More than 35 organizations from around the world have joined together in a campaign aiming to debunk “Hamas genocidal propaganda” about the Gaza war.

International Legal Forum CEO Michal Cotler-Wunsh says Hamas’s claim threatens foundational principles of law by hijacking the term genocide to spread what she calls “a modern blood libel,” accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinian people.

Other organizations involved in the “ Gaza GenoLIE ” campaign include the American-based Anti-Defamation League, the International Legal Forum, Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and the World Jewish Congress.

“The term ‘genocide,’ along with other international legal terms, has been deliberately and systematically hijacked, redefined, inverted, and weaponized to demonize, delegitimize, and apply double standards to ‘the Jew’ among nations,” Cotler-Wunsh said in a statement. “This well-orchestrated campaign to spread a modern blood libel accusing Israel of ‘genocide’ began before any Israeli response to Hamas’ genocidal war crimes and crimes against humanity of October 7.”

The GenoLIE website asserts that the genocide claims began on Oct. 8, 2023, the day after Hamas terrorists invaded southern Israel, killing 1,200 Israelis, most of them civilians. The word genocide was already in wide use, even though Israel’s ground operation did not begin until Oct. 27.

Amnesty International, certain UN bodies and other international groups have found there is evidence Israel committed genocide during the Gaza War. But Israel insists such investigations are fatally biased, and that the nation has done all it can to limit civilian casualties in a war in which the enemy hides behind its civilian population.

Israel acknowledges more than 70,000 people have died in the war. Gaza’s population was about two million prior to the war.

The Gaza GenoLIE website says it is an educational initiative about the “generated and orchestrated genocide lie promoted by anti-Zionists and antisemitic networks in the U.S., Europe and around the world.”

Genocide was defined in the 1948 Genocide Convention, drafted after the Holocaust. Under Article II, genocide refers to certain acts, such as killing, causing serious harm, inflicting destructive conditions of life, committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”

The GenoLIE campaign argues the most crucial element is the word “intent,” noting that the convention does not merely ask whether people died, or whether they died in large numbers, it asks whether the perpetrator acted with the specific purpose of destroying a protected group because of its membership in that group.

The groups argue that Israel waged war to dismantle Hamas and secure the release of the hostages, and the civilian death toll was a consequence of urban combat against an enemy that “purposely and cynically embed(ed) itself” among its own population.

They argue Israel’s war was against Hamas, not the Palestinians. The group’s website recounts that when Israel formally declared war on October 8, it set out four aims: recover the hostages; dismantle Hamas’s military capacity; remove Hamas as Gaza’s governing authority; and ensure Gaza could never again carry out such an attack.

“None of the aims reference Palestinians. They refer to an armed terror organization — its fighters, weapons, and rule.”

The groups note that Israel issued evacuation warnings in advance of its military operations, dropping millions of leaflets and placing tens of millions of phone calls, texts, and recorded messages in Arabic urging civilians to leave combat zones.

They say Hamas’s genocide assertions have led to targeting Jews around the world: “The consequences of this antisemitic rhetoric are real. For example, the Anti-Defamation League recorded 9,354 antisemitic incidents in the United States in 2024, which was the highest total in the 46 years that they had been tracked.”

They counter Hamas claims that the IDF intentionally targeted journalists. “Even if alleged journalists do die in an active war-zone where urban combat with a cynical terror group is taking place, it does not prove there is a deliberate campaign occurring to silence the press.” Specifically, the site points to the Committee to Protect Journalists, whose numbers had been used to support a war-on-the-press narrative, opening a review of its database after Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad published obituaries identifying some of their own dead fighters, who had been listed as journalists.

International humanitarian law forbids using civilians as human shields against military objectives. Hospitals have special protection, but it is not unconditional, the groups contend — they lose their protection when used to house fighters, weapons, or a command post. The same argument is applied to the alleged Hamas use of schools and mosques.

The Gaza GenoLIE site points to photographs of emaciated Gazan children circulated in the summer of 2025, reaching the front pages of newspapers worldwide, as purported evidence that Israel was deliberately starving Gaza’s population.

“The relevant question is not whether Gazans experienced hunger during a prolonged war,” states the site, “but whether that hunger was the result of Israeli intent to destroy the population … The evidence does not support this, as Israel kept crossings open and coordinated with international humanitarian agencies when it could throughout the war.”

• Jesse Kline: Even Hamas is now admitting dead ‘journalists’ were in fact terrorists
• David Kaufman: Using the lie of a ‘Gaza genocide’ as a litmus test is a losing strategy for Democrats

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A Tim Hortons employee who was involved in an altercation with an elderly customer shortly before the customer’s death will not face charges, local authorities say.

The incident took place on the morning of May 13 at a Tim Hortons in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

Video released by the Fort Wayne Police Department shows Anita Grayson, 75, entering the restaurant at 3975 Ice Way in the northern Indiana city at about 8:10 that morning to address an issue with an order she had received at the drive-through.

After standing at the counter for about a minute, Grayson is seen arguing with a 17-year-old female employee, both of them gesturing intensely, though the video has no sound. Next, a 20-year-old shift lead steps between Grayson and the employee.

Police say the shift lead repeatedly told Grayson to leave. Grayson moves toward the younger employee, at which point the shift lead places her hands against Grayson to hold her back. Grayson then shoves the shift lead backward and takes a swing at her, striking her face.

The shift lead reacts and moves toward Grayson, swinging her arms and pushing her backward. The two end up in a tussle on the floor, as two other employees move in to separate them.

Police say that during the fight, Grayson grabbed the shift lead’s face, leaving scratches and knocking off her glasses. “During the struggle, Ms. Grayson pulled a chunk of hair from the shift lead’s head, leaving a raw area on the top of her head,” said a police press release .

The release says that at 8:22 a.m. Grayson lay down on the floor and the shift lead went to check on her, bringing her a cup of water. “A (Fort Wayne police) officer then arrived and found Ms. Grayson unresponsive. Medics arrived and began life-saving measures. Ms. Grayson was transported from the scene and was later pronounced deceased by medical personnel.”

Allen County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office has since released its review of Grayson’s death, citing the “significant public attention” to the case.

“The community deserves to know not only our decision, but how we reached our determination,” the office wrote, adding: “We have given this case a fair and thorough review, and evaluated it on the evidence and the law, the same standard we apply to every case that comes before this office.”

The report notes that Allen County Coroner determined Grayson’s cause of death to be “acute exacerbation of congestive heart failure in the setting of a physical altercation.”

It explains that the term “acute exacerbation” means Grayson’s pre-existing congestive heart failure suddenly worsened during the physical altercation, resulting in her death. However, the Coroner also concluded that the injuries Grayson sustained during the fight did not contribute to her death.

The Attorney’s Office took into account witness statements, physical and medical evidence, the video and 911 calls in making its determination. It also referenced “applicable Indiana law,” including battery offences, murder, reckless homicide and self-defence.

On the issue of who started the altercation, it noted: “The first physical contact between Grayson and Employee 1 was not a threat or a blow. It was Employee 1 placing her hands on Grayson’s shoulders as Grayson reached around her toward the minor employee. Standing alone, that contact does not meet the standard for battery under Indiana law, which requires a touching in a rude, insolent, or angry manner.”

It added: “Grayson’s response was to shove Employee 1 with both hands and then strike her in the face. Even treating Employee 1’s hands on Grayson’s shoulders as the first touch in a technical sense, Grayson’s response was out of proportion to it.”

It concludes: “Based on the evidence reviewed to date, the available record does not support filing criminal charges. Grayson, not Employee 1, escalated the encounter to violence, and did so disproportionately to the minimal contact that preceded it.”

A segment of the surveillance footage that starts with Grayson being knocked over had been shared on social media by her daughter shortly after the incident, leading to calls for the Tim Hortons workers to be arrested.

• Starbucks, Tim Hortons and Second Cup accused of gouging alternative milk drinkers in Canada
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OTTAWA — Conservative immigration critic Michelle Rempel Garner reiterated her call Tuesday for the Liberal government to amend the Criminal Code to put an end to “candy sentences” that she says allow immigrants who commit crimes to avoid deportation.

Speaking to reporters in Ottawa, the longtime Conservative MP argued that a slew of recent headlines detailing how non-Canadians charged with various crimes but received reduced sentences so as to avoid deportation proceedings was “insane and disgusting.”

“These types of rulings now happen so frequently that a judge in Montreal accused Montreal prosecutors of proposing candy sentences for criminals at risk of deportation, affirming that this is a common practice across the country,” she said.

“Practices that let certain people commit crimes with impunity are corrosive to a high-trust society. It makes Canada unsafe, leading to a society that is less trusting to everyone, including immigrants who have come to Canada and work hard and play by the rules.”

National Post has recently detailed many cases where a judge cited an accused’s immigration status as a mitigating factor when issuing a criminal sentence. In one case cited by Rempel Garner, a judge granted a Ghanaian man and loan shark who violently stole a woman’s phone a conditional discharge, citing his immigration status.

The Conservative MP once again called on the Liberals to amend the Criminal Code to prevent immigration status from being a consideration during sentencing for a crime. She also re-iterated her longstanding call for Immigration Minister Lena Diab and Justice Minister Sean Fraser to resign.

The Liberals tabled three bills last fall and winter that proposed a slew of Criminal Code changes to clamp down on bail releases and allow judges to issue harsher sentences for violent and sexual crimes, but did not explicitly target immigration cases.

During the press conference, Rempel Garner also reiterated her confidence in Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre, saying she believes he can win a federal election against Prime Minister Mark Carney.

On Monday, a trio of different polls suggested Carney’s Liberals maintain a significant lead over the Conservatives, with the Grits holding a 14 to nearly 20 point lead over the Tories depending on the poll.

A Postmedia-Leger poll published Monday also showed that when respondents were asked who they trusted more between Carney and Poilievre when proposing the same policy, the Liberal leader always garnered significantly more trust.

National Post

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Federal and provincial government spending on “corporate welfare” increased by 142 per cent between 2019 and 2024 — an expense that leaders at the Fraser Institute call “wasteful spending.”

The independent think tank published a study on Tuesday which found that there was a marked increase in spending on corporate subsidies beginning in 2015.

Between 2007 and 2015, the data shows, spending on subsidies increased from $22.2 billion to $25.1 billion when adjusted for inflation, or 12.8 per cent. But from 2015 until 2019, spending increased more rapidly, by 44.2 per cent.

After the pandemic, spending on corporate subsidies increased each year from 2022 to 2024, with the inflation-adjusted level of spending in 2024 at $87.7 billion, more than triple the figure from 2015.

The Fraser Institute defines “corporate welfare” as “payments from government to private businesses intended to achieve specific objectives that are not payments for goods or services rendered.” They are paid with an economic objective, such as job growth or to boost a particular industry.

The study found that, when accounting for both inflation and population, spending on subsidies has increased in every province and at the federal level between 2015 and 2024.

Proponents of corporate subsidies argue they drive economic growth through job creation, technological advancements and improving international competitiveness. But Alex Whalen, director of the Atlantic Canada Prosperity Initiative at the Fraser Institute, called them “wasteful.”

“Despite their current prevalence in Canada, research has consistently shown that corporate welfare is largely wasteful and generally fails to achieve its stated goals,” he said in a news release.

“The massive recent increase in government spending on corporate welfare should concern all Canadians,” he added. “It’s wasteful spending at the expense of Canadian taxpayers and places government in the position of picking favoured businesses. Better policies exist to drive economic growth.”

According to the authors, corporate subsidies are unfair to businesses that don’t receive them, and research shows “there is little connection between sustained, widespread economic growth or job creation and corporate subsidies.”

They cite several studies offering various conclusions around the “wasteful” nature of corporate subsidies, including the incentive for firms to lobby government rather than deliver better services, the interference with private decision-making in the marketplace, the possibility of job growth in one area causing job losses elsewhere, and the likelihood that subsidies fund businesses to conduct activity they would be doing anyway.

After comparing corporate income tax with spending on corporate subsidies, the authors suggest “corporate welfare” could be eliminated, with the resulting savings being directed to lowering business taxes by over 80 per cent.

“The increased spending on corporate subsidies has occurred in Canada during a period of economic stagnation and renewed interest in policies that can drive economic growth,” the Fraser Institute says in the research. “Governments in Canada have an opportunity to substantially boost economic growth by eliminating corporate subsidies and directing the savings to broad-based business tax relief.”

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has also previously railed against “corporate welfare,” taking aim at it in his first major keynote speech abroad in March, saying it “enriched insiders at taxpayers’ expense.”

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Mark Carney’s new sovereign wealth fund, the Canada Strong Fund, has faced criticism from other Conservative thinkers for allowing the government to hand out more “corporate welfare.”

• Economists sound the alarm about ‘very concerning’ lack of transparency on federal finances
• Canadians will pay up to $3,348 this year on government debt interest, study finds

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Kramatorsk, Ukraine — The streets are all-but deserted, but the mood of Ukraine’s embattled city of Kramatorsk is emblazoned in foot-high letters across the walls of its ravaged buildings. “This house is like my life: Russia ruined it too.”

You can hear the war constantly in Kramatorsk, which together with nearby Sloviansk is holding the line against Russia’s efforts to capture the whole of the Donbas. You can smell it in the smoke and dust which permeate the air amid the boom of artillery and the rattle of outgoing fire.

The grand square outside the Palace of Culture and the tree-lined parks are empty, while a truck unloads triangular concrete “dragon’s teeth” intended to stop Russian tanks in their tracks. Huge coils of barbed wire offer further impediment, roses and hibiscus flowers blooming in between.

Like all cities at the front, the roads are swathed in fishing nets to protect against FPV drones. Something glitters and twists in the wind: it is a fibre optic cable from the most lethal type of drone.

This is a city preparing to become a battlefield. Russian forces claim to have captured territory just 14 kilometres from Kramatorsk.

And yet, there are signs of attempts at normal life, in the small businesses and volunteer groups which keep society going.

In a shopping mall scarred by shelling, the supermarket remains open, its shelves remarkably well filled. The store is called Chudo, or “miracle.” On the step outside, an elderly man is selling a plastic tub of blackcurrants, plucked from his garden. Their flavour is deep and intense with the fleeting taste of summer.

Around the corner, a modern-looking store with daringly large windows and a few tables outside: Zaboy opened this flagship site last year, selling t-shirts and hoodies with a patriotic Donbas theme, along with specialist coffee at Kyiv-level prices. It was a defiant presence in Kramatorsk, but just a week after our visit, it too announced it would be closing down.

Nearby, Kateryna Seledtsova’s Coffee House Bakery is a haven of flamingo pink, boasting a neon sign by the entrance which declares “All You Need is Love.”

Kateryna first opened the place in 2016, training in French patisserie techniques and offering a range of delicate eclairs and macarons. It closed for just one month, she says, in April 2022, not long after the Russian invasion. She moved to the safer environs of Dnipro and took a pastry chef job, but returned to reopen Coffee House that summer, with a menu geared more towards simpler comfort food.

Kateryna says it was about far more than mere cake. “We are a beacon of light to our customers. When you step inside, you leave the war outside. They tell us – you give us hope.”

The challenges of working in such a frontline city are extreme: she has moved her eight-year-old son to Kharkiv, where his grandparents look after him, although they cannot manage it every day. So she drives three times a week, back and forth, along a route so dangerous that it is known as the Road of Death. One bonus, though: She buys her ingredients in Kharkiv, because they are several times cheaper than in Kramatorsk; the peculiarities of wartime economics.

Kateryna has scouted out a potential new site in Kharkiv too, a place where she could move her whole team when the time comes to finally leave. “It’s complicated,” she says. “My father works for the city authority here, so he cannot leave, or he loses his job. So I plan on staying with him until the last moment.”

Snezhana, her pastry chef, points out her creations on the counter; I pay for a slice of baked cheesecake, a prettily glazed strawberry tart and a meringue crowned with a flourish of cream.

“It is scary to live here,” Snezhana admits, “but every morning I wake up and come into the bakery to make my desserts and it warms my heart. It was always my passion to work in pastry, and I never imagined I would have my dream job at the age of just 20.”

Up the road we find Olga, who at 61 is one of the city’s most beloved volunteers. Since 2014, when the Russians invaded Crimea, she has been helping those who defend the city, and has turned her Garage-Cafe into a hub for the community, where her regulars have become lifelong friends.

On an otherwise ordinary afternoon in early May, three 250 kg guided air bombs exploded nearby, one by one, in the heart of the city centre.

The blast wave threw her to the cafe’s floor, and turned the buildings on either side into jagged piles of brick and twisted metal. Six people were killed, including Svitlana, one of Olga’s closest friends. Her grief was so strong that she thought she might never recover.

A few weeks after the attack, Olga was back at work, immaculate in a sequinned top and pristine white jeans, making a cappuccino for a taxi driver who tells her it is his birthday. But the garage cafe is now in an especially risky part of town.

“Hardly anyone comes here anymore,” she says. ”I don’t know how to make ends meet. I’ve never been a very good businesswoman, because I always treat everyone to coffee. But now, when I do the books, everything is in the red.” The shelves are still lined with mechanical parts for sale, but there are few buyers.

“I am torn in two over whether to leave,” Olga says, close to tears: “this cafe is my child, this city is my child.”

The latest threat of fibre optic drones has created yet another new nightmare. “You have to move as if you were really on the front line — always looking at the sky, always listening for drones, looking for a place to run or hide. I cry a lot,” she says. “Inside I just want to hope everything will be fine. But now people are saying there will be nowhere to return to. The Russians will just destroy everything.”

The local news channels report that two more restaurants are about to close their doors. We walk past one, a popular sushi place called Woka, surrounded by a canopy of trees. On its final day of operation, music is playing defiantly at the deserted outdoor terrace.

Up the road is Rodina, a former cinema containing a maze of different dining rooms and a vast entertainment space upstairs which echoes with the memory of celebrations past. The menu contains everything from pancakes to burgers and a range of pizzas which the local volunteers insist are the best in all of Donetsk region. By the end of July, they would also be closed.

Oleksiy Bliznyuk had already left town, shuttering his Milati Cafe a fortnight earlier, prompted by both the lack of customers and safety concerns. At one stage, he had run three sites, including a production facility with 15 staff who prided themselves on using the best ingredients.

By 2026, he was down to two full-time employees, occasionally four. They tried their best to hold on.

“Then one day, one of my team members told me she’d had to run and hide from an FPV drone, and another girl said a KAB (aerial bomb) had landed in the yard behind her home. It was a really tough moment, but I thought — what are we waiting for? We need to stop.”

And so he began looking for a new site in the central city of Cherkasy, while moving as much of his equipment as possible out of Kramatorsk. “Every day that task becomes more difficult and more dangerous.” There is no government grant to help with relocation.

But opening in another city was never the dream. “It is our business, our heritage, which we built with our own hands. I really hope that it will not vanish for good.” He says he struggles to find the words to describe how it feels. “Kramatorsk is my home, and everything I did there, I did with love. Maybe there will be a miracle, and we will come home again, and I will meet you here, in Milati.”

At night, under a sky streaked with the blood red of a Donbas sunset, the power suddenly cuts out, leaving only the dim glow of a battery-powered torch. We are jolted awake in the early hours by the huge thud of explosions, as guided air bombs pummel the edge of town. The windows rattle and the apartment shudders in protest.

There are still municipal employees sweeping the streets and cutting the grass, but trains stopped calling six months ago: next, people worry that postal deliveries, buses, and utility workers will stop too.

Evacuation teams like the one led by the 26-year-old volunteer Bogdan Zuyakov are already taking people out of the Kramatorsk suburbs, while Russia steadily erases the city, piece by piece.

“Even if my body leaves Kramatorsk,” says Olga, “my heart and my soul will be here.”

• Serge Labbé: Don’t forget Ukraine — victim of the West’s weakness and indecision
• Ukraine on the brink: A Canadian journalist’s blunt warning about the war-torn country

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A man has been charged in connection with a bomb threat against the U.S. Consulate in Halifax, after a propane tank and several containers believed to contain flammable materials were found inside his vehicle, which was parked nearby.

On Tuesday morning, Halifax Regional Police issued a brief statement noting that Ali Assakereh, 54, would be appearing in Provincial Court today to face charges of uttering threats and public mischief. Police added that the investigation was ongoing.

On Sunday night at 6:15 p.m., police were first made aware of a bomb threat that was received by the U.S. Consulate located in Purdy’s Wharf on Upper Water Street in the Nova Scotia capital. The Halifax police explosive disposal unit responded, and several streets in the downtown core were evacuated.

Charges laid in bomb threat incident

A man has been charged following a bomb threat that closed several streets in Halifax yesterday.

Ali Assakereh, 54, will appear in Halifax Provincial Court today to face charges of:
Uttering Threats
Public Mischief

The investigation is… pic.twitter.com/udA0ASszTX

— Halifax_Police (@HfxRegPolice) August 11, 2026

They identified the man who made the threat, and the following morning found his vehicle in the Purdy’s Wharf parkade. A propane tank and several containers believed to contain flammable materials were inside.

At 2 p.m., police confirmed that the vehicle and its contents did not pose an ongoing risk to public safety and all streets were reopened.

Meanwhile, at approximately 8:35 a.m., the man was located on Thomas Raddall Drive and taken into custody.

“Given the concern that he may be in possession of explosives, road closures were in place for much of the day on Thomas Raddall Drive and surrounding areas while his belongings were searched with the support of the RCMP Explosive Disposal Unit,” police said.

More to come.

• U.S. State Department to close Winnipeg consulate among other foreign missions
• Shooters-for-hire scheme in U.S. consulate attack mirrors shootings at Jewish schools and synagogues

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A medal awarded to a high-ranking Royal Canadian Air Force officer is raising questions about this country’s involvement in the U.S.-Israel war with Iran.

Late last month, the Government of Canada announced that Col. David K. Turenne, a former CF-18 fighter pilot, had been approved for the Meritorious Service Cross. That medal recognizes military deeds “performed in an outstandingly professional manner, according to a rare high standard that brings considerable benefit or great honour to the Canadian Forces,” according to its official description.

Turenne won it “for extraordinary leadership and diplomatic skill as director of the Combined Air Operations Center during the Israel-Iran conflict, synchronizing multinational air operations and enabling the safe evacuation of 10,000 personnel from the Al Udeid Air Base, Doha, Qatar, June 2025,” according to the official July 26 citation.

Turenne’s actions came during the Twelve Day War in June 2025 involving Israeli airstrikes on Iranian military and nuclear facilities, backed by U.S. political and operational support.

Kened Sadiku, who speaks for National Defence, said Monday that an interview with Turenne “won’t be feasible.” Sadiku promised more information Monday about what the air force colonel did to win the medal, but didn’t respond before publication deadline.

This is the first time Canadians are hearing about Turenne’s involvement in the conflict, which raises questions about what Canada may have been doing since war broke out again in the region in February.

When asked this past spring, Prime Minister Mark Carney said the Canadian military was not taking part in U.S.-Israel attacks on Iran.

“We are not a party to those actions,” Carney told reporters this past March during a news conference in Australia.

When asked in March if Canada might reconsider if the conflict spreads, Carney said, “one can never, categorically, rule out, participation. We will stand by our allies if it makes sense.”

Around the same time, the Department of National Defence said Canadian military members serving on exchange with U.S. forces in the Middle East remained in their posts but had been assigned other duties outside of the campaign against Iran.

During the March news conference in Australia, Carney described the Iranian regime as one that had “oppressed its people” for almost five decades, killed its own “in large numbers, even in recent weeks,” “exported terrorism for decades across the Middle East for decades,” and killed “scores of Canadians” when the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 from Tehran to Kyiv on Jan. 8, 2020, shortly after takeoff, killing all 176 occupants on board.

Canada has seen a “decline in transparency about a number of different aspects of defence” in recent months, said David Perry, who heads the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.

“They don’t post as much information; they’re not as communicative about it,” said Perry, a defence analyst.

“There are probably also some specific sensitivities to things in the Middle East given the dynamic there and the relationship with the Trump administration,” he said.

Perry pointed out that National Defence didn’t want to talk about whether or not Canadians were posted in Kuwait after an Iranian missile slammed into a Canadian airbase nicknamed Camp Canada in Kuwait on March 1, 2026, even though the department’s own website flagged the country as a spot where Canadians were conducting operations.

“From my vantage point, the lack of transparency is generally counterproductive,” he said. “But in some cases around the Middle East it’s become just silly is the best way of putting it.”

The Canadian government has an obligation to let Canadians know what their military is doing, Perry said. “If we’ve got people over there that are doing things worthy of receiving fairly significant citations and awards, then we should be able to explain to people what it was that got them the awards and talk about it.”

Turenne’s actions to evacuate thousands of military personnel from Qatar “were indeed a big deal,” retired major-gen. Scott Clancy said Monday.

As initial strikes on Al Udeid took place last summer, U.S. Central Command decided to move its Combined Air Operations Center (CAOC) “back to the U.S. because it posed not only a significant threat to the hundreds of staff and support working there being in the region within striking distance of Iran,” Clancy said, noting that their presence in Qatar would also draw fire to an allies’ territory.

As the CAOC director, Turenne’s job last summer would have been to coordinate the move to Shaw Air Force Base in South Carolina, “as well as sustain the mission in theatre,” said Clancy, who was director of operations for the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD) in Colorado Springs until 2021.

“This is a highly complex operation involving well over a thousand folks, as well as all of the equipment and logistics to move them, all while splitting forces to sustain the operation while moving.”

Removing “that target availability saved a significant loss of life as it would have represented the most lucrative and highest payoff target for Iran and they would have used every resource — ballistic missiles, drones, cruise missiles, and terrorist attacks — to strike it,” Clancy said.

Clancy has met and worked with Turenne in the past.

“I have found him to be an officer of the highest calibre and competence,” said the retired major general. “Not only have I been impressed with his competence as an expert in airpower application, but he is a leader of great empathy and professionalism.”

What the medal for Turenne says about Canada’s role in the U.S.-Israel war on Iran “is complex,” Clancy said.

“The Canadian government, and by extension the Canadian Forces conducted no planning, execution nor subsidiary operations to support the U.S. or Israel in the conflict,” he said.

“However, we have officers on exchange throughout the world, including extensively with the U.S., which remains our closest and most important military ally,” Clancy said.

“Although the Canadian population has distanced themselves from the U.S.,” he said, the relationship between the two militaries “has done nothing except flourish.”

Clancy’s keen on developing Canada’s military capability and meeting our defence commitments.

“For decades I have been staunchly advocating for exactly these things in lock step with our American allies,” he said. “As well, in order to effectively lead, to be the professionals that we are demanded to be by the Canadian population, you need to have the experience of the best, and for Air Forces that is the (United States Air Force), and by extension the air forces that are being employed in combat worldwide.”

Canada’s participation in Central Command CAOC goes back to the conflict in Afghanistan, Clancy said, noting it’s recognition by the U.S. “as to the key role that Canada plays as an ally, as well as the competence of the multiple senior officers that have served there.”

Ceasing the participation of Canadian exchange officers with U.S. forces that are about to engage in combat would hurt the trust between the two militaries, he said.

“We would never be welcomed back and we would lose that professionalization ability which could cripple our ability to fight the next conflict,” Clancy said. “Furthermore, the ability of Canada to influence U.S. global military operations is also present when we have presence there.”

When Clancy was directing operations at NORAD, he said his U.S. counterparts engaged him “on the conduct of the highest levels of deterrence being conducted by the U.S. globally and I was in a position to shape, enable, influence and even inform. This all goes away if that individual does.”

Although Canada might not agree with the timing of the conflict with Iran, “striking at this awful regime, specifically responsible for the October 7 attacks, thousands of strikes by Hezbollah and Hamas, and the indiscriminate bombing of civilian targets either through their proxies or directly themselves is ample rationale in my mind to allow this individual to continue to serve there,” Clancy said.

When Canadian officers are on exchange with other militaries, they should serve to the best of their ability as if they “were part of that nation’s forces and demonstrate the professionalism and leadership of Canadians,” said Michel Maisonneuve, a retired Canadian lieutenant-general, who served as assistant deputy chief of the defence staff.

“I was on exchange as a lieutenant with the French Army 1978-1980 and would have fought with/for them against the Soviet hordes with no reservation,” Maisonneuve wrote Monday in an email.

• Defence minister now says he was informed ‘immediately’ after Iranian strike on base housing Canadians
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Ask Rebecca is smart, honest advice to readers’ questions about life, family and relationships by columnist Rebecca Eckler. Got a question for Rebecca? Submit it anonymously on the form here. You can also send an email to NPadvice@postmedia.com.

Dear Rebecca:

After almost 20 years of marriage, my husband and I are getting divorced. I don’t want to get into exactly what happened because it’s deeply personal, but I will say this was my decision.

I found out he did something that shattered my trust and broke my heart. Once I knew the truth, I realized I could never look at him the same way again. After years of feeling unhappy and betrayed, I’ve reached the point where I know I can’t forgive him. As painful as this is, my decision is final.

The part I’m struggling with now is telling my parents. I’m 50 years old and have three teenagers, but I still dread having this conversation with them.

My parents are elderly, very traditional, and have been married for more than 60 years. To them, marriage is forever. I know this news will break their hearts. They’ll also worry about what their friends and our extended family will think. That’s just how they were raised.

I know divorce isn’t unusual, but that won’t make this any easier for my parents to accept. I’m afraid they’ll feel our family has failed and that I’ve failed as a wife and mother.

What I can’t decide is how much I should tell them. Part of me wants to explain what happened so they’ll understand why I’ve made this decision. The other part of me doesn’t want to burden them with details they can’t unhear or change how they see my husband, who they love.

How much do parents really need to know about their adult child’s divorce? Is it enough to simply tell them our marriage is over or should I tell them the truth about what led to it? I know this conversation is going to break their hearts no matter what I say. — Dreading the Conversation

Dear Dreading the Conversation

I don’t like throwing out the word “expert,” but I’ve been divorced. Twice. I’m either wildly unqualified to give marriage advice or exceptionally qualified to give divorce advice. Let’s go with the latter.

Not only did I get divorced twice, but I also monetized them. I wrote books about the demise of my marriages! Apparently, I had no problem telling thousands of complete strangers intimate details of my marital breakdowns. My parents? Well, I suddenly wanted to become the most private person on Earth. I know how it feels to be a grown woman dreading telling traditional parents your marriage is over.

What’s interesting, and telling, is that my parents have never once mentioned anything I wrote about either divorce. I don’t think it’s because they didn’t care. I think some truths are simply too painful, or too uncomfortable, for certain generations to discuss.

First, give yourself credit for something that may not feel obvious now. You’ve already done the hardest part. After years of disappointment, thinking, rethinking, you’ve made a painful decision. I’m assuming your three children know and you found the courage to tell the people whose lives will change the most. Compared to that, telling your traditional elderly parents is really just another conversation — not the biggest one.

Dreading telling your parents the most tells me this is less about the divorce than it is about fearing disappointing Mom and Dad. Funny that you can have a mortgage, teenagers and a divorce lawyer, yet no matter how old we are, telling parents something you know they won’t want to hear can make you feel like you’re about to get grounded from a house you haven’t lived in for 30 years. Some things, like anxiety of letting our parents down, never change.

I’d love to tell you exactly how I broke the news. But my brain seems to have hit “delete,” which should tell you everything you need to know about how much I enjoyed those “dreaded” conversations. You’re asking how to tell them, but you’re also asking how to make sure you aren’t letting them down. You can’t. No perfect combination of words is going to make two people who don’t believe in divorce and have been married for six decades say, “Divorce? Fantastic idea!”

Parents have astonishing memories. They remember your Grade Two report card, and the name of your piano teacher when you were eight. So, think very carefully before giving them details they’ll never be able to un-remember.

Tell them what they need to know, not everything you know . The right thing to do is say something like, “There were major issues in our marriage. I spent a really long time trying to work it out, but I have reached the point where I know our marriage is over. Please understand this wasn’t a decision made lightly or quickly.”

Sharing every painful detail may help your parents understand, but it could and probably will permanently alter their relationship with the father of their grandchildren, even if the divorce is best for everyone. Believe me, there will be graduations, birthdays and about 3,000 other family occasions where everyone needs to congregate and make it to dessert.

Give your parents a minute to absorb that the marriage they assumed would last forever is over. They may be shocked. They may worry about the children. They may ask if you should try one more time. They may even remind you that “marriage is forever.” Let them react. But remember, their initial reaction is also unlikely to be their final reaction.

Keep reminding yourself that staying in a marriage that left you deeply unhappy isn’t a lesson most parents, including yours, would actually want their children and grandchildren to learn. Your parents are allowed to be upset. You’re allowed to get divorced.

They will eventually wrap their heads around it. Trust me.

For what it’s worth, I think you’ll be just fine. And at least you only have to tell them about one divorce.

Love Rebecca

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Rebecca Eckler is an internationally bestselling author, founder of re:books publishing, Rivkah Books, and co-founder of CANREADS. She’s a professional oversharer and observer of human behaviour, and has spent decades writing about life’s messy twists.

Have a question for Rebecca? Email NPadvice@postmedia.com or send your question anonymously by clicking here.

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 former Toronto flight attendant has pleaded guilty to posing as a pilot to take hundreds of free flights on U.S. airlines.

Dallas Pokornik, 34, entered the plea Thursday in federal court in Honolulu, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Hawaii said in a news release Friday. He is to be sentenced Dec. 8 and faces up to 20 years in prison, a fine of up to US$250,000 and a term of supervised release.

Pokornik used a fictitious employee identification card to obtain the flights between January 2020 and Oct. 28, 2024, the office said. He also posed as a flight attendant, though he was not working as one at the time, according to court documents obtained by the National Post .

A plea agreement seen by CBC News says the badge was “false and fictitious” and claimed he was still employed by the Canadian airline. He used it to obtain “travel benefits, including airline tickets that are reserved for pilots” from three companies the document identifies only as airlines 1, 2 and 3.

Pokornik worked as a flight attendant at a Toronto-based airline from July 2017 to October 2019, according to court documents. He was never a pilot and did not have an airman’s certificate, according to the indictment .

That airline has not been named in the indictment or by prosecutors in the nearly seven months since the case became public.

Air Canada and Flair told the National Post in January that Pokornik had not been employed by them. Porter Airlines, which is headquartered in Toronto, and WestJet, based in Calgary, did not respond at the time. Porter said in an email Monday it was “unable to verify any details related to this story.”

Porter Airlines and Sunwing Airlines were both headquartered in Toronto during the period Pokornik worked as a flight attendant. Sunwing flew its last flight in May 2025 and was integrated into WestJet.

Pokornik also requested a jump seat in the cockpit, an extra seat normally used by off-duty pilots, prosecutors said when the indictment was announced. The U.S. attorney’s office told the National Post in January there is no information indicating whether he ever used it.

The scheme ended after an employee of one of the U.S. airlines photographed the forged badge and the image was passed to Pokornik’s former employer, CBC reported. That carrier confirmed the badge was fake “because, among other things, it listed an expiration date in the year 2027,” according to the plea agreement.

Pokornik agreed as part of the plea to pay restitution to three U.S.-based victim airlines, the office said. One of them is in Hawaii, according to CBC.

“Travel security protocols help keep our citizens and visitors safe, and anyone who breaches those protocols should expect to be brought to justice,” U.S. Attorney Ken Sorenson said in the release.

Pokornik was indicted Oct. 2, 2025, arrested in Panama and extradited to the United States in January. He pleaded not guilty that month.

A jury trial had been set for March 17. That trial did not happen and the reason has not been made public.

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