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Opinion

Trudeau’s Winnipeg Whitewash – A Masterclass in Diversion and Disconnection

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12 minute read

From The Opposition with Dan Knight

As Canada grapples with soaring housing costs and a quality of life crisis, the Prime Minister’s narrative on immigration & multicultural success stories clashes with the lived realities of Canadians

As some of you enjoyed the comfort of Family Day, perhaps some of you noticed Justin Trudeau making the rounds in Winnipeg – (Justin Trudeau Fireside Chat at Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce – February 16, 2024), where he found quite the fan in Loren Remillard of the Winnipeg Chamber of Commerce. It seems Remillard was all too eager to extend a metaphorical hand, fishing for tax dollars to prop up their projects.

Oh, let’s dissect the masterful art of political deflection and diversion, shall we? Justin Trudeau, spun a narrative so disconnected from the reality Canadians live in, it’s almost an art form. He lauds Toronto and Vancouver as paragons of multicultural success, cities thriving under the weight of their diversity. But here’s the catch folks—the reality on the ground, as reported by Stats Canada, tells a story that’s anything but rosy for the residents of these supposed utopias.

When we turn our gaze to the real impact of his government’s immigration policies on the ground, the picture is starkly different. Toronto and Vancouver, the benchmarks of Trudeau’s immigration success story, are in fact cities where residents report a lower quality of life than their provincial counterparts. Why? Because amidst the fanfare of diversity and inclusion, the basic needs of the citizens—like feeling a sense of belonging, life satisfaction, and mental health—are being sidelined.

Let’s not forget the elephant in the room Trudeau casually mentioned—2 million temporary residents flooding into Canada. This isn’t just a number; it’s a tsunami of demand in addition to the Liberal 500k target per year of permanent resident hitting a housing market already gasping for air, driving rents and shelter costs to astronomical heights. And Trudeau’s response? A shrug of the shoulders and a diversion to talk about measures with Mexico or the plight of international students. While these issues merit attention, they dance around the core issue: a government more obsessed with its global image than the welfare of its citizens.

The audacity to claim that Toronto and Vancouver are thriving under his policies, while Stats Canada directly contradicts this with evidence of declining quality of life, is nothing short of political theater. It’s a sleight of hand designed to distract from the harsh reality—that his government’s approach to immigration and temporary residents is contributing to a crisis of affordability and well-being in our major cities.

But amidst the spectacle, Trudeau touched on a subject that should raise eyebrows across the nation: On how his government is using immigration as a tool to “grow the economy.” Now, let’s pause for a moment to digest that, shall we?

Diving deeper, a fascinating exchange caught my ear during a Finance Committee meeting FINA-124 -February 1, 2024, where Tiff Macklem of the Bank of Canada offered some candid insights. When prodded by Mr. Jasraj Singh Hallan, Macklem conceded that the government’s spending spree and the Bank’s efforts to stabilize our economy were essentially at loggerheads. Here we have the Trudeau administration, pushing fiscal policies that seem to sprint in the opposite direction of monetary sanity.

Macklem went on, outlining that yes, government spending is contributing to growth, but let’s be clear about the kind of growth we’re talking about here. It’s one that barely keeps pace with population increases, teetering on the edge of potential. And with government spending poised to climb even higher, we’re flirting dangerously close to exacerbating inflation, rather than reining it in.

Senior Deputy Governor Carolyn Rogers chimed in with a stark reminder of the housing market’s woes. Despite interest rate hikes, which traditionally cool down housing prices, Canada’s chronic housing shortage keeps prices stubbornly high. The result? A housing affordability crisis that’s squeezing Canadians tighter than ever, exacerbated by an immigration policy that is throwing fuel on the fire of demand without addressing the urgent need for supply.

This is the picture Trudeau’s policies paint for Canada: a nation where the cost of living climbs ever higher, where the dream of homeownership slips further away for the average citizen, and where economic growth strategies seem disconnected from the realities on the ground. It’s high time for a reality check, a moment to ask ourselves whether these policies truly serve the best interest of Canadians or merely the political agenda of those in power.

Indeed, the root of the issue is staring us right in the face—supply problems are driving costs through the roof. Yet, it seems as though there’s a conspiracy of silence in the House of Commons; no one dares to utter the truth that unchecked immigration is exacerbating these supply woes, sending shelter costs soaring. Let’s dive into the latest from Stats Canada to unravel the narrative everyone is thriving under Justin Trudeau.

First off, let’s talk about renters. According to this report, if you’re renting, your quality of life isn’t just on the lower rung; it’s plummeting. Renters are staggering under the weight of financial pressures unheard of for homeowners, feeling the pinch of record-low vacancy rates and rent hikes that would make your head spin. Over 15 percentage points more likely to struggle financially and over 11 points less likely to experience life satisfaction.

But the plot thickens when we look at the younger Canadians, those aged 15 to 54. They’re caught in a vise, with life satisfaction and mental health scores that trail behind their older counterparts. The dream of home ownership? A mirage for many, as they navigate a landscape where the very idea of paying off a mortgage seems like a relic of a bygone era. And let’s not even get started on the economic tightrope walked by residents of Toronto and Vancouver, cities where the cost of living soars as high as the skyscrapers dotting their skylines.

Now, Trudeau’s government might have you believe that policies are in place to bridge these divides, to bolster the quality of life for all Canadians. But let’s be real—the evidence suggests otherwise. With renters and younger generations buckling under financial strains and cities like Toronto and Vancouver becoming enclaves of the unaffordable, the narrative being spun by the current administration seems more fiction than fact.

Consider the financial strain laid bare by these statistics: a significant portion of Canadians are finding it increasingly difficult to meet their financial needs, with shelter costs consuming a lion’s share of their income.

In a landscape marked by disparities in quality of life we’re left with a pressing question: where does the path forward lie?

 

Let’s cut to the chase, folks. The latest 338 polling data isn’t just a blip on the political radar; it’s a resounding bell tolling for the end of the Liberals’ reign, inching closer to losing their official party status. Why, you might ask? It’s simple: Justin Trudeau’s legacy is one of profound ineptitude, a legacy that has systematically failed Canadians at every turn. When Trudeau touts his housing policies, claiming to increase rentals, remember the cold, hard facts from Stats Canada—he’s not building homes; he’s crafting a nation with a diminished quality of life. That’s the Trudeau vision for Canada.

And let’s not overlook the audacity of his actions—jetting off to Jamaica with a hefty $162,000 bill footed by you, the taxpayer. It seems Trudeau’s concern for your quality of life evaporates faster than a Liberal MP can devour lobster in Malaysia. Meanwhile, ordinary Canadians are left to scrounge at food banks. But hey, as long as the political elite get their fill, right?

SNC-Lavalin was just the beginning, the canary in the coal mine signaling the avalanche of corruption set to spill out from Trudeau’s government. WE Charity, the Trudeau Foundation, Chinese interference, ArriveScam… the list of scandals under Trudeau’s watch is as long as it is disgraceful. These aren’t mere footnotes in history; they’re the defining features of his tenure.

Remember the uproar over a $16 orange juice under Harper? That was considered the height of scandal, a benchmark of accountability. Fast forward to today, and this government can’t even spell ‘ethics,’ let alone practice it.

So, my fellow Canadians, as we look ahead to the next election, we’re presented with a golden opportunity—a chance to reset the narrative and send a clear message to the liberal elites that we’ve had enough of their disdain for the average citizen. I, for one, will be cheering on the red wedding of Canadian politics because the liberal standard is not just detrimental to your well-being; it’s an affront to all of Canada. It’s time to say enough is enough and reclaim the Canada we know and love—a Canada of integrity, accountability, and true north strong and free.

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Frontier Centre for Public Policy

Ottawa Should Think Twice Before Taxing Churches

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From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy

By Pierre Gilbert

Ottawa has churches in its crosshairs. A federal fiscal squeeze could strip religious organizations of tax breaks, crippling Canada’s community backbone

Proposals to revoke charitable status for faith-based groups would devastate the community services thousands rely on

Canada’s churches, synagogues, temples, mosques and charities like the Salvation Army are at the heart of our communities, offering hope, support and services to thousands. But a storm is brewing in Ottawa that could strip these vital institutions of their charitable status, threatening their very survival—and much of our country’s social fabric.

The 2025 House of Commons Standing Committee on Finance, which makes recommendations to shape the federal budget, dropped a bombshell in its prebudget report, an influential document often used to set priorities for the year ahead. It included two recommendations that could hit religious organizations hard.

The first is that the government revoke the charitable status of pro-life groups. These agencies are being singled out because of the support they provide to pregnant women who do not wish to abort their children.

The second is that the “advancement of religion,” one of the four long-standing categories under which Canadian charities qualify for registration, be eliminated. The recommendation was based on a single proposal by the B.C. Humanist Association, a provincial nonprofit organization in British Columbia that represents atheists, humanists, agnostics and non-religious people.

If included in the next federal budget, these ideas would strip religious organizations across Canada of tax exemptions, the ability to issue donation receipts and, if provinces follow suit, property tax breaks.

Why target these groups?

Ottawa desperately needs the cash. The federal government is on a spending binge of gargantuan proportions with no end in sight. Canada’s balance sheet is drenched in red ink, with no credible plan to address the structural budget deficit, which the C.D. Howe Institute, a Toronto-based policy think tank, estimates will reach a record $92 billion this year. While the tax exemptions amount to only between $1.7 and $3.2 billion annually, the temptation to grab what it can from churches may prove irresistible.

But it’s not just about the dollars. Religious institutions have increasingly faced criticism from secular voices in Ottawa and academia. The Catholic Church, for example, is still facing harsh criticism over its role in Canada’s residential school system and over recent allegations of unmarked graves of Indigenous children at some schools.

As for Protestant and Evangelical churches, public perception casts these institutions as clashing with modern societal norms. Critics claim that churches opposing abortion or prevailing views on human sexuality should be compelled to align with government policies on these issues.

The message seems to be: shape up or ship out. This isn’t just a policy debate; it’s a cultural attack on institutions that have shaped Canada for generations.

Despite the criticism, there are compelling reasons to preserve the charitable status of religious organizations.

First, a recent study by Cardus, a Canadian faith-based think tank, shows that for every dollar of tax exemption, religious groups deliver $10 in community services.

Second, religious congregations offer substantial intangible benefits of immeasurable value. They foster vibrant communities where individuals find friendship, emotional support and spaces to explore questions of meaning and purpose. They also provide opportunities for people to experience a sense of transcendence and spiritual connection.

When the current focus on materialism comes to an end, as it must, many Canadians will turn to the church for guidance in addressing the most profound questions about human existence.

Ottawa needs to get its fiscal house in order, not raid ours. It’s time for Canadians to speak up. Write to your MP, attend community forums and demand that the charitable status for religious organizations be preserved. Doing so will ensure that churches and other places of worship continue to serve Canadians for generations.

Pierre Gilbert, PhD, is an emeritus associate professor at Canadian Mennonite University and a senior fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. He is the author of Revoking the Charitable Status for the Advancement of Religion: A Critical Assessment and God Never Meant for Us to Die (2020).

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Media

Canada’s top Parliamentary reporters easily manipulated by the PMO’s “anonymous sources”

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X-post by former PMO chief of staff Norman Spector, who noticed something was up concerning how the Prime Minister’s team got its message out

Press Gallery members denied access to Carney’s Egypt photo opportunity dutifully repeat anonymous, unverified claims elevating the Prime Minister’s importance

Last week, the Parliamentary Press Gallery (PPG) and I had something in common.

We were both dismayed.

They, because they weren’t invited to join Prime Minister Carney on his last-minute trip to Egypt for a photo opp; Me because most of them didn’t seem all that interested in looking into the circumstances of the PM’s hasty departure and instead allowed themselves to be played in the most appallingly obvious manner.

Peter Menzies is a past publisher of the Calgary Herald, a former vice chair of the CRTC and a National Newspaper Award winner.

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What got the PPG’s knickers twisted was that they weren’t invited to accompany Carney when he departed Ottawa in a rush to get to the Egyptian resort of Sharm El Sheikh, a popular spot on the Red Sea for the world’s glitterati. It took PPG President Mia Rabson a couple of days to issue a statement, but she made it clear the PPG disapproved:

“The Parliamentary Press Gallery was not informed in advance of the Prime Minister’s trip to Egypt to participate in the Middle East Peace Ceremony on Oct. 12 -13,” she wrote. “The Gallery is disappointed and dismayed at the exclusion of Canadian media from the event and expresses in no uncertain terms that this must never happen again.

“It is unprecedented that Canadian media be entirely excluded from a Canadian prime minister’s foreign trip.”

The only reporting I could find on this was in Politico, where it was recorded that the PMO had posted this notice: “6:30 p.m. The Prime Minister will depart for Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, to attend the signing of a Middle East peace plan. Closed to media.”

What first caused my jaw to drop and to become, like Rabin, disappointed and dismayed, were the stories left unpursued. On the morning of Oct. 12, Canada was not listed as among the countries invited to join in the “peace summit” associated with the ceasefire deal reached between Israel and Hamas. If it had been, the prime minister may not have had to charter a private jet because the usual Royal Canadian Air Force planes and crews were, as City News’s Glen MacGregor reported, unavailable.

There are two lines of journalistic inquiry there, neither of which appears to have been of interest. The first is: how can Canada’s military be so poorly equipped that there isn’t at all times a fully-equipped aircraft and crew on standby and is this an issue that will be addressed in the future? The second is: how did we wind up getting invited to the peace summit? Comments by US President Donald Trump indicate that we weren’t initially considered important enough to be on site but phoned to ask if we could join the party. (The Line – which doesn’t accept government subsidies – noticed.)

Trump, in remarks to media said: “You have Canada. That’s so great to have, in fact. The president called and he wanted to know if it’s worth – well he knew exactly what it is. He knew the importance. Where’s Canada, by the way? Where are you? He knew the importance of this.”

What was pursued, at least in comments online by journalists, was Trump’s inability to identify Carney by his correct title. (In an exchange that followed, Carney sarcastically thanked Trump for elevating him and, in response, was told “at least I didn’t call you governor.” Ha ha.)

Everyone is free to make their own decisions, but if Canada had to call Trump to ask to be invited, Canadians need to know if that means we are in the president’s debt. Trump, after all, seems like the sort of guy who keeps score.

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But it’s what followed that really got creepy. While Canadian reporters were not allowed to accompany the prime minister to Egypt, someone who says he or she was on the plane started phoning around to tell reporters what happened. And they went for it. The Globe and MailToronto Star and Politico all reported unverified statements emanating from a single, unnamed source. The Globe’s Robert Fife reported that “a senior government official” said that while Carney and others thought they were just in Egypt for a photo opp, during a four hour wait for Trump to arrive from Israel “Mr. Carney had back-and-forth conversations with a group of leaders.”

Fife wrote that “The Globe and Mail is not identifying the official so they could speak candidly.”

Tonda MacCharles of the Toronto Star also quoted a “senior Canadian government official” who “spoke confidentially to provide background information on what was discussed at the leaders-only talks.” Said official was buzzing about the dynamism of the occasion and the ever so important role the boss played at the photo opp.

“Imagine the G20 without the talking points and pomp and circumstance. We all came out of it, staffers, like ‘wow that was a useful meeting,’” the anonymous source told MacCharles, whose report, similar to Fife’s, did not indicate that any efforts whatsoever had been made to verify the claims of the “official” with even a second anonymous “official.”

The Globe report expanded on how Carney’s attendance in Egypt was all part of a broader strategy, that he is well-known and liked in the region and how the invitation “was not a surprise” because Carney has “sought” to “act as a go-between Arab states and Washington.”

That doesn’t exactly appear consistent with the source’s concession that Carney’s office “first heard of the invitation on social media” but, whatever.

MacCharles and Fife tried to add greater context to their reports (the former doing the better job, in my view) but while The Free Press’s Rupa Subramanya wondered what all the fuss was about and Brian Mulroney’s former chief of staff Norman Spector (see frame grab above) smelled a rat, my conclusion is that what we have here is unacceptable.

The Prime Minister departed the country unaccompanied by even a single representative of the nation’s press. Upon his return, neither Carney nor any “officials” held a news conference to explain what took place. Instead, targeted media got fed what could be (I’ll use the polite term) pure fantasy. Two of Canada’s leading news organizations, apparently confusing themselves with stenographers, then – and without noting any attempts whatsoever at verification – dutifully passed it all along to their readers on …. faith.

Compare what took place here to what the Associated Press has to say about the use of anonymous sources in politics:

“No one wants news that’s built on unnamed, unaccountable sources and facts seemingly pulled from the air. Politicians and members of the public sometimes have cited such journalism as a reason for the fall in trust in the media….

“Reporting with loose attribution or anonymous sourcing can be dismissed as fake by the skeptical reader or politician. On the other hand, a report filled with verifiable facts attributed to named and authoritative sources of information is impossible to dispute.”

When all was said and done, the coverage of the Prime Minister’s visit to Egypt was denied to journalists and replaced with unchallenged reports from the leader’s staff, just like it’s done in tin pot dictatorships. And not a peep from the nation’s heavily subsidized journalism community.

Not a frickin’ peep.


(Peter Menzies is a commentator and consultant on media, Macdonald-Laurier Institute Senior Fellow, a past publisher of the Calgary Herald, a former vice chair of the CRTC and a National Newspaper Award winner.)

Readers will notice a new DONATE button has been added. This allows you to buy The Rewrite a cup of coffee or, if you are feeling generous, wine, but doesn’t constitute a subscription. Please consider making use of it and help us save journalism from bad journalism.

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