Juno News - November 27, 2025Study finds over 23,500 died on waitlists last year
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Summary
The CTV News is under fire for giving a platform to Gurpatwand Singh Panun, a prominent Sikh activist and the head of Sikhs for Justice. After a wave of Class 1 truck driver accidents, Alberta is closing a loophole which allowed commercial truck drivers to wreck a truck at one company and begin driving for another with a blank record. A new study found that over 23,500 patients have died while waiting to access both critical and non-essential health care services last year.
Transcript
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The CTV is under fire after platforming the head of the Kalistani movement Seeks for Justice.
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After a wave of class one truck driver accidents, Alberta is, quote, closing the loophole, which
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allowed commercial truck drivers to wreck a truck at one company and begin driving for another with
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a blank record. A new study found that over 23,500 patients have died while waiting to access both
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critical and non-essential health care services last year. Hello, Canada. It's Thursday, November
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27th, and this is the True North Daily Brief. I'm Cosmin Georgia. And I'm Clayton DeMaine.
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We've got you covered with all the news you need to know. Let's discuss the top stories of the day
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and the True North exclusives you won't hear anywhere else.
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CTV News is under fire for giving a platform to Gurpatwand Singh Panun, a prominent Kalistani activist
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The PM Corny government has effectively surrendered the sovereignty of Canada to Modi's India regime,
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which, as per their own intelligence agencies, is responsible for orchestrating the assassination
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of Shri Dhardeep's signature, ongoing assassination plots and the extortions, and the Indian
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consulates being used as the intelligence and spy network hub.
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And what I want to add is that with the PM Corny government in a minority, neither do they have
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a mandate or parliament strength to move forward with any trade agreement with India.
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Panun, an American-based activist and lawyer, is general counsel for Seeks for Justice
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and has led diaspora-based Kalistan campaigns for over a decade.
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He is considered one of the most prominent international organizers behind a series of non-binding, quote,
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referendums advocating for an independent Sikh homeland.
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Panun has also drawn scrutiny from security agencies.
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In 2023, both the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and the RCMP opened investigations after
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he issued videos invoking the 1985 Air India bombing and made other public threats.
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Canadian officials described the rhetoric as extremist and linked to potential security concerns.
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The Kalistan movement's history in Canada includes the Air India Flight 182 bombing, which killed
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329 people, most of them Canadian citizens, and remains the deadliest terrorist attack in Canadian
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During the CTV interview, Panun appeared with anti-Hindu slogans, which prompted objections from
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So, Clayton, this guy has been pretty active in the Kalistani movement in Canada particularly,
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but the Kalistan movement stretches beyond Canada's borders.
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Obviously, it is an independence movement hoping to create a separatist state in the Punjab
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So, you've followed Panun, you've written about him before, I believe you may have even
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What do we know about Panun for those who are not familiar with him and his background?
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So, True North has spoken to Panun several times now, and the first time I spoke to him,
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it was clear that India would likely consider him a terrorist.
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So, I asked him if that's the case, and sure enough, India had designated Panun as a, quote,
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individual terrorist in 2020, and banned his movement Sikhs for Justice as being, quote,
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Now, Canada hasn't done that, and the Indian government claims that Panun and the SFJ have
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maintained relations with other Sikh groups, which it has already banned, including a group
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known as Babra Kalsa International, which Canada has also formally listed as a terrorist
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But this gentleman has been at the heart of many controversial Sikh activist protests over
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the last couple of years in Canada, including protests in Calgary during the G7 summit, which
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featured Indian politicians in the crosshairs of guns and chants of people calling to kill
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Other chants at the protest included individuals calling to ambush Modi, similarly adding politics
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at the end, which reminds me of a trend online where people say something that they would never
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be able to say publicly and cap it off with the phrase, in Minecraft, to cover their violent
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The group has also chanted things such as, Parmar's ideologies is ours to guide, referencing
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a Sikh activist accused of taking part in that Montreal Air India bombing in 1985, which,
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as you read out, was the deadliest terrorist attack on Canadian soil to date.
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And Panun also was on the record offering an $11,000 reward for information on what flight the
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Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was departing Canada from, though he later said this was
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just so that activists could deliver an effigy of Modi's corpse to him.
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Every time True North asks him about these incidents, however, he always states that these
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are these sorts of activities are to be done as part of a, quote, peaceful protest.
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Alberta is acting after a wave of high-profile crashes involving Class 1 truck drivers across
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North America that have shaken public confidence in the industry.
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Recent tragedies, including the widely reported Florida case where a tractor-trailer attempted
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a U-turn across a highway and killed an entire family, have brought the issue into headlines
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and cabinet discussions. Albertans have watched similar near misses, jackknives, infrastructure
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strikes, and serious collisions on provincial highways and want to know why unsafe operators
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keep getting back behind the wheel. The province is now closing the loophole that allowed some
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drivers to wreck a truck at one company and walk into another with no record of their past
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performance. The new requirement forces carriers to provide a standardized driver experience record
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whenever a Class 1 operator changes jobs. The government says this creates real accountability
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because the driver's history follows the driver instead of staying hidden in a company file.
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Transportation Minister Devin Drishen says the province has heard repeated complaints about
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dangerous drivers continuing to circulate through the system. Drishen said, quote,
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We've seen cases where bad drivers bounce from one company to another after an accident,
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leaving the next employer in the dark. It's not widespread, but even one reckless driver can put
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lives at risk. That's why we're making sure a driver's record follows them so the good drivers
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are rewarded and the bad ones are held accountable.
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So, Cosman, here in the GTA and in the Toronto area, I hear from people all the time now concerned about
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when we're passing trucks on the highway. I hear it from parents. I hear it from a lot of people
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around here. How widespread is this issue of truck driving accidents? And what is at the root of this
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Yeah, Clayton, it's a bigger deal than I think the legacy media recognizes. You do hear about these
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high-profile crashes like the recent tragedy in Florida where the tractor trailer tried to make
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the illegal U-turn and killed an entire family. And it's easy to look at that and think this is a
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one-off freak accident, horrible incident. But the reality is close calls and near misses have been
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happening across North America more often than the public sees. I mean, here in British Columbia,
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you often hear about trucks hitting overpasses. And it doesn't take a stretch of the imagination
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to see when you're traveling at high speeds, something like that turning into a far worse disaster that
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could potentially involve casualties. So these incidents aren't rare, and they're showing up on our highways
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with an alarming regularity now. And part of the reason is because drivers are simply not meeting the
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standards we had in place. And this is a systemic issues. So for years, there's been this loophole,
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as pointed out by the Alberta legislation, where a driver could crash and then essentially start fresh.
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And with this loophole, your record doesn't actually follow you for your past performance.
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So companies and insurers don't have reliable ways to track the driver's safety history.
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So when you have bad operators who want to, you know, leave their past behind and potentially
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keep a job, they just move to a new company. And they can keep circulating through that system over
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and over again, every time they get into a crash, because companies are more than happy at the current
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moment to take on new drivers. And unfortunately, that puts everyone else on the road at risk.
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So really, the root of the surge is a mix of a few things, including the gaps in oversight,
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inconsistent training standards, or at least training standards that aren't actually met,
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where people cheat and game the system, and just a general lack of transparency across the industry
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where employers can check the background and driving history that drivers carry with them.
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Over 23,500 patients died in Canada while waiting for surgeries or diagnostic scans,
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according to a new study by secondstreet.org. The free market think tank says the death toll
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is underreported due to several provinces' failure to track the data. Despite the organization's
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request for information, Second Street, released its fifth annual, died on a waiting list report on
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Wednesday, showing that the number of Canadians dying while waiting for both critical and non-essential
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care has increased, saying the, quote, overall situation has in fact deteriorated from last year.
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The think tank began submitting freedom of information requests to gather government data on the number of
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Canadians dying while waiting for surgeries and diagnostic scans since 2018.
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Second Street sent out requests to, quote, over 40 government health departments,
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health authorities, and regions in April 2025, and discovered that at least 23,746 patients died while
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waiting for care in the fiscal year 2024-2025. Last year's waitlist deaths represent a 31.74% increase
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from the year prior's data. However, Second Street notes that such an increase could be expected as
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more government agencies began providing data to the group's annual study. Colin Craig, the president
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of the think tank and author of the report, noted that when comparing just the data from the healthcare
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bodies that provided information to the group in the report from the fiscal year 2023-2024,
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there was still a 3% increase in waitlist deaths. Since April 2018, when the data was first requested,
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Second Street has confirmed more than 100,800 Canadians have died while waiting to access healthcare
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in Canada. The group notes that these deaths are not due to a lack of funding, as Canada has consistently
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been one of the highest spenders on healthcare, among other developed universal healthcare systems globally.
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So, Clayton, obviously the problem is bad. It's not getting any better. It's getting worse
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in reality. But what are some recommendations that have been proposed to fix these long wait times?
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Yeah, so Second Street recommended five ways that Canadian healthcare systems can address the issue.
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They noted, firstly, that Canadian healthcare providers could begin tracking and disclosing
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any relevant data on waitlist deaths, including what kind of services they died waiting for,
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so Canadians can have a more accurate look at how to address the problem rather than waiting for freedom
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of information requests from a charity to disclose the information. They also recommended funding
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healthcare providers based on the services that they provide, or, quote, activity-based funding,
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rather than annual checks to cover entire budgets. They said if healthcare providers have to rely on
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actually providing the services to get funding, it would incentivize them to maximize the amount of
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surgeries or diagnostics that they conduct in a year, rather than just getting money regardless of how
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they perform. It would likely also mean they are incentivized to use the funding dollars in a way that
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maximizes the amount of care they give. The think tank also recommended that Canada learn from the
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other universal healthcare systems, which rank higher in providing healthcare services, such as a hybrid
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partnership with the private sector. And the group suggested that allowing a private clinic to bill the
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government for the healthcare visit, like other nations do, doesn't take away from the fact that government
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is still paying for those medical visits. And they say by expanding the service to the private sector,
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it would alleviate the workload from the public healthcare system. Second Street also recommended
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that governments expand healthcare options to allow non-governmental clinics to provide the same services
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that clinics which patients are often leaving Canada to access do. The think tank also argued for the federal
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government to adopt a quote, EU cross-border directive style approach, which would allow patients in one
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province to travel to another to access healthcare while still being reimbursed by their home province's
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government. And the province would cover up to the same amount that the government would have spent
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to provide the surgery or diagnostic in their province. They say that this would reduce waitlist numbers
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as patients who use the service would immediately be removed from the waitlists in their own province,
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meaning others waiting for care would move up on the waitlist each time someone ahead of them
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chose to travel for healthcare. They say that this would reduce waitlist numbers as patients who use
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the service would immediately be removed from the waitlist in their own province, meaning others waiting
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for care would move up on the waitlist each time someone ahead of them chose to travel for healthcare.
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That's it for today, folks. Thanks for tuning in. You can stay on top of new episodes every weekday by
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