…why we still need effective gun safety laws, and why we need to stop violence against women.

So many years ago.

1. Geneviève Bergeron (born 1968), civil engineering student
2. Hélène Colgan (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
3. Nathalie Croteau (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
4. Barbara Daigneault (born 1967), mechanical engineering student
5. Anne-Marie Edward (born 1968), chemical engineering student
6. Maud Haviernick (born 1960), materials engineering student
7. Maryse Laganière (born 1964), budget clerk in the École Polytechnique’s finance department
8. Maryse Leclair (born 1966), materials engineering student
9. Anne-Marie Lemay (born 1967), mechanical engineering student
10. Sonia Pelletier (born 1961), mechanical engineering student
11. Michèle Richard (born 1968), materials engineering student
12. Annie St-Arneault (born 1966), mechanical engineering student
13. Annie Turcotte (born 1969), materials engineering student
14. Barbara Klucznik-Widajewicz (born 1958), nursing student

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OTTAWA — We saw the Palestinians. They were there. They were.

They had some flags and some signs, over by West Block on Parliament Hill. We saw them, but there weren’t a lot of them.

They were shouting and angry and waving their flags. Some of them were driving up and down Wellington Street, waving their flags out car windows.

And you know what we didn’t see? Here’s what we didn’t see: We didn’t see any Jew yell back at the Palestinian supporters. No one threw red paint on them or accused them of genocide or said that their businesses should be boycotted, either.

It goes without saying that we didn’t see any Jews who were there fire bullets at the schools where Palestinian kids go, or firebomb their community centres, or call for God to exterminate them. We saw no Jews, not one, raise their voice or a hand against the Palestinians.

That’s what we didn’t see. That’s what didn’t happen.

Instead, we saw around 20,000 Jews, from across Canada. Plenty of non-Jewish supporters, as well.

We saw flags. Canadian flags, Israeli flags. We saw signs.

Pride signs, signs expressing love for Canada and Israel, signs of Christians supporting Jews, signs saying Never Again Is Now, signs critical of the bastards at the United Nations, signs saying Israel Values Palestinian Lives, signs saying Bring Them Home Now, signs supporting the women who were victims of sexual violence on Oct. 7. Lots of signs.

We saw people singing O Canada. We saw them sing Israel’s anthem. We saw people laughing. We saw them crying. We saw them hugging each other and shaking hands and standing together.

We saw all of those things. And — again — we didn’t see anyone curse the Palestinians present, or get into fights with them. Not once.

Here’s what we saw, instead. Here’s what we heard.

We saw Raquel Look, a mom from Montreal. She wore Israeli and Canadian flags across her shoulders.

After some of the politicians spoke, she told us about her boy, her baby, her son, Alexandre, age 33. In perfect French and English, she did that, with a voice that was so raw with pain it was hard to listen. But we did.

Alain Haim Look and Raquel Ohnona Look hold a photo of son Alexandre Look, who was murdered by Hamas in the Oct. 7, 2023 terror attacks in Israel.

She told us how Alexandre was at a music festival in the south of Israel on Oct. 7, a festival in support of peace. He called his parents as Hamas closed in, his voice afraid. They could hear everything.

His mother told us how Alexandre, her angel, was murdered as he tried to protect others. From Hamas, who resemble humans, but aren’t. “In the face of danger and pure evil, he put himself in front of others, to protect them, saving their lives on that black Saturday.”

Raquel’s voice echoed over the heads of the thousands, all silent. You could hear some people weeping in the crowd. My partner, beside me, was. “Alexandre’s memory lives on in the hearts of all who knew him.”

She went on: “I implore our leaders to support Israel in its mission to destroy Hamas. To seek the immediate release of our hostages, and to restore peace to the region for all people – in order to free Israelis and Gazans from terrorism.

“Please let our son’s sacrifice not be in vain.”

A Holocaust survivor, a 95-year-old man, came next. His name was Nate Leipciger. Oct. 7 was like the shoah, he said. Back then, he said, “The world was silent. The heavens did not hear our cries or our prayers. No country would take us.”

Eighty years later, he said, it was happening again. We must not let it happen again, he said. People were weeping again.

Despite all that, despite the tears, despite the sadness, despite the cold, it was a good day. People from across the country, thousands of them, came together to celebrate decency and kindness and humanity.

That’s what we saw. We saw people who love Israel, and who love Canada, and who love life.

We saw people say: Never again? It’s now.

Right now.

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According to Forbes, the Chicago Blackhawks are worth at least $1.5 billion (U.S.).

They’ve won Stanley Cups. Bobby Hull and Stan Mikita played for them. They were Barack Obama’s favourite hockey team.

They’ve got a longtime owner, the Wirtz family. They’ve got a president of business operations. They’ve got a general manager. They’ve got four associate or assistant general managers, seven head and assistant coaches, seven training staff, seven equipment staff, four “performance” coaches, three “mental performance” coaches, three hockey operations staff, two player personnel, eleven “hockey strategy and analytics” people, thirteen amateur scouts, ten pro scouts, and seven player development people.

Interestingly, there’s a “Chicago Blackhawks Media Relations” department, but it’s pretty hard to figure out who works there. They’re ghosts.

Lucky for them. Based on this week’s three-ring ice circus, it’s possible no one works there. So, as a humanitarian gesture, I’m offering my yellow lab, Joey, to fill in there. Because Joey sure couldn’t do any worse than the Blackhawks PR elf lords did with Corey Perry-gate.

Everything that the Blackhawks did about the Corey Perry story, they did wrong. A few days ago, they yanked the veteran right winger from the ice and terminated his contract. They then proceeded to say precisely nothing about why, for days. Swear to God: they made the Star Wars bar scene look like a smoothly-run operation.

Here’s five things that the Blackhawks could have, and should have, done. Courtesy of me and Joey, gratis.

One, tell the truth. The truth, as I tell the clients, is like water: it always finds a way out.

The Blackhawks didn’t. They prevaricated and dissembled and played dipsy-doodle with the truth. My advice, always: don’t. It’s the Internet age, boy and girls. Everyone has a printing press in their back pocket. Just tell the truth, right away, because the truth is always going to come out anyway.

Two, take responsibility. Have one of the many, many (too) many bosses in the Blackhawks organization come out, in person and in real life, and say: we screwed up. We should’ve done better, and we regret that and apologize that and take responsibility for that. Here’s the true facts, etc.

And then, have him/her do step three.

Three, say what you are going to do to avoid a repeat. In the Perry case, we don’t know if he consumed an entire distillery and had intimate relations with a school of goldfish. We don’t know, which is what prompted guys – guys with profile pictures of Gump Worsley and fake names and lots of numbers after them – to speculate wildly about what had really happened. It was nasty, particularly for goldfish-lovers.

There was some pretty wild stuff out there, none of it allowed in a family-friendly newspaper like the one you now grasp in your sweaty maulers. So, along with telling the truth and taking responsibility, say what you’re going to do to avoid it happening again.

Thanks to Prime Minister Sock Boy, we all hear apologies all the time. They matter diddley-squat. People want action, not words. Give them ACTION.

Four, communicate internally, too – not just externally. From the sounds of it, Perry’s misdeeds had to do with someone else on the Blackhawks gigantic staff roster (see above). That person, and everyone who works with her/him, wants to hear from you. Popping off a press release that sounds like it was disgorged by a focus group somewhere won’t cut it.

Talk to your people. Meet with them. Listen. Do it sooner than later, and address their every concern.

Five and finally: don’t treat your audience, internally and externally, like idiots. Just don’t.

Politicians do this all the time. Hell, I once went to a golf tournament with a bunch of other political hacks in Florida, and we all wore silly ball caps that said: WE FOOL ‘EM, YOU RULE ‘EM.

Very funny, ho ho ho. Except: none of us believed it. Every one of us knew and know that Joe and Jane Frontporch are smart, intuitive and have built-in bullshit meters. They know when they’re being spun.

So, don’t, Blackhawks. Treat the fans with a modicum of respect. They are the bosses, after all. If you lose them, you’re going to be joining Corey Perry mopping floors at Corporate Death Burger, PDQ.

There you go, Chicago Blackhawks, free of charge. Tell the truth, take responsibility, say what you’re going to to fix the problem, communicate with your own folks, and treat people with respect. You didn’t do any of that.

As Joey would say: arf.

Meaning: smarten up, dummies.

 

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A Christmas tree.

A Christmas tree lighting get-together, to be precise.

They’ve been doing the Christmas tree celebration in Rockefeller Center, in Midtown Manhattan, for a long time. The first time they did it was in 1931, during the Great Depression. A Norway Spruce, often from upstate New York. They truck it in.

Some Italian-American workers did it first.  They put up the first tree, a smaller one, and then they decorated it with “strings of cranberries, garlands of paper, and even a few tin cans.” A couple years later, they brought in an even bigger tree – 50 feet high – and set up a skating rink at its base, and it became a yearly thing.

Regular people, workers and union folks, would pull their money together to get the tree. Then they would decorate it together.

Why light the Christmas tree? Goes back Centuries, really, to when they used candles, and not electrical lights. It means Christ is a light to the world, basically. That’s it.

Since the Fifties, the lighting of the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center has been broadcast live on TV. As many as 150 million people watch it happen.

They bring in big stars to perform for the tree lighting. Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, Tony Bennett, Dolly Parton, and (of course) Mariah Carey. It’s not political. No one gives jingoistic speeches. It’s just a nice little party, one that makes people happy. In a world of unrelenting pain and misery and horror, it’s a nice thing.

It shouldn’t be necessary, here, to point out that the lighting of a Christmas tree isn’t an occasion to provoke a riot. Or that the rest of us don’t regard it as an opportunity to start street fights and scream obscenities while little kids look on. In particular, we wouldn’t treat it like a night to promote hate.

But you and me, we aren’t part of Team Hamas. We don’t shoot up schools, or firebomb synagogues, or block highways, or put up hate graffiti, or target businesses simply because they’re owned by Jews. We don’t do that. Normal people don’t do that.

The Team Hamas does, and did. And, on Wednesday night, they were at it again.

A mob descended on the Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Rockefeller Center. They claimed to be “pro-Palestine,” but all of us know, by now, that they are really anti-Jewish-State. Anti-Jew, to be precise.

Hundreds of them descended on Rockefeller Square on Wednesday night. They fought with police, they screamed genocidal slogans. Some of them even held up signs with big swastikas on them. They called the police “f**king Nazis.” They tried to break down barricades separating them from families who had come to see the tree lighting.

One cop said it was “total chaos.” And it was.

But it was also revealing. It told us something we should think about.

Since October 7, when Palestinian Hamas terrorists killed hundreds of Israelis, and kidnapped dozens more, it’s been obvious that the “pro-Palestine” protesters really, really hate Jews and the Jewish state. It’s been obvious that many, if not most, of them are wildly anti-Semitic.

But here’s the thing: a Christmas tree lighting ceremony isn’t for Jews, is it? It isn’t about the Jewish faith. It’s for, and about, Christianity.

You know that old saying, the one that suggests how progroms start with the Jews, but never end with the Jews? It’s true.

And we’re now seeing it happen, in real time.

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Annihilation.

Bloodbath. Destruction. Massacre. Decimation. Wipeout.

Use whatever synonym you like, and it’ll apply. The Liberal Party of Canada – at one time, the most-successful political machine in Western democracy – is heading inexorably towards a defeat of truly historic proportions.

Some of us have been warning, for a long time, that this day was coming. Justin Trudeau, we opined, had turned the Liberal Party into a cult – a cult of personality. We said that, when he fell – and he would, because every leader does, if they’re in power too long – he would take the whole party down with him.

We said that the Trudeau Liberals had become tired and old. That they overpromised and under-delivered. That they had become a top-down movement – and were no longer a bottom-up political party. That they had become what they came to Ottawa to change – division, disunity, hyper-partisanship. That they couldn’t stick to a position if their lives depended on it – as with Israel, which they support or don’t support, depending on the weather.

But, even after all that, the latest numbers are just shocking.

They come to us from Nanos, a firm that the Trudeau government itself uses. It’s one of the best. And here’s many seats will change as a result of Nanos’ latest poll.

• Conservatives: projected to win 210 seats, which is 91 more than they have now
• Liberals: projected to win only 53, a drop of 107 seats
• New Democrats: projected to take 39 seats, which is 14 more than they presently have
• Greens: Nine seats, which is a pickup of seven
• Bloc Quebecois: no change

Take another look at that. Pierre Polievre’s Tories are projected to win four times as many seats as Justin Trudeau’s Grits. Four times!

Every party in the House of Commons is likely to pick up seats in the next election, as well – or, in the case of the Bloc, hold what they have. But the Trudeau Liberals, according to this Polling Canada seat model of Nanos’ numbers, are bleeding to everyone else – the Tories, the Dippers, the Greens. They are being crushed on the Left and the Right.

TruAnon winged monkeys will say, and have, that the next vote is a long way off – and that’s true. They will say that the Tories are peaking way too soon – which is arguably true. They will say that Trudeau remains their best asset, because he’s beaten the Tories thrice – and that he’s a great campaigner.

Not true. Not anymore.

If modern politics is a “daily campaign,” and it is, then Trudeau has been losing that, every single day. He and his cabal have been buffeted by too many stories about mistakes, missteps, and malfeasance. It’s impossible to credit them with a single clear win in 2023. There isn’t one. They’ve lost the daily campaign.

Similarly, Justin Trudeau can no longer be regarded as the Liberals’ secret weapon. He in fact is their biggest problem.

Way back when, this writer worked for Jean Chretien. I was pushing Chretien one day to do some press on an issue. Chretien declined. “Young man,” said he, “I don’t want or need to be in the media every single day. If you do that, people will get sick of your face.”

And that, in a Chretienite nutshell, is Trudeau’s biggest problem of all: overexposure. He’s been in our faces too often, too long. When his days were sunny, Trudeau would benefit, with Rolling Stone cover stories, and fawning media profiles. He got all the credit.

No longer. With the economy and the national mood faltering,Trudeau is now taking all the blame. In politics, you have to take the good with the bad, and Trudeau is now experiencing much more of the latter than the former.

Thus, the polls. Thus, the seat projections, which suggest 1984 and 1993-sized upsets are imminent.

For despondent Liberals, what is the only way out? Simple.

Justin, just go. For the love of God, just go.

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The street my parents lived on – and where I was born – was Coolbrook Avenue in Montreal. It was previously home to poorer Irish Catholics, but is now home to many Hasidic Jews, the Lubavitchers. It’s a nice area. Lots of trees, little parks. The Jews and the Irish got along, there.

In the early hours of Monday, someone threw a bomb – a Molotov cocktail – into the entrance area of the Jewish Community Council of Montreal, which is just on the other side of the Decarie, at Vezina.

The bomb went off and there was plenty of damage. But, thankfully, no one was injured. Police and fire fighters were there quickly.

The Suburban newspaper reported that security footage showed the bomber “arriving by car, exiting, breaking the front window and throwing the Molotov.” He or she hasn’t been caught.

So, here’s a question, specifically for Montreal police. But it also applies to police forces across Canada, too. Here it is.

What are you doing, if anything, about the explosion in anti-Semitic crime in your city? Because, everywhere, things are very, very bad.

• A Montreal Jewish school has been shot up – with actual bullets – not once, but twice. You can still see the holes on the facade of Yeshiva Gedola, days later. The police haven’t caught the perpetrator(s).
• A Jewish community centre and synagogue in the Montreal suburb of Dollard-des-Ormeaux were both the targets of firebombs in the middle of the night. The police haven’t caught the perpetrator(s).
• An imam appeared at a pro-Palestine/pro-Hamas rally in Montreal, and said the following about Jews in Arabic: “Allah, count every one of them, and kill them all, and do not exempt even one of them.” The police haven’t arrested him or charged him.

And, now, another bombing of another Jewish institution in Montreal, and no one has been arrested.

That’s the common element in each of those terror attacks: the bad guys haven’t been arrested, let alone detained. They still walk the streets, free as birds.

And, so, there’s been another attack, early on Monday, and right on the Decarie Expressway – which is as busy as the Gardiner in Toronto, or Granville in Vancouver, or the Deefoot in Calgary, or the Queensway in Ottawa.

How can that happen? How can Jews be targeted, over and over and over, in busy neighbourhoods and locations, and no one gets caught? How can that be?

Now, before any of you who live outside Montreal start patting yourselves on the back for doing better? Well, don’t.

On the very same day the Montreal Jewish Community Council was bombed, the Miles Nadal Jewish Community Centre in Toronto – on the edge of the University of Toronto, and on one of the busiest and best-lit streets in the city – was targeted, with foot-high graffiti blood libel: ISRAEL FUNDS GENOCIDE.

And, just days before and down the same busy street, a bookstore that happens to be owned by a Jewish woman, Indigo, was similarly attacked. Eleven adults, among them a paralegal and a music teacher, were later arrested for splashing blood-red paint on the bookstore and postering it with more madness about “funding genocide.”

Across the country, there has been an explosion in other anti-Semitic crimes – and anti-Muslim crimes, too. And, with the exception of the attack on the book store owned by a Jew in Toronto, there hasn’t been much in the way of arrests, has there?

That, despite the fact the crimes have often been committed in areas where there are many people around. That, despite the fact – as with the bullets fired at a Jewish school in Montreal – identical attacks had happened just days before.

Police agencies may be doing their best, but it’s clearly not enough. The Jew-haters (and the Muslim-haters) are getting more bold every single day. When they see that they can shoot guns or toss tombs and get away with it? Well, they’re going to keep going.

We repeat: law enforcement in Canada needs to start enforcing the law. They need to prevent more hate crimes.

Because they’re not doing that.

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