The Travis Dhanraj show on Parliament Hill...

Plus shootings at synagogues and now the American consulate. And Bill C-9 moves ahead.

So many allegations against CBC by Travis Dhanraj today, it’s like going to an all you can eat buffet. I’ve loaded all the videos for you to watch at the bottom of the newsletter.

The former CBC host showed up and called out hosts David Cochrane, Rosemary Barton and executives like Brodie Fenlon who is the General Manager and Editor in Chief of CBC News. He accused them of bias, of political interference and of taking direction from Trudeau’s PMO.

One thing I did notice, and I wrote about it in my column for the Toronto Sun, Liberal MPs didn’t care what Dhanraj had to say. They clearly had their marching orders from PMO or the Whip’s office - don’t ask Dhanraj any questions, don’t engage with him.

First the synagogues, now the American consulate…

Toronto is a great city, many of you will disagree with me, but I live here and think it’s fantastic. But we clearly have problems with radicals and fanatics - something I’ve been pointing out for years now - and that problem is showing up with shootings.

Thankfully no one has been killed, but if you don’t think these shootings cause pain think again.

Last week we had three different synagogues shot at in Toronto, windows, doors and walls smashed with bullets. This morning, it was the American consulate that was shot at by someone driving by on University Avenue.

My Sun colleague Joe Warmington is following the story for the paper. He’s talked to local police and to the RCMP. Ontario Premier Doug Ford has said he’s asked the OPP to get involved as well offering any assistance they can to the investigation.

With all of these shootings happening since the United States and Israel began their strikes on Iran, I’d say it’s safe to say shootings are all related. While the vast majority of the rather sizeable Iranian community in Toronto and across Canada are celebrating these attacks and their hope for the demise of the regime in Tehran, some people clearly aren’t happy.

This isn’t me saying it’s Iranians, it could be someone who for religious or ideological reasons supports the Ayatollahs and the Islamic Revolution in Iran.

We know there are as many as 700 members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corp in Canada. We know that the RCMP have now begun a homicide investigation into the disappearance of Masood Masjoody, a mathematician and instructor at Simon Fraser University. He was an outspoken critic of the Iranian regime and many people believe there is a connection between that and his disappearance.

That we have people who support this horrific regime in Canada and are acting out in these ways disturbs me, but it doesn’t surprise me.

Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was asking Prime Minister Mark Carney about these issues in Question Period today. Carney’s “answers” may remind you of the old adage “It’s called Question Period, not Answer Period!”

Liberals move forward with Bill C-9…

Bill C-9, the controversial Combatting Hate Act, hasn’t passed yet but the Commons did vote on Tuesday to have the Justice Committee reconvene their study of the bill. In fact, they were ordered to begin clause by clause consideration of the bill and vote on all amendments.

The bill has some good parts and some bad parts.

I have no problem with extra protections for places of worship - see synagogue shootings above. If we are going to have bubble laws to protect hospitals or abortion clinics then why not churches, synagogues, mosques or temples.

I do have a problem with the idea of stripping the defence of faith for criminal hate speech charges. The Bloc has always disliked this and offered to support the Liberal bill only if they removed that defence from the criminal code.

The Conservatives, and many religious groups worry it could criminalize certain passages of the Bible, Torah or Quran. The government says that will never happen, but I can point to a letter sent by Pierre Trudeau to Catholic Cardinal Archbishop Gerald Carter saying that abortion would never be legal in Canada and if the courts declared it so then the government would use the notwithstanding clause to keep it banned.

It didn’t work out that way.

The problem is that you know there are activists and groups out there who will seek to use the courts to declare sections of the Bible as hate speech. Given that our current judges don’t have a clue about the meaning of citizenship, give lower sentences to keep people in the country and have thrown out property rights its a good chance that the activists could get their way in short order.

And now, the Travis Dhanraj show…

Most of you will have heard of Travis Dhanraj, he worked as a journalist for CTV, Global, ET Canada and elsewhere. Famously he worked at the CBC and they gave him his own show, Canada Tonight with Travis Dhanraj.

He tried to bring balance to CBC, he even had me on as a guest, which really freaked out the CBC audience and management.

As they tried to shut him down, he fought back. Eventually, they took him off the air and refused to say anything more about him.

Last July, on a flight back from a trip out West, I wrote up his story and we put him on the front page of the Toronto Sun.

Today, Dhanraj was before the Commons Heritage Committee and he scorched them again.

Here is his opening statement. He really takes on Cochrane.

Under questioning from Conservative MP Rachel Thomas, Dhanraj relayed more stories from CBC employees past and present about their horrible workplaces.

Kerry Diotte, also a Conservative MP spent decades as a journalist including as a columnist for the Edmonton Sun. One of his questions was about the lack of ideological diversity of the extremely liberal, make that Liberal, At Issue Panel.

Thomas got the last round of questions to Dhanraj where they discussed PMO directing coverage at CBC.