Making It Perfectly Clear There are Terrorists and There Are Terrorists

"I do … want to make one thing perfectly crystal clear: Canada does not and will not pay ransom to terrorists, directly or indirectly."

"Paying ransom for Canadians would endanger the lives of every single one of the millions of Canadians who live, work and travel around the globe every single year."

"[Canada] is determined to bring these terrorist criminals [al-Qaeda-linked Philippine Abu Sayyaf jihadis] to justice."

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, April 2016,

"Chopping off the head is saying you’d better pay for the remaining hostages or we are going to chop off their heads one after another. It could have been a very cold calculation that [hostage negotiators] are buying time and we need to send a message we are impatient."

"This wasn’t a kidnapping or murder because they are against Canada’s previous role in Afghanistan or our current role in Iraq. This is just grab-a-Western and ransom.… I would suggest it is a lot more mercenary than it is terrorism."

"It’s naive to think that in a kind of a Hollywood way that people can be reached out and arrested. The islands that they control or have some sort of authority over are pretty desolate."

Andy Ellis,  former assistant director of operations, Canadian Security and Intelligence Service

Robert Hall, left, seen in a video uploaded to YouTube, with John Ridsdel, right. The pair were executed by Abu Sayyaf earlier this year after the Canadian government refused to pay their ransom. (Site Intelligence Group/YouTube)

When al-Qaeda-linked terrorists in Africa held two Canadian diplomats hostage, the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper paid their ransom through Qatar intervention of 1.1-million to secure their freedom. Canadian John Ridsdel was beheaded in the southern Philippines by  the Abu Sayyaf group after setting a ransom deadline which Canada ignored. The jihadis continued to hold Canadian Robert Hall, Filipina Maritess Flor and Norwegian Kjartan Sekkingstad, said to be a permanent resident of Canada. The upshot of Trudeau's continued refusal was the death of Robert Hall and the return to Norway of Mr. Sekkingstad when Norway paid for his release.

Trudeau's government refused to pay ransom, with the Prime Minister boasting he was prepared to launch a rescue mission to capture the terrorists and hold them to justice. At the G-7 Summit in 2016, Trudeau presented his noble stance, claiming it would protect Canadians from further abductions by terrorists looking to enrich themselves through ransom payments which other countries were willing to pay to secure the lives of their nationals. Once again at this year's G-20 Summit in Hamburg, Justin Trudeau stated Canada's position of no ransom to be paid to rescue Canadians from the hands of terrorists.

He had placed the issue on an agenda busy with other matters of international substance which included terrorism and security, but also climate change and economic security and international trade. It is clear that Justin Trudeau has adopted the issue of ransom-for-rescue as a pet cause of his own, prepared to sacrifice the lives of Canadians to uphold what he feels sanctimoniously is an issue of principle, and he purports himself to be big on principle. Emphasizing that Canada does not and will not pay ransom that funds terrorist activity, encouraging further kidnappings of innocent Canadians.

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• Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau and their son Hadrien Trudeau arrive at Hamburg Airport ahead of the G20 summit on Thursday. (Lukas Barth/EPA)

Incredibly, before embarking on his trip to Europe, Justin Trudeau pre-empted judicial proceedings in the matter of a $20-million lawsuit brought by former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Omar Khadr, a known Islamist terrorist whom a video showed attended terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, to become familiar with guerrilla combat, jihadi-style, which included the most fundamental of Afghan Taliban resourcefulness in the production of IEDs, responsible for the maiming and death of NATO military members fighting in Afghanistan, not to mention that of countless innocent Afghan civilians.

This son of an al-Qaeda-linked family of Islamist jihadis was 15, the youngest of the three brothers (the fourth, even younger, was critically wounded in a battle he fought alongside his father, who died there) who fought for al-Qaeda and the Taliban, along with their father, an al-Qaeda financier. They were all committed to Islamofascist jihad, including the family's mother and the brothers' sister, vehemently so, snarling their contempt for Canadian decadent values they had no use for. Other than to return to Canada to make use of its social welfare and universal medical system.

Canadians, in other words, honour the citizenship of these venomously hateful Islamists by expending scarce health funding to restore the two wounded Khadr brothers to health. And although Canada cannot spare the funding it would take to rescue innocent abducted Canadians from the hands of terrorists, we can, evidently, according to Justin Trudeau, handily spare $10.5-million to assuage the tender feelings of a terrorist who happened to kill an American Army medic and blind a U.S. soldier with a tossed grenade. And in the process, humbly beg for his forgiveness for violating his Charter Rights.

This decision taken by Prime Minister Trudeau was taken without consultation with the people of Canada whose tax dollars he has abused, nor to query whether they would agree that an apology from Canada was due this murderer. The issue was kept from the public eye and ear while Trudeau decamped to Hamburg. Revealed by an astute investigative reporter, Canada learned what had occurred and for the most part Canadians are less than content with paying a terrorist compensation for his murderous handiwork, a decision reached by a prime minister who cannot spare scarce tax dollars to rescue Canadians held by terrorists fighting Khadr's battle.

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German riot police line up along a street before a demonstration during the G20 summit. (Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters