Juno News - November 25, 2025Liberals spend $37 million fighting extremism, avoid mentioning Islam
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Summary
Prime Minister Mark Carney is calling for world leaders to ensure that artificial intelligence data centres are carbon neutral, while praising carbon taxes in Europe. The Liberal government has poured nearly $37 million into groups to fight violent extremism, but doesn t mention Islamist extremism and anti-Semitism in its funding targets. The Canada Revenue Agency has gained nearly $500 million from a snitch line that allows Canadians to report their neighbours whom they suspect of tax evasion.
Transcript
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Prime Minister Mark Carney is calling for world leaders to ensure that artificial intelligence
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data centres are, quote, carbon neutral, while praising carbon taxes in Europe.
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The Liberal government has poured nearly $37 million into groups to fight violent extremism,
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but doesn't mention Islamist extremism and barely mentions anti-Semitism in its funding targets.
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The Canada Revenue Agency has gained nearly half a billion dollars from a snitch line
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that allows Canadians to report their neighbours whom they suspect of tax evasion.
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Hello Canada, it's Tuesday, November 25th, and this is the True North Daily Brief.
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We've got you covered with all the news you need to know.
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Let's discuss the top stories of the day and the True North exclusives you won't hear anywhere else.
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Prime Minister Mark Carney used his platform at the G20 Summit in South Africa to urge world leaders
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to require artificial intelligence data centres to operate as carbon neutral, in part through the use of carbon credits.
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Speaking at a working session in Johannesburg, Carney called for the development of standardized,
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high-integrity carbon markets that would redirect capital flows to regions most impacted by climate change.
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He said AI infrastructure, given its rapidly expanding energy demands,
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should be required to account for its environmental footprint.
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I'd suggest that we can catalyze enormous private sector demand for these credits
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by committing AI data centre development to be carbon neutral.
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I salute my neighbour, the European Union, in pricing carbon and putting in place a CBAM.
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He praised the EU for its Carbon Taxes and Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism, or CBAM,
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which apply tariffs to carbon-intensive imports.
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Carney's comments comes as Canada faces growing scrutiny over its domestic carbon tax,
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which remains in the industrial portion even after Carney removed the consumer carbon tax.
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The Prime Minister's remarks also followed the debate around the outcome of the COP30 summit
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The final COP30 agreement did not include any reference to fossil fuels,
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despite calls from several countries for a roadmap to transition away from them.
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However, in his closing statement, the COP president announced plans to establish a working group
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to produce what he described as the world's first fossil fuel transition roadmap.
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So, William Carney proposed his own version of these, quote,
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carbon border adjustment mechanisms during the last election.
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Well, I think it's really interesting when it comes to Prime Minister Carney and carbon taxes.
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Of course, Mr. Carney is no stranger to carbon taxes.
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In fact, he's been an advocate for many years, some would even say decades,
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of lots of different measures to reduce carbon emissions.
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And he was quite vocal about it before becoming Prime Minister.
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His decision to cancel the consumer carbon tax wasn't ideological.
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He saw it as something that was dragging down liberal support, heading into an election,
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That did not mean he no longer supports carbon taxes.
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And I have to laugh because of how many different names people seem to be coming up with,
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carbon border adjustments and other things, to simply mean carbon tax.
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In this particular instance, I think the concern is Canada is already struggling with low productivity.
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We are seeing high unemployment, wages being depressed.
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And all of these things combined are creating tough economic situation for Canadian families.
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Anything that makes doing business in Canada more expensive is a threat to Canada's economic growth.
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And I think this carbon tax, whether or not it's applied just on imports or exports or both,
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would have the effect of putting us at a competitive disadvantage to those jurisdictions
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that don't have these same carbon taxes, notably the United States.
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So I think that's something that everybody must keep in mind when it comes to when we're talking about these new carbon taxes.
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The impact on families could be very real and, frankly, very devastating.
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The federal government is pouring nearly $37 million into community projects that, quote,
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prevent and counter violent extremism, yet almost none of the money targets Islamist extremism and anti-Semitism,
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the top threats according to Canadian and global intelligence agencies.
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Instead, projects tackling far-right extremism are over-represented,
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while leaving the highest-risk ideologies almost entirely untouched.
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Public Safety's latest round of Community Resilience Fund spending supports 19 projects run by universities,
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hate-motivated crimes and improve understanding of radicalization to violence.
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But the review of the funded initiative shows none of the projects address Islamist or jihadist radicalization,
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Last week, CSIS Director Dan Rogers stated that, quote,
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extreme religious, ideological, or political views persist as one of Canada's most significant national security concerns.
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The National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians and CSIS have said individuals inspired by, quote,
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jihadi ideology, remain the greatest terrorist threat to Canada, a conclusion mirrored in CSIS's 2024 annual report.
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The discrepancy prompted a forensic audit by TAFSEC, a Toronto-based Jewish advocacy organization.
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The group carried out a forensic audit of the Community Resilience Fund's 2025 portfolio,
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which concluded that the federal program is, quote,
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structurally blind to the surge in Islamist extremism and anti-Jewish violence that is currently mobilizing youth.
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The audit found that only two of 19 projects mention anti-Semitism,
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and none addressed Islamist or jihadist radicalization.
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So, Isaac, combating anti-Semitism and Islamic extremism have both been blind spots for liberal governments since 2015,
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with many seeing the failure worsen since the October 7th attacks from two years ago.
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Is this a case of policy failure, or is there some political calculus driving this approach?
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Yeah, William, I think you're looking at a mix of genuine policy failure
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and, pretty obvious, political incentives pulling in the same and arguably wrong direction.
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On the policy side, the numbers speak for themselves.
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Intelligence agencies have been warning for years that the deadliest risk to Canada
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comes from actors inspired by jihadist ideology,
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and that Jewish communities are a primary target.
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At the same time, as you mentioned, anti-Semitic incidents have hit record highs,
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with thousands of cases of harassment, vandalism, and violence reported in a single year.
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Yet, when Ottawa doles out tens of millions of dollars in prevention money,
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virtually none of it is earmarked to deal specifically with Islamist radicalization,
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or with the forms of anti-Semitism that are motivating recent plots and street intimidation,
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to deal specifically with Islamist radicalization,
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or with the forms of anti-Semitism that are motivating recent plots and street intimidation.
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Instead, the money is overwhelmingly routed into projects framed around generic hate,
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even though there have been multiple disrupted Islamist-inspired plots against Jewish targets
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So that would be a straight misalignment between threat assessments and program designs.
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We've seen the federal government repeatedly fund activist infrastructure
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that is almost entirely oriented toward one side of the spectrum.
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Groups like the Canadian Anti-Hate Network have received close to a million dollars in federal grants
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even as a Canadian court accepted evidence that the organization itself had assisted Antifa,
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Other reporting has shown school boards paying the Canadian Anti-Hate Network's co-founder to train staff,
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despite concerns that their materials smear mainstream parents groups
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and may actually fuel radicalization rather than calm it.
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At the same time, far-left networks in B.C. have rebranded themselves
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with softer pro-democracy language to get closer to institutions and funders,
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and the federal government has stayed quiet on whether any of that ecosystem
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should face the kind of scrutiny routinely applied to right-of-center groups.
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the liberals rely heavily on progressive urban coalitions,
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including activist NGOs and Muslim community organizations
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that have pushed back hard against terror financing audits
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and against explicitly naming Islamist ideology as a security concern,
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calling out jihadist anti-Semitism in clear terms risks accusations of Islamophobia,
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legislative fights, and backlash in key ridings.
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By contrast, there seems to be very little political cost
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in constantly expanding the definition of far right
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to sweep in social conservatives, parents groups, or critics of gender ideology.
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it looks like less of an innocent oversight and more like a feedback loop,
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wherein policy frameworks that deliberately de-emphasize Islamist extremism,
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a grant-funded activist sector that keeps government focused on one type of threat,
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and a governing party that sees more risk in offending its progressive base
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than in leaving Jewish institutions and the broader public with a gaping security gap.
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A tax evasion snitch hotline has brought the Canada Revenue Agency
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nearly half a billion in federal taxes and penalties through the use of informants,
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which has been a key part of recovering funds since its inception in 2014.
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The tip line still averaged more than 100 responses annually,
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despite Canadians generally being of the belief that what others are doing is none of their business,
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while others noted that there may be attenuating circumstances that may explain the cheating,
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However, an inquiry of ministry tabled in the House of Commons
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found such confidential tips were said to be a key part of the agency's efforts
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to fight international tax evasion and tax avoidance.
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through information from the offshore tax informant program.
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The program received an average of 109 tips a year
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that resulted in the identification of almost 950 taxpayers for audits since 2018,
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The figures were disclosed in response to a request from Conservative MP Eric Lefebvre,
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who inquired about the number of tips received from informants
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So, William, is the use of a tip line justified to catch those taxpayers who are avoiding paying their fair share of taxes,
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or is this an example of the state urging citizens to rat on each other as ill-intended regimes have done throughout history?
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Yeah, I mean, I think it's an interesting situation.
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Inherent to Canadians, I think, is this belief in fairness,
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that people should pay their fair share of taxes, even if we agree that they're too high.
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And the idea that some people are avoiding paying their fair share,
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and therefore the burden falls onto the rest of us who do pay our taxes,
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On the other side of the spectrum, this idea that we're incentivizing Canadians to turn each other in
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to the Canada Revenue Agency makes us all feel really uncomfortable.
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We've seen regimes around the world where ratting on fellow citizens,
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and it's almost always in countries with governments that are oppressive,
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where they call ratting even your own family a patriotic duty.
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So I think there's a real resistance on the part of Canadians to turn people in.
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Certainly in COVID, when there were tip lines saying,
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oh, if you see your neighbor and his children having fun in a public park,
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In this case, I think there has to be quite a lot of oversight
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and ensuring that this tip line is never used irresponsibly.
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It's never used, for example, for two spouses who are maybe undergoing divorce,
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and it's acrimonious for one to try and punish the other by filing a frivolous complaint.
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You're having a fight with your neighbor over there mowing the lawn too early in the morning.
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You're not reporting your neighbor for that sort of flimsy and vexatious reason.
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I think we always have to be very careful when it comes to turning each other into the state.
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That is a thin end of the wedge leading to bad outcomes for a society and for a government for sure.
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