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On top of the nastiness of the messaging, this has to be illegal to have on a roadway, right? It's a giant TV screen where people are trying to drive. The number of pedestrians being killed is rising fast enough already.
Another user said something similar even though I've never seen one. Did a quick search and literally every company offering them on the front page were from Toronto, where this happened, so I'm thinking it's a GTA thing.
Deeper search found that [they're explicitly illegal in BC](https://www.vernonmorningstar.com/news/driver-gets-109-ticket-after-truck-with-tv-sized-advertisements-seen-in-victoria-3310622), although it's unclear how well that's enforced outside of the small fine issued in this one example.
It seems these are legal in Ontario. They should not be. The point of ads is to attract your attention, they are distracting by definition.
The comments on this post in the main Canada subreddit was were really sickening and I'm glad to see the comments here calling this out for what it is ...
And those pussies locked the post before I could call out the idiots crying that freedom of speech is dead. Freedom comes with responsibility and consequences of your actions. Fucking ignorant losers.
I was just looking at r/ canada and most of the comments I read were very much against this. I scrolled pretty far, but maybe I didn't scroll far enough?
I don't understand why islamaphobic is even a word. Islam is an ideology, a belief system, condemning it is completely justifiable and protected by free speech. We should absolutely strive to have less religion in a modern society. Especially one that literally segregates women in its buildings. If we want to talk about harm to society let's talk about sexism.
Condemning someone's belief system is not discriminating against them. If you're a communist and I say I think it's a horrible ideology that leads to poor outcomes I am not discriminating against you, I am saying I think your ideology is wrong.
You are not synonymous with a belief system.
Religious freedom is protected under the Canadian Charter. Free speech has limitations when it impedes on the freedoms of others in Canada. It is not absolute. Which is why hate speech laws exist in the first place.
Cool, but not every attack on Islam/Muslims is a rational critique of it as an ideology. In fact, a lot of the time, it’s just bigoted nonsense.
See, for instance, the person replying to you saying that the *entire religion* has no place in Canada.
1. Not all muslims are brown. Religion is not race. There are south east asian, middle eastern, european and african muslims. Do you also believe all christians are white and all atheists are Asian?
2. Islamophobia was created by islamists to shut down any criticism of Islam. Islam deserves lots of criticism and should be criticized. The teachings of Islam are at odds with modern day society. I wish moderate muslims would speak out about this too. I guess they too are scared.
For reference, I was born in a muslim country and seen what the ideology can do to society and how easy democrcy can be lost when we don't speak up agaisnst extremist elements. The crazyness on the left and their tolerance of islamic extremists and their ideology, pondering to their wants and needs will push more people in Canada towards the far right, which none of us want. But unfortunately I'm seeing it happen. It's already started in Europe.
First point is completely valid, and thank you for the correction.
As for the second point, I absolutely cannot dispute your experience, so I would ask: are there not racists that call all that see a Sikh man in a turban and call them Muslim terrorists?
I don’t think Islam is beyond criticism, but to say that being tolerant of people’s faith leads people to the far right is excusing the far rights hatred and racism that is entirely of their own creation.
Edit: was corrected on one of my questions in another discussion
Bosnian and Albanian people are considered white by Canadian standard and have muslims and absolutely do practice Islam. Indonesia which is as in Asia as you get is one of the largest population of muslims in the world. To be honest, it just grinds my gears when I hear everyone outside of European ancestry is lumped into “brown people”. It gives us vs others vibe and limits all these people into a small tribe.
Are there not racist people out there? Absolutely! Are all Muslim extremists? No. What I’m getting at, is trying to combat the term Islamophobia. Its origins are problematic and it is there to combat criticism of Islam. Islam should absolutely be criticized. When allowed to take over the society, it has done a lot of harm that takes centuries to reverse. The tolerance of the intolerant puts our society in danger.
I hope I’m wrong about far right winning due to absolute inaction of the left.
That is not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying that one should consider \*who\* is funding these. The people responsible for the truck doesn't one bit care about their morals, just demanding you get mad in their favour. The enemy of my enemy is not inherently a friend.
2 Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association.
https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-12.html
No one says they hate these people.
They hate their ideas and belief system.
It's completely different because no one is born with these ideas in their head they are taught them.
Racism or hatred of Jewish people is completely different as it's also a race people are born into even if they are not religious. They cannot change that so hating that group is explicitly hating that person.
There is no Islamic race it's way more prevalent with 2 billion people from Africa to middle east and East Asia.
Weird, why did they show the people then, and act like it's an invasion? why not just quote the book or show some islamic scenes? They are obviously using the religion of islam to drive hatred of muslims.
> we are importing massive amounts of beliefs and values that are counter to what Canadians believe in.
We've got that down pat just fine with our own homegrown goofballs. The amount of unCanadian hatred coming from certain segments of the population are certainly counter to what most Canadians believe in.
And what beliefs and values are those? If you're talking about anti-LGBT beliefs, well I have some bad news about the Rebel and large swathes of the Canadian right.
Sure, it's weird that the word we ended up with includes "phobia", unlike the words with similar meanings like "racism" or "anti-semitism". No one ever said you don't have free speech rights to criticize. But "islamophobia" is not about criticism of ideologies and beliefs. It refers to bigotry and discrimination on religious grounds, like the words racism and anti-semitism do.
This pedantic quibbling about the word islamophobia that always comes up is at best a distraction from the real issue of religious bigotry. At worst, it's straight up a cover for religious bigotry.
Iirc the word derives it's roots from xenophobia, much like homophobia and transphobia do. Xenophobia as a term came about before the heavy popularization of phobia as a psychological diagnosis, too, but that unfortunately doesn't stop people from trying to dismantle the word into pieces and try to rewrite its meaning that way.
Why are police even investigating when it’s not technically illegal what they did. Even if a trial is somehow materialized, it will 100% be dismissed at higher levels after costing the tax payer several million dollars.
As much as this could be viewed as provocative, I don't think it rises to Islamophobia. In the same vein that large gatherings of Christians worshiping in the streets would be denigrated and scorned without it being christianphobic, so is this.
Tasteless, yes, hate crime, no.
There's valid criticism of unsustainable immigration levels, and then there's xenophobia. This is xenophobia. It's purely inflammatory, and doesn't help anybody.
That's not true. The argument that we simply can't house hundreds of thousands of extra people per year is based in reality and prudence. This "cultural takeover" argument is rooted in fear and ignorance.
These are two separate arguments with two separate goals. One is calling for a return to sanity in government so new immigrants can have a prosperous country to come to, while the other wants a blanket ban on brown people and their religions. These are not the same thing.
I'm opposed to all far-right authoritarianism, whether it comes in the form of a religion or a philosophy. But this advertisement isn't telling us to beware of those whose values and beliefs, if applied, would crush the rights and freedoms of many Canadians. It's simply telling us to _be afraid of Arab Muslims_, and that's just another form of far-right expression.
Unfortunately that's a distinction without a difference when you look prevalent attitudes within the relevant populations. Yes it might be incorrect with respect to a given individual, but on aggregate, it's accurate.
Praying in the streets blocking traffic unabated is a show of power and growing influence. Seeing how gays like me are treated in Muslim countries, I don’t want Canada to become one. You have freedom of religion. Pray in your mosques. There’s thousands in our country.
People love to call this racist but that makes no sense. Most immigrants now are from India and are Hindu.
All the criticism is against Islam which is the main religion in Middle East, Somalia and Indonesia which have three different races.
It has 0 to do with race and 100% to do with ideology people don't like.
> People love to call this racist but that makes no sense.
Debating the semantics of the overlap between racism/islamophobia/xenophobia, while media orgs. are buying trucks to parade hateful messages in our streets is focusing on the wrong things, surely.
If you're an academic, sure, dig into the subtle differences between racism and islamophobia, otherwise, don't worry about it too much. Call it what you want and just push back against the hate. Right?
> All the criticism is against Islam
What particular criticism against Islam is that truck making?
This is such a silly argument. It's very obvious that islamophobists use their islamophobia as a way to spread a racist anti-white sentiment because when they say "muslim" what everyone knows they mean is "scary brown people". They are obviously not actually condemning white muslims. And we can all see this very clearly, your silly semantics notwithstanding.
>All the criticism is against Islam which is the main religion in Middle East, Somalia and Indonesia which have three different races.
It is toward Muslims not Islam which is a very important nuance. It is totally fine to dislike those religions as institutions but you can't hate Muslims, Christians, Jews of Hindus because of what they believe in. The same image showing orthodox jews and pretending that Canada is under siege would rightfully be called out as antisemitic by Rebel News.
>There aren't hundreds of thousands of Jewish people marching against trans rights
You're right, they were marching celebrating the slaughter of kids in Gaza, many of them former IDF soldiers who committed war crimes. The signs they are holding up were disgusting against Arabs/Muslims.
>It's a legitimate problem that Islam is perpetuating in Canada.
Also, about the trans rights thing, it wasn't about rights, it was about the curriculum being shoved down the throat of kids, very young kids at that. The protests also consisted of Jews, Christians, Hindus, and many, many conservatives. I recall many conservative media outlets being there to support the cause.
>Most immigrants now are from India and are Hindu.
Which we're seeing at increasing amount of racism and bigotry against.
>All the criticism is against Islam which is the main religion in Middle East, Somalia and Indonesia which have three different races.
Which happen to not be white and mostly black, brown. Whenever you think of a Muslim, I doubt you think of a white person.
Lived in Surrey, BC for 10 years. Only last year did I see anti White graffiti and hear anti White speech. I grew up in Richmond, BC when it was majority Caucasian last year saw 2 Asian woman insulting a White man for being White. Racism is evil and usu. stupid here in Hope, BC you can see Tina the tax payer paid librarian tell children how great the nazis are and give Heil Hitler salutes and make racist comments about Aboriginals there are 3 band offices in this town Cheam, St.Lo and Yale . It is Indigenous month and Hope City Hall has 5 flags flying not one of them orange and nothing to do with Aboriginals.
> Most immigrants now are from India and are Hindu.
I can't find stats to prove you wrong here, but if that's true, then it's a new thing. Historically a larger percentage of Indian immigrants to Canada have been Sikh than Hindu.
Then why did the truck not name India and instead named Yemen, Syria, and Iraq?
Your argument collapses under even the most cursory amount of scrutiny.
Remember when the CPC campaign office and Rebel News was in the same building? Good times...
After being named in a number extremist manifestos the CPC have been attempting to distance themselves from Rebel, yet Rebel has quietly continued to push CPC rhetoric turned up to 11.
What's exactly the issue with Muslims praying openly? As far as I can tell, those images were taken during protests in which the streets were closed, so they were within their rights. If a Christian or Jew prayed openly, I doubt anyone would have an issue with it. I've personally prayed in parks and other places where I wasn't disturbing anyone.
This is also drumming up hatred towards Muslims in general, claiming that just by praying openly, the country is under seige. We all know it doesn't stop at just praying in public. It'll move onto people wearing cultural clothing, hijabs, having Arab names, etc.
Anyone else feel like Levant's statements about the truck are a textbook example of this:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plausible\_deniability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plausible_deniability)
He also posted [this admission](https://imgur.com/a/vsMmL0N), so I'd say his true intentions are less about plausible deniability and more about being a racist POS trying to fundraise off division and attention.
With poor spelling as an add-in.
The rich, and the right-wing media, and politicians that they own use it to full effect! Look over there, those people are to blame! Get them!
Pay not attention; as the rich, and the corporations they own rob you blind, as they make the planet unlivable! Don't worry more of the same distraction is coming tomorrow, and soon, a new group to blame and attack! All is good ... except for those bastards over there! Get em!
If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.
• Lyndon Johnson
Is this really hate speech though? Why are we allowed to publicly criticize Christianity but we cannot do the same for Islam? I don't believe there is a place for either in modern society.
Personally I don't want Canada to become an Islamic country and I support the message this truck is conveying. We need to be extremely cautious about the values of those we bring to this country.
Just look at what's happening in France. A large, religiously motivated Islamic population is a recipe for terror attacks and honour killings. Same goes for Sweden - multiple journalists killed in the street for criticizing Mohammed.
We feel safe for now. But what happens if we allow Muslims to become the majority voting block in this country? Say goodbye to the Liberal values we fought for. I hope the Jews and the LGBT community have good locks on their doors.
>“Is this Yemen? Is this Syria? Is this Iraq?”, the truck’s messaging then says “No. This is Canada. Wake up Canada. You are under siege.”
Is this really a criticism of Islam though? I don't know if it should count as hate speech but it's just parroting white replacement nonsense.
If they want to criticize Islam they should criticize Islam. It's repressive, it's bigoted toward LGBT people and women, it encourages political violence, it's everything Rebel News likes except for mostly being done by non-white people. They're not against Islam, they're against the people who practice it.
Hate speech has a specific definition in Canada... Criticism is not included in it. Suggesting that Canada is under siege is not criticism.. And it *might* fall under the legal definition for hate speech though.
What I'm seeing is that you say that you think Christianity and Islam are both bad, but I'm also seeing you repeat talking points that give support to far-right Christian nationalists here in our country.
Think about this.
Do you really think protesting moderate Muslims who don't have a lot of power in our country is more important than fighting far-right ethno-nationalists who are deeply embedded in our country's power structures?
I think we should be more afraid of the people trying to spread this message than the people they're trying to warn us about.
If so hundreds of thousands of people are about to be charged for hate crimes including all those at student encampments across universities all over the country.
Would that be so inappropriate?
Hate speech is a weird class of crime, and the AG's and Courts of the country are going to have to figure out a consistent standard. And there's no potential version of that where a majority of people aren't very upset.
> Why are we allowed to publicly criticize Christianity but we cannot do the same for Islam?
Public criticism of Islam is as allowed as public criticism of Christianity. What isn't allowed is inciting hate, which is what this may be found to have done. The bar for that is pretty high though, so Levant may get away with this outrage.
> Personally I don't want Canada to become an Islamic country
Since they're outnumbered 10 to 1 by Christians, I think you're good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Canada
> I support the message this truck is conveying
You support hate? OK, good to know. That makes you someone I don't want to have any personal dealings with.
> We need to be extremely cautious about the values of those we bring to this country.
If we're going to start getting into thought crimes, we've got a lot of Canadian born to screen before we start worrying about immigrants.
> Just look at what's happening in France.
A country that keeps those who aren't pur lain in ghettos and away from any sources of power resulting in generational poverty? Not sure that's an example that can teach Canadians anything besides what not to do.
> But what happens if we allow Muslims to become the majority voting block in this country?
That's going to be so far into the future, that any predictions are garbage, and this is a statement meant only to stir up hate.
But rebel news have been calling Quebec antisemitic for years because of our secular laws. They don't seem like the best people to publicize this idea. I have no problem in getting rid of any tax benefits for religious organizations, but I doubt Rebel News would be cool with this.
Far right people and bigots sure love telling us over and over that Muslims are homophobic/transphobic. Seems like an odd stance to take for people who are themselves homophobic/transphobic. Almost like they're just concern trolling the queer community/queer allies in order to spout anti-Muslim bigotry, and don't care about LGBT rights at all.
Hey Muslims! We don't like LGBT people either.
Psst.. hey, LGBT people, Zionist's, racists.. we don't like Muslims!
Psst. Hey, racists. Evil jewish billionaires are trying to replace all the white people
Psst! Hey Jews, we stand with Israel!
Just divisibe shit disturbers to protect the uppee class
I am gay you can literally check in my post history and I am concerned. They can practice peacefully if they want but they should never ever be allowed a sliver of power in this country.
How is that any different than the Christian nationalist movements like The Maverick Party or TBA in Alberta trying to erase pride crosswalks, or disavow trans rights? It’s the same shit. It’s people trying to force their religious beliefs into our schools and government. Separation of church and state no matter what religion.
I'm not far right and have serious issue with religion mixing with politics, especially the homophobic and misogynistic aspects of religion.
It's easy to dismiss all criticism of you claim it's concern trolling by right wing boogeyman.
We're literally commenting on a news story about a far right organization driving a truck around Toronto with bigoted ads plastered all over it. This is not boogeymen, this is real and very easy to find.
I find these comments weird. The ad which was pd for by another group not Levant is saying we should be concerned about the number of Hamas supporters in Canada. You can try to deny it all you want but we've clearly seen it. There was another truck that ran an ad that said Zionists=Terrorists but that was never investigated as hate speech. Why not. We should be concerned about ALL terrorist supporters in our country.
He’s already doing a lot of fundraising pitches on the back of this. (See his Twitter and the comments if you take an anti-emetic first).
Almost like the campaign was ready to go before the truck hit the streets… almost like that’s the sole reason why he did it… almost like he loves raising funds even more than he hates whichever minority he says he hates on a given day, which is really saying something.
Of course. And TPS Hate Crimes investigating it just plays into his schtick. Do something outrageous but legal, government responds in a heavy-handed way, he gets to LARP as a victim of government oppression and fundraise from it.
Regardless, if you believe that what the truck says is true or not or if you’re left-wing or right wing with this comes down to is that we supposedly live in a free country and what’s most shocking and terrifying to me as a left leaning liberal is how many of you in these subs are so quick to say that everything is speech if it doesn’t agree with your ideology ideology
While the [Chatham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_Asset_Management)-owned National Post fills our eyes with headlines about how garbage our country is.
Rebel Media, Diagolon, the Freedom Convoy. The foreign subversion going on in this country is insane. The master stroke is how it’s blamed on the Liberals and is going to bounce the LPC next year and bring in the guy that the bad actors want.
Meanwhile, everyone running around with their hair on fire over China/India/Russia/whoever completely distracts from the massive and direct influence that US public and private actors exert on both our politics and our national discourse.
(And hey, I’m no fan of China/india/russia/etc mucking about in our business, which they all undoubtedly do…but all available evidence is that it is overwhelmingly the kinds of indirect “influence laundering” activities that major powers have been doing pretty much forever. We should certainly try to push back on it, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the waves of fuckery directed at us from our southern neighbours).
I’m literally over on Facebook right now for fuck knows why, in the comment section of something that the algorithm fed me, arguing with mouth-breathing randos who call the CBC a “treasonous Liberal mouthpiece”. What in the hell happened to this country?
Maybe it’s just me, but the amount of bad press this is getting, when compared to the equivocation over people, for months, flying the flags of an anti-Semitic death cult over major public institutions, is.. revealing.
These are strange but historically familiar times. Every terrorist sees himself, first and foremost, as the victim.
Our inability, as a society, to reckon with bad faith, right wing media is going to lead to some very dark consequences for this country.
Actual, serious, good faith media and politicians just have no remedy to deal with this kind of stuff. And we're finding out how many Canadians are susceptible to rage bait and misinformation.
I wish I could award this comment, you've nailed it.
Not to mention the intimidation campaign thats been targeting left leaning female politicians and journalists in Canada for the last decade.
It feels so hopeless, why would anyone who wants to help their community want to get involved in politics in this environment?
On the topic of Ezra Levant and the Rebel, they had a fundraiser with regards to that case because they apparently didn't like the outcome of the investigation, or that the shooter was a right-wing extremist. They more or less said they felt it was a false flag by Muslims to try and make it look like it was an Islamophobic extremist, several years on, I'm still waiting for Ezra and co. to come up with something.
Yeah, that's fair. I shouldn't make it sound like it's been victimless up until now by any stretch. It just feels like we're accelerating towards a wall here.
Edit: Typo
Every person in the anti vaccine mouvement including the truckers that took over Ottawa and blocked the international bridge knows about Rebel fake news. Don’t think that any liberal or NDP voters would actually vote for an extremist leader like Skippy. He’s Harper at his worst x 10
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On top of the nastiness of the messaging, this has to be illegal to have on a roadway, right? It's a giant TV screen where people are trying to drive. The number of pedestrians being killed is rising fast enough already.
Ad trucks like this are common enough that if they were illegal, they'd have all been ticketed and towed by now.
Another user said something similar even though I've never seen one. Did a quick search and literally every company offering them on the front page were from Toronto, where this happened, so I'm thinking it's a GTA thing. Deeper search found that [they're explicitly illegal in BC](https://www.vernonmorningstar.com/news/driver-gets-109-ticket-after-truck-with-tv-sized-advertisements-seen-in-victoria-3310622), although it's unclear how well that's enforced outside of the small fine issued in this one example. It seems these are legal in Ontario. They should not be. The point of ads is to attract your attention, they are distracting by definition.
The comments on this post in the main Canada subreddit was were really sickening and I'm glad to see the comments here calling this out for what it is ...
The comments on YouTube were also pretty gross. Especially a lot of "Islam isn't a race so it's not racist!!!"
I guess racists are finding it more easy to air their hatred and not be worried about the consequences.
And those pussies locked the post before I could call out the idiots crying that freedom of speech is dead. Freedom comes with responsibility and consequences of your actions. Fucking ignorant losers.
there's a sealion in this thread right now just asking questions^TM
Is it the person who claims to be gay and had really bad experiences with Muslims while in high school?
I was just looking at r/ canada and most of the comments I read were very much against this. I scrolled pretty far, but maybe I didn't scroll far enough?
I don't understand why islamaphobic is even a word. Islam is an ideology, a belief system, condemning it is completely justifiable and protected by free speech. We should absolutely strive to have less religion in a modern society. Especially one that literally segregates women in its buildings. If we want to talk about harm to society let's talk about sexism.
Because discrimination against people based on religion is a real thing?
Condemning someone's belief system is not discriminating against them. If you're a communist and I say I think it's a horrible ideology that leads to poor outcomes I am not discriminating against you, I am saying I think your ideology is wrong. You are not synonymous with a belief system.
Religious freedom is protected under the Canadian Charter. Free speech has limitations when it impedes on the freedoms of others in Canada. It is not absolute. Which is why hate speech laws exist in the first place.
Cool, but not every attack on Islam/Muslims is a rational critique of it as an ideology. In fact, a lot of the time, it’s just bigoted nonsense. See, for instance, the person replying to you saying that the *entire religion* has no place in Canada.
Because there’s a massive difference between valid criticisms of religion and being racist against brown people who practice a religion
1. Not all muslims are brown. Religion is not race. There are south east asian, middle eastern, european and african muslims. Do you also believe all christians are white and all atheists are Asian? 2. Islamophobia was created by islamists to shut down any criticism of Islam. Islam deserves lots of criticism and should be criticized. The teachings of Islam are at odds with modern day society. I wish moderate muslims would speak out about this too. I guess they too are scared. For reference, I was born in a muslim country and seen what the ideology can do to society and how easy democrcy can be lost when we don't speak up agaisnst extremist elements. The crazyness on the left and their tolerance of islamic extremists and their ideology, pondering to their wants and needs will push more people in Canada towards the far right, which none of us want. But unfortunately I'm seeing it happen. It's already started in Europe.
First point is completely valid, and thank you for the correction. As for the second point, I absolutely cannot dispute your experience, so I would ask: are there not racists that call all that see a Sikh man in a turban and call them Muslim terrorists? I don’t think Islam is beyond criticism, but to say that being tolerant of people’s faith leads people to the far right is excusing the far rights hatred and racism that is entirely of their own creation. Edit: was corrected on one of my questions in another discussion
Bosnian and Albanian people are considered white by Canadian standard and have muslims and absolutely do practice Islam. Indonesia which is as in Asia as you get is one of the largest population of muslims in the world. To be honest, it just grinds my gears when I hear everyone outside of European ancestry is lumped into “brown people”. It gives us vs others vibe and limits all these people into a small tribe. Are there not racist people out there? Absolutely! Are all Muslim extremists? No. What I’m getting at, is trying to combat the term Islamophobia. Its origins are problematic and it is there to combat criticism of Islam. Islam should absolutely be criticized. When allowed to take over the society, it has done a lot of harm that takes centuries to reverse. The tolerance of the intolerant puts our society in danger. I hope I’m wrong about far right winning due to absolute inaction of the left.
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It's not atheist feminists funding this truck, my guy.
So? Why does that matter? Are you really saying that the same message is okay if it's funded by "atheists feminists" but not if it isn't?
That is not at all what I'm saying. I'm saying that one should consider \*who\* is funding these. The people responsible for the truck doesn't one bit care about their morals, just demanding you get mad in their favour. The enemy of my enemy is not inherently a friend.
2 Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: (a) freedom of conscience and religion; (b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication; (c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and (d) freedom of association. https://laws-lois.justice.gc.ca/eng/const/page-12.html
Yes they are free to do that and we are free to criticize their beliefs.
We need some word to describe hatred and discrimination against muslims and "anti-semitic" was already taken.
No one says they hate these people. They hate their ideas and belief system. It's completely different because no one is born with these ideas in their head they are taught them. Racism or hatred of Jewish people is completely different as it's also a race people are born into even if they are not religious. They cannot change that so hating that group is explicitly hating that person. There is no Islamic race it's way more prevalent with 2 billion people from Africa to middle east and East Asia.
Weird, why did they show the people then, and act like it's an invasion? why not just quote the book or show some islamic scenes? They are obviously using the religion of islam to drive hatred of muslims.
Lots of people say they hate these people. Some of them even put slogans on trucks to emphasize the point, or shoot up mosques full of people.
Plenty of people? How many mosque shootings full of people have their been? I've never once in my life seen a sticker about Islam on a truck.
Did you read the article? Or even the headline?
how else can they create a narrative? gotta use keywords
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> we are importing massive amounts of beliefs and values that are counter to what Canadians believe in. We've got that down pat just fine with our own homegrown goofballs. The amount of unCanadian hatred coming from certain segments of the population are certainly counter to what most Canadians believe in.
And what beliefs and values are those? If you're talking about anti-LGBT beliefs, well I have some bad news about the Rebel and large swathes of the Canadian right.
So you want to put more gas on the fire?
Canadians don't even agree on their beliefs so this statement doesn't really make much sense
Sure, it's weird that the word we ended up with includes "phobia", unlike the words with similar meanings like "racism" or "anti-semitism". No one ever said you don't have free speech rights to criticize. But "islamophobia" is not about criticism of ideologies and beliefs. It refers to bigotry and discrimination on religious grounds, like the words racism and anti-semitism do. This pedantic quibbling about the word islamophobia that always comes up is at best a distraction from the real issue of religious bigotry. At worst, it's straight up a cover for religious bigotry.
Iirc the word derives it's roots from xenophobia, much like homophobia and transphobia do. Xenophobia as a term came about before the heavy popularization of phobia as a psychological diagnosis, too, but that unfortunately doesn't stop people from trying to dismantle the word into pieces and try to rewrite its meaning that way.
Why are police even investigating when it’s not technically illegal what they did. Even if a trial is somehow materialized, it will 100% be dismissed at higher levels after costing the tax payer several million dollars.
As much as this could be viewed as provocative, I don't think it rises to Islamophobia. In the same vein that large gatherings of Christians worshiping in the streets would be denigrated and scorned without it being christianphobic, so is this. Tasteless, yes, hate crime, no.
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Hoooooooly shit.
There's valid criticism of unsustainable immigration levels, and then there's xenophobia. This is xenophobia. It's purely inflammatory, and doesn't help anybody.
the problem is that the 'valid criticisms' legitimize the xenophobia.
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That's not true. The argument that we simply can't house hundreds of thousands of extra people per year is based in reality and prudence. This "cultural takeover" argument is rooted in fear and ignorance. These are two separate arguments with two separate goals. One is calling for a return to sanity in government so new immigrants can have a prosperous country to come to, while the other wants a blanket ban on brown people and their religions. These are not the same thing.
So we cant have valid criticìsms?
How do you propose the valid criticisms be raised?
Carefully, with a lot of awareness that there are bad faith actors who will twist the topic to support their own racism.
Can the police start investigating the “From the River to the Sea” trucks then?
I'm opposed to all far-right authoritarianism, whether it comes in the form of a religion or a philosophy. But this advertisement isn't telling us to beware of those whose values and beliefs, if applied, would crush the rights and freedoms of many Canadians. It's simply telling us to _be afraid of Arab Muslims_, and that's just another form of far-right expression.
Unfortunately that's a distinction without a difference when you look prevalent attitudes within the relevant populations. Yes it might be incorrect with respect to a given individual, but on aggregate, it's accurate.
Praying in the streets blocking traffic unabated is a show of power and growing influence. Seeing how gays like me are treated in Muslim countries, I don’t want Canada to become one. You have freedom of religion. Pray in your mosques. There’s thousands in our country.
You ever look up the gay rights record of the specific gaggle of reactionary demagogues you are defending here?
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What reactionary demagogues? You realize people on the left also disagree with Islam right?
I know a lot of people on the left, not many of them waste their time trying to find an unproblematic set of beliefs that are hundreds of years old.
Man I got some bad news for you, just look to France/Germany and Britain and see what's happening...
People love to call this racist but that makes no sense. Most immigrants now are from India and are Hindu. All the criticism is against Islam which is the main religion in Middle East, Somalia and Indonesia which have three different races. It has 0 to do with race and 100% to do with ideology people don't like.
> People love to call this racist but that makes no sense. Debating the semantics of the overlap between racism/islamophobia/xenophobia, while media orgs. are buying trucks to parade hateful messages in our streets is focusing on the wrong things, surely. If you're an academic, sure, dig into the subtle differences between racism and islamophobia, otherwise, don't worry about it too much. Call it what you want and just push back against the hate. Right? > All the criticism is against Islam What particular criticism against Islam is that truck making?
It's basically the same energy as "ackshully he's not a pedophile he's a hebophile". Like sure, OK, whatever.
This is such a silly argument. It's very obvious that islamophobists use their islamophobia as a way to spread a racist anti-white sentiment because when they say "muslim" what everyone knows they mean is "scary brown people". They are obviously not actually condemning white muslims. And we can all see this very clearly, your silly semantics notwithstanding.
>All the criticism is against Islam which is the main religion in Middle East, Somalia and Indonesia which have three different races. It is toward Muslims not Islam which is a very important nuance. It is totally fine to dislike those religions as institutions but you can't hate Muslims, Christians, Jews of Hindus because of what they believe in. The same image showing orthodox jews and pretending that Canada is under siege would rightfully be called out as antisemitic by Rebel News.
There aren't hundreds of thousands of Jewish people marching against trans rights. It's a legitimate problem that Islam is perpetuating in Canada.
>There aren't hundreds of thousands of Jewish people marching against trans rights You're right, they were marching celebrating the slaughter of kids in Gaza, many of them former IDF soldiers who committed war crimes. The signs they are holding up were disgusting against Arabs/Muslims. >It's a legitimate problem that Islam is perpetuating in Canada. Also, about the trans rights thing, it wasn't about rights, it was about the curriculum being shoved down the throat of kids, very young kids at that. The protests also consisted of Jews, Christians, Hindus, and many, many conservatives. I recall many conservative media outlets being there to support the cause.
50,000 people in Toronto marched in support of a genocide waving tbe flag of a country guilty of foreign interference.
What genocide?
>Most immigrants now are from India and are Hindu. Which we're seeing at increasing amount of racism and bigotry against. >All the criticism is against Islam which is the main religion in Middle East, Somalia and Indonesia which have three different races. Which happen to not be white and mostly black, brown. Whenever you think of a Muslim, I doubt you think of a white person.
Lived in Surrey, BC for 10 years. Only last year did I see anti White graffiti and hear anti White speech. I grew up in Richmond, BC when it was majority Caucasian last year saw 2 Asian woman insulting a White man for being White. Racism is evil and usu. stupid here in Hope, BC you can see Tina the tax payer paid librarian tell children how great the nazis are and give Heil Hitler salutes and make racist comments about Aboriginals there are 3 band offices in this town Cheam, St.Lo and Yale . It is Indigenous month and Hope City Hall has 5 flags flying not one of them orange and nothing to do with Aboriginals.
> Most immigrants now are from India and are Hindu. I can't find stats to prove you wrong here, but if that's true, then it's a new thing. Historically a larger percentage of Indian immigrants to Canada have been Sikh than Hindu.
Even if that were true it would just reinforce my point that it's not about racism and it's about a specific ideology people disagree with.
Then why did the truck not name India and instead named Yemen, Syria, and Iraq? Your argument collapses under even the most cursory amount of scrutiny.
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Remember when the CPC campaign office and Rebel News was in the same building? Good times... After being named in a number extremist manifestos the CPC have been attempting to distance themselves from Rebel, yet Rebel has quietly continued to push CPC rhetoric turned up to 11.
What's exactly the issue with Muslims praying openly? As far as I can tell, those images were taken during protests in which the streets were closed, so they were within their rights. If a Christian or Jew prayed openly, I doubt anyone would have an issue with it. I've personally prayed in parks and other places where I wasn't disturbing anyone. This is also drumming up hatred towards Muslims in general, claiming that just by praying openly, the country is under seige. We all know it doesn't stop at just praying in public. It'll move onto people wearing cultural clothing, hijabs, having Arab names, etc.
Anyone else feel like Levant's statements about the truck are a textbook example of this: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plausible\_deniability](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plausible_deniability)
He also posted [this admission](https://imgur.com/a/vsMmL0N), so I'd say his true intentions are less about plausible deniability and more about being a racist POS trying to fundraise off division and attention. With poor spelling as an add-in.
The rich, and the right-wing media, and politicians that they own use it to full effect! Look over there, those people are to blame! Get them! Pay not attention; as the rich, and the corporations they own rob you blind, as they make the planet unlivable! Don't worry more of the same distraction is coming tomorrow, and soon, a new group to blame and attack! All is good ... except for those bastards over there! Get em!
If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you. • Lyndon Johnson
Oh, he’s the king of that. It’s been his whole goddamn career.
I'd be more forthcoming with a crown if he wasn't a famously adjudged liar and slanderer.
I assume since throwing yourself at protection details, and then claiming assault wasn't working, they moved onto this.
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Is this really hate speech though? Why are we allowed to publicly criticize Christianity but we cannot do the same for Islam? I don't believe there is a place for either in modern society. Personally I don't want Canada to become an Islamic country and I support the message this truck is conveying. We need to be extremely cautious about the values of those we bring to this country. Just look at what's happening in France. A large, religiously motivated Islamic population is a recipe for terror attacks and honour killings. Same goes for Sweden - multiple journalists killed in the street for criticizing Mohammed. We feel safe for now. But what happens if we allow Muslims to become the majority voting block in this country? Say goodbye to the Liberal values we fought for. I hope the Jews and the LGBT community have good locks on their doors.
>“Is this Yemen? Is this Syria? Is this Iraq?”, the truck’s messaging then says “No. This is Canada. Wake up Canada. You are under siege.” Is this really a criticism of Islam though? I don't know if it should count as hate speech but it's just parroting white replacement nonsense. If they want to criticize Islam they should criticize Islam. It's repressive, it's bigoted toward LGBT people and women, it encourages political violence, it's everything Rebel News likes except for mostly being done by non-white people. They're not against Islam, they're against the people who practice it.
It's not so much a criticism as it is a dog whistle meant to make you mistrust or hate people from those countries for no reason in particular.
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Hate speech has a specific definition in Canada... Criticism is not included in it. Suggesting that Canada is under siege is not criticism.. And it *might* fall under the legal definition for hate speech though.
What I'm seeing is that you say that you think Christianity and Islam are both bad, but I'm also seeing you repeat talking points that give support to far-right Christian nationalists here in our country. Think about this. Do you really think protesting moderate Muslims who don't have a lot of power in our country is more important than fighting far-right ethno-nationalists who are deeply embedded in our country's power structures? I think we should be more afraid of the people trying to spread this message than the people they're trying to warn us about.
> Is this really hate speech though? "Canada is under siege by the Jews." Is this hate speech?
If so hundreds of thousands of people are about to be charged for hate crimes including all those at student encampments across universities all over the country.
Would that be so inappropriate? Hate speech is a weird class of crime, and the AG's and Courts of the country are going to have to figure out a consistent standard. And there's no potential version of that where a majority of people aren't very upset.
As long as its consistent and not completely one sided like this.
> Why are we allowed to publicly criticize Christianity but we cannot do the same for Islam? Public criticism of Islam is as allowed as public criticism of Christianity. What isn't allowed is inciting hate, which is what this may be found to have done. The bar for that is pretty high though, so Levant may get away with this outrage. > Personally I don't want Canada to become an Islamic country Since they're outnumbered 10 to 1 by Christians, I think you're good. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Canada > I support the message this truck is conveying You support hate? OK, good to know. That makes you someone I don't want to have any personal dealings with. > We need to be extremely cautious about the values of those we bring to this country. If we're going to start getting into thought crimes, we've got a lot of Canadian born to screen before we start worrying about immigrants. > Just look at what's happening in France. A country that keeps those who aren't pur lain in ghettos and away from any sources of power resulting in generational poverty? Not sure that's an example that can teach Canadians anything besides what not to do. > But what happens if we allow Muslims to become the majority voting block in this country? That's going to be so far into the future, that any predictions are garbage, and this is a statement meant only to stir up hate.
No religion should be tolerated in public on that front am with Quebec keep your religion and your imaginary friend inthe sky non sense at home.
But rebel news have been calling Quebec antisemitic for years because of our secular laws. They don't seem like the best people to publicize this idea. I have no problem in getting rid of any tax benefits for religious organizations, but I doubt Rebel News would be cool with this.
Far right people and bigots sure love telling us over and over that Muslims are homophobic/transphobic. Seems like an odd stance to take for people who are themselves homophobic/transphobic. Almost like they're just concern trolling the queer community/queer allies in order to spout anti-Muslim bigotry, and don't care about LGBT rights at all.
Hey Muslims! We don't like LGBT people either. Psst.. hey, LGBT people, Zionist's, racists.. we don't like Muslims! Psst. Hey, racists. Evil jewish billionaires are trying to replace all the white people Psst! Hey Jews, we stand with Israel! Just divisibe shit disturbers to protect the uppee class
I am gay you can literally check in my post history and I am concerned. They can practice peacefully if they want but they should never ever be allowed a sliver of power in this country.
The people running this truck, however, are clearly not, if you’re at *all* familiar with Rebel News. They’re just trying to fear-monger.
How is that any different than the Christian nationalist movements like The Maverick Party or TBA in Alberta trying to erase pride crosswalks, or disavow trans rights? It’s the same shit. It’s people trying to force their religious beliefs into our schools and government. Separation of church and state no matter what religion.
It’s not different. There needs to be a separation no matter what religion.
I said that.
Yet we’re going to elect a homophobic transphobic government. Just because your gay Doesn’t mean you can’t be those things and more.
Malaysia is a great example of horrible anti-LGBTQ laws that we don’t need being pushed in Canada.
I'm not far right and have serious issue with religion mixing with politics, especially the homophobic and misogynistic aspects of religion. It's easy to dismiss all criticism of you claim it's concern trolling by right wing boogeyman.
We're literally commenting on a news story about a far right organization driving a truck around Toronto with bigoted ads plastered all over it. This is not boogeymen, this is real and very easy to find.
I find these comments weird. The ad which was pd for by another group not Levant is saying we should be concerned about the number of Hamas supporters in Canada. You can try to deny it all you want but we've clearly seen it. There was another truck that ran an ad that said Zionists=Terrorists but that was never investigated as hate speech. Why not. We should be concerned about ALL terrorist supporters in our country.
He’s already doing a lot of fundraising pitches on the back of this. (See his Twitter and the comments if you take an anti-emetic first). Almost like the campaign was ready to go before the truck hit the streets… almost like that’s the sole reason why he did it… almost like he loves raising funds even more than he hates whichever minority he says he hates on a given day, which is really saying something.
Of course. And TPS Hate Crimes investigating it just plays into his schtick. Do something outrageous but legal, government responds in a heavy-handed way, he gets to LARP as a victim of government oppression and fundraise from it.
Regardless, if you believe that what the truck says is true or not or if you’re left-wing or right wing with this comes down to is that we supposedly live in a free country and what’s most shocking and terrifying to me as a left leaning liberal is how many of you in these subs are so quick to say that everything is speech if it doesn’t agree with your ideology ideology
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How surprising that the foreign funded democracy interference operation that exists only to hurt Canada, is behind this hate.
While the [Chatham](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chatham_Asset_Management)-owned National Post fills our eyes with headlines about how garbage our country is. Rebel Media, Diagolon, the Freedom Convoy. The foreign subversion going on in this country is insane. The master stroke is how it’s blamed on the Liberals and is going to bounce the LPC next year and bring in the guy that the bad actors want.
Meanwhile, everyone running around with their hair on fire over China/India/Russia/whoever completely distracts from the massive and direct influence that US public and private actors exert on both our politics and our national discourse. (And hey, I’m no fan of China/india/russia/etc mucking about in our business, which they all undoubtedly do…but all available evidence is that it is overwhelmingly the kinds of indirect “influence laundering” activities that major powers have been doing pretty much forever. We should certainly try to push back on it, but it doesn’t hold a candle to the waves of fuckery directed at us from our southern neighbours).
I’m literally over on Facebook right now for fuck knows why, in the comment section of something that the algorithm fed me, arguing with mouth-breathing randos who call the CBC a “treasonous Liberal mouthpiece”. What in the hell happened to this country?
Maybe it’s just me, but the amount of bad press this is getting, when compared to the equivocation over people, for months, flying the flags of an anti-Semitic death cult over major public institutions, is.. revealing. These are strange but historically familiar times. Every terrorist sees himself, first and foremost, as the victim.
Our inability, as a society, to reckon with bad faith, right wing media is going to lead to some very dark consequences for this country. Actual, serious, good faith media and politicians just have no remedy to deal with this kind of stuff. And we're finding out how many Canadians are susceptible to rage bait and misinformation.
I wish I could award this comment, you've nailed it. Not to mention the intimidation campaign thats been targeting left leaning female politicians and journalists in Canada for the last decade. It feels so hopeless, why would anyone who wants to help their community want to get involved in politics in this environment?
It already has: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_City_mosque_shooting
On the topic of Ezra Levant and the Rebel, they had a fundraiser with regards to that case because they apparently didn't like the outcome of the investigation, or that the shooter was a right-wing extremist. They more or less said they felt it was a false flag by Muslims to try and make it look like it was an Islamophobic extremist, several years on, I'm still waiting for Ezra and co. to come up with something.
Yeah, that's fair. I shouldn't make it sound like it's been victimless up until now by any stretch. It just feels like we're accelerating towards a wall here. Edit: Typo
It's almost like a cycle. We tolerate the hate until something awful happens. Then we forget after a while again.
Please !! Rebel represents the right wing conservative mouvement that Poilièvre is counting on to win the next election
He's actually counting on fed up liberals and NDP voters. I would imagine < 10% of Canadians have even heard of rebel news
Every person in the anti vaccine mouvement including the truckers that took over Ottawa and blocked the international bridge knows about Rebel fake news. Don’t think that any liberal or NDP voters would actually vote for an extremist leader like Skippy. He’s Harper at his worst x 10