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First published at True North on May 11, 2021.

Global Affairs Canada prepared for a possible relocation of Canada’s embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, True North has learned.

In response to an access to information request about such a move, a Global Affairs Canada official said records do exist, but are protected by cabinet confidentiality.

“I have looked through the documents received from our respective program area and although the department did in fact prepare for a possible move of the Canadian Embassy to Jerusalem, the move did not happen,” the Global Affairs official, who works in the department’s access to information division, said.

“Since the relocation of the Embassy did not happen, many of the documents contain information for the preparation of the move and therefore all contain references to Cabinet.”

True North has not reviewed the documents in question, because cabinet documents are exempt from Canada’s access to information laws.

True North’s access to information request, filed in December of 2019, sought records from May to December of 2019 “related to the relocation of the Canadian embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.” No documents in connection with the request have been produced thus far.

As embassy relocations require cabinet sign-off, department staff would generally prepare, alongside the Global Affairs Minister, a document called a Memorandum to Cabinet. On background, a Global Affairs source said no Memorandum to Cabinet related to moving the embassy in Israel was ultimately created.

Publicly, the Trudeau government has never deviated from Canada’s official position that its embassy should be in Tel Aviv as long as Jerusalem is contested by Israelis and Palestinians.

“Canada’s longstanding position is that the status of Jerusalem can only be resolved as part of a general settlement of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute,” a Global Affairs Canada spokesperson told True North. “We continue to support the building of conditions necessary for the parties to find a peaceful solution to the conflict. As the Prime Minister has clearly stated, Canada will not be moving its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.”

Of the 90 foreign embassies in Israel, just three are located in Jerusalem, those of Guatemala, Kosovo and the United States. The American embassy in Jerusalem opened in May, 2018, after the Trump administration pushed for relocation.

Canada abstained from a United Nations vote condemning the United States embassy move.

In the 2019 Canadian election, Conservative leader Andrew Scheer vowed to relocate Canada’s embassy to Jerusalem. His successor, Erin O’Toole has made the same commitment should he become Canada’s prime minister.

Jerusalem has been wholly under Israeli control since the reunification of East and West Jerusalem at the end of the Six-Day War in 1967, though West Jerusalem had been the State of Israel’s capital since the state was established nearly two decades prior. Palestinians also claim Jerusalem as their capital, though it has never served such a purpose as there has never been a Palestinian state.

First published at True North on April 15, 2021.

Conservative leader Erin O’Toole has announced a carbon pricing model he says will meet Canada’s Paris emissions commitments without the economic consequences of Justin Trudeau’s approach.

The Conservatives published their 15-page climate plan Thursday, entitled “Secure the Environment: The Conservative Plan to Combat Climate Change.” The policy would roll back the carbon price from $40 per tonne to $20 per tonne, then increase it over time to $50 per tonne.

The Conservative plan continues to tax consumers “each time they buy hydrocarbon-based fuel,” but puts the levy into a “Personal Low Carbon Savings Account,” which taxpayers can draw from to make government-approved green expenditures such as buying a transit pass or electric vehicle or making green home renovations.

Small businesses will be eligible for a similar type of account.

The plan doesn’t definitively lay out how these accounts will be managed, but suggests they could be run by a consortium of financial service providers as Interac is.

“Canadian families and businesses have been trailblazers in the use of affinity or rewards programs and have great expertise in both managing and using them,” the document says.

The Conservatives would maintain a steep price on emissions for large industrial emitters, though the document says the price will be tied to that of the European Union and United States to minimize the risk of jobs shifting to more competitive jurisdictions.

O’Toole said Thursday his proposal is “daring,” but necessary.

“Canada must not ignore the reality of climate change,” he said. “It is already impacting our ecosystems, hurting our communities, and damaging our infrastructure. Canada’s Conservatives will meet our Paris climate commitment and reduce emissions by 2030 to fight climate change and protect our environment. But we won’t do it on the backs of working Canadians or by hurting our economy.”

The Conservatives insist this plan does not maintain a carbon tax because the money collected does not go into government coffers.

O’Toole’s plan would also require that by 2030, zero emission vehicles must make up 30% of the light duty vehicle market. A Conservative government would spend $1 billion to expand electric vehicle manufacturing in Canada, plus an additional $1 billion on “deploying hydrogen technology.”

O’Toole’s plan has been derided by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF). During last year’s Conservative leadership race, O’Toole signed the CTF’s “no carbon tax” pledge. 

“Last summer, (Erin O’Toole) told us he would repeal carbon taxes. Today, he’s breaking that promise,” the CTF tweeted.

In a fireside chat with the Independent Press Gallery last year, O’Toole said his plan would let the provinces tackle emissions in their own ways.

“There’s no federal carbon tax. I will eliminate the carbon tax completely,” O’Toole said of his approach last July. “We have to respect what the provinces are doing now…. We need to follow the provinces here because, guess what, they have shared jurisdiction on the economy.”

The new Conservative plan makes repeated mentions of working with the provinces, but does not go into detail on how much autonomy provinces will have within the national framework.

The Conservatives say the Low Carbon Savings Account “will be a national program, but provinces will be able to apply to have a program of their own considered equivalent.”

First published at True North on March 15, 2021.

Jason Kenney’s government has tabled a bill that will allow voters to turf underperforming politicians between elections.

Solicitor General Kaycee Madu introduced the bill in the legislature Monday afternoon.

Styled the Recall Act, Bill C-52 sets out the process for voters to petition for the removal of MLAs, municipal councillors and mayors, as well as school board officials.

Any Alberta voter can initiate a petition to recall their MLA for any reason by applying to the Chief Electoral Officer. Once the petition is issued, the applicant has 60 days to collect signatures from 40% of eligible voters in the MLA’s constituency. Petitioners and those volunteering to collect signatures must be residents of the riding in question.

If the threshold is met, a riding-wide recall election will be held. If a simple majority votes to recall, the MLA is removed from office.

For MLAs, there is a two-year window between elections in which someone can initiate a petition, starting 18 months after an election and ending six months before the next election.

Municipal and school board officials can be removed by petition alone, though the petition must have signatures from 40% of the district’s population, rather than 40% of eligible voters.

Premier Jason Kenney initially promised recall legislation in the lead-up to Alberta’s 2019 election.

At a press conference Monday, Kenney said the law “allows the voters, effectively, to fire their representatives if they break public confidence.”

“We committed to the most dramatic democratic reforms in Alberta history, to put Alberta voters in the driver’s seat, to make it clear that at the end of the day, ordinary Alberta voters are the boss in our democracy,” Kenney said. “And if they lose faith in their elected representatives, they can hold them to account in between elections.”

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation welcomed the announcement and lauded Kenney for following through.

“Recall legislation is a big win for government accountability in Alberta,” said Franco Terrazzano, the CTF’s Alberta director. “We always deserve the ability to hold our politicians, including councillors and mayors, accountable, and Kenney’s recall bill gives us that ability.”

If passed, Alberta would be the second province in Canada, after British Columbia, to have a recall mechanism.

The province will have to develop regulations on spending and advertising in recall campaigns, limiting how much political parties, citizens and third-party groups can spend supporting or opposing recall petitions and votes.

In February, United Conservative Party house leader Jason Nixon indicated the Alberta government would also introduce a bill on citizen initiatives, which would allow for citizen-led petitions and referenda on policy and legislation, rather than politicians.

First published at True North on May 6, 2021.

An Ontario judge has extended an order locking the doors of a southwestern Ontario church.

Under the new order from Justice John Krawchenko of Ontario’s Superior Court of Justice, the Trinity Bible Chapel in Waterloo Region will be indefinitely locked out of its building.

At a virtual hearing Thursday afternoon, Krawchenko found that the circumstances under which he ordered the Trinity Bible Chapel’s doors to be locked last week have not sufficiently changed to justify amending the order.

“It is clear that there are no changes in circumstances either in the pandemic or in the position of the respondents that would require any modification to my previous order,” Justice Krawchenko said.

Trinity Bible Chapel’s pastors and congregation will remain locked out of their church until the court can schedule a sanctions hearing, or the Ontario government’s restrictions ease to allow worship services with 30% of building capacity, whichever comes sooner.

Sheriffs changed the locks on the church building Saturday after Krawchenko granted Ontario’s attorney general an injunction, which was set to expire this weekend.

In an interview on The Andrew Lawton Show, Pastor Jacob Reaume says his church has received approximately $50 million worth of fines for continuing to have services authorities allege to be illegal.

A lawyer for Ontario’s attorney general said continued church services with attendance above the province’s 10-person limit cause “irreparable harm” to public health and the rule of law.

Trinity Bible Chapel lawyer Lisa Bildy of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms argued, however, that government shutting down churches causes harm.

“Liberal democracy ceases to function without limits on the state’s power,” Bildy said in her submission. “Democracy without inalienable, individual rights is nothing more than tyranny by the majority. It’s mob rule.”

In an email to True North, Bildy said the decision has implications far beyond Trinity Bible Chapel.

“Locking the doors might indeed keep Trinity’s parishioners from coming together for worship at church, but it is also a symbolic blow to our liberal democracy which is supposed to protect individual rights and freedoms from state overreach,” she said. The government gave itself the power to pick winners and losers, to restrict the ability of its citizens to interact with one another in normal ways, and to punish harshly those who don’t fall in line. That should be troubling to more of us than it is. “

Krawchenko pointed out in his decision that Trinity Bible Chapel remains unwilling to abide by the Ontario government’s restrictions.

“(Trinity Bible Chapel) conceded that there was no real middle ground, and further in response to my earlier query on whether part of the physical building could be opened it was apparent that this was not a workable alternative,” he said.

Justice Krawchenko said the constitutional questions must be tried at a later date, rather than on the interim basis for Thursday’s injunction hearing.

Bildy said the Ontario government has yet to prove in a court of law that its “unprecedented lockdowns” are justified, and she and Trinity Bible Chapel intend to put the burden of proof on the province.