00:00:00.000In the Canadian Senate, King Charles III presented the Kearney government's speech
00:00:09.220from the throne, emphasizing support for the CBC and action on climate change, among other
00:00:15.840priorities. A tweet from Governor General Mary Simon's account referred to King Charles III's
00:00:21.040Ottawa visit as deepening the bond between our nations, implying he was a foreign monarch rather
00:00:26.540than Canada's sovereign. A report by Canada's RCMP urgently seeks federal funding due to a nearly
00:00:33.660five-fold increase in terrorism threats in the past year. Hello Canada, it's Wednesday, May 28th,
00:00:40.340and this is the True North Daily Brief. I'm Cosmin Georgia. And I'm Noah Jarvis. We've got you covered
00:00:46.100with all the news you need to know. Let's discuss the top stories of the day and the True North
00:00:51.820exclusives you won't hear anywhere else.
00:00:58.940His Majesty King Charles III delivered the speech from the throne in the Senate of Canada, pledging
00:01:05.340that the Kearney government would uphold the CBC and tackle climate change, among other priorities.
00:01:11.340The speech began with a land acknowledgement to the Algonquin and Aishinaabeg people and expressed
00:01:18.220the need to work towards truth and reconciliation.
00:01:20.460I would like to acknowledge that we are gathered on the unceded territory of the Algonquin and Aishinaabeg
00:01:29.820people. This land acknowledgement is a recognition of shared history as a nation. While continuing to
00:01:40.140deepen my own understanding, it is my great hope that in each of your communities and collectively as a
00:01:47.900country, a path is found toward truth and reconciliation in both word and deed.
00:01:56.460The speech represented the third time in all of Canadian history and the first time since 1977
00:02:04.140that Canada's sovereign delivered the throne speech. The speech, written by Kearney's advisors,
00:02:09.580presented a sweeping overview of global instability, climate policy and multiculturalism. Additionally,
00:02:16.780the King highlighted multiculturalism and how Canada has accepted refugees, quote, from some of the most
00:02:23.340tragic global conflict zones. On the CBC, King Charles stated that the Kearney government was, quote,
00:02:29.340determined to protect the institutions that bring these cultures and this identity to the world,
00:02:35.340like CBC and Radio Canada. The King talked about a changing world with threats to global stability and
00:02:41.900the need to create a new Canadian economy and strengthen partnerships with like-minded countries,
00:02:47.660as Kearney had repeated on the campaign trail. The King also touted the Kearney government's promise to
00:02:53.500cut the income tax for the lowest quintile by one percent, eliminate the GSD for first-time home
00:02:59.420buyers for homes under one million dollars, and eliminate all federal interprovincial trade barriers
00:03:04.700before Canada Day. The speech also claimed that the Kearney government would establish a new federal
00:03:09.660department dedicated to achieving the goal of, quote, one project, one review, and reducing the average
00:03:15.980time to approve major infrastructure projects from five years to two. The King repeated Kearney's
00:03:21.260promise to double the rate of home construction, driving this acceleration through a new government
00:03:26.220department called Build Canada Homes. Notably, the King did not mention US President Donald Trump's
00:03:32.22051st state comments, tariffs from the United States, or the need to decouple Canadian economic and
00:03:38.060defense policy from America. However, the speech did include a promise to introduce legislation to
00:03:43.660strengthen security at Canada's southern border. So Noah, before I pass it off to you, there were a
00:03:49.260couple things that stood out to me, particularly the land acknowledgement stuff, the focus on what you
00:03:56.860could call diversity, equity, inclusion topics, you know, the mention of climate change, which seems to
00:04:03.980still be a priority for the Liberals despite Mark Carney's posturing about lowering the consumer
00:04:10.380carbon tax to zero dollars. To me, this entire thing sort of seemed like a convenient rehashing or
00:04:19.980parade of Canada's historical ties to the monarchy, to the United Kingdom, our historical parent nation,
00:04:29.900and not a real expression of Canadian patriotism and national identity. Because throughout the speech,
00:04:39.660there's very little discussion about what actually makes a Canadian. Now, of course, the King mentioned
00:04:47.260Canada's Francophone identity, which is one part of that equation. But Canadian identity came across to me
00:04:54.700in this speech as simply support for the CBC, vague notions of diversity and kindness, the sort of
00:05:03.580deference to government that the Liberals expect from everybody else. Noah, what was your take? How do you think
00:05:11.740Canadians at large responded to the throne speech? And were there elements of politicization
00:05:19.500by Carney's team to use this speech to go after Trump?
00:05:24.540Well, I think it's pretty clear that Mark Carney and his advisers had advised the King to come and deliver the throne
00:05:30.940speech to sort of shield their government's policy agenda from any serious criticism and scrutiny. I think Mark Carney
00:05:39.580is aware that conservatives generally are supportive of the monarchy. They're generally more supportive than
00:05:45.740liberal supporters of the monarchy. And to this extent, they are probably under the assumption that
00:05:52.940conservatives are not going to criticize the throne speech with nearly as much aggression as they would
00:05:59.020if, say, Governor General Mary Simon was delivering the throne speech, who was appointed by
00:06:04.940Justin Trudeau after his other failed appointment. Julie Payette revealed herself to be
00:06:11.660quite a demanding and even abusive person. However, this throne speech really contains some content that
00:06:19.420conservatives might appreciate. However, I think a lot of conservatives are in a bit of a sit and wait
00:06:27.020sort of mood. They got to see whether or not the Carney government is actually serious in bringing down
00:06:33.180home prices. We had some conflicting comments that the housing minister, Gregor Robertson, had made where
00:06:40.300he said that his goal is to not bring down home prices, but instead to build more affordable homes,
00:06:47.420basically government built and government subsidized homes. And we've heard Mark Carney say other things on
00:06:53.340the housing file. We've heard Mark Carney say that he is going to dedicate more funding toward the
00:06:59.500Canadian Armed Forces in reaching the 2% of GDP target that NATO had set out in generally trying
00:07:07.420to rebuild our decimated Armed Forces after years upon years of neglect. But it remains to be seen
00:07:14.380whether or not he's serious on this type of issues. I know that Canadian Taxpayers Federation President
00:07:21.420Franco Terrazano had said that he is happy to see the Liberal government try to cut the income tax for the
00:07:28.220lowest quintile by 1% and to eliminate the GST for first time home buyers for homes under 1 million.
00:07:35.180But, you know, Canadians need further tax relief and whether or not this Liberal government would be
00:07:41.500dedicated to providing that sort of tax relief to Canadians and to make Canada a tax competitive country
00:07:48.380remains to be seen. So I think a lot of Liberals who voted for Mark Carney, they got what they wanted.
00:07:55.020A lot of Conservatives, they have to see whether or not Carney is serious in addressing the major issues
00:08:02.060of this country. And to a large extent, this is just an extension of what Mark Carney had been campaigning
00:08:08.460on platitudes and ripping certain policies from the Conservatives in order to build a coalition
00:08:16.060of Liberal supporters that even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had not been able to achieve. So I think
00:08:22.940it's very much a remain and see type of time. However, Canadians should not be blinded to what the
00:08:32.220Carney government is pursuing by the pageantry of King Charles III being here.
00:08:36.860It's the kind of thing most Canadians learn in elementary school civics classes. The King isn't
00:08:45.340just a royal guest, he's our head of state. But someone at Rideau Hall may have missed that lesson.
00:08:50.540A tweet from Governor General Mary Simon's official account on Monday referred to King Charles III's
00:08:55.820visit to Ottawa as a deepening of the bond between our nations, implying that the King was visiting as a
00:09:01.980foreign monarch from the United Kingdom rather than as the sovereign of Canada. The tweet read quote,
00:09:07.980Simon was honored to have an audience with his majesty King Charles III at Rideau Hall as part of
00:09:14.140their majesty's royal visit to Canada. These ongoing conversations reflect the meaningful bond between
00:09:19.980our nations, followed by a Canadian and British emoji side by side. Although King Charles III wears many
00:09:25.820crowns as monarch of multiple Commonwealth realms, each title is legally distinct. In Canadian law,
00:09:31.900he is King of Canada, a position enshrined in Canada's constitution act. He serves as Canada's
00:09:38.380sovereign independently of his UK role. The Governor General acts on the King's behalf within Canada,
00:09:44.700but the King himself remains the country's constitutional head of state. That means this
00:09:49.500isn't a meeting between two nations, it's the monarch visiting his own. How did the people working at
00:09:54.460Rideau Hall make such an erroneous mistake? Did the Governor General eventually apologize for the error?
00:09:59.900Yeah, no, it's a good question. You would assume people at Rideau Hall are educated in Canada's
00:10:06.940constitutional monarchy and the way our government is set up and who in fact is the head of state,
00:10:13.740that being the King. But no, they didn't apologize. They simply just scrubbed the tweet off of their
00:10:21.420ex account and essentially issued a new one that didn't have the mistake. It was a little bit shorter,
00:10:28.220I'll read it right now. And it says, Governor General Simon was honored to have an audience with his
00:10:33.660Majesty King Charles III at Rideau Hall as part of their majesty's royal visit to Canada. So a lot of
00:10:42.060people took issue with this tweet, not only because of the misunderstanding of Governor General Mary Simon's
00:10:49.740role and what part the monarchy plays in Canada's civic structure, but also sort of equating the
00:10:59.740Governor General to the stature of the king almost as if they are equal by the Governor General inviting
00:11:07.340him as a guest essentially the way the tweet was portrayed into Canada when in reality, based on our
00:11:13.900constitution, Canada is already the king's dominion. So it just shows and betrays a lack of basic education
00:11:21.660in civics. Whether it was just a flippant mistake or not, you would expect that people whose literal job
00:11:29.420is to represent the king and the royal crown would know better.
00:11:34.540Canada's RCMP urgently requests federal funding citing a nearly five-fold increase in terrorism
00:11:44.300threats in the past year. They warn of insufficient resources to combat the growing danger, especially
00:11:51.340youth radicalization fueled by, quote, online extremism. In a newly released ministerial briefing
00:11:58.460binder, the RCMP revealed that between April 1st, 2023 and March 31st, 2024, 25 suspects were charged
00:12:07.580with 83 terrorism-related offenses, marking a 488% increase over the previous year. The force said three
00:12:16.540minors and six young adults were among those charged and another eight youths were subject to terrorism
00:12:23.420peace bonds. The document, prepared in December 2024 for former Public Safety Minister David McGinty,
00:12:30.620now in the hands of Prime Minister Mark Carney's newly appointed Minister Gary Ananda-Sandri,
00:12:36.300outlined severe gaps in national security readiness. It notes that six terrorist plots were foiled over
00:12:42.780the past year with arrests in Edmonton, Ottawa and Toronto. The spike in charges comes amid increasing
00:12:48.620concern from the United States about the flow of fentanyl and suspected terrorists coming across the
00:12:54.380northern border into the U.S. FBI Director Kash Patel recently said, quote, Canada is our partner in
00:13:01.180the north who has to get stepping. Patel claimed 85% of suspected terrorists are now entering the U.S.
00:13:08.300through the Canadian border. Between 2022 and 2024, 1,199 individuals on the terrorist watch list
00:13:17.820were intercepted at the northern border compared to just 205 at the southern border of the U.S.
00:13:24.300In 2024, 741 pounds of fentanyl were seized at the northern border, enough to kill over 168 million
00:13:33.100people. The RCMP report identifies foreign interference, border integrity, hate crimes,
00:13:39.660and opioids as additional hot issues, but warns that the ongoing budget constraints are forcing
00:13:45.500it to shift resources reactively, often at the cost of broader preparedness. Obviously, there are several
00:13:52.620elements to this problem because the issue of terrorism has wide sweeping effects, not only on our
00:14:01.500relationship with our major partner in the United States, border security, public safety, but also it
00:14:09.820interplays with some of the global conflicts we're seeing play out. And those conflicts are arriving here
00:14:17.980on Canadian streets. And people who are beholden to extremist views or particular factions in these global
00:14:25.660conflicts come to this country and bring those conflicts on the streets and even express, even go so
00:14:33.980far as expressing support for listed terrorist entities. Noah, have we seen this play out in the last year or so,
00:14:42.940in particular with the conflict in the Middle East on Canadian streets?
00:14:47.020Absolutely. It seemed as if since the October 7th, 2023 terrorist attack by Hamas against Israel,
00:14:54.220Israel where 1,200 civilians were murdered. It seems as if the Islamist world has been very agitated and
00:15:02.700been ready to commit certain terrorist attacks against civilians. We've seen recently with the terrorist
00:15:08.860attack in Washington where two Israeli staffers were gunned down in cold blood by a Hamas-supporting
00:15:17.740lunatic who committed these murders based on political motives. It is a terrorist act. And we've
00:15:24.300seen other countries in Europe and are just around the world who have been reeling from an increase in
00:15:32.460terrorist activity. And Canada is no different. We've had the police arrest multiple wannabe terrorists who
00:15:40.540were about to commit a terrorist offense in Toronto or in other big cities. And they were arrested at the
00:15:47.740last minute. Thank God that these perpetrators weren't able to commit their heinous acts. But at the end of
00:15:54.860the day, this is still a challenge that the RCMP is facing, hence why they're asking for increased funding. And we have to really reflect on what sort of incentives Canada has been giving to terrorists to the point where terrorists who are
00:15:59.020entering the United States are coming in through the northern border rather than the southern border, the poorest southern border that drug cartels use to traffic drugs and other humans or who's illegal immigrants just
00:16:11.660trying to get over. It is the northern border that are actually crossing. And that is likely because Canada has a very tolerant and liberal system when it comes to people who are entering our country and who are even trying to immigrate here.
00:16:26.300We recently had the case of a person who was trying to go and join a Yemeni terrorist organization, an undisclosed Yemeni terrorist organization, but I think we can assume it was the Houthis. This person, this person was weeks away from
00:16:44.300gaining Canadian citizenship, had been in this country for several years, had been in this country for several years, had attended several pro-Palestine, you know, even pro-Hamas rallies where he was photographed wearing the Yemeni flag.
00:17:08.300It is not as if this person wasn't giving off the signs that this person wanted to be a part of a terrorist organization and yet we were unable to deal with this person until they were weeks away from gaining citizenship and they were really on the cusp of going to Yemen to join the Houthis, our immigration system and just the vetting
00:17:32.300the vetting of the people that we do for the people that we do for the people that are coming into this country is very lax. It is not to the standards that it ought to be in.
00:17:40.300And God forbid that we get to the situation where we are actually dealing with a terrorist attack from an Islamist who is frustrated about what is going on in Israel and Gaza.
00:17:51.300And we have an atrocity similar to the one to the one that happened in Washington. And this is not only a threat coming from Islamist terrorists, but also comes from people who sympathize with the
00:18:04.300the Calistan cause of the Punjab region of India separating away from Canada. That conflict has nothing to do with Canada whatsoever. But Canada has been importing a bunch of people from India, specifically the Punjab region, who are sympathetic to the
00:18:19.300Calistani cause, far more sympathetic than the people who are actually living in the Punjab region of that area, just separating away from India, and they would be willing to use violent methods in order to see their goal achieved.
00:18:35.300They would be willing to, you know, commit to terrorist violence, we've seen the 1985 Air India bombing, and we don't want a repeat of that sort of bombing, or any other terrorist attack on Canadian soil because of a
00:18:49.300Calistani extremist. So, Canada definitely has a lot of hard work to do in order to make our country next to terrorist free. And I hope that this
00:19:01.300Karni government takes the opportunity to engage in this sort of work because the Trudeau government was totally uninterested in
00:19:08.300dealing with this problem because of their ideological and obscene commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion and to including
00:19:18.300minorities, no matter where they come from, and no matter what their ideological background is into the fabric of Canadian society.
00:19:26.300That's it for today, folks. Thanks for tuning in. You can stay on top of new episodes every weekday by subscribing to The Daily Brief on
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