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Thursday, October 9, 2025

Minister preemptively shuts down Calgary proposal to let permanent residents vote

By
Isaac Lamoureux, True North Wire
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Source: calgary.ca

A Calgary city council motion to extend municipal voting rights to permanent residents has been stopped in its tracks by Alberta’s municipal affairs minister.

The motion is set to be introduced by councillors Walcott, Wong, Dhaliwal, Mian, and Penner on Tuesday.

However, in a post to X on Saturday, Minister Ric McIver said he’ll “save us all some time.”

“Only citizens of Canada can vote in municipal elections. That will not be changing,” he said.

The motion calls for an amendment to the Local Authorities Election Act, which determines who has the right to vote in municipal elections. 

Because municipalities exist due to provincial legislation, the Alberta government would have to decide to amend the Local Authorities Election Act.

The councillors argued in their motion that all levels of government make decisions that affect residents’ daily lives, regardless of their citizenship status. 

“Municipalities are unique, as the only order of government that is not constitutionally defined. The opportunity to extend voting rights to more members of our local communities would represent a significant shift to ensure our local communities are representative of the people who call them home,” reads the motion.

The procedure on Tuesday is to ensure that the motion is written properly, Wong told True North in an interview. The motion will not be debated until the next regular council meeting on Apr. 30.

Wong said he is eager to hear more about the pros and cons of the motion, including its virtues and benefits, and how it aligns with federal and provincial criteria for voting eligibility

“Our responsibility as municipalities extends to all… who call our communities home, who contribute to civic life, who work here, raise families here, and use city services, should have a democratic right to vote in our municipalities,” reads the motion.

Wong said that councillors have been canvassing their constituents, both citizens and permanent residents.  

The perspectives presented have been varying. Some have said that citizenship is a vital voting criterion.

“We’ve also heard people saying, ‘We’re newcomers. We want to be able to be a citizen.’ There are reasons why it’s been delayed, whether it’s in their control or not. But they also feel that they’d like to have a voice in municipal governance because they are users of our services as well as people who pay taxes,” said Wong.

He added that one of the most pressing questions is the many different types of permanent residents there are and what would determine voting eligibility.

“The nuance of that has to be discovered by the province, and the province needs to make the system fair across the province because this is not just a Calgary-based request,” said Wong.

The Calgary councillor was not surprised at McIver’s response, he said. He added that McIver is very involved and understands Alberta and Calgary’s multiculturalism. 

“I know that he wouldn’t dismiss it just because of personal feelings about us. He would weigh the arguments presented by all municipalities,” said Wong.

“All members of council are always amenable to persuasion, and therefore nobody’s cast a vote as of yet. And I think Calgarians need to understand that.”.

True North reached out to McIver for additional comment. His office said he has nothing more to add to his previous post to X. 

Bill Maher says Canada is what happens when a country moves far-left

By
Clayton DeMaine, True North Wire
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Source: Facebook

Canada is the butt of yet another international joke after Bill Maher roasted the nation in an eight-minute segment on “Real Time with Bill Maher” this weekend.

The HBO segment began with Maher taking shots at American liberals who often cite countries such as Canada, England and Scandinavia as “beacons of progressivism.” He then continued for more than five minutes demonstrating with stats how far Canada has fallen.

“Canada was where all the treasured goals of liberalism worked perfectly. It was like NPR come to life. But with poutine…an idealized blue state with single-payer health care and gun control and abortion on polite demand,” Maher said. “Canada was where every woke white college kid wearing pajama pants outdoors who’d had it up to here with America’s racist patriarchy, dreamt of living someday.”

He compared the 3.8% unemployment rate of the U.S. to Canada’s 6.1%. He said 14 out of 15 North American cities with the worst air pollution are in Canada.

He forgot to mention when comparing the two countries, nine out of the top ten provinces and state jurisdictions with the highest marginal income tax rates are Canadian provinces

“Last year, Canada added 1.3 million people, which is a lot in one year, the equivalent of the U.S. adding 11 million migrants in one year. And now they’re experiencing a housing crisis. Even worse than ours, and we’re sleeping in tents,” he said. “The median price of a home here (in the U.S.) is 346 grand, in Canada, converted to U.S. dollars, it’s 487. If Barbie moved to Winnipeg, she wouldn’t be able to afford her dream house.”

According to those numbers, the median price for a home in Canadian dollars in the U.S is $477,000 and Canada’s median home price is $671,300.

He continued by saying due to mortgage debt Canada has the highest debt-to-GDP ratio of any G7 nation.

“I don’t know what that means but it sounds bad,” he quipped. “And so does their vaunted health care system, which ranks dead last among high income countries in access to primary health care and the ability to see a doctor in a day or two. And it’s not for lack of spending. Of the 30 countries with universal coverage, Canada spends over 13% of its economy on it, which is a lot of money for free health care.”

He said he loves Canadians but wanted to cite Canada as a “cautionary tale” to show Americans the consequences of far-left policies.

To further demonstrate how far Canada has gone, Maher also took shots at the Oakville shop teacher who identified as a woman with large breasts, Kayla Lemieux.

“You can move too far left. And when you do, you wind up pushing the people in the middle to the right,” he said. “At its worst. Canada is what American voters think happens when there’s no one putting a check on extreme wokeness.”

Some Canadians on X remember when Canada wasn’t the brunt of the world’s jokes.

LEVY: Politicians let Jew hatred fester while they pay lip service to antisemitism

By
Sue-Ann Levy
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On Saturday evening — as the Canadian Jewish community watched in horror the direct attack by Iran on Israel — our political leaders behaved true to form.

They issued platitudes on social media or were shamefully silent, not just as hundreds of Iranian missiles were being fired at the Jewish state but that afternoon while a series of hateful anti-Israel protesters on the streets of Toronto cheered on Iran’s direct involvement.

Let’s just say their responses give rise to the expression that when the going gets tough, our leaders get going (as far away as possible).

Mayor Olivia Chow’s social media feed was silent.

In fact, on Sunday — ignoring the fact that the streets of the city she is supposed to lead are rampant with Jew hatred — she promoted a podcast in which she discussed “issues of concern” to city residents.

These included problems with the vacant home tax, homeless encampments and dangerous dogs.

Obviously dangerous dogs, while a concern, are far more important than the intimidating, dangerous and increasingly emboldened Jew-hating protesters on the streets of Toronto, who, on Saturday, featured a young keffiyeh-clad boy on his dad’s shoulders letting off smoke bombs.

Never mind that these toxic protesters occupy our city streets without a permit but last I looked, screaming, shouting, intimidating, harassing and letting off smoke bombs were against city bylaws and its hate policies.

But should we be surprised? Chow’s plan for a “safe and caring city” — which first went off the rails after Oct. 7 due to her mismanagement and indifference — has been nurtured by her poor judgement related to the arrests of Jew-hating protesters a few weeks ago.

After six of her councillors — two of them on the Police Services Board — signed a motion to the Toronto Police Services Board (to be debated at its Apr. 30 meeting) chastising the cops for arresting violent protesters (who have a right to peaceful assembly, they claimed), Chow said the councillors have a right to express their opinion.

The only one on council who has shown true leadership is James Pasternak, who has had a tremendous uphill battle doing so.

While Chow’s behaviour has contributed greatly to the incitement, Premier Doug Ford has been shamefully and willfully silent, as has all of his caucus, in particular its Jewish members, such as Michael Kerzner.

In the aftermath of the horrible attack, Ford was posting about National Volunteer Week.

He was strong out of the gate after the atrocities of Oct. 7, condemning the attacks both in the legislature on Oct. 17 and at the Simon Wiesenthal Centre’s gala on Nov. 2.

Despite claiming the Jewish community needs his government’s “support,” we’ve seen nothing of the kind since November.

I’m not sure who is advising him but someone should tell him that his silence as premier of Canada’s largest province is telling. Not taking sides is taking sides.

He too has enabled the hate to grow and fester. He too has abandoned the Jewish community.

Then there’s our Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, whose office issued a weak message as he rushed off to a Parliamentary Press Gallery banquet Saturday evening.

Compare his weak response to that of Conservative Leader Pierre Polievre, who left no question that his support is for the Jewish state and the only democracy in the Middle East. He was strong and decisive.

The behaviour of Trudeau and his incompetent foreign minister Melanie Joly has been so egregious over the past six months that it led 150 Toronto lawyers to take out a full-page ad in the National Post Saturday, ironically hours before the Iran missile strikes.

The open letter from the lawyers puts it quite succinctly.

They accuse Trudeau and his government,  through their actions and inactions, “of having contributed to the antisemitism” running rampant in Canada today.

”You have permitted it to fester and rage like a fire burning out of control,” they write.

They cite his failure to speak out against attacks on Jews, about the threats to Jewish schools, the targeting and vandalism of businesses and the desecration of Jewish cemeteries and places of worships.

They contend that it took “several weeks” for Joly to acknowledge the rape and sexual assault of Israeli women at the Nova Music Festival on Oct. 7.

They cite the picture of Joly shaking hands with Mahmoud Abbas, a supporter of terrorism against Israelis, while she was recently in Israel.

The lawyers say that Trudeau was unable or unwilling to “convincingly condemn” South Africa’s “evil intent” to accuse the only Jewish state of genocide while it has been trying to “prevent another genocide” against the Jewish people by Hamas (its genocidal intent clearly stated in its founding charter).

They accuse Trudeau of “supporting Israel’s enemies” and of “adding to the hatred directed” at the Jewish community.

The Mar. 20 decision made by the Liberal government to ban arms sales to Israel at a time of Israel’s “greatest peril” will be a “mark of everlasting shame and long remembered” by those who support Israel, they say.

”Your moral failings have contributed to what we regard as the explosion of Jew hatred in Canada,” they write. 

“Your government’s inaction and appeasement towards Hamas supporters achieves nothing but embarrassment and shame for Canada on the world stage.”

That about sums up the inaction of all but a few of our political leaders.

It sickens me to think how they’ve all let hatred towards my community get out of control in the country and in Canada’s largest city.

Ratio’d | Canada’s Birth Rate is Collapsing

By
Harrison Faulkner
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One of the most concerning trends in Canada is our country’s collapsing birth rate. Our fertility rate is well below replacement level and there seems to be no effort from the government to increase the levels. Successive federal governments have instead sought to artificially increase Canada’s population through waves of high levels of immigration into the country.

The result? One concerning sub-trend from this reliance on immigration is that the young male population in Canada is now rapidly exceeding the young female population. This could have disastrous consequences for Canada in the future.

With marriage rates declining and the average age of marriage increasing, family building is taking a significant hit in this country. Further, recent studies indicate that Canadian women are having fewer children than they would want, largely because of financial constraints.

The question remains, why aren’t our politicians addressing this?

Watch the latest episode of Ratio’d with Harrison Faulkner.

Media watchdog calls out CBC Kids for “whitewashing” Hamas’ role in starving people in Gaza

By
Clayton DeMaine, True North Wire
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Source: Unsplash

A pro-Israel media watchdog is taking aim at CBC Kids for being an “unfettered platform for anti-Israel accusations.”

Honest Reporting Canada, a group whose mission is to “ensure fair and accurate media coverage of Israel,” posted an alert on an article published by CBC Kids news which lacked context and relied on statistics from Hamas.

The article was called “How Ramadan feels different this year for these Canadian teens.”

The story focused on two 17 year-old girls, Noor Al-Omeri and Khadija Nadeem, who say  Ramadan will have a “sombre tone” this year as the war in Gaza continues.

Honest Reporting Canada assistant director Robert Walker told True North the content was “egregious.”

“We have a problem with any news media outlet – in this case CBC Kids News, which is particularly more egregious that it’s targeted to children – really targeting Israel and describing Israel, in a sense as the Grinch that stole Eid, and the author of the misfortune that Gazans are undeniably facing.”

The CBC Kids article relays that Nadeem looks forward to breaking her Ramadan fast and being able to celebrate Iftar, but knows people in Gaza might not have anything to eat when they do the same.

“For people in Gaza, they are fasting during a famine. It’s like, how do you look forward to Iftar if you’re not certain the fasting will ever end?” Nadeem said in the article.

Honest Reporting Canada took issue with the author’s lack of context, as Gaza is not the only place in the world where Muslims are starving – pointing to food insecurity in Yemen, Sudan, and Syria – yet CBC Kids is portraying this Ramadan as particularly challenging because of Israel.

A CBC spokesperson told True North that in the interest of balance, CBC Kids News will publish a piece sharing the perspectives of some Jewish kids and how they are experiencing Passover this year, which starts Apr. 22.

The spokesperson said the intention of the story was to reflect how Muslim kids are feeling to “help their audience understand where these two teens were coming from, they gave a few key pieces of information to provide some context.”

“The intention of the piece was not to get into the details of the war. And, important to note, this is just one aspect of CBC Kids News’ coverage on this conflict,” the spokesperson said.

Walker said the story has an inherent anti-Israel bent, however.

“This obsessive fixation on Israel’s supposed, moral failings not only is misleading and factually false on any number of fronts, but it also gives zero coverage, to all these other far worse objectively speaking, human catastrophes, many of which Iran is involved with all over the world,” Walker said. “It also whitewashes Hamas’ essential role in starving the people of Gaza by stealing aid.”

He cited cases of armed men seizing trucks filled with humanitarian supplies,  warnings from “Hamas-linked” websites warning citizens not to cooperate with Israel as it sends aid, and a video which allegedly shows Hamas fighters stealing aid trucks meant for citizens.

In a December interview from Al-Jazeera, an elderly woman in Gaza said despite aid being sent into Gaza, they weren’t receiving it as “all the aid goes (to the tunnels) underground.”

“There are more food trucks entering Gaza now than were entering before Oct. 7,” Walker said. Before the attacks on Oct. 7 there was reportedly an average of 70 trucks carrying food a day.

Israel said 419 trucks entered the Gaza Strip with humanitarian aid on Monday. UNRWA said only 223 trucks came in the same day. Israeli officials have accused the UN of undercounting.  A spokesperson for the UN humanitarian organization OCHA has said the organizations count differently. Israel’s Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories, counts what it screens and is sent over the border whereas OCHA counts what arrives in its warehouse. Some of the trucks Israel counts on its end don’t make it to the warehouse on the same day, OCHA says.

“If there is food shortage in Gaza, it’s not because the food’s not getting there, it’s because Hamas is stealing,” Walker said. “More than enough food is getting into Gaza, and the food is not getting to the right people, then the fingers should be pointed at UNRWA, the United Nations and Hamas.”

On X COGAT shows images of markets in Gaza filled with food.

\Another issue HRC found with the article was the assertion that more than 30,000 people have been killed by Israel according to “Gaza health officials,” the article doesn’t mention the Gaza Ministry of Health was established by Hamas in 2007.

According to a report by Abraham Wyner,  a statistician at the Wharton School of Business, Hamas’ numbers are faked: they don’t distinguish between fighters and civilians, and the average daily death tolls are not varied enough to accurately represent deaths in a war zone.

Walker argued if people read the article they would get the impression Israel is starving the people of Gaza, and Hamas has no role in their suffering.He said the article, like so many others, whitewashes Hamas’ deliberate decision to perpetuate the current war by holding 130 Israeli’s captive for over six months now.

Five key takeaways from the election interference inquiry

By
Quinn Patrick, True North Wire
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Source: Unsplash

The inquiry into election interference by foreign powers in Canada’s 2019 and 2021 federal elections took place last week with testimony from top government officials.

Those who testified included Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Minister of Public Safety Dominic LeBlanc, MP Karina Gould and CSIS officials among others. True North Wire decided to break down some of the key takeaways from the inquiry. 

China did interfere in both the 2019 and 2021 elections

China did interfere with the 2019 and 2021 elections. While evidence around just how much of an impact it had on election results remains uncertain, the Canadian Service Intelligence Service called the PRC “the most significant” source of foreign interference. When compared to other nations like Russia, India and Iran, CSIS said that Chinese meddling tactics are “sophisticated, pervasive and persistent”

Trudeau does not read many of the intelligence briefings he receives 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau testified that he is not reading intelligence briefings very often, and when he does, he remains skeptical of their content because “intelligence is not evidence.” He found the intelligence briefings on Chinese meddling in election interference to be not “sufficiently credible information.” 

The prime minister recounted meeting with Liberal campaign director Jeremy Broadhurst at the time to discuss the “concerns” presented to him by officials from both CSIS and the Security and Intelligence Threats to Elections Task Force officials had brought to him. The SITE task force was created by the Trudeau government in response to allegations of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election to sound the alarm on threats of foreign interference in Canadian elections. However, Trudeau and Broadhurst ultimately determined that these agencies weren’t familiar enough with election processes to accurately assess the situation.  

The PRC mobilized Chinese students living in Canada to vote for preferred candidates

CSIS intelligence found evidence that the PRC organized the bussing of Chinese students to vote for preferred candidates, most notably in the case of former Liberal MP Han Dong, during his 2019 nomination campaign in the Don Valley North riding. 

The spy agency also claimed that Beijing attempted to send money to candidates who were less critical of their communist government. A widespread misinformation campaign was launched on social media sites like WeChat, which Chinese speakers primarily use to dissuade them from voting for the Conservatives. 

Other tactics used by the PRC include targeting those in Canada who speak out against Beijing by leveraging the safety of their families and relatives still in China against them.

Karina Gould kept Canadians in the dark about potential interference out of fear that the public would lose faith in the election

MP Karina Gould had been tasked with forming the ‘panel of five’ designed to monitor foreign interference in elections and to inform the public if they discovered any threats to a free and fair election. However, upon the panel becoming aware of potential interference, it determined that the threats did not meet the threshold for informing Canadians. According to Gould’s testimony, issuing too many warnings to the public would jeopardize Canadians’ faith in the election.

Canadians’ can expect a report of recommendations from the panel by the end of 2024?

A preliminary report will be delivered by the foreign interference inquiry commission by early next month. Another round of hearings are expected to be held in September which will focus on what capabilities Canada has in detecting and deterring foreign interference in the future. The commission will deliver its final recommendations by the end of the year.

Poilievre releases second “Debtonation” documentary, highlighting Canadian debt crisis

By
Isaac Lamoureux, True North Wire
-
Source: Facebook

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre released the second episode of his Debtonation series on Sunday, Debtonation—Episode 2: Exploding debts & how we can rescue Canada from them. 

The release follows up on the first episode which has garnered nearly one million views since its December release.

Both episodes pale in comparison to the 4.6 million views currently held by Poilievre’s documentary, Housing hell: How we got here and how we get out. 

The second episode of Poilievre’s Debtonation series reminded viewers of the four indicators of forthcoming debt crises covered in the first video. They are sustained debt build-up, specifically household debt, asset price inflation, failing output, and large account deficits.

“Have these things happened in Canada?” Poilievre asked, answering the question.

He said that the current debt owed by all Canadians is $10.2 trillion.

“It might be hard for a 100-pound man to carry his own weight on his back. Now imagine him carrying 350 pounds, or three and a half times his body weight. He can barely move, and it won’t be long before he collapses. That is like Canada’s $2.86 trillion economy carrying around its $10.2 trillion debt,” said Poilievre.

The Conservative leader explained that since 2015, when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took office, Canada’s total public and private debt has increased from $7.9 trillion to $10.2 trillion — an increase of 28.5% while real GDP grew only by 14.1%. 

“Our debts are growing twice as fast as the incomes with which we pay those debts,” he added.

Renaud Brossard, the vice president of communications at the Montreal Economic Institute, told True North that when looking at general government debt, Canada is over 110% of GDP.

“Canada’s high debt load, at all levels of government, costs taxpayers a significant amount of money on interest payments every year,” he said. “As more and more debt rolls over and has to be refinanced at higher rates, we risk spending more and more money on interest payments, and less on the services Canadians need.”

Poilievre revealed that the problem worsens when looking beyond government debt. The total consumer, corporate, and government debt combined is 357% of Canada’s GDP, he said.

The documentary compared Canada’s current debt to the biggest debt crises in history.

Three of the main crises explored were the Great Depression, the Greek debt crisis, and the United States’ 2008 financial crisis, each with a lower debt-to-GDP ratio than Canada today.

“In the 48 most significant financial crises of the last century, Canada currently has a bigger debt ratio than all but three of them,” said Poilievre. 

In the majority of the 48 crises, countries’ economies imploded with debts less than 300% of GDP.

“So, what makes us immune from the same fate? Are we special? We may think we are, but we can be sure that every one of those other countries thought they were special too, until they weren’t,” said Poilievre.

Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland often says that Canada has the lowest debt-to-GDP ratio in the G7, which Poilievre claimed to be “a commonly repeated falsehood.”

The International Monetary Fund shows that in 2023, Canada’s gross debt was just over 106%, higher than G7 countries like Germany and the United States, and tied with France.

Canada has the lowest net debt to GDP ratio, which deducts assets from the Canada Pension Plan, the Quebec Pension Plan, and other assets Poilievre says that the government would never be able to use without extreme outcry and pushback from pensioners.

A common excuse used for overspending is the pandemic, explained Poilievre. However, the Parliamentary Budget Officer showed that 35.5% of new spending by the feds during the pandemic had nothing to do with Covid.

“The federal deficit, adjusted for inflation and the size of the economy, was 64% bigger than it was in World War One and 2.5x bigger than it was during the global financial crisis. Only during the Second World War was the deficit bigger,” said Poilievre. 

He warned that the federal government forecasts an additional $186 billion in deficit spending by 2029, with no plans to balance the budget.

While the debt of the federal government and corporations is of concern, Canadians’ personal debt levels are as well, according to Poilievre.

According to the TD Bank, Canadians devote 15.4% of their incomes to paying debts. Before the global financial crisis, Americans spent 13.2% of their incomes towards debt, “and that was what led to a massive economic crisis south of the border,” said the Conservative leader.

The poorer you are, the worse the debt crisis in Canada is. Poilievre highlighted that those aged 45 to 54 in the lowest income quintile had debts equal to 732% of their disposal income — an increase of over 300% since 2014.

“Canada’s debt to GDP ratio has smashed records over the last several years, is 50% higher than its long-term average, and much higher than was the case in many countries just before they went into a debt crisis,” Poilievre said.

Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner replied to the documentary in a post to X.

“I have no doubt Mr. Poilievre wrote much of this content himself. I can’t imagine Mr. Trudeau trying to do the same,” she said.

The Andrew Lawton Show | Is Jagmeet Singh backtracking on carbon tax support?

By
Andrew Lawton
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Source: Facebook

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh may not know how to negotiate but apparently he can read polls, now saying that carbon taxes aren’t the only option to fight climate change. Justin Trudeau says he’s “confused” about Singh’s position now, which has previously been unequivocal support, even as resistance to the tax swells across Canada. True North’s Andrew Lawton weighs in.

Also, Kris Sims from the Canadian Taxpayers Federation joins for her regular Monday checkin.

Plus, Andrew’s fireside chat with Alberta Premier Danielle Smith from last week’s Canada Strong and Free Network conference in Ottawa.

SUBSCRIBE TO THE ANDREW LAWTON SHOW

The Daily Brief | Will a Conservative government lower immigration levels?

By
Lindsay Shepherd
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Source: Facebook

The Conservative party’s plan to tie immigration numbers to available jobs and homes could result in a lower or higher immigration target, according to the Conservative immigration critic Tom Kmiec.

Plus, Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is not considering a ban on transgender change rooms or women’s prisons.

And in 2024, electric vehicles were harder to sell than gas-powered cars.

Tune into The Daily Brief with Lindsay Shepherd and Isaac Lamoureux!

SUBSCRIBE TO THE DAILY BRIEF

“We have to speak of the unspeakable”: Oct. 7 first responder shares horrors of attack on Israel

By
Dave Gordon
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Source: Facebook

Yossi Landau woke up to sirens shortly after 6:30am, Oct. 7. He instructed his 14 grandchildren staying with him in his Ashdod house to swiftly make their way to the shelter. Israeli army officials radioed to tell him to “just be alert” and that they “have no idea what’s going on.” By that point, thousands of Hamas rockets were firing into Israel, and almost no one knew about the massacre that was transpiring.

A few hours later, he got a call asking him to drive to the scene of the attacks, bringing with him as much ammunition and as many body bags as he could.

As Zaka head of operations for the southern region of Israel, Landau and his three thousand colleagues have the grim job of gathering all components of the deceased, including blood, to ensure they are interred, following Jewish religious customs. Landau became one of the initial aid workers to observe firsthand the havoc and carnage caused by the events of October 7.

Founded in 1995, Zaka, a Hebrew acronym for “disaster victim identification,” responds to terror attacks, accidents or disaster. Comprising the spectrum of religious backgrounds and denominations, it does not discriminate in its recovery efforts. Zaka has lent its expertise and assistance to terror attacks in Mumbai, Istanbul and Taba, as well as natural disasters like the Japanese tsunami and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans.

Canadian Marshall F. Shapiro spearheaded Zaka’s North American charitable arm.

Bodies, he said, were all over the road – police, civilians, terrorists.

“Hundreds of bullets went over my head,” he told attendees Thursday, when he spoke at Toronto’s Village Shul, a midtown Orthodox synagogue.

“We found plans on terrorist’s bodies that marked and highlighted everything. Shuls were highlighted,” he said of would-be targets.

“Everybody was shot – total families, children, everyone. Israelis, non-Israelis,” he said of arriving in Sderot, an Israeli town near Gaza. “We checked vital signs. We managed to load up 60 people. We saved their lives.”

“The victims – the sun was baking the bodies. What choice, but to find a truck, break open the lock and use it as a storage house for bodies. Meanwhile, fighting came from terrorists that were hiding in houses,” he added.

An Israeli woman in a car was shot twenty times, but somehow her three-year-old daughter, Avigail, also in the car, was unhurt. When Landau found her, she asked “are you friendly?” and wanted a sign that he was not going to hurt her.

“I almost fainted. I couldn’t handle it,” he told the crowd in Toronto. He recited one of Judaism’s seminal prayers – the Shema, Hear O’ Israel – to prove to the girl he was Jewish. 

“I had to cover her eyes and hand her over to the police officer,” he said. Two months ago, Landau and his family celebrated Avigail’s fourth birthday in his home; she has no kin left.

It took seven hours to collect the bodies, he said. While some were shot, others were burned and continued to burn hours later, because the terrorists added flammable material. Nineteen people needed to be identified from ash, with eight yet to be completely confirmed.

“We have made a promise to identify all of them,” he said at the talk.

“We have to speak of the unspeakable, to bear witness what happened,” the 55-year-old told True North Wire prior to the event. “It took fifty years for Holocaust denial to take root, but Oct. 7 denial took root within fifty hours.”

Landau earned recognition as one of the top one hundred most influential Jews by Algemeiner. The 33-year veteran of the organization also helped recover bodies after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York.

Among the 1,200 victims, eight Canadians were murdered by the Hamas attacks. But Landau said at the talk the casualty count “was much more,” referring to the scores of injured – both physically and psychologically.

“It is our families, the volunteers, the army, the police.”

The very day of the speech, he said that an Israeli soldier took his own life, citing psychological pressure. Since Oct. 7, two volunteers in their forties have died of heart failure that Landau believes is attributed to post-traumatic stress.

He said one particular heart-wrenching moment “was the most horrible” for him. A soldier came out weeping from a house in Kibbutz Be’eri, one of the communities near Gaza that was destroyed by Hamas. 

“You never see any tears in those brave soldiers,” he said.

“The first thing I saw was a lake of blood. A father and mother, hands tied behind their backs in one side of the living room. They were shot in the back. The other side of the room were two children in the same position, missing body pieces. They were tortured. I’m starting to think, ‘did the children see what happened to the parents? Did the parents see what happened to the children?’”

Landau approached his team of six, and asked six others to join in the recovery effort.

“I won’t be angry if someone says they can’t do it,” he told them – but all twelve stepped forward.

Landau’s final message to those in attendance was: “I want to ask you and bless you, please, when you go home, give your children and grandchildren one extra hug. Keep loving and hugging them for the rest of your life.”

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