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‘Misunderstanding’ Caused BC Company to Say Health Canada Licensed It to Sell Cocaine, Trudeau Says

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks to the media in Ottawa on Feb. 12, 2023. (Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press)

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says it was a “misunderstanding” that caused a British Columbia-based company to say Health Canada granted it permission to produce, sell, and distribute cocaine.

Trudeau told reporters in Winnipeg on March 3 that he was “as surprised” as B.C. Premier David Eby when he heard that the company Adastra Holdings Ltd., which produces marijuana for adult use and medical sales out of its headquarters in Langley, B.C., announced on Feb. 22 that it was permitted by Health Canada to “legally possess, produce, sell and distribute” cocaine.

The company said in a news release that it had been granted a Health Canada amendment to its controlled substance dealer’s licence on Feb. 17.

Eby first responded to the company’s statement on March 2, saying he was “astonished” that Health Canada would grant the amendment and that his government would be contacting Health Canada for answers.

“I was as surprised as the premier of British Columbia was to see that company was talking about selling cocaine on the open market or commercializing it,” Trudeau said on March 3.

“There are limited and very restricted permissions for certain pharmaceutical companies to use that substance for research purposes and for very specific narrowly prescribed medical purposes, but it is not a permission to sell it commercially or provide it on an open market.”

The prime minister said his government is actively addressing the issue.

“We are working very quickly with this company to correct their misunderstanding that their press release has caused,” he said, adding that decriminalizing the commercial sale of cocaine “is not something that this government is looking at furthering.”

Decriminalization
B.C. decriminalized possession of up to 2.5 grams of certain hard drugs, including cocaine, beginning on Jan. 31 following Health Canada’s approval of three-year experimental decriminalization exemption program back in May 2022.

Federal Mental Health and Addictions Minister Carolyn Bennett has said that B.C.’s decriminalization plan will reduce “the stigma, the fear, and shame that keep people who use drugs silent about their use, or using alone.”

In 2022, B.C. had an average of over six people dying from drug overdoses every day, and over 11,000 people in the province have died from illicit drug overdoses since the provincial government declared a public health emergency in 2016.

Federal Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre has criticized the decriminalization policy, saying the solution to the issue of addiction is “more treatment and recovery,” rather than “more poison.”

Both Trudeau and Justice Minister David Lametti have said Ottawa has no plans for a national drug decriminalization policy.

The Canadian Press and Marnie Cathcart contributed to this report.

(Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press)
Peter Wilson

Art In Toronto 2023

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BC Company Granted Permission by Health Canada to Produce and Sell Cocaine

A British Columbia cannabis company says it has received approval from Health Canada to produce, sell, and distribute cocaine.

A woman (L) prepares to inject herself with an unknown substance as a man sits in a wheelchair outside Insite, the supervised consumption site, in the Downtown Eastside of Vancouver, B.C., on Feb. 21, 2017. (The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck

In a news release on Feb. 22, Adastra Holdings Ltd., which produces marijuana for adult use and medical sales out of headquarters in Langley, B.C., announced that it was granted a Health Canada amendment to its Controlled Drug and Substances Dealer’s License on Feb. 17.

The company can now “legally possess, produce, sell and distribute” cocaine, in addition to previously being allowed to deal up to 1,000 grams of psilocybin and psilocin, otherwise known as magic mushrooms.

The news release indicates Adastra can “interact with up to 250 grams” of cocaine, and can import coca leaves to manufacture and synthesize the hard drug in Canada.

Adastra’s Health Canada approval follows a federal government approval for B.C. that, as of Jan. 31, granted the province a temporary three-year exemption to allow adults to legally possess up to 2.5 grams of any combination of opioids, cocaine, methamphetamine, MDMA, heroin, fentanyl, and/or morphine for personal use, at no risk of being arrested, charged, or having their drugs seized.

The CEO of Adastra, Michael Forbes, is a pharmacist who formerly worked in multiple methadone pharmacies, according to the company, and is a proponent of “harm reduction,” which is a philosophy that promotes reducing negative consequences associated with drug use, but without requiring abstinence from drugs or addiction treatment.

Adastra’s release says he previously “piloted a needle exchange program” at the direction of the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in 2010. Forbes is the creator of the Forbes Group, which has multiple companies ranging from moving storage, cannabis, health care services, and advertising.

The federal government has been supportive of the B.C. decriminalization plan, with federal Mental Health and Addictions Minister Carolyn Bennett saying on Jan. 30 that it will reduce “the stigma, the fear, and shame that keep people who use drugs silent about their use, or using alone.”

Conservatives have been critical of the plan, with leader Pierre Poilievre saying B.C.’s approach to the issue has been an “abject failure.”

“Decriminalization has been in place in B.C. now since about 2017 in reality,” he said on Feb. 1. “The results are in. The debate is over. It has been a disaster, an absolute abject failure.”

By Marnie Cathcart

BC Teacher Fired After Comment on Residential School Deaths

A B.C. high school teacher was escorted out of his classroom by two staff members after telling students the majority of residential school deaths were caused by illness.

“I was walked out like a criminal. They can’t walk a teacher out of school unless the teacher is a direct harm and immediate harm to children,” Jim McMurtry of Abbotsford, B.C., told The Epoch Times. “I wasn’t a harm to children because I made one comment that was historically true.”

That was in May, 2021 shortly after media reports began circulating that a “mass grave” of 215 indigenous children was found in Kamloops. McMurtry was suspended, and now almost a year later, he has officially been fired. His termination took effect Feb. 21.

McMurtry has a masters degree in history of education and wrote his thesis on indigenous education policy. When the Kamloops announcement was made, McMurtry read through the government’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission report to update his knowledge and see what may have been behind the deaths.

The report says about 48 percent of residential school deaths for which the cause is known were due to tuberculosis. Most of the rest were due to influenza, pneumonia, other illnesses.

A student in the class McMurtry was supply teaching at the time said the children in Kamloops were tortured by priests and left out in the snow to die, McMurtry said. He hadn’t seen evidence that was true, he told The Epoch Times.

He said to the student that there were things about residential schools that were not good. He also said the majority of deaths were due to illness.

While media at the time reported that the “grave” contained precisely 215 children with some “as young as three” and other details, McMurtry and others have since said there’s no evidence that it’s even a grave.

The site in Kamloops hasn’t been exhumed and the main evidence is a radar gun detection of ground disturbances, McMurtry said. There’s nothing as precise even as childrens’ bodies, he said.

“I’m not defending schools,” McMurtry said. “All I’m saying is that, we live in a society where there’s jurisprudence, where there’s empiricism. … If you’re going to say something, you got to back it up.”

Board’s Decision
McMurtry said that even if he was wrong about the residential school deaths, he doesn’t agree with how he was treated at the end of a 40-year teaching career.

“It was absolutely horrifying that they would do this to a senior teacher at the end of my career for doing something that I’m an authority on,” he said. “But even if I wasn’t, even if I said the wrong thing, that’s no way to treat a teacher.”

The Abbotsford School District did not reply to The Epoch Times inquiry as of publication. In portions of the board’s disciplinary investigation documents McMurtry posted on Twitter, his comments on the residential schools are called “inflammatory, inappropriate and insensitive.”

“Regardless of his intent he left students with the impression some or all of the deaths could be contributed [sic] to ‘natural causes’ and that the deaths could not be called murder or cultural genocide,” the documents said. His comments were “contrary to the school’s message of condolences and reconciliation.”

The board said McMurtry contravened his duty of loyalty to his employer in talking to school trustees and others about the disciplinary investigation. McMurtry said “Why would I show loyalty to people who are ending my career?” He also said he had never signed any confidentiality agreement with them.

In a Feb. 23 letter the board sent him outlining the reasons he was fired, it brought up incidents prior to the comments about residential schools.

“You made inappropriate sexualized comments to students; you exercised poor judgment by making imprudent comments to a certain student with whom you did not have a positive relationship; you failed to follow COVID-19 protocols,” were some of the other factors the board said it took into consideration in its decision to fire him.

McMurtry said regarding the earlier incidents that he had already settled that with the board. “I can’t talk about that … because it’s settled,” he said.

An older interview with the National Post gave an example of the “sexualized” comments. He was once discussing the history of the Olympics with his class and said ancient Greeks competed naked, “Sort of like women’s beach volleyball today.”

For decades, McMurtry said, he taught at various schools and served as a principal and never had problems with his employers. It was when he started with the Abbotsford School District a few years ago that problems started.

When asked why he thinks that’s so, he said “what’s happening is cancel culture. So in schools, teachers are walking on eggshells.”

Tara MacIsaac
Tara MacIsaac is an Epoch Times reporter based in Toronto.

Canadian Officials’ Twitter Accounts Flagged by US State Department

Twitter accounts used by the Canadian government have been caught in the U.S. government dragnet attempting to counter online disinformation, a recent iteration of the so-called Twitter Files released by journalist Matt Taibbi reveals.

Taibbi published a new thread on Jan. 3 which provides further details on how the U.S. government and its agencies interacted with Twitter to pursue its agenda. Internal company files are being released since Elon Musk took over in late October.

Taibbi’s latest thread is labelled “Twitter and the FBI ‘Belly Button,’” in reference to the bureau asking Twitter whether it should be the main point of contact between “industry partners” and the U.S. government (USG).

The mention of a Canadian link was in relation to a campaign by the U.S. State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC) to counter Chinese propaganda.

The stated mission of the GEC is to counter foreign propaganda and disinformation that runs counter to U.S. interests.

“When the State Department/GEC – remember this was 2020, during the Trump administration – wanted to publicize a list of 5,500 accounts it claimed would ‘amplify Chinese propaganda and disinformation’ about COVID, Twitter analysts were beside themselves,” wrote Taibbi.

“The GEC report appeared based on DHS [Department of Homeland Security] data circulated earlier that week, and included accounts that followed ‘two or more’ Chinese diplomatic accounts. They reportedly ended up with a list ‘nearly 250,000’ names long, and included Canadian officials and a CNN account.”

Taibbi provided screenshots of purported internal conversations of Twitter staff related to the GEC request.

Senior legal executive Stacia Cardille sent an email to policy director Nick Pickles on May 7, 2020, providing “transmittal information” from the State Department.

“We are providing these 5,500 accounts that display inorganic behavior and follow two or more of the 36 Chinese diplomatic twitter accounts that we have identified in the report,” reads the message.

“Due to the fact that these accounts follow two or more of these diplomatic accounts, and a good portion of them are newly created, we believe they are suspicious.”

The State Department did not request any action to be taken on those accounts and said the information was being shared for “situational awareness.”

Previous iterations of the Twitter Files have shown U.S. government agencies requested the social media company take action against accounts sharing information on COVID-19 which diverges from the U.S. government’s view or that related to the elections, with ensuing censorship in many cases.

Later on May 7, 2020, Pickles commented in an email to an unidentified interlocutor on the GEC request.

“I am assuming that the policy/comms folks on their side [USG] haven’t reviewed the list line by line, so curious how they’d react if told their analytics colleagues had included the Canadian military and CNN…” he wrote.

Twitter Pushback
The day after receiving the information from the State Department, Twitter was pushing back in the media on the claims that its platform was being used to spread Chinese disinformation.

CNN reported Twitter as saying that an initial review of the over 5,000 accounts did not support the government’s claims and that many accounts belonged to “government entities, nongovernmental organizations, and journalists.”

“The GEC provided Twitter with a small sample of the overall dataset that included nearly 250,000 accounts,” a State Department spokesperson told CNN, adding that it’s “not surprising that there are authentic accounts in any sample.”

“Our overall analysis is based on a confluence of factors that drive our assessment, which we stand by.”

Then Twitter head of safety Yoel Roth commented in an email to colleagues on May 6, 2020, that the GEC “blitz” on the issue was “at least in part an attempt to insert themselves into the conversations we’ve had with DHS, FBI, ODNI [Office of the Director of National Intelligence], and others.”

A month later, Roth emailed Cardille and others saying that Twitter, Facebook, and Google found the involvement of the GEC in a meeting between industry and government on election security problematic.

He said this was in part because of the GEC’s “mandate for offensive IO [information operations] to promote American interests” and their sharing of reports “based on shaky methodology.”

Taibbi’s thread also highlighted the GEC’s attempt to counter Russian disinformation, noting a report it released in February 2020.

“The GEC flagged accounts as ‘Russian personas and proxies’ based on criteria like, ‘Describing the Coronavirus as an engineered bioweapon,’ blaming ‘research conducted at the Wuhan institute,’ and ‘attributing the appearance of the virus to the CIA,’” he wrote.

Taibbi said this report “still led directly” to some media picking up the story.

Noé Chartier

Noé Chartier is an Epoch Times reporter based in Montreal. Twitter: @NChartierET Gettr: @nchartieret

Public Health Canada to Collect Online Data to Target the Vaccine Hesitant

Story From: Noé Chartier is an Epoch Times reporter based in Montreal. Twitter: @NChartierET Gettr: @nchartieret

Story Link

Public Health Canada to Collect Online Data to Target the Vaccine Hesitant

The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) has announced a contract with a social media intelligence collection firm based in the U.K. to obtain data on vaccine hesitant individuals in order to be able to deliver targeted messaging to break through their hesitancy, contract details indicate.

“In preparation for increased vaccination education, promotion, and outreach, The Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC) is requiring the services of a consultant to analyze the vaccine related conversations on social media and PHAC social media initiative and campaign performance,” says the tender notice description posted online on Dec. 22.

The notice says the contract will be awarded to U.K.-based Pulsar Platform if no other supplier submits a bid meeting the requirements before the closing date. The estimated value of the contract is $339,000.

Pulsar describes itself as an “audience intelligence company” using artificial intelligence and “smart human minds” to comb through conversational and behavioural data on social media.

The notice says the consultant will need to analyze Twitter and other online sites and platforms spanning three years of historical data.

PHAC is seeking to obtain information on individuals who are participating in and influencing online conversations about vaccination.

It wants reports produced by the consultant to “provide PHAC an actionable understanding of the vaccine conversation landscape online and the conversation participants, while determining a conversation baseline,” according to the Statement of Work.

Once this data is obtained, PHAC will run a tailored messaging campaign, which it says will seek to target “communities of interest,” such as “indigenous peoples and millennial males,” states the Advance Contract Award Notice.

The study is to be rerun within a three to four month period to “monitor shifts in attitudes and confidence levels,” says the notice.

‘Keyword-Based’
PHAC lays out how the consultant must conduct its work, including the establishment of a “keyword-based social listening tracker to capture social media conversations around vaccinations in Canada.”

Data must also be parsed along conversation themes such as “experiences with long Covid, previous vaccine side effects, engaging with mis/disinformation, shift in perceived risk of infection.”

PHAC also seeks to obtain a breakdown of reasons for vaccine hesitancy for different regions and cities to allow more targeted messaging.

Along with identifying regions, cities, and subgroups such as First Nations communities, PHAC is also requesting segmentations of key audiences to include “demographics, interests, affinities, online behaviours, and the leading topics of vaccine hesitancy conversation, per each sub-community.”

The Statement of Work provides an example of what the consultant should do once a sub-community has been identified.

It says that once a community of “Toronto University Students that indicate low confidence in vaccinations” has been identified, then some factors should be investigated.

These include their reasons for being hesitant and the topics of their conversations, the media they consume and the content they share, and the tone they use when discussing their vaccination status.

The Epoch Times contacted PHAC to find out if previous such programs have been implemented and to learn more about how the data from private individuals will be protected, exploited, and if it will be shared with other departments.

PHAC was also asked whether it consulted the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (OPC) on the program. A response was not obtained before publication time.

The OPC was also contacted to know whether it was aware of PHAC’s social media collection program, but a response was not received immediately.

Cellphone Tracking
PHAC has been embroiled in a data collection-related controversy in recent months when it was revealed it was analyzing the anonymized movement of millions of Canadians through the tracking of their cellphones, unbeknownst to them.

PHAC had been obtaining the data from carrier Telus and other cellphone tracking companies, but in December 2021 it sought a contractor to directly access data from cellphone towers to conduct its analysis.

The data has been used to measure the compliance of Canadians while provinces implemented COVID-19 lockdowns.

When this became known, MPs started examining the issue and the Commons ethics committee told the government last spring that Canadians should be allowed to opt out of the data collection program.

The OPC also said it was investigating the matter, but the results have yet to be announced.

PHAC and the OPC have been asked about the status of the contract and the investigation.

Story From: Noé Chartier is an Epoch Times reporter based in Montreal. Twitter: @NChartierET Gettr: @nchartieret

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What POP Chat Recommends

There is not a lists of any shows recommends by POP on Chat. (CBC) Had to listen again. Here’s what i got

hbo.com/the-idol
somebody-somewhere
tv-shows/search-party
life-beth
industry
show/severance
abbott-elementary
ted-lasso
series/reboot
succession
and-just-like-that
the-last-of-us
shows/yellowjackets
helen-mirren-harrison-ford-yellowstone

Did not like
toparadise.movie
RED WHITE BLUE
gaslit
90’s show
The Crown

Italian Contemporary Film Festival 2021

more pics at movies.reviewed-rated.com

This year, from June 27th to July 18th, ICFF will celebrate two major milestones; the tenth-anniversary edition of the Italian Contemporary Film Festival and the second edition of the Lavazza Drive-In Film Festival, organized in collaboration with CHIN Radio/TV.

The Festival, in collaboration with the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, will also maintain its special focus on Italian contemporary cinema through notable screenings in several major Canadian cities and virtual experiences offered nationwide through the ICFF digital platform.

Both festivals will take place at Ontario Place in Toronto and in several other cities throughout Canada, including Vaughan, and Montreal.

The ICFF Festival will be a hybrid of in-person and online events available to viewers all across Canada.

The festivals are presented in collaboration with the Embassy of Italy in Canada, the Consulates General of Italy in Canada and the Istituti Italiani di Cultura in Canada.

Virtual Fashion Art Toronto : urbancoolab_

More pictures on our fashion site = fashionpage.ca

Credits

by @jennjevons from @urbancoolab_ showcasing their AI x Streetwear capsule collection RxR under the Gardiner @thebentway

MODELS

@slesean.tv
@__jessietk
@devaughnte.lawrence
@a.pri.official
@sptxo_
@garrett_
@mxriee_
@juliet.sora
@roneyxmusic
@katrxse

TEAM

Director @_vanjavasic_
Director of Production @liammicha
Assistant Director @locodrito

Lead MUA Direction @bprettymua
Lead Hair Direction @lisatuff_tilu
Makeup Assist @stephaniestellamua
Makeup Assist @makeupbyjacfoo
Hair Assist @jazziestylezz
Fashion and Media Communicator @sedgvvick
Team Assist @erin_case_ @kaitlyn.riccio

Director of Photography @jennjevons
On-Set Photography @tashd.art @jimorgill @chiaradefalco_photo
Official Video Team @wearenxtlvl
BTS Video @cosplay

Affordable housing takes out a road

“Kishigo Lane is expected to be transformed into a landscaped, open space reflecting Indigenous placekeeping and design elements to honour the road’s namesake – an Anishnaabe family that lived in the area in the late 18th century. It’s part of the project’s goal to expand more public space and parks.”

“The development objectives are 300 residential units, of which 50 per cent are affordable housing and 50 per cent are market housing. There will also be new parking, new retail, and the childcare centre will expand capacity from 26 spaces to 62.”

With the pandemic eliminating jobs and work hours, the threat or reality of homelessness is hitting more and more people each day. Affordable housing was already an issue, but now it has become even more urgent to provide options for the growing number of Toronto residents who simply cannot afford to keep a roof over their heads. A lucky few will actually be able to do so by the end of this year, as developments, designed and reserved for low-income hopefuls pop up in a number of neighbourhoods

The problem is, that there are a few voices in each neighborhood who are loudly shouting “Not in my backyard”. The latest Facebook debate over the development of affordable housing in the east end of Toronto is only one of many. Most people (with a heart) are in full support of housing the struggling citizens of the city, but the selfish exceptions, NIMBYs, for short, tend to be the loudest. The rest of the residents are just ashamed of how the attitude of the neighborhood is being portrayed. They don’t want to be lumped in with these people who think that they are too good to live beside fellow human beings who can’t afford a house with a backyard.

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Story Two – corner of Trenton and Cedarvale Ave. in East York’s Stan Wadlow neighbourhood.

Toronto residents are pushing back against plans to build a modular housing development on the lot at the corner of Trenton and Cedarvale Ave. in East York’s Stan Wadlow neighbourhood.

The NIMBYs who live near the Stan Wadlow Park development are concerned that putting housing in a local parking lot will make it impossible for people who live in, or visit, the neighbourhood to find parking. They are concerned that their precious children will be exposed to ne’er do wells, drug dealers, gang influence, violence, people suffering from addiction/mental illness, and people who are generally unstable.

“This parking lot is a hub; it’s the heart of the community”, claims one resident, about the empty pad of pavement in the background. If the parking lot isn’t there, the residents are going to be stuck using the park and community center? Instead of standing around on bland cement smoking and drinking, they could attend the neighbouring elementary school, go for a swim, or join the community baseball league? How is a parking lot the heart of the community? And, despite the statements to the contrary,

A recent Facebook post highlighted a piece on Global News in which some residents are up in arms about the city’s announcement to replace a community parking lot with affordable housing for 64 people exiting homelessness. They are protesting the development, even though the city has already approved it. The angry residents claim that there was no consultation beforehand, but this is a city parking lot. The city doesn’t require permission from the residents to move forward.

There will be a meeting, during which residents can state their case regarding the design and specifics of the plans, in hopes that they will be taken into consideration, and will be possible with the building requirements. The City says claims they didn’t have time to consult with the area residents,, as the housing funding will be lost if it’s not used by the end of the year. That means the site has to be approved, inspected and built with enough time to fill the units before the end of December.

By Melissa Peters

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