Opinion
The federal government wants Canadians to eat bugs.
A few (very few) media outlets have picked up on this recent news release from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation regarding the human consumption of.. Bugs!
Yuck right? Well don’t panic. They’re not quite ready to swap your bowl of Count Chocula for cocoa-flavoured crickets just yet. However it does appear the Liberal government is hoping to put bugs on your menu. The article from the CTF is included below so I urge you to read on because it’s really interesting (and for those with a queasy stomach, just a tad disturbing).
But before you do that, a couple of observations.
First. This is NOT another win for the annoying conspiracy theory people. Sure they may have been spouting off about forcing us to eat bugs, but that doesn’t make this a classic conspiracy theory.
When it comes to conspiracy theories, most of us have always concluded there are just two types of people. There are the KOOKS. And then there are the people who do their best to avoid the kooks. Let’s call the first group the Flat Earthers, and the second group, Everyone Else (or the Rest of Us if you please).
Flat Earthers use evidence no one can verify to draw ridiculous conclusions and make strange accusations. Governments insisting we eat bugs may sound like a ridiculous conclusion formed by evidence no one can verify, but it turns out this is not the case at all.
Why is it that “The Liberal Government Wants Us To Eat Bugs” is not a ‘classic’ conspiracy theory?
Well it’s because of the words ‘conspiracy’ and ‘theory’. They just don’t apply.
The Oxford Dictionary defines conspiracy as “a secret plan by a group of people to do something harmful or illegal.” For one thing there’s nothing illegal about adding bugs to our diet. We’ve never had to make a law about it. Politicians like getting elected, and so it never occurred to them to force bugs onto our plates. Sure you’ll see them flipping pancakes and picking hot dogs off a bbq, but that’s about as ‘harmful’ as they’re willing to get. So there’s nothing illegal and nothing harmful going on. That leaves the part about being a secret.
To prove this isn’t a secret I’m afraid I’m going to have to put 2 and 2 together because we have to talk about the World Economic Forum. They might not be shouting it from the mountaintops, but the World Economic Forum isn’t hiding the fact they’d like us to replace meat protein with bugs. It’s only a secret if you’ve never taken the time to read “Why we need to give insects the role they deserve in our food systems“, or “5 reasons why eating insects could reduce climate change“.
You might think our trusted sources of information would look into this because food is something their readers tend to eat almost every day. Sometimes more than once. They might not even have to go to Davos to check it out. News reporters bump into Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland in the hallways on Parliament Hill all the time. Chrystia Freeland is on the World Economic Forum Board of Trustees If you click the link you can see her there, third person down on the right. If Deputy PM Freeland doesn’t know where to find these articles on the WEF website, as a Board of Trustee member she’ll know who to ask. So this certainly isn’t illegal or particularly harmful, and it’s only a secret to those who don’t read these things or have these things read to them by the information sources we’ve always trusted. The Liberal government might not talk about sharing goals with the WEF every day, but when Canada’s Deputy PM is on the WEF’s Board of Trustees let’s just say it would be odd to think they’re at odds.
The other word in play here is “theory”. When it comes to “conspiracy theory”, the word theory means “theoretical”, as in a theory, but not really happening. Again with the Oxford, second meaning applies here, “that could possibly exist, happen or be true, although this is unlikely”.
One could make a weak argument that Canada’s Deputy PM only goes to Davos to exchange stories with the rich and famous about how ridiculously hard it is to drive the speed limit in Alberta. One ‘theory’ is that she had to make it all the way back to Ottawa in an EV before it got cold. Regardless. Canada’s Deputy PM is a member of the WEF Board of Trustees. So although it could be a coincidence, it is not a theory that the federal government is funding bug – food research. As you’ll see below, the liberals are paying companies to ” promote the consumption of “roasted crickets” or “cricket powder” mixed-in with your morning bowl of cereal. ”
The fact the WEF has been talking about this for years now, the fact our Deputy Prime Minister is on the WEF Board of Trustees, and the fact the federal government is now funding research meant to change Canadians from people who stomp on bugs into people who chomp on bugs.. Well that pretty much takes the theoretical part right out of it.
Now that you’re hungry for more, here is the news release from a new trusted information source, the CTF.
By Ryan Thorpe of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation
Taste the crunch: cricket corporate welfare cost $420K
Bon apétit.
The federal government spent $420,023 since 2018 subsidizing companies that turn crickets into human food.
“Canadians are struggling as inflation pushes up grocery bills, but subsidizing snacks made out of bugs doesn’t sound like the right solution for taxpayers,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director. “If Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wants to take a bite out of crunchy crickets, he can do it without taking a bite out of taxpayers’ wallets.”
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation gathered the list of cricket corporate welfare deals by reviewing the federal government’s proactive disclosure of grants and contributions.
On two separate occasions, the feds cut cheques to a Montreal-based company called NAAK Inc., for a combined cost to taxpayers of $171,695.
The co-founders of NAAK were “introduced … to the benefits of adding insects to (their) diet” by a friend and describe their mission as “democratizing insect consumption.”
NAAK specializes in “cricket energy bars,” but a portion of its corporate welfare money was earmarked for developing other cricket products, including “steaks, sausages and falafels.”
NAAK is one of five companies producing crickets for human consumption that have received corporate welfare deals from the feds in recent years.
Table: Corporate welfare deals, 2018-2022
|
Company |
Number of subsidies |
Total cost of subsidies |
|
NAAK Inc. |
2 |
$171,695 |
|
Entologik Inc. |
2 |
$88,979 |
|
Prairie Cricket Farms |
2 |
$78,349 |
|
Gaia Protein |
1 |
$42,000 |
|
Casa Bonita Foods |
1 |
$39,000 |
Casa Bonita Foods wants to “manufacture high protein snacks made with cricket flour,” while Prairie Cricket Farms promotes the consumption of “roasted crickets” or “cricket powder” mixed-in with your morning bowl of cereal.
The founder of Entologik claims insects are the “protein of the future” and wants to grow the company into “the largest producers and processor of edible insects in Canada.”
“The feds are having their ‘let them eat crickets’ moment,” Terrazzano said. “If someone can sell crickets as food, we wish them the best of luck, but taxpayers shouldn’t be paying for it.”
An additional $8.7 million in subsidies went to Aspire Food Group, which operates a cricket processing plant in London, Ont. In total, the company received four separate handouts.
While the company is primarily geared toward pet food production, its owner said about 10 per cent of its business uses crickets for human food.
MP Colin Carrie
From LifeSiteNews
Colin Carrie recounted the freedom-throttling measures the Canadian government took during the COVID outbreak, warning that the WHO’s Pandemic Agreement may help make such measures permanent.
Canadian Member of Parliament (MP) Colin Carrie warned this week that proposed World Health Organization (WHO) agreements with a passing deadline of late May could “institutionalize” freedom-throttling COVID “pandemic mistakes.”
Carrie recounted the liberty-crushing COVID-era events that took place in Canada as well as around the world during the first-ever Sovereignty Summit held at the U.S. Capitol on Thursday, an event protesting the WHO’s pending threat to the sovereignty of its member nations, attended virtually by political leaders from around the world.
“Since COVID-19’s lockdowns and mandates, Canadians have seen our sovereignty, our charter rights and our civil liberties tested,” said Carrie, going on to point out that Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has admitted that he admires the “basic dictatorship” of China.
It was under such a leader as Trudeau that “freedom of speech, freedom of movement, freedom of consent and freedom of medical treatment were all enthusiastically challenged” by the government through “COVID dictates centrally controlled and communicated by the WHO,” Carrie noted.
Trudeau, moreover, “intentionally created an identifiable minority group — anti-vaxxers — and gleefully used all the power of the Canadian government to marginalize, dehumanize and keep over 6 million Canadians from fully participating in Canadian society,” Carrie declared.
He recalled how the Emergencies Act was “used to freeze bank accounts” while “businesses were shattered, seniors and loved ones died alone,” “children’s education was compromised and churches were closed,” affirming that Canadians do not want to relive this scenario during another real or supposed health emergency according to the dictates of the WHO.
Carrie went on to question why the WHO is saying the new Pandemic Agreement is “non-binding” when, according to the MP, the term “non-binding” was removed from the definitions of the treaty.
“Why would any country sign on to a new treaty when we haven’t conducted a serious evaluation of the last pandemic policy response? Will this treaty institutionalize WHO’s COVID pandemic mistakes?”
In a March 20 press release, the WHO called for an “urgent agreement from international negotiators on a Pandemic Accord … to bolster the world’s collective preparedness and response to future pandemics.”
“Only a strong global pact on pandemics can protect future generations from a repeat of the COVID-19 crisis,” a collective of heads of state wrote in a joint open letter to leaders of WHO member states.
A growing number of public figures as well as U.S. states and elected officials have raised the alarm about the so-called Pandemic Agreement in recent months.
In a letter dated May 22, almost half the U.S. governors, all of them Republicans, signed a letter to President Joe Biden declaring that they will resist any efforts of the WHO to control public policy in America through its proposed “Pandemic Agreement” and amended International Health Regulations (IHRs).
Earlier this month, Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin also rallied every Republican in the U.S. Senate to sign an open letter imploring the Biden administration to reject the pending agreements being considered at the World Health Assembly (WHA) in late May.
From LifeSiteNews
Trudeau’s Online News Act, framed as a way to support local media, has hurt small media outlets while giving massive payouts to legacy media, a study has found.
According to a new study, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Online News Act has successfully crushed local media outlets while mainstream media has remained relatively unaffected.
According to an April study from the Media Ecosystem Observatory, Trudeau’s Online News Act, also known as Bill C-18, has caused a 84 percent drop in engagement for local Canadian outlets, as Big Tech company Meta – the parent company of Facebook and Instagram – has refused to publish links to Canadian news outlets on their platforms.
“We lost 70 per cent of our audience when that happened,” Iain Burns, the managing editor of Now Media Group, which manages news posts for outlets serving smaller communities, revealed. He further explained that he experienced a 50 percent loss in revenue following the move.
“We’re not the only ones. Many, many outlets are in this situation,” Burns added.
The Online News Act, passed by the Senate in June 2023, mandates that Big Tech companies pay to publish Canadian content on their platforms. While the legislation promised to support local media, it has seemingly accomplished the opposite.
While Meta has blocked all news on its platforms, devastating small publishers, Google agreed to pay Canadian legacy media outlets $100 million to publish their content online.
The study, a collaboration between the University of Toronto and McGill University, examined the 987 Facebook pages of Canadian news outlets, 183 personal pages of politicians, commentators and advocacy groups, and 589 political and local community groups.
“The ban undoubtedly had a major impact on Canadian news,” the study found.
The study found a 84 percent drop in engagement for Canadian outlets, with small local news outlets being the most affected compared to larger government-funded outlets.
“Local news outlets have been particularly affected by the ban: while large, national news outlets were less reliant on Facebook for visibility and able to recoup some of their Facebook engagement regardless, hundreds of local news outlets have left the platform entirely, effectively gutting the visibility of local news content,” it explained.
However, LifeSiteNews has been relatively unaffected by the ban as viewership on its official Facebook page has remained relatively the same, similar to its Instagram account since most views already came from the United States.
Similarly unaffected was Meta: “We find little evidence that Facebook usage has been impacted by the ban.”
“After the ban took effect, the collapse of Canadian news content production and engagement on Facebook did not appear to substantially affect users themselves,” the study said.
While local media outlets’ viewership has declined thanks to Trudeau’s new legislation, larger media outlets have thrived due to increased payouts from the Trudeau government.
Legacy media journalists are projected to have roughly half of their salaries paid by the Liberal government after the $100 million Google agreement and the subsidies outlined in the Fall Economic Statement.
Mainstream Canadian media had already received massive federal payouts, but they have nearly doubled after Trudeau announced increased subsidies for legacy media outlets ahead of the 2025 election. The subsidies are expected to cost taxpayers $129 million over the next five years.
However, just as government payouts increase, Canadians’ trust in mainstream media has decreased. Recent polling found that only one-third of Canadians consider mainstream media trustworthy and balanced.
Similarly, a recent study by Canada’s Public Health Agency revealed that less than a third of Canadians displayed “high trust” in the federal government, with “large media organizations” as well as celebrities getting even lower scores.
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