(This article originally appeared in the Toronto Sun)

What do we in the media do with a leader who can’t tell the difference between lies and truth?

Our American neighbours are grappling with a president known for telling whoppers, or, providing “alternative facts,” as one of his spokesmen recently said.

But Canadians should also be concerned about our own prime minister’s grasp on reality.

Justin Trudeau continued his “listening tour,” or, more aptly his “apology tour,” with a stop in Calgary for a public town hall.

Trudeau had to deliver yet another apology, this time for a comment he made about Alberta while speaking to an audience in Peterborough, Ont. earlier this month.

Trudeau told the Ontario crowd that Canada needs to “phase out” Alberta’s oil sands.

When he arrived in Alberta, however, he struck a different, more apologetic note.

Trudeau said he “misspoke” earlier, and that he doesn’t really want to phase out the oil sands.

It’s a bit odd that Trudeau would misspeak about something like wanting to shut down Alberta’s oil industry.

Misspeaking typically involves getting a fact or number wrong.

But wanting to phase out Canada’s oil sands is not a fact you misremember.

It’s a preference, an opinion — and a rather dogmatic one at that.

In Calgary, a city facing record high unemployment, many in the audience were unwilling to accept Trudeau’s latest apology.

Trudeau faced a question from a concerned citizen who accused the prime minister of saying different things in eastern and western Canada.

“You’re in Alberta right now, sir, you’re not in Ottawa. Yet when you come to Calgary, you tell people you’re sorry,” the man said. “You are either a liar or you’re confused. And I’m beginning to think it’s both.”

Trudeau responded by arguing he has been consistent. He repeated a variation of his earlier comment, saying we need to “move beyond fossil fuels,” and then digressed into a defensive, partisan rant.

Trudeau bashed the previous Stephen Harper Conservative government — saying it chose the economy over the environment — and asserted that Harper failed in his approach to pipelines.

“They didn’t get any pipelines approved,” said Trudeau.

This claim is wrong. Flat out untrue.

As Conservative MP Candice Bergen pointed out on social media…(READ MORE)

(This post originally appeared in the Toronto Sun)

Following the inauguration of U.S. President Donald Trump, opposition activists organized large rallies in major cities across North America. Dubbed the ‘Women’s March,’ these rallies consisted mostly of liberal and left-wing activists promoting their own political agenda.

Millions of women attended, millions more stayed at home.

Feminism isn’t for everyone, and modern feminism is no longer an inclusive movement to protect and improve the lives of all women.

New feminism has morphed into an anti-Western, anti-conservative ideology. It aims to undermine men—especially straight, white men—and fight against “the patriarchy,” that is, the traditional institutions of society, like the family, marriage, religion and even the economy.

New feminism was on full display at these marches, including a very telling incident that occurred in Edmonton.

Sheila Gunn Reid, a reporter with the Rebel Media, a conservative online news organization (where I also contribute from time to time), had a run-in with an angry protester.

With her camera rolling, Reid can be seen in the crowd trying to conduct interviews. An indignant man, later identified as Dion Bews, can be seen swearing and telling her to leave.

The reporter, of course, had every right to be at the public rally, and had every right to film those in attendance. There is no such thing as the right to privacy while attending a public march on public grounds.

The angry man threatens to break the camera, and, a second later, his fist is out, up and can be seen swinging into the camera lens.

Just let that sink in. A female journalist, trying to do her job, appears to be assaulted by a male at a women’s rally. All caught on a remarkable, albeit disturbing, video.

Edmonton police investigated and have since charged Bews, 34, with assault and uttering threats.

Imagine the uproar from the feminists in attendance. A man reacts violently to a woman for doing her job.

But no, there was no uproar. No one came to Reid’s aid. Instead, several women stepped in to defend the man, helping usher him away and into hiding.

One female attendee, trying to de-escalate the situation, told Reid to calm down, while another feminist can be seen shouting at Reid, telling her she is “the problem.”

Blaming the victim is exactly…(READ MORE)

Last Friday, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45^th President of the United States. In his inauguration speech, President Trump focused on restoring America’s economy and infrastructure. Within hours of his inauguration, the Trump Administration confirmed the President’s intent to renegotiate the North American Free Trade Agreement and to withdraw from the Trans Pacific Partnership trade pact. Evidently, the President’s intent will directly affect Canada, who are part of NAFTA and also signed on to the TPP. This will surely be a test for Canada’s new Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland – how will the Trudeau government work with the Trump Administration? Only time will tell. 

In his inauguration speech, President Trump also vowed to “fight Islamic terrorism and eradicate it from the face of the earth”. This is a stark contrast from his predecessor, Barack Obama, who refused to use the term “radical Islamic terrorism”. As True North’s Senior Fellow, Candice Malcolm, said, “Obama failed to deliver anything resembling global peace or security” in his eight years in office and “ignored the rising threat of ISIS, and stood by as it expanded its reach across the globe”. It’s refreshing to hear that the President of the United States will finally address the global issue of radical Islamic terrorism and not be concerned about offending people with politically correct words.

Meanwhile in Canada, Prime Minister Trudeau continued his tax-payer funded campaign-style tour of Canada. While in Sherbrooke, Quebec – a woman asked in English what would be done to help Anglo-Quebecer seeking mental health services when those services are only available in French. In typical Trudeau fashion, Trudeau answered the question in French. In Dartmouth, NS, a 25-year-old man complained about the hoops he was going through to become a Canadian citizen. In response, Trudeau said, “I’m a 10th- or 11th-generation Canadian on one of my sides but my maternal grandfather was born in Scotland so I do have some idea of the challenges it takes to come to Canada and has took over the sweep of history of Canada”. Within a few months, Candice Malcolm may have enough material to write two or three more editions of “Stupid Things Trudeau says”…

(This column originally appeared in the Toronto Sun)

When outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama visited Ottawa last summer, he stopped by the Canadian Parliament to give a speech to the House of Commons.

Obama is perhaps most famous for his ability to deliver a powerful speech.

Being a strong orator is easily one of his greatest strengths.

I suppose it was this talent with words that threw the Liberal caucus into a frenzy.

Following Obama’s speech, Liberal MPs stood for an extended ovation that led to a giddy chant of “Four more years! Four more years!” for the lame-duck president.

It was a cringeworthy moment.

Watching Canadian elected officials swoon over a foreign leader was disrespectful of the place in which they stood.

Obama has that effect on people.

But he was no friend to Canada.

His North American legacy is most notably defined by his indecision and ultimate failure to approve the Keystone XL pipeline.

This one decision set our economy back billions of dollars and denied employment to many Canadians, because Obama put his anti-development ideology ahead of smart policy and economic growth.

But Obama’s mistakes vis-à-vis Canada were a drop in the bucket compared to his foreign policy blunders and the disastrous international impact of his presidency.

The world is less stable, more chaotic, and less free than it was eight years ago.

The Obama doctrine of “leading from behind” has left power vacuums across Europe, the Middle East and Asia, which have been happily filled by nefarious, rogue regimes including Iran, Russia and China.

Obama ignored mass protests in Iran in 2009 over a fraudulent election, and passed up on an historic opportunity to encourage peaceful regime change.

Instead, Obama engaged with the wicked regime in Iran and, pretending it had taken a moderate turn, struck a convoluted deal to lift sanctions, remove long-term barriers to Iran’s nuclear program and provocatively undercut America’s long-time ally, Israel.

When it came to the civil war in Syria, Obama had an opportunity to stop dictator Bashar al-Assad before he ramped up his deadly rampage responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of Syrians.

Obama drew a “red line” on Assad’s use of chemical weapons.

Assad crossed it, using chemical weapons to murder civilians, and Obama did nothing.

He was called on his bluff, and exposed as an isolationist — a president more comfortable using drones to drop bombs…(READ MORE)

(This column originally appeared in Maclean’s Magazine)

Seventeen years ago, on Feb. 15, 2000, I wrote a letter that I thought would forever separate me from the Islamic Republic of Iran.

I sent a letter to Iran’s embassy in Ottawa renouncing my Iranian citizenship. A day earlier, on Feb. 14, I had taken my Canadian oath of citizenship. Having sworn allegiance to the Queen, I thought it appropriate to tell Tehran’s mullahs that I no longer had any need for, or allegiance to, them. Since then, I’ve spent much of my life fighting the mullahs and their agenda of hate. I’ve never returned to Iran since my family left when I was a child.

This past week, president Donald Trump decided that despite my hatred for the Islamic Republic’s mullahs, I am too big a threat to be allowed entry into the United States.

As a Canadian, this would normally not be that big a deal. Except I am the founder and CEO of a tech company with offices in Toronto and San Francisco. This means I cross the Canada/U.S. border at least once a month—sometimes two or three times a month. And not being allowed entry into the United States would make it much more difficult for me to build a business that has American investors, American employees, and American customers.

I am a conservative. I am a conservative on immigration issues. I believe in strong immigration laws and protected borders. I believe there are people in the world with hateful ideologies who mean to harm those of us in the West. I know some of them. I grew up living next to them.

Those people on TV chanting death to America, death to the West; they aren’t kidding. They mean it. But for the life of me, I can’t understand how not allowing me to enter the United States helps fight those people. How does deporting Iranian-born nuclear scientists that are studying at Harvard or MIT back to Tehran help make America safer?

In 2008, there were 97 Iranian-born, non-U.S. citizens serving in the U.S. military. Under Donald Trump’s executive order, all of them would be barred entry back into the United States. How does deporting loyal U.S. soldiers back to Iran help make America safer?

For the past two days, I’ve been asking myself these questions over and over again. I can’t find any good answers.

The government of Canada seems to believe this executive order does not apply to…(READ MORE)

(This column originally appeared in the Toronto Sun)

After spending a relaxing few days on a private island in the Bahamas, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was back to work this week. And he managed to do something rather productive.

Trudeau shuffled his cabinet – demoting ineffective and problematic ministers, while promoting the more capable and impressive ones.

Perhaps most interestingly, Trudeau moved Maryam Monsef from her role as Democratic Institutions Minister to the lower-profile position of Minister for the Status of Women.

It was a clear demotion.

Electoral reform was a key Liberal campaign promise, and is central to Trudeau’s legislative agenda. And Monsef utterly dropped the ball in her role as minister.

First, she mocked the opposition, suggesting that social media sites like Twitter were a better platform for democratic engagement than tradition voting booths.

Then, she belittled a parliamentary committee, saying they didn’t get the hard work done – simply because their recommendations didn’t match her stated preferences.

Oh, and there’s the whole being-born-in-Iran thing, and apparently not knowing about it despite making visits to the country she once fled.

After a run of bad publicity and countless unanswered questions about her mysterious past, Monsef was demoted to the position of Canada’s official government feminist.

When it came to firing one of the worst performing members of his cabinet, Trudeau – the avowed feminist – put Monsef in charge of the ‘Status of Women,’ a junior portfolio inside the Ministry of Canadian Heritage.

While hypocritical, it’s also rather fitting. The Status of Women ministry is as unnecessary in Canada as Monsef is in cabinet.

The idea that Canadian women need a special government agency is both demeaning, pejorative and, frankly, out of date and out of touch.

Canadian women are not victims in need of special government assistance. We don’t have a single set of issues that require subsidies and handouts from the feds. And we certainly don’t need a department of professional feminists telling us which issues are “ours.”

Feminism has lost touch with promoting equality, and instead often focuses on undermining men and attacking traditional societal roles.

Besides, the major issues within Status of Women – domestic abuse and missing and murdered aboriginals – are issues relating to crime and security, both already under the purview of the Department of Public Safety.

These issues also effect men, and it’s wrong and unhelpful to…(READ MORE)