Juno News - September 29, 2025


Police union chiefs speak their mind about failed bail policies


Episode Stats

Length

17 minutes

Words per Minute

165.29738

Word Count

2,857

Sentence Count

151

Hate Speech Sentences

2


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 The U.S. economy has experienced a surge, while Canada continues its six-year-long pattern of
00:00:09.840 stagnant economic growth. Police union leaders gave a scathing testimony during a justice
00:00:15.400 committee against liberal bail laws, the federal gun confiscation program, and so-called safe
00:00:21.600 supply policies. A new report found that more Canadians are on medical wait lists than they
00:00:26.300 were at the end of the COVID lockdowns in 2022. Hello Canada, it's Monday, September 29th,
00:00:31.580 and this is the True North Daily Brief. I'm Isaac Lamoureux. And I'm Wally Tantan. We've got you
00:00:36.640 covered with all the news you need to know. Let's discuss the top stories of the day and
00:00:40.320 the True North exclusives you won't hear anywhere else. While the U.S. economy has enjoyed a recent
00:00:49.420 surge, Canada's economic growth has been stagnant for the past six years. University of Waterloo
00:00:55.300 economist Mikhail Skudard noted Thursday that Canada's real GDP per capita fell at an annualized
00:01:01.420 rate of 0.97% between the first and second quarters of 2025, according to updated population estimates.
00:01:09.260 Real GDP per person was higher in the second quarter of 2019 than in 2025, showing, quote,
00:01:15.240 no economic growth in six years. By contrast, the U.S. economy expanded at 3.8% annual pace from April
00:01:23.220 through June, a sharp upgrade from the government's earlier 3.3% estimate, according to the Associated
00:01:29.460 Press. Consumer spending rose 2.5%, up from 0.6% in the first quarter and well above the 1.6%
00:01:37.060 previously estimated. The spring rebound followed a 0.6% first quarter drop in U.S. gross domestic
00:01:42.980 product, caused largely by a surge in imports ahead of President Donald Trump's latest tariffs.
00:01:47.760 Imports then fell 29.3%, boosting second quarter growth by more than 5 percentage points.
00:01:54.480 A key measure of underlying U.S. economic strength, which includes consumer spending and private
00:01:58.900 investment, grew at a 2.9% annual pace, up from 1.9% in the first quarter. The contrast leaves
00:02:05.360 Canada's economy looking stagnant. With real output per person still below its pre-pandemic peak,
00:02:11.160 Canada has seen no per capita gains since mid-2019.
00:02:14.880 So, Waleed, what are some ways economists and business leaders have proposed to make
00:02:19.600 Canada more economically competitive?
00:02:21.600 Well, look, there's been a whole range of things, Isaac. Frankly, Canada's economy is not
00:02:26.160 looking good from any indication, whether it's our present situation on trade or the future
00:02:32.160 with our debt and deficits. Many experts that once I've been listening to throughout my coverage
00:02:37.280 on the economy have suggested that, first of all, Canada does need to look into potentially
00:02:42.640 striking that trade deal with the U.S. that Carney has promised since the election.
00:02:46.320 That trade deal itself will make a much larger difference than any deal with an Asian country
00:02:51.760 like Indonesia or any fringe European country out west simply because the United States makes up
00:02:59.920 such a large part of our trade and shared industries across the border that it will have a significant
00:03:05.280 impact. We'll talk about this later in the show. We also have a very precarious fiscal situation with
00:03:12.240 governments across the country running deficits and our overall debt looks to pass 2 trillion,
00:03:18.000 which is beyond our GDP already. So, frankly, Ottawa has to clean up on its spending, capping spending,
00:03:24.960 bringing a budget of austerity this fall and multiple budgets of austerity, of course, with much
00:03:31.040 greater spending cuts than that proposed 15% on the bureaucracy, which has, by the way, grown by 99,000
00:03:38.560 workers in Ottawa alone over the last decade. And, of course, with that, also wages for that public
00:03:45.840 service have gone up, not only in the House of Commons, but also among managers. I think there's around
00:03:51.760 about 9,000 government managers, bureaucrats that receive over $150,000 in annual salary. So, obviously,
00:04:02.240 spending is quite high. The military spending project, as well, is not going to help that situation any
00:04:07.520 further. The drop of tariffs, the elbows-down approach, so-called, by Mark Carney on the U.S.,
00:04:13.760 which, technically speaking, generates less government revenue, that will continue to increase
00:04:19.600 the deficit larger than that of Trudeau. And, of course, we've been hearing from the PBO
00:04:24.000 budget officer, the interim budget officer, who I don't expect they'll be staying around much
00:04:28.080 longer if the Liberals are in charge, talking about just how our future outlook looks very
00:04:32.880 grey at the moment. So, definitely spending cap cuts and austerity are the most significant measures to
00:04:40.880 drive, let's just say, a better economic growth outlook, where you can look at potentially cutting
00:04:48.320 taxes, red tape, taking off certain industry taxes and whatnot, cutting, of course, other carbon
00:04:55.440 tax-related policies and other environmental regulations would definitely have a tremendous
00:05:00.320 positive effect.
00:05:01.040 Yeah, well, I'll just mention quickly, because we, of course, saw the parliamentary budget
00:05:05.600 officer testify in the House of Commons last week, and it was damning, to say the least. Of course,
00:05:12.080 we haven't received a budget from this Liberal government yet, which is saying something,
00:05:16.080 considering we got budgets through World War II, the Great Depression, and so on. So,
00:05:19.440 the fact that we have one, don't have one, sorry, is inexcusable. And the parliamentary
00:05:24.880 budget officer, the interim one, that is, he said, the numbers he's seeing are, he said,
00:05:29.200 quote, shocking and stupefying. I mean, he was calling, I think, for economic collapse, almost,
00:05:35.840 within a year and a half, if the Liberals don't get their spending under control. So,
00:05:39.840 it's not looking good at all.
00:05:43.200 Police union leaders blasted the Liberal government on Thursday, pressing them on lax bail oversight,
00:05:48.880 repeat offenders and safe supply policies, and the federal gun confiscation program.
00:05:54.880 Several police unions' heads appeared before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights on
00:05:59.920 Thursday to express their concerns. The committee had not met since the early summer, when it adjourned for
00:06:06.080 several months despite rising crime in Ontario, and a last-minute pledge from the Carney Liberals
00:06:10.800 to enact substantive criminal justice reforms ahead of the most recent federal election.
00:06:16.080 After a lengthy delay, Canadian Police Association President Tom Stamatakis National Police Federation
00:06:22.080 President Brian Sauvier and the Toronto Police Association President Clayton Campbell appeared
00:06:26.880 before the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights on Thursday. They raised concerns about
00:06:30.960 officer safety, gaps in federal bail data, recruitment and retention challenges, safe supply programs,
00:06:37.680 and the need for stronger federal support for frontline policing. The Liberal government
00:06:42.000 firearms confiscation program, first billed as a buyback program in 2020, was also major focus
00:06:49.360 at the committee. The initiative, which banned more than 2,500 previously legal models, has faced
00:06:55.600 repeated delays, confusion, and controversy. It is now slated to conclude by the end of 2026,
00:07:01.200 at an estimated cost of nearly $2 billion. Conservative MP Andrew Lawton cross-examined the
00:07:07.280 witnesses, questioning the efficacy of the program.
00:07:10.000 My Liberal colleague actually raises an important point here, which is that law-abiding gun owners
00:07:14.880 have nothing to do with crime. So, I'll ask you, Mr. Campbell, because you have spoken about that in
00:07:19.280 the past. Do you believe that law-abiding firearms owners in Toronto are a public safety risk?
00:07:25.680 No, and we've talked about this before. The gun buyback programming is going to have
00:07:30.320 zero impact on the crime we're seeing in the city of Toronto, period. And quite frankly,
00:07:36.480 it's, I don't know if there's any plan in place, but if there was some sort of plan to try and
00:07:41.600 obtain these, these firearms, I'm not sure who's going to do it or what resources. And I can think
00:07:46.560 of a hundred different ways, if you want to help public safety in the city of Toronto,
00:07:50.000 that we could have other things to do.
00:07:51.920 So, Isaac, I heard you spoke to the Public Safety Minister before, but what I'm hearing seems to
00:07:57.200 poke some serious holes in the Liberal government's confiscation program. What other ways in the last
00:08:02.320 few weeks has the program been put into question?
00:08:04.240 Yeah, Walid. So, the numbers of which this program has been questioned and criticized seems endless,
00:08:11.440 but I'll break it into four concrete things that have happened over the last week or so.
00:08:16.880 So, first, a frontline assessment, which you mentioned briefly, because at the Justice
00:08:20.960 Committee on Thursday, Clayton Campbell, as you said, the Toronto Police Association president,
00:08:25.600 he testified that the federal confiscation scheme will have zero impact on the violence
00:08:30.000 as officers are seeing, so it will do nothing. He also said, of course, that as all police
00:08:34.480 associations have been repeating over and over and over again over the last several years,
00:08:39.760 that almost all of the firearms used in crimes are illegal and come from across the border,
00:08:44.640 and, in fact, that many of the offenders are already prohibited from even possessing
00:08:49.120 guns because, surprise, surprise, they're out on bail. And that testimony came alongside
00:08:53.280 broader union concerns about, as you mentioned, bail data gaps, repeat violent offenders, and safe supply
00:08:58.240 policy impacts on public safety. The second thing I'll cover is enforcement capacity, because
00:09:03.360 one of the many things in the leaked audio that Public Safety Minister Gira Anandasangri told his
00:09:08.400 tenant was that he doubted municipal police have the resources to do this. And, of course,
00:09:13.440 that was the same recording where he said he would bail out his tenant if he was arrested,
00:09:17.120 although he did also say that he would be unable to pardon his tenant's criminal record
00:09:22.160 when he would be prosecuted. But in a subsequent statement, the next day, actually, Anandasangri
00:09:27.840 tried to claim this was a bad attempt at humor while he was launching the Cape Breton pilot of the
00:09:32.880 program, but perhaps he just thought nobody was listening and he accidentally told the truth.
00:09:38.640 The third point is, of course, participation by police forces and provinces. Anandasangri himself
00:09:44.000 has confirmed that the Ontario Provincial Police will not participate in this. Alberta, of course,
00:09:49.040 has repeatedly said they will not participate in this, and they'll even block municipal police
00:09:54.160 forces from doing so. And then, of course, we know the pilot project for this gun confiscation
00:09:59.600 program is happening in Nova Scotia and Cape Breton. But Nova Scotia police has also said they will not
00:10:04.800 participate in this and that the Cape Breton pilot is actually just some sort of agreement between
00:10:10.880 the federal government and the city. So the province is saying we're not doing this and the city is
00:10:16.160 moving forward with it. And then the fourth, again, which you mentioned is cost, timing and scope,
00:10:20.960 because we know this initiative was introduced in 2020 and now bans more than 2,500 firearms, but has
00:10:27.680 repeatedly been delayed and the amnesty has repeatedly been extended. I know you mentioned
00:10:32.240 it's now slated to end at the end of 2026, but that might just get extended again. And Anandasangri
00:10:38.880 has said that the budget cap is $742 million. But of course, we know experts are estimating this to
00:10:44.480 cost even $2 billion, and that could grow even further. But another thing that happened this week is,
00:10:50.880 of course, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation offered free legal counsel to Cape Breton gun owners, citing
00:10:56.800 police testimony about limited public safety benefits. And some other organizations have come out as
00:11:01.680 well. I think the Canadian National Firearms Association, they said something along the same
00:11:07.360 lines. So these firearms associations are trying to help the people proceed with this in any way they
00:11:14.400 can. But to your question, Waleed, beyond committee testimony, the program has been challenged by
00:11:19.920 police union evidence on efficacy, the minister's own recorded doubts about enforcement resources,
00:11:25.360 explicit non-participation by major police services and provinces altogether,
00:11:29.840 and ongoing uncertainty on costs and timelines, which, of course, has all been
00:11:34.080 repeatedly documented over the last few weeks.
00:11:40.800 More Canadians are now on healthcare waitlists for surgeries, specialists and diagnostics than there
00:11:46.240 were at the end of the pandemic, according to government data acquired by the think tank,
00:11:51.200 Second Street. Data that they obtained through a Freedom of Information request and available
00:11:55.600 government data shows that more than 3.7 million people are in limbo in the Canadian healthcare
00:12:00.240 system on waitlists. The think tank, Second Street, estimates the number is closer to 5.8 million
00:12:05.760 as several provinces are missing data for specialists. Data from Yukon and Prince Edward
00:12:10.160 Island are entirely missing as they either do not know or don't collect data on patients waiting in
00:12:14.960 the healthcare system. But the data does confirm that nearly 3.8 million people were on waitlists in
00:12:19.280 Canada, which is a 26% increase from the 2.9 million confirmed cases in 2022 at the end of the COVID
00:12:26.560 lockdowns. Second Street's communications director, Dom Lucic, said in a news release released on
00:12:31.680 Wednesday from the think tank that Canada's healthcare system is, quote, broken and needs reform. Lucic
00:12:37.360 said, quote,
00:12:37.840 Coming out of COVID, many were talking about the waiting list backlogs in healthcare. While the pandemic
00:12:42.720 certainly didn't help, it's telling that even three years later, the number of patients on waitlists
00:12:47.520 continues to grow throughout Canada. So, Waleed, how does Canada fare against other universal healthcare
00:12:53.440 systems in developed countries? Is the issue just a lack of funding?
00:12:57.440 First of all, we have to look at the public sentiment that we've observed in the country over the last couple of years.
00:13:01.840 I mean, in 2020, across the board, and this is work done by Angus Reid Institute, the poll at about 49% of
00:13:08.160 Canadians in 2020 said that they felt that the government was doing either a good or a very good
00:13:12.720 job in handling healthcare. That number declined to 38% in 2021, 25% the following year, and in 2023,
00:13:19.200 that number saw 24% across the provinces. So, obviously, the public sentiment has been going in one
00:13:25.440 direction, and that's downwards. So, why is that decline so clear? Well, because Canadians are waiting
00:13:31.360 too long for their services, about 46%, nearly half of Canadians surveyed indicated they waited
00:13:37.120 two months or more for a specialist appointment. That number declined to 15.1% in the Netherlands,
00:13:43.680 and 13.2% in Switzerland, two high-income OECD countries that do have universal healthcare systems
00:13:49.360 provided for their citizens. And about one in five, 19.9% of Canadians reported waiting more than one year
00:13:57.360 for non-emergency surgery. Just half a percent, 0.6% of Swiss respondents indicated a similar waiting time,
00:14:06.240 and no one in the Netherlands has reported that survey that they waited as long as that. So,
00:14:13.520 comparing to those two countries, the Netherlands, ranked higher than Canada, allows for private
00:14:22.240 insurance firms to negotiate with healthcare providers on prices to provide more competitive
00:14:26.400 pricing. And these insurance firms must also accept all applicants and charge their policyholders the
00:14:32.080 same monthly fee for coverage. Pretty much, they can't discriminate based on pre-existing conditions.
00:14:37.920 And Switzerland was ranked among the top three on critical healthcare measures. Patients must also
00:14:45.440 purchase coverage in a regulated private insurance marketplace and share 10 to 20% of the cost of their
00:14:51.040 care with an annual maximum protection for the most vulnerable. Now, that's exactly a critical point
00:14:59.120 of mistrust in our system is the fact that our system in Canada is a very high cost system. Most
00:15:04.400 Canadians don't actually know this, but in 2025, preliminary estimates suggested that the average
00:15:10.240 payment for public healthcare insurance ranges for $5,000 to $19,000 for six common Canadian family
00:15:18.160 types depending on the type of family. Between 1997 and 2025, the cost of public healthcare insurance
00:15:23.440 for the average Canadian family increased 2.2 times as fast as the cost of food, 1.6 times as fast as
00:15:29.520 the average income, and 1.6 times as fast as the cost of shelter. It also increased much more rapidly than
00:15:37.040 the average cost of clothing, which has actually fallen in recent years. The top 10% of Canadian families
00:15:44.240 earn an average income of $88,725 will pay an average of $8,292 for public health insurance,
00:16:01.760 and the families among the top 10% of income earners will pay a whopping $58,853, and that's all through
00:16:10.160 taxes. And this is, of course, according to the Fraser Institute's data. So high cost, competitively
00:16:16.560 speaking, lower quality, and turnover time of service provided. And of course, the system is very
00:16:23.760 clear to Canadians, hence why you see the client sentiment of satisfaction. So a lot of things need
00:16:29.680 to be done. And, you know, for now, your short answer to the question was, we don't all fare very
00:16:36.240 well against similar countries in terms of wealth, and countries that actually have that commitment.
00:16:40.880 So we're pretty low among the, let's say top 30, or we see the high income countries that have the
00:16:45.760 system in place that we want to achieve. We're pretty down near the bottom. But definitely high
00:16:51.440 on spending, I believe we're top two in spending in that category, and second only to Switzerland
00:16:56.720 has the ratio of our GDP.
00:17:01.360 That's it for today, folks. Thanks for tuning in. You can stay on top of new episodes every
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