Canada no longer considers its approach to global engagement a “feminist foreign policy,” Prime Minister Mark Carney said Sunday, marking a clear departure from the doctrine championed by Justin Trudeau and his former Liberal government.

During a press conference at the G-20 summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, Carney was asked whether Canada still applies a feminist lens while forging economic ties with countries that restrict the rights of women and LGBTQ people.

“We have that aspect to our foreign policy, but I wouldn’t describe our foreign policy as feminist foreign policy. Those are different points, but related,” he said while also affirming that gender equality remains a priority for Canada in its efforts to diversify internationally.

Carney highlighted how South Africa has elevated gender-based violence as a priority and admitted that Canada also needs to do more work in that regard, but said it’s not an economic issue.

“It is an issue of justice. It affects Canada. It affects everyone around that table. Different countries put a different priority on it,” the prime minister said. “But by discussing strategies and approaches, my experience is that I think that’s part of our policy as well.”

Carney’s remarks contrast with the tenets of Trudeau and his cabinet ministers, who made feminism a central organizing principle in Canada and in their international dealings.

Starting in the 2015 campaign that saw the Liberals elected, Trudeau promised gender equality steps that included appointing Canada’s first gender-balanced cabinet and launching the National Inquiry into missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG). Two years into their first mandate, the Liberals introduced the

Feminist International Assistance Policy (FIAP)

, a new approach to foreign aid that aligns with the United Nations to address gender equality, change gender norms and prioritize women.

No formal document outlining the specific “feminist foreign policy” was ever published during Trudeau’s tenure, but cabinet ministers continued to tout it.

“Canada’s Feminist Foreign Policy and (FIAP) are centred on building a more gender-equal world by promoting rights-based and inclusive initiatives and supporting efforts to end sexual and gender-based violence and harmful practices such as child, early and forced marriage and female genital mutilation,” Mélanie Joly stated in a 2023 news release while she was still the minister of foreign affairs.

“Canada is proud to have a feminist foreign policy, not because it looks good, but because it produces tangible and measurable results,” François-Philippe Champagne said in a speech in February 2020 when he was leading foreign affairs,

The Globe and Mail reported.

Carney’s comments also come less than a month after Randeep Sarai, his secretary of state for international development, testified before the foreign affairs committee that Canada still applies a feminist lens to its foreign aid because it makes economic sense.

“It’s not just the right thing to do. It’s a smart thing to do,” he said on Oct. 28, as reported by

The Canadian Press.

• Robyn Fryer Bodzin: Mélanie Joly’s feminist foreign policy has no room for Jewish rape victims
• Canada’s feminist foreign aid policy isn’t making much progress on a gender equal world

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The Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation is calling on the prime minister and minister of foreign affairs to reconsider Canada’s stance recognizing a Palestinian state.

In a Nov. 17 letter to Carney and Anita Anand, shared with National Post by CAEF executive director Andrea Spindel, she argues “there is no leadership among the Palestinian Authority that seeks co-existence with Israel.”

Instead, Spindel asserts, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is a murderous regime that “incentivizes and rewards” terrorist activity, “paying salaries to the barbarians who committed mass murder on October 7th.”

Spindel’s letter refers to

Palestinian Media Watch

as repeatedly documenting that Palestinian movements “compete for popular support by arguing over who has committed more terror.”

And she cites 

Jibril Rajoub

, secretary general of the Fatah Central Committee (the Fatah party’s most senior institution responsible for developing and implementing strategic initiatives, with members holding top portfolios in Palestinian politics). Spindel says he has publicly urged that the PA unite with Hamas under the

Palestinian Liberation Organization

framework.

It’s a pattern, she says, that reveals several dangerous messages from the PA such as hypocrisy toward the international community. “On the one hand, the PA seeks international legitimacy and aid, claiming it fights terror. In reality, the PA’s senior officials publicly reaffirm and even boast of its terror history and a desire to ally with Hamas — the very organization the PA pretends to distance itself from in diplomatic settings.”

Further she says that Western audiences and donors may “imagine a Fatah-Hamas rivalry that favours moderation, Rajoub’s welcoming of Hamas shows that the PA does not really want to have Hamas destroyed.”

In mid-October, Spindel says, Palestinian Media Watch released the

latest list of “Palestinian terrorist millionaires

thanks to the pay-for-slay program. Many of those who received financial rewards were among the terrorists released by Israel in exchange for Israeli hostages.”

Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian National Authority since 2005, says Spindel, “is playing a game of duplicity which you and other Western nation leaders have swallowed, despite decades of evidence that duplicity is how the PA operates … You are demonstrating incredible naivety or willful blindness and neither serves the interests of Canadians.

“PA schools celebrate October 7! This is part of the

hate curriculum that has infected Arab children

for decades and continues to promote murder and martyrdom.”

Finally, Spindel challenges the prime minister and foreign affairs minister: “If you proceed with the reckless idea of recognizing another terror state in the Middle East, sanctioning the Palestinian Arabs to continue to train killers, reward terrorists, celebrate violence, preach and teach Jew hatred, then please tell us how this is different from supporting Nazism?”

• Opinion: Now that ‘Palestine’ has been recognized, it must be branded a state sponsor of terror
• Avi Benlolo: The West keeps subsidizing the Palestinian Authority’s death culture

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

The Canadian Antisemitism Education Foundation is calling on the prime minister and minister of foreign affairs to reconsider Canada’s stance recognizing a Palestinian state.

In a Nov. 17 letter to Carney and Anita Anand, shared with National Post by CAEF executive director Andrea Spindel, she argues “there is no leadership among the Palestinian Authority that seeks co-existence with Israel.”

Instead, Spindel asserts, the Palestinian Authority (PA) is a murderous regime that “incentivizes and rewards” terrorist activity, “paying salaries to the barbarians who committed mass murder on October 7th.”

Spindel’s letter refers to

Palestinian Media Watch

as repeatedly documenting that Palestinian movements “compete for popular support by arguing over who has committed more terror.”

And she cites 

Jibril Rajoub

, secretary general of the Fatah Central Committee (the Fatah party’s most senior institution responsible for developing and implementing strategic initiatives, with members holding top portfolios in Palestinian politics). Spindel says he has publicly urged that the PA unite with Hamas under the

Palestinian Liberation Organization

framework.

It’s a pattern, she says, that reveals several dangerous messages from the PA such as hypocrisy toward the international community. “On the one hand, the PA seeks international legitimacy and aid, claiming it fights terror. In reality, the PA’s senior officials publicly reaffirm and even boast of its terror history and a desire to ally with Hamas — the very organization the PA pretends to distance itself from in diplomatic settings.”

Further she says that Western audiences and donors may “imagine a Fatah-Hamas rivalry that favours moderation, Rajoub’s welcoming of Hamas shows that the PA does not really want to have Hamas destroyed.”

In mid-October, Spindel says, Palestinian Media Watch released the

latest list of “Palestinian terrorist millionaires

thanks to the pay-for-slay program. Many of those who received financial rewards were among the terrorists released by Israel in exchange for Israeli hostages.”

Mahmoud Abbas, president of the Palestinian National Authority since 2005, says Spindel, “is playing a game of duplicity which you and other Western nation leaders have swallowed, despite decades of evidence that duplicity is how the PA operates … You are demonstrating incredible naivety or willful blindness and neither serves the interests of Canadians.

“PA schools celebrate October 7! This is part of the

hate curriculum that has infected Arab children

for decades and continues to promote murder and martyrdom.”

Finally, Spindel challenges the prime minister and foreign affairs minister: “If you proceed with the reckless idea of recognizing another terror state in the Middle East, sanctioning the Palestinian Arabs to continue to train killers, reward terrorists, celebrate violence, preach and teach Jew hatred, then please tell us how this is different from supporting Nazism?”

• Opinion: Now that ‘Palestine’ has been recognized, it must be branded a state sponsor of terror
• Avi Benlolo: The West keeps subsidizing the Palestinian Authority’s death culture

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our newsletters here.

This is from a story about the scalping of British settlers and militia by Mi’kmaq warriors in what became known as the “Dartmouth Massacre” on May 13, 1751, from John Wilson’s eyewitness account: “These Indians chain the unfortunate prisoner to a large thick tree, and bind his hands and his feet, then beginning from the middle of the craneum, they cut quite round towards the neck; this being done, they then tear off the skin, leaving the skull bare; an inflammation quickly follows, the patient fevers, and dies in the most exquisite tortures.”

Wilson’s account is not the only record of Mi’kmaq attacks on settlers, nor even of the Dartmouth Massacre.

Another is from Thomas B. Akins, a lawyer, historian and archivist. In 1857 he was appointed Nova Scotia’s first Commissioner of Public Records and held that position until his death in 1891. He was held in such high regard that the government of Canada designated him a ‘Person of National Historic Significance.’ His History of the Settlement of Halifax was published in book form in 1895, four years after he died. But it had been published as a pamphlet half a century earlier, in 1847, and eight years prior to that he gave a formal reading from his notes about the attack on Dartmouth:

“The Indians were said to have destroyed several dwellings, sparing neither women nor children. The light of the torches and the discharge of musketry alarmed the inhabitants of Halifax, some of whom put off to their assistance, but did not arrive in any force till after the Indians had retired. The night was calm, and the cries of the settlers, and whoop of the Indians were distinctly heard on the western side of the harbour. On the following morning, several bodies were brought over – the Indians having carried off the scalps,” he said.

Enter Edward Cornwallis, the founder of Halifax, who had arrived on the shores of Nova Scotia on June 21, 1749, with 13 transports – boats or frigates – and 2,576 people. During that first winter more than one-third of those settlers died. Cornwallis, a major historical figure in Atlantic Canada, was a military man who had been named governor of Nova Scotia by King George II.

According to oral histories and archaeological evidence, the Mi’kmaq had been living in Nova Scotia for a long time. But with the coming of the Europeans things changed. Disease became widespread and by 1749 their numbers had dwindled. Between 1688 and 1763 there were seven wars in northeastern North America between the French and English with major impact on settlers and Indigenous people. But for the Mi’kmaq two were consequential – Father Le Loutre’s War from 1749 to 1755, and the French and Indian War from 1754 to 1763.

Le Loutre was a Catholic priest and missionary for the French Foreign Missions Society, an ardent French nationalist who led the band of French resistance forces which consisted of Acadian fighters and Mi’kmaq warriors. Thus, the Mi’kmaq were allied with the French and remained so during all those years of warfare in Nova Scotia.

Mi’kmaq raids on settlements began on September 30, 1749, and there would be eight raids on Dartmouth alone. French authorities had been paying bounties to the Mi’kmaq for British prisoners and their scalps. And so, on October 2, 1749, Cornwallis issued a proclamation, offering a similar bounty for Mi’kmaq warriors. Women and children were not included, but to be taken prisoner following the norms of British policy in such conflicts.

Today, the statue of Cornwallis in the middle of Cornwallis Park is no longer there. The park has been renamed, too. Cornwallis has been cancelled in the same way John A. Macdonald, Egerton Ryerson, Henry Dundas, Matthew Begbie, and other notable figures from Canada’s past have been cancelled by those with an axe to grind. And they don’t do it with history, but their own twisted take on history which is deep in ideology and involves something other than the truth.

Scalping is front and centre in this “controversy” which wasn’t a controversy for almost 250 years until a 1993 book by Mi’kmaq elder Daniel Paul. The book was We Were Not the Savages: a Micmac perspective on the collision of European and aboriginal civilizations. Paul passed away in 2023.

In his book he laid the charge of genocide perpetrated against the Mi’kmaq squarely at the feet of Cornwallis. He called the bounty proclamation an “extermination” order calling for “the scalps of men, women and children.” No sooner did he make this claim that other voices picked it up and built an anti-Cornwallis narrative in keeping with the story of the evil white man. Soon, the Daniel Paul story became the official party line and the rest, as the old saying goes, is history.

But it’s revisionist history.

After Paul’s death, this is what Global TV reported: “His research also helped persuade Nova Scotia politicians that statues, school names and even a coast guard ship should no longer bear the name of Edward Cornwallis, the province’s first governor, who offered rewards for Indigenous scalps.”

In 2020 the CBC ran a story about the Mi’kmaq wanting to rename a coast guard icebreaker. The icebreaker was called Edward Cornwallis. The headline was: “Founder of Halifax issued proclamation of bounty for killing Mi’kmag men, women and children.”

Leo J. Deveau – an author, newspaper columnist, and authority on Nova Scotia history – says this of Paul’s claims: “Paul’s analysis ignored the wider context of the imperial wars of the period and the close alliance between the Mi’kmaq and the French in the struggle of empires. The history of that alliance records regular bounties paid for the delivery of scalps belonging to British soldiers and settlers obtained by Mi’kmaq warriors during numerous raids.”

Deveau went on: “Adopting the familiar ‘good and evil’ interpretation of history, Paul lays the charge of ‘genocide’ against Cornwallis, feeling that the term genocide ‘aptly’ described the barbaric behaviour of the British in colonial Nova Scotia. This in turn is meant to justify his wild exaggeration that the statue of Cornwallis represented ‘white supremacist thinking.’ For the author and his acolytes it seems everything comes down to genocide and white supremacy. This is grossly oversimplified history.”

Not all media reports were sympathetic to Daniel Paul’s take on history. Paul Bennett, an author of Canadian history textbooks, wrote an article in The Chronicle-Herald with the title ‘How solid is the case against Cornwallis?’ He said this set a dangerous precedent and took aim directly at Daniel Paul.

“While Paul is often described as an historian, his work is mostly popular storytelling since it’s a fascinating mix of history, folklore, and personal testimony.”

I obtained a copy of the fourth edition of Daniel Paul’s book, published in 2022. In the Dedication it says: “To the memory of my ancestors, who managed to ensure the survival of the Mi’kmaw People by their awe-inspiring tenacity and valour in the face of virtually insurmountable odds! For more than four centuries these courageous, dignified and heroic people displayed a determination to survive the various hells on earth created for them by Europeans with a tenacity that equals any displayed in the history of mankind.”

Not to minimize the very real plight of the Mi’kmaq after the coming of Europeans, but such words do not lend themselves as an authoritative work on recorded history. There is no mention in Paul’s book, or from what I can find in anything he’s ever written, about the Dartmouth massacre.

Nevertheless, in 2014 protesters gathered in Cornwallis Park, demanding the park be renamed and the statue of Cornwallis removed. In 2015 the Truth and Reconciliation Commission came out with its report and in Nova Scotia that would later lead to the cancellation of Cornwallis. In 2016 a municipal election was held and now there were new councillors who were swayed by a presentation delivered by the city’s first Mi’kmaw poet laureate who called Cornwallis a man “who prided himself on brutality” and who used Mi’kmaq scalps as “currency.” A vote to remove his name from all municipal properties passed 15-1.

Never mind that surveys showed most people in Halifax wanted the Cornwallis name to remain on public parks, buildings and street signs. And that the statue should stay.

It didn’t matter.

More protests came in  2017 and Halifax Regional Municipality council launched a Special Advisory Committee with “equal representation from Indigenous and non-Indigenous backgrounds.” This is similar to task forces created at the Toronto university once known as Ryerson and the one set up at the City of Toronto to discuss the name Henry Dundas. Indeed, the modus operandi with historical revisionists tends to follow a playbook. Part of that playbook involves establishing an “expert” panel with equal parts Indigenous and non-Indigenous, provided the latter are academics who have a progressive bent.

Soon the Cornwallis statue was removed. Cornwallis Park was renamed Peace and Friendship Park, and Cornwallis Street was renamed Nora Bernard Street after a Mi’kmaw activist who had been murdered by her grandson back in 2007. In short, Edward Cornwallis and anything associated with his name was as good as dead.

The man who started all this – Daniel Paul – said in his book that Canada’s first prime minister, John A. Macdonald, was an “unapologetic white supremacist.” He compared the plight of the Mi’kmaq to European Jews in the Holocaust. As for the Mi’kmaq and their way of life, he said: “Civility and generosity were so engrained in Mi’kmaw society that to be rude or mean was unthinkable.”

John E. Grenier, an American historian, wrote a book called The Far Reaches of Empire: War in Nova Scotia, 1710–1760. Published in 2008, it examines the wars in Nova Scotia during the 18th  century. While Grenier readily admits that when it was all over the Mi’kmaq and their way of life would be no more, he also said the treaties the Mi’kmaq signed with the British in 1760 and 1761 were “far harsher” than previous ones, including the Articles of 1749 with Edward Cornwallis. Nowhere does Grenier say Cornwallis is an angel or saint. He calls him a British colonial official who used “brutal but effective measures” to “wrest control of Nova Scotia from French and Indian enemies who were no less ruthless.”

Grenier was once interviewed by the National Post for an article about the renaming of  Cornwallis high school. In the article he said: “It is complicated. But the PC [Political Correctness] crowd, if you will, prefers to remain ignorant of the historical record.” He added: “It is important to look at the context in which Cornwallis and the other Anglo-Americans made the decision to issue the scalp proclamation. The Mi’kmaqs certainly were not innocent, passive victims in that train of events.”

The upshot of all this? No historian worth their salt examines any period or place through a one-way lens. That is to sacrifice context and credibility. What’s more, when a region, never mind a country, bases public policy on commentary that is rife with speculation, conjecture – and lies – a nation begins to lose itself and there is only one inevitable result.

Its history is vanquished.

Excerpt from the book SLEEPWOKING, which is about historical revisionism in Canada, and now available on Amazon.

• Coast guard ship Edward Cornwallis renamed to honour 1752 peace treaty with Mi’kmaq
• Rally held at former site of Halifax founder statue to celebrate removal

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

A new study by Dalhousie University in Halifax finds that the average Canadian household throws away $761 worth of food every year based on best-before and expiration dates, but that almost a third of that is owing to confusion over what those dates actually mean.

The research, conduced in partnership with

Too Good To Go

, a Copenhagen-based company dedicated to reducing food waste, found that many Canadians are unaware of the meaning of food labels.

Expiration or expiry dates refer to food that is likely no longer safe to consume. Three-quarters of respondents to a recent survey knew that, but 14 per cent thought it referred to the food having passed its best quality, and another eight per cent thought it was merely to recommend that stores no longer sell it.

“Best before,” on the other hand, indicates when food has likely passed its best quality, but only 70 per cent of respondents knew that. Another 20 per cent thought it meant the food was no longer safe to consume.

“If 30 per cent of people don’t know what best before means, and one in five think that best before is an expiration date, there is so much opportunity to simply improve people’s understanding,” Chris MacAulay, vice-president of North America operations for Too Good To Go, told National Post.

And Sylvain Charlebois, director of Dalhousie University’s Agri-Food Analytics Lab, who worked on the study, said there’s an easier way to know when food goes off.

“Look, smell, taste,” he told National Post. “Taste goes last. That’s basically it.”

That’s also the message behind the look-smell-taste campaign launched last year by Too Good To Go, and embossed in alternative “don’t waste” labels that already appear on some Canadian products, including

Greenhouse

and

Paz Bakery

.

Our senses evolved in part to warn us about what’s not safe to eat, so we should trust them by examining packaging for signs of damage, and food for any discolouration, as well as smelling and tasting our food to make sure it doesn’t have a bad odour or an “off” taste.

“Animal proteins are more risk,” Charlebois cautioned. “You want to be extremely careful with meat and dairy. And soon as the container is open, as soon as the product is exposed to air, all bets are off. That’s basically how it goes.”

On the other hand, raw meat and cooked meat are different animals (so to speak). “If it’s thoroughly cooked you can actually keep it for a long time,” he said. “You’ve just extended the conservation cycle for that product if you actually thoroughly cooked it.”

Charlebois said he’s watched best-before dates appear on more and more food products over the years, including items like sugar and honey that have practically unlimited shelf lives.

“Forcing people to throw away perfectly good food so they need to buy more,” he said, “is the food version of planned obsolescence. I once saw a best-before date on salt. I mean, come on!”

But he has also done research into whether Canadians would be in favour of throwing away best-before dates. He found most people still want them.

“They buy food but they also buy time,” he said. “They reach out for products where the best-before date is as late as possible, so they can have inventory at home.”

Inventory management is also why food sellers are behind the practice. “Grocers love these dates because it’s easier to rotate inventory,” said Charlebois. “There’s little or no appetite — no pun — to remove these dates.”

Similarly, MacAulay is more interested in updating labels and increasing education than doing away with the system.

“They do contribute to consumer confusion,” he said of best-before labels and expiry dates, “and that confusion then leads to not just food waste but also real economic loss. We are working to simplify the approach for consumers.”

He added: “If there are folks that remain wary of using their senses, that’s OK — we can still make a massive impact on the amount of food waste that exists, as well as an impact on people’s wallets.”

The survey was conducted online and involved 1,084 participants over the age of 18 from across Canada.

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Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

A draft deal that might end Russia’s war on Ukraine won some tentative Canadian support on Friday.

“We have to talk to each other, and we’re supportive of productive dialogue that might lead to a negotiated outcome that might end the war,” Defence Minister David McGuinty told reporters at the Halifax International Security Forum.

There are a thousand Russians, and hundreds of Ukrainians dying every day in the conflict, McGuinty said.

“Canada is always looking to support progress,” he said.

If U.S. efforts lead “to a negotiated outcome that ends the war, we’re supportive,” McGuinty said, noting he’s not privy to the negotiations.

“But we remain hopeful, eternally hopeful, that we can bring this to an end. First a ceasefire and then an end to the war.”

Meanwhile, Europe is “preparing to defend against potential incursions or malfeasance from Russia,” McGuinty said.

He noted that as Canada boosts its military budget to 3.5 per cent of gross domestic product, “there’s a level of preparedness, of sophistication, of arming, which will be much more powerful than it has been in years gone by.”

The White House proposal to end the war reportedly includes the surrender of Ukrainian territory and places limits on the country’s military. Drafted without the involvement of Ukraine or Europe, it would prohibit Ukraine from joining NATO, cap the size of the nation’s military and bar the presence of NATO troops in the war-ravaged country.

“They are starting points for negotiation,” General Jennie Carignan, chief of Canada’s defence staff, said Friday in an interview.

“Who knows how that’s going to turn out?”

One thing is certain, Carignan said. “There will be a need for rebuilding the Ukrainian forces and their institutions and their capacity to defend themselves. That’s absolutely clear.”

She’s hoping the draft deal “is going to provide for some stability and mostly for the conflict to pause to allow for reconstruction and, frankly, the Ukranians absolutely need that,” Carignan said.

But it “has to be an acceptable deal, for sure,” she said.

“Of course we are following closely how the situation evolves.”

The Canadian Forces is “developing various military options for the government to consider and the situation has been constantly changing and evolving in Ukraine,” she said.

“We are working with the coalition of the willing, with my counterparts as well, to come up with various solutions — who would do what in what type of context,” Carignan said.

Whether Canada provides soldiers to keep the peace in Ukraine “is all dependent on what kind of ceasefire” might be achieved, she said.

“There’s a spectrum in stopping a conflict,” Carignan said, ranging from a “shaky ceasefire” on one end to a “full peace treaty, which is very stable,” on the other.

No matter the scenario in this case, Ukraine is going to need training for its military and help with “building their democratic institutions,” she said, “which means, as well, a strong defence. This would be the common thread regardless of what kind of ceasefire or peace scenario that can be anticipated for Ukraine.”

Canada’s military is looking at options around what kind of force they could dedicate to Ukraine, she said.

“Currently I already have significant contribution to Ukraine. We can go up to 600 members,” Carignan said, noting she can’t discuss their whereabouts for operational security reasons.

“What we want to do is have scalable options that dial up or down depending on the demand.”

Canada has been helping Ukraine’s military since 2014, Carignan said. “We’ve got a long history of collaboration already. So, I already have a significant commitment. And then there’s ways to rearrange current forces serving in Europe via the NATO stream. Although one thing is very clear — we’re not going to modify our posture in Latvia. This is a firm commitment.”

Latvia is currently home to this country’s largest overseas military deployment. About 2,400 Canadian Armed Forces personnel are participating in Operation Reassurance, which is focused on contributing to NATO’s deterrence and defence effort in Central and Eastern Europe. That includes leading a 14-nation multinational battle group in Latvia, contributing naval assets to NATO’s maritime groups, and providing air support and training.

On top of that, Carignan pointed to Operation Unifier, which has trained over 47,000 members of the Security Forces of Ukraine since 2015, following Russia’s annexation of Crimea. That was modified in 2022 due to Russia’s full-scale invasion; it has since trained about 13,000 Ukrainian soldiers in various locations across Europe.

• Zelenskyy warns Ukraine may lose U.S. as an ally as Trump pushes deal favouring Russia
• Canada could send troops to Ukraine, Mark Carney says on surprise Kyiv visit

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

Air Canada is reviewing a complaint from a Toronto Jewish man about a flight attendant wearing a political pin on her uniform.

The pin was shaped like Israel but illustrated with Palestinian colours and had an image of the Al-Aqsa Mosque (in Jerusalem’s Old City) in the centre.

“We are reviewing this matter. We will address it directly with the employee involved, as appropriate,” Air Canada’s manager of corporate communications, Peter Fitzpatrick, told National Post in an email.

The passenger,

author

and businessman Israel Ellis,

told National Post in an email this week that there

“is no place for political statements of any kind on a public airline, especially that which identifies clearly with a polarized issue used as a guise for antisemitism.”

This kind of incident “normalize(s) calls for the erasure of the Jewish people,” he said. “A pin depicting Palestine in the stead of Israel is a clear call for genocide.”

National Post shared Ellis’s concerns with Air Canada, requesting comment.

“We have a policy for uniform staff that covers which pins and symbols are permissible,” said Fitzpatrick. “There is a finite list of pins that are accepted, none of them political, as I think you mean it. Instead think of something like a poppy.”

Ellis says the incident unfolded during an Air Canada flight to Atlanta last week, with a headscarf-wearing flight attendant who wore the pin underneath her airline pin.

“I felt her disdain as she shouted at me with a grimace, seeing me and my wife’s Star of David necklaces,” he says.

He shared phone-photos of the flight attendant’s pin with National Post.

After the incident, Ellis wrote to Air Canada to complain but has not yet received a response. Meanwhile, he posted his experience on

Instagram

, receiving almost 3,000 responses and 1,400 comments.

Ellis says he felt “harassed, threatened, and unsafe in a situation … that should be providing comfort and security regardless of my identity,” adding that “seeing this supported by Air Canada is unnerving and I suppose another consequence of a country that has betrayed its Jewish constituents.”

• Canadian Museum for Human Rights has become ‘tool’ of one side of the Arab-Israeli story: David Asper
• Jewish Montrealer pushes back when passport officials tell her Israel can’t be named as her birth country

Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark nationalpost.com and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.

Warning: This story contains disturbing details

A 35-year-old Hong Kong man has been

sentenced to seven years

in prison after a home invasion in which a gang of attackers traumatized a B.C. family with beatings, waterboarding and sexual assault while stealing some $2.2 million from their crypto accounts.

Tsz Wing Boaz Chan was sentenced by a B.C. provincial court judge on Nov. 14,

according to court filings

, which also found that he came to Canada specifically to participate in the attack. The family’s identities are protected by a publication ban.

Court papers reveal that on the evening of April 27, 2024, the family answered a knock at the front door of their house, revealing two men dressed in Canada Post uniforms and wearing face masks. They said they had a package that required a signature.

When the family’s daughter, a student, went to get her father, the men entered the house and were followed by two more, all wearing gloves and masks. They spoke in Mandarin, Cantonese and English and referred to each other only by numbers, one to four.

The intruders restrained the family members, pushing their heads down and binding their wrists with zip ties. They then took the family’s cellphones and laptops and demanded passwords, threatening to cut or kill them if they were not provided. One had a firearm or imitation firearm.

The home invasion lasted 13 hours.

At one point the invaders forced the daughter to strip naked, and to pose and speak for a video they said would be released if the family went to police. Among other things, she was told to look at the camera while saying: “I want you to f— me.”

The father was kept blindfolded throughout the attack except when his face was used to unlock his cellphone. He and his wife were both waterboarded by their attackers, a form of torture in which water is poured over a wet cloth covering the mouth, creating the sensation of drowning. The father was also stripped naked and beaten repeatedly.

Threatened with having his genitals cut off, the father gave the men access to his and his wife’s cryptocurrency accounts. Over the course of the evening, they made multiple withdrawals from both accounts totalling US$1.6 million (roughly $2.2 million Canadian), effectively draining the accounts.

The ordeal finally ended when the daughter, believing the attackers had left, escaped and called police from a friend’s house. The police arrived at about 8:30 a.m. and found the father naked from the waist down, his hands zip tied behind his back, while his wife was found bound, gagged and wrapped in a blanket.

A search of the home uncovered zip ties, surveillance cameras, knives, collapsible batons, duct tape, bear spray, bleach and other items. Police also found three cameras outside facing the home, and a power source for them hidden in the bushes.

Victim statements filed by the father and daughter describe “the profound impact these events have had on each of them and their family,” court records show.

The daughter is “tormented by images and dreams of the incident (and) has lost a sense of safety and views strangers with suspicion … and carries a weapon with her for protection.”

She also limits the time spent at home because of the memories of the attack. “What was once a place of comfort has become a place of distress for her.”

The father believed he was going to die that night. “But more significant was the fact that he had to hear his wife and daughter being assaulted and degraded while next to him. Despite his daughter’s assurance to him that she was not ‘fully raped,’ he believes that she was.”

He has also been tormented by flashbacks, anxiety, shame and guilt since the incident, records show. “His sense of security has been shattered” and “the taking of nude videos of his daughter will be a lifelong scar for all of them.”

Records show that Chan entered Canada on April 5 last year and left the country on May 1, bound for Hong Kong. On July 25, police learned he was returning to Vancouver, where he was arrested. He has been in custody since.

Records show that in early 2024, an acquaintance had approached him “and proposed an opportunity for him to earn some money in Canada” and offered the equivalent of six months of his family’s mortgage payments. Chan told the court he was “blinded” by the sum and agreed to participate. He did not have a prior criminal record.

Chan pleaded guilty to break and enter, unlawful confinement and sexual assault. He said he was not directly involved in the transfer of cryptocurrency and did not directly receive any of it.

He did receive HK$280,000, worth about $50,000 Canadian, an amount Judge R. McQuillan ordered him to pay as restitution to the family. The judge also noted that the jail sentence “must send a message that coming to Canada to commit such a heinous offence will not be tolerated and must be deterred.”

Police say the other three attackers remain at large, and the investigation is ongoing.

“Major Crime Detectives worked tirelessly to bring this matter before the courts,” said Const. Sam Zacharias of the Port Moody Police Department. “Mr. Chan did not operate alone and the matter remains active as investigators still work to identify other suspects.”

Police in B.C. have

previously noted

an increase in home invasions of this type. “The suspects appear to know the victims are heavily invested in cryptocurrency, know where they live, and are robbing them in their own homes,” said Staff Sgt. Jill Long of Delta Police in a 2023 briefing.

• Thomson family heiress sues ex-friend after crypto investment (recommended by a psychic) loses millions: report
• B.C. crypto company lands record $176-million fine from FINTRAC

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