Alberta
Red Deer South MLA Jason Stephan joins call for National Citizens Inquiry
Article submitted by Red Deer South MLA Jason Stephan
A Citizen’s Inquiry into Government COVID Policy is in the Public Interest
The National Citizens Inquiry
Many, including myself, have been calling on governments for an independent, transparent, comprehensive public inquiry into governments’ response into COVID, including, a full-cost analysis of the harms of COVID-19 restrictions on children and young adults.
Governments are not responding, so private citizens are stepping up, including Preston Manning and other community leaders forming the National Citizens Inquiry (“Inquiry”).
This Inquiry is a citizen led inquiry, not a government commissioned public inquiry. A citizen led inquiry avoids some of the inherent conflicts of interest and losses of trust cumbering governments to lead in these circumstances.
As the Inquiry is citizen, not Government, led, it relies on public support. Information about the National Citizens Inquiry can be found at: https://nationalcitizensinquiry.ca/
Most important, the Inquiry will use its findings to make recommendations so that any future national crises are better managed, harms mitigated, and trust in public institutions upheld. Isn’t that what we all want?
The Inquiry is Justified
The website for the Inquiry reports that 3 out 4 Canadians report being harmed, not by COVID, but by governments’ COVID policies. For many the cure was worse than the disease. With this being the case, is it right to look the other way and pretend nothing happened? No.
Don’t these unprecedented government actions, incurring hundreds of billions in government debts, burdening our children for generations, compel us in the public interest to consider thoroughly and honestly what occurred? Yes.
The duty of government is to listen to the public, most of whom experienced harms from government COVID responses, with a sincere desire to learn from both successes and mistakes.
As the truth will always prevail, let’s love it and unite with it.
The Trudeau-NDP Media Fuelled Fear Machine is Not Stopping
For over two years, Trudeau, the NDP, and most of the media, using fear as a tool, sought for more restrictions, mandates and passports and lockdowns. They are not stopping.
This week the media is asking the Premier about masking children in schools. The Premier said government was not going to mandate across the board masking for children, respecting individual parent decisions to mask or not mask their children according to their own circumstances. While this was a principled response, that was not good enough for the left media, reporting “ALBERTA PREMIER SAYS NO SCHOOL MASK RULES AS VIRAL CASES RISE, JAMMING HOSPITALS”.
As a parent and having visited schools last week and this week, and seeing very few masks, I am forced to conclude that some of the left media folks are not normal Albertans and are divorced from reality. It seems as they want to live in a perpetual universe of fear, and they want to force all of us to join them.
The Inquiry is coming to Alberta
The Inquiry intends to hold seven hearings in the new year, nation wide in Canada, including one in Red Deer, for all of Alberta and Saskatchewan. This is an exciting, great opportunity to get involved, serve, and participate for more accountability and transparency.
A free and open discourse of perspectives and experiences allows us to respect our differences, valuing others. It fosters more truth and less error. The more truth the better. Alberta is a land of freedom and prosperity. We must be vigilant to keep it that way.
Alberta
Alberta introduces bill banning sex reassignment surgery on minors
From LifeSiteNews
Alberta Conservative Premier Danielle Smith followed through on a promised bill banning so-called ‘top and bottom’ surgeries for minors.
Alberta Conservative Premier Danielle Smith made good on her promise to protect kids from extreme transgender ideology after introducing a bill banning so-called “top and bottom” surgeries for minors.
“It is so important that all youth can enter adulthood equipped to make adult decisions. In order to do that, we need to preserve their ability to make those decisions, and that’s what we’re doing,” Smith said in a press release.
“The changes we’re introducing are founded on compassion and science, both of which are vital for the development of youth throughout a time that can be difficult and confusing.”
Bill 26, the Health Statutes Amendment Act, 2024 “reflects the government’s commitment to build a health care system that responds to the changing needs of Albertans,” the government says.
The bill will amend the Health Act to “prohibit regulated health professionals from performing sex reassignment surgeries on minors.”
It will also ban the “use of puberty blockers and hormone therapies for the treatment of gender dysphoria or gender incongruence” to kids 15 and under “except for those who have already commenced treatment and would allow for minors aged 16 and 17 to choose to commence puberty blockers and hormone therapies for gender reassignment and affirmation purposes with parental, physician and psychologist approval.”
Alberta Minister of Health Adriana LaGrange, the bill’s sponsor, said the province’s legislative priorities include “implementing policy changes to continue our refocusing work, position our health care system to respond to pressures and public health emergencies, and to preserve choice for minors. These amendments reflect our dedication to ensuring our health care system meets the needs of every Albertan.”
Earlier this year, the United Conservative Party (UCP) provincial government under Smith announced she would introduce the strong pro-family legislation that strengthens parental rights, protecting kids from life-altering, so-called “top and bottom” surgeries as well as other extreme forms of transgender ideology.
With Smith’s UCP holding a majority in the provincial legislature, the passage of Bill 26 is almost certain.
About the proposed law, Smith said that her government believes it is “vitally important to preserve the time” kids have as a “youth.” She added that she believes this is so kids can “gain sufficient amount of knowledge, experience, and perspective so that you can fully understand who you are, who you want to be and what opportunities you may want to have as an adult before making permanent life-altering decisions related to your body.”
While Smith has done far more than predecessor Jason Kenney to satisfy social conservatives, she has been mostly soft on social issues such as abortion and has publicly expressed pro-LGBT views, telling Jordan Peterson that conservatives must embrace homosexual “couples” as “nuclear families.”
This weekend, thousands of UCP members will gather for the party’s annual general meeting, where Smith’s leadership will be voted on along with many other pro-freedom and family policy proposals from members. Smith is expected to pass her leadership review vote with a large majority.
Alberta
Alberta court upholds conviction of Pastor Artur Pawlowski for preaching at Freedom Convoy protest
From LifeSiteNews
Lawyers argued that Pastor Artur Pawlowski’s sermon was intended to encourage protesters to find a peaceful solution to the blockade, but the statement was characterized as a call for mischief.
An Alberta Court of Appeal ruled that Calgary Pastor Artur Pawlowski is guilty of mischief for his sermon at the Freedom Convoy-related border protest blockade in February 2022 in Coutts, Alberta.
On October 29, Alberta Court of Appeal Justice Gordon Krinke sentenced the pro-freedom pastor to 60 days in jail for “counselling mischief” by encouraging protesters to continue blocking Highway 4 to protest COVID mandates.
“A reasonable person would understand the appellant’s speech to be an active inducement of the illegal activity that was ongoing and that the appellant intended for his speech to be so understood,” the decision reads.
Pawlowski addressed a group of truckers and protesters blocking entrance into the U.S. state of Montana on February 3, the fifth day of the Freedom Convoy-styled protest. He encouraged the protesters to “hold the line” after they had reportedly made a deal with Royal Canadian Mounted Police to leave the border crossing and travel to Edmonton.
“The eyes of the world are fixed right here on you guys. You are the heroes,” Pawlowski said. “Don’t you dare go breaking the line.”
After Pawlowski’s sermon, the protesters remained at the border crossing for two additional weeks. While his lawyers argued that his speech was made to encourage protesters to find a peaceful solution to the blockade, the statement is being characterized as a call for mischief.
Days later, on February 8, Pawlowski was arrested – for the fifth time – by an undercover SWAT team just before he was slated to speak again to the Coutts protesters.
He was subsequently jailed for nearly three months for what he said was for speaking out against COVID mandates, the subject of all the Freedom Convoy-related protests.
In Krinke’s decision, he argued that Pawlowski’s sermon incited the continuation of the protest, saying, “The Charter does not provide justification to anybody who incites a third party to commit such crimes.”
However, defence lawyer Sarah Miller pointed out that that Pawlowski’s sermon was protected under freedom of speech, an argument that Krinke quickly dismissed.
“While the appellant is correct that peaceful, lawful and nonviolent communication is entitled to protection, blockading a highway is an inherently aggressive and potentially violent form of conduct, designed to intimidate and impede the movement of third parties,” he wrote.
Pawlowski was released after the verdict. He has already spent 78 days in jail before the trial.
Pawlowski is the first Albertan to be charged for violating the province’s Critical Infrastructure Defence Act (CIDA), which was put in place in 2020 under then-Premier Jason Kenney.
The CIDA, however, was not put in place due to COVID mandates but rather after anti-pipeline protesters blockaded key infrastructure points such as railway lines in Alberta a few years ago.
-
Business1 day ago
Premiers fight to lower gas taxes as Trudeau hikes pump costs
-
Alberta2 days ago
Heavy-duty truckers welcome new ‘natural gas highway’ in Alberta
-
Alberta2 days ago
Another Blow To The Carbon Tax
-
MAiD2 days ago
Quebec set to take euthanasia requests in advance, violating federal law
-
Economy2 days ago
One Solution to Canada’s Housing Crisis: Move. Toronto loses nearly half million people to more affordable locations
-
Economy2 days ago
Gas prices plummet in BC thanks to TMX pipeline expansion
-
Addictions1 day ago
‘Our Liberal Government Is Acting Like A Drug Lord’: A Mother’s Testimony
-
Business2 days ago
Trudeau government spends millions producing podcasts