A Member of Parliament has expressed his concern about the release of an ISIS supporter in British Columbia.
Mel Arnold, MP for North Okanagan-Shuswap in British Columbia, strongly condemned the decision by a federal court to release Othman Hamdan from custody and place him in the town of Enderby, which he represents.
“Tuesday’s federal court decision upholding the release order for Mr. Othman Hamdan is a source of serious concern for me and my fellow Canadians in the North Okanagan-Shuswap and beyond,” he said in a statement.
Hamdan was arrested over a year ago after the Immigration Board declared him a security risk due to his support for Islamic terrorism online.
The Immigration and Refugee Board found in October that Hamdan “praised lone-wolf attacks, actively promoted the Islamic State, disseminated instructions on how to commit attacks and seems fascinated with the extreme violence the Islamic State demonstrated by possessing Islamic State videos depicting gruesome murders.”
In one post, Hamdan praised the 2014 Parliament Hill shooter that killed Corporal Nathan Cirillo in cold blood.
“Othman Hamdan used 14 different Facebook accounts to promote terrorist attacks in Canada and celebrated the cold-blooded terror killings of Canadian soldiers on Canadian soil,” Arnold said.
Hamdan, a native of the United Arab Emirates, moved to Canada in 2002, claiming asylum as a persecuted Christian. Federal authorities later ruled that Hamdan fake his conversion to Christianity in order to get approved for asylum.
The court this week upheld a decision from August granted Hamdan release while he awaits his eventual deportation. Hamdan will be staying with a friend in the small town of Enderby, BC.
The decision to allow Hamdan to Enderby is made even more concerning considering Hamdan allegedly made posts on Facebook describing the Revelstoke Dam as a good target for a terrorist attack.
The Mayor of Enderby called it “crazy” to let Hamdan free in a small town like Enderby, which is so close to vulnerable infrastructure.
Arnold criticized the Judge that released Hamdan for disregarding his previous behaviour.
“By stating these conditions are adequate and apparently believing Hamdan will abide by them, Diner and Rempel seem to ignore previous warnings of their own colleagues that Hamdan is both a security risk to Canada and a liar,” he said.
Along with posting a $2,000 bond, Hamdan must obey 25 conditions such as not leaving home at night and not driving a vehicle.
Law enforcement officials are alleging that an official in the B.C. government has been selling racetrack licences and work permits to illegal immigrants from Mexico.
Two weeks ago, as a part of their investigation into this matter, the Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA) conducted a large raid at the Hasting Racetrack in Vancouver. According to a law enforcement source who spoke to the Sun, 23 people were arrested.
An employee of the racetrack confirmed to CTV News in B.C. that they saw about two dozen people getting arrested at around 6:30 a.m. on Monday, Aug. 19.
Another eye witness told CTV that “Immigration [officials] came through and arrested all the Mexicans, looking for illegal immigrants.” Of the 23 arrested, 16 people were released on a bond and ordered to appear in court at a later date, while seven were kept in police custody.
The lawyer representing the seven workers said she was told her clients paid between $600 and $1,000 for the fake work permits.
According to the source, who spoke on background because they are not authorized to speak to the media, these seven people were held in custody because they have a history of illegal immigration in Canada.
“They either have a track record of being in Canada illegally and were deported in the past, or there was some kind of red flag in their file,” said the source.
The B.C. provincial government has confirmed that the arrests stemmed from an internal investigation into one of its own employees. The employee was allegedly selling racetrack licences to illegal immigrants whom did not have proper work authorization in Canada.
According to the source who spoke to the Sun, the employee has been suspended with pay during the ongoing investigation.
Authorities suspect this could be happening at racetracks across Canada.
High ranking officials in the B.C. government, including the current NDP attorney general and the former Liberal finance minister, are now arguing over the genesis of this investigation, with the NDP claiming it raised concerns in 2016 with the former Liberal government, while the Liberals deny this accusation.
This story, which has yet to be reported in the national media and is being treated as a local story in B.C., raises many questions about immigration security and Canada’s approach to dealing with illegal immigration.
For instance, why were these migrants buying fake permits rather than simply coming through the legal channels? Canada has specific work visas for temporary and seasonal workers; tens of thousands of Mexicans come to Canada legally each year to work during the summer months.
Were these workers duped by a corrupt official, as immigration advocates are now claiming, or were they inadmissible to work in Canada and so they instead opted to come through illegal channels?
In this instance, more than half of the workers arrested in the raid were released and ordered to return for their court date, but how many will actually show up?
The law enforcement source told the Sun that illegal immigrants who are released until their court date routinely fail to show up for their court hearing.
CBSA union boss Jean-Pierre Fortin recently said that many of these folks simply “disappear,” and that the CBSA simply doesn’t have the resources to track them all down and deport them.
Canada is struggling to deal with the ongoing crisis of illegal immigration, and this story shows just how far-reaching the problem goes.
In 2011, Trudeau said he was “very opposed to abortion”.
Where’s the outrage? Where’s the leftist activists? For months now, the Left has argued someone who’s personally opposed to abortion can’t be prime minister even if they promise not to legislate on the issue.
What would you do if your government was underperforming and it was days before the election period began?
Spend, spend, spend. That’s exactly what the Trudeau government is doing. But they’re spending YOUR money and they think you’re too dumb to realize it.
Canada has a new ambassador to China. Dominic Barton, who has deep business ties with China, was appointed last week.
True North’s Anthony Furey says we need an ambassador that is aware of the new realities of China under Xi Jinping. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like Barton is up to the task.
The mainstream media is once again trying to set Canadians against each other by promoting a feminist agenda that would not benefit most families. The facts and the climate models once again get in the way of the global warming alarmism.
True North’s Candice Malcolm dissects this week’s most biased news stories in Canada in a NEW True North segment!
Quebec will be receiving $250 million from the federal government for the costs of handling illegal border crossers from 2017 to 2018.
According to the announcement last week, the federal government is reimbursing the province for ensuring that “[illegal border crossers] are provided temporary housing and basic services, shortly after being thoroughly screened at the border.”
According to the Federal government, Quebec received 90% of the illegal border crossers who have entered Canada from the United States.
Minister of Border Security Bill Blair announced the latest handout to deal with Canada’s border crisis.
“The Government of Canada is focused first and foremost on ensuring that we have a well-managed immigration and asylum system, and that migration flows are managed in a safe, orderly manner,” Blair said.
Since 2016, Justin Trudeau’s first full year in office, 156,155 people have arrived in Canada under false pretenses — walking in illegally, using fake documents or pretending to be tourists — only to make asylum claims in the hopes of becoming refugees in Canada.
Despite the government claiming migrants who cross into Canada illegally have been “thoroughly screened”, officials have not been able to identify the nationality of many.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault has been demanding that the federal government reimburse the province for the expenses they have incurred as a result of Justin Trudeau’s open invitation to the world’s migrants. Legault was asking for $300 million, denying an offer for $150 million from Ottawa last year.
Since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s virtue-signalling tweet in 2017 welcoming the world’s migrants to Canada, the Canadian taxpayer has had to pay dearly.
According to True North’s tally, Trudeau’s open invitation has cost Canadian taxpayers billions.
While Quebec receives the most illegal border crossers, other provinces are also still trying to deal with this crisis.
The province of Ontario and the cities of Toronto and Ottawa have all received millions to help offset the costs of illegal migrants, much of which went to housing.
The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police is refusing to back a handgun ban, calling the proposal “naïve” and saying it won’t address the root causes of gun crime.
Yet still, left-wing politicians like John Tory and Bill Blair talk about gun bans as though they will make an impact on gun crime. They’re wrong. True North’s Andrew Lawton, a gun owner, weighs in.
True North is standing up for gun owners even if the government isn’t. Support our voice this election by donating to our election coverage fund: https://tnc.news/help-us-cover-the-election/
On Labour Day, the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau tried to join the annual parade in Hamilton. His path was blocked by a small group of unionists who wanted nothing to do with him. In the video you can hear them chanting “Hey, hey, ho, ho, Justin Trudeau’s got to go.”
After an impasse of about 45 minutes, Trudeau’s security detail whisked him away and took him to Bayfront Park where the parade was to end. He greeted folks there and pressed the flesh as only a politician can until the protesters showed up there and began dogging him again until he gave up and left.
The Hamilton Spectator described the protesters as Marxists and anarchists. Other publications described them as angry unionists. Whichever it was, what was more striking was who Trudeau was marching with as he attempted to join the parade.
He was leading a group in orange t-shirts behind a banner emblazoned with LIUNA! Local 837.
LIUNA is the Laborer’s International Union of North America. And Local 837 is the Hamilton-based local of the organization.
LIUNA represents mostly unskilled workers in construction and building projects. They have about 80,000 members in Canada and approximately 500,000 in the U.S. The largest local is in Toronto, Local 183 which has somewhere between 40,000 and 48,000 members.
They work directly for the union and not for the contractors or sub-contractors on the sites where they work.
They have a long history going back to 1903. But, they also have a checkered history of mob links dating back to Al Capone the infamous Chicago gangster.
In the 60’s, Chicago mob boss Sam “Mo Mo” Giancana exercised such control he would name who the president of the union would be.
In the 90’s after an FBI RICO investigation, they entered into an agreement with the United States government promising to rid themselves of mob links and even put it into their constitution that members were not to have any connections with figures active in organized crime.
In 1993 Angelo Fosca was the president of the union. He was on his deathbed when he was summoned by the Chicago mob and ordered to a LIUNA executive board meeting to orchestrate their choice as president John Serpico. Unfortunately as his gurney was being wheeled through the lobby of the Sheraton Hotel, with union delegates shaking their heads, and before the vote, Fosca shuffled off this mortal coil.
The secretary treasurer Arthur Coia side-stepped the Chicago mob and lined up the votes for himself. Coia would later lead the negotiation to rid the union of mob control to avoid direct control of the federal government.
On July 24, 1996, Ronald Fino, the business manager of Local 210 in Buffalo, NY, testified before the House Crime Subcommittee in Washington. He had been one of the union’s national officials for 8 years at that point. He said, under oath, “During this time, I witnessed the gripping control of the union and its membership by La Cosa Nostra, and the defilement of its workers’ dues and benefit funds.”
The Democrats did everything they could to obstruct the Fino testimony. Then congressman, now Senator Chuck Schumer even mockingly asked, “Mr. Fino do you believe space aliens are linked to the mob?”
Why they did that was obvious to the FBI. Coia had managed to get very close to President Bill Clinton. Coia was a regular White House visitor. He was invited to a State dinner for the Japanese Emperor and even flew with the President on Air Force One. The House Crime Subcommittee documented more than 120 contacts between Coia and the Clinton White House.
Clinton tried to get him named to a prestigious presidential commission. Unfortunately this required an FBI background check. Their response to the White House, “Coia is a criminal associate of the New England Patriarca organized crime family.”
Clinton gave Coia a Calloway “Divine Nine” golf club and Coia responded with a custom made gold plated driver with the Presidential Seal.
During that period LIUNA gave more than $4.8 million to various Democratic entities. Being the Clintons, the union received $50.5 million in federal grants between 1994-1997.
But it doesn’t end there.
Despite promising to rid themselves of anyone with mob contacts, in 2012 the Toronto Local 183 entered into a contract with Construction Labour Force a company linked to reputed Calabrian mob boss Cosimo Commisso. Union contract documents even list Commisso as the contact, albeit his name is misspelled. Commisso’s nephew Giomino Commisso runs the company.
In the 2015 report, the U.S. DOJ Organized Crime and Gang Section listed LIUNA as a mob infiltrated union.
In May of 2017, the FBI and NYPD arrested 19 members of the Lucchese (pronounced Lu-KAY-zee) New York crime family. Links to LIUNA and the diversion of member benefits formed part of the backstory of the indictments.
In 2019, the Ontario government proposed changes to the Labour Relations Act called Restoring Ontario’s Competiveness Act. Jason Ottey, the Director of Government Relations and Communications for Local 183 tried to lobby the government to prevent passage. They were doing very well with the so-called closed bidding process under the former Liberal government that inflated construction costs by as much as 15%.
So, with all of that as background, why would anyone think it was a good idea to let the Prime Minister march behind their banner? This is not to say the men and women who marched are mobbed up. It is to say the spectre of corruption and mob associations run deep in LIUNA and a minimal amount of research by one of the whiz kids in the PMO would have turned up a lot of adverse information.
Appearances are everything in politics. And the Prime Minister being photographed marching behind that banner sends the wrong message.
A Liberal MP has openly criticized his fellow MPs and his government for pandering to the Sikh Khalistan movement, saying their behaviour is damaging Canada-India relations.
Ramesh Sangha, MP for Brampton Centre, told a Mississauga Punjabi-language television channel that Liberals are divided on the issue of supporting the Khalistan movement, but many are clearly pandering to their supporters.
“There is no doubt, there cannot be two opinions that the Liberal party is pandering [to] Khalistan supporters,” Sangha said.
“One thing is for sure when we raise this issue, it will raise an anti-India slogan or demand the division of India on some ground. In that, ultimately our relations, the Canada-India relationship will certainly develop cracks.”
Khalistanis are those within the Sikh community that wish to see an ethnostate for Sikhs carved out of Indian territory. It has little support among Sikhs in Canada and India alike.
When asked if he thought that the Liberal Party had a “soft corner” for Khalistanis, his response was clear.
“It does,” he said.
Sangha serves as chair of the Canada-India Parliamentary Association, a group of parliamentarians who follow Canada-India relations. It was through the Association that his concerns developed, he said.
Sangha blamed the disruptions in Canada-India relations in the past couple years to elements within the Liberal party which continue to support the Khalistani movement against Canada’s wishes.
“[The prime minister] said in strong words that we don’t want a divided India, we want a united India and we will work for that. Sikh ministers, MPs of our Sikh brotherhood, these brothers of mine, they have their own… These are their views and as long as they demand it, it is viewed that they are separatists. When this view surfaces, India also voices its hard view,” Sangha said.
Canada-India relations have been rocky since Trudeau’s embarrassing state visit two years ago when a convicted Khalistani terrorist joined Canada’s delegation to India. Gerald Butts, Trudeau’s close advisor, claimed the Indian government wanted to embarrass Trudeau.
The Chief Minister of India’s Punjab province has also accused Trudeau of pandering to the Khalistan movement to try and gain votes in October’s general election.
In a statement, the Prime Minister’s Office firmly denied any support for Sikh extremism but did not address Sangha or his remarks directly.
