I was in France on vacation in July 2016 when a terrorist attack in Nice killed 80 people. The most interesting response from people on the ground wasn’t so much what they said but what they didn’t say.
Everyone seemed to shrug it off. Sure, there was sadness and anger and outrage. But there wasn’t the sort of shock that comes from something totally unexpected. Because of course, it wasn’t totally unexpected. It had become the new normal.
While the death toll that day was a high one, the previous year the French had witnessed the attacks at both the offices of Charlie Hebdo and the Bataclan stadium. And those were just the ones with the high body counts. The Nice attack was actually the 11th one of note since the war on ISIS began in late 2014.
(And there have been 13 more since the Nice attack.)
No wonder news of an attack isn’t that much of a big deal in France anymore. How sad.
There’s something similar happening to the Canadian psyche right now. Not when it comes to outright terror attacks, thankfully. But it’s still something that still falls under the extremist file, something that could, in turn, lead to future attacks in our country.
On Friday a Canadian confessed in court to going abroad to fight for ISIS.
“A Toronto man has admitted he left Canada to participate in ISIS terrorist activity on the same day Parliament Hill was attacked by a gunman who murdered Cpl. Nathan Cirillo,” explained The Toronto Sun.
“Pamir Hakimzadeh, now 29, flew from Toronto to Amsterdam on Oct. 22, 2014, and then traveled to Istanbul, Turkey the next day, Crown attorney Chris Walsh told Justice John McMahon Friday.
“Before his departure, Hakimzadeh had ‘exhibited increasingly radical Islamic beliefs, speaking in favour of or in defence of ISIS … and had viewed a website providing instructions on how to get into Syria,’ Walsh said.”
Troubling stuff. Although I’m guessing not every Canadian knows about this. Not because it wasn’t reported by the mainstream media, because most outlets did cover it. But because it wasn’t amplified widely, it didn’t generate widespread shock because – here’s the problem – it wasn’t the first such case in recent weeks.
The very same week, Rehab Dughmosh – the ISIS follower who conducted a minor attack in a Canadian Tire – was before the courts as the Crown presented their arguments for sentencing.
That wasn’t it though. Earlier in January, we learned about two other cases of Canadian extremism. There was Mohammed Abdullah Mohammed, who was detained by Syrian forces and is reportedly a commander of an ISIS unit. Then there’s Guleid Abdihakim, a Canadian who appeared in court in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi as someone suspected of aiding al-Shabab gunmen in a deadly hotel attack.
That’s a lot of Canadian extremists getting their names in the news in such a short period of time. No wonder Hakimzadeh’s story didn’t cause a stir.
There were so many such stories floating around that it was hard to keep track of them all. A sort of news fatigue around these cases is probably settling in among reporters, editors and the general public.
Like in France, formerly rare extremism is now becoming a new normal.
A Syrian man staying at a taxpayer-funded hotel in downtown Toronto was living safely in Chicago for four years, but told True North that he came to Canada because “the US is a disaster, they don’t help at all — nothing.”
The man and his family crossed the border illegally at Roxham Road in rural Quebec and made their way to Toronto, where, according to the man, they now receive “five star” treatment compared to when living in America.
He is staying at the Studio 6 hotel in downtown Toronto.
“They provide everything. It’s good. Compared to U.S., it’s five star,” he says of the hotel, which offers refugee claimants cleaning services, telephone, WiFi, cable, laundry machines and a monthly food allowance of $600 for his family. Hotel units also include kitchenettes.
Refugee claimants mill in and out of Studio 6 hotel on a freezing Wednesday afternoon picking up their children from an elementary school less than a block away.
“It’s the worst scenario… I mean, imagine, asking for a co-sign,” says the middle-aged Syrian man outside the hotel entrance smoking a cigarette and braving the minus 18 Celsius temperature without gloves and his coat undone at the top.
He explains the difficulties of finding a landlord willing to sign an apartment lease to refugee claimants.
“I don’t have. So I have to beg all people from [my] country, and hopefully someone — he have to have good credit and all this, which I have nobody here.”
“The standard is $2,000 [for rent], nothing less,” he says. “To be honest, if I have the chance to live and make some money, I have to be close to [Toronto]. Let’s say I go to London, should I find something there do you think? I’m not going to find nothing.”
Located in Little Italy, right next to ChinaTown in downtown Toronto, Studio 6 is on a rundown block surrounded by apartment complexes and dilapidated homes. Wander a few blocks in any direction, however, and you’ll find million dollar condos and some of Toronto’s most upscale and posh neighbourhoods.
This week, the National Bank of Canada put out a report saying it’s now cheaper to rent than buy in major Canadian cities like Toronto for the first time in years. A prime example of the out-of-control real estate prices can be found only 151 lots away from Studio 6, on 14 Grange Avenue, where a “tiny Toronto shack” covered in graffiti just went up for sale at a listing price of $2.5 million.
A steady stream of newcomers into the city ensures an insatiable demand for housing in Toronto. (Some real estate experts also believe money laundering from China and elsewhere is another contributing factor for the sky high prices in Vancouver and Toronto.)
Before coming to Canada five months ago, the Syrian man, his wife and two young children lived in Chicago for four years after fleeing the civil war ravaging his country and devastating his former home city of Damascus. In Chicago, the man was an Uber driver but said living there was a constant struggle because they weren’t given anything from the U.S. government.
Eventually the man decided to take his family and illegally cross the border into Canada through Roxham Road, using the loophole that allows refugee claimant’s to bypass the safe third country agreement, which is supposed to force refugee claimants to make a claim and stay in the first safe country they enter.
Now, they’re living on the taxpayer’s dime — staying comfortably at the Studio 6 hotel for months at a time.
“We’re still negotiating an extension to this contact. The contract with the location started March 12, 2018,” says Toronto shelter support spokesperson Greg Seraganian about the deal between Studio 6 and the City, which is set to expire in March.
Studio 6 management didn’t respond to requests for comment.
The City is currently housing asylum seekers and local homeless in four Toronto hotels and an undisclosed number of motels.
True North reported two weeks ago that the Toronto Plaza Hotel and Radisson Hotel Toronto East were both closed to the public in order to help increase shelter space.
True North has now learned that North York’s Edward Hotel and downtown’s Studio 6 are also housing Toronto’s homeless and the burgeoning asylum-seeker population.
According to Studio 6 occupants interviewed by True North, more than half the guests at the hotel are asylum claimants — the majority coming from Nigeria.
“The City has always used motel beds as part of its shelter system,” says Greg Seraganian.
“More recently, the City added over 2,500 motel beds at its own cost to respond to this increased demand. From 2016 to the end of 2018, the City incurred over $65 million in costs to fund these additional beds.”
On February 1, the Trudeau government announced Canadian taxpayers would contribute a fraction of the added costs incurred from the influx, pledging an additional $15 million over the $11 million pledged last year. In late January, the Trudeau government announced another $114 million to the provinces affected by the influx of asylum seekers.
Every day another 18 to 20 asylum seekers enter the Toronto shelter system.
“As of January 20, 2019, there were 2,541 refugee/asylum claimants in the shelter system (37% of the total). As of the same date, the number of refugee/asylum claimants in the motel/hotel shelter program was 1,886,” said Seraganian, who also emphasized that space is available for anyone looking to come inside.
The Syrian man also discussed the problems he’s had finding a job in Canada.
“I got a workers permit, but how can you work at the time here? You need a fixed address first. And nobody will give you the damn things to move, unless you go to a super, super bad [place], maybe like basement. I can’t go basement, I have a son who has asthma, so he can’t live in basement,” says the Syrian man near the end of our conversation before he heads to pick up his daughter from junior kindergarten.
“It’s going to be hard in the beginning. We’re not lazy people.”
This is his last month — his family’s sixth month — at Studio 6 hotel before he and his family will be forced to move to another spot in the City’s overwhelmed shelter system.
The government lawyer he was provided with told him his refugee claim would be heard within six months, but the hearing has now been indefinitely delayed.
Back in Damascus he owned a printing house and was a graphic designer, but he believes he will only find work in his field in the GTA and wants to live in a neighbourhood with fellow Syrians.
Another refugee claimant standing outside of the Studio 6 who spoke to True North was 46 year-old Gustavo Hernandez, a Mexican who fled the city of Tabasco a few months ago. As reported exclusively by True North, he was one of the over 2,445 Mexicans that claimed asylum in the first 10 months of 2018 — a trend that has skyrocketed since Prime Minister Justin Trudeau waived the visa requirement for Mexican visitors in 2016.
“We move to Hamilton next week, because it’s cheaper than Toronto,” says Hernandez.
He and his wife decided to flee to Canada after his family received death threats due to his father-in-law’s work as a journalist. He is a graphic designer and university professor, and his wife is a chef. He says a lot of refugee claimants refuse to move outside of the GTA, but that he doesn’t mind moving outside of Toronto because he was told he should be able to find work in Hamilton.
Another Canadian man staying at Studio 6 also spoke to True North.
“I’ve been on the road for four years, I’m not used to all these kids,” says a construction project supervisor from Peterborough in his late fifties. “We’re on the road and in motels. They thought it would be a change [to stay in a hotel], but it kind of showed better [on the website] than it actually is.”
“Everyone is selling their houses here and buying [in Peterborough]. Our housing there was $200,000. Now it’s $500,000, almost $600,000 in [only] a few years.”
“Now that they’ve opened the doors to the refugees, Syrians, and it’s a big fight there right now because if a house comes up for rent, and people are looking for houses, and, you know, they fill out the application and everything else. And housing there is $1,600 to $2,000 … because of the colleges. And as soon as they see — they’ll give them to the refugees because they know the money is guaranteed right from the government.”
“But there was actually a family busted [for fake refugee claims]. They had two brand new vehicles in the garage and everything else. And they had refugee status. Back home, from the corner of us.”
“It just leaves a bad taste in everybody’s mouth.”
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If anyone dares to criticize Trudeau, he and his henchmen will unleash a coordinated attack. They’ll call you “unCanadian”, a “Neanderthal”, “alt-right”, a “nazi” and accuse you of “Islamophobia”.
True North’s Anthony Furey discusses the hypocrisy of the Trudeau Liberals.
This column originally appeared in the Toronto Sun
The Trudeau government is fast-tracking the approval process for asylum claimants coming from the world’s most violent and dangerous societies.
As I first reported in April 2017, the government was looking at ways to rubber stamp claimants to address the massive backlog of asylum applications that has accumulated in recent years.
This week, they finally rolled out their new controversial process.
Under the new system, individuals from select countries will be accepted as refugees without ever having to present their case in person or appear before an Immigration and Refugee Board (IRB) judge.
Instead, they’ll be waved through based on what they call a “file review” — a paper application often filled out by a trained immigration lawyer or consultant.
The government justifies these changes by saying the new rules only affect “less complex” cases — in essence, cases dealing with people coming from refugee-producing countries.
The problem is that refugee-producing countries can also be terrorist-producing countries.
According to a notice posted by the IRB, the new rubber stamp program will apply to “all claims” from Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Yemen, Burundi and Eritrea.
Other countries whose citizens are now eligible for fast-tracked acceptance into Canada include Iran, Libya, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Venezuela, Turkey and Egypt.
These changes come just weeks after we learned that a person considered a “national security concern” was admitted to Canada and granted permanent residency.
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale said this was “entirely unacceptable” and the CBSA president said it was the result of “a series of failures.”
Skipping IRB interviews will only make Canada more vulnerable.
The new fast-tracked system was designed to address the backlog of over 64,000 applications that has grown alongside the dramatic spike in asylum applications and the ongoing crisis of illegal border crossers circumventing Canada’s immigration and border laws.
In 2017, 50,390 migrants entered Canada legally and illegally to make refugee claims. That number jumped to 55,695 last year.
The Trudeau government has done little to stop the record surge in asylum claimants. In fact, there’s ample evidence that the feds are helping to facilitate illegal border crossers.
Just look at Roxham Road — home to 95% of all illegal crossings.
The feds built a land-bridge to make it easier for migrants to enter Canada illegally. They set up a makeshift border station to start processing asylum claims, and they began to offer shuttle bus services to bring migrants to Montreal and Toronto — where they’re given access to government-funded housing, healthcare and other taxpayer-funded services.
The Trudeau government has repeatedly created incentives and encouraged people to come to Canada to make asylum claims. And now, to deal with the backlog that they themselves created, they’re waving through asylum claimants from violent, dangerous and unstable parts of the world.
Rather than carefully and methodically reviewing cases presented by asylum claimants, the government is now skipping important steps and rushing through the process.
But without so much as a short interview with an immigration judge, how can we be sure that the individuals are fleeing violence and are not part of the violence?
The Trudeau government haphazardly opened our borders and invited the world’s migrants to come to Canada. Now, the government is quietly chipping away at the safeguards that were designed to keep Canadians safe.
Today is World Hijab Day, a global event calling on all women–even non-Muslims–to “wear and experience” the hijab. In response, Yasmine Mohammed launched No Hijab Day, also observed today, to raise awareness for women around the world who are forced to wear headscarves.
Mohammed joins True North’s Andrew Lawton to discuss the initiative.
Members of Antifa attacked Yellow Vest protestors in Hamilton on Monday, in the latest example of violence from the far-left militia.
Yellow Vest demonstrators were rallying outside of Hamilton City Hall when a group of masked individuals attacked them. The altercation was caught on video.
The video, posted to Twitter by Toronto-based Breitbart reporter Chris Tomlinson, shows two men being attacked by individuals wearing Antifa’s infamous black hoods and red face coverings.
One of the victims, wearing a yellow vest, was violently pushed onto the concrete.
A 25-year-old has been charged with assault. RCMP allege the man attacked a Yellow Vest demonstrator with a piece of wood.
This isn’t the first time Antifa has physically assaulted other protesters. Antifa members has waged attacks across the country, but remarkable, they’re often defended in the mainstream media.
The CBC, for instance, once hosted a friendly interview with an Antifa leader, who used the radio show as a platform to promote violence against conservatives.
While leftist politicians fret about “right-wing extremism” in Canada, the threat of Antifa is often overlooked.
Antifa, shorthand for “anti-fascists” — an ironic self-proclaimed moniker, is a loose coalition of militant far-left groups. Originally from Germany, the group has since expanded worldwide.
In recent years, violence by Antifa and other leftist groups has become more widespread and more aggressive.
In December 2018, Antifa clashed with groups protesting the United Nations’ Global Compact for Migration in Ottawa.
A video posted to Youtube shows a group of masked men identified as Antifa members charging at anti-Migration Compact demonstrators.
Rather than participating in thoughtful dialogue and debate, Antifa is known for physically confronting and attacking people with whom they disagree.
In May of 2018, former Toronto Mayor candidate and controversial independent journalist Faith Goldy was attacked by a group of protesters while reporting on illegal border crossings at Roxham Road, Quebec.
The video clearly shows Goldy and a male colleague trying to escape the angry mob, while getting punched and tripped by Antifa activists. At one point the man accompanying Goldy was pushed to the ground.
Like most attacks instigated by Antifa, the mainstream media gave little attention to the attack on Goldy.
In the U.S., the story is a little different. Even prominent Democrats like Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi have unequivocally condemned Antifa for its violence.
No similar condemnation has ever been made by officials in the Liberal and New Democrat Parties in Canada.
In 2017, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security formally classified Antifa’s activities as “domestic terrorist violence.”
