ADAMS: Inside the Restore the North Event at Canada Christian College

Let me tell you something: if you ever want to understand the slow, painful death of Canadian political discourse, don't bother with academic papers, polls, or policy briefs. Just attend two “Restore the North” events back to back, and you'll see the entire country unravel faster than my patience at a family reunion. TMU was so staged it made North Korea look spontaneous.

Every question was pre-approved, every attendee herded like a field trip of heavily sedated llamas. The lights were perfect, the smiles were plastered on, and the whole thing had the emotional range of a tax seminar. It was safe, sanitized political theatre. The kind where no one is allowed to deviate from the script, lest the donors get nervous.

And then… Canada Christian College.

I walk into CCC and immediately think, “Ah, finally, a venue that understands the importance of flickering lights, disgruntled greeters, and pamphlets arranged with all the care of a crime scene.” The energy wasn't political engagement. No, it was more like a revival tent collided with a Facebook comments section, and nobody survived.

This was not an event. This was a sentient rant wearing a blazer.

BEFORE THE Q&A

We start with a sermon, because of course we do. A CCC official strolls up and gives us Genesis meets John Locke meets “Canada has been stolen by shadowy forces” like he's narrating the world's crankiest audiobook. If he'd thrown in Atlantis and Bigfoot, the crowd wouldn't have blinked. We get religion wrapped in politics wrapped in conspiracy, all duct-taped together with nostalgia for a country that never existed.

Then come the supporting acts: Greg Brady, who said everything is broken, but don't worry, hard work will fix it. Sure. And my car runs better if I scream at it. Alicia Bianca, who said mall business is dying, the Liberals destroyed everything, and society is collapsing. Great, thanks, now I need Tums. And finally, some guy I forget the name of, who gave the self-help chapter of the evening. Inspiring? Maybe. Useful? Next question.

Finally, the headliners, Ned Kurek and Jamil Jivani, who proceed to unload the standard trinity: free speech is dying, immigration is too high, crime is exploding. But he delivers each one with just enough vague menace that you can't tell if you're at a political event or a Guy Ritchie movie narrated by a Twitter thread. He sprinkles in just enough fringe-adjacent nonsense to make the crowd nod like bobbleheads. Not full conspiracy, just the diet version. Conspiracy-Zero. Now with half the calories but all the paranoia!

Then comes the point where the mic was open.

THE Q&A: EVERY QUESTION, AND WHAT IT REVEALED

The Q&A line filled fast, and what happened next was the clearest display I've ever seen of what happens when a politician invites the public to speak but is unwilling (or unprepared) to challenge misinformation.

Almost every answer Jivani gave, with the exception of one question, either validated falsehoods, amplified fringe ideas, or ignored the actual question asked.

Here's the full rundown.

CO₂ Denial, Gun Crime Myths, and “Step On the Snake”: the first guy marched up to the mic like he was about to expose a government plot involving chemtrails and secret lizard tribunals, and immediately blurts out, “CO₂ at 50,000 ppm doesn’t cause ANYTHING!” Which is a hell of an opener, considering that level of CO₂ would knock you out faster than a frying pan to the skull. Then, without even catching his breath, he swerved into crime in Toronto, legal gun owners being “persecuted,” and finished with telling Jivani to “STEP ON THE SNAKE!” like he's auditioning to be the final boss in a Patriot malware pop-up ad. And instead of saying, “Sir, please stop freebasing misinformation,” Jivani gave him a warm pat on the head like he was a confused dog who just ate drywall.

“Progressivism is a Disease”: next up was a woman who approached the mic looking like she was about to deliver a TED Talk on how kale is a government psy-op. She launched into a rant about progressivism “infecting society,” corrupting children, destroying foundations, poisoning the crops, releasing the kraken, pick your metaphor. She wanted a Conservative Party so pure you'd need gloves to open the membership form. Did Jamil counter with a little thing called pluralism? Nah. Instead, he nodded, encouraged, and validated.

Because when someone declares 50% of the country a “disease,” the best thing to do apparently is smile and tell them their feelings are valid.

Immigration Panic & Crime Collapsing Canada: then we get the “Canada Is Full!” guy, which every unscreened political Q&A inevitably attracts. He was worried about immigrants, crime, and society collapsing like a Jenga tower built by someone with tremors. His solution: “Pause immigration.” Because obviously the only barrier between us and utopia is… (checks notes)… no new people ever again. Did Jamil clarify that housing shortages are caused by decades of underbuilding Or that provincial governments cut integration programs? Or that crime is not, in fact, skyrocketing to Mad Max levels? Of course not!

Instead, he blames the Temporary Foreign Worker program, Bill C-75, and the Liberal government, all in one tidy bundle like he's handing out bedtime stories for anxious boomers. Again: agreement without nuance.

The Mother With a Brain Injury & Language-Barriers-in-Schools: FINALLY, a real question. A mother who suffered a brain injury stands up and describes school chaos: newcomers with no language support, overcrowded classrooms, her daughter shuffled like a deck of cards. This wasn't conspiracy/ideology. It was a lady asking, “Why does my kid have to suffer because the system is duct-taped together?” Jamil gives a partly reasonable answer, and for a brief second you think: “Hey! Maybe the night is turning around!”

Nope. We were just in the eye of the hurricane.

Consulting Firms, NGOs, and Conflicts of Interest: a woman comes up and asks the first true governance question of the night, should MPs with business ties be allowed to influence NGO budgets? Kurek took the lead on this one, and he answered with the enthusiasm of someone describing plain oatmeal. A vague “yes, transparency good.” answer and nothing else. No detail. No commitment. No explanation of ethics rules. You could practically hear his internal monologue screaming: "Please ask about crime again so I can go back to soundbites."

Free Speech, Protest, and Why Everything Is Angry: this young guy tries to talk about polarization—real polarization, not the cartoon version. He talked about Pro-Palestine protests turning anti-Semitic, people getting dragged for expressing mild disagreement, Danielle Smith facing rage over banning book, and how everyone is generally angry at everyone else. This was a nuanced point about public discourse and extremism. And Jamil gives him the Facebook Grandpa answer: “Social media bad.” No structural analysis. No institutional critique.

Just “screen make people fight.” Yes, Jamil. Thank you. Very profound.

Agenda 2030, the UN, and Democratic Erosion: a woman went on about about global governance, Agenda 2030, the UN, WHO, deep state bureaucracy, technocratic infiltration, the whole buffet. This is where a responsible leader draws the line and says, “Actually, these frameworks are voluntary, they're not binding, and no, the UN is not seizing Ottawa.”

Instead? Jamil validated EVERY. WORD. By this point I'm mentally checking the ventilation system for gas leaks. He lent credibility to conspiratorial thinking.

“What Is a Canadian?”: A philosophical man asked what it means to be Canadian in a post-national state. Jamil basically said, “Well, depends who you ask.” Translation: “I got nothing.” He lists answers from his survey like a kid reading flashcards for a test he didn't study for. Again: zero leadership, zero clarity, zero vision.

The Tank Lady Who Raised My Blood Pressure: then came this woman who made me so angry I physically started to shake. She claimed she saw a UN tank at the Oshawa Remembrance Day ceremony and that this proves Canada is being infiltrated by globalists.

As someone who has gone to the parade and then the Cenotaph in Oshawa every year of my life, I know exactly what tank she saw. The Korean War one. Painted with a UN logo because—wait for it—Canada fought under the UN flag in the Korean War. This is not hidden knowledge. It's not even controversial knowledge. And yet, she had the audacity to get up there, announce her ignorance with the confidence of a TED Talk, and somehow thinks she was onto a global plot.

Does Jamil correct her? NO. He stands there silently like she's reciting parking bylaws. This is how fringe nonsense metastasizes, through COWARDLY silence.

The International Mobility Program Reality Check: This woman asked why Jamil and co. talk nonstop about the TFWP when IMP brings in more international labourers, thus creating more structural pressure? Jamil admits it's a problem, then swerved into youth unemployment, then back into comfortable talking points. It was like watching someone try to juggle, drop everything, and then insist it was all part of the routine.

My Question: MAID, Misrepresentation, and Dishonesty: Then finally came my turn. I stood up, cleared my throat, and asked Captain Sanctimony about that 2024 video where he claimed Christian doctors were being “forced against their will” to provide MAID or face the unemployment line like they’d offended the Great Bureaucratic Chicken.

Explaining my question

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I even did him the courtesy of laying out the full context, the exact video, the whole “I'm not even arguing with your position, buddy, I'm talking about the principle” thing. And what did he do. He ignored it. All of it. Like I'd just read him the ingredients list off a cereal box. Instead, he accused me of “linguistic tricks.” As if I'd pulled a rabbit out of a thesaurus.

I didn't even understand what the hell he meant… until later, when I saw he'd posted a trimmed Instagram clip of the exchange. Snipping out the entire setup so I looked like some kind of strawman-building, argument-mangling halfwit.

That's not an oversight, that's deliberate misrepresentation, baby. A classic: “When the facts don't favour you, edit them until they do.” He only cut out the opening, huh? Yeah, sure, and I'm the Queen of England. Everything else is technically unaltered, but with him whining that I pulled a linguistic trick, it's pretty damn obvious Jamil trimmed that video with all the integrity of a used-car magician. To follow up, I asked him a very simple question, the kind of question even a malfunctioning Magic 8-Ball could answer: Did he have actual cases of doctors being fired by the government for refusing to provide MAID, just like he claimed? Did he answer it?

Of course not. That would require evidence, and we can't have that ruining the moo, now can we? Instead he launched into this whole speculative monologue about how it could happen, hypothetically, maybe, in a fever dream. All this to justify how he thinks publicly funded doctors should get to refuse legally available medical services, and the rest of us are supposed to smile, nod, and pretend that's not the dumbest slippery slope since the invention of grease.

But hey, why stop there? If a vegan decides to work at a deli, they should get to refuse to touch meat, right? And if an environmentalist becomes a bus driver, they should be allowed to boycott every diesel bus in the fleet. And if you object to this? Congratulations, you’re an anti-vegan, anti-environmentalist bigot! This is problem with Jamil's argument. He thinks you should be able to accept a job with responsibilities, duties, expectations, and then refuse to do chunks of it because of your “beliefs.”

Sure, buddy. Great system you've got there.

The Anti-Abortion Zealot (Right After Me): immediately after me came Miss 21-Year-Old Purity Crusade. She approaches the mic glowing like she just came back from a church retreat where they gave out rosaries and unsolicited opinions. She calls abortion “murder,” claims young women are “careless,” demands criminalization, and presents her worldview like she's passing out Bibles at a bus stop. Her entitlement was breathtaking She expected applause. She expected validation. She expects the government to legislate her personal moral revelation.

And shockingly, Jamil told her no.

He said criminalizing abortion would tear the country apart. And for once, he's right. But even here he avoids medical science, lived reality, and bodily autonomy.
He just says “it would be messy,” like she's proposing a bake sale, not taking the rights of over half the population away.

Addiction, Willingness, and a Non-Answer: the final person to speak was a young woman whose voice cracked mid-question, and. she couldn't even finish her question because she was crying. She talked about losing people to addiction. She stated the truth policymakers refuse to confront: You cannot force addicts into treatment if they aren't willing. So what do you do? She asked for policy. She asked for compassion grounded in reality.

Jivani responded with: a personal anecdote, attacks on safe supply, warnings about drugs being resold, and praise for abstinence-based recovery centres.

He never addressed her actual question. Not even once. She left the mic with no plan, no clarity, and no comfort. Only tears.

When a Movement Can't Handle Its Own Audience

By the time people filtered out, it was hard to call what happened a “town hall.” It was a diagnosis of a movement unable to handle the forces it's courting. TMU over-controlled everything into meaninglessness. CCC under-controlled everything into chaos.

And Jivani's responses revealed a pattern:

• Facts were optional.
• Fringe beliefs went unchallenged.
• Conspiracy theories were implicitly endorsed.
• People with real concerns got theatrics instead of answers.
• Reasonable questions received ideological scripts.

Except for a single moment on abortion, every answer he gave either reinforced misinformation or sidestepped reality. If this is what “Restoring the North” looks like; lending legitimacy to harmful ideas, refusing to correct obvious falsehoods, and trimming videos to frame critics as dishonest, then the problem isn't the North. It's the people claiming they're here to restore it.

This piece was written by an individual contributor and reflects the editorial position of The Provincial Times and Left Lane Media Group. Read our Content Policy here.