National
‘Insider’ connected to ArriveCAN app to testify before House of Commons committee
From LifeSiteNews
The once-mandatory ArriveCAN app cost taxpayers over $50 million, $8.9 million of which was given to an obscure company called GC Strategies which was operated by a two-man team out of an Ontario home.
Canadian MPs investigating the federal government’s $54 million controversial COVID-era ArriveCAN travel app are today questioning an “insider” connected to the app who was claimed to have boasted he “rubbed shoulders” with every assistant “deputy minister in town.”
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the “insider” to testify before the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates (OGGO) as to his involvement with the travel app is consultant Vaughn Brennan, who was reluctantly named as a witness.
According to subcontractors involved in the ArriveCAN app, Brennan had been named as a “self-styled political insider.”
According to witnesses, Brennan said he had “rubbed shoulders with every assistant deputy minister in town” and thought that the $23 million being spent on a sole-sourced contract was “a drop in the bucket.”
To date, Brennan has never spoken publicly about his involvement with the ArriveCAN app, however, it has been confirmed he did work with ArriveCAN consultant GC Strategies Incorporated.
The once-mandatory ArriveCAN app cost taxpayers over $50 million, $8.9 million of which was given to an obscure company called GC Strategies which was operated by a two-man team out of an Ontario home.
The OGGO is investigating how various companies such as Dalian, Coaradix, and GC Strategies received millions in taxpayer dollars to develop the contentious quarantine-tracking ArriveCAN app.
LifeSiteNews last year reported how two tech entrepreneurs testified before the committee that during the development of the ArriveCAN travel app they saw firsthand how federal managers engaged in “extortion,” “corruption,” and “ghost contracting,” all at the expense of taxpayers.
Canada’s Auditor General Karen Hogan announced an investigation of the ArriveCAN app in November of 2022, after the House of Commons voted 173-149 for a full audit of the controversial app.
The OGGO has not yet determined who gave the final approval over the ArriveCAN travel app’s contracts, which paid out millions to consultants.
‘Systemic corruption’ within Trudeau federal government ‘evident to everyone,’ says Conservative MP
Conservative Party of Canada (CPC) MP Stephanie Kusie noted to the committee on October 26, 2023, that it should be “evident to everyone in this room as well as Canadians,” that there is “systemic corruption within this government,” when speaking about ArriveCAN. She added that government corruption “should be absolutely evident.”
According to CPC MP Kelly McCauley, who is chair of the committee, Brennan had declined to testify before it, adding that “GC Strategies is playing hard to get.”
“That would be a polite way of saying it,” said McCauley.
“We have not been able to get a commitment from them despite our clerk going above and beyond in trying to accommodate them. We’re having difficulties with them.”
MPs on the OGGO, without any explanation, were told that a GC Strategies executive “routinely boasted he and his friends, senior government officials with contracting authority, have ‘dirt on each other.’”
Since 2022, GC Strategies has received some $44 million in federal contracts.
Last year LifeSiteNews reported on how during a parliamentary investigation into the misuse of funds used to create the ArriveCAN travel app, Canada’s chief federal technology officer was threatened with contempt of Parliament charges for refusing to give clear answers to questions from MPs regarding his involvement with the much-maligned app.
ArriveCAN was introduced in April 2020 by the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and made mandatory in November 2020. The app was used by the federal government to track the COVID jab status of those entering the country and enforce quarantines when deemed necessary.
When the app was mandated, all travelers entering Canada had to use it to submit their travel and contact information as well as any COVID vaccination details before crossing the border or boarding a flight.
In October 2021, Trudeau announced unprecedented COVID-19 jab mandates for all federal workers and those in the transportation sector and said the unjabbed will no longer be able to travel by air, boat, or train, both domestically and internationally.
This policy resulted in thousands losing their jobs or being placed on leave for non-compliance.
Trudeau “suspended” the COVID travel vaccine mandates on June 20, 2022. Last October, the Canadian federal government ended all remaining COVID mandates in Canada regarding travel, including masking on planes and trains, COVID testing, and allowing vaccine-free Canadians to no longer be subject to mandatory quarantine.
Over 700 vaccine-free Canadians negatively affected by federal COVID jab dictates have banded together to file a multimillion-dollar class-action lawsuit against the federal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
espionage
The Scientists Who Came in From the Cold: Canada’s National Microbiology Laboratory Scandal, Part I
From the C2C Journal
By Peter Shawn Taylor
In a breathless 1999 article on the opening of Canada’s top-security National Microbiology Laboratory (NML) in Winnipeg, the Canadian Medical Association Journal described the facility as “the place where science fiction movies would be shot.” The writer was fascinated by the various containment devices and security measures designed to keep “the bad boys from the world of virology: Ebola, Marburg, Lassa” from escaping. But what if insiders could easily evade all those sci-fi features in order to help Canada’s enemies? In the first of a two-part series, Peter Shawn Taylor looks into the trove of newly-unclassified evidence regarding the role of NML scientists Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng in aiding China’s expanding quest for the study – and potential military use – of those virus bad boys.
National
Trudeau’s internet censorship Bill C-11 will not be implemented until late 2025
From LifeSiteNews
The delay is due to not having a framework to determine exactly how much streaming services will be forced to pay and also what kind of inclusion and diversity requirements will be mandated.
The implementation of a Canadian law passed by the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that would mandate the regulation of online platforms such as YouTube and Netflix to ensure they meet government requirements, has been delayed until late 2025.
As reported recently by the Globe and Mail, Bill C-11, known as the Online Streaming Act that was passed into law in April 2023, was already supposed to have been implemented by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), the country’s broadcast regulator that is tasked with putting in place the law.
The law mandates that Big Tech companies pay to publish Canadian content on their platforms. As a result, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, blocked all access to news content in Canada. Google has promised to do the same rather than pay the fees laid out in the new legislation.
However, the CRTC said it will not be until late 2025 that it will finally have a framework to determine exactly how much streaming services will be forced to pay, to be in line with mandates for more Indigenous and Canadian content.
As per the Globe and Mail, consultations will be held that will go into March 2026, on what kind of inclusion and diversity requirements will be mandated by the CRTC.
“The Online Streaming Act and the policy direction are both complex and multi-faceted, and we have announced an ambitious set of public hearings and proceedings to address all of the elements they contain,” CRTC spokesperson Leigh Cameron said.
“The CRTC anticipates that by 2026 it will have both had the opportunity to consult widely with Canadians and to have put in place the key elements of the new broadcasting framework,” he added.
Critics of recent laws such as tech mogul Elon Musk have said it shows “Trudeau is trying to crush free speech in Canada.”
This bill has been panned by other critics, such as Alberta Premier Danielle Smith, after in October 2023 the CRTC said that certain podcasters must “register” with the government by November 28, 2023.
Regarding Bill C-11, Canadian law professor Dr. Michael Geist warned last year that new powers granted to CRTC via Bill C-11 will not stop at “Web Giants” but will lead to the government going after “news sites” and other “online” video sites as well.
“Bill C-11 was never just about ‘web giants’ and the latest CRTC decision confirms that an extensive regulatory framework is in the works that is likely to cover podcasts, adult sites, news sites, and a host of other online video and audio services,” Geist observed.
Geist said that the “crucial” issue with Bill C-11 was always whether “CRTC exemption from registration requirements, which it sets at $10M in Canadian revenue.”
“That isn’t trivial, but additional exemptions for podcasts, social media, adult sites, news services, thematic services were all rejected,” he noted.
Geist observed that the CRTC in its new rules is effectively saying that a “podcaster or news outlet that generates a certain threshold of revenue must register with the government.”
Delay means Bill could be rescinded before it’s ever implemented
The Conservative Party of Canada, under leader Pierre Poilievre, was a strong opponent to Bill C-11. With polls showing them on track to win the 2025 election in a landslide, it is conceivable the bill may be rescinded before it’s ever implemented.
After the bill was passed by the Senate last year, Poilievre promised a Conservative government would “repeal” Bill C-11.
“The power-hungry Trudeau Liberals have rammed through their censorship bill into law. But this isn’t over, not by a long shot,” Poilievre tweeted.
“A Poilievre government will restore freedom of expression online & repeal Trudeau’s C-11 censorship law.”
Recent polls show that the scandal-plagued federal government has sent the Liberals into a nosedive with no end in sight. Per a recent LifeSiteNews report, according to polls, in a federal election held today, Conservatives under Poilievre would win a majority in the House of Commons over Trudeau’s Liberals.
Canadians are not happy as well with Bill C-11 or the other internet censorship laws put in place by the Trudeau Liberals.
Indeed, in light of the barrage of new internet censorship laws being passed or brought forth by Trudeau, a new survey revealed that the majority of Canadians feel their freedom of speech is under attack.
Trudeau’s other internet censorship law, the Online News Act, was passed by the Senate in June 2023.
The law mandates that Big Tech companies pay to publish Canadian content on their platforms. As a result, Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, blocked all access to news content in Canada. Google has promised to do the same rather than pay the fees laid out in the new legislation.
The Online Harms Act, or Bill C-63, will target internet speech retroactively if it becomes law. The law, if passed, could lead to large fines and even jail time for vaguely defined online “hate speech” infractions, and has also been panned by Musk.
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