It’s easy to get depressed these days.

Whether you are Jewish or not, we live in a depressing, difficult time. Tuesday night‘s outrage was yet more of the same: foul-mouthed Hamasniks blocking a major road and railway crossing in Toronto’s West end – pushing at police officers and likening them to Nazis.

We all are living through history. And the anti-Semitism and hatred we see everywhere these days – in the streets, in classrooms, on computer and TV screens – represents a shameful time in our history.

But not everything is bad. Not all is lost. There are things to encourage us all. Here’s ten.

1. Jordan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates: Those nations didn’t just refuse to support Iran in its attack on Israel on Saturday night. They actively – and militarily – intervened to protect Israel. They helped shoot down more than 300 missiles and drones aimed at Israeli citizens.

2. That’s not all: Fifty years ago, most of those Arab states attacked Israel in what would be called the Yom Kippur War. Fifty years later, they are fighting at Israel’s side. That is great news for Israel, and for democracy.

3. There were no fatalities, despite the potential for mass casualties. While one child was hurt, she is still clinging to life. Otherwise, there was no loss of life. Considering the immensity of Iran’s barrage, that is extraordinary.

4. Israel’s allies helped out, too. Despite the premature calls for ceasefire, and despite the absurd legislative votes for arms embargoes against the Jewish state, Israel’s allies – the United States, Britain, France, others – stepped up. They rushed to Israel’s aid. Canada, sadly, was not among them.

5. When compared to Hamas, Hezbollah possesses superior military hardware, and is more of a strategic threat to Israel. But, so far, Hezbollah has not been able to engage in the sort of horrifying carnage committed by Hamas on October 7.

6. Hamas has admitted it has been lying about casualties! Last week, the Foundation for Defence of Democracies reported that the Hamas-run Gaza health authority had admitted it had published “incomplete data” about Palestinian casualties. Without explanation, Hamas quietly issued new casualty figures, significantly lower than their previous claims.

7. Gazans are getting aid – lots of it. Via land crossings and the Ashdod Port, US and Israeli forces are getting tons of food and medical supplies into Gaza. Hundreds of aid trucks are now crossing daily through Kerem Shalom and Nitzana border points.

8. Benjamin Netanyahu’s days in power are numbered. Even the Israeli Prime Minister’s most ardent supporters admit that he failed to deliver on the one promise that counts the most: security for Israelis. He was woefully unprepared for the attack by Hamas on October 7.When the war ends, Netanyahu’s tenure will be very short indeed.

9. The vast majority in the West support Israel, and support its right to defend itself and its people.  While Generation Z and Millennials remain a problem, the majority – too often silent – remain on Israel’s side.

10. Hamas is losing. As of last week, the IDF estimates that more than 13,000 Hamas terrorists have been eliminated.  Meanwhile, Israel has only lost around 300 troops to fighting with Hamas. You don’t have to be a military strategist to recognize that the bad guys are losing.

There. Not all of the news is bad. In fact, a lot of it is good. This point, in particular:

Israel will win this war.

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Traffic into Chicago’s O’Hare airport, one the world’s busiest: blocked.

Traffic along the busy I-880 mega-highway in Oakland, California: blocked.

Traffic on San Francisco’s Golden Gate Bridge: blocked.

Traffic on the Newburgh-Beacon Bridge over the Hudson River: blocked.

And, here in Canada – traffic in Vancouver, leading to a critical container port: blocked.

Traffic outside a major federal government facility in downtown Ottawa: blocked.

All around the world, just as they promised to do on April 15: global trade and movement blocked by the Israel-haters.

The pro-Hamas, anti-Israel types would have you believe that all of this – this coordinated, organized global blockade “to free Palestine” – was all grassroots. It was just a group of unaffiliated groups and people coming together, magically, to shut down points and facilities across the West. It was just a few folks coming together to, you know, protest.

Well, that’s impossible.

This writer has been involved in politics for a long time. Organizing a political rally in a single city takes weeks of preparation and a lot of hard work. It takes money.

Doing it around the planet, and effectively shutting down businesses, infrastructure and government services – using glossy, Madison Avenue-quality graphics on your signs and banners? Shutting down capitalism and democracies on a global scale?

That requires money. That requires a directing mind. That requires a plan. Because effective worldwide protests don’t just “happen.” And they definitely don’t just happen because a some Palestine enthusiasts decided to throw something together one weekend.

Check the “A15Action” website, ostensibly put together by an anarchist collective in the U.S. It’s more professional-looking than what most governments or political parties put together. There’s a video that greets you when you click on the site, and a woman’s voice is heard: “In each city, we will identify and blockade major choke points in the economy, focusing on points of production and circulation with the aim of causing the most economic impact,” she says.

“Escalation has become necessary: there is a need to shift from symbolic actions to those that cause pain to the economy. As Yemen is bombed to secure global trade, and billions of dollars are sent to the Zionist war machine, we must recognize that the global economy is complicit in genocide and together we will coordinate to disrupt and blockade economic logistical hubs and the flow of capital.”

Lawyers are provided for those who get arrested. “Graphics and flyers” are offered for download. Contacts are listed, in just about every major city on Earth. Talking points. Media kits. All of it is there – from a “grassroots” pro-Palestine effort.

Well, grassroots it isn’t.

A letter from Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ intelligence group was leaked Monday by Iranian dissident Vahid Beheshti. Reportedly written prior to the global blockades by the unit’s Deputy Commander-in-Chief, the letter describes the April 15 lawlessness, and says the objective is “supporting and encouraging Palestinian movements towards the political isolation of the Zionist regime.”

Wrote Beheshti: “[Iran] is very clearly organizing and promoting these actions aimed at destroying our modern society, all the while our politicians continue to appease them, placing our values, stability and public order under great jeopardy.”

Previously, this newspaper has reported that anti-Israel protestors are being paid to protest, in Canada and elsewhere. We have reported that their organizers are trained, connected and skillful in running protests against the Jewish state and Jewish institutions. And that a global web connects these groups and individuals – whose goal isn’t just the destruction of what they call “the Zionist entity.” It’s destabilizing Western democracy, as well.

Don’t believe it? Sound far-fetched?

Then check out what happened in Chicago, Oakland, San Francisco, New York City, Vancouver, Ottawa and dozens of other places on Monday, and ask yourself: could all of this happen without central coordination? Could it happen without a plan and lots of funding?

You know the answer.

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Is this, at long last, the result of multiculturalism?

As Iran launched hundreds of missiles and drones at Israel, our ally, what was happening in Canada?

In Toronto, the pro-Hamas cabal were firing off smoke grenades downtown.  Near Union Station, they celebrated Iran’s act of war.

“Iran has just launched drones towards Israel!” a man shouted over a loudspeaker.

And the crowd cheered. Loudly. They applauded. They looked deliriously happy.

Is this what multiculturalism has wrought?

For a long time, believing in multiculturalism did not render you a “Libtard” or a “Cultural Marxist” or any of the other things that often get said about those who believe in multiculturalism.

Because this writer’s political home was for many years the Liberal Party of Canada, I was a supporter  of multiculturalism.  

I believed in it, and I wasn’t alone. Many of us thought multiculturalism was a good thing. For card-carrying Liberals, in particular, multiculturalism was part of the catechism. We even put it in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, in section 27.

The word defines itself. “Multiculturalism” is a policy that encourages people to preserve and promote the cultures from whence they come. It’s the opposite of the American “melting pot,” which encourages completely embracing the culture and values that define America, and none other.  (Canadians therefore had a tendency to like multiculturalism even more – because it wasn’t American.)

So, newcomers to Canada – whether they be immigrants, refugees or the Canada-born children of immigrants or refugees – were encouraged to preserve their unique cultural traditions here in Canada, wearing a keffiyeh and waving a Palestinian flag, if they wanted to. We were such believers in multiculturalism, in fact, we supported using government money to fund multiculturalism.

For years, we’ve done that, under successive Liberal, NDP and Conservative governments at all levels.  Some of the multicul projects government has funded caused scandals.

The formerly-governing BC Liberals, for example, were caught spending millions on multicultural events that, a leaked document showed, were actually designed to be “quick wins” for the party, and paid for by BC taxpayers. And that became the suspicion about multiculturalism, in fact: that it was about politics, not people.

In exchange for supporting multiculturalism – in exchange for funding it, too – the likes of me asked for just one thing in exchange: obey our laws. Be civil.  Embrace that most-Canadian of principles: peace, order and good government.

The vast majority did.  Newcomers did. The bargain was fair, you see: in exchange for Canadian citizenship, you will leave behind those beliefs and behaviors that disturb the peace. Which are probably the things you wanted to escape by coming to Canada in the first place.

All good. Fine. And then, something terrible happened.  Something beyond words.

In June 1985, Air India flight 182was blown out of the sky above the Atlantic Ocean.  The plane had started its journey in Canada, in Montreal. And everyone aboard – 329 innocent men, women and children – were slaughtered.  They were murdered.

They were murdered, serial investigations concluded, by some madmen who had come to Canada, and brought with them black hate in their hearts. They were Sikhs, but it wouldn’t have actually mattered if they were Catholics, Hindus or Seventh-Day Adventists. All that mattered is that they came to the multicultural paradise that is Canada, and they commenced the process of destroying that very ideal.

Others have followed in their foul wake. Others have come from other places and hacked away at the multicultural dream. By 2023, not much was left of it.

And then, on October 7, multiculturalism breathed its last. As word spread – as we learned that Hamas terrorists had invaded progressive farm communities in Israel, and raped and tortured and killed hundreds of innocents, and kidnapped scores more – something else happened, here in Canada.

In Mississauga, Ontario, people – newcomers to Canada, it seemed, but definitely people who do not deserve to call themselves Canadian – celebrated. At the intersection of Ridgeway Drive and Eglington in Mississauga, a large crowd of all ages gathered to celebrate the barbarity of October 7. They honked horns and cheered for Hamas’ mass-murder. They waved Palestinian flags. They handed out sweets.

It wasn’t a one-off. It wasn’t an outlier. In the days since, there have been many, many other such displays of inhumanity and cruelty, almost entirely aimed at Canada’s puny Jewish community.  There have been crimes, like firebombing of synagogues, and shootings at schools, and attacks on Jews.

But there have been other things, too, which don’t amount to crimes – but are specifically designed to make Jews feel just as unwelcome and isolated and terrified. Marches through their neighborhoods, epithets screamed at the elderly Jews who live there. Blocking access to hospitals that Jews support, chanting unsubtle calls for genocide and violent revolution. Demanding that references to Jewish traditions erased, and replaced by that of others.

And now, hundreds cheering on Iran’s attack on Israel. Right out in the open. Proudly.

Have these terrible things been done in the name of multiculturalism? No. But multiculturalism was naïve. It let its guard down. It persuaded us that every single newcomer would come here and treat every other culture with dignity and respect.

They didn’t. They haven’t. A minority, hearts of hate beating in their chests, came here to hate some more.

Well, multiculturalism was an experiment, and it was an experiment that hasn’t worked out.

We are, as the saying goes, a country of immigrants. That shouldn’t change.

But the ones who come here to spread hate?

It’s time to kick them out.

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You can’t assume anything in politics.

That’s a Tip O’Neill truism. He had lots of them. Thomas P. O’Neill was a Democrat, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives for a decade in the Reagan and Bush years. He was the guy who came up with “all politics is local” line, too. You’ve heard that one.

From my current distant perch, I decided to run a poll that would be wildly unscientific. No random sampling, no weighting of results. None of that.

I started with a safe assumption: Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative Party is poised to win the next federal general election. Big time. For most of this year, he’s been ahead by double digits in the polls – sometimes even edging close to 20 points ahead. That’s not just a win. That’s a Grit-dammerung massacre.

So, I polled the Conservatives who follow me on X, a place where conservatives are very active. I asked them what is motivating them to vote Conservative, and I gave them four options.

After two days, three thousand people responded. More votes are still coming in. But so far, here’s what they are saying about why they are voting Conservative:

• Anti-Trudeau: 20 per cent
• Pro-Poilievre: 11 per cent
• Both options, but more the first: 42 per cent
• Both options, but more the second: 27 per cent

I’ve given people a week to respond, so things may move around a bit. But from the debut of the “poll,” the numbers have been pretty consistent. The vast majority of Conservative vote depends on Justin Trudeau still being there.

You don’t have to be a political scientist to see the danger, here. A pretty big chunk of Conservative support is opposition to Trudeau, not support for Pierre Poilievre.

I did the little X survey because it’s what my gut had been telling me, and my political gut is always more accurate than any pollster, 20 times out of 20. It rarely steers me the wrong way.

So, if the “poll” and my gut are right, one very important question arises: what happens when Justin Trudeau goes, as I believe he will before the next election?

Well, for Tories, it could get a bit bouncy. It could get kind of bad, even.

Here’s why. In elections, most people are what we call low-information voters. They don’t have. a lot of time for political nonsense. They may know something about a party’s platform, and they may actually remember their local candidate’s name (unlikely, but possible). But most of the time, the leader is the thing that matters most. Who the leader is – how he or she is – affects vote choices more than anything else.

That’s why wild things happen when parties change leaders. Take a look at our recent history.

In 1993, I was Jean Chretien’s Special Assistant and ran his election war room. When Kim Campbell became Tory leader that Summer, she instantly became the most popular Prime Minister in the history of Canada.

Hard to believe, I know, given that we reduced her party to two seats. But after the Tory leadership race was over, Campbell was ahead of us Grits in virtually every poll – in the month of July 1993, by double-digits.

Her mistake was calling the election right away, before people got to know her. Which, ironically, was John Turner’s mistake, too (I helped run his youth campaign, and I know).

Turner became Liberal leader in the hot Summer of 1984. He immediately went ahead in the polls – again, in multiple polls, by as much as ten points. He wanted to call the election right away; my future boss, Chretien, counselled him to wait, to let Canadians get to know him. He didn’t wait. He got massacred by Brian Mulroney.

Another example: Michael Ignatieff. For a brief time, I advised him, too. When he cruelly fired all of my friends, the people who made him leader, I quit. That’s not how a real leader behaves.

But before all that, when he won the Liberal leadership with 97 per cent of the vote in Vancouver, Ignatieff, too, was consistently ahead. Every single poll, in the late Spring and early Summer of 2009, showed Ignatieff ahead of Stephen Harper. Not by double-digits, but by enough to win a possible majority. He and his new team ran a terrible campaign and ended up in third place.

Same with Justin Trudeau (sorry, Tories). As soon as he became Liberal leader in 2013, the polls went his way. And so on and so on.

The moral of the story: when you get a new leader, all bets are off. It ain’t called a honeymoon for nothing, folks.

If Trudeau goes (and he will), and if there’s a shiny new Liberal leader (and there will be), things will change.

Trust me (and Tip O’Neill): in politics, assumptions are really dangerous.

Don’t assume this one is in the bag, Team Tory. It ain’t.

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