Trudeau’s Senate Power Grab – How Every Province is Now Under Ottawa’s Thumb

Todayville

Published

5 months ago

9 minute read

By Dan Knight

Good morning my fellow Canadians. We’ve got a major story that goes right to the heart of the political swamp in Ottawa. Justin Trudeau has just appointed two new senators from Alberta, and, as usual, he’s trying to sell them to us as “independent.”

First, let’s talk about who these new senators are. Dr. Kristopher Wells is one of them. Wells is a well-known activist in the 2SLGBTQ+ community, a vocal advocate for every liberal cause under the sun. He’s been busy pushing for policies that promote radical gender ideology in schools, criticizing Alberta’s conservative stance at every turn. Now, Trudeau wants us to believe that Wells, who has made a career out of progressive activism, will somehow be an “independent” voice in the Senate? Give me a break.

Let’s be absolutely clear here, folks: Daryl Fridhandler is no impartial figure. He’s a corporate lawyer who’s spent years involved in organizations pushing left-wing agendas under the guise of community service. And what does that really mean? He’s a leftist activist, plain and simple.

And now, Trudeau wants us to believe Fridhandler’s Senate appointment is “independent”? Give me a break. This guy has funneled nearly $80,000 into the Liberal Party—($79,968.77, to be exact). The Senate shouldn’t be for sale to the highest bidder or most loyal crony. This is a classic Trudeau move, stacking the Senate with his cronies and turning it into a rubber stamp for his radical agenda. It’s not just political maneuvering; it’s an outright attack on our democratic institutions.

The Senate is supposed to serve as a check on power, a place for sober second thought, not a Liberal lapdog doing Trudeau’s bidding. This is the kind of corrupt backroom dealing that erodes public trust and undermines the very fabric of our democracy.

Now, let’s turn to Alberta Premier Danielle Smith. She’s not happy, and frankly, who can blame her? She called out these appointments for what they are—another shameless attempt by Trudeau to undercut the democratic will of Albertans. Smith points out that Alberta has a system for electing senators-in-waiting, who are meant to represent the interests of Albertans in Ottawa. Yet, Trudeau has completely ignored these elected representatives. Instead, he has handpicked his own cronies. And make no mistake, these so-called “independent” senators are Justin Trudeaus cronies and will vote whichever way he tells them too.

Smith’s objection isn’t just about these specific appointees. It’s about the broader pattern we’ve seen from this government— a total disregard for Alberta’s democratic choices. Remember, folks, Alberta has repeatedly elected conservative senators-in-waiting, people who actually represent the interests of their province. But Trudeau doesn’t care about that. No, he’d rather install people who are loyal to him, not to the people of Alberta.

This brings us to the so-called Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments. Trudeau loves to talk about how this board is “independent,” how it’s all about merit-based criteria, blah, blah, blah. But let’s get real for a second. This board isn’t independent at all. The members are nominated by Trudeau. They report to Trudeau. They recommend candidates to Trudeau. And then Trudeau appoints his picks, all while pretending there’s some kind of impartial process at play. It’s a total sham!

Let’s break it down even further. The whole process is designed to look like it’s fair and transparent, but in reality, it’s just another way for Trudeau to exert control. The so-called independent senators are anything but. They might not wear Liberal Party badges, but make no mistake—they’re marching to the beat of Trudeau’s drum. This isn’t about finding the best people to serve Canadians. It’s about finding the best people to serve Justin Trudeau and his agenda.

This isn’t just my opinion—look at the facts. Since 2016, Trudeau has made 86 appointments to the Senate, all under this “independent” system. And surprise, surprise, the Senate has drifted further and further left, rubber-stamping Trudeau’s policies with little resistance. The whole thing is a farce, and Trudeau’s latest picks just prove it.

And here’s the proof that the Senate isn’t independent: Bill C-18. This so-called “Online News Act” is Trudeau’s failed attempt at news censorship. The bill mandates that tech giants like Google and Meta (formerly Facebook) pay Canadian news publishers for content shared on their platforms. It sounds nice on paper, but what’s the result? Meta decided to ban all news content in Canada. That’s right. Canadian independent media lost its voice because they’re no longer being shared on the platforms where people actually get their news.

Ask yourself: if the Senate was truly independent, truly balanced with some business-savvy, right-leaning representatives, do you really think a bill like C-18 would have passed? No chance. Any senator with a shred of common sense would recognize that forcing tech companies into these kinds of deals doesn’t solve the problem; it just pushes these companies to cut ties with Canadian news entirely. But this Senate, filled with Trudeau’s picks, rubber-stamped it without a second thought.

The Senate was designed to be a place of independent judgment, a check on whoever’s in power—be it Liberal, Conservative, or otherwise. It’s supposed to ensure that no single party can bulldoze their agenda without scrutiny. But what happens when Trudeau stacks the Senate with his cronies? The whole system collapses! Even if the Conservatives take power tomorrow, Trudeau’s liberal foot soldiers will be there, blocking, stalling, and pushing his leftist agenda from the shadows of the Senate.

So, where does this leave Canada? It leaves us with a Senate that is increasingly a tool of the Prime Minister’s Office, rather than a chamber for balanced debate and regional representation. Every province, not just Alberta, is now at the whims of Ottawa, Justin Trudeau, and his handpicked cronies. The Senate no longer reflects the diverse interests of Canadians; instead, it mirrors the ideological leanings of one man. Provinces across the country are left sidelined, their democratic choices ignored, and their voices muted under Trudeau’s centralized control.

Danielle Smith is right to be furious. Albertans are right to be furious. And every Canadian who cares about democracy and fairness should be furious too. The Senate is supposed to be an independent body, a check on the power of the Prime Minister, not a rubber stamp for his agenda. But as long as Trudeau is in charge, it looks like that’s exactly what it’s going to be. And that’s not just a shame—it’s a scandal.

Dan Knight

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Liberals Hail Mary: To You From Failing Hands

Published on January 30, 2025

Bruce Dowbiggin

In case you missed it, the Hubris party has halted the business of Canada for three months in the heart of the biggest existential crisis since NAFTA. The reason? Justin Trudeau called timeout to allow banker/ green advocate Mark Carney to slide into his chair before the next election becomes Bull Run.

Who is Carney? In September Justin Trudeau appointed him a “special advisor” to the Liberals. He then asked for— and received— $10 B for Brookfield, the private hedge fund of which he was chairman, so that he might sprinkle it on the Green Agenda. There’s more, but this tells you why Libs think he’s ideal.

In his introduction to a nation that didn’t know Mark Carney was a solution to anything, Carney insisted that Canadians want new ideas, new energy, new purpose. (In his defence his opponent Chrystia Freeland is mumbling the same contrition.) And who were the architects of the malaise requiring such an overhaul?

The Liberals themselves. Okay, the NDP rates blame for polishing the Liberal apple in a minority government. But Canadians have long ago consigned Jagmeet Singh to a deserved obscurity. Yes, the denials choir at the Toronto Star and CBC are trying to harpoon Pierre Polievre for ruining the Parliament that Liberals prorogued. While the Flora MacDonald Marching Society cites Donald Trump’s tariffs for the crisis. Deny, deny, deny.

It’s not working. Consult the polls. Even the staunchest supporters of Canada’s self-appointed national party are fed up with PMJT and his legacy. In fact it is stunning to see how wobbly the Liberal platform is under Carney. All the massaged polls and handshakes with Olympic heroes on the Rideau Canal cannot disguise that their legacy issues are now DOA. As we wrote last week the challenges come on a many fronts.

Trump’s tariff challenge/ 51st state tease is the most public challenge— and the one the Liberals believe they can whipsaw to their favour. #OrangeManBad simply tore away the PMO’s artifice of postmodern Canada. By threatening tariffs and gleefully laughing about Canada joining America he exposed an entitled political elite unwilling to admit that the world has changed.

By stirring Canada to some united economic response against his audacious measures Trump has shown Canadians how little they have in common. Ontario and Quebec want Alberta to put on the hair shirt. Alberta wants Quebec to pay its fair share. etc. Trump’s new Commerce secretary says it would be an easy ask to avoid tariffs. But Trudeau/ Doug Ford would rather posture and preen. Canadians, after years of sitting in first-class but paying for economy, now find themselves exposed to the world. As we said in 2018, Canada is an ingrate nation living off Trump’s America.

The destruction of Liberal DEI legacy doesn’t stop with tariffs. The PMO pretends that they can still use the Climate inquisition to hammer Canadians. But Trump has moved the West away from the Al Gore/ King Charles doomsday consensus. By taking America out of the UN Net Zero scheme he’s produced a landslide of financial institutions and governments escaping the draconian conditions imposed by this once-mighty body. Trudeau’s precious climate supports are toppling almost as fast as Sir John A. statues.

Trump has forced the high and mighty in banking, investment and government— who’ve been wedded to these principals— to escape his climate wrath. Trump used the election to remind voters of deadlines for catastrophic weather that come and go with only elites getting rich. During the 2024 vote he heard from average people who no longer believe the Greta Thunberg countdown clock to ruination. And he said, Drill, Baby, Drill.

CO2-obsessed Canada, meanwhile, is still dithering on its commitment to what CBC and everyone in Parliament stubbornly call the “climate crisis”. Carney talks about moving away from the sacred tablets of climate change, but only to find a new green euphemism for draining the public purse.

Another sacred cow of Trudeau’s Disaster Run has been his stewardship of Covid 19— a talking point he brags about openly but whose Emergency Measures Act are condemned by the courts and public opinion. Again, Trudeau’s flank has been protected by purchased media and a smothering censorship program.

But now Alberta’s Covid Task Force has ripped the province’s actions in the two-plus years of virus, vaccine and vexation. The Davidson Report demonstrates how The Science was used to defend government overreach while health officials used faulty data to deceive the public about the reality of Covid. (The criticisms apply to the federal response just as easily.)

One example cited in the Task Force report was one we wrote about continuously from 2020-2023. Namely the media’s daily positive CPR tests that purported to show massive numbers of infected Canadians. The truth was 80 to 90 percent of the “results” were false positives or samples too small to be transmitted or make the carrier ill. Even when they knew in 2020 no one bothered to let citizens in on the scam.

Want more? Another sink hole beneath the Libs is the Rez Schools “murdered babies” libel they used to cast Canadians as genocidal. Trudeau sought to criminalize any doubt on their veracity. Turns out that the money allocated for exhumation of alleged graves of victims has turned up nothing. Instead the “$12M spent to find purported 215 children’s graves at an Indian Residential School was instead spent on publicists & consultants with no graves found to date. “

There’s more. Environment minister Stephen Gilbeault was found guilty of violating federal rules in siphoning $254 M to a company he owns. While Conservative MPs continue to call for the release of “green slush fund” documents, Trudeau continues to defend his minister by burying the records. Then there is the $187 B in infrastructure grants supervised by former Lib cabinet minister Catherine McKenna that is unaccounted for.

Wait, there’s more. On the celebrated immigration front nearly 50,000 international students failed to show up at their designated colleges and universities in Canada during March and April 2024, according to government data.; No one can trace them. And let’s not forget the government’s seeming impassivity to the crowds of pro-Hamas fanatics crowding Canadian streets each week calling fore the death of Canadian Jews and anyone else trying to stop the intifada.

We could go on, but this seems like weak sauce on which to launch a new leader of the Liberals. But they’re going to try. And with Singh’s flip-flop, now refusing to bring down the government, it will have a puncher’s chance in the Liberal heartland. Expect them to try stretching the mandate till the fall and later while spitting out more federal aid money, a la Covid, to compensate Canadians for this stupidity.

The only question then, who volunteers to bell the cat? Can you say Convoy.2?

Bruce Dowbiggin @dowbboy is the editor of Not The Public Broadcaster A two-time winner of the Gemini Award as Canada’s top television sports broadcaster. His new book Deal With It: The Trades That Stunned The NHL And Changed Hockey is now available on Amazon. Inexact Science: The Six Most Compelling Draft Years In NHL History, his previous book with his son Evan, was voted the seventh-best professional hockey book of all time by bookauthority.org. You can see all his books at brucedowbigginbooks.ca.

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So What ARE We Supposed To Do With the Homeless?

Published on January 30, 2025

Todayville

David Clinton

Involuntary confinement is currently enjoying serious reconsideration

Sometimes a quick look is all it takes to convince me that a particular government initiative has gone off the rails. The federal government’s recent decision to shut down their electric vehicle subsidy program does feel like a vindication of my previous claim that subsidies don’t actually increase EV sales.

But no matter how hard I look at some other programs – and no matter how awful I think they are – coming up with better alternatives of my own isn’t at all straightforward. A case in point is contemporary strategies for managing urban homeless shelters. The problem is obvious: people suffering from mental illnesses, addictions, and poverty desperately need assistance with shelter and immediate care.

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Ideally, shelters should provide integration with local healthcare, social, and employment infrastructure to make it easier for clients to get back on their feet. But integration isn’t cost-free. Because many shelters serve people suffering from serious mental illnesses, neighbors have to worry about being subjected to dangerous and criminal behavior.

Apparently, City of Toronto policy now requires their staff to obscure from public view the purchase and preparation of new shelter locations. The obvious logic driving the policy is the desire to avoid push back from neighbors worried about the impact such a facility could have.

As much as we might regret the not-in-my-back-yard (NIMBY) attitude the city is trying to circumvent, the neighbors do have a point. Would I want to raise my children on a block littered with used syringes and regularly visited by high-as-a-kite – and often violent – substance abusers? Would I be excited about an overnight 25 percent drop in the value of my home? To be honest, I could easily see myself fighting fiercely to prevent such a facility opening anywhere near where I live.

On the other hand, we can’t very well abandon the homeless. They need a warm place to go along with access to resources necessary for moving ahead with their lives.

One alternative to dorm-like shelters where client concentration can amplify the negative impacts of disturbed behavior is “housing first” models. The goal is to provide clients with immediate and unconditional access to their own apartments regardless of health or behaviour warnings. The thinking is that other issues can only be properly addressed from the foundation of stable housing.

Such models have been tried in many places around the world over the years. Canada’s federal government, for example, ran their Housing First program between 2009 and 2013. That was replaced in 2014 with the Homelessness Partnering Strategy which, in 2019 was followed by Reaching Home.

There have been some successes, particularly in small communities. But one look at the disaster that is San Francisco will demonstrate that the model doesn’t scale well. The sad fact is that Canada’s emergency shelters are still as common as ever: serving as many as 11,000 people a night just in Toronto. Some individuals might have benefited from the Home First-type programs, but they haven’t had a measurable impact on the problem itself.

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Where does the money to cover those programs come from? According to their 2023 Financial Report, the City of Toronto spent $1.1 billion on social housing, of which $504 million came in funding transfers from other levels of government. Now we probably have to be careful to distinguish between a range of programs that could be included in those “social housing” figures. But it’s probably safe to assume that they included an awful lot of funding directed at the homeless.

So money is available, but is there another way to spend it that doesn’t involve harming residential neighborhoods?

To ask the question is to answer it. Why not create homeless shelters in non-residential areas?

Right off the top I’ll acknowledge that there’s no guarantee these ideas would work and they’re certainly not perfect. But we already know that the current system isn’t ideal and there’s no indication that it’s bringing us any closer to solving the underlying problems. So why not take a step back and at least talk about alternatives?

Good government is about finding a smart balance between bad options.

Put bluntly, by “non-residential neighborhood shelters” I mean “client warehouses”. That is, constructing or converting facilities in commercial, industrial, or rural areas for dorm-like housing. Naturally, there would be medical, social, and guidance resources available on-site, and frequent shuttle services back and forth to urban hubs.

If some of this sounds suspiciously like the forced institutionalization of people suffering from dangerous mental health conditions that existing until the 1970s, that’s not an accident. The terrible abuses that existed in some of those institutions were replaced by different kinds of suffering, not to mention growing street crime. But shutting down the institutions themselves didn’t solve anything. Involuntary confinement is currently enjoying serious reconsideration.

Clients would face some isolation and inconvenience, and the risk of institutional abuses can’t be ignored. But those could be outweighed by the positives. For one thing, a larger client population makes it possible to properly separate families and healthy individuals facing short-term poverty from the mentally ill or abusive. It would also allow for more resource concentration than community-based models. That might mean dedicated law enforcement and medical staff rather than reliance on the 9-1-1 system.

It would also be possible to build positive pathways into the system, so making good progress in the rural facility could earn clients the right to move to in-town transition locations.

This won’t be the last word spoken on this topic. But we’re living with a system that’s clearly failing to properly serve both the homeless and people living around them. It would be hard to justify ignoring alternatives.

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