Trick or heat
Climate Discussion Nexus | November 6, 2019
The National Post reports on a carpenter named Daniel Alagalak who spends Hallowe’en cruising around with a shotgun, not to scare people or because he’s one of those maniacs popular in urban legend. Rather, he’s keeping polar bears from eating the kids in his community of Arviat, Nunavut where, the Post reports without criticism, comment or substantiation, “climate change has led to a steady increase in polar bears migrating through town”. What? You mean the same climate change that up until 5 minutes ago was supposedly driving them to extinction?
It was just last week that we learned about University of Victoria polar bear expert Susan Crockford losing her position for pointing out that polar bear numbers are rising and they show no vulnerability to climate change, despite years of activist claims otherwise. Suddenly climate change is no longer to blame for them disappearing, instead they’re becoming so numerous they’re a menace to the locals, and that’s climate change too.
You can blame anything on climate change and not get challenged. If there really were razor blades in Hallowe’en apples you could blame it. By the same token you can’t attribute anything good to climate change (like, say, more abundant harvests) and escape contumely. But what does this statement about polar bears even mean? The story makes no effort to explain.
Polar bears are good in environmental propaganda and through the very thick window of a protected tour vehicle. Otherwise they’re a bit grim, making grizzlies look like housecats. But is warming causing there to be more of them? Is it making them hungry so they’re raiding the garbage dump? Is it driving them south, or north, or west by northwest?
Until recently it was meant to be driving them extinct. Which according to our dictionary means there’d be fewer. Later it was… well… what? The story says the bears are “a big issue in Arviat this time of year, Halloween or not…. They’re waiting for the sea ice to form on the bay so they can migrate out for the winter.” But what has the straggling remnant tens of thousands of surviving polar bears waiting for ice to form in autumn as it always does got to do with warming? Is the ice forming later?
Apparently not. Arviat turns out to be on the west coast of Hudson Bay, quite near… nothing whatsoever. Well, Egg Island is perhaps 125 km away but it has no people in it, which gives you some idea. But the nearest community featured to this point in our Climate Emergency Tour series is Churchill, MB, roughly 250 km due south. (If you ask Google Maps it says you can’t get there from here.) And in Churchill the impact of the climate crisis on average temperature and days below zero has been zero. Mind you in Cambridge Bay, also in Nunavut though so much further north that it makes Arviat look like Scarborough, the change since 1930 has been… uh… none at all either. And it turns out that weatherstats.ca has data from Arviat going back to 1974, with a gap from 1976 to 1983 (just click on the “10x – Most” button), and it shows that average maximum, mean and minimum temperature haven’t budged. Twenty years ago the high was 29 and the low -40, and this year were 28.2 and -43.5. And this attracts bears how?
Since the story offered no explanation of the link between climate change and polar bears thriving in the Arctic it can’t exactly be said to be wrong. But it didn’t get anything right either, except the quick genuflexion at the altar of warming. You can’t go wrong with one of those.
Leaked document reveals Sidewalk Labs’ Toronto plans
Private taxation, private roads, charter schools, corporate cops and judges, and punishment for people who choose privacy.
BoingBoing | October 30, 2019
Tomorrow, Toronto’s City Council will hold a key vote on Sidewalk Labs’s plan to privatize much of the city’s lakeshore in the name of creating a “smart city” owned by Google’s parent company, Alphabet.
Today, the Globe and Mail published a summary of Sidewalk Labs’s leaked “yellow book,” a 2016 document that lays out Sidewalk Labs’s vision for Toronto and future projects in Detroit, Denver, and Alameda.
The plan lays out a corporate-owned city similar to Lake Buena Vista, the privately owned municipality established by the Walt Disney Company on a massive tract of central Florida land that contains the Walt Disney World resort.
The plan calls for the creation of privately owned and regulated roads, charter schools in place of publicly administered schools, the power to levy and spend property taxes without democratic oversight, a corporate criminal justice system where the cops and judges work for Sidewalk Labs, and totalizing, top-to-bottom, continuous surveillance.
Torontonians who decline to “share” information with Sidewalk Labs will not receive the same level of services as those who do.
Sidewalk Labs says that the document does not reflect its current ambitions.
Sidewalk Labs previously grossly understated the scope of its ambitions. When we revealed that the company had secretly secured the right to build across virtually the city’s entire waterfront, they lied to us before finally admitting it.
Those choosing to remain anonymous would not be able to access all of the area’s services: Automated taxi services would not be available to anonymous users, and some merchants might be unable to accept cash, the book warns.
The document also describes reputation tools that would lead to a “new currency for community co-operation,” effectively establishing a social credit system. Sidewalk could use these tools to “hold people or businesses accountable” while rewarding good behaviour, such as by rewarding a business’s good customer service with an easier or cheaper renewal process on its licence.
This “accountability system based on personal identity” could also be used to make financial decisions.
“A borrower’s stellar record of past consumer behaviour could make a lender, for instance, more likely to back a risky transaction, perhaps with the interest rates influenced by digital reputation ratings,” it says.
Sidewalk Labs document reveals company’s early plans for data collection, tax powers, criminal justice [Tom Cardoso and Josh O’Kane/Globe and Mail]
Has climate change jumped the shark?
Climate Discussion Nexus | October 23, 2019
You might not think so, with time running out for deniers (again) except perhaps as psychiatric patients. But there are signs of fatigue with it in the political system. In Australia, a senior Labour figure has caused turmoil in his party by suggesting they not run in the next election on the hugely ambitious plans that cost them the last one. And when CNN and the New York Times sponsored the 4th, 3-hour debate among contenders for the Democratic nomination, the moderators didn’t ask a single question about climate and the candidates didn’t make it an issue. You might think it’s because everyone agrees. But what if it’s because nobody has anything useful to suggest and most people secretly don’t care?
Voters claim to be anti-global-warming, of course. But as we learned including from the Yellow Vest upheaval in France, and Canadians’ views on carbon taxes, and any number of similar issues in other countries, citizens aren’t willing to pay any significant price to take action against greenhouse gases, suggesting they don’t really think there’s a problem.
Except when all-in politicians push the agenda too far. For instance deep blue California’s governor is now in big political trouble over high gas prices and unreliable power. And remember, high prices for less available energy is a feature not a bug of the climate alarmist movement, soothing talk of wind power notwithstanding.
The problem isn’t really the cost of alternative energy, because except by accident politicians are not willing to raise the price of energy to levels that would discourage its use. There was some kerfuffle over a study finding that green energy policies cost Britain £9 billion per year, or £340 per household. But while an increase in energy bills means hardship to the poor, Britain is rich, and most households may resent the extra cost but are not unable to pay it. The problem is how much more it’s going to cost to try to get renewables up from their current trivial share… or what happens when you just can’t. (Wind farms, like solar farms, have thus far been cherry-picking sites.) On which politicians have little to say that is not both stale and unconvincing.
The hardcore believe that if voters are not willing to pay high carbon taxes and otherwise do without the conveniences of modern life, they are short-sighted idiots and democracy itself must give way in this climate emergency. Meanwhile most voters are happy just to virtue-signal, if only to avoid fights with their grade-schoolers trained to correct their pronunciation of Thunberg (it’s Toon-BUIY not THUN-berg). But they simply aren’t convinced that it’s the end of the winter and the world as we know it because out their window things are going pretty much as they always have. And since politicians are repeating implausible mantras about what’s supposedly happening and how to fix it painlessly, a lot of them just tune it out and go about their business.
Passionate opposition to climate change coupled with timid or nonexistent proposals to fight it must inevitably become a stale punchline.
University Feels No Need to Explain: Crockford Story Part 2
The University of Victoria receives hundreds of millions of tax dollars, yet refused to answer a single question about the firing of Susan Crockford.
By Donna Laframboise | Big Picture News | October 21, 2019
I recently wrote about Susan Crockford, a world-renowned Canadian zoologist. After serving 15 years as an unpaid Adjunct Professor at the University of Victoria (UVic), her adjunct status has now been revoked. First she was banned from participating in UVic’s Speakers Bureau. Then she was excommunicated from UVic altogether.
In an era in which others bite their tongues and keep their heads down, Crockford courageously disputes the claim that polar bears are at risk from climate change. She has now paid a heavy price.
It’s time to remind ourselves that UVic is a public institution funded by tax dollars. According to its most recent budget document, it spends more than half a billion a year. 52% of its general operating revenue comes directly from provincial and federal government grants. An additional 37% of its revenue comes from student fees – which themselves rely heavily on government grants.
The UVic budget document says a great deal about government funding, but not once does it use the word taxpayer. This institution appears to have forgotten that it owes its very existence to ordinary Canadians. Money is taken away from ordinary people, in the form of taxes, and handed over to UVic to spend.
Publicly funded entities have a special obligation to be transparent. Under British Columbia law, for example, they must publish the salaries of everyone earning above $75,000 a year (see UVic’s annual Financial Information Act report, posted online here).
Crockford was purged even though she didn’t cost UVic one red cent. Compare that to the $188,510 in salary plus $14,583 in expenses Ann Stahl earned last year. While serving as chair of the Anthropology Department, Stahl stopped Crockford from giving free lectures via UVic’s Speakers Bureau.
Compare Crockford’s pricetag to the $145,532 plus $17,272 in expenses April Nowell earned last year. Nowell was chair of the Anthropology Department when it excommunicated Crockford altogether.
We can also compare Crockford’s unpaid position to the $85,851 salary of Paul Marck, the UVic spokesperson I dealt with. He advised me that UVic department heads earning the salaries mentioned above aren’t allowed to speak to journalists working on stories for national newspapers. Everything has to go through Media Relations and Public Affairs, he said, inviting me to e-mail him written questions. That was on September 13th.
I submitted questions the same day. Two dozen of them. Do you know how many Marck answered? Zero. Zip.
I began by asking him to confirm that Crockford had been an adjunct professor for 15 years. He refused to say. After a ridiculous delay of 18 days, a man who’s paid $85,000 annually replied to my long list of questions with a single paragraph. Here’s his October 1st response, in its entirety:
Hello Donna;
Yes, you are correct that Dr. Susan Crockford held an appointment as a non-remunerated, adjunct assistant professor with the University of Victoria’s Department of Anthropology. Under the constraints of provincial privacy legislation, the university is unable to provide personal information relating to the status or renewal of adjunct appointments. For clarification, those who hold adjunct positions are neither faculty members nor employees of the university. As to your remaining questions, the university does not disclose identifying or personal information about our faculty members, staff or students including information about internal processes. We respect the privacy rights of all members of our campus community.
Sincerely,
Paul
My first group of questions merely attempted to verify dates and basic information. Double-checking facts with both sides of a story is important, but UVic made that impossible. If my understanding of events was inaccurate, this was UVic’s opportunity to let me know. Instead, it chose to stonewall, refusing to say if the Speakers Bureau had ever given Crockford negative feedback, or if anyone in the Anthropology Department had advised her she was at risk of losing her adjunct status.
My next six questions were emphatically not about identifiable individuals. I asked how many people had been on the committee that revoked Crockford’s adjunct status. How many had voted for her versus against her. How many were zoologists? How many adjuncts had the Anthropology Department severed ties with over the past decade? How many adjuncts had UVic as a whole severed ties with? I also asked about safeguards that would prevent adjuncts from being punished for politically incorrect views.
Answering those questions would have violated the privacy of absolutely no one. It’s hilarious that, when I then asked how many UVic professors had matched Crockford’s achievement by being recently published in a prestigious scientific journal, UVic declined even to answer that. University PR people spend their days boasting about this sort of thing. They normally send journalists press releases begging for celebratory coverage.
My final group of questions concerned Crockford’s banishment from the Speakers Bureau. The first one asked why Stahl had refused to endorse – and had therefore silenced – Crockford. This clearly involved identifiable individuals, but the eight questions that followed did not. Here are four of them, typo and all. I’ve inserted the italics here:
ii. Since 2017, how many other UVic adjunct professors (within and beyond the Anthropology Department) are no longer participating in the Speakers Bureau due to a similar refusal on the part of their department chair?
iii. Since 2017, what percentage of UVic graduate students participating in the Speaker’s Bureau have been similarly required to secure written endorsement from their department chair?
iv. How many of these graduate studetns have been refused? [sic]
ix. What mechanisms exist to vet the content of Speakers Bureau presentations, particularly regarding controversial topics such as climate justice, renewable energy, Israeli-Palestinian relations, restorative justice, and so forth?
That last issue is of particular importance. Either there’s a system to vet presentations or there isn’t. I was seeking basic information, trying hard to understand what’s normal, sincerely trying to sort out what had transpired. UVic felt absolutely no need to explain, to reassure Canadian taxpayers that it had behaved honourably and fairly.
Let me repeat. The University of Victoria was given ample opportunity – 18 bleeping days. Like an untouchable and unaccountable monarch, it chose not to answer a single question.
If urgent climate action is needed, then let’s #BanPrivateJets
By Mark Jeftovik | Guerrilla Capitalism | October 4, 2019
As the din of climate hysteria grows ever louder, the eco-pious and super-rich call for urgent and drastic action on climate change. Justin Trudeau, still licking his wounds from being outed for his multiple episodes of blackface and brownface, took more heat today as he’s criss-crossing the country ahead of the forthcoming federal election with not one, but two private jets.
As these calls for immediate climate action are accelerating, in fact we’ve seen numerous trial balloons floated from a complicit mainsteam media (or as Canada’a reigning Liberals call it “Approved Media”).
These trial balloons / admonitions include:
- Eating less meat, or no meat, or perhaps eat maggots or eat people, to reduce carbon output.
- Driving less, fewer cars on the road, ban on gas powered vehicles, to reduce carbon output.
- Have less children, or no children, to reduce carbon output.
And of course:
- Fly less. Let’s have fewer planes in the air, to reduce carbon output.
These guidelines are understandably hard sells for Joe Public, as many common people like to eat meat, or need a car to get to-and-from work, and children, as demanding as they can be, eventually grow up and can mow our lawns and do chores around the house.
So if we’re serious about drastic climate action, right now, before the world ends, we need to do something that has maximum bang for the buck, while disrupting as few lives as possible. This way, the rabble masses will see that our leaders and elites are serious and they have the will to take whatever action necessary to make this happen.
#BanPrivateJets
The top 50 countries in the world in terms of private jet ownership have a total fleet of nearly 18,000 jets. According to Statista, private jet ownership is soaring in most developed countries (as wealth inequality accelerates thanks to central bank interventions and 10 years of Cantillon Effects).
According to The Independent, the most popular private jet is the Cessna Citation XLS, which I believe climate alarmist Leonardo Di Caprio may be boarding in the picture below, having been shunted to the runway via a private helicopter…
A Cessna Citation XLS burns approximately 6,030kg of CO2 per three hour flight.
It’s back-of-the-napkin, but let’s say a typical jet does 4 legs per week, at 3 hour legs. We get:
17,947 jets X 6,030 kg CO2/flight X 4 flights/week X 52 weeks = 22,509,845,280 kilograms of Co2.
Over 22 billion kilos of C02. Per year.
Of course, that estimate of 4 legs per week could be low. Elon Musk has a private jet that logged 150,000 miles in 2018. Enough to circle the globe 6 times.
But if we banned private jets, with immediate effect, no exceptions, very few working class and middle class people would be affected. In fact even upper class, lower-tier wealthy would be relatively unscathed. It would only affect the tiny sliver at the top of the wealth pyramid, the same ones who seem most vociferously adamant on drastic climate action now and who could best afford to make alternate arrangements for attending climate summits or other important events. The annual Davos summit could be held via Skype, for example.
Taking the important step now will set the tone for the coming, rapid and drastic restructuring of every aspect of our lives, and it will be an easier pill to swallow when the elitists driving this change are leading the charge by example. Be the change you wish to see! #BanPrivateJets
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LNG Investments Hit Record In 2019
By Irina Slav | Oilprice.com | September 26, 2019
Investments in liquefied natural gas since the start of the year have hit an all-time high of $50 billion, the International Energy Agency’s head, Fatih Birol, told an industry conference.
“This year, 2019 already broke the highest amount of (final investment decisions) for the first time ever, $50 billion,” Birol told the LNG Producer-Consumer conference in Tokyo, as quoted by Reuters.
Unsurprisingly, the driver of this growth in investments is growing demand for the fuel in Asia, with China still expected to overtake Japan as the world’s top importer of LNG.
“The biggest growth is coming from China. In the next five years, about one-third of global LNG demand will come from China alone,” Birol said. He added that in five years, China will become the largest importer of the fuel.
As for the growth in investments, there are no surprises there, either. The bulk of these has been made in the United States and Canada.
In a December 2018 report the Energy Information Administration said it expected the United States’ LNG export capacity to double by the end of this year to 8.9 billion cu ft daily. This will make the U.S. the third-largest exporter of LNG in terms of capacity after Qatar and Australia. By 2030, U.S. LNG exports are estimated to reach 17 billion cu ft daily, from some 3 billion cu ft at the start of 2019.
In Canada, there is just one LNG project under development right now—LNG Canada—but it could have a final capacity of 28 million tons of the fuel annually. The US$31-billion project is led by Shell, with minority participants including Petronas, PetroChina, Mitsubishi, and Kogas.
Meanwhile, Qatar is stepping up its efforts to keep its number-one spot in the global LNG export race. The country has lifted a moratorium on new drilling in its North Field—the world’s largest offshore gas field Qatar shares with Iran—aiming to boost export capacity by 43 percent to 11 million tons annually.
Global LNG demand is seen at 550 million tons by 2030, according to projections by IHS Markit.
Seizure of Iranian property to pay Americans another example of Canadian hypocrisy
By Yves Engler · September 19, 2019
While France, Germany, Russia and China seek detente, Canada is increasingly part of the US-Saudi Arabia-Israeli axis stoking conflict with Iran.
Canada recently seized and sold $30 million worth of Iranian properties in Ottawa and Toronto to compensate individuals in the US who had family members killed in a 2002 Hamas bombing in Israel and others who were held hostage by Hezbollah in 1986 and 1991. The Supreme Court of Canada and federal government sanctioned the seizure under the 2012 Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, which lifts immunity for countries labeled “state sponsors of terrorism” to allow individuals to claim their non-diplomatic assets.
While not much discussed by Canadian media or politicians, this is a substantial development. Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyyed Abbas Mousavi called the seizure “illegal” and in “direct contradiction with international law” while a spokesperson for Iran’s Guardian Council, Abbasali Kadkhodaei, accused Canada of “economic terrorism”. A senior member of Iran’s parliament said the country’s military should confiscate Canadian shipments crossing the Strait of Hormuz.
In a right side up world, the Iranian asset sale would lead to various more legitimate seizures. Relatives of the Lebanese Canadian el-Akhras family Israel wiped out, including four children aged 1 to 8, in 2006 are certainly at least as worthy of Canadian government-backed compensation. Ditto for Paeta Hess-Von Kruedener, a Canadian soldier part of a UN mission, killed by an Israeli fighter jet in Lebanon in 2006. Or Palestinian Canadian Ismail Zayid, who was driven from a West Bank village demolished to make way for the Jewish National Fund’s Canada Park.
In Haiti there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of individuals whose family members were killed at peaceful protests by a police force paid, trained and politically supported by Canada after US, French and Canadian troops overthrew the country’s elected president in 2004. Ten months after the coup I met a young man in Port-au-Prince who fled the country after armed thugs searching for him came to his house and killed his aunt. Before the coup Jeremy had been a journalist with the state television, which was identified with the ousted government. Should US or Canadian assets be seized to compensate him?
There are hundreds of Canadians and countless individuals elsewhere who have been victimized by Israeli, Canadian and US-backed terror more deserving of compensation than the Americans paid with Iranian assets for what Hamas and Hezbollah purportedly did decades ago. Should Israeli, US and Canadian government assets be seized to pay them?
It’s insightful to look at the double standard — approved by the Supreme Court — from another angle. In 2012 that court refused to hear a case against Anvil Mining for its direct role in Congolese troops killing 100, mostly unarmed civilians, near its Dikulushi mine in Katanga in October 2004. After a half-dozen members of the little-known Mouvement Revolutionnaire pour la Liberation du Katanga occupied the Canada-Australian company’s Kilwa concession, Anvil provided the trucks used to transport Congolese soldiers to the area and to dump the corpses of their victims into mass graves. The company also published a press release applauding the Congolese military’s dastardly deed. Though the company was managed from Montréal and its main shareholders were Vancouver’s First Quantum and the Canadian Pension Plan, the Québec Court of Appeal and Supreme Court concluded the survivors had to pursue remedies in either the Congo or Australia.
The Canadian media has devoted little attention to the seizure of Iranian assets. But, Forbes, Sputnik, Xinhua and a host of Iranian media have covered the story. At least three Iranian newspapers put it on their front page.
The Trudeau government’s failure to speak against the asset seizure, de-list Iran as a “state sponsor of terror” or repeal Stephen Harper’s Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act puts further lie to its commitment to a “rules based international order”. It is also another broken promise. Before the 2015 election Justin Trudeau told the CBC, “I would hope that Canada would be able to reopen its mission [in Tehran]. I’m fairly certain that there are ways to re-engage [Iran].”
But, don’t expect NDP foreign affairs critic Guy Caron or the media to ask why Canada hasn’t re-established relations with the nation of 80 million. By breaking his promise to restart diplomatic relations with Iran Trudeau has empowered those hurtling us towards a major conflict.
Iran should respond in kind to Canada’s sale of diplomatic properties: MP
Press TV – September 15, 2019
A senior member of the Iranian parliament has called for a decisive response to Canada’s sale of Iranian diplomatic properties in Ottawa and Toronto, saying Canadian shipments crossing the Strait of Hormuz in the Persian Gulf should be confiscated in response to the move.
“An order should be issued to confiscate ships and goods that set off from the Hormuz region to the destination of Canada,” said Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh on Sunday, adding, “This measure should be adopted as soon as possible.”
The comments came two days after Iranian Foreign Ministry warned Canada that the country should await consequences if it does not revoke a decision to sell Iranian diplomatic properties worth tens of millions of dollars in an alleged bid to compensate so-called victims of terror.
In a Friday statement, the ministry strongly condemned the move as “a clear breach of the international law,” and urged the Canadian government to immediately return the properties.
Foreign Ministry Spokesman Abbas Mousavi said Tehran will take action by itself to restore its rights based on international regulations if Ottawa fails to immediately revoke the unlawful decision and compensate the damages.
Falahatpisheh, a senior member of parliament’s committee on national security and foreign policy, said that courts in Iran should also be authorized to seize Canadian government properties in Iran.
He said, however, that responding in kind to the ruling issued in August by the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to sell the two Iranian-owned buildings would not suffice as Canada has not enough assets in Iran that could be subject to a similar court verdict.
The lawmaker, who made the remarks in an interview with the parliament news service, said Iran had a duty to decisively counter the sale of the properties in Canada, a move which he said was clearly influenced by political lobbies who seek to “plunder” Iran’s wealth.
Justin Trudeau’s Subordination to Israel, USA and Saudi in Joining the Attack on Iran and China
By Prof. Tony Hall | American Herald Tribune | September 14, 2019
The US and Israeli governors of occupied Canada have authorized their current puppet, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to complete an anti-Iranian initiative commenced by former Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The Trudeau government completed the process of selling off about $28 million in property seized from the government from which the Harper government withdrew the Canadian embassy in 2012.
The seizure and redistribution of Iranian assets in Canada has beneath it a ruling by Judge Glenn Hainey of the Ontario Superior Court of Justice. Judge Hainey’s heavily politicized ruling in this case in 2016 has been deemed “an embarrassment both to Canada and the legal profession.”
The enactment that helped set in motion this fiasco is Canada’s Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act passed into law in 2012 (JVTA). This legislation of the Harper government together with the ruling by Judge Hainey have imported into Canada the results of a series of US court rulings. These US rulings gave a green light to sue Iran on the basis of the Foreign Sovereign immunities Act. By following the US lead in the treatment of Iran
Canada became the second state in the world to proclaim predatory jurisdictions against states that it lists on the basis of ideological criteria, contrary to the established international-law principles of state sovereignty, state immunity, and equality of states. Canada’s list contains solely Iran and Syria, two states opposing the ongoing US geopolitical machination for “regime change” by a covertly supported mercenary war against Syria.
Ottawa’s Prof. Denis Rancourt has explained that the 2012 legislation, including amendments to Canada’s own Sovereign Immunity Act, has been used
as a pretext to enforce the US rulings, while additionally making absurd interpretations of the text of the JVTA in order to enforce rulings that have nothing to do with Canada and that are limitation barred. There was not even a civil cause of action for “terrorism” in Canada at the distant time when the claimed acts occurred. Judge Hainey did not consider and misrepresented valid legal arguments of Iran.
Dr. Rancourt goes further, pointing out the joint Canada-US initiative in mounting economic warfare against Iran violated a UN Convention in a fashion that has become tragically common in the era of the Global War on Terror. Dr. Rancourt indicates, “Canada’s new laws are explicit violations of the International Convention for the Suppression of the Financing of Terrorism (ICSFT).” The UN Convention was ratified by Canada in 2002. The Convention
delimits the conditions under which domestic-court jurisdiction can be established, defines the types of funds that can be seized, and constrains the state parties to carry out their obligations “in a manner consistent with the principles of sovereign equality and territorial integrity of States and that of non-intervention in the domestic affairs of other States”.
Canada is currently in the midst of a federal election campaign with a vote to take place on October 21st. How many will remind Justin Trudeau in this season of vote chasing that in his last election campaign he promised to re-establish normal diplomatic relations with the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
What is the worth of Prime Minister Trudeau’s political promises? In September of 2016 Stéphane Dion, Canada’s first Foreign Affairs Minister under the new Justin Trudeau government, initiated a move to return to normal diplomatic relations with Iran. Trudeau’s half-hearted attempt to resume diplomatic relations with Muslim-majority country ran into the concerted opposition of his handlers in Canada’s Israel Lobby.
Prof. Rancourt observed. “The Israel lobby has made it clear to Dion and to the Liberal Party that there will be a heavy price to pay for détente with Iran… The Israeli lobby’s wishes against Iran are bad for Canada and bad for the world.” As often happens with Justin Trudeau, Pierre Trudeau’s son chose to serve the war-mongering agenda of the Israel government over a peace agenda for Canada and the world. Trudeau has adopted from the previous Harper government the main outlines of the pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian platforms that have prevailed in Canada especially since the Harper neoconservatives took over in 2006.
When it comes to allowing the Israeli and US governments to prevail in determining Canada’s foreign policy, Prime Minister Trudeau is turning out to be a major liability. The failure to sort out a more productive relationship with Iran is not an isolated phenomenon. Trudeau has also carelessly sabotaged the health of Canada-China relations by agreeing to the US request to arrest in Vancouver Meng Wanzhou, Chief Financial Officer of Huawei electronics.
Much like the politics underlying the federal government’s unilateral seizure of Iranian properties in Canada, the arrest of Meng Wanzhou came about based on an accusation that one of the Huawei family of companies had somehow violated US sanctions by doing business with an Iranian entity. Why did the government of Justin Trudeau order the arrest at the Vancouver airport of the high-profile Chinese businesswoman? Why did Canadian officials apprehend Meng Wanzhou based on US accusations she violated a US sanctions enactment never approved by Canadian parliamentarians as far as I know?
Trudeau’s decision to allow himself to become one of President Trump’s and John Bolton’s main enforcers on Iranian sanctions has had major implications for Canadian farmers and manufacturers. The products that these Canadians produce are gradually being shut out of larger and larger portions of the Chinese market. Trudeau’s responsibility for this commercial mess forms a marker of his political ineptitude when it comes to the highest order of international relations. To describe his police action as some sort of requirement of “the rule of Law” is very deceptive to put in kindly.
Justin Trudeau is entering this national election with a major scandal in the mix of issues he must navigate. Since January of 2019 Trudeau has had to respond to revelations by Canada’s former Attorney General and others that he and his office partnered with a large international engineering firm, SNC Lavalin, to change the law so that the company could avoid a host of criminal prosecutions.
According, for instance, to the investigations of the World Bank, SNC-Lavalin and related companies have broken international records for bribery and corruption. The array of criminal prosecution directed at SNC-Lavalin still has yet to be explained clearly and comprehensively to the Canadian electorate.
Trudeau has attempted to defend the Liberal Party from revelations that Canada’s criminal justice system is being corrupted in the effort to gain Deferred Prosecution Agreements for SNC-Lavalin’s many proven violations of law. Trudeau regularly tries to defend his political coziness with the corporate serial offenders by proclaiming his intention to protect 9,000 Canadian jobs, many of them in SNC’s Montreal headquarters. Never does Justin Trudeau mention that SNC-Lavalin also has 9,000 employees in Saudi Arabia.
While Trudeau has sometimes been pointed in his criticisms of Saudi human rights violations, the fact remains that Canada is in bed commercially and politically with Saudi Arabia. The Saudi royal dynasty is Israel’s closest ally in the Arab world. The Trudeau government goes along with the rest of the West in looking the other way when it comes to, for instance, Saudi attacks on Yemen or to Saudi violations of human rights including the torture and murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Jamal’s Uncle, Adnan Khashoggi, was a CIA asset and an “arms dealer.” He was one of the primary figures who helped to set up another notoriously corrupt Canadian company, Barrick Gold, on the Toronto stock exchange.
Saudi Arabia, of course, has been a major source of funding, arms, drugs, and ideology establishing mercenary proxy armies like ISIL/Deash. The Iranian government has consistently fought to defend its own citizenry from ISIL/Daesh. The Saudi government often uses its own notorious approach to manipulating Islamic discontent to advance its own religious, ideological and foreign policy initiatives. Moreover, Iran has had to defend itself from MeK terrorists nowadays supported by many influential American and European politicians. About 35 MeK thugs attacked the Iranian embassy in Ottawa in 1992 as part of a larger effort of destructive intervention throughout the West.
Iran has been the subject of Stuxnet cyber-attacks emanating from the US National Security Agency in partnership with Unit 8200 of the Israeli Defense Force. Other facets of these attacks have targeted for assassination Iranian nuclear scientists. Why is Justin Trudeau siding so pointedly with Saudi Arabia against Iran just as he has been siding so strongly with the United States over China? Iran is a country with far more viable programs of regular national elections, women’s rights and minority rights than the Frankenstinian regime of Saudi Arabia.
As we head into this election campaign in Canada, it is not very likely that we will hear the word “Palestinian” from politicians seeking our vote. As in many Western Countries, the Israel Lobby not only closely controls the policies of governing parties. The Israel Lobby also has great influence over the policies of the opposition parties including Canada’s New Democratic Party as well as the Green Party. The Green Party’s Elizabeth May, who emigrated to Canada from the United States, fought off a bold effort from within her group to institute BDS. In doing so she basically saluted the anti-Palestinian objectives of the Israel Lobby in Canada.
The result of all this is that we have little meaningful debate in our Canadian Parliament between political parties all of whom are tightly controlled by groups like B’nai Brith Canada and the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the CIJA. This pattern prevails as well in Canada’s mainstream media where discussion of Israel-Palestinian relations is intellectually and politically impoverished.
I was reminded of the biases of the largest part of the Canadian media by the prejudices and convenient blind spots in the article that alerted me to the latest anti-Iranian moves of the Canadian government. That article by Stewart Bell appeared in a Global Television news report today, Friday Sept. 13.
Bell’s article includes the following propaganda statement without even the slightest hint of proof, explanation or background. Quoting Danny Eisen representing something called the Canadian Coalition Against Terror, Bell and Global Television assert, “The Iranian regime unwaveringly and unabashedly provides tens of billions of dollars for terrorist organizations that have destroyed innocent lives across the globe, including those of Canadians.”
This kind of journalistic excess is indicative of the dishonesty that drives much mainstream media reporting in Canada. Bell’s emphasis on the unexplained accusations of an entity calling itself the Canadian Coalition Against Terror quite clearly embodies the worst kind of propaganda aimed at instigating the ultimate terror of aggressive warfare against Iran, a country of 80 million citizens.
Such a bellicose threat on behalf of war hawks can be described as the kind of provocation Justin Trudeau might very well embrace if he thinks it will serve his personal quest for expanded power. I sincerely hope I am wrong in this assessment and that Trudeau shows his dovish side as a proponent of peace in this national election campaign.
Canada sells Iran’s properties, gives money away to ‘terror victims’
Press TV – September 13, 2019
Canada has gifted some $30 million worth of Iranian assets to the victims of terrorist attacks in which Iran says has not been involved, Canadian media reported.
The victims have received their share of the money earned through the sale of two Iranian-owned buildings in Ottawa and Toronto, according to a document filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice in August.
The valuable Ottawa property, sold for $26.5 million, was used as the Iranian Cultural Center, and the Toronto building, sold for $1.85 million, served as the Center for Iranian Studies, the Global News reported.
In addition to the $28 million earned from the sale of the two properties, the victims were also awarded a share of some $2.6 million seized from Iran’s bank accounts. Documents also list a Toyota Camry and Mazda MPV.
The recipients include several American families who have filed claims in the Ontario and Nova Scotia courts, seeking a share of Iran’s assets seized by the Canadian government.
In particular, they include the family of Marla Bennett, a US citizen killed in a 2002 bombing that rocked the Hebrew University in Jerusalem al-Quds.
The attacks are mostly blamed on Palestinian and Lebanese resistance movements Hamas and Hezbollah. The families claimed that the Iranian government supported the two organizations and was therefore responsible for their actions.
The complaints were first filed in the US but the claimants turned to Canada after finding out that the Iranian government had more properties and bank accounts there.
In July 2017, a Canadian court required the Islamic Republic to pay around $1.7 billion in damages to “American victims of terrorism.”
Iran has denied any role in the attacks which the courts have based their cases on to appropriate the country’s frozen assets.
Tehran had argued that the victims had to prove Iran’s role in each attack instead of just repeating the US government’s baseless allegations.
The seizure and sale of Iranian assets in Canada come as the country has turned into a center of fraud and a safe haven for embezzlers who manage to escape justice in the Islamic Republic of Iran, according to Iran’s prosecutor general Mohammad Jafar Montazeri.
Mahmoud Reza Khavari, a former Iranian banker, fled to Canada after a $2.6 billion financial fraud came to light in 2011. He was sentenced to 30 years in prison and the Interpol issued a warrant for him in December 2017.
Marjan Sheikholeslami, accused of embezzling public funds in Iran in two separate cases, has also fled to Canada. In 2010, amid the international sanctions on Iran, she founded various companies in Iran and Turkey to help Iran bypass the sanctions and sell its petrochemical products, but has reportedly refused to pay back the government’s money.
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From the Archives
A superpower and “the world’s sickest warrior state”
By Paul J. Balles | March 8, 2010
Living through five or six major wars has hardened me to what I thought were the extremes of inhuman cruelty and brutality.
Two things made those extremes almost bearable: the brutality always revealed – at least according to the media coverage – the viciousness of the enemy. It was therefore quite understandable when our “brave men and women” pulverized the enemy.
Films of Japanese torturing captive Americans somehow justified holding Japanese Americans in internment camps during World War II; and only a small percentage of Americans found the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki unreasonably vengeful at best, at worst, depraved.
The media giants in America portrayed the North Koreans as barbaric beasts with their captives, quite unlike their southern counterpoints – our allies during the Korean War. No one ever felt the need to explain how the South Koreans were a civilized breed while the North Koreans were absolute savages, at least according to the official line.
In Vietnam, our warriors justifiably (or so the media made us believe) dropped napalm on the North Vietnamese who had the gall to hide in villages and tunnels to ravage our invaders. At least it was accepted practice until some rogue photojournalist filmed a young girl screaming down a Vietnamese road in flames. … continue
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