Multiculturalism in Canada versus Interculturalism

"For the first time in our history, we're going to define who we are and how we want to evolve as a nation."

"This model will let  us build a society where the francophone majority invites all Quebecers to adhere and contribute to the common culture of our nation."

"[People coming to Quebec] must accept [its democratic values, such as the equality of men and women]. We don't want ghettos, we want one society."

Jean-Francis Roberge, Quebec Immigration Minister

"[Quebecers are] expected to ... collaborate in the welcoming of immigrants and foster their integration into the Quebec nation."

"[Immigrants are expected to] participate fully, in French, in Quebec society [and] participate in the vitality of Quebec culture by enriching it."

Quebec Bill 94

 

This newly passed Act in the Quebec legislature was developed to address failed multiculturalism as practised in Canada for decades, championed by Pierre Elliot Trudeau, at the time Prime Minister of Canada -- father of the current Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. It celebrated hyphenated-Canadians living in their cultural, ethnic silos, while also being nominally part of the larger culture of the country, sharing its values, but honouring their heritage.

Multiculturalism seemed to work in its earlier iterations when immigrants from abroad reached Canadian shores and re-established themselves as Canadians, melding into the larger society with shared values ether adopted or brought along with them from their places of origin. That much-celebrated custom of encouraging immigrants to celebrate and honour what they left behind while integrating into Canadian society has run afoul of expectations of late, with newer immigrants hailing from countries where irremediable ethnic, political, cultural and social polarities existed historically as part of the national culture, bringing havoc to Canada.

Newer migrations saw minority groups celebrating what they brought with them, and spurning traditional Canadian values. Recent examples abound of groups harbouring violent tendencies toward others symptomatic of a traditional culture whose values are at variance with Canada's of equality and respect for others, and the result has been social havoc. Quebec has attempted to address that very issue by disallowing religious/cultural symbols on public display. Now, the province has added a requirement for immigrants to leave their cultural hostilities toward others behind, with the imperative of full integration with no social/cultural barriers.

"Interculturalism" has become the new byword, replacing "multiculturalism" in a concerted bid to nip animosities between groups that tend to escalate to public and private threats, intimidation and violence. This would, in theory, lead to an end to the free-for-alls seen of late in Quebec where fractious Middle East tensions have been imported into Canada, with utterly divisive upheavals and too frequently criminal results. 

Much of the Canadian population is also supportive of such initiatives. Some 55 percent of respondents to a Leger poll agreed that the federal government should be "encouraging newcomers to embrace broad mainsteam values and traditions and leave behind elements of their cultural identity that may be incompatible with that". A majority of non-white respondents were in disagreement with the current government's oft-repeated smug assertion that "diversity is our strength".

 

While the city's Jewish community held several memorials honouring those who were killed and taken hostage by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023, pro-Palestinian protests took to the streets to bring attention to the devastation brought onto the Gaza Strip through Israel's retaliatory military campaign demanding the destruction of Israel. Still from video CBC

 

Rather, 56 percent chose to support: "some elements of diversity  an provide strength, but some elements of diversity can cause problems / conflict". Another poll of Canadian youth found integrating immigrants was among the most popular single issues in that demographic; Millennials and Gen Z saw 70 percent agreeing that "we should ensure immigrants / Permanent Residents coming to Canada share common Canadian values such as respect for different minority groups".

 

Students and activists protest for an eighth day at an anti-Israel encampment on the campus of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, on May 4, 2024. (Photo by Alexis Aubin / AFP)

 

The conflicts breaking out on Canadian streets remain a case in point where since the  terrorist attacks in southern Israel of October 7, 2023, hundreds of rallies, blockades and encampments led by extremist groups call for the elimination of Israel. Bullets fired at a Jewish girls' school in Toronto in May of 2024 led Ontario Premier Doug Ford to lash out at people "bringing your problems from everywhere else in the world. I got an idea: before you plan on moving to Canada, don't come to Canada if you're going to start terrorizing neighbourhoods like this".

 

A parade organized by pro-Khalistani groups in Ontario's Greater Toronto area on June 4 saw a tableau depicting former Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s assassination along with a sign saying that it was “Revenge for Attack on Shri Darbar Sahib”. (Twitter/@BalrajDeol4)

 

Incidents of Sikh nationalists called Khalistanis who glorify violence against India, have broken out in Ontario and British Columbia. Hindus were attacked by Khalistani loyalists outside a temple hosting a consular event by the Indian government in Brampton, Ontario. A pro-Khalistan event in British Columbia recently featured a re-enactment of the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi by her Sikh bodyguards. Riots between rival political groups of Eritrean immigrants took place in Calgary and Edmonton in  2023.

Khalistanis celebrated former Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi's assassination in a pro-Khalistani rally in Canada (Image: Theorist)

Deportation Cannot Come Soon Enough

"We see on our own streets antisemitism guided by obscene woke ideologies that have led to an explosion in hate crimes."

"We must not just condemn these things, we must take action."

"We must deport from our country any temporary resident that is here on a permit or a visa that is carrying out violence or hate crimes on our soil."

"Canada is in a dark place of rampant antisemitism." 

"[We pledge] to restore a Canada where Jews are able to live fearlessly and unapologetically Jewish lives."

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre

Protesters took to the streets of downtown Montreal on Jan. 16 to celebrate the Gaza ceasefire announcement Photo Andraé Lerone Lewis

 

In an address at the Ottawa official Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony, Pierre Poilievre who is poised to become Canada's next prime minister, addressed the attendees with his proposal to deport participants in hate activities specializing in radical anti-Israel, anti-Jew rallies that have become a regular feature of Canada's city streets. The calls for the destruction of Israel, the unending harassment and threats against Canadian Jews have become rampant and forthright in their unadulterated antisemitic rage. The temporary ceasefire in Gaza only appeared to serve as an impetus for greater calls of a 'final solution'.

Organized and led by invested groups that include Toronto4Palestine, the Palestinian Youth Movement and student groups such as McGill University's Students for Palestine's Honour and Resistance, since the barbaric atrocities of October 7, 2023 these foreign-fed radical hate-fests have become common sights of disruption, threats, and violence across Canada. Hundreds of rallies, blockades, encampments and efforts at boycotts of Jewish-owned businesses have taken place. Rallies in front of synagogues, Jewish parochial schools, and Jewish neighbourhoods have disrupted life for city residents, while focusing hate on Canadian Jews.

 

 

In the immediate wake of the October 7, 2023 sadistic savagery when thousands of Palestinian terrorists swarmed into Israel from Gaza to surround and enter agricultural kibbutzim, families were burned alive in their homes, young Israelis attending a Nova Music Festival were stalked, hunted and murdered, women were sadistically mutilated while being raped, children and the elderly were gunned down and these unspeakably brutal acts of inhumanity became a reason for celebration for the groups that now call for Israel's destruction.

It took no time for the celebrations to turn into demands for a ceasefire and charges of Israel committing a 'genocide' in Gaza. Not the Hamas terrorists whose deliberate use of the Palestinian population in Gaza as human shields, committing a crime against their own, but Israel in defending her population from the drive of Palestinian terrorists to slaughter Jews. Cause and effect that is rational and a just response is an infuriating injustice to the Palestinians who clog city streets in Canada demanding Israel's demise, and along with the state, the Jews inhabiting it.

As police stood by mutely observing, jubilant crowds in Montreal blocked intersections, chanting in Arabic, lighting smoke bombs, led by the Palestinian Youth Movement, to mark the ceasefire with a 'victory' rally through the downtown, a banner reading "Ceasefire Today. Liberation Tomorrow."

 

 

An official Facebook post by Montreal4Palestine promoted a rally titled 'From Gaza to Jenin, Liberate all of Palestine, which read: "The bloodthirsty Zionists will stop at nothing to continue their evil and oppression".

 

Where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau saw fit to do nothing to deter rampaging mobs of antisemites on steroids, preferring to allow them to act without interference by law and order, despite their disruptive and criminal actions, thus giving a muted assent to the ongoing furor and increasing violence, the position taken by the leader of the Official Opposition in the House of Commons will shortly have the opportunity to return Canada to its values-based commitment to human rights and support of a fellow democracy assailed by the scourge of terrorism.

Pro-Palestinian supporters react in downtown Montreal to the Israel-Hamas ceasefire Jan. 15, 2025. Dave Sidaway Montreal Gazette

A Conundrum of Obesity in Canada's Armed Forces

 

Canadian soldiers get ready to leave Camp Julien in Kabul, Afghanistan, Nov. 29, 2005. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP

"I think DND [Department of National Defence] was hiding the records because they're embarrassed."

"This is information that people have a right to know and information of consequence. Is the military fighting fit or not?"

"DND claimed it had no such records even though the briefings clearly have a DND and Canadian Forces logo on them."

Researcher Ken Rubin

"CAF [Canadian Armed Forces] surveys also study eating patterns, barriers to  healthy eating, and chronic conditions."

"BMI at the population level is a practical and useful tool, especially to compare data over time, even if it has limitations."

"[The Canadian Forces does not track data] on the number of members who have been subject to administrative action or release in relation to physical fitness issues that may cause medical employment limitations."

"An administrative review determines the most appropriate action, if any, to deal with the matter, and is  conducted in a transparent manner with a focus on procedural fairness."

DND spokesperson Andree-Anne Poulin

Sixty-eight per cent of Canadian men were considered obese or overweight, while that rate was 78 per cent for men in the military, according to Canadian Forces briefings. Photo by Canadian Forces

In 1989 when the Canadian Armed Forces were at full staffing levels -- which they are not now at -- an interior study concluded that five percent of the 88,000 regular force was judged to be obese, and another 17 percent was considered to be overweight. At that time, 15 percent of Canadians were thought to  be obese, while 15 percent were seen to be overweight. Qualifying any serving member of a military as obese or overweight does not augur well for fitness to serve in combat roles in defence of their nation.

Fast forward to the present era, and what was seen as deplorable decades earlier seems in retrospect slight numbers of questionable fitness of individuals to serve in the military. As evidenced by shocking new data revealing that troops enlisted in the Canadian military have degenerated to the point where 72 percent of armed forces personnel fall into the categories of overweight and obese. Senior leaders were evidently warned of this increasing phenomenon of unhealthy fitness levels in the Forces in June 2024 contained in briefings warning that "Obesity prevalence has been slowly increasing for many years". 

One of the results of which has been an increase in sick days and medical releases, as well as reduced readiness and productivity in the pursuit of the profession. And this, at time when recruitment is at an historically low level. In the Canadian Armed Forces, today's reality is that forty-four percent are categorized as overweight, and 28 percent are classified as obese. Such briefings for leaders of the army, navy and airforce were not released to the public domain, but were revealed through applications to the Access to Information Act by Ottawa-based researcher Ken Rubin.

The Canadian Military, it transpires, has  higher rates of both overweight conditions and obesity than is prevalent in the general population. The briefings revealed that in comparison to the numbers of obesity and overweight in the military, for the general population, sixty-eight percent of Canadian men are considered obese or overweight in comparison to the 78 percent with those health conditions in the military. Embarrassing statistics which explain in part why they were never released for public scrutiny.

In the military, for example, 57 percent of women enrolled in the military are either overweight or obese, as opposed to women in the general population whose numbers in those categories total 53 percent. One report stated that "increasing physical activity levels will not resolve the challenges of obesity in the CAF". Military health specialists suggest the promotion of a culture of fitness through physical activity combined with injury prevention, adequate sleep and proper nutritional intake.

Mr. Rubin's request for data from the military through the Access to Information Act went unfulfilled; the response from the military was to inform the researcher that no such information existed. Finally, Mr. Rubin submitted  his request to the Canadian Forces Morale and Welfare Services, separate from DND, and from them he was able to obtain 141 record pages, including the briefs produced by DND on physical fitness in the ranks.

Short sleep duration (fewer than 6 hours) and borderline short sleep duration (6 hours to fewer than 7 hours) were independently associated with increased odds of obesity for male CAF members, but not for females. These results take into account differences in a range of other factors, including sociodemographic, work and health characteristics of CAF members.

Shorter-than-recommended sleep duration, poor sleep quality and obesity are concerns for long-term health, wellbeing and deployment readiness of the military population. Sleep has been identified as an important aspect of physical performance in both the CAF and the US military. Because sleep affects energy balance, eating and physical activity behaviours, it has been identified as a potential tool to aid in managing obesity. Longitudinal or intervention studies are needed to better understand the potential role of healthy sleep practices in obesity management, particularly in military populations.

Statistics Canada

Justin Trudeau, the Ultimate Cynical Hypocrite

"We have a responsibility to hold  up the two-word pledge that we as an international community committed to after witnessing the horrors of the Holocaust -- 'never again'.

"We cannot fail in that pledge."

"It took careful, deliberate  years-long processes of dismantling democracy, co-opting institutions and dehumanizing others to establish the conditions for genocide."

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau

"The problem is that we have such politicians in Europe and they're gaining power."

"They're excited about referring to Nazis and that chapter of history."

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk

Canadian Holocaust survivors Miriam Ziegler, left, and Howard Chandler, right, speak with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in Krakow, Poland on Monday. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has led the Liberal government in Canada since 2015 to the present, when he stepped down formally as head of government several weeks before he decided to travel to Poland for the 80-year Auschwitz Memorial ceremonies in memory of the Holocaust that destroyed the lives of six million Jews across Europe when the Third Reich established slave labour camps and death camps designed for that very purpose; the most infamous among which was the Auschwitz-Birkenau combined labour/death camp.

 

In that decade of this man governing the country, Canada has become unrecognizable. He deplored its history and culture, declaring its values inferior to his own progressive-liberal values relying heavily on Critical Race Theory and DEI, determined to make Canada a post-national country. Immigration levels soared under his stewardship, and traditional Canadian values along with the justice system were degraded. He alienated the provinces from his federal government, favouring some and scorning others.

 

People take part in a pro-Palestinian protest in Toronto.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Doug Ives

 

In Canada, as elsewhere, the fallout from the October 7, 2023 attack on southern Israel by Palestinian Hamas terrorists that demonstrated the depths of sadistic savagery that Palestinian Muslims are capable of in their raping of Israeli girls and women while simultaneously horrendously mutilating them in an orgy of gleeful enjoyment; their murder of 1,200 Israeli citizens, hunted down by terrorists wielding guns and knives while wearing body cams to video their atrocities, exhibited an entirely new level of inhumanity.

 

None of which bothered Muslim Jew-haters who celebrated the odious bestiality as a notch up in the ongoing battle for conquest of the ancestral land that Israel sits upon. Ever since that barbarity, large groups of Palestinians in Canada and their supporters have conducted weekly demonstrations of pure, unadulterated antisemitism, calling for the destruction of Israel, and taunting, threatening, and violating the security of Canadian Jews, with no response from the Liberal government of Mr. Trudeau, setting the tenor of response to the outrageous, illegal and often criminal public displays.

A response which has empowered Palestinian groups to ever greater exhibitions of criminal behaviour with no attention from security groups at any level. Taking their cue from the Prime Minister's inaction the threats include nighttime shooting at Jewish parochial schools, synagogues, community centers and Jewish-owned businesses, fire-bombed and vandalized. The streets of Canada resembling those of Berlin during the Third Reich when Jews were isolated, threatened, finally rounded up and annihilated.

And this leader of a country had the gall to piously visit Auschwitz, meet with Holocaust survivors, express sanctimonious sympathy at their ordeal, listen to them speak of their desperation over the return of public antisemitism at levels matching the lead-up to the Final Solution, speak in solidarity with other heads of government in pledging once again to observe the 'Never Again' symbol of Democratic adherence to human rights, while knowing and not caring that he examples not the courage of those who fought against Nazi totalitarianism, but German fascism.

 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk are warning that "never again" is slipping away as hatred and extremism rise and Auschwitz survivors see the world moving in ways that mimic what happened before the Holocaust. The two prime ministers met in Poland a day after joining other world leaders to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz. (Jan. 28, 2025)

 

In blatant hypocrisy, speaking among children and grandchildren of Holocaust survivors, Justin Trudeau averred that "We have not yet responded forcefully enough, strongly enough" to the antisemitism on display "particularly  since Hamas's brutal terrorist attack." Holocaust denialism, violent extremism and hatred "Not just against Jews but against all different races and background" are not being sufficiently countered, he said solemnly.

Recalling his visit to Auschwitz in 2017, "It still felt like the world was holding on to that principle of never again". Now, however, with the rise in hatred and extremism around the world, people are telling him it is "slipping a little bit", he said, without mentioning that it is he and his Liberal-progressive acolytes who are performing the slippage, deliberately oblivious to the hatred he and they have been nurturing.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is welcomed by Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk as he arrives to the Chancellery of the Prime Minister in Warsaw, Poland on Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. The two leaders attended a ceremony marking 80 years since the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp. (Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press)

Auschwitz, "The Largest Hungarian Mass Grave"

 

"I must not forget."

"In my subconscious, I can never get over the possibility that a six-pointed star could be placed on my gate again at any moment."

"It is always in my mind."

"[Hungarian society] refuses to face its part; [collaboration with the Nazis remains within the country's consciousness]."

"It's just a matter of time before we get to a moment where people think the time has come to hate someone again."

Tamas Lederer, Budapest artist

"We carry in our genes what our grandparents' or our parents' generation went through."

"I think that in order for us to happily observe Jewish holidays or to have Jewishness in our homes, what they experienced must remain a fresh memory and that memory has to be part of our lives."

"[For Jews, preserving the memory of the Holocaust is a way to] commit ourselves to showing the world that learning from the events of the past, we will not allow anything similar to happen to anyone else."

Tamas Vero, Budapest rabbi

People commemorate the International Holocaust Remembrance Day at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Budapest, Hungary on Jan. 27, 2025.

 

In Auschwitz-Birkenau -- both a slave labour and a death camp complex -- close to a half-million Hungarian Jews were systematically murdered. And Tamas Lederer, born in Budapest in 1938, is haunted by the inner conviction that the horrors of the 20th century committed by Nazi Germany may yet be repeated; he feels that the world has failed to respond to that signal lesson in genocidal intent. His experience is one of survival; he evaded deportation to German camps hidden in Budapest basements after his parents tore the Jew-mandatory symbol from his clothing, of a yellow star.

 

After Auschwitz was liberated by the Soviet Red Army 80 years ago, on January 27, 1945, the 87-year-old's thoughts turn to the risks inherent in growing hate-full violence against Jews, completely unsettling him. Close to ten percent of the 6 million Jews killed by the Nazis were Hungarian Jews. Of the 1.1 million people who died at Auschwitz-Birkenau, over 90 percent of whom were Jews, roughly 435,000 of them were of Hungarian origin, a toll of Hungarian Jews that exceeded those of any other nationality.

Although Hungary made common cause with Germany, becoming part of the German Axis, and Hungary was also the first country in Europe to pass anti-Jewish laws in 1920, the government under its then-leader, Regent Miklos Horthy, while cooperating with Adolf Hitler throughout the war, also resisted German demands to deport the large Jewish population of Hungary. Hitler ordered the invasion of Hungary in March 1944, fearing that Horthy might defect from the Axis to join the Allies.

With the invasion, mass deportations swiftly took place. Between March and May of 1944, in less than two months, 435,000 Hungarian Jews, mostly rounded up from countryside cities and villages, were deported to Poland where they were incarcerated at Auschwitz. On arrival, most of the Hungarian Jews were ordered directly to the gas chambers. As war's end approached, thousands of other Jews still in Hungary were murdered by the Hungarian fascist Arrow Cross Party death squads, shot en masse in Budapest, into the Danube River.

Rabbi Vero on Monday and others gathered in Budapest at the Holocaust Memorial Centre for International Holocaust Remembrance Day for prayers, where a handful among the attendees were  Holocaust survivors. Dr. Andras Zima, director of the centre, spoke of Auschwitz as "the largest Hungarian mass grave".

A man lays a candle in commemoration of Holocaust victims at the Holocaust Memorial Center in Budapest, Hungary on Jan. 27, 2025. Hungarian Minister of Regional Development Tibor Navracsics described the Holocaust as the "indefensible, inexplicable low point of European civilization" during a commemoration in Budapest on Monday. The event at the Holocaust Memorial Center marked International Holocaust Remembrance Day and the 80th anniversary of Auschwitz's liberation. (Xinhua/Attila Volgyi)

The Cynical Hypocrisy of the International Community

"Relatively many people survived, which for example barely happened in sites which didn't have such a forced labour component."

"[As testimony to the past purpose of Auschwitz, maintaining the death camp as a memorial site has its value]: You have the gate [Arbeit Macht Frei], you have the wagon [transport]. You have the incredibly long railway platform which leads to the former crematoria and gas chambers."

Thomas Van de Putte, scholar specializing in Holocaust memory, King's College London

"I saw thousands of tortured people whom the Red Army had saved -- people so thin that they swayed like branches in the wind, people whose ages one could not possibly guess."

Boris Polevoy, Pravda correspondent, eyewitness to Soviet liberation of Auschwitz Jan.27, 1945

"This is the anniversary of liberation. We remember the victims, but we also celebrate freedom."

"It is hard to imagine the presence of Russia, which clearly does not understand the value of freedom."

Auschwitz Museum director Piotr Cywinski

The entrance gate to the former Nazi German concentration and extermination camp Auschwitz pictured on January 10.    Kacper Pempel/Reuters

 

The world is set to mark the 80th anniversary of the most dreadful mass atrocity that a country at war designed in an orgy of hatred against an ethnic population drawn from the countries of Europe whose citizenry included millions of diaspora Jews forced in antiquity from their ancestral homeland for exile abroad by a Roman occupation of the holy land that implacably put down an insurrection of Judean origin in a paroxysm of violence that millennia later was replicated with more modern and equally savage technological means of broader dimensions.

It is highly doubtful that Romans of the period felt it incumbent upon themselves to harvest the hair, skeletal remains, attire, gold dental fillings, marriage rings, to enrich themselves and produce stuffing for pillows, the production of soap from the remains of their victims as Nazi Germany felt disposed to do. The slaughter of children, women and men of all ages may be a casualty of war anywhere at any time when civilian populations bear the brunt of conflict that uproots and victimizes them in loss of home, necessities of life and life itself, but Nazi Germany brought its obsession with the extermination of Jews to a fine art.

This photo provided by Paris' Holocaust Memorial shows a German soldier shooting a Ukrainian Jew during a mass execution in Vinnytsia, Ukraine, sometime between 1941 and 1943. This image is titled "The last Jew in Vinnitsa", the text that was written on the back of the photograph, which was found in a photo album belonging to a German soldier

 

It took an orgy of mass dementia to organize round-ups, persuade populations that a nest of vipers lived amongst them that German authorities prepared to save them from, infesting those non-Jewish citizens with a suspicion and loathing of Jews they had lived among for centuries to convince them that the goal of extermination would make for a more refined, pure society once the presence of Jews was eliminated. People adapted nicely and deliberately turned their faces away from the putrid agonies of exclusion and humiliation their fellow Jewish citizens suffered, glad when they suddenly vanished into slave labour camps since out of sight, out of mind was a great relief,

Now, generations after the Holocaust for most people inhabiting our familiar world the memory of mass annihilation is beyond faint and growing fainter. Just as the thousands of Jews who managed miraculously to survive have grown old and are growing older, their witness status soon to fade itself, in and out of history. To be sure, others besides Jews died; political prisoners, Poles, Roma, Sinti, Soviet prisoners of war, homosexuals, but it was Europe's Jews that comprised the target focus.

 

This year, on the 80th anniversary memorializing the Holocaust, an estimated 50 survivors are expected to be present, and they will speak to the world once again of their loss, their ordeal, their endurance, their unforgettable memories. Two-thirds of the Jews of Europe perished in that orgy of hate and demonic destruction of human life. They were murdered in the death camps established all over Europe, places like Treblinka, Majdanek, Stutthof, Auschwitz, Buchenwald, Dachau, Mauthausen and Bergen-Belsen among a plethora of others. 

There were survivors at Auschwitz for the simple reason that though it was a death camp it also was a labour camp. Where those who survived the journey to Auschwitz in crowded train transports were separated on arrival into groups deemed sufficiently healthy to work, the others directed to groups who would enter the 'shower rooms' where they were gassed to death with Zyklon B, their remnants cremated in giant furnaces, their ashes belched out of massive chimneys to nurture the surrounding soil.

Presidents, royalty, ambassadors, politicians, rabbis and priests will be among those in attendance to memorialize the fixation of a nation and a continent on the destruction of a tiny ethnic/cultural/religious group that had lived among them for  generations, enriching those countries with their presence as artists, scientists, teachers, factory workers, lawyers, doctors, justices, soldiers, entertainment figures, industrialists, bankers and journalists, bakers and cobblers.

 

The royalty, presidents, ambassadors, politicians and priests of the time who failed to exert their moral outrage over the persecution, then the demonization, then the isolation, then the ghettoization, then the imprisonment and finally the murder of six million Jews were in a very real sense complicit with the perpetrators of the vast act of genocide. Their present day counterparts are in a very real sense not much different than those during the Holocaust who couldn't be moved to make an effort at prevention and deterrence.

The rising tide of antisemitism which bears such an uncanny resemblance to that of the 1930s and 1940s and the growing calls of accusations against a tiny Jewish state established in its ancestral geography to restore pride in Judaic heritage but above all to give strength to the cry of "Never Again!" by its pledge to protect and guide Jews into the future is once again under existential threat. Collegial nations of the West, supporters of the Jewish state, have managed to remain on the sidelines once again, leaving Israel and Jews to their own defense.

The ruins of the sprawling Birkenau site stretch far into the distance

Release of Israeli Hostages

"Dear President Trump, first of all we want to say thank you for the happy moments we felt this week. But we want to tell you we still have 94 hostages, we need them all at home."

"Please do not stop. Please continue to press and do everything so that all the 94 hostages will come home immediately."

Ayelet Samerano, Israeli mother of hostage Yonatan Samerano

Israeli female soldier hostages Naama Levy, Daniella Gilboa, Karina Ariev and Liri Albag seen on a stage set up by Hamas in front of a Palestinian crowd before being handed over to the Red Cross in Gaza City, Jan. 25, 2025. (AP Photo/Abed Hajjar)

On Saturday, four members of the Israeli military, taken hostage by Hamas terrorists on 7 October 2023 during a horrific orgy of mass rape, mutilations,and mass murder, were released finally from their ordeal as captive prisoners held in Gaza by Hamas operatives. They were all four female soldiers: Karina Ariev, 20; Danielia Gilboa,20; Naama Levy, 20; and Liri Albag, 19. 

 

Naama Levy captured the world's attention, her plight seen through photographs and video footage taken by bodycams worn by Hamas operatives as they documented their horrific abuse of Israeli citizens in border farming communities by thousands of Palestinian terrorists prowling through villages killing and raping and looting, laying waste to the villages, burning entire families alive in their homes, hunting down youthful revellers at a nearby music festival, and taking hundreds of children, women, elderly and soldiers hostage into Gaza.

 

One of those soldiers was Naana Levy, seen in the trunk of a car and ordered into another one, her pants bloodied, hands tied behind her back, ankles bleeding, deliberately slashed to keep her from attempting to flee her captors who had raped and mutilated her. Seven female members of the Israel Defense Forces had been taken prisoner that day, from the Nahal Oz military base. Their duty there was to serve as lookouts.

 

Ori Megidish, one of the seven, was rescued on October 30, 2023 in a raid conducted by the IDF. Noa Marciano, 19, killed in Gaza, her body repatriated on November 17, 2023. Among the 33 hostages named by the Israeli government for release during the first phase of the temporary ceasefire is the fifth female soldier, Agam Berger. Israel agreed to free dozens of Palestinians imprisoned in Israeli jails for terrorist activities in exchange for the hostages.

Hamas terrirusts stormed the Nova festival on 7 October and killed hundreds

In Israel's estimation, a third of the 94 Israeli hostages remaining in Hamas hands in Gaza, are dead although Hamas has failed to release agreed upon definitive information detailing how many of the Israelis held captive remain alive, or listing the names of those who have died. The initial phase of the ceasefire deal is to see 33 of the hostages released in exchange for hundreds of Palestinians held prisoner in Israel.

 

It took 90 Palestinian prisoners to secure the release of the first three Israeli hostages a week ago Sunday. Some 100 of the hostages had been released through a brief ceasefire in November of 2023. Since then, the bodies of around three dozen hostages have been recovered, and eight hostages were rescued. "We cannot continue living in uncertainty. All hostages must return, and none of them has time left", cautioned Ayelet Samerano. 

Naama Levy (L) is seen with her hands bound and with a bloodied face in the newly released video footage, which was filmed by Hamas terrorists  Hostages and Missing Families Forum

Major Uncertainties in the Use of Puberty Blockers -- Canadian Research

"[Doctors should] clearly communicate [the major uncertainties that remain with children and parents and check] whose values they are prioritizing [when prescribing puberty blockers and masculinizing or feminizing hormones to youth]."

"We are very uncertain about the causal effect of the [drugs] on depression. Most studies provided very low certainty of evidence about the outcomes of interest, thus we cannot exclude the possibility of benefit or harm."

"Since the current best evidence, including our systematic review and meta-analysis, is predominantly very low quality, clinicians must clearly communicate this evidence to patients and caregivers."

"[Guideline developers and policymakers should also be transparent] about which and whose values they are prioritizing when making recommendations and policy decisions."

Report: Canadian research

 

According to a team of researchers in Canada, an absence of evidence on the efficacious use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones that have been increasingly seeing use on children presenting with gender dysphoria along with teens self-identifying as transgender amounts to medical dysfunction, potentially harming the futures of many of these children. Whether, for the time being, their use is helpful or harmful, cannot be discerned given the low certainty surrounding the issue and absence of research. 

When in doubt -- abstain, or make it quite clear that the prevalent use of cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers on the very young is fraught with uncertainty regarding future impact. A major British review that had been commissioned by the National Health Services of England found evidence questioning the safety and efficacy of puberty blockers for children with gender dysphoria to be weak, "built on shaky foundations".

As a result of the Cass Review's conclusion of doubt, doctors in the United Kingdom were instructed to stop routinely prescribing puberty blockers temporarily, to children and  youth under 18 years of age. More latterly, after independent expert advice concluded such drugs pose an "unacceptable safety risk" the ban became indefinite.

In Canada, however, no impact from the Cass Review has been seen in its gender-affirming approach, with the Canadian Paedriatric Society expressing criticism of what it terms "significant limitations, biases and inaccuracies" in the review, the result of a four-year enquiry. The CPS writing in its journal "The model of gender-affirming care in Canada differs in many ways from the approach that had been in place in the U.K".

According to a federally funded study, however, 174 children under 16 referred to one of ten gender-identity clinics in Canada saw 74 percent placed on puberty blockers, with close to two-thirds progressing to masculinizing or feminizing hormones.

"There's not enough reliable information."

"We really don't have enough evidence to say that these procedures are beneficial."

"Few studies have looked at physical harm, so we have really no evidence of harm as well."

"There's not a lot that we can say with certainty, based on the evidence."

Chan Kulatunga-Moruzi, an author of the review

Those who begin puberty blockers for the most part tend to progress to gender-affirming hormones which induce sex characteristics such as facial hair or breast enlargement. Giving children identifying as transgender time to decide whether to proceed to transition, while relaxing their feelings of distress over body changes that disturb them. Concerns relate to whether the drugs are locking in a gender identity --their transition becoming an inevitable expectation.

Although the process was initially thought to be fully reversible,  the potential seems to augur for long-term and irreversible effects -- according to the Canadian research team -- in their finding published in the journal Archives of Disease in Childhood. Screening 6,736 research titles involving puberty blockers, the study found low certainty of evidence on the effects of puberty blockers on depression, an oft-cited argument for their use on distressed youth.

"Since the current best evidence, including our systematic review and meta-analysis, is predominantly very low quality, clinicians must clearly communicate this evidence to patients and caregivers," researchers wrote. Photo by Getty Images

 

North Korean Arms and Servicemen Fighting Ukraine

"These are barely trained troops led by Russian officers who they don't understand."

"Quite frankly they don't stand a chance. They are being thrown into the meat grinder with little chance of survival. They are cannon fodder, and the Russian officers care even less for them than they do for their own men."

Former British Army tank commander, Col Hamish de Bretton-Gordon

 

"They are numerous. An additional 11,000-12,000 highly motivated and well-prepared soldiers who are conducting offensive actions."

"They operate based on Soviet tactics. They act in platoons, companies. They rely on their numbers." 

Ukraine's top military commander Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi

Russian soldiers firing rockets toward the front lines near Lyman, Ukraine, on Dec. 25.  Stanislav Krasilnikov / Sputnik via AP

North Korea sent hundreds of artillery and rocket systems to Russia and more on their way, in solidarity with Russia in its war against Ukraine. Moscow received a large boost in its agreement with Pyongyang over a mutual defence solution to two outlier countries facing off against a world hostile to their plans of nuclear proliferation and territorial expansion. Russian troops have been fortified by the presence of troops from North Korea, helping in the campaign to push Ukrainian servicemen out of the Kursk region.

 

Clashes between Ukrainian armed forces and North Korean troops have added to the merciless death toll, with Ukraine estimating that a third of the 10,000 North Korean soldiers sent to aid Russia have perished in the conflict. The death toll has been ignored by both Moscow and Pyongyang. 

Ukrainian intelligence chief Lt. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov stated that North Korea has provided Russia with roughly 120 17mmn self-propelled artillery guns and 120 240mm multiple-launch rocket systems in the last three months. It is his conviction that this is just the start, that North Korea "have a lot of these systems" and will provide at least as many more in the near future. 

General Budanov's comments and estimates have been confirmed, matching reports by Russian military bloggers relating to the steady flow of weapons from North Korea to Russia. Lt. Gen. Budanov added that North Korea also is expected to forward 150 additional KN-23 short-range ballistic missiles in 2025 to Moscow, to add to the 148 provided in 2024.

Months earlier it was confirmed that up to 10,000 North Korean elite troops had been deployed to fight in Ukraine under Russian command. According to Budanov, the actual number is around 12,000 troops, one-third of whom are now casualties in a death-toll that is decimating the North Koreans. According to U.S. figures however, the death toll estimates are lower, at around 1,200.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy revealed on January 11 that Ukraine had captured two North Korean soldiers in Russia, transporting them to Kyiv for interrogation. "This was not an easy task: Russian forces and other North Korean military personnel usually execute their wounded to erase any evidence of North Korea's involvement in the war against Ukraine", the message on his Instagram post read.

Testimony from Ukrainian servicemen who fought against the North Koreans related that their adversaries are brave and well trained. The North Koreans -- said the Ukrainian soldiers -- adapted quickly after taking high initial casualties, to the unfamiliar Russian battlefields.

Image published by Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said to be of a North Korean soldier sent to fight for Russia. Photograph: EyePress News/Rex/Shutterstock

 

DEI Permanently Inscribed at the Toronto District School Board

"The introduction of a mandatory certification on equity, diversity and anti-racism for all K-12 teachers in Ontario would ensure that teachers are better equipped to support racialized students and educators effectively"

"Ongoing professional development on equity and diversity will help ensure teachers are equipped with current best practices to further an inclusive classroom."

Toronto District School Board (TDSB) motion 

The school board of Canada's largest city has distinguished itself as representing the most passionate among all school boards in Canadian cities for permanently installing a life-and-values system in the education of the city's students that exemplifies the last word in commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion policies. And despite a loud blowback from parent groups and the outraged opposition to this commitment by many factions within the city the TDSB feels it has not sufficiently entrenched its program, to the effect that a committee within the board voted to forward a request to the provincial government making DEI certification mandatory for educators.

 

Academic performance among students in the TDSB has deteriorated at an alarming rate of late under a curriculum that has been socially politicized; basic education has been eviscerated in favour of focusing on woke values that have nothing whatever to do with delivering and acquiring an education preparatory to producing the next generation of intelligent, civil and engaged adults to enter the workforce as responsible members of society.

This, even as society is moving steadily away from the always-controversial Critical Race Theory, 'woke' agenda that has become the signature of the progressive left, sponsored in part by the federal government under Justin Trudeau's Liberals, trickling down to lower-scale governments, unions, academia, corporate interests, driven by a liberal-left that has demonized and scorned antediluvian attitudes expressed in rejection of transmania, light sentencing of criminality, 'safe' injection sites, assisted suicide -- all dressed in the mantle of a kindler, gentler society. 

A kinder, gentler society where by sheer coincidence, Canadian Jews have been aggressively hounded, threatened and isolated in consequence of a drive by Canadian Muslim groups aided and funded by foreign interests to mount virulent anti-Israel campaigns seeking to delegitimize and demonize a nation fighting back against Islamist Palestinian terrorist attacks threatening to destroy the tiny Jewish state in an orgy of rape, murder and abductions, portrayed through a Jew-hating campaign as aggressors of victimized Palestinians.

The TDSB found merit in allying itself with these groups, just as labour unions and university boards, teaching staff and students have been persuaded by Islamist Jew-haters among them to harass and threaten Jewish members of their organizations. At a time when the general public has become sufficiently fed up with loud and threatening demonstrations by 'activist' groups, a majority of Canadians responding to polls reject and oppose diversity quotas as divisive, hostile and bullying.

Private companies and public institutions alike are moving away from hiring quotas and support of divisive activist groups promoting DEI ideals. Influential large corporations like Walmart, McDonald's, Ford and Meta are among major companies reversing their own DEI programs. Yet there is the TDSB proposing and asking the province to make it mandatory for teachers to undergo DEI certification before entering a classroom, and to ensure that this becomes standard throughout the province.

 

The Toronto District School Board’s head office on Yonge Street in Toronto, Ont. on Jan. 15. Gabe Oatley/TorontoToday

The decision to remove auditions and applications based on merit and use random selection to specialized art, music, math, science and sport programs at the TDSB came as a result of anti-black racism and equity initiatives.

Through the board’s Centre of Excellence — which was added in 2021-22 at a cost of $2.3-million a year — specialized camps, basketball programs and mentorships have been offered to black students only.

These anti-racism initiatives saw the removal of student resources officers — specialized cops — in the board’s schools and eliminated consequences for bad behaviour, most specifically suspensions and expulsions.

As a result, some TDSB schools have become war zones.

Sue-Ann Levy, True North

 

Placement of Homeless Shelters in Urban Toronto

629 Adelaide St. W., which Toronto plans to use as a 50-bed emergency shelter with estimated operating and leasing costs of $45 million over 10 years. It is close to St. Mary’s Catholic Elementary School. Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post

"If you're wondering what it's like to live in Toronto..."

"[Instead of] assuring the neighbourhood their concerns would be heard [Mayor Olivia Chow] bemoaned the fact that the neigbourhood had been tipped off! These things are supposed to be secret, so no one can oppose them!"

"Our community is frustrated by the complete lack of communication with the city."

"We would like to have our concerns heard and know the risks involved. What we have right now, through, is crickets."

"Our community understands the need for homeless shelters. This is not up for debate. It is important, however, that when choosing the site for a new shelter, it has to work for both the residents of the community where it is located, and the people who will be using the shelter."

Jennifer Hedger, Scarborough, Ontario

"People are demanding to be heard."

"They think it's incredibly unfair that they are having this decision undemocratically forced on them."

"They're not saying don't do this. What they're saying is give us a seat at the table."

"They're concerned about safety."

Kevin Vuong, Area Member of Parliament

Montreal’s École Victor-Rousselot is just down the street from Maison Benoit Labre transitional housing and inhalation centre. Photo by John Mahoney/MONTREAL GAZETTE

In the larger of Canadian cities such as Toronto, Montreal, Vancouver and Ottawa the demand for beds has soared owing to a skyrocketing increase in immigrants seeking refugee status. Just as their presence has become a weight on all social services while their sheer numbers impact deleteriously on the need to focus on the plight of Canadians who have fallen on hard times, the need to further provide illegal migrants invoking refugee haven in Canada has placed unsupportable stress on already-overworked and inadequate homeless shelters. 

In 2024, a quarter of a million people entered Canada to apply for refugee status, some 20 times the number for all of 2014. The Centre for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH) released The Shelter Safety Study revealing, among other issues that the annual number of incidents of interpersonal violence taking place in Toronto shelters had increased by 293 percent between 2011 and 2021, at a time when daily service users increased by 66 percent. In addition, incidents including violence rose from about 2,000 per year in 2011 to 10,000 in 2021.

An estimated half of the unhoused population in Toronto struggles with a substance use disorder, compelling reason for the city to be upfront with residents and business owners on where planning for shelter placements are set for, before they become a fait accompli, to be absolutely fair to  nearby residents who learn to their dismay through a grapevine, and not consultation or official statements that their neighbourhoods are slated to host homeless shelters ... and all too often in close proximity to schools.

Toronto’s 25 Augusta Ave. St. Felix Respite Centre gained international attention when a mother of three posted videos of the open drug use and graphic violence her young family was witness to. Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post

A troubling lack of transparency and the city's documented inability to follow through on its commitment to see that the facilities are well managed and don't present as a danger to residents makes residents extremely and understandably upset, sending them in droves to confront city officials, demanding accountability. The unsettling situation isn't Toronto's alone. Hundreds of residents gathered at Richmond, British Columbia's city hall protesting a proposed injection site they were told nothing about, to be placed in their neighbourhood.

In Montreal, a coalition came together when parents, residents and businesses found themselves blindsided with news of a building under construction meant to be used as a shelter with a supervised injection component. Located a mere few metres from a fenced-in park used for recesses and lunch breaks by an adjacent elementary school.

 

In November 2024, Kanata residents in Ottawa’s west end protested plans to erect “sprung structures” — giant platformed tents — at a park-and-ride lot. Photo by Ashley Fraser/Postmedia News

The Ottawa suburb of Kanata saw protests against the plan by the city to erect a series of sprung structures" (giant platformed tents) at a local commuter park-and-ride for the purpose of accommodating asylum seekers. Residents complained that no community consultation had taken place prior to the announcement. In Peterborough, Ontario the Police Chief stated his force would no longer encourage drug users to relocate to the injection site; henceforth anyone caught using illicit substances outside of the site would be subject to search, their drugs seized, and they possible arrests.

In Scarborough, east Toronto, residents concerned of safety learned through a tip-off, that a respite centre was meant to be placed on one side of the St.Mary's Catholic Elementary School, and a supervised injection site would be placed on the other side of the school. A situation that saw concentrated drug activity in the immediate area. "We see it already. We find needles and condoms at the school", complained one outraged parent. 

A representative of the Catholic school board who supervised three city schools stated: "There's no amount of community liaison you can do with these centres that stops the problems -- which is what children see". School custodians had to be trained to deal with needles, condoms and human waste. No choice was left eventually but to erect massive security fences. "The school is starting to look like a prison -- not super-max but definitely medium security."

Professor Michael MacKenzie whose work at McGill University in psychiatry and pediatrics studies "the trauma-informed treatment of mental health and addictions". He wrote a column titled "A case study on how not to build community trust", setting the record straight on what he and his neighbours close to a site had been experiencing: groups of people injecting drugs, assaults, a man with his pants down masturbating in front of a neighbour's window in broad daylight, and sex acts on the sidewalk.

A supervised injection site opened in 2017 near St. Mary’s Catholic Elementary School in Toronto, forcing the board to train staff to deal with needles, condoms and human waste and, eventually, erect tall security fences. Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post

"You think it's safe when a bullet comes flying out of one of these sites in Toronto to kill a mother?"

"You think it's safe to have people using heroin and crack and cocaine next to a playground?"

"[Supervised injection sites] They're drug dens. And they've made everything worse everywhere they've been done."

Leader of the Parliamentary opposition Conservative Party, Pierre Poilievre