I'm tired of pacifists. I'm not going to be polite around them anymore. I'm not going to be accommodating in polite society and pretend that while I differ, I respect the pacifist opinion. I don't. Pacifists are wrong, and this is why. Pacifism tolerates, even abets, terrorism and fascism -- and the war and violence that come from them.

Let's be clear: while a sarin gas attack is a disgusting breach of international law and of humanity itself, in responding with military force outside of any formal war the United States has breached more international laws than the gas attack did. We should not be lulled into some sense that unilateral military action is OK.

Last year, Canada took in some 39,000 Syrian refugees and Canadian cities from coast to coast have made great efforts to help them adapt and assimilate. The U.S., on the other hand, let in a grand total of roughly 13,000 refugees, an embarrassing number given our population is only a tenth of theirs.

In March 2014, Mustafa heard three bombs near his home in Sheran located in the province of Aleppo, Syria. At that precise moment, he knew his biggest fear was real: ISIS was at their door. This was his tipping point; his family packed a few belongings and tried fleeing to Turkey.

I am horrified by what happened in Quebec last week. Innocent people were killed and injured because someone indolently grouped together all sub-groupings of a faith into one broad category. The answer, however, will not be found in just ignoring the existence of such sub-groupings who are persecutors.

Here we are, mere days into a new year. On the first day of 2017 there were already 264 incidents of gun violence in the U.S. -- with at least 64 people killed and 146 injured. As of January 5 those numbers rose to 500 shootings, 113 deaths and 288 injuries. If, like me, you had hopes that, if Hillary Clinton became president, we might at last see some much-needed, long-overdue gun control in the U.S. we can certainly forget about it now. Not with Donald Trump as president.