Canadians are turning their back on the Liberals in the wake of the SNC-Lavalin scandal, and according to one recent poll, the Conservatives now hold a massive lead.

The Angus Reid poll published on February 26th shows that if an election were held today, the Conservatives would be the preferred party of 38% of Canadians, compared to 31% of Canadians who would support the Liberals.

As accusations of political interference by high-ranking Liberals in the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin get louder, it seems more and more Canadians aren’t believing Justin Trudeau’s story anymore.

The poll also shows that 66% of Canadians believe there is a “deeper scandal” in the Prime Minister’s Office.

According to Angus Reid, 63% of Canadians believe SNC-Lavalin should be charged under the criminal code rather than receive the remediation agreement which Liberals were hoping they would get.

These polling results came before former Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould gave a shocking testimony to the Justice and Human Rights Committee.

Wilson-Raybould alleges that high ranking officials for various parts of the government tried to interfere with the prosecution of the Quebec engineering giant for alleged political gain.

“For a period of approximately four months between September and December 2018, I experienced a consistent and sustained effort by many people within the government to seek to politically interfere in the exercise of prosecutorial discretion in my role as the Attorney General of Canada in an inappropriate effort to secure a Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA) with SNC-Lavalin.”

Among those Wilson-Raybould implicated include Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Finance Minister Bill Morneau, Chief of Staff Katie Telford, and former Principal Secretary Gerald Butts, who resigned in wake of the SNC-Lavalin scandal.

Wilson-Raybould alleges that “there were express statements regarding the necessity for interference in the SNC-Lavalin matter, the potential for consequences, and veiled threats if a DPA was not made available to SNC.”

Shortly after the alleged threats, Wilson-Raybould was removed from her position as Minister of Justice and Attorney General.

If proven true, the SNC-Lavalin debacle will go down as one of the greatest political scandals in Canadian history.

It’s no wonder 59% of Canadian say their opinion of Justin Trudeau has worsened.

With more high ranking officials set to testify before the Justice Committee on the matter, it’s unclear just how deep this scandal goes, or how many more Canadians will turn their back on the Liberals in the months leading to the next election.

Women who have found safety in Canada after being held as slaves in Syria and Iraq are now being threatened by anonymous male callers.

Five women and one 14-year-old girl in the Toronto area filed reports with police after they received threatening calls and texts on their private phones.

All six are practitioners of the Yazidi religion who were held as sex slaves by ISIS before escaping to Canada.

The calls include threats of rape and other violent acts.

One woman who was bought and sold six different times by ISIS fighters in 2014 said “we came here for safety, but after these threats, I don’t feel safe. We want to live without threats and fear.”

They all say they fear for their safety and the safety of their families.

Yazidis are a small religious community native to Iraq and Syria. During the rise of ISIS they were victims of ethnic cleansing.

Like those from other minority groups, thousands of women were  forced into sexual slavery by ISIS.

The Conservatives advocated for Canada to offer asylum to exploited Yazidi women. After many months, the government eventually supported her motion.

“They are survivors of genocide. They are survivors of sex slavery and they came here to Canada starting a new life to be safe and sound and now this nightmare seems like it is repeating itself,” said Rev Majed El Shafie, a human rights advocate.

El Shafie says many Yazidi women still live in fear that their former abusers will find them someday.

“In one of the messages, the criminal was saying, you know: ‘We will rape you as we did in Syria. We will rape you again in Canada,’” he said.

The anonymous callers all have middle eastern accents, but police are still trying to figure out exactly where the calls are coming from.

The RCMP has begun preparing for more than a dozen ISIS fighters to return to Canada.

“We need to get ready in case they come back sooner than what we had expected,” said RCMP Deputy Commissioner Gilles Michaud.

The National Security Joint Operations Centre is at the centre of preparing a plan for local and federal law enforcement to safely prosecute the terrorists once they arrive.

It is believed that approximately 190 people from Canada are suspected of being involved in extremist and terrorist activity while abroad. Many fighters have also taken wives and children while away.

The RCMP is preparing to have charges ready for those individuals believed to have participated in terrorism.

The announcement of their return comes ahead of calls by the United States for countries to repatriate those citizens who have been caught fighting for ISIS in Syria. At the same time countries like the United Kingdom have cancelled the citizenships of those people who chose to leave the country to fight for ISIS.

Despite the imminent return of foreign fighters, the Liberal government has been reluctant on announcing any tangible plan on how they would effectively deal with the terrorists.

When asked to table a report on the situation by the Conservatives, the federal government produced a slim six-page proposal.

“We may not be in a position, as each and every one of them comes back to Canada, that we’re at that stage where we can arrest them,” said Michaud.

Two known terror operatives being held in Syria include one man who has been involved in producing atrocious ISIS execution videos, while another promoted the organization on the internet.   

A man who praised Osama Bin Laden online and called for ISIS attacks in Canada is being released from prison despite being considered a “high risk” to public safety.

Kevin Omar Mohamed was sentenced to serve a sentence for 4.5 years in 2017 but has been scheduled for release on March 1st, 2019 citing time already served while in custody.

Mohamed travelled to Syria in 2014 to join the Al-Qaeda affiliated Jabhat Al-Nusrah terrorist cell but returned shortly after his mother and brother convinced him to come back to Canada.

After returning, Mohamed immediately took to social media to promote terrorist activities abroad including the burning of vehicles in parking lots and setting people on fire.

“In those posts [Mohammed] made comments supportive of terrorist activities, promoted violence, and suggested that a person could create timed bombs to be put on planes or boats, and burn cars of “non-believers”; [Mohammed] also commented on the beauty of attacking the west, suggestive of attacks on the Western world,” said the Parole Board of Canada addressing his internet activity.

Despite Mohamed’s unwillingness to denounce extremist beliefs, he will be released from prison with “special conditions” including undergoing “religious counseling” and not having access to the internet. Kevin Omar Mohamed will also be listed as a high security threat to public safety.

“The Board remains very concerned that the serious nature of your offences alone, coupled with your dangerous radical religious beliefs, would impede your reintegration and continue to present significant risk to the community as a whole,” said the release statement by the Parole Board.

Upon being arrested, Mohamed was found to possess a large hunting knife, a sum of cash and handwritten targets/plans to commit terrorist activities. While in custody, Mohamed made no effort to seek psychological assistance and was not apologetic for his views.

Conservative leader Andrew Scheer has called the federal government’s efforts to reintegrate Islamic extremists into society ineffective. In 2018, the Conservatives put forward a successful motion for stricter punishments for returning ISIS supporters, including support for the Ontario government’s plan to strip their access to provincial benefits and services.

“It’s been months since the prime minister has failed to introduce any measures to hold those who have already returned from fighting with ISIS to justice,” said Scheer. “He is offering poetry classes instead of keeping these individuals behind bars. These are people who have committed some of the most heinous atrocities imaginable.”

The Liberals have yet to take any serious action on the issue of returning ISIS fighters. In 2017, the Liberals repealed changed to the immigration act made by Harper which would strip citizens involved in terrorism abroad of their Canadian status.

The Minister of Democratic Institutions has asked the Procedure and House Affairs committee to consider new regulations on social media companies ahead of the next federal election.

“I would encourage this committee to do a study of the role of social media in democracy, if that is something that you think is interesting,” Minister Karina Gould told the committee.

“To hold the social media companies to account.”

Gould asked the Liberal-dominated committee to help her come up with ways to address “fake news” and misinformation on the internet.

“I would welcome suggestions and feedback in terms of how to appropriately regulate or legislate that behaviour, because I think one of the biggest challenges — and you can see this around the world — is the path forward is not as clear.”

Despite recently announcing a new government campaign to fight “misinformation” online, Gould seems to be unsure how her department should treat the platforms where the news is spread.

Only a couple weeks ago Gould announced a new campaign from the government to teach Canadians what to believe online.

The government campaign will cost taxpayers $7 million, so that Canadians can be told what the government decides is “misinformation.”

The team defining what is and isn’t the truth online will be a committee of faceless bureaucrats from various departments.

These new media monitoring policies will not apply to the print media sector, which recently received a $595 million handout from the Trudeau government.

Gould told the committee that she has met with representatives from multiple social media companies recently, and for now is still investigating possible regulatory routes the government can use to ensure misinformation does not have an effect in the next election.