Connect with us
[the_ad id="89560"]

National

Furey a major contrast with Trudeau on affordability

Published

11 months ago

5 minute read

From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

Author: Jay Goldberg 

If Canadians want to find an example of a Liberal politician who cares about affordability, they should look to St. John’s, not Ottawa.

Time and time again, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Andrew Furey has stood on the side of taxpayers.

The latest example is his government’s decision to extend its 8.05 cent per litre gas tax cut for another year.

The gas tax cut has been in place for 21 months and has saved the average two-car Newfoundland and Labrador family more than $800. Another 12 months of lower gas prices will see family savings soar to more than $1,000.

Furey first announced the temporary tax cut in June 2022 and has now extended it twice.

The Furey government has also spoken out strongly about the detrimental impact of the carbon tax on Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.

In criticizing the Trudeau government’s carbon tax late last year, Furey noted “there is no subway” for his constituents to take as an alternative to the ever-increasing costs of driving a car to get to work or to bring kids to school.

That comment was a jibe at the infamous remarks federal Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland made when encouraging Canadians who can’t afford to pay the carbon tax to bike or take transit.

Furey noted if rural Canadians don’t have other transit options – and many don’t – then “the fundamental premise on which the [carbon tax] is based is flawed.”

Furey was also a leader in calling on Trudeau to take the carbon tax off all home heating, noting repeatedly that heating one’s home in Canada in the winter is not optional.

Under pressure, Trudeau finally did so through a temporary suspension of the carbon tax on home heating oil, which is a popular method of home heating in Atlantic Canada, but not in other regions of the country.

To Furey’s credit, he continued to call on the federal government to offer relief to Canadians who don’t use furnace oil for home heating.

Juxtapose that against the policies of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Without campaigning on it, Trudeau sprung a carbon tax on Canadians in 2019. He’s increased it every year since. And he plans to keep jacking it up every year until 2030.

Trudeau has tried to sell his policies by claiming most Canadians are getting more money back from carbon tax rebates than they pay in carbon taxes. Many of Trudeau’s allies have suggested that somehow the carbon tax actually is an affordability measure.

But the Parliamentary Budget Officer has laid out the truth: the average Canadian family is losing money from the carbon tax, big time.

The average Newfoundland and Labrador family lost $347 from the carbon tax last year, even after the rebates. That’s set to climb to $1,316 a year by 2030.

For years, Trudeau told us families would be better off with the carbon tax. But after pressure from Furey and other Atlantic Canadian politicians, he temporarily removed the carbon tax on home heating oil for the next three years.

If that’s not a mea culpa that the carbon tax makes life less affordable, then Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny must be real.

The broader contrast between Furey and Trudeau is their approach to cost of living. Furey looks at what’s taking cash out of families’ wallets – gas and carbon taxes – and tries to lessen that burden by fighting for lower taxes. Trudeau’s solution to make life more affordable appears to be more taxes, more spending and more debt.

The bottom line is that Trudeau, who is sinking in the polls and faces frustrated taxpayers from coast to coast, should learn a thing or two from Furey. Canadians want life to be more affordable, and that means lowering the tax burden, not increasing it.

Before Post

Related Topics:

Todayville is a digital media and technology company. We profile unique stories and events in our community. Register and promote your community event for free.

Follow Author

More from this author
Business / 5 hours ago

DOJ drops Biden-era discrimination lawsuit against Elon Musk’s SpaceX

Business / 5 hours ago

PepsiCo joins growing list of companies tweaking DEI policies

Business / 6 hours ago

Apple removes security feature in UK after gov’t demands access to user data worldwide

Indigenous

Trudeau gov’t to halt funds for ‘unmarked graves’ search after millions spent, no bodies found

Published on February 21, 2025

By

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

According to the committee tasked with searching for ‘unmarked burials’ at residential schools, the Government of Canada has denied its request for further funding.

The Canadian federal government will be halting funding to a committee tasked with searching for “unmarked burials” near former residential schools after zero graves were discovered and millions of taxpayer dollars spent.

In a statement released last week, the National Advisory Committee on Residential Schools Missing Children and Unmarked Burials said it was “extremely disappointed to learn that the Government of Canada has decided to discontinue funding to support their work to help Indigenous communities in their efforts to identify, locate and commemorate missing children.” 

NAC urged “the federal government to reconsider” its funding cuts to the committee, which is co-administered by the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation and the federal Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs, that was struck in 2021. 

The reality of the situation is that since the NAC was struck not one body has been located on lands associated with former government-funded and mandated residential schools, many of which were run by Catholic and Anglican churches in Canada.  

In fact, Canada’s Department of Crown-Indigenous Relations had already confirmed it spent millions searching for “unmarked graves” at a now-closed residential school, but that the search has turned up no human remains. 

The initial funds budgeted in 2022 to aid in “locating burial sites linked to former Residential Schools” were already set to expire in 2025, with some $216.5 million having been spent.  

A total of $7.9 million granted for fieldwork has resulted in no human remains having been found to date.  

In 2021 and 2022, the mainstream media ran with inflammatory and dubious claims that hundreds of children were buried and disregarded by Catholic priests and nuns who ran some of the schools.  

As a result of the claims, since the spring of 2021, 112 churches, most of them Catholic, many of them on indigenous lands that serve the local population, have been burned to the ground, vandalized, or defiled in Canada. 

The Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation was more or less the reason there was a large international outcry in 2021 when it claimed it had found 215 “unmarked graves” of kids at the Kamloops Residential School. The claims of remains, however, were not backed by physical evidence but were rather disturbances in the soil picked up by ground-penetrating radar.   

The First Nation now has changed its claim of 215 graves to 200 “potential burials.”   

As reported by LifeSiteNews, Prime Minster Justin Trudeau as recently as June again falsely stated that “unmarked graves” were discovered at former residential schools.  

Canadian indigenous residential schools, while run by both the Catholic Church and other Christian churches, were mandated and set up by the federal government and ran from the late 19th century until the last school closed in 1996.     

While there were indeed some Catholics who committed serious abuses against native children, the unproved “mass graves” narrative has led to widespread anti-Catholic sentiment since 2021.  

While some children did die at the once-mandatory boarding schools, evidence has revealed that many of the children tragically passed away because of unsanitary conditions due to the federal government, not the Catholic Church, failing to properly fund the system.     

In October of 2024, retired Manitoba judge Brian Giesbrecht said Canadians are being “deliberately deceived by their own government” after blasting the Trudeau government for “actively pursuing” a policy that blames the Catholic Church for the unfounded “deaths and secret burials” of Indigenous children. 

Continue Reading

Addictions

BC overhauls safer supply program in response to widespread pharmacy scam

Published on February 21, 2025

By

By Alexandra Keeler

A B.C. pharmacy scam investigation has led the provincial government to return to a witnessed consumption model for safer supply

More than 60 pharmacies across B.C. are alleged to have participated in a kickback scheme linked to safer supply drugs, according to a provincial report released Feb. 19.

On Feb. 5, the BC Conservatives leaked a report that showed the findings of an internal investigation by the B.C. Ministry of Health. That investigation showed dozens of pharmacies were filling prescriptions patients did not require in order to overbill the government. These safer supply drugs were then diverted onto the black market.

After the report was leaked, the province committed to ending take-home safer supply models, which allow users to take hydromorphone pills home in bottles. Instead, it will require drug users to consume prescribed opioids in a witnessed program, under the oversight of a medical professional.

Gregory Sword, whose 14-year-old daughter Kamilah died in August 2022 after taking a hydromorphone pill that had been diverted from B.C.’s safer supply program, expressed outrage over the report’s findings.

“This is so frustrating to hear that [pharmacies] were making money off this program and causing more drugs [to flood] the street,” Sword told Canadian Affairs on Feb. 20.

The investigation found that pharmacies exploited B.C.’s Frequency of Dispensing policy to maximize billings. To take advantage of dispensing fees, pharmacies incentivized clients to fill prescriptions they did not require by offering them cash or rewards. Some of those clients then sold the drugs on the black market. Pharmacies earned up to $11,000 per patient a year.

“I’m positive that [the B.C. government has] known this for a long time and only made this decision when the public became aware and the scrutiny was high,” said Elenore Sturko, Conservative MLA for Surrey-Cloverdale, who released the leaked report in a statement on Feb. 5.

“As much as I am really disappointed in how long it’s taken for this decision to be made, I am also happy that this has happened,” she said.

The health ministry said it is investigating the implicated pharmacies. Those that are confirmed to have been involved could have their licenses suspended, be referred to law enforcement or become ineligible to participate in PharmaCare, the provincial program that helps residents cover the costs of prescription drugs.

Subscribe for free to get BTN’s latest news and analysis – or donate to our investigative journalism fund.

 

Witnessed dosing

The leaked report says that “a significant portion of the opioids being freely prescribed by doctors and pharmacists are not being consumed by their intended recipients.” It also says “prescribed alternatives are trafficked provincially, nationally and internationally.”

Critics of the safer supply program say it enables addiction, while supporters say it reduces overdoses.

Sword, Kamilah’s father, is suing the provincial and federal governments, arguing B.C.’s safer supply program made it possible for youth such as his daughter to access drugs.

Madison, Kamilah’s best friend, also became addicted to opioids dispensed through safer supply programs. Madison was just 15 when she first encountered “dillies” — hydromorphone pills dispensed through safer supply, but widely available on the streets. She developed a tolerance that led her to fentanyl.

“I do know for sure that some pharmacies and doctors were aware of the diversion,” Madison’s mother Beth told Canadian Affairs on Feb. 20.

“When I first realized what my daughter was taking and how she was getting it, I phoned the pharmacy and the doctor on the label of the pill bottle to inform them that the patient was selling their hydromorphone,” Beth said.

Masha Krupp, an Ottawa mother who has a son enrolled in a safer supply program, has said the safer supply program in her city is similarly flawed. Canadian Affairs previously reported on this program, which is run by Recovery Care’s Ottawa-based harm reduction clinics.

“I read about the B.C. pharmacy scheme and wasn’t surprised,” Krupp told Canadian Affairs on Feb. 20. Krupp lost a daughter to methadone toxicity while she was in an addiction treatment program at Recovery Care.

“Three years [after starting safer supply], my son is still using fentanyl, crack cocaine and methadone, despite being with Dr. [Charles] Breau and with Recovery Care for over three years,” Krupp testified before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Health on Oct. 22, 2024.

Krupp has been vocal about the dangers of dispensing large quantities of opioids without proper oversight, arguing many patients sell their prescriptions to buy stronger street drugs.

“You can’t give addicts 28 pills and say, ‘Oh here you go,’” she said in her testimony. “They sell for three dollars a pop on the street.”

Krupp has also advocated for witnessed consumption of safer supply medications, arguing supervised dosing would prevent diversion and ensure proper oversight of pharmacies.

“I had talked about witnessed dosing for safe supply when I appeared before the parliamentary health committee last October,” she told Canadian Affairs this week.

“I’m grateful that finally … this decision has been made to return to a witness program,” said Sturko, the B.C. MLA.

In 2020, B.C. implemented a witnessed consumption model to ensure safer supply opioids were consumed as prescribed and to reduce diversion. In 2021, the province switched to take-home models. Its stated aim was to expand access, save lives and ease pressure on health-care facilities during the pandemic.

“You’re really fighting against a group of people … working within the bureaucracy of [the B.C. NDP] government … who have been making efforts to work towards the legalization of drugs and, in doing that, have looked only for opportunities to bolster their arguments for their position, instead of examining their approach in a balanced way,” said Sturko.

“These are foreseeable outcomes when you do not put proper safeguards in place and when you completely ignore all indications of negative impacts.”

Sword also believes some drug policies fail to prioritize the safety of vulnerable individuals.

“Greed is the ultimate evil in society and this just proves it,” he said. “We don’t care about these drugs getting into the wrong hands as long as I get my money.”

This article was produced through the Breaking Needles Fellowship Program, which provided a grant to Canadian Affairs, a digital media outlet, to fund journalism exploring addiction and crime in Canada. Articles produced through the Fellowship are co-published by Break The Needle and Canadian Affairs.

Our content is always free – but if you want to help us commission more high-quality journalism, consider getting a voluntary paid subscription.

Continue Reading

Trending

X