1) Some Members Of Parliament, Ministers Assigned Police Protection As Security Tightens

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian Press, Published: Feb 15th, 2024

By Mia Rabson in Ottawa

A Conservative MP whose Toronto office was vandalized this week is among several federal politicians now under visible police protection on Parliament Hill.

Melissa Lantsman’s Thornhill office was plastered with anti-Israel posters overnight Wednesday including one warning “the Jews of Thornhill” that history is watching how they respond to the Israel-Hamas conflict.

In recent weeks, Lantsman has also been seen with a protective detail on Parliament Hill.

A Conservative official confirmed that the deputy Conservative leader has RCMP protection, but did not say why.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh has been surrounded by RCMP officers both in Ottawa and elsewhere, including at the recent New Democrat caucus retreat in Edmonton.

NDP spokeswoman Alana Cahill would provide no details about what precipitated the need.

“All I can say is we follow the recommendations that are provided to us,” she said.

Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly has regularly been spotted with protection of late. Earlier this year, anti-Israel protesters appeared outside her Montreal home.

Emergency Preparedness Minister Harjit Sajjan has also been closely flanked by police, who even accompanied him right up to the door of the cabinet room this week.

Sajjan has previously discussed a number of threats made against him, including in his pre-political life in the military and as a Vancouver police detective. But this week, he would not discuss why he is currently being offered a protective detail. 

“I am well-protected,” Sajjan said Tuesday in response to a question about his security. “We have a good system here in Canada to protect ministers.”

While the prime minister and the Governor General are given permanent protective details, other MPs, cabinet ministers, senators and party leaders receive protection on a “case-by-case basis,” the RCMP said in response to questions from The Canadian Press on Thursday.

But those cases are mounting, as is the budget to handle them.

Data provided by the RCMP show it cost $2.5 million to provide protection for parliamentarians, excluding the prime minister, between April 1 and Dec. 31 of last year.

That is already 40 per cent more than the $1.8 million budget in the full 12 months before that, and 86 per cent more than the $1.4 million spent in 2021-22.

“Protective measures are intelligence-led and based on the latest risk and threat assessments, ongoing security considerations and a number of other factors,” the RCMP said.

“For the safety of those we protect and of our members, as well as to ensure the integrity of operations, the RCMP does not disclose information related to protective measures, nor confirm individuals who may receive protection.”

Threats against politicians have become more common and more serious in recent years. 

On Feb. 7, RCMP charged a man in Montreal for allegedly threatening to kill Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

The public inquiry into the use of the Emergencies Act to end the Freedom Convoy protests in Ottawa in 2022 heard that someone who participated in that event threatened to “put a bullet” into the head of Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.

Joly was on a list of politicians in an online threat posted on the far-right social network Gab in 2022. The threat identified politicians that should be executed for treason.

Last fall, Sajjan gave a lengthy interview to the New York Times in which he said that as a Sikh in a position of power in Canada, threats have not been unusual for him.

Before running for office, Sajjan was a military intelligence officer and a Vancouver police detective. He told the Times the threats had ramped up a lot in recent years.

Sajjan’s interview came after Canada accused the Indian government of being involved in the murder of a Canadian Sikh leader in British Columbia last year. 

2) Conservative Motion, Backed By NDP, Produced $40M In Regulatory Relief For Bell

Courtesy Barrie360.com and Canadian PressPublished: Feb 12th, 2024

By Mickey Djuric in Ottawa

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is rejecting the idea that his party played a role in granting $40 million in regulatory relief to Bell Media.

Conservative and NDP MPs backed a 2022 amendment to the Online Streaming Act, opposed by the governing Liberals, that allowed Canada’s private broadcasters to save about $120 million a year in regulatory fees.

Bell’s share of those savings was $40 million — the precise total of annual operating losses the broadcaster’s parent, BCE Inc., cited when it slashed 4,800 jobs last week.

But Poilievre is now blaming Justin Trudeau for those cuts, and has called on the prime minister to claw back some of his government’s federal grants to media companies.

When asked about the disconnect, the Conservative leader would only say that providing tax dollars to media outlets fuels biased, Liberal-friendly coverage.

“So the supposed justification for giving Bell all this money was that it was going to save media jobs. Well, they all got fired,” Poilievre said Monday.

“So I guess that wasn’t the real reason for giving tax dollars to the media. The real reason was for him to buy support from the media, which is what it actually did.”

The June 2022 motion, introduced by Conservative MP John Nater, passed with the support of New Democrat and Bloc Québécois MPs on the House of Commons heritage committee without debate.

The motion sought to amend the Liberals’ update to broadcasting law, the Online Streaming Act, so that it would abolish certain licensing fees.

Liberal MPs on the committee voted against Nater’s motion, but the amendment was nonetheless written into the bill.

The act ultimately came into effect last April.

In a late-day statement to The Canadian Press, Conservative spokesman Sebastian Skamski called the amendment a “common sense proposal” to level the playing field between traditional broadcasters and online streaming platforms.

“On the other hand, Justin Trudeau and his Liberal government have handed out at least half a billion taxpayer dollars to Bell over the last eight years,” Skamski said.

“This money was supposed to support Canadian jobs and Canadian media and yet the Liberals have squandered hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars only to see the opposite results.”

When asked to explain why New Democrat MPs voted with the Conservatives, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh would only say that his party is opposed to government largesse for big corporations.

“I can tell you we have long said that any money that goes to any corporation should come with strong strings attached,” Singh said.

“We have said that again and again and again.”

Heritage Minister Pascale St-Onge didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. But in recent days, she has pushed back on social media against the claims from Poilievre and Singh that the Liberals are to blame.

She said it was the Tories who brought in the amendment to eliminate those fees for Bell.

“Liberals voted against it. This one is on you,” St-Onge posted on X on Friday in response to Poilievre’s attack. “As you can see, your policies are bad for workers and for journalism.”

She also hit back against Singh, saying “hopefully you’ll now understand that the Conservatives’ ideas are never to the advantage of workers and even less for journalism.”

Last week, St-Onge decried the company for breaking its promise to invest in news after it was granted the annual regulatory relief.

Bell Media is also expected to receive money because of the Online News Act, with private broadcasters to receive $30 million through a side deal the government struck with Google.

It agreed to pay news outlets $100 million a year to avoid being regulated under the new law, which requires tech giants to compensate news producers for content that is shared on their platforms, and from which they financially benefit.

The company had blamed its cuts on the federal government, saying Ottawa took too long to provide relief for media companies.

It also blamed the Canadian Radio-television Commission, saying the regulator is too slow to react to a “crisis that is immediate.”

The CRTC is expected to release final regulations aimed at helping the news industry in the coming months. Until then, St-Onge said, “we need everybody to hold strong.”