These are worrying times for free speech in this country and it is not helped with the persecution of British Columbia nurse Amy Hamm by the province’s College of Nurses and Midwives.
 

Hamm is the nurse who said sex is binary and also helped pay to put up a sign in Vancouver that declared, “I (heart) J K Rowling.”
 

For these and similar crimes, Hamm has now been suspended from nursing for a month and ordered to pay the shocking and unjustified sum of $93,639.80 in legal costs.
 

With its punitive disciplinary
decision
, the college appears to be saying that you can either shut up or suffer what amounts to a $93,000 fine for exercising your right to free speech.
 

It is a chilling ruling but one that is not surprising given the increasing number of self-important, bloated, authoritarian organizations and professional bodies in Canada that think the Charter right to free speech and free expression is a mere whimsy.
 

What really irked the college — and the very expensive witnesses they called — was that Hamm sometimes identified as a nurse when she used social media to expand on her mainstream views about sex, gender and women’s safe spaces.
 

Hamm first got into trouble with the 2020 billboard supporting the Harry Potter author whose gender critical views have also come under fire.
 

A complaint about the billboard started an investigation by the college’s inquiry committee which resulted in a ridiculous 332-page report about Hamm’s off-duty tweets, articles and other online musings.
 

Hamm found herself being prosecuted for such things as writing, “trans activists determined to infiltrate or destroy women-only spaces” which is discriminatory, according to the disciplinary panel, because it has “a negative connotation of improper, illegal, aggressive, and destructive conduct.”
 

Another problematic post read, “Is there anything more embarrassing than straight people going by they/them, getting a dumb haircut, and calling themselves trans and queer?” which is apparently offensive because it “indirectly disparages transgender people.”
 

The 332-pages morphed into a 20-day disciplinary hearing spread over 19 months. Hamm was eventually
found guilty
of professional misconduct because of four instances where she identified herself as a nurse while apparently making “discriminatory and derogatory” comments.
 

However, as Hamm pointed out: there was no “direct victim”; complainants were “ideological opponents”; no patients were involved and no trans-identified people came forward to provide evidence of harm.
 

But none of that mattered. What mattered was only the “likelihood that trans-identified people would find her statements to be discriminatory and derogatory.”
 

Thus Hamm was punished, not for any harm, but the risk of harm.
 

It was similar reasoning that saw Christian singer Sean Feucht
banned
from so many Canadian venues — for safety reasons which were never detailed.
 

Again, the same rationale — security issues — saw the Toronto International Film Festival
pull
the documentary
The Road Between Us: The Ultimate Rescue
about one family’s experience in Israel on October 7, 2023. (TIFF has now reversed course.)
 

These things are happening, not because we have turned into a nation of “wee timorous beasties,” but because too many organizations have aggregated to themselves the power to decide what is acceptable or not for Canadians to watch, read and hear.
 

The Hamm case is even more disconcerting when you consider the lengths a professional body will go to in terms of energy, resources, money and punishment dished out, to enforce its own particular censorious ideology.
 

Hamm, a nurse for 13 years with an unblemished record, was terminated by Vancouver Coastal Health without severance after the guilty decision. She has not found another nursing job, writes some opinion columns (including for National Post) and is a single mother who receives no child support.
 

Still, the disciplinary panel considered $93,000 in legal costs was not punitive.
 

Who are they kidding?
 

As noted by Hamm during the hearing, “a significant penalty would convey to professionals that they should not speak up on controversial matters based on conscience.”
 

Part of the costs included $38,197.80 to pay for one of the College’s experts, Dr. Greta Bauer, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at Western University, and the Sex and Gender Science Chair for the Canadian Institute of Health Information.
 

It was this very expensive witnesses (whose fee was cut from $63,663 to $38k) who enlightened the college with profound insights that included: it was proper to call mothers “birthing people” because inclusivity was so important; who disagreed “that there are only two sexes” and that “humans cannot change their sex,” and who thought that Hamm was frivolous for saying, “I don’t think it’s possible for women to defend their legal rights, or even the definition of womanhood if anybody can say they’re a woman and it will be so.”
 

Yet Hamm was only saying years ago what others, including the United Nations, are saying now.
 

In a stunning report last month, Reem Alsalem, the UN special rapporteur on violence against women and girls, wrote a full-throated defence of biological sex.
 

The “erosion of women and sex specific language, the conflation of sex, gender and gender identity” was weakening protection for mothers, women and girls, she
wrote
. The legal definition of a women was in danger of being erased, she said.
 

In punishing Hamm, the panel accepted she was sincere in her beliefs.
 

“The Panel accepts that the Respondent’s statements were motivated by her genuine belief that recognition of the rights of transgender women harms the sex-based rights of cisgender women and children.”
 

But in the end, the tyrannical overlords at the college wanted their pound of flesh and were not concerned with Hamm’s motivation, her Charter-protected rights, that she was off duty when she posted online, or that she never actually harmed one single person.
 

In Canada, you are guaranteed the right to free speech, but it might cost you $93,000 for saying it.
 

National Post

• Amy Hamm: I spoke the truth about women’s rights. That isn’t professional misconduct
• Michael Higgins: Musician and pastor Sean Feucht raises community ire by cancelling himself

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Before Pierre Poilievre, before Brian Mulroney, there was one leader who made the federal Conservatives an electoral force to be reckoned with. Before John Diefenbaker, Canada had begun to resemble a Liberal one-party state. Bob Plamondon, author of the new book “Freedom Fighter: John Diefenbaker’s Battle for Canadian Liberties and Independence,” talks with Brian Lilley about how Dief became a political sensation bigger than any other prime minister; how he stood against the Soviets, while standing up to America; and championed equality before it was fashionable. And Plamondon explains how the three-time prime minister created the blueprint for the common-man conservatism that animates the party even today, turning the Tories “from a party of losers into a party of winners.” (Recorded June 26, 2025.)

• Geoff Russ: Diefenbaker was a victim of foreign interference — just like Canada today
• Bob Plamondon: Diefenbaker was a prime minister who knew how to stand up to the U.S.

Earlier this month, the B.C. Supreme Court

refused to overturn

the

decision

of British Columbia’s Hospital Appeal Board that resulted in Dr. Theresa Szezepaniak being suspended, and effectively fired, for refusing the COVID-19 vaccine.

Szezepaniak argued that she should not have been disciplined for refusing to follow Provincial Health Officer Bonnie Henry’s October 2021 public health order (PHO), which required all doctors and nurses working in hospitals to be vaccinated.

Szezepaniak told the court that her being disciplined left a “black mark” on her reputation and violated her Charter right to life, liberty and security of the person, which, she argued, “includes the right to earn an income to support oneself and family.”

Judge Steven Wilson (a Liberal appointee) disagreed. Wilson dismissed the case and concluded that the Charter doesn’t apply, at all, to the circumstances.

It is unfortunate — but unsurprising — news for all British Columbians who have been disciplined and fired for the same reason.

Earlier this year, B.C. saw

another court case

, this one directly challenging the vaccine mandate, dismissed as “moot” at the B.C. Court of Appeal. The case became “moot,” according to the court, after Henry rescinded her mandatory vaccination order. As such, a case that had the potential to create a precedent on freedom from governmental medical coercion was stopped dead in its tracks.

It would appear as though the judiciary is bending over backwards in order to excuse the draconian public health orders that were issued during the pandemic. The Szezepaniak case fundamentally boiled down to whether the punitive actions taken by the hospital were subject to the Charter of Rights.

Most reasonable Canadians would surely agree that given that the Charter applies to the actions of the provincial government, the consequences of an order issued by the province’s chief public health officer and implemented by a government-funded public hospital would also be subject to it.

But Wilson ruled that, “The decision to require all health-care workers including physicians to be vaccinated in order to practice in hospitals was made by the public health officer by way of the PHO. However, the decision regarding how to discipline the hospital medical staff for their breach of the PHO was not subject to governmental control under the Hospital Act, as the responsibility for adopting disciplinary measures for governmental policies rests with the IHA Board.”

In other words, although the government mandated that all health-care workers must be vaccinated, since it didn’t say that unvaccinated staff had to be disciplined or fired, it cannot be said that Szezepaniak’s Charter rights were infringed.

Judge Wilson drove this point home when he wrote: “This case is not about whether the petitioner could be compelled to be vaccinated. Rather, the focus is on the consequences that flow from her decision to decline the vaccine.”

The court has decided that losing one’s job and reputation is no big deal — not the sort of thing that is consequential enough to admit the glaring truth: British Columbians were coerced into taking a vaccine in order to prevent unacceptable and catastrophic consequences in their lives, but those who refused also faced unacceptable consequences for which no one is willing to take responsibility.

Eleven days after Henry issued her PHO on mandatory COVID vaccinations, Szezepaniak, according to her appeal board decision, sent a letter requesting an exemption be made for her on the basis that the order was a violation of her Charter rights. Her letter “also included numerous requests for information related to disclosure of scientific evidence regarding the vaccines and how Charter requirements were being met,” according to the decision.

Szezepaniak’s exemption was denied, and she received no answers to her inquiries. All told, her vaccine refusal forced her to sell her home, move her family, take a job considered (in medicine) a demotion and to disclose to all future employers that she was disciplined and suspended.

Judge Wilson decided that Szezepaniak’s hospital was not acting as a direct agent of the government when it disciplined her — a legal technicality that absolved all parties from considering whether her Charter rights had been violated (though Wilson listed reasons he believes a Charter violation didn’t occur, regardless).

It doesn’t matter how you feel about vaccines. What matters is how much you care about your freedoms — and how much longer you are willing to accept the line that anyone who chooses to fully exercise theirs deserves all of the “consequences” inflicted upon them as a result.

National Post

• Amy Hamm: The Order of Canada has been exposed as a sham
• Amy Hamm: Bonnie Henry only lifted vaccine mandate when it became a threat to the NDP

Saint John’s International Culturefest, according to the festival’s website, is supposed to be “a vibrant celebration of multiculturalism, community, and connection.” But it erupted into chaos on Aug. 2, when demonstrators gathered around an Israel booth, engaging in what some members of the Jewish community have described as threatening and intimidating behaviour culminating in an alleged assault and two arrests. No statement was made by the committee organizing the festival or the local police. The story was largely ignored by local media.

According to an email forwarded to National Post, written by Lorie Cohen Hackett, president of the Saint John Jewish Historical Museum, a demonstration at the festival felt threatening to those volunteering at the Israel booth. Cohen tells members of the museum that both Shaarei Zedek synagogue and the museum “hope for a peaceful and satisfactory resolution.” 

Below her message is one from Bruce Washburn, president of Shaarei Zedek synagogue, who describes to members of his congregation events leading up to an alleged altercation at the booth. According to Washburn, on Friday, Aug. 1, the evening before the International Culturefest, the Israeli flag at the event had been spray painted and had to be replaced with another from the synagogue on Saturday morning.

But this wasn’t all that happened.

On Saturday Aug. 2, at the festival Washburn describes as “an annual celebration of international cultures,” anti-Israel protesters with face coverings “invaded the Israeli space and shot at those attending the booth with water guns filled with red water.”

Washburn noted that when the volunteers “attempted to protect their space, one was physically assaulted, breaking her glasses.” He told congregants, in his email, that the “guarantees of security for the event from the Culturefest Committee were not fulfilled, and there was no apparent police presence at the time of the incident. The incident ended with the arrest of two of the protesters, based on the assault.”

Washburn ended his email saying that the Board of the Congregation “is actively seeking legal advice and remains committed to doing everything we can to restore safety and peace for the Jewish and Israeli community in Saint John and surrounding areas.”

Mohamed Bagha, Managing Director of the Saint John Newcomer’s Centre, which is responsible for the festival, declined a request for comment.

According to Sgt. Shawna Fowler of the Saint John police department, at approximately 2:30 p.m. on the Saturday, police responded to a “call about protesters making their way to the festival.” She pointed out that the caller described them as “Palestinian demonstrators.” Fowler also said that “calls were also received by attendees of the festival who described the protesters as wearing red bags over their heads, carrying signs, and one person was wearing a military uniform and carrying a gun later determined by police to be a water gun filled with red liquid. The protesters were at the Israel booth kneeling, chanting, and facing the crowd.”

According to Fowler, when the police arrived, “organizers advised that an incident had taken place at the Israel table,” and that a woman had been assaulted.

“A female along with witnesses alleged that she was assaulted by a masked protester,” Fowler said. “The police arrested a youth for the assault,” and, “as police were placing the youth under arrest, an adult male, unrelated to the assault was arrested for obstruction.” Both have been released and the adult will appear in court on Nov. 4.

Fowler explained that “police are considering additional charges related to hate crime pending the outcome of the investigation.”

Multiple videos showing the nature of protests were posted to Facebook.

Shortly after the police arrived at the festival, a post was created by Mohamed Elazab, the administrator of a Facebook group called

Ask Saint John

, at 4:02 pm ET. The

post

is titled, “Concerning Incident at the Multicultural Fest in Saint John.” In the post, Elazab complains that the Saint John police arrested and detained a minor who, he claims, was “peacefully protesting in a public space.” He goes on to say that his attached video proves that the minor was “peacefully protesting in a public space.”

Elazab then went on to further complain that when the protesters were arrested, officers did not disclose their names, activate body cameras, or inform the minor or his father for the reason of the detention. He then states that videos are attached for full transparency.

While the three videos don’t capture the alleged assault, what they do capture is an intimidating, threatening circus involving adults and children.

In the

first video

, before the arrests, a camera is pointed directly at the Israel booth and its volunteers. What appears in front of the camera is chaotic.

Three women in headscarves and one without face the booth, clapping as they chant: “1,2,3,4 — Occupation no more! 5,6,7,8 — Israel is a terrorist state!”

In front of the women, a man can be seen to their left holding a sign that says, “This is the

only

culture Israel has.” as he walks around a circle of individuals, including what appears to be young children, sitting on the ground with bags over their heads and their hands behind their backs while two men wearing army gear and helmets stand there with their faces covered.

A man to the right of the camera wearing a hat and sunglasses appears, motions his arms to the demonstrators, and says “Go away,” several times, shaking his head. A woman with a hijab moves closer and starts to film him with her phone.

The man recording the video then says, “Freedom of speech!”

The man with the hat replies, “This is not the time and place for this. This is a place to celebrate differences.”

At this point, one of the army-clothed, helmet-wearing, face-covered individuals can be seen carrying a water gun, possibly the gun that was allegedly filled with red water which was pointed and shot at the Israel booth volunteers.

The man holding the camera yells, “Free Palestine!” The camera pans to the left to show others joining the chant which has switched to “No more murders! No more lies!”

In front of the Israeli booth, two women can be seen holding the Israel flag, which, if what Washburn said is true, is a replacement for the one which was spraypainted the evening before. This whole time, a woman with a headcovering has been holding what appears to be two fake dead babies directly in front of the booth, one could argue impeding, or at least deterring, it from being visited by festival goers.

What appears to be the

second video

is only 30 seconds long. This one, taken by a woman, shouting various phrases, including, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” as she and others appear to move closer to the two volunteers at the booth.

What happens next is unclear. It looks as if one of the women at the Israel booth extends her phone into the crowd immediately front of her. Then, she backs up, presumably into the booth. The other female volunteer puts both of her hands up to signal stop.

The

third video

, taken by a different person than the first two, shows police officers arresting one of the individuals who was wearing army gear and a helmet with their faces covered. Objections ring out from those supporting the demonstrators. One woman in a headscarf complains as he’s arrested, “He’s a minor!” She follows the police with a camera as they remove him from the area.

“This is a public space,” is yelled out by the man who was recording earlier, along with, “Freedom of speech!” over and over and over, again.

The camera then pans to another individual who is being arrested. He’s wearing a red bag over his head and must be the adult who was arrested and charged.

A demonstrator in a jailbird jumpsuit yells, “You’re arresting kids now. We have kids in this. You IDF mother——s. Support Israel, you b—ch!”

Then demonstrators, some cloaked in headscarves and keffiyehs and some not, start following the police as they remove the man who puts his finger in the air, with the red bag still over his head, and yells, “Freedom of Speech!”

Later in the video, the police are confronted by protesters holding phones in their faces. One woman yells at them, “You guys are terrorists! Stealing… kidnapping children off the streets!” The individual in the jailbird suit yells, “The Saint John police are arresting a minor without parental consent!” The Saint John police are f—ing Nazis!”

At the end of the video, an individual instructs the man in the jailbird suit to “record everything” and “take them to the court…. “You will win it…. You will make them pay money, by the way… “Come here, I will tell you what to do. “Ask for the badge number and name and the reason for detention. You need to ask for this. Then you need to take them make a statement in the police. Don’t be violent, okay?

“I’m not violent, I’m just blathering,” the jailbird answers him.

“Just say, freedom of speech, or whatever.” The video ends with the jailbird following these instructions and asking an officer for their badge number.

What about freedom from intimidation, harassment, and allegedly, violence?

According to Esti Barlevy, the volunteer at the booth who wasn’t allegedly assaulted, organizers of the festival had warned both the Newcomer’s Centre and police that a protest had been planned for that day, and that they were concerned about safety. Still, she says, police left the area early and returned only after the alleged assault.

According to Barlevy, organizers had assured volunteers at the Israeli booth that police would be present, but they left early. She says that around 2 p.m., a pro-Palestinian rally marched into the festival and stopped in front of their booth.

Barlevy told National Post that, “At some point, protesters came very close to us shouting, threatening, and defacing our materials by spraying red ink from water guns onto our books, our flag, and even the volunteers at the booth. When one of our female volunteers attempted to stop them from coming at us, she was punched in the face, sustaining a mild concussion and damage to her glasses.” (Saint John police did not confirm the details of the assault). Not long afterward, police arrived and arrested two individuals.

Barlevy describes it as “a deeply frightening experience,” which makes her “long for the Canada (she) once knew, a place where everyone, no matter their background, could feel safe. We came here with dreams of building a better future for our children, believing Canada was a place of peace, acceptance, and respect.” Barlevy came to Canada from Israel in 2015.

Local media were either unaware of, or ignored the story. No statements were made to the public by the local police or the festival’s manager.

What did make it to the

local news

that day was an announcement from Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Canadian Identity and Culture, that $61,000 would be invested in the festival by the federal government.

Guilbeault’s

statement

about the investment notes that it is to support “events that celebrate Canada’s cultural diversity strengthens communities by bringing people together and providing a platform to share our stories, heritage and traditions, helping build a stronger, more united Canada.”

This year’s Saint John International Culturefest appeared to do the opposite.

National Post

@TLNewmanMTL

tnewman@postmedia.com

• Michael Taube: Of course globally focused Carney hasn’t opened his constituency office yet
• Opinion: Europe faces the Koreanization of Ukraine

U.S. President Donald Trump claimed that he would negotiate a ceasefire deal for Ukraine at his Alaska summit last Friday. Yet, he failed and found himself once again outplayed by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who got
much of what he wanted
from the White House while conceding fairly little. Though Trump now seems to support the idea of ceding a key Ukrainian province in exchange for giving Kyiv NATO-style security guarantees, the details here, or lack thereof, warrant a great deal of pessimism.

Expectations for the summit were low from the beginning amongst the Ukrainians I spoke with in Odesa, as well as influential online political commentators in the country, as many suspected that the event’s existence would simply delay harsher sanctions against Russia and its trading partners.

While European and American lawmakers have been eager to economically punish Moscow for months, Trump
has intervened
whenever they have moved to do so and has repeatedly insisted that, based on his friendly conversations with Putin, Ukraine and its allies should commit to peace talks instead.

But these talks have invariably failed, thanks to Russia’s
unreasonable demands
. Among other things, Putin has insisted that a negotiated settlement can only be achieved if Ukraine cedes four of its provinces — Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson — and that the Ukrainians scrap all of their international security alliances and “demilitarize” themselves by shrinking their armed forces to a token size.

Such concessions would guarantee Ukraine’s future vassalization or full annexation, especially because most of the current frontlines, and ergo most of the country’s defensive fortifications, are located within these provinces. As such, Kyiv has never been in a position to agree to Russia’s maximalist terms: how can a government willingly accede to its nation’s future dismemberment?

While Ukraine’s European allies
have long understood
that Putin is not serious about peace, Trump seemed to only grasp this fact last month. Citing Russia’s relentless attacks upon Ukrainian civilians, the American president’s rhetoric towards Russia
abruptly soured
. He accused Putin of spewing “bulls–t” and “meaningless” talk, and issued an ultimatum: sign a ceasefire by early August or face the consequences.

But then the deadline came and nothing really happened.

Rather than
impose 100 per cent tariffs
on Russia and its trading partners, as had been threatened, Trump only slapped a
25 per cent tariff
on India, the world’s second-largest purchaser of Russian oil and gas, while sparing other customers. He concurrently announced his Alaska summit, and argued that further sanctions should wait amid renewed peace talks.

The development was perplexing: why had Trump suddenly regained his faith in Putin? And why did he have any reason to believe that a deal could be found if Russia had not given any indication that it would seriously rethink its demands? Yet his optimism seemed earnest, as his behind-the-scenes
lobbying for a Nobel Peace Prize
intensified around this time.

In the lead up to the summit, U.S. officials reportedly offered Russia
access to Alaska’s natural resources
— especially rare earth minerals — if a peace deal were signed. The event’s guest list suggested that Russo-American economic cooperation might be a major theme, echoing Trump’s previous fixation on the potential value of a trade alliance.

Perhaps the idea was to strike some grand bargain — one that could not only bring peace to Europe, but
peel Russia away from China
and lock Beijing out of the Arctic. If these were indeed the White House’s aspirations, they were quickly shattered.

On the day of the summit, Putin and his entourage were given a
red carpet entrance
. They
allegedly came armed
with a trove of historical documents which, according to them, showed that Ukraine is an artificial nation and that Ukrainians are, in fact, nothing more than wayward Russians. Foreign Affairs Minister Sergey Lavrov wore
jeans and a sweater
bearing the letters “CCCP” (cyrillic for “USSR”) — curiously, no one hectored him for not wearing a suit.

The symbolism was clear: Moscow’s representatives did not recognize the cultural, let alone political, independence of Ukraine, and
remained nostalgic
for Russia’s erstwhile Soviet glory, imperium and all.

At the beginning, everyone seemed happy. The two presidents shared a short, private limousine ride together, with Trump
smiling like a child
meeting his favourite celebrity. Then the delegations came together for their private negotiations and, although the Kremlin had originally estimated that these talks would last six or seven hours, something
evidently went wrong
: just three hours later, both sides walked out, stonefaced.

The presidents held a “press conference” where no questions were permitted. No ceasefire deal had been made, but Trump said that they had come to an “agreement” on unspecified points, while Putin alluded to an “understanding” between the two men. Putin
dominated the podium
, speaking for eight minutes and expounding on Alaska’s Russian history, while Trump, normally so loquacious, spoke for only three.

Documents
discovered in the public printer
of a nearby hotel indicate that the White House had originally planned to host a luncheon “in honor of his excellency Vladimir Putin,” but that was abruptly cancelled. The Russians flew home early, but nonetheless saw the meeting as a victory: had they not shown that they were equals to the Americans, and that they were not, in fact, diplomatically isolated?

Although Trump had said, on his way to Alaska, that
he would impose
“severe consequences” if Putin did not agree to an immediate ceasefire, none materialized. In fact, after the summit,
Trump pivoted
and denied that a ceasefire deal was necessary at all, and argued that Russia and Ukraine should focus on negotiating a full peace agreement first, and that other countries should refrain from imposing new sanctions while talks continue.

This was a huge win for Moscow, which has
long insisted
that any ceasefire should come at the end of the peace process, not the beginning, presumably so Russian forces can press their advantages and weaken Kyiv’s negotiation position. So not only did Trump save the sputtering Russian economy from tougher sanctions for the foreseeable future, he also reframed the entire peace process to better suit Moscow’s needs.

After the summit, Trump briefed Zelenskyy and several allied leaders on Putin’s demands. He
reportedly
told them that Putin had proposed freezing the frontlines in Zaporizhzhia and Kherson in exchange for receiving full control of the Donetsk province — which is a plan that Trump
reportedly now supports
.

But this would be disastrous. Ukraine spent the past 11 years
establishing a “fortress belt” of heavily fortified cities
and towns in the centre of Donetsk, which now serve as the core of the country’s defences. Russia has tried to conquer this belt for over a year, but has seen only very slow and costly progress. Ceding this territory would leave central Ukraine exposed, and would require Kyiv to quickly rebuild its fortifications in bordering provinces where the terrain is poorly suited for defence. In contrast, the benefits of freezing the frontlines in Zarporzhzhia and Kherson would be marginal, as Russia does not have any momentum there.

To put things another way: though Putin slightly diluted his demands (by focusing on Donetsk, and not all four provinces), the consequences of his proposal would remain catastrophic. There is no reason why Ukraine should give away its shield for nothing.

However, on Sunday, U.S. Special Envoy Steve Witkoff

said
that during the Alaska summit Putin agreed to have the United States and European countries provide Ukraine with NATO-style security guarantees, without formal NATO membership, as part of the peace deal. Also Sunday, U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer praised the plan, though U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio was less definitive on specific American security guarantees. Further complicating things, reporting by Axios suggests that Putin proposed including
China
as a security guarantor.

While this sounds promising, the devil will be in the details. Back in early 2022, during the first round of Istanbul peace talks, Moscow proposed establishing a coalition of security guarantors for Ukraine in exchange for Kyiv’s demilitarization and Russian annexation of Ukrainian land. The caveat, though, was that Russia wanted to be one of

these guarantors

, and wanted a system where any guarantor could veto the military intervention of any other member. In other words: these security guarantees would have been useless — a scam, really — because Moscow would have had control over whether they were exercised.

Given the inconsistent messaging coming out of Washington and the allegation that Russia wants China, its close ally, inserted into any security assurances for Ukraine, a heaping dose of skepticism is warranted — at least until more details are disclosed. Promises can be cheap, misleading and rife with loopholes. This is a reality that Ukrainians sorely understand, given that, in 1994,

they gave up their nuclear arsenal

in exchange for American and Russian security guarantees that turned out to be useless.

With Zelenskyy now slated to visit the White House on Monday, one has to wonder: will the United States embrace appeasement, and, if so, will it expect Ukraine to do the same?

National Post

In Steven Spielberg’s

Minority Report
, set in 2054, crime has been eliminated thanks to psychics who predict wrongdoing before it happens. “Pre-criminals” are arrested for “Pre-crimes” they haven’t committed. But the visions are flawed and open to manipulation. The dark side of “pre-crime” is totalitarianism disguised as public safety. The film is a timeless warning about the tension between liberty and security.

That warning is increasingly relevant. In recent years, governments and institutions have embraced what’s been called

safetyism
: the belief that safety, especially from physical or emotional harm, should override all other values, including freedom, autonomy and open debate. When safety becomes the highest good, risk becomes intolerable, state control is normalized “for your own good,” and dissent is cast as dangerous.

Consider the uproar over American Christian worship singer Sean Feucht’s performances in Canada. Several cities cancelled or denied his permits under the guise of “

health and safety,”
 not just physical safety, but protecting people from ideas or language they might find upsetting.

Or take Nova Scotia’s sweeping ban on all forest activity this summer without a permit, accompanied by $25,000 fines (plus tax and a victim’s surcharge). Concerned about fire risk, the provincial government issued a proclamation under the

Forests Act
to prohibit far more than what is needed to prevent fires, including fishing from barren rock, walking a dog on a trail, or having a picnic. Its reasoning: anyone in the woods might do something dangerous, like lighting a campfire or committing arson.

Punishing people who violate burn bans is reasonable. Treating every nature lover as a potential criminal is

Minority Report
logic, incompatible with a free society.
Some
defenders of the forest lockdown have even
argued
that hikers could cause fires by dropping water bottles that might, in a remote theoretical scenario, focus sunlight like a magnifying glass. By that standard, we could justify banning almost anything: driving, swimming, or stepping outside. Such fears say more about an individual’s risk tolerance than actual danger.

This “safety above all else” mindset has been used repeatedly to justify government overreach. It was cited in 2022 to invoke the

Emergencies Act
against the non-violent Freedom Convoy protests. It underpinned the Trudeau government’s decision to list all plastic manufactured items, from straws and bags to hard hats and medical equipment, as “toxic” under federal environmental law. It drives “bubble zone” laws that prioritize emotional comfort for some while stripping others of constitutionally protected free speech and assembly rights.

History shows where such thinking can lead. The Canadian Constitution Foundation recently released a

report
documenting some of the worst abuses of rights in the name of safety. In 1942, the federal government forcibly removed 22,000 Japanese Canadians from their homes, seized their property and confined them in internment camps, all under the pretext of national security after Pearl Harbor, despite no evidence of espionage or sabotage by Japanese Canadians.

Safety was also the rationale for keeping Canadians locked down for so long during COVID-19. It justified the mass arrests at Toronto’s 2010 G20 summit, where police detained over 1,100 people, mostly peaceful protesters, journalists, legal observers and bystanders. It was the stated reason for Pierre Trudeau’s invocation of the

War
Measures Act
during the 1970 October Crisis, which suspended civil liberties nationwide. This led to restrictions on public assembly, hundreds of people arrested and held without charge, the suspension of
habeas corpus
, warrantless searches, and detention without legal counsel.

When governments define everything as dangerous, everything becomes subject to control. When we are all treated as pre-criminals, we become “too dangerous” to have rights. This is the same thinking that has enabled the worst abuses in our history.

Safety matters, but when it eclipses freedom, it becomes a weapon. We should be wary of leaders who promise to keep us safe at any cost, because history shows that cost is our liberty.

National Post

Christine Van Geyn is the litigation director for the Canadian Constitution Foundation.

Read the full CFF report on “safetyism” at:

theccf.ca/safetyism/

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The 911 calls started pouring in to Montreal police ​around 4:40 p.m. Friday, as the Jewish shabbat neared: A man wearing a long white robe and a keffiyeh-style headscarf was threatening people on a residential street in the city’s Saint-Laurent borough.

“We will kill you all,” he shouts at an identifiably Jewish man in one video of the incident.

In one clip being widely shared on social media, he appears to be shouting at someone wearing a kippah: “We will f—ing kill you, OK you f—ing pig.”

A second video shows him pointing to the sky and declaring: “I’m just waiting for the order of the king … There is one king — Allah.”

The disturbing footage underscored how frightening the confrontation was for residents. At no time did they shout back or respond angrily.

Police officers quickly located a 28-year-old suspect and took him into custody. He remains detained pending a court appearance, with the case now in the hands of the Montreal police hate crimes unit. Charges are likely based on the videos.

Sources indicate the man does not live in Saint-Laurent but likely attends a mosque in the borough. That fact risks further inflaming tensions in a neighbourhood where Jewish and Muslim families live side by side in the post-October 7 world. It also highlights the challenge facing Saint-Laurent Mayor Alan DeSousa: preventing a faraway conflict from spilling into the streets of his borough.

DeSousa says he has worked proactively to promote harmony between Jewish and Muslim residents, but Friday’s outburst has raised the stakes. In its aftermath, he ordered more visibility from the borough’s security patrols and secured assurances from the local Montreal police commander that police presence would be increased.

CIJA JOINT STATEMENT WITH @FederationCJA

As Shabbat comes in, a video is circulating showing an individual threatening members of the Jewish community.
 
The individual was spotted during the week. A Police report was filed and thanks to focused and specific pictures of the… pic.twitter.com/szd6BpPuA2

— CIJA (@CIJAinfo) August 15, 2025

He also planned to meet with Jewish community leaders as soon as Saturday night to send a clear message: “We’ve got their backs.”

Since October 7, Saint-Laurent has increased security resources around both Jewish and Muslim institutions. The mayor has made a point of underscoring that coexistence is not up for debate. “No hate or even disrespect will be tolerated,” he added.

But the mayor knows his borough can’t shoulder this burden alone. He is calling on other levels of government to get more proactive with preventative measures. He has appealed directly to Montreal’s mayor, as well as provincial and federal leaders, to not only take the threat of hate and intimidation more seriously but to do so publicly.

DeSousa told me Saturday morning: “The Jewish community has to feel safe in the community.”

Friday’s arrest is about more than one man’s outburst. It speaks to the growing climate of intimidation that has taken root in Montreal and beyond. What starts as heated words can quickly spiral into something more dangerous. In this case, swift police intervention prevented escalation.

But the fear among Jewish residents — especially after a week in which a Montreal father was beaten on the street, and Jewish marchers in the Pride parade were doused in urine — is real, and it will not subside easily.

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TULSA, OKLAHOMA — Over the past few weeks, my inbox has been flooded with frightened and heartbreaking messages from Canadian Jews. Many are scared and looking for ways out of Canada, telling deeply personal stories of fear, marginalization, and hopelessness.

I had

shared

in these pages my family’s reasons for choosing to leave Canada — Vancouver, specifically — to pursue opportunities in the U.S., and obviously hit a nerve with National Post readers.

Curious, I asked Tulsa Tomorrow, the amazing program that assisted my family in our relocation to Oklahoma, if they could pinpoint where their site traffic was coming from. The results were stunning, though I guess it shouldn’t have been.

As of the end of July, when my op-ed was published, 34 per cent of their site visits came from Canada — an extraordinarily high number, considering Tulsa Tomorrow’s mission is primarily aimed at attracting Jews from within the United States to the city of Tulsa.

Yet, is it that surprising? Strikingly,

106,134

Canadians left Canada in 2024, the highest recorded since 1967. Another

27,086

left in the first quarter of 2025 predicating potentially another record high year. Most aren’t Jewish, but make no mistake: A high number of Canadian Jews are actively exploring “exit strategies.”

Exiting is a heartbreaking, but all too familiar result for Jewish families. We are now following in the footsteps of our ancestors, forced to leave countries that have turned hostile toward our people. History is repeating itself. The pleas of the Jewish community cause me sleepless nights thinking about what can be done for Jewish families in a seemingly hostile country.

The acceptance of antisemitism in Canada is being compounded by the current tensions between Canada and its closest neighbour (as John Ralston Saul called the U.S., Canada’s Siamese Twin). Politicians are stoking resentment toward America, which has turned into an illogical hatred toward Americans as a whole. Canadians are understandably frustrated, but I’d argue this “frustration” is being weaponized by political forces at both the federal and provincial levels, eager to use it to consolidate their power and move their legislative agenda.

At a time of a hostile incoming U.S. administration, Justin Trudeau’s decision to prorogue the government in January 2025 contributed to the increased tension between the Siamese twins when it allowed the Liberals to remain in power in the absence of a functional government. This may have caused Canada to potentially lose the trade war with the U.S., or at best, fall far behind other countries by the time the new government was sworn in.

Since the prorogation there have been more eyebrow-raising actions taken during negotiations that makes one wonder if they are not provocative for political means, versus the well-being of Canada as a whole. The announcement refusing to scrap the Digital Service Tax ,along with the recent declaration by Prime Minister Mark Carney to recognize a Palestinian state, are but two examples where some might say that Canada unnecessarily provoked negotiations during a delicate moment.

Throughout history, state-sanctioned antisemitism was used as a tool by governments to blame Jewish communities for the problems the country faced. The current policy of complacency, virtue signaling, and hostility towards Israel by the Canadian federal and provincial governments, is being interpreted by some as a form of sanctioning, even if this is not intended.

When it comes to antisemitism, the absence of real action has been a sort of kindling for the bonfire we are all witnessing. For those in Canada, believe your lying eyes. History does not necessarily repeat itself, but sure does rhyme.

We, in the United States, hear your plea. Many of us have family, friends, and colleagues in Canada who are enduring the climate of hostility. We feel your pain.

To my Canadian Jewish siblings, I say this: Do not hate Americans because of Trump, just as Americans should not hate Canadians by Trudeau or Carney. Our governments may try to divide us, but our people do not have to be divided.

If you have decided that now is the time to leave, know that you are not alone. You are seeing storm clouds on the horizon. The bond between Jews in the U.S. and Canada is stronger than politics, conjoined by a continent and stronger than the forces that seek to drive us apart.

We are listening and we will not let history repeat itself in silence.

Michael A. Sachs is a Canadian/American Jewish community leader, strategist and writer who has held several leadership roles within the Vancouver Jewish community. He is now Senior Director at Jewish Federation of Tulsa.

National Post

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