Iran’s coronavirus lies are putting Iranians – and Canadians – at risk

First published at True North on March 7, 2020.

If the dictatorial regime in Iran were as invested in dealing with the spread of coronavirus as it is with curbing the spread of information about it, the country would be faring far better than it is.

Iran’s Covid-19 mortality rate is the highest in the world, and the country appears to have the fastest spread of the virus based even on the grossly understated official figures.

The World Health Organization’s Mar. 7 situation report lists 124 deaths out of 4747 confirmed cases of the virus in Iran, though even these official numbers were outdated within minutes of publication.

The more significant – and more elusive – number is the disparity between the truth and what the Iranian regime acknowledges.

Citing hospital sources, BBC Persia reported the death toll at 210 in a Feb. 28 story while the Iranian government said only 34 had died from the virus.

The Iranian opposition group Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) pegged the death toll at over 2000 – nearly 14 times the official tally – on Saturday, noting cases in 74 cities in all of Iran’s 31 provinces.

“The scale of the virus spread and death rate in Iran is dramatically more extensive and catastrophic, to the extent that if not contained, hundreds of thousands of Iranians would be vulnerable to infection and death as a result of the regime’s incompetence, lack of sufficient resources to confront the virus and a corrupt ruling elite,” MEK said in a report.

MEK pointed out that unlike other countries, which were transparent about their detection and monitoring of the virus from the outset, Iran only first acknowledged it when there were already two deaths.

Iran’s deputy health minister, Iraj Harirchi, embodied the state’s duplicity while sweating and coughing from Covid-19 during a news conference in which he downplayed the virus’ spread.

At this point, at least two dozen Iranian lawmakers have been infected, some of whom – most recently a female member of parliament – have died.

Even if we were to accept Iran’s data, we’d see the number of confirmed cases having jumped by over 20% in just 24 hours.

A couple of members of parliament have been rebuked for pointing out the inconsistencies in the regime’s figures.

“The numbers are much higher than what is being said,” MP Gholamali Jafarzadeh Imenabadi said to Al-Arabiya. “It is not as if we can hide the cemeteries.”

While Iranians are being turned away from overcrowded hospitals, Iran has nevertheless found the resources to ensure anyone “spreading rumours” about the virus will be flogged and sentenced to as many as three years in prison.

“Rumours” would appear to be regime-speak for the truth, as one person was arrested for sharing footage from inside a crowded morgue, and a university head from Qom said the government had banned the dissemination of outbreak figures.

Apologists for the regime – including some in western media reports – have said the issues with the official figures are as innocent as “data collection” inefficiencies.

It would be easy to chalk this all up to gross political incompetence were there not so many bodies piling up – and were it not part of a pattern with Iran.

That all of this comes less than two months after the Iranian military shot down Ukraine International Airlines Flight 752 is no coincidence. The Iranian government apologized for its “unforgivable mistake” and vowed to cooperate with investigative efforts – though subsequently changed its mind.

In Iran’s first major transparency test since, the country is failing once again.

And once again, Iran’s hubris is proving fatal.

Iranian lives aren’t the only ones at risk here. Iran is facing backlash from all over the Middle East as the virus seems to have spread directly from Iran in many cases.

Iran’s negligence has directly put Canadians at risk as well.

While the early Covid-19 cases in Canada were in people who had come from China, the bulk of Canada’s recent coronavirus patients picked it up in Iran.

Even with this week’s confirmation of Canada’s first local transmission of the virus, the majority of infections have thus far been imported. Despite this, the federal government has not imposed any travel restrictions, effectively ignoring the continued importation risk.

“This is a virus that knows no borders and that is growing,” said Canadian health minister Patty Hajdu when asked about shutting down or restricting ports of entry to Canada.

Without travel restrictions, Canadians assume vulnerability because of other countries’ failings.

Omar Khadr is not a victim

First published at True North on February 17, 2020.

To Tabitha Speer, Omar Khadr is her husband’s killer.

To Layne Morris, Omar Khadr is the cause of his partial blindness.

To Roméo Dallaire, Omar Khadr is a “magnificent gentleman.”

That undeserved characterization was surely a gut punch to the veterans outside a theatre at Dalhousie University last week, where Khadr was held up as a beacon of “courage” before a crowd that gave him a standing ovation.

The stars of the evening: a convicted terrorist, a sycophantic moderator, and an audience of fawning fans who don’t just see Khadr as a victim, but inexplicably as a hero.

The moderator, Shelly Whitman, promised “hard questions” that may be “challenging” and even “triggering,” though no such questions were posed. Unless, that is, you count Khadr being asked about the weather, or about a happy childhood memory.

Far from being an open dialogue, Whitman told the audience at the outset that questions about “the incident that happened in Afghanistan” were off-limits, as well as questions about Khadr’s $10.5 million payout from the federal government.

It takes a miraculous about of chutzpah for a convicted terrorist to get credit for ‘speaking out’ without actually addressing the terrorism bit.

That “incident” was the firefight that killed Speer and wounded Morris. Khadr confessed to and was convicted of throwing the fatal grenade, though he’s since amended this position to one of uncertainty.

Morris’ name was never mentioned at the forum. The moderator made only a passing reference to Speer as she alluded to his death “allegedly” being at Khadr’s hands.

The parodic forum revealed how successful Khadr’s rehabilitative public relations efforts have been.

While Khadr found some outright support from the fringes of the Canadian left when he was repatriated to Canada in 2012, much of the sympathy towards him was focused not on downplaying his past, but taking aim at his treatment by the American and Canadian governments.

Some people were uncomfortable viewing him in black-and-white as a hardened terrorist, and resigned to accept that there were shades of grey in his story.

This has dramatically shifted to the point where those formerly fringe voices have succeeding in casting a narrative Khadr is an example to which we should all strive. Activists now condemn as racist any view of Khadr that isn’t explicitly laudatory.

Those of us in the audience at Dalhousie last week were told to accept Khadr as being “magnificent” and “courageous,” though it was never explained why that is.

Even if we view Khadr as a victim, that hardly justifies extoling such positive attributes. Especially when no one is prepared to explore the glaring discrepancies in the victim narrative and Khadr’s own actions since being released from custody.

If Khadr was a victim, it was not of the Canadian state but rather his own family. He was just a young and innocent bystander to their radicalism, the story goes.

The Khadrs got the nickname as being Canada’s “first family of terror” for a reason. Khadr’s father, Ahmed, was an al-Qaeda financier and confidante of Osama bin Laden. Khadr’s sister and mother notoriously expressed support for bin Laden, al-Qaeda, and even Speer’s murder.

Yet Khadr, in a 2015 Toronto Star interview said he doesn’t believe his father was in al-Qaeda.

This would come as a shock to Khadr’s brother, Abdulrahman, who said in a CBC documentary, “We are an al-Qaeda family.”

Omar Khadr also downplayed his mother’s and sister’s comments, saying he has “a million other influences” so people shouldn’t be worried.

Khadr’s supporters blame the Khadr family for putting him on the battlefield, but Khadr himself defends and downplays his family’s extremism.

Shining the light on the Khadr family exposes the biggest liability to the Khadr-as-a-victim narrative: if his family was so complicit, why has he not renounced them?

After his release, Khadr successfully went to court on numerous occasions to ease the restrictions on communicating with his family. He fought to have unsupervised contact, and eventually to get a passport to visit his sister in Saudi Arabia.

It’s a question Khadr has never answered – and to my knowledge one he’s never been asked.

I’ve never sought to deny Khadr the right to speak. Though as someone who’s written about the free speech fight I must admit it’s an interesting test of where the lines of acceptable campus discourse are drawn. Misgendering someone gets you banned from speaking on campuses but murdering an American soldier fills the house and gets you a standing ovation.

New “independent” senator was Liberal donor and critic of Stephen Harper

First published at True North on February 1, 2020.

One of the two “independent senators” appointed by Justin Trudeau last week has contributed thousands of dollars to left-wing political parties and was a vocal critic of Stephen Harper’s former government.

University of Saskatchewan law professor W. Brent Cotter was appointed last week to the Senate on the recommendation of the Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a release.

While the PMO says the selection process aims to ensure senators are “independent” and “reflect Canada’s diversity,” Cotter appears to be a long-time supporter of left-wing parties – in particular the Liberals.

Cotter donated to six riding associations – three Liberal and three NDP – in Saskatchewan, Alberta and Nova Scotia in 2015, according to Elections Canada donor records. Five of these contributions were registered the month before that year’s federal election.

The records reveal $400 to the Saskatoon—University Federal NDP Riding Association and $250 to the Calgary Centre Federal Liberal Association. Both of these campaigns were endorsed by Leadnow’s Anyone But Harper initiative, which directed people to vote strategically for the most electable non-Conservative candidate in 30 targeted ridings across Canada.

Cotter also gave $400 to the Liberal association in Saskatoon—University that year.

In 2011, Cotter gave $250 to the Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar NDP association, as well as to the Green Party of Canada.

Cotter says these contributions were to support individual candidates, rather than the parties, specifically.

“I would be happy to provide my thinking on the support I have provided to individual candidates in federal elections. But for your information, the donations were tied to my wish to support the individual candidates,” Cotter said in an email. “I do not identify myself as a Liberal or New Democrat or a member of any other party but I am someone who supports progressive public interest goals.”

Cotter fought against the previous Conservative government’s 2012 budget by signing an open letter to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and members of parliament expressing “grave concern” about the budget’s streamlining of environmental measures.

The letter, signed by dozens of lawyers, called the budget an “attack on Canadian environmental law and policy” because of its easing of energy and resource regulations.

Cotter was part of a team of seven legal academics who called on the International Commission of Jurists to “conduct the studies and/or investigations it deems necessary” on the Harper government in 2014 after Harper and then-attorney general Peter MacKay said Beverley McLachlin, at the time Canada’s chief justice, acted inappropriately when she called Harper about a case before the court.

The letter accused Harper of conduct that “may seriously undermine judicial independence in Canada.” Cotter also signed another open letter alongside numerous lawyers and law professors to condemn “the unprecedented and baseless insinuation by the Prime Minister of Canada that the Chief Justice engaged in improper conduct.”

In 2015, Cotter openly criticized Harper’s appointment of a conservative judge, Russ Brown, to the Supreme Court of Canada, suggesting the appointment was based on “political orientation” rather than qualifications.

Dalhousie won’t say whether Omar Khadr is getting paid to speak there

First published at True North on January 27, 2020.

The organizers of an upcoming keynote address by Omar Khadr at Dalhousie University are not responding to inquiries about whether the convicted terrorist and murderer is being paid to speak.

Khadr is scheduled to appear at the Halifax university on Feb. 10 as part of an event titled Children’s Rights Upfront: Preventing the Recruitment and Use of Children in Violence.

While the talk is being presented by the Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative in partnership with Dalhousie University, neither organization’s representatives responded to repeated inquiries from True North about the arrangement with Khadr.

It’s not known who’s paying for his travel to Alberta from Nova Scotia, let alone whether he’s receiving a speaking fee or honorarium for the talk.

The Roméo Dallaire Child Soldiers Initiative also didn’t answer whether it or Dalhousie, a publicly funded university, took the lead in inviting Khadr.

This is Khadr’s first public appearance as a speaker, although he did appear last year on an episode of CBC’s Tout le monde en parle, where he received a standing ovation from the studio audience.

In 2017, Khadr received a $10.5 million settlement and apology from Justin Trudeau’s government, ending a lawsuit Khadr filed over his treatment in Guantanamo Bay. Khadr was serving a sentence after confessing to throwing the grenade that killed American army medic Sgt. Christopher Speer during a firefight in Afghanistan.

The Speer family, along with Sgt. Layne Morris, who was injured in the blast, won a US$134 million judgement against Khadr in a Utah court, which Khadr has not paid.

Oil and gas sector group seeks “adult conversation” on carbon taxes

First published at True North on January 13, 2020.

The media went into a tizzy when Conservative leader Andrew Scheer met with oil and gas industry representatives ahead of the 2019 federal election. The Globe and Mail reported on it as a “secret meeting.” The National Observer said Scheer had “holed up in a resort with…Big Oil’s most powerful lobby group, to plot the demise of the Trudeau government, among other discussions.”

Big Oil conspiracies abounded, no doubt emboldened by then-democratic institutions minister Karina Gould’s suggestion of “collusion” and former environment minister Catherine McKenna’s accusation of “scheming.”

In fact, the April 11 session at the Azuridge Estate Hotel outside of Calgary welcomed a number of stakeholders, including senior Liberals and First Nations leaders. The host organization, the Modern Miracle Network, let the industry pitch its vision while giving Scheer an opportunity to share his own.

Modern Miracle Network, an oil industry-led group that openly celebrates and promotes Canada’s energy sector, was branded as some sort of shadowy cabal of executives with a hidden agenda.

The rhetoric around this event is indicative of how the media seems to view the oil and gas sector: any political lobbying is sinister, and any politician who supports Canada’s energy sector must be unethically in bed with the industry.

It’s why the Modern Miracle Network hosts dialogues like the one in Alberta, founder and executive director Michael Binnion told True North.

Binnion, who’s also the president and chief executive officer of Questerre Energy, wants an “adult conversation” on energy policy, which includes discussion about whether carbon taxation is the best way to protect the environment.

Modern Miracle Network, a registered non-profit, is transparent about its goals. The organization isn’t a household name because it markets its ideas to the media, politicians and other stakeholders, rather than to the public directly.

“We’re an organization that’s trying to bring people together who have a common view or alignment with our objectives, which is having an adult conservation on hydrocarbons and energy,” Binnion said. “Our job is to facilitate a network for that conversation.”

In an October article, the National Observer called Binnion the “little-known colossus behind the Conservatives’ anti-climate agenda,” a moniker rooted to some extent in the author’s confusion about a remark Binnion made at the 2018 Manning Networking Conference in Ottawa.

During a panel discussion about carbon taxes, Binnion joked that a page of hand-written notes was the “official list for the conservative movement on the options that we’re going to discuss.” The National Observer said this amounted to Binnion “boasting” that he held “key elements of the Conservative’s (sic) energy platform.”

Despite a reporter’s inability to differentiate between conservative ideas and the Conservative party, there’s no question Modern Miracle Network aims to reshape the discussion around energy policy. Much of this involves showcasing the work the sector has already done.

“I think the (oil and gas) industry has done an amazing job of actually delivering on what people say they want, which is a lower environmental footprint,” he said. “Every single year we continue to do that.”

The Canadian energy sector has spent more money on environmental technology, clean technologies and environmental protection than all other industries in the country combined, he noted.

It’s a quintessential Canadian success story, Binnion said.

“Thank goodness – for the planet – that the oil sands were put in Canada,” he said. “What other country, what other group of scientists or engineers, would have been able to take a resource that had the 90th percentile of emissions intensity per barrel and have reduced new projects to the 50th percentile, and are now talking about being better than average in emissions intensity? What an amazing Canadian achievement.”

It’s an evolution we’re not seeing in other oil rich nations, like Venezuela or Saudi Arabia, yet it is only domestic oil production that seems to be demonized by activists.

While corners of the media are  no doubt hostile to pro-oil voices, Binnion said the industry itself shoulders a lot of the blame for not better communicating its successes.

“I think our industry’s done a terrible job at that, but that’s because we’re an industry of geoscientists and engineers,” he said. “We’re not an industry of people who market Coca Cola. We’re too busy focusing on delivering. If you look at the amazing progress, it’s really quite something. What we haven’t done is convinced other Canadians that we actually care about what they care about.”

Modern Miracle Network isn’t just about naysaying – the group has its own proposals, which it believes are absent from the national discourse on environmental policy. Though the organization takes a firm stance against the carbon tax schemes pushed by left-wing governments in Canada, it isn’t against emission-reduction policies. Its members just want them to be more effective.

Binnion said a localized, regional carbon tax – which each province has been forced to implement under the federal government’s Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act – simply causes companies to migrate their emissions elsewhere.

“It doesn’t create an incentive for production to move where the emissions are lower; It actually creates an incentive for production to move where emissions are highest, because they can get away from the tax,” Binnion said. “This Canadian parochial approach – a patchwork of local taxes – actually does the opposite of what is intended relative to production.”

The argument is a sound one as much of the United States , makes itself more competitive. The higher a carbon tax in a Canadian province, the more likely a company is to set up shop elsewhere, making the policy environmentally ineffective and economically harmful.

Carbon taxation also doesn’t take into account future growth, Binnion said. The world population is expected to rise to 9.5 billion people by 2050, meaning there will be more people demanding a higher quality of life as time progresses. Opposing pipelines and imposing carbon taxes isn’t going to solve this impending problem, especially as countries like China and India prove unlikely to sacrifice economic progress in the name of the environment.

While there’s no silver bullet, Binnion said people need to stop demonizing the oil and gas sector while lionizing alternative energies that have benefits, but also bring their own baggage.

“We’re not afraid to admit that wind and solar have benefits,” he said. “They do. And we’re not afraid to admit that oil and gas have impacts, and that we need to make major technological leaps to solve them.”

“We’ve got some amazing initiatives that we’re working on that never get mentioned when people want to just tell that one side of the story.”