Roiling Friction in the Middle East

"[The security of the holy site is] a red line, [the kingdom]will not hesitate to take the necessary and deterrent measures [against the Yemeni group]."

"This hostile attempt will also remain a black mark in the record of violations by the extremist terrorist Houthi militia, as a deliberate act intended to provoke the feelings of millions of Muslims."

Turki al-Maliki, spokesperson, Saudi-led Coalition Forces 

 

"[Our targets were Saudi oil facilities and military bases] far removed from the holy places."

"The fabrications and lies propagated by the criminal Saudi regime regarding targeting Mecca cannot deceive anyone."

"There is no threat whatsoever from Yemen to the holy sites."

 Yahya Saree, Houthi military spokesman

 

"Any aggression against Islamic holy sites [would be considered] a condemned act [but] a mere claim of intercepting a drone en route to Mecca cannot constitute grounds for accusing a specific party."

"[The Houthis] explicitly denied [the attempted drone attack]."

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Esmaeil Baghaei

 

"[The conflict is on the] brink of further escalation and] dialogue and diplomacy remain the only sustainable path to peace." 

"There are no words sufficient to express the depth of pain and sorrow we feel toward this unforgivable and shameful deed."

Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif  

Aerial view of the Grand Mosque in Mecca during hajj, May 2026, Saudi Arabia. Saudi Press Agency/Reuters

 

"For the Houthis, as a religiously dominant organization, this would be catastrophic for them—to target Mecca. It’s a lose-lose for them."

"The Houthis are using drones and homemade missiles, so there is a real possibility that the Houthi drone basically misfired."

"[Saudi Arabia] is trying to say that the Houthis are not just waging a political and geo-economic war against them, they are trying to target the most sacred religious site in Islam, and that resonates deeply." 

"Both sides are now engaged not only in military hostilities, but also for the hearts and minds of Arabs and Muslims." 

Fawaz Gerges, professor in international relations, London School of Economics  

Yemen's Houthis were accused by the Saudi-led coalition of targeting the holy city of Mecca. The Muslim world exploded in outrage. Riyadh's statement that it had shot down a drone heading toward Mecca, was rejected as a 'lie' by the Houthis. Renewed violence between the Houthis and Yemen's internationally recognized government backed by Saudi Arabia has pulled both Saudi Arabia and the Houthis back into a conflict situation, with the Houthis once again blockading maritime shipment in the Red Sea, specifically targeting Saudi ships. 

 

The entire Red Sea coast of Yemen was seized a week earlier by the Houthis, along with the vital shipping artery for Saudi oil, the narrow Bab al-Mandab Strait, which Saudi Arabia had turned to as an alternative to the IRGC-blocked Strait of Hormuz as its preferred shipping route. This is not the first time the Houthis were accused of launching attacks toward Mecca, in an earlier conflict. Vowing retaliation, the Saudi coalition warned then that the security of holy sites represented a 'red line', and it has now been reiterated.

 

A commercial vessel is anchored off Yemen's coast at Bab al-Mandab, where Houthi militants have seized new islands, further threatening the world’s oil supply. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

 

During this year's pilgrimage a video was released by the Saudi defence ministry of advanced air defence batteries positioned on Mecca's outskirts, now home to a large number of security forces responsible for crowd control and security. The 57-member Organization of Islamic Cooperation condemned the "heinous attacks ... against the city of Mecca and the Madinah region", after Saudi Arabia issued brief alerts of potential attacks in Mecca and across parts of the south.

 

A wave of ballistic missile and drone attacks launched from Yemen, was the precursor of the alerts. The Houthis have controlled swaths of northern Yemen for years, and in July a large-scale offensive was launched against government forces. The Arabian Peninsula's poorest country has seen 82,000 Yemeni civilians flee their homes in the past month, according to the United Nations. The government, according to the UN Yemeni permanent representative, was fighting to restore "national institutions across every inch of their land", calling on the international community to take action against the Houthis.

 

Muslim pilgrims completing Hajj rituals at Islam's holiest site in Mecca, Saudi Arabia, on May 30, 2026.  Ali Atmaca—Anadolu via Getty Images

 

At the same time, Saudi Arabia and Egypt call for the Red Sea navigation freedom to be restored. Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman and Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi have jointly called for a unified move "ensuring the freedom and security of maritime navigation" through Hormuz and Bab al-Mandab, linking the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden.

 

It was reported in the U.S. media that the Saudi Crown Prince had personally requested that U.S. President Donald Trump intervene with U.S. forces, a request that was rejected. According to the Houthis, no threat exists to navigation in Bab al-Mandab other than for Saudi vessels. Nonetheless the prospect of potential attacks in the waterway will suffice to ensure its transit appears unattractive to shippers.

 

Meanwhile, disruption in the strait, where the Red Sea represents a gateway to the Suez Canal, which Cairo depends upon for critical foreign revenue is critically threatened, while Saudi Arabia will see its oil revenues collapse with no way to ship its oil to markets abroad, resulting once again in the rise of oil prices globally.  

 

 

Humanity-Hostile Militarization of Space

"The U.S. has on-orbit space control weapons capable of defending the Joint Force against hostile adversary action." 

"Space control encapsulates the mission area required to contest and control the space domain -- employing kinetic and non-kinetic means to affect adversary capabilities."

"These capabilities can be employed for offensive and defensive purposes." 

U.S. Space Force spokesperson

US Space Command has announced it has put weapons in space for the first time. (Reuters: US Space Command/Christopher DeWitt)

 

"[The] weaponization of outer space turning it into a battlefield, as well as an arms race there [must be avoided at all costs]."

"We urge the U.S. side to stop expanding its military capabilities and preparing for war in outer space."

Guo Jiakun, Foreign Ministry, China 

 

"[Space must be kept] free of any weapons."

"We are counting on broad international consolidation to continue working toward the complete demilitarization of space."

Dmitry Peskov, spokesman, Kremlin, Russia

The US Space Force's deployment will likely provoke other countries to follow suit, experts warn. (Reuters: Mike Blake

 

American authorities unceasingly portray China and Russia as aggressors worldwide. And the truth is, they have proven themselves to be just that, in their focus on territorial expansion and their willingness to author conflicts to gain their goals. Russia for the time being, more obviously prepared to declare war by any other descriptions which ends up killing tens of thousands of civilians and military alike. China's forte has been on the commercial side, with loans to developing nations for vital infrastructure, making for indebtedness, just as it has succeeded in becoming the global colossus of manufacturing, stripping it from the West, providing cheaper alternatives to a welcoming marketplace. 

 

Taiwan awaits the inevitable from China in Beijing's long march toward 'unification' where war is not ruled out to achieve its intentions. Although the United States has been the leader in space exploration, China has been close behind, landing a rover on the far side of the moon and acquiring valuable samples to answer astronomical questions of Earth's evolution even as the U.S. looks further into the universe to decipher its origins and creation. Russia was first in space exploration with Sputnik, falling behind ever since.

 

China is among the countries with its own space ambitions. (Reuters: China Daily)

 

International cooperation with the long-shared Space Station that temporarily housed both Russian and U.S. astronauts and scientific experiments, worked well as long as it lasted, but a resurgence in American pride and status as the world's sole superpower urges it forward continually to distinguish itself from its competitors seeking similar status and recognition. And then there is India which has also convincingly demonstrated that the world's most populous country is also capable of great scientific engineering feats in outer space.  

"The only difference is that the U.S. used to keep it ambiguous, whereas now it has gone public, which shows that Washington is no longer trying to hide it."

"China will not stand by and do nothing."

"Whether China deploys weapons in space will depend entirely on whether the United States moves in that direction."

Song Zhongping, independent military commentator, Hong Kong 

U.S. Space Force Guardians assigned to Space Delta 5 monitor computer workstations at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, U.S., December 18, 2025. U.S. Space Forces/David Dozoretz/Handout via REUTERS

 

The sensitive issue of the militarization of space is a troubling one. The very thought of these national powers developing the methodology and structures involved in producing space weaponry to challenge each other's military aspirations beyond the confines of Earth is bedeviling beyond measure, representing a failure of human willingness to respect parameters beyond which none should seek to venture. The executive branch of national politics and their elite military counterparts see no reason to curtail their ambitions.

 

That life on Earth will become more fraught with existential challenges while the heavens above are wracked with powerfully destructive weapons of mass annihilation, particularly at a time when artificial intelligence is being worked to contribute to the functions of design, manufacture, scheduling and  schemes of alpha conquest and control, risking at the same time the eventual autonomous devolution of AI estimating that humankind has failed its own test of humanity, and that it is time for a higher intelligence that is not human to make its mark, adds substantially to 'what could conceivably go wrong'.

 

A United Launch Alliance Atlas V rocket launches a classified payload for the United States Space Force at Cape Canaveral in Florida in 2024. Photograph: Joe Marino/UPI/REX/Shutterstock

 

Neither the advance toward the militarization of space, nor that which continues to further develop artificial intelligence capabilities beyond the capacity of human ingenuity to control can be of any benefit to humanity, and indeed has the potential to end humanity. That the United States of America under the controlling mind and hand of a a megalomaniac for whom caution is a difficult-to-spell word and a concept he will not recognize, as his whims and arrogance disrupt human relations and nation-to-nation coherence is no shrugging matter.  

"There is a regulatory vacuum because Article 4 of the 1967 treaty only forbids weapons of mass destruction and nuclear weapons in orbit."

"Moscow and Beijing have been wanting to work for about 20 years on a treaty to prevent the placement of weapons in space [while] western states are trying instead to work on the notion of responsible behaviour."

"The U.S. announcement will likely give impetus to the restrictive approach that Moscow and Beijing are pushing for." 

Laetitia Cesari, space law expert  

The US military's unmanned X-37B Orbital Test Vehicle, pictured at Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, the US in 2025. — Reuters/

 

Study: How the New York Times Framed the War Between Israel and Hamas

"I was not surprised by the direction of the findings but rather the magnitude. For example, the fact that Israeli military casualties were mentioned so infrequently and were not regularly tracked as part of the basic context of the reporting was a bit shocking to me. Likewise, the fact that two out of every three days had an article that mentioned a personal story of a Palestinian or Lebanese civilian suffering was more than I had anticipated."

"[I was] struck by the difference in the perception of the war. [How the] human element of the Israeli experience was missing in the mainstream U.S. media."

"[The Times largely depicts Israel as being the] sole aggressor [following the October 7 attack]."

"Palestinians are portrayed as passive victims whose suffering grows daily as they are relentlessly attacked by the Israeli military."

"[Framing the war in this context] offers a distorted view of the conflict." 

Edieal Pinker, Yale School of Management professor 

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa'ar holds up a copy of The New York Times as he speaks during a United Nations Security Council meeting at the United Nations headquarters on in New York City on August 5, 2025. (credit: MICHAEL M. SANTIAGO/GETTY IMAGES)

 

Making use of ProQuest as a research database to find articles, study author Edieal Pinker tagged and labelled them, and then organized them into categories. The eight-month research time-frame limited the study somewhat, with the criteria for identifying articles "almost certainly excluded some relevant" pieces, unlikely he felt, to have changed the reported statistics. The study, titled How the New York Times Framed the War Between Israel and Hamas, saw publication on September 7 in the journal Studies in Conflict & Terrorism. 

 

The study found fewer than four percent of the articles studied contained an "account of an Israeli's struggles post October 7", while there was a wealth of details surrounding accounts of Palestinians affected by the conflict. The study had no purpose to diminish the devastation wrought by the conflict in Gaza. It makes note of the tens of thousands of deaths along with "widespread destruction of housing and critical infrastructure and the internal displacement of large proportions of the Gaza population".

 

Professor Pinker contends that the media plays a highly influential role in the manner in which people view the Israel/Hamas war, alongside the news stories that shape public opinion. Understanding this, is to fully comprehend that the framing carries weight and is quite deliberately instructive in how the public ends up believing the matter should be solved.   

"[The imbalances in coverage] create sympathy for the Palestinian people while at the same time diminishing Hamas's responsibility for their situation and the continuation of the war."

"Only 52 articles overall [out of 1,559] make any reference to some dimension of Israeli suffering among the population that are not direct victims of October 7."

"[My goal is] not to prove or disprove the legitimacy of either of these framings [but to demonstrate and document that the] former framing fits [the Times' coverage]."

"This is important because, whether intentional or not, reinforcement of a specific framing of the war by prominent and respected news media can shape public opinion in a way that could interfere with conflict resolution."  

Study: How the New York Times Framed the War Between Israel and Hamas

The New York Times’ coverage of the first nine months of the war in Gaza showed bias against Israel, according to a new paper in the Studies in Conflict & Terrorism academic journal. REUTERS

 

 The framing of the war by the Times throughout the time frame analyzed patterned readers to view the solution to the war as simply having Israel stop or reduce its military operations in Gaza. Another narrative, points out the study, would be to consider that it is Hamas representing the problem. The terrorist organization has "the capability and intent to launch both large-scale rocket attacks on Israel's population centres and large-scale cross-border raids into Israeli towns on the Gaza border". Consequently in this case the remedy would be to support the Israeli mission to eradicate the Hamas threat. 

"I also want readers to be more aware of the Hamas agency in the conduct and prolonging of this horrible war."

Edieal Pinker, professor, Yale University  

The Times allegedly downplayed the deaths and destruction in Israel for months after the Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack. AFP via Getty Images

 

Unending Air Raid Alerts in Ukraine

"In many cities and communities, air raid alerts practically do not stop because of the threat of Russian jet-powered drone attacks."

"The Russians have found a new way to escalate, and they have no intention of slowing down."

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 

 

"Countermeasures against jet drones are ongoing."

"New drones have passed field tests The task is to scale production as quickly as possible."

Ukrainian Defence Minister Yevhenii Khmara

 

"There are no suburban trains, no metro."

"But it is much worse for patients, for whom medical care will become less accessible due to the inability to get to a doctor."

Kostyantyn Kuts, 39, neurologist, Boryspil  

Smoke rises in Kyiv, Ukraine, during a Russian drone strike on Aug. 31, 2026. (Gleb Garanich/Reuters)

 

The Kremlin's bombing strategy has been altered. Where at one time Moscow focused on night-time attacks, its decision to swarm  Kyiv with relentless barrages of drones throughout the day has resulted in no relief for residents of the capital at all. No longer are they able to go about normal daytime activities; school, work, shopping. The around-the-clock barrages has hampered 'normal' life for the three million people who reside in Kyiv.  

 

Public services have been interrupted, even as the risk of civilian casualties rises. Public morale is plummeting in anticipation of oncoming winter and the thought turns to Russia once again targeting the public energy grids making for an impossibly long winter of freezing interiors, dark rooms and crude cooking conditions. Moscow claims it is interested only in striking military facilities, and weapons depots while continuing to target apartment buildings and civil infrastructure.

 

Ukrainian authorities are fully expectant that Russia will increase the use of jet-powered drones. "We will certainly need to adapt. This will take time", admitted Pavlo Palisa, deputy chief of President Zelenskyy's office, acknowledging the fact that Ukraine has not yet reached the point of competence in countering those deadly drones. Entering its fifth year of conflict, Ukrainians can be forgiven for succumbing to war-mandated deprivation fatigue.

 

The situation has stagnated, with neither side making any progress on the battlefield, turning instead to striking deeper into the other's territory, for citizen demoralization and exacting a war toll of scarcity, in hopes of forcing the other side into negotiations. Businesses and warehouses on both sides have become targets in the latest air war tactics. The aim is to cripple the economy, fuel public discord and cause panic buying. 

 

While Ukraine has targeted Russian e-commerce giant Wildberries facilities and that of its competitor Ozon, following air strikes on oil refineries causing gasoline shortages, Russia has returned the compliment with attacks on the largest retailers in Ukraine where shortages of some products have resulted. Now, Russia has turned to jet-powered Shahed drones, faster than propeller-drive versions. 

 

The growing use of daytime drone waves has created a different kind of disruption for Kyiv residents, Times Union

 

The routine that had developed in Ukraine's cities during the times of nighttime attacks where the population emerged during the day to resume their lives has been completely upended. People are now forced to adapt to their new reality, living from one alert to the other, second-guessing walks and spending nights in subway stations deep underground, recalling the early days of the war. Even as regular attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure continue when water and electricity are cut off. 

 

Additional concerns have arisen over Russia's new tactic of hoarding ballistic missiles, switching over to jet-powered drones. That Moscow now stockpiles ballistic missiles to be unleashed in the winter months to destroy energy and heating infrastructure to make for fewer critical amenities available to residents once again this coming winter, is everyone's nightmare. Particularly in the face of Ukraine's interceptors shortage to stop ballistic missiles hitting their targets.

 

A man carries his bicycle as he past firefighters pushing out a fire following Russian missiles strikes in Kyiv early on September 8, 2026, amid the Russian invasion in Ukraine. (AFP)

  

"Every day now resembles the movie 'Groundhog Day', due to the number of alarms, explosions and descents into the basement."

"I, my mother and sister are fourth- and fifth-generation Kyiv residents."

"We will be in our land until the end."

Lika Modebadze, 18, high school student, Kyiv 

The Race To Build Superintelligence

"I believe that if slowing down bought us even an extra year or two before models reach critical levels of capability, and we use that time to advance alignment, we could greatly reduce the risk that something goes seriously wrong."

Dario Amodei, CEO, Anthropic

 

"Many of the people I know who work on safety research at AI companies want to do what is right for the world."

"But they feel their companies are trapped in a race to build superintelligence: either they stop and other, less conscientious people take their place; or, they continue, and risk participating in enormous harm themselves."

Joe Benton, former Anthropic employee

Dario Amodei, co-founder and CEO of Anthropic, is shown in San Francisco in November 2024. On Saturday, he warned that AI could be capable within six to 12 months of leading a swarm that could take over the entire internet. (Jeff Chiu/The Associated Press)

 

Within six to 12 months, warns Anthropic's CEO, artificial intelligence could be capable of leading a swarm of agents that could conceivably empower itself to control the entire internet, in the absence of the AI industry slowing down its swift development agendas to enable safety features to catch up with that runaway development. Concerns over AI continue to be magnified both within and without the industry as reports emerge of increasingly powerful systems capable of solving problems beyond human capacity.

 

That these powerful systems will be capable of carrying out their own threateningly harmful schemes seems to have reached a general consensus both within and outside the industry. The level of concern is palpable; that the CEO of OpenAI, responsible for Chat GPT revealed in an interview that his company is prepared to wait a year before selling stock to investors on Wall Street, reflects its development constraint, due to its focus on safety. 

 

Anthropic, according to Dario Amodei, as a leading AI voice, posted a plan on his website to increase critical checks on the industry.  He believes that although Anthropic is engaged in undertaking checks itself, others would benefit from across the board coordination with the entire industry, along with global governments. The AI industry has been urged for years by watchdogs to exercise due caution by decelerating their advances in AI. 

"Go ahead."

"I don't see what you see in the lab. If the unreleased models are scary enough that you think you should slow down, I support your decision to be responsible."

"[But] stop pretending you need anyone else's permission [to make such moves]."

David Sacks, co-chair of the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology  

Instagram

 

With the example of just how critical the situation is, that industry workers are resigning while accusing the companies they worked for, of acting irresponsibly by continuing to forge ahead despite safety concerns, the issue has gone well beyond mere cautious speculation of worst-case scenarios. The resignation last week by Jacob Coxon, expressing his frustration that both Anthropic and and Open AI "are racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives", saw the industry snap to attention.

 

Suspicious activities by untrustworthy sources were blocked by Anthropic earlier last week, in efforts to use its AI models for malicious activity, including cyberattacks, surveillance and research leading to biological weapons. Several months back, the industry was shocked when OpenAI revealed that its AI system had hacked into another company in an "unprecedented cyber incident" undertaken on its own initiative.  

"They've kind of realized, their employees have realized, everyone has realized that they're building Skynet."

"And in winning the race to Skynet, nobody wins. Really, nobody."

"It's pretty much become clear to the world and even the AI companies that they're not really prepared to control the AI systems they're racing to create."

Anthony Aguirre, president/CEO, Future of Life Institute 

Two AI experts are warning that AI is getting too smart, too quickly. One former employee accuses Anthropic and OpenAI of 'gambling with our lives.' A current Anthropic safety executive said he thinks there's a ten per cent chance AI kills all humans within a decade. CBCNews

Quebec's Anglophone-Punishing Language Laws

"It was a nightmare. An existential crisis."

"We don't get it. We don't get that there was no dialogue from day one. ... It's really strange."

"I will not say that personally that's my vision of the world but I perfectly respect that a duly elected democratic government can act pretty much however they want."

"LaSalle cannot be depicted as the institution threatening French on the Island of Montreal."

"[While I support protecting the French language] ... I refuse that LaSalle be instrumentalized for small politics like that."

"The first question that came to my mind is which organization or family business can afford to pay such a fine." 

Claude Marchand, director-general, LaSalle College, Montreal

Claude Marchand, president and CEO of LaSalle College, says the private Montreal college has been slapped with hefty fines it can't afford. The college is challenging them in a civil suit in Quebec's Superior Court. (LCI Éducation/Diego Iñiguez /Petr Tanko)

 

"It's uncomfortable to live in a place that is always sending you messages, in big ways and small ways that you are not welcome."

"If you read a headline that stated 'Government Shuts Down School for Accepting Too Many Minority Students', we as Canadians would probably be shocked and wonder in what oppressive regime this school is being shut down."

Merwie Garzon, mother of second-year LaSalle student  

Successive governments of the Province of Quebec have tied themselves into legislative knots of anguish over their perceived alarm to the dominance of French-language usage, seeing threats in the presence of Quebec Anglophones' use of English. One law after another has been enacted over the years to diminish the presence of English in the province, and to promote the use of French. From public signage that must see French dominate and English printed in smaller letters, to demands that businesses use French-only identity names, to mandating that French only must be used in government offices, minority English-speakers' rights have been inevitably decimated.

 

The province's language charter was altered in 2022 to ensure that French would be the only language of communication between government agencies and Quebecers; "a common denominator in the public sphere", according to the governing Coalition Avenir Quebec.  English-speaking Quebecers quailed in horror at the thought that hospital interfaces with patients would be in French only, denying English citizens their basic rights under federal law. For the  upcoming October 5 election, all election material provided to voters is in French only.

 

As a private college, LaSalle and others like it were required to ensure that their graduating students have at least three French-taught courses, outside the core common French language instruction courses. A strict quota was placed on the number of students taking English courses to ensure that as specified in law, a set proportion of all college students -- no more than 11.7 to 18.7 percent -- be taught in English. No transition period was offered before financial penalties would be imposed on violators.

 

LaSalle College students call for resumption of classes, in Montreal on Aug. 27, 2026 (Arthur Henault, CityNews)

 

Under this strict regimen, without a period of adjustment LaSalle College realized a temporary, two-year 'administrative imbalance' (since resolved) where it exceeded its 2023-24 quota by 715 students, and 1,066 by the following year. This allowed the government to levy fines to an extent to which LaSalle College was unable to pay. School shut-down seemed imminent through bankruptcy. 

 

Quebec Superior court Justice Martin Castonguay on September 4, ordered the province to pay the school its allocated subsidies, allowing the new year's classes to proceed, while extending the school's creditor protection, ordering the parties to return to court. The sole creditor is the province. So the school was given brief breathing room so that classes could proceed for the year. The problem, however is not resolved -- with the school continuing to face punitive fines of $30 million for excessive Anglophone education.

 

The school's students responded in the only way they could, by rallying at the school before a last-ditch court appearance, holding signs declaring "Studying is a right, save our education/our future", and "Laissez-nous etudier". "They're tied up in knots", explained Merwie Garzon, mother of a student who is 'furious' at the provincial government's discrimination against a linguistic minority in 'calculated' methods to manoeuvre the college's closure, "actively trying to drive out Anglophones".

 

La Salle College  Photo: LaSalle website

 

There are 400 employees at the school. The Marchand family founded the private college in 1962. Claude Marchand has been responsible for running La Salle for 18 years. He was left wondering whether the government would ever return his calls, or respond to settlement offers, a dozen to date. On the school's website can be found the declaration that it "finds itself abandoned by the very organization with which it has collaborated for more than 67 years"; the province. 

 

Currently, LaSalle College has fewer students studying in English than ever before, and fewer in their diploma programs. Yet they are being fined into bankruptcy because their anglophone class numbers exceeded the government quota. No clarity was offered by the government, Mr. Marchand's appeals went unanswered; there had been no response from government when he informed them in 2021that the college needed a transition period.

 

On June 28, 2024 the school was fined $8,781,740, and $21,113,864 a year later. This year, LaSalle managed full compliance with the quota system, as it had the year before, successfully managing its own transition. Although no added debt occurred with penalties imposed the last two years, the debt of the previous two years swelled to $50 million, which would place the college into bankruptcy. The college, said Mr. Marchand, could manage $20 million, but the two fines would break it. 

"[The fines are a] clawback, [the government is also fining twice for the same student over the last two years]."

"We don't have more students in those [English-taught] programs than in 2019 which is the ultimate spirit of the law."

"We're fully compliant for next semester and we have a public mission to serve all [our] 5,000 students and we want to keep going."

Claude Marchand, La Salle College 

LaSalle College was fined $30 million by the Quebec government for enrolling too many students in English-language programs between 2023 and 2025. It also needs to repay $17.9 million in provincial subsidies. (Christinne Muschi/The Canadian Press)

 

Canada, As Haven for Nazi War Criminals

"[The federal government had not met the] heavy onus [of showing that the release of additional information would harm Canada’s international relations]."

"A bald statement of ongoing 'tensions' between Canada and the United States is not a sufficient basis to refuse disclosure of very specific information related to efforts by the United States to resettle suspected Nazis and Nazi collaborators in Canada following World War II."

"[The decision to withhold the information was unreasonable and the records must now be disclosed]."

"[The study written for the Deschenes Commission concluded] inadequate security screening led to many perpetrators of Nazi war crimes entering Canada." 

Justice Simon Fothergill, Federal Court 

 

"All Canadians, should know that the parts of the [Deschenes] report that have been released indicate that our government colluded or even went as far as working at the direction of the United States to allow Nazi war criminals to enter Canada."

"And this is something that the government has seemingly tried to withhold from Canadians, and so decisions like this bring us just that little bit closer to understanding this whole story and enabling us as a society to learn from our mistakes and to heal from some of the trauma that they caused."

Richard Robertson, director of advocacy, B'nai Brith Canada   

Nuremberg trials...Top Nazi leaders faced war crimes trials after the Second World War but many others who took part in the Holocaust went unpunished. The Canadian government is examining whether to release a list of 900 alleged Nazi war criminals that was compiled in 1986 by the Deschênes Commission. PHOTO COURTESY OF THE U.S. NATIONAL ARCHIVES (RECORD GROUP 238 / NAID 540127), PUBLIC DOMAIN

 

Years ago the Central Intelligence Agency which was  responsible for operating the Nazi resettlement program, released the then-classified information for public scrutiny. Canada is only now catching up, after lobbying by Jewish groups that records be released, on an American initiative to settle Nazi war criminals and their collaborators in Canada. Following the Second World War, a U.S. program was developed to surreptitiously settle Nazi war criminals in Canada. And this could never have been accomplished without the knowledge and support of Canadian officials of the day.

 

These would be the very same 'Canadian officials' such as Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King and Canadian Immigration head F.C. Blair who felt that when it came to aiding Jews desperate to escape the Holocaust, it was considered that Jews were inherently 'inassimilable', leading to the infamous decision that "none is too many". Striking a familiar chord in the current Liberal government which considers it irrelevant whether its penchant for bringing in Muslims from 'inassimilable' cultures should limit their presence in Canada.

 

The federal government was  taken to court by Jewish advocacy group B'nai Brith when they received a censored copy of a report written on Nazi war criminals for the 1985 Deschenes Commission. The Rodal Report as the study was named, focused on a secret U.S. government program to have Canada bypass proper security screenings while  resettling Nazis and their collaborators in Canada at the behest of the American authorities. Refusal to release the documents under the Access to Information law, the Liberal government claimed the records would further do harm in relations between Canada and the U.S. at this time of tensions between the two.

 

U.S. intelligence agencies had recruited Nazis and Nazi collaborators mostly from eastern Europe, during their covert operations against the Soviet Union. Canada, concluded Justice Fothergill, according to his reading of the study, was reluctant to prosecute such war criminals entering the country. Long viewed as a haven for Nazis and their collaborators, including large numbers of Waffen SS soldiers, the Canadian position did indeed smack of collaboration, just as the Red Cross and the Catholic Church at the time aided Nazis to escape judgement for their crimes by providing them with passports that hid their links to war crimes.

 

Screenshot from a 1987 news report by CTV News—based on the information that was public at the time.

 

A number of monuments exist in Canada memorializing the Waffen SS. In the planning for the Victims of Communism Memorial in Ottawa, several hundred known or suspected Nazi collaborators were recommended to be engraved on the plaques before the Department of Canadian Heritage, faced with pushback, was forced to remove those names. The puzzle respecting why the Canadian government of the day agreed to the Nazi post-war resettlement might finally be solved, with the disclosure and openness of the contents of these signal documents.

 

The Ukraine SS volunteer unit has been denounced by both the Polish government and Jewish groups for its role in killing civilians and its involvement during the Second World War in Nazi-led massacres. A national uprising in Slovakia saw the Ukraine Waffen SS allied with the Nazis to crush that uprising. Ukrainian nationalists in Canada view those SS Ukrainian soldiers as heroes for fighting against the Soviet Union which had joined the Allies following the German invasion of Russia.   

"It is a scandal that, during a time when Canada maintained severe restrictions on Jewish immigration to this country, it facilitated the entry of perpetrators of Nazi crimes." 

"Canadians have a right to know the truth about not only Canada’s actions but the US’s covert efforts to sneak ex-Nazis into Canada after the Second World War."

Simon Wolle, Chief Executive Officer, B'nai Brith Canada 

The Federal Court of Canada has ordered the release of sections of a 1986 report that had previously been removed from its public version. The document concerns the post-Second World War resettlement in Canada of suspected Nazi war criminals and collaborators. UANews