Tag: canada

Online News Act left rural Canadians without credible information during wildfires: report

The report, first detailed by Blacklock’s Reporter, examined the consequences of Meta’s decision to block Canadian news from Facebook and Instagram following Parliament’s passage of Bill C-18.

The legislation was designed to compel large digital platforms to compensate Canadian publishers for news content. Meta responded by blocking news content from its platforms in Canada.

Researchers from the University of British Columbia said the consequences were particularly serious in rural communities, where Facebook had become a major source of local information during emergencies.

“Rural B.C. communities lost access to credible journalism at the precise moment they needed it most,” researchers wrote, citing consequences for public safety, trust and compliance with emergency instructions.

The study, “When Good Intentions Cause Harm: The Online News Act, Meta’s News Ban And Public Safety During Wildfire Emergencies,” examined wildfire coverage in several B.C. communities.

Researchers said removing journalism from Facebook did not eliminate information about the fires. Instead, personal accounts and emotionally charged material remained and were amplified on the platform, contributing to community outrage and conspiracy theories.

The report blamed the problem on a combination of declining institutional trust, social media algorithms and the disappearance of credible journalism from Facebook.

Researchers also criticized mainstream news coverage, saying the absence of local reporters with established community relationships made newsrooms increasingly dependent on governments and other “official voices.”

“Media were producing a version of wildfire events in which affected communities were compliance problems rather than people in crisis,” the report said.

The researchers noted an irony at the centre of the controversy: declining local journalism was partly caused by the advertising-market changes Bill C-18 was supposed to address, but the legislation ultimately contributed to credible journalism disappearing from one of the platforms rural Canadians relied upon most.

Blacklock’s was among the independent Canadian outlets that opposed the Online News Act, arguing it amounted to federal interference in the news marketplace. The outlet says it neither sought nor accepted payments available under the legislation.

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Ontario family says 83-year-old grandmother received MAID without final verbal consent

An Ontario family is raising serious questions about Canada’s rapidly expanding medical assistance in dying system after alleging their 83-year-old grandmother was euthanized despite previously rejecting MAID and failing to give a final verbal confirmation before the procedure.

Brigitte Stegemann died by lethal injection on July 10 at The Pearl, formerly E.J. McQuigge Lodge, a long-term care facility in Belleville, Ontario, according to an account first reported by LifeNews.

Stegemann had been diagnosed with Stage IV stomach cancer approximately five months before her death.

According to her family, Stegemann had been asked about medical assistance in dying roughly two months before her death and “clearly stated that she did not wish to pursue it.”

A devout Christian, Stegemann reportedly said MAID conflicted with her religious beliefs and that she wanted to die naturally.

Her granddaughter, also named Brigitte, held power of attorney and had acted as Stegemann’s primary caregiver and advocate for more than 12 years. The family says staff routinely contacted her regarding medications, treatment and other care decisions.

However, while the granddaughter was away on a 10-day vacation, the family alleges facility staff held private discussions with Stegemann about MAID without informing her family or advocate.

The family says this was particularly concerning because Stegemann had severe hearing impairment and periods of lethargy and unresponsiveness.

During a capacity assessment on July 6 and 7, Stegemann reportedly gave incorrect answers to basic questions about her own life. When asked whether she had siblings, she allegedly said she had none, despite being the second-youngest of 14 children. She also reportedly said none of her siblings remained alive, although some were still living and she had recently spoken with one.

According to the family, Stegemann became confused and began crying during the assessment, at one point saying, “I forgot about the grandkids.”

Her family says they corrected many of her answers and directly challenged how she could be considered capable of providing informed consent to her own death.

The physician nevertheless determined Stegemann was capable of making the decision, according to the family’s account.

The procedure was scheduled for July 10.

The family also alleges the date was selected before official MAID application paperwork had been completed and that facility staff subsequently completed and witnessed the paperwork without informing Stegemann’s power of attorney.

The family’s most serious allegation concerns what happened immediately before Stegemann’s death.

According to Life News, they say they had been specifically assured Stegemann would be required to give a final, explicit verbal confirmation on the day of the procedure that she still wanted to proceed.

On July 10, however, the family says Stegemann remained silent when the physician arrived, with her hands held in a prayer position.

“Tragically, we were left alarmed and horrified when the clinical team completely ignored her silence and carried the procedure forward regardless,” the family said in its public statement.

Stegemann died shortly afterward.

The family characterized what happened as “a systemic failure driven by clinical arrogance, a total lack of transparency, and a blatant disregard for the safeguards meant to protect vulnerable patients.”

The allegations have not been tested in court, and the account does not include responses from the physician or long-term care facility.

The case comes as the number of Canadians dying through MAID continues to grow significantly.

Canada legalized medical assistance in dying in 2016. According to Health Canada’s latest annual report, 16,499 people received MAID in 2024, accounting for 5.1 percent of all deaths in the country.

That was up from 15,343 MAID deaths in 2023 and 13,241 in 2022.

The growth since legalization has been substantial. Health Canada recorded 1,018 assisted deaths in 2016, followed by 2,838 in 2017, 4,478 in 2018, 5,660 in 2019 and 7,595 in 2020. The annual total surpassed 10,000 for the first time in 2021.

By the end of 2024, more than 76,000 Canadians had died through MAID since legalization.

Health Canada has not yet published complete national annual-report figures for 2025 or 2026, meaning claims that Canada’s cumulative MAID total has now surpassed 100,000 are not yet confirmed by the latest comprehensive federal data.

The Stegemann family is calling for greater transparency, mandatory involvement of family advocates in cases involving cognitively vulnerable patients and stricter accountability surrounding MAID safeguards.

Roughly one in every 20 deaths in Canada is now occurring through MAID.

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Edmonton Police urge citizens to snitch on their neighbours for deportation talk

You typed a comment about Canada’s broken borders, and someone reported it as hate. According to the Edmonton Police Service (EPS), that’s an investigatory offence, even if it’s not a crime.

Last week, the Edmonton Police Service (EPS) posted a dramatic video overlaid with censored online comments: “Send them back home.” “Canada needs deportation.” “Hang him.”

The accompanying message declared: “Online hate isn’t ‘just a comment.’ It hurts real people and harms real communities. Hate has no home here.” Viewers were then directed to a ‘hate’ reporting portal.

While the post has since been deleted after massive public backlash, the timing is no coincidence.

It follows Bill C-9, the Combatting Hate Act, which received Royal Assent on June 18, 2026, with key provisions having come into force on July 18.

The legislation strengthens Criminal Code hate-propaganda rules, defines “hatred” as an “intense and extreme” emotion of vilification and detestation, creates a new offence for displaying certain terrorism or hate symbols, establishes a stand-alone hate-crime offence, and criminalizes intimidation or obstruction near places of worship, schools, and cultural sites.

EPS wasted no time in jumping on the new laws’ bandwagon with their video that blurred the line between actual criminal hate speech and everyday political opinion, while soliciting reports of non-criminal “hate-motivated incidents.”

Conservative MP and lawyer Roman Baber pushed back hard. “No, Edmonton Police, you have no jurisdiction to limit online speech unless a criminal law is broken,” he wrote in a widely shared post.

“The criminal offence of hate speech is limited to the definition articulated by the Supreme Court almost 40 years ago. Not what others find offensive.”

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Amish farmers fined for not using COVID-era ArriveCan app as legal battle over religious freedom continues

Picture rolling fields, hand-built barns and a way of life largely untouched by modernity. Around two and a half hours west of Toronto, Amish communities continue to farm using animal and human power, rejecting electricity, automobiles and most modern technology.

For the Amish, this is not simply a lifestyle choice. It is a religious practice rooted in their Christian faith. Their communities live much as they have for generations, keeping a low profile, avoiding conflict and turning to a simpler way of life.

That changed during the COVID pandemic hysteria.

Amish families regularly crossed the Canada-U.S. border for family, religious and everyday reasons. When returning to Canada, they were asked the same question as other travellers: had they downloaded the ArriveCan app?

For the Amish, the question created an impossible situation. They do not use smartphones, and their faith prevents them from adopting much of the modern technology required by the app.

Without realising it, Amish families were issued fines that eventually totalled hundreds of thousands of dollars across the community. Some only discovered what had happened when liens were placed on their farms, threatening properties that had been passed down through generations.

Around 40 farms were affected, leaving Amish families facing a legal battle they never expected to fight.

The Democracy Fund stepped in to challenge the cases, with lawyers Marc Joseph and Adam Blake-Gallipeau working to reopen the convictions. So far, 24 families have had their cases reopened and stayed, removing the immediate legal threat. However, eight families were denied that relief and are continuing their appeals through the Ontario courts.

The cases have highlighted the challenges faced by a community that avoids conflict and does not use modern communication systems, yet found itself navigating a complex legal process involving courts, paperwork and technology.

The legal fight continues, with the remaining families seeking to have their cases reconsidered through the appeals process.

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Canada’s new inclusive ‘spiritual reflections’ policy bans prayer at military ceremonies

A Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) member blasted a new “spiritual reflections” military policy direction that essentially bans using any religious-specific language or even references to God in most military ceremonies.

“We used to have a robust and inclusive prayer policy where we could pray in an inclusive way that aligned with our faith traditions,” a CAF member told LifeSiteNews under condition of anonymity.

The CAF member noted that the previous prayer policy is “very important in our tradition around commemorating the dead, Remembrance Day, Battle of Britain, Battle of the Atlantic, and (so on).”

“However, now we are not allowed to pray in public. The new policy means chaplains can only do a secular reflection in public.”

On July 29, the CAF officially released what its “Spiritual reflections in military settings” policy that provides direction to both military chaplains and CAF members on what is expected during military ceremonies.

The new policy mandates that when CAF members give public or even semi-public remarks at an event such as a Remembrance Day ceremony, they “shall uphold the principle of state religious and spiritual neutrality by not using words, actions, or symbols that are specific to a particular spiritual or faith tradition (SFT) on the part of the Government of Canada.”

“This does not include personal religious items of dress, which may be worn as authorized by the CAF Dress Instructions,” the CAF noted.

Instead, CAF members must offer a godless and “inclusive” spiritual reflection instead for the following:

  • graduation parades;
  • change of command ceremonies;
  • ship commissioning;
  • ribbon-cuttings/ dedications for infrastructure projects;
  • honours and awards ceremonies;
  • festive/ Seasonal or Mess dinners; or
  • other military institutional commemorations (e.g. Remembrance Day, Battle of Britain, Battle of the Atlantic).

At this time, it appears that military and state funerals are not included in the new policy. However, “Indigenous Cultural Practices” are afforded a wider berth than traditional faiths such as Christianity.

The new policy direction is not a surprise. In 2023, the CAF issued a directive that put harsh restrictions on public prayer. After public backlash, including from many CAF members. the orders were rescinded.

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Indian-origin Canadian trucker caught hiding millions in cocaine on cross-continent run

Bodycam footage from an Arizona state trooper on January 6, 2025, shows just how casually certain truck drivers engage in fraud and high-stakes smuggling.

It also shows how easily this kind of criminality rides alongside ordinary traffic on North American highways.

On Interstate 40 near Holbrook, a Volvo tractor-trailer drew a state trooper’s attention when its hazard lights began flashing, then leaving a turn signal flashing. When questioned, the Canadian driver claimed there was a switch problem and said he was heading to a Love’s mechanic — after already passing both a Love’s and a TA truck stop. The driver quickly pivoted his story, claiming he was heading to an “Indian mechanic,” when the trooper flagged his response as suspicious.

While examining the electronic logging device, the trooper quickly became aware of a concerning driving pattern.

There were multiple stretches of “unidentified drive time” appearing from Michigan through Ohio into New York, and again just before the stop.

The driver invented a co-driver named “Uncle” — someone who never logged in or out yet somehow erased hours when convenient. He claimed to be in the sleeper berth when the records showed he was driving. This is textbook hours-of-service fraud designed to push past the federal 11-hour driving limit.

What began as a traffic stop escalated when the trooper checked the sleeper berth. Tightly wrapped bricks of cocaine were found hidden underneath. More packages appeared on the opposite side. Officers then found kilo after kilo concealed throughout the produce load itself, turning out to be one of the larger commercial-truck seizures in recent memory.

The driver, 31-year-old Amarjeet Singh Matharu, had allegedly made the run multiple times before. For moving cocaine valued in the tens of millions of dollars range, he received just under three years in prison.

This bodycam footage finally offers a clear window into the kind of culture that has taken root in commercial trucking.

Ontario’s Auditor General reported in May that private career colleges routinely cut the required 103.5-hour Entry Level Training to as little as 59 or 81 hours, with some skipping emergency stops and left turns at major intersections altogether.

Unregistered schools were handing out certificates, dozens of colleges were never even inspected, and nearly 100 trucking companies with serious safety violations were still being approved to bring in temporary foreign workers; putting them behind the wheel of these increasingly deadly trucks.

“Driver Inc.” has become widely known as a model that misclassifies drivers as independent contractors, allowing companies to dodge overtime, proper wages, and hours-of-service rules. The result is financial pressure that keeps exhausted drivers on the road, compromising road safety at large.

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Canada: The Illusion Of Free Healthcare

With the rise in popularity of the Democratic Socialist movement in the United States, one of the promises made to voters is “free healthcare.” Advocates frame healthcare as a human right, pointing north to Canada as the example of universal coverage.

The slogan is simple, powerful, and politically effective: Canadians enjoy free healthcare. The belief that Canadian healthcare is free stems from the fact that Canadians do not pay at the point of service. Yet the question remains: Is it truly free, and what does “free” actually mean?

Anyone applying basic logic and common sense quickly realizes that a system as complex as healthcare, involving doctors, nurses, hospitals, equipment, pharmaceuticals, and administrators, cannot exist without someone paying for it. The real question is not whether money is paid, but how it is collected, who controls it, and how the system functions behind the scenes.

Canada’s healthcare system is often described as universal, equitable, and accessible. But beneath the surface lies a prepaid tax‑funded model controlled almost entirely by government. The mechanics of this system are not widely understood by the average Canadian consumer, largely because the costs are hidden within layers of taxation rather than presented as a monthly insurance premium or deductible.

In Canada, healthcare funding flows through a combination of federal transfers (CHT), provincial taxes, employer payroll taxes, and individual income‑based health premiums. These mechanisms create the illusion of “free” care because the consumer never sees a bill at the doctor’s office. Instead, the costs are embedded in the tax structure, quietly deducted long before the patient ever steps into a clinic.

One of the most significant components of Canadian healthcare funding is the Employer Health Tax (EHT)—a payroll tax applied to businesses based on total compensation paid to employees. In provinces such as Manitoba and Quebec, this tax can reach over four percent of payroll.

While the tax is levied on employers, its economic burden does not remain there. Businesses inevitably pass these costs on to consumers through higher prices, reduced wages, or slower hiring. Canadians may not see a healthcare bill, but they pay for healthcare every time they buy groceries, fill their gas tank, or purchase consumer goods whose prices have quietly risen to absorb payroll taxes.

Beyond employer taxes, individual Canadians also contribute directly through provincial health premiums and income‑based surcharges. Ontario, for example, includes a “Health Premium” on its tax return that can reach up to $900 per year depending on income. Other provinces embed healthcare funding within general income tax brackets, meaning a portion of every paycheck is siphoned into the healthcare system without explicit labeling.

This is why many Canadians believe they pay nothing for healthcare—because the payment is hidden inside broader taxation rather than itemized as a healthcare expense. In reality, most middle‑income Canadians contribute between $400 and $800 annually through these mechanisms, in addition to the indirect costs they incur due to higher consumer prices.

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Federal government approved pay raises for 336,188 bureaucrats despite weak department performance

The federal government approved pay raises for 336,188 public servants in 2025, even as departments continued to miss nearly half of their own performance targets, according to access-to-information records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

The records show 78 per cent of federal employees received a pay increase last year, while only 596 employees — about 0.14 per cent of the federal workforce — saw their pay reduced.

“Taxpayers have every reason to question why the vast majority of bureaucrats are taking bigger paycheques when departments can barely pass their own test,” said CTF Federal Director Franco Terrazzano. “Federal bureaucrats shouldn’t feel entitled to more money every year just because they’re on the taxpayer payroll.”

The latest figures continue a long-running trend. About 385,000 federal employees received raises in 2024, while more than one million pay increases were granted between 2020 and 2023. The federal government has not disclosed the total cost of the salary increases.

CTF General Counsel Devin Drover criticized the government’s refusal to release the financial impact of the raises, calling it another example of Canada’s weak access-to-information system.

“Taxpayers are on the hook for another wage hike, but the government won’t tell Canadians the price tag,” Drover said. “Taxpayers pay these wages and they have a right to know the bill.”

According to federal performance reports, departments met just 54 percent of their own performance targets in 2024, their best result in the past five years. In two of those years, departments failed to meet even half of their stated objectives.

The report also points to research from the Fraser Institute showing government employees earned an average wage premium of 4.8 percent over comparable private-sector workers after accounting for factors such as education, experience and occupation.

Meanwhile, the Parliamentary Budget Officer projects the cost of the federal bureaucracy will reach $79.4 billion this year, exceeding spending levels during the final year of Justin Trudeau’s government after adjusting for inflation. Public Accounts data show the cost of the federal bureaucracy increased 80 percent between 2015 and 2024.

Despite Prime Minister Mark Carney’s pledge to “spend less” and Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne’s commitment to return the civil service to a “more sustainable level,” the Parliamentary Budget Officer projects personnel costs will continue to rise.

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Belgium Arrests Canadian NATO Intern on Charges of Spying for China

Belgian prosecutors this week announced the arrest of a Canadian intern for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) who was accused of espionage.

Media investigations soon revealed the suspect is a Chinese-born Canadian national who was allegedly spying for China.

The Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s Office said it made the arrest based on a tip from NATO security services, who warned the female suspect was spending an excessive amount of time at sensitive NATO facilities and asking too many questions.

The suspect was employed as an intern at NATO’s Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE), which is located in the city of Mons, Belgium. SHAPE handles planning and execution for all NATO operations.

“She is suspected of spying on behalf of a third country and of being a member of a criminal organization,” prosecutors said in a statement released Saturday.

The suspect’s home and workspace in SHAPE’s information technology department were raided when she was taken into custody. On Tuesday, prosecutors extended her pretrial detention by one month and the suspect immediately filed an appeal.

Canada’s CBC News on Wednesday identified the suspect as Biwei Zhang, a systems engineer who previously worked for the Canadian Space Agency and Statistics Canada. She has also used the names Claire Zhang and Catina Zhang.

CBC said Zhang’s personal and professional profiles matched the limited information provided by Belgian prosecutors, as do numerous posts she made on Facebook and LinkedIn. A group of European news outlets reached the same conclusion about her identity.

Zhang appears to be 32 or 33 years old and holds a master’s degree from the University of Ottawa, class of 2022. She reportedly worked as an economist for Statistics Canada from 2018 to 2022, then took a job as a systems engineer for the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) in May 2022. Her resume also includes work as a policy analyst for the European Space Agency (ESA) and a researcher for the World Trade Organization (WTO).

To date, there have been no details of the allegations against Zhang from Belgium, Canada, or NATO, beyond the vague description of her alarming behavior and assurances from SHAPE that her questionable activities did not interfere with operational readiness. The week since her arrest was announced has included some awkward excuses about who was supposed to vet her for a security clearance and how thorough a job they did.

The ESA told Reuters on Thursday that Zhang’s position with the agency did not require a security clearance, but she was subjected to “standard human resources screening procedures.” The WTO declined a request for comment about her work history.

NATO officials said responsibility for security clearances lay with contributing member nations, which in this case would mean Canada. Canadian Minister of Public Safety Gary Anandasangaree said on Monday that national screening procedures would be reviewed to “get to the bottom of what happened.”

According to CBC News, there was a rather large red flag in Zhang’s background: the Public Service Commission of Canada in 2023 found that she “committed fraud in an application for a position at the Canada Border Services Agency by applying under two different names and emails and failing to later clarify whether she had submitted multiple applications.”

Canada’s Globe and Mail explained that Zhang “submitted applications from two e-mail addresses, one from York University and the other from the University of Montreal and twice wrote the same standardized exams in an effort, the commission found, ‘to increase her chances of being appointed.’”

Zhang requested a judicial review of this finding in February 2024, but it was dismissed by a federal court judge.

“I think the concern level would be very high in government. Everybody wants to know what happened. There are a lot of questions to be asked,” former Canadian national security adviser Jody Thomas told the Globe and Mail.

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Justice Carl Thibault upholds Quebec’s Covid curfew despite finding it violated Charter rights

The Quebec Superior Court has dismissed an appeal challenging Quebec’s controversial COVID-19 curfew, ruling that while the unprecedented measure violated several Charter rights, those infringements were justified under the Constitution because of the pandemic.

In a decision released July 29, Justice Carl Thibault upheld a lower court ruling involving Stéphanie Pépin, who was ticketed on January 9, 2021, after police stopped her while she was driving to attend a peaceful protest against Quebec’s newly imposed nighttime curfew.

Quebec was the only province in Canada to impose a province-wide curfew during the pandemic. Residents were barred from leaving their homes between 8 p.m. and 5 a.m., with fines ranging from $1,000 to $6,000 for violations. The curfew remained in force until May 28, 2021, before being reintroduced from December 31, 2021, to January 17, 2022.

According to evidence presented in court, roughly 46,000 pandemic-related tickets were issued in Quebec between September 2020 and October 2021, including approximately 22,500 curfew tickets, representing an estimated $30 million in fines.

Justice Thibault agreed with the trial judge that the curfew infringed Ms. Pépin’s rights to liberty, freedom of expression, and freedom of peaceful assembly under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The court also acknowledged that peaceful political demonstrations held during curfew hours were effectively prohibited because they were not exempted under the regulations.

However, the court concluded those infringements were justified under Section 1 of the Charter, finding the curfew was rationally connected to the government’s objective of slowing Covid-19 transmission and protecting the healthcare system. Justice Thibault emphasized that courts should exercise restraint when reviewing emergency public health decisions made during an unprecedented crisis.

During the original 2023 trial, constitutional lawyer Olivier Séguin cross-examined Quebec’s former National Director of Public Health, Dr. Horacio Arruda, and his strategic medical adviser, Dr. Richard Massé. Both acknowledged the curfew was intended not only to reduce virus transmission but also to reinforce compliance with other public health measures and send a strong message to the public.

“The Court again recognized that Quebec’s Covid curfew infringed fundamental Charter freedoms,” Séguin said following the ruling. “The central question was whether those infringements were justified during a public health emergency.”

The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, which funded the litigation, said its lawyers are reviewing the judgment to determine whether to seek further appellate review.

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