Seen in downtown Hamilton today. Living “without equality?” You mean they’re illegals. They have no right to “equality” with Canadian citizens. If our Globalist rulers weren’t so eager to replace Europeans, the illegals wouldn’t even be here — mooching off Canadian taxpayers who get no say in the matter
Ukrainian Refugee Girl Finds San Francisco Schools So Violent She Wants to Go Back JOEL B. POLLAK19 Feb 2023
A Ukrainian refugee girl who settled in San Francisco with her mother is finding public school in the city so violent that she longs to return to her war-torn country, where she feels children are less cruel to one another.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported Sunday:
It didn’t take Yana long to realize that real life in her eighth grade classes at Marina Middle School was nothing like the scenes that played out on her [television] screen.
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Students interrupted classes, jumped on desks, cursed at teachers. At first, Yana wondered what was going on, but then, “nothing happened.” Students were not disciplined or prevented from repeat behavior.
Trudeau says he expects an investigation into the source of leaks to Globe, denies Beijing’s interference in elections
Chinese diplomats quietly issued warnings to “friendly” influential Canadians in early 2022, advising them to reduce their contact with federal politicians to avoid being caught up in foreign-interference investigations by Canada’s spy agency.
Secret and top-secret Canadian Security Intelligence Service documents viewed by The Globe and Mail reveal how China sought to protect its network of “Canadian friends” – a community it relies on to build relations, influence and covertly gather information from MPs and senators.
The Globe reported Friday how China employed a sophisticated strategy to seek the return of a minority Liberal government and to defeat Conservative politicians considered to be unfriendly to Beijing in the 2021 federal election.
The tactics, outlined in secret CSIS reports, included disinformation campaigns, undeclared cash donations and the use of international Chinese students, studying in Canada, as campaign volunteers to support preferred Liberal candidates.
The classified documents show that Chinese influence operations went beyond election interference, employing tactics to target Canadian legislators and sway public opinion through proxies in the business and academic communities.
In response to The Globe story, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau told reporters at a Friday news conference that he expects CSIS to find out who is leaking the secret reports, and stuck to his long-held view that Chinese interference operations did not affect the overall results of the 2019 and 2021 elections.
“It’s certainly a sign that security within CSIS needs to be reviewed. And I’m expecting CSIS to take the issue very seriously,” Mr. Trudeau said.
MPs on the Commons Procedure and House Affairs committee are already looking into allegations that China interfered in the 2019 campaign. Opposition parties want the committee to return from a scheduled two-week break on Wednesday to hold hearings on The Globe’s report concerning the 2021 election.
As for foreign interference in federal elections, the Prime Minister played down reports of Chinese state meddling. The CSIS report talked of how China’s former consul-general in Vancouver, Tong Xiaoling, boasted in 2021 about how she helped defeat two Conservative MPs.
“The fact that a Chinese diplomat would try to take credit for things that happened is not something that is unseen in diplomatic circles around the world,” Mr. Trudeau said.
He said a task force of civil servants in Ottawa is keeping Canada’s election results safe from foreign interference. “Canadians can have total confidence that the outcomes of the 2019 and the 2021 elections were determined by Canadians and Canadians alone at the voting booth.”
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre accused Mr. Trudeau of “covering up the interference of the authoritarian regime” in China. “He is perfectly happy to let a foreign authoritarian government interfere in our elections as long as they’re helping him,” he said in Calgary.
The highly classified information about China’s strategy of recruiting business executives, university professors and researchers were shared with senior Canadian government officials and Canada’s Fives Eyes intelligence allies: the United States, Britain, Australia and New Zealand. The CSIS reports were also shared with German, French, Dutch and Swedish spy services.
In a Jan. 15, 2022, intelligence report, CSIS said China had learned that the spy agency for the first time was warning individual MPs and senators from all major parties about influence operations being carried out by Beijing. That set in motion an effort by Chinese diplomats to close down foreign-interference operations directed at elected officials in Ottawa.
“[People’s Republic of China] officials believe that CSIS is conducting investigations into Chinese foreign interference in Canada, resulting in officials considering that it is more prudent for “Canadian friends” to cease contacts with MPs for the time being,” the report said. “PRC officials will simply need to provide an ambiguous warning to the ‘Canadian friends’ in order for the latter to grasp the situation.”
The documents do not identify the Canadian business executives, academics or researchers.
CSIS has become increasingly alarmed about efforts by China and its agents of influence to covertly cultivate relations with elected officials to gain sway over parliamentary debates and government decision-making. The spy service had asked MPs to alert them of any suspicious activity, and provided the politicians with names and contact information of CSIS agents whom they can contact to pass on information.
Canadian friends were described by CSIS as non-ethnic-Chinese individuals who maintain relations with PRC officials in Canada and have close ties with federal politicians in the Liberal, Conservative and New Democratic parties. CSIS said the warning from China was not sent to Chinese-Canadians who were close to MPs as “PRC officials are very well acquainted with those individuals,” the report said.
Of particular concern to Beijing was CSIS’s new focus of trying to put pressure on Canadian universities and researchers from collaborating with China on leading-edge science and technology projects. The report said one Chinese diplomat in Canada said CSIS was “unnecessarily investigating PRC-focused academics” and said PRC officials should warn these academics about the investigations.
In 2021, Ottawa put in place stricter guidelines to require national-security reviews for academics seeking federal funding from the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC). But that did not apply to other federal funding bodies.
Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne extended the ban to all federal granting agencies after The Globe revealed late last month that 50 Canadian universities had been collaborating with China’s National University of Defence Technology since 2005. Mr. Champagne announced on Tuesday that Ottawa would no longer fund research with Chinese military or state security institutions. He also urged Canadian universities to adopt the same stringent national-security measures.
China’s consulate-general in Vancouver accused The Globe of smearing and discrediting China. “The Chinese side has made it clear on many occasions that China has always adhered to the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, and has never interfered in any Canadian election or internal affairs in any way,” said a statement on its website.
Walied Soliman, who served as the co-chair of the 2021 Conservative election campaign, said on Twitter Friday that the federal government’s Security and Intelligence Threats To Elections (SITE) task force did not take his party’s concerns about foreign interference seriously.
“Our party was seeing clear signs of tampering in ridings with substantial Chinese diasporas,” he said. “We were met with shrugged shoulders and complete ambivalence. It was truly unreal,” he said.
Andy Ellis, former CSIS assistant director of operations, said Ottawa should have expelled the Chinese diplomats behind the election interference operations even if it meant a tit-for-tat response from Beijing.
“There certainly should have been very, very serious consideration given to declaring them persona non grata,” Mr. Ellis said. “Making a hard judgment to say what is worse losing a diplomat in Beijing in retaliation for this or getting rid of someone who is disrupting Canadian elections.”
Mr. Poilievre called on the federal government to set up a foreign-agent registry that would keep track of all people paid to influence Canadian governments on behalf of foreign countries.
Mr. Trudeau declined to answer a question on whether Ottawa would proceed to set up a registry such as exist in Australia and the United States.
David Mulroney, a former Canadian ambassador to China with a diplomatic career stretching back more than 30 years, said The Globe’s reporting on China’s efforts to influence the 2021 election underscores the need to shine a light on those working for foreign states.
“These revelations make clear the extent to which China uses proxies to deliver its influence campaigns,” he said. The Canadian government “needs to move from musing about a registry of foreign agents to actually establishing one. And the sooner the better.”
He said a registry would make a difference.
“Simply announcing that we are going to require individuals to be transparent about disbursing funds for, lobbying for, or speaking for a foreign state would put China on notice,” he said.
“Much of Beijing’s interference effort in Canada is delivered through individuals who are paid to do those things by Chinese officials. Canadians need to know who’s pulling the strings and cutting the cheques.”
Quebec tells Eric Adams to stop buying NY migrants bus tickets
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The government of Canada’s second-most populated province is demanding that Mayor Eric Adams “immediately” stop helping migrants illegally enter the Great White North, as recently revealed by The Post.
“Any form of assistance to migrants crossing the border where it is strictly forbidden to do so should stop immediately,” a spokesperson for Quebec Premier Francois Legault said.
“We understand that the situation of migrants in New York poses major challenges, but the situation in Quebec and particularly in Montreal is even worse and constitutes an important humanitarian issue.”
Earlier this month, The Post exclusively reported that Adams was using taxpayer funds to get bus tickets for migrants in the Big Apple to travel upstate to Plattsburgh.
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From there, migrants take taxis and vans to a cul-de-sac at the end of Roxham Road in Champlain, where they walk across the border and surrender to Canadian Mounties to seek asylum, as The Post documented on Feb. 5.
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Migrants abandon NYC for Canada with taxpayer-funded bus tickets
As many as 250 migrants use the Roxham Road crossing to illegally enter Canada each day, with nearly all of them settling in Montreal, Quebec’s biggest city, Legault spokesperson Ewan Sauves said.
The situation has overwhelmed Montreal’s ability to provide housing and other public services, with the flood of new students alone equivalent to the opening of 13 new schools, he said.
Last year, 39,161 people used Roxham Road to illegally enter Canada, comprising 99.1% of all such border crossings, Sauves said.
By comparison, the latest figures released by City Hall on Monday showed that officials have processed more than 45,600 migrants since the spring, with about 29,100 housed in 91 emergency shelters as of Sunday.
Mayor Eric Adams has defended funding nonprofits to “reticket” migrants who want to leave the city and go to Canada.Paul Martinka
Those figures likely represent an undercount, however, because they don’t include migrants who stay with relatives, friends and other people in their networks after arriving in New York, according to City Hall.
But while the Big Apple’s population is nearly 8.5 million, Montreal’s is just 1.7 million.
Adams’ office didn’t immediately return a request for comment, but the mayor last week defended funding various nonprofits, including Catholic Charities, to “reticket” migrants who want to leave the city and go to Canada.
Quebec Premier Francois Legault said all aiding of migrants crossing the border “should stop immediately.”Getty Images
“We are not encouraging anyone to go to another country,” Adams said during a Wednesday appearance on CNN. “If we speak with a migrant, interview them, [we] find out their desires and make sure that we are assisting them like we’ve done.”
The surge in border crossings at Roxham Road has sparked controversy in Quebec, with the separatist Parti Québécois recently calling for police intervention and the creation of an “enclave” to block the Roxham Road path between the US and Canada.
Another separatist political party, Bloc Québécois, tweeted Friday that Quebec was not an “all-inclusive,” sparking outrage from the democratic socialist party Québec solidaire, the Canadian Press reported Sunday.
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“An all-inclusive is a place where we go to crash on the beach drinking margaritas,” Québec solidaire spokesperson Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois said while attending the party’s national council in Montreal.
“The people who enter Quebec to apply for asylum are people who are fleeing violence, exploitation, persecution. They are not people who want to take it easy.”
Nadeau-Dubois added: “These comparisons have no place.” (New York Post, February 13, 2023)
ell Me Exactly Again What Is The Meaning Of White Supremacy? by Frosty Wooldridge – February 3, 2023 https://rense.com/general97/white-supremacy-meaning.php
African-American educational leaders state that, “Math is racist.” Except mathematics has no more to do with racism than green grass is “racist.” Mathematics forms the foundation of our entire civilization as to engineering, construction, transportation, food, and just about everything that allows this country to thrive. So, how exactly did “race” get thrown into the mix? Answer: by those who won’t or can’t do their homework to discover the answer to the equation! The equation is solved or not solved. It doesn’t care about the color of your skin!
Other black leaders have enshrined the women-beater, car jacker, Federal felon, local porn star, drug addict and drug trafficker George Floyd as a national hero. Never mind the man died of a fentanyl overdose while three minority cops and one white cop subdued him on the ground for committing yet another crime in his crime-ridden life…passing counterfeit bills.
After that moment, Black Lives Matter and Antifa burned down American cities, stole and smashed everything in sight across the nation to the tune of $2 billion in damages as well as killing over a dozen people. Not one anarchist/arsonist/thief saw a jail cell.
That’s when the term “White Supremacy” became the call-word for African-Americans being shot, mistreated, jailed and harmed by white cops. That’s when the call for “defund the cops” and “kill cops” became the clarion call…in inner cities across America.
Since that time, criminals have enjoyed the freedom to rob stores, rob trains, jack cars, shoplift, and shoot people with complete immunity in America’s largest cities.
So, you might ask the question, “What exactly is the meaning of white supremacy?”
Because Whoopi Goldberg, a black lady on the TV show, “The View”, wanted to know if anything would be done if white people were shot or beaten like Tyre Nichols was beaten last week by five black police officers?
Last week, five black Memphis, Tennessee police officers stopped Tyre Nichols, a 29-year-old black man, for reckless driving. He resisted arrest, broke loose and ran from the officers. They tased him with an electrical taser gun, but that didn’t stop him. They pursued him in a footrace. A total of five black officers beat the living crap out of him with punches and kicks to the head. Finally, after more kicking, punching, and beating…they cuffed him. He suffered such a beating that he was taken to the hospital where he died.
MSNBC host Joy Reid called the beating “White Supremacy” in action. America’s number one con-man and tax evader, Al Sharpton called it entrenched white supremacy. In other words, African-Americans who administered the Tyr Nichols beating were pronounced “white supremacists.”
Except, here’s the reality of the situation: Memphis, Tennessee features 70 percent black population. The mayor is black, police chief a black woman, city council all black, most teachers are black, most police officers are black all the way down to black workers at McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Arby’s, and Pizza Hut. Most of the kids in school are African-American.
You may be wondering, exactly, what in the devil is “white supremacy” and how is it dominating Memphis, Tennessee where the black population dominates every aspect of the city?
How can white supremacy be blamed when 9 out of 10 killings in big cities are black on blacks killing blacks? Let’s take a look at the facts on any given weekend in black-dominated cities:
January 28, 29, 2023, CHICAGO (CBS News) — At least 51 people were shot over weekend in Chicago, and nine of the victims have died. Four of the victims were under 18 years old, including a 4-year-old who was shot in the South Chicago neighborhood Friday evening. South Chicago is virtually 90 percent black or Hispanic or illegal alien migrants. This killing rate continues every single weekend in a city run by black Mayor Lori Lightfoot.
January 28, 29, 2023, NEW ORLEANS (WVUE) – Violent crime plagued New Orleans again over the weekend. Nine shootings, two dead, 10 robberies. Police investigated multiple homicides, shootings, and 10 different armed robberies. On Sun., June 26, police say three robberies happened back-to-back in the Marigny. In each of the cases, police say three men, armed with guns, demanded victims’ belongings and took off on foot.
Los Angeles: The Beverly Crest shooting came just eight days after a Jan. 21 mass shooting in the Los Angeles County city of Monterey Park, where 12 people were fatally shot at a dance studio allegedly by a 72 …
These shootings and killings in these big cities continue as black on black killings, people of color shooting people of color. How do you define those killings as “White Supremacy” Whoopi Goldberg and/or Joy Reid, and Al Sharpton?
At some point, we need to have a reckoning with black people in America to take responsibility for accountability in a civil society, and foundational ethics.
How can America’s minorities ever climb out of the inner cities when 80 percent of them, as in Detroit, Michigan, where I used to work, flunk out or drop out of high school? Most big black dominated cities feature the same illiteracy rates. There’s no way that white America can save black America if black America won’t save itself. Please note that I taught in inner city Grand Rapids, Michigan for two years to see exactly what was happening for myself. How do minority kids do their homework? Their parents sit them in front of the television. Or, they play games on their computers. They spend 10 hours a day on their cell phones. Not too much educational pursuit going on in those homes!
Are there any solutions? Of course! But our Congress and presidents would rather fight 20-year wars in Iraq and Afghanistan by spending $6 trillion on their countries rather than our country. Biden and Congress would rather send $100 billion to Ukraine to defend its borders instead of securing our borders. Biden would rather invite six million illegal refugee migrants into our country rather than serve our schools and our children.
Worst of all, the American people sit by and watch it happen…and do nothing to stop it. They continue voting in the same corrupt Congressional critters…so they get the same results. In the end, the inner cities will continue with crime, murders, mayhem, misery, suffering and anarchy. It’s only going to get worse and it’s not going to get better. White supremacy? How about inner-city insanity by inner city “Black Supremacy?”
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This video graphically and dramatically illustrates America’s immigration-population crisis as well as the world’s. I wrote it and narrated it. Tim Walters of Cleveland, Ohio directed and produced. Please forward it to all your friends, networks and beyond. Place it on FB, Twitter, Linkedin, Parler and more. Just click the link below to see the video.
Immigration, Overpopulation, Resources, Civilization by Frosty Wooldridge
https://www.bitchute.com/video/Txj6kYxtkpD6/
‘MARXIST’WHERE do these people come from ?
A professor in Salem, Oregon, – who is a self-described expert in “racism… and social change” – derided White people for showing up as “damaging” to people of color.
Professor Emily Drew of Willamette University works for a consulting company called Crossroads which charges tens of thousands of dollars for critical race theory-related development sessions. Drew has consulted with school districts as a strategic planner, helping them to “develop and implement long term commitments to anti-racist, multicultural diversity.”
The College Fix reported that Drew will be using her academic expertise on “racism” in a training of how White people can become “less damaging” to people of color. Previous events she hosted were titled, “Working on our Whiteness” and “Challenging Our Inner Becky: Interventions of White Women-ness in Our Community.”
The description of an upcoming February event said, “How can we who are White show up as more effective and less damaging participants in struggles to interrupt racism in our community? How can white people engage in efforts to dismantle racism in ways that do not reproduce or place unfair burdens upon people of color to be our teachers?” It continued, “This conversation is for white people to reflect together on what it means to ‘do our work’ as white people, which includes taking responsibility for one another, educating ourselves, and coming to view other white people as our partners—not competition—in developing antiracist identity.”
At Willamette University, Drew teaches courses about racism and social change. Her research is also focused on racism.
One of her papers described “positioning people of color as knowledge producers about the institutional and interpersonal effects of racism,” “confronting the tactics of white denial,” and “promoting consciousness about systemic racism.”
Drew did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
In other instances of divisive language relating to critical race theory, Fox News Digital previously reported that a superintendent in Arizona previously honored by the Obama White House blasted the White race as “problematic” and said they should feel “really, really uncomfortable.”
The superintendent of Scottsdale Unified School District – Scott Menzel – discussed “equity, inclusion and social justice” in an interview while he worked in the same position in a Michigan district. During the interview he said that the White race was “problematic.” “There’s a misperception that educational equity is really only for ethnically and racially diverse districts. But White people have racial identity as well, and in fact problematic racial identity that we typically avoid,” he said.
A district administrator in California involved in overseeing curriculum, Samia Shoman, called for “privileged White voices” to be removed from influencing against a far-left ethnic studies curriculum.
Samia Shoman is a pro-Palestinian advocate who called for Israel to be removed from ethnic studies curriculum. (YouTube/screenshot | Abid Katib/Getty Images)
Shoman oversees curriculum in the San Mateo Union High School district as manager of English learners and academic support programs. The email was dated March 2021 and was obtained via public record request by Zachor Legal.
“We urge the [state board of education] not to give in to the pressures and influences of political lobbyists, racist & privileged white voices, and individuals,” she said.
Infamously, the chief of diversity, equity and inclusion who oversees 60,000 schools for military children blasted White people with derogatory terms.
According to the Pentagon, Kelisa Wing remains under probe for the divisive tweets she wrote about White people.
The Pentagon originally told Fox News Digital that the matter would be referred to Under Secretary of Personnel and Readiness Gil Cisneros for a final decision 30 days after the initial review, but after nearly four months, the case remains unresolved.
In another story, a Jackson County School board member, Kesha Hamilton, faced backlash for tweets blasting White people during a public comment on Tuesday, including one resident who called her “angry and bitter.”
| Quebec Government Wants Trudeau’s Appointed Scourge of Of Islamophobia Fired Amira Elghabaway, Minister of Islamophobia, stands beside fellow Moslems, MPs Ahmed Hussen and MP Omar Alghabra. The Quebec government is calling for the resignation of newly-appointed Minister of Islamophobia, Amira Elghabaway, Liberal government special representative to combat Islamophobia. “Quebec Secularism Minister Jean-François Roberge says Ottawa should fire Amira Elghawaby immediately if she chooses not to resign. The journalist and activist was appointed to the role last week by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.” The history of the rise of Islamic political power in Canada suggests she won’t quit, won’t be fired, and will maintain her position as “Islamo-Cop” of Canada. A history of obstinance offers the best clue as to what will transpire. From day one– Justin Trudeau’s ascension to the throne of Canada in 2015– a cast-in-stone palette has coloured the condition of PM Trudeau’s fight against so-called “Islamophobia.” Amira Elghabaway has nothing good to say about our country. In this she shares Trudeau’s sentiment, along with the man whose role it is to prop up the Trudeau government, New Democratic Party Leader, Jagmeet Singh. “Elghawaby co-wrote a 2019 opinion piece in the Ottawa Citizen linking ‘anti-Muslim sentiment’ to Quebec’s Bill 21, which bans certain government employees from wearing religious symbols at work.” Witness the myopia. Bill 21 is equally focused on Christians, Jews, Hindus and Sikhs. Not that it amounts to a hill-of-beans for Ms. Elghabaway. Her single concern is her personal faith; her personal obsession so-called “Islamophobia.” It’s this form of ethno-centricism which has resulted in a steady building of animosity toward our Liberal government’s treatment of one identifiable Canadian community. No one has exacerbated this social problem more than Justin Trudeau. His constant pandering and pumping up of one specific community has resulted in the social discord Canadians are witnessing at present. Neither government, nor media or Canadian academia have considered Mr. Trudeau’s degenerative impact on race relations in our country. For CBC, CTV, Globe & Mail and Toronto Star, the fault is found in those nasty, bitter and racist “Old Stock” Canadians. What a privilege legacy media has bestowed upon PM Trudeau. Not that it isn’t be expected after our PM pulled his “China-like” maneuver of covertly purchasing mainstream Canadian media. “Jean-François Roberge, CAQ minister responsible for the French language, said Eghawaby has not properly apologized for her comments about Quebec. She “seems to be overcome by an anti-Quebec sentiment,” said Roberge. “All she did was try to justify her hateful comments. That doesn’t fly. She must resign and if she doesn’t, the government must remove her immediately.” Upon which CAP pulls out our proverbial crystal ball: Amira Elghabaway will continue on as Woke Liberal Islamo-police person. After all, she has been placed into power by none other than Somali import MP Ahmed Hussen. Elghabaway has friends in high places. M103 “Islamophobia” motion founder and half-citizen of Pakistan MP Iqra Khalid helped her gain the lofty position. Canada most powerful special interest not-for-profit organization, National Council of Canadian Muslims, helped get her there. In Justin Trudeau’s post-modern Canada, these are the power-players holding the political cards. Islam is the future of Canadian immigration, whether CBC tell us so, or not. “It was never meant to suggest that my opinion is that the majority of Quebeckers are Islamophobic. I don’t believe so. I was merely analyzing the polling numbers … [an] opinion piece is meant to cause people to think, to talk, to reflect,” says Ms. Elgabaway. A giant lol to that. Fundamentalist religion doesn’t talk, unless it’s to preach the word, or inform Canadians we “must educate ourselves” to accept cast-in-stone tenets of ancient history. There is no negotiation or flexibility in the world of religious fundamentalism. How strange that the same phenomenon applies to Justin Trudeau’s brand of so-called “progressive” Liberal politics. |
Amira Elghabaway, Minister of Islamophobia, stands beside fellow Moslems, MPs Ahmed Hussen and MP Omar Alghabra.
The Desire To Eat Exotic Wildlife
“The Beijing-backed expansion of traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) in many African countries risks fueling the illegal wildlife trade and threatens the future of some of the world’s most endangered species, a new report has warned. The growth of the TCM market, coupled with the perception of Africa as a potential source of TCM ingredients, is a ‘prescription for disaster for some endangered animal species, such as leopards, pangolins and rhinos,’ the London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), which investigates wildlife and environmental crime, said in the report published on Wednesday. China has been promoting traditional medicine, which dates back more than 2,500 years, alongside its flagship Belt and Road Initiative, which is developing road, rail and other major infrastructure projects across Africa. While most treatments are plant-based, demand from the industry has been blamed for pushing animals, including pangolins and rhinos, to the brink of extinction. ‘Ultimately, the unfettered growth of TCM poses a serious threat to the biodiversity found in many African countries, all in the name of short-term profit,’ EIA Wildlife Campaigner Ceres Kam said in a statement. ‘Any utilisation of threatened species in TCM could potentially stimulate further demand, incentivise wildlife crime and ultimately lead to overexploitation.’ The report, Lethal Remedy: How the promotion of some traditional Chinese medicine in Africa poses a major threat to endangered wildlife, said TCM products had never been more accessible in Africa, with TCM companies and clinics established in countries across the continent and Beijing stepping up promotional activities in line with the COVID-19 pandemic.
While China has sought to crack down on rare species in traditional medicine, there are still some who prescribe such remedies as aphrodisiacs or to treat illnesses from cancer to skin conditions. The status of a ban on the use of rhino horn and tiger parts imposed in 1993 and suddenly lifted in 2018 before the government made an apparent u-turn, remains uncertain. ‘We understand that traditional medicine is integral to many cultures and plays an important role in healthcare in Africa and beyond,’ Kam said. ‘Our very real concern is that such a huge expansion of TCM in Africa, as is happening under China’s Belt and Road Initiative, will have the knock-on effect of drastically increasing demand for treatments containing wildlife and, in turn, cause more species to become threatened or extinct.’ With the COVID-19 pandemic continuing, healthcare, including strengthening the ties between TCM and traditional African medicine, is likely to be a key issue at the forthcoming Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC), which is due to start in Senegal later [in November]. The EIA noted that South Africa, Cameroon, Tanzania and Togo were among African countries that had already signed agreements with China to develop TCM while South Africa and Namibia had recognized TCM as of their public health systems [sic]. China replaced the United States as Africa’s largest trading partner in 2009, and total trade topping $200 billion in 2020, according to the Africa Center for Strategic Studies.” (Al Jazeera, November 10, 2021)
“According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly three-quarters of emerging infectious diseases that spread to humans originate in animals. The SARS virus, for example, which killed 800 people between 2002 and 2004, is thought to have started in bats before spreading to civet cats at a wildlife market in the Chinese city of Foshan. In April, after its investigative team in China concluded a seafood market in Wuhan was the most likely route by which COVID-19 first jumped to humans, WHO took the unprecedented move of urging countries to pause the sale of captured wild mammals at wet markets as an emergency measure. Animal welfare groups in Asia have been making the same demands for years, saying the unsanitary and cruel conditions in which wild and domestic animals are kept at wet markets are the perfect breeding ground for zoonotic diseases. Several Asian countries have passed new laws to curb the sale of ‘bush meat’ and limit activity at wet markets during the pandemic. But nearly all attempts to stamp out the trade have been hamstrung by the continuing popularity of bush meat among some people in Asia, the sector’s vast economic value and a lack of enforcement. Stopping the trade ‘will be a challenging exercise,’ said Li Shuo, global policy adviser for Greenpeace in China.
Last July, a presidential decree was issued in Vietnam suspending all wildlife imports and introducing much stiffer penalties for violators, including up to 15 years in prison. But a survey last month by PanNature, an NGO, found no positive changes in the trade of wildlife products had occurred at the local level in Vietnam. Wet markets in the Mekong Delta and other parts of the country were found to still be selling turtles, birds and endangered wildlife species. In Indonesia, the site of Asia’s worst COVID-19 outbreak with more than 2.5 million cases and at least 67,000 deaths, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry has been trying to convince local officials to close wildlife markets around the country since the start of the pandemic. Officials in the city of Solo in Central Java were among those who took note, ordering the culling of hundreds of bats at Depok, one of the country’s largest bird, dog and wildlife markets. But the victory proved short lived. ‘They brutally exterminated hundreds of bats when COVID-19 first hit and stopped selling them,’ said Lola Webber, coalition coordinator at the Dog Meat-Free Indonesia Coalition. ‘But from what I’ve heard from my sources, it’s now business as usual.’ Marison Guciano, founder of Flight, an NGO protecting Indonesian birdlife, confirms Webber’s claim. ‘I was there one week ago and they are still openly selling bats as well as snakes, rabbits, turtles, ferrets, beavers, cats, dogs, hamsters, hedgehogs, parrots, owls, crows and eagles.’ The same scenario is playing out at wet markets across Indonesia. To mark World Zoonoses Day last week, animal welfare group Four Paws released photos taken in June showing hundreds of bats, rats, dogs, snakes, birds and other animals for sale at three different markets in Northern Sulawesi Province 2,000km (1,243 miles) northeast of Solo.
In April and May of last year, a few months after the pandemic began, global animal rights group PETA began visiting wet markets known to sell wildlife in Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia, the Philippines, Indonesia and China. ‘We expected new rules and regulations to have been put in place but we saw it was business as usual, with all different species in filthy cages, some alive, some dead, sometimes in the same cages,’ says PETA’s Asia spokesman Nirali Shah. ‘These environments are extremely frightening and stressful for the animals, which weakens their immune system and makes them more vulnerable to diseases that can jump across species and then to humans. At some markets, we saw animals taken from cages, killed on countertops streaked with blood from other species and workers not wearing gloves, no hygiene at all. [Isn’t diversity great?]This combination of risky factors is like a ticking time bomb waiting for a new pandemic to begin,’ she says. In China, where a total ban on the trade and consumption of wildlife was issued in February last year as the coronavirus surged in Wuhan, the situation has improved but only marginally, according to Shah. ‘You can no longer see exotic wildlife for sale openly at wet markets in China. But they still sell all kinds of birds in unsanitary conditions. And in a lot of those markets we found that if you want a certain animal, no matter what it is, vendors can get it for you despite the ban.’ This is not the first time China has attempted to end the bushmeat trade. In 2002, wildlife markets were closed because of SARS but reopened later because of economic pressure. In 2016, the Chinese Academy of Engineers valued the country’s wildlife industry at $76-billion, with bush meat accounting for $19-billion of business activity each year and employing 6.3 million people in China. In Malaysia, captured wildlife and bushmeat was sometimes sold at wet markets before the pandemic. But it was more commonly available through direct sales and restaurants.
In August of last year, now-retired Inspector General of Police Abdul Hamid Bador gave district police chiefs one month to ensure their areas were free of illegal restaurants selling bushmeat. The wildlife department was instructed to assist police. ‘Don’t tell me with 300 to 500 personnel in an area, the existence of restaurants and illegal premises selling exotic animals can’t be detected?’ Abdul Hamid said at the time. A series of high-profile wild meat seizures followed at markets, restaurants and private homes. Elizabeth John, the Kuala Lumpur-based spokesperson for TRAFFIC, an NGO fighting the illegal trade in wildlife, says raids are a signal of both success and failure. ‘In forming this joint task force between police and the wildlife officials, it’s definitely a move in the right direction,’ she said. ‘But the fact that we have seen seizures continue even during the pandemic shows that warnings have not changed attitudes among consumers. Despite the risks it poses, the desire to eat wildlife is still out there.’” (Al Jazeera, July 13, 2021) So, is it a “desire to eat wildlife” or “ancient Chinese medicine?” [Canadian Immigration Hotline, January/February, 2023]
Quebec group launches private prosecution against Trudeau over illegal Roxham Road border crossings
Trudeau’s declarations have real-life consequences such as encouraging people to cross illegally into Canada at Roxham Road, the group’s head says
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Published Jan 12, 2023 • Last updated Jan 12, 2023 • 3 minute read
A prominent Quebec author and historian at the head of a Quebec activist group has initiated a private criminal prosecution against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, claiming the prime minister has encouraged illegal immigration into Canada, in violation of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act.
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Frédéric Bastien, president of Justice pour le Quebec, alleges that Trudeau made comments that encouraged illegal crossings into Canada at the infamous Roxham Road border point between New York State and Quebec. Private citizens in Canada have the right to initiate criminal proceedings without relying on the Crown to initiate them. Bastien said he believes he has reasonable grounds to proceed with the prosecution, which if successful could result in the prime minister being subject to a fine or even imprisonment.
In his court filings, Bastien made reference to a widely publicized tweet by Trudeau in 2017 in which the prime minister said Canadians will welcome “those fleeing persecution, terror and war,” after U.S. president Donald Trump issued a travel ban for Muslim-majority countries and suspended refugee claims.
Bastien also pointed to comments made by Trudeau in 2022 suggesting that closing the irregular crossing at Roxham Road would not stop the arrival of asylum-seekers and that migrants would simply “cross elsewhere.”
Bastien said Trudeau is “not a normal citizen” voicing his opinion or using his freedom of expression, and that his public declarations had real-life consequences such as encouraging people to cross into Canada at Roxham Road.
“No one is above the law,” said Bastien of Trudeau. “It’s a matter of justice,”
Bastien, a professor at Montreal’s Dawson College, is a former Parti Québécois leadership contender who courted controversy with his 2013 book that accused a former Supreme Court justice of improperly interfering in the 1982 patriation of Canada’s constitution. The book led to a Supreme Court internal investigation, which failed to substantiate the claim.
Roxham Road, situated south of Montreal, has proven a popular way for asylum-seekers to avoid the Safe Third Country agreement, which prevents Canada from accepting refugee claims entering from the U.S. It has been a point of contention with Quebec as the province receives the bulk of irregular arrivals and is expected to provide social services for arrivals while the federal government evaluates the legality of their claims.
A recent compilation from the Journal de Montreal showed that a record number of 150,000 asylum seekers entered Canada since Trudeau’s 2017 tweet. Of that number, 91,000 entered through Roxham Road.
Quebec premier François Legault has been asking the federal government to permanently close the entry point, a position echoed by the Bloc Québécois, and more recently by Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre.
The end of Roxham Road where thousands of asylum seekers have illegally crossed the border into Canada. Photo by Ryan Remiorz/The Canadian Press/File
A Léger poll last May showed that 60 per cent of Quebecers wanted Roxham Road closed. Bastien said a poll commissioned by his own group, Justice pour le Québec (Justice for Quebec), found that 68 per cent of Quebecers strongly or moderately agree with that position.
“I think that people are actually very frustrated because this process is bypassing the law,” said Bastien. “There’s a way to actually migrate to Canada… if you’re a refugee, if you want to seek refugee status in Canada, we have some laws, we have some rules in this country.”
“And what is going on now is that basically the government is helping people to violate the rules to bypass the law,” he said. “The more that goes on, the more frustrated people get.”
A justice of the peace must determine if Bastien’s arguments have legal basis in order for the private prosecution to proceed.
Justice pour le Québec last year launched a court challenge against the City of Toronto over its support for a legal challenge against Quebec’s Bill 21, banning certain public service from wearing religious symbols on the job. It It also launched a court challenge against the appointment of Governor General Mary Simon, claiming her inability to speak French disqualified her.
In December, Bastien himself launched a human rights complaint over a job posting at the University of Laval that prohibited white, non-disabled males from applying.
Financial Post Columnist Diane Francis Calls for Immigration Sanity
“Overly ambitious immigration targets must be severely trimmed because the deluge of people … is putting unnecessary strain on Canada;s health care system as well as housing supply, notably in Ontario and B.C. Simply piling more people onto a medical system or a housing market that are flailing is irresponsible.” –Diane Francis, Financial Post, Jan. 19/2023
