The News Rundown

Alberta Bill of Rights Amendments

The fall session of the Alberta legislature began this week and while there was a deluge of legislation tabled including the proposed parental rights school legislation, this week will be talking about the amendments to the Alberta Bill of Rights.
The changes to the Bill Of Rights in general enable those in Alberta working for public entities to have the right to refuse medical treatment including vaccines.
One of the amendments gives Albertans, with capacity, the ability to refuse medical care, medical treatment, or a medical procedure, unless a person is likely to cause “substantial harm” to themselves or others.
We’ll get back to the wording of this clause in a little bit but this clause could be how Alberta will enact involuntary treatment legislation.
Another expansion to the Big of Rights is under the umbrella of Freedom of Expression expanding that between written and spoken word to cover actions like photos on signs at events.
The province has also limited what type of disciplinary actions can be taken on individuals who work in regulated professions like doctors and engineers.
Property rights will also be expanded so that by passing a law in the legislature is the only way someone could be deprived of their property enjoyment and same for when the government takes property.
The Bill of Rights will explicitly allow Albertans to acquire, keep, and use firearms in accordance with the law.
This clause effectively says that the province should not interfere with the right to own legally acquired firearms.
At this point we remind listeners that firearm laws are enacted and enforced by the federal government. Those hoping for an American style Second Amendment provision in Alberta will need to lobby the federal government.
The Alberta Bill of Rights has been in effect in the province since 1972 and doesn’t apply to federal laws or actions taken by the federal government, private sector, or individuals.
Changes to the Bill of Rights is something that Smith championed and her supporters asked for but there are questions as to whether or not these changes will actually protect Albertans.
The proposed amendments under section 1, subsection 1, clause h reads: “the right of the individual with capacity not to be subjected to, or coerced into receiving, medical care, medical treatment or a medical procedure without the consent of that individual, unless that individual is likely to cause substantial harm to that individual or to others”
Many will see this clause as the clause that prevents the government from forcing people to take a vaccine.
But with that there is also clause (i) that says, “notwithstanding clause (h), the right of the individual with capacity not to be subjected to, or coerced into receiving, a vaccine without the consent of that individual”
It can also be used for involuntary treatment potentially.
But there is the potential for this clause in particular to backfire under a different government.
The clause specifically mentions the ability of a person to cause substantial harm to themselves and to others.
It is possible that this clause could be used as justification by a future NDP government to justify vaccine mandates, closures, lockdowns, and other freedom limiting measures in the guise of protecting others but this clause is likely pertaining to the provinces involuntary care legislation while (h) is about vaccine mandates.
This exact situation was brought up in the Edmonton Journal by columnist David Staples.
When asked about mandates Smith said, “We’re going to ensure that everyone who is of their sound mind is able to make their own decisions on this.”
Justice Minister Mickey Amery said, “I don’t think that the example that you use is likely to happen.”
Effectively Amery is saying that it’s very unlikely we’ll see another pandemic like COVID-19 where those measures will be required.
Amery was clear, and said, “our government, the Government of Alberta, will not be able to compel or pressure any Albertan to receive any type of treatment that they simply do not want.”
When it comes to drug addicts and those who may need involuntary care, government lawyers may say that they are in their own category because they no longer have a “sound mind” due to powerful opioids.
This is the difference between those who refuse to receive a vaccine in a pandemic and those who are drug addicts.
When discussing vaccines and medical procedures in general, Premier Danielle Smith said, “We want to make sure that people who are of sound mind are able to make their own choices and have the ability to consent to do so or reject.”
In discussing the unveiling of the changes Smith said, “In an ever-evolving world, we must be vigilant to ensure that the rights and freedoms of all Albertans continue to be protected.”
The NDP for their part says the changes are desperate virtue signalling and designed to appeal to “far-right UCP members”.
This is the political branding of the UCP at present from the NDP and mainstream media and will be for the upcoming session.
We’ll be back with more coverage of the UCP AGM and Smith’s leadership vote as well as the parental rights legislation that has been tabled.
These are the shiny objects that the NDP and media will be focusing on and while the Alberta Bill of Rights is a nice idea, as illustrated here and in the Edmonton Journal by David Staples there are still questions about whether the Bill of Rights will protect Albertans in something like another pandemic.
That is a question that the opposition and media should ask since no one should be against “freedom” but here we are.
Supplementals:

Well, the final count of the BC Election ballots from 2 weeks ago is complete, but the counting is still not completely complete yet. How can that be true? Well, the distance between the NDP and Conservative candidates in Surrey-Guildford and Kelowna Centre are so small, that an automatic judicial recount is going to occur. On Wednesday, court orders set the judicial recounts for both ridings to take place Nov. 7-8. So by next week's podcast we should have the final official results of the BC election, 3 weeks after it took place.
In Surrey-Guildford, as of Monday, the NDP's Garry Begg was ahead of Honveer Singh Randhawa of the Conservative Party of B.C. by just 27 votes. In Kelowna Centre, the Conservative candidate Kristina Loewen leads the NDP's Loyal Wooldridge by just 38 votes. As we said last week, this election shows that every vote does matter.
Overseen by a BC Supreme Court judge, the recounts must take place within 15 days of the declaration of the official election results, which happened on Oct. 28.
CBC has been on the prowl this week, trying to assert that this is actually a normal thing and that no one should be questioning the process of what's going on. They say it is normal for counts and recounts to carry on long after election day but it is rare for them to be so consequential. That's because, generally speaking, onlookers can mathematically predict who winners will be even before all the votes are tallied.
For example, on election night in B.C., the first two ridings were called for the B.C. Conservatives within twenty minutes of the polls being closed, despite the fact there were still hundreds of ballots to be counted.
Throughout this campaign, the leaders of all three major parties have expressed their confidence in B.C.'s electoral system, with officials from the NDP, Greens and Conservatives taking part in overseeing the process.
Specifically John Rustad, the Conservative Party of BC leader referred reporters back to the concession statement he issued Monday night when asked if he would accept the result of the election, a question that is not always easily answered in other countries including the US. He said: “We accept the results from Elections B.C. As the Conservative Party of B.C., we accept these results and we look forward to the work that we have in front of us. Elections are elections. This election is behind us, and our job as the Conservative Party is to fight as hard as we can for the average everyday person in this province, to try to improve their lives.”
The Conservative leader did draw attention to how the party had achieved a measure of diversity in the election: The first Black woman elected since the 1970s, 40 per cent of the new MLAs are women, and almost a quarter are members of ethnic minorities. Despite his obvious wish to move on, it doesn’t sound as if the New Democrats are prepared to do so.
Premier David Eby indicated several times Tuesday that the legislature must somehow address the racist, homophobic, misogynist comments reported during the campaign. The need is “non-negotiable,” said Eby.
Rustad had bitter words for the premier as well: “All the way through the campaign, David Eby, quite frankly, was a habitual liar about who we are, about what we did, about our platform. I’m not going to say, ‘Oh, it’s okay, that’s who he is, that’s his personality.’ I’ll certainly be looking to call him out in the legislature.”
Rustad skirted the issue Tuesday when asked about Marina Sapozhnikov, the Conservative candidate in Juan de Fuca-Malahat who characterized Indigenous people as “savages” in an interview on election night.
Rustad said: “I find the comments that she made quite offensive. And I can tell you that she will not be a candidate for this party going forward, should there be a snap election.”
More impressive had he kicked her out when she still had a shot at winning her Juan de Fuca-Malahat seat on a recount. But a sign, perhaps, that his patience is running out with the more extreme members of his caucus.
Could the out there comments by certain candidates cause the Conservatives to fail to close the gap in constituencies that their own organizers regarded as winnable? Rustad says it was more of an issue of time. “There’s an old saying in politics that you don’t lose elections, you run out of time. We needed more time to build a connection, particularly with those people in the province that may not have heard the messaging and what we were trying to achieve in this province.”
Speaking of agendas, BC’s governing New Democrats still have a major hurdle to overcome before they can get to work on their agenda, and it may be a tricky one to solve. Under the rules of the B.C. legislature, no business can proceed without selecting an MLA to serve as speaker of the house. The governing party often chooses one of its own members for the job, but the NDP holds just 47 seats, the bare minimum for a majority, and the speaker’s role is to remain neutral.
In 2017, when the NDP formed a minority government, the New Democrats broke a similar deadlock by recruiting former Abbotsford South BC Liberal MLA Darryl Plecas for the job.
The NDP have already tried contacting opposition members to serve in the role, but both Green MLAs are rookies, and only 8/44 Conservatives have previously served in the legislature.
Finding a speaker from the opposition benches appears to be a remote possibility this time, with BC Conservative Leader John Rustad saying his party won’t volunteer someone for the job.
The most likely candidates, MLAs Ian Paton, Peter Milobar, Elenore Sturko, and Teresa Wat all respectfully declined the Speaker role. MLA Trevor Halford was not so respectful: “No f-ing way,” he said. "Quote is 100 per cent accurate," he later told Black Press Media.
Delta South MLA Ian Paton, who joined the Conservatives after BC United’s collapse, said the NDP had reached out to him about the position. Paton said he was “flattered and honoured” by the offer, but that it was also a non-starter.
That leaves the BC Greens, who may be unwilling to give up one of their two MLAs, leaving the other to cover all their business in the legislature.
Presuming the turn-downs continue, the premier would be forced to turn to one of his own — most likely Raj Chouhan, the patient, dutiful Burnaby New Democrat who served as Speaker in the last house. The NDP may seek to hammer out an agreement with the Greens to back some of the government’s agenda, allowing the New Democrats to elect one of their own members as speaker.
Choosing an NDP speaker may also come with less risk than the seat numbers in the legislature suggest. The party is expected to face just a single confidence vote next year — the budget.
Eby has yet to set a timeline for the return to the legislature, saying Tuesday that Elections BC would first need to complete its judicial recounts in two close ridings, so we might not even see the Legislature return until late November or December.
Regardless, with the slimmest of majorities, it's going to be a very exciting and interesting time for BC moving forward. We'll make sure that the media covers it fairly every step of the way.
Supplementals:

Federal Liberals spent nearly $2M to produce podcasts

This week new government documents have revealed that Canadians are on the hook for $1.7m in government produced podcasts that few people are listening to.
The most expensive was the Eh Sayers podcast produced by Statistics Canada which cost $773k to produce 22 episodes.
The show started in November 2021 and had 5 full time staff members which reduced to 3 after December 2022.
In terms of the breakdown, editing software, publishing and analytics tools cost $3,427, while eating up $769,790 in payroll.
The biggest cost for producing a podcast is time.
Editing, publishing, and analytic tools can be all found for free if you look and aren’t intending to haemorrhage money.
Topics include a March 19 chat about the revitalization of the Cree language and a June 2023 episode on Canada’s population passing 40 million.
An August 2023 episode on the census kicked off with a “drag story time” reading by drag king Cyril Cinder of Molly’s Tuxedo, a children’s book on gender nonconformity.
The government documents listed this podcast's subscriber count as 229. Which we can happily report is way less than a Western Context episode gets and we spend a fraction of the cost.
Another podcast, CCI and CHIN: In Our Words, had 7 episodes between 2019 and 2021 and cost $155,736 or $22,000 per episode.
Costs include $949.50 for licences with Adobe, $2,979 for hosting services, $1,996 on microphones and recording equipment, $9.087 for “podcast training and consulting,” $4,875 for voice actors, $18,618 on translation, and $115,310 on salaries.
Healthy Canadians cost $67,000 including $34,513 for “podcast strategy, editorial planning and employee training,” $28,740 for “production, editing & distribution,” and $3,749 in transcription.
Canadian IP Voices cost $89,444 with $20,972 in “sound processing services,” $972 for hosting, and $67,500 in payroll.
StatsCan spokesperson Carter Mann spoke with the Toronto Sun and said, “Most episodes surpass 470 downloads within the first seven days of release, placing Eh Sayers in the top 10% of all podcasts according to The Podcast Host metrics.”
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s federal director Franco Terrazzano said, “If bureaucrats want to produce podcasts on gender ideology, arts and crafts, or misinformation, they can do it on their own time with their own dime. Taxpayers don’t need and don’t want a bunch of overpaid government bureaucrats trying to become the next big thing in podcasting.”
Many of our listeners will have not heard of these podcasts or the fact almost $2m was being spent on producing them.
The podcasts speak to a wider problem with the federal government and their willingness to spend money.
$2m is a small amount for the government but when you add up $2m per department and then extrapolate that out to various ministries you start to see how this government spends so much money on operations before we even start talking about programs.
With that it’s something that hopefully changes when the government changes and the biggest thing will be to ensure that this level of frivolous spending does not get normalized.

Firing Line

MP Kevin Vuong Discusses Foreign Interference

This week revealed a bombshell of a news item advancing the foreign interference file, yet the mainstream media was not anywhere to be found.
Independent MP Kevin Vuong, independent journalist Sam Cooper, who we've called on previous podcasts as one of the best journalists in Canada, and senior bureaucrats named on Tuesday a group of four politicians and one government advisor allegedly involved in a China-led scheme to interfere in Canadian democracy.
Charles Burton, senior advisor to the government on foreign policy with China, and Michel Juneau-Katsuya, former chief of the Asia Pacific desk at the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, were also in attendance at the news conference.
Although the Trudeau government continues to withhold the list of elected officials named in a controversial foreign interference report, investigative journalist Sam Cooper claims to have uncovered several names of witting or unwitting officials working in favour of China from confidential whistleblowers. Two of those named by Cooper have denied the allegations.
Sam Cooper pointed fingers at Liberal MP Parm Bains, Liberal-appointed Senator Yuen Pau Woo, Liberal MP Mary Ng, now former Conservative-appointed Senator Victor Oh, and Guo Ding, a journalist and advisor to B.C. Premier David Eby, for collaborating with CCP-based influence networks.
The Foreign Interference Commission, headed by Justice Marie Hogue to investigate the impact of foreign state actors in the 2019 and 2021 elections wrapped last week, with a final report due Dec 31, 2024. However, at the onset of the most recent spate of hearings, Hogue said she would not reveal those named in the NSICOP report as foreign collaborators.
Though Liberal International Trade Minister Mary Ng did not respond to True North’s request to comment, she denied the allegations on X.
“It’s unfortunate that Mr. Vuong recently gave Sam Cooper another platform to make insinuations about me, which I categorically reject. Foreign interference is a serious matter of national security, and like all my Cabinet colleagues, I have been thoroughly screened by the top security experts in Canada. It is not ok for him to continue fuelling this climate of suspicion against me.”
She also took shots at Cooper’s credibility, saying his “conspiracy theories” have been “pushed from the main pages of Global News” to the “only place that will publish them” on his own website.
Another individual named by Cooper, a Trudeau-appointed Liberal Senator Yuen Pao Woo, questioned whether Cooper’s “evidence ” in the press conference concluded foreign interference on his part at all.
“The press conference confirms my longstanding concern about the role of second-rate journalists, phoney experts, opportunistic politicians, and rogue officials in distracting Canadians from serious foreign interference issues and whipping up a frenzy that feeds on disinformation, partisanship, and bigotry,” Woo said.
The NSICOP report suggested that at least 11 unidentified officials were wittingly or unwittingly abetting foreign entities, primarily the People’s Republic of China and India, to interfere in Canadian democracy.
Only those with security clearances are allowed to look at the list, therefore, we can't verify whether the 5 individuals named by Cooper were included in the NSCIOP report.
Cooper said that a 47-minute recording from a Vancouver meeting leaked to him and evidence given to him by confidential whistleblowers allegedly proved his claims about Woo, Oh, Ding and Bains and Ng.
Cooper claimed that three national security sources told him that CSIS investigations identified Ng as one of 11 Toronto-area candidates that China’s United Front interference networks clandestinely supported in the 2019 election. However, Cooper said that CSIS assessed that Ng was unwittingly implicated in the alleged interference.
Public Safety Canada, citing an Australian report, notes that Beijing uses the United Front network to “stifle criticism, infiltrate foreign political parties, diaspora communities, universities and multinational corporations.”
Cooper claimed that CSIS was more specifically concerned with Ng’s staff, who allegedly met privately with a Toronto consulate diplomat, Zo Wei, to discuss China-related issues. He said CSIS identified Wei as a confirmed intelligence actor and alleged he worked with Ng’s staffers to “provide information on meetings of elected officials and their whereabouts” and was directed to privately report to the intelligence agent on Ng.
Cooper also alleged that Ding, Oh, and Woo were all connected to the “Canada Committee 100 Society.” According to Cooper, the organization has members with direct connections to Beijing’s overseas influence arm, The United Front Work Department.
Woo was granted intervenor status in the Hogue Commission on Foreign Interference and has been criticized as a ‘mouthpiece’ for China after he said Canada should be careful about criticizing China’s mass arrest and sterilization of Uyghur Muslims due to Canada’s alleged treatment of Indigenous people.
Cooper also alleged that Ding, the head of the 100 Society, was “involved” in the 2022 Conservative Party Leadership Race with community leaders who were “officially connected” with the UFWD.
Conservative Senator Oh, one of the “Canada Committee 100 Society members,” was forced to retire in June 2024. Former Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole said he had considered expelling Oh from the party due to suspected foreign influence, leading to his early retirement.
Oh was also found to have broken the Senate’s conflict of interest and ethics code in 2020 after accepting an all-expenses-paid trip to China in 2017.
Oh reportedly advocated on behalf of a Chinese-state-owned business and called former Conservative MP Kenny Chiu a liar after Chiu raised concerns about foreign interference in his campaign, which he lost to Liberal MP Parm Bains.
The foreign interference file keeps getting more and more interesting, and we still have silence on it from the mainstream media as well as the Trudeau government. We may still not know fully who all is involved, but one thing's for sure, Canada's leadership is definitely complicit in what's going on.
Supplementals:

Quote of the Week

“All the way through the campaign, David Eby, quite frankly, was a habitual liar about who we are, about what we did, about our platform. I’m not going to say, ‘Oh, it’s okay, that’s who he is, that’s his personality.’ I’ll certainly be looking to call him out in the legislature.” - John Rustad on how contentious the next BC Legislature will be following October’s election

Word of the Week

Recount - an act of counting something again, especially votes in an election.

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Show Data

Episode Title: Pricey Podcasts
Teaser: Alberta amends the Bill of Rights, BC’s election result shows a tenuous NDP majority, and the Trudeau Liberals spent $2M on podcasts. Also, several elected officials get named as beneficiaries of foreign interference.
Recorded Date: November 2, 2024
Release Date: November 3, 2024
Duration:1:00:22
Edit Notes: None

Podcast Summary Notes

Duration: XX:XX