Search: “Syria”

Now that the recommendations of the Iacobucci Commission in Canada have finally been implemented and three Canadians who claim to have been tortured in Syria with the alleged complicity of the Canadian government and CSIS have settled their case, it is time for a comment.  A few weeks have passed and I for one can […]

The RCMP announced yesterday that they have arrested Pamir Hakimzadah and charged him with leaving Canada to join Islamic State, meaning that he is charged with terrorism. This is a big deal.  It represents, to my knowledge, the first returning foreign fighter to be charged under the provisions of section 83.01 of the Canadian Criminal […]

There sure seems to be a lot of hand wringing over travel these days.  We have had two bans imposed by the US, one ridiculous (the generic ban on anyone coming from 6 Muslim countries) and one more realistic, albeit still open to question (the ban on electronic devices for passengers boarding aircraft in 10 […]

These past couple of months have not been good for Canada’s spy service.  First, the Federal Court ruled that CSIS has been negligent in informing it of a programme whereby it ‘illegally kept’ data (which it had collected legally under warrant) on Canadians.  Then there is the criticism that the Service shared questions with the […]

The announcement that Canada has reached a settlement with three citizens who claim that information shared by CSIS with Syria led to their arrest and torture is big news.  We don’t know, at least not yet, what this compensation amounts to but we do know that the Trudeau government  has apologised for “the role Canadian officials […]

I can’t imagine what it feels like to see your child arrested.  My children were no different than most I suppose, occasionally doing things they should not have, but nothing too serious, nothing that warranted police attention.  Thankfully, I was never placed in that position. Now imagine that authorities arrest your child after you called […]

If there is one myth in the ever increasing world of ‘alternative facts’ (i.e. lies) that has otherworldly strength and perseverance it is the whopper that some of the 9/11 hijackers came through Canada.  This inaccurate account of recent history has been repeated by people who should have known better – e.g. former Democratic presidential […]

Canada has been in the news a lot lately for things it is not normally associated with.  Things like mass shootings, online hate and an overall atmosphere of intolerance.  We here used to pride ourselves on openness, the embrace of difference and acceptance and like to highlight how we have built a social model that […]

Well, if there was any doubt about what a Trump presidency means for the US, and by extension for all of us, over the next four years there is little doubt now.  In the first week alone a flurry of executive orders have been signed on a whole bunch of issues that Mr. Trump promised […]

Quebec is a very interesting province for many reasons, not least of which is the tremendous change in the role of religion over time.  It is no exaggeration to state that the Catholic Church ruled the roost for centuries, telling Quebecers how to live, how to procreate and who to vote for.  This dominance came […]