Alberta
Honouring Canada’s Military History – Veteran’s Week
“November 5-11 is Veteran’s Week, honoring those who have served Canada, past and present, in times of war, military conflict, and peace.”
Veteran’s Week is dedicated to promoting the education and understanding of Canadian military history, and preserving and honoring the memory of those men and women who dedicated themselves to protecting and fostering freedom and peace. This year, Veteran’s Week recognizes the 75th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, where more than one million Canadians served in the military and countless more on the home front, supplementing industry and agricultural efforts for the war.
“Veterans Affairs Canada encourages all Canadians to learn more about the sacrifices and achievements made by those who served our country, and to help preserve their legacy by passing the torch of Remembrance to future generations of Canadians.”
Veteran’s Week is a reminder to those of us who have experienced the violence and devastation of war only through textbooks or television to never take for granted the rights, freedoms and institutions we access on a daily basis in Canada. The men and women who selflessly stepped up to serve their country were mothers, fathers, sons, daughters, friends and loved ones whose lives would be forever changed by their service. Those who survived face lifelong battles of physical and mental trauma, and those who were lost, many of them young soldiers, would never return to enjoy the peace and liberty they had sacrificed everything to defend.
Every year, Veterans Affairs Canada encourages public engagement and participation in Veteran’s Week by sharing the stories of those who served, hosting public events and remembrance ceremonies, and commissioning commemorative Veteran’s Week posters.
“Veterans want Canadians to understand the price of freedom.” (1)
One of this year’s Veteran’s Week posters features the story of retired Sergeant Norman Harold Kirby, who enlisted to serve in the Second World War in 1943 at just 17 years old. During his time as a soldier, he stormed Juno Beach on June 6, 1944 as a part of the D-Day assault, served in the Battle of Normandy, and fought in France, Belgium, Germany and the Netherlands. He was discharged in September of 1945 having led a distinguished military career, and was eventually awarded the Field-Marshal Montgomery Award for Gallantry and the Ordre National de la Légion d’honneur and a knighthood from the French Republic.
After his discharge in 1945 he returned to his home in North Vancouver, still very much a young man. “I was only 19 years old when I got home,” he says, “not even old enough to vote or have a beer with my father” (2).
The second 2020 Veteran’s Week poster features the retired, married veterans Corporal Anne McNamara and Flying Officer Howard McNamara.
Howard enlisted in December 1941 and graduated senior flying training in Windsor Mills, Quebec, with his younger brother. He flew in the North African Campaign in 1942, after which he transferred from Egypt to serve in the Italian Campaign. He retired in March of 1945 at the plea of his remaining family, after learning of the death of his younger brother, who had been shot down while flying over Europe.
Anne joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1943 as a member of the Entertainment Unit, a traveling show of 30 or so people who performed on the Allied bases almost every night to keep spirits and morale among soldiers high. Anne traveled across North America and to Great Britain with the Entertainment Unit, where she witnessed the severe damage done by German bombing raids and experienced the fear of the air raid sirens herself. She retired in March of 1946 following the end of the war, after which she met her future husband Howard. The two were married in May of 1948, and currently reside in St. Laurent, Quebec (3).
“Remembering and reflecting on the significance of the contribution they made, and continue to make, strengthens the commitment to preserve the values that they fought and died for – truth, justice, peace, freedom and knowledge.” (4)
These stories offer just a glance into the lived experiences of thousands of Canadian veterans who aided military and industry efforts during some of the darkest times in our national and global history. This Veteran’s Week, explore opportunities to engage with Canadian military history at the local and national levels, and pay respect to our Canadian veterans and active service members as we approach Remembrance Day on November 11.
For more information on Veteran’s Week, visit https://www.veterans.gc.ca/eng/remembrance/get-involved/veterans-week.
From the Fraser Institute
By Matthew Lau
To understand Ottawa’s negative impact on Alberta’s economy and living standards, juxtapose two recent pieces of data.
First, in July the Trudeau government made three separate “economic development” spending announcements in Alberta, totalling more than $80 million and affecting 37 different projects related to the “green economy,” clean technology and agriculture. And second, as noted in a new essay by Fraser Institute senior fellow Kenneth Green, inflation-adjusted business investment (excluding residential structures) in Canada’s extraction sector (mining, quarrying, oil and gas) fell 51.2 per cent from 2014 to 2022.
The productivity gains that raise living standards and improve economic conditions rely on business investment. But business investment in Canada has declined over the past decade and total economic growth per person (inflation-adjusted) from Q3-2015 through to Q1-2024 has been less than 1 per cent versus robust growth of nearly 16 per cent in the United States over the same period.
For Canada’s extraction sector, as Green documents, federal policies—new fuel regulations, extended review processes on major infrastructure projects, an effective ban on oil shipments on British Columbia’s northern coast, a hard greenhouse gas emissions cap targeting oil and gas, and other regulatory initiatives—are largely to blame for the massive decline in investment.
Meanwhile, as Ottawa impedes private investment, its latest bundle of economic development announcements underscores its strategy to have government take the lead in allocating economic resources, whether for infrastructure and public institutions or for corporate welfare to private companies.
Consider these federally-subsidized projects.
A gas cloud imaging company received $4.1 million from taxpayers to expand marketing, operations and product development. The Battery Metals Association of Canada received $850,000 to “support growth of the battery metals sector in Western Canada by enhancing collaboration and education stakeholders.” A food manufacturer in Lethbridge received $5.2 million to increase production of plant-based protein products. Ermineskin Cree Nation received nearly $400,000 for a feasibility study for a new solar farm. The Town of Coronation received almost $900,000 to renovate and retrofit two buildings into a business incubator. The Petroleum Technology Alliance Canada received $400,000 for marketing and other support to help boost clean technology product exports. And so on.
When the Trudeau government announced all this corporate welfare and spending, it naturally claimed it create economic growth and good jobs. But corporate welfare doesn’t create growth and good jobs, it only directs resources (including labour) to subsidized sectors and businesses and away from sectors and businesses that must be more heavily taxed to support the subsidies. The effect of government initiatives that reduce private investment and replace it with government spending is a net economic loss.
As 20th-century business and economics journalist Henry Hazlitt put it, the case for government directing investment (instead of the private sector) relies on politicians and bureaucrats—who did not earn the money and to whom the money does not belong—investing that money wisely and with almost perfect foresight. Of course, that’s preposterous.
Alas, this replacement of private-sector investment with public spending is happening not only in Alberta but across Canada today due to the Trudeau government’s fiscal policies. Lower productivity and lower living standards, the data show, are the unhappy results.
Author:
From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
By Ray McGinnis
Anthony Olienick and Chris Carbert are on trial for conspiracy to commit murder and firearms charges in relation to the Coutts Blockade into mid-February 2022. In opening her case before a Lethbridge, AB, jury on July 11, Olienick’s lawyer, Marilyn Burns stated “This is a political, criminal trial that is un Canadian.” She told the jury, “You will be shocked, and at the very least, disappointed with how Canada’s own RCMP conducted themselves during and after the Coutts protest,” as she summarized officers’ testimony during presentation of the Crown’s case. Burns also contended that “the conduct of Alberta’s provincial government and Canada’s federal government are entwined with the RCMP.” The arrests of the Coutts Four on the night of February 13 and noon hour of February 14, were key events in a decision by the Clerk of the Privy Council, Janice Charette, and the National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister, Jody Thomas, to advise Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to invoke the Emergencies Act. Chief Justice Paul Rouleau, in submitting his Public Order Emergency Commission Report to Parliament on February 17, 2023, also cited events at the Coutts Blockade as key to his conclusion that the government was justified in invoking the Emergencies Act.
Justice David Labrenz cautioned attorney Burns regarding her language, after Crown prosecutor Stephen Johnson objected to some of the language in the opening statement of Olienick’s counsel. Futher discussion about the appropriateness of attorney Burns’ statement to the jury is behind a publication ban, as discussions occurred without the jury present.
Justice Labrenz told the jury on July 12, “I would remind you that the presumption of innocence means that both the accused are cloaked with that presumption, unless the Crown proves beyond a reasonable doubt the essential elements of the charge(s).” He further clarified what should result if the jurors were uncertain about which narrative to believe: the account by the Crown, or the account from the accused lawyers. Labrenz stated that such ambivalence must lead to an acquittal; As such a degree of uncertainty regarding which case to trust in does not meet the “beyond a reasonable doubt” threshold for a conviction.”
On July 15, 2024, a Lethbridge jury heard evidence from a former employer of Olienicks’ named Brian Lambert. He stated that he had tasked Olienick run his sandstone quarry and mining business. He was a business partner with Olienick. In that capacity, Olienick made use of what Lambert referred to as “little firecrackers,” to quarry the sandstone and reduce it in size. Reducing the size of the stone renders it manageable to get refined and repurposed so it could be sold to buyers of stone for other uses (building construction, patio stones, etc.) Lambert explained that the “firecrackers” were “explosive devices” packaged within tubing and pipes that could also be used for plumbing. He detailed how “You make them out of ordinary plumbing pipe and use some kind of propellant like shotgun powder…” Lambert explained that the length of the pipe “…depended on how big a hole or how large a piece of stone you were going to crack. The one I saw was about six inches long … maybe an inch in diameter.”
One of Olienick’s charges is “unlawful possession of an explosive device for a dangerous purpose.” The principal evidence offered up by RCMP to the Crown is what the officers depicted as “pipe bombs” which they obtained at the residence of Anthony Olienick in Claresholm, Alberta, about a two-hour drive from Coutts. Officers entered his home after he was arrested the night of February 13, 2022. Lambert’s testimony offers a plausible common use for the “firecrackers” the RCMP referred to as “pipe bombs.” Lambert added, these “firecrackers” have a firecracker fuse, and in the world of “explosive” they are “no big deal.”
Fellow accused, Chris Carbert, is does not face the additional charge of unlawful possession of explosives for a dangerous purpose. This is the first full week of the case for the defence. The trial began on June 6 when the Crown began presenting its case.
Ray McGinnis is a Senior Fellow with the Frontier Centre for Public Policy who recently attended several days of testimony at the Coutts Two trial.
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