Contemplating A Flood Tide of Migrants From the United States Into Canada

"I understand Trump is already talking about building -- basically concentration camps and huge detention centres. And people are just going to run. They're just going to run. They come to either Mexico or Canada."

"[Ten thousand illegals showing up at our borders] would throw our system completely off kilter."

"So this immigration minister is saying not everybody's welcome but you know we've clearly got a reputation as being soft, and different than the United States. We have a reputation for being very generous. Very, very generous, and that's going to be a problem."

"I mean, some of them have come all the way from Africa from Central America, walked into the States, all the way to Canada."

Richard Huntley, retired senior Canadian Border Services Agency official

A family crosses a wooded area at Canada-U.S. border, as recorded on Oliver's security camera. (Submitted by Chris Oliver)

As the United States, Canada's neighbour, anticipates the resumption of Donald Trump's presidency in the New Year, illegal migrants have been placed on notice that they will be the subject of a new executive order of mass deportation. The expectation is that millions of illegal immigrants will be ordered deported. As re-elected president, Mr. Trump will get on with the preoccupation of his first term; completion of a border wall between Mexico and the U.S. and cleansing America of millions of illegals.

 

Canada is trembling at the prospect of a hugely enlarged resurgence of people fleeing deportation, and arriving in Canada to declare refugee status. Richard Huntley, 68, had 33 years at the Canadian Border Service Agency, enforcing Canadian border security and immigration rules. He spent two decades as chief of CBSA's inland immigration enforcement in southern Alberta, so he knows the file intimately as the longest undefended border in the world.

With his experience added to the current almost-dysfunctionally overwhelmed state of the Service, he  has little confidence that the joint apparatus of the RCMP and the federal border security service even with the support of Immigration Refugees and Citizenship along with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, will find Canada fully prepared for a deluge of asylum seekers entering from the United States into Canada in a desperate search for asylum.

 

Workers demolish the temporary installation for refugee claimants at Roxham Rd. in St. Bernard-de-Lacolle on Monday, Sept. 25, 2023. Photo by Ryan Remiorz /The Canadian Press files

CBSA, he points out, is still trying to cope with the 492 Sri Lankan Tamils who arrived in 2010 to British Columbia on a Thai cargo ship. The Liberal government of Justin Trudeau recently scaled back its projected absorption numbers for immigrants from 500,000 yearly as an intake from 2025 onward. This was a forced decision given the disruption and heavy calls on an already understaffed and inadequate medical system, as well as the realization that Canada's housing requirements for additional population numbers could not be met.

"Coyotes or smugglers, are going to be in big demand. All organized crime knows that there's big money to be made -- even with less chance of being caught than doing drugs or smuggling diamonds or pornography or whatever. There's big money in it and it's very seldom  you catch the coyote. Because they're just coming up to the border and pointing the people in the direction of Canada and saying 'That's where you're going'."

The American border patrol is equipped with drones and armed vehicles. In Canada, "we've got one or two Mounties roaming around every so often, especially out West here. they're totally ineffective to stop something like this." There was a time, Mr. Huntley said, when the provinces would hold immigration detainees while they pursued the refugee process. At the present time given the numbers of refugee declarants, there just is nowhere to hold them, and so they're released into the population.

Immigration detention centres exist only in Vancouver Toronto and Montreal. Refugee declarants in other cities by their thousands are maintained in temporary improvised lodgings; social services meant to serve the Canadian homeless, stretching the capacity of various agencies to their limits. When people coming in as migrants are not found to be legitimate refugees Canada has the option of sending them back, obligated to return them to their country of origin. "Very occasionally, we'd have to charter a plane because somebody would be too dangerous to fly on a commercial flight."

Human smuggling on the Canada-U.S. border    CBC

 

"A refugee system where you can't deal with someone's claim in an expeditious manner just leads to problems down the road."

"Huge problems, because they become your neighbours, they have kids, they get married, do you know what I mean?"

"It's impossible to deal with people that have been here for five  years or more."

Richard Huntley 

The Ceasefire That May or May Not Be

 

The UN Security Council resolution ended the Israel-Hezbollah war of 2006 and stipulates that the only armed groups in the area south of Lebanon’s Litani River should be the Lebanese army and UN peacekeeping forces (UN Interim Force in Lebanon – UNIFIL). The so-called Blue Line was set by the UN in 2000 after the end of Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon and now serves as a de facto border between the two countries. Resolution 1701 also prohibits Israel from encroaching on Lebanese territory by land, sea or air.

United Nations Resolution 1701

A view of destruction caused by the Israeli army in the southern Lebanese village of Kafr Kela, following the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, November 27, 2024. (David Cohen/Flash90)

Under this agreement Hezbollah was to disarm and turn their weapons over to the Lebanese military, as well as blend their members with that of the military, under Lebanese Army control. That never happened. UNIFIL was also ordered to ensure that no build-up of weaponry was to take place, to ensure that a cache of weapons that would be used again against Israel did not eventuate. That too failed, because it was never enforced, the result being that the Islamic Republic of Iran was able by stealth to continue arming its creature Hezbollah with more sophisticated missiles in huge numbers, stockpiled to be used at a time when a well-planned attack was to take place with Israel confronted on all sides.

 

Hezbollah had entered the fray the very day following the infamously savage attack on southern Israel by thousands of terrorists led by Hamas, October 8, 2023. The Hamas attack from Gaza on Israel's border kibbutzim took place on the 7th of October and it was still ongoing on the 8th when Hezbollah first began sending rockets into Israel to open a northern front in Israel, to join in the carnage and spell relief for Hamas. This, at a time when Israel had yet to invade Gaza, necessitating that the Israel Defense Forces deploy both in the country's south and the north.

The assaults from Hezbollah were at first desultory and haphazardly intermittent, with Israel firing back in similar vein. Until the attacks reached a momentum where it became necessary for Israel to order towns and communities in the north to evacuate and leave for the Israeli interior, leading to tens of thousands of Israelis displaced from their homes. 

 

Israel's response to the Hezbollah assaults saw Lebanese living in Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon forced to leave as well. Israel's pounding by air of southern Lebanon, where Shiite villages comprised the area that held Hezbollah's headquarters and military barracks along with weapons stockpiles resulted in the Lebanese terror group's critical loss of commanders along with weapons depots.

 

Residents of northern Israeli communities who were evacuated from their homes due to the war protest against a ceasefire, in Tel Aviv, November 26, 2024. (Avshalom Sassoni/Flash90)

 

Now, a 60-day ceasefire is in effect which Israel's security cabinet agreed to under pressure from U.S. President Joe Biden, mindful of a legacy project as he leaves office. Israel, pressed by the Biden White House to reach a ceasefire agreement with both Hamas and Hezbollah when its existential goal is to destroy both terrorist groups' capacity to ever again threaten, attack and violate the Jewish State's sovereignty and Jewish right to life, has been constrained time and again under threat of withholding U.S.-supplied arms and munitions to Israel in its struggle against its enemies' intention of annihilating Israel.

The Lebanese Armed Forces are to be deployed to the border region between Israel and Lebanon, while Hezbollah is to withdraw for a "transition period" which would see Israeli troops return to Israel. Hezbollah has agreed under the ceasefire to relocate its "heavy weapons" to north of the Litani River, 30 kilometres north of the border with Israel. No sooner was the ceasefire implemented, than did Hezbollah betray expectations, some of its operatives appearing in areas meant to be off-limits.

Israel's pledge was to deal immediately and harshly with any violations by Hezbollah should the Lebanese army fail to neutralize any conceivable threats that could arise. The stipulation under the agreement continues to hamstring Israel, since it must consult over any actions taken beforehand with Washington. Air Raid sirens have now gone silent, but they were constantly activated across the Galilee and Haifa areas to warn of thousands of incoming rocket and missile fire from Lebanon.

Hezbollah, briefly relieved of the presence of Israeli ground forces and the pounding of their strongholds has vowed to "remain active" once the conflict comes to a formal conclusion. Lebanese lawmaker Hassan Fadlallah, representing Hezbollah's March 8 Alliance, spoke of rebuilding the areas destroyed by Israeli airstrikes and presumably picking  up where they had left off. Two days prior to the ceasefire, over 240 projectiles had been fired by Hezbollah into Israel. 

Over 60,000 internally displaced residents of Israel's northern boundaries await return to their homes with the cessation, however temporary, of Hezbollah missiles during the ceasefire. At least 76 Israelis were killed, 31 IDF soldiers among them, along with six foreign nationals, and 700 people wounded during the airborne assaults from Lebanon. For the time being the IDF has withdrawn its ground forces that had conducted "limited, localized and targeted raids" into Lebanon.

Israeli authorities wait and remain on alert. Although Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu adhered to Joe Biden's pressure, he has made no secret of his intention to continue battling Hezbollah until its vicious menace recedes completely. As for the northern Shiite Lebanese and their Hezbollah heroes, they are all celebrating their heroic 'victory' over Israel, having 'forced the enemy' to declare a ceasefire, a situation that they interpret as having gained the upper hand over Israel. 

Israeli soldiers seen on the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon, following the ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, November 27, 2024. (David Cohen/Flash90)

 

Leave, Voluntarily, or be Expelled

 "When people come here [to Canada], in many of their visa documents, they undertake to leave. The vast majority leave voluntarily, and that's what's expected."

"In the vast majority of cases, those people that have come here temporarily and do not have the right to stay, in fact leave."

"We do recognize the need to pause population growth and return it to pre-pandemic levels."

"[Caps on international students had already begun to reduce rental prices in] high demand [areas like Toronto and Vancouver]."

"There are an increasing number of students making asylum claims, I think with very little hope. Whether you like it or not they are entitled to due process in this country. I don’t think you would purport to deny it to them."

Canadian Immigration Minister Marc Miller 

Source: Unsplash

 

Canada's population level has sky-rocketed in the last few years, thanks mostly to the immigration/refugee-intake/migrant issues and foreign student visas handed out with gay abandon, that Canadian universities have become dependent on for their high tuition fees. The Liberal government has insisted that Canada's low birth rate, similar to most developed countries of the world, is failing to provide a needed workforce, resulting in labour scarcity that accelerated immigration supposedly solves.

In the process of accelerating the rise of the Canadian population, an already inadequate and strained health system has stumbled badly, and housing and accommodation prices across Canada have reached sky-high scarcity and expense. Add to that the presence of so many foreign students, able to work while fulfilling their academic obligations has meant that jobs customarily taken by Canadian students are now in short supply. And then there is the issue that a student visa enables entry to Canada while some visa-holders fail to use them as intended.

The millions of foreign nationals in Canada, insisted the Immigration Minister in assurances to a House of Commons Standing Committee on Citizenship and Immigration would, on the expiration of their visas, be "expected to leave" voluntarily. This, while Statistics Canada has confirmed that three million temporary immigrants are now living in Canada. Any of the 4.9 million visa-holders, Mr. Miller repeated, without a visa renewal will be "expected to leave".

Evidently those visa-holders have different expectations. Although the Minister claims the Canada Border Services Agency has the legal right to "remove people", members of Migrant Workers Alliance for Change (MWAC), a group based in Toronto advocating for "permanent resident status for all", thinks otherwise. As a representative of the group, blocking Miller's exit stated: "Mr. Miller, we are the people you are trying to kick out of the country We are human beings and we are not taps to be turned on and off".

A video by MWAC captured the encounter with the minister pushing through the group: "Callous Liberal Immigration Minister ... Ploughs Through Crowds of Migrants He's Deporting", an accompanying MWAC caption read. The steepest rates of immigration intake in Canadian history has taken place over the last three years of the current Trudeau Liberal government. The population of Canada in 2021 was 38.2 million. A more recent estimate gives that number at 41.3 million.

Temporary immigration represents a disproportionate number of that intake. Statistics Canada's most recent estimate was three million non-permanent residents; 766,000 of that total are foreign students. The convention has always been that entering Canada on a temporary basis tended to be a reliable initial step to obtaining permanent residency and finally, citizenship. About one-third of those who enter Canada on a work permit, according to Statistics Canada, become permanent residents within five years.

 

Public dissatisfaction with a groaning, overworked universal medical system, and the inability for prospective new home buyers to match current home and apartment prices finally persuaded the government to cut back on its expansive immigration numbers, convincing it finally to reduce intake targets. The result of which would be the expectation that large numbers of temporary visa holders will leave the country, as contracted for. 

The Immigration Minister months earlier spoke of an "alarming" trend of foreign students at the expiry of their student visas, given to claiming refugee status. The current backlogs in refugee processing means that even unfounded asylum claims result in an additional two years in Canada until such time as the case can be reviewed. "There's some opportunism that's being used and exploited there", Miller admitted. But it is a situation engineered by his government, however inadvertently, by bad decisions.

The Canada Border Services Agency, tasked with removing people overstaying their visas would find their capacity to do just that overwhelmed should only a relatively small number of migrants refuse to "voluntarily" leave. The CBSA performed 20,180 removals in 2022-2023. In the first eight months of 2024, 119,835 refugee claims, including 12,915 from study permit holders were received by Refugees and Citizenship Canada.

"[Trudeau’s] own published documents show there are 4.9 million people here temporarily that are supposed to leave by Dec. 31 of next year."

"We asked what the plan was to track their departure and [on Monday Trudeau’s] immigration minister said 'We’re just going to take people at their word'."

"He admits two ISIS terrorists [were] allowed into our country. What is the plan to protect our security and reinstate sovereignty over who is in our country?"

Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre

Canadian Arctic Preparedness for China, Russia Challenges

"We wouldn't need the allies to come to our aid. We could deal with it ourselves. We have the capacity to deploy our ships up there right now to stop them."

"They're not intended to be front-line combatants [Canada's Arctic and offshore patrol ships]. They have everything they need for the missions that we anticipate that [they'll] do. Were we to get into a wartime environment where we felt ... they could come directly under threat, then there's the capacity to install other weapons in sort of an ad hoc manner -- very similar to how you would defend an army forward operating base."

"It would be really nice to believe that Russia would comply with international order, but their illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine tells us that they have no interest in complying with international law and I can't trust anything Russia does until they withdraw from Ukraine and restore the full territorial integrity of Ukraine."

"Until that changes, we're not going to trust Russia with anything and we're going to regard them with great suspicion and make sure we monitor everything they do."

"On both coasts, we're experimenting to make sure that these ships would have legitimate wartime roles if they needed to."

Canadian Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee

Vice-Admiral Angus Topshee, commander of the Canadian Navy, says the Canada could defend against Arctic trespassing with new ships, submarines and underwater surveillance technology. Photo by Justin Tang /Canadian Press

Canada's new Arctic and offshore patrol ships carry a 25-mm cannon. Admiral Topshee is nothing but optimistic, assuring that "they're not intended to be front-line combatants" and they could be jury-rigged with greater firepower should the need arise. The Canadian military is entirely under-equipped in all its service sectors, using outdated equipment badly in need of replacement. The government of Canada is wedded,  unfortunately in this era of international destabilization, to its vision of climate change imperilling the world, giving short shrift to concerns of countries of the West, developed nations that recognize the need that to keep the peace they must prepare to defend it.

At the Halifax International Security Forum last week focusing on Arctic sovereignty, along with the pressing topic of Russia's war in Ukraine, Admiral Topshee pointed out that neither Russia nor China has -- yet -- passed through the Northwest Passage prior to obtaining Canada's approval. Canada's sovereignty encompasses the Northwest Passage, the great white frozen north which is becoming increasingly less frozen and more approachable, with shipping times' potential greatly reduced once the threat of pack sea ice is reduced, as Climate Change is gradually proving to be capable of.

The admiral feels that the expense of adding more built-in defensive weapons to the Arctic and offshore patrol ships represents an unneeded expense at the present time; clearly he feels no great rush is required to match the Russian and Chinese shipbuilding modernity bristling with military potential, as opposed to Canada's traditional lackadaisical approach to defending its vast geographic holdings against territorially rapacious countries covetously eyeing geographic areas on land and at sea that are inadequately defended.

 

The Canadian flag flies proudly from the back of a snowmobile of a Canadian Ranger from the 1st Canadian Ranger Patrol Group (1 CRPG) near Eureka, Ellesmere Island, Nunavut. Photo: Kevin Paul

 

While it's all very Canadian to have Canada's northern First People monitor and keep abreast of questionable activities in the far north, they are, though determined to protect Canadian and Indigenous interests, ill-equipped to confront fully militarized challengers to Canadian sovereignty. A long overdue initiative to fully equip and man the Canadian geography in preparation for a potential challenge calls for serious investment and Canada's Liberal government continues to shirk that demand, despite NATO's minimum requirement of 2% of GDP per member-nation invested in military updates.

The Arctic and offshore patrol ships are focused on anti-submarine warfare on Canada's West Coast with the navy experimenting with towed arrays capable of detecting submarines from thousands of kilometres' distance. "That way you've got a ship that's not got the weapons to defend itself, but it's looking for a submarine that's so far away the submarine doesn't even know it's being hunted", explained Admiral Topshee. The ship then goes on to deliver information to the Royal Canadian Air Force to attack the submarine.

Admiral Topshee anticipates seeing the first of a new Canadian submarine fleet in operation early in the next decade, of the 12 modern, non-nuclear submarines Canada plans to obtain in replacement of four diesel-electric subs bought second-hand from Britain, all of which have proven to be barely usable. When the new fleet is available, they will be dispatched to "Leaving Esquimault Harbour, sailing up through the Aleutians, the Bering Strait, into the Beaufort Sea, patrolling for 21 days and then returning home and doing the entire thing submerged and undetected".

Admiral Topshee discussed the impracticability of Canada acquiring nuclear-powered submarines given that they would require six times the number of seamen as compared to non-nuclear subs, particularly given that the Canadian Navy is already 20% short of the numbers of active seamen it requires for basic duty, reflecting a similar shortage in military personnel in other National Defense departments. 

"Everything we see the Ukrainians doing in the Back Sea -- we are taking a look at that and saying what of that is relevant to us? How do we make it work? and then, more importantly, at the same time, how do we counter it? So, if we can figure out a way to defeat a ship with a drone, we also want to be able to make sure that we ourselves can defeat that drone because we know our adversaries are going to use it against us."

"[The drones Ukrainians have used] very effectively to attack the Russian fleet in Sebastopol ... look a lot like the drones that we've been using for targets [Hammerhead drones]. So, could we take that same thing and instead of using it to test our own ability to fire, load it full of explosives and send it in?"

"Can it really manage down to -40C? Battery performance tends to go downhill quite quickly in all those environments ... A lot of our stuff is very, very brittle. How well can you manipulate this stuff wearing heavy mittens and gloves?"

Irving Shipbuilding is building these Arctic Offshore Patrol Ships for both the Royal Canadian Navy and Canadian Coast Guard. Photo: Cpl. Tony Chand/Courtesy

Terminating Fascist Threats

"We found out at around 2 o'clock on Saturday afternoon. We actually talked to her as well. We basically said: 'Listen, we cannot allow this to happen. We spoke to our lawyers, and we prepared a press release. We could not send out the press release for a few hours, until the lawyers actually sent her a termination letter."

"[The company stands against such] violent and hateful [remarks]. Political views are up to individuals, but things like this? We can't tolerate that."

"Were going to figure out a way to reopen the stores quickly."

Foodtastic (Second Cup) CEO Peter Mammas

"This video is related to a franchisee of Second Cup, one of the private tenants operating within the Jewish General Hospital. We fully support Second Cup's decision to take swift and decisive action in this matter by shutting down the franchisee's cafes and terminating their lease agreement."

"Our CIUSSS [Integrated Health and Social Services Centres] is deeply committed to fostering a culture of inclusion and stands firmly against antisemitism and any other form of discrimination or hate speech."

Carl Theriault, spokesperson, Jewish General Hospital, Montreal

The Jewish General Hospital is seen in Montreal. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Paul Chiasson

 

On Thursday, in Montreal, a series of pro-Palestinian/hate-Israel groups conducted their usual peaceful marches with the good humour and attention to moral civility that is their hallmark  in Canada with a little different twist. Outside Concordia University a protest took place against the existence of the State of Israel and Jewish existence in particular. A woman, later identified by employees of a Second Cup shop located at the Jewish General Hospital as a franchisee, exercised her hateful spleen by exhibiting her prowess in giving a Nazi salute, aimed at the presence of counter-protesters.

To the Israel supporters and Jews standing there, as the event was being videoed, she addressed another type of salute, this one in reference to the Nazi Germany World War II Final Solution involved in the extermination of European Jewry. "The final solution is coming your way -- the final solution. You know what the final solution is?" A familiar phrase indeed to Jews still reeling from the most horribly despicable descent of humanity into the hellscape of genocide.

The revealing video swiftly made its way onto social media and the outcry was predictably outraged. Eventually, the incident, boiling away on social media, made its introduction to the awareness of Second Cup's corporate headquarters chief executive officer of the parent company. Clearly not very good public relations for the respected coffee chain. According to Foodtastic's Peter Mammas, after he confronted the  woman identified as Mai Abdulhadi over her incendiary remarks she did not deny being the author of the remarks.

 

The now-closed Second Cup cafe at the Jewish General Hospital

 

Following her termination, which includes her family, all of whom are linked to two Second Cup franchises at the Jewish General Hospital, she has busied herself seeking out legal counsel for herself and her family members, listed as Quebec business owners of two coffee counters. With the termination of the franchise leases for the family of Ms. Abdulhadi, the 12 employees in the two shops are set to continue being paid during a transition period when new licensees will take over the now-shuttered two Second Cup counters. 

 Students marched through downtown Montreal on Thursday in their tens of thousands to protest Israel's military activities in Gaza, claiming their universities are complicit with Israel's conflict against the terrorist Hamas group in Gaza. The following day, an anti-Israel, anti-NATO protest became violent when protesters, including 'outside agitators' clashed with police. Cars were torched, and windows were smashed in the Palais de Congres Montreal where the NATO meeting was taking place. Businesses alongside the conference centre also had their windows smashed.

In total three people were arrested. Protest attendees were mostly masked to avoid identification. Montreal Police stated that they anticipate that facial recognition techniques will aid in identifying others who will also be arrested for their violent contributions to 'peaceful' gatherings. They also noted that there are no plans to launch a hate crime investigation over the Nazi salute and other societal disrupting incidents since "we have not received any complaints yet". One can only hope that will soon be remedied.

The CEO of Foodtastic said the company's operations team reviewed footage from last Thursday's pro-Palestinian protest outside Concordia University. He says the person seen making the gesture is Mai Abdulhadi. The company says Abdulhadi owned and operated two of its Second Cup locations inside the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal. (thestartupnation.ca/Instagram)

Muslims Feeling Intimidated, Victimized

"Many Muslims in our county are uneasy."

"They're afraid to speak out at all, and feel intimidated by the debate."

"[There have been attacks on mosques and] on Muslims and also those who are perceived to be Muslims at a rate like never before."

Aiman Mazyek chairman, Central Council of Muslims in Germany

 

"Demonstrators, who according to local media numbered in their thousands, marched through Frankfurt's city centre waving both Palestinian and Lebanese flags."

"The protesters reportedly shouted "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" — a highly contentious phrase that German police have frequently invoked as a reason to to deny permission for organised pro-Palestinian protests."

EuroNews

People take part in a pro-Palestinian rally in Berlin, Monday, Oct. 7, 2024. AP Photo

Muslims are notorious for crying 'victim'. They are the single most reliable group to threaten others and create societal chaos, most notably by marching out in great numbers to 'protest', when protest is a code word for singling out Jews and portraying them as threats to society. Demonstrating against the Israeli counter-attack in Gaza in response to Palestinian terrorist groups' constant violence against Israel and its Jewish population, calling for Israel's destruction and the ancestral Judean land on which it sits to be wholly Arab Palestinian, they create divisions in society, yet blame others for the dysfunction they are responsible for.

 

In Germany, supporting the existence of Israel is a "Staatsrasp", a principle of fundamental resonance in the country. Numerous incidents of anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian rallies have taken place in Germany, without authorization when authorities warn they will not be tolerated. Palestinians respond by claiming they feel marginalized, their voices unheeded. In Germany police shut down pro-Palestinian conferences, denying entry to pro-Palestinian speakers.

 

Some German art organizations withhold prizes to authors deemed to have been overly critical of Israel or the Israeli military's presence in Gaza or the West Bank, characterizing the 'occupation' as a prelude to genocide  by the 'apartheid' Jewish state where the population is close to one-third comprised of Palestinian Arab citizens who elect their own representative members of the Knesset. When Muslim pro-Palestinian marchers shout 'from the river to the sea', they are advocating for the destruction of Israel. These are not verbally non-aggressive, 'peaceful' sentiments.

 

Launching pyrotechnics, setting cars on fire, shouting threatening notices toward Jews in Germany do not fall under the category of peaceful protests. The October 7 atrocities committed in southern Israel in 2023 by Palestinian terrorists led by Hamas and the Israeli military's response in invading Gaza for the purpose of routing Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine whose operatives were involved in the savagery unleashed in Israel, and the ongoing search for the abducted Israelis, have launched 'pro-Palestinian' -- in reality, antisemitic -- marches throughout Europe.

 

Pro-Palestinian protesters demonstrate against Germany's Israel policy in Duisburg.  Martin Meissner/ AP.

 The tensions of hateful reaction to Israel's devotion to the security of its population and its determination to once and for all, rid itself of the never-ending menace of Palestinian terrorism has seen a resurgence of Jew-hate world-wide, of an intensity that has been unprecedented other than during Nazi Germany's goal of depersonalizing, dehumanizing and destroying Jewish life  throughout Europe during the Second World War. Jews are threatened wherever they live, either in Israel or throughout the diaspora. Yet the Muslim population which has spread internationally cries victimhood.

In Berlin police are investigating reports of a youth team of Makkabi Berlin -- a Jewish soccer  club -- having been chased by a crowd shouting "Free Palestine", carrying sticks and knives following a match with another Berlin club. "The Gaza war has infected everything", stated Stefan Kornelius, a senior editor of the German newspaper Suddeutsche Zeitung. The recent violence in Amsterdam after a soccer match between an Israeli and a Dutch team has led to authorities investigating antisemitic attacks on Israeli fans.

 

In Amsterdam, continuing unruly protests have led to some 70 arrests, including arrests of ten Israelis, mostly for minor offenses, while Dutch authorities decry the post-soccer game attacks as antisemitism, including an orchestrated plan to seek out Jews in the perpetration of violent attacks. "What happened over the past few days is a toxic cocktail of antisemitism hooligan behaviour and anger over the war in Palestine and Israel and other countries in the Middle East", stated Femke Halsema, the mayor of Amsterdam.

 

In the same token, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights cites that close to one in every two Muslims in the bloc has been victimized by racism and discrimination, representing a sharp increase since 2015. Their report says Muslims are targeted not just because of their religion but also because of their skin colour and ethnic or immigrant background. That Muslims born in Europe and women wearing religious clothing are particularly affected, including by police racial profiling. 

 

Demonstrators march in support of Palestinians, in London, Saturday, Aug. 3, 2024.  AP

 

Anti-Israel, Pro-Hamas Montreal Mobs

"What we saw was not peaceful protest. What we saw was actually violence, hate and antisemitism, and this has no place on our streets."

"Of course we believe in the freedom of speech, we believe in the freedom to demonstrate, but where we draw the line is when there's violence."

Foreign Affairs Minister Melanie Joly

 

"It was engagement in violence and hatred on display in the City of Montreal."

"Those behaviours are unacceptable and we can condemn them, and in particular the hatred and antisemitism that was on display, in the strongest possible terms."

Defence Minister Bill Blair 

A protester holds a smoke torch during demonstration by the Collectif Désinvestir pour la Palestine and the Convergence des luttes anticapitalistes (CLAC) in Montreal Friday Nov. 22, 2024. The demonstration was in support of Palestine and in opposition to the meeting of NATO parliamentarians in Montreal. Photo by John Mahoney /Montreal Gazette

A violent crowd of hundreds of pro-Hamas demonstrators rioted in Montreal after a day of province-wide university student demonstrations when thousands took to the streets to demand that Quebec universities divest from investments with firms having connections in any form to Israel. A day later, on Friday a coalition of leftist anti-capitalists and 'pro-Palestinian' groups marched in front of the Palais de Congres de Montreal where some 300 delegates representing NATO member states were attending a high-level summit from November 22 to 25 with a focus on Ukraine, climate change, and the future of the alliance.

At the time of the meeting and the chaotic protest Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was in Toronto, attending the penultimate night's performance of popular celebrity singer Taylor Swift, with his family. He was right royally entertained and did some entertaining of his own, dancing clownishly to the music of the entertainer's sad songs of yearning and regret, disappointment and recovery. Very apt, in that Canadians are yearning to be rid of this quasi-adult foppishly displaying himself while enacting policies whose virtues are the destruction of Canadian values. 

Regret and disappointment are ours; we await recovery in the wake of his electoral defeat.

Demonstrators fill Ste-Catherine St. during Friday’s protest. Photo by John Mahoney /Montreal Gazette

In downtown Montreal havoc reigned on Friday night when protesters exercised their freedom to demonstrate against what they characterized as the "complicity" of NATO member countries in a conflict they claim has cost thousands of Palestinian lives. Their black-and-white portrayal of a nation of Jews fighting back against the terror that has threatened the Jewish State for all its years of existence when it could no longer seek to appease the claims of victimization of challengers for Judaic ancestral territory expressed in the murderous rage of savagely lethal atrocities, forcing it to retaliate and root out its violent tormentors. 

Police found themselves confronted by a raging mob resisting efforts to restore calm and security to the area by a mob fully invested in its anarchic goal of total disruption of civilizational mores. The 'demonstration' of utter lawlessness began in the late afternoon, when violence accelerated and cars were incinerated, smoke bombs thrown and metal barriers tossed into the street. Thugs began smashing the convention centre windows and went on to do the same to windows of nearby businesses.

Riot police line the sidewalk on St-Laurent Blvd. Photo by John Mahoney /Montreal Gazette

 Police stated the arrest of a 22-year-pold woman for having obsrtucted police work and assaulting a police officer. Two men, 22 and 28 were arrested for obstructing police actions, all released, to appear at a later date in court. Police also announced that the technique of facial recognition despite most of the malefactors wearing masks to conceal their identities, would be employed and they have expectations that the identities of the major disrupters and dispensers of violence would be achieved, and further charges brought.

The groups Divest for Palestine and the Convergence of Anti-Capitalist Struggles were identified as the organizers of the protests. Members of Divest for Palestine claimed injuries caused by police physical handling of the protesters, four of them, they claimed, having to be taken to hospital for medical attention. Doubtless, the Jewish General Hospital medical staff would do their utmost to honour their medical calling of service to all regardless of who, what, when and where.

According to one Benoit Allard of Divest for Palestine, the protest purpose was demonstrating against NATO'S "complicity with Israel's military while it's conducting its genocide in Gaza ... war crimes in Lebanon, Syria" and "It's enforcing illegal occupation of Palestinian territories". These are people immune to both reality, reason and history. Their minds set in the ironclad conviction that any situation involving Jewish human rights of survival and resistance are illegal and represent criminal offences.

 

Still from video of an anti-NATO/pro-Palestine protest Friday night shows windows being smashed at the Montreal Convention Centre as a flare releases red smoke. NATO delegates are in the city this weekend to discuss support for Ukraine, climate change and the future of the alliance.

 

The statements by Melanie Joly and Bill Blair fail to hold up to scrutiny, given the fact that the Liberal government that they represent has engaged in its own brand of antisemitism, leaving the Canadian Jewish community to fend for itself when fulminating bands of pro-Hamas defenders of anti-Israel accusations march into Jewish neighbourhoods for the express purpose of intimidation and threats against their security, with demands for a 'Final Solution', and chanting 'From the River to the Sea', code for the elimination of Israel.

A frame grab from video shows a pro-Palestinian protest in downtown Montreal on Friday that police said led to three arrests.  Scopal via Reuters

This is Justin Trudeau's Post-National Canada

"Canada supports international law. We have to trust that the institutions we've built to protect international law are actually going to do their job."

"Everyone wants to support decisions on the international stage that they agree with, but that's not the way a justice system works."

"It's really important that everyone abide by international law. This is something we've been calling [for] from the beginning of the conflict."

"We stand up for international law, and we will abide by all the regulations and rulings of the international courts."

"This is just who we are as Canadians."

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau speaks at a news conference in Sharon, Ontario, on Thursday November 21, 2024. Photo by Chris Young /The Canadian Press

Justin Trudeau has  altered Canada beyond recognition. He has, as promised, taken Canada directly toward 'post-nationalism'. And in the course of achieving that status, his open immigration, refugee and migrant intake has been completely transformational. As has been his emphasis on society of new Canadian values; out with the old, in with DEI, Woke, and Critical Race Theory. Unions and Academic institutions have celebrated these changes; the infiltration of liberal-left 'progressives' and Islamist influences have been profound.

From the very beginning of what Trudeau speaks of as 'the conflict', he and his Cabinet cronies have issued statements and charges inimical to Israel's reputation in their contortions of the facts and their propensity to lay blame and responsibility on Israel for what Palestinian terrorism has wrought. This is not what Canada is. Most Canadians have had enough of Mr. Trudeau's wretched direction he has taken Canada into and for a wide variety of reasons. For Canadian Jews and their supporters the reasons are more personal; they abhor his sanctimonious antisemitism.

 

Demonstrators fill Ste-Catherine St. during Friday’s protest. Photo by John Mahoney /Montreal Gazette

 

Amply displayed in his tolerance for mobs of Muslim and Palestinian haters and malcontents swarming the streets of Canadian cities with their criminal cries of 'Final Solution', 'Globalize the Intifada', and 'Palestine will be free from the river to the sea', every declaration of this nature a clear call for the destruction of the State of Israel. The blockades and harassment of Jewish neighbourhoods, the attacks on synagogues and community centers, the shooting up of Jewish parochial schools and vandalization of Jewish businesses see no government action at any level, led by the federal government to bring order and security back to the streets of Canada.

So it is hardly surprising that Canada's utter failure of a prime minister hails the finding of the International Criminal Court that Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and its-then Minister of Defence Yoav Gallant are found guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity in their combined goal of punishing and destroying the intention of Palestinian terrorist group Hamas and others of their ilk to continue mounting deadly attacks on Israel and its citizens after the horrors of October 7, 2023. 

 

Canada's Prime Minister-in-waiting, opposition Conservatives, will reverse all the destructive moves made by the Trudeau government to return pride to Canada.

 

In Montreal on Friday, tens of thousands of pro-Hamas supporters and university students created mayhem and havoc by rioting, attacking police attempting to restore order, with the mob chanting anti-Israel and anti NATO slogans. Violence was rife, with masked and kaffiya-clad men and women making Nazi salutes and shouting invectives, smashing windows of businesses and at the conference centre where a NATO meeting was being held. And where was Justin Trudeau while this was going on? In Toronto attending a Taylor Swift extravaganza, dancing to the songs of the popular entertainer.

 

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is facing backlash after a video of him dancing at a Taylor Swift concert went viral over the weekend.  (Photos- X (Twitter))

 

"Israel was attacked by terrorists on October 7. The warrant issued by the ICC today against Netanyahu and Gallant claims their crimes started as early as October 8."

"A day Israel was in shock, grief and mourning."

"The ICC discredits itself by its actions today."

Liberal Montreal Member of Parliament Anthony Housefather

"It just shows once again how extreme Justin Trudeau has become."

"The prime minister of Israel is a democratically elected leader whose country is responding to an unprovoked invasion, by thousands of well-armed Iranian-funded terrorists who ... carried out mass rape and other atrocities deliberately targeted at civilians."

"But instead, he's calling for the arrest of the country that has been the victim of all of these attacks."

Opposition Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre

 

"The ICC arrest warrants for the former defence minister and the Prime Minister of Israel are outrageous."

"The ICC is drawing a false equivalency between a liberal democracy and a terrorist group that attacked that democracy last year."

"Conservatives stand for Israel's right to defend itself."

Conservative foreign affairs critic Michael Chong

 

"Hamas needs to: Release the hostages. Drop their arms. Unconditionally surrender."

"We'll support a democratic ally's right to defend itself, not the false equivalency of the court."

Conservative deputy leader Melissa Lantsman 

"A Modern 'Dreyfus' Trial" Israel vs the ICC

"[The International Criminal Court] issued warrants of arrest for two individuals, Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu and Mr. Yoav Gallant, for crimes against humanity and war crimes committed from at least 8 October 2023 until at least 20 May 2024, the day the Prosecution filed the applications for warrants of arrest."

"Each bear criminal responsibility for the following crimes as co-perpetrators for committing the acts jointly with others: the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts."

"[There were also] reasonable grounds to believe Netanyahu and Gallant bear responsibility for the war crime of intentionally directing attacks against the civilian population."

ICC Pre-Trial Chamber 1

"It's a geopolitical bombshell."

"It's the first time the court has issued arrest warrants against a western country and also the first time that they are issuing arrest warrants when there's no jurisdiction in the case, but they've invented it for themselves."

"Outrageous."

NGO Monitor legal adviser Anne Herzberg

Nir Elias/Pool/AFP/Getty Images

 

The ICC tribunal in The Hague announced its decision to issue warrants for the arrest of Israel's prime minister and its then-minister of defence, citing its finding of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

In so doing, it echoes the accusations of Muslim governments as well as the belief of many of Israel's so-called allies, Western democracies. The ruling has brought great joy and celebration to the very terrorist groups that conspired to launch a savage attack on Israeli civilians that resulted in the mass murder of over 1,200 Israelis, the wounding of far greater numbers, the rape of girls and women, sadistic torture and mutilation, and the hostage-taking of 250 children, elderly, women and men.

From its very modern foundation, the Jewish State, like no other on Earth, has been attacked ceaselessly, first by its neighbouring nations, and more latterly by terrorist groups funded, formed and patronized by those neighbours. The relentless attacks culminated in the October 7, 2023 incursion of thousands of Palestinian terrorists, led by Hamas with a deliberate plan to commit unthinkable atrocities. There is no country in this world that would not respond with force and determination to end, once and for all, the unendurable attacks targeting its people.

Yet because the terrorist groups in their psychotic hatred have no compunction in sacrificing their own citizens in what they view as the greater goal of destroying Israel and its people, the construct of a nation in its own defence committing a counter-attack that results in mass collateral damage, despite care taken to avoid victimizing innocent civilians during a theatre of war, elicits condemnation by the international community which has never suffered constant, unstoppable violent threats to their security, holding Israel to an impossible standard no other nation could or would endure.

ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan whose forceful prosecution of the Jewish State as having overstepped the boundaries permitted it by international consensus in reacting to terrorism directed toward it, with the very same terrorist groups vowing never to stop, to continue assaulting the state and its people with the same intensity and savagery until their goal of  utter destruction has been completed, reached a decision that was predictable, given the animus directed toward Israel. Telling enough that Khan is himself Muslim, and a committed proselytizer for Islam.

 

97 hostages kidnapped in Hamas's 7 October 2023 attack are still being held in Gaza  Reuters

 

Israel, like other countries such as the United States (China and Russia as well; the 3 of 5 members of the UN Security Council that have never signed on to the ICC), nor did India -- sign on to the ICC. The ICC has no jurisdiction in those countries, unless a country that did sign on files against them, as well as the fact that if a country has the means and determination with an independent judiciary to conduct its own investigation and come to a conclusion, that would negate the ICC's move to investigate' a condition that Israel fulfills. In this instance, it was 'Palestine' which is not a state and therefore ineligible, that the ICC cited, giving them the 'authority' to investigate. A complete and utter sham.

The Hague chose to reject Jerusalem's challenges with respect to jurisdiction with the claim that the court exercises its authority based on the Palestinian Authority's membership. A membership in and of itself absurd, absent sovereign country status. Allowing the PA membership in the body represents an absurdity, but one with an illegal, immoral and defined purpose. Israel chose not to be a signatory to the Rome Statute which established the court. Yet "Palestine" was inducted as a signatory though no such state exists under international law.

 

It is not Benjamin Netayahu and Yoav Gallant that have been singled out for international censure; their names merely symbolic to the greater target of satanizing Israel itself, and by extension Jews, wherever they live; in Israel or throughout the diaspora. The situation is a deliberate diminishment of Jews having the right to self-defence, either as a nation, or as a people. This is a malign, institutionalized assault demanding respect for a corrupted UN body that purports to dispense justice. 

Today, on 21 November 2024, Pre-Trial Chamber I of the International Criminal Court (‘Court’), in its composition for the Situation in the State of Palestine, unanimously issued two decisions rejecting challenges by the State of Israel (‘Israel’) brought under articles 18 and 19 of the Rome Statute (the ‘Statute’). It also issued warrants of arrest for Mr Benjamin Netanyahu and Mr Yoav Gallant. ICC

"Israel utterly rejects the false and absurd charges of the International Criminal Court, a biased and discriminatory political body."

"The decision to issue an arrest warrant against the prime minister was made by a corrupt chief prosecutor who is trying to save himself from sexual harassment accusations and biased judges who are motivated by antisemitic hatred of Israel."

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's Office

The 'Armed Struggle' of Islamist Jihad

"[The Muslim Students Association's] space booking for this event has been declined."

"We will not limit debate or prohibit the reasonable exercise of freedom of expression on campus."

"However, it is imperative that these conversations take place in an inclusive and constructive manner and that, above all else, they are safe for those engaged -- directly or indirectly."

University of Victoria (British Columbia) spokesperson 

"The pro-Zionist, anti-Islam, anti-Muslim, dishonest media continues to churn out lame, stale and factually incorrect material."

"As expected, they rely on a Zionist-run organization which is clearly pro-ethnic cleansing, pro-genocide, pro-apartheid and pro-murder."

"These pro-Zionist, pro-apartheid, pro-genocide supporters of murdering children pieces of filth need a wake-up call. May their tongues be muted, may their hands be paralyzed and may they experience misery and live wretched lives."

Islamist fundamentalist imam Younus Kathrada, Victoria, B.C.

"And I remind myself and the rest of you of the great importance of good role models. And especially for our youth. We need to be aware of these individuals in whose footsteps we should be following. And recently, Allah took out for us from among the Muslims, a real hero (Hamas Sinwar). A hero that we should be speaking of in our homes and speaking of to our children.  MEMRI

The UVic Muslim Students Association had invited Imam Kathrada -- who operates a Muslim youth indoctrination program that emphasizes adherence to the darker passages of the Koran and the Hadiths focusing on hatred of non-Muslims and the obligation of the faithful in Islam to commit to violent jihad to please Allah and to receive the rewards inherent in being lifted to Paradise as martyrs where 72 'dark-eyed houris' await each one who sacrifices their lives to jihad -- to conduct a November 24 lecture with the title The Importance of Connecting with the Muslim Community.

The publicized event was noted by two news sources; Global News and the National Post, both of which wrote of the imam, his fiery, hostile attacks on non-Muslims, the corrupt permissiveness of Canadian society, and most particularly displaying extreme antisemitism advocating for the death of Jews. This was not welcome attention to the University, which soon afterward issued a statement to the effect that the Muslim Students Association's request had been denied, for the university to allow the event to take place on its property.

The University pointed out as well that the Muslim Students Association has been ratified by the University of Victoria Students' Society, a "separate entity from the university". The University's denial of space accorded to the Muslim Students Association was predictably vilified by the guest speaker whose pulpit will of necessity be moved elsewhere. The University's decision, he thundered, was a "Zionist plot", to be deplored.

He will lose no time in getting on with his own personal service to the British Columbia Muslim community, teaching their youth how imperative it is as good Muslims to adhere to his sermonizing relating to the duplicitous, dangerous Jews with their atrocious plots to eliminate the influence of Islam while posing a lethal challenge to the lives of Muslim children whom their Hamas government deliberately placed in danger, using them as pawns in a conflict with Israel.

 

 

At his Muslim Youth of Victoria Islamic centre, his strict lessons in Islamist priorities will continue to infect the minds of young Canadian Muslims, persuading them that there should be no discourse between Muslims and Jews, that the only good Jews are underground, placed there by the Muslim faithful. This man's vicious sermons have been highlighted by MEMRI, the Middle East Media Research Institute which published details of sermons where Kathrada glorifies jihadist violence against Jews.

The UVic Muslim Students Association are doubtless comprised of Kathrada's former inductees into Islamist jihad and as such have been central organizers of anti-Israel rallies that take place outside the British Columbia legislature. Yet another provincial government that has failed to take the threat to society in general and Canadian Jews in particular, seriously. 

 

That failure is mirrored in what is happening at the present time in Quebec, where Montreal is being besieged by tens of thousands of Muslims and their sympathizing non-Muslim university students, wreaking violent havoc, attacking police, vandalizing businesses, and honouring Palestinian terrorism while invocating violently against Israel and Jews.

Pro-Palestinian protesters gathered outside Concordia University demanding it divest from Israel. CTV

 

"The Jews have an ancient and dark history of bloodshed and breaking covenants and treaties."

"If Allah had willed, He could have taken vengeance upon them Himself, but He ordered armed struggle."

"Listen! He ordered armed struggle to test some of you [Muslim students] by means of others."

Younus Kathrada