This just in: police immediately disrupting rail blockades actually works!
The illegal blockades are having devastating effects on the Canadian economy. Canada has the resources to stop them. Law enforcement needs to act.
True North’s Anthony Furey explains.
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In 2013, two terrorists were arrested over an al-Qaida-linked plot to derail a passenger train providing daily service between New York City and Toronto.
The two men, one a Palestinian refugee, the other a PhD student from Tunisia, were charged and eventually convicted on a bevy of terrorism charges including planning to derail a passenger train. They were given a life sentence for their crimes.
Canada has never exactly been tough on terrorists; we earned the unsavoury reputation as a safe haven for Islamist terrorists in the decades prior to 9/11 due to the fact there were no laws on the books against fundraising and providing material support to terrorist groups abroad.
But when it came to the disruption and potential derailment of a train in our country, Canada threw the book at these two hooligans attempting to attack our critical infrastructure.
There is no messing around. As my colleague Joe Warmington pointed out in a recent article, “the Criminal Code of Canada makes it clear.” Under Section 248, it states that interfering with transportation facilities with the intent to endanger safety and is likely to cause death or bodily harm is an indictable offence and liable to life imprisonment.
“Life in prison! You read it right,” wrote Warmington.
Not only is this law on the books, it’s one that has been used in recent memory when two jihadist terrorists conspired to attack a train in Canada. That is why it was all the more shocking to see a video this week of a group of men near Belleville, Ont., throwing large wooden pallets at a CN train.
The video makes it clear. The men are actively trying to stop, or perhaps even derail, a moving freight train.
Not only were they brazen enough to get within feet of a moving locomotive carrying potentially hazardous material, throwing wooden skids drenched with gasoline and setting fires, they were also stupid enough to film it all — making it easier for police to arrest and charge these reckless activists.
These men should be described as domestic terrorists. Their behaviour is no better — and in some ways worse — than the al-Qaida terrorists currently sitting behind bars in a maximum security prison.
While the al-Qaida terrorists were driven by an evil ideology that brought down the World Trade Center towers in 2001 and has caused endless death and misery throughout the Middle East and beyond, these individuals willing to engage in domestic terrorism are consumed by their own twisted ideology.
Their destructive world view gives them the self-appointed authority to hold Canada hostage and stop a pipeline from being built on the other side of the country, all to serve their own narrow interests.
They ignorantly believe that they are not subject to Canadian law and have commanded a veto power over tens of thousands of good-paying jobs for blue-collar Canadians.
Perhaps worst of all, they are dishonestly claiming to speak for all indigenous people. This, despite the fact that resource development projects create hope and economic opportunity for Northern communities and have broad support among elected band leaders in Western Canada.
The al-Qaida terrorists targeted a passenger train and their goal was to murder as many Canadians and Americans as possible, making their crime far more heinous. But their attack was only in the planning stages, and there was no imminent threat to public safety, according to the RCMP at the time.
Whereas, the people who physically attacked a train on Wednesday actually carried out their plot. And while the target wasn’t a train full of people, they nonetheless endangered the lives of the train conductor, nearby communities and fellow blockade activists, had the train actually derailed.
This is terrorism, plain and simple. It’s time to throw the book at those willing to endanger lives by attacking a train.
BY: SAM ESKENASI
Sam is long-time Canadian human rights activist with experience serving as a regular media spokesperson, often called upon to discuss a wide range of topics ranging from Antisemitism and Human Rights in Canada to Israel and the Middle East.
Antisemitism gutted and nearly destroyed the Labour Party in the U.K., now it’s threatening to do the same to the Democrats.
Often referred to as the world’s oldest hatred, antisemitism is the term used to describe the hatred of Jews.
This hatred has been around in one form or another for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. It can usually be seen expressing itself through the use of a number of classical tropes (basically conspiracy theories) about Jews controlling the banks, the media, the government or even drinking the blood of non-Jews.
More recently it has become a political football in a number of countries throughout Europe. In those instances both the right and left accuse each other of pushing antisemitic rhetoric.
This is due to the fact that the narrative tends to include the terms Israel or “Zionist”, which is often used as code for Jews in general. For reference, a Zionist is someone who believes Jews have the right to self-determination in their religious and ancestral homeland of Israel.
In the political realm, it is left-leaning parties in the West which are often in the greatest danger of veering into antisemitic territory when their members fail, intentionally or not, to draw sufficiently clear distinctions between their criticism of the Israeli political establishment or its policies and the Jewish people as a whole, who are also collectively referred to as “Israel” in scripture.
The current discussion around antisemitism in the Labour Party intensified after Jeremy Corbyn became leader in 2015. A self-described “democratic socialist”, Corbyn was a controversial figure nearly from the start, having previously called for the nationalization of British industry, the dismantling of NATO, and for Hamas to be removed from the banned terror list. But having dinner with despots like Hamas terror chief Khaled Mashal was just the beginning of his antisemitism problems.
After submitting a motion to rename Holocaust Memorial Day to “Genocide Memorial Day”, having his membership in racist and antisemitic Facebook groups exposed, and having his party reject an internationally recognized definition of antisemitism from the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA), it became clear that Labour was going to have a serious crisis on its hands.
Then, when British Jews began to raise concerns about antisemitism in the party, an army of online trolls (many pretending to be Jewish) nicknamed “Corbynistas” descended on Jewish social media channels and community organizations.
The situation escalated to such a degree that a poll suggested 47% of British Jews would “seriously consider” leaving the country if Jeremy Corbyn became Prime Minister.
The rise, and ultimate fall, of Jeremy Corbyn should be read as a cautionary tale.
In Canada, the federal and provincial NDP parties have pushed back against the adoption of the IHRA definition of antisemitism. Both parties cited concerns that it would stifle criticism of Israel, even though the definition plainly states that criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic.
These same concerns hold true for the Democrats as they share some disturbing parallels with the presidential campaign of Bernie Sanders.
Much like Corbyn, Sanders is a self-described democratic socialist with a history of far left, even extreme, political activism who has praised world leaders ranging from the questionable to the despotic — his admiration of the Cuban education system under Fidel Castro only the latest manifestation.
Unlike Corbyn, however, Sanders is Jewish (he recently launched an ad campaign focusing on his Jewish identity) and many of his formative years were coloured by the fact that nearly all of his father’s family members in Europe were killed by the Nazis.
But being Jewish does not mean that one cannot espouse antisemitic views or help others push anti-Jewish rhetoric. His political positions vis-à-vis Israel are often used as a springboard for antisemitism by others, many of whom use the extreme left-wing of the Jewish community as a fig-leaf for their antisemitism.
For example, his latest condemnation of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) convention as a “platform for bigotry” was seized upon by many, including his own online Corbynista army (dubbed Berners), to attack both Israel and Jews. The tweet received 10 times as many likes and shares than other tweets, including those discussing some of his most popular policy positions.
When combined with the fact that a number of his surrogates and associates have previously made antisemitic statements, the argument that his campaign — and thus possibly the Democratic Party itself — is becoming antisemitic has increasing merit.
These questionable surrogates include Linda Sarsour, Amer Zahr and Ilhan Omar, each of whom has been accused antisemitism.
Sarsour repeatedly refused to disavow antisemitic statements from Louis Farrakhan and called for the Muslim community not to humanize Israelis; Zahr has labelled Israel the Jewish ISIS, defended Hamas terrorism and promoted anti-Jewish blood libels; and Ilhan Omar previously accused Israel of hypnotizing the world and Jews of using money to buy political influence.
If Bernie wants to put these concerns to rest, he should step away from these individuals and strongly denounce their remarks.
Unfortunately, it seems unlikely that he will not do so because people like Sarsour, Zahr and Omar allow him a path to victory in the primaries, and maybe even the general election.
As history has repeatedly shown, the increasing acceptance of antisemitism tends to serve as a sign that radicals are exerting more and more influence over our political system. That’s why it’s growing acceptance in segments of the Democratic Party should be concerning to all.
But the larger issue remains, if this could happen in both the U.S. and the U.K., we as Canadians must take care to make sure it doesn’t happen here too.
Since his election in 2015, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has instituted anti-oil and gas policies that have driven energy sector investment out of Canada.
Actions like legislating the anti-pipeline Bill C-69 and the tanker ban have caused a number of large companies to abandon projects in Canada or collapse completely.
The following is a list of several major companies that have given up on Canada because of the Liberal government’s hostility to national resource independence.
Houston Oil & Gas ceases operations
In November 2019, Calgary-based Houston Oil & Gas abandoned operations due to financial difficulties.
The company operated 1,264 wells, 251 pipelines, and 41 processing facilities, mainly out of southeast Alberta. It could cost a total of $80 million to clean up the remaining infrastructure.
Encana moves headquarters to the US
In October 2019, the Canadian oil giant Encana announced that it would be rebranding to Ovintiv Inc. and moving its headquarters to the United States in order to attract more investment.
“A domicile in the United States will expose our company to increasingly larger pools of investment in US index funds and passively managed accounts, as well as better align us with our US peers,” said the company’s CEO Doug Suttles.
The quintessentially Canadian company that had a hand in building Canada’s railroad chose to abandon the country because of a lack of opportunity.
Alberta Premier Jason Kenney argued the Liberal federal government were the ones to blame for the loss. Former Encana CEO Gwyn Morgan echoed Kenney’s sentiments.
“The destructive policies of the Trudeau Liberals have left the company with no choice but to shift its asset base and capital program south of the border,” said Morgan.
Kinder Morgan exits Canadian market
In August 2019, the petroleum and natural gas company Kinder Morgan secured a $2.5 billion deal to sell off its Canadian arm and leave the market.
The Liberal government purchased the Trans Mountain pipeline from the company in 2018 for $4.5 billion. According to estimates by the parliamentary budget office, Trudeau overpaid for the pipeline by up to $1 billion in taxpayer funds.
In 2019, Pembina Pipeline Corp. announced that it would buy Kinder Morgan Canada Ltd. and the U.S. portion of the Cochin pipeline system.
Trident Exploration shuts its doors due to struggling Canadian market
In April 2019, the Calgary-based natural gas company Trident Exploration shut its doors and abandoned up to 4,700 oil wells.
33 employees and 61 contractors lost their jobs after the company announced it no longer had the funds to operate.
“Trident Exploration Corp. has informed the Alberta Energy Regulator that its lender has withdrawn funding from the company. Because of this, Trident does not have the funds to operate its infrastructure or enter into creditor protection. As a result, they have decided to walk away, leaving more than 4,400 licensed sites, many of them active, without an operator,” said a statement by the Alberta Energy Regulator.
Royal Dutch Shell sells stake in Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.
In May 2018, Royal Dutch Shell sold 97 million shares of the Calgary-based Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.
The $4.3 billion sale would allow the company to focus on other investments which had higher returns than the oil sands.
ConocoPhillips sells Canadian assets
In March 2017, the American energy giant ConocoPhillips sold $17.7 billion worth of Canadian assets to invest elsewhere, virtually abandoning its Alberta oil sands operations.
Statoil sells Alberta oilsands assets for $832 million
In December 2017, the Norwegian-based petroleum company Statoil ASA sold $832 million worth of assets in the Alberta oil sands.
Among the assets sold was a project that produced 24,000 barrels of oil per day.
According to company vice-president Lars Christian Bacher, the sale would allow it to pursue other operations offshore.
More than two-thirds of Canadians think the country is heading in the wrong direction.
This shouldn’t come as a surprise — the country is more divided than ever, coronavirus poses a serious threat to public safety and the illegal blockades continue to halt our economy.
True North’s Leo Knight says our country is being led by people who are completely unqualified for the positions they hold.
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The Conservative Party of Canada has blocked social conservative Richard Décarie from joining the party’s leadership race.
Décarie’s name was not on the final list of approved leadership candidates released by the Conservatives Saturday, despite Décarie claiming he met all the party’s requirements.
“Reasons for not allowing a candidacy are not disclosed per our standard nomination practices but it’s not a decision the committee ever takes lightly,” Conservative spokesperson Cory Hann told True North.
To enter the race, candidates had to submit an initial batch 1,000 signatures and pay $25,000, which Décarie said he did by the Feb. 28 deadline.
While the Conservatives remain tight-lipped on the reason for Décarie’s disqualification, his views on social issues made waves throughout the media last month.
On CTV’s Power Play, Décarie told host Evan Solomon he believes homosexuality to be a choice as he affirmed his opposition to gay marriage.
“I think LGBTQ is a liberal term, I don’t talk about people that way,” Décarie said.
“I talk about persons, and I think we all need full respect for being a human being, simply.”
Décarie’s views were widely condemned by other leadership candidates Peter MacKay, Erin O’Toole and Marilyn Gladu.
On Saturday, Décarie said he believes the establishment of the Conservative Party felt threatened by this campaign.
“No reasons were provided to me by the committee,” Décarie told the National Post.
“It seems, then, that my candidacy was viewed as a threat to the establishment of the CPC and to the kind of leader that THEY want to select. Thus far I was the only candidate who took a strong position in support of traditional marriage and who proposed to defund abortion federally since it is not health care.”
MP Derek Sloan and Toronto lawyer Leslyn Lewis were approved to run for leadership by the party and identify as social conservatives.
Indigenous Services Minister Marc Miller, a close friend of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, will not reveal who his secret New York donors are.
According to Canadian election laws, candidates are required to reveal the identity of donors who contributed to their campaigns.
During the 2019 federal election, Miller attended a private fundraiser in New York City on October 10 to collect donations for his election campaign.
“[Miller] has agreed with the Liberal Party of Canada through oral discussions to attend a meet and greet among Canadian citizens living in New York City on October 10, 2019 at a Canadian citizen’s home in New York City, and collect donations from these Canadian citizens for his Canadian election campaign as Liberal Party of Canada candidate for Ville-Marie-Le Sud-Ouest-Île-des-Soeurs in Montréal, Canada,” wrote a Foreign Agents Registration Act filing with the Department of Justice.
However, recent Candidate Campaign Return filings with Elections Canada only list 27 donors, none of whom have addresses in New York City.
When contacted by Blacklock’s Reporter, Miller did not provide an explanation for the discrepancies.
As reported on exclusively by True North founder Candice Malcolm, one of the organizers for Miller’s US fundraising trip – Justin Cooper – was a former senior aide to Hillary Clinton.
Cooper was involved in Clinton’s leaked email scandal. He was charged with setting up a private email server for Clinton while she was the Secretary of State despite having no security experience.
In 2014, an email exchange made public through Wikileaks revealed that Trudeau’s former Principal Secretary Gerald Butts and others were asking Clinton’s team for a photo-op between Clinton and Trudeau.
According to one of Clinton’s aides, Huma Abedin, staffers were unhappy that the event was used by Trudeau for political purposes.
“There was some unhappiness that they used this event to raise money for their political party when this was supposed to be a completely apolitical event,” wrote Abedin.
Canadian terrorist and New York City bomb plotter Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy is attempting to evade a 40-year prison term by appealing his sentence.
Prosecutors with the US attorney for the South District of New York claim that the appeal has no merit.
“The imposition of a term of 40 years’ imprisonment for an individual who attempted to carry out a mass-casualty terrorist attack for ISIS in New York City was not shockingly high, shockingly low, or otherwise unsupportable as a matter of law. El Bahnasawy’s challenge to his sentence is easily rejected,” say prosecutors.
El Bahnasawy was arrested as a 17-year-old in 2016 after a joint investigation by the FBI and the RCMP discovered he was involved in an international plot to bomb Times Square and the NYC subway system.
Kuwait-born El Bahnasawy was apprehended by American authorities while staying at a hotel in New York during a family trip.
“[He] plotted with Talha Haroon, a 20-year-old US citizen living in Pakistan and Russell Salic, a 38-year-old Philippines citizen and resident, to conduct bombings and shootings in heavily populated areas of New York City during the Islamic holy month of Ramadhan in 2016, all in the name of ISIS,” said the US Department of Justice in 2018.
“El Bahnasawy acquired bomb-making materials and helped secure a cabin within driving distance of New York City to use for building explosive devices and staging the NYC Attacks.”
In his appeal, El Bahnasawy is arguing that the sentence is inhumane and that his rights had been violated during the trial after the judge denied him a request to fire his legal aid representatives.
As reported by True North founder Candice Malcolm, El Bahnasawy was exposed to “militant jihad” ideology while attending an Islamic school in Toronto.
During the trial, his legal team argued that El Bahnasawy’s issues with addiction and mental illness played a role in the plot. However, prosecutors with the attorney general claim that those mitigating factors were taken into account in the sentence and that’s why he was given a sentence that was below the guideline.
Countries around the world are taking precautions to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Air Canada has extended its ban on flights to China until April, but is this enough? What about Iran and Italy?
True North’s Anthony Furey says there are many reasons for Canadians to take precautions.
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The Liberal government’s plan to “deradicalize” convicted ISIS members and other terrorists is failing.
According to Parole Board of Canada documents obtained by Global News, four out of the five convicted terrorists released from prison in 2019 have not changed their beliefs and still pose public safety risks.
The terror convicts still believed to be radical are: Pamir Hakimzadah, who travelled to Turkey to join ISIS, Carlos Larmond who was part of an ISIS cell in Ottawa and his associate Suliman Idris Mohamed, and Kevin Omar Mohammed, who joined al-Qaeda in 2014.
Since 2016, terrorists have faced lax sentences of seven years or less according to the Public Prosecution Service of Canada. These sentences are even shorter when taking into account credit for time in custody and other factors.
For example, Hakimzadah was convicted of leaving Canada to participate in the activity of a terrorist group on Feb 28, 2019, but was only sentenced to six months in prison and released on June 28, 2019.
In the case of Carlos Larmond, the parole board labelled him a “high risk to public safety” yet released him anyway. While in prison Larmond even attempted to radicalize other inmates and threatened authority figures.
“You have not shown significant indications of change since incarceration, with you attempting to radicalize others and threatening authority figures,” said a parole board member.
“Had you followed through with these plans, you would likely have been directly or indirectly involved in the killing and injuring of many people.”
Larmond’s associate, Suliman Idris Mohamed, was sentenced in 2016 for conspiring to participate in the activities of a terrorist group but was out on statutory release only three years later in 2019, despite having received a seven year sentence.
Upon Mohamed’s release, parole board members expressed doubt that he had fully deradicalized.
“The Board feels that although you have made some gains we are not completely satisfied that you have completely changed your pattern of thinking in relation to extremist ideology,” said a report on Mohamed.
Al-Qaeda terrorist Kevin Omar Mohammed was granted statutory release on Mar. 1, 2019, despite concerns that he “may continue to commit terrorist related offences.”
The parole board also ruled that Misbahuddin Ahmed, an al-Qaeda terrorist who plotted attacks on Canadian military facilities, did “not present an undue risk to society.”
Despite being sentenced to serve 12 years in 2014, he was released on day parole in 2017 and on full parole by 2019.
The outcomes of the sentences do not match the federal government’s deradicalization plans. As reported on by True North founder Candice Malcolm in the Toronto Sun, Trudeau’s approach to returning ISIS fighters includes helping “them let go of that terrorist ideology.”
“We know that actually someone who has engaged and turned away from that hateful ideology can be an extraordinarily powerful voice for preventing radicalization in future generations and younger people within the community,” said Trudeau in a year-end interview with CTV.