The BDS Movement of Israel's 'Allies'

"[The situation in the West Bank is] rapidly deteriorating amid unprecedented levels of settler violence and settlement expansion, including the unacceptable decision to publish tenders for theE1 settlement project."

"[The Israeli government must] immediately halt the expansion of settlements and civilian administrative powers, ensure accountability for settler violence and investigate allegations against Israeli forces."

Joint statement: Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden United Kingdom  

An Israeli settler works at a winery at the settlement of Yitzhar, south of the Palestinian city of Nablus. The U.K. government plans to implement a comprehensive trade ban and targeted sanctions on goods and services from Israeli towns in Judea and Samaria. (Getty Images)

 

"Today, France and Canada are announcing alongside Britain that they will also ban the import of goods from illegal settlements."

"The Netherlands, Ireland, Belgium, Spain and Norway, which have either banned goods or are in the process of doing so, with many other countries, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Poland, Portugal and Sweden, [are] pledging today they will support further action."

"[The U.K. will also take action] against specific companies and individuals who provide services such as construction, infrastructure, financing or real estate for settlement expansion."

"The British government agrees that there is ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in areas of the West Bank, perpetrated by settler terrorists."

U.K. Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband 

Israel is a liberal democracy with a fully independent judiciary. It has internal problems, just as every other state has. It also has external-derived problems that no other state must cope with. Within Israel's population there is a multitude of ethnic and cultural and religious groups, from Christians to Druze and Kurds, Circassians, Bedouin, Baha'i and Muslims with full citizenship. The Israeli-Palestinian segment of the population alone represents 18 percent of the population, with full citizen rights. Not a single Jew is permitted to live in the Palestinian Territories.

 

In a world other than the Middle East, the prospect of a Jewish state living alongside that of a Muslim state has been a problem for a century and more. With the decision of 1947 by the UN that Arabs calling themselves Palestinians and Jews could live side-by-side in sovereign states of their own, Israel declared  

itself reborn in 1948 in an excess of joy, while Palestinians rejected the offer that partitioned the allotted territory for a state of its own. It has never, in the 80 years since then, moved to become a state through an agreement by which it would recognize the legitimacy of the Jewish state.

 

Simply put, it awaited an opportunity that would see the destruction of Israel, with the Judean ancestral land declared theirs and theirs alone. An expectation and reality that is held by Palestinians but which remains unrevealed to the Western democracies that remain convinced that a two-state 'solution' will bring peace and security to both purported states. This, while Palestinian leaders have never stopped inciting their people toward terrorism which they call martyrdom. And to ensure that those martyrs are rewarded on earth, not only in Paradise attended by 72 virgins, payment goes out from the Palestinian Authority to those who commit violence against Jews.

 

Palestinian children are taught from elementary school forward to value martyrdom and to conceive of themselves as avengers against Jewish 'occupation' of Palestinian land. This grooming had the assistance of UNRWA, the UN agency devoted to the welfare of Palestinian victimhood, and respected by the very same countries that now insist Israel must put an end to reclaiming their historical geography squatted on by colonialists from Egypt and Jordan. None of these European nations condemning Israel for territorial 'expansionism' claiming a plot to disentitle and cleanse Palestinian from their proposed state have ever had to face the violent hatred that Israel does that results in horrific atrocities against its population.

 

When orthodox Jews 'settle' on their ancestral heritage in Judea and Samaria which the West has titled the West Bank, the Western community is outraged. When youth among those 'settlers' behave like the Palestinians constantly attacking Jews, Israel is outraged. Never so much however, as the international community which lingers solely on Jewish violence committed by a relative handful of Jewish hooligans and never on the institutionalized Palestinian mass-indoctrinated jihadists who are the pride of their leadership forever inculcating the lust of sadistic savagery on their youth.

 

Foreign interference in the affairs of another country is unsupportable by international standards of nation-to-nation diplomatic decorum. When it comes to Israel, all hindrances to bullying are withdrawn. The states that would bridle with indignation should any other country attempt to inform them what they should and must do internally to handle difficult situations, feel it is perfectly legitimate to consign the Jewish state to an entirely different level of expectations.  

 

A drone view shows a factory belonging to Israeli company Libi Construction and Infrastructure in Shilo, an Israeli area in Judea and Samaria. (Ammar Awad/Reuters)

 

 By coincidence most of these countries have themselves been colonized by a gradual influx of immigrants, refugees and economic migrants from Muslim countries. The Koran states quite clearly that it is the  religious obligation of the ummah -- all those faithful to Islam worldwideeee, to convert non-believers, to broaden the base of Islamic followers, to do their utmost to ensure that Islam eventually overtakes all other religious devotion on Earth, in a grand conquest that will see it sweep to the position it was meant by Islam's prophet to attain to.

 

One by one, the countries that have aligned themselves with the forces devoted to degrading Israel's security will find themselves in the final death throes of their culture, laws, values and heritage. Their confusion over the changes already taking place, challenging their way of life, beliefs and customs turns them instead to blaming the very nation that despite its faith in democracy will not allow itself to be destroyed by the overwhelming forces of political Islam. That face of Islam that other Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East and North Africa are now protecting themselves from, even as the West falls. 

 

These are also the countries, ironically and incidentally, that stood by and watched without intervention when Europe under Nazi occupation methodically and institutionally scheduled a Final Solution to dispose of the unwanted presence of Jews among them who had lived among them for centuries as undervalued citizens who contributed far more than their share to the prosperity and and cultural identity of any country they lived in, throughout the diaspora.  

 

The British consulate in East Jerusalem. Israel has ordered the closure of the consulate after London led Western sanctions over violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinians in Judea and Samaria. (Ahmad Gharabli/AFP/Getty Images)

 

Memories of Newfoundland's 9/11 'Guests' : Operation Yellow Ribbon

NBC New York

 

"Our college year just started ... And it was a normal morning. Everybody was in class, or wherever they were supposed to be."

"Everybody started crowding around the television, some radio. And the campus virtually came to a standstill."

"When the passengers came down to their breakfast, it was like walking into a first-class hotel. I mean, everything in the world that you wanted for breakfast was available."

"The big problem our cooks had, after the first day, was the stores were running out of food. [But] our cooks had managed to secure, you know, 250 or 300 chicken breasts in their raid of the stores the night before."

"The Salvation Army took control of the local hockey rink, and ... turned that into a walk-in cooler."

Newfoundlander Mac Moss

Thirty-eight international flights were grounded at Gander International Airport on the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, when U.S. airspace was shut down. Rogers TV

 

 Gander is about 335 kilometers distant from St. John's, the capital of Newfoundland. In 2001 the eyes of the world turned on northeastern Newfoundland, as it became known as a temporary haven for frightened Americans unable to fly through American skies for the period of time that U.S. internal security locked its airspace to flight in the grimly sober aftermath of the al-Qaeda terrorist attack on New York's Twin Towers, Washington's Pentagon, and the Pennsylvania interruption by passengers of a third plane heading for destruction of yet another U.S. landmark. 

 

The world was shocked into incredulity at the brazen unexpected, appalling violence unleashed by terrorists overcoming passenger flight pilots on a massive suicide-mission to steer the planes they commandeered directly into iconic American buildings, to destroy them and all the lives that occupied them on that fateful day. A quarter-century has since passed, but for Newfoundlanders who cared for over 6,700 stranded Americans for days following the attacks, that memory will last as long as they do, and beyond.

 

At that time, principal of the Gander Campus of the College of the North Atlantic, Mac Moss was alerted to the attacks when a staff member called to tell him "We're listening to the radio up here. And a plane just flew into one of the World Trade Center Towers". The emergency services of the town of Gander soon called him,  asking whether accommodation could be made by the campus to look after incoming planeloads of passengers, to provide shelter, first aid and food. "I knew the size of the campus, the space we had available, and I said yes", said Moss.

 

Shelter was given to 7,000 stranded passengers and crew members in schools, churches, and private homes in Gander. CBS News

 

 A jumbo jetload of people disembarked at 7:00 p.m., carrying 234 passengers, the first of two such planes the college ended up hosting. It just happened that the college had commercial cooking and electronics classes on tap, allowing students and staff to prepare hot food, set up television feeds, install microphones in the cafeteria and gather linked supplies Employees of the college and their spouses volunteered bedding and food for their 'guests'. Free medical treatment, including prescription renewals was provided by Gander. A few student nurses assisted. "We had them set up serving a little triage area", recalled now-retired former principal Moss.

 

Tight living conditions necessarily prevailed for the passengers, with "20 or 30 people to a room, and ... they were lying on a tile floor, with just a blanket or a sheet  underneath them. If they didn't have a pillow, we gave them an extra sheet to put over shoes for pillows". Once the passengers left, Mr. Moss recalled, he had slept only several hours in those three days when his campus hosted the passengers. He eventually published a book, 'Flown into the Arms of Angels: Newfoundland and Labrador's Unsung Heroes of 9/11', in 2021

 

Some of those American 'guests' have remained in contact with some of the Newfoundlanders who had hosted them during that fearful, trying time. The impression the entire event held with him, recalls Mr. Moss is "how well our towns -- plural our towns -- were prepared to handle such an event, and they didn't know it, because they had never experienced [this] before". 

 

The Town of Gander has planned a "Parade of First Responders", along with a special remembrance of the thousands of lives lost in 9/11. The commemorative events for the 25th anniversary of the plane landings and the American citizens who became temporary guests, will host a number of notables, expected to speak at the commemoration. Among them, U.S. Ambassador Pete Hoekstra, Newfoundland and Labrador Premier Tony Wakeham, and former prime minister Jean Chretien, in office on the day of the attack when between 224 and 240 U.S. flights were diverted from U.S. airspace to Canadian airports. 

 

Mural Thanks Gander for Hosting Stranded Travelers on 9/11, Memorial and Museum, Gander, Nfld

 

"I did over 300 interviews, and I always asked them the same question: 'How did you feel after the passengers left'?"

"What they remembered most was the total exhaustion."

"After the passengers left, I don't think I had a good night's sleep for two or three months [mulling over details of the few days hosting confused U.S. plane passengers]." 

Newfoundland host Mac Moss 

Democratic Equality Has Its Language Limits in Quebec

"Let's be clear. No one is being denied access to information. No one is being denied the right to vote, either."

"We have adopted rules, and French is the official and common language of Quebec. We are applying the rules we have."

"The rights of the English-speaking community are being respected. We can be proud, I think, to defend our language."

"The ballot remains bilingual. And it will stay that way." 

Quebec Premier Christine Frechette 

For the first time ever, Quebecers will be mailed French-only voter information documents — a decision Premier Christine Fréchette won’t reverse. But lawyers argue the move violates the fundamental right to vote.  CBC News

 

"I think they could have an English version tomorrow, and they could mail it out the day after tomorrow." "So the the idea that it's become impossible … is another example of the high-handedness and the pettiness of the language attitudes."

"It's time now to go back to the principles of the Charter … that all people are of equal worth."

"[The introduction of Bill 96 is part of a] regrettable trend [of] linguistic dogmatism and identity politics [in the province]."

Civil rights lawyer Julius Gray   

Lawyers in Quebec are preparing to mount a legal challenge against the province of Quebec's Premier's decision to discontinue mailing out English-language voting information; all such voting information will be published and circulated in French only. The CAQ leader stated that all discussions surrounding the issue had concluded, and she was adamant that there would be no reason to second-think the issue any further.

 

As far as Elections Quebec is concerned English-language mailers will not be sent out ahead of the October 5 election. A compromise that includes a QR code was available, linked to an English web page. Elderly English-speaking Quebecers who don't use cellphones and have no idea what to do with a QR code are obviously out of luck. Legislation brought in under La Coalition avenir Québec had forced the change, said the agency, washing its hands of the inconvenient matter.

 

It had, explained Elections Quebec, requested a carve-out in the legislation to permit mailouts in both languages, to continue engaging with English-language residents of Quebec as usual, but lost the argument to the government's refusal. Voting rights and English-language advocates claim the decision presents barriers to voting, a claim that Premier Frechette dismissed, informing questioning news media she saw no risk of anglophones being befuddled over voting.

 

 

Everywhere else in Canada, in the other provinces and territories, federal legislation declaring French-language rights alongside those of the English-speaking majority are sacrosanct. Wherever French-speaking Canadians live in the country there are mandated obligations to ensure they are served in their own language. Quebec remains the exception in this as in most other areas of  'self-determination' as an exception, entitled to rights no other provinces can even imagine. 

 

And although the federal government commissioner of official languages had confirmed her office had been given notice regarding the French-only election mailouts, there is little trust that in the commission of her official duties she will reprimand the province and invite a lashback that would certainly risk discombobulating the Liberal government of Canada, so traditionally reliant on Quebec for the reliability of their ruling majorities. 

 

Language-equality be damned, in a grasping, language-paranoid, nationalist-fuming Quebec! 

 

Élections Québec says it will no longer mail voting information documents in English in order to comply with changes to the province’s language laws. English-speaking advocates worry the move could make it harder for some voters to access information, including where and when to vote. CBC News

 

"I couldn't believe it. [The measure is an] unacceptable impediment [because it means English-speaking Quebecers are] not getting equal access [to important voting information; a violation of a constitutional right]."

"It will certainly raise a question of the legitimacy of an election where certain people are not given equal access to voting."

"Everybody's supposed to get the same information around the same time, and on a timely basis in order to be able to make an informed decision as to who to vote for, and to be able to vote." 

"To say that a whole swath of the population suddenly can only get their information on a differential and more complicated basis means that we don't all have an equal right to vote."

"[It's] saying, 'Well, you English-speaking people, if you want, you can get a QR code so you can get the information.' That's a pretty deliberate step … saying, 'You know, we don't really care if you vote.'"

Eric Maldoff, lawyer, former president, Alliance Quebec, anglophone-advocacy organization 

Post-WWII Nazi Criminals and Collaborators in Canada -- The Futility of Too Little, Too Late

"Frankly, I think the opening of the report, if that actually happens any time soon, is a non-event. There's likely nothing in the report that's not already known, or at least suspected by the Jewish community."

"I think the bigger story is how hard over the years the Canadian government has fought the Jewish community on every level regarding this issue."

"The non-release of this report until now is just a symptom of that."

Steven Rambam, founder, CEO, Pallorium, Inc. Brooklyn investigative agency 

 

"We deserve the opportunity to learn from our past and to come to terms with the shortcomings of Canada."

"Rather than try to sweep that history under the rug and to fight about whether or not that history should be disclosed to the public, our government should be exercising its ability in acting with moral fortitude, and leadership." 

Richard Robertson, director of research and advocacy, B'nai Brith 

Helmut Rauca was accused of more than 11,000 murders but lived in Canada after the war. A 1990 document on the “highest-ranking Nazi presently under investigation in Canada,” said the case would be “recommended for closure, due to the advanced age of the subject (87 years old).” Global News

 

According to a recent Federal Court ruling, the 1985 618-page report commissioned y the Government of Canada to examine the arrivals following the end of World War II of Nazi war criminals should be released for public scrutiny. Justice Simon Fothergill issued a 21-page ruling stating that public interest in the historical record, despite the decades that have passed, weighed in favour of increased disclosure of the Rodal Report, taking into account the weakness of the reasons for continued secrecy by the government. 

 

Years of effort all in vain to obtain the uncensored version of the study by historian Alti Rodal titled Nazi War Criminals in Canada: The Historical and Policy Setting from the 1940s to the Present have finally realized fruition. The Rodal Report had been prepared for the Commission of Inquiry on War Criminals in Canada -- the Deschenes Commission -- examining the circumstances whereby Nazi war criminals and collaborators arrived in Canada following war's end.

Toronto lawyer Mark Freiman, the son of Holocaust survivors, has been fighting to unseal Canada’s Nazi investigation files. Global News

 

Significant passages of the report remain concealed from public view, despite substantial portions of the unpublished study having been released. According to Rodal's analytical investigation, weak screening processes had enabled some perpetrators of Nazi crimes to enter Canada. In February 2024, Library and Archives Canada had released segments of the report, responding to an access-to-information request from B'nai Brith. Revealed were a number of passages previously censored; even so seven pages in one sectkon still held redactions, along with 14 endnotes in RCMP file references.

 

The withheld text, argued Library and Archives Canada, remained protected by section 15(1)(a) of the Access to Information Act, permitting government to refuse disclosures whose release could harm Canada's international relations. One passage: an American official's assessment of American immigration law that Canad had received in confidence from the United States was also redacted.

 

RCMP file numbers covering intelligence information whose release could undermine efforts to detect, prevent or suppress subversive or hostile activity also fell under the protected category, not to be released. All but one of Library and Archives Canada's exemption arguments were rejected by Justice Fothergill, finding the institution had failed to establish that Canada's international relations or national security would be damaged with the release of information of clear historical importance, even today.

 

The net result, he emphasized, of greater public knowledge of the country's past would tend to promote informed discussion, reinforcing democracy. The continued withholding of the quoted U.S. official's remarks under section13, was permitted since the material was received from a foreign government, in confidence. The contents appeared to the judge as 'innocuous' nonetheless, and he felt that U.S. permission to disclose should be sought by Canada.

 

Pallorium's Steven Rambam and associates had compiled a list of 2,000 likely Nazi war criminals in Canada in the mid-1990s, whittling them down to 200, of the most egregious Nazis that should be investigated. 170 suspected Nazi war criminals had been located by him, along with other collaborators living in Canada. Mr. Rambam and his associates had interviewed some 70 of those they earmarked, under cover. 

Yaroslav Hunka, right, waits for the arrival of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the House of Commons in Ottawa on Sept. 22, 2023. (Patrick Doyle/The Canadian Press)

 

In September of 2023, Members of Parliament in the House of Commons had given a standing ovation to Yaroslav Hunka, an elderly Ukrainian who had during World War II been a member of the notorious Waffen-SS Galicia Division, Ukrainian volunteers who served complementary roles alongside German SS groups known to have committed mass murder of Jews and Poles. The occasion in Parliament was the guest presence of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, when the Speaker of the House of Commons introduced Mr. Hunka as a Ukrainian 'hero' who had fought against the Soviets.

 

Ignorance of World War II facts and events among those present in Parliament that day resounded in their celebration of the presence of the 98-year-old Mr. Hunka, bypassing the reality that Soviet Russia was at that time part of the Allied effort against the Axis fascists that had once included the Soviets, until Germany turned on Russia, invading it, and Stalin aligned himself with the Allies. It was in fact, Hitler's invasion of Russia that turned the war in favour of the Allies, almost as much as the U.S. late entry.

 

That contretemps that occurred in the House of Commons caused great embarrassment internationally for Canada, while prompting a renewed scrutiny of Canada's immigration, vetting and historical-record practices where Nazi war criminals and collaborators had such easy entrance to Canada. Nor was the United States to be admired for its welcome of Werner von Braun, the Nazi German rocketry specialist who helped the U.S. develop its own science of rocketry post-WWII. 

 

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

 

"I can personally attest to the fact that all the war criminals were known decades ago. The Canadian government could have done much, much more."

"There's no war criminal that entered Canada that wasn't known to the RCMP. That, I feel confident in saying."

"What will the unsealing of the few remaining portions of this report, if it happens, actually reveal to Canadians or to the Jewish community in particular?"

"Nothing that hasn't already been known for decades." 

Steven Rambam, founder, CEO, Pallorium, Inc. 

Russia's Jet-Powered Drones

"Last month, according to our statistics, there were 1,500 jet UAV attacks. This month, we've already counted 3,000 jet drones."

"Based on our intelligence data, the Russians have plans to produce 36,000 to 40,000 UAVs per yer -- that is, more than 3 ,000 per month."

"It's safe to say they have already reached that production capacity."

Serhiy Beskrestnov, adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy 

 

"[Such strikes have] once again highlighted a critical issue facing Ukraine: The Armed Forces of Ukraine have reached a breaking point regarding their shortage of surface-to-air missiles."

"Missiles are more expensive and complex to manufacture, making their daily use unfeasible. Geran drones, however, offer an immediate operational advantage."

"Looking long term, with the potential for production and launch capacities up to 5,000 units per month, they can be used to exacerbate the air defence shortages and intensify strikes on Ukrainian territory."

Mikhail Zvinchuk, Russian military blogger 

From Shahed to Geran: Russia reinvents the One-Way Attack Drone  Photo: Anelo/Adobe Stock

"We'll give them the right to make Patriots. We'll show them how to do it", said U.S. President Donald Trump, pressed by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to do more to help Ukraine defend itself from Russian attacks on its civil infrastructure, missiles and drones hurled in great numbers at Ukrainian cities throughout the vast geography of the nation. Then came the qualifier: "advanced technology is a hard thing to give  away". 

 

Over 2,800 jet-propelled drones that fly twice as fast as less advanced ones, were launched in numbers meant to overwhelm Ukraine's defences, to force Kyiv to resort to more high-tech methods for self-defence. More than half of the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that Russia launches now to "wear down" Ukraine are jet-propelled. "There were almost 1,500 drones of all types in these four days alone, about 800 of them jet powered", stated President Zelenskyy. 

 

Developed from basic Iranian Shahed drones, the Geran-4 and Geran-5 models are capable of speeds of up to 400 kilometres per hour. Ukrainian forces scrambled combat aircraft at times in an effort to repel them. The role of these drones underlines Russia's alliance with Iran; emphasized when Russian President Vladimir Putin met with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian earlier this week.  A Russian Geran-4 drone struck a munitions warehouse in a village outside Kyiv over a period of several hours, killing 38 people, this past week.

 

The image shows Geran drones stored near Tsymbulova in Russia's Oryol region.

 

Russia, predicted Beskrestnov, would go on producing gasoline-powered drones, with Jet-propelled models representing about 60 percent of output. Older types like the Shahed-136 and Geran-2 will make up the rest of the arsenal. But Russia is not the only protagonist in this conflict using powerful drones to their advantage; Ukraine has shown itself adept at producing its own weaponized drones to good effect within the Russian geography.

 

Aerial strikes used by each side penetrated deep into one another's territory, with the ground war stalled. Russian oil refineries continue to be hit by Ukraine. Ukraine has extended its campaign against major Russian online retailers, striking Ozon warehouses, quite apart from its hits on Russian oil refineries. An estimated six percent of the warehouse capacity of the online retailer was obliterated. 

 

For their part, a mix of drones and ballistic missiles are fired by Russia, striking warehouses around Kyiv, and in so doing threatening food shortages, seen as some grocery stores now have empty shelves. Ukraine has improved its capacity significantly to shoot down drones, ramping up its own long-range drone production. Even so, the shortage of air defence missiles represents a persistent vulnerability, an advantage for Russia.

 

Ballistic missiles can inflict much more damage, penetrating heavily defended or underground sites, but they are infinitely more expensive to produce than drones. President Zelenskyy aspires to acquire additional interceptors, pressing President Trump and the U.S. Congress to make more supplies available to Ukraine. He estimates that Ukraine requires at least five percent of U.S. Patriot production in its defence against Russian onslaughts, not merely the one percent it now relies upon. 

 

Russian air attack on Kiev, August 29, triggering major explosion and fire on warehouse. AP/Getty

 

Canada's Scholarship Decline

"All told ending EDI [equity, diversity and inclusion] initiatives in Canadian research should be a top priority for any responsible government."

"[The quantity and quality of Canada Research Chair scholarship declined from between 20 percent to 15 percent, attributable to] non-meritorious appointment of less qualified Black, Indigenous, and female chairs." 

"Our analysis ... confirms that diversity is not merely neutral but can lower performance."

The Equity-Excellence Tradeoff report 

The Bruneau Centre for Research and Innovation at Memorial University in St. John's, Newfoundland. Since 2017, Canadian universities have been subject to strict identity-based hiring quotas as a condition of receiving federal research funding. Photo by Adobe Stock

 

The Macdonald-Laurier Institute released a new report focusing on race-based hiring quotas in academia under a Liberal-government mandate. Canadian universities have been subjected to strict identity-based hiring quotas since 2017, conditional to receiving research funding from the federal government. Postings of academic jobs explicitly barring straight white men has become proforma in recent years at Canadian academic institutions, as a result of that financial stricture.

 

As an example, at Memorial University in Newfoundland a tranche of five new job opportunities advertised in April as being open only to "women; 2SLGBTQIA+ applicants including Indigenous peoples, racialized persons and persons with disabilities".  This identity-based hiring has resulted, according to the 54-page report, in a diminishing number of Canadian research published or cited by other scholars.

 

The $311-million annual Canada Research Chair program came under particular attention by the study, representing the federal research fund focusing on the pressure placed on identity-based hiring. 2,285 university Canada Research Chairs are funded by the program; salaries and office expenses are entirely covered by this federal grant funding. Schools receive $200,000 yearly for a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair, and $100,000 yearly for a Tier 2 Chair. That's a substantial amount to forego for any university that might balk at the restrictions imposed.

 

DEI and academic hiring in public universities: An index of university discrimination in Canada  Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy

 

Schools receiving those grants have no option but to submit to federal quotas on race, gender and sexual characteristics of any researchers they hire. Canada Research Chairs must be comprised of 22 percent 'racialized', 4.9 percent 'Indigenous' and 50.9 percent 'women and gender equity-seeking groups', according to the most recent guidelines published by the Government of Canada. 

 

Individual universities, furthermore are informed of the precise number of Canada Research Chairs they are required to put in place in one of four 'equity-deserving' groups, targets expressed in regularly updated tables. The most recent equity quota for McGill University required the hiring of 34 'racialized' Canada Research chairs, five Indigenous Canada Research Chairs and ten 'persons with disabilities'. 

 

Initiated in 2000, the Canada Research Chair's identity mandates began in 2017 through the oversight of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, which fit nicely within his obsession with Critical Race Theory/DEI/Woke agendas to make Canada more equity-conscious as it approached his ideal of the 'Post-National' state that had no reason to distinguish itself through rigorous academic application to excellence. The program has taken nine years to become fully operational under the aegis of the Liberal federal government

 

Aristotle Foundation for Public Policy

 

When the Canada Research Chair program first started, white males represented 80 percent of the chairs. By 2025, white males represented a mere 25 percent of the total. The productivity of Canada Research Chairs was ranked by Macdonald-Laurier Institute analysts before and after the imposition of the identity mandates. The performance of 1,906 Chairs was categorized by their 'h-index' -- the standard global measurement of productivity and relevance of a scholar. The number of papers where a researcher is listed as an author along with the number of instances where the papers are cited by others results in the h-index ranks; typically between one and 100.

 

Cohorts with the lowest research productivity were recognized as those being given priority for academic positions. Black male scholars or Indigenous had an average h-index of 25, whereas the average white or Asian male scholar held a 39 h-index. As for female scholars, their average h-index was 28. The paper concluded that the replacement of high-achieving cohorts with lower-achieving counterparts arrived at the cost of lower quality research.   

"There will be many cases in which female, Black, or Indigenous scholars will not impose a cost, but on average -- under an EDI dispensation in which race and sex considerations can outweigh scholarly merit -- this will be the case."

"[Example: where a university took a position previously filled by a white or Asian scholar, filling it with a Black or Indigenous hire, it likely entailed an] average loss of 3.2 h-index points."

The Equity-Excellence Tradeoff report  

 

Canada's Incompetent Liberal-Progressive Political-Elite

As the Canadian economy continues to sputter, continuing a trend of weak economic growth for nearly two decades, Toronto is a big part of the story. In fact, given Toronto’s size and economic weight, its performance is central to understanding Canada’s economic malaise. Fraser Institute

 

"When comparing the economic performance of Canada relative to the U.S. since the beginning of the 21st century it's abundantly clear that Canadian policy-makers have failed to create an environment where we can prosper." 

"[The ability to transform raw materials and other inputs into demanded goods and services increased by over double the amount (26.7 percent versus 67.9 percent) in the U.S. in comparison to Canada], which explains much of our languishing living standards."

Jake Fuss, director, fiscal studies Fraser Institute 

 

"One example is that in 2014 we saw a collapse in oil prices in Canada. which resulted in a decline in business investment in the economy."

"But that can't necessarily explain the decade of economic stagnation that followed, and so that's where, in large part, government policy factors played a role."

"We know that investment is a huge determinant of productivity. Which then impacts the incomes that Canadians earn."

Grady Munro, senior policy analyst, Fraser Institute  

Canada’s recent technical recession may have made headlines, but one of the country’s biggest economic challenges has been building for more than a decade—namely, weak business investment. Fraser Institute

 

The past quarter-century has seen Canada's economic gap with the United States in gross domestic product per person doubling; U.S. citizens pull steadily ahead on income, employment, investment and productivity, and Canada stagnates. Good thing Canada's current prime minister, leading the country on a prolonged Liberal-led foray into the future is an economist. He would know, as a former world banker and governor of the exchequer of two G7 'advanced economies' how best to act in Canada's interests. That's what the electorate saw in his election promises, to give him a mandate to govern. 

 

And so far, a year and more into his mandate he has performed no better than his predecessor, a rank amateur in governing a country, hampered in part by his progressive-left credentials and his overweening preening. Personal proclivities shared by his successor.

 

A new study published by the Fraser Institute, found that inflation-adjusted GDP per person in Canada was $48,076 as opposed to the U.S.'s $59,482 in 1999. GDP per person had grown by 2024, to $59,529 in Canada while in the United States it was $84,386; a vastly widening gap over a 25-year period, from $10,766 to $23,757. Measures inclusive of living standards taken into account -- income, employment, investment and productivity in the two countries compared economic outcomes in the study.

 

Canada, over the first quarter of the century, was found to have fallen further behind. In 2010, the earliest year of available comparable data, inflation-adjusted median employment income was $6,126 higher in the United States than it was in Canada, and by 2024, the gap had continued expanding substantially, to $8,663. Three factors were outlined in the Fraser report explaining the disparate gap in economic performance. 

 

The anxiety and growing animus towards the Trump administration by many Canadians is clouding the enormity of the home-grown problems facing our country. These economic challenges existed well before President Trump took office for the second time but the uncertainty over access to the U.S. market and Trump’s almost daily threats of more tariffs have heightened the problems. Unfortunately, there’s increasing evidence that like its predecessor, the Carney government is more about optics than action and results.  Fraser Institute

 

The decline in private-sector employment as a share of total employment in Canada was identified as the first factor impacting the economy. Private sector employment decreased to 78.5 percent from 81.2 percent, as the public sector employment rate outdistanced the private sector in that category, whereas in the United States the direct opposite took place, as private-sector employment increased from 85.8 percent of total employment to 86.5 percent, making for a much healthier overall economy. At the same time, labour productivity, recognized as a key driver of income growth, grew by 67.9 percent in the U.S. between 1999 and 2025, in comparison to Canada's 26.7 percent increase over the same period.

 

In Canada, business investment, equipping workers with tools and technology required to produce goods and services, dropped from close to 90 cents per worker for every dollar invested in the U.S., to 54 cents between 2007 and 2024. Canada's trailing economic performance, according to the Fraser Institute's study, was initiated in 2014. Canada largely kept pace with, and in some instances exceeded the U.S. across several measures, before 2014. Just incidentally, Justin Trudeau became prime minister in 2015 bringing with him his notion of a 'post-national' Canada, with an embrace of progressive environmentalism. 

 

And as The Fraser Institute's Grady Munro pointed out as one of the study's authors, increased regulations on sectors such as energy in combination with tax increases on high- and middle-income earners, along with sky-high increases in federal debt made for reduced appeal for business investment. The Liberal Trudeau government introduced a new top tax bracket on income over $200,000 in 2015, raising the top federal personal income tax rate to 33 percent from 29 percent. In less than a decade the national debt doubled from $687 billion in 2014-15 to almost $1.5 trillion by 2025-26.  

 

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Toronto skyline ... The latest economic readings from Statistics Canada are not encouraging. So far this year, Canada has lost roughly 120,000 jobs. Data for the first quarter of 2026 show overall economic activity declining marginally in the first three months of the year, which is worse than forecasters expected. This comes on the heels of a slight economic contraction in the fourth quarter of 2025. Fraser Institute

 

According to the Fraser Institute study, per-person GDP growth in Canada stagnated during this time while growth in the U.S. continued at a robust pace. GDP per person in Canada increased a mere 3.2 percent from 2014 to 2024, compared to 20.1 percent in the United States. A suggested  re-emphasis on balancing budgets, spending restraint and limiting debt accumulations are the recommended moves to improving Canada's economic performance. Is anyone listening? Thought not.