National
The documentary rocking Vancouver and shocking Canadians
From Aaron Gunn of Politics Explained
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AARON IS AN INDEPENDENT JOURNALIST, AND ADVOCATE FOR TAXPAYERS AND COMMON SENSE
Aaron is Producer/Director of the hit online series, Politics Explained.
His videos have targeted, among others, the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC) for dramatically raising rates on BC drivers; Victoria Mayor Lisa Helps for tearing down the statue of Sir John A. Macdonald; Canada’s Justice System for its treatment of child murderers; and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for his massive deficits, destructive energy policy and obsession with political correctness.
Throughout, Aaron has demonstrated his commitment to lower taxes, less waste and a stronger Canada. His content, which he writes and produces himself, is funded by the generous contributions of ordinary, taxpaying Canadians. His videos, which are filmed across the country, have together been shared hundreds of thousands of times.
Prior to his work as Spokesperson for BC Proud (2017-19), Aaron worked for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) where he founded and became Executive Director of the Generation Screwed initiative, fighting back against government debt and its impact on future generations.
By the end of his tenure at the CTF, Generation Screwed had achieved a considerable online following and established a physical presence at over 30 university campuses across Canada.
Aaron has a Bachelor’s Degree of Commerce from the University of Victoria. He served three years in the Canadian Army Reserves and operated his own company, which he founded at age 15, for over ten years. Victoria, BC is home.
For media requests or to inquire about public speaking, contact Aaron here.
Economy
Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland irks Canadian senators with request to pass budget bill sight unseen
From LifeSiteNews
One senator called it ‘an embarrassment’ to be asked to vote on a bill without reading it.
Many Canadian senators were furious after Finance Minister and Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland asked them to pass the Liberal government’s 2024 budget bill without reading it.
Last Friday, senate managers had asked for approval to spend an additional $8.9 billion without the actual text of the bill being available to view.
Senator Patti LaBoucane-Benson, who serves as the cabinet’s legislative deputy in the Senate, tried to brush off the notion of the cabinet’s failure to publish the bill’s full text, saying it was a “House of Commons problem.”
However, Senator Elizabeth Marshall said, “You need the bill to vote on it,” adding, “I haven’t seen the bill.”
“It’s not posted. I don’t know how we can vote on a bill that we haven’t seen,” the senator said.
Last Thursday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s 2024 budget bill was passed by the House of Commons in less than 10 minutes. It was then sent to the Senate.
Senator Donald Plett said that it was “an embarrassment” to have been asked to vote on a “bill I haven’t seen,” adding, that senators “need to get a copy of the bill so we know what we’re voting on.”
Senator Denise Batters observed that when it comes to having been asked to vote on a bill of which the text was not even made available, “This is not the first time this sort of thing has happened.”
Indeed, in 2020 at the start of the COVID crisis, spending bills were passed using special powers by the Trudeau government without the text ever being made available until after the laws were passed. Trudeau’s cabinet then used the special powers to spend an extra $350 billion by March 31, 2020.
As for Freeland, she has deep connections to the globalist group behind the socialist “Great Reset” agenda headed by Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum (WEF).
Freeland, currently serving as a member of the WEF Board of Trustees, attended a WEF meeting in January and participated in a public panel on Ukraine.
The ties between the WEF and the Trudeau Liberals run deep. Schwab once told Freeland that he has “counted” on her to make sure his globalist goals see the light of day.
Banks
Canada is preparing to launch ‘open banking.’ Here’s what that means
From LifeSiteNews
By David James
The experience with open banking so far suggests that the benefits are mostly exaggerated and that, while it does not necessarily increase the risk of fraud, it does not eliminate it either. It just shifts the dangers elsewhere.
The Canadian government is setting the stage to bring in what is termed “open banking.”
It is described as a “secure way” for customers to share their financial data with financial technology companies (fintechs or fintech apps). The holders of the account do not have to provide their online banking usernames and passwords. Instead, the data is shared by the customer’s bank with the fintech company, or app, through an online channel.
Open banking is often contrasted with what is called screen scraping, which is when the third party is provided with the online banking username and password, enabling them to log in directly to the bank account as if they were the customer.
Open banking has been adopted by 68 countries, including the United Kingdom and Australia. The U.S. Congress passed the necessary legislation to set it up in 2010, but it was not until last October that the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) issued a proposed rule necessary for implementation.
The experience with open banking so far suggests that the benefits are mostly exaggerated and that, while it does not necessarily increase the risk of fraud, it does not eliminate it either. It just shifts the dangers elsewhere.
The greatest peril is fraudulent account linking: unauthorized connections between customer accounts and third-party applications. This can be done by linking the victim’s financial account to an app controlled by the fraudster, allowing unauthorized access to the person’s funds. Or, the fraudster’s financial account can be linked to a victim’s third-party app, allowing scammers to transfer funds into their account. Substantial sums of money can be stolen before the victim becomes aware of the breach.
Such risks are commonplace in the digital banking environment. For instance, in Australia, according to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, credit card fraud affected 8.7 per cent of the population in 2022-23. The average amount stolen, however, was only $A200 and only 18 per cent had more than $A1000 taken. With open banking, if there is a breach, any sums stolen are likely to be much larger.
Neither is there any reason to think open banking is completely secure just because customers do not reveal their username and password. The Australian Banking Association warned that, after cyberattacks on the government medical insurer Medibank and telco Optus, “the engagement of a third party standing in the shoes of the customer … introduces a range of new risks for which banks may need to develop specific scam, fraud and cyber mitigation tools.”
According to research by financial advisory company Konsentus, the adoption of open banking has been strongest in Asia. In the U.S., customers have a strong attraction to credit cards and the rewards on offer. That is expected to represent a big barrier to take up. In Britain participation has “plateaued,” according to The Open Banking Impact Report (OBI report).
What are the advantages of open banking? According to the OBI report open banking has become a “critical component of cloud accounting” in Britain, which is helping smaller businesses track their financial positions more accurately. It is claimed that giving more entities access to customers’ financial data also increases competition.
Open banking is supposedly more efficient. The fintech company Gocardless contends that: “bank-to-bank payments are fully integrated and use a digital pull-based mechanism, where the merchant requests payment. In contrast, manual bank payments or card payments require the customer to send the payment to the business. Bank-to-bank payments tend to have lower failure rates compared to credit/debit card methods. Thus, businesses spend less time chasing missed payments.”
Another more doubtful claim is that open banking will make things easier for lenders. Abhigyan Shrivastava, leader in banking and technology transformation for Bendigo and Adelaide Bank writes that open banking is: “set to have a significant impact on lending transformation in Australia… with increased competition, personalized lending products, and more efficient lending processes.”
There is little reason, however, to think that better exposure to borrowers’ data will make any difference to lending practices. It will still be a matter of borrowers being able to provide enough collateral to qualify for a loan and to demonstrate they have sufficient income to pay the interest. In other words, banking as usual.
What is most likely is that the benefits of the initiative will primarily go to the banks and financial technology companies. That these entities argue, unconvincingly, that open banking is more “customer-centric” rouses the suspicion that ordinary customers will ultimately gain little.
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