Juno News - December 17, 2025


Hanukkah events protested after ISIS-linked terror attack


Episode Stats


Length

12 minutes

Words per minute

167.1385

Word count

2,027

Sentence count

139

Harmful content

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

After a mass shooting at a Hanukkah lighting event in Australia, anti-Israel protesters began protesting Jewish religious events in Canada just hours after the attack. What does the terrorist attack in Australia tell us about Canada? And could something similar happen here?

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Anti-Israel activists protested Canadian Hanukkah events just hours after the deadly ISIS-aligned 0.94
00:00:09.600 terrorist attack on Jewish people took place in Australia. U.S.-Canada trade talks are not
00:00:15.040 expected to take place until the pre-scheduled review of the Canada-U.S.-Mexico trade agreement.
00:00:20.740 The B.C. government is still withholding reports from the Kamloops band who received millions of
00:00:25.180 taxpayer dollars to excavate the 215 soil anomalies it first reported as the bodies of children.
00:00:31.820 Hello Canada, it's Wednesday, December 17th and this is the True North Daily Brief.
00:00:36.220 I'm Isaac Lamoureux. I'm Alex Hilton. We've got you covered with all the news you need to know.
00:00:40.540 Let's discuss the top stories of the day and the True North exclusives you won't hear anywhere else.
00:00:48.360 Following a devastating mass shooting by a Muslim Pakistani man at a menorah lighting event in
00:00:53.420 Bondi Beach in Australia, anti-Israel protesters began protesting Jewish religious events just
00:00:59.680 hours after the attack, including in Montreal, North York, and Toronto. At the intersection of
00:01:05.640 Bathurst Street and Shepherd Avenue in the heart of Toronto's Jewish neighborhood, where both pro-
00:01:09.900 and anti-Israel demonstrators have gathered every Sunday since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war,
00:01:15.340 anti-Israel activists gathered to protest Jewish Canadians who were lighting a menorah for Hanukkah.
00:01:20.520 The terrorist attack at Bondi Beach left at least 15 people dead and dozens more injured.
00:01:26.280 One of the two shooters was stopped by an unarmed immigrant who wrestled the gun out of the
00:01:30.640 terrorist's hand. The murderer's car was found to have later been draped with the Islamist terrorist 0.87
00:01:36.040 group ISIS's flag. Independent journalist Karim Assad posted a video from the Sunday event showing
00:01:41.800 protesters stomping on a photo of Mir Weinstein, the founder of Israel Now, who helps organize the
00:01:47.700 Jewish contingent of the Sunday protests. Protesters were also shown shouting a pro-Hamas song at Hanukkah
00:01:53.760 celebrants. In one video, Firis al-Najim, a frequent pro-terror protester who tried to organize a
00:02:00.080 Remembrance Day-style vigil for Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar last year, said he hopes Hamas terrorists 1.00
00:02:06.260 quote, prosecute Weinstein next time he visits Israel. The song's lyrics were shared by Weinstein on his
00:02:12.400 page, which calls to, quote, ambush the Israeli special forces, which frights every Jew.
00:02:20.320 We hope this guy gets prosecuted and he's occupied by Pasa. He's so-called Israel. He gets prosecuted by the 1.00
00:02:26.860 policy.
00:02:29.300 And Ontario's Solicitor General, Michael Kersner. After lighting the menorah at Bathurst and Shepard,
00:02:34.500 Baber responded to the protesters.
00:02:36.180 Right across the street, they're threatening me in real time. But I got news for them. I'm in a great
00:02:43.740 mood. Because we just lit the menorah collectively. And bet you that regardless of whatever it is you do,
00:02:51.440 we're going to light the menorah for another 2,000 years.
00:02:55.240 So Alex, what does the terrorist attack in Australia tell us about Canada? And could something
00:02:59.420 like what happened at Bondi Beach happen here?
00:03:01.640 Yeah, so the background that you provided shows that the same type of radical extremism that we
00:03:07.640 see in Australia is taking root in Canada as well. The second part of your question, I think,
00:03:13.840 has a more interesting and maybe a bit of a counterintuitive answer. These things are already
00:03:18.940 happening in Canada. So one of the really strange things about Canada, culturally speaking, is we do
00:03:24.220 have terrorism, but it doesn't really seem to make a big blip on our radar. Just to give you a specific
00:03:29.800 example, this wasn't related to radical Islamist ideology or anything, but in Vancouver,
00:03:35.740 Kaiji Adam Lowe drove his car into a crowd at a Filipino festival in Vancouver and killed 11 people.
00:03:42.720 Just a couple of years before that, an ISIS sympathizer slit two people's throats on the bus
00:03:48.840 in Surrey after pledging allegiance to ISIS. That story received very little media coverage and very
00:03:55.280 little attention from the public. Even today, the individual has been convicted. If you ask people
00:04:00.340 in Vancouver if they're familiar with the story, most people will tell you that they're not.
00:04:03.960 Earlier, before we started our show today, we were discussing the events that took place in
00:04:08.380 Edmonton when an individual went into Edmonton City Hall and shot his gun. And again, very little
00:04:14.520 public attention paid to that either in the immediate aftermath or in the prolonged aftermath. In London,
00:04:21.720 Ontario, an individual ran over four people in what he basically claimed was a terrorist attack of his own
00:04:28.600 doing. The list goes on and on and on. So terrorist attacks not only will happen in Canada, they do happen
00:04:36.440 in Canada. But strangely enough, Canadians don't pay much attention to them.
00:04:44.200 Don't expect the Carney government to talk tariffs with the Trump administration anytime soon. Trade
00:04:48.520 Minister Dominic LeBlanc says any trade discussions will be put off until after the review of the Canada
00:04:53.000 U.S.-Mexico agreement is complete. LeBlanc told CBC News on Sunday, quote,
00:04:57.640 If ever in those conversations there's an opportunity for the Americans to agree to something that would be in
00:05:03.020 their interest and in Canada's economic interests, of course, we're all in and ready to do that work.
00:05:08.700 Kuzma, which has protected Canada from many of the U.S. President Donald Trump's import tariffs, won't be up for
00:05:14.300 review until January. However, Canada has been forced to pay 25% across the board tariffs on items not covered under
00:05:21.660 Kuzma, along with 50% tariffs on Canadian steel and aluminum exports. Trump had initially discussed reducing the 50%
00:05:28.940 tariffs before Ontario Premier Doug Ford commissioned a U.S. ad campaign criticizing the U.S. President's
00:05:34.540 stance. The Trump administration immediately halted all trade negotiations after the commercial aired,
00:05:39.420 calling it, quote, a fraudulent use of Ronald Reagan's words. LeBlanc lamented the progress he
00:05:45.100 believed Ottawa had been making before the Ford ad campaign, calling the fallout, quote, regrettable.
00:05:50.220 So, Isaac, how has the Carney government been dealing with the U.S., given that the Prime Minister,
00:05:54.620 Mark Carney, ran on the idea that he was the best person to deal with the U.S. President in trade negotiations?
00:06:00.220 Yeah, Alex, of course, Carney campaigned as the candidate uniquely positioned to deal with Donald Trump and negotiate a win.
00:06:07.100 But once in office, results have not in any way, shape or form matched the pitch. Starting with timelines, Carney set his own
00:06:15.180 expectation. That was initially a deal by July 21st. But of course, that date passed with no agreement and no broad tariff relief.
00:06:23.100 Even before that deadline, on July 15th, Carney was already lowering expectations, publicly acknowledging
00:06:28.780 that there was little evidence the U.S. would agree to a tariff-free trade and pointing to baseline
00:06:33.500 tariffs in other U.S. deals. That marked a clear retreat from the election-era promise that he could
00:06:38.460 get Trump to back down. Then looking at leverage, of course, Carney ran on elbows up and dollar-for-dollar
00:06:43.980 retaliation. But again, once in government, he moved in the opposite direction. On August 22nd,
00:06:49.420 after a phone call with Trump, Canada dropped most of its current tariffs on U.S. goods without
00:06:53.980 a corresponding lift of U.S. tariffs on Canada. So, of course, Canada gave ground first and Canadians 0.97
00:06:59.900 were still left facing tariffs. Then the sectoral outcomes are telling more or less the same story.
00:07:04.940 By early October, the U.S. Commerce Secretary was signalling there would be no sweeping auto deal.
00:07:10.460 In question period, Carney acknowledged autos were no longer the immediate focus, saying negotiations were
00:07:15.500 centred on steel, aluminum, and energy. That left autoworkers facing job losses while their sector
00:07:21.100 remained unresolved. And that, too, was hypocrisy because we'll remember Carney
00:07:25.420 made previous comments suggesting that nobody even uses steel anymore, which of course is ridiculous
00:07:30.460 because all buildings are generally using steel to be built. The broader handling of the file has
00:07:36.540 also appeared reactive. In August, Carney took a reduced scheduled vacation week while tariffs were
00:07:41.500 escalating and no deal was in place. And as you mentioned, when talks later collapsed following
00:07:45.900 Ontario Premier Doug Ford's U.S. ad campaign, Carney acknowledged negotiators had been very close,
00:07:51.260 but the deal, of course, still fell apart. So, when you ask how Carney has dealt with the U.S.
00:07:56.460 compared to what he promised voters, the record is clear. He missed his own trade deadline,
00:08:00.540 walked back his confrontational stance, reduced Canada's counter tariffs without securing equal
00:08:05.820 relief, and failed to deliver a signature agreement. That gap between promise and outcome is why
00:08:11.980 critics, from conservatives to the Bloc Québécois, say the best negotiator pitch hasn't translated into
00:08:17.260 results Canadians can actually see. We'll remember Pugliev recently in the House of Commons held up a
00:08:23.420 piece of paper showing all the trade deals Carney reached so far with the U.S. And, of course,
00:08:28.460 that paper was blank. The Liberal government is refusing to release reports from a Kamloops,
00:08:36.780 B.C. First Nation that received millions to excavate alleged graves of 215 children at a former
00:08:43.100 residential school site, citing confidentiality rules, according to Blacklock's reporter.
00:08:48.220 The Kamloops Indian Band was granted $12.1 million for the exhumation of remains and forensic DNA analysis
00:08:55.020 after its 2021 announcement of discoveries made using ground-penetrating radar in an apple orchard.
00:09:01.020 To date, of course, no human remains have been exhumed. Federal funding for remains excavation was
00:09:07.180 initially budgeted at $7.9 million, expanded to $9.3 million, and then again to $12.1 million.
00:09:15.420 The Department of Crown Indigenous Relations said the funds were intended for fieldwork, DNA research,
00:09:21.020 and forensics. This was in addition to the $12 million provided by the provincial government
00:09:26.220 to support First Nations throughout B.C. with investigative work at former residential school
00:09:30.860 sites. However, scant and heavily redacted records indicate much of these funds were instead spent on
00:09:36.300 publicists, consultants, lawyers, and other expenses unrelated to the recovery of remains.
00:09:41.980 So, Alex, are Canadians still feeling the fallout of the unproven claim that 215 bodies had been found
00:09:47.660 at the Kamloops Residential School. What are the tangible consequences of the legacy media-driven
00:09:53.100 hoax? Absolutely. Canadians are 100% still feeling the fallout of this entirely unproven and
00:10:00.140 unsubstantiated claim. It's a case study in how consequential the stupid things Justin Trudeau said
00:10:07.740 continue to be. The claim that there were 215 children buried at the Kamloops Residential School
00:10:13.500 the lies of belief, even for those who have the most critical lens when it comes to Canadian
00:10:20.060 residential schools. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission estimates that 51 children died at the
00:10:25.020 Kamloops Residential School over several decades, not 215. And the response to this claim from Trudeau
00:10:31.740 and from the Kamloops Indian ban themselves with regards to anomalies in the apple orchard
00:10:35.900 has, I would say, probably caused the destruction, burning, and vandalism of over 120 churches.
00:10:43.900 There's a direct correlation there between when these discoveries, quote unquote, were made,
00:10:48.620 and when that mass vandalism and arson spree began. I would suppose that would be a good example of the
00:10:54.620 tangible consequences of the legacy media-driven hoax, which I think is a good way of framing the question,
00:10:59.580 because the same propagators of this claim, that being the CBC, as well as the other legacy media
00:11:07.100 in Canada, have not really retracted or even thought critically about their claims years later.
00:11:13.260 If you look at no further than Francis Whittowson, other academics have lost their jobs for merely asking
00:11:19.740 questions about this claim, and that would offer another tangible consequence of this claim.
00:11:24.700 And yeah, so I don't really foresee any way that we're going to get out of this,
00:11:31.180 unless the funds that were allocated to prove the claim are actually used for what they were intended
00:11:37.420 for. Obviously, the claim that Whittowson makes, and I think it's a good one, is that he who makes a
00:11:42.620 claim has the burden of proof. And in this case, it would be the government, and they do not appear to
00:11:48.300 have any intention of meeting that burden, which I think is a shame.
00:11:55.020 That's it for today, folks. Thanks for tuning in. You can stay on top of new episodes every weekday
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