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Bar gunman was ‘out of control’ in high school, coach says

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MONTCLAIR, Calif. — A second high school coach of the gunman who killed 12 people at a Southern California bar recalled him on Sunday as volatile and intimidating, and said that repeated complaints to school administrators about his behaviour failed to prompt any discipline.

Evie Cluke coached Ian David Long on Newbury Park High School’s track team in 2007 and 2008. In an interview with The Associated Press, she said Long was a “ticking time bomb” who constantly lost his temper, threw tantrums and would scream at coaches when he didn’t like their decisions. She said she once witnessed him assault a fellow coach.

That coach, Dominique Colell, said Long grabbed her rear and midsection after she refused to return a cellphone. Another time, he used his hand to mimic shooting her, Colell said, adding that she feared for herself whenever she was around him.

Cluke said she also witnessed Long pretending to shoot Colell.

“When Dominique turned around and saw that, she turned pale as a ghost and it was very, very scary.” Cluke said. “Just sadistic. … He was out of control. He would scream and cuss and his face would turn bright red and people would actually back away from him.”

Long, a 28-year-old former Marine machine-gunner who served in Afghanistan, opened fire during college night at the Borderline Bar and Grill in Thousand Oaks on Wednesday night. He killed 11 people and a police officer who responded, and then fatally shot himself, police said.

Authorities have not determined a motive.

Colell kicked Long off the track team immediately after he assaulted her, but she and Cluke said the boy’s track coach urged her to reconsider because that could compromise Long’s goal of joining the Marines. The head track coach, Cluke said, reversed Colell’s decision to throw Long off the team and told her she didn’t have that authority, while the now-retired principal brushed it aside as a one-time incident.

Long rejoined the team after apologizing in front of several coaches and administrators.

Cluke said she, Colell and her father, also a track coach at the school at the time, repeatedly reported Long’s behavioural problems, to no avail.

“You need to do something about this kid. He needs some help.” Cluke said she told administrators. “And they’re like, ‘Well, he’s got a good heart he’ll be fine. Just talk to him.'”

Emails to various administrators at the high school were not immediately answered Sunday. Attempts to get comment by phone and in person from officials at the school and its district were unsuccessful Friday, when both were closed because of a massive and deadly wildfire in the area.

Cluke recalled a time when she and her father sat down with Long for a talk and asked him why he wanted to join the military. His answer, she said, “is burned in my soul.”

“He said he wanted to be in the Marines because he wanted to go fight in the war for our country and he wanted to kill for our country,” she said. “When you hear somebody say they want to be in the military because they want to kill people in the name of our country, that’s chilling. It chilled me right down to my bones.”

She said it’s time for school administrators across the country to take behavioural problems seriously.

“It’s not the military or video games or music that causes this,” she said. “It’s the inaction of people in authority.”

She said that if other coaches and school administrators had acted following complaints about Long, “he could’ve gotten help and 12 innocent people wouldn’t be dead now.”

“The warning signs were there,” she said.

Amanda Lee Myers, The Associated Press








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Taxpayers Federation calling on BC Government to scrap failed Carbon Tax

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From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

By Carson Binda 

BC Government promised carbon tax would reduce CO2 by 33%. It has done nothing.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on the British Columbia government to scrap the carbon tax as new data shows the province’s carbon emissions have continued to rise, despite the oldest carbon tax in the country.

“The carbon tax isn’t reducing carbon emissions like the politicians promised,” said Carson Binda, B.C. Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “Premier David Eby needs to axe the tax now to save British Columbians money.”

Emissions data from the provincial government shows that British Columbia’s emissions have risen since the introduction of a carbon tax.

Total emissions in 2007, the last year without a provincial carbon tax, stood at 65.5 MtCO2e, while 2022 emissions data shows an increase to 65.6 MtCO2e.

When the carbon tax was introduced, the B.C. government pledged that it would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 33 per cent.

The Eby government plans to increase the B.C. carbon tax again on April 1, 2025. After that increase, the carbon tax will add 21 cents to the cost of a litre of natural gas, 25 cents per litre of diesel and 18 cents per cubic meter of natural gas.

“The carbon tax has cost British Columbians a lot of money, but it hasn’t helped the environment as promised,” Binda said. “Eby has a simple choice: scrap the carbon tax before April 1, or force British Columbians to pay even more to heat our homes and drive to work.”

If a family fills up the minivan once per week for a year, the carbon tax will cost them $728. The carbon tax on natural gas will add $435 to the average family’s home heating bills in the 12 months after the April 1 carbon tax hike.

Other provinces, like Saskatchewan, have unilaterally stopped collecting the carbon tax on essentials like home heating and have not faced consequences from Ottawa.

“British Columbians need real relief from the costs of the provincial carbon tax,” Binda said. “Eby needs to stop waiting for permission from the leaderless federal government and scrap the tax on British Columbians.”

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The problem with deficits and debt

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From the Fraser Institute

By Tegan Hill and Jake Fuss

This fiscal year (2024/25), the federal government and eight out of 10 provinces project a budget deficit, meaning they’re spending more than collecting in revenues. Unfortunately, this trend isn’t new. Many Canadian governments—including the federal government—have routinely ran deficits over the last decade.

But why should Canadians care? If you listen to some politicians (and even some economists), they say deficits—and the debt they produce—are no big deal. But in reality, the consequences of government debt are real and land squarely on everyday Canadians.

Budget deficits, which occur when the government spends more than it collects in revenue over the fiscal year, fuel debt accumulation. For example, since 2015, the federal government’s large and persistent deficits have more than doubled total federal debt, which will reach a projected $2.2 trillion this fiscal year. That has real world consequences. Here are a few of them:

Diverted Program Spending: Just as Canadians must pay interest on their own mortgages or car loans, taxpayers must pay interest on government debt. Each dollar spent paying interest is a dollar diverted from public programs such as health care and education, or potential tax relief. This fiscal year, federal debt interest costs will reach $53.7 billion or $1,301 per Canadian. And that number doesn’t include provincial government debt interest, which varies by province. In Ontario, for example, debt interest costs are projected to be $12.7 billion or $789 per Ontarian.

Higher Taxes in the Future: When governments run deficits, they’re borrowing to pay for today’s spending. But eventually someone (i.e. future generations of Canadians) must pay for this borrowing in the form of higher taxes. For example, if you’re a 16-year-old Canadian in 2025, you’ll pay an estimated $29,663 over your lifetime in additional personal income taxes (that you would otherwise not pay) due to Canada’s ballooning federal debt. By comparison, a 65-year-old will pay an estimated $2,433. Younger Canadians clearly bear a disproportionately large share of the government debt being accumulated currently.

Risks of rising interest rates: When governments run deficits, they increase demand for borrowing. In other words, governments compete with individuals, families and businesses for the savings available for borrowing. In response, interest rates rise, and subsequently, so does the cost of servicing government debt. Of course, the private sector also must pay these higher interest rates, which can reduce the level of private investment in the economy. In other words, private investment that would have occurred no longer does because of higher interest rates, which reduces overall economic growth—the foundation for job-creation and prosperity. Not surprisingly, as government debt has increased, business investment has declined—specifically, business investment per worker fell from $18,363 in 2014 to $14,687 in 2021 (inflation-adjusted).

Risk of Inflation: When governments increase spending, particularly with borrowed money, they add more money to the economy, which can fuel inflation. According to a 2023 report from Scotiabank, government spending contributed significantly to higher interest rates in Canada, accounting for an estimated 42 per cent of the increase in the Bank of Canada’s rate since the first quarter of 2022. As a result, many Canadians have seen the costs of their borrowing—mortgages, car loans, lines of credit—soar in recent years.

Recession Risks: The accumulation of deficits and debt, which do not enhance productivity in the economy, weaken the government’s ability to deal with future challenges including economic downturns because the government has less fiscal capacity available to take on more debt. That’s because during a recession, government spending automatically increases and government revenues decrease, even before policymakers react with any specific measures. For example, as unemployment rises, employment insurance (EI) payments automatically increase, while revenues for EI decrease. Therefore, when a downturn or recession hits, and the government wants to spend even more money beyond these automatic programs, it must go further into debt.

Government debt comes with major consequences for Canadians. To alleviate the pain of government debt on Canadians, our policymakers should work to balance their budgets in 2025.

Tegan Hill

Director, Alberta Policy, Fraser Institute

Jake Fuss

Director, Fiscal Studies, Fraser Institute
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