Things are not always as they appear. Especially in high stress situations. But the system seems to treat some different than others.
True North’s Leo Knight reports on the case of Daniel Montsion, an Ottawa police officer who is currently on trial for manslaughter.
Toronto police arrested 73 gang members of the “Chester Le gang” on 599 charges in an eight-month-long investigation called “Project Kraken”.
In total $400,000 in drugs and 23 illegally obtained firearms were seized. Among the drugs taken off the streets were “over 1050 grams of cocaine, over 1100 grams of fentanyl, over 1100 grams of Clonazepam, over 840 grams of Percocet and other drugs seized”, according to an official Toronto Police Service news release.
“Investigators were able to substantiate and now allege that the Chester Le gang (was) involved in extensive gun and drug activity. Investigators were also able to allege that numerous members of this gang committed brazen armed robberies while having a callous disregard for public safety,” said Deputy Chief James Ramer.
The criminals were mainly young men, several middle aged individuals and one young offender. The following men had an extensive number of charges:
The street gang which was called a “coordinated criminal organization” is believed to have ties to traditional organized crime. Among the charges are numerous gun and drug trafficking crimes, as well as some robbery charges.
The guns were believed to be smuggled for the purpose of an ongoing turf war and were being carried by tow truck operators.
Toronto has recently seen an alarming rise in gang related gun violence. In 2018, the city hit a record of 424 shootings. In response to the rise of gun violence, Toronto Mayor John Tory has advocated for a handgun ban on legal gun owners and the Toronto Police Service have implemented a gun buyback program.
“Some of the guns before you were seized from tow truck operators who had armed themselves and were prepared to shoot other tow truck operators over an ongoing battle over territory,” said Ramer.
While the gang has its roots in Toronto, its activities are believed to reach throughout the GTA and the rest of Canada.
Individuals involved in the arrest were residents of a variety of areas including Toronto, Ajax, Waterloo, Sudbury, and Ottawa.
The Queen’s Bench Division of the High Court found Tommy Robinson guilty of three acts of contempt of court Friday. After the verdict, Robinson joined True North’s Andrew Lawton, who covered the trial at the Old Bailey in London, to discuss the finding. Robinson said it’s never been more important for people to speak up against the elites before they no longer can.
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A spokesperson for China’s foreign ministry claimed that Canada is “naive” to rely on its allies in its current dispute over the internment of two Canadian citizens and the arrest of Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou.
“We hope that the Canadian side will not be too naive. First, Canada shouldn’t naively think that gathering so-called allies to put pressure on China will work,” said spokesperson Geng Shuang.
“Second, the Canadian side should not naively believe that its so-called allies can really make concrete efforts for Canada’s interests. What they are doing at most is lip service, because after all it is a matter between China and Canada.”
In June, Trudeau met with President Donald Trump to discuss the Huawei extradition request and to ask him for his help to intervene in the situation.
The diplomatic relationship between China and Canada has frozen over, as the two countries are in an escalating trade war.
According to Canada’s Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, Chinese officials have entirely stopped engaging with Canada on the file and refuse to take her phone calls. Freeland even went on the radio to publicly plea for Chinese diplomats to engage with her.
Both of the Canadians who are being held by the Chinese government, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, are facing espionage charges. The two Canadians have been periodically held in solitary confinement and most recently, Kovrig has had his eyeglasses confiscated by officials.
President Xi Jinping was also seen giving Prime Minister Justin Trudeau the cold shoulder at the latest G20 summit in Japan. While there, Trudeau, who was seated beside Jinping failed to even interact with his Chinese counterpart, however the two were seen talking briefly at the summit’s sidelines.
Despite the unsavory treatment by the Chinese, Liberal Minister of Small Business and Export Promotion Mary Ng recently tweeted a photograph of her and other government representatives enjoying ice cream on a recent diplomatic trip to the country.
Prime Minister Trudeau’s recent diplomatic pleas to the United States and his lackluster performance at the G20 summit has many Canadians wondering how he will fix this critical situation with China.
BY: ANTHONY FUREY
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is really against the ropes both domestically and on the world stage.
The PM’s been taking a beating in public support ever since his disastrous India trip the other year. He then went from low to lower during the dreadful Lavscam and fell down another peg following the Vice Admiral Mark Norman affair.
These fiascos can largely be chalked up to ineptitude and poor management. There are other problems arising though that aren’t so much bungled files but signs that Trudeau and a lot of the leadership in this country are looking at things the wrong way.
On the domestic front, immigration and refugees is a main example. Trudeau and Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen continue to undermine Canada’s immigration system, whether it’s by failing to deal with the Roxham Road illegal border crisis or by vilifying Canadians who have basic concerns about integration.
A number of polls have revealed that the majority of Canadians want improved integration and even want to reduce the number of refugees invited in until we can figure things out. Instead of using this as a learning opportunity to readjust their priorities to get more in line with the people they’re tasked with serving, Hussen and Trudeau seem to revel in accusing Canadians of being racist or similar such nonsense. It’s a mistake they keep wilfully making: pretending concerns about integration are somehow objections to the race or ethnicity of those refugees.
Meanwhile, Trudeau is floundering on the world stage. China keeps turning the screws on Ottawa almost daily and all the Liberal government seems able to do is flail its arms and stammer in response. A growing chorus of observers is calling on Trudeau to do something, anything, in response. Yet, like some sort of Canadian Hamlet, he can’t bring himself to act.
China’s offensive strikes are rooted in their disdain for the Western system and our belief in the rule of law. The Chinese Communist Party is the opposite of what North American politics should stand for. President Xi Jinping is far from alone in his attitudes.
Russian President Vladimir Putin sneered at Western values in an interview with the Financial Times recently: “The liberal idea has become obsolete. It has come into conflict with the interests of the overwhelming majority of the population.”
One of the most irksome parts of Trudeau’s worldview is his moral and cultural relativism, his refusal to criticize bad actors – unless they’re Canadians he’s hectoring about carbon emissions or plastic straw usage.
Sadly, Putin may be right that “the liberal idea”, as in free democratic capitalist societies, are on the decline. It would be nice if Trudeau would put his foot down and stand defiantly against this decline. Think what you will of President Donald Trump, but he’s certainly not willing to let the West die a slow death – he’s putting up a fight against the likes of Communist China.
Whether it’s Trudeau’s approach to the integration of refugees or his refusal to confront China, it all seems rooted in a shoddy moral relativism. It would be nice if Trudeau would drop this attitude and give Canadian politics a reboot that does more to embrace and promote Western values.
After a two-day trial at the Old Bailey in London, Tommy Robinson was found guilty of three contempt of court for violations: breaching a reporting restriction, filming defendants of a sex grooming gang trial, and intimidating those witnesses by asking them questions as they walked into the courthouse.
True North’s Andrew Lawton was inside the courthouse for the entire hearing. Here’s his report. Next week, Andrew will be covering the media freedom summit being co-hosted in London by Canada and the United Kingdom.
Support True North’s coverage by joining Andrew’s Heritage Club: https://tnc.news/lawton-heritage-club/
Public Safety Canada has made significant changes to its list of designated terrorist entities but failed to recognize the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) of Iran – a group that the United States recognizes as a terrorist organization.
While the Canadian government, the media and social media moralizers praised the decision to put two right-wing extremist groups on the list of terrorist entities recognized by the Canada government, True North’s Anthony Furey noted that there were other significant additions that day.
While the addition of neo-nazi groups is valid, it remains unknown why the Canadian government continues to let an international terrorist group, like the IRGC, go unrecognized.
Recently the United States declared the IRGC a terrorist organization, allowing for action to be taken against international murderers of Iran’s theocratic dictatorship.
As Anthony Furey points out, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps is still allowed free reign without consequence.
The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), which reports directly to the Islamist leaders of Iran, has been accused of terrorism around the world since its inception, particularly targeting Westerners and Israelis.
While the IRGC is the chief actor in Iran’s domestic reign of terror against dissidents in its own country, it’s accused of murders and attacks around the world in the name of Iran’s theocracy.
When the Liberals voted in favour of a Conservative motion calling for Canada to calling the IRGC a terrorist group last year, it appeared that Canada was actually going to be the first western country to make this distinction.
Fast-forward a year, the government has yet to act, leaving Canadians and Iranian dissidents in Canada vulnerable while other countries s have already protected themselves.
True North’s Andrew Lawton is in London, United Kingdom to cover the contempt of court trial of British activist Tommy Robinson.
On the first day of the trial, the lawyer for the Theresa May government’s attorney general accused Robinson of making up his stories of attempting to verify whether there was a publication ban in place for the sex grooming gang trial Robinson was covering.
However, one of the government’s witnesses admitted that her office “failed” by not posting notifications of the publication ban in various required locales.
Andrew Lawton has the details.
Over the course of the past few years, gang gun violence has been a plague in our cities. Politicians, ridden with angst over the problem, have struggled to come up with legislative ideas to solve the problem.
Toronto Mayor John Tory came up with the supremely idiotic idea to “ban handguns” in his city. This seems to ignore the reality of the gang gun problem – the guns being used are illegal and the users are criminals who don’t pay attention to laws.
This would seem to be so basic it’s a wonder that any politician would think that legislation could solve the problem. Yet they soldier on.
The federal Liberals trotted out Bill C 71 which ostensibly “tightened” regulations relative to legal gun owners and other bureaucratic nonsense.
Bill Blair, the former Toronto Police Chief and now Minister of Anything Presenting a Problem to the Prime Minister, has mused about a possible ban on “assault” weapons sometime this summer as discussed by True North’s Andrew Lawton.
The problem with that is there is an election this October and he would risk angering a whole lot of folks in rural Canada. The other problem is that the term “assault” weapon is a made up term by the hand-wringers and pearl-clutchers of the political left.
What they don’t understand is that an AR-15 is essentially the same weapon as a Ruger Mini 14. One has a hand grip on the stock and a flash suppressor and the other looks like your dad’s squirrel gun. They both fire the same calibre bullet and have the same rate of fire.
Bill Blair should know this, yet he continues to tow the company line.
What he should be advocating for is taking some of the tax dollars the government has been lavishing on a variety of dubious causes for foreign governments and giving it to law enforcement agencies investigating organized crime and drug dealing gangs. That’s where the problem is. He is, after all, nominally the Minister of Border Security and Organized Crime.
Organized crime and gang investigations cost big money. In order to get the Part VI (requisite Criminal Code) information needed to get an intercept warrant, many hours of surveillance and investigation must be conducted and information gathered on what the police believe the target is doing and who with.
For example, there are just over 100 Hells Angels members in British Columbia alone. It takes police approximately $2 – $4 million to take down the criminal network of just one full patch Hells Angel. Multiply that across the country, then add in Asian Organized Crime (AOC), Traditional Organized Crime (Italian) (TOC), East European Organized Crime (EEOC) and Middle Eastern Organized Crime (MEOC) then add in the street gangs and you begin to see the size of the problem.
In the past week alone the government has given, by my count, $418 million to foreign governments for dubious causes like climate change and birth control.
The police do what they can. But frankly, it isn’t enough.
Having said that, the Toronto Police Service on Friday announced the takedown of a Scarborough gang called ‘Chester Le Gang.’ They laid 599 charges against 73 people. They seized more than a kilo of cocaine and more than a kilo of fentanyl. Enough to kill every man, woman and child in the GTA.
They also seized a tableful of handguns, you know the type of things the gangs use to engage in street war against their rivals, acquired illegally. Police set the value of the weapons seized at over $84,000. A significant result for the Toronto Police and their Joint Forces Operations (JFO) partners in law enforcement.
Many of the names of the folks arrested have Muslim names. That’s a reality that no one seems to want to speak about. In their media report, the CBC wouldn’t name any of the arrestees. There was barely any mainstream media coverage at all.
Maybe it was because it was the Friday of a long weekend. Maybe. Or maybe because it is an uncomfortable subject.
The premiers opposing the federal carbon tax remain united and hopeful, despite a disappointing ruling last week.
Ontario’s Court of Appeals ruled 4-1 in favour of the federal government on whether or not Ottawa has the right to force a carbon tax on Ontarians.
Chief Justice George R. Strathy said that because climate change is a national threat, reducing carbon emissions are in the national interest, therefore it was within Ottawa’s power to force Ontarians to pay up.
Ontario is the second province to lose its case on the carbon tax.
Saskatchewan’s Court of Appeal narrowly sided with Ottawa in May on the question of federal jurisdiction on the carbon tax. The 3-2 split decision disappointed many across Canada who hoped to end the burdensome tax there and then.
“We commend the Government of Ontario for their representation of the people of their province. With two split decisions, there is a strong legal argument that this tax is unconstitutional,” Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe said.
Five provinces have sued the federal government in order to stop the carbon tax, with Manitoba, New Brunswick and Alberta all waiting for rulings.
While disappointing, it is clear that the battle is not over yet.
Manitoba, in particular, has vowed to continue with its unique approach.
“We’ll take the time to review the Ontario Court of Appeal Decision. But our own April 2019 challenge of the federal government’s decision to impose an escalating carbon tax on Manitobans continues,” a government spokesman said.
Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister says that his province’s commitment to green energy is being ignored by Ottawa, despite achieving the same goals as the carbon tax claims to achieve.
“This current federal government seems disinclined to give Manitobans credit for the massive investments we have made and are willing to continue to make in green energy,” he said.
“Manitobans have already paid, without the federal government’s help, billions of dollars in investments in green hydro production and green transmission. Yet we get zero credit from this current federal government on this issue so I will not stop advocating for Manitoba’s best interest — we deserve respect.”
The carbon tax, which is being applied to nearly all retail goods, mostly falls on ordinary Canadians to pay as many of Canada’s biggest polluters are exempt. The tax is opposed by most of the provinces and territories.
Until the carbon tax is either struck down in court or repealed by the federal government, provincial governments appear prepared to continue the fight indefinitely.
