Former NDP leader Jack Layton, who had a genuine relationship with a broad cross-section of Canadians, led his party to its largest electoral victory ever in 2011, securing official opposition status. Since then, things have largely gone south.

Looking at today’s New Democrats, Layton’s broad appeal based on sincerity, friendliness, and a pleasant demeanor has been replaced with a more narrow one centered on divisive identity politics.

Jagmeet Singh, who took over the party’s leadership following Tom Mulcair’s ouster at the 2016 national convention, has unfortunately led the NDP down an ideological and electoral dead end.

According to Ryan Painter, a former NDP executive, under Singh’s leadership, the NDP has been all but annihilated in Quebec, losing 15 of its 16 seats, and even in the prairies, the party’s origin.

Under Singh, the NDP has become almost exclusively an urban party, the result of a leader who prioritizes the interests of individuals on university campuses and in white-collar government offices.

While balancing identity politics and the effort to advance progress for all Canadians has always been a challenge within the NDP, Layton understood how to appeal to activists without allowing them to co-opt the party, avoiding the virulently toxic wedge politics that the NDP now embraces.

Layton Fought for the Middle Class

Painter stated that Jack Layton recognized that realistic ideas may benefit middle-class Canadians. Whether it was his push to revitalize the automotive sector by investing billions of dollars in environmentally friendly cars and trucks made in Canada, or his commitment to working with the provinces to strengthen and eventually double the pension system.

Layton saw his job as fighting to build and strengthen the middle class. Not so for Singh, who showed no enthusiasm for a stronger middle class.

Instead, Jagmeet Singh focuses his attention on populist attacks on the “ultra-rich” and large corporations such as grocery chains, frequently targeting Loblaws and its CEO, Galen Weston.

It is important to note that Singh’s brother, Gurratan Singh, former Ontario NDP MPP, works for a firm that lobbies for Loblaws competitor Metro. Painter points out.

Millennials and younger voters are clearly anxious for at least one Canadian leader to acknowledge their growing sense of pessimism. However, Singh’s words of support and understanding concerning cost ring hollow coming from someone who enjoys pricey clothes, Rolex watches, and Versace bags.

A recent Abacus Data poll found that people aged 30-44—the elder millennial cohort, which generally favors the NDP—have all but abandoned the party.

Instead, they largely back Pierre Poilieve and the Conservatives. Why? Simple: Singh is providing nothing tangible for millennial and working-class voters to latch upon.

According to Painter, Singh has squandered Layton’s goodwill and transformed the NDP from the nation’s so-called conscience to the epitome of irrelevance.

Jagmeet Singh is Canada’s most expensive NDP MP

Meanwhile, according to the National Post, Jagmeet Singh has spent more than $500,000 on running his constituency office during the first nine months of 2024.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh is now the highest-spending individual member of Parliament in the House of Commons, with Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre ranking lowest.

The most recent MP spending numbers were issued in late March, and they show that Singh spent $533,533 in his position as MP for Burnaby South for the first three quarters of the previous fiscal year (April 1, 2023 to December 31, 2023).

During the same time period, Poilievre claimed $143,201 in costs relating to his work as MP for the Carleton riding, which was nearly one-fourth of Singh’s total.

Poilievre was also one of just a few MPs whose constituency costs did not include any funds for “travel” or “hospitality.”

To be true, Poilievre and Singh have significantly larger annual expenses as party leaders. However, in terms of expenses incurred as individual members of Parliament, Singh charged the most while Poilievre charged the least.

Singh’s seat is 4,000 kilometers west of Parliament Hill, but Poilievre represents an Ottawa suburb, thus it stands to reason that their travel expenses would be vastly different.

Singh’s outrageous expenses

Singh, while being born in Scarborough, Ont., and having previously represented Toronto-area ridings as a member of Ontario’s provincial parliament, chose to run in Burnaby South in the 2019 election and has represented the city near Vancouver since.

In 2023, Singh routinely rated among the top ten MPs in terms of travel expenses.

Between July 1 and September 30, his travel expenses of $65,836.58 were nearly identical to those of Lori Idlout ($66,181.59), a perennial high-spender in parliamentary travel due to the fact that she represents Nunavut.

Singh’s charges for paying salaries to employees working in his offices are roughly twice those of Poilievre. Singh’s salary costs were $63,790.64 in the most recent quarter, compared to Poilievre’s expense of $33,808.68.

In the second quarter (July 1 to September 30), the spread nearly tripled: $94,051.82 to $33,751.19.

Singh would also quadruple Poilievre’s constituency budget for “contracts,” which include incidental office expenses such as rent, advertising, and janitorial services.

Over three months, the NDP leader earned $45,535.99 to Poilievre’s $15,510.25. Poilievre’s whole budget for that period was nearly identical to Singh’s spending on the $4,500/month lease for his Kingsway constituency office.

Poilievre’s advantage over Singh

Of course, it’s a very different scenario when it comes to the expenses that Poilievre and Singh incur as party leaders. Those expenses are counted separately in their capacity as “presiding officers” of the House of Commons.

Approximately two dozen MPs, including the prime minister, speaker, and party whips, are paid budgets in addition to their MP expenses.

In these data, Poilievre has a significant advantage over Singh.

Poilievre’s expenses as “Leader of the Official Opposition” cost taxpayers around $1.1 million in the last three months of 2023, with an additional $35,463 going to the upkeep of Stornoway, Poilievre’s official residence.

The prime minister, the official opposition leader, and the Speaker of the House of Commons all have official residences.

During the same year, Singh’s costs as leader of the “Other Opposition Party” totaled only $330,994.71.

Despite the fact that Poilievre represents a caucus of 118 to Singh’s 24, the Conservative leader’s per-member cost to taxpayers remains lower.
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In terms of prime ministerial expenses, while Justin Trudeau is well-known for his exorbitant travel costs, the most recent numbers show that his Montreal constituency office is also one of the most cost-effective in the country.

In one quarter, Trudeau’s Papineau riding was one of the few offices, along from Carleton, that had no travel or hospitality expenses.

By Geoff Thomas

Washington — After a student leader from the historic Tiananmen Square demonstrations ran for Congress in New York in 2022, a Chinese intelligence operator quickly hired a private investigator to look for any mistresses or tax issues that could jeopardize the candidate’s candidacy, according to prosecutors.

“In the end,” the operative warned his contact, “violence would be fine too.”

Tehran was listening as an Iranian journalist and activist in exile in the United States spoke out against Iran’s human rights violations. According to the Justice Department, members of an Eastern European organized crime group surveyed her Brooklyn home and planned to assassinate her in a murder-for-hire scheme directed from Iran. The attempt was disrupted, and criminal charges were filed.

The instances highlight the extraordinary efforts taken by countries such as China and Iran to intimidate, harass and even plot attacks on political opponents and activists in the United States. They demonstrate the alarming effects that geopolitical tensions may have for regular citizens, as governments that have historically been intolerant of dissent within their borders are increasingly casting a wary eye on those who cry out thousands of kilometers away.

“We’re not living in fear or paranoia, but the reality is very clear: the Islamic Republic wants us dead, and we have to look over our shoulder every day,” Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad stated in an interview.

The Justice Department has taken note of the matter, charging dozens of defendants with acts of global repression during the last five years. Senior FBI officials told The Associated Press that the tactics have become more sophisticated, including the use of proxies such as private investigators and organized crime leaders, and that countries are more willing to cross “serious red lines” ranging from harassment to violence to project power abroad and suppress dissent.

AP News – VOR News Image

As China And Iran Hunt For Dissidents In The US, The FBI Is Racing To Counter The Threat

Foreign adversaries are increasingly prioritizing well-funded intimidation campaigns for their intelligence services, and more countries — including some not traditionally hostile to the United States — have targeted critics in America and elsewhere in the West, according to officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss their investigations.

The Justice Department, for example, reported last November a foiled conspiracy to assassinate a Sikh activist in New York, which officials said was ordered by an Indian government official. Rwanda kidnapped Paul Rusesabagina of “Hotel Rwanda” fame from Texas and returned him to the country before releasing him, while Saudi Arabia has persecuted dissidents online and in person, according to the FBI.

“This is a huge priority for us,” said Assistant Attorney General Matthew Olsen, the Justice Department’s top national security officer, citing an “alarming rise” in government-directed harassment.

He stated that the prosecutions are intended not just to hold harassers accountable but also to convey that the actions are “unacceptable from the perspective of United States sovereignty and defending American values — values around free expression and free association.”

Other countries have witnessed a rise in incidents.

According to an April Reporters Without Borders investigation, London is a “hotspot” for Iranian attacks on Persian-language broadcasters, with British counterterrorism police probing a one-month-old attack on an Iranian television presenter outside his London home. Despite Moscow’s protestations, harassment and attacks on Russians in the United Kingdom and elsewhere in Europe, including a journalist who became ill as a result of a suspected poisoning in Germany, have long been blamed on Russian intelligence agents.

Inside the United States, the trend is exacerbated by a deteriorating relationship with Iran and tensions with China over issues ranging from trade and intellectual property theft to electoral interference. Emerging technologies such as generative AI are also expected to be used for future harassment, according to a new danger assessment from US intelligence authorities.

“Transnational repression is a manifestation of the broader conflict between authoritarian regimes and democratic countries,” Olsen added. “It’s been a consistent theme of the way the world is changing from a geopolitical standpoint over the last decade.”

According to officials and supporters, China and Iran are two primary offenders.

Emails sent to the Iranian mission at the United Nations have yet to be responded to. A representative for the Chinese Embassy in Washington denied that the country engages in the practice, stating that the government “strictly abides by international law, and fully respects the law enforcement sovereignty of other countries.”

“We resolutely oppose ‘long-arm jurisdiction,'” the statement stated.

AP News – VOR News Image

As China And Iran Hunt For Dissidents In The US, The FBI Is Racing To Counter The Threat

However, US officials said China developed a campaign to do just that, starting “Operation Fox Hunt” to locate down Chinese expats targeted by Beijing to pressure them into returning to face charges.

A former Chinese city government official residing in New Jersey discovered a message in Chinese characters pinned to his front door that read: “If you are willing to return to the mainland and spend 10 years in prison, your wife and children will be fine.” According to a 2020 Justice Department case accusing a group of Chinese operatives and an American private investigator, “that’s the end of the matter!”

Though most defendants charged in transnational repression plans are based in their own country, arrests and prosecutions are rare; that particular case resulted in the conviction of a private investigator and two Chinese residents living in the United States last year.

Bob Fu, a Chinese American Christian pastor whose group, ChinaAid, promotes religious freedom in China, said he has faced extensive harassment for years. Large crowds of demonstrators have gathered for days at a time outside his West Texas house, arriving in well-coordinated operations that he says are related to the Chinese government.

Phony hotel reservations have been made in his name, as well as phony bomb threats to police claiming that he intends to detonate explosives. Flyers picturing him as the devil were given to neighbors. He stated that he has learned to take precautions when traveling, such as instructing his staff not to disclose his schedule in advance and that he has relocated from his home at the request of law authorities.

“I’m not feeling safe,” Fu told the Associated Press. When it comes to returning to China, where he was reared and fled more than 25 years ago as a religious refugee, he says: “I may be permitted to fly back, but it will be a one-way ticket. “I am sure I am on their wanted list.”

In 2020, protesters targeted Wu Jianmin, a former student leader in China’s 1989 pro-democracy movement, outside his home in Irvine, California. The harassment lasted more than two months.

“They shouted slogans outside my home and made verbal abuses,” he added. “They paraded in the neighborhood, distributed all sorts of pictures and flyers, and put them in the neighbors’ mailboxes.”

Wu says that perpetrators of harassment plots include retired Communist Party members living in the United States, their offspring, members of Chinese organizations with deep ties to the Chinese government, and even fugitives seeking bargains with Beijing.

“The end goal is the same,” Wu remarked during an interview in Mandarin Chinese. “Their task, as assigned by the Communist Party, is to suppress overseas pro-democracy activists.”

Last year, the Justice Department charged approximately three dozen officers from China’s national police force with using social media to target dissidents in the United States, including the creation of fake accounts that shared harassing videos and comments, and arrested two men who it claims helped establish a secret police outpost in Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood on behalf of the Chinese government.

The year before, federal prosecutors in New York revealed several wide-ranging plans to suppress dissidents, including one to dig up dirt on a little-known and ultimately unsuccessful congressional candidate.

Other targets have included American figure skater Alysa Liu and her father, Arthur, a political refugee who, according to prosecutors, were surveilled by a man posing as an Olympics committee member and requesting passport information.

A dissident artist in California made a sculpture depicting the coronavirus with the visage of Chinese President Xi Jinping, which was similarly destroyed and burned.

“We should be under no illusion that somehow these are rogue actors or people unaffiliated with the Chinese government,” Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, an Illinois Democrat and member of a special House committee on China, said of the Chinese agents indicted.

‘Remove his head from his torso.’

In some cases, violence is organized in response to global events.

Prosecutors in 2022 charged an Iranian spy with paying $300,000 to “eliminate” Trump administration national security adviser John Bolton in retaliation for an airstrike that killed Iran’s most powerful commander.

This year, the Justice Department charged an Iranian, identified as a drug trafficker and intelligence operative, as well as two Canadians, one a “full-patch” member of the Hells Angels motorcycle gang, in a murder-for-hire plot against two Iranians who had fled the country and were living in Maryland.

AP News – VOR News Image

As China And Iran Hunt For Dissidents In The US, The FBI Is Racing To Counter The Threat

“We gotta erase his head from his torso,” one of the hired Canadians is accused of stating. Law enforcement stopped the threat.

Alinejad, an Iranian journalist, was targeted even before the Justice Department revealed the murder-for-hire scheme last year. In 2021, prosecutors prosecuted a gang of Iranians allegedly working for the country’s intelligence agencies with plotting to kidnap her.

Alinejad is still a renowned journalist and passionate opposition leader, and she says she intends to continue speaking out, including at a sentencing trial last year for a woman who prosecutors say unknowingly sponsored the kidnapping plot.

However, the story specifics are deeply ingrained in her consciousness. The criminal cases revealed the gravity of the threat she faced and the heinous preparations involved, such as researching how to whisk Alinejad out of New York on a military-style speedboat and transport her to Venezuela, as well as discussing lures for luring her from her home, such as asking for flowers from the garden outside.

One of the defendants in the murder-for-hire scheme was apprehended in 2022 after being discovered driving through Alinejad’s Brooklyn neighborhood with a loaded firearm and rounds of ammunition. Another defendant was extradited from the Czech Republic in February to face criminal proceedings. Two other people have been arrested.

The FBI interrupted the plot and encouraged Alinejad to relocate, which she did. But it also meant bidding goodbye to her beloved garden, which had brought her delight as she shared homegrown cucumbers and other veggies with her neighbors.

“They didn’t kill me physically, but they killed my relationship with my garden, with my neighbors,” Alinejad added.

SOURCE – (AP)

Just a few months shy of a quarter-century as Russia’s leader, Vladimir Putin, will sign a copy of the constitution on Tuesday, ushering in another six-year term as president with unparalleled powers.

Since becoming acting president on December 31, 1999, Putin has shaped Russia into a monolith, crushing political opposition, expelling independent journalists, and promoting an increasing adherence to prudish “traditional values” that push many in society to the margins.

His authority is so strong that other leaders could only stand on the sidelines while Putin began a war in Ukraine, despite predictions that the invasion would bring worldwide condemnation and harsh economic penalties, as well as cost Russia dearly in the blood of its men.

With that amount of control, it is difficult to predict what Putin will accomplish during his next term, both at home and abroad.

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As Putin Begins Another 6-Year Term, He Is Entering A New Era Of Extraordinary Power In Russia

The war in Ukraine, in which Russia is making gradual but continuous battlefield advances, is the primary issue, and he shows no signs of reversing direction.

“The war in Ukraine is crucial to his current political ambition, and I see no reason to believe that will change. “And that affects everything else,” Brian Taylor, a Syracuse University professor and author of “The Code of Putinism,” told The Associated Press.

“It affects who’s in what positions, it affects what resources are available and it affects the economy, affects the level of repression internally,” he said.

In his February State of the Union address, Putin vowed to carry out Moscow’s objectives in Ukraine and do everything necessary to “defend our sovereignty and the security of our citizens.” He stated that the Russian military has “gained a huge combat experience” and is “firmly holding the initiative and waging offensives in several sectors.”

That will come at a high cost, potentially depleting funds for the massive domestic projects and changes in education, welfare, and poverty alleviation that Putin detailed in his two-hour presentation.

Taylor believed such initiatives were included in the address primarily for show rather than to indicate a genuine commitment to implement them.

Putin “thinks of himself in the broad historical terms of Russian territory, putting Ukraine back to where it belongs, and things like that. And I believe them outweigh any more socioeconomic-type programs,” Taylor added.

Suppose the battle does not result in absolute loss for either side, with Russia maintaining some of the territory it has already conquered. In that case, European governments fear Putin will be tempted to engage in additional military adventurism in the Baltics or Poland.

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As Putin Begins Another 6-Year Term, He Is Entering A New Era Of Extraordinary Power In Russia

“It’s possible that Putin does have vast ambitions and will try to follow up on a costly success in Ukraine with a new attack somewhere else,” Harvard international relations expert Stephen Walt wrote in Foreign Policy. “But it is also entirely possible that his ambitions do not extend beyond what Russia has won — at enormous cost and that he has no need or desire to gamble for more.”

However, he said, “Russia will be in no shape to launch new wars of aggression when the war in Ukraine is finally over.”

Others argue that such a sensible worry may not prevail. According to Maksim Samorukov of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, “Moscow is likely to make self-defeating mistakes driven by Putin’s whims and delusions.”

In a Foreign Affairs column, Samorukov stated that Putin’s age may influence his judgment.

“At 71, his awareness of his death undoubtedly influences his decision-making. A rising awareness of his short time influenced his catastrophic choice to attack Ukraine.

Overall, Putin may be entering his new term with less influence than he appears to have.

Russia’s “vulnerabilities are concealed in plain sight. “Now more than ever, the Kremlin makes decisions in a personalized and arbitrary manner, with no basic controls,” Samorukov stated.

“The Russian political elite have grown more pliant in implementing Putin’s orders and more obsequious about his paranoid worldview,” he stated in the letter. The country’s leadership “is at permanent risk of crumbling overnight, as its Soviet predecessor did three decades ago.”

Putin is certain to maintain his hostility against the West, which, he stated in his State of the Nation speech, “would like to do to Russia the same thing they did in many other regions of the world, including Ukraine: to bring discord into our home, to weaken it from within.”

Putin’s hostility against the West stems not only from its backing for Ukraine but also from what he perceives as the erosion of Russia’s moral compass.

Russia banned the fictitious LGBTQ+ “movement” last year, labeling it extreme in what officials claimed was a fight for traditional values such as those promoted by the Russian Orthodox Church against Western influence. Courts also prohibited gender transformation.

“I would expect the role of the Russian Orthodox Church to continue to be quite visible,” Taylor said. He also mentioned the social media anger that erupted during a party held by TV presenter Anastasia Ivleeva, in which guests were urged to arrive “almost naked.”

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As Putin Begins Another 6-Year Term, He Is Entering A New Era Of Extraordinary Power In Russia

“Other actors in the system understand that that stuff resonates with Putin. … There were people interested in exploiting things like that,” he went on to say.

Although the opposition and independent media have nearly evaporated as a result of Putin’s repressive actions, there is still room for future movements to dominate Russia’s information space, such as continuing efforts to construct a “sovereign internet.”

The inauguration takes place two days before Victory Day, Russia’s most important secular festival honoring the Soviet Red Army’s seizure of Berlin in World War II and the war’s terrible difficulties, which cost the USSR around 20 million people.

The defeat of Nazi Germany is important to modern Russia’s character, as is Putin’s justification of the war in Ukraine as an analogous conflict.

SOURCE – (AP)