Business
Federal government gets failing grade for fiscal transparency and accountability

From the Fraser Institute
By Jake Fuss and Grady Munro
Last week, Yves Giroux, the Parliamentary Budgetary Officer, raised a rarely-talked-about issue with the federal government—that is, the release of important fiscal documents is being delayed further and further each year. While at first glance this may not seem like a big deal, it’s a sign of declining transparency—an issue all Canadians should care about.
According to Giroux, the Trudeau government’s failure to yet release this year’s federal public accounts—which will report the final numbers for the 2023-24 fiscal year—“goes against fiscal transparency and accountability” that Canadians should expect.
While budgets outline the government’s plan for spending and revenue each year, the public accounts tell us whether or not the government actually stuck to this plan. Typically, the federal government releases the public accounts in October. Yet we’re entering December and last year’s federal finances remain in question.
Provinces also release public accounts, and though they have in the past displayed a similar tardiness, this year every provincial government has released their public accounts well before the federal government.
Why is this important?
Parliamentarians are expected to make important decisions that affect revenues and spending, yet many of them currently do not have the necessary information to make decisions on behalf of their constituents. Moreover, the federal government makes important commitments—referred to as “fiscal anchors”—to help ensure the sustainability of Canada’s finances. The public accounts are a critical tool for both elected officials and the public to hold government accountable to those commitments. Simply put, these fiscal documents are how we determine whether or not the government is actually staying true to its promises.
Some observers claim the Trudeau government may be intentionally delaying the release of this year’s public accounts to avoid this scrutiny. In its 2023 fall update, and again in the 2024 budget, the government promised to hold the 2023-24 deficit to $40.0 billion. Yet a recent report from the PBO suggests the deficit will instead be $46.8 billion. Since the government might be forced to deliver bad news, Giroux suggested it could be delaying the release “to find a more appropriate time where it gathers less attention.” Those are not the actions of a transparent and accountable government.
The issue of delayed fiscal releases is not limited to the public accounts. The Trudeau government has also released federal budgets later than usual. For example, this year it released the 2024 federal budget on April 16. The budget presents the fiscal plan for the upcoming fiscal year that begins April 1, meaning the federal government didn’t release its plan until more than two weeks after the fiscal year had started. In fact, three of the last four budgets from the Trudeau government have been released after the fiscal year started.
Similarly, the Trudeau government has also heretofore failed to release this year’s fall economic statement, which provides a mid-year update on the government’s budget plan. Again, the government has pushed this release later into the year compared to the past. From 2000 to 2014, no fiscal update was released later than November 22. Yet the Trudeau government has delayed the release of this update into December twice so far (in 2019 and 2021).
Canadians should expect their federal government to release important fiscal information in a timely and transparent manner. Unfortunately, transparency and accountability don’t appear high on this government’s list of priorities.
Internet
US government gave $22 million to nonprofit teaching teens about sex toys: report

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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