'Twas Ever Thus

"[It was] an error to present that particular version of the play. Furthermore, the appropriate context was not provided to students to prepare them."
"[The school and its principal, Judith Carlisle], have parted ways [resulting from] an inability to align on a strategy for moving forward for the future."
Bishop Strachan School, Toronto

"I am committed to helping young women grow into reflective and informed members of society. As an educator, I believe that it has never been more important for us as to equip our daughters to deal with uncomfortable social issues and learn how to participate effectively in the often contentious debates that surround them."
"If our shared goal is to nurture a generation of strong, independent female leaders, we must stick to these core principles even in the face of occasional controversy."
Judith Carlisle, former principal, Bishop Strachan School, Toronto

The Bishop Strachan School in Toronto. The Bishop Strachan School

"[The theatre company] materially exaggerated the anti-Semitic sentiment of the original version of the play [William Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice] and sadly introduced the Holocaust in a humorous light that minimized its impact and offended many of the Jewish students whose families were personally affected."
Parental group letter

"It's a slippery play, and I think that slipperiness makes it very useful as a play to teach and to use to think about racial and religious prejudices."
"Of course, it's possible to stage a production of the play that is careless with the elements of hatred that the play portrays ... It's a tough one."
Holger Syme, professor of English, expert on Shakespeare, University of Toronto

The version of The Merchant of Venice under contention at this private girls' school in Toronto is one produced by The Box Clever Theatre Company, a British theatre company. The production was staged at schools in the United Kingdom, once as well in Jerusalem, but no word on who comprised the bulk of the audience in Jerusalem and what their takeaway was. The play is the brainchild of Iqbal Khan, a Pakistani Brit obviously known for edgy postmodern treatment of well-known plays, giving them his personal stamp of production.

It's safe to venture the thought that a British playwright and producer with a Pakistani cultural background might find it difficult to relate to the sensitivities surrounding anti-Semitism, historical and current, much less the anguish suffered by world Jewry at the annihilation of European Jews by Nazi Germany. To him and his admirers these may be trifling matters, ripe for artistic interpretation whereas to Jews that treatment is certain to be received as a direct body and psychic blow of casual contempt for the seminal disaster suffered by the global Jewish community.

A situation, in short, rife with insensitivity to the raw sensibilities of the Holocaust and very alive and viral anti-Semitism of today. At the Bishop Strachan School, grade eleven students were exposed to a seemingly clever adaptation of The Merchant with a Holocaust setting in Nazi Germany where audience participation was contrived with chants of "Burn the Jews", along with overt Nazi imagery. The play was specifically meant for the edification and entertainment of young people and for the past 20 years has been staged at schools in the U.K.

The exposure of students at Bishop Strachan School to the re-imagined play of the Immortal Bard by someone whose motivation could be questioned and who felt neither moral nor artistic obligation to take the message of hate, suspicion and human rights violations seriously, torquing the original out of context and in so doing manipulating its content toward what might be construed as malicious humour at the expense of the victims led the school administration to isolate itself both from the production and the person who brought it to stage at the school.

Former principal Judith Carlisle's attestation of concerns for the future hardiness and confidence of young girls and women ring rather hollow. Her total lack of empathy and understanding of the shock value given a play that in the best of circumstances requires sensitive handling and preparation in its presentation speaks to her inadequacy as an educator. This rendition of an honoured piece of outstanding English literature that has withstood the test of time and patience is a blatant exploitation of the brilliance of a master of human emotions, human relations and language.

She might have considered instead of a live play which she thought of as an exciting coup she had orchestrated, to simply expose her impression-vulnerable charges to the 2004 film starring Robert de Niro and Al Pacino, a tour de force of an interpretation of the original script whose presentation was sympathetic and sensitive without glossing over the temper of the times and the interaction between people, exhibiting their prejudices with violent intent. An appropriate discussion to follow would have placed the events in context sufficient to elicit acknowledgement of the fallibility of human emotions and prejudices.

Sony Pictures Classics Photographer: Etienne Braun

Lacking much of that mastery, transforming the play as he did, Iqbal Khan doesn't think he has taken liberties with the play, believing his mission as director is to involve the audience to better have them understand the portrayals and their settings. His purpose in having the audience participate relates to Elizabethan theatre production: “to enlist an active response from the audience to what is shared, to invest them fully in the issues explored." This is theory without taking into account the inappropriateness of his appropriation of the play's setting, mood and character.

"The audience join in the game, but as it becomes very clear what [Martin] Luther is spouting, such as the destruction of synagogues and rabbis being forbidden to teach, they are quickly silenced. It is very important here that the narrator turns nasty and chills the room. The audience is not blamed but their innocent involvement in the game, set up by the narrator, gives them an understanding beyond statistics of the lived experience of these dynamics. This is what theatre can do beyond rhetoric." His is the rhetoric without substance.

That's his take in the handling of this sensitive topic; the introduction into a Shakespeare play of the anti-Semitic sentiments of the Medieval era, the Reformation's Lutheran split with the church and its attendant anti-Semitism, and the culmination of all eras of anti-Semitic violations of the humanity of the world's Jewish community with an event meticulously planned and brutally carried out to annihilate Jewish life. If Mr. Khan meant his version to complement Shakespeare's intent in portraying the temper of his time, it is a legitimate conclusion that he has failed in his own portrayal. 

"[The production] seeks to challenge hatred in all its manifestations and remind audiences of the dangers and consequences of unchallenged discrimination."
Michael Wicherek, Box Clever artistic director

Time for a re-assessment.

Disowned, How Unfair

"For three years we have not been allowed to talk about our case, or counter lies that have been printed about Jack, because of contempt of court rules [charges of funding terrorism filed by British authorities against himself and his wife, Sally Lane]."
"I want everyone here to know what we know — that Jack worked with others in the religious opposition to ISIS in Raqqa. He condemned ISIS on social media and he wants to spend the rest of his life living peacefully and bearing witness against ISIS."
"Unfortunately, I do not have any other choice than to speak out because I love my son and I think he's innocent. In fact there's a very good chance I'll be sent to prison again when I fly back [from Ottawa to Britain] tomorrow."
"He felt he had a religious duty to help others who were suffering."

"Other countries, including the USA, have brought their citizens home, so why can't Canada? I need your [reporters] help to save my son's life."
John Letts, dual Canadian citizen living in Britain

Jack Letts at age 20. His family insists he went to Syria to help refugees. (Facebook)

Jack Letts, whose father John is so anxious about his enforced stay at a Kurdish prison for captured members of Islamic State, never lived in Canada himself. He was born and he grew up in Oxford, England. He, his parents and his siblings have dual citizenship; British and Canadian. The British government once expressed the sentiment that they would prefer their citizens who travelled to Syria to fight with Islamic State remain there, imprisoned, executed, whatever, rather than be allowed to return to Britain.

This British family with dual Canadian citizenship for convenience' sake, has hired a British lawyer to represent the interests of the parents charged 'attempting to fund terrorism' by making an effort to forward to their son about $2,900 which he said he was in desperate need of while in Syria; ostensibly to find passage out of Raqqa where he had ensconced himself before the Islamic State headquarters was lost to the Kurds who removed it from the grasp of caliphate.

Islamic State terrorists were proud of their imaginatively atrocious acts of murder, producing elaborately staged, gruesome executions by beheading, drowning in cages, setting people afire in cages, blowing explosives up in their faces, crucifixion, to showcase their barbaroc skills in slaughter through videos posted online to horrify the international community and cement their ruthless reputation as fearsome 'warriors' of Islam.

Islamist jihadists who supported and became an integral part of Islamic State well knew what the agenda was; to conquer greater tracts of territory in Syria and Iraq, to continue terrorizing minority populations like Yazidis and Christians and Shiites and the while it was only the Kurdish YPG (Peoples Protection Units) with their ferocious determination to stop the carnage that was effectively able to counter their surge.

In taking Islamic State terrorists into custody to await the extraction of those with Western roots, the YPG never dreamed they would be left holding them indefinitely.

A militant Islamist fighter waves a flag and gestures as he takes part in a military parade along the streets of northern Raqqa province June 30, 2014. Credit: REUTERS/Stringer

See any similarity in convert-to-Islam Jack Letts' hand signal and that of the 'militant Islamist fighter' above? That index upward-pointing finger is just the same as the flag he's holding in his other hand, both symbolizing the death cult of martyrdom and vengeance and terror that is Islamic State, still busy in places like Afghanistan, blowing themselves up with suicide vests and in the process taking hundreds of innocent civilian lives with them as a tribute to Allah.

So much for John Letts' pleading that his son Jack was not really interested in ISIL, just 'helping' other Muslims.

John Letts and Sally Lane, Jack Letts' mother and father, are anxious to have their son come to Canada, since Britain will not accept his presence there. Britain is his home base. Despite dual Canadian citizenship he has never lived in Canada, likely never even visited. The Liberal government was all for 'rescuing' this man who voluntarily joined a terrorist group, lived in Iraq, married there and became part of the caliphate, then moved to their capital, Raqqa. Until it was liberated. 

Resistance from Canadians reacting to this plan forced the Liberals to suddenly remember how difficult it is for them to access the fairly peaceful enclave in Syria controlled by autonomous Kurds. The question is why have these Western terrorists been left for the Kurds to continue to handle? They should in fact, be brought back to their countries of origin and there fully prosecuted for their crimes against humanity.

There is a sense that it is not merely the push-back from the Canadian public against bringing a member of Islamic State to Canada; there are some returnees already living in Canada freely walking the streets of the cities where they emanated from before heading off to Syria to commit themselves to terrorism in the name of jihad. Their free presence is an indictment against the commitment of the government to serve and protect Canadians from the presence of threats and their presence certainly represents a threat.

It would appear that communications between the British and Canadian governments has persuaded Canada that Britain would be extremely displeased if, having denied entry to this Brit, Canada would show it up by taking him in, and so the Liberal government withdrew its consular efforts on this man's behalf. The British lawyer acting on behalf of the parents of Jack Letts claims he was informed by a Canadian political source the UK government had asked that Ottawa "do nothing [about Letts] without British consent".

"As a British citizen myself, I have to apologize to the Canadian people for that kind of paternalism, and encourage you not to bow to British pressure", messaged the human-rights lawyer. Obviously representing the wrong side of the spectrum of right and wrong in human rights defence. But there is another avenue being explored by Foreign Affairs' consular services; to aid Jihadi Jack to transition to Turkey. Actually, Turkey supported Islamic State, so it's the right place for him to end up, in essence.

However, Jihadi Jack's parents are quite, quite disappointed that Britain has persuaded Canada to do nothing for their son, innocent of any dalliance with Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, wanting only to do what's right in helping other oppressed Muslims, after all. Canadian Foreign Affairs last statement: "There have been no Canadian officials in Syria since 2012. Our ability to provide consular assistance in Syria is extremely limited" whiffs of essence of British direction.

Jihadi Jack Facebook posts: "Would not dare put a France flag on my profile pic. The same country who fines your mothers and sisters for wearing the veil. You bloody fools. What muppits you are."
"Saudi helping America against muslims who attack its embassies is Kufra Akbar according to the quran, the sunnah and consensus of the scholars. Whoever is pleased with it is a disbeliever, kaafir. Make tawbah if you support this puppet regime. Ask Allah for the truth. (I don’t include the filthy shi’I scholar that was killed when I use the term ‘muslims’ so don’t get confused)."
"I was sent before the hour with the sword until Allah is worshipped alone without partners."    

 They Went To Worship: He Came To Kill

"[I would be honored to meet with any U.S. president.] I welcome him as an American. He is the president."

"Hate is not political. It is not blue or red, it’s not male or female, it doesn’t know any of those divisions. The hate rhetoric in our country is a real problem. I’ve seen examples in the last 24 hours. I chose to take the polite and respectful path. . . . Hate is all around us, and people are oblivious to it." "The hateful letters and e-mails about the president are just a renewed reminder of how divisive and painful this is."

Rabbi Jeffrey Myers, survivor, Tree of Life Synagogue 

"We find strength in one another. This gunman went in to try and kill as many Jews as possible . . ."

"We will come through this. And hopefully this feeling of community that we all share today can be channeled into each of us doing our part of rooting out hate."

Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro (D)

"The president is the grandfather of several Jewish grandchildren. His daughter is Jewish-American and his son-in-law is the descendant of Holocaust survivors."

"Tomorrow the president and first lady will travel to Pennsylvania to express the support of the American people and grieve with the Pittsburgh community."

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders

Rabbi Jeffrey Myers of the Tree of Life/Or L'Simcha Congregation in Pittsburgh, Monday, Oct. 29, 2018.    By Matt Rourke/AP Photo

Joyce Fienberg, 75
Richard Gottfried, 65
Rose Mallinger, 97
Jerry Rabinowitz, 66
Cecil Rosenthal, 59
David Rosenthal, 54
Bernice Simon, 84
Sylvan Simon, 87
Daniel Stein, 71
Melvin Wax, 88
Irving Younger, 69

A 46-year-old man who loved to hate and chose Jews as his very especial target armed himself with a deadly assortment of weapons, a Colt AR-15 rifle and three Glock .357 handguns during an attack on Tree of Life Synagogue on Saturday morning, courageously shooting to death eleven elderly Jews engaged in prayer. Once he satisfied his blood-lust and felt his mission to deliver his message was done for the time being he decided to leave. But not just yet, since as he emerged from the synagogue, police officers and a SWAT team arrived, and he decided to re-enter the synagogue.

From the third floor he shot at police who were tasked with public security, not only to arrest his activities, restrain him and arrest and incarcerate him to allow the wheels of justice to begin turning toward a trial, but to evacuate the synagogue of its traumatized occupants, bringing them to safety. And then to assess the situation, where eleven people who had been communing with their God had been shot dead. In the process of confronting this heroic figure of anti-Semitic venom, four police were wounded and two other people as well, all taken to hospital.

One congregant, 90-year-old Joseph Charny, on the second floor of the synagogue. described afterward his experience -- hearing a loud bang from the floor below: "It sounded like some big thing falling over, like a coat rack", he said in an interview. In the pews alongside him, another six to eight worshippers sat, awaiting the arrival of the rabbi to begin the weekly services, all of them very well familiar to Mr. Charny. Suddenly the figure of a man appeared in the doorway and then gunshots rang out.

"I looked up and there were all these dead bodies", he said. "I wasn't in the mood to stay there", and he exited swiftly before any of the bullets could leave him as they had those he knew so well and would no longer speak with again. Concealing himself alongside the rabbi and his assistant in a storage room on the third floor, they heard bullets continuing to fire. "We all knew leaving too soon would have been our deaths. At first I felt numb, then thankful. I don't need to tell  you how terrible this has all been." But he survived that ordeal, his friends did not.

Everywhere that Jews congregate they are aware that they may be targeted. It is perhaps the more visible among congregants, Orthodox Jews, who see the obvious need for security. In the Reform synagogues, with their less visible presence, the attitude was more relaxed in the sense of normal disbelief that harm should come their way simply because they are Jews, and because they gathered in a house of worship to speak with God. It is, after all, inconceivable to most people that identifying themselves and their religious devotion represents a red flag of vitriolic hatred so deadly it could mean their death.

But it can and it does. And as Jews all over the world last Saturday gathered in synagogues and temples and any other type of normal social gathering became instantly alert to the atrocity that took place in Pittsburgh they knew it could have been where they were located. And it still can, any day of the week. They are Jews, after all, and from time immemorial Jew-haters and Jew-baiters have awaited their opportunity to muster the courage it would take to confront elderly Jews with lethal weapons.

And here in Canada, Jews are taking stock. "As a precaution [Saturday], police across the country signalled to us that they would immediately increase front line police presence in Jewish neighbourhoods and around Jewish community institutions which will likely continue for the next few days", announced Martin Sampson, vice-president of communications and marketing for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. "There is nothing whatsoever to indicate an increased security threat to Canadian Jews."

For the time being.

Tree of Life Synagogue in the Squirrel Hill neighborhood following the shooting

 The Dire Inevitability of Anti-Semitism

"We simply cannot accept this violence as a normal part of American life."
"These senseless acts of violence are not who we are as Pennsylvanians and are not who we are as Americans."
Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, Pittsburgh

"I'm afraid to say that we may be at the beginning of what has happened to Europe, the consistent anti-Semitic attacks."
"If it is not nipped in the bud, I am afraid the worst is yet to come."
Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder, dean, Simon Wiesenthal Center

"It's a terrible, terrible thing what's going on with hate in our country and frankly all over the world, and something has to be done."
"The results are very devastating. [Had the temple] had some kind of protection, it could have been a much different situation."
U.S. President Donald Trump

"By the time I got there they [police officers and SWAT team] were already starting to extract people."
"Watching those officers  running into the dangers to remove people and get them to safety was unbelievable."
Chief Scott Schumbert, Pittsburgh police

Violence, despite Governor Wolf's stated assurances otherwise, is very much a part of American life, and it is becoming normalized within a society which politics has rent asunder and among whom bipartisanship has become increasingly viciously expressed and acted on. But this is not the dysfunction of mere politics, a topic that most people in society tend to disagree on, and usually with a modicum of discretionary remove. This is another sentiment altogether, a viral disease of the spirit that too often turns deadly as it did at the Tree of Life Synagogue early Saturday morning in Pittsburgh.

Just as the scourge of anti-Semitism has regained traction throughout Europe, it has gone beyond its usual foothold in the United States, home to the largest segment of diaspora Jews, second only to Israel itself. Just as anti-Semitism's volume was reduced following the Second World War and the devastation of the Holocaust entered the global conscience, it has risen in lock-step with the introduction into Europe and North America of Islamic populations from the Middle East and Africa bringing their own brand of heritage anti-Semitism with them to re-infect and retrench.

That brand re-ignited the remnants reduced to ashes to become the flames of a new anti-Semitism and it found a ready audience, more than eager to hold aloft the scorching hatred of Jews that remained alive within the old embers of anti-Semitism. The 46-year-old gunman who, carrying his weapons of choice against an unarmed congregation of elderly religionists was able to quickly kill eleven before the entrance of police. Police responded within a minute of the emergency call, the SWAT team arriving just as the killer emerged.

FBI agent Robert Jones, assigned to Pittsburgh, spoke of the atrocity that took place within the Tree of Life synagogue as the "most horrific crime scene" he had encountered in 22 years of service with the federal Bureau, where the innocent elderly, guilty of being Jews, were "brutally murdered by a gunman targeting them simply because of their faith". Of course, because the assault took place in a synagogue, those Jews were targeted because of their faith. But not all Jews are religious; many more are secular Jews, and it is not their faith that distinguishes them for carnage, but their origins.

When a Jewish organization, HIAS, planned a sabbath ceremony for refugees in various places around the country, this venomous hater posted a link to the Jewish website, his caption reading: "Why hello there HIAS! You like to bring in hostile invaders to dwell among  us?" Then later added just as he planned the assault on the synagogue: "HIAS likes  bring invaders in that kill our people. I can't sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics. I'm going in."

Primitive and deadly.

Rapid reaction SWAT members leave the scene of the mass shooting on Saturday

Estas en Tu Casa ("This is Your Home")

"Today, Mexico extends you its hand."
"This plan is only for those who comply with Mexican laws, and it's a first step towards a permanent solution for those who are granted refugee status in Mexico."Mexican President Peña Nieto

"The majority plan to cross the border. And that's my intention, too."
"Because, yes, while life here is calmer than at home, it's still not like the U.S. where it would get better. That's the goal: to have a better life."
Jose Santos, from Honduras
 

"It's a kind offer - but it's not the plan that we have, to stay here halfway up."
Anna Lisset Velazquez, from Honduras

"To those in the Caravan, turn around, we are not letting people into the United States illegally."
"I am bringing out the military for this National Emergency."
"They [migrants] will be stopped!"
U.S. President Donald Trump

Central American migrants rest on the steps of a Catholic church in Pijijiapan, in southern Mexico, as a thousands-strong caravan that is slowly making its way toward the U.S. border stops for the night Thursday. (Rebecca Blackwell/AP)
 
Mexico, which has a problem with its own poverty-stricken, violence-averse population seeping over the border into the U.S. has made a generous offer to the estimated seven thousand marchers intent on crossing the Mexican border into the United States to find new homes for themselves in the land of plenty. Mind, there's plenty of poverty and violence in the United States too. But wherever people live in penury, lacking government support and security, their minds swivel to one place and one place only; the United States of America.

Offering to the law-abiding citizens who are wearily making their way on a long journey of hope to a destination where they will be refused entry, a humanitarian gesture of compassion for people who have opted to make themselves homeless. To those people there will be extended temporary ID cards and work permits, medical care, schooling for their children, and housing in local hostels until such time as those who accept and whom Mexico will accept establish themselves and become independent.

Sounds like a solution, and it would be one, if Mexico was the destination that all those people stream toward, but it is not. For the marchers, it is a border they must cross, a country they must traverse to arrive at the point where another border beckons. But beckon it does not. There are lawful means of entry, to make application, to await consent to enter, and these marchers are deliberately bypassing all of that. The U.S. has a monumental problem as it is, of tens of millions of illegals living there.

And should it decide that the plight of all those seven thousand marchers must be resolved, and they will take a deep breath and permit them entry and begin processing them, it would send a signal to all the other disaffected people in Central America, in Africa, in the Middle East and elsewhere that the U.S. border is easily breached, and the kindhearted people of America will welcome them. The size of the current march will seem minuscule in comparison to the unbridled hordes that will assemble to achieve the goal of living where opportunity beckons.

The Economist

Only it doesn't, not for them. For the last hundred years people everywhere, from Europe to Africa, Asia to the Middle East, have yearned to go to America. A hundred years ago the persecuted minorities of Europe spoke of a country where the streets were paved with gold, an allegory that owed its persistence to the knowledge that those who did make it to America wrote home about how successful they had become, how wealthy, how happy with life they were. Everyone wanted to share that. And for a while many did.

Is there any other country in the world where people everywhere else aspire to join? China? Brazil? Egypt? Russia? India? South Africa? France? There are no long marches of desperate people willing to undertake dangerous, long journeys in an effort to find haven and leave the miserable past behind, streaming toward a country promising a future that their current locations do not and cannot and would not offer them. But one country cannot absorb them all, not even a small proportion of those anxious to join it.

And so, for the United States, what the aspiration of so many represents is a "national emergency"; the very notion of tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of economic migrants joining the already-established illegal migrants now ensconced in the United States represents a nightmare of administrative and accommodation proportions. Those failed nations governed by despots, by autocrats, by inept and inadequate rulers who despise those living under their heel need the rescue of revolution.

And to inspire them there is always the example of Somalia and Syria.

Families with small children get truck rides in Tonala to meet up with the thousands more Honduran migrants and refugees 25km further along up the highway [Sandra Cuffe/Al Jazeera]

The Dilemma of Balancing Moral Concern Versus Profit

"We are looking at ... suspending export permits, which is something we've done in the past."
"We're also looking at the contract to try and see what we can do because obviously, as we get clarity on what actually happened to Jamal Khashoggi, Canadians and people around the world will expect consequences."
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

"Only if all European countries agree [European Union position on arms sales to Saudi Arabia] would this make an impression on the government in Riyadh."
"It will have no positive consequences [even if Germany were to stop its weapons exports to Saudi Arabia] ... if at the same time other countries fill this gap."
German Economy Minister Peter Altmaier

"With countries like Saudi Arabia, countries like China, the way you make the most progress is by talking to them in private."
"If you talk about these things publicly you lose the access ... they say, 'We don't want to deal with you', and you put yourself in a position where you have no influence over what's happening."
British Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt

"Saudi partners are appreciative of our balanced position."
"We continue to cooperate with Saudi Arabia's investment fund and other partners."
"There's a lot of speculation and unverified information around [viz-a-viz Khashoggi's death and the poisoning of Sergei and Julia Skripal]."
Kirill Dmitriev, Chairman, Russian Direct Investment Fund

In this promotional image, taken by the Canadian Forces and hosted on the General Dynamics website, General Dynamics Land Systems Canada Lav 6 vehicles like the ones being sold to Saudi Arabia are shown carrying troops. (Combat Camera/General Dynamics)

Suddenly, everyone has a conscience, everyone is horrified that a Saudi dissident journalist, throwing caution to the winds, enters a Saudi diplomatic mission in Turkey to obtain the documentation he requires to marry and never emerges alive. A truly clumsy, botched operation where an astonishing 15-person Saudi crew of professionals and experts are tasked with dispatching him to a premature death and dispose of the evidence, and they couldn't get it right. Exquisite attention to detail; a body-double exiting the consulate, a coroner to dismember the corpse, the parts to be buried in scattered areas....

Turkey, with enough ghastly human-rights skeletons in its own closets, swiftly trumpeted to the world at large that it was in possession of the gruesome evidence that its fellow Sunni-Muslim competitor for influence in the world of Islam and beyond had set out to silence a nuisance but ended up with the world looking on askance. And little wonder, given the nasty details that seeped out into the media. A lot more compelling, evidently, than the proxy war between the Sunni Kingdom and Shia Iran's grubby war in Yemen where thousands are being killed, mostly civilians.

A Southern People's Resistance militant loyal to Yemen's President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi mans an anti-aircraft machine gun the militia seized from the army in al-Habilin, in Yemen's southern province of Lahej, March 22, 2015. There are concerns among human rights groups that the Saudis could use Canadian-made armoured vehicles against Houthi fighters in Yemen. (Nabeel Quaiti/Reuters)

 

So now the best-laid plans of inept, thin-skinned rulers like Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman have gone to ruin. Davos in the Desert has been deserted by global financial movers and shakers always so eager to invest in the desert Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, with its endless source of fossil fuel extraction, and its wealth and hunger for weapons of war making it a favourite destination for international weapons dealers and manufacturers. And therein lies the crux of the problem; to sell or not to sell; to honour a signed contract, or cancel?

On the basis of the murder of one nuisance journalist whose own brand of Islam was fully as invested in violent jihad as the House of Saud. In Canada, SNC-Lavalin and Bombardier Inc. have become silent, unwilling to discuss their sales and investments in Saudi Arabia. The Canadian government is musing about cancelling a $15-billion contract to provide armoured military vehicles as contracted, vacillating because of a penalty clause worth in the billions.

In the EU, though there have been calls for deals to be placed in abeyance only Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel has stated that arms exports to the country "can't take place in the situation we're currently in", expressly noting the death of Jamal Khashoggi. That Saudi Arabia has long funded mosques and madrasses teaching the Wahhabi Salafist brand of Islam that resulted in al-Qaeda and Islamic State is (yawn) incidental to the issue.

As for sales figures to Saudi Arabia; Spain, Germany, Italy and Switzerland account singly for roughly two percent of arms imports between 2013 and 2017, given figures provided by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institution. France was responsible for four percent of sales, and Britain 23 percent. None, however, come close to approaching American weapons sales to Saudi Arabia, at 61 percent. And nor is the U.S. administration even remotely considering reining in those exports.

The theory is, and it's no mere theory after all, that if those sources dry up, there are others willing and eager to fill the gap. And if there is a gap, they will fill it. Russia has already been in discussions with the Saudis inclusive of S-400 air defence systems, as well as interest expressed in having Russian Kornet-EM anti-tank missiles produced in the Kingdom, along with AGS-30 automatic grenade launchers and advanced Kalashnikov assault rifles.

Rehabilitating Canadian Islamic State Jihadists?

"I dream about one day bringing all the militants to justice, not just the leaders like Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi but all the guards and slave owners, every man who pulled a trigger and pushed my brothers' bodies into their mass grave, every fighter who tried to brainwash young boys into hating their mothers for being Yazidi ..."
"They should all be put on trial before the entire world, like the Nazi leaders after World War II, and not given the chance to hide."
Nadia Murad, 25, Yazidi, human rights activist, Nobel Peace Laureate

‘Devil worshippers’: torture inflicted on the Yazidi people by Isis includes rape, stealing children and forced conversions – researchers say the true scale of suffering cannot be charted ( )

"Processes, both here in Canada and in the courts of international law, to bring perpetrators of atrocity crimes to justice, are slow and rarely work."
"Canada should lead immediate reforms to ensure justice is swift, both within our own domestic policy and abroad."
"To date this government under Justin Trudeau has failed to take action, and Andrew Scheer’s Conservatives are calling on the Prime Minister to immediately table a plan to serve justice to anyone who left our country to fight with this terrorist organization."
Michelle Rempel, Member of Parliament, Conservative critic for Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship

Children play with a kite at a shelter for displaced Yazidis on Mount Sinjar, northern Iraq.

Credit: Richard Hall/PRI

"[ISIL rapists, genocidaires propagandists and collaborators must be brought to justice. The House of Commons should support Murad’s appeal for justice and the government is called upon] to refrain from repeating past mistakes of paying terrorists with taxpayers dollars or trying to reintegrate returning terrorists back into Canadian society, but rather table, within 45 days after the adoption of this motion, a plan to immediately bring to justice anyone, including those who are in Canada, or have Canadian citizenship, and have fought as an ISIS terrorist or participated in any terrorist activity."
House of Commons motion by MPs Rempel and Pierre Paul-Hus, Opposition critic for Public Safety

Displaced Iraqi women from the Yazidi community, who fled violence from the Islamic State (IS) group, gather around tents at a refugee camp on Mount Sinjar, on 15 January 2015 (AFP)

The not-so-oblique reference to the over $10-million of public funds the Liberal government doled out to convicted 'child-soldier' Omar Khadr who had been trained as an al-Qaeda-affiliate by the Taliban to produce explosive devices and fight alongside the Taliban against NATO troops established in Afghanistan to free it from the grip of terrorist groups and was found guilty in the bombing death of a U.S. medic and the blinding of another, represents a condemnation of the Liberal's governments soft approach to Canadians binding themselves to deadly jihad.

Despite which pointed reference, Members of Parliament found it morally problematical not to support the motion, invoking the name, reputation and cause of a Nobel Laureate, so the motion was passed but for one dissenter. Member of Parliament Michelle Rempel is a robust defender of Yazidis, the ethnic-religious group that Islamic State targeted for mass murder of the men and slavery of children and women. Yazidis were not the only group viciously murdered by ISIL, Christians and Shia Muslims were also the targets of the Sunni-sect Islamists.

But it was the horrible plight of the Yazidis that drew international attention, when thousands of men, women and children fled Sinjar, their main city as it and countless towns and villages nearby were invaded by ISIL, men slaughtered and girls and women taken into captive custody as sex slaves to be violently abused and bartered. Those that could escape made their way up Mount Sinjar, to starve and to freeze to death. Kurdish factions led many of them down the mountain to safety, if refugee camps can be designated as 'safe'. Yet thousands of Yazidis remain marooned on the mountain.

Patients and relatives wait in the psychiatric unit of the public Azadi Hospital, in Duhok, Northern Iraq (MEE/Sebastian Castelier)

And thousands of Yazidi girls and women remain in captivity as sex slaves. Those who manage to escape speak of the abomination of their experiences and appeal for help in rescuing their still-captive sisters, mothers and aunts. The world pays lip service to their dreadful plight but for the brave actions of some activists attempting to free the women from sex-serfdom, no solution is in sight to their plight. Handfuls of Yazidi families have been brought to safe haven; a hundred to Canada, another hundred to France, but the bulk of those long-suffering people continue to suffer.

Canadian Muslims who left Canada for the allure of joining the ISIL caliphate and engage in jihad as the Koran demands of its faithful, appear now to be less enamoured of their chosen flight, weary of murder, rape and beheading. And these are the eventual returnees that Justin Trudeau muses about rehabilitating and 'reintegrating' into Canadian society. They were never really 'integrated' into Canadian society to begin with, else the values of human decency and the rights deserving of all people would have been theirs.

Those expressing any degree of sympathy for men who now claim they are innocent of committing any form of violence while with Islamic State, and only joined because they felt it their sacramental duty, have no place in Canadian society, although there should be made ample space for them in federal high-security penal institutions where they should moulder for a period of time comparable to the lifetime of those who were murdered in obedience to Islam State's viral jihad of atrocities. 

 
Kurdish militias succeeded in defanging the horrible threat of an expanding territory for the ISIL caliphate. Kurdish soldiers took Islamic State terrorists into custody, along with their wives and their children. The women were just as involved in volunteering themselves for life in a terrorist caliphate as were the fighters whom they married and bore children for. Children who were themselves soon enlisted in ISIL programs to be taught the fundamentals of violating human rights and conducting various atrocities alongside their elders.

The Kurds understandably have no love for those they hold prisoner, and await the opportunity to surrender them to the countries from which they came. Unfortunately, those countries have no idea what to do with their terrorist citizens. These are not people who can be rehabilitated. The evil they represent and the horrors they perpetrated on helpless victims speaks volumes about their orientation and their representation as potential future members of any decent society. They have earned the right to rot in Hell; failing that, to spend eternity confined within solitary bleak prison cells.

Trudeau's Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change

"Today Justin Trudeau unveiled his election gimmick to try to trick Canadians into paying higher taxes on basic necessities."
"Canadians have known all along that Justin Trudeau's carbon tax was just a tax plan dressed up as an emissions plan. Now we know it's really also just an election gimmick."
Conservative opposition leader Andrew Scheer

"Never believe a politician who tells you he will save you money by hiking your taxes."
"The people of Canada are too smart to believe that Trudeau's phony rebates are anything more than a temporary vote-buying scheme that will be discarded once the election is over. In contrast, the carbon tax rip-off is forever."
Ontario Premier Doug Ford

"We see it as a cynical vote-buying scheme using your money to buy your vote."
"This is Saskatchewan. Most of us have to drive a lot. We drive to work, we drive for our kids' recreation and their school, and we have to heat our homes on some very cold days in this province."
"This is all going to cost a whole lot more now."
Saskatchewan Premier Scott Moe

As initiatives go, in Canada setting out to do its part in the international scheme to alleviate the belief in man-made assaults on nature leading to climate change, the latest scheme blueprinted by the Liberal government is as inept and irrational as someone's hideous nightmare in which there is no escape from an oncoming juggernaut meant to crush social and economic dissent from a Canada mostly slack-jawed with amazement that credibility of government decision-making cannot possibly descend any lower. Fighting greenhouse gases? Taking positive steps to reduce carbon emissions?

Since we can't stop breathing and producing carbon dioxide, and the world's vegetation will continue to absorb C02 and convert sunlight to oxygen to produce the cleansed air we breathe, we'll just have to make do with paying more taxes under guise of combating global warming and wait for those government cheques that will refund to us ostensibly more per household than we've expended in fighting the good fight, allowing the Liberal government to claim it has lived up to its Paris climate obligations by playing Trudeau's shell game.



Trudeau's 'Pan-Canadian' initiative looks pretty flaccid, particularly to those provinces that have stated unequivocally that they have opted out of a joint plan that is supposed to include the federal government, the provinces and the territories in an agreed-upon blueprint for reducing carbon emissions; which is to say the 1.6 percent Canada is responsible for on a worldwide scale. Only it appears that half of Canada's provinces want nothing to do with this particular plan and more are on the cusp of joining them.

Latterly the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Changed made it official; for a carbon tax to be useful to save us from no-turning-back global warming it would require said tax to begin at $135 a tonne and rise to $5,500 a tonne by 2030; in other words, it would beggar the global economy and send it into a backward spin. Since the tax the Liberals are levying begins at $20, to rise to $50 it is clearly inadequate in the global scale of saving the Earth from humankind's depredations. Despite which, the Liberal government is confident it is achieving its Paris promise.

Oh, the pain of it ... yet another tax imposed by a government incapable of restraining itself from spending whatever it acquires through taxation, and more, as the deficit looms and the nation's debt blooms grotesquely obese. Still, the Prime Minister vowed "every nickel" brought in as part of the federal carbon tax is to be re-circulated back to each province to be doled out to residents of those provinces, ten percent reserved to go to schools, universities and small businesses. All is not lost. Actually, nothing is lost; we get taxed, we get refunded. In the process, what is gained?

Carbon dioxide, so necessary to life, is "pollution" and it must be fought tooth and nail and taxes are the way to go, only they're not taxes, they're commitment to an existential cause, so who in their right mind would balk at that? The regulatory inefficiency of a complex scheme that will have the effect of restraining growth in the economy and making life just a little more difficult for small business and their customers is the price to pay for prolonging environmental balance in a threatened world. Sounds reasonable.

As it stands now, the tax won't be equitable, but on the other hand, neither will the refunds be; a little like universality, it is meant to be an issue of simple accountability, so simple that it takes no account of those living in areas of the country where more fuel is required to drive to destinations, to heat winter homes, and nor are those in comfortable median income brackets to receive less of a 'rebate' than people living on inadequate incomes just getting by. Not by calculating how much people emit, but simplifying things to a one-size-fits-all formula.

Ottawa is prepared to subsidize export-oriented emitters clearly incapable of competing on the world stage should they pass increased carbon costs to their buyers in world markets, but domestic marketers who sell their products internally can anticipate no such relief, they will absorb the increased carbon tax and of course it will be the consumer who will pay the additional cost through the nose. Imports are advantaged but internal business costs will escalate.

Canada's new Liberal-imposed carbon tax will do nothing to make an impact on emissions, but it most certainly will go a long way, along with previous legislated heightened taxes for business to discourage investment and persuade international business interests to relocate elsewhere in more tax-enlightened jurisdictions abroad; back to the United States most likely as Canada's economy becomes more straitened reflecting the success of the Liberal carbon tax legislation.

Born a Man, Always a Man, Masquerade Aside

"I see my win in this broader political moment where trans rights have made great strides and people are waking up."
"We are not going to go backwards."
“My semi-final rides were difficult and I certainly didn’t ‘dominate'. [Competitor] Linsey Hamilton rode hard, and I think that it’s a little insulting to suggest that I ‘dominated’ her when I had to give it my all to beat her."
"People seem to think that there’s no issue of ‘unfair advantage’ when I lose, but it only seems to be an issue when I win. I don’t think that’s fair or reasonable."
"There’s nothing too exceptional about my [power to weight]. There are many world-class track sprinters with higher values."
Rachel McKinnon, assistant professor of philosophy, College of Charleston, Victoria, British Columbia

McKinnon racing 2018 masters track world championships. Photo courtesy Dr. Rachel McKinnon

"It is not about making everybody biologically equal, and I think that is a common misconception when we start talking about transgender athletes."
"People want transgender [females] to be physiologically identical to [born] females, and if they’re not, it’s unfair. That is not possible."
"Can you turn a man’s body into a woman’s body? The short answer is 'no'. I think we need to move past that idea completely."
Dr. Eric Vilain, professor of human genetics, UCLA

Dr. Rachel McKinnon won the masters world title in the sprint this past weekend in Los Angeles. Courtesy Dr. Rachel McKinnon

The rule that made Dr. McKinnon, a transgender 'woman' eligible to compete in the UCI Masters Track Cycling World Championship for the women's 35-44 age bracket last week in Los Angeles was that athletes' testosterone levels are required to be within a given range and since Dr. McKinnon uses drug therapy to achieve that range, she qualified. At one time the compete requirements were considerably stiffer; to compete in their legally recognized gender, transgender women had to have had extensive physical transitioning; surgery and hormone therapy.

2015 saw a loosening of the rules, removing the requirement for surgery, leaving in the testing of testosterone levels. Dr. McKinnon defends her female role as a competitor that she had substantive advantage over other female runners by citing research suggesting testosterone levels are not correlated with elite athletic performance; one study in particular showing one-sixth of elite male athletes had testosterone levels below the average for females. However, male physiognomy is just that; male and therein lies the obvious advantage.

Jen Wagner-Assali made a public complaint, feeling her bronze medal win illustrated a competitive edge on the part of the winner: "It's definitely NOT fair", she tweeted, replying to a British woman who asserted that the "world is gripped by a febrile madness" that a transgender woman appeared as first-place winner on the podium for a world-class female track competition. Her objections lead her detractors defending transgender rights, to characterize her as a "far-right provocateur", typical of those who bow to the demands of LGBTQ-2 activism, smearing those who find fault with those demands.

Peer and public pressure ensured that Ms. Wagner-Assali would apologize, realizing she had "unintentionally fanned the flames on a controversial situation, and that I regret I made the comments out of a feeling of frustration, but they weren't productive or positive". Somewhat abashed, no doubt that the second-place silver medalist Carolien van Herrikhuyzen characterized the race as "honest", deploring Wagner-Assali's 'problem'.

A proposed change to federal anti-discrimination legislation in the U.S. would define a person's gender as an unchangeable, binary, biological reality defined at birth by the simple expedient of recognizing genitalia conferred by nature as gender identification. The response to the Trump administration's intention with respect to that legislation is to state the obvious: it would translate as no legal recognition of transgender or intersex choices as legitimate.

Whereas in contrast Britain has also proposed changes to its Gender Recognition Act in eliminating an objective test, leaving the legal determination of gender solely in the hands and mind of the individual claiming to be other than what they are from birth forward; no medical or other evidence required. The logical conclusion to which is that under universal medicare, prisoners or military personnel would have their sex-alternative therapy and surgery paid for out of public funds, as a medical condition requiring rectification.

In the United States IOC policy has been adopted by the national cycling authority, requiring elite level sport competition to test only for testosterone levels. Dr. McKinnon has a comeback for those dissatisfied with the reality that men declaring themselves women are enabled to compete in elite sport competitions with actual women. Biologically, males and females are completely differentiated physically; greater physical strength an acknowledged male reality.

She laments the parallel she identifies between her struggle for acceptance as a transgender woman to the long historical struggle of black athletes who were excluded from some sport arenas reflecting a general consensus that Blacks are endowed with superior physical prowess, making it unfair with their advantage to compete against others. That prejudicial view, despite having some element of truth within, reflected the racial tensions between the white majority and black minority, severely disadvantaging Blacks.

Justice for Blacks was painfully long in coming. According to Dr. McKinnon the same human rights trajectory is now evidenced in the battle the transgender community faces to achieve their human rights entitlements.

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Almost a week after her win, McKinnon tweeted out Saturday the multiple reasons why she now competes in the same category as cis women

Canada, Punching Above Its Influence : Canada Misplacing Its Moral Code

"It was a stupid law. And it's still a stupid law. But we're stuck with it."
"Lost in all of the information about the reasons why, was the real reason ... It was the Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, frankly. That's the reason: that still exists."
"It's no coincidence that we closed the [Iranian] embassy basically the day after the legislation became effective."
"The British weren't even seizing Iranian government property [following the attack on the British embassy in Tehran]. This law called for the seizure of Iranian government properties; [the Iranians] have a very flexible view on diplomatic immunity."
"How could we possibly stay open under those conditions? How can we reopen under those conditions?"
Dennis Horak, former Canadian Ambassador to Saudi Arabia

This is a man, now retired, who in 2012 was director of Middle East relations for Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs at a time when the-then government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper through Cabinet Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird announced the closure of the Tehran embassy in Canada. The accurate analysis cited for the drastic move of shuttering a foreign embassy in a country that had testy relations with an Islamist nation known for its leading role as a sponsor of   unsavoury human-rights-abuses generally was that Canada would not support relations with a state sponsor of terrorism.

Mr. Horak's views follow in lock-step with Foreign Affairs' traditional tolerance for Middle East infractions of human rights, a supporter himself of overlooking the vicious and violent tyrannies whose version of capital punishment would make any supporter of same in the West cringe with horror. It is his considered opinion borne of long years of toiling at the behest of Canada's governments in diplomatic missions in the Middle East, that those countries must be judged by different standards of ethics and morality. They are, after all, Islamic.

In the fine old tradition of Canada's Department of Foreign Affairs, before that External Affairs, now Global Affairs -- the name may change but the sentiments within do not -- Israel, the only democratic, liberal country in the Middle East, surrounded by avowed enemies, is viewed with disfavour. Prime Minister Stephen Harper's expressed loyalty to the concept of a Jewish State and his respect for the security of that anomalous state in its heritage geography within a larger, Muslim-majority establishment found no support within the Foreign Affairs old guard which has always transmitted its values to incoming members.

Inciting Saudi Arabia to a furious response to a tweet by current Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland represented an unprofessional, undiplomatic demand that this most rigidly Islamist of Muslim Kingdoms immediately shed its normal response to interior dissent, causing not only a diplomatic rift of icy dimensions, but a disruption in trade, investment and student exchange of even more serious implications leading to the question, why is Canada which celebrates itself as liberal progressive to a fault, so dependent on relations with the Kingdom to begin with?

The answer, of course, is Saudi Arabia's clout in the Middle East and the United Nations, and this government has its eye set on a seat on the two-year revolving UN Security Council, while also prepared to bank-and-spend the billions it is set to receive selling military weapons to the Saudis; so much for the morals of a government that sanctimoniously preaches morality to the world at large, proving that for the most part, with Liberal rule Canada is indeed 'back'.

As far as former Ambassador Horak, who deplored riling Saudi Arabia to the point where he was ejected persona non grata, is concerned, diplomats are skilled in many things, but overlooking human rights abuses represent one issue that cannot be overstated in looking after Canada's interests on the world stage. The Justice for Victims of Terrorism Act, enacted by the Conservative-led government of Stephen Harper whose conscience is alive and well, made it lawful for victims of violent terrorism attacks to hold responsible those governments who sponsor terror; in this case the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Ambassador Horak, now nothing-Horak, is incensed that Canada has inadvertently in one instance and deliberately in the other, sacrificed a working relationship with the two most influential, oil-wealthy countries in the Middle East; Sunni Arab Saudi Arabia, and Shiite Persian Iran; no ambassador present in Riyadh and a shuttered mission in Tehran. Although this Liberal government is determined to restore relations with Iran. And this is not to be thought necessarily a black mark on Canada's capacity to have amicable relations with important and influential nations who can further Canada's interests.

While on the other hand, this administration, boosted by Foreign/Global Affairs accommodation, is doing its utmost now to separate itself in international public opinion -- at the same time catering to a home audience whose knee-jerk reaction has always been anti-U.S., even while Canadians are flocking as vacationers to various American states -- to demonstrate itself morally superior to an America now led by a conservative counterpart personality to Canada's inept liberal-progressive selfie-clown extraordinaire.

The reality is we share a border cutting straight across a huge continent. The reality is Canada's prosperity is inextricably linked with that of its powerful partner. The reality is that Canada cannot adequately protect itself in the event of conflict or invasion, without relying on the strength of the American military. The reality is that many American values are those shared by Canada. The fact is that without our vital trade with that economic and trade powerhouse the Canadian standard of living would be hugely reduced.

All of which show Trudeau up as a pitiful sham in every conceivable way.

Living Rurally in Western Canada

"I love it [living rurally in Alberta]. Just the freedom to do whatever you want to do ... you can walk outside your door, you just have open space."
"You can't [though] yell for help if you need help -- the neighbours won't hear you. So I guess in a way you're your own first responder for anything."
"It's basically a split-second of fear just rushing through you [confronting the reality of a night-time intruder],  you don't even know what's happening, what's going on."
"They [RCMP police] wanted to make an example out of me."
Edouard Maurice, Okotoks, Alberta

Edouard Maurice leaves court in Okotoks, Alta. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh

"The RCMP are losing the trust of the people they are supposed to protect."
"We know people who have had encounters with criminals, and the home-owners had guns and scared them off, and have not reported it to the police because they're scared of what the police will do."
"I don't think we'll ever go back to normal. I think we have a new normal. It changed us as people, and as a family, and so we're getting back into a new normal for us."
Jessica Maurice, Okotoks, Alberta

"There’s been a lot of discussion about rural property crime given the recent court case in Saskatchewan."
“It would be obvious that if you’re living in a rural location the RCMP response is a little bit slower than a municipal city’s response, and every property owner knows how far away their detachment of jurisdiction is,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean that the RCMP supports property owners … taking matters into their own hands."
"I understand that property owners may want to protect their property, but there are limits to what people can do to protect their property. We will consistently encourage people to call the RCMP, let us do the investigation, let us manage the situation."
RCMP Cpl. Laurel Scott

An increase in rural crime rates in Alberta and long distances from police services can put landowners in a precarious situation. | Getty Image

According to the experience of the Maurices, and that of other farmers and rural dwellers in Saskatchewan, Manitoba and Alberta, the new normal is that protection of property, home and family is a complicated affair. Police must be called. The homeowner must not take too emphatic steps to protect themselves. Passivity in the face of dangerous aggression. On numerous occasions when a homeowner has used a firearm to warn and occasionally shoot to injure an intruder convinced that they are themselves in danger and must act to protect themselves, it is the homeowner that is charged with violence.

In 2015 a young man, resident of a Cree Red Pheasant First Nation who had been out with friends for an afternoon of swimming at a local beach, where they had also consumed alcohol and were fairly inebriated, abruptly lost his life. The group had driven into a nearby farmyard where they attempted to steal a vehicle, managing only to break the windshield. They had a firearm with them, and one of the tires of their own vehicle had blown. The second farmyard they entered with a similar intention also unsuccessful, ended in the farmer, Gerald Stanley shooting Colten Boushie fatally.

A Battleford, Saskatchewan jury assembled to hear the criminal lawsuit the Crown had brought against Mr. Stanley acquitted him of murder a few months ago, a result that aside from monopolizing national headlines for several days, saw First Nations communities up in arms protesting the unfairness of Canadian justice that had acquitted a farmer of protecting his property (actually protecting his wife in a confusion of swift, chaotic circumstances and panic on both sides) as though finding property rights triumphed over the life of a person.

When Mr. Maurice woke during the night, hearing intruders and venturing outdoors called for them to leave, firing his rifle in their general direction, he was concerned for his safety and that of his infant daughter asleep in her crib. He immediately called police, and waited for them to arrive. It took them an hour and when they did get to his property, he was approached by the responding police with their handguns drawn, and he was taken into custody and charged. The episode at his property was coincidental with the Stanley-Boushey event.

Mr. Maurice was charged on three counts: for careless use of a firearm, pointing a firearm and aggravated assault. The entire episode represented a "nightmare" for the Maurice family. His wife had been out of town on business when the event had occurred, but telephoned to wish her husband a happy 33rd birthday after he had been taken into custody thus failing to reach him. Jessica Maurice operates a pet daycare out of their property, and her husband is a machinist; both on occasion help out on her parents' farm located nearby.

It was their dogs barking that had awakened Edouard around five in the morning. When he looked out through the front door's glass panelling he was able to see his vehicle lights on, and people there. Their older child was staying over with his in-laws while their infant daughter was asleep at home. When he called out for the intruders to leave, they ignored him. And that's when he fired two warning shots with his .22-calibre rifle, inspiring the two people milling about his vehicle to suddenly decide to leave.

When three RCMP cruisers drove into his yard eventually, with drawn guns, he was informed that someone had been injured, and as a result they were taking him into custody. One of the shots that Mr. Maurice had fired ricocheted to hit a 41-year-old man in the arm. That man was charged with trespassing, theft from a motor vehicle, mischief, possession of methamphetamines and probation violation, while the woman with him originally faced three charges, but the trespassing and theft charges against her were withdrawn. She was sentenced to a $200 fine and victim surcharge.

Ultimately the Crown withdrew charges levelled against Mr. Maurice: "Information came to light and as a result there's not a reasonable chance of conviction at this time", explained the Crown attorney to the court. Possibly the kind of information that highlights the outrage of rural dwellers and farmers resulting from the increased phenomenon of property thefts that go unsolved, along with the reality that many of these incursions on private property and resulting thefts take place at the hands of bored and unemployed youth from nearby reserves as well as home invasions by drug users.

An increasing threat that boils over into unintended violence from time to time through the sheer expression of frustration that police appear incapable of taking action that would diminish and solve the episodes of intrusion, threat and theft that is responsible for increasing the level of tensions between the two communities; First Nations reserves and local farmers. And the realization that rural living is now appealing to law-breakers as well as those obeying the law.

A young boy and girl play with homemade stocks as people gather in support of Edouard Maurice, who faces three charges after police allege the rural homeowner confronted two people rummaging through his vehicles and shots were fired, outside court in Okotoks, Alta., Friday, March 9, 2018.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Jeff McIntosh