Category: Religion

Trump Defends Christians – Trudeau Fuels Anti-Christian Hate

Trump’s Executive Order: A War on Anti-Christian Bias

Across the Western world, Christians are under attack. In a bold move to combat hostility toward Christians by United States government institutions, President Donald Trump signed an executive order on February 6, 2025, titled “Eradicating Anti-Christian Bias.”

The order establishes a Task Force within the Department of Justice led by Attorney General Pam Bondi – to investigate and eliminate discrimination against Christians in federal institutions, address targeted legal actions against Christians, and put an end to what Trump calls a “war on Christianity” in the United States.

While Trump’s new administration is taking active steps to protect Christians, their faith and institutions, Canada has moved in the opposite direction. Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, anti-Christian sentiment has been encouraged and promoted by Trudeau, his Liberal Party colleagues, government-paid legacy media, and by governments and institutions at all levels.

Biden’s Legacy of Christian Persecution

Trump’s executive order explicitly condemns the persecution of Christians – citing Biden government-driven legal harassment, unjust prosecutions, and targeted actions against Christians and Christian organizations.

The order also directly addresses the FBI’s 2023 memo labeling Catholic groups as potential domestic terrorists, making it clear that federal agencies must not single out Christians for their declared faith, beliefs, and peaceful expressions of their faith.

President Trump declared:

“The previous Administration engaged in an egregious pattern of targeting peaceful Christians, while ignoring violent, anti-Christian offenses. The Biden Department of Justice sought to squelch faith in the public square by bringing Federal criminal charges and obtaining in numerous cases multi-year prison sentences against nearly two dozen peaceful pro-life Christians for praying and demonstrating outside abortion facilities…

At the same time, Catholic churches, charities, and pro-life centers sought justice for violence, theft, and arson perpetrated against them, which the Biden Department of Justice largely ignored. After more than 100 attacks, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning this violence and calling on the Biden Administration to enforce the law.”

Trudeau’s Canada: Where Church Burnings Are Justified 

Trudeau: Burnings “understandable”

Contrast President Trump’s order with Canada, where Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his government have presided over a climate of escalating hostility toward Christianity—most notably during the church burnings and vandalism that followed the 2021 Residential Schools “mass graves” hoax.

In 2021, over 100 Christian churches across Canada were burned or vandalized, largely in response to false claims that “mass graves” of Indigenous children had been discovered at former residential school sites. Despite the lack of a single exhumed body (even to now 2025), Trudeau and the media pushed the narrative as true and proven without any evidence. When asked about the destruction of churches, Trudeau justified and inflamed the violence by stating that while attacks on churches were “unacceptable,” he also understood the anger behind them.

“Trudeau condemned the actions of all Christians and churches during the founding of Canada – justifying violence and destruction in conjunction with his ‘understandable’ rhetoric. He knew what he was doing.”

Harsha Walia “Burn (Christian Churches) all down”

Other Canadian public figures went even further. Harsha Walia, then the head of the BC Civil Liberties Association, infamously tweeted, “Burn it all down,” in response to the church attacks. Instead of facing legal consequences for publicly inciting violence, she kept her position for weeks before quietly stepping down. The anti-Christian establishment protected Walia whereas public personalities and officials criticizing non-Christian religions or foreign cultures are regularly and immediately torn to pieces in the public square.

(As an aside, I can’t help but think of Don Cherry who the woke left totally destroyed for one comment criticizing immigrants who don’t wear a poppy on Remembrance Day.)

Meanwhile, the Canadian government has actively suppressed Christian speech and expression under the guise of progressivism and ‘hate speech”. Canadian Christian adoption agencies, schools, and organizations have been pressured to comply with Trudeau’s radical social policies or lose funding.

Calgary Police Knelt with BLM Protesters Violating COVID Restrictions—But Arrested Pastor Artur Pawlowski for Leading a Church Service

The COVID Double Standard: BLM Protests vs. Christian Worship

Leadership is top-down with government institutions inclined to reflect, adopt, and repeat the values and examples of their political and organizational leadership.

During the COVID-19 lockdowns, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and police officers across Canada (including several Chiefs of Police) knelt in solidarity with Black Lives Matter (BLM) protesters – despite these mass gatherings egregiously violating the public health laws restricting the number of persons allowed to meet.

While thousands of BLM demonstrators flooded the streets in Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Peterborough, Sudbury, and Thunder Bay—with police not only allowing but joining them – police services raided, locked, and fenced off Christian churches. Pastors were dragged from their pulpits and jailed for simply practicing their faith.

Among those persecuted was Pastor Artur Pawlowski, who was arrested multiple times, including being dragged from his car at gunpoint for holding prayer services. Pastor Henry Hildebrandt was charged despite holding a drive-in service where worshippers stayed in their cars – proving that compliance with public health measures made no difference if the state targeted your beliefs.

Pastor James Coates of GraceLife Church in Alberta was jailed for 35 days for holding church services – while malls, liquor stores, and big-box retailers remained open. Police guarded the fenced off church, treating peaceful worshippers like criminals while BLM marchers roamed free.

Pastors Steve Richardson and Aaron Rock were also arrested and charged for praying in a group. RCMP handcuffed and arrested People’s Party leader Maxime Bernier for simply meeting supporters in an open field.

The glaring double standard could not have been clearer: BLM protests were encouraged. Police and even Chiefs of Police took a knee. Not one marcher was arrested—but Christian pastors and worshippers were dragged away, fined, and jailed.

Defending Christian Faith vs. Attacking Christians

Trump’s order signals a shift back toward recognizing Christianity as a vital and foundational part of America’s cultural and moral fabric. By contrast, Trudeau’s Canada has long promoted and justified the marginalization of Christians and the destruction of their institutions.

As I said earlier, leadership is a top-down function – and Trudeau’s leadership has inspired and empowered anti-Christian elements in government and law enforcement.

Anti-Christian OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique

One small example is that the head of Canada’s second largest policing organization implemented an anti-Christian policy in social media and public communications. Ontario Provincial Police Commissioner Thomas Carrique erased Christmas, Christianity, and Jesus from the public sphere in 2024. While celebrating and naming nearly every other religious and cultural tradition with zeal, Carrique and his OPP refused to even utter the word “Christmas”, “Christ” or “Jesus” in any official capacity or communication.

Such is the influence and empowerment of Trudeau’s anti-Christian leadership throughout Canada.

President Donald Trump is taking decisive action to protect Christians and their institutions. He is restoring their place in American society after years of government hostility.

The Choice for Canada: Resist or Watch Christianity Be Erased

Under Trudeau, Canada has become a country where Christianity is ridiculed, its leaders arrested, and its places of worship burned—with the tacit approval of those in power.

This isn’t just bias; it’s a systemic effort to erase Christianity from public life, replacing it with an ideology that punishes faith while celebrating lawlessness.

Will Canadians shrug and accept this, or will they push back before it’s too late? Because history shows that when governments target religious groups, things only get worse. The choice is clear: resist or watch as Christianity in Canada is driven underground.

Donald Best

Published: February 9, 2025

Farewell to dear friend Padre Michael Cassidy

Merchant Marine, Toronto Police, Whitchurch-Stouffville Police, Padre Canadian Armed Forces, Navy League… Private Investigator

Pastor Michael Maurice Cassidy passed on Sunday, January 14, 2024, at 89 years. Each of us would do well in our lifetime to have the respect and love that this faithful servant garnered.

As a young and self-confessed “pretty rough” merchant marine sailor, Mike fell so in love with Irene in post-war Britain. But his future wife wouldn’t even speak with him unless it was at church under the watchful eyes of her parents and the congregation. Irene was attracted to Mike, but she had her standards.

And so, Michael first heard The Word – and it took. Irene and Mike immigrated to Canada and produced two daughters and five grandchildren.

Michael served as a Constable with the Toronto Police and Whitchurch-Stouffville Police before founding a licensed Private Investigation Agency in Barrie, Ontario where I first met him about 1988.

Family First

Family always came first for Michael and Irene, and so it was he left the police service. As Michael told me, it was no contest when he had to choose between his family and a job he loved. He was my support and counsel when I later made that same choice – even hiring me as a private investigator and teaching me to thrive in that profession.

Canada’s Abandoned Warriors

Starting in earnest with the first Gulf War in 1990, for over three decades Padre Cassidy devoted himself to bringing care and healing to Canada’s military veterans. He was a regular fixture at Remembrance Day Ceremonies and military parades, but his most important work was always one-on-one with the injured, damaged, and destroyed warriors that Canada so shamefully abandoned – and continues to abandon.

Goodbye Mike, and thank you.

Pastor Michael Maurice Cassidy’s family and friends celebrated his life and laid him to rest on Saturday, January 20, 2024.

Pope John Paul II blessed me… during a knock-down, drag ‘em out fight

Attack on the Pope during the 1984 Toronto Visit

An Early Lesson in Media Censorship

On September 9, 1984, Pope John Paul II landed at Quebec City to start a grueling twelve-day, 15,000km marathon that saw him visit millions from Newfoundland to British Columbia. It was a national event and the first time a Pontiff had set foot in Canada. In Toronto alone, almost a million people attended mass at Downsview airport.

But not everybody loved the head of the Roman Catholic Church – so my friends and I at the Toronto Police Oriental Crime Unit found ourselves working undercover protecting the Pope, along with a thousand other police officers from all over Ontario.

“Everything happened slowly, and then very quickly… I realized we might be too late.”

The danger to Pope John Paul II was real, and everyone on the security detail was nervous. Just three years earlier a Muslim terrorist shot the Pope twice during an assassination attempt in St. Peter’s Square.

Bulgarian military personnel had been involved in the St. Peter’s attack, so any attempt in Toronto might also be supported with resources from a USSR satellite nation. This was at the height of the Cold War. Martial law was in force in Poland against Solidarity and its leader Lech Walesa. The Polish Pope strengthened the resolve of the Poles and weakened the Soviet Block. That made him even more of a target.

We were therefore a serious bunch, suspicious of everything – armed to the max and ready-to-rock at every moment that “il Papa” was anywhere near us.

But it was also a happy time as Canada celebrated. The massive crowds were joyous, loved to touch the Pope and he permitted it. You can imagine our er, ‘delight’ with the Pope’s walking into crowds as he often did even after the assassination attempt.

The University Avenue Attack

Everything happened slowly, and then very quickly.

Thousands lined University Avenue waiting to see John Paul II as waved and blessed the crowd from the slow-moving Popemobile.

I was one of hundreds of undercover police officers along the parade route when one of my team made eye contact and scratched his ear – our signal that he’d seen something. I walked to him and immediately spotted the target.

The man was in his early thirties. There was nothing outstanding about his clothes or appearance, but in this crowd his body language was all wrong and that’s what attracted our attention.

Everyone was smiling and waving at the Popemobile slowly coming towards us about 75 feet away. Our friend looked towards the Pope, but every so often he glanced at the uniformed police on the other side of the street. Then he slowly swiveled his head left and right – looking for undercover officers, for us. He wasn’t smiling.

But he didn’t spot us. We were smiling and waving at the approaching Popemobile even as we signalled for assistance to take him down.

Within a shorter time than it takes to tell, there were five of us within striking distance and we were just about to grab his arms and flash a badge and the Pope was closer and then it all happened so quickly and I realized we might be too late…

Fast as anything he shoved his right hand into his jacket pocket, pulled out a round green object, cocked his arm, and started to throw. Everybody launched themselves at the man’s arm and hand and for an instant I thought he held a grenade – but it was an apple that fell to the ground.

Frenzied Rage

Down we went and he started screaming in a berserk rage “The Pope is Satan! The Pope is Satan!” Then he started biting.

Those of you who have never been a police officer, paramedic, or worked at a hospital probably don’t understand how one person in a frenzy can have the strength and violence to resist or even overpower five or six big men. Doctors have many theories about bipolar behaviour, ‘Intermittent Explosive Disorder’, and the role of various drugs in precipitating rage – but none of that matters in the middle of an attack.

In those days we had no pepper spray or tasers – only physical restraint, fists, and chokeholds – but nothing seemed to work.

Fists flew in both directions as we struggled to gain control. One of the team screamed as the man squeezed his privates. During the melee he bit three of us. When he chomped my forearm I had to punch him twice in the face before he let go. Then I got on top, and hit him hard on the jaw.

I cocked my arm to give him another, but the fight was done – so for the first time in a while I looked up…

And there was Pope John Paul II frowning as he surveyed the chaos, making the sign of the cross – blessing us. By this time some uniform officers were arriving and in an instant the Pope realized who we were.

Still looking at ‘il papa’, I shrugged my shoulders – and saw him smile, wink at me and make the sign of the cross again. Then he was gone as the Popemobile continued on.

And that is how Pope John Paul II smiled, winked, and blessed me in the middle of a fight.

Afterward

The public never heard about the incident on University Avenue, nor of a handful of similar happenings across Canada. Like the man we arrested, most of the ‘attackers’ were troubled individuals with long histories of mental illness.

At the time it was thought by those in power that there should be nothing in the news to mar the feeling, image and historical record of the Pope’s Canadian visit. So the police said nothing of any incidents, and newspapers printed nothing even if they knew.

At the time I agreed with the non-reporting of incidents during the Papal Tour – but given the rise of government and corporate collaboration to censor, it should have been a caution to me about the power of the news media to deliberately ignore events in order to control and construct narratives.

“No matter how well-intended, censorship always becomes a weapon for those in power.”

Donald Best