Summertime news from Ottawa that you might have missed

Housing statistics defy government promises  

 

The Liberals promised that their housing program will construct 500,000 new homes a year – a number the government identified as the minimum annual housing starts required through the next ten years to restore affordability. The Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) has issued a report that projects housing starts to decline from 245,367 units in 2024 to between 224,948 and 237,834 units in 2025. Starts in Ontario and B.C. “will decline sharply.”  Despite these facts, Carney is adamant that the government will meet its goals. Although the shared no details, Carney is quoted in media saying, “We will be our own best customer by relying on more Canadian lumber for Canadian projects. Canada’s new government has a strong mandate to get big things built faster. As we build bigger and faster we will build Canadian, prioritizing Canadian lumber, steel, and aluminum in Canadian construction. Canada’s new government is working to double the pace of new homebuilding to almost 500,000 a year over the next decade.” Here is a related statistic as recorded in Blacklock’s Report to underline the significance of the housing program: rents and mortgage expenses are so high in Canada the typical household pays 52 per cent of income to shelter costs, up from 38 per cent a decade ago — that is according to an internal housing department document. 

 

Adopting Sharia mortgages  

 

Blacklock’s Reporter made public Access to Information records that the finance department wanted to adopt Sharia loans in Canada prior to the federal election. CMHC warned against the adoption because home loans compliant with Muslim law pose tax and liability problems. “From a CMHC perspective it appears as though Sharia financing does not fit within our existing policies.” Records show that the federal Business Development Bank also warned that “halal financing is not permissible.” (With Sharia law, halal mortgage models involve agreements that have the lender become the property owner and the “homeowner” lease the property or enter into a shared ownership arrangement with the lender’s stake diminishing over time). Even with the repeated warnings, the finance department was eager to approve Sharia mortgages without understanding the impact because Canada’s housing policies should reflect “the rich cultural mosaic of Canadian society.” There has been no comment from the Carney Liberals since this news became public. 

 

Repatriating Canadian ISIS Women

 

A total of eight Canadian women who went to Syria to join ISIS war efforts were repatriated to Canada in 2022 and 2023 at a cost to taxpayers of more than $170,000. (This total does not include the costs associated with Canadian diplomats’ work and those officials who were working in Syria). With their rescues from Kurdish detention camps, the women were given business-class flights, luxury hotel rooms, room service meals and wine, and gift shop snacks. Juno News reported that government staff assisting the women also billed for books, clothing, travel bags, “Canadian pins,” and a “high-value token of appreciation” from Best Buy. Global Affairs Canada declined to comment on the expense bills and would not disclose the total cost of the repatriations. Conservative MPs have called for a parliamentary committee inquiry on the matter. The previous Conservative government that made leaving Canada to fight for a terrorist group like ISIS a criminal offence.

 

Judge sympathizes with man who brutally assaulted Jewish father 

 

A Jewish father walking with his children was assaulted in an unprovoked attack in a downtown Montreal park in the middle of the afternoon. The brutal encounter was caught on video and posted in social media. A Quebec judge ordered a 30-day psychiatric evaluation for the assailant after hearing he is “having a hard time.” The judge referenced the criminologist’s suggestion that “the hot weather experienced in Montreal on the day in question may have played a role in what happened.” Juno News shared a X post from Montreal Jewish consultant Anthony Koch: “Man brutally assaults a Jew in broad daylight and the judge is finding every way to justify the behaviour away because the guy was ‘having a hard time.’ Our country’s justice system is a sham and conservatives need to dedicate ourselves to fixing it.” (Another Montreal encounter recently went viral in social media, with an Islamist verbally abusing a Jew in the street: “We are going to fcking kill you.”)

 

Canada’s non-existent gold reserves 

 

With gold now trading at record highs, Canada’s gold holdings were again brought into focus. In 2016 the Trudeau government sold off all of the nation’s reserves that were held in bullion and coins. At that time the government initiated a strategy of selling the country’s gold reserves in favour of holding foreign countries’ currencies. The value of gold today is approximately $4,700 per oz., near triple what the Liberals sold it for at the height of its value at $1,686.07 per oz. (the lowest exchange rate Canada received was $1,447.27 per oz.). Juno News did the math from the 2016 sales to today’s value and reported out that the government lost over $150 million in missed profits. Although Canada is one of the leading producers of gold in the world, it continues to sell its gold (and today it is the only G7 country that has no reserves). Regarding our Canadian exports, the Globe and Mail recently revealed that in 2024 Statistics Canada reported $1.9 billion of gold exports – as bars and bullion – sent to China and Hong Kong. However, figures from Beijing state that more than $25 billion in Canadian gold was imported into China (the wide discrepancy here is due to the fact that Statistics Canada does not track the final destination of Canadian exports, only the initial nation’s port). Given China’s trade numbers, gold is Canada’s number one export to China – more than canola and coal. The wealthy nations get wealthier as China’s gold reserves are significant and the value has risen exponentially; Canada’s holdings in foreign currencies have not seen the same returns. 

 

Ottawa nonsense (at taxpayers’ expense)  

 

Ottawa’s most dependable investigative news source, Blacklock’s Reporter, exposed three news items this summer that defy common sense.  

• In 2017 the government purchased U.S.$10 million shares in M-Kopa Holdings Ltd. of Nairobi, a door-to-door sales company marketing cellphones and housewares (admittedly making the purchase without any “due diligence”). Since 2018, the government bought an additional $43.4 million worth of shares, even though M-Kopa was reporting $138.6 million in losses. The agency responsible for this boondoggle kept this information secret from parliamentary scrutiny for six years – and today will not comment on exactly how much money Canadians lost to this Nairobi scam. 
• Industry Minister Mélanie Joly gave $1.9 million to the Montreal production company, Just For Laughs. As it happens, the company is located in her hometown and is currently in bankruptcy proceedings owing its creditors millions. “Congratulations,” Joly said in all seriousness. But the gag does not end there… Just For Laughs has received a total of $15.3 million in federal subsidies in the previous four years. The company’s creditors are owed $23.7 million and that includes $1.9 million to the federal government’s Business Development Bank.  
• Yesterday, as part of the federal government’s on-going PRIDE celebrations, the department of immigration hosted workday festivities for staff. The day’s events included a 90-minute “drag bingo” game featuring male performers dressed as women, including “sexy drag rock star” and “roller skating disco diva.” There is also a 90-minute videoconference entitled “Unity In Diversity” that shared strategies to get beyond microaggressions and “focus on actionable tools that foster real belonging in the workplace.” No department official would comment on the events or their costs – or whether staff is expected to make up for their lost time playing bingo to ensure the enormous backlog of immigration cases is addressed. 

 

Some of this Ottawa news you just could not make up.