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Trudeau should follow Ford’s lead and scrap alcohol tax hike

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From the Canadian Taxpayers Federation

Author: Franco Terrazzano 

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is applauding the Ontario government’s move to freeze beer taxes and calling on the federal government to do the same.

“It’s good to see the Ford government providing relief and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should do the same and scrap his upcoming alcohol tax hike,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “Canadians are struggling with affordability so at the very least Trudeau shouldn’t be making life more expensive with tax hikes.”

Today, the Ontario government announced it’s freezing its beer taxes and LCBO mark-up rates that were scheduled to increase this March. Ontario’s beer tax freeze will be in place until March 1, 2026.

Since Nov. 1, 2018, the Ontario government has cancelled scheduled beer basic tax and LCBO mark-up increases.

The federal government is scheduled to increase its excise tax by 4.7 per cent on April 1. First passed in the 2017 federal budget, its alcohol escalator tax automatically increases federal excise taxes on beer, wine and spirits every year by the rate of inflation, without a vote in Parliament.

“Premier Doug Ford is doing the right thing by freezing beer taxes,” said Jay Goldberg, CTF Ontario Director. “Ontarians are struggling with the high cost of living and Ford is showing leadership by freezing taxes.”

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US government gave $22 million to nonprofit teaching teens about sex toys: report

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From LifeSiteNews

By Anthony Murdoch

The Center for Innovative Public Health Research’s website suggests teenage girls make their ‘own decisions’ about sex and not let their parents know if they don’t want to.

For almost a decade, the U.S. government funded a group that actively works to teach kids how to use sex toys and then keep them hidden from their parents to the tune of $22 million.

According to investigative reporter Hannah Grossman at the Manhattan Institute, The Center for Innovative Public Health Research (CIPHR) has been educating minors about sex toys with public funds.

Records show that the millions given to the group since 2016, according to its website, go toward “health education programs” that “promote positive human development.”

However, the actual contents of the programs, as can be seen from comments from CIPHR CEO Michele Ybarra, seem to suggest that its idea of “human” development is skewed toward radical sex education doctrine.

In 2017, CIPHR launched Girl2Girl, which is funded by federal money to promote “sex-ed program just for teen girls who are into girls.” Its website lets users, who are girls between ages 14 and 16, sign up for “daily text messages … about things like sex with girls and boys.”

The actual content of some of the messages is very concerning. Its website notes that some of the texts talk about “lube and sex toys” as well as “the different types of sex and ways to increase pleasure.”

The website actively calls upon teenage girls to make their “own decisions” and not let their parents know if they don’t want to.

Grossman shared a video clip on X of Ybarra explaining how they educate minors about the use of “sex toys” and dealing with their parents if they are found out.

The clip, from a 2022 Brown University webinar, shows Ybarra telling researchers how to prepare “young person(s)” for her research.

In 2023, CIPHR launched Transcendent Health, which is a sex-education program for minors who are gender confused. This initiative received $1.3 million of federal grant money that expired last month.

Grossman observed that the federal government “should not fund programs that send sexually explicit messages to minors and encourage them to conceal these communications from parents.”

She noted that in order to protect children and “prevent further harm,” U.S. President Donald Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services “should immediately cancel CIPHR’s active contract and deny its future grant applications.”

“By doing so, the Trump administration can send a clear message: Taxpayers will no longer foot the bill for perverted ‘research’ projects,” she noted.

The Trump administration has thus far, through the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), exposed billions in government waste and fraud. Many such uses of taxpayer dollars are currently under review by the administration, including pro-abortion and pro-censorship activity through USAID, “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and neo-Marxist class warfare propaganda” through the National Science Foundation, and billions to left-wing “green energy” nonprofits through the Environmental Protection Agency.

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Canadian Police Raid Sophisticated Vancouver Fentanyl Labs, But Insist Millions of Pills Not Destined for U.S.

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Sam Cooper

Mounties say labs outfitted with high-grade chemistry equipment and a trained chemist reveal transnational crime groups are advancing in technical sophistication and drug production capacity

Amid a growing trade war between Washington and Beijing, Canada—targeted alongside Mexico and China for special tariffs related to Chinese fentanyl supply chains—has dismantled a sophisticated network of fentanyl labs across British Columbia and arrested an academic lab chemist, the RCMP said Thursday.

At a press conference in Vancouver, senior investigators stood behind seized lab equipment and fentanyl supplies, telling reporters the operation had prevented millions of potentially lethal pills from reaching the streets.

“This interdiction has prevented several million potentially lethal doses of fentanyl from being produced and distributed across Canada,” said Cpl. Arash Seyed. But the presence of commercial-grade laboratory equipment at each of the sites—paired with the arrest of a suspect believed to have formal training in chemistry—signals an evolution in the capabilities of organized crime networks, with “progressively enhanced scientific and technical expertise among transnational organized crime groups involved in the production and distribution of illicit drugs,” Seyed added.

This investigation is ongoing, while the seized drugs, precursor chemicals, and other evidence continue to be processed, police said.

Recent Canadian data confirms the country has become an exporter of fentanyl, and experts identify British Columbia as the epicenter of clandestine labs supplied by Chinese precursors and linked to Mexican cartel distributors upstream.

In a statement that appears politically responsive to the evolving Trump trade threats, Assistant Commissioner David Teboul said, “There continues to be no evidence, in this case and others, that these labs are producing fentanyl for exportation into the United States.”

In late March, during coordinated raids across the suburban municipalities of Pitt Meadows, Mission, Aldergrove, Langley, and Richmond, investigators took down three clandestine fentanyl production sites.

The labs were described by the RCMP as “equipped with specialized chemical processing equipment often found in academic and professional research facilities.” Photos released by authorities show stainless steel reaction vessels, industrial filters, and what appear to be commercial-scale tablet presses and drying trays—pointing to mass production capabilities.

The takedown comes as Canada finds itself in the crosshairs of intensifying geopolitical tension.

Fentanyl remains the leading cause of drug-related deaths in Canada, with toxic supply chains increasingly linked to hybrid transnational networks involving Chinese chemical brokers and domestic Canadian producers.

RCMP said the sprawling B.C. lab probe was launched in the summer of 2023, with teams initiating an investigation into the importation of unregulated chemicals and commercial laboratory equipment that could be used for synthesizing illicit drugs including fentanyl, MDMA, and GHB.

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