On Monday, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and deputy leader Melissa Lantsman

publicly deplored the seven-year sentence

that might be facing Tamara Lich and Chris Barber on Wednesday. They were key organizers and spokespeople for the 2022 Freedom Convoy that eventually parked itself in downtown Ottawa and didn’t leave for three weeks.

They won’t necessarily get that sentence. That’s the Crown’s strikingly harsh request. But the Conservatives probably had to say something, to placate the base — even if they regret how strongly they supported the convoy at first, which I suspect they do.

I’m not sure they had to go quite as scorched earth as they did, however.

“While rampant violent offenders are released hours after their most recent charges and antisemitic rioters vandalize businesses, terrorize daycares and block traffic without consequences, the Crown wants seven years prison time for the charge of mischief for Lich and Barber,”

Poilievre said in an online statement

.

Lantsman took it a step further,

alleging the requested sentence amounted to an act of “political vengeance.”

Such allegations — that the Crown is essentially following orders from Ottawa — are always going to get up Laurentian noses and generate negative press. Negative press isn’t a bad thing for Poilievre among his base, but they certainly took a risk here. The occupation was unpopular among Conservatives and Liberals alike.

Poilievre has a point, however, and the conclusion Lantsman draws is one of few coherent explanations on offer.

In isolation, seven years for what Lich and Barber did would probably strike most Canadians as excessive. (Among all the criticisms of Poilievre’s and Lantsman’s statements that I have read, I have not seen anyone actually defend the Crown’s sentencing request.)

In comparison to what we read in the news week in and week out, it’s downright incomprehensible.

Funnily enough, just last week, another notable convicted criminal recently got a sentence of seven years.

His name is Jamal Joshua Malik Wheeler

, whose criminal record in July 2023 included three attacks on total strangers on Edmonton’s public transit system. He mugged one transit rider using an axe, which got him a 14-month sentence. He punched another, sending him onto the LRT tracks. He sprayed three others with bear spray.

He was out on bail, conditions of which included staying away from public-transit property, when he fatally stabbed 52-year-old father of six Rukinisha Nkundabatware, a total stranger. Originally charged with second-degree murder, Wheeler was allowed to plead guilty to manslaughter. And yes, his sentence was seven years — the ridiculously low end of the Crown’s ask.

And then on Monday, the Crown, defence and judge in a Quebec courtroom coughed up an absolute hall-of-fame sentence. In October 2014, Oumaima Chouay admits, she decamped for Turkey and then Syria, and signed up with the nice folks at ISIL. She married a fellow traveller, had two kids, and in 2017 was captured and imprisoned by Syrian Democratic Forces.

Canada brought her home in 2022.

Chouay pleaded guilty

to participating in a terrorist group’s activities, which carries a sentence of up to 10 years. Her sentence, no word of a lie: One day, plus three years of probation.

“The recommended sentence here takes into consideration the early, ongoing, demonstrated and independently evaluated steps … Chouay has taken to demonstrate remorse, take responsibility, (and) commit to fundamental change and a rejection of extremist ideology,” Director of Public Prosecutions George Dolhai

said in a statement

. “This addresses the ultimate goal of protecting the community.”

Accepting that for the sake of somewhat dubious argument, there are other goals to sentencing, among them denunciation and deterrence. Indeed, one argument for throwing the book at Lich and Barber is to redress public outrage over the Ottawa occupation. I dare say there’s a fair degree of public outrage in Canada over citizens taking up arms with ISIL and repeat offenders reoffending yet again while out on bail — sometimes with lethal consequences.

Apparently that’s not worthy of redress.

One significant difference is that the Ottawa occupation was much bigger, national news than either of these cases. The hyper-concentration of Canadian media resources in Ottawa meant blanket coverage, from reporters on the street to pundits at their keyboards and in TV studios. And it united people across the political spectrum: Only a week into the occupation,

Angus Reid found 53 per cent of Conservative voters

felt the protesters should “go home now, (having) made their point.”

Objectively outrageous sentences like seven years for killing a stranger or one day for joining up with terrorists don’t get the same treatment. For reasons that escape me, few progressive Canadians seem to get publicly worked up about them. It’s not that they actively

support

such sentences. (I don’t think

anyone

supports a mere seven years for stabbing a random stranger to death.) They just seem reticent to speak their minds about it … and many also seem happy to cheer on the prospect of a seven-year sentence for mischief.

That speaks to perhaps the most depressing part of this particular battle: When it comes to protest, a distressingly large number of Canadians are raging hypocrites. They supported the convoy and the occupation, which shut down the nation’s capital for three weeks, but want anti-Israel protesters hauled off in handcuffs after 90 minutes. And the reverse is absolutely true as well: The difference between the anti-Israel protests and the convoy is that the former are good and the latter was bad.

This is not fertile ground for the total justice-system overhaul this country needs to take root.

National Post

cselley@postmedia.com

• Chris Selley: No jail time for accessory to a killing? Is anyone OK with this?
• Michael Higgins: Locking Tamara Lich up for 7 years would be shameful retribution

Let’s stop pretending the Middle East is complicated.

Israel wants to live. Its enemies want it gone. That’s been true since 1948, and it’s still true today. Every time Israel defends itself, people are quick to condemn. Every time it fights to exist, critics demand it explain itself. But ask yourself honestly: what would you do if your neighbours wanted to burn your house down?

From day one, Israel has been fighting for survival. The day it declared independence, five Arab armies attacked, not over borders or policy, but because they couldn’t accept a Jewish state. Israel won, barely. Then came 1967, the Six-Day War. Surrounded and threatened with annihilation, Israel struck first. It won again, then offered land for peace. The Arab world responded:”No peace, no recognition, no negotiations.”

And the latest was so brutal and savage, and yet within hours, the world turned on Israel again.

On October 7, 2023, Hamas crossed into Israel and carried out one of the worst massacres of Jews since the Holocaust. They murdered babies, burned families alive, and took hostages. It wasn’t resistance. It was hatred, deliberate and unrelenting.

And still, when Israel fights back, the world tells it to be measured, to show restraint. Try diplomacy, they say, with people who want to kill them. When Israel responded to rocket fire from Gaza in 2014, it was accused of using disproportionate force. When it targeted Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006, it faced global protests. Even after the October 7 massacre, when it struck Hamas strongholds, world leaders rushed to demand ceasefires — not justice. Critics raise their voices quickly and loudly, condemning every Israeli response as if it’s aggression, not defence. United Nations panels, human rights groups, politicians and celebrities line up to judge Israel by a different standard. They don’t ask what any other country would do if its civilians were slaughtered. They just expect Israel to take the punches and apologize for surviving.

Why are the rules different?

Israel doesn’t just need weapons or intelligence, it needs people around the world to speak the truth out loud: Israel is doing what any nation would do under attack. And if the world won’t say it, then we must.

Because the double standard isn’t just unfair, it’s dangerous. It isolates Jews. It fuels hate. It tells a global audience that Jewish suffering is negotiable, and that Jewish self-defence is somehow unacceptable.

Jews around the world, including in Canada, are feeling the fallout. Not because they’re Israeli, but because they’re Jewish.

Hate crimes are surging across Canada. In 2023, police-reported religion-motivated hate crimes jumped 67 per cent to 1,284 incidents, with 900 targeting Jews — a 71 per cent rise year-over-year.

Since October 7, synagogues have been vandalized, including in Montreal, where one was defaced with Nazi slogans during protests. Jewish schools have received threats, one in Montreal was firebombed. People have been harassed by pro-Palestinian protesters in heavily Jewish neighbourhoods in Toronto. Jewish businesses have been boycotted, including a Jewish-owned coffee shop in Toronto. And now, it’s come to this: many Jewish families are quietly removing their mezuzahs, the small prayer scrolls traditionally placed on door frames, so their homes no longer reveal that a Jewish family lives inside.

Yet authorities fail to do very much to prevent it or to find out who’s responsible. “Let people express their views,” they say. But this isn’t about views. It’s about fear. It’s about Jews being told to hide who they are, stay quiet, and accept that, once again, they’re being blamed for a war they didn’t start.

Ask any Jew. They know the difference between protest and persecution. They know what it means to be the original targets of hate crimes. They recognize this for what it is — the same old hatred, wearing a new mask.

And here’s the twist. While all this unfolds, Israel is led by a man most Israelis don’t even want. Benjamin Netanyahu is deeply unpopular. Before October 7, he was already facing widespread protests over his attempts to weaken the judiciary, while standing trial for corruption, bribery and breach of trust. Many blame him for dividing the country, for mismanaging security, and for allowing the October 7 attack to happen in the first place. Israelis protest him in the streets. They want him gone. But right now, they have no choice. He’s the one in charge, and until the war is over, they’re relying on him to lead, protect, and win.

This isn’t about politics anymore. It’s about existence.

Israel’s strength, the kind that keeps it standing when the world turns its back, didn’t come out of nowhere. The Jewish people have had to learn to survive in every kind of darkness, to rebuild in the ashes, and to grow stronger than those who tried to destroy them. That strength isn’t aggression. It’s resilience. It’s experience. And it’s what keeps Israel alive today.

And in war, sadly, innocent victims are inevitable. No one wants that, except Israel’s enemies, some of whom are willing to sacrifice their own people.

Hamas has repeatedly shown it prioritizes its own military goals over civilian safety, often using people as shields. Israel discovered tunnels beneath hospitals and schools — including one under the European Hospital in Khan Younis, linked to the compound of senior Hamas commander Mohammed Sinwar. The group has stored weapons in civilian spaces and even positioned women and children at the front lines to deter attacks. This isn’t collateral damage, it’s deliberate: hostages being held in bustling residential areas further highlight how Hamas exploits civilians to mask its operations.

So ask yourself, once more: if your neighbours were trying to burn your house down, would you stand back and reason with them while the fire spread? Or would you do what anyone would do — protect your home, your family, your future?

Israel isn’t asking for sympathy. It’s asking for the same right every nation demands, the right to defend itself, and the right to live.

We’ve seen what happens to Jews when the world stands back. Let’s not make that mistake again.

National Post

• Leslie Roberts: CBC has eroded trust in journalism. It must be reformed
• Leslie Roberts: Canada needs a centrist revolution

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Between President Donald Trump claiming there’s a flood of fentanyl from Canada to the U.S., and people here insisting there’s almost none, the truth is elusive. A new American report gets to the bottom of what’s really going on, and its author, Jonathan Caulkins, talks to Brian about what he found. Specializing in crime systems, the professor from Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College breaks down how global supply chains run by criminal organizations moving from Mexico to China to Australia feed Canadian labs with precursor chemicals. And how much of the final made-in-Canada product actually ends up on America’s streets — including, unexpectedly, in Alaska.

If you think politics is bad now, just wait till an army of pimple-faced teenagers who get most of their “news” from TikTok are given a say over who’s in charge.

This week, British Prime Minister

Keir Starmer announced

that his Labour government will introduce legislation to enfranchise 16- and 17-year-olds before the next general election in the summer of 2029.

Starmer justified the move by arguing that, “It’s really important that 16- and 17-year-olds have the vote, because they are old enough to go out to work. They are old enough to pay taxes, so pay in.

“And I think if you pay in, you should have the opportunity to say what you want your money spent on, which way the government should go.”

There’s a certain logic to this argument, and I will admit to wrestling with the fact that 16-year-old me and 44-year-old me likely have very different opinions on this subject.

But the fact remains that although people as young as 16 may be able to enter the workforce and pay taxes (even if many of them don’t), there are a lot of things they’re legally prevented from doing, such as entering into contracts, getting married, buying alcohol and, in many jurisdictions, joining the military and getting a full driver’s licence.

So if you think a 16-year-old is capable of making decisions affecting the fate of the country, and perhaps even the course of world history, fine. But then why wouldn’t they be old enough to buy a bottle of Scotch, or drive without restrictions, or marry someone several years older than them?

It’s because society has set the age of 18 (or 19 in some Canadian provinces) as the cutoff point for when people become adults capable of making their own decisions in the eyes of the law.

There’s no doubt that this is an arbitrary number. Perhaps it should be 14 given that, throughout much of history, people that young were given adult responsibilities. Or maybe it should be closer to 30, around the time when the human

brain stops developing

.

Regardless, we need to come up with some number to legally differentiate the age at which parents are no longer responsible for their children and young adults are responsible for their own actions.

Yet given that England and Wales

raised the age

at which people can legally marry from 16 to 18 just two years ago, it seems odd that the country now wants to give new freedoms to people who just had other rights stripped away — not to mention the fact that the age at which people can legally run for office will remain at 18.

Only from a political perspective does this change make any sense.

YouGov

polling

in the 2024 election found that only eight per cent of 18-29-year-olds supported the Conservatives, while a plurality voted for Starmer’s Labour party. But support for the Tories increased steadily by age, peaking at 46 per cent (compared to 20 for Labour) among the over-70 crowd.

That pattern didn’t hold in the last Canadian election, when

exit polls

found that a plurality of young adults voted Conservative, while those over 55 tended to favour the Liberals. Yet historically, the left-right split based on age has generally held true in this country — and for good reason.

As the old saying goes, “If you’re not a liberal when you’re young, you have no heart; if you’re not a conservative when you’re old, you have no brain.” Youth is the perfect time to philosophize and experiment with extreme (usually socialist) political positions, because there are generally few consequences for doing so.

It is also a time when people tend to focus on themselves — before starting businesses, raising families, buying property, investing in the market and contributing to the tax base, which gives older folks a greater stake in what’s going on in the world around them.

A few years ago, Elections Canada asked Canadians a

series of questions

relating to the 2019 election. For astute political observers, they shouldn’t have been hard.

They included questions such as: “Which level of government has primary responsibility for health care?”; “Which party promised to abolish the carbon tax?”; and what was Chrystia Freeland’s position over the past year.

On

average

, Canadians over 35 correctly answered five of the questions, while those between the ages of 16 and 22 could only answer two.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with this, per se. Youth is a time for dreaming big and having fun. It shouldn’t necessarily be wasted fretting over the fate of the world and reading stuffy newspaper columns.

But do we really want more idealist, low-information voters making decisions on who is going to run our country and how governments spend our money?

And if you think political proselytizing is a problem in schools today, just wait until all those hippie teachers realize their gullible high school students could change the course of an election.

There have already been a few failed attempts to reduce the voting age in Canada, and lobbying groups intent on lowering the minimum age are celebrating Starmer’s announcement and hoping it will spur action on this side of the pond. But lawmakers should be wary about emulating Great Britain’s Great Youth Enfranchisement Experiment here at home.

National Post

jkline@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/accessd