As the conflict in Gaza continues, some left-wing politicians and media figures have started calling for a “ceasefire” between Israel and Hamas. JSpaceCanada chair Joe Roberts joined True North’s Andrew Lawton to explain the flawed logic behind this call to action, and why he believes dismantling Hamas is essential for long-term peace and a two-state solution.
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Newly released documents show the federal government spent $8 million building a Barn at Rideau Hall, which is meant to serve as a storage facility. Canadian Taxpayers Federation Alberta director Kris Sims joined True North’s Andrew Lawton to discuss the concerning use of public funds, and the need for greater transparency in government spending.
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Officials with a Toronto area swimming competition are blaming Swimming Canada regulations for a 50-year old biological male competing against girls as young as 13.
At the Richmond Hill Aquatic Centre’s fall classic last weekend, 50-year old Melody Wiseheart’s participation raised questions from the parents of the other swimmers.
As first reported by Rebel News, parents said it was “perverse” that Wiseheart, who was born male and lives as a woman, was competing against 13- and 14-year old girls.
Wiseheart, a professor at York University in the psychology department, did not respond to a request for comment from True North.
“We base (it) on Swimming Canada registrations,” a competition official told Rebel News’ David Menzies.
“For most competitions, a person can compete as the gender they declare, which I believe was changed in 2019,” Swimming Canada spokesperson Nathan White told True North.
The self-identification approach is quite problematic, one advocate for women in sports says.
“It’s disturbing. It’s a male person going into a girl’s race, which is absolutely unethical,” said Linda Blade, the former president of Athletics Alberta and author of Unsporting. “If any man can come along and check a box and say, ‘Oh no, I’m actually a girl today,’ that’s just wrong.”
As for the age discrepancy, White said it was an “open category,” meaning there was no age limit. The sections of the event for the oldest swimmers were 13 and older, and 15 and older.
Regarding a 50-year old’s participation, White said “it certainly seems like an anomaly.”
While most events were broken up by age, all were divided by gender. Wiseheart, 50, was the only competitor over 17 listed.
The swimming world has seen similar controversies. Swimmer Lia Thomas, formerly mid-500 ranked as a male, rose to top ranks after starting to identify and compete as a woman. Likewise, runners Soren Stark-Chessa and Aspen Hoffman saw post-transition meteoric rises.
Blade said sporting organizations need to take a stand.
“Sports organizations need to pony up, grow a spine, and say no, we compete in the sport on the basis of biological sex, which is still in the charter by the way.”
Blade added that while privacy can be a concern in sports like swimming based on shared locker rooms, contact sports operating with similar gender flexibility can put women at serious risk of injury by competing against biological males.
“It’s dangerous for little girls and women,” she said.
Sports Canada is the primary funding agency for most sports organizations nationwide, explained Blade. She said that when Sports Canada has been questioned on its position about self-gender identification in sports, it tends to leave it to each individual sport to self-regulate.
“Women’s sports need to be segregated from men, and that’s not hard,” Blade argued.
Walking down this same path will keep piling on more and more trouble, explained Blade. Continuing this way will destroy sports for women and girls, she believes.
“Stop waiting for somebody else to say that this is wrong. Everybody in the venue and in the local, provincial, and national sports board, all of us have to start getting stronger and say no to sex discrimination,” said Blade.
Canada’s Jewish community is denouncing footage of pro-Palestinian Western and McMaster University students ripping down posters of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas.
The recorded events are just the latest string of disturbing anti-Israel activity taking place at woke universities and colleges across both Canada and the United States.
At Western, instances of posters being taken down were posted to social media, including by the perpetrators.
X account “Documenting Antisemitism” shared footage of two male students tearing down posters on Western’s campus. When confronted, they said, “they started it” and claimed the student union is fine with them tearing down the posters.
On Instagram, a female Western student bragged about tearing down posters and said she found a “better place for them” – with that “better place” being in the recycling bin. “Kids remember to recycle,” said the student.
Another individual shared an image of a poster of a four-year-old Israeli boy who was kidnapped by Hamas. The individual called the poster “propaganda,” and rejoiced because it was taken down.
X account “Stop Antisemitism” also shared footage of an Israeli Western student being harassed while holding up a picture of a coworker who was kidnapped by Hamas. The harasser told the student “I couldn’t care less” and “you think I give a f**k”? Among other things.
At Hamilton’s McMaster University, a mob of pro-Palestinian students were also recorded tearing down posters of Israeli hostages.
The incidents are being condemned by members of the Jewish community. The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) described the incidents on X as “pure hatred,” and said such actions have “nothing to do with advocating for Palestinian human rights.”
Neither Western nor McMaster responded to a request for comment from True North about the incidents.
In the United States, pro-Palestine individuals have also been tearing down posters – including at New York University, the University of Pennsylvania and Boston University.
In the face of a troubling increase in antisemitic protests, the lack of response from law enforcement has become hard to overlook. Criminal lawyer Ari Goldkind joined True North’s Andrew Lawton to discuss his personal disappointment with the police, and why he believes Canada is becoming unsafe for members of the Jewish community.
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Outspoken medical activist Vera Sharav says everything we were told about the Covid pandemic – the shots and the disease itself – was a “total lie.”
The Holocaust survivor, now 86, called the two-year-long pandemic, marked by endless lockdowns, social distancing and masking rules, a “murderous operation.”
“No aspect of it was really for people’s well-being,” said the petite auburn-haired New York-based activist during a recent visit to Toronto.
Sharav, originally from Romania, said she was an early critic of Covid lockdowns and rules.
She recently starred in a five-part docuseries, Never Again is Now Global, comparing the Holocaust and Nazism to what occurred to the global population during the Covid pandemic.
She refused to say whether she got any vaccines, indicating her medical records are private. But she never got anything.
Sharav, the founder of the Alliance for Human Research Protection said no one could ever insist the vaccines were “safe and effective” because they weren’t properly tested.
The medical industry had to finally admit the vaccines didn’t keep Covid away, she said.
Sharav claimed hospitals in the U.S. inflated Covid deaths and cases because they got hundreds of thousands of dollars for pandemic care.
“It was all a lie,” she said.
In April 2020 she was banned for three weeks from visiting her husband in an assisted living facility.
She was finally allowed in two days before he passed away.
“But then I had to fight with the doctor not to put Covid on his death certificate,” Sharav said. “I was determined to fight him.”
Over bagels and eggs at a well-known deli, Sharav said the government has also been “concealing from the people” the level of harm the shots are doing.
“That’s betrayal, that’s treason,” she said. “They’re trying to pull the wool over people’s eyes and to a great degree they have.”
She feels the lockdowns were all about getting rid of the small mom and pop shops and to transfer wealth to the big box stores and to Amazon.
The endless lockdowns and the resulting isolation were also to keep people from communicating with each other in person or looking at people ”eye to eye.”
Another agenda was to “create hostility among people and distrust of human beings,” she said.
“They (the corporate globalists) were very successful across the world… all governments participated in lockstep.”
People were in fear of an “invisible enemy.”
Sharav feels that fear and a sense that they’re on the right side – responsible citizens of the community – has brought out “the worst in some people.
“It brings out the very dangerous part of people because they think they’re correct and they’re kind of being encouraged to bully others,” she said.
She has found that the most obedient and complicit with the Covid directives – most especially masking – are the “highly educated” and in particular those in academia.
That is indeed true in Canada but to that I would add woke activists, who continue to this day to wear large masks outside at protests.
Sharav believes the truth about Covid has been coming out in” bits and pieces” for a year now but the legacy media “pretends it doesn’t exist.”
Asked about her outspoken position on the pandemic and her feeling the vaccines are “weapons,” she said some of her online interviews get removed.
But she says she’s in a “unique position.”
“It’s very hard to argue with a Holocaust survivor,” Sharav said.
“I use the opportunity to force people to open their eyes.”
Seven hospitals in Alberta, including several in Edmonton, have introduced enhanced masking protocols amidst ongoing influenza and COVID-19 surges.
Alberta Health Services (AHS) rolled out an “enhanced masking directive” on October 11, 2023, with the primary objective of curbing the transmission of COVID-19 within acute care environments.
True North previously reported that this directive enables health zone leaders to require enhanced masking mandates for AHS staff, physicians, students, volunteers, and others.
Following implementation, masking is required for patients, designated support persons, and visitors in Emergency Departments. Sites can also require people to mask in additional areas, such as cancer units.
Signage is posted where masking is required.
Attendees are not required to mask if they are under two years old, in their bed space, or unable to place, use, or remove a mask without assistance.
Masking is optional for visitors and designated family support persons outside of Emergency Departments, even when the directive is implemented.
In certain hospitals such as the Alberta Hospital Edmonton, Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital, Grey Nuns Community Hospital, Misericordia Community Hospital, Red Deer Regional Hospital Centre, Royal Alexandra Hospital, Stollery Children’s Hospital, and the University of Alberta Hospital, masking is mandatory for everyone in emergency departments and labour and triage areas.
Despite these clear regulations, the directive states that AHS leadership “may implement masking requirements beyond this Directive if identified in their risk assessment.”
While AHS has empowered regional hospitals with these directives, they have yet to clarify if this enhanced masking will be compulsory across all healthcare facilities in Alberta.
“Masking is […] optional at continuing care and Addiction and Mental Health settings that are not within an acute care site,” said the provincial health agency.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith has previously voiced her concerns about the approach of AHS. She believes in greater flexibility that reflects regional circumstances.
AHS told the Toronto Star that while they offer directives, regions and hospitals retain the autonomy to adapt as they see fit.
AHS highlighted their intent: “Zone and site teams would work together to find solutions that best look after patients.”
“This directive supports zone and site leadership to determine if enhanced masking is necessary,” wrote an AHS spokesperson.
Premier Smith has commissioned Health Minister Adriana LaGrange to work on decentralizing the health agency further, with developments anticipated this fall.
As reported by rdnewsNOW, AHS assured the public that refusing to wear a mask would not result in denied medical services.
“If a patient or visitor is unable to or declines to mask in these areas, care teams will work with them to ensure patients receive the care they need while taking steps to also protect others in hospital,” an AHS spokesperson told rdnewsNOW.
“This may include providing a face shield or other PPE or moving patients to available isolation or private spaces,” they added.
In cases where individuals choose not to mask, healthcare teams will strategize to protect both the patient and others present, potentially employing alternative protective equipment or designated isolation spaces.
The decision to intensify masking protocols came after several hospital outbreaks and an uptick in COVID-related hospitalizations.
Recent data shown by the Alberta respiratory virus dashboard shows that between October 8 and 14, Alberta witnessed 948 new COVID cases, 171 hospital admissions related to the virus, seven ICU admissions, and seven fatalities.
As of October 24, there are 34 units with COVID-19 outbreaks in hospitals across Alberta. The hospital with the most outbreaks is the Royal Alexandra Hospital, with ten units on COVID-19 outbreaks.
The British Columbia Teachers’ Federation, the union representing all public-school teachers in British Columbia, is pushing a fringe view, which is out-of-step with the overwhelming majority of parents. That is, it’s calling for an end to B.C.’s provincewide testing of elementary school students in grades four and seven.
The union also bemoans the existence of user-friendly tools that make these student test results easy to read and understand, such as the Fraser Institute’s B.C. Elementary School Report Card, which has been published since 2003.
The Foundation Skills Assessments, or FSAs, are the last tests in the province that resemble standardized tests – the only objective measure to clearly understand how students and schools are doing.
This is precisely why the tests are hugely popular with parents.
Indeed, a 2022 Leger poll found that eight in 10 B.C. parents of K-12 kids support standardized testing to know how their children are doing in the core subjects. Further, 96% of B.C. parents of K-12 kids said it’s important to know how their child is doing by fair and objective measure in the core subjects.
Support from immigrant parents of K-12 students in B.C. was even higher in both cases. Only 5% of B.C. parents strongly oppose standardized testing, and 10% somewhat oppose.
Clearly, the B.C. Teachers’ Federation’s opinion that standardized testing should be abolished is a fringe view, in opposition to the vast majority of B.C. parents whose kids are in K-12 schools (and, incidentally, pay for the education system).
Moreover, when student test results are presented clearly, like with the Fraser Institute’s school rankings, they help parents find schools that are the best fit for their children. They also motivate schools to improve and seek out best practices from other schools, which are highly ranked or improving.
Last year, about 1.1 million people visited the Fraser Institute’s “School Rankings” website. In Vancouver alone, more than 66,000 people accessed the website last year.
The goal, of course, is lifting all kids and all schools. And the success stories of schools that are improving in the school rankings, despite challenges, are precious gems.
For example, the 2023 B.C. Elementary School Report Card found that Pacific Heights Elementary in Surrey is one of the province’s fastest-improving schools, despite 22% of the student population learning English. Decker Lake Elementary in Burns Lake also saw amazing improvement, despite 11% of its student population having exceptional needs, which require support. These are success stories worth knowing about.
But the assault on testing in B.C. threatens to suppress these stories of success and the benefits that can have for other schools.
The B.C. government has already replaced course-based standardized tests and percentage grades with vague student assessments in grades 10 and 12. There’s been a dramatic drop in student participation in these assessments—meaning we don’t really know how B.C. high school students are doing.
Meanwhile, proficiency for those who did write the assessments is shockingly low—only 40% of Grade 10 students who completed the numeracy assessment in 2019-20 were proficient.
Which brings us back to the B.C. Teachers’ Federation—why does it oppose standardized testing, which makes student test results easy for the public to understand?
Because testing is an accountability mechanism. It’s much easier to sweep student results under the rug where parents and policymakers can’t clearly understand them, and simply demand evermore tax dollars.
Indeed, spending on government-run public schools in B.C. increased by 12.8% (after adjusting for enrolment and inflation) from 2012-13 to 2020-21, with the vast majority going toward teacher compensation. Yet international tests show B.C. student achievement has dropped in recent years (pre-Covid), especially in math.
To help B.C. students improve, we must first know how they’re doing. This matters for students, families and the province at large. It’s no surprise the BCTF doesn’t want to acknowledge this, but thankfully B.C. parents do.
Paige MacPherson is associate director of education policy at the Fraser Institute.
Western University has parted ways with a Muslim chaplain over “divisive” social media comments about Israel.
The London, Ont. university distanced itself from Sh. Aarij Anwer after an exchange between the chaplain and former Conservative senator Linda Frum on X, formerly Twitter.
When Frum condemned a pro-Hamas rally in Toronto that planned to glorify “martyrs,” Anwer accused Frum of lying and denied that Hamas had beheaded babies or raped girls.
“Stop spreading lies of beheading babies or rape of little girls. It’s been debunked,” claimed Anwer. “No one is celebrating the murder of Israeli babies, Palestinians are mourning the death of their babies.”
He added that he found it “incredible how Israel sympathizers simultaneously are the oppressor and the victim.”
In a statement posted Thursday, Western president Alan Shepard and equity, diversity and inclusion associate vice-president Opiyo Oloya said Anwer, who served ina “volunteer capacity” would no longer be associated with the university.
They said his comments do not align with the university’s commitment to peaceful and respectful dialogue. As a result, Anwer “will no longer serve in this volunteer position.”
They added that “Western steadfastly supports our Palestinian, Muslim, Jewish and Israeli communities” and is “committed to fostering an environment where all members of our community can feel safe, welcomed, heard, and supported.”
This commitment is jeopardized when “divisive” statements are made by those in positions of leadership.
As it seeks a new Muslim chaplain, Western says it will “ensure our Muslim and Palestinian community members feel our support and can share their thoughts.”
This is not just the only anti-Zionist incident to take place at Western in the past week. There were also several cases of posters of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas that were vandalized by pro-Palestinian students on campus.
True North asked Western to comment on the matter, but the university did not respond.
Anwer also did not return a request for comment.
Saturday, October 7, 2023, a day that will live in Jewish infamy, was when Gaza terrorists conducted unspeakable horrors, blatant war crimes, and crimes against humanity against Israeli civilians.
The motive for the cold-blooded murder of over 1,300 Israelis is crystal clear: a fanatical desire, rooted in Muslim religious beliefs and buttressed by fake history, to exterminate the Jews of Israel.
This is no histrionic conjecture. As the 1988 Hamas Charter says:
“The Palestinian movement, whose allegiance is to Allah, and whose way of life is Islam … strives to raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine [the State of Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza] …. The land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [Holy Possession] consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day. No one can renounce it or any part or abandon it or any part of it. Palestine is an Islamic land…. The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight Jews and kill them.”
In practical terms, had there been no resistance to the Oct. 7 invasion, all 7.1 million Jews living in Israel would have been systematically executed Holocaust-style.
Though few of Israel’s supporters could ever envision such a horrific outcome, Arab masses across the globe support a ‘ceasefire’ they know will prevent the defeat of Hamas, thereby allowing more such heinous attacks on Jews, eventually leading to a final solution to the Jewish question.
The Arab street’s Middle Eastern leaders, especially those who have sought normalization with Israel via the Abraham Accords, have trod a fine line by refraining from blaming Israel for the Oct. 7 attack.
This still leaves the Palestine faction of the “Arab street” at the forefront of the vilification of Israel.
Only the blindest observer could ever claim that the countless organized public demonstrations around the world since Oct. 7 are aimed at encouraging a just and lasting resolution to the current conflict that would be acceptable to its combatants.
The words on the banners displayed and slogans uttered – “from the river to the sea,” “Palestine lives matter,” “Israel = racism and apartheid” – prove this.
“From the river to the sea” is particularly provocative because it rejects a two-state solution, for the Jews and one for the Palestinians – for a single Judenrein (“free of Jews”) Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
“Palestine lives matter” means Jewish ones don’t.
Saying Israel is racist and based on apartheid denies that its large Arab population enjoys freedom and prosperity denied to their brethren elsewhere in the region.
According to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau,“ Hamas does not represent the Palestinian people, nor their legitimate aspirations. They do not speak for Muslim or Arab communities, and they do not represent the better futures that Palestinians or their children deserve.” This is a sentiment expressed by other leaders like US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and President Joe Biden.
Tell that to the thousands of protesters who joyfully celebrated the Oct. 7 attack throughout the Middle East and Western world, including Canada.
Tell that to the Palestinian pollsters who recently found radical Islamic groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad were viewed as “the best thing that happened to the Palestinian people since 1948.”
The poll also showed low Palestinian support for a two-state solution: approval 28%; rejection 70%. One state with no Jews is what most Palestinians yearn for.
Likewise, it was found that 52% of Palestinians believed armed struggle against Israel is the most effective means to end an “occupation” (that officially ended in Gaza in 2005) and build a Palestinian state. Twenty-one percent claimed they supported achieving these goals through negotiations, while 22% preferred “popular resistance,” a close synonym for armed struggle.
While some Gazans at home and abroad despise Hamas, it is false to claim, “Hamas is not Gaza, and Gaza is not Hamas.”
When Palestinians, whether members of Hamas or not, say they consider killing Jews their religious duty, as has been repeatedly expressed or implied since Oct. 7, do not doubt them.
Hymie Rubenstein is editor of REAL Indigenous Report and a retired professor of anthropology at the University of Manitoba.
