Tag: canada

Faith on Trial in Canada as Parliament Moves to Rewrite the Rules of Speech

A Canadian parliamentary committee has set in motion a change that could recast the balance between expression and state control over “hate speech.”

Members of the House of Commons Justice and Human Rights Committee voted on December 9 to delete a longstanding clause in the Criminal Code that shields religious discussion made in good faith from prosecution.

The decision forms part of the government’s Combating Hate Act (Bill C-9), legislation that introduces new offences tied to “hate” and the public display of certain symbols.

The focus is on Section 319(3)(b), which currently ensures that “no person shall be convicted of an offence under subsection (2)…if, in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text.”

That safeguard would vanish if the Bloc Québécois amendment approved this month survives the remaining stages of debate.

Liberal MPs backed the Bloc’s proposal, which Bloc MP Rhéal Éloi Fortin introduced after his party leader, Yves-François Blanchet, made its passage a precondition for Bloc support of the bill.

Fortin argued that the religious exemption could permit “someone could commit actions or say things that would otherwise be forbidden under the Criminal Code.”

The amendment was adopted during a marathon session that came only after the committee chair, Liberal MP James Maloney, abruptly ended an earlier meeting and canceled the next one to allow MPs time to “regroup.”

On December 9, the committee returned for an eight-hour clause-by-clause review, with government members determined to complete key sections of the bill before the winter recess.

The broader legislation targets intimidation around religious institutions and bans the display of defined “hate” and “terrorism” symbols.

Yet most debate now centers on whether the change to Section 319(3)(b) opens the door to criminal proceedings against clergy or believers discussing moral or scriptural teachings.

As reported by The Catholic Register, Justice Minister and Attorney General Sean Fraser alleged that the measure poses no threat to religious freedom. “The amendment that the Bloc is proposing will … in no way, shape or form prevents a religious leader from reading their religious texts,” Fraser said. “It will not criminalize faith.”

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State-Sanctioned Suicide Is The 4th Leading Cause Of Death In Canada

Canada’s government-run euthanasia program increased its death toll again last year, taking more than 16,000 lives, and placing medically assisted suicide as the fourth leading cause of death in the country.

According to an annual report published by the Canadian government, 16,499 people were killed through the Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) program in 2024, increasing 6.9 percent from the previous year. Close to 75 percent of the 22,535 people who applied for the program were approved.

The report authors stated that the number of deaths is possibly stabilizing, while admitting that “long-term trends” have not yet been identified. Based on 2023 numbers, an estimated 1 in 20 deaths are government-directed.

Expanding the Death Program

The horrors of government-funded murder should not be understated. Canada’s program has grown every year since it began, as restrictions continue to loosen, despite reports of corrupt and coercive practices. Developed countries view Canada as a “cautionary tale” where government killing has become an expansive and accepted norm.

First legalized in 2016, the country’s assisted-suicide law has had multiple revisions, expanding beyond patients with terminal diagnoses.

Candidates in MAID are organized within two categories, or “tracks.” Applicants are placed in Track 1 if they have a terminal diagnosis or “reasonably foreseeable death,” while Track 2 is reserved for those who have no terminal diagnosis but are living with a “grievous and irremediable medical condition.” The majority of those killed through Track 2 were women, with an average age of 75.9 years, while men held a slight majority in Track 1, averaging an age of 78.

The government offers “broad categories … to practitioners for MAID reporting purposes,” to include cancer, neurological conditions, and “other.” The “other” category encompasses some highly treatable diseases, such as diabetes and chronic mental disorders. Hearing and visual issues are included as possible selections.

Even more striking, more than four percent of MAID applicants who were killed had neither a terminal diagnosis nor “reasonably foreseeable death.” Many suffered from isolation and felt a burden to their caregivers. The government has capitalized on these vulnerabilities and is seeking to expand its reach.

Access for mental health patients with no other underlying disease is currently being considered for approval in 2027, and in the province of Quebec, an advance request to enroll in MAID is now legal under certain conditions. This request could be granted at the onset of a disease, even if a person is unable to choose life-ending drugs due to mental or physical incapacities later on, leaving more vulnerable persons entrapped in the deadly system.

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Why are we paying Canadian dairy farmers who are producing more?

Every once in a while, someone inside a tightly protected system decides to say the quiet part out loud. That is what Joel Fox, a dairy farmer from the Trenton, Ontario area, did recently in the Ontario Farmer newspaper. In a candid open letter, Fox questioned why established dairy farmers like himself continue to receive increasingly large government payouts — even though the sector is not shrinking, but expanding. His piece, titled “We continue to privatize gains, socialize losses,” did not come from an economist or a critic of supply management. It came from someone who benefits from it. And yet his message was unmistakable: the numbers no longer add up.

Fox’s letter marks something we have not seen in years — a rare moment of internal dissent from a system that usually speaks with one voice. It is the first meaningful crack since the viral milk-dumping video by Ontario dairy farmer Jerry Huigen, who filmed himself being forced to dump thousands of litres of perfectly good milk because of quota rules. Huigen’s video exposed contradictions inside supply management, but the system quickly closed ranks. Until now. Fox has reopened a conversation that has been dormant for far too long.

In his letter, Fox admitted he would cash his latest $14,000 Dairy Direct Payment Program (DDPP) cheque, despite believing the program wastes taxpayer money. The DDPP was created to offset supposed losses from trade agreements like CETA, CPTPP, and CUSMA. These deals were expected to reduce Canada’s dairy market. But those “losses” are theoretical — based on models and assumptions about future erosion in market share. Meanwhile, domestic dairy demand has strengthened.

Which raises the obvious question: why are we compensating dairy farmers for producing less when they are, in fact, producing more?

This month, dairy farmers received another 1% quota increase, on top of several increases totalling 4% to 5% in recent years. Quota — the right to produce milk — only increases when more supply is needed. If trade deals had truly devastated the sector, quota would be falling, not rising. Instead, Canada’s population has grown by nearly six million since 2015, processors have expanded, and consumption remains stable. The market is expanding.

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Criminalizing Bible Verses? Canadian Lawmakers Target Religious Expression With Proposed ‘Hate Speech’ Amendment

In a move that should alarm anyone who is pro-free speech, members of Canada’s Liberal Party have capitulated to pressure from Quebec’s ultra-secular separatist party by voting to strip away a longstanding religious exemption from the country’s hate-speech laws as part of the draconian Bill C-9, also known as the so-called Combating Hate Act.

Canada’s Criminal Code has long shielded good-faith religious expression with a clear exemption that speech is not hate propaganda “if, in good faith, the person expressed or attempted to establish by an argument an opinion on a religious subject or an opinion based on a belief in a religious text.”

On Tuesday evening, that protection was casually deleted at the Bloc Québécois insistence.

CBC has the details on what happened next:

Progress appeared to stall after an initial committee meeting to go over the bill was abruptly cancelled last week. Three sources speaking to CBC News said the bill was held up because Justice Minister Sean Fraser’s office brokered the deal with the Bloc without getting buy-in from the Prime Minister’s Office. Tuesday’s meeting was scheduled last-minute after last week’s cancellation. The Bloc has long sought to remove the religious exemption, saying religion could be used as a cover for promoting hate, such as homophobia and antisemitism. Blanchet said his party would not support the bill without the amendment.

Conservatives immediately sounded the alarm. Canadian Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre warned on X that the amendment would “criminalize sections of the Bible, Qur’an, Torah and other sacred texts.”

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Health Canada says drag performances promote science and vaccination

What began as a routine Access to Information request quickly spiralled into something stranger and more wasteful than expected.

When Health Canada was asked for all invoices tied to Public Service Pride Week 2025, their response seemed straightforward on the surface. A hundred dollars for rainbow lanyards, another hundred for intersex-inclusive progress flag sticks, a $560 charge to raise and lower a flag, and over $800 for another flag-raising ceremony.

But buried in the paperwork was something far more revealing.

Invoices show that Brookfield Global Integrated Solutions, a Carney-adjacent facilities management giant, billed taxpayers $1,550 plus HST just to raise a Pride flag on August 14. Then take it down for a Truth & Reconciliation flag on September 27. Then take it down again on October 16 — complete with new anchors and eyebolts for next year.

The revolving door of symbolic flag choreography, all at the taxpayers’ expense, was becoming clear.

Even more striking was Health Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada’s choice of “science outreach.” During federal service Pride Week, the agencies quietly hired a group called Science is a Drag™ — yes, that is a real trademark. According to invoices, the troupe cost taxpayers over $2,500. Their pitch? To use drag performances to promote ‘science literacy and public health.’

Health Canada’s justification reads like a government committee’s fever dream: drag “aligns with the mandates of Health Canada and PHAC by using performance as an innovative, culturally relevant way to promote science literacy.” In practice, this meant federal employees were invited to a glitter-powered show discussing mental health, STI prevention, and vaccination — delivered by cross-dressing performers in sequins and six-inch heels.

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Canada spent nearly $1M killing ostriches, but full cost remains hidden

The federal government has now admitted that the Canadian Food Inspection Agency and the RCMP spent over $900,000 on the agency’s mission to slaughter more than 300 healthy ostriches at Universal Ostrich Farms in Edgewood, B.C.

The numbers were revealed through an order paper question filed by Conservative MP Scott Anderson after months of stonewalling from Ottawa.

Despite Anderson pointedly requesting a complete accounting of all federal dollars spent, the amount the CFIA and RCMP did disclose is merely a glimpse into what was likely millions of tax dollars spent on lengthy court battles to avoid testing the birds to prove their health, and a nearly 50-day occupation of the farm with RCMP deployed at full force.

Nevertheless, for the farmers whose livelihoods and the healthy prehistoric creatures that were wiped out in the kill mission, the totals that have been revealed only add salt to the wounds.

The CFIA alone admits to $444,000, including $9,000 on feed that the farmers would have been happy to provide had they not been barred from caring for their birds weeks before the “cull.”

More than $72,000 was spent on portable toilets and hand-wash stations, and over $32,000 on unspecified “specialized equipment.”

It also paid $100,000 for private security at three of its offices.

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Liberals want to control what you watch online

New regulations from the Liberal Government’s Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) are trying to apply ‘Canadian content’ (CanCon) requirements to online platforms like YouTube and Spotify.

What could this mean for your online experience?

Will content that the Government doesn’t designate as sufficiently ‘Canadian’ disappear from your streaming platforms? Could companies like Netflix decide to pull out of Canada altogether rather than try to comply with onerous requirements?

Host Kris Sims is joined by longtime journalist and former CRTC vice-chair Peter Menzies to discuss what it all means.

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Conservative MP calls on religious leaders to oppose Liberal plan to criminalize quoting Scripture

Conservatives are warning that Canadians should be “very afraid” of the Liberals’ proposal to punish quoting Scripture, while advising religious leaders to voice their opposition to the legislation.

During a December 6 session in Parliament, Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) Larry Brock warned Canadians of the very real threat to their religious freedom thanks to proposed amendments to Bill C-9, the “Combating Hate Act,” that would allow priests quoting Scripture to be punished.

“Do Christians need to be concerned about this legislation?” MP Bob Zimmer questioned. “Does it really threaten the Bible and free speech in Canada?”

“They should be very afraid,” Brock responded. “Every faith leader should be very afraid as to what this Liberal government with the support of the Bloc Quebecois wishes to do.”

“As I indicated, religious freedom is under attack at the hands of this Liberal government,” he declared.

Brock stressed the need for religious leaders to “speak out loud and clear” against the proposed amendment and contact their local Liberal and Bloc MPs.

Already, the Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops penned an open letter to the Carney Liberals, condemning the proposed amendment and calling for its removal.

As LifeSiteNews reported earlier this week, inside government sources revealed that Liberals agreed to remove religious exemptions from Canada’s hate speech laws as part of a deal with the Bloc Québécois to keep Liberals in power.

Bill C-9, as reported by LifeSiteNews, has been blasted by constitutional experts as empowering police and the government to go after those it deems to have violated a person’s “feelings” in a “hateful” way.

Now, the Bloc amendment seeks to further restrict free speech. The amendment would remove the “religious exemption” defense, which has historically protected individuals from conviction for willful promotion of hatred if the statements were made “in good faith” and based on a “religious subject” or a “sincerely held” interpretation of religious texts such as passages from the Bible, Quran, or Torah.

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American Generosity Solving Canadian Socialized Healthcare Woes

Why should it fall to an American radio and television personality to solve the problems of Canadian socialized medicine?

One poor woman in our neighbor up north recently turned to Canada’s MAID program (medical assistance in dying, or assisted suicide) because she could not get a referral for a needed surgery, and the pain had become more than she could bear.

Over the past two days, TV and radio star Glenn Beck has been reaching out to assist Jolene Van Alstine of Saskatchewan to assist her. She needs surgery to remove her parathyroid gland. However, there’s no one available to do that in her home province of Saskatchewan. She can’t go see anyone outside of the province because, thanks to Canada’s socialized medicine, she’d need a referral by seeing an endocrinologist – and none of them are accepting new patients.

Glenn’s post linked to a woman who reposted part of an article from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). The CBC is the media company supported by the Canadian government. 

Over the next two days, crowd-sourced tips led Glenn’s team to Jolene’s contact information, as well as appropriate surgeons who were willing to take on her care.

Glenn posted on the latest installment of the saga Wednesday, when he announced that Jolene doesn’t have a passport, but his team was working to overcome this hurdle.

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Documents EXPOSE Carney government’s quiet push for digital ID

Newly obtained documents reveal the Carney government is studying a national digital passport that could function as a domestic ID. Internal documents show immigration officials quietly examining enforcement options for a nationwide ID system — despite MPs rejecting the idea for years.

Marc Patrone discusses the implications with engineering executive and Coalition of Concerned Manufacturers and Businesses of Canada director Veso Sobot, who warns the move signals another step toward expanded government oversight at a time when Canadians are already worried about censorship and state intrusion.

They also discuss the latest on Canada–U.S. trade talks, after President Trump signalled he may be open to restarting negotiations following brief conversations with Prime Minister Mark Carney and Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum. Sobot breaks down why reciprocity, tariffs, and Canada’s protected industries remain sticking points — and what a renewed deal could mean for jobs and competitiveness.

Plus, the Conservative Party prepares to table a motion pressing the Liberals to support a new pipeline to the Pacific Coast. Meanwhile, former Liberal environment minister Steven Guilbeault claims Alberta’s push for another pipeline is fuelling Quebec separatism, adding new political pressure around the federal–provincial energy accord.

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