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COVID lockdowns in Canada cost small businesses $60 billion in first year alone

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From LifeSiteNews

By AnthonyMurdoch

In the first year of COVID lockdowns Canada’s small-to-medium-sized businesses, many of which are family-run, lost a combined $60 billion in gross profit, according to recently released statistics. 

On February 18 Statistics Canada released a report regarding “Borrowing, repayments and bankruptcies” from Ottawa’s Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA) program, finding that businesses with less than $1.5 million in annual expenses “experienced a drop in gross profit, totaling a loss of nearly $60 billion” from 2019 to 2020. 

The CEBA program was struck in March of 2020 to give out businesses affected by COVID lockdowns interest-free loans of up to $60,000. The loans came with strings attached, however, and had to be paid back by a certain date to only have to pay a partial amount back.   

The report noted that the COVID lockdowns, which were imposed by all provincial governments as well as mandated by the federal government for the agencies it ran, from 2020 to most of 2021, were “most challenging for client-facing industries.

Businesses that reported the biggest declines in gross profit were “client-facing ones, such as food service and drinking places, hotels, and offices of dentists and physicians,” noted the report. Many of these are family-run businesses. 

When it comes to bankruptcies, the report noted that they rose sharply from about mid-2022 to early 2024, notably coming after businesses had to start repaying the CEBA loans, which came due on January 18, 2024.  

COVID vaccine mandates, as well as lockdowns, which came from provincial governments with the support of the federal government, split Canadian society. The mRNA shots have been linked to a multitude of negative and often severe side effects in children. 

In many provinces, such as Alberta, small and medium-sized businesses also fought back via lawsuits against their governments and health agencies, which put in place COVID rules.  

LifeSiteNews reported last November, that a class-action lawsuit on behalf of dozens of Canadian business owners in Alberta who faced massive losses or permanent closures due to COVID mandates, was given the go-ahead to proceed by a judge. 

As a result of COVID dictates, many Canadians fought back, most notably in the form of the 2023 Freedom Convoy, which saw thousands of Canadians from coast to coast come to Ottawa to demand an end to COVID mandates in all forms. Despite the peaceful nature of the protest, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government enacted the never-before-used Emergencies Act (EA) on February 14, 2022. 

As reported by LifeSiteNews, the Freedom Convoy’s two main leaders Tamara Lich and Chris Barber face a possible 10-year prison sentence. LifeSiteNews reported extensively on their trial, the verdict of which will be released on March 12.  

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RFK Jr. says Hep B vaccine is linked to 1,135% higher autism rate

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By Matt Lamb

They got rid of all the older children essentially and just had younger children who were too young to be diagnosed and they stratified that, stratified the data

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found newborn babies who received the Hepatitis B vaccine had 1,135-percent higher autism rates than those who did not or received it later in life, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Tucker Carlson recently. However, the CDC practiced “trickery” in its studies on autism so as not to implicate vaccines, Kennedy said.

RFK Jr., who is the current Secretary of Health and Human Services, said the CDC buried the results by manipulating the data. Kennedy has pledged to find the causes of autism, with a particular focus on the role vaccines may play in the rise in rates in the past decades.

The Hepatitis B shot is required by nearly every state in the U.S. for children to attend school, day care, or both. The CDC recommends the jab for all babies at birth, regardless of whether their mother has Hep B, which is easily diagnosable and commonly spread through sexual activity, piercings, and tattoos.

“They kept the study secret and then they manipulated it through five different iterations to try to bury the link and we know how they did it – they got rid of all the older children essentially and just had younger children who were too young to be diagnosed and they stratified that, stratified the data,” Kennedy told Carlson for an episode of the commentator’s podcast. “And they did a lot of other tricks and all of those studies were the subject of those kind of that kind of trickery.”

But now, Kennedy said, the CDC will be conducting real and honest scientific research that follows the highest standards of evidence.

“We’re going to do real science,” Kennedy said. “We’re going to make the databases public for the first time.”

He said the CDC will be compiling records from variety of sources to allow researchers to do better studies on vaccines.

“We’re going to make this data available for independent scientists so everybody can look at it,” the HHS secretary said.

Health and Human Services also said it has put out grant requests for scientists who want to study the issue further.

Carlson asked if the answers would “differ from status quo kind of thinking.”

“I think they will,” Kennedy said. He continued on to say that people “need to stop trusting the experts.”

“We were told at the beginning of COVID ‘don’t look at any data yourself, don’t do any investigation yourself, just trust the experts,”‘ he said.

In a democracy, Kennedy said, we have the “obligation” to “do our own research.”

“That’s the way it should be done,” Kennedy said.

He also reiterated that HHS will return to “gold standard science” and publish the results so everyone can review them.

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Elon Musk slams Trump’s ‘Big Beautiful Bill,’ calls for new political party

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By Robert Jones

The Tesla CEO warned that Trump’s $5 trillion plan erases DOGE’s cost-cutting gains, while threatening to unseat lawmakers who vote for it.

Elon Musk has reignited his feud with President Donald Trump by denouncing his “Big Beautiful Bill” in a string of social media posts, warning that it would add $5 trillion to the national debt.

“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore. This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination. Shame on those who voted for it: you know you did wrong. You know it,” Musk exclaimed in an X post last month.

Musk renewed his criticism Monday after weeks of public silence, shaming lawmakers who support it while vowing to unseat Republicans who vote for it.

“They’ll lose their primary next year if it is the last thing I do on this Earth,” he posted on X, while adding that they “should hang their heads in shame.”

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO also threatened to publish images branding those lawmakers as “liars.”

 

Trump responded on Truth Social by accusing Musk of hypocrisy. “He may get more subsidy than any human being in history,” the president wrote. “Without subsidies, Elon would probably have to close up shop and head back home to South Africa… BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!”

Musk responded by saying that even subsidies to his own companies should be cut.

Before and after the 2024 presidential election, Musk spoke out about government subsidies, including ones for electric vehicles, stating that Tesla would benefit if they were eliminated.

This latest exchange marks a new escalation in the long-running and often unpredictable relationship between the two figures. Musk contributed more than $250 million to Trump’s reelection campaign and was later appointed to lead the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which oversaw the termination of more than 120,000 federal employees.

Musk has argued that Trump’s new bill wipes out DOGE’s savings and reveals a deeper structural problem. “We live in a one-party country – the PORKY PIG PARTY!!” he wrote, arguing that the legislation should be knows as the “DEBT SLAVERY bill” before calling for a new political party “that actually cares about the people.”

In June, Musk deleted several inflammatory posts about the president, including one claiming that Trump was implicated in the Jeffrey Epstein files. He later acknowledged some of his comments “went too far.” Trump, in response, said the apology was “very nice.”

With the bill still under Senate review, the dispute underscores growing pressure on Trump from fiscal hardliners and tech-aligned conservatives – some of whom helped deliver his return to power. Cracks in the coalition may spell longer term problems for the Make America Great Again movement.

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