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Ontario city councillor could face thousands in legal fees after opposing ‘pride’ flag, drag shows

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Pickering City Councillor Lisa Robinson

From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

Pickering City Councillor Lisa Robinson could be ‘on the hook for over $20,000 in legal fees, and possibly $50,000 more if she loses’ her legal battle.

An Ontario city councillor who opposed the LGBT agenda was in court last Wednesday, when she was told she faces the possibility of being on the hook for more than $20,000 in legal fees and another $50,000 if she is not successful in her case against the against the Pickering City Council.

As noted in a legal update sent to LifeSiteNews by one of her advocates, former Conservative Party of Canada MP Derek Sloan, a judge required Pickering City Councillor Lisa Robinson and the “other side to settle on costs during the day” in court.

As noted by Sloan, “While Lisa made a reasonable offer, the other side — even though enough trial had passed to know their case is certainly not a slam dunk, they stuck to their claim for $50,000 in costs — if they win.”

“It could be they have instructions to stick it to Lisa, even if it means losing more on their side if they lose. It’s only taxpayer money after all,” he added.

Robinson is under two judicial reviews because of two integrity commissioner reports against her along with sanctions made to her from her city council.

She had applied for the judicial reviews earlier in the year. One was against the City of Pickering and the other against Principles Integrity, which investigated her after complaints were made and then said she needed disciplinary measures. Robinson is looking to have the court toss out the report and penalties that were brought against her.

Both reviews are now combined and are being overseen by three superior court judges in an Oshawa divisional court. The judges have yet to present their full findings.

LifeSiteNews reported last year that Robinson, who is a single mother, was given a 60-day pay suspension after an investigation into allegations that she advocated for “homophobic” and “transphobic” motions.

On October 23, 2023, the Pickering City Council unanimously voted to suspend Robinson’s pay over her motions opposing LGBT ideology.

Robinson had advocated for separate washrooms and change rooms for both men and women while having a universal space for both genders to use, citing safety concerns from the community over the situation.

Sloan noted that Robinson could be “on the hook for over $20,000 in legal fees, and possibly $50,000 more if she loses.”

Councillor’s lawyer says city trying to censor her

Robinson’s lawyer, Michael Alexander, noted as per Sloan that “all of this is clearly an attempt just to censor Lisa, and handcuff her ability to do her job.”

Sloan noted that Alexander in court made the main arguments regarding freedom of expression.

“He argued that we have a fundamental right in this country to express a minority or dissenting opinion on any issue, especially on matters of public importance that relate to government,” Sloan said.

Sloan pointed out that Alexander said, “Look what they’re doing here is saying we get a right to penalize you because we find your motions disagreeable, or offensive or they don’t jive with our own opinions and views.”

“That is clearly forbidden in Canada and I’m trying to get legal recognition for that fact.”

Sloan noted that Alexander has observed that “all of this is clearly an attempt just to censor Lisa and handcuff her ability to do her job. Many people have told me this is just a way to punish her for standing up for her beliefs.”

2025 Federal Election

Police Associations Endorse Conservatives. Poilievre Will Shut Down Tent Cities

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From Conservative Party Communications

Under the Lost Liberal decade, homelessness has surged by 20% since 2018 and chronic homelessness has spiked 38%. In cities like Nanaimo, Victoria and London, the number of people living in tents and makeshift shelters has exploded. In Toronto alone, there were 82 encampments in early 2023—now there are over 200, with an estimated 1,400 in Ontario.

Yesterday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre received the endorsement of the Toronto Police Association, the largest single association of its kind in Canada, representing approximately 8,000 civilian and uniformed members.

This follows the endorsement by the police associations of Durham, Peel, Barrie, and Sault Ste. Marie of the Conservative plan to stop the crime and keep Canadians safe, after the Liberal government’s easy bail and soft-on-crime policies unleashed a wave of violent crime.

“These men and women put their lives on the line every day to keep our streets safe,” Poilievre said. “Our Conservative team is honoured to have their support and will back them up with laws to help them protect all Canadians.”

Poilievre also announced that a new Conservative government will ensure that police have the legal power to remove dangerous encampments to end the homelessness and the mental health and addiction crisis that has trapped thousands in dangerous tent cities and make life unsafe for law-abiding Canadians who live near them.

“Parks where children played are now littered with needles. Small businesses are boarded up and whole blocks of storefronts are shuttered because their owners can’t afford to deal with constant break-ins and vandalism,” Pierre Poilievre said. “Public spaces belong to everyone, but law-abiding citizens, especially families and seniors, are being pushed out to accommodate chaos and violence.”

Canadian cities have a mixed record of dealing with encampments in public places, with some not acting because they don’t believe they have the legal authority to remove the camps. Conservatives will work with provinces and ensure law enforcement has the clear legal tools they need to remove encampments and give Canadians back the safe streets and public spaces they deserve.

A Poilievre-led government will do this by reversing the Liberals’ radical pro-drug policies and by:

  • Amending the Criminal Code to give police the tools to charge individuals when they endanger public safety or discourage the public from using, moving through, or otherwise accessing public spaces by setting up temporary structures, including tents.
  • Clarifying in law that police can dismantle illegal encampments and ensure individuals living in them who need help are connected with housing, addiction treatment, and mental health services.
  • Giving judges the power to order people charged for illegally occupying public spaces with a temporary structure and simple possession of illegal drugs to mandatory drug treatment.
  • Returning to a housing first approach to homelessness, ensuring people get off the streets into a stable place to live with the support they need to rebuild their lives.

Under the Lost Liberal decade, homelessness has surged by 20% since 2018 and chronic homelessness has spiked 38%. In cities like NanaimoVictoria and London, the number of people living in tents and makeshift shelters has exploded. In Toronto alone, there were 82 encampments in early 2023—now there are over 200, with an estimated 1,400 in Ontario.

These encampments are a direct result of radical Liberal policies such as drug decriminalization and unsafe supply. They are extremely dangerous for the people trapped in them, who endure overdoses, assaults, including sexual assaults, human trafficking, and even homicide, as well as the community around them.

Under the Poilievre plan, tent cities will no longer be an option—but recovery will be. Conservatives will give law enforcement the tools they need to help clean up our streets, deal with chronic offenders, and provide truly compassionate recovery and treatment where it is needed.

“Instead of getting people the help they need, the Liberals abandoned our communities to chaos,” Poilievre said. “Leaving people trapped by their addictions to live outdoors through Canadian winters, sick, malnourished, cold, wet and vulnerable is the furthest thing from compassionate.”

A Conservative government will also overhaul the Liberals’ dangerous pro-drug policies that have led to over 50,000 overdose deaths over the Lost Liberal Decade. Instead of flooding our streets with taxpayer-funded hard drugs, we will invest in recovery to break the cycle of despair and offer real hope.

Conservatives will allow judges to sentence offenders to mandatory treatment for addiction, and we will fund 50,000 addiction treatment spaces, ensuring that those struggling with substance use get the support they need to recover—because real compassion means helping people get better, not enabling their suffering.

In addition to these measures, Poilievre has a plan to end the soft-on-crime approach of the Lost Liberal Decade, end the chaos, and restore order and safety across Canada:​

  • Three-Strikes-and-You’re-Out Law: Individuals convicted of three serious offences will face a minimum prison term of 10 years and up to a life sentence, with no eligibility for bail, probation, parole, or house arrest.
  • Mandatory Life Sentences: Life imprisonment for those convicted of five or more counts of human trafficking, importing or exporting ten or more illegal firearms, or trafficking fentanyl.
  • Repeal of Bill C-75: Ending the Liberals’ catch-and-release policies to restore jail, not bail, for repeat violent offenders.
  • New Offense for Intimate Partner Assault: Creation of a specific offense for assault of an intimate partner, with the strictest bail conditions for those accused, and ensuring that murder of an intimate partner, one’s own child, or a partner’s child is treated as first-degree murder.
  • Consecutive Sentences for Repeat Violent Offenders: So there will no longer be sentencing discounts for multiple murderers.

Canadians can’t afford a fourth Liberal term of rising crime and chaos in our streets. We need a new Conservative government that will end the chaos, restore order on our streets and bring our loved ones home drug-free.

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2025 Federal Election

Next federal government should end corporate welfare for forced EV transition

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From the Fraser Institute

By Tegan Hill and Jake Fuss

Corporate welfare simply shifts jobs and investment away from other firms and industries—which are more productive, as they don’t require government funding to be economically viable—to the governments’ preferred industries and firms, circumventing the preferences of consumers and investors. And since politicians spend other people’s money, they have little incentive to be careful investors.

General Motors recently announced the temporary closure of its electric vehicle (EV) manufacturing plant in Ontario, laying off 500 people because its new EV isn’t selling. The plant will shut down for six months despite hundreds of millions in government subsides financed by taxpayers. This is just one more example of corporate welfare—when governments subsidize favoured industries and companies—and it’s time for the provinces and the next federal government to eliminate it.

Between the federal government and Ontario government, GM received about $500 million to help fund its EV transition. But this is just one example of corporate welfare in the auto sector. Stellantis and Volkswagen will receive about $28 billion in government subsidies while Honda is promised $5 billion.

More broadly, from 2007 to 2019, the last pre-COVID year of data, the federal government spent an estimated $84.6 billion (adjusted for inflation) on corporate welfare while provincial and local governments spent another $302.9 billion. And crucially, these numbers exclude other forms of government support such as loan guarantees, direct investments and regulatory privileges, so the actual cost of corporate welfare during this period was much higher.

Of course, politicians claim that corporate welfare benefits workers. Yet according to a significant body of research, corporate welfare fails to generate widespread economic benefit. Think of it this way—if the businesses that received subsidies were viable to begin with, they wouldn’t need government support. So unprofitable companies are kept in business through governments’ support, which can prevent resources, including investment and workers, from moving to profitable companies, hurting overall economic growth.

Put differently, rather than fuelling economic growth, corporate welfare simply shifts jobs and investment away from other firms and industries—which are more productive, as they don’t require government funding to be economically viable—to the governments’ preferred industries and firms, circumventing the preferences of consumers and investors. And since politicians spend other people’s money, they have little incentive to be careful investors.

Governments also must impose higher tax rates on everyone else to pay for corporate welfare. In turn, higher tax rates discourage entrepreneurship and business investment—again, which fuels economic growth. And the higher the tax rates, the more economic activity they discourage.

GM’s EV plant shut down once again proves that when governments try to engineer the economy with corporate welfare, workers will ultimately lose. It’s time for the provinces and the next federal government—whoever it may be—to finally put an end to this costly and ineffective policy approach.

Tegan Hill

Director, Alberta Policy, Fraser Institute

Jake Fuss

Director, Fiscal Studies, Fraser Institute
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