Cabinet yesterday enacted regulations to speed the deportation of foreigners involved in organized crime. The Canada Border Services Agency complained under old rules it had to hear and re-hear evidence against immigrants already convicted of serious offences before deporting them: "I don’t quite understand why we would tolerate this."
A CBC News claim that falsely suggested Russia was behind Freedom Convoy protests should have “been caught before broadcast,” says the network's ombudsman. The claim by CBC announcer Nil Koksal was unattributed and made without evidence: "I am disappointed it took others to point out to CBC the question was 'off.'"
Minister Marco Mendicino’s office yesterday claimed he had no involvement in backdating documents to mislead a federal judge. Internal emails show documents were sent to Mendicino’s office. Staff did not explain the discrepancy: "We’re just waiting for MINO's approval."
Internal Department of Public Safety reports confirm there was no evidence of violence by Freedom Convoy supporters outside Parliament. One report issued the very day cabinet invoked the Emergencies Act said the protest was small, peaceful and had little impact on federal operations: "Disruption to government activities is so far minor."
A fifth of the federal cabinet will testify at the Freedom Convoy inquiry, investigators said yesterday. Eight of 39 cabinet members will be cross-examined under oath on why they invoked the Emergencies Act against protesters outside Parliament: "The issue is not whether it helped the police but whether the powers they already had could have resolved the problem."
A now-retired judge enrolled in a charity scheme subsequently shut down by the Canada Revenue Agency as a tax shelter, records show. Documents filed in a Tax Court dispute indicate David Crane signed the charity papers in his chambers while a presiding judge at Superior Court in Hamilton, Ont.: "I did business and I was deceived."
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino’s department censored hundreds of pages of documents sought by MPs reviewing security measures against the Freedom Convoy. “It makes no sense,” said Bloc Québécois MP Rhéal Fortin (Riviere-du-Nord, Que.): "Look at the documents we received here."
The federal spy agency in a secret memo discounted cabinet claims the Freedom Convoy was infiltrated by Nazis. A lone swastika flag spotted outside Parliament was offensive but not representative of protesters who considered themselves “patriotic Canadians standing up for their democratic rights,” said the Canadian Security Intelligence Service: "Only a small, fringe element supports the use of violence or might be willing to engage in it."
Internal Privy Council polling shows most Canadians are weary of federal pandemic management. “Several felt the federal approach at present lacked direction,” cabinet was told: "More participants felt the federal government was performing worse."
Cabinet will not name federal officials that approved funding for an anti-Semite who fantasized on Twitter about shooting Jews. Diversity Minister Ahmed Hussen told the Commons heritage committee he was not personally to blame: "We trusted at that time that adequate vetting had been completed."
A change in immigration rules will see half a million foreign students eligible to work full time in Canada. "It's good for our economy," Immigration Minister Sean Fraser told the Commons: "It is a great day for international students."
We are grateful this holiday to friends and subscribers for your support as Blacklock's embarks on an 11th great year of independent, all-original Canadian journalism. On behalf of all our contributors, please accept our thanks. We're back tomorrow -- The Editor.
Hitler’s publicist once spent the winter in Red Rock, Ont., humming the Horst Wessel Song and cursing his fate. In the carnival of Canadian oddities, none is more curious than The Little Third Reich On Lake Superior. Historian Ernest Zimmerman of Lakehead University chronicles the strange events that saw 1,150 men and boys – Jews and Nazis alike – herded into bunkhouses northeast of Thunder Bay in the winter of 1940.
It was a “third-rate jungle prison,” one inmate recalled. Another complained it was like being kidnapped and dragged into the wilderness. “They deeply resented the treatment,” Zimmerman writes. “They resented being in foreign surroundings, away from home, and being treated as prisoners of war rather than refugees.”
Peter Sloly, former Ottawa police chief, last night said Freedom Convoy demonstrators were told by local law enforcement they could park outside Parliament. Testifying at committee, Sloly said it was only when truckers declined to leave after a few days that the protest became what he called a “national security crisis.”
Inflation in Canada is now home grown, Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem said yesterday. Macklem and others for months had blamed rising costs on global developments: "Increasingly the inflation we’re seeing in Canada reflects what’s going on in Canada."
