Carney is in, Trudeau's crazy policies remain in place...

It will take political will to strip out all of Trudeau's crazy policies, does he have the will?

I’ll be at Stampede in Calgary on Thursday night and then I have an early morning interview for an exciting podcast episode coming up. In fact, I’ll record two podcast episodes while here in Calgary – more if the opportunity presents itself.

So, I am writing this up early, but don’t think too much will change.

Back to regular work next week, though whether that will be from Saskatoon or Toronto has yet to be determined. I’m enjoying my time travelling in Western Canada, always do, but like many of you, I’m a creature of habit and like my routines.

Say a prayer for Chloe the Wonder Dog, she’s been left behind in Saskatoon while I’m here. Thankfully, she’s in good hands and visiting with Stella, but Chloe is a big part of my daily routine.

Carney in charge but the bureaucrats are still crazy...

We may have a new guy in charge in Ottawa, but the craziness that is the federal government continues. Every government has to deal with radical ideas that come from the bureaucracy, but under the last decade of Justin Trudeau, when we were led by a group of people not interesting in governing, things got worse.

They didn’t check or push back against the crazy.

And that’s why under Mark Carney, ideas like penalizing people for rejecting too many refugee applications continue. As my colleague Bryan Passifiume points out, this bizarre practice is being abused by people who shouldn’t be let into Canada – like top officials in the Iranian regime looking to get out.

There is an incentive not to reject too many applications and a reluctance to deport anyone once they are on Canadian soil he reported.

This reluctance to deport is baked into the institutional culture of Immigration, Refugee and Citizenship Canada (IRCC,), Secure Canada claimed — with sources and internal investigations suggesting career advancement for immigration caseworkers is based on keeping rejection rates low.

This results in members of the brutal Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp and other high-ranking officials deciding that Canada is a safe place to flee to. Even if they are discovered, it’s not like anything will happen to them.

A January ruling form Canada’s Immigration and Refugee Board rejected the government’s attempts to deport a senior Iranian official. It’s lunacy and it’s going to continue because to alter this kind of system takes determination and political will that I don’t see in Mark Carney’s current immigration minister.

In case you are wondering, her name is Lena Diab.

Is it wrong to call them criminals if they are...

Sticking with Diab’s department, the Globe and Mail reported 17,500 foreigners have had their criminal convictions forgiven by Ottawa. These aren’t people convicted of political crimes by some banana republic; to be inadmissible to Canada, you need to be convicted of a crime that is also an offence in this country.

If five years have passed since your conviction or jail time, you can ask for forgiveness and the government has the power to forget that anything ever happened and let you into the country on a visa or as a permanent resident even.

Government figures show that in the 11 years up to and including 2024, 17,600 people convicted of criminal offences abroad were considered “rehabilitated” by IRCC. This meant they were able to apply to enter Canada, including through work and study visas, as permanent residents or visitors.

A decision on whether to forgive an offence is usually made by officials, but serious requests are pushed up to the Minister. That said, as per the Globe, it doesn’t look like many people are ever rejected.

Last year, 1,390 people had their criminal convictions forgiven by IRCC, while 105 applications were refused. In 2023, 1,505 people were considered to have been rehabilitated, while 70 applications were rejected.

So, it’s pretty close to automatic.

Conservative MP and critic Michelle Rempel Garner says there needs to be more transparency, and I’d agree. Are we letting is 1,390 shoplifters or 1,390 murderers?

If you don’t think we’ve let in murderers through this process, then you haven’t paid attention to Ottawa for long enough.

This process stinks and needs to be fixed.

Not labeling GMO meat stinks too...

If you want to buy genetically modified meat, fish or poultry then knock yourself out, but I as a consumer should have the choice to reject those products. To do that, we need labeling requirements for our food products.

I get this argument may have been lost on anything related to corn, soy or Canola but we shouldn’t cede the ground on animal products.

Dr. Sylvain Charlebois, the Food Professor, has a column in the Toronto Sun about the attempt to put genetically modified pork into Canadian grocery stores as early as next year, without any labeling requirements. I don’t like that one bit and never have, in fact, I’ve been railing against such moves for close to two decades.

The earliest piece that I can find of me rejecting this idea was something that I wrote for Mercator back in 2010, it appears the rest have been scrubbed from the internet. The issue then was Enviropig or what I called Mouse Pig.

In that case, Canadian researchers were splicing mouse DNA into pigs to try and make their droppings less toxic to the water supply. That idea went well beyond animal husbandry or cross pollination; practices farmers have been engaged in from the beginning of time.

This required the alteration of DNA in the lab, by putting mouse genes into the pig.

What Dr. Charlebois is writing about is less invasive, but I still think consumers should have the choice. Supporters say there is no difference, nothing to be worried about, so why then object to the idea that we should have labels?

Is Mark Carney bootlicking Donald Trump…

I would never say that the PM is bootlicking Donald Trump, though I have said his stance on the Digital Services Tax and how he walked us back made us infintely weaker at the negotiating table with Trump.

A former Chretien era cabinet minister from the Liberal Party though, one firmly on the left, is using the term bootlicker to refer to Carney.

Warren Kinsella takes great glee in going over the comments from Lloyd Axworthy about Carney’s posture against Donald Trump. The words “Elbows Up” doesn’t even enter the equation.