Today on The Rupa Subramanya Show, Rupa speaks with Manar Al Sharif. From her roots in Syria to her fervent activism in Gaza, Manar’s journey embodies an unyielding commitment to shedding light on the challenges faced by Gazan women and children.
In April 2020, Al-Sharif was arrested for promoting a Zoom event called “Skype with your enemy” that featured Israeli speakers. The event planners were also arrested. As a consequence, Al-Sharif spent three months in a Hamas women’s prison.
Al-Sharif shares her story with Rupa and her thoughts on the current Israel-Hamas war.
Nova Scotia’s volunteer fire services is demanding a federal carbon tax exemption as it faces evermore stringent budget constraints.
The carbon tax added 14 to 17 cents per litre to the price of gas for Nova Scotians in July, with the price of propane and heating oil also increasing.
President and treasurer for the Island & Barrington Passage Volunteer Fire Department Garnet Sullivan was perplexed as to why these expenses should be passed onto emergency services.
“It’s a lot of money,” Sullivan told CBC News. “Let’s say our ladder truck or our main pumper is out on a large call and we’re there for six or eight hours.… We burn a lot of fuel.”
Sullivan’s department serves several nearby communities on the mainland as well as Cape Sable Island. While the kitchen at the firehall uses heat pumps, the firetruck bays are kept warm using oil heating.
Both the municipalities of the District of Barrington and the Municipality of the District of Yarmouth have requested a carve-out exemption from federal carbon pricing for volunteer emergency services.
“The Prime Minister has been clear that there will be no further exemptions for carbon pricing,” said Katherine Cuplinskas, a spokesperson for the deputy prime minister and minister of finance said in a statement.
The Trudeau government announced a pause on the federal carbon tax for home oil heating for the next three years in October – an exemption limited to residential properties and not fire halls. The move, prompted several other premiers to request a pause for gas and other forms of heating as well.
Most recently, Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe announced that he directed SaskEnergy to stop collecting the carbon tax on electric heat altogether after Ottawa refused to cave to demands from the premiers.
“In this area they raise money just to keep heating their halls, to fuel their trucks,” said president of the Yarmouth County Mutual Aid association Lynn Seeley. “Fundraising really shouldn’t go towards that kind of thing, in my opinion.”
According to Seeley, fewer volunteers around to help with fundraising is another issue emergency services are facing, especially at a time when the cost of equipment has increased dramatically.
“I don’t think you can buy just a bare essentials [fire] engine today for under $500,000,” said Seeley.
President of the Fire Service Association of Nova Scotia Greg Jones is calling on all levels of government to review how volunteer fire services are funded.
“We have a lot of fire services that do whatever they can with exactly what they have,” said Jones.
Several of Canada’s largest cities have recently purchased electric fire trucks, however Jones said that is not an option for volunteer services due to the high expense.
Transitioning vehicles used to fight wildfires from gas to electric is something that is currently being considered by the Nova Scotia Department of Natural Resources and Renewables.
However, equipment from Sullivan’s department was lost while responding to the Shelburne County wildfire that broke out near Barrington Lake, an issue that is being resolved through community donations, which have helped to top up their budget for 2023.
“Without that, we would have been going behind,” said Sullivan.
Volunteer firefighters make up the majority of all firefighters in Canada.
The Berlin, Germany office of a prominent Iranian resistance group was attacked on Monday morning by Iran regime terrorists sparking concerns about foreign agents operating within Canada.
It’s the third attack of its kind on the Mojahedin-e-Khalq’s (MEK) political arm so far this year. News of the attack comes on the heels of an investigation that an estimated 700 foreign agents are covertly operating in Canada on behalf of Iran’s Islamist theocracy.
The NCRI’s Paris arm claims the attack was orchestrated by agents loyal to the Islamic Republic.
The assailants have yet to be identified but Berlin police confirmed that a side window on the ground floor has been shattered and was used in an attempt to set the building on fire. Police also found petrol cans and a gas bottle on the scene.
Several members of the council were able to extinguish the fire before it spread through the interior. No injuries were reported as a result of the arson.
The NCRI addressed the attack in a statement released on X, “On the morning of December 4, 2023, at 2:15 am, the representation office of the National Council of Resistance of Iran (NCRI) in Berlin was attacked by terrorists and mercenaries of the mullahs’ regime.”.
“The assailants, affiliated with the mullahs’ Ministry of Intelligence (MOIS), initiated the attack by throwing incendiary materials towards the building. This led to a fire on the exterior walls of the structure, which was subsequently extinguished by the office personnel. Firefighters and the police arrived at the scene, launching an investigation,” the NCRI continued.
“It is worth noting that this incident follows two previous attacks on May 31, 2023 and June 11, 2023, when a building belonging to the NCRI supporters in northern Paris was targeted by terrorists and mercenaries associated with the Quds Force and the MOIS. Six gunshots and incendiary materials were used in that attack.”
“As the Iranian Resistance has repeatedly stated, appeasement with the mullahs’ regime and actions such as the release of Assadollah Assadi, a terrorist diplomat responsible for organizing a bomb attack at the Iranian Resistance gathering in Villepinte, Paris in June 2018, have more emboldened this regime in terrorist crimes.”
The recent investigation revealing an estimated 700 Iranian regime agents are covertly operating in Canada makes the threat of a similar attack happening in Canada a real possibility.
“We have about 700 names right now that either have temporary residence, permanent residence or citizenship that are in Canada and that are somehow regime affiliates,” said Ramin Joubin, a lawyer from British Columbia, who compiled that database which tracked the number of Iranian regime members operating in Canada.
“They came to Canada knowing this was going to be their safe haven,” he said.
Earlier this month, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre called for an immediate response to the investigation, calling the information “shocking.”
“To think that we might have terrorist-linked Iranian regime thugs operating with impunity, spending stolen money and intimidating Canadian Jews and Iranians is appalling,” said Poilievre.
“Who would ever have thought eight years ago that our allies would think Canada is too dangerous a place to go,” he said.
Additionally, the Conservative leader is calling for more sanctions against Iran, as well as the creation of a registry for foreign agents.
On Oct. 21. A letter by the Council of Iranian Canadians co-signed by the Ukrainian Canadian Congress demanded that the Liberal government take further action to condemn the nation’s Islamist regime following the death of Mahsa Amini while in police custody.
The letter was sent to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and several other Liberal cabinet ministers calling on Ottawa to immediately list the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist entity and seize assets of sanctioned Iranians.
“The Iranian regime is a danger to global security – providing training, arms, and personnel to several of non–state terrorist entities as well as to other authoritarian state supporters of terrorism, such as Syria and Russia,” wrote the council.
“(Canada must” immediately) list the IRGC – which is complicit in and responsible for violence against Iranians, Ukrainians, Jews, and others – as a terrorist entity, and sanction it accordingly.”
The Liberal party has yet to declare the IRGC as a terrorist organization.
Journalists affiliated with legacy media outlets like Global News and CBC demanded that newsrooms rile up Canadians to view climate change with the same urgency as a global pandemic or World War II.
While speaking at a Nov. 22 panel hosted by Simon Fraser University’s Community-Engaged Research Initiative (SFU CERi), a panel featuring former CBC Radio producer Donya Ziaee, Global News climate change reporter Kamyar Razavi and National Observer columnist Seth Klein demanded that the media employ the same tactics to cover climate change used during major global emergencies.
“(During the pandemic) we heard a lot of scientists on the air, they were the voices of authority. Public health officials also got quite a bit of air time and sometimes were approached not critically enough or questioned about the policies they were enacting,” said Ziaee.
“The point is there was a clear decision to devote the resources and airtime it took to treat the pandemic with the urgency and gravity that it called for and we’ve seen no vision or leadership of that kind from the CBC when it comes to the climate crisis.”
One of the suggested solutions was for legacy media companies to feed Canadians with a “daily climate emergency” report in the same way that news companies did a daily Covid-19 update at the height of the pandemic.
“We saw broadcasters do this during Covid and we know they are capable of a pivot like this,” said SFU Ceri research and engagement lead Tara Mahoney.
Klein, who writes for the National Observer and authored the book “A Good War: Mobilizing Canada for the Climate Emergency,” called on public broadcasters to “make the threat real” for Canadians by engaging in war-time coverage of the fight against climate change.
“Really, in the war, what was journalism for except to awaken the world to the catastrophe coming ahead, which sort of feels apt for the present,” said Klein.
“The CBC played this pivotal role in mobilizing the Canadian public during the war, making the threat real so that Canadians understood what was unfolding to be a clear and present danger.”
To rile people up to the threat, Global News climate change reporter Razavi suggested that reporters should abandon the “archaic outdated view” of objectivity in journalism.
“In newsrooms today there is a disconnect between the younger generation of incoming journalists and the old guard including with respect to the question of objectivity. I would say the lasting view in newsrooms still to this day is that objectivity rests on telling both sides of the story,” said Razavi.
“That kind of archaic outdated view is changing thanks in large measure I should say to an influx of BIPOC journalists who are coming into newsrooms and really pushing us to think beyond that binary.”
The Israeli intelligence ministry recently wrote a “concept paper” arguing Canada would be an ideal place to send Palestine refugees because our country has such a “lenient” immigration policy.
Canadian Immigration Minister Marc Miller hasn’t confirmed or denied this request but strongly suggested Canada would welcome the shipment of refugees.
“We are open to those fleeing war. This is a war,” he said at an Oct. 31 press conference.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau infamously invited virtually anyone identifying as a refugee to come to Canada in a 2017 social media post.
“To those fleeing persecution, terror & war, Canadians will welcome you, regardless of your faith. Diversity is our strength #WelcomeToCanada,” he wrote.
Given the explosive level of extreme antisemitism – “Death to the Jews,” its rallying cry – ingrained in the Palestinian population, the thought of 500,000 Palestinians flooding into Canada, refugees no Middle Eastern country has been willing to accept, is shocking. This is not the least because it would surely meet with strong opposition, especially from Canadian Jews, most of whom are still deeply traumatized by the genocidal October 7 Hamas massacre.
It would also be resisted by most other Canadians, 75% of whom back the notion that non-citizens should face deportation “if they publicly express hatred towards a minority group or support a terrorist organization,” according to a recent Leger-Postmedia diversity poll.
Hamas is listed as a terrorist organization in Canada.
Supporters of the occupants of Gaza and the West Bank claim Hamas does not represent most Palestinians. Polls disprove that notion: 75% of Palestinians agreed with the October 7 attack and 74.7% said they support a single Palestinian state “from the river to the sea.”
This poll is backed up by videos showing Palestinian crowds wildly cheering Hamas’ Oct. 7 savagery.
It could be argued that this repugnant number is ‘understandable,’ given that Palestinian children are taught from an early age that Jews are parasites and locusts only fit to be eliminated.
Here is a six-year-old boy, already filled with hatred, and a dangerous level of antisemitism that will probably stay with him for life.
This early indoctrination explains the chilling telephone conversation heard around the world on October 7 when a Palestinian terrorist bragged to his father that he had killed ten Jews, and his father replied “God bless you, son.”
This example of toxic antisemitism is not an aberration. It is the inevitable result of decades of brainwashing by a Hamas regime that is every bit as murderous and xenophobic as ISIS at its peak.
The last time significant numbers of proven antisemites were allowed into Canada occurred largely by accident when Nazi war criminals and collaborators slipped in following the end of World War II. The estimated 2,000 immigrants, 0.4% of the number of Palestinians now being considered, should never have been allowed into our homeland.
And as in the case of Hamas, with its widespread support from Palestinians, Hitler had widespread support within Germany for his genocidal, antisemitic policies. Despite repeated denials, many Germans knew perfectly well what the “final solution” entailed, according to the careful research of Daniel Goldhagan in his bookHitler’s Willing Executioners.
So many Nazis were allowed into Canada after Hitler’s genocidal war that our country became known as an ex-Nazi haven.
Moreover, we’ve already seen shocking examples of Palestinian antisemitism on display in this country and elsewhere. Chants of “Gas the Jews” should send chills down the back of every Canadian.
A Montreal imam, Adil Charkaoui, leader of a supposed religion of peace, is now under criminal investigation for exhorting a crowd to do something that sounded like “kill the Jews.”
The chant “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” – a naked call for Jewish extermination – has been heard in protests across the globe.
Although Palestinians make up only a fraction of the people taking part in the protests, they and other Muslims have been instrumental in sparking an ever-growing antisemitic fury.
This does not deny the right to loudly challenge Israeli policies and actions. What should be objected to, however, is vitriolic antisemitism, coupled with calls for the destruction of Israel and the extermination of Jews.
No country should allow the immigration of people with those attitudes unless it wants their hatred to provoke pogroms like the one on October 7.
This is not some anti-immigration screed. Canada needs immigrants and Canada is a nation of immigrants – from Indigenous people who came from across the Bering Strait thousands of years ago, through United Empire Loyalists who came several hundred years ago, all the way to Filipinos who arrived last week.
Canada needs peaceful hard-working people glad to accept and live by traditional Canadian values. Canada does not need hateful antisemites.
This is not a racial, ethnic, or religious ban. It is simply saying that people like Adil Charkaoui do not belong in Canada. Their presence will simply make life intolerable for Canadians – particularly Jewish Canadians. If a Palestinian applicant is not prepared to put his or her animosity toward Jewish people aside, they should not be allowed entry into our country.
Brian Giesbrecht is a retired Manitoba judge and a Senior Fellow at the Frontier Centre for Public Policy. Hymie Rubenstein is editor of REAL Indigenous Report and a retired professor of anthropology, the University of Manitoba.
Covid lockdown and masking advocate Dr. Joe Vipond is back in the news again and this time it’s because he was trash-talking Alberta while at the COP28 summit in Dubai.
And Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie has won the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party.
Plus, international students seeking asylum in Canada has become an explosive trend, with the number more than doubling over the last five years.
Tune into The Daily Brief with Cosmin Dzsurdzsa and Lindsay Shepherd!
Patients seeking assisted suicide in Canada are mostly privileged white people, according to Trudeau Foundation fellow and medical ethicist Dr. Jocelyn Downie.
Downie, an advocate of expanding assisted suicide, or MAID, to those who suffer from mental illness, testified before the House of Commons medical assistance in dying committee Nov. 21 and asked the government to move forward with its legislation.
Trudeau Foundation Fellow and supporter of expanding MAID to the mentally ill Dr. Jocelyn Downie explains how mostly white "privileged" people are opting for assisted suicide.
"People getting MAID are actually very privileged. They're white. They're well off. Highly educated." pic.twitter.com/QkhMa2Ytka
When asked by committee vice-chair NDP MP Alistair MacGregor whether Canada was ready to open up assisted suicide services further when many people struggle to get access to mental health care, Downie said that a barrier to services is not a main driver of people accessing assisted suicide.
“When you’re answering your constituents, you need to be able to tell them those are not the drivers of MAID,” said Downie.
“People getting MAID are actually very privileged. They’re white. They’re well off. They’re highly educated. They’re not in institutions. They have families. The picture is one of privilege. That doesn’t mean we don’t want to look after the people who are vulnerable.”
Downie, a professor emeritus at the Dalhousie University Schulich School of Law, is also a member of the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation’s Covid-19 Impact Committee.
After former justice minister David Lametti announced a pause on legislation expanding access to assisted suicide for the mentally ill last year, Downie was among several experts to argue that a delay was unnecessary.
In an article published by Impact Ethics, Downie took issue with a dissenting report presented by the Conservatives to the committee arguing against the expansion and particularly the report’s attacks on the governing Liberals.
“With the release of the dissenting report, that has changed. What is noteworthy about the dissenting report is not the introduction of any new evidence or arguments or even its conclusions … Rather, what is noteworthy – indeed startling – is the extent to which it is a partisan diatribe filled with hyperbolic rhetoric,” argued Downie.
“The partisan nature of the dissenting report (signalled in the table of contents and title) is intensified through its hyperbolic targeting of the Liberals. It uses the word “Liberal” 28 times in a ten-page report.”
New Brunswick activist and TV personality Faytene Grasseschi is running to become a provincial Progressive Conservative legislature member.
She is seeking the Progressive Conservative nomination in the riding of Hampton-Fundy-St. Martin, a riding currently represented by New Brunswick PC Environment Minister Gary Crossman, who is not seeking re-election.
Grasseschi made the announcement in a Facebook post, writing “after much deep thought and many late-night conversations with my husband and trusted friends, I have decided to put my name forward to run for office provincially.”
While her focus has traditionally been on federal politics, she noted that “in reality, many of the issues I care most deeply about are equally provincial.”
“I am getting involved with this party because I appreciate the work it is has been doing, and the values it has been standing for,” Grasseschi told True North.
“When Premier Higgs stuck his neck out for parents last summer, we launched the petition to support him — but at the same time there were those, even within his own party that really opposed him. I feel it is important for the Premier to have people around him that have the same core values, especially considering that according to polling his stance for parents is reflective of the majority.”
Grasesschi, who has been active in Canada’s Christian conservative circles for years through her ministry and advocacy work, as well as her television program – gained attention this summer for her campaign in support of Premier Blaine Higgs’ changes to education policy 713. The policy mandates schools to require parental consent before children under the age of 16 can change their name or pronouns.
Her pro-Higgs campaign, “Don’t Delete Patents,” contained a petition in support of the policy change which received thousands of signatures.
“His stance was a common-sense one… (but) in spite of this, Premier Blaine Higgs took a lot of heat in the media, and even from some of his own team.” Grasesschi wrote. “I felt it was only right to give those who agreed with him a tangible way to support.”
She called him a “true conservative with strong family values, but also has a strong business sense that this province has benefited from and will continue to.”
Higgs announced in September that he will seek a third term.
“I recognize that all New Brunswickers rightly expect a government to be unified and focussed on achieving better outcomes for the province,” Higgs wrote in an X post. “It is extremely important that we continue to build on this momentum while at the same time addressing the many challenges that we continue to face.”
Higgs has tapped reputed political strategist Steve Outhouse to run his re-election campaign. Outhouse was behind Alberta Premier Danielle Smith’s successful 2023 re-election campaign, as well as MP Leslyn Lewis’ two federal Conservative leadership runs.
This is not Grasseschi’s first time running for office. She previously ran for the federal Conservative party nomination in Saint John—Rothesay, but lost that race.
The Hampton-Fundy-St. Martin provincial nomination vote will take place in December and the New Brunswick general election is set to take place sometime in 2024.
To win the nomination, Grasseschi must win in a vote among the PC party’s members in her riding.
Data released by Statistics Canada shows the country is grappling with its highest homicide rate in three decades.
The police-reported crime statistics, as measured by the Crime Severity Index (CSI), were released on Monday, covering 2022. The overall police-reported crime has witnessed a 4% increase.
Last year, the national homicide rate surged by almost 8%, reaching 2.25 homicides per 100,000 population – an alarming figure not seen since 1992. This increase extends a four-year trend of rising homicide rates across the country.
There were 874 reported homicides across the country, 78 more than the previous year.
“Despite recent increases, homicides remain a rare event in Canada, accounting for less than 0.2% of all police-reported violent crimes,” reads the report.
Violent crime was up 5%, following a 6% increase the previous year. Robbery has increased by 15%, extortion by 39%, homicide by 8%, and level 1 sexual assault by 3%.
When measuring the rate of homicide by province, Manitoba has the highest rate of homicide at 6.24 per 100,000 population. Saskatchewan follows closely behind at 5.94. Then comes a steep drop-off, with British Columbia holding third place at 2.91.
The Northwest Territories were higher than any province, at 6.58 homicides per 100,000 population.
Not a single homicide was reported in Prince Edward Island.
There was also a marked increase in the number of Canadian youths accused of homicide. There were 90 youths accused of homicide in 2022, compared with 33 in 2021, and an average of 39 over the previous ten years.
Approximately one in five (16%) of youths accused of homicide were linked to gang-related incidents. This excludes 1% of youths accused of homicide, for which this information is unknown.
Adding to the severity of the situation is the increase in police officer fatalities.
There were five homicides of police officers in 2022. Police victims included those killed because of their occupation, whether they were on duty or not. This figure is higher than the average for the previous ten years (two police victims) and is the highest number of police killings in 37 years — since 1985.
In spite of these alarming statistics, the report from Statistics Canada notes that “Despite recent increases, homicides remain a rare event in Canada, accounting for less than 0.2% of all police-reported violent crimes in 2022.”
On Tuesday, the National Citizens Inquiry into Canada’s pandemic response issued its commissioners’ final report, which heavily criticized the use of heavy-handed public health measures, including lockdowns and vaccine mandates. National Citizens Inquiry administrator Ches Crosbie joined True North’s Andrew Lawton to highlight the harms caused by these measures, and emphasize the need for a more balanced and targeted approach that is grounded in civil liberties.
The National Citizens Inquiry into Canada’s pandemic response issued its final report, which heavily criticized the use of heavy-handed public health measures. Ches Crosbie joins Andrew Lawton. pic.twitter.com/8k9qPXRiui
