Canada has repeatedly hyped up “dangerous” interceptions by the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) recently, but experts said on Sunday that the PLA’s lawful actions took place on China’s doorstep, and that Canada’s blind confidence could lead to troubles of its own.
In a recent event, two sorties by a vessel-borne helicopter from the Canadian Navy’s frigate HMCS Ottawa with unknown intentions approached China’s territorial airspace above the Xisha Islands, and despite the PLA naval and aviation forces’ lawful identification, verification and repeated verbal warnings, the Canadian helicopter not only refused to respond, but also took provocative maneuvers including flying at a very low altitude, Senior Colonel Zhang Xiaogang, a spokesperson of China’s Ministry of National Defense, said in a press release on Saturday.
The Canadian move violated China’s domestic law and related international law, infringed China’s sovereignty security, and was a malicious act of provocation with ulterior motives, Zhang said.
Canada then hyped up the event through the media to throw mud at China, Zhang said, citing a statement from the Canadian Department of National Defense and media reports claiming that PLA Navy J-11 fighter jets intercepted the Canadian CH-148 helicopter by releasing flares over the South China Sea on October 29.
The measures taken by the Chinese side were professional and up to standard, Zhang said. He urged the Canadian side to stop disregarding facts and hyping, strictly restrict the activities of its frontline naval and aviation forces, and prevent accidents at sea and in the air from happening.
It marks a third provocation from the Canadian military over the past month.
In mid-October, a Canadian CP-140 reconnaissance aircraft illegally entered China’s airspace over Chiwei Islet, approached China’s eastern coast and entered the Taiwan Straits for close-in reconnaissance, forcing the PLA Air Force to take lawful management and control measures.
On Wednesday, the Canadian Navy’s HMCS Ottawa frigate made a transit through the Taiwan Straits together with the US Navy’s USS Rafael Peralta destroyer, while the PLA handled the event in accordance with the law and regulations.
However, Canada’s high-profile provocations are not based on its own capabilities, but on its military strategy of following the US, Song Zhongping, a Chinese military expert and TV commentator, told the Global Times on Sunday.
The Canadian navy is weak, and it is not easy for them to deploy frigates to the Asia-Pacific region, Song said.
“Canada is blindly confident that it is a major Western country, and it thinks too highly of its capabilities,” Song said. “In fact, if Canada keeps making troubles around China, it could get itself into trouble.”
Zhang Xuefeng, another Chinese military expert, told the Global Times on Sunday that the Canadian military should realize how sensitive it is to conduct close-in reconnaissance on China’s doorstep.
It is childish for the Canadian military to provoke China, and Canada should not misread China’s restraint, Zhang Xuefeng said.
Compared to the PLA, Canada’s military presence near China is insignificant, so Canada should know its limit and not pull the chestnut out of the fire for the benefit of the US, Zhang Xuefeng said.
Canada’s most elite soldiers have been dispatched to Israel. While it’s unclear if they are assisting the onslaught on Gaza, their deployment highlights close Canadian ties to the genocidal apartheid regime.
Global News has reported that JTF2 were in Israel. The stated reason for the deployment of Canada’s most specialized soldiers is to assist the embassy with security and evacuations. That may be true. But the deployment also reflects Canada-Israel military co-operation and may entail a more direct role in Gaza.
Would Israel accept special forces from South Africa or Chile? How about Russia? Or Syria?
Extremely unlikely. At minimum the JTF2 deployment reveals close military, as well as diplomatic and political, ties between the two countries.
After Hamas’ October 7 attack the Canadian Air Force flew 30 Israeli reservists back into the country. With flights evacuating Canadians from Tel Aviv to Athens, military aircraft transported Israeli reservists in the other direction.
Ten days ago, Canadian Forces Intelligence Command endorsed Israel’s highly suspect claim the IDF wasn’t responsible for killing hundreds at the al-Ahli Anglican Hospital in Gaza. Echoing US and Israeli claims, Canada’s military intelligence suggested an errant Palestinian rocket was the cause of the destruction. But a subsequent New York Times investigation rejected an important part of that claim while previous Al Jazeera and Britain’s channel 4 reports have questioned Israel’s denial.
Through the Five Eyes, Canadian military intelligence has close ties to its Israeli counterparts. The Department of National Defence run Communications Security Establishment (CSE) has long gathered intelligence on Palestinians for Israel. According to files released by Edward Snowden, CSE spied on Israel’s enemies and shared the intelligence with that country’s SIGINT National Unit. “Palestinians” was a “specific intelligence topic” of a CSE, US NSA and British GCH project shared with their Israeli counterpart.
Alongside relations with the Five Eyes intelligence apparatus, Israel has a Strategic Partnership with NATO. Canada and Israel both have military attachés in each other’s countries and top military officials regularly visit each other. The Israeli Air Force trains in Canada and Canada has a “border management and security” agreement with Israel, even though the two countries do not share a border. Additionally, the Canada-Israel Industrial Research and Development Fund has pumped tens of millions of dollars into joint research ventures between the countries’ military companies.
Through Operation Proteus Canadian troops in the West Bank have been regularly coordinating with their Israeli counterparts for over a decade. Since 2007 about 20 Canadian troops have been training Palestinian Authority security forces to act as the subcontractor of Israel’s occupation as part of a mission led by the Office of the United States Security Coordinator.
A bevy of Canadian groups, including some registered charities, assist the IDF in different ways. Israel and affiliated groups have long recruited Canadians in possible violation of the Foreign Enlistment Act. In 1947/48 hundreds of Canadians fought to establish Israel and ethnically cleanse Palestine. Israel’s initial Air Force was led by a Canadian and dominated by former World War II Canadian pilots.
Back to the present day, the JTF2 deployment to Israel may go beyond assisting evacuation efforts and embassy security. Since the fighting erupted three weeks ago the US has dispatched an aircraft carrier and about a dozen vessels with 15,000 soldiers to the region. US forces, including a three-star general, are advising the IDF on its fighting strategy. According to the New York Times, US special forces are helping locate Hamas hostages. Assistant secretary of defense for special operations, Christopher P. Maier, said their main task is to “identify hostages” but he also noted that “we’re actively helping the Israelis to do a number of things.”
JTF2 works closely with their US counterparts so they may be assisting its special forces with regards to hostages or other military planning. As part of their longer term plan, Israeli and US officials have discussed “granting temporary oversight to Gaza to countries from the region, backed by troops from the US, UK, Germany and France”, reported Bloomberg. JTF2 could be preparing for that possibility.
From Afghanistan to Iraq, Libya to Haiti Canadian special forces have deployed on many politically controversial missions. What the secretive forces are doing in Israel remains unclear, but they certainly aren’t assisting the Palestinians being slaughtered in Gaza.
Dr. Kulvinder Kaur Gill is a pediatric allergist in Toronto. She condemned COVID rules as irrational, political, harmful, and inconsistent with scientific data. In the eyes of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario (CPSO), Gill was dangerous.
In 2021, the CPSO issued three “cautions” (formal warnings) against her. In 2022 it began disciplinary proceedings. The College alleged that she was undermining confidence in public health measures. Its senior counsel wrote that her communications were unprofessional and unbalanced. In its persecution of Gill, the CPSO has made the case for its own demise. Self-regulated monopolies do not work. The CPSO and other professional regulators need competition.
Gill’s inquisition was not an isolated case. Like other medical regulators in North America, the CPSO forbade its doctors from publicly contradicting COVID orders and recommendations. Its Discipline Tribunal revoked the licence of Patrick Phillips, one of several Ontario doctors pursued for their COVID dissent.
The Nova Scotia medical college investigated Dr. Chris Milburn for writing an op-ed on the death of personal responsibility in the criminal justice system. The Ontario College of Psychologists ordered Jordan Peterson to undergo re-education on the use of social media for tweeting about politics. The BC College of Nurses seeks to discipline Amy Hamm for believing in the biology of two sexes.
The Law Society of Ontario compelled its members to state their concurrence with the ideology of “equity, diversity, and inclusion” until a group of rebel lawyers (of whom I was one) managed to repeal it, although the agenda remains. In British Columbia and Alberta, law societies are instituting politically laden “cultural competency” requirements. Teachers, occupational therapists, engineers, and accountants cannot safely voice doubts about transgenderism or “anti-racist” agendas.
This regulatory bullying is occurring within self-regulated professions. Like “ordinary” regulation, self-regulation is coercive. The state delegates authority to their governing bodies. Some doctors rule over other doctors. A licence from the CPSO is voluntary only in the sense that a driver’s licence is voluntary. You don’t get fines or prison time if you don’t get one, but then you can’t drive or practice medicine. Gill’s livelihood was on the line.
Civil servants do not run self-governing professional bodies, but they are part of the executive branch of government nonetheless. Legislation creates them and they are subject to the constitution. Self-regulation exists only for as long as the legislature says that it does.
Legislatures delegate authority, the theory goes, because professionals have the expertise to ensure competence and ethical practice in the public interest. Your surgeon should know how to cut. Your corporate lawyer should be able to draft articles of incorporation and not skim funds off your trust account. But focusing on technical competence and honest conduct no longer satisfies professional regulatory bodies.
We live in a managerial age. As C.S. Lewis wrote:
“The greatest evil is not now done in those sordid ‘dens of crime’ that Dickens loved to paint. It is not done even in concentration camps and labour camps. In those we see its final result. But it is conceived and ordered (moved, seconded, carried, and minuted) in clean, carpeted, warmed, and well-lighted offices, by quiet men with white collars and cut fingernails and smooth-shaven cheeks who do not need to raise their voices.”
Professions have become managerial cartels. Governing bodies are their godfathers, permitting only proper people and perspectives. Their purpose is not to ensure public access to a variety of professional opinions. Instead, they seek to herd people into “correct” attitudes and behaviors. Propaganda is not evil, but merely a tool to facilitate right results.
Ironically, managerial cartels turn out to be terrible managers. They excel at exercising control but not at producing good outcomes. During COVID, even propaganda was patently incoherent. Yet Gill was one of a scant few doctors and scientists to decry the public health debacle unfolding in front of them. As her lawyer Lisa Bildy wrote in response to the College’s accusations, Gill provided the public with substantiated facts on lockdowns, masking, and COVID vaccines, relying on credible and respected scientific sources and opinions.
The College had scheduled a two-week disciplinary hearing for early 2024. But in September 2023, it abruptly cancelled the hearing with no explanation. Gill’s disciplinary ordeal had come to an end, although her formal warnings remain. Bildy will challenge their validity by judicial review in spring 2024.
Self-regulation protects professions from government interference. That is ironic, given the CPSO’s insistence that their members toe the government line. But self-regulation does not protect individual professionals from the oppression of their peers. A different model beckons: multiple, private regulators competing for members, credibility, and public trust.
Professional cartels benefit the bullies who run them. There’s no reason to grant them the power of monopoly.
Bruce Pardy is executive director of Rights Probe and professor of law at Queen’s University.
Dr. Malik writes:
My name is Ahmad Malik and I am an honest surgeon passionate about free speech and medical ethics.
I have been suspended without pay and cancelled because I dare to challenge the Government narrative, defend informed consent, oppose mandates and lockdowns, question experimental jabs and insist that there are only two biological sexes.
I am raising funds to take legal action against the hospital to lift my suspension and stop the attempts by organisations to censor me.
It will set a precedent that organisations cannot bully, harass and censor those that speak up for medical ethics, and encourage others to speak out.
I am up against large organisations and my case is complex. Legal costs will easily run into the thousands. I need a decent fighting fund which will give me the best chance of being successful.
Apologists for Israeli crimes are constantly gaslighting Palestinians and their supporters. They seek to make those opposing violence and colonialism feel like oppressors.
Last Friday a rally was held in front of Deputy Prime Minister Christya Freeland’s office in Toronto. Freeland recently declared that “Canada stands with Israel” and when she was foreign minister said Canada would act as an “asset for Israel” on the United Nations Security Council.
The poster announcing the rally declared: “PROTEST DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER OF CANADA CHRYSTIA FREELAND OUTSIDE HER TORONTO OFFICE”. During the rally bodies of babies were placed in front of Freeland’s office and at some point a man with an Israeli flag went directly in front of Freeland’s office in a bid to provoke the protesters. There’s video of police intervening and standing in front of the building housing Freeland’s office.
As the rally grew, it reportedly spilled onto the street and intersection directly in front of the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre (MNJCC). According to a Canada Files post, someone came out of the community centre to complain and film the Palestine solidarity rally. Footage was later posted to X claiming a Jewish community centre was targeted by protesters. According to multiple comments online, the initial post was deleted after being bombarded with derisive comments about their inability to look at a map. But Canada United for Israel shared the video tweeting, “Targeting a Jewish community center where there is a kindergarten is pure antisemitism. How can the anti-Israel movement justify scaring children?”
Far right Rebel News founder Ezra Levant quote tweeted that statement claiming “Hamas protesters target a Jewish kindergarten” while the head of the ‘progressive’ media watchdog CanadaLand, Jesse Brown, made a similar claim. The incident was referenced by the Toronto Sun, Toronto Star, National Post and other media.
In a transparent bid to enable Israeli violence and colonialism, apartheid apologists regularly fabricate or distort events to claim victimhood. Over two decades I’ve been privy to repeated examples of this. While I no longer consider the tactic noteworthy, an element of the psychological side of it is. In other domains it would be called gaslighting.
In brief, those screaming loudest “it’s just a Jewish institution that has nothing to do with Israel” are generally best placed to know this is untrue. Those who’ve been through the MNJCC – and similar institutions – know they are deeply Zionistic.
MNJCC operates an “Israel Connection” program and promotesthe United Jewish Appeal (UJA) Toronto’s annual Walk for Israel. It hosted and cosponsored an Israeli general’s talk, which was held in tandem with the Israeli consulate.
The Thomas & Marjorie Schwartz preschool centre & Junior Kindergarten housed there has three pictures posted on MNJCC’s site. In one the kindergartners are smiling with an Israeli and Canadian flag hanging on the wall. In its “core elements” the kindergarten describes “Israel as a Source and Resource”.
The MNJCC elementary school shows a picture with dozens of Israeli flags. On its Instragram the Paul Penna Downtown Jewish Day School (DJDS) recently posted that “Jewish people have always had and always will have a relationship with Israel. We continue to stand in solidarity with Israel.” Days into that country’s horrific siege and violence in Gaza, DJDS posted on October 13 that “classes created inspirational cards for Israeli soldiers, and sent cards full of well wishes to former classmates now living in Israel.” The MNJCC school’s site notes, “Each year, our school warmly welcomes two young Israelis to the Paul Penna DJDS community. We are delighted to partner with UJA Federation, the Downtown Jewish Community School, and The First Narayever Congregation on this fantastic initiative. These teens have completed high school and have chosen to defer their army service in order to become Israeli ambassadors or ‘shlichim’, spending a year focused on presenting contemporary Israel to our students in passionate, creative ways.”
MNJCC has deep ties to UJA Toronto, which brings young Israeli ‘shlichim’ to live with Toronto families so they can do outreach in schools and community organizations. At the top of UJA’s website, which is prominently linked on the MNJCC site, is an Israel financial appeal and its official advocacy arm is the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.
Alongside a link to UJA Toronto, MNJCC’s site links prominently to the JCC Association of North America. The top of that site notes “JCCs of North America Stand With Israel”.
MNJCC’s namesake funded a major project at the racist Jewish National Fund’s Canada Park, which is built on the remnants of three Palestinian villages in the West Bank. On the board of the JCC, Miles Nidal is a staunch anti-Palestinian.
Even if the target of Friday’s protest had been the JCC it would be altogether legitimate (though considering the political climate, organizers should seek to detail the JCC’s anti-Palestinianism in promotional literature). No organization that promotes and defends Israel the way MNJCC does can then claim, “we are simply Jews, not backing Israel” when it becomes convenient to deny the connection.
It’s highly manipulative for individuals who know the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre is part of a network of anti-Palestinian institutions to claim protesting it is antisemitic. Call the complaints what they really are: gaslighting.
The Canadian Parliament has become the latest global player in a widening tug-of-war geared towards constraining the tide of “misinformation” seeping into the digital landscape.
The House Ethics Committee in the North American province of Ottawa is calling for the imposing of stringent repercussions on tech giants whom they claim are complicit in disseminating “unverified” or “deceptive” content online.
The Committee’s directives come after an exhaustive ten-month investigation focused primarily on the mounting concern of foreign interference, particularly from powerhouse nations such as China and Russia. It held eight separate public consultation sessions throughout its investigatory period, featuring input from 23 key witnesses.
Vice-chair of the Committee, Bloc Quebecois MP Rene Villemure, emphasized the urgent need for decisive action, mirroring similar controversial legislative combat seen by the European Union, which has imposed significant online regulations to control the spread of digital falsehoods.
“At some point companies will have to understand that they’re actors and they’re not the government,” Villemure said.
“What happens online is basically shaping society, and if we’re not acting in a decisive manner, they will shape society to the bottom.”
Villemure refrains from laying down a specific strategy but looks to the European Union as a potential model. He refers to the European Commission’s recent judicious testing of its new digital laws during the Israel-Hamas conflict.
At a big apartheid lobby convention in Ottawa last week Justin Trudeau’s government announced its new Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism. Deborah Lyons will replace Irwin Cotler in a position the Liberals created three years ago.
Cotler used the platform and public funds allocated to the envoy to defend Israeli apartheid and said he sought out Lyons to replace him. Apparently, Cotler wanted an anti-Palestinian non-Jew to take over in a position designed to entrench apartheid.
Canada’s Ambassador to Israel from 2016 to 2020, Lyons has an anti-Palestinian track record. In January 2020 Lyons held an event at the embassy in Tel Aviv to celebrate Canadians fighting for Israel. They invited all 78 Canadians in the Israeli military to an event to demonstrate the embassy’s appreciation. Referring to non-Israelis who join the IDF, Lyons told the Jerusalem Post, “Canadian lone soldiers are a particularly special group … This is something we want to do on a yearly basis to show our support.” At the event Lyons’ said, “we both share a love of Canada and a love of Israel. We at the embassy are very proud of what you’re doing.”
Through an access to information request Karen Rodman of Just Peace Advocates received 150 pages of email messages between Lyons and other Canadian officials who organized the pizza party for lone soldiers. The diplomats under Lyons supervision worked on it for months and said their objective was to boost the morale of Canadians in Israel’s occupation force after a lone soldier committed suicide.
It’s outrageous that Canadian diplomats celebrated those humiliating Palestinians at checkpoints in the West Bank, firing on protesters in Gaza and bombing Syria in violation of international law.
That a Canadian ambassador instigated a pizza party for Canadians fighting in another country’s military is outrageous. But it reflects Lyons’ anti-Palestinian tenure.
In an October 2019 story titled “Is Canada’s Ambassador to Israel an Anti-Palestinian Racist?” Dimitri Lascaris reported on 423 tweets and retweets issued by Lyons: “In those tweets: Lyons has disseminated fifteen condemnations of attacks by Palestinians on Israelis, but not once has she condemned or expressed a modicum of concern about an attack by Israelis on Palestinians; On only one occasion did Lyons tweet or retweet a comment that was remotely critical of Israel; On September 19, Lyons praised Israel’s former President Shimon Peres — a war criminal — as a ‘great man;’ Lyons tweeted or retweeted 24 tweets by or about CIJA and/or the Canadian Jewish Political Affairs Committee (CJPAC), whose core function is to promote the Israeli government’s agenda in Canada; By contrast, Lyons has tweeted or retweeted only one tweet from a pro-Palestinian organization; that tweet was issued by Jewish Voice for Peace, but it related to a terrorist attack in New Zealand and had nothing to do with Israel’s relentless abuse of Palestinian human rights; and Lyons retweeted a tweet praising Theodor Herzl, the founder of political Zionism, a racist ideology. Yet Lyons’ one tweet that was modestly critical of Israel’s government did not relate to the settlements, annexation or Israel’s wanton murder and maiming of Palestinian civilians in Gaza and the West Bank. Rather, that tweet was an expression of the Canadian government’s purported ‘regret’ that Israel had unilaterally terminated the mandate of a temporary observer force in the Palestinian city of Hebron, where Israel is brazenly committing the crime of apartheid.”
Based on her record as ambassador to Israel it appears Canada’s new Special Envoy on Preserving Holocaust Remembrance and Combatting Antisemitism is an anti-Palestinian racist.
The Canadian government has announced plans to begin euthanizing “drug addicts” and citizens with a range of mental illnesses.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government plans to relax current “assisted suicide” laws so that more Canadians who have become a burden on taxpayer-funded health care systems can use them, Hunter Fielding reports .
However, critics compare the move to “modern eugenics”.
When Canada’s medically assisted dying (MAID) law changes in March 2024, mental health patients, including those with substance abuse problems, without other physical conditions will be eligible to be legally euthanized by the state.
A special parliamentary committee will re-examine the controversial move ahead of its implementation in coming months, following protests from Trudeau’s opponents in Canada.
Daily Mail reports: More than 10,000 Canadians were euthanized in 2021, a tenfold increase from 2016 when the practice was legalized.
In some cases, people living in poverty have agreed to die.
Currently, people with mental health conditions such as depression and personality disorders without physical conditions are not eligible for assisted suicide.
A framework for assessing people with substance use disorders for MAID is being discussed this week at an annual scientific conference in Canada.
The agenda of the workshop includes teaching participants and medical professionals to “know the difference between suicidality and a motivated desire to die.”
Zoë Dodd, a harm reduction advocate from Toronto, told VICE News that the practice is tantamount to eugenics.
She said: “I just think that MAID, when it has entered the realm of mental health and substance use, is really rooted in eugenics.
“And there are people who are really struggling with substance use and people are actually not getting the support and help that they need.”
Dr. David Martell, chief physician of Addiction Medicine at Nova Scotia Health, who is presenting the framework at the conference, told VICE News :
I don’t think it’s fair, and the government doesn’t think it’s fair, to exclude people from eligibility because their medical condition or their suffering is related to mental illness.
As a subset of these, it is not fair to exclude people from subsidies simply because their mental disorder may be partially or completely a substance use disorder.
It has to do with treating people equally.
The process for an assisted death in Canada starts with downloading a simple form online.
This means that the applicant must answer a number of questions and sign the bottom.
The applicants must then obtain the signatures of witnesses.
This is followed by a phone call and a home visit from a doctor.
If the application is approved by two different doctors, the person must wait 90 days from the time of application.
A doctor can then administer the lethal drug via an injection.
OTTAWA, Ontario –– Conservative Party of Canada MP Leslyn Lewis has endorsed an official House of Commons petition demanding the nation’s federal government “urgently” withdraw from the United Nations and its subgroup, the World Health Organization (WHO), due to the organizations’ undermining of national “sovereignty” and the “personal autonomy” of citizens.
“We, the undersigned, Citizens and Residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons in Parliament assembled to Urgently implement Canada’s expeditious withdrawal from the U.N. and all of its subsidiary organizations, including WHO,” reads the petition, which was initiated by Doug Porter from Burnaby, British Columbia, and then endorsed by Lewis.
As of press time, the petition, which was opened on October 10, has just over 36,000 signatures. It will remain open for signing until February 7, 2024.
The petition states that Canada’s current membership in the UN along with the WHO has resulted in “negative consequences on the people of Canada,” which far outweigh “any benefits.”
Additionally, the petition reads that the UN’s “Agenda 2030″ undermines “national sovereignty and personal autonomy.”
Many of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s federal government goals, notably its environmental ones, are in lockstep with the United Nations’ “2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.”
Agenda 2030 is a plan that was adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2015, and through its 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), seeks to “transform our world for the better,” by “taking urgent action on climate change,” as well as “support[ing] the research and development of vaccines and medicines.” Some of the 17 goals also seek to expand “reproductive” services, including contraception and abortion, across the world in the name of women’s rights.
According to the UN, “all” nations working on the program “will implement this plan.”
Part of the plan includes phasing out coal-fired power plants, reducing fertilizer usage, and curbing natural gas use over the coming decades. Canada is one of the world’s largest oil and gas producers, however, Trudeau has made it one of his goals to decimate the industry.
In a blow to the globalist UN agenda, however, Canada’s oil and gas sector recently scored a huge win after the Supreme Court of Canada declared Trudeau’s government’s Impact Assessment Act, dubbed the “no-more pipelines” bill, is mostly “unconstitutional.”
As for Lewis, she is pro-life and has consistently called out the Trudeau government for pushing a globalist, anti-life agenda on Canadians.
Early this year Lewis noted that the World Economic Forum (WEF) is “not our government” and that Canadians did not “sign up” to be attached to one of its charters. Lewis herself helped expose Canadians to the fact that Trudeau’s Liberal government signed onto the WEF charter in 2020.
Petitions to Canada’s House of Commons can be started by anyone but must have the support of five Canadian citizens or residents, along with the support of a sitting MP.
Once a petition has over 500 verified signatures, it is presented to the House of Commons, where it awaits an official government response.
Petition calls out UN’s sex-ed programs, saying Canadians did not vote for these to be pushed on kids
The Lewis-backed petition states that Canada should have nothing to do with the UN’s sexual education programs as they have been pushed on the populace without the “consent” of the people.
The petition reads that Agenda 2030’s SDGs, as well as its “Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE)” program, its UN Judicial Review, and its International Health Regulations (IHR) are being “rapidly implemented,” with the absent awareness and “consent of the People or their elected representatives.”
The petition reads that SDGs have “negative impacts on potentially every aspect of life,” in Canada, including “religious and cultural values, familial relations, education, nutrition, child development, property rights, economic and agricultural productivity, transportation, travel, health, informed consent, privacy and physical autonomy.”
When it comes to the UN’s CSE, the petition states that publicly funded educational institutions have been “damaging children while concealing information from parents.”
As a result, the CSE’s “normalization” of “sexual values and activities with regard to children are endorsed and enforced, beginning at birth.”
As for the WHO, it claims that the CSE gives kids “accurate, age-appropriate information,” however it then says sexual education should start at the age of 5 as per UN guidelines.
“Learning is incremental; what is taught at the earliest ages is very different from what is taught during puberty and adolescence,” reads the CSE.
A report which was published by the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, in collaboration with the WHO, told kids aged 5 to 8 that “people can show love for other people through touching and intimacy.”
UN’s health regulations look to violate Canadians’ charter rights, says petition
The petition notes that when it comes to Agenda 2030, many amendments to the International Health Regulations (IHR) were “secretly negotiated,” which as a result means they could “impose unacceptable, intrusive universal surveillance, violating the rights and freedoms guaranteed in the Canadian Bill of Rights and the Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”
Lastly, the petition states that the UN’s goals intend to impose “sweeping impacts on public and private life,” and only “serve the interests of UN/WHO and unelected private entities (e.g. World Economic Forum, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, International Planned Parenthood Federation, etc.), while diminishing the health rights and freedom of Canadians.”
The WHO says that the IHR is a legally binding international body to which all UN members are committed to.
Lewis has before blasted Canada’s involvement with the IHR and insisted last year that the Canadian government “defend our healthcare sovereignty” and vote against proposed U.S. amendments to the the IHR.
The WHO’s IHR provides an “overarching legal framework that defines countries’ rights and obligations in handling public health events and emergencies that have the potential to cross borders.”
“The IHR are an instrument of international law that is legally-binding on 196 countries, including the 194 WHO Member States,” notes the WHO.
So far this year, there have been more than 300 proposed amendments to the IHR when it comes to the declaration of a Public Health Emergency of International Concern.
Lewis recently called out the proposed amendments, saying that if enacted it would negatively affect how Canada deals with any future health crisis.
On September 26, she presented to the House of Commons a petition specific to the IHR, which called for “urgent” debates on the amendments.
Critics have sounded the alarm over the Trudeau government’s involvement in the WEF and other globalist groups, pointing to the socialist nature of the “Great Reset” agenda and its similarities to Communist China’s totalitarian Social Credit System.
Lewis in June of this year had asked for a full disclosure of all “contracts, transfer payments, memoranda of understanding, letters of intent, charters, accords, projects and associations between the government and the WEF since November 4, 2015.”
The outcomes from the Order Paper resulted in a 127-page response that was tabled in the House of Commons on September 18.
Lewis has in the past blasted the WEF and its Known Traveller Digital Identification (KTDI) programs as “glitching failures.”
Israel wants Canada to criminalize growing displays of solidarity with Palestinians.
In a bid to amplify calls to ban Palestine solidarity marches, Israel’s ambassador Iddo Moed told the Canadian Press on Thursday, “I don’t think that democracies allow people to hate and to incite, and I think that that is something that is looked at very carefully in many places, including Canada.” He added, “when is a line crossed that is between supporting a cause and between changing our values in a way that incites hatred and violence and even glorification of horrendous terrorist attacks.”
As a purported example of the “hatred” Moed is referring to, the CP story reported “One sign spotted at the Oct. 9 protest outside Toronto’s Nathan Phillips Square read: ‘Occupation is a crime, resistance is a response.’”
Moed is seeking to boost a push to change Canada’s criminal code. Last week the Globe and Mail published “Rallies raise question of whether Canada should have a law against public cheering of terrorism” and the National Post’s John Ivison called for federal legislation to criminalize the protests in “Tolerating the glorification of terror and slaughter is societal suicide”. Similarly, the host of CBC’s Power & Politics David Cochrane asked foreign affairs minister Melanie Joly whether Canadians participating in Palestine solidarity rallies should be prosecuted for supporting terrorism while National Post reporter Tristin Hopper mused about banning the Palestinian flag. On Twitter Hopper noted, “So when do we declare the Palestinian flag a hate symbol? I’m not seeing a lot of them being waved by people who *don’t* support mass-murder.”
Taking a page from Hopper’s line of thinking, a principal at an Ottawa elementary school recently asked a student to remove the Palestinian flag as their profile picture. “We will follow up with your family because we want to keep all students feeling safe, welcome and included in our classrooms,” the principal is recorded saying.
This isn’t an isolated case. On Thursday prominent Toronto teacher Javier DaVila tweeted, “I’ve received dozens of reports from parents of children in Ontario education who’ve been targeted, attacked or suspended for wearing Keffiyehs, displaying Palestinian flags, expressing solidarity with or even saying Palestine.”
In a bid to blunt opposition to Israel’s genocidal policies, the media and politicians have hounded CUPE Ontario leader Fred Hahn and Hamilton NDP MPP Sarah Jama. They’ve also vilified student unions standing for Palestinian rights and called for them to be defunded.
While they obsess about one-sided student union statements, the media has all but ignored racism spouted by more influential pro-Israel actors. They are uninterested that the head of Montreal’s Federation CJA told an audience, which included multiple elected officials, that “the barbarians are at the gate” or that Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs hosted a speaker days after he tweeted an image of an Israeli military boot crushing a Palestinian cockroach. The leaders of the four main political parties spoke at the same CIJA conference.
Without a hint of awareness of the irony, organizations that proclaim Israel as “the only democracy in the Middle East” and condemn anyone who draws parallels between Nazi behaviour and Israel’s, as well as newspaper columnists who decry leftists when they “de-platform” right wingers, target the jobs of Palestine’s supporters.
Zionist campaigners have targeted multiple individuals’ livelihoods. Under outside pressure, a number of public servants are being “probed for anti-Israel posts” while a doctor who has done humanitarian work in Gaza and elsewhere, Ben Thomson, was suspended by Mackenzie Health for his Palestine advocacy. Air Canada even fired a pilot for posting Palestine protest photos on social media.
In response to the witch-hunt, Labour 4 Palestine has launched an action campaign titled “Defend free speech. Stop the attack on Palestine solidarity.” For its part, Scholar Strike Canada released a statement condemning “University Administrators and the Western media for their ongoing Threats against Scholars and Students in Solidarity with Palestinian People in Gaza.” In response to the Ontario premier’s smears, Jama formally threatened a defamation suit against Doug Ford.
Notwithstanding the witch-hunt, tens of thousands of Canadians have taken to the streets in recent days. On Tuesday night multiple thousands rallied and marched in emergency protests in Montreal, Ottawa, Calgary and Toronto against Israel killing hundreds at the Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza. A few days earlier more than 5,000 marched in Montréal against Canada’s complicity with Israel’s genocidal violence in Gaza.
More protests are planned Friday and this weekend. The best way to respond to repression of solidarity is to amplify Palestine solidarity work.
Is the idea of a “highly organized Israel lobby” antisemitic? An apartheid-promoting Globe and Mail columnist claims as much.
In attacking the Canadian Union of Public Employees for standing in solidarity with Palestinians Robyn Urback tweeted, “Points for alleging a Jewish conspiracy, but if CUPE really wanted to go full antisemitic trope, they should have mentioned something about poisoning the wells.” Below her message Urback quote tweeted a colleague stating, “CUPE Ontario says it’s targeted by ‘trolls’ – ‘a highly organized pro-Israel lobby,’ which targeted [Union president] Fred Hahn and CUPE 3906 for ‘recognition of Palestinians’ rights under international law to resist occupation through armed struggle.’”
But Urback knows full well there are many organizations backed by substantial wealth promoting Israel. This is not a trope. This is reality that is easily fact checked and should have been by any honest journalist.
In a sign of her dishonesty, Urback previously wrote about a lobby sponsored trip to Israel she participated in. Urback went on BirthRight, a program that pays for young Jews to go Israel to become “intellectual ambassadors” for the country.
The preeminent force in the “highly organized Israel lobby” is the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. CIJA has over 40 staff and a $10 million budget. In addition, B’nai B’rith has a handful of offices across the country. For its part, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center Canada’s budget is $7-10 million annually. These groups work closely with StandWithUs Canada, CAMERA, Allied Voices for Israel, Israel on Campus, Honest Reporting Canada and other Israeli nationalist political organizations. Additionally, more than 200 registered Canadian charities assist projects in Israel and engage in at least some pro-Israel campaigning domestically. There are also numerous Jewish private schools, summer camps and community centres that actively promote Israel.
All these groups are backed by substantial wealth. Patron of CIJA, the Jewish federations of Toronto, Montréal, Winnipeg, Windsor, Calgary, Edmonton, Hamilton, London, Ottawa, Vancouver and Atlantic Canada raise $200 million annually and have over $1 billion in assets.
A large amount of private wealth strengthens Israel lobby groups’ influence. Since 2013 the chief fundraiser for the Trudeau Liberals has been Stephen Bronfman, scion of an arch Israeli nationalist family. Bronfman has millions invested in Israeli technology companies and over the years the Bronfman clan has secured arms for Israeli forces and supported its military in other ways. Bronfman openly linked his fundraising for Trudeau to Israel. In 2013 the Globe and Mail reported: “Justin Trudeau is banking on multimillionaire Stephen Bronfman to turn around the Liberal Party’s financial fortunes in order to take on the formidable Conservative fundraising machine…. Mr. Bronfman helped raise $2-million for Mr. Trudeau’s leadership campaign. Mr. Bronfman is hoping to win back the Jewish community, whose fundraising dollars have been going more and more to the Tories because of the party’s pro-Israel stand. ‘We’ll work hard on that,’ said Mr. Bronfman, adding that ‘Stephen Harper has never been to Israel and I took Justin there five years ago and he was referring at the end of the trip to Israel as ‘we.’ So I thought that was pretty good.’”
Other notable Canadian moguls have long histories of ensuring ties between Israel and Canada. Worth more than $3 billion prior to his death, David Azrieli was among the richest Canadians. In his youth he served in the paramilitary Haganah group during the 1948 war. His unit was responsible for the Battle of Jerusalem, including forcibly displacing 10,000 Palestinians. Azrieli was also a real estate developer in Israel and in 2011 he made a controversial donation to Im Tirtzu, a hardline Israeli-nationalist organization (deemed a “fascist” group by an Israeli court).
Worth $1.6 billion, Gerald Schwartz and his wife Heather Reisman created the Heseg Foundation for Lone Soldiers, which provides millions of dollars annually for non-Israelis who fight in the IDF.
In recent years Canadian-Israeli billionaire Sylvan Adams has plowed hundreds of millions of dollars into various sports and cultural initiatives to rebrand Israel.
Other Canadian billionaires Larry Tanenbaum, Mark Scheinberg, David Cheriton, Mitch Garber, Daryl Katz, Seymour Schulich, as well as the Zekelman, Reichmann and Sherman families, all back Israel. Again, none of this a conspiracy theory or antisemitic trope. It is simple reality and easily fact-checked if one is interested.
It is good, not bad, that a union leader mentions powerful lobbyists influencing Canadian politicians to take certain policy positions. Democracy requires shining a light on such lobbying. Is Urback against this very common practice of good journalists?
Canadians politicians express unmatched fidelity to a state all leading human rights groups say is committing the crime of apartheid. Trudeau’s government organized a pizza party for Canadians fighting in the Israeli military, sued to block proper labels on wines from illegal settlements and announced that should Canada win a seat on the United Nations Security Council it would act as an “asset for Israel” on the council. In recent days Canadian politicians have fallen over themselves to express support for Israel as that country obliterates Gaza, kills dozens in the West Bank and bombs Lebanon, Egypt and Syria.
There’s nothing conspiratorial or untoward about citing the role of a “highly organized Israel lobby”. In fact, there would be nothing conspiratorial or untoward to describe it as a “highly organized Jewish Israel lobby”. A slew of self-described Jewish organizations are deeply involved in anti-Palestinian campaigning and no other lobby focused on a country/ethnicity/religion is near as well-resourced or organized as the above mentioned Canadian Jewish groups.
That’s not to say there aren’t other political and cultural forces shaping Canadian backing for Israel. Zionism began in Canada in the latter half of the 1800s as a Christian movement and there’s still Christian Zionist forces. At the turn of the 20th century Canada became staunchly pro-Zionist due to its close ties to the British empire and Washington’s perspective has significant influence today. There’s also a European ‘settler solidarity’ element to Canadian Zionism and Israel advocates wield a unique and powerful stick: The ability to play victim and smear those advocating for justice as racist.
Robyn Urback knows full well there’s a “highly organized Israel lobby”. Her claim that CUPE is anti-Jewish to mention this is ridiculous. It is also bad journalism and most likely a projection of her (perhaps unintentional) anti-Palestinian racism.
It used to be a truth universally acknowledged by citizens of democratic nations that freedom of speech was the basis not just of democracy, but of all human rights.
When a person or group can censor the speech of others, there is – by definition – an imbalance of power. Those exercising the power can decide what information and which opinions are allowed, and which should be suppressed. In order to maintain their power, they will naturally suppress information and views that challenge their position.
Free speech is the only peaceful way to hold those in power accountable, challenge potentially harmful policies, and expose corruption. Those of us privileged to live in democracies instinctively understand this nearly sacred value of free speech in maintaining our free and open societies.
Or do we?
Alarmingly, it seems like many people in what we call democratic nations are losing that understanding. And they seem willing to cede their freedom of speech to governments, organizations, and Big Tech companies who, supposedly, need to control the flow of information to keep everyone “safe.”
The locus for the disturbing shift away from free speech is the 21st-century’s global public square: the Internet. And the proclaimed reasons for allowing those in power to diminish our free speech on the Internet are: “disinformation” and “hate speech.”
In this article, I will review the three-step process by which anti-disinformation laws are introduced. Then, I will review some of the laws being rolled out in multiple countries almost simultaneously, and what such laws entail in terms of vastly increasing the potential for censorship of the global flow of information.
How to Pass Censorship Laws
Step 1: Declare an existential threat to democracy and human rights
Step 2: Assert that the solution will protect democracy and human rights
Step 3: Enact anti-democratic, anti-human rights censorship fast and in unison
Lies, propaganda, “deep fakes,” and all manner of misleading information have always been present on the Internet. The vast global information hub that is the World Wide Web inevitably provides opportunities for criminals and other nefarious actors, including child sex traffickers and evil dictators.
At the same time, the Internet has become the central locus of open discourse for the world’s population, democratizing access to information and the ability to publish one’s views to a global audience.
The good and bad on the Internet reflect the good and bad in the real world. And when we regulate the flow of information on the Internet, the same careful balance between blocking truly dangerous actors, while retaining maximum freedom and democracy, must apply.
Distressingly, the recent slew of laws governing Internet information are significantly skewed in the direction of limiting free speech and increasing censorship. The reason, the regulators claim, is that fake news, disinformation, and hate speech are existential threats to democracy and human rights.
Here are examples of dire warnings, issued by leading international organizations, about catastrophic threats to our very existence purportedly posed by disinformation:
Propaganda, misinformation and fake news have the potential to polarise public opinion, to promote violent extremism and hate speech and, ultimately, to undermine democracies and reduce trust in the democratic processes. – Council of Europe
The world must address the grave global harm caused by the proliferation of hate and lies in the digital space. – United Nations
Considering the existential peril of disinformation and hate speech, these same groups assert that any solution will obviously promote the opposite:
Given such a global threat, we clearly need a global solution. And, of course, such a solution will increase democracy, protect the rights of vulnerable populations, and respect human rights. – WEF
Moreover, beyond a mere assertion that increasing democracy and respecting human rights are built into combating disinformation, international law must be invoked.
In its Common Agenda Policy Brief from June 2023, Information Integrity on Digital Platforms, the UN details the international legal framework for efforts to counter hate speech and disinformation.
First, it reminds us that freedom of expression and information are fundamental human rights:
Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and article 19 (2) of the Covenant protect the right to freedom of expression, including the freedom to seek, receive and impart information and ideas of all kinds, regardless of frontiers, and through any media.
Linked to freedom of expression, freedom of information is itself a right. The General Assembly has stated: “Freedom of information is a fundamental human right and is the touchstone of all the freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated.” (p. 9)
Then, the UN brief explains that disinformation and hate speech are such colossal, all-encompassing evils that their very existence is antithetical to the enjoyment of any human rights:
Hate speech has been a precursor to atrocity crimes, including genocide. The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide prohibits “direct and public incitement to commit genocide”.
In its resolution 76/227, adopted in 2021, the General Assembly emphasized that all forms of disinformation can negatively impact the enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms, as well as the attainment of the Sustainable Development Goals. Similarly, in its resolution 49/21, adopted in 2022, the Human Rights Council affirmed that disinformation can negatively affect the enjoyment and realization of all human rights.
This convoluted maze of legalese leads to an absurd, self-contradictory sequence of illogic:
Everything the UN is supposed to protect is founded on the freedom of information, which along with free speech is a fundamental human right.
The UN believes hate speech and disinformation destroy all human rights.
THEREFORE, anything we do to combat hate speech and disinformation protects all human rights, even if it abrogates the fundamental human rights of free speech and information, on which all other rights depend.
Because: genocide!
In practice, what this means is that, although the UN at one point in its history considered the freedom of speech and information fundamental to all other rights, it now believes the dangers of hate speech and disinformation eclipse the importance of protecting those rights.
The same warping of democratic values, as delineated by our international governing body, is now occurring in democracies the world over.
Censorship Laws and Actions All Happening Now
If hate speech and disinformation are the precursors of inevitable genocidal horrors, the only way to protect the world is through a coordinated international effort. Who should lead this campaign?
According to the WEF, “Governments can provide some of the most significant solutions to the crisis by enacting far-reaching regulations.”
Which is exactly what they’re doing.
United States
In the US, freedom of speech is enshrined in the Constitution, so it’s hard to pass laws that might violate it.
Instead, the government can work with academic and nongovernmental organizations to strong-arm social media companies into censoring disfavored content. The result is the Censorship-Industrial Complex, a vast network of government-adjacent academic and nonprofit “anti-disinformation” outfits, all ostensibly mobilized to control online speech in order to protect us from whatever they consider to be the next civilization-annihilating calamity.
The Twitter Files and recent court cases reveal how the US government uses these groups to pressure online platforms to censor content it doesn’t like:
In some cases, companies may even take it upon themselves to control the narrative according to their own politics and professed values, with no need for government intervention. For example: Google, the most powerful information company in the world, has been reported to fix its algorithms to promote, demote, and disappear content according to undisclosed internal “fairness” guidelines.
In their benevolent desire to protect us from hate speech and disinformation, Google/YouTube immediately removed the original Project Veritas video from the Internet.
European Union
The Digital Services Act came into force November 16, 2022. The European Commission rejoiced that “The responsibilities of users, platforms, and public authorities are rebalanced according to European values.” Who decides what the responsibilities and what the “European values” are?
very large platforms and very large online search engines [are obligated] to prevent the misuse of their systems by taking risk-based action and by independent audits of their risk management systems
EU countries will have the primary [oversight] role, supported by a new European Board for Digital Services
Brownstone contributor David Thunder explains how the act provides an essentially unlimited potential for censorship:
This piece of legislation holds freedom of speech hostage to the ideological proclivities of unelected European officials and their armies of “trusted flaggers.”
The European Commission is also giving itself the power to declare a Europe-wide emergency that would allow it to demand extra interventions by digital platforms to counter a public threat.
UK
TheOnline Safety Bill was passed September 19, 2023. The UK government says “It will make social media companies more responsible for their users’ safety on their platforms.”
According to Internet watchdog Reclaim the Net, this bill constitutes one of the widest sweeping attacks on privacy and free speech in a Western democracy:
The bill imbues the government with tremendous power; the capability to demand that online services employ government-approved software to scan through user content, including photos, files, and messages, to identify illegal content.
The new powers will enable the ACMA [Australian Communications and Media Authority] to monitor efforts and require digital platforms to do more, placing Australia at the forefront in tackling harmful online misinformation and disinformation, while balancing freedom of speech.
This legislation hands over a wide range of new powers to ACMA, which includes the enforcement of an industry-wide “standard” that will obligate digital platforms to remove what they determine as misinformation or disinformation.
Controversially, the government will be exempt from the proposed laws, as will professional news outlets, meaning that ACMA will not compel platforms to police misinformation and disinformation disseminated by official government or news sources.
The legislation will enable the proliferation of official narratives, whether true, false or misleading, while quashing the opportunity for dissenting narratives to compete.
Canada
The Online Streaming Act (Bill C-10) became law April 27, 2023. Here’s how the Canadian government describes it, as it relates to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC):
The legislation clarifies that online streaming services fall under the Broadcasting Act and ensures that the CRTC has the proper tools to put in place a modern and flexible regulatory framework for broadcasting. These tools include the ability to make rules, gather information, and assign penalties for non-compliance.
Bill C-11 gives the CRTC unprecedented regulatory authority to monitor all online audiovisual content. This power extends to penalizing content creators and platforms and through them, content creators that fail to comply.
World Health Organization
In its proposed new Pandemic Treaty and in the amendments to its International Health Regulations, all of which it hopes to pass in 2024, the WHO seeks to enlist member governments to
Counter and address the negative impacts of health-related misinformation, disinformation, hate speech and stigmatization, especially on social media platforms, on people’s physical and mental health, in order to strengthen pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, and foster trust in public health systems and authorities.
Brownstone contributor David Bell writes that essentially this will give the WHO, an unelected international body,
power to designate opinions or information as ‘mis-information or disinformation,’ and require country governments to intervene and stop such expression and dissemination. This … is, of course, incompatible with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, but these seem no longer to be guiding principles for the WHO.
Conclusion
We are at a pivotal moment in the history of Western democracies. Governments, organizations and companies have more power than ever to decide what information and views are expressed on the Internet, the global public square of information and ideas.
It is natural that those in power should want to limit expression of ideas and dissemination of information that might challenge their position. They may believe they are using censorship to protect us from grave harms of disinformation and hate speech, or they may be using those reasons cynically to consolidate their control over the flow of information.
Either way, censorship inevitably entails the suppression of free speech and information, without which democracy cannot exist.
Why are the citizens of democratic nations acquiescing to the usurpation of their fundamental human rights? One reason may be the relatively abstract nature of rights and freedoms in the digital realm.
In the past, when censors burned books or jailed dissidents, citizens could easily recognize these harms and imagine how awful it would be if such negative actions were turned against them. They could also weigh the very personal and imminent negative impact of widespread censorship against much less prevalent dangers, such as child sex trafficking or genocide. Not that those dangers would be ignored or downplayed, but it would be clear that measures to combat such dangers should not include widespread book burning or jailing of regime opponents.
In the virtual world, if it’s not your post that is removed, or your video that is banned, it can be difficult to fathom the wide-ranging harm of massive online information control and censorship. It is also much easier online than in the real world to exaggerate the dangers of relatively rare threats, like pandemics or foreign interference in democratic processes. The same powerful people, governments, and companies that can censor online information can also flood the online space with propaganda, terrifying citizens in the virtual space into giving up their real-world rights.
The conundrum for free and open societies has always been the same: How to protect human rights and democracy from hate speech and disinformation without destroying human rights and democracy in the process.
The answer embodied in the recent coordinated enactment of global censorship laws is not encouraging for the future of free and open societies.
Debbie Lerman, 2023 Brownstone Fellow, has a degree in English from Harvard. She is a retired science writer and a practicing artist in Philadelphia, PA.
The Canadian Department of Heritage appears to be aligning itself with a potentially alarming stance, according to a recent write-up by Blacklock’s Reporter. Liberals within the administration have expressed the need for a significant boost in funds to target what they deem as “incorrect” political perspectives. This request is centered around the Digital Citizen Initiative (DCI), a program set into motion by Justin Trudeau’s Liberals in 2018 under the tagline of combating online disinformation to aid democracy and social inclusion.
The DCI appears to outstretch its reach. The program puts forth that its resources are insufficient and demands more financial backing. It claims that disinformation right now poses extensive damaging potential, affecting Canadians’ health, safety, political beliefs, trust in media, and their civic and democratic engagement. However, upon raising these grave concerns, it offers no substantial evidence or instances to back them up.
This widening net also engulfs various societal groups, claiming that disinformation creates an environment rife with discrimination, stigma, and marginalization, possibly fueling social divisions. Groups like people with lower digital competency and those from minority backgrounds, it maintains, might be susceptible to this so-called disinformation campaign.
In response, Canada’s government granted DCI $7.5 million for two years, intending to fund activities centered around digital, news, and civic literacy.
But the appetite of DCI seems insatiable. An additional $19.4 million was given to DCI and the Digital Citizen Contribution Program (DCCP) for research correlated with the government’s aim of understanding, tackling, and revisiting online misinformation.
Several key universities, non-profit organizations, and policy forums, amongst other institutions, across Canada have been the beneficiaries of DCI’s grants.
Human trafficking is certainly one of the most monstrous mass criminal activities ever undertaken by other humans (although calling them “humans” is a bit of a stretch). And yet, there’s a special kind of this deeply repulsive crime that pushes it to diabolical proportions – child trafficking. Underage kids, particularly those who were abandoned, sold or have very poor/abusive family backgrounds, are by far the most vulnerable group. The depraved criminals who engage in such illicit activities specifically target unfortunate children and given there are millions of them all around the globe, particularly in war-torn areas, the “recruitment pool” is effectively endless. Unfortunately, the demand on the black market also seems to be constant and growing, making it a very lucrative and appealing prospect for criminals.
Children are usually forced into literal slavery that includes forced labor, sexual exploitation or prostitution, drug smuggling, forced begging, organ harvesting, etc. Many terrorist groups and narco-traffickers even use them as child soldiers, forcing them into dangerous firefights with rival groups or even official security forces such as the police and/or military. Although estimates vary significantly, as the exact data is incomplete at best, expectedly, the world’s most populous countries have the highest number of child trafficking victims. And yet, it seems the United States is the most profitable market for such criminal activities. Back in 2018, Tim Swarens of USA Today calculated that adults purchase children for sex at least 2.5 million times a year in the US alone. Worse yet, this is only based on available data. … continue
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