Canadian Election Interference for a Sinister Cause

"Vote Palestine is a non-partisan platform calling on candidates to commit to five demands: a two-way arms embargo; the end of Canadian involvement in Israeli settlements; addressing anti-Palestinian racism and protecting free expression on Palestine; recognizing the State of Palestine; and properly funding relief efforts in Gaza, including UNRWA."

"The thousands of people who have taken the Vote Palestine pledge are not only committing to consider a candidate’s position on Palestine, but are joining a movement of people organizing in their neighbourhoods to make Palestine unavoidable this election." 

Demands:

D1 - Two-way arms embargo on Israel

D2 - Ending Canadian support for settlements

D3 - Combat anti-Palestinian racism and protect pro-Palestine speech

D4 - Recognizing the state of Palestine

D5 - Funding Gaza relief efforts, including UNRWA

Palestinian Youth Movement

Members of the Palestinian Youth Movement hold a rally in Toronto in November 2023. Photo by Jack Boland/Toronto Sun/Postmedia Network

The Palestinian Youth Movement has been busy in Canada creating a network of political support for its agenda of demonizing Israel, isolating the Jewish nation, and demanding of Canadian politicians that they stand firmly in support of Palestinian nationhood. Of course, that means the annihilation of Israel so that Palestinians can achieve their goal of 'From the river to the sea', claiming the entirety of the ancestral homeland of Judaism, the people who 'colonized' Judea in the 2nd millenium BCE, and who are now perched on Judean heritage geography that Arab 'Palestinians' claim as their own. 

Vote Palestine, a political movement by the Palestinian Youth Movement that emanated from the Palestinian BDS project, lauds its five-point Vote Palestine platform demanding among other issues a two-way arms embargo against Israel, a boycott of Israel-controlled territories and above all, recognition of Palestine as a state. Why bother with the unnecessary ritual of Palestinian leaders committing to a real effort at discussing with their Israeli counterparts critical issues such as recognition of Israel in exchange for recognition of 'Palestine'?

 

Successfully persuasive lobbying by PYM resulted in just about the entire caucus of the NDP, including their leader Jagmeet Singh, signing on in agreement with PYM's Vote Palestine, and with them members of the Green Party. Both parties did not fare particularly well in the April 28 general election, both losing official party status and Singh losing his own seat in Parliament. Their sacrifice was the Liberals' gain over the Conservative Party which foreign interference by President Trump brought to another 4-year mandate to govern.

"Islamists have been working overtime [to see] their favoured party [the Liberals, re-elected] so that the good times keep rolling for them for at least another four years."

Joe Adam George, researcher, Islamist Threats in Canada, Middle East Forum

 

"This is how foreign interference  happens."

"If a literal pro-terror group can get an MP's signature without difficulty, you think they're standing guard for thee against Iran or China?"

"Palestinian Youth Movement celebrated the October 7 massacres in Canadian streets while they were still underway. They've said Samidoun, Canada's newest terrorist group, did nothing wrong. And 19 Liberals just signed on with their "Vote Palestine" platform."

Tristan Hopper, journalist, National Post 

During the election campaign the Palestinian Youth Movement succeeded in persuading 28 Liberal candidates (19 of whom were elected) to sign their five-point, anti-Israel Vote Palestine platform. The candidates, through their endorsement served to help legitimize the demands of anti-Israel groups, totally ignoring their threatening values and actions, including their celebration of the Hamas October 7 pogrom, their championing of both terrorist groups Hamas and Hezbollah, and organizing student encampments at North American universities where Jewish students were terrorized by their threats.

 

The People's Conference for Palestine, featuring speakers linked to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, both given terrorist designations in Canada, and both involved along with Hamas in the October 7 massacre of Israelis in southern Israel was organized in May 2024 by the PYM group. Islamist terrorism is feature by PYM as a courageous response to Israeli 'colonization' of Judean heritage lands.

 

The promotion by Palestinian Youth Movement that Zionism is a racist ideology while glorifying the martyrdom of Hamas and calling for the elimination of Israel appears to have found favour in some sectors of Canada, and among some elected politicians who appear to find no fault with the reasoning of fervent Palestinians belabouring the West for its (past) support of Israel, a fellow democracy. 

 

Vote Palestine's agenda to "force Palestine onto the debate stage trough nationwide visibility" and in the process shame those political individuals who fail to endorse its platform, does not appear to give second thought to those who have signed on as supporters. According to one of its lead activists, "pressure is applied" by PYM operatives on non-endorsing candidates to "make it impossible to organize fundraising events ... impossible for those MPs to canvass without being met by someone from within the community asking, Why are you not supporting an arms embargo?"

 

PYM, this activists notes, has manoeuvered the Canadian political scene to "create a kind of crisis within the Canadian electoral system", succeeding in signing up 362 candidates to their cause. And while they swept the NDP and Green parties' candidates into their fold, and made some inroads with the Liberals, they failed abysmally to persuade a single Conservative candidate to uphold their pledge. 

 

Muslims in Canada now constitute some five percent of the population, at 1.8 million, with prospects for further growth ongoing. According to the Canadian Muslim Vote, Muslims hold significant influence in between 60 to 80 of Canada's 343 ridings. Politicians without scruples view the potential of drawing Muslim votes a greater good for their political ambitions than concern for Canada's traditional moral values, much less sinister interference in a fair election. 

A keffiyeh'ed demonstrator lights off a smoke bomb during a rally in Vancouver celebrating the one-year anniversary of the October 7 massacres. Photo by Ethan Cairns /The Canadian Press

 

 

Isn't That Typically Liberal?!

"Organizations like Hezbollah and Hamas really are trying to stand up for their people and that needs to be recognized."

"These are movements for national liberation, not terrorists."

"[Carney] is the man of the hour that we need, especially to stand up to Donald Trump south of the border."

It's not necessarily saying that I want us to become the next Venezuela or the next Cuba ... I'm just saying that we can learn from how they stress particular rights."

"Essentially we're talking about communities that are trying to defend themselves from these economic systems and the oppression that these economic systems have created."

Edmonton-area Liberal federal election candidate Rod Loyola 

Rod Loyola speaks at a provincial campaign event in Edmonton in 2019. Photo by David Bloom/Postmedia/File

 

It was at an anti-NATO protest that a video was produced of Edmonton's Rod Loyola where the man praised Palestinian terrorist Palestinian groups Hamas and Hezbollah. That video was forwarded on to the Liberal campaign by an investigative reporter with Postmedia's National Post, Rahim Mohamed. Liberal campaign spokesperson Isabella Orzco-Madison responded in an email: "Mr. Loyola is no longer our candidate for Edmonton Gateway."

 

The 2009 video was produced when Loyola who was at the time a rapper with People's Poets when he advocated for honouring, not condemning Hamas and Hezbollah, as courageous groups defending the Palestinians against Israeli occupation and oppression. Mr. Loyola expressed his opinion under the stage name of Rosouljah while performing at Edmonton's Churchill Square for a "Canada out of Afghanistan and say no to NATO" rally on the 60th anniversary of the military alliance.

 

As an NDP member of the Alberta legislative assembly since 2015, Mr. Loyola won nomination for the Liberal representative for the Edmonton riding, announcing his decision to leave provincial politics in favour of joining the Liberal team under its new Leader Mark Carney. His brand of politics, it appears, found sufficient favour to elect him to the provincial legislature. And this, despite that in the past he has been criticized for public support of political strongmen in Latin America.

 

In a 2021 podcast interview he spoke of being unfairly targeted in the legislature for "support for Latin American progressive governments", stating his belief that Cuba and Venezuela were more enlightened in some respects than Canada. This is a man listed as media contact for an Edmonton tribute to Venezuelan socialist leader Chavez after his 2013 death. That Chavez had been accused of gross human rights violations evidently wasn't found persuasive by Mr. Loyola. 

 

Loyola later disclosed in an interview that the Liberal Party was aware of his views on how Israel has treated the Palestinian people when they approached him to run. 

"I gave them full disclosure on my stance on Palestine and that I am a person who is going to fight for the rights of Palestinians always. I fully disclosed that to the party and I had no idea that this video existed. I'm going to continue speaking up for Palestine." Well, of course he will. And he would have under the Liberal banner, since that's their stance, too.

Somehow the acceptance of this man by both the NDP and the Liberals should not be surprising in the least. Both parties' actions, sympathies and reactions to world events appear to explain the attraction of a man with his proclivities and championing choices. He has decided to run as an independent instead of, as planned, a Liberal candidate. He would, after all, still have represented as a Liberal candidate had the party not been challenged in its complacent choice, by the investigative work of a wary journalist.

"A video from 16 years ago surfaced in which I made comments about Hamas and Hezbollah during a hip hop segment introduction at an anti-war rally."

"I did not think that an intro at a hip-hop segment 16 years later would get me ‘cancelled’ after close to a decade of serving as an elected representative at the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, but here we are."

"I unequivocally condemn brutal killings, terrorism, and abduction – whoever does it. What was perpetrated by Hamas on October 7 was completely unacceptable and heart breaking – the loss of innocent life irrespective of race, faith or creed is a loss to humanity. Additionally, the actions take by Israel, as noted by multiple international bodies, amounts to collective punishment upon a people who are already  systematically subjugated, which will never be justified, acceptable or inline with human rights."

"[I will] continue as an Independent in the original riding I intended to run, Edmonton Southeast."

Ousted Liberal Candidate Rod Loyola

Not-So-Strange Bedfellows : Liberal Party of Canada, Venomous Israel-Bashers

 

"This is a very strange mix the Greens have going, just two intense concerns: Polar bears and Palestine. No mention, incidentally, of Hamas and its pledge to wipe Israel off the map. But leaving that aside, just what is it that yokes so strongly two issues that are a whole planet, if not a whole cosmos, apart?"

"A few of her choice thoughts may be read on Twitter: 'I stand with Palestine! There are no two sides to this conflict, only human rights abuses! #EndApartheid."

"One day, it's all the 'world is going to end', and the next, with the same intensity, a whole swath of Greens are grinding their teeth over Israel, and only Israel. China can purge the Uyghurs. North Korea can maintain its slave state. Massacres of Christians can occur by the day. Yet the planet-cuddling Greens are mute. With the Greens, it's always Israel and only Israel that's a pariah state."

Rex Murphy, National Post

Canada's Green Party is wedged tight into its fledgling state. It just cannot seem to get into flight mode. Its focus, as its name suggests, is the environment and its fight over Climate Change. Its purpose is to invest Canadians with the outrage they feel over its lack of purpose and promise in fighting what they claim is the inevitable breakdown of the environment resulting from environmental degradation owing to our dependence on fossil fuel energy sources. Somehow, they still have time to glare with the most jaundiced of vision at one tiny world state: Israel.

 

They're not entirely alone in Canada with that focus. The older, larger, more influential and still lagging New Democratic Party is subject also to the malady of anti-Semitism which they cloak as criticism of Israel. The NDP is a party disgruntled with everything and everyone, decrying Canada's lax attitude toward social justice, urging a total social-political overhaul in super-funding the universal health care system, offering no-tuition-charge university education, a universal minimum wage, and land settlement claims for First Nations.

 

The latter will leave the rest of Canada tenants on Indigenous lands since, needless to repeat, they were here first. But since Canada is a 'racist' country where visible minorities, religious minorities, ethnic groups' needs are all neglected, the people persecuted, kept in obscure poverty from lack of opportunities available only to privileged whites, the NDP continue to do their best in Parliament to hold successive governments (Liberal/Conservative) to account. In this racist country, the leader of the NDP is a Canadian Sikh.

 

The governing Liberals who view themselves on the record and on the basis of voter reality as the country's 'natural' governing party missed a majority this last voting session that brought Prime Minister Justin Trudeau back to minority status, so they're planning another, early election to ramp up to a majority government. This, despite a litany of executive administrative failures, broken promises, corruption, scandalous democratic failures in governance, superficial claims of governing success and total arrogance.

 

They will do just about anything to curry favour with the electorate, and have in fact, done just about everything, including buying votes by handing out government cheques at every opportunity in the guise of 'helping' Canadians during the pandemic who have lost employment, and doing the same for Canadian corporations who have moaned about lost business. 

 

Those corporations in turn, used the funding given them in compensation for lost business to give hefty bonuses to their executives. The hundreds of thousands of Canadians who  were not qualified to register for monthly cheques enabling them to bank money they didn't need, need not pay back what they were given, thanks to this government spirit of largess.  

So the next election in the offing is pretty well guaranteed to return the Liberals and Justin Trudeau to power, even as the taxpayers of succeeding generations will be left with an insuperable burden of debt. 

 

Last week, one of the three elected Green Party Members of Parliament crossed the floor of the House of Commons to join the Liberals. She had declared her moral, principled inability to remain within the Green Party because its new leader had failed to sufficiently to her satisfaction, state on behalf of the party, a firm condemnation of the State of Israel over its conflict with Hamas.

"I stand with Palestine and condemn the unthinkable airstrikes in Gaza. End Apartheid!", tweeted Green Party MP Jenica Atwin, as she castigated the party leader Annamie Paul who had simply called for de-escalation between Israel and Hamas. Ms.Paul herself in calling for 'de-escalation' as good as gave equivalence to both parties in the conflict. Hamas terrorists (which is what they are deemed to be on Canada's own terror list) had lobbed over 4,000 rockets and other missiles into Israel, leaving the IDF little option but to protect the country by responding in measured strikes to 'de-escalate' the barrage.

And the Liberal Party of Canada, with full knowledge of Ms.Atwin's sentiments -- fully anti-Semitic in flaming colours -- happily welcomed her defection from the Greens to the Liberals. (They had, in fact, been courting her transition for some time.) In a later interview Ms.Atwin modestly said that it was too precipitate to have any discussions with respect to being offered a cabinet position. "In the past month I've been at a crossroads. It's been, in a word, distracting. And so I'm going where I can do my best work on behalf of my community and for the people that I care so deeply about", she declaimed.

Dominic LeBlanc and Jenica Atwin arrive at a news conference in Fredericton, Thursday, June 10, 2021. Atwin's aisle crossing marks a small win for a Liberal party looking to tout its environmental credentials and shore up the ranks of its minority government, but marks a much bigger blow for a Green caucus already struggling to stay afloat. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Kevin Bissett

"I am profoundly disappointed that she decided her only option was to cross the floor, after the voters of Fredericton and Oromocto had elected her as a Green, to be the kind of strong and independent voice in Ottawa that the Green Party encourages."

"She will discover that her principles will not find a home with the Liberals."

David Coon, leader of the New Brunswick Greens

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau issued a brief statement when the news of the Liberal welcome of the former Green Party member became public, noting Atwin's "tireless and effective advocacy on priorities like climate action, mental health, reconciliation, and making life more affordable for families." No acknowledgement in any form of her controversial, adversarial stand on Israel defending itself from Hamas as an atrocity committed against Palestinians.