Merit VS Affirmative Action

"[The Liberal government is applying] gender-based analysis [to policy-making because we all need] to be smart about getting the very best out of all of our citizens and making the very best out of our economy, because women entrepreneurs tend to make better choices than others."
"We've seen it in study after study."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

"We believe companies with diverse boards are more likely to achieve superior financial performance."
"Research from Credit Suisse and Catalyst Inc. has shown that companies with higher female representation have delivered higher returns."
Mark Machin, head, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board

"We find clear evidence [of greater performance among firms with women in decision-making roles. Even companies with only one female director] generated a compound excess return per annum of 3.8 percent for investors over the previous last decade."
Credit Suisse, 2016 report on corporate gender performance 

"Research conducted by consulting firms and financial institutions is not as rigorous as peer-reviewed academic research."
"[The link between board diversity and performance is] very weak. [When academics examined a few studies they discovered] the relationship between board gender diversity and company performance is either non-existent [effectively zero] or very weakly positive."
Katherine Klein, Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

"Does Gender Matter? Female Representation on Corporate Boards and Firm Financial Performances -- a Meta=analysis", a 2015 European academic paper, found that the link was "small to non-significant", concluding "Mere representation of females on corporate boards is not related to firm financial performance." On the other hand, of course, this does not rule out that women should be given the same, equal opportunities as men to sit on boards if and when they qualify equally.

Leading to the possibility that research behind those claims of [gender] diversity's impact on company performance may just be suspect, serving an ideology of female empowerment at the expense of corporate best interests, although there is nothing inherently amiss in re-adjusting the gender balance on boards and the corporate ladder of achievement through merit alone, making no adjustment for gender.

It appears beyond fanciful that gender alone can impact economic and business outcomes simply by re-adjusting the makeup of board level participants to expect massive changes in corporate performance. A wide range of factors drive corporate performance well beyond adjusting for an increase in female directors to enhance performance. The differential between company interests where consumer good production is not the business of mining companies and nor can retailers be equivalent to oil companies.

The Economist not so long ago reported that experiments in Europe with quotas are now widely thought of as a failure: "Gender quotas at board level in Europe have done little to boost corporate performance or to help women lower down", it concluded.

And then there is the inimitable observations borne of vast experience in the world of gender differentials, empowerment and recognition of superiority as when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau observed that when groups of construction workers are sent to small communities to build pipelines and other infrastructure they impose "social impacts, because they're mostly male construction workers". Blast those male construction workers and the impact of the trauma they're responsible for.

In fact, it took no time at all for females in the construction business to round on their prime minister to upbraid him for his expert opinion on an issue he knows little-to-nothing about in his zeal to promote women and demote men. He bases his opinions not only on his self-declared feminist credentials but on market research papers claiming the installation of female corporate directors and executives makes for more profitable corporations.

Men, needless to say, come out looking not quite as capable of making sound decisions, from these 'research papers' given high credence in the business world where lib-left perspectives appear to have become entrenched, with the implication that too many men dominating a board is inferior to boards with an equal number of women to men ... or perchance women dominating a board with their superior wisdom. Where's merit? Why, fully ensconced in gender of course.

On the other hand, for every study purporting to demonstrate the advantage to corporations of having women in positions of authority there are other studies that lay waste to the 'evidence' that women present on boards or in executive suites generate improved financial results. It is, however, human nature to gravitate to conclusions that tend to bolster our already-conceived and determined notions  unwilling to budge to counter-'evidence'.

Recently, Financial Post Magazine had editor Andy Holloway pose a headline question: "Will adding more female directors improve a company's results?" And the response? "Maybe not, but the pressure to do so is not going away", despite that the quick analysis of the market performance of the TSX 60 by the magazine indicates little or no relationship with board gender diversity.

"Fortunately, as Alice Eagly points out in her analysis, [Alice Eagly, professor of psychology and management at Northwestern, and one of the most renowned researchers on female leaders, delved into the academic research on the topic. She summarized what social scientists had learned about women's impact on corporate boards."
"Let’s just say, it doesn’t look good.] there are sophisticated statistical techniques that can control for these issues. What happens when we use them? Basically the impact of female board members on financial performance disappears."
"One large study even found a small reverse effect [greater gender diversity produced worse financial outcomes]. But, for the most part, it seems that gender diversity in the boardroom has no effect on corporate outcomes [and, if it exists, it’s tiny]."
Forbes

Female Vulnerability to Intimate Violence

"Woman safety is one of the best ways to gauge a nation’s long-term wealth growth potential, with a correlation of 92% between historic wealth growth and woman safety levels. This means that wealth growth is boosted by strong levels of woman safety in a country."
"Most of the countries in our top 10 are also popular destinations for migrating HNWIs (High-net-worth individuals). Also, most of them have experienced strong wealth growth over the past 10-20 years."
New World Wealth report places Canada 6th of the top 10 countries for female safety

"The country has been doing great in terms of promoting economic independence which includes women education, access to health care, laws for protection of the native women and girls, law against child marriages which rather comes under tremendous accomplishments."
"Canada is still working on providing equal wages to women as that of men so as to put an end to gender discrimination."
Quora 

No. 3: Canada

Canada ranks as the No. 3 country for women in 2019, an improvement of three spots compared to 2018. Although the country has seen some progress with gender equality in the past year, slow progress has been made in closing the pay equality gap, according to Paulette Senior, president and CEO of the Canadian Women’s Foundation. Canada ranked No. 16 out of 144 countries in the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Report 2017.

"It really drove home how often this [gender-related killing of women in Canada] was happening when we were monitoring this on a daily basis."
"Women are still most at risk of men that they are intimate with or who they should be able to trust."
"The context in which women and girls are killed is vastly different because they're most often killed by people they know, and that's in contrast to males who are most often killed by acquaintances and strangers."
"You don’t focus on this on a daily basis and come away feeling unaffected. … You wonder why it’s still happening, why we continue to see these killings happen in the same way that they have been for decades."
"We don’t talk about things like criminal harassment or the fact that most women are killed after leaving or declaring that they’re going to leave a partner. We have to challenge all the myths and stereotypes that tell women it’s their own fault."
Myrna Dawson, professor, Sociology and Anthropology, University of Guelph

Flowers are seen outside a home in Ajax, Ont., on Thursday, March 15, 2018.

Colin Perkel/The Canadian Press

The first annual report has been released by the Canadian Femicide Observatory for Justice and Accountability on the conclusions of a study titled #CallItFemicide, in response to a call from the United Nations urging countries to track gender-related female murder. The report's goal, according to its lead author, the director of the Observatory Myrna Dawson, is to bring attention to circumstances and motivations related to the violent killing of women and distinguish them from the kinds of violent deaths that men suffer.

On any global scale of violence against women, Canada ranks fabourably in the top five or six, well above even Canada's nearest neighbour, the United States of America. And while certainly Canadian women are far more protected than their counterparts in India, Niger, Sudan, Mali, Iraq, Libya, Myanmar, Democratic Republic of Congo, Somalia, Saudi Arabia, Central African Republic, Pakistan, Yemen, Mali, South Africa, Afghanistan, or the Syrian Arab Republic, to name some of the most notorious countries whose women live with dire threats of violence, no country is completely immune.

According to statistics gathered through this first of planned annual studies resulting in reports to be released to the public, a woman or girl in Canada was killed every 2.5 days on average in the last year. According to the newly-released report, 148 women and girls were killed in 2018, in 133 reported incidents where 140 people now stand accused of their deaths, with over 90 percent of those who were accused being men.

Funeral-goers leave the funeral for murder victims Pejcinovski Krassimira and her children Roy and Venallia, March 24, 2018.  Chris Donovan/The Canadian Press/File

The report's gathered details list 21 percent having been killed last year by a stranger, among them eight women and two men killed during a attack using a van as a deadly weapon last year in Toronto that saw the accuser, Alek Minassian charged with ten counts of first-degree murder and 16 of attempted murder. A larger 53 percent of the surveyed were victims of their intimate partners and another 13 percent were killed by other male members of their families.

All the data collected for this report was gathered from media reports of such violent deaths targeting women the study explained, since information pulled from the media was readily available, rendering at least as accurate a picture as information derived from official sources. In years to come, however, as these cases make their way through the justice system' researchers plan to scrutinize court records to track updates.

It was pointed out by Dr. Dawson that demographics disproportionately skew statistics in the instance of Indigenous women who represent a mere five percent of the population yet who also made up 36 percent of the women and girls killed through violence. Violence perpetrated in the main by intimate others. In another instance of disproportionate representation among certain groups rural women and girls representing 16 percent of the population claimed 34 percent of violent deaths committed against females.

Additional data –  compiled through police press releases as well as through news reports – indicated that women were most commonly killed in 2018 by shootings (34 per cent), followed by stabbings (28 per cent) and beatings (24 per cent).

"[Survivors and service providers have called for more action to address and prevent gender-based violence] – and we have listened. That’s why we are toughening our laws on domestic assault and investing over $200-million in preventing gender-based violence and supporting survivors, including by creating Canada’s first-ever gender-based violence strategy."
Braeson Holland, spokesman for the Minister for Women and Gender Equality

The Religion of Peace At It Again

"You see him on his Facebook profile and he’s smiling."
"It’s infuriating because you think to yourself, he shouldn’t be allowed to smile. He’s a killer, right? But there he is."
"[His name can be seen written on the base of his ammunition, which] would be typical of officers of the Philippine National Police worn by the Special Counter Insurgency Operation Unit, or SCOUT] being responsible for their issued kit."
"With that congruence of factors going on we have strong reason to believe that he was at some point a police officer within the PNP. And we’ve got nothing to refute that at this time." 
"[SCOUT training] would put him in an ideal position for a leadership role within Abu Sayyaf. Everything that you would need to know to attack Abu Sayyaf, now you have this member within Abu Sayyaf that can counter all of those different things that are happening to them."
So it’s a really significant finding in terms of our investigation and it also points to the difficulty that the Philippine army is having in trying to stop, get rid of, remove Abu Sayyaf."

"I think, like all Canadians, we were shocked by what was taking place. And having our skill set and knowing that Abu Sayyaf was very active on social media, we saw an opportunity to see if there was any way that we could provide input or gather intelligence on the group ourselves.
And so when the initial hostage videos, the ransom videos, came out, we started to monitor Abu Sayyaf on primarily Facebook."


"The fact that he stepped forward to be the executioner in both John Risdel and Robert Hall’s murders, there’s a reason for that. He’s looking to take on a broader role. And having that skill set, that SCOUT training, would also accelerate him up the ladder."


Jeff Weyers, senior analyst,Waterloo, Ontario-based iBrabo, Global News, December 18, 2018

Facebook photo believed to show Abu Sayyaf militant Bhen Tatuh wearing a Philippine National Police uniform

The RCMP is aware of the independent report.""We continue to work with our international partners regarding the ongoing criminal investigation into the deaths of Canadians John Ridsdel and Robert Hall in the Philippines."Sgt. Marie Damian, spokesperson, Royal Canadian Mounted Police

Facebook photo of Behn Tatuh, with ISIS flag behind him.
iBrabo

That was then, when Canadians anxiously read news reports of the two kidnapped Canadians for whose release the Islamist terrorist group now associated formally with Islamic State, was demanding millions. That was when newly-installed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau stated firmly that Canada does not pay ransom to terrorists. Of course, Canada has done so, through intermediaries in the past, it is why it came about that two former Canadian diplomats, Robert Fowler and Louis Guay taken hostage in Niger by al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) were finally released, though then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper denied having paid ransom.

More latterly, the Cathedral of Our Lady of Mount Carmel on Jolo island where Abu Sayyaf militants have continued to carry out kidnappings, beheadings and bombings was attacked as devout Catholic Filipinos were at prayer on Sunday. Window panels were blasted out by the force of the first bomb that hurled humans and debris across the town square in the provincial capital of Sulu. In response to this latest atrocity Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, ordered his troops to hunt down and crush the Abu Sayyaf group. 

They've done a bang-up job with drug traffickers, not so great with Islamist terrorists. "This is an act of terrorism. This is not a religious war", confusingly stated the Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana, identifying Abu Sayyaf commander Hatib Sawadjaan as being responsible for the attack. This is the commander of the group that beheaded the two Canadians back in 2009, when the ransom demand went unfulfilled. His base is the jungles close to the town of Patikul near Jolo. 



The minority Muslim population in predominantly Roman Catholic Philippines had endorsed a new autonomous region in the southern Philippines to put an end to close to five decades of separatist rebellion in which 150,000 people had been killed. Most of the Muslim areas had approved autonomy, while those in Sulu province chose to reject the deal. 

Typical of Islamic State, there were two suicide bombers involved, wearing explosive belts. One of the bombers detonated his explosives at the gate, and while wounded parishioners began to flee the interior of the cathedral, and armed forces personnel were rushing in, the second suicide bomber detonated his explosives in the parking lot. The death toll was twenty, while another 111 people were wounded; five troops and 15 civilians made up the death count.

A soldier views the site inside a Roman Catholic cathedral in southern Philippines after two bombs exploded Sunday.

"As we convey our sincerest condolences to the families and friends of the victims and offer our sympathy to the peace-loving people of Sulu who are severely affected by this dastardly act, we assure our people that we will use the full force of the law to bring to justice the perpetrators behind this incident."

"[People should] remain calm and avoid spreading panic in our respective communities to deny terrorism any victory."

Philippine Defence Secretary Delfin Lorenzana

Even in the Philippines, with tough-guy Duterte at the helm, authorities take exquisite care not to rile the sensibilities and besmirch the 'honour' of Islam by speaking words such as Islamist terrorists, lest the beast be bestirred to even greater and more horrendous atrocities; not that President Duterte would mind all that much being accused of 'Islamophobia'.
 

The Canadian Voice of Islamic State

"[He had been the one to] translate and read the productions and news reports of the Islamic State in the English language."
"This hero did not surrender, did not flee, and did not deliver himself to the [Kurdish] militias, nor did he search for a way out to return to Canada."
"Instead he remained, fought, and waged jihad with his voice and weapon until the last moment."
Al Muhajireen Foundation, ISIL-linked

A man caught fighting with the Islamic State during a firefight with the Kurdish forces in eastern Syria says he's a Canadian from Toronto named Mohammad Abdullah Mohammad.   Kurdish forces video

The Middle East Media Research Institute also known by its acronym, MEMRI, is well known for its surveys of the Internet to capture video events and statements by Islamists all over the world, translating their speeches and comments and interviews into English which the monitor later makes available to a wider, English-speaking audience to familiarize them with terrorist communications, alerting authorities to risks and occurrences and the public to an ongoing threat.

MEMRI recently picked up a statement issued in Arabic praising a Canadian of Ethiopian extraction who had joined Islamic State and whose voice became familiar to the world at large as he narrated various Islamic State videos which were triumphantly released for propaganda purposes to an audience all over the world, fascinated and at the same time horrified by the atrocities mounted by the terrorist group, extolling their degraded enthusiasm over torturing and slaughtering their opponents.

MEMRI had picked up a poster in praise of an Islamic State "hero", published on Sunday by the Al-Muhajireen Foundation, linked to ISIL. A photograph was featured on the poster bearing a strong resemblance to a man who had identified himself, during interrogation by his Kurdish captors a short while ago, as Mohammad Abdullah Mohammad, from Toronto, captured January 13 during a gunfight with the Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition of militias supported by the U.S. and dominated by Kurdish fighters.

MEMRI had also translated this complaint, following its posting of the above:

"In their folly they publish publications which serve the Crusaders and the enemies of the (Islamic) State."
"We see what the dogs and donkeys, the (Islamic) State’s enemies, publish regarding the martyrs, the prisoners and their families, whether via photos or video clips."
"Since publishing these kinds of photos serves the interests of the media, they publish for you things which would make children’s hair turn gray. However, there is no benefit in publishing these things. On the contrary, their harm vastly exceeds their benefit."
"The fact that it diminishes the brothers’ morale is enough (to deem these publications harmful). Therefore, we ask these foundations to focus on that which raises morale, and on what benefits media activities, rather than the opposite."
Qadih, a prominent voice in pro-ISIL Telegram groups, likely connected to the ISIL central media department

The Canadian man in question, known as the fighter Abu Ridwan Al-Kanadi has been identified as the masked host and gunman in the notorious ISIL execution video where a group of men identified as captured Syrian soldiers were surrounded by ISIL fighters who ordered them to dig what appeared to be a trench, but which became their graves as the ISIL fighters, including the narrator, gunned the victims down, and they fell into the graves they had themselves dug under duress.

That same masked narrator appeared in a number of other videos, some of which were meant to claim responsibility for a variety of deadly terror attacks in the West, including the November 13, 2015 attacks on the Bataclan Concert Hall and sport arena in Paris.That same voice is heard on multiple video claims for additional ISIL-inspired terrorist attacks.

A frame grabs from a notorious ISIL propaganda video distributed in 2014 which features an English-speaking, masked ISIL soldier narrating and apparently participating in a mass execution of prisoners in Syria. A terrorism expert alleges the man is Mohammed Abdullah Mohammed, a Toronto man captured Sunday by Kurdish forces.

The man behind the voice spoke in a video released by the Kurds who had taken him prisoner: "I was captured by them [Kurdish forces] after attacking one of t heir points and entering into a gun battle with them. After they called me to surender, I surrendered myself", he states. It was in the shrinking areas that remain under ISIL controlin the Middle Euphrates Valley of eastern Syria, close to the Iraq border where this man was taken prisoner.

He joined the jihadi group Jaysh Al Muhajireen Wal-Ansar after he left Canada in 2013, travelling through Turkey to Syria. The group, he said, led by Chechen jihadi Abu Omar Al-Shishani which had sworn allegiance to Islamic State, later moved to Raqqa, the 'capital' of the Islamic State where they remained for a few years before retreating east in response to the presence of coalition forces closing in on Raqqa to liberate it from the terrorist group.

A frame grab from a notorious ISIL propaganda video distributed in 2014 which features an English-speaking, masked ISIL soldier narrating and apparently participating in a mass execution of prisoners in Syria. A terrorism expert alleges the man is Mohammed Abdullah Mohammed, a Toronto man captured Sunday by Kurdish forces.

China's Innocence, Canada's Disgraceful Conduct

"United Front work has taken on a level of significance not seen since the years before 1949."
"[China] is increasingly able to use its soft -power 'magic weapons' to help influence the decision making of foreign governments and societies."
Marie Brady, political scientist, University of Canterbury, New Zealand

"Overseas Chinese [should] remember the call from the Party and the people, spread China's voice, support the country's development, safeguard national interests."
Chinese President Xi Jinping

"An organization that once had another purpose has gradually been taken over to serve China's national interest. Where United Front work becomes problematic is when it's engaging persons of Chinese origin who have Canadian citizenship ... to serve the interests of the motherland, when in fact the motherland should be Canada."
Charles Burton, political scientist, Brock University, Ontario

"I have heard of Chinese influence over community newspapers."
"[But] I think the Canadian Chinese community is remarkably resilient and diverse, and for the most part immune to blandishments from the Chinese government."
Jeremy Paltiel, China specialist, Carleton University

"I think there is definitely an attempt to influence domestic public opinion here."
"But from what I can see, the extent of success here is rather limited."
Lynette Ong, professor, China expert University of Toronto

"Our executive committee's background is a combination of Canada, mainland China, Taiwan and Chinese from other Asian countries."
"Support for China is not and will not be a focus ... Our primary focus is to support the Chinese community and to promote Chinese culture in Niagara."
Li Yu, former president, Niagara Chinese Cultural Association

"A lot of people don't think of the long arm of influence of China in Canada, because they're under the influence, to put it mildly."
"Outsiders like me, who is a Hong Kong immigrant ... we see very clearly that this is a United Front effort, a very subtle, soft-power kind of advance into Canadian society."
Cheuk Kwan, head, Toronto Association for Democracy in China

Chinese police are seen patrolling in front of the Canadian Embassy in Beijing last month. A new book, Claws of the Panda, argues that the Chinese Communist Party has spent decades manipulating Canadians.  (GREG BAKER/AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

Canada is comprised of many immigrant populations; it is the defining identity of the country, multi-cultural in origin. Immigrants from Ukraine, Greece, Poland, Germany, Japan, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, China, India, the United States, Scotland, Ireland, Britain, France; wherever in the world they come from, including Jews from all over the world, escaping oppression and finding a haven in a Canada that has, in the latter half of the 20th Century forward, extended equality of opportunity and security to all its citizens.

Unsurprisingly, people migrating from other countries find comfort in the fact that their original cohabitants have arrived in numbers to form communities in their new country of habitation. They form clubs and build churches reflecting their own religious commitment and the cultures they left behind, to support one another in their adjustment to their new reality. And even long afterward once they have acclimated socially and culturally, their original congregations remain of importance to them.


In some instances, like the Turkish population in Germany, the government in the original homeland takes on an 'ownership' attitude, viewing their expatriates as a demographic abroad they can continue to manipulate and have control over, to the extent of demanding from their new homeland government especial privileges for their own. Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russia's Vladimir Putin are especially given to these unwanted and unwarranted interferences in other countries, the latter with Ukraine.

And, it seems, China has made inroads in Canada by surreptitious means, to retain influence among its once-time citizens, now resident in and citizens of Canada, and to extend that influence to non-Chinese by offering to install and pay for programs that have benefit to China, and ostensibly to Canada. The Confucius Institute is one such organ which Communist China uses to extend a friendly hand, persuading Canadian universities and schools of the bonus it offers in teaching Mandarin and Chinese culture.

The Toronto Chinese Canadian Association once put on a banquet to bid farewell to the Chinese vice-consul who persuaded local Chinese to support the Confucius Institute. Now, Confucius is entrenched at three school boards in the region and on nine university and college campuses across the country, its funding very much appreciated by those institutions. Chinese state-aligned corporations have made large investments in Canadian industry. Suspicions are rampant not only in Canada but in other western countries that China's friendly helpfulness comes at a price.

Chinese intelligence services and Chinese technological giants are known for their industrial infiltration and military espionage escapades. Under President Xi, a "massive expansion" of China's soft power has emerged, much of it within the auspices of the United Front Work Department, an offshoot of the Chinese Communist party, which forges links with officials in foreign missions to influence the Chinese diaspora.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, at a fundraiser held on Nov. 7,2016 at the West Vancouver mansion of B.C. developer Miaofei Pan.

Foreign and Overseas Chinese Affairs Office of the Wenzhou People’s Government

Infiltration for the sake of befriending foreign political and economic elites, with the aim of promoting Beijing's agenda all helps in expanding a China-centric economic bloc. A goal of the United Front is to advance opinions on issues such as acquisition by Chinese companies of Canadian natural resources and technology. The decision Canada has yet to make about Huawei's involvement building Canada's 5G telecom network a critical issue at hand.

Huawei's close ties to the Chinese state makes accusations of corporate espionage logical, enough so that the U.S., Great Britain, Australia and New Zealand have all backed off allowing Huawei to take part in their 5G trials, leaving Canada the only member of the Five Eyes intelligence sharing alliance to not yet having decided to leave Huawei out. Which has led China's ambassador to Canada to issue none-too subtle threats of 'repercussions' that might accrue.

Such 'repercussions are already being seen by Canada in China's fury at the arrest on December 1st in Vancouver of Huwei's chief financial officer on an extradition warrant issued by the U.S. justice system which led China to arrest two Canadian businessmen and commit another Canadian to death for drug smuggling out of China. Canada under this Liberal government has been ingratiating itself with China in the search for a free trade deal and in its zeal to have a seat at the revolving UN Security Council.

There are 211 accredited 'diplomats' from China in Canada at the various Chinese missions. The U.S. with ten times the population and with huge trade between China and the United States, rates a comparative fewer 276 accredited representatives of China, while the United Kingdom has 38. Of that 211 in Canada, it would be interesting to know how many are accredited in China's intelligence apparatus and outreach to Canada's very large Chinese diaspora.

Canada's recently removed Ambassador to China, John McCallum boasted in an interview with Chinese foreign and domestic reporters to which major Canadian news outlets were not invited, that his sons were married to Chinese women. While he was a backbencher, he was the recipient of $73,000 worth of trips to China paid for by pro-Beijing business groups and the Chinese government.

His ill-considered reassurances of the welfare of Huawei's Meng Wanzhou's bid to escape extradition to the U.S. which forced Justin Trudeau's hand in firing him, has given aid and comfort to China and stoked the furnace of concern over the fate of Canadians arrested in China in furious retaliation against Canadian law honouring a commitment with its neighbour on extradition.

"McCallum was merely stating the truth when he observed that Meng has a strong case against extradition, which he rightly said was politically motivated."
"Although what he said is 100 per cent true, his words seem to have fallen on deaf ears at home. Those who had attacked McCallum should feel ashamed of themselves... the political mess that Ottawa is floundering in could get a lot worse if it chooses to accede to the U.S. request for Meng’s extradition despite the problems with the case that McCallum, among others, has pointed out."
China Daily

John McCallum, Canada's former ambassador to China, arrives at a fund-raising event at a Chinese restaurant in Vancouver, B.C on Jan. 25, 2018.

BEN NELMS

Recalling The Holocaust

Cemetery of Jews killed by Horthysts in Sărmașu

Recalling The Holocaust

"Because my father and I had fled Romania when World War Two broke out and managed to get visas to Australia, I was in the Australian army on my twenty-first birthday. My commanding officer had given me a short leave. Thus, I spent my birthday alone, walking in the Australian countryside and thinking about who among my family and friends back in Transylvania were alive or dead. What had happened to them?"

"Soon after the war, I learned that on that very day, Hungarian soldiers shot the entire Jewish population of Sarmas, a village east of Kolozsvar, in Transylvania. Those poor people. They had thought of themselves as Hungarians. They spoke Hungarian. They had managed to survive five years of fascism without being deported to concentration camps. It was as if they had been miraculously forgotten while every kind of horror reigned around them. Then their own Hungarian soldiers appeared in Sarmas, and what did they do? They herded all the Jews into pigsties for several days and then took them to a hill and massacred them. Within the Holocaust, there were many little pogroms."

A week after Fischer [Rudolf Fischer] told me this story, I would visit that same hill in Sarmasu, Romania. It was a vast and sloping fold of grass surrounded by villages of rotting wood, where wild pigs scampered through the mud and peasants in black sheepskins worked with scythes. I saw three lines of graves, 126 in all, each with a Star of David and a Hebrew inscription. The graves were surrounded by an ugly cement barrier, a brutal box that might be called 'modern history'. I climbed over the barrier and read the Romanian inscription:

"....[Hungarian] fascist troops, the enemies of mankind, occupied the village of Sarmasu, where they herded all the Jews -- men, women, and children -- inside pigsties, where they kept them without food and tortured and humiliated them in the most vicious manner for ten days, after which they were taken to this hill of weeping and killed in the most sadistic ways on the eve of the Jewish holiday Rosh Hashanah....."

Exhuming the victims of the Sarmas massacre for burial, 1945. Photo of exhumation via Yad Vashem, via MemorialMuseums.org.

Of course, this monument in Romania made no mention of equally horrible atrocities perpetrated against Jews by the Romanians themselves during World War II.

Eastward to Tartary, Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus, Robert D. Kaplan

Sărmașu massacrePart of the Holocaust in Northern Transylvania

Is That All There Is?

"The act didn't take place. We disrupted the act."
"The individual identified expressed capacity and capability and intent but to specific ideology, I can't comment on that. It was a confirmed attack plan. There is motive, but I am not prepared to comment on that right now."
"From the initial information, it was a substantiated and credible attack plot, however, there was no indication where the attack was to take place, there was no specific targeting or time associated with it."
"The decision to arrest was not one because we had met any kind of threat to public safety. At no time was there a threat to public safety. A decision to arrest was made strictly on the collection of evidence and accumulating a substantial amount of evidence that allowed us to charge."
"I can't speak to the specifics of their communication or the relationship between the two [arrested]. They do travel in company, one with the other. They have an informal relationship, a friendship."
"They have been part of the investigation throughout the course of its duration and both were arrested simultaneously under the same reasonable and probable grounds."
RCMP Supt. Peter Lambertucci

A minor, who can't be identified under the Youth Criminal Justice Act, appeared in a Kingston courtroom Friday to face two charges related to an anti-terrorism investigation. (Laurie Foster-MacLeod sketch)

"I know my son, he didn't think about that [terrorism]."
"He like Canada. He like the safety in Canada. How could he think about that?"
"It's fake news about my son. I trust my son. I know he cannot do anything against any human."
Amin Alzahabi, father of Hussam Eddin Alzahabi, 20

Comprised of father, mother, two sons and a daughter, the Alzahabi family, originally from Syria, arrived in Canada as refugees in 2017. They were co-sponsored by four churches in Kingston, Ontario. The Alzahabi's 20-year-old son was arrested at the same time as a juvenile, also a refugee from Syria had been arrested, but cannot be named under Canadian law because he is underage. The 20-year-old was released shortly following his arrest, while the juvenile remains in custody.

It was the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation that had alerted Canada's Royal Canadian Mounted Police to a terrorist plot in the making. Which moved Canadian police to undertake an investigation. That investigation included, of all things, night-time propeller airplane surveillance. The plane could be heard flying night after night, for hours in the area of Kingston where these two Syrian refugee families live, and residents were perplexed about why a plane would be in the air at night, arousing people from their sleep.

If that seems clumsy as an investigative technique, it was. And that growing mystery of a continuous plane sounding at night over sleeping houses began to appear on the Internet and in the print news media, bringing unwelcome attention to events that investigative authorities clearly would have preferred to remain under cover. And which, in the final analysis spurred them to act given the concern that this growing public awareness would disrupt the investigation and end in suspects being alerted and conceivably hiding evidence and making themselves scarce.

Finally, the mystery was solved when the RCMP and Kingston police went public. And though in doing so the country heard that another terrorist threat had been apprehended, the truly vital facts that might explain much more are all absent: motive, ideology of those concerned, what manner of fissionable material was found, how much of the explosives were seized, the identity of the youth, who was to have carried out the bombing, and were there any other suspects involved, much less what drew the attention of the FBI to the plot to begin with?

Police officers carry evidence from one of the homes in Kingston, Ont., that were raided. Two people were arrested and a minor has been charged with a terror-related offence. (Lars Hagberg/Canadian Press)

"He's exercising his legal rights and he cares about Canada's safety as much as the next person."
"He's here studying, he's doing everything that he can to be a contributing member to society and there is no reason to malign him or treat him differently than anybody else."
Hussam's lawyer, Mohamed El Rashidy


"What we know about terrorism in Canada is that individuals rarely act alone. They generally have people who they're getting materials or financial support from or encouragement." 

"[In order to lay the terrorism charge, officials would have had to have had a clear ideological link, so police are likely remaining silent because it relates to an ongoing investigation.] The individual would have had to been motivated by political, religious ideological considerations so they know what that is."
"Whatever the motive is could tip off other individuals."
Former CSIS senior strategic analyst Jessica Davis 

The youth (under age 18 has been charged with terrorism offences. His friend, arrested, then released was snot charged. "Precursor elements" of a bomb, an explosive substance and bomb parts were seized from the home of the adolescent. This ongoing investigation began in December when the FBI first alerted the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team of the RCMP that a bomb plot in Canada was underway.

The charge against the younger of the two suspects was: knowingly facilitating a terrorist activity and counselling someone to set off an explosive at a place of public use with the intent to cause death or serious bodily injury. We also know however, that this is all false, concocted by the FBI and the RCMP -- because we would betray ourselves by expressing racism and Islamophobia were we to contradict a Syrian refugee who has labelled all of this "fake news".

In any event, everything's fine, folks. The 'act' didn't take place. But somehow Canada appears to have acquired a presence of maleficent intent lurking among those for whom humanitarian instincts mandated that generosity and a helping hand be extended to refugees from the world of Islam where a ruler saw fit to massacre his own. From cradle to grave. Whose grave remains the question.

Canada: The Rule of Law

"Corporal Catellier searched the accused’s vehicle with what I have found to be an absence of reasonable grounds to arrest the accused."
"This time, she [police service dog Doods] went to go sit and appeared to be startled by her rear-end hitting the concrete barrier on the passenger side of the van."
"He [expert witness] described the dog as very lackadaisical ... He said that dogs that make a find are typically happy, engaged, excited, and more alert because they expect to be able to play with a toy."
"The arrest of the accused and subsequent searches of the accused’s van incident to that arrest therefore violated s. 8 of the Charter."
"This was not a situation where the police merely opened the hood or the rear of the vehicle to take a quick peek inside. It was not a minor or technical breach. Rather, the breach was more blatant. The impact of state intrusion was thus relatively high."
B.C. Supreme Court Justice Michael Brundrett, pre-trial ruling

"The dog and the signal that the dog gives, we're relying on that to give the police officers what they don't have, and that is grounds to make an arrest, detain the person, start the criminal process."
"When you're looking at what the dog actually does, you're starting from a point when you don't have grounds to make an arrest or to engage in a search, so the dog has to get you over that hump of reasonable grounds."
"If the dog is equivocal in their behaviour, then it's, I think, a legitimate argument to say it doesn't give you that extra evidence you need."
Michael Spratt, Ottawa defence lawyer

RCMP drug-sniffer dog, PSD Doods -- still from video

Canada, like the United States, has an extremely serious problem with the criminally illegal proliferation of Fentanyl on the streets, sold for illicit profit as an opioid of choice, or used as filler in other types of drugs for greater profit. There has been an epidemic of drug overdoses linked to Fentanyl, a powerful synthetic drug used during surgeries to dull pain, and prescribed for patients suffering from chronic pain. It's a highly addictive drug, one that ensnares both non-recreational-drug users and those accustomed to using street drugs.

For police, it's a high priority to get dealers off the streets with their deadly wares. And this was what was in RCMP Cpl.Clayton Catellier's mind during traffic patrol on Highway 1 near Chilliwack, British Columbia in April of 2017 at a traffic stop when a brown Ford Windstar minivan sped behind his vehicle 15 kph over the speed limit, causing Cpl. Catellier to pull the van over. He noted that the driver was "shaking violently".

And then other signals alerted the police officer, well versed in the ways of drug runners, when he smelled the strong odour of air freshener or cologne permeating the vehicle, and noticed the presence in the vehicle of a number of cellphones, including BlackBerrys whose presence is suspicious since the encryption capabilities they come with has gained huge popularity with drug dealers. The driver, Sandor Rigo, explained he had just driven from Calgary to Vancouver and back, for used tires.

The judge noted in his statement that the van driver's explanation represented "one of the most illogical travel stories that (Catellier) had heard in the hundreds of traffic stops that he has conducted". Judge Brundrett acknowledged at the same time that Highway 1 between Chilliwack and Hope is notorious for drug running, so he was not completely ignorant of all the hints that a seasoned police officer could intuitively put together to reach an instant alert.

It just happens that this particular stretch of highway is known as a drug corridor. All of which hints spurred Cpl. Catellier to call on his search dog to do some serious sniffing. This was Doods, a trained police service dog with a good record of sniffing out the presence of drugs. She sniffed about the vehicle, tail wagging, nose busy at the van, and began to signal the presence of drugs. According to Cpl. Catellier, she placed her paws on the side of the vehicle, then attempted a 'sit' signalling the presence of drugs.

Fentanyl pills      Photo: The Canadian Press

The 'sit' position was incomplete, interrupted by the dog's back end coming in contact with a concrete barrier. The intention was obvious, however, spurring the police officer to arrest the driver in whose possession a quantity of cash had been found during a frisk. A search of the vehicle proceeded at the side of the highway, but nothing incriminating was found until the van was towed to town. There, the police officer searched the interior housing of the right wheel well, to discover five plastic bags full of fentanyl pills.

And it was then that the van driver was charged with possession for the purpose of trafficking. This was a discovery of a substantial amount of deadly fentanyl; 27,500 pills. At a pre-trial hearing, a U.S. expert witness, a former Anaheim County police officer testified for the defence, claiming it was his belief the dog gave no sign that drugs were present. And even though the judge viewing the dash cam video on the RCMP vehicle verified that Doods had committed a partial sit, he still ruled the sit was "highly ambiguous".

He ruled the sit not to be 'legitimate', and as such the arrest violated the van driver's Charter rights. He was acquitted of all charges. A perfectly idiotic ruling in view of the evidence the search of the van revealed, incriminating without an iota of doubt the man whom the judge had seen fit to acquit. When the law utterly lacks common sense, despite a crisis of drug overdoses from deadly drugs being dealt on the streets, leading to countless deaths, it's time to question why.

Doods is incensed, and anyone with an ounce of sensible thought processes should be outraged.

Upon sniffing the car — her tail wagging and nose bouncing off the van — Doods began to signal there were drugs, but her attempt to sit was impeded by a concrete barrier near the vehicle. Leann Parker/RCMP

The Holocaust in Hindsight

"This information would have been the building blocks to rolling out the Final Solution in Canada, allowing perpetrators of the Holocaust to know what cities to go to, to find Jewish people and how many Jews to round up."
"It's [the 1944 volume, purchased by Library and Archives Canada] an in-depth statistical report or census, of the American and Canadian Jewish communities."
"While this is certainly a creepy item, the decision to acquire it was simple in light of our mandate, though sometimes you have to think beyond your mandate."
"When we looked at this book and we saw the rise in Holocaust denial that is currently happening and we saw the rise in xenophobia that’s currently happening in the world, the chance to acquire an item like this reminds us the importance of memory institutions… and the role we play in ensuring the memory of the Holocaust is preserved."
Michael Kent, curator, Library and Archives Canada

The 137-page German language report, Statistik, Presse und Organisationen des Judentums in den Vereinigten Staaten und Kanada (Statistics, Media, and Organizations of Jewry in the United States and Canada), is seen in this handout photo.

"We don't, and we shouldn't, choose only those records that portray past events in a positive light. "Historical significance does not come with caveats."
"The truth of history is woven from many sources, and it is only when history is presented in its entirety that it can support the free exchange of ideas that lies at the heart of a democratic society."
"In this case, it was not published in Canada, it was published in Germany and was being sold in the United States and so we had to acquire it, we had to buy it, but that's not our usual modus operandi."
Guy Berthiaume, Librarian and Archivist of Canada

Data in the 1944 German language book "Statistics, Media and Organizations of Jewry in the United States and Canada," shows population information on Canadian cities including Jewish populations, Wednesday January 23, 2019 in Ottawa. The book, once owned by Adolf Hitler, has been acquired by Library and Archives Canada . THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

While Adolph Hitler ordered his henchmen to burn books considered to be subversive in nature or quite simply reflected an ideology averse to fascism, or works by Jewish authors, he commissioned reports for the direct purpose of advancing his plan to annihilate world Jewry. First he would proceed with exterminating the lives of Europe's Jews, rounded up from the many eastern and west European countries Germany dominated and occupied, and over the period from 1939 to 1945 used increasingly efficient methods for mass murder. The completion of the Final Solution would take place once Germany succeeded in becoming the conquering leader of the world.

To that end, the presence of the North American Jewish population was chronicled in depth by a researcher, Heinz Kloss, who conducted field work in the late 1930s in the United States, with outreach to Canada. Koss had links to American Nazi sympathizers enabling him to access sources to aid in his research and eventual publication of the 137-page German-language publication, Statistik, Press und Organisationen des Judentums in den Vereinigten Staaten und Kanada (Statistics, MEdia, and Organizations of Jewry in the United States and Canada).

The book represents a compilation of general population statistics including the number of Jews throughout Canadian cities both large and small, covering Vancouver in British Columbia to Glace Bay in Nova Scotia and all points in between. Details such as ethnic backgrounds and languages spoken were all included. There is little doubt that given the situation in Europe, others besides Jews would be targeted for extermination; Gypsies, Homosexuals, Political opponents, the elderly feeble, and those classified as mentally and physically unstable.

The book, according to the aspirations of Library and Archives Canada is to be viewed as a tool in the arsenal of decency to push back against Holocaust denial, as well as a cogent reminder of the slaughter of millions of innocent people in Nazi-occupied Europe. A stylized eagle, swastika and the words Ex Libris Adolf Hitler, identify the book as among the collection of the Nazi leader. The book was purchased for roughly $6,000 from a dealer who came into its possession as part of a collection of a Holocaust survivor.

Among other sources, the book includes the 1931 Census of Canada and the 1937 Report of the Immigration Branch, among its Canada-sourced references. Printed on wartime paper, the volume was decidedly in fragile condition, requiring extensive restoration work before it could be handled, much less publicly displayed. The plan is to display this fearful publication to the public on Sunday, January 27, in synchrony with the International Holocaust Remembrance Day Commemoration, at Library and Archives in Ottawa.

While the world shudders in horror at the fate of millions of Jewish men, women and children exposed to the diabolical plans of Nazi Germany as it wallowed in genocide, the German authorities must have felt great glee over the fact that the free countries of the world which now deplore the Holocaust, at the very time when they might have saved thousands of Jewish children, much less their parents, chose to stand by, refusing to accept Jewish refugees, consigning them by their inaction, to certain death.

Canada, at that time, had a policy of not accepting Jewish refugees, as chronicled by historical documents and living memory where at the time the adage that "None is too many" reflected the position of the-then government of Prime Minister Mackenzie King; an expression that Irving Abella and Harold Troper quoted in their book None is Too Many: Canada and the Jews of Europe 1933-1948 and when the infamous turn-back of the St.Louis crowded with desperate refugee Jews hoping to escape death aptly demonstrated the compassion extended to people no one would accept.

Library and Archives Canada

Repercussions

"[Canada's extradition treaty with the U.S. infringes on the] safety and legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens."
"[China demands the U.S. withdraw its arrest warrant against Meng and] not make a formal extradition request to the Canadian side."
"Anyone with normal judgment can see that the Canadian side has made a serious mistake on this issue from the very beginning."
"We all need to shoulder responsibility for what we do. The same is true for a country. Be it Canada or the U.S., they need to grasp the seriousness of the case and take measures to correct their mistakes."
Hua Chunying, China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman

In this Dec. 12, 2018, file photo, Huawei chief financial officer Meng Wanzhou arrives at a parole office with a security guard in Vancouver, British Columbia. China on Tuesday, Jan. 22, 2019, demanded the U.S. drop a request that Canada extradite the top executive of the tech giant Huawei, shifting blame to Washington in a case that has severely damaged Beijing’s relations with Ottawa. (Darryl Dyck/The Canadian Press via AP, File)

"[The arrests of the two Canadians will lead to] less dialogue and greater distrust, and undermine efforts to manage disagreements and identify common ground."
"Both China and the rest of the world will be worse off as a result."
Partial text of letter to President Xi, signed by academics and foreign diplomats

Clearly the West is on a hunt to discredit the Peoples Republic of China. Its successes in every field of endeavour from technology to business and trade, science and medicine, not to mention spreading goodwill among other nations of the world, in particular its neighbours around the South China Sea has resulted in the United States and Canada plotting to cast a dark shadow of suspicion over China's gains to portray it as a bully and an illegal outcast for its industriousness in forging business ties across the landscape of the world.

The latest assault that has roiled relations between China and the U.S. is the move to bring the chief financial officer of China's powerful, most successful technology giant, Meng Wanzhou of Huawei Technologies Co., to trial for deliberately misinforming banking interests with respect to Huawei's ownership of companies doing business with the Islamic Republic of Iran, despite U.S. sanctions. That Canada was dupe enough to honour an American extradition request, and hold Meng Wanzhou in custody was clearly outrageous, but China is prepared to forgive as long as Canada forgets its international obligations.

In the meantime, three Canadians in China having fallen afoul of Chinese law which is not permissive of foreigners seeking to do harm to China's security, have been incarcerated as a tit-for-tat leverage, one of whom is slated to receive the death penalty for presumably being involved in China's illicit drug trade. China would be amenable to forgiving the trespasses of these Canadians should Canada see the light and stop persecuting an important figure in Chinese technology sector with close, very close ties to both the Communist government and its military, whose human rights have been tragically defiled.

Meng Wanzhou, chief financial officer of Huawei Technologies Co., leaves her home while out on bail in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, on Thursday, Jan. 10, 2019. Ben Nelms/Bloomberg

Meng suffers the indignity of having to wear an ankle-strapped GPS monitor. She must observe a curfew. She has been ordered by a British Columbia court in Vancouver to remain in one of her luxury mansions in Vancouver. She has the freedom to consult with her lawyers, to venture out daily to shop for designer clothing, and she has the company of her family living with her in their Vancouver mansion while the second mansion is being 'renovated'. She is accompanied on her forays by security guards.

The two Canadians arrested on security concerns, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor on the other hand, languish in sparse prison cells, exposed to subtle torture meant to break prisoners' spirits. They cannot see lawyers to represent their interests, nor members of their families, but former diplomat Michael Kovrig has had Canadian consular advice, while Michael Spavor, an entrepreneur, has not. As for accused drug dealer, Robert Schellenberg, he waits on death row, an example to Canada of China's determination to observe Chinese 'law' to the letter while deploring Canadian law.

And at the same time, China is incensed that Canada may now prevaricate over using Huawei technology hardware to set up its new mobile networks, following the lead of the United States, Australia and several other countries that have all declined to have Huawei equipment used in their electronic infrastructure. Chinese Ambassador to Canada Lu Shaye has deplored the human rights abuses against an illustrious Chinese citizen and has warned that should Canada ban Huawei from 5G work in Canada, there would be "repercussions".

It is unfair and utterly infuriating that over 140 academics and former diplomats, five former Canadian ambassadors included, have signed a letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping urging the release of the two Canadian detainees. Canada's outreach to its Western democratic collegial nations to garner sympathy and outrage against China's reasonable demand to return a Chinese citizen to China from the demoralizing and outrageous "racist" attack on her by U.S. authorities is yet another instance of 'white supremacy' in action.

And China won't stand for it. "Have they shown any concern or sympathy for Meng after she was illegally detained and deprived of freedom?", Ambassador Lu Shaye asked, as he acidly accused Canada of wallowing in "Western egotism".