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There is no comparison to be made here. I respect the right of people to kill themselves. I don't believe, however, that they have any moral or practical right to kill others. I also suspect that it's very common for people who have another serious illness to suffer depression and/or other mental illness. Some kinds of cancer, for instance, can generate mental changes as a result of a condition called paraneoplastic syndrome. Few kills others, whether or not they display overt symptoms of mental illness. I believe Robin Williams was suffering a serious and degenerative physical/brain illness (Parkinson's) prior to his death. In such cases, suicide can be a rational choice. But in my opinion to compare such a situation to the case of a mass shooter and/or killer is repugnant. You should be ashamed of yourself for even alluding that such an analogy might apply.

https://torontosun.com/opinion/columnists/fatah-mentally-ill-the-media-or-the-murderer?video_autoplay=true We should all be troubled that the state broadcaster has inserted itself into this specific case. The CBC has turned into a propaganda machine. It was the CBC that aimed the spotlight on the mental illness issue and gun crime to divert from the aspect of a potential Muslim hate crime against average Canadians.

Call me crazy....some do...but I feel there is a weeeee bit of a connection between ALL THESE ACTORS turning-up. From Khadr to this latest terrorist/murderer. The PM listens to this Muslim Brotherhood scum bag...for one. Too many folks seem to know each other...not to mention getting bags of money or other considerations from the government. Dig, dig, dig...rats will come out.

Contrast this heinous act with a far less serious act - quickly proven to be a hoax. Where is Justin Trudeau's outrage - not to mention everyone else - who in the hijab hoax case immediately (within a few hours) jumped to conclusions with absolutely no police verification that in fact, a crime had occurred. How quickly and conveniently they all "forget". And - oh yes - the same spin doctor for Faisal Hussain chirped in with his two cents (thanks to that Dog on the Porch). Why is this the case? Link: https://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2018/01/12/man-cuts-hijab-off-girl-in-scarborough-police-say.html

Everyone is speculating. So is Dia. She just likes to think that her specculating is morally superior.

Americans are already swamped each year by Canadian refugees trying to escape climate change.....they really like Florida I am told.

And yet by your own admission in this instance that partisan rag is telling the truth about the potential use of this substance as a weapon. The dosage needed to use it recreationally is very very small. These people had 42 kg, enough to overdose millions of people. I think it makes sense to assume they were planning on using it for something other than selling it as drugs.

No. We start with the observation, and then ask why this is such typical behavior throughout the Muslim world. In every Muslim nation. It is extremely atypical elsewhere, but entirely typical in Muslim nations. And then we suggest there is a link between such behavior and Islam (not far fetched). Then we examine the religious texts of Islam and we find much justification for the things people are doing, ie beheading and otherwise murdering those they consider to be insulting Islam or violating the tenets of Islamic law. We examine what Islam says about how to treat unbelievers, and find a great deal of support for violence against those who refuse to submit (Islam literally means submission). Again, it is hardly a leap to suggest the behavior is linked to the teachings of Islam. Hey, I might think the Amish are screwy, but they're not dangerous screwy, and they're not growing by leaps and bounds. I think "our" Muslims would eventually be influenced by Canada's more tolerant beliefs if given the chance to assimilate. But they're not getting that chance. A steady stream of tens of thousands of Muslims is immigrating here every year and bringing those hostile and backwards attitudes and beliefs with them. Saudi Arabia continues to 'generously' fund mosques and Islamic schools and community centres in Canada and even provide them with mullahs trained in Saudi Arabia and religious texts from Saudi Arabia. I think this has the potential to be extremely destabilizing as their numbers grow, and I think we need to greaterly lessen the number of Muslims coming from certain parts of the world, and review their social views before admitting them as immigrants. I also think we need to bar all Saudi money and require that prevent their mullahs from coming to work in Canada.

Not really. If that were the case, you'd have Israelis/Jews doing the same thing. Talk about a whole society being marginalized and discriminated against. And look no farther than our own indiginous people - but you don't see them shooting people up and down the street Even the remnants of slavery in the US has not caused Blacks to regularly carry out such heinous acts. Islam is the common thread - and the "enabler" for these acts.

You're engaging in the same "confirmation bias" that you accuse others of. This CBS report uses the term "Law enforcement sources". Please don't run off and move the goalposts by splitting hairs on something else. Until we get the full story, we can only try and put the pieces together - because that's what us amateur sleuths do! The fact that there is a reasonable chance that this is a terrorism related crime doesn't make us all racists. Contrast the recent "walk on eggshells" reporting on Faisal Hussain with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and all the questionably biased reporting (to put it mildly)......... Link: https://www.cbsnews.com/amp/news/faisal-hussain-toronto-shooting-rampage-new-details-emerge-about-gunman-2018-07-24/?setDevice=amp

Maybe Macron can call his good buddy Trudeau and ask if he'll hop on over to France and explain to the people how diversity can be their strength too. https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/12850/emmanuel-macron-rise-fall

Pope Francis has called for end to capital punishment. What an incredible statement coming from the Catholic Church. The Pope has indicated: "Pope Francis says nothing can justify the use of the death penalty, and there is no “right” way to humanely kill another person." He fully rejects the death sentence for prisoners and hopes to abolish the death penalty around the world. In Canada, the last people executed was in 1962. What does the Pope's opinion mean to the Catholic Politicians? What does it mean to Christian followers around the world? I know that we have a number of Christian followers on this forum. What do they think? Personally, I think it 's about time.

A friend noted this as well, wondering whether Trudeau found it so difficult to summon sympathy/empathy for the actual victims that he had to find a way to personalize the situation. It's seemed to me over the past several days that the government would rather this incident just disappear. Does it now just consider this kind of thing a 'cost of doing business' in an interconnected world? If so, perhaps it should let the rest of us in on this. Trudeau's oddly detached statement on citizen safety, devoid of any explanation, was particularly worrying as he seemed to be admitting that such safety doesn't now exist. If I were him, I'd be very worried lest Canadians start to connect the dots and conclude that this government hasn't been particularly concerned about their security.

The idea that it can be used as a chemical weapon was already shown earlier in this thread, from multiple sources. I can't find my post though, for some reason it is no longer here. Probably because I didn't write anything else, just gave the information. Anyway here is the link I provided that shows this substance is recognized as a potential weapon, and raises concern that it might be used by terrorists. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carfentanil#Potential_as_a_chemical_weapon From the link- The toxicity of carfentanil has been compared to that of nerve gas, according to the Associated Press' article "Chemical weapon for sale: China's unregulated narcotic". The article quoted Andrew C. Weber, Assistant US Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Defense Programs from 2009 to 2014, as saying "It's a weapon. Companies shouldn't be just sending it to anybody." Weber added "Countries that we are concerned about were interested in using it for offensive purposes... We are also concerned that groups like ISIS could order it commercially." Weber described various ways carfentanil could be used as a weapon, such as knocking troops out and taking them hostage or killing civilians in closed spaces such as train stations.[3] Underlined part is my emphasis, to give it credibility.

Ya. And guess what, sweetie? You're not the only one who knows the difference between speculation and information. If you don't like people speculating, then get off of discussion forums. Or at least let people discuss things without you screeching from your moral high horse. Sheesh. It's pretty revealing that you so desperately want the "mentally ill" narrative to be true that you are willing to allow that to be just "pretty much" established. But Islamic terrorism? No, that has to be "firmly" established for you to believe that........ But ya, you're the only one here who's completely unbiased.......

There's a good article in today's Globe and Mail, written by an immigrant, about the illegal/irregular migrant issue. (See link, below) The author of the piece notes that Trudeau's stance on this issue has the effect of undermining the seriousness of Canadian citizenship itself: "We could, and should, have an honest debate about the consequences of the PM’s grandstanding in encouraging migrants to cross over in the first place, and his seeming reluctance to defend the integrity of Canada’s borders publicly. What is irrefutable is that his words betrayed a lack of seriousness about the value of Canadian citizenship." The author goes even further in noting the consequences of Trudeau's self-serving and hollow approach in stating that "[he] is increasingly likely to lose [immigrants'] support in 2019 by willfully diminishing the values of new Canadians and replacing them with his own. Then he expects them to be grateful for it." Ouch. I think it's time for a fresh look at damage being done by our 'poseur-in-chief' and by 2019 it will be well past time to dispatch him to the dustbin of political history. https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-justin-trudeaus-gamble-on-immigrant-voters/

The main problem right now is that we have heard no comprehensive report from officials about the investigation into the shooter's background and motives or about any other factors that might apply. Pretty much every theory remains conjecture at this point and we're left with a speculative narrative on mental illness that was generated at the outset, offset by dribbles of leaks, presumably from inside the investigation, that appear to have been plugged over the past couple days. I can't think of any situation that's been handled in this manner by authorities and the media, which in the latter case you'd imagine would in a democracy be clamoring for details. A good friend of mine said the other day that he's increasingly convinced that for some reason the authorities want the whole thing to just disappear into the mists of history, possibly due to the fact that a security failure might be exposed were the public to know more. That's as solid a theory as any other we've heard, right?

Indeed...an inconvenient truth...and it is Muslims who suffer the most around the world from radical Islamic terrorism.

I'm surprised at Tory. He's considering legal challenge! Tory's proving to be a grand a**hole. I'm glad Ford didn't become mayor of Toronto........and Tory didn't end up Premier of Ontario!

Sure...and the Wall Street Journal reports EU concessions to Trump...this is a fun game to play:

According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released in the spring I believe 48% of respondents favored immediate deportation of the illegal/irregular migrants and 36% favored permitting them to stay. When Doug Ford demanded that the federal government pick up all the cost for this fiasco I believe polling indicated overwhelming support among Ontarians for Ford's position. And that view is probably echoed across the country. There is an elite political consensus on immigration-related issues at the federal level - well, with reservations expressed by some Conservatives - but there's a lot more skepticism in the broader population. At some point, one has to believe, voters will get to express their displeasure and hopefully our feckless federal politicians will hear the message loudly and clearly.

I think you're misreading the tenor of the concerns expressed on this topic, which is that many believe officials may be withholding crucial information and that in the vacuum that's been created media outlets are imposing a narrative about mental illness that may or may not be credible. We know that all too often in this country an elite consensus rather than evidence drives public perception, so we've justifiably become cynics.

The gentlemen in the video makes the common mistake of conflating belief and knowledge. 1) Atheism/Theism refers to belief. Atheism is not an assertion that there are no gods, it is simply a lack of belief in gods. Due to the lack of evidence for a living megalodon I do not believe the giant prehistoric shark still exits. Similarly, due to the lack of evidence for gods I do not believe gods exist. This is different than positively stating I know that gods do not exist. 2) Agnostic/Gnostic refers to knowledge. It is very hard to prove a negative so there is always a possibility that gods, living megalodons or flying spaghetti monsters exist, thus I am agnostic about the existence of those things. I am an agnostic atheist. I am an agnostic a-living-megalodonist. I am an agnostic a-flying-spaghetti-monsterist. Someone that believes in the existence of gods and claims to know they exist would be a Gnostic Theist. Someone that believes in the existence of gods but is unsure if they actually exist would be an Agnostic Theist. Someone that does not believe in the existence of gods and claims to know they do not exist would be a Gnostic Atheist. Someone that does not believe in the existence of gods but is unsure if they actually exist would be and Agnostic Atheist. Personally, I think it is irrational to believe in the existence of something without sufficient evidence, hence my position on gods and pasta based monsters. Also, the greater the claim being made, the greater evidence that will be required to substantiate it. For example, you might claim to have a cat at home. That is a tiny, very reasonable claim; your word would be enough to convince me to believe it. I wouldn't absolutely know for certain that you have a cat at home, but I would still believe that you do. However, if you claimed to have met the flying spaghetti monster or have caught a living megalodon while deep sea fishing I would require significantly more than your word before I would accept this belief. It would be irrational to take such a giant, unreasonable claim on faith so I would not believe it though I would also not be able to claim to know for certain that you did not in fact do either of those things.

It's ridiculous. There is very little difference between this appeals system and just throwing open the borders to anyone who wants to waltz through. The "anchor babies" need to be dealt with. Partly because many of these "refugees" and "asylum seekers" know they can never be turned away after birthing a child in Canada and partly because when we take in a family with 6 kids already and all they do is continue to reproduce, the chances of anyone in that family ever becoming a contributing member of society gets slimmer and slimmer. And now they're in a rut and a tax-payer burden for generations. I'm thinking of the family in BC who came with 6 kids, had one on the way over and another immediately on arriving, with no signs of stopping. The father is, of course, too busy to work or take language classes - and why should he have to? They're raking in almost $6000/month in child benefits alone - the mother will never work and the kids learn to play the system the same way as the parents. And complaining the whole way that they need more money because they're not living in a nice, new, fancy building. We are suckers.

I'm shocked I say, I'm shocked - I mean - whoda thunk this would happen https://metro.co.uk/2018/07/18/transgender-prisoner-sexually-assaulted-female-inmates-days-jailed-7728870/