Two years after Kabul’s fall, Ottawa considering expansion of Afghan carpenter immigration program

Afghan Coffin Makers

Following months of pressure from refugee advocacy groups and opposition parties, the federal government says it is thinking about increasing the number of Afghans it can bring to Canada.

“It’s safe to say publicly that we will show some flexibility,” said Immigration Minister Marc Miller, referring to the goal the Liberal Party set during the last federal election campaign of bringing 40,000 Afghan refugees to Canada.

“There is some uncertainty in the number of people obviously that assisted Canada and clearly what their family members, who their family members are, and the level of risk that those people face in that country. And it’s not like Canada will hit a number and walk away from the table.”

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Colby Cosh: Nonsense for Trudeau to open immigration, but not the economy

This week, the Wall Street Journal, a strong candidate for “best newspaper in the English-speaking world,” became the latest news outlet to lift a questioning eyebrow at Canadian immigration policy. WSJ’s superb Ottawa reporter Paul Vieira gestures, for the benefit of his paper’s international audience, at facts most of our readers already know well. Inflexible, highly regulated parts of the economy like housing, medicine and transport are screaming under the burden of immigration levels with few precedents anywhere — levels the Liberal government has done nothing but increase.

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Trudeau government lying about 2 billion tree pledge, environmental watchdog says

Ottawa using ‘creative accounting’ on its 2 billion tree pledge, environmental watchdog says

Canada’s environmental watchdog says Ottawa is using “creative accounting” to support the claim that its program to plant two billion trees is exceeding targets.

Commissioner of Environmental and Sustainable Development Jerry DeMarco told CBC News that Natural Resources Canada (NRCAN) is using trees planted under a different program — and a different department — to boost its numbers.

“It’s creative accounting,” DeMarco told CBC. “It’s certainly within their prerogative to do that.

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A strangely torpid summer for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals

In 2020, while Justin Trudeau was on vacation, a new message was trickled out by his entourage. The PM wanted a new post-pandemic ambition. It was whispered that his then-finance minister, Bill Morneau, might have to go. Soon, that ruthless personnel change was made. Parliament was prorogued for a throne speech, to symbolize a reset.

That Justin Trudeau was a prime minister in a hurry. Too much so, as it turned out, because the COVID-19 pandemic wasn’t over, and the big plans were delayed. Still, his new Finance Minister, Chrystia Freeland, delivered a big-spending “build-back-better” budget the following spring that included national child care and large sums for green-tech incentives.

With luck the Libs will just wither and die.

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When it comes to immigration levels, temporary permits are the elephant in the room

With pressure mounting to rethink Canada’s immigration policies, it’s no surprise to see a new minister, Marc Miller, take charge of the portfolio. Over recent months, we have seen an increasing number of articles, studies and reports warning that the rapid rise in population is stretching housing and health services and that the current immigration levels might be too high. More voices are calling for a course correction or restoring balance in Canada’s immigration policy.

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Blamed for affordability crisis, Liberals promise to do more of nothing of any use

Blamed for affordability crisis, Liberals look to pivot on housing

OTTAWA – Chris Burke and his fiancée have been less than a year away from buying their first home for the past three years.

Saving for a down payment was the first challenge. Now, rising interest rates have kicked home ownership down the road again, stalling the couple’s plans to get married and have children.

“Any gains we make towards purchasing a house, we’re watching the goalposts move further and further away,” the 31-year-old Ottawa resident said.

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Canada Tests the Limits of Its Liberal Immigration Strategy

The intake of newcomers is rising rapidly and straining housing, healthcare and transportation

Canada is known for its embrace of immigrants and hasn’t experienced the same backlash that has been seen recently in countries such as the U.S. and the Netherlands. But new polling released last month from Ottawa-based Abacus Data reflects skepticism, with 61% of citizens saying the government’s plans are too ambitious because of the negative impact on housing and healthcare. The Canadian Medical Association said the country’s population-to-physician ratio ranks 29th out of 36 developed-world economies, while data from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development show Canada’s hospital-bed capacity is one of the lowest on a per-capita basis among rich-world economies.


Canada is known for its embrace of immigrants?

Submission to mass immigration is more like it.  Romanticized views of immigration in Canada are the domain of politicians selling snake oil nowadays.

No one signed on for an inundation of incompatible cultures or to have their own government dismiss their heritage and nation as so much racist garbage.

Multiculturalism was weaponized and the smear of racism was used as a bludgeon to smash dissent and ensure Canadians clapped like trained seals in approval whenever the topic of immigration was raised.

Ethnic disaporas possessed of little in common with Canadian values are catered to by our political class who tolerate the intolerable for votes.

Who asked that hiring decisions be made on the basis of government ordained victim status?

Who asked that being white be considered a virtual hate crime and Canada be turned into a low trust society?

Who asked for “racialized sentencing guidelines” for criminals as if the average Joe who just wants to be left alone is somehow responsible for the alleged historic oppression of predators?

No one asked for a balkanized society where foreign ethnic conflicts spill out into our streets.

Who asked for an immigration policy that does not benefit citizens?

No one asked because it was imposed upon us and its true purpose is to benefit the corporate and political classes at our expense. 

No one asked because divide and conquer works best when its victims are forbidden to talk about it until it’s too late.

This so called “embrace of immigration” is better described as a choke hold.

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‘Agricultural disasters’ spread in Alberta, but local leaders say Ottawa’s ignoring requests for help

OTTAWA – Droughts in the West have so far prompted at least 13 districts in Alberta to declare agricultural disasters, but appeals to the federal Liberal government for assistance to the province’s farmers, livestock producers and ranchers are being ignored say local leaders.

On Wednesday, the Municipal District (MD) of Pincher Creek, tucked into the southwest corner of Alberta between the Crowsnest Pass and Fort Macleod, became the latest jurisdiction to declare a state of agricultural disaster.

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Canadian Muslim accuses Trudeau gov’t of having him suspended from X for protesting LGBT ideology

A Canadian Muslim planning a major protest against the LGBT agenda is claiming that the federal government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had him suspended from X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.

Hmmm … while it likely pleases the LPC I am not sure they are that stupid.

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Why didn’t the West condemn Trudeau for debanking his citizens?

The outrage at the Coutts/NatWest debanking scandal in the United Kingdom does not align with the complete disinterest in Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s debanking of an entire political caste.

It was entirely appropriate for people to express their horror upon discovering banks were routinely passing moral judgment on the politics of their customers. It was correct for the British government to panic and swear to fix the problem (even though they low-key endorsed ESG practices for years). If restrictions are placed on banks in the future, especially relating to their licences, this will mark progress in the protection of citizen rights.

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Justin Trudeau is under fire for Ottawa’s lacklustre response to the housing crisis. Here is what’s going so wrong

Sure, it’s advertised at more than $82 billion in loans and cash. But the federal government’s national housing plan is little help to Pastor Alexander Wilson.

He and his dwindling congregation at St. Stephen’s Presbyterian Church in Scarborough want to raze their long-standing site of worship and build an apartment complex in its place. It wasn’t an easy decision, but Wilson said some in his flock have turned their minds to what they might leave behind “once they’re finished here on Earth.” Their latest plan is for 111 units, with about a third of them offering rents below market rates. They also hope future residents might join them in a new church space on the main floor.

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Trudeau’s ‘free-range’ approach to criminals has sentenced our cities to lawlessness

The recent cabinet shuffle should have been an opportunity for the Liberals to reset their priorities and take action on issues affecting the lives of Canadians — notably crime. Unfortunately, in the same breath as our new justice minister, Arif Virani, pledged to address the growing sense of insecurity among Canadians, he downplayed the problem, saying it’s “unlikely” that crime is becoming a bigger problem than it used to be.

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GUNTER: Passing judgment on Trudeau’s vow to be ‘above partisanship’

It’s no shock an eight-month investigation by the National Post and the Investigative Journalism Foundation (IJF) uncovered that, of the 1,308 judicial and tribunal appointments made by the Trudeau government since 2016, “an overwhelming majority — 76.3% — of appointees had previously made political donations had given to the Liberal Party of Canada.”

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Months After Closure of Quebec’s Roxham Road, More Asylum Seekers Arriving by Air

The closure of a rural southern Quebec road used by thousands of asylum seekers to enter Canada from the United States hasn’t stopped would-be refugees from arriving, federal data shows.

The number of people claiming asylum in Canada dropped sharply after the end of March, when the government negotiated a deal with the United States to turn away asylum seekers at unofficial border crossings like Quebec’s Roxham Road. However, the numbers have been climbing back up in recent months, propelled by an increase in arrivals at Ontario and Quebec airports.

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GOLDSTEIN: While our carbon taxes increase, so do global emissions

Every time the Trudeau government levies a new charge on Canadians to pay for greenhouse gas emissions, it’s useful to keep in mind that global energy-related emissions rose to their highest level in human history last year.

As reported by the International Energy Agency, at 36.8 billion tonnes, global emissions in 2022 were 0.9% or 321 million tonnes higher than in 2021, when emissions totalled 36.5 billion tonnes.

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