Mid-Week Post

Aaahhh, glorious February...



A former national security advisor once monitored far-right groups but they were not considered a threat:

Police and intelligence agencies have been monitoring the extreme right wing but did not believe an attack like the Quebec City mosque killings was likely, Canada’s former National Security Advisor said Tuesday.

“I don’t think we saw a great deal of evidence, facts that suggested they were going to be a significant problem in terms of violence,” Richard Fadden told the National Post following a speech at the Royal Canadian Military Institute.

Indeed.

Consider the Sikh extremists who operated openly and carried out the worst terrorist attack in Canadian history, the bombing of Air India 182,  which killed 329 people, or Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser who were convicted in 2015 for plotting to blow up a Via Rail train going from New York to Toronto, or the infamous Toronto 18 who plotted to blow up the Toronto Stock exchange and kill then prime minister, Stephen Harper, or Aaron Driver who self-detonated before he could be captured but failed, or the murders of Patrice Vincent and Nathan Cirillo by Muslim converts, or the women of the Shafia family who were murdered by their own flesh and blood.

Were any of those events predicted or were they simply the many isolated attacks by mentally ill lone wolves whose root causes cannot be understood?

Perhaps they should never be brought up again, just like contradictory eye witness accounts:

Witnesses were interviewed across various media outlets. Witnesses who claimed to have been inside the mosque at the time of the attack. All alleged the same: Two assailants stormed in, opening fire while shouting, "Allahu Akbar!" As of Monday morning Canada’s state broadcaster, the CBC, conducted television interviews with witnesses who, again, corroborated the story. ...

Canada’s state broadcaster quickly shifted its tone. By evening, all witness reports involving two suspects or shouts of "Allah Akbar!" were deleted, and replaced with alternative facts. The CBC even interviewed the former suspect Mohamed Belkhadir and, despite his name being a matter of public record by then, the state broadcaster did not include his name or his face, and even scratched his voice!

Also:

The federal government has extended the application deadline for funding that helps improve security for communities at risk of hate crimes, in the aftermath of a deadly terrorist attack on a Quebec City mosque.
 

Like fire-bombed Jewish schools?



And:

The Opposition Conservatives are criticizing the Prime Minister's Office for complaining to Fox News about a tweet identifying the suspect in the Quebec City mosque shooting as "Moroccan."

In an open letter to Fox News Channel co-president Bill Shine, PMO Communications Director Kate Purchase wrote that Canada is "an open, welcoming country that stands by its citizens."

(Sidebar: except for Zehra Kazemi.)

She accused the tweet of "perpetuating fear and division" and dishonouring the memory of the victims of Sunday's mass shooting, in which six people were killed.

She asked that it be taken down.

Fox News responded by deleting the tweet and saying it regretted the error.

(Sidebar: you suck, Fox News. You should have responded that you had gotten that information from Canadian sources and that the Canadian government has been awarded a great gift in the form of six dead men it can trot out any time anyone is critical of Islamism or the government.)

 Conservative MP and party leadership candidate Lisa Raitt says while she understands frustrations over misinformation being reported, Justin Trudeau should be focused on more important matters.

"We've got a serious issue in New Brunswick right now with respect to an ice storm," Raitt said, referring to a power outage that has affected thousands of people.

"We've got jobs leaving the country, we have had a terrible tragedy in Quebec City," she added.

"So why do you pick fights with the American news media?"

(Sidebar: because he's, like, tough or something.) 

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau manhandled a male Conservative MP, told another group of MPs to “get the f--- out of his way”, and elbowed a female New Democrat — all of it on the floor of the House of Commons Wednesday evening, prompting one of the most bizarre parliamentary melees in decades

Bruce Anderson's daughter really knows how to make it seem that Trudeau is wearing the big-boy pants even though he is mincing his way out of trouble.




Oh, SNAP!

Is Quebec inalienably inclusive, though? “Quebec has the great honour of having created two great firsts in the annals of hate crimes in the West: a massacre of women followed by a massacre of Muslims,” Francine Pelletier writes in Le Devoir. “We might want to pause before calling this latest drama, like Polytechnique before it, an ‘isolated act’.

Ah, yes, that little gem that won't completely go down the memory hole.

“The defining image of contemporary Canadian maleness is not M Lépine/Gharbi but the professors and the men in that classroom, who, ordered to leave by the lone gunman, meekly did so, and abandoned their female classmates to their fate—an act of abdication that would have been unthinkable in almost any other culture throughout human history. The ‘men’ stood outside in the corridor and, even as they heard the first shots, they did nothing. And, when it was over and Gharbi walked out of the room and past them, they still did nothing. Whatever its other defects, Canadian manhood does not suffer from an excess of testosterone.”

Not as isolated as one may think.
 



Moving on...




But... but... electoral reform:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is abandoning his long-held promise to change the way Canadians vote in federal elections — an about-face his opposition rivals angrily characterized Wednesday as a cynical betrayal of trust.

He hasn't abandoned so-called electoral reform. He has only temporarily shelved it.




They're not gone yet:

Former foreign affairs minister Stéphane Dion has accepted a diplomatic posting as Canada’s ambassador to Germany and the European Union, vowing to fight for European unity. ...

Mr. Trudeau also paid homage to former immigration minister John McCallum, who is leaving politics to become Canada’s envoy to China. He called Mr. McCallum one of the hardest working people he’s ever known.

Sure. Whatever.




If the rule of law does not apply to one group, it should not apply to another. Either immigrants can become Canadians or not loaf about in Canada not contributing anything. It is not fair to immigrants who go through a lengthy legal process while others don't:

Somerset ward Coun. Catherine McKenney plans to present a motion next week aimed at ensuring undocumented immigrants have access to City of Ottawa services without fear of being detained or deported.

I will support this if all of these undocumented migrants stay with her.




The logic of this is not hard to grasp. Criminals. Do not. Register. Guns:

To combat a rise in gun crimes, Regina police are asking the public to turn in their unwanted firearms.

From Feb. 1-15, people can turn in their guns to police and in exchange they will receive their choice of a one-month transit or leisure pass. 

"It's no secret that firearms are a problem in our community," said police Chief Evan Bray. 

"They have been for a few years but we saw an escalation in that last year."

Gun crimes have skyrocketed in the city over the past 12 months, according to police statistics.

And now, Saint Valentine's Day isn't the only thing one can celebrate in February:

FEBRUARY 23: NATIONAL CHILI DAY