The True North Centre for Public Policy is a Canadian right-wing media outlet, advocacy organization, and registered charity. It operates the ''True North'' digital media arm.

History

In 1994, the Independent Immigration Aid Association was started with the goal of helping immigrants from the

United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotland, Wales and North ...

settle in

British Columbia British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...

. According to Daniel Brown, a former director of the charity, a new board of directors took control of the charity in 2017 and renamed it the True North Centre for Public Policy. Control was handed off to three people: *Kaz Nejatian, a former staffer for

United Conservative Party The United Conservative Party of Alberta (UCP) is a conservative political party in the province of Alberta, Canada. It was established in July 2017 as a merger between the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta and the Wildrose Party. ...

leader

Jason Kenney Jason Thomas Kenney (born May 30, 1968) is a Canadian former politician who served as the 18th premier of Alberta from 2019 until 2022 and the leader of the United Conservative Party (UCP) from 2017 until 2022. He also served as the member of ...

*William McBeath, the director of Training and Marketing for the right-wing

Manning Centre for Building Democracy Ernest Preston Manning (born June 10, 1942) is a Canadian retired politician. He was the founder and the only leader of the Reform Party of Canada, a Canadian federal political party that evolved into the Canadian Alliance in 2000 which in tur ...

*Erynne Schuster, an Edmonton-based lawyer Nejatian's wife, Candice Malcolm, describes herself as the "founder and Editor-In-Chief" of True North. When the immigration-focused charity was transformed into a media and research organization, the change was scrutinized in the Canadian legal field. True North's filings with

Canada Revenue Agency The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA; ; ) is the revenue service of the Canadian federal government, and most provincial and territorial governments. The CRA collects taxes, administers tax law and policy, and delivers benefit programs and tax credit ...

state that the organization runs "ongoing programs" that provide "support and assistance to UK immigrants to the Lower Mainland, Vancouver Island and the rest of British Columbia", that it has "new programs" dedicated to "research on immigration and integration", and that 100% of True North’s programs put emphasis on "immigrant aid". However, the last available return filed with CRA was in 2017, and no new filings from the charity have been published since 2018.

Election debate access

During the 2019 federal election in Canada, True North was initially denied press access to the

leaders' debate A leaders' debate or presidential debate is a public debate held during a general election campaign, where the candidates expose their political opinions and public policy proposals, and criticism of them, to potential voters. They are normally b ...

on the grounds that it was not a news outlet but an advocacy organization. True North argued that the decision to bar them was "unfair and arbitrary" and that the process undertaken to block them was done with "a complete lack of transparency." True North contested this decision to bar them, and brought the Leader's Debates Commission to court. True North said in documents that the lack of “meaningful feedback” and transparency in the process, combined with the absence of avenues to appeal, make the commission’s decision arbitrary and unreasonable. It also alleged the decision amounts to “an attempt by the current government to censor and silence media outlets that have provided a platform for Canadians with views inconsistent with its mandate.” The federal judge, Justice Russell Zinn, ruled in favour of True North, and forced the government to allow them to attend the debate and ask questions as journalists. The same year,

Toula Drimonis Toula Drimonis is a Canadian journalist and author of the 2022 book ''We, the Others.'' Early life Drimonis was born to a parents who emigrated from Greece to Quebec in the 1960s. Career Drimonis is a journalist and social commentator. She ...

described True North as "Fake news" in her editorial in ''Cult MTL''.

Notable employees

In 2019, Canadian columnist

Lindsay Shepherd Lindsay Shepherd (born 7 December 1994) is a Canadian columnist who became known for her involvement, as a graduate student and teaching assistant, in an academic freedom controversy at Wilfrid Laurier University (WLU) in Waterloo, Ontario, in ...

joined True North as an investigative journalist. In July 2021, Canadian conservative writer and political columnist Sue Ann Levy announced she was joining True North.

References

External links

* {{Official website, url=https://tnc.news/ Canadian news websites Right-wing politics in Canada Conservative media in Canada