Canadian member of parliament Jamil Javini stood next to a decorated Christmas tree in a grand government building and said: “I am sounding the alarm. We need to do more to protect Christians in Canada.”
Javini added, “What good is a Christmas tree here in Parliament when you have a federal government that will not fight anti-Christian bigotry in Canadian institutions.”
Objecting to Javini’s assertion, Max Fawcett, columnist for the Canadian news website National Observer, shared the video and wrote: “So much of contemporary Conservatism revolves around cultivating and validating a sense of victimhood in groups that aren’t actually victims.”
So much of contemporary Conservatism revolves around cultivating and validating a sense of victimhood in groups that aren’t actually victims. https://t.co/P5NxfJ3oqn
— Max Fawcett 🇨🇦 (@maxfawcett) December 5, 2024
U.S. Vice President-elect JD Vance replied to Fawcett: “Canada has seen a number of church burnings in recent years thanks to anti-Christian bigotry. All over the world, Christians are the most persecuted religious group. Jamil is speaking the truth. Shame on journalists who refuse to see what’s obvious.”
Canada has seen a number of church burnings in recent years thanks to anti-Christian bigotry.
All over the world, Christians are the most persecuted religious group.
Jamil is speaking the truth. Shame on journalists who refuse to see what’s obvious. https://t.co/LKq146gTGc
— JD Vance (@JDVance) December 6, 2024
According to a CBC News report, “of the 33 Canadian churches that have burned to the ground since May 2021, only two were ruled accidental.”
Some community leaders, including figures from the indigenous population, have suggested that the recent discoveries of burial sites (unmarked graves) at former Catholic schools where indigenous children were taught by Catholic missionaries “may have lit the fuse.” (Approximately half of the 33 destroyed churches were Catholic.)
It is not mentioned in the X exchange above, but JD Vance and Jamil Javini are very good friends. Javini has referred to Vance as his “best friend from law school” (Yale University) where the two became so close that Javini performed the Bible reading at Vance’s 2014 wedding.
[In 2019, Vance was baptized and confirmed in the Catholic Church at St. Gertrude Priory in Cincinnati, Ohio.]
Javani with his BFF, J.D. Vance#Project2025 #JamilJivani#NeverTrustConservatives pic.twitter.com/YtbjwRklFH
— Shoebutton 🔬 🇨🇦 🦠🌈ally 🗿🌻 (@sock82) December 4, 2024
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed the discovery of more than 200 children’s remains in an unmarked burial site in British Columbia in 2021, characterizing the finding as “part of a larger tragedy” of colonization in Canada’s history.
The Kamloops Indian Residential School, where the children’s remains were found, had been “run by the Catholic Church between late 19th century and the late 1960s, when the federal government took over until its closure in the 1970s,” according to an University of Arizona report documenting the UN’s call for the Vatican to investigate.
[NOTE: A 2015 report of Canada’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission determined that indigenous children were widely subjected to abuse, malnutrition and rape, with at least 4,000 died of disease, neglect, accidents or abuse while at these schools.]
