Conrad Black: Jordan Peterson’s Case Has Profound Implications for Canadians’ Rights and Freedoms

It was my privilege and pleasure to participate with perhaps the most eminent contemporary Canadian, Prof. Jordan Peterson, and the prominent American television and internet commentator, Tucker Carlson, in a spontaneous presentation to a live audience of 8,000 in the principal indoor stadium in Edmonton on Jan. 24.

I was ostensibly the moderator, but that consisted in presenting a topic for discussion which all three of us would then tackle in sequence. It was a rollicking and, speaking for the three of us on the dais, a most enjoyable evening. Tucker Carlson is a charming man personally and publicly, with an excellent sense of humour, and alternates profound statements of principle with the provocative apercus of an engaging gadfly. Jordan Peterson makes no pretence to being a barrel of laughs but is an eye-wateringly erudite psychological and philosophical scholar. He presents his views in a rolling thunder of brilliant and intense articulation. I just played it down the middle, added a few light touches, and where it seemed appropriate, smoothed some of Tucker’s more flamboyant reflections, and helped explicate a few of Jordan’s more complex formulations.

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Procurement watchdog finds 76 per cent of listed ArriveCan subcontractors did no work

An investigation of ArriveCan spending has found outsourcing companies repeatedly won contracts by listing subcontractors who ultimately did no work, one of many findings that led the federal procurement ombudsman to conclude contracting rules were not followed.

The report specifically singles out contract work by two-person IT staffing company GCStrategies, saying the company frequently failed to prove that its proposed team of subcontractors had the résumés and work experience required.

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Ouch!

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B.C. freezes approvals on new postsecondary institutions specializing in international students

The B.C. government will not approve new private postsecondary institutions that cater to international students for a period of two years, Selina Robinson, Minister of Post-Secondary Education and Future Skills, announced Monday. The moratorium is part of a package of reforms in the sector, after Ottawa announced a two-year cap on foreign student admissions in a bid to tackle skyrocketing growth and ease the pressure on services such as housing and health care.

The changes mirror measures announced last week by the province of Ontario, which is similarly facing significant reductions in the number of new international students the federal government will permit.

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Spanish Catholics denounce ‘offensive’ Jesus poster

Ultra-conservatives demand apology from artist over ‘effeminate’ and ‘camp’ image to celebrate Easter week in Seville

A poster of Jesus to promote Easter week in Seville has drawn a backlash from Spanish ultra-conservatives, who denounced it as “effeminate” and “offensive” to Roman Catholics.

Designed by Seville artist Salustiano Garcia, the image shows Jesus after his resurrection, standing semi-naked in front of a blood-red background, with the lower part of his body covered by a white cloth.

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Vivian Bercovici: Israel is the true victim of genocidal intent

International Court Of Justice – ICJ

TEL AVIV — Watching American Justice Joan Donoghue read the decision of the International Court of Justice, live at 2 p.m. Israel time on Friday afternoon, was surreal.

Everything about this legal proceeding is grotesque and represents a perversion of ethics and law that is beyond difficult to process. South Africa, a signatory to the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide — as is Israel — brought this application to the court with the support of some rather nefarious international actors. There has been a significant uptick in activity and contact between South Africa and the Islamic Republic of Iran of late, either a coincidence or reflecting an enhanced alignment of values between the two countries. Iran, of course, is the head of the proverbial Islamist snake, openly fomenting antisemitism globally and responsible for significant acts of violence targeting Jewish civilians.

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Isis claims responsibility for church killing in Istanbul

Islamic State was behind the lethal attack on a church in Istanbul on Sunday, Ali Yerlikaya, Turkey’s interior minister has said.

Two masked gunmen burst into Santa Maria Italian church during mass, killing Tuncer Cihan, a 52-year-old man. Afsin Hatipoglu, the church’s lawyer, told journalists that the attackers had held the door open for Cihan, a Muslim, who had arrived as prayers were already under way. Seconds later, they entered and killed him.

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Woman ordered deported over Chinese foreign interference

Canadian authorities have issued a deportation order against a Chinese woman on the grounds she was part of Beijing’s foreign interference program.

The Immigration and Refugee Board ruled that Jing Zhang had worked for the Overseas Chinese Affairs Office (OCAO), which it said conducts espionage in Canada.

While immigration officials did not argue that Zhang committed espionage, the Refugee Board found that as an 11-year OCAO employee, she had contributed to its efforts to pressure the Chinese diaspora.

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Justin Trudeau adviser defends use of crude language in online exchange with right-wing group

OTTAWA—A senior adviser to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is defending her use of crude, sexual language in an online exchange with the right-wing influence group, Canada Proud, stating she was subject to a “co-ordinated harassment campaign” and that Canada Proud trafficks in “vile” disinformation.

The exchange occurred in a series of posts on X, formerly Twitter, over the weekend, in which the PMO’s newly-hired adviser Supriya Dwivedi derided Canada Proud for having a “raging boner” for a female journalist who covers the far right. Responding to how the Canada Proud account implied she was acting unprofessionally and wrote she was having a “public meltdown,” Dwivedi responded: “you can go back to gooning to Jordan Peterson now.”

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‘Seismic shift’: driving unaffordable for many in US amid push toward SUVs

At the start of the pandemic, Ceola Luna, a 45-year-old Lyft driver in Los Angeles, bought a 2005 Saturn Vue crossover, after her new Dodge Caravan (a minivan) was wrecked in a crash. The Vue wasn’t nearly as nice, but it was affordable at $4,000 – including rust, engine issues, and a dashboard full of warning lights.

With no other income to support herself and three children, driving was an economic lifeline for Luna. But much of what she made ended up going to car mechanics as the small SUV kept breaking down. Then last year, Lyft informed Luna that her Vue had gotten too old for the platform, leaving her jobless. So she scrambled to find a new gig as a care worker for autistic children, and then the car failed again. To save up for another mechanic appointment, Luna has been taking the bus to her clients – sapping her earnings with hours of unpaid commute time.

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Intelligence Reveals Details of U.N. Agency Staff’s Links to Oct. 7 Attack

TEL AVIV—At least 12 employees of the U.N.’s Palestinian refugee agency had connections to Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel and around 10% of all of its Gaza staff have ties to Islamist militant groups, according to intelligence reports reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.

Six United Nations Relief and Works Agency workers were part of the wave of Palestinian militants who killed 1,200 people in the deadliest assault on Jews since the Holocaust, according to the intelligence dossier. Two helped kidnap Israelis. Two others were tracked to sites where scores of Israeli civilians were shot and killed. Others coordinated logistics for the assault, including procuring weapons.

Of the 12 Unrwa employees with links to the attacks, seven were primary or secondary school teachers, including two math teachers, two Arabic language teachers and one primary school teacher.

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Biden’s Border Catastrophe

The president’s recent pledge to “shut down” the border suggests that, if nothing else could, his political survival might finally motivate him to enforce the law.

Immigration was already bound to be a pivotal issue in this year’s elections. The standoff between Texas and the federal government, however, emphasizes just how egregious the problem has become—and highlights an especially glaring vulnerability for President Biden in November.

Here’s a recap of the escalating standoff. Last week, Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the Supreme Court’s liberal minority in a 5-4 ruling that allows U.S. Border Patrol agents to dismantle razor wire along the river in Eagle Pass, Texas, which the state had built to prevent illegal border crossings. The federal government claimed that the razor wire prevented Border Patrol from aiding migrants in distress, including three who recently drowned. Texas governor Greg Abbott responded that Border Patrol was never denied access and blamed the Biden administration for the migrant deaths. Abbott has said that he will continue defending the state’s border despite the Court’s ruling.

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The deluded tears of Taylor Lorenz

American media’s preeminent Mean Girl, Taylor Lorenz, would like all us plebs to know that things are, like, really, really hard for her and her fellow mainstream-media journalists right now.

Earlier this week, in a video breathtaking for its profound lack of self-awareness, Lorenz decried a ‘really dark’ period of mass lay-offs throughout the media industry. ‘Tens of thousands of journalists have been laid off in the past year’, she said. ‘Pretty much the entire digital media ecosystem which myself and a lot of other millennial journalists came up in, has been completely hollowed out.’ ‘If you’re a young journalist today’, she continued, ‘there’s almost no on-ramp to traditional journalism’.

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Epiphanies on Islamic Ethics

Muslim societies do not just breed violence and poverty, but also a dogmatic sense of superiority grounded on nothing but wishful thinking.

Most criticism of Islam focuses on violence sanctioned and promoted by Islamic teachings and on rampant disrespect and oppression of women, and sexual and religious minorities.

These attitudes, as hateful as they are, are not the real reasons hindering progress (other than military efforts) in the Islamic world. After all, Wilhelmine Germany and Meiji Japan also held power and military strength in high regard, relegated women to a secondary role and denied sexual and religious minorities equal rights.

Yet both Wilhelmine Germany and Meiji Japan developed rapidly and contributed important scientific and intellectual discoveries to mankind.

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