If the Trudeau-NDP’s Bill C-59 comes into force, I may be the first one prosecuted because I won’t stop telling the truth about the many benefits of Alberta’s oil and gas industry, no matter what crazy laws they pass.
If you haven’t already heard, let me give you some background.
In February, NDP MP Charlie Angus introduced a bill threatening fines and even jail time for people who dared to defend our oil and gas sector. Canadians laughed it off as absurd. But now, through last-minute amendments to Bill C-59, the NDP have sneaked their gag order in through the back door.
With support from the Liberals and Bloc, the Trudeau-NDP are creating an echo chamber where their anti-oil and gas views go unchallenged. This bill is designed to silence people from speaking the truth, allowing eco-radical activists to sue over so-called “misleading environmental benefits.”
It’s utterly ridiculous to muzzle folks who talk publicly about emission reduction alternatives that differ from Steven Guilbeault’s failed carbon tax. The bill has already passed in the House of Commons and is now in the Liberal-dominated Senate, where it is expected to be rubber-stamped.
Let me be clear: Alberta will not comply with this undemocratic Liberal-NDP gag order.
… and today is the last day! This month’s Druthers fundraiser has been rather slow. I know many people are out enjoying the warming weather, which is fantastic, but please do not forget about Druthers. We had 225,000 copies made for June but out fundraiser is still $10k short. We have the rest of today to come up with the difference so we can pay the printers and the shippers. PLEASE DONATE IF YOU CAN: www.donorbox.org/druthersOr simply send an etransfer to admin@druthers.net and we will manually add your contribution to the fundraiser page.NOTE: 100% of donations are used to print papers and ship skids across the country. No salaries, overhead or other expenses are ever taken from donations. That’s how we can keep doing it for just 10 cents per paper. A $500 donation pays for the printing and volunteer distribution of 5000 newspapers!!! Even a $10 donation pays for 100 newspapers. How many people will that wake up? Your donations are efficiently, effectively & respectfully used for waking up more Canadians, and we are making a difference!PLEASE DONATE HERE Much love & gratitude, always, Shawn Jason
Removing religion as a defence for hate speech is worth examining, antisemitism envoy tells MPs
The Criminal Code states people shouldn’t be convicted of the willful promotion of hatred or antisemitism if, ‘in good faith,’ they expressed an opinion ‘on a religious subject’
Author of the article:
The Canadian Press
Stephanie Taylor
Published May 23, 2024 • 4 minute read
46 Comments
Deborah Lyons, Canada’s special envoy on Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism, appears before the House of Commons human rights committee on Thursday, May 23, 2024. Photo by parlvu.parl.gc.ca
Article content
OTTAWA — Canada’s special envoy for combating antisemitism is “very interested” in exploring the idea of removing religion as a possible defence against hate speech charges, she said Thursday, raising concern about creating a possible chill on religious expression.
Deborah Lyons, whose title also includes preserving Holocaust remembrance, made the comment before a parliamentary committee that is studying antisemitism on university campuses.
“I am very interested in exploring (it) as an option because I think, frankly, we are seeing it used in this country and in other places as a defence that frankly does not stand the ground in these very difficult times,” she testified Thursday.
Still, Lyons said she is not ready to offer a final opinion on the matter, and is still discussing it with Justice Department officials.
Jewish leaders, students and faculty have for months been voicing concerns over an increase in hate speech and violence since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war last fall.
Lyons said she believes universities’ equity, diversity and inclusion strategies are “failing Jews in this country” because they don’t make much mention of antisemitism specifically.
Her office is working to develop better training to counter anti-Jewish discrimination, which she hopes institutions, including governments, will use.
Members of Parliament also asked Lyons about the role police and prosecutors play in laying hate speech related charges, and whether Criminal Code changes are needed.
They pointed to a recent decision by Quebec prosecutors not to charge Montreal imam Adil Charkaoui over comments said during a prayer — a scenario Lyons says she is discussing with the government.
The comments were delivered at a pro-Palestinian demonstration in Montreal, and led to a complaint alleging threats and incitement of violence, which was investigated by the RCMP.
Leading a prayer in Arabic, Charkaoui had called on God to “take care of aggressor Zionists,” adding “O God, don’t leave any of them.”
Last week the province’s director of public prosecutions announced that a committee of three Crown attorneys found the evidence insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the words amounted to an incitement of hatred toward an identifiable group, as defined in the Criminal Code.
Using the case as an example, Bloc Quebecois MP Rheal Fortin asked Lyons whether she supports his party’s proposal to eliminate a section of the Criminal Code that allows the use of religious beliefs or a religious text as a defence against the promotion of hatred and antisemitism.
The Criminal Code states that people shouldn’t be convicted of the willful promotion of hatred or antisemitism — defined as downplaying or denying the Holocaust — if, “in good faith,” they expressed an opinion “on a religious subject” or “based on a belief in a religious text.”
Fortin says his party wants to ban “exceptions” to hate speech based on religion.
“Certainly I think that it’s something we’ve got to continue to examine,” Lyons said.
Justice Minister Arif Virani’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
He is already seeking to increase the punishments for existing hate-related offences — including increasing the maximum consequence for advocating genocide to life imprisonment — in the Liberals’ legislation against online harms, tabled back in February.
The stiffer criminal justice reforms have fallen under harsh scrutiny from critics, including civil liberty advocacy groups, who say it could stifle free speech. Justice officials say criminal charges would only be laid in the most extreme examples.
Removing religion as a possible defence to a hate speech charge would likely be welcomed by those who oppose religion, but would create “genuine fear” for those who have deeply held religious beliefs about what they could say in the public square, said Rev. Dr. Andrew Bennett, who works at the public policy think tank Cardus.
“Often, religious people privatize their faith because they’re afraid that if I speak about what I believe, in good faith, in the public square, I’m going to be cancelled, or I’m going to be shut down,” said Bennett, Cardus’s faith communities program director.
He says if a “chill” is placed on religious expression it risks marginalizing a sizeable part of the population, including many new Canadians for whom “religion is not just some sort of cultural relic” but “informs all aspects of society.”
“In many cases, they’ve come here because of the religious freedom we enjoy, and so to then say to those new Canadians in particular, ‘Oh, by the way, you can’t speak about your religion publicly for fear of being censured,’ I think that’s a very bad message to send.”
Bennett said the debate raises questions of how hate is defined and what makes a hateful view “different from a peacefully-held opinion that someone might profoundly disagree with?”
Charkaoui’s comments were “perhaps one of the most egregious offences that I have seen” he told Thursday’s committee.
Mendicino, a former prosecutor who previously served as public safety minister, also cited other examples of demonstrators chanting offensive language, including glorifying Hamas’s Oct. 7 attacks.
He believes “Zionists” fit the Criminal Code’s definition of an identifiable group, which refers to “any section of the public distinguished by colour, race, religion, national or ethnic origin, age, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, or mental or physical disability.”
ST. CATHARINES, ON: May 15, 2024 The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms is pleased to announce that two charges against federal party leader Maxime Bernier have been withdrawn. The charges stemmed from his 2021 attendance at a protest against Ontario’s Stay-at-Home Order in Niagara Falls, Ontario.
The Justice Centre provided for lawyers to represent Mr. Bernier. The charges against him were withdrawn on May 14, 2024, in the Ontario Court of Justice (Provincial Offences Division) at the request of the prosecutor after Mr. Bernier donated to a Niagara Region charity.
On April 17, 2021, Mr. Bernier attended a peaceful protest in Niagara Falls, Ontario. The protest started at the Clifton Hill War Memorial and moved across the street to the Oakes Garden Theatre where a crowd of approximately 500 people listened to various speakers, including Mr. Bernier. For his participation, Mr. Bernier was charged with failing to comply with the Stay-at-Home Order and with failing to comply with an order under the Reopening Ontario Act.
At the time, the province’s Stay-at-Home Order prohibited citizens from leaving their residences unless it was for one of 29 purposes deemed “essential” by the Ontario government.
Mr. Bernier is a former Cabinet Minister under the Conservative Government of Stephen Harper. He held ministerial portfolios in Industry, Foreign Affairs, and State. He was chair of the National Defence Select Committee from 2009 to 2011. In 2018, he left the CPC and founded the People’s Party of Canada.
Chris Fleury, lawyer for Mr. Bernier, says, “With the exception of Randy Hillier’s challenge of the Stay-at-Home-Order and our ArriveCAN challenge, this was the last ticket case that we were defending in Ontario. We are slowly putting this shameful period behind us.”
Former Ontario provincial politician Randy Hillier continues his fight against the Stay-at-Home Order with an appeal following the loss of his constitutional challenge to that Order. Mr. Hillier’s hearing is scheduled at the Ontario Court of Appeal in September.
Details on the ArriveCAN challenge can be found on the Justice Centre’s website here.
Chris Fleury continues, “While we would have preferred that no one who attended this protest was charged in the first place, this is an excellent outcome for Mr. Bernier. Ontario’s Stay-at-Home Order was unnecessary, unscientific, and ultimately harmful. It is encouraging that prosecutions of this nature are finally coming to a close.”
Marxist ideology has permeated nearly every Canadian institution and has captured our education system.
Cheryl Gould is one of the few teachers who has been brave enough to speak out against the indoctrination of children in Canadian schools, and she has now paid the price.
During a union meeting, Cheryl criticized the use of tax dollars to gift a book advocating for modern-day segregation written by a radical left-wing Marxist titled ‘So You Want to Talk About Race’ to teaching staff.
Her colleagues called her ‘racist’ as a result. Soon after, one of them reported her for posting anti-Marxist satire on social media under a pseudonym.
Cheryl wasn’t just cancelled socially for the concerns she raised in the meeting that day. She was fired from her job, and now her regulator is trying to have her teaching license revoked for the thoughtcrime of criticizing Marxism and critical race theory online.
What happened to freedom of expression?
“We are being subjected to a soft revolution and it’s being done through DEI bureaucracy, and we’re paying for it,” Cheryl told me.
It’s becoming more apparent that the Canadian education system punishes teachers for questioning dangerous ideas and rewards them for indoctrinating children into radical schools of thought!
Not only are our schools hell-bent on stoking racial division among teachers and children through the lens of Marxism, but they are teaching kids they may be born in the wrong body and encouraging them to explore an endless range of sexual identities at a young age.
To fight back against this dangerous system and support teachers like Cheryl, who have been bold enough to speak up, please head to www.StopClassroomGrooming.com to sign our petition.
Yours truly,
Tamara Ugolini Rebel News
P.S. Cheryl was right when she said, “Revolutionary Marxism does not have a history of making society better, even for the marginalized.” It’s important to counter woke ideology by exposing its bad ideas.
Cheryl Gould is a former Catholic school teacher who is being cancelled by her regulator after it was discovered that she posts satirical content denouncing Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies, including critical race theory and gender ideology, as Marxist beliefs.
Gould was fired from her position in 2021 after nearly two decades of high school teaching experience and a clear track record.
Now, the Ontario College of Teachers (OCT) is vying for a complete revocation of Gould’s license for the commentary that she posted on social media under a pseudonym that had no ties to her, or her work.
Having taught at inner-city schools within the Toronto Catholic District School board, Gould specialized in alternative education. She became especially involved in teaching those of different backgrounds and capabilities including highly sensitive youth facing life challenges with histories of mental illness or trauma. Gould had never so much as had a complaint from a parent or student, yet that all changed in 2021 when she spoke out in what she thought was a safe and confidential union meeting.
Concerned about ideological capture by Marxist ideology and political intimidation in the workplace, Gould felt compelled to speak out. “For someone like me, who is dissenting against the prevailing ideology that is radically far left, there is no place to voice [those concerns],” explains Gould.
Gould took issue with a book gifted to all teachers by the school Chaplain titled, “So You Want to Talk about Race” by Ijeoma Oluo, and felt it was a clear effort to politically indoctrinate teaching staff.
“This book is written by an American Marxist who has spoken about supporting violent left-wing revolution. It’s about race and appropriate ways to talk about race,” Gould explains, going on to describe how the book advocates for segregating groups based on race. “I don’t think that a book that promotes that sort of messaging should be purchased with tax dollars, so that’s what I said.”
“Revolutionary Marxism does not have a history of making society better, even for the marginalized,” she continues.
But after the meeting, Gould was told she could not raise those concerns and that her colleagues were calling her a racist as a result.
Gould was subsequently suspended for a few months before being terminated completely, not for what she voiced in the union meeting but rather because a colleague who knew of Gould’s pseudonym account had reported her.
Gould pleaded guilty to professional misconduct due to excessive language used in some of her remarks, but as the OCT moves forward with the revocation of her license, Gould claims that one of the adjudicators in her ongoing case is a “Black Power Marxist” and hints at judicial bias.
“We are being subjected to a soft revolution and it’s being done through DEI bureaucracy, and we’re paying for it,” Gould states.
We’re being subjugated by our own tax dollars to the tune of billions of dollars because every institution in Canada now has a whole layer of middle management called DEI and they enforce ideological conformity and they punish and expel dissidents. It’s really like Maoism with Canadian characteristics and it’s being made clear in this hearing with the OCT. Why do we even have a catholic system if we’re not going to promote catholic values and throw them under the bus for a Marxist political movement? I find that objectionable.
Gould has begun crowdfunding her legal defence on GiveSendGo and partnered with United Kingdom-based stand-up comedian Nicolas De Santo to bring a benefit tour to South Eastern Ontario in the weeks ahead. Gould also writes longer form critiques on Substack under C.C. Harvey, The Cancelled Club and provides commentary on X under Catherine The Grateful.
This afternoon at Leeds Crown Court Sam Melia, the Yorkshire PA Regional Organiser and husband of PA Deputy Leader Laura Towler, was found guilty of inciting racial hatred and encouraging criminal damage.
The jury of nine men and three women unanimously found Sam guilty for creating downloadable templates for stickers which bore slogans such as:
Reject White Guilt
It’s OK to be White
We will be a minority in our homeland by 2066
White Lives Matter
Stop Anti-White Rape Gangs
Love Your Nation
The prosecution contended that despite the content of the stickers being lawful, they were produced as a body of work intended to stir up racial hatred. Out of a total of 310 stickers which were read out in detail to the jury during the eight-day long trial, only a handful mentioned race and the jury was reminded by the prosecution that it did not matter whether the content of the stickers was true, as the truth is no defence in such a case.
Sam awaits sentencing on 1st March and has been advised not to talk about the case as it could impact the sentence.
Earlier Laura posted of her pride for her husband:
“I will say that I am proud of my husband. He put his head above the parapet, defended his people and told the truth.
“As detailed above, I won’t say any more about Sam just to be on the safe side, but I and many others unapologetically stand for a safe homeland for the British people. This will never change for us, no matter what they throw at us.”
Prosecution claims
The prosecution, in their opening statement, claimed that the stickers in isolation were lawful, however the Hundred Handers (HH) project in whole was incitement to racial hatred. The prosecution also claimed throughout the trial that the stickers being truthful was no defence.
The judge stated that Sam was not on trial for being racist, if the jury should decide he was, he was on trial for inciting racial hatred through HH stickers only.
Throughout the trial, the prosecution made numerous statements proving Sam’s innocence of the crime he had been accused of: intending to stir up racial hatred. The prosecution claimed multiple times that Sam had no intention to threaten anybody, commit “hate speech” or do anything illegal. The following two quotes are from the prosecution’s own opening statement:
“The defendant claimed in one exchange on Telegram that he was careful to keep a tight control on what stickers were published under the auspices of the Hundred Handers group, or which bore the Hundred Handers logo, so as to avoid the risk of someone else creating or posting stickers which potentially linked to his operation, but which were overtly threatening or illegal.” “…and he made clear that he wanted to avoid anything that was openly “fascistic, threatening, or hate speech”
When the prosecution’s “expert witness” was called – a far left academic activist who writes for the far-left gossip rag, Searchlight Magazine – he was asked why people on the right may use stickers to spread their message. The “expert witness” responded by saying “to spread a message, recruit people, to start conversations, etc.” The prosecution then responded by adding, “and they could be used to threaten, couldn’t they?”, to which the “expert witness” responded “yes”.
The jury were advised by the judge during the trial, if they were 99% sure that Sam was guilty, they should vote not guilty, so let’s look at the evidence of Sam intending to incite racial hatred vs the evidence of him not intending to.
Sam’s defence evidence
The Hundreds Handers archive contained a rule which advised not to put the stickers on any private property, and not to put them anywhere where they could be considered threatening or intimidatory
There were multiple streams played of Sam saying publicly that he had no intention to incite hatred and the stickers were created to raise awareness and start a conversation
In the Hundred Handers change log, Sam removed sticker number 188 because it bordered on incitement. The log read: “01/09/19 – Addition of 13 new stickers. Removal of #0188 as it bordered on incitement, it’s use is not condoned by the Hundred-Handers.”
Sam archived each sticker with its own personal number, writing in the archive that he had done this so that nobody could create any illegal or threatening stickers and link them to him, as that kind of language is not condoned
There were multiple private and public messages from Sam, dating back many years, stating that the Hundred Handers was created to raise awareness and spread a message and that there was no intention to cause hatred or violence
This is all clear evidence of Sam stating, publicly and privately, that he had no intention to incite hatred, the crime he was being accused of.
There was not a single piece of evidence indicating that Sam intended to incite racial hatred.
Circumstantial evidence
So what evidence did the prosecution rely upon?
They referenced a picture of Adolf Hitler in a garage that Sam and his friends rented to exercise in during the Covid-19 lockdown. The picture of Hitler was a funny picture placed in an amusing position.
They referenced a book written by and a canvas featuring Sir Oswald Mosley. Both were owned by Laura, who admitted to this in her testimony.
After looking through Sam’s entire message history dating back many years, they found four examples of slurs, averaging at one per year. None of these words were said to anybody of another race but were communicated in private messages, mostly in humour.
Other Points to Note
The prosecution brought up stickers during the trial that were not part of the Hundred Handers project, and then admitted they made a mistake and they weren’t part of the project and had nothing to do with Sam.
The prosecution brought up two articles about razor blades behind stickers, and then admitted they’d had no police reports about razor blades behind HH stickers and no proof that this had happened at all.
The police admitted there had been zero incidents of crimes being reported (or hatred being incited) that related to the stickers.
The jury were asked to consider all 310 stickers in the archive and whether the archive in whole was considered to be incitement to racial hatred. In his closing statement, the defence barrister revealed that over 80% of the stickers didn’t mention other races, religions or ethnicities, or even reference words like “multiculturalism” and “diversity”, seemingly making it impossible that the archive in whole could be considered incitement to racial hatred.
Support Campaign
Over the last few years, Sam and Laura have worked tirelessly for PA, despite having this court case hanging over their heads. Now Sam has been found guilty, it is likely he will serve a custodial sentence. As such, PA is launching a campaign to raise money to allow Sam and Laura to go away for a week as a family before the date of Sam’s sentencing.
Finally Sam may have been the one in the dock throughout the past eight days, but it is the wider community of nationalists who are in the gun sights of the British State. Our people are under relentless attack from the globalists who seek to replace us with a flood of migrants. Those of us in Patriotic Alternative who defiantly resist this programme of demographic replacement are all in the frame.
We cannot allow that to happen and we must stand together as one to resist our wholesale removal.
