Toronto Metropolitan University: Faculty For Palestine

"The report is exhaustive in listing the relevant university codes and guidelines, including the Student Code For Non-Academic Conduct, which recognizes freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, provided those occur lawfully, without harassment, discrimination, intimidation or violence."

"The review meticulously details examples of members of the Students for Justice in Palestine organization engaging in intimidation and violence, in breach of that code, but Benotto's subsequent conclusions have been redacted."

"The published report includes Benotto's statement that TMU must be prepared to enforce its codes of conduct consistently, but the published version redacts her finding that those codes were broken repeatedly."

John Ivison, Investigative Journalist, National Post

 

"Your analysis fundamentally misinterprets the facts, leading to conclusions that are demonstrably incorrect."

"The measures are necessary to ensure that established processes can proceed fairly and appropriately, without compromising the rights of those involved."

"We will not compromise the integrity of ongoing proceedings by disclosing information that must remain confidential."

Toronto Metropolitan University, rejoinder to journalistic scrutiny 

Have questions about the external review or the university's next steps? Explore our answers to common inquiries. Toronto Metropolitan University

 

A review was undertaken by retired justice Mary Lou Benotto at the request of Toronto Metropolitan University, seeking to respond to criticism that it has permitted antisemitism to permeate its hallowed halls of learning, without taking any steps to put a stop to the propaganda, harassment of Jewish students and violent verbal expressions and actions seemingly condoned by some university faculty members by Students for Justice in Palestine, at the university.

 

Justice Benotto investigated the antisemitic incidents and produced a fairly exhaustive report, one that constituted a damning indictment of the policies of the TMU administration in failing to support breaches of its own code-of-conduct policies. The university administration responded by redacting the review that concluded with the observation that absence of clear enforcement of its own code contributed to tension escalation at the university through rampant expressions and incidents of antisemitism.

 

Instead of addressing the report and releasing it, the administration of the university decided to appoint another investigation to take place; in essence investigating the conclusion of the initial investigation. To that end, TMU president Mohamed Lachemi and his staff appointed former Ontario NDP premier Bob Rae as chairman of an implementation task force to study the Benotto review and produce a report of their own on that review by the following spring.

 

The task force membership includes a number of faculty members of the university along with others who have heretofore expressed opposition to one of the key recommendations of the Benotto report: adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's definition of antisemitism. TMU must also be prepared, according to the Benotto report, to enforce its codes of conduct consistently. The Benotto report concludes that by establishing clear behavioural expectations to be enforced adequately TMU could solve its problem. 

 

Two events drew Justice Benotto's attention in her appraisal of the situation at TMU; one of which was Students for Justice in Palestine disrupting a Democracy Forum panel discussion on artificial intelligence where their operatives shouted "war criminals", "baby killers" and "murderers" at attendees, forcing the event to be cancelled. When a number of the activists were arrested, the protesters accused the police of "brutalization". Another incident off-campus sponsored by Students Supporting Israel was broken into by SJP protesters shouting accusations of "Zionist murderers"; the event cancelled, violence causing some hospitalizations and a few arrests. 

 

 

 

"Freedom of speech is not an unlimited right", stated Judge Benotto in her finding of a deeply polarized camps environment that emerged following the Palestinian terrorist attacks that took place in southern Israel on October 7, 2023. The university's Faculty for Palestine, listed as being present at the September 2025 protest, involves themselves by sending their students out to volubly protest and get arrested whereupon the professors claim the students are penalized for the simple act of protesting. 

 

Also in the review are references to faculty members denying or minimizing the Holocaust while leading discussions on how much violence is justified in support of the activities of supporting Palestine. TMU's sociology department issued a statement criticizing the university for the "systematic silencing of Palestinian and Arab students". A message from F4P in support of the pro-Palestinian student protests was circulated by the TMU faculty association which declined to distribute a response from a member of the Jewish Employees Community Network.

 

Should it ever come to this pass, the Ontario government recently announced its intention to cut operational funding to institutions failing to address racism and hate. The TMU efforts to place the Benotto report high up on a shelf, undisturbed until the next century might just qualify for that special attention and defunding.

 

Anti-Israel protesters hold a rally against Toronto Metropolitan University on April 30, 2024. Photo by Peter J. Thompson/National Post

 

Wikipedia: "Our Standards of Neutrality"

"Art workers across so-called-Canada demanding cultural institutions divest from settler colonialism and genocide."

"[Stop Art Washing] is hosting a Wikipedia 101 session [with] hands-on editing [on October 22 at an undisclosed location]."

"[The purpose of the event is] to populate Wikipedia entries honouring martyred Palestinian artists and exposing the Canadian, Zionist backers of genocide."

 "Against attempts to erase Palestinian martyrs and conceal the Imperialist perpetrators of Israel’s genocide, this Wiki Edit-a-Thon remedies the narrative, towards Palestinian liberation."

Stop Art Washing 

Canadian group hosts Wikipedia “Edit-a-Thon” to honor Palestinian artists                     Roya News

 

Yet another anti-Zionist group in Canada to be heard from. Palestinians and their groupies just cannot think up schemes fast enough to satisfy their rapacious appetite for celebrating Palestinians' penchant for terrorism and their insalubrious joy at any opportunity to take credit for originating everything that the world ever depended upon to advance toward prosperity and comfort as authentic Palestinian initiatives. The one Palestinian initiative that few care to imitate or take possession of is their pathological drive to prove how courageous their death-cult is.

 

That even as they everlastingly boast of their victimhood to  elicit empathy from those who are quick to have their inner core of Jew-hate elevated to a 'just cause', they take pride in their devotion to the goal of killing Jews in Israel while in the West where they migrate to infiltrate socially, academically, as noble victims of Israeli colonialist-grabbing land claimed by Palestine as their own with no historical or ancestral attestation other than that which identifies it as the traditional heritage of Judea, they claim indigeneity is theirs, not that of Jews. 

 

What a novel idea, to use Wikipedia as a platform to celebrate the courage and honour inherent in suicide bombing by lone martyrs, or swarms of Palestinian terrorists streaming in their thousands into Israel from Gaza in an organized bedlam of savage bestiality to maim and to rape, burn entire families alive in their homes, raze farming villages, looting and shooting as they race toward the next unaware civilian enclave to destroy the lives of children, their mothers and grandparents. What courage that takes!

 

Instagram

 

 Now the advertising of a training session to prepare avid Jew-haters for the practical work of using and abusing Wikipedia's popular influence on the unwary and the trusting to present the nobility of mass murderers as victims of Islamophobic Jews whose mission in life is solely to destroy the presence of Palestinians in a fell swoop of genocide is underway. The plan to flood Wikipedia with these special entries to persuade the undecided that they too can aspire to raving lunacy on the platform is set to go.

 

Needless to say Wikipedia, considering itself a reliable purveyor of facts and statistics for the purpose of educating and informing, has policies in place for the platform not to be defiled as "a soapbox, a battleground, or a vehicle for propaganda". All content, it insists, must be composed and presented from a strictly neutral point of view; say for example, how the BBC and the CBC present news coverage of the Middle East; 'just the facts, Ma'am'... 

 

Coverage on Wikipedia of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in the wake of the atrocities committed by Palestinian terrorists in southern Israel on 7 October 2023 "has surged significantly". Leading to "criticism from advocates on both sides for perceived bias". Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, was asked about an entry on the "Gaza genocide" described as an "ongoing, intentional and systematic destruction of the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip carried out by Israel". 

 

His response was that "It needs to change. I think it's just terrible. It doesn't live up to our standards of neutrality, and I think it's very problematic." Earning the ire of the very 'unbiased' composers of the page in question. No fewer than 27 unbiased writers contributed to a Wikipedia page on the genocide case against Israel lodged by South Africa at the International Court of Justice. Researchers in their turn identified "patterns of anti-Israel bias among power-user editors". 

"Alarming patterns of bias [revealed] that can cascade through the digital information ecosystem, infecting everything from search engine results to academic citations to social media posts and even AI training data."

Research analysis  

Toronto Scoop

 

 

 

PM Mark Carney's Trade Fixation Wisdom

"[China's theft of western intellectual property amounts to a] lost generation of prosperity [for Canada]."

"Not to overhype it, but there is the reality that all of your data -- what you say, where you go, with whom you are, who you associate with, everything to do around your car -- will be acquired by China."

"It is not a question for me, it is a reality."

"You need to have more than your eyes wide open; you need to also make sure that you're protecting your wallet in your back pocket."

"The amount ... of intellectual property that has been taken away from the West, from Great Britain, from Canada, the United States is essentially a lost generation of prosperity. It's not the amount of job losses in our society now, but also in the future."

"Any new information innovation technology that comes into China is looked at through the prism of 'Can we industrialize it to make to create jobs and opportunities', but also, is there a way to weaponize it to essentially give new capabilities to the People's Liberation Army." 

Former head, Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) David Vigneault 

Chinese-made Geely E5 SUV electric vehicle at the International Paris Motor Show on Oct. 12, 2026. Photo by Ludovic Marin/AFP via Getty Images

 

Canada's Liberal Prime Minister Mark Carney found it politically expedient to appeal to China for trade deals in an attempt to offset some of the trade damage imposed on Canada though U.S. President Donald Trump's imposition of crushing tariffs on an entire range of critical Canadian goods and services. The Free Trade agreement that Mr. Trump had signed in his previous administration extolling it as a 'good deal' for the U.S. has been eviscerated by that same Mr. Trump who claims his intention of forcing bankruptcy on Canada to make it into a 51st U.S. state.

 

The brilliant Mark Carney made a deal with the devil to save Canadian GDP from the ravages of a formerly friendly neighbour, driving the country toward a different kind of colonization, this time by a colossus of consumer-goods-production like none other, working zealously to bring the entire world into a state of dependence on Chinese-produced manufacturing and advanced technologies garnered by the Chinese Communist Party in Beijing's cyber-tentacles and student and foreign worker infiltration abroad skilled at espionage and lifting industrial/scientific and government intellectual properties.

 

Entry by Chinese-manufactured electric vehicles into Canada will set loose another enterprise-acquisitive facet of Beijing's -- the focus on private individual data put to whatever use in assessing social systems, customs, proclivities, current events and any kind of minutiae that might conceivably be of any use in understanding, manipulating, coercing, convincing, or leading foreign populations in a direction useful to the CCP as it goes about routinely and covertly offering its services to all that fail to suspect their enterprising purpose.

 

Mr. Vigneault's focus is the entry of Chinese-made electric vehicles and the software it is loaded with, including the capability to transmit back to Chinese investigators all manner of data which in aggregate might prove to be useful to the intelligence agencies and the military with which they are integrated for future use in some unknown but possibly malign purpose. Among the Five Eyes intelligence chiefs concern is being expressed about those electric vehicles made in China. But former CSIS chief Vigneault's is the first to voice his expert misgivings from a Canadian perspective plainly and publicly.

 

Mark Carney's interest in arranging potential joint-venture Chinese EV manufacturing to Canada to replace U.S. automakers leaving under pressure from the U.S. president is not viewed with favour by Mr.Vigneault from his intelligence perspective. It is, in fact, a careless, dangerous folly. Yet in  his zeal to increase trade with China, preparing to lower tariff levels, some 50,000 Chinese EVs are set to enter Canada on an annual basis. "To make Canada a leader in electric vehicle manufacturing, we're working to attract significant new joint-venture Chinese investments", Mr. Carney stated in unheeding triumph.

 

In its wholesale acquisitive greed, Beijing has passed a law that all Chinese companies and individuals whether in China itself or based and living abroad have a lawful obligation to work on China's behalf to aid and assist its operatives in espionage operations and in acquiring by stealth and any means conceivable, the intellectual property of governments, industries, research facilities, viral-medical laboratoties and academic institutions that might further Chinese enterprise. Such furtive stealth has exacted its toll in Canada in the past, where industrial secrets of successful corporations in Chinese hands have undercut and ruined all future prospects for the original corporation forced out of business through Chinese uncompetitive strategies.

 

In his address last week in London, speaking to the BBC, Mr. Vigneault added his concerns over the pathological rise of antisemitism globally, mentioning in particular that anti-Jewish, anti-Israel terrorists radicalized by ignorance in Canada are threatening the Canadian Jewish community. What he either diplomatically or through political awareness failed to make note of in his comments was that Canada's careless immigration process, refugee intake, and acceptance of migrants from the Middle East and North Africa have imported their venomous brand of traditional Jew-hate as baggage with which they have been able to turn a flicker of antisemitism into a raging-blazing-hot furnace. 

Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel demonstrators are seperated by police in Montreal, on Wednesday, Oct. 7, 2026. (Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press)

"With Israel, you can absolutely disagree with policies. Unfortunately, I've seen some of the more extreme groups recuperate some of the legitimate angst against those policies and turn that into antisemitism."

I've seen that in terrorist attacks in my country, in Canada, where people who honestly have no idea what they're talking about, but the radicalization online essentially brings them ... to become anti-Semite."

Former CSIS head, David Vigneault 

They Should Be Ashamed: Mass Global Suicidal Empathy

"Canada intends to recognize the State of Palestine at the 80th Session of the United Nations General Assembly in September 2025."

"This intention is predicated on the Palestinian Authority's commitment to much-needed reforms, including the commitments by Palestinian Authority President Abbas to fundamentally reform its governance, to hold general elections in 2025 in which Hamas can play no part, and to demilitarize the Palestinian state."

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney

 

"I recognize the legitimate concerns regarding Israeli co-operation access to polling stations, and the integrity of the electoral process, particularly in Gaza."

These are serious challenges, but they must be addressed rather than used to justify another indefinite postponement of Palestinian democracy."

"I am therefore appealing to you to intervene personally and urgently with President Abbas, together with Canada's international partners, to ensure that the Palestinian Authority honours its commitment to hold elections."

Sameer Sinijlaw, head, New Path (Masar Jadid) political movement 

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is seen last month in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Palestinian elections set for next month have been delayed by a year. (Mahmoud Illean/The Associated Press)

 

"[We] deeply regret Abbas' decision to postpone elections scheduled for November 28]."

"Credible elections are an important element of the commitment that President Abbas and the Palestinian Authority made to reform, including democratic renewal and accountable governance, and are in line with the July 2025 New York Declaration."

"Strengthening Palestinian governance is essential to continue building the institutional foundation of a viable two-state solution, which is the only path to lasting peace and security for both Israel and Palestine.

"[The undersigned will] continue to support efforts to deliver on these elections."

Foreign Ministers of Australia, Canada, France, U.K. 

 

"While the Canadian government pursues punitive measures and sanctions against Israel, it must demonstrate that the Palestinians will also be held accountable for failing to honour their commitments and undermining the prospects for peace."

"Yet the Canadian government offers no indication of what consequences the PA will face, while suggesting that Israel is somehow to blame." 

Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs  

Israeli medics and volunteers treat the injured at the site of a Palestinian suicide bombing in Jerusalem, Israel. (credit: GETTY IMAGES)

 

When Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas announced a week earlier that the scheduled November 28 Palestinian elections, about two decades overdue, would be postponed to September 2027 as a result of "obstacles posed by Israeli measures" that would interfere with the "free, fair and inclusive elections", he was simply acting true to form. The last election, held in 2006, demonstrated the popularity of Hamas among Palestinians, enabling it to take majority rule of Gaza. Since then, Hamas has grown even more popular among Palestinians, and the Palestine Authority president more unpopular.

 

Western countries supporting Palestinian statehood urge a democratic election take place, one that does not include the terrorist Hamas group. But in trusting Palestinians to elect their politicians to reflect the values of a civilized society those same Western democratic countries reveal their ignorance of the Palestinian voting psyche. Immediately following the gruesome mass rapes, mutilations, slaughter and hostage-taking of 7 October 2023, the majority of Palestinians both in Gaza and the West Bank approved of the mass carnage that took place in southern Israel. Given the chance they would vote overwhelmingly for Hamas.

 

Mahmoud Abbas, whose Fatah-led administration's school curricula teach young Palestinians that the Jews living next door are their implacable enemies, prepared to liquidate them, not merely oppress them -- urge their children to dedicate their futures to the extermination of Israel, that in engaging in missions to murder Jews they guarantee themselves a place in Paradise. Those that do commit crimes against humanity in Israel are guaranteed a place of honour and a lavish salary from the PA's Martyr's Fund, popularly called its "pay for slay" fund. These are the neighbours that France, the U.K., Canada, Spain and Ireland feel Israel should accommodate itself with.

 

"Israeli measures" that so irritate the  Palestinian Authority include the pressing, ever-present need to remain militarily vigilant in the prevention of suicide attacks against Israelis. Before the separating wall between Israel and the territories and the several Intifadas, the murders perpetrated by Palestinian terrorism on Jewish Israelis kept mounting. That vigilance against further and future such attacks against Israeli civilians is interpreted by Mahmud Abbas as 'occupation'. By a nation unable to trust its neighbour, knowing that once its guard is relaxed, it becomes an invitation for mass slaughter.

 

When Samer Sinijlaw wrote to Canada's Mark Carney to appeal to him to 'do something' about the postponed election, he was writing to a leader of a country which has never been in the unenviable position of having its intelligence services, military and police on constant duty to ensure that any dire plots of mass murder are nipped before they become reality, and living with the knowledge that they cannot possibly stop all such plans and there will be those that succeed. From afar, leaders like PM Carney posit their simple solutions.

 

Protesters march during a pro-Palestine demonstration in London, May 16, 2026. (AP Photo/Thomas Krych)

 

To the perennially threatened these are not solutions, but risible black humour unworthy of world leaders whose neutrality in recognizing an established civil nation with values and laws like their own in a democratic union with its people that include not only Jews, but a significant number of Arabs, Druze, Bedouin, Christians, Kurds, B'hai and others with full citizenship rights. In choosing to abandon the human rights of this civilization by viewing those who continually threaten its existence by mass violence with equal consideration, these world leaders betray their own commitment to human rights, the rule of law and international civil and social mores to an underlying suspicion, if not enmity toward Jews and the Jewish state.

 

Continuing to support a Muslim fundamentalist aspiring state that rejects the presence of a different ethnic and social, cultural and religious group legitimately existing on its ancestral land hoping for peace with all its neighbours, and succeeding with a growing number, the Western leaders who decry Israel's reaction to mass slaughter of its citizens as 'disproportionate' and make use of language totally out of context with the reality of a forced invasion, betray both a lack of conscience and a subliminal distrust and dislike of the very qualities that the Palestinians reject and plot murder against. 

 

Their attitudes, statements and  deliberate isolation of Israel, their voting patterns in the United Nations General Assembly, and their tolerance for the demeaning of a nation and its people is shocking yet predictable, as a reflection of the world's most ancient pathology. That very attitude is transmitted to their own general publics which sense the censure and adapt it as their own. That the West has been suffused in the past several decades with waves of immigrants, refugees and migrants from the Middle East and North Africa leading to a surge of Muslims living in the West, bringing with them their own traditions of Jew-hate, compounds the issue of growing global antisemitism. 

 

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas announced Oct. 10, 2026, that elections will be postponed, again. (Screenshot State of Palestinian website)

 

"Postponing these elections would undermine precisely those Palestinians who are working to build a credible, peaceful political alternative."

"For the sake of our children, I ask Canada to stand firm. They deserve accountable leadership, a voice in their future, and a reason to believe that peaceful political change is possible."

Samer Sinijlaw, Palestinian New Path 

Forewarned Is Forearmed -- Or Is It?

"[Threats to such facilities mark a] major shift [in] Iranian ambitions to come at harder targets like military sites."

"[The suspected plot against the Royal Air Force Fairford base, on September 27 was] not unique. [There have] been other examples [of similar threats to installations] not just in the U.K. but around the world -- most particularly in Iran's own region." 

"[Iran has been forced to rely on] hiring criminals to do their bidding [in Britain and Europe]." 

"Given what we've seen in practise, [Iran has not demonstrated] anywhere near the level of capability [to launch a sophisticated attack on British military bases or other installations]."

"Since I started in this role in 2020, there has been another generational shift. We have again entered a new era of national security – requiring a new response."  

MI-5 Director-General Ken McCallum 

 

"[We will] keep threatening U.S. and Israeli interests worldwide until we've avenged every child in Gaza, Iran, Lebanon, and the resistance nations." 

"[People should] stay away from Zionist and American interests." 

Iran proxy group Harakat Ashab al-Yamin al-Islamia — or The Islamic Movement of the Companions of the Righteous (IMCR)

Director General of MI5 Ken McCallum speaks at Thames House, the headquarters of the U.K.'s Security Service in London, Tuesday Oct. 13, 2026. (Jonathan Brady/PA via AP, Pool)

 

In its yearly update to dangers facing the United Kingdom and its allies, MI-5's director-general laid out his agency's most pressing concerns among which was the plot uncovered a month earlier as an example, against a British airbase, as forming a scheme plotted by the Islamic Republic of Iran to mount unattributed attacks by in situ groups infiltrating the U.K. and acting as agents for Iran. The attacks have struck high-security targets such as military sites and intelligence facilities. 

 

"The intensity and scale and shape" of the threat emanating from Iran is "shifting at the moment". The linkage reflects fallout from the U.S.-Israel war on Iran seven months earlier, motivating Iran and its Republican Islamic Guard Corps to focus on threatening and attacking American allies. The annual address on security threats included Mr. McCallum's security assessment that Russia "remains aggressor No. 1" against Britain and its allies which links to European support for Ukraine during Russia's now-five-year 'special military operation'. 

 

In recognition of the prevalence of the threats and the nature of the attacks, MI-5 saw the necessity of forming a dedicated new intelligence group linked to the agency meant to focus on potential threats that may in time become a more dire threat not only to the region, but beyond. Advances in artificial intelligence that take into account the possibility of chemical or biological weapons manufacturing guided by AI, and their potential use as instruments of warfare. 

 

Police patrol the perimeter of RAF Fairford as a U.S. Air Force Rockwell B-1 Lancer bomber lands Sept. 28.  Ben Birchall / Press Association via Getty

 

"[Iran has demonstrated that it is] keen on subcontracting its U.K. violence … using criminal proxies to try to intimidate oppositionists, Iranian media organizations, and Israeli sites."

"Sadly, much of this aggression has been aimed at British Jewish communities, with whom I want to express solidarity." 

The interrupted plot against the Fairford airbase is still under investigation by British counterterrorism police. Its occurrence saw the United States evacuate the dozen B-1 bombers it had stationed at the airbase. Recent weeks saw some seven suspects arrested, including five British citizens who were detained soon after midnight on September 27 and subsequently released on bail. The five were in three vans travelling toward the base perimeter, used by U.S. bombers in their strikes on Iran. A nearby farmer was alerted to their suspicious presence and informed police.

 

This was an apprehended incident marking a departure from more recent years' pattern where Iran has been linked to lower-level proxy attacks recruited online to engage in sabotage, arson or stabbings, many of which targeted Jewish communities. Over 50 arrests have been made in the past year in "Iran-linked operations", stated Mr. McCallum. These activities are known to have taken place as well in Canada where Iranian-linked criminals were hired to disrupt life and target Jewish institutions.   

"Many terrorists would dearly love to have some kind of capability with bio, chem or radiological weaponry."

"[If guardrails meant to safeguard the spread of AI fail to gain complete control, a risk presents that] AI could generate novel pathogens not previously seen."

"[A new MI-5] threat centre [was created this year with an aim to focus on such dangers]."

MI-5 Director-General Ken McCallum  

It seems clear enough that what cannot be predicted and what has become a publicly-aired dilemma over increasingly alarming news being released from among the Artificial Intelligence community that bots are striking out on their own -- deliberately taking steps to shield their activities from the notice of their human trainers to plot among themselves and act in swarms disrupting communications while managing to escape the guardrails meant to confine them -- is becoming an entirely new threat on its own. 

 

According to Mr. McCallum, the technology is "supercharging the cybersecurity contest between attackers and defenders". His concern and that of his agency is that AI could enable terrorist networks or state adversaries in the acquisition of  unconventional and extremely toxic and potent weapons that the world must now contemplate contending with. Much, much simpler to deal with challenges posed by state actors in their supercharged yet hard-to-pin-down efforts at world domination.

 

The world is faced with the trifecta of China's and Russia's ambitions on the world stage to prove themselves contenders for the position of superpowers, and the theist-motivated fundamentalism of Islamist conquest exemplified by the Islamic Republic of Iran and its proxy terrorist groups to fundamentally alter the world's religious, cultural, social, judicial, academic and human rights normalcy from the contemporary struggling against the worldwide threat of infiltration and Muslim population density power of institutional alteration of Western democracy.  

"[Russian military and intelligence services] are once again escalating their attempts at hybrid warfare, [while being careful not to trigger NATO’s Article 5 threshold, in which other countries would be expected to defend their allies]."

"We see them scrambling to pay criminals to do their bidding. The whole aim of hybrid tactics is to try to intimidate us."

"[Within the U.K.’s] multifaceted relationship with China [— Beijing is a major trading partner to London — MI5 has been focused on efforts by the Chinese government] to conduct espionage, coercion or democratic interference."

MI-5 Director-General Ken McCallum  

Police officers at Leipzig Airport in Saxony, Germany, search for a drone Aug. 7. Sebastian Willnow / dpa via AP

 

Canada's Idea of Protected 'Free Speech' ... the U.K. and U.S. Reality of Terrorist Entities

"Palestine Action Canada targeted GeoSpectrum Technologies in Peterborough."

"[GeoSpectrum's site is] not just a design and testing facility for 'maritime surveillance and exploration' systems; it is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Elbit Systems, Israel's largest weapons manufacturer."

"There is no company that profits more off of the genocide of Palestinians." 

Palestine Action Canada Instagram post 

A video provided by a group claiming to be Palestine Action Canada showing red paint being splattered on the entrance to GeoSpectrum Technologies Inc. on Whittington Drive in Peterborough in the early morning hours of October 12, 2026. (kawarthaNOW screenshot)

An Ontario business in Peterborough, Ontario has been vandalized, leading the Peterborough Police Service to investigate the event as a hate crime. Not too big a stretch of the imagination, since an anti-Israel group that has been outlawed in the United Kingdom under their terrorism laws, has quite publicly claimed credit for splashing red paint on  the building exterior of GeoSpectrum Technologies Inc. The company specializes on producing underwater acoustic systems, is headquartered in Nova Scotia, with a facility in Ontario.

Contacting the police, a concerned Peterborough resident informed them that there was "red paint and writing" on the building. On arrival at the site, police found damage on the building exterior, and further inspection revealed damage to a communication box on the GeoSpectrum property. The Peterborough Police Service brilliantly deduced that GeoSpectrum might have become a target as a result of its being a subsidiary of Elbit Systems, an Israeli defence technology company. 

A video posted on Instagram by Palestine Action Canada was proud to take responsibility for the damage inflicted on the property they connect to Israel's military-production establishment. In the video a masked individual is shown cutting wires in a dark room, a flashlight illuminating the scene of the crime. Additional footage is that of a masked man standing beside the entrance of a building splashing red paint on its front. 

A video provided by a group claiming to be Palestine Action Canada showing a masked individual interfering with unidentified equipment in the early morning hours of October 12, 2026. Peterborough police said an outdoor communications box was damaged at GeoSpectrum Technologies Inc. on Whittington Drive in Peterborough. (kawarthaNOW screenshot)

Blame is cast by the anti-Israel group on Canada for its purported role in support of the parent company of GeoSpectrum. "And our own settler-colonial state, so-called Canada, trades, buys and invests in Elbit. We will not stop until Palestine is free!" concludes the post. Or until they are brought to account, as a terrorist entity operating illegally in Canada. 

This is not the first and only time that Palestine Action Canada acted against a Canadian company it claims has connection to the Israeli defence industry. The group claimed responsibility for targeting a manufacturer in Concord, north of Toronto, when Dishon Limited was also vandalized. The activities of this  group have prompted calls on the federal government to recognize Palestine Action Canada as a terrorist entity and designate it as such under the Criminal Code.

The federal government was called on to designate the group for what it is, through a House of Commons e-petition that closed in September. The July event that involved Dishon Limited was presented in the petition as evidence of the campaign of direct action -- violent action -- against businesses in Canada, Palestine Action Canada operating as a terrorist group in Canada. 

"The appropriate authorities have been notified, and we are working with them as we assess the extent of the damage", a spokesperson for GeoSpectrum confirmed, in validating the occurrence of the vandalism, courtesy of the Palestine Action Canada group. Jewish advocacy group B'nai Brith Canada urged the federal government in May to take action against the group following its release of a map of locations to "target", citing ties to Israel, within Canada.

Source: Facebook

According to the U.S. Department of the Treasury, Palestine Action "has supported numerous acts of terrorism since July 2020". Sanctions were issued against the group in the United States. Canadian authorities are in no great hurry to sanction the group that has clearly committed violent criminal activities, threatening even greater such unlawful actions crying out for arrests, and judicial proceedings including both prison sentences and deportation when appropriate. 

 

 

 

Indigenous Female Victims ... Indigenous Male Victimizers

"Indigenous people find themselves disproportionately and excessively imprisoned, while Indigenous women and girls suffer from unacceptably high levels of violence and abuse."

"The lessons of the sentencing circle are more than just a source of factual information relevant to a fit sentence, but are key to understanding the Indigenous perspective on sentencing..."

"What is required is that a sentencing judge reasonably engage with the perspectives expressed in the sentencing circle in crafting a fit and appropriate sentence."

Supreme Court decision 

The landmark judgement, R. v. Cope, concerns a Mi’kmaw man from Nova Scotia who pleaded guilty after violently assaulting his intimate partner, a Mi’kmaw woman, in 2021. (File photo)

 

The Supreme Court of Canada has twisted itself like a pretzel to find the halfway point between holding an Indigenous male guilty for his criminal acts, while being aware at all times that Indigenous people are incarcerated for crimes in disproportion to their numbers in society and generally granted lighter punishment. One cannot merely draw the obvious opinion that Indigenous men are more disposed to criminal acts than the general society, for it is deemed to be racist, without considering the effect that 'colonialism' has had on the Indigenous psyche.

 

At the same time, to hand out lighter sentences to Indigenous males for their propensity toward violence against Indigenous women holds males to lesser account, while victimizing the women they threaten, abuse and murder. This kind of male behaviour to their female counterparts also cannot be construed as a cultural default since this too is racist and one must again consider the generational trauma suffered by Canada's Indigenous population as a whole as a result of colonization and the effect of residential schools which separated Indigenous children from their families and tribes in an effort to provide them with an education analogous to what every Canadian child received in the public school system.

 

The Supreme Court has recently sat with the intention of resolving competing judicial imperatives in addressing Indigenous over-incarceration and the high rates of violence committed by males of Indigenous descent against Indigenous women; where both victim and victimizer are Indigenous, in a search for a Solomonic solution. There were 22 intervener groups that included three provincial attorneys-general, First Nations and Indigenous organizations, law groups, and human rights, civil liberties and constitutional advocacy organizations. All presumably putting their collective brains to work out a just response to a vexing problem.

 

The Supreme Court justices at a ceremony to mark the opening of the judicial year, at the Supreme Court of Canada in Ottawa, Oct. 5, 2026. Photo by David Kawai/Postmedia

 

In the end, the justices that comprise the Supreme Court -- nine in number -- were split five to four in their recently released decision. The majority opinion set a framework that judges are to follow in situations of this nature. As, for example, the 2021 case of Harry Arthur Cope who attacked his common-law partner in Halifax on a public sidewalk where he repeatedly struck the woman. When police arrived, her face was swollen and bloody, she having suffered severe injuries to her face and upper torso.

 

At the man's 2023 sentencing following his guilty plea to aggravated assault after court heard he had severe mental health challenges, no longer took medications and consumed illicit drugs the complications were duly recognized. Mr. Cope also had a significant criminal record. Provincial Court of Nova Scotia Judge Christine Driscoll ordered an Indigenous Background Report. According to a First Nations' sentencing circle it was the opinion of community members that more incarceration would not help Cope, recommending instead in-patient treatment.

 

Duly considering Cope's background, Judge Driscoll, weighing special factors from the victim's perspective, rejected the proposal for a conditional sentence and decided to sentence the man to five years in prison. His sentence was then reduced to three years by the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal. That appeal decision brought the Cope case to the attention of the Supreme Court. 

 

The majority of Supreme Court judges upheld the appeal decision of a reduced sentence, while dissenting justices in the minority preferred the restoration of the trial judge's five-year sentence. According to the majority decision the sentencing judge should have adhered more closely to the mental heath factors to arrive at the offender's moral blameworthiness and in effect held she should have engaged with the input by the sentencing circle. 

 

According to the minority justice opinion, the original five-year sentence should be restored; that the sentencing judge appropriately considered the nature of the crime and the particular vulnerabilities of the victim, even as the judge had properly, as required by law, considered the circumstances of the offender, taking into account the compelling Gladue factors and Mr. Cope's mental illness. 

 

eStock Mark Bruxella

 

"In cases where an Indigenous offender commits an offence against his intimate partner who is an Indigenous woman, a sentencing judge must apply the principles related to both Indigenous offenders and victims of crime, and do so harmoniously to arrive at a just and proportionate sentence."  

"[The majority opinion said the sentencing circle process] will be relevant both to understand the availability of alternative sentencing options that may exist in the community, as well as the community perspective on the sentence that will best achieve the relevant sentencing objectives." 

Supreme Court Majority opinion