Canada's Redoubtable Prime Minister

"The 14-point text is unambiguous on the point the White House is most eager to fog. It commits the United States, "with regional partners," to develop a "plan with at least USD 300 billion for the reconstruction and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran" -- $3 billion of which has, according to the unsurpassed journalist, Lee Smith, already been sent to Iran through by way of the United Arab Emirates. The president has called reports of that figure "fake news" and insisted nobody is putting up "ten cents." The clause nevertheless sits prominently in the document he signed."

"Only one question really matters: what does the agreement, if honored by Iran, deliver? It leaves enriched uranium inside Iran, concedes a right to enrichment that was recently a red line, permits the Iranian ballistic-missile program Trump now defends supposedly because other countries have missiles too, and pours reconstruction money into an economy whose ruling institution is the brutal Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC)."

"The regime in Tehran, which has waited out many American presidents and means to wait out another, is betting they are bluffing about everything except the check."

Pierre Rehov, Gatestone Institute 

A Fattah ballistic missile is displayed during the annual military parade in Tehran. (Photo by AFP via Getty Images)

 

Interesting how Canada-Israel relations have plunged into an icy bath in the past decade coinciding with Liberal governments lauding their 'progressive', DEI, Critical Race Theory values, and managing to impose them as credit-worthy virtues to abide by. In their playbook terrorists are 'militants', or 'gunmen' and a small nation that displays its sovereign right of response against existential threats represents an oppressive regime over-reacting to mere hyperbolic threats of violence however expressed in lavish bloodbaths.

 

Canada's previous and its current prime ministers take pride in their declared solidarity with the world's foremost victims whose claims to the historic patrimony of another people's ancestral land strikes a sympathetic chord with a government that hasn't hesitated to disown its own history while bemoaning itself as colonialist imperialists guilty of 'genocide' of Canada's aboriginals. The warm friendship and trust between Canada and the State of Israel exemplified most cordially by the preceding Conservative-led government is no more.

 

Canada's current prime minister, Mark Carney, finds much in common with the Palestinian Authority's autocratic, corrupt President Mahmoud Abbas, with the financially influential Emir of Qatar as exemplars of democracy, while giving a cold shoulder to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of the sole democracy in the Middle East, a Jewish state that governs a diverse religious, ethnic, cultural population seen nowhere else in the geography. Mr. Carney maintains cordial relationships with all but Mr. Netanyahu.

 

In Mr. Carney's opinion, Israel is guilty of any number of offences, primary among them its military responses to violent mass atrocities committed against Jews, much less ongoing threats of annihilation by the Islamic Republic of Iran, whose proxy militias, trained, funded and armed by the al-Quds branch of the Islamic Republican Guard Corps attack Israel from the south, from the north through Hamas and Hezbollah, goading Israel to invade Gaza and Lebanon in defensive reaction to never-ending attacks. 

 

Montreal4Palestine says the effigies displayed during the demonstration were directed at political figures, Benjamin Netanyahu, Itamar Ben-Gvir and Donald Trump. Montreal police’s hate crimes unit is investigating the incident.

 

None of which gave Canada's prime minister pause in declaring support for Palestinian statehood, and issuing statements of condemnation against Israel for its military pursuit of terrorists in Gaza and the West Bank, as well as those in Lebanon. Praising Arab leadership for their peace overtures, imagined tolerance and democratic values, all absent but for a scant few Middle East countries, while slurring Israel for its presumed lack of those virtues seems to satisfy something deep within Mr. Carney's subconscious.

 

It looks suspiciously akin to antisemitism. Denouncing Israel for "illegal invasion" of Lebanon, with no nuanced acknowledgement that the government of Lebanon has failed to exert its sovereignty and responsibility to its population that suffers a malignant terror group in Hezbollah to place the country in a vulnerable position by constant rocket fire into northern Israel. Iran's regime, sworn to Israel's destruction, has traditionally occupied Lebanon through Hezbollah, yet no acknowledgement of that simple reality in understanding Israel's dilemma is forthcoming.

 

When Mr. Carney finally directly addressed the inflamed persecution of Canadian Jews by organized foreign interests which has seen years of 'pro-Palestinian' and 'anti-Israel' processions throughout Canadian streets, condemning Israel for 'genocide' against Palestinians, while threatening Jews in Canada with 'Final Solution', 'Globalize the Intifada', and 'From the river to the sea', codes well known to represent incitement to violence, he spoke of rabid antisemitism as an unforgivable social pathology.

 

One which he had every intention, finally of addressing, after appearing to nonchalantly fail to 'notice' the ubiquitous presence of Jew-hate emanating from a flood of new immigrants, refugees and migrants whose cultural traditions of that malady were carried with them into Canada to augment already-existing, but quiescent suspicion of Jews to bring the pathology to a crescendo of orchestrated taunts, threats and violence including vandalism, gunshots and incendiary devices thrown at synagogues, Jewish schools and private Jewish-owned businesses.

 

Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks against antisemitism in front of members of the Jewish community and law enforcement leaders at Holy Blossom Temple in Toronto on Monday, June 1, 2026. Photo by Peter Power/Postmedia

 

His grand solution, announced at a Toronto synagogue where he spoke comfortingly and comfortably about his intentions to finally put an end to the disorder, with the assignment of an advisory committee to study the issue of rampant antisemitism in Canada, was to appoint none other than Muslim and Arab known Jew-haters to the task of solving the problem that they themselves are responsible for. 

 

In the end, it is interesting how two governments, one the United States of America, the other Canada, neighbours in North America, have a president and a prime minister thought to be quite unalike one another in temperament, character and values. Yet there is more to meet the eye than a cursory review of the behaviour of each, and in the end, summing up their stated positions, their concerns and their democratic declarations, along with the outcomes of their intentions, it becomes clear they have much in common. 

The Unthinkable -- SARS/CoV-2 Deaths

"A global pandemic of this scale was inevitable. In recent years, hundreds of health experts have written books, white papers, and op-eds warning of the possibility. Bill Gates has been telling anyone who would listen, including the 18 million viewers of his TED Talk. In 2018, I wrote a story for The Atlantic arguing that America was not ready for the pandemic that would eventually come. In October, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security war-gamed what might happen if a new coronavirus swept the globe. And then one did. Hypotheticals became reality. 'What if?' became 'Now what'?"
"'No matter what, a virus [like SARS-CoV-2] was going to test the resilience of even the most well-equipped health systems', says Nahid Bhadelia, an infectious-diseases physician at the Boston University School of Medicine. More transmissible and fatal than seasonal influenza, the new coronavirus is also stealthier, spreading from one host to another for several days before triggering obvious symptoms. To contain such a pathogen, nations must develop a test and use it to identify infected people, isolate them, and trace those they’ve had contact with. That is what South Korea, Singapore, and Hong Kong did to tremendous effect. It is what the United States did not."
Ed Yong, The Atlantic 

"Looking at what we're seeing now, we're looking at 100,000 to 200,000 deaths."
"But I don't just think that we need to make a projection when it's such a moving target, that you could so easily be wrong."
"[Measures like the travel advisory to residents of the greater New York area] will ultimately help stop the virus."
"The original proposal was to consider seriously an enforceable quarantine. After discussions with the president, we made it clear, and he agreed, that it would be much better to do what's called a strong advisory." 
"I think it's entirely conceivable that if we do not mitigate to the extent we are trying to do is that you could reach that number."
"I'm not against releasing the restrictions. I'm actually for it in an appropriate place. But I don't recommend it unless we have the tools in place in real time." 
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Director, Anthony Fauci 

"We are asking every single governor and every single mayor to prepare like New York is preparing now."
"What we're trying to say to everyone is: when this virus comes to your metro area, please stay in your metro area where your care can be provided, because it's spreading virus more quickly around the United States." 
"This virus, we think, can spread with a lot of asymptomatic and mild cases. It's not until it gets into the vulnerable groups that you start to see the hospitalizations. If you wait for that, if the metros and rural areas don't take care now, by the time you see it, it has penetrated your community pretty significantly. And that's what we're concerned about. And that's why you have to prepare, even though you think it's not there."
Dr.Deborah Birx, White House coronavirus response co-ordinator 

"[There is a 15-page 'road map' outlining ways to transition from [sweeping mitigation strategies] to new approaches."
"A sustained reduction in the number of daily cases [over 14 days would be a trigger for lifting some of the measures in specific places]."
"It is too early to lift these measures [two weeks from the present]."
Dr.Scott Gottlieb, resident fellow, American Enterprise Institute

A Samaritan's Purse crew works on building an emergency field hospital equipped with a respiratory unit in New York's Central Park across from the Mount Sinai Hospital, Sunday, March 29, 2020.

Formerly head of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Dr.Gottlieb, now with the American Enterprise Institute. introduced a "road map in reopening" the United States in distinct phases. This, at a time when the infection rate in the U.S. is rising toward its peak, and at present stands at 164,121 infections and 3,153 deaths. U.S.President Donald Trump, conscious of the drain on American business spoke optimistically last week of the current situation in the pause of business-as-usual as the novel coronavirus cuts a swath through the U.S., with plans to launch by Easter.

Dr.Gottlieb and his colleagues expressed their expert opinion that various states have little requirement to be ordered to loosen restrictions by the White House. The recently released AEI report outlines steps that could be chosen once COVID-19 transmission comes under control in various regions, steps that were specifically linked to both the federal government and the states and health-care partners, public and private, working together for the common goal of restoring normalcy.

In the very midst of the pandemic's devastatingly-wide infectious rate, along with the deaths of so many Americans, a total of 100,000 to 200,000 deaths at peak is envisaged, and this toll is viewed by the president as a modest success in that government action has ensured that infinitely greater numbers of deaths -- some spoke of up to a million and beyond -- had been averted under his guidance. A stroke of good fortune whose personal perceptions and touted results are obviously not shared by all experts and commentators.

The reality is that a death toll spoken of by Dr.Fauci extends far beyond anything experienced by China, where the pandemic originated, and which has a population four times that of the United States. Even Italy's dread death rate and galloping infection rate that has swamped its hospitals and overwhelmed the capacity of its health-care community, which has seen a death rate over that which China experienced is set to be outpaced by the U.S.

Yet according to Dr.Fauci and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, discussions with the White House coronavirus task force led to President Trump's ultimate decision to set aside a quarantine for parts of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, in stark contrast to the strict lockdowns seen in Singapore, Hong Kong and China itself which succeeded in halting the internal spread of the coronavirus. As a result, South Korea, China, Singapore and Hong Kong are returning to normal, stamping out embers of the virus, while looking out for recurrences.

The Navy hospital ship USNS Comfort passes lower Manhattan on its way to docking in New York, Monday, March 30, 2020.

For Better or for Worse

"What the Republican establishment now know is Donald Trump is unequivocally the leader of the Republican Party. He is the one who sets the tone of what takes place in Washington."
"He is the leader of our country, both politically and from a legislative side of things, and I think they’ve learned that over the last year."
Corey Lewandowski, former Trump campaign manager

"The Fake News is working overtime. Just reported that, despite the tremendous success we are having with the economy & all things else, 91% of the Network News about me is negative (Fake)." "Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt?"
"Take away credentials?"
U.S. President Donald J. Trump 

The world went into a brief catatonic shock at the improbable election success of Donald J. Trump. This, despite the disbelief originally engendered that this brash, uncivil self-promoter whose manner and mannerisms betrayed an unsavoury character with brutish values made it as far as the Republican challenger of a Democratic contender for the presidency whose own lack of candor and reliability earned her a reputation that catapulted Trump in the estimation of Americans fed up with the kind of politics that bypassed their interests.

That Trump, in the final analysis, garnered sufficient votes where they counted, to be sworn in as the 45th President of the United States of America caught everyone by surprise, but possibly not the president-elect. His confidence in himself is as great as his penchant for abrupt and disruptive changes of opinions and tactics. But this man, despite his unwholesome failings as a human being has performed as president precisely as he promised his many followers that he would.

The Washington establishment has been put on its back legs, job growth has cut unemployment substantially; he cut taxes as he said he would, and workers in the U.S. have taken heart from his suspicion over free trade agreements. The stand-off with North Korea has moved into a new phase which, if it fails to denuclearize the North, may end up pacifying the two Koreas toward more than an uneasy truce. Nobel Peace Prize? The very thought pulverizes rationality.

So what might this man's legacy be? A world power who declared that his predecessor erred in allowing the Islamic Republic of Iran to continue developing highly sophisticated ballistic missiles upon which the covert and continuing secret locations devoted to steering the Iranian Republican Guard Corps to proud possession of nuclear weapons could be mounted, thanks to cooperation with North Korea but which Trump is now prepared to contest through the re-imposition of strict and stricter sanctions?

The rough character personified by Trump gains more attention through the notoriety of his sexual predation than anything he could ever accomplish on the world stage, however. The titillating stories that erupt from time to time through his own unabashed admissions of groping women, vie with women coming forward to attest to having been molested by this man whose wealth and position gave him self-perceived entitlement to take what he wanted.

The latest scandal, courtesy of a professional prostitute , Stormy Daniels, has the Democrats chortling victory in their public relations war with Trump. Here is a woman who enjoys her own notoriety as much as Trump does his. Her principles can be seen in accepting $150,000 to keep her mouth shut, while planning no such thing, focusing instead on her disquieting revelations that Trump slept with her in a one-night stand soon after the birth of his youngest child to his wife Melania.

Dollars to doughnuts Trump cares less about how the public reacted to these revelations than how his wife did, at yet another public humiliation relating to her husband's boisterous infidelity. News media are falling all over themselves in broadcasting whatever incriminating evidence they can to 'prove' what a scumbag the President of the United States is. He's a Republican, after all, and unreservedly unrepentant about all his character flaws all of which he views positively as assets others should be envious of.

On a summer night in 1969, U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy drove into a pond. As his car began to submerge into the water, he got himself out but left behind Mary Jo Kopechne, who was a passenger in his car. She perished.
A new biopic "Chappaquiddick."

So, does this latest scandal define how odiously-behaved this man is? Well he has plenty of company, none of whom ever garnered the public censure that Trump has. Where to start? Oh yes, John F. Kennedy, a serial womanizer but whose exploits were discreet and kept that way by an approving Democratic party, and respectful press corps. And brother Edward Kennedy, responsible as a philanderer who chose to leave a young woman to drown when Mary Joe Kopechne had the misfortune of an illicit alliance with this unscrupulous cad.

Win McNamee/Getty Images

More latterly, there is the lady-killer reputation that four women brought along to besmirch the much-loved character of Arkansas-governor-turned-president, and which he decided to cap off with an exploit of a mature and unrepentant skirt-chaser in a position of supreme authority over a very young and very naive intern in the White House, thrilled to bits that the President of the United States noticed little old her, then denied he had sex "with that woman". It was she who suffered censure and humiliation.

None of the previous office holders whose affairs became fodder for discreet gossip have suffered the kind of full frontal attack that Trump has. This is politics at its most wretched and pathetic.