Monday, December 20, 2021
Thursday, December 16, 2021
Catholic Civil Rights Group Compiles Database of Canadian Churches Attacked or Vandalized
LifeSiteNews.com reported on December 14, 2021:
by David McLoone
Following a sharp uptick in acts of vandalism and destruction on church buildings across Canada in 2020, a Canadian Catholic civil rights group has established an online archive to track and detail all church attacks within the country.
The Catholic Civil Rights League (CCRL) set up the Church Attacks Database, a publicly accessible catalogue of all known attacks on Catholic churches within Canada. To date, 153 attacks are listed from 2010 through to 2021.
The database shows churches across the country having suffered arson, breaking and entering, broken windows, defacement, desecration, graffiti, general property damage, public disturbances, public indecency, theft, harmful alterations of church billboards, and even assaults on the clergy. All attacks have been identified by date and place.
The B.C. Catholic, the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Vancouver, noted that at least one attack in the Vancouver archdiocese was not documented on the database: an attempted arson attack at the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes in Mission, British Columbia, on July 4, 2021.
The CCRL has included a reporting link on the database’s main page to encourage users to add any attacks, be they recent or historic, in order to make the feature as comprehensive as possible.
CCRL Executive Director Christian Elia told The B.C. Catholic that attacks periodically increase during the Easter and Christmas seasons, “which is disturbing, and they have been on the rise in recent years.”
In response, his team hopes that the database might raise awareness about anti-Catholic hate crimes in Canada, especially among governing bodies at the provincial and federal level; however, “before that happens, if anyone is going to be roused and called to action, it will be we Catholics ourselves,” he said.
Elia added that the database also serves “to remind Canadians, and even our own friends and supporters, that if they witness an act of violence in their own community, that they are not alone, unfortunately.”
Furthermore, by drawing together the vast number of anti-Catholic attacks on churches, Elia proposed that Catholics might “find the courage to speak together in one voice” such that the authorities take notice of the repeated pattern of violence against Catholicism and where it is represented.
Madeleine Enzlberger, executive director of the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe, commented that “[in] media and politics, hatred of Christians is hardly noticed,” adding that the phenomenon is an “obvious social problem.”
Enzlberger highlighted that a report by the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe “only reflects part of this trend, which we have been documenting for years, and yet it is a loud wake-up call against indifference and what seems to have become a ‘fashionable’ bashing of Christians.”
The researcher hopes to see initiatives like that of the CCRL “empower Christians, so they have the ability to respond correctly to situations of injustice and dare to speak up.”
In the neighboring U.S., an October report from the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) showed there had been “at least 113” attacks including “arson, statues beheaded, limbs cut, smashed, and painted, gravestones defaced with swastikas and anti-Catholic language and American flags next to them burned” at churches in 29 states and the nation’s Capitol since May 2020.
In like manner, a new report from the Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe has found that violence against Christians has become a “rising phenomenon” in many European states, identifying the U.K., France, Germany, Spain, and Sweden as the most affected.
The December 7 report, “Under pressure: Human Rights of Christians in Europe,” highlighted that the five nations have experienced pressures on freedom of expression, parental rights, and freedom of conscience, with a particular emphasis on the increase in discrimination against Christians stemming from secular and Islamic ideologies.
The report stated that there has been a 70 percent rise in hate crimes against Christians between 2019 and 2020, explaining that “[t]he negation of a public voice is mainly based on strong and sometimes even extreme opposition to Christian morals derived from core beliefs.”
“In some cases, it does not stop at negation, but goes even further toward a criminalization of public or even private opinions,” the report warned.
https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/catholic-civil-rights-group-compiles-database-of-canadian-churches-attacked-or-vandalized/
Please share this.Sunday, December 12, 2021
Mark Lepine was born Gamil Rodrigue Liass Gharbi. His father was Algerian.
The Grotesque Politicization of the Montreal Massacre - TFF 2.0
The Fiamengo File 2.0
Marc Lepine killed 14 women on December 6, 1989 at Polytechnique Montreal, University of Montreal, Canada. He also injured 10 women and 4 men.
The full written text can be found here:
http://blog.studiobrule.com/2021/12/t...
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Saturday, December 11, 2021
Friday, December 10, 2021
Barry and Honey Sherman: Supreme Court of Canada Justice Implicates UN and WHO in Murders?
Supreme Court of Canada (SCC) Justice presiding over a SCC case involving the unsealing of Toronto Police Services files on the double homicide investigation of Barry and Honey Sherman implicated both the UN and the WHO in the targeted murders of Barry and Honey Sherman.
The murders were “a very, very sophisticated crime, in my view, committed by a very sophisticated organization – at least it has those hallmarks.” Supreme Court of Canada Justice Michael Moldaver, October 6, 2020 – multiple news sources: The Chronicle Herald and the Globe and Mail
The official / legal name for the UN is the United Nations Organization. The official name for the WHO is the World Health Organization.
Why are the UN and WHO suspects in the “targeted murders” of Justin Trudeau’s August 26, 2015 election campaign fundraisers Barry and Honey Sherman? The Shermans owned Apotex which manufactured and sold Hydroxychloroquine – a cheap, effective and a less toxic metabolite of chloroquine.
They were murdered in their home in December 2017.
“In conclusion, our results show that HCQ can efficiently inhibit SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro. In combination with its anti-inflammatory function, we predict that the drug has a good potential to combat the disease. ” research paper Hydroxychloroquine, a less toxic derivative of chloroquine, is effective in inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 infection in vitro, published March 18, 2020 – day Justin Trudeau announced the closure of Canada’s borders to most travelers during news conference outside Rideau Cottage about the measures Canada is taking to combatCOVID-19
“chloroquine is an effective pre & post-infection antiviral agent for SARS-CoV. A dose-dependant decrease in virus antigen-positive cells was observed starting at 0.1 μM chloroquine & 10 μM (Micrometre, also called micron, metric unit of measure for length equal to 0.001 mm, or about 0.000039 inch) completely abolished SARS-CoV infection. … Chloroquine, a relatively safe, effective and cheap drug used for treating many human diseases including malaria, amoebiosis and human immunodeficiency virus” Virology Journal 2005 study
“Chloroquine is a potent inhibitor of SARS coronavirus infection and spread“. Acknowledgements “This work was supported by a Canadian PENCE grant (T3), CIHR (Canadian Institutes of Health Research, is Canada’s federal funding agency for health research) group grant #MGC 64518, and CIHR grant #MGP-44363 (to NGS)” Virology Journal, Published 2005 Aug 22
“There is sufficient pre-clinical rationale and evidence regarding the effectiveness of chloroquine for treatment of COVID-19 as well as evidence of safety from long-time use in clinical practice for other indications.” Europe PMC paper ” A systematic review on the efficacy and safety of chloroquine for the treatment of COVID-19“.
Europe PMC is a service of the Europe PMC Funders’ Group, in partnership with the European Bioinformatics Institute ; and in cooperation with the National Center for Biotechnology Information at the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NCBI/NLM) .
Chloroquine was shown to inhibit in vitro replication of SARS-CoV-2 in Vero E6 cells in an effective concentration EC90 of 6.90 μM that can be easily achieved with standard dosing, due to its favourable penetration into tissues, including in the lung. This is substantially lower than the concentration detected in human plasma when the drug is prescribed to treat malaria at a dose of 25 mg/kg over 3 days.
However, for COVID-19 patients, a lower dose such as 3.6 mg/kg that are often prescribed to treat rheumatoid arthritis has been suggested for long-term patients as the dose is similar to IC50 for SARS-CoV. It is to be noted that hydroxychloroquine (made by Justin Trudeau’s August 26, 2015 election campaign fundraisers Barry and Honey Sherman who were targeted and murdered December 13, 2017 – 7 days before Justin Trudeau was convicted of violating federal ethics laws) showed greater efficacy than chloroquine, at least based on in vitro studies.
Besides, hydroxychloroquine was shown to have minimal risk of toxicity such as retinopathy. Other recent studies also showed that hydroxychloroquine is a less toxic metabolite of chloroquine, as it is more soluble, and causes less side effects and therefore is safer. … both hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine can interfere with ACE2 receptor glycosylation and prevents SARS-CoV-2 binding to pneumocytes. Chloroquine could also possibly inhibit sialic acid biosynthesis thus limiting cell surface binding of SARS-CoV-2.
Barry Sherman’s Apotex drug Hydroxychloroquine clearly threatened to prematurely end Germany and WHO’s COVID-19 biological warfare attack and defund the bankrupt / insolvent UN / WHO & Bill Gates’ lucrative multi $billion global vaccine agenda.
The Barry & Honey Sherman murders in 2017, coincided with Germany and the WHO initiating their planning and preparing for the COVID-19 biological attack.
The WHO and Germany initiated the COVID-19 plandemic during the G20 Germany 2017 summit. “By putting global health on the agenda of the G20, we affirm our role in strengthening the political support for existing initiatives and working to address the economic aspects of global health issues.
We support the leading role of the World Health Organization (WHO), as the United Nations specialized agency for health, in global health cooperation. Furthermore, we seek to intensify global action and cooperation in order to address ever-evolving challenges and identify where the health sector can provide leadership and added value….
We conducted a simulation exercise during our meeting in Berlin in May 2017 in close cooperation with the World Health Organization (WHO), … The international community needs to fully support the WHO in order for the organization to be able to fulfill its role, including in capacity building and in preparing for and responding to health emergencies.
In this respect, we acknowledge that WHO’s financial and human resource capacities have to be strengthened, including through adequate and sustainable funding for the Health Emergencies Programme and the WHO Contingency Fund for Emergencies (CFE).” Berlin Declaration of the G20 Health Ministers
See more here: ncio.ca/briefings
https://principia-scientific.com/supreme-court-of-canada-justice-implicates-un-and-who-in-murders/
Sunday, December 5, 2021
INVESTIGATION: Canadian news media dominated by corporate lobbyists
An intensive six-week study of key political shows across multiple networks and a review of lobbyist filings conducted by Ricochet in collaboration with Jacobin Magazine has revealed significant bias in Canadian television news shows. Lobbyists for banks, oil companies, arms manufacturers and other sundry corporate interests routinely appear on news shows without any public disclosure of their big money ties.
Political panelists’ corporate lobbying interests are rarely disclosed on Canadian news shows, and this lack of transparency undermines news outlets’ claims to impartiality.
In the wake of the federal election, there was plenty of commentary about how media coverage of the party leaders and campaigns has shaped the views of the electorate. What this framing ignores is that even between elections, our media moulds our politics.
Manufacturing consent
Despite the digital revolution, television remains the dominant source of news in Canada. Last year, a study by the Media Technology Monitor found that nearly half the population finds out about current affairs by watching TV. More than twice as many said TV was their go-to medium rather than online sources, apps and social media.
Jacobin and Ricochet’s review of Canadian television news commentary and analysis from March 29 to May 9, 2021, catalogued data on more than 860 relevant television appearances. More than one in every 10 guests analyzing the news worked for firms paid to influence the government and the public. Despite their vested interests, networks often described these panellists as “strategists.”
Among on-air commentators, lobbyist or PR professional was the fourth-most-common occupation. Government officials and politicians, journalists, and medical professionals (during a pandemic) were the only occupations more commonly featured.
Corporate influencers are, unsurprisingly, more often present in discussions of certain key issues. Across Canada’s big three networks — CBC, CTV and Global — one in every five guests brought on to comment on climate change, one in every five guests analyzing the federal budget, and a staggering one in every three guests analyzing federal politics were active in the PR industry.
Furthermore, comments made by guests often found their way into other news programs as part of reports or were included in online stories. In some cases, there was no disclosure at all of the guests’ ties. At other times, critical information on a group’s funding was omitted. Often there was a lack of disclosure of guests’ relevant clients or lobbying interests. In still other instances, guests were introduced as being affiliated with one organization or company but no mention was made of their affiliations with other relevant corporations or lobbies.
PR hacks on CBC
Gallant, for example, appeared on CBC’s Power & Politics on five occasions during the study period. CBC’s hosts introduced him as the head of the Canadian Centre for the Purpose of the Corporation (CCPC). No details were provided about the organization on-air.
A review of the CCPC’s website reveals that it is a subsection of the main website for Navigator Ltd. The online news outlet VICE described Navigator as “the company famous Canadians turn to when they face public relations crises.” The PR and corporate lobbying giant created and continues to fund the CCPC.
The CCPC’s website fails to properly explain the organization’s aims. Instead, the company hides behind a series of poorly written platitudes:
The Canadian Centre for the Purpose of the Corporation is an initiative that will help equip Canadian businesses and organizations with insights, tools, and support as they work to redefine and strengthen both the scope of their purpose and the contributions they make more broadly to society.
For clarification, Ricochet and Jacobin reached out to Gallant. Reproducing the policy wonk–speak from his company’s website, Gallant wrote back that the CCPC seeks to help businesses “redefine and strengthen the scope of their purpose and the contributions they make to their stakeholders — and more broadly to society — through insights, tools, and research.”
Aside from being head of the CCPC, Gallant also works as a senior advisor at Navigator. This affiliation is disclosed on the CBC’s website. However, over the six-week viewing period, the audience was not made aware of this fact in five of his six appearances on the CBC, where he was called upon to give his opinion on COVID-19, corporate taxation, infrastructure spending, and climate change.
Gallant was mostly forthcoming in response to media questions, stating that the CBC asks all panellists to self-disclose “any interests that are potentially linked to any of the subjects which will be discussed.” However, he said he could not discuss whether Navigator has any clients with interests in areas that would need be disclosed under these guidelines, due to the company’s privacy policy.
Giving limited disclosure the heave-ho
The CBC introduced Shakir Chambers, another regular TV panellist associated with the firm at the time, as a “political commentator” on four occasions. Viewers were not given any details of his work for Navigator. The CBC is well aware of his work for the firm — at the time of his appearances, the Power & Politics website noted that he “plays a leading role in the firm’s government relations practice and provides strategic counsel for high profile clients.”
On three occasions, former Alberta United Conservative Party president Erica Barootes of Enterprise Canada, a national lobbying firm, provided on-air commentary about COVID-19 for the CBC. The network did not disclose her registration as a lobbyist for both Astellas Pharma Canada Inc. and Shoppers Drug Mart. In addition, she was registered in three provinces as a lobbyist for Purolator — one disclosure filing shows her lobbying was related to COVID-19 vaccine distribution logistics, a frequently discussed news topic given the delay in the vaccine rollout at the time. Only her affiliation to Enterprise was noted during her appearances. The CBC did not make viewers aware of what business Enterprise conducts, let alone any of Barootes’ potentially relevant lobbying or business activities.
Earlier this year, in response to a complaint from a member of the public, the CBC’s public ombudsman, Jack Nagler, noted that merely stating the name of a firm during an introduction is “rather pointless.” In his view, the name of a firm is of little use to viewers seeking to understand whose interests they represent. “The reference to their company names is a form of shorthand that might work for people familiar with Parliament Hill but does not work for the rest of us,” he wrote.
The CBC also invited Jenni Byrne, former top aide to Doug Ford and Stephen Harper, to share her opinions on the pandemic while she was a registered lobbyist for Tridan/CBS Group Inc. The company was, at the time of her appearance, pursuing a government contract for its COVID-19 rapid test kits. In addition, Byrne lobbies the Ontario Ministry of Long-Term Care and has also registered to lobby for BioVaxsys Tech, Bausch Health Companies, and Proctor & Gamble. Only her eponymous company name was disclosed by the CBC.
PR on CTV
CTV is also guilty of failing to disclose commentators’ affiliations. In April, the network twice invited former Conservative MP Lisa Raitt to discuss the federal budget and pandemic-related airline bailout packages.
Raitt was introduced as a former cabinet minister, but no mention was made at that time of the fact she is the vice-chair of global investment banking at the Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce. Presumably the bank and its clientele would have an interest in the government’s approach to issues such as corporate taxes, wealth taxes, wage subsidies, and federal deficit spending contained in the budget.
In cases where a television commentator’s most relevant company affiliation was noted, the nature of the firm’s lobbying or business activities often wasn’t disclosed by CTV. This was the case even when they were related to the supposed expert analysis being provided to viewers.
Greg MacEachern, the senior VP of Proof Strategies, appeared on CTV News Channel multiple times to discuss subjects such as the federal budget and COVID-19. His affiliation with the lobbying firm was properly disclosed, but the fact that he is a registered lobbyist for companies such as Netflix and eBay was not mentioned. These firms stood to be negatively affected by changes to internet taxation and regulation contained in the federal budget and in Bill C-10, which sought to alter how the internet is regulated in Canada. A review of the federal lobby registry shows that, around the time of his appearances, MacEachern held discussions with the federal government ministries involved in these changes.
Proof Strategies is registered in multiple provinces to lobby on behalf of Scarsin Corporation, a health technology firm seeking COVID-related contracts from provincial governments. MacEachern has led the government relations work at Proof Strategies since 2011, according to the lobby firm’s website.
In response to emailed questions, he stated that he meets with producers “a few hours before the panel is taped and the topics [that will be discussed] are specifically reviewed and flagged for any conflicts.”
Not just the right
One might assume that these undisclosed ties to corporate interests occur mostly among guests representing the right wing of the political spectrum. However, a number of former operatives from Canada’s New Democratic Party have also transitioned into lobbying.
In one instance, former NDP strategist Kathleen Monk — at the time a principal at Earnscliffe Strategy Group — discussed the ongoing pandemic on Power & Politics. CBC did not note that she is listed in the federal lobby registry as a representative of organizations with interests in COVID-related policy. This work includes lobbying for a company named InkSmith. The aforementioned firm has advocated for intellectual property rights to be applied to vaccines during the pandemic. In fact, Monk met with a senior ministerial staffer to represent InkSmith on files related to COVID-19 issues two days before one of her CBC appearances, according to lobbying filings reviewed by Ricochet and Jacobin.
The publicly funded broadcaster regularly invites Monk onto its shows to represent the NDP perspective. Brad Lavigne, a former senior aide to late NDP leader Jack Layton, is also regularly brought onto CBC shows to discuss current affairs and present the NDP perspective. Lavigne is currently a partner and vice president at Counsel Public Affairs, another national lobbying firm.
On five occasions, Lavigne discussed COVID-19 in on-air appearances without CBC noting that he was a registered lobbyist for a health industry firm in Alberta. The CBC also did not mention Lavigne’s presence in the B.C. provincial lobby registry due to his COVID-19 work on behalf of multiple clients.
Counsel Public Affairs has several other staff lobbying for pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline and other health industry clients on issues that may be linked to the analysis Lavigne provides on national television. Lavigne and Counsel Public Affairs did not respond to questions about this work.
Think tank “shadow lobbying”
Ricochet and Jacobin’s review also provided a glimpse into possible disclosure issues among guests representing think tanks. Such guests can engage in what is often called “shadow lobbying,” in which donors underwrite their work and benefit from seemingly neutral third parties advocating for their interests.
CTV’s Power Play invited Gary Mar, president of the Canada West Foundation, to discuss the potential shutdown of the Line 5 pipeline, which brings fossil fuels to Quebec and Ontario via the United States. The governor of Michigan along with several environmental groups are opposed to the pipeline, which is owned by Alberta-based Enbridge. In his CTV segment Mar stated that he thought that “Enbridge is taking the right position to say ‘we are not shutting down any of the supply until we are ordered to do so by a court.’”
CTV did not disclose that Marr is the former CEO of the Petroleum Services Association of Canada, or that the Canada West Foundation is heavily funded by fossil fuel corporations, including Cenovus, Suncor, Husky Energy, Shell, Imperial Oil, Ovintiv and others. Most notably, Enbridge itself has provided at least $50,000 annually to the think tank, according to its most recent publicly available annual report. This makes the corporation a top donor to the foundation. Enbridge’s funding may in fact be significantly higher than that number — $50,000 and above is the highest donation threshold listed in the report.
The Canada West Foundation declined to comment on whether CTV was aware of Mar’s ties to Enbridge prior to arranging what turned out to be positive commentary on the company's pipeline. A spokesperson responded that the think tank acknowledges supporters publicly on its website and in communications materials: “We think it’s great that engaged citizens and organizations are willing to open their wallets in the pursuit of good public policy.”
Ricochet and Jacobin reached out to multiple CTV staff for comment but did not receive a reply.
Suspicious ratios
The proportion of guests who were journalists or medical professionals was roughly the same across both CTV and CBC. However, the proportion of commentators on CBC whose day jobs were in lobbying or PR was roughly double that of CTV.
Although COVID-19 dominated the news, making up nearly half of the news coverage on both networks, one in every seven guests appearing on the CBC programs was from a lobbying or government relations firm. This is roughly the same proportion as that of medical professionals invited onto panels during a pandemic.
In an email, Chuck Thompson, CBC’s head of public affairs, said that lobbyists are featured “on occasion” due to “their past experience, often as government leaders or decision makers.” He added that they are not invited for their objectivity, but for their ideological perspective and partisan political analysis. Thompson claims that the network achieves the right mix of guests comprising “a cross section of individuals who bring different perspectives to any given discussion.” This range of perspectives does not appear to include civil society, or advocacy or activist groups. Such voices were largely absent from the airwaves.
When guests’ views are informed by their lobbying work, this narrows the spectrum of viewpoints available to an audience. CBC’s Journalistic Standards and Practices states that “it is important to mention any association, affiliation or special interest a guest or commentator may have so that the public can fully understand that person’s perspective.”
CBC was asked what processes the network uses to adhere to this principle. The public broadcaster replied that it takes the issue seriously, and the “responsibility to disclose and address conflicts of interest to our audience — perceived or otherwise — falls to the lobbyists after speaking with our chase producers. The process we have in place goes a long way to ensuring transparency.”
What this research shows is that these processes clearly do not go far enough.
https://ricochet.media/en/3821/investigation-canadian-news-media-is-dominated-by-corporate-lobbyists