The News Rundown

Sidney Island deer cull will cost taxpayers $12M, CTF says

A controversial plan to cull hundreds of deer on an island in between Vancouver Island and the mainland in BC is raising the ire of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation for the astronomical price tag of the operation. The goal of the cull is to restore native vegetation, tree seedlings and shrubs, which are being destroyed by the deer, introduced to the island in the mid 1900s for hunting purposes.
Parks Canada and local First Nations say an estimated 300 to 900 invasive deer are decimating the native ecosystem. Phase one of the operation will reportedly cost more than $800,000, which works out to nearly $10,000 per deer, taking into consideration how many were killed during phase one.
The initial phase of the deer-kill plan over 11 days in December saw U.S.- and New Zealand-based sharpshooters kill fallow deer from a helicopter during the day and on the ground at night. But only 84 deer were killed — a toll that included 18 native black tail deer and three that couldn’t be identified.
Carson Binda with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation described the Rambo-like operation in stark detail at a press conference last Wednesday. “During phase one of the deer cull, snipers were taken around the island in a helicopter while firing on the deer below. The expert marksmen from the U.S. and New Zealand only managed to kill 84 deer, 18 of which were the wrong species of deer."
Binda said simply: “Parks Canada shouldn’t be flying in foreign snipers to shoot deer from a helicopter. And if these ‘marksmen’ were really so elite, why did they keep shooting the wrong kind of deer?”
In a statement on its website, Parks Canada says “methods selected for this project are globally proven and align with internationally recognized principles for ethical wildlife control. It says representatives from the BC SPCA are present during Phases one and two.
The statement reads: “Parks Canada is adhering to animal handling standards set out by the Canadian Council on Animal Care. In addition, project partners consulted with the BC SPCA throughout project planning and met with the SPCA’s Manager of Wild Animal Welfare to discuss the details of the operation, continuing to share operational details with them for additional review.”
Phase Two of the operation is scheduled to begin in the fall and will involve ground hunting with dogs.
The Taxpayers Federation said the eradication of the deer could easily be done through recreational hunting and noted that last fall residents of Sidney Island organized a hunt when they killed 54 deer, at no cost to taxpayers. A portion of the island is part of the Gulf Islands National Park Reserve, while the rest is privately owned.
The CTF called on Parks Canada to stop the program as it goes into a second phase this fall and winter, which will involve ground level hunting with dogs. However, Parks Canada disputes the pricetag, saying that only $5.9m is going to hunt the deer, just one portion of the overall project.
The amount spent by Parks Canada on the project from April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024 was $796,340, just under the $800,000 anticipated for Phase 1, said Parks Canada.
According to documents obtained by the Taxpayers Federation through access-to-information requests, expenditures included $67,000 to lease a helicopter and $137,000 on firearms certification for international workers to use restricted weapons.
It's insane that a federal agency is conducting this deer cull, contracting with foreign sharpshooters from a helicopter, like something out of a Hollywood movie, and just like in a movie, spending millions of dollars to get it done. For years the federal government has been spending money hand over fist on insanely expensive operations like this that aren't yielding good results. While $12M is considered pennies to a federal government, there is certainly a lot of government waste that could and should be cut back.
Supplementals:

A major change is on the way for Canadian immigration and not in a good way.
This week it was announced that Canadians born abroad who have children overseas will be able to pass along their citizenship.
The goal as stated by the government is to close loopholes which create “lost Canadians.”
These lost Canadians are people with ties to the country who are unable to pass along citizenship to their children.
The changes as being framed in the media stem from a change during the Harper years.
In 2009 Canadians born abroad could only pass citizenship to children they had in Canada. The change had followed Ottawa evacuating people from Lebanon during its 2006 war with Israel, only to find that some people demanding Ottawa’s help only had connections to Canada through their parents.
War’s are incredibly complicated business and there’s always a rush to do something over nothing.
Evacuations did take place from Lebanon in 2006 but the term “Canadians of convenience” rose from this evacuation.
At the time Garth Turner, MP for Halton questioned whether or not paying $75,000 for each evacuee was worth it for people in his own view for people who “do not live here, don’t pay taxes here, and may never come here again in their lives.”
It was later determined that about 7,000 people returned to Lebanon after being evacuated of about 15,000 who were taken out.
This was a move then acted upon by the Harper government that limited the number of generations that citizenship could be passed to for those born outside Canada.
In 2009 it introduced the first generation limitation where there would be only one generation born outside of Canada allowed to claim citizenship.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller said, “There’s no doubt that Canadian citizenship is highly valued and recognized around the world. We want citizenship to be fair, accessible, with clear and transparent rules.”
Right now Canadian citizens who were born outside Canada cannot pass on citizenship to their child born outside Canada, and cannot apply for a direct grant of citizenship for a child born outside Canada and adopted.
This means that if somebody from Brazil became a Canadian, went back to Brazil, had children, they would not be able to pass on that citizenship.
These new rules would allow a Canadian citizen born abroad to pass along their citizenship as long as they have spent a total 3 years living in Canada.
The legislation would also automatically confer citizenship rights to children born since 2009 who were affected by the changes following Lebanon's war with Israel.
As for how many new citizens we will be welcoming: the government has no idea how many people will be automatically granted citizenship.
One may think that Trudeau and his team are doing this out of the goodness of their heart but they are doing it because the Ontario Superior Court of Justice ruled that the previous version of the law was unconstitutional.
The government could have appealed to the Supreme Court but is going along with the recommended changes.
This speaks volumes and illustrates a fundamental flaw with our country.
There has been much discussion about whether or not Trudeau’s government has realized too many people are coming into Canada. It would seem that they have not realized that.
Secondly this marks another case in our country where court rulings, this time at a provincial level, has directly influenced policy.
Policy determined by Judges that are appointed by and not accountable to Canadians. Is this what Canadians want?
Just politicization is common in the US, many blissfully think that it doesn’t happen here, but does it? Should it?
Should anyone born not in Canada have Canadian citizenship? It’s a bold question that requires bold leadership especially when our immigration system is falling apart.
The example in this case cited by the National Post is one where a woman Carol Sutherland-Brown had her daughter Marisa in the early 1980s when she and her husband were working for an American company in Saudi Arabia.
She was able to get her daughter Canadian citizenship shortly after the birth, and the family returned to Canada when Marisa was just two years old. Years later Marisa attended grad school in the U.K., where she ultimately had children who were denied Canadian citizenship under the previous version of the law.
The question at the end of the day ultimately comes down to the value of Canadian expats and what it means if somebody leaves the country.
It would seem that the Liberals are already considering whether or not this will inflame the tensions of immigration.
Their limitations in this Bill require a substantial connection which is aimed at addressing those who feel people only want Canadian citizenship and passport for the benefits.
At the end of the day if this passes as written there is a chance that more Canadians will be made off our soil.
For their part the Conservatives have been remarkably quiet on this piece of legislation. One might think it is due to the present popularity amongst most immigrant groups with the Conservatives.
But their silence on this policy is going to raise more questions for Canadians if and when our government changes.
Supplementals:

No merger: BC Conservatives rejected non-competition deal, BC United says

It appears that at least before the next BC election in October there will be no "Unite the Right" style movement to present a united front against the BC NDP, who have been governing for 7 years now. A possible non-competition deal fell apart between the BC United, the official opposition formerly known as the BC Liberals, and the BC Conservative party, which only has 2 MLAs who were former BC Liberals. Bruce Banman, the MLA for Abbotsford South switched to the Conservatives in 2023, following John Rustad becoming leader of the party after being kicked out of the then BC Liberals by BC United leader Kevin Falcon.
Since Banman joined the party, the BC Conservatives now have official party status in the Legislature, which gives them an increased profile, and as a result, the Conservatives have been rising steadily in the polls, mostly at the expense of BC United.
The standings in the current 87-seat B.C. legislature are: 55 NDP, 26 BC United, two B.C. Greens, two B.C. Conservatives and two Independents. Likely those numbers will change drastically in October.
Falcon and Rustad have been trading personal attacks ever since the BC Conservative's return to relevance, with the two leaders clearly not liking each other and having deep political differences. Falcon blamed Rustad for prioritizing “his own ambition” while Rustad said in a statement that Falcon was “irrational and unreasonable and prepared to lie.”
Falcon said there were talks between two representatives of each party this month, most recently on Wednesday, and BC United proposed the non-competition framework. He said the proposal included that the parties would not run candidates against each other’s members who were seeking re-election, and the BC Conservatives would run in 47 seats and BC United in 46. Falcon said the rejected agreement also involved plans to form a coalition government if the combined BC United and B.C. Conservative seats constituted a majority.
Rustad’s statement said recent polling suggested BC United is currently at 12 per cent of the popular vote with less than five months before the election, and believes that his party is the one best placed to win the next election.
According to a Research Co. poll released earlier this week, 32 per cent of voters say they would cast a ballot for the BC Conservatives. Just 12 per cent would vote for BC United. Meanwhile, Forty-two per cent said they would support the NDP candidate in their riding. If the Conservatives and United remain split, that will likely produce another NDP government.
Former BC Liberal premier Christy Clark is among those urging the two leaders to reconsider a deal.
Clark said: “I’m so disappointed about where this seems to be going. I don’t think either one of them is taking a wise risk. If they don’t come together, neither one of them can win.”
When asked Friday whether she’d be willing to get involved in brokering a deal, Clark said she would be happy to help.
She said: “I’m here and ready to do whatever I can do to help. If I could help craft something that might work or if I could find a way to work around the edges – I’m happy to do it. This is so important for our province.”
Clark added she would do “whatever anybody asked,” while noting any chance of resurrecting talks of a deal would need to be led by the parties’ leaders: “They’re the ones that have to do the deal – deals are made face-to-face in almost every case,” Clark said.
Meanwhile, the BC NDP were well aware they stood to gain from potential vote-splitting amid the sudden bickering between their opponents, and couldn’t resist taking a shot at the opposition parties. BC NDP House Leader Ravi Kahlon said: “They’re squabbling over back room deals – not even paying attention to what British Columbians care about,” said BC NDP House Leader Ravi Kahlon.
And that's likely where things will go as we head towards the election in October. Two squabbling leaders that fight each other while the BC NDP smirks on the sidelines and claims the moral high ground. British Columbians will certainly have a lot of choice in the election, but will it produce the result they want? We'll have to wait and see.

Firing Line

Eighteen years and $46-billion later, the CPP admits it could have earned more just by buying index funds

In an absence of an Alberta story this week we’re going to be looking at the CPP. Now the CPP is something that Alberta has been looking at leaving so maybe Albertan residents will take something from this extra Canada story.
We go to Andrew Coyne in the Globe and Mail for a discussion on the recent successes of the CPP and its investments.
The annual report from CPP’s fund managers say that Canadians can be pleased with an 8% return on investment for beneficiaries.
Now this happens in a year where markets were rebounding and to not earn more than a sizeable amount you’d have to be pretty far off base.
The fund’s “reference portfolio” though gained 19.9% year over year.
For those who aren’t privy to investments and the financial space an ETF is an exchange traded fund or in its most basic form a fund that is traded on a stock exchange, sometimes a specific index like the TSX, NASDAQ, or S&P.
Looking back at that reference portfolio if the investors for the CPP had just bought basic ETFs rather than their portfolio they would have earned more than twice the amount.
The news is not that the fund trailed its benchmark in its most recent fiscal year. The news is that it is now trailing it, on average, over the entire 18-year period since the fund, until then a small, low-cost outfit that mostly just bought the indexes, went all in on active management.
The CPP fund report does actually acknowledge this in the 80,000 word behemoth report that since 2006 when active management began the CPP has seen a “negative 0.1% annualized or negative $42.7b since the inception of active management in 2006.”
Now on the flip slide looking at the most basic investments people could buy in bonds or index linked ETFs, people would have come out ahead.
There are even cases of people doing truly wonderful things with their TFSAs. Just recently a story surfaced of how a retired military veteran built up a TFSA worth $883,500 that generates $11,000 per month in TAX FREE income.
How did he do it? He put stocks in his TFSA which many people don’t realize is a possibility. He got lucky with Shopify stock and massively increased his investment.
Going back to the CPP fund, following the move to active management the CPP fund is basically a hedge fund. They pick stocks, take a seat or two on a board, and invest in a mix of assets including real estate, private equity, and infrastructure.
The fund’s management has also followed the path of the Trudeau government: in 2006 there were about 150 people staffed; now there are more than 2100 today where external investment managers are paid $3.5b in 2024. This started out as $36m in 2006.
What Coyne doesn’t point to is that what we’re essentially witnessing is the CPP investment board becoming another graft entity of the federal bureaucracy.
The CPP Investment Board company is a federal crown corporation so make of that what you will.
Over all, combining management fees, operating expenses and transaction costs, the fund’s expenses now exceed $5.5-billion annually – more than $46-billion in total since 2006.
They claim it was worth it since it just earned merely more than the reference portfolio but even with that now ceasing to make money all that has been achieved is losing $42.7b for those on CPP.
With this we also have to factor in that the cycle continues because one would think once you retire you’d get a tax break, you don’t. CPP is taxable even though you paid tax when you put the money into the plan!
The problem comes about when you look at what the fund is made of. When you have raw assets or traded stocks, those can be valued. But when the CPP fund owns bridges? Maybe not.
What happens years from now if we find out these assets aren’t worth what the fund was claiming? What if the debtors come to collect? It’s all part of a problem that those in the workforce now will feel the pain of.
It’s also why Alberta considering an Alberta Pension Plan should not be that scary of an idea. It’s also why expanding personal investment opportunities like the TFSA shouldn’t be branded as “only for the rich.”
If people knew what was going on with the CPP they may have a different idea of it and question whether or not it’s actually solvent.
But no if you question that you’re just playing into the fear peddled by the likes of Danielle Smith even though there may be something genuinely to fear with the CPP.
Supplementals:

Quote of the Week

“During phase one of the deer cull, snipers were taken around the island in a helicopter while firing on the deer below. The expert marksmen from the U.S. and New Zealand only managed to kill 84 deer, 18 of which were the wrong species of deer. Parks Canada shouldn’t be flying in foreign snipers to shoot deer from a helicopter. And if these ‘marksmen’ were really so elite, why did they keep shooting the wrong kind of deer?” - Carson Binda with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation on the Sidney Island deer eradication operation costing $12M

Word of the Week

Behemoth - something monstrously enormous and powerful

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Show Data

Episode Title: The Monstrously Powerful

Teaser: Parks Canada is spending $12M to eradicate deer on a BC island, the Trudeau Liberals want to relax citizenship guidelines, and the BC United and BC Conservatives won’t be making a deal. Also, the CPP has wasted billions of dollars through poor investing.

Recorded Date: May 25, 2024

Release Date: May 26, 2024

Duration: 50:26

Edit Notes: None

Podcast Summary Notes

Duration: XX:XX