Vow No More Foreign Buyers

Parliament’s temporary curb on foreign purchase of residential real estate should be made permanent with loopholes closed, New Democrat leader Jagmeet Singh said yesterday. The  measure due to expire January 1, 2027 was no substitute for a “permanent ban on foreign homebuyers,” said Singh.

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Election’s Too Rough: Greens

The Green Party yesterday claimed unnamed political rivals were frightening its canvassers in what the national campaign manager called an “unprecedented” wave of incivility. The Party would not name names. No police were called: "What part of our democracy will be attacked next?"

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Public Confidence Collapsing

Canadian businesses and consumers alike are holding what cash they have in anticipation of a recession, the Bank of Canada said yesterday. Findings were drawn from quarterly surveys: "Is a recession imminent?"

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Bans On Protestors Unlawful

Pandemic-era bans on peaceful protests were unlawful, the Ontario Court of Appeal ruled yesterday. The decision was won by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms on behalf of citizens charged for attending anti-government rallies in 2021: "Everyone has the freedom of peaceful assembly."

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China Bots Hail “Rock Star”

Federal election monitors yesterday said they suspect Chinese Communist Party agents are running a media campaign describing Prime Minister Mark Carney as a "rock star." The Liberal Party was notified Sunday but made no public comment: "Carney has an ambitious economic recovery plan."

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CBC Put Jews At Risk: Report

Media including the CBC left Canadian Jews “ostracized and marginalized” by normalizing anti-Semitic themes in news coverage, B’nai Brith Canada said yesterday. The advocacy group’s Annual Audit Of Anti-Semitic Incidents for the first time faulted media as “megaphones for terrorist propaganda.”

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Proposes Small Biz Stamp Cut

Canada Post should offer small business the same discount bulk mail rates they offer banks, utilities and other large corporations, Bloc Québécois leader Yves-François Blanchet said yesterday. The election proposal comes ahead of new financial statements due in May that are expected to detail steep losses at the post office: "Nearly all businesses send and receive mail."

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Predict Middle Class Doomed

Canadians should expect to become poorer over the next five years, says a Privy Council report. The forecast was drawn from interviews with “experts across the Government of Canada” who said economic outlooks for families were so stark they predicted a national mental health crisis: 'It is crucial to anticipate potential future scenarios.'

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Gov’t Faked Tesla Suspension

Tesla vehicles remain eligible for federal rebates despite Transport Minister Chrystia Freeland’s claim that she froze payments to punish America. The transport department did not comment: "All vehicles that appear on the list have been deemed eligible."

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No Comment Says CBC News

CBC News says it will avoid all editorial comment on funding after Prime Minister Mark Carney promised it millions in additional subsidies if Liberals are re-elected. “During the election period we do not have any comment on the parties’ positions on CBC,” said Eric Wright, spokesperson for the network.

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Faults Carney As Tax Dodger

Parliament should abolish offshore tax agreements with “known havens" like those used by Brookfield Asset Management, says New Democrat leader Jagmeet Singh. Brookfield under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Mark Carney avoided more than $5 billion in federal taxes using offshore accounts, he said: "Is it ethical?"

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Council Wanted Pope To Visit

The British Columbia First Nation that announced its discovery of 215 children’s graves sought a visit to the Kamloops Residential School site by Pope Francis, Access To Information records show. Minutes of a local meeting quoted councillors as remarking they were “the first to announce unmarked graves.”

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A Sunday Poem: “Progress”

Poet Shai Ben-Shalom writes: “Neatly on my shelf, eighty books I haven’t read. They make me look inept. I should move with the times…”

Book Review: Fit, Young & Fascist

Everything was political in the 1930s. It was a haunted decade that “almost made me a Communist,” as Alberta Premier William Aberhart put it. Strong, Beautiful and Modern captures the oddest political expression of all, the campaign for physical culture. Archival images of mass synchronized exercises of the Pro-Rec League in the parks of Vancouver bear an unnerving resemblance to parades of bronzed youth so popular in Nazi Germany and Stalin’s Russia.

“Interest in fit, strong and beautiful bodies in the 1930s was not the monopoly of totalitarian and right-wing regimes,” writes historian Charlotte Macdonald. “Was it a modernity of individuality and freedom or of mass conformity and national duty?”

Beginning in 1937 with Britain’s Physical Training and Recreation Act and spreading through the “white Dominions” of Canada, Australia and New Zealand, legislators enacted national fitness programs. This is an intriguing story, crisply told.

Warn Of Agents On Campus

Canadian universities are targets of foreign agents determined to intimidate critics and scout recruits, says an RCMP briefing note. The Mounties did not identify any campus by name but said foreign interference was sophisticated: "Universities can be used as venues for ‘talent spotting.'"

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