"Taken together, size does not change the direction of travel, but it does influence the pace."

"Larger, more globally integrated firms are responding earlier and at greater scale, while smaller firms remain earlier in the cycle."

"This highlights both the potential scale of the shift and the likelihood that similar patterns may emerge across other sectors."

KPMG Canada 

 

"While most manufacturers are staying, many are reassessing where future investment, growth and production will occur. The decisions made today will shape Canada's manufacturing sector for years to come."

"Businesses can only operate in endurance mode for so long."

"At some point, uncertainty begins to shape long-term decisions about where investment, production and growth will occur."

"[While Canadian manufacturing still has a part to play in North America], the question is how strong that position will be." 

Anamika Gadia, KPMG Canada partner/national leader, industrial markets

Trade uncertainty is prompting more Canadian manufacturers to shift production to the U.S. and delay investments in Canada, a new survey finds. Photo by Peter Power

 

Ongoing and worsening trade uncertainty with Canada's largest trading partner across the long 'undefended' border with the United States is creating an atmosphere of economic destabilization in Canada the likes of which have never in anyone's living memory ever before been seen. The situation has led a growing number of Canadian manufacturers to move their enterprises or to plan to move a portion of their production to the U.S. A majority, responding to a recent survey, plan to restrain themselves in their Canadian investments.

 

This is a scenario seen before in a much more prolonged manner when China in the process of becoming the manufacturing behemoth it now is, began flooding the international market with consumer goods to be sold at prices that appealed hugely to the purchasing public throughout Europe and North America. Cheaper goods, widely available, because of cheap Chinese labour and government support (subsidies) eventually convinced manufacturers throughout the Western world that since they were unable to match the pricing and wide range of Chinese-produced goods, it was best to fold their manufacturing and submit to the inevitable.

 

Under this volatile administration with a president who believes himself an expert on deal-making, and who has been accusing all countries globally that have or were doing business with the United States of taking 'advantage' of the most powerful economic force on the planet, and he wasn't going to take it any longer, so here's tariffs for you, and you, and you, the world is reeling. Try that on for size. And as much as global manufacturing had been altered by the world's premier production manufacturing in China, the world economy was far more immediately and deeply beleaguered and beggared by the new Trump-led upending of world trade alliances.

 

According to the 2026 KPMG Canada manufacturing poll, four in ten (42 percent) of Canadian companies have latterly adjusted their horizons by shifting or planning to shift production to the United States, 29 percent of whom had already taken the plunge in banking on the move to further their bottom line. Another 13 percent plan to do likewise, while 77 percent of that group anticipate committing within two years  under the operating environment as it is at present. 

 

Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

 

"I love Canada [but I'm] not going to bend."

"The United States can't subsidize a country for $200 billion a year, We don't need their cars. We don't need their energy. We don't need their lumber. We don't need anything that they give."

"We do it because we want to be helpful. But it comes a point when you just can't do that."

"[Canada, a longtime ally, would be much better off without tariffs -- as part of the U.S.]"

"[Not to use military force against Canada, only] economic force."

"That would really be something [taking control of Canada]."

"You get rid of that artificially drawn line, and you take a look at what that looks like. And it would also be much better for national security. They’re great, but we’re spending hundreds of billions here to protect it [subsidies include substantial military support while the United States loses out through trade deficits]."

U.S. President Donald Trump  

The majority (49 percent) represent businesses with over $300 million in gross revenue, mostly having made the move in full or in part. A third (34 percent) of companies generating less than $300 million have or are planning to move, leaving a mere fifth (20 percent) which have as yet chosen to take no action. "Higher margins when producing and selling within the U.S. than when exporting from Canada", reported a third (32 percent) of respondents, attesting to "stronger margins on international sales from the U.S."

 

Lower operating costs in some states, more favourable tax environment and easier supply chains when customers are already in the U.S. are cited by some firms choosing to migrate south -- outside of the tariffs issue. When queried what circumstances could alleviate the situation to the point where owners would prefer to remain in Canada, corporate executives and decision-makers representing 275 companies polled responded that certainty around free trade, continued tariff relief, lower corporate taxes, cheaper energy, better access to skilled workers and lower housing costs for workers. 

 

 The survey revealed capital investment projects have been "paused, reduced or cancelled" by 57 percent of firms, with 42 percent operating similarly with respect to their research and development.          Roughly half of those polled stated they were focused on weathering the economic tempests driven largely by U.S. President Donald Trump and his trade policies. The poll revealed as well that 61 percent felt they would be unable to remain in business lacking access to the U.S. market. Almost all (96 percent) stated their products qualified for tariff-free treatment under the Canada-U.S.-Mexico Agreement. An Agreement that is now lacking stability given the U.S. refusal to renegotiate.

 

U.S. President Donald Trump (left) and Prime Minister Mark Carney (right) attend a work lunch as part of the G7 summit, in Evian, France, June 16, 2026. Photo by Evelyn Hockstein / POOL / AFP /Getty Images

 

"While tariffs are an obvious factor, Canadian manufacturers are making long-term decisions about where to locate based on a broader assessment of where they are most likely to have a competitive advantage."

"Otherwise, Canadian exporters may have to depend on U.S. customers to act as importer of record, potentially straining key commercial relationships."

Joy Nott, KPMG Canada partner, trade and customs 

"They asked for a time out [from military action]. They wanted to go to the funeral of Khamenei. And I said, ‘Give it to them.’ And they started shooting missiles. I mean, it was the craziest thing."

"I don’t want to deal with them anymore. They’re scum. You know what scum is? They’re scum. They’re sick people. They’re led by sick people and they’re vicious, violent people. And if they had a nuclear weapon, they’d use it. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over."

"They’re liars. If I make a deal with them, we have a deal. And he [the Iranian negotiator] goes out, he talks. We make a deal, everyone’s agreed: no nuclear weapon. We make a deal, they [the Iranian delegation] go outside, talk to the press, and they say, ‘We never even talked about it.’ There’s something wrong with them. They’re cuckoo. As far as I’m concerned, it’s over."

U.S. President Donald Trump

 

 

On again, off again. Decisions made spontaneously reflecting an impulsive of-the-moment thought process, leavened with emotional irritation. An incendiary situation whose outcome is vital to the well-being not only of the population of the Islamic Republic who have suffered since 1979 under the theocratic rule of a totalitarian state imposing its will, meting out imprisonment, torture and death to all who oppose it. And to the larger community inhabiting the Middle East, as the source of inciting to terrorism through sponsorship of select militias whose formation is vital to the regime's agenda of conquest where the al-Quds branch of the Islamic Republican Guard Corps recruited, trained, armed and  tasked them as proxy militias to carry out its death-cult orders.

 

From Hezbollah to Hamas to Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Iraqi Shia militias all loyal to the regime, the noose tightened not only on Israel, marked for annihilation by the Ayatollahs, but Sunni-majority countries in the region as well; not for annihilation but the conquest of domination. Its weapons' focus as a means to assert its dominance through technological means with missiles and drones, and aspirationally, a nuclear program to allow the Iranian regime to wield the most fearful of all weapons to achieve its goals.

 

 

 

Upended briefly and temporarily when joint aerial strikes by Israel and the United States complicated those plans by assassinating through pinpoint, intelligence-gathered strikes, military commanders, religious figures, including the most senior  cleric whose direct messaging from above moved the strings of the dread and powerful IRGC puppets to action along with nuclear scientists, and strategic strikes on nuclear sites and weapons depots. Any other country would reel from the strength of those blows, but not Iran.

 

It had only months earlier destroyed the lives of thousands of its disaffected people whose effrontery  in massing by the tens of thousands in street demonstrations throughout the country to demand an end to the regime, and the right to live as free people, enjoying liberty as a human right, refusing the straitjackets of passivity in fear of consequences. Their punishment by state police, the Basij and the  Iranian military was swift, decisive and deadly. Battling military-to-military of two well-armed attacking countries required another tack; the manipulation of circumstances and in this case cutting off global shipping to inflict pain internationally. 

"They want recognition of Iran basically having control of the Strait of Hormuz. That is their bottom line. That is their leverage with the United States and the West that has replaced earlier enriching higher and higher levels of uranium."

"Fundamentally, they think time is on their side. They can suffer more than the Americans and the Gulf and that's what they're gambling on."

Alex Vatanka, senior fellow, Middle East Institute 

The Strait of Hormuz became the winning move for Iran in this chess game of a war. Following the February 28-initiated strikes on Iran, since April 8, President Trump declared one ceasefire initiative with Iran after another as oil prices gushed skyward and Washington grappled with the dilemma of lifting itself out of a quagmire it had no stomach to pursue, in a war that proved hugely unpopular with American voters. This was a president who had given the impression that he meant what he said; no more U.S. troops involved in endless MidEast wars.

 

 

 

Instead, Mr. Trump had to focus on the measure that Iran took to disrupt world energy supplies, along with fertilizer and other critical supplies to a dependent world. Any tankers or cargo ships leaving the Gulf States for their usual destinations crossing through the Strait risked Iranian drones or missiles and before long ships one after another were stranded awaiting an opportunity that never came. Then came the system of fees inaugurated by the IRGC for safe passage. Followed by negotiations and a Memo of Understanding and the war footing went limp, all in abeyance.

 

While the U.S. administration faces the democratic anger of its population persuading it to leaven its actions accordingly, no such constraints face the Islamic Republic, for its population is forcibly mute and as much as it detests its government, the fear, anger and resentment of up to 35,000 lives destroyed only a few months ago, acts as an anchor to further action against a government that will not be dislodged. The Islamic regime has decided to wait things out. Until enough pressure from the U.S. public and the international community against a continuation of the war, forces the U.S. military to withdraw. 

 

US Vice President JD Vance speaks to members of the media before boarding Air Force Two, after the US and Iran held high-level talks at the Lake Lucerne Summit, at Emmen Military Air Base, Emmen, Switzerland, June 22, 2026. Photo: REUTERS/Nathan Howard/Pool

 

"Iran is trying to avoid another full-scale war. But it also believes that failing to respond caries its own risks because it would project weakness and invite further pressure."

"Iran's calculation is that calibrated, limited escalation can restore deterrence without crossing the threshhold into all-out war."

Negar Nirtazavi, senior fellow, Center for International Policy 

   

 

There are fundamental [emphasis original] historical truths, unalterable as long as Zionism is not fully realized. These are:

1) The pressure of the Exile, which continues to push the Jews with propulsive force towards the country
2) Palestine is grossly under populated. It contains vast colonization potential which the Arabs neither need nor are qualified (because of their lack of need) to exploit. There is no Arab immigration problem. There is no Arab exile. Arabs are not persecuted. They have a homeland, and it is vast.
3) The innovative talents of the Jews (a consequence of point 1 above), their ability to make the desert bloom, to create industry, to build an economy, to develop culture, to conquer the sea and space with the help of science and pioneering endeavor.

These three fundamental truths will be reinforced by the existence of a Jewish state in a part of the country, just as Zionism will be reinforced by every conquest, large or small, every school, every factory, every Jewish ship, etc.

Our ability to penetrate the country will increase if we have a state. Our strength vis-à-vis the Arabs will likewise increase. The possibilities for construction and multiplication will speedily expand. The greater the Jewish strength in the country, the more the Arabs will realize that it is neither beneficial nor possible for them to withstand us. On the contrary, it will be possible for the Arabs to benefit enormously from the Jews, not only materially but politically as well.

I do not dream of war nor do I like it. But I still believe, more than I did before the emergence of the possibility of a Jewish state, that once we are numerous and powerful in the country the Arabs will realize that it is better for them to become our allies.

They will derive benefits from our assistance if they, of their own free will, give us the opportunity to settle in all parts of the country. The Arabs have many countries that are under-populated, underdeveloped, and vulnerable, incapable with their own strength to stand up to their external enemies. Without France, Syria could not last for one day against an onslaught from Turkey. The same applies to Iraq and to the new [Palestinian] state [under the Peel plan]. All of these stand in need of the protection of France or Britain. This need for protection means subjugation and dependence on the other. But the Jews could be equal allies, real friends, not occupiers or tyrants over them.

Let us assume that the Negev will not be allotted to the Jewish state. In such event, the Negev will remain barren because the Arabs have neither the competence nor the need to develop it or make it prosper. They already have an abundance of deserts but not of manpower, financial resources, or creative initiative. It is very probable that they will agree that we undertake the development of the Negev and make it prosper in return for our financial, military, organizational, and scientific assistance. It is also possible that they will not agree. People don’t always behave according to logic, common sense, or their own practical advantage. Just as you yourself are sometimes split conflicted between your mind and your emotions, it is possible that the Arabs will follow the dictates of sterile nationalist emotions and tell us: “We want neither your honey nor your sting. We’d rather that the Negev remain barren than that Jews should inhabit it.” If this occurs, we will have to talk to them in a different language—and we will have a different language—but such a language will not be ours without a state. This is so because we can no longer tolerate that vast territories capable of absorbing tens of thousands of Jews should remain vacant, and that Jews cannot return to their homeland because the Arabs prefer that the place [the Negev] remains neither ours nor theirs. We must expel Arabs and take their place. Up to now, all our aspirations have been based on an assumption – one that has been vindicated throughout our activities in the country.

David Ben Gurion, in a letter to his son, October 5, 1937

David Ben Gurion reading the Declaration of Independence of the State of Israel © GPO/Hans Pin

When, in 1947, the United Nations' Partition Plan offered the opportunity to form a state both to the Jews and to the Arabs living in Palestine, it was the Jews who, while disappointed that their entire ancestral land was not included, accepted that offer and declared their state in 1948, and the Arabs outright rejected their portion of the offer, making no secret of their aspirations that there be only one declared state, for the Arabs who thenceforth named themselves the only authentic 'Palestinians'.  

 

As history documents, some 750,000 Arabs fled the area that Israel declared its nascent state, urged mostly by surrounding Arab leaders, many by fear of an impending war, many more awaiting the war's outcome when they were promised by those same Arab leaders they could return to an Israel-free Palestine after its defeat by the combined Arab armies. When the five Arab countries declared war on Israel, thousands of Arabs were evicted by force among the total who fled. 

 

When Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq and Lebanon attacked the new Israel, they fought against a newly-established military with raw recruits with barely basic military training who were in the battle of their lives and that of their fledgling state. Miraculously, Israel prevailed, and the five Arab armies in their failure to prevail and destroy the Jewish state suffered the humiliation of the true 'Nakba'. The Palestinians who had fled gathered in refugee camps in those countries, none of which with the exception of Jordan offered them the legitimacy of citizenship.

 

For Israel on the other hand, the 150,000 Arabs who remained and who were given full citizenship in the Jewish State, to become a significant portion of the population, growing over the years to over two million, absorption was no problem. For Jews living in Arab lands, on the other hand, where they had lived for millennia under Arab rule, the creation of the State of Israel left 950,000 Jews at the mercy of Arab governments who confiscated their goods and properties and expelled them.

 

Israeli military commander arrive in East Jerusalem, after Israeli forces seized East Jerusalem, during the Six Day War 1967. Left to Right: Major General Rehavam 'Gandhi' Ze'evi, major general Avraham tamir, Major General Uzi Narkis, General Moshe Dayan and Lt. General Yitzhak Rabin. (Photo by: Universal History Archive/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

 

Israel was grateful to welcome these Sephardic Jews to join the mostly Ashkenazic Europeanized diaspora Jews forming the new state. Displaced Arabs and expelled Jews almost equal in number, both considered refugees, were viewed differently by the United Nations; the Arabs consoled and empathized with, and a special arm of the United Nations dedicated to their  welfare (UNRWA), while no mention, much less notice was made of the somewhat greater number of Jews externally displaced, left to their own survival devices.

 

Israel gathered 3.3 million Jews from 150 diaspora countries, from European Holocaust survivors to Jews out of the Soviet Union as well as Jews from ancient communities in Ethiopia and elsewhere. All the while, fending off one Arab military attack after another until the final 1973 attack spearheaded by Egypt and Syria on Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Judaic spiritual calendar. 

 

The Arab-Palestinian attacks against Jews that began in the 1930s, steadily escalated after 1948, to become constant terrorism. There is no other country in the world whose neighbours constantly spur themselves to unending terrorist attacks against an adjacent neighbour with ferocious intensity geared to mass slaughter. The focus of Arabs calling themselves Palestinians has never been to develop the institutions required for a functioning state; their economic survival was never in question, thanks to the United Nations and sympathetic Western benefactors.

Javier Perez de Cuellar, Secretary-General of the United Nations, meets with Yasser Arafat, Chairman of Palestine Liberation Organization, in Geneva. 27 June 1988. UN Photo.

 

Arab Palestinians in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip have been patterned decade after decade by their leaders to dedicate themselves to the destruction of the Jewish state, with claims that it has been established on Arab-Palestinian-entitled land, not the ancestral homeland of indigenous Jews. Inculcating in the Palestinian Arab population the belief that there is no aspiration more sacred than that of a martyr, from children taught through school curricula and media promptings to honour those who have murdered Jews to the adults they become, proud of being part of a death cult.

 

The United Nations must take responsibility for the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives in this Middle East contest between Jews and Arabs, but it has consistently favoured claims by the latter over the reality framing those by the former.  

"This wasn't the only thing that was bizarre about this hearing. Before it began, I, a videographer and another reporter waited in the hallway near the elevators and close to the courtroom, where signage expressly permits filming, hoping for an image of Akodad, who has no pictures online."

"A man approached and tried to tell us who we could film. When asked who he was,  he replied, 'Don't worry about who I am'."

"Later, I learned the man was El Amine Serhani, director of the Listening and Assistance Centre for Maghrebi People in Quebec. The same organization lists Akodad's lawyer Saaty as a 'citizen mentor' and his father Fouad Akodad as a 'human pillar'."

"All three were present in court. The scene grew even more bizarre when the court constable shook Serhani's hand after the hearing." 

Terry Newman, The National Post

The accused, Mohamed Ilyess Akodad, said he accepted a $15,000 contract to set fire to Congregation Beth Tikvah on Dec. 18, 2024. (Simon-Marc Charron/Radio-Canada)

 

On Thursday in a Montreal courtroom, Mohamed Ilyes Akodad, 21, appeared in court for his sentencing after having pleaded guilty to firebombing a synagogue and Jewish community centre. He had, he said, no idea that the two buildings had Jewish occupancy. He and his layer, Nazar Saaty, earnestly addressed the judge with the difficult-to-believe claim that Akodad was merely carrying out a business agreement, a paid contract for 'three barbecues' arranged through Signal and FaceTime for unknown locations.

 

The court was informed that the job accepted by Akodad presented when he attended a party with a friend that took place somewhere his memory failed him to identify, as a result of undue stress experienced at the time along with the desensitization of time and place due to drug use. The job for which he was to be paid a princely $15,000 entailed fire-bombing three locations. Duly early morning of December 18, 2024, Akodad smashed the windows of the Federation CJA's West Island offices in Dollard-des-Ormeaux with a hammer.

 

He followed that  up by crossing the street to Beth Tikvah synagogue to set a fire, located next to a Jewish day school awaiting the arrival of children that morning. About four months later he was arrested. While he asked for release at his first bail hearing a month later, he was denied bail, and has been in custody since that time. Pleading guilty to three of the six arson-related charges, along with the intentional or reckless damage caused by fire or explosion to property, mischief respecting property with a value exceeding $5000, and arson by negligence, the maximum sentences reflecting such offences are 14, 10 and 15 years respectively.

 

A firefighter on the scene after a firebomb was thrown at Congregation Beth Tikvah, Montreal, Dec. 18, 2024. (Credit: Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs)

 

That aside, following the hearing of last week, reporters were informed by Crown prosecutor Christopher Hadjis-Chartrand that a two-year prison sentence is sought by the Crown even as Akodad's lawyer has recommended a sentence of nine to 12 months under condition that his client enter therapy, perform community work and apologize to the community. The actual sentencing decision will not be delivered until September 10 when court reconvenes. However, taking into account time already served Akodad could be released that very day.

 

The court heard of the difficult childhood experienced by Akodad leading to low self-esteem and problems with drug addiction. There was also a complaint about "difficult conditions" his pre-trial detention had exposed him to, with limited family visits, placement with gang members, a situation  so very difficult for a man like Akodad who has been convicted of car thefts. That is another story, that criminal gangs pay young men willing to steal vehicles that are then shipped abroad with the profits realized used to buy and smuggle guns from the U.S. into Canada.

 

During his testimony, Akodad's mother wept while his father testifying in support of his son berated him in a demonstration that it could not possibly have been the way he was raised that turned him to crime. He had agreed to the offer by a stranger to commit to three criminal acts which, when videoed as proof that he had carried out the mission as per contract would net him $15,000. The 'three barbecues' mission did not go off directly as ordered, and in the end he was given a mere $2,500 for an incomplete job. 

 

Now, with Akodad claiming he had no idea that his targets had anything to do with the Jewish community, his lawyer argues the arsons were strictly a business proposition, his client earning a fee, and there was no hate motivation involved, and in the absence of proof beyond reasonable doubt, that the miscreant had any knowledge it was Jewish institutions he was to target -- for that, he should be granted "benefit of the doubt".

 

For his part, Crown prosecutor Hajis-Chartrand questioned the claims that Akodad was  unable to recall details of the events that occurred as a result of stress and drugs, suggesting he had been able to plan, recall details, carry out the acts and then film them as proof. Pressed whether he hadn't realized these were Jewish institutions Akodad lashed back that he "wasn't stupid" and could recognize what the Star of David represented. 

 

Cantor Henry Topas, centre, and Rabbi Emeritus Dr. Mordecai Zeitz, right, at the firebombed entrance to Congregation Beth Tikvah in Dollard-des-Ormeaux on Dec. 18, 2024. (John Mahoney / Montreal Gazette files)

 

"Despite acute fiscal and operational constraints, the Palestinian Authority continues to advance elements of a reform agenda focused on social protection, education sector adjustments, and improvements to transparency and service delivery."

"The prime minister [Mark Carney] welcomed the measures taken by the Palestinian Authority including efforts to reform social welfare, developing new education materials, drafting an interim constitution, and its intent to hold general and presidential elections." 

Jason Kung, Global Affairs Canada 

 

"With effort and great, almost impossible difficulty, we continue to provide this 60 percent rate of [PA] public employee salaries."

"We have not abandoned any Palestinian resident, whether they are prisoners or families of martyrs and wounded."

"This is a clear fundamental issue."

PA Finance Minister Estephen Salameh 

Hamas forces carried out a brutal campaign of abductions, torture and unlawful killings against Palestinians accused of “collaborating” with Israel and others during Israel’s military offensive against Gaza in July and August 2014, according to a new report by Amnesty International.

 

"Resistance [is a Palestinian right and weapons an inseparable part of that -- Hamas political bureau member Basem Naim --] resistance."

"Earlier the spokesman for Hamas' military wing claimed that the demand to disarm was 'a scandalous attempt by the occupation to achieve through negotiations what it could not achieve on the battlefield'."

Meir Ben Shabbat, former Israeli national security adviser 

 

"These cases involved [Hamas] executions, kneecapping, bone-breaking with metal pipes or cement bricks and beatings and were framed by the perpetrators as punishments for alleged collaboration with Israel, looting humanitarian aid, theft, drug-related offences or affiliations with internal [Hamas] rivals." 

United Nations report

Hamas terrorists in the Gaza Strip, March 20, 2026. ABDEL KAREEM HANA/AP

 

When Canada's prime minister Mark Carney, along with France, Spain and Ireland declared within the United Nations almost a year ago, their nations' formal recognition of a 'Palestinian' state, Mr. Carney accompanied his recognition with an urging caution to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas that the recognition would be  contingent on greater steps toward democracy; calling an election for one thing, since the last one took place in 2005 and Mr. Abbas's presidency has never since been challenged at the ballot box.

 

That recognition by Mr. Carney came in the wake of the October 7, 2023 attack by thousands of Palestinian terrorists and ordinary civilians led by the governing order of Gaza, Hamas, followed by Fatah (PA), Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. All of these groups terror proxies for the Islamic Republic of Iran. Since that time, following the Israeli invasion of Gaza to fumigate the territory of terrorists and the peace agreement that followed, Hamas has been busy regrouping, rearming, recruiting.

 

As for the Palestinian Authority which had solemnly pledged to put a halt to 'Pay for Slay' where Palestinians who committed themselves to 'resisting the occupation' by committing acts of martyrdom through the murder of Israelis were guaranteed handsome financial rewards, has instead initially sought to alter the payment protocol to make it more opaque. While in fact continuing the rewards given to terrorists. As for the education curricula in the West Bank under the Palestinian Authority and in the Gaza Strip under discredited UNRWA, it still reeks of the lionization of martyrdom.

 

 

A 2026 report from the U.S. Sate Department points out that despite the PA's Mahmoud Abbas promising the end of pay-for-slay, those dedicated payments continue, where the PA paid out $156 million the year before to Palestinian terrorists and their families. Generously funded by the international community for the welfare of the Palestinian population. In the report, the PA's finance minister was quoted having stated that the martyrs' fund remained operative. What was altered was "the mechanism" where funds were funnelled out.

 

In other words those former prisoners in Israeli jails who were released in exchange for freeing the 7 October hostages in the usual 100-to-one exchange were in line for massive payouts. As an example, two murderers and a bombmaker each accumulated PA payments of $354,000 since 2023, on top of which they receive a monthly additional $2,541, according to the State Department report. 

 

The 'Teach Palestine' curriculum ... Political Indoctrination Disguised as Education  StandWithUs

 

As for the reformed educational textbooks which Abbas pledged "modernization of the education sector, including the development of a curriculum that is free from incitement according to the UNESCO standards" in a letter to French President Emmanuel Macron, on closer examination is far from having been undertaken. The Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se), an NGO monitoring educational materials globally for hate and incitement to violence reported:

"The review finds that the 2025-2026 Palestinian Authority curriculum continues to systematically violate UNESCO principles and educational standards."

"Published in September 2025, the curriculum incites antisemitism and violence, promotes jihad and martyrdom, glorifies terrorism, rejects peacemaking and the two-state solution, and erases Israel from maps."

"It has not been substantively modified since the 2020-21 school year, maintaining the same ideological framework first established in the 2016 reform cycle." 

As for Gaza demilitarization, part of the framework of the U.S.-backed Gaza ceasefire, Hamas has responded time and again by stating it has no intention of surrendering its weapons, and the reality is, it is busily rearming. According to Nathan Brown, professor of political science and international affairs at George Washington University, Hamas not only refuses to disarm, the ceasefire has emboldened it.

"It now appears more able to operate above ground than it did before the plan", he wrote for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think tank, in an analysis.

 

A United Nations report documented executions by Hamas in Gaza, as well as mass killings and severe beating punishments. As for organizing presidential and general elections, the world is still waiting for the 2005 election to be repeated. 

 

The PA has failed to implement curriculum revisions amid donor demands, including changes affecting national identity content. (Photos: Wikimedia Commons. Design: PC)

 

"[That Bradford is to be included was a] weight off my shoulders."

"Bradford has evaded inquiries for many, many years and it's time that the full truth about what happened comes out."

"We need accountability. There's one thing prosecuting the persecutors of these crimes - that should have been a given - but the people who chose to go into safeguarding roles that made these decisions - that weren't just turning a blind eye to the children's abuse, but added and facilitated it."

Abuse survivor Fiona Goddard

 

"[I hope the inquiry will mean] no further inquiries into grooming gangs will ever be needed."

"These hearings will help us to establish what national institutions and services should have been doing to implement these findings and to protect children from abuse and harm - and what, if any, progress has been made in areas where investigations have taken place."

Baroness Anne Longfield CBE to head the Statutory Independent Inquiry into Grooming Gangs 

A case study in institutional failure    Photograph: Reuters

 

"The question for this inquiry will be why so many [recommendations from the reviews, reports and inquiries since the late 1990s] have not been implemented. And most importantly what will be different this time?"

"The inquiry has promised to put the voices of those who were abused and exploited at is heart. Many survivors speak of their deep distrust of those in authority, not just because of what happened at the time of their abuse, but also because of the lack of action over the longer term."

"Past reviews have found in some organisations and in some parts of the country an attitude that the exploitation of children by grooming gangs does not happen here."

"The challenge for the inquiry will be to ensure everyone remains alert to the possibility that this sort of abuse can and does happen anywhere."

BBC Social Affairs editor Alison Holt 

Reports focusing on U.K. rape gang victims chronicled acts of debased gang violence transcending rape alone. Rape including torture and mutilation with broken bottles pushed into vaginas, dousings with gasoline, stabbings, threats to family members seeking help, forced abortions. Nightmare scenarios of horrible abuse, targeting mostly British white girls. The situation of gang rape and no repercussions has been known for years. Known, but nothing done to stop the atrocities; no government figure, no police interventions.

 

As though these were mere rumours, not witnessed reports and documented events of assaults insulting of the most basic human rights. Appeals to government went to deaf, disinterested ears. Victims left to their own devices. Abusers assured that there would be no societal reprisals, no cost associated with the dread actions taken by gangs impervious to social decency, for the abusers. The victims left to live amongst their attackers, and vulnerable to ongoing atrocities.

 

They were left by an uncaring government to remain hostage to groomers and their legions of hangers-on. There was no lack of descriptive horrors experienced by helpless girls. Accounts by rape gang survivors that they were abandoned by police, social services, teachers, politicians at every level, and media. No one wanted to risk being labelled a racist. That this fear of appearing racist would dominate the emotional reaction normally expected to come to the rescue of vulnerable girls manipulated, violated, beaten, and left to recover until the next hellish episode is beyond belief.  

 

AP Photo/Jon Super

 

Rupert Lower, U.K. Parliamentarian of the Restore Britain political party released a 219-page Rape Gang Inquiry Report June 16 -- for the most part detailing witness testimony of survivors from working-class Muslim-majority jurisdictions. The long-term sex victimization by organized criminals, mature male adults as well as those in their teen years for whom preying on vulnerable white girls whose families lived among them in the areas became easy pickings.

 

The Lowe report pointed out among other issues that courts themselves bypassed justice for the victims. Defence arguments like that of one Somali defendant attesting that forced sex represented his "culture and tradition" and therefore justified a "cultural sensitivity" discount in sentencing to avoid "empowering the far right" or damaging "community cohesion" seemed to find favour with some judges sitting on rape crime trials. 

 

Under the leadership of now-outgoing Prime Minister Keir Starmer the Crown Prosecution Service, despite a case against a rape gang with copious evidence, dropped the case, leading the Greater Manchester Police to drop a wider investigation into regional rape gangs, thus extending freedom for a continuation of their odious operations preying on girls with no defense. 

 

According to an article by Dominic Adler, 25-year veteran of the Met's anticorruption command tasked with "sensitive investigation into police wrongdoing", the Independent Office for Police Conduct "tiptoed  around the heritage and religion of offenders. Two root problems for police inaction were cited in Adler's 2025 article on "Operation Linden"; "austerity-ravaged services ill equipped to deal with large-scale disorder", and "the politicisation of policing and its role in supporting state-mandated policy of multiculturalism". The scandal, he stated, is "the quintessence of two-tier policing". 

"There is a systematic pattern of behaviour not even from just one country, but from sub-communities within those countries."

"People with a particular background, particular class background, work background ... very, very poor sort of peasant background, very very rural, almost cut off from even the home origin countries that they might have been in, they're not necessarily first generation."

"[What struck was the apparent sense of impunity with which they operated, as opposed to the punishments they would supposedly face in their home countries]."

"There are some places where, when people behave in that way, a mob turns up and burns their homes down, and then they know that they can’t do that sort of thing."

Conservative  opposition leader Kemi Badenoch

Conservative Party leader Kemi Badenoch. Kin Cheung/The AP

 

"[The U.S.-Iran agreement] rehabilitates Tehran's regime as a regional power."

"[The financial benefits that it could confer] will make Iran a greater monster than it was before."

Abdulrahman al-Rashed, Saudi journalist 

 

"It's left a big wound. It's going to take a long, long time to recover."

"We are terrified that this is going to be an ongoing war."

"[It feels like the Trump administration is looking at the Gulf] as an A.T.M. [and that] bothers a lot of people." 

Khalid Al-Jaber, head, Middle East Council on Global Affairs, Qatar research institute

A smoke plume rises from an ongoing fire near Dubai International Airport in Dubai on March 16, 2026. (AFP)

 

Interesting that this commentator writing out of Qatar fields a singular perspective without considering that Qatar itself has invested millions upon millions upon millions in the United States, as though its treasury was unlimited, in indebting U.S. colleges and universities, to the Middle East country for its generosity. And to believe that this is done simply for a love of America by an oil-rich Gulf state is to be naive beyond redemption. Qatar, in seeking influence for its 'philanthropy' in America does in fact, resemble an A.T.M. 

"Why has a country of just 330,000 citizens that is half the size of New Jersey and a leading patron of the Muslim Brotherhood plowed $400 billion dollars into the United States? This amounts to approximately $1.2 million per Qatari citizen — an enormous sum."

"Some Americans may welcome the generosity of the Qatari regime. After all, one could argue that a great many of these investments — spanning energy, defense, biotech and other important sectors — serve to benefit the U.S. economy and U.S. citizens. One could also argue that Qatar, like Japan, Canada, or other countries that sink billions in the United States, simply seeks return on investment."

"But Qatar is different. There are more than a few reasons to question the largesse of the Qatari government. At the end of the day, Qatar is ruled by an Islamist, autocratic regime; Freedom House consistently ranks the country as “Not Free” in its annual Freedom in the World survey. And Doha’s failure to guarantee the rights of its citizens is not the biggest problem."

"Rather, it is the country’s tendency to support jihadi causes in the Middle East that raises significantly more concern. The country’s horrific track record in this regard distinguishes Qatar from other Gulf states that spread their wealth in America."

Jonathan Schantzer, Foundation for Defense of Democracies  

That little quibble dispensed with, one can indeed feel a level of sympathy for the newly-occurring plight of wealthy Gulf Arab nations, witnessing and experiencing a regional war too close to home for comfort.

Few countries in the Middle East view the Islamic Republic of Iran through a lens of tender brotherhood. Those that do stand out from say, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. Qatar and Oman, on the other hand, have a pronounced soft spot for the truculent totalitarian Islamist government that the entire Middle East views as a threat to peace and stability. 

 

A building damaged in a reported Iranian drone strike, amid the US-Israeli conflict with Iran, in Seef, Manama, Bahrain, March 10, 2026. (Reuters)

 

In the region most exposed to Iran's firepower, suddenly normality has been upended. The violence of Iran's chastising its near neighbours for accepting American bases on their soil, expressed by Iran's disruptive drone and missile attacks has disabused its neighbours of the attitude that this is Israel's and the United States' conflict with Iran, nothing to do with them, even  while they have been hoping that the Iranian regime would fall and relieve the regional tension and threats emanating from Iran with a changeover to a new, non-threatening regime.

 

And to further compound matters, the economic hits courtesy of Iran's closing of the Strait of Hormuz, the main international waterway for exporting oil, fertilizer, LNG and other products globally has been deliberately constrained creating an economic dilemma of no mean proportions. American bases on Kuwaiti soil, UAE and Saudi Arabian soil and elsewhere made them surprised sitting ducks for Iranian blowback. Suddenly the Gulf countries realize that despite their enormous oil wealth their defense capabilities are minimal, necessitating an upsurge on spending for military hardware and defense.

 

Iran has attacked Gulf states in retaliation for Israeli and US bombing on its country AFP via Getty Images

 

No other course of action is feasible with Dubai and Doha having suffered immense missile hits leaving their luxury towers smoldering. Incoming missile alerts have introduced a new, unwelcome reality to Iran's neighbours, suddenly vulnerable to unexpected attack. The Emirates were forced to close their schools for weeks, while foreign residents fled. Interception of most of the thousands of missiles and drones out of Iran succeeded in keeping damage and lives lost to a relative minimum, but no country and no population appreciates living with this level of uncertainty.

 

Each of the targeted countries went their own way, there was no unified reaction. Qatar as usual presented itself as a key mediator between the United States and Iran, alongside Pakistan for the same purpose...supporting Iran and convincing the U.S. that a ceasefire is infinitely preferential to ongoing kinetic hostilities, punishing to the Gulf States and placing U.S. servicemen in ongoing danger. 

 

Negotiations amidst the uncertainty and tension have led the Emirates to strengthen alliances with both the United Sates and Israel. A pre-conflict rift between the UAE and Saudi Arabia has seen the Saudis keeping options open; maintaining channels with Iran, while attempting to influence American decision-making. Attesting to the medieval-era relational strains, Saudi Arabia and Iran are at loggerheads over Mecca, and the threat posed by Iran toward Saudi Arabia historically seems to have petered out for the present.

 

Gulf nations are now busy planning how best to proceed with uninterrupted passage of oil, food and other goods shipped out of the Middle East to global destinations. A new strategy of "zero Hormuz dependency" has persuaded the Emiratis to expand its ports outside the critical Strait susceptible to further closures by Iran, and to build oil pipelines and railways. Oman with its ports on the Arabian Sea far from the Strait is now seen as a crucial logistics hub trucking goods overland for its neighbours. 

 

Qatar has become one of the biggest exporters of natural gas  AFP via Getty Images

 

"Engagement is not endorsement. Having an embassy, having consular services in a country does not mean we endorse the policies of that country."

"There are a series of countries with whom we have not seen eye to eye, to put it mildly, where we do not have representation. Iran, Venezuela [are] two examples. There are others."

"That puts us at a disadvantage, first and foremost, to helping Canadians that are in these countries."

"[In some consular cases Ottawa has leaned on countries that] aren't our natural allies [to help Canadians leave Iran]."

Prime Minister Mark Carney

 

"[The government is looking at alternative options to improve consular services for Canadians in countries like Iran]."

"We've taken no decisions, but we are looking at how best to serve Canadians, not only within this country, but internationally and that will be a process that occurs over the next number of months."

Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand 

 

"Nothing about the regime has changed."

"The problem that Canada has with this regime goes much deeper [than geopolitics]."

"This is a regime responsible for flagrant human rights violations, and this is a regime with which normalizing relations may not be possible."

Masoud Zamani, lecturer in international relations, University of British Columbia

 

"[Reopening an embassy in Tehran could be part of a broader restoration of diplomatic relations, which could allow Iran to re-establish an official diplomatic presence in Canada]."

"What they want is a political footprint here in Canada through an embassy. I don’t know if we gain anything by allowing them to do that.  I don’t think that there is a real intention to do that."

"This issue of inconsistency in the positions adopted by the prime minister is itself quite a serious matter."

Kaveh Shahrooz, senior fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute

Protests erupted in Iran on 28 December 2025. People across the country, outraged at decades of repression, were demanding fundamental change and a political system that respects human rights and dignity. Iranian authorities have responded with an unprecedented deadly crackdown. Security forces have used unlawful force, firearms and other prohibited weapons, against protesters, which resulted in mass killings and serious injuries. Amnesty International

 

 Former Prime Minister Stephen Harper responded to the Islamic Republic's well-known abuse of human rights in Iran, and the regime's role as the foremost sponsor of terrorism in the Middle East by shutting down the Iranian Embassy and Consulate in Toronto, and withdrawing Canadian diplomats from the Canadian embassy in Tehran in 2012. Then-Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird declared the Iranian legation persona-non-grata in no uncertain terms. "Canada is committed to fighting global terrorism and to holding perpetrators of terrorism — and those who provide them support — accountable for their actions. Iran is among the world's worst violators of human rights. It shelters and materially supports terrorist groups."

 

When Mr. Harper left office and PM Justin Trudeau became prime minister, he mused about re-opening relations with Iran, despite that nothing had changed in the Islamic Republic's favour; it remained the stridently repressive government in Tehran, suppressing its public and enforcing strict totalitarian Sharia government, while its Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps kept order along with its Basij branch, and its al-Quds arm continued training, funding and arming terrorist groups such as Hezbollah, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.

 

Fast forward to the courage displayed by mostly young Iranians who spontaneously began to mount protests against the regime in December of 2025, demanding that it step down from office. Before long the protests spread from the capital to other areas of the country, with greater participation from the regime-hating population. The initial crowd-control protocols soon gave way to violence in the IRGC and Basij and national police responses, when live firearms were increasingly used to 'restore order'. In the end, an estimated 30,000 Iranian protesters were killed and many thousands arrested and tortured for their insubordination. 

 

Protests were also reported in several other provinces, including Kermanshah - Middle East Images / AFP via Getty Image

 

More latterly, with current prime minister Mark Carney musing publicly that Canada should consider reopening an embassy in the Islamic Republic for the sake of 'engagement' seems a stretch too far, even for him; restoring relations with the largest state sponsor of terrorism in a Canada that has become progressively less wedded to its traditional values of democracy, rule of law, public security, equal support for all its ethnic groups within its great ongoing experiment of multiculturalism and prepared to jettison its respect and support for the Jewish-Canadian community while sanctioning the viral antisemitism, anti-Israel fulminations of the now-more-populous Muslim-Canadian community.

 

The speedy, sudden growth of the latter demographic itself a product of Liberal-progressive permissiveness that has led to societal division, cultural-religious antagonism and public displays of illegal threats by one group against another which politicians and government institutions appear not to notice is fraying the mantle of multiculturalism held so dear by government that groups living in silos opt out of the normal social contract in the belief that cultural-traditional mores of racist invective are perfectly normal in a democratic society

 

Men stand amid rows of corpses in a morgue in Tehran following mass killings of protestors by security forces in this undated image obtained by Iran International

 

The Islamic Republic of Iran stands alone in financing terrorist groups whose oft-stated raison d'etre is the destruction of the State of Israel. This doesn't trouble the Liberal government of Canada, but understandably it does the Jews of Canada. All the more so that they are made victims of this new lashback of anti-Zionism/antisemitism that appears not to trouble mainstream Canada, much less academia and unions in Canada, all complicit with Palestinian student groups inciting hate against other Canadians.

 

Among other minorities, Canada has a substantial number of Iranian-Canadians within the population, many of whom arrived as new immigrants to Canada shortly after the 1979 Iranian revolution. To these Canadians of Iranian birth, Canada has become a haven, but it is also more latterly, a country which, although it has placed the IRGC on a terrorist list, permits members of the IRGC and their families to enter Canada at will, to live or vacation there, while supporting the Islamic Republic. Their presence in Canada threatens the well-being of anti-regime Iranian-Canadians. This government is not interested.

 

It has been revealed that more than 700 IRGC members ore operatives are in residence in Canada. How they were able to enter, and how they are entitled to be resident in Canada is the Liberal government's little mystery, not to be shared to the public.  Who might ever have imagined that Canada has anything in common with a country governed by human-rights-abusing, terrorism-enabling, peaceful population protesting slaughterers?  

 

 

"Prime Minister, there’s a fine line between engaging the Iranian regime to further our interests - which you already have the tools to do under Canada’s controlled engagement policy, versus opening a mission, conferring legitimacy on a regime that brutally murdered more than 30,000 people just months ago. And a regime Canada has rightly designated a supporter of terrorism."

"If the clerical military dictatorship wants more structured engagement, it should take demonstrable steps towards earning that. Like actually divesting the uranium it enriched for warheads it continues to produce, ending its terror network also operating in Canada, and ending the repression of its own people."

"Having any Iranian presence in Canada would be a national security threat. Period."

Shuv Majumdar, Conservative Member of Parliament for Calgary Heritage