Jordan Hunt, found guilty of roundhouse-kicking a pro-life woman, activist Marie-Claire Bissonnette, at a Life Chain event in September 2018, received eight months probation for mischief and assault charges.
He was also given an order to stay 100 meters away from any future pro-life demonstrations.
Before the assault, Hunt was seen staining the signs and clothes of demonstrators with permanent markers.
Hunt assaulted the woman after he berated her with pro-choice arguments. As she was responding to him, he forcefully kicked her.
Bissonnette told LifeSiteNews about the assault after it happened. While clearly describing Hunt’s disgraceful conduct, what was much more disturbing was the disdain the victim received from police.
“A police car arrived, five to ten minutes later. The policemen rolled down their window but did not exit their vehicle,” she said.
“I approached them and told them I was just assaulted and explained the situation. I showed them the video. They replied, ‘What do you want us to do about it?’”
When approached by media outside of court at the pre-trial hearing, Hunt was unapologetic, showing complete contempt.
Attacks on pro-life demonstrators are disturbingly common in Canada.
Bissonnette claims she has been attacked multiple times in the past while demonstrating, but never so violently as this.
Life Chain is an annual nation-wide event where people peacefully gather to demonstrate their support for the pro-life cause. In 2018 there were over 200 such demonstrations across Canada.
Among some of the signs the demonstrators carried included phrases like “Adoption, the Loving Option” and “Pregnant and need help? Call [insert local pregnancy help centre]”.
While it doesn’t appear the federal government will implement a gun ban prior to October’s election, Minister Bill Blair has said the Liberals plan to make a so-called “assault weapons” prohibition an election issue. Blair even said a re-elected Liberal government would want to force a buyback rather than grandfathering certain types of guns.
True North’s Andrew Lawton explains what this means for Canadian gun owners.
After hearing from nearly five dozen witnesses over two months of meetings, the Canadian Parliament’s Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights has tabled its report in the House of Commons.
The report from the Liberal-dominated committee lays out nine recommendations for Members of Parliament to adopt. Most notable is the implementation of a “civil remedy” to combat online hate, which the report acknowledges must first be defined in law.
The Conservatives have already taken aim at the report, charging its recommendations call for an “unacceptable violation” of free speech.
Recommendation 9 of the report:
That the Government of Canada develop a working group comprised of relevant stakeholders to establish a civil remedy for those who assert that their human rights have been violated under the Canadian Human Rights Act, irrespective of whether that violation happens online, in person, or in traditional print format. This remedy could take the form of reinstating theformer section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, or implementing a provision analogous to the previous section 13 within the Canadian Human Rights Act, which accounts for the prevalence of hatred on social media.
Only four of the dozens of witnesses who testified before the committee made preserving and protecting free speech a priority in their remarks, with a majority advocating a restoration of section 13, or a super-charged version of it that holds social media companies culpable for content posted online, as well as the people posting it.
Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, repealed during Stephen Harper’s government, allowed for the Canadian human rights commission and tribunal to prosecute online postings, though defendants did not have the same protections or rights afforded to them as those defending themselves in the criminal justice system.
The high standard Canadian criminal law sets for hate speech has caused activists on the left to seek a prosecutorial tool with a lower threshold, prompting the desire for the “civil remedy” sought by the committee’s report.
The report also calls on the government to “establish requirements for online platforms and Internet service providers with regards to how they monitor and address incidents of hate speech, and the need to remove all posts that would constitute online hatred in a timely manner.”
This recommendation is particularly timely, given Canada’s democratic institutions minister, Karina Gould, said last week that the government was not averse to shutting down social media companies who don’t comply with government’s expectations when it comes to political content during the election.
The Conservative members of the committee pushed back against the report, with Conservative MP Michael Barrett arguing these recommendations do “not strike an appropriate balance” between dealing with extremism and protecting free speech.
“Measures like the restoration of section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act are an unacceptable violation of the freedom of speech rights of Canadians,” Barrett said.
The study engaged 1,528 Canadians online, which was conducted by the market research company Leger on behalf of the Canadian Press.
Discontent over the handling of Canada’s immigration system is spread throughout both left-wing and right-wing parties. In the largest group, 81 percent of Conservative respondents wanted to limit immigration levels, while the Greens followed with 57 percent who also wanted to see immigration limited.
44 percent of NDP respondents also chose the same option, while a slightly lower 41 percent of Liberals agreed with the statement.
In 2017, the Liberal government committed to admitting approximately one million immigrants into Canada by 2020. The target would require an intake of around 300,000 a year from 2017 to 2020.
Despite the insistence from Canadians that they are opposed to the government’s immigration policy, Immigration Minister Ahmed Hussen has called the trend “worrying” while laying blame with Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer.
“What worries me is looking at the other side and seeing the leader of the Official Opposition taking a stance that is rooted in misinformation and conspiracy theories,” said Hussen.
Responding to accusations by Minister Hussen, Andrew Scheer claimed that the fault lies with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and the Liberal Party’s handling of illegal immigration.
“There is absolutely nothing fair or compassionate about real victims of persecution having to fight the government to be reunited with their families, or forcing the oppressed to wait longer for Canada’s help while others jump the queue, exploit loopholes and cross the border illegally from places like upstate New York,” said Scheer.
When polled by Angus Reid in 2018, 67% of Canadians agreed that the border situation was indeed a “crisis”.
Opinions about immigration among Canadians have become more negative since Justin Trudeau was elected Prime Minister in 2015.
True North’s founder Candice Malcolm believes Trudeau’s immigration approach is bringing Canadians to a breaking point.
“Trudeau has pushed reckless immigration policies — inviting the world’s refugees to come to Canada on social media, refusing to secure our borders, eliminating health standards for immigrants, and championing the UN global compact — all while telling the New York Times magazine that Canada has ‘no core identity, no mainstream,’” said Malcolm.
A large office building at 5800 Yonge St. –just north of
Finch Ave. — the City of Toronto budgeted $3 million for back at the beginning
of February to hold it on a contingency basis to be used as a shelter remains
empty.
“It’s always empty,” said a Korean student to True North. He
says he often smokes at one of the benches at the front of the property after
class.
“We’re cleaning it for the shelter,” said a building
maintenance worker working for a company contracted by the City.
“We’re still working on it,” he said, adding a lot of work
still needs to be done.
The old North York hydro building is owned by a Markham-based
condo developer who bought the building back in April of 2018 according
to the Toronto Sun.
“The property is owned by a third-party, who approached the
City to assist in our refugee response,” said Shelter, support and housing
spokesman Greg Seraganian.
“There is no immediate plan to use this site; however, as a
contingency, the City is budgeting $3 million for operating costs, funded by
reserve, should the flow of refugees increase at a rate which cannot be
accommodated through our other programs.”
The Yonge St. facility was supposed to replace motel units
some homeless are currently living in thanks to the City.
True North previously reported that an influx of asylum seekers — making asylum claimants upon arrival at airports or after illegally crossing the border — have overwhelmed the Toronto shelter system. The Trudeau government denied there was a problem at the border and waived the Mexican visa requirement, which resulted in claims skyrocketing from that country and a reported 400 cartel members entering Canada without detection.
The tens of thousands of asylum claimants entering the City have led the City to resort to renting out entire hotels, buying new facilities (including $10 million for four temporary shelters that can house a combined 400 people) and keeping outdated facilities open.
On June 13 there were 7,023 staying in the shelter system.
Last month the average number of people staying in the shelter system any given
night was 6,999. That number was 6,662 and 4,812 in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
The Trudeau government gave the Toronto shelter system $15 million of taxpayer’s money at the beginning of this year to address the influx. It was added to another $11 million given last summer. At the beginning of April the Trudeau government committed to giving Toronto Community Housing $1.3 billion to repair 1,500 building throughout the city.
The Liberal government has awarded a $25,787 to the Islamic Society of North America-Canada (ISNA-Canada) under the controversial Canada Summer Jobs grant, despite the organization’s charity status being suspended for allegedly financing terrorism.
In 2018, ISNA-Canada was found to have contributed funds to Relief Organization for Kashmiri Muslims (ROKM) and others. According to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA), charities are prohibited from contributing to political or terror-related groups.
Among the CRA’s mandates regarding charity status is the stipulation that it “[prevents] organizations with ties to terrorism from obtaining charitable registration.”
Despite this barring, ISNA-Canada proceeded to provide ROKM with $90,000 in funds according to a CRA audit. In total the organization was believed to have sent nearly $136,000 without due diligence to the Kashmiri region. ROKM is known to have alleged affiliations with Hizbul Mujahideen, the militant arm of the Islamist Pakistani party Jamaat-e-Islami and is listed as a terror entity in several countries.
The original audit into the funds was conducted in 2011.
In response, the CRA suspended the group’s charity status for a year and fined the organization nearly half a million dollars.
This is not the first time that the “charity” was awarded funding under the summer jobs grant by the Liberal government. As first reported by True North’s Candice Malcolm, shortly after the group was suspended, it was awarded a taxpayer-funded grant later that year.
The group has also been known to host high profile Liberal MPs, including Iqra Khalid, Omar Alghabra and even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. Trudeau appeared at an event held by ISNA-Canada in 2013 before he became Prime Minister.
The Canada Summer Jobs Grant has been a controversial issue for the Liberals after the federal government tacked on a “values test” for organizations hoping to utilize the grant. Among those values was an attestation by which organizations had to agree with abortion as a right.
As a result of the attestation, dozens of summer camps and church organizations were forced to close their doors.
Due to pressure from opposition MPs and organizations like True North, the federal government changed the attestation.
Conservative Party of Canada leader Andrew Scheer accused Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of bribing the media last fall when the Liberals announced their government was planning to give political journalism $595 million bailout. It was a fair assessment to make, but over the better part of a year, Scheer has not categorically come out against a bailout of the media.
Often what is left unsaid by a politician is far more important than what is said.
After it was revealed last month that anti-Conservative union Unifor — which represents 12,000 journalists — was selected by the Trudeau government to be one of the eight organizations to decide who and who isn’t a journalist eligible to receive government money, Scheer attacked Trudeau for selecting a hyper-partisan organization with a massive conflict of interest as one of the decision-makers choosing who gets a piece of the $595 million pie.
In a recent op-ed in the Toronto Sun, Scheer called for Trudeau to remove Unifor from the selection process. But what was again absent in Scheer’s column was any declaration that the bailout itself is wrong. Actually, Scheer’s op-ed only criticized Unifor for being part of the media bailout process, not the bailout itself. That omission looks like a tacit endorsement of the bailout.
I reached out to Scheer’s office this week to try and get an unequivocal answer on what his position is regarding the bailout, but I only received examples of where Scheer and the Conservatives have accused Trudeau of rigging the election in his favour and criticizing parts of the bailout process.
Perhaps Scheer and the Conservatives think if they don’t go against the bailout they can neutralize the bribe because they’re tacitly offering money as well if they get into power. The foolishness of that position is that giving ambiguous answers that neither endorse nor oppose the bailout means many in the media will assume the Conservatives are against it even if they really aren’t.
Ottawa-based news outlet Blacklock’s Reporter confronted Scheer in a scrum earlier this week — where most journalists were more interested in his thoughts about plastic straws than the fate of their own industry — asking him twice whether he would scrap the $595 million bailout.
His vague response was telling: “I certainly do support the work that an independent media does in this country,” said Scheer. “Our preference would be to ensure there are market-based solutions.”
Scheer needs to be upfront with Canadians. If he were to become prime minister would he give hundreds of millions of dollars to the fourth estate, compromising its independence in holding those in power to account?
No one should trust a Conservative government any more than a Liberal one to divvy out taxpayer money to journalists in a non-political fashion.
What’s all the more strange is that a couple years ago Scheer promised to scrap the CBC news division if he became prime minister. He’s since flip flopped and is now only calling for the public broadcaster to shift its focus towards more Canadian stories. Now the Conservative leader will not even say if he’s against giving government subsidies across the industry.
Studies have shown that journalists are overwhelmingly left-wing, brimming with journalists who support evermore socialist programming while largely turning a blindeye to those programs’ failures, like graft and draining of the public coffers. The internet has made many of these journalists’ jobs superfluous. But the internet has also given talented journalists lots of capabilities to thrive (e.g. crowdfunding, online subscriptions, etc.) if the prove their merit in getting scoops and original reporting.
If Scheer ends up becoming prime minister and keeps the bailout he will be propping up an army of left-wing journalists that will continue to push this country further leftward. As Blacklock’s Reporter revealed, the $595 million is not a fixed amount — the sum will likely only grow with dependence.
An industry heavily subsidized by the government will not have many journalists critical of increasingly bloated bureaucracies and indebted governments in it. One need look no further than publications already subsidized by the government like The Walrus and Maclean’s to see this is true.
Scheer needs to realize that anything short of opposing the media bailout is an utter betrayal of fundamental conservative principles as well as the future of the Conservative movement in Canada.
Not only have Conservative MP Michael Cooper’s words been removed from the official parliamentary transcript of the Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, but also from the audio recording.
After a Liberal motion to censure and censor Cooper for quoting the Christchurch manifesto to push back against a committee witness’s defamatory claims, the supposedly offending words have been removed from all official records.
Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book has been rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street and building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And that process is continuing day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right. I know, of course, that the past is falsified, but it would never be possible for me to prove it, even when I did the falsification myself. After the thing is done, no evidence ever remains. The only evidence is inside my own mind, and I don’t know with any certainty that any other human being shares my memories. Just in that one instance, in my whole life, I did possess actual concrete evidence after the event—years after it.
George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four
If there was ever a time when silence was deafening, it’s now. If you listen to the audio recording of a justice committee meeting last week and it stops abruptly, there isn’t a problem with your internet connection. That silence is the product of a successful effort by Liberal politicians to literally censor the words of a colleague.
The censored words are those of Conservative MP Michael Cooper, who was ejected from the justice committee by Conservative leader Andrew Scheer. Cooper read an excerpt from the Christchurch killer’s manifesto to challenge a committee witness’ assertion that “conservative commentators” inspire mass violence.
But the attacks on Cooper, and the truth he spoke, went beyond political. As I wrote about last week, members of the House of Commons’ Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights voted unanimously (with the Conservative members abstaining) to remove Cooper’s comments from the official record.
Not only were they removed from the transcript, pictured above. Even the raw audio feed of the testimony was retroactively edited, with silence replacing the offending words.
First, the stream goes dead when Cooper mentions Brenton Tarrant, the Christchurch killer, by name. It goes dead again as Cooper reads the section of the manifesto disproving the slanderous assertion made by witness Faisal Khan Suri.
I was in the committee room when the motion to censor and censure Cooper was passed, but it was still chilling to hear–or not hear, rather–the new “record” of that May 28 meeting.
You can listen to the updated version of history for yourself here, though I’ve embedded the relevant excerpt below.
As noted in the above Orwell quote, in the absence of an official record we’re left only with memories, fallible and unprovable as they are. Even when reporting on Cooper’s comments, no Canadian media outlet included them in full. At this point, no publicly accessible transcript of the exchange exists, with the exception of my own, below.
I manually transcribed this after the motion to censor Cooper was passed. Regretfully I didn’t have the forethought to download the audio myself.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, Mr. Suri, I take great umbrage with your defamatory comments to try to link conservatism with violent and extremist attacks. They have no foundation. They are defamatory. And they diminish your credibility as a witness.
Let me, Mr. Chair, read into the record the statement of Brenton Tarrant, who is responsible for the Christchurch massacre. He left a 74-page manifesto in which he stated “conservatism is corporatism in disguise. I want no part of it,” and, “The nation with the closest political and social values to my own is the People’s Republic of China.”
I certainly wouldn’t attempt to link Bernie Sanders to the individual who shot up Republican members of Congress and nearly fatally killed Congressman (Steve) Scalise. So you should be ashamed.
Michael Cooper, Conservative Member of Parliament, St. Albert–Edmonton, at a meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Justice and Human Rights, May 28, 2019.
Former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien made headlines this week when he suggested Canada should ease tensions with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) by essentially breaking the law and releasing Huawei Chief Financial Officer Meng Wanzhou who was arrested in Vancouver at the request of the U.S. government.
Meng was arrested on December 1, 2018 as she was changing flights. U.S. authorities want her to face charges of fraud and using a subsidiary company to contravene U.S. Sanctions against the regime in Iran.
Chrétien’s suggestion was met with rejection by Global Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland who said it would set a dangerous precedent. Former MP and career diplomat Chris Alexander called it “an ill-considered moment.”
My guess is that it was very well-considered by Chrétien. Knowing his history and links with the government of the PRC, it’s easy to see him siding with the Communists and not with the U.S.
When Chrétien was out of government after he left politics and he failed to get the leadership of the Liberal Party of Canada, losing to John Turner, he was employed by Gordon Capital owned by Li Ka Shing and run by one of his sons. It was there Chrétien made his millions which set up his return to politics, taking the leadership of the LPC and ultimately serving for a decade as Prime Minister.
A government, I might add, that was marked by one scandal after another and, in my opinion, was the most corrupt government this country has ever seen.
The biggest of which involved Project Sidewinder which was directly related to his former employer, Asian Triads, the government of the PRC and their efforts to gain influence over our government by various means.
Project Sidewinder was a joint RCMP/CSIS initiative in the mid-90’s looking at connections between the various entities, Canadian businesses they had stakes in, and the connections to Canadian politicians and the political process and resulting influence.
The report documented the rise of CITIC (China International Trust Investment & Company) which essentially became the biggest arms dealer in the world among other things. It started with a meeting on May 23, 1982 attended by Li, Henry Fok, Zhao Ziyang and then Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping.
The purpose was to, ostensibly, discuss how things might look after the British handover of Hong Kong in 1997. The PRC wanted access to capital markets and the ‘businessmen’ wanted the status quo under the Communists. The Asian Triads wanted to ensure their illicit business activities would be allowed to continue.
CITIC was formed and Li and Fok were on the original Board of Directors.
In the 90’s Chrétien’s son-in-law Andre Desmarais, was appointed to the Board. Oddly enough Chrétien was then Prime Minister.
The Desmarais family runs among other things Power Corp. the Quebec firm with global holdings and big supporters of the LPC. Then VP John Rae, brother of Bob Rae, former Ontario NDP Premier and later an LPC cabinet minister, was head of Chrétien’s election campaigns.
Sidewinder identified all the connections as well as the Canadian business interests of the investigation targets which included things like CIBC and Husky Energy.
The purpose of Sidewinder was essentially a business case for a full-blown investigation into all of this by the RCMP and CSIS.
That never happened. The Project was killed by someone with the authority to tell the RCMP and CSIS what to do. Investigators involved believe it came on orders from the PMO of Chrétien.
Several years later, a review on those accusations was done by the Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC), the civilian oversight board for CSIS. The SIRC report was filed during the fall election of 2000. It said there was no involvement by the PMO and the report was little more than unfounded rumours. The man leading SIRC at the time was Bob Rae.
The Sidewinder report clearly says, “This document does not present theories but indicators of a multifaceted threat to Canada’s national security based on concrete facts drawn from the databanks of the two agencies involved.”
Chrétien’s fingerprints were all over it and ensured the corruption investigation into Asian Organized Crime, relations with the government of the PRC and their connections with Canadian politicians never occurred.
Is it any wonder Chrétien suggested we acquiesce to the government of the PRC in the Meng/Huawei extradition affair?
I’d be surprised if he came to any other conclusion. A leopard, after all, doesn’t change its spots.
