CHIMERA: Phallus/Vagina

"[The Divisional Court erred in finding that a phallus-preserving vaginoplasty was] specifically listed [as an insured service, and that it erred in failing to find that treatments] generally accepted within Ontario as experimental [are excluded from Ontario Health Insurance Plan [OHIP] coverage]."

"Charter values] have no role to play in determining whether penile-preserving vaginoplasty is] specifically listed [in the OHIP schedule of benefits or whether it is excluded because it is experimental."

Ontario public-health insurer, Ontario Health Insurance Plan

 

"Vaginoplasty is a relatively common gender-affirming surgery with approximately 200 Ontarians seeking the surgery annually."

"[But capacity isn't meeting demand, leaving most trans and gender-diverse patients to seek surgery out of province, with much of the follow-up care left to primary-care providers] with little experience in gender-affirming care."

LGBTQ researchers

 

"Despite two unanimous decisions in K.S.'s favour, OHIP has applied for leave to appeal [which is not automatically granted], and we are now in the process of replying to its motion for leave."

"There is nothing further of substance to report at this time."

John McIntyre, lawyer for K.S. 

Ontario Health Insurance Plan officials argue that a vaginoplasty without penectomy is experimental and therefore not eligible for public coverage. Photo by Getty Images

K.S. is a nonbinary Ontario resident who feels himself qualified under OHIP to have what is considered an experimental surgery not available in Canada, to be paid for through the province's health insurer. The Government of Ontario feels otherwise. What K.S. is opting for is surgery that would leave his original male genitalia intact while creating a vaginal cavity, that he feels is more expressive of his sexuality, neither male or female.

The surgery to which K.S. aspires, to suit his non-binary condition, involves constructing a 'neovagina' (vaginal cavity) without having his penis surgically removed. According to a study, about 200 people in Ontario annually undergo a penectomy, the resulting vaginal canal to complete the surgery being created with the use of penile and scrotal tissue. When the penis is left intact, the canal can be built with tissue grafted from other body parts as well as scrotal tissue.

OHIP in 2022 refused the patient identified in court records as K.S., funding request for surgery to be paid at a gender-reassignment clinic located in Texas. His doctor stated that retention of K.S.'s penis while seeking construction of a vagina is important for the simple reason that the patient is "not completely on the 'feminine' end of the spectrum", although he uses a female name and female pronouns. 

 

It is OHIP's contention that vaginoplasty minus penectomy is not listed among sex-re-assignment procedures in its schedule of benefits. When informed that the procedure is not eligible for public coverage, K.S. appealed the denial by OHIP to a tribunal. OHIP responded with the use of a Toronto surgeon's opinion concluding "current expert opinion would widely agree that the penile preservation vaginoplasty is experimental", rendering it ineligible for public funding.

The review board responded by overturning the OHIP refusal to fund the process; their argument that "vaginoplasty should be interpreted as including the penile-preserving technique", adding that vaginoplasty and penectomy are listed as separate services but a vaginoplasty need not necessarily include removal of the penis. The three-member Divisional Court panel held unanimously that vaginoplasty minus penectomy is "specifically listed" as an insurable service and the exclusion of experimental treatments have no application.

Denying the procedure for K.S. would infringe on the patient's Charter-protected rights, according to the Divisional Court ruling; insisting that a transgender or nonbinary person assigned male at birth "remove their penis to receive state funding for a vaginoplasty would be inconsistent with the values of equality and security of the person".

K.S. is fighting for public funding of a surgery previously argued to be 'experimental' by the Ontario government. (Submitted through counsel)

Canadian Parliamentarians Under Threat

"We continue to strongly recommend that constituency offices follow a 'locked door' policy. If an appointment with a constituent is necessary, Members or their employees should consider virtual meetings for the foreseeable future."

"There's been a significant increase in the last five years in harassment of our members of Parliament, mostly online, but also in person and at events and by significant [that means] probably in the tune of 700- to 800-percent increase."

"There's been a significant investment in my area in the last month to resource us up and keep our nose above the waterline and deal with the massive workload which we are now facing."

Sergeant-at-Arms Patrick McDonell

 

"Every time there's vandalism or my staff feels unsafe or threatened, I have to work with them to decide how we will continue to serve Davenport in a way that is safe."

We do not sign up for our families to be threatened, for people to protest in front of our personal houses."

"We don't sign up for our staff to feel unsafe and to not be able to do their jobs." 

Liberal MP Julie Dzerowicz

MP Julie Dzerowicz speaks with reporters in Ottawa about vandalism at her Toronto constituency office, on Wednesday, May 29, 2024. Photo by Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press

Members of Parliament in Ottawa have been reminded by the House of Commons sergeant-at-arms that the chaotic situation that now prevails virtually everywhere in Canada -- with pro-Palestinian protest groups upending normalcy in their zeal to promote the isolation of Israel as an 'occupier' of Palestinian land, to condemn its very existence and to harass and threaten authorities at every level of government, from school boards to municipal offices upward to condemn Israel and relinquish any civil relations with the Jewish state -- that they must be alert to accompanying threats and violence by taking self-protective security measures.

To that end, Members of Parliament have been reminded in a reiteration of previous such cautions of late that doors to their offices should be kept locked, and face-to-face meetings with constituents in their constituency offices are to be avoided. This caution was contained in a memorandum distributed to all Members of Parliament. Early Tuesday in Toronto, Liberal MP Julie Dzerowicz's Davenport constituency office had been vandalized, the phrase "Rafah is burning, Toronto will too", left behind.

As far as she was concerned, the vandalism represented a threat, one she conveyed to the Toronto Police Service. "Toronto will burn", she stated, represented a threat. Since the October 7 Hamas atrocities in southern Israel she and her staff have felt decidedly unsafe, impacting her work as a Member of Parliament, heightened considerably by a number of vandalism attacks. MPs, she said, arrive on the job with the expectation that protests and difficult conversations will at times confront them. However, the current situation is extraordinary and frightening.

 

Sergeant-at-Arms McDonell serves as well as the House of Commons corporate security officer. He spoke of MPs being harassed online and in person, a situational threat that has multiplied exponentially over the course of the last five years. And according to Mr. McDonell, in 2019 his office had opened eight files related to threats received by Members of Parliament, while last year the number of opened files increased to 530. The spike in death threats goes beyond the harassment of members of Parliament.

The very numbers of cases that must be dealt with rose to such a worrying degree that his office brought more people on to deal with rising threats and to engage to work in close cooperation with local law enforcement. All parties in the House of Commons have been the recipient of threats and harassment -- on line in particular. Earlier this year Liberal MP Pam Damoff announced her intention not to run for re-election, citing threats and harassment moving her decision.

 

MP Pam Damoff: “People used to pop in all the time just to say hi, now we can’t do that.” Photo by Justin Tang/The Canadian Press/File

"Our office is now closed to the public, it's locked and unless people have made an appointment in advance, we don't let them in."

"People used to pop in all the time just to say hi, now we can't do that because sometimes people use that as a ruse to get into the office."

"They're the ones [her staff] that are there five days a week -- I'm not. I'm in Ottawa a lot of the time and they are subjected to such abuse. It's horrible."

"We don't talk about the impact on staff and people talk to them the same way they talk to me."

Liberal MP Pam Damoff

The elephant in the room is what is not being said. Which is to say, just who and what is behind these threats and ongoing harassment. Logically and realistically it is the same group that shoot live bullets at Jewish parochial schools, that set fire to synagogues and that vandalize Jewish-owned businesses. This kind of criminal lawlessness and promotion of antisemitism comes hand-in-hand with the presence of Palestinians who have migrated abroad and whose state of perpetual victimhood has given it allies among populations that harbour resentment against Jews.

The government whose MPs are now complaining that they didn't 'sign up' for threats against their families and their constituency staff is the very government whose leader, Justin Trudeau has once more proudly announced that Canada is prepared to virtuously practise humanitarian action by inviting more Palestinians from Gaza to seek haven in Canada, to join the thousands of Syrians who fled the murderous attacks of Alawite-Shia Bashar al-Assad against his own Sunni Syrian population to seek haven in Canada.

 

 

 

Note that Palestinians in particular have a well-earned reputation for violence and chaotic destabilization of any country they enter. Muslim countries particularly in the Middle East are loathe to give them haven with the full knowledge of how reliably unstable they are, with an  unwillingness to integrate into the surrounding community preferring to nurse their grievances and nurture new generations into their own state of aspirational martyrdom for the greater purpose of attempting to destroy Israel and establish a 'Palestinian' state on ancestral Judean geography.

 

 

Jewish Students Assailed by Antisemitism

 "I live in Burlington, Ontario, Canada, and my child is not in school because she's Jewish. That's insane."

"I can't believe that this is happening. My daughter, who does really well at school, she loves school, isn't able to attend public school unless she is willing to hide her Judaism."

"There are certain levels of antisemitism that I can deal with, however, since October 7, things have gotten much, much worse."

"They [the school] had a huge booth, and it was labelled Palestine. There was a map: the state of Israel we relabelled as Palestine with the Palestinian colours on it; [there was] information such as Jerusalem is the capital of Palestine, Bethlehem is in Palestine. So literally a cultural history and rewriting history to suit a particular narrative."

"When I approached the administration -- they were in the room -- they told me to calm down because they were just kids."

"Jews are the only minority marginalized group that gets to be told by other people what is and what isn't offensive. No other group would be told to calm down and to relax."

"When the teachers said those things -- calm down, it's not a big deal -- the students are emboldened and start saying things like 'there is no Israel there is only Palestine'. So don't tell me that that's not inappropriate, calling for the destruction of the state of Israel. the denial of the state of Israel is being endorsed by these teachers and the administration."

Anissa Hersh, Burlington Ontario mother of High School student

A photo from the Burlington Central High School event. Photo by Supplied

"The gross rise of antisemitism needs to be a wake up call to the director and leadership of the Halton District School Board to do something about this disturbing trend."

"I have assured Mrs. Hersh that we will communicate my expectations to the director that the Halton District School Board take action on these unacceptable incidents and apply the same level of concern and enforcement to hate as they would for anyone else."

Ontario Education Minister Stephen Lecce

"The Halton District School Board does not tolerate the erasure of any nation or identity and views the erasure of Israel from a map as antisemitic. I can assure you that staff are investigating this issue."

"The school principal has communicated with students, families and staff about this incident, underscoring school processes and expectations."

"The safety and well-being of students is our highest priority. As educators, we continue to centre human rights and provide an environment that is inclusive and respectful, and where the humanity of all students, staff and communities is upheld."

Halton District School Board statement

Jewish mother to a teen-age girl in Grade 11 at Burlington Central High School, Anissa Hersh has made it her business to inform the larger community of the circumstances in which her daughter and other Jewish students are expected to attend public school, while tolerating verbal and physical manifestations of Jew-hate emanating from other students from within the Muslim community. A situation that had been steadily growing as Palestinians and others from the Middle East have migrated to Canada bringing with them their violent antipathy toward Israel, and extending it to the Canadian-Jewish demographic.

She has felt she has no other choice but to take her daughter out of the high school she has been attending in fear for her safety in an atmosphere the school is actually encouraging, charged with antisemitism. "Since October 7", her daughter stated while having her name withheld, "I've had a hard time going to school. Mentally I have had to prepare myself each morning." Students lobbing antisemitic comments at the girl and to her friends emphasizing her Jewishness. An incident of a van on school property with those inside shouting that everyone should rise up and free Palestine. 

"But this is not anything that I would have pulled my daughter out for school for; I wasn't happy about it, and we always contacted the school, and the inaction of the school is infamous", Ms. Hersh commented. Even the student walkouts focusing on Gaza were shrugged off. Until a school exhibit for student artwork in the school auditorium hosted an "Arts & Culture" event at which her daughter had art on display. Students were given permission to wear T-shirts and jewelry where eradication of Israel was depicted. That and a display of a map where Israel was eliminated.

 

Although the board acknowledged the map represented antisemitism they described the event as an after-school activity "organized by students to celebrate different cultures within the school community". When Mrs. Hersh complained the result was unsatisfactory. "The only thing they did was they sent me information on how my daughter could finish school at home. That was their solution. Let my daughter finish school at home. Then they can wipe their hands."

"She didn't do anything wrong, and now she is paying the price for inaction of the schools. We don't know what we're going to do next year. Do we have to move? Do we have to relocate so that our daughter can go to a school where we can be assured that it won't matter that she's Jewish.?" 

 

Burlington Central High School in Burlington, Ont. Photo by Google Maps / Screenshot

"Discriminatory behaviour was also directed toward some students at our school who were targeted by a community member for wearing a kaffiyeh and jewelry with a Palestinian flag. This behaviour demonstrates anti-Palestinian racism and is not tolerated in our school."

"We are deeply concerned by these events and share our community's concerns that these incidents are harmful and unacceptable."

"Antisemitism, anti-Palestinian racism, and racism in any form, is not tolerated at our school."

Halton District School Board letter disseminated to the Burlington Central School community

Sheltering Under the American Umbrella

"As a founding member of NATO, Canada is a valued ally and has long contributed to essential NATO operations around the world."

"However, the transatlantic Alliance now faces one of the most severe threat landscapes in its history. As a consequence, we call on all NATO allies, including Canada, to uphold their commitment to ensure a stronger, sustainable NATO  by accelerating efforts to reach the two percent defence spending target set by the alliance."

"By the end of 2024, 18 NATO countries will meet the alliance's goal to ensure NATO's continued military readiness."

"This is a historic investment in our collective security, led by NATO allies like Poland, a country that has already exceeded three percent of its GDP for defence spending."

Letter to PM Justin Trudeau from U.S. Senators

"The current government are the ones trying to manage this problem, but this problem did not happen in the last eight years -- this has been decades in the making. We don't take defence and security seriously and this is a manifestation of that lack of seriousness."

"That [every dollar not spent on defence in Canada spent on other priorities] may be extremely attractive to the Canadian government and Canadian voters, but we've been funding a lot of our own domestic national priorities thanks to the benevolence, charity and generosity of the United States, who basically have been carrying the vast majority of the defence and security obligations that we should have been contributing more to."

"Our relationship with Washington is absolutely essential, not only to our security but to our economic stability, and it affects more broadly some of the key relationships we have in Europe, Asia and elsewhere."

"We need to get our act together."

Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, former vice-chief of defence staff, head, Royal Canadian Navy

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators has written a letter to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, urging him to meet the NATO spending target Canada first agreed to in 2014. Kevin Cramer, a U.S. senator who co-wrote the letter, says Canada has to ‘step up a little bit’ to help secure freedom.           CBC

Canadians share the top two-thirds of North America with the United States, and the longest contiguous undefended border in the world which seems to endow the Canadian government with the belief that to protect their own national security, the United States must ensure its border is safe and that Canada, its northern neighbour which has always shirked its neighbourly obligation of equal cooperation with the U.S. is secure from any enemy incursion that would invariably affect the U.S. With that assurance, Canadians have always flippantly passed on the expense of mutual protection from enemy aliens to the U.S.

 

That seems to work for the southern border, but Canada boasts its sovereignty 'from Sea to Sea to Sea', so there's the matter of the Canadian Arctic to be defended. Just as much of Europe is working on bringing their defence spending in line with the overall agreed-upon minimum of two percent of the national budget to be spent on national defence -- an emergent priority since Russia's 'special military operation' in Ukraine -- one that threatens the stability and autonomy and borders of Eastern Europe, Canada is rivalled for its Arctic holdings by Russia.

 

The letter made public this week signed by 23 Democratic, Republican and independent American senators spoke to the reality that Canada's laxity in ensuring it is amply prepared to defend itself in compliance with NATO's preparedness guidelines, has irritated its American neighbour for decades. When Donald Trump held the presidency he made no bones about his annoyance over NATO members in general failing to pony up their fair share of defence necessities in their military equipment and troop numbers. All lacking in reaching the required two percent of GDP to defence.

 

With a degree of understatement the American Senators' letter speaks of the dangerous level of the current international geopolitical situation, requiring vital levels of investment by member countries allied through NATO.   Canada's relatively feeble 1.33 percent commitment simply doesn't make the grade, ranking it ahead of Sprain, Belgium and Luxembourg, whereas eleven NATO members -- Poland, the United States, Greece, Estonia, Lithuania, Finland, Latvia, the United Kingdom, Hungary, Slovak Republic and Denmark met or exceeded the two percent benchmark.

"This letter coming after [Defence Minister Bill] Blair's visit [to Washington] is a pretty good indication that they heard what they saw and said 'nah, not good enough'."

"He [Donald Trump likely to return as U.S. President in November] practises grievance-based politics."

"So what's the grievance with Canada right now? Defence."

"If it's a widespread view within the U.S. Senate and House that Canada is a laggard in spending and they're not happy with it, you know that this will become a bilateral issue because Trump will look for a grievance to pick at, and this is an easy one."

Defence analyst Richard Shimooka

Our North, Strong and Free, Canada's new defence strategy, was unveiled earlier in the year, with a pledge of $8.1 billion in new defence spending in a five-year period, projecting defence spending to each 1.76 percent by 2029-2030, which albeit increasing Canada's defence spending, still leaves it below the required 2 percent expenditure expected of all NATO members. And despite the impending change of American leadership come November, Canada is still not taking the situation seriously or recalling Donald Trump's searing criticism in 2019 of Canada's failure in meeting the benchmark of two percent. 

There can be no doubt that the issue highlighted by the letter to Justin Trudeau given that of the letter's 23 signatories, ten were Republican senators, indicated beyond a doubt that Washington's concerns represents a cross-party issue. Since the United States is Canada's largest and most important trade partner, among other issues, Canada can ill afford to alienate the powerful government in Washington regardless of whose administration it is.

"We are very significantly increasing defence spending in Canada. In fact, our defence budget will go up 27 percent next year over this year."

"We recently came up with a defence policy that I think applies a very significant and necessary focus on continental defence, which I would share with the concerned senators."

Canadian Minister of Defence Bill Blair

Defence Minister Bill Blair says Canada is still short of meeting its NATO commitment to spend two per cent of GDP on defence but is making strides towards that goal, and new investments in military infrastructure inevitably will push spending past that target.  CBC

 

From The River To The Sea

"We are getting more and more phone calls and conversations of concerned people — if it’s Israelis who invest in Ireland and are concerned about their investment, if it’s Israelis who have relocated to Ireland into different tech companies and either are requesting to be relocated somewhere else or asking to return to Israel."

"I think it sends the wrong message about the location and the centrality of Ireland as a tech hub when there are more and more people who are concerned about moving to Ireland. I don’t think that this is the message that Ireland wants to send to the world … And this is not what we want to see."

"[Many Irish sympathize with Israel] behind the scenes. I think there is a lot of potential in our bilateral relations, if it’s cybersecurity or health care, climate change. I hope to be given that opportunity to continue that."

Israeli Ambassador to Ireland, Dana Erlich

Anti-Israel demonstrators stand outside the Israeli embassy after Ireland has announced it will recognize a Palestinian state, in Dublin, Ireland, May 22, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Molly Darlington

 A March poll by the Palestinian polling group elicited the data that seven in ten Palestinians approved of the October 7 sadistic barbarity that Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine terrorist operatives inflicted on southern Israel's kibbutz residents. Poll results rendered the information that Palestinians in the West Bank outdid their Gaza counterparts with a greater number supporting Hamas as the duly constituted government in both territories.

Israelis, looking back in appalled anger at the carnage wrought by the Palestinian terrorist operation of October 7 are almost equal in numbers in rejecting a renewed Palestinian enclave in  Gaza. It seems that in the West, in European countries in particular, Hamas and the other Palestinian terror groups are not held in any judgement. Israel, on the other hand, is held to a standard not expected of Palestinians. When Palestinians invoking their 'refugee' status as 'victims' everlasting as long as Israel exists, commit to the goal of destroying Israel, their ongoing violence against Israel and its population is considered irrelevant.

 

Israel's responses to deadly raids, however, are viewed through the magnified lens of international demands that restraint be the order of the day, not the wholesale intention of responding militarily to the rocket barrages, and suicide missions -- and above all the October 7 sadistic savagery with its death count, determined to prevent the promise of more October 7s, until Israel is destroyed -- by taking the initiative to destroy first those whose unremitting violence against Israeli existence must be final and complete.

 

Ireland has led the way in persuading Spain and and Norway -- all three countries known to be hostile to Israel -- to formally recognize the 'State of Palestine', rather than await a final agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority government on mutual recognition and a corresponding decision on conditions both agree upon, setting standards and boundaries as well as pledges of non-hostile cooperation. Israel has been available for talks in the critical issues involved, the Palestinians have evaded them.

Choosing instead their slow and steady scheduling of the poisoning of Palestinian minds against their Jewish neighbours, inculcating in those minds the need for 'resistance' against the 'occupation'; an occupation necessitated by the urgent call to protect Israelis of all ages against lethal attacks that Palestinians are taught by their governments it is their duty to carry out to martyrdom in the greater interests of opposing Israel's presence and committing to killing Jews.

Sovereignty recognition must pass some elemental standards, not the least of which under international law a state must have fixed borders, a permanent population, uncontested government with control of its security and commitments to amiable foreign relations. In light of the most recent of the ongoing attacks against Israel and its people, to proceed at this unresolved juncture to recognize a Palestinian state that refuses to negotiate with the neighbour it threatens, to agree on boundaries and future relations is beyond premature.

Granting that status for the Palestinians is not only premature, it represents a reprehensible decision to reward savagery committed against a neighbour where 1,200 lives of Israeli citizens were extinguished on one fateful day of carnage dedicated to terrorizing, slaughtering and hostage taking. Neither Palestinians, nor now Israelis favour the two-state 'solution' the West is anxious to hasten to reality, seemingly to solve a brutal, unresolved issue of two peoples rivalling one another in a competition for territory.

 

Israelis settled for a state on a small portion of their historical ancestral land mass; Palestinians rejected outright the opportunity offered them through the Partition Plan of the United Nations in 1947. Consistently since then when war after war broke out as surrounding Arab states attempted to dislodge the Jewish State from the Middle East, Israel successfully clung to its territory, militarily defeating its enemies and frustrating Palestinian aspirations to achieve a state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean sea.

 

Which is to say, without a presence of an Israeli state, leaving the entire area to the Palestinian Arabs. That remains the goal of both Fatah (West Bank Palestinian Authority) and Hamas (Gaza Strip). Fatah and Hamas oppose one another with a hostility born of ideological differences and factional rivalry. Their only area of agreement is the destruction of the State of Israel. That part of the West that is amenable to granting State status to Palestinian aspiration is effectively agreeing that the use of violent sadism was justifiable and awaited reward.

 

Countries that would never tolerate violence against their claims to sovereignty and against their populations, appear to feel that having suffered the intolerable, Israel should merely shrug and count its losses to satisfy the demands of a global community fixated with the entitlements and inalienable rights of a Palestinian population that chooses its method of persuasion, trumping lethal violence over the negotiating table. In the process the pretense for consumption by the West, frequent appeals to victimhood. Appealing for help from the international community to bypass normal international standards to qualify for statehood.

 

Looking ahead to the eventual agreement on statehood for 'Palestine', the issue of who would govern is critical to relations between Israel and the Palestinians. Palestinians make no secret of the fact that the majority reject 88-year-old Mahmoud Abbas, who was elected to his position as President decades ago, with no election keeping him in office for the past 20 years. Their choice of governance has been stated time and again in their admiration for Hamas's agenda. 

 

Ireland, Spain and Norway would never agree to live alongside another state with destructive tendencies and an agenda that included ongoing violence against a neighbour. Yet they deem it acceptable for Israel and they prefer to force the matter by supporting a Palestinian State that is loathe to bargain in good faith with Israel, since to do so would be to forego their ambition to have free reign from "The River to the Sea" in perpetuity.

 

 

Canada: Full-blown Antisemitism

"As everybody was traumatized, we waited, in shock, for people to condemn. And I was waiting for the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists [SOGC] as soon as the stories of rape and sexual violence came out. I was waiting for the women's organizations, and it became very clear the duplicity of women's organizations across the world."

"This silence has shaken me to the core because it reveals something much more sinister than just the age-old fear of a Jew experiencing antisemitism."

"Weeks after October 7 passed, I wrote to the leadership asking why they had been silent and was met with excuses. Eventually, in December, the SOGC released a statement, but this made no mention of Hamas or even the date of October 7. It simply stated, 'In the light of recent and ongoing global events' and mentioned the Red Line initiative. What recent events Committed by who against whom? I asked, but received no response."

Dr. Jon Barrett, obstetrics professor, McMaster University

 

"It was not surprising that he [Professor Barrett] reacted against the SOGC's double standard in its statement on the brutal attacks on women in Ukraine and Israel."

"When he failed to modify the Society's position, he resigned his membership -- an ethical response."

Dr. Arthur Leader, professor emeritus of obstetrics, University of Ottawa 

Demonstrators gather during a protest outside of United Nations headquarters in New York City on Dec. 4, 2023. Photo by CHARLY TRIBALLEAU /AFP via Getty Images

Dr. Barrett is an obstetrics professor at McMaster University, rebuked by having been removed from the editorial board of an academic journal in a reaction to his having publicly criticized his professional association for their failure to condemn the mass rapes perpetrated on Israeli girls and women on October 7 by Hamas terrorist operatives who had flooded across the border from Gaza through a separation fence they had destroyed to gain access by the thousands into Israel where as deadly marauders they slaughtered 1,200 Israelis on that fateful day.

Perplexed, alarmed and angry, Dr. Barrett wrote to the leadership of his professional group looking for answers as to why it was the association failed to make a public statement, to comment on the atrocities from their perspective as a special group for whom this should have been a matter of interest and abhorrence. Months transpired and there was no response as though the organization avoided a public statement in their name addressing the sexual violence. Which prompted Dr. Barrett to make a public critique in writing condemning the position his professional association had taken.

He felt personally affected that the leading body for Canadian OBGYNs with its four thousand-plus members to which he had devoted his professional trust sat silent in the face of this event that was well beyond repugnant in its lethal violence against women and girls, and the impact it should have had on a professional body for which such actions should have been horrifying had no obvious wish to condemn it. That his organization had no condemnatory comment in light of the violence Hamas perpetrated on women felt devastatingly both professionally and personally disappointing.

When the association's president Amanda Black applauded through a public letter the reporting of sexual violence that Russian soldiers perpetrated in Ukraine, highlighting the organization's advocating work for women, its silence in the face of the Hamas atrocities committed against women in Israel appalled Dr. Barrett. "The penny dropped, my denial evaporated and it all changed. It was then that I resigned. I fear that, once again, just like in my grandmother's generation, the Jew is being dehumanized to the point where the most heinous of acts are accepted by society. If you cannot name the perpetrators and victims, you are complicit", he wrote in a National Post op-ed.

When that piece saw publication a call came in from the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology Canada, the academic publication associated with SOGC. The editor, Togas Tulandi, informed Dr. Barrett that his op-ed resulted in the association leadership's anger who demanded his removal as an associate editor of the journal. Once Dr. Barrett challenged the editor over his potential removal's basis, he received an apology from the editor-in-chief who went on to send a message to the journal's editorial board to the effect that "I regret my error"; Dr. Barrett would not be dismissed.

That series of events led to the Journal board's confusion and  ultimate disagreements from within and eventually editor-in-chief Tulandi felt constrained to announce his resignation from the journal's leadership, with two other editorial members of the board joining him. Others expressed empathy, contemplating leaving themselves, but thought deeper of such a move that would impact on their ability to challenge the journal's direction. Dr. Barrett regretted himself resigning, in retrospect.

"I don't think it was the right thing to do, but it was that frustration that I didn't feel I had a voice anyway", he said ruefully. SOGC president Amanda Black followed  up with an elucidating statement of a December 2023 piece she had written: "Specifically condemning the use of women as weapons of war -- a tragic and enduring reality for women globally. This was a general statement applicable to all countries where such atrocities were, and continue, to be committed." Again, the specific identifiers of Hamas violations/Israeli women stepped around.

Dr. Barrett remains dissatisfied by the Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists' approach to the issue. He points out the differences in the SOGC public statement of condemnation and that of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists condemning violence against women in the Middle East: "It is horrifyingly clear that they are being specifically targeted for sexual violence, abuse, and kidnapping". A statement by the Society for Maternal-Fetal Medicine also committed to a more direct approach: "Our Israeli colleagues and your patients."

United Nations Corrupt Justice/Criminal Arms

"The State of Israel is committed to continue fighting to return its hostages and promise the security of its citizens -- wherever and whenever necessary -- including in Rafah."

"We will continue operating in accordance with international law wherever we might operate, while safe-guarding to the best extent possible the civilian population."

"Not because of the ICJ, but because of who we are and the values we stand for."

Benny Gantz, Israeli war cabinet member 

Troops of the Nahal Brigade operate in eastern Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, in a handout image published May 22, 2024. (Israel Defense Forces)

 

There is no arm of the United Nations which has not been permeated with a solid antipathy toward the State of Israel. The entire mission of the United Nations; equality, peace and security for all,  has been perverted for decades with the steady infiltration of cadres of UN authorities and employees of the institution that harbour an ingrained message of antisemitic rejection, one that singles Israel out in every conceivable way to use it as the proverbial whipping-boy for all that may be wrong anywhere in the world; yet seldom in Israel.

In the direct wake of the International Criminal Court condemning Israel for its incursion into Gaza for the express purpose of routing and defeating its terrorist government in direct response to the Hamas terrorist attack in southern Israel that left 1,200 Israelis, mostly citizens dead, the Palestinian terrorists having taken body cam videos of devastatingly savage and psychologically sadistic rapes and accompanying mutilations, where infants, children, the elderly and infirm were all slaughtered, a second censure from the International Court of Justice followed.

 

There is no nation on Earth, self-respecting and committed to the defence of its population, that would not respond to the brutality, the depths of depravity committed and the horrors of invaders murdering their people as Israel has done. The terrorist group Hamas has refused to surrender any of the 135 hostages of the original 250 it had captured and brought back to Gaza. Maintaining them in the countless tunnels that honeycomb the Gaza Strip, they are abused and used as human shields knowing how Israel values the lives of all its citizens.

 

Israel's sworn intention to destroy the Palestinian terrorist ability to continue their barbaric attacks on its people includes not only the destruction of the stockpiled weapons in the possession of the terror groups, but their operatives as well. It is the least that any other country would designate their ultimate goal. Yet ostensible collegial Western countries choose to chastise Israel for placing the lives of Palestinian citizens at risk, even while the Israel Defense Forces take precautions no other military would undertake in similar circumstances.

 

That the International Court of Justice's order that Israel halt its military offensive immediately, in the southern Gaza city of Rafah, it has no capacity to enforce the order and Israel will not accept the court's jurisdiction. Yet both the courts' judicial and prejudicial interventions slamming Israel and supporting the Palestinian 'cause' prejudice unjustly Israel's flagging global reputation. 

"The International Court of Justice's decision opens up the possibility for relief, but only if governments use their leverage, including through arms embargoes and targeted sanctions, to press Israel to urgently enforce the court's measures."

Balkees Jarrah, associate international justice director, Human Rights Watch

 

"[Fears the court expressed earlier this year about an operation in Rafah have] materialized. [Israel must] immediately halt its military offensive [in the city and anything else that might result in conditions that could cause the] physical destruction in whole or in  part [of Palestinians there]."

Nawaf Salam, ICJ president

Two weeks ago, Israel began disseminating evacuation orders as military operations began on the city's edge. The IDF says an estimated million Palestinians have since left the immediate area as Israeli forces press deeper within. Rafah is considered the last and ultimate stronghold of Hamas, where four of its divisions are sheltering, and it is there as well that Israel expects the bulk of the Israeli hostages may be found.  

Judges arrive at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) to rule on South Africa's request on a Rafah and wider Gaza war ceasefire, in The Hague, on May 24, 2024 (Nick Gammon / AFP)

Beyond Suspicion : The Racism Shield

"The National Microbiology Laboratory scientists Xiangguo Qiu and Keding Cheng essentially used Canada's highest-security biohazard laboratory as a lending library for Chinese military interests."

"During her time as head of vaccines and antivirals in t he NML's zoonotic diseases and special pathogens division, Qiu repeatedly acted on China's behalf, including by transferring knowledge and materials from the NML to Chinese institutions."

Peter Shawn, senior features editor, C2C Journal

"Conduct the interviews in a respectful and professional manner."

"Care will be taken to avoid any comments or behaviours that could intimidate or be perceived as badgering or threatening the interviewees."

NML interview instruction

Xiangguo Qiu wears a biocontainment suit while working in the containment lab at the National Microbiology Lab (NML) in Winnipeg.  (CBC)

Simultaneous to the time that two bio-researchers of Chinese origin who were Canadian citizens were held in suspicion of releasing Canadian intelligence out of Canada's only high-security biohazard laboratory, two Canadians, Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, were being held on trumped up charges of espionage presenting a danger to Chinese security, in retaliation for Canada responding to a U.S. request to hold Meng Wanzhou, CFO of Huawei for indictment under U.S. state secrets law. They were held for over two years before their release back to Canada.

 

China plays rough, its detainment diplomacy signals that they do not take kindly to imposing uncomfortable penalties on Chinese nationals, groups, or businesses for behaviour harmful to host countries. Canada, on the other hand, treads lightly for fear of offending those involved in clear conduct of espionage threatening Canada's intelligence interests. Just how lightly Canada treads has been revealed with the 600-page release of classified documents related to NML security breaches.

 

Canada's national security interests were subordinated and contorted by diplomatic delicacy in efforts to avoid being labelled racist. The new values-driven concerns surrounding victimology that has been integrated into the federal bureaucracy, instructs those involved in these sensitive issues to be very, very careful. Leading to spies like Xiangguo Qiu and her husband Keding Cheng treated with kid gloves even when the extent and seriousness of their actions injurious to Canada's interests were fully revealed.

"During the grievance hearing, you described the significant emotional toll that you and your family have experienced as a result of this process. I understand this and sympathize with the feelings you expressed."

"I appreciate that this may be a stressful time, and remind you that the Employee Assistance Program is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week."

Official denial of racism claim

A routine "insider threat briefing" at the National Microbiology Lab conducted by the Canadian Security Intelligence Service in 2018 began to reveal reasons to suspect Qiu and Cheng's activities with respect to China. Their electronic devices had been tapped by CSIS and what was then amassed was a troublesome brief of their activities, including violations of security protocols, along with revelations of links to researchers with connections to the Chinese military.

Following an anodyne disciplinary letter forwarded to them in 2020 fully one and a half years after their suspected activities were verified, the federal government was satisfied they could return to the lab. However, at that point CSIS discovered new information that showed their involvement in China's many 'talent' programs; disguised espionage schemes whose purpose was to purloin knowledge from other countries; research-time-and-talent saving short-cuts for Beijing.

Mid-2020 with ample evidence at hand, the duo was called to return for follow-up interviews. Offered the opportunity to refute the conclusions reached by CSIS related to their actions, Qiu responded with a facade of the brilliant, but naive scientist."It was only during the investigative interview that I started to know some new words to me, such as 'NATO', 'spy' and 'espionage'", she claimed, all innocent sweetness and concerned light.

Both Qiu and Cheng claimed racism was at work trying to ruin their reputations as reputable scientists. they launched a grievance through their union, claiming to be victims of "racial profiling" making use of their Chinese backgrounds. The entire case being brought against them should be discarded, they

contended. It was well known in the intelligence community that Qiu and Cheng deliberately and repeatedly lied to investigators.

Qiu had been working actively in favour of transferring data to the Wuhan Laboratory; in 2019 she arranged the shipment of 30 vials of deadly virus samples that included Ebola and Henipah, fron NML's stockpile to go to China, without permission from the National Microbiology Lab, withholding news of the event from her superiors. Her husband had a three-year research project at his NML lab that benefited China's Centre for Disease Control, unknown to NML authorities.

Canadian citizens involved secretly  as foreign agents harming Canada's national security. While authorities at the Winnipeg Lab as well as government political figures went about on tiptoes wary of being held to account with accusations of racism and riling Beijing, should they act on the knowledge that Canadian intelligence agencies had been informing them about and warning them of, for years.

Intelligence documents detail why Xiangguo Qiu and her husband Keding Cheng were fired from the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg in 2021.  Still from Video, CBC

Negotiated Settlements Set Aside by Norway, Ireland, Spain

"Today, Ireland, Norway and Spain are announcing that we recognize the state of Palestine. Each of us will now undertake whatever national steps are necessary to give effect to that decision."

"There is never a wrong time to do the right thing".

"It was my government’s preferred position to recognize a two-state solution as part of a peace process to bring that about, but sadly, unfortunately, such a comprehensive peace settlement now seems, in many ways, further away than it has ever been."

"We believe you can’t say you’re in favor of a two-state solution and not recognize the very existence of two states."

Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris

From left, Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris, Spain's President Pedro Sánchez and Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre are pictured.  Getty Images/PA/Reuters

 

 

Was ever a sentence uttered that should have been corrected as 'There is never a right time to do a wrong thing'? Israel, in reacting to the tripartite statement in shock and disbelief is entirely correct in chiding these three Western democracies for their gross error in judgement, deciding between them that the 'right thing' to do is to reward terrorist groups in the Middle East for their vicious penchant to declare their intention to destroy a legally and morally constituted state on its own ancestral geography that has been challenged for possession by a group of Arab (of mostly Egyptian origin) colonizers claiming it as their own. Did the three ask themselves why it was that a negotiated settlement was further away than ever?

 

The opportunity for a two-state 'solution' was offered through the UN's partition plan, promptly and gratefully accepted by Israel, furiously rejected by those now calling themselves 'Palestinians' who preferred to wait out the intentions of surrounding Arab/Muslim countries to march on the nascent state of Israel with a view to preventing the establishment of the Jewish state. Succeeding wars failed just as the initial one did, but the Palestinian-Arab determination to wreak havoc on Israel with the ultimate aim to destroy it and murder all its population has never faded.

 

The October 7 butchery that took place in southern Israel by the terrorist groups Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, aided and abetted by Palestinian civilians exhibiting raw savagery in the sordid, ghoulish sadistic cruelty meted out to innocent civilians has few parallels in modern history. This declaration by Palestinians both in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip who have been polled to render 85% support to Hamas terrorism and their approval of the October 7 bestiality represents the level of civilization that Spain, Norway and Ireland are prepared to recognize and legitimize with statehood.

 

Israel is dismayed, but perhaps not completely surprised by the three countries turning their backs on the only democracy in the Middle East, distinguished from all others because it is Jewish, its origins the very land it now sits upon, along with other areas the world prepared to honour and hand over to an Arab population that has no intention, ever, of living in peace with the original inhabitants of the land. In their preparation to recognize the State of Palestine, no effort has been made by Spain, Norway and Ireland to condemn the Palestinians for their aspirations to destroy Israel.

 

Nor has any overture been made to persuade the Palestinians through their leadership to turn their ambitions toward statehood infrastructure and the merits of civilized behaviour in favour of completely foregoing its lethal hostility against Israel. Needless to say, with no expectations of Palestinians curbing and abandoning their commitment to violence against Israel, the announcements of support in the form of recognition of their ambitions to form a legitimate state with no pre-conditions sits extremely well with the Palestinian leadership -- the Palestinian Authority and Gaza's Hamas rulers.

 

Envoys of the three countries were summoned by Israel in a diplomatic expression of profound disappointment in their judgement and decision-making. The European ambassadors to Israel, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz said grimly, would be requested to witness video footage of the October 7 attack, to ensure they had intimate first-hand knowledge of what had transpired, through videos produced by the terrorists themselves as they rampaged through Israeli farming kibbutzim, raping and vandalizing, torturing children and women before murdering them.    

 

"[A Palestinian state is] a prerequisite for achieving peace in the Middle East."

"There will be no peace in the Middle East without a two-state solution."

"There can be no two-state solution without a Palestinian state."

Norway’s Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre

 

"This recognition is not against the people of Israel and certainly not against the Jewish people."

"It’s not in favor of Hamas."

"It’s in favor of co-existence."

Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez

"[Recognizing a Palestinian state would be a] reward for terror."

"This will be a terror state, which will attempt to perpetrate the onslaught of October 7 time and again, and to that we shall not agree."

"This evil must not be given a state."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

A man waves the Palestinian flag in front of the Norwegian Parliament building during a demonstration in Oslo, Oct. 28, 2023. (Frederik Ringnes/NTB via AP)

 

 

Hate Speech Defined, Condemned, and Defended

"There's an unprecedented rise in antisemitism in Canada."

"We need to do anything we possibly can to stem this tide, and we need to appeal to all levels of government including the federal government, to take the lead."

Talia Klein Leighton, petition organizer

 

"They [Canada's political leaders] hide behind ambiguity, ignorance and definitions to avoid taking action."

"This petition forces the issue and demands that those we trust to keep us safe stop hiding and do their jobs"

"It also calls for the Trudeau government, who have shown their cowardice, to follow our democratic allies in the U.S., Germany and Austria in recognizing the chant "from the river to the sea" for what it is in Hamas terms -- a call for genocide and the elimination of the State of Israel."

Kevin Vuong, Independent Member for Parliament for Toronto

 

"From the river to the sea [is unequivocally hateful and antisemitic]."

"It only has one interpretation -- what it effectively calls for is the destruction of the Jewish state."

"And then when  you take it into the context of the companion cry for a global intifada, then it extends not just to the Jewish state, but to the Jewish people, and is consistent with what Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah and Iran have been threatening that they intend to do." 

Shimon Koffler Fogel, CEO, Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs

The entrance to a Pro-Palestinian encampment in an area that was fenced off at the University of Toronto campus in downtown Toronto on May 2, 2024. Ernest Doroszuk/Toronto Sun/Post

There are some who claim that the hate-and-extermination messages - chorused against Israel and global Jewry by protesters at organized public venues where a show of force and clear racism has been played in public since early October, with repeats on an ongoing basis -- are well within the law of free speech rights under the Canadian constitution. There are hate laws in Canada to protect the public and discrete groups from discrimination severe enough to be viewed as threats and intimidation. The speech in and of itself of a quality that speaks of endangering the well-being of others.

The regular protests targeting the social weal and Canadian Jews in particular are threatening in nature and are meant to send a number of messages; that Jews are unsafe in their home country, that Israel's reputation as a democratic nation for which human rights is ensured, is open to slander, statements of 'fact' outright hostile fabrications that do damage that reality and true facts struggle to correct among a force of antisemitism that has no use for truth.

The viral and ever-rising antisemitic events of intimidation and threats carried out in municipal offices, in front of and within shopping centres, hospitals, Jewish community centres, synagogues and Jewish parochial schools, have morphed more latterly into university campus occupations, leaving Jewish students, non-Jewish students, university staff and members of the faculty concerned for their security and safety, as well as for their inability to reach their classes. Authority figures, whether university administrators, provincial or federal governments have done nothing useful to uphold law and order and ensure public safety.

Now, a petition has been circulated to attempt to persuade those authorities -- city mayors, police chiefs, governments at all levels, including those of the universities involved -- to become more steadfast, reliable and active in putting an end to what amounts to racist hate-fests. The rallying cries of 'Palestine will be free', 'globalize the intefadeh', and 'long live Oct7' have no place in a civil society. What the petition asserts is that these expressions interpreted, contravene portions of Section 319 of the Criminal Code of Canada through the wilful promotion of hatred.

The phrases in question have been outlawed in recognition of their quality of hateful rhetoric that could lead to violence, in a number of other countries. The petition states that the popular slogans denigrating Israel's existence and Jews in general "implicitly raises reasonable suspicions of supporting the events of Oct. 7 and inciting hatred toward the Jewish people". It is generally agreed that the chant calling for the eradication of Israel and its citizens is meant to promote a Palestinian state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

True North

"While I hate these statements and while I happen to be of the view that 'from the river to the sea' is an antisemitic and probably genocidal chant, I don't think it's a clear cut case enough for Section 319."

"If you look at the text of Section 319, it says 'communicates a statement that is likely to lead to a breach of the peace' -- and somebody in Canada chanting 'from the river to the sea', I don't think reaches that very specific high threshold."

"[Other statements the petition mentions like "Long Live Oct 7" [are different]. It's very difficult to say that in a peaceful way."

"We take a strong free speech position because we think that if the mechanism for dealing with disagreements in society through speech breaks down, all we have left is violence."

Joanna Baron, executive director, Canadian Constitution Foundation