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Red Deer – Lacombe MP Blaine Calkins calls on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to resign

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What We Know About Trudeau’s Latest Ethics Scandal

BLAINE CALKINS

 

Over the past several weeks Canadians have been shocked at the details coming to light regarding Justin Trudeau’s WE Scandal. Justin Trudeau and the Kielburgers have been happy to benefit from each other for years. While they are quick to downplay their relationship, the facts tell a different story. According to WE Charity, Justin Trudeau and his family have participated in over 50 WE Events where they have been able to share their political message with young Canadians.

In 2017 WE created a campaign style ad featuring Justin Trudeau for Canada 150 and even pressured employees to go to a political event for the Minister of Finance in his Toronto riding. The Kielburger brothers have donated to the Liberal Party in the past, and under the Trudeau government WE has received upwards of $5.5 million in government funding.

This reciprocal relationship is concerning all on its own, before even considering the current scandal regarding the Canada Student Service Grant, Justin Trudeau and WE. The twists and turns in the story can be difficult to track, but it is clear that Justin Trudeau and former Finance Minister Bill Morneau have once again failed to live up to their legal obligations laid out in Canada’s conflict of interest laws. Here is what we know so far.

In April, WE sent an unsolicited proposal for a youth entrepreneurship program to Minister Chagger and Minister Ng. Ten days later WE received a call from Rachel Wernick, a senior bureaucrat with Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) about the yet to be announced Canada Student Service Grant (CSSG). When the program was announced to the public a few days later WE co-founder Craig Kielburger sent Ms. Wernick a proposal to administer the grant that same day.

According to the Kielburgers someone at the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) contacted them the next day about delivering the program, which they later recanted claiming it was a public servant who contacted them. Ms. Wernick is credited as being the public servant who recommended that WE was the only organization that could deliver the program.

 

On June 25th WE Charity was announced as the partner for the $900 million CSSG program, and Canadians were told they would receive $19.5 million to administer it. When asked, Trudeau suggested there was no conflict of interest because he and his wife had never been paid by the organization. A few days later Conservatives asked the Auditor General to probe the deal since parliamentary oversight was hindered by the program being outsourced, and due to concern over the well documented relationship between Trudeau and the Kielburgers.

 

By July 3rd Mark and Craig Kielburger announced that WE would be giving up the contract to administer the CSSG. On the same day, the Ethics Commissioner confirmed that he would be starting an investigation into Justin Trudeau for the third time. Less than a week later WE confirmed that the Prime Minister’s Mother, Margaret Trudeau had been paid $312,000 for 28 appearances since 2016 and that his brother, Alexandre Trudeau, was paid $40,000 for 8 events in 2017-2018. They also acknowledged that the Prime Minister’s wife, Sophie Gregoire Trudeau had received $1,400 for an appearance in 2012.

We later found out that on top of those fees WE Charity also paid an additional $212,846 in expenses between the three members of the Trudeau family. This brings the total remuneration to over $566,000. This revelation, in part, led to the Conservatives writing to the Commissioner of the RCMP to request that they look into this matter as it pertains to potential criminal code violations.

 

The Prime Minister isn’t the only one with an apparent conflict of interest in this matter, with former Minister Morneau also having close family ties with WE. Like the Prime Minister, he did not recuse himself despite the fact that his one daughter works for WE and another has been a speaker in the past and received a book endorsement. This led to the Ethics Commissioner launching an investigation into former Minister Morneau as well.

At an appearance before the Finance Committee former Minister Morneau would later go on to acknowledge that he and his wife had recently made two large donations, roughly $50,0000 each, and that he had also just written a cheque for over $41,000 to reimburse WE for expenses he and his family incurred on two vacations to Africa and South America, where they visited WE projects. WE later confirmed that the complementary trip was offered to former Minister Morneau and his family because of their history of significant donations to similar programs. These revelations led to the Conservative caucus calling for the now former Minister to resign.

 

The Finance Committee and the Ethics Committee began to look into this latest scandal, and the testimony and information they have received has painted a confusing and troubling picture. They uncovered a number of very concerning details before the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament in order to shut down the committees.

· WE stood to collect $45.53 million in fees, over double what was initially stated.

· The program, originally announced at over $900 million, was actually contracted out at $544 million instead. Why the discrepancy?

· The Clerk of the Privy Council stated that there were no red flags when considering WE, but that the Public Service didn’t probe the organizations finances. This is quite odd.

· The President of the Public Service Alliance disputed that only WE could have delivered the CSSG, stating that to say the Public Service was unable to was insulting. He pointed to the various government grant programs, Canada Summer Jobs and the Canada Service Corps as comparable programs. The theory that only WE could handle the program was further dismantled when it turned out that they had to subcontract part of the program because they weren’t able to deliver it in French.

· The contract for the CSSG wasn’t actually with WE Charity, but with WE Charity Foundation, a shell foundation that had no previous experience in delivering these types of programs.

· The former Chair of the Board at WE Charity testified that she had been forced to resign by Craig Kielburger for requesting financial documents from WE Executives to justify the layoff of hundreds of employees.

· The Kielburger brothers testified, claiming that they were running the program as a favour to Canada, and that their organization was to be reimbursed for expenses, but not make money off of the program. In a leaked document, a draft budget dated May 4th outlined some expenses including for staff salary. This included 175 program managers at $30,0000 each for 4.5 months work, ten supervisors at $45,000 each for 5.5months work, five group leaders at $70,000 each for 6 months work, and two project leaders for $125,000 for eight months work.

· WE Charity started to incur eligible expenses on May 5th, despite Cabinet not approving the program until May 22nd. This was being done with the full knowledge of ESDC, and allegedly at the financial liability of WE.

· Trudeau testified that he only found out about WE’s involvement on May 8th, shortly before it was set to be discussed at Cabinet. He claims that he removed it from the agenda and asked the public service to complete additional due diligence given his family connection to WE. He did not contact the Ethics Commissioner despite the concerns. This additional due diligence did not unearth any of the problems disclosed by the former Chair of the Board. It is noteworthy that no Minister, prior to the Prime Minister making his claim, had a story that would corroborate this feeble explanation.

 

The Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff confirmed that a handful of employees in PMO were aware of WE’s involvement and had interactions with the organization in the lead up to the approval. This included an interaction on May 5th, the day WE started incurring eligible expenses. So far, every time someone has come forward to try and explain away the Liberal’s latest mess, Canadians are left with more questions than when they started. Canadians deserve answers, and my Conservative colleagues and I are committed to finding them using every tool at our disposal.

While the studies at committee may have been temporarily halted by Trudeau’s prorogation Conservatives will continue to investigate this matter, and pursue every whiff of corruption like when we called on the Elections Commissioner to look into the political benefits that the Liberals have been given by WE. While the Prime Minister may be attempting to prevent Canadians from knowing the truth, Members of the Finance committee received thousands of heavily redacted documents from the Liberal government on the same day that Trudeau prorogued Parliament. They paint a very different picture of how WE came to be selected for this program than the one that the Liberals have offered up.

These documents suggest that the Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth told WE to develop a proposal for a summer service opportunity before the CSSG was even announced. They go on to claim that the former Minister of Finance was “besties” with WE and that senior members of the Prime Minister’s office were involved in the development of the program and were having conversations with WE from an early stage. You can see these documents for yourself at wedocuments.ca.

 

The timeline of Mr. Trudeau’s version of events simply doesn’t add up. The CSSG was announced on April 22nd. A member of PMO spoke with WE about their proposal on May 5th, the same day they started to charge expenses for administering the program, but Cabinet wouldn’t approve the program for two and a half weeks.

Why was a charity that had to recently lay off hundreds of employees due to financial hardship related to COVID-19 so willing to accept the liability of starting the program without approval? Why were they so sure they would be approved? Why were they told they could start charging expenses before approval?

To answer that, you only need to look at the cozy relationship between Justin Trudeau, former Minister of Finance, Bill Morneau, the Liberal Party and WE. Now that the former Minister Bill Morneau has resigned and more than 5000 pages of documents have been released for review, Canadians are hungrier for that truth than ever before. The Liberals are banking on Canadians forgetting about this scandal during their prorogation and hoping that they can change the channel later this month with a new Throne Speech, but it isn’t going to work. Despite prorogation and all of the confusion and misdirection, one thing is absolutely clear – Justin Trudeau must resign for his part in this scandal.

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Alberta

Alberta government announces review of Trudeau’s euthanasia regime

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The Conservative provincial government of Alberta is pushing back against the Canadian federal government’s continued desire to expand euthanasia in the nation, saying it will launch a review of the legislation and policies surrounding the grim practice, including a period of public engagement. 

The United Conservative Party (UCP) government under Premier Danielle Smith in a press release said the province needs to make sure that robust safeguards and procedures are in place to protect vulnerable people from being coerced into getting euthanatized under the MAiD (Medical Assistance in Dying) program.

“Alberta’s government is reviewing how MAID is regulated to ensure there is a consistent process as well as oversight that protects vulnerable Albertans, specifically those living with disabilities or suffering from mental health challenges,” said the government Monday.  

The government said a online survey regarding MAiD open to all Albertans who have opinions about the deadly practice will be available until December 20.  

“We recognize that medical assistance in dying is a very complex and often personal issue and is an important, sensitive and emotional matter for patients and their families,” said Alberta’s Minister of Justice and Attorney General Mickey Amery. 

Amery said it is important to ensure this process has the “necessary supports to protect the most vulnerable.” 

The government said that it will also be engaging with academics, medical associations, public bodies, as well as religious organizations and “regulatory bodies, advocacy groups” regarding MAiD  

The government said all information gathered through this consultation will “help inform the Alberta government’s planning and policy decision making, including potential legislative changes regarding MAID in Alberta.” 

When it comes to MAiD, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government sought to expand it from the chronically and terminally ill to those suffering solely from mental illness. 

Alberta’s Minister of Mental Health and Addiction Dan Williams said that the UCP government has been “clear” that it does not “support the provision of medically assisted suicide for vulnerable Albertans facing mental illness as their primary purpose for seeking their own death.” 

“Instead, our goal is to build a continuum of care where vulnerable Albertans can live in long-term health and fulfilment. We look forward to the feedback of Albertans as we proceed with this important issue,” he noted.  

The Alberta government said that as MAiD is “federally legislated and regulated” it is main job will be to try and make sure that it protects “vulnerable individuals” as much as possible. 

Alberta’s Minister of Health Adriana LaGrange reaffirmed that the Alberta government “does not support expanding MAID eligibility to include those facing depression or mental illness and continues to call on the federal government to end this policy altogether.” 

The number of Canadians killed by lethal injection under the nation’s MAiD program 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.

To combat Canadians being coerced into MAiD, which LifeSiteNews has covered, the combat pro-life Delta Hospice Society (DHS) is offering a free “Do Not Euthanize Defense Kit” to help vulnerable people “protect themselves” from any healthcare workers who might push euthanasia on the defenseless. 

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Bruce Dowbiggin

The Pathetic, Predictable Demise of Echo Journalism

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It can be safely said that the 2024 U.S. presidential election couldn’t have gone much worse for legacy media in that country. Their biases, conceits and outright falsehoods throughout the arduous years-long slog toward Nov. 5 were exposed that night. Resulting in the simultaneous disaster (for them) of Donald Trump winning a thunderous re-election and their predictive polling being shown to be Democratic propaganda.

Only a handful of non-establishment pollsters (Rasmussen, AtlasIntel) got Trump’s electoral college and overall vote correct. Example: One poll by Ann Selzer in Iowa—a highly-rated pollster with a supposedly strong record—showed a huge swing towards Harris in the final week of the election race, putting her three points up over Trump. He ended up winning Iowa by 13.2 points (Selzer now says she’s retiring.)

Throughout, these experts seemed incapable of finding half the voter pool. By putting their thumb on the scale during debates, the representatives of the so-called Tiffany networks and newspapers signalled abdication of their professional code. Their reliance on scandal-sheet stories was particularly glaring.

Just a few lowlights: “the brouhaha over a shock comedian at a Trump rally calling Puerto Rico “a floating island of garbage”. Unhinged outgoing POTUS Biden then called GOP voters “garbage”. So Trump made an appearance as a garbage man, to the snarky disapproval of CBS News chief anchor Nora O’Donnell.

Then there was Whoopi Goldberg on The View predicting Trump will “break up interracial marriages and redistribute the white spouses: “He’s going to deport and you, put the white guy with someone else… The man is out there!” Media ran with this one, too.

Worse, disinformation and lying reached such a proportion that Team Trump turned its campaign away from the networks and legacy papers down the stretch, creating a new information pathway of podcasts and social media sites (such as Joe Rogan, Theo Von and Adin Ross) that promise to be the preferred route for future candidates looking for non-traditional voters. A few prominent media owners sought to save themselves by refusing to endorse a presidential candidate, but the resulting tantrum by their Kamala-loving staff negated the effort.

In the past, poor performances by the Media Party might be dismissed or ignored. But the cataclysmic ratings drops for CNN and MSNBC paired with collapse in sales for blue-blood rags such as the New York Times, Washington Post and L.A. Times spoke to the public’s disgust with people they’ve always trusted to play it straight.

(Now Comcast has announced it’s spinning off MSNBC and its news bundle to save their profitable businesses. Staff members in these places are now panicking. As such the new administration promises to be indifferent to the former media powers-that-be as Trump mounts radical plans to recast the U.S. government. )

As noted here the disgraceful exercise in journalism was cheered on by their compatriots here in Canada. “In the hermetically sealed media world of Canada, natives take their cues from CNN and MSNBC talking points both of which employ Canadians in highly visible roles. (Here’s expat Ali Velshi famously describing on NBC that the 2020 George Floyd riots that burned for weeks— destroying billions in damages while resulting in multipole deaths— as “generally peaceful”.) 

The narratives of Russiagate, drinking bleach, “fine people” to Hunter Biden’s laptop— long ago debunked down south— are still approved wisdom in Canada’s chattering class. Especially if America’s conflagration election can be used to demonstrate the good sense and judgment of Canada’s managerial and media class.

The clincher for star-struck Canadians was the overwhelming Kamala love from the Hollywood crowd. Virtually every high-profile actor/ singer/ writer embraced the woman who was parachuted into the nomination in a coup— even as the same glitterati raved about anti-democratic Trump.  From Beyoncé to Bilie Eilish to Bruce Springsteen, their support was been a winner in Canada’s fangirl/ fanboy culture.”

Talk about backing a loser. Which leaves us asking what to expect from formerly respected media in the upcoming (it will come, won’t it?) defenestration of Justin Trudeau and Jagmeet Singh, probably in spring of 2025. One Toronto Star piece might provide a clue to the bunkered approach of Canada’s globalists. “Europe is leaving Donald Trump’s America behind. Should Canada do the same? As American democracy dives into darkness, Canada is facing difficult choices.”

CPC leader Pierre Poilievre has made it abundantly clear his thoughts on the bias of media. To save billions, he is making a major overhaul— even closure of CBC (not Radio Canada)— as a campaign pledge. He’s also said he will remove the slush fund now propping up failed establishment news organizations that employ unionized workers bent of crushing the Conservatives.

His scorn is obvious after watching media’s reverential treatment of Trudeau’s fake “murdered” Rez children stunt or the silence accompanying PMJT’s sacking of his indigenous Justice minister Jodie Wilson Raybould. Lately, a deadpan Poilievre humiliated a callow CBC reporter quoting “experts” by asking her “what experts?” Her unpreparedness leaves her floundering as Poilievre calls her question another “CBC smear job”.

Perhaps the classic Poilievre humbling of a reporter occurred in 2023 in a Kelowna apple orchard when a reporter seeking to score points with his Woke colleagues saw the bushwhack rebound on him. After numerous failed attempts at belling the cat, the local reporter played his ace card.

Question: Why should Canadians trust you with their vote, given … y’know … not, not just the sort of ideological inclination in terms of taking the page out of Donald Trump’s book, but, also —

Poilievre: (incredulous) What are you talking about? What page? What page? Can you gimme a page? Gimme the page. You keep saying that … “

No page was produced and the cringeworthy interview collapsed.

Needless to say, the reporter was absolved by his water-carrying colleagues. Here was Shannon Proudfoot of the Toronto Star: “Kicking a journalist in the shins over and over then turning the exchange into a social-media flex is telling on yourself…”  Venerable CBC panelist/ Star columnist Chantal Hébert  echoed the pauvre p’tit  take. “Agreed”.

For these press box placeholders it’s all too reminiscent of the acid-drenched style of former PM Stephen Harper, a stance that turned them to Trudeau cheerleaders in 2015. Which is to say we shouldn’t have high hopes for balance when the writ is finally dropped.

Poilievre has several more ministers (Melissa Lantsman, Garrett Genuis) skilled in exposing media imbalance, so we can expect full-blown pushback from the paid-for media from the usual suspects when Trudeau finally succumbs to reality. One drawback for the Conservatives could be the absence of national podcasters such as Rogan or Von to which they can pivot.

But make no mistake, However much Canada’s press corps denies it, the public has turned away from Mr Blackface and the politics of privilege. They’d best anticipate a rough ride ahead.

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, he’s a regular contributor to Sirius XM Canada Talks Ch. 167. 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 . His 2004 book Money Players was voted sixth best on the same list, and is available via brucedowbigginbooks.ca.

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