Our Feminist Of Convenience PM's Lack Of Leadership On Iranian Uprising.

[Anonymous]

True Dope is such a fucking phony.

Anyone born in Canada after Jan. 1980 has been raised on the story of the heroic role played by Canadian ambassador Ken Taylor, the Canadian diplomatic corps in Tehran, and the Canadian government in Ottawa during the political turmoil that brought about the theocratic regime that took Iran back to the stone age and which has ruled the country with an iron fist ever since.



In 1979, Canada's response to the emergence of the current regime in Iran was clear and decisive.



There cannot be a Canadian alive today who fails to be shocked by the impact of the regime that took power at that time. Both within that country and throughout its neighbouring region.



Certainly, any Canadian who cares about the ongoing vitality of our ally Israel – a country whose very existence is denied by the current day rulers of Iran – recognizes the menace that the regime presents to that country.





The repressive policies that Iran's governing class imposes on its own people is obvious to even the most casual observer. Before the benighted mullahs took control, Iran functioned as a modern society with social customs in line with western democracies. The current regime undid that almost immediately upon taking power. It has used the ensuing decades to turn the clock back by several centuries.



Let's take women's rights as just one example.



According to the international watchdog Human Rights Watch, in Iran:



· Women confront serious discrimination on issues such as marriage, divorce, and child custody.



· Women are forced to wear the hijab, the headscarf worn by some Muslim women, in public. This even applies to young girls in elementary school.



· Married women can't leave the country without their husband's permission.



· Women are forbidden from watching men's sports in stadiums. Even if their brothers, sons, or husbands are playing.



· In May, 2014, four young men and three women who created a video of themselves dancing together were arrested and charged with engaging in "illicit relations."



· And, just to make sure there is no doubt about how serious the regime is about these things, women have been sent to jail simply for speaking out in favour of equal rights for women.



The foregoing, of course, is merely a subset of the Iranian regime's crimes against any rational definition of basic human decency.



Human Rights Watch describes Iran as one of the world's biggest jailers of journalists, bloggers and social media activists. It says that anyone there who openly criticizes the government risks being thrown in jail. This includes the crime of "insulting" the supreme leader, president, or other government officials.



It further notes that the Iranian government also discriminates against ethnic communities like the Kurds and Balochs, as well as people belonging to the Baha'i faith.



The Iranian government's clear abuse of women alone is cause for international outrage. It is certainly something that one might expect to catch the attention of a Canadian Prime Minister who describes himself as a feminist. It would seem bound to create a bright image on the radar screen of a Prime Minster and who seeks to forge a foreign policy that reflects Canadian values. After all, that's what the bold declaration that "Canada's back" was all about, wasn't it?



Which makes it all the more hard to understand Ottawa's timid silence in the midst of the widespread and courageous outbreaks of protest currently under way throughout Iran.



The strongest words coming out of our government these days is that Canada has "concern" for the "well-being of protesters."



That's it? After decades of outrageous theocratic repression offensive to every Canadian man, woman, and child the people of Iran are rising up in anger, and our government's concern is confined to the treatment of only those involved with the protest? That's the extent of Canada's concern?



After the Iron Curtain fell, it became known that it was the forthright words of support expressed forthrightly and persistently by the leaders of the western world that gave the people of eastern Europe the courage to persevere against their political masters. Today, our government in Ottawa has the opportunity to contribute sustaining oxygen to the flame of freedom that has now been ignited in Iran.



Canada took a clear stand in 1979. Canada's back? Lets hope so.

http://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/parker-canadas-back">http://torontosun.com/opinion/columnist ... nadas-back">http://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/parker-canadas-back

[Anonymous]

Fuck True Dope is a destructive idiot.

Ever since the last federal election in 2015, the Liberal government of Justin Trudeau has been working to restore diplomatic relations with Iran.



Like the former Obama administration in the United States, our federal government has worked actively for the elimination of trade sanctions by Western nations and a lifting of any freezes on Iranian government bank accounts around the world.



Talk about cutting our own throats.



The Iranian regime remains the world's top funder of Islamic terror groups. By lifting sanctions and restoring bank accounts, the Trudeau government (like the Obama administration before it) would simply be giving the mad mullahs who run Tehran more money they could give to groups that want to wipe us and our allies off the face of the planet.



And what monies Tehran does not give to jihadis it could use to fund its nuclear program, which only a naïf like Trudeau would believe was for strictly peaceful purposes. Playing nice-nice with the Iranian regime is the very height of Western progressives' politically correct thinking: To prove just how tolerant they are, they feel they most need to befriend those who mean us the most harm.



Iran also is a prime sponsor of the brutal Assad regime in Syria, often even more so than Russia is. So Tehran has contributed, indirectly, to the hundreds of thousands of deaths in the Syrian civil war. And Moscow and Tehran are close collaborators on Iran's nuclear ambitions.



So no doubt you are beginning to get a picture of just who the Trudeau government has been trying to cozy up with.



About the only Middle East gesture the Liberals have made that wasn't straight off Iran's wish list was their decision to pull out of the air combat fight against ISIS. Iran and ISIS are bitter enemies because ISIS and Iran's pals in Syria are bitter enemies. So the terror group has also carried out several deadly attacks in Iran against military, government and civilian targets.



All of this is a rather longwinded way of setting up what this column is really about — the Trudeau government's bizarre silence on the pro-reform protests currently going in about 80 cities in Iran.



At the end of the week, Iran's Revolutionary Guard – the brutal, extremist militia whose job it is to repress any opposition to the country's Supreme Leader (currently Ali Khamenei) — claimed the protests had been quashed. But Western news agencies insist there were anti-government protests as recently as Friday.



The protestors, who are mostly young, are also mostly pro-democracy and pro-secular. So they are mostly aligned with Canadian and Western values, even if their main goal is simply an end to the tortuous, repressive, extremist regime that has ruled Iran as a Muslim theocracy for nearly 40 years.



Perhaps the Trudeau government is taking yet another page from the former Obama administration's playbook by failing to stand with the protestors.



In 2009, mass, pro-reform, protests broke out in Tehran and elsewhere in Iran. The Islamist regime (which in addition to being one of the biggest state funders of terrorism is also one of the worst human rights abusers in the world) seemed on the verge of collapse.



Many observers believe that all it would have taken for the Tehran government to fall was a word from U.S. President Barack Obama (like the support he gave anti-government protestors in Egypt). But as Trudeau has this time, the politically correct Obama remained silent until the Revolutionary Guard eventually smashed the peaceful uprising and executed its leaders.



Is Trudeau's political correctness and desire to appear tolerant towards Muslims (even when Islam is represented by a bloody regime), keeping him silent now?

http://torontosun.com/uncategorized/gunter-trudeaus-plain-wrong-to-be-cozying-up-to-iranian-regime">http://torontosun.com/uncategorized/gun ... ian-regime">http://torontosun.com/uncategorized/gunter-trudeaus-plain-wrong-to-be-cozying-up-to-iranian-regime

[Anonymous]

Justine is throwing Iranian feminists right under the wheels of the Islamic bus.

[mugwump]

Justine is throwing Iranian feminists right under the wheels of the Islamic bus.

Those Iranian women taking off their hijabs are not the kind of feminists Trudeau wants to take a selfie with.

[Anonymous]

Justine is throwing Iranian feminists right under the wheels of the Islamic bus.

It's getting crowded under there with 36 million Canadians.

[mugwump]

Justine is throwing Iranian feminists right under the wheels of the Islamic bus.

It's getting crowded under there with 36 million Canadians.

Lol, true.

[Wazzzup]

http://torontosun.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-trudeaus-progressivism-doesnt-extend-to-iran">http://torontosun.com/opinion/editorial ... nd-to-iran">http://torontosun.com/opinion/editorials/editorial-trudeaus-progressivism-doesnt-extend-to-iran

It's been one of the most powerful images to come out of the Iranian uprising: A young woman standing on a platform, facing a crowd, her long hair out for all to see as she holds a stick with white fabric tied to it.



More and more women in Iran, along with supporters worldwide, are making public, symbolic statements like this. The grassroots uprising against that nation's repressive, theocratic has been festering ever since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that imposed regressive rules of dress and social conduct on Iranians, especially women.



This particular gesture — taking off a hijab and waving white fabric — is a part of White Wednesdays, a protest that began earlier in 2017 to oppose the law that women must be covered up.



The whole affair is feminism 101: Women don't want to have their clothing, to say nothing of various other liberties, restricted by the state. You'd think Western liberals would be falling over themselves to show support for White Wednesdays and the entire uprising.



After all, American cities were flooded by women and their allies taking to the streets one year ago to protest Donald Trump's ill-advised comments about grabbing women. Canadians also took to the streets in allegiance.



You'd therefore think Canadians would be out in droves to show their support for the women and people of Iran. Not only is this about women's rights, but liberty for everyone. Yet many Western voices have been silent and, in Canada, that silence starts at the top.



Prime Minister Justin Trudeau routinely refers to himself as a feminist and has championed progressive values to the point they've undermined Canada's position in trade talks with China, the Pacific Rim and the U.S.



We support Trudeau's good intentions when it comes to being a global champion for Western values, even if we question his execution.



But we don't understand his silence on Iran, especially given that morality police only a few weeks ago said they'll no longer arrest women who fail to observe the Islamic dress code.



Neither do many former Iranians now living in Canada. "Innocent lives are at stake here," Avideh Motmaen, a Toronto-area human rights activist, wrote to the Sun. "It is beyond party politics.



If Trudeau continues his relative silence on Iran, it places the authenticity of his progressivism in doubt.

But they are not right in a way--trudeau is acting completely "progressive", because when it comes to Islamic Tryanny versus women's rights,.  The progressive will always pick Islam.



trump is right again, He came out right away against Islamic tryanny, while the left's silence shows they support it.  Eff them.

[Anonymous]

^I'm a regular reader of Sun News Media. Some great articles on True Dope's hypocrisy and air headedness. He's the Kim Kardashian of Canadian politics.

[Anonymous]

^I'm a regular reader of Sun News Media. Some great articles on True Dope's hypocrisy and air headedness. He's the Kim Kardashian of Canadian politics.

The media minus Sun acts as his cheerleader in chief.

[Anonymous]

^I'm a regular reader of Sun News Media. Some great articles on True Dope's hypocrisy and air headedness. He's the Kim Kardashian of Canadian politics.

The media minus Sun acts as his cheerleader in chief.

It's sickening the way the media loves Justine and hates Trump.

[Anonymous]

The Sun has an NDP writer(Tom Parkin) who has shed at least some light on the great Canadian jobs numbers that the media gives JT credit for.



More than two-thirds of December's new jobs were part-time — 55,000 part-time, just 24,000 full-time.



And it's a trend. In each recent recession there's been a part-time shift. And while in the expansion that follows there's a trend back to full-time jobs, there's never a full recovery, according to Statistics Canada data.



In 1990, there were 5 full-time workers for every part-time worker. At the end of December 2017, there were only 4.2 full-time workers for each part-time worker. In a world of more part-time work, headline unemployment numbers don't tell the same story they used to.





Last October, the Bank found the unemployment rate "likely overstated the degree of improvement in the labour market." It noted low youth participation rates and high part-time employment. It reported that "wage growth also remains below historical averages" while "labour productivity has grown faster than hourly compensation."



And according to that report, GDP growth is expected to fall back this year and even more in 2019.

http://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/guest-column-canadas-jobs-news-is-good-but-the-party-is-already-winding-down">http://torontosun.com/opinion/columnist ... nding-down">http://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/guest-column-canadas-jobs-news-is-good-but-the-party-is-already-winding-down



Parkin is right, the jobs data is misleading and temporary. Business capital investment is stalling,   Canada's ranking in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business report has dropped to 22nd from 14th the previous year. Also, in a recent survey of large firms, the Business Council of Canada found that 64 percent of CEOs said Canada's investment climate had worsened in the last five years, noting growth in the tax and regulatory burden.

[Anonymous]

The Sun has an NDP writer(Tom Parkin) who has shed at least some light on the great Canadian jobs numbers that the media gives JT credit for.



More than two-thirds of December's new jobs were part-time — 55,000 part-time, just 24,000 full-time.



And it's a trend. In each recent recession there's been a part-time shift. And while in the expansion that follows there's a trend back to full-time jobs, there's never a full recovery, according to Statistics Canada data.



In 1990, there were 5 full-time workers for every part-time worker. At the end of December 2017, there were only 4.2 full-time workers for each part-time worker. In a world of more part-time work, headline unemployment numbers don't tell the same story they used to.





Last October, the Bank found the unemployment rate "likely overstated the degree of improvement in the labour market." It noted low youth participation rates and high part-time employment. It reported that "wage growth also remains below historical averages" while "labour productivity has grown faster than hourly compensation."



And according to that report, GDP growth is expected to fall back this year and even more in 2019.

http://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/guest-column-canadas-jobs-news-is-good-but-the-party-is-already-winding-down">http://torontosun.com/opinion/columnist ... nding-down">http://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/guest-column-canadas-jobs-news-is-good-but-the-party-is-already-winding-down



Parkin is right, the jobs data is misleading and temporary. Business capital investment is stalling,   Canada's ranking in the World Bank's Ease of Doing Business report has dropped to 22nd from 14th the previous year. Also, in a recent survey of large firms, the Business Council of Canada found that 64 percent of CEOs said Canada's investment climate had worsened in the last five years, noting growth in the tax and regulatory burden.

I read that the USA could have an unemployment rate of 3.5 per cent at the end of 2018, so that will keep the unemployment rate low here..



But, the quality of jobs being created South of the border seems  better than the quality of jobs created here.

[mugwump]

The cost of housing where I live has been rising for several years and so have taxes. There are lots of jobs here, but 95 per cent do not pay enough to afford housing and taxes. Trudeau has accelerated the trend.