Opinion/Column

Justin Trudeau and Doug Ford at the April 21st 2023 announcement that Canada will invest as much as $13 billion in the Volkswagen battery plant in St. Thomas, Ontario.
Laugh a LittleOpinion/ColumnPropaganda Watch

Epic levels of propaganda, spin at Volkswagen presser

Rita Smith

The April 21st press conference announcing that Canada and Ontario are funneling billions of dollars to Volkswagen for a new battery plant in St. Thomas was an epic event.

It wasn’t just epic for the number of times politicians got to use the word “epic,” which they used an epic number of times.

It wasn’t even epic considering the truly impressive ease with which politicians can prattle on for minutes while saying exactly nothing, or the skill with which politicians can shamelessly make statements that have no basis in reality (whoops, at least 10 jurisdictions have a higher growth rate than Ontario. Someone alert Doug Ford.)

Read More
Image: Global Climate Intelligence Group
Guest ContributionsMedia releaseOpinion/Column

1526 scientists declare: “There is no climate emergency”

Guest Contributor

A global network of over 1501 scientists and professionals has prepared this urgent message. Climate science should be less political, while climate policies should be more scientific. Scientists should openly address uncertainties and exaggerations in their predictions of global warming, while politicians should dispassionately count the real costs as well as the imagined benefits of their policy measures.

Read More
Funeral director Michael Vogiatzakis was asked, "What kind of man are you?" when he tried to keep a family member from a funeral. Photo: Rumble
Guest ContributionsOpinion/ColumnTrucking

Painful Stories: More Funeral Director Testimony

Guest Contributor

What the National Citizen’s Inquiry heard from Funeral Directior Michael Vogiatzakis Part 1: What Kind of Man Are You? Click image to watch the testimony of Michael Vogiatzakis. by Donna Laframboise Yesterday I told you about Michael Vogiatzakis, a Manitoba funeral director who

Read More
Funeral director Michael Vogiatzakis was asked, "What kind of man are you?" when he tried to keep a family member from a funeral. Photo: Rumble
Guest ContributionsOpinion/ColumnTrucking

What Kind of Man Are You?

Guest Contributor

A few minutes later, he says, the cops came to the door and told him he was facing a $50,000 fine. When he asked an officer if he had kids, the response was “What does that have to do with this? You broke the law, we have a limit, and you’ve passed it.”

A few moments later, after the officer admitted he was, indeed, a father, Mike explained: ‘I have a little six-year-old lying in the chapel, and the family needs to see him. They need to say goodbye.”

Read More
Ottawa Courthouse Photo: Wikimedia Commons
Guest ContributionsOpinion/ColumnRide Hailing newsTaxi industry news

City “kept a tight grip on who could operate in the taxi industry” says Conway opening statement

Guest Contributor

A significant part of the regulatory history in the taxi industry is that the City has consistently

tightly controlled who can participate in the industry. Only licensed brokers, plate owners, and

licensed drivers could operate legally in the industry.

The City prohibited anyone else from doing so. For years, the City enforced the by-laws to stop

what it called, “bandit cabs,” and unlicensed brokers from operating. The City investigated these

unlawful operators, charged them, and ensured that the illegal taxi services were stopped. In

many instances, the City’s enforcement efforts were done in cooperation with members in the

taxi industry. Up until 2014, the City kept a tight grip on who could operate in the taxi industry
and made sure that any illegal activity was stopped.

Read More
Photo supplied by Bliss. Taken when he and his family cheered the truckers from a New Brunswick overpass.
Guest ContributionsOpinion/ColumnTrucking

Hope drawn from the Convoy

Guest Contributor

Two years ago, I was an optimistic teenager who campaigned for the Green Party and organized and spoke at protests. I used to think I could help change the world within the systems that exist, but now I question whether we even live in a democracy. I cannot trust the government, the judicial system, universities, the medical system, or the banking system in Canada.   

At the age of seventeen my trust in the Canadian government was broken beyond repair when I saw that the government could easily break the Charter of Rights under the guise of an emergency.

Read More
Susan Jones in media scrum regarding Uber's arrival in Ottawa in 2014. She told them to apply for a Taxi brokerage license. Photo: YouTube
Feature/ProfileGuest ContributionsRide Hailing newsTaxi industry news

Uber lobbied Ottawa aggressively “from day one”

Guest Contributor

City did not know where to find Uber. However, Uber introduced itself to City Hall as soon it began operating in Ottawa, and the City rolled out the welcome mat. Uber lobbied City Hall continuously and aggressively from September 2014 up to the by-law change in April 2016, and well afterward.

Uber Canada had six registered lobbyists active between September 2014 and April 2016. According to the City’s lobbying registry, officials from the City met with two city councillors and city staff, including Susan Jones, on September 22, 2014. This was 3 days after Uber’s recruiting event at the Westin Hotel. After this meeting, Susan Jones stated that Uber was welcome to operate in Ottawa so long as it obtained a broker’s license.

Read More
The Szare Szergi Monument is located in Ontario, just outside of the town of Barry’s Bay in the Madawaska Valley. Photo: RWN
Guest ContributionsOpinion/Column

All Christian preaching is useless if the Resurrection is not accepted

Guest Contributor

Today is Easter Sunday, also appropriately called Resurrection Sunday. It’s the day when Christians recall the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ from the tomb, two days after His singularly brutal death by crucifixion on Good Friday.

As difficult as it is for some to believe because of the supernatural elements involved, Jesus’ bodily resurrection is in fact one of the most thoroughly documented events in all of human history. Though denial of Christ’s resurrection remains in vogue among non-Christians (and even, shamefully, among some liberal members of the Christian clergy), the apostle Paul confronts such denial head-on in his first letter to the Corinthians (chapter 15), where he points out that if Christ has not been resurrected bodily, then there is no salvation from sin, and therefore, the entire Christian faith is useless. In a pointed comment that could have been presciently directed at liberal clergy who deny the Resurrection, Paul adds further that all Christian preaching is useless if the Resurrection is not accepted. In other words, if no Resurrection, then no salvation–and, in truth, no real faith. It’s that simple. And Paul, a former persecutor of Christians who became an apostle following his own dramatic encounter with Christ, knew what he was talking about.

Read More
Bertha the Cookstove Photo: Donna Laframboise
Feature/ProfileGuest Contributions

I need to be there: “If we don’t go to Ottawa, I’m gonna regret it forever”

Guest Contributor

Her enthusiasm was infectious: “So we picked up three wheelbarrows. And we put them on top of the truck. We looked like the Beverly Hillbillies. We had this old wood stove and this slip tank, and the wheelbarrows on top.

“Here we come, Ottawa. It was hilarious.”

Andrew has an outdoor cookstove that runs on wood. It doesn’t look like much, but it has proper grills, and a chimney, and is named Bertha. Soon it was being loaded into the back of their pickup truck along with firewood and cast iron pans.

Read More