"Canadians are Experiencing a Polite Pogrom"

"[The] harm to Canadian Jews won't stop until we all have the courage to name the problem accurately and to identify the specific people perpetuating it: Islamist religious extremists in collaboration with progressive activists."

"[Canadians are experiencing a] polite pogrom." 

Jesse Brown, Canadaland publisher

 

"I have often thought about making aliya [moving to Israel] but for familial reasons, I was tethered to Canada."

"Whenever I go to Israel, I experience a sense of calm. It is because I don't have to explain, or justify or excuse."

"I can be who I am in a way that I cannot in Canada."

Jack Novack, retired Dalhousie University professor 

 

"It's not even drip, drip, drip anymore. It's like a freaking firehose [rampant antisemitism]."

"[The NDP has made]a crude political calculation [to win over the much larger, faster-growing Canadian Muslim community over Jewish voters, choosing to overlook  antisemitism in their ranks]."

"[People in 1940s Montreal would call her father maudit Juif ['damn Jew']. But I never experienced that in Montreal [in the '60s and '70s]. So trying to figure out:What did we miss? Were there signs? And I think that's a very Jewish experience right now."

"Along with that comes tremendous grief. The overwhelming emotion is grief. Grief at, I would suggest, a loss of innocence for Jews and for others."

"Because Canada is supposed to be, and was supposed to be, a place where we could all be all that we are with full identity."

Selina Robinson, former NDP B.C. cabinet minister

This shot of three figures hanging in effigy of Israeli leaders was part of a reel posted by the group mtl4pal on Instagram following the group's pro-Palestinian rally in Montreal on Saturday, May 24. (mtl4pal/Instagram)

 

Jews in Canada no longer have any reason to place their confidence in law enforcement and the legal system in Canada. A high rate of the criminal charges against anti-Israel protests -- according to a Toronto digital media outlet -- sees that of the 150 people criminally charged in Toronto between October 2023 and January 2026, close to two-thirds of the cases were dropped or stayed. For further lack of trust, the recently published memoir of retired Toronto police inspector Hank Idsinga accuses the Toronto Police Service of institutionalized antisemitism. 

 

Mr. Idsinga's book recounts antisemitic incidents prior to his leaving the force in late 2023 for retirement, when colleagues were prone to state "I can't believe we have to pander to this f--king Jew". When his colleagues in the force, not aware that he was Jewish, would baldly make outright antisemitic statements. Mr. Idsinga unequivocally states from his own experience that antisemitism permeates every level of the Toronto Police Service, from the very top on down.  

"Every time I wake up and I realize that the water's getting hotter [like being a frog in a pot of boiling water], somebody greases the bowl."

"The level of tolerance that this country seems to have adopted in terms of antisemitism is breathtaking." 

"[Even as European Jews see politicians abandoning smaller Jewish electoral communities for larger and fast-growing Muslim ones, so too do Canadian Jews]. [Case in point: Belgian Jews] fear that they might be abandoned by politicians who look for new voters in Belgian society, for example among the Muslim population."

"Many politicians lack the political will [to address antisemitism and recognize a] jihadi ideology [has] now come to Canada."

Talia Klein Leighton, president, Canadian Women Against Antisemitism 

More than fifty Toronto police officers receive a morning briefing Sunday April 5 at Sheppard Plaza in North York before ensuring any anti-Israel or pro-Israel protesters remain out of residential neighbourhood streets. (Photo by Ellin Bessner/The CJN)

 

"Of all the groups" sociology Professor emeritus Robert Brym at University of Toronto studied, including racialized Canadians, left-leaning Canadians, Quebecers and others, it is Canadian Muslims whose attitudes toward Jews stands out for their malevolence in regarding Jews, where 28 percent agree in polls that "Jewish people are largely to blame for the negative consequences of globalization", while 34 percent feel Jews "talk too much about the Holocaust". Four percent of non-Jewish Canadian adults on the other hand, agreed with the former, 13 percent with the latter statement.

 

"The percentage of Muslims among the most extreme antisemites is considerably higher than the corresponding percentage of non-Muslims", Professor Brym wrote in an academic paper. In Australia that same differential also is reflected in attitudes toward Jews. Surveys to gauge European Christians and Muslims on whether they view "Jews cannot be trusted" reveal huge differences, where in Australia 10.7 percent of Christians agree with the statement, and a whopping 64.1 percent of Muslims agreed. 

 

In France, similar research reveals that the Muslim community's antisemitic views are at levels higher than the far left and the far right, where French Muslims in the majority believe that "Jews have too much" economic power (67 percent) and that "Jews today use their status as victims of the Nazi genocide during the Second World War for their own interest", at 56 percent. When these issues are pointed out, that the great upheavals seen in publicly expressed antisemitism, are led by Muslims throughout Europe and North America, executive government levels invariably while denouncing antisemitism never fail to link that social sin with 'Islamophobia'.

 

And then the popular version of fault rests on a totally unaccountable source, the nationalists and far right groups. To publicly agree that Muslim extremism is responsible for the raging antisemitism seen everywhere today is a non-starter. And because it remains unrecognized officially and institutionally, there can be no amelioration of the situation if the specific people perpetrating and perpetuating Islamist religious extremism are not held responsible, much less checked. 

 

The minority antidote when government itself will not do its work in upholding the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms:

The Council of Muslims Against Antisemitism (CMAA) is a group of global
Muslim thinkers, professionals and activists, led by its founder director
Raheel Raza that is committed to fighting antisemitism in all its guises. This
group took its foundational inspiration from Canadian values of tolerance,
justice and peace among Canadian diverse communities living together
side-by-side.
We recognize antisemitism for what it is – a uniquely pervasive, enduring,
and lethal form of hatred which has insinuated itself into multiple cultural,
religious and political frameworks across the globe. We recognize the
particular threat posed by the meteoric rise of antisemitism in the 21st
century. Often genocidal or eliminationist in intent or expression, it
represents an unprecedented amalgam of the more familiar strains of
antisemitism promoted in extremist right-wing, left wing and Islamist
ideologies. The spread of contemporary antisemitism has been accelerated
by globalization and the advent of 21st century technologies.
The CMAA endorses the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance
(IHRA) definition of antisemitism. The IHRA definition constitutes the
world’s most widely accepted definition of antisemitism which has been
adopted or endorsed by 43 countries including Canada. It appropriately
recognizes that the demonization of the State of Israel as a Jewish state is
antisemitic, whereas criticism of Israel, its government, policies or actions
of a type that all countries are subject to, is not.
Despite challenges that include receiving death threats, we are committed
to working with like-minded groups to challenge antisemitism wherever it
may appear. We are working relentlessly towards the goal of attaining a
hate-free Canadian community.                                                                                          Council of Canadian Muslims Against Antisemitism

Canada, Deligitimizing Jewish History, Heritage, Culture, Religion and Society

"Publicly funded institutions have a responsibility to approach contested historical issues with fairness, balance and intellectual integrity."

"A national human rights museum cannot become a platform for politicized narratives that risk contributing to division and misunderstanding, including here by erasing Jewish history, delegitimizing Jewish self-determination, or contributing to hostility against the Jewish community."

Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, Shurat HaDin (Israel Law Center) President 

 

Palestinians use the word al‐Nakba — Arabic for “the catastrophe” — to describe their forced displacement in 1948.

In 1948, militias, followed by Israeli forces, expelled civilians, destroying or emptying hundreds of villages amid regional war and lasting instability. Around 750,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced during the creation of the State of Israel.

Five generations later, these people and their descendants still live with insecurity and uncertainty and are unable to return home.

The exhibition Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present explores the human rights violations related to the ongoing forced displacement and dispossession of Palestinians. Featuring personal stories told through objects and video testimonies, the exhibit presents Palestinian Canadians reflecting on their ongoing struggle for justice and human rights. Together with art, photos, and text, these elements reveal enduring patterns of loss and resistance.

For Palestinians, the Nakba is both their history and their present — it is an ongoing process shaping every aspect of life today.

Canadian Museum for Human Rights  --  Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present 

Displaced Palestinians walk along a road in Jabalia, as they leave areas near Gaza City, January 19, 2025. Photo: Omar Al-Qattaa, Getty Images

"[Fully one-fifth of the population in Israel comprising non-Jewish minorities, including Christian and Muslim Arabs, Druze, Circassians and Samaritans]."

"Their presence in Israel demonstrates their continued existence as Palestinian Arabs in Israel, which complicates the totalizing notion of the 'Nakba' as it is most widely understood around the world, mostly by enemies of Israel and the Jewish People."

"This context is crucial to include. However, all this could have been understood, if the organized Jewish community had been consulted meaningfully from the beginning and not excluded from discussions."

Belle Jarniewski, executive director, Jewish Heritage Centre of Western Canada 

Palestinians portray themselves as 'victims', perpetuating the myth that the presence of Israel, re-established on Judean ancestral land, was responsible for disinheriting Arabs originally from Jordan and Egypt who had moved to the region to take advantage of opportunities not available to them in their original  homelands. The land called Palestine, originally named such as a 'province' during the Roman occupation, was recognized as land where Jews had lived and thrived for millennia. In 1947 when the United Nations offered their Partition Plan to Jews and Arabs, Jews were swift to re-establish their homeland, while Arabs, calling themselves 'Palestinians' rejected that offer.

 

Jerusalem, Western Wall

 

They did so, because they claimed all of the land as theirs and spurned the legitimate presence of a Jewish state. Many of the Palestinians who fled did so voluntarily, they were not forced out; they planned to return once Arab armies marched on Israel to destroy the nascent state. From 1948 to the present time, Palestinians have cherished their victimhood, holding it out to the world as a dreadful wrong forced upon them. The original 750,000 Arab Palestinians who fled with Israel's declaration of statehood, was more than matched by the 850,000 Arabized Jews who were exiled, their properties expropriated from Arab lands where they had lived a thousand years. The United Nations does not recognize the banished Jews as refugees or victims, as it does the Arab Palestinians.

 

The Jewish refugees from Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Algeria, Morocco and elsewhere settled in Israel and elsewhere around the world. Those same Arab nations failed to absorb the Palestinian Arabs as citizens, preferring to leave them as eternal refugees whose status could be used to legitimize the Arab League's hostility to, and military plans against the Jewish State, a situation that went on to see one combined Arab war after another march on Israel, yet the tiny fledgling state was able to fend them off time and again.

 

Israel Bonds marked a rare and symbolic milestone in Tel Aviv with the unveiling of a commemorative stamp issued by the Israel Postal Service.

 

Despite the 750,000 Arabs who fled Palestine, 160,000 chose to remain in Israel. Those Arab Palestinians, now several million in number, are Israeli citizens, with equal voting rights, some of whom sit in the Knesset and in the state judiciary. Israel is a majority-Jewish state, but it extends equal rights of citizenship to the Bedouin, Kurds, Druze, Circassians, Christians, Muslims and others who live among them. This is a reality denied by Palestinians who have fanned out in a wide-ranging diaspora in the West, spending an inordinate amount of public relations time defaming and slandering Israel, naming it an 'apartheid', genocidal state.

 

It is in very fact, the Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (ancient Jewish Judea and Samaria) who are operating apartheid status, and themselves committed to genocide. No Jews may live among the Palestinians, by official Palestinian decree. As well, the Palestinian leadership, with the agreement of the Palestinian population dedicates itself to endless terrorist operations against Israel and its Jewish citizens, in the never-ending hope that the Jewish state will miraculously dissipate and the Palestinians will then occupy the land 'from the river (Jordan) to the sea (Mediterranean), triumphant.

 

Honouring Palestinian claims of a 'nakba' (disaster) to compete with and counter the jubilation of world Jewry on the recreation of the state of Israel, is a total farce which history and reality does not support. A national museum dedicated to human rights accepting the fallacy of a people suffering mass displacement as a unique event represents an assault on reason, fact and the historical record. Canada in the entireity of its governments, public institutions, academic establishments, organized unions, has distinguished itself of late as a country that has turned on its Jewish-Canadian population, on its relations with democratic Israel, in favour of commiserating with and honouring a colossal falsehood that deligitimizes Jewish history, heritage, culture, religion and society.

 

For shame.  

 

The Canadian Museum of Human Rights in Winnipeg, Manitoba, is scheduled to open the exhibition Palestine Uprooted: Nakba Past and Present on 27 June Photo 

Canada ... No Longer a Secure Home for Diaspora Jews

Adil Charkaoui's speech has drawn broad condemnation from politicians like Premier François Legault and groups like the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. (Adil Charkaoui/X)

 

"The statistics on hate crimes in Canada are pretty clear on this. It's really in the early 2000s that hate crimes against Jews in Canada started to go up in a significant way."

"By this measure, then, the rate of antisemitic incidents is more than 16.5 times higher today than it was before 2000."

"I did experience quite a lot of antisemitism where I grew up [in Saint John, N.B.]. My golden age didn't start until I was 18 and got out of there. [The promise Canada offered Jews in major cities was real.] I think it's true for most Jews, who grew up in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg from the '60s on." 

"The percentage of Muslims among the most extreme antisemites is considerably higher than the corresponding percentage of non-Muslims." 

Emeritus sociology professor Robert Brym, University of Toronto 

 

"Every time I wake up and I realize that the water's getting hotter, somebody greases the bowl. The level of tolerance that this country seems to have adopted in terms of antisemitism is breathtaking."

"It was wonderful to be a Jew at York [University in the 1990s] . There was a vibrant [Jewish student and professorial] community." 

"[By 2000], it was a completely different place to be a Jew. The anti-Zionist, left-wing academic was already starting to infuse the university."

Talia Klein Leighton, president, Canadian Women Against Antisemitism

 

"It wasn't easy as a Jewish boy walking around with my kippah [in France]."

"Moving to Canada was, for me, a breath of fresh air to be able to bring up my children in a safe and welcoming environment."

"What has happened in the last two, three years, is quite unbelievable. What I saw  happening in Paris in the '70s where you could be walking in the streets and people were screaming slurs at you or driving by and just a feeling of unwelcome and just looking behind your back."

"That, to me, is terrifying, because I was able to see the contrast of being here in Canada."

Menachem Mendel Blum, rabbi, Ottawa Torah Centre Chabad

THORNHILL, CANADA - MARCH 7 : Pro-Israel demonstrators gather outside Beth Avraham Yoseph of Toronto synagogue hosting 'Israeli Real Estate Event' in Thornhill, north of Toronto, Ontario on March 7, 2024. (Photo by Mert Alper Dervis/Anadolu via Getty Images)

 

According to B'nai Brith Canada's statistics, there were 6,800 antisemitic incidents that took place during 2025, an increase from 2,769 that occurred in 2022. During that time, synagogues were shot at and firebombed, 'F---k the Jews' graffiti appeared all too often, Jews have been accosted, berated, harassed, beaten, even shot at with pellets. Anti-Israel, antisemitic protesters marched en masse for months on end through Jewish residential neighbourhoods in Toronto. 

 

The years following World War II saw an enlightened public attitude toward Jews. The majority of Canadians became more accepting of a Jewish-Canadian presence. Prejudice against Jews that had previously manifested in public notices that parks were off limits to 'Jews and dogs', Jewish exclusion from clubs, from buying homes in certain neighbourhoods, Jewish doctors refused hospital affiliations, rental units not available to Jews, slowly underwent a social change.

 

Jews flourished in the new social environment; the numbers limiting Jewish acceptance at universities became history, Jewish businesses thrived, laws were passed prohibiting discrimination against minority groups for employment opportunities, medical treatment, academic admissions, and home rentals made it mandatory that all citizens were treated in equal measure under the law. Just as the Charter of Rights and Freedoms guaranteeing equality and freedom of religious expression, freedom of speech and all other civil rights. Antisemitism went underground.

Parliament Hill, Ottawa, Canada (Freepik.com)

 

Jews enjoyed that same sense of security in Canada as all others and the Jewish community thrived on its freedom to explore economic prosperity. Then, suddenly, a mass atrocity that occurred halfway across the world on October 7, 2023, when Palestinian terrorists launched a mass atrocity slaughtering Israeli civilians in southern Israel changed all that. It seemed sudden, but it was a kind of climax that had been building for some time, and October 7 was the signal that the time was right for an explosion of Jew-hate. Up to that time beginning decades earlier, a slow and steady increase of Middle Eastern immigrants bringing with them traditions of antisemitism infiltrated all walks of academia, unions, government and social institutions.

 

Expatriate 'Palestinians' studying in droves in Canadian universities provided the spark as 'victims' of Israeli oppression, which is to say Israeli defensive action against Palestinian terrorism that sought to destroy the Jewish state physically, then resorted to systematically through propaganda destroying Israel's reputation through libelous slander, promulgating lies of 'apartheid' and plans to kill Palestinians to rid themselves of counterclaims to Judean ancestral lands upon which both Israel and the 'Palestinian Territories' sit.

 

TORONTO, ON - December 20 - Shots were fired at a North York Jewish girls school early Friday morning, marking the third shooting at the school this year, Toronto police said. December 20, 2024. 

 

Governments in Canada stood by, unreactive while chaos broke out in the streets and on university campuses as thousands of anti-Israel protests, extended to include Canadian Jews in rejection of their presence as Zionists were called upon to 'go back to Poland' while Palestinians used every vicious tool at their disposal to delegitimize the Jewish state, making great inroads in alliances with the far-left and Liberal 'progressives' who found much to support in those claims, repeating with vigour 'Globalize the Intifada'. 

 

As Muslim populations proliferated through immigration, refugee intake and mass migration throughout Europe, and threats against European Jews ballooned, so too did they in North America, Australia and elsewhere. Jews who once felt secure and accepted for what they are; loyal citizens of the countries they lived in, contributors to the civilized world, outperforming other groups in their literary, scientific, academic, technological proficiency, were hounded by the baying of rousing, mind-numbing levels of expressed Jew-hate.

 

Jews now in Canada, as elsewhere in the world have been forced to resort to security measures to protect their schools, their synagogues, their community centres, vulnerable to attack and indeed experiencing attacks; gunshots, explosive devices at night, and crowds of protesting Jew-haters during the day, harassing, threatening, jeering and smearing Canadian Jews; vandalizing Jewish-owned businesses and property, boycotting and isolating Jews from mainstream society.

 

Michael A. Sachs: Some Jewish Canadians planning exit strategies to more welcoming U.S.

 

The governments whose democratic duty has always been to secure public order, to protect minority rights and guarantee equality of treatment and opportunity for all, have instead merely observed the ongoing diminution of Jewish rights in Canada. Their silence and lack of action have predictably bolstered the hateful resolve of the rioters and hate-mongers. And while all decent people decry the advent of renewed antisemitism and the moral incivility accompanying it, the majority remain silent. The Jews can look after themselves. 

 

Many are trying to do just that. And many are now contemplating wrenching their roots asunder from the soil that once guaranteed them peace of mind, planning to emigrate to the one place on Earth where their survival and that of their children is guaranteed: Israel. Politics in Canada under a succession of Liberal-led governments is such that those at the highest order of governance decry the rise of antisemitism and invariably add that of 'Islamophobia'. 

 

None among them ever contemplate speaking the reality of the situation, that it is the large and growing Muslim population from among whom this rise has resulted. They are prepared to live with the results of deliberately overlooking and bypassing the truth, rather than express it, and risk losing the votes that come with pandering to a segment of society whose values are not those of the prevailing majority, nor of democracy itself. Shame on them all.

 

Portable museum to show at schools, as an educational device, but after October 7, it was deemed too political. Photo by Courtesy of Sam Eskenasi

 

Palestinian Propaganda -- Anti-Israel, Anti-Democracy Revolutionizing Prince Edward Island

"According to its website], BIPOC USHR recognizes intertwined systems of capitalism, colonialism, patriarchy, and white supremacy that actively work to undermine the overall well-being and achievements of BIPOC communities."

"How do hundreds of thousands of tax dollars, including for anti-racism and childcare inclusion training, end up in the hands of a  radical anti-Israel, anti-capitalist activist group in Prince Edward Island?"

"For background: there has recently been significant consternation in the P.E.I. childcare sector because the provincial government cut $1.4 million in funding for support staff. The effect on operators is significant, the cuts took place without consulting the sector and some operators have considered service disruptions such as strikes to protest them."

"But while the provincial government said it cannot afford the $1.4 million for staff funding, its childcare spending plans for the past year included a combined $1.25 million for administration [such as information-technology costs] and diversity and inclusion programs."

Matthew Lau, Financial Post 

Early Childhood Development Association of P.E.I., says pedagogical support staff are crucial to the daily operations of child-care centres. (FLICKR)

 

 Much dismay in the child-care sector in tiny Prince Edward Island in Canada's easternmost Maritime provinces. The P.E.I. government decided in its wisdom to cut government funding for provincial child care; a total of $1.4 million cut for support staff funding in the childcare sector. Oddly enough, funding of comparable size was made available to a group that openly celebrates and promotes the Palestinian 'cause', a cause geographically far distant from Canada. Promoting 'Palestine' comes with the link of denigrating and libeling Israel; a Middle East cause. 

 

Yet in tiny P.E.I. a Palestinian 'branch' flies the flag of Palestine and to make its presence and its 'cause' palatable in the West allies itself with the global Left, with Canada's restive, government-resentful Indigenous people, with the Black  demographic, citing White colonialism. Palestinian victimhood fits right in with these groups, consenting to be manipulated while accepting the Palestinian cause as reflective of their own prejudice-suffering state. The real indigeneity in the Middle East is that of Israel seated on its ancestral lands that Arabs from Egypt and Jordan claim as their own.

 

Furthermore the reality is that Gays, Blacks and First Nations people would not only be viewed as a despised underclass in Palestinian society, they would be placed in danger of their lives. The fantasy that Arab Palestinians would respect and admire, find brotherhood with these groups is a useful tactic to promote the Palestinian 'cause' in the West, but it doesn't pass muster in the Middle East generally. It was originally Arab Muslims who initiated the Black African slave trade. 

 

Canada's flirtation in the past several decades with Liberal-left social progressiveness has brought it to the altar of Critical Race Theory, wokeism and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, guilting itself into admissions of 'colonialist' sins, cultural genocide against Canada's First Nations through a  century and a half of Indian Residential Schools, and its history of race prejudice. Canada has been swept by a tide of regret and compassion for the traditional plight of LGBTQ-2 community social rejection, so all of these groups have latterly been viewed as newly privileged, while the majority White, natal-sex population has been neutered in shame.

 

In P.E.I., the government's inclusion strategy was that of consultations with various organizations, one of which is BIPOC USHR (Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour United for Strength, Home, Relationship). Funded and partnered with in recent years. BIPOC USHR was contracted with to deliver a series of anti-racism workshops to childcare workers and Department of Education and Lifelong Learning staff. "Educational resources" on the BIPOC USHR website boast titles such as "Information on the Hamas Charter", "Zionism is white supremacy", and "Kwame Ture on Zionism and Imperialism". 

 

 Kristin-Brown  Unsplash

 

Economics journalist Matthew Lau in examining the link between P.E.I. and the BIPOC USHR group discovered that Kwame Ture stated "I have never admired a white man, but the greatest of them, to my mind, was Hitler". There were evidently others that Kwame Ture admired as well, for their virtues, as when he referred to "that great man, V.I. Lenin (Vladimir Ilyich Lenin)". 

 

Yet the P.E.I. government has funded BIPOC USHR for childcare anti-racism training, climate change projects, diversity and inclusion programs, and anti-racism initiatives. And nor is it the province of Prince Edward Island alone that has funded BIPOC USHR's programs, for the federal government as well has given it six grants for anti-racism programs.  

"BIPOC USHR stands for Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour United for Strength Home Relationship. We are a support and advocacy not-for-profit for BIPOC communities on PEI."

"Started as a small group on the UPEI campus we hope to serve BIPOC communities on PEI."

"With the recognition that we reside on traditional, unceded Mi’kmaq territory and that we are people of the Peace and Friendship Treaty of 1776, we work to decolonize at various levels and in many ways."

BIPOC USHR Website 

BIPOC USHR Website

 

 

 

Permanent Joint Board on Defence Pause

"The scope of the Permanent Joint Board on Defence's [PJBD] work also encompasses policy, operations, financial, logistics and other aspects of Canada-U.S. defence relations."

"Bilateral defence recommendations are forwarded to respective Heads of Government or appropriate officials for consideration."

Permanent Joint Board on Defence 

The Pentagon has announced it has paused its participation in a joint Canada-U.S. defence board that's been around since the 1940s, accusing Canada of not making enough progress on its commitments. Canada says it's always ready for constructive discussion on how to strengthen mutual security. CBC

 

"[The PJBD] was created at a time when the future of Britain's place in the world was uncertain, and from the real recognition and realization by both [President Franklin D.] Roosevelt and [Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie] King that the Canadians and Americans needed to work together and formalize their relationship."

"Throughout the war [Second World War] this was a really important body for co-ordinating all sorts of aspects of wartime production, but especially defence issues, and why this maters so much for Canada is that it provided a formal body through which American requests needed to be made and then to be taken from the Canadian representatives on that board back to the government in Ottawa."

Prof.Timothy Sayle, Munk School of Global Affairs and Public Policy, University of Toronto 

 

"Canada and the U.S. have a long history of robust cooperation and collaboration on continental defence."

"Canada will work with trusted partners who are ready to work with us, always remaining ready to come to the table for constructive discussions about the best ways to strengthen mutual defence and security."

Canadian Defence Minister David McGuinty 

 

 

It came as a surprise, a shocking surprise, a wake-up call when the United States declared its intention to 'pause' the U.S.-Canada Permanent Joint Board on Defence "to reassess how this forum benefits shared North American defence". As the senior advisory body on continental defence the PJBD is a formalized historical mutual assurance pact signed by both countries that each must be fully involved in continental defence in lock-step with one another.

 

Set up to meet twice annually, meeting locations alternating between both countries, co-chaired by a Canadian and an American civilian, with both military and civilian representatives of the U.S. Defense and State Departments, Canada's Department of National Defence and the Department of Foreign Affairs and International Trade among others, this pact has represented the importance of military cooperation in a shared trust by neighbours in defence of their shared geography. 

 

Established in 1940, the PJBD came out of the Ogdensburg Agreement during the Second World War. Elbridge Colby, as the undersecretary of American defence for policy stated that: "A strong Canada that prioritizes hard power over rhetoric benefits us all. Unfortunately, Canada has failed to make credible progress on its defense commitments. We can no longer avoid the gaps between rhetoric and reality. Real powers must sustain our rhetoric with shared defense and security responsibilities."

 

There is little question but that this decision is linked to the Davos speech by Prime Minister Mark Carney months ago when he spoke of the place of 'middle powers' in the world, claiming that "If we're not at the table, we're on the menu". The import of which was an obvious critique of the Trump administration's incendiary decision-making and musings which have roiled world markets and left traditional U.S. allies confused over the seeming irrationality of many of Mr. Trump's declarations. Tariffs and the war in Ukraine have left a decidedly unfavourable impression in the minds of global leaders.  

"[There were two aspects to the board's annual or semi-annual discussions: firstly did the two sides view the world the same way, and if they didn't what was to be done]. That was mostly congenial and there was not that much asked of us."

"[Secondly, there was a] to-do [list of North American issues, centred around the North American Aerospace Defence Command [NORAD]."

"We were always doing a tap-dance around two percent [NATO's two percent of GDP defence spending benchmark]. But on a military-to-military basis, we still got a lot done."

"They realized they couldn't defend the Arctic without involving Canada." 

"The military rupture is just following the political rupture."

"NORAD will be next on the chopping block. And there is no question that will undermine Canada's security. It's dangerous politics."

Former Liberal MP John McKay, Canadian chair of the PJBD, 2016-2024 

Immediately following the end of World War II, the PJBD served as a strategic-level board tasked with ongoing considerations of land, sea, and air space security. Personnel and defence materiel relating to the northern half of the Western Hemisphere was its focal point, including the Distant Early Warning Line, the North American Air Defence command (Aerospace) in 1958, the underwater acoustic surveillance system and the North American Air Defence Modernization program (NORAD) in 1985. 

 

Co-chaired by MP John McKay and the U.S.'s Rebecca Zimmerman, Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Homeland Defense and Hemispheric Affairs, the November 2024 242nd PJBD meeting in Ottawa discussed topics such as NORAD modernization implementation, Arctic security, climate change, defence, co-operation in the Indo-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean along with critical minerals. There followed an 18-month gap with no meetings, coinciding with President Donald Trump's second presidential term.  

 

U.S. Undersecretary of War for Policy Elbridge Colby waits for the start of a meeting at NATO headquarters in Brussels on Feb. 12. Colby announced Monday that the Pentagon is 'pausing' participation in the Permanent Joint Board on Defence, an advisory body on North American continental defence that was established in 1940. (Geert Vanden Wijngaert/The Associated Press)

 

"The person who made the statement here is not Donald Trump, not somebody just shooting off the handle, not someone who is uninformed."

"this is a person who is not only highly educated but also has focused on the details of defence spending."

"What Eldridge Colby [is] saying is: 'This is a reality check, Canada. You have a prime minister who travels all over the world, makes these grand promises, but promises are not policy."

"Promises are not impressing Russia, they're not impressing China."

"Canada's not bringing enough to the table, not just in order to satisfy the United States, we are not bringing enough to the table in terms of our defence capacity."

Aurel Braun, professor of international relations and political science, University of Toronto 

 

Befriending the Shark

"As usual... there was no timetable, no enforcement mechanism, and no concrete political roadmap. Once again, reform appeared to function more as a slogan aimed at reassuring Western governments than as a serious political process."

"Would elections solve the problem? Many Western officials continue insisting that elections are the answer to the Palestinian crisis. Recent Palestinian history, however, suggests otherwise. The last parliamentary elections, held in 2006, brought Hamas to power. One year later, Hamas violently seized control of the Gaza Strip after executing opponents, throwing Fatah rivals off rooftops, and establishing an Islamist dictatorship that remains in place to this day."

"In several polls, Hamas leaders have enjoyed greater popularity than Abbas and Fatah."

"[T]he Palestinian national movement historically presented itself as a collective "liberation struggle" rather than a family-based political enterprise. The rise of Yasser Abbas, therefore, symbolizes for many Palestinians not renewal, but the deepening personal entrenchment of power."

"The Palestinian Authority continues every year to pay hundreds of millions of dollars, now disguised as "social welfare," to Palestinians and their families involved in terrorist attacks against Israeli civilians.

The Fatah election of Barghouti and Zubeidi sends a dangerous message: that inside Fatah, terrorism and "armed struggle" continue to confer political legitimacy."

"The Palestinian movement, rather than distancing itself from violence, continues to celebrate and glorify individuals associated with attacks against Israeli civilians. It is a reality that should finally put a stop to all idiotic Western claims that Fatah represents a "moderate" alternative to Hamas."

Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone Institute

The Palestinian Authority still pays monthly stipends to Palestinians imprisoned in Israel for their involvement in terror attacks. Mahmoud Abbas frequently refers to these prisoners as national heroes who made significant sacrifices for the Palestinian cause. "[I]f we have only a single penny left," he said in February 2025, "it will go to the prisoners and the martyrs. I will not allow a reduction in our commitments to them." (Image source: MEMRI)

 

Mark Carney, 'X'

May 7, 2026

Ottawa, Ontario

Today, the Prime Minister, Mark Carney, spoke with the President of the State of Palestine, Mahmoud Abbas.

The Prime Minister expressed Canada’s deep concern over the continued humanitarian crisis in Gaza and reaffirmed its opposition to Israeli settlement expansion and settler violence in the West Bank. He emphasised that unilateral actions undermine prospects for a lasting peace.

Prime Minister Carney underscored Canada’s unwavering support for a negotiated two-state solution – an independent, viable, and sovereign Palestinian state living side by side with the State of Israel in peace and security.

The Prime Minister welcomed the measures taken by the Palestinian Authority to strengthen accountability, governance, and democratic institutions, in which Hamas can play no part. He conveyed Canada’s support and the importance of further reforms.

Canada will continue to promote peace and stability in the region, and work closely with partners toward this goal. The two leaders will remain in contact.

Prime Minister of Canada 

 

Makes democratic sense, does it not, for the Canadian prime minister to express his deep admiration for the president of the Palestinian Authority for having taken measures to "strengthen accountability, governance and democratic institutions". This, of an autocrat who having been elected to head the PA 21 years ago has yet to call  another election. That's some four-year term indeed... As for having implemented democratic reforms on the part of Mahmoud Abbas, none come to mind. Nor does the record show any. As for the matter of the 'two-state solution', the PA adamantly refuses to even recognize Israel.

 

Canada's Privy Council Office says that: "The Palestinian Authority continues to advance elements of a UN-supported reform agenda focused on social protection, education-sector adjustments and improvements to transparency and service delivery". On the social protection side, there is evidence of Palestinian journalists and just ordinary Palestinians inciting against the continued presidency of the 83-year-old Abbas facing arrest and imprisonment. Oh, and school curricula in the West Bank and Gaza Strip has undergone no refreshing change; Palestinian children from toddlers to teens are still inculcated with Jew-hate and encouraged to envision a future as 'martyrs'.

 

A scene from an UNRWA summer camp play

 

As for social welfare, it has been demonstrated time and again that the PA has an ongoing, proud record of paying lifetime financial support to terrorists who have killed Israelis, naming streets and public buildings in their honour. "Pay for slay" rewards those Palestinians with a lifetime salary while they're imprisoned, or if they've died as a vaunted martyr, to their families go those financial benefits. Although Mahmoud Abbas has informed the European Union which condemned the practise of paying terrorists, that he would no longer do so, those payments continue to this day. And the West, through its generosity to the PA, pays for that reward program.

 

Mark Carney's May 7 congratulatory telephone conversation with Mahmoud Abbas saw publication in the PA's WAFA news agency, in an article magnifying and congratulating the Canadian prime minister for his support for the Palestinians, highlighting "the Canadian government's condemnation of Israeli colonial settlement activities in the Palestinian territory, describing them as illegal and illegitimate". The Liberal Mark Carney has been fulsome in his criticism of Israel, transgressing the human rights of Palestinians.

 

Hezbollah, Council on Foreign Relations

Oh, and not just Palestinians, since Mr. Carney spoke also to the president of Lebanon where he condemned Israel and its "illegal invasion" of southern Lebanon. This, to the president of a country which has been strangulated by a Shiite terrorist group whose focal agenda is the destruction of Israel, in tandem with the Islamic Republic of Iran, its sponsor. That southern Lebanon has become the military den of Hezbollah as it lobs rockets continuously into northern Israel, threatening the lives of Israeli citizens is a bit of an inconvenience that doesn't bother Mr. Carney one whit, however. 

 

 

How Low Can You Go, DEI-Infused Canadian Broadcasting Corporation?!!!

"I found out recently that I was deceived by social activists in an elaborate scheme dating back to January. A production group with what I now know has a fake name and fake identities gave me a friendly interview about my book A Day with Sir John A, and about Sir John A. Macdonald, back in February. They connected me with a fake company called Heritage Figures Canada with a fake website and 'hired' me to perform consulting work for them. We had what I now know were fake meetings, fake documents, fake commercial shoot, fake prototype of a Sir John A. collectible. Then in a second filmed interview last week, they turned on me, and it was revealed to have all been a setup in order to demonize Sir John A. and smear me."

It turns out this is a taxpayer-funded CBC and [Aboriginal Peoples Television Network] project."

Conservative Party of B.C. staffer, Lindsay Shepherd

 

"These pranks have their place, to challenge the powerful, but the CBC is going after those of us who are trying to speak the truth in the face of institutional censorship."

"Public funds should not be spent to silence dissidents and prevent a reckoning about the Kamloops '215' deception that has been promoted by universities and the media for five years."

"I have nothing to hide. I'm an honest academic who is trying to understand Aboriginal non-Aboriginal relations." 

Mount Royal University (fired) Professor Frances Widdowson

Questions are being asked about taxpayer-funded activism and media ethics after former Mount Royal University professor Dr. Frances Widdowson and author Lindsay Shepherd alleged they were specifically targeted in an elaborate prank operation.  Image generated by ChatGPT AI

 

Outspoken critics of unverified claims of 215 Indigenous children's bodies 'discovered' by ground-penetrating radar on the property of a Kamloops, B.C. Indian Residential School have found themselves isolated, unemployed, shunned and now targets of the nation's public broadcaster in league with an Indigenous media entertainment group. Punishment for denying the received wisdom of Canada having committed a 'genocide' against First Nations; colonialists versus indigenous peoples.

 

Lindsay Shepherd, in defense of Canada's first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, recently published a children's book to set the record straight; that Sir John A. was a man to be respected as far as the Indigenous population was concerned; while being a man of his times, he was also an authority figure who cared for the future of Canada's aboriginal people, hoping to bring them into mainstream society, to share in all the opportunities available to those with good educations who could participate at all levels of society in equal opportunities to flourish.

 

Despite which, the man who, during his time led Canada to a prosperous future, has been maligned as a 'white imperialist' colonialist, one of the architects of the Indian Residential School system, administered for the most part by the Catholic Church, for the purpose of giving Indian children a sound education that would lead to their integration into general society with all the opportunities for social and economic advancement to their credit. An aura of raging rejection saw his name taken off schools, his memorial statuary defaced and then toppled.

 

Despite denials from the CBC that there was no underhanded purpose in their participation in a scheme to humiliate and falsely accuse the two women of right-wing bias in their denials of the truthfulness of the two issues -- that of the unproven claims of Indigenous children being buried in unmarked graves, and the connection to Canada's first prime minister -- Lindsay Shepherd had an email exchange with the CBC's director of public relations, Katherine Wolfgang who wrote "(the CBC) can confirm that this project is in early production for CBC entertainment and (Aboriginal Peoples Television Network/APTN)".

 

Those involved in this 'prank' evidently knew Shepherd's home address, her children's names, and her bank account information...despite privacy laws that appeared to be no concern of the CBC. Frances Widdowson was flown from Calgary to Vancouver for a supposed documentary project to be filmed, where a fake production company, Forge Media, paid for her flights and hotel room, handing her a $1,000 honorarium. During a filmed studio interview, two people entered the set to dump boxes of children's shoes on a table.

 

A memorial is seen outside a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C., on June 13, 2021. In May that year, the Tk'emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation shared that preliminary findings from a ground-penetrating radar survey found some 200 potential unmarked graves on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. (Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press)

 

This was to represent the popularized piles of children's shoes that appeared in various places as public memorials to the "murdered" aboriginal children whose graves were illusional; where despite funding given to investigate fully and find evidence to support the allegations, no such action was ever taken. Believe, and respect the claims of murdered children or be labelled racist and worse; condoning the deaths of innocent children. This was the point at which Professor Widdowson realized the extent of the 'prank' she had been subjected to; brought to the studio under false pretences.

 

Her reaction was to livestream her experience. "I don't quite understand what you're going to do with it ... I don't understand what the context is. What is the program it is going to be released on"? she asked "culture jammer" Igor Vamos in a videoed interview. When she revealed that she was livestreaming the conversation, suddenly the studio lights were shut off, and as she was being walked out of the studio she continued to film.  

"Northland Tales [working title] is an Indigenous-led unscripted, half-hour comedy series in early production for CBC Entertainment and APTN. For clarity, CBC News and APTN News have no involvement in this production or prior knowledge of it. The project was first pitched at the Indigenous Screen Summit -- part of the Banff World Media Festival in 2024."

"CBC Entertainment joined APTN as a partner shortly thereafter. Social experiments and satirical prank shows are a long-established television format used by broadcasters and streamers around the world, including many public broadcasters. In this case, the Indigenous creators are using the format for Northland Tales. A form of comedy is being deployed to increase better understanding of historical injustices against Indigenous peoples and support truth and reconciliation in Canada."

"It is important for us in the execution that this entertainment series does not negatively impact our news brand. As the show is still in production, it's premature for us to comment on the creative."

Head of Public Affairs, Chuck Thompson, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) 

The CBC is being criticized for its role in an upcoming comedy series that conducted prank interviews with two women who have drawn controversy for their views on Canada's residential schools. (Evan Mitsui/CBC)