PHOTO – TORONTO – KING AT YORK – LOOKING NE ON A RAINY DAY – OLD GLOBE AND MAIL BUILDING – PEOPLE WAITING FOR STREETCAR – TTC INSPECTOR – WINSTON’S RESTAURANT – POSSIBLY NO PHOTO I KNOW BETTER CAPTURES A SENSE OF DOWNTOWN TORONTO OF THE 1960s – 1968

 

 

 

 

John Chuckman

COMMENT IN RESPONSE TO AN ARTICLE BY JOE LAURIA IN CONSORTIUM NEWS

Consortium News Sues Canadian TV Network for Defamation Over Report CN Was Part of ‘Attack’ ‘Directed’ by Russia

In January Consortium News sent a libel notice to Global News demanding a retraction and apology. The TV network refused. On Tuesday CN filed suit in Virginia.

Go get ’em, CN.

Just the most appalling stuff from a Canadian news network, but one which I have always regarded as something of a broom-closet, mop-and-bucket effort at being an authoritative news source. Maybe that’s why they did not adequately check facts and claims?

It does seem that in this era of consistently hostile American foreign policy, literally anything goes in the way of shabby speech – from Democrats or Republicans or American security services or allies abroad who jostle for a place at the hem of the imperial garment.

Chrystia Freeland – Canada’s former Foreign Minister and now Deputy Prime Minister with special responsibility for relations with Washington – is what I describe as a Neocon-Lite, although the “Lite” designation is debatable. You can easily identify her orientation from the set of her prejudices revealed over time. She has helped change Canada’s traditional approach to, and reputation in, international affairs under Liberal governments beyond recognition.

She gets on quite well with Mike Pompeo, perhaps the most poisonous senior diplomat in modern history. We never have a word against America’s current destructive set of foreign policies, including the horrors of Yemen. Indeed, Freeland and Trudeau supported Saudi Arabia by selling it billions of dollars’ worth of armored cars, and they are still doing it, selling armored cars to the bloodiest tyrant in the Middle East. American influence? Of course.

She advocates strongly for America’s ugly efforts to topple a twice-elected (six times-elected, if you also count the past leader) government in Venezuela. She supports America’s shameful use of severe – and illegal, having no authority beyond America’s say-so – sanctions against poorer states suffering under the pandemic.

She helped destroy Canada’s previous excellent relations with China because that is what Washington wanted. We hear never a word against Saudi Arabia’s many bloody horrors, wars and murders and record numbers of grisly executions. Never a word on America’s illegal occupation of part of Syria and theft of its oil. Never a word about America’s numerous public assassinations in Iraq. Never a word about America’s ugly new pressures against Cuba, a country Pierre Trudeau, father of the current Prime Minister, had befriended.

Never a word as Israel spent months regularly ambushing unarmed protesters in Gaza, killing over two hundred, including women and children, and wounding a few thousand, some mangled for life. Never a word about (clearly neo-Nazi) paramilitary organizations in Ukraine, such as the Azov Battalion and the Right Sector, organizations which are quietly used to keep the country’s elected government intimidated so that it doesn’t stray from the American line in trying to settle the country’s many post-coup problems. And never a word against Trump’s literally tearing up a whole series of important treaties concerned with nuclear weapons.

A sure sign of Canada’s decline in the world’s esteem was seen in Justin Trudeau’s recent fairly desperate and costly effort to secure a temporary UN Security Council seat. He was embarrassingly turned down by the General Assembly. Likely they didn’t feel they needed another echo of the United States in deliberations.

Distinguished past Liberal Party figures like Lester Pearson, Pierre Trudeau, Jean Chretien, and Paul Martin gave Canada an enviable international reputation, a reputation it has largely lost. The loss started under the rightwing Conservative government of Stephen Harper, but it has been reinforced by Justin Trudeau’s Liberal government with Chrystia Freeland as its major player, always assigned top posts.

Justin Trudeau, unlike his esteemed and brilliant father, a man of many accomplishments and one who stood up to the United States during the Vietnam War and on relations with Cuba, is simply a weak leader. He has revealed that in many acts and words. He ran for office on his name and his smile and has amply demonstrated the adage about strong fathers often having weak sons.

He originally avoided politics, but Liberal Party insiders lured him to run for office in desperate hopes of defeating the longstanding Stephen Harper government. The Trudeau name had retained a lot of magic in Canada more than thirty years after Pierre left office.

Before entering politics not many years ago, Justin Trudeau’s career was as a drama coach and snowboard instructor at a high school. I think that’s about all you need to know comcerning qualifications.

Ms. Freeland is both tougher and more intelligent than Justin, and he leans on her a great deal, but she is also something else, as you can see in the following quotes concerning a memo released by the American State Department.

‘The US State Department boasted in a declassified memo in March 2017 that Canada had adopted an “America first” foreign policy.

‘The cable was authored just weeks after the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau appointed Chrystia Freeland as foreign minister.

‘The State Department added that Trudeau had promoted Freeland “in large part because of her strong U.S. contacts,” and that her “number one priority” was working closely with Washington.’

She is connected, having worked as an editor for one of the news services known through the Cold War as an outlet for CIA disinformation. Her husband also works for The New York Times, the American establishment’s official house organ. She is noticeably biased on a whole range of subjects, and especially with respect to Ukraine and Russia, a bias not uncommon with Canadians of Ukrainian heritage, which is of course in line with American policy today.

NOTES

BELOW ARE EXCERPTS FROM THE CONSORTIUM NEWS’ INVESTIGATION OF CHRYSTIA FREELAND’S FAMILY BACKGROUND – AN HONEST JOURNALISTIC INVESTIGATION THAT SAW CANADA’S GLOBAL NEWS LABEL CONSORTIUM NEWS AS A “RUSSIAN COLLABORATOR” DISTRIBUTING DISINFORMATION.

CONSORTIUM NEWS, THE OLDEST INDEPENDENT NEWS SOURCE ON THE INTERNET (25 YEARS) AND ONE FOUNDED BY AN AWARD-WINNING AMERICAN JOURNALIST, THE LATE ROBERT PARRY, ONLY PICKED UP ON THE STORY AFTER IT HAD BEEN MENTIONED IN OTHER PLACES, INCLUDING CANADIAN NEWSPAPERS, THE GLOBE AND MAIL AND THE OTTAWA CITIZEN.

AS IS OFTEN THE CASE, CONSORTIUM NEWS DUG DEEPER INTO THE MATTER – THE LIST OF CONSORTIUM NEWS’ WRITERS AND DIRECTORS INCLUDES MANY DISTINGUISHED NAMES.

“Freeland presents her grandparents in the following way: ‘My maternal grandparents fled western Ukraine after Hitler and Stalin signed their non-aggression pact in 1939. They never dared to go back..”

“Chrystia Freeland’s dark family secret is that her grandfather, Mykhailo Chomiak, faithfully served Nazi Germany right up to its surrender, and Chomiak’s family only moved to Canada after the Third Reich was defeated.”

“Of course, if she had told the truth, she might never have achieved a successful political career in Canada. Her fierce hostility toward Russia also might be viewed in a different light.”

“Freeland’s grandfather – rather than being a helpless victim – was given a prestigious job to spread Nazi propaganda, praising Hitler from a publishing house stolen from Jews and given to Ukrainians who shared the values of Nazism.”

“While it is true that the sins of a grandfather should not be visited on his descendants, Freeland should not have misled the public on history of such importance, especially when her deceptions also concealed how she partly developed her world view.”

Freeland has misled the public about these matters a number of times. Here’s a quote from 2016: ‘Thinking of my grandparents Mykhailo & Aleksandra Chomiak on Black Ribbon Day [A day which remembers the crimes of both Hitler and Stalin]. They were forever grateful to Canada for giving them refuge and they worked hard to return freedom and democracy to Ukraine. I am proud to honour their memory today.’

In her autobiography, she wrote: “My maternal grandparents fled western Ukraine after Hitler and Stalin signed their non-aggression pact in 1939. They never dared to go back..”