Brantford senior loses home in $374,000 fraud

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Police have charged four people following a renovation and mortgage fraud investigation that cost a vulnerable Brantford senior her home.

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Brantford police say the incident involving in four predatory mortgages occurred between 2021 and 2022 and resulted in mortgage enforcement of the home in January 2024.

Mortgage enforcement is a step taken by a lender to recover a debt when the person who has borrowed money defaults on the mortgage payments.

Police say the victim lost about $374,000.

Brantford Police are reminding citizens to be wary of unsolicited people knocking on doors and to use caution when asked to sign any documents of which they are unsure, said Robin Matthews-Osmond, corporate communications manager for the Brantford Police Service.

Matthews-Osmond said police are also reminding residents to check on vulnerable seniors to help protect them against fraudsters looking to take advantage of them.

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Police have charged a 29-year-old male from Oakville, a 34-year-old male from Hamilton and a 60-year-old female from Toronto each with one count of fraud over $5,000 and possession of property obtained by crime over $5,000.

A 39-year-old Brampton man has been charged with one count of swearing a purported affidavit.

The charges follow a joint investigation by Brantford police and Waterloo Regional Police.

Linda Moyer of the Grand River Council on Aging said seniors being defrauded is a “sad but all too frequent story.”

The council on aging works to create awareness about fraud and scams in many different ways, Moyer said.

The council and INFO Hub has information related to scams and fraud.

As well, the council has a home free virtual workshop which has highlighted the issue in the past including a workshop titled “Scams: Protect Yourself” with Kim Wilson.

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All of the workshops are recorded.

“Our GRCOA newsletter is e-mailed to over 500 subscribers every two weeks,” Moyer said. “In the newsletter we share articles, resources and workshops that are scheduled for the following two weeks.

“In past editions, we have included workshops on fraud and scams hosted by other organizations.”
The council will continue to do what it can to create awareness and share what other community organizations are doing, Moyer said.

The INFO Hub can be found at  www.grcoa.ca/respect-and-social-inclusion .

To view “Scams: Protect Yourself” visit  www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWjaVTR5pwE .

Meanwhile, anyone aware of suspicious or criminal activity is asked to contact police at 519-756-7050. Those who wish to remain anonymous are asked to call Brant-Brantford Crime Stoppers at 519-750-8477 or 1-800-222-8477 or leave a tip online at www.crimestoppersbb.com/submit-a-tip/ .

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New hospital planning enters crucial stage

Plan is to build new hospital on site of current parking lot

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Efforts to get a new hospital built in Brantford have entered a crucial stage and everyone’s support is required, says Paul Emerson.

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“The team at the Brant Community Healthcare System have done a good job of putting together various options for the provincial government to review,” Emerson said. “They’ve received strong support from elected officials and now we need the broader community to step up.

“We need to speak with one voice so there is no confusion about what needs to be done.”

A former Brant County CAO, Emerson is the past chair of the Brant Community Healthcare System board of directors. He is now chair of the healthcare system’s redevelopment and properties committee.

“I think everyone is aware that we need a new hospital, it’s been talked about for at least 20 years,” Emerson said. “I think everyone is also aware of our infrastructure problems, the sink hole in the utility tunnel and the boiler breakdowns.

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“What people also need to realize is the amount of work that has gone into the new hospital project and why community support is so important.”

Emerson said local efforts got a boost when Premier Doug Ford visited Brantford General Hospital to announce $2.5 million in funding to help move the new hospital project forward in the planning process.

Since then, hospital and Ontario Ministry of Health officials have been working on various options for a new hospital.

Prior to joining the healthcare system board, Emerson said that he, like a lot of people, assumed the new hospital would be built somewhere near Highway 403.

However, that is not the direction given to the healthcare system by the province. The healthcare system has been directed by the province to use as much of the existing infrastructure as possible.

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But it’s clear to everyone that very little, if any of the existing infrastructure, could be used for the construction of a new hospital, Emerson said.

Based on those two realities, senior healthcare system officials have come up with various options that were sent to health ministry officials for further review in early August.

Plans call for the new hospital to be built where the parking lot is now located on Terrace Hill Street, directly across from the existing hospital.

The goal now is to get the new hospital plan included in the province’s 2025 budget expected in the spring.

That, healthcare officials say, would be an important milestone.

But community support is essential and healthcare system officials and the board will be reaching out to local leaders in Brantford, Brant County, the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nations and Six Nations of the Grand River Territory to help bolster the healthcare system’s efforts.

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“We’re going to enlist their support to help spread the word of what we’re doing and what we need to accomplish,” Emerson said.

Bonnie Camm, the healthcare system’s president and CEO, said officials are grateful for the support health ministry officials have provided during the planning process.

Camm said it’s also important that the community understands planning for the new hospital continues as problems with the existing structure are being addressed.

Meanwhile, there are other communities also advocating for a new hospital, Camm said.

But Camm and Emerson said Brantford’s situation is unique.

The poor state of the existing hospital’s infrastructure is one issue along with the projected growth of the community.

“According to a Ministry of Finance report that came out in the summer of 2023, we will be growing in excess of 36 per cent over the next 20 years,” Camm said. “That growth, combined with the infrastructure problems that we’re dealing with with demonstrate how badly we need a new hospital.”

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Brantford-Brant resident hospitalized with rabies

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A resident of Brantford-Brant is in hospital with rabies, the Brant County Health Unit announced Friday.

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The health unit, in a statement, said the exposure to the virus came from a bat in the Gowganda area of Timiskaming. However, bats in all areas of Ontario are known to carry rabies.

It is the first-ever confirmed case of rabies in a Brantford-Brant resident.

“Our heartfelt thoughts are with this individual and their loved ones during this incredibly difficult time,” Dr. Rebecca Comley, Brant County’s medical officer of health, said in the statement. “Rabies, though rare, is a serious virus in humans.

“If you have direct contact with any animal known to carry rabies, you should seek immediate medical attention.”

Ontario’s last domestic case of human rabies occurred in 1967. There have been 26 human cases in Canada since 1924, said the health unit.

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To ensure privacy for the family, no further information about the individual will be released,” Dr. Kieran Moore, Ontario’s Chief Medical Officer of Health, said in a statement late Friday afternoon.

A viral infection that causes brain and spinal cord inflammation, rabies is typically spread to humans through direct contact with saliva or mucous – a bit or a scratch- of an infected animal.

Rabies is typically found in bats, skunks, foxes and raccoons.

Even tiny bites or scratches, which can be difficult to see, can transmit the virus.

To date, there has never been a documented case of human-to-human transmission of rabies virus. As a precaution, family members and other close contacts are being assessed and offered post-exposure prophylaxis , as needed.

Ways to reduce exposure to rabies includes: keeping pets and livestock rabies vaccinations up to date. It’s the law; stay away from and do not touch unfamiliar animals; keep pets away from wildlife; supervise children when they are around animals; don’t let pets roam free and feed pets indoors.

If you have direct contact with a bat and or if any animal known to carry rabies bites or scratches you, wash the wound thoroughly with soap and water and seek medical attention right away.

For more information visit www.ontario.ca/rabies .

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Brant Food Centre set to reopen soon after devastating fire in 2023

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There’s good news for those hankering for a Brant Food Centre sandwich or a taste of its popular salad bar.

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The iconic Brantford grocery store will be reopening soon.

“I can’t give a specific date right now,” owner Anthony DiPietro said Friday. “But I can say that we will be re-opening.

“We’ve made some improvements to the physical layout to make it easier for customers to move around which we really hope everyone will love.”

Located at 94 Grey St., the popular grocery store was ravaged by fire on the morning of July 1, 2023. The damage was so severe the store has been closed ever since.

However, work towards reopening has been ongoing and has been followed closely by nearby residents and customers.

A Facebook page that has been following developments at the store has 2,300 members. The removal of the fencing around the store in late July or early August generated a lot of online excitement as people began to think reopening would be announced.

DiPietro hopes to be able to make an announcement soon.

Meanwhile, the past year has been hard on the store’s employees and their families. But everyone affiliated with Brant Food Centre is heartened by the support they have received from the community, DiPietro said.

“We’re so grateful to have such great customers and have so much support from the community,” DiPietro said. “My dad always said Brantford is a great place to be and he was right.

“As difficult as it has been, it’s nice to know that we are appreciated.”

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Covid, Ukraine, Gaza : The Lost Honor of Journalists

Would the dice be loaded? Would global information now be controlled by a few planetary industrial groups? The question is raised with each election, with each crisis, in the United States, in France, and elsewhere. Social networks and lobbies have taken control of our brains.

Digital social media has gradually replaced local newspapers to inform citizens. With Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, and other LinkedIn platforms, journalistic information freely mixes with communication, advertising, propaganda, and… lies. In this formless mass, each user finds what they are looking for.
In just a few years, journalistic information (that which is verified, cross-referenced, classified, and hierarchized) has given way to this monstrous mass of information managed by powerful algorithms that decide what can or cannot be published.

A Global Disinformation Enterprise

How can one make sense of it? How to sort truth from falsehood? The whole question is: who decides the truth? If I say “God exists”, is that a fake news? And who can verify? What fact-checking can provide the answer? Nobody, obviously, since it’s a matter of belief. Believing is not knowing.
The health crisis is exemplary of the gigantic disinformation campaign led for two years by major media outlets who, with rare exceptions, categorically assert that vaccines designed to combat Covid-19 are safe. In doing so, they reinforce the health policies of states that impose vaccination under constraint. Media, States: same battle!
But why do all the world’s media say the same thing at the same moment about the same subjects? Why do they claim vaccines are safe and that one must get injected two, then three, then four doses, perhaps more? Why do authorities in all countries follow the same blind logic? Why is there no possible scientific controversy on television or in newspapers to allow debate and balance information?
It’s simple: because the world’s major media are in the hands of a few very powerful industrial and financial groups, relayed by well-compensated lobbies.
These major press organizations and global digital enterprises have decided to group together to form an immense cartel aimed at controlling information. They gathered in 2019 within the Trusted News Initiative (TNI) “to protect the public and users against what they consider to be disinformation, particularly in ‘high-risk’ periods like elections.” But also like managing the health crisis or the war in Ukraine.

Combating “Dangerous Lies”!

To be clear, the TNI published a press release with a crystal-clear title: “TNI Tackles Dangerous Vaccine Disinformation.” Specifying: “TNI partners will alert each other in case of disinformation presenting an imminent vital threat, so that targeted content can be quickly reviewed by platform managers, while publishers will ensure they do not unwittingly spread dangerous lies.”
In other words, all partners consult to track and eliminate “anti-vaccine” false information from their respective platforms.
The partners? The major press agencies that supply all the world’s newsrooms: Agence France Presse (AFP), Associated Press (AP), Reuters, but also BBC, CBC/Radio-Canada, European Broadcasting Union (EBU), Facebook, Financial Times, First Draft, Google/YouTube, The Hindu, Microsoft, Reuters, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, Twitter, and The Washington Post.
The case of Reuters is particularly interesting. Bought in 2007 by the Canadian group Thomson Financial, the international press agency, which became Thomson Reuters Corps, was presided over by James C. Smith from 2012 to 2020. He currently directs the Thomson Reuters Foundation, a charitable organization based in London.
However, James C. Smith has also been a member of Pfizer Inc.’s board of directors since June 26, 2014. And he was one of the laboratory’s first investors. It’s worth noting that Mr. Smith is also a member of the International Business Council of the World Economic Forum and numerous international advisory boards.
The most serious issue is not that Reuters continues to promote Pfizer’s pharmaceutical products, but that it intends, like its other TNI partners, to silence those who disagree with them.
How? By practicing fact-checking, which in itself is not reprehensible. But especially by practicing large-scale censorship.

Censoring Unwelcome Information

Once again, digital giants have associated to fight against (supposed) disinformation on their sites. And to fight disinformation, nothing works better than censoring unwelcome information by simply removing it, without informing the author. And when information seems too radical, the account holder is banned, fired, eliminated. “Your publication did not meet our community standards!”
Gradually, an “official truth” is being established – one decided by a small group of industrialists who impose their vision of the world. A world shaped exclusively around their gigantic profits.
Digital mass communication media and their algorithms are so powerful that they have taken control of ideas and opinions worldwide by arbitrarily deciding what is true and what is false.
To fight disinformation, social networks and major media have decided to attack “fake news” concerning Covid-19 and vaccines. But the “verifiers” do not necessarily have the required competence and talent to distinguish truth from falsehood in scientific matters. It is often fact-checking in the style of Pfizer, Moderna, and others.

A New Dogma, a New Religion

Are Covid-19 vaccines truly safe? Asking the question and, above all, allowing experts to answer, is to participate in healthy scientific controversy – the kind that advances the world and distances it from obscurantism. It’s about enlightening the general public on highly technical subjects to allow them to form an opinion by evaluating various arguments.
But since the beginning of the pandemic in late 2019, it’s clear that the debate is biased. Digital giants, undoubtedly unaccustomed to contradictory debate, have taken sides for vaccines, which they categorically affirm are both effective and safe. It’s a dogma, a truth revealed by Big Pharma. Consequently, they impose their viewpoint by censoring posts they consider “inappropriate” on digital social media, restricting or closing the accounts of seditious internet users.
Converted to this new religion, health authorities in all countries, at least in Europe, have decided to vaccinate populations through constraint.
Media worldwide have adhered to this vision imposed by massive global industrial groups. They have even decided to hunt down false information that might challenge their own certainties and total omniscience.

The Blindness of Scientists

On May 16, 2022, frenchdailynews.com published an article titled “Vaccines and Boosters Becoming Less Effective and More Harmful”. Based on several studies, we could write that cardiovascular conditions directly linked to mRNA vaccine side effects are sharply increasing.
At the end of the article, Jean-Marc Sabatier explained why vaccines are harmful: “Repeated vaccine injections of the same antigen, whatever it may be, (here the Spike protein of SARS-CoV-2 produced by our cells following mRNA injection), at levels exceeding the ‘critical’ threshold, inevitably lead to disruption of innate immunity and the potential emergence of autoimmune disorders. Thus, for current anti-Covid-19 vaccines, there are at least three solid scientific reasons to avoid multiple vaccine injections.

  1. The direct and harmful action of the Spike protein on innate immunity (via the overactivated renin-angiotensin system),
  2. The repetition of vaccine injections which also disrupts the host’s innate immunity,
  3. The potential direct toxicity of lipid nanoparticles or adjuvants used in these vaccines.

According to Sabatier, SARS-CoV-2 – via the Spike protein – causes blood coagulation disorders, including thrombocytopenia (decrease in blood platelets that help blood clot). This is due to a phenomenon called hemophagocytosis that occurs during macrophage activation syndrome induced by the virus or vaccine Spike protein. Simultaneously, hyper-reactive macrophages produce pro-inflammatory cytokines leading to blood platelet recruitment causing thromboses.
How to explain this blindness of scientists and doctors, and should we be concerned? Jean-Marc Sabatier’s response: “In my opinion, many doctors do not ask questions and rely on recommendations issued by our health authorities, while health authorities follow state directives that unconditionally promote vaccination (and boosters) of the population. This genuinely endangers our health, and there is fear that we are heading towards a health catastrophe in the near future. The precautionary principle is not being applied today, and we are moving towards a wall… The shock could be violent and it will unfortunately be impossible to go back. The health damages will be irreversible.”

A Shameful Fact-Checking

This warning against vaccines and boosters was highly displeasing. To whom? Particularly to AFP, which did not accept that the sacred official narrative about vaccines be challenged. The Agency, which supplies numerous newspapers worldwide, dedicated a long fact-checking piece to the infodujour article.
We wanted to verify the reliability of these lesson-givers. To understand whether the fact-checking by AFP Factuel (now untraceable) constitutes disinformation regarding our article. Because to give lessons to a scientist of Jean-Marc Sabatier’s caliber (he is a doctor in Cell Biology and Microbiology, among other credentials) and catch him off-guard in his professional domain, one must be sufficiently robust and solidly equipped in matters of the infinitesimally small to find the right experts. Is this true of our fact-checker, who, incidentally, is graduated in history? One can doubt this, given the responses Jean-Marc Sabatier provides here.
We certainly would not have responded to the too numerous know-it-alls surrounding us if, in this sad affair, the life and health of ourselves and our loved ones were not at stake. For nearly two years, thousands of men, women, and young people have been suddenly struck by stroke, heart attack, vision disorders, or sudden death on a football field or ski slope. Fault of the vaccines? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But the question deserves to be asked and debated.
“The world is dangerous to live in,” said Albert Einstein, “not so much because of those who do evil, but because of those who watch and let it happen.”
We will not let this happen. Our profession as journalists and scientists requires us to publish information about anti-Covid-19 vaccines, even – and perhaps especially – when they are disturbing.
After thoroughly verifying them, obviously.

The Business of Subsidized Information

By transitioning from the artisanal era to the industrial era, the information business has attracted industrialists of all kinds, more concerned with influence and reputation than journalistic ethics.
In France, most media belong to industrial or financial groups, and their concentration poses serious problems in terms of press plurality and therefore democracy.
To such an extent that the President of the Republic requested a report on disinformation and conspiracy theories from sociologist Gérald Bronner. Titled “Enlightenment in the Digital Era,” this document developed by a commission of university professors, lawyers, and journalists was submitted to Emmanuel Macron on January 11.
The government also adopted a law in 2018 regarding information manipulation during electoral periods and created, a few months ago, an agency called Viginum to protect democratic debate from external intrusions.
The Senate, for its part, created an investigative commission to assess the impact of press concentrations on democracy. The major press leaders were heard one after another in early January 2022. It is true that these press leaders are, above all, major industrialists or financiers (whose activity depends on state orders for many of them) who bought newspapers (print, audio-visual, internet) to establish their reputation.
Should we believe everything written in newspapers, heard on the radio, seen on television? The question of media education is raised each year during Press Week at schools.
The objective is to train young people to discern truth from falsehood, to develop critical thinking, to become responsible cyber-citizens.
Let’s recall that the French press is largely subsidized by the State. The amount of public aid amounts to approximately 400 million euros per year. An essential windfall for press survival, while simultaneously being a barely disguised state tutelage over the editorial line and thus the information of these generously subsidized publications.
If the press is no longer a counter-power, it has therefore become a relay of power. This was quite useful during the health crisis. It is just as useful during conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East. Who can doubt it?

[Excerpt from the book “Covid-19: The Shipwreck of Science” by Marcel GAY with the complicity of Jean-Marc Sabatier (Amazon)].

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