The News Rundown

Canadians consider certain religions damaging to society: survey

Religion has entered the consciousness of the media, as a recent poll by the Angus Reid Institute has revealed some troubling findings, as journalists rush to use these to pit people against one another based on their differing religions: Coincidentally released during Easter Weekend, also during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, these polls purport that "people across the country continue to turn their backs on religion" and that "many Canadians now believe Catholicism, evangelical Christianity and Islam are more damaging to society than beneficial".
The new Angus Reid data is a culmination of two 2022 surveys — one conducted between Jan. 21 and Feb. 3 and including a group of 1,290 Canadians from the four largest non-Christian faith groups (Muslim, Sikh, Hindu and Jewish) and another conducted from April 5 to 7, involving 1,708 participants from the general population.
This means that not only are two different data-sets being thrown together to draw conclusions, one of the surveys specifically excluded Christians from responding. Is it any wonder that people from the other faiths would then answer that Christianity is more damaging to society than other religions? When you specifically cherry pick information like this, it leads to different conclusions than if you're sampling a random set.
Just 16 per cent of Canadians consider themselves “religiously committed,” with high levels of worship and belief in God, while 19 per cent are “privately faithful.” However, in terms of religions themselves, 74% of evangelical Christians and 46% of Muslims are considered religiously committed. It is, in turn, these two most committed religions — evangelical Christianity and Islam — which have been reported as more damaging than beneficial to society, according to the new research.
This sort of survey purports to show information that Canadians are intolerant of one another based on their religion. But while hate crimes have gone up in the past two years, Canadians largely respect their fellow citizen's right to believe in their own religions. However, the media and politicians are trying to twist the narrative into whatever they want.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the reported spike in hate crimes in Canada can be linked to the COVID-19 pandemic and greater political polarization. Trudeau was asked about the federal government’s plans to increase funding toward anti-racism measures in Canada in light of recent attacks at Ontario mosques.
The April 2022, budget announced $85-million in funding over five years related to a new anti-racism strategy and combatting hate. It also announced $11-million over five years for a special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and fighting antisemitism, as well as a special representative on combatting Islamophobia.
Trudeau said: “Over the past years, we’ve seen a rise in hate crimes, a rise in intolerance and racist acts. Part of it is the pandemic, sure, and the stress and the anxiety that comes from that, but a part of it is a trend toward greater polarization in our politics, greater intolerance in our communities.”
He said that the vast majority of Canadians oppose discrimination toward religious and minority groups, and he condemned the rise of hate crimes during the pandemic as “absolutely unacceptable.”
Trudeau said: “As a government and, quite frankly, as Canadians, we will continue to stand together with vulnerable communities and demonstrate that there is no place for hatred and hateful acts in Canada, whether in real life or online, and we’re going to continue to move forward to make sure that all Canadians are safe.”
Trudeau, who has many times in the past faced criticism for his costume wearing when travelling to other countries, including on his trip to India that resulted in a chilling of relations between the Indian and Canadian governments, should stay out of the theorizing on hate crime origins, as his policies have been diving Canadians across the country for the past 7 years. Trudeau needs to look no further than himself on why Canadians are divided, and the media trying to drive a wedge on a fake culture war in Canada is not helping matters.
Supplementals:

Cost of living and inflation in general are a recurring theme that many people see week to week and day by day when they get gas or get groceries.
But something as simple as switching on the light switch has shot up dramatically too.
Throughout the cold winter months there were consistent media stories about utility bills so huge that they were inhumanely possible to pay.
There’s been a lot of finger pointing from the 1990s era de-regulation phase to the NDP carbon tax and this week corporate profits.
At least that’s how the CBC news article on the subject put it, it was painted in such a way that made it seem like the power providers of the province were gouging the population.
We’ll get into what happened in just a minute but first it’s important that every Albertan listening knows that you can sign up for a fixed rate that is often 30-50% lower than the floating electricity rate.
If you go to energyrates.ca and enter your postal code you will be greeted with a series of plans from a myriad of providers including well known ones like ATCO, Epcor, Enmax, and Direct Energy.
You can sign up for plans starting in some cases for a year going all the way up to 5. By doing this you can save huge amounts of money on your utility bill starting by at least 30% and sometimes even cutting it in as much as half.
Albertans may not know this is an option and by doing this power bills go from insane to predictable and manageable.
In an open power economy as we have, it’s up to the consumer to search for the best rate. The media and opposition NDP are too comfy in their ways of accepting the floating rate and using it as the whipping boy of Alberta’s electrical system.
Once again, you can sign up for a fixed rate and compare rates at energyrates.ca.
With that out of the way, let’s talk about what actually happened.
In the late 1990s the Klein Progressive Conservative government deregulated the power industry as part of the wider campaign of modernizing the province.
With this came power purchase agreements that were to be in place until 2020, the power purchase agreements let smaller retailers compete with what were initially the big 3 at de-regulation time, the Edmonton Power Corporation (now Capital Power), Alberta Power (now ATCO), and TransAlta.
When the NDP came to power in 2015 they surprised everyone later that year by unveiling a carbon tax which also targeted coal fired generating plants and sought to shutdown some of the coal plants as well.
Back in 2016 there were thoughts that the Balancing Pool (which we’ll talk about more soon) might have played a role in the prices going up.
The Balancing Pool is something that was set up with the Power Purchase Agreements to allow smaller companies to get into the power market.
When the NDP brought in the carbon tax and shut down coal fired plants this caused the operations of power providers to become unprofitable and there was a clause in the law that allowed these companies to hand the deals back to the Balancing Pool.
The Balancing Pool is then required to pass on any profits or losses to the consumers through electricity bills.
This week the UCP government conducted an audit detailing losses between May 1, 2015 and April 1, 2019: $1.34b was lost on the sale of electricity and services.
This $1.34b will be passed on to consumers until 2030.
In 2016 it was estimated that the Balancing Pool was stuck with contracts that were losing up to $70m per month.
The government will be tabling legislation soon that dissolves the balancing pool and a question going forward is whether or not this debt will persist or if the government could simply absorb it over the next 8 years giving Albertans a break on their power bills.
When the NDP were in power some suspected that this is what was going on after the carbon tax took effect but no data was available as to what was happening with the Balancing Pool.
An audit was one of the UCP’s campaign commitments regarding conduct of past governments.
With the upcoming rebates and balancing pool being dissolved there should be some relief on the way for electricity prices combined with fixed rate plans. We’ll leave it up to you whether you sign a 1 year, 2 year, or 5 year deal.
The NDP in all likelihood didn’t know about the Balancing Pool clause when they brought in the carbon tax and it should have been incumbent on the ministers in question to know precisely how things worked in their portfolios before making substantive changes to the province.
The NDP blamed the PCs of the 1990s.
But these changes just didn’t happen overnight. So while the go-to is to blame the deregulated market and UCP, the price increases we’re seeing today are a result of a booming energy industry and yes, changes made by the NDP when they brought in their carbon tax.
Supplementals:

We need more nurses now': B.C. to fast track approval for internationally trained nurses

B.C. will spend $12 million to fast-track internationally trained nurses through the cumbersome accreditation process in an effort to ease the province’s critical shortage of nurses. Currently, nurses who study as a nurse outside the country have to spend lots of time and money to have their qualifications recognized here and many are still waiting for that process to finish.
Speaking at a news conference Tuesday morning, Health Minister Adrian Dix acknowledged that the accreditation process for internationally educated nurses “is complex, it’s costly, and it’s lengthy.” That, Dix said, “is no longer acceptable” given B.C.’s nursing shortage.
Dix said: “We need more nurses now. We need more nurses in five years. Internationally educated nurses play a vital role in addressing the current demand we’re seeing in our health-care system.”
Effective in May, international nurses who want to work in B.C. will face a streamlined process to assess nursing credentials from international schools. The goal is to shave months off a process that typically takes 18 months to two years.
Nurses trained abroad will also be eligible for $9 million in bursaries — up to $16,000 each — to ease the heavy financial burden and get help navigating the often confusing regulatory and licensing process. Right now, the assessment and registration process costs nurses tens of thousands of dollars if they must upgrade their education. As of May, nurses will be tested for several positions at once, which reduces their fees and, the province says, doubles the number of nurses assessed each day. The province is spending $1.2 million to speed up this process.
Internationally trained nurses and doctors have long been decrying the bureaucratic barriers that hamper their ability to practise in B.C. However, no changes were made to the accreditation process for doctors who trained abroad. When asked why, Dix said making the necessary changes for doctors is more complex but it’s something the province is working on.
B.C. Nurses’ Union president Aman Grewal, who has previously slammed the province for not having a plan to address the dire shortage of nursing staff in intensive care units, said the changes will have far-reaching significance for nurses trained outside Canada. The union has spent years pressing for changes to the assessment process, said Grewal, who has heard from nurses who have abandoned their dreams of practicing in B.C. because the process is too costly, too long or unnecessarily confusing. While Grewal said the measures are a step in the right direction and will have some impact on the nursing shortage, more needs to be done to ensure B.C. hires an additional 26,000 nurses by 2031.
Terry Lake, CEO of the B.C. Care Providers Association, lauded the reforms, saying hiring qualified internationally trained nurses can help solve the healthcare system’s human resources crisis.
B.C.’s move follows Ontario, which recently announced a similar plan to fast-track accreditation for internationally trained nurses.
It should be noted that while BC faced a shortage of healthcare workers before the pandemic, the intense work that had to be faced led many nurses to quit their jobs due to the overwhelming stress and strained hospital capacities.
This process was exacerbated more when BC fired approximately 2,600 nurses across the province due to failure to comply with vaccine mandates. Whether you agree with the mandates or not, it's undeniable that this has also had an impact, and the province's lack of action up until now has led us into this critical shortage.
As a doctor shortage plagues southern Vancouver Island, it may be no surprise that Victoria is seeing the longest walk-in clinic wait times in Canada. That’s according to tech company Medimap, as it points to its recently released walk-in clinic wait time index—using 2021 data collected from more than 1,200 clinics across the country. Out of Canada’s top 10 cities with the average longest wait time, seven are in BC, with Victoria scoring first at 161 minutes, followed by Kelowna in second and White Rock in third.
BC’s average wait time was the longest of all provinces and jumped 15 minutes to 58 minutes in 2021 compared to 2019—more than double the time for neighbouring Albertans, who waited around 18 minutes last year.
According to Medimap CEO Blake Adam, the company decided not to do a wait time index in 2020 due to COVID-19. Adam said: “We wanted to look at 2019 as a full-year pre-pandemic and 2021 as a full-year post-pandemic and compare. We had a bit of an expectation that across the board, wait times were going to be lower because people were staying home, not going to clinics and doing virtual visits, which are quicker.”
And while that was true for most provinces, it’s a different story in BC, where it went up around 35% between 2019 and 2021.
This year, multiple Greater Victoria walk-in clinics have announced permanent closures. It's noted that around at least 100,000 people in the region are without a family doctor. It is a problem that has been growing for years, but it has only now reached critical capacity.
BC Premier John Horgan notes that his federal counterparts may be jumping the gun on adding new programs to Canada's already strained healthcare system, when so many problems still need to be fixed.
Horgan said: "Would it be grand to have a national dental care plan? Absolutely. But I think we need to start with first principles, and that is stable funding so that we can do the hip replacement, so we can have a human resource strategy for our primary care sector."
Canada is facing shortages of medical professionals across the country, Horgan said. "And we need to address that not by starting up a new national program, but focusing on stabilizing the national program," he said. The federal Liberal government committed to a new dental care program in the recent federal budget.
Horgan heads up the Council of the Federation, a grouping of Canada's premiers. The provincial leaders have consistently called for increases to health transfers — money sent from the federal government to the provinces — citing increased costs over time and due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Liberal government has repeatedly said that discussions over changes to the health-care transfer would wait until after the COVID-19 pandemic is over — but with many restrictions lifted across the country, when exactly those talks will begin is unclear.
Asked about the transfer during a stop in Victoria on Monday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau again promised there would be "significantly more money from the federal government" and cited increased transfers during the pandemic, including most recently a $2 billion commitment meant to alleviate surgery backlogs.
Whatever the reasons, BC is in a major healthcare crisis right now, and what either governments have been doing up to this point is not enough. It's time for things to change.
Supplementals:

Firing Line

Poilievre defends investments in rental properties while campaigning to address housing affordability

Along with inflation, one of the maladies plaguing the economy has been a housing market that is too hot and this has been the case for years.
This week it has been reported that Conservative Leadership candidate Pierre Poilievre co-owns a real estate investment company that owns a property in Calgary while his wife also owns a rental home in Calgary.
First and foremost, Anaida Poilievre, his wife, should factor nothing into this story as she’s not running to be leader of the Conservative Party.
Secondly, despite this story appearing in CTV News, Global News actually did some reporting and published a story last week, signalling that roughly one-third of the Liberal cabinet owns rental property or real estate investments.
What’s more, upwards of 59 MPs received rental income from rental properties or own some form of a share in a real estate holding company.
Whether or not you see this as a problem depends on how you see the real estate market.
That being said, there is a bigger question that should be asked: should the government do something about this?
Housing Minister Ahmed Hussen who has been tasked with implementing new affordability measures is part of the group of cabinet ministers that owns rental property.
As of September 2021, Hussen was still buying property in Toronto.
Chrystia Freeland, Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister owns two rental properties in London, England, she also co-owns a property in Kyiv, Ukraine.
Also in England, Innovation Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne collects rent on a half-double in London’s Notting Hill neighbourhood.
Tourism Minister Randy Boissonnault co-owns a condo with a friend in Edmonton but he said he owns roughly 1% of it and doesn’t receive any income from it.
Indigenous Services Minister Patty Hajdu is the sole owner of a rental property in Thunder Bay.
Justice Minister David Lametti is listed as the sole owner of a triplex described as a rental property in Verdun, Quebec, according to his office he lives in one of the units and rents out the others.
Harjit Sajjan, international development minister, previously owned a property in Osoyoos, BC but now owns an investment property in Whistler, BC.
Fisheries Minister Joyce Murray disclosed ownership of two properties: one in Riondel, BC and a parcel of vacant land.
What this should point out is that rental properties amongst government officials are a common thing.
Any media or candidate that seeks to tarnish Pierre Poilievre for owning one (1) property must also mention the cabinet, the 59 MPs, and the fact that the housing Minister in charge of managing the housing market owns rental property.
With the lens especially on the Housing Minister, opposition and access to information requests must verify that decisions being made at the top are going to benefit Canadians first without having unintended side effects of benefitting the Ministers in question.
Now, why is this important?
First, the Liberals in their recent budget intend to ban foreign buyers from buying houses for two years.
Secondly, a Statistics Canada report says that Canadians who buy second homes as investment properties are part of what’s contributing to the rise in prices.
At the end of the day there’s an opportunity for someone whether they be from the Conservative Party or perhaps even NDP, to propose such a piece of legislation or campaign commitment that would ban public officials from buying rental properties going forward.
This would be seen as a great equalizer and would take one step more to bring politicians back down to the level of the majority of Canadians.
Will they do this? Probably not, but it would be an interesting discussion point nonetheless.
Supplementals:

Quote of the Week

“Over the past years, we’ve seen a rise in hate crimes, a rise in intolerance and racist acts. Part of it is the pandemic, sure, and the stress and the anxiety that comes from that, but a part of it is a trend toward greater polarization in our politics, greater intolerance in our communities.” - Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s theory on the origin of Canadian hate crimes

Word of the Week

Extremism - the holding of fanatical political or religious views

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Show Data

Episode Title: Extreme Investments

Teaser: A religion poll unintentionally drives a wedge on culture, Alberta energy rates are heavily impacted by the NDP carbon tax, and BC faces a critical shortage of nurses. Also, many MPs owning rental properties could be fueling the housing crisis.

Recorded Date: April 22, 2022

Release Date: April 24, 2022

Duration: 58:10

Edit Notes: None

Podcast Summary Notes

Duration: XX:XX