Breaking a fourteen-year precedent, the Trudeau government has voted in favour of a resolution at the United Nations condemning Israel.

The resolution, calling for the self-determination of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, condemns Israel as “occupiers” of a Palestinian state.

The resolution stressed the “urgency of achieving without delay an end to the Israeli occupation that began in 1967″ and asks the United Nations to “continue to support and assist the Palestinian people in the early realization of their right to self-determination.”

Similarly-worded resolutions come before the United Nations annually, but this is the first time in years Canada has supported one in over a decade. 

The resolution, sponsored by North Korea and Zimbabwe, also cites an International Court of Justice ruling from 2004 which says Israel’s border wall “severely impedes the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.”

Canada’s decision to support the resolution was immediately condemned by experts as a cynical move which completely ignores the acts of terrorism committed against Israel by extremists in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

UN Watch’s Hillel Neuer called the move an anti-Israel vote.

“Canada joins the jackals, votes for anti-Israel resolution co-sponsored by North Korea, Zimbabwe & the PLO. Resolution condemns Israel for “occupying” Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem & holiest sites of Judaism. Ignores hundreds of Palestinian rockets just fired at Israelis,” he tweeted.

Joel Reitman, Chair of the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, also acknowledged the hypocrisy, saying he had previously been told by former Global Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland that Canada would not change its position on Israel.

“That neither this resolution nor any other currently being considered even acknowledge the obscene barrage of Palestinian-launched rockets and missiles raining down on Israel’s civilian population reflects just how distorted and one-sided these resolutions are,” he said.

Neuer has also suggested that Canada voted for the motion in an attempt to gain support ahead of the 2021 UN Security Seat Council opening.

While Canada announced its intention to run for a Security Council seat in 2016, experts suggested to CBC that Canada has a low chance of getting elected. Opponents such as Ireland and Norway have been campaigning for a council seat for over a decade longer than Canada. 

The government has spent over $1.8 million on its campaign so far, not including the salary of the 13 people hired to work on the Canadian campaign.

In order to win a seat on the UN Security Council, Canada will need to get the vote of nations in Africa and the Middle East, nearly all of which support annual UN resolutions condemning Israel.

Canada’s ambassador to the United Nations, Marc-André Blanchard, says that despite the low odds of winning the seat, Canada would have a lot to offer the global community by being on the Security Council.

“Canada can make a huge difference on the Security Council and I hope that member states feel the same way and vote for us,” he said.

The B.C. government is looking for ways to ticket people for “racist and hateful behaviour.” 

NDP MLA Ravi Kahlon has asked the province’s Public Safety Minister Mike Fanworth to investigate what authority the provincial government has to go after people who engage in racism or are involved in “hate groups.”

The policy suggestion was scant on details and offered no definition of what such behaviour would actually entail.

True North reached out to Kahlon for comment on the policy suggestion, but had not heard back from his office by the time of the article’s publication. 

According to lawyer and President of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, John Carpay, such a law would be “vague and arbitrary” because it’s impossible to provide an objective definition of the concept.

“While banning ‘hate’ is a laudable goal, what constitutes hate is entirely subjective, and in the eye of the beholder,” Carpay told True North.

“Mainstream feminist disagreement with transgenderism politics is described as ‘hateful,’ along with opposition to current immigration policies.  It’s impossible to create or define an objective standard for “hate,” therefore any law that tries to crack down on ‘hate’ will be a vague and arbitrary law.”

A similar suggestion was made on the federal level when Liberal MP Nathaniel Erskine-Smith suggested that the government should ticket people for “online hate.”

“The criminal code is not an effective instrument,” said Erskine-Smith during a justice committee meeting on online hate. 

“The blunt instrument of imprisoning someone, putting them through a rigorous criminal trial, is probably not the right answer for enforcing rules against hate speech online in every instance.”

Erskine-Smith went on to suggest that a whole new judicial body be implemented to police the internet and charge offenders with monetary consequences. 

Currently, hate crimes and incitement of hatred are criminal offences according to federal law which can lead to imprisonment. 

Section 319 labels “public incitement of hatred” and “wilful promotion of hatred” as criminal offences which can land a person in jail for up to two years. 

“This law was narrowly upheld as valid by the Supreme Court of Canada in a 4:3 ruling in R. v. Keegstra in 1990,” said Carpay.

“The Court recognized the importance of not ‘chilling’ free expression, and attempted to define hate narrowly.  Do we really want more restrictions on speech, federally or provincially, when hate speech is already a crime?”

Justin Trudeau and members of the new Liberal cabinet attended a swearing-in ceremony at Rideau Hall on Wednesday afternoon.

Several key positions have been shuffled since the Liberals held a majority prior to the 2019 election. Before today’s unveiling, Trudeau confirmed that the cabinet would be gender balanced.

This year’s cabinet was slightly larger than the 34 ministers appointed in the past with a total of 36 ministerial positions. The new appointments will offer a glimpse into what the 43rd parliament of Canada will have to offer to Canadians in the near future.

Facing a minority government situation, ministers will likely have to work across party lines. It is yet to be seen how the appointments will address issues such as pipeline development and feelings of western alienation.

This is the full list of all of the ministers announced today:

Intergovernmental affairs – Chrystia Freeland
Public Services and Procurement – Anita Anand
Innovation, Science and Industry – Navdeep Bains
Indigenous-Crown Relations – Carolyn Bennett
Agriculture and Agri-Food – Marie-Claude Bibeau
Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness – Bill Blair
Minister of Diversity and Inclusion and Youth – Bardish Chaggar
Foreign Affairs – Francois-Philippe Champagne
President of Treasury Board – Jean-Yves Duclos
Middle Class Prosperity – Mona Fortier
Transport – Marc Garneau
International Development – Karina Gould
Canadian Heritage – Steven Guilbeault
Health – Patty Hajdu
Families, Children and Social Development – Ahmed Hussen
Economic Development and Official Languages – Melanie Joly
Fisheries, Oceans and the Canadian Coast Guard – Bernadette Jordan
Justice and Attorney General – David Lametti
President of Queen’s Privy Council for Canada – Dominic LeBlanc
National Revenue – Diane Lebouthillier
Veterans Affairs – Lawrence MacAulay
Infrastructure and Communities – Catherine McKenna
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship – Marco Mendicino
Indigenous Services – Marc Miller
Women and Gender Equality and Rural Economic Development – Maryam Monsef
Finance – Bill Morneau
Digital Government – Joyce Murray
Small Business, Export Promotion and International Trade – Mary Ng
Natural Resources – Seamus O’Regan
Employment, Workforce Development and Disability Inclusion – Carla Qualtrough
Government House Leader – Pablo Rodriguez
National Defence – Harjit Sajjan
Seniors – Deb Schulte
Labour – Filomena Tassi
Northern Affairs – Dan Vandal
Environment and Climate Change – Jonathan Wilkinson

The government of Canada has yet to recognize the new government in Bolivia after the socialist regime resigned earlier this month.

It’s been over a week since Evo Morales resigned as President of Bolivia and was replaced. However, the Canadian government has failed to follow our allies’ lead and recognize his successor.

As of last week, Global Affairs Canada tacitly said it will “support” the new government. However, unlike the United States, Brazil and Colombia, Canada will not recognize the new government as legitimate.

“Now that President Morales has resigned, Canada supports an institutional solution that will allow for a temporary caretaker administration to prepare for new elections and avoid a power vacuum,” a Global Affairs spokesman said last week.

Another Global Affairs employee told the CBC that the government will not use the word “recognize” and refuses to call the Bolivian president by the title of president.

Morales, a socialist and close ally of Cuba and Venezuela, has been accused of becoming increasingly authoritarian in recent years.

The constitution that Morales himself passed in 2009 bars him from seeking another term, and a majority of Bolivians voted against extending his rule in a 2016 referendum, but earlier this year he convinced a court to grant him the right to seek another term.

According to independent observers at the Organization of American States (OAS), the 2019 Bolivian election was found to be deeply flawed. The OAS in their final election report discovered “flawed transmission systems for both preliminary election results and the final count.”

On the sample of voting tally sheets observed by the OAS, 38.07% “were inconsistent with the number of citizens casting a vote.”

“That is to say, the tally sheets showed a higher number of votes than voters on the voter registration lists.”

Ultimately the OAS declared that it was “statistically unlikely,” Morales secured victory in the first round of voting.

Anti-Morales protests overtook the country in the wake of the October election. After the military recommended Morales resign in order to prevent further disruptions, he left for Mexico. 

After Morales resigned, the vice-president and the senate leader also resigned. Opposition Senator Jeanine Anez was declared president.

Anez, in following the Bolivian constitution, has agreed to hold an election within six months, styling herself only as Interim-President.

Unlike in Venezuela, where the Canadian government recognized the opposition as the rightful rulers of Venezuela, Canada has decided to not recognize the new legal government of Bolivia.

Global Affairs has only so far stated a desire to see the new government continue to obey the constitution.

“Bolivians deserve to have their voices heard and democratic rights respected, and it is critical that free and fair elections be held as quickly as possible. Canada stands ready to support those efforts,” Global Affairs said.

The Canadian government has not commented on the situation since its initial comments on Thursday.

Former Prime Minister Kim Campbell has recently been touted as a “reasonable” conservative voice by the mainstream media. Lately, she’s made several comments criticizing Conservative leader Andrew Scheer and has called western separatist sentiments “nuts.”

While briefly serving as prime minister in 1993, Kim Campbell had a less than spectacular few months while in office. She has been ranked as the worst short-term prime minister by Macleans and was quickly removed in the worst defeat ever suffered by an incumbent federal party in the nation’s history. 

During her career in and out of office, Campbell has consistently made questionable decisions and comments. Here are six of Kim Campbell’s worst moments:

Led the tories to the worst election defeat ever faced by a federal party

In 1993 under Campbell’s leadership, the Progressive Conservatives plummeted from a majority government of 154 seats to an abysmal two seats in the House of Commons, losing its official party status. 

Campbell herself ended up losing her seat in Vancouver Centre to a Liberal candidate, making her the second prime minister to lose a seat and the election at the same time. The party would never recover to its former strength and would dissolve after merging with the Canadian Alliance to form the Conservative Party of Canada. 

Compared the oil industry to the Nazi’s perpetration of the holocaust 

In August of this year, Campbell accused oil companies of having committed “crimes against humanity” and suggested that the people responsible were “Nuremberg worthy.”

During the Nuremberg trials, several leading Nazi officials were sentenced to death for their roles in perpetrating the Holocaust. 

According to Statistics Canada, over 200,000 people are employed in the mining, quarrying and oil and gas industry.

Said Canadian soldier’s white supremacist past was “youthful folly” during racist murder investigation

While still the Minister of National Defence and running to become the leader of the Progressive Conservatives for the 1993 election, two Canadian soldiers beat a Somalian teenager to death. 

When questioned by the media about one of the soldier’s alleged white supremacist connections and neo-Nazi beliefs, Campbell said she was aware of white supremacy in the armed forces “for ages,” and said that the suspect’s skinhead connections were “youthful folly.”

Said that she hopes President Trump’s resort gets hit by a hurricane

At the height of the Hurricane Dorian scare, Kim Campbell took to Twitter to tweet that she was “rooting for a direct hit on Mar-A-Lago!” a popular resort owned by U.S. President Donald Trump. 

She followed these comments a day after saying that “We will see if Mrs. Post’s design can stand up to the assault!” in reference to the resort’s architect. 

In response to the comments, the president’s son Eric Trump called the tweet “classless” and said, “Our family is rooting for the safety of millions of homes, businesses, families and wonderful people in a great State of Florida.” 

Campbell eventually deleted the tweet and apologized for the comments saying it was “intended as sarcasm” and was a “throwaway line.” 

Attacked Jean Chrétien’s visible disability in campaign advertisements

During her time as the newly minted Progressive Conservative leader, Campbell’s campaign aired attack ads poking fun at Jean Chrétien’s partial facial paralysis asking voters “Is this a prime minister?” 

“They tried to make fun of the way I look. God gave me a physical defect, and I have accepted that since [I was] a kid,” said Chrétien in response to the ads. 

Campbell’s campaign chair, the now-mayor of Toronto, John Tory, defended the ads saying “They have a point to make.” 

Eventually, Campbell said the ads would be pulled and apologized for offending her opponent. 

Told women that having “bare arms” was “demeaning” despite posing nude in 1990

In 2018, Campbell tweeted that she thought that it was “demeaning” for women to have “bare arms” television while sitting with suited men. 

“I am struck by how many women on television news wear sleeveless dresses- often when sitting with suited men. I have always felt it was demeaning to the women and this suggests that I am right. Bare arms undermine credibility and gravitas!” said Campbell.

However, in 1990 Campbell posed for a Barbara Woodley photograph in the nude behind legal robes. When people brought up the hypocrisy of her position, Campbell defended the position claiming that her photograph was “art” and not “news.”

The government of Canada has devoted $12.6 million to help settle Francophone immigrants in English-majority communities outside Quebec.

The Welcoming Francophone Communities Initiative is a program created by Immigration and Citizenship Canada which will see an unspecified number of Francophone immigrants settled in communities across Canada. 

“The Welcoming Francophone Communities initiative will help support French-speaking newcomers across Canada,” Immigration and Citizenship Canada says.

“14 communities were selected to get $12.6 million (over 3 years) for projects to make Francophone newcomers feel welcome in their new community.”

The fourteen communities will receive annual grants to help provide services for French-language immigrants.

These annual grants ranged from $100,756 to Iqaluit, Nu., to $450,000 for Hawkesbury, Ont. 

The majority of French-speaking immigrants to Canada are from French-speaking countries in Africa, as well as Haiti and France proper.

Factors determining which communities were selected included “the community’s willingness to attract and keep French-speaking newcomers” and “how proactive the community is.”

While some communities already have a large Francophone population, others have a minuscule Francophone population and little historical connection to the language.

As pointed out by Blacklock’s reporter, in Labrador City, Nfld., Tagalog speakers outnumber Francophones, and in Hamilton, Ont. twice as mainly people use Italian as their first language

In Prince George, BC. French is the fourth most common language, behind English, Punjabi, and German.

To monitor the program, the government has hired an external consulting firm to perform research in the program’s communities.

A firm will be paid an unspecified amount over four years to ask members of the community questions like “do community members and newcomers trust and understand each other?”

“Civic engagement and welcoming public spaces questions could be in the survey,” the government wrote.

Another question the government is interested in is: “do all community members including employers, host community, community leaders and local authorities have a positive attitude towards French-speaking newcomers?”

The Welcoming Francophone Communities initiative, beginning in 2020, now features prominently on Immigration and Citizenship’s website under the section intended for prospective immigrants.

Don Cherry released the first episode of his new podcast “Don Cherry’s Grapevine” after being fired by Sportsnet. Cherry was fired over comments calling on everybody to wear a poppy for Remembrance Day. 

During the episode, Cherry addressed the reaction following his comments and his eventual termination as host of “Coach’s Corner.” 

“Evidently I said something and everybody knows what I said and I offered to explain, not an apology but I guess I was going to smooth it over but they made conditions that made it impossible for me to do it,” said Cherry. 

“I just couldn’t do it and I guess I bit the bullet. I don’t know what else to say, I said what I said and I still say everybody in Canada should wear a poppy.”

Since being fired by the network, Cherry has stood by his initial comments and claimed what he said was taken out of context. 

“I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, young men died over there for our way of life and we do our way of life and we love the milk and honey. Yes I used the word milk and honey because that’s what we have: we have the best country in the world,” said Cherry. 

Several current and former hockey players have spoken out in Cherry’s defence in the past week. Colorado Avalanche player Nazem Kadri agreed that his comments were taken “out of context” and was “sad to see him go.”

Hockey Hall of Famer Bobby Orr also claimed that Sportsnet’s decision to fire Cherry was “disgraceful.”

Former Calgary Flames star and best-selling author Theo Fleury also told True North that CTV displayed a “double standard” after one of the hosts from “The Social,” Jessica Allen made comments disparaging young “white boys” who like hockey.

“Every small town who has a rink is the hub for the community. Hockey gives Canadians a sense of pride. It’s our identity,” said Fleury.