Manhattan DA drops part of Weinstein case

New York City prosecutors abandoned part of their sexual assault case against Harvey Weinstein on Thursday after evidence surfaced that a police detective dead set on putting the Hollywood mogul behind bars had coached a witness to stay silent about evidence that cast doubt on the allegations of one of his earliest accusers.

The behind-the-scenes drama spilled into court, with Weinstein looking on, as the Manhattan District Attorney’s office elected to drop the lone charge stemming from Lucia Evans’ allegations that he forced her to perform oral sex on him in 2004, when she was a college student and aspiring actress.

Weinstein, 66, still faces charges over allegations that he raped an unidentified woman in his hotel room in 2013 and performed a forcible sex act on a different woman in 2006. He has pleaded not guilty and denies all allegations of non-consensual sex. He is free on $1 million bail and is due back in court Dec. 20.

Prosecutor Joan Illuzzi-Orbon insisted the rest of the case is strong and said that the district attorney’s office was looking into the possibility of bringing additional charges against the 66-year-old Weinstein.

“In short, your honour, we are moving full steam ahead,” she said.

Prosecutors said in a letter unsealed Thursday that they learned weeks ago that a woman who was with Evans the night she met Weinstein had given the police detective a contradictory account of what happened, but the detective had instructed her to keep quiet, telling her that “less is more.”

The woman, prosecutors said, told the detective in February that Weinstein had offered them money to flash their breasts during the restaurant encounter. They initially declined but Evans later told her she had gone ahead and exposed herself to the film producer in a hallway.

The woman also told the detective — identified by Weinstein’s lawyer as Nicholas DiGaudio — that sometime after Evans’ office meeting with Weinstein, she had suggested what happened was consensual. Weinstein had promised to get her an acting job if she agreed to perform oral sex and she agreed.

According to the witness, who was not named in the court filing, Evans had been drinking and “appeared to be upset, embarrassed and shaking” when she told the story.

Evans was among the first women to publicly accuse Weinstein of sexual assault.

In an expose published in The New Yorker one year ago Wednesday, Evans accused Weinstein of forcing her to perform oral sex when they met alone in his office in 2004 to discuss her fledgling acting career. At the time, Evans was a 21-year-old college student. She said she had initially met Weinstein at a restaurant in Manhattan earlier that summer.

Prosecutors also disclosed that they had discovered a draft email that Evans had written three years ago to a man who is now her husband that “describes details of the sexual assault that differ from the account” she provided to investigators.

Evans’ lawyer, Carrie Goldberg, furiously said outside court that her client had been abandoned by Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance Jr. for no reason.

“Let me be clear: the decision to throw away my client’s sexual assault charges says nothing about Weinstein’s guilt or innocence. Nor does it reflect on Lucia’s consistent allegation that she was sexually assaulted with force by Harvey Weinstein,” she said in a written statement. “It only speaks volumes about the Manhattan DA’s office and its mishandling of my client’s case.”

She insisted Evans has told the truth and disputed that she either showed Weinstein her breasts or misled investigators.

Weinstein’s lawyer, Benjamin Brafman, told the judge he believed Evans had lied both to the grand jury and to The New Yorker about her encounter with Weinstein.

“The integrity of these proceedings has been compromised,” he said. Outside court, he suggested that Evans should be prosecuted criminally for perjury.

“This is an attack on the fundamental integrity of the grand jury process. If you have a person willing to commit perjury in the grand jury, that is as serious as the crime of sexual assault because it undermines the fairness of the process for all of us.”

Goldberg said Evans told the grand jury the truth.

“The DA is aware of robust evidence, including witnesses, that seriously undermine the witness’ credibility and recollection of events. Yet, the DA consented to dismissal prior to investigating this evidence,” she wrote on Twitter.

The New Yorker, in a statement, said that it stands by its reporting and fact-checking process and that “any assertion by lawyers for Harvey Weinstein that The New Yorker had information that contradicted Lucia Evans’s account is patently incorrect.”

Police said Thursday that DiGaudio, who had been outspoken in the media about wanting Weinstein charged, is being investigated by the department and no longer has an active role in the Weinstein probe.

“We take these allegations seriously,” Chief of Detectives Dermot Shea said.

A message left on a phone used by the detective in the past wasn’t immediately returned. The union representing New York City police detectives also didn’t immediately return a message.

Images of Weinstein in handcuffs were seen by many women as a cathartic moment in the #MeToo reckoning. The collapse of part of the case against him could mean trouble for the prosecutor.

Vance has already been fiercely criticized for declining to prosecute Weinstein when an Italian model accused him of grabbing her breasts in 2015. At the time, Vance cited a lack of supporting evidence, despite the existence of a clandestinely made recording of Weinstein discussing the episode with the woman.

In the months after The New York Times and The New Yorker began publishing stories about Weinstein’s interactions with women, activists pressured Vance to bring charges as dozens of people came forward with claims of sexual misconduct against him.

New York Police officials poured on the pressure, too, saying publicly that they believed they had gathered ample evidence to make an arrest.

The Associated Press does not identify alleged victims of sexual assaults unless they come forward publicly, as Evans has done.

Follow Mike Sisak at www.twitter.com/mikesisak and Tom Hays at https://twitter.com/APtomhays

Michael R. Sisak And Tom Hays, The Associated Press

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Mortgaging Canada’s energy future — the hidden costs of the Carney-Smith pipeline deal

Published on December 21, 2025

Dan McTeague

By Dan McTeague

Much of the commentary on the Carney-Smith pipeline Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) has focused on the question of whether or not the proposed pipeline will ever get built.

That’s an important topic, and one that deserves to be examined — whether, as John Robson, of the indispensable Climate Discussion Nexus, predicted, “opposition from the government of British Columbia and aboriginal groups, and the skittishness of the oil industry about investing in a major project in Canada, will kill [the pipeline] dead.”

But I’m going to ask a different question: Would it even be worth building this pipeline on the terms Ottawa is forcing on Alberta? If you squint, the MOU might look like a victory on paper. Ottawa suspends the oil and gas emissions cap, proposes an exemption from the West Coast tanker ban, and lays the groundwork for the construction of one (though only one) million barrels per day pipeline to tidewater.

But in return, Alberta must agree to jack its industrial carbon tax up from $95 to $130 per tonne at a minimum, while committing to tens of billions in carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) spending, including the $16.5 billion Pathways Alliance megaproject.

Here’s the part none of the project’s boosters seem to want to mention: those concessions will make the production of Canadian hydrocarbon energy significantly more expensive.

As economist Jack Mintz has explained, the industrial carbon tax hike alone adds more than $5 USD per barrel of Canadian crude to marginal production costs — the costs that matter when companies decide whether to invest in new production. Layer on the CCUS requirements and you get another $1.20–$3 per barrel for mining projects and $3.60–$4.80 for steam-assisted operations.

While roughly 62% of the capital cost of carbon capture is to be covered by taxpayers — another problem with the agreement, I might add — the remainder is covered by the industry, and thus, eventually, consumers.

Total damage: somewhere between $6.40 and $10 US per barrel. Perhaps more.

“Ultimately,” the Fraser Institute explains, “this will widen the competitiveness gap between Alberta and many other jurisdictions, such as the United States,” that don’t hamstring their energy producers in this way. Producers in Texas and Oklahoma, not to mention Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, or Russia, aren’t paying a dime in equivalent carbon taxes or mandatory CCUS bills. They’re not so masochistic.

American refiners won’t pay a “low-carbon premium” for Canadian crude. They’ll just buy cheaper oil or ramp up their own production.

In short, a shiny new pipe is worthless if the extra cost makes barrels of our oil so expensive that no one will want them.

And that doesn’t even touch on the problem for the domestic market, where the higher production cost will be passed onto Canadian consumers in the form of higher gas and diesel prices, home heating costs, and an elevated cost of everyday goods, like groceries.

Either way, Canadians lose.

So, concludes Mintz, “The big problem for a new oil pipeline isn’t getting BC or First Nation acceptance. Rather, it’s smothering the industry’s competitiveness by layering on carbon pricing and decarbonization costs that most competing countries don’t charge.” Meanwhile, lurking underneath this whole discussion is the MOU’s ultimate Achilles’ heel: net-zero.

The MOU proudly declares that “Canada and Alberta remain committed to achieving Net-Zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.” As Vaclav Smil documented in a recent study of Net-Zero, global fossil-fuel use has risen 55% since the 1997 Kyoto agreement, despite trillions spent on subsidies and regulations. Fossil fuels still supply 82% of the world’s energy.

With these numbers in mind, the idea that Canada can unilaterally decarbonize its largest export industry in 25 years is delusional.

This deal doesn’t secure Canada’s energy future. It mortgages it. We are trading market access for self-inflicted costs that will shrink production, scare off capital, and cut into the profitability of any potential pipeline. Affordable energy, good jobs, and national prosperity shouldn’t require surrendering to net-zero fantasy.If Ottawa were serious about making Canada an energy superpower, it would scrap the anti-resource laws outright, kill the carbon taxes, and let our world-class oil and gas compete on merit. Instead, we’ve been handed a backroom MOU which, for the cost of one pipeline — if that! — guarantees higher costs today and smothers the industry that is the backbone of the Canadian economy.

This MOU isn’t salvation. It’s a prescription for Canadian decline.

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Cost of bureaucracy balloons 80 per cent in 10 years: Public Accounts

Published on November 18, 2025

Todayville

By Franco Terrazzano

The cost of the bureaucracy increased by $6 billion last year, according to newly released numbers in Public Accounts disclosures. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on Prime Minister Mark Carney to immediately shrink the bureaucracy.

“The Public Accounts show the cost of the federal bureaucracy is out of control,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Tinkering around the edges won’t cut it, Carney needs to take urgent action to shrink the bloated federal bureaucracy.”

The federal bureaucracy cost taxpayers $71.4 billion in 2024-25, according to the Public Accounts. The cost of the federal bureaucracy increased by $6 billion, or more than nine per cent, over the last year.

The federal bureaucracy cost taxpayers $39.6 billion in 2015-16, according to the Public Accounts. That means the cost of the federal bureaucracy increased 80 per cent over the last 10 years. The government added 99,000 extra bureaucrats between 2015-16 and 2024-25.

Half of Canadians say federal services have gotten worse since 2016, despite the massive increase in the federal bureaucracy, according to a Leger poll.

Not only has the size of the bureaucracy increased, the cost of consultants, contractors and outsourcing has increased as well. The government spent $23.1 billion on “professional and special services” last year, according to the Public Accounts. That’s an 11 per cent increase over the previous year. The government’s spending on professional and special services more than doubled since 2015-16.

“Taxpayers should not be paying way more for in-house government bureaucrats and way more for outside help,” Terrazzano said. “Mere promises to find minor savings in the federal bureaucracy won’t fix Canada’s finances.

“Taxpayers need Carney to take urgent action and significantly cut the number of bureaucrats now.”

Table: Cost of bureaucracy and professional and special services, Public Accounts

Year	Bureaucracy	Professional and special services
2024-25	$71,369,677,000	$23,145,218,000
2023-24	$65,326,643,000	$20,771,477,000
2022-23	$56,467,851,000	$18,591,373,000
2021-22	$60,676,243,000	$17,511,078,000
2020-21	$52,984,272,000	$14,720,455,000
2019-20	$46,349,166,000	$13,334,341,000
2018-19	$46,131,628,000	$12,940,395,000
2017-18	$45,262,821,000	$12,950,619,000
2016-17	$38,909,594,000	$11,910,257,000
2015-16	$39,616,656,000	$11,082,974,000