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2025 Federal Election

Nine Dead After SUV Plows Into Vancouver Festival Crowd, Raising Election-Eve Concerns Over Public Safety

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Sam Cooper's avatar Sam Cooper

In Vancouver, concern about public safety — particularly assaults and violent incidents involving suspects previously known to police — has been a longstanding civic and political flashpoint

In an evolving mass-death investigation that could have profound psychological and emotional impacts on Canada’s federal election, Vancouver police confirmed Sunday that nine people were killed Saturday night when a young man plowed a luxury SUV through a festival block party in South Vancouver, leaving a trail of instant deaths and horrific injuries, with witnesses describing convulsing bodies and wounded toddlers in the aftermath.

The driver, a 30-year-old Vancouver resident known to police, appeared to be shaken and apologetic, according to eyewitness accounts and video from the scene. Authorities stated the case is not being treated as terrorism.

Late Saturday night, Vancouver police confirmed at a news conference that the man, who was known to police “in certain circumstances,” had been arrested.

The incident occurred around 8:14 p.m. during the annual Lapu Lapu Festival, a celebration of Filipino Canadian culture held near East 41st Avenue and Fraser Street. Thousands of attendees had packed the area for cultural performances, food stalls, and community events when the luxury SUV entered the closed-off area and accelerated into the crowd. Photos of the vehicle, with its doors ajar and a crumpled front end, indicate it was an Audi Q7 with black tinted windows.

In Vancouver, concern about public safety — particularly assaults and violent incidents involving suspects previously known to police — has been a longstanding civic and political flashpoint. Saturday’s tragedy sharpened those anxieties, potentially influencing the attitudes of undecided voters in a federal election that has focused on social disorder and crime framed by the Conservative side, with the Liberal frontrunners countering that firmer sentencing laws would undermine Canada’s Charter of Rights.

Witnesses to Saturday’s tragedy described scenes of chaos and terror as the SUV slammed into festival-goers, accelerating through the crowd.

“I thought it was fireworks at first — the sounds, the screams — then I saw people flying,” one witness told reporters on the scene.

Authorities have launched a full criminal investigation into the suspect’s background, including previous interactions with law enforcement.

The tragedy unfolded during the final, high-stakes weekend of Canada’s federal election campaign, throwing public safety and political leadership into sharp relief.

On Saturday night, before news of the Vancouver incident broke, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre posted a message on X at about 10 p.m., declaring, “This election comes down to one word. Change. Our Conservative plan will bring home an affordable life and safe streets — For a Change.”

Meanwhile, Liberal leader Mark Carney, campaigning in the Greater Toronto Area, posted at roughly the same time, “Dropped in on dim sum today in Markham. The best part of this campaign has been meeting Canadians in their communities — and hearing how excited they are about our future.”

As the scale of the tragedy became clear, both leaders shifted sharply in tone.

Poilievre posted again around 1 a.m. Sunday, writing, “I am shocked by the horrific news emerging from Vancouver’s Lapu Lapu Day Festival tonight. My thoughts are with the Filipino community and all the victims targeted by this senseless attack. Thank you to the first responders who are at the scene as we wait to hear more.”

Carney, who had posted shortly before midnight that, “We don’t need anger. We need to build,” followed with a direct statement on the Vancouver attack around 2 a.m. Sunday morning, writing, “I am devastated to hear about the horrific events at the Lapu Lapu festival in Vancouver earlier this evening. I offer my deepest condolences to the loved ones of those killed and injured, to the Filipino Canadian community, and to everyone in Vancouver. We are all mourning with you.”

Online, the tragedy quickly reignited concerns about violent crime, bail, and the rights of offenders — issues that have increasingly polarized Canadian political debate.

In response to Carney’s statement, a comment from an account named Willy Balters reflected the growing anger: “He’ll be out on bail by morning right?”

Another commenter, referencing past political controversies over judicial reform, posted to Carney, “You stood behind a podium and declared murderers’ Charter Rights can’t be violated.”

The raw public sentiment mirrored broader criticisms that Canada’s criminal justice system — and its perceived leniency toward repeat offenders — has failed to keep Canadians safe.

Just days prior, a different incident tapped into similar public anger. B.C. Conservative MLA Elenore Sturko posted, “A visitor to Vancouver was brutally attacked by a man only hours after he was released on bail for assaulting police and uttering threats. @Dave_Eby — is this the kind of welcome visitors to FIFA will have to look forward to? BTW, this violent man is out on bail AGAIN!”

That incident continued to draw heated social media on Sunday, with David Jacobs, a well-known conservative-leaning commenter, posting, “A man, while out on bail for assaulting a peace officer, violently assaulted a woman. He’s out on bail again. The Liberals put criminal rights far ahead of victim rights and community safety. Stop the insanity. Vote for change!”

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2025 Federal Election

Columnist warns Carney Liberals will consider a home equity tax on primary residences

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From LifeSiteNews

By Steve Jalsevac

The Liberals paid a group called Generation Squeeze, led by activist Paul Kershaw, to study how the government could tap into Canadians’ home equity — including their primary residences.

Winnipeg Sun Columnist Kevin Klein is sounding the alarm there is substantial evidence the Carney Liberal Party is considering implementing a home equity tax on Canadians’ primary residences as a potential huge source of funds to bring down the massive national debt their spending created.

Klein wrote in his April 23 column and stated in his accompanying video presentation:

The Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) — a federal Crown corporation — has investigated the possibility of a home equity tax on more than one occasion, using taxpayer dollars to fund that research. This was not backroom speculation. It was real, documented work.

The Liberals paid a group called Generation Squeeze, led by activist Paul Kershaw, to study how the government could tap into Canadians’ home equity — including their primary residences.

Kershaw, by the way, believes homeowners are “lottery winners” who didn’t earn their wealth but lucked into it. That’s the ideology being advanced to the highest levels of government.

It didn’t stop there. These proposals were presented directly to federal cabinet ministers. That’s on record, and most of those same ministers are now part of Mark Carney’s team as he positions himself as the Liberals’ next leader.

Watch below Klein’s 7-minute, impassionate warning to Canadians about this looming major new tax should the Liberals win Monday’s election.

Klein further adds:

The total home equity held by Canadians is over $4.7 trillion. It’s the largest pool of private wealth in the country. For millions of Canadians — especially baby boomers — it’s the only retirement fund they have. They don’t have big pensions. They have a paid-off house and a hope that it will carry them through their later years. Yet, that’s what Ottawa has quietly been circling.

The Canadian Taxpayer’s Federation has researched this issue and published a report on the alarming amount of new taxation a homeowner equity tax could cost Canadians who sell their homes that have increased in value over the years they have lived in it. It is a shocker!

A Google search on the question, “what is a home equity tax?” returns the response:

A home equity tax, simply put, it’s a proposed levy on the increased value of your home, specifically, on your principal residence. The idea is for Government to raise money by taxing wealth accumulation from rising property values.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has provided a Home Equity Tax Calculator Backgrounder to help Canadians understand what the impact of three different types of Home Equity Tax Calculators would have on home owners. The required tax payment resulting from all three is a shocker.

Keep in mind that World Economic Forum policies intend to eventually eliminate all private home ownership and have the state own and control not only all residences, but also eliminate car ownership, and control when and where you may live and travel.

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Steve is the co-founder and managing director of LifeSiteNews.com.
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2025 Federal Election

Carney’s budget is worse than Trudeau’s

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By Gage Haubrich

Liberal Leader Mark Carney is planning to borrow more money than former prime minister Justin Trudeau.

That’s an odd plan for a former banker because the federal government is already spending more on debt interest payments than it spends on health-care transfers to the provinces.

Let’s take a deeper look at Carney’s plan.

Carney says that his government would “spend less, invest more.”

At first glance, that might sound better than the previous decade of massive deficits and increasing debt, but does that sound like a real change?

Because if you open a thesaurus, you’ll find that “spend” and “invest” are synonyms, they mean the same thing.

And Carney’s platform shows it. Carney plans to increase government spending by $130 billion. He plans to increase the federal debt by $225 billion over the next four years. That’s about $100 billion more than Trudeau was planning borrow over the same period, according to the most recent Fall Economic Statement.

Carney is planning to waste $5.6 billion more on debt interest charges than Trudeau. Interest charges already cost taxpayers more than $1 billion per week.

The platform claims that Carney will run a budget surplus in 2028, but that’s nonsense. Because once you include the $48 billion of spending in Carney’s “capital” budget, the tiny surplus disappears, and taxpayers are stuck with more debt.

And that’s despite planning to take even more money from Canadians in years ahead. Carney’s platform shows that his carbon tariff, another carbon tax on Canadians, will cost taxpayers $500 million.

The bottom line is that government spending, no matter what pile it is put into, is just government spending. And when the government spends too much, that means it must borrow more money, and taxpayers have to pay the interest payments on that irresponsible borrowing.

Canadians don’t even believe that Carney can follow through on his watered-down plan. A majority of Canadians are skeptical that Carney will balance the operational budget in three years, according to Leger polling.

All Carney’s plan means for Canadians is more borrowing and higher debt. And taxpayers can’t afford anymore debt.

When the Liberals were first elected the debt was $616 billion. It’s projected to reach almost $1.3 trillion by the end of the year, that means the debt has more than doubled in the last decade.

Every single Canadian’s individual share of the federal debt averages about $30,000.

Interest charges on the debt are costing taxpayers $53.7 billion this year. That’s more than the government takes in GST from Canadians. That means every time you go to the grocery store, fill up your car with gas, or buy almost anything else, all that federal sales tax you pay isn’t being used for anything but paying for the government’s poor financial decisions.

Creative accounting is not the solution to get the government’s fiscal house in order. It’s spending cuts. And Carney even says this.

“The federal government has been spending too much,” said Carney. He then went on to acknowledge the huge spending growth of the government over the last decade and the ballooning of the federal bureaucracy. A serious plan to balance the budget and pay down debt includes cutting spending and slashing bureaucracy.

But the Conservatives aren’t off the hook here either. Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has said that he will balance the budget “as soon as possible,” but hasn’t told taxpayers when that is.

More debt today means higher taxes tomorrow. That’s because every dollar borrowed by the federal government must be paid back plus interest. Any party that says it wants to make life more affordable also needs a plan to start paying back the debt.

Taxpayers need a government that will commit to balancing the budget for real and start paying back debt, not one that is continuing to pile on debt and waste billions on interest charges.

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