Canada in Danger of Dissolving?

"This is one of the few polls that I just looked at -- and I've been doing this for 30 years, so I did polling around the Oka Crisis -- I was astonished when I saw some of these numbers, but I'm not surprised."
"People are truly frustrated with the inability of their leadership to come together and recognize that human beings are being affected by their decisions and that they're not simply voters."
John Wright, pollster, DART

"A lot of the blame has been centred on the prime minister and the Liberal government."
"There was some form of void. The government left the impression -- at least many people came to the conclusion -- that there was no one really in charge of the situation [of rail blockades]."
Daniel Beland, director, McGill Institute for the Study of Canada

"Canada is not broken. Canada's institutions are broken."
"In 1867 [year of Confederation], the concern was to protect Canada against democracy, not to protect regional interests."
"Until we have an institution that can speak on behalf of the regions, we are going to have a problem."
Donald Savoie, Canada Research Chair, Public Administration and Governance, University of Moncton

A nation united? Appears not; more accurately, a nation acutely polarized. The West -- blessed by natural resources which resulted in wealth, has enabled, through tax transfers via the federal government to dole out 'equalization' payments to the 'have-not' provinces to ensure that all Canadians regardless of where they live are equally endowed in social services -- has been left by the central government in Ottawa to flounder. Its resource sector, the source of much of Canada's wealth, has been hit by the Liberal government's commitment to its environmentalist backers.

Demonstrators in London blocked several intersections as they made their way toward RCMP offices on Dufferin Avenue. (Sofia Rodriguez)

A government which has done all it possibly can to place roadblocks in the way of investment and development of petroleum resources, causing tens of thousands of job losses, and the firesale of Canadian energy at steeply reduced rates exported abroad, for lack of pipeline delivery stymied time and again through legislation and the courts doing the bidding of the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau. A prime minister whose agenda is reconciliation with Canada's First Nations and meeting environmentalists' demands of shutting down the conventional fossil fuel energy sector.

Both coming together in a sudden and stunning shutdown of Canada's national rail system, both freight and passenger, through sometimes violent, and always illegal blockades launched by five Wet'suwet'en ancestral chiefs, defying the agreement of 20 Wet'suwet'en elected chiefs and the majority of the Wet'suwet'en who signed an agreement of cooperation meant to result in employment and profit through the operation of the northern B.C. Coastal GasLink project.

The transport of critical perishables, production parts, chemicals and heating products across Canada has been halted. This, at a time when Canada is preparing for a possible epidemic of COVID-19, the novel coronavirus that has devastated China, and has emerged as an epidemic in South Korea, Japan, Iran and Italy, and now infects people in over 50 countries globally, and growing. The poll results indicating that a majority of Canadians now feel strongly that the country is not being governed well, is indisputable.

While the country's prime minister was jetting abroad in Africa to drum up support for his legacy project of having Canada elected to a two-year stint on the United Nations Security Council, Aboriginal and environmentalists' protests have virtually shut down cross-country transit. Shipped goods have been piling up on docks awaiting transfer to rail for distribution throughout the country. For two weeks and counting the government urged patience and failed to see that the law went into action to shut down the illegal and dangerous blockades of rail across the nation.

Hundreds of Londoners joined an Indigenous-led demonstration in solidarity with opponents to a pipeline in Wet'suwet'en territory in northern B.C. The demonstrators marched toward RCMP offices in downtown London to show their opposition to the arrests of protesters. (Sofia Rodriguez/CBC)

Now that Justin Trudeau has finally declared that Canada has waited long enough for protest leaders to agree to discussing the issues with government leaders, giving clearance to federal, provincial and municipal police to act, and a few of the blockades have been shut down, others spring up in their place, with 'activists' lighting tires on fire on rail tracks, and setting up blockades that engines narrowly miss hitting. Some activists have taken to standing on tracks, moving out of the way at the last moment.

A full 62 percent of those polled feel Justin Trudeau's promise to Canada's Indigenous people has failed on delivery. Two-thirds of respondents are not averse to supporting one-time payments to Indigenous Canadians for immediate acquisition of "food, clean water and housing" for the "necessities of life", which in actual fact, does go out regularly to Indian reserves throughout the country for those very purposes, and more.

What the agreement that the Wet'suwet'en elected chiefs signed with the Coastal GasLink project would have done was provide dignity through employment, and independence through the share of gasline profits. The current situation has led to another project, in Alberta, for a giant mine investment by Teck Resources, a Canadian firm prepared to invest $20 billion and having reached similar sharing agreement with Aboriginals, being cancelled in view of the ongoing roadblocks, including a decision whether to approve the project expected in days from the Trudeau government.

Over 80 percent of Canadians believe politicians have a greater care for their partisan interests than to do the work they were elected for on behalf of all Canadians. This feeling is supported at 90 percent in Alberta. The federal government under Justin Trudeau and his Liberals has alienated Canada's Western provinces, leaving the country worryingly polarized and increasingly leaderless, while a small minority of Canadian 'activists' and unwanted visitors from the U.S. work to shut Canada down.

Protesters in support of the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs stand near the entrance to the blockade of the commuter rail line in Kahnawake Mohawk Territory, near Montreal, Thursday, Feb. 27, 2020. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Ryan Remiorz

Israel: Unlocking the Entrepreneurial Spirit

"It was the emergence of Israel’s export based high-tech sector in the early 1990s that really put the country’s economy on track, with GDP growth of at least 4% a year. Specializing in computer hardware and software, medical technologies and pharmaceuticals, this sector became world renowned for innovation. Flash drives, cardiac stents, instant messaging and shopping.com are only a few of Israeli-bred innovations that have emerged in the last few decades. High-tech industries represent almost 50% of total industrial exports today, according to OECD data. Between 1995 and 2004, Israel increased its spending on R&D, calculated as a percentage of GDP, from 2.7% to 4.6%, a rate higher than any OECD country."
OECD Observer

"It’s never been more important for both big multinationals and leading wellness companies to study the most innovative start-ups if they want to stay ahead of the game in the fast-growing wellness space."
"And Israel, with so many brilliant new companies, is definitely one of the key places to look at."
"The GWS will not only put Israel’s creative health and wellness solutions on the world stage, it will introduce Israel’s powerful investment landscape to global wellness companies."
Amir Alroy, co-founder, Welltech1, Tel Aviv wellness innovation hub and microfund 

Saul Singer with a copy of “Start-Up Nation” (Photo credit: Nati Shohat/Flash90)

• 600 new start-ups are established every year.
• 500 multinational corporations (including Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc.) have set up incubators or venture capital arms there.
• The country ranks #1 in the world for R&D and VC investment as a percentage of GDP and raises venture capital per capita at two-and-a-half times the rate of the US and 30 times that of Europe—with a record $6.5 billion in high-tech start-up funding in 2018.*
• Because so many unicorns (companies with $1 billion+ valuations) are Israeli founded: from Salesforce and SodaStream to GPS navigation system Waze, to real estate tech start-up Compass, to online home design platform Houzz, to home insurance disrupter Lemonade.
• A storm of forces has come together to create this thriving start-up and health/wellness tech ecosystem.
• There is the experience that entrepreneurs acquire during their mandatory army service, the emphasis on learning and world-class academic institutions, widespread immigration, and the Israeli entrepreneurial spirit.



An illustrative image of program developers, startups and innovation (scyther5; iStock by Getty Images)

• In addition to a powerful private funding landscape, the government’s Innovation Authority makes Israel one of the only countries that funds start-ups without taking equity: giving grants to entrepreneurs (from Israel and elsewhere) to develop innovative technology without taking on debt. Israel distributed an estimated $500 million to start-ups in 2018 and recently established Digital Health as a crucial growth engine with its own budget.

Israel began its life as the world's only Jewish state re-establishing its presence in the Middle East on its heritage geography, to become known as an exporters of oranges from a part of the world where desert, not arable land, dominated the arid landscape. At that time, the Jewish state became known for its kibbutzim, socialist-inspired communal farms where swampland was drained, the dedicated, hard work of idealism-inspired proud Israelis resulting in an agricultural economy.

It was a desert-to-agriculture exploit under a Labour government that amazed the world and brought the young-old nation plaudits and recognition from Socialist International. Israel is no longer the darling of the left and hasn't been for quite some time. While its agricultural roots remain intact, it is now better known as the 'Startup Nation', a leader in information and communications technologies. And it was under a succession of Likud governments, characterized as right-wing, that made the transition from farm to science and technology.

Since 1996 when during his first stint as head of government, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu nursed the country toward excellence in technology, unlocking the entrepreneurial spirit of the Israeli mindset. As science and technology minister he liberalized currency and forged ahead with privatizations and in a decade new ICT companies dotted the urban landscape giving Israel a higher ICT share employment of any OECD country, as ICT exports boomed.

Medicine, biotechnology, materials technology, military technology startups formed at the rate of 500 annually In 2003 when the Likud Party was returned to govern the country during a recession, as minister of finance Netanyahu sliced the corporate tax rate by half, and the top individual tax by a third, while raising the retirement age, lowering welfare dependency, and privatizing banks, refineries, the national airline and shipping. Much of the economy was deregulated.

The result was a soaring of economic growth, plunging unemployment and new highs in foreign investment. Israel now boasts among the highest economic growth rates and lowest unemployment rates among developed countries of the world.  The Jewish state ranks among the world's leaders in patents filed and science Nobel prizes per capita. Over 400 in-country research centres have been established through foreign multinationals like Microsoft, Apple, Intel and Samsung.



John Chambers of Cisco described Israel as "ahead of every other country in innovation", while Google's Eric Schmidt stated: "Israel is the most important high-tech centre in the world after the United States". Israeli start-ups amount to one for every 1,400 of its population. Those searching for explanations to account for the nation's entrepreneurial success, feel that military conscription has the result of teaching young people discipline, leadership and teamwork skills.

In the 1990s, one million Jews emigrated from Russia to Israel, among them many highly skilled in mathematics, engineering and science. The Soviet system wasted those skills but once in Israel they bloomed. In the wake of the 1967 Six-Day War, a French arms embargo led Israel to develop its own military arms design and production, leading to technologies enabling Israel to enter the market of weapons exports.

Behind all of these decades of skills development, scientific enquiry and research and development lay the mind of the muse who led the country to its current status as a world leader in vital areas such as agronomy research, desalination, medical interventions, pharmaceuticals and innovative products, but most of all information and communication technologies; computers and the Internet. Now, it is also exploiting natural energy resources in vital partnerships with like-values nations.

Illustrative image of the end of the year and the past decade (DaLiu iStock by Getty Images)

  

Containing Novel Coronavirus : Global Pandemic

"This is about containing the virus, this is about isolation of the virus, not isolation of people. It has nothing to do with discrimination whatsoever. It's a global fight against this virus. Let's contain it if we can."
"If you transmit it to somebody, who will this person be? Those will be your close family members, the person who greets you at the airport, hugs you. Your wife, parents, kids, very close friends."
"We [group of 23 Chinese-Canadian doctors] are a step ahead of the policy ... but we believe it's the right thing to do."
Dr.Stanley Zheng, family physician, Toronto

Volunteers on WeChat have facilitated "no-touch" pick-ups from the airport for people flying in from China, meaning they arrange for a running car to be waiting in the pick-up zone. Jennifer Gauthier/Reuters

This family doctor practising in Toronto, along with a group of 22 other Chinese Canadian doctors in Toronto have urged, through an open letter, that anyone returning to Canada from a trip to China be instructed to self-quarantine; enter a voluntary, 14-day quarantine. This recommendation is a critical step beyond what now constitutes public health policy. As far as Dr. Zheng and his colleagues are concerned, tougher measures are required to control the emerging infectious outbreak.

The federal government should, according to the contents of the letter, take steps to ensure such isolation is mandatory for not only people returning to Canada from visits to China, but should include other COVID-19 hot spots like South Korea, Iran and Italy, all with significant outbreaks. The fly in that ointment, of course, is that with the rapid spread of the coronavirus and its demonstrated ability to proliferate as it has done in Italy, Iran and South Korea, before long visitors arriving from just about anywhere in the world may bring the virus with them.

Canada and the United States also bear the risk of becoming one of those countries, and should the status of global pandemic be bestowed upon the global outbreak by the World Health Organization, it may become imperative that all countries close their borders in an effort to contain the virus internally while halting additional influxes from abroad. There are now 50 countries of the world known to identify instances of the novel coronavirus in their populations.

A woman wears a surgical mask in Vancouver amid fears over the COVID-19 coronavirus. Seven of Canada’s 13 cases are in British Columbia. Arlen Redekop/Postmedia

 In Canada, health authorities are urging people to take action to prepare for a worst-case scenario of a possible lock-down of cities similar perhaps to what has taken place in China where Hubei province with its hugely populous cities, including its capital Wuhan, with a combined total close to 60-million people have been quarantined; people instructed to remain where they are, no one permitted to leave or to enter the cities.

Canada's chief public health officer has advised businesses, governments and individuals to prepare for a pandemic.That individuals stock up on necessities such as non-perishable foods and prescription medications. Above all, health authorities advise to do the simplest and most effective of routine hygienic practices; wash hands, frequently and thoroughly to aid in a bid to stop transmission of the virus.

Out of China comes news that infectious disease authorities there reveal that 14 percent of patients who recovered from the virus continued to test positive after recovery and it is unknown whether they remained contagious. Scientists have concluded that this disease represents a dangerous mix of lethal, communicable and difficult to detect, with a long incubation period where people showing no symptoms could be infecting others for days or weeks before becoming symptomatic.

A member of the Japanese house of representatives, in Tokyo, adjusts her face mask during a session on 27 February. Photograph: Masatoshi Okauchi/REX/Shutterstock

Toronto has now identified its first COVID-19 case traceable to Iran. The Canadian Pandemic Influenza Preparedness: Planning Guidance for the Health Sector represents a document "that outlines how jurisdictions will work together to ensure a coordinated and consistent health sector approach to pandemic preparedness and response". It sounds reassuring but only when it becomes necessary to bring it to action will we know if it is effective.

Should it become necessary, the plan is to advise people not to gather in large groups. It might become necessary, as Japan has now done, to close all schools even though the spread of the virus within child populations has not yet been identified. What is generally seen as impractical and potentially costly is to close down borders given the obvious detrimental effects on trade and food shipment along with "significant negative social, economic and foreign policy consequences".

COVID-19 is known to cause only mild illness for most people infected, even though a small proportion of people become severely ill. The death rate is counted between two and four percent in Wuhan the epicentre of the infection, and 0.7 percent elsewhere in China and around the world. For older people it is more fatal, along with people having pre-existing medical conditions and/or compromised immune systems; there the death rate leaps to nearly 15 percent for those over 80.

Jihadi Lone Wolf Mental Illnesses

"As part of our investigation into the homicide, we came across evidence that led us to believe there may be a terrorism-related offence."
"And that’s what’s brought us to today where the updated charge was laid in court this morning."
Toronto police spokesperson Meaghan Gray

Saad Akhtar has been charged with the terrorism-related murder of a 64-year-old Toronto woman. Family Handout

"[There were two reasons to apply the charge].One, signalling, and calling it what it is, if authorities think it’s terrorism. And two, it gets you from second degree murder to first-degree murder without having to prove that the murder was ‘planned and deliberate’."
"That in turn gets you a longer sentence in terms of the parole ineligibility going from 10 to 25 years, but still life in prison."
Michael Nesbitt, law professor, University of Calgary

64-year-old Hang-Kam “Annie” Chiu, the victim of a deadly hammer attack

In Toronto on Friday evening, 64-year-old Hang-Kam Annie Chiu happened to be strolling along Sheppard Avenue in the north-east end of the city. She was accosted by 30-year-old Saad Akhtar wielding a hammer with malice aforethought, killing the woman who was, according to the murderer's mother, unknown to both him and his family. He had chosen her to die at his hands.

According to the Toronto Police Service, Akhtar voluntarily turned himself in to police who charged him with first-degree murder. And then new information came to light which led to an updated charge, that of first-degree murder including terrorist activity. Upon discovering new evidence the Toronto police had turned to the Integrated National Security Enforcement Team -- an RCMP team specializing in terrorism cases -- for advice, and this presumably was the outcome.

A note was evidently discovered tucked under the slain woman's body, revealing that the murder, albeit random and puzzling in nature, had been committed in the fulfillment of 'terrorist reasons'. In a later interview after the arrest of the obvious Islamist jihadist, his mother revealed that her son had been studying computer programming at Ryerson University, that the woman he killed was a stranger to him, and that her son suffered from a mental illness. Diagnosed with ADHD and obsessive -compulsive disorder.

He was not, she emphasized, capable of a violent act such as he has been charged with. A trial and jury will most certainly reach their own conclusions on the evidence which will exclude a mother's trust in a son she described as troubled but refusing help. His usual Friday evening mosque attendance last week did not see him returning home immediately afterward. Instead, he had decided to fulfill a mission incumbent on the faithful in Islam; personal jihad.

Ernest Doroszuk/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network

Society hosts an awful lot of people of all ages, backgrounds and cultures diagnosed with ADHD, who somehow learn to lead fairly normal lives. Many people suffer from many types of 'abnormal' mental states to which they learn to adjust their lives; among them people with obsessive personalities, those whose compulsive passions would never lead to violence, much less plotting to murder perfect strangers leaving explanatory notes behind.

A flower memorial where Hang-Kam “Annie” Chiu was murdered

Clearly, though purportedly mentally unstable, he had no wish to become a martyr to claim his reward in Paradise. Under the Canadian Criminal Code, a suspect can face charges of first-degree murder irrespective of whether the killing was 'planned and deliberate' as long as it resulted from an offence considered to represent a terrorist action. A first-degree murder charge merits a longer prison sentence. Parole eligibility is ten years for second-degree murder; 25 years under a first-degree charge if found guilty.

"On behalf of the RCMP, I would like to extend our thoughts and prayers to the victim's family and to the communities that are affected by this horrific event."
Superintendent Christopher deGale, O Division, RCMP 

How strange it is that whenever an Islamist jihadist works themselves into a religious frenzy of hatred against those Islam considers enemies within Western society deserving of death, and executes a personal plan with or without like-minded accomplices, friends and family come forward to attest to the attacker's character, that such a diabolical act of deliberate violence ending the life of some poor innocent does not reflect who the killer really is. That in fact, a mental state is responsible for the crime, and as such appealing for sympathy, not condemnation.



 

The Reasons for Failure in Canada's Resource Extraction and Management Many; Consigning Aboriginals to Dismal Expectations for their Future

"There is a well co-ordinated, well-funded machine shutting down Canada. The agenda is basically anti-fossil fuel, but also forestry and mining. This machine has set back Aboriginal reconciliation by twenty years."
"The [Aboriginal] communities know full well what LNG [liquid natural gas] is all about. They approved it. They signed onto it. They wanted the training. The media is not telling the whole story."
"They [outside interests interfering and spreading false messages] leave us to pick up the pieces. People have no idea how crazy this can be."
"Why celebrate the right to title if we can't make use of it? What good does it do if I'm on welfare, or going to commit suicide?"
"So when projects [pipeline, LNG plants] came to town, we had, for the first time, a tool to say we want to be part of the economy and benefit from the project..."
"We would have the opportunity to get jobs, real training and take proceeds back into our village for kids, seniors, fund ourselves and not have to beg for everything anymore."
"People talk about [Aboriginal issues] that have no idea what it's all about. They don't know what it's like to live up here."
"Anybody with a job has a better chance of learning better values, getting an education, helping his family, having a meaningful life. They shouldn't become an alcoholic, like I did. They shouldn't be committed to walking around on drugs on a reserve like I did."
"This is especially hard for men. I felt badly when I couldn't provide for my family."
"This is about U.S. interests sending money into our country, making sure that we Canadians destroy our own country. This is corporate warfare on a global scale and I don't think Canada understands we're in this game and being outplayed. We ship crude at a discount [due to pipeline shortages] and will be shipping gas to them at a discount for their LNG projects."
"This machine will get braver and braver. It's not going to stop, why would they stop?"
Indigenous leader, Liberal British Columbia MLA Ellis Ross

Anti pipeline protesters are arrested after blockading E Hastings and Clark Dr. , in Vancouver, BC., February 25, 2020. NICK PROCAYLO / PNG

MLA Ellis Ross is a former chief councillor for the Haisla Nation. His activism has brought him to the forefront of issues respecting resource development and Aboriginal rights in British Columbia. He speaks from his years of personal experience, both as an Native Canadian reflecting the struggles known only to Aboriginals, as well as what he has seen and discovered through his time in political office. The current standoff between a handful of Wet'suwet'en chiefs in northern B.C. protesting the GasLink project is one he attributes more to the influence of outsiders than lack of solidarity between and within Indian communities.

Because of the blockades set up by supporters of the hereditary chiefs who have denounced the GasLink project that all the democratically elected chiefs and the Wet'suwet'en tribal members signed with the GasLink project meant to share profits, employ aboriginals and generally help to lift the communities into financial independence through exploitation of heritage lands, a crisis has arisen where railways, ports, highways and ferries have been shut down while the federal and provincial governments fruitlessly sought discussions with the five hereditary chiefs.

Supporters of the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs perform a round dance at a blockade west of Edmonton on Feb. 19.  Jason Franson/The Canadian Press

That twenty First Nations had given their approval to the project, following a decade of discussions between them and the gas line developers to bring a $6.7 billion pipeline into service piping gas to an LNG plant in Kitimat, B.C. has seen provincial and federal police looking for guidance from government on how to proceed against the protest camps. Court injunctions ordering the removal of the camps and the blockades have accomplished nothing, because police have hesitated to act without government approval.

While Mr.Ross points a finger of blame at American interests, he also speaks of environmental organizations originating in the States, whose aim is similar; to shut down any further exploitation of fossil fuels, to challenge the industry by influencing decision making and spurring environmental supporters to campaign to tie both government and industry hands through opposition claiming to speak in support of the rights of Canadian First Nations once again abridged by Canadian corporate interests and foreign investors.

At this juncture there will be no more concerns about the plans of foreign investment in development of Canadian energy resources, among the largest in the world. The current federal government has implemented as many regulations as they can possibly conceive of, to slow down and discourage any such further investments, themselves supporting a green agenda that has effectively shut down the energy sector in Canada.

Anti-pipeline protesters block East Hastings and Clark Drive during the morning rush hour in Vancouver, BC., February 25, 2020 NICK PROCAYLO / PNG

Indigenous Canadian communities have long suffered from social dysfunction, problems such as chronic unemployment, given that they tend to live on remote, sometimes inaccessible traditional lands where there exist no employment opportunities save for those working for band councils. On reserves, people live subsidized lives paid to band councils through general taxation. Substandard housing, poor educational opportunities, and high unemployment complete the trifecta that leads to drug and alcohol abuse, child neglect, and violence within the communities.

Aboriginal children in care represent far greater numbers than their non-Aboriginal counterparts, as do Aboriginals within the prison population, far outweighing their numbers in the general population. Projects such as the GasLink and the recently abandoned Teck mine project in Alberta awaiting affirmation from the federal government that would have rejected the giant billion-dollar mine htat would have given opportunities to First Nations populations have in effect, abandoned First Nations to their plight, consigning them to continue their blighted way of life.

A member of the Mohawk community stands at a rail blockade south of Montreal on the Kahnawake reserve on Feb. 10. The blockade was erected in solidarity with the Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs after RCMP arrested people on their territory this month. Graham Hughes/The Canadian Press

Theft in Technical Innovation Research Blueprints

"These are [now] Huawei employees associated with great technological accomplishments ... and I recognized so many of them. At one level you're proud to be a Canadian, at the same time you're upset to be a Canadian."

"They [Nortel Telecommunications] lost sales not because of technology copying, not because of inferior technology, they lost because the customers lost faith in them. They did not believe that Nortel would be alive in ten years."

Jonathan Calof, business professor, University of Ottawa

"What people need to hear is that economic espionage caused Nortel's failure."

"So others better beware lest they succumb to the same fate. It was sickening hen and it is sickening now to see what was stolen."

Brian Shields, security advisor, Nortel

Huawei Canada’s VP, corporate affairs Alykhan Velshi. Wayne Cuddington/Postmedia

"None of our products or technologies have been developed through the theft of trade secrets."

"Huawei's development is the result of our huge investment in R&D and the hard work of our employees over the past three decades."

Alykhan Velshi, spokesman, Huawei

"What we knew from my point of view was about the agents, the people, human actors in and around Nortel. Definitely Nortel was targeted."

"To this day, I believe there might have been one or more agents of influence controlled by the Chinese which succeeded in neutralizing our warning [of] spying activities the Chinese were conducting [against Nortel]."

Michel Juneau-Katsuya, then head, CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) Asia-Pacific desk

"That's what threw all the alarms. We just knew that we had a major problem, that an executive's credentials are being hacked and being used to infiltrate documents."

"This was a very capable adversary. You have to be pretty darn good to achieve such a level of stealth."

Larry Bill, Nortel security staff, Raleigh, North Carolina

Some have warned against Chinese tech giant Huawei's operations in Canada. Now, a new perspective from someone who says he's seen the damage spying did to Nortel. CBC

Professor Calof was on a trip to China and with him MBA students, touring Huawei Technologies' Shenzhen, China campus. Despite rumours -- and despite his own previous investigation into the possibility that Nortel employees and employees of Huawei who were then networking and where Nortel had given over an entire floor of its operations in Ottawa to Chinese technology operatives in a cooperative venture -- was shocked to recognize so many faces at the Huawei headquarters that had been familiar to him when they were working for Nortel years earlier.

Both companies produced similar equipment for telecommunications and ended up competing for contracts and through their history together negotiated joint ventures. Nortel had achieved impressive advances in its technology, becoming a giant in the field of telecommunications. Now, Nortel is gone, no longer in business, while it is Huawei whose technological advances and business enterprise represents a colossus in the field, internationally established and respected as Nortel once was.

Nortel, it seems, was victimized through an invasion of hackers based in China for at least ten years, according to information unveiled in 2012. Sensitive internal documents belonging to Nortel mysteriously ended up with Huawei, unbeknownst to Nortel's top executives. Nortel had received warning from the Canadian Security Intelligence Service as well, of spies within its operations working for China, but that warning appeared to have been given short shrift.

When the spacious Nortel headquarters building was being renovated to be transformed to a new headquarters for Canada's National Defence department, listening devices were found within the building. Ex-Nortel staff are convinced that Nortel was destroyed partly as a result of plundering on the part of the Chinese of Nortel's intellectual property, enabling Huawei to benefit hugely from Nortel's research and development and to grow into a worldwide telecommunications giant.

Just incidentally, U.S. prosecutors filed a new indictment recently accusing Huawei of using surreptitious methods to purloin the intellectual property of other companies for decades. Professor Calof and some of his colleagues at the Telfer School of Management at University of Ottawa had once undertaken a major study into the collapse of Nortel, a blow to Canadian high-tech and communications industries.

The study, when completed, made no mention of hacking or espionage; it was felt that Nortel's stellar reputation in the development of cutting-edge technology aside, sales fell because clients failed to be impressed with its performance. As for Huawei and its $15-billion annual research and development budget, $650 of that budget, Huawei reminds us, has been spent in Canada over the last decade where Huawei has 1,200 employees. 

Nortel, at the height of its industry success, provided a wide array of Internet-based networking solutions and had 90,000 employees working for it, with a market capitalization accounting for a third of the value of companies on the Toronto Stock Exchange. Nortel researchers in Ottawa developed the Orbiter, a mobile phone with a user-interface screen years before the iPhone revolutionized the cellphone market.

Huawei founder Ren Zhengfei Shenzhen, China June 17, 2019. REUTERS/Aly Song

The 2000 Internet bubble suddenly burst, taking Nortel with it as the company's stock plummeted overnight, triggering thousands of Nortel layoffs. During that time frame of a slow demise for Nortel, Huawei flourished. Founded by a former People's Liberation Army engineer, Ren Zhengfei, Huawei began life as a small producer of phone switches in 1987, eventually branching into building telecommunications networks and producing mobile phones. Low prices gave it an outsize market share.

In 2004 a Nortel employee in the U.K. noted documents he had stored in the "LiveLink" dababase for Nortel had been downloaded by a senior executive in Canada. He emailed the manager offering help with any questions about the material, but the manager had no idea what he was talking about. Another person on Nortel's security team based in Raleigh noticed the same manager had signed into the Nortel system from multiple global locations. That manager's account had been hacked.

Seven Nortel executives had been hacked and an alarming volume of sensitive material had been plucked out of the company's databases. Most of the hacks were later traced back to IP addresses and four Internet service providers in China, mostly appearing to wind up at an ISP in Shanghai. A hugely sophisticated theft of Nortel files undetected for years, pointing to the involvement of government-directed skilled thieves. 

In 2013, a report was produced by cybersecurity firm Mandiant, revealing the existence of a major Internet-espionage organization in Shanghai, ostensibly "Unit 61398" of the People's Liberation Army. Thefts of data were tracked by Mandiant from 141 companies in twenty major industries. Among the reams of material from Nortel was a document laying out Nortel technology, various products, sales proposals including pricing and network design, along with technical papers on optical circuits and an analysis of Nortel's lost contract with former Internet firm Genuity.

Security advisor Brian Shields describes one document pilfered in 2004 was "high speed data over UMTS Quad". Huawei beat out Nortel on a Telus/Bell contract four years later; its first major project in North America, involving a form of mobile data transmission called universal mobile telecommunications service; UMTS.

Blue lights illuminate a Huawei Technologies Co. NetEngine 8000 intelligent metro router on display during a 5G event in London, U.K., on Thursday, Feb. 20, 2020. Chris Ratcliffe/Bloomberg

Arresting Canada

"Trucks are the branches. They reach out in all directions, delivering food to distribution centres and then on to your local grocery store. But the trunk of the tree is rail. That's where the heavy volumes are moved."
"It can get complicated because of how intermodal logistics has become -- cargo goes from ship to truck to train to truck to van, so do you count that as rail or truck?  But the rail contribution to our food supply is big. I don't have an exact number, but as much as 50 percent wouldn't surprise me."
"DCs -- distribution centres -- always have some stock on hand, in case of inclement weather or a traffic jam. But the food industry has moved more to just-in-time delivery. If you're near a source of food production, or a border crossing, or if you have good local trucking assets, you'll hold out longer. But that's not everywhere in the country. Atlantic Canada has particular supply challenges."
Karl Littler, Retail Council of Canada

"February is slower. Diesel is cheap, the Canadian dollar is stable -- this is letting us absorb some of the impact. But food prices could still spike 30 to 50 percent. This is a food security issue for low-income families."
"I've already noticed some items missing from shelves [in Atlantic Canada]. I can't link them [food shelf shortages] to the blockades because the distribution system is complex."
"I don't think we're there [emergency situation] yet. But in another two weeks? this will hit a critical point."

Sylvain Charlebois, professor, expert on food production, distribution and security, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Nova Scotia

A protester looks through a pair of binoculars from the closed train tracks in Tyendinaga, near Belleville, Ont., on Sunday, Feb.23, 2020. The rail blockade is in support of the Wet'suwet'en who oppose work on a pipeline in northern B.C. (THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick)

Atlantic Canada will be paying a huge, painful price for a situation that began clear across the country in northern British Columbia where the first of the now-nationwide rail blockades began in protest by a handful of hereditary Wet'suwet'en First Nations chiefs against the plans of TC Energy Corp's plans to build its Coastal GasLihnk pipeline through traditional Wet'suwet'en territory in rural British Columbia. This, mind, after a decade of consultations between TC Energy and the elected Wet'suwet'en chiefs reached agreement that eventual profits would be shared with the First Nation, and employment of their members would be assured.

So while band members and their elected councils have signed on to the agreement, satisfied that their needs and their right to profit from such enterprises on their hereditary lands will be fully recognized, the hereditary chiefs have balked and refused their assent, calling on the need for further consultations, even while the company has already started its pipeline assets construction. The demands of the five dissenting chiefs has been taken up by environmentalists and other non-aboriginal supporters, leaving the country in a hostage position moving into its third week where Canadian National freight train delivery has been stopped and its passenger Via Rail contingent brought to a halt.

The federal government, while deploring the situation, has been calling for patience, refusing to order a stop to the blockades until several days ago. The federal, provincial and local police have had no direction from government, and although the courts have issued injunctions against the blockades, police have been loathe to take action to forcibly break up the protest/blockages and arrest the leaders who simply rip up the court orders they're served with. To take action against the protesters is to risk being labelled a 'colonialist' and a 'racist', not merely by the protesters but by government itself.

It is not just internal rail deliveries that have been disrupted, where needed manufacturing parts, propane for heating, chlorine for water treatment and all manner of goods have been stopped from being delivered to the sources awaiting them, halting production, but rail links outside Canada and Canadian ports, where containers have been unable to be transferred to freight trains and are left to sit and pile up on docks. U.S. container lines have begun diverting ships elsewhere than Canada after their valuable cargo has been stranded on docks for weeks.

At this juncture, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau finally deciding to intone: "The barricades must come down, now" appears a little after the fact. When the leader of the official opposition in Parliament urged the government to take action several days earlier, he was frozen out of a meeting to discuss the emergency, attended by lesser opposition leaders becuse the prime minister characterized his statement as injudiciously unhelpful; now two days later he is echoing the opposition leader because his very own inaction was obviously injudiciously unhelpful.

And now that the federal government has finally taken a stand, noting that overtures by federal ministers to meet with the discontented chiefs in an effort to reach an understanding have been ignored, through repeated requests, and the chiefs have instead insisted that the RCMP must leave the site of the Coastal GasLink where the protests are continuing, before they may or may not decide to meet with the federal government, is a fair indication of the tail continue to wag this very particular donkey.

Supporters of Wet'suwet'en hereditary chiefs Edmonton, Feb. 19.Reuters/Codie McLachlan

"Aboriginal people are already in grocery stores getting confronted by people that just want to go back to work, they don’t like to see their lives disrupted. And these average Aboriginals, they’re not political. They don’t have an opinion on pipelines or blockades.They want to get on with their lives just like regular Canadians."
"[The] political rhetoric [from those who claim to support some of the Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs opposed to the natural gas pipeline ignores the] tremendous amount of work [done over the last 15 years among B.C. First Nations to get companies to consult and accommodate them on projects]."
"You’re trying to de-stabilize these communities and you’re trying to de-legitimize the work that collected band leaders and hereditary leaders have done over the last 15 years, not only to provide jobs or employment as a way out of poverty, but also to breathe life into the word reconciliation."
"I’m pretty sure Aboriginals across B.C. do not want to see those blockades, they don’t want to see it escalate to the point where Aboriginals are actually getting accosted on the streets. I mean, this is setting back reconciliation 20 years."
B.C. Liberal MLA Ellis Ross, B.C. politician and First Nations leader

OPP liaison officers leave after speaking with Tyendinaga Mohawk members at the railway blockade on Sunday, Feb. 23, 2020.   Lars Hagberg/The Canadian Press

Canadian Diplomacy

"In Iran, we're told they still want to get the equipment or expertise [to examine the black boxes of the Ukraine civil airliner shot down by the IRGC in January]."
"I'm saying, well after 30 days you haven't managed to, and since the appendix says 'without delay' I interpret the spirit of the text and the law to be without delay. So what I'm telling Iran is: let the French experts do it. France has offered to analyze the black boxes."
"We are seeing the emergence of a multipolar world with new epicentres of influence and competition over ideas and models of government. Around the world, human rights are increasingly under threat."
"On behalf of the grieving nations of this tragedy, we told [the Islamic Republic Foreign] Minister [Mohammad Javad] Zarif in no certain terms that Iran must take steps toward resolving many outstanding questions of fact and of law."
Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne

Soldiers carry a coffin containing the remains of one of the 11 Ukrainian victims of the Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 disaster during a memorial ceremony at the Boryspil International Airport, outside Kyiv, on Jan. 19, 2020.  Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters

On February 15, a joint committee met -- representing the nations whose citizens were killed when Iran shot two missiles on January 8 over Tehran bringing down a 3-year-old Boeing 737-800, flight 752 operated by Ukrainian International Airlines, mere minutes after it lifted off from Imam Khomeini International Airport in Tehran. The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had fired two anti-war missiles, killing all 176 passengers and crew aboard the passenger jet instantly. The meeting comprised of representatives of the nations whose nationals were killed issued a statement emphasizing the Islamic Republic's international obligations to respond to questions surrounding the plane's deliberate destruction.

The committee,  the "International Coordination and Response Group for victims of Flight PS752", stated its expectation that Iran would live up to its international obligations, and that the five nations involved were awaiting closure to the many unanswered questions. The crash saw the death of 82 Iranians, 57 Canadians, eleven Ukrainians, ten Swedes, four Afghans, three Germans, and three Britons, along with Iranian victims. The committee comprised of representatives of Canada, Ukraine, Germany, Britain and Afghanistan has been patient but their patience is running thin, finding it necessary to remind Iran of its unmet responsibilities.

People walk near the wreckage after a Ukrainian plane crashed near Imam Khomeini airport in Tehran early in the morning on January 8, 2020, killing everyone on board. The Boeing 737 had left Tehran's international airport bound for Kiev, semi-official news agency ISNA said, adding that 10 ambulances were sent to the crash site.

AFP via Getty Images

The meeting took place on the sidelines of the annual Munich Security Conference in Munich, Germany. Tehran insists the shoot-down of the plane was the result of a misunderstanding, an unfortunate accident. But it steadfastly refuses to send the black boxes to Ukraine, to the United States or elsewhere for expert interpretation, although it is well known it has neither the equipment nor the expertise to do so on its own. Iran has tentatively offered financial compensation to the victims, as is recognized in such events, but its offer fails to reflect the seriousness of the event.

By preventing the examination of the flight records from the jetliner Iran is deliberately flouting international law. Overcoming its initial reluctance, Iran has cooperated in the repatriation of the victims' remains to their countries of origins. The many questions surrounding the 'inadvertent' shooting down of the airliner killing all aboard remain unanswered, however. The Islamic Republic's refusal to comply with Annex 13 of the Convention on International Civil Aviation ensures that those answers will not be forthcoming to the satisfactjon of the international community.

Officials inspect the wreckage of the Kyiv-bound Ukraine International Airlines jet that crashed near Tehran, killing everyone onboard. Photograph: Abedin Taherkenareh/EPA

As it happens, the International Civil Aviation Organization has its head office based in Montreal. Canada's Foreign Minister Champagne has asked the president of the ICAO to disallow "that situation to continue because we're going against international law here". Canada is polarized on pursuing its insistence that Iran respond to entirely reasonable expectations from the international community, and most specifically from the International Coordination and Response Group for victims of Flight PS752, which had demanded of Iran that it commit to the most basic of its responsibilities; the turnover of the black boxes for expert analyzing.

Riccardo Vecchio Imprints illustration for Foreign Policy

That issue has managed to slip into the background of Canada's foreign relations agenda irrespective of the fact that Canadian citizens, Iranians seeking refugee status in Canada and living in Canada with landed immigrant status pursuant to qualifying as Canadian citizens, as well as Iranian students studying in Canada who were all killed by the Iranian regime's IRGC as a result of its conflict with the United States after the assassination of the commander of the IRGC Brig.Gen.Qasem Suleimani.

The conflicting issue is the vanity project undertaken by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau as his legacy, to return Canada to one of the two-year revolving United Nations Security Council seats. To which end he has fastened his attention, and dedicated time and funding in travelling to Africa to speak with leaders of countries whose vote in the United Nations he covets, leaders of countries whose human rights record is that of brutality and compromise. His diplomatic overtures are beyond naive in his willingness to overlook corrupt leaderships for the greater interest of bribing human rights abusers so Canada can have a seat where nations manipulate world events to suit their singular agendas of division and hatred.

Just as he sought to soft-peddle Canada's position in urging Iran to meet its international obligations to bring closure to the families of the dead on board the Ukrainian airliner. And in the interests of being a friend to anyone whose influence could be bought at the United Nations, bowed and scraped in amity to the foreign minister of a country whose warped designs in assigning itself power and recognition, supporting terrorism and designing intercontinental ballistic missiles to threaten the world with nuclear warheads can be overlooked for a seat on the Security Council.

Enabling the Islamic Republic of Iran to use the photographs and video of a smiling, ingratiating Prime Minister of Canada to show its disaffected Iranian public that the government they would prefer to unseat has friends in the West. An Iranian public horrified by the deaths caused by their government of Iranian citizens and foreign citizens, and who have protested the conditions under which they are forced to live by a theocratic regime whose malevolence on the world stage is without question. And whose brutality can be seen in the fact that 1500 Iranians were killed during the protests. But smilingly countenanced by Canada's wish to rejoin the Security Council.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau shakes handing with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif at the Munich Security Conference, Friday Feb 14, 2020.   IRNA

 

The Escalation of Youth Violence

"They went inside, ordered everyone to the ground and demanded cash from the safe."
"It definitely has been shocking for our community [though robberies by children are not unheard of]." 
"[York Region has seen a] big increase [in bank robberies, there have been upwards of 20 so far this year]."
"In previous years, the highest number for an entire year was 17 [in 2019]."
 Const. Laura Nicolle, York Regional Police

Four people were injured during an armed robbery at an RBC on Markham Rd., north of 16th Avenue, in Markham on Wednesday, Feb. 19, 2020. (Chris Doucette/Toronto Sun)

Male teens in the Toronto area appear to be on a rip lately. Teenagers have been involved in quite a number of violent bank robberies in and around Toronto in the past short while. A 911 call came in to police in the northeastern suburbs of Toronto, of a violent armed bank robbery then in progress on Wednesday night. On their arrival, the police discovered four injured tellers, two of whom had stab wounds. They were just in time to see three masked boys racing away from the crime scene.

With the use of dogs, the police ran after the boys, chasing them into a construction site. Overhead a police helicopter took elevated note of the proceedings as police cornered and then arrested three people who had attempted to hide inside a house under construction. One of the three is a 13-year-old boy from Mississauga, now facing charges of robbery with a firearm, aggravated assault, disguise with intent and several additional charges.

The other two boys with the 13-year-old were 15, and 16, and they have been identified as having been involved in a very similar violent attack that took place in the east of Toronto, whee Durham police explain they had pistol-whipped two employees, injuring another, in Pickering a week earlier. Three of the injured were treated in hospital for facial injuries. Charges including robbery with a firearm and three counts of assault causing bodily harm have been laid against the older two boys.

Durham police say the same boys, along with a 13-year-old, robbed this RBC branch in Markham. (Jeremy Cohn/CBC)

One of the older boys, 15, has also been charged with breaching probation. Under the Youth Criminal Justice Act the 13-year-old cannot be charged other than for a capital crime, as an adult. And as youth their names are withheld from public scrutiny. It just happened that while the three teens were in the bank assaulting the tellers -- in their possession, a firearm, a fake gun, and a knife -- someone standing outside the bank saw the commotion and dialled 911.

The three boys had driven to an RBC branch in Markham at closing time, 8:00 p.m. They were armed; a real gun, along with the fake, and knives. They drove a Chevrolet Impala, stolen a few days before in a Toronto car theft. During the carjacking the car owner had been stabbed. When the first officer to respond arrived on the scene the three teens ran off into a subdivision development site. A helicopter was called in, and eventually police dogs tracked them in the house under construction.

All are now charged with possession of property obtained by crime. And of course, under the youth act, their identities are not to be disclosed. The two older boys, 15 and 16 appear to be comfortably familiar with guns, hoisting both the handgun and the replica, while the 13-y6er-old had caused some of the injuries sustained by the tellers by kicking the victims in the face. Two male tellers were stabbed, a female teller was otherwise injured.

These are merely the latest of such violent attacks and robberies by youth and gangs in Toronto where guns are being acquired on the black market, usually slipped into the country through the United States. The prevalence of knife use by teens is growing along with the violence. Low income areas in the city in particular have seen a steep increase in violence and knifings largely attributable to the gangs and drug trade. And nor is Toronto the only city where such violence is an ongoing threat to public safety and security.

Ottawa, the nation's capital, is yet another venue among others. And many of the crimes, the stabbings and the shootings, usually related to drug trafficking and gang activities, take place with older teens and those in their 20s and 30s, and they are named. A majority of those named have Middle-East or North African backgrounds, disproportionate to their numbers within society. Appearing to have a disposition to violence, whether by upbringing or culture.

It would be interesting to know the names of these perpetrators of violence, but the Youth Criminal Justice Act shields youth from being publicly identified. This pertains elsewhere in t he world as well where rising crime, criminal gangs, drug trafficking, knifings and riotous behaviour takes place in France, Belgium, Germany and elsewhere, seeming to be linked with the entrance since 2015 of migrants from the Middle East and North Africa.

And elsewhere ..... in Germany .....

"The knives are growing longer, the attackers are ever younger. The number of knife attacks by asylum seekers grows constantly."
"I call on Interior minister Horst Seehofer to immediately take the suspects into detention pending deportation and then to eject them from the country."
"It needs to be clear that the state is using all its power to protect its citizens."
Alice Weidel, co-parliamentary leader of the Alternative for GermanyThe Local, Germany

"A review by Gatestone Institute of German police blotters found that 2018 was a record year for stabbings and knife crimes in Germany: Police reported more than 4,100 knife-related crimes in 2018, compared to around 3,800 reported during 2017 — and only 400 in 2008. Overall, during the past ten years, knife-related crimes in Germany have increased by more than 900% — from one a day to more than ten a day. The data shows a notable increase in knife crimes since 2015, when Chancellor Angela Merkel opened German borders to hundreds of thousands of migrants."
"German media do not report most knife-related violence. Crimes that are reported are often dismissed as "isolated incidents" that are unrelated to mass immigration. Moreover, many crime reports, including those in police blotters, omit references to the nationalities of the perpetrators and victims — apparently to avoid inflaming anti-immigration sentiments."
"Knives, axes and machetes have become weapons of choice for criminals in Germany, which has some of the strictest gun laws in Europe. People armed with knives, axes and machetes have brought devastation to all of Germany's 16 federal states. Knives have been used not only not only to carry out jihadist attacks, but also to commit homicides, robberies, home invasions, sexual assaults, honor killings and many other types of violent crime."
"Knife-related crimes have occurred in amusement parks, bicycle trails, hotels, parking lots, parks, public squares, public transportation, restaurants, schools, supermarkets and train stations. Many Germans have the sense that danger lurks everywhere, but the lack of official statistics seemingly allows German authorities to pretend that the problem is imaginary."
Soeren Kern, Senior Fellow, Gatestone Institute, New York