Letting It All Hang Out

"Unfortunately, due to language in social posts that was unacceptable, the candidate for Dartmouth-Cole Harbour [Nova Scotia] has been removed as the NDP candidate."
"We expect our candidates to engage on important issues respectfully."
Melissa Bruno, national director, New Democratic Party

"If Israel is so advanced then why can't they avoid shooting defenceless para-medics and journalists, unless they're killing innocent people deliberately!"
"Thousands of Israelis came into Palestine and were welcomed when the world turned them away. Where's your heart?"
"I wonder if Israel borrowed this from the #Nazis after they saw how successful they were?"
"At the speed Israel is killing I wonder if they're aiming higher than 6 million #Palestinians?"
"#Gaza is the new #Auschwitz and #Israeli the gatekeepers!"
Rana Zaman, social activist, Muslim, Dartmouth, Nova Scotia

In her apology, Rana Zaman said she appreciates that her comments referencing the Nazis were “inappropriate, hurtful and sadly may be perceived as anti-Semitic.”    Facebook

Rana Zaman, described as a social activist, and strident 'Islamophobia' fighter was confirmed in May as the candidate for the New Democratic Party in the Halifax-area riding of Dartmouth-Cole Harbour in Nova Scotia for the upcoming October federal election. Evidently her 'activism' brought scrutiny to her candidacy and someone unearthed a number of incendiary and rather hateful tweets she had posted a year earlier. The content of the tweets, brought to the attention of the NDP executive, has earned her censure and removal as an NDP candidate.

The NDP doesn't mind a certain level of criticism of Israel, but it must be done discreetly so that it can be pointed out that it is Israel's purported record on human rights failings that is being criticized, and as such not a whiff of anti-Semitism is attached. The statements by Rana Zaman ooze anti-Semitism, quite in keeping with her status as a 'Muslim activist' whose major preoccupation is asserting that any criticism of Islam as a religion that tends to foster violence is beyond the pale.

The woman, in fact, betrayed colossal ignorance of history and reality in the tenor and vitriol of her comments, entirely out of whack with any vestiges of cerebral functioning. On the other hand, perfectly aligned with most 'Palestinian rights' campaigners who relish accusing Israel of committing genocide against Palestinians, despite Palestinians living in Israel having citizenship, voting rights, electing Knesset Members, holding Cabinet positions, sitting on the Supreme Court....

Canada's newly adopted definition of anti-Semitism as part of its anti-racism strategy includes "drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis" in its adoption of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition. A definition linked to a current-day example of anti-Semitism. To add to her sterling resume as a candidate for public political office, Rana Zaman supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement, yet another Palestinian-branded delegitimization of Israel's right to exist, and one which all parties of the House of Commons rejected two years ago.

Canada's Official Terror List

"[Blood & Honour], an international neo-Nazi network whose ideology is derived from the National Socialist doctrine of Nazi Germany [now appears on an expanded list of terrorist entities under the Criminal Code list]."
"Through their armed branch, Combat 18 [C18], the group has carried out violent actions, including murders and bombings."
"The various divisions of Blood & Honour organize concerts and white pride rallies that bring together skinheads and other neo-Nazi supporters. Many acts of violence are attributed to members affiliated to the group."
Public Safety Canada

"[Both groups have] a presence in various places across the country. There has been accelerating public interest in this regard."
"The government is constrained from commenting any further, but what the listing demonstrates is that these two entities have been thoroughly investigated, that the proper police and security reports have been presented to the government, and the evidence is clear that they fall within [the criteria for a terrorist entity]."
Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale

Canada's national security agencies have focused their sights on right-wing extremism as a threat to safety and security in the country, nudging off to a lesser focus it would appear, the threats emanating from Islamist terrorist groups, previously taking centre stage as imminent violent threats. In updating the list of terrorist organizations white supremacist groups and their "armed branches" now share space with threatening groups more familiar to the Canadian public, joined by three new groups, Iranian-backed Shia militias.

Canada is still avoiding the recognition long overdue that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, Iran's military, its military leaders answerable to the Republic Grand Ayatollah, is by definition a terrorist group. The Islamic Republic of Iran tasked the IRGC with recruiting Shia Muslims in Lebanon in the 1980s to form an offshoot terrorist group now known as Hezbollah, training and arming them and dispatching them internationally for terrorist actions abroad.

Officials in the current Liberal Trudeau-led government feel more comfortable asserting their vigilance over neo-Nazi and other far-right groups as a destabilizing threat to Canadian unity and protection of vulnerable groups within the country. Blood & Honour originally established in Britain has been implicated in violent attacks in North America and Europe, and active in Canada where their focus is on victimizing visible minorities. Their offences revolve around weapons and assaults.

By listing a group under terrorism, authorities can legally seize property, prevent financial institutions from business associations with such groups and prosecuting those who "knowingly participate in or contribute to, directly or indirectly, any activity" of the group. "This participation is only an offence if its purpose is to enhance the ability of any terrorist group to facilitate or carry out a terrorist activity", according to Public Safety Canada.

Under the previous Conservative government led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Canada cut off all diplomatic and official relations with the Iranian Republic, acknowledging its support of terrorism, its cult of aggrandizing Iran as a malign influence in the Middle East with its nuclear aspirations and its openly-stated threats against Israel. Islamist fundamentalism in Canada is not monopolized by Shia Iran; the Muslim Brotherhood, its Sunni counterpart, has a well-established foothold in the Muslim Canadian community.

The Brotherhood is as worrisome a threat to most countries of the Middle East and internationally as is the aspirations of Iran to take command of the region. Official Canada has placed Brotherhood-linked Hamas on its terrorism list, but not the Muslim Brotherhood which inspired Hamas's formation. A year ago a Conservative motion in the House of Commons to declare the IRGC a terrorist group had the support of all political parties and the Liberals pledged to support the motion, then failed to follow through.

In this file photo taken on Sept. 22, 2018 members of Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) march during the annual military parade marking the anniversary of the outbreak of the devastating 1980-1988 war with Saddam Hussein's Iraq, in the capital Tehran.AFP / Getty Images

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau intended to 'mend fences' with Iran, to re-establish the Canadian mission in Tehran and invite Iran to re-open its embassy and consulates in Canada. And no doubt restore to Iran all the assets frozen by the previous Conservative government. Negotiations had been underway between Ottawa and Tehran on that agenda, with events since then stalling the effort. But then, Ottawa, led by Justin Trudeau, has had other problems to contend with; its failed relations with India, and then with China among other 'irritations'.

"The listing process requires careful consideration of criminal or security intelligence reports by our security and intelligence agencies, which are reviewed by Department of Justice counsel to ensure that entities meet the legal threshold for listing under the Criminal Code." 
“Canada is committed to working with like-minded countries to ensure Iran is held to account. This includes strong measures to hold Iran accountable for its support of terrorism."
Scott Bardsley, spokesman, Ralph Goodale, Public Safety Canada

Holding Iran to account? By what measure exactly! What would make Iran fall within the 'criteria for a terrorist entity' to satisfy its inclusion on Canada's terrorist list when it has consistently and repeatedly carried out terrorist acts through the Revolutionary Guard Corps, and its Lebanon-based terrorist group Hezbollah? Its complicity in Syria's war against its own Syrian Sunni population, its instigation of conflict in Yemen through support and arming of the Houthi Shias. And its ongoing threat of weaponizing its long-rage missiles with nuclear tips in the too-near future...

Killing an Honourable Reputation by a Dishonourable Disputant

"Vice-Admiral Norman remains committed to the Navy, the Canadian Armed Forces and their mission. However, after consulting with his family, his chain of command, and his counsel, VAdm Norman has decided to retire from the Canadian Armed Forces."
"Both parties believe that this resolution will return focus to the critical work of the Canadian Forces, which is the protection of all Canadians."
"The Government of Canada thanks VAdm Norman for his 38 years of dedicated service, and wishes him well in all of his future endeavours."
Department of National Defence, Ottawa

Vice-Admiral Mark Norman is retiring. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's agenda when the Liberal government he heads followed the previous Conservative-led government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, was to reverse all the decisions made by the Harper government. Everything from new laws enacted by the previous government to military acquisitions for the Armed Forces. Trudeau's new Liberal government changed all the names of government departments to fully distinguish them as 'his' new departments under his 'Canada-is-back' plan of re-establishing the Liberals as Canada's natural-governing party.

The Conservative government's plan to contract to purchase badly-needed Lockheed Martin's F-35 jets was jettisoned by Trudeau, and Canada ended up with elderly second-hand Australian fighter jets in an ongoing contretemps of juggling various options, none of which played out satisfactorily, leaving Canada limping along on aged jets reflective of Trudeau's intransigence. A military re-fuelling supply vessel that the Conservative Minister of Defence urged the second-in-command of the Canadian Forces, head of the Naval command, to pursue represented yet another issue Trudeau countermanded.

Documents linked to a Liberal cabinet meeting where the supply ship contract was discussed and the decision to sink it was made, were leaked and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau focused on Mark Norman, then second-in-command of the Forces as the culprit. An RCMP investigation was launched over a matter that in Ottawa saw such 'leaks' of confidential documents taking place on a regular basis simply being overlooked as 'business as usual'. Vice-Admiral Norman's home was raided by police, his files and computers taken away.

The Trudeau government meant to discard the contract for the supply ship from a Quebec shipyard and consider contracting instead with an East-Coast shipyard that was lobbying the government, and had close contacts with the-then president of the Treasury Board who made overtures on their behalf.
When news of the situation leaked and saw publication it was an embarrassment to Trudeau and he vented his rage on Norman, going so far a year before charges were eventually laid, as to twice state publicly that the issue would be going to trial.

Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, pictured with his defence lawyer Marie Henein, and the government released a joint statement on Wednesday, announcing they had a reached a 'mutually acceptable agreement' and that he would be retiring from military service. Mr. Norman had previously said he planned to resume his duties. The Hill Times file photograph by Andrew Meade

When it did, eventually, Vice-Admiral Norman's legal team unearthed evidence given them by  former Conservative Cabinet members clarifying without doubt that Norman was simply following orders, as he contended throughout his two-year ordeal. Chief of the Defence Staff Jonathan Vance had lost little time in informing his second-in-command, however, that he would be deposed from his duties. In essence, abandoning a close colleague, and giving fuel to the fire of suspicion, rather than supporting him.

Charged with one count of breach of trust after his January 2017 suspension, in May of 2019 prosecutors informed the court at trial that there was no likelihood of a conviction. Norman's legal expenses over the period in question amounted to about $1 million in his defence, which the Armed Forces declined to pay as is usually routinely done, but not in his case. Once the charges were stayed, however, the decision was reversed, and Chief of the Defence Staff Vance declared his intention to welcome Norman back to active duty.

Norman's previous role, however, was occupied, and it doesn't take much imagination to understand what a difficult working situation it would be for him. The oppressive misery he suffered resulting from Prime Minister Trudeau's intention to discredit and charge Norman with no due cause, would not be readily eased, nor would an apology from Trudeau be forthcoming. Arrangements were being made for a civil suit against the government, perhaps pre-empted by this non-disclosure agreement concluded between Vice-Admiral Norman and the government of Canada.

"This is unparalleled in Canadian history when one of our most trusted public servants, the second highest ranking member of the military, was essentially dragged through a public show trial, in many ways, over something he was later vindicated over."
"All of it could have been avoided."
former Conservative cabinet minister Erin O'Toole

Mr. Trudeau, for you and Mr. Sajjan to duck the reading of the approved by all parties parliamentary apology to Vice-Admiral Norman supports Elton John’s thesis, “Sorry seems to be the hardest word.”   Roy Green

Oh, What A Tangled Web We Weave

"What is most glaring about the extradition request is that the conduct alleged against Ms. Meng could never ground a criminal prosecution in Canada. Canada does not police the conduct of foreign persons in foreign lands that have nothing to do with Canada."
"None of the conduct occurred in the United States or Canada. No alleged victim resided in Canada. No aspect of any fact violated any Canadian law."
Lawyers, Meng Wanzhou

Meng Wanzhou arrives at her home[one of two Vancouver mansions] after attending court in Vancouver, British Columbia on Wednesday, May 8. China again demanded her release again Wednesday. (Ben Nelms/CBC)

The arrest last December in Vancouver of senior Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou may have seemed routine and unremarkable to the unwary Trudeau team, but it unleashed a veritable storm of vitriolic rage from the Communist Party of China Politboro, livid that a member of one of their most trusted families heading China's most integrated-with-the-West communication giants was detained by Canada on behalf of the United States in the midst of a crippling trade war between Washington and Beijing.

Canada, in one fell stroke, succeeded in making a virulent adversary out of an erstwhile trading partner with whom it eagerly wished to enlarge trade opportunities and sign a free trade agreement to Canada's advantage, opening doors to Canadian business and trade with the trading colossus. Instead, the Trudeau government has become mired in a diplomatic, political and social faux pas that has resulted in two Canadians being taken hostage as pawns in a high-stake game of 'chicken'.

Two Canadians imprisoned on trumped-up charges of espionage, two more Canadians placed on death row for drug running, and Canada's canola and pork exports to China, their largest customer now placed in abeyance, all disturbing and financially destabilizing moves on China's part. Chinese leaders refuse to return telephone calls from Prime Minister Trudeau and members of his cabinet. Justin Trudeau has been reduced to going, cap in hand, to President Trump to ask for intervention.



This, after injudiciously infuriating Donald Trump during a G-20 meeting held in Canada when bright little Justin thought he was entitled to show European Union leaders just how 'independent' he was in his bravado impudence to Trump. Circumstances have cut Trudeau down to size; his 'sunny ways' no longer much in evidence. By the simple expedience of having alerted Ms. Meng that should she enter Canada, its authorities would be obliged to arrest her on a U.S. warrant, this contratemps could have been averted.

Canada has little option now but to carry through on its obligation to extradite the Huawei executive. China, in deciding to stomp all over Canada in an indication of its wrath, to exact as much humiliating harm as conceivable to Canadian citizens and the country's export potential to China's vast market is, in fact, not exactly pioneering a never-before-taken path by exploiting all avenues however diplomatically indigestible in its bid to squeeze Canada. It is simply what China itself is now experiencing at the hands of the more powerful (as yet) United States.

The latest Chinese move against Canada is yet another painful reproach by a regime that insists it has done nothing wrong, that Canada insulted and assaulted Chinese values, and since it was the instigator of the current 'strained' situation, it must make amends, otherwise the screws will simply continue to tighten. Shutting the Chinese market to canola, and now claiming a feed additive banned in China but not in Canada has contaminated pork bound for China accompanied by fraudulent veterinary certificates.

"These forged certificates were sent to the Chinese regulatory authorities through Canadian official certificate notification channel, which reflects that the Canadian meat export supervision system exists obvious safety loopholes."
"In order to protect the safety of Chinese consumers, China has taken urgent preventive measures and requested the Canadian government to suspend the issuance of certificates for meat exported to China since June 25."
Chinese embassy spokesperson

This, of a country whose reputation for spurious and health-threatening additives to food products -- such as plastics in milk -- infamously caused a health crisis internally, and whose use of lead in all manner of products from children's toys to food preparation utensils is fairly well known. All of which is to say, when a country is as large and powerful as China, it makes eminently good sense to tread lightly. Canada has come late to this realization. 

Chinese Canadians

"I knew Hong Kong would eventually be handed over to the [Chinese] regime. My friends and I, we feared Hong Kong would be totally under the dictatorial rule."
"The younger generation -- and the people who decided to stay and are now fighting, they have my utmost admiration."
Ivy Li, 63, formerly from Hong Kong, Vancouver resident

Ms. Li was responding to the mass demonstrations in Hong Kong, where people were out on the streets adamant that they would not accept the proposed extradition bill signifying Chinese control over Hong Kong and the erosion of civil liberties in what was once a thriving British colony. Although the Hong Kong government, sympathetic to Chinese rule, announced the bill was suspended, demonstrations continue, demanding it be entirely withdrawn.

Protesters against a proposed extradition bill, rest near the Legislative Council building in the early morning in Hong Kong Photograph: Athit Perawongmetha/Reuters

The measure to suspend the bill represents a temporary stop-gap to restore order to the city, according to Carrie Lam, chief executive, who uncharacteristically apologized for the measure to carry the bill to completion having been conducted in an imperious manner. This has failed to satisfy the people of Hong Kong who envision, with good reason, that the extradition law carried to fruition would mark the end of semi-autonomous Hong Kong and the firm entrance of aggressive authoritarian moves from China.

Tens of thousands of people from Hong Kong emigrated to Canada, among them Ms. Li and her family when the United Kingdom agreed to hand control of Hong Kong back to China in 1997. Hong Kong was supposed to retain a high degree of autonomy, with an independent judiciary for 50 years, under the agreement reached between China and the U.K. It is not yet 2047, but the Communist Peoples Republic of China is anxious to reclaim its own, sundering the "One Country, Two Systems" agreement.

Most people immigrating to Canada flooded into Vancouver, on Canada's West Coast. Sparing them from greater Canada's geography where weather extremes can be guaranteed with long, cold, snowy winters and hot and humid summers. On the arrival of people from Hong Kong, the Vancouver real estate market went into overdrive, and property prices soared. Many Chinese from Hong Kong planned to qualify for Canadian citizenship, and then to return to Hong Kong, using their dual citizenship as a lifeboat should it become necessary.

Several hundred protesters showed up Saturday at the Consulate General of of the People's Republic of China in Vancouver. The protest was a reaction to controversial legislation in Hong Kong that allows extraditions to Mainland China. Jason Payne / Postmedia

"Vancouver has a special relationship with Hong Kong", explained Vancouver urban planner Andy Yan, who wryly described Vancouver as the 18th district of Hong Kong. According to the 2016 census, 24,120 residents of Metro Vancouver were born in Hong Kong. Most of the Chinese who emigrated to Vancouver were from the southern part of China; Hong Kong where Cantonese is the spoken dialect. Since 2016 however, continued migration to Canada has led to Mandarin overtaking Cantonese.

But the Chinese-Canadian population vastly pre-dates these most recent migrations. Chinese people have lived in Canada for over a hundred years. They were brought to Canada to work on constructing Canada's coast-to-coast railways. And they were subjected to dreadful discrimination, among them the notorious 'head tax' in an effort to keep Canada free of non-Caucasians. They were an oppressed minority for generations, working menial jobs, opening laundries and small mom-and-pop stores.

Canada has a huge Chinese population/ mostly from mainland China which long pre-dated the Hong Kong diaspora, however, with large demographics in Toronto and Ottawa; in total close to two million people of Chinese descent enriching the Canadian culture. Now, it is anticipated given the unrest and fear circulating in Hong Kong that emigration from the country will once again pick up.

Vancouver's Chinatown is one of the oldest neighbourhoods in the city and a nationally-recognized historic site. (Photo by: Judy Lam Maxwell)

"I would assume more parents would want their children educated abroad, particularly pursuing North American education, possibly as a path of immigration"
"The political environment, the abundance of home-owning opportunities, or the well-being of their children and reuniting the family here, are all factors in that process."
Will Tao, Vancouver immigration lawyer

Mr. Tao is anticipating a potential surge in immigration from Hong Kong. He has received overtures from clients who had lived in Canada, as children or as parents of children who had returned to Hong Kong in the last two decades and now consider a return to Canada. Many of these people already hold Canadian citizenship. And there will be many more, he hazards to conjecture, that will want to join them, escaping what they fear will be the inevitable takeover of Hong Kong by China.

Protesters demonstrate against the now-suspended extradition bill on 16 June in Hong Kong Photograph: Carl Court/Getty Images

"A Nation of Terror"

"They didn't want the evidence left behind [leading Iranian forces to remove an unexploded mine from the side of a vessel bombed in the Gulf of Oman]."
"They [Islamic Republic of Iran] are a nation of terror and they've changed a lot since I became president."

"It was them that did it [referring to a video released by US Central Command that the US claims shows a small Iranian boat sailing up to one of the ships to remove an unexploded mine from its hull]."

"We will see what happens. We are being very tough on sanctions ... We're going to see how to stop [it]. They are pulling back from everywhere."

"I personally feel that it is too soon to even think about making a deal. They are not ready, and neither are we!"
U.S. President Donald Trump

"At the moment, both sides in this dispute think the other side doesn't want war. The risk you have is that then they do something provocative that leads to catastrophic consequences that weren't intended."
Jeremy Hunt, British Foreign Secretary

A tanker ablaze in the Gulf of Oman, in an unverified image supplied by an Iranian news agency.

A video released by the U.S. military shows what appears to be Iranian forces attempting the removal of an unexploded mine from the side of one of the two vessels that were attacked in the Gulf of Oman this week. And although the U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, and his president both lay responsibility for the renewed attacks on oil tankers passing through the Strait of Oman directly on the very nation that has threatened just such action, Iran blandly denies any involvement.

"It's not a great video, and you can't see much detail ... but it looks like what the U.S. says it is."
"The working assumption is that it was Iran and this footage points in that direction."
Richard Meade, editor, Lloyd's List

According to Britain's Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt, the United Kingdom has no reason to disbelieve the American assessment of the situation. But they are wary of the hostility rising to heated temperatures between Iran and the United States. Iran called in Britain's representative in Tehran to deliver the Republic's displeasure at Britain's agreement with the U.S. finding implicating Iran in this latest of terrorist actions.

The Japanese owner of the Kokuka Courageous oil tanker, one of the two attacked, believes his ship was struck by "a flying object", and not a mine or a torpedo. Which, if correct, changes little, though the owner, Yukaka Katada, president of the operating company, held his counsel on whether it was his belief that Iran was responsible for the attack. It's like being in the uneasy presence of a psychopath, knowing that anything you say that might offend him, could result in provoking additional violence.

The Japanese tanker became a casualty of the Iranian ire at its economic collapse via crippling sanctions at the very time that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was on a conciliatory diplomatic mission to Tehran. The thought being, no doubt, that Japan, up to the current sanctions imposed by the U.S. on Iran was a major purchaser of Iranian oil, and thus might have some credible clout. His message from Trump, however was not received, the mission a predictable failure.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, left, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani shake hands after a joint press conference in Tehran.

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei viewed the unseen and his unresponsive reaction to what he deigned not to read as airily dispensable: "We will not negotiate with the United States. No free nation would ever accept negotiations under pressure", was his considered response. This, of a leader who threatens annihilation of another free nation whose existence he simply happens to consider extraneous to the needs of his theocratic political order.

Of the four other oil tankers sabotaged in the very same area a month earlier, Iran is similarly innocent, of course. That was also the month that Washington tightened economic sanctions against Iran. And in the spirit of reciprocity Tehran threatened to step up its nuclear activities. It has also long threatened blockage of the Strait of Hormuz, seeking to deliver maximum economic damage to its neighbours since it represents the main shipping route for Middle East oil.

"I'm ready when they are", Trump said, of his invitation to Iran to return to the negotiating table for an updated version of the nuclear agreement of 2015 that Trump cancelled a year earlier; affirming one of his pre-election promises. An updated negotiation that would include not only Iranian nuclear aspirations, but its updating of its missile technology, and its support of proxy terrorist groups it dispatches on missions abroad and within the Middle East.

Iran's version of this latest assault on international shipping was its foreign minister's statement when Javad Zarif claimed it was "the B Team" that had carried out the attack. The "B Team" represented by John Bolton, American nation security adviser, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, whose diabolical plan is to disrupt Iranian diplomacy.

Yes -- Iranian diplomacy.

Oh, The Pain of It! Fraud Alert...!!

"Today I received restorative stem cells from my good friend Greg Diienzo @ProGenaCell. The stem cells were manufactured by Invitrx here in So Cal [Southern California]."
"My friend Dr. Mathi Senapathi gave the cells to me intravenously."
"Is it possible to turn back the clock? I will let you know."
William Shatner, Montreal-born actor of Star Trek fame

Captain Kirk getting some amazing injection (probably not stem cells) from Dr. McCoy

"To be  honest, it isn't even a scientifically plausible idea."
"While I'm sure Shatner means well, it is still frustrating to have celebrities endorse procedures like this. They lead to headlines that both hep to publicize these clinics and legitimize the unproven therapies."
Timothy Caulfield, Canada Research Chair in health law and policy, University of Alberta

"I'm a close friend of Bill's. I've been a friend of Bill's for years. And  he is an intellectually exceptional, physically exceptional individual, notwithstanding his 88 years of age."
"We knew we could lawfully give the cells  here, in the U.S., which we did. [Senapathi is] a truly brilliant stem cell scientist."
"It would be like bringing in a bunch of skilled labourers into a house that needs to be remodelled, and these skilled labourers just start fixing things."
"He got 60 million [cells; a double dose. The risks are] almost nonexistent."
His first text to me [after the stem cell infusion] said, 'Geez, I rode five horses today, and I'm feeling less pain'."
Greg DiRienzo, CEO, founder, ProGenaCell

"I don't know that these [cord blood stem cells] would actually do anything beneficial when infused into an adult."
"They might do some good stuff, and they might do some stuff that's not so good."
"I'm sure William Shatner wants to keep on going and be healthy. I can't really fault him for personal choice. But the tweet makes it more likely that dozens of just regular people might give it a try, too."
"There are a lot of people I've seen who have taken out mortgages, or had these huge fundraisers with family and church, just to scrape together $10,000 or $20,000 for these kinds of unproven stem cells."
Paul Knoepfler, stem cell biologist, UC Davis School of Medicine

Well, with his wealth, William Shatner doesn't have to be concerned over spending ten or sixteen thousand dollars for stem cell treatment that he is convinced will regenerate his vital organs to make him feel and possibly look younger than his 88 years. He has informed his 2.5-million Twitter followers of setting out on this journey toward youthfulness by an advisory tweet informing that he had tens of millions of umbilical cord stem cells injected through an infusion on May 31st.

He was careful to preface his Tweet with the hashtag #ad, which was thoughtful of him.

When Mr. DiRienzo spoke of his 'friend's' venture into the Fountain of Youth territory of wishful thinking, he did mention having treated one of Shatner's horses years back, which, it appears, inspired them to toss around the idea of doing the same for Shatner. And since the recipient's tweet announcing the therapy of a double dose, his company received "quite a few" inquiries.  The infusion was "gifted" to Shatner, the ordinarily $16,000 cost for a double dose therapy, waived.

So, Shatner was paid to promote the therapy? "Gosh, no, not at all. He didn't endorse it. He just had it done. There's no endorsement there", DiReinzo hastened to explain.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the cells supplied by Invitrx Therapeutics, Inc. for human use. What Shatner received was primarily mesenchymal stem cells, which are cells capable of differentiating; growing into a variety of cell types; bone, cartilage, muscle cells and fat cells. The idea being to restore cellular function to cells having undergone "senescence". In other words the cells following the most natural of processes have grown old, and no longer divide.

Rest assured, the treatment relies on science for validation, said DiReienzo; a "huge amount" of studies have been published since the 1930s on stem cell therapies. University of Miami researchers found frail, elderly people demonstrated physical performance improvements as well as improvement in markers of inflammation after receiving meschymal stem cell therapy through their randomized, double-blind 2018 study.

According to Dr. Knoepfler, how many of the stem cells might survive post-injection is uncertain. Since they emanate biologically from another human's tissues, chances are they'll be destroyed by the receiver's immune system, since that's their function; to destroy foreign invaders. Nor is it known that if they survive, how long they would remain in the body and functioning. While the cells secrete growth factors and other molecules, one can only hypothesize as to the final outcome of the experiment, since that in effect, is what it is.

Actor William Shatner shared news of his “restorative” therapy with his 2.5 million Twitter followers, becoming the latest celebrity to seemingly endorse a medical offering of dubious benefit, critics say. - File

Viva 'Progressive' Canada!

"The federal government must recognize the exclusive role provinces and territories have over the management of our non-renewable natural resource development or risk creating a Constitutional crisis."
"[Bill C-48 in particular] will have detrimental effects on national unity."
"Bill C-69, as originally drafted, would make it virtually impossible to develop critical infrastructure, depriving Canada of much-needed investment."
"Our [provincial] governments are deeply concerned with the federal government’s disregard, so far, of the concerns raised by our provinces related to these bills. As it stands, the federal government appears indifferent to the economic hardships faced by provinces."
"Immediate action to refine or eliminate these bills is needed to avoid further alienating provinces and their citizens and focus on uniting the country in support of Canada’s economic prosperity."

"Our five provinces and territory stand united and strongly urge the government to accept Bill C-69 as amended by the Senate, in order to minimize the damage to the Canadian economy."
"We would encourage the government of Canada and all members of the House of Commons to accept the full slate of amendments to the bill."

Premiers Doug Ford (Ontario), Blaine Higgs (New Brunswick), Brian Pallister (Manitoba), Scott Moe (Saskatchewan), Jason Kenney (Alberta), Robert McLeod (Northwest Territories)

"I think it's absolutely irresponsible for conservative premiers to be threatening our national unity if they don't get their way." 
"The fundamental job of any Canadian prime minister is to hold this country together."
"Anyone who wants to be prime minister, like Andrew Scheer [leader of the Conservative official opposition], needs to condemn those attacks on national unity."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

"Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has no one to blame but himself for the current strains on national unity."
"He has claimed the fundamental responsibility of any Prime Minister is to bring the country together yet his actions point to the contrary."
"He’s pushing legislation widely criticized by most provinces, industry groups, prospective investors in Canada and Indigenous leaders as clear violation of provincial jurisdiction and a profound threat to [the] future of natural resource development, economic growth and prosperity in our country."
"His government’s legislative actions have caused more division in Canada than we have seen for years, and today’s comments only further inflame those tensions."
Jason Kenny, Premier, Alberta 

The Hibernia platform in Newfoundland's offshore is one of the province's offshore facilities. (HMDC)

Well, actually, it's not just Conservative premiers -- who represent over fifty percent of all Canadians -- and whose provinces' natural resources have buoyed the Canadian economy since Confederation that have run afoul of the federal Liberal government's action plan on the environment clashing head on with resource development, since signatories to a previous letter sent to Trudeau were former Liberal premier Rachel Notley, and leader of the Alberta Liberals, David Khan. Furthermore, an Angus Reid poll found 50 percent of Albertans are so enraged over the federal government's stance on resource development in the oilfields they would support secession.

In Saskatchewan, over half the population would consider secession, according to an Environics poll, reflecting the evisceration of both provinces' plans for petroleum resource development that have gone awry as international investment has dried up in response to the federal government's slow and steady withdrawal from support of the oil industry, not to mention its deep-sixing of critical oil pipelines to deepwater ports for export abroad, preferentially leaving Canada's huge oil deposits untouched, a gift to strident environmentalists who prefer it that way.

A sign is located near a Trident Exploration natural gas well near the community of Didsbury, Alta. Trident blamed low commodity prices and a lack of export pipeline capacity, among other reasons, for shutting down this week. (Kyle Bakx/CBC)

The wealth generated to date by the oil and gas industries in Canadian provinces, including Newfoundland and Labrador, and particularly Alberta for many decades in tax transfers to the federal government paid the lion's share of 'equalization payments' to Canada's so-called 'have-not' provinces to ensure that all provinces in Canada would be able to offer equal services to all Canadians no matter where they live. With the Liberal government's steady encroachment on the Alberta government's responsibility for its natural resources, and its continual imposition of new environmental bills effectively halting extraction and pipeline activities, employment has plummeted and revenues along with it.

Lacking efficient export capabilities leaving Alberta to the use of trains to transport fuel to market rather than pipeline transfer, has made the province vulnerable to accepting pricing well below market value, a huge loss both for the province and for federal coffers for a government which has been profligate in other measures of spending for social welfare programs. Much like Quebec which has ever since equalization payments have been handed out, receiving the largest percentage of transfer payments to any province, enabling it to provide social programs far in excess of its own prosperity level.

Little wonder the petroleum product provinces are up in arms over the injustices they are now undergoing at the hands of the federal government. Justin Trudeau's agenda has been underhandedly undertaken, and it has impoverished the provinces that have been the engines of economic growth for the nation. He has alienated western populations by ignoring the needs of their provincial governments and putting huge numbers of people employed in the petroleum industry out of work. He is single-handedly managing to reverse the prosperity that Canada's potential promises.

And he has the unmitigated gall to charge those provinces' leaders with harming Canada's interests, with injuring national unity. We have this Liberal government to thank for social-improvement projects so dear to 'progressives' where euthanasia is now legal in Canada, as is the gateway drug to harder drug consumption at a time when the country is reeling under the ubiquity of overdose deaths, and where divisions have taken place in society over the narcissistic 'feminist' imperatives of Justin Trudeau.

A government which hands out millions in tax dollars to Islamist jihadis, and grants citizenship to convicted terrorists, while refusing summer employment funding to any organizations failing to unreservedly support abortion with no restrictions, and penalizing those in academia who refuse to use gender-neutral language in reference to LGBTQ2 demands. More, much more, all of it headache-inducing and heart-breaking for a unified Canada.

Child Marriage Hypocrisy in Canada

"There's been absolutely no reflection on the fact that it [child marriage] remains legal in Canada."
"[Child marriage in Canada] is legal and ongoing. [Research results probably] underestimate the true extent of the practice."
"Child marriage is associated with poor health and economic outcomes, particularly for girls."
Alissa Koski, assistant professor, Department of Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Occupational Health, McGill University

"Canada has committed to eliminate child, early and forced marriage by 2030 in line with target 5.3 of the Sustainable Development Goals."
"Canada reported on progress made against target 5.3 including some of the foreign aid the government has given to countries to end child marriage as well as domestic figures on child marriage, during its 2018 Voluntary National Review at the High Level Political Forum, the mechanism through which countries report their progress on the Sustainable Development Goals."
Action Canada for Sexual and Health Rights

Canada's explicitly "feminist" government under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau considers itself a leader and vital funder of efforts to end child marriage under the imprimatur of the United Nations where the practise is considered a measure of a country's social development. Canada is proud of the fact that it is involved in combating the incidence of child marriage, forced marriages, the entire culture of girls being viewed as ready for marriage at age 12 and upward. The very practise of both forced and child marriage is an assault against the human rights of any child, male or female.

The welfare of girls and women in developing countries and Canada's involvement in establishing a United Nations fund to elevate the quality of life for both girls and women in impoverished conditions was in fact initiated by the previous Conservative government led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper. The current Liberal government has expanded that initiative to protecting girls from being forced into early marriage, by custom and culture. Where marriage confers no benefits to the girls, but hastens them into adulthood, robbing them of their childhood.

Children who are married often must cook with fire and heavy pots of boiling water over unventilated cookstoves. (iStock)

So, is Canada an exemplar of commitment to upholding the rights of girls not to be forced into marriage before adulthood? Not quite; even as the Liberal government congratulates itself for its 'progressive' credentials in caring for the human rights of girls in developing countries while portraying itself as their champion, in Canada itself, child marriages continue to occur and seemingly no one in the federal government feels obliged to take much notice of it.

The simple fact of the matter is, while the Canadian government is prepared to intervene in the marriage fortunes of under-privileged girls in developing countries, where immigrants to Canada have brought their child-marriage culture with them to Canada, authorities are loathe to interfere in fear that they will be accused of infringing on peoples' religious freedom. Under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms in Canada people are guaranteed the right to practise and freedom of religion.

So the reality is that Canada, while deploring child marriages abroad in countries like India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and African countries, legally permits the very same practise in Canada. Various provinces issue marriage licences -- some 3,382 of them, allowing children to be legally married in Canada, over the past 18 years.

Ontario permitted 1,353 child marriages from 2000 forward, Alberta 791, Quebec 590 and British Columbia 429. These reflect immigrants' cultural practises imported with them into Canada. And government authorities' unwillingness to intervene.

Children who are married off do hard labour like agricultural work, cooking, lifting heavy pots and other household chores from dawn to dusk, notes an advocacy group. (iStock)

Compared to boys who are also forced into early marriages, girls marry at younger ages, and often to substantially older males. Five girls per 10,000 population represents the rate in Alberta, contrasting with 1 boy forced into early marriage out of 10,000 population figures, according to measured data dating from the year 2016; three children total per 10,000. Data derived from vital statistics offices while indicating early marriages occur in Canada, offer limited additional information.

Census data might be thought of as clarifying the issue with a more distinct idea of demographics, but that data will include marriages that took place in other countries prior to emigration to Canada. The rate of child marriage in the United States stands at about 6.2 children per 1,000, more elevated for girls than for boys, at 6.8 versus 5.7. The practise is lower among white populations, higher among Indigenous and Chinese.

In Maine, Rhode Island and Wyoming the rate is less than four children per 1,000, graduating upward to as much as ten per 1,000 population in West Virginia, Hawaii and North Dakota, figures provided through Dr Koski's previous American studies of child marriage. Sub-Saharan Africa and India provided figures on child marriage for her doctoral research, feeding into the popular image of child marriage as "something that happens elsewhere".

The minimum age for marriage in Canada set out by Canada's federal Civil Marriage Act is 16, whereas licensing, administered by provinces requires parental consent for those younger than 18 years of age, to acquire a marriage license. According to the standards of the United Nations to which Canada is a participant, child marriage is regarded as a marriage of a child; someone under the age of 18.

Research that has taken place in the United States demonstrates higher mental illness and substance abuse in women who were girl brides.

The Horrors of Hate-Inspired Degeneracy

Asifa Bano was eight years old. Courtesy family of Asifa Bano

"Action alert: Talib Hussain - who was arrested last week - has been tortured in Samba police station while on police remand, skull broken, rushed to hospital in Samba, he is a key witness in the Kathua gang rape-murder case."
"This is unacceptable in a democracy."
Supreme Court lawyer Indira Jaising

"These are false cases filed against me [charges of domestic violence and attempted murder] because I am fighting for justice for the eight-year-old who was brutally raped and murdered."
"There is no truth to all these claims. I will continue to fight.”
Talib Hussain, key witness, Kathua rape case

In India, official statistics indicate that incidents of rape are on the increase. This, in a country where rape is already endemic, violent and murderous. What is unclear is whether this is the result of more frequent reporting of what has always been a dreadful part of India's history, much of it associated with the class system, where higher-class Indians feel it is their right to rape and even murder lower-class Dalits, or whether these horrific events are simply being reported more frequently.

Irrespective of speculation, those who are involved in efforts to advocate for more serious punishment for rapists state unequivocally that most rapes do not get officially reported. There is shame for the family involved in making it public, there is the threat of violence against those reporting, to restrain the impulse to search for justice. A number of truly horrifying cases of rape and murder have been highlighted where children are involved.

Official India is not enamoured of the international publicity and shame that is engendered by reports of these crimes against women and children. In rural areas where bathroom facilities are non-existent and women and girls wait until dark before heading to fields adjacent villagers to relieve themselves, they become victims of rapists, leading India to vow to build public toilets where privacy can be assured in protection of women and girls, not just for hygienic purposes.

Last year an eight-year-old Muslim girl, Asifa Bano was tortured, raped and killed by a group of Hindu men whose crime took place over a four-day period in a Hindu shrine, after abducting the child, sedating her and inflicting torture and rape before murdering the little girl. Three men have been sentenced to life in prison for the crime by an Indian court. Another three stood convicted of destroying evidence, earning them a 5-year sentence and a fine.

Lawyers in Jammu tried to stop police from entering the court to file a charge sheet    Photo Sameer Yasir

This dreadful event took place n the state of Jammu and Kashmir. A number of local members of the country's ruling party came out in protest against the charges levelled against the suspects. "Facts came to light despite hindrances", stated former state chief minister, Mehbooba Mufti who supported the investigative and legal team's success in conviction. Hindus revere animal life and eschew eating meat; Muslims butcher animals for human food.

The absurdity is that Hindu nationalists infuriated over Muslim butchering of 'sacred' animals by Hindu reckoning, doesn't hinder them from murdering a child to demonstrate their rage over killing animals. The two cultures have many areas of divergence, the majority Hindus taking umbrage over the Muslims' view of what is permissible in their religion, having no tolerance for a religious culture unlike their own; in effect each is intolerant to the other.

The viciously gruesome abduction, rape and murder was part of a politically motivated plot against nomadic Muslims. The child had been abducted from a village in the district of Kathua in the Hindu-majority area of Jammu. A concerted search for the little girl proved fruitless. Her body was eventually discovered days later in a forest, the very place where she was accustomed to tending to her family's livestock.

A subsequent investigation into the little girl's death revealed that she had been sedated, gang-raped and ultimately strangled with her own scarf, her head bashed with a rock. The child's agony was carried out over a four-day period in a small Hindu shrine. One juvenile and seven men were arrested. A retired government clerk, said to be the planner of the unspeakable atrocity, Sanji Ram, was charged in the plot recognized as part of a larger plan to drive Muslim nomads from the area.

Meanwhile, the team of police officers who investigated the case, as well as a woman lawyer who appeared for the victim’s family, were obstructed in Jammu by lawyers chanting pro-Hindu slogans. Deepika Singh Rajawat — the lawyer who initially represented the victim's case in court — was also threatened, doxxed, and warned not to appear in court.  

Lawyer Deepika Singh Rajawat (center) at India's Supreme Court in New Delhi in April 2018. Sajjad Hussain / AFP / Getty Images

Three men -- Ram, a police officer, and another man -- were convicted of the rape and murder. A fourth man was acquitted, while three other police officers were found to have been involved in helping in the destruction of the crime's evidence. The youth involved is set to be tried singly. "We wanted to see them hanged till death", Sudam Hussain, a family member said, of the family's feeling that they failed to receive "complete justice".

At the time of the discovery of the child's horribly mangled body, outrage was justifiably manifested on the one hand, and then the news was consumed by rallies in support of the suspects, where two local Bharitiya Janata Party (BJP) nationalists took part in the protests. At one point, lawyers attempted to physically block police officers from filing the charges, claiming the targeting of Hindus was involved.

Within the courtroom, absent Asifa's immediate family members, where the verdicts were being read, no media was permitted a presence. A heavy security appearance that included armoured vehicles and police teams was fully manifested outside the courthouse.

Students in Kashmir join a demonstration in April 2018 against the rape and murder of an 8-year-old girl.
  Sopa Images / Getty Images

Defending Canada While Holding Canada to Account

"[The National Defence counter-intelligence unit can not] arbitrarily conduct surveillance on Canadian citizens; [investigations may take place when a clear link is present to defence security interests]."
"[In] an increasingly complex global information environment, and with Canadians constantly travelling all over the world [military-intelligence personnel may incidentally gather some information about Canadian citizens]."
Capt.Nicola LaMarre, National Defence spokeswoman

"We're worried about what it means when they collect inadvertent information."
"We don't know the scope or the degree to which Canadians' information is being captured."
Tim McSorley, national coordinator, International Civil Liberties Monitoring Group, Ottawa

Military spies will be allowed to gather the information of Canadians in certain circumstances. (Jonathan Hayward/Canadian Press)

"We have a Charter of Rights and Freedoms … when governments, regardless of which stripe, do not defend those rights, Canadians have to pay."
"I hope people take notice of this. I hope people are angered that governments violated people’s fundamental rights."
"And I hope people remember to demand of governments, this one and all future governments, that nobody ever has their fundamental rights violated."
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, October 2017

Under Canadian law military intelligence is able to collect and share information about Canadian citizens -- and that includes material gathered by chance -- when it supports a legitimate investigation. This is a federal directive newly disclosed on a public request for information by the Canadian Press. The incidental or 'chance' information-gathering includes anything dredged from the Internet. And this concerns civil-liberties advocates who think in terms of the vast amount of data and sources available in cyberspace.

The directive, encompassing eight pages dated August 2018, is titled Guidance on the Collection of Canadian Citizen Information, made available through the Access to Information Act. It represents an instruction manual meant for National Defence employees and members of the Canadian Forces, that any information collected on Canadian citizens must have a "direct and immediate relationship" to a military operation or activity, warning as well that "emerging technologies and capabilities" increase the potential for such data to be scooped inadvertently from open sources such as social-media feeds.

Whether inadvertently collected or intentionally, data on Canadians may lawfully be kept and used in support of authorized defence-intelligence operations, points out the directive. Parliamentarians attached to the national-security and intelligence committee are in the process of examining the directive through a study on the manner in which Canadian Forces gather, use, keep and share information about Canadians, forming part of their intelligence work.

This study follows on an earlier report the committee produced that concluded the military has one of the largest intelligence programs in Canada, with little outside oversight. Thousands of pages of data were examined by the committee along with a number of closed-door briefings, to find that defence agencies carry out an entire range of intelligence activities. Information is collected through sensitive methods by means of human sources, technical means and investigations; activities that encompass considerable risks, among them the potential for Canadians' rights infringements.

Stricter controls on the military's intelligence-gathering including the possibility of legislation setting out when and how defence intelligence operations can take place, is being called for by the committee. The Canadian Forces national counter-intelligence unit carries out Canadian citizens' information which includes identifying, investigating and countering threats to the security of Canada's military from foreign intelligence services, or from individuals or groups engaged on espionage, sabotage, subversion, terrorist activities and other criminal activity relating to security concerns.

The activities of intelligence gathering, ensuring that specialized agents acquire and maintain critical information pertaining to the actions and activities of Canadians whose sympathies may lie with an outside body engaged in terrorism, potentially threatening the safety and security of other Canadians and/or Canadian institutions logically would seem to justify the requirement for such data collection. Without which it would not be possible to be alert to danger, and to the capacity to react, in apprehending dangerously sinister plans to wreak havoc on Canadian interests.

There have on occasion been just such incidents which have been identified and apprehended, those involved placed on trial, convicted, sentenced and imprisoned. There have also been instances where Canadian intelligence units have shared information with foreign-partner counterparts as within the Five Eyes compact in a bid to allow for cooperation between Western democracies threatened by common enemies. Aside from which it is no secret that malign actors on the international scene have infiltrated Western societies, requiring that their activities be monitored.

All this by way of setting the stage for events that brought the Charter of Rights and Freedoms into direct confrontation with the imperative for Canadian Defence and intelligence to apprise their global defence and intelligence partners in discussions and prevention of terrorist attacks. Particularly at a time when Islamists have demonstrated their facility in carrying out horrendously murderous attacks on Western democracies. Not to mention the issues involved in Canadian Muslims enrolling themselves as members of Islamist terrorist groups.

Omar Khadr appears at the courthouse in Edmonton with his lawyer in hopes of getting a Canadian Passport to travel to Saudi Arabia and permission to speak with his sister in Edmonton, December 13, 2018. Greg Southam/Postmedia

As, for example the prime minister asserting that Ottawa’s apology and reported $10.5 million compensation to Omar Khadr is about the former Guantanamo Bay inmate’s Charter rights, not about the details of the case. Details, what details? That the Khadr family, Egyptian immigrants to Canada, the father a confidant of Osama bin Laden, who raised funds within Canada for the support of al-Qaeda activities and who took his sons to Afghanistan's jihadi training camps where 15-year-old Omar was taught how to make explosives and threw one at a U.S. Army medic, killing him, blinding another.

Details, details. American surgeons saved Khadr's life from life-threatening injuries he sustained during that attack in which he took part against an American military group in conflict with the Taliban. As a prisoner in Guantanamo Bay prison for Islamists Khadr claimed to have been mistreated. As a Canadian he was visited by a Canadian diplomat and by the CSIS group who questioned him there. That, according to the prime minister, abridged his Charter rights, therefore Canadian taxpayers were on the hook for $10.5 in 'compensation'.

And there were others. Just after the horrific 9/11 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania, the international community was placed on high alert, and Muslim men were under great scrutiny, a web that caught another Canadian, Maher Arar who happened to be in the wrong place at the right time, was apprehended by U.S. agents and sent to his home country of Syria where he was arrested, imprisoned and tortured. His Charter rights too were judged to have been abridged and a similar pay-out of 'compensation' awarded him for his pain and troubles; Canadian investigators charged with giving questionable data to their U.S. counterparts.

Wait, why stop there!? There's also the 'settlement' reached by the Liberal government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with three other Muslim-Canadians, Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad El Maati and Muayyed Nureddin who sued the government for $100,000 million. Trudeau saved Canadian taxpayers quite a bit of tax funding, he claimed, with the final payout to the three men of $31 million, who wee 'falsely accused of terrorist links' but not by Canada. 

El Maati had been detained in Syria after travelling to the region from Canada for his wedding, which he was never able to attend. Nureddin, a geologist and educator in Toronto, was imprisoned while visiting family. Almalki, an Ottawa electronics engineer, was held for 22 months. And they alleged that Canada was instrumental in aiding in their ordeals. And our government agreed with them, yet even so in language couched to imply perhaps yes, perhaps not.

That uncertainty can be read in the joint statement issued by Public Safety Minister Ralph Goodale and Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland who formally apologized to the three men "for any role Canadian officials may have played in relation to their detention and mistreatment abroad and any resulting harm."

Is this the price of being Canadian?