Monday Post

A fairly slow day ...




Remember - Justin thinks that ISIS members can be re-integrated:

During a 2017 year-end interview with CTV, Trudeau said remorseful returning fighters “can be an extraordinarily powerful voice for preventing radicalization in future generations.”

If CSIS agrees with this assessment, there is no such indication of it in the documents received by the Toronto Sun, which were obtained under access to information laws.

“CSIS is seized with this issue,” the note states, “as extremists returning to Canada have the potential to pose a significant threat to our national security.”

Canada’s spies also worry that the problem is larger than their official statistics indicate.

“I should point out that we remain concerned about the number of individuals that we are not aware of, or about whom we have incomplete information, due to the significant operational challenges associated with such investigations,” the document reads.

Contrary to Trudeau’s remarks, Goodale has previously acknowledged the prospects of rehabilitating fighters are “pretty remote.” And according to the CSIS document, it’s hard to say how a returnee will behave: “Returnees may respond in a number of different ways – from returning to regular life, radicalizing others, or financing and facilitating the travel of others, to attack planning.”

At no point in the document – or any of the other related CSIS material the Sun received – is there talk of deradicalization. “The number of Canadians abroad for terrorism-related purposes has, after a surge, leveled off. But the terrorist threat at home has not diminished. Indeed, preventing individuals from travelling abroad for extremist purposes may in fact increase the threat at home.” They write that this “requires ongoing investigation.”

But election in 2019, so ...


Also:

Section 13 was removed from the books in June 2013 after a private member’s bill from Conservative MP Brian Storseth was passed. Liberal MP Keith Martin had tabled a bill to repeal Section 13 in 2008, but it stalled and then died on an election call.

The law had been enormously contentious, with critics of all political stripes arguing it was overly broad and had weak safeguards around speech rights. Its defenders said the law was a necessary tool to fight hate messages spread through the internet.

Section 13 made it a discriminatory practice to convey messages over the phone or internet that contain “any matter that is likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt,” as long as those people were “identifiable on the basis of a prohibited ground of discrimination.”

Instead of proceeding through the criminal courts, complaints made under Section 13 were dealt with in the quasi-judicial Canadian Human Rights Tribunal, which hears complaints made under the Act. If a Section 13 complaint was upheld, the tribunal could levy fines of up to $10,000 and issue cease-and-desist orders. ...

Campbell said he’s been writing to various public officials for years, calling for online hate speech protection to be added back into human rights legislation.

“My personal hope is that this part of the Human Rights Act is reinstated and enforced, and given back to Canadians who had that right before a private member’s bill threw it out,” he said in an email to the National Post.

“Our country should have those laws, especially concerning the internet because it is a powerful tool for the good but is also a powerful weapon against a society and individuals,” he said.

I'm sure this is as coincidental as M-103 and the Canada Summer Jobs program.




Unless Laura Miller, former Premier Dalton McGuinty and current Premier Kathleen Wynne go to prison, this entire trial just looks like a search for a fall guy:

In Liberal eyes, it’s all just ho-hum stuff. Hadn’t they already distanced themselves from the McGuinty way of doing things? Haven’t they avoided blanket hard-drive wiping ever since? Haven’t they done their best to pretend Livingston doesn’t exist?

While Liberals may wish that to be true, it’s possible that many Ontarians feel otherwise. While neither Wynne nor her government were on trial, the methods, culture and attitude behind Livingston’s actions go to the heart of what troubles so many people about the way the Liberals do business.

Justin has screwed up with Canada, with the US and with Japan. He will not succeed with India:

Justin Trudeau will head to India next month, thus affirming the old proverb that if you cannot have a bird of paradise, you better take a wet hen.

That’s not a shot at India. There are many good reasons for the prime minister to visit the sub-continent, not least the chance to ingratiate himself with 1.6 million Indo-Canadians 18 months before a general election.

But Canada’s volume of trade with India is not large enough to offer much relief should President Donald Trump follow through on his threat to undo the North American Free Trade Agreement.

Opening free trade talks with China, a country with which we have a $60-billion trading relationship, would have created major opportunities for Canadian exporters. But that prospect has dimmed for now, following the prime minister’s presumptuous demand that the Chinese agree to more exacting labour standards than the Communist regime could stomach.

The Trans-Pacific Partnership, which includes Japan, would provide a welcome alternative for Canadian business, particularly for its farmers.

But Canada is the lone hold-out among the 11 remaining signatories, concerned over the impact of a deal on its cultural and auto industries.

But maybe screwing up is the point?



In other news ...



Two IEDs were found in a mall in Florida:

Two improvised explosive devices detonated at a mall in central Florida on Sunday, authorities said.

Police are still searching for a person of interest who was seen running from the building.

No one was injured by the blasts around 5:30 p.m. at the Eagle Ridge Mall in Lake Wales, Florida, about 65 miles east of Tampa, NBC News reported.

The devices appeared to resemble pipe bombs; they were made of PVC piping that was wrapped in electrical tape. The explosions occurred in a service corridor near a JCPenney store, and the mall was evacuated as a safety precaution. K9 units searched the mall on Sunday evening and the FBI was notified.

One of the Philippines' most active volcano has erupted, sending rock and ash flying over four kilometres away:

The Philippines' most active volcano ejected a huge column of lava fragments, ash and smoke in a thunderous explosion Monday, sending thousands of villagers back to evacuation centres and prompting a warning that a violent eruption may be imminent.

The midday explosion sent superheated lava, molten rocks and steam between 3.5 to 5 kilometres (2 to 3 miles) into the blue sky, and then some cascaded down Mount Mayon's slopes and shrouded nearby villages in darkness, Renato Solidum of the Philippine Institute of Seismology and Volcanology and other officials said.

From the crater, the deadly debris billowed about three kilometres (1.8 miles) down on the southern plank of Mayon toward a no-entry danger zone. There were no immediate reports of deaths or injuries, officials said.

And now, a feel-good story:

A Canadian veteran of the Bosnian war who reconnected with a local boy he met during the conflict says meeting him again and finding out he's doing well two decades later has been one of the best experiences of his life.

Justin Frye, who was posted in the war-torn area with the United Nations in 1994, said meeting the now 34-year-old man, Amir Bajramovic, provides a sense of closure after that tumultuous time in his life.

"I don't have a lot of tangible items from my time over there, but one thing I always kept was his picture," said Frye, who now works as a police officer in Barrie, Ont.

Frye befriended Bajramovic over a six-month period, when a number of Bosnian children would run up to a fence near his helicopter landing zone to interact with him and other soldiers.

Bajramovic, who lived in a poverty-stricken area near the landing zone, stuck out to Frye because he was always engaging and interested, despite not speaking English.

"When he saw me he would always run to the fence to see me, then he would always shout for his sister to come out from the house so that she could translate for us," said Frye, who would give gifts sent by his mother to children at the fence.

Despite the connection, Frye said when he left Bosnia he never expected to see Bajramovic again as he didn't even know the boy's last name at the time.

However, Frye began thinking about Bajramovic as he got older, and when he stumbled on the picture of the two of them together, he decided to take action.

Frye managed to get a hold of a Bosnian reporter who agreed to help find Bajramovic.

Thanks to social media, the reporter was able to find him in just five hours, even though he now lived across the continent in Sweden.

Since then, the two men have been talking daily by instant message. Bajramovic is now a father, and is working to get a taxi licence.