inflation rate that we get when using government data.

If we calculate the rate of accumulated inflation based on official annualized inflation rates from 2019 up to the midpoint of 2024. The accumulated increase over that five year period is around 21%. And, it is true that this number better reflects people’s perception of inflation than a statistical comparison indicating the rate of inflation fell from 3.9 % in 2023 to 2.61% by the mid-point of 2024. The problem is the 21% number still does not accurately reflect increases in the cost of many necessary goods and services that are impacting households. This is why according to political polls voters in Canada and the US aren’t buying government propaganda when it comes to inflation.

The economy, and by extension, the high cost of living was a major issue in the recent US federal election campaign. The Democrats did not do themselves any favours claiming Bidenomics had wrestled inflation to the ground simply because it wasn’t increasing as fast as it was a year ago.  A large number of voters in the US embraced former US president Lyndon Johnson’s maxim, “Don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.”

But wait, it gets worse. The basket of goods and services the Canadian government uses to calculate the cost of living index and the inflation rate fails to identify high increases in the prices for specific household essentials including many grocery staples. Similarly, official calculations for statistically weighted national average consumption of various products used to calculate the Consumer Price Index are skewed in favour of big urban centres. Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver are over represented. There is no way that the average annual consumption of gasoline for a household in downtown Montreal comes anywhere close to the amount used in most of Canada where public transit is scarce and distances are great. The result is the official accumulated inflation rate fails to show what many people are experiencing in most regions of the country.

Here is a good example of how published statistics don’t reflect the inflation shock that consumers experience at the grocery store.  Back in March 2019, the average price for a pound of lean ground beef at five major chain grocery outlets in Regina was $4.71. In September 2024 lean ground at the five big chain outlets averaged $7.90 — a 68% increase over the past five years. The price of rib eye steak increased by even more. Rib eyes averaged $14.91 per pound at the five stores in Regina in March 2019. This September, the average price for rib eye steak was $29.40 – a 97% increase over five years. Obviously, these price increases are a far cry from the official statistic for accumulated inflation of 21% over the same period. (FYI: the data presented here was derived from  Beef Business magazine published by the Saskatchewan Stock Growers Association. Each bimonthly edition of Beef Business features a retail beef price check)

Assuming we can find similar rates of accumulated inflation for other staples like dairy products and fresh vegetables it’s no wonder smart shoppers have been incensed over what’s going on with grocery prices and the cost of living (not to mention price increases for fuel, rents house prices and mortgage interest). Consumers have discovered today’s prices of $6.50 for a four litre jug of milk and $7.00 for a pound of butter aren’t going to be reduced simply because the rate of inflation has decreased form 3.69% to 2.61% over the past year. Using history as our guide, with the exception of rare periods of deflation such as the depression of the 1930s, it is unlikely we’ll see the price increases of the past few years come down other than for sales or loss leader strategies. And, while a 72 cent dollar might boost sales for some of our exports, it will add more than 25% to the cost of imported fruit and vegetables this winter,

Furthermore, the impacts of inflation are being more severely felt by Canadians today than they would have been a decade ago. This is because our per capita national income (using GDP as a proxy for national income) has been shrinking since 2014. That was the year oil prices fell into an eight year depression and the last full year before Justin Trudeau became Prime minister.

According to a 2024 Fraser Institute Bulletin authored by Alex Whelan, Milagros Placios and Lawrence Shembri, “Canadians have been getting poorer relative to residents of other countries in the OECD [a club of mostly rich countries]. From 2002 to 2014, Canadian income growth, as measured by GDP per capita, roughly kept pace with the rest of the OECD. From 2014 to 2022, however, Canada’s position declined sharply, ranking third lowest among 30 countries for average growth over the period.”

Canada’s per capita GDP/national income for 2024 is projected to be $54,866.05. According Whelan, Placios and Shembri, that is lower than per capita national income in the US, UK, New Zealand and Austrailia.

Only one US state, Mississippi, the poorest state in the union, has a per capita GDP/national income less than Canada’s. Mississippi’s total is $53,061. Other states considered poor by US standards such as Alabama and Arkansas have higher per capita GDPs than Canada. On average, Canadians have increasingly less money with which to buy more expensive goods and services.

The challenges Canadians have faced as a result of the high cost of living have coincided with the eight plus years that Justin Trudeau has been prime minister. The decline in per capita national income also occurred under Trudeau’s watch—in conjunction with Liberal policies designed to stifle growth in Canada’s petroleum and natural gas industries. What did the Trudeau Liberals think would happen to growth in per capita national income after they handcuffed our single most important export industry?

In the final analysis it’s a tossup. Do we have an inflation problem or is inflation just a symptom of our Trudeau problem?

Continue Reading

Trending

X