VCC (Vaccine Choice Canada) Potluck – Vancouver – Sunday, March 10, – 4:30 – 8:30 pmDate: Sunday March 10th, Time: 4:30 to 8:30 PM
facilities at Mountainview Christian Fellowship 791 East 27th Ave., Vancouver. – (corner of Prince Albert St. and 27th Ave. )
Discussion: on the details and serious consequences of the many BILLS passed by BC’s NDP Legislature.
– Bills 31, 36, 44, 46, 47Bring your favourite dish, – plate/cutlery/drink, ( hopefully washable and not disposal – as we strive to be a ‘no garbage’ community) – seeds and growing supplies – it is approaching pre-seeding time. – books to exchange, – money for community market. – Let me know if you want to reserve space to sell your products. (Queenie) Hope to see you there! Inge
Alberta NDP Leader Rachel Notley Wants Premier Smith to Expel an MLA From the United Conservative Caucus for Attending Pro-Family Rally
[Alberta has just seen cancel culture at its craziest. The leader of the oppostion NDP has demanded that Premier Danielle Smith expel “Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley said United Conservative Party MLA Jason Stephan (Red Deer-South) should be kicked out of caucus for going to the One Million March for Children.
“Shouldn’t be anywhere near the caucus,” said Notley at a Thursday press conference.
“Long since should have been kicked out.”
One might as what business is it of nosy Notley who sits in another party’s caucus?
“
Stephan said at the One Million March for Children in Red Deer on Wednesday, governments and school boards are making gross mistakes with blanket rules based on rare exceptions, especially when it means keeping secrets from parents.
“It’s a very serious manner for government to interpose themselves between families and children,” said Stephan.
“Parents have a sacred, moral duty to their children that pre-exists government.” – Paul Fromm
Notley demands removal of UCP MLA who spoke at One Million March
Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley said she warned people about the United Conservative Party wanting to take their pensions. Courtesy Rachel Notley/YouTube
Alberta NDP leader Rachel Notley said United Conservative Party MLA Jason Stephan (Red Deer-South) should be kicked out of caucus for going to the One Million March for Children.
“Shouldn’t be anywhere near the caucus,” said Notley at a Thursday press conference.
“Long since should have been kicked out.”
Stephan said at the One Million March for Children in Red Deer on Wednesday, governments and school boards are making gross mistakes with blanket rules based on rare exceptions, especially when it means keeping secrets from parents.
“It’s a very serious manner for government to interpose themselves between families and children,” said Stephan.
“Parents have a sacred, moral duty to their children that pre-exists government.”
Notley said Stephan’s removal should “have been the first thing the premier said this morning.”
To all of the sexual minorities in Alberta, she said they are loved, respected and their human rights are as important as everyone else’s. She added there are many people who will fight hard to ensure that never changes.
When she watched a video from a child at one of the rallies making hateful comments, she said it broke her heart. While children are not born with hate in their heart, a person convinced this child to spew hate.
Alberta Premier Danielle Smith did not condemn these comments. Notley called it “one of the most profound failures in leadership that I’ve ever seen.”
She concluded by saying this hate must be condemned.
“And the fact that the premier is normalizing it by allowing one of her caucus members to participate in this is appalling,” she said.
Jordan Peterson: Trudeau and the equity tyrants must be stopped
We’re at the edge of the terrible transformation that is occurring everywhere in the free world Author of the article: Jordan Peterson Published Sep 11, 2023 • Last updated 2 days ago • 9 minute read 1664 Comments
Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau takes part in a press conference during a stopover visit to Singapore on September 8, 2023. (Photo by Roslan RAHMAN / AFP)
Some of those reading this column will know that I have been ordered by the Ontario College of Psychologists to undergo “social media re-training” of indeterminate length, as a consequence of expressing my opinions publicly, with the specified outcome of my comprehensive compliance, as judged by my re-educators.
The charges levied against me include re-tweeting a tweet by the Leader of the Official Opposition in Canada (are you listening, “conservatives”?), criticizing Justin Trudeau and a diverse number of his minions, and expressing skepticism about the doom-saying fear-mongering tyranny-promoting chicken-little prognostications of the eco-fascists.
Why should Canadians care? If you’re a miner, and the canary caged next to you asphyxiates, you don’t blame the bird for being there. You notice that the air has become toxic, and you make tracks for the surface. Regulated professionals, subject to the petty tyranny of their overseeing agencies, are now starting to gasp and choke. Them first — you, next.
It’s already true in Canada that lawyers cannot have the reasonable certainty they once had with regard to the outcome of the cases they are pursuing, relying as they once did on precedent and the common or even civil law. Instead, they have to be prepared to be subjected to the opinions of an increasingly activist court, whose members have taken it upon themselves to put forward what is essentially a radical leftist (“progressive”) agenda. It’s true that physicians and teachers are so afraid to say what they think that even the reasonable among them no longer dare to tell the truth to the patients and children they serve. How do I know this? Because they tell me so. And how well do Canadians presume that the professionals they need will serve them, when they have all been cowed into, at best, liars of silence?
And why should Canadians believe in the existence and operation of such an agenda, rather than (comfortingly) passing such suggestions off as the ranting of demented, conspiratorially-minded right wingers, such as myself?
Here are a couple of facts (remember those?) simultaneously indisputable and unpleasant: Our “Minister of the Environment and Climate Change,” Steven Guilbeault, was not only a radical leftist activist, in his previous incarnation, but is now simultaneously savaging the economy of Western Canada, upon whose revenue his home province of Quebec shamefully, ungratefully and resentfully depends upon, while he works directly with the Chinese Communist Party, rulers of a country building more coal plants every year (two a week) than the rest of the world combined; six times more, to be precise.
He is doing that while rumours of CCP influence over the Canadian electoral process abound (!), under the supervision of a prime minister who has explicitly expressed admiration for the efficiency of communist tyranny, who was a friend to the demented tyrant who ran Cuba as his private fiefdom for decades. That would be Fidel Castro, bosom buddy as well as to Trudeau senior, and the same man who told former president Jimmy Carter that he would have sacrificed his whole island paradise to nuclear annihilation by our American allies just to move the Soviet agenda forward.
He is doing that under the rainbow-festooned banner of a “Liberal” party that has moved so far to the left that the hapless socialist NDP has nothing whatsoever left to offer (particularly labouring as they do under Jagmeet Singh, the most hypocritical politician Canada has ever coughed onto dry land. He is an empty suit of designer clothes too incompetent even to have bargained for the cabinet seat that is the going price, on the world market, for a politician’s soul).
He is doing that as part of an administration that is an express supporter of the deadly doctrine of Diversity, Inclusivity and Equity, the mask that the wolves of compassion wear while they open the throats of the idiot sheep who think they are supporting all that is good and true. Equity: there’s a basket of snakes. What does equity mean? The useful idiots of the moderate left insist that it’s just a synonym for “equality of opportunity.” Why the new word, then, thinkers on the liberal side?
Equity means something very particular, good Canadians. It means that all economic and social systems that do not produce precise equality of outcomes across all possible measures of human difference (race, ethnicity, sex, “gender,” age, health status, ability, you name it) are to be regarded as “systemically prejudiced” and utterly re-tooled, in a revolutionary manner. What’s wrong with that, you ask, thinking of the excluded and the “marginalized,” in that manner so sympathetic endlessly and conveniently deserving of praise; considering yourself, despite your lack of actual effort on their behalf, a friend of the poor.
Let me ask you a straightforward question: do you own anything? A cell phone, perhaps; maybe a car; possibly even an apartment or house (although that is increasingly unlikely, particularly for young people, in Trudeau’s socialist paradise). Does that not mean that other people (the same marginalized; the same poor) don’t own that phone, that car, that house? Are you not therefore excluding them? The answer to that question, by the way, is “yes.” Of course you’re bloody well excluding them — oppressing them, marginalizing them, with your exclusive access to what you have hypothetically worked to earn.
“Property is theft”: no shortage of barely successful peasants such as yourself have died as a consequence of that cliché. How did societies get themselves to that point? By adopting the doctrine of equity, which is now deemed a mandatory belief by the professional organizations that regulate lawyers, physicians, psychologists, accountants, engineer and teachers (and that is not nearly all) in Canada.
Equity is no different than communism, boys and girls. Wait: let me clarify, as that is an error, but not in the direction you think. It’s far worse than mere communism. Marx had nothing on the post-modernists, who now occupy the universities, and have dramatically expanded upon his dread and murderous vision. Marx viewed oppression as essentially one-dimensional: the proletariat (that’s the poor for those of you who went through Canada’s “education” system and still don’t know even that) were exploited by the “bourgeoisie” (that turns out to be “anyone who owns anything at all”). That has happened forever; that’s all you really need to know about history and human social relationships in general; and it has to stop. By any means necessary.
Hence the hundred million or so deaths at the hands of the compassionate progressives in the 20th century. Of course, that wasn’t real communism.
You can tell, because some people were accidentally left standing.
For the postmodernists whose theories now dominate the academy and, increasingly, the western world, the bitter resentment of Marx was just the beginning. The concept of oppression is now limitlessly multi-dimensional. Everyone has become a victim, because of their height, their weight, their lack of attractiveness or athletic ability, their country of origin, their religious belief, the status of their ancestors.
What’s the problem with that? After all, life is hard, and much is distributed unfairly. Well, when everyone is a victim, everyone also becomes, perforce, an oppressor — and the punishment for that is severe. Maybe you’re a bit fat (victim, victim), but you’re white, or the tan that we now call brown that could become white in a flash. Presto! You’re a perpetrator. Maybe you don’t own a house (victim, victim). But you own a rusty old wreck from the 90s. Compared to those who can only afford a bicycle (perhaps because they’re useless layabouts) you are definitely an oppressor. Perhaps you’re genuinely poor (victim victim), but you’re young. You can be certain that you are then at least afflicted by implicit ageism, and your very youth a mark of at least your unconscious bias and general shameful reprehensibility.
Are you beginning to understand the game? I doubt it. It’s much easier for Canadians to keep their sheep/ostrich-heads firmly in the sand, and assume that anyone pointing out not so much what’s going on but what’s already happened is an extremist, a bigot, a right-wing conspiracy theorist, a Confederate sympathizer (in Canada (!)), a MAGA Republican, hell-bent for God only knows what possible reason on overthrowing Canadian democracy.
As if they bloody well care.
As if they even know where Canada is.
Why am I fighting the college? Probably because I’m stupid, or at least, as a Canadian journalist so famously put it, “the stupid person’s smart person.” Touché. Seriously (although all educators are, perforce, the stupid people’s smart person). But I have plenty of money, and a wife I love, and a family that supports me, and friends that do as well, and the opportunity to live anywhere I want to in the world, and have been informed by those who run other political jurisdictions that they would restore my licence in a heart-beat if the low-level schemers in eternally good-thinking Ontario manage to purloin it, as they probably will. I really don’t need the hassle, to say nothing of the literally tens of thousands of dollars it costs per month to keep the vipers at bay.
The process is the punishment, as those who have successfully weaponized many such deep-state bureaucracies know full well.
I am doing it to bring to the attention of Canadians — and, if not Canadians, whose smug self-complacency is perhaps unparalleled in the world (except maybe in comparison to the Kiwis or the liberal Californians) — then to people elsewhere in the West, increasingly inclined as they are to see what is happening in Canada, just as intelligent miners see their canaries.
We’re at the edge of the terrible transformation that is occurring everywhere in the free world. As Canada goes, so hope the progressives, the world goes. Thus, the good fight might as well be fought here. I have a son, a daughter-in-law, and grandchildren in this benighted country. My parents live here. My daughter departed for freer lands, and I won’t forgive the current administration for that. Her example is tempting, and I’ve lived in the United States before — but the same problem exists among our neighbours to the south, despite their more extensive commitment to the freedom that has vanished with amazing rapidity in the Great White North.
It is not that freedom of speech is threatened in Canada, by the way, good people. It’s that it’s already pretty much gone — although, God willing, not permanently. The same can be said for freedom of conscience and association. We gave up freedom of mobility under Trudeau, which was the only freedom he could directly threaten, in his attempt to (successfully) divide Canadians, and therefore promptly did.
We still have the freedom to pretend that everything is just as it was 20 or even 10 years ago. But it’s not. The fact that I am being persecuted for criticizing the prime minister, for passing on the opinions of Pierre Poilievre, and for doubting the opinions of that veritable traitor, Steven Guilbeault, is a primary indication of that. My case would not be attracting the international attention that it is — as is the prosecution of the Trucker Convoy leaders, whose protest was widely admired outside this country — if that was not the case.
Why should you care? It’s not about me, folks. I have options.
Antisemitism charges upend Ontario byelection race in NDP stronghold
It was expected to be a smooth cruise to victory in the NDP stronghold of Hamilton Centre but the campaign has been buffeted by allegations of antisemitism.
Rob Ferguson
By Rob FergusonQueen’s Park Bureau
Sun., March 12, 2023timer4 min. read
updateArticle was updated 3 hrs ago
HAMILTON — It was expected to be a smooth cruise to victory in a riding staunchly New Democrat for almost two decades under former party leader Andrea Horwath, who quit last year to become mayor of Steeltown.
But accusations of antisemitism against NDP candidate Sarah Jama — which she denies — are buffeting the campaign in Thursday’s Hamilton Centre byelection, putting the disability activist and the party’s newly minted leader Marit Stiles on the defensive.
B’nai Brith issued a statement Monday calling Jama “a radical activist who has been associated with groups that have frequently targeted Israel,” including the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement, and urged Stiles to drop her as a candidate.
Jama acknowledged her own “messy history around anti-racism” during a candidates’ debate broadcast on local cable TV the next evening, but said “nothing has been called out in terms of things that I’ve said.”
That history includes ties to Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights during her student activist days at McMaster University. The group has called for a Palestinian state “from the (Jordan) river to the sea” — often interpreted as erasing the state of Israel.
“Me standing up for Palestinian human rights … cannot be conflated with antisemitism,” the founder of the Ontario Disability Justice Network added in an exchange that followed a question from a viewer.
“I’m really against antisemitism in our communities, but I’m also for human rights, and that includes the rights of everybody, whether it’s Black people … Indigenous people in our communities and Palestinian people,” said Jama, 28, who campaigns in a power chair because she cannot walk after being born prematurely with cerebral palsy.
“Being disabled gives me another lens of compassion. It’s one thing to talk about supporting vulnerable community members, but it’s another thing to share in those experiences.”
As part of her activist efforts, Jama was given a $100,000 ticket — and ripped it up — at a 2020 city hall protest in support of homeless people that violated COVID-19 stay-at-home laws, seemingly at odds with frequent New Democrat calls for Premier Doug Ford’s government to maintain tight restrictions to limit spread of the virus. The charges were later dropped.
Jama was acclaimed the NDP candidate in November after running unopposed for the nomination.
Stiles, whose New Democrats rebuked MPP Joel Harden (Ottawa Centre) last fall for antisemitic remarks before she became leader, fielded questions on Jama for three straight days at the legislature — with a nod to her “messy history” remark.
“When you’re at a rally, and we’ve all found ourselves in these situations where you really can’t control what somebody is doing over here and over there, you learn from that, right?” Stiles told reporters.
“Sarah Jama is a well-known human rights activist who has always stood up against hate, antisemitism and racism and I look forward to welcoming her at Queen’s Park.”
Liberal candidate Deirdre Pike, a training facilitator in the LGBTQ community and a former social justice planner in her second run at the riding after losing to Horwath in the 2018 provincial election, said Jama needs to do a better job “clearing the air.”
“There is a problem when respectable organizations like B’nai Brith are calling you out,” added the 60-year-old who got a boost going door-to-door when 1,500 Liberals gathered in Hamilton last weekend to chart a course for picking a new leader.
“Solutions to Israel need to come through diplomatic and negotiated solutions, not through, you know, extreme groups that use phrases that can be quite triggering.”
At a time when Premier Doug Ford is facing criticism over opening the Greenbelt, a lack of affordable housing and a crisis in health care, the challenge is that the byelection campaign is garnering little attention, said McMaster University political scientist Peter Graefe.
“I don’t think people are really talking about it,” he told the Star. “Locally, it’s not much of a story but the parties are trying to use this as provincial messaging.”
Interim Liberal Leader John Fraser — whose party has eight MPPs at Queen’s Park compared to the New Democrats with 30 — said concerns about Jama’s candidacy are key to the tone Stiles is striking for the NDP in the wake of the Harden controversy in November.
“It’s a test of leadership.” he told reporters at Queen’s Park, urging Stiles to drop Jama. “Sometimes doing the right thing is really, really hard.”
Harden was forced to apologize by former NDP interim leader Peter Tabuns for remarks at the August 2021 Ottawa Forum on Israel Palestine.
The Ottawa MPP said he has “asked many questions of Jewish neighbours here about how much longer we should put up with this … the single greatest threat, the single greatest origin of violence in the Middle East, it is unquestionably the state of Israel.”
Tabuns told reporters he was “very angry” at Harden’s “hurtful” comments about confronting Jewish neighbours over actions by the state of Israel, a tactic Friends of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre president Michael Levitt called “textbook antisemitism.”
Progressive Conservative candidate Pete Wiesner, 47, who skipped the cable debate to campaign in-person with voters, said the Jama situation is “certainly in people’s decision-making process now.”
On leave from his job as a Hamilton police sergeant in the crisis response branch, which deals with marginalized communities like the homeless, Wiesner is hoping to build on Ford’s outreach to labour that helped the PCs win additional seats in the June provincial election, including two in the former NDP stronghold of Windsor.
PC candidates finished a distant second in the riding in the last two provincial elections, with Liberals in third place and Greens in fourth.
Ten candidates are running in Thursday’s vote, according to Elections Ontario.
Today Justice Paul Rouleau released his verdict on Trudeau’s use of the Emergencies Act to violently crush the Freedom Convoy one year ago.
Rouleau concluded that Trudeau’s use of the Act was justified.
In a delirious statement, he claims that it was reasonable to believe that this peaceful and joyful protest posed “a threat to the security of Canada”!
I have to say, I am profoundly disappointed, but not surprised.
Justice Rouleau was hand-picked by Trudeau to oversee the inquiry. We can’t forget that Rouleau has a history as a Liberal activist and worked with former Prime Minister John Turner.
This Commission was not independent, as it should have been. It was Liberals investigating Liberals.
Is anyone really surprised that Liberals protect their own?
At the end of the day, the findings of Rouleau don’t really matter.
We all know that Trudeau would not have resigned even if the Commission had found he overstepped his powers.
We all know that Jagmeet Singh would not have held Trudeau accountable by withdrawing his support and forcing an election.
No matter the findings of this illegitimate inquiry, Trudeau’s actions of one year ago exposed him as the tyrant he is.
He crushed peaceful protesters with police horses.
He threw people in jail on false charges.
He froze people’s bank accounts without due process.
The Freedom Convoy forced Trudeau to show his true colours.
It exposed the opposition, the NDP, Conservatives, and Bloc as incompetent and incapable of holding the government to account.
Frederick, we must replace these corrupt politicians with People’s Party MPs willing to govern in the best interest of all Canadians!
Maxime Bernier Hails the Anniversary of the Truckers Freedom Convoy
One year ago today marked the beginning of a historic moment in Canadian history.
The beginning of the largest human rights protest Canada has ever seen.
The beginning of the most inspiring act of civil disobedience I have ever experienced.
The Freedom Convoy.
After 2 years of government tyranny, of lockdowns and travel bans, of curfews and stay at home orders, of governments pitting families and friends against each other, of propaganda and psychological manipulation…
Brave Canadian truckers started a movement that would wake up a nation and inspire the world.
Starting in the Western heartland, they drove east. The line of trucks and cars grew as they passed through each city and province.
Patriotic Canadians gathered on highway overpasses, waving flags and raising homemade signs.
A year ago today they began to arrive in Ottawa.
The corrupt hacks and career politicians that walk the halls of Parliament were reminded that these buildings, this country, belongs to us.
They were reminded that Canadians are not just serfs paying taxes to support their insane globalist projects and inflated MP salaries.
We are a proud people not to be treated like slaves or cogs in some broken machine.
Trudeau smeared the protestors as racists and misogynists. “A small fringe minority with unacceptable views”.
The fake news media painted it as an “occupation.” They claimed the citizens of downtown Ottawa were being “terrorized” and lied about protestors committing arson and other crimes.
But I was there in person. I experienced it first hand.
And I can tell you, it was the most beautiful, peaceful, and patriotic event I have ever seen.
After two years of misery and discrimination, of being separated from friends and family, there was a special sense of love and togetherness in the streets of Ottawa.
People were proud to be Canadian again.
But just as pride and patriotism was resurging in Canada, Justin Trudeau stomped it out, like a campfire at the end of the night.
He gave himself unprecedented powers, meant to protect Canadians at times of war.
He did things that should never be done to peaceful Canadian citizens.
He weaponized the financial system, shutting down fundraisers and freezing people’s bank accounts without due process.
Storm troopers took to the streets, shooting journalists with tear gas and trampling people with horses.
Pride in our country evaporated. We were reminded the tyrants are still in control.
Even though the Freedom Convoy was violently crushed, it was still a brilliant success.
Public opinion had turned. Provincial governments started to quietly drop mandates and restrictions.
We must not forget about what the tyrannical Liberals did to us. What the NDP and Bloc Québécois enabled. What the Conservatives failed to oppose.
We must recapture the fervor and passion of the Freedom Convoy and start fighting now to make change in the next election.
We must replicate what the Freedom Convoy accomplished. After filling the streets of Ottawa with the People, we must fill the House of Commons with People’s Party MPs.
He that Hath No Sword, Let Him Sell His Garment and Buy One
Here in the Dominion of Canada, we are now in the eighth year of the federal premiership of Captain Airhead, or Justin Trudeau to use the unkind slur by which he is often called. He came to power in the Dominion election of 2015 with a majority win for the Liberals and has managed to cling to power ever since with slim pluralities. Despite, however, the fact that he has been in a position of minority government since 2019, he continues to govern like he has a clear, blank-cheque of a mandate, to do whatever he wants, no matter how unjust and divisive his various agendas turn out to be.
Take Bill C-21. Please, take it. This bill was tabled (1) early last year and had finished going through its first two readings around the beginning of summer in June. The bill is the product of all the hot air that has been coming from the Liberal government since the multiple shooting incident in Nova Scotia in April of 2020. Shortly after the attacks, Captain Airhead announced on the Communist holiday that a ban by Order-in-Counsel would take effect immediately on what he called “assault-style” weapons. This was all a lot of smoke and mirrors. Actual assault weapons of the kind that match the way the Prime Minister keeps describing them, i.e., weapons designed to kill as many people as possible in as short a period of time, were already illegal in Canada and had been long before the Nova Scotia shootings. The “assault-style weapons” that he was going after were merely non-military grade rifles that had been made to look like military rifles for those to whom such an appearance had an aesthetic appeal. Captain Airhead then began shooting his mouth off for the last three years about the need to make our streets safe from gun crime, even as he introduced or stuck to policies on everything from border control to mind-altering drugs to bail reform that had the opposite effect. Bill C-21 if passed would amend various Acts of Parliament to enshrine a much broader gun ban than the one of 2020 into statutory law. It would do absolutely nothing about making our streets safe from gun crime because these crimes are overwhelmingly committed with guns that are illegally obtained – as were the guns in the Nova Scotia shootings, incidentally – because they are already illegal. None of these acts of the Trudeau Liberals, from the Order-in-Council of 1 May, 2020 to Bill C-21, have had or will have much of an effect on making Canadians safer from crimes either of the Nova Scotia variety or of the kind that afflicts our inner cities. Those who are most affected by such empty, self-righteous, gestures are law-abiding Canadians who own guns that they acquired legally and have only used legally. Liberals like the Prime Minister, Bill Blair and Marco “the Mendacious” Mendicino think nothing about unjustly and unfairly punishing such people for the crimes of actual gun criminals against whom they are either unable or unwilling to act.
All the criticism of Bill C-21 and its drafters in the preceding paragraph applied to the bill even before it went into Committee consideration after the second reading in the House which is where it presently stands. During the Committee stage, however, the Liberals amended it in a way that made it much worse. The amendment, which was introduced very late in the year, the Liberals apparently hoping to squeak the amended bill through Committee and its third reading before the House adjourned for Christmas and relying upon the amendment having been introduced just prior to the anniversary of the École Polytechnique massacre to shield the move from criticism, greatly expanded the list of guns to be banned. While the Liberals continue to shout “misinformation” and “disinformation” at anyone, especially His Majesty’s Loyal Opposition, the Conservatives, when they point this out, it is quite reasonable to conclude from the amended list of guns to be banned that rural Canadians, especially farmers and hunters, are being targeted here. There are guns on the list that are clearly hunting guns and which are in no way connected to gun crime in Canada. A traditional shotgun made by English manufacturer Webley and Scott for hunting birds is one such example. There are many others. (2) Indeed, if you were to draw up a list of the most common guns used by farmers and hunters, you would find that many of the most prominent guns on the list are included in the amended version of Bill C-21. The Liberal Party under its current management loves to turn Canadians against each other, to reward those who vote Liberal, and rub the noses of those who do not vote Liberal in Liberal laws, but here this backfired against them. At present, as a minority government, they are propped up by the socialist party, the New Democrats, who agreed to support them in Parliament until the next Dominion election. It is not just the Conservatives, however, who have a large rural base but the NDP as well. While the NDP is led by urban socialists, much of their caucus represent northern ridings where reservations in which hunting remains a huge part of the way of life are to be found. When the Assembly held an emergency session in early December and condemned the Liberal bill as an assault on their way of life the NDP had no choice but to join the Conservatives in opposing the Bill in its currently amended form. When this happened, even the few Liberals who represent rural ridings felt free to break ranks with the leadership of their own party over the issue. Call it a Christmas miracle.
While initially when faced with such opposition the government gave signs of being willing to make concessions, when asked a few weeks later about this the Prime Minister indicated that they intended to pass Bill C-21 and doubled down on accusing the Conservatives of “misinformation” and “disinformation” for telling the truth about how the bill would adversely affect law-abiding rural Canadians without doing anything about actual gun crime. How this shall unfold in this New Year remains to be seen.
Earlier last year Captain Airhead made a remark in an interview that is quite revealing about the attitude he brings to this issue. Appearing on an American podcast (Pod Save the World) he defended his government’s gun control policies and contrasted American and Canadian culture saying:
and we have a culture where the difference is, guns can be used for hunting or for sport-shooting in Canada, and there are lots of gun owners, and they’re mostly law-respecting and law abiding, but you can’t use a gun for self-protection in Canada. That’s not a right that you have in the constitution or anywhere else.
It would be interesting to know if he really believes this or if he was just shooting his mouth off without thinking. It is, of course, nonsense. Canadians do indeed have a constitutional and legal right of self-protection and when a right is explicitly spelled out as such in constitution and law the implicit corollary is the right to employ such means as the explicit right may require. Trudeau may be under the mistaken impression that his father’s Charter is the Canadian constitution, a mistake about which I shall have more to say shortly, but even if we limit our discussion of the constitution to the Charter his statement would be wrong. Section 7 of the Charter by spelling out Canadians right to security of the person, recognizes their right of self-protection. Furthermore, the Firearms Act recognizes self-protection as a legitimate grounds for a firearms permit (Section 20) and the Criminal Code (Sections 34, 35) acknowledges the right to use force to protect one’s person and property.
The Charter of Rights and Freedoms, properly understood, of course, is not Canada’s constitution, but a part of Canada’s constitution that was added in 1982. Even the British North America Act, which, contrary to what many mistakenly think was not repealed in 1982 but renamed (the Constitution Act, 1867), taken together with the Charter, is only part of our constitution. In Canada, we have a constitution that is both written and unwritten, and the unwritten parts are the largest. The Charter itself acknowledges that its enactment does not annul other rights and freedoms than those spelled out it in it, that Canadians had previously enjoyed as part of our constitutional heritage of Common Law and parliamentary monarchy. The right to use firearms in self-protection was already part of that heritage before the American Revolution and was not invented by the United States. The only thing distinctively American about the United States’ version of the idea of the right to use firearms in self-protection is the notion that the right is absolute. That people have the basic rights of life, liberty, and property, and the necessary corollary right to protect the same, and consequently the right to the means to such protection was recognized by both the Tory (Sir William Blackstone) and Whig (John Locke) traditions before the latter gave birth to both the American Revolution and the Liberal Party, which, for all of Trudeau’s yap about American influence on Canada, has always been the party of Americanization.
There is a tendency in some Christian circles to misinterpret the teachings of Christ in way that is parallel to how Trudeau misinterprets the Canadian constitution and law. These misguided brethren have the idea that not merely the use of guns but self-protection in general is forbidden believers by Jesus’ teachings (the Sermon on the Mount specifically), and example (He allowed Himself to be arrested, falsely accused, tortured, and crucified without resisting). In an extreme form that is associated with the tradition of the far left radical wing of the continental Protestant Reformation this interpretation of Jesus’ teachings and example is taken to mean that Christians cannot serve as policemen, soldiers, or in any other office of the state that requires the use of force.
With regards to the Sermon on the Mount this misinterpretation arises from the basic error of failing to give due weight to Matthew 5:17-19 or to note how these verses apply to what immediately follows in the remainder of the chapter. These verses are the warning not to think that Jesus had come to abolish the Law or the Prophets but to fulfil them. They come before Jesus’ saying that one’s righteousness must exceed that of the scribes and Pharisees to enter the Kingdom of Heaven and His expansion upon what that entails with a series of six contrasts in which one variation or another of the words “ye have heard that it was said to them of old time” introduces a quotation from the Old Testament, and then Jesus introduces the other side of the contrast with “but I say to you”. These latter words are ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν in the Greek. δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν means “but I say to you” without the ἐγὼ and ἐγὼ like all other nominative case personal pronouns in Greek is only used for emphasis. By emphasizing the first person pronoun in this way, in this sort of contrast, Jesus declares His Own authority in speaking to be on par with that of the Old Testament Scriptures. This format could easily suggest to some minds that Jesus was telling His followers to disregard the Old Testament and listen to Him instead. Verses 17 to 19 warn His hearers against taking His words in that manner.
With regards to the first two contrasts, in which the Old Testament quotations are taken from the Decalogue, there is less need of such a warning since what follows the “but I say to you” intensifies the meaning of the quoted commandment. The third and fourth contrasts, however, could easily be taken as contradicting the Old Testament commandments. The quotations come from the civil portion of the Mosaic Law, the instructions with regards to divorce and swearing oaths. Jesus tells His followers that anyone who divorces his wife except for the cause of fornication causes her and anyone who marries her to commit adultery, and tells them not to swear at all. Verses 17 to 19 tell us that this is not to be taken as annulling the civil provisions of the Mosaic Law. Therefore, when Jesus said “swear not at all” this had nothing to do with the courtroom, as those sects whose members won’t take the oath before testifying in court wrongly think, but with oaths in common conversation. Swearing on a Bible to “tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” does not violate Jesus’ instructions. Saying “by gum” in casual conversation does. (3)
The same principle applies to the last couplet of contrasts. In the first of these, the Old Testament quotation is the Lex Talionis “an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth”. In the second the quotation is the Second Greatest Commandment, to love your neighbour. Note that in this final contrast, in addition to the Old Testament quotation there is added the words “and hate thine enemy”, a false extrapolation from the Old Testament commandment, and it is this false extrapolation to which Jesus speaks with His “but I say to you” which here directly contradicts the unscriptural add-on with the instruction to “love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you.”.
It is Jesus’ “but I say to you” remarks in this last couplet of contrasts that is taken by some to mean that Christians are not allowed to protect themselves against violence. What do verses 17 to 19 tell us about Jesus’ instructions to turn the other cheek?
The first thing to note, is that clearly verses 17 to 19 tell us that Jesus was not setting aside the Lex Talionis as the standard of criminal justice to be applied in a court of law. Since that is the case, the extreme interpretation that says that Jesus’ followers are not serve as officers of law enforcement or any other state office the duties of which require the use of force is a twisting of the meaning of this passage.
The second thing to note is that just as clearly “But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also” cannot be speaking about protecting oneself against the violent attacks of others. This is because the right of self-protection was established in the Mosaic Law. Exodus 22 is the operative passage. If somebody breaks into another person’s house in the middle of the night, that person – the homeowner not the burglar – is not guilty of a crime if he uses lethal force against the housebreaker. It was a limited right – it lasted only to daybreak after which the homeowner would be guilty, presumably because other options than lethal force would then be available – rather than an absolute right, but it is there and therefore, we can conclude from Matthew 5:17-19, that the instruction to turn the other cheek does not forbid such self-protection. Indeed, this should be apparent from Jesus’ very words. The verb translated “smite” is ῥαπίζω and while this word did originally mean “strike with a stick” – it is derived from a noun meaning “stick” or “rod” – or “cudgel” or “thrash”, it later came to be used as shorthand for the phrase ἐπὶ κόρρης πατάξαι which more or less means “knock upside the head” and in writings contemporaneous with the New Testament generally means a “slap in the face”. This is what it means here in the Gospel where the right cheek is specifically mentioned. This particular combination refers not to an attack on the security of one’s person, but to an insult, the kind of insult that affronts one’s honour and challenges one to a duel. To accept that challenge is to take a situation in which a confrontation has been building up in words and escalate it into violence, potentially lethal violence. The response prescribed by Jesus, however, is one that would defuse such a powder keg. It is quite perverse, therefore, to take Jesus’ words here as forbidding you from taking measures to protect yourself in situations that are already violent.
This brings us to Jesus’ Own example. There are a number of important observations to be made. The first of these is that Jesus clearly did not believe that the use of force is never called for in any situation. Had He thought that way He would not have overturned the tables of the money-changers and drove the merchants out of the Temple. The second, is that prior to His meekly submitting to arrest He commanded His disciples to procure for themselves the means of self-protection by selling their clothes if necessary (Luke 22:36, from which the title of this essay is taken). The third is that His submission to being arrested, falsely charged, falsely convicted, tortured, and crucified was necessary because it was through these events that He fulfilled the purpose for which He came into this world in the first place, to offer Himself up as the propitiatory sacrifice for the sins of the whole world.
Related to this last observation is one that can be made about Jesus’ early followers, both in the New Testament and in the early centuries of post-New Testament Christian history. While it is true that the early Christians submitted to being tortured, imprisoned, and killed for Jesus’ sake, the most important words here are “for Jesus’ sake”. Jesus had warned His followers at various times, such as in the Olivet Discourse and in the earlier original commissioning of the Twelve Apostles (and later the Seventy), that thy would be persecuted in this manner because of His name and told them that they would be blessed and rewarded for this. The early Christians rejoiced at the opportunity to suffer for Christ in this way. All of this, however, had to do with their being treated in this way because they were Christians, because they publicly confessed and proclaimed Christ. If a disciple were walking down a street in ancient Corinth and were pulled into an alley and beaten and robbed of everything he had on him and left to die, not because he was a Christian but because the robber who neither knew nor cared what his religious beliefs were wanted some quick cash, this did not make a martyr out of that disciple. When the early Christians qua Christians, were persecuted, tortured, and killed in the name of the Christ they confessed, by submitting to such treatment they bore witness to that Christ, and by doing so persuaded many others of the truth of their faith. Just as good came out of the sufferings and death of Jesus Christ, in that His death paid for the sins of the world and made salvation available to all, so good came out of the martyrdom of His followers which contributed to the spread of the Gospel throughout the ancient world. The willingness of the early Christians to submit to martyrdom or rather to embrace it – St. Ignatius of Antioch, a disciple of St. John the Apostle, is said to have yearned for martyrdom his entire Christian life and mourned when he survived earlier persecutions than the one in which he finally attained it – should not therefore be taken as evidence that they thought they needed to submit without resisting to any and every act of violence. While the death of Jesus Christ accomplished the salvation of the world and the martyrdom of the early Christians helped the Gospel to spread like wildfire, most types of violent deaths – robbing someone for his wallet, murdering someone in a fit of rage, the cold-blooded assassination of your business or political rivals, killing someone in a drunken or drug-induced brawl, etc. – accomplish no such good. To submit to such acts can indeed do evil to others. If you give in to the demands of a bully, for example, he will generally not be satisfied and leave you alone, but will continue to bully you more and demand more of you, and will be emboldened to bully others, until someone stands up to him. This applies to other forms of violent aggression as well. Those who erroneously think that the teachings and example of Jesus and His early followers tell us that we ought to submit in non-resistance to every sort of violent crime are telling us that we should be content to allow our neighbours to suffer from society being overrun by violent crime. That is an odd way of loving one’s neighbour. The Second Greatest Commandment, of course, is to “love thy neighbour as thyself”. If someone’s idea of loving himself is that he should allow everyone and everything to walk all over him, submit to every sort of affront to his human dignity, and let every imaginable sort of violent crime be perpetrated against himself, I would not place much stock in his love for his neighbour.
(1) This terminology might confuse readers from the United States if they are not aware of the difference between their usage and ours. In the Commonwealth to “table” a bill means to introduce it in parliament for consideration, i.e., to “put it on the table”. In American parlance it has the opposite meaning, to remove a bill from consideration, or to “take it off the table”.
(3) This is, of course, where the word “swearing” in the negative sense of the term comes from. Originally, “swearing” in the negative sense meant the use of oaths outside of a courtroom. Some older Canadians may still remember a time when they would be reprimanded for swearing for saying any of the various sorts of “by this or that” casual oaths. Ironically, as the word came to take on the generic meaning of “language you shouldn’t use” so as to include cursing, which Scripture is also against, and barnyard or gutter slang about which the Scripture is silent, the sorts of phrases it originally and literally described, dropped out of what most people think when they hear the word. — Gerry T. Neal
Unholy Coalition of COVID Crazies Bans MP From Parliament & Doing Her Job for Not Disclosing Her Vaxx Status
Conservative MP FORCED OUT of Parliament Due To Vaccine Status
She refused to show her proof of vaccination, as it is private medical information, and consequently the Liberal-NDP coalition threatened to kick her out of the House Of Commons.
By William Diaz-Berthiaume
When the MP for the riding of Yorkton—Melville in Saskatchewan Cathay Wagantall took the decision of finally coming back to West Block in order to better serve her constituents, the Liberals and NDP in the house threatened to kick her out of Parliament. Therefore she preemptively decided to leave, before security would need to get involved.
After this occurred, she staged a press conference in front of West Block, to explain what the situation was, and what actions had been taken. “There’s no way that any of our public servants are being nearly as efficient as they should be working from home,” she stated.
Wagantall explained that she believes “there are very good reasons why an exemption should be given to a number of Canadians – actually the majority of them. Because there are a lot of reasons why an individual may choose not to get vaccinated.”
“This Prime Minister has decided that the only way you get an exemption is if you take that first vaccine,” she continues, “and you have an anaphylactic reaction to it. That’s insane!”
One thing Wagantall wants to make clear is that she is neither vaccinated, nor unvaccinated. The fact that she does not disclose her vaccination status does not imply if she is or isn’t vaccinated.
The point she makes is that it is immoral to coerce a free individual into providing private medical information to another person. Two reporters that were at the small press conference challenged her by asking: “what about other Canadians? Why should you have an exemption and not them?”
Wagantall made sure to remind them that she does not believe she should be an exception.
Following this line of aggressive questioning, a True North reporter asked Wagantall what she thinks of the fact that the whole world is opening up again, and lift mask mandates as well as vaccine mandates, but not Canada. And that since this is happening, why does she think Trudeau himself is not lifting the mandates?
Here is her full response:
“I would really love you all to ask him that question over and over and over again. And put it in your papers. What do I think? There’s clearly an alternative agenda.”
One odd thing with this whole situation is that on Tuesday, Justin Trudeau attended the National Prayer Breakfast and stood right next to Wagantall unmasked. https://platform.twitter.com/embed/Tweet.html?dnt=false&embedId=twitter-widget-
Leslyn Lewis pointed out that she believes this is insanity, and that all mandates should end now.
MP Cathay Wagantall will now be forced to go back to serving her people in a virtual manner, and will not be allowed inside Parliament to defend her beliefs, and protect her constituents.
She pointed out that behind a Member of Parliament’s badge, it is written that they must be allowed inside Parliament at all times, without obstruction. If this is the case, then this situation contradicts the rights that she holds as an MP.
The Rage of Anti-White “Wokeism”: Ontario NDP Sees “Islamophobia” as he Worst Sin Possible — Throws Longtime NDP MPP Out of Caucus for A Facebook Post He May Never Have Made
During the 2018 Ontario provincial election,the far-left Ontario NDP stood behind their candidate in Scarborough–Agincourt, Tasleem Riaz, a Muslim woman, who denied allegedly posting a pro-Hitler meme on her Facebook timeline at some point in the past.
The Facebook post features a quote that is commonly attributed to Hitler overlaid over a photo of the tyrannical despot giving a Nazi salute to a gathered crowd. A title above the image reads, “The Ruler said about Rule.” The phrase below it — “If you don’t like a rule … just follow it … reach on the top … and change the rule,” is attributed to Hitler, though there’s no direct historical evidence the Nazi leader ever uttered it.
In a statement at the time, Riaz said that she was “horrified that an inappropriate meme was on my Facebook page” and that she cannot understand how it happened.
“I don’t recall sharing it in 2013 — and at no point in my life would I have done so intentionally,” she continued. “I am an interfaith advocate, and I have devoted my life to interfaith religious tolerance and freedom. I work closely with the Jewish, Hindu, Christian, Sikh and Muslim communities in my neighbourhood. In every way, I find Hitler, the hate he spewed, and the genocide he committed to be abhorrent.”
Case closed. Ontario NDP leader Andrea Horwath gave Riaz the benefit of the doubt. Riaz was believed when she claimed that her Facebook account must have been “hacked”, and the offending meme posted to make her look bad.
Fast forward to 2022. Ontario is set to have another provincial election on June 2. The opposition Ontario NDP is riding high in the polls.
A longtime incumbent Ontario MPP, Paul Miller, is expelled from the party’s caucus at the Legislative Assembly of Ontario this week, after being accused of being a member of a Facebook group called ‘Worldwide Coalition Against Islam’
Like Ms Riaz, Mr Miller likewise denies ever having committed a moral offence on Facebook. “I have never posted anything on Twitter or Facebook. Frankly, I’m not that great at the internet”, Miller said. “I have done absolutely nothing wrong”
Unlike, Ms Riaz though, Mr Miller has not been given the benefit of the doubt. He has been kicked out of the Ontario NDP as both a member and a legislator.
Ms Riaz is a ‘woman of colour’ and a Muslim,so she is automatically the victim in the eyes of the politically correct, ‘woke’, liberal-left,no matter what she says or does.
Mr Miller is a white male, and thus automatically guilty in the eyes of the politically correct, ‘woke’, liberal-left, no matter what he says or does.
White leftists like Andrea Horwath worship at the altar of minority pandering, ‘wokeness’, post-modernism, post-structuralism, and while guilt.
There is increasing no place for White Men on the liberal-left of the political spectrum.Even genuine leftwing union types like Paul Miller are increasingly persona non grata. Furthermore, Andrea Horwath is also simply too scared about offending both Ontario’s growing Muslim population (which has been doubling in size every decade since 1991) as well as the feral ‘woke’ mob, to have taken the same action against Ms Riaz in 2018 as she has against Mr Miller in 2022.
Carolyn Burjoski, bottom row left, was ejected from this Waterloo Region District School Board virtual meeting for expressing concerns over content in some board-approved school library books. Photo by Screen grab
An Ontario school board is facing charges of censorship this week after shutting down a teacher’s presentation to the group, saying her comments about books on transgender issues violated the province’s human rights code.
Carolyn Burjoski was discussing publications she said are available in the libraries of Kindergarten to grade six schools. She had begun to argue the books made it seem too simple and “cool” to medically transition to another gender when her presentation was cut short by the Waterloo Region District School Board’s chair.
Scott Piatkowski ruled she could not continue and the board eventually voted 5-4 to back up his decision. The fallout has continued since.
Though controversial and opposed by most transgender advocates, concerns have been voiced before — including by leading figures in the movement itself — that gender-dysphoric young people are sometimes pushed too aggressively into medical transition.
Piatkowski later told a local CTV station , however, that Burjoski’s comments were actually transphobic and “questioned the right to exist” of trans people. Meanwhile, the organization took down its recording of the meeting — a regular, public session of elected officials — and had YouTube remove another copy of the video for alleged copyright infringement.
And then the teacher was given what she calls a “stay-at-home order” and told not to communicate with colleagues or students, though she’s still being paid and is slated to retire soon. On Thursday, she says her union rep informed her the board had appointed an outside investigator to examine her actions.
We do need to have a conversation about the intersection of biology and gender
In her first interview on the affair, Burjoski said she was “flabbergasted” by what happened at the meeting and Piatkowski’s remarks afterward.
“I am not a transphobic person. It’s crazy that just because you ask a question, the first thing people do is call you that,” she said. “We do need to have a conversation about the intersection of biology and gender. We’re not having those conversations in our culture because, look what happened to me.”
She said the order to stay away from school was likely meant to make an example of her: “The message is clear: no dissent is allowed.”
Piatkowski declined to comment Thursday, saying he was already the target of organized online harassment and didn’t want to feed it further. He referred to two previous interviews with local media outlets.
The human rights code bars discrimination based on gender identity and other grounds in the areas of housing, employment and providing services.
Asked to explain how Burjoski’s comments violated the code, the chair told 570 News radio station that he would not repeat or respond to her remarks and “give them oxygen.”
But he said he stood by his decision, and that chairs of other boards in the province have told him they would have done the same thing.
“This person was speaking about transgender people in a way that was disrespectful, that would cause them to be attacked and I really needed to ensure it did not continue,” Piatkowski said. “I’m quite confident it was the right decision.”
He said Thursday he knew nothing about the board’s actions against Burjoski or removal of the video of the meeting.
Board spokesperson Eusis Dougan-McKenzie said Friday the video was not officially posted because of concerns about a possible human-rights code violation. In a statement, WDRSB said “we would like to express our deep regret for any harm caused to the transgender community” by Burjoski’s comments.
Two groups representing the LGBTQ community in Waterloo could not be reached for comment. Trans activists, however, often argue that statements questioning medical transition in any way can fuel transgender harassment, discrimination and violence.
“I’m not sorry that someone who opened the door to transphobic comments was stopped from keeping that door open,” Laura Mae Lindo, the NDP MPP for Kitchener Centre, commented on Twitter. “That’s not over-reach. Protect the most vulnerable. Uphold human rights. If you can’t do that, sit down.”
One Waterloo trustee who came to Burjoski’s defence on Monday, though, blasted the board’s decision and said he’s never seen a delegation silenced in that way before.
“It’s censoring presentations that the chair doesn’t agree with,” said long-time board member Mike Ramsay, who has served as chair three times himself. “As decision makers, we have to make informed decisions.… If we’re going to just take one point of view and say that’s sufficient, that’s wrong on so many fronts.”
Burjoski said she has worked for more than 20 years as a teacher of English as a second language, specializing in children who have immigrated from various countries affected by war and political unrest.
She appeared as a one-person public “delegation” in a session discussing the board’s controversial decision to conduct a system-wide removal of books it considered “harmful.”
Her comments focused on resources recommended by the board for a transgender awareness day. Trouble started when she turned to a book called The Other Boy by M.G. Hennessey and a scene that depicts a meeting between Shane, a transgender boy (born a girl), and a doctor. He voices excitement about starting on testosterone and when the physician says it would mean he likely wouldn’t be able to have children, he says, “It’s cool.”
If we’re going to just take one point of view and say that’s sufficient, that’s wrong
As Burjoski remarked that such books make it seem overly straightforward to take cross-sex hormones, Piatkowski interjected to warn she may be violating the code.
The teacher then went on to say the book was misleading “because it does not take into account how Shane might feel later in life about being infertile. This book makes very serious medical interventions seem like an easy cure for emotional and psychological distress.”
At that point, Piatkowski told her he was “ending the presentation.”
The widely used “affirmation” approach to children who identify as transgender has raised some concerns in several countries, and not just among obvious critics. Two leading psychologists in the transgender medical community, one of them a trans woman, complained in a recent article about sloppy and dangerous assessment of young people presenting as trans, with overly hasty resort to hormones.
Pam Buffone, whose parents group Canadian Gender Report highlights similar issues, said Burjoski raised legitimate questions about the appropriateness of school materials, as places like Finland restrict the use of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.
“If there’s a reason to hide this discussion from public scrutiny, then there’s really something wrong,” she said.
