The Bishops’ Conference of France has denounced the organizers of the Olympic Games over an LGBTQ-themed parody of the Last Supper during the event’s opening ceremony. The organizers have claimed that the performance reflected their “values and principles.”
The ceremony, which took place in central Paris on Friday night, concluded with a troupe of drag queens, homosexuals, and transsexuals posing at a table, as Jesus Christ and his apostles appeared in Leonardo Da Vinci’s ‘The Last Supper’.
A giant serving dish was then wheeled out in front of the table, from which emerged a mostly naked man made up to resemble Dionysus, the Greek god of wine and festivity.
Throughout the performance, a male dancer’s exposed testicles could be seen behind the table.
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“This ceremony unfortunately included scenes in which Christianity was mocked and ridiculed, which we deeply regret,” the Bishops’ Conference said in a statement on Saturday.
“We thank the members of other religious denominations who have expressed their solidarity with us,” the statement continued. “This morning we think of all Christians on all continents who have been hurt by the exaggeration and provocation of some scenes.”
The ceremony was condemned by Christians and conservatives around the world. Bishop Robert Barron of Minnesota called the performance a “gross mockery of the Last Supper,” while Italian Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini declared that “opening the Olympics by insulting billions of Christians across the world was a really bad start” for France.
SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk described the spectacle as “extremely disrespectful to Christians,” while tech entrepreneur Dr. Eli David wrote that “even as a Jew,” he was “infuriated by this outrageous insult to Jesus and Christianity.”
Olympic organizers have defended the opening show. “We imagined a ceremony to show our values and our principles so we gave a very committed message,” Paris 2024 President Tony Estanguet told reporters on Saturday. “The idea was to really trigger a reflection. We wanted to have a message as strong as possible.”
“Our idea was inclusion,” added Thomas Jolly, the ceremony’s artistic director. “We wanted to talk about diversity. Diversity means being together. We wanted to include everybody.”
Published Jul 25, 2024 • Last updated 1 day ago • 4 minute read
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Immigration Minister Marc Miller helps conduct a citizenship ceremony during the Calgary Stampede on July 13, 2024. Miller announced last year that Canada would cap immigration targets at 500,000 annually starting in 2025. Photo by Darren Makowichuk/Postmedia
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Canadians are growing increasingly uneasy with the number of new immigrants coming to the country, with three out of five people saying there are “too many,” the highest rate of dissatisfaction with Canada’s immigration policies in decades, according to a new poll.
Sixty per cent of Canadian adults surveyed in the July poll said Canada accepts too many newcomers, a 10-percentage-point increase in the number who shared that sentiment in February.
Overall, just 28 per cent of respondents in the new poll, conducted by Leger for the Association of Canadian Studies, said the number of new arrivals is about right. Three per cent said there are “too few” immigrants coming to Canada.
The housing crisis and economic worries are driving a dramatic shift in attitudes over immigration numbers that emerged in the aftermath of the pandemic, said Jack Jedwab, president of the Association of Canadian Studies. Immigration is also moving to the top of national political agendas in the U.S. and many parts of Europe, “and I don’t think Canadians are insulated from those global debates,” Jedwab said.
In France, Marine Le Pen’s anti-immigration party significantly increased its seats in the country’s snap election. A June Gallup poll found that 55 per cent of Americans want to see less immigration, up from 41 per cent in 2023. Former U.S. president Donald Trump has promised militarized mass deportations if re-elected.
“My sense is that global instability, whether it’s Russia-Ukraine or the Middle East, is affecting some of this. I think Canadians are taking notice,” Jedwab said.
In a previous poll, Jedwab asked Canadians who felt there are too many immigrants why they felt that way. It was more about economic concerns and far less about identity issues as reflected by the view that immigrants don’t share “Canadian values.”
But the 10-point jump since February in the number Canadians who now feel there are too many immigrants “seems to be coinciding with this sort of global dislocation or global instability,” Jedwab said.
It’s difficult to tease out, but in one test of a possible correlation between global conflicts and changing attitudes towards immigration, some three in four people who strongly supported the police’s dismantling of anti-Israel encampments at McGill University this summer believes that there are too many immigrants coming to Canada.
Recent immigrants also think Canada’s immigration levels are too high, with 42 per cent of more than 2,000 adults who immigrated to Canada within the past decade telling Leger in a poll conducted between December 2023 and February 2024 that the Trudeau Liberals’ new immigration targets are too permissive.
Immigration Minister Marc Miller announced last year that Canada would ease government immigration targets, capping newcomers at 500,000 annually starting in 2025. Those targets are up from less than 300,000 immigrants yearly when the Liberals came to power in 2015.
Canada plans to admit 485,000 new immigrants this year.
Conservative Party Leader Pierre Poilievre has said he would fix Canada’s “ruined” immigration system by tying population growth to the growth in the supply of housing.
The new Leger poll was conducted from July 12 to July 15. The percentage saying there are too many new immigrants — 60 per cent — is the highest Jedwab has seen “in this century” and is more than double the 28 per cent who felt that way in a federal citizenship and immigration survey in 2006.
Across all political parties, more people feel there are too many immigrants than the right number, according to the Leger poll: 45 per cent of Liberal voters felt that way, compared to 43 per cent who said Canada was accepting “about the right number.” Some 76 per cent of Conservative voters think immigration levels are too high.
Concerns around immigration are highest in Alberta (67 per cent of Albertans said there are too many newcomers), Ontario (62 per cent) and Quebec (61 per cent).
Torontonians are more concerned with immigration numbers than are Montrealers or Vancouverites, though more than half across all three cities feel there are currently too many immigrants coming to Canada. “The perceived degree of pressure on their space and available services may be seen as higher in the city with, by far, the largest number of immigrants,” Jedwab said.
More than half (54.7 per cent) of non-white respondents also agreed the numbers are too high, while 32.5 per cent felt the numbers are about right.
“Leger didn’t include immigrant and non-immigrant in the sample, but the vast majority of immigrants to Canada are visible minorities,” Jedwab said. “The results make it difficult to argue that prejudice is a main driver of opposition to the number of immigrants,” he said.
The youngest adults are least concerned with current levels of immigration, with 41 per cent of 18- to 24-year-olds telling Leger they think there are currently too many immigrants coming to Canada. The oldest (55 and older) were the most concerned, even though, paradoxically, “immigrants to Canada are important for demographic reasons, and to offset the aging of the population and maintain a balanced ratio of retirees to workers,” Jedwab said.
Some 1,784 respondents were interviewed for the ACS-Leger survey. A margin of error cannot be associated with a non-probability sample in a panel survey for comparison purposes. A probability sample of 1,784 respondents would have a margin of error of plus or minus 2.5 per cent, 19 times out of 20. (National Post, July 25, 2024)
They say how the Workers up in the Shetland Isles LOVED the barge so much that the company behind it extended its contract for the worker housing. However, the migrants did not care for it at all and complained about it endlessly as did the stupid NGO’s. So, now, under Labour it’s to be closed, and all of them put back into hotels? T
VDARE Director Peter Brimelow explains sadly that, after 25 years as a leading voice of immigration reform, the organization is closing its doors: “VDARE has been murdered by New York Attorney General Letitia James” and her harassment and investigation which has already cost VDARE over a million dollars.
Foreign student permits are already outpacing 2023’s record numbers
[Last year, as Canadians focused on the impossibly high cost of housing — ownership and rental — even mainline commentators started to suggest that there was a connection to the invasion-level immigration numbers as Justin Trudeau ferociously pursues his policy of replacing Canada’s European founding/settler people. Reluctantly, the Liberal government and Immigration Marc Miller promised to slightly reduce the numbers of foreign students. Empty promise! Another Liberal lie. Numbers this year are up yet again. It must be remembered that every foreign student needs accommodation — either rental or, less frequently, the purchase of a home, thus raising prices even higher. Oh, yes, despite promises of more new housing starts, in fact, housing starts are down from last year. A housing crisis. It’s immigration, stupid. — Paul Fromm]
IRCC numbers say Canada handed out 216,620 international study permits in the first five months of 2024
Published Jul 22, 2024 • Last updated 2 days ago • 4 minute read
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McGill University is seen Friday, October 13, 2023 in Montreal. Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS /Ryan Remiorz
Even as federal Liberal government is pledging to cap the number of international study permits, its own data show Canada is approving permits at a pace faster than last year, which saw a record number of approvals.
According to numbers curated online by Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), Canada handed out 216,620 international study permits in the first five months of 2024.
Just 200,205 study permits were handed out during the same time period in 2023.
By the end of 2023, 682,420 study permits had been granted to foreign students.
Canada has been granting the vast majority of permits to India, with 278,335 going to students from that country in 2023, a number nearly five times more than to students from China, the second-highest country of origin, who were granted 58,230 permits in 2023.
Canada’s third-most popular source of international students in 2023 was Nigeria, with 37,575 permits handed out in 2023, followed by the Philippines with 33,830, and Nepal at 15,920.
During the first five months of 2024, Indian students were granted 91,510 permits, more than the 85,805 granted over the same period last year.
Chinese students received 21,240 permits in the first five months of this year, compared to 15,565 granted between January and May 2023.
Nigerians received 12,450 study permits by May 2024, up from 8,150 by May 2023.
For the Philippines, 10,140 permits were granted so far in 2024, up from 9,300 over the same period of time last year.
Applicants from Nepal received 4,655 study permits so far this year, compared to 3,575 between last January and May.
In January, Immigration Marc Miller announced he was putting an intake cap on international student permit applications that he expected to result in approximately 360,000 approved study permits, a decrease of 35 per cent from 2023.
Taking into consideration the 20 per cent of students who apply for extensions, Miller put 2024’s target at 606,000 study permit applications, and 364,000 approvals.
“Given the changes to the international student program have not yet seen the traditionally busiest season for study permit processing — summer and early fall — it may be too early to fully assess the data and analyze the impacts, including the intake cap on study permit applications,” IRCC spokesperson Rémi Larivière told the National Post.
Larivière said many factors influence how many new international students will arrive in Canada this fall, including provinces not using their full allocations, changes in approval rates and in-year adjustments.
“As education is a provincial and territorial responsibility, IRCC consulted governments at the provincial and territorial level frequently as the allocations were established,” Larivière said.
“IRCC distributed the adjusted number of study permit applications based on the population share, 2023 volumes and approval rates of each province and territory.”
Conservative immigration critic Tom Kmiec blamed the last nine years of the Trudeau government for the problem of too many temporary residents for the system to handle.
“It is so bad that the current Liberal immigration minister himself said the broken system is ‘out of control’. The previous immigration minister admitted that the system is a ‘complete mess’. Even Trudeau acknowledged their shared failure, calling the system ‘broken,’” he said.
“The Liberal government first allowed corrupt consultants and phoney educational institutions to bring students here under false pretences. Then they promised to fix the mess and bring it under control only to see things become worse amid a growing housing crisis of their making.”
A new survey commissioned by the Toronto Region Board of Trade indicates that a majority of Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA) residents believe there is a traffic and congestion crisis, and some have considered relocating as a result.
The results pointed to a significant majority (86 per cent) of GTHA residents agreeing (45 per cent strongly and 41 per cent somewhat) that there is currently a traffic and congestion crisis. A similar majority believes that traffic and congestion negatively impact the GTA economy (85 per cent).
Other findings include locals feeling that traffic and congestion pose serious problems for their households (63 per cent, including 24 per cent strongly and 38 per cent somewhat agreeing) and often cause them to be late (58 per cent, including 21 per cent, strongly and 37 per cent somewhat agreeing).
The most significant impact of traffic is extended and unpredictable journey times (61 per cent), GTHA residents said.
The 2023 Global Traffic Scorecard placed Toronto as the 17th most congested city in the world, behind gridlocked behemoths like New York, Mexico City, London, Paris and Chicago, which made up the top five spots. Montreal was ranked 30th and the second Canadian city after Toronto.
GTHA residents support 24-hour road and public transit construction, survey shows
The GTHA residents surveyed in the online Ipsos poll attribute the cause of traffic and congestion to excessive construction or mismanagement thereof (68 per cent), followed by an excess of cars and trucks on the road (57 per cent).
Due to traffic and congestion in Toronto, half (53 per cent) of residents have considered relocating outside the region. Sixty-two per cent of those surveyed indicate they are reluctant to commute to work, and half (49 per cent) accept traffic and congestion as a part of living in a large city.
