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Trudeau’s agenda is failing Canadians as 2 million visit food banks each month

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4 minute read

From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

According to an October report from Food Banks Canada, Canadians made 2,059,636 visits to a food bank in March alone, as overall visits have increased 6% from last year’s record-breaking numbers. But what, if anything, is being done to fix this?

More Canadians than ever are relying on food banks to feed their families, as usage has increased 90% from 2019. 

According to an October report from Food Banks Canada, Canadians made 2,059,636 visits to a food bank in March alone, as overall visits have increased 6% from last year’s record-breaking numbers.  

“Compared to before the pandemic, there has been a significant increase in two-parent households with children under 18 accessing food banks — from 18.8% in 2019 to nearly 23% in 2024,” reads the report.  

“Two-parent families who access food banks are more likely to live in larger urban areas of 100,000 or more, which contributes to the higher usage rates in those areas,” it continued. “This trend is consistent with other research findings that show households with children have been especially hard hit by rapidly rising costs of living.”  

Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre commented on the situation, saying, ” Food Banks Canada reports more than 2 MILLION food bank visits in ONE MONTH—after the carbon tax sent food prices up 36% faster than in the U.S. This is Canada after 9 years of NDP-Liberals.” 

 

According to the report, families are increasingly forced to rely on food banks, as one-third of the recipients were children, making 700,000 monthly visits this year. 

Food Banks Canada attributed the rising reliance on food banks to “rapid inflation, housing costs and insufficient social supports.” According to the report, 18% of food bank recipients are gainfully employed while 70% are in the rental market.  

Finding a solution 

The report recommended “a groceries and essentials benefit,” by modifying the existing GST quarterly credit given to low-income Canadians.   

However, it should be clear that giving struggling Canadians a tax benefit merely treats the symptom, not the problem itself. The disease is not rising food prices, it is Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s radical policies that have created a failing economy fueled by inflationary government spending and a punitive carbon tax regime.

Taxing the “carbon” emitted in the production and transportation of Canadians’ food and then returning a fraction of the money not only drives Canadians into poverty, but makes them reliant on handouts.

The Trudeau government needs to reign in its reckless spending and reverse its radical tax policies, returning the economic power to citizens and away from bureaucrats.

Despite the clear need for this, Trudeau’s government appears bent on doing the opposite. As LifeSiteNews previously reported, a 2023 October Parliamentary Budget Officer report found that Trudeau’s carbon tax is costing Canadians hundreds of dollars annually as government rebates remain insufficient to compensate for the increased fuel prices, yet he remains committed to further increasing the tax.

Reports have revealed that a carbon tax of more than $350 per tonne is needed to reach Trudeau’s net-zero goals by 2050. Currently, Canadians living in provinces under the federal carbon pricing scheme pay $80 per tonne, a rate that will be raised to $170 per tonne by 2030.

Directly following a report that Canada’s poverty rate increased for the first time in years due to high inflation spurred by government spending, polls showed that nearly half of Canadians are only $200 from complete financial ruin, and yet the Trudeau government continues down its same path.   

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MAiD

Quebec set to take euthanasia requests in advance, violating federal law

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From LifeSiteNews

By Clare Marie Merkowsky

Quebec has the highest rate of MAiD in Canada. The province saw a 17 percent increase in euthanasia deaths in 2023 compared to 2022, with the program claiming the lives of 5,686 people. The high figure represents a staggering 7.3 percent of all deaths in the province, putting Quebec at the top of the list worldwide.

Despite the practice being illegal at the federal level, Quebec says it plans to go ahead with taking euthanasia requests in advance.

In an October 24 post on X, Sonia Bélanger, the Quebec minister responsible for seniors,  announced that the province would be moving forward with taking “advance requests” for euthanasia, called “Medical Assistance in Dying (MAiD),” regardless of the policy’s violation of the Criminal Code of Canada.

As it stands, in order for a person to be killed by euthanasia in Canada, they must provide “consent” at the time of the procedure. So-called “advance requests” would allow a person to approve their killing at a future date, meaning the procedure would be carried out even if they are incapable of consenting, due to diminished mental capacity or other factors, when the pre-approved death date comes.

“Quebec has full jurisdiction to legislate in the area of ​​health care,” Bélanger wrote in French. “The advance request for MAiD is a consensus in Quebec.” 

 

“This is a real concern for Quebecers and on October 30, we will respect their choices by moving forward,” Bélanger continued.   

In September, the province announced they would soon be taking advance requests for MAiD after the June 2023 passing of Bill 11.

In Canada, there are two euthanasia laws, those passed by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government and those passed solely in the province of Quebec. The 2023 passing of Bill 11 in Quebec expanded MAiD to those with serious physical disability, mandated that hospices offer the procedure and allowed euthanasia by advance request. 

The decision to enact the legislation came after senior ministers from the provincial government said they would not “wait any longer” for Canada’s federal Criminal Code to be amended to allow the change. 

“The Criminal Code has not changed. It is still illegal in this country under the Criminal Code to enact advance requests,” federal Health Minister Mark Holland said during an October 28 press conference before adding that he “can’t direct” how a province administers its “judicial system” and that is is “extremely important to say that we have a spirit of cooperation here, that the issue that Quebec raises is a legitimate and fair issue.”

Holland also said that the federal government will launch a countrywide consultation regarding the practice of advance requests in November, with a report due in March 2025.  

Quebec has the highest rate of MAiD in Canada. The province saw a 17 percent increase in euthanasia deaths in 2023 compared to 2022, with the program claiming the lives of 5,686 people. The high figure represents a staggering 7.3 percent of all deaths in the province, putting Quebec at the top of the list worldwide.

MAiD is not just on the rise in Quebec but throughout Canada as well. Since legalizing the deadly practice at the federal level in 2016, Trudeau’s Liberal government has continued to expanded who can qualify for death. In 2021, the Trudeau government passed a bill that permitted the killing of those who are not terminally ill, but who suffer solely from chronic disease. The government has also attempted to expand the practice to those suffering solely from mental illness, but have delayed until 2027 after pushback from pro-life, medical, and mental health groups as well as most of Canada’s provinces.

Overall, the number of Canadians killed by lethal injection since 2016 stands at close to 65,000, with an estimated 16,000 deaths in 2023 alone. Many fear that because the official statistics are manipulated the number may be even higher. 

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Alberta

Another Blow To The Carbon Tax

Published on

From Project Confederation

By Josh Andrus

Five years ago, I announced the launch of Project Confederation on Danielle Smith’s CHQR 770 radio show.

That interview changed my life forever.

The project launch was driven by a belief that federal policies – including, but not limited to, the carbon tax – were unfairly targeting Alberta and our economy.

Five years later, we find ourselves opening the next chapter of a long-running saga.

Slowly but surely, Canadians – not just Albertans – have worked out that carbon tax doesn’t make sense, doesn’t work, and isn’t constitutional.

And as the public backlash to the carbon tax grew, the federal government compromised the policy even further, making it even more unpopular and even less constitutional.

On Tuesday, Danielle Smith, now Alberta Premier, announced that her government is going to court to challenge the constitutionality of Ottawa’s selective carbon tax exemption on home heating oils.

The carbon tax, of course, is the levy charged for fuel and combustible waste as outlined in the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act and its regulations.

The carbon tax is a tax on everything.

Every product you consume relies on energy-intensive steps in the production cycle – whether it’s the combines harvesting crops, commercial trucks transporting goods, or the electricity powering lights and refrigeration at the grocery store, just to name a few.

This drives costs up throughout the production process in virtually every industry.

The carbon tax also serves as the flagship policy of the Liberal-NDP coalition government, which took office following the 2019 election – just two days before my first appearance on Danielle Smith’s show.

In the eyes of the federal government, the carbon tax represents a beacon to the world, signalling Canada’s new global position as a green, socialist utopia.

In the eyes of the voters, it represents a symbol of the Trudeau government’s unpopularity, a major contributor to ongoing affordability problems and a sluggish economy.

In the eyes of the provinces, it is a clear violation of provincial jurisdiction.

The Act requires provinces to establish these punitive carbon taxes, and if they don’t, the Act allows for Ottawa to impose carbon pricing.

When it was introduced, it faced immediate legal challenges from Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Ontario.

They were joined in opposition to the law by Quebec, Manitoba and New Brunswick – meaning that six provinces, making up over 80% of the Canadian population, believed the carbon tax was a violation of provincial jurisdiction.

The provinces contended that natural resources fall under provincial authority, and that the carbon tax essentially imposes a levy on resource development.

Ottawa, however, argued that climate change constitutes a national crisis and thus falls under federal responsibility.

In 2021, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of the federal government – on the premise that it could be applied as a “minimum national standard.”

“This is in fact the very premise of a federal scheme that imposes minimum national standards: Canada and the provinces are both free to legislate in relation to the same fact situation but the federal law is paramount.”

Just two years later, the Liberal-NDP coalition completely abandoned the minimum national standard by granting a carbon tax carve-out to home heating oils.

Here’s the catch.

In Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba, less than one percent of households use home heating oils to keep their homes warm during cold weather.

That number rises to seven percent in New Brunswick, eighteen percent in Newfoundland and Labrador, thirty-two percent in Nova Scotia and forty percent in Prince Edward Island.

The carbon tax had become such an unpopular policy in Atlantic Canada that the Liberals, trying to stop their collapsing poll numbers, decided to try and regain some votes in the region.

If that weren’t enough, the Liberal government blatantly admitted that the decision was political.

On CTV’s Question Period, Rural Economic Development Minister Gudie Hutchings said  “I can tell you, the (Liberal) Atlantic caucus was vocal with what they’ve heard from their constituents, and perhaps they need to elect more Liberals in the Prairies so that we can have that conversation, as well.”

So much for the “minimum national standard.”

Immediately, the constitutionality of the carbon tax was called into question.

Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said the move was “not about fairness or about families, it’s only about votes.”

Moe moved swiftly, announcing that SaskEnergy – the Crown corporation that supplies natural gas to residents – would no longer collect or remit the carbon tax on home heating bills in Saskatchewan.

In a misguided effort to curry political favour in the Atlantic provinces, the Liberals have completely compromised the legal standing of the carbon tax and opened the door for provinces to explore new legal avenues against their signature policy.

Now, the Alberta government is seizing that opportunity by filing an application for judicial review of the exemption with the Federal Court, requesting a declaration that the exemption is “both unconstitutional and unlawful.”

“Albertans simply cannot stand by for another winter while the federal government picks and chooses who their carbon tax applies to,” Smith said in a statement. “Since they won’t play fair, we’re going to take the federal government back to court.”

Minister of Justice Mickey Amery added that:

This exemption is not only unfair to the vast majority of Canadians, but it is also unlawful as the federal government does not have the authority to make special exemptions for certain parts of the country under the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act.”

“The federal government isn’t even following its own laws now. Someone needs to hold them accountable, and Alberta is stepping up to do just that.”

The carbon tax has always been unfair to western Canadians, where households use more energy per capita, thanks to our geography and climate.

In a press conference, Danielle Smith went further, saying:

“We’re calling on (the federal government) to repeal the carbon tax. We’ve been calling for that for years. The retail carbon tax is just punitive to taxpayers. It’s punitive to consumers.”

We agree.

It adds an additional expense at every level of the economy, affecting everything from home heating to transportation, and it creates an environment of higher prices on the goods and services we all rely on.

It’s time to take the action that should have been taken long ago.

It’s time to repeal the carbon tax.

Please sign this petition and join our effort to hold the federal government accountable:

Once you’ve signed, please share with your friends, family, and every Canadian.

Regards,

Josh Andrus
Executive Director
Project Confederation

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