September 28, 2022 - "A Calgary man has filed a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission over the federal government's decision to lift mask requirements on airplanes. The decision, announced Monday, is part of a bundle of changes that come into effect Oct. 1. At that point, travellers will also no longer be required to wear masks on trains, provide proof of vaccination or submit public health information with the ArriveCan app.
David Keegan - CBC pnoto
"'I was frankly dismayed when I heard the news,' said Dr. David Keegan, a family doctor who has a cardiopulmonary condition. Keegan said that while airplanes do have filtration systems, they don't completely eliminate the risk of COVID-19 transmission, especially if people are unmasked.
"He noted people travel for many reasons (he flew to Toronto earlier this year for surgery) and the government has a duty to accommodate those who have disabilities. 'Lifting the mask mandate creates 'an environment that is unwelcoming and unaccommodating to people with compromised immune systems, cardiopulmonary conditions, and so on,' he said. 'So I'm expecting and anticipating that the government will realize the error in this decision and keep the mask mandate in place,' he said.
"In a release issued Monday, the government said it still strongly recommends people wear high-quality, well-fitting masks while travelling.
"Lorian Hardcastle, an associate professor in the faculties of law and medicine at the University of Calgary, sees Keegan's complaint as part of a broader trend. Earlier in the pandemic, most litigation around public health measures argued that these measures were too strict. But Hardcastle said that's started to change. '"Since the spring, we're starting to see cases arguing the opposite — where people are saying that public health measures aren't strict enough,' said Hardcastle.
"She pointed to a recent case involving parents of immunocompromised children who've argued that the removal of mask mandates in Alberta schools infringed on their children's charter rights. Hardcastle said human rights law generally requires that service providers — whether they be landlords, shops or airlines — offer their services in a way that doesn't discriminate against people with disabilities. That means they have to provide reasonable accommodations up to a point of 'undue hardship'.... What remains to be seen, she said, is where courts and tribunals decide to draw that line....
"As for Keegan, he said the human rights commission has acknowledged receipt of his complaint, and he is awaiting next steps."
September 27, 2022 - "At long last, all of the federal government’s remaining pandemic travel restrictions will expire on Oct. 1. The feds will ditch the problem-plagued ArriveCan app, testing and quarantine requirements for those entering Canada, as well as mask mandates on trains and planes.... The expiration of federal travel mandates may not be purely accidental....[
"[A]n important legal challenge to the travel mandate has been working its way through the court system. The challenge [was] brought by Shaun Rickard and Karl Harrison, two British-born Canadian entrepreneurs, and is being litigated in the Federal Court by Toronto-based attorney Sam Presvelos. Since the federal government removed the vaccine mandates for foreign and domestic airline travel over the summer, the attorney general filed a 'mootness motion' against the civil lawsuit brought by Rickard and Harrison. In layman’s language, the government is arguing that, since most of the onerous parts of the mandates have been lifted, the lawsuit challenging them is now moot and should be dismissed.
"On Sept. 21, the Federal Court of Canada, under Judge Jocelyne Gagné, began hearing submissions from Presvelos and lawyers representing the attorney general, which I attended via Zoom. In making the case that the suit should be dismissed, Robert Drummond, counsel for the attorney general, argued: 'I think it’s fair to say that (there is) no evidence that such travel measures are returning. The statements made by ministers are political statements and press releases, not legal statements.'
"In other words, the government’s lawyers made the extraordinary argument that what politicians say should be ignored, since such statements have no legal force. Pushing back, Presvelos argued: 'My friend (the attorney general) would like this court to believe that media statements don’t matter. They are not legal statements. (I’m) not sure what type of democracy we exist in if we cannot trust the truthfulness of statements being made by government ministers.'
"What’s at stake here are not just legal niceties in a civil proceeding brought by two individuals against the government, but serious issues that concern the status of charter-protected rights in Canada, and how we should understand statements on policy made by the politicians who govern us. As for the COVID mandates, the issue is not merely theoretical or academic, as none less than Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has broadly hinted, as recently as Tuesday, in his announcement that the remaining travel mandates were to be lifted, that fresh measures may be in the works in the event that we see a resurgence of COVID. The notion that such pronouncements, by the country’s prime minister and key members of his cabinet, may just be ignored, because they don’t in and of themselves carry legal force, is preposterous and bizarre, to say the least....
"If the Federal Court agrees with the government that the case is moot, because the most onerous part of the mandates have been suspended, it would effectively legitimize the practice of restricting constitutionally protected rights, so long as the restrictions are removed before the courts have a chance to hold the government accountable.... It would allow the government to get away with anything, so long as it does so fast enough to avoid legal scrutiny.... As Presvelos noted to the court, such skirting around judicial oversight 'incentivizes the government to take risky and constitutionally dubious measures knowing that as long as the revoke them before a hearing they can effectively act with impunity.' Indeed, let’s not forget that the Trudeau government used a version of this tactic already, when it withdraw the use of the Emergencies Act just before it came up for debate in the Senate....
"More specifically, on the federal vaccine mandates for travel, the government’s heavy-handed approach created a conflict between two fundamental individual rights — the mobility rights of Canadians and their right to bodily autonomy. On the one hand, if you wanted to travel, you had to cede your bodily autonomy over whether to take the COVID-19 vaccine. If you asserted your bodily autonomy by not taking the vaccine, you gave up your right to mobility.... A dismissal of the Rickard-Harrison case on grounds of mootness will mean that there will be no judicial scrutiny or accountability on this fundamental dilemma, which, on the face of it, appears to breach Canadians’ charter rights.
"For example, the Federal Court could rule that it’s a breach of charter rights for the federal government to force Canadians to choose between bodily autonomy and mobility, making any future mandates exceptionally difficult to enact. Likewise, if it ruled that the federal government acted legally, it would hopefully provide some clarity on how far the government is able to go with such measures. In either case, an appeal to the Supreme Court would be likely, and the matter would get resolved, one way or another. None of this is possible if the government gets its way and the case is declared moot."
September 27, 2022 - "Protests have spread across in Iran since the death on 16 September of Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old woman who was detained by the morality police in the capital three days earlier for allegedly breaking strict hijab (headscarf) rules. Police maintain that she collapsed at a detention centre after suffering a heart attack, but her family allege that officers beat her head with a baton and banged her head against one of their vehicles.
"The protests sparked by her death, led mainly by women, began with demands to end the mandatory hijab laws. But they have now turned into nationwide demonstrations against Iran's leaders and the entire clerical establishment. Despite widespread internet disruption, videos of protesters being arrested by the Iranian security forces have continued to be published on social media.... The BBC has seen videos in which commanders are seen ordering riot police officers to 'not pity the protesters and shoot them'. Other videos verified by the BBC appear to show security forces shooting live ammunition at protesters....
"According to the state media, more than 40 people have been killed during the unrest. Human rights groups have reported a higher death toll. The overall number of people who have been arrested has not been shared by the authorities. However, the chief prosecutor of Mazandaran, a province north of Tehran, said at least 450 protesters had been detained there alone. Human rights groups say thousands of protestors are being detained.... President Ebrahim Raisi has pledged to 'deal decisively' with the protests, which have now spread to most of Iran's 31 provinces....
"Women have been at the forefront of the protests, with many removing their headscarves or burning them.... Many are being held in small police stations and IRGC facilities, many of which are unknown to the public. 'We were moved to a small police station. They were not ready to receive so many people,' Maryam told the BBC. 'They put at least 60 women, including me, in a small room. We were standing next to each other and couldn't sit or move. They said we could not use the bathroom, and that if we got hungry we could eat our stools. After almost a day, when we shouted and protested inside the room, they started threatening us that if we didn't keep quiet, they would rape us.'" Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-63047372
September 28, 2022 - "Guidance Patrol (Persian: گشت ارشاد, romanized: gašt-e eršād), widely known [as] the morality police, is a vice squad/Islamic religious police in the Law Enforcement Force of the Islamic Republic of Iran, established in 2005 with the task of arresting people who violate the Islamic dress code, usually concerning the wearing by women of hijabs covering their hair. Since the 1979 Iranian Islamic Revolution, Iranian law has required all women in Iran to wear hijabs that cover their head and neck, and conceal their hair. In the 1980s, the Islamic Revolution Committees served the function of the Islamic religious police in Iran. In 2005, the Guidance Patrol became its successor organization. The Guidance Patrol reports to the Supreme Leader of Iran Ayatollah Ali Khamenei....
"According to Iran's Interior Minister, in a three-month period in 2014, 220,000 women were taken to police stations and signed statements there promising to wear hijabs, 19,000 were given hair-covering notices, and 9,000 were detained. In 2014, the police additionally gave warnings and guidance to 3.6 million other Iranians who failed to follow the Islamic dress code. In 2015, in an eight-month period police in Tehran stopped 40,000 women driving in Tehran for not obeying Islamic rules of proper dress, and impounded the cars of most of them, generally for a week. In 2016, Tehran used 7,000 undercover Guidance Patrol officers to catch violators of the Islamic dress code. The Guidance Patrol has also harassed trans women for lack of gender conformity.... Iran also banned the use of makeup by women....
"The Guidance Patrols usually consist of a van with a male crew accompanied by chador-clad females who stand at busy public places (e.g., shopping centers, squares, and subway stations), to arrest women not wearing hijabs or not wearing them in accordance with government standards.... The United Nations Human Rights Office said young Iranian women were violently slapped in the face, beaten with batons, and pushed into police vans. The women are driven to a correctional facility or police station, lectured on how to dress, have their photos taken by the police and personal information recorded, required to destroy any 'bad' clothing with scissors, and generally released to relatives the same day though many are detained. Under Article 683 of Iran's Islamic Penal Code, the penalty for a woman not wearing the hijab consists of imprisonment from 10 days to two months, and a fine of 50,000 to 500,000 Iranian rials. Violators may also be lashed....
"The Guidance Patrol also monitors immodest attire by men, 'Western-style' haircuts worn by men, male-female fraternization, violations of restrictions on the wearing of makeup, and the wearing of bright colors, tight clothing, torn jeans, and short trousers. Violations include too much hair showing from under a headscarf, and a boyfriend and girlfriend taking a walk together. Members of the public may turn one another in for perceived violations of the dress code, and traffic cameras are also used to identify violators of the dress code. Iran's entire CCTV cameras, including from cafes, universities, and kindergartens, transmit their footage to the police....
"On September 16, 2022, the Guidance Patrol arrested Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Iranian woman, for allegedly wearing her hijab improperly, in a manner that allowed some of her hair to be visible under her hijab. She died in their custody; they claimed she suffered heart failure, and consequently died comatose two days later. Bruises on her legs and face suggested to many that she was beaten, despite police denials. Multiple medical officials and detainees that witness her arrest claim that Guidance Patrol officials tortured her in the back of a van before arriving to the station. Her arrest and death inspired a wave of protests in Iran, including at Tehran University and at Kasra Hospital, where she died." [Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0] Read more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guidance_Patrol
September 16, 2022 - "An Ottawa police officer has been charged with misconduct for allegedly donating money to the Freedom Convoy occupation last February. Const. Kristina Neilson made her first disciplinary appearance on Thursday morning to face a single count of discreditable conduct under the Police Services Act.
"Professional standards investigators — detectives who investigate officer misconduct internally — allege Neilson discredited the service's reputation 'by donating money to the "Freedom Convoy Fund" on a website called GiveSendGo." Police further allege that she 'knew, or reasonably ought to have known, that the money was being raised for the illegal occupation known as the "Freedom Convoy" which took place in the City of Ottawa during the months of January and February 2022.
"According to the notice of hearing, which lays out the charges against her, Neilson allegedly made a donation on Feb. 5, which was three days after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the occupation was 'becoming illegal' and the day before the city declared a state of emergency.
"According to sources with knowledge of the investigation, and to a leaked list of donors, Neilson allegedly made a $50 donation in her son's name.... A CBC analysis of the [leaked] GiveSendGo donor data found that at least two dozen names of current and former members of the Ottawa Police Service and Ontario Provincial Police matched the names of people who had donated to the cause.
September 17, 2022 - "The Freedom Convoy began its fundraising effort on GoFundMe, raising millions of dollars before being shut down at the behest of the Ontario government. The convoy organizers opened another fundraising campaign on the American fundraising website GiveSendGo, raising millions more....
"Neilson allegedly donated to the 'Freedom Convoy Fund' on GiveSendGo on February 5th. At the time ... the Freedom Convoy was entering the second week of rolling protests at Parliament Hill, with convoy organizers co-operating with an Ontario Provincial Police liaison on a daily basis. Neilson’s donation was made before an Ontario judge placed a nationwide ban on Freedom Convoy funds from GiveSendGo and before the Trudeau government invoked the Emergencies Act to stop the truckers.
"OPS [Ottawa Police Services] interim police chief made clear in March that there is no place in the force for officers who have donated to the Freedom Convoy and that officers who did donate to the convoy were being investigated. 'We need to deal with the people who supported it, because there’s no room for them,' said Bell in a March comment.
"After the list of donors who contributed to the Freedom Convoy’s crowdfunding page was illegally leaked via a hack, CBC journalists doxxed Canadians by identifying several officers who contributed to the GiveSendGo page. In total, six Ottawa officers were identified, with Nielson being one of them." Read more: https://tnc.news/2022/09/17/ottawa-police-convoy/
On Feb. 14, 2022, the RCMP arrested 14 Freedom Convoy protesters in Coutts, AB, charging 4 with conspiracy to murder police - which the Trudeau government used to justify invoking the Emergencies Act that day. But some who know the men aren't buying the official narrative.
September 24, 2022 - ""So pervasive is the belief here that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is a dictator-in-the-making that ... many residents of the village, Coutts, Alberta, think the biggest event that occurred here in recent memory — when the police raided a local home in February and revealed a frightening cache of weapons — was a hoax perpetrated by the police to silence an antigovernment protest.... 'It may have been a conspiracy,' said Bill Emerson, who for four decades has lived across the street from the home the police raided....
"The police raid came during the time of Canada’s Freedom Convoy, which began as a movement by truckers to challenge a government vaccination mandate but spread to include a wide array of antigovernment grievances. The stark contrast between the mainstream account of what happened — the police disarming a small group of protesters with violent intentions — and the conspiracy-fueled one — a government attempt to demonize the protesters — reflects a burgeoning polarization of Canadian society....
"The Freedom Convoy movement — that aimed at one point to replace the federal government with a ruling committee including protesters, [not true - gd] and which Mr. Trudeau dismissed as a 'fringe minority' with 'unacceptable views' — is hardly a fringe. Months later, it garners the support of one in four Canadians, according to a recent poll, and some of its beliefs have entered mainstream politics. 'We have crossed a Rubicon, and there ain’t no going back,' said Evan Balgord, executive director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network. 'Canada hasn’t faced something like this, especially not in a long time. How do we deal with a movement that wants to dismantle democracy?'
"Coutts is a small border village 185 miles southeast of Calgary.... Before last winter, the village’s faint claim to fame was a mention by President Obama of its baseball fields, which nose right up against the international border.... Then, one frigid day last winter, hundreds of tractor-trailers and trucks rumbled down the highway to the village’s edge and stopped, blocking all lanes leading to the normally busy border crossing. They were a splinter group of the Freedom Convoy.... In Coutts, the village’s only bar, shuttered by the pandemic [restrictions - gd], was reopened to be their headquarters.
"All the while, scores of provincial police, members of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, kept watch. Over 17 days, 552 officers were assigned to the village of just 224, according to the mayor. On the fourteenth evening of protest, when a local church was holding a Sunday service in the bar, the police arrived in full military gear, wielding automatic weapons, and arrested two men in the crowd. Later that night, they executed a search warrant on a house, where a local woman was hosting many protesters. Over a few hours, the police arrested 14 people. Most were charged with mischief over 5,000 Canadian dollars, or about $3,700, and possession of a weapon for a dangerous purpose. But four men face a far more serious charge — conspiracy to commit murder, which carries a potential life-in-prison sentence.
"Undercover officers witnessed the set up of what they believed to be a delivery of guns to Coutts, search warrants reveal.... A photo of the cache of weapons [police] seized included rifles, handguns, high capacity magazines, ammunition and bullet proof vests. All four of the men charged with conspiracy to commit murder are middle-aged, blue collar workers from Southern Alberta. A day before the police raid, one of them, Jerry Morin, recorded a video on Facebook, calling his friends to Coutts to help 'hold the line.' 'There’s no excuses,' said Mr. Morin, a 40-year-old who installs and repairs electrical lines. 'This is war'....
"The day of the raid, [the Trudeau] government passed a sweeping emergency bill, granting police wide powers to arrest protesters, and instructing banks to freeze accounts linked to the convoy. Federal Public Safety Minister Marco Mendicino pointed to Coutts as part of the justification....
"Marco Van Huigenbos, the main leader of the Coutts protest, is so convinced that at least two of the four men are not guilty, he is subsidizing their families with 10,000 Canadian dollars a month. The money is from leftover funds raised in Coutts.... 'They are using these guys to send a message,' said Mr. Huigenbos, a town councilor and business owner from nearby Fort Macleod, who himself was recently charged with mischief over 5,000 Canadian dollars. 'There is political influence here.'"
September 7, 2022 - "In 2015 Canada's Supreme Court struck down bans on medically assisted suicide as a violation of citizens' liberty, writing that 'An individual's response to a grievous and irremediable medical condition is a matter critical to their dignity and autonomy. The prohibition denies people in this situation the right to make decisions concerning their bodily integrity and medical care and thus trenches on their liberty. And by leaving them to endure intolerable suffering, it impinges on their security of the person'.... [T]he judges note that a ban on physician-assisted suicide 'is rationally connected to the goal of protecting the vulnerable from taking their life in times of weakness' but that such protections don't justify a full blanket prohibition on the practice. And so, the court ordered Canada to draft new legislation permitting euthanasia and assisted suicide. The Medical Assistance in Dying (MAID) law was implemented in 2016.
"Unfortunately, the philosophical argument for the right to die can also end up colliding with troubling decisions in a country where the government funds and controls access to healthcare. That is reportedly happening in Canada.... According to the Associated Press, hospitals are raising the possibility of assisted suicide with patients who hadn't asked about it. These conversations are not motivated by quality of life but health care costs. The A.P. notes that Belgium and the Australian state of Victoria, which allow physician-assisted suicide, tell medical professionals not to bring up euthanasia so that it's not seen as medical advice.... This is not the case in Canada, where health care workers are trained to inform patients that they can choose euthanasia if they have a qualifying condition....
Roger Foley, who has a degenerative brain disorder and is hospitalized in London, Ontario, was so alarmed by staffers mentioning euthanasia that he began secretly recording some of their conversations. In one recording obtained by the AP, the hospital's director of ethics told Foley that for him to remain in the hospital, it would cost 'north of $1,500 a day.' Foley replied that mentioning fees felt like coercion and asked what plan there was for his long-term care. 'Roger, this is not my show,' the ethicist responded. 'My piece of this was to talk to you, (to see) if you had an interest in assisted dying.' Foley said he had never previously mentioned euthanasia....
"That Canada's health care system is primarily publicly funded and also has very long wait times for certain types of medical care has naturally raised questions about whether health officials are looking out for patients or what's best for the service providers and government.... Over the weekend, [a] 2017 report on CBC about 'potential savings from assisted suicide was making the rounds on Twitter. The ... report by the Canadian Medical Association Journal ... calculated that implementing assisted suicide programs would cost $1.5 million to $14.8 million but could reduce annual healthcare spending by between $34 million to $136.8 million. The report itself wasn't suggesting physicians encourage suicide....
"Tristin Hopper at the National Post notes that there are already several horror stories suggesting people are being pressured to die and that there are questions about whether health officials are making sure patients are of sound mind:
Last June, the Medical Assistance in Dying Committee heard from Trish Nichols, whose suicidal and severely mentally ill brother Alan was given assisted death at a Chilliwack, B.C., hospital in 2019, at a time when MAID was still limited only to Canadians with a terminal illness. Alan had been taken by his family to the hospital only days before to recover from a psychiatric episode, and in the minutes before he received a lethal injection, Trish described Alan screaming uncontrollably, despite the hospital's assurances that he had opted for a medically assisted death while 'of sound mind'....
"The lesson here should not be that assisted suicide is bad, but heavy government involvement in health care decisions has an inescapable distorting influence..... A survey from 2016 found that Canadians wait longer to access health care services than citizens in 11 other countries.... A 2020 study from the Canadian Family Physician journal notes that the country simply provides less freedom and opportunity for people seeking medical care than other countries, even when healthcare is centrally planned:
What these countries do differently than Canada is they allow the private sector to provide core health care insurance and services, require patients to share in the cost of treatment, and fund hospitals based on activity (rather than the global budgets that are the norm in Canada).
"In absence of significant 'freedom' to pursue individualized health care options, Canada is now potentially violating citizens' rights in the exact opposite direction than it was before. People have the right to die but also the right to continue living in the face of medical adversity. That Canada's publicly-operated health care system is unable to efficiently meet the needs of citizens makes all these health worker interactions about euthanasia inherently suspect."
With two weeks left in the Quebec election, premier Francois Legault has turned his fire on Conservative leader Eric Duhaime, calling him an "agitator" and equating him with Donald Trump.
September 23, 2022 - "Coalition Avenir Québec Leader François Legault went on the offensive Friday, comparing rival Éric Duhaime to former United States president Donald Trump and saying the Conservative leader’s stance on COVID-19 restrictions is disqualifying. It is understandable that Quebecers were frustrated with COVID-19 health orders, but party leaders have to be responsible, Legault told reporters in Laval, Que., north of Montreal.
"Duhaime is an 'agitator' who is “profiting from the distress of certain people to win votes,” Legault said, before comparing the Conservative leader to the former president. The Conservatives have channelled the public’s anger toward COVID-19 restrictions — such as the five-month-long curfew — and as a result have significantly risen in the polls over the past two years. 'He even reminds me of someone in the south (who) also denied the reality, denied the numbers,' Legault said, without directly mentioning Trump’s name.
"It was the second day in a row that Legault described Duhaime’s position on COVID-19 rules as 'disqualifying.' The incumbent premier made the same attack to reporters following a leaders debate Thursday evening.
"Duhaime responded to Legault Friday, saying the CAQ leader is “panicking” after the debate. 'He was obviously not happy with his performance and I can understand,' the Conservative leader said. 'It was a … very difficult debate for Mr. Legault; it was very poorly handled. He did a very poor job of defending his government’s record, particularly on the mental health of children, and he is looking for a scapegoat.
"Duhaime denied that he’s an agitator and said Quebecers deserve to hear ideas that differ from the premier’s. 'I know he’s a man who tolerates very little criticism and different ideas; it’s been two years that he’s had a lot of power in his hands and clearly he doesn’t appreciate the democratic aspect of an election campaign, which is there to debate these issues,' Duhaime said.
"Duhaime said that while Quebec had the 'most radical' COVID-19 restrictions in the country, the province is 'far from having the best record' when it comes to the number of deaths attributed to COVID-19 per 100,000 people. Had he been in power, the government would have protected the most vulnerable and allowed the rest of the public to follow advice from health officials, Duhaime said.
"Legault has said he believes excess mortality — the number of deaths over a certain period that exceed what would be expected compared with previous years — is a better measure of the pandemic’s impact than COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 people. A 2021 report published by the Royal Society of Canada argued that Quebec came closer than any other province to capturing the true death toll of COVID-19, in part because it tested more people for the disease after death than any other province except Manitoba.
"'I think Éric Duhaime is smart enough to see, like the rest of us, that the data on excess mortality is clear: there were fewer deaths in Quebec because we had more measures and he knows it,' Legault said Friday....
"Earlier on Friday, Parti Québécois Leader Paul St-Pierre Plamondon said he was pausing his campaign after developing flu-like symptoms. St-Pierre Plamondon said on Twitter he has tested negative for COVID-19 twice but would isolate as a precaution."
September 7, 2022 - "The Public Order Emergency Commission (also known at the Rouleau Commission) is now accepting comments from members of the public on their experiences, views, observations, and ideas about the federal government’s response to the Freedom Convoy and use of the Emergencies Act. These public comments will be reviewed by the Commission in order for the Commission to carry out its mandate and fully appreciate how the federal government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act affected Canadians.
"The CCF is encouraging its supporters and all members of the public to submit comments to the Commission. Check out theccf.ca for advice on style/substance and for info on how to submit your comment."
According to the CCF video, comments can be submitted until October 31. Since the video was made, the beginning of the inquiry has been delayed; it is now scheduled to begin on October 13. - gd
PayPal UK has demonetized the accounts of the Free Speech Union, its founder Toby Young, and his news site The Daily Sceptic - just three of a number of similar actions the service has taken this year.
September 21, 2022 - "If you’re a regular donor to the Daily Sceptic and got an email from me in the small hours of the morning telling you that PayPal had closed our account and urging you to set up a new donation with a link to our donate page, don’t panic. It wasn’t a scam. PayPal really has shut down our account and the email really was from me. I’ll tell you the full story in a moment, but just to be clear – this won’t affect the majority of people making regular donations, just those whose donations are processed by PayPal....
"The first I heard about this was on Thursday afternoon last week when I received a notification from my personal PayPal account informing me that it was being shut down because I’d violated the company’s ‘Acceptable Use Policy’. I looked at that policy and it covers things like fraud and money laundering so my first thought was it must be a mistake. Then, a few minutes later, I got another notification, this one from the Daily Sceptic’s PayPal account. That, too, had been shut down and for the same reason.... Then, another email, this one from the Free Speech Union’s PayPal account. Same story – the Acceptable Use Policy. Now call me a cynic, but the chances of all three accounts violating the same policy within minutes of one another struck me as a bit implausible....
"I contacted customer services and asked what I’d done, exactly, on my personal account that ran afoul of PayPal’s Acceptable Use Policy. I’ve had it since 2013 and use it, at most, four times a year, usually to receive money from a Swiss weekly magazine I occasionally write for. The person I spoke to said she had no idea, but if I wanted I could 'escalate' the matter and someone higher up the food chain would get back to me. I did that, obviously, and a couple of days later received a notification that my appeal has been unsuccessful. No explanation offered beyond the original one. Oh, and by the way, it would be keeping the money in that account for up to 180 days while it decided whether it was entitled to 'damages'.... It was the same story with the other two accounts. The only clue as to what might be going on was a message sent a couple of days ago from PayPal on the now closed Daily Sceptic account. The crucial passage read:
"PayPal’s policy is not to allow our services to be used for activities that promote hate, violence or racial intolerance. We regularly assess activity against our long-standing Acceptable Use Policy and carefully review actions reported to us, and will discontinue our relationship with account holders who are found to violate our policies.
"That message was a bit weird.... Even if the Daily Sceptic is guilty of that sin – and I defy anyone to point to an article we’ve published that promotes 'hate, violence or racial intolerance' – why is that a reason to shut down my personal account or the FSU account? I still haven’t received any indication of why that’s happened. And for what it’s worth, I’ve written to the CEO of PayPal UK ... and the Corporate Affairs Department of PayPal US and PayPal UK ... asking for some kind of explanation. No reply.... I emailed them last Thursday and still haven’t heard back.
"I suspect what’s really going on is that someone at PayPal – possibly the entire C-suite – doesn’t like what the Daily Sceptic or the Free Speech Union stands for. The company has form in this area. As Matt Taibbe wrote earlier back in May ... "the online payment platform PayPal without explanation suspended the accounts of a series of individual journalists and media outlets, including the well-known alt sites Consortium News and MintPress." Those sites – Consortium News and Mint Press – are both left wing and they’re opposed to the war in Ukraine, which is presumably why PayPal cancelled them. Is the fact that the Daily Sceptic has published articles critical of the mainstream narrative about that war – including one in which we linked to Mint Press – the reason we’ve been cancelled? Seems a bit harsh, given that we’ve also published several articles defending Ukraine and its war effort....
"A number of sites that have raised questions about the Covid vaccines have also been demonetised by PayPal in the past few months, including the U.K. Medical Freedom Alliance. Liz Evans, the head of the UKMFA, also had her personal PayPal account closed at the same time. Is that fact that we’ve published data suggesting the mRNA vaccines aren’t as efficacious or as safe as we were initially led to believe why we’ve been cancelled? Colin Wright, a former colleague of mine at Quillette and a staunch critic of trans rights dogma, was deplatformed by PayPal in June, presumably because some people in the company didn’t approve of his gender critical views. We’ve expressed similar views on the Daily Sceptic. Was that the issue?
"My hunch is it’s all of the above. PayPal just doesn’t like free speech, which is why it has shut down the FSU account at the same time. There are five issues in particular where it’s completely verboten to express sceptical views and if you do you can expect to be cancelled, not just by PayPal but by YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc.: the wisdom of the lockdown policy and associated Covid restrictions, the efficacy and safety of the mRNA vaccines, Net Zero and the ‘climate emergency’, the need to teach five year-olds that sex is a social construct and the war in Ukraine. Dissent from the prevailing orthodoxy in any of those areas is no longer permitted."
September 21, 2022 — "The alarm has been sounded about COVID-19’s hidden impact as new data shows that more people have died in the March quarter of 2022 than in any other March quarter in the last 41 years. Australian Bureau of Statistics population data published on Wednesday shows an 18 per cent increase in deaths in the quarter compared with the same period a year earlier, rising from 36,100 to 46,200 deaths. It is the first time that more than 40,000 deaths were recorded over four consecutive quarters.
"South-western Sydney Labor MP Dr Mike Freelander, Chair of the Senate inquiry into long COVID, said he was 'very concerned' about higher-than-normal deaths in the pandemic and that more research was needed to ascertain why..... The inquiry will collate data from scientific experts to gain insights into how COVID-19 impacts on Australians’ health after the initial infection.
"Karen Cutter, spokeswoman for the Actuaries Institute COVID-19 Mortality Working Group, said about 6000 more people died in the March quarter than could be explained by the ageing population. Half of these people died from COVID-19, she said, with a further 500 dying 'with COVID', their deaths from causes such as cancer, circulatory diseases and dementia likely to have been hastened by the pandemic.
"The remaining 2500 people died from other causes. While it is unclear what, if any role COVID-19 may have played, a higher-than-usual number of deaths from strokes, heart disease, dementia and diabetes makes the working group suspect that it could be a factor.... 'There are people who have had COVID and recovered, but it’s weakened their immune system [and] they’ve subsequently had a heart attack or stroke that might not necessarily be directly linked back to their COVID episode,' Cutter said.
"Another possible reason for the increase in deaths this year, she said, was that vulnerable people who were shielded from influenza or RSV in the winters of 2020 and 2021 due to COVID-19 restrictions had succumbed to these respiratory illnesses. 'There will have been some delayed deaths from those earlier years,' she said. Undiagnosed COVID-19 was not expected to be a major contributor as people suspected to have died from the virus [were] being tested after death.
"Assistant Health Minister Ged Kearney on Wednesday announced $6.3 million in funding for research led by Monash University to evaluate the immune response in children and high-risk populations, including adults with chronic conditions, to COVID-19.... Adults with chronic kidney and lung disease, Inflammatory Bowel Disease, rheumatic diseases, people living with HIV and organ transplant recipients will be among the patients to be studied."
September 19, 2022 - "Joe Biden has said 'the pandemic is over' in an interview broadcast on Sunday, though he admitted 'we still have a problem with Covid', as the US continues to grapple with coronavirus infections that kill hundreds of Americans a day. The president told CBS’s 60 Minutes: 'We still have a problem with Covid. We’re still doing a lotta work on it. But the pandemic is over. If you notice, no one’s wearing masks. Everybody seems to be in pretty good shape'....
Sep. 20, 2022 - "But according to CNN, an administration official told the outlet that 'the President's comments do not mark a change in policy toward the administration's handling of the virus, and there are no plans to lift the Public Health Emergency.' The current emergency status, which had been announced in January 2020, is still extended through Oct. 13....
"[T]he fact that the White House had to clarify and essentially walk back the president’s claims about the state of the pandemic drew scathing criticism from Biden administration critics, who insisted that this tension between Biden and his staffers may be another hint they do his job for him.
"'He is not in charge,' tweeted The Spectator contributing editor Stephen Miller, who also shared an image of the CNN headline that read, 'White House says Covid-19 policy unchanged despite Biden’s comments that the "pandemic is over."' In subsequent tweets, Miller added, 'It wasn't a gaffe. It wasn't a slip. He said it pretty definitely twice. In the same interview he dared anyone who questioned his mental fitness.... Biden reportedly complains that he looks weak. This is why. His own administration undercuts him every time he opens his mouth,' he wrote, and then asked, 'Is he in charge or not?'
Republican communications figure Matt Whitlock remarked, 'Fascinating that the White House walked back Biden’s comments on Taiwan and COVID, but decided to let his comments that 'historic inflation is no big deal" stand.'
'Like clockwork. Biden’s handlers are out in force,' commented Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas....
Radio host Derek Hunter mocked Biden, writing, 'Didn’t Joe say something about just watch him when asked whether or not he has the mental abilities to be President? One interview, at least two walk-backs by staff (so far). #WatchMe.'
Abigail Marone, the press secretary for Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., asked, 'Who exactly is running the country here?'
'We have a non-president,' declared Claremont Institute president Ryan P. Williams.
September 18, 2022 - "The ArriveCan app may no longer be mandatory and other remaining travel requirements and restrictions for air travel in Canada could soon be removed. If all goes well, masking could even be made optional within the next few weeks....
"Discussions I’ve had over the past several days with industry, government and other sources point to a fluid situation where final details are still being worked out but, generally speaking, most measures will be gone by the end of September. That’s when the Order in Council that gives the existing restrictions and requirements expires.
"The requirement for being vaccinated to board a domestic flight ended on June 20; now it appears the requirement for foreign travellers to be vaccinated to enter Canada will end on Sept. 30. Mandatory random testing for arrivals will also end at that time.
"The ArriveCan app is expected to become an optional way for Canadians to make their custom declaration, but will no longer be a mandatory requirement for entry. With the ending of vaccine requirements, travellers will no longer be required to upload their proof of vaccination to the glitchy app.
"Masking remains a point of contention inside the government, with many in cabinet ready to drop them. However, Health Minister Jean Yves Duclos wants masking requirements to remain in place until after Thanksgiving to measure the impact of holiday travel on transmission....
"The Trudeau government has clung to COVID-19 restrictions longer than any provincial government in the country. Conservative, NDP and Liberal premiers ended local COVID restrictions months ago as Trudeau kept them in place, often making it look like his decisions were driven by political science rather than medical science.
August 17, 2022 - "The man who negotiated on the City of Ottawa's behalf with Tamara Lich and other organizers of the Freedom Convoy says an agreement for truckers to leave the city's residential streets wasn't given enough time to play out before the federal government used its emergency powers to quell the weeks-long occupation. 'This is a black mark on Canadian history,' Dean French said of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's decision to invoke the Emergencies Act on Feb. 14, just a day after word of an agreement between the city and truckers became public. 'History will show this was a total overreaction.'
"Starting in late January, protesters rallied against pandemic restrictions and blocked neighbourhood access and main arteries around Parliament Hill by clogging the streets with trucks and other vehicles. Triggering the act gave authorities sweeping temporary powers, including the ability to freeze the bank accounts and credit cards of protesters and compel tow truck companies to help them clear out vehicles. Attending any event deemed an unlawful assembly, such as the Ottawa convoy protest, also became illegal....
"[U]nsealed cabinet meeting minutes revealed Trudeau took the unprecedented measure of invoking the act only a day after being told by his national security adviser of a potential 'breakthrough' in the crisis. The office of the public safety minister later said the minutes referred to negotiations led by the city that were 'ultimately unsuccessful'.... The government considered the outcome of those negotiations 'as a factor in the decision to invoke the Emergencies Act,' the minister's office added.
"French ... said dozens of trucks were starting to move from residential areas when the Emergencies Act was invoked. 'Why wouldn't Trudeau's cabinet have waited on the Sunday night [Feb. 13] to say, '[Ottawa Mayor Jim Watson], a very credible, respected mayor, has an agreement. Let's just wait two or three days to see if this peaceful resolution works' .... French told Power & Politics host Vassy Kapelos on Wednesday....
"According to a Feb. 12 letter from Watson to Lich, the agreement called for all protest trucks to be removed within 72 hours from residential areas and from the parking lot of a baseball stadium. They were to move to Wellington Street just south of Parliament Hill. If there was 'clear evidence' of the convoy beginning to clear from neighbourhoods before noon on Feb. 14, Watson would meet with Lich, the mayor wrote. In a letter of reply sent that same day, Lich told Watson the Freedom Convoy's board agreed with his request 'to reduce pressure on the residents and businesses' and consolidate vehicles around Parliament Hill. 'We will be working hard over the next 24 hours to get buy-in from the truckers,' Lich wrote. 'We hope to start repositioning our trucks on Monday [Feb. 14].' Lawyer Keith Wilson, who represents Lich on her non-criminal cases, gave CBC a memo from Lich and other convoy organizers he said was distributed to hundreds of convoy participants that day to tell them about the new strategy. 'We need to reposition our trucks so we don't give the Prime Minister the excuse he desperately wants to use force and seize our trucks,' the memo says....
"The details of the agreement became public just hours before the cabinet meeting where Trudeau and assembled ministers were told of the 'breakthrough,' French said. 'It was pretty clear,' he said of the agreement. 'I'm surprised the wording from the security adviser to the prime minister and the cabinet wasn't a little bit more direct: 'The mayor has an agreement'.'"
"Some of the trucks — not all of them — moved from residential streets after the agreement was announced and Lich's Twitter account cast doubt on whether a deal had actually been made. Kapelos also pointed out that another key convoy figure, Pat King, denounced the deal.... 'Yes, there was some walk back-ing and some clarity that needed to take place,' French said, adding that he'd 'love to know' how many trucks had moved according to the Ottawa Police Service. 'I think it's the key question,' French said of the public inquiry that will ... analyze the Trudeau government's reasons for tapping into emergency measures.
"The mayor declined to comment on the reported 'breakthrough,' citing his planned appearance at the inquiry."
September 16, 2022 - "Anti-hate experts are urging policy makers to take action against what they describe as growing right-wing extremism in Canada. One of these experts says research suggests that millions of Canadians have been drawn into the far right over the course of the pandemic, some of whom have been indoctrinated by misinformation and lies that were then amplified by the Freedom Convoy.
"Evan Balgord, the executive director of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network, says the convoy’s organizers were able to successfully use the month-long February protest to recruit vaccine-hesitant people into their movement. 'They were now rubbing shoulders with, you know, racists and bigots and people who would like to use violence to overthrow the government. A portion of those people are getting further radicalized'....
"Balgord says the movement’s ideas are entrenched in the mainstream. Balgord, whose organization tracked right-wing groups and monitored their activities and influence, ... estimates that there are now 10 to 15 per cent of Canadians who hold far right views, which encompass a wide range of extremist opinions including anti-government and anti-science perspectives along with racist and homophobic beliefs. Some of them may not consider themselves racist, but they are giving cover to extremists, he says....
June 29, 2022 - "Today, the Honourable Ahmed Hussen, Minister of Housing and Diversity and Inclusion, joined members of the Canadian Anti-Hate Network to launch its new toolkit, Confronting and Preventing Hate in Canadian Schools. This toolkit will provide a comprehensive anti-racism education program to help equip educators, parents and communities better identify, confront and prevent hate in schools across Canada. It was created as part of the network’s project, Containing and Countering Canadian Hate Groups, which monitors and reports on the activities of extreme-right groups.
"The project is funded through the Government of Canada’s Anti-Racism Action Program, which aims to address barriers to employment, justice and social participation among Indigenous Peoples, racialized communities and religions minorities, as well as address online hate and promote digital literacy.... The Government of Canada provided $268,400 through the Anti-Racism Action Program to support the Canadian Anti-Hate Network’s project, Containing and Countering Canadian Hate Groups.
"Since October 2020, the Anti-Racism Action Program has invested $35 million to support 175 anti-racism projects that aim to remove systemic barriers faced by Indigenous Peoples, racialized communities and religious minorities. Unveiled on June 25, 2019, Building a Foundation for Change: Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy, represents an investment of close to $100 million, including $70 million to support community organizations across Canada in addressing anti-racism and multiculturalism issues.
14 September 2022 - "As the number of weekly reported deaths from COVID-19 plunged to its lowest since March 2020, the head of the World Health Organization (WO) said on Wednesday that the end of the pandemic is now in sight. 'We have never been in a better position to end the pandemic., Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told journalists during his regular weekly press conference.
"The UN health agency’s Director-General explained however, that the world is “not there yet”.... He also warned that if the world does not take the opportunity now, there is still a risk of more variants, deaths, disruption, and uncertainty. 'So, let’s seize this opportunity', he urged, announcing that WHO is releasing six short policy briefs that outline the key actions that all governments must take now....
"The policy briefs 'are an urgent call for governments to take a hard look at their policies and strengthen them for COVID-19 and future pathogens with pandemic potential', Tedros explained.
"The documents, which are available online, include recommendations regarding vaccination of most at-risk groups, continued testing and sequencing of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and integrating effective treatment for COVID-19 into primary healthcare systems. They also urge authorities to have plans for future surges, including the securing of supplies, equipment, and extra health workers. The briefs also contain communications advice, including training health workers to identify and address misinformation, as well as creating high-quality informative materials....
"'We can end this pandemic together, but only if all countries, manufacturers, communities and individuals step up and seize this opportunity', he said.
"Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO’s technical lead on COVID-19, highlighted that the virus is still 'intensely circulating' around the world and that the agency believes that case numbers being reported are an underestimate. 'We expect that there are going to be future waves of infection, potentially at different time points throughout the world caused by different subvariants of Omicron or even different variants of concern', she said, reiterating her previous warning that the more the virus circulates, the more opportunities it has to mutate.
"However, she said, these future waves do not need to translate into 'waves [of] death' because there are now effective tools such as vaccines and antivirals specifically for COVID-19."
The Green Party of Canada's president and Ontario council rep have resigned, and the 2-person caucus is demanding an investigation, after the interim leader was misgendered in a Zoom appearance.
September 12, 2022 - "Just one year after its partial meltdown during the 2021 federal election, the Green Party of Canada is once again in crisis over an incident of 'misgendering.' It all started at a Sept. 3 media event in Vancouver kicking off the party’s leadership contest. In a Zoom appearance, Interim Leader Amita Kuttner was identified using a caption bearing the pronouns 'she/elle.'
"Kuttner, 32, identifies as non-binary and pansexual (attracted to all genders and orientations), and goes by they/them pronouns.
"In a subsequent statement, Kuttner slammed the 'misgendering,' saying the incident 'made me feel hurt and isolated' and hinted that it was 'reflective of a larger pattern of behaviours that a few in the party are perpetuating.' The statement added, 'in moments like these I wonder — how can I ensure other people’s safety if I can’t even ensure my own?'
"Kuttner’s statement was followed by a joint letter — signed by leadership candidates as well as the party’s two MPs, Elizabeth May and Mike Morrice — calling for a 'restorative process' to root out 'harassment' within the Greens. 'The September 3 incident was but the latest in a number of similar behavioural patterns that Dr. Kuttner has faced throughout their tenure,' it read.
"Green Party President Lorraine Rekmans was the first to resign. A volunteer who estimated that she has worked 40-hour weeks for the past year on party business, Rekmans implied in a Saturday resignation letter that leadership candidates were subtly blaming her for the 'she/elle' mistake.... 'I was surprised that the contestants would use (the Sept. 3 media event) to attack the Party they were running to lead,' she wrote, adding, 'I find that some in GPC, wish to cling to the image of a political party that is the same as all the other political parties in Canada, fuelled by money, and controlled by people who wield power.'
"Krystal Brooks, the Ontario representative to the party’s federal council, also resigned. In a lengthy Sunday Facebook post, Brooks criticized the party for continuing its leadership race even while candidates were calling for an investigation into 'systemic' harm within the party.... Brooks then attached emails showing that Morrice and May had apparently threatened to resign and sit as independents if the leadership contest was delayed ... adding 'I have lost all faith in Caucus and those who they choose to hide behind'....
"Amidst all this, Kuttner launched a fundraiser last Wednesday intending to spite Jonathan Kay, an editor with Quillette and occasional National Post columnist. Kay had tweeted that the misgendering controversy sounded 'exactly like satire,' prompting Kuttner to ask supporters to donate $68,000 to counter Kay’s 'hate.' As of press time, the fundraiser has pulled in $226.69, $10 of which was donated by Kay....
"The whole misgendering fracas is occurring as the party struggles to recover from its disastrous performance in the 2021 federal election. Several months before the election, then-leader Annamie Paul had gone public with accusations that she had been repeatedly subjected to 'anti-Semitic' and 'racist' attacks from within the party (Paul is Jewish and Black). Paul then limited her campaign almost exclusively to her personal bid for a seat in Toronto Centre. She would ultimately win just 3,921 votes, putting her in a distant fourth place.... Although the Green Party retained both of its MPs, its share of the popular vote dropped off a cliff in the 2021 vote. In 2019, under May, 1.2 million Canadians had cast Green ballots. Under Paul, that was down to just 400,000 — the party’s worst showing since 2000."
Freedom Convoy organizers have asked an Ottawa court to unfreezed some of the money donated to them, to pay for legal representation during their mandated attendance at this fall's Public Order Emergency Commission hearings.
September 6, 2022 - "'Freedom Convoy' leaders are asking the court to release hundreds of thousands of dollars in frozen donations to pay for their appearance at the federal inquiry into the use of the Emergencies Act.
"The funds, donations made to the 'Freedom Convoy' and later frozen by court order, were placed into escrow — an arrangement where a third party holds the funds until certain conditions are met — awaiting the conclusion of a proposed [emphasis added - GD] class action lawsuit against the 'Freedom Convoy' leaders. The suit was filed on behalf of Centretown residents and businesses who are seeking damages for the noise and chaos caused during the protests in late January and February.
"In a notice of motion filed Friday, a group of defendants in that class action suit said they needed access to $450,000 from the escrow account to pay for their legal representation at the Public Order Emergency Commission, the federal inquiry into the use of the Emergencies Act.
"The group of defendants includes prominent 'Freedom Convoy' organizers Tamara Lich and Chris Barber. Their draft budget of the expenses required to attend the commission includes $151,200 for the services of a senior barrister, $108,000 for a junior barrister, and travel and accommodation expenses of $83,200.
"Keith Wilson, the lawyer for the 'Freedom Convoy' leaders seeking the funds, said in his notice of motion that the money was urgently needed. The Public Order Commission is scheduled to begin Sept. 19 and the commission has mandated the participation of several of the prominent 'Freedom Convoy' leaders. [The hearings have since been postponed until October - gd] The 'Freedom Convoy' leaders requesting the funds have 'significant concerns about their ability to be adequately represented and to fully participate in the commission without access to funding,' Wilson wrote."
Canada’s Conservatives Pick ‘Freedom Convoy’ Sympathizer to Lead Party Against Trudeau | Wall Street Journal - Paul Vieira: September 10, 2022 "Canada’s Conservative Party picked as its new leader a politician who backed the paralyzing protests earlier this year against pandemic restrictions and vaccine mandates.... Pierre Poilievre was declared the winner Saturday, winning 68% from party members voting on the first ballot. Mr. Poilievre’s campaign said it signed up hundreds of thousands of new party members, drawn by his promises to reduce the role of the state in people’s lives and to roll back government spending and taxes that he says helped fuel inflation.
"Mr. Poilievre has frequently attacked the country’s establishment class and their appointed 'gatekeepers,' who he claims thwart entrepreneurship, stifle free speech and violate individual liberties. He also has appealed to younger voters, particularly those who can’t afford a home and are forced to rent or still live with their parents....
"Mr. Poilievre also has pledged to make Canada 'the freest country on Earth,' and repeal policies that he believes interfere with individual liberties. Mr. Poilievre was among the fiercest critics of the Trudeau administration’s Covid-19 vaccine mandates, which have since been lifted, and one of the few to back the Freedom Convoy, the protest led by truckers that paralyzed the Canadian capital for more than three weeks and inspired demonstrators to thwart traffic at key U.S.-Canada border crossings. Mr. Trudeau invoked rarely used emergency powers to help local police remove protesters in Ottawa.
"'After two years of massive government overreach and a prime minister who insults anyone who disagrees with his heavy-handed approach, Canadians have finally had enough and they’re speaking up,' Mr. Poilievre said in February on a podcast, at the height of the protest. 'The vast majority of truckers and their supporters have been peaceful, law-abiding, patriotic people, despite the dishonest propaganda' from the government and media." Read more: https://www.wsj.com/articles/canadas-conservatives-pick-freedom-convoy-sympathizer-to-lead-party-against-trudeau-11662855757
Canada: Who is new Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre? | BBC News - Nadine Yousif: September 12, 2022 - "Mr Poilievre, 43, campaigned on a promise to reduce taxes and to tackle inflation and the rising prices of food and petrol, and to increase individual liberties. He was also a vocal supporter of the Freedom Convoy in Ottawa - an anti-government protest against Covid-19 mandates that shut down Ottawa's city centre for two weeks. The protest was eventually cleared by police after Mr Trudeau invoked the never before used Emergencies Act.... Mr Poilievre is now poised to take on Mr Trudeau, 50, who recently said he will be seeking re-election in Canada's next federal contest, expected in 2025....
"Poilievre has positioned himself as a politician from 'humble origins' - he was born to a teenage mother and adopted by two French Canadian teachers from Saskatchewan. He grew up in Calgary before moving to Ottawa, where he has been a federal Member of Parliament for the last 18 years, becoming the youngest member in the House of Commons at age 25 in 2004. Under Mr Harper's Conservative government, Mr Poilievre served as parliamentary secretary and was the minister of employment and social development. After the Conservatives' defeat to Mr Trudeau's Liberal party, Mr Poilievre became the opposition's shadow minister of finance.
"He has developed a reputation for hounding the Liberal party on government spending and other government scandals. Notably, he led a four-day filibuster in the House of Commons in the wake of the SNC-Lavalin scandal, an ethics scandal in which Mr Trudeau was accused of violating conflict of interest rules.
"Peter Loewen, the director of the Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy at the University of Toronto, describes Mr Poilievre as 'ambitious, combative and endlessly energetic.' 'He has been the star of the Conservative movement for a number of years now,' Mr Loewen said." Read more: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-62882751
After Microsoft affiliate NewsGuard did a 'fact-check' on the American Institute of Economic Research and the Great Barrington Declaration, AIER did one of NewsGuard using its own published standards. NewsGuard failed.
August 11, 2021 - "The advent of fact-checker journalism may be wearing out its welcome. Perhaps the increasing politicization of American life is a contributor to the downward spiral of the fact-checking profession that is primarily run by politically engaged reporters, not expert specialists in the subjects they assess.... Not that any one group of experts should have the authority over the truth either. Self-appointed media gatekeepers are a ticking time bomb of political censorship, waiting to be unleashed when the temptations are too great and the necessity for impartiality is even greater. With White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki calling for collusion between social media companies and the government to censor 'misinformation', this threat seems to be as close as ever....
"This brings us to a relatively new, but powerful company known as NewsGuard, which claims a partnership with Microsoft and gleaming spotlights in major outlets. Its staff and board boast powerful connections to the government, finance, and the media. According to an Op-ed in Politico written by NewsGuards’ CEO, rather than simply being a fact-checking company that can only debunk stories after they go viral, NewsGuard rates entire websites’ trustworthiness. This new strategy is aimed at discrediting the very source that alleged misinformation or disinformation may come from. NewsGuard publishes lengthy 'nutritional labels,' rating websites on various criteria of journalistic importance and outlining its reasons for giving certain ratings.... After receiving a recent request for comments on a 'fact-check' article by NewsGuard regarding AIER and the Great Barrington Declaration, we decided to investigate the rise of the fact-checking phenomenon itself, including this strange new company’s own performance in evaluating the content of other websites.
"We soon discovered that NewsGuard falls far short of the very same criteria for accuracy and transparency that it claims to apply to other websites. Most of the company’s fact checkers lack basic qualifications in the scientific and social-scientific fields that they purport to arbitrate. NewsGuard’s own track record of commentary – particularly on the Covid-19 pandemic – reveals a pattern of unreliable and misleading claims that required subsequent corrections, and analysis that regularly conflates fact with opinion journalism in rendering a judgement on a website’s content. Furthermore, the company’s own practices fall far short of the transparency and disclosure standards it regularly applies to other websites....
"A revealing example may be found in NewsGuard’s treatment of the 'lab leak' hypothesis for Covid-19’s origins. Media coverage of the lab leak theory – which posits that the pandemic originated through the accidental infection of workers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who were studying coronaviruses in bat populations – has changed dramatically in recent months after a closer examination of evidence led several scientists to lend it credence.... For over a year prior to these recent developments however, NewsGuard aggressively 'fact checked' and penalized other websites for even raising the possibility of a lab leak. Some of the most aggressive attacks came from John Gregory, NewsGuard’s 'Deputy Editor for Health' policy and also the primary correspondent in AIER’s exchanges with the company.... According to a statement that the company sent to AIER:
NewsGuard either mischaracterized the sites’ claims about the lab leak theory, referred to the lab leak as a “conspiracy theory,” or wrongly grouped together unproven claims about the lab leak with the separate, false claim that the COVID-19 virus was man-made without explaining that one claim was unsubstantiated, and the other was false. NewsGuard apologizes for these errors. We have made the appropriate correction on each of the 21 labels....
"AIER’s own experience with NewsGuard revealed a similar pattern of carelessness and misrepresentation by Gregory and other writers for the company. Gregory contacted us on behalf of NewsGuard in early June 2021 requesting comments on several articles relating to Covid-19 pandemic policy and the Great Barrington Declaration. AIER’s Phil Magness obliged the request by offering to answer his questions in good faith, but quickly discovered that they carried heavy political biases arising from Gregory’s own personal beliefs about Covid-19, healthcare policy, American politics, and related subjects.
"In one such example, Gregory asked a prejudicial question that attempted to implicate AIER with showing partisan political biases in our publications: 'We also note that AIER.org refers to itself as nonpartisan. Why then do its articles routinely criticize Democrats'.... Gregory’s question, however, selectively cherry-picked only two articles on our site where we criticized Democratic politicians. It made no mention of the many examples where AIER has similarly criticized Republicans.... Gregory’s questions displayed a similar pattern of conflating normative policy positions taken by individual authors on AIER’s website – essentially opinion articles, and all properly identified as such – for positive or empirical claims, which could then be 'fact checked.'.... When Magness replied to Gregory by calling attention to the difference between normative and positive arguments as well as the editorial diversity of external contributors to our daily publications, he ignored the distinction....
"Even more problematic was NewsGuard’s portrayal of the Great Barrington Declaration (GBD), signed at AIER in October 2020. Gregory’s synopsis of the GBD contained numerous false and misleading claims that were brought to the attention of his company almost immediately after their publication. Repeating a charge from another website, Gregory wrote that 'none of the three [GBD authors] had published peer-reviewed research about the COVID-19 pandemic at the time they authored the declaration.” This claim is false. GBD co-author Jay Bhattacharya was part of a team of scientists from Stanford University that conducted one of the first wide-scale seroprevalence studies of Covid-19 at the outset of the pandemic [published] in the Journal of the American Medical Association in May 2020. When contacted by AIER about this error in his article, Gregory ... appended it with a snide denigration of Bhattacharya for being 'listed as the seventh author” on the study (Bhattacharya was in fact a principal co-author but was listed last, as per a convention with how some medical journal articles identify senior ranked investigators. Bhattacharya was also a primary media contact about his study’s findings at the time of its release).
"NewsGuard’s depiction of the GBD contained other clear misrepresentations of its contents and positions. For example, Gregory wrote that the GBD 'argued that restrictions meant to reduce the spread of the COVID-19 virus, such as face masks … should be eliminated for people considered to be at lower risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19.' The text of the GBD makes no mention of face mask policy though – only lockdowns and similar restrictions on schools and businesses. NewsGuard did not respond to multiple requests from AIER to correct this erroneous characterization...
"In an email to AIER, NewsGuard co-CEO Steven Brill stated 'when we make judgments about health care sites…we rely on – and quote — sources who are the experts.' This is not the case with their assessment of the GBD. Rather than quoting scientific experts, NewsGuard’s review of the GBD relies primarily on a statement by former UK Health Secretary Matt Hancock – a politician who has no formal scientific or medical training. In a passage quoted by Gregory, Hancock stated that 'the Great Barrington declaration is underpinned by two central claims and both are emphatically false. First, it says that if enough people get covid, we will reach herd immunity. That is not true…we should have no confidence that we would ever reach herd immunity to covid, even if everyone caught it.' Hancock’s statement, however, is at direct odds with mainstream science on immunology. The World Health Organization specifically defines herd immunity as the combined total of immunity acquired by vaccination and by natural infection and recovery. Although it differs from the GBD authors on how to most effectively reach this point, the WHO does not dispute the existence or attainment of herd immunity itself....
"Hancock’s statement, cited as authoritative by NewsGuard, further contended, “The second central claim [of the GBD] is that we can segregate the old and vulnerable on our way to herd immunity. That is simply not possible.' This is not a scientific statement, but rather Hancock’s own political opinion. A detailed plan arguing for the feasibility of focused protection measures was published by the GBD authors to accompany the Declaration itself. More importantly, the scientific literature on Covid-19 mitigation documents clear evidence that the success (or failure) of a country to 'shield' its nursing homes through a focused protection strategy is a primary factor in its overall mortality rate. A study by John P.A. Ioannidis in the journal BMJ-Global Health compared the nursing home shielding ratios of several countries, concluding that they 'varied markedly in the extent to which they protected high-risk groups.' Contrary to Hancock’s political claims, Ioannidis concluded: 'Both effective precision shielding and detrimental inverse protection can happen in real-life circumstances. COVID-19 interventions should seek to achieve maximal precision shielding.”
"When asked by AIER about their continued reliance on Hancock as a source despite the scientific misinformation contained in his assessment of herd immunity as well as his overall lack of scientific qualifications, Gregory responded that it 'was and is relevant to explaining the views of those who criticized the Declaration.' Neither Gregory nor NewsGuard responded to follow-up questions about how they reconciled this position, the political nature of Hancock’s comments, or Hancock’s lack of scientific credentials with Brill’s assertion that they 'rely on – and quote — sources who are the experts' in the subject matters they evaluate.
"In addition ... Gregory included links to further readings about the Declaration from an extremely dubious source: 9/11 Truther and conspiracy theory blogger Nafeez Ahmed of the Byline Times website. Between October 2020 and the present, Ahmed has promoted a flurry of increasingly bizarre conspiracy theories about the GBD, including a false allegation that it was secretly financed by libertarian billionaire Charles Koch in apparent coordination with the British Ministry of Defence and – strangest of all – the proprietor of a resort hotel located in Wales.... When asked about NewsGuard’s promotion of links to Ahmed’s blog, Gregory ... stated that Ahmed’s claims were not used to calculate NewsGuard’s ratings and were only included to provide a 'history' of the GBD. It did not appear to concern Gregory that Ahmed’s 'history' was an unreliable conspiracy theory of his own imagination.... NewsGuard has not altered or removed the links to Ahmed’s allegations despite its promotion of documented falsehoods about the origins and funding of the GBD. Even more astounding, NewsGuard currently rates Ahmed’s blog with a score of 82.5/100, giving it full credit for “gathering and presenting information responsibly.” This pattern evinces a clear double standard in which NewsGuard promotes sources that do not appear to meet their own published minimum standards for reliability and uses them to denigrate the credibility of AIER and the GBD.
"In sharp contrast to the generally disparaging approach he took to covering the GBD, Gregory holds other websites that attack the GBD in high esteem. In one example, Gregory extended a score of 87.5/100 to CovidFAQ.co, a website set up by a group of pro-lockdown activists in the United Kingdom. CovidFAQ is a joint project of conservative member of Parliament Neil O’Brien, 'neoliberal' activist Sam Bowman, and academic Stuart Ritchie. Pro-lockdown UK political strategist Dominic Cummings recently referenced their work as part of a 'decentralised' political campaign to discredit the anti-lockdown movement and the GBD, which he proposed while serving as an advisor to Prime Minister Boris Johnson. In his article for NewsGuard, Gregory credits CovidFAQ for “not repeatedly publish[ing] false content.” The website’s track record is at clear odds with Gregory’s assessment.
"In January 2021, CovidFAQ published a lengthy attack on the GBD that contained multiple errors and misrepresentations of the Declaration’s contents. In one example, the authors of CovidFAQ claimed, 'The authors of the Great Barrington Declaration have never given an answer' to how they would implement a focused protection strategy in place of lockdowns. In reality, the GBD website contains a detailed 1,800 word plan for implementing focused protection. When AIER’s Phil Magness alerted CovidFAQ co-owners Stuart Ritchie and Sam Bowman to this error in January 2021, the website’s editors modified the text to read, 'The authors of the Great Barrington Declaration have never given anything approaching an adequate answer' to how they would implement focused protection (emphasis added). Rather than a factual correction, CovidFAQ’s change inserted their own editorial commentary expressing disagreement with the GBD’s published focus protection strategy as a way of disguising CovidFAQ’s earlier misrepresentation.... Gregory’s NewsGuard rating of the CovidFAQ website specifically linked to CovidFAQ’s deceptive edit about the GBD, and described it as having met 'NewsGuard’s standards for regularly issuing corrections.'
"NewsGuard concluded its assessment by repeating a false story from October 2020, claiming that the GBD’s signature list contained fake names such as 'Dr. Johnny Bananas” to inflate its signature count. This story misrepresents the products of an intentional hoax by pro-lockdown journalists including the aforementioned Nafeez Ahmed to flood the website with false signatures. In reality, 'Dr. Johnny Bananas' and similar hoax submissions were removed from the GBD website within a few hours of their discovery. An audit of signatures conducted by AIER found that false names amounted to only 0.1% of total signatures on the GBD prior to their removal, with the largest cluster of false names deriving from Ahmed’s hoax campaign on October 9th. NewsGuard did not include any of this context in its article, nor did Gregory permit AIER an opportunity to comment on the misinformation contained in its account of the false signatures.
"To briefly summarize, NewsGuard’s coverage of Covid-19 policy and the GBD in particular suffers from a recurring pattern of frequent errors that warrant correction, reliance on fact checkers and other figures who lack qualifications to make scientific assessments, biased depictions designed to disparage or undermine the scientific credibility of the petition, and the promotion of false information from dubious secondary sources.... NewsGuard’s staff primarily evaluates scientific claims by appealing to the authority of public figures who they designate as 'experts' on the subject in question. Their approach generally avoids direct examination of the evidence surrounding contested claims, and instead cherry-picks a figure to treat as an authoritative final word. As their liberal use of Hancock to evaluate the GBD illustrated, many of their preferred authorities are political officeholders rather than persons trained in scientific or social-scientific methods....
"If we’re going to be on this topic, we might as well check to see if NewsGuard is a reliable website by its own standards. Indeed, with its partnership with Microsoft and its roster of accomplished staff, the public should understand what kind of organization this is. To test how NewsGuard holds up to its own rating system, we subjected its website and practices to the same criteria it uses to evaluate other sources. The results reveal a website that preaches a very different standard for others than it adheres to in its own work....
"NewsGuard applies a 100-point scorecard to the websites it rates.... Our Rating of NewsGuard: 36.25/100. This website fails to adhere to several basic journalistic standards, and should be used with extreme caution as a source for verifying the reliability of the websites it purports to rate.
"The truth is best sought through the marketplace of ideas where reason and evidence are the weapons of choice. When we see fact checkers like NewsGuard, who not only fail to uphold their high-sounding principles but even publicly encourage working with the government to suppress speech, we should raise red flags. NewsGuard’s behavior illustrates the tired idea that, during events like Covid-19, we should simply do as we’re told and not question the government or its experts. On this matter, they have shown themselves to be either unable to appropriately moderate public discourse or act as little more than cheerleaders for favored political figures and their preferred policy approaches to Covid-19. It wouldn’t be a stretch if they happen to be both."
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