Juno News - Mark Carney vows to defend access to puberty blockers

00:00:00.000 Liberal leader Mark Carney has vowed to continue public access to gender-affirming care such as

00:00:10.940 puberty blockers, quote, without exception. Liberal candidate Peter Yuen deflected questions

00:00:16.880 regarding his ties to pro-Beijing organizations. A Liberal MP who was stripped of his license to

00:00:23.200 practice law was an early advocate of the Liberal government's catch-and-release

00:00:27.780 justice reform laws. Hello Canada, it's Friday, April 11th, and this is the True North Daily Brief.

00:00:34.580 I'm Cosman Georgia. And I'm Jeff Knight. We've got you covered with all the news you need to know.

00:00:40.200 Let's discuss the top stories of the day and the True North exclusives you won't hear anywhere else.

00:00:49.380 In a continuation of policies set by his predecessor, former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,

00:00:55.180 Liberal leader Mark Carney has vowed to maintain government-funded access to puberty blockers and

00:01:01.740 transgender surgeries. During a press conference in Alberta on Tuesday, Carney made sweeping promises

00:01:07.860 to defend gender-affirming care. Gender-affirming care is a common term used by transgender activists

00:01:14.960 to refer to publicly funded access to puberty blockers, hormone treatment, sex change operations,

00:01:21.540 and other medical or non-medical interventions to accommodate an individual's chosen gender identity.

00:01:28.100 In response to a question on the issue, Carney said that, quote,

00:01:32.260 access to health care is a fundamental right. Reporters asked Carney whether the Liberals would

00:01:37.940 intervene to protect access to transgender medical treatments under the Canada Health Act,

00:01:43.500 a move that could further violate provincial jurisdictions as provinces like Alberta seek

00:01:49.160 to prevent access to controversial treatments like puberty blockers for minors.

00:01:54.980 Your platform hasn't said anything about LGBTQ Canadians. We're here in Alberta where the province

00:02:01.280 wants to restrict health care for transgender people and they want the Canada Health Act to defend 0.99

00:02:06.620 their access to gender-affirming care. Would you do that? And what is your party going to do

00:02:12.720 about the backsliding that we're seeing for gender and sexual minorities?

00:02:16.960 You know, thank you. Thank you for the question, Dylan. Let me start at a fundamental point,

00:02:22.580 which is, you know, Canada is a mosaic. We are all Canadians, but we all have different identities

00:02:30.960 and distinctions. And one of the great strengths of this country is recognizing that people can be

00:02:38.240 who they are, they can love who they love, they can live where they want to live. And it's fundamentally

00:02:44.140 important that the federal government is the defender of those rights, defender of the Charter

00:02:50.600 of Rights and Freedoms. And access to health care in Canada is not a business, it is a fundamental right

00:02:59.820 and we will defend it. For all Canadians, for all Canadians, without exception.

00:03:07.300 Alberta's policies such as Bill 26, quote, prohibits health professionals from performing sex reassignment

00:03:13.820 surgeries on minors, as well as the use of puberty blockers by minors, except for those 16 and 17 with parental

00:03:22.000 approval. So Jeff, I know that health care is technically a provincial jurisdiction, but that hasn't

00:03:29.520 stopped the federal government from weighing in or attempting to fund groups that push certain

00:03:34.820 agendas, especially the gender ideology agenda. But at the federal level, how much are taxpayers

00:03:42.540 being billed to fund gender affirming care? And what sort of programs exist in Ottawa?

00:03:49.580 Taxpayers are footing a pretty significant bill for gender affirming care at the federal level,

00:03:54.560 particularly through programs like the public service health care plan, which Mark Carney's policies

00:03:59.120 seem intent on expanding. According to a CBC report from August of last year, the PSHCP covering federal

00:04:06.360 public servants, retirees and their dependents saw $1.1 million in claims for gender affirming care in

00:04:13.100 the 2023-2024 fiscal year alone. That's a sharp jump from $664,000 in the previous year, a 65% increase,

00:04:21.800 driven by a spike in demand for procedures like genital and chest surgeries, as well as hormone treatments.

00:04:27.100 The plan, which started covering these treatments in 2022, now includes up to $75,000 per person for

00:04:34.300 gender affirming surgeries not covered by provincial health plans, plus an additional $10,000 every two

00:04:40.340 years for other procedures like facial surgeries. With 615,000 members enrolled, the costs are only

00:04:46.720 climbing. Sun Life, the plan's administrator, paid out $4,000 per claimant on average in 2023-24,

00:04:53.760 up from $2,900 the year before. That's millions straight from the taxpayers' pockets, and Carney's

00:04:59.480 pledge to double down on this suggests that numbers could balloon even further, especially if the

00:05:03.900 Liberals push to override provincial restrictions like Alberta's. It's a hefty price tag for a program

00:05:08.940 that's already growing fast. Liberal candidate for Markham Unionville, Peter Yuen, has deflected

00:05:17.140 questions about his past affiliations with pro-China organizations. The Liberals handpicked the former

00:05:22.680 Toronto Deputy Police Chief to replace disgraced Liberal MP Paul Chang as their candidate in the

00:05:28.280 riding, after Chang called for a conservative opponent to be kidnapped and turned into China

00:05:33.480 for a bounty. Yuen's connections to Beijing-linked organizations like the Jiangsu Commerce Council of

00:05:39.200 Canada and his participation in pro-CCP events have risen to the forefront. The Liberal candidate's

00:05:45.040 past advocacy arrives on the backdrop of an ongoing foreign interference campaign by Chinese state-affiliated

00:05:51.040 media, boosting rockstar Carney to the Chinese diaspora in Canada, as revealed by the security and

00:05:57.000 intelligence threats to elections task force. In a statement to the Globe and Mail, Yuen defended his record.

00:06:03.480 He wrote, quote,

00:06:04.400 I have built a great career committed to public service and have a track record of maintaining

00:06:09.080 the health, safety, and well-being of those in our community as Toronto's former Deputy Police Chief.

00:06:14.380 I am ready to build a stronger community for the people of Markham Unionville.

00:06:18.460 Carney's choice of Yuen, who has attended events organized by pro-Beijing groups and was even

00:06:23.200 videotaped singing a Communist Chinese anthem, has raised concerns among Chinese dissidents and

00:06:28.960 political observers. Yuen has spoken at events hosted by the Toronto branch of the Chinese Freemasons,

00:06:34.700 an organization that actively advocates for the annexation of Taiwan by China, in line with the

00:06:39.700 CCP's One China policy. While Yuen now claims his role with the Commerce Council ended a decade ago,

00:06:46.020 he has not directly addressed whether he supports Taiwan's self-determination, nor Hong Kong or Tibet,

00:06:52.120 and he has never publicly condemned China's human rights abuses against religious and ethnic minority

00:06:57.600 groups. Adding to the controversy, Yuen was also a board member of NOIC Academy, a private school

00:07:03.840 flagged by intelligence officials for election interference. Canadian intelligence agencies

00:07:08.260 have raised concerns that students at the school were threatened by the Chinese consulate

00:07:12.360 into voting for preferred candidates. So, Cosmin, we know of Beijing's past attempts to interfere

00:07:17.700 in Canadian democracy. Should Canadians be concerned that China is attempting to influence this federal

00:07:22.580 election? Well, absolutely. I don't think China has given up on election interference when it comes

00:07:29.300 to Canadian democracy. They did it in 2019. They did it in 2021. They've been doing it for a while,

00:07:38.420 and this is only at the federal level. There hasn't really been any investigation at the provincial

00:07:43.520 or municipal level. But the latest concern is the fact that we have a prime candidate, potentially the

00:07:52.540 next Prime Minister of Canada, Liberal Leader Mark Carney, being flagged by Canada's election

00:07:59.160 interference watchdog as a primary target of favorable coverage by a Chinese state-backed media operation.

00:08:08.760 And that came from the site SITE task force, which has been charged with maintaining the security and

00:08:17.520 integrity of Canadian elections due to past foreign interference, like we saw in 2019 and 2021,

00:08:25.200 as I mentioned. But they essentially unveiled a campaign on the popular Chinese messaging platform,

00:08:33.100 WeChat, being pushed by a state-backed media outlet to Chinese diaspora in Canada. And this campaign was

00:08:41.720 essentially, when you actually look at the sorts of articles and coverage they were promoting,

00:08:47.800 it all presents Mark Carney as the preferred candidate to vote for. They talk about his qualification,

00:08:57.140 you know, as a former central banker, governor of the Bank of Canada, Bank of England. They call him a rock

00:09:04.280 star economist. And I quote that directly. They also play him up as the person to fight US President Donald

00:09:15.700 Trump. And we know in past elections, there has been attempts by China to downplay and even thwart the

00:09:23.300 election of conservative candidates. And that includes in the latest election in 2021. So it's quite obvious.

00:09:31.860 And Mark Carney, his own responses to these, what essentially amounts to election interference hasn't

00:09:40.740 been stellar, right? He's sort of brushed it off. He said, Oh, I had no idea. But he's refused to condemn

00:09:46.820 it and and essentially take a stronger stance. So absolutely, election interference continues to be at

00:09:54.860 play this election. A Liberal MP and incumbent candidate in British Columbia's Surrey Central

00:10:03.700 Riding, who had his license to practice law suspended for professional misconduct, also championed a soft on

00:10:10.980 crime law that many attributed to rising crime rates in his constituency. Randeep Sarai, Liberal MP

00:10:18.500 incumbent candidate for Surrey Center, was an avowed supporter of Bill C-5, which repealed certain

00:10:26.060 mandatory minimum penalties for criminal offenses. Bill C-5, which received royal assent in November 2022,

00:10:33.540 was designed to address systemic racism and discrimination within the criminal justice system

00:10:38.800 by eliminating mandatory minimum sentences for various criminal offenses, mostly gun crimes and drug

00:10:45.720 possession. The government's backgrounder on Bill C-5 says there is, quote, systemic racism in Canada's criminal

00:10:52.280 justice system, which the new legislation attempted to solve. Sarai was an early champion and proponent of the law,

00:11:01.000 which has been cited by many critics, including Conservative leader Pierre Paulyev, as a contributing factor to

00:11:08.120 Canada's catch and release legal system and a subsequent crime wave in recent years. Sarai said at the time, quote,

00:11:16.480 a criminal justice system which utilizes a mandatory minimum penalty as a model of reform is not reflective of Canadian

00:11:23.720 values or the needs of racialized and marginalized communities within Canada. Instead of reducing systemic racism,

00:11:31.740 however, the law has led to a series of incidents in which offenders were arrested and charged, released, and then arrested

00:11:39.700 and charged again shortly thereafter for committing the same or similar offenses. A recent case of repeat offenders

00:11:47.660 being released prematurely includes David William Charles Hoffman, a prolific violent reoffender who is facing charges of

00:11:56.400 assault, attempted robbery, breaking and entering, and mischief in relation to a violent incident at a Surrey

00:12:03.240 modular home park. At the time of his alleged offenses, Hoffman already had an extensive criminal history with over a dozen

00:12:10.060 charges and convictions and had been released on bail only weeks earlier. Out of all of the things the liberals have been

00:12:17.620 campaigning on, their record on crime doesn't seem to be one that's at the forefront. Jeff, has Mark Carney taken the issue of the

00:12:26.380 crime seriously, and what are his crime policies so far that he's proposed this election?

00:12:32.220 Yeah, Cosman, Mark Carney has talked about tackling crime, but his approach so far feels more like a series of promises rather than a

00:12:39.380 serious crackdown, especially when you look at the fallout from policies like Bill C-5 that his party pushed. On April 10th, the Liberal Party

00:12:46.220 released a plan to fight crime, protect Canadians, and build safer communities, as outlined on their website. Carney's big pitch is to go after criminal gangs and stop illegal guns and drug

00:12:55.220 from crossing the U.S. border. He's promised to disrupt and dismantle criminal networks and bolster the justice system, but the details are light on how he'll actually do that.

00:13:05.060 More concretely, he's committed to protecting kids from online crimes like sextortion by introducing new legislation, and he's also vowed to fight rising hate crimes by

00:13:15.060 increasing funding to the Canadian Community Security Programme. That includes making it a criminal offence to obstruct access to places of worship, schools, or community centres,

00:13:24.900 or to intimidate people at those locations. These are targeted measures, for sure, but they don't directly address the kind of repeat offender issues we're seeing in places like Surrey, with cases like David Hoffman.

00:13:34.900 Carney's rhetoric leans heavily on safety and security, with him saying, quote, we will protect community spaces so that Canadians can live their lives in safety and security.

00:13:44.900 But there's a disconnect here. His party's track record, including their support for Bill C-5, has been blamed for fueling catch and release cycles that let repeat offenders like Hoffman back on the streets.

00:13:55.460 Carney hasn't signaled any rollback of these softer policies, which undercuts his tough on crime messaging. His plan focuses more on prevention and community protection than on addressing the systemic issues in the justice system that critics like Pierre Polyev argue are driving crime words.

00:14:10.740 That'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 iTunes and Spotify.

00:14:22.740 Also, while you're at it, make sure to hit us with a 5-star rating and please leave a review.

Juno News - April 11, 2025

Mark Carney vows to defend access to puberty blockers

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