The News Rundown

Court Documents Reveal Canada’s Travel Ban Had No Scientific Basis

The central theme of the last election was whether or not you would be pro vaccine mandate and ultimately pro travel ban for the unvaccinated.
The reason being that a few days before the campaign began, the government announced that anyone unvaccinated would be banned from planes and trains.
Freelance columnist Rupa Subramanya who also writes for the National Post published an article on her substack unveiling recently released court documents that reveal the decisions behind these mandates.
The court documents were sealed until last month and are part of a lawsuit filed by two Canadians against the government.
Both plaintiffs are business owners who refused the vaccine.
One plaintiff is Karl Harrison who has a travel company and is the largest retailer of packages for Disneyland Paris.
He has family in the UK and views the actions of the government as oppressive.
The other plaintiff is Shaun Rickard in Pickering who is suffering from late stage Alzheimers.
It is thanks to these two people that we now know some of the decisions that went through the government’s mind in setting up these travel mandates.
No one in Canada’s COVID Recovery unit, including director-general Jennifer Little, had any training in epidemiology, medicine, or public health.
Little suggested that the mandate was ordered to be imposed by a cabinet minister or maybe even the Prime Minister himself. She refused to say exactly who it was.
And when refusing to say who it was, she cited cabinet confidence. Which means that it was a very high level decision.
And finally, in the days leading up to the start of the mandate transportation officials were looking for a rationale for it and ultimately came up short.
In terms of coming up short, rather than answering the questions all that were given were justifications for getting the vaccine rather than protecting the transportation system.
The emails show a scrambling COVID Recovery unit asking for rationale. On October 22nd and October 28th emails were sent saying, “Our requirements come in on October 30, so we need something fairly soon.”
And on the 28th the series of bullet points were sent highlighting the benefits of the vaccine instead of reasons for a travel mandate.
What this means at the end of the day is simple: the travel ban had no scientific basis.
Bruce Pardy, a law professor at Queen's University and former board member of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms said, “its policies are based on spite, divisiveness, and pure politics. COVID now serves as an excuse to punish the government’s ideological enemies.” It of course refers to the government.
Both Harrison and Rickard ultimately wanted to expose the truth behind the mandate rather than receiving a cash settlement.
The government as it does is of course litigating against these two gentlemen and the court will decide in September whether or not to let the lawsuit go forward.
16 government officials have testified so far and if the lawsuit goes forward, the potential exists for more to be revealed going forward.
Anyone who saw the election campaign and saw Justin Trudeau’s methods since 2015 could have guessed this is what was happening with our travel mandates in the country.
These court documents show that the Prime Minister and his government will go to any length to wedge and divide Canadians.
At the time we didn’t know what phase of the COVID pandemic we were in and there was still an appetite for restrictions in most parts of the country.
Now whether or not there is continued appetite for restrictions and vaccine mandates is another question.
Though it’s a minor question because there has been almost zero coverage this week about the topic of these court released documents.
This release reinforces the pattern of behaviour we’ve seen from Trudeau and company since 2015. It should be a rallying point for Canadians who are fed up and sick of the damage done to our country, families, and friendships as a result of the division that has been sown.

The Canadian government is moving to ban the importation of restricted handguns, effective Aug. 19. While Prime Minister Trudeau has been on vacation, the government decided to move ahead on further gun restrictions.
Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino and Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly announced Friday that the federal government has decided to push ahead with the importation ban without the approval of Parliament, moving to make the policy change through regulatory restrictions. This is a temporary measure but one Mendicino claimed was necessary due to the “obstructionist” Conservative Party. The measure will prevent "nearly all" individuals and businesses from importing handguns into Canada, the government says.
Joly and Mendicino said Friday the coming regulations will effectively speed up aspects of the planned freeze. The move is temporary though, with plans for it to remain in effect only until the previously-promised permanent importation ban is passed in Ottawa. While the details of the coming regulatory restrictions have yet to be released, Joly said she will be enacting her authority as the foreign affairs minister, which allows her to deny any export or import permit application, citing security concerns.
Joly said: "This ban is a stopgap while the handgun freeze in its entirety moves through the parliamentary process, preventing shelves from being restocked in the immediate term. Working with Marco, we came up with this idea of creating this new system of requiring permits, but meanwhile, we will deny any permits from any commercial entity or people wanting to bring handguns to Canada. So this is how creatively we've worked, and that's why we're talking today about an import ban."
In late May, the Liberals tabled Bill C-21, legislation which if passed would further restrict legal access to handguns in Canada. The bill includes a specific section that stops short of a complete ban, opting instead for a national "freeze" on the sale, purchase or transfer of handguns in Canada that allows current legal owners to keep theirs.
Bill C-21 also seeks to create systems to flag individuals who may pose a risk to themselves or others, and increase the maximum penalties for firearm-related offences such as firearm smuggling and trafficking. The incoming regulations announced Friday will include "narrow exceptions that mirror those in Bill C-21," the government said. The legislation is still in the early stages of moving through Parliament, with MPs set to initiate a committee study of the bill when the fall House of Commons sitting begins in late September.
Joly said that the Liberals have decided to do this because when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Bill C-21, there was an "uptick" in guns being purchased in Canada, and handguns in particular. Joly said: "We want to prevent that. That is why we're announcing this import ban… We know that the vast majority of handguns in the country are imported, as there's no handgun producer in the country."
Imagine just for a moment that Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government put as much time, effort and money into tackling gun crime as they do picking political fights with legal gun owners. our streets would be much safer and we wouldn’t have constant stories of shootings with people being killed or injured.
Instead, Trudeau’s Liberals like picking fights with legal gun owners because it is easier, gets them great headlines and plenty of praise from a mostly unquestioning media. It makes low information voters think they are doing something to improve public safety when they aren’t.
This measure will not improve safety on Canadian streets in the least. Licensed gun owners are less likely to be involved in crime than the general population and even less likely to be involved in crime than police officers, according to research from criminologist Garry Mauser. Trudeau’s Liberals have determined though that licensed gun owners are the problem, rather than gangs and criminals who use illegal guns smuggled in from the United States.
When the Liberals announced their “handgun freeze” on May 30, they knew that there were less than 10 sitting days left in Parliament. That’s important because some of the regulatory changes they want to bring in are required to be tabled in Parliament and can’t come into effect until 30 sitting days have passed. That would mean the import ban wouldn’t take effect until October.
They couldn’t have that, so they came up with this stop gap measure. Of course, if this was as important to them as they say, they could have tabled these changes in Parliament earlier in the spring and they would be in effect now. They didn’t do that though because this was a hastily-arranged move to capitalize on the tragedy that was the Uvalde school shooting in Texas. Trudeau knows he can push the gun issue in Canada any time there is a tragedy in the United States.
Mendicino, in his announcement, spoke of the “buyback program” for the more than 1,500 rifles and shotguns the Trudeau government has banned. That program, which still isn’t beyond the theoretical stage more than two years after being announced, will cost well over $1 billion and yet the 2021 federal budget only provides for $312 million over five years, to give extra resources to the RCMP, CBSA and Public Safety Canada to deal with gun smuggling issues.
The real problem with gun crime is the smuggled guns at the border and the Trudeau Liberals are spending more than three times going after people who have been fully vetted by the RCMP and are among the least likely to commit crimes. Yet, Mendicino boasted at his announcement that CBSA agents seized more than double the amount of illegal guns at the border in 2021 compared to 2020. That would be 2020 when the land border was effectively shut down due to COVID.
Trudeau's handling of gun crime has been all backwards and hasn't targeted the real reasons for the uptick while he has been in office. Instead he's gone after legal gun owners time and time again, spending billions to get nowhere. This petty crusade needs to end.
Supplementals:

Alberta NDP criticizes United Conservative Party’s new provincial policing website

This week hay has been raised in Alberta again regarding the potential future of a provincial police service.
The current contracts with the RCMP expire in 2032 and if a province chooses to not renew, they can implement their own force.
Back on Western Context 267 we discussed the recommendation of a special committee of the BC legislature to leave the RCMP and bring in a provincial police force to BC.
Saskatchewan is looking into creating its own provincial police force.
Manitoba has a Manitoba First Nations Police Service as an alternative to contract policing for some Indigenous communities.
New Brunswick is considering creating a provincial police force.
Nova Scotia is reviewing policing models including a provincial police force following the April 2020 shooting.
Ontario, Quebec, and Newfoundland all have their own provincial police forces and operate adequately, making the idea of provincial police forces not only not foreign but actually common in Canada since our two largest provinces run under that model.
Now you might be wondering why there’s controversy about this in Alberta given that a provincial police force is something that citizens brought up when discussing the fair deal panel and when ideas were floated about taking more powers back from Ottawa.
Alberta has a history of grassroots democracy, consultation, and even referenda.
This should not be controversial but the media and the NDP raised questions this week when the government of Alberta launched a website detailing everything a Western Context listener has heard in the past and has heard since the start of this segment.
The controversy they say comes from the fact that many see this as a decision that’s already been made given the language on the website.
In June 70 rural municipalities sent a letter to the government asking the brakes to be tapped on the provincial police force idea.
In the past we have discussed how this could be implemented in that the police force could cost hundreds of millions of dollars but provide better service. This is the same result that the BC legislature committee came up with earlier this year.
We also discussed how if a referendum on this were to be carried out, it would likely only see people in the rural municipalities voting.
The interesting part about this story is that you need to comb through detailed stories from small rural outlets or catch a screen capture on the news report or google it yourself to actually find the website.
The complaints about the website in that regard are entirely unfounded since anyone wanting to go to the website and see what’s there, has to take the media at face value.
When you dive into the website one of the things you’ll find is all the information that we’ve laid out today and in past episodes covering the topic in Alberta and BC.
There’s also discussion of goals of where the provincial police force can do better.
We need to be very clear that the opposition to this idea comes from municipalities, the RCMP union, and the NDP. The latter two make sense but the first needs to realize that it should be up to the people who live in these communities whether they want their own force or the RCMP.
This week in Alberta we once again highlight an issue that has been all but vaporized by the UCP leadership race and the media’s singular focus on Danielle Smith.
The media can focus on Smith, focus on the candidates, but also they need to realize that the attitude towards the RCMP in Edmonton and Calgary is going to likely be different than those who live in a small town.
We need to keep this in mind as we march closer and closer to the May 2023 election.
It was under the NDP, prior to the pandemic, that rural crime skyrocketed because of the economic pain imposed on the province by the mere existence of an NDP government.
Modern economies are psychological engines in that if they are surrounded by pro-growth policies and environments they’ll do great. But if they are slowed down by hostile policies or even a perceived toxic investment climate, they will suffer.
This combined with policies and a natural resource downturn is what lead to the horrible NDP economy of Rachel Notley and Joe Ceci as finance minister.
Why the economy? All roads lead there, yes, but the economy also had knock on effects with crime in rural Alberta and highlighted a need for better policing.
That’s why this story is so important and the media needs to focus on the reality rather than chasing shiny objects in the UCP leadership race.
This issue matters now more than ever but it appears as though the Edmonton/Calgary media have not exposed or remembered the true reality of policing and crime in rural Alberta.
Supplementals:

https://www.futureofabpolicing.ca/

Firing Line

A dangerous rage is sweeping the land

Justin Trudeau is off on vacation in Costa Rica for two weeks, leading to a weird defense by the Canadian media. "[L]et the Prime Minister have some time away." opines Robyn Urback from the Globe and Mail. Most of the articles seemed to be along these lines, that it's odd to attack the Prime Minister over a vacation rather than all the other many things he should be rightfully criticized for.
However, as someone who has preached environmentalism, the actions don't match the words. Trudeau has spent a lot of time in the air lately, increasing the size of his carbon footprint, while preaching the need to change our way of life in the name of climate change. An analysis of Trudeau’s travel schedule shows that he racked up 26,238 kilometres in the air in July, spending all but 11 days in the air last month.
A story earlier this year noted that Trudeau had traveled 127,147 km in the previous 10 months, the equivalent of three times around the world. After his government unveiled its budget in April, Trudeau flew from Ottawa to Victoria, then onto Edmonton and Laval before flying back West to have a vacation in Whistler. On Earth Day, Trudeau celebrated by flying to Winnipeg. His government is currently pushing farmers across the country to reduce fertilizer use in the name of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Perhaps he could look at his own actions first.
Regardless, the Prime Minister is allowed to have a vacation from all the photo ops that he's been jet setting across the country for, and there is plenty to criticize Trudeau for that isn't about a vacation. As Urback also points out, in her own words, “a non-exhaustive list, sourced only from the last few months”, there are tons of reasons to hate on the Prime Minister right now, including “his government’s apparent abandonment of Ukrainian embassy employees ahead of Russia’s invasion in February; its continuing abandonment of Afghans who worked for the Canadian government; its enduring and expensive fidelity to COVID-19 theatre; the lack of clarity surrounding allegations of political interference in the RCMP probe following the 2020 Nova Scotia massacre; the federal government’s failure, months later, to publicly provide persuasive evidence justifying its invocation of the Emergencies Act during the trucker convoy crisis; and Mr. Trudeau’s capitulation in returning natural gas turbines to Germany despite Russian sanctions.”
Yes, there is plenty to be critical of Trudeau for, as longtime listeners of Western Context will know. However, some in the media think that many of the problems that Canadians are facing lie not at the feet of Trudeau, but instead with Pierre Poilievre, the likely frontrunner in the Conservative Leadership race. Gary Mason of the Globe and Mail writes: "I also believe that certain politicians need to own some of what we are seeing. Pierre Poilievre, for instance, is the clear frontrunner to become the next leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. He has been a federal cabinet minister. He is not some random dude on the internet. When he talks, people listen, and lately, they have been listening in droves to the man."
Mason writes that Canadians are now pinning issues on Trudeau and that their anger is misplaced. Where their anger should be directed is never really explained, with Mason's only explanation being that social media generates anger. He believes that Poilievre emboldens people to be hateful to the Prime Minister, as his campaign videos blame Trudeau for much of the state of the country right now.
“Yet in videos and speeches, Mr. Poilievre has blamed Justin Trudeau for almost every problem conceivable to man. He has blamed him for high gas prices, high housing costs, high grocery bills, even calling it "Justinflation." He has blamed him for a lack of jobs and for spying on people. He’s blamed him for COVID-19 lockdowns and the carnage at our airports.”
Is Trudeau actually to blame for his government's policies that have caused a lot of problems for Canadians lately, such as travel restrictions, inflation, housing scarcity, and transportation costs? In a way yes, as he is the top dog in the party, and his beliefs shape the priorities of the government and its policies. So yes, unlike what Mason says, Trudeau is to blame for a lot of the problems that Canada has faced. He has been in power for almost 7 years now and cannot blame Stephen Harper for everything anymore. The state of the country right now is all on Trudeau. And that's something the media still tries to deny.
As for those characterizing Poilievre as the cause of anger against Trudeau, that's patently ridiculous. The mainstream media in Canada has tried to portray him as a Trump-like figure for months now, and have said that he can't win unless he moves to the centre or the left, but in reality, Poilievre has co-opted policies that the centre and left had previously owned for decades until they were abandoned by the woke politics favoured by Trudeau and NDP leader Jagmeet Singh.
Should he win, as seems all but inevitable, Poilievre should ignore the advice of critics and pundits on the left, as well as some within his party, who argue he needs to moderate his message and policies. The Conservatives have tried that for the last two elections and it is a losing strategy. Instead, the party should embrace the chance to bring forth an agenda built around Poilievre’s core message of liberty.
Whereas Prime Minister Justin Trudeau doesn’t “think about” monetary policy, Poilievre has made it a central plank of his platform. Whereas housing affordability has historically been the domain of the left, Poilievre has co-opted it as his own. On energy development, on government spending, on inflation and on support for Ukraine against Russia, Poilievre has wrenched at the Liberal government’s failings, and people looking for a change appear genuinely excited.
As for trying to demonize Poilievre as a “populist” or as Canada’s Trump, or implying that he is a white supremacist or opposed to women’s rights is unlikely to succeed. He is pro-choice, pro-immigration and has forcefully denounced white replacement theory and all of “that kind of thinking.”
Pretty soon, even as early as this fall, Canadians will have to make another choice as to who leads the country. Do we want to go with the team that got us into all the troubles of the past few years or do we want to choose a new team that understands the problems and is inspiring hope? That's a question that will be answered soon.
Supplementals:

Quote of the Week

"[The Trudeau] government’s apparent abandonment of Ukrainian embassy employees ahead of Russia’s invasion in February; its continuing abandonment of Afghans who worked for the Canadian government; its enduring and expensive fidelity to COVID-19 theatre; the lack of clarity surrounding allegations of political interference in the RCMP probe following the 2020 Nova Scotia massacre; the federal government’s failure, months later, to publicly provide persuasive evidence justifying its invocation of the Emergencies Act during the trucker convoy crisis; and Mr. Trudeau’s capitulation in returning natural gas turbines to Germany despite Russian sanctions." - Globe and Mail columnist Robyn Urback, detailing reasons other than a vacation to be concerned with Trudeau’s government

Word of the Week

Basis - the underlying support or foundation for an idea, argument, or process.

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Show Data

Episode Title: Travel and Bans

Teaser: Court documents reveal no basis for Trudeau’s travel ban, Canada bans the importation of handguns, and fake outrage emerges over Alberta’s provincial police future. Also, while Trudeau is on vacation, there are plenty of other things to criticize him for.

Recorded Date: August 6, 2022

Release Date: August 7, 2022

Duration: 57:10

Edit Notes: None

Podcast Summary Notes

Duration: XX:XX