CAFE Supports “Hands Off Our Kids” Rally in St. Catharines, Ontario
ST. Catharines, October 21, 2023. Over 200 people rallied today here to oppose indoctrination of children with the radical SOGI (Sexual Orientations and Gender Identity) sex ed programme. They also insisted that parents be informed if their under age and perhaps confused children are changing their names or pronouns at school.
CAFE supporters took at active part in the rally.
The St. Catharines rally was one of dozens taking part across Canada.
About a dozen pro-LGBTQ counterprotesters shadowed the march bust stayed well back.
Chilliwack Board of School Trustees faces legal action over freedom of expression concerns
[One of the ways lefish school boards silence parent delegation is by turning off the microphone, claiming that the remarks are discriminatory. Usually they are not, but, even if so, so what: The TAXPAYERS have a Charter right to petition their elected representatives.]
A grandmother is suing a B.C. school board she says violated her rights by shutting her down at a public meeting.
Lynda Di Armani is taking the Chilliwack Board of School Trustees to court after being interrupted and having her microphone cut off when she attempted to raise attention to a conflict of interest she said one of the board members had.
Di Armani, a grandmother and former school employee, began her time in the meeting by saying that trustee Teri Westerby had brought forward a motion about flying a pride flag during pride month, despite being the director of marketing for the local pride society.
Board chair Willow Rechelt and vice-chair Carin Bondar interrupted Di Armani and claimed her statements were “discriminatory.”
Di Armani was interrupted several times and her microphone was cut off, before she was eventually told to sit down before she had finished speaking, according to video of the meeting.
Di Armani alleges in a lawsuit filed by the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) that the board’s treatment of her violated her Charter right to freedom of expression.
“Elected officials exercising government power must respect Canadians’ Charter freedoms. The Chilliwack School Board’s actions show a disregard for not only my client’s freedom of expression but also for the listening public, who have a right to hear diverse views at Board meetings,” said Marty Moore, Di Armani’s lawyer.
The allegation has not been proven in court and the Chilliwack school board did not respond to a request for comment from True North.
While the chair is authorized to cut off the remarks of speakers who don’t comply with their bylaw, the chair is not allowed to silence people simply because of disagreement with what they are saying, the JCCF says.
Di Armani is petitioning the court for a declaration that the board overstepped its bounds and violated her Charter rights. Additionally, she is seeking court orders to prevent similar behaviours in the future and to permit the public to record these meetings on their own devices.
Upon entry, Di Armani alleges she was mandated to sign a declaration confirming she would not record the session. This policy, Di Armani contends, means the board retains exclusive control over the meeting’s recordings, potentially allowing for selective muting or editing, thereby infringing upon the public’s right to fully hear, listen, and weigh alternative viewpoints. (True North, October 20, 2023)
FREEDOM RALLIES – Penticton4Freedom – every Sunday from 1 to 3 p.m.
at Main and Warren, Penticton
In case you missed last week – Author Donald Lee dug deep into the workings of the fraud involved in the false pandemic and the way ahead to freedom.
=============================================This Week : Mike Goodman takes the lead again with his recent research and opens the mic to all who wish to share their news. With the Hands Off Our Kids rallies today, there will be stories to tell from those who attended one of those events.Miss a week and you miss a lot!Fighting for freedom is more fun with friends. Bring a few.Suggest a topic or a speaker, and we’ll be happy to find someone to share their knowledge with us.——————————- o0o————————————-EVENTS——————————————- o0o————————————————- 1 Million March 4 Children Events October 21, 2023~Summerland~
Please show up early to get set up. Memorial Park, Summerland – official start 1 p.m.
As you are all most likely aware, the Israel-Palestinian conflict has flared up again. Like clockwork, the apologists for both sides have come crawling out of the woodworks insisting that we all take sides. Interestingly, this time around the apologists on each side are taking rather the same position with regards to the apologists of the other side that they insist the side they are cheering for in the Middle East take towards the other side, i.e., one of eradication and elimination. The pro-Israel side is calling for the pro-Palestinian side to be silenced, their protests shut down, and their views criminalized. Some on the pro-Israel side are capable of distinguishing between being pro-Palestinian, that is to say, someone who seeks to promote the basic human rights of the Palestinian Arab population, and being a supporter of the murderous terrorist organization Hamas, but it seems to me that they are outnumbered by those lacking this capacity. To be fair, this same incapacity characterizes the other side as well. On either side, it is most ugly in its manifestation. The pro-Israelis who fail to make the distinction have come close to calling for all expressions of humanitarian concern for the Palestinians to be outlawed as hate. They clearly have come dangerously unhinged because all rational, sensible, and decent people are categorically opposed to laws criminalizing hate qua hate. The other side, however, has made it difficult not to sympathize with them to some degree in that they have been openly cheering on the most vile and despicable sorts of behaviour on the part of Hamas.
Two and a half years ago, in an essay entitled “The Holy Land Returns to the Old Normal” I gave an overview of the Israel-Palestine conflict, rebutted a few common fallacies concerning it, offered an explanation of where the insistence that we all take sides comes from, and answered that demand. I do not intend to go over all of that material again, but I hope you will excuse my quoting myself here. At the end of the essay I pointed out the obvious real nature of the relationship between the Israeli government and Hamas:
The most ill-kept secret of the Middle East is that Likud Israeli governments and Hamas each rely upon the other to maintain their popular support among their own people. The Palestinians expect Hamas to keep on harassing Israel. The Israelis expect their government to brutally punish the Palestinians. Each, therefore, provides the other with the excuse to do what they need to do to play to their own crowds. So we come to May of this year. On the sixth the Palestinians hold a protest in East Jerusalem, on the seventh the Israelis crack down and storm the al-Aqsa mosque, on the tenth Hamas issues an ultimatum which Israel naturally ignores and the rockets start flying, on the eleventh the Israeli Air Force begin several days of bombing the hell out of Gaza. On the twentieth, having given their fans the show they were looking for, Netanyahu and Hamas agree to a ceasefire. Bada bing, bada boom, it is all over in a fortnight, mission accomplished, everyone is happy, high fives all around. Too bad about all the people who had to die, but didn’t someone somewhere at sometime say something about an omelet and eggs?
There is no good reason to think that any of this has changed in the present situation. Indeed, the current conflagration could be said to exemplify the point. The actions of the Israeli government and Hamas both clearly serve the interests of the other. Consider Hamas’ attack on 7 October. On top of the usual barrage of rockets, Hamas breached Israel’s supposedly impenetrable barrier and almost 3000 of their agents entered Israel, attacked towns, kibbutzim (collective farms), and even a weekend music festival. They murdered some 1500 people, and took about 150 hostages. The murder victims and hostages were mostly Israeli citizens, although there were a few soldiers and a number of people from other countries who were in Israel in various capacities – workers, students, attendees of the music festival – among both the dead and hostages. This was far better organized and co-ordinated than any previous Hamas attack and consequently far more lethal but it is difficult to see how it accomplished anything for Hamas other than the bloodshed itself. It did, however, clearly serve a purpose of Benjamin Netanyahu. Netanyahu, who had been ousted as Prime Minister of Israel in June of 2021, was re-elected in December of last year on a hard-line platform and needed to at least appear to be making good on his promises. Cracking down on Hamas is the easiest way of doing that and by carrying out an attack of this nature Hamas handed him an iron clad justification for doing so. On a side note, whatever else you might say about Benjamin Netanyahu, his political longevity is something to be marvelled at. I fully expect that sometime down the road we will be reading, a week or two after his funeral, that he has just won re-election as Prime Minister of Israel in a landslide.
Now some of you might be thinking “Aha, gotcha, there is a flaw in your argument. Hamas’s actions might serve Netanyahu’s ends, but in retaliating the Israeli government will wipe them out so there is no reciprocal benefit, it is a one-way street this time around”. This, however, very much remains to be seen. So far, apart from the rhetoric, Israel’s retaliatory actions have consisted of the same sort of aerial bombardment with which they have responded to past Hamas attacks, albeit on a larger scale. There has been talk of an imminent and massive ground incursion into Gaza for a week and a half now but if it ever materializes the IDF’s overwhelming military superiority does not guarantee Israel a quick and easy victory. Ask the Americans. Israel would be walking into the same sort of situation in which the United States found herself entangled in Vietnam and later Afghanistan. This is a long term operation and the longer it drags on the more it is to Hamas’ favour, because the longer such a conflict stretches out, the less international public sympathy will be with Israel, and it is in the arena of international public opinion that Hamas fights all its true battles.
It sounds crazy but it is nevertheless true that every time Hamas attacks Israel it is with the intention of provoking a retaliatory attack. The reason this seems crazy is because Israel is so much stronger than Hamas in terms of military might. It conjures up the picture of a chihuahua getting in the face of a big bruiser of a bull dog and yipping away annoyingly until the larger dog barks or bites its head off. One moral of the Old Testament account of David and Goliath, however, is that size isn’t everything. In this case, Hamas wants Israel to attack back because every time Israel does far more Palestinian civilians are killed than Hamas agents, enabling Hamas to run to the international news media, the General Assembly of the United Nations, the World Council of Churches, humanitarian organizations, university professors and student activists, and basically every group of self-important jackasses with a lot of money and power and not enough brain cells to fill a thimble, and whine and cry about how mean old Israel has been beating on them again, after which these groups wag their fingers in Israel’s face saying shame on you, shame on you, and dump tons of money in humanitarian relief into Hamas controlled Palestinian territory, keeping Hamas solvent, and freeing up other resources with which to buy more rockets.
A great illustration of the Hamas strategy can be found in the 1959 film The Mouse That Roared. In the movie, a small European country, the Duchy of Grand Fenwick, has built its entire economy on a single export product, the wine Pinot Grand Fenwick. When a California wine company produces a cheap knockoff, and the country is threatened with insolvency, Duchess Gloriana (Peter Sellers) and her Prime Minister, Count Mountjoy (Peter Sellers) hatch a scheme to attack the United States, lose, and then reap the rewards of losing to the United States, which pours plenty of money into rebuilding the countries it has defeated in war. So they send the United States a declaration of war and then put their game warden, Tully (guess who), in charge of their small army of soldiers, mail-clad and armed with bows and arrows, and send him over. The scheme goes awry when Tully accidentally wins the war – watch the movie to find out how. The point of course, is that Hamas’ strategy is essentially that of Grand Fenwick. It is a darker version that involves much more bloodshed including the sacrifice of large numbers of their own and the payoff is expected more from third parties than from the victorious attackee, but it is the same basic scam.
Israel is running a big scam too, of course. In her case it is not the gullible “international community” that is the mark so much as the equally gullible United States of America. Israel, which paid for the creation of Hamas – see my previous essay alluded to earlier – has long been the single largest recipient of American foreign aid, in part because the various pro-Israel lobby groups in the United States make the National Rifle Association look like rank amateurs in comparison, but also because Israel knows how to play on the United States’ national mythology by presenting herself as the only liberal democracy in her region, surrounded and besieged by anti-Semitic autocrats, just like those that the United States likes to imagine herself as having single-handedly defeated in the Second World War. Of course there is some truth in that depiction. When did you ever hear of a successful scam that consisted completely of falsehoods?
This is why it is best for the rest of the world to stay out of this conflict and refuse to give in to this demand that we pick sides. Our involvement, whichever side we end up supporting, however well-intentioned, ends up facilitating the worst sort of behaviour of both sides.
We need to stop looking at the conflict in the Middle East through the lens of the “good guys” versus “bad guys” dichotomy, rooted in the heresy of Mani that has permeated Western popular culture through the pernicious influence of Hollywood movies and the comic book industry. There are no “good guys” in this conflict although there are a lot of innocent victims, both Israeli and Palestinian Arab.
If someone were to point a gun to my head and demand that I choose sides I would chose Israel, although I would be sure to hold my nose while doing so. Israel is a legitimate state, or at least the closest thing to a legitimate state that a modern democratic government without a king can be, which isn’t very close. Hamas is a criminal organization of lawless thugs and murderers. Israel has spent the last three quarters of a century trying to build up a civilized society for herself and her people. Hamas are destroyers not builders. I am a life-long Tory by instinct and as the late Sir Roger Scruton wisely put it “Conservatism starts from a sentiment that all mature people can readily share: the sentiment that good things are easily destroyed, but not easily created.” I will never side with those who only ever walk the easy path of destroying what others have labouriously built. Not Year Zero, Cultural Maoist, groups like Black Lives Matter and Every Child Matters in North America. Not Hamas in the Middle East. Finally, while both sides value the lives of civilians on the other side extremely cheap, there is a huge difference in that Hamas places no higher a value on the lives of their own civilians. Indeed, Hamas arguably values the lives of civilian Palestinian Arabs less than Israel. Hamas, when it attacks Israel, targets the civilian population, but prior to 7 October, its attacks have been largely ineffective. It fires tons of rockets at Israel, almost all of which are taken down by the Iron Dome, and the few that make it past are not guaranteed to hit anything or anyone. Its rocket launchers, however, Hamas deliberately places in residential neighbourhoods, mosques, hospitals, schools, and other similar locations where a retaliatory strike to take out the rocket launcher will have maximum civilian casualties. The same is true of anything else Hamas has that would be considered a legitimate military target by the rules that most countries, nominally at least, support for the conduct of warfare. Therefore, Israel must either stand there and allow herself to be attacked, the sort of thing someone whose soul has been killed and brain rotted from training in public relations and/or human resources might recommend, (1) or take out Hamas’ attack bases and in the process destroy the civilian and humanitarian infrastructure within which those bases are hid and kill the countless numbers of Palestinians that Hamas uses as human shields, handing Hamas plenty of ammunition in the form of bad press to use against her..
That having been said, the reasons for refusing the choice, for not taking sides are solid. It is in the mutual interests of Israel and Hamas to keep this conflict going forever, but this is not in the interests of the civilians on both sides, nor is it in the interests of the rest of the world which both sides expect to pay for their lethal and destructive activities. It is in the best interests of everybody, that the rest of the world refuse to be dragged into this any longer, and tell the two sides they both need to grow up.
I shall, Lord willing, follow up this essay with two others. The first will demonstrate that the Christian Zionist position that we are required by the Scriptures to take Israel’s side in Middle-East conflicts is rank heresy. The second will look at the neoconservative claim that the pro-Palestinian Left’s unhinged support of Hamas comes from anti-Semitism and demonstrate that it comes from a different source.
(1) Contrary to what the Anabaptist heresy teaches, Jesus said nothing of this sort in Matthew 5:39. This verse is best understood as forbidding revenge rather than self-defence but even if taken as forbidding self-defence it says nothing about how governments, responsible for the security of those they govern, are to act, as evident from the fact that before this section of the Sermon, Jesus gave a disclaimer that it is not to be taken as abrogating the Law. — Gerry T. Neal
I’m delighted to share with you that the next 1 Million March For Children against LGBT indoctrination in schools will be taking place again, nationwide, on Saturday, October 21st.A complete listing of march locations is available under my signature, at the end of this email.The first Million March event which took place September 20th was incredibly powerful. It rocked the pro-child-sexualization establishment, along with Justin Trudeau’s political world!This coming Saturday, Christians, Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Hindus and other people of good will once again gather at city halls, legislatures, and school board offices across Canada, to send a loud and clear message…LEAVE OUR KIDS ALONE!
Once again, from coast-to-coast, we’ll tell our school board Trustees that we don’t want our sons taught that they might be girls “trapped in the wrong body“.Nor our daughters taught to hate the bodies God gave them, leading so many teenage girls to cut off their breasts, in what can only be described as state-sponsored child mutilation.On October 21st, Canadian parents and grandparents will tell Premiers and Education Ministers that they don’t want their kids and grandkids taught that puberty blockers, chemical castration, and genital mutilation might be right for them.And finally, parents of all faiths and ethnic backgrounds will tell Justin Trudeau that parents are not “hateful” just because they don’t want their children to be forced to participate in Gay Pride Month, and other LGBT days of recognition.On this point, I want to remind you of just how radical Justin Trudeau is, and how seriously he takes his role as Canada’s LGBT Indoctrinator-in-Chief.
Believe it or not, “King Trudeau” has decreed that the entire month of June is not enough time to celebrate LGBT Pride.No, no! Canadians obviously need even more gay Pride!Trudeau declared that Canada now celebrates “Pride Season”. His Liberal government officially extended the celebration of transgenderism and homosexuality throughout the entire summer and part of the fall, to cover a season instead of a paltry month.Trudeau’s contempt for families who adhere to biblical norms of sexuality was most clearly revealed on Parliament Hill, just a few days after the nation’s news headlines were dominated by the recording of an Edmonton teacher berating a Muslim student for skipping LGBT Pride festivities. The teacher told this immigrant student, “You don’t belong here (in Canada)”.What was Trudeau’s response in the days following this outrage? Well, you can watch it for yourself, below.
On Saturday October 21st, Mr. Trudeau will once again be sent a loud and clear message that parents are not “bigots” just because they don’t want a sexualized Pride flag hanging over their children’s heads.And neither are students who object to it, like that Muslim student!Please join the #1MillionMarch4Children event closest to you. Scroll down to the end of this email for a location listing.Ottawa’s Parental Rights March cancelled
NOTE: The Ottawa March has been cancelled, and potentially some other locations too. The man who started the1MillionMarch4Children, Kamel El-Sheikh, announced that due to the war in the Middle East, and concerns about safety, he was cancelling the Ottawa event for the time being.However, Kamel did say that it would be rescheduled, after emotions have calmed down and people concerned about the war can focus better on the parental rights battle here in Canada.Campaign Life Coalition continues to be grateful to Kamel El-Sheikh for starting the Million Person March For Children, and for his continued leadership in this monumental battle against those who seek to sexualize and harm our children. Likewise, we thank parental rights leaders running similar groups in other parts of the country. .For life & family, Jeff Gunnarson National President Campaign Life Coalition
P.S. Scroll down for a listing of all the Million Person March For Children locations, as of this writing.P.P.S. For a web version of this email that you can share on social media, click here.*******LOCATION LISTING**********ALBERTAAIRDRIE 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM Yankee Valley McDonald’s Parking Lot (Map)CALGARY 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM City Hall 800 Macleod Trail SE (Map)CAMROSE 10:00 AM Gather & speeches. 11:00 AM March. Gazebo at NE corner of Mirror Lake 5211 48 A AvenueCOLD LAKE 1:00 PM Gather. 2:00 PM March to City Hall. Tri City Mall 6503-51 Street (Map)EDMONTON 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM Intersection of Whyte Avenue & Gateway Boulevard 82 Avenue & 103 Street 10270-82 Avenue (Map)EDSON 12:30 PM Shekinah Coffee 5202 2 Avenue (Map)FORT McMURRAY 1:00 PM Provincial Building/Court House 9700 Franklin Avenue (Map)GRANDE PRAIRIE 3:30 PM – 5:30 PM 100 Avenue & 99 Street (Map)LETHBRIDGE 10:30 AM Nikka Yuko Japanese Garden (parking Lot) Mayor Magrath & 9th Avenue (Map)LEDUC 12:30 PM Gather. 1:00 PM Walk. Leduc Spray Park 5 Alexandra Park (Map)LLOYDMINSTER 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM City Hall 4420-50 Avenue (Map)MEDICINE HAT 1:00 PM – 3:00 PM Tim Hortons (outside) 3201 13th Avenue SE (Map)RED DEER 1:00 PM City Hall 4914-48 Avenue (Map)SHERWOOD PARK 10:00 AM gather. 11:00 AM march. Strathcona County Hall (in front of library) 2001 Sherwood Drive (Map) BRITISH COLUMBIA100 MILE HOUSE 11:00 AM Visitor Centre 155 Wrangler Wy (Map)ABBOTSFORD 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM Jubilee Park 2552 McCallum Rd (Map)CHILLIWACK 10:00 AM Gather at Old Canadian Tire Parking Lot 11:00 AM March beginsCOQUITLAM – LAFARGE LAKE 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM Douglas Skytrain StationCOMOX VALLEY 10:00 AM – 1:00 PM 17th Street BridgeFORT ST. JOHN 10:00 AM Gather at City Hall 10631 100 St (Map) 11:00 AM March to Centennial ParkKELOWNA 12:00 PM City Hall 1435 Water St (Map)KEREMEOS 11:00 AM Pocket Park, downtownLANGLEY Township of Langley Civic Facility 8:00 AM 20338 – 65 Avenue (Map)NANAIMO 1:00 PM City Hall 455 Wallace St (Map)PARKSVILLE 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM Corner of Hwy 4 & 19APORT ALBERNI 11:30 AM – 1:00 PM Walmart parking lot (Map)PRINCETON 1:00 PM Veteran’s Square (Bridge St & Vernillion Ave) (Map)PRINCE GEORGE 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM SD 57 Central Administration Office 2100 Ferry Avenue (Ferry @ Hwy 16) (Map)PRINCE RUPERT 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM Courthouse 100 Market Pl. (Map)SURREY 12:00 PM – 3:00 PM KG Blvd / 88 Ave.TRAIL 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM Statue across street from Cominco Arena (Map)TUMBLER RIDGE 10:00 AM – 12:00 PM Town Hall 305 Iles Way (Map) MANITOBABRANDON 1:00 PM – 2:00 PM 11th & Princess AvenueDAUPHIN 1:00 PM CN ParkWINNIPEG 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM City Hall 510 Main Street (Map)NEWFOUNDLAND & LABRADORST. JOHN’S 1:00 PM Confederation Building 100 Prince Philip Drive (Map) NEW BRUNSWICKFREDERICTON 12:00 PM Legislative Assembly Building 706 Queen St (Map)MONCTON 12:00 PM Centennial Park 811 St. George Blvd. (Corner of St. George Blvd & Milner BD.)SAINT JOHN 12:00 PM City Hall 15 Market Square (Map) NOVA SCOTIAHALIFAX 12:00 PM City Hall 1841 Argyle St (Map)SYDNEY CAPE BRETON 12:00 PM City Hall (Map) ONTARIOBARRIE 12:00 PM Barrie Public Library 60 Worsley Street (Map)BURLINGTON 11:00 AM Gather 11:30 AM March begins Joseph Brant Museum 1240 North Shore Blvd E (at Lakeshore) (Map)CHATHAM 1:00 PM Keil Dr. S between Richmond St. & Riverview Dr. (Map)ESPANOLA 12:00 PM Espanola Town Hall 100 Tudhope Street (Map)GUELPH 1:00 PM Royal City Park 139 Gordon St. (Map)HALIBURTON 10:00 AM Head Lake Park 13 York St (Map)HAMILTON 12:00 PM City Hall 71 Main St. W. (Map)HUNTSVILLE 3:00 PM March Huntsville Community Centre/Canada Summit Centre 20 Park Drive (Map)KINGSTON 10:00 AM Curbside at Princess St. & Gardiners Rd. (Map)KITCHENER 12:00 PM City Hall 200 King St. W. (Map)LONDON 12:00 PM Victoria Park 580 Clarence St (Map)MISSISSAUGA 12:00 PM City Hall 300 City Centre Dr. (Map)NORTH BAY 1:00 PM Gathering time 3:00 PM March begins City Hall 200 McIntyre St E (Map)ORANGEVILLE 2:30 PM Gathering time 3:00 PM March begins War Memorial 11 Second Street (Map)OWEN SOUND 12:00 PM City Hall 808 2nd Avenue East (Map)SAULT STE. MARIE 1:00 PM City Hall 99 Foster Drive (Map)SIMCOE, NORFOLK 1:00 PM Wellington Park 50 Bonnie Drive (Map)ST. CATHARINES 12:30 PM Gather 1:00 PM March begins 399 Louth Street (next to Canadian Tire) (Map)SUDBURY 12:00 PM Corner of Kingsway & Barry Downe Road (Map)TEMISKAMING SHORES 12:00 PM Gathering time 1:00 PM March begins Riverside Place 55 Riverside Drive, New Liskeard (Map)THUNDER BAY 1:00 PM Walmart parking lot 1101 Arthur St. W. (Map)TIMMINS 1:00 PM Hollinger Park 565 Algonquin Blvd E (Map)TORONTO 11:00 AM Queen’s Park 110 Wellesley Street West (Map)WINDSOR 11:00 AM Dieppe Gardens 78 Riverside Drive West (Map)PRINCE EDWARD ISLANDCHARLOTTETOWN Time & place to be determined. Check back for details, here.QUEBECMONTREAL 11:00 AM Ministère de l’Éducation 600, rue Fullum (Map)SASKATCHEWANESTEVAN 12:45 PM Gathering 1:00 PM March begins Estevan Curling Club 811 Souris Avenue (Map)REGINA 12:00 PM Saskatchewan Legislative Building 2405 Legislative Drive (Map)YUKONWHITEHORSE Time & place to be determined. Check back for details, here
Toronto District School Board teacher Natasha Mansouri said Sunday that well-respected educator Richard Bilkzsto’s untimely passing is a “significant loss” to everyone who knew him.
In a touching and eloquent tribute, Mansouri told a group gathered at Mel Lastman Square that Bilkszto had a “compassionate and unshakeable commitment to enhancing the quality of public education” – that he was a rare commodity.
Despite the chill and rainy skies, about 100 friends and former colleagues came out to pay tribute to the 60-year-old principal, who took his life in mid-July.
He was an educator who promoted “strength rather than victimhood,” who “dared to question” and who viewed “obstacles as opportunities,” said Mansouri, one of a half a dozen trustees, teachers and community members who gave touching tributes to him.
“I am troubled by the scarcity of people like Richard who confront bullies whether they’re in the schoolyard or the bullies who stand in front of the class,” she said. “I wish there were more individuals like him, brave and tireless who take a stance and speak up.
“If you’re out there, please speak up, you are not alone.”
It was clear she was speaking about the circumstances that led Bilkszto to take his own life in mid-July. https://www.youtube.com/embed/Ujn6KTzpCbY?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1
His lawyer Lisa Bildy and his family have both said it was the bullying by a Black Lives Matter-supporting Diversity, Equity, Inclusive (DEI) trainer in the spring of 2021 and the ongoing harassment by TDSB anti-racism executives that led to his death.
I have requested financial information under FOI legislation on the cost to the TDSB of the DEI trainer – Kike Ojo-Thomson of the KOJO Institute – but have yet to receive it.
In late July, both Education Minister Steven Lecce and TDSB education director Colleen Russell-Rawlins announced reviews of the situation leading up to his unfortunate death. But, after almost three months. we’ve heard nothing from either.
In my view, the TDSB review – being conducted by the King Advisory Group – is the furthest thing from independent and merely an attempt to sweep the harassment by TDSB executives and their preferred contractors under the rug.
The two teachers who spoke announced an award and scholarship in Bilkszto’s name.
The award will recognize an educator who exemplifies the qualities the principal embodied, said TDSB trustee Weidong Pei.
“(He embodied) a dedication to excellence in education and devotion to his students and their well-being,” he said. https://www.youtube.com/embed/4iyxjKCRVtQ?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1
The scholarship will be awarded to an undergraduate accepted at a teachers college in Ontario who embraces the same qualities, the teachers said.
Teacher Jon Roberts, who was involved with Bilkszto in a chapter of the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism (FAIR), said as a gay man who came of age in the 80s, Bilkszto knew about bigotry and hatred.
But he never insisted the intolerant get with the program or else, said Roberts.
“He was calm and caring…a beacon of positive change,” he said.
Pei said he was a teacher who insisted everyone have equality of opportunity no matter “what they look like.”
After Bilkszto helped Pei win the trustee election in 2022, he told him with a smile he better keep his promise to fight for children.
“Richard, I know you now look from the sky…I hope I made you proud fighting for the children you love,” the Willowdale trustee said, getting emotional. https://www.youtube.com/embed/4gmQHJY8qIc?feature=oembed&enablejsapi=1
“We are all better for knowing you and we are poorer for your loss.”
Ragini Sharma of the Toronto Asian Parents Association said Bilkszto was an ally for Asian students – “sensitive and sympathetic” to such students “being sidelined” in the TDSB system.
She said he appreciated that Asian students were considered “privileged” and labelled “white adjacent” by the anti-black racism focus of the board.
“He understood that Asian students do well because their parents value education and work hard to help the children succeed in school,” she said.
“We shared his concern about school boards becoming more divisive in how they handled diversity and equity.”
She added that she knows Bilkszto would have liked the board to do more to bring more belongingness and compassion among students and staff.
“May his soul rest in peace,” she said.
“May his legacy never be forgotten,” added Mansouri.
The tribute ended with a moment of silence in his honour.
Political Prisoner Leslie Bory Was Severely Beaten in Prison Several Weeks Ago CAFE has just been informed that political prisoner Leslie Bory, who faces three counts of harassment because of a February Internet podcast and may soon face charges under Sec. 318 (wilful promotion of genocide) and 319 (wilful promotion of hate against a privileged group) was severely beaten, in late September, at Maplehurt Correctional Complex in Milton, Ontario. Mr. Bory has no criminal record but Ontario’s highly politicized judicial system has refused him bail. Murderers and violent perpetrators of assault and use of dangerous weapons are out walking the streets on bail, but populist political dissidents languish in jail.
Mr. Bory writes: “I have now been injured in prison which, I believe, is another form of minority violence used by the real dictators of Canada who write our laws to dissuade others from speaking out. I have a broken nose, two black eyes, a gash on my forehead that needed stitches. I have a gash on the back of my head and cuts on the left side of my head and bumps all over my head and two broken ribs and scrapes on my knee and hand.” Apparently, Mr. Bory was assaulted in the prison exercise yard by another inmate, identity unknown. The prison authorities are investigating. A person knowledgeable about the prison states that there must be video of the assault. Mr. Bory’s lawyer was informed.
“I was told that I would be charged with ‘advocating genocide’ which carries a five year sentence” for warning about a certain minority that, Mr. Bory believes, have tried to commit genocide.
CAFE sent our recent newsletters to Mr. Bory. The envelope was returned with a non-explanatory letter that said: “We are sure that you can appreciate our need to ensure that illicit drugs and other contraband/unauthorized items are not introduced into the institution.” Then, a long list of examples followed. Highlighted in pink magic marker was “newspaper clippings.” But we sent Mr. Bory the Free Speech Monitor and the Canadian Immigration Hotline, not newspaper clippings. Oh, well, let’s fight to protect democracy in the Ukraine, while freedoms are trampled here in Canada You may drop a letter or postcard of support to political prisoner Leslie Bory at this address:
Manitoba is now up the Creek, Without a Paddle, in a Leaky Kinew
I have said before that I think we Canadians owe our Sovereign, now His Majesty Charles III, although when I made the remark originally it was our late Sovereign Lady of blessed memory, Elizabeth II, an apology for the incompetent, utterly corrupt, and insanely evil clown who, through our abuse of our voting privilege, has been Prime Minister of this Commonwealth Realm for the last eight years. Now I would add that the Canadians of my province, Manitoba, owe a double apology for putting the only politician in the Dominion worse than Captain Airhead himself into the premier’s office, with a majority in the Legislature behind him.
When the evil New Democratic Party led by the execrable Wab Kinew won the provincial election on 3 October, I was disgusted but not surprised. When Lee Harding of the Frontier Centre for Public Policy, a local think-tank here in Winnipeg, published a piece on 29 September calling for the re-election of the Progressive Conservatives, I could not agree with his title as much as I desired that outcome. The title was “Manitoba PCs Deserve Another Mandate”. No, they did not. The reason for voting PC this election was not that they deserved it but that the alternative was much, much, worse.
The Progressive Conservatives, led by Brian Pallister, won the provincial election of 2016 and governed well enough in their first term that Harding’s title would have been true had he written his article in 2019. That year they won re-election and at the annual New Year’s Levée hosted by the Lieutenant Governor I shook Pallister’s hand and congratulated him on his victory. Within a few months of this, however, Pallister’s governance went south badly and I came to loathe the man. In July of 2021, a short time before he resigned as PC leader and premier, I expressed this in these words:
Brian Pallister is an ignorant fool!
He’s a stupid, ugly, loser and he smells bad too!
His one and only virtue,
I hate to say it but it’s true,
His one and only virtue is –
He’s not Wab Kinew!
It was Pallister’s handling of the bat flu scare that had so soured me on his governance. He had imposed a particularly harsh lockdown, had done so earlier than many other provinces, and had done so in an arrogant, in-your-face, manner. Wab Kinew and the NDP criticized Pallister’s handling of the pandemic, but their criticism went entirely in the wrong direction. They criticized Pallister for not imposing lockdowns sooner, not making them harsher, lifting them too early and this sort of thing. They should have been criticizing Pallister for trampling all over the most basic rights and freedoms of Manitobans, that is to say our ancient Common Law rights and freedoms not the useless and empty guarantees of Pierre Trudeau’s Charter, and acting like there are no constitutional limits to the power of government in an emergency. Their mishandling of the bat flu panic under Pallister is the reason the PC’s don’t deserve another mandate. Kinew’s criticism of the same, which amounted to a demand that Pallister do more of what he was doing wrong, is one reason why the NDP do not deserve to replace the PC’s as government and are a much worse alternative.
It was not the botched job he made of the bat flu that ultimately brought about Pallister’s resignation as PC leader and premier at the beginning of September 2021. This was 2021, and the crazy progressive leftists who dominate so much of the Canadian mainstream media, envious as always of their counterparts in the United States, decided that Canada needed her version of the George Floyd controversy that had been manufactured by the BLM Movement – the movement for whom the lives of American blacks matter the least because their target is the American police who protect American blacks from the violent crime that costs so many blacks their lives each year – and so jumped on the discovery of ground disturbances – and that was all that were discovered – on the site of the Kamloops Indian Residential School, which the band interpreted as the discovery of unmarked graves – not “mass graves” as falsely reported – and began claiming that this “proved” the version of the Indian Residential Schools narrative that defrocked United Church minister and conspiracy theorist Kevin Annett has been spouting since the 1990s, i.e., that children were murdered by the thousands in the schools and buried in secret graves. Imagine if the mainstream media in the UK were to start reporting David Icke’s theory that the world is controlled by reptilian shapeshifters from outer space and you will have an approximation of the degree of departure from journalistic standards and integrity that was involved here. Their claim has since been thoroughly debunked, which is why leftist politicians now want to criminalize debunking it, but it had its intended effect. That summer saw the biggest wave of hate crimes in Canadian history as Church buildings – whether the Churches had any connection to the residential schools or not – were burned or otherwise vandalized all across the country. On Dominion Day, Year Zero, Cultural Maoist terrorists, toppled the statues of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II on the grounds of the Manitoba Legislature. No society can afford to tolerate this sort of violent, seditious, assault on her history and civilization and Brian Pallister appropriately condemned these acts. In doing so he made positive statements about the previous generations of Canadians who settled and built the country and who are now constantly being defamed by progressive academics and journalists, in violation of the fifth and ninth commandments. The provincial Indian chiefs decided to take offense at this – take offense is the operative phrase, as none was given, Pallister had not said anything about them, negative or otherwise – and demanded that Pallister apologize. Pallister should have told them to go suck an egg and stood his ground. Instead, about a month later, he cravenly gave them the apology they didn’t deserve, and in the event didn’t accept, and shortly thereafter resigned.
Kelvin Goertzen took over as interim party leader and premier until the party held its leadership vote on 30 October. Now, I am not a fan of this method of choosing a party leader. I think that it is far more consistent with our parliamentary form of government for the party caucus – the party’s sitting members in the House of Commons or provincial legislative assembly – to choose their leader, and that selling paid memberships in the party with a vote for the leader attached smacks of the American republican system. I also dislike the way our elections, Dominion and provincial, are now treated by almost everyone as if we were directly voting for the prime minister or premier, rather than voting for our local representatives in a larger parliamentary assembly, for the same reason. This is a consequence of being inundated with too much American culture in the form of television and movies. That having been said, if the party leader is to be chosen this way, it should at least be open and honest. That is precisely what the vote that put Heather Stefanson in as leader of Manitoba’s Progressive Conservatives and premier of the province was not. Stefanson was the candidate supported by the sitting members – had the party chosen its leader according to my preferred method she would have still become leader. She was also, however, the candidate that the backroom bosses of the party wanted as leader, and when they ultimately got their way their new leader had a huge cloud of suspicion of shenanigans over her head. Stefanson won the leadership vote by a narrow margin – 51.1% over the 48.9% received by Shelly Glover, which looks even narrower in total vote count – 8, 405 for Stefanson, 8, 042 for Glover. Glover, who had formerly been a member of the House of Commons representing St. Boniface, based her campaign in part on dissatisfaction with how Pallister, with whose government Stefanson had been associated, had handled the bat flu. The party’s former CFO, Ken Lee, had also sought the leadership, in his case making opposition the Pallister lockdowns his sole issue, but his candidacy was disqualified for reasons that never really were made clear. This looked shady, as did the fact that over 1200 members had not received their ballots in time to vote, and when Glover lost by such a narrow margin – less than 400 votes – she contested the outcome, but her challenge was quickly dismissed. This had all the appearances of a backroom fix.
When this happened I realized that it would take a miracle for the Progressive Conservatives to win the next election. You cannot treat your voting base this way and expect them to turn up in sufficient numbers to support you come election time.
It was apparent during the short election campaign, and the longer pre-campaign leading up to it, that Stefanson’s PCs were not remotely as committed to their winning the election as their enemies were to their being defeated. I say enemies rather than opponents because it is not just their rivals in the legislature that I am talking about.
The unions have been determined to take down the PCs since pretty much the moment Brian Pallister became premier and have really stepped up their game in the last couple of years. They have spent a fortune on billboard ads all over Winnipeg attacking the PC government. Then there are the yard signs that began popping up like mushrooms all over the place long before the party campaign signs came out. These couldn’t explicitly endorse candidate or party, but everyone knew what they were getting at. The most common such signs were from the Manitoba Nurses Union and the Manitoba Teachers Society.
Allied with these unions in their quest to bring down the PCs and put Kinew’s NDP into government, was the media, especially the CBC, which as Crown broadcaster by rights ought to be neutral, and the Winnipeg Free Press.
These media, along with the Manitoba Nurses Union and the NDP, have been using health care as a club to bash the Progressive Conservatives with ever since Pallister, early in his premiership, indicated his disagreement with them that health care spending needs to keep going in one direction only, up, converted the Emergency Rooms at Seven Oaks and Victoria Hospitals in Winnipeg into urgent care centres, and closed the Concordia Hospital ER refocusing the hospital to transitional care for the elderly and those undergoing physical rehabilitation. The PCs dropped the ball on this one. They should have hammered back, just as hard, pointing out that the consultant’s report on whose recommendations they did this had been commissioned by the previous, NDP, government, and that at the same time they expanded the capacity of the three remaining ERs – Health Sciences Centre, St. Boniface, and Grace. They should also have emphasized that health care has usually fared much worse under NDP governments in rural ridings. The ER in Vita, a rural community about an hour and a half south-east of Winnipeg, closed three years after Greg Selinger became premier. Two years later it was still closed, with eighteen others along with it. ERs in many other rural communities remained open, but on a basis somewhat like a multi-point parish, with the same doctor serving several ERs, being in the one the one day, another the next. In the second last year of Gary Doer’s premiership, the ER in Virden, a rural community along the TransCanada Highway near the Saskatchewan border was temporarily closed, mercifully for only about half a year. These examples are representative, not comprehensive, and while the rural doctor shortage is a chronic problem regardless of who is in government, rural areas always fare worse under the NDP. Not coincidentally, these same areas rarely if at all vote NDP. A rural ER closure, even a temporary one, is worse than an ER closure in Winnipeg, for while there are more people in Winnipeg, the transit time to the next ER, especially if the ER to close is one that serviced a very large area, like the one in Vita, is increased that much more in the country.
The media also found another club to bash the PC government with in the Indians’ demand that the Prairie Green Landfill be searched for the remains of two murdered women that the Winnipeg Police believe to have ended up there. This demand was expressed in protests, blockades, and something that is probably best described as a riot, earlier this year. Here again, Stefanson’s PCs shot themselves in the foot. Not so much by refusing the demand – their grounds for doing so were sound, and certainly not the “racism” of which idiots accuse them – but by bringing the issue into the election campaign. No matter how sound the case for not conducting this just under $200 million search of an area laced with toxins, there was no way Stefanson could argue her point without appearing heartless. It would have been better to stay silent.
So, no, the Stefanson PC’s did not deserve another mandate. The problem is that those who won deserved it even less.
Let me spell it out for you. At the moment, people all across the Dominion of Canada are experiencing an affordability crisis. The price of food has gone through the roof. Many Canadians are skipping meals, many others are buying less healthy processed food than they otherwise would, because the prices at the grocery stores are too high. At the same time rent is sky high and houses are selling at obscene prices. Transportation is also that much more expensive. Much of this is the direct consequence of bad action on the part of the Dominion government. The price of gasoline has gone up considerably due to the carbon tax, which in turn increases the price of everything that needs to be transported using fuel. The housing shortage is a direct consequence of Captain Airhead’s decision to use record immigration, with apologies to Bertolt Brecht, to elect a new people. While Captain Airhead seems to think that food prices are high because of price fixing on the part of the big grocery chains, a notion he borrowed from the man propping his minority government up, federal NDP leader Jimmy Dhaliwal, the fact of the matter is that he has been spending like a drunken sailor since he got into office. When governments spend more than they take in in revenue, this is not a contributing factor to inflation, it is inflation. The extra they spend increases the supply of money, the means of exchange, which decreased the value of money per unit, and causes the price of everything else to rise relative to it. When you spend the way Captain Airhead did over the last few years, paying people to stay home for long periods of time and not go to work – decreasing the production of goods and services and thus causing their cost in currency to go up – you increase inflation exponentially. Manitoba just elected a premier who has the same sort of attitude towards spending as Captain Airhead.
Last month, in the Million Person March, organized by Ottawa Muslim activist Kamel El-Cheik, but supported by many faith groups and people just concerned about the rights of parents, Canadians across the Dominion expressed what polls already had indicated to be the overwhelming majority opinion of Canadians – that schools should not be keeping parents out of the loop about what is going on in the classroom with their kids about gender identity and that sort of thing. While leftists have tried to spin this as an alphabet soup issue, accusing those protesting of various sorts of hatred and bigotry, and spinning the reasonable insistence that teachers entrusted with the education of children report back to the parents who so entrusted them, as “forced outing”, they are being absurd. There is a word for someone who tells kids to keep stuff having to do with sex a secret from their parents. The policy that schools and school boards have been following in recent years seems tailor-made to accommodate such people. Heather Stefanson had promised in her campaign to protect parental rights. The promise would have been more credible had she introduced the legislation to do so earlier when the New Brunswick and Saskatchewan governments were doing so. However, this much is clear, if someone wanted to protect perverts in the schools rather than the rights of parents, he would be cheering the outcome of this election.
The province already has a huge problem with drug abuse and related social evils. The CBC reported in April that provincial Chief Medical Examiner had told them via e-mail that the number of drug-related deaths per year has “risen dramatically here in recent years” and that “the deaths are only the tip of the iceberg”. 407 Manitobans died from overdoses in 2021, 372 the year previously, both record numbers. It was at least 418 in 2022. At least 228 involved fentanyl and/or related drugs. The city of Winnipeg also saw the largest jump in crime severity of any Canadian city in the same period. These two facts are not unrelated, nor is the size of the homelessness problem in Winnipeg. The left, in recent years, has been obsessed with the “harms reduction” approach to this matter, an approach that tries to lower the number of deaths due to overdose and contamination by providing a “safe” supply of drugs and “safe” places to use them. It is usually coupled with decriminalization or outright legalization of some or all narcotics. This approach is concerned more with the effects of drugs on those who (ab)use them and less or not at all with the effects of drug abuse on the surrounding community. It was tried by the NDP in Alberta in the premiership of Rachel Notley, and more dramatically in British Columbia, where the provincial NDP government introduced this approach on a provincial scale earlier at the beginning of this year, despite it having proven a failure when the city of Vancouver tried it, causing overdose deaths to rise. The NDP are incapable of learning from their mistakes on matters such as these. Expect Kinew to try and imitate BC’s mistake, not avoid it and look elsewhere, like, for example, Singapore’s “harm prevention” approach, for a successful model. This problem is about to get much worse in Winnipeg and Manitoba.
It will not be long before we in Manitoba rue the outcome of this election. Now we owe His Majesty a double apology, first for Captain Airhead in the Dominion Prime Minister’s Office, now for Captain Airhead’s doppleganger in the province of Manitoba. — Gerry T. Neal
