If you’re going to finally confirm that justice was obstructed to hide obstruction of justice, when would you do that?

When voters are focussed on a bloody war in the Middle East, probably.

There are lot of moving parts in that lede. Let us explain.

And here’s one truism, which is eternal: if you’re in government, and you’ve got bad news coming out – “taking out the trash,” as they say – then you need to come up with something else to distract readers/viewers/listeners. You need to “change the channel.”

The Justin Trudeau government are masters at it. They may not be very good at actually governing. But at changing the channel? They’re without equal.

Trudeau was dropping in the polls, so he announced a shiny new cabinet. He was getting hammered on the Chinese election interference story, so he picked a fight with some Premiers on health care funding. And, of course, whenever any unhelpful issue raises its head, Team Trudeau will haul out that hoary old chestnut, abortion, to distract. And so on.

This week, they did it again. For four years or so, the RCMP had wanted to investigate allegations that Trudeau and his circle obstructed justice. That is, that they tried to get former Attorney General Jody Wilson Raybould to stop a prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, a big Liberal Party donor, for corruption.

Eleven people in and around Trudeau’s PMO did that, we now know, at least 44 times in 2018. Each time, Wilson Raybould refused – and she ultimately was driven out of government, and the Liberal Party, for refusing to do what would almost certainly be obstruction of justice.

And, now, we have learned that the RCMP wanted to investigate whether crimes had been committed. But they couldn’t – because Trudeau and his cabinet refused to cooperate.

In 2021, as the Mounties were nearing of a months-long probe into obstruction of justice in the SNC-Lavalin scandal, they hit a roadblock: Trudeau et al. wouldn’t give them access to cabinet documents about what went on. The RCMP commissioner personally made the request, no less, and was rebuffed.

Documents finally released this week – while war was raging in Israel and Gaza – revealed that the RCMP had “pushed as hard as possible,” and “exhausted all avenues” to get the evidence they needed to justify prosecution. But, in true Tricky Dick Nixon fashion, the Trudeau cabal said no.

The RCMP needed Trudeau’s gang to waive cabinet confidence and show them the evidence.

But Trudeau wouldn’t. As result, the damning documents declared, the RCMP concluded it had “insufficient evidence” to purse the case any further.

To some folks, this seems outrageous (it is) and shocking evidence of the Mounties’ ineffectiveness (it isn’t). Here’s why: section 39 of the Canada Evidence Act prevents cabinet secrets from becoming public from as long as 20 years. The bar is absolute. If the cabinet says no, the police can’t overrule them.

(That’s not all: if a police force wants to serve a search warrant or conduct an interview with an MP on Parliament Hill, they can’t. The Speaker can stop them – and, in the past, has done so more than once.)

So, Canada is a democracy, yes. But, in this democracy, some of us are more equal than others.

The rest of us can’t stonewall a police criminal investigation indefinitely. But Prime Ministers and cabinet ministers can. And, as we saw this week, they did.

It’s like obstruction of justice to cover up an obstruction of justice, you might say.

And, what better time to finally admit it, than when Canadians’ are paying attention to the war in the Middle East?

 

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It “brings progress.”

That’s what a Canadian union leader said, the day after Hamas massacred hundreds of Israeli men, women and children. “Progress.”

Three student unions at a major Canadian university called Hamas’ terrorism “a strong act of resistance” – and called Israel a “so-called” country. “Resistance.”

At street protests across the country, Hamas is celebrated. In Toronto, they waved the flag of Hamas, a listed terror group in this country. Someone else brought along the flag of the Taliban – which 158 Canadians lost their lives fighting, not so long ago.

They played recordings of the sounds of Hamas’ missiles landing, and mocked “Zionists.” They chanted cheerily about an ancient slaughter of Jews.

There have been rallies in support of Israel and its people, yes. But since Hamas’ October 7 mass-murder of more than 1,300 Israelis, there have been too many unambiguous expressions of support for terror. Here, in Canada.

For murder.

In other places, you’re not allowed to advocate for murder and genocide. Britain’s Home Office has drawn up plans to expel students and others who express support for Hamas. France’s Interior Minister has banned all public demonstrations in support of Hamas.

In Canada – apart from some editorials in newspapers, and performative condemnations by politicians – we have done nothing. Zero. We have instead permitted the willful and open promotion of murder.

Enough.

We are a country of laws. We are a country of laws with reasonable limits on what people can say. Just as it is a crime to threaten to kill or harm another person in Canada, it is a crime to promote hatred.

Section 319 of the Criminal Code of Canada says that you cannot willfully promote hatred against an identifiable group, like Jews. Section 318 makes it a crime to promote genocide against an identifiable group. Like Jews.

This writer has been part of a successful effort to prosecute, convict and jail two Toronto men who willfully promoted hatred against Jews and women. It was overdue, and it was the right thing to do.

We now need to do likewise with those who would advocate for the homicidal subhumans who make up Hamas and its ilk. We need to make it unlawful to willfully promote and defend terrorism.

Don’t we have a law like that already, some ask? Well, we used to. We used to have section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act, which prohibited communications which were “likely to expose a person or persons to hatred or contempt.”

It was a non-criminal sanction, that mainly provided for fines. It was a sensible law that worked. But the government of Stephen Harper stupidly, cravenly got rid of it. Leaving us only with the criminal law to fight expressions of hatred.

Expressions of hatred, mainly online, exploded after section 13 was abolished by the Tories.  The government of Justin Trudeau has made no serious effort to bring it back. And, as we’ve seen in the past few days, too many Canadians have taken that as a license to advocate for terror.

Freedom of speech is precious, yes. But sections 318 and 319 of the Criminal Code require the approval of the Attorney General to initiate a prosecution. That is a high bar.  We could do that for a new law that prohibits the willful promotion of terrorism and terror groups.

That would protect Canadians constitutional right to free expression and free speech. But it would also ensure that we finally have a tool to end expressions of support for terror.

It’s time. This has gone on for too long, and it is only going to get worse.

Enough.

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Terrorist.

And, here we go again.

The definition of “terrorist” is someone who is prepared to use violence to achieve some political objective. It’s not complicated.

At the CBC, however – and other news organizations, to be fair – the word “terrorist” is apparently verboten. CBC, and other media organizations, this week decreed that the word “militant” should be used to describe Hamas and their ilk. Not terrorist.

In a week where we are bearing witness to unspeakable horrors – in a week where we were provided with proof that Hamas actually killed babies last Saturday – it all seems insane, offensive, absurd. People in the Middle East are literally burying their dead and trying to stay alive, and over here we are debating semantics.

But we do that a lot, don’t we? Far from the front lines, some of us in the West expend a lot of energy on word games. Some of us think it’s meaningful.

It isn’t. It’s stupid. It’s a waste of time.

And, what happened is indisputably terrorism.

But if you think that the subhumans who murdered babies care what we call them, you are living in a fantasy world. If you think that innocent Israelis (and innocent Palestinians) – cowering in bombshelters, listening to death thud all around them – are preoccupied with semantics this week, you’re dreaming.

But still,  some of us over here still do it. Perhaps it makes us feel we are making a meaningful contribution.

When I started off in journalism, as a teenager, I would get to interview rock stars. I didn’t make any money doing it, but it was fun.

I did it for years: I interviewed everyone from Meat Loaf to Ted Nugent to the Sex Pistols. Every so often, one of them would complain to me about being pigeonholed in one genre or another.

Backstage one night in Vancouver with The Clash, I raised the subject with the legendary punk band’s lead singer, Joe Strummer. Stummer smiled and stuck an index finger in my chest.

“Punk rock, rock ‘n’ roll, it doesn’t matter what you call it,” he said. “The kid who is hearing the song, hearing the words, decides. The kid knows what to call it.”

The same goes for the families of the 1,200 Israelis who were slaughtered in cold blood one week ago. They know; they decide.

It was terrorism. It was mass murder. It was genocide. It was the darkest hatred. It was evil made flesh.

So, my advice is this: don’t get upset by what CBC calls it. Don’t waste time complaining to them.

Because, when all is said and done, when someone refuses to call terrorism what it is, which is terrorism? When they ignore the literal definition of “terrorist?”

It defines them, too.

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