Tasha Kheiriddin: Mélanie Joly fantasizes that Canada’s reputation is ‘very positive’

This past weekend both my daughter and I celebrated our birthdays. The teenagers staged an elaborate version of the Hunger Games in the Ontario countryside (water guns and nerf arrows, no knives), while the grownups sipped wine and tried to ignore their newsfeeds. This was a futile endeavour. Between the Wagner Group’s aborted march on Moscow, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau alighting in Iceland for a meeting of Nordic leaders, and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly talking foreign policy on CTV, the news kept intruding, to the point where Suzanne Collins’ dystopian novel seemed an apt metaphor for the current state of the world.

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Review body probing foreign interference calls on government to release more cabinet documents

One of the review bodies investigating the federal government’s approach to foreign interference says the government has provided it with only a “limited” number of cabinet confidence documents.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau agreed last month to waive cabinet confidence so that two federal agencies — the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians (NSICOP) and the National Security and Intelligence Review Agency (NSIRA) — can read the confidential documents David Johnston, the government’s former special rapporteur on foreign interference, reviewed as he produced his report on foreign interference.

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All 46 wildfires on Vancouver Island this year are human caused: Coastal Fire Centre

On Vancouver Island, there has been a higher-than-average number of wildfires, and so far all 46 have been human-caused.

“On the Island, we haven’t had any natural caused fires, all 46 have been human-caused,” said Jade Richardson, fire information officer with the Coastal Fire Centre.

For the mainland portion of the Coastal Fire Centre, there has been one natural-caused fire, and 31 human-caused as well.

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Canada’s grocery industry concentrated in too few hands, Competition Bureau says

Canada’s grocery business is controlled by large players and needs government assistance to encourage new entrants to bring down prices, a report from Canada’s Competition Bureau says.

The report, published Tuesday, is the result of a probe that Canada’s top competition watchdog launched last year, when concern over food prices hit a fever pitch.

The bureau spent months examining many aspects of Canada’s grocery business, which is dominated by three domestic giants — Loblaws, Metro and Sobey’s owner Empire — along with foreign players like Walmart and Costco.

Nothing will come of this. Canada is the land of Milk & Honey – for Oligopolies.

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David Johnston files his final report on foreign interference, but it won’t be made public

OTTAWA — David Johnston has filed his final — and confidential — report on foreign interference to the prime minister, ending his controversial term as special rapporteur.

Johnston had announced his plans to resign the role earlier this month, saying the atmosphere around his work had become too partisan.

The former governor general was appointed to the role in March, as the Liberal government faced increasing pressure to tackle allegations that China meddled in the last two federal elections.

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Trudeau Liberals block release of China info to MP and media

Justin Trudeau’s government continues to look like they are hiding something on China’s interference, refusing to answer questions from a targeted MP and from the media on who got the secret memo.

It’s part of a highly disturbing pattern that makes the Liberals look guilty.

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Shopify CEO calls CRA request for Canadian stores’ records ‘overreach’

The CEO of Shopify is vowing to fight a request from the Canada Revenue Agency asking the e-commerce company to provide it with six years’ worth of merchant records.

“I don’t particularly want a fight with the CRA (Canada’s tax authority)- but we got asked to backchannel them six years of records for all Canadian Shopify stores,” Tobi Lutke wrote on Twitter late Friday.

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‘I’ve never seen the country in a darker, more divided mood than we find it today’

Economic uncertainty, affordability challenges, and rising polarization is making it difficult for any federal party to shift their voter base far beyond their respective 2021 election results, according to some pollsters.

Frank Graves, president of EKOS Research, said polling results should be placed in the context of long-term pessimism about economic conditions, rising distrust of institutions, and disinformation.

“I’ve never seen the country in a darker, more divided mood than we find it today,” he said.

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When Intel Services Go Public, You Know It’s Serious

I don’t know how many times I have heard Canadians say that CSIS stands for the “Canadian Secret Intelligence Service.” It does not. The first “s” stand for “security,” and a security intelligence service is different than a foreign intelligence one, although in some countries the mandates overlap (think CIA). Similarly, many are convinced that CSE is short for “Canadian Security Establishment.” Again, wrong. The “c” stands for communications and is a hint into what this agency does – it collects signals intelligence, a.k.a. SIGINT, and helps to keep our communications secure.

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Killing of Sikh Leader Raises Fears in British Columbia

Members of the Sikh community in Surrey believe that Hardeep Singh Nijjar, the president of a local temple, was killed because of his political views.

On Sunday, after riddling a car with bullets in a parking lot, two masked, heavyset men made a run for it and jumped into a getaway vehicle near a Sikh temple in Surrey, British Columbia, the police said.

The victim, Hardeep Singh Nijjar, 45, was a prominent Sikh community leader and president of the Guru Nanak Sikh Gurdwara, a temple where he was shot. He advocated the creation of Khalistan, an independent Sikh nation carved out of areas including the Indian state of Punjab.

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Joly wants to increase Canada’s impact on the world stage

Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly says Canada needs to bolster its influence on the world stage, especially in the face of a shifting global context, with the war in Ukraine, and a complex relationship with China.

Joly told CTV’s Question Period host Vassy Kapelos, in a wide-ranging interview airing Sunday, she’s working domestically to make sure Canada’s diplomats “are well tooled to do their job,” while also focusing on key issues abroad, namely when it comes to Ukraine, the Indo-Pacific region, and the Arctic.

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Hundreds Offered Money, Bus Ride to Join Parliament Hill Protest Against Foreign Agent Registry

Hundreds in Toronto’s Chinese community are being offered money and a free bus ride to Ottawa to join a protest on Parliament Hill “to protect our legal rights and interests.” While the event is advertised as marking the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Exclusion Act, some organizers have talked about the issue as part of a larger movement to oppose measures such as the proposed foreign agent registry act.

According to one of the organizers, about 28 buses will be transporting protesters from the Toronto area to the nation’s capital on Saturday, June 24, in the morning, and organizers are offering each participant a $15 “lunch subsidy” in the form of a Walmart gift card, The Epoch Times has learned.

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The don’t make the Mohammedan kids upset policy

Ontario school board’s anti-Islamophobia strategy questioned after Muslim student singled out

An Ontario father is questioning the legitimacy of a school board’s anti-Islamophobia strategy months after his son was singled out by a teacher during a lesson that featured racist cartoons.

During the January class, the high school teacher in Peel Region, which includes the Toronto-area cities of Mississauga and Brampton, showed two caricatures from the controversial French magazine Charlie Hebdo to international baccalaureate students as part of a module on censorship.

Without addressing the stereotypical nature of the cartoons — which targeted Muslim, Jewish and Black communities — the teacher discussed the 2015 Charlie Hebdo massacre in which the magazine’s offices were attacked by two Al-Qaeda-linked members who killed 12 people.

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ChiCom Asset Sen. Victor Oh says Chinese Canadians need to fundraise to sue ‘messy reporters’

OTTAWA – A Canadian senator said he wants Chinese Canadians to set up a national foundation that would focus on raising money to fund lawsuits against “messy reporters” and politicians who “try to smear” the community.

A video of Conservative Sen. Victor Oh making the remarks was uploaded to the social media platform WeChat on June 5, showing him addressing a group at what was described as the Montreal Chinese Community United Centre.

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